Sleep-speaker

UP FOR AUCTION! BUY A VID!

2016-02-05T18:32:45Z

Hey guys. So uh, yeah. *glances around sheepishly* I haven't been here in a really long time. BUT. But. I do come with news:

I'm up for auction for VidUKon this year, so if anyone would care to bid on me (or one of the other five awesome vidders who volunteered - buffyann, jagwriter, LithiumDoll, Llin and meivocis), here is the link:

http://www.vidukon.co.uk/convention/auction

Bidding ends Sunday, 7 Feb at 8:00pm GMT (which is like 3:00pm for you people on the East Coast, I think).

The Legend of Korra: Deliberately Deconstructed

2015-08-19T19:21:43Z

Behold, I have written a ten thousand word essay on the Legend of Korra and it's multi-season trajectory. Because apparently that's how I roll. And how long it takes to write down everything I think. But also: fair warning - this is an essay. I'd love for you to read it, but for real, take your time.

The Legend of Korra: Deliberately Deconstructed

When The Legend of Korra finished, late last year, I was left with the strange sense that I had watched a show completely, and deliberately, dismantle itself. Much was made of that final iconic shot of Korra and Asami leaving for the Spirit World, in what was, honestly, the queerest “platonic” moment I've seen on television since Xena managed to stage a PG-rated dance-orgy. It was (to its credit) both obvious and unavoidable, but it was also the capstone to a much wider-ranging set of choices designed to destabilise accepted narratives. This would be worthy of exploration under any circumstance, but I feel it is particularly fascinating given how much of it appears to be in direct reaction to the events of Book One: Air. While I've seen countless shows begin with promise, only to fall foul of hegemonic expectations, I'm not sure I've ever seen one begin carelessly and then spend three seasons systematically and critically dismantling its initial premise.

Read the rest at my Dreamwidth because it is actual trufax too large for Livejournal *facepalm*

Alive, Politics, Steven Universe, Ant-Man, how are all of you?

2015-07-25T18:11:02Z

Wow, so VidUKon happened (HI EVERYONE!) and then I was like, wow, I can take a week off, sleep, chill and then get on with my fabulous life of leisure. Except then I got some more freelance work and an offer to temporarily go full-time at my regular job in a different department and Kev started reducing his medication which meant he was in a kinda fragile state and tl;dr OMFG you guys, it's tiring! Actually the first few weeks I think I got through on adrenaline. It's just been the last few where I've felt like a brick wall hit me. I'm pretty sure I'm just adjusting. Still, props to all you regular working people. Soon I shall be just like you: more tired and slightly less poor. (Oh god, the extravagant things I'm going to buy with the money! New glasses! House insurance! Such things, my friends, such things...)

Anyway, that's why I've been so horribly absent except for intermittent political rants on twitter. I haven't been on tumblr at all for months.

Point is - I'm really out of touch with what's up with you guys so HI, and HOW ARE YOU, and if you posted anything really important in the last month, I probably didn't see it and I'm sorry, but LET ME KNOW about it?

In exchange, here are some things I have been thinking about recently:

OH MAN you guys, this show. It's amazing and I meant to write a bit journal entry about why, but by now I think most of you are watching it if you're interested and who're we kidding, when would I get around to it.

SO. STEVEN BOMB 3!

I don't know where to start. I guess what I'll say is that it was exemplary of the show's ability to pull off moments that would be cheesy or leave you feeling like you'd been hit over the head with the message, that instead feel really earned and okay because you took a long time to get here and because this show is made of sincerity. Things like when - during Historical Friction - Steven explains to Pearl why he's not mad at her by talking about the play. By rights it should be a really unsubtle and hamfisted moment but it's just...not. Instead that episode in its entirety was an oasis of relief because it reaffirmed Pearl's humanity (and her love for Steven - the moment where she is inappropriately acting like a proud mother by shouting her encouragement at the stage was such an important couple of seconds) at a time when she is, essentially, the fuck-up.

Which brings me to my next point. It manages to tell stories that are really upsetting in a way that is safe and considered and has real delicacy, without making things less sad. I figure that's probably really important in children's media. It reminds me of Mister Rogers during those times he spoke about things like divorce.

At the same time, I'm really worried about Pearl. Pearl getting carried away and (almost) causing real damage due to her neuroses and an attachment to Rose which is increasingly being portrayed as unhealthy, is becoming a theme. Her ability to catch herself and slow down is also deteriorating, I think. I can't imagine Pearl from Space Race behaving in the same way as Pearl from Cry for Help. The balance of Pearl making what's quite obviously a cry for help, but again putting her firmly in the wrong... I don't know. Honestly? I would have felt safer with the story going in this direction if it weren't hot on the heels of Sworn to the Sword and We Need to Talk. Which I suppose is the point. It comes back to that point that the show is going to a legitimately uncomfortable place, just...not necessarily an unjustified one.

I still feel that Pearl's deep-seated psychological issues will need to be addressed eventually in a way that involves providing her with love and support and trust, not just motivating her to improve by showing her the negative results of her behaviour (which worked in Sworn to the Sword, for instance - her resolve to be a better, more loving mentor was genuine and I think it was the right way to resolve that particular conflict).

Still, I suspect that's coming, and I think it was part of what Garnet was trying to offer her, as much as she could, when she offered that trust at the end.

I also think that this might be us seeing the beginning of Garnet's wider issues. Again, a strength of the show is that it can legitimately portray Garnet as the wounded party, and her reaction as emotionally and morally understandable, while still leaving space for us to understand that it's rooted in her own issues. Just as Jasper's comment - "a defective Pearl" - seems to indicate Pearls were a specific and negative class in Gem society and that's an issue that underpins Pearl's psychological issues, Jasper refers to Garnet as an "embarrassing display" - presumably referencing fusion. Presumably foreshadowing Garnet's emotional vulnerability around the topic.

Garnet is furious with Pearl to the point she doesn't care about understanding her feelings or why she did what she did. In part this is because it has breached an emotional area where she does not have the space or capacity to be the counselor rather than the client. We all have those areas - areas where we need people to be gentle with us. In part though, I think it's also because she genuinely doesn't understand them. Not on a deep-seated emotional level. She can't. I saw a comment on the wilds of the internet that shook me with how true it was. "Garnet doesn't understand Pearl because she doesn't know what it's like to hate herself." She literally can't. When she does, she splits in half, and she's not Garnet anymore. (She's Ruby and Sapphire and we get Keystone Motel and my heart is breaking.)

And I just... Man, it's so complicated. And in the middle of it there's Amethyst, very quietly growing up. I think she's the other half of this for Pearl. Garnet can inspire her to be a better Gem, but we saw how that worked with Rose Quartz, and I think Amethyst is the one who will be able to offer her empathy about where she is right now.

ARGH YOU GUYS THIS SHOW. When is it coming back?!

So then, I went to see Ant-Man. I was underwhelmed by the trailer. But I wasn't impressed with the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer and I ended up really enjoying that. But no. I hated that movie. I hated that movie.

I mean, to start with, it was just boring. I found myself actively bored at many points. Most of the jokes fell flat. The ones that didn't? Like the stuff with Scott Lang's criminal buddies? It almost felt like it was out of a different movie - I presume the one that Edgar Wright wrote before he walked. But it's barely fifteen minutes of the film and not enough to save it. The rest? It's full of moments you can tell ought to be surreal and hilarious but just do not work because the context and framing isn't there. You can't throw a surrealistic "lol and then we made a Thomas the Tank Engine giant!" moment in there if it's not grounded in the kind of light, amusing, subversive humour of Lang's buddy and his cousin picking up crime tips while appreciating abstract expressionism. Or like, you can, and you get a few laughs, but it's a hollower exercise. You're not with the moment. It's just a movie patting itself on the back going, Look! Look how funny I am!

Beyond that? Okay. It was just so fucking sexist. And incredibly, I have seen people suggesting it was one of the least sexist because it acknowledges its prejudice. But it doesn't actually challenge it. So yeah, of course I'm glad that Hope wasn't sexualised and that they didn't imply any improper relationship between her and Cross. Of COURSE I am. But it is just virulently misogynistic in a way that's really hard to talk about because it's hidden behind layers of...fucking banality and expectation.

Bluntly: Hank Pym is a sexist asshole who treats his daughter like crap. The most obvious aspects of this double-standard and unfair treatment IS acknowledged by the film. The film then treats that as free license to make it the story of how Hank Pym is a damaged man who just mistreats his daughter because he's in ~pain~. It's the story of Hank Pym finally deciding to treat his kid slightly less like dirt. We are supposed to find this moving and heroic, or, worse, like actual engagement with systemic sexism.

Which I suppose it is. It absolutely engages with the concepts of sexism. It legitimises it by making it about some dude's learning experience. It does that gross thing where a powerful group are totally willing to admit that in theory this is wrong, but then always demand the feelings of the powerful aren't hurt when dealing with it. And how do you manage that? By turning it into a moving, learning experience so the person in the privileged position still gets to be the focus and to be lauded as heroic for their small shifts along the scale of asshattery, while the person in the oppressed group gets a consolation prize at the end for "being patient" and understanding.

If this film had any interest in engaging with Hope's very valid, and very painful experience of her father repeatedly dismissing her contributions, lying to her for her entire life, risking her entire plan on some guy she neither knew nor liked (and whom she correctly assessed would jeopardise the entire plan - like all her concerns turn out to be accurate), and justifying it all as "protecting" her when it's protection she does not need and has specifically attempted to reject? Then her "turn" at finally getting a suit wouldn't have been relegated to a post-credits sequence that was still all about what her father was willing to "let" her have.

Fuck this movie, to be honest.

I think the Labour party may actually be imploding. It's a mix of fascinating and painful to watch, and I honestly have no idea what will come of it.

Given the spectacular failure of the polls before the general election, I'm not about to put any stock in the suggestion that Jeremy Corbyn will win the Labour leadership. I still think this may be a groundswell of vocal support from a minority. I'm...being skeptical for defensive reasons I suppose. Hope is a painful commodity to wager.

I'm also aware that if he does win, the doomsaying of his opponents may well come to pass. As much as we can point to Foot's defeat being related to Thatcher's sudden popularity on the back of the Falklands War (which one would hope will not be repeated) and the loss of vote-share caused by the SDP split (which if Corbyn wins may be repeated), we can also point out that even in the face of a tremendously unpopular government, that Labour repeatedly outpolled a year or so before the election by up to 20 points, Labour still lost in 92. While a banana in a top-hat could probably have won the 97 election, let's be honest, it wouldn't have won a landslide majority and some of that was down to Blair's personal charisma and centrist branding.

But that's the thing, right? The branding? The Tories have successfully branded themselves as centrist and the party for working people (as opposed to those scroungers). Whether they actually are is immaterial. As long as Osbourne keeps stealing Labour manifesto pledges like increasing the minimum wage, the fact he's offsetting them against in-work benefits won't matter because it seems a provable commitment to the "deserving" working poor.

I honestly believe that this is a game Labour cannot win. They've lost the war about fiscal responsibility. They didn't challenge their collective responsibility for the global financial crash and now it's too late. If they refuse to admit they were responsible, that's evidence of their inability to see their own errors, and they aren't fit to govern. If they do admit it, well, why great, you just admitted you fucked up on money, why should we trust you again?

The Tories have successfully convinced everyone they are occupying the rational, sensible middle ground. Their play is to convince us that it wasn't the Lib Dems holding them in check. By attempting to appear centrist, Labour inherently blur the perception of the differences between them and the their opponents, at which point, why not vote for the real thing, who at least didn't fuck up with the money?

I suppose that's the bottom line. I don't think Cooper, Burnham or Kendall have much chance of winning in 2020 either. Kendall may be right in her assessment that her quest for Tory voters won't lose her enough hardcore left votes to the Greens or Plaid Cymru to make a difference, but will it win her a hundred seats? Because to win the general based on gains in England, that's what we're talking about. But they'll never win back Scotland with watered-down centrism because the SNP's appeal is ideological purity, maverick power and running like the opposition even when they're not because there'll always be a government in Westminster against which they can define themselves.

Labour are fucked.

Not because the Tories are doing particularly well - their majority is pretty tiny and actually due, in large part, to the Lib Dem collapse in the South West - but because they have no easy path to increasing their overall number of seats.

Which brings us to the calculation we're being asked to make - electability vs ideological purity.

I'm not unsympathetic to the idea that it's better to compromise and be in a position to make changes than hold firm and be consigned to protest. But everyone has a line where that compromise comes at too high a price. Right now, not only do I feel an electoral drift towards the right involves compromises I'm not comfortable making, I also remain totally unconvinced that they'll succeed in their purpose: returning Labour to power.

And if winning in 2020 is something that, you know, we can hope for, we can hope the Tories will lose 20-odd seats and a coalition moves in, hell, we can hope the country rallies around the new Labour leader and we have a repeat of 1997, but if election in 2020 is no longer the main motivating factor, then oh god yes, I'd rather have someone who actually appears to bring some enthusiasm and debate and honesty to the table. It helps that - while I think he's further left than I am - Corbyn's policies are, in broad terms, things I approve of. But if, say, Kendall's campaign was vibrant, exciting, getting attention and buzz and a base rallying around her? I wouldn't vote her into position, no, but I would at least not feel hopeless. I might think we were sacrificing too much and be sad, or even angry, but I would at least understand the arithmetic in play.

What's considered the political centre shifts. The only way you change that is by getting out and pulling. Being vocal in your opposition, making it normal to have people on television making loud, political arguments that Tax Credits aren't charity or undeserved so that even if people disagree, they don't think such positions are outlandish.

The very fact that Tories are making gestures such as committing extra funding to the NHS and improving the minimum wage, instead of dropping tax rates for corporations and then claiming that'll lead to a rise in the minimum wage, instead of selling off (even more of) the NHS and claiming that'll lead to greater investment, is because they fear looking too far to one end of the political spectrum.

A radical left-wing Opposition might not result in a radical left-wing Government in 2020, but I'm not convinced that even 5 years of Murdoch-sponsored mockery would leave the political sphere completely unshifted.

Or, you know, Cameron could use it as an excuse to paint us all as insane and swing even further right. None of us know what will happen.

But when the majority of the Labour establishment are berating the very people who voted for them two months ago for not being willing to compromise on painful, key issues in order to please a bunch of Tory swing voters in middle England? When they are reduced to ad hominem attacks and an attack on their own base as irresponsible? It's very hard to feel respected by or supportive of that same establishment.

All parties need to attract centrist voters to win power, this is true. Party members tend to be more committed to an ideology than the wider voting population. But when the difference is this stark, when the party base is apparently this out of step with the leadership, good lord, what the hell does anyone expect? This isn't a tenable situation whatever side you come down on. And you absolutely cannot compare enthusiastic young people joining as registered supporters to Militant Entryists. Which, at the moment, is basically what's happening.

"You can't just tell the public they're wrong!" they yell. "We have to listen to the views of the majority and not insult them!" they shriek. While doing just those things to their own core voting base.

I don't even know what to make of it, but almost everyone is coming out of this looking terrible.

VID: Republic City [The Legend of Korra] [VidUKon Premiere]

2015-06-16T09:03:48Z

Title: Republic City
Video: The Legend of Korra
Audio: Atlantic City // The Gaslight Anthem [Springsteen Cover]
Summary: Everything dies, baby that's a fact. (But everything that dies, some day comes back.)

Direct download available here. RightClickSaveAs. 83 megs approx.

Cross-posted to vidding and vidding

Other vids available here.

Kickstarter Project I Helped With (And Where I've Been?)

2015-06-03T17:35:40Z

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I'M SO SORRY I'VE BEEN SO ABSENT. I mean, I'm never the most frequent of posters, but for real the last month and a half has been nuts. Like real-life stuff, and organising VidUKon (in a week and a half!) and also making a trailer for part two of the Kickstarter Comic Project I helped out with last year.

So first of all - LOOK YOU GUYS! I made the video for this, so you should all, you know, check it out:

PRESENTING A KICKSTARTER PROJECT WHAT I HELPED WITH.

My So-Called Secret Identity - it's kind of a reimagined what-if take on the Batgirl archetype set in the 90s. You can read the first four issues online for free.

In other news, where to even start? I'm behind with everything. Reading, telly, comics, music composition, correspondence, everything.

I want to talk about Steven Universe. I want to finish the 10k word Legend of Korra essay I wrote after it ended and has been sitting, 95% done, unlooked at, for weeks. I want to finish the vid I need to make so I can release the other vid I've already made. I want to make sure I don't forget all the musical stuff I realised I still knew last year. I want time to play more games. I want to talk about my discovery that minimum requirements for PC games seem to be largely bullshit. I want my work to stop demanding data with absolutely no error tolerance when I'm dealing with a huge, complex database, thousands of records at a time, and a lot of the information was input by temps who lacked appropriate training.

But whatever, I'm alive, if you're reading this, you're alive, in a week it's VidUKon and I'll see loads of cool people, and then maybe I'll have time for some of that stuff from that list up there... ;)

VID: Blue/Pink [Steven Universe]

2015-04-05T21:49:43Z

Title: Blue/Pink
Video: Steven Universe
Audio: Blue Lips // Regina Spektor
Summary: Human, Gem. Boy, Girl. Blue, Pink.

PASSWORD: vidses

Direct download available here. RightClickSaveAs. 80 megs approx.

Cross-posted to vidding and vidding

Other vids available here.

Superheroes! - VidUKon 2015 Vid Show Suggestions!

2015-03-22T15:55:45Z

Hey guys!

I'm in charge of a Superheroes vidshow for VidUKon this year! My aim is to make it awesome. So obviously I'm going to ask all you awesome guys to help me create a shortlist of vids to include.

My goal is to root it in self-identified Superhero stuff but also to reach out to other things that don't necessarily self-identify as capes and costumes heroics, but clearly draw on those archetypes.

So I'm soliciting any and all suggestions!

Though I'd be super, super grateful for suggestions that aren't for either Marvel or DC because that's a lot easier to find.

To help this process, I brainstormed some fandoms that fit under either "Actually Superheroes!" or "Oh Come On, They're Superheroes!" I want to try and make sure that the latter category isn't just "action heroes", so feel free to question, challenge or suggest stuff in the comments even if you don't have a specific vid to rec (though obvs, omgs, I hope you do!)

Actually Superheroes!
DC (duh)
Marvel (duh)
Kick-Ass
Watchmen
Hancock
Krrish
Judge Dredd

This list is as complete as I can make it, so if I've missed something PLEASE let me know!

Oh Come On, They're Superheroes!
Commander Shepard
Olivia Dunham
The Avatar (as in The Last Airbender and Korra)
Buffy Summers
Lara Croft
Ghostbusters
Blade
Jedi characters in Star Wars
Xena
Knight Rider

This list is both arbitrary and incomplete and mostly designed to act as a starting point. I'd also note that the focus of vids in this list will probably matter more. Wonder Woman is always going to be identified as a superhero. A vid about Buffy could focus on a lot of things other than her superheroic attributes.

Music for Piano: rainstorm, skylight

2015-03-17T13:28:05Z

So FIRST, oh my god, the VidUKon auction was an amazing success! We raised almost £250 including £111 for RAINN. So that was pretty fantastic. Many thanks to the vidders (buffyann, LithiumDoll, jagwriter78 and purplefringe) and all the bidders!

Also, I finished this a while ago but I should probably post it. I'm not sure it's as epic or successful at evoking a particular tone as my string quintet, but I'm pretty happy with it in the sense I feel I started cracking the use of accidentals for some deliberate dischordant...ness. Plus, a wild key change appears!

I do think I probably should have not been quite so minimalist with the left hand obsession with repetitive thirds, though. Oops?

VidUKon! Auctions! Scholarships! (also I'm not dead)

2015-03-02T20:37:10Z

OKAY SO, firstly I apologise for my absence. I had really high hopes about improving my posting schedule, and really I feel a little cheated, because I HAVE been doing stuff I'd like to be posting about. I finished a vid! Except I didn't post it because I'm worried I won't have another ready in time for VidUKon. I finished another musical piece! Except I didn't post it because I didn't want to post music twice in a row. I wrote epic Legend of Korra meta! Except I didn't post it because it's a gigantic beast of an essay and it's not actually finished yet. But...I had more than vague aspirations, is what I'm saying. I was sort of being productive.

Also VidUKon! BIG NEWS!

Firstly, we have a scholarship. It is for free attendance, Saturday evening dinner and accommodation (on the basis of sharing a room) for one non-UK resident, with preference going to European applicants. If we receive additional donations they will go towards the recipient's travel costs.

We very much encourage self-nominations, so please take a look!

Secondly, we're doing auctions! This is very short notice so we're looking for sign-ups THIS WEEK.

I know that might sound intimidating, but here are some reasons it's not:

- The deadline is going to be June 1, that's a full month after the Premieres deadline. Loads of time!

- Our goals are modest and specific. We're looking for, like, £15 to fund fancier badges, £30 to buy some USB sticks to digitise the library. That sort of thing. There is no performance pressure here!

- 75% of anything over £100 will be donated to RAINN, so if you DO want to sign-up on mass and attract giant bids, then it'll be in the name of good deeds!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know.

Plus, you know, con registration is open generally, and if you can't attend in person, you can come to VirtUKon, where we put as many of the vids online as we can (they go live with the shows), as well as streaming a number of the panels, etc. After the weekend the playlists go live for everyone, but some of the panels are likely to be up during the weekend only.

You can check out our site to see what last year's looks like.

YAY VIDS!

Music! I have composed more!

2015-02-03T20:24:15Z

Okay! So it's been a while since I posted about my musical adventures. Not because I haven't been working on it (well actually I took a pretty long break to play Dragon Age: Inquisition, but I'm back at it now) but because I've been...simultaneously working on a few things and not really finished with any of them. My original plan was to post this, along with another piece I mostly finished but am trying to go back and polish a little and a piece I'm currently working on but is a bit stalled. If I do that, though, who knows when I'll be brave enough to post anything, so screw it.

I give you 20 Strings, a piece for string quintet in C Minor.

It's my attempt at a sort of minimalist style so there's a lot of intentional repetition and slow builds because, well, I like that sort of thing. Hopefully you will too. Or at least not think it sounds terrible.

I'm...actually kind of happy with this because I feel it's long enough it feels complete, but also feels consistent throughout. (What I'm working on at the moment, for instance, I'm quite pleased with on the one hand because I feel I'm getting the hang of using accidentals and some chromatic harmony, but I've got a tonal shift in the middle I'm not entirely sure works).

I do think I should have bitten the bullet and put bow markings in. I didn't because Musescore can't play them back properly and I was all GRR MINIMALISM FINE FUCK IT everything will be bowed! But whatever I'm not actually a hipster, I should've put them in for completeness. On the other hand, it's a piece made up of layered repetitive phrases so I think most people would guess correctly where to put 'em.

Finally, for some reason, the custom soundfont I use with Musescore didn't include a viola so I'm stuck with the default viola sound which is a) not great and b) clashes with the custom stuff so, with deepest apologies to the viola, which is a beautiful instrument, the audio here is three violins and two cellos.

I think that's everything.

But seriously, guys, I'd love to know what you think. I'm sort of new to this and not entirely sure where I'm going with it. I don't actually know almost anyone else who's into composing stuff. It's hard to know what it would sound like outside of my own experience. It's not really like when I got into vidding and there was a ready made community of enthusiastic people of varying skill levels, you know? As far as I can tell "composing" fandom is super hardcore people who understand...a lot more than I do when it comes to musical theory.

But, I think I like doing this. So. Onwards.

(ALSO ALSO, festivids went live this weekend! I haven't had a chance to watch that many vids, though, cus I suck. I will try to have a recs post up before the reveals, though!)

READ CATWOMAN, as written by Genevieve Valentine, #35 -- ??

2015-01-24T20:26:08Z

So listen, guys, I usually like to wait a little longer before recommending a run of comics, basically just because, well, comics. Those things go off the rails in big ways sometimes. But honestly, based on what's out so far, I really think that Genevieve Valentine's Catwoman run (which started with #35) is worth looking at, even though there are only three issues and an annual so far.

Here's my pitch:

Selina Kyle, convinced this is her ninth life, looking for redemption as a Gotham mob boss, selling her soul in pieces against a beautifully non-sexualised noir backdrop of business suits, shadows and late-night phosphorescent streetlights, splashed against a charcoal, pencil-sketched palette.

Here's my slightly more detailed pitch, including the backstory of how she got to be in such a situation (because, of course, it was in a different comic) and slightly more about Catwoman's rejection of Batman than is really necessary for a series where he's a minor supporting character, but 1) I am all about people rejecting Batman and 2) I'm trying to keep spoilers for Valentine's run to a minimum and sticking with the type of stuff you might get in a blurb, so I need SOME way of explaining to you why this run has such a perfect set up.

In Batman Eternal (the weekly comic that's running right now), bad shit is going down. One of the ongoing plot threads is Carmine Falcone's return. For those who don't know, he is traditionally the non-superpowered crime kingpin Batman takes down early in his career. Sometimes it's implied that Batman's destruction of "traditional" organised crime left a vacuum filled by the costumed villains. Falcone certainly subscribes to this and he's setting out to fix it and reclaim his territory.

The new element introduced is Selina Kyle's father - Rex Calabrese, head of the Calabrese crime family and thoroughly estranged from his daughter. It's made clear that she knows who he is, but also that he's been in prison most of her life and she doesn't care to be in contact. It doesn't look like he ever had a role in her life as much of a parent. However, she agrees to see him and then aggressively rejects his offer to back her as the new head of the Calabrese family because he thinks stuff's getting crazy out there and someone needs to bring stability.

Instead, as Catwoman, she goes on a tear, setting the gangs up against each other in an attempt to burn them down around her. Batman, in rigid, paternalistic tones, warns her that this is going to explode in her face. It does. She almost dies and she fails to save a child. I think it's important to note that the child was involved in the situation for reasons beyond Selina's control, but her plan to rescue her involved first putting her into greater danger. She tried for the hat trick: beat the bad guys, save herself, save the civilian, and it didn't work.

It's a fine line to walk - when you write women in superhero comics, well, in any heroic fiction, competence is the double standard. Women don't get to fuck up. And fucking up when Batman warned you is a particularly dicey proposition. When Catwoman's written well, though, it throws shade on Batman's hypocrisy and lack of compassion: here is a man with a revolving door of dead and traumatised sidekicks and an interpersonal style that borders on abuse. He tries to manage and control Selina and it backfires spectacularly. He tries to take it back and it's too late. The fact we see this from Selina's point of view, in her comic, matters. Her aggressive rejection of his pity because her redemption isn't about him; he doesn't understand that they're doing exactly the same thing.

Like I said, it's difficult to write well, but the fact that Catwoman is an impulsive, reckless character is important to me. She is fiercely talented but she's also self-destructive. She jumps into situations without an exit strategy and relies on guts and cunning and cleverness and sometimes blind, dumb luck to get herself back out. It's a life she's comfortable with because she's the only casualty: it's not a failure she'd ever have to live with. She teases Batman and loves danger and under it all she is furious. She is rageful and angry. That's why she walks that line of anti-heroism so well. She's out to get back at the whole damn world - that's why she's flashy, that's why she steals from people who can afford it and who'll hate her for it instead of people who can't stop her. She does what she does because the world is broken, it's just that she's not interested in fixing it. She's just interested in a giant middle finger that everyone can see.

So when she does fail - when she gets caught by the gangs and her lone operation leaves her stranded and someone else pays the price for her "throw myself out a window" exit strategy - and Batman sees her in pain and tries, clumsily, to take back what he said before? Tries to tell her it's okay, he can help her fix it, why can't she just come over to his side, why can't she just stop being a criminal, he knows she's better than that, let him fix it and her and everything by just letting him be in charge?

She pushes him the hell away and runs off to ~~join~~ run the Gotham mob. Because that is her redemption story. That is her finally deciding she can't cut and run anymore and that she has to take hold of the power that's been offered to her for the greater good. That is her deciding to be the hero Gotham deserves, even if it's not the hero that it needs. Selina Kyle's angsty self-denying superheroic alter ego is the capo di tutti capi of the Gotham mafia.

It would be a more murderous, dangerous organisation without her, but to keep herself in charge, she has to do terrible things. And damn she wants to be judged for it. But not by Batman. He could never understand that she is finally doing things "his way". He just thinks something as trivial as what side of the law she's on makes some kind of difference.

She's selling her soul, piece by piece, because what she wants, personally, matters less than the difference she could make. Even if that means letting some people think she's a monster. Even if it means using that.

No. Selina won't be judged by Bruce Wayne.

This comic has a young woman named Eiko to do that. The daughter of the head of the Hasigawa family, raised to the role but with no love for it. Living her life with discipline and hidden agendas, dreaming of the freedom someone like Catwoman has. Is she naive? Aspiring to a life that Selina finally realised could not serve her if she hoped to affect long-term change? Or is she representative of the path Selina has yet to walk: the toll of a lifetime spent hiding your true nature, spending the lives of others for ever-decreasing victories, until you're left shoring up your own position at others' expense, because you blocked all your own exit strategies?

I don't know, but I'm desperately interested to find out.

Eiko doesn't want to believe that Selina is part of the problem, not part of the solution, but her disillusionment is becoming clear. She is becoming increasingly isolated and convinced she will need to act, eventually, alone. Lone operators don't do well in head-first assaults on the criminal underworld. Selina has learned this. Selina doesn't want to hurt Eiko, but for the first time in a long time, given what she's already done in this comic, I don't know that she won't anyway.

It's thrilling.

Also featured: police investigations, tense relationships with newfound cousins, every single mobster assuming she's there to take the money then cut and run or that she's "too soft", and angry, angsty, accusatory talks with Batman on balconies.

Also featured: quotes from Elizabeth the First, Caterina Sforza and the Pillow Book (because it is as necessary as the Art of War.)

Also: Genevieve Valentine apparently writes award-winning steampunk novels? I mean, I haven't read anything else by her, but come on, that's just cool.

(No but seriously read it already.)

Avatar: The Legend of Korra - Forgiveness, Compassion and Suffering

2015-01-17T14:12:59Z

So, the Legend of Korra finished last month and it was actually pretty awesome. Over the course of the series I felt it made up for a lot of its first season missteps, even if the fact I know the first book was written to standalone means I am unwilling to say that everything wrong with it was intentional. But yeah, overall, it was a great wrap-up and while I have a few reservations - things I wish they'd done slightly differently - don't we always? I feel far more joy.

I feel like the whole series - all four books - deserves an epic review post, meta and all sorts, but for right now I kind of just wanted to address one piece of criticism I've been seeing because I think it's worth some attention.

That being the thing she says to Tenzin in their final conversation.

"I know I was in a pretty dark place after I was poisoned, but I finally understand why I had to go through all that. I needed to understand what true suffering was, so I could become more compassionate to others. Even to people like Kuvira."

And there's this interpretation that Korra's arc was about taking her down a peg. That she needed to be taught a lesson. (Uppity woman. Uppity brown woman.)

I get why people would feel that way. I take a different view, in full context, but I get it. I felt that way at the end of Book One. Annoyed that Korra had been saved by the deus-ex-machina of her past life (that everyone kept comparing her to anyway) but simultaneously relieved that it was fixed because having to watch that dragged out, after her characterisation in the first season, would have felt perilously like she was getting her "comeuppance".

Honestly, I wouldn't have used words like "had to". I get that there's a desire to simplify and encapsulate a huge journey, but I would have been more careful with the language. That said - I think it is more of a linguistic issue than a problem with the story we saw, which was so much more expansive than reductive. I think the Avatar Universe has a much more nuanced understanding of forgiveness, acceptance and the lessons of suffering.

We can take this back to the original series when we look at Zuko and Katara.

Zuko didn't deserve what happened to him, but in reaction to it, he did things that were both terrible and wonderful. One of the most powerful moments of the series, for me, was when he confronted Ozai. His father accused him of having learned nothing, and Zuko spits back, "No, I learned everything, and I had to do it without you."

It's a different situation in that I do not feel that Korra was ever lost in the moral sense that Zuko was, but it's illustrative of the complex ways these series have always dealt with anger, forgiveness and justice. Zuko learns positive, redemptive things during a time of great turmoil and pain. He learns them during a period when his father has cast him out as a learning experience, and yet Zuko is able to separate these facts and accept his own growth without crediting his father's actions.

Katara, after she is unable to kill her mother's murderer, explains to Aang that no, she hasn't forgiven him. She never, ever will. But she cannot kill him either. It's not forgiveness, but it is acceptance. Not acceptance that it was justified or right or fair, but acceptance that it happened. It is unchangeable and it shaped her, and now she will move forward as a person who experienced that, rather than a person trying to fight and fix it. Trying to make it mean something other than it does: it just is.

Korra makes similar statements to Mako after she confronts Zaheer. She will never be able to "put it behind her," but she is now able to accept it. To look at it and say, yes, that is a thing that happened to me and shaped me and here I am now.

We do learn things because we have suffered. It's not fair and it's important not to romanticise it, but we are the sum of our positive and negative experiences. Sometimes aspects of ourselves that we are fiercely proud of grew in opposition to that which mistreated us. We should have been left to discover those parts of ourselves under kinder circumstances; no one deserves to have anything beaten into them ever. But sometimes that's not how it happens.

What do you do, then?

Accept it as part of the tapestry of your life. Accept what you learned from it, without taking on the blame.

I think that's what that speech is about.

Book Four Korra had a storyline about self-loathing. About feeling she deserved what was happening to her. It was her shadow-self, haunting her. It was her disconnection from the people who - as Toph said - love her. Like Zuko's rage at himself, she was afraid of herself and disappointed with herself (and, yes, angry). We saw her move through and beyond that. We saw her move backwards through the stages of grief (because she was mourning herself: her bright, beautiful past) from depression to bargaining (if I can just beat this thief, win this match, get into the Avatar state, defeat Kuvira at Zaofu - if I can just do that, I'll be okay) to anger that no one believes she can do the job and denial that she still has issues after her return to Republic City. And then, finally, acceptance.

An acceptance that allows her to finally confront Kuvira with such compassion. I don't think that Korra was ever lacking in selflessness or sympathy. What is it she says after hearing the tragedy of Tarlokk and Noatak's life? "That's the saddest story I've ever heard," I think. Something like that. She gets up to fight Unalaq even after her soul has been ripped in half, because people need her. She gives herself up to save the Air Nation. She is, on a fundamental level, a good person.

But what she had with Kuvira wasn't sympathy, it was empathy. It was compassion born of experience.

If she hadn't had those experiences, she might have dealt with Kuvira sooner, or differently. I'm sure she would not have done so cruelly. But it probably wouldn't have involved that moment of raw, human empathy and mutual understanding that inspired Kuvira to stand down and to begin to consider her actions. Maybe, for Korra, that would have been better, and maybe we care about her more than we care about Kuvira.

This is how it happened, though. This is what Korra chose to do with the experience that shaped her. Reach out. I think it is okay that that is an important experience for her.

I think there is context to be found in the way TLoK characterises Korra as revolutionary in a way that Aang was not. I don't mean to offend - I love Aang a great deal - but he was restoring balance to the world. We find out in the comics that he does institute social changes, but within the scope of the series, he is trying to put things back the way they should be. He's trying to fix the overwhelming negative change that has occurred in his absence.

Korra changes everything. She opens the spirit portals, starts a new Avatar Cycle, rebuilds the Air Nation and oversees major political reforms in several nations. In the very same conversation with Tenzin, he notes that she has changed the world more in a few years than most Avatars do during their lifetimes. Korra responds that she feels like she's only just beginning.

This exchange is positive and full of pride as they stare out across the bay at the new Spirit Portal.

There is no question that her right to do this is in doubt. Which I think it would be if the intended subtext to her statements about suffering was that her negative experiences were what saved her from failure as the Avatar and/or a decent human being.

I suppose I'm still not the biggest fan of "I finally understand why I had to go through all of that," but if she'd said, "I finally understand what I got out of all of that," then, well. I think I'd get it.

Sometimes pain is just pain. Sometimes it's not. Understanding what you got out of something isn't the same as being glad it happened.

All told, my biggest fear for this series was the way Aang's conflict was about accepting his power whereas Korra's was about whether or not she even deserved to have it, and my paranoia that it was going to fall over into some really awkward territory. That's why I was uneasy at the end of Book Three even though I loved so much else about it. The series finale doesn't have the epic nature of Harmonic Convergence, but it's solid and reassuring and is about Korra as a goddamn superhero and I feel the person she has grown to be is not shown as some bratty kid we're all glad shaped up in the end, but as a someone you should respect. As someone amazing and beautiful and brave and kind. As a hero.

I was upset that the girl had to have the story where she was always having to fight for her power, because, even though it made narrative sense to tell a story in opposition to Aang's, it also fed into some socially painful stuff.

Now I wonder if that's why it was a good idea. Because we do have to fight. Just. All the time. Someone will always be telling us we're not needed. Someone (usually a guy, hell, even Tenzin sometimes and he's nice) was always telling Korra she wasn't needed, or she was doing it wrong, or she should be doing it differently or putting in more effort, but (shoddy Book One Finale aside), she wouldn't stay down. "I'm the Avatar and you've gotta deal with it!" right? Weren't those her first words?

I guess...

Looking at the show as a whole - however Korra chose to express herself in that conversation - I don't believe that the narrative intent was to humble her. I just think she grew and changed. Like the world. Like the world she made.

Dragon Age Inquisition: a Review

2014-12-24T18:21:36Z

HELLO PEOPLE!

Okay firstly, I am really sorry I fell off the face of the internet a bit (well except twitter: timesuck of timesucks). There were a couple of reasons, some realworldy, some Dragon Age Inquisition-related, but I'm back now. I've also been trying to pare down this review post for like...a week and I've finally just given up.

So this is ridiculously long and serves as much as an archive of my feelings for the future as something I expect anyone to actually read all of, but I have tried to segment it in ways that are sensible and I encourage people to skip to the bits that interest them rather than trying to read this...novel. On Christmas Eve. ;)

Anyway: The Main Event.

Dragon Age: the World

So, my history with this franchise can largely be summed up by "OMGS BIOWARE but meh not Mass Effect except OMGS MORRIGAN."

I adore Dragon Age: Origins for its companion interactions and also just because it was plain old good immersive fantasy world fun. It had a great balance of in-depth tactics or just going "fuck it I'll play on easy with found loot." I miss having a voiced protagonist and I genuinely feel that meant I connected less fully with my Warden even if it meant I got more specific and nuanced conversation options. Conversely, I adored the changes to the dialogue system in DA2 - the way it had broad personalities but the ability to differentiate between say, "direct" and "aggressive" within those broad sections, but the game itself left me conflicted due to reservations about the parts narrative.

Dragon Age: Inquisition largely manages to blend what I liked about the first and second games. Its dialogue system isn't quite the personality-based one of DA2 but does come with helpful icons, and it manages to improve on the epic world-saving of Origins, even if it doesn't ever quite reach the narrative heights of the Mass Effect franchise. In fairness, it would be hard to given that they had three games to build that story, whereas each Dragon Age game stands alone. From what I understand, that's at least partly EA's fault. They mandated a sequel to Origins before Bioware wanted to make one. Part of why DA2 is so repetitive in its maps is because it was built out of what was originally planned as an Awakening-style DLC for Origin.

While I'm mostly impressed with its dialogue and plot, I am not sure how I feel about its gameplay.

</u>Technical Gameplay Stuff</u>

Nothing about it ruined the game for me. I do miss the nearly turn-based system in the previous games that has been replaced by the tactical view since I find that clunky and harder to manage so I mostly play in realtime. But I'm not an accomplished gamer and I finished it on normal difficulty.

I also think it's a shame they replaced the detailed tactical commands for the Party AI with the more specifically controlled tactical view. I know you can still set things as disabled/enabled/preferred and broad thresholds for using potions, etc., but gone are the days when I can set Morrigan's primary response to any situation as turning into a giant spider immediately (including in the middle of the Chantry, in the background, while I'm talking to a Cleric about apostates apparently). Gone are the days when I could set up Zev to throw acid flasks but only if he could catch at least three enemies in the blast radius. Gone are the days of telling Wynne to heal me if I hit less than 50% health, but to heal Alistair if he hit less than 25%, because, let's be real, I'm more important.

Honestly half the time I ignored the tactical options, but when I played with them they were really fun and it was something I felt the game offered that a lot of RPGs didn't. I suppose with tactical view it still sort of does and I certainly don't hate it on a mechanical level, but I thought it was worth noting.

Also it looks TERRIBLE on last gen consoles. Like textures keep loading well into the cut scenes, hair clips through your head. Hair generally being as shiny as lego. No scars. It's a shame. The backport is pretty lazy on that front. I mean, it's playable and the Dragon Age franchise has always been behind the curve in terms of graphics. I'm honestly largely fine with that. It's just actively distracting at points and that's a shame. Again, something worth noting but not something that ruined the game for me.

So basically my overall impressions are positive. It builds on the good things that came before and the fact that the gameplay didn't blow me away is...whatever, that's not why I play these games, you know? As long as it's good enough that I feel engaged, that's fine. What I show for is the world, the characters and the stories?

Faux-Open World Exploration: The Best-Worst Thing?

One of the biggest changes, of course, is the move to a more open-world style of play. It's not truly open world (for which I'm grateful) but the huge areas to explore do evoke games like Skyrim. But Dragon Age is fundamentally a more character and narrative driven game than the Elder Scrolls. I don't say that to knock it, just...they are different creatures. So you have these huge expanses of, essentially, fighting and gathering and collecting things that doesn't quite replicate Skyrim's "do what thou wilt" absorption. You can't spend 10 hours becoming a master smith followed by 30 hours becoming a real estate magnate. You basically fight and gather and go back to your base and reorganise.

I'm concerned about how this will affect me on replay. I have no desire to ever start Skyrim again (although I plan to keep playing it pretty much indefinitely). The thought of having to explore all that stuff again from the start - especially as I feel less strongly characterised there and like the various "choices" I'm making lock me out from less of the game - is just overwhelming.

On the other hand, DA:I has a ton of choices where I want to see what happens if I go the other way. But my instinct is that we have a "normal" amount of Bioware narrative spread over a much longer game.

However, I have to give the game credit. It contextualises this aspect of its gameplay in a way that honestly feels clever and well-executed.

The concept is simple - you grind through an area, establishing camps, killing enemies, performing favours, etc., gaining "Influence Points" which you then use to unlock the next story mission, or new areas to explore. Story missions also usually have a recommended level that you should have reached before attempting them.

It's an obvious mechanical way to delay you, but the conceit of attempting to establish the Inquisition as a legitimate political force, when you start out with very little capital, really makes it feel like a sensible way to spend your time.

It makes sense that you don't want to show up at Val Royeaux when you're nothing but a potential band of heretics claiming pretentious titles. But if you can say, "Hey, we stabilised the Hinterlands - we have outposts and keeps and patrols and that area is now safe and we are the defacto authority," then it makes more sense that they would listen to you. You gain legitimacy through action and influence.

This works in tandem with the War Table: an entirely new aspect of the game that works sort of like the War Assets in ME3 except interactive. I really enjoy it. You summon your general, spymaster and diplomat and look at available tasks and then assign them. Sometimes it must be a specific person, sometimes you can choose between two or three. They make different suggestions about how to handle different situations and will take different amounts of time (realworld actual time) to complete the tasks. These range from 10 - 20 minutes for a quick mission to several hours. There are a very few that take over 10 hours. Often the quickest choice is the best, but not always and while you generally get something out of it whatever happens, you can mess up.

The timer counts down whether you're playing or not, so saving longer missions until I was going to stop playing for the evening and letting them run overnight was definitely a thing I did.

It's a really simple idea that works brilliantly, to be honest. It's essentially text-based, so low on development resources, but adds to the sense that you are part of a wider world - that your influence is growing - that you are running a political and military entity larger than you and your immediate band of companions. It even helps allay the oft-mocked "Why am I fixing every tiny problem in the world when I'm supposed to be this huge leader?" that plagued Commander Shepard. Sure you are, but you're also aware that you have an actual army, spy network and diplomatic staff out there, right now, doing things you told them to do and that you'll check back in with them soon to see how it went.

It's also one more thing that requires you spend actual time on the in-between stages of the game.

So I'm torn.

On the one hand, I feel worried about how I'll handle the wandering/exploring aspects of replaying: whether they'll bore me more than just clearing a map with its more immediate sense of progress did in the previous instalments. On the other, I feel like the game's ability to genuinely make it feel like you're running a wide-reaching organisation, and its focus on expanding your influence through your physical presence in regions and your war table operations, is the outstanding success of this game, and that they used something as ubiquitous and potentially boring as "grinding" (or, indeed, text adventures) to do so is pretty great.

The Story!

After the fiasco that was the reaction to the Mass Effect 3 ending this might seem a weird thing to say, but...it needed a Mass Effect 3 ending. I don't mean protagonist death or bittersweet sacrifice - actually in this case I think both surviving and an upbeat victory make sense! What I mean is, you are fighting an Unstoppable Evil who is just So Evil and Hates Life and wants to Destroy the World. And then - say what you will about the execution or foreshadowing (though I'm on record as viewing it favourably) - you get a perspective shift. The camera pulls out and shows you the bigger picture. You find out why the Reapers are doing what they're doing and it's the start of a whole other question.

We never get that with Corypheus. He just wants power. He just wants the world to burn.

That's fine - as a personal motivation, that's totally fine.

But with the whole Golden/Black City and the tease of his history being the one who started the blights? The questions of what's true? The nature of the elven pantheon? The Tevinter mages who entered the fade?

We're well set up for a plot twist about something in the closing chapter. Even if we don't know for sure if it's true.

All we know about Corypheus' claimed history is stuff we found out in a DA2 DLC. We get some really interesting advancement in terms of the elven gods and we get to see people reacting to the possibility that Corypheus is telling even some of the truth, and these things are great? But fundamentally there are no revelations here.

It makes the ending seem just sort of...there.

Especially after such a genuinely stellar line-up of main quest plots throughout the game. The overarching story itself is a little weaker, but the set pieces you go through on the way are, individually, excellent.

I haven't played the Templar route yet, but the creepy possibly future in the Mage route? The physical journey through the fade with Hawke and the fate of the Wardens? The political machinations of the grand ball? Morrigan and the lost elven temple? They are all wonderful unexpected settings that feel rich and interesting and different.

And then we get to Corypheus and it's...literally a boss fight that is over pretty quickly.

There's the post-credits sequence yes. OMFGS YES. But that's not part of the ending itself. I actually think something like that - something that raises more questions than answers, but fundamentally changes our understanding of something in a very brief moment - could work well for Corypheus. But it needs to be part of his storyline. Of his goals. In that moment. Not the coda with other characters. That just makes them seem more interesting and worthy of our attention than the main villain.

You could have been brave, Bioware: what if both Corypheus and the Inquisitor had somehow gotten into the Black City? Or at least to its gates in the Fade? What if that was when Solas revealed himself as a third side in this war?

I just feel they could have been as daring with the ending as they were with the other set piece quests.

But I didn't dislike it or feel it ruined my overall enjoyment of the game.

I did feel that they could have handled Samson better. I don't quite...get how he got from DA2 to DAI. I get his points about how Templars are drugged and lied to no matter which side they're serving, but I don't then get the math that the outcome doesn't matter. I know you get someone different if you do the other quest route - a nemesis for Leliana instead of Cullen - so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens there...

Cassandra

MY DARLING. I love this woman. I really, really love her. I didn't have any particularly strong feelings one way or the other during her DA2 cut scenes and while I watched that animated movie about her, I don't really remember it or being that impressed by it. But in Inquisition, I just think she is wonderful. Like, I am constantly delighted by her presence.

She is so determined and stoic and so goddamn sincere it hurts, but I think what makes me love her in the unassailable way I do is her sense of doubt. She questions herself, her choices, her faith. She holds herself to incredible standards because this shit matters. When she fails, it hurts, but it never feels like pointless wallowing. It's a...a willingness to be wrong. To learn. A faith that is so important to her it demands absolute honesty.

Some of the banter between her and Solas has her questioning why he always uses her title: Seeker. She assumes it is the distance and formality - he explains it is respect. He has many problems with the organisation she represents but her title is well-earned. She has beautiful faith and he hopes her Maker is worthy of it.

She is a Seeker of Truth, even if it is not a comfortable or pleasant one.

I disagreed with her a lot. I told her I thought the Chantry was fundamentally unfixable. I allied with the people she thought I should conscript and conscripted people she thought I should banish. I did many things she disapproved of. I also held her in the highest regard and did my best to express that to her.

When she told me that she disagreed with my choices, but respected that I had made them, it felt real. When she told me she was my friend, it felt legitimate, and like our friendship had been shaped by our disagreements as much as our common victories. It didn't feel like a computer tallying up points, it felt...organic.

She has an unyielding, unfaltering faith which she never, ever defends by falling back into ignorance. That's totally freaking beautiful to me.

Solas, Sera and (Not Really Welsh) Elves

Well. I was playing a Dalish Lady Mage and ended up romancing Solas, because the game really gave me a sense of kinship and safety regarding him. I played it that I was also worried about being an Elven Apostate in the middle of the Human Inquisition, but he listened and approved every time I was curious (which is such an endearing trait). He spoke in meter. After the attack on Haven, that moment in the snow where he confides in you that Corypheus' orb is Elven in nature? "They'll find a way to blame us, eventually," I said, giving voice to something I had - as the player - already imagined my character thinking. One of those rare, perfect instances where the game actually lets you say exactly what you wanted to say. Solas' response was perfect, too. He agreed, but...what's right and true is right and true - nothing for it but to go onwards. Lead them to Skyhold.

Also it kind of meant something to me that they gave Solas a Welsh voice actor.

This is tricky because I don't think it's appropriate to claim that the Dalish are representative of the Welsh. There's a lot of stuff going on there - you could draw comparisons to Native Americans, Jewish people, the Roma, descendants of the African diaspora...many peoples who suffered terrible hardship. You can even mix that in with the fact that the majority of Elves are depicted as light-skinned and question whether it's appropriative of such narratives. It's not a simple situation and my intention isn't to claim Elves at the expense of anyone else or with more authority.

That said, you interpret things through the prism of your experience, and from that angle - it means something to me that for once, Wales wasn't forgotten.

Ireland and Scotland have a romantic mysticism and international visibility that Wales lacks. Within Britain, to be honest, we're mostly viewed as a sort of embarrassing joke. Stop pretending you're a country, will you, you're only making yourself look stupid.

As I said, it's not the immediate injustice of legalised (or effectively legalised) brutality and because of that, it doesn't feel right to make a fuss. But it's exhausting in its banality. There's nothing dramatic about it, it's just...tiring and boring and stupid.

So yeah, if we're going to go the route of Celtic Elves, as we so often do, it means something to me that they picked Wales for the version that has no mystical romanticism to most people. Who are largely regarded as irrelevant and sort of stupid. Whose attempts and cultural and linguistic revival are faintly mocked: why bother - don't you all speak English anyway?

I mention this because it's probably hard to separate my reaction to Solas, Sera and the use of Elven history and culture generally from my underlying associations.

Sera's a hot mess of a character. Like to get it out of the way, I think her dialogue is...over-written. Her speech patterns aren't purposeful. They try too hard to make her "quirky" and for little gain. The greater sin, though, is that she has no character arc. She's bratty and obnoxious and judgemental forces you to meet her at her level, mocking you or throwing tantrums when you refuse. That's okay, that's potentially interesting.

But there's no possibility of growth or change. You enable her or she hates you and refuses to listen. That's it. That's her story.

It's tragic really. There are these hints at things. Like when you first get to Skyhold and she's actually having some sort of crisis of faith and implies that's really why she's here. To see if it's all real. But then any attempt to engage her on that in the future is met with derision if not outright hostility.

You find out about her past. A story about being taken in by an old human woman who framed some other guy as an Elf-hater to make herself look like a good caretaker - to foster dependency in a small child - because she was sad she didn't know how to make cookies. It's not clear whether this was habitual emotional abuse or a thoughtless misjudgement brought on by loneliness and it doesn't really matter - it's one more thing in the tumble of Sera's life. One more instance of her reflexively clinging to the simplest, most emotionally accessible element of her betrayal. Perhaps the formative instance, perhaps not. The first time her homebrew justice blew up in her face because she'd been aimed at the wrong target and the first time she dealt with that by getting angrier at the person who aimed her, not by being more careful about who she tried to stick with an arrow. The guy who didn't actually deserve it also didn't actually hate elves, but being an elf was the problem and why the lie worked. Easier if she wasn't one; easier if all the guys who don't deserve it don't actually hate elves. Easier if all the rich ladies who left her feeling betrayed were bad and wrong and manipulative. Easier if they never took you in as an orphan and tried their best to love you. Easier if you don't have to deal with the complex intersections of racism and love - of racial paternalism and parental love.

The reactions of a child, but Sera's still stuck with them. We can take that as a sign of her immaturity or a sign of something darker and crueller in her past, but she's stuck. She won't move beyond slurring Cole as an "it", internalised racism or an inability to see that she needs to apply her bottom line philosophy of exploitation to herself and see how clean (how "Little People") she still looks.

Her dismissal of the Dalish - and Solas' dismissal of her (although, we'll talk about some of the banter later) - really gets at me though.

Because all the stuff about the ways in which the narrative doesn't fit into a narrative of Welshness aside, it...also totally does. At least as a painful linguistic metaphor.

So many people outside of Wales (hell, so many people a few miles on the other side of the Welsh border) don't really get that Welsh is a living language. It's not something that's put up on signs out of a sense of dusty and pointless pride, people here still speak and read and use it. No, not most of us, and...so many of us who can just don't because we don't have the chance, because we're scattered, because we're shy...

Still, for a language most of us can't speak I honestly think it forms one of the most brutal cultural scars in our national identity. Briefly, and with less nuance than it deserves, if you speak it, you're desperate for it not to die out and if you don't you feel it's in implicit judgement on the validity of your national identity. There's a rough class divide too. Bluntly, poor people ditched it so their kids could get ahead in school (where there was a brutal anti-Welsh policy) while people just slightly higher up the social ladder kept it. The rich religious and artistic traditions that depend on linguistic tics not present in English. The kind of shit no one has time for when they spend twelve hours a day in a coal mine.

Plaid Cymru will never win hearts and minds the way the SNP has because it will always been seen as the party for Welsh speakers and that will always scare a significant number of otherwise nationalistic non-Welsh speakers, scared of being told they don't belong in the land they love.

I cannot put my hand on my heart and say they are wrong. This is an admission that feels like a betrayal. I want to talk about how frequently (and it is frequent) I have to put up with stories I know are bullshit. About how Welsh people only speak Welsh to talk behind your back. How rude it is. How pointless. How much money gets wasted on it. Why do you get special phone lines when I have to wait on hold for half an hour! Demanding you explain the "point" of your culture. Demanding you not make them feel "left out" because "the same for everyone" is what's fair. Twisting it up so that suddenly the 80% without it are the oppressed minority. That's what I want to say to justify it.

But at the same time, I learned in school. I mean, I learned when I was so young I don't actually remember how I learned. I learned because I was just in a place where no one spoke English to me for seven hours a day. I learned so well and so early people can't actually tell unless I tell them. But I do because I'm convinced it's obvious. Because imposter syndrome. Because I don't feel good enough. I know why I feel that way and it's because it comes from the same place, right? I don't feel good enough and people who don't speak Welsh at all feel abandoned and judged and I can point to a dozen of my Welsh-speaking friends who'd never try to make people feel that way. But oh, god, I've met a few who would.

That's what Sera and Solas are, right? The poetic, intelligent, cultured, fluent, pretentious, judgemental academic and the aggressive, working-class monoglot who'd rather destroy something than feel inadequate because she doesn't understand it.

That's it. Right down to the classism on Solas' part and the Sera's inability to recognise that she's not actually an underdog in this fight.

And me, as the Inquisitor, in the middle. Trying to participate in my own culture and feeling judged for not being ~~Welsh~~ Elf enough and being too ~~Welsh~~ Elf at the same time.

So yeah, that's...my tangled reaction to that hot mess.

All that said: I got a string of fucking fascinating banter between Solas and Sera. Despite his real disdain for her in many scripted scenes, here, he starts trying to educate her on how to be a motherfucking revolutionary. Telling her that her organisation is impressive but she lacks goals and basically trying to impart guerilla tactics and then empire-building to her. It's so unexpected from Solas but foreshadows the post-credits plot-twist wonderfully. Also...Solas doesn't want to give up on Sera. In the end, he actually backs off. Sera doesn't want to be that person and Solas decides to respect that. I'm torn on whether that's good and progress for both of them or another example of Sera's refusal to engage, but it was hella interesting.

As to the Solas revelation?

Wow. Super cool. Honestly, the coolest if you were dating him and then SUUUUUPER angry at him for dumping you. Which like, my character still is: angry and hurt. But ugh it's also frustrating because it's so tantalising but of course can't now be explored and I don't dare hope for that in DLC. Also, I know now that the Solas romance was added quite late in the game and is only available to female elves. It's also clear that it's not as expansive in content as the other romances, probably because it's only available to a small subset of characters and it was added late, which...fair enough. But at the same time, it's just the most interesting way to engage with a character like the Dread Wolf and I just... *haaaaands*

I dunno. That's all I got on that. Moving on.

Vivienne, the Mage-Templar Conflict and Inquisition's Villain Problem

So I'm on record as saying I think the Mage-Templar conflict was handled pretty poorly in DAII. What they did was present a story about how violent, horrific oppression begets violent, horrific resistance, but somehow seemed to think what we'd see was "Look, both sides! Both sides being violent!" which...no?

But whatever, I digress. The underlying point is that Dragon Age has a problem with its core conflict. I also think they realised this and attempted some damage control in DAI which...works in some ways and is terrible in others. Interestingly, both exist within Vivienne.

She's a character I often piss off in the game and with whom I often disagree, but she's intelligent, entertaining and charismatic. Her points about public safety and the need to provide Mages with information and education are interesting and well-made. They're also couched within a suspect framework. Vivienne values status and power and the status quo is the root of her social standing and political influence. She's extraordinarily biased, but the writing handles that in a way I think is worthy of Bioware: I want to listen and debate with her anyway. (Even if I can't say all the things I want to because gah, scripted games, THIS IS WHY WE TABLETOP.)

It works because she gives us a coherent alternate view, but also provides us with a way to understand why it's at odds with what we've heard before, leaving us to decide quite how much weight we give to her sincerity and how much we leave with her bias.

But she's also one of the main mouthpieces of the awkward Dalish retcon: that they have only three Mages per clan and if there are more, they must be given to other clans or leave. Sometimes, according to your creature researcher, under horribly cruel circumstances.

It's not technically a retcon, since the Dalish policy on magic users has never been explicitly stated, but I do believe it goes against the spirit of what was previously presented. It annoyed me because it goes back to the narrative stumbles in DAII. Hot fixes for problems they created. The Dalish are making the Templars look bad so let's invent a reason the Dalish are just as brutal.

It's not that I particularly mind the Dalish's reputation being tarnished. I mean, they're already on record as having a fairly terrible attitude toward the City Elves. It's just this wasn't an area where that was established. It makes me feel that the world is unstable. Like there's no point examining evidence carefully and making moral decisions based on what you've observed because it'll change as soon as the writers need to prop up some other viewpoint. Not in a "huh, a new perspective that fits into the wider world," way but in a way that feels very meta. Feels very, "shit let's change this because we need to fix a problem."

Like when they thought I'd start giving the Qunari philosophy some credence because Felicia Day is the one telling me. (Okay, okay, no it's not exactly like that and also I'm jumping ahead here...)

But I do think this segues nicely into the villains in DAI generally. Because I think that same perfunctory "it works, it'll do," approach to narrative, contrasted uncomfortably with some genuinely deftness of character, is present in the game's swathe of villains.

When you play through the Mage path, Fiona's bargain with Alexius seems pretty weird until you realise that he's been fucking with time and that's a) probably why she doesn't remember meeting you in Val Royeaux and b) why she thought the situation was desperate enough to strike the deal. And we only meet Lord Seeker Lucius in the market place behaving in a way Cassandra calls out as completely out of character. When we find out later during Cassandra's quest to find the Seekers that he really IS totally out of it and was working with an Envy Demon, we are primed to accept that he just went batshit crazy. It's not the most elegant reasoning, perhaps, but it's consistent.

Unfortunately when you do the Templar route, there's this whole part where you learn he's being impersonated by the Envy Demon so there's this whole hope that he's been imprisoned somewhere and he's not actually evil. When you go find the Seekers and there's this weird, "Yeah, well, okay, that WAS him being impersonated but he was totally cool with it because he's working with it and..." it's just...it's like a double bluff and it means you want to understand why the hell he'd do something like that.

Disillusionment about his Order no longer cuts it because it's pretty illogical. "I found out my Order was, in fact, deeply morally questionable, so as a result it should be dismantled. Which I will do by creating an Order that's even MORE morally questionable! I'M A GENIUS!" Like...it doesn't make sense. The only answer is that he couldn't cope and lost it, but if that's the case, why bother having him impersonated by the Demon in the first place: why not just make it a story about him?

On the flip side, if you do the Mage storyline, you end up with Samson as Corypheus' lieutenant and he suffers exactly the same problem. He's a disillusioned ex-Templar looking for meaning, but he signs up with someone who's making him do the exact same stuff he hated before but worse. There are reasons he might do that, including self-loathing and nihilism, sure, but the only verbal justification he ever really threw out was "it's the same thing that the Chantry did to the Templars, at least this has meaning," like...what meaning? Putting Corypheus in power? Why does that matter? I'd like to hear your take, sir!

But if you do the Templar storyline, you get Calpernia. I'm only part way through that quest, but so far she seems vastly more interesting. She has a legitimate reason to ally with Corypheus given her personal history of being freed by him and the fact that he's currently allowing her to improve upon her situation and gather power that allows her to free other slaves. On top of that she actively distrusts Corypheus which I imagine will make for a far more interesting showdown...

So anyway, yeah, there's that.

Which just leaves:

The Qun, The Bull and Krem

So, the thing is, I have no truck with the Qun. Like, at all. I find parts of it conceptually interesting in terms of worldbuilding, and within DAI I find the Iron Bull to be a very interesting character, but the religion and society? I always feel like the game expects me to see them as a kind of edgy, interesting warrior culture with a ~code~. As something cool and morally complex. As something intriguing because they got a thinly veiled version of Felicia Day to tell me about it. But I just...don't.

I think it's pretty horrifying and the only defense that seems to be offered is "but this other system also has problems!" which is true. But also a total deflection. And if the point is to weigh up the "bad" on both sides and see which is worse then the main social problems the Qun purports to have fixed are poverty and crime.

Which sounds like a big fucking deal, except it's largely done by enforcing brutal conformity often with secret police and re-education camps. So really, it's only the truth if we define crime on a purely legal basis and ignore the ethical component, and define poverty purely on the basis of fundamental material needs. Which are important, yes, but shouldn't be used to justify barbaric oppression. "You're fed, so shut up," isn't much better than, "Well, at least the trains run on time..."

I mean, let's face it, the rest of Thedas is hardly the picture of egalitarian democracy. I freed Sten the first time I played DAO because I assumed he was the victim of racial discrimination and that there must be more to his story. I was pretty horrified when I found out that no, he just murdered an entire family because apparently going into a psychotic rage when you lose your sword is a totally sensible reaction to instil in your soldiers.

(And then I had a quest to go find the sword and give it back to him. Why would I do that? WHY WOULD I DO THAT? "Hey Sten, have back this thing that - the last time you lost it - led to you massacring a family, including a bunch of kids! I totally believe this is a safe, responsible decision!")

I actually consider Blackwall to be a narrative apology for how they handled that with Sten in some ways because I couldn't send him back to prison, so I kept him around because, well because I didn't feel like it was safe or right to set him free. And then at the end of the game he just merrily announces he's off home again, and like...how about no? How about now you go back to prison but your service maybe mitigates your death penalty? How about I'm not in favour of letting you serve a sentence for killing multiple people - even with diminished responsibility - by doing COMMUNITY FUCKING SERVICE?

Ahem.

And then we get to DAII where the Arishok calmly tells you about his concern that he'll have to conquer Kirkwall for the Qun, at a point when you've seen what they do to Mages, and I just can't buy even the most pro-Templar version of Hawke thinking that's an acceptable fate for Bethany. It's particularly distressing when you play the Wyvern Hunting DLC around that time, and Tallis makes off with the list of spies even if you stop her and even if you pick the angriest reaction, Hawke basically goes, "Oh, Tallis, you scamp, I'll get you next time!"

My Hawke was legitimately scared that her home was on the verge of being invaded by a foreign power who'd mentally torture her sister until she was nonverbal, without free-will and then sew her fucking mouth shut.

I digress.

My point is, fuck the Qun: I don't think there's anything there that's enlightened. Not when you take it as a whole. Although it is, from a worldbuilding point of view, interesting.

And, of course, there is the issue of Krem and Bull's comments about gender roles in his culture.

So like, obviously Krem is awesome! For real, that guy is great. I wish he had a bigger role. He would have been an awesome companion character. (Can I swap him out for Blackwall? I'd much rather date Krem than Blackwall. Cus...Blackwall. *full body shudder*)

I also think that you can very easily rectify the Qun's established strict rules about gender roles with the fact that they have specific words and rules for people who are given permission to break them. That's not something I feel is changing the ground under my feet (as I argued above for the Dalish mage rule).

What worries me is that I've seen a lot of comments (granted, on tumblr, which isn't always known for its rigorous intellectual interrogation on first blush) unanimously hailing this as wonderful and enlightened.

But frankly it doesn't change my view of the Qun at all. There's a piece of banter I was lucky enough to get between Cassandra and Bull that fit in well with my initial assumptions about the term "Aqun-Athlok" (born as one gender but living as another). Cassandra's asking what happens to women under the Qun who want to be warriors. Bull says it's not generally permitted but if you're really good at hitting things, then you become Aqun-Athlok - you effectively "become" a guy. Cassandra then asks if Bull views her as male and he teases that that depends on whether she's in or out of the armour.

So firstly, this term isn't necessarily in reference to being transgender, it is also being used to describe gender nonconformism.

In Krem's specific case, the Qun would have been a much, much better place for him than Tevinter in this regard. It has a socially acceptable way for him to do what he wants to do, which is to be acknowledged as a man and to pursue a traditionally masculine career. It also provides Bull with an easy framework through which to "categorise" Krem (although given Bull's general attitudes, I suspect even if the Qun didn't say it was okay, he'd've been accepting).

What I really want to point out, though, when I see people getting excited about it, is that while YES it's really cool to see a broad variety of opinions on gender nonconformism in fantasy settings and while YES it's really cool that they found a way to subvert our expectations about the Qun's position, the Qun is still oppressive as fuck when it comes to gender.

Because they're still equating gender with social behaviour, and still punishing you brutally for breaking those boundaries. Krem would be a man because he wanted to fight, not because he saw himself as a man. Cassandra would also be a man, even though - as we see in her romance plot - she is someone who stands up for her right to be a blunt, awkward warrior as well as someone who wants to take on traditionally feminine roles at other times.

And I guess that's really all I had to say about it.

Well that and the fact that I love the Iron Bull, bless him, but he really is not square in his own mind about his opinions on the Qun. But I guess that's the point. I really want to see what happens if you tell him to let the Chargers die - I want to see how he handles the very obvious conflict in his views and the views he's supposed to have. But I really can't bring myself to let the Chargers die. So maybe I'll have to youtube it. I'm not entirely sure I can bring myself to watch it either, though, so we'll see...

At which point, I have thought all the thoughts and said all the things. Though if anyone has any other things they would like to talk with me about, I would definitely be up for discussion in comments even if it has nothing to do with anything I wrote above.

BOOYAH.

VID: Apple Candy [DC Trinity OT3]

2014-10-29T21:53:56Z

Title: Apple Candy
Video: DC Animated
Audio: Apple Candy // Ben Lee
Summary: I want you, and I want him. [Wonder Woman/Superman/Batman OT3]
Vidder's Notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, chaila. I'M SORRY IT'S LATE BUT NOW THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS ~~YOUR~~ our SECRET SHAME.

PASSWORD: vidses

Apple Candy

Direct download available here. RightClickSaveAs. 70 megs approx.

Cross-posted to vidding and vidding

Other vids available here.

I HAVE COMPOSED MUSIC.

2014-10-11T13:42:52Z

SO. Earlier this week I discovered an amazing programme! It is called Musescore and it is a free, open source, platform agnostic (Windows, Mac, Linux, even BSD) programme that lets you score music and play it back.

I mean, it's not perfect - the default soundfont (what the instruments sound like) wasn't amazing, so I downloaded a different one, and playback has some limitations as it was initially implements as more of a "checking" service than a way to create a final product. But it's pretty freaking good, and the piano, particularly, sounds fairly authentic.

YOU GUYS. This programme.

This is just a fucking AMAZING demonstration of the democratisation of information and creativity and education on the internet.

I decided to compose something. I haven't done that since I was about 16 and doing my GCSEs, and I remember back then not having the musical skill to play it properly on the piano so only half understanding how it sounded til my teacher could help. But then, of course, she couldn't stay with me for long, so I was back to guess-work and swearing. I remember working out minor/major triads mathematically (how many half steps...?) on paper. And just...generally things being harder. Like trying to look at a giant mural with a match for light.

Now we have this website which over the course of a few evenings reminded me of all the basic music theory I knew and had forgotten in an easy to understand, bite-sized way, and then provided fucking TOOLS like CHORD CALCULATORS and CHORD PROGRESSION GRAPHS to help me.

And now, fifteen years later, building off a rusty recollection of I, IV and V chords going well together and a bunch of TOTALLY FREE SHIT FROM THE INTERNET, I have composed a song! And...like, you guys, I think it's good?

I mean, I have to be honest, I was raised in a culture that focused more on music than most. I was lucky that I was able to have subsidised group lessons (and a year or so of private ones) for most of my childhood. I had the chance to play in orchestras. The fact I can read sheet music (however haltingly when it comes to Treble Clef) is an enormous advantage here. I'm not saying that I came at this out of nowhere.

But...but GUYS. It's like the first time I made 10 seconds of vid and just had to rewatch and rewatch and rewatch.

I simultaneously feel like I have uncovered a great, sleeping talent, like, holy shit, I CAN DO THIS? I CAN COMPOSE MUSIC? I AM MAGIC. HOW. HOW AM I DOING THIS. While at the same time wanting to run around screaming at everybody to wake up because if I can compose music this means you can too! Like this great, hidden secret that's been concealed from us and that I want to share with everyone.

So I present to you:

A Song in E Major for People with Large Hands because it's full of 10th intervals which I shouldn't really have used probably

So, uh, yeah.

Hopefully those of you who've seen me exploding over twitter don't think I oversold it too much. Half of my excitement is the high of successfully finishing it.

But, um, I guess yeah. I'm proud of myself - I think it sounds pretty good for a sort-of-first-attempt-in-fifteen-years.

I hope you guys like it too. All 81 seconds of it.

<3

D&D Tabletop RPG: It is a thing I recommend.

2014-09-26T22:41:37Z

Okay, so, I rarely talk about this here, but I regularly play tabletop RPGs. Loads of different stuff over the years - White Wolf, D&D, Mutants & Masterminds, Homebrew Wackiness. The point is, pretty much every Sunday, me and my husband and a few of our friends spend the day gaming. (For the uninitiated, I'm basically talking about Dungeons & Dragons - that game where you sit around with paper and dice pretending to be Elves and Barbarians, fighting Orcs and selling treasure.)

There have been times when our games have been irregular. While we were in Korea, we didn't game at all, and while K was very sick we went for months between games sometimes. But for the majority of my adult life, this has been a weekly ritual. And two of us (K & Addy) I've known since I was 18. I'm 31 right now.

The reason I don't talk about it much isn't lack of enthusiasm. I mean, like everything else, it waxes and wanes, but you don't devote most of your Sunday to a thing you don't enjoy. It's because the best metaphor I've heard for RPG games is that it's like sex: you can't do it with anyone in the room who isn't participating because you start thinking about how dumb you look. Add into that the fact that we're talking about stories and characters and situations that none of you have knowledge of or investment in, and me squeeing about the latest plot twist in my decade-long RPG game becomes a rather one-sided interaction. And if you did think it was cool, what then? It's not like when you indulgently listen to a friend rant about their favourite TV show for six hours, where there is at least the possibility that you'll find it intriguing enough to go off and watch it.

Our stories are largely unrecorded, except in memory. We speak to each other about them. We are a fandom of four. But there is something magical in it: a television show written, scripted, acted, purely by us, for us. When we are disappointed or upset with it, we can talk and change things. The themes and storylines we care about get developed. The characters we care about get the narrative attention. When thing go badly, it sucks monkey fuck, but when things go well it as artistically valid and creatively collaborative as anything I've ever seen.

I need to stop, at this point, and explain something:

We do not play Dungeons & Dragons "properly". We do not, generally ever, go down into cave systems and try to solve logic puzzles, try to outmaneuver little models on square grids, and note down the exact experience point value of everything we killed. We do not play RPG games as board games with some extra descriptive flourishes. I do not mean that as an indictment of board games, I just mean... What we do is on a much further point along that spectrum. If you have played White Wolf game systems, our approach fits much better into that model.

We tell stories.

More accurately, K tells stories. I feel self-conscious, seeing as I'm married to the dude, (and seeing as the fawning GM's girlfriend is one of tabletop's most staple misogynistic stereotypes), praising him so unequivocally. But seriously. For a long time I aspired to be a writer, or at least more of a writer than I am now. I can do words. I know from brutal, personal experience, that plots are fucking hard. Not for him though. Or at least, you'd never know it.

He tells these incredible, intricate, complicated, beautiful stories. He makes these huge worlds for us to explore and takes into account the characters we've created. He spends hours doing preparation each week. Like thematically, he writes us arcs, without telling us, for us to experience and react to and maybe resolve differently than he expected. He's not rigid about it; when we surprise him, he is elated. When the dice throw us for a loop and let us succeed or fail unexpectedly, he works out how this will add a new, interesting wrinkle to the fabric of the story. He once sat on a plot twist for ten years.

I feel guilty, sometimes, that he doesn't write stories for everyone to read - that his preferred artistic medium is so unshareable. But he says it's honestly what he prefers; his favourite hobby. So I guess I should just feel lucky instead.

The reason I'm writing this right now is that we just finished a game - The Monk's Tale. We started it over a decade ago. We didn't play it solidly for that time. In fact, there was more than one hiatus of several years. But we always came back to it in the end. It became unkillable. It became reflective of who we were. During that time, friends turned out to be terrible people, friends who were wonderful people left us for terrible reasons, we made new friends, we changed, we had crises of faith, we were angry, we got better.

It sounds lame to say it, but it helped us through some weird times. The places the story didn't quite fit together anymore or where people were acting out of character just...became like scar tissue. Like a textural reflection of the time and place and people we were with when that part of the story was being told. Like testimony.

A story we told each other over the course of 12 years and all the moods we were in when we told it.

My character's name was Skai. When I started playing her I knew two things: she was a necromancer and a social worker. She was sensible. She was friendly. She was not dramatic. By the end she was a batshit glorious half-Succubus ex-Prophet who apprenticed herself to a disgraced Paladin and swore she only upended her society's entire social and religious structure as a by-product of her quest to kill the Nine Horsemen of the Apocalypse with a bow she stole from the Fairy King. It was a quest to kill her brother, or at least, the monster he would become if she didn't change the future. A future that might have arisen from her decision to make herself half-a-devil, which she did to protect herself from him before she knew he was her future-brother, corrupted by a future-devilish-her.

She brought a pantheon of powers to its knees in a fit of pure rage. She helped convince a machine to become a god. She became terrible at human interaction. Lonely, maybe. Uncertain she still was able to love anything honestly (except her daughter).

She collected lovers like sea-shells - though it was her soul that was hollow; that promised oceans and delivered echoes. People died for her (how terribly, romantically dramatic) and worse (unromantic, undramatic, unfixable - tragedies in all their banal cruelty). In the end she was left with a deposed cartographer prince and her lost friend's betrayed fiancee: the boy she couldn't couldn't control and the girl she wouldn't. A man who drew maps and a woman who guarded gates, and I suppose you'd need both to find and keep her heart.

That's where I left her.

I have played this character my entire adult life.

And now I'm done. I think that's a milestone worth marking. Even if it makes me shift a little awkwardly in public.

It's okay, though. None of us felt it was right to end it all, so we're going to start a game about the Next Generation. On both a meta and non-meta level, we know we can't possibly top a 10 year game of Good vs Evil for the fate of the Planes of Existence. So we decided it was obvious. What would the children of famous heroes do? Knowing they can never escape the shadow of their parents' heroism?

DROP OUT AND BECOME THE GREATEST ROCK STARS OF ALL TIME.

That's right. We're all playing Bards. All of us. It's going to be amazing. And completely different.

The game is dead. Long live the game.

Vidding Meme! :D

2014-09-03T14:33:41Z

Shamelessly stolen from frayadjacent and chaila! Give me a number (or a few) and I will try to answer things! Some numbers are missing because my intelligent predecessors went through combing for questions they didn't think they'd be so interested in, but I'm, um, lazy, so I just copy-pasted one of their lists and ran with it. YAY ME.

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-vid.
2. Is there a genre or style you've yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
3. Is there a genre or style you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole?
4. How many vid ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
5. Share one of your strengths.
6. Share one of your weaknesses.
7. Point to a section from one of your favorite vids you've made and explain why you're proud of it.
8. Which vid was the hardest to make?
9. Which vid was the easiest to make?
11. Is there a section of canon above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?
12. What's the best vidding advice you've ever come across?
13. What's the worst vidding advice you've ever come across?
14. If you only could vid one show/movie for the rest of your life, which show/movie would it be?
15. Do you work mostly from start to finish, or do you vid sections out of order?
16. Do you use any tools, like clip notes or storyboards?
18. Describe your perfect vidding conditions.
19. How many times do you usually revise your vid before posting?
20. Choose a section from one of your earlier vids and talk about whether and how you'd do it differently now. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).
21. If you were to revise one of your older vids from start to finish, which would it be and why?
22. Have you ever deleted one of your published vids?
23. What do you look for in a beta?
24. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?
25. How do you feel about collaborations?
26. Share three of your favorite vidders and why you like them so much.
27. Do you accept prompts?
28. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your vids being canon compliant?
30. How do you feel about crack?
31. Which is your favorite site for posting vids?
32. Talk about your current vids in progress.
33. Talk about a comment or review that made your day.
34. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra.

2014-08-28T22:31:31Z

Avatar cartoons. Yup, that's what's been going on lately. I watched them ALL. Like, really quickly cus they were so good. So good. People had been telling me for years, and I didn't listen. I was such a fool.

But now I am enlightened! And, obviously, full of thoughts. Mostly about Korra and expectations and the ways in which it is saddled with an impossible task.

First, though, Avatar: The Last Airbender! Because, wow, that show is a beautiful, beautiful thing. So many narratives that were just...more than I thought they'd be at the start. More subtle, more thoughtful, more touching, more heartbreaking.

Katara being pulled between Aang's insistence that she forgive her mother's murderer and Zuko's insistence that she avenge her, and in the end, she can't do either, and it's not okay. She can't kill him and she can't forgive him and the only emotional resolution is that she didn't betray herself. That she remained Katara, even in the face of crushing anger.

Aang being told by Avatar Yangchen that his spiritual wellbeing will always come second to that of the world. I was so relieved, so grateful, so proud of him for finding a way to defeat Ozai without killing him, but I don't know that this is the only measure by which her words would be true. He never opened that final chakra - whether or not he found another way to master the Avatar state (and I'm not completely sure he did). He will never step off a cliff and fly. He is the last of his culture and he will never achieve mastery of his own religion because he must, fundamentally, be involved in the world. And that is wonderful, and beautiful, and for him, in some ways, sad.

The way Toph's blindness was neither debilitating nor ignored. The way Sokka walked the line, always hilarious, never only a joke. Azula's fury and rage and toxic competence, unravelling because the most frightening thing she can imagine is her mother trying to forgive and love her.

And Zuko. Oh my god, Zuko. When his father tells him that he's learned nothing, and Zuko throws it at him. No. He learned everything. And he had to do it without him. He had to learn it all on his own and it was so much harder, and crueller than it had to be. He made so many mistakes. He was a child. A narrative where an abusive parent gets no presumption of deserving a second chance, because underneath, they must love their child. It must all just be a mistake - something went wrong and they were expressing love in a fucked up way, but the happiest ending would be some sort of cathartic hug where the parent promises to do better and the kid is fixed because finally their parent loves them! For real this time! That's all it took!

We judge women for staying with their abusive partners, but we judge children for cutting ties. For responding to, "He must have loved you, deep down," with, "I do not care, I never want to see him again." For responding to, "You don't really mean that," with, "No, actually, I do."

But Zuko did. And was right to do it. And got that cathartic, parental, loving hug from someone else. From Uncle Iroh, who was such a good father to Zuko, in every way he could be, considering the circumstances, who just loved the absolute shit out of him, no matter what he did. No matter how hard Zuko was struggling, even when he knew he couldn't directly help. He just loved him so fucking much, and so selflessly, it makes me want to cry to see it.

"I was never angry at you. I was sad, because I was afraid you'd lost your way."

"I did lose my way."

"But you found it again. And you did it by yourself. And I am so happy you found your way here."

I just... That writing. What an excellent display of how to love someone.

The world is beautiful and beautifully realised. The characters are fantastic. The narrative is satisfying. It really is just an all-around stellar experience.

So of course, next, I wanted to watch Korra. Because all that but about a girl? Yes. YES PLEASE.

And then, I was warned, it was not so great, and so I went in forearmed, and I think that helped me, because the first season was not so great. And the others have been...well parts have been wonderful and parts have been confusing, and that's what I have gathered you all here today to talk about!

Okay, let's be honest about this - the first book was disappointing.

I could write paragraphs on each of these points, but in an effort to be succinct, and to keep this readable, I'll say, in the broadest possible terms:

I think that it fucked up with the Equalists. I think instead of telling a story about how a social issue gave rise to a terrorist cult, it wanted to tell a story about a terrorist cult, so it tacked on a social issue that it never gave its own due.

I think that it fucked up with the love triangle. You can't do the Girl Cartoon and then make it All About Dreamy Boys unless you do it really fucking carefully, and they did not. I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't throw Asami under a bus, but Mako's personality basically seemed to be ~leather pants~.

I think that it fucked up Korra's hero arc. At the end, she fixed herself because it was the end of the last episode, not because it was part of a satisfying narrative arc.

I wasn't actually as disappointed in it immediately after finishing watching it as I was after the second Book, I think because I was in some amount of denial. I was focusing on what I liked and trying to convince myself it wasn't that bad because I didn't want to be heartbroken.

But then Book Two came along and was so much better that it...well it simultaneously made me appreciate Book Two more than I think I would have otherwise, while making me more retroactively disappointed in Book One.

I mean, yeah, there are things about Book Two that aren't perfect. I feel sometimes the first half is overzealous in its attempts to characterise Korra as impatient and stubborn - both traits I like that they gave her - I like that she is different to Aang. But it's a tightrope I don't think they always walked well. I adored the way it reclaimed its comedy and had genuinely funny and versatile characters like Varrick, and started using Meelo in much better ways, but I did think it was sad that Bolin turned into the type of guy who didn't realise a chick didn't dig him, after he basically dealt with that from Korra sort of gracefully in the first season. I wish it had done more with Asami and that Lin hadn't trusted those idiotic detectives so much. And I dread to think what my reaction to the flashback episodes would have been if I'd had to watch them in real time. If I'd gone, "Wow! Korra finally gets a spiritual quest episode!" just to find out it was an extended story about some other dude, followed by an amnesiac jumpstart to the interminable love triangle.

But I didn't watch it week-by-week so I kept going. And I saw Korra get her spiritual journey and the love triangle really fail to have any sort of impact going forward or even any significant scenes, and instead suddenly it was all epic hero shit and spiritual awakenings and giant glowing battles and a 10 year old little sister figure kindling the embers of Raava's goodness - the goodness Korra knew would be there from her own experience of her memories - so that she could bodily haul it the hell out of her enemy's chest.

And. Just. Gah.

It was like a personal apology, just to me. And that makes it feel amazing, but also sad, because it means the apology was necessary.

So then we get to the third book, which it seems has been universally hailed as the best yet?

I totally get why - it's been much better on an episode-by-episode basis. I love that the romance is finally gone, I like the way they're developing the characters.

I can't bring myself to love it as much as the second book, though, even if it was objectively more uneven, just because of how it ends.

I understand why it tells that story. It's heroic sacrifice. And it's damn heroic. And Korra will recover and still be the hero next season, I get that. I understand it. I just...feel like I'm pissing in everyone's cornflakes but I feel I won't be able to relax and enjoy the arc until I've seen it complete. Until I have the whole story. Because it fucked up once before and what if it fucks up again? This time, it's the last season.

Which, I guess, brings us to the salient point:

It's all about hurting Korra, and taking things away from her.

Aang was a reluctant Avatar - uneasy with that role and identity. I understand and agree with the logic of making Korra different. She wants to be the Avatar. She likes that part of her identity. So then, sure, it makes sense that that's the source of conflict - not growing into her role but having to fight for it.

On a logical level it makes perfect sense. And when it works, as I feel it did in the second season, I think it works beautifully. She fights for her right to exist, to be the hero, after being severed from her position as Avatar, she doesn't say, "Hey, I lost, I guess I wasn't good enough, maybe I should fuse Raava to someone else who won't screw up," she says, "I'm good enough. I'm taking back what was taken from me."

But even when it works, it doesn't get rid of the underlining threat, or...question.

Aang's question was whether he'd be a good Avatar or whether he'd fail to use his power in responsible ways.

Korra's question is whether she gets to have power.

Amon takes her Bending. Unalaq takes her past lives and tries to steal her position as Avatar. Zaheer challenges the idea that the world needs an Avatar at all, and from her reaction at the end of the season, I'm thinking Tenzin's good intentions with his new Air Nation Avatar-Backup-Squad will just compound that poisonous fear in her mind.

I can see how this works logically - narratively. How you would come up with these ideas without relating it back to gender. But the fact that the boy's story is about how he will use his power, and the girl's is about whether she can keep it, is so deeply gendered, on such a deep level, it's painful and inescapable.

It would also be fair to say that putting a girl in the main, heroic protagonist role is always going to be inescapably gender-related. Like the act of doing that is a political statement. The act of doing it means you can't not deal with this stuff - and some of it will seem like you're playing into problem areas no matter which way you go, because you are, because double standards, because the world sucks.

It's not necessarily the wrong choice to tell the story of how a girl fights for power. Of how she stands up and says, yes, this is a thing I deserve and am worthy of and I will actively pursue and defend it. I reject your judgements and I claim my mantle. We need those stories too, and we can't get them if the story doesn't raise the question about losing your power in the first place.

And let's be honest, the cartoon's not going to end with her quitting or losing.

But as the first book shows - what if there's no more to it than that. What if it's not a story about how a girl has a right to claim her place? What if it's just a story about how a girl has to fight four times as hard to prove she's as spiritually and morally worthy as her male predecessor?

One thing I liked about the second book's finale is that she essentially saved the day on her own. It love the teamwork in Avatar, but in that instance, she went where her companions could not follow. As with Aang when he fought Ozai.

We haven't reached Korra's final battle yet, and I worry, having done the lone epic duel for the fate of the world with Vaatu, they won't redo it and will go with a different type of enemy for the final book. I want Korra to win on her own terms, though. I feel like that will be a big component of whether I end up feeling like it was a story about her owning her power and actively fighting for it, or being "allowed" to keep it.

I did listen to an interesting podcast where the two guys who created the shows were talking about how, while Avatar was airing, it really wasn't this untouchable, perfect show, and how that's something that developed after it finished airing. About how the real measure of Korra will be how people remember it in the years to come.

I agree with that.

I need Book 4 like yesterday.

Comics! Does Vertigo Count? (No, no, not Count Vertigo; I hate Green Arrow.)

2014-08-04T21:11:12Z

I'M NOT DEAD!

I do need to find more time to post here. So to start with, I was just inspired to write something reasonably lengthy over on tumblr, so I'm actually going to copy it here because god but I loathe tumblr as a space for complex human interaction or discussion. And this is my place of Archiving Thoughts.

Also I think we all just have to accept that a large percentage of this blog will be Comic Books for the forseeable future. I'm genuinely sorry. <3

So the setup:

There was a text post as follows:

MARVEL: *makes Avengers*
MARVEL: *makes Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America sagas*
MARVEL: *makes Agents of Shield*
MARVEL: *makes Guardians of the Galaxy*
MARVEL: *makes Black Widow movie*
DC: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...... MORE BATMAN.

To which there was then a response effectively composed of animated .gifs of DC's television/film output from the last decade, but unusually including all the stuff Warner Brothers makes based on DC properties that aren't part of DC's main superhero universe but were published under various imprints (primarily Vertigo).

I sort of wasn’t going to reblog it because it was a little petty? But then I saw the “makes Black Widow movie” and got bitter because what the hell, if you're going to do that, I'm going to pretend there's obviously an upcoming Wonder Woman film and that they're casting Dwayne Johnson as Shazam and SCREW IT I SUCCUMBED TO PETTY BITTERNESS!

But I also reblogged it because I really liked that it included DC's Vertigo output in there, but...I've been wondering for a while now how that stuff should figure into the conversations we have about these companies and/or about their shared superhero universes.

This is a genuine question to which I have no good answer. Because DC and Marvel generally ship a comparable number of titles; DC more often ship slightly more but that includes all their Vertigo stuff (as well as, I think, more licensed comics, though particularly with Star Wars, that may be shifting).

And on the one hand, it’s only fair to compare like with like - superheroes with superheroes. That’s a specific genre with representational problems, and it’s a specific type of story we all love (or well, us superhero fans do, I mean). Vertigo publishing a 70s gangster comic, a revenge-thriller, a creepy supernatural book and a retold set of fairytales, all starring women, doesn’t fix my problem if what I want is a woman in spandex punching a volcano. It really doesn’t. The Losers’ majority poc team doesn’t fix the whiteness of superhero universes.

"Go somewhere else," isn’t a useful response.

"We do that stuff, but in our Vertigo line," sends a message of ghettoisation.

But at the same time, Vertigo forms part of DC’s output and almost never figures into conversations about what DC is doing, media-wise. They put time and resources into maintaining an imprint that specifically exists to publish original “indie” style comic books, even though they could almost certainly make more by putting out another Bat-related title.

I mean, a certain amount of this is nostalgia. I’m probably a comic book fan at ALL because of Vertigo in the 90s, and I think that’s likely true of a lot of women my age. Karen Berger probably did more than anyone else in the industry to normalise the graphic novel and its place on the shelves of our bookstores. (And I guess I also think it’s cool that Vertigo has only ever been headed up by women; Shelly Bond succeeded Karen Berger).

But…okay, knowing Watchmen is somehow a DC property is probably not that unusual, but I honestly wonder how many people know that movies like Red, the Losers, Road to Perdition and Stardust are all also based on graphic novels and comic series originally published by DC?

Probably not many?

And like I said, I think you can use these points to dodge the issue. Agent Carter is a big deal because a woman is anchoring a TV series - they are making superhero-related media starring a women. Pointing out that DC (well, it’s parent company) are putting out iZombie, which also stars a woman, isn’t a cleanly relevant parallel.

But it also seems sort of shitty to pretend iZombie isn’t there.

Also amusingly nowhere in that gifset did I see the 2004 Catwoman movie. There are just some things no one can bring themselves to mention voluntarily... (Lol, except me: SKIN LIKE LIVING MARBLE!)

Anyway, yeah. There is my unanswered question. I hope you've all had a nice month while I've been in posting limbo. :)

VID: I'll Run (out of time) [Revolutionary Girl Utena] [VidUKon Premiere]

2014-06-30T09:51:24Z

Title: I'll Run (out of time)
Video: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Audio: Run To You // Pentatonix
Summary: I can't save you, but I can try
Vidder's Notes: Vidukon 2014 Premiere!

Direct download available here. RightClickSaveAs. 102 megs approx.

Cross-posted to vidding and vidding

Other vids available here.

My So-Called Secret Identity

2014-06-16T17:22:14Z

OKAY! SO I've been gone a long time because this month has been soooo busy. In addition to a lot of VidUKon prep (IT'S IN TWO WEEKS! EVERYBODY PANIC!) I also had the very cool opportunity to get involved in the My So-Called Secret Identity Kickstarter. I made the promotional video!

You can see it here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mscsi/my-so-called-secret-identity

You can also read the first four issues at:

www.mysocalledsecretidentity.com

Like, I think the project itself is cool? But also like, I MADE A THING GO LOOK AT IT. I would make you all stick it to your fridges if I could, but since I can't, I'm just going to point at it and wave my arms around a lot.

Also yeah, that is where I've been and what I've been doing. :)

Just in time to get given overtime at work! :P

DC Comics Sales Tactics: I should know when to keep my pretty mouth shut...

2014-05-25T12:34:11Z

I know, I know, this doesn't look good for me. I'm turning into some terrible DC apologist.

But okay, let's unpack that statement for a minute, because there's a lot of stuff, in comics in general, and at DC in particular, I feel no need to defend, and quite often an overpowering need to scream about. Or just hide under a rock and ignore because it's too depressing. That said, my perception of a weird media bias against DC and in favour of Marvel bugs me to an increasing degree. Basically because I feel like it doesn't hold people accountable in the way they should be held to account, and I think it ends up ignoring success stories and examples of positive attempts at change. It's just...since I think this narrative is broken, I worry all we're doing is holding a biased conversation that won't get us any actual improvement.

So...I kind of didn't talk a lot about this for a long time because it's not a popular opinion, and because it's hard to defend a thing without it seeming like you're excusing everything it does, which isn't my intention.

But I was reading a recent article from ComicsAlliance on DC comics' New 52 and how many had been cancelled, and comparisons to Marvel's Marvel NOW initiative (which isn't a reboot but is a sort of...relaunch/rebranding initiative) all about how Marvel are doing it so much better. Based on...basically nothing I could understand and it mostly seemed to harp on about how DC can't possibly sustain publishing 52 titles a month and how it needs a new tactic to reach new readers, all the while ignoring the fact that DC no longer publishes 52 titles a month and they're trialing a new tactic of weekly comics. Which may be the world's stupidest idea. Who knows! But it is super weird this article didn't even talk about it!

And it struck me: here is a place where I think I can demonstrate my point and achieve some kind of catharsis. What the fuck is this article:

http://comicsalliance.com/dc-comics-new-52-47-cancelation/

I'm going to break it down point by point and hopefully illustrate why I think it's biased.

My goal is not to point out that therefore DC is all roses and happy shiny editors who never pointlessly intefere in otherwise successful books. My point is not to say that there are no problems with audience outreach. My point is that the underpinning logic of this article is broken. In some really weird ways. That seem predicated on a lot of generous assumptions about Marvel's business tactics based on three months of solicitations and wilfully ignoring everything earlier than December 2013. In ways that seem indicative of fandom and the comics press' general tendency to award Marvel for effort and punish DC for failure.

This is long. This is really fucking long. I tried to cut it down, I did. I couldn't. I was too filled with the need to destroy it.

The short version is: the article's assertion that Marvel is more patient when it comes to allowing its new titles to find a footing and flourish is divorced from any reality involving sales data, and while I'm very pleased they're making an effort to change their behaviour and actually publish titles featuring women and poc in the title roles, these books are younger than some of the food in my cupboards and not a numerical improvement on what DC tried to do with its reboot, so forgive me for wanting to see how many are still standing next year and whether they're replaced by similar titles, before I believe Marvel have cracked the secret code to making the comics industry less shitty. Plus, you know, that whole thing where the dude keeps commenting on DC's current sales tactics while never actually mentioning DC's newest sales tactic.

That really is the meat of it. But if you want to read that in vastly more detail (I don't really recommend it), then follow the cut.

This article. This fucking article.

Okay so it starts out with some preamble about the number 52, how it doesn't really mean much right now with weekly comics, event comics, mini series, etc. (the article's sole mention of weekly comics! There is no context except as part of a list of things that don't "count" as part of the 52!) but that it is as useful a number as any other to gauge DC's publishing strategy. Fine, I can agree with that. Let's move on.

We then get to the main part of the article and I'm going to quote it in its entirety along with my responses, because that's how I roll:

With convention season upon us and a host of announcements doubtlessly coming down the pipeline, it seems certain that DC will hit its 52nd New 52 cancellation sooner rather than later. As it stands, the publisher averages one final issue almost every three weeks.

Generously, such high turnover may indicate a willingness to try new ideas on DC’s part. Less generously, it may indicate a poor understanding of a changing market.

Okay, we have a useful statistic - a cancellation every three weeks. We also have two possible reasons. Both may well be true. However, I think it's important to note, since the article doesn't, that a large number of the books that were cancelled early have been books that strayed from the usual genres you'd find in a comic book. War stories, westerns, fantasy, actual space-adventure scifi, horror, surrealism, spies, anthologies and comics with actual rotating backup stories, as well as a lot with female and/or poc leads or majority female and/or poc teams. We'll come back to this a little later.

Marvel has averaged about one final issue a month since its Marvel NOW relaunch began in October 2012. DC, of course, has had more time to see its books fail, but most of its discontinued books have been real cancellations — as opposed to strategic conclusions. Justice League of America, Nightwing, and Teen Titans were among the only books discontinued specifically so they could be relaunched. (It remains to be seen if any of the six latest discontinuations will also lead to relaunches.) Batman Incorporated is one of the only titles ended at an author’s insistence. Animal Man is one of the only titles afforded extra time to tell a real ending. Most of DC’s cancelled titles ended swiftly and unceremoniously, and in some cases acrimoniously.

Marvel’s discontinuations have had a different flavor. Books like Young Avengers and Superior Spider-Man ended because the authors were finished telling those stories, and cancellations that pave the way for relaunches are much more common at Marvel; see Captain Marvel, Daredevil (both pre-NOW titles), Indestructible Hulk, Wolverine & The X-Men, Secret Avengers, the two X-Force books (recently replaced by one), the two Fantastic Four books (also replaced by one) and Avengers Arena, which told a complete story but led in to a new book, Avengers Undercover. Even titles like X-Men: Legacy, Avengers A.I., and Fearless Defenders, all of which felt like true cancellations, were allowed time to resolve their stories.

Let's break this down to three points. 1) Comparing data. 2) Characterisation of DC's cancellations. 3) "Strategic conclusions."

1) Comparing data.

So yes, numerically, Marvel are cancelling less, at least since Marvel NOW, which means we're comparing a two-year period for Marvel with a three-year period for DC. That might actually make a difference because the first year of the reboot for DC saw an eight month period with no cancellations. But even if it does, I'm not going to contend that right now DC are cancelling at a higher rate than Marvel. Partly because - as noted - they've had longer to see their books fail, and partly because they've been cancelling down so they have space to launch the weeklies. (Look, there's that glaring omission again).

The point is, I basically agree with the article here. Marvel is cancelling slightly slower, but at a close enough rate and with enough circumstantial reasons for that discrepancy that they're basically comparable. The real story is in the whys and the hows. (Which begs the question of the article's DC CANCELS HUGE NUMBERS OF COMICS! title, but there you go.)

2) Characterisation of DC's cancellations

We need to start with correcting something: Animal Man actually ended because the writer was done telling his story also, so does that make it a "legitmate" cancellation like Batman: Incorporated? Superman Unchained was retroactively declared a limited series (which will be ending soon) because the creative team were done with it, even though it was originally announced as an ongoing. DC elected to end it on creative terms rather than get a new team to continue it even though it was wildly commercially successful.

Meanwhile The Movement actually was afforded extra time to finish its story despite horrible sales. It's hard to know how many others are in this position because a lot of writers don't talk about it publicly or if they do, may be attempting to maintain professionalism. Certainly Static Shock stands as an example where the original writer left in very acrimonious circumstances and the new one didn't know it was about to be cancelled. On the other hand they kept Dial H around far longer than its numbers indicated, presumably to allow China Mieville a chance to wrap up his story since its final arc didn't seem rushed.

But broadly, I do wonder what the author's metric is for "swiftly and unceremoniously"? Talking about other series that have ended recently, Talon allowed Tynion IV to finish his story and then wound down the run with a few one-shots from guest writers. Katana's series basically played out like an 11 issue maxi-series and absolutely had narrative closure. The Dark Knight was cancelled because, thank the fucking lord, DC seemed to realise that Batman didn't need three solo ongoing series, and so is, I guess, gone for creative reasons, I guess - it certainly wasn't due to sales. There was nothing swift or unceremonious about the cancellation of Batwing or All-Star Western, both of which have lasted 34 issues with sales that "should" have seen them cancelled before they hit 20. There's no explanation for their longevity other than DC's commitment to them as part of their publication line. Superboy underwent a weird, awkward event crossover with the other Superbooks that ended up changing its main character about half a dozen issues ago and honestly I don't think that boosted sales like they were hoping, so now it's gone, but that indicates to me that the first thing they did was try to find a way to stabilise the sales, which doesn't sound like a swift, or unceremonious cancellation, even if it's not one that has a satisfying narrative resolution; the final writer was well-aware he was only hired for a single arc. Vibe feels a little like the writer was left to cobble together an ending in two dozen pages, for sure, so maybe we can point to his title? Stormwatch is another one where an "internal reboot" and cast shift didn't boost sales, but again it lounged at well below cancellation figures for a really long time before DC actually pulled the plug, and again, it wrapped up its storyline.

So like...I'm genuinely not sure what he actually means by this. No examples are given as to which titles he thinks were thrown to the wolves. And while it's skewed towards sales, the actual circumstances seem somewhat mixed and basically in keeping with the Marvel examples. To suggest Marvel never finishes stuff after a random story arc has ended is absurd, and Journey Into Mystery would like to say hello.

On the other hand, if you want to talk about unceremonious cancellations, Marvel have a habit of stealth cancelling titles by simply not telling you in the solicits that it's the final issue and leaving you to wonder where they are when next month's come out. They did it to Fearless Defenders and to Venom (and technically to Captain Marvel, though that book was at least scheduled for a relaunch a few months later) just recently, and probably a bunch of others. They do it fairly regularly. Iron Patriot was recently stealth-downgraded to a mini series from an ongoing.

Also because I'm not sure where else I'd file this, the two Fantastic Four and two X-Force books that were recently relaunched into one? In both cases, the majority female team was the one that got axed.

3) "Strategic conclusions."

I believe the author means cancelling just to relaunch when using this phrase. As in, this book's not really cancelled because in a month or three it will be coming back like it was before, just with a new #1 issue.

I actually don't have a problem with doing this in certain circumstances. When there's a legitimate change to the status quo, and when you don't abuse it, a new #1 can provide a more appealing jumping on point for new reader than simply a new story arc or creative team. Nightwing ending and getting relaunched as a spy thriller called Grayson is a good example. Like, regardless of what the quality ends up being, there's a legitimate change in the style and tone and purpose of the book. Cancelling Teen Titans and launching it again two months later as New Teen Titans with essentially the same core cast, is not. I wasn't pleased when I read about it because my first thought was that it was a tactic taken straight out of Marvel's playbook because they do this all the damn time. A flaship title like Fantastic Four recently made it a whopping 16 issues before getting sent out for, well, its second reboot in 18 months.

I guess we could make some sort of argument about whether we could treat comic runs like seasons of television with brief hiatuses in between, but the problem is it doesn't work. Wolverine is the other comic that got caught in both a Marvel Now and an All-New Marvel Now relaunch and both show a very clear pattern.

The relaunch provides a temporary boost to sales before quickly slipping, usually down to lower than pre-relaunch numbers. The effect is heightened the second time its relaunched.

Of course, this isn't always the case - as the linked article notes - it did seem to benefit Spider-man. We don't have much sales data on the Captain Marvel relaunch yet, but based on the first two issues, the 2014 #1 sold about 2,500 more copies than the 2012 #1, but the 2014 #2 sold about 500 less than the 2012 #2.

There's a real question about how it helps the industry to boost sales with short-term fixes like repeated #1s, increased shipping, lower page counts for higher prices - all practices which Marvel engage in with higher frequency than DC. It's not sustainable and it doesn't bring in new readers. It's certainly not evidence of knowing how to reach out to a wider audience (which seems to be this article's implication?) I mean you are literally repeatedly relaunching things in an attempt to sell the same stuff over and over again. It's the definition of not trying anything new.

Marvel has proved an indulgent caretaker of its books since its major line-wide makeover, and benefited from taking a different approach to DC. Marvel didn’t flood the market with a whole new line of books in a single month; it released them slowly to give smaller titles more of a chance. The publisher never bound itself to the idea that every cancellation had to be matched with a launch. It pitched books to different audiences, relied on creators to make the titles distinctive, and gave creators room to tell whole stories — and, at least in some cases, end them if they so chose.

I don't feel I'm in a position to judge whether the Marvel method or the DC method of rebooting a few per month rather than all at once is better.

I will say that the DC reboot boosted the entire comics industry for several years at a time when it was in crisis. Which of course doesn't necessarily mean it was positive if your goal was getting attention for lesser known titles or specific characters. It almost certainly led to an unacceptable level of editorial micromanagement responsible for several professional fuckups, and on a broad level I think it's fair to criticise DC for not giving their writers the latitude Marvel often extends.

I think the main issue with a slower release cycle in the context of this article, though, is simply that this process is both newer than DC's relaunch and ongoing. The author is comparing something that happened almost three years ago to something that in some cases happened a month ago or has yet to happen.

The article's statement that Marvel is an "indulgent caretaker" is never really explained. The assertion is there, but I have no idea how it fits with the facts. The one example he gives of a book allowed time to finish its storylines despite low sales - Fearless Defenders - had a final issue that sold higher than nearly every cancelled DC book and sold nearly twice what Katana's last issue sold (a DC solo starring a woman of colour cancelled around the same time).

Allowing a low-selling title to continue so that the story can resolve may seem like an unsound business decision, but the good faith it establishes with audiences and creators may benefit the publisher’s relationship with both, encouraging writers to commit to a publisher they know will give them room to reach, and encouraging readers to try new titles that they would otherwise expect to fail. Allowing for an ending may also net rewards in sales of book collections — the comics equivalent of a TV show reaching enough episodes to be sold into syndication. Completed stories are a more appealing book sales prospect than stories with no ending.

Yes I agree, and I would point out that DC will reliably allow a book to fall further in the sales charts before cancelling it than Marvel does. I'd also point out that DC seems to care much more about its trades than Marvel. It outperforms them in the bookstore market, keeps then in print longer, and regularly publishes original graphic novels specifically for that market.

I also agree that this sort of behaviour establishes trust in the readership, and that's exactly why I do not trust Marvel at all.

Call me when they've published a Western for 34 issues, a historical fanstasy adventure with a trans character for 23, a gothic horror about vampires for 20, when it can't just launch five books about women, but can provide me with the reasonable expectation that in a few years they'll still be there. Call me then.

Or like...show me ANY Marvel book that this description apparently applies to, because I'll be honest, giving Fearless Defenders 12 issues instead of 8 doesn't feel like a magical balm for my soul, because, whoop-de-doo, they didn't actively cancel it in the middle of a story arc.

DC quietly dropped its strict commitment to a 52-title line and freed itself from that churn, but the publisher still seems more committed to volume and turnover than to soliciting the affection of readers or creators. There is potentially some virtue to a high turnover approach; it allows a publisher to be radical in its exploration of concepts.

But “radical” is not a word many would use to describe DC’s current output. Indeed, the New 52 line has been marked across its three years by such stark homogeneity that even writers and artists known for bringing personality to their work have been largely subsumed into a house style that renders them flavorless. The creators who still stand out are either those with the most power and/or acclaim, like Geoff Johns, Greg Capullo, Scott Snyder, Francis Manapul and Cliff Chiang, or those who don’t seem to last long at the company.

Wait, I thought a minute ago we were talking about how DC were fucking themselves over because they DID have a slavish devotion to a 52-title line...

But okay, snark aside, I really think it's worth exploring that comment about volume and turnover. It seems slightly spurious when DC have been cancelling far more than they've been launching for the last year. As of August they'll be down to (I think) 34 of their regular 52 titles because they're making space for the weekly comics. These add to the volume, sure, but not to the turnover; if anything they're the sort of commitment to a narrative conclusion that you'd think the author would approve of, given DC's guaranteeing a series comprising a many comics as you'd normally get in several years.

The more immediately pressing point, though, is that since this article is only talking DC's monthly titles, it's talking about a far, far smaller number of titles than DC usually has to offer in comprison to Marvel's full stable.

I do agree that DC would benefit from allowing its creators more freedom. But while I think that they could stand to loosen their vicelike editorial grip, I also think that Marvel could stand to deliberately widen their line a little. The author is right that I wouldn't apply "radical" to DC's line up, but as I noted, they've tried several war comics, westerns, numerous fantasy books, books about magic, space adventures, martial arts, humour, horror, angry young revolutionaries, technospies and metatextual surreality. Marvel also has a house style (even if it's a more popular Whedon-esque mix of humour and drama) and also has outlier books by name-recognised creators that stand out in terms of narrative or artistic approach.

Their line has become more homogenous as they failed to find audiences for these books and have replaced them with the weeklies instead of more of the same (though they're launching a spy book, a zombie war comic and a pulpy scifi adventure in the next few months). Perhaps we should indeed hold them to account for this failure. Perhaps this was a bad way to go about trying to publish a broader variety of stuff. But describing their attempts over the last two and a half years as "homogenous" seems disingenuous.

That’s not to say that DC takes no chances. Within this latest raft of cancellations are a few books that DC tried to find an audience for long after the point where they might have understandably pulled the plug. Female-led team book Birds of Prey, separated from its most famous author Gail Simone (and from its founding character, the wheelchair-using hero Oracle), struggled for a long time to find an audience. Batwing, DC’s last solo title led by a character of color, was a first wave New 52 title that never performed well yet still made it to 34 issues. (In the process it swapped its African lead character for an African-American lead character more closely tied to the established Batman mythos.)

DC couldn’t find an audience for these books. That may be because that audience couldn’t find these books, rather than because the audience isn’t there. DC’s monolithic house style and devotion to event-driven storytelling do not create an inviting environment for new or diverse readers. That would be fine if DC’s old familiar readers could support a 52-title line (or something close to 52 titles), but the rate of cancellations suggests this isn’t the case. DC’s core audience can’t support such a sprawling line, but DC’s editorial approach can’t reach a wider audience.

I'll note that Batwing isn't the last lead character of colour; John Stewart is now the sole lead in Green Lantern Corps because Guy ran off to join the Reds, but his name isn't in the title, and that makes a difference, and dear god, I'm not going to try and act like having one makes it all right. Especially since one of the professional fuckups I alluded to above was apparently someone walking off GLC because editorial suggested killing the character. Which fortunately now isn't happening, but...look my point isn't that this is okay, I just don't want to erase John Stewart. Hooray John Stewart! Boo like...everything else related to this topic.

I don't have much of an actual bone to pick with any of this other than the suggestion that DC is somehow more event-driven than Marvel. That seems like an odd suggestion. DC tends to have more small crossovers, where related books will share stories for a few issues, or reference something that happened in another title, but Marvel definitely have more giant World-Altering-Events-That-Change-Everything.

It may also be worth noting that Birds of Prey's last issue pre-reboot was 15 and sold ~26K while post reboot issue 15 sold ~24k, so it was lower, but it was stable in the same range. BoP was the highest selling book cancelled in this wave and I think the best candidate for a quick relaunch, as much as I have mixed feelings about those. I guess I'm just saying, DC kind of didn't fail to find its audience for this one. They just made a disappointing decision when sales attrition hit a certain level.

And as a final note - hey look, the weeklies again! Wouldn't this have been a good place to mention them as an enormous, deliberate change in publishing tactics when talking about DC's (possibly doomed) attempts to capitalise on and/or grow its audience? No? Just me? Okay. Moving on.

Marvel once again provides the natural point of comparison as the only other publisher doing what DC does on the same scale. While DC says farewell to its last solo POC hero title in August, Marvel will have seven such titles on the stands that month – Ghost Rider, Iron Patriot, Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Nova, Spider-Man 2099, and Storm – as well as the minority-dominated team books Mighty Avengers and All-New Ultimates. Marvel will also have six solo titles with female leads in August — Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Elektra, Ms. Marvel, Storm, and She-Hulk, plus the female team book X-Men. DC only just retains its established lead for female heroes thanks to the addition of a digital-first Wonder Woman anthology, Sensation Comics, joining World’s Finest, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman.

Okay so, point above about DC still having one PoC lead aside, because that's fucking abysmal, I have one overriding comment: we're talking about DC at a time when it's running at 34 of its regular 52 titles and a time when Marvel is actively launching books as part of a brand new initiative.

As far as the issue of women is concerned, to be honest with you, I think Marvel should be ashamed that even with an 18 title handicap DC have them beat. Particularly considering not a single one of those books was being published in January 2014 (and Storm is still upcoming), because, for the second time in three years Marvel cancelled every single one of their female solo books.

Look, Ms Marvel is a damn revelation. I love it. It's fucking brilliant, and wonderfully, miraculously, it's selling really well. Like well enough I feel like it'll be around for a few years, and I look forward to spending money on it every month. It is amazing and important that it exists and it deserves all the praise.

I hope Marvel looks at it, works out what magic G Willow Wilson is working, and PUT HER IN CHARGE OF EVERYTHING.

I laud Marvel for seeming to have said, "Jesus guys, our female line-up sucks! Let's make a concerted effort to publish more women in their own titles!"

But given their history, I think it's reasonable to want to wait more than three months before deciding they've Solved Women In Comics Praise Baby Jesus.

Regarding characters of colour, that's tough because in general, I think Marvel do better than DC here. But I do think it's worth pointing out that, again, we get a list of seven solo titles and two majority PoC teams, as a snapshot based on the July solicitations, approximately six months after All-New Marvel NOW started its staggered rollout (and since the publication of the ComicsAlliance article, one of those ongoings has ALREADY been downgraded to a mini series and July is its final issue). If we look at DC six months after its reboot, it had six solo titles with PoC leads (Mister Terrific, Batwing, OMAC, Voodoo, Static Shock, Blue Beetle) and two co-leads (Fury of Firestorm, Green Lantern Corps). Still numerically inferior to Marvel, but much, much closer.

And it's probably relevant to note that in 2012, Marvel also cancelled all but one of their poc leads. And this was at a time when the above were all still being published by DC. The pendulum was in almost the exact opposite position.

This isn't a defence. Like I'll actually defend DC on their ability to reliably publish female-lead comics up to a point. I have no desire to do so when talking about poc leads. But I am trying to illustrate why I don't trust Marvel either. Not until they maintain this for a good while longer.

Most of these Marvel titles are very new — Storm and Spider-Man 2099 haven’t even launched yet — so we’re in unproven territory. It’s possible that all of these titles will be gone within a year, and it’s unlikely that any of them will sell Avengers numbers.

Yet Marvel’s approach to publishing seems to give these books a better shot at success than they’d have at DC. Post-NOW, Marvel has shown a willingness to give new books the spotlight and the time they need, and a commitment to creative teams that encourages confidence and distinctiveness. Marvel also shows a greater sensitivity to creating minority-led books that might actually appeal to a minority audience — for example, presenting most of its solo female heroes in a way that isn’t designed to pander primarily to straight male readers.

Holy inexplicable assumptions, Batman! How have they shown that willingness? This article keeps claiming it, but I don't see how it makes it true.

Let's break this down. Marvel have given us something of a gift with their relaunch of their own relaunch, because we had Marvel NOW from October 2012 - February 2013 and then All New Marvel NOW from January - July 2014. So let's take a look at the female-led, poc-led, majority-non-white-cishet-male books that were part of Marvel NOW and see how they did!

(I'm doing my best with the team books - I sincerely apologise if I've missed one I should have included):

FF - majority female team, 16 issues, cancelled.
Fearless Defenders - all female-team, 12 issues, cancelled.
Morbius: the Living Vampire - included because it's a rare example of Marvel going for a shift in genre? 9 issues, cancelled.
Nova - lead is mixed race white/hispanic dude, still ongoing.
Uncanny X-Force - majority female team - 17 issues, cancelled.
X-Men - all-female team, still ongoing
Young Avengers - majority non-straight-white-het-dudes, 15 issues, cancelled.
Captain Marvel - female lead, 17 issues, cancelled (although relaunched four months later)
Journey Into Mystery - with Sif as the lead - 10 issues, cancelled.
Red She-Hulk - female lead, 10 issues, cancelled.

So, you know, based on that I think that in a year? No, probably they won't be cancelled. In 18 months? Pretty damn likely. 2 of those 10 titles survived; 3 if you count a tactical cancellation/relaunch, though I outline above why I think that's a dangerous sales practice. When you consider that X-Men not only has a prestigious title that can command sales (which like, that's not a criticism - it's a great idea to use that kind of clout to highlight a book like this; see also DC's decision to launch Batwoman as a solo character in Detective) and was also written by a very big name writer, it's only Nova that's been an underdog success story demonstrating the benefits of Marvel's apparently new and patient outlook.

Which leaves me not entirely sure what the author thinks Marvel is specifically doing to give these titles the time and space they need to find audiences. It's not tolerating low sales, that's for sure. Every single one of these titles was cancelled at a sales level DC has been known to tolerate.

The final line suggests that there's a content component to their success. That's a really difficult thing to judge, and is validly gonna rest on personal opinion in some situations.

But since it specifies the presentation of women, let's talk about that. We all remember how DC tried to put pants on Wonder Woman and their fanbase threw a fit so they got rid of them. Okay, whatever, maybe they shouldn't have caved maybe they should have, but say what you like about the book itself, she's consistently drawn by Chiang and his fill-in artists in an impressively unsexualised way. She's about power in her own book, and there are no broke-back poses to be found. I'm not sure how that's different to Pulido's take on She-Hulk, who also wears not-very-much in her superheroine persona? Batgirl, Batwoman, Pandora, Strix in BoP, all wear full-covered clothing and aren't generally drawn in a sexualised way. If we want to talk about them specifically changing Captain Marvel's costume to something less revealing, we can equally point to Huntress who's finally out of her godawful weird bikini and back into a functional full-body suit. Supergirl's outfit has always been a little revealing, but then again so is Elektra's and a lot of it is in how it's drawn. Supergirl's stuck with a lot of random fill-in artists right now, but Mahmoud Asrar's long initial run was full of beautiful, understated, watery felt-tip that focused far more on her face than her body.

Let's be honest, the dude's probably referring to that OMFG CATWOMAN/BATMAN SEX! thing from the relaunch and Harley Quinn's stupid new outfit.

Catwoman's a sexual character, and that just...doesn't bother me. I didn't agree with most of the criticisms of the comic at the time (she spends about 90% of it talking to you about her own life, goals, desires, hanging out with another woman talking about things that aren't dudes, then at the end, decides she'd like to bang Batman and proceeds to very deliberately seduce him; her control of the situation is not ambiguous). I'm kind of more upset that the backlash led to DC panicking and making Judd Winnick change his storyline, and as a result we never got a Catwoman who totally worked out Batman's secret identity. Even if you disagree with me (which is fine), it's been 20 issues since that run, and the current run (which is written by a woman; not that that rubberstamps it against misogyny of course) has been characterised FAR more by quixotic surreality than femme fatal sex appeal.

I fucking hate Harley Quinn's stupid skimpy outfit, I hate it I hate it I hate it it's dumb.

I also hate that it's probably part of the reason no one's talking about the fact her comic - cowritten by a woman, and entirely in the wacky hijincks tradition of the DC Animated Universe where she hangs out with Poison Ivy and joins the roller derby - spent three months in the top ten and outsells every non-event comic DC puts out except Batman and Justice League.

Like, just think about that for a second. The third-best selling comic DC has right now - and her sales have stabilised at this level - is Harley Quinn.

Okay wait, I'm drifting.

Right, the point. Yeah, Harley Quinn's new outfit sucks balls, but that's not representative of the comic. And I still think it's an unfair generalisation to overlook the vast majority of DC's heroines who are either sensibly dressed or very deliberately drawn in a way that is not sexualised (i.e. Wonder Woman as drawn by Chiang). The author's opinion feels more like a regurgitation of the semi-regular anger that hits when there's a particularly gross comic cover, or costume change, than a reflection of what's really there.

And yes, what's portrayed in the media matters to new readers. And if potential readers see a stream of terrible DC covers, that will affect their willingness to buy the books.

But also, Marvel can publish uncomfortable shit like this (that's less than a year old) with no outraged coverage at all, but show Wonder Woman wrapped in Superman's cape and it's a story big enought to warrant a statement from the artist. To what degree is new readers' perception determined by what the fandom chooses to talk about?

On paper, Marvel’s rate of cancellation isn’t wildly different to DC’s, but in practice Marvel’s measured approach to scheduling and promotion creates the appearance of greater stability. When Marvel cancels a book, it’s usually a sign that a gamble didn’t pay off. DC’s 47 cancellations in the past three years aren’t evidence of a willingness to gamble. They’re evidence of a market that simply doesn’t have room to accommodate 52 titles predominantly built around the same conservative audience and aesthetic models.

A new line of 52 titles was an ambitious idea for a relaunch, and many industry insiders and commentators credit that initiative with injecting a much needed if short term commercial boost to the American business. But that fast-approaching 52nd cancellation shows that DC didn’t have what it takes to follow through on its ambitions.

Or perhaps you can just write an article that makes it look that way?

I honestly have absolutely no idea how to even refute the notion that Marvel's failures constitute unlucky gambles, while DC's don't. Like fucking for real, that argument only makes sense if DC's line really is homogenous, but I've already detailed that they have more diversity of gender, have utterly fucked up maintaining but have launched an equal number of titles dealing poc leads, and lead drastically in attempts to widen the genres that can be included in a superhero universe. Most of those titles failed, so maybe the problem is that they can't find people outside of their conservative audience? But it's sure as hell not a failure because all they're doing is pandering to them and then they're like "sorry, not enough cash this month!". Or like, I guess it might be. But then it's mighty weird that it's all the books that aren't white dudes in capes that are failing, you know?

Without attempting to absolve them of a duty to do Better Advertising and get their PR in order, we spend an awful lot of time talking about how DC aren't sure how to widen their audience, when we, as the audience, do nothing but tear them down.

When they publish the books we purport to want, no one fucking reads them. They published an epic fantasy adventure story about a teenage girl, written by the woman who wrote Jem and the Holograms. No one bought it. No one even talked about it. They published a teen team book that was majority queer, majority female, majority poc, led by a character who was all three, written by a fan-favourite author. No one bought it. They told a deconstructionist superhero story written by China Mieville, starring a male person of size and a female senior citizen. No one bought it. They published a historical fantasy with a romance between a trans man and an Amazon that actively dealt with her reflexive assumption that he was "really" a woman. No one bought it.

None of those books were books with scandals or PR disasters attached. Most of them were critically acclaimed. They just...never got any serious press coverage or social traction.

And DC bears some of that responsibility, for real. But I think the absolute stillbirth of The Movement illustrates the way we, as fandom, at least for right now, have decided what the DC narrative is, and we're done giving them a chance. It doesn't actually matter what they're doing.

Or in the case of this article, done even writing accurately about what they're doing, it seems.

Because as I've said numerous times, this article seems to be completely ignoring DC's latest shift towards weekly titles.

I legitimately have no idea if it will work, if it will be sustainable, if it will produce good stories or if it will help characters that need a boost get a boost, but it is a huge shift in DC's publication strategy and for an article that's purporting to explain how DC has no idea how to adapt to a changing market, it seems SUPER WEIRD to me that it would ignore this huge and current shift. Especially since it seems to specifically address his main complaint: that 52 different titles is too many.

Now maybe replacing a ton with fewer, but weekly ones, is just gonna have the same problems as double or triple shipping. Or maybe the inherent limited nature of them will maintain interest, at least if this is something they do for a year or so, not as their new publication model forever. But...we don't know, and it's a very clear indication that DC have seen their slipping sales, and rather than reboot or relaunch, they're going to shift gears and try something different.

As a closing point I'd also note that, while I am firmly in the camp that there's something specifically important about having ones name on the marquee, and have therefore always resisted trying to quantify how well team books do at representation unless it's something physically notable like who it's led by or who the majority of characters are, it probably is worth mentioning that these weeklies genuinely seem like efforts to give supporting characters a spotlight.

Batman: Eternal is bringing back Stephanie Brown, elevating Harper Row to a fully-fledged Batfamily hero and apparently telling an enormous paradigmatic shift for Catwoman. Future's End's main characters seem to be almost entirely made up of characters from cancelled books of the characters from those cancelled books including Amethyst, Mister Terrific and Firestorm. Information on World's End is extremely sparse, but it's set on Earth 2, which in addition to having Huntress and Power Girl, is a world where Superman is a young black man, Green Lantern is gay, Aquaman is a woman of colour and so is Hawkgirl, Lois Lane is a superhero robot, Doctor Fate is middle eastern and the World Army is run by a Sikh man and a Japanese woman. And that's not even everyone.

So uh, yeah. I don't think the weeklies are a fair straight-up replacement for vehicles where marginalised characters get a chance to shine. But I also think it's important to note that even when they are being billed as WORLD SHATTERING EVENTS, DC is mostly choosing to let less well-known characters star in them. Like...I think that is worth something.

beccatoria @ 2014-05-06T23:26:00

2014-05-06T22:30:40Z

View poll: What Should I Put Into VidUKon's Vidder's Choice Show?

Because I'm torn. I'm probably leaning towards Counting Stars, because Diana, but also, I actually think that I Say Fever is one of the better vids I've ever done, but it's for a fifteen year old show, buried in a 30 day vidding project and maybe this'd be a nice way to say, hey, you know, look at this thing I made because I think a lot of people will already have seen Counting Stars? But also, Counting Stars. And it's more of a crowdpleaser, I think.

My indecision!

(Or convince me of a totally different vid in the comments, if you are so inclined...)

I've been gone, I'm back, I have thoughts on Tumblr and Wonder Woman and that damn Space Raccoon.

2014-05-03T18:13:30Z

Right, I've been gone forever. I spent the first half of April in the USA for my grandpa's funeral (well, memorial service, he was cremated right after he died, but people wanted to take time to organise a big memorial service when scattered family could all attend). It was good to see some people I haven't seen in a really long time. It was also sad.

Anyway, I came back and then there was a whole bunch of VidUKon stuff to get organised with, plus a load of house-related stuff I just didn't deal with after moving in but before going on vacation.

But also...I don't know. Journalling communities are kind of dying, it feels like. I'm not helping with that, even though I like them better. But they take more time and investment. Tumblr and twitter can suck up just as much time but you feel yourself interacting constantly. There's just non-stop entertainment. It's not me on my own madly typing into a computer. I like the time-sink-grab-bag-of-cool-stuff that tumblr offers and I like the way of easily keeping in touch with so many people that twitter offers.

But I've realised I don't like the way both of them make it hard to engage in wider conversations. Twitter's too brief, and tumblr - it's...far more based around friends running at you and yelling, "THIS IS AWESOME!" or "THIS IS HORRIFYING!" Everything you see comes with implicit approval or disapproval; you don't just "find" stuff, it's always being presented in the context of who's showing it to you. It has a tendency to echo chamber because it's basically people passing around stuff they find cool. Which is a really neat thing about it. Until you...don't agree with what people are saying. Then it becomes really hard both because tumblr also has a terrible format for longer discussion and because culturally, I don't really feel it's built for it. It's built for squee and outrage and it does those things really well as group activities. In forums people react to things with words - things that aren't necessarily being said by people they already know. In journal communities, people link to and talk about stuff and say "hey this is smart, I agree with this!" but usually with added words. It's a point from which you jump off and talk about stuff and even if it's not your intention, that means you get a ton of different reactions to the same thing, not a ton of identical reblogs. It feels less monolithic.

I dunno. That's my experience anyway. It makes being on the "wrong" side of an issue kind of lonely. You don't want to harsh people's squee. You don't want to look like an asshole. It's hard to say, "Guys I think this is kind of misjudged..." when the thing you're talking about's terribleness is basically a meme. Especially if your point isn't that it's all sugary deliverance.

But also I'm getting tired of feeling like I don't want to say stuff. It's making me as tired as saying stuff and then feeling like I'm being a jerk.

So probably the answer is just to realise that I'm not a tumblr person. Or like, I am, but...not for the talking. I should do my talking here.

It's honestly a little intimidating. Which makes me feel very "tiniest violin." So whatever.

I don't get why people give Marvel so many free passes. That "lol, DC can't get out a Wonder Woman film but Marvel have a RACCOOOOON!" meme can die in a goddamn fire.

How does that make Marvel look good? Why are we using the fact that Marvel are making an offbeat minor-character ensemble movie with one woman, before they've managed to make a single movie ABOUT a woman, as some sort of evidence that they're better at this shit? When they've gotten to a place where they've made so many of these movies, they can do things like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man and they still choose them over Captain Marvel or Black Widow?

Especially since it seems to have been resurrected with this latest round of movie news. So now the fact that DC may be also doing an offbeat minor-character movie with a token woman (Metal Men) before they've managed to make a film about their iconic female character STILL means this is an appropriate comparison? It's the EXACT SAME FUCKING SITUATION.

I don't. I just don't.

Marvel releases a movie with a Space Raccoon before they have a female lead: sign of their adorable wackiness!

DC potentially releasing Metal Men before they have a female lead: DEAR GOD THE MISOGYNY.

Okay, I genuinely feel better for having gotten that off my chest.

One day soon, you can all look forward to me ranting about the Cap 2/Man of Steel comparisons, but I should probably save that for another day.

(Don't worry, I like Steve Rogers, I wouldn't actually shoot a puppy.)

Revolutionary Girl Utena: I let it into my head and now it will not leave.

2014-03-12T01:28:09Z

So, for reasons that are complicated and boring and not entirely unrelated to a reflexive pushback against yet another attempt to get me to watch A:TLA (which I DO want to watch one day, but the last time he pushed it, I went and watched the entirety of Gargoyles instead, so basically his insistence and my YOU'RE NOT MY DAD! childishness is leading to some rather interesting education in 90s animated telly), I finally watched Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Which people have basically been telling me to watch since I discovered I adored Martian Successor: Nadesico (another 90s anime) but was sort of hovering somewhere towards the lower end of my "to do" list of media because I have a complicated relationship with anime. I want to love it. I feel like I should love it. It's an endless supply of amazing, complicated fantasy/sci fi stories, without the same kind of budget limitations because they're animated, that tell complete season-long stories, so I don't have to cry when it inevitably jumps the shark, and the fact it's animated doesn't bug me at all.

That said, I find a lot of the tropes and stock characters really distracting and sometimes straight-up gross. Some of that I overcome through immersion in the series, particularly if it plays its surreal hyperreality sections well in the context of the narrative (Nadesico with its crew-of-misfits humour, Utena with its straight up magic realism). It's always tricky calling out things you find offensive (or even empowering) across cultural lines, not cus other cultures should get a pass at treating people badly, but because you lack context. While trying to work out some of my thoughts on this, I read a couple of really interesting articles about the way Western audiences interpret anime. One I found particularly fascinating was the fact that some of the Magical Girl series that are touted in the West as being strongly feminist are, in Japan, primarily aimed at adult men who fetishize the cuteness and even infantilisation of the main characters. Another complicated and fascinating area was the way characters that are commonly interpreted in the West as transgender or genderqueer would in Japan be interpreted as an assault on brutally rigid gender roles rather than cisnormative identities.

And like, how do you navigate that? From my uneducated position, I don't see that there's much conflict between a kid in Britain watching Utena and seeing someone affirmatively genderqueer and a kid in Japan watching it and seeing a girl assert her identity as female through nontraditional means. But I think it gets more complicated if you know something may have an actively negative connotation in its original context, even if that context is invisible to you before it's pointed out? Fortunately, I don't believe Utena is not one of those series that is misogynistic in its original context - or at least, not in the ways I outline above. But as we'll get to, there are things about it that leave me slightly uneasy, as well as things I think are completely fascinating.

It's essentially impossible to talk about, well, anything without spoilers, so if you plan to watch it and are strictly spoiler avoidant, it's probably best to skip the upcoming cut. However, I will do my best to keep this at a "review" level of spoilers for those interested in reading on.

The show throws itself into tropes and stereotypes and then undermines a lot of them. But there are also parts of it where I'm not sure if it's legitimately deconstructionist, or simply replicating with enough artistic gravitas it passes for deconstruction.

The most complicated character by far is Anthy Himemiya, and her presentation in the first 13 episodes is probably a good example of this. She's a beautiful object, literally being passed to the current winning duelist, and so we meet Utena, our brave Prince, determined to save her friend by chivalrously duelling to defend her.

This dynamic is absolutely examined, inverted, shredded, rebuilt and then destroyed again over the course of the series.

But Anthy spends this time essentially behaving as a hypersubmissive "ideal woman" with some "adorkable" quirks. It's not a narrative problem per se, because this trope is, once again, roundly subverted. The problem is that I'm pretty sure the show is expecting the audience to respond more favourably to the trope she's embodying than I did. Even if it's later revealed to be a trick, we're still supposed to believe that our heroine forges a powerful friendship with her during this time. I guess what I'm saying is that I think this whole section is narratively far less effective if the viewer doesn't buy the (gross) trope. So at the same time I'm impressed they later undermine it, I'm not sure how I feel about the fact they're obviously writing those early episodes with the assumption that the trope is a good enough way to code Anthy as sympathetic and appealing to me as a viewer.

Or like, this show has one of the most brutally honest (in many ways because it's so TOTALLY clear yet amazingly understated) depictions of statutory rape I've seen in media. It's chilling and sickening in its banality and pulls no punches with its condemnation.

At the same time, though, I was never 100% comfortable with the level of objectification and sexualisation in the series, especially when so much of it is supposed to be critiquing that, and then...I'm not sure when it becomes presentation instead of criticism. And I'd tell myself to be more generous, except then I watched the movie they made after the end of the series. It isn't a sequel, it's essentially a reimagination, and they gave the anime's director (Kunihiko Ikuhara) complete creative control. And basically I feel it's pretty exploitative in its treatment of sexay chicks making out. And while I know a lot of the complicated stuff from the series just couldn't be done in an 80 minute movie, I still felt that they dumped...pretty much everything that made Anthy so complicated and turned it into a straight-up rescue-the-princess storyline. Albeit with chicks that TURN INTO FUCKING CARS WHAT. And then found out the director does indeed proclaim himself to be a feminist, and I'm sure believes that, and he's certainly produced some work to back it up, but also makes weird comments about not wanting guys touching "his" girls (with regard to the queer content).

On the other hand, I know that a lot of the writers room dynamics that stopped that from happening in the anime series probably came from Chiho Saito, the woman who wrote the manga (comic) version and was one of the writers on the series. She apparently threatened to quit the project if there was unambiguous homosexual content (err, between the two main characters, that is. There IS unambiguous homosexual content with regards to several other characters).

So like, on the one hand, I have a raftload of reasons why I actually really enjoy the subtextual, ambiguous relationship Anthy and Utena have in the anime (which I can explain if anyone cares?), and think it tows a difficult line pretty well, I'm sort of...wondering if we got that because it was a bizarre tug of war between a guy who wanted to fetishise lesbians and a homophobe, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Anyway,look. I've kind of...spent all this time talking about how complicated I feel about this show and I feel I'm doing it a disservice because, well, because it's really fucking interesting. Like it genuinely is. It's also incredibly complicated and very symbolic and surreal.

I feel it manages something very few series manage; namely it makes me feel like the series is coherent while still leaving a lot to my personal interpretation. And I don't feel like it's lesser for that, or like the creators didn't give a shit.

It's clearly work with something complicated to say, and something that I think, most of the time, is worthy of consideration and thought.

It's about that brutal, violent meeting of idealism and reality, and I suppose the brutal, violent meeting of childhood and adulthood is a good place to tell that story. I would personally have found it easier if it was set in a High School/College Academy not a Middle School/High School Academy, but, well... It's anime.

It kind of hard to talk about the rest of what it's about without gigantic spoilers. Though I suppose it's cryptic enough if I say it's maybe about Jesus, if the crucifixion was so traumatic, it turned her into Judas.

Whatever else it did, it gave me so many thoughts. I read a ton of stuff after I finished watching it. Like stuff about anime in general, about feminism in Japan and in anime, about Revolutionary Girl Utena specifically...

I think...if you have tried watching anime before and the format isn't your thing, then this won't be either. But if you have watched it before or if you haven't and want to some, give this a shot.

The last thing I'll say is that if you watch this, for the love of god, watch the subbed not the dubbed version. I am not usually picky about that kind of thing. I often watch the dubs even when I know they're sorta shoddy and just deal with the not-so-amazing voice actors because I'm lazy. I'm a terrible person and I mutilate art.

But in this case, please, please, please do not do that. I actually went back and rewatched the episodes I did watch dubbed when I realised what a terrible mistake I was making. The problem is that Anthy, a pivotal character, whose emotional arc completely depends on being able to tell whether she means what she's saying or she's faking it via her tone of voice, is voiced by an awful voice actress. I don't know if she's just plain bad or had weird direction or what, but she acts like a cheerful, vacant Stepford Wife the entire time. Like during explosively personal, painful scenes, she's like...Barney the Dinosauring, "I'm sorry! I caused you so much pain! Silly old me!" Argh.

Just...for your own sanity, use the sub.

Also, I have discovered that Welcome to Night Vale and Revolutionary Girl Utena make the most beautiful mashups. I am completely obsessed with the perfection of this tumblr. It honestly makes me feel like I understand RG:U better. Which...probably tells you something about its storytelling style.

Anyway.

It has been too long since I posted, and now this post is also too long. So I bid you all sweet dreams.