Chorby Prefers Not To: Blaseball, Bartleby, and a Fandom's Malicious Compliance

Chorby Short is an adorable frog girl who is also sometimes a witch. Or perhaps, she's just some data in a game taking the internet by storm called Blaseball. Or perhaps, she's a new example of an idea from an 1853 Herman Melville story. Or perhaps, she's all this and more? 

What I Learned Painting 2,047,500 Pixels of Homestuck Fan Art

I didn't expect painting a series of illustrations for Sarah Zedig's Homestuck novel Godfeels would involve so much deconstruction of my identity and how I make art! Here's what I learned from the experience.

content warnings: depictions of physical assault and gun violence, abstract depictions of violence, soviet constructivism, suicidal ideation, homestuck, internalized transmisogyny and ableism, aggressive colors, self doubt

Junetopia

When Andrew Hussie canonized a transgender character in response to a fan finding a Toblerone he hid in a cave, it was more than just a weird stunt. It was a piece of revolutionary performance art, and an affirmation of a new model for fandom.

Batmen vs Supermen: Expanded Universes Beyond The "Event"

So you've decided your story needs a dramatic cataclysm to electrify the fans. You've marshaled the qualities of the Expanded Universe to bring it about, and will sacrifice anything for the drama. But is that really such a good idea? Is there another way?

Batmen vs Supermen: Expanded Universes and the Ultimate Warrior

Superman. Batman. Titans of their fictional universe. Who would win in a fight? To truly master this question we can't just smash the two together like dumb action figures. We need to dive deep into the qualities of the Expanded Universe genre.

Save Spidey! Into the Spider-Verse's Failure and Promise

Can Spider-Man matter outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Sony, Disney, #SaveSpidey, and Into the Spider-Verse.

To Make An Apple Pie From Scratch: Expanded Universes 101

In movies, comics, games, tv, and books, Expanded Universes are everywhere. But these huge multi-author, multi-story projects are controlled by huge corporate monopoly holders. Isn't it time we built some universes of our own?

Dubious Forms: The Homestuck Epilogues As Fanfiction

The Homestuck Epilogues position themselves as fanfiction, exploding the typical author/fan binary. But can fandom navigate this new exploded world?

Imagine you're dreaming in anime. A howling hole in reality, in meaning itself, opens, and everything sucks into nothingness, into noncanonicity. As you watch the horrible cosmic sucking, disorganized words flow into your vision. It's like the opening of the first Kingdom Hearts game. You've played that right? It's just like that. The words come:

One phrase stands out: "Tales of dubious authenticity." What could it mean?

Hauntology/Headology: Carpe Jugulum and Gothic Justice

The vampires in Discworld novel Carpe Jugulum may be modern, but the story is still firmly gothic. So who in the story is the gothic entity haunting the present?

A Lot Of Preps Stared At Me: My Immortal and Parafiction

What do we want the author of My Immortal to be?

You'll Teach Me And I'll Teach You: Do Pokemon's Mechanics Actually Work?

Pokemon has a brilliant mechanical narrative where you're encouraged to treat your pokemon as living creatures, and use them to fashion an identity for yourself... or at least that's how it works in theory. In practice, do Pokemon's mechanics actually work... and is Ian Bogost right to suggest that maybe chasing after narrative in games is a lost cause?

Reload the Canons! is an ongoing Storming the Ivory Tower project where I play through The Canon of videogames. Except I'm not playing the original games. Instead, I'm playing only remakes, remixes, and weird fan projects. This is the canon of games as seen through the eyes of fans, and I'm going to treat fan games as what they are: legitimate works of art in their own right that deserve our analysis and respect. You can support Reload the Canons! and my other projects on the Storming the Ivory Tower Patreon.

Like No One Ever Was: Can Pokemon's Mechanics Tell A Coming Of Age Story?

If Pokemon games are about creating an identity, are fan games just an extension of gameplay?

To Train Them Is My Cause: Why Do We Care About Our Pokemon?

Pokemon games, whether canon or fan-made, live or die based on the bond between Pokemon and players. Can we use the mechanics of the games and the way those mechanics are altered in Pokemon Uranium, Pokemon Insurgence, and Pokemon Infinite Fusion to explain why we care about our Pokemon?

Reload the Canons! is an ongoing Storming the Ivory Tower project where I play through The Canon of videogames. Except I'm not playing the original games. Instead, I'm playing only remakes, remixes, and weird fan projects. This is the canon of games as seen through the eyes of fans, and I'm going to treat fan games as what they are: legitimate works of art in their own right that deserve our analysis and respect. You can support Reload the Canons! and my other projects on the Storming the Ivory Tower Patreon.

Look Inside And You Will Find: Are Glitches Part of the Pokemon Experience?

The fan game Pokemon Uranium has some weird behaviors and some astounding glitches, but are those glitches just flaws, or are they important to make Pokemon Uranium feel like a genuine Pokemon game? And what can it tell us about the hype cycle surrounding canon games Sun and Moon, and spinoffs like Pokemon Go? 

Reload the Canons! is an ongoing Storming the Ivory Tower project where I play through The Canon of videogames. Except I'm not playing the original games. Instead, I'm playing only remakes, remixes, and weird fan projects. This is the canon of games as seen through the eyes of fans, and I'm going to treat fan games as what they are: legitimate works of art in their own right that deserve our analysis and respect. You can support Reload the Canons! and my other projects on the Storming the Ivory Tower Patreon.

Pierre Metroid Smashes the Canon: 5 Ways AM2R Transforms Metroid II

AM2R--Another Metroid 2 Remake--made the news a few months ago when its long-anticipated release was immediately followed by a DMCA takedown demand from Nintendo. But is AM2R really just a copy of Metroid II, or is it a transformation? And what does a Jorge Luis Borges story have to do with contemporary fan games?

A Metroid And Its Human: What Does 'Another Metroid 2 Remake' Tell Us About Environment?

The Chozo Temple Complex is beautiful, golden, expansive. It is a space of lurid yellows, soft oranges, and shadows shading almost into violet, and while much of one's time spent navigating the space and avoiding the various still-active ancient defense systems, it's hard for me not to stop and admire the scenery of this ancient and crumbling structure. Walking across the top of the structure in particular is delightful (if you avoid the native life trying to kill you) as you can see layer upon layer of cavern opening out into mountains and an acid sunset beyond. There's a real sense of depth and space.

I'm not talking about Metroid 2: The Return of Samus. I CAN'T be talking about that game for one major reason: I haven't played Metroid 2, not even once. I didn't grow up in a family where expensive game consoles--and yes, I'd count a gameboy as "expensive"--weren't really a big economic priority, and even if we had the disposable income for them, I get the distinct impression that my parents would've put them in the same highly suspect category as tv shows not on PBS, and music not performed by a symphony. I missed out on most of The Games Canon.

Oh, and well, I guess the other dead giveaway is that Metroid 2 was in black and white.

And yet, I can talk about the vivid colors of the Chozo temple because while I have not played Metroid 2, I have played Another Metroid 2 Remake. AM2R hit the Internet about a month ago, causing significant buzz before basically immediately being slammed with a DMCA takedown notice from Nintendo. Thankfully, the game is still fairly easy to access.

This is a good thing, because AM2R offers up a pretty incredible experience, one that doesn't deserve to be buried under questionable intellectual monopoly laws. AM2R is doing something very special here. It's not just making accessible once more a game made for an obsolete platform. I mean, making the game itself accessible would probably be enough to justify its existence. But AM2R goes a step further, and setpieces like the Chozo Temple help us understand the new value it adds:

AM2R turns Metroid 2 into a game about our interaction with space, our use of space, and possibly, by the end, new ways of thinking about our place within an environment.

"We're Still Friends Right?" Fanfictional Trauma and Captain America: Civil War

"Forty million readers follow the Gumps. ... If I could prove it I would say there are exactly 16,847,915 3/4 people writing to Sidney Smith, care of the Chicago Tribune, with suggestions as to what he should do with the Gumps next. And inasmuch as most of us take the Gumps seriously and expect to have our suggestions followed, the problem of these suggestions is a real one, after all."

--William Fleming French, describing an example of the problem of fannish engagement for newspaper comic The Gumps, quoted in Jared Gardner's Projections

There are really only two places you can have the villain of one major franchise sing a song from another major franchise. One of those places is in fanfiction.

But hold that thought while we talk about this image from Age of Ultron and what it can tell us about Captain America: Civil War.

The Paradox of Paradox Space's Artistic Weakness

This awesome illustration was provided by Arin aka fullmetaldorkamist. His art can be viewed here.

For about a year, Paradox Space filled in the void left in our lives by the absence of infamous 2.5 million dollar hypercomic Homosuck I mean Homestuck. Yes, the Story that can End All Stories ^one

if only because if printed out it could form a weight capable of crushing all the authors in the world into a red paste

went on hiatus, and Paradox Space emerged to fill the gap by updating each weekday with a new page of story content.

Expectations for Paradox Space were initially quite high--there were a number of talented people working on the project, and it seemed to offer the potential to explore areas of the Homestuck canon that haven’t been explored in the main comic. What more could we want?

Quite a bit more, it turns out, than what we got. Or at least that’s how some of us have ended up feeling. I know I’m not alone in thinking that PS didn’t quite live up to the hype. Some of that can be blamed on excessively high expectations, I’m sure. Homestuck, after all, is a very, very good story. It’s a very high bar to reach, and I think a certain level of disappointment is natural. But it’s interesting to me that a 2.5 million dollar hypercomic couldn’t manage, apparently, to turn a decent profit from a spin off comic: Paradox Space, it seems, didn’t only underperform artistically, it underperformed economically as well.

I’m not here to explain why Paradox Space didn’t make bank. Obviously, Andrew Hussie is much better at this web 2.0 money making thing than I, a mere shifty Patreon beggar, will ever be. But I do study comics, and I do study fandom cultures, and I do think I can shed some insights into why, even factoring in unreasonable expectations, Paradox Space didn’t do so well… and maybe why it could never have done well in the first place.

Fitzskimmons Lament Part One: Marvel and the Endlessly Straight Path

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a lot of things. Among them, the MCU is very, very straight. Aggressively straight. Obnoxiously straight, I might even suggest.

It's straight to the point where, after 11 movies and three-and-a-half-sum-total seasons of 45 minute episodes of various tv spin offs from said movies, the lack of any queer representation whatsoever has finally crossed the borderline from "minor stain on an otherwise remarkable record" to "holy shit this is indefensible and appalling."

Marvel and Disney apparently can make a movie about a talking raccoon and his tree friend but can't introduce a single queer character. Or make a movie starring a woman. But that's a rant for another day.

For a while now I've been lamenting the effect that's had on a number of my ships in the MCU--ships being fan parlance for preferred romantic relationships. I tend to gravitate towards queer ships because, well, in our modern media landscape they just don't happen that often in canon, so I have an inclination to stubbornly ship everything queer, which just results in me getting more irate when none of my queer pairings become canon, which just causes me to be more obstinate, until the next thing you know I'm up at three AM reading Draco/Neville/Hermione BDSM fanfic instead of writing Storming the Ivory Tower articles.

In fact that's precisely where I've been for the past eight months!

But no ship has suffered quite as much as Fitzskimmons, the ship that put the "One" and "True" and "The Numeral Three" in OT3, my one true poly triad, the relationship of my dreams. This is a ship that joins the Agents of SHIELD characters Fitz, Simmons, and Skye into a beautiful poly trio.

It will never happen, and I know it will never happen, but by god I can write an entire article lamenting the fact that I'll never see this group get together.

Pictured: more like GAYgents of SHIELD

That's what this article is in the broadest sense: a lament for Fitzskimmons. But I don't want to just sit here and babble about how great they'd be together (even though they would be) or how much more heartwrenching the events of season 2 are in the context of a poly romance between the three characters (though wow can you imagine it?). Ultimately this isn't about the worthiness or unworthiness of one particular ship. It's about the wider way in which the compulsory heterosexuality in an entire serialized and shared fictional universe leads to sub-optimal story decisions and lost opportunities.

It's about how restrictions on the range of possible relationships leads to bad writing.

Hyperflexible Mythology: Classpects, Fandom, and Fanfiction

Several months ago when I decided to move this entire establishment to the icy howling perpetual nightmare that is Jupiter's Great Red Spot some reacted with undue skepticism. But it looks like yet again I have gotten the last laugh, fools, for through a chain of events too complex to describe here but stemming inexorably from my decision to drop a once hospitable pub into the middle of a storm that ravages the flesh and mind alike with fingers of icy death, I have finally achieved my highest level of power yet!

Yes, indeed, I have reached... GOD TIER!

Pictured: My pantless apotheosis is complete.

AND THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!

This change couldn't have come at a better time, as by sheer coincidence I wish to speak today about famed hypercomic Homestuck's symbolic and mythological structure which ties into the "God Tier" that certain characters reach throughout the narrative.

One of the many game-inspired parts of Homestuck is its use of what are called Mythological Roles for each character. That sounds very lofty, but what it really amounts to is one of the oldest elements in fantasy games: a magical area of expertise or "aspect," and a way in which that aspect is used as a tool by the character: a "class." Together, these mythological roles are described, somewhat awkwardly, as "Classpects," and they overshadow much of the fandom's activity.

I want to talk about them today not so much to analyze what individual classpects mean and do, or even their role in the wider narrative of Homestuck (plenty of other writers have already spilled much ink on these topics), but to explore what they mean for the fandom. See, the classpects are, in the words of author Andrew Hussie, a kind of hyperflexible mythology with a wide range of possible interpretations and implementations. These aren't necessarily traditional "elements" or rpg classes--classes include such odd things as "Sylph," "Muse," and "Heir," and aspects include "Breath," "Light," "Blood," "Hope," and "Void"--and the classpects are often ill-defined in their powers, or profoundly shaky in application, in part due to the fact that many of the characters do not, themselves, understand their own abilities. This leads, inevitably, to lots of fan speculation and conversation. It also represents one of the many systems within Homestuck that fans can latch onto as a structure to manipulate and deviate from in fan works.

Homestuck is not alone in having such a structure. The Classpects share many of their most useful qualities with such diverse systems as the Five Colors of Magic in Magic: The Gathering, the four Houses of Hogwarts, and the multi-person teamup nature of Pacific Rim's Jaegers. What these systems all share is a certain amount of arbitraryness and vagueness balanced by a named structure and a range of possible, tangible implementations of that structure. And they seem to share many of the same effects on fanfiction and fandom activities, making certain things possible that are not, perhaps, as easy to pull off with either more loosely or more rigidly defined structures.