#made this older comic so problem solved

[eightyuh]

Why does Freya seem to want to murder Glen (although deep down we all want to maul him one way or another)

Freya gets cute aggression!

[kindlingkeen]

I need to know if I’m alone in this or maybe missing something.

It always bothers me when people say Tim’s childhood was so much worse than Jason’s, or even says they’re the same kinda thing. Am I the only one in this?? (More specifically when they compare them) Like it feels like they’re minimizing Jason’s story to nothing, when it makes his character up as much as his death does. (I’ve even seen people compare Tim’s childhood to Jason’s death, which is. A choice.)

Granted, I’m not a big Tim fan (he’s a cool character, just not the one I focus on) so maybe I’ve missed some part of his canonical backstory or ive subconsciously got something against his character idk.

But from my understanding, Tim is a rich kid who was taken care of (as in, he always had what he needed), just his parents were neglectful? Or away? (Not to say this isn’t bad, of course wouldn’t wish that on a kid either)

But Jason’s lived surrounded by crime and poverty, hell we see panels where he’s hurt and generally not havin a great time.

And I’m fine with people making angst worse because like, favourite character. I’m sure I’m guilty of doing the same to Jason (fave character bias and whatnot) it’s just something that strikes me as odd. But hey, maybe I just don’t know about some canon panel that shows Tim’s childhood as a tragedy where he almost died countless times (another thing I’ve seen fans use)

So yeah. Generally, what do you think about this? I am not too great with character analysis & whatever else, but I like the stuff you’ve said in regards to characters. I know you’re a Jason fan, unsure about how you feel about Tim/how much you know, but curious about your opinion anyway. Thanks.

You are not alone, anon.

You’re also not missing anything in canon, Tim’s childhood was not a tragedy (his parents traveled a lot and he spent his time in boarding school). Were his parents on the neglectful side? Yes. Does that equate to being parentless and living on the street before the age of 12? No. I answered an Ask about Tim a little while ago explaining why I don’t really care much for Tim in the comics or a lot of fanfics. And I only ranted a little about how projecting Jason’s trauma onto Tim is Not. Cool. So maybe check that out.

As for my opinion on this … *takes a deep breath* Let me start by saying that everyone should like what they like, read what they want, write what they want, etc. No judgement or shame intended at all.

But … my opinion is that the enemy-to-caretaker trope is to blame for the over abundance of this dynamic in the fandom.

It seems like this trope grew out of/is a Gen take on enemies-to-lovers. I have absolutely no problem with this trope in general. In fact, I quite enjoy it in certain settings. But the thing is, lovers can be equals. But a caretaker, that has an inherent power imbalance to the relationship. A caretaker takes care of a person who is in some way weaker or less able than them.

So, to make Jason a caretaker for Tim, you somehow have to make Tim weaker, and with time and repetition that’s gotten amplified to much weaker.

The easiest way to do this is to jack up the angst and trauma of Tim’s origin story and increase his overall vulnerability. Because in reality, the inherent power imbalance between Jason and Tim is not that significant. Jason is only two years older than Tim. They’re both supposed to be badass vigilantes who can fight and solve crimes. Tim’s home life was loads more stable and supportive.

Play a few games of fanfic telephone, and all of a sudden you have a baseline of touch-starved Timmy who was made to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs as a wee little niblet and then Lazarus-mad Jason came along and tried to murder him repeatedly (nope), slit his throat (‘twas but a scratch), and generally traumatized him beyond repair (Tim is Robin, pretty sure he’s been beaten up before). 🤦‍♀️

That’s my opinion, anon! Thanks for the ask! 💙

[arcadiabaytornado]

Are you more excited for Double Exposure or Bloom and Rage?

Bloom and Rage.

I love "Life Is Strange" and I love "Tell Me Why," so I'm pretty convinced that Bloom And Rage will be good as well. Plus, the story we've seen in the trailer already has me HOOKED. I love the idea of older people coming together to solve a mystery in their teen years, so I think at the very minimum the story will be intriguing.

I'm excited for Double Exposure...but I'm also scared. I'm scared that it's attached to the first game. I'm scared about how it's going to handle the first game given how well Before The Storm handled being a prequel. I'm scared about it's quality because I think Before The Storm and The Comics (Both made by Decknine) have a lot of problems. And I'm scared by the sheer amount of trailers for it. I'm not sure why exactly on that last point. But...I don't know something about dropping 200 trailers encouraging people to pre order just seems weird.

I'm excited for some things about DE don't get me wrong. I'm super excited for the winter atmosphere, and I love Max's character so I don't hate seeing her again. However, if I'm being totally honest at this point I think I'm slightly more worried than excited. Here's hoping this post ages badly! (Well, the parts about Double Exposure. May the parts about Bloom and Rage age like fine wine.)

[woundjob]

taking a break from comics work to post about morrowind headcanons. this is entirely @thescrolls-haveforetold idea, from this post!! i thought this was clever so i made one too :> the great thing about the intentional omissions and mystery in morrowind is that the player can read every relationship differently!!

some notes:

- Voryn actually likes Vivec, he just doesn’t interact with him enough bc Vehk talks too much. Vivec thinks Voryn is creepy bc he’s always next to Nerevar. Or like, 3 feet behind Nerevar. He doesn’t know they’re fucking until Ayem tells him years later

- Sotha distrusts Ayem but not enough to make a big stink out of it. Sorry buddy, that was your downfall. Almalexia cares for him genuinely and supports him until… you know.

- literally all of the big fives problems would be solved with some communication honestly. Polycule couples therapy when

- also for clarity’s sake. They’re all in love with nerevar in different ways and that love and subsequently that grief is what tears them all apart. To vehk he is an older brother and inspiration. To sotha he is a younger brother worth protecting. To Ayem he’s the worm in her ear, the shackle around her ankle, the start and end of everything. She is as obsessed with him as dagoth, and like dagoth, her love turns to hate. It was never gentle, but is even less so when she, after all, begins to realize that she will never overcome him. Even after she kills him he cannot die. She can never win. And to dagoth, well. He’s god. Nerevar is surrounded by idiots alike in their love for him and nothing else. They’re nothing without him and they’re all aware of that and that’s the tragedy of it. I need a snack.

[elliemarchetti]

Double Wedding

I don't know if I nailed today's prompt for @jilymicrofics, but the idea of ​​James and Sirius being married was too funny not to delve into.

Prompt: Astounded

Words: 489

Lily was astounded. Perhaps shocked would’ve been the right term, although, knowing the characters she should’ve expected it. Marlene, however, was furious.

“Remind me why I shouldn’t kill one of you and solve the problem,” she hissed, a suspicious, and frankly slightly concerning, coldness in her voice.

“Because you would be sad about it if you did?” suggested Sirius, immediately retreating when his girlfriend glared at him.

Lily didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In itself, the situation would’ve been extremely comical, if only James and Sirius hadn’t forgotten to tell them, and the small omission, as they defined it, wasn’t messing with Marlene’s vision.

Their fiancees were already married to each other. A foolish decision, took when they were fresh out of Hogwarts, during a drunk night out with Remus and Peter, who acted as their witnesses, which was now having considerable consequences on the organization of two real weddings.

“Look at it this way,” James ventured, turning to Marlene, “you could traumatize so many old ladies by introducing yourself as Sirius’s lover for the rest of your lives.”

The blonde girl seemed to ponder the possibility, but ultimately decided it was far better to be the new, and only, Mrs. Black.

“I want Walburga to turn in her grave at the thought of what I’ll do to the good name of her noble and most ancient house,” she ruled.

“That’s why I love you,” murmured Sirius, and in the blink of an eye they were reconciled, and were making out like teenagers. Sometimes, Lily was convinced their brains were still stuck at seventeen, trapped in bodies that were inevitably destined to grow old, but she felt no resentment for their ways, considering what they had been through to get there.

“And you?” James queried, sliding one of his long arms around Lily’s shoulders to pull her closer. “What do you want?”

Lily raised her head to meet his deep brown eyes, to study every detail of his features, and how his dark, always dishevelled hair fell on his forehead. She wanted to see him struggle with his glasses every morning, and be there when his first white hair made its appearance in the beard he was desperately trying to grow in an attempt to look older. She wanted a house all for them, a welcoming place, where they could invite friends for dinner and board games night, where they could mature as a couple and start a family…

“What are you thinking about?” he inquired, his face now decidedly closer, so much so that their noses were almost touching.

“What happens once we say I do,” she admitted, the hint of a smile she didn’t want to contain making its way to her lips.

“Second thoughts?” he asked, vaguely horrified.

Lily shook her head. She couldn’t imagine her life without James anymore, no matter how much the bullshit from his youth would haunt them in adulthood.

[littleststarfighter]

I love you guys

I first want to say sorry for not replying to everyone individually. I’m honestly overwhelmed by getting so many loving messages. So so many!!! I don't know where to begin. So I wanted to do a mass thank you because this way I don't leave anyone out. I’ve read and cherished them all, every one. I was having such a bad day that day, and really you all made me feel so much better and more welcome. I want those who are going through what I’m going through to know they are not alone either. I’m here for you as much as you are here for me, so please never think you are alone in this. So many of us are going through hell and it makes you feel so adrift. I hope something changes for the better for us all. 

I’m late to say thank you too as I’m with my sister at the moment. She saw I was down and has given me a bit of a holiday away from my neighbours at her place. It’s so quiet at her house. Well apart from my nephew getting me involved in his Spiderman obsession. I can't complain, I love Spidey. I’m feeling so much better. I guess I just needed a break from all the noise and stress. We're also planning a camping holiday come summer so that will be something to look forward to. Also, planning to do my driving lessons this year with her help as that will solve my work problem so much. I’m so nervous about that.

I’m also chuffed to bits to know there are also so many older fans. It’s always been something I loved in knowing that as we grow we never leave things we loved behind. And why should we? I wish I knew what changed in fandom to make so many people so ageist and hateful toward anyone over 30. It didn't used to be so bad, and I do hope that it changes. No one young or old should be made to feel awful for loving things so much they want to create, talk and share. The first person to get me into a fan community and make me feel I had a place as a little geek was an older lady I met at my town's old second hand book shop. We just started chatting over X-men comics (I loved the New Mutant and was a bit of a Rahne & Dani fan) and TSR books. She introduced me to Kirk and Spock shipping when I admitted I saw them as close. And wow was I in love with what she showed me. I even saw my first fanart in Susan Lovetts work and knew that's what I wanted to do. After that I got online in 95 and never looked back. I’ve been in so many fandoms and known people of all ages and called them my friends. So I truly hope that the anti olds things that is gripping some fandoms right now becomes a thing of the past and we can stop being so negative on people for daring to age.

Again thank you from the bottom of my heart for your caring and heartfelt messages. I feel so rubbish for not replying to you all, and I’m sorry, but I hope you all know you helped me. You are all the absolute best. I’ll see about getting some more drawings started when I come home. I’ve got some things that I kind of want to do that I've been promising myself I’d draw for years and feel I should start. I get sad I can't be a pro but at least I can still draw and get to share my joy at creating something with you guys. Thank you for all the sport and love.

Love and many hugs, Lucy

[jesncin]

J'onn is like the perfect anthology man. Shapeshifting means he goes to lots of places as lots of people and therefore has the widest variety of experiences. I think he suffers a lot with comics that are caught up on huge plots and character arcs where there's no filler ever—he's perfect for older-style comics, where each issue presents a new problem and any overarching interpersonal plots are second to that.

I wish they'd give him a solo that leaned heavily into the "solving mysteries as John Jones" angle, with a completely new mystery every week. Bonus points if it has similar vibes as Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville (low stakes, lots of recurring characters, the power of friendship). One of his most interesting facets is the way he interacts with people and lives as a person on earth! I think power creep has made it so that every single situation has to hold the fate of the entire universe in its hands, and unfortunately authors tend to write him as more of a plot device than a character in such high stakes settings.

Agreed! I've gushed with my DC friends that it would be incredible if there was a Martian Manhunter anthology where each writer from a different cultural background was in charge of one story and one human persona for J'onn inspired by their identity. I feel we rarely go in depth with his different personas when that's inherently so interesting and makes him stand out from other heroes.

Yeah totally! We were so close with Orlando's run, but that was more cop drama than it was detective sleuthing but it was still fun to see him actually use his abilities to solve a mystery.

Exactlyyy I think writers get lost in how powerful J'onn is as a martian, and lose sight of his culture shock/fish out of water experiences. "Superman but if he arrived on Earth as an adult with far more othering alien powers" is a great pitch for a hero and is so rarely used to its potential. Justice for my green guy :')

[trivyade-art]

Almost at my 20s; am I too old to make manga digitally?

I’m almost at my 20s and I’m bad at completing comics stories to take action writing and making manga/webcomics. I just want to complete my own manga before age 20. But I’m bad at starting and figuring out how to translate what I thought about and put it down in words and on paper. Even though I didn’t know the words “manga” and “anime” as a kid, and only found it based on games and stuff (online and in some ticket redemption arcades), I loved comics and graphic novels and tv shows as a kid. But I also liked manga, and the art styles of shounen, shoujo, and kodomomuke manga and anime, as I grew older and found ways to watch it or read it online for free. So basically my goal is still sort of intangible to grab, but I love to draw and write stories and even wanted to complete my stories and share them with others. And I want to find a way to pursue these dreams, especially through making my own all-ages manga/comic. But I don’t know how to complete writing my own comic stories (and yes I know the 5 part plot structure) but how do I apply what I learned and made for my story and then write it down? And how do you write manga stories for “kodomomuke” and “all ages” (like similar to “Moomin”, or “Peanuts”)?

Has anyone started a manga/comic career when they were close to age 20? or even around their 20s? And have you used digital media for their manuscript“name” process for their manga, once they finished planning on paper and pencil? And has anyone started a career to make manga/webcomics in their 20s and can still maintain family life and bonds? I have some doubts that I can pursue my dream of writing and making all ages manga before I become 20 years old, because there was a Japanese mangaka Ran Tokiwa (ときわ藍 ) who won a grand prize at the 2015 77th Shogakukan Newcomer Comic Award Grand Prize…at age 14 (at the time of the contest)! Which is really good for her (and her art is really cute), but got me worried and nervous because I didn’t start immediately to get my work published as a middle school person. Also I do have a lot of manga stories, but I don’t know how to place my roleplaying story from thoughts, to notebook; Has any person around their 20s had this problem, and how did you solve it?

[allhailthemightyquattro]

Got around to watching The Star Beast, so thoughts:

The good:

Donna Noble is back!

Murray Gold is back!

Love the opening credits. Best they've been since Matt Smith (Capaldi's credits weren't bad, but this sequence is better).

Beep is so cute! The special effects department/props department deserve all the praise.

Beep is so evil! Love to see my little war criminal embrace their megalomania.

Sylvia's reaction to hearing the Doctor's voice was priceless!

I love how they addressed trans issues. It didn't feel like a tv show telling us that they support trans people and that we should too. It felt like a tv show showing us trans issues. They had a trans character and their family facing problems that a trans person and their family could (and do) face in the real world, and they let the audience decide if they are okay with that happening or not. Showing people a particular side of an issue will always be more helpful than simply telling people that their side is wrong. The hardcore transphobes won't be swayed either way (and probably would only be watching to authenticate their hate) so addressing the issue with them in mind would have at best alienated the audience and at worst insulted them (looking at you last few minutes of Orphan 55).

I particularly liked that they included Sylvia's difficulty with knowing what to say to Rose. It's clear she loves her granddaughter exactly how she is (a great contrast between her treatment of Donna in series 4) but she doesn't know if she's doing things right. It's something that I don't often see addressed in internet fandom spaces, where every small slight is condemned as a terrible offense. Changing cultures is a learning curve.

I think they had a shot of Rose at Donna's wedding at the beginning, which helps (but doesn't really solve) the age issue. Donna started dating Shaun in 2009 and is not visibly pregnant at the end of that year, meaning 2010 is the earliest possible year Rose could have been born, making Rose 13 if this episode is set in 2023. Having the wedding scene from the End of Time be set after Rose was born helps with believing Donna could have been pregnant during that story.

The TARDIS looks pretty cool. I love the call back to the classic TARDISes.

The Doctor proudly proclaiming that Beep was defeated by the DoctorDonna as he holds Donna in his arms 🥹

Shirley Anne was awesome.

Donna's little speech about Wilf when convincing Sylvia to let her go, reminding us that Wilf also suffered a loss when Donna lost her memories.

The psychic paper not catching up and listing the Doctor as a "mistress".

Rose inheriting the metacrisis. There is a catch to this that will be explained in the next section, but by and large I loved the idea.

The not-as-good:

I was hoping for a few more non-RTD references considering it's the 60th anniversary. I know we still have two more specials to go, so I should be patient, but it's still a little disappointing.

I'd hoped they would do something a little different than the comic. The comic is great, so this isn't really a bad thing, I'd just hoped for something more.

Having the metacrisis be a reason for Rose's transness (is that a word?) wasn't great. Everything else about the reveal was great - the toys, the shed, her name - but her gender being part of that just cheapened the issue they were doing so well with. Just for the sake of being clever. I suppose you could say they were making a point about time lord gender, but that point has been made. It got made years ago. It wasn't needed.

For most of the episode, Finney being older than her character didn't bother me... except when they showed her friend, who was played by someone much closer her character's supposed age. The age difference was very hard to ignore in those scenes.

Beep mentioning "the boss". Very menacing and very foreboding... but the Most High does not have a boss. The Most High is the most high and death upon whoever says otherwise!

Donna and Rose just letting the metacrisis go kind of ruins her goodbye in Journey's End and is somehow both lazy and overthought. Sharing the metacrisis between two people would have been a convincing enough reason for it to not kill Donna. They had their fix it already. And it was a good one! They didn't need to add another, much worse one.

[being-of-rain]

I listened to The Last Day, Big Finish's lead-in to the TV Movie. It was more or less what I expected from the fact that it's a sequel to Dark Universe, co-written by that release's author and script editor. Which is to say, it reminds me of a lot of Event Comics from DC or Marvel: bombastic and full of spectacle, has a Big Deal premise and lots of characters crossing over, happy to do a character-assassination or few to make the plot work, and ultimately not particularly good.

I think I'll just write down my thoughts in dot point form. Spoilers ahead. There's a few positives mixed in there somewhere, I swear.

In case you don't know, the plot is that the Doctor takes over the universe (using all-powerful creatures from another universe that have decided to whatever he tells them to) in order to solve everyone's problems by destroying species and rewriting people's timelines. Ace puts together an over-complicated plan involving many of the Doctor's friends and enemies to stop him.

-The premise of Seven finally going full control-freak might make for a good finale to a character arc (maybe) with a story arc and writers that really do justice to the character. These were not that. Unless I missed something, there's no explanation whatsoever why the Doctor took over the universe - no inciting incident, one day he just got tired of not taking it over I guess.

-And honestly, the vibe I got from basically every EU story I've consumed is that Seven was more of a master manipulator in the middle of his life, and as he grew older he mellowed and grew tired of masterplans. So personally, this feels far from "natural progression" the writers claim it to be for Seven's final days.

-The story really didn't act as a great finale to any arc, really. It didn't feel like a necessary continuation to any of the characters' stories. It didn't even really do anything with Ace's anger at the Doctor that bubbles over at the very end of Dark Universe, too late for that story to do anything at all interesting with it. To be completely honest, I'm not even certain if the hero Ace of this story (as opposed to the Evil Ace also in this story) is supposed to be young Ace or old Ace. I assume Old Ace since she's on the covers? (and a comment made by Roz that I wasn't sure which way it was supposed to be read). But to be fair the cover uses a young Hex and Sally when they're supposedly several decades older in this, a young Seven because for some reason they don't have the rights to TV Movie Seven, and a young Mel when god knows how/if this fits into her timeline.

-The covers are also just bland in general. Marvel movie poster disease.

-One positive that Event Comics have that this doesn't is that there isn't any fresh new story arcs starting from this story either. Given how utterly disinterested Big Finish is in creating any ongoing arcs or connected series or anything that's not as standalone as they can make it, they can't really do big Event Stories. The events of The Last Day will be lucky to ever get mentioned again - which is wild when you consider this is the time the Doctor decided to take over the universe. I saw someone online say 'it's hilarious that the Doctor will spend their lives being ashamed of the War Doctor for picking up a gun when Seven did THIS' and it's TRUE.

-All this plus the fact its set in a universe where timelines are altered in order to bring back dead characters (and presumably return them to the grave by the end although they didn't go into that) makes this story feel much more like an alternate universe What If style tale, with about as much impact on the franchise as that would suggest.

This is going to be a long post, I can tell. But I want it to be just one post so... take breaks if you need to. Drink water. Now, what else.

-The story was naturally presented as the bringing together of lots of elements from Seven's life, but I think it's far more accurate to say it's the bringing together of lots of elements created by these writers specifically. The majority of characters, species, and concepts not from the TV show were created or mostly developed by Guy Adams and Matt Fitton, and considering how iffy I find so much of their combined bibliography, that was not a happy discovery for me. The Quantum Possibility Engine, a story by Adams without much impact on the franchise, is honestly more necessary required reading than Dark Universe.

-Probably the most obvious example of this is Mother Finsey, featured on the cover of Part One, who previously appeared in a single Third Doctor story by Adams. She has a fun premise, being an ex-companion of the Master, but it wasn't necessary to this story to include her.

-Another example is Stenn the Sontaran, is a specific Sontaran from the random Fitton sontaran story Starlight Robbery (which I absolutely wouldn't have known if not for the behind the scenes interviews). And the real reason that annoys me is: do you know who else is in Starlight Robbery? Elizabeth Klein! A fantastic Seventh Doctor companion who feels tailor-made not only for a Seventh Doctor final story extravaganza, but for this story in particular!! I don't know why or who made the decision not to include her, but it's hard to feel cheated when she was left out and so many other characters weren't.

Okay, I know I'm getting nitpicky and personal but honestly... I want to be nitpicky about this. I try to be so objective and fair in my reviews sometimes, let me be nitpicky about this one.

That said, we're up to a few things I liked!

-I did rather like Ace in this story (mostly). She's the one leading the plan to stop the Doctor, and listening to her fly around in the TARDIS coordinating plots and pulling strings felt so right to me. I've always loved the idea of her taking after the Doctor, learning from him in the way the TV show started all those years ago, so in that one respect, this story felt like it was culmination of decades of build up. Other stories have definitely shown parts of that, but this one feels the most like Ace carrying on the legacy of the Doctor. It feels wrong to be complimenting this story on how it treats the Ace and Doctor relationship, for reasons we'll come to later.

-My favourite single episode of the twelve-parter has to be the second one. Episode one's cliffhanger of Ace saving someone who turns out to be the Master, happily asking him to help save the universe, and him laughing his head off, put me in a gleeful mood. And that continued throughout episode two, in which Ace puts together her suicide squad of villains. Not even the out-of-place Mother Finsey or the obnoxious Garundel being part of it could dampen my spirits.

-When Big Finish announced that Kane, from 1987's Dragonfire, was returning, I rolled my eyes. But damn it if he didn't become my favourite part of this story. Hearing a fully-realised Ace face off against her teenage self's first ever villain, this time with flamethrower to make him sit down and have a civil conversation, was delicious, and worked wonderfully as the framing story for episode two. He was also a surprisingly good character in his own right, fiercely intelligent and quick to follow everything going on, but without being loud and annoying about it like the Time Lords and their companions. His airs of respectability made it extra fun for him to be walking around in a cooling survival suit like Mr Freeze. I never thought I'd come out of this thinking 'that was kind of a better sequel to Dragonfire than anything else' and 'I wish we got more Kane' but here we are.

-The Master was also incredibly fun. Guy Adams sometimes has a way of writing characters that's very... I'm not sure how best to describe it. Abstract? Philosophical? Slightly off? It'll sound like he's trying to get the best quotes or thinking points out of them, rather than what they might realistically say (like how James Goss writes, but less so). And while I might not like it all the time, it works great for the Master, especially when he's not the main antagonist. Instead he'll skulk around the other characters, enjoying himself and having lots of the best lines. Geoffrey Beevers is, as always, a delight.

That was a lot of good things! You can't accuse me of not finding things to like. Remember to stand up and stretch, by the way. Relax the tension in your shoulders.

-Now, to talk about the end. I was curious how it was actually going to tie into the TV movie, and remained so for most of the story because it was not obvious. In the end... well I only just listened to it today, but first impressions is that I don't like how they did it.

-At the time it was announced that the Master was going to be in The Last Day, I was hyperfocusing on the Master's timeline, so I was incredibly intrigued by Big Finish finally linking the decayed Master they introduced in 2001 to the next incarnation. In the final episode, his bitter ex-companion Finsey kidnapped him and simply dumped him on Skaro, which did feel rather contrived considering how much she seemed to want to personally finish him off.

-What annoyed me more (and now I'm going to get mad at something very niche) is that just before dumping him, Finsey makes a comment about the Master 'looking healthier' and he says that he picked up a new regeneration cycle while he was on Gallifrey. Beevers voice doesn't really change at all, so I guess they're saying that he didn't properly regenerate but just grew skin and a goatee (and switched his ragged cloak for a sharp suit) and it was the Beevers Master that appeared at the start of the TV movie? A few years ago Big Finish put some hard work and a fascinating story behind giving the Master a new regeneration cycle after the TV movie, but now they're apparently saying before that he just casually picked one up, didn't even use a full regeneration out of it and then lost the whole cycle immediately. That's even stupider than the Thirteenth Doctor getting her life back from the Master then dying again twice over the next day.

-Now on to the Doctor's ending. I'll tell you what happened. As soon as Ace gets face to face with him, he gives the whole universe takeover up, which was rather anticlimactic, but rather more in-character than deciding to do the takeover in the first place, so whatever. He goes to have a drink at a cafe with Ace and then she 'accidentally' gets a drink spilled on him. He goes to change clothes in the TARDIS and gets a call while there- from Narvin, telling him the Master has been killed on Skaro and would like to be picked up. The Doctor muses that if he wasn't in the TARDIS at this exact moment he would've missed the message and someone else would've gone (because Time Lords don't have voice mail I guess) and outside Ace says "Manipulative people always become something dark. I'll have to watch out for that. Hopefully I'll have a friend who loves me enough to stop me. Goodbye, Doctor."

-Now, I like the idea of tying the very end of Seven's life to Ace, the most important relationship in that life. But having her have him killed because he was too dangerous sure is A Choice. My conception of Seven's life story was someone who got worse and then regretted it and mellowed. This story suggests he got worse and worse until his closest friend had to kill him. Yowza.

-This continues what I hated from Dark Universe: the idea that Ace and the Doctor's relationship is ultimately bad. I hate that! I enjoy some depth and some toxicity to relationships but Ace and Seven just don't seem THAT bad to me, and are both characters I want to have happier endings. And these two stories feel like they treat the topic with surprisingly little depth either, both of them simply finishing with 'and they were bad for each other, The End' before they could start an interesting discussion!

-There's an Evil Ace in this story, an alternate timeline Ace who the Doctor picked to take care of Earth for him- by being its authoritarian ruler, of course. And I think her only real purpose in the story, apart from being a reference to Ace's many canon timelines (again a reference rather than a discussion), is to show how bad the Doctor and Ace can be for each other and for everyone else. But it feels so flat for me, because neither character would act like that! "Manipulative people always become something dark" is such a boring and shallow thesis.

-It's made clear that part of the reason Evil Ace can be so cruel and callous is her time studying with the Time Lords and feeling superior with them, which she did early during her travels with Hex. I do hope this isn't suggesting that the 'prime timeline Ace' (if there could possibly be such a thing) didn't train with the Time Lords, or it would've been a bad thing if she did. I like Time Lord Ace.

-On another topic, Narvin being the one to tell the Doctor to go pick up the Master is funny. Put that man in vital parts of Dr Who lore. He hates it. And it just makes it funnier when Narvin and the Doctor reintroduce themselves every so often like they've never met before.

-Oh, and the scene that Doom Coalition and Dark Universe share has the Doctor being told that the president has one more request for him, implied to be that he pick up the Master. So I guess this story (which is, I again stress, the sequel to Dark Universe) just ignores that jskldjf. Dr Who would truly rather die than have a coherent canon in any parts of the franchise.

Anything else I want to say? Oh the other companions.

-It was nice to hear a bunch of the companions again. They probably didn't need so many returning characters, and by the end I had trouble remembering who was where, but I can't blame them for going all out (or as all out as they felt like, anyway.)

-It was cute how Hex and Sally named their kids for Hex's mum, Hex's friend from his first story, and especially Evelyn <3 I hope Sally got some say in the matter. Honestly their segments were slightly too Family Melodrama for me, but that's personal taste.

-Probably the most boring episode was episode four which was just Mel and Benny running trying to avoid Hob from The Quantum Possibility Engine (and the DWM comics, but none of Seven's). Benny's always at least charismatic with a good actor, and I was worried that this was her only appearance, so I'm glad she returned in the second box set for some more wisecracks.

-Given the TV show's recent retcons, Big Finish forgetting its own plotlines, young Mel being used on the cover, and this being something of a sequel to her previous appearance travelling with Seven and Ace, it's possible this could be the last appearance of the Mel who reunited with Seven in A Life of Crime and had more adventures with him. As well as, I suppose, an opportunity to explain it away as a changing timeline, if you want to do that kind of thing.

-Lysandra died and I assume she came back to life at the end. Quite a few characters died but she was one of the only ones who wasn't either brought back to life during the story or was dead before it started anyway. I suppose Vienna Salvatori also fits into that category? So yeah they're both probably alive again, it's fine.

-Roz's death in the novels was actually a plot point, which is yet another time Big Finish has tied itself closely to the New Adventures in some ways while contradicting them in others (I'm thinking of the Master specifically). I don't mind though, that's something that's been going on for 25 years now. One day the EDAs might get the same treatment.

Anything else?

-The incidental music was bad. I think it was just recycled from previous audios, but even if it wasn't it almost always felt really out of place and took me out of scenes all the time.

-Oh Brax got a mention which was fun. In the Doctor's new universe he exiled Brax who then died, much to the Doctor's distress. Big Rip moustache man.

That's all I can think to say about this set right now. So overall it had it's fun parts, but failed to be much of a big event, and had a really bad take on Seven and his relationship with Ace.

[vikenticomeshome]

The Cyberchase Homepage Through the years: part 1 (December 28, 2001 through December 12, 2004)

I decided to collect some screenshots showing the evolution of the Cyberchase area on the pbskids.org website over the years. Keep in mind that this is based off Wayback Machine archives, so I am limited to whichever variants the web crawler captured. They didn't necessarily crawl every time the page updated. There may also be assets missing, as the Wayback Machine doesn't always grab everything.

Let's start with the earliest known capture. This is from December 28th, 2001. This was 24 days before the show premiered.

We can see links to the webisodes, which were a set of official prequel web comics. There is a link to the original e-card creation page, as well as a link to the "What is Cyberchase?" page that explains the premise of the show.

The next major revision came up after the show released. The earliest capture of this page was on February 2nd, 2002. However, I picked a capture from August 3rd, 2002, as it was the earliest capture that wasn't missing any assets. We can see Jackie setting down to play the old Cyberchase flash game "Symmetrizer", while Matt is leaning on a small table near the TV that is advertising Season 1 Episode 18 "Problem Solving in Shangri-la". Inez and Digit are missing for some reason. Why is Buzz here without Delete?

They made a Christmas version of this page. The only capture I found was from December 3rd of 2002. They put some lights around their logo. Matt is now wearing a Santa hat. Jackie has a giant bow in her hair. Inez and Digit are still nowhere to be found. Did Matt and Jackie kick them out for breaking the TV?

The earliest capture I found of the next major update to the site was from December 3, 2003. Does anyone remember the "PBS Kids Go!" rebranding where they tried to market some of their shows to slightly older audiences? Inez and Digit are finally allowed to be in the group photo. They now have two TVs, as well as some combination of a computer and arcade cabinet. Why are Buzz and Delete here?

This version of the site got a Valentine's Day update to promote Season 2 Episode 1 "Hugs and Witches". This capture is from February 8th, 2004.

So, this capture from June 9th, 2004 is the same version of the site as prior to the Valentine's Day update. However, I thought I should include it because Creech and Slider popped in for a cameo.

Here is a capture from June 6th, 2004. It contains a summer promotion by Delete. It also replaced Jackie with a clone of Inez. This may have been a mistake in the website itself, since it seems to randomly pick a kid to put in a place on this background. Otherwise, the Wayback Machine may have grabbed the wrong image somehow.

And then, they cloned Matt on June 27, 2004. This must have been a mistake in the webpage code where they put the same kid in two places.

Yeah, Jackie got her turn to be cloned on June 29, 2004.

There was a layout update that added a promotion for new shows. I grabbed this example from September 3rd, 2004. It also shows off a contest from the time, which deserves its own post.

Fast-forwarding to October 13th, 2004, we have the kids in their Halloween costumes from Season 2 Episode 14 "Trick or Treat". We also see an advertisement for Season 3 Episode 11, "Shari Spotter and the Cosmic Crumpets". Apparently, they also fixed the duplication glitch.

On November 11th, 2004 We get a link to the winners of that contest.

This capture from December 12, 2004 shows that the kids have decorated for Starlight Night. We also see an advertisement for Season 3 Episode 12 "Starlight Night".

This seems like a good place to leave of for now. I didn't realize how many variants there were until I got into it. I will make a part 2 at some point.

[galen-the-technomage]

when I made way too many notes on John Boulton (although apparently not his last four eps... which I should do at some point), I also made a list of common things in his eps which I figure I should share now for fun. I wonder how many single eps would cover enough of these to win a bingo square.

Solves problems, causes problems, gets physically assaulted, manipulates someone, breaks down a door, gets a result, fails, alienates colleagues, bullies a snout, wildly misjudges someone he likes, has chemistry with an older man (or just a man, I guess), has a comical interaction with Reg Hollis, gets so impatient he looks like he will launch into the stratosphere, has a complaint against him, threatens someone, pouts, gets told to ‘cool off’ or similar, violates PACE, keeps information to himself, micromanages, sits in CID in the dark, almost cries, single-mindedly goes after a villain when he shouldn't be, tells someone (usually a DC) to come with him and leaves the room before they have had a chance to react.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

What are your thoughts on Kamala taking lead with the Young Avengers?

In the MCU? I like it -- I feel like her fandom of Carol and the Avengers makes it fit to have her go out and try to create a new superhero team of other young heroes, because she would be the one sitting there thinking about it and going, "The Avengers are gone, but the world still has problems. I can't solve them all on my own/learned teamwork with Monica and Carol/can honor Monica by being a hero/love other nerds who love superheroes," you know?

And especially given Secret Invasion, it wouldn't make any sense to have Fury be the one to put together the Young Avengers. Although the timeline with him is fucky because they switched the release dates of The Marvels and Secret Invasion, so whatever.

And in the comics, Kamala was the leader of the Champions, so it totally makes sense that she'd lead the MCU Champions/Young Avengers crossover team (because they're not going to have both, let's be real. There's also so many fucking movies/shows). Billy and Tommy are currently too young AND have THE most confusing backstory in comics, so putting either of them in charge wouldn't make the most sense. Cassie is on the West Coast. Kate is, as she tells Kamala, a bit older, and also Hawkeyes tend to be pretty solitary workers. Skar is... whatever the fuck is going on there that I'm pretending isn't going on over there. Peter is busy trying to eke out a living on his own in this universe, so he's probably both busy AND too traumatized to make new connections this soon. Eli hasn't made his heroic debut yet, although we've seen him. Yelena's a Thunderbolt. Love Thorsdottir is way too young. Phyla-Vel is in space. Toussaint/T'Challa and Morgan are too young. I feel like Kamala's the only one who COULD do it in a reasonable way, you know?

I feel like I'm forgetting someone. RIRI! Riri could do it, but again, she's older in this universe (college) and my insane "the MCU could make sense if they would do [X]" brain keeps insisting that she's going to be MJ's roommate at MIT in Ironheart or SM4. BECAUSE THEY'RE BOTH AT MIT. AND MIT CAN'T BE *THAT* BIG. IT WOULD MAKE SENSE, MARVEL. PLEASE MAKE SENSE.

I want the Young Avengers to be so good that it knocks me on my ass. I want it to be so good that it knocks Trendy MCU Haters on their asses. And I want Kamala to get to have that. Iman is SO wonderful and Kamala is SO great, and I want people to love her the way she deserves, dammit.

Also, if VisionQuest isn't canceled (which, who the fuck knows) -- I want it to be exactly Vision (2015), which is just exactly WandaVision but this time Vision's the one who created a fake family out of heartbroken madness. And I want Viv Vision in the MCU. I love Viv Vision so fucking much.

Also, I want My Blorbo Nadia! It could happen!!! Hank banged a lady named Linda while Janet was boinking Bill Murray in the Quantum Realm, so Hank could TOTALLY have a daughter that was in the Red Room (WHOM NATASHA AND YELENA FREED??? IN BLACK WIDOW??? MY HEART?!!?) and is a science genius who comes to find the Pym/Van Dynes and is just like, "Hello, I am here now, I love you, family!"

I don't know how they can reasonably have Hulkling after the MCU's version of Secret Invasion AND how the MCU Kree are so unilaterally evil. But also, the MCU is homophobic af so they probably won't have Hulkling anyway. >:(

Just... ::exhale:: There are so many fucking threads open within the MCU thOH MY GOD I FORGOT AMERICA CHAVEZ ALSO THERE ARE SO MANY OPEN THREADS AND I'M TRYING TO TIE THEM TOGETHER ON MY RED STRING BOARD AND THEY WON'T TIE TOGETHER, HOLLIE, THEY WON'T TIE TOGETHER.

I just want. The MCU. To be cohesive. And make sense. And close its plotholes in ways that are narratively satisfying. And also, Steve is on the moon.

[skarchomp]

exalted secret santa

throwing my hat into this ring for the first time now that i have two entire characters!

Candor That Draws the Horseman's Blade

Dusk caste Abyssal, 25 years old, 6'6, she/her/he/him

When the assassin Hard Truth killed his latest target, he didn't expect her to get back up again and slice his face off. Taking a deal with Eye and Seven Despairs to save her life, she was reborn as Candor. Her mission to deliver more souls to the Eye to convert to her Death Knight army got sidetracked two years later when she took a job bodyguarding a group of adventurers. Over a year, she confronted her past, made new friends, killed a few dictators, fell in love, and had an encounter with the Unconquered Sun that led to her finally achieving some inner peace. Now she plans to spend the rest of her unlife as a beacon of hope for other Abyssals, showing them that they can be free from their chains and that there's a place in Creation for them. She may be a loudmouth who loves to solve problems with violence, but her heart is in the right place, even if it hasn't beaten for years.

Character inspirations: Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb), Lobo (DC Comics), Bowser (Mario)

important music: Let Me Live/Let Me Die, Rock the House, Vampire Reference in a Minor Key

older art

Kaida Lyrena

Water aspect Dragon-Blooded, 27 years old, 5'7", she/her

Born to the rich Kaida family of Brightwork, Lyrena grew up having the importance of decorum and responsibility drilled into her, out of the hope that she'd be the first person in her family to become a Realm soldier and bring respect and recognition to the family name. Instead, she screwed up her first assignment so badly she ended up on the run with a group of Tya, pursued by her ex. Now, after running into her childhood best friend and falling into a complicated love triangle with them and another shipmate, she's just trying to keep her life together without going insane so far from the comfortable, controlled life she's used to. An expert martial artist and dancer who uses her fancy footwork to keep herself out of her foe's reaches, the only threat she can't dodge is her own hangups. She's also been forcibly turned into a snake and an evil clown but she's dealing with it tho.

Character inspirations: Jessie (Pokemon), Tahani Al-Jamil (The Good Place), Helga (Atlantis: the Lost Empire)

important music: My Best Friend's Hot, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, Casual

older art

Have fun with whoever you choose! Can't wait to see them in your style!

[thornfield13713]

Because @mllemaenad was kind enough to ask about my own Georgia after telling me everything I wanted to know about her Fallout protagonist Emily, and because it seemed rude to put this in the replies, I'm doing a full backstory post here, at least up to the current point in the story:

Georgia Cox was born in Liverpool, and came to America with her parents at the age of eleven, where they settled in New York. I was originally planning on having her as a born-and-bred New Yorker, but...honestly, in a game series so steeped in Americana, it felt a bit more manageable to play a character with a relationship to the concept a bit closer to my own. The Coxes were among the last legal immigrants to the United States, and if they hadn't been a white family from a historic ally, they probably wouldn't have made it, the pre-war world being what it was. The whole experience of immigration was pretty formative for a preteen Georgia, both in terms of the luck they'd had getting in and the number of others - many even literally from the same boat - who hadn't managed to do the same.

Her mother Shauna died a few years later, mostly due to the family's lack of medical insurance. Georgia's father always swore that it wouldn't have happened in the old country, and became rather embittered towards his new one in consequence. After that, he nearly lived for his daughter. A washed-up boxer reduced to throwing matches to get by, he was determined that his daughter should solve her problems with her words rather than her fists, and do well for herself that way. It put a lot of pressure on Georgia, even if he didn't intend it to. She was painfully aware that, so far as her father was concerned, her doing well and achieving that American Dream thing people kept talking about would justify his decisions in life so far, from immigrating in the first place to everything he had done since, every compromise, every thrown match. Her need to make her father feel like he'd done right, that it had been worth all the sacrifices it had made, ended up as the root cause of a lot of her decisions in later life - the most notable of those decisions being Sam Adams.

Georgia met Sam at university. She was in her final year at Boston University by then, having got in on scholarship and got herself into no end of student debt paying off the rest of it, studying political science and history with an eye on law school to follow. He was just starting out, an engineering student from a military family with a legacy of service dating back to the Revolutionary War and two older brothers both serving in the army, every single one of whom expected him to join the Army Corps of Engineers once he had his degree, even if he personally would rather be a civil engineer. They bonded over a few things: a shared passion for the Unstoppables comics, even if he was a Grognak fan and she preferred the Silver Shroud, and the pressure placed on them by families they loved, but who seemed determined to steer them down a path that neither one of them felt really all that suited for and weren't actually considering whether they wanted or not, because what they wanted was always going to be secondary to those familial pressures. They got together towards the end of Sam's time at university, while Georgia was in law school, after quite a lot of pressure from their respective friends to just give in and act on their 'obvious' feelings for one another. Neither of them being precisely the most emotionally aware people, they decided that their friends must have a point and started going out. Nate graduated and went into the army before they could figure out that, no, they were great friends but there was no attraction there whatsoever. Unfortunately, this was also the point around which they got married, mostly for the benefits - one of Sam's elder brothers had recently been killed in action, leaving his steady girlfriend he was planning to marry when he got back with nothing, and Sam proposed mostly out of fear that the same would happen with him and Georgia. Georgia said yes...mostly out of a sense that she was supposed to. He was a nice guy, she liked and cared about him a lot, they got on well, dating so far had felt like a comfortable extension of their friendship more than anything, and he was the only partner she'd had that her father even slightly approved of - it made sense. Love would come in time, she was sure.

For most of their marriage, they lived apart and barely saw each other. Sam was always with the army, and Georgia was trying to get a career started in Boston and had no interest in moving around to follow his postings. (His family disapproved of this almost as much as they disapproved of everything else about Georgia - an immigrant from a poor family in a rough part of New York whose politics were uncomfortably radical, having been brought up by a pair of old-school British Labour Party voters for whom American Democrats were uncomfortably right-wing.) They wrote to each other when they could, but rarely saw each other, and after the start of the Anchorage campaign, and the annexation of Canada that followed, their relationship became increasingly strained. They were both, at various points, unfaithful, though neither of them ever told the other about it.

Georgia started her career as a public defender, moved into private criminal defence after a few years, and sort of...drifted into civil rights work. She was more successful at the former profession than the latter, it must be said, as while you could sometimes get a defendant off on an apolitical charge, civil rights were...charged...in the pre-war world. She ended up bringing a few cases against Vault-Tec, in fact, for violations of labour laws, though never with very much success. She may also have run into the original Nick Valentine at some point, though if she did she doesn't remember him and they didn't get on, since she was involved in at least one lawsuit against the Boston Police. Like her historical namesake (yes, I chose 'Adams' for a reason, though I'm mostly basing this off the musical 1776), Georgia was obnoxious and disliked, with a firebrand temper, and generally regarded as a troublemaker by the local authorities, despite never actually managing to strike any sort of serious blow for justice. She kept at it mostly out of stubbornness, and by continuing to take criminal and civil cases just to keep the lights on, even as, over the years, she grew increasingly hopeless, depressed and cynical. This only worsened her obnoxiousness, driving away what few friends she'd been able to keep. It didn't help that she had a viciously sarcastic tongue and a very bad sense of when not to use it. Or, for that matter, that even if she wasn't a communist, she certainly had socialist leanings (social democrat, specifically, though most people didn't care about the details). She had already been using mentats as an every-now-and-again thing through college. She started using them more and more heavily once she was working. Never for trials, but often for preparation, even if it never quite rose to the level of addiction- or at least, not a level she would have considered an addiction, even if she got...tetchy...when she didn't have her fix.

Shaun was...an accident. And also- sort of a mess. It was the first time she and Sam had been able to spend his leave together in some years. Their relationship had never been particularly physical, but this time- something had happened recently, on the front, that meant that Sam was desperate for someone to cling to, and Georgia...was increasingly alone, and Sam had been her best friend once even if it had been years since they could talk the way they used to and, every time they were together, it felt like they were both badly playing roles in a joint performance of 'A Married Couple'. That night, though- they both felt shipwrecked, and they clung to one another. That was all it needed to be.

A few months later, Georgia's law firm finally folded. It had been coming for a while - she'd never made very much money or been very successful as a lawyer, despite a talent for courtroom rhetoric that even her opponents admitted and the sort of charisma that gets you past all the red skill checks (obnoxious as she could be interpersonally, she was one hell of an orator) - but it was still an awful blow. Finding that she couldn't get work anywhere else did not help. There were a few reasons for that: her reputation for troublemaking, her difficult personality, the fact that she was pregnant and would have to take time off for maternity leave soon and also it was...sort of discouraged for women to keep working after having children, even if some (Barb Howard, for example) still did...and possibly a few quiet words in the right ears on the subject of her political beliefs, which...she'd been on the wrong end of enough court cases and was cynical enough about the government to be labelled a Communist even without her genuine radical politics coming into it.

This was around the time that Sam came home, and the family moved out to Sanctuary Hills on a combination of his veteran's benefits and money borrowed from Sam's parents. The move did not help Georgia's depression. If anything, it made it worse - she was a city girl, born and bred, and the suburbs were stultifying. Worse still was how smugly delighted her in-laws were that she was finally 'settling down a bit' now that she was pregnant. That it was a difficult pregnancy did not help - she was thirty-five, and there were complications. Shaun's birth was difficult, and medical advice afterwards was that they should not try for another child.

So, around a decade into their marriage, Sam and Georgia were learning how to live together for the first time, and it was- it wasn't going well. They were good roommates, but they had both changed a lot since they had been college best friends, and their respective issues meant that they were having a lot of trouble connecting. Sam wanted to pretend everything was fine, that his wartime experience and the horrors of the Annexation had never happened, to bury himself in suburban normalcy and, once he'd settled in a bit, maybe get that civic engineering job he'd wanted all along. Never mind that he still screamed in his sleep and had a wicked case of untreated PTSD. Georgia was sunk in depression that had only worsened after Shaun was born, and was having trouble mustering up the energy to feel very much about anything - it was like she was sleepwalking through life. Even signing up with her old enemy Vault-Tec seemed...sort of inevitable at this point. She'd lost, she'd been beaten, so why not just...let it happen. Hand her a spade and bury her, why not? She was done.

And then, of course, the bombs fell.

[onbearfeet]

5 please!

"How did you figure out your OC's identity?"

Well, Maggie was easy; she more or less punched me in the face with her bisexuality, like she does almost everything else, while I was writing her initial profile in my notes. After that, the only question was whether/how to bring it up, since the first book really didn't have room for a romance and Maggie tends to keep her personal info to herself by default. So there was a possibility that Maggie's orientation wouldn't be mentioned at all, simply because she had no reason to bring it up or even think about it in narration. I didn't want to leave it for later, though, for fear it would seem like a retcon.

Hilariously, Gabe solved that problem for me.

Gabe was more difficult to figure out. I knew from the start that I wanted to connect him deeply to queer history in general and Black queer history in particular. His role in the story requires a lot of historical context; he's sort of a window into the past of the world we inhabit. As a kid, I always liked it when older heroes or legacy heroes showed up in comics--your Justice Society or Invaders teams, for example--because it made the world feel more lived in, like there was an ordinary kind of history to it. Sure, we know Captain America punched Hitler, but I always liked that we might also see a character dig through a box of their grandfather's junk and find a 1930s gas gun next to some snapshots of unfortunate hairstyles. I liked that ordinary-ness, so I knew Gabe would be connected in a very ordinary, human way to some older characters--one in particular, actually. He's the guy who digs through the boxes.

However, since the series is predicated on the idea that marginalized heroes have always existed, I knew the history Gabe connected to had to include that marginalization. I had already decided that Gabe's superhero forbear would have been (in his secret identity) an investigative reporter from the 1930s or 40s who ended up being murdered for his journalism rather than his masked activities, so I decided to place that journalist within the history of excellent but overlooked Black journalists of the period.

And THEN I watched a documentary about Bayard Rustin, and somehow that long-ago journalist became a gay man in my head, and I started researching Black queer history in New York. (There are these amazing journals in a university archive--long story.)

Now, Gabe was closely connected to this dead journalist in a way I can't describe due to spoilers, and I knew Gabe himself would be some variety of queer, but he didn't feel gay in my head, if that makes sense? I tried a few identities on him, noodling around in drafts and exercises, but it wasn't until I sat down to write a scene in an early chapter that he made himself known. If Maggie punched me in the face, Gabe murmured in my ear.

Quick note about how I write scenes: my usual method is, for lack of a better description, to hit play on a movie in my head, play a few seconds, and then pause to write down what I've seen. I don't have very much control over what happens in the movie--at least, not consciously--so sometimes I write something and I'm just as surprised as you are. This is one of those times.

This scene required Maggie and Gabe to climb a whole bunch of stairs, and Maggie had to go first for reasons. Having known Gabe for all of ten minutes and being someone who doesn't trust easily, she told him she'd stab him if she caught him staring at her ass, groping her, etc.

And Gabe, cinnamon roll that he is, asked why anyone would do that.

And that's how I knew Gabe was ace--because I'm acespec, and that's the kind of question I asked a lot at his age. So I let him explain himself on the page. Gabe has a certain wholesomeness about him that's oddly disarming, even to me (and makes the twist in his story later on a lot of fun), and that's how Maggie ended up explaining her bisexuality to him in the kind of "Oh, thank God, another queer" interaction I think most of us have had at some point.

And so, much as Maggie booting a Nazi in the head in Chapter 1 established the politics of this book up front, there's a conversation somewhere around Chapter 3 that clears up who's what and why and how. I am not usually this organized.

There's also a third lead character who is ALSO queer, but I'm leaving their story a mystery for now. Gender-wise, they're probably nonbinary, but if you asked them their sexual orientation, they'd probably just give you a Look. That blank on my notes is currently just "???????". Maybe they'll figure it out when they're not actively having an existential crisis. As to how I figured it out ... I tried on a few gender identities, and they just sort of sat there in my head, staring at me, until I backed off and they picked up they/them pronouns without further explanation.

I understand that some writers actually plan out things like their characters' LGBTQIA identities in advance. That sounds wonderfully relaxing. I'll have to try it someday.