I Remember This One! Bass' Expression Gets Me Every Time.I

Fantasy RPG Races as Dogs

Human:

Elf:

Dwarf:

Halfling:

Half Orc:

Seizure First Aid. 

Learn it. Share it. Know it. Use it. 

Gunslinger Iris!! [Fan Concept Art] Iris is taking responsibility to save the peace between Maverick Hunters and Repliforce. This time, how she fight with firearms. Deviantart via http://fav.me/dbltzdr

Good luck, kid, we’re rootin’ for you.

Injustice 2 Quotes

(All fake).

Just a few scenarios I dreamed up involving characters that didn’t make it into  Injustice 2.

Tara "Terra" Markov

  VS Deathstroke     Introductions       D: Well, well, if it isn't my... protege.       T: Well, well, if it isn't Daddy Deathstroke.       D: You were such a good study.

      T: Oh, good, it's the limp fish.       D: Nothing personal, but you're a liability.       T: Why? Don't want me to spread it around?

      T: I don't want anything to do with you.       D: You have no idea what you want.       T: I'll start with your head on a spike.

      T: Oh, look, my teenage mistakes all in one place.       D: I showed you what you could be.       T: Yeah, but could you have shown me a more exciting time?

      T: Garfield was right about you. The whole time.       D: Ah, but is he right about you?       T: ...You go to Hell.

   Clashes      D: So what hole'd you crawl out of? T: The one I dug myself!      D: I taught you everything, brat. T: Hey, Mr. WIIILSON! This is how you PUNCTURE someone!      D: I'm hard to kill. T: Hard to get rid of, anyway.      T: I'm nothing like you. D: Not in the good ways.      T: I'm DONE with you, Slade! D: You act like a hunted animal.     VS Cyborg     Introductions       C: Man, if it isn't just a parade of unexpected faces.       T: What, you see any other ghosts of your past?       C: If I didn't know better, I'd say you look a little green.

     T: Well, look who's outta the hospital!      C: Don't pretend you care, witch.      T: Hey, I care! Wasn't even gonna mention that new car smell.

    Clashes       T: Tell me where you saw Garfield! C: What, the ex got you all hot and bothered?       C: Do you know why he did this to me? T: I bet you got in Garfield's way.

  VS Raven     Introductions       T: Oh, look who it is, the one-woman pity-party.       R: The advice of loved ones should not be cast aside so lightly.       T: Ugh. Why does Gar care so much about your opinion?

      T: Wow, and people called me a traitor.       R: You mock only because you do not comprehend.       T: Chicken Soup called! They want their sob story back.

    Clash       R: You broke Garfield's heart. T: You should let him off the leash./Oh, so he's "Garfield", now?       T: Not so sexy on the inside, are you? R: I will carve out your tongue!

Rachel "Raven" Roth

  VS Dr. Fate     Introductions       F: Wherefore does the Princess of Perdition step into the domain of Fate?       R: Order is order, regardless of the binding.       F: Trigon's fickleness has caused untold disaster.

      R: You know of the Changeling's and Terra's arrival. Speak.       F: The fault lines of reality are shifting.       R: I see why Gar hates it when I don't give a straight answer.

      R: You will yield your secrets to me, willingly or otherwise.       F: You know nothing of my arts. You cannot hope to defeat me.       R: I'm a quick study.

    Clashes       F: The cosmos must have order! R: Then we have no quarrel.       F: The lords of order speak true. R: Not even you believe that.       R: Give me the knowledge I require. F: I do not serve tyrants.       R: So the helmet feeds more lies to you? F: You know nothing of these matters!

  VS Changeling     Introductions       R: You-- you're alive?       C: Surprised to see me, Rae?       R: No. Illusion or Delusion, you shouldn't be here.

      R: So there is some truth to your story.       C: Don't worry, it weirds me out, too.       R: **giggles** It does my heart good to see you, Garfield Logan.

      C: So, do I pass the Official Titan Test?       R: I see naught but doom in you.       C: 'Course you do, Rae. I'm a Patrolman, too.

      C: So you never mentioned you were living with your Dad again.       R: Your safety is guaranteed here. I mean it.       C: Enough to fight him if you have to?

      R: So. I see you reject my hospitality.       C: The fancy cell in Castle Trigon was nice, but I'm homesick.       R: Garfield, I cannot allow you to confront her.

    Clashes       C: Loser buys lunch? R: Are you ever serious?       R: Forever putting your head into the lion's jaws. C: Too bad for the lions, huh?       C: Our line of work is always dangerous. R: I will not abide the loss of another friend.       R: I can't lose anyone else! I won't! C: Raven, I've got to go now!       R: You can't leave! NOT AGAIN! C: I'm gonna miss you, too, Rae.

Garfield "Changeling" Logan

  VS Cyborg     Introductions       Cy: You, there! Freeze! I order you to back it up!       Ch: Whoa, chill! What's wrong?       Cy: You're wearing a dead man's face.

      Ch: Wow. You guys are serious about this Regime thing.       Cy: I know it's not easy to understand, Gar.       Ch: The only thing I don't get is how you're the good guys.

      Ch: You just got outta the hospital, Vic.       Cy: None of this woulda happened if you hadn't broken out.       Ch: I've got bigger worries than the New World Order.

    Clashes       Cy: You've got some explainin' to do. Ch: Wish I could, Victor.       Ch: Why can't you leave it alone? Cy: You wouldn't come peacefully!       Ch: You gotta understand this ain't personal. Cy: It feels pretty damn personal.

  VS Atrocitus     Introductions       A: You'd make a fine addition to the Corps.       C: I've already served with two outfits. Three just seems greedy.       A: Ahh, then I must be imagining Nekron's influence.

    Clashes       A: You reek of the unliving. C: I could really use a shower.

  VS Mento     Introductions       M: So you've finally come back to the Patrol. Must be looking for some real action.       C: I certainly didn't come back for the memories.       M: Heh. It's certainly been gloomy without you.

      C: The gauntlets are new. Something to balance the helmet?       M: And what's wrong with the helmet?       C: Oh, my God, Dad.

      M: Things have changed since you've been gone.       C: I... I heard I have a sister, now. She a good kid?       M: Holly adores your every story.

      C: It's weird to think I got my start here.       M: You were wasted on the Titans.       C: Heh. Didn't know you cared.

      M: And when were you going to tell me?       C: I was hoping I wouldn't ever have to.       M: I'm your father. I know when you're lying to me.

    Clashes       M: You have no DISCIPLINE! C: YOU HAVE NO HEART!       M: How can you expect to save the world? C: I just want it to be worth saving!       M: If you have a job to do, then DO IT! C: You say that like it's easy!       C: Would you just LAY OFF? M: Get your head in the game!       C: I'm not afraid of dying! M: Because you're Doom Patrol!

  VS Terra     Introductions       T: Don't try to stop me, Logan. It won't work.       C: Sheesh, what's gotten INTO you?       T: They call it a heart of stone.

      T: Doctor, doctor! I feel the madness coming back!       C: Cut the crap, Tara. You know exactly what you're doing.       T: God, you would've been so good at roleplay.

      C: If you don't stop, people are going to get hurt.       T: It was 'people' who ruined my life, Garfield!       C: You can stop this before it gets worse, Tara!

      T: Why? Why are you so persistent?       C: Time's up, Tara. We've got to go.       T: I am not going back. You can't make me!

      T: What kind of animal can come back to life?       C: I made the arrangement to bring you back.       T: Oh, now I get it! You're just a lapdog.

      C: I thought that diamonds were a girl's best friend.       T: Not since I created the Lazarite crystals.       C: Yeah, thing is, Nekron calls that grand larceny.

    Clashes       C: Kicking up another fuss, Terra? T: But you know I'm noisy at night!       C: I'm begging you, Tara! Stop it! T: God, I love it when you beg.       T: I've got the madness in me! **cackle** C: You're not crazy, you're just blind.       T: The world won't love you back, Garfield. C: It's not the world I'm worried about.       C: It's time to go back, Tara. T: NO! I am not dying again!       T: Tell Nekron he can kiss my ass! C: We can tell him together.

  VS Black Hand     Introductions       BH: And what would the Red's orphan child seek of Nekron?       C: The opportunity to hunt down a lost soul.       BH: To act in service of death? Intriguing.

      C: So I get a whole week to get the crystals back, right?       BH: Fail to obtain them, and the unliving hordes will follow.       C: So that's the catch.

      BH: You destroyed the Lazarite crystals! You deceived Nekron!       C: He don't know me very well, do he?       BH: There will be nothing left of you for Heaven!

    Clashes       BH: And what drives you to serve Nekron? C: My beasts just want to hunt again.       C: So Nekron has no interest in the stones? BH: Nekron’s plans are no concern of yours!       C: And I can't ask for help? BH: We thought you a mighty hunter!       BH: MONGREL! VERMIN! CUR! C: Ain't I a stinker?

So I suddenly developed a much greater appreciation for the Mega Man Mastermix #3 variant cover by Josh Perez when I realized it was a tribute to Rock & Rule.

Fandom sucks.

More than normal, I mean.

While fandom has always been a little bit crazy, it’s hard to deny that it has gotten exponentially worse in the past few years.

From the simple toxicity in fandom discourse increasing, to death threats made towards creators if they don’t toe the line the fandom wants, to groups of fans creating little brigades to ‘protect’ their fandom (see: harassing anyone they don’t like under the guise of morality), it’s gotten pretty bad.

The question is, why?

Well, if you read that headline up there, you’ll know I’m about to tell you why.

The answer is religion, or specifically, the lack of religion in the lives of millennials and the new generation.

Now, before you close this tab, lemme clarify: this isn’t about how the downswing of religion has corroded the moral fiber, or anything. It’s more interesting than that. And complex.

Religion has a function in society. It serves a purpose. This is true regardless of ones own beliefs. Unlike the existence or non-existence of any sort of supreme deity, the functions of religion have been thoroughly documented and studied. If you want a more thorough breakdown beyond the summary I’m about to give, go read Émile Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.

Religion acts as a support system and a shared moral system. As a result, religion is something of a ‘cultural shorthand’. Finding out someone’s religion quickly tells you a great many things about them. This is useful in social interactions, as it quickly tells you who you’re more likely to get along with. To put it in a bit of a primitive way, it makes it easy to find one’s ‘allies’.

If one is Catholic, and meets another Catholic, they instantly know they share a great many beliefs about life, justice, morality and the like. If one is in an entirely new place, finding the local congregation of their own religion is a fast way to build a support network from zero. These are important functions.

And with religion out of vogue, especially among the youth, something had to fulfill that function. It’s important and necessary. One of the things that has usurped this function is incredibly specific political labels. While highly specific terms for one’s political beliefs have always existed, they broke into the mainstream far more than they ever had before in the recent decade. They usurped that function of cultural shorthand, one’s own specific political identifier essentially became a flag one waved while attempting to find like minded people. That’s fine.

What isn’t fine is that fandom has also usurped the function of religion for a large amount of people. Fandom is, frankly, not capable of acting in this manner, and the result is the explosion of atrocious fandoms full of toxicity and at times outright criminality and violence. Most works of fiction have something to say, but few if any present an entire system of morality. Yet despite this, many treat it as such. Therein lies the problem.

Religion inherently has a barrier to entry. It’s (often, not always, it varies by religion) a simple barrier, but a barrier nonetheless. You have to live by the religion’s rules and moral system. In a way, this can be considered payment for the support system the religion offers. If you’re not a believer, you don’t get in. Pretty simple. That’s how it retains it’s usefulness as an identifier. Knowing someone was a Catholic wouldn’t matter if they didn’t have to follow the rules.

(And yes, many religions do charitable work even for those outside their faith, I’m well aware, this is all in the abstract.)

Fandom doesn’t have any such barrier. You like the thing, you’re in. It ultimately has no use whatsoever as a cultural/societal identifier. If you like the same TV show, or anime, or video game as someone else it means….well. Basically nothing. There’s no guarantee you share anything else with them at all.

As a result, people who attempt to use fandom in this way ultimately get a rude awakening, and end up encountering someone they dislike. Or hate, even. And that’s where the problem starts.

The revelation that their fandom do not uniformly believe the same things is not often taken well. Rather than realizing that one’s choice in media is no guarantee of anything else about them, they develop the belief that this person they dislike is not a real fan. They’re fake. They’re seeking to harm the fandom. They’re the enemy. And if it’s the creator? Oh boy, does shit go off then.

Ultimately, these people project their own personal beliefs and morality onto a work of fiction that doesn’t, and never did, support them. They adopt the completely ludicrous expectation that any other fan they meet must be just like them, and believe all the same things as them. Anyone who doesn’t is a real fan, and has to be destroyed. And that person is now a toxic fan, the kind that’ll harass, send death threats, and blackmail or threaten the creators.

And the problem is only going to get worse. Online communication and support is only going to become a bigger and bigger part of people’s lives going forward. That’s why there’s a clear level of escalation in ‘bad’ fandoms. People who are more and more ‘online’ are making up the majority of these fandoms, and lacking any other traditional support network or thing to identify as, become these toxic fans.

So the question becomes; how to fix it?

Well, like any widespread sociological problem, there isn’t an easy answer. Lord knows I’m not smart enough to figure one out.

But most of these people are children.

Adults reading this do have some degree of responsibility to try and guide them into more responsible and healthy behavior, and criticize them when they fall into toxicity. Will all of them listen? Of course not. God knows I never listened to adults when I was a teenager.

But some of them will, and if the toxic cesspool that is modern fandom can be even slightly purified, it’s worth it to try.

This is from the forecast discussion of Major Hurricane Florence from this afternoon. As a meteorologist, when I saw this, my heart sank. They don’t use wording like this for every storm.

Florence is going to be a devastating. There will be huge amounts of flooding, both from inland rain and from costal storm surge. Winds are going to be some of the strongest you can get from a hurricane. People within the path of this storm could lose everything.

If you know anyone who lives on the North or South Carolina coast, tell them that if there’s an evacuation ordered, they need to get the hell out. Do not take chances with this one.

Luna Shirogane is officially meganneko. I have such happiness.