#so there's no reason buy companies that contain other characters within them!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Games Workshop declares war on its customers (again)

There’s a difference between a con-artist and a grifter. A con-artist is just a gabby mugger, and when they vanish with your money, you know you’ve been robbed.

A grifter, on the other hand, is someone who can work the law to declare your stuff to be their stuff, which makes you a lawless cur because your pockets are stuffed full of their money and merely handing it over is the least you can do to make up for your sin.

IP trolls are grifters, not con artists, and that’s by design, a feature of the construction of copyright and trademark law.

Progressives may rail at the term “IP” for its imprecision, but truly, it has a very precise meaning: “‘IP’ is any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers, competitors and critics, such that they must arrange their affairs to my benefit.”

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

In that regard, it is a perfect grifter’s tool — a way to put you on the wrong side of the line for simply living your life in the way that works best for you, not the grifter.

Now, copyright and trademark’s framers were alive to the possibility that they might become this kind of weapon, and they wrote limitations and exceptions into each doctrine that were meant to safeguard the public’s right to free speech and free action.

But those limitations and exceptions are weirdly self-eviscerating. Both trademark and copyright’s limitations assume that they aren’t being weaponized by immoral sociopaths. Both collapse if they are.

Take copyright. Copyright has a suite of limitations and exceptions under various global legal systems, including US law. US law also contains a specific set of exceptions colloquially called “fair use,” a subject of much mystification for lay people.

Under fair use, someone accused of copyright infringement can ask a judge to find that their use of someone else’s copyrighted work is permissible because to deny it would be socially harmful.

The fair use law sets out four factors that judges MAY consider when considering such a claim. Note that these four factors are neither comprehensive (judges can weigh other factors), nor dispositive (failing to satisfy a factor doesn’t disqualify your use from being fair).

If that sounds confusing to you, don’t worry. It is confusing. As the lawyers say, “fair use is fact-intensive.”

The specifics of a use really matter: who’s making the use, what they’re using, why they’re using it, how they use it, and how much they use.

That’s why anyone who claims that “X is never fair use” (for example, commercial fanfic) are full of shit — as are people who say “X is always fair use”).

Commercial fanfic absolutely can be fair use. No less a body than the Supreme Court says so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Done_Gone

Despite all this ambiguity and nuance, IP grifters who want to force other people to arrange their affairs to their own benefit are laser focused on the four factors, reasoning correctly that if they show a judge that the factors favor them, they’re more likely to prevail.

Half of the four factors are out of the grifter’s reach. As a rightsholder, you can’t control “the purpose and character of the use,” or “the amount and substantiality of the portion used.”

But the other two factors are more readily within the IP wielder’s remit. As someone seeking control a work, you can frame “to the nature of the copyrighted work” by talking up how much creativity and originality went into it, which judges will weigh in your favor.

More importantly — and disturbingly — is the way that an IP holder can influence the fourth factor: “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

Think about that fourth factor for a moment here: if my use of your work doesn’t cost you any money, then it’s more likely that my use is fair.

The corollary: if you can bully some people into paying for something they’ve always gotten for free, then you can claim that the people who refuse to pay are ripping you off — that there is a “market” for the use, and that their failure to pay weakens that market.

This is effectively what’s happened to music sampling. Seminal albums like “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” were produced with thousands of uncleared samples — but at the time, no one was clearing samples.

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/07/08/creative-license-how-the-hell-did-sampling-get-so-screwed-up-and-what-the-hell-do-we-do-about-it/

Had the rightsholders to those samples dragged Public Enemy into court, they wouldn’t have had the fourth factor on their side. No one was paying for samples, so a failure to pay for samples had no “effect on the potential market for the copyrighted work.”

However, in the 33 years since Nation of Millions dropped, paying to license samples has become common practice — and the mere existence of paid samples makes not paying for samples more legally risky.

So say a rightsholder decided to aggressively license simple quotations — as the Associated Press did in 2008, when it offered to sell you a license to a 5-word quotation for a mere $12.50.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010341.html

All other things being equal, a short quotation from a news article is likely to be fair use. But if the AP managed to terrorize enough bloggers into coughing up $12.50 for a 5-word quote, it could create a market for 5-word quotations.

That market would change the fair use argument for people who don’t pay — yes, they’re making a transformative, critical use, but they’re also undermining the market for the copyright, and a judge might find this change tips the scales away from fair use.

Even more importantly, the additional uncertainty might stampede more people into paying $12.50 for a 5-word quote rather than risk a $250,000 statutory damages award for copyright infringement.

The more people who pay for 5-word quotes, the sturdier the market becomes and the riskier it is to rely upon fair use.

The fourth factor looks like an escape valve for uses that harm no one.

But it actually rewards to bullies who intimidate others out of money they don’t actually owe — until they do.

Trademark has a similar gotcha. Trademark is very different from copyright. Fundamentally, trademark is about protecting buyers, not sellers. Trademark meant to help buyers avoid being tricked into buying an inferior product because it was deceptively named or styled.

If you buy a can of Coke, you want the true Black Water of American Imperialism, not an inferior brand of dilute battery-acid.

But if your Coke turns out to be a fake, you might shrug off the harm or balk at the expense of punishing the fast operator who mis-sold you.

So trademark empowers Coke — and other vendors — to punish third parties who trick their customers, acting as their customers’ champions. Trademark doesn’t exist to prevent Coke from losing money to a rival — it exists to help Coke drinkers get what they pay for.

Trademarks can be registered with the USPTO, who nominally weigh trademark applications to ensure that they’re distinctive and original. Practically, examiners are busy, sometimes careless, and ideologically inclined to grant, not deny, claims.

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

But you don’t have to register a trademark to assert it. You can threaten or pursue legal action on the grounds that someone has violated an unregistered trademark, which is any distinctive graphic or phrase that is associated with your product.

Registered or unregistered, trademark enforcement primarily comes down to whether a “naive consumer” would be mislead by someone else’s use of a mark. That is, when you bought a Coke-branded sack of chicken feet, did you think it was blessed by the Coca-Cola company?

If there’s no likelihood of confusion, trademark holders struggle to enforce their trademarks.

This standard seems reasonable, but, like the fourth factor in fair use, it has a sting in its tail.

One of the ways you can induce confusion in the public is to gain a reputation for being a litigious bully. Say Coke is known far and wide for clobbering anyone that uses its trademarks, no matter how trivial the use and no matter how bad it made them look.

If Coke is truly notorious for its zero-tolerance policy, that will lead to a widespread public understanding that every time you see Coke’s marks, the use was blessed by a Coke lawyer — meaning a use that might not otherwise be found to be confusing can be made confusing.

“If that was any other company’s trademark, I’d assume that they had nothing to do with it — but since I know Coke has an army of baby-eating attack lawyers who destroy anyone who uses a mark without permission, that must be an authorized use.”

Like fair use’s fourth factor, trademark’s confusion standard rewards the most vicious and uncaring businesspeople with new rights that their more reasonable competitors do not enjoy. IP selects for sociopathy.

Now, IP — in the most sinister sense of the phrase — has pervaded every industry, but the contradictions of IP are felt most keenly in its spawning grounds: the culture industry.

Culture is in tension with the control of ideas, because culture is the spread of ideas.

Creators (and execs) are vulnerable to the pirate/admiral fallacy: “When I take from my forebears, that’s legitimate artistic progress. When my successors do it to me, it’s theft.”

This pathology, combined with ready-to-hand IP weapons, incentivizes all manner of wickedness. Remember when Marvel and DC teamed up in a bid to trademark the word “super-hero” so that no one else would be allowed to use it?

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/03/18/marvel-comics-stealing-our-language/

These perverse incentives are made tragic by the inherently participatory nature of culture.

It’s not merely that Marvel and DC wanted to steal the word “super-hero” right out of our mouths.

It’s that super-heroes are culturally important because of how we take and remix them in our lives. Marvel went on to use the law to stop us from pretending to be superheroes online, something Casey Fiesler called “Pretending Without a License.”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277598023_Pretending_Without_a_License_Intellectual_Property_and_Gender_Implications_in_Online_Games

Which brings me, at last, to Games Workshop, a company that has consistently led the IP bully pack, indiscriminately terrorizing the Warhammer 40k fans who made it a massive commercial success.

Warhammer is a strategy/roleplaying game that is played with miniature creatures that players buy, modify and paint. If you’re not familiar with all this, maybe this sounds a bit like toy soldiers.

It’s a lot more interesting — not just because of the game rules or lore, but because of the incredibly, unbelievable, jaw-dropping virtuosity of Warhammer players when they paint and style those miniatures.

There’s a reason I look forward to Saturday morning’s weekly linkdump from Jonathan Struan of the week’s best Warhammer and other RPG miniatures:

https://www.superpunch.net/search?q=warhammer&max-results=20&by-date=true

and why I follow incredible painters like Aurelie Schick:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/110246635@N06

Warhammer is intrinsically participatory, co-creative and active — it’s not media you consume, it’s media you produce.

Games Workshop has become fantastically rich off of this…and they hate it, and they always have.

For years they’ve pursued fans for producing their own fan-made supplements and additions to the game:

https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/99301

The more Warhammer players complained about the indiscriminate censorship of their fan media, the harder GW cracked down on them, wiping out whole genres of creative work:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/48933/games-workshop-files-purge-09

GW claimed it was only defending its rights, the grifter’s signature move, making you a crook for having the audacity not to put their shareholders’ interests ahead of your own.

Then Games Workshop claimed a trademark on “space marine,” a generic term that had been widely used in science fiction for decades, including, notably, in Heinlein’s classic “Starship Troopers” (1959).

https://web.archive.org/web/20130207002144/http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10593

They didn’t just go after RPGs that used the phrase — they used trademark claims to remove novels from Amazon for having the phrase in their titles.

“Space marine” is a generic phrase, but GW was betting if they were sufficiently, spectacularly brutal in their enforcement, they could create a proprietary interest: “Now, I know GW destroys anyone who uses ‘space marine,’ so this ‘space marine’ must be endorsed by GW.”

GW just launched a new set of terms of service, including: “individuals must not create fan films or animations based on our settings and characters. These are only to be created under licence from Games Workshop.”

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-WW/Intellectual-Property-Guidelines

Now, this isn’t how copyright works. There are many ways in which a fan film or animation could be fair use, no matter whether GW forbids or permits their production. But this isn’t mere overreach: it’s a direct play against the fourth factor in fair use.

If GW can establish that all animations and vids are produced under paid license, then any fanvid that doesn’t pay for a license has a weaker fair use case, because the fourth factor protects existing licensing markets.

Indeed, as Rob Beschizza points out on Boing Boing, GW timed the terms of service change to coincide with the announcement that they’re launching a subscription service including “cartoons, in-house hobby videos, access to a vault of ebooks and mags.”

https://www.pcgamer.com/now-even-warhammer-has-a-subscription-service/

This is bullying with a business-model, in other words. Fans have figured out how to have fun with each other for free, and GW wants them to stop and pay the company for its in-house version of that fun.

Warhammer creators are demoralized and disheartened. The creator of the hugely successful Oculus Imperia Youtube series posted a heart-rending message of surrender.

https://twitter.com/OculusImperia/status/1421136444437970949

Oculus Imperia also edits “If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device,” (TTS) another beloved Warhammer fan series. Alfabusa from TTS posted his own absolutely demoralized goodbye to his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXljeaktnDA

Ironically, both channels would have a stronger fair use case if they mocked and criticized Warhammer, rather than celebrating it, as fair use tips favorably towards critical uses.

The fact is, they love their hobby and its community and they want to improve it, not tear it down.

Neither wants to get dragged into a brutal copyright case against a deep-pocketed corporation. Even people with great fair use cases balk at that:

https://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/

Now, some people might be thinking, what’s the big deal? Why don’t these creators just make up their own stories instead of remixing the ones that come from Games Workshop?

Those people are assholes.

*All* stories are fanfic of some kind or another. Every mystery novel is a remix of Poe’s Murders In the Rue Morgue. Games Workshop’s stories are the thrice-brewed teabags of many sf writers (remember “space marines?”).

Tolkien straight up ripped off his characters from the 1000-year-old Norse poem “Elder Edda,” which features dwarves named “Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Nori, Dori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur.”

https://musingsofatolkienist.blogspot.com/2015/07/hobbit-origins-catalog-of-dwarves.html

Culture is made of other culture.

GW made something wonderful with Warhammer — by plundering the stories that preceded it.

The sin isn’t in the taking, it’s in the pretense that it never happened, and the vicious grifting that punishes anyone who does unto GW as they did unto everyone else.

[vanquishedvaliant]

So there’s this trend I’m seeing on social media about people boycotting / encouraging people not to buy the upcoming Mass Effect remasters.

The reasonings being somewhat varied, some valid, others not, but mostly centering around one thing in specific; cut content relating to same sex relationships that didn’t make it into the games.

Now, I understand not being interested in the product being offered; I’m probably not going to buy it myself for a lack of specific features like multiplayer and... just not needing the buy the game for my fifth or sixth time. It’s completely valid to think the remasters are just not doing enough for you to justify a purchase, or that their faith in the company doing it properly in their current state isn’t there. I get that.

But the mood that’s come up lately isn’t just disinterest; it’s downright outrage. Violent, ideologically charged opposition to even the concept of the remasters because of a perceived failure to meet their extremely specific and often high standards and notions of progressiveness.

Now it’s not exactly news that Bioware has had a rocky relationship with inclusivity over the years, with queer characters flitting in and out of recognition and prominence, appropriation of queer archetypes, and less than stellar execution of what characters they do include. I’ve had my complaints with these myself from time to time, though it’s still always struck me historically as a generally positive, if clumsy attempt at progress that I appreciated despite the flaws; remember that the original Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007, and was the focus of a major media scandal about even including romantic relationships at all in the game, nevermind same sex ones. That’s 14 years ago! The most recent game in the series is 9 years old!

We can talk about the social standards of the times and the progress we’ve made, and we can also talk about the merits of restoring and improving media as it was, or recreating it to more closely reflect the values of today and which or both of them is a worthwhile pursuit, but I don’t think that’s what’s being sincerely argued here.

What we see instead is some protestation that failure to make the exacting changes that they see fit according to their personal ideology is some kind of radically regressive statement, as if it’s a conscious, malicious decision and not either one made in good faith or not at all. This movement has collectively decided that the remaster needs to contain exactly the changes that fit their fleeting whims or the entire thing’s at best a wash and a wasted effort, and in some cases a ‘homophobic’ statement of hatred, or cynically callous laziness. 

Let’s remember; the focus of this argument is the presence of available simulated dating options in a 14 year old game. The arguments posits that some of these alternative options are ones that were cut from the release of the games, notably the first one, and have some or numerous assets that exist in various forms within the game files that with some work can be accessed in the game with user-made modifications. Some of this is true; though much of it is exaggerated or misconstrued in terms of its scope or viability.

Many of these people just assume that this cut content that someone else has restored in a mod somewhere is just some sort of simple toggle done in moments without effort, ignoring the work those modders did on their own time and money to introduce those features. 

Even if we just hand wave any standards of quality or continuity or polish and integration these mods have, you have to consider the dozens to hundreds of volunteer man hours of labor these fans put into many of those mods to make them viable that a company paying it’s employees a fair wage and time to do without overworking has to budget. Which I should mind to you is something also incredibly topically relevant in game dev these days. Adding new content costs money. Restoring old content, still costs money.

Even then, the viability of many of those original assets is at question in itself; the 'ingredients’ used to create the content are not equivalent to the ‘cooked’ content found in the game files, so some of them are difficult to work with or lacking in features or quality. Hell, we know for a fact that half of the god damn development data for ME1 is just fucking gone, which is why the DLC isn’t making an appearance in the remaster at all; it just doesn’t exist anymore and would need to be remade from utter scratch.

Now there’s a dozen reasons undertakings like these would or wouldn’t make their list of priorities for remaster given the other work they are doing re; texture and model uprezzing, gameplay updates, etc. It’s not exactly strange for them to recreate the game largely as it was with a more limited scope of changes. Perhaps the decision was made to preserve some parts of the game largely as it was; with mostly minor cosmetic changes to things like Miranda’s camera angles; things that don’t have much overhead or ripple effect. Perhaps restoring the content was considered, but didn’t make the cut- maybe for the same reasons it didn’t make it into the game in 2007. Maybe for different ones.

Only the people involved know.

Now, would I like to see some of that content restored and improved? Sure! I think it’d have been a great thing if they’d promoted the series as having new or restored content; if they’d promised us such things. But they haven’t, and while it’s one thing to praise taking an initiative like that if they had, I think it’s completely unreasonable to be outraged that they didn’t.

We can celebrate that kind of outstanding and excellent steps forward in inclusivity, but we have to understand that while someone not being ahead of the curve may not be exciting or even disappointing; it is not in itself an act of directed aggression. And treating it like one is a waste of time and energy that we can direct to protesting actual aggression, or celebrating those outstanding steps.

But here’s the major thing that kills me; all those mods they love and praise aren’t going anywhere.

The remaster will come out and unless Bioware is so completely tone deaf and media blind from the past year they pull a WC3, the old versions of the game will all still be available. All those user made mods they cite in these arguments about “how easy” it is to add content to the game will still be there, ready to play as they always were. Some of them might even work or be easily made to work with the new versions!

All of that will still be there! And we’ll have access to a new version of the trilogy that is far more accessible to new players who haven’t yet been exposed to so much of the games content that they are desperate for more of it.

Just look at Mass Effect 1; that game has not aged well, and it was kind of a sloppy mess even when it came out! How many new players can we get to enjoy all the good things the series has to offer with an easily accessed, more enjoyable package to play through the entire series without issue? I’ve done numerous replays of the trilogy through the years, and Mass Effect 1 is always a huge stumbling block. It’s just a pain in the ass, straight out. Don’t you want at least the option to fix that?

And if not, you don’t have to buy it and no harm is done to you! Enjoy your existing version with your mods and familiar features and flaws.

And if you truly, genuinely care so passionately about Bioware improving their record of inclusivity; look instead to the new game that’s coming out and look forward to that instead. Every game in the franchise has been better than the last at this; ME1 cut the same sex relationships, but ME2 had some. ME3 had even more, and then Andromeda had yet even further than that after patching!

How many will the new game have?

Look forward to that and make it clear to bioware you’re looking for that in their games; just.... ease off this ridiculous vitriol in trying to get people to avoid the remaster because it’s not good enough for you. No one needs to have this bullying done to either the developers themselves or the players looking to buy the game for themselves or others. It’s simply not productive.

Especially with this franchise’s sordid history with excessive media outrage and entitlement that’s been absolutely exhausted.

Just... relax. And have some perspective.

[slashermovieslut]

Third Time’s The Charm - Chapter Two - Joe Goldberg x Male Reader

(A/N: This chapter contains some NSFW content! I tried my best to be neutral about reader’s genitals, so I didn’t imply one set or the other. This chapter also contains triggers for the reader being kind of mistreated by their roommate, but nothing intense. And as always, the standard obsessive stalker triggers that come with our favorite creep!)

Your Facebook is public, which is good for me but also bad, because what if some creep used it to stalk you, (y/n)? You don’t post on it anymore, not for ten months, but there are plenty of things on it that tell me more about you. You go to college at St. Joseph’s, so your hoodie really was from your college, and your status is single, thank god. There are plenty of pictures of you on your profile, almost all of them years old. You left Facebook when your parents and aunts started joining, just like most people your age. Your family tag you in all sorts of posts. Events, photos together, chain mail letters, jokes… you don’t respond to all of them, and I hope if I tagged you in something you would respond to me, but it wouldn’t be some cartoon character talking about getting wine drunk in the middle of the afternoon.

Your aunt, the one with the wine memes, she likes to check in when she goes places. She should really stop doing that, (y/n), because it puts you in danger. Your address is just out there for everyone to see, because on September fifteenth at 2.34 in the afternoon she checked into the Statewell apartment building with the caption, “Moving my nephew into his new apartment!” But the Statewell apartments are close, and they are in one of the bad areas of town, which I don’t like. How much do you worry at night that something bad will happen while you sleep? If I was with you I would protect you, or better yet, move you out of that dangerous little cardboard box apartment and into my place. 

I watch you sometimes, in secret. It’s not hard, not like it was with Beck. I don’t have to wear disguises or hide, I can stand out in the open without worrying about being recognized. On a street like this, people mind their business. Except me, of course. I’m minding your business, and your business is beautiful, (y/n). You’re as dirty as I thought, sitting on your living room couch with your laptop propped against the coffee table, pleasuring yourself to the tinny sounds of porn through the laptop speakers. God, everything about you is fucking perfect, isn’t it? I could watch for hours, even if all I can see is a silhouette through sheer white curtains. I really need to buy you better curtains, so other people won’t see you like this, because I don’t think you even know they can see you. You’re self conscious, I can tell, so I bet you don’t even think they would care to stop and look, but you’re wrong. You are worth watching, probably too worth it, because now I have to worry that I might not be the only one watching you. 

Your apartment is on the first floor, right on the corner, so you have two windows. The front one is lit up and neat looking, but the side window is covered with boards, nailed haphazardly by someone who hardly knows how to hold a hammer. Was that you, (y/n)? I want to see inside the house, but the curtains block just enough to keep me from picturing the little environment you remain cooped up in all day. I peek through the cracks between boards instead, peering into a darkened room that looks like a disaster zone. Is this your room? If it is you are messy, but I can forgive messy if I have to because it’s you, and I love you already, mess and all. 

I am acting casual, acting like I have stopped to grab a newspaper from the box in front of your apartments when I see that you have company. He pulls a key out like he owns the place and he unlocks the door, walking in and not even wiping his feet, tracking mud in on carpets that look freshly vacuumed, and I hate him right away, even more than I would hate him just for existing near you. He doesn’t respect you, I can tell, and I don’t care if he’s a friend or something else, you deserve better. He steps on the backs of his shoes to remove them and marches into the house, splaying out on the couch, your couch, the couch I’ve seen you masturbating on every night this week. 

“Hey, do you have rent yet?” You ask from the hall. You sound nervous to even ask, and I can’t tell if you’re just anxious or if you have a reason to be worried, but if this man gives me any more reason to hate him I might have to do something about him. Still, if you need a roommate in a cheap little place like this, you’re in worse of a place than I thought you were. 

“No, I don’t have rent yet, stupid, I thought I told you already that I’m still looking for a job.” He replies, and I want to tear his tongue out for talking to you that way, but I just stand next to the box, pretending to read a newspaper, but clutching it so tight it starts to rip at the edges. Who the hell is this guy and why does he think it’s ok to use that tone with you? Does he think you’re his servant or something? I need to know who the hell this guy is, and what he is to you. If he’s your boyfriend, you’ve got terrible taste, (y/n). I’m going to show you how a real man will treat you, and you’ll never want an asshole like this again. I am spending too much time near your house. It’s early morning and I should be taking care of opening the shop but instead I am on the other side of the street from your apartment, watching your door and waiting to see you again. I’m losing it, I know, and I should be trying to stop this, or somehow slow it down, but it’s like an avalanche, once you start it you really can’t stop it, and I have already started falling in love with you, (y/n).

You walk right past me as you leave, and I almost hope you’ll recognize me, but thank god you don’t. As you pass I reach out, slipping the phone out of your back pocket and into my jacket, and I think you would hate me for this if you knew I’d done it, but you will never know, because I’m going to be more careful this time. I’m going to hide this in the shop, not in my apartment. I’ll keep it in the cage, with all the other precious things I own. As I walk away, toward the bookshop, I scroll through your phone, taking in the little slice of your life stored within the screen. You have two missed texts from someone named Hunter, “I’m sorry” and “I just need a little longer.” I don’t need to read anything else to know who it is, but I open the messages anyways, because I want to know who he is, what he is to you. There’s years worth of messages here, but it only takes me a few minutes of scrolling to find what I want to know… 

This is all the information I need to make my decision. As soon as I possibly can, I am going to make sure Hunter is never a part of your life again. 

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

“Why do you lie?”: A look at a gay Mike Wheeler

This is a sort of a companion post to Will Byers and Growing Up Gay in the Pre-Internet Era, which I posted last year. I looked into what could have possibly been going on with Will as someone with a gay identity at a time when there was little support. Now I’d like to look at Mike, who would have his own unique challenges towards accepting a positive identity. This isn’t meant to be a post for why Mike is gay, as I (and several others) have already addressed that. Instead, I want to look at some of the psychological processes that may be at work in how Mike develops through the series. I will be treating Mike as if he were a real person, rather than a fictional character, and, so, I will attempt to ignore narrative devices (foreshadowing, parallels, etc.) as much as possible.

“Friends don’t lie” is one of the prevailing messages in Stranger Things. It more or less becomes El’s personal motto, so it ultimately became associated more with her than the person who taught it to her: Mike. Despite attempting to instill this value onto El, Mike himself is shown to have a lot of trouble living up to it. While Mike spends quite a lot of time in Season 3 lying to El, she is not the biggest victim of his lies. No, the one he lies to the most is himself, and he seems to have been doing that since Season 1.

According to the Cass Identity Model, a journey to a positive gay identity requires several steps: confusion, comparison, tolerance, acceptance, pride, and synthesis. This is not a perfect model, but it is one of the better attempts to create a general framework for how it worked for many gay individuals, at least in the time it was created (1979). A general way to look at it is that, at least at the time, individuals would work their way through this process as they engaged with the gay and lesbian community and started to see it as less of a bad thing and more as something to be proud of until it finally becomes just another part of who they are.

As I mentioned in my Will post, there is little opportunity for a kid in Hawkins to engage with the gay and lesbian community. There is no internet, nor is there any (known) place for local gays to gather in Hawkins. This results in the only real mention of homosexuality being the slurs thrown around by school bullies and people like Lonnie. A town like Hawkins would be a very difficult place for a young gay person to grow up. This makes it hard for even the initial stage, confusion, even occurring. Mike has deep feelings for Will, but the confusion stage requires that he acknowledge his feelings as homosexual in nature. Instead, I think Mike has been hiding from his own feelings, and it may not have been until the finale of Season 3 that he finally acknowledged them for the first time. So what comes before the first stage? 

Lies! Well, sort of. Defense mechanisms are how our minds protect us from the anxiety and social consequences of unwanted thoughts and desires. We all use them, unconsciously, to some extent. The next time you come home from a hard day at work and yell at a family member, ask yourself why you’re angry. Odds are it’s nothing the family member did. Getting angry at work can be a risk to your employment, so, instead, you unconsciously find a “safer” target. In this case it’s still bad, but getting forgiveness from a family member is easier than talking a boss into rehiring you. Mike has similar processes going on to protect him from his budding attraction to Will.

It’s impossible to tell when exactly Mike started thinking of Will as more than a friend, even if he doesn’t label the thoughts as such. He already shows an intense concern for Will in Season 1. When the boyish-looking El shows up and provides an opportunity to find Will, Mike risks his friendships to make use of her powers. He also goes over the top in disguising her as, well, a girl. It probably would have been easier to disguise her as a boy, but Mike decided to put a wig and dress on her, and then apply makeup to her. This could be a combination of displacement and reaction formation. Mike is redirecting his feelings for Will onto El, and also making her as obviously female as he can. 

Mike’s bond with El came very quickly, and even caused a rift within the Party. While Dustin and Lucas would come around and value El as a trusted friend, their process with her is more natural than Mike’s rushed, forced relationship with her. Dustin and Lucas had no weird feelings to hide from. Their search for Will contained no unwanted implications, they simply wanted their friend back safe and sound. Still, we would see Mike on the opposite end of this type of interaction in Season 2.

Max is the first “normal” girl to show interest in the Party. Mike reacts to her presence and attempts to join the party with hostility. There is little reason for this, as he was more than willing to allow El to be their friend. He doesn’t truly hate her, and in his own words he can’t hate her as he doesn’t even know her. He simply wants nothing to do with her. His only given reason is that the party is full as it is, which seems to fall flat. It could be that the presence of a girl reminds him of El, but we don’t see him acting hostile to girls in general. It seems, instead, to be his friends’ interest in her that gets Mike to dislike her. While the theory that he is jealous at Will’s interest in Max is intriguing, there isn’t much to go on aside from Will showing a curiosity about her and then letting Dustin and Lucas bring her along for Halloween. Instead, Mike may be projecting here. He shows incredulity that Dustin and Lucas could be so interested in Max despite never having talked to her, suggesting that he thinks getting to know someone is important in regards to being romantically interested. This runs counter to his interactions with El in Season 1. He resents his own behavior, but takes his anger out on his friends and Max instead when he sees them doing something similar.

Mike is very protective of Will throughout Season 2. He also spends a lot of time reaching out to El via his SuperComm, though he admits it’s likely a fruitless effort. His guilt over what has happened to the both of them is another sign of his mixed up feelings for Will and El. On Halloween, Mike and Will open up to each other about how crazy they feel, and they share a smile at the end of a conversation that is arguably a masked love confession. However, as Mike twice brought up El as a part of their conversation, it further reinforces the displacement of Mike’s feelings to her. However, soon after this, Mike finds himself caught up in another Will-related crisis, and El is out of his thoughts until her return at the end of the season.

Mike also shows a lot of willingness to allow himself to be vulnerable with Will in Season 2, something which isn’t seen in his interactions with anyone else. In these moments, Mike’s body language shifts. His tone becomes softer, his head dips slightly, and he peers at Will through his lashes. His aforementioned conversation on Halloween is just one example, but it is also seen when Will is asked if he remembers Mike, when Mike recounts meeting Will as they try to break through to him, when they’re at the movies, and when Will is packing at the end of Season 3. The moment in the shed is perhaps Mike’s most vulnerable moment. He shares a cherished memory, and unashamedly cries while doing so, perhaps even so lost in the moment that he forgets other people are in the room. His feelings, driven into overdrive by the fear of losing Will for good, are beginning to overwhelm him, but he still maintains his “Will behavior.”

This shows an uncharacteristic degree of trust and/or submission. In interactions with other characters, even El, Mike often displays assertive, or even aggressive, tones and stances. Mike doesn’t realize he does this, but we do see him sometimes use similar body language with El, further suggesting that he is redirecting his affections.

Perhaps the biggest moment we see him act this way around El is at the Snow Ball at the end of Season 2. Mike had been having a great time at the dance until Will had gone off to dance. This is strange considering Mike seemed to urge him to go with the girl in the first place. He appears shocked as the pair walks to the dance floor, his mouth agape, and wide eyes staring off into space. This isn’t the body language of someone expressing pride at a friend’s unexpected boldness, but rather it suggests a disturbing revelation. It is at this point that Mike could potentially have moved into the Confusion stage of the Cass model, as he sits on the sidelines (despite Dustin briefly there for company) watching Will dance. Any progress he may have made is instead halted when El arrives unexpectedly. This allows for him to continue using her as an outlet, and gives him a convenient escape from where his thoughts would likely take him.

Season 3 is the first time Mike had to deal with having both El and Will in his life at the same time, and it’s where his defense mechanisms begin to break down. In therapy, the goal is to shine light onto defense mechanisms in order to deconstruct them, so the patient can see and deal with what is actually going on. 

We find out Mike has been largely ignoring his friends and spending most of his time with El. He makes a big show of his relationship with El, including leaving early after Dustin had returned from camp under the false pretense of a curfew. The others don’t buy it, and Mike likely knew this. He wanted them to know he was going off to make out with El. When we actually see them alone, they do indeed make out, but, curiously, Mike twice takes steps to make it less intimate. He stops to sing along to the music, for example, despite El not enjoying it. He also removes El’s hands from her face, leaving them both simply leaning forward at each other without additional contact. There is a suggestion here that Mike is not enjoying what he is doing and limiting just how intimate they get. 

We continue to see his lack of a desire to be close to El. For her part, El shows behavior that could only be considered clingy. It is she who initiates nearly all of their physical contact, and, at one point, she even literally clings to Mike as Dustin is showing off his gadgets. A close inspection shows that Mike is standing with his arms crossed during this, making no active attempt to return the physical contact. None of this physical intimacy is for his own benefit. While being with El means he doesn’t have to worry about his feelings for Will, it does not really allow him to express those feelings to his satisfaction. This may be why he goes on movie “double dates” with Will, Lucas, and Max in between spending time with El. 

The occurrence we see at the movies is clearly not the first due to Steve’s frustrated reaction and their familiarity with his threat. They are late, so there are not enough seats, but there is no hesitation as Mike goes with Will to sit apart from Max and Lucas. Mike is so comfortable with reaching into Will’s bag for the snacks that it suggests it’s happened multiple times before. We also see that, despite his reclusive behavior with El, Mike still has Will on his mind when he asks if Will is ok. His tone again soft, head slightly dipped as he peers up through his lashes. He glances briefly down, possibly at Will’s lips, suggesting he needs to remind himself that it’s not El he’s with at this moment. He is otherwise very content to be “alone” with Will at the movie. 

Mike ultimately needs the relationship with El to protect himself against his feelings for Will, and it all comes to a head when they fight after Will’s attempt at a campaign. Mike’s continuous theatrics lead to not only Hopper forcing him to spend less time with El, but to him getting busted as he allows Lucas to lead him through a plan to get El an apology gift. We later see that he has no difficulties apologizing when he feels he should, so his grand gesture is another sign that his relationship with El is more of a show. He puts up no fight when El dumps him, acting annoyed and accusing Max and El of conspiring against him. He’s hiding from his own complicity in order to avoid acknowledging that it doesn’t really bother him as much as it should. He wants El to come back to him to continue his show, but he can’t do anything about it without confronting his feelings. El leaving didn’t hurt him; it just made him angry. This complicates things for him. It was easier for him to shift his feelings to El when he didn’t actually need to do anything about it.

Will loses it at Mike’s disinterest in his campaign, particularly his attempt to abruptly end it. Mike seems to be trying to be just another too-cool ladies man, and he is disallowing himself to enjoy the game. Still, he can’t bare to have hurt Will, and he chases after him when Will tries to leave. Mike struggles to maintain the lie while trying to placate Will. When Will accuses him of ruining everything to make out with “a stupid girl,” we see Mike lash out, saying it’s not his fault Will doesn’t like girls. While this hurt Will, it was likely another case of projection. Mike hates himself for spending all of his time with El because he doesn’t actually like girls. He can’t even stay angry at Will when he sees how hurt Will was with what he said. He tries to explain that this is just how it needs to be, and he appears sad as Will leaves. Unlike with El, Mike is hurt when he loses Will, and he chased after him to apologize. We don’t actually get to see him apologize, however, as the threat-of-the-season kicks into gear, resulting in Mike needing to get El.

Mike thus is able to bounce his feelings back to El. He maintains a physical proximity to Will, but also tries to avoid interacting with him. The apology he never gets to make to Will ends up clumsily being offered to El. Mike’s vulnerable, genuine behavior is absent as he goofily attempts to make nice with his ex-girlfriend. He awkwardly attempts to invoke previous conversations with Will, suggesting an increasing desperation to re-establish El as the safe target for his affections. Cracks had already been forming in his carefully constructed subconscious defense mechanisms as a result of the contrast in how El and Will dumping him made him feel. Mike is starting to see the truth, and he needs to fix it.

Ultimately, the Byers decide to move away. A few months pass between the end of the season and the epilogue where they actually move. Mike seems to be on good terms with both El and Will, but we don’t really know what happened in the interim to get him there. Mike has conversations with both El and Will. His demeanor in each again demonstrate that, despite what he wants others to think, it’s Will who Mike can’t bear to part with. With Will, Mike again shows his vulnerability when Will goes to give away his D&D books. Mike is clearly afraid at the implications, that Will will move on from him, but Will is able to allay his fears, assuring him it’s “not possible” for him to find a new party, and that he expects to just use Mike’s set when he returns. Mike shows no vulnerability with El. In fact, he seems quite at ease as he explains how they’ll talk all the time, so everything will be ok. El suddenly attempts to bring up his previous attempts to talk about feelings, and he feigns ignorance, seeming uncomfortable. There’s a suggestion that they never re-established a romantic relationship. She says she loves him, and he seems perturbed. She kisses him, and he stands there, unresponsive. As she leaves, Mike stands confused and disturbed. He was not expecting that, nor did he enjoy it. Previously, after such a vulnerable moment with Will, Mike would have jumped at the opportunity to shift his feelings to El. Now it seems that he is finally accepting the truth. Defense mechanisms, being elaborate unintentional lies, only work when the individual remains unaware of them. Insight results in the truth being revealed.

As the Byers leave, Mike stares longingly at the cars. His friends all bike away, but he hangs back momentarily, looking back at Will’s house one last time with a pensive look on his face. All his walls have come crumbling down, and he can’t deny it anymore. He can’t pretend it’s El that he loves. He rides home, walking into his home in a daze. We last see him seeking comfort in his mother’s arms, seeking that unconditional love he craves so much. Mike is now confused, consciously aware that he loves Will, dealing with not only losing him, but also the acknowledgement that he’s likely gay. He’s no longer lying to himself, though it remains to be see how he reacts to the truth.

From here it’s all speculation, as we have little to no knowledge of Season 4. Based on the Cass model, Mike needs to explore his gay identity by meeting other gay people. He needs to see that not only is he not alone, but that being gay isn’t a bad thing. This process isn’t easy, and he will need to deal with the social implications of what it means. He may well choose to attempt to maintain a straight image. El being away means he can claim her as his girlfriend without them needing to be intimate. On the other hand, with support, he could work his way through the model and learn to love himself as he is. 

Note: I tried hard to stick to a conceptualization of Mike, but this does not mean this is how the writers see him. 

[terpia]

Early Modern Drama Rec List (Non-Shakespeare)

So I just spend a year reading a lot of early modern drama and I thought I might as well put my degree to a good use and make a list of some of my favourite lesser known (i.e. not written by Shakespeare) early modern plays. All of these plays are in the public domain, so it should be very easy to find them online.

Comedies:

The Roaring Girl by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker - a fictional story featuring a dramatized portrayal of a real person, Mary Firth, also known as Moll Cutpurse. Moll was a notorious pickpocket, wore a doublet and breeches, smoked a pipe, cursed, and was generally infamous for her 'mannish' behaviour. And she's a character in this play!

It is open to interpretation how positive the play's depiction of Moll really is, but she does play a very important role in getting the main pair of lovers together and ends the play happily continuing to live her life the way she wants, which is in itself pretty incredible. Overall, just a really fun read.

Galatea (or Gallathea) by John Lyly - a 16th century play that is both gay and trans??? Sign me up! In a village where the fairest virgin needs to be sacrificed to Neptune every 5 years (or he'll drown everyone), two fathers decide to disguise their beautiful daughters as boys and hide them in a nearby forest. While wandering around the forest the two girls meet and, falling for each other's disguises, fall in love. In the end (spoilers for the ending, but this is not exactly a play you read for the plot, lol), Diana stops Neptune, the two girls find out each other's true identities and decide they're still in love, and Venus turns one of them (we never find out which one) into a boy so that they can get married.

As must be clear from this summary, this comedy plays around with gender a lot. To add to the gender cocktail, remember that the two girls would have been originally played by boys. Although the ending was seen as heteronormative by early queer critics, the emergence of trans criticism within queer theory has led to a lot of interesting readings of the play. Well worth a read.

(also, if you have a device on which you can play DVDs and some money to spare, consider buying a DVD of the Edward's Boys production of the play. Edward's Boys is a group that replicates the format of early modern boys' companies, with all roles in their productions being played by boys. I will admit, when I bought a DVD of their 2014 production of Galatea, I expected to watch a glorified high school performance, but it turned out to be so good. All the boy actors were amazing, way better at performing Shakespeare than a lot of Hollywood actors. This just straight-up felt like a professional theatre production, I highly recommend it.)

The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont - I don't even know how to describe this play other than 'fantastic and fun'. A meta-theatrical city comedy, which starts with a pair of audience members (who were actually two dressed-up boy actors from the boys' company performing the play) jumping onto a stage and demanding to see a different play than the the one being set up. Things get only wilder from there.

A genuinely really funny play. I don't know of anyone who has read it and hasn't immediately loved it.

The Sea Voyage by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger - one of the least well known plays out of this list, which is unfortunate because this play is really fun. Short and sweet, it's a story of a bunch of (surprisingly honorable) pirates, who get shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a tribe of Amazon-like women. Predictably, hijinks ensue. An interesting look into early modern gender relations (apparently the main reason why living without men would be difficult for women is because of how horny they would get? I think Fletcher and Massinger need to take a lesson or two from Lyly).

The Alchemist by Ben Jonson - want to see three assholes con a bunch of idiots in increasingly ridiculous ways? Then this is the play for you.

Jonson's city comedies, which satirize the people of early modern London, tend to be much meaner in tone than Shakespeare's comedies and the other comedies on this list, but in many ways, that's what makes them fun. Viciously clever and at times really funny, there's an edge to the writing that makes it very entertaining. I had a lot of fun reading this (Jonson's Epicoene is also great, if you want a comedy that's even meaner and also has some very questionable gay stuff in it).

Tragedies:

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe - probably the most famous non-Shakespeare early modern play, and for a good reason. It has everything; pacts with the devil, a melodramatic anti-hero protagonist, homoeroticism (I mean of course, it's Marlowe), and a suitably gory and tragic ending. What more can you ask for?

The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary - this play is more interesting than fun, but I think it's still well worth a read. It's the first original play written in English by a woman. The play takes place in ancient Palestine. It looks at the way Mariam, a Jewish queen, reacts to the news of the death of her husband, the tyrannous Herod (yes, the baby-killing guy from the Bible). Most people seem to be relieved. Except oops, Herod is not actually dead.

A fascinating look at gender ideology in the early modern period, with the play centering around the conflict of a woman who tries to live up to the ideals of a perfect wife and woman, while stuck in a marriage to a tyrant. This play would also be a great read for anyone interested in how gender and sexuality intersected with race in early modern England, because this play uses a lot of racialized language to describe women.

The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster - a classic revenge tragedy. A recently widowed Duchess wants to marry her steward, but her asshole brothers throw a fit. Intrigue and death ensue. At one point a fake wax hand and some fake wax corpses appear on stage.

This play basically reads like a good thriller. Fucked up in a way that only an early modern revenge tragedy can be, this is a fun and thrilling read.

The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley - speaking of fucked up. If you're planning to read it, be mindful that this play contains sexual assault. It's a story of a young noblewoman called Beatrice, who wants to get rid of her fiancé after falling in love with a visiting nobleman. To do it, she enlists the help of her villainous servant De Flores. Things end up going extremely badly.

This play can get very uncomfortable at times, but just like The Duchess, it's as gripping as any good modern thriller. Very engaging. The ending is as engrossing as it is stomach-churning, although probably not for the reasons it was originally meant to (reading criticism about The Changeling, it is genuinely shocking and disheartening to see how long it took for critics to start addressing the clear issues of consent in the play). The story also includes a bizarre virginity test that uses a potion which makes you drowsy or which makes you sneeze and laugh depending on whether you had sex or not, so hey, at least that's fun?

Antonio's Revenge by John Marston - ok, so this is definitely the least... good of the plays I've recommended so far, but listen. Do you like trainwrecks? Do you like violence so over-the-top that people to this day wonder whether it's actually supposed to be a parody of the revenge tragedy genre? Are you looking for a reading experience that will make you go 'what the fuck' throughout? If so, this is the play for you!

Very much in the so bad it's good category. Ridiculously gory. The only thing that makes it better is knowing that it was originally played by children (on a related note, I haven't seen this production, but I know that this play has also been played by Edward's Boys). If you like horrible, gory horror movies, you'll probably enjoy this play.

That's it for now! Hopefully at least a few of these plays catch your interest.

Btw, LibriVox, which is an organisation that makes public domain recordings of public domain texts, has most of these plays available as free audiobooks, if you're interested!

[xz1005fanblog]

2021-02-27 Some things I want to say

WARNING LONG POST

Context first, translation of his post above will follow:

Disclaimer: I have no interest in other artists other than Xiao Zhan, and I am merely explaining the situation of the fandom in China that led us to the fiasco in March 2020. I do not care for bjyx, I ship WangXian but I do not ship real people as a basic principle.

My opinion as an international fan of Xiao Zhan and as an AO3 user (yes, I am not Chinese nor do I live in China, I just happen to be able to read Chinese) is that C-entertainment industry is TOXIC and celebrities are not free targets for you to cyberbully. They are human just like you and me. 

Everyone needs to learn a bit more about compassion. 

I am sure all of you read about the cyberbullying Xiao Zhan went through last year. There were multiple factors that started all of this, most of which XZ doesn’t talk about in this letter because of how sensitive the topic is in China. I’ve never explained entirely what happened because I personally thought that this is not something overseas fans should worry too much about. Especially since most of you don’t have a wb or db account, there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. But since Xiao Zhan himself decided to post a letter to respond to this subject, I’ll put in my 2 cents just that so everyone is on the same page.

Basically, after The Untamed aired in China, the show fandom split into 3 groups. XZ fans, WYB fans, and CP fans (or bjyx, whatever you wish to call it, those who love shipping these two real people together - not just the characters in the drama). Of course there are still people who would watch the show without becoming a fan of the actors.

At the beginning, most people thought they were good friends with each other, with all the short BTS clips from The Untamed. However, fans slowly discovered that it wasn’t the case. Some unofficial BTS clips emerged where WYB said XZ was shooting multiple dramas at the same time = 轧戏 (which is very frowned upon and a disrespectful thing to say to an actor), whereas in reality, XZ only asked for a couple of days days off during the shooting for The Untamed because his scenes in Joy of Life had to be redone and he was bound by contract. On the contrary, WYB had to ask for most weekends off because he was participating in Produce 101 at the time. Other clips shows them fighting about somethings WYB said about WWX, which made XZ mad. So this broke a lot of CP fans’ image of their relationship, and they either stopped shipping/became XZ or WYB fans only. This angered WYB’s fans, of course, which made them blame XZ for the entire fiasco.  

Other incidents continued to happen after the show which increased the friction between these 3 fan groups. XZ fans and WYB fans would fight about various voting charts, and fight with CP fans because they don’t like seeing the two actors together. In the meantime, CP fans continuously feminize and weaken XZ in order to ship the 2 actors together (it’s rather an unhealthy trend in China, I’ve been in multiple other western fandoms before - not real person shipping - but we rarely glorify weakening/feminizing the bottom of a ship, because of the underlying prejudice against real homosexuals, who are not synonymous to transgenders).

Some incidents added oil to the fire afterwards. It’ll take me too long to explain everything, so I’ll just put here the main ones to explain why there’s so much bad blood between these 3 groups of fans.

On XZ’s birthday, some CP fans found XZ’s parents’ apartment building and yelled BJYX is real. This angered a lot of XZ fans, because of how disrespectful it was towards the old couple and the clear breach of privacy. WYB fans and some CP fans were also angry that XZ didn’t reply immediately to the birthday wish on wb that WYB sent at midnight (??? XZ was busy shooting a drama, can you blame him for not being on wb at midnight? Give the guy a break.)

In November 2019, WYB filed a lawsuit against some of XZ’s fans (instead against of his own haters!) for dissing him (although I’ve never seen any proof, and a few of those fans remain active on wb now, one of whom has even defended WYB's portrayal of LWJ before...). This angered a lot of XZ fans and CP fans who didn’t understand how he could have done this to his “friend”, and further proved that their relationship wasn’t that fantastic to begin with. WYB fans felt justified in hating XZ and all XZ fans as a result, and openly bullied XZ fans on the grounds of the Nanking CQL Concert. 

In January, The Untamed was named to Beijing Journal Drama award. CP fans and WYB fans were unhappy that XZ was named to the Best Male Lead category and WYB was named to the Best Male 2nd Lead. They attacked the award committee wb by spam commenting all their wb posts and the entire drama was pulled from the nomination afterward. XZ fans were especially angry that they started all this only for the nomination to be pulled out - because the only possibility was one Male Lead per drama, and anyone would agree that if chosen between WWX and LWJ, the character with the most scenes and importance in the story is WWX. 

Yadda yadda yadda, fast forward to February 2020, it started with a fanfiction written by a CP fan that depicted XZ as a prostitute transgender woman and WYB as a highschool kid (UNDERAGE) = AKA very sensitive material in China. It was posted on AO3, but the author posted the link of said fic on wb and a lot of CP fans broadcasted it around, so much that XZ fans became aware of it. Due to how sensitive the material is and how badly it would taint XZ’s image for his future roles, some XZ fans started reporting the wb post that contained the link (NOT AO3) and the author’s wb page. This is common practice in fandom on wb, usually done to get the wb posts taken down. This caused panic in the CP fans crowd because they thought XZ fans were reporting AO3 and that they were gonna lose the website (which is impossible, because AO3′s servers are in Sweden and not subject to Chinese laws anyway). 

Because of how sensitive AO3 was in China and how haters tried to pull in antigovernmental into their crowds, the subject quickly became too dangerous for XZ fans to get involved in. Official fan groups in China unanimously decided to ask all fans to stop participating in the online debate and stay within the fan group circle only. 

Someone on AO3 made a commentary about this incident that you can find here. She dug up a lot of info on the companies feeding money to the trolls online, but as I am an overseas fan and cannot really verify her info, I will not comment on those statements. 

Sometime in the middle of this fiasco, someone started spreading the notion that XZ fans hated fanfiction and were trying to report anything that goes against their image of their idol... And subsequently people who were not CP fans or XZ fans became aware of this problem when they couldn’t access AO3 suddenly because too much curious fans where trying to access it and they crashed the servers. However later on, people could access the website without any problems. I am not personally in China right now so I can’t verify these claims of the website being walled or not for real, but I know from various reliable sources that on March 1st it was only an overload of the server, and people could still access afterwards. 

With this however, haters (which include previous CP fans, WYB fans, and other idol’s fans) attacked XZ for not telling his fans to stop reporting, for not saying anything. They attacked XZ’s endorsements and spammed hate speech on the products he was promoting. They would rate 1 star in all his dramas and songs on db, and then buy accounts to further rate 1 stars (yes that thing exists in China, everything can be bought in China, don’t ask me why.) The reason why I believe that all this wasn’t coincidental, is that barely the day after the fiasco started, someone posted on db the exact list of all his sponsorships, detailing exactly who to call to protest, what words to spam in the comment sections of various official brands’ wb accounts. This entire thing was too well planned to be just a normal fandom fight. 

Whether it was other actors’ fans who organized this to cut down competition, we will probably never know for sure. The following year was laden with fake rumors, hate speech blasting from multiple directions. They attacked his personality, saying that his polite manners are just for show (when the reality is that he has always been a gentleman even when he wasn’t popular). They attacked XZ for faking donations to Wuhan, forcing him to show his donation certificate to prove himself. One of his friends couldn’t stand the cyberbullying anymore and revealed publicly that his grandfather recently passed away (the date on this drawing is 2020.03.03, he couldn’t post this last year). 

His friend defending him from the cyberbullies, saying that he had plenty of reasons to stay silent. That his grandfather passed away recently and his family has been planning his funeral. 

(Sources also said that his mother was hospitalized a few days afterwards. And that haters went to his mother’s hospital to harass her and her nurses)

Haters saying that XZ is using his grandfather’s death to excuse himself (??? is he not allowed to grieve like a normal person???)

Haters wishing that XZ becomes depressed from the cyberbullying and kills himself, wishing that he was dead, wishing that his fans were dead too. Photoshopping his picture into a funeral portrait to curse him

Haters admitting they are cyberbullying XZ, but rejoicing in the fact that they are so many so XZ can’t sue all of them. They have also reported his upcoming dramas for various reasons just so they cannot be aired. 

The airplane incident I’ve already talked about here.

A picture antis made to diss on XZ fans: AO3 can be still accessed even if it’s walled, Lofter can be still access even if it’s taken down from the app store. Your gege’s picture are still accessible even if he died. 

I’ve only posted here the tamest screenshots, there are far worst ones that I won’t be posting because the amount of vitriol give me nausea just looking at them. 

In all this fiasco, antis gave him the tag of “idol who didn’t manage his fans well”. But Xiao Zhan never thought fans needed to be trained, he thought of them like normal people, and their love, something to be treasured and not used. But some people in China still blamed his fans for starting all this mess, and partly him and his studio for not being able to stop it. 

Below is the translation for XZ’s letter, posted on the wb post above

Some Things I Want To Say

Today, I have something to say to everyone. I’ve thought of a lot of ways to do this, but in the end, I chose the simplest way to tell everyone about all my feelings and thoughts in the past year. These opinions, maybe they won’t be able to represent anything, nor won’t they be able to change anything, but I still wish to say this today. 

On this day last year, the incident happened very quickly, as if a bomb exploded on my face - endless phone calls, never ending message notifications, everyone’s opinions and questions came in like a tsunami. I wanted to say something back then, but I didn’t know what exactly. I was apprehensive of making a statement, afraid that one wrong word, or one wrong sentence would be taken the wrong way and end up adding oil to the fire. This is why at that time, I chose not to say anything. 

I never thought that the online fighting would grow bigger and bigger like an avalanche, getting larger crowds involved, and gradually leaving one person’s control. Even though afterwards I made repeated statements to make amends, it could not develop as I wished it to anymore. 

This life filled with broken protests and tumultuous noise continued to this day. And I felt I was going through a very dark and never ending tunnel. Unrest, ruminations, turmoil... I have also asked myself what did I do wrong exactly, why did everything after that day became as if it were an uncontrollable vessel. 

I spent a lot of time to digest, and then spent a lot of time to understand, understand everyone’s words and actions. Slowly, I started to understand what everyone was criticizing about me personally. The moment that I chose not to say anything, I lost that window of opportunity to reason with everyone. So I was wrong, from the very beginning. 

At that time, I wasn’t yet able to clearly understand the entire incident, to understand everyone’s feelings, nor did I know what kind of responsibility I had to carry as a public figure. Thus, I missed that opportunity to communicate with everyone, and wasn’t able to withstand the responsibility of letting these antagonizing feelings grow. Now, I can clearly recognize that throughout this year, this criticism that everyone had against me of “Idol Who Lost Its Voice”, was correct. During this year I reflected upon this repeatedly, as a public figure, I have to not only improve myself within the boundaries of my profession, but also have to carry the social responsibility that comes with my influence. To influence those who like me, who follow me, towards the right worldviews within my capacity. Even though my studio and I have already expressed some opinions through wb and interviews, but scars that this incident that brought such antagonistic emotions between different circles are still difficult to heal. 

No matter how late, my own problem has to be corrected. I would like to express my first comment: Xiao Zhan, would like to apologize for “losing voice” towards those who have been affected by this incident. This is my first responsibility towards the public, face the problem and admit my faults. 

Also, I would like to use this opportunity to speak with my fans. This is my second responsibility. In one of my interviews last year, I have said, I do not really agree with “managing” my fans (some celebs in China have hired people to manage fan groups in order for them to behave in certain ways for their purposes. Antis tried to spread the false rumor that XZ also had those people and that they directed their fans to start this mess), because everyone is an individual. No matter my studio nor myself, we do not have the authority to “manage” them like some would manage workers in a company. Afterwards, I reflected many times, maybe I cannot use the word “manage” to define my relationship with my fans, but I do have the responsibility to “correctly influence, and actively advocate”. So today, I would like to tell my fans, everyone has the right to like or hate something, and it should be respected and allowed within their own space. Of course this right should be reasonable, should not hurt anyone else, and remain within the boundaries of the correct values and norms. I hope my fans and friends can understand that no matter which profession, no matter what age, one’s own preferences or actions should not cross the line for one’s professional ethics or disrespect basic principles. 

(Here he is referring to reports of teachers using his name in class or asking children to say his name to cheer for him. This is a problem that occurred also with other celebrities in China, and for which he has already expressed himself previously.)

No matter online or in real life, everyone should be responsible for their own words. I also hope that we are not represented tags like “xx’s fans”, that we do not set this as the basis of where we stand on a topic nor do we let this determine what’s right or wrong. Everyone have their own hobbies and interest, respect everyone’s choice and freedom of speech. No matter whether they like me or hate me is their own right. Passion, this should be a source of strength to everyone, I do not wish for it to consume or hurt anyone. Perhaps I cannot change this kind of environment, but at least for you and me, today is a new start point. 

At last, I would like to talk a bit about myself. Ever since I came into this field, until today, I have always been defined by some tags. But the reason why I originally stepped into this circle was my passion for performance and music. And this is why, I will keep working on becoming a better actor and singer. The sudden criticism of “having lost voice” made me realize that, other than what I have always focused on professionally, I have to also be able to carry the responsibility of a public figure and an idol. I was born in a normal family in Chong Qing, and have lived a normal life, like many other people, for more than twenty years. Today I will also use this opportunity to apologize for the words I have said before as a normal person (I’ve already talked about it here), for the people I have inadvertently hurt. As I work hard on studying to become a better person, I will try to become a better “public figure”, so that these two Xiao Zhan can blend in together, for a better self. 

This past year, no matter big or small, I have to be responsible for the incidents that happened because of me. I can demand this for myself, but I have no right to force it on other people, so I can only hope that those who really like me can really listen to me: please be a bit more reasonable for things outside of personal preferences. Live a healthy life, put more time and energy onto one’s real life, and less on the senseless fighting behind fake IDs and unreliable online world. Only to become a better self. 

(Here he’s referring to an online fight that an anti called 晨小晨 started. I’ve already explained a bit here.  #微博管理员回应晨小晨事件# )

Sorry for any grammar errors, this post was really long to make and I didn’t proofread. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to translate the entire thing for overseas fans since you don’t understand the entire context, and because I wanted my wb records collection tag to be complete, I felt I had to... and I got carried away trying to explain everything. Tried to summarize it as much as I could.

As a fan of Xiao Zhan and also an AO3 user, I would still like to apologize for how this bullshi*t ended up disrupting respectful and peaceful users of AO3. The Untamed tag did not contain hate fics before all of this happened, it is unfortunate that a place where there used to be only love, ended up being tainted by antis and haters.

To the anonymous person who asked me a few months ago if I supported bjyx, this is my answer: You have the right to like whatever you want within your own corner, as long as it doesn’t bother anyone else and isn’t against basic principles. I ship WangXian as characters from a novel, but I have never liked RPS as a principle. 

[stellar-imagines]

SCENARIO REQUEST: ❝unpleasant news.❞

[ Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia ] [ Characters: Todoroki Shouto ]

「Scenario of Todoroki’s S/O being critically injured by villains and she doesn’t come to class one day and suddenly their phones all go off with the breaking news report about what happened.」

TODOROKI SHOUTO

"The convenience store? At this hour?" Todoroki questioned.

Todoroki took a moment to glance over at the clock sitting on his desk. It was quite late at night and not the time for you to be going out to the convenience store. He put down the pencil that he had been using to do his homework and picked up his phone before heading to his futon that was spread out on the ground. He made himself comfortable before putting his phone on speaker. He could hear you moving about in your room, grabbing a few things before leaving. He could even hear you telling your mother that you were going to head out soon.

On the other hand, you were busy putting on your shoes, your mother reminding you to be careful on your way out, even though the store was just a few minutes away. The two of you had the habit of calling each other before going to bed so calling at this hour wasn't that uncommon at all. There was just something romantic with calling before bed and Todoroki seemed to be quite fond of doing something like this every day. He believes that hearing your voice before ending the day was such a wonderful thing.

"My mom used up all of the eggs and soy sauce for dinner and those are kind of a necessity for tomorrow's breakfast so....." you were walking down the empty streets, looking left and right before crossing roads.

"Ah, I see. Anyway, be careful. I'll see you tomorrow at school." Todoroki said.

You said your goodbyes before putting away your phone. There were still a few cars here and there but the road was still devoid of people. The store itself was empty, there were only employees present at the moment, most were seen chatting by register while the rest busied themselves with cleaning. Upon your arrival, the staff greeted you warmly. You quickly bought what your mother had requested, along with some snacks that you will be having for yourself.  When you finished shopping, your mom has asked about your whereabouts while Todoroki texted you to call him once you got home and told you to stay safe. You replied to both texts while you were still inside the store.

On the way home, you heard a bit of rustling by the alleyway ahead of you, followed by a few voices. You thought nothing much about it until three figures emerged from the alleyway which made you stop abruptly. Two were men, both donning a mask the covers half of the lower face. The last one was a female who looked like she was being dragged away against her will, judging from the small cuts on her arms and the bruises. She looked no older than 30 years old who looked like she worked at a company. It didn't take long for you to understand what's going on.

"I thought you said that no one uses this road at night!"

"And I thought I told you that it depends!"

The two suspicious men argued with one another while you took the chance to assess the current situation. It was late at night and then chances of other heores coming is very slim. You put aside your bag and got into a fighting stance. Without warning, you lunged forward to secure the victim while they were still arguing amongst themselves and leaving themselves open. They both looked genuinely surprised at how quick you acted and immediately turned towards you. The villains attempted to attack you but you blocked their attack and stepped back. The woman stirred awake from all the noise and movement.  

"You're awake. That's great. You don't seem to have major injuries, please rest assured and let me handle this." you smiled gently at the woman who was still trying to comprehend what was going on.

"Judging from the way you move.....you must be a hero in training."

"Don't blame us if you get hurt."

With that, you exchanged blows with the two unknown masked figures.

The next day was a nice and clear day. Todoroki finds himself quite disturbed at how nice the day was, he woke up feeling extremely exhausted and noticed that he still had his phone in hand. He quickly got up to ready himself for school, putting his phone aside and kicking off the blankets. By the time he stepped out of the house, he had his eyes on his phone. In the end, you didn't give him a call once you got back home. Todoroki assumed that you probably didn't want to disturb him and decide to leave him alone to sleep. Then again, he could see you at school anyways.

"Good morning, Todoroki-kun!"

He heard Midoriya's voice while he was changing his shoes by the lockers. Following the green-haired male were Uraraka and Iida who were waving at Todoroki as well.

"Oh, everyone.....Good morning." 

"Uwah, what's with that tired look on your face?" Uraraka questioned.

"I was just thinking about something." the bicolored haired male replied.

The four students headed to Class 1-A, only to see that their classmates chatting with one another. Todoroki headed to his seat at the back, paying no heed to whatever was going on within the classroom. His phone vibrated within his pocket, a bit too violently that it annoyed him a bit. It wasn't until he sat down that he pulled out his phone He finds a few messages from his older siblings, others were notification from other apps that told him about the most recent news. In the group chat he was in, which had all Fuyumi and Natsuo in it, had numerous notifications. It seemed like the two were calling for him. He scrolled up and found a link to a certain page. There he saw a video of a live broadcast from just a minute ago.

"This just in! The police and pro heroes had managed to capture two villains who have been wreaking havoc for the past month." the loud volume was enough to attract a few people's attention. A few students gathered around Todoroki to see what was going on. On display was a video of civilians surrounding the site while the police tried to keep them in check.

"The two villains were famous slave traders, attacking at random patterns which threw the police force and pro heroes off guard with their timing. Here we are, interviewing the victim from last night." the camera then switched over towards a woman who was seated at the back of the hospital, fresh bandages littering her arms and some on her face.

"I remember going home and suddenly, I was pulled into the alleyway. After that, everything was blurry but I was saved by a hero. She was really kind and prioritized my safety. Even though she was still a student, I could tell that she's going to be a great hero someday. She was critically injured when I finally regained consciousness but at that moment the villains were already defeated, yet she still tended to my injuries and even called an ambulance for me. Although it might not be enough, I would like to pay for her hospital bills." the woman had a solemn yet sad look on her as if she could feel someone else's pain.

"The student turned out to be a first-year student from the hero course of UA. She goes by the name [Last Name] [First Name]....."

After that, everything became silent for Todoroki. The news was too heavy for him to take in right now. He managed to put all the pieces together. The reason as to why you didn't bother to even send him a message. His classmates began talking amongst themselves while keeping their eyes onto Todoroki's phone screen. They were so focused on the news that they failed to notice that their homeroom teacher had entered the classroom, ready to start school.

"What are you all doing? Put your phones away, it's time for homeroom." Aizawa put down his attendance book onto the table.

"Sensei! Did you know about this?" Kaminari showed the teacher his phone which had an article that contained information about your heroic deeds and hospitalization. Aizawa looked at the phone for a few moments before looking at everyone in the class to see their expressions. As expected, everyone was worried. You were one of the lively students in the class that can change the mood so this was expected.

"I know that you're all worried but there's nothing you can do about it. Let the pros handle it. You all can go visit her after school so just be quiet and pay attention because I'm not gonna repeat this again." Aizawa quickly changed the direction of the conversation and finished off homeroom. Throughout the entire day, everyone was quite worried about you.

During lunch break, Todoroki had the chance to use his phone and the first thing he did was call you. However, it was your mother who had picked up instead. Judging from how relaxed your mother sounded, Todoroki could deduce that you're not in a serious condition. Your mother had told him what he needed to know, which includes your well being and a detailed explanation of what exactly happened last night. He hung up once he heard his classmates calling him to go back to class. After he sat down on his seat and pulled out his textbook, he made a mental note to go to the bakery to buy your favorite stuff before visiting you.

As soon as classes ended, Todoroki was already packing his things as fast as possible. Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka had stopped him before he had left, telling the bicolored haired male that they wanted to visit you as well. They stopped by the bakery by the train station before taking a 5-minute walk to the hospital. By the time they arrive, the sky’s color had changed. The receptionist was kind enough to guide the four students to your room despite the busy schedule she probably has. The moment they arrived in front of the room you were resting in, a nurse exited the room with a few papers in hand.

”Oh, you all must be [Last Name]-san’s visitors. Thank you for coming so far to visit but it's not the right time. She’s currently resting after an operation. Sorry but perhaps, maybe you can come to visit tomorrow.” the nursed smiled apologetically at the four. Iida shook his head, telling the nurse that there’s no need to apologize for something she couldn’t control.

Though they were disappointed, they knew that it was best to not disturb your slumber and let you get as much rest as you possibly could. Todoroki voiced out that he wanted to stay and said something about wanted to see you. Uraraka handed him the flowers she, Midoriya, and Iida had bought together, telling him to say hello for her in case you wake up. The three said their goodbyes before heading towards the elevator. The nurse guided the bicolored haired male into the room and drew the curtains together. Once he was within your room, he took a moment to study the interior.

The hospital wasn’t unfamiliar to him at all, since he often visited his mother during the weekends. But, he decided to explore the room. There was a wall-mounted TV right in front of your bed, it looked like the latest model. A window giving him a view of the world below. In the corner were two chairs with a short, rectangular coffee table. Todoroki set down the bag that held your favorite desserts and placed the flowers in the vase. He dragged the chair next to your bed and sat down, eyes fixated on your sleeping form. He felt useless. He reached for your hand, feeling how cold it was beneath his fingertips.

"She has internal bleeding and suffered temporary blood loss. When she came in, she was bleeding all over but thankfully, we had a donor. The doctors say that they're unsure when she will wake up but for now, they did all they can." the nurse assured Todoroki after seeing the frown etched onto his face. The nurse excused herself and left the room.

All he could think was how he could've prevented this if he offered to accompany you last night. Seeing you on the hospital bed reminded him of how dangerous being a hero actually is and how fragile a person's life was. He squeezed your hand gently, silently hoping that you would wake up and return the gesture. What if you never wake up? What would happen if you were to disappear completely from his life? From your family and friends? He didn't know when he started relying on your comfort and reassuring words.

You were like a ray of sunshine, devoid of impurities, and darkness. When he was at his lowest and angry at himself for getting riled up at the thought of his father, you were there for him. You didn't have to say anything to make him feel at ease. You would do it unconsciously, coming into his room and surprising him with some baked goods or sneaking up on him to give him a hug. Though they were only little things, it was enough to cheer him up. Your presence itself was a blessing in disguise.

He hoped that he treated you well enough.

But he knows that you're strong and that you will pull through. Todoroki knows what he should do now. He should take care of himself and be the one to take care of you once you wake up. It may not be enough to repay you for all the times you stayed with him but it was the least he could do.

"I'll come back tomorrow."

Hopefully by then, you'll be awake.

Total: 2323 words Published: 27.08.2020

Thank you to those who participated in the poll!

Thank you for requesting! ｡٩(ˊᗜˋ)و*｡ We did our best with this scenario and it turn out as angsty as we thought. And we didn’t really make that sad hospital scene. But we hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.― author Lou

Thank you for requesting! There’s a lot of things we could’ve improved but we didn’t really know what we should do. Hope you liked it, anon! ― author Natsuki

Requests are open! Matchups are closed!

Please do not mind the grammar mistakes and typos.

[aion-rsa]

Space Sweepers and the History of Working Class People In Space

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This week saw the release of Space Sweepers, Korea’s first big budget special effects space movie extravaganza. There are a lot of interesting things to say about this movie, but one of the things that makes it stand out is it’s an excellent portrayal of people in space who are skint.

See, I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably never going into space. Unless you’re a highly trained technical specialist (well done!) or a billionaire (pay your taxes!), your best shot at seeing Earth from space within your lifetime is the development of realistic-yet-cheap VR headsets.

And the thing is, a lot of the time this holds up in sci-fi as well. Space travellers are either living in a post-scarcity utopia, are part of the military, or are some kind of genius scientists.

Even where we see supposedly salt-of-the-Earth relatable types, like Han Solo or Mal Reynolds, their scruffy outfits and roguish ways can’t quite cover for the fact that they own and live in the equivalent of a massive luxury yacht or private plane. Serenity may look like a rust bucket, but it’s far from the equivalent of a white van, and while Mal is constantly complaining about the costs of fuel and repairs, that doesn’t change the fact that he seems to own the ship outright, and in “Oxygen” he appears ready to buy the ship for cash.

As for Han Solo, leaving for a moment his humble origins and that he won the ship in a card game, within the Galaxy Far Far Away the ratio of space travellers to non-space travellers doesn’t seem that different from the one on Earth. Yes, there are lots of smugglers and Tie-fighter pilots and interplanetary bounty hunters, but for every one of them there are millions of Tusken sand raiders, Jawa scrap merchants, moisture farmers and Corellian street rats. Spacecraft might come and go from the spires of Coruscant as regularly as buses, but the population density is such that most people on that planet will be lucky to see sunlight, let alone the stars.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the chances of an ordinary person getting into space even in the foreseeable future vary between Willy Wonka Golden ticket level lucky, or truly dystopian. On the one hand, Elon Musk has announced the first all-civilian mission to space, led by billionaire Jared Isaacman (so, not what you’d call an everyman), two seats given to people who have won a place by donating to St Jude’s Hospital (it probably won’t be one of the smaller donors), and finally, one lucky front-line health worker.

But Elon Musk wants to colonise Mars, and sadly billionaires still need people to clean the toilets, so Musk has other ideas for how ordinary people might get into space. Unfortunately that idea is indentured slavery, demonstrating that the most prescient science fiction writers of our generation are the writers of first-person shooters.

This is why, outside of post-scarcity-fully-automated-luxury-space-communism, and the military, science fiction is always oddly quiet about money. With a few honourable exceptions.

We Just Work Here

The first and most obvious reason why any ordinary working-class person would end up in space is “they’re paid to”.

Pretty much the codifier of working-class people in space is Alien. The crew of Nostromo aren’t scientists, they’ve not got The Right Stuff. Nobody on that ship is getting a high school named after them. The crew of the Nostromo are basically truck drivers who venture off the highway and run into something nasty. Yes, ironically they show a great deal more competence, professionalism and intelligence in encountering an alien threat than the actual scientists in the prequel movie, but the first conversation these characters have when they come out of hyper sleep is about money. From the outset, these are people in a place of work.

It’s a model that set the format for gritty-industrial-working-class-people in space movies going forward for better or worse. Event Horizon just lifts Alien’s aesthetic completely for the rescue ship Lewis & Clark, as does the videogame series Dead Space, like Alien, set aboard a mining ship.

Away from the horror genre, Outland sees Sean Connery play sheriff in a final frontier mining town that could have taken place in the same world as Alien.

And of course, Red Dwarf, which not only made good use of the Alien aesthetic, but also cast the colony commander from Aliens as their Captain, to tell the story of chicken soup repairmen in space.

Across all of these stories, and of course the aforementioned videogames, the life of the blue collar space traveller is an unpleasant one, exploited by a company that not only controls your life while you work, but also owns all of your food, water and air. Indeed, it’s not rare for them to go further. In Moon, another film where the spacemen-to-earthmen ratio seems not far what it is now, Sam Bell’s employer decides to save the cost of training employees and ferrying them back and forth from Earth to the Moon by taking one employee and filling a cellar full of his pre-programmed, short-lived disposable clones.

Space Sweepers

Public Transport

But maybe you don’t want to work for “the Man”, not an unwise call given the Man is probably trying to feed you to something horrible in the hope of creating a new bioweapon. One surprisingly under-utilised method of getting into space is public transport.

In The Fifth Element, Bruce Willis plays a special-forces-operative-turned-cab-driver who, as part of his cover, wins a ticket to go on a space cruise. Although looking at the sets and the extras in this movie, as well as the packed-in-as-tightly-as-we-can apartments back on Earth, one gets the impression this is not an option open to the majority of working joes.

Perhaps the best example of this is in the shockingly under-loved 2018 flick, Prospect, featuring future Mandalorian Pedro Pascal.

In Prospect, the spaceship is little more than a rotating framework filled with cargo containers in front of a massive engine. The father and daughter prospecting team are on board a lander that resembles nothing so much as an old Apollo Lunar Lander on the inside, and as the mothership approaches their destination the ship doesn’t even stop, it just releases the lander, tells them when the ship is going to be passing back that way and warns them the line is being terminated, so there won’t be another ship passing that way.

This is a model it would be fantastic to see more of. The landing module is small enough that it’s entirely plausible that even these not-very-well-off characters could buy, hire or rent one. Rather than having the freedom of the space ways like Mal or Han, their travel options are entirely restricted by what destinations are profitable for large shipping companies and whether they’ll let you tag along. And while on the surface the aesthetic looks a bit Alien, in truth it feels far more like it’s cobbled together from relics of the actual space age.

Borrow Your Way Into Space

And finally, of course, there’s the Elon Musk solution. Borrow your way into space. One of the early places to use this idea was Gateway, by Frederik Pohl. Frederik Pohl in particular is fantastic at writing science fiction worlds where people actually have to worry about money. In Gateway and its sequels humanity has discovered Ancient Aliens left a space station nearby, stocked with a lot of spaceships. Being alien technology, humans can’t control the ships accurately, they’re limited pretty much to pressing the “Stop” and “Go” buttons, and when the ship flies off it might land on a world of fabulous riches, or it might chuck you into the heart of a star.

Prospectors who want to try their luck in these ships have to take out a loan to get to the station, and throughout the novel the protagonist is constantly aware of how many credits are in his account.

Which brings us back around to Space Sweepers. At first glance the Space Sweepers set-up might seem similar to that of the Millennium Falcon or Serenity – an extremely “used” looking ship run by a rag-tag bunch of misfits. But the first time we see the protagonist, Tae-ho, he’s in a pawn shop. As soon as he gets back to the ship we learn the crew are still paying off the cost of the ship, as well as the costs of repairs and parts.

We see an awful lot of “Space sweepers” throughout the film, junk collectors gathering up salvage from Earth’s orbiting collection of derelict spacecraft and defunct satellites. But these people don’t seem like roguish space pirates, the impression they give is more akin to app-based gig workers.

This is compounded by another issue – that to work in space you need a visa, with citizenship limited to the wealthy few who are able to afford a place on the deluxe orbiting space habitats.

Everything in Space Sweepers is driven by money, whether it’s Tao-Ho’s attempts to raise enough money to find his daughter, the robot, Bubs, and her attempt to get a humanoid body that reflects her gender, and of course, the $2 million reward for “Dorothy” which drives the whole plot.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Often space-based sci-fi is about the fantasy of freedom, of exploration. Even shows like Star Trek give us characters whose job isn’t much more than to fly around having adventures. But there is rich storytelling to be done about the people who have to clean the space toilets.

Chris Farnell’s novella series, Fermi’s Progress, is about a ship whose FTL drive vaporises planets, and features at least one space traveller who isn’t a scientist, super soldier or billionaire (although to be fair the other three characters are exactly that). You can find part one here.

The post Space Sweepers and the History of Working Class People In Space appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[6knotty6thotty6]

PSAs in Kid’s Shows Are Terrible, and This Is Why

YouTuber TheMysteriousMrEnter recently made a video criticizing PSAs in kid’s cartoons. They like to tackle some serious topics such as climate change, voting, COVID-19, and racism. The problem is these PSAs were either painfully one-sided, had terrible writing, no entertaining ( which is the point of a cartoon aimed at kids), taught kids the wrong lesson, or were just not the right cartoon to discuss the issue. Who honestly thought it was a good idea to have Arthur, a cartoon where all the characters are animals, talk about racism towards black people?

I'm more surprised that there hasn't been a modern cartoon PSA about body positivity. The whole body positivity/body acceptance movement is a joke because all of the most prominent advocates are terrible. Lizzo, Amy Schumer, and Rebel Wilson think it's cute to be as loud and obnoxious as possible and insult skinny women. While also being fuel for people who claim that the movement is nothing but "fat acceptance" or "promoting an "unhealthy lifestyle." The beauty gurus and fitness enthusiasts are hypocrites since they admit that beauty standards are unfair, while still being gatekeepy since they still fit the standard and want to benefit from pretty privilege. They also say things like, "Stop saying all bodies are beautiful!" "Not everyone can be beautiful (like me), but that's ok." "Looks do matter in relationships because humans are visual creatures." In addition to promoting appetite suppressants, plastic surgery, and restrictive diets you'd have to be a thousandaire to follow. They want their cake and eat it too. Then we have makeup and fashion companies trying to earn brownie points for using plus-sized, dark-skinned, and older models. Even though those "plus-sized" models are a size medium at most, and the others still uphold all the other beauty standard (no wrinkle, no stretch marks, no cellulite, no pimples, no body hair, full volume hair, straight pearly white teeth, firm skin, high pitch voice, and between 5'7 - 6'1). Kids in general have a terrible reputation with using body-shaming as a joke. One of the most common tropes in cartoons is the abhorrent admirer. A trope that literally mocks “ugly” and fat people for being in love with someone that is “out of their league.”

P.S. This also brings up an issue with health PSAs. In my opinion, they were the corniest and most ignorant out of all the other PSAs. They basically followed the "Supersize Me" formula of putting all the blame on children for their poor diet. Here's the problem, children can't control what they eat. That's their parent's job. Parents are the ones who make the money, buy the food, and do all the cooking. If a kid told their parents to feed them healthier food, they'd either get yelled at for being an ungrateful brat, punished, or starve. This is why "finish your plate or starve" tends to cause eating disorders and obesity in kids. The harsh truth is parents hate being told how to raise their kids. It's the main reason why so many parents protested Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver for changing the school's lunch menus. There's also the fact that health PSAs refuse to address that the leading causes of obesity are economic disparity and the predatory promotion of fast food and junk companies. Poor neighborhoods contain lots of fast-food restaurants, those restaurants have deals such as $5 meals and $1 menus, grocery store shave better discounts on chips and soda than meat and vegetables, and most poor neighborhoods are in food deserts, which means there aren't any grocery stores within 20 miles. According to those health PSAs, If a poor single-parent feeds their kids McDonald's, then it's their fault. Not their boss who forces them to work overtime every day with little pay; which makes them too exhausted to cook, and not be able to fill up their car and drive to the grocery store that's over 30 miles from where they live. Not the McDonalds who prides themselves on their cheap and unhealthy food (even their salads have been proven to contain sugar). Not the grocery stores that jack up the prices on fresh and organic produce while having a buy 1 get 1 free sale on candy bars. Nope, it's all the parent's fault. The people who make those PSAs are the same people who think homeless people chose to be homeless and that spikes and anti-homeless public benches are a good idea. 

P.S.S. A great example of counterintuitive anti-racist sentiments is color-blind casting. This is the reason why white people voice so many POC characters in cartoons, Cree Summer (a light-skinned bi-racial black woman) is the token voice of every black girl in the 90s and early 2000s cartoons, and why mono-racial POC voice actors have a harder time finding work.

[myasssaysno]

THE BATMAN! Swinging through rooftops. In some unnamed city, while two gown (you know their goons because one of them is awkwardly holding a gun) watch. for some reason. 

This is Detective Comics (1939) with an emphasis on 1939 (despite it being in brackets) The very first Batman story ever published and I'm going to review it because current comics make me want to die.

WARNING: It's a really long post, so only read if you have time and patience to waste.

Okay first lets talk about that front cover, that rope he's swinging on is simply wrapped around one of his arms. In other words, he's lost that arm or at least damaged it quiet badly (don't try this at home kiddos)

Next, he's carrying a man with him, in a head-lock. So, that man's probably dead (again, don't try at home)

And finally, did the sky need to be yellow? The rooftops blue? Or the buildings red and purple? DO ANY OF THESE COLORS MAKE SENSE?

Anyway, quick explanation. Detective Comics don't function like most modern comics, it doesn't resolve around one single superhero and their fight against evil. Instead, it introduces multiple in the same issue. 

Also, the caps lock is permanently on, to make everything exciting! (Pro tip: use exclamation marks for EVERYTHING!)

The Bat-Man doesn't appear until the 27th issue (according to Wikipedia) which is where we'll be starting, other superheroes be damned. 

This is the first introduction of the character of Batman at all. 

And it goes like this:

“The Bat-Man, a mysterious and adventurous figure, fighting for righteousness and apprehending the wrong doer, in his lone battle against the evil forces of society. His identity remains unknown. "

Okay, so immediately drawn to the 'his identity remains unknown' for two reasons. One, everyone knows who Bat-Man is but I get it at this point no-one would know which sounds ridiculous but then it goes on to tell you who Bat-Man is. Like by the end of this one story.

You would think they'd drag it out a little longer, but old comics don't play around like that. 

Next thing to note, Bat-Man really did start out as a moody loner which is both disgusting and impressive. On account of a lot of character's becoming unrecognizable to their past interpretations, especially spanning decades. 

Now the story is called:

"The case of the Chemical Syndicate."

It starts in Commissioner Gordon's house, who has some of the most colourful furniture. We are talking bright fireman red arm chair, and a sky blue arm chair. Like old comics just went crazy with colours. 

Also, Bruce Wayne used to smoke a pipe (back in the day when everyone smoked) while Gordon prefers what looks like a cigar. Old comics aren't the easiest to tell what's going on half the time. 

Anyway, Gordon is entertaining the young socialite Bruce Wayne. 

(Side note: At the moment Commissioner Gordon doesn't even have a first name which is deeply disrespectful to the man). 

Bruce is playing up the bored rich boy act, head in hand and wishing for death. While Gordon's puzzling over the Bat-Man (which again is extremely disrespectful to my man, Commissioner Gordon who knows better)

Then the phone rings! Dun Dun Duuuun!

We only hear Gordon's side of the story, which explains that a man named Lambert, known as the Chemical King has been stabbed and his son's finger prints are on the knife. 

Okay, first mistake deary. That crime literally just happened, Gordon turns up to the scene is a few panels over and the body hasn't been moved, the crime scene hasn't been analysed and the son's sat waiting for the Commissioner. 

This isn't a case closed, better let the Commissioner know. This is a, their a case that needs the Commissioner phone call. How the hell did they know whose prints are on the knife, how did they know anything about the knife if they're waiting for the Commissioner to analyse the scene. 

But jumping back to the phone call, Bruce Wayne's still in the room. Within hearing distance which is bad but then Gordon asks if he'd liked to come along. 

Commissioner Gordon invites Bruce Wayne to a crime scene. If the people who first read this, didn't immediately work out who Bat-Man is, they're stupid. Plain and simple. 

Anyway, they speed over (because they have to) in a little red car that's looks exactly like Bat-Man's car. (But we don't know that yet)

Arriving at the scene, Gordon examines the scene but doesn't really have anything to say about it. For summary, it's a dead man in a dressing gown who got stabbed in the back (because where else would you get stabbed) and died on his library floor. 

If you haven't worked it out yet, this man is rich. Big mansion, named after him. He's known as Old Lambert, and he's the Chemical King. Which I researched a little into, and it really was early days for chemical corporations in America (and other places) so I'm guessing they wanted to show that's he's some big-shot of a chemical corporation or something?

Either way, Gordon's right on to the good part. Accusing the son of murder, who immediately panics and goes on the defence. Which by todays standards makes him seem guilty as hell. 

As it turns out, he came home early (don't sons just always do that, when their father's getting murdered) heard a noise from the library, found his father with a knife in his back and removed it. 

So technically, he did murder his father. 

The boys story also contains a part where he got the impression someone had jumped out of an open window (not sure what that means) and that the safe was open, and his father's dying words as he held him in his arms were contract. 

God damn it, just once think about your son Old Lambert, but no once again business comes first. 

Gordon then proves himself a good detective and asks the lad about any enemies. Which the boy replies with, no but yeah and lists three names who all become relevant to this story, almost like the boy knew all along. (Kidding)

The first former businessman is Steven Crane, and guess who just phoned the Lambert residency. Steve Crane (maybe it's his brother) who informs the commissioner that Lambert had received a death threat before he'd died, and that he has also received a death threat. 

Gordon tells him to stay put, don't let anyone in. At this point Bruce Wayne taps out and then we're in Crane's library. And oh no, he's just been shot. 

Why give the death threat, did these businessmen just immediately go sit in their libraries and stare at their safe's when threatened?

Crane's murderer steals something from the safe and immediately runs to a nearby rooftop to meet up with Lambert's murderer. 

Okay, mistake number one. If there's two of you, and you're both going to murder a businessman, strike at the same time. Don't wait for the police to turn up to one crime and don't threaten the second victim so he has time to warn the police. 

Next mistake, don't meet on a rooftop, that draws attention. Meet inside a car, or a back alley or at least a few streets away, not down the street from victim two's house.

Finally, don't carry paper around in your hands when your going to meet on a rooftop. Like nothing happens to that paper, but I'm telling you that's the biggest lie of this comic, that paper should be gone.

Instead, they get their ass kicked by Bat-Man who sends one of the criminals flying through space. (The comics words not mine) like Bat-Man just yeets one over his shoulder without looking. 

Anyway, the police turn up, Gordon shouts about catching Bat-Man who is able to disappear into the night with his piece of paper (unrealistic) and then Gordon gives up on finding Bat-Man and goes to Crane's house. 

That's right, one panel of Gordon shouting at Bat-Man and then he's outside Crane's house, speaking with the man's butler who explains Crane's dead. And it's terrible. Heck, Gordon doesn't even check just takes the butler's word for it. 

Gordon then comes to the conclusion that if two out of four businessmen, who Lambert's son mentioned got death threats before dying, the other two businessmen must also have gotten death threats. 

Once again, the are just mention as former businessmen, not even if they knew each other or were part of the same business. Gordon's going out on a limb here. 

Doesn't matter anyway, because he's investigation ends here. 

Bat-Man on the other hand is sat in Bruce Wayne's car, grime smile as he looks at a piece of paper. And then he speeds forward onto an unknown destination. (Um, what?)

Next we jump to the former businessman number two, Paul Rogers whose heard of Lambert's death on the news. Rushing over to the last businessman the son name dropped Alfred Stryker. 

Rogers is met by Mr Jennings, the assistant of Stryker at the door to the neighbouring lab, who lets Rogers in. Only to sock him in the back of the head. Ouch!

He's then tied up, taken to the basement and placed under a glass cylinder. Mr Jennings explains its a gas chamber he's used on guinea pigs (why always guinea pigs)

Anyway, Bat-Man jumps in through the skylight and picks up a wrench. Jumping into the cylinder with Rogers, plugs up the gas jet with a handkerchief before breaking the glass. 

I want to call bullshit, but like it could work. Maybe. I don't know.

Jennings pulls a pistol on Bat-Man. Idiot. He's thrown over Bat-Man's shoulders for his troubles and sat on (that's right) by Bat-Man who then punches him in the face a good few times. 

Stryker finally arrives. Tries to kill Rogers with what looks like a butter knife, Bat-Man immediately twists the knife of out his hands, before grabbing him by the front of his clothes. 

Now comes the part where Bat-Man explains what's going on. Okay, so basically, Stryker didn't have ready cash to buy the company (Apex Chemical Corporation) off the other three. So, he set up secret contracts saying he'll pay them off in set amount, but instead had them killed. 

Not much of a chemical syndicate (which is an organized crime)

Anyway, then Bat-Man kicks the man into a tank of acid (did I forget to mention the tank of acid) for hiring people to kill of some businessmen. I mean what about the people who actual kill them. 

Whatever, Jason's proud Bruce. 

Bat-Man leaves with a quick “a fitting end for his kind” before pulling the disappearing act on Rogers, the only surviving businessman who can't prove Bat-Man was ever there and has to explain the disappearance of Stryker. 

Anyway, Bruce joins the Commissioner again at his house and hears all about the Bat-Man. Not sure what Gordon actual knows about that but Bruce pretends to be uninterested and Gordon thinks Bruce has a boring life and he's disinterested in everything. 

Then, we see Bruce return home and disappear into a room, only for Bat-Man to step out. OH NO! BAT-MAN KILLED BRUCE WAYNE.

Quick summary, four former businessmen. One gets stabbed in the back and for a hot second it looks like his son is the murderer. Businessman two get shot in the front. Both have contracts stolen from their safe. The murderer's meet on the rooftop and are beaten up by Bat-Man.

Businessman three goes to businessman four whose assistant tries to kill him. Saved by Bat-Man. Businessman four is kicked into a tank of acid for his trouble and businessman three goes down for the crime. Maybe, he can't prove Bat-Man murdered businessman four. 

Bat-Man says keep calm and yeet criminals into space (and the one's who hire them into tanks of acid)

[mileycyprus-hill]

An unfortunate update on “Three’s Company”, my Charles x Arthur x Reader fic:

 I know many of you have been waiting patiently for part two of this fic, but after much consideration, I have decided to leave it unfinished. Instead I will post what I have created thus far and explain my reasonings. 

I was so excited to create this, but a while back someone had been anonymously messaging my ask box venting me their frustrations on someone like me writing a Charthur x reader fic. Apparently they have issues with me—a white married woman— writing a threesome fic including a black/Native American character. 

I have been answering them privately so as not to give them the attention they want because I don’t know if this person is trying to troll me. I can only say I’m sorry I angered anyone. I’m not trying to start drama and I certainly don’t want anyone to be angered. 

I want it to be known that I have a love for Charles Smith’s character the same way I love John’s character or Arthur’s, or any other character in the RDR2 universe: not for their skin color but for their character development and good looks that is not involved with their skin tone. I am not “thirsting after Charles simply because he’s black” or “fulfilling a white girl fantasy”, these are outrageous accusations. 

Once this person stopped, I returned writing Part 2. But for days, I have been sitting at my keyboard and have lost my desire to finish it. I wanted to create something romantic and fulfilling between these three characters. A polyamorous relationship, if you will. I wasn’t planning on just writing smut to “fulfill a white girl fantasy” as this person accused me of. I simply wanted to write a love story. 

So instead of leaving you in the dark, I have my unfinished work posted below as is. Despite the warnings I originally wrote, there’s no smut and it’s SFW, as it only contains the buildup and some notes I wrote for myself towards the end. I imagine this explanation will be met with criticism, but I just wanted it to be known.

This story is open to anyone who wishes to take over for me. I openly accept anyone willing to take this for their own and finish it. I just ask that you message me first for permission and give me credit for the original story. (Who knows, maybe in time I’ll return to it when I’ve reached a better place mentally and if no one finishes it.)

Thank you for reading. 

Three’s Company

Part 2 that leads to NSFW smut between you, Arthur, and Charles.

Summary: The three of you notice a particular tension growing between you, and decide to clear the air after an unfortunate event happens at the Rhodes general store. 

A/N: Boy, this took me long enough—only b/c I wanted a particular scene to be perfect. This is my first writing a threesome, so I only hope I did well. 

Warnings: Smut. And references to racial slurs from some a-hole Lemoyne Raiders. 

Part 1 here.

—————-

Charles wakes just before dawn and feels his hand resting on his chest. Blinking his eyes to clear his vision, he suddenly remembers what he did in the middle of the night.

Before rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he freezes and cranes his neck to look up to you from his place on the ground.

Was it a dream? It had to have been.

But it felt so real. Charles still feels the phantom of your heat lingering on his skin.

From below, it appears you haven’t moved an inch and you’re still sleeping deeply. Your arm still hangs from your shared cot with Arthur.

Speaking of, Charles quickly darts his attention from you and notices Arthur’s awake and rising up off the cot, stretching his arms out to greet the morning sun. Arthur’s joints pop and crackle while he loosens the tension in his muscles. His arms and back bulge from within his tight red union suit. A small patch of sweat darkens the fabric in between his shoulder blades. 

Arthur turns to Charles with tired eyes, squinting in the morning light. He greets Charles with a soft voice so as not to disturb you.

“Mornin’ Charles,” he yawns. “Sleep well?”

Charles stares into those blue eyes of his, becoming lost in thought. Those eyes, clear as the sky, look to him with friendly affection. Charles feels so guilty for taking such a small liberty with you while Arthur slept unaware.

Arthur stares back from across your sleeping form, curious about Charles’ hesitation.

Sensing the awkward, prolonged silence, Charles finally speaks, “Yeah,” he coughs, “for the most part. ‘Bout the same as sleeping on the ground anywhere else. But it’s at least dry.”

The side of Arthur’s mouth wrinkles with a lopsided smile and a dry chuckle rumbles from him across the way. 

“Yeah, well...You’re welcome to stay here ‘til we get you a new tent,” Arthur says. 

A gentle cough diverts their attention away from each other. They turn their heads to watch you wake and rub the sleep from your tired eyes. You groan in subtle pleasure while stretching your sore muscles and running your fingers through your hair, untangling any knots. 

“Guess I should get out there before Miss Grimshaw comes in here screamin’.” You state, beginning the day with a dreadful realization. You don’t even bother to say ‘good morning’ as it could quickly turn into a foul one at any moment. Turning behind you, you grab your shirt from the table at the head of your bed.

Charles had forgotten you slept in just your gray, form-fitting union suit. You always found it much more comfortable than a long nightgown or chemise that would bunch up throughout the night. The top buttons are all popped except for one, which holds the fabric just over your cleavage. That one small button, a dot of pale wood holds responsible for keeping your breasts covered. The same cannot be said however, for the perkiness of your nipples, which poke through like small pebbles under a cotton sheet.

Charles’ eyes are immediately drawn to those tips poking underneath the fibers of your undergarment. His throat suddenly feels dry and rough, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows to calm himself. It’s a short-lived moment once you pull your shirt over your head. The little mountain peaks are now gone beneath another layer of fabric.

Which is lucky for Charles’ sake, lest you or Arthur catch him staring.

Normally you wouldn’t dare let the other men witness you dress and undress, but somehow you don’t mind Charles seeing. After all, if Arthur trusts him why shouldn’t you?

Arthur’s voice snaps Charles back to reality, and he draws his gaze away from you to his own boots. 

Arthur says to you, snapping his suspenders over his shoulders, “Well, maybe you can come with me this morning. Got a tip ‘bout a stagecoach and I could use some help...and I know how cooped up you’ve been in camp.”

While you and Arthur redress, Charles sits awkwardly from his bedroll as he slept the night fully clothed, as usual.

Your eyes lit up as you pulled your trousers on. “Really? You think Grimshaw will spare me?”

“I’m sure she can. She’s got the other girls to help out,” Arthur points. “We can even take our time getting back and help Charles find a new tent.”

Charles perks his head up at the mention of his name.

“You don’t have to do that,” he tells Arthur.

“Why not?” Arthur asks. “Ain’t much trouble. We can stop on the way back after we all finish it.” He waves a hand, referring to the three of you.

Charles eyes now widen and his forehead softly wrinkles in surprise, “You want me to come with?”

“ ‘f course,” Arthur says blatantly. “Lord knows I can’t do it with any o’ these hot heads,” he mumbles. “Including this one.”

He points to you and you react with a slip of your tongue past your lips, followed by a soft punch in his arm.

A tiny smirk grows on Charles’ lips and he replies, “Sure.”

————

After the job, the three of you rode back to camp in a flash. It was truly successful: a stagecoach of a wealthy plantation owner who had their valuables hidden in the seats of the carriage. Thankfully, you didn’t have to resort to killing anyone to get it. You had lassoed the driver off the carriage, leaving him with bumps and bruises, while Charles and Arthur interrogated the passengers into giving up their goods. It was Charles’ keen eyes that caught the odd stitching on the leather seats inside the carriage, and found the three gold bars in the stuffing.

You all rode hard and returned with adrenaline still surging through your veins and smiles on your faces. It was the best score you’d gotten in so long. A gold bar would be given to the camp, another for Charles, while you and Arthur share the last one.

Holding the heavy bar in your hand, you look to Charles. The smiles haven’t faded from either of your lips, and your cheeks already feel sore.

You say to him, “Charles, I wanna buy you the biggest stakes and canvas I can find. You deserve a big spot in camp after this.”

Dropping his chin and scoffing humbly at your generosity, Charles responds, “You don’t have to do that. I can afford my own.”

“Please,” you continue. “It’s the least I can do. I wanna thank you for being such a big help on this job.”

Charles tries his best to keep his composure after hearing your sweet voice. His heart hammers in his chest, and not from the adrenaline this time. You have shown him nothing but kindness since he’s joined the gang, and will go out of your way to make sure he’s content.

Arthur speaks up from behind you, “Best let her do it, Charles. She won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” He chuckles.

Without turning, you quirk a brow at Charles. You hope to make him yield under your cool gaze. A drop of sweat trickles down the back of his neck behind his thick hair. The bead suddenly feels cold and sends a shiver to his skin.

Realizing his argument would be futile, Charles shakes and bows his head in defeat.

“Alright, fine.” Charles sighs. Lifting his head, he watches you smile as you relish in your small victory.

His attention darts over your shoulder to the source of a hoarse chuckle from Arthur.

“Good man,” Arthur laughs softly, to which Charles follows with a laugh of his own. 

————

You had stumbled to bed first early in the evening, thanks to a bottle of whiskey you were nursing. The opportunity to run into town was postponed ‘till the morning, as you all wanted to celebrate your achievement.

Charles waited for Arthur to follow you to bed, but the man would not leave his spot at the campfire. Charles felt self-conscious about being alone with you in the tent. He’d feel safer with Arthur nearby— though he couldn’t explain why.

He could just bed down in the scout shelter, but it was currently being occupied by Bill and Javier. Besides, his bedroll is still in your tent. He didn’t want to wake you and be asked why he was moving out.

Because he’s worried he can’t control his urges around you and Arthur? Yeah, that’d go over well.

He’d be better off sleeping out under the stars on the bare grass tonight.

He had half a mind to until Arthur slightly pushed his shoulder.

“Hey,” Arthur said. “Fallin’ asleep over there?”

Charles was so busy with his thoughts, he didn’t notice Arthur watching him from across the fire. The rugged outlaw must’ve seen his drooping eyelids and stepped over to check on him. Charles didn’t even hear his light footsteps, which were muffled by the soft Lemoyne clay.

Arthur’s broad shoulders brush against his as he sits down next to Charles on the dry log. Their soft cotton sleeves rub against each other and each of them feel the other’s chiseled muscles against their own for a brief moment.

Keeping his voice cool, Charles answers bluntly, “I’m fine.”

“Always a man of conversation, ain’t ya Charles?” Arthur teases.

An ‘I told you so’ is cried by Uncle across the way, who sits drunk beneath a tree.

“Just because you never have anything interesting to say, doesn’t mean I don’t either,” Charles quips to Uncle. 

Arthur holds a bottle of bourbon in his hand and brings it to his mouth with a dry, wheezing laugh. His plump lips wrap around the top of the bottle, gently slurping in the warm amber liquid.

Charles watches the large lump of his Adam’s apple bob as Arthur swallows the sip of bourbon. Wordlessly, Arthur hands Charles the bottle, offering it to him.

Charles obliges and takes a hefty swig of the smooth bourbon. It’s so warm, like a hot piece of caramel running down his throat, followed by a smoky aftertaste of maple. Heat flushes his cheeks and the feeling of his fingertips is numbed, along with his anxious thoughts. A wave of relaxation washes over him.

Arthur watches from the corner of his eye, noticing Charles relaxing and struggling to keep his eyes open.

He says to Charles warmly, “C’mon. Finish that bottle and head to bed with us...you ain’t gotta watch tonight, do ya?”

Shaking his head in response, Charles finishes the last tiny swig of bourbon and tosses the bottle into the fire. Those nervous thoughts are long gone and the memory of you sleeping soundly in your bed sends a warm feeling to his stomach.

Arthur continues, “Well, alright. C’mon then.” He pats Charles on his back, “Don’t want ya gettin’ ate up out here. The ‘skeeters are bad t’night.”

Charles follows him back to the tent and is greeted with your sleeping form on the cot, covered in a thin blanket. His heart flutters while he undoes his gun belt and kneels down on his bedroll nearby.

Arthur closes the tent flaps while Charles watches you sleep, undisturbed.

He whispers up to Arthur, who climbs in bed behind you, “You’re a lucky man, Arthur.”

“Thank you,” Arthur whispers, looking down at you with a loving smile. “I couldn’t ask fer a better woman.”

He tucks your hair behind your ear and presses his lips against the top of your cheek. A velvety groan softly rises up from your throat as you roll over to nuzzle your face into Arthur’s chest. An arm is tossed over his side and you cuddle him tightly.

The two men inside the tent chuckle softly in response and Charles lays back onto his bedroll, looking up at the ceiling.

He turns his head to the sound of Arthur’s quiet voice.

“You’re a good friend, Charles. G’night.” Arthur says.

“G’night, Arthur,” he replies with a smile.

“G’night, Charles,” your muffled, sleep-slurred voice calls from the comforting nook in Arthur’s arms.

—-——————

“Charles is a fine man, isn’t he?” You state, watching from your seat. 

“The best I’ve come across,” Arthur answers with his hand in his journal. He scratches away with the small lead pencil loosely gripped in his fingers, sketching what he sees.  

It’s quiet from your tent. The flaps are drawn up to let you watch the members of the gang go about their business. All is calm. The air gently rolls in to relieve you from the humidity. The birds chirp softly from their shady perches, and your eyes stay fixed on Charles.

Folding Arthur’s freshly laundered shirt, you continue, “I sure hope he finds someone.”

“What you mean?” Arthur asks, his attention still on his rough sketching.

“Oh...I dunno,” you reply, dropping a shirt onto the pile of folded laundry. “He doesn’t deserve to be so lonely like he is. I just hope he finds happiness.”

Arthur eyes you suspiciously, watching you fold his clothes onto a neat pile. He follows your gaze over to Charles, who readies a pile of fresh lumber to be chopped into firewood. Arthur watches Charles remove his rawhide vest before unbuttoning his crimson shirt to reveal his masculine form. His smooth skin glistens with sweat. 

Arthur never noticed until now how very little body hair Charles appears to have. His chest shines with a bright, welcoming sheen that promises to be warm...bold...and fulfilling. 

A sudden feeling catches Arthur by surprise. 

It’s not jealousy. No, far from that. 

A feeling of low self-worth is what it is, a blushing embarrassment that fills his stomach. For Arthur rarely gets jealous, but easily self-conscious. Could it be you have developed feelings for Charles?

Could it be Arthur feels them too?

Wait, what?

Arthur squints his eyes in confusion. He hasn’t felt this way since he first started courting you. That same flutter in his stomach that rises in his chest, he’s feeling it again. 

“Arthur?” you ask. You pause your folding and watch his vacant stare. His eyebrows furrow for a moment as if he’s in deep thought, until he blinks them away at the sound of your voice calling him. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Arthur coughs. “*ahem* Yeah, I hope he does too.” He rolls his shoulders to relieve the sudden tension that was growing. With a pop of his neck and a clear of his throat, he resumes his sketching. 

Your gaze doesn’t falter from Arthur, and he senses it. He feels you watching him with a curious look. The tension in his shoulders return and he struggles to draw in his journal under your stare. 

With a frustrated huff, he looks up from his journal. 

“What?” he asks, reserving his annoyance. 

“Nothing,” you reply cooly. A quirk of your lip shows a subtle smile that quickly melts away, but Arthur catches it. He recognizes that little mischievous smile that fleets within a second. 

It’s as if you already know. 

Could you read him that easily? 

——————

With a final strike of the axe and the tick of his pocket watch marking 11:00, Charles finishes his chore. Fixing the string that ties his hair back, he walks back to his trunk where his tent once stood. He grabs a clean shirt and his billfold, before stepping to the horse station to saddle Taima. 

......

A/N: (This is where I stopped, everything else here is the rest of the rough draft riddled with notes. The three of you head to Rhodes to help Charles get new tent supplies. He goes into the store on his own while you and Arthur wait at the saloon for him. Two Lemoyne raiders at the saloon decide to give Charles trouble while you and Arthur defend him. Nothing physical, just the raiders saying nasty things and Charles decides its best the three of you leave to avoid an altercation. Luckily, the sheriff shows up anyway to put the raiders in their place. )

After the Rhodes saloon.

(All three of you pitch Charles’ tent, an a-frame much like john’s.)

You and Arthur talk to Charles who is brooding underneath a tree after the three of you left.

You both tell him you admire him. Arthur places a hand on his right knee, while you place a hand on his left, just above his thigh.

Charles looks to you both in confusion.

......

“Charles? You ok?” You ask him softly.

......

“We love you, Charles. You know that, don’t you?” You say, bringing your face closer to his.

“Yeah, I know.” He answers, turning his gaze to you. He assumes you mean in a familial way. That is, until your lips brush against his. He gasps softly at your kiss and looks over to Arthur in shock and confusion.

Arthur looks into Charles’ eyes and tips his head in permission.

“I...I don’t understand,” Charles says.

[avengerscompound]

By Arrangement

By Arrangement:  A Loki Fanfic

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  F!Loki x F!MoonElf!Reader

Word Count:  2224

Warnings:  Smut (F|F, public sex, vaginal fingering)

Square:  @ladiesofmarvelbingo E5, Surrender

Synopsis:  When the Queen of Alfheim decides she wants to arrange a marriage between either Thor or Loki and one of the Princes or Princesses of Alfheim, they are sent to Asgard to make the arrangement.  Loki is disgusted by the idea.  Unfortunately, she’s also very attracted to one of the chosen group.

A/N:  Moonelf’s are a race of Elf from Alfheim, one of the nine realms.  They have bioluminescent skin.  So there are references to that.  It doesn’t say what color that bioluminescent skin is.

This is one of those fics you start with no idea where it’s going.  It kind of feels like there’s more story.  I have no idea what that story is.  I may come back to it if people are reading it.  But I don’t know.

By Arrangement

Loki’s boots clicked on the marble floor as she strode down towards her chambers.  To say she was angry was putting it lightly.  She was furious.  Furious about how she had been pushed aside in favor of her brother, yet again.  This time for no good reason whatsoever.  They just wanted someone to greet the envoy from Alfheim at the Rainbow Bridge and lead them to the palace.

It made no sense that oaf should go rather than Loki.  Loki Silvertongue.  Goddess of stories.  She would be much better suited for this and instead she had been sent to her room for arguing like some wailing child.

She slammed her door behind her and went to her balcony.  She could see the precession coming down the Rainbow Bridge.  Thor in the lead on that obnoxious white stallion of his, followed by guards, followed by a carriage containing the royal envoy.  Followed by people on foot.  Followed by more guards.

They wound into the city below and then up to the palace gates.  Loki watched as the guards approached the carriage and helped those that were inside down the steps.  The different Elf races had joined together to make their own kingdom.  Each tribe had their own royal family and they formed a council that ruled over Alfheim that served under Queen Aelsa Featherwine.  First off the carriage was the Prince of the Spice Elves.  Short with a warm brown, almost cinnamon complexion and curly red hair.  He wore a tunic only a few shades darker than his skin.  After him, was the princess of the Ice Elves, with her blue skin and long blue hair.  Her clothes were white and blue and despite the heat, she seemed to be wearing several layers.  The Air Elf came next, then an Elf of the Vale, a Sea Elf, a Cat Elf, and a triple jointed Pleasure Elf.  Each Elf was so different from the next, from the tiny little, rainbow-colored Cat Elf’s that got their name from riding winged-cat, to the tall willowy Elves of the Vale, it was hard to see how they could even be categorized under the one heading.

Finally, you stepped off the carriage.  Loki wasn’t sure how she could still be surprised when he saw a Moon Elf.  She’d seen many through her life, but there was something about the way your skin glowed that always made her breath catch.  It was such an unusual phenomenon.  The bioluminescence of your skin had an iridescent quality.  It shimmered like an oil slick, but it burned from within.

You wore a dress that shimmered with an iridescent quite like your skin.  Green at the neckline, then gold, then red, blue and finally a deep purple in the fabric that pooled around your feet.  On your head, you wore a tiara adorned with opals that shimmered from the glow that emanated from you.

 Loki was so intoxicated by you that she failed to notice Queen Aelsa stepping out of the carriage behind you. Nor his parents hurrying up to meet her.

When the group moved inside, Loki huffed and returned to her bedroom.  She didn’t quite know why she was taking it so personally. She was used to being overlooked in favor of Thor and quite honestly if they’d asked her to be the one greeting she would have tried to get out of it.  She hated doing things like that.  She hated playing nice.

She should have been asked though.

She pushed it aside and summoned some attendants to assist her in the bath.  There would be a feast tonight, she should look like the queen she was destined to be.  Plus it might help her relax.

After soaking in the tub a little too long, she allowed her attendants to dress her.  Normally she did that herself.  Perhaps with a little help with her armor.  Tonight there would be no armor though.  Just gowns and she wasn’t used to wearing them.  Her tastes tended to fall along the lines of androgyny, leaning toward slightly more masculine.  In her fluidness, she tended to lean into male more regularly.  But she was she now, and that meant a gown if she was to attend a feast.

She made her way to the great hall and then had to loiter waiting for all the ceremonial garbage to happen before she could be seated.  Each member of royalty had to be announced properly, including her.

She had been relegated to a lesser table due to the number of visitors.  Normally that alone would have been enough to have her leave, but when she saw you already seated at her table she decided that it might be worth staying for the aesthetics alone.

“Lady Loki,” the Ice Elf said bowing her head a little.  “I am Princess Siora.  It is good to meet you.”

Loki nodded her head and the other Elves at the table made their introductions too.  She noticed as she reached you, you had that same bored look in your eye as she often wore at such events.

“So why is it we’re at the children’s table?”  Loki asked, sweeping her skirts under her and taking a seat.

“The Queen is hoping to match one of us to one of you.”  You said looking up at the elevated table with Odin, Frigga, and Thor sat with Queen Aelsa and her daughter.  “Thor and Amaranthae is the hope.”

“So we’re being kept away from the desired couple in case one of you catches his eye or she catches mine?”  Loki asked.  “Ridiculous.  Thor is no closer to marrying than a Bilgesnipe is of growing wings and flying.”

“Yes, and thus part two of the plan.”  You explained.  “You, my lady get the choice of the whole table.”

Loki snorted.  Actually snorted with laughter  It was embarrassing really, but thankfully no one acknowledged it.  “Charming.”  She said.

“Yes, well,”  Dinamh the spice elf said.  “None of us are too fond of the plan either.”

“Nothing against you, my lady,” Siora said.  “It is just insulting to all of us, you included.”

“To say the least.”  You said.  “Alfheim has had a violent history considering we pride ourselves on our peaceful ways.  It is not enough that we have been conquered twice now, we now have to hope that Asgard is willing to make a marriage alliance to ensure our protection.”

“The queen doesn’t trust the alliance after how long it took for Asgard to respond when Malekeith showed his true nature,” Siora said.

Loki waved her hand dismissively.  “You are one of the nine realms.  My father would not give up control of that.”

You shrugged.  “I don’t care.  I have no plans to marry anyone, let alone for political reasons.  Anything else that occurs is white noise to me.”

Loki chuckled.  “That is a good way to look at it.”  She said.  She was pleased that your wit matched your beauty.  Maybe that was part of what had attracted her in the first place.

As the dinner progressed Loki found herself relaxing more and actually enjoying the company of these elves. While most were still a little on the cheery side for her taste, she had never met people in the same position of being called royalty but being treated as lesser as she had before.  She was quite taken with you particularly.  She didn’t have many friends that weren’t just Thor’s friends who barely tolerated her before.  She could see being your friend.

The following day Loki avoided the whole spectacle of the royal visit.  She assumed that Thor was being forced into spending time with Amaranthae, or else Odin was against the whole idea.  Certainly, Loki assumed if they were against just the Thor factor, she’d have been visited by her mother right now talking her into at least being open to marrying one of the elves.

That hadn’t happened so Loki had gone to the library.  It was her safe place more than anywhere else in the palace.  She could disappear into the works for hours upon hours.  It was just over two hours that she had been in there when you came in.

She was aware of another person there right away, but it wasn’t until you came around the corner that the faint light you emitted caught her attention.

“Why, hello,” she said, looking up at you over her book.

“Loki,” you replied, nodding your head.  “I had wondered where you disappeared to today.”

“You missed me?” Loki teased, getting up and approaching you.

You chuckled.  “Hardly.  But it is noticeable when you aren’t around.”

“Were you looking for me?”  She asked.

You shook your head and gestured around you.  “I have heard stories for years about the great library of Asgard.  I had to see it.”

“It is quite a sight.”  Loki agreed and offered you her elbow.  “Shall I show you around?”

You nodded and linked your elbow with hers.  “This is the fictional section,”  Loki said.  “They are organized by where in the realms they are from and then by author.”

You looked up at the books as they seemed to just disappear up over your head as you walked down the aisles arm-in-arm.”

“This is the instructional manuals.  Everything from how to cook, to spell use, to the how to of sexual acts.”  Loki explained.

You looked at her and smirked.  “Spend a lot of time reading those, my lady?”

Loki chuckled.  “I like to take a more practical approach.”

“Mmm… I’m sure you do.”  You said and ran your fingertips up her forearm.

Loki looked at you out of the side of her eye.  The signal had been clear and she planned to respond to it.  She led you deeper into the library, away from the doors and windows.

“Here are the historical works.  The complete history of the nine realms.”  Loki said.

“Ahh yes,” you said, turning to face her.  “No surprise that Odin keeps records of those that surrender to him.”

Loki moved close to you, looming over you.  “And your people know all about surrender.”

“I surrender to no man.”  You growled.

“Then it’s good that I am not a man.”  She purred and brought her lips to yours.  The kiss was searing. Possessive and hungry.  She pushed you up against the shelves and ran her hands down your neck to your chest.  Massaging your tits.

You groaned and pushed against her, slamming her up against the opposite shelves.  You pushed your thigh between her legs and pulled her hair, sending a wave of pleasure that bordered on pain right through her and down to her cunt as she ground it against your thigh.

She let you lead, submitting to you as you claimed her.  A moan escaped from her as her cunt began to drip for you.

She grabbed your hair suddenly and spun you and pulled you flush against her.  “You know what they will do if they discover us?”  She growled against your ear.

You took a shark, ragged breath in, and began to hitch up your skirt.  “Oh yes, we would be destined to marry immediately.”

“So you best be quiet,”  Loki growled and slipped her hand into your panties.

She started to circle your clit with her fingertips and you grabbed your hand, lining your fingers up with hers and guiding them to touch you.  You pushed her fingertips so they pushed hard against your clit as you drew figures of eight over it.

“You like to be in control, darling?”  Loki crooned.

You moaned and moved her finger a little harder.  “I know what I like.”

“Then by all means.”

You kept guiding her to rub your clit, as she kissed your neck.  As the soft moans you made got louder, you curled your fingers, pushing all but one of her long spider digits back.  Her index finger you left straight and you guided it inside of you, so both of your penetrated you.  Her finger pressed against yours in the warmth of your cunt.  You guided her to the soft, sensitive spot of you g-spot and you pushed Loki’s finger hard on it.  You cried out and Loki curled her finger and dragged it over your sweet spot again and again.

Your moans got louder and louder and your fluids ran down Loki’s wrists.  You took your hand away and braced yourself on the shelves in front of you as you finally surrendered to her.  Letting her be in control of your pleasure.  She added a second finger to your cunt and used her thumb on your clit.  Your legs began to tremble and with a sudden cry, you came hard, shuddering around her fingers.

Loki stroked you through it and as your breathing returned to normal.

“Well, that was fun.”  You said straightening yourself out.

“Mm, it was.  Perhaps you’d like to return the favor sometime.”  Loki said.

“Perhaps,” you said.  “Be at dinner and we’ll see.”

Loki watched as you swept back out of the room, licking her fingers clean as you disappeared around a corner.  It was annoying really.  If the situation was any different she would pursue you.  That couldn’t happen now, not when two kingdoms would push towards it.  Loki could never allow herself to surrender to that level of interference.