armoredsuperheavy

[armoredsuperheavy]

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: An Insufferably Queer Film Review

I rewatched MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987) for the first time since it came out last night and WOW I have some thots about this thing. We enjoyed roasting the living shit out of it but there's a few gold nuggets in there despite the brutal budget cuts that impacted the plot and what not.

Contains plenty of spoilers.

God bless Wardrobe

OK so … the film doesn't bother to set up any real motivations for the characters, and He-Man (an incredible looking Dolph Lundgren rrrowrrrr) has almost no dialogue which is such a fucking waste. But this complete lack of narrative framework means we can apply OUR OWN explanations to events.

From the very beginning Skeletor has this obsession with He-Man, which will simmer and then culminate in a final showdown. But before we get to that hot mess, we have to wade through the middle of the film.

He gets as much screen time as He-Man.

Meet the utterly repulsive dwarf scientist Gwildor played by Billy Barty, a rinse-and-repeat of his performance as an utterly repulsive magic troll in Legend (1986). This dwarf is the film's Jar Jar. His face is like a deep dish pizza after an acid attack. His real mouth is visible behind the immobile thick prosthetics and it makes for some truly disturbing close-up dialogue shots. Please, pan away from Pizza the Hutt and give us another shot of Lundgren's pecs please I am begging you, DP

We find ourselves in Gwildor's hobbit hole, and he's a magical inventor. So he has this cylindrical object, it's not clear whether it's a weapon or a teleporter but I'm calling it the Butt-Reamer 9000. Inexplicably, there are two of these things and Skeletor has the other one, and wants to collect both of them. So Skeletor has an excuse to go hunting He-Man as he's hunting his missing McGuffin, er I mean sex toy.

Features rotating ticklers, a big improvement over the Butt Reamer 8000.

The thing about the Butt-Reamer 9000 is its magical power to make even this promising setup devolve into a grind as it whisks the Eternians into the magical, enchanting world of a 1987 New Jersey parking lot. WHO WROTE THIS?

The entire middle of the movie is pretty much hot garbage and involves police detectives, arson, vandalism, high school prom, and other dumb bullshit. Aside from the distractingly naked He-Man, the good guys are an utter bore and include some Eternians, some regular Earth humans and their quotidian concerns which really brings down the fun of the movie. (No, baby Courtney Cox, I don't care about your imminent breakup with your mediocre boyfriend!)

The film owes a second mortgage to Star Wars and steals a lot of ideas from it, from bad guys in shiny black stormtrooper helmets, to heroes shooting blue lasers, baddies shooting red.

Let's turn from this depressing state of affairs and focus back on our cherished villain blorbos.

(L-R: Karg, Evil-Lyn our goddess, and Blade.)

Evil-Lyn is beautiful, evil, a cold bitch queen. Gurl you can do so much better than sticking with this loser Skeletor.

Dump! Him! He's gay anyway!

Skeletor is a shit lazy boss of Greyskull and makes Evil-Lyn run the goddamn place in general. He literally shoots the messenger at one point. Great for morale, there, Skel buddy.

Look closer. Fierce!

There's a number of budget rate henchmen on the job, including Karg, who used a whole can of aqua net this morning and is running around in a white fur capelet with a massive bouffant. He is just doing his best okay, really it's hard to look fabulous around these other bitches.

Blade definitely deserved more screen time

Also, Blade, who had a slutty costume of silvery scale maille or something, and was a bit like a sci-fi bondage Riff Raff / space Judas Priest. Best side character costume.

So, there we have it, the queer coded villain roster of the film.

This homemade collage is for sure taped inside Skeletor's locker at school

Note the gigantic brown eye.

Finally, thank Satan, we return to Castle Greyskull, though it's more like beige-and-brown-skull. But aside from the questionable use of faux marble finishes, this is a quality villain lair with hard points installed directly in the floor of the living room, convenient death pits, and an excellent throne setup that I'm pretty sure they recycled for The Fifth Element.

He-Man is captured alive and brought before Skeletor. Blade does the honors with a 15 foot glowing red bullwhip to He-Man's naked and oiled back, much to the delight of dyed-in-the-wool sadist Evil-Lyn.

Movie is getting good now. Was the side quest to Jersey really necessary?

Skeletor, though, watches this action from the throne and has a lot of interesting responses. We had to conclude that Skeletor is a big old bottom but won't admit it. As a dom he is utterly ineffective. He's trying to make He-man kneel and all this shit but He-Man is not submissive at all. Skeletor is … lol. He really just wants to smell He-Man's dick.

The depths (heh) of his bottom nature will become apparent shortly. But first, a costume change.

Skeletor's glow up --- i'm every woman.

Honey we know you're just trying to impress He-man.

Werk tho.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Hole

The gigantic sky-sphincter directly behind the throne has slid open wide… "Begin! The Goatse Ritual! Join me, He-Man, as I become LORD OF THE GAPE" But He-Man's phallic symbol shines bright in defiance. In the end, Skeletor is vanquished symbolically by his own nature and instead of his hole swallowing He-Man, a gaping hole swallows Skeletor instead.

They don't really explain what happened to Evil-Lyn after He-Man's inevitable victory in final man to man combat but she was too smart to get caught sleeping in there and must have survived. What a hot evil competent BABE. After the events of the film end, I vote that Evil-Lyn seduces Teela (the good guy solder lady) and has a hot toxic lesbian affair with her.

Evil-Lyn serves cunt in hell 4 evar

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Want some more?

Nice fanart

Another breakdown on Buzzfeed if you enjoyed mine this is even more gay headcanon

The movie is free on Tubi if you want to subject yourself to it.

ArmoredSuperHeavy, 19 Aug 2023

#motu #he man #skeletor #evil lyn #movies #movie review #80s movies #camp #queer coded villains

[armoredsuperheavy]

The Adventures of the Corto

A little sailboat lost her way En route to French land: Camaret Boat meters eight, her crew just two Captain David knew what to do

Pan-pan call sent - that's not distress They have a trouble. What a mess! But no life's in danger. Only then Do you cry "Mayday" to the wind.

An answer came, "We're on the way! We're setting sail to save the day." Said Swedish tallship Götheborg David cried back "You're much too lorg! With your fast ship, you'll break our craft And there's nothing but water, fore and aft"

"We're fifty meters and three masts! Though our ship is mighty and our crew is vast, We'll gently tow you to the harbor And there re-fill our empty larder!"

Linked by radio and strong rope The crew of the Corto found new hope Götheborg's men were strong, their captain kindly. Even the weather treated them mildly.

And when they arrived at Paimpol harbor The great old ship helped even farther No other boats came out to help and Götheborg ventured into the kelp

David and Simon were safe at last In France, the furthest part from Basque Corto's rudder could be fixed But her destiny was forever mixed

With legendary Götheborg she sailed Now little sister to a ship that hasn't failed A ghost of centuries past, yet living Crewed with generous hearts of giving.

ArmoredSuperHeavy, 2 Aug 2023

Story references: (1) , (2)

ph: David Moeneclaey

#götheborg of sweden #tall ship #sailing #poetry #poem #original poem #op

[armoredsuperheavy]

I just found your blog, and its an absolute DREAM, i've wanted to bind fic for around a year now but I had no idea where to start, and seeing your google doc and all the info on it was incredible! thank you so much for sharing all of that, I can't wait to try this out, will definitely share once I get around to working on it! thank you again!

Ahh thank you so much!

I can't even compete against our Renegade Bindery members on Discord. If you want more tips and a neverending flood of cool books and craft supply enabling, you should join up!

ASH

[armoredsuperheavy]

How do you send authors (that you don’t know personally) copies of books? Do you ask for a post office or something? I don’t want to invade their privacy

PO box if they have it. Another option is to designate a proxy- a friend or relative that lives nearby them. Whatever makes the author comfortable. It gets easier if they know about this phenomenon and have seen posts of other authors who received their books from you, but hesitancy is totally understandable these days.

ASH

[armoredsuperheavy]

Hi there, just wondering if you sell any of your bound books? They are so beautiful. I dont know if it's a glitch with mobile but I cant find any info on your blog anywhere. Thank you!

Our subculture is not for sale. If you are shopping for fanbindings, please review the Renegade Publishing manifesto. Perhaps you'd like to create your own books instead. We can help you with that!

ArmoredSuperHeavy, Jul 2023

More Renegade links here

#fanbinding

[armoredsuperheavy]

I've seen some rancid fucking takes in various internet dumpsters lately, so allow me to frame this in a way that removes all chatter of algorithms or advertisers or any sort of modern money-grubbing that seems to fry everyone's critical thinking brains to fucking oatmeal lately:

Fanwork is a garden. You do not plant seeds in a garden and then get to watch fruits of your labor sprout by just staring at your rows and doing nothing.

Labor: a key word. There should be nothing passive about fan communities.

You cannot harvest your funky little purple potatoes or your butt-shaped carrots without tilling the rows; watering them; getting dirt in the lines of your palms and the rinds of your fingernails. You must give as much as you are wanting to take from the garden. You can have nothing worth anything at all from that garden besides fallow mud unless you're prepared to do the work to grow it.

Curate the tags you like. Find authors, artists, subsets of larger fandoms, that speak directly to the things you love; the specific characterizations you adore, the dynamics that light you from within. Tell them you love them. They will, most likely, love you too. That's what happens when you give someone a handshake: they hold you back for a moment. It's fucking electric.

Do not deny yourself this.

And I get it, to a certain extent. I'm almost 30 and I think my generation seems to be one of the last that has any sense of organic community-building left in it when it comes to online spaces. It makes me so angry and fucking sad that younger people on the internet don't know how to cultivate their fan communities because they've been raised in spaces optimized for maximizing advertiser dollars and spoon-feeding shit that makes money to consumers accordingly.

But it is not the responsibility of fan spaces like AO3 to conform to "the way things are" now, because the way things are is actively insidious to things like queerness and otherness and anything that isn't neatly-packaged, sexless, sanitized ~content~ that speaks to nothing but the slimmest, most vapid slice of reality.

It is your responsibility to tend the garden you want to grow. Take that responsibility for your own experience. You're an adult on the internet. Buck up and act like it.

#fandom #discourse #gift economy

[armoredsuperheavy]

With the launch of @renegadepublishing’s code of conduct and formalized membership this week (as well as the shiny new DreamWidth hub!), I wanted to get some of my thoughts out there.

This has all been a project for some time now, and I don’t think anyone knew what it was going to turn into.

Renegade started with one man, @armoredsuperheavy, and grew into a movement that’s now 1,200+ and counting. He is the reason fanbinding came into the mainstream fandom consciousness the way it has, and I don’t see it going away anytime soon - it’s spreading faster than Tumblr’s weird ass chat function. Hundreds upon hundreds of books were made because of you, Ash; that’s a damn good legacy, imo.

But I digress - Renegade grew from one man to a handful of people in a little Discord server. The server grew. They started a Tumblr, and this is how it went for some time. When I joined, this is how it was - we were so excited to hit 500 members! But, surprisingly, for someone as terminally on Tumblr as I am - I actually discovered fanbinding through Instagram, then TikTok. I had to actively seek out fanbinding on Tumblr, because I knew it had to exist here if it was already on these mainstream platforms.

Nowadays, fanbinding is becoming increasingly controversial in some circles because of the commodification and commercialization that have taken root; the mantra I keep seeing is “Keep Fandom Free”. This seemed a self-evident truth to me; and I couldn’t understand why it felt like no one knew about Renegade, a league of fanbinders who believe in this very ideal.

In essence, it’s a two-pronged issue: fanbinding is rising in popularity (and controversy), but the advocates-for-free-resources community isn’t terribly visible. Renegade was tucked away on Tumblr, a hidden gem in a locked Discord. I felt like I had discovered buried treasure the day Ash sent me the link to join. So, an idea was birthed - to take Renegade to other platforms, to spread our message and introduce our gift economy ways - to shout from the rooftops about the free, incredible 88-page bible ASH wrote detailing every goddamned step on how to take a fic from AO3 and turn it into a physical book.

Once we got in the room to discuss what this would look like, we discovered we have lots of ideas. We have a community, and we’re all excited to build in it. To share and grow. To make it easier on the people who come after us, with guides and templates. We started thinking about events we could host; the Exchange and Binderary were birthed naturally in the Discord, and have grown in scope to include physical books mailed around the world, and free workshops coordinated and hosted for multiple timezones during the month of February. Fan Fiction Writer Appreciation Day, Banned Books Week, International Fanworks Day - the list goes on and on. More events that haven’t even been announced yet. More projects, ever churning to better our community.

The DreamWidth quickly became a hub to aggregate and host resources better than Tumblr could, to promote discussion and community in a gentler way than Discord was able to. But the controversy kept spinning across other swathes of fanbinding, and the question was raised - what do we believe in?

We are all so different and yet, so unified. We have members on 6 continents, who speak different languages, who belong to hundreds of different fandoms. But what, at it’s core, does it mean to be a part Renegade?

And so, the code of conduct was born.

A code of conduct is a set of standards, moral and ethical, that someone is expected to adhere to in order to interact with an organization. It’s not law - we’re not trying to police anyone, or tell them what to do. We’re telling people what we do - what we believe. There’s no punishment for disagreeing, nor should there be. The code is a mutable document written by members - and so it can be changed by members, and should be changed, as we grow and encounter new challenges. The safest hands are our own, right?

There will be push and pull on this document, but I think that’s a good thing. At the end of all of this, I’m excited for us to acknowledge our community values. I wear my Renegade Publishing badge with pride, because I’ve never seen another group of artists so supportive of each other, and generous with their knowledge. Ash has expounded upon this many a time, but Renegade has the feeling of old-school fandom that I’ve been missing. I haven’t felt this united with fandom since Mishapocalypse.

All jokes aside, I’m so glad I found Renegade. It’s brought so much to my life. Just last weekend, I met up with some local binders, and we had a little Renegade outing. Fandom friends, IRL, geeking out with each other over some books. Does it get any better than that?

Join the movement. Check out our resources! We’re excited to have you here.

#renegade #renegade publishing #shit robin what a post i'm tearing up #my proteges

[armoredsuperheavy]

Recently I saw on TikTok that someone got a commission to bind a fanfic. I know of course that selling fanfiction is illegal and can get the fic author in huge trouble, but is commissioning someone else to bind a fic for you also illegal? Seems a bit on shaky ground to me.

There is a lot of misinformation circulating about fanbinding and fanfiction. Answers are not cut-and-dried and thus are not present in a tweet or a 10 second video. You end up with gross oversimplifications like "fanfic is illegal".

I am not legal counsel but here is a recent post that goes into questions of legality.

I would urge you to think not on what is legal, but what is ethical to do and what the repercussions of actions might be on fannish communities at large over time. At Renegade Publishing we choose to support the gift economy tradition for many complex and important reasons.

Personally I think the practice of selling commissions has the potential to be a really destructive trend. I believe fanbindings are artifacts of a community and a collaborative experience. If you want a book you need to make one, barter one, or something else like this. To simply purchase it like any other product chips away at what makes fandom special and ultimately over time, renders it yet another commodified market where our passions and interests are sanitized and sold back to us at a markup.

That's why our Discord server and free resources exist. Come and learn how to make a book. Keep fandom free and raw and untamed.

-ArmoredSuperHeavy 2022.08.01

#advice #this is not legal advice #ethics #gift economy #discourse #fanbinding

[armoredsuperheavy]

I am, in fact, going to tell them. <3

hello, may i please have a link to the bookbinding discord, if that's still a thing?

Please come and join us!

Follow the link in the Renegade Carrd.

[armoredsuperheavy]

After a whirlwind ~two week tour of Texas, I have finally returned home! Friends (old and new), family, and oh my goodness- so many flowers.

Many highlights of the trip to look back on, but one in particular was attending HavenCon and finally meeting several of my @renegadepublishing folks in person! And just as exciting as the people-- the books! What a joy to hold in my hands the numerous constructions I've seen photos of over these last couple years.

There really is nothing like in person interactions- the many mild mannerisms that are certainly lost via text and even escape audio or video bring me the greatest of joys.

additional mumbling under the cut....

While there were obviously beloved members not in attendance, I was quite pleased to meet some of my "favorites" and discover I greatly enjoyed the company of others who weren't quite as familiar to me.

My fears of social awkwardness were largely unfounded and everyone was great about letting me slink off to sulk for a bit and recharge. I think the larger group gathering (we were ~12?) was actually more ideal than I expected- folks able to pair off, the conversation was varied and easily flowed, and it made for more dynamic listening/eavesdropping.

The only down side was that there wasn't enough time to actually sit down and just craft!! Also, so many beautiful books and absolutely no time to actually read them!

Some highlights for me:

restaurant at next door hotel having a perfect room for us to grab dinner Friday night

not having a dedicated space/room for us early Saturday resulted in us just plunking down in the hallway for an impromptu book show-off. Each reveal of books bringing greater and greater joy. I've some misc macro photos of covers I'll be posting later

Renegade members dominating the Renegade talk and laughing at our own jokes (and our panelists [@robins-egg-bindery, @fanboundbooks, @armoredsuperheavy] & moderator [@celestial-sphere-press] doing an excellent job)

folks joining me on the lobby's quasi chaise lounge to just chit chat- cactuscacti's admonishments about curation (appreciated) are still rattling about my thoughts

meeting some of our lurkers ;)

@fanboundbooks's moderation & the talk on transformative works

watching @clovenhoofbindery use a chisel to trim a mini book on my mini press

one of the con goers asking specifically about my loquat dye book!

watching everyone go ape shit for all the supplies at the Austin Book Arts Center

Bonus: the pins, the stickers, the stamps, and @aetherseer suggesting an excellent signature for me ;)

Already looking forward to the next meetup

#havencon 2022 #fanbinding #my proteges

[armoredsuperheavy]

#preservation

[armoredsuperheavy]

How important is it (when binding fanfiction) that the thread is linen and not cotton embroidery floss or another type of thread? Longevity? Thank you!

Linen is a stronger fiber than highly processed cotton, which ultimately means it should hold up for a longer time. Cotton embroidery floss is made to be slippery or have a satiny texture, which means your kettle stitches can come undone easier and it's just harder to maintain the correct tension as you sew.

But if you want easy access to colored thread, well, your priorities might be different.

-ASH

#shop talk

[armoredsuperheavy]

some of y’all with printed copies of fanfiction are going to die someday and your books will end up at the secondhand book shop and someone is just going to innocently pick up blorbo/shitto enemies to lovers and when i think of it this way let’s keep printing fanfiction

#fandom history #preservation

[armoredsuperheavy]

What’s the biggest (highest page number) book you’ve ever made?

I have a project in mind where I want to take a really involved roleplay between my friend and I and make it into a bound book. The only problem is that it is now 1000+ pages and still going… so even if I divided it up into smaller books they’ll still be quite large.

Are there problems that come with making a larger book vs a smaller one?

The largest books I've done were over 800 pages. I would recommend keep the page count per volume under 600. Many of the Renegade binders prefer much smaller books and will split a large work up into even smaller volumes.

You can read about the struggles of large book binding in this post:

https://armoredsuperheavy.tumblr.com/post/631544799505383424/known-associates-by-thingswithwings-fandom

#shop talk #fanbinding

[armoredsuperheavy]

ooh, you did a binding of schadenfreude? that's one of my favorite stories! do you have a post about the process? (or just more photos? i'd love to get a better look at it)

One of the most intense books I've ever read. Erotic horror. my fave.

Schadenfreude by 19

Published by Dead Dove Publishing, strictly limited to two unique copies (as usual: one for me and one for the author)

Get it on Smashwords : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/354419

#bookbinding #fanbinding #schadenfreude

[armoredsuperheavy]

ASH Answers Anonymous Asks II

Q: hi! thank you so much for doing what you do sharing knowledge and building community. I'm interested in getting into bookbinding and have been trying to get my head around it and am feeling a bit overwhelmed! there's so much information out there. your how to make a book document is so informative. do you have any tips on what kind of project to start with, what kind or quality tools are necessary, things beginners should know? thank you!

ASH: Thank you so much for your kind words!

If you’re over 18 and would like to talk bookbinding shop with a whole community of fanbinders, send an off-anon ask to @renegadepublishing for a link to our Discord. There are new beginners joining all the time and a lot of experience to draw from. Come join us in the humming epicenter of the fanbinding movement!

For your first project, I would recommend you work with a fic that really fires you up and motivates you personally. Try to keep it 100k words or under.

Beginner supply list and cheaper substitutions

Q: When printing full color illustrations for eventual bookbinding, what do you look for in paper and which types do you avoid?

ASH: I look for paper my laser printer gets along with. And these days I insist on short-grain sheets for this reason

Paper Info 1

Paper Info 2

Q: Would 280k words be pushing it for a single volume?

ASH: Definitely pushing it. I would split. More info

15 Jul 2021 (yes I’m alive!)

#shop talk #fanbinding

[armoredsuperheavy]

Hey I just wanted to thank you for reposting the tumblr only fics and ficlet links. I have no idea how tumblr works tbh and was having a devilish time trying to reread old Loki ficlets on here and sharing them with friends. This helped out PHENOMENALLY. Ngl, if you started a store to sell bound books of your MCU fics, me and my friends would totally buy them lmao I’m like, not even a little bit joking. How much would that cost? $50-$30? I would pay that for several different ones.

Happy to have helped! I’m certainly invested in ‘facilitating people reading my stuff’ as a concept.

I have to say that (a) I don’t actually know how to bind books (yet! I’d like to learn) - all the ones I’ve shown off on here are other peoples’ work (specifically @spockandawe and @valiha’s), and (b) I would not feel comfortable selling my fanfiction in any direct and/or profitable way. for the same reason I don’t take writing commissions, perhaps because I’m just old-fashioned, I feel very squiggly about the idea of accepting money for fannish activities, at least in any direct way.

(people giving me money through my ko-fi is different because it’s not directly, transactionally related and I don’t reference it in conjunction with my fanfiction itself.)

but if people want to bind them for themselves I fully encourage that! and people sending me bound versions of my own fics is also extremely legit. 

(sometimes I wish I could monetize this hobby of mine but like…also I think it’s probably good that I can’t/won’t, for more reasons than just the legal/ethical ones.)