#long post when expanded

[starberry-cupcake]

Some thoughts about media consumption, fanwork and fandom issues that came about while pondering the Welcome Home situation.

I want to think out loud about how wild and complicated this situation seems to have gotten due to the way in which online fandom has normalized media-consuming practices, to the point in which it's become automatic and homogenizes art and media, regardless of where it comes from.

Fanwork hasn't only become an expected part of fandom activity, fans these days know how to monetize content before learning about intellectual property or developing any nuance on the origins of art, perceived in a depersonalized way as just "content".

In the past decade, it became customary on tumblr for Fandom Elders and Not So Elders to receive hate whenever they pointed out that, for example, adding self-profiting links on fics in AO3 is not allowed for legal reasons.

There was a very famous tumblr take that went as far as to suggest that fic writers "couldn't charge for and successfully sell" their fics because "writing is dismissed" in fandom, in comparison to fan art. This take didn't acknowledge that both forms of profit are actually illegal (added note: public domain in some countries still is legally bound to a tax payment), or that fanfic was historically more attacked by mainstream authors, which reinforced the culture of copyright understanding, or that fan art tends to be more easily separated from canon due to visual likeness differences, etc.

The general perception became that profiting from fanwork is "a safe thing to do" even if, in reality, profiting from copyrighted material without the legal authorization of the copyright holder is a decision fans should make knowingly of the legal consequences it carries for themselves and the fanwork community and platforms.

There was a fandom push and pull with this reality because of moral grounds and a popular perception of unequal footing between the fan part and the canon part.

It was perceived, in general, that fan content comes from an independent creator and canon comes from a Company or a Professional Author with Company Backing (publisher, studio, etc.) who wouldn't miss the few coins an indie artist can take from a piece of art.

This idea was reinforced by the fact that there were times in which big corporations shut down fan projects (even non profit ones) to later copy those projects themselves and profit from the idea. It happened with Lionsgate in the Hunger Games days, it happened with Disney and Etsy sellers, it happened in many places with many things.

The idea that, even if illegal, the practice of profiting from copyrighted material from corporations or certain authors could be seen as justified grew to a point of normalization.

So, the era in which the fanfiction battle that established the concept of non profit as a condition for allowing fan content to exist, had ended. It gave way to an increasingly normalized perception of it being allowed.

This also happened at the time in which online monetization of content became more accessible.

Sites like ko-fi or patreon could be used to pay for content creators "in general" rather than tying them to the profit of sales of specific content that contained copyrighted material. These loopholes allowed creators to successfully profit through fan content that was otherwise illegal to be monetized.

The problematic repercussions of this normalization, like I said, was that people learned to monetize before they learned what they could monetize. Or what they should.

Around 2018 there was a situation in which some rpdr queens got into arguments with fan artists who were selling their fan art as unauthorized merch.

These artists were doing what they were accustomed to do in the past years in fandom, do art of media they enjoyed and sell it online.

They didn't stop to think that they were actually selling products of indie artists whose primary source of income after performing is merch, nor did they think about the fact that drag performers are real people and not blorbos from shows. They didn't think that they were reproducing the likeness of a person (as curated as a drag persona can be) and selling it, feeling a sense of entitlement to the art that carried said likeness.

Normalization of media consumption in which you produce work and then sell it was so ingrained that the source didn't matter anymore. A mainstream Big Company like Disney was seen in the same way that an indie drag performer who asked fanwork creators not to profit from their identity.

Media is exchangeable and fanwork is created in the same way for anything, no matter what it is. Everything is a blorbo we feel automatically entitled to the moment it hits our orbit.

And I say this as a person who has been in fandom for ages and who values fanwork immensely. This doesn't come from a place of judgement, it comes from a place of care and of questioning the space around me.

In any case, cue 2023 sudden sensation Welcome Home.

It isn't just that Welcome Home is an independently created piece of transmedia, run by one single individual. It's also that said piece of media is, as of the moment of this situation, mostly developed via artwork.

Contrary to drag performers, webseries or podcasts, which can also be independently produced and become subject of massive fandoms, Welcome Home's source material is, at the beginning stage, mostly non-contextualized artwork and breadcrumbs of lore.

So, it skyrocketing to fandom fame and getting massive crowds of people from different walks of fandom life (the kids from the lost media reddits, the creepypasta youtubers, the fnaf kids, the tumblr puppet lovers, the puzzle enthusiasts, etc., etc.) while being a meta media piece (a transmedia piece about a made-up lost media piece) blurred the lines of source and fandom like nothing I've ever seen before.

How do you establish which art is canon when there are fan artists posting fan content that looks exactly like the real thing? And when you, as an indie creator, use the same platforms to showcase your work as they do to share their fan art?

How do you establish canon products (like puppets or dioramas) if you can't show yet the ones you made and fans are posting theirs already in the same platforms?

How can you put boundaries on what is or isn't part of the puzzle when overnight you have millions of people hungrily looking through your professional portfolio for clues that aren't meant to be there? Making you part of the puzzle because they single-handedly decided that your passion project is an ARG?

How do you stop the people who are profiting from cosplaying your characters for personal donations, selling fan art of your work in merch or using your characters and universe for commissions?

People who are, again, posting their photos and art and links on the same social medias you do and using for their monetization the same platforms as you do?

How do you set yourself apart from people impersonating you in social media, sometimes even unknowingly, because they're using your artwork for their profiles without permission or clarification?

How do you establish your ownership and identity without compromising personal information that you weren't thinking of sharing at all?

How do you keep your canon clear of outside influence if people are posting fanfics and roleplays faster than you are meant to tell your story? In the same platforms you use for work and enjoyment?

You know how, in Disney Parks, adults aren't allowed to cosplay out of special ticketed events because they want to avoid little kids from confusing a random person with a character performer, who is trained to accommodate and be accessible to little kids? Because they're responsible for how kids are treated in the parks by their employees and character performers?

Imagine fan art that is so much like the canon art, which didn't even get time to be set into clear boundaries and context yet, depicting things you didn't intend to depict for the audience you're aiming for, in a way in which it looks exactly like yours, posted in platforms that you use for your work.

How can you establish the boundaries of what is or isn't your canon content or your responsibility? If you're just one person? And this thing exploded overnight?

The normalization of fan content practices and, in tow, of profit from it, went faster than the story could be told.

Even outside of the very serious issue of people profiting from the work of an indie creator, from characters they've worked on for years and were excited to share with the world, there's also the fact that this exploded so much and so fast and with something in such an early stage of development that it's insane to think of how you can even start to draw lines of what is and isn't your work, as a singular person trying to put your idea out there.

Not just for the sake of storytelling, the sake of your art, the sake of your integrity as an author and the sake of your creative process, but also as the one responsible for the thing itself with a clear idea of what you're presenting and to whom.

It's overwhelming just to think about it.

I don't have answers, and even if I have opinions, I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do or how to behave, you're all responsible for your own actions. Objective information is out there, each fandom platform has its own rules and regulations, fandom has its sources of legal advice, and there are official guidelines from the WH author that are clear as to what they would like you not to do (1, 2, 3). Each piece of media is different, each person's way of interacting with it is different, I'm not your mom, there's the info, do whatever you want.

All I have is mad respect to an author whose work I'm enjoying immensely, my best wishes as someone who wants to be a storyteller, and my support.

Still, I just had to stop and think in some length about this because it's A LOT. It's wild. It's a situation I've personally never seen before in this extent.

And it's disorienting how fast we got here and where we're going. So I needed a space to think out loud to the void.

[gummi-ships]

[svtskneecaps]

lukewarm take of the evening: y'all care too much about being ""outdated"". fellas this smp moves inhumanly fast. it is ok to CHILL holy shit CHILL. y'all are like "(posts BANGER ART) super late guys sorry" friend i am hitting you with a blanket i am snapping you with my metaphorical towel WHAT DO YOU MEAN SORRY. "(posts BANGER FIC) rip this is outdated now" WHO CARES???? I LOVE YOU, OK. ohhhh woe is us as the fandom at large for having MORE HAPPY PILLS ARC CONTENT oh no how outdated!! how could you be writing speculative fiction about how forever felt during happy pills :( slash SARCASM!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN!!!! THERE ARE SO MANY BANGER ARCS, WHAT, YOU THINK WE'RE COMPLAINING????? FOR GETTING MORE OF THE CONTENT WE LOVED????? oh no we're past the period where everyone thought green gay ninjas were like Dead Dead, my work is now outdated and noncanon :( WDYM. GIMME. A BANGER IS A BANGER IDC IF IT TAKES THREE MONTHS. you think rome was built in a day?? fuck you, baltimore, GIMME. my ass has been cooking a goddamn backflipo family fic since july when it was ALREADY outdated do you think i fear god??? "oh no, you're making an edit of slime's (attempted) egg murdering spree?? how could you, that was months ago it's irrelevant" SAID NO ONE EVER.

save your wrists kidlings ok carpal tunnel is no joke. CHILL!!!!! CHILL!!!!!!!! TAKE YOUR TIME SHEEEEEESH OK LOVE YOU <3

[hoofpeet]

Ingo remembers some stuff and gets a new friend :]

[altschmerzes]

Gav, do you have anymore wriggle up on dry land holiday thoughts to share? I've been thinking non stop about the snippets you posted, the idea of the holiday season being a bit of a jolt to Jamie's standing in his new family unit in his own mind is haunting me

oh yeah i think about this sorta thing ALLLLLL THE TIME it's like... i haven't thought too much about holidays in particular but things like that being a jolt to jamie's standing in his new family unit in his own mind is a great way to put it. it's deeply destabilizing for him every time he encounters something like that, something that makes him think about it and ask himself those questions directly - who am i to them, what is my place here, how long will it last, how much can i take, how much say do i get, etc.

and a BIG one in there is uncle's day, actually, speaking of holidays :) bc i'm keeping that part from season 3 though it's obviously a little different.

this is from when i was talking to another friend (thanks to @jamietxrtt this time, another prominent and beloved enabler of me generally and this au in particular) about the way that like. roy has a hard time with referring to james as jamie's dad when he's thinking about the man at all, because in his mind, that's ted now, and that's something ted earned. (and it's a little bit roy, too. there's a whole like- he's not Jamie's Dad the way that ted is but he very much is Jamie's Parent, and the distinction is a little odd and difficult to articulate but it's very similar to how he feels about phoebe, he's not her dad but he is her parent, etc. but it's still like...... when he thinks about what a father, what a dad ought to be, he feels that inside himself more than he could ever give it to james.)

which led to like. phoebe is the one who articulates this better and before anyone else can, and that's part of the uncle's day thing, which happens when jamie is seventeen and has been living with ted (and has had a room at roy's) for going on a year. when phoebe and sarah are arranging it, phoebe insists jamie has to come, because “he’s your uncle roy too” and jamie is like :? he is not.

and she sighs and rolls her eyes like little kids do when they think you’re being dense, and she’s like noooo i don’t mean he’s your UNCLE but he’s your UNCLE ROY just like he’s my uncle AND he’s my uncle roy and jamie is like. you’re gonna have to explain this one to me in a lot more words half pint.

and she sighs again and goes well. some kids at my school have a mummy and a daddy or two mummies or two daddies or just a mummy or just a daddy or one of my friends has a mummy and a parent - she pronounces this very deliberately - which is cool. AND my friend cecily has THREE mums and a dad because HER parents got DIVORCED and then they both got married again so she has FOUR parents which is NOT FAIR. anyways. i don’t have a mummy and a daddy or any of that. i have a mummy and an uncle roy. he isn’t my daddy but he’s my uncle roy, get it? and jamie nods bc he thinks he actually does get it yes.

and she goes okay. so you’ve got a daddy. that’s coach ted. but you’ve also got uncle roy. because he’s not your daddy and he’s not your uncle but he’s your uncle roy. get it?

and jamie, who is just about on the verge of tears now, nods again because yeah. He Gets It Now.

[666writingcafe]

Barbatos' Birthday Surprise (Part One)

"...for more details on how to win tickets to see Severa at the Hell Dome on August twenty-fourth, visit our website www.wdbl.com and click on 'Contests'."

I turn off the radio as quickly as I turned it on. I originally was just going to listen to some music as I relaxed in my room at the House, but as soon as I heard the announcement, I knew I had to move quickly. While I don't know much about the band Severa, I do know that they specialize in metal music, and I happen to know someone that's really into that genre. Plus, it would make for a nice present for him, provided that he's okay with taking some time off.

Opening up my laptop, I go on the station's website and do as the announcer instructed. I'm then greeted with the following question:

Why do you want to win these tickets?

A simple enough question. I can imagine the radio station wants to weed out scalpers and scammers and give these tickets to someone that truly wants them and will go see the band in concert. Cracking my knuckles, I proceed to type in the empty text box accompanying the question.

I want to surprise a dear friend of mine with some time off. He works day in and day out with little rest, and although he will never admit it, he's starting to get tired. I can see it in his eyes. The two of us have bonded over our love of metal music, and we've spent time comparing and contrasting what it sounds like in the human world versus the Devildom. I hope by winning these tickets and attending the concert that we continue to grow close. He's a kind, caring man, even though his job requires him to be rigid and uptight, and I want to reward him for all his hard work.

As I fill in my contact information, I begin doubting my efforts. Surely a superfan will get the tickets over me, right? I mean, they would know more about the band than I do. Plus, I didn't name the person I wanted to get the tickets for. If I did, I'd probably would get the tickets right away. But, that would be cheating, and I want to win honestly.

So, I take a deep breath and hit the submit button.

~~~~~

"Oooh, MC's got mail!" Asmo teases lightly as I enter the living room. A while ago, Lucifer set up a table right outside the room so that he could easier sort the mail that the House received. Each of us has a basket, although mine's usually empty.

Except for today, when a thick, sturdy white envelope awaited me.

"Calm down, Asmo," Satan replies, glancing up from his book with an annoyed look on his face. "It's not like they're not allowed to receive any correspondence."

"What if it's from a secret admirer?" Asmo wonders, seemingly ignoring his brother.

"Do either one of you know who Jazzon M. is?" I ask, reading off the name on the upper left corner of the envelope.

"He's one of the radio DJs for WDBL," Satan responds as he closes his book.

"I see." My throat tightens up, and I feel my heart begin to beat faster. Grabbing a nearby letter opener, I carefully cut across the top of the envelope and pull out a neatly folded piece of paper. Unfolding it reveals a handwritten letter.

Dear MC,

I wanted to reach out to you personally and congratulate you on winning our contest on WDBL 110.6. Your submission was quite sweet, and after a bit of sleuthing, I figured out who exactly you wanted to get these tickets for. So, I pulled some strings and included a couple extra things in order to make the experience extra special for the two of you.

Hope you have a blast!

J.M.

"Everything alright, MC?" Asmo asks. "You look a little pale."

"I'm fine. Just...surprised, that's all."

"I take it you won one of the stations' contests?" Satan asks. I nod my head.

"They were giving away tickets to see this metal band called Severa at the Hell Dome on August twenty-fourth, and I figured it would make a nice birthday present for Barbatos." The two demons exchange glances, making me even more nervous. "Did I make a bad assumption?"

"Severa is one of Barbatos' favorite bands of all time," Satan responds. "Their shows are normally sold out minutes after they go on sale, though, and no amount of connections or money is going to make any of those people resell their tickets."

"I...I didn't know that."

"He's never had any luck seeing them live," Asmo continues as I sit down next to him on the couch. "The one time he got tickets, he ended up with a horrible stomach flu that knocked him out for the entire week of the concert. Rumor has it that when he wasn't throwing up, he was straight up crying because he couldn't attend the concert. Apparently, he was that distraught."

"So, in other words, I picked out a good gift for him."

"Not just a good gift, MC: the perfect gift. Nothing anyone else does for him is going to top that." I breathe a sigh of relief. I'm glad I didn't mess up by getting Barbatos something he wouldn't like or enjoy for his birthday.

"What all is in the envelope?" Satan asks. "It looks awfully thick for it to just have tickets and a letter." I carefully dump out the remaining contents on the coffee table in front of me.

"Front row tickets?!" Asmo exclaims. "AND VIP lanyards?!"

"Looks like there's backstage passes, too," Satan remarks.

"He did say that he pulled some strings," I explain as Asmo unfolds another piece of paper.

"I would say a lot," he replies. "He reserved you a suite at the Utopia Hotel." Upon seeing the confused look on my face, he explains that it's one of the most expensive hotels in the Devildom, partly due to its close proximity to the Hell Dome, and partly due to how fancy the building itself is.

"You also have a reservation at Ristorante Ninurta the night before the concert," Satan continues. "They're usually booked for months at a time, sometimes years."

"You two are going to be so spoiled! I'm super jealous!"

"You don't even like metal music, Asmo."

"That's not the point!" Asmo turns his head to look at me. "What's important is that you're going to have one of the best experiences of your entire life. Barbatos is going to be all over you, MC."

"No offense, but I find that hard to believe," I tell him.

"Asmo might actually be right for once," Satan interjects. "People have told me that live metal music brings out a different side of Barbatos, one that no one really expects. He gets a bit rougher around the edges, saying and doing things he normally wouldn't in any other circumstance."

"In any case, you need to get this to Barbatos as soon as possible," Asmo instructs. "That way, he has plenty of time to prepare for it."

[lokiina]

Dino.exe has stopped responding... Let him process his confusion.

** photo received under readmore

[destinationtoast]

How to address non-binary characters in fandom stats about gender

@once-a-polecat asked a thoughtful and interesting question in response to my post about Canon gender representation & shipping:

So, I know this is a VERY small number of characters (statistically speaking), but how do you deal with, or plan to deal with, the increasing numbers of characters who are non-binary in canon? (Jim Jimenez in OFMD, or Desire in Sandman for instance.) If you’re documenting how prevalent it is that fans introduce gender diversity to binary characters at some point you have to address the question of canon characters who do not have a binary gender. And I understand how much of a tricky question this is because it’s less easily traced across fandoms and some characters may not have a binary gender in ways that do not track with Western human society (they may have culturally significant genders or be non-human beings etc…), but small numbers and diverse types of genders gets difficult for data visualization purposes.

I wanted to give a long-ish answer (or really, to discuss a number of possible answers, all of which sometimes apply but aren't complete on their own), and I also wanted to open it up to others for ideas, so rather than reply in the notes, I'm replying here.

One answer is to say that I'm limited by the data I have available about canon (e.g., in that past 2018 work I was pointing to about Gender representation in canon vs. fanworks, I was working with someone else's movie data set, which didn't contain any data about canon nonbinary characters). That raises a question for future analyses -- does anyone know of a reliable list of canon nonbinary characters that is kept up-to-date? How good is Wikipedia's List of fictional non-binary characters, e.g.? Also interested in lists of canon trans characters.

(A quick aside, because I'm about to talk about limitations: I'm incredibly grateful for the AO3 tagging system, and everyone who makes it work! In part because it allows me to do far more complex stats about all this stuff than any other fandom platform -- or other media platforms, period. And because it gives us all some pretty outstanding sorting and filtering superpowers. Hallelujah! Okay, now onto some limitations. :) )

Another possible answer is to say that my stats are about how people tag things on AO3. So for the most part, I just follow however people are tagging things on AO3 -- and if AO3 users start tagging more ships as "Other" as they often do when a canon nonbinary character like Jim Jimenez or Desire is involved, some of my tag-based stats will pick up that kind of thing (even though I'm currently investigating F/F and M/M specifically, about which more below, I do often include more shipping categories than that). However, this is also only somewhat satisfying, since tagging practices differ between fandoms and change over time (e.g., I *think* more people used to tag some ships involving nonbinary characters, like LaFontaine/Perry from Carmilla, with gendered tags like "F/F" rather than with "Other" -- though maybe that particular example was just because L/P was often a background ship). And I know the use of "Other" can also be touchy; it can be frustrating to lump together human-only ships like Oluwande Boodhari/Jim Jimenez with ones like Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote, for one thing. (And AO3 could even change some of these tagging options in the future, which might make such data even less useful.)

Another answer is to say, "Nonbinary characters are usually just noise, statistically, because there are so few of them -- I can ignore them most of the time." (Which you nodded to in your question, though you didn't suggest being so dismissive about it. :) ) There are some times when I make those kind of omissions or oversimplifications, though I avoid it when possible. For the purposes of my upcoming "F/F vs. M/M" analysis, this answer and the previous one both come into play -- my initial goal is to look at how explicitly queer fic differs between fanworks tagged "F/F" vs. "M/M." Which will unfortunately miss a whole bunch of queer fanworks featuring nonbinary characters. But I am going to simplify things by initially focusing on those two largest and most explicitly queer ship tags.

A final answer is to say that I've tried to make up for limitations in my other work by explicitly seeking out and analyzing gender diversity in some of my stats, like my analyses of Trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse characters on AO3. [Edit: and then I addressed the possible visualization complexities by looking at each of the common tags -- like "Nonbinary Character" -- separately.] At the same time, because I don't know which characters are trans or nonbinary in canon, those stats have been vague about which gender diversity is coming from canon vs. from fandom -- see my above question about good lists of canon gender diversity. (Also, this doesn't capture types of gender diversity that aren't reflected in the tags.)

Finally, a shoutout to @centrumlumina who does a fantastic job hand-labeling the gender and race of all the characters for the annual top AO3 ships analysis. I am in complete awe. Canon race and gender are both things I wish were easier to analyze/find data about -- but at least for the characters in the top 100 ships each year, Lulu has provided a great data source!

Thanks for the question -- curious to hear if/how others think about this topic.

[todayisafridaynight]

No but that's kind of what I was talking about a couple days ago because like… I really do feel "jealousy" is such a small part even of how Mine feels about Kiryu, let alone of his motivations. So I Guess Instead Of The Tattoo Essay You Get This 💀💀💀

But like his chief concern is not that Daigo feels strongly about him, but that he feels SO strongly about him that his interference with the resort deal can and has endangered lives, including Daigo's own. Like, it's not only that purposefully putting his men in danger for a controversial figure like Kiryu would be bad for Daigo's reputation if it got out, but at least one person has died. Daigo was only ever going to send more men to their deaths, because Kiryu's worth it to him, and he got almost-kidnapped and shot over it.

And it's all for the sake of Kiryu Not Just Taking The L And Moving Somewhere Else With The Kids. That's what I think Mine is getting at with his comments on Kiryu's "hypocrisy": in cutting all ties to the yakuza abruptly to try and do something good with his life, he's also abandoned his responsibilities and is living in almost willful ignorance of the shitstorm his mistakes and his stubbornness lead to, right up until it lands on his doorstep.

In the Okinawa character story, Mine has a moment of genuinely understanding what Kiryu and Daigo are trying to do, and that Kiryu values Daigo's efforts even if he's not aware of the lengths he goes to. That's part of what changes his mind on Kiryu when he came to Okinawa with the intention of killing him.

But when Daigo's shot, he can't bring himself to think Daigo brought it upon himself by interfering, or to look at it neutrally, so even that understanding becomes twisted as he has no one to blame but Kiryu. Kiryu is, after all, the reason Daigo interfered in the first place.

And because he's the CEO of projection and he himself was so easily won over by Kiryu in Okinawa, he thinks that if Kiryu topples the remaining officers, his charisma could carry him to the Seventh Chairman's seat unopposed, permanently. Of course, he's not considering that Kiryu wouldn't even want to do that; kind of like Aoki thinking Arakawa is gunning for the chairman's seat, I guess.

So in his mind, the stakes are incredibly high. Because Kiryu's return would mean neither Daigo nor Mine (believing himself to be the only person capable of carrying out Daigo's will) could be chairman. To Mine, the Tojo Clan is and should remain "The Sixth Chairman's Tojo Clan," so for the chairmanship to go to the man who (in his view) landed Daigo in this coma would be unacceptable.

If he's going into his first proper meeting with Kiryu with that mindset, it's really no wonder that it takes very little for him to actively see Kiryu as his enemy and go to the lengths he does in the finale to provoke him into a decisive battle. Dude was spiraling.

And I think that's the heart of it, because if you really interrogate Mine's perspective, you could honestly make a pretty convincing argument that what we're looking at isn't even jealousy. It reads AS jealousy to the audience and to Kiryu because he sounds like he's mad about Daigo liking him period. But as I've said, it's not actually because Daigo likes Kiryu and not Mine/more than Mine, it's because he likes him despite how often and how badly it comes back to bite him. We just don't get that context until RGGO, and Kiryu never gets that context period.

Which is not quite to say he doesn't, at least subconsciously, want to be liked by Daigo as much as Daigo likes Kiryu. I think it's incredibly incredibly notable that Mine has this fascination towards the people Daigo holds in high regard, and he's initially just curious about what kind of man Kiryu must be for Daigo to like him so much.

You see this play out directly with Mine overhearing Daigo's old friend call him Daigo-san and then, when Daigo tells him not to call him chairman in public (kind of like Shinada on the plane lol), opting to call him Daigo-san too. He could've just gone with Dojima like most people would and Daigo'd be cool with it, but he chose to emulate Daigo's friend, because that's how he wants Daigo to see him.

Huge part of that character story is the way Mine agonizes about not being as close as the term "oath brother" would suggest (especially after being abandoned by Kanda whereas Daigo took a bullet for him). So I can see his curiosity being like, this is another guy Daigo likes, is there perhaps anything about him I could emulate for Daigo to like me more…? Answer's No, but still.

Understanding people is kind of a big deal to Mine, I think. That is, of course, why he joined the Tojo Clan: to understand what makes Daigo tick, and to understand what would make his men want to die for him. So when his attempts to understand Kiryu are frustrated, that seems to get under his skin like almost nothing else. Because I notice that's when he really loses it in the finale, when Kiryu starts talking to him like he understands him while he still doesn't understand Kiryu.

Kiryu is the biggest threat to Daigo in Mine's eyes and it vexes him that he'll never understand why that's even the case. It's completely irrational to him, and because he's never really had family, he'll never really get why this sort of thing is almost second nature between family members who are that close.

About that, On The Lowest Of Keys and to be 100% thorough, I guess it's also a possibility Mine may have misinterpreted their relationship as romantic. Because Daigo goes on and on about how the Tojo is family to him and how Mine's family to him, so for Kiryu to be more than family in a way he can't explain sounds insane.

If you don't specifically know that Daigo means Kiryu has been more of a parent to him than anyone that could be considered his "real" family (i.e. Sohei and Yayoi). And. You know. Daigo doesn't Explain That Part. Not that he has to, but when you're dealing with the CEO of projection...

At the very least, Mine uses horeru for what he thinks Daigo feels for Kiryu in 3, so I just have a feeling he didn't get the memo on, Well, Anything. Perhaps fair enough on his part because 3 came out before a lot of that was explicitly fleshed out but GIRLLL STOPPP

And despite the nuclear levels of secondhand embarrassment that comes with this scenario, it's also… kind of funny. I'll say it. It would be kind of funny. It's like in 0 where Majima thinks one of the girls is going on a date and gets super protective but it actually turns out to just be her dad (massive grain of salt on this I hardly remember 0 so it might not have happened), or even in 3 where Kiryu thinks Haruka's got a boyfriend. Like why is Mine actually kind of dumb it's so endearing

But yeah no that's like… the only real avenue I can see Mine appearing to be jealous, but even then it's tenuous. I can't really make any definitive statements about it, as we've seen. I think at most it's just like, when you think your crush's ex (In Your Mind) is no good for them but they keep defending them; maybe some of that resentment is rooted in your own feelings, but it's also not unfounded. You know. I think Mine's always been a character whose methods and conclusions are much more questionable than his motivations.

YMMV on nearly everything I've said, but I just feel like… leaning into the jealousy aspect is the easy way out. It's easy to understand. You can say that and be done with it without writing over a thousand words (SORRY </3) to back up your point. But I (obviously) think there's so much more complexity to it, and jealousy is almost a fraction of a fraction of it, to me. It may be more time-consuming to examine the rest, but it's worth it.

But also admittedly biased because 95% of what I've seen the fandom do with the premise of Mine being jealous just isn't that appealing to me. I'm sure some would say I'm woobifying him or something here lmao

im getting the most intense feeling of deja vu and i do not know why but anyways.

in the short and sweet of it, i do think the bulk of mines feelings towards kiryu can be explained via their first meeting. his grievances can be quickly summed up through him calling kiryu a 'hypocrite' in that he thinks he can take care of one family while abandoning another and acting as though he can go back and forth however much he wants (and this can be highlighted with how many times mine refers to other people- i.e. hamazaki and the orphans- as kiryu's 'victims')

like a part of it could be jealousy but as you said it's not the main feeling- it's a fraction of a bigger thing and mine's own personal issues

[starberry-cupcake]

So, here’s the thing that doesn’t work for me about Wednesday, in terms of the Addams Family narrative I enjoy (emphasis in “for me” and “I”, this is a personal opinion).

I feel like Wednesday wasn’t Addams enough for me. 

The thing I like the most about the Addams Family is that it works by contrast of absolutes. This opposition uses the Addams as a contrast of another more “normal” reality, established within the realm of domesticity, for whichever medium it’s working with. Some mediums did the adaptation better, some did it worse.  

For the original comic version, the way to do this was through single panel domestic humor. Comics that use, primarily, one panel to tell a story tend to use reader expectation to subvert or complete the joke, with the text being the punchilne. A one panel cartoon in a periodic publication such as The New Yorker used the domesticity expectations of their readership and the Addams had the opposed more macabre point of view to subvert it. The humor is in the clash of opposites but the Addams Family isn’t any less of a family or any less domestic for being spooky, macabre and dark.  

The 60s tv show translated that perfectly because they turned the domestic newspaper format and swap it for what the audience was looking for to obtain domestic representation at the time: the sitcom format. The Addams sitcom triumphs in its humor built on the clash of opposites but develops the family in a way in which their demeanor is always tied to being unaware of their out-of-place-ness. They develop the family in the context of their daily lives as a sitcom would do, but they aren’t an “other” in their own view: unsuspecting visitors, salesmen and neighbors see them as such and the audience is aware of both sides to get the full picture. 

The 90s movies, with a different format, had to find a more complex narrative within the domesticity of the perspective. There are things about the movies I like less than others, but they are evidently successful in what they do. Even when generating antagonists to oppose to the family, and even when these antagonists tend to come from a context that is perceived as more “normal” than the Addams, their antagonistic nature turns them into part of the joke, much more successfully with Joan Cusack’s iconic Debbie. 

What doesn’t work for me is when we can’t successfully sustain that and try to make the Addams fit the mold of a regular hero storyline. What I call “The Elphaba Problem”. 

It seems to be incredibly difficult as of late for media to be able to make a protagonist that isn’t a hero, or on its way to becoming one. In order for a character that used to be a villain, or that is simplistic in its definition, to be a protagonist, they seem to need to be a regular hero in disguise, maybe because they incorrectly think that’s an effective way to avoid being problematic. They need to go Elphaba, Megamind, Wreck It Ralph, Disney Live Action Villain. 

Wednesday Addams isn’t a villain or an antagonist, but she is part of a family of opposites and, after the 90s films, has been irrevocably depicted as the most serious, gloomy, emotionally unavailable, unimpressed and unbothered of the bunch. 

This series, trying to fit her into the world of a teen show, asks of her to fit into boxes she wasn’t meant to fit and it doesn’t work successfully for me that they try to patch it up as they go. The world she’s immersed in doesn’t clash with her with uninterrupted opposition, it asks her to change in order to move on as if she was meant to be part of a regular coming of age show. 

They call her out repeatedly for being a loner, too serious, not emotionally vulnerable and not understanding social cues she’s supposed to fit in, showing her also manipulating others and repeatedly judging her as responsible of things because of what makes her the character she is, and what makes the Addams who they are. 

The narrative gaze shows Wednesday as having to be responsible for the way in which her Addams simplicity impacts with their teen drama reality.

There are even two guys single-handedly deciding she gives them mixed signals (oh how I wish she had been aroace only to allow for that conversation of allo expectations vs aro perception that could have worked so well in one particular scene, even if I know it would generate discourse depending on the Wednesday version we’re talking about and how emotionally available she seems to the viewer, but still). 

I love the cast, I love Luis Guzmán as Gomez, Catherine Zeta Jones as Morticia and Wendnesday’s relationship with Pugsley was so much better than what they did in the last animated film. But. Gomez and Morticia get caught in the same situation Wednesday does and the whole murder mystery they’re involved in is out of character in many ways by trying to fit the Addams into a narrative they can’t thrive in. 

It’s not impossible to develop the Addams, but the essence of their Addams-ness is important for them to work, in my eyes. Trying to placate their opposition to expectations by inserting them in society’s boxes through regular drama doesn’t allow them to thrive. 

Once we were studying Edward Gorey in University and my professor said something I hadn’t really considered about his work: his macabre humor works if the exaggeration isn’t the norm. 

The Happless Child, for example, works as dark humor as an exaggeration of the type of book Gorey was intending to comment on: a children’s story in which the protagonist needs to be good, docile, privileged and unresponsive to get good things in return. The escalating and exaggerated drama in her life that ends in tragedy works as macabre humor because it’s exaggerating in its darkness. However, if you read it in the context of a socially aware standpoint of 2022 and what can actually happen to children out there, it might not be read as funny. It’s not a matter to cancel Gorey or to think badly of his books (at least, I absolutely don’t, I love him) but to see that, in humor, especially dark macabre humor with a touch of social commentary, the social perspective is very important. 

If the Addams are in on it, if they perceive themselves as bad people for being framed for murder, because murder is taken as seriously as it is taken in reality and not as an exaggerated opposition to cardboard domesticity or the reason to make a serial killer like Debbie attractive to Fester, then you stop seeing their macabre as an opposition to work in humor and start seeing it as a problem to solve narratively. For Gomez to be incapable of murder, for Morticia to not be guilty, for Wednesday to have to be emotionally vulnerable to her teen friends, in order to be hero leads. 

They try to compromise, to give a middle of the road solution, but it doesn’t work enough for me so far. I didn’t hate it enough to stop watching it but I was hoping for a better outcome. Not that I think Tim Burton post late 90s has given people the reason to still trust him blindly with anything remotely monochromatic, but the cast was good enough for me to keep going and I hope it becomes more Addams if it goes on. 

[thirddeadlysin]

al gore did not invent the internet and name algorithms after himself so that a bunch of people could somehow believe there's an algorithm on ao3 suppressing fics from becoming popular (?????????) or whatever

[thottybrucewayne]

So like...I wasn't sure how to address this, so I decided to wait until I could articulate my thoughts as clearly and carefully as possible.

I think that lesbians, esp in online spaces, need to be more accommodating to lesbians that don't fit into gender boxes. It really shouldn't take all of this explaining to understand that.

And before anyone starts, this isn't me saying that lesbians have to go out and marry a man or whatever. It's about just acknowledging the fact that the language we use to describe ourselves and how we treat people within the community that don't neatly fit into that language needs work. Bad.

It's not enough to slap "nb" or" "gnc" on a post and feel as tho it's inclusive enough. Idk if you know this, but we recognize when we're being tolerated instead of accepted.

We know that yall just think of us as undercover women or just having fun with pronouns. I think there needs to be a real conversation about how some of yall think of lesbians and bi people who exist outside of your comfort zone with gender as lesser. Someone asking about where multigender or genderfluid lesbians or bi people fit into our spaces shouldn't be handwaved away because it's inconvenient to think about.

The fact that yall even look at questions about multigender lesbians and bi people in our spaces as some sort of gotcha to "prove lesbians can be into men." is a problem in itself. Multigender lesbians and multigender bi people aren't some fantasy hypothetical cooked up in a lab to disrupt the lesbian community or whatever.

There IS a genuine concern when it comes to how we can make the community more accommodating and it's frustrating that we can't even TALK about how without the discussion devolving into "stop trying to find ways to make lesbians technically attracted to men!" As if listening to and talking to the multigender lesbians and bi people who ARE in our community and BEEN in our community will force lesbians to date them??????? The statement "Lesbians can be attracted to multigendered people" shouldn't stir up a "lesbians want nothing to do with men" debate because that's NOT what we were talking about.

Multigender lesbians and bi people aren't the enemy. They in our spaces already! They're a part of us already! They have every right to speak on their treatment within the community and what we, AS A UNIT can do to improve.

[britneyshakespeare]

This is just a map of New England (minus Connecticut the fake New England state)

[criedlikeatrueknight]

something i haven’t seen many people talk about is how being duke at the age of 19 (and he was handed the title at 17 too) affected felix in ways he refuses to acknowledge

the first mention of it is in rodrigue and shez’s c support, which i really thought they were gonna talk about this more in the main plot ???

AND THEN sylvain and dimitri bring it up as well,

i do find it interesting that dimitri mentions it during the expedition when prompted to talk and that sylvain briefly mentions it with ingrid

the closest felix talks about it is when he talks about rodrigue doing the same thing

also felix’s special animation after you reach A support with him is him falling asleep and then waking up, shrugging it off afterwards (other characters do this as well but i just find it interesting that this animation was chosen for felix)

also these lines before and after the expedition, most characters usually say some variant of this cause it is War Time and having a tea party is a quite nice distraction so i’m not looking too hard on these lines but still wanted to acknowledge them

anyways felix please get some rest, you and dimitri are both too young to be handling such responsibilities during war

[exhausted-archivist]

Thedas Scaling vs Real World Scaling

I am once again bothering everyone and their mutuals about how small Thedas is scaled and how it is roughly 200k miles (321,869 km) bigger than Greenland, and 65, 998 miles (106.2k km) larger than Algeria.

A continent that is supporting at least 10.01 million people who range from 4'9 - 8' (1.44 - 2.43 m) in addition to all the mega fauna (dragons, giants, great bears, wyverns, wandering hills, ect.)

To be clear, I'm not saying that a land mass this size couldn't support 10.01 million people. It likely could if you reference the pre-plague numbers of England of which Ferelden is the approximate size of, and Thedas is roughly 12 Fereldens. The population estimate for England was around 1.5 million or more in 1086 and grew to between 3.7 million and 5–7 million. If we go low ball and go with the 1.5 million with the high ball of 7 million, Thedas could potentially support 18-84 million people.

There are many issues with this though, the first one being that when you consider the fact that a large swath is uninhabitable or are unsustainable for large populations; Western Approach, Silent Plains, the Anderfels, and a portion of blighted lands between Antiva and Rivain. Which knocks out roughly 1 Ferelden worth of land. So, subtracting the respective amount leaves us with 16.5-77 million of potentially supported population.

The second issue, is again the mega fauna. Dragons need large amounts of food. Their drakes go out and hunt for food for them, their brood, and the drakes themselves while the high dragon is in her nest. She then goes and eats in vastly larger amounts before she lays a clutch. Considering the size of dragons and that we know there are/were at least 12 at one point. That's a lot of land they'd need to support themselves and their brood.

Then you have giants, wyverns, regular bears, great bears, pheonix, quillback, hyenas, and more. If we focus on bears, such as the great bear which preys on wyverns and dragons and their size, along with the much larger than the average Thedosian bear - which are larger than the largest bear irl who's shoulders average at 5' (153cm) which would be as tall as Varric whose game model is 5' (153cm). The bears themselves would need massive amounts of space to forage and/or hunt. Especially in preparation for winter.

This makes it so Thedas couldn't support the minimum population size it would have of 10.01 million people with the amount of mega fauna it has without extreme clashes near daily without them being hunted to extinction. Which we know they almost did with dragons.

But these are a lot of numbers right? And really how big are those countries I mentioned? Well, here is Algeria (Blue), Greenland (Green), and America (Orange) overlayed over Europe for perspective using The True Size site.

For clearer idea of what this looks like on an individual level:

Greenland vs America

Algeria vs America

America vs Europe

[damnation-if]

I would love to hear you rant about dnd demon cosmology 👀 what potential do you see? You seem to be really good at cool concepts (i.e. the game), soooo what about for dnd?

oh dear... you've activated my trap card XD the question of what potential i see in d&d's cosmology is almost too broad in a way because. they do literally nothing with it. the vast majority of players don't know a thing about it - some might know small parts, from perhaps a book where it came up, a popular podcast that touched on it, or maybe a DM that fell down a rabbithole. but it's IMMENSELY difficult to really put together a proper picture of why the fuck the entire universe of d&d... Is.

i know a shit-tonne more than most people and even my knowledge is largely confined to some of the outer planes, specifically the evil-aligned ones. i couldn't tell you shit about the half-dozen good- or neutral-aligned ones and how they came about, and wizards of the coast doesn't seem even vaguely interested in helping anyone find anything out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

this, to my abject and utter disbelief, extends to the PEOPLE WRITING OFFICIAL FORGOTTEN-REALMS-COMPLIANT CONTENT. meaning that wizards is putting out campaigns and content via official licensing that break or make NO sense within their own canon.

i'm going to put a cut here because be warned... this WILL get long. i'm going to explain... briefly-ish... about the Abyss and some aspects of the Hells, and then i'm going to talk about... briefly-ish... what an absolute TRAVESTY Out Of The Abyss was, lore-wise, and hopefully illustrate how wizards are wasting the potential that exists by NEVER EXPLAINING ANYTHING. (spoilers for Out Of The Abyss also)

okay, whew. rapid-fire. i can do this. briefly.

there's a guy, a god, named Tharizdun - you might know him from some books - and he wasn't always evil or mad. originally he was pretty put together but he liked knowing Stuff and Things so he basically built the equivalent of a telescope to look into the realm of Chaos that existed beyond the known planes. in d&d cosmology, chaos is a force in and of itself that acts as a counter to law; chaos springs up naturally in places like a vacuum or void whereas most physical planes tend to collect law in kinda the same way planets collect an atmosphere.

however, Chaos is different to Entropy. entropy, like in real life, is the force that's eventually going to implode the universe and cause the opposite of the Big Bang (they call it the Big Crunch lmfao). maybe. physicists go back and forth on this but in d&d it's more set. eventually, every plane will be consumed by Entropy and everything will End. (this is expanded on a lot in Starfinder, a scifi sequel of sorts to Pathfinder.) the closest thing to beings aligned with Entropy are the Great Old Ones, your Hasturs and Shub-Nigguraths and Cthulhus... it's why 5e Great Old One Warlock is entirely separate to Fiend Warlock. different guys, different power sources

so anyway Tharizdun built himself a telescope into the Chaos beyond the planes and he found out there were people! living out there! people made of Chaos! and one of them was a sexy tentacle lady! surely her intentions are nothing but pure!! this can't possibly go wrong!!! sorry buddy... try meeting sexy tentacle ladies on your own plane next time

the Queen of Chaos, Tharizdun's new internet girlfriend, was an elder type of demon called an obyrith, who are now the least common type of demon and rarely ever come up in official material at all despite being OBJECTIVELY WAY COOLER than the younger tanar'ri. the vast majority of obyrith are so otherworldly and alien that simply looking upon them is enough to drive mortals mad. knowledge of their names is enough in some cases. whereas the tanar'ri are mostly just mean or gross dudes

unfortunately for Tharizdun, he wasn't immune either, and his telescope relationship with the tentacle lady from the black void started to rot his mind, which was probably supremely awkward for his friends. she was trying to cajole him to let the demons into the plane he lived on, partially because demons like fucking shit up and partially because the swirling chaos void had no protections against the encroach of Entropy and none of the demons wanted to get Eaten.

eventually, between his madness and his desire to meet up with her in meatspace, as 'twere, he was persuaded not to let the demons into his plane, but create one for them to move into, called the Abyss. the demons said "great! we'll pack our bags" figuring that once inside they could just use plane shift to hop over to wherever (plane shift only works if you're On A Plane lmfao) but Tharizdun had the presence of mind to basically build into the Abyss a secret rule that prevented creatures of pure chaos from leaving it. it worked perfectly from his point-of-view - he'd just pop over for a booty call whenever he wanted, and also he doesn't get bitched out by the other gods for letting lowly chaos people into the plane.

the demons. did not take getting tricked well. Tharizdun is currently imprisoned in a layer of the Abyss, frozen eternally.

however, in the brief time before the demons figured out they'd been had, the Queen of Chaos conceived a child with Tharizdun, everybody's favourite 2-baboon-headed badboy, Demogorgon. this is why he's often called the first of the tanar'ri, because he was the first demon born in a physical plane - but he's not REALLY a demon, he's half-god. which is why He and Only He can plane shift (this will be important later). the next guy who is maybe more accurately the first of the tanar'ri is Graz'zt, who was Built by his obyrith mother Pale Night who basically went "eh, screw giving birth, i'm just gonna Make A Guy" but Graz'zt also sort of doesn't count. so. who knows who's really First

the obyrith didn't fare great being in a physical plane for the first time ever so these new demons who didn't need to adjust quickly eclipsed them in power. to this day, Demogorgon and Graz'zt are the two currently most powerful demon lords with any sense of style behind them - the third guy who competes with them is Orcus, who is important purely because he is some writer's Evil Wizard OC, Do Not Stial, and no other reason. i shrimply do not have the time to get into Orcus right now LMAO

the two big boys started beating down the obyrith who wanted to bring them down a peg or two, most notably Obox-ob the former Prince of Demons, who is like. the coolest guy EVER by concept and TOTALLY WASTED, and the Queen of Chaos, who wanted her new boyfriend (she moved on quickly) The Wolf-Spider (i don't know anything about him? he could just be a spider. i Do Not Know) to be the new ruler, and all-out war basically broke out between camps of demons fighting each other.

a bunch of gods saw this and were like "okay, perfect! kill them while they're distracted" and sent a bunch of angels and other powerful celestials to the Abyss led by Archangel Asmodeus (yes, really. yes, THAT Asmodeus). the demons rallied against their common Snooty enemy, and the war turned to angels vs demons. so, how did the powerful archangel turn into the Prince of Hells we all know? well...

he met a guy, who looked Mostly like an angel (probably fine, don't worry about that Asmodeus), called Pazuzu, who was muscular and hot and Asmodeus liked him A Lot. A Lot.

Pazuzu was an obyrith, and he literally Seduced Asmodeus to the Dark Side lmfao. YES, REALLY. that's really canon!! and Nobody knows about it XD that's how devils started! they're just angels!! Pazuzu and Asmodeus are still on good terms!! please for the love of god wizards. do something with Any of this!!!

anyway, that's the Basic history (yes, basic. i know, i'm sorry lmfao). for a perfect explanation of why wizards is wasting All Of This, let's look at a campaign module called Out Of The Abyss, which touted itself as an exploration of the Abyss and its lore. it LIED, believe me. i was SO excited by the concept of Out Of The Abyss, but it disappointed me on SO many levels.

the writer, who i don't personally blame of course, seems to have been given a list of names of demon lords, not been able to do Any research, and just been told "make them all fight in the end." the basic premise is that Lolth, who exists lore-wise purely through the power of boobies. tricks a guy into summoning 8 demon lords to the Prime Material Plane. this would be an Extinction Level Event if it took place within any reality even vaguely resembling proper Forgotten Realms canon.

but for whatever reason, they all instead just sit there twiddling their thumbs (grossly out of character for all 8 that are involved), except for Demogorgon, who... rampages around the Underdark stomping on people because he wants to go home. Demogorgon. who can Canonically. Plane Shift. Canonically. so he doesn't do so for NO reason.

Graz'zt fucking VANISHES, literally isn't MENTIONED, for the entire campaign. the guy who has the biggest cult following out of all of them and the largest power base In the Prime Material Plane? he's just sitting in a closet somewhere i guess. he's got nothing worth doing. what is he, some kind of masterful demon schemer looking for a leg up on his age-old enemy?? haha no... closet time

and what's EVEN WORSE is that none of the demon lords left back in the Abyss DO ANYTHING during their absence. Obox-ob, who swore vengeance against Demogorgon and that he would get his throne back AT ANY COST, is just kicking rocks for the MULTIPLE YEARS the campaign can take place over. doing nothing. Queen of Chaos and the Wolf-Spider? same. she doesn't take the opportunity to try and free her boyfriend from Demogorgon's prisons cos. it would be rude i guess? every demon politely sits there waiting for the mortals to sort things out, because if there's one thing we know about demons, it's how orderly they are! even Lolth, who supposedly did this in an attempt to gain power? doesn't?? do anything?????

-the CRs for these demon lords in the big fight at the end are also WILDLY out of canon alignment with previously used CRs for other demon lords. so completely bonkers i can't even get into it or i'll Never stop-

imagine how cool it could have been if this event that should have impacted huge amounts of story, shaken up the ENTIRE political structure of the Abyss, brought the obyrith back to the fore, forced the gods to finally REALLY confront the fact that Graz'zt and Lolth each have a worship count that rivals their own, explored Demogorgon's half-divine nature, explained the Link (and subsequent Rift) between the Abyss and the Hells, really examined what it means for a demon lord to be so powerful as to possibly become a kind of god.

but no. everybody just sits there in a t-pose until the players push all the buttons to make it go away. why actually do anything Interesting

shortly after (i think?) presumably as a result of what a wet fart of a story this campaign turned out to be, they had Lolth leave the Abyss and become affiliated with an evil god plane. and that's It. it wasn't in a story. they just changed A Word on her wiki entry. that's it

so yeah... hopefully that conveys why i feel the way i do about wasted story potential lmfao. on the extremely unlikely chance that you read all the way to here, thanks for sticking with me. i love to talk about things i'm passionate about... and this one's pretty complicated (hence the wordcount). sorry<3