#who i credit with the fact that I'm a writer and an editor

[the-lincyclopedia]

Sometimes getting back in touch with people you admire but have lost contact with falls in the category of "this is why you shouldn't meet your heroes," and other times it's more along the lines of "I remembered loving you but I'd forgotten how MUCH."

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Hugo Drama

Hugo Gernsback: hey everyone its me, hugo gernsback Gernsback: editor of Amazing Stories and namesake of the hugo awards Gernsback: perhaps you've heard of them? Clive Barker: oh buddy Barker: buddy Barker: we've heard all about them ha ha

Stephen King: they're named after you? i thought they were named after victor hugo Gernsback: ha ha a common mistake Gernsback: but that's fine Gernsback: i'm not mad at all that victor hugo keeps getting the credit Gernsback: i think its funny Gernsback: in fact i'm laughing

Gernsback: ah yes my precious hugo awards! Gernsback: the most prestigious award in science fiction and fantasy! Gernsback: a place for serious business Gernsback: certainly no room for shenanigans here Gernsback: no room for tomfoolery Gernsback: no room for clownish buffoonery

Gernsback: The Hugo -- an award whose very name rings with integrity & honor!   Gernsback: it is no mere nebula! no paltry clarke! Gernback: the stoker, the howard, the lambda - none can compare! Gernsback: the L Ron hubbard writers of the future award? pah! dust before the hugo!

Gernsback: only the choicest cuts of science fiction and fantasy would ever achieve the lofty hugo award Gernsback: an award forever untainted by shenanigans or hijinks! Gernsback: now to take a big sip of coffee and read this  file 770 report!

Gernsback: what the--?! Gernsback: my beautiful hugos!!! tainted by the foul stench of corruption!!! Clive Barker: yeah boy i bet victor hugo's just sick about it Gernsback: Barker: just sick about what they did to his award Gernsback: Barker: ha ha Poe: clive leave him alone

Gernsback: my hugo!!! you were supposed to be a thing of beauty... not this monstrosity! Dean Koontz: gosh he's so sad about his award Koontz: do you think it would cheer him up if i gave him my nickelodean kids choice award? Poe: i think that would be a very nice gesture dean

Chris M Barkley: [thrusting microphone] Mr gernsback! mr gernsback! a statement for the press? Jason Sanford: [thrusting microphone] how do you respond to the allegations about your award mr gernsback? Gernsback: confound these intrepid newshounds of the 4th estate!

Gernsback: [wiping brow] don't worry, we will be taking measures to fix this Barkley: what are you going to do mr gernsback? Sanford: the people demand an answer mr gernsback! Gernsback: we'll uh Gernsback: we'll nominate an essay called 'Dave McCarty Can Fuck Off Into the Sun'

Gernsback: what a debacle! i cannot believe my good name will now forever be associated with such shady practices! HP Lovecraft: hey when are you gonna pay me for my story you ran? Gernsback: new phone, who dis?

Gernsback: you know who this really hurts? Gernsback: worse than the nominees secretly disqualified for politics? Gernsback: worse than the entirety of Chinese science fiction secretly disqualified for being Chinese? Gernsback: worse than the winners whose awards are now tainted?

Gernsback: the person that this hurts most of all Gernsback: is clearly bitter karella Gernsback: for reasons i can't articulate Gernsback: everyone should immediately go and heap conciliatory praise on bitter karella Gernsback: truly the most wronged person of all

Bitter Karella: [bravely holding back tears] no no it's not about me Bitter Karella: [voice cracking] my only thought is for the hugo community who has been through... so much... Bitter Karella: [stoically gazing into distance] they're the REAL heroes

Gernsback: look how bitter karella keeps a brave face... for our sake! King: god bitter karella is so brave... and so modest! Poe: truly a great goblin Poe: possibly the greatest Koontz: why? what did they do? Poe: dean! show some respect!

[literallysatanofficial]

Alright, I'm going to attempt to hopefully clear up a few misconceptions and assuage some worries about this Disco Elysium sequel and the general situation at za/um right now.

I see the shitshow that is unfolding on social media, and as someone who has known about this whole disaster for over half a year now I'd like to weigh in on it and provide some context for everyone who may not know the full story.

First off, Robert Kurvitz was fired at the end of last year. December 2021. As is strongly implied on Martin Luiga's twitter, the reason for this is greed (calling them "money men" and "crooks" and other similar statements for like, months now), and the executive producers, Tõnis Haavel (who has previously been tried for fraud) and Kaur Kender (who has previously been tried for... other things.) screwed everyone over. Kender provided funding for the game, as the majority of the original za/um cultural association did not have the financial means to.

The original za/um cultural association consisted of Robert Kurvitz, Jüri Saks, Martin Luiga, and Aleksander Rostov, originally founded in in 2009. The group, along with Argo Tuulik, played many different ttrpg campaigns over the years, several of them set in Revachol (centred around Precinct 41), and slowly built the world up from there. Kurvitz released the book The Sacred and Terrible Air, set 20 years after Disco Elysium, back in 2013* but the novel flopped, and it was decided that they would make a video game. Rostov has always been more than just an artist for Disco Elysium, as you can see from the dev threads he frequently updated promoting the game, as well as on his personal instagram, tumblr sketch blog, and several other accounts he used while the game was first gaining traction.

*The most notable credits for TSaTA are as follows:

Author: Robert Kurvitz, Editor: Martin Luiga, Cover Design: Aleksander Rostov, Worldbuilding: Robert Kurvitz, Martin Luiga, Kaspar Kalvet, Argo Tuulik. Helen Hindpere and Kaur Kender also appear in the credits.

I say this because some of the staff at za/um are now accusing fans of being unable to overcome the "auteur theory" of it all (ie. seeing Kurvitz as the singular creative mind behind it all) but the fact is that they have now lost not only the original ttrpg campaign's game master, The Sacred and Terrible Air's author, and Disco Elysium's lead writer/director (Kurvitz) but also their lead writer for the Final Cut's political vision quests (Hindpere) as well as their "co-founder" and art director/designer (Rostov). They are all CREATIVE LEADS, and not just well known only for their reputations/titles.

Luiga himself (who originally broke the news) was an Elysium world builder and provided much of the pale and innocence-related lore. He was also a part of the original tabletop campaigns (Chester McLaine is his player character!), but left midway through Disco Elysium's development due to creative differences (or as he says, "bad vibes" at the company). He is credited as an editor, but claims to have written a good chunk of the text in the game, including much of Joyce's dialogue about the pale. I have seen people discredit him due to his early departure, but Rostov also tweeted out confirming that he, along with Hindpere and Kurvitz were no longer at the company, with no additional comments. Rostov also posted a drawing on his twitter several months back depicting a man jerking off over an NDA, so take that as you will.

So what does this mean for the future?

Luiga has said that he has hope for the sequel, which could either mean that the script was finished or nearing completion before Kurvitz was fired (likely, and fits a pattern in the industry) and it's just a matter of finishing the actual game development aspect, or it may be that he has hope for the original za/um creatives to be able to re-acquire the IP.

I think it's worth pointing out that the original pitch for "Disco Elysium" was actually "The Return", and Disco Elysium was meant to be the smaller-scale prequel to introduce players to the world. Considering that the team was planning on this sequel all along, I think it's possible that a large amount of the "original" game was written years ago, so it's not all that far fetched to believe that the basic outline may be finished, or even that a large portion of the script already exists. Keep in mind that there are a large number of writers for both Disco Elysium and The Final Cut, and it may still be possible to work with a base that the others provided. We have no idea how far into development the sequel may be. Of course, proceeding without three key members of the original team is kind of a kick in the balls, and imo really quite disgusting, especially with how long the company has been keeping their departures secret (dishonesty is not a good look lmao), but it may still be canon, true to the authors' vision, and genuinely a good game in the end.

Argo Tuulik, original Elysium world builder and part of the old ttrpg campaigns, as well as a main writer on Disco Elysium, is still working at za/um. Justin Keenan, former writer on The Final Cut who wrote the political vision quests alongside Helen Hindpere, still works at za/um (and has been promoted to lead writer, according to his LinkedIn), as does Kaspar Tamsalu, who painted several character portraits, (René and Gaston) and worked as a concept artist on the original game. Plenty of the original creatives still remain. The sequel could very well still be in good hands at the development level, even if the higher ups are "crooked".

So, in conclusion... If this game comes out and they still haven't worked things out with Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere? Honestly... fuckin' pirate it. But it is very likely it could still be a great game that plays out as it was meant to! All that being said, FUCK za/um as a company, don't support them through Atelier or their merch store. I wish everyone luck if they do attempt to get the IP back, and I sincerely hope this fan pressure will help get things moving for them.

[clairelsonao3]

ETA: Thank you so much to the person (people) who already bought me a Ko-Fi. You are true gems. 💕

So, my bank account is down to $0. I just got unceremoniously dumped from the freelance job I was hoping would get me through the month. I'm at rock bottom, behind on my credit card payments, and really sad and scared that my life has come to this.

I also have an MFA and have been a professional writer, editor, content marketer, journalist, and ghostwriter for nearly 15 years, and I am actually very good at what I do, not that you would know it.

My clients tell me things are slow this summer, as if my rent and bills somehow also take a vacation.

The worst thing of all is that the prospect of soon self-publishing my book is the only thing that's keeping me going right now, and I'm starting to get scared that I won't be able to afford to do it when the time comes. I can do it cheaply, but not for free, at least to any quality.

So: I can beta read. I can edit and proofread your stuff. I can ghostwrite nonfiction and fiction. I've never done writing commissions before, but why not? All for low/negotiable rates, say .003/word for editing/beta and .08/word for writing.

I also have a Ko-Fi.

So yes. This is a request for work, tip money, kind words, and reassurance that I don't, in fact, suck.

Also, please reblog if you can. I would really appreciate that.

And it's a thank you. I would never normally do this, but I've gotten a lot of support from this community, so I've decided to take a deep breath and put myself out there in a way I can't with my IRL friends.

And to anyone else struggling: I'm thinking of you and here for you. You don't suck, and this is temporary. 💕

[ufonaut]

Do you really believe alan was intended to be gay all along?

yes, i genuinely sincerely believe alan scott was always intended to be gay. yes, since his creation in 1940. i promise i'm not joking.

see, i don't think mart nodell went out there with the intention of specifically making a gay homosexual character but it's always been plain to see that he never intended to have any women in alan's life, that's pretty clear in every interview he's ever given. i think bill finger (who notably does not get co-creator credit as alan arrived effectively fully formed by the time mr finger got involved) attempted to bring a degree of normalcy with irene miller's existence but whatever the intention behind irene, it quickly got shot down between mart and editor shelly mayer.

by the time alfred bester became alan's primary writer (and it was bester that wrote the vast majority of 1940s alan stories and invested time & care into a consistent characterisation and legitimately stunningly well-written stories), any pretence of such normalcy was abandoned -- irene miller vanished into thin air, alan explicitly & angrily rejected any women with any interest in him, and he & doiby moved in together. considering some of bester's major works like the demolished man, who he?, and golem 100 all feature gaycoding or explicitly gay characters (in the case of the latter two), nobody can even argue that writers back then weren't 'aware' of gay people (you don't know how often i've heard that one). in fact, it's around this time that alan & doiby's relationship was also called into question in gershon legman's love & death: a study in censorship (precursor to wertham's seduction of the innocent), and gershon himself was a gay man.

john broome, who took on writing duties after alfred bester, not only kept the now-established status quo of alan's dislike of women but he kept it all the way into the silver age -- all of alan's appearances in green lantern 1960 have him as a confirmed bachelor still living with doiby (a fact which gbc employees are aware of, they call doiby their president's 'man friday' in gl 1960 #40! how crazy is that!). subsequently, paul levitz & gerry conway in the all-star comics 1976 revival also have alan as a confirmed bachelor in so many words.

so, yes, i think the entirety of alan's original canon very obviously has him as canonically gay until roy thomas' retcons in infinity inc 1984.

[crehador]

wanna talk a bit more about reverse 1999's english tl because i think in my last post i didn't emphasize strongly enough how good it sometimes is

and i think the fact that it's sometimes quite good may make it even more difficult to digest, because some players might struggle to distinguish between which bits are just plain wrong and which bits are deliberately written in a dated/old-timey/regional way

like here's an example of a few lines that have grammatical issues, not the worst example but just one i had a convenient screenshot of

there are unquestionable tense issues here, ones that can't be written off as stylistic choice. these lines should read:

"What's that smell? You just gave it out before we sampled them? The press will be here in no time! You'll have to take full responsibility for any accidents. [...] Aren't you the ones who wanted a press conference? Just to show off what the arcanists can do to provide relief!"

like sure it's readable as is, but looks far from professional

so that's an example of the bad, now here

here's... well, there's a bit of not-so-good here, unless it's a british english thing that i'm not familiar with we should have "finally we caught up" or "we finally caught up" here

but i want to focus on cream crackered

to me that's a great detail! cockney rhyming slang for regulus says a lot about her voice, but it might look baffling to anyone who doesn't know it's knackered. so to some players it might look like more mistakes, even when it's (imo) a great line and absolutely not incorrect

here's one more example of good

the words here are clearly deliberately mispelled in a very consistent way that makes the text come alive, i can hear it just from reading it

like this is an excellent bit of text, which makes the frequent errors in the main story a bit more of a bummer because... it's clearly possible for them to do better?

credit where credit is due, i think writing a game like this is inherently difficult. there are lines that may seem "wrong" just because the speech is deliberately dated, there are lines that may seem hard to parse just because they're hyper-technical. and the writers/editors/translators absolutely deserve credit for that when it's done well

but there are many places where the text is just plain wrong, and that really detracts from the good (and there is good! even in the writing there is good!! i do want to emphasize that strongly)

anyway tl;dr hope the issues can be fixed because there are some gems in here that deserve better

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

What's this? Another Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow post?? But it's 2024! Surely, there's nothing new to uncover with regards to this seminal work of sequential storytelling...right?!?!?

Well...kinda. XD

BEHOLD! Another Tom King podcast interview, wherein he discusses Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and mostly confirms stuff we already knew, but! BUT! He does drop some new bits of info!

Right then. LET'S GO!

My usual disclaimer applies, recommend listening to the interview firsthand to get a more objective perspective.

But if you're cool with my (INCREDIBLY BIASED! ALWAYS! ALWAYS BIASED WITH THIS BOOK!) summary, then ONWARDS WE GO.

(And when I say 'biased summary' what I mean is that I will be including the bits that make me want to run a victory lap because my readings were SPOT HECKIN' ON, ALL YE NAYSAYERS!*)

Ahem. Anyways.

So I'm going to start off with some new-ish info (at least, it's new-ish to me. XD) The interviewers had asked about the title, specifically in regards to Zor-El's dialogue in issue six (I believe it's the portion where Zor is explaining to Kara why he's going to save her, and says something like, "tomorrow will come soon enough...and you will be a woman looking back on the many decades of your life..." hence 'Woman of Tomorrow') and whether that was planned from the outset, or if that part came about organically as he was writing it.

King said he'd originally written a completely different script for issue six (which we did know) but FUN NEW FACTOID TIME: Zor-El/Kara's origin (initially) weren't included in issue six like, at all. It therefore would not have come up at any point within the mini-series, had they gone with that first script.

But editorial hated it (King agreed with their conclusion, and another fun fact, we'll get to see said script in the backmatter for the new deluxe edition, YAY) and when King asked if there was anything in it that they liked, they said the tiny flashback to Kara's time on Argo was good.

SO. King then decided to expand that/incorporate her origin, because that would be 'easy', and this was back during his crazy COVID writing schedule.

(Folks will perhaps recall that he wrote issue seven in like...a day. What we did not know was that he rewrote issue six in that same week.)

And then it ended up being everyone's favorite issue so yaaaaay for editors! Unsung heroes of comics!

They are also comics' greatest villains but that's a discussion for another day!

Evely's art was mentioned at this point and King was like, 'I had to go back and make the writing more beautiful/esoteric to match what she was putting out.'

Also we stan a comic writer who lets his artists take as long as they need on art. (Though as he's mentioned before, Evely was able to turn in the art quickly on this book, which is heckin' WILD to me, have you SEEN that woman's pencils and inkwork??!??!?!??!?!)

They touched on the True Grit comparisons, only relevant/new bits there are that King feels it's the perfect novel (agree) and that the John Wayne version is terrible (also correct) and the Cohen Brothers' version is great (right again.)

Another bit we already knew: It was an editor who was responsible for the suggestion that Kara should be Rooster, not Mattie. (I think in the past he credited this to Jamie Rich, but this time he said he couldn't remember if it was Rich or Brittany Holzherr, and said they could fight over the credit if they want. XD)

Either way, THANK YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE, b/c the alternative pitch, with Kara as Mattie and Lobo as Rooster, sounded awful.

Instead King went with, 'Kara will learn from the young naïf, and teach the young naïf.'

(Much better.)

MORE NEW, FUN TRIVIA!!!!

King said they had the first issue completely drawn, colored, and lettered--basically ready to go, and DC said, 'we can't publish this because Supergirl doesn't drink.'

King called Jim Lee, trying to make his case, that she was twenty-one, it was legal, it was a totally normal/human thing to do, and Lee was like, 'but we can't.'

King: Could I do it with Superman? Lee: Yeah.

Essentially it was a lot of tiptoeing around stuff like, 'girls can't get drunk and whatnot' coupled with 'Supergirl can't do that because she's perfect and pure.'

But! Lee ultimately was like, 'okay, you can leave the scene in, but you can't say she's drunk.'

So if you go back and read the actual dialogue/narration, there's no explicit language confirming that kara is three sheets to the wind.

(Which is so, so ridiculous to me because the art makes it very, very clear that she is. XD LOOPHOLES!)

King and the interviewers pointed out that this real world editorial incident ironically tied into one of the metanarratives of the character, that being the pressure placed on Kara, which Clark doesn't have to deal with.

Art imitating life etc. etc. XD

Feel like I've heard this bit in other interviews but it's sweet so it bears repeating: the green sun planet's name is based on King's nickname for his daughter, and she was the one who came up with the idea of a 'green sun planet' during a discussion at dinner one night.

So shifting gears a bit, the rest of the podcast focused specifically on various plot points that the interviewers wanted to discuss/had questions about; it's basically King offering his insights as the writer. And I really, really appreciate this, for reasons I'll get to further down. Now then, more summarizing!

One of the interviewers brought up a sticking point he had with the book: the execution of the Brigand in issue four. Ruthye says to Supergirl that she thought she would save him. To which Supergirl replies: Did you?

King explained that Ruthye and Kara are on opposite journeys in this book. In issue one, Kara is on the side of 'I don't kill, heroes never kill' and Ruthye is on the opposite side, 'Krem killed my father, I have to kill him.' At the end of the book, they are once again on opposite sides, but they've switched.

(I love the way King described it, that Ruthye becomes Supergirl, and saves Supergirl. More on this later.)

But specifically that part in issue four, where Kara doesn't step in, King confirmed that she's on that journey, she's going through that transition, but she hasn't crossed the line of, 'I'll kill him myself.' Rather, she's allowing the system to do what it will.

King also mentioned that this theme isn't especially new and has been examined in comics time and time again, of superheroes asserting their morality over governments, and how that spirals into fascism. He cited Kingdom Come, etc.

Further comments from King on Kara's character: she's conflicted, unlike Clark. Clark's soul and ideals are aligned one to one; Kara wants that. She loves those ideals and wants to uphold them, but she's not fully aligned like that because of what she's been through (read: She's Seen Some Things)

Loved this bit from King: "Supergirl's a little more human than Clark, in spite of being more alien."

King said DC probably would've let him have Supergirl kill Krem in the end, BUT (and it's a good 'but' tying into that earlier bit about Ruthye becoming Supergirl) he said that the theme of this book was 'what makes Supergirl awesome' (he admits this is kind of a dumb theme, but hard disagree, sir) and he liked that Kara's lessons to Ruthye are ultimately what saves her. Kara saves herself.

(STICK A PIN IN THAT ONE, FOLKS)

King once again stated, for the record, that Krem does not die in the end!

The two interviewers had differing interpretations, hence King needing to confirm. XD He even pulled out his script for issue eight, and the description does indeed say that Krem is unconscious, not dead.

And, AND, Evely even made this clearer in the art; the script didn't have Krem moving after Ruthye hit him, but Evely added Krem placing his hand on his head.

Another point the interviewers wanted to discuss: Ruthye writing that Supergirl had killed Krem.

King confirmed that this was to prevent the Brigands from retaliating against Ruthye, and instead focus on going after Supergirl.

In King's mind, Kara feels immense guilt that her father saved her over literally anyone else, so she spends her life taking on other people's pain, to make up for what she sees as taking someone else's spot on that ship.

The scene in issue seven, where Kara's falling through the atmosphere and pushes through in order to preserve the memories that she carries with her was inspired by events from King's life; his mother died unexpectedly, and when going through her things, realized that he was one of the only people who carried certain memories of his mother and grandparents; he described it as a kind of burden.

Last question from the interviewers: Why make Ruthye and unreliable narrator? Do we believe anything in this book, now?

King started off his answer by noting that he fought against using captions in his books for his entire career; by the time he started writing comics, caption boxes had sort of lost their vitality and had become the equivalent of thought balloons, which had long since fallen out of style.

But when he returned to them with Supergirl, he said, (and I have the full quote below)

King: "What I love about [captions] is that you can write things that contrast what's in the pictures, so that the captions can tell you a little bit of a different story than what you're seeing, and thereby enhance it--it's that idea of Ruthye being, she's narrating the story but we're seeing pictures of what's actually happening, creates an excellent sort of tension I think." (Bold mine)

And so, some THOUGHTS!

As always, I love learning new things about this comic. I wish this comic had a commentary track, with King (and Evely, Lopes, and Cowles!) talking about the creation/processes behind the book.

Next best thing is podcasts, I guess! XD

But IN ADDITION to fun, new information, as I mentioned at the outset, King has basically confirmed a bunch of stuff I mentioned in my deep dive posts.

To quote one of the interviews: "I was validated by Tom King!"

XD

This also debunks like. Every bad-faith criticism lobbed at the book. It's almost like a checklist of the month-to-month stuff I was seeing from those aforementioned naysayers, complaining on twitter that King had ruined Kara beyond repair.

They'll likely never listen to this podcast, but I wish they would! I think it would make them feel better. XD Like, hearing the insights on Kara/Ruthye/etc has just reminded me once again how good this book is, and how emotionally moving.

Like, again, I love the way King sums up how Kara and Ruthye work together in this book to shine a spotlight on Supergirl; Kara teaches Ruthye lessons, Ruthye becomes Supergirl thanks to those lessons, Ruthye then saves Kara, thus Kara saves herself.

(Which hey, I touched on in my issue eight post, way back when.)

(I'm also beyond thrilled that my assumption that the art is the true account while the narration boxes are Ruthye's recounting was CORRECT.)

(Which isn't to suggest this is a terribly deep, difficult to decipher text. I mean. It's a monthly comic book intended for mass consumption, starring popular IP--the writing isn't inaccessible by any means. XD But I just remember seeing SO MANY PEOPLE deliberately misreading these specific points as a way to Stay Mad, so I'm relieved that my glass half full interpretations wasn't just the result of desperate Evely Stan goggles, you know? XD)

TL;DR: I cannot heckin' WAIT for that big, beautiful hardcover coming out in July (IDK if I've posted about it here yet but Lopes said he recolored some stuff so you BETTER BELIEVE I'll be back on my Woman of Tomorrow nonsense this summer) and I'm also thrilled that this entire creative team has returned with a new creator owned title (EXPECT A POST ON THAT...AT SOME POINT???)

[ofstormsandfire]

Baldur's Gate 3 characters as fanfic authors

(Disclaimer: I have not played Baldur's Gate 3. However, I have been on the receiving end of a lot of infodumping and have seen some of my qpp Cas's durge playthrough. Also, I'm doing this for shits and giggles.)

Astarion: He has a profile filled with the most epic of stories, all of which are marked 1/?. His writing is great! However, he has yet to finish a single fic and quite possibly never will. One of those authors where you can tell they've got Issues irl, but he's private enough in his notes that you can't really guess at what those issues actually are.

Gale: Credits his cat as his editor. Strangely, his stories seem to be very well-edited in spite of this. Jumps from fandom to fandom semi-frequently, but he almost always finishes what he starts before jumping into something new, and you can Tell that he's researched the hell out of every new fic he writes. (There is one fic that remains unfinished; while writing it, he vanished off the face of the internet for months and his readers genuinely thought he died. He has not acknowledged what happened with that fic since returning and is unlikely to do so.)

Halsin: His fics are as well-researched and thought out as Gale's, but specifically where nature is concerned. In the past, he's gotten into very big arguments involving ABO fanfic and how it's not even based on how actual wolf pack dynamics work, though he's been around long enough at this point to just block and move on. Also, characters who are shitty towards the environment tend to either mend their ways or not live to the end of the fic.

Jaheira: One of those writers who has been around basically forever. She posts once in a blue moon but whenever she does, everyone goes !!! about it; probably has a lot of user subscriptions on AO3. Probably volunteers with the OTW in her downtime. Has a certain fondness for fics where, just this once, everybody lives. Extremely private where her personal life is concerned, but she used to talk about a husband. (Longtime readers may note that she has never once been online during a certain month of the year, not even to respond to comments.)

Karlach: She keeps writing oneshots about this one specific comfort character of hers going on adventures and getting nice things. Unfortunately, being literally on fire makes her prone to making typos, but we love her anyway, typos and all. Her fics tend to be best described as... shall we say, heartwarming?

Lae'zel: Gets into literally all the fandom drama. She has written multiple fics specifically to piss other authors off and she'll do it again. Several of these were aimed at Shadowheart in particular during a short span of time, like we're talking slamming out a fic a day for like a week. Doesn't get commenting etiquette.

Minthara: Bad endings abound here. Unlike with Shadowheart (see below) she just kind of wants to watch the world burn and write the most fucked-up AUs she can think of. Goes into concerning levels of detail where things like torture are concerned.

Shadowheart: Writes all these hurt/no comfort angstfest fics. Has been straight up asked in the comments of her fics on multiple occasions if she's okay. (She eventually starts to write more hurt/comfort fics, and her audience breathes a collective sigh of relief.)

Wyll: Very cheerful, very responsive to comments, has a lot of variety in his works. Every single one of his fics is co-authored by this other account who he thanks for her(?) assistance in every story, despite the fact that she has never once said anything in the comments section and doesn't appear to have other social media. It is unclear what this other person's contribution is; Wyll has confirmed that she is neither an editor, a beta reader, or a writer herself.

[popculturebuffet]

Into the Spider-Verse: Spider-Ham (Marvel Tails #1 and Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham #15) (Comissioned by WeirdKev15)

Hello all you happy webheads and welcome back to Into the Spider-Verse, my look at the origins of every webslinger from the landmark film in the build up to Across the Spider-Verse. And it's bittersweet to be this close to the end of the web here: i'm proud of myself for this project and kev for having cooked it up as it allowed me to really dig into my love of spider-man, and comics in general, with new ideas and even possible new retrospectives wholesale coming out of this.

But before we can end this ride, we still have one Spidey to cover, who after our previous spider-persons adventures with crackers and milk, their predecesors literal oppisite sex clone, mob goons without fear, rock n roll pop art halluciongens in your giant spider mecha, and giant spiders stripping you naked, one man comes along to say..

Yes it's time for the debut of Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham a

And i'm sure many of you, both those familiar with the comics and those who just watched the movie, are asking the same question: why. The answer is simple. Way way back in the 1980's, Marvel had a new animated arm, Marvel Productions, which was a massive deal, producing both GI Joe and Transformers, which both started as comics first to promote the upcoming toylines, as well as Dungeons and Dragons, My LIttle Pony Tales, Muppet Babies, Jem and the Holograms, Kid N Play and the Biker Mice From Mars. There were also of course marvel cartoons like Spider-Man(the 80s one), Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk, the more popular Incredible Hulk and the infamous and destined to be covered Pryde of the X-Men Pilot.

So naturally Marvel wanted more ips to feed into the almighty merchandising machine, because shockingly, companies have ALWAYS wanted every dollar they can get out of making more and more adaptations as long s they can afford it. So two writers set to work to spitball this: They were Tom DeFalco, a longtime spider-man editor who would go on to write the guidebook I had as a kid that really got me into the comics and taught me a lot about his rogues gallery and more importantly would write the book himself briefly, being the one to crystalize Mary Jane's tragic Backstory and her knowing Peter Parker is spider-man all along. WIth him was the wonderful Larry Hama, at the time writing GI JOe for marvel.. and at the time of this writing STILL writing his continuation of that continuity for IDW as he should. Hama deserves all the credit for setting the foundations of the GI Joe universe most adaptations follows and for writing one hell of a comic in the process, and not one to rest on his laurels would later have the defining run on Wolverine's solo book.

So as you can imagine when these two legends get together.. they created a simple but enduringly weird joke that has lasted decades. It's a concept that just works: Spider-Man.. but he's a funny animal. Weirdly though Marvel Animation passed on it, not wanting anything to do with it despite the fact that in a time when Garfield was at the peak of his powers and they'd be making muppet babies, funny animals were a VERY easy sell. Seriously why Marvel Animation was so stupid is a riddle for the ages but Marvel liked printing money, so they put Porker in a one shot, Marvel Tails, parodying the marvel reprint mag marvel Tales. That said DeFalco didn't expect much from it and was suprised months later when the higher ups asked for another issue. He explained it was a one shot.. and then they asked when the next issue was and he got the memo. While DeFalco wrote the one shot that launched the character he freely admits he's not the one who made him a star. That honor goes to Steve Skeates. Skeates had been a mainstay in the industry, paticuarlly having a run on Aquaman i've been trying to read for some time that really launched the character to new heights before Superfriends would shove him back to the depths for a while. He was burnt out on the industry and freely admits he wouldn't of done the book for Larry Hama if it was any other book, but felt the format allowed him to do a throwback to the kinds of books he liked writing while still throwing in plenty of comedy to keep it fresh. The result was pretty great, with Skeates wisely having Porker's various foes not be the obvious joke of being the animals they resemble, for instance the Vulture being a possum in a buzzard suit instead of a vulture.

And we'll be seeing that contrast between Porker's humble one shot joke beginings and evolved more nuanced parody as unlike most of the characters featured... Porker didn't get his origin story for a while. While most of the spider-persons got there's in their very first appearance or arc, Porker's origin didn't come about till late in his solo books run. So today we'll be looking at both his first appearance in Marvel Tails, and his origin story in Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham #15 under the cut!

Spider-Ham begins his career in a typical spider-man setting: stopping a typical gang of thugs with ease and some quips. But it's not long before we get into one of the weird things about this story, something that just dosen't really work with it: Captain Americat. Cap is pictured here as Peter's steadfast partner and a reporter at his paper and none of this works. Now this is an AU, it COULD work and the idea of steve and peter being closer partners and steve mentoring him is great, just as the idea of Tony mentoring him was a brilliant one the movies captalized on. But here it's just treated as a normal thing without really being used for a joke that this is so unusual. A large part of this is something that's easy to forget as it hasn't been true about the character since the early 2000's. Spidey.. used to be a bit of a loner when it came to the rest of the Marvel Universe. Granted he was the kind of loaner who had an entire ongoing dedicated to him teaming up with other heroes and a tv show where he had two super college roomies he'd fight crime with, but when it came to consistant teamups his only real super friends were the fantastic four and in a few years Daredevil. Spider-Woman existed, but Jessica was largely her own thing by design, with only the name in common and wouldn't really become an ally or even friend of peter's till they were in the avengers together. Peter would have team ups but he really wasn't super close with the rest of the marvel universe. This changed in the early 2000's as his joining the new avengers gave him a lot of new allies in the marvel universe: He'd be on the new avengers until Brian Micheal Bendis left the book, he joined HIckman's avengers for the first arc, with Doc Ock taking his place, and joined the Mighty Avengers and Mark Waid's avengers afterwords, only in the last few years taking a break from the group entirely, ironically as his MCU counterpart became heavily associated with them himself. Not only that the dawn of the spider-verse and miles migrating to become the 616's second spider-man, meant peter soon had a spider-family.

Even now in his current tirefire of a solo i've been purposfully avoiding but suspect i'l lhave to confront some day, he has Ms Marvel, soon to be thrown in the fridge, Norman Osborn, long story, and his current girlfriend the black cat. Peter's no longer the solo operator he once was.. but back then it's very weird fo ra parody of the character to just.. casually hang out with Captain America regularly and this angle was wisely dropped.

This isn't the only weird thing in this issue either. For some reason rather than pulling from peter's many rogues, the issue has him face the Masked Marauder, some punk ripping off a super high tech arcade. It comes off more like a Scooby Doo Mystery complete with various red herings and the actual culprit showing up early on. He's not even the main threat as the everlovin hulk is also shoved into this issue. His origin is a little neat, with Bruce Bunny being an arcade game maker who gets shoved into a cabinet.

The result though just isn't that funny. Ther'es a good joke about steve stashing his shield in his coat

But otherwise i'ts just kinda.. there and didn't leave the best first impression back when I first read it. It's nicely drawn, but dosen't have much actually to say or any really satire of the character. It's clear they had the name but no idea what to do with it. THe backup is pretty funny though, the weird Goose Rider, take a while guess, who just.. spends it riding around, thinking about grabbing a burger, and dealing iwth shouty civlians and some random doofus called chainsaw. This satire.. actually works as from what I can tell Ghost Rider's early rogues gallery before his reinvention in the 90's wasn't all that impressive with few exceptions. It's more what I wanted. Thankfully when Peter got his title shot, things perked up and by the time we get to his origin... we get something delightful.

As you can tell both by the cover used for this review and from the title, this one's a parody of spider-man no more. Even if you haven't read the story (I've only read the iconic issue iwth the cover), you've doubtlessly seen it's cover, and the various homages to both that and the shot of peter throwing his costume in the trash and walking away, both by spider-heroes and the rest of the marvel. It helps that Sam Rami choose it as the backbone of Spider-Man 2 and ended up making an even BETTER version of the story in the process. Even Miles had his own version of it after his mom died and he blamed himself for it since the second ultimate venom was the reason she died. If you've read more recent comics and seen Rio alive and well that's because Miles befriended the Molocule Man, a very shy man with the power to control molocules... which shockingly for comics has been treated every bit as horrifyingly powerful as it should since his introduction, with MM's only real wekaness being his crippling neurosis. So when the universe died and was put back, Molocule brought her back as a thank you present. I had a point here.. ah yes.. I love the Molocule Man and feel he's a highly underated character. Oh that with the severe stress and sacrifice of being a spider-man, it's not a huge leap to have that moment of doubt. And it's an even shorter leap to take that moment and parody it and Peter's angst for all it's worth. We open with J Jonah Jackal hooking himself up to an idea machine while his three young wards, the junior newsboys watch. They are Jermiah Jackal, JJJ's snooty nephew, Bunson Bunny, our resident nerd who talks in big snetences and Upton Adam Stray, a combination of a black sterotype and

If your getting some deja vu from a rich magnate having three young sidekicks who both acompany him and try to steer away his worse instincts, one of whom is jonah's literal nephew.. GOOD. It means you have good taste and also get the bit. Spider-Ham has a bit of the old Scrooge McDuck stories in it's dna, simply adding spider-man and his rogues to the mix, and really JJJ is such a perfect fit for scrooge and Peter for Donald, that I can't blame both writers for dipping into this formula when it fits spider-man shockingly well now he's a pig.

This issue is written by steven Mellor, who took over the title later in his run, but like Skeates does a really fun job with it.

With Jonah having peter come to the clubhouse to view an idea he came up with that involves the kids

Peter deals with typical spider-man things. That is trying to get a date with his ex Betty Bat. It goes about usual for peter

Also as you might have noticed, hilariously, Peter Porker looks a LOT like John Mulaney, despite having been created only one year after John was born. I mean he's also a talking pig but the hair is distractingly like his future voice actors and I love it.

Baby P decides to handle this like a mature, rational young swine

Before bemoaning that he's still single.. what I like is that Mellor both really gets how Peter Parker Mopey Rants work, and milks it with everyone starring not sure what to do as peter ineternally rants and the janitor eventually asking him to leave as he's getting his tears on the floor. Peter then reflects back to his origin, the reason we're here. And even for a talking pig.. peter's origin is hilaroiusly bizzare. It's my kind of weird shenanigans. Okay so in this version Peter.. was a spider, which is clever enough.. but May was a mad scientest who befriended peter and showed him her new invention: a fission powered hairdryer. It made her radoactive, it wasn't good.. and well... I can't say what happens next and have most of you belivie it actually happened so here's photographic evdience.

This.. this is comedy gold, and clever as all hell. Just deciding to have may be radioactive nad bite peter. It's as nuts as it is brilliant and I love it. So we get the standard origin moments of Peter testing out his powers.. and we also get a nice gag out of him bending a pipe in the original amazing fantasy #15

Peter returns to find may basically the dodering old lady sterotype she was in earlier spider-man comics, and decides to look after her and not tell her the truth, as well as put his powers to use. Peter's genius in this version is also from the bite and thus Spider-Ham is born

After running into flash thompsons counterpart, who sadly isn't named flash beagle, we get jonah's meeting where he's dressed himself and the boys up in superhero outfits and ...

To become Black Beagle and his beagle brigadeers. Peter is dragged along for this and this.. is easily the weakest part of the issue. While the idea of Jonah becoming a hero himself is great and has been used well, here it's just kinda there and is mostly a setup for them to befriend "Andy Warthog" and see a bunch of celebrity pastiches. It's a boring page or two

Thankfully it picks up with a delightful parody of one of my faviorite spider-man rogue as the Hobgobbler crashes the party! God bless this pun. He kidnaps one of the celebrties and we get a ncie character moment. Despite how silly this character and his origin are... it's still neat to see the core of spider-man.. is still present.

No matter the universe, no matter who wears the mask... they can't turn down responsiblity. Try as he might.. Peter just can't let someone else get hurt if he can help it and that's what makes spider-man the hero we love so much: that drive to help people no matter what it takes. It's what makes a spider-person what they are wethere they be man, woman, ham or nb.

So Peter naturally wins, in a nicely drawn fight, cooks the turkey and drive sJonah home. He WANTS to just get some deserved sleep but Aunt May has other plans.. thankfully said plans give our hero his much deserved happy ending. Action is already his reward.

As you can probably figure, this issue is a massive improvment and it's clear even with two diffrent writers, the full ongoing got the concept better and more importantly had more fun with it. The result.. is fucking great. Also the puns. Dear lord the puns. And that's not getting into the backup which has the scavengers fight kangaroo the conquerer. Who damn well better be among the council of kangs. At any rate this issue was greatr and even with the brief slowdown, is a great issue, not only getting me reintrested in this run, but also showing off just what you can do with a parody: have it be both heartfelt and clearly get what it's making fun of while still being great.

Next Time: The web ends as we look at the movie itself. Anyone can wear the mask but is one Miles Morales up to the task? Can he fill peter's shoes? Well yeah, I mean there's even a sequel, but it's still one hell of a ride.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Breaking down the comics: Doing good (Issue 34)

Moon Knight, Issue # 34: Primal Scream

Written by Tony Isabella and drawn by Bo Hampton. 

And Bonus short: The Vault of Knight

Written by Tony Isabella and drawn by Richard Howell.

Let's stop for a second. Take a little comic history lesson tour. 

This is not written by the usual Moon Knight team. 

Let's get into a little Moench history here and why he left. 

He did not really get along well with the then Marvel Chief editor James Shooter. Understandable. Here’s why: 

James Shooter got his start writing for DC then moved to Marvel. During the 70s and 80s, Marvel was experiencing a huge boom in content and new titles (like Moon Knight!) 

Further more, Stan Lee stepped away from monitoring comics to heading the animation works in LA right when Shooter became the cheif, leaving him fully in charge. 

Many felt that Shooter ran the place like a dictator, but there had been a huge influx of missed deadlines and Shooter put a stop to that. 

Despite keeping things running and overseeing a lot of new and important titles, he also alienated a LOT of long-time Marvel creators. 

Many of the long-time creators, like Moench, left Marvel to join with DC, who had a new editor. (He got to write for Batman!) 

NOTE: Shooter also enforced a policy forbidding the portrayal of Gay Characters in the Marvel Universe. In fact, the ONLY and first portrayal of a gay themed comic was of gay men attempting to rape Bruce Banner in the YMCA (which Shooter himself wrote), thus making Marvel to be widely considered Homophobic throughout Shooter's reign. (You should look into the history of LGBTQ+ in comics. It's a ride.)

I would like to point out that Moench's last issue during this time was about a reporter that was obsessed with making her deadlines and who wrote shitty pieces that were praised but awful and caused harm and eventual death in one character she wrote about. HMMMMM. 

When did he leave? Sources say the end of 1982, but those that understand the publishing timeline will note comic publish dates don't match the date they reach the shelves. 

So what is the official last Moon Knight Comic Moench worked on?

Let me put it this way... We aren't going to see Moench anymore for the 1980s run. 

He DOES come back for a bit later on, but it's short lived for a couple of limited run editions.

(And this is all new knowledge for me, who thought he originally finished the 1980s run and now I'm looking at an earlier review I did out of order because I'm an idiot and realize I've made a grave mistake.... Oh joy.) 

Farewell my sweet writer Doug Moench. Hats off to you. 

Now! That out of the way, let’s take a look at the first step we truly take away from Mr. Moench. 

For some reason, any time a guest writer sits in for early Moon Knight, they feel the need to over explain the character and introduce his past. Almost as if they were trying to explain who they are writing or getting a grasp on it for themselves. 

This is also a special double large edition. Another cause for writers to try to over explain characters as Marvel expects a bigger issue to draw in new fans. 

However, this is an odd story to push on the hopes of new fans. 

Let’s get into it! 

Yep. We open with a fast recap on who these characters are. 

It leaves me wondering what happened when Moench left. Did he have a script written out? Did he have to give notice and they knew he was leaving and this writer was already on the backburner? Or was this done in a hurry to get a planned comic deadline out on time? 

I would ALSO like to point out that when Bill left, he got a send off. Moench did not get a send off. He just disappears from the credits. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. 

"He was born Marc Spector and Spector wasn't a very nice man...Not so much evil as callous...A mercenary whose concern was reserved solely for himself and his Bankbook. 

That man could never have come to this deserted industrial wasteland on a mission made of equal parts mercy and vengeance." 

I disagree. Marc would be all over vengeance in a deserted wasteland. 

"Steven Grant could have. You've read about Grant... The committed millionaire about town...A pretty defendable guy as the upper crust goes. Still... 

Grant couldn't have found this place without Jake Lockley. Jake is the eyes and ears of Grant and Spector...A cabbie whose heart pulses to the beat of the city." 

Putting a bit on Steven, but he'd want to do good. But a gritty back alley is not really his style. 

"Ready for the kicker? Spector, Grant, and Lockley are all the same man...A man you know better as..." 

(A side note... We see Moon Knight running through a warehouse complaining it smells like a sewer. HE WOULD KNOW. And then he's startled by a cat. This is hilarious to me for so many reasons.) 

And that leads us to the title page where a young man is leaking off the crates above to tackle Moon Knight. 

"Frank? Hate to do this to a hopped-up kid, but the quicker I put him down...the less chance of his getting hurt! Though when I think of what he did to Gena..." 

He tosses Frank across the warehouse. 

Moon Knight again alludes to the damage this kid did to Gena's diner after getting high on some new 'junk'. 

Moon Knight is about to call in to Frenchie to get the medics out to take care of the hopped-up kid when the kid takes off. 

He isn't worried. The fight has been knocked out of him and the police shouldn't have an issue. 

Now we head back to the diner where we find Jake having a cuppa wihth Gena and Crawley. 

Crawley is talking about "The Raiders" which is a young men's social club (read 'Gang'). They are known to be brutal and even the police are afraid of them. 

Gena mentions about how she never raised her boys to run in gangs. Out back, we see Frank leading a group of gang members up to the back door of the diner. 

The gang busts in and attacks the patrons, demanding food. 

Jake isn't about to lay down and let it slide. 

He clocks one of the kids and worries about his friends. 

"Gotta get over to Crawley and Gena fast! They're not used to this kind of action!" 

Jake's heart is made of gold. 

One of the kids jumps Jake, growling and snarling. 

"A for effort, punko, but I've seen a real werewolf up close--And all you've got in common with him are lousy table manners!" And Jake flips the man off. 

Frank jumps on Genna while Jake is preoccupied. He cries out that he's hungry and he bites into her arm. 

Her cries distract Jake and someone bashes him on the back of the head, knocking him out. 

On waking up, Jake immediately asks how Gena is. He finds Gena loading up into an ambulance. 

"His name is Frank... So much for my perfect record. Find him before the police do, Jake." 

"I...Understand. I'll make sure the boy isn't harmed." 

"You don't understand! I want that ungrateful little maggot harmed! I want him harmed so badly he won't ever be able to walk upright again! I treated that boy like family! He treated me like today's hot lunch special! Get him for me, Jake! Bring me his stinkin' head on a platter!" 

Jake's pretty irked about Gena getting hurt, but... 

"But that's not what Moon Knight stands for, is it? I'm the agent of vengeance, not vengeance itself." 

That’s an interesting thought for Jake to have. Jake who so often slips out to let the others handle the Moon Knight mission. He trusts that they can handle things. But what is the difference between being an agent of vengeance and vengeance itself? Perhaps, looking to another comic is where we see that line and the difference between Moon Knight and the Punisher. 

He sets out to find Frank and his gang. He hopes having Frank brought in will help Gena. 

"Because I never want to look into the eyes of someone I care for and see so much hatred and despair there. I've seen it too many times before... Within myself." 

So this issue I’m just going to be crying over Jake the whole time. Okay. Good to know. 

Back at the diner, Gena is out of the hospital and facing her fears. 

Moon Knight is searching the hideout of the Raiders. He fllows the smell till he comes across a delirious woman with some sort of chemical burn blotches all over her. 

Looking around, he realizes, Steven Grant has been here before. An old factory he had been trying to save to create jobs has fallen into ruin. 

The factory is left to rot and all the chemicals inside are left there as well. 

He radios to Frenchie to make sure medical is on standby. These kids have been living in the toxic waste too long. 

He asks if the police got anything out of Frank when they grabbed him. 

Yeah... they didn't get him. He got away. 

And he's still looking for food from Gena. 

Back at the diner, we see Gena trying to clean up on her own. 

She is skittish as she cleans but tries to tell herself that no one's coming for her. 

"Besides, I'm not gonna let anybody or anything chase me away from what's mine!" 

And that's when Frank breaks back into Genas’.

Moon Knight finds one of the kids conscious enough to talk. Alcaide, their leader, didn't let them leave the hideout. He found drums full of a top secret toxic waste that drove people wild and crazy. 

Moon Knight recalls that Grant had learned that the factory used to work for the government. 

"Grant saw that in their public records. But the Spector part of me can't help but wonder if they didn't also do some more discreet research for the feds." 

Bingo bango. He finds the drums, filled with "Primal Project" chemicals. 

Oh! time for a Marc Spector flashback! 

"Spector was working for the feds at the time, escorting a man named Wenzel through a south American jungle..." 

They were heading to meet up with a professor in Manaus (that’s in Brazil!) to shut down the Primal Project. 

"It was supposed to slow a man's thinking process...Make him docile...Easy to handle. Something went wrong." Wenzel talks about the project. 

Marc stops them in their tracks. He hears something stalking them from the trees above. 

A creature leaps at them and Marc fires his gun. 

The beast is hit and lays dead. Deformed and animalistic. 

Marc asks if this is the work of the professor they're heading to see. 

"Spector...That IS the professor." 

They reach the campsite to find men dead across the site and more creatures running around. 

They are attacked adn have to fend off the beasts. They ended up blowing up the site to get rid of the beasts and the remaining chemicals. 

Apparently not all the chemical was destroyed. 

Now, Alcaide, the gang leader, approaches, fully a beast now. 

Back in the diner, Gena fights for her life. 

The cops have arrived at the factory and the paramedics are working on the gang. 

Moon Knight still battles the crazed beast and so does Gena. 

The next day, Jake stops in to see Gena. 

Most of the kids will make a recovery and their lawyers claim they were unter the influence of the Primal toxin. 

Gena is still shaken deeply. 

"I trusted Frank like he was one of my own, Jake...And every time I come in here all the pain comes back. Maybe it wasn't all his fault, but nobody forced him to join that gang. And is it right that I can't walk into my own diner without getting sick?" 

Jake tries to comfort her. Or perhaps, he reaches out to her in a way that he wishes he could with himself and with Marc. Because he knows that it does eat them up. It eats Marc up every day. He isn’t sure if it will ever stop eating them up.

"No. But you're too good a lady to let this eat you up forever." 

"Yeah... I'll work it out."

Poor Gena. 

She shoos them away. She needs to lock up for the night. 

This story is beautiful. This one time special guest writer, Tony Isabella and artist Bo Hampton really did a beautiful job here. 

They manage to keep the usual Moon Knight pace and story feel. We have Jake trying to protect his people. We have Gena facing a kid she helped to raise up, despite him not being her own, joining a violent gang and hurting her, we have Governmental neglect to clean up their mess and doing experimental biochemical weapons on unsuspecting people (a thing that really did happen in ‘Nam), we have economic failure for the factory that lead to the failure to clean up the toxic chemicals, and then we go back to Gena who is now facing trauma. 

No one in this story won. No one goes home feeling good about the day. They just have to pick themselves up again and move on. And they shouldn’t have to. Yet here they are, facing it all alone. 

This moves us to the short story afterwards. "The Vault of Knight." 

This is a weird one. Stranger still is that the short is written by the same person who wrote the main line. That’s pretty rare. Usually the short is done as a commission to be filler or bonus issues. 

Weirder still is the way it’s presented. A commentary on the main storyline! I've seen it done before. It's sort of like the Watcher to the audience. 

We have a strange looking character that addresses the audience. He's dressed like a baseball catcher with a Cubs cap on. Fitting. 

He calls himself "The Score-Keeper". 

And this... Let me tell you....

"Aloha, Adventure-addicts! Was twenty-four pages of gratuitous Do-Gooding enough for you...Or does your Hero-Habit demand even more of (yawn) Moon Knight's exciting escapades? I'm your sinister statistician, The Score-Keeper, and what I wanna know is... 

What is this Turkey in his cowled skivvies accomplishing? Does he really make a difference? Let's add it up. You can't lie to a Scorecard!" 

Interesting. A common question that pops up in Moon Knight comics. 

"Take last story for example. Sure he put ONE gang of teen terrors out of commission, but what's he doing about the rest of the anti-social adolescents in this city?" 

We see Moon Knight on a stakeout, waiting where someone's been hitting the same place for a week. 

The someone is two punks that dress up like werewolves and rob the shops in the area. In fact, they've hit five places in the past week alone! 

They hit a store where an old man cowers in fear....Until Moon Knight swoops in and knocks the thugs out. 

"You...You're that Moon Mensch fella! And you came into MY shop to save me from those Gonifs." 

"It's sort of my job." Moon Knight pauses. 

"Nu? To you, it's maybe a job. To me, if my store gets robbed, maybe I don't eat that night. So I thank you a lot, you and your job." 

"Friend, it was a mechaieh." 

Oh boy oh boy oh boy you have no idea how happy I am to hear Moon Knight say THAT. 

Back to the score-keeper, he's not impressed. "Why can't these heroes ever save Bloomingdales?" 

And the score-keeper starts talking about Gena and the previous issue. 

"What about Gena? One of Moon Knight's own team and he couldn't prevent what happened to her in this issue's other story. I don't think she's over it yet." 

We see Gena's boys Ray and Ricky head into the diner. 

"What did you want to talk to us about?" 

"I...I was talkin' to your uncle Rollie today, the one with the big restaurant out in Houston and he...Well, he kinda offered...I mean..." 

Score-Keeper scoffs. 

"Way to go M.K. While you're brushin' up on your Yiddish, one of your closest friends is bookin' this urban paradise. Maybe we should ask the rest of your little outfit what they think of you..." 

And this cracks me up because we get Frenchie, Marlene, and Crawley. Each one speaks of a different altar. And Frenchie is just SO pissy about it and so protective of Marc... He calls him his friend. Marc could always count on Frenchie back in the day. 

I’m…Not going to get into the “Faces of Eve” thing. It’s… A lot. But it was the big DID story and eventual movie that came out around this time that somewhat inspired a loose input into the creation of Moon Knight having DID. 

"You ask me, you care more about these guys than you care about Moon Knight." 

A misnomer. These people are what makes Moon Knight and keeps him going. In his adventures, helping him, and even when he fails them, they stay with him. 

Score guy jabs at it, noting that Moon Knight hasn't protected any of them. 

Frenchie's girlfriend, Marlene's brother, Crawley's son... 

He moves on to Detective Flint. 

Flint waits for him in a back alley. 

"Something happened --Didn't want you to read about it in the papers first. That Alaide kid you brought in was found dead in his cell an hour ago." 

"Yeah, that would've ruined my Breakfast all right." 

(Honestly, Jake is the one that reads the morning paper and eats breakfast. Jake would have been upset.) 

"Wasn't anybody's fault, guy. You know how crazed the kid was --He strangled himself before anyone could get to him." 

"That supposed to make me feel better?" 

"No...This is. It's the room number of the officer that was injured that night." 

Moon Knight pays the officer a visit. The officer is surprised to see him, thinking that he might not come. 

"Flint tells me that storage drum busted three ribs. I'm sorry. Maybe if I'd moved a little faster..." 

"It's all part of the job. But I don't have to tell you that...

You know, I figure you're pretty much a regular guy under that mask. Weird clothes, but no special 'powers'. I'll be honest... This job scares me a lot, like all the time. I was shaking when I went into that warehouse." 

Sometimes he doesn't see the good he does. 

Sometimes all he can see is the pain he leaves behind. Blaming himself for the pain of his friends. 

Maybe he doesn't really understand why this Daniels is thankful for him. But maybe in this moment he thinks it might be worth it. It might be why he is still trying. 

Back to Score-Keeper. It's time to add up the score. 

"Is Moon Knight doing any good or is he just swinging against the wind?" 

He looks at the results and seems surprised. Ripping up the scorecard, he tells us to figure it out for ourselves and leaves. 

A weird story, but I'm not mad at it. It ties into the main story line, shows the aftermath of what happened, and still shows their friends standing by them. 

It also lets Moon Knight take a moment to feel appreciated. 

And it does ask a question that Moon Knight has asked time and time again. “Am I doing good?” 

Is he causing the harm or is he just shouldering the blame because of his past traumas? The question remains over the years as things become more and more broken for them, and the answer has always been there. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard for them to see it… or accept it. 

[dreamtydraw]

Hi!

Where do you get ideas for your vn and characters?

What is your favorite and least favorite part of working on a vn?

Well that a complex questions simply because I don't have one specific example. Clem used to be an old mc for the game black tarot who got canceled ( same for Aurore that I used both as a black tarot AND roadkill mc ). It's just that Sometimes I like my mc so much I develop them a lot and they end up having enough contents to have their own focused story.

Why did Clem and Aurore got a game out of all the other characters is due to the fact that currently all my games revolve around one main story ( the paranormal club ) and Clem was a liked side character.

This is a bit similar to Achik who is a main character of the Paranormal club story. It just happens that I saw that there would be a queer vampire jam soon and I was like "Hey queer vampire, I could use that as an excuse to give Achik a little focus".

Before being visual novel characters they are my oc but that not the case with the apple bag trio or Alioth ( who's game is coming out soon ).

Tulipe and 21 questions are an adaptation of an oc story in the form of a visual novel. Sleeping under spells and apple bags are Visual novels from the start, I created this stories for visual novels and everything is created with the optic of the stories being made for a public. The characters are made for you the player, not me the creator.

Now on how I create those characters, I start with design and general ideas of what I want to happens to them + their personality. The first character I created in Apple bag was Aissata and her design + story is a result of hearing from fem black player / creators of romance about the lack of romanceable black girls in general but also the fact that dark skinned poc are facing an issue of always being seen as more masculine just because of their skin color.

Second created was Rowan and I had to rework small design choices on her that meant a lot for the narrative ( without spoiling why, the designs change was about her eyes and hair ). Character wise I wanted her to be the opposite of Aissata to offer two very diferent options of love interest since the two of them are the more involved in the mystery part of the storie + are fem presenting.

Leila ? Their design is currently being reworked simply because they lack of character in my opinion, their character design is a bit too bland and I'm changing that. First intention was to offer an afab non binary love interest since I have seen very little of those on all the majority of games I played and by doing so decided to offer a portrayal of non binary that leads in being comfortable in neutrality.

Alioth ? Literally doodled him one night and went "hey I like his design It would be cool to make a game about him" and then boom decided to make a game about him.... That it.

NOW-

This asks is getting long sorry about that but about my favorite and least favorite part of making visual novels :

-Designing and drawing the characters. If you open the files of my games you'll see that for one outfit change the character usualy have like... 60 expressions ? That because I really like having a lot of nuanced expressions and since i'm the artist suffering for it I can allow it to happens.

-Adding cats in my code... If it's a game of mine you'll find cats in the code.

Writting... You would say that kind of unfortunate since that one of the main point of a visual NOVEL- Thing is, I'm not a good writer and I struggle heavily in putting words in what I want to express which I find extremely infuriating. You guys needs to give more credit to the editors as they are the ones who are the reason the text don't sound like dog shit. I have ( not confirmed medically but heavily suggested by professionals ) dyslexia which also results in a LOT of typos in my text and i'll admit I try my best when I write text but I always feel very shameful when typos are found, even worse when I repeat them a lot.

coding Ui.... or coding anything complex. I have a very basic understanding of Renpy and anytime I have to work on something complex I usually end up struggling for a long time and crying on discord to more competent devs ( aka my amazing friends Naarel and Miyuly )

Thank you for the ask and for reading all of that, Hope you'll have a good day.

[demcnsinmymind]

so my boss did get the call from production yesterday evening, asking for me to stay on the editorial team for the rest of the editing phase for the feature film. The director also told me on the phone today that she's vouching for me to not just get an 'assistant editor' credit, but 'co-editor' credit. I'll also probably get a raise. The motherfucking satisfaction I've been feeling this week. I left my previous company because I heard through the grapevine that the previous bosses wanted to fire me because I got to 'cocky' with my demands for proper compensation and credit as department head, considering all the things I had done that the actual dude department head should've been doing but never did. Not to speak about knowing for a fact that my male colleague, who's been doing the exact same work as me did get 10% more than me. It just ended up being such a fake, vile, and twofaced dude-bro company with not a single woman in actual charge of anything. And now, I'm making 25% more in wages, got speedrun into a high position on a feature film that has a female writer, a female director, a female DOP and a female editor, and I got into that position because a woman demanded for it to be this way, and I stood up for myself not just quitting the old toxic job, but also asking for said 25% more in wages. Ah, the sweet fucking vindication.

[tinylilvalery]

people are taking matthews quote from a recent interview out of context abt tomgreg (he said he didnt play it as romantic but thinks it's fun that the fans see it that way) and claiming it means tomgreg is dead and he hates it... i'm so frustrated with this goddamn fandom smh...

It's interesting that he said that (I haven't seen the interview) considering how he acted Tom, but also people gotta realise

1. It's shipping... You can ship things whether actors ship it themselves or not. Hell, William Shatner has said time and time again that Jim Kirk is heterosexual, and yet you can watch TOS and see how Jim interacts with Spock and like... I really don't need to explain, I'm sorry sksnsk. So I look at Tomgreg the same way if it's really true MattMac doesn't ship it (again, idk what he said, but if he did say that these are my thoughts on shipping even when an actor doesn't). I have very close friendships and I don't behave in the way Tom does with Greg, but that's just me 🤷‍♀️. To summarise I'd say, it's like death of the author actor, because the performance itself transcends the actor's comments on it after the fact.

2. Actors aren't solely responsible for the character and the characters relationships W others, therefore they can't really take full credit of the character. Yes they embody and bring them to life, but there's also the script (multiple writers), the showrunner, as well as editing and direction as all the other massive contenders as to who creates the characters and the relationships on screen. As a writer myself, I do find it really um,, like very irritating¿ that people keep anointing actors as the sole creator of a character. They interpret script and bring it to life with direction but they didn't write the character and so they didn't create it. Kieran Culkin's acting practice is that he doesn't like to know where his character is heading, so he lives in the present and episode to episode when acting Roman. What I mean by this, is regardless of Kieran, there was ALWAYS a set path for Roman as to where he was headed in each season, and it didn't matter what Kieran was up to, his plotline still existed despite not knowing it. Does that make sense? My point is, whether an actor knows it or not, things are written in by writers, and I consider Tomgreg VERY MUCH a part of the text and subtext of the show.

So to summarise, if MattMac really said he didn't play Tomgreg as romantic and doesn't see them that way he basically achieves Death of The Actor because his performance speaks louder to me than his comments about his approach to acting Tom. Tom looks at Greg with such adoration that I've never seen him look at another character, he speaks to him in tones that he doesn't speak to other characters in, so again, his acting transcends his post comments. And SECONDLY, MattMac's comments still aren't a ship killer to me because he didn't actually create Tom alone. He interpreted the character, brought him to life, and definitely would have had say + freedom in his performance considering what we know of Succ's production, but he didn't CREATE Tom. That credit is owed to the writers who literally wrote Tom, and wrote Tomgreg's scenes how they did. The credit is also owed massively to editors in how they edited all the many hours of footage to portray Tom and Greg's relationship as we saw it.

We all know Succession is an incredible show. There's so many undercurrents happening all at once that surface at various times in forms of parallels and callbacks. I think it's funny to think that despite the pedigree of Succession, something as massive as Tomgreg was some sort of shared hallucination. It wasn't. Tomgreg is part of the sauce, and they're an intentional ingredient.

[bluisgayandmoregay]

I'm just gonna say it. Linus Media Group is just another shitty company owned by another shitty rich white guy. Maybe Linus is "nicer once you get to know him" or some other bullshit like that, but everything that has happened and has been happening with them is down right sad.

No one should ever be dismissed or told off or belittled or shamed for coming forward about assault in the workplace, hell anywhere, and Madison deserved much better when coming forward to higher-ups.

If LMG responds to Madison's allegations the same way they've been responding to all the inaccurate videos callouts and the whole Billet Labs controversy, then Terren should consider taking a long hard look at who he employes while he gets situated as CEO

On related topics, first my opinions about the "mandatory meeting" video from

this link (credit u/Nitazene-King-002 on Reddit. It was originally posted 6 months ago around when Madison left, however the comments on the original post are upsetting).

This is the most corporate bullshit response Linus could've given. I've heard some of these exact phrases a dozen times working for Big Corporate™ before.

The fact that barely anyone knew about an internal anonymous reporting feature is highly concerning as that implies no one told them either purposely or accidentally. And either way is shady.

James's "joke", while maybe funny to some of a certain inner circle, was very clearly poorly timed and disgusting given the circumstances of the meeting itself.

Second, my opinion about the Billet Labs waterblock prototype scandal.

In LTT's video addressing the data inaccuracies and "how the company will move forward from this"

(credit: Linus Tech Tips on YouTube)

They say that they simply misplaced and mislabeled the waterblock and auctioned it off at the LTX convention, and, after finding out that it was supposed to be sent back to Billet Labs, handled refunding the auction in a very unprofessional way.

Third, my opinions on the inaccurate graphs and lazy post production fact checking.

While LMG is certainly not the biggest tech company trying to give people data on products, they most certainly have the time, money, and effort to fact check everything in their videos, despite what Linus has said on both the LTT forums and the WAN show. While they do address and focus on this topic in the above YouTube video, it is once again filled with corporate copypasta phrases and empty feeling promises as they try to calm everyone down. The video feels half assed and like most of them aren't taking it seriously as they insert inside jokes to the script. (but that is just my opinion)

Fourth, my opinions on Madison's allegations.

A link to Madison's thread

(credit: @suuuoppp on Twitter. It's a long read and heartbreaking, but worth it if you still believe LMG is a good company)

explaining everything that happened to her while working for LMG, and exposing higher ups for how they dismissed and belittled her for feeling attacked by other coworkers.

In my opinion this thread alone should be enough to tell people that something is wrong at LMG. She did not deserve anything that was mentioned there, whoever dismissed her cries for help should be fired for putting an employee's mental health in danger.

I believe Madison without a doubt, the behavior of some of her coworkers is completely unacceptable.

All in all, I expected better from LMG. I feel bad for Terren for having to deal with this right as he joins, but perhaps he's going to be part of the problem later.

I hope some of the smaller teams in LMG like TechLinked/GameLinked and Mac Address come out ok. Maybe Riley takes the linked writers and an editor to make his own tech news channel, or Horst can do the same with Mac Address.

And I genuinely hope the best for Madison. She was a wonderful part of any video she was in and never deserved anything that wronged her during her time there.

(Small explanations for certain parts:

Remember that these are opinions about facts, while I do literally state that Linus "is another shitty rich white guy", that is my opinion. I've never met him nor anyone who I'm hating on in this post.

It is entirely possible that Madison is lying, but knowing what it's like to be a woman in the corporate tech industry. Right now I believe her 100%.

I am aware of and have seen Gamers Nexus's video calling out LMG about the inaccurate graphs and lazy fixes and the Billet scandal. This post is essentially in tandem and agreeing with their video, while also adding Madison's allegation.

And for those confused as to why James's joke "Are you gonna dance on that table, or just stand on it?" is bad. That line is a reference to someone performing in a place like a strip club, and the way it was said was (in my opinion) satire on the way people in a club might say it in a demeaning way to a performer. I'm not sure who he said it to or why he said it in the first place, but closing a meeting about discussing assault or harassment in the workplace with that line is very disgusting.)

And of course I don't know everything, I'm just putting my opinions on the Internet™. If I've missed anything you know about you can reply/reblog/send an ask and I'll edit/add it on. Same for if I've gotten anything wrong.

#tl;dr I think Linus Media Group sucks right now.

Love,

Brie

[shinelikethunder]

lol the bitter samgirl part of the knife circle is already scenting blood in the notes on that post..... the fun part of being a part-time sera gamble apologist who also frequently finds her writing enraging is that in principle i want to join in the fun of dunking on my extremely problematic fave, but in practice half the time people are doing so for reasons that are totally baffling to me.

and the thing is, for many reasons completely independent of her doing anyone's fave dirty, season 7 DOES suck balls. but it does so in ways that are so wildly different from the entire rest of her list of writing credits that i don't actually... think it says much about her as a writer? she crashed and burned HARD as an executive producer, with unknown amounts of fuckery going on behind the scenes, and it came out in the writing in the form of "sometimes i think you need someone to stop you" big-picture decisions and a bunch of structural messiness. but the absolute worst parts of s7 are management problems, and the most excruciating ones come from bringing back buckleming and not keeping andrew dabb on a short enough leash. i don't think she should've been showrunner for the seasons i'm saying she could've fixed. i DO think putting her at the top of the pecking order of writers and story editors would've produced incredible (and, yes, frequently enraging) results.

or as @chiisana-sukima so succinctly put it: they pushed her off the glass cliff so hard the whole show broke when she landed.

(in the interests of sharing and caring re: being fascinated by gamble's contributions and also wanting to throttle her for a lot of them...... here's my dirty little secret that i can't say in front of people talking earnestly about the feeeeeels s2 gave them: when the single crystal tear of manpain dropped at the end of 2x17 'heart,' i burst the fuck out laughing. i couldn't help it. they were trying SO HARD to tug at our heartstrings over Men's Feelings About [uncharitable episode analysis redacted] that the whole thing faceplanted into bathos. girl i want to be a fly on the wall of whatever was going on in your head when you wrote this.)

(......also none of my fandom bafflement applies to dunking on her for the abject racism. in fact i don't think it's possible to dunk on her ENOUGH for the abject racism. sterling k brown should've gotten hazard pay for agreeing to come back multiple times as gordon.)

[atbussysparks]

Let me tell you why this is the stupidest fucking article I've ever read. I got to this section and had to stop and reevaluate why I'm subjecting myself to this bubbling pustule of blatant ignorance and negligence on the part of the miserable moronic maggots they call editors and writer being paid to say nothing at all.

It begins with this comic strip which is funny I GUESS. Very funny indeed if you love Garfield. No one on this fuckass team has ever even sat down and read a Garfield comic without a finger up their ass and a severe misunderstanding of basic fucking history of Garfield main characters.

Calling you out by name you baggy donkey ball suckling shitheads. cbr.com/we-didn't-even-know-what-the-fuck-a-Garfield-was-before-spewing-out-this-half-assed-article-and-rubbed-eachothers-nipples-all-day-thinking-about-our-fat-fucking-paycheck.

If they'd even payed a shred of attention, or just looked soullessly with their glassy vacant eyes at an actual fucking google search they'd know that NERMAL, which is HIS name, is a Boy. I could forgive that. A little kitten with cute lashes, hell I forgot NERMAL was a dude once a cats gender does not fucking matter.

But if they'd looked at this comic with little more than a shred of dim-witted surface level NO, atmospheric level observations, they'd see that NERMAL, A NAMED CAT WHO HAS BEEN IN THIS WORLD FAMOUS COMIC FOR 50-FIIIFTY FUCKING YEARS, theyd see that NERMAL is visibly smaller and more naive than Garfield. You can infer if you have more than nine fucking neurons in your cavernous cranium, that NERMAL IS A BABY. A LITTLE BABY CAT. A SILLY LITTLE KITTEN. UNDERAGE. WAAAAY TOO YOUNG FOR GARFIELD. AND GARFIELD IS NOT TRYING TO SEDUCE HIM.

the silly funny haha jokey jokey very OBVIOUS punchline being that Garfield is trying to be a cooler older guy than nermie. And his story gets goofy when he starts exaggerating his truth.

Clearly the same approach was taken with whoever was tasked with pumping out this tray of vomit given to us as "entertainment." Who in their right mind, who is interested in Garfield, would EVER be entertained with an "article" written by a couple of chucklefucks looking to make a quick buck like that dude from fucking Mathilda. You are literally Danny devitos role as a sleazy cunt of a salesman getting people entrapped In a hunk of shit posed as ENTERTAINMENT.

YOURE GOING TO DIE AS THE PERSON WHO GOT BASIC FUCKING GARFIELD FACTS WRONG ON A COMPUTER THAT HOLDS MORE HISTORY than anything put out on paper AND IS THE GRANDSON OF THE SHIT THAT PUT HUMANITY INTO THE COSMOS. the maggots that eat your boot-licking grimy corpse will shit you out and the most you contribute to the world will be your composted brain that wasted it's capacity on a shitty Garfield article no one enjoys.

Humanity, a feat that can only be philosophically pondered about, was cast away for the sake of creating nothing out of something? To choose the path of destruction over creation, a trait which has been credited to omnipresent beings only, AND LIFE? FOR SOMETHING SO MENIAL AND PLEASURE DRUNK AS MONEY, TO DESTROY THE BASIC FUCKING HAPPINESS THAT AN ACTUAL FUCKING GARFIELD COMIC STRIP GIVES TO PRIMORDIAL BEINGS OF STARDUST LIVING THEIR CELESTIAL LIVES⁉️⁉️⁉️

only the slimiest and sleaziest sopping wet scumbag could think of pissing out such a cunt crumble of a dastardly deed. Lowlife lead brains headass. If I were to end it, which I won't as I would much rather live to see your demise ( the great demise of a pus encrusted laceration wound on the bare breast of great journalism) I would end it just to have the satisfaction of knowing I will no longer live on the same mortal plane as this putrescine rotted rat carcass gnawed on by a living embodiment of a lobotomy.

Unless they're reading a translated version from a non English speaking country where the characters are different?? Then it's cool I guess.