Mainly created to have somewhere to post in relation to my Ao3 account (The_Librarian). I am not actually a librarian, though I have been mistaken for an orangutan.
I thought it might be useful, for me and for you, dear reader, to have some sort of index for everything that's populated this blog over the past few years. Thus, here is a list of links to the musings and ramblings of one bi Englishman.
(I am of the generation taught to be extremely leery about sharing personal details on the internet but I fear the cat is out of the bag on at least these aspects of my positionality.)
Iron-Blooded Orphans
My obsession with this show is extremely deep and I have written a lot of words about it. So much, in fact, that I need to spin off into a couple of sub-indexes.
Iron-Blooded Orphans fanfic index
Iron-Blooded Orphans meta index
Gundam franchise stuff
Managing multiple Gundams (conversation with @gremoria411)
Why I really like Gundam X
Definitive Gundam rankings (per my enjoyment levels)
My opinion on Witch From Mercury (extends above)
Detailed and accurate summary of the Gundam protagonists
Requiem for Vengeance and stylistic choices
A spotter's guide to Char Clones
Extensive additions to the above because of course
A note on Judau Ashta (Gundam ZZ)
A note on Mashymre Cello and fascism (Gundam ZZ)
Judau and the absence of romance in Gundam ZZ
On Gundam 00, SEED and eugenics
A look at Haman Karn's presentation
Corrigendum on above
Char's Deleted Affair is atrocious and should be fired into the sun
And here's how to do it right
A review (urgh) of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX
Mecha anime
In which I rave about Fafner in the Azure
In which I quit 86 EIGHT-SIX because of the Nazi shit
In which I am too old for Gurren Lagann
In which I get terribly annoyed at SDF Macross
In which I have nothing to say about MOSPEADA
In which I find Fang of the Sun: Dougram a mixed bag
(No really you need to see the character design for this show)
In which I discover Aldnoah.Zero is really quite poor
In which I enjoyed Star Driver very much indeed
In which I say nice things about Eureka Seven
In which I'm not sure how to describe Simoun (but it's good)
In which Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These isn't for me
Doctor Who
A short essay about Cybermen
Why I'm not currently active in Who fandom
Writing and fandom
Me vs romance (conversation with @caparrucia)
On silliness
20 years writing fanfic
The 'not your pub' approach to entitlement
Queer content is not a metric for judging a story's quality
I think one of the problems with the way we talk about media in fandom is that we often say "canon" when we really mean "the text". What is and is not canon is at least partly a question of authority and merit, and will inevitably be litigated as such, but you're going to arrive at some very strange conclusions if you try to use the same tools to litigate what is and is not present in the text.
Sometimes you've gotta take a step back from questions of canonicity as such and ask more fundamental questions like "okay, that's a fascinating interpretation, but what actual words that physically appear on the page* do we have to support it?"
* or whatever the equivalent for the media at hand is
Yeah okay there are like 11 species of heron native to the USA and yes fine I’ve only managed to spot 10 of those species. You might think I’m bitter about that one species evading me but I’m not. I’m actually the Least Bittern person about it in the entire world
“Cave Johnson here. I’ve received complaints from anonymous employees that our support of the “homosexual lifestyle” is “degenerate” and “irresponsible”. It really got me thinking and I think I found a solution. So good news! We now have 23 vacated positions reserved for members of the LGBT community. Additional good news, we began a new testing initiative on evolutionary degenration with 23 test subjects all ready to go.“
“Cave Johnson here. If you’re experiencing a time loop in which you’re repeating the month of June over and over, that’s totally intentional. We at Aperture Science felt that pride month was not long enough and so we created this loop to let employees experience as much pride as they feel like. To get out of this loop, simply use the pod labeled “Time Machine” in Shaft 6 and then either kill or save the baby on the other end depending on when in the loop you’re on. Don’t worry about the baby’s identity, he grows up to be an asshole.“
“Cave Johnson here, happy to announce that our Rainbow Gel project was a massive success. We have developed distinct gels in every color of the rainbow pride flag. In fact, it was too much of a success, so we’ll be updating our pride flag accordingly to include 75 new colors corresponding to all of our new gels. Word of advice, though, don’t stare at the flag for too long, most of these colors haven’t been tested on human eyes yet.”
“Cave Johnson here. Caroline just informed me that I am her “beard”. I checked, and I fail to see how I could possibly have grown out of her face. If anybody knows anything about human-to-facial hair transmogrification, please report to my office.”
“Cave Johnson here. Friendly reminder that Aperture employees living prior to the legalization of gay marriage are invited to use our Aperture Science Temporal Matrimony Pod in order to travel to the future with your same-sex partner and get married there. Employees from the future who wish to return to a time before gay people being able to marry are also welcome to use the pod and we’ll make sure to send you to an era well before gay marriage. I’m thinking maybe Late Cretacesous.”
“Cave Johnson here. I’m proud to announce that our plan to hire only female test subjects to prevent them from flirting with our female scientists has been a resounding failure.”
“Cave Johnson here. I’m afraid we’ll have to temporarily pause all experimentation with the Gender Affirmation Beam. The testing itself is going great, the beam is working. But we’re starting to run out of thigh high socks and khaki shorts.”
“Cave Johson here. Shafts 10 through 14 are currently under lockdown due to a meltdown in the Neopronoun Syntheizer. The transphobes up in DC might call that ‘a disaster in the making’ but I call it a win for diversity! That being said most of these pronouns are radioactive so do watch out.”
Cave Johnson here. If you feel a sudden sense of elation and contentness when putting on your new Aperture Science unisex uniform, that is not Gender Euphoria! That’s a hallucinogenic fungus taking over your brain. Take the uniform off immediately and throw it in the nearest incinerator.”
“Cave Johnson here. I won’t tolerate any misgendering of the interdimensional invaders swarming the facility! Their pronouns are they/them and we’re ought to respect that. We’re also ought to shoot them on sight since they’re extremely hostile and bent on enslaving our planet.”
“Cave Johnson here. To all of my suitors and secret admirers: Thank you, honestly I’m flattered. Unfortunately for you, I don’t swing that way. Or any way. I only swing where the wrecking ball of science takes me. Usually into a brick wall.”
“Cave Johnson here. I’ve been thinking. We have gay pride, and we have gender envy. What other deadly sins can we incorporate? Maybe bisexual sloth? Lesbian wrath? I’ll talk to the lab boys about it.”
“Cave Johnson here. Update: The Lesbian Wrath project is postponed indefinitely. My condolences to the families of the deceased. Though let’s be honest, they probably had it coming.”
“Cave Johnson here. For the last time! “I’m reclaiming the slur” is not a valid excuse to shout out loud the killer androids’ activation codes! We picked that word for a reason.“
“Cave Johnson here. I’d like to apologize to Floor 194 Safety Supervisor Doug Blakely for firing him after allegations that he was forcing employees back in the closet. I was not aware that said closet was a literal storage closet for zombified Aperture employees. To make it up to Doug, he’ll be allowed to feed Floor 194 HR Manager Lisa Briant to the closet zombies if he so chooses.”
”Cave Johnson here. A reminder that next year Transgender Day of Visibility falls on Extradimensional Day of Visibility. The lab boys are cautioning me to caution you to be prepared. Do not confuse transgender and transdimensional! Big mistake.“
“Cave Johnson here. To all cishet Aperture employees who volunteered for the ‘Get More Woke’ program, please report to your department’s OR at the nearest convenience to get the alarm clocks surgically removed from your spinal cord. Aperture Science apologizes for the misunderstanding.”
“Cave Johnson here. Dr. Barnaby from Cyborg Engineering is an attack helicopter. That’s not a transphobic joke, by the way, they literally transformed themselves into an amalgam of human and helicopter. Impressive. Unauthorized, of course, but still impressive. Anyway, we lost track of them, so everyone watch the sky for a mad scientist with blue rotors and machine guns.”
“Cave Johnson here. To the joker who added ‘make the sun gay’ to our quarterly agenda, I hope you’re pleased with yourself. The Astrophysics Department is tearing itself apart with half of them shouting that you can’t make the sun gay and the other half screaming that the sun is already gay. Either way, we’re not doing it.”
“Cave Johnson here. The congressional delegation of Senator Patrick Johnson (no relation) to inspect our facilities had to be cut short due to a mishap with the Gender Affirmation Beam. I’d like to apologize on behalf of Aperture Science to Senator Johnson and her staff.”
“Cave Johnson here. Just the other day, our sign guy asked me ‘Cave, don’t you think LGBTQIA2S+ is a tad too long?’ and I told him ‘First of all, that’s Mr. Johnson to you! And secondly, I actually think it’s not long enough!’ and that’s why I’m adding an ’&’ to the acronym. Don’t know what it stands for yet, but I’ll figure it out.”
“Cave Johnson here. You already know that here in Aperture Science we’re all about gender affirming care. We’ve been at the forefront of hormone replacement therapy since before we knew what these hormones do. You also know that here in Aperture Science we’re all about not getting sued. So everyone be quiet about our role in the Estrogen Cola disaster.”
“Cave Johnson here. So far, we received 832 submissions to our Homophobia Remover design competition. Unfortunately, 829 had to be disqualified for being a schematic of a gun. Objectively hilarious, but not what we’re looking for. Wait, the lab boys just got another submission: and… it’s another gun. Keep at it, folks.”
“Cave Johnson here. Using a set of genetically identical triplets and a molecular combinizer, we just proved scientifically that being bisexual isn’t the same as being half-straight and half-gay. Now we just need to figure out how to separate Craigstopher back into his component brothers.”
the thing about colonialism (or any form of oppression really) is that colonizers might often be perceived as “the reasonable ones”. to them, the issue is not as important and relevant, they’re happy to say that “everyone has their own truths” and “we can be friends despite political disagreements”. meanwhile for the oppressed it's often a matter of life and death, and when it comes to that, people will be angry. learn nuance, don't find yourself valuing collected demeanor above radical righteousness
I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter was one of the best works of sci-fi of our generation and one of the best works of transgender fiction ever written, and there are world renowned authors who still have successful careers after they publicly assassinated the nascent woman who wrote it. I don't think they should ever know peace.
I think this constantly and then I get angry for thinking it, because trans women should not have to be martyrs or saints to animate our politics and our art. that work should have been her debut, not her epitaph. I should be moved by her career, not her absence. I could spit.
“You feel the bulge in his pants” - implies that you are feeling some guy’s penis, may be sexy depending on context
“You feel the bugle in his pants” - implies that this guy has a military horn in his pants, invites confusing questions like why does he have that and how big are his pockets