#talk to me about the authority please!!!

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The Complete Authority Reading Guide

Born from the late 90s and early 00s trend towards darker superhero stories, The Authority debuted in 1999 with The Authority #1 by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch for WildStorm. The Authority fights for what they see as best for the world regardless of the cost. The Authority was one of DC’s best-selling books under Mark Millar and Frank Quitely. The team appeared in their series, as well as other WildStorm and DC titles. Their last appearance came months before the launch of DC’s The New 52. Since the N52, most Authority characters have been retconned or forgotten. Only the team’s breakout star Midnighter (and sometimes Apollo) remains active in comics.

This is a comprehensive guide to every appearance of The Authority's main characters: Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor, the Engineer (Angela Spica), the Doctor (Jeroen Thornedike, later Habib bin Hassan), Swift (Shen Li-Men), Apollo, the Midnighter, and Jenny Quantum.

Issues marked with an asterisk (*) don't feature Authority characters but do provide context.

StormWatch

WildStorm was an independent studio established by Jim Lee in 1992. It was bought by DC Comics in 1998 and ran as an imprint until being shut down in 2010. Before The Authority debuted, there was StormWatch. StormWatch (1993) and StormWatch (1997) are the first appearances of most of the Authority’s original lineup.

StormWatch (1993-1997) — #28-31, #37-39, #42-44, #46, #48-50 

StormWatch (1997-1998) — #4-12 

WildC.A.T.s/Aliens (1998)*

The Authority

The Authority (1999) — #1-29

Wildstorm Summer Special (2001)

The Authority (2003) — #1-6

Coup D’Etat (2004) — #1-4

The Authority (2003) — #7-14

The Authority: Scorched Earth (2004)

The Authority: Human on the Inside (2004)

The Authority: Revolution (2004) — #1-12

Garth Ennis’s “Kev” tetralogy follows Kevin Hawkins, a terrible person with terrible luck, and his misadventures with the Authority. Where this series is in the chronology is unclear.

The Authority: Kev (2002) — #1 

The Authority: More Kev (2004) — #1-4 

The Authority: The Magnificent Kevin (2005) — #1-5 

The Authority: A Man Called Kev (2006) — #1-5*

Solos

Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of the Authority (2000) — #1-5

Secret History of the Authority: Hawksmoor (2008) — #1-7

Midnighter (2007) — #1-20

Grifter and Midnighter (2007) — #1-6

Crossovers and Events

World War III was part of Marvel’s 1996 Heroes Reborn initiative. The Marvel and WildStorm universes crossed over for the 4-issue event. 

Fantastic Four (1996) — #13 [CAMEO]

Avengers (1996) — #13 [CAMEO]

Iron Man (1996) — #13 [CAMEO]

Captain America (1996) — #13 [CAMEO]

Grifter (1996) — #11

Planetary/The Authority: Ruling The World (2000)

Cybernary 2.0 (2001) — #5-6 

The Monarchy (2001) — #4, #11-12

Gen13 (1995) — #68-69

The Establishment (2001) — #8 [CAMEO]

Gen-Active (2000) — #6 [BACK-UP]

WildCats Version 3.0 (2002) — #8 

Sleeper (2002) — #3, #5

Point Blank (2002) — #3

Stromwatch: Team Achilles (2004) — #4-6, #9, #20, #22

Intimates (2005) — #1 [CAMEO]

Planetary (2005) — #5 [CAMEO]

WildCats (2006) — #1 [CAMEO]

The Authority vs. Lobo: Jingle Hell (2004)

The Authority vs. Lobo: Spring Break Massacre (2005)

Ion: Guardian of the Universe (2006) — #10 [CAMEO]

Worldstorm was a 2006 relaunch of the WildStorm universe. It was originally intended to be a full reboot but partway in WildStorm turned it into a “soft reboot”. The reboot is widely considered to have been a failure. Sources on this era are difficult to find and it can be a confusing reading experience. 

Captain Atom: Armageddon (2005) — #1-9

An Essential Guide to Worldstorm (2006)*

The Authority (2006) — #1-2**

The Authority: The Lost Year (2010) — #3-12

The Authority: Prime (2008) — #1-6

StormWatch: P.H.D (2006) — #5 [CAMEO]

Gen13 (2006) — #8, #27

**The Authority (2006) was written by Grant Morrison who dropped the series after 2 issues due to their focus on other projects. Three years later, Keith Griffen continued the storyline under the new title The Authority: The Lost Year based on Morrison’s scripts. The Authority: Prime was published between Morrison and Griffen’s runs.

DC/Wildstorm: DreamWar (2008) — #1-6 

Action Comics (1938) — #884 [BACK-UP] [CAMEO]

World’s End was a 3-year WildStorm event culminating in DC's Flashpoint. It made major changes to the WildStorm universe, notably a post-apocalyptic setting and grittier tone. 

Wildstorm: Armageddon (2007)

Wildstorm: Revelations (2008) — #1-2

Number of the Beast (2008) — #3, #6-8 

The Authority (2008) — #1-17

StormWatch: P.H.D (2006) — #18-19 

The Authority (2008) — #7-17

WildCats: World’s End (2008) — #19-23

The Authority (2008) — #18-29

WildCats: World’s End (2008) — #26-30

Wildstorm: A Celebration of 25 Years collects published and unpublished material from across WildStorm titles including The Authority.

Wildstorm: A Celebration of 25 Years (2017)

The New 52 and Beyond

In addition to rebooting the mainline DC Universe, the New 52 "streamlined" DC's multiple continuities by combining everything into one timeline. The result of this for the Authority was Stormwatch (2011). Swift, the Doctor, and Jenny Quantum are absent from this point forward.

Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer (2007) — #1

Countdown: Arena (2007) — #1-4 [CAMEO]

Flashpoint (2011) — #5 [CAMEO]

StormWatch (2011) — #1-6

Voodoo (2011) — #5 [CAMEO] 

Deathstroke (2011) — #6

Grifter (2011) — #7, #13-14, #16 

StormWatch (2011) — #7-10

Red Lanterns (2011) — #10

I, Vampire (2011) — #12, #13 (Issues are separated by issue #0)

StormWatch (2011) — #11-30

The New 52: Futures End (2014) — #1

Harley Quinn (2014) — #20 [CAMEO]

Grayson (2014) — #1-2, #4-7

Midnighter (2015) — #1-7

Grayson (2014) — #13-14 

Batman & Robin Eternal (2015) — #23-26

Grayson (2014) — #18-20 

Midnighter (2015) — #8-12

Convergence (2015) — #7 [CAMEO]

Nightwing: Rebirth (2016) 

Midnighter and Apollo (2016) — #1-6

Justice League of America (2018) — Annual [CAMEO]

Infinite Frontier (2021) — #0 [CAMEO]

The Swamp Thing (2021) #11-13

WildC.A.T.s (2022) — #12 [CAMEO]

Action Comics (2016) — #1029-1034 [BACK-UP]

Future State: Superman: War of Worlds (2021) — #1-2

Midnighter (2021)

Superman and The Authority (2021) — #1-4

Batman/Superman: The Authority Special (2021)

Action Comics (2016) #1035-1039, #1041-1045, #1047

Superman: Warworld Apocalypse (2022) 

Knight Terrors: Action Comics (2023) — #2 [CAMEO]

Milestone 30th Anniversary Special (2023) [CAMEO]

Outsiders (2023) attempts to incorporate WildStorm ideas and continuity into the main DC timeline. Authority characters have not appeared as of writing (May 2024)

Outsiders (2023) — Ongoing

Apollo and Midnighter in Specials

Outside of Superman and cameo appearances, Apollo and Midnighter have been mostly relegated to anthology specials. They are the only Authority characters to still appear in comics.

Young Romance: A New 52 Valentine's Day Special (2013)

Love is Love (2016) — [CAMEO]**

DC Cybernetic Summer (2020)

DC Pride (2021)

Wildstorm 30th Anniversary Special (2022)

DC Pride (2023)

DC’s Harley Quinn Romances (2023)

DC’s ‘Twas the 'Mite Before Christmas (2023) [CAMEO]

**Love is Love was a charity anthology and tribute to the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. It was produced by IDW in collaboration with DC. Read with caution and respect.

Other Timelines

Three non-canon iterations of WildStorm characters have been published in recent years. The Wild Storm came out in 2017, followed by Authority character appearances in DC vs. Vampires, and finally Waller vs. Wildstorm which is not relevant to this guide.  

Warren Ellis’s The Wild Storm is a 24-issue self-contained series reimagining the WildStorm universe.

The Wild Storm (2017) #1-24

DC vs. Vampires: All-Out War was a spinoff from the 2021 DC vs. Vampires set on Earth-63.

DC vs. Vampires: All-Out War (2022) — #2, #5-6

[kairennart]

Death, War and Destruction.

My entry for @bbcmerlin-reversebang. The amazing @booleman wrote a fic for these drawings which you can find here!

[flashyfools]

months ago, while mindlessly scrolling through twitter, i came across an analysis of this particular panel from chapter 434 (i can’t remember who wrote the thread, i’m so sorry </3), and i really want to talk about it too.

(EDIT: original author of the thread is @goingbuggy!!! go check out their metas, they're amazing)

the thread was focusing on the way the speech bubble covers shanks's scar completely, and how it can be seen as a sign of vulnerability. oda is using shanks’s own words to hide his suffering, letting his physical scars be representative of his emotional ones, even though the event he’s talking about is completely unrelated to the way he got his scar.

in fact, we know shanks is not ashamed of the scar, since just a couple of pages after this one he mentions it directly as a way to start the conversation about blackbeard:

he doesn’t have a problem with the marking itself, it’s just used as a narrative device, a tool to highlight (in an extradiegetic way) his emotional wounds and the pain he always tries so hard to hide, in an effort to keep his usual composure.

the original author of the thread compared the panel from chapter 434 to another, way older one, from the very first chapter:

this takes place right after shanks loses his left arm to save luffy’s life. it’s obviously a very emotionally charged moment, which means the best thing to do would be showing a close-up of shanks’s reaction to everything that’s unfolding in front of him at that moment (luffy’s cries, or even his own reaction to his sacrifice). oda, however, chooses not to do that; instead, he hides half of shanks’s face, just like he did in chapter 434. the way the moment is portrayed tells the reader shanks is willing to hide his pain in an even deeper way than what he’s showing by smiling at luffy right after getting his arm chopped off.

it’s a great way to explain an important characteristic without stating it right away. it's a focal point of shanks's character: it's his way of showing luffy he cares about him and would much rather hide his suffering than pass it onto him, but it's also oda's way of conveying that shanks is much more vulnerable than what he allows himself to show.

having said that, the reason oda chose to bring back this framing in chapter 434 appears obvious: shanks misses buggy.

it’s plain to see, especially if we look at the whole page.

shanks tries so hard to act collected when talking about buggy, but it’s obvious that he’s hurting. his wording makes it clear he’s trying to detach from him (“that’s the end of it” + “rumors have it”); he acts like buggy doesn’t exist in his thoughts anymore, when it’s obvious he still does. he feels remorse, he regrets letting buggy go. he’s scared he might have been in the wrong. he knows he hurt buggy, but he desperately wishes he didn’t.

all of this weighs on him in a way he isn’t used to, so he locks these feelings up, thinking of them only in relation to something that happened in the past, and as so, stays in the past. he smiles while talking about him and buggy, but it’s a remorseful smile. he cuts the conversation short even though he vividly remembers what happened between them, and as he does so, his words hide the scar. he desperately tries to patch things up in his mind by exclusively clinging onto the good memories they share, but the remorse always creeps up on him. he always smiles when talking about buggy, even when he’s talking directly to him. but his smile always ends up looking sour.

this is exactly why i hate it when people say shanks doesn’t care about buggy. oda wouldn’t have given these panels so much depth if he didn’t want to show just how much shanks actually cares. even just the fact the panel we are focusing on directly mirrors a panel from the first chapter, one so important and impactful, should tell you everything you need to know.

buggy will always be shanks’s weakness. caring so much about someone when you’re a pirate of that caliber is difficult in itself, even more so when that someone is so far away from you now.

[thepoisonroom]

'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.

I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.

About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'

-Casey Plett, Consciousness

[void-kill]

i just want to lay on someone with my ears pressed against their chest while they run their hands through my hair, is that too much to ask for?

[eight-pointed-star]

fics where someone goes to angband instead of/with maedhros

[in the brackets are the characters who are captured]

For Want of a Crown by theScrap_Witch [maglor]

The Price We Pay by theScrap_Witch [maglor]

A Perfect Pair by SunflowerSupreme [finrod and maglor]

A Songbird in Angband by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya) [maglor]

Mountains Don't Sing by MathConcepts [maedhros and fingon]

Animal Skins by Ilye [celegorm]

In Gold gefasst and Prized Jewel by Siana [maedhros and maglor]

A Fair Evil by Siana [maedhros and maglor]

A Broken Voice by Silentx13 [maglor]

Wisdom Prevails by Ardruna [nerdanel]

What If It Hadn't Been Maedhros? by ArvenaPeredhel [maglor, celegorm, caranthir, curufin, amras] (it's five different stories, not "all of them get captured together")

Aphonia and Mother Who Bore Me by ArvenaPeredhel [maglor]

Hard Choices and Silenced by waitingfover [maglor]

+ two in russian

Услышь меня, брат... by Nolofinve [feanor]

Кроме пыли и пепла by vinyawende [feanor]

this list probably isn't comprehensive, if you know more fics with a similar plot, please tell me!

if you are the author of one of the fics here and would like to be @'ed or to have your fic removed from here, please tell me! if i made a mistake in the descriptions tell me also

[deargravity]

aomine wouldnt ever be a cop dont piss me off!!!!!!!!!!

[atinyladybug-art]

Abirt Kravitz (Dr Bright Rewrite)

Up-close fullbody:

My Dr Bright rewrite! I'm so happy to finally get it done! His name is Abirt Kravitz and he's currently the second oldest out of all 5 Kravitz Siblings. He's also O5-7.

Not much have changed since my former Bright designs other than a change from the amulet and I made him look older and fixed his colours a bit more.

There's still other stuff that I haven't decided on- like their anomalies and backstory. And the 963 Design is not permanent. It's what I'm going with right now until I get some better ideas.

Anyways, some fun facts about Abirt:

Xe uses any pronouns!

Has multiple doctorates and masters because he's old and has a lot of free time but he's most well-known for his specialty in history making him a historian!

He has 3 kids but they went missing years ago (a lore of its own).

Dating Simon Glass! They are your local elderly queer couple!

If the name Abirt is familiar then you're right! It's actually the name for Bright in the Bellerverse canon after they all became gods to the new world!

And the O5-7 part came from the newer series where Jack has been written as part of the council. I really like that idea. Being O5-7 specifically came from SCP-5493 and The Foundation is Broke.

Also! The character description is written in the O5 Command Dossier method

Image Text under the cut:

Abirt Kravitz

O5-7 | The Eternal

Genderfluid. Jewish origin. Unknown age though rumoured to have been above 2 centuries. Varying appearance with a favour of accessories and jewelry. Said to have gained immortality from a cursed bloodline.

O5-7 plays the role of personnel director. He is in-charge of overseeing all personnel designation within the Foundation. Is also said to personally run at least 3 different Foundation sites in-person.

Known for their lack of formalities and charisma. Within Foundation staff, however, he is known for his irritability and extreme high expectations.

One of the most active O5s with connections everywhere.

[bostrichidae]

attention steven universe tumblr, i had a thought

took a shower and now my head is occupied with this concept.

so we know that pearls are personalized for one specific gem and they typically conform to that gem when they first form. this also applies to when they're rejuvenated (keep that in mind!). but i noticed something about the diamond's pearls.

notice the similarities in posing, appearance, and presentation, but most importantly, in gem placement.

this particularly drew my attention because. the diamonds' pearls are seemingly made to be very similar to their "owners". it only makes sense that this would apply to their gem placement as well.

this also applies to pink diamond and volleyball (og pink pearl) as seen below

they both have naval gems and upbeat personalities. but of course, volleyball became white diamond's pearl after that whole incident slash debacle slash problem slash whatever you like to call it. but.

did white diamond have a pearl previously?

and if so, what happened to her?

well,

what pearl with a white gem do we know very well? one with her pearl on her forehead? one who was given to pink after her original pearl was taken by white?

that's right.

the main pearl, the pearl we all know and love, was white diamond's pearl before volleyball.

just think about it for a second. we know that homeworld prefers to avoid wasting pearls, and well, rejuvenation and the reef exist for a reason. when volleyball was injured and could not be healed by any means, white diamond decided it would be best if she and pink traded pearls. white ensured that either due to rejuvenation or her mind control powers that pearl would not remember ever working under her as to ensure her loyalty to pink diamond.

but since she already existed, her gem placement could not be altered. and that is what really happened with the diamond pearls. yellow and blue pearl are just vibin this whole time tbh they're just watching this go down

to add on, there was also that one side comment from peridot where she said "you're a pearl. and a rather fancy one too" (or something along those lines) implying that pearls had varying quality with the highest quality being given to the diamonds. yet another reason why they couldn't just give pink an entirely new pearl.

this theory might seem a bit outlandish, but is there really anything to prove it false?

there probably is something that i'm missing that proves me wrong but I WILL STAND BY THIS THEORY.

edit: i see people pointing out that this is a common theory and that it is accepted as canon, and i would just like to state that i had no fucking clue because i've never seen anyone discuss it (then again, i'm not very deep into the world of su theories). just wanted to say that (and i'm not mad or anything)

[geneticdriftwood]

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41302856

Instead of doing any of the things I needed to do tonight, I read this paper which makes the case for Penelope recognizing Odysseus as the beggar starting when he sends her a coded message in book 17 (by refusing her invitation and setting a different time to meet with her, through Eumaeus, using language appropriate for a king and husband, not a beggar), leading to them both carefully constructing a situation in book 19 to set up a double-layered conversation that allows her to confirm his identity and let him know she knows who he is, and then coordinate a plan to take the suitors down.

and then!!!!! he explains Penelope’s test in book 23 with the olive tree bed not as a test of Odysseus’ identity, but a test of character, of his love for her and capacity for emotional vulnerability. sure, he’s the Odysseus, but can he still be her Odysseus?

there’s so many little details that make perfect sense under this interpretation and it adds SO much depth and subtlety to books 17-23, I’m losing my mind!

[pilferingapples]

Joly + 18, 22, & 12 for the ask game!

Nonny that was so fast omg

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character? All of the Amis keep some secrets from their parents but Joly just. Lies constantly. So So So Much Lying. He's honest about his illnesses and his problems with studies but everything else is just shameless prevarication all the way down. it's not that he thinks his folks would be mad about anything , although something ah hahaha yyyyeah they would , but mostly he just know they'd fuss. They'd Worry. They'd have So Much Advice. It's just so much easier to lie! He is not a writer but he's made up more stories than Prouvaire and with a more complex interconnected backstory. At this point his friends also enjoy hearing about what Hypothetical Joly is getting up to.

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire? I like most of the people he actually has a relationship with in canon so let's go with Mother Hucheloup: I think he's her favorite of the group, because he's mostly well behaved--for a Parisian college student-- and he Actually Pays For Things,but more than that he's just kind her favorite--not like a kid she might have had but like a favorite nephew, maybe, not that she's had a nephew, but she can guess. And his jokes make sense, not like those two friends of his. Hmph.

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to this character? Something you don't like? I like it when people make him cheerfully Very Weird :D He's Eccentric! quite a loaded term for his era! Nearly any Harmless Weirdness works for me with his character, especially if can be health focused-- syncing sleep to moon phases? Environmental Sound Sculpting? Dying his hair for Color Therapy? Sure! Anything! Although there's a special place in my heart for Joly looking utterly normal/bourgie and only upon entering conversation revealing that he's a complete freak (extremely affectionate <3)

[mokeonn]

if you dont mind sharing, what are some of your favorite ska songs/bands?

I will admit I am not a huge band person I tend to be more of a "pick whatever random songs sound good" person, so I can't recommend any good bands. I also listen to Ska Punk, which is a subgenre of Ska... and Punk. So I am not a good authority on Ska songs to listen to I am just someone who is banned from being passed the aux cord...

But some of my favorite songs include:

No Children - Ska (cover)

Quinto Patio Ska

Everything Went Numb

S F D D

And songs by Reel Big Fish tbh. I know I just said I don't listen to specific bands but Reel Big Fish has some pretty good songs like...

Sell Out

And their Take on Me cover

Here's my disclaimer, though: I am not into music subcultures I just listen to whatever sounds good (and jazzy punk with horns sounds good), so I could be giving absolutely awful music recommendations that anyone who is especially into Ska (and more specifically Ska Punk) might find egregious. I personally just grab whatever song sounds good and add them to my forever long playlist.

Also the Jabberjaw (Running Underwater) song from Pain used for the Cartoon Network Boomerang Groovies is probably the reason I enjoy Ska punk so much, and it has been in my playlist for years now:

If nothing else in this list interests you, I require everyone by law to listen to Jabberjaw Running Under Water by pain and watch the Cartoon Network Boomerang Groovie video of it. I used to watch Boomerang a million times, and this was probably the only Groovie I really enjoyed watching and didn't go to the bathroom during.

[gotstabbedbyapen]

*gasps* What do we have here???

An angsty Hyapollo fic?

An "Artemis is a good sister" fic?

A fic inspired by a Lore Rekindled fan headcanon???

It's more likely than you think.

[outofmyhead-justlikeyou]

Screaming crying because nobody in leverage was raised by their biological parents and they are all examples of different paths that can be taken as opposed to being raised by one’s biological parents

[bandtrees]

iv been doing a lot of ddadds reminiscing lately. that game is very very close to my heart and has been for years - it's kind of surreal to return to the fancontent i made for it having grown a bit, and seeing precisely why i latched onto mary as a character as much as i did. (hmm, the guy who'd just gotten out of a bad relationship and was also an unknowing aroace latched onto the character with relationship troubles and conflicts about presenting as someone in love, who would've thought?) (also she's autistic) (i'll still fight people on this)

mary still continues to be one of my favorite characters of all time - and i still have dream daddy to thank for a lot. it's just such a genuinely warm and sweet and funny game. it's got such a kind and lackadaisical approach to adulthood that spoke to and continues to speak to me a lot as someone kind of terrified of growing up, in a lot of ways. and despite being such a silly game, joseph's ideals of the "margarita zone" spoke to me way more than i care to admit.

i wonder if the people i'd shared ddadds servers with and the like, way back in 2019, are doing well. i wonder if the old friend i did that batshit insane mary-damien cult ending rp with that read like a damn slasher film remembers it at all. i hope the people i talked about my ocs with are doing well. i hope the mary rper i lurked on the blog of is doing well. i hope the person who made the official character spotify playlist knows how much they shaped my music taste and how much i listen to them to this day. i hope the developers of this game know it's more than a silly gimmick dating sim that was popular for a year to people. (i hope they know how much damn gender euphoria it gives me lol)

i'm a huge sap with my fandoms in general. but dream daddy's such a spot of comfort for me even now. i still think about it, and maybe one day i'll properly revisit it. and i know i'm going to be so insufferable about it when i do. my own special little margarita zone.

[damnation-if]

so, i’ve been putting off writing this post for a while, telling myself that i didn’t really need to do it and everything would turn out fine but honestly. some of the asks i’ve been getting recently have been very upsetting to me personally and they’re sort of mounting up in my inbox and making it feel not very pleasant so i thought i’d just. get this post out of the way...

since the demo was released i’ve been getting an increasing number of asks that seem as though they’re designed to try and push me away from including polyam options in the game or attempt to try and goad me into admitting that the ROs prefer monogamy and consider any polyam relationships “lesser” than “proper” monogamous relationships.

this has ranged from direct criticism of my characters (”don’t you think it’s unfair that Lithiana won’t give up sleeping around and become monogamous if mc is romancing her”) to what i’m sure are intended to be subtle attempts at manipulation (”don’t you think it would be Healthier for [RO] if they were monogamous so that they could Know that mc Truly loves them and Only them and they’d be so much happier in that kind of relationship”) to attempting to shame other players for being happy about polyam options being included.

that last bunch really, really hurt me. i get a not insignificant amount of asks from people being happy that polyam options are included or that they simply won’t be shamed for being promiscuous but i’ve gradually. stopped answering these because i almost always get an ask shortly afterwards that reads something like “i do [rephrasing of something that was mentioned in the original ask] ONLY with [their favourite RO who i won’t drag into this], because i’m a GOOD LOVER ;)” and it feels like absolute crap, every time. (and of course tumblr being tumblr blocking this anon ask sender simply doesn’t work, because Webbed Site  🙄)

i’ve seen authors get backlash for including (and especially Adding) polyam routes and readers getting possessive over “their” ROs but i never realised people were just as mad about the. idea that other players could be doing non-monogamous things elsewhere and not being shamed for it. and that... really boggles my mind and saddens me a lot.

to the what i assume to be minority of people for whom stuff other players are doing is apparently a problem, i hope you can understand that other players being polyamorous doesn’t affect your playthrough of the game in any way, and there’s no need to just. be mean to them about it. and if you’re actually mad simply because people aren’t ashamed of being polyamorous well... that’s pretty cruel, i have to say, and we probably wouldn’t get along if we knew each other, because i’m also polyamorous. i’d appreciate it if you’d stop trying to use me as a platform to shame other polyam people, and maybe just unfollow if it bothers you so much.

to the people who have sent asks that mention or talk about monogamy in a sensible non-judgy way who may have noticed me not answering them - i’m sorry, i haven’t felt like answering these for a bit due to the other batch of asks and me feeling icky at the idea of galvanising the other group despite there being nothing wrong with your asks in particular. i’ll probably keep them in my inbox and maybe answer them in a while if this dies down.

to everyone else, thank you for supporting me and i’m sorry to have to talk about this but it’s really been bugging me recently lmao. i appreciate each and every one of you that Isn’t sending me these asks lmfao<3