This Blog Wiggles it's Hips.

[baltears]

happy wot wednesday. wouldnt it be so fucking crazy if we all spent 50 bucks of our precious hard earned capital to vote for road to the spear in the hugo awards before voting closes on august 8. only if we can comfortably afford it obvi. link

[mister-dancer]

What If…? Uncanny X-Men #1 answers a burning question

What If...? Uncanny X-Men #1 explores a world where Cyclops returns to Madelyne Pryor after the events of "Inferno." It doesn't go well.

I'm sadly not shocked to read that this "What If...?" fails again at the "Madelyne Pryor is actually a compelling character to write" sweepstakes that even Stephanie Phillips fell into, recently.

I don't think it's wise to see Marvel as a monolith with one opinion on Pryor. I do think it's true, though, that the people in Marvel who oversee and decision works, fail here.

I think creatives of my generation, people who grew up with Clairemont, see the potential. It's why she came back, why she was given leads in books, why Krakoa-era Maddie was allowed to be both hot mess and oddly endearing. These creative see the Goblin Queen not as a plain villian, not even as a "edgy" Anti-Villain/Anti-Hero, but as a person who carries a weight of emotionally-charged events few other fictional characters in comics have had.

Indeed: The Goblin Queen is Marvel's Lilith, right down to the demon consorting and baby-sacrificing. I kind of get the problem, as a result: it's easy to fall into hyper-Christianist modes of thinking, when confronted with someone fictional who matches that well.

But Madelyne is not a demon. She is a woman who went thru unimaginable horrors -- we forget she was among the X-Men who 1st encountered Genosha, the literal Mutant Enslavement country. If she broke, she did so for well-explained reasons that many future "bad girl" iterations fail to flesh out. Pryor didn't have One Bad Day, or even the typical "bad upbringing". She had a great life, and then in the course of a few years, it was shown to be a lie, and event after event tore her to pieces.

So when I read this about this What If? I get the sense the writer of this tale doesn't grasp this:

That’s where my problems with the story’s construction begin, because that emotional weight here is meat left on the bone. It’s not just Scott’s guilt, but it’s also Maddie’s rage at the betrayal, and presumably her own sense of guilt or shame post-”Inferno” — how do you wake up the morning after something like that? How do you go about your day? Do you make yourself some coffee? Stand on the front porch, wave to the newspaper boy? How do you process the incongruity of being willing and able to burn the entire world and then simply living in it? We won’t find out, at least not in this issue.

Maddie works for us because of the emotional weight she, and the other people involved, are carrying into and even after Inferno. It's why her tale has stuck with this specific Cis Het Black Boy all these many years, why I don't see The Goblin Queen's outfit as objectifying in and of itself, why her journey to ruling Limbo really matters.

That, in this tale, the rage is mostly displaced to Jean -- what? Why can't they both be angry? Can you imagine a Marvel 'verse where both live, and both live thru and act out their fury to come to terms with how to live in a world both see as broken? How Scott might actually have to grow and change and (gasp!) evolve to meet the two women he loves where they are?

Because, and I'll not say to avoid spoilers, but Scott does get to get angry here, too. And that tell you something.

That tells you that Madelyne Pryor, the Cunt-serving, queer-as-fuck character, does not get to be angry this Pride. Jean -- her tightly-controlled version who's never allowed to serve cunt, does. Her so-hetero-it hurts Hubby, also deficient in cunt, does.

I'm reading into this review, yes. But it's a reading I'll stand by, because we need more stories like the Goblin Queen, and fewer stories where only the Straights, like me, get to get angry at an unjust world.

Justice for Maddie.

[anxiousbiscuit]

I was talking about Sherlock Holmes with my cool weird 42 year old coworker the other day and he said that he had read other works by ACD but not any Sherlock Holmes. ACD is smiling down from heaven on his one and only true fan.

[mister-dancer]

For a bit of context for people wondering what's the big deal -- Sir ACD got his Knighthood for a history of the Boer War (which is, in retrospect, really ugly). He also wrote basically proto-pulp with Professor Challenger. That said, he preferred his historical works to Holmes, and yes this is what precipitated him trying to kill Sherlock Holmes.

During his lifetime, although Holmes was the Big Seller, his other works were, pace the Knighthood, clearly respected. It's only with the passage of time that we've forgotten everything save Sherlock.

[thedarktowerdames]

Art Edit Credit to (X)

[depsidase]

[remyjay17]

I love watching Leverage Redemption and joining the entire cast and audience in collectively pretending that Aldis Hodge isn't fucking jacked

[heathercollinsmd]

Josh Johnson in Charlotte (posted 4/21/26)

[jess-abides]

This is it, this is the one

[just-another-cat-blog]

pride month!!!

[lemonsharks]

Is that a miette?

[jeanjauthor]

Pride for you!  Pride for a thousand years!!

[lost-and-cursed]

you COME OUT to miette? you come out to her as queer? oh! oh! pride for mother! pride for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!

[chimaerakitten]

So we all talk about being in fandoms for things that are charmingly bad, and being able to acknowledge that they’re charmingly bad. But of course some people are in fandoms for things that are Actually Amazing. There are people out there who write fanfiction for The Best Science Fiction Novel Of The Twentieth Century. Or who draw fanart exclusively of The Best Movie of All Time. And there are even more people who are in fandoms for things that are Actually Pretty Good, which is not quite amazing but is closer to it than to Charmingly Bad.

And sometimes, you have a string of fandoms that are Actually Pretty Good. And the danger of this—the very great danger—is that when you have a string of Actually Pretty Good and even Actually Amazing obsessions, you start to believe that maybe you have taste. Perhaps you are now immune to the indignities of losing it over something mostly bad.

And then it is shattering to discover that no, bad things can still stick a fork in your brain. 😔

[chimaerakitten]

So I understand why the “transformative fandom gathers around things that are not good because there being a problem makes people desire to fix it” model is popular. I even agree that it’s accurate in many if not most cases. However it is not what this post is about. Plenty of people do transformative and creative fandom activities for things that are very, very good. Simplified models do not encompass everything.

And frankly, it’s starting to really get on my nerves when people read “I think this thing is good. I wouldn’t change a thing about it and frankly I don’t even think there should be more canon added to it, but I am still going to write thousands of words of fic, make a cosplay, and draw fanart” and then completely misunderstand and respond with “yes I agree—I like things that are good too. But I never feel the transformative/creative fandom instinct for them because they are too good.”

Some people do not feel it. Other people do. Stop misreading me to avoid having to adjust your mental model of how fandom works.

[blessphemy]

one of the ways a Canon work can be fandom bait is by missing something that fans want to fix, i.e. "it's bad", but i think this is only one way out of multiple that something can be fandom bait.

compelling worldbuilding (invites interaction with the setting)

interesting gimmick (see: daemons, drift compatibility. subcategory of compelling worldbuilding)

shipping bait (duh)

original character bait (in-universe categories/factions and design elements that make it fun for people to create their own characters)

compelling narrative (invites interaction and tweaks to the storyline: AUs and fixits and so on)

basically anything that invites interaction and recombination. but fandom also has a sort of multiplying effect: the larger the interactive audience of fandom is, the more likely it is to generate ideas and works that draw in more participants. so:

network effect (the larger the established fandom, the more likely it has subfandoms and infrastructure that appeals to niche audiences)

[chimaerakitten]

Yes this exactly, thank you bless.

Things that have space to play in are fandom bait, but space to play in does not equal holes.

[anexperimentallife]

[disarmluna]

[chernobog13]

The thing of it is, I can actually see these guys having that argument.

[arcanetrivia]

[Image description: A series of screencaps from Star Trek: Deep Space 9, of Julian Bashir, Miles O'Brien, and Worf son of Mogh. Made-up subtitles have been added so that they are having the following conversation about the TV show "Xena, Warrior Princess":

Bashir: Actually, Xena is my favorite Klingon story. O'Brien: But Xena isn't a Klingon story. Bashir: A fierce warrior traveling through space, challenging the Gods themselves to battle, is very Klingon. O'Brien: But Xena isn't in space, Julian. Xena is on Earth! Bashir: And whereabout is Earth located? Worf: The doctor is correct, and Xena fights with great honor. Bashir: (looks smug)

/end description]

[spellcast1ng]

why have shipping wars when you have polyamory

[flungoutofspace028]

season 1 and 2 of Rizzoli & Isles is so peak. they were so gay for each other. I mean, they are always gay for each other but ESPECIALLY in the early seasons. don't even get me started on their beef in early season 3. where was the enemies to lovers arc???? rip rizzles.

[kazbrekkeratemyson]

I remember reading the original Sherlock Holmes stories as a kid and thinking "I bet everybody called each other 'my dear' back in the day, this was just how people talked" and then as an adult subsequently read a bunch of other lit from the period and realized No The Fuck They Did Not

[moroniccats]

I mean yes they did in every other piece I’ve read form then period. But also thise bitches gay.

[bat-bleed]

Give him a solo dc