I was hoping it would be me, but I guessed wrong on yours before Mattman guessed wrong on mine. Oh well. I still fooled someone, too. ^_^

I am also shocked that that's a popular thing. Isn't it sort of like getting it on with a boggart? The whole "embodiment of fear" thing?

I'll let someone else guess between the remaining three. {= )

~Neshomeh

3 is real. I didn't read far enough to know why she has the scar on her wrist, but I'm sure it's hilarious. I'll post links to the two real badfics when someone has identified the fake. {= )

~Neshomeh

Northstar. In 2012 Marvel showcased the marriage between Northstar and his husband as the first same-sex marriage ceremony in a comic book.

Bobby Drake was another one.

Other LGBT Comic Characters:

1. Daken (Marvel)
2. Catwoman (DC)
3. Renee Montoya (DC)
4. John Constantine (DC)
5. Mystique (Marvel)
6. Destiny (Marvel)

There are others as well. It really started with both Northstar 2012 and with Batwoman. Both of those has made LGBT characters far more common.

Unfortunately, #1 is a real badfic, and my censoring was legit. Try again? :)

—doctorlit was pretty shocked at how popular Pennywise/reader is on AO3

Otherwise it tries to direct to a sub-directory of the site you're on.

hS

And Birdland's URL is birdland.camp. The Board is messing with the link, sadly...

Fallen London is a thing, as those who frequent the Discord may be aware. In considerably more exciting news, a new game in the same setting, Sunless Skies, is in public beta, and was showcased at EGX this week.

The fantastic platformer N++ is coming to Xbox One very soon now. If you ever played the original flash game, or N+ on the 360, you know the drill. If you never played the flash game... Well, it's free, so play it before you buy this one if you're considering it, so you know what you're in for.

Another event you may not be aware of that happened... In July? Jeez... Is the annual XYZZY Awards! Where the Interactive Fiction Community picks the best IF of the year, commercial or hobbyist, CYOA and Twine stuff to traditional Parser IF ala Zork or Adventure itself. I haven't looked over this year's winners yet, but in last year's awards (for the works of 2015), Birdland, a CYOA Twine affair, swept the categories. I would absolutely suggest playing it, because it is funny and touching and amazing and you can save the world from birds really what more do you WANT?

[takes breath after run-on]

In other news, I somehow managed to miss the release of The Delirium Brief, the newest Laundry Files Novel. The Laundry Files are, of course, excellent, and I cannot recommend them enough.

Postulating a future society in which everyone is free to express entirely who they are on the inside regardless of what parts they have on the outside, is transgenderism still a thing? Or is it mostly or entirely a product of society trying to force people into roles they don't fit based on the shape of their bodies?

Recognizing the answer to this may be different for different people, and not wishing to minimize anyone's experience, as a woman who has never especially bought into "being a girl" per society while being completely comfortable having a female body and being referred to as such, I just wonder.

Is it possible to someday do away with gender and just approach everyone as people with a spectrum of anatomies and interests and means of self-expression, or do we need those categories?

~Neshomeh is curious and likes thought experiments.

I’m gonna say 3, simply because the scar thing sounds to creative, and because she may have a vague resemblance to Rose Potter, though I could be wrong

I'm pretty sure #2 is the real excerpt from the book. I haven't read it myself, but I've read enough Stephen King that I think I can recognize his style. Plus it's got a spaced ellipsis, which is a characteristic of real publishing.

As for which one is the fake... I immediately suspect either #1 or #4, and my instinct says it's #1, precisely because it sounds the least like something doc would write. That's a neat trick with throwing in a censored word replacement, too, but I think it IS a trick. So that's my guess. How'd I do?

~Neshomeh

Three uncanonical Harry Potter spawns:


1) It took all the Slytherin Prince had not to kick Potter as he looked up at him from the dust of the graveyard. "Not so cocky now are you Potter?" He said sneering.

"Not so cocky indeed." Said Vodemort. He was finally finished regenerating. "You have done well Draco." He walked over to Potter. His black cloak swirled elegantly around him. "You were the chosen one mr Potter." He said. "And now you will die." He pointed his wand at Harry and used the killing curse. "Now Draco my son it is time to begin."

"Yes father." Malfoy said. His silver eyes shone with devotion. Finally after all this time pretending to be a weakling and a coward he would finally take his place at his father's side.

Voldemort took out his wand and pressed it against his Dark Mark. "Come to me my death eaters." And they were there the graveyard. Dolahov and Snape. Malfoy and Greyback. And all the rest. "My friends it is good to see you." He said. "It is time for us to step out from the shadows."

"My lord we will do as you say." They said.

Voldemort put a firm white hand on Malfoy's shoulder. "And my son shall lead you."

The Prince smirked. He was going to make them pay. Granger, Weasley and everyone who had mocked him would all pay.


2) A beautiful baby girl was born to two loving parents within the Snape family: Severus and Jaquiline. Both were of pureblooded origins, making the little girl pureblooded as well.

With curly black hair, deep blue eyes, and pale skin, her parents thought her perfect. Her godparents thought the same, as did her best friend (once he was old enough to understand, that is). Everyone who met her was simply enchanted, though she had no control over this.

Betrothal contracts were begged of Severus Snape, but he refused. If his daughter was to marry, it would be for love- as long as her suitor was pure blooded.

Now, the Snape family (which is one of the oldest when it comes to being pureblood) was also of mythical descent; that is to say, of sirenic descent. The song and beauty of the sirens ran through their veins. Their song was enchanting and caught attention of all. Their voice was a power of theirs, but it was not the most important. What was the most important, you ask? One word.

Love.


3) Harry's jaw dropped at the sight of her. She looked Harry's age and had long flaming red hair, matted with blood and water and hazel eyes filled with tears. Her clothes were wet and torn and covered in dirt from the storm, and her face was stained with water droplets, blood, and dirt. Needless to say, she did look like Lily Potter. Except for her eyes. Her eyes were the exact same color as James Potter. Wait...no...her eyes changed. They went from hazel to green, back to hazel.

Professor McGonagall moved Harry's hand to look at his scar while Professor Snape took the Lily Potter look-alike's wrist. "Bloody hell." Snape muttered. Everyone crowded around to look at her wrist. It was the same lightning shaped scar that Harry had on his forehead.

"What's your name dear?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Ph-Phoenix." She said softly.

"Your full name, please." Professor Dumbledore stated kindly.

She took a deep breath, "Phoenix Minerva Potter."


Which one's the fake? (Trick question; they all are! {= D )

~Neshomeh

As someone who doesn't read comics that much, I know about Batwoman (... obviously), and Bobby Drake over in Marvel. I also know about Apollo and the Midnighter, but they're old now. And DC's Bombshells series had a lot of this. And the Marvel Star Wars comics have the delightful Doctor Aphra... anyway. My point is that other than Kate and Bobby, those examples are all fairly niche, so probably aren't what you're thinking of. So what are you thinking of?

(Oh, and Wonder Woman. But that's never been explicitly canonised.)

hS

... I thought you were talking about a combined Robot Wars/Red Dwarf series. But this is almost as good. ;)

Now I'm gonna threadjack my own thread:

Putting 'TERF' into Google takes me to this wiki, which defines it as 'Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist'. It clarifies that as meaning 'feminism which excludes trans people'; it doesn't seem to say where the 'radical' part comes in, so I'm just gonna assume it means they have unfilled (but neutral) outer electron shells and leave it at that.

Then it says this:

Their position (which is not shared by this wiki) denies that trans people's self-affirmed genders and sexes are equally valid as cis people's self-affirmed genders and sexes. (Bold added by me.)

So, then. My understanding is that 'sex' is a biological term; it can either indicate the nature of your primary sexual characteristics, or your chromosomes (these often match). It's not strictly a binary affair, but it comes pretty close. Does transitioning sex therefore imply surgery? Or is a change in secondary sexual characteristics (which includes things like body hair, I think) considered a change of sex? (Or is this a 'depends who you talk to' question?)

Then we come to gender, which is... what? A collection of traits traditionally culturally associated with a sex, and restrictions/requirements connected to them? It's obvious that being female-gendered rather than male-gendered (or vice versa) is a big deal for many people (this is what we call 'understatement'), but I'm... not clear why? The way people have talked about it here, they don't seem to be focussed on how they're viewed/treated by others (ie, it doesn't seem to be a result of variations on 'I'm fed up of the anti-female slant of society and would rather escape it by identifying as male'), but then... what?

I guess the question I'm asking in this part is: what is the difference between the genders 'male' and 'female', other than that other people have different prejudices assigned to the two terms?

Where the above includes misunderstandings or misinterpretations, please correct them. :) That's how we learn.

hS

I don't think its anything specific about Gotham in particular, but it is a growing trend in comics at large.

We now have confirmed airdates for the new series of Robot Wars and Red Dwarf: the 22nd and 12th of October respectively. So that's fun!

Also, in rather substantially less fun news, Northern Irish YouTube content creator and former ChezApocalypse person Jill Bearup (who mentioned us in a long series about the history of fanfiction) was someone I respected considerably. I say was because she went full TERF recently, comparing - and I swear I'm not making this up - wanting to transition to wanting to eat chocolate cake for every meal. Now, when she brought us up in History Of Fanfiction Part 6: I Love You, Mary Sue, she said a lot of what we'd done over the years came off as "mean".

I'm not saying there's a correlation between bad feminism and Mary Sue defenders.

I'm just heavily implying it, because that's what I think.

Been trying to cobble together a Commander deck for a while, but other than that I'm not sure if I want to get into other formats.

Aaaaand we're back. I've actually paid attention to the news this week, so you get rather an excessive number of items -- yay? (As usual, the images are not important parts of the post - they're just here to add a bit of colour.)

Please remember that, when it comes to the state of the world, not everyone will agree with you. You're free to state, discuss, and defend your viewpoint (provided it does not violate the Constitution), but please don't use that fact to attack others.

Fandom News


(Link)

It's here! For the first time in over a decade, there is a new Star Trek series on TV. Star Trek: Discovery has launched. If you're anywhere other than the US, you can probably get it on Netflix; in the US, you're supposed to buy into CBS All Access, which sounds like a great way to waste money.

Kaitlyn and I watched the first two episodes, and will be watching the third. The first episode feels more Wars than Trek, but the second episode gets a bit more into the groove. It's no spoiler to say that the show taps into the long and honourable school of psychopathic Vulcans - the 'shoot first, never ask questions because logic dictates that it was the right thing to do' style exemplified by Voyager's Tuvok is alive and well here. Also there are Klingons (and long speeches in Klingon, which are unfortunately delivered... like... ShatNER is... speaKING... hey, I never said it was perfect).

The linked article does a good job of covering the controversy that's surrounded the series even before it launched.

Silly News


(Generation Z & Prince Harry)

Recently, BBC TV show Newsbeat had Ipsos Mori carry out a poll about Generation Z. That's the post-Millennial generation, apparently, or anyone born between 1994 and 2001; probably quite a lot of the Board, actually.

You can read the article or look at the survey yourself, but the most interesting fact to me was the question on sexual orientation. Generation Z reported only 66% 'only attracted to the opposite sex', while the older generations (Millennial/Y, X, and Baby Boom) came in at 71%, 85%, and 88%. Most of the difference seems to be down to a breaking of the binary 'straight/gay' definition: 26% of Generation Z reported that they were either equally attracted to both sexes (9%), or 'mostly' (rather than 'only') to the opposite (9%) or same (3%). By contrast, Generation X only has 6% on 'mostly the opposite sex', and only 2% 'equally'.

Given that we don't actually live in a world where people are either made of muscles or breasts, and which one it is determines everything about them, this seems like a good thing to me.

Meanwhile, over in Canada, a toddler decided that Prince Harry's popcorn looked delicious. So she stole it. Repeatedly.

Harry, who is currently fifth in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, took it very well. Because apparently being in the news for dressing up as a Nazi a few years back made him realise that yes, people are watching?

Serious News


(The Moon & Mars)

NASA has announced that they will be partnering with the Russian space agency Roscosmos to build a space station in lunar orbit, to be used as a staging ground for deep space missions. There doesn't seem to be a timeline yet, but hey! That's exciting.

Closer to home, but with a much longer timescale, Dubai/the UAE has announced their plan to build a simulated Mars city, to test out the science behind a completely contained city. This is part of their plan to build a 600,000-person city on Mars itself by 2117, which seems... ambitious. Still, running a full-scale trial in a desert is probably a good place to start.

Not News


(Link)

This week, I found out that Batwoman - Kate Kane - is gay. This will get one of two reactions:

1/ "Who's Batwoman?" To which the answer is, she's an actually pretty awesome character in the current range of Batman/Bat-family comics. I'm not 100% on the state of play in Gotham, but she's definitely playing a major role.

2/ "Well, obviously. That's an integral part of her character." Well, I can't speak to that, but a week ago I was very nearly in answer #1 myself. So hey! Cool stuff.

Interestingly, I seem to recall hearing that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy have a bit of an on-again/off-again/villainous-again relationship going on, so... is there something about Gotham that attracts lesbians?

hS

So guess what fandom I'm doing?

Also, because I'm an especial jerk, below are two real badfic excerpts, one made up by me, and one passage from Stephen King's actual It novel. Make your guess!
-----
1. He stared at you for a moment, smile fading.

“What? I thought we were having fun?”

“You made me fall! My [butt] is wet now! I told you to be gentle if we did this.”

Pennywise frowned then, extending a hand to you which you accepted. He pulled you to your feet. He brushed your wild hair out of your face, cupping your cheeks with one gigantic hand.
-----
2. He felt as if someone had whopped all the breath out of him . . . and then he heard that sound again, that sound that was half pressure on the skin and eardrums, that keen homicidal whispering rush—Swiipppp! He rolled off the bench onto the gravel, thinking So this is what they mean by déja-vu, now you know, you'll never have to ask anybody again—

He hit on his shoulder and rolled, looking up at the Paul Bunyan statue—only it was no longer Paul Bunyan. The clown stood there instead, resplendent and evident, fantastic in plastic, twenty feet of Day-Glo colors, its painted face surmounting a cosmic comic ruff. Orange pompom buttons cast in plastic, each as big as a volleyball, ran down the front of the silvery suit. Instead of an axe it held a huge bunch of plastic balloons. Engraved on each were two legends: IT'S STILL ROCK AND ROLL TO ME and RICHIE TOZIER'S "ALL DEAD" ROCK SHOW.

He scrambled backward, using his heels and his palms. Gravel went down the back of his pants. He heard a seam tear loose in the underarm of his Rodeo Drive sportcoat. He rolled over, gained his feet, staggered, looked back. The clown looked down at him. Its eyes rolled wetly in their sockets.

"Did I give you a scare, m'man?" it rumbled.
-----
3. It had learned, early on, that adults were more difficult to feed on.

Mind, there were no limits on what It could do. Rather than limiting, being in a space with only three dimensions essentially gave It endless room for change: manipulation, transformation, even rewritng the minds and memories of Its prey.

So while It was certainly capapble of transforming into, say, the fear of looming bills or the threat of divorce, there was something so much more visceral about the more overt fears of children.

If nothing else, the forms of childrens' fears made it easier to retain teeth.
-----
4. But The Bat didn't get far as something grabbed him from behind and threw him back into the open spot where he crashed. Batman jumped and threw several batwings at a wide angle but his enemy was nowhere to be seen.

"I/we waited so long for you, Bat-Man...Man-Bat...I/we expected more from you. You used to be such a worthy opponent.", mocked The Joker from the dark.

"Pennywise! Joker! Show yourself!", Batman shouted as he tensed up, ready for the attack.

—doctorlit is his own Loser's Club

I guess it was a little *too* obvious.

...hmm. I know #2 is real, because you mentioned that fic already. So that leaves #1 and #3. #1 feels a bit a more Ix-y, but #3 feels a bit more deliberately bad.

I'll go for my instincts: #1.

1) "Yes, its true." I said looking away in embarrassment. "I am The Lost Olympian."

Annabeth gasped "But that's impossible! Selene disappeared over ten thousand years ago and your only sixteen! And Percy's sister!"

"I was reborn as Percy's sister" I said softly. "I needed to fulfil the Prophecy." I recited:

Daughter of Moon and Daughter of Night
Comes into the world a mortal to fight
With Sea and Wit she sails alone
Until one day she comes back home

"I didn't know about it until now" I said. "Please don't hate me."

Annabeth hugged me. "I could never hate you."

2) "There must be some mistake, my Lady would never have a child, let alone a son" snapped the girl who had been talking to Chiron.

"There is no mistake, Ms Nightshade, the symbol was Artemis claiming her child, I was informed earlier today that Percy was her son" corrected Chiron as he came over just in case she attacked him in some way.

3) My name is Penny Jackson,daughter of Poseidon. And I'm immortal.

Wanna know how? After the defeat of Kronos,the gods offered immortality to Percy,but he refused for Annabeth. Cute right? So they gave the immortality to me. It has upsides,and downsides.

The good thing is I won't die. But turns out,it's actually possible for immortals to die,and since I'm just a junior or whatever,my immortality isn't that strong. So,it's kinda like the Hunters of Artemis thing. If I don't get hurt,I'll be fine.

Correct.