She/her, Codee. JonMartin, IronStrange, Parkner, Bakudeku, Tododeku, and many more. Also hi Iâm a medical resident, happy to act as a consult if youâre writing medical scenes! Find me on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Codee21/works
SPOILERS for the finale of Rusty Quill Gaming (episode 218)
Okay so hear me out.
I think Wilde used his connection to the Garden of Yerlik to send Zolf to confront Myriad in the finale.
Why I think this:
1) It would explain why Wilde came up behind Zolf just before they were attacked at the end of 217 to whisper âweâve got thisâ. Why else would he put himself in harms way and be so confident in reassuring Zolf when it was obvious that they were all about to get BBQâed?
2) It would explain how Zolf got to Myriad. When asked why theyâd summoned the party there, Myriad was confused as to why Zolf had shown up. They explicitly state that theyâd called Cel, Hamid, and Azu, but they were unsure why or how Zolf had appeared there.
And okay this is more meta but 3) It would make Wildeâs reversed death more important to the story, and we know that Alex likes the âChekovâs gunâ philosophy of story planning. It connects what they learned about the plants in the Garden of Yerlik - and really the entire Russia arc - to the final battle.
So, thoughts? Feel free to reblog btw, I want to hear other peoplesâ takes!
Okay so Iâm reblogging this now that the RQG feed is officially dark. I feel like this question never got answered? Someone please correct me if Iâm wrong, I have trouble keeping up between the official q&as, the information leaking into discord servers (still donât have a link to ordinateurs btw so if someone could drop that Iâd greatly appreciate it), etc etc.
If it indeed has not been answered/addressed, it is officially canon for me now
once i dreamt that i was watching a documentary film in high school english class called 'the best pig at watching'. it opened on a pig staring motionlessly at something offscreen. a narrator said 'this is the best pig at watching'. it then was struck by lightning and the narrator said 'the best pig at watching has died. i now take you to the second best pig at watching'. the documentary went tn another pig that was afloat on like an ice floe in an ocean, staring at something offscreen. then the ice floe sank and the narrator said 'oh dear. we now take you to the third best pig at watching' and it just continued like that with various pigs in dangerous situations staring off-camera until they died, to which the narrator reacted with mild disappointment and taking the camera to the next pig. this just kept happening until i woke up
this isnât fair i was sitting right next to nat (op) when he posted this do i not get any secondhand clout because i was too busy playing ffxiv to participate in the beanie baby documentary
gamers these days will be like âohhh i must queue up to make my bunny boy fight elfsâ or whatever and will not simply Look Up and gaze into the expressive eyes of a beanie right on their tv⊠#society
the body is wild because all that shit just kind of grows there in a semirandom way, so it's not even consistent from person to person, but it doesn't get tangled up too badly because it's all held in place by bodymeat like a vascular aspic. which sounds good but it means it's really hard to replace anything, because you're not supposed to. it's just another example of how planned obsolescence encourages waste
Like if my vascular system was at least colored in brown, blue and yellow-green so the next person after me knows what the fuck is what that would be respectful, but no, whoever did this worked like a jackass.
Okay so thank you for not being mad. My sister picked my favorite section of my favorite chapter, and she drew this Yuuri herself and I love this so much. It starts the moment Viktor turns up in Detroit.
I was given permission to share, so I'm sharing!
This is INCREDIBLE! I đđđđđđđđđ it so so so much!
I actually zoomed in and read some of the background too! đ This was one of my favorite parts to write, and I was really pleased with how this chapter came out.
Here, have a Web!Martin plot bunny that Iâll never finish. I had a lot planned out though so if youâre interested, ask me questions and Iâll fill in plot points!
Even general questions like âhow would the rest of the events from the podcast unfold?â or âwhat excited you most about this AU?â are welcome, please just let me talk about this baby I will never finish
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
This looks like a shitpost but itâs actually solid advice, like, if you want to achieve a goal you have to pace yourself and be patient instead of expecting too much too soon and then giving up
As much as it isn't fun to hear Jon yelling at Martin, the end part of Mag 56 is so hilarious to me.
Listen, there is NO evidence to support Martin's claim about lying on his CV, and frankly it's kind of a weak cover story. You are required to show proof of your qualifications when you get a new job on the strength of them - not to mention ID - and even though on a relisten we know Martin's telling the truth and that Elias has his own reasons for hiring Martin, Jon doesn't know any of that. There's nothing to back up Martin's story and given how paranoid Jon's been since Prentiss, not to mention the fact that his specific concerns about Martin were that he might be hiding his own cunning behind the image of someone bumbling and soft (Jonathan "right for the wrong reasons" Sims strikes again) it is wild to me that he accepts this so quickly.
It's almost as though he's eager for Martin to be innocent, even though everything he's previously said about him would indicate that he'd rather it was Martin than Tim or Sasha, the assistants he respects professionally and likes on a personal level. It's so easy to picture him just blue-screening while poor Martin sits there expecting to be fired/screamed at again.
Martin: Okay, that's the truth, do your worst. Jon? Jon??
Jon, internally: Martin's innocent Martin lied to Elias but not me Martin didn't kill Gertrude Martin's safe Martin's still my friend Martin doesn't want me dead
If youâre a bit confused about Rusty Quill or whatâs been happening, hopefully this will be a handy guide.
Hello everyone, especially all newbies to the Rusty Quill family! I thought Iâd talk a little bit about the company. Thereâs a lot of information out there, some of which may be contradictory or difficult to find, and so I compiled it into what I think is a decent timeline. Iâve also included some of my thoughts on what Rusty Quill has been through, and where itâs going.
(check the end for associated footnotes!)
A Brief And Mostly Objective Timeline For Rusty Quill Ltd.
Alexander J. Newall wanted to start a company for creatives. His father (presumably) laid down the starting capital and Rusty Quill was founded 29th June 2015. Alex owned 99% of the company, John Newall, 1%. (1)
Alex reached out to a bunch of his improv friends and asked if they would participate in an actual-play podcast. Alex hadnât seen a fully produced actual-play with sound effects and background music and he wanted to fill that niche in the market. James Ross, Bryn Monroe, and Lydia Nicholas all agreed. Tim Meredith was otherwise engaged, but said his brother Ben would be up for it. Rusty Quill Gaming (RQG) was born and started airing episodes in June 2015.
Meanwhile, besides running, editing, producing, directing, and mastering RQG, Alex also worked nights at an extremely boring data entry job James Ross set up for him. James also helped Jonny Sims get that same job (2). At the time, Jonny was playing gigs with his band The Mechanisms, but his passion was for writing. The Mechanisms were a folk band that reimagined classic stories/myths to music with hefty narrative pieces, which has obvious applicability to a podcast company. Because of this fortuitousness, sometime in 2013-14, Alex and Jonny met and found that they were both highly creative people who desperately wanted out of this job. Jonny invited Alex to a Mechanisms show at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Alex loved The Mechs show. He was convinced he must work with Jonny on something. Jonny had a few ideas and pitched what would become The Magnus Archives, though it was first more of a Twilight Zone anthology, which is why the ânarratorâ had Jonnyâs name. Alex wanted to add more of a narrative framework and they shaped it together, all five seasons, so that it was cohesive the whole way through. Some things did, organically, pop up later. For instance, Martin started mainly as a foil to Jon, and only became the love interest after a bit of writing.
Around 2018, Patreon funding eventually allowed RQ to build a studio in Rusty Towers that enabled them to record their high-quality audio (3). Before that, they were - at various times - recording in a âyurtâ made of blankets and duvets for most of season one (usually at James Rossâ house or Martynâs hallway, since Alex was - at that point - intermittently homeless due to asbestos problems).(4)
In 2016, RQ set up the Rusty Quill Forums, an official RQ fan-space where fans could interact with each other and RQ members. (5) This early arena for interaction would precipitate the more immediate (and much larger) Discord, Rusty Quill Official. Anil Godigamuwe, Community Manager, was the main force behind running and moderating the forums.
2016 was also the year that Mike Lebeau decided to gather a few people to play games and raise money for charity in what would become the predecessor to Rusty Quill Giving and Gaming. This event involved only Mike, Bryn, Ben, Anil, and Martyn Pratt (Chief Technology Officer). It only lasted twelve hours and they raised ÂŁ700. (6)
Late 2017, Rusty Quill, in association with Historic Royal Palaces, released Outliers, a historical fiction podcast. Probably the least known of RQâs podcasts, but very good and well-done. (Yes, this is a plug for Outliers. Go listen! Itâs great!)
In 2018, the Rusty Quill Official Discord server (RQO) went live and most of the fans from the forums moved there. (7)
February 15, 2019, Stellar Firma, the improv comedy sci-fi show starring Tim and Ben Meredith, began airing.
Mike wanted to explore more of the video side of creating. On January 25, 2020, RQ Streams launched, and soon there was a decent amount of content generated on RQâs Twitch channel. Video content would gain traction in the form of New Player Challenge (NPC). Many RQ members would stream, including Anil, Autumn, several editors, and Helen Gould (member of Rusty Quill Gaming and later promoted to Head of Inclusion). RQ Streams wasnât fiscally sound as a primary source of income, but streaming helped encourage community engagement.
In February 2020, Alex gave an interview to Haggis and Dragons at PodUK. The host asked why, despite their success, Rusty Quill hadnât been present at many events such as PodUK before. Alex responded that the company was dedicated to making sure they took care of their people first, but now that all the finicky backend admin stuff was finished, they could do fun things like conventions. (8)
A month later, COVID-19 shut down the world.
At this point, TMA had been running for four years, and - while relatively successful and critically admired- was still a smallish podcast, especially when measured against engagement levels of other fiction podcasts at the time. Whether COVID, the whim of Tumblr, or a spark that refused dim, the fuse on TMA had been lit. It would jump sharply with the season four finale in Halloween 2019, but when season five premiered on April 2, 2020, TMA was at its second highest peak in popularity , its highest only a month away. It would maintain a high level of engagement until the series finale in March 2021. (9) Whatever the reason, TMA had exploded, and no one couldâve predicted it.
In July 2020, Hannah Brankin, Chief Operations Officer and spouse of Alex Newall, became a director in the Rusty Quill company. (10)
In August 2020, Autumn Jarvis (longtime fan of RQ) with a history of convention organization came on as Community Assistant. (11) This role promoted her to Head Moderator of the Discord (RQO), coordinating communication between the Discord mods and RQ admin. RQ hired her to help Anil, as at this point, RQO had nearly 8000 members.
The official Rusty Quill Discord server (RQO) went from a reasonable 1000 participants to nearly 14,000 before its shutdown in September 2021. In August 2020 (a few days after Autumn took over), a group raided RQO, proclaiming issues of racism, ableism, and other accusations directed at Rusty Quill, but also at the volunteer mods. It was the only major attack, but from time to time small incursions would occur thereafter. RQOâs many mods (at least 11, at one point) were unpaid. Whether or not that was a good business decision is debatable, but mods were responsible for monitoring content that was Patreon-exclusive, so one might think a Patreon subscription shouldâve been included.
April 2, 2021, Patreon-exclusive Inexplicables began airing. The show was initially met with a lot of positive feedback and excitement. The RQO channels were full of theorizing and chat, which Alex could be seen reading. While Inexplicables seemed ripe for a sequel, there have been no indications of future content.
In May of 2021, Rusty Quill launched the Rusty Quill Network. Many felt the network wasnât explained sufficiently, but subsequent clarification from Autumn verified that RQ was not doing any of the following for the new shows that would be included under the networkâs umbrella: producing, funding, editing, or creating. Apparently, the RQN was designed to act as a distribution and collective bargaining service. Unfortunately, this aspect was never made explicit to the fans by official RQ channels.
In September of 2021, Autumn was terminated. While Autumn has stated the reason she was terminated, it was on a private server and because RQ has made no official statement regarding the termination, I wonât share that information. RQ did ask if she would like to appeal the decision, but Autumn declined. Later, the mods organized a walkout in protest and quit. Only the mod known as Crunchy remained, and was the last one to close out the server. Later, he would admit that the mods actively decided not to include him in this decision. (12) RQ released a statement on September 15, 2021 regarding the closing of the Discord and the mod walk-out, and RQO has been dark ever since. (13)
RQ Streams, itâs worth mentioning at this point, also relied on the Discord mods to moderate the chat during streams. Ultimately, when the mods walked out, RQ Streams was also forced to stop.
Since the mod walkout, any events run and sponsored by RQ have been modded by volunteers, and usually small enough that it hasnât become an issue (RQGG21 being modded by some Discord mods, with other Gather events modded mostly by RQ employees).
April 26, 2022, Chapter and Multiverse, the analogous successor to Rusty Quill Gaming run by Maddy Searle, the former lead editor of Stellar Firma, began airing. It would conclude its first season in August. While RQ has indicated that C&M will continue, it has been postponed until 2023. However, Maddy Searle posted a tweet (since deleted) indicating she is no longer employed at Rusty Quill. After claims that Maddy was reprimanded and forced to take down the tweet, RQ would later clarify that they have a 48 hour confidentiality policy regarding things like that, and thatâs why they requested the removal of the tweet for that time. Maddy hasnât reposted the tweet, or commented publicly on her reasons for doing so.Â
On June 10, 2022, Mike announced he was leaving Rusty Quill. (14) Although others had also streamed on RQâs Twitch in the past, he was the primary force driving its relevance and the channel has remained mostly unused since the aforementioned Discord mod walkout, most likely citing lack of moderation as a main concern.
August 2, 2022, the original RQ production Trice Forgotten premiered. Trice Forgotten continues to update.
As per the September 21, 2022 Patreon email, Cry Havoc! and Neon Inkwell, the other RQ original productions, have been postponed to 2023. (29)
With their three original podcasts completed and many future projects postponed, Rusty Quill had reached a quiescent stage. Patreon emails were sparse and while RQ maintained a loyal base, activity around the company had slowed.
Then -
October 10th, 2022 a string of strange letters appeared in a Patreon email. (15) Fandom quickly deduced that it wasnât a mistake, but rather a cipher. A Discord server dedicated to cracking the code sprang up almost immediately and fandom deciphered the cryptic letters in a few hours. This began a mini-ARG leading to the announcement of a Magnus Archives âside-quelâ: The Magnus Protocol. On a subsequent livestream, Alex confirmed the sequel and announced that the project would be fully funded by a Kickstarter. No money would be taken from Patreon, current or proposed shows, income generated through ads, agreements, merch, RQN residuals, etc. (16)
The Magnus Protocol Kickstarter launched November 22. It was fully funded in less than one minute, and as-of publishing this post is currently at ÂŁ 624,268, 4162% of their original goal. Release for the project is expected in October 2023 and is said to follow two British civil servants, Alice and Sam, as they deal with the legacy of the burned-down Magnus Institute of Manchester. Curious, as the Magnus Institute from the original series was very much based in London. (17)
On December 12, 2022, Newt Schottelkotte - marketing director for the Fable and Folly podcast network - released an opinion article on Medium detailing several allegations against Rusty Quill. (18) Schottelkotte submitted the article to several publications that declined to publish it. They decided to self-publish on Medium, which allows for independent publication. In good faith, I wonât presume this was a targeted attack by another network, but rather the opinion of a contingent of industry professionals who tried to represent those allegedly wronged by Rusty Quill as a production company (perhaps taking advantage of the timing of the new Kickstarter to gain traction for their post - but that one can only leave to speculation). The testimonies were anonymous.
December 13, 2022, after a resulting influx of polarizing social media posts, RQ released an official response to the Medium article, refuting most points raised. (19)
Now, before I get into less fact-based territory, and knowing RQ intends to announce a more recent Operations Update in the new year, I feel itâs relevant going forward to mention that for all the talk surrounding both sides of the story, the composition of Rusty Quill is not as large as some might think, considering the assumptions of some of the claims. In 2021 the company conducted a voluntary internal census on company makeup and satisfaction. (20) At the time they had 28 employees. 23 responded, and here are a few interesting tidbits they had to say:
91% identify as Neurodivergent
30% identify as non-cisgender; 48% identify as female, 26% as male, and 26% as not exclusively one of those categories
30% are people of color
30% identify as bisexual, 9% pansexual, & 9% queer. 26% identify as heterosexual. These numbers may or may not include the 17% who identify as asexual.
This census doesnât include individual contractors (which comprises most of their editors and voice actors). In the census, RQ recognized their huge deficit in hiring people of color. RQ maintains a flat pay structure across all departments (including leadership), which - thanks to Patreon funding - stands above the London cost of living rate. (21)
 - fay & fable (company competing w/ RQ) marketing person posts an article about RQ mismanagement & exploitation (https://medium.com/@newtschott/whos-afraid-of-alex-j-newall-ae3a67f3a5e1)
- the article didnât state that the author was a marketing person at f&f until they were called out for not stating it; it was then edited in
- they cite approximately three sources in total, mostly coming back to unverifiable anonymous RQ affiliates (ex employees, people who were offered a position, etc)
- tal, not affiliated w/ f&f says this isnât a marketing thing, was run past two editors and multiple lawyers
- thereâs some truth in the article, mostly a lot of plausible but unverifiable things, and some plain misinformation / bad faith readings [i.e; article states that "thereâs a very good chance that the list on Kickstarter of stretch goal guest writers may be the totality of the people in the audio fiction indie world that have still not had an experience with Rusty Quill.â this is provably false; many of the guest writers have RQ podcasts or have interacted with RQ before
 - ben meredith retweeted the article w/o comment; not sure what heâs agreeing with
- malevolent podcastâs official twitter posted âI donât know much but I will say that if you decide to stop listening to my show; a show I work so very hard on, because of an article that presumptively and poorly attempts to speak for me, then I think youâre hurting the thing you intend to be helping.â https://twitter.com/MalevolentCast/status/1602441871992782849?s=20&t=Z_86aECzgsdU9OgtfoiU6g
- the creator(? correct if wrong) of The Town Whispers and Tiny Terrors tweeted:Â âWhat do I say here? I work day and night on @TheTownWhispers & @tinyterrorspod. I personally create, fund, produce, and direct my shows. What a shame to see someone speak on behalf of what I and others have built for years at our own expense dominate the conversation. No one reached out to me about âthe articleâ ahead of time, no one asked me if I consented to be spoken for, I donât appreciate people victimizing me & weaponizing it for personal gain, & I donât appreciate that itâs being passed off as a benevolent act of courage on my behalf.â https://twitter.com/ColeWeev/status/1602447361045065728?s=20&t=aAf1T5fen0FzXuAAllevLA
- woe.begoneâs official twitter tweeted âThe only thing I want to say about The Article is that I am concerned that readers will believe things about my show and my relationship to my network that have not been my experience. I think this is what others mean when they describe feeling âspoken for.ââ https://twitter.com/woebegonepod/status/1602453798332538881
- the cellar letters twitter tweeted âAbout the article:
I am not going to attempt to invalidate anyoneâs thoughts or feelings⊠but I will say that it absolutely does not speak for me or align with my relationship and experiences with the network or anyone involved at the company.
Love you all. Go create stuff.â (https://twitter.com/CellarLetters/status/1602457106271330304)
- an ex mod of the RQ official discord tweeted âthat article skims over the whole community/discord/mods fiasco but I can tell you their attitude toward their staff was just as horrendous as to their volunteersâ (https://twitter.com/brinnanza/status/1602420893669593091?s=20&t=EbapLo6-je805j0h1aX2kw)
- annie (an RQ editor) retweeted âAnyways! Disinformation is as old as news itself. Donât believe everything you read, on the internet or otherwise - especially if you are biased (positively OR negatively) against the speaker/subject. And if you do believe it, be careful not to assume you have the whole story.â https://twitter.com/serhawke/status/1602375132579827713?s=20&t=Q3iAjLLwsdIqYShTKinvHw - this thread also has a useful tweet further up on how to assess the utility of a source:
âPURPOSE - what was it meant to achieve?
ACCURACY - can the facts be proven or disproven?
CONTENT - what does it actually tell you?
LIMITATIONS - what doesnât it tell you? why?
AUTHOR - biased?
DATE - was its publication date âconvenientâ for any reason? firsthand or hearsay?â
It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. Itâs like, what did they expect?
#friendly reminder that I once put my statistics degree to good use and did some calculations about ship ratios#and yes considering the gender ratios of characters#the prevalence of gay ships is completely predictable (via sarahtonin42)
I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to âexplainâ the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course weâre gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.
A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While itâs true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.
(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)
Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other âselfcestâ-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:
Possible F/F ships: 3
Possible F/M ships: 27
Possible M/M ships: 36
TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66
Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, weâd reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.
The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom - and letâs be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women - for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?
Also food for thought: the obvious correction to a lack of non-male representation in a story is to add more non-males. Female Original Characters are often decried as self-insertion or Mary Sues, particular if romance or sex is a primary focus.
This doesnât even account  for the disparity in the amount of screen time/dialogue male characters to get in comparison to female characters, and how much time other characters spend talking about male characters even when they arenât onscreen. This all leads to male characters ending up more fully developed, and more nuanced than female characters. The more an audience feels like they know a character, the more likely an audience is to care about a character. More network television writers are men. Male writers tend to understand men better than women, statistically speaking. Female characters are more likely to be written by men who donât understand women vary well.Â
But itâs easier to blame the collateral damage than solve the root problem.
This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I donât think itâs the sole reason, but I think itâs a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.
In some of my shipping-related stats, I found that shows with more major female characters lead to more femslash (also more het). Â (e.g. femslash in female-heavy media; femslash deep dive) Iâve never actually tried to do an analysis to pin down how much of fandomâs M/M preference is explained by the predominance of male characters in the source media, but Iâm periodically tempted to try to do so.
All great points. Another thing I notice is that many shows are built around the idea that the team or the partner is the most important thing in the universe. Watch any buddy cop show, and half of the episodes have a character on a date that is inevitably interrupted because The Job comes first⊠except âThe Jobâ actually means âMy Partnerâ.
When itâs a male-female buddy show, all of the failed relationships are usually, canonically, because the leads belong together. (Look at early Bones: she dates that guy who is his old friend and clearly a stand-in for him. They break up because *coughcoughhandwave*. That stuff happens constantly.) Male-male buddy shows write the central relationship the exact same way except that they expect us to read it as platonic.
Long before it becomes canon, the potential ship of Mulder/Scully or Booth/Bones or whatever lead male/female couple consumes the fandom. Itâs not about the genders involved. Rizzoli/Isles was like this too.
If canon tells us that no other relationship has ever measured up to this one, why should we keep them apart? Donât like slash of your shows, prissy writers? Then stop writing all of your leads locked in epic One True Love romance novel relationships with their same-sex coworkers. Give them warm, funny, interesting love interests, not cardboard cutoutsâŠ
Iâm going to bring up (invent?) the concept of subjectification.
As in, people gravitate to the characters given the most depth, complexity, and satisfying interactions for their shipping needs, because those characters are most human, and we want the realest characters to play with.
In a lot of media, the most depth gets handed to male characters.
And, oftentimes, even when the screentime and depth and interactions are granted equally well to female characters, there can be a level of, for lack of a better word, dis-authenticity to those female characters: they are pared down, washed out, or otherwise made slightly less themselves than they could be, in the interest of making them decorative, or likeable, or âgood,â or keeping them from upstaging or emasculating their male companions, or just that the writer whose job it is to write them doesnât know how to write women the way they write men.
And you get the characterization equivalent of that comparison chart where so many animated female characters have the same facial features because the animators and designers are so worried about not letting them be ugly.
When you have a group thatâs allowed to be themselves, warts and all, and another group that has to be decorative at all costs, the impression given on some level is that the decorative quality is making up for a shortcoming. That they wouldnât be enough in their own right.
And sometimes that cost is authenticity. The interesting, striking, awe-inspiring, bold and glorious unapologetic selfhood that draws the viewer most particularly to those characters who are unapologetic in their particular existence, standing clear of the generic and bland and unchallenging âsafeâ appearances.
It is authenticity, not beauty, which powers subjectification. The love for a character, not because they are perfect, but because they are them.
They can be pretty, sure. They can be sweet. But being pretty and sweet is not a replacement, and too many female characters have been written by writers who think it is, while the interestâin appearance, in personality, in interactions, in plot developmentâgoes to the men.
And when that happens, well. Surprise, surprise, thatâs where the shipping goes.
Yeah I donât really ship but I do write a fair amount of fanfic, and in most franchises working with the female characters is a chore.
You have to do so much of the work yourself, because the canon left them unfinished, with huge gaps or unexplored contradictions that you have to somehow resolve. Every female character you decide to integrate into your fanwork in some major role constitutes an undertaking in her own right as you patch together an understanding of her sufficient to model a consistent set of reactions and priorities &c.
The dudes just get handed to you. Even the ones whose canon is a mess have properly developed character cores.
That you donât have to unearth and piece together like some sort of volunteer archeologist coming up with theories way more complex than the available artifacts truly support.
