Paywalling

Using sites like Patreon or Subscribestar to lock some or most or even all of your art behind a paywall is an increasingly widespread practice, and for me, an increasingly annoying one. It’s not the practice itself so much as how it’s approached by so many artists that rankles.

I mean, what’s the point of maintaining an account on FurAffinity, for example, an art-sharing site, if it’s mostly going to be used as promotion for your Patreon? If most or all of the things you post are teases for paid content, or your gallery is peppered with them to the point of feeling like adverts in a Youtube video? It comes across as kinda cynical, even a touch exploitative, and that only increases when you factor in the most common, and most aggravating, variation on the theme: paywalling nude versions of art.

An artist posts an image, usually of a female character, and it could be anything from clothed and tame, through minimally clothed and suggestive, to nude with certain bits obscured, and the description informs you the ‘saucy’ or ‘rude’ or ‘NSFW’ or ‘adult’ or ‘lewd’ version is available on their Patreon. It could be a lovely piece of art, but because they are pushing paid-for ‘naughty’ versions, the artist is cheapening it, reducing it to little more than a peep show; “Wanna see her tits? Pay me!”.

For someone like me, who doesn’t see nudity as inherently ‘rude’ or ‘lewd’ or ‘adult’, it’s doubly annoying, because it’s reinforcing problematic attitudes for self-interest. The obvious counter-argument here is they need to make money to survive, and this is the best or only way of doing it, but how many artists saying that would also insist the fandom isn’t fixated on ‘adult’ content? If it truly were mostly ‘clean’, then surely you wouldn’t need to be doing this in the first place, just like you wouldn’t need to offer ‘adult’ commission options no matter how much you dislike doing such work.

I have actually unfollowed artists who’ve started paywalling nude versions, because it annoys me so much, and because I don’t feel right supporting, even tactitly, such behaviour. On one occasion I made a rather unguarded and admittedly slightly thoughtless comment on an image posted by an artist I used to follow when they were advertising their new pay-for-nude-version approach. Their response was to delete the submission and send me a less than friendly note. I felt guilty, and apologised, and through several subsequent notes we smoothed things over and came to an understanding. However, one thing stands out to me, and I wish I’d noticed it at the time so I could have carefully brought it up to them: they contradicted themselves.

In either the journal announcing their new venture, or the submission – I don’t remember which – they stated they’d wanted to do pinups and light erotica for a while, and this was their way of getting into it. In sharp contrast, in the notes to me they stated they were really uncomfortable doing such work, and were only venturing into it because they really needed the money. So, either they lied in the original journal/submission, or lied to me. Either way, they were being deceitful, and deceit is at the heart of this.

True, some artists are open about what they’re doing, but many aren’t. These artists want you to believe the posted version is the main one, and the others are merely optional extras, but that’s a lie. The posted one is an advert, even if a subtle one sometimes, something in the pose or the framing or the composition drawing your eye to certain areas, the ones you only get to see if you pay them, the ones that are the real point. I reiterate: it’s exploitational, taking advantage, and I genuinely hate it for that.

Even if not intentional, doing this makes it seem like the posted art doesn’t actually matter, just the money made from the paywalled version(s), and that’s pretty depressing for a fandom that prides itself on its creativity. People worry about big corporations commercialising furry as it continues to grow, but frankly, through this and the increasing dominance of commission work among other things, the fandom’s already doing it to itself.

Considering Chibnall

In 2017 Chris Chibnall took over from Steven Moffat as head writer and showrunner of Doctor Who, and I figured, after two series and two New Year Specials, it was time to assess him. As always, these are merely the opinions of one person. I must also thank the denizens of the Who sub-forum on the TrekBBS message board for their invaluable knowledge and perspectives.

I’ll start with Torchwood. Chibnall was the lead writer, and under his auspices the first two seasons were highly inconsistent in tone and quality, the show seeming to have little idea of what it wanted to be, or where it wanted to go. A lot of potential for intelligent, properly adult – as opposed to the violent, dark, rather tone-deaf stuff so common lately – sci-fi was squandered. Only Children of Earth realised that promise, and that miniseries was headed up by Russell T Davies. Not encouraging, to say the least.

In contrast, there’s Broadchurch. I’ve not seen the show myself, but I’m well aware of its strong reputation. The second and third series seem to have garnered somewhat mixed reactions, but the first is pretty uniformly praised, and overall it’s seen as a quality crime drama. More encouraging.

To the best of my knowledge, Chibnall’s relationship with Doctor Who itself began with the episodes he wrote while Moffat was in charge. Generally, they’re fun and entertaining, if not especially memorable. I personally most enjoyed his Silurian two-parter, though that’s at least partly due to how much I love the latter race’s design – a triumph of make-up – and having no prior knowledge of them. If I had seen earlier Silurian stories, I’d have cottoned on to a defining trait of Chibnall’s Who writing a lot sooner.

In a word, it’s derivative. His Silurian story wasn’t much more than a reworking of the two main Silurian stories from the classic series, albeit a good one. So much of his output has been rehashing or reusing old ideas that it’s genuinely difficult to pinpoint anything original he’s come up with. Even his grandiose reimagining of Who mythos isn’t original, repurposing the Cartmel Masterplan and potentially the Season 6B theory.

Compounding this is the fact that he’s primarily a plot-driven writer, and all-too-frequently a perfunctory one. Strong evidence for this is the number of antagonists who simply disappeared the instant they ceased being useful to the plot. Even when one did reappear, Robertson in the recent special, he was basically just a rent-a-douche plugged in to save the effort of creating a new character, and again conveniently vanished with no repercussions come the end.

This unfortunate combination of traits and habits has also meant that not a single new villain or monster introduced in the Chibnall era has really registered. It’s also meant that only one of the three most recent companions, Graham, has had any proper substance, and that’s mostly due to Bradley Walsh. It’s also meant topical and thematic episodes have mostly been too on-the-nose, too heavy-handed and obvious to work properly, the most egregious example being the painful Orphan 55. Worst of all, it’s also meant that Jodie Whitaker’s historic first female Doctor isn’t nearly what she could have been.

This is a compassionate Doctor whose compassion comes and goes at the whims of the plot, caring about a Dalek’s hijacked victim up until they’re rescued, then pretty much forgetting about them. This is a Doctor with an unsettling lack of agency, to the point she’s told the truth of her history by a Master she’s a helpless captive of, instead of actively uncovering it herself. This is a Doctor who keeps promising to save people, then signally fails to.

To be fair, we are only partway through a reportedly five season long arc, but if the Doctor’s repeated failure is part of it, flat repetition of the same beat, with no variation or evolution, is not the way to go about it. Flat is actually a good word to describe Chibnall’s Who in general, for though it’s had its moments, it’s generally hollow, and underwhelming, too familiar, and too lacking in spirit and energy and a sense of fun, to truly engage. It could even be described as a little downbeat and dispiriting, not characteristics that should ever be associated with Doctor Who.

In summation, Chris Chibnall is a writer who has serious difficulty coming up with new ideas, relies largely on rehashes of old ones as a result, seemingly struggles when expectations are placed on him, and is either unwilling or unable to do the hard graft that makes a story fully come to life. Considering that, the departure of Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh, the arrival of the less-than-inspiring John Bishop in a tease that lazily revisits the War Doctor reveal, the series-reducing impact of Covid, and the possible loss of Whitaker herself, it’s hard to be optimistic about Who‘s future.

But then, if anyone can overcome the odds and prove the naysayers wrong, it’s the Doctor.

Movie Reviews

My thoughts on three movies I’ve recently seen. As always, this is just one person’s opinion.

Sonic the Hedgehog – Like many people, the first trailer left me pretty worried about this film, and not just because of Sonic’s awful design; it looked generic, a standard-issue family film. Thankfully, the design was fixed, but while the finished film has an unexpected and welcome sincerity about it, and is a lot less reliant on cheap toilet humour than I’d feared, it’s still pretty generic. The characters are shallow, the plot’s simplistic, the beats are familiar; it does very little new or original, and thus doesn’t really distinguish itself. The best element is Robotnik – Carrey’s lost none of his manic brilliance – and the only moment that got a real reaction out of me was the mid-credits sting. Pleasant, but you’re always wondering what could have been if the executives hadn’t been so controlling. Maybe we’ll find out in the sequel. 6/10

Rock Dog – In contrast, here’s a film that’s actually a lot less generic than it might at first appear, not least from the slightly cheesy title. Yes, the core plot’s a pretty standard Hero’s Journey, and yes the villains are Evil Wolves, but the film has a gentle warmth, personality and charm all its own, an endearingly innocent and genuine Hero in Bodi, likeable supporting characters – Angus Scattergood the standout, Eddie Izzard clearly having a lot of fun with the character – and wonderful music. It’s obvious a lot of care and attention was given to this film, not least in the character design and the subtle animation details, and the only real detriments are villains that, while fun, could have been richer, and that we see so little of Darma and Germur. I can’t help thinking another ten or fifteen minutes of running time, a little more room to flesh things out, would have helped. Interested to see how the reported sequel turns out. 7/10

100% Wolf – The central idea of this film is cute, and a positive take on wolves is always welcome, but the execution is sorely lacking. Everything, from direction to character design to animation to plot, is a muddled and chaotic mess. This is a film that plays out a big, multi-werewolf-transformation scene by barely letting you see any of the wolf forms. This is a film that keeps lobbing more and more things at you, including three antagonists, but never takes the time to tie it all into a coherent story. This is a film with a strain of tasteless humour that peaks in a scene rivalled only by the equally bad Angry Birds for sheer yuck factor. Arguably the worst aspects, though, are the flashes of potentially interesting things that never go anywhere. A frustrating, noisy misfire that thoroughly squanders its potential. 3/10