#completed writeups

[tinystepsforward]

automattic vs wp engine mastterpost

adrienne's GitHub recap is probably the best place to see a comprehensive timeline of what's going down. it's been kept up to date. my (very out of date) previous writeup is here.

what's happened/other links

Matt has not logged off, just switched platforms, so there's lots on X/Twitter, Reddit, and Hacker News. it's really not worth wading through.

WP Engine actually filed suit.

the complaint includes some truly remarkable screenshots of Matt trying to blackmail the CEO of WP Engine.

which... personally i would not happily work for someone who just blackmailed me while not even my boss, but that's just me. he hasn't denied this at all, in fact confirming on Hacker News:

I haven't doxxed any private texts from other parties like they have. [source]

and, notably,

I even invited her to my 40th birthday on Jan 11, another text message she decided not to share. [source]

this gives me the creeps. in the context of the rest of the way he's talking to her, and the ways in which he's interacted with women in general, it's. not great.

also he slid into an ex-employee (also a woman)'s DMs asking why she was being mean to him bc he'd never been nothing but nice to her, while also making legal threats. so y'know, pattern of behaviour.

a good writeup of the social side of things

if you don't care so much about the open-source stuff, Steph Lundberg's writeup is, like her previous one on Matt's Tumblr meltdown, pretty solid and people-focused.

Mullenweg has already demonstrated egregious lapses in judgment and abuses of power, it’s just that up until now he’s wielded his power against vulnerable populations without access to high-powered lawyers and their own massive platforms.

a more technical writeup

this one is melodramatic in the same ways Matt was (uses war terminology), which i don't agree with, and which led to some... internal arguments at Automattic. that part's not my story to tell, but a little more on that later. it's a solid writeup of the actual WordPress side of things. there's some seriously dodgy trademark behaviour going on here.

of note: this blogger locked comments on his post:

and then Matt, uh, found a way around that:

wild!

10% of Automattic leaves

that's a link to Matt's blog post. here's an Internet Archive link.

in short, staff were offered a severance deal of the higher of $30k or six months' salary. while that's very generous, it's still very risky in today's tech market, especially (for the same reasons i mentioned when Matt was melting down on here) for people outside the US, people who need the health insurance, or people with young kids. despite that, 10% decided with very little notice (they had two days to decide) to leave.

However now, I feel much lighter. I’m grateful and thankful for all the people who took the offer, and even more excited to work with those who turned down $126M to stay. As the kids say, LFG!

i'm thrilled to see some of my ex-colleagues make it out. i'm keeping the rest who have stayed on in my thoughts. i don't know anyone who's wholesale shilling for Matt.

Matt's been pressuring staff to post in support of him, @-ing the entire company to vote on Twitter polls in his favor, and so on. many of the people who stayed have written blog posts about it, all starting with "I stayed". people on social media have pointed out the very clear pattern of Automatticians jumping into discourse to defend Matt, and it doesn't look good.

i don't have a lot to say about those posts, except to highlight Jeffrey Zeldman, whose "I stayed" post is perhaps one of the more honest ones. (his Rodney King reference was in poor taste, and he... i don't like his role at automattic, tbc) but like. he's nearly 70. he helped shape the modern internet and develop its accessibility standards. he has often put his neck on the line for disabled staff who don't have as much clout as he does. given the financial troubles he talks about and the state of this market and how old he is, i personally have read between the lines of what he's saying in a particular way.

fuck, man. i'm sad. i'm sad for all my friends who are creaking under the strain and watching others leave but who can't do that. i'm sad that many of them are left in teams which are half-empty or divisions where significant senior leadership are just gone, with no time to document what they had in progress.

i'm sad for Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the former executive director of the WordPress Foundation, who was dealing with a personal emergency and ended up having to miss WordCamp US (where Matt started publicly starting shit with WPE). she came back from that to a gigantic fire in the community she's invested a decade of careful, Matt-negotiating, stewardship to, and decided to take the severance offer. she deserved better.

other things Matt's been up to

mostly linking to comments or posts which compile things here, bc it's too scattered otherwise.

blocking people from the official WordPress X account if they disapprove of his actions.

publicly talking about a vulnerability in ACF, a plugin WPE maintains, which could put thousands of sites at risk. this is not normal, and he met with so much horror even from current staff that he deleted his post.

saying he comes across badly because he's "a little ASD", which is driving me personally up the fucking wall. he's never once said it before and he really is turning into Temu Elon.

generally bragging that he still has more planned. jesus fucking christ

continually saying that WPE's suit is against WordPress.org and the community, which is not true. on which note, his pinned tweet is certainly something:

his choice of lawyer is uh. the kind of guy to defend nestle against literal child slaves.

as always, while i think WordPress crumbling will disproportionately affect websites in poorer parts of the world, there are certainly tyrants who are causing much more immediate and potent suffering. if you've read this far, please do send anything you have spare to gazafunds.com.

[lurking-loaf]

In celebration of Eclipse's reveal-iversary on May 19th, @aquacomet hosted a Magma board where folks came together and drew a fun party scene.

Here is my contribution: an Eclipse hand puppet and their shy puppeteer! As usual, process pictures and more can be found below the cut. And thanks for hosting this little drawing event Comet!

Here are some screenshots documenting the rough sketch, final lines, and flat colors. That's right, for this special occasion I actually lined this drawing instead of just cleaning up the sketch like I usually do.

My original plan going into this was a partial body drawing of Eclipse in their ruined state, but since I hadn't drawn them up until this point that route was guaranteed to be slow and extremely stressful. Staring at the board for 30ish minutes as other folks drew eventually led to this puppet and obscured animatronic combo. Since I do enjoy doing art and crafts themed drawings involving the DCA this was probably the best way this could have been handled.

[white-cat-of-doom]

Griddlebone Playlist

This playlist is meant to outline the complex (and fundamental) emotion of love, and the pitfalls and joys of chasing after something grand that requires another to reciprocate the affection.

More specifically for this set of songs, the want for love while having the feeling that something is not quite right, either with the other individual involved, or within your own mind. Through isolating oneself into hollow emptiness after heartbreak, and due to feeling devoid of being wanted, it is hard to be vulnerable and let anyone back into a place of emotional attachment.

Did you ever actually feel what 'love' was? Are you really deserving of being loved? After everything, wherever can you find it?

川口雅代 (Masayo Kawaguchi) – Melty

ROMY – LOVE コマーシャル (Love Commercial)

越美晴 (Miharu Koshi) – 恋はファニー・フィーリング (Love Is A Funny Feeling)

宮原芽映 (Mebae Miyahara) – 悪魔のように微笑んで (Smiling Like A Devil)

いしだあゆみ & ティン・パン・アレイ・ファミリ(Ayumi Ishida & Tin-Pan-Alley-Family) – 私自身 (Myself)

麗美 (REIMY) – シャドー・ブレイ (Shadow Play)

竹内まりや (Mariya Takeuchi) – プラスティック・ラブ (Plastic Love)

工藤順子 (Junko Kudo) – 夕顔姐さん (Ms. Yugao)

Meow Meow & Thomas Lauderdale – Hotel Amour

Tracks 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 through 7, and 8 and 9, are meant to represent different sections of time in the life of the Queen.

Signature song with playlist: Meow Meow & Thomas Lauderdale – Hotel Amour

Track One: 川口雅代 (Masayo Kawaguchi) – Melty

“ううん･･･ ････何でもないけれど 少し 不安になっただけ" ("Ugh... ...It's nothing, but I just felt a little anxious") 知られた分だけ わたしから 冷めてゆくのが こわいから (I'm afraid that the more you know, the more you'll grow colder from me) "･･･そうよ･･･” (That’s right…”) すき間もない程に 昨夜 ひとつになったの (Last night we became one, with no gaps between us) しがみついたら 微笑うけど どうしていいのか わからない (I smile when I hold on to you, but I don't know what to do) Melty 手を引かれて 溶かし溶かされ 充たされるはずなのに (My hand should be pulled away, melted, melted, and filled up) Melty つかめないの どうしてかしら? 肩すかしされた 気分 (I can't grasp it, why? I feel like I've been ignored) 何にも言わずに 抱き寄せて (Without saying anything, I hold you close) 朝の光が あなたの景色変えないうちに (Before the morning light changes your scenery) “いやよ” ("No, no") ･･･言いかけてやめるのは うまく 言い聞かせるつもりね (...I'm trying to convince you to stop when I say it) 困らせたいの! (I want to embarrass you!) "お見通し” ("Foresight") 小悪魔ぶっても かなわない (Even if I act like a little devil, I can't compete) Melty 手を引かれて 溶かし溶かされ 充たされるはず充たされるはずなのになのに (My hand should be pulled away, melted, melted, and filled up) Melty つかめないの どうしてかしら? (I can't grasp it, why?) 何かが 違ってゆくの 何も言わせず 抱き寄せて (Something is going to be different, don't let me say anything, hold me close) めかくししてね ちぐはぐなこと 言わないうちに (Before I get too confused and say something foolish) Melty 手を引かれて 溶かし溶かされ 充たされるはずなのに (My hand should be pulled away, melted, melted, and filled up) Melty つかめないの どうしてかしら? 肩すかしされた気分 (I can't grasp it, why? I feel like I've been ignored) 何も言わずに 抱き寄せて (Hold me close without saying anything) めかくししててね (Please cover your eyes) 朝の光で 見えないうちに (Before you can see it in the morning light)

The initial apprehension of being more intimately involved, emotionally and physically, with another person comes with the realization that she felt nothing when it happened. She should be able to feel a deeper connection, but something is not right, and instead pretends and acts accordingly like everything is fine.

Track Two: ROMY – LOVE コマーシャル (Love Commercial)

指の中で タバコふかし 何もないのに 愛にまみれた (I smoked a cigarette in my fingers and was covered in love, even though there was nothing there) 気にするコトが 自分以外の あの人に対する 愛の神経 (What I worry about is the nerves of love for someone other than myself) いつか見た あの人はいない 私の人には ならなかった (That person I saw someday wasn't the same person I was) 私はなまけて ただならぬ犬より (I'm better than a lazy dog) ただの人を 選んでみただけ (I just picked a person) 私のコントロール あえてコントロール こわくてコントロール あえてコントロール 心に 私まかせ コントロール (My control, dare to control, I'm afraid to control, dare to control, leave it to my heart to control me) 頭の中で おもいふかし 何があるのか 夢のざわめき (I wonder what's going on inside my head, The buzz of dreams) ただならぬ人だから あえて こわがって あの人に対する 愛の恐怖 (Because he is an extraordinary person, I dare to be afraid of him, and the fear of love towards him) 抱かれる日は 心 うきあし もうひとりの私 かくしきれない (The days when I'm held in your arms, I feel happy, and I can't hide my other self) 私のコントロール あえてコントロール こわくてコントロール あえてコントロール 心に 私まかせ コントロール (My control, dare to control, I'm afraid to control, dare to control, leave it to my heart to control me)

A reflection on not feeling love when, or to the level, you think you should, while worrying how it will affect your partner. There is a comfort in being together with someone, but that surface level connection will eventually face the challenge of it being something more for them, and she is not prepared or ready for that.

Ultimately, it is up to Griddlebone to move forward in the best way that makes sense to her, and that path is one alone.

Track Three: 越美晴 (Miharu Koshi) – 恋はファニー・フィーリング (Love Is A Funny Feeling)

彼は時間に遅れて 私は指輪を忘れた だけど ゴメンも言わずに つまらぬ言い訳ごっこ 空は春 時は今 幸せですと言わんばかり だけど 二人の心は ちぎれ雲 (He was late and I forgot my ring But we don't say sorry, we make boring excuses, And the sky keeps saying that we're happy now in spring but our hearts are torn apart by clouds) 恋はファニー・フィーリング かまわず回る 恋はファニー・フィーリング 慣れっ子 だけど (Love revolves around funny feelings, but love is used to funny feelings) 彼は口笛吹きながら 私 ため息つきながら 通り過ぎる 街角 小鳥の歌だけ響く (He was whistling, I pass by with a sigh, Only the song of a small bird echoes on the street corner) いろんなことが あったけど みんないい思い出ばかり だから ここらでピリオド それがいい (A lot has happened, but we all have only good memories, So it's good to have the end around here) 恋はファニー・フィーリング 手を振りながら 恋はファニー・フィーリング 深刻ぶらず 歌いながら 笑ってサヨナラするわ オー ファニー オー ファニー ファニ ファニ オー フィーリング オー ファニー オー ファニー ファニ ファニ オー フィーリング (Love is a funny feeling, while waving, Love is a funny feeling, don't take it seriously, I'll laugh and say goodbye while singing Oh Funny Oh Funny Funny funny oh feeling Oh Funny Oh Funny Funny funny oh feeling)

In a goal to subside the loneliness and longing to feel proper love, Griddlebone moves through relationships over time to find the elusive 'love' she believes is out there. Scared of getting too involved with someone she holds minimal emotion for, she breaks off any connection before feelings develop from the other party, and plays it off as something lighthearted.

Despite her efforts, she cannot find someone who fulfills her inside the way she thinks love should be.

Track Four: 宮原芽映 (Mebae Miyahara) – 悪魔のように微笑んで (Smiling Like A Devil)

罠をしかけ待ってるん 悪魔のように 微笑んで (I'm setting a trap up and waiting for you, smiling like a devil) さあ ドアを 叩いて ドアを ひらいて (Come on, knock on the door, open the door) 泣きまねの 電話 かけて 街灯り 胸はずませ (I made a phone call imitating crying, and the street lights made my heart flutter) あの人を 呼び出したの (I called that person) 数えては 時間をかせぐ (Counting the time to buy myself some) 優しさを 言い訳して 赤い血が 流れる前に (Kindness, before I make excuses and red blood flows) 嘘をつく ずるいあなた 忘れてよ あの娘の事は (Forget about lying You're so cunning about that girl) 罠をしかけ待ってるん 悪魔のように 微笑んで (I'm setting a trap up and waiting for you, smiling like a devil) さあ ドアを 叩いて ドアを ひらいて (Come on, knock on the door, open the door) 待つだけの 女なんて さよならよ 今夜こそは (Say goodbye to the woman who only waits, tonight) 愛の 糸 足にからませ あの人を もう逃がさない (I'll let the thread of love entwine around my legs and never let that person slip away again) 罠をしかけ待ってるん 悪魔のように 微笑んで (I'm setting a trap up and waiting for you, smiling like a devil) さあ ドアを 叩いて ドアを ひらいて (Come on, knock on the door, open the door)

A new connection with someone shows promise, but she discovers that her partner is a cheater, something that hurts Griddlebone in a way that she has not experienced before. Not used to being treated as a second thought, and feeling like she is not worthy of love if made so inconsequential, she plots to destroy and expose her partner for what they have done to her.

All the joy and hope that she felt in locating a person that is right for her is now crushed, and she vows to not let herself be taken advantage of ever again in the pursuit of love.

Track Five: いしだあゆみ & ティン・パン・アレイ・ファミリ(Ayumi Ishida & Tin-Pan-Alley-Family) – 私自身 (Myself)

ひとりソファーに寝ころんで 恋の歌聞くでもなし 歌うでもなし (I lie alone on the sofa and listen to love songs, but I don't sing them) 私は日暮れを見つめています (I'm staring at the sunset) 部屋の窓には東京湾の 船の灯が小さく揺れて (In the window of the room, the lights of the ships in Tokyo Bay sway slightly) 一人ぐらしに疲れた時は 結婚なんか考えてます (When I get tired of living alone, I think about marriage) 夜汽車で旅に出る時は 色のない写真のように 素顔のままで 東京駅から出かけています (When I travel by night train, I leave Tokyo Station with my bare face, just like a colourless photograph) 幾度か恋にこの身を灼いて 歌を忘れた私だけれど (I have forgotten how to sing because my body has been burnt by love many times) 淋しさだけを心に積んで 今日もぽつんと歌っています (But today, I sing alone once again with only loneliness in my heart) くちづけ交す恋人にさえ 私の気持は言えないでしょう (I can't even tell my feelings to my lover who kisses me) 人に知られず流した涙 (The tears I shed without anyone knowing) 私は今日も歌っています････ (I'm still singing today...)

Moving on from her heartbreak, Griddlebone refrains from being involved with anyone else for a lengthy period of time, as that means she cannot be hurt once again. However, she cannot help but feel that the emptiness inside her continues to grow as time passes, even if she tries to remain strong willed. Her thinking is that she does not need anyone to sustain her happiness if she keeps the love she has to give tightly held internally.

Track Six: 麗美 (REIMY) – シャドー・ブレイ (Shadow Play)

淋しい笑顔と 言われるのに馴れても (Even if I get used to being told that my smile is lonely) 真夜中の鏡 覗けばつぶやくの (When I look into the mirror in the middle of the night, I whisper) Say, Love is the shadow play, shadow play Love is the shadow play 恋しても (Even if I fall in love) Love is the shadow play, shadow play, shadow play ひとりぼっちじゃ怖い (I'm scared of being alone) 街角の華やかさに 気がつけば急ぎ足 (If you notice the glamour on the street corner, hurry up) 片思いのままなら 恋も失くさず済むでしょう (If you keep your love unrequited, you won't lose your love) Say, Love is the shadow play, shadow play, shadow play Love is the shadow play, 密やかに (Secretly) Love is the shadow play, shadow play, shadow play 遠くあなた見てる (I'm watching you from afar) 気づかないで (Don't notice) darling 壊さないで (Don't break it) wow wow Love Love Love Love Love Love, darling, Love Love Love Love is the shadow play

Her loneliness begins to swell to a point of action, and Griddlebone cannot ignore it or remain dormant for much longer. She is unhappy being completely alone, and wants to feel any form of connection with another, but does not want to be hurt again.

Feeling unworthy of being loved due to her faults, her past pursuit of love becomes less of a task to complete and more of a buried burden she has to carry.

In order to protect herself from emotional suffering, she develops a cold façade to protect herself with.

Track Seven: 竹内まりや (Mariya Takeuchi) – プラスティック・ラブ (Plastic Love)

突然のキスや 熱いまなざしで (With a sudden kiss and a passionate gaze) 恋のプログラムを 狂わせないで�� (Do not cause a malfunction to the love program) 出逢いと別れ 上手に打ち込んで (Type in encounters and separations well) 時間がくれば終わる (When the time comes, it ends) Don't hurry! 愛に傷ついた あの日からずっと (Since the day I was heartbroken, I've been having a life) 昼と夜が逆の 暮らしを続けて (That's been reversed between day and night) はやりのDiscoで 踊り明かすうちに (While dancing the nights away at the popular disco) おぼえた魔術なのよ (There is a magic I've learned) I'm sorry! わたしのことを決して 本気で愛さないで (Never love me seriously) 恋なんてただのゲーム 楽しめばそれでいいの (Love is just a game, all I need is to have fun with it) 閉ざした心を飾る 派手なドレスも靴も (The showy dresses and shoes decorating my closed heart) 孤独な友達 (Are my lonely friends) わたしを誘う人は 皮肉なものね いつも 彼に似てるわなぜか 思い出と重なり合う (The men who flirt with me are Ironically always similar to him for some reason My memories with him are overlapped) グラスを落として急に 涙ぐんでも わけは尋ねないでね (Don’t ask me why even if I drop my glass and suddenly glisten with tears) 夜更けの高速で 眠りにつくころ (When I fall asleep by the highway at dawn) ハロゲンライトだけ 妖しく輝く (Only halogen lights are mysteriously shining) 氷のように冷たい女だと ささやく声がしても (Although somebody is whispering that I’m an icy cold woman) Don't worry! I'm just playing games I know that's plastic love Dance to the plastic beat Another morning comes

Relationships become more of a pursuit of pleasure, rather than meaningful connection, for Griddlebone. A cycle of one night encounters to keep her company before the new day begins and she starts over again with someone new. Her self-worth starts to become tied with being seen as attractive and desirable by another person. She has convinced herself that this lifestyle will quell the void inside of her, although she knows in her heart that she is still painfully lonely. The isolation does not cease, no matter how many individuals she crosses path with.

Maybe one day she will not feel this way, but she believes it is her fault that everything turned out the way it has to this point.

Track Eight: 工藤順子 (Junko Kudo) – 夕顔姐さん (Ms. Yugao)

夕顔姐さん 部屋には 夏でもね (Yugao-san, even if it's summer in your room) こたつが置いてある 束ねたコードを つついてる 退屈な 白い猫が家族 (A bored white cat is pecking at the bundled cords next to the kotatsu table) 今夜のお座敷 長過ぎる いつもなら (The tatami room tonight is too long, as normal) 帰ってる時間 (Time to go home) お勝手の隅の 猫メシは 山盛りで (In the corner of the kitchen, there is a mountain of cat food) とても食べきれない (I can't eat it all) 明かりは点いてても 時計の音ばかり そろそろ聞こえて来る はずなのに (Even though the lights are on, all I can hear is the ticking of the clock) 夕顔姐さんの下駄の音 (The sound of Yugao-nee’s geta) 夕顔姐さんの下駄の音 (The sound of Yugao-nee’s geta) 夕顔姐さん 来年 数えでね 六十三になる (Yugao-san, I'll be turning 63 next year) 近頃男はダメだね 粋じゃない それが口ぐせです (Men are no good these days. It's not classy. That's what they say.) 衣ずれの裾は 萩の花 つい昨日 かけたパーマネント (The hem of my clothes was like a clover flower, a permanence that I wore just yesterday) 西に傾いた 大きな お月様 帰りを急がせる (The big moon leaning to the west hurries my return home) 浮かれ足の男 物欲し気な女 (A playful man, a wistful woman) 若いネオンの街に カラコロと (In a young neon city, colourfully) 夕顔姐さんの下駄の音 (The sound of Yugao-nee’s geta) 夕顔姐さんの下駄の音 (The sound of Yugao-nee’s geta) 細い路地に入ると 犬達が吠えだす 待ちくたびれた猫は夢で聞く (When I enter a narrow alley, the dogs start barking, and the tired cat hears it in a dream) 夕顔姐さんの下駄の音 (The sound of Yugao-nee’s geta) 夕顔姐さんの下駄の音 (The sound of Yugao-nee’s geta)

Years removed from the emotional low point of her life, the empty hedonism to fill the void inside her, Griddlebone has taken up residence with an older, single woman that has mirrored her own experiences in the search of love. The familiar sounds of geta beckon the arrival of her human home to Griddlebone, and her days are spent resting in the sun and keeping busy through the house, all while reminiscing of a past of incomplete love. She has become accustomed to a quiet, uneventful life where she is loved by Ms. Yugao as a sweet pet and taken care of like the beautiful Queen she is.

Still, there is an unshakable feeling that she has missed out on true love in her life, despite her current, content happiness.

Track Nine: Meow Meow & Thomas Lauderdale – Hotel Amour

Fun fact: Meow Meow played Griddlebone in the 2019 movie!

I looked for Love in the beautiful cities I looked for Love up in the air I looked underground though I knew that I shouldn't And still, no Love was anywhere I went to the place they call Heaven I went to the Hotel Amour I sat still and wrote Love some letters But Love doesn't read anymore I sang Love into my stories And I danced Love into my dreams But Love didn't find me Let alone blind me Love is nowhere it seems I looked for Love by pretending I wasn't I looked for Love close to the bone I fixed up some wings and I bought all the permits So Love could take flight when it was grown I followed the maps, I read all the signs I bought Love a building called "Home" I filled in the forms and I paid all the taxes Still, Love left me alone... My heart's still jumping out of my skin I've nothing to keep the feeling in I've nothing to do to make Love stay I've nothing to keep the darkness away You're all in the grandness of little things A leaf that's shaped like a heart A simple breeze, a feather Morning light, evening star And I'm singing to you my stories And I'm dancing with you in my dreams... Love... Love is everywhere... it seems

Throughout her life, Griddlebone has done everything she thought was correct to find and feel a form of love that made her feel complete, but could be deemed as unsuccessful in that pursuit.

Although it never manifested for her as love with another, she has felt the unconditional love of someone that cares for her as the most important thing in her life.

Looking back on her life now as a senior Queen, Griddlebone comes to a realization that love can now be found all around her. It was never her fault for not finding the idea of 'love' that she felt she needed, and there may never have been an instance where she felt that she had found the prize she was after, but love was always with her in the little things of life.

@the-cat-at-the-theatre-door I am not sure if you are still interested in these after all this time, but in case you are, enjoy :).

[elvenchevalier]

Fire Emblem: Engage

This was...probably a long time coming.

Fire Emblem Engage was certainly an experience. It had some of the best maps in the series, the characters were quirky and loveable (if not particularly deep), the art was appealing, and the story was what it promised it would be.

That isn’t to say it’s a perfect game, though. Especially right at the beginning, the characters chew the scenery something fierce. In particular, they tend to overemote, which lessens the dialogue’s impact as it sort of takes you out of it. Eventually the characters settle into their roles and the writing starts feeling more like Fire Emblem, but you do gotta get past those first few hurdles.

Speaking of the writing, I felt it was enjoyable, if somewhat predictable at some points. The characters often feel a little flat at first as well, with one notable trait overshadowing what else the characters may have. Chloe is obsessed with fairy tales. Louis likes to watch people and drink tea. Yunaka is definitely NOT hiding anything. Alfred is heroic, Celine is kind. You get the picture.

This is most noticeable in Alcryst, an archer who joins you early on, who, despite being probably one of the best archers in the series, CANNOT seem to stop being self-deprecating. Nearly every interaction the boy had was colored with his self-loathing. After about the third time he explicitly rejected praise, I wrote him off. He was insufferable.

It is exasperating.

It can be argued that this has been an issue with the series over the last few titles, and I think I would agree with that assessment. While I do recognize that the characters are deeper than their introductions might suggest, it is still clear that they were based on their one major defining trait.

That being said, it was quite funny to see that Alear was in fact the only sane person in the army, reacting with confusion and concern to everyone else's shenanigans.

Characters aside, the story wasn’t anything particularly special. It gave Alear an objective and the story is about completing that objective. It’s not complex, but it isn’t trying to be, either. It delivers on what it promises. The various nations weren’t anything to write home about, either. You have the peaceful Green Greens nation in Firene; the warlike Brodia; the mountainous and chill Elusia; and the desert-laden land of Solm. You really do just get what you see. But again, that’s fine; Engage is more about Alear than about its worldbuilding, and so Alear gets most of the focus.

There were some funny choices, though. The first paralogue has you rescuing some medics on an island just off of Firene, and even though the Firenese characters all have a pretty standard American Midwest accent, the people of that island—which is JUST BARELY off of Firene—are painfully British.

(I played in dub, as you can tell. I don’t know what the choices were in the Japanese voiceover.)

But enough about the writing. Let’s talk about mechanics. My favorite thing that Engage did was to completely remove weapon durability without the weird caveats Fates’ weapons had. Some of the weapons have been nerfed over the course of the series—Brave weapons are just a shadow of their former glory—but that allowed for removal of weapon durability without creating a situation where you just give everyone a Brave weapon and call it a day.

I’m on record as believing weapon durability never really added much to the series. It’s just an excuse to spend the gold you get, and while managing funds is just as much of a trait of a strategy game as any other, I feel like there are better uses for it, and Engage gives us exactly that. You can still buy and refine weapons, buy items, all that good stuff.

But on that note, this game came out in Anno Domini the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty Three.

WHY on God’s terrible blue and green marble do the shopkeepers have EXACTLY ONE VOICE LINE for each type of transaction? And why do they repeat it with EVERY. SINGLE. TRANSACTION? It got bad enough that I had to mute my game whenever I needed to do shopping. It gets incredibly grating to hear “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” ad nauseum when you’re stocking up on, say, Vulneraries. It is now 2025. Shopkeepers with voice lines should ALWAYS have at MINIMUM 3 lines per transaction type, AND they should only actually trigger every 4-5 transactions, and if I find myself in a position to add voices to my own game I’m going to do exactly that.

The Somniel is the best iteration of the home base yet. My Castle in Fates was rudimentary, but served its purpose; the Monastery in Three Houses was just far too big. The Somniel is smaller and easier to find your way around, which I and my lack of sense of direction deeply appreciated.

Another feature Engage introduces that I find incredibly neat and hope the series continues with is the post-battle segments where you run around in the map you had just cleared, talking to people, picking up stuff on the ground, and adopting pets. Exploring the areas outside of battle gives them a brand new perspective and makes me appreciate the map design all the more.

I have noticed the last two games in this series also having abilities that work similarly to how skills function in Fire Emblem Heroes, where characters get stat bonuses based on who they’re standing nearby (as distinct from supports). At first I was apprehensive about it—I didn’t want the series to start being like Heroes, as much as I did enjoy the gacha—but it seems to have found a middle ground that’s comfortable and adds another layer to player positioning.

This is only helped by the incredible map design. Engage has some of the best, most interesting maps I’ve seen in quite some time, and I’m taking notes from them for my own map design.

Despite being the primary mechanic, and in fact literally part of the game’s name, I didn’t actually...engage with Engage all that much. I did mostly for particularly dire situations and usually to theatrically finish off a boss, but through most maps I didn’t see much need for it. That will likely change when I come back to play the game on a harder difficulty, though—I played on Normal, as I always do for a first run.

As a character gains skill points and bond levels with the different Emblems, they can inherit skills from those Emblems to keep permanently, even when switched to a different Emblem. This is a fantastic feature, but it’s overwhelming for people like me who get intense choice paralysis. In the end I just forewent the skill inheritance entirely just to make it easier on the brain juice.

The Emblems also offering weapon proficiencies, unlocking class changes for the unit they’re bonded with, is probably my favorite thing about the emblems.

The last thing I want to say before I dive into spoilers is that I continue to be of the belief that Fire Emblem should not have ever engaged with shipping. I understand it saved the series in Awakening, but I prefer dedicated romantic subplots over “oh man those two are cute”, even if I DO enjoy shipping. That being said, ONLY Alear gets an S-rank in this game, severely limiting the shipping opportunities and outright denying paired endings outside of Alear’s S support, which I feel is a genuine shame. There are SEVERAL pairs of characters whose romances might make for really nice romantic subplots, and Engage just isn’t interested in exploring those over the Alear self-insert shipping.

I wanted to see Yunaka and Louis together, man.

Spoilers to follow! This isn’t like Mystic Quest where the story is so simple and barebones as not to HAVE any spoilers, so this is your warning!

Where to begin, though.

I think the first thing I want to say is a criticism of the events of Chapters 10 and 11, when your Emblem Rings get taken from you by Veyle.

While narratively that part of the story is fine and dandy, the problem arises when you realize Micaiah and Celica are your *only* two options for providing Tome and Staff proficiency to units, and they are among the rings taken from you. You don’t get Micaiah back until Chapter 19 and Celica until 22. Out of 26.

So if there was a unit you wanted to make a mage or healer—like, say, Anna, who makes an incredibly strong Sage—and you didn’t provide her with Tome proficiency before Chapter 10, you’re struck until you get Micaiah back. (Or buy the DLC, as Veronica also provides tome and staff proficiency, though I don’t believe the choice was made with making the player buy the DLC in mind.)

The Fell Xenologue was an interesting what-if kind of story that effectively makes the other gender Alear canon in an alternate world, which I thought was neat. It also doesn’t let you just bring your overpowered monstrosities in; your characters’ levels, classes, and inventories are set per chapter, and scale with your progress in the main story. (Emblems synced and bond levels are not set, however, and can be brought in.)

It introduces a few new characters, including alternate forms of the Four Hounds and two unique characters, Nel and Nil, who the Xenologue center around. It explores a scenario where Alear actually died during the war with Sombron, sacrificing her life to defeat him. The people in the Xenologue are effectively mirror versions of the characters we already know; Celine is ruthless, Alcryst is abusive toward Diamant, you get the picture. In turn, the Four Hounds are on your side. At the end, of course, they all come back with you to let you play with them in the main game, which doesn’t mean a whole lot if you do the Xenologue when you only have five chapters left in the main game like SOME people.

Toward the end, it’s revealed that Emblems can’t really leave their world, that they’ll vanish if they do. Naturally we get a scene where that happens, and Alear gives us a Power of Friendship speech to bring them back, and it was a pretty neat moment! (It also isn't mentioned in the Xenologue, likely because it's a lategame revelation and you can access the Xenologue as early as chapter 6.)

Sombron was a fine villain. Proper evil dark dragon stuff. His backstory is only even touched on right at the end, during the final confrontation. It brings up something called the Zero Emblem, Sombron’s only friend from his own world (oh, by the way, he is also from an alternate world) who vanished many years ago (by virtue of the aforementioned inability to leave their world), prompting him to commit hilarious amounts of murder to reunite with his friend by returning to his own world.

How that works, exactly, isn’t really explained. The game never even tells us who the Zero Emblem is, just that it’s also known as the Emblem of Foundations. It felt like it was just a desperate last-minute attempt to give Sombron some level of sympathy so he didn’t come across as a Pure Evil villain, but you know what? He would have been better that way. There’s nothing wrong with a Pure Evil villain; they don’t ALWAYS need to have some level of sympathetic backstory. He’s the hero of his own story by virtue of being the Big Bad Evil Guy and that’s fine.

All in all, Fire Emblem Engage was a SOLID 8/10. I’m a pretty big Fire Emblem fan, and Engage felt like a beautiful celebration, even a love letter, to the franchise. I have heard the opinion that the game would be a fine place to end the franchise, and while I know that won’t be the case as it’s making far too much money to just stop, I think I might even agree. Engage would be a great sendoff.

But as a fan, I continue to look forward to the next title.

ね、ゲームあそぶ？

[starrysmiling]

on fern and romance...

in one of the new scenes in steps v2, i have fresia tease fern about how they would be a great couple because of how comfortable he looks when he's with jax, and how he even willingly laughs and smiles, but fern argues that he doesn't like jax the same way:

...and it was really interesting to make this stand out while writing this scene, because there are several instances where i've made fern say that he's close with jax, he cares about him, or that he likes being around him:

at this point it was kinda a recurring joke between mage and i to say "and fern still says he doesn't like jax! even though he's like this with him!" but we dug a little into it, and it feels like we accidentally made all the clues point to one thing:

despite his observant nature and how much the reader can tell he obviously cares about jax, fern being unable to recognise his own feelings is because he only knows how to recognise signs of romance when they're physically expressed.

because, if you think about it, you don't really get to see the internal aspects of showing interest in someone when you observe other people. even in media, there's a lot of cases where you're shown physical external signs of attraction/romance, and that's why fern can recognise flirting, or how someone talks to someone they like, or the way jax looks at him like he deserves the world... that's exactly why he can tell that jax is in love with him, because jax wears his heart on his sleeve and is far too easy to read.

but he doesn't know any of the internal tells, which he's starting to show. and of course, fern doesn't express any of these physical signs, because he's a fucker who won't express vulnerability. this isn't really helped at all by the fact that fern doesn't have that many close friends to compare his relationships with, and that the line between the close friendship he has with jax and possible romance is very blurred, especially when he knows that jax is romantically interested in him.

it's only later (which i'll address in a different fic) that fern sorts out his feelings and what they mean, because at that point he's having a crisis over having kissed jax at the end of steps, knowing that it's a romantic gesture, knowing that jax took it as a reciprocation of his feelings, because he still doesn't think he likes jax but every fucking fibre of his body is screaming that he hates the idea of rejecting jax, for a multitude of reasons including that he doesn't want to see jax all broken up, he doesn't want to be the one who hurt him, and also his fear of abandonment is making him think that jax will just straight up cut him out of his life. and the conclusion he gets from that is that he wishes he was in love with jax, while being completely unaware that he's been walking down that path for a while now.

(which is funny, because afterwards, when he's finally sure that what he feels for jax is romantic love, he's down so bad that he's even worse than jax. fern loves and loves and loves and he cares so much but he just needs to recognise what it is.)

(one other thing i love about fern and his journey with romance is that he realises he loves jax when they're sitting together watching tv and he thinks that he likes it. that he could have more of this. that he is genuinely happy to sit next to jax and make snide comments about the shitty plotlines of tv dramas and maybe rest his cheek on jax's shoulder while he does so. jax gives him comfort and a space where he can shed himself of everything weighing on his shoulders while still being his rival and best friend and someone that fern respects with all his heart. it's no wonder that fern loves him so much.)

[ooklet]

AITA for not being more involved with the Dawnguard?

I (72F, Altmer) joined the Dawnguard about a year ago. I was approached in Solitude about joining a few months before that, but at the time I hadn't seen any "vampire menace" so I thought maybe it was a cult recruitment thing or an MLM. 🤨 But then the hold guards wouldn't stop talking about it, so I figured I would at least check it out. I was attacked by vampires on my way there, so at that point I decided to join up. 😅

For my first assignment my boss (we'll call him Ivan) sent me to a cave to find some artifact. He talked it down a lot, but it ended up being full of vampires, draugr and gargoyles. 😨 It turned out the "artifact" was a vampire lady in a coffin with an Elder Scroll. She asked me to take her to her family, and she seemed really nice, but if she was leading me into a trap, I wanted some backup. So I went back to Fort Dawnguard instead and told Ivan about it.

I was really surprised when he said to just go along with it. Maybe he was having an off day or something? 🤔 I tried to tell him about the Elder Scroll but I don't think he was listening at that point. I did what he said and took her to her family which was all the way on the other side of the country in Solitude. Sure enough, they were all vampires! Her dad especially was super scary and could turn into like a floating gray guy with crazy big muscles and wings and a reaaaaally tacky outfit. 😬 He offered to turn me into one too but like lmao no thanks, I'm good! Anyway he blasted me with some mind powers and I woke up on the beach.

When I made it back to Ford Dawnguard and told Ivan what happened, he totally blew up at me. He was all like "why didn't you tell me she had an Elder Scroll" "I can't believe you just handed it over to them" "why didn't you try to kill all of them single-handedly." 😒 He just acted like our previous conversation never happened!

I was pretty fed up at that point so I left to do some other stuff. I killed Alduin (forgot to mention I'm the Dragonborn lol! 🤣) and a guy named Miraak, destroyed the Dark Brotherhood, became Harbinger of the Companions, fought in the Civil War, bought a house and adopted a kid.

With everything else going on, I kind of put the Dawnguard stuff out of mind. But recently there's been a lot more vampire attacks. I feel really responsible for not being more on top of it, and I want to go back to helping with the Dawnguard, but Ivan makes it such a toxic work environment. 😔 They're the most organized when it comes to fighting vampires, and pretty much everyone else who works there is super nice, I just know if I go back, Ivan's going to yell at me for not helping more and letting the vampires "get out of hand" and I really don't want to hear it. 🙄 I'm not the only person in the world who can do this stuff, but sometimes it feels like nothing gets done if I'm not there. AITA?

[star-anise]

Disclaimer: I like Anita Sarkeesian.

But also, I just saw a writeup of a Youtuber whose content has come a long way from his Gamergate days, and to explain that, the wiki says, "Anita Sarkeesian is a radical feminist who created a webseries about sexist tropes in video games"

AHAHAHAHAHA ANITA SARKEESIAN, RADICAL FEMINIST

HOO HEE EXCUSE ME THAT'S A GOOD ONE

Radical feminist. Feminist extremist. Anita Sarkeesian.

Anita Sarkeesian did her Master's Thesis in Social and Political Thought in 2010 on the trope of the "Strong Woman" in fantasy and science fiction TV shows, and produced Tropes vs Women, a series of online videos breaking down her work in a way that was accessible to a lay audience. She found a ready audience in geek feminist circles, since this was exactly the kind of thing we wanted and needed right then.

Tropes vs Women was extremely bog-standard cultural critique, what you'd find expressed in discussion between scholars of literary theory or media analysis anywhere, and exactly what 99% of feminists were saying at the time. It certainly talked about patriarchy as the complex system of sexism fused into our cultural matrix, so it's not like it wasn't radical feminism from that viewpoint, but it wasn't "radical" by way of being especially militant. Sarkeesian frequently pointed out how individual occurrences of a trope weren't harmful in themselves, but that a media landscape completely saturated with only that trope and nothing but that trope is, in the aggregate, a big feminist issue.

And the internet

HAAAAAAAATED

her for it.

Like, geek feminists got flak a lot anyway, especially when we wanted things like properly enforced policies against sexual harassment at science fiction conventions. And yeah, there totally were toxic keyboard warriors who said stuff about all men being scum - but Sarkeesian wasn't one of them.

It's probably because of her succinct, matter-of-fact, "this is not a debated issue, feminists have decades of theory and research to back this point up, sources abound if you google for thirty seconds so I won't stop to baby you through all the fundamental concepts" approach that she got such a big reach. She was calm, concise, coherent, and rational, everything feminists are told we need to be.

Unfortunately that just made her seem... attackable, I think. A good target, not actually scary or impassioned, unlikely to respond to violence with violence. The perfect kind of person to play five seconds of, and then spend the next five minutes yelling into your mic because IF ANITA IS RIGHT ABOUT VIDEO GAME SEXIST YOU MIGHT AS WELL SAY THAT EVERYTHING IS SEXIST AND SEXISM IS SYSTEMIC AND ENDEMIC TO ALL OF WESTERN CULTURE AND OTHER CULTURES TOO, WHICH IS CLEARLY RIDICULOUS, ANITA LADY BAD.

She literally spent five solid years as Enemy #1 in online geek spaces. It was completely insane. I am so sorry she had to take the brunt of it, and yet grateful that she did. She held the line and took the shit and kept doing good decent feminist work for years after, though she did admit to burnout and closed up shop on her nonprofit org Feminist Frequency in 2023. I hope to hell she's having a good day.

But even now, more than a decade later, dudes talk about her as though she were Geek Feminist Godzilla, the biggest baddest woman in the universe, off to lay waste to downtown Video Games and cut everybody's balls off.

When people (mostly dudes, but not all) talk like this, it's just very funny and unintentionally revealing because of the absolute averageness of her third-wave, trans-inclusive, western-centric, intersectional feminism. It makes them look absolutely pathetic.

Because it just makes it clear that she is probably the first and last self-described feminist the speaker has ever paid attention to.

[v-67]

For people who need to hear it

Anime : Wolf dog and the black prince

I don't know if I like this anime or not, I haven't completed watching it, but this particular dialogue between them was good. Because it's also understandable and relatable.

The love that you experience in that state is just self delusion. There's no point in getting depressed over love like that.

[ventique18]

Dragon couple 🐉🌸♀️

When their first son was born, Yuu unfortunately resigned to her fate that she would be the mother of children named Malware, Malaria, and Malignant Cancer.

Her husband Malleus had named their firstborn Malleus. Which was not a terrible idea given the boy was his heir and inheriting his name could be symbolic, but she was certain there were not too many words starting with 'Mal' that could pass off as a name. So imagine her surprise when he had suggested that their second child, a lovely girl, be named Agatha.

"You're not insane after all. I was going to rethink our marriage if you tried to name our baby Malnutrition, or something." Her love for him had grown a tad fiercer, if that was at all possible.

When they welcomed their third child to the world, he had named him 'Lilia' and Yuu immediately caught up to his intentions.

"You realized we couldn't possibly give a good name that starts with 'Mal' everytime, so you decided to spell it out chronologically instead? Malleus, Agatha, and Lilia..."

"Oh, but my plan isn't quite as shallow as that." He commented with an eager smile, "We need five more children."

"Five more-- eight children in total?! Are you planning to build an entire Spelldrive team complete with a coach?"

"Perhaps." He replied, his grin both mischievous and secretive.

What ever could this man be planning? Some kind of ancient ritual that required eight of his own flesh and blood? World domination? Of course he wouldn't do something as terrible as that, but why eight in particular?

Seasons passed, years crawled on, yet their love for each other remained just as strong. True to his words, they managed to conceive their eight child after a few decades. They had the most delightful names, you see:

Malleus, Agatha-- the first two letters of her name stood for the element symbol of Silver, Lilia, Laverne, Eleanor, Yuuki, Ubek (he ran out of ideas), and Ulficia. They were his greatest masterpiece, the father would brag, and so he named them after an actual masterpiece that happened to exist before they did. Since their names were variations of the people closest to him, textbooks would then write him down as a king full of love and respect for those who had given his life meaning and became his strength.

... Or so the writeup could have been that respectable, if only he did not frown while reviewing such descriptions of him and personally wrote an edit request to the publishers. For they had omitted a crucial detail from their story:

That the first letters of their children's names, when arranged, spelled 'MALLEYUU.' Their names being variations of the people he care about were merely secondary. His main purpose was to immortalize in books his undying love for his wife, Yuu.

Later on, some would call him the Mad King; not because he was insane or cruel, but because they had never seen a ruler as madly in love with his spouse as he was with his wife. Their love story would then become a classic literary blueprint for centuries to come.

[mamawasatesttube]

and that's a wrap!!!

well... congratulations to the 6.7% of you who got this one! that's right. which one of these is a lie?

He blew up Mount Rushmore (with Young Justice) to rescue Secret.

young justice (1998) #17

kon did NOT blow up mount rushmore with young justice to save secret! kon wasn't there at all!! this was part of the "sins of youth" arc, from yj98 #17-19. the fact that mount rushmore got blown up at all was part of the agenda's plan to sabotage young justice's reputation by replacing kon with match - in "young justice: sins of youth #1" tim even points out that this behavior was highly uncharacteristic of the real kon!

as for the rest, quick answers/citations under the cut:

He missed an R.E.M. concert to go on a quest to save Superman from space jail.

action comics #716

part of one of my favorite arcs: the trial of superman! what's better than this, the 90s superfam going on a field trip to rescue big blue from space jail???

A villain once attacked him because he was really mad about Kon being pretty.

action comics #823

so this guy is like a huge incel or whatever but this is so fucking funny. like... you think hes a pretty boy? um... dude do you wanna talk about it?

After his death, Kara Zor-El took and wore one of his shirts.

supergirl (2005) #9

to be clear. this is not a good issue. this issue is in fact really bad for the most part. but it has crumbs that i take and run with okay? the bit of kara going into kon's room and quietly sitting with her grief is one of those!!!

also wow. i wasn't expecting that many people to fall for this one!

The first thing he did when he met Match was declare him his family.

superboy (1994) #36

"quit your job. join my clone union"

He once got drugged, hunted, enslaved, and kept as a human pet for two months.

superboy (1994) #50 - #53

yeah this is the arc where he got drugged and enslaved by furries for two months and it was extremely fucked up and tragic but also impossible to take seriously because ??? the furries ??? but also listen to me. this arc was so fucked up

Using TTK, he destroyed every single gun in L.A. in a single instant.

superboy (1994) #84

yeah he did. ttk just fucks that hard. everyone who thought this was false, take notes.

He once put on a Batman mask and pretended to try to give Tim the sex talk.

superboy (1994) #85

not only did he do this, but also it was literally how he coped with the fact that he freaked himself out by dismantling every single gun in la. kind of amazed that that many people voted for this one tbh. annoying tim (as both a love language a coping mechanism) is literally one of kon's top skills.

He tried to get Nat Irons to call him "Boris" (but it didn't work).

steel (1994) #46

another of my all time favorite issues tbh. the kon & nat bonding is so important to me. their friendship is everything

John Henry Irons had to stop him from committing suicide.

action comics #767

kon-el your fucking issues... this bit does make me insane i can't lie. he premeditated it. he knew he would shoot himself in the head after he took down all the kryptonite nanobots he was fighting (long story. read critical condition arc <3). he lied to linda about it.

anyway kon & steel make me wail. i love their bond.

He had a Nightwing zine in his room at the Kent farm.

batgirl (2000) #41

right there on his bed next to his top rock music magazine !!! nightwing zine of some sort baybee!!

He befriended Ma and Pa Kent before he ever knew Clark Kent was Superman.

superman (1987) #155

HE SURE DID!!!!!!! and hes SO fuckign cuuuute. little dipshit. clark is so taken aback skjdhfdk poor guy had a horrible day and came to see his parents bc he was just feeling So Down and then walked in to find the world's most annoying little idiot at their kitchen table. i love this issue so much. (it's the same one where clark teaches kon how to milk a cow!!!!)

it's been a minute! let's play kon-el eleven truths and a lie again!!!!

[bovineblogger]

Hi Barley!

So apparently people have bred mini micro cows? As house pets? This seems insane to me and I was wondering if you knew anything about that/ had any thoughts on it?

not good!!! very very not good!!

ahhh i try really hard to keep this blog as a positive space but this is a really really important thing to me that i feel really strongly about, and i think id be silly if i didnt at least try to warn people, so here goes!!

cattle are not dogs! please do not keep them as house pets!

cattle have very specific needs and if you're not knowledgeable about those needs and not equipped to raise cattle, please do not keep them. i understand that "micro minis" look cute, i completely understand seeing one and wanting one as a house pet if you're not super knowledgeable about them but i really have to warn you guys that cattle can not be happy and healthy under those conditions!

im going to pass it over to my good friend @horse-reviews for the writeup because im not very good at expressing myself when im frustrated and also he is literally an agriculture science guy so watch this space!

photos from here and here

[causticsodaa]

Okay, I hear you folks loud and clear. Here it is.

How Suo foils Sakura as a character

For starters, their personalities, on the surface, are quite different. Sakura is rather brash, but he is very upfront about his feelings and takes initiative when needed. Suo carries himself with dignity and grace, but remains passive and would much rather observe a situation unfold at a distance.

This translates into the way they fight as I’ve mentioned before. Aside from their fighting styles being completely different (Sakura’s kickboxing is close contact while Suo’s aikido lacks contact and focuses on deflecting attacks), the way they treat their opponents differ. While Sakura makes an effort to understand Togame, Suo imposes his own (contrived) worldviews on Kanuma. Sakura converses; Suo monologues.

Speaking of Umemiya’s philosophies, Sakura is known to eat a lot ( @furinfry made a really nice writeup on this theme, and they explain it much better than I can), even being dubbed a glutton by… Suo. Which is funny, because it’s been shown that Suo himself doesn’t consume food around others, claiming to be on a diet.

If Suo’s refusal to eat is a metaphor for his self-alienation from his peers, then Sakura’s acceptance of Umemiya’s advice is proof of his assimilation to Furin.

On the topic of alienation, Sakura is vulnerable and wears his heart on his sleeve; he unintentionally lets people into his world whether he realizes or not. Suo does none of these things—and his emotions are either (unintentionally) drawn out by the people he cares about, or when he witnesses something that contradicts his principles.

Sakura hates covering his appearance, while Suo makes it a point to do so (given that he literally wore a scuba suit to a beach).

The way they treat Nirei post-KEEL also differ. Suo is concerned for Nirei and helps foster his fighting skill to the extent of abilities, but Sakura remains rather ‘wary’/protective of Nirei (obligatory dead wife flashback mention)

There’s also the case with how they handle other people’s situations. Suo first observes and evaluates, then shares his own rational conclusion while Sakura tends to be upfront of what he feels about it.

The way their internal dialogues are written also differ. Sakura’s focuses on himself and his introspections (given that he’s the MC), and they’re very descriptive. But Suo’s is limited; he simply addresses the situation around him. The only time he introspects is to put himself below Sakura.

I’m probably missing a lot of things, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Additional Tidbits which add no value to this post:

Sakura’s flower is the Cherry Blossom, a tree that is so rooted in Japanese culture. Suo’s is the Chinese redbud, which is well… inherently Chinese (gotta tag @psychicwavementality for this one)

Sakura is learning how to cook, but Suo makes it a point that he prefers to bake instead

Sakura develops throughout the story, but Suo stays rather stagnant (I really want to make a writeup on this which also talks about Nirei’s development soon)

Suo’s character color is red; Sakura’s color is sometimes green (representing Furin). Both red and green are complementary colors on the color wheel.

[tinystepsforward]

autocrattic (more matt shenanigans, not tumblr this time)

I am almost definitely not the right person for this writeup, but I'm closer than most people on here, so here goes! This is all open-source tech drama, and I take my time laying out the context, but the short version is: Matt tried to extort another company, who immediately posted receipts, and now he's refusing to log off again. The long version is... long.

If you don't need software context, scroll down/find the "ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening" heading, or just go read the pink sections. Or look at this PDF.

the background

So. Matt's original Good Idea was starting WordPress with fellow developer Mike Little in 2003, which is free and open-source software (FOSS) that was originally just for blogging, but now powers lots of websites that do other things. In particular, Automattic acquired WooCommerce a long time ago, which is free online store software you can run on WordPress.

FOSS is... interesting. It's a world that ultimately is powered by people who believe deeply that information and resources should be free, but often have massive blind spots (for example, Wikipedia's consistently had issues with bias, since no amount of "anyone can edit" will overcome systemic bias in terms of who has time to edit or is not going to be driven away by the existing contributor culture). As with anything else that people spend thousands of hours doing online, there's drama. As with anything else that's technically free but can be monetized, there are:

Heaps of companies and solo developers who profit off WordPress themes, plugins, hosting, and other services;

Conflicts between volunteer contributors and for-profit contributors;

Annoying founders who get way too much credit for everything the project has become.

the WordPress ecosystem

A project as heavily used as WordPress (some double-digit percentage of the Internet uses WP. I refuse to believe it's the 43% that Matt claims it is, but it's a pretty large chunk) can't survive just on the spare hours of volunteers, especially in an increasingly monetised world where its users demand functional software, are less and less tech or FOSS literate, and its contributors have no fucking time to build things for that userbase.

Matt runs Automattic, which is a privately-traded, for-profit company. The free software is run by the WordPress Foundation, which is technically completely separate (wordpress.org). The main products Automattic offers are WordPress-related: WordPress.com, a host which was designed to be beginner-friendly; Jetpack, a suite of plugins which extend WordPress in a whole bunch of ways that may or may not make sense as one big product; WooCommerce, which I've already mentioned. There's also WordPress VIP, which is the fancy bespoke five-digit-plus option for enterprise customers. And there's Tumblr, if Matt ever succeeds in putting it on WordPress. (Every Tumblr or WordPress dev I know thinks that's fucking ridiculous and impossible. Automattic's hiring for it anyway.)

Automattic devotes a chunk of its employees toward developing Core, which is what people in the WordPress space call WordPress.org, the free software. This is part of an initiative called Five for the Future — 5% of your company's profits off WordPress should go back into making the project better. Many other companies don't do this.

There are lots of other companies in the space. GoDaddy, for example, barely gives back in any way (and also sucks). WP Engine is the company this drama is about. They don't really contribute to Core. They offer relatively expensive WordPress hosting, as well as providing a series of other WordPress-related products like LocalWP (local site development software), Advanced Custom Fields (the easiest way to set up advanced taxonomies and other fields when making new types of posts. If you don't know what this means don't worry about it), etc.

Anyway. Lots of strong personalities. Lots of for-profit companies. Lots of them getting invested in, or bought by, private equity firms.

Matt being Matt, tech being tech

As was said repeatedly when Matt was flipping out about Tumblr, all of the stuff happening at Automattic is pretty normal tech company behaviour. Shit gets worse. People get less for their money. WordPress.com used to be a really good place for people starting out with a website who didn't need "real" WordPress — for $48 a year on the Personal plan, you had really limited features (no plugins or other customisable extensions), but you had a simple website with good SEO that was pretty secure, relatively easy to use, and 24-hour access to Happiness Engineers (HEs for short. Bad job title. This was my job) who could walk you through everything no matter how bad at tech you were. Then Personal plan users got moved from chat to emails only. Emails started being responded to by contractors who didn't know as much as HEs did and certainly didn't get paid half as well. Then came AI, and the mandate for HEs to try to upsell everyone things they didn't necessarily need. (This is the point at which I quit.)

But as was said then as well, most tech CEOs don't publicly get into this kind of shitfight with their users. They're horrid tyrants, but they don't do it this publicly.

ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening

WordCamp US, one of the biggest WordPress industry events of the year, is the backdrop for all this. It just finished.

There are.... a lot of posts by Matt across multiple platforms because, as always, he can't log off. But here's the broad strokes.

Sep 17

Matt publishes a wanky blog post about companies that profit off open source without giving back. It targets a specific company, WP Engine.

Compare the Five For the Future pages from Automattic and WP Engine, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?

(It's worth noting here that Automattic is funded in part by BlackRock, who Wikipedia calls "the world's largest asset manager".)

Sep 20 (WCUS final day)

WP Engine puts out a blog post detailing their contributions to WordPress.

Matt devotes his keynote/closing speech to slamming WP Engine.

He also implies people inside WP Engine are sending him information.

For the people sending me stuff from inside companies, please do not do it on your work device. Use a personal phone, Signal with disappearing messages, etc. I have a bunch of journalists happy to connect you with as well. #wcus — Twitter I know private equity and investors can be brutal (read the book Barbarians at the Gate). Please let me know if any employee faces firing or retaliation for speaking up about their company's participation (or lack thereof) in WordPress. We'll make sure it's a big public deal and that you get support. — Tumblr

Matt also puts out an offer live at WordCamp US:

“If anyone of you gets in trouble for speaking up in favor of WordPress and/or open source, reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help you find a new job.” — source tweet, RTed by Matt

He also puts up a poll asking the community if WP Engine should be allowed back at WordCamps.

Sep 21

Matt writes a blog post on the WordPress.org blog (the official project blog!): WP Engine is not WordPress.

He opens this blog post by claiming his mom was confused and thought WP Engine was official.

The blog post goes on about how WP Engine disabled post revisions (which is a pretty normal thing to do when you need to free up some resources), therefore being not "real" WordPress. (As I said earlier, WordPress.com disables most features for Personal and Premium plans. Or whatever those plans are called, they've been renamed like 12 times in the last few years. But that's a different complaint.)

Sep 22: More bullshit on Twitter. Matt makes a Reddit post on r/Wordpress about WP Engine that promptly gets deleted. Writeups start to come out:

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Co-Founder Mullenweg Sparks Backlash

TechCrunch: Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers

Sep 23 onward

Okay, time zones mean I can't effectively sequence the rest of this.

Matt defends himself on Reddit, casually mentioning that WP Engine is now suing him.

Also here's a decent writeup from someone involved with the community that may be of interest.

WP Engine drops the full PDF of their cease and desist, which includes screenshots of Matt apparently threatening them via text.

Twitter link | Direct PDF link

This PDF includes some truly fucked texts where Matt appears to be trying to get WP Engine to pay him money unless they want him to tell his audience at WCUS that they're evil.

Matt, after saying he's been sued and can't talk about it, hosts a Twitter Space and talks about it for a couple hours.

He also continues to post on Reddit, Twitter, and on the Core contributor Slack.

Here's a comment where he says WP Engine could have avoided this by paying Automattic 8% of their revenue.

Another, 20 hours ago, where he says he's being downvoted by "trolls, probably WPE employees"

At some point, Matt updates the WordPress Foundation trademark policy. I am 90% sure this was him — it's not legalese and makes no fucking sense to single out WP Engine.

Old text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. New text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

Sep 25: Automattic puts up their own legal response.

anyway this fucking sucks

This is bigger than anything Matt's done before. I'm so worried about my friends who're still there. The internal ramifications have... been not great so far, including that Matt's naturally being extra gung-ho about "you're either for me or against me and if you're against me then don't bother working your two weeks".

Despite everything, I like WordPress. (If you dig into this, you'll see plenty of people commenting about blocks or Gutenberg or React other things they hate. Unlike many of the old FOSSheads, I actually also think Gutenberg/the block editor was a good idea, even if it was poorly implemented.)

I think that the original mission — to make it so anyone can spin up a website that's easy enough to use and blog with — is a good thing. I think, despite all the ways being part of FOSS communities since my early teens has led to all kinds of racist, homophobic and sexual harm for me and for many other people, that free and open-source software is important.

So many people were already burning out of the project. Matt has been doing this for so long that those with long memories can recite all the ways he's wrecked shit back a decade or more. Most of us are exhausted and need to make money to live. The world is worse than it ever was.

Social media sucks worse and worse, and this was a world in which people missed old webrings, old blogs, RSS readers, the world where you curated your own whimsical, unpaid corner of the Internet. I started actually actively using my own WordPress blog this year, and I've really enjoyed it.

And people don't want to deal with any of this.

The thing is, Matt's right about one thing: capital is ruining free open-source software. What he's wrong about is everything else: the idea that WordPress.com isn't enshittifying (or confusing) at a much higher rate than WP Engine, the idea that WP Engine or Silver Lake are the only big players in the field, the notion that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

But he's started a battle where there are no winners but the lawyers who get paid to duke it out, and all the volunteers who've survived this long in an ecosystem increasingly dominated by big money are giving up and leaving.

Anyway if you got this far, consider donating to someone on gazafunds.com. It'll take much less time than reading this did.

[unsupervisedrat]

every time i see "deaths of despair" charts (okay, fine, not that https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-deaths-of-despair-narrative-is) I can't help but wonder at what point we reach the total addressable market for (potentially lethal) drugs and alcohol. So when I saw that it decreased for the first time in a long time in 2023 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240515.htm), there was hope that things would get better, but a nagging doubt that, things could not have gotten worse.

alcohol death rates halved between 1917 and 1918 and halved again in 1919 and never recovered? and after prohibition came into effect in 1920, alcohol death rates actually rose slightly?

then, after prohibition was repealed in 1934, alcohol death rates stagnate at about a third of the prewar level until after 1945?

what's going on here?

[soppingwethog]

Vanilla Vibes by Juliette Has A Gun

I’m so sorry for taking up so much of your time and brain energy units with this lengthy review, but I do honestly believe that this fragrance deserves a well-reasoned, honest writeup and in order to do so, I feel it necessary to provide a bit of background information about the first time I came across this unique and fragrant brew.

Sixteen weeks ago, I sat at a booth in a diner in an unfamiliar city, the name of which I will not include in this review as I do not know how to spell it properly. I had just ordered five grilled cheese sandwiches. I don’t generally eat multiple sandwiches during a single meal. In fact, thinking about it now, I don’t know that I have ever done that. What I sometimes like to do is order multiple sandwiches and then eat one each day until they have vanished completely from this earth. That was my intended purpose upon entering the aforementioned diner and I am proud to say that I completed my goal.

While I waited for my sandwiches to be delivered unto me, I noticed a couple who were sitting at the booth in front of my face. I watched them eat and laugh and talk and joke. They appeared to really have a genuine interest in each other. It warmed my heart to see this young, happy couple enjoying a fine luncheon together. I sighed to myself and thanked my lucky stars for all of the love in the world, past, present, and future.

Just then, the server, a svelte, mustachioed man of indeterminate age, brought out my sandwiches, each wrapped in wax paper with the exception of one which I planned to eat then and there. He deposited my greasy treasure onto the tabletop in front of me and bowed almost imperceptibly before he retreated behind the service counter and into the kitchen.

I made quick work of my savory sandwich and I am not ashamed to say that I enjoyed every last bite of it. I thought it strange that they included strawberry jelly in a grilled cheese sandwich, but who am I to question the culinary skills of those learned kitchen workers who so dutifully prepare meal after meal for the citizenry of this land?

As I finished my sandwich, my attention again turned to the couple who were seated in the booth in front of me. Something spectacular must have happened while my attention was focused upon my wet meal, because the two of them were no longer flirting and talking to each other in loving tones, but instead were shouting and cussing in a most unbecoming manner.

It may seem silly, but the boisterous outburst which I beheld frightened me to the point where I decided it best to immediately pay for my meal and leave the restaurant, but before I was able to do so, the couple became more unruly and the young woman, who was now standing on top of the table, screaming, threatening her partner and all who dared look her way, eyes blazing like some sort of maiden of death, caught sight of me frantically trying to escape. She then proceeded to focus her ire on me which resulted in a great deal of things being hurled at my head and body. I was pelted with a large ceramic platter, an ice-filled drinking glass, some sort of beef bone, a smattering of French fries, and finally, a nearly-empty bottle of Vanilla Vibes by Juliette Has A Gun which managed to strike me directly in my open eye.

I stumbled forth, hands outstretched before me, until I found refuge behind the service counter with a few other terrified patrons and waitstaff. I won’t bore you with the details of the couple’s arrest, escape from custody, and secondary arrest, but I will say that the vision in my left eye is still somewhat blurry and the doctors have told me that they cannot guarantee that it will ever return to its former glory. But not all is lost as the bottle which so violently accosted my ocular orb made its way into my shirt pocket and now resides in a drawer in my home. Every cloud has a silver lining and in this case, the silver lining as a potent, aromatic fluid.

[dorkshadows]

The Writeup (Part 2!)

(From Jiaozi's Nezha doodle celebrating the 2.6 billion record on 2/2.) *In CN, it's common to say "my tendon pulled!" when you get a cramp in your limbs.

Translation:

Ao Bing: My leg cramped! [literal translation: My leg pulled (its) tendon!] Fish Demon: NEZHA PULLED OUT THE THIRD PRINCE'S TENDONS!!!!!!!!

Literally the day after I published this post, new developments cropped up in the Nezha 2 fandom :D I thought it best to wait and see if anything ELSE could happen before updating this. Thankfully, I waited because things did happen. They sure did happen! So I'm popping in out of retirement (again) for one (1) day (again) to update this before the first fandom writeup becomes completely out of date. I appreciate all the interest given to the previous writeup and I'd feel bad for leaving it outdated for everyone that supported it! So here's part 2 to catch you up on what's happening deep in Nezha 2 fandom.

4-5 weeks in, and we have already have new shipping lore, shipping stat updates, and new fuel for the Ao Guang discourse battles. And it's somehow just as long as writeup part 1 🤣

Guangying shippers have apologized to everyone they harassed, acknowledged the error of their ways, and now get along well with fans of other ships...NOT. Click below to see updates on fandom lore, Ao Guang discourse, doubling down, conspiracy theories, drama in the Nezha cosplay world, and a total lack of self reflection from guangying fans ft. more images and links than last time

Obligatory disclaimers again:

This is NOT about the people who happened to watch the movie, the people who are just interested in box office stats, the people who really enjoyed the movie, or the people who just really admire Nezha. This will be about the fandom fandom, the truly invested, the brainrot (affectionate) in its purest unfiltered form. This is a post about brainrot for those also suffering from brainrot.

This is a collection of patterns mainly from lofter, but also from douyin, weibo, bilibili, and xhs. I don't know how to warn for some of the things mentioned here, so just a blanket note of caution- if you read on, you are prepared to see anything and everything. If you are OK with all this, then- let’s go! 

PART 2 HERE WE GO:

Firstly, the general fandom is as creative as ever, and everything you can think of (and more!) has been written/drawn/discussed by somebody somewhere. I've seen Shiji Niang Niang bring Shen Xiaobao back to life, I've seen Ao Bing studying for the TOEFL, I've seen a Jane Eyre AU fanfic for Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao, I've seen Taiyi go on a diet, I've seen 1979 Nezha transmigrating into the 2019/2025 world, etc. etc.

The Lu Tong meme is also not even a meme anymore- lots of people seem to genuinely believe that randomly spamming any and all content featuring Lu Tong/He Tong with paragraphs of praise will result in them granting their wishes. So that's why you'll come across lots of comments with phrases like: "Lu Tong is the manliest of all men, the most powerful of all celestials, the strongest deer... please Master Lu Tong, grant me a raise from my boss."

Also, I didn't include these extremely cursed memes last time because I felt that they might cause people to die. BUT since everyone was strong enough to survive writeup part 1, I think you've proven yourselves strong enough to see these in writeup part 2--behold! Popular FAMILY GUY NEZHA edits:

These cursed images are popular enough that multiple people have made them their profile pics. That's not even the end of it...

Not only that, the fandom has also made "fusion" edits of the characters in the vein of the Nezha/Ao Bing fusion we saw in canon (as in, a Taiyi/Nezha fusion exists). If you wondered what things would be like if 1) Nezha possessed Ao Bing instead or 2) Shen Gongbao never stole the spirit pearl, wonder no further! Here is the answer:

Next, congratulations to lubao for completing the transformation from surprise crack ship to third most popular pairing in the fandom (4 and 5 probably go to Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao [longwangbao] or lutong/hetong [luhe] depending on the platform). Coincidentally, lubao is now no. 3 trending on weibo, beating out dilong. Professional cosplayers are also doing lubao cosplays for clout (to 10K+ likes on bilibili and even 100K+ likes across douyin, etc.). They even have their own animatics now. -> Every individual (main) character and ship has plenty of animatics; if you want to see them, just add the word "手书" (hand book) after whatever subject you're searching for. EX. For oubing animatics, just search for 藕饼手书, and many many will come up.

The lubao lore has also expanded since Feb.:

In Nezha 1, Shen Gongbao told Ao Bing he can teach him how to hide his horns in public. Lu Tong, as a deer, should also have antlers (as shown by his demon/animal form), but doesn't! This clearly means that Shen Gongbao taught Lu Tong how to hide his antlers with the same method he offered for Ao Bing.

Fans noticed that Lu Tong's eyes are brown in deer form, but as a human, his eyes are green- specifically, the exact same shade of green as Shen Gongbao's. They believe it means Lu Tong purposely turned them green because he took inspiration from Shen Gongbao's appearance.

They also noticed that in the post-credits, Wuliang and He Tong didn't seem to know where the underground prison was. Lu Tong guided them over. They believe this means Lu Tong was the one who brought Shen Gongbao into the prison and tied him up in the first place.

You can make the assumption that Shen Gongbao, Ao Bing, and Lu Tong all have the same hairstyle. Why? Because Shen Gongbao combed Ao Bing's hair (with the approval of Lu Tong's #2 enemy, Ao Guang), and he previously combed Lu Tong's hair. Out of love/obsession for him, Lu Tong has kept that same style. And now this is yet another thing Ao Bing STOLE from Lu Tong!

As of 3/9, Jiaozi put out this drawing of Shen Gongbao riding a leopard while acting as captain of the demon hunting team (to celebrate Nezha breaking the 14.6 billion record at the box office):

Since Lu Tong had that exact same pose, while also riding an animal from the same species, lubao fans took this to mean Lu Tong was again trying to copy everything Shen Gongbao did because he's just that obsessed with him.

As for fanon expansion, there is now a version of He Tong who is not only aware of Lu Tong's obsession, but also supports, abets, and contributes to his actions because she too felt abandoned by their shi shu. Now Shen Gongbao can never leave them again! Theirs forever! Too bad that pesky Ao Bing keeps getting in the way and doing annoying things like "saving his master" and "having morals."

And a little round of applause for Shen gonggong too for going from cartoon villain barely anyone cared about to earning the highest honor in fandom--becoming the resident whump angst pain machine. This was unofficial in the previous writeup, but now it's safe to call it official! You know his poor meow meow status is cemented when the average SGB-centric fsyy crossover is now, "Wuliang and his disciples torture the cultivation out of Shen Gongbao, seal his powers, and give him to King Zhou to do as he pleases. The royal court proceeds to treat him as some kind of party animal, all while using and abusing whatever's left of him-" (paragraph 1 of 100)

The average pre-canon story is also, "everyone except Taiyi tortures and mistreats Shen Gongbao at Yuxu Gong-" He's an alcoholic in these too, and he hates himself, and he's depressed and (insert any form of trauma here, he has it)- Someone said that they knew Shen gongong was doomed (by the fandom) the moment he showed up like That in the easter egg scene, and I think that person had the gift of prophecy.

Now for the main event! Dilong, Aobing Zhuan, and the reaction (or lack thereof) of Guangying shippers:

Yes, that's Jim from The Office. The above is a circulating meme made by disgruntled dilong shippers.

Translation:

If you look like this

("Nezha 2" Ao Guang) Your husband doesn't look like this

("The Sons of the Dragon" Ao Guang) Your husband looks like this

*The Sons of the Dragon is a nickname (derogatory) for Ao Bing Zhuan because detractors think it focuses on all of Ao Guang's sons except Ao Bing

I'm not too familiar with Aobing Zhuan itself, so if you or your loved ones know more about the storyline or drama, please feel free to tack onto this post with your own links, writeups, and/or input!

Dilong fans finally had Enough of the nonstop harassment and put together gigantic takedown posts on why Aobing Zhuan sucks, featuring citations, side by side images, and so on.

In addition to accusing the author of using Yinglong as a self insert, they also accused Yinglong of being a genderbent version of Ao Guang (as he used to be drawn in Dilong fanart back in 2019). They pointed out that the author modeled toddler Ao Bing after her own goddaughter instead of his image in the movie. Said author has also gone on record saying Ao Bing is the "least charming" of Ao Guang's sons. Aobing Zhuan gave Ao Bing a healthy number of friends as part of the supporting cast too; when readers asked how this is possible if his first and only friend is Nezha, the author said "The friends are dead, so they don't count!"

The receipts also tell us that even though Ao Guang (and his siblings) made Ao Bing's coat in canon, Aobing Zhuan credited that to Yinglong. His martial arts also came from Yinglong, even though everyone knows it came from Shen Gongbao. And it gets deeper-- as the story goes on, Ao Bing has less and less screentime and barely any "cool" moments. The story becomes completely about his older brothers (specifically his second eldest brother, Ao Yi), while all canon characters are ignored or shafted. It also goes wild with epic wars, battles, and subplots that the movie never even mentioned.

This leads to the fandom nicknaming Aobing Zhuan "OC Zhuan" (and yes, they are using OC the English way. This is not the Tale of Aobing, this is the Tale of Original Characters not even made by Jiaozi). Another nickname is "The Tale of Ying" not because Yinglong herself has that much screentime, but because ABZ fans have spent so long harassing literally everybody else in the fandom while using her as an icon and constantly saying "look, you've made yinglong sad" "how disgusting of you to split up such a loving couple" "you're not allowed to ship anything besides the canon couple" etc. etc.. while spamming fans of literally every other Ao Guang ship with pictures of Yinglong.

Even in non-shipping content involving Ao Guang and Ao Bing, they'll constantly talk about Ao Guang's wife and Ao Bing's mother and how totally important she is to them + the story. Guangying shippers have also constantly used a mother's day screenshot (of the official Nezha account wishing Yinglong happy mother's day with an image of her and Ao Bing in ABZ) as proof that she's officially married to Ao Guang, and you are therefore NOT allowed to ship him with anyone else, including yourself. It turns out that screenshot doesn't exist- the Nezha weibo never posted it. Guangying shippers faked the image.

Someone even asked deepseek (or baidu?) who Yinglong is and it said, "Yinglong is Ao Guang's father!" (incorrect btw, but this is proof that yinglong has no mythological connection to Ao Guang anyway). Fans also noticed that Aobing Zhuan- despite having a physical publication- wasn't featured at all in Nezha 2 merchandise. Instead, there's a cute picture book featuring parts of little Ao Bing's childhood (with NONE of ABZ's events).

The book is called "Memories of the Three Realms" 《哪吒·三界往事》and contains little stories about the entire cast before the events of the movies. This book was promoted as part of Nezha 2's merchandise, so it's safe to consider it a direct tie-in with the franchise. Noticeably, Ao Bing's family in the book consists of only himself, his father, his master, his aunt, and uncles. No brothers, no mother.

So TLDR, Aobing Zhuan "fell apart" in the fandom's eyes because:

It directly defies canon ideas and events

Guangying shippers faked screenshots to make it look like the Nezha team acknowledged ABZ more than it actually did

The art style is "ugly" (imho, it's less that it's ugly and more that it's very off model when it comes to canon characters and just doesn't fit Nezha's art style)

ABZ constantly puts down Ao Bing/Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao in order to elevate its OCs

Ao Guang doesn't like Ao Bing very much in ABZ

The author doesn't care about Ao Bing and was only using his name for clout; the author exclusively only loves Ao Yi

Yinglong is the author's self insert and arguably a plagiarized version of dilong!Ao Guang. Ao Yi has also been accused of being a plagiarized design of dilong!Ao Guang. (imo, not so sure about how valid these particular accusations are because all three designs are commonplace throughout all xianxia art)

Ao Yi, Ao Jia, and Yinglong (Ao Bing's brothers and mother) are fanmade OCs and might not even have those same names if they appear or come up in the movies

ABZ attempted to make a love interest for Ao Bing, but backtracked after backlash from oubing fans

The Nezha team seems to want nothing to do with it

The takedown was brutal. The rest of the fandom, specifically the confused people who had no idea why other fans were going on and on about Ao Guang's wife (who does not appear in the films) and closet dilong shippers, went, "Hey, ABZ does suck!" Why did it take so long for them to notice it sucked? General consensus is that because the comic was not very good in the first place so nobody talked about it or noticed it. Now they notice because 1) guangying shippers shoved it in everyone's face 2) guangying shippers/ABZ fans bullied literally Everybody else in the fandom

Then overnight, the fandom turned on ABZ and all its OCs. Now it's considered #cringe to like Yinglong, Ao Yi, and Ao Jia. People regretted paying for the comics, people tried get it refunded, and people apologized to dilong fans for hating on them based on falsely believing they were "splitting" a canon couple (and not because idk, harassing strangers over cartoons is rude??).

Regardless, everyone who secretly enjoyed dilong now came out to openly enjoy it. Dilong rose to #3 trending on several platforms, and dilong shippers rejoiced for finally being vindicated after literally 5 years of harassment. I mean pretty offensive and terrible harassment (CW terminally online fandom harassment methods): mass reporting, being accused of being degenerates, being accused of being uNpAtriOtIC, being accused of TrEAson, being told they should have died in their mothers' wombs, getting doxxed and suicide baited. Multiple dilong authors and artists were bullied into deactivating. The harassment got especially bad after Nezha 2 came out, so-

The tables turning on Guangying shippers can only be divine karma at work. Now in videos of people bashing dilong shippers, you can see comments saying, "hey op you dropped your clown nose!" and "get with the times, OC Zhuan fell from grace." Unfortunately, this drama has led to collateral damage in the form of-

Drama in the cosplay world:

However, there are lots of big name cosplayers doing Yinglong and Guangying cosplays. These people spent Big Money on their costumes. Now they're being told that ABZ has "fallen apart" and Yinglong was just somebody else's OC this entire time. Yinglong cosplayers feel personally victimized and don't know what to do with their costumes now.

To add fuel to the fire, fans have been insulting Yinglong cosplayers in the comment sections of their videos. Ao Yi cosplayers are facing a similar dilemma. Which leads to-

Yinglong fans react + Dilong fan conspiracies:

You'd think this would lead to some self reflection on the part of Guangying fans or an apology to their victims or maybe some attempt to be on better behavior. But why do that when it's easier to double down and play victim!

ABZ fans and Guangying shippers now believe themselves to be the biggest victims in the fandom. They feel that the takedown was made in bad faith and several points don't even line up-- Yinglong doesn't resemble dilong!Ao Guang that much, Yinglong is not the author's literal self insert, the spinoff is still canon, Ao Guang loves his son very much in ABZ too and those calling him a cold father in ABZ are pulling panels out of context, etc. They think they shouldn't be judged just for enjoying a comic and multiple people have called on Jiaozi to step in and acknowledge the Drama. Indeed, they shouldn't be judged or harassed for liking Yinglong or ABZ.

But I'd feel more sorry for them if they didn't spend the past month bullying and lying to literally everybody in the fandom, ranging from spamming all Ao Bing content with guangying comments to threatening Ao Guang x anyone else shippers with physical violence. Even on the notes of the last writeup, we have firsthand accounts of their cyberbullying:

^This is the kind of thing guangying fans do on a regular basis. (I'm so sorry they harassed you over something so stupid! All 6 of them owe you a kowtow and apology.)

The Drama continues:

According to dilong fans, ABZ and guangying fans have gone quiet but not gone away. They've changed tactics and can now be spotted on random Ao Guang content commenting, "I wonder who Ao Guang's wife is! I'm so curious!" and on Ao Bing content saying, "Oh I bet Ao Bing misses his mother and brothers so much." This is allegedly an attempt to get new fans to ask them about Ao Guang's wife and Ao Bing's mother/brothers + an attempt to do damage control for ABZ now that it's uncool to mention it publicly. Personally, I think the dilong fans are right about this theory. Makes perfect sense to me, especially given everything else ABZ fans have done so far.

Next, tying back to the cosplay drama, dilong fans believe the people attacking Yinglong cosplayers are guangying fans masquerading as dilong fans. These guangying fans are hoping to harass enough people for something major to happen (conveniently taking the heat off of ABZ). Then the wider media will report on cosplayers being harassed by dilong fans, resulting in the wider public going "Nezha fangirls are so scary!" resulting in cancellation of Nezha ships (specifically dilong) altogther in a complete repeat of 227 (the date in which Xiao Zhan fans mass reported AO3 over a real person fic, resulting in the AO3 ban in China and the ensuing backlash that caused the absolutely most nightmarish time of poor Xiao Zhan's life). Is this there truth to this theory? I have no idea, but wilder things have happened.

And lastly, no, Fei Wo Si Cun (established web novelist that published a dilong mpreg fanfic on main, as mentioned in the previous writeup) has not acknowledged the Ao Guang discourse drama at all. Jiaozi and the rest of the Nezha team have also not said a peep despite guangying shippers' desperate attempts to reach them.

Update to add: there was ALSO some fight between solo!Nezha stans and solo!Ao Bing stans on weibo. It didn't have that big of an influence, but was certainly an Online event.

And that's the end of the ride for now. Nezha 2 is still playing in theaters. Nobody knows what will happen once it hits STREAMING :D after all, 命由我不由天!

BONUS update: Believe it or not, there's a part 3 now !?