#but i’m not unpacking all of that just so i have some fandom mandated right to say that i think there’s an aspect of a female character

[shorthaltsjester]

free my complex female character, she did the same thing as complex male characters but the fandom takes Any analysis of her actions/choices/motivations that doesn’t strip her of all of her agency in bad faith and claims that only misogynists would dare to critique the things that they’ve noticed in her character because she’s a woman, completely ignoring the over-presence of discourse about similarly traited male characters in their fandom.

[sleeplesslionheart]

Although I am wary of wading into Edelgard Discourse, I feel compelled to make a few simple comments that have been on my mind for a while. I’m not going to write a big essay on this right now, though—just a few quick observations.

I’ve noticed that some Edelgard fans have a tendency to dismiss—if not outright eliminate—Edelgard’s character flaws as part of efforts to justify and account for her actions. It appears that this often occurs as a result of ongoing arguments with the so-called “Edelcrits” (i.e. Edelgard’s detractors, from what I have gleaned). There seems to be some habits among these kinds of commentators, then, to respond to criticisms (which, let’s be clear, are very often in bad faith and, therefore…don’t really need to be honored with responses at all) of Edelgard by interpreting and asserting all of her actions as altruistic, caring, or selfless.

However, the effects of these rhetorical maneuvers are not as supportive of Edelgard as their proponents seem to think.

Sadly, they all too frequently whitewash and sanitize her characterization…and not uncommonly in ways that function to recuperate her into conventional, expected, mandated (according to cisheteronormativity) understandings of femininity and of how women are supposed to think and behave. The result is that these defenses of Edelgard portray her (perhaps we could say even tame her) according to safer, more typical understandings of femininity. (And, in fact, my observation is that these kinds of interpretations of Edelgard have been most strongly propagated by male fans…Although the uptake of these analyses certainly exists among her women fans as well).

Even more disappointingly, these kinds of defenses of Edelgard can leave little space for or tolerance of actual, open, nuanced discussions or representations (e.g. in the form of fanfic) of her faults. By which I mean: as someone who adores Edelgard and for whom Edelgard means a great deal, sometimes I feel like I can’t even just…acknowledge that she’s a flawed, complicated human being (or that there are also ways that the game's writing genuinely does her a disservice), because I risk running up against this corner of the fandom’s popular, “canonized” understandings of her as being Always Right, Never Wrong. And that bums me out!

However…Edelgard is rad, but she’s also flawed. And we could have plenty of discussions about those flaws from numerous angles—whether blunders and shortcomings in the game’s writing, or as faults that add roundness and nuance to Edelgard as a messy human being (and both of those things are possible). The potency of Edelgard as a character and, importantly, as a representation of femininity is that she IS flawed, and in ways that can subvert traditional media portrayals of women. That is, in essence, why I have Feelings about this, and why I want to raise concerns about these trends. I think it’s a bummer that we can’t seem to just embrace Edelgard as an imperfect woman (often, it seems, ‘cause we gotta worry too much about what “the Edelcrits” are saying). Edelgard doesn’t need a redemption narrative—whether in the game or from her fans (especially the male ones).

In short: y’all, please let Edelgard be a flawed human being. And don’t let your arguing with “the Edelcrits” lead you to over-determine who she is as a perpetual response to bad faith claims…Especially when that over-determination leads to justifications that just wind up “safely” feminizing her.

(I’ll conclude by pointing out one other thing, though I’m not gonna unpack it right now: I believe that these trends are also related to reductive, oversimplified understandings of trauma that are rampant in the fandom, with attendant issues pertaining to the whitewashing of trauma as well. Maybe I’ll comment on this more sometime, but not right now.)

[traincat]

I know that everyone is pretty sure that the FF movie will mean that Johnny will now never be officialy let out of the closet but personally I feel like since the FF are so unpopular and ppl have been bugging Marvel and Disney for an actual canon & 'important' gay character that they may just? Use him? I'm absolutely losing it and its not going to happen (and if it does, good god, its going to be handled so badly) but imagine. Tho as long as they dont bring lyja in im ill count the movie as Ok

So I am going to go Full Conspiracy Theorist out here for a minute because when I and a couple others I personally know have been kind of saying “Johnny’s never coming out now” it refers to a very specific recent incident that we were kind of side eyeing for Possible Movie Interference even before this announcement. Saying up front that I don’t know that this is true, and even if Someone Did Change The Script it’s just as likely to be comic editorial pulling the plug than Kevin Feige coming down from on high to stuff Johnny back in the closet like he’s the Plant Man and it’s the ‘60s:

And then they never let him out of there again. (Strange Tales #121)

So here’s the deal: we know that there are several creators involved with Marvel who hold the belief that Johnny Storm is not the bastion of heterosexuality he’s very often been pushed as. Marjorie Liu (and most likely Daniel Way but we only have Marjorie Liu’s word on this last time I checked) intentionally wrote the relationship between him and Daken in Dark Wolverine as sexual. When I reviewed Marvels Snapshot: Fantastic Four for Women Write About Comics I received some very nice commentary from the creators and a retweet from Kurt Busiek, who is in charge of the Snapshot collection -- and I spend the majority of that review pretty openly talking about the subtext of Johnny’s sexuality and the history that has. So like, this is out there, it goes beyond fandom circles. People know, and you can tell, because a lot of the time multiple creators don’t spend decades making jokes about a character being gay if they don’t kind of think that character is gay. (I am looking at you, John Byrne.) But anyway, fast forward. It’s 2018 and the Fantastic Four are back on the shelves after their Film Rights Mandated Banishment (that Jonathan Hickman leaked as being a Real Thing and not another conspiracy theory). And while I have some significant problems with the 2018 run so far, I have to say, that first issue starts off strong, not in the least because it also featured the return of Wyatt Wingfoot, Johnny’s best friend and former roommate. Turned current roommate again, since apparently they were living together. They were also touching a lot.

Like a lot lot. Love a boyfriend leash. (Fantastic Four v6 #1) And like, look, longtime Johnny readers can tell you all about his long relationship with Wyatt Wingfoot and the subtext you can read into it, but a lot of casual readers noticed this too. People were talking about it. It was noticed. It was pretty obviously paralleled against Ben and Alicia, who were getting engaged at the same time.

Fast forward a couple of issues, all of which Wyatt sticks around for -- he was pretty obviously living with the Fantastic Four after their return for a couple of issues there -- to Ben’s bachelor party, where he and Johnny have this particular conversation:

“When you know -- and you’ll know -- take that leap. Don’t wait fer stronger shielding. Be brave, Johnny Storm.” (FF v6 #5) There’s a lot to unpack here in general, but the “be brave, Johnny Storm” sentiment continually sticks out to me, along with how ungendered this speech is -- not when you meet the right woman, blah blah blah. It’s not a big jump to imagine this as leading out to a coming out narrative, and that’s before we factor in this solicit for Fantastic Four #7:

“Plus a strange new development in the life of the Human Torch.” If you’ve read the issue, however, you know literally nothing of note happens to Johnny in it, let alone anything you could consider a new development, strange or not. It seems pretty clear, if you pull the clues, that there was originally some kind of plot involving Johnny -- and likely his romantic future -- in the original plans but then at some point that plot got pulled and likely replaced by the current Sky soulmate plot that has literally left Johnny shackled by heterosexuality. So it’s clear that at some point in early 2019 something shifted and this Johnny plot got pulled, for whatever reason. And I have no proof beyond all this circumstantial evidence that they were lining up anything that was actually going to concretely within the actual Fantastic Four book address his sexuality, but I think given the circumstantial evidence it is a valid theory. I don’t know if I specifically believe that the reasoning behind whatever this plot getting pulled was MCU interference, but it’s likely that the Fantastic Four project was seriously in development by that point to be able to announce it now, and if, by whatever chance, my “Johnny was going to come out” theory was true, we also know that the MCU has a serious problem with actually handling queer representation within their universe -- see Tessa Thompson’s bisexual Valkyrie scene getting cut, the entire Gay Joe Russo incident. They’re, what, 20+ movies in now and there are no actual queer main characters, right? I know Eternals is apparently changing that, but Eternals is not out yet, and also has significantly less name recognition than Fantastic Four. It’s not a great record, and while I would like to think that maybe that could change either with the Fantastic Four or by the time a Fantastic Four movie rolls out, I just don’t have that kind of faith. But if I’m wrong I’ll totally donate double the cost of the ticket and large popcorn to a charity that actually deserves it.

So there’s my conspiracy theory! Some people do this with celebrities, I do it with Johnny Storm. It’s probably equally unrewarding either way.

[vateacancameos]

How To Move to Night Vale: Step 1, Arrive in Town; Step 2, Automatically Become a Resident

Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale Characters: You, Minor Cecil Palmer, Other characters Words: 1476

Summary: How does Night Vale get new residents? Given the high death count, either all the citizens have a TON of kids, or Night Vale simply ... acquires new people. I imagine the town is sentient enough to pull in people it likes. Here's a story of how that might happen.

***

You don’t intend to move to Night Vale. It just sort of … happens? You have a good job and a good home, and you are perfectly satisfied—no, not satisfied … content—with your life. But Night Vale happens, and you just go with it, like you always do. Your friends have always told you its your best trait.

You’re traveling to visit your sister, and on the drive across the desert that takes you to her, you stop overnight at a motel on the edge of the town you hit around supper time. You think it’s a little odd that you have to sign the register in blood—you have a perfectly nice working pen in your bag—but hey, if they want to conserve ink, who are you to tell them otherwise? You’re just passing through.

The next morning, after one of the best sleeps you’d had in years—you aren’t sure if it was the mournful moaning three doors down or the sickly sweet aroma bubbling out of the misting machine by the bed, but whatever it is worked like a charm—you find an orange envelope slipped under your door. In semaphore drawings, it tells you that you have been assigned as the new English teacher. Your semaphore knowledge is weak, so you’re not sure if the previous teacher quit or was swallowed by a black hole, but it doesn’t really matter.

read the rest under the cut

You shrug. You majored in psychology and have been working in the field as such for the last five years, but you did have a lot of writing to do in school, so you think you can handle this. English is mostly about reading books and talking about them, right? You can manage that. You like to read. You call your sister to let her know you won’t be visiting this week after all, but your phone starts smoking and sparking as soon as she answers. You’ll have to remember to hunt down a computer and try emailing her later.

You arrive at Night Vale High School and are directed to the vice principal’s office. She’s very excited you showed up already in uniform. You look down at your grey t-shirt, jean capris, and orange Chuck Taylors and ask about the color of the shoes. Everyone else’s seem to be a rust color. She waves you off and says that will be taken care of at the morning sacrificial ceremony. You nod. It’s always nice to not have to change your look just to go to work.

You are given attendance sheets, scrolls, and a watercolor set and directed to your room. When you arrive, the class is already full. It’s always nice to come into a new job where everything is already in place. You take attendance, which takes a good forty minutes, since everyone must perform their own interpretive dance routine to announce their presence, then you open up the scroll to see what the students are working on.

The scroll is filled with numbers and letters. Algebra? Geometry? You barely past stats in college and have tried to forget as much math as possible. You ask one of the students. They look at you funny and say “It’s English! What kind of English teacher are you?”

Now, you’ve been pretty roll-with-the-punches so far, because it’s in your nature to be so, but this is definitely not English. A tiny elfin-looking creature at the back of the room stands up and sighs. “Come on, Mike, give the new teacher a break. The administration only switched English and algebra a week ago. Maybe she wasn’t around to hear that announcement.” It’s nice being in a place that gets your gender right on the first try.

Your shoulders drop in relief. You say that you only arrived in Night Vale the night before and had indeed missed the announcement that English and algebra had been switched. You make a mental note to talk to the vice principal, but figure you can handle one day of teaching. Maybe it’ll turn out that you’re really good at it. You won’t know until you try.

Unfortunately, you’re pants at algebra, both in learning and teaching it. The morning drags on forever, but lunchtime eventually comes. The sentient patch of blue fog that teaches theater (“I’m Misty. Yeah, my parents have terrible taste in names, laugh it up.”) invites you to eat lunch with her. You’d rather eat alone, but you’re polite and accept. Perhaps you can learn more about the school and town.

You’re warned not to ever go to the library (“Not that an English teacher ever needs to go to the library”) but told that the Moonlite All-Nite Diner has the best invisible pie in town. Misty gives you a spare coupon for a free slice of pizza from Big Rico’s. When you say you’re gluten intolerant, Misty laughs and says, “Aren’t we all?” She’s cute when she laughs. You wonder if she’d go get a slice with you some evening.

The afternoon goes faster after you decide to forgo teaching algebra and just talk about your favorite movies instead. You applaud the school system on molding such polite, intelligent children. They all do exactly as asked, and the one time a student speaks out of turn, he looks completely terrified, which concerns you just a bit, but you let it go. It’s your first day after all. They’ll get used to you.

You try to talk the vice principal into switching you to … would it be called algebra? ... class, or really anything else but math, but she shrugs and said it’s already been carved into the bloodstones. When you say you’re terrible at math, she asks if you can count to eight. When you affirm, she says you’ll be fine. You sigh and nod.

You ask her where the closest real estate office is, so you can look into getting an apartment—the motel is great and all, but the orange buzzing lights are really annoying after a while. The vice principal’s eyes go wide and her face pales to an olive green, she stutters a bit before the administrative assistant pokes his head through the door and reminds her that you can just take the old English teacher’s home, since they no longer need it, being an Erika now. The vice principal looks relieved.

You raise your eyebrows but follow their directions to your new home—a cute tri-level with a yellow door, the bloodstone circle that you’d learned earlier that day was required in all Night Vale homes, a cheerful kitchen, six bedrooms, and no bathroom.

A smooth voice whispers that the last occupant converted the bathrooms to bedrooms, since they had no use for them, and gives you the number of a reliable plumber. You wonder if your neighbors are nice enough to let you use theirs until you can get one installed. One waved to you as you arrived earlier. He had a very furry face, but there seemed to be a smile hidden under the hair.

Your neighbors are indeed very nice. They are a fairly young couple with two children. The man who waved at you says you’re welcome to use their bathroom whenever. The other man, the one who answered the door, gives you a key to their home, plus the appropriate runes to keep the door from eating you. You make a note to bake them a pie in thanks. You talk about the weather, as good neighbors do, along with the chances of Night Vale’s football team this year (a topic kindly suggested by the woman in a balaclava and cape hiding in the verge) before heading back to your new home to unpack your one bag. You’ll have to go shopping soon. Your Chucks won’t last long if they get covered in blood every day, and you’re about out of deodorant.

That night, you lay in your bed, listening to the screeching of the setting sun—it seems a bit late, almost eleven, but time has never meant that much to you anyway—and think about your first day as a Night Vale citizen. This place is like no other place you’ve ever lived. It’s strange, you won’t deny it, but you like it. It’s comfortable. Even while your brain is telling you it’s wrong in so many ways, your body is saying it’s perfectly natural.

Your mind finally calms when your radio turns itself on for the government-mandated community radio show, and you consider your future. The radio host gushes about the town’s resident scientist, and you smile sleepily when you hear that they just got married. You make a note to sit with Misty at lunch tomorrow. You really should ask her out.

You look forward to tomorrow for the first time in years. You think you’re finally home.