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jack zimmermann is shroedinger’s bisexual in that we’re never actually going to see him address his sexuality in any meaningful way but his creator gets accolades for writing a bisexual character anyway

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Me as an art critic: this piece really explores the… Misogyny of the artist 🤔

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thinking of how intensely racist ngozi was for calling larissa duan "lard(o)" again good god. curious on whether she ever acknowledged or said something about this??

Not to my knowledge. But I agree, it's an extremely inconsiderate name for an Asian woman.

I'll look into it, seeing if there's anything she's said about this, but my guess based on gut feeling is: probably not.

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Ours is a Ratchet Powerplay: A Blackhawks Story

This one’s for aerialbots. Thanks, m’dear, for reading my comic about a weird college hockey team. It’s like the opposite of every webcomic ever. Sports??? Two for you, aerialbots.

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Deleted Extra from 23/6/2013.

Details:

Jack is shown drinking beer.

Bitty is shown to be a Blackhawks fan, a detail that was later dropped, presumably due to controversies surrounding Patrick Kane.

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the big three questions of media analysis: what the author wanted to say, what they actually said, and what they didn’t know they were saying

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depiction isn't endorsement but not all depictions have the same merit

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a lot of stories treat romance like it makes the relationship between two characters self explanatory and to be honest it doesn’t

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Hi! The Swoops we know today originated in this extra panel:

Please note that Ngozi never officially designated this character as Swoops, and his name comes from the tags on her post, one of which was "swoops", of which it is generally assumed that she meant as some sort of basketball term.

Since then, Swoops has been interpreted by many fandom artists, most popularly littlestpersimmon:

He is generally depicted as having brown eyes and brown hair and some people have headcanon'd him to have a striking resemblance to Bob Zimmermann.

I hope this helps!

Yall... what does Swoops look like???

Now, that's the real question to ask!!!! I need a face so I can imagine a face for him in the fanfics I read about him!!!!

What does our boy look like?!?!?

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prev nonnie was right about the fandom not being welcoming, but specifically regarding criticism of the medium. like, we can all enjoy the thing but also be aware of its shortcomings. right? RIGHT?????

Please refer to my recent reblog of the fandom purity theorem. I think you will quite agree with it.

I do agree that there persists a certain protectiveness of the fans surrounding the comic, which may be understandable given that it's written by a woman of color and deals with queer characters people have grown quite fond of. At the same time, I agree that criticism is a valid form of engaging with media. Especially now, media criticism and literacy has never been more important. And at the end of the day, fandom is a very low-stakes environment to engage with it. I give you my official blessing to be critical of things you enjoy. It's what this blog is for.

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I hate... fanon archetypes. You know how people sand down their blorbos to fit into the same handful of incorrect quote templates and then they forget their actual canon personalities because they've gone too long without engaging with the source material? I hate it. I hate it. He would not fucking say that. The joke was slightly funny when it was on the office or whatever but we've all heard it over and over with different characters pasted into it how are you still laughing please let me out

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the fandom experience is seeing someone make a joke that twists your blorbo's characterization for comedic purposes and not saying anything because you know its just a joke and you don't want to be a killjoy but also knowing this kind of thing definitely influences unironic depictions of the blorbo so you just stand there like that meme of the guy with his lips pursed and his veins popping

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How come you address how bad ngozi is, but not the fandom. The OMGCP fandom has been very clicky and uncomfortable to be in.

The fandom's clique-iness has been well documented in the #so the drama tag, such as with the following posts:

Check, Please! Fandom on FFA

Anon commenting on how rough the fandom is to be in

jlzimmermann commenting on the fandom's misconstruance of Kent Parson's character

jlzimmermann and lexipistachio being hounded by users for being critical of the comic.

littlepersimmon commenting on the toxicity of the community

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fandom purity theory

Theory: fandom drama is inversely proportional to the perceived purity of the original media. Purity in this context is measured by a combination of innocent characters, childlike associations and/or a younger intended audience, and how hashtag Representational - in the sense of being elevated as Perfect And Above Criticism because the creators make a genuine, positive effort towards diversity* - the material is. The more “pure” the source material is seen as being, the uglier the fandom debates surrounding it. 

This seeming paradox, I would speculate, exists because any headcanon, interpretation or fan reaction which deviates from the supposedly “pure” intent of the original media is seen as sullying that purity. Pure things get put on pedestals where the very act of critiquing them, even mildly, is seen as debasement by a vocal percentage of fans. This is why, for example, the Check Please, Voltron: Legendary Defender and Steven Universe fandoms turned toxic so quickly: because the original stories and characters were seen as inherently pure for various reasons (compared to something like, say, Supernatural), the act of critiquing them, engaging in adult fanworks about them or discussing the darker, more complex themes that arguably underlay the source material or which are the native speculative fulcrum of AUs was viewed as a corruption of innocence, even if people didn’t explicitly phrase it in those terms to themselves.

This has lead to a weird type of Madonna/Whore dichotomy in how certain fans perceive other fans or fanworks in these contexts: there can be no complexity or ambiguity, as something is either perfect or poisonous - an issue that turns into a cataclysmic spiral of accusations and backbiting when proponents of a particular Madonna position inevitably realise that actually, they aren’t all in perfect agreement with each other about every minute aspect of the canon. This, in turn, is why watching fandom meltdowns is like watching religious communities fracture in microcosm, and why so many people end up agnostic or apostate in the face of fanaticism.

*Note: well-meaning diversity is a factor, not because it’s inherently controversial or troublesome, but because, at this particular moment in time, it’s still such a new and comparatively unusual thing for popular media to incorporate that reactions to such stories tend to evoke powerful fan reactions. If you belong to a marginalised group and are unused to seeing yourself positively portrayed in stories, you might well be fiercely protective of the one character or story you feel does you justice; while conversely, another person of the same marginalisation who dislikes the same portrayal might be fiercely vehement in their critique of it. The real problem here is that, because some groups are still so desperately underrepresented across the board, the few stories addressing those issues and/or identities take on a disproportionate significance to the audience and, as such, are frequently held to higher creative standards than stories which never tried at all. In this context, the expectation that a single story, or even a small number of stories, should somehow be all things to all fans, is not recognised as a literal impossibility, but is rather held up by frustrated individuals as proof that the story has failed, or isn’t really as positively diverse as claimed, because it lacks X element. 

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Who runs this blog?

You may call me J.

I'm a fan of the characters and the ideas this comic introduces, but like many am dissatisfied with the execution and the author's behavior in regards to her interactions with the fandom.

I have a vested interest in media analysis and fandom drama. I set up this blog as a sort of archive to collect relevant information. But because I love talking shit, it's also a circlejerk blog where I post stuff I find funny and aptly critical of the comic. That's what the different tag categories are for.

I'm passionate about digging into the shortcomings of the comic, especially in regards to representation of queerness and addiction, for personal reasons.

I hope that answers the question sufficiantly!

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“the problem is its never gonna be what all the fans want” imo the problem is the majority of fans have bad fucking taste like. if you write a story with the intent to keep editing it in line with what fans want you’re gonna end up with a shitty story. obviously you can take in criticism from early access but once you publish the thing you shouldn’t constantly be retconning characterization wtf. good god

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Now that check please will likely have a resurgence in 2025 we need to talk about how fucked up it is that ngozi deleted the tweet about nursey and dex having one (1) night of passion and never discussing it ever again