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time-to-write-and-suffer · 3 years

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I wouldn't mind that post on VNs!

So I was gonna write three different lists, but then after writing the first part I realized this is very long and takes a while to write and nobody cares anyway so I’ll just post my recommended list only. Well, I mean, you asked, but I doubt you wanted all this lol. Thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about this stuff, though. Hope you enjoy my ramblings!

An explanation for what this list is: Sometimes I know a game isn't perfect in many aspects but I still had a genuinely good time playing it, hence why I'm recommending it. Also I should mention that I could talk for hours about some of these games so if anyone’s curious about more of my thoughts, let me know.

Alright, now that that's out of the way ...

How to Take Off Your Mask / How to Fool a Liar King / How to Sing to Open Your Heart (f/m): This is a trilogy of smaller, single-RO games where you can take one of two routes depending on how you act, and they’re all interconnected where you get to meet and interact with the previous games’ characters in the sequel games. I went into this expecting very little but what I got blew me away with how funny, charming and cute the games were. They don’t take themselves too seriously, at one point an angsty male character monologues deeply about some shit, and another one just slides into frame and starts mocking him. It was so fucking funny, holy shit. Also, a central theme is literally racism against catgirls? Which is monumentally stupid, and probably the games’ main flaw, especially in the final game where it pairs up a catgirl with a catgirl racist, but that one still ends with a literal bisexual queen literally making a man her malewife because she fell in love with his cooking, so like ... It speaks for itself. My favorite game of the three is the second one, where you get to play a punchy fake catgirl and romance a pink-haired prince. And honestly, all the female protags in these games are lovely and a breath of fresh air, and the male characters are fun and not abusive assholes either. There’s full Japanese voice acting, and two out of three female protags are literal catgirls who pepper in “nya” and “mya” into their dialogue, and it’s just treated as a quirk of their catgirl race. I AM NOT KIDDING. Yet somehow it never comes off as cringe, because it doesn’t take it self too seriously. These games are just cozy. That’s the only way I can describe them. Cozy and hilarious. Play them yesterday. Dream Daddy (m/m): Man tumblr did this game dirty. This is just a cute, wholesome daddy dating simulator with gorgeous art. Coming out on Top (m/m): So you know Dream Daddy? What if it was EXTREMELY, MAJORLY NSFW? Though I realize how bad the comparison really is, the only thing these games have in common is that they’re gay dating sims and don’t have an anime art style and oh, yeah, they’re both really well-written. Or at least, extremely funny. COOT (heh) is DDADDS’ horny older cousin, and I first encountered the game on a lesbian letsplayer’s YouTube channel. Yes I watched a lesbian play a gay porn game and it was GOOD. I was there for the cringe and fun and got surprised by how genuinely funny and sometimes actually touching the game was. I can’t give it my universal endorsement because it’s not a game for everyone, as I said, it’s extremely NSFW and the menu theme literally includes the singers screaming “SEX SEX” at the top of their lungs. There’s more to this game than the porn, but there’s just so much porn. It can be censored in the settings but it’s unavoidable. However, I still think it’s worth a look just because of how funny it is and how charming the characters are. If you don’t want to play it yourself, at least watch Anima’s playthrough of it. It hasn’t aged super well in some spots but I still go back to it every now and then. Akash: Path of the Five (f/m): This game markets itself as a more “professionally produced” western dating sim, and that’s accurate in some superficial aspects. The game is pretty poorly written, but it’s absolutely gorgeous and has really good English voice acting by actual professional voice actors. The premise is quite self-indulgent, but I genuinely respect that about it. You play as the only female elemental in a village with only men, and all five of your classmates want a piece of you. It’s clear the writers have put some thought into the lore and worldbuilding of this world, but barely any of it comes through in the actual writing and plot, which is basically just a vehicle for you to get together with your boy of choice. The ROs aren’t very well-developed either, and the plot is the same in every route with only minor variations depending on which guy you pick, up to the point where the protag has the same voice lines in some parts regardless of which guy she’s talking about. It also has one extra half-route that’s so bad and pointless I genuinely wonder why they wasted resources on making it instead of spending a bit more on the writing/adding some variations to the main plot. So why am I recommending this game? Well, it’s pretty, and it sounds nice. This game is a himbo, gorgeous but dumb as rocks. Enjoy it for what it is. I know I did. Get it when it’s on sale, I think if I hadn’t gotten it at half-price I would’ve felt a bit more cranky about it. Also Rocco is bae. Mystic Destinies: Serendipity of Aeons (f/m): Yes that’s the full title, no I don’t know what it means either. You may have noticed how most of the games so far I’ve enjoyed because they don’t take themselves too seriously? Well, this one does. It takes itself SO FUCKING SERIOUSLY. Like, way too seriously. It’s a little embarrassing at points because baby, you’re an urban fantasy dating sim. Calm down. But the game has gorgeous art and 3 out of 5 routes are very good. The last route, the one with your teacher, is both the most problematic yet somehow the one that breaks down the very concept of a dating sim within its own narrative (yes, this shit gets fucking META) and it got so wild at the end that 1) I still listen to the soundtrack for that route and 2) I still remember it to this day despite finishing it ages ago. My favorite route is Shou, he’s a sweetheart, but the mindfuck route is so buckwild that I think the game is worth playing just for that. There’s also a route that’s like a neo-noir mystery? I Do Not Know. This game is many, many things and it does them so sincerely and tries so hard, you can’t help but respect it. It doesn’t always stick the landing but man, just let this thing take your hand and wax poetic at you for a bit. Also get this one at a sale because it’s very expensive to get the full version. I got it for 9 bucks on itch.io and I felt that was a fair enough price, I’d say I wouldn’t have minded paying more for it because there’s a lot of content to enjoy and/or be baffled by. Arcade Spirits: This one’s a bit more weird from what I recall, and I honestly couldn’t tell you much about it, but I remember having a very good time with it and recommending it to a friend when she was going through some tough times and she said it made her feel better. I remember it making me feel better, as well. This is a VN about an arcade and the ROs are wonderfully diverse, with very real human conflicts that get explored in each of their routes. It can get quite existential and heavy at times, but in the end it’s a kindhearted game that I think everyone can enjoy. The main character was also, how you say, mood. It’s a game about getting possessed by a video game and then learning self-love. Ebon Light (f/m): This one’s free/name your own price on itch.io so go play it. It’s a weird plot where you play as a girl who ate an elven relic? And then the elves kidnap you because you’re the relic now. All the ROs are extremely pasty (like, literally white, as in literally the color white) dark-haired elves, except for one, who’s an extremely pasty blond elf, so ... diversity? I honestly don’t know what this game is aside from unique. I used to be a bit put off by the art style but now I think it contributes to the general atmosphere. It’s a weird game that technically doesn’t do anything groundbreaking but still left an impression of “huh. weird” in my mind and I think more people should play it. The ROs are all pretty generic dating sim archetypes but done well, with bonus points to Duliae who’s just a massive creep and I love him, and also Vadeyn who’s the only bitch in this house I respect. The worldbuilding is honestly a bit buckwild and I can’t give enough credit for how unique the elves’ culture is in this game. Definitely give it a go. Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds / Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms (f/m): These two are newer releases of an older Japanese visual novel. I wouldn’t call it a dating sim, it’s ... it’s more of a super depressing historical fantasy epic with some minor romance aspects awkwardly wedged in. It’s seriously some of the heaviest and most grimdark shit I’ve ever played in a VN/otome. I don’t understand why it’s a dating sim, it doesn’t read like one, it’s just historical fantasy based on real world events with characters based on real people, and they kill and they die and they grieve and they suffer. The games are literally about the downfall of the Shinsengumi, there’s no way of avoiding everything going to shit and you get to watch and be in the middle of it all as they struggle to stay alive and relevant in a world that doesn’t need them anymore. And there’s the protag in the middle of it all, being useless and submissive and bland just the way the usual otome protag is. I don’t think these games are necessarily fun, and the romance is certainly a lot more downplayed and deeply problematic just based on the age differences alone with some of the men, but the sheer amount of horror and sadness in these games make them stand out above its peers. It’s like watching a war movie. Since most of the characters are based on real people, they feel like real people instead of the usual otome archetypes, and they are so, SO flawed, it’s interesting to just watch them deal with the shit the world throws at them. It’s an Experience, and if you’re up for it, I think it’s worth the time. Cinderella Phenomenon (f/m): This game is free on Steam so go get it. You play as a really, genuinely shitty princess who gets cursed to be poor and forgotten and she has to help one of the ROs break his fairy tale curse so that she can learn about being a good person herself and return to her normal life. This game doesn’t look like much, but it has a genuinely well-written main character who’s actually at the center of each of the stories and in the overarching plot instead of just being around to make eyes at the real protagonists, aka the love interests. Aside from the main character, my favorite part of this game’s writing is how each route slowly but very smoothly expands upon the overarching intrigue. If you play them in a certain order, you get more and more info revealed to you that you didn’t see in other routes, gaps are filled in as you find out more about what actually happened and why, but every route also stands on its own as a full experience and none is more canon than the rest. There’s also some really heavy emotional parental abuse explored, which I found quite potent at times. The romances themselves were alright, I think Karma and Waltz were my faves.

#eff plays

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unculturedmamoswine · 4 years

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I just finished rereading Tortall and Other Lands, and made a totally subjective ranking of the stories. I posted it on reddit but I figured, what the hell, may was well post here too. If i could put it under a cut I would but sadly I am on mobile.

11) Time of Proving

It's good and all; I especially like the concept that the protag, Arimu, has to live alone and map new lands for a year to show her value to her people in order to lead them. But I think I like that bit of worldbuilding more than the actual plot. Though I do think it's pretty cute that Arimu comes up with excuses to keep helping Sunflower. An enjoyable story that's just eclipsed by the greatness of much of the rest of the book.

10) Plain Magic

I like this story. I like the thread magic especially. However, I don't think it really shows us anything new from Tammy if that makes sense. The thread magic, the ignorant folks doing stupid things, the cool stranger whisking away a gifted protagonist to a new life, it's all familiar ground for Tammy fans.

9) Lost

It's hard to put this story so low on the list. It has a lot of qualities to love, but much like Plain Magic it seems like it does mostly what we've seen from other Tammy content. Adria is a girl good at math, which isn't that valuable a thing in her society. But people around her recognize that and take her away to a better place for her, Tortall of course. And we get the darkings, which, cute as they are, seem kinda.. OP. They were OP in Aly's books, too. Ah well, despite my complaints it's still really cool and a fun story. And I love the way it shows the effects of years of abuse and how it makes you feel small. The way Adria's father uses fear to control her whole family, and the way Adria gets away from him by showing her courage, those are important things. I feel sure someone out there was helped by this story, you know?

8) Elder Brother

When I did my ranking, I was baffled that this story was so far down. I really like this story. That's the trouble with ranking stuff you really like, I guess. Fadala is a cool character, Qiom is an even cooler one, and I love reading about Qiom struggling to live his new, more confusing life. Reading about him weeping over his last apples is somehow really sad? And it's very cool to read about a totally different part of the world in the Tortall universe.

7) Huntress

It's very cool to read a modern-day story by Tammy! I love the merging of modern times and the fantasy elements of our usual Tammy stories. It's interesting to see how Corey (I don't think we learn her first name?) isn't devout, and arguably isn't even a believer, but the Goddess still comes to her aid anyway. I suppose it's out of respect for her family. I love the touch of the Goddess wearing modern day running gear. But my favorite thing has gotta be the total utter batshit crazy Pride. What completely insane villains. It's very Tammy to cast the murdering freaks as a bunch of privileged rich douchebags who think they can do whatever they want if they prey on the vulnerable and those that society has deemed as valueless. Golly, does that remind you of anything? It's nice that this story takes a fairly strong 'murder is bad' stance, when even in real life plenty of people are ok with rapists and drug dealers getting murdered. And I like that Tammy shows, through the Lions' threats to rape Corey, that they clearly aren't killing 'bad' people in order to be good guys, but just so they can get away with it easier. Though you could argue that the Goddess killing all the kids somewhat undercuts the 'no murder' message...

6) Testing

Admittedly I probably wouldn't like this one as much as I do if it weren't for the context of it being a semi-autobiographical account of Tammy around the time she rewrote Alanna's books as books for teens. That being said, it's a sweet story that looks at how vulnerable kids can come to trust an adult in lives that have been tumultuous and hard. It's honestly such a feel-good yet realistic tale.

5) Student of Ostriches

I think this one appeals to the kid in me. I was always so enchanted by African animals as a kid and that never really went away. Kylaia teaching herself to fight and run using the animals of her home as inspiration is just unbearably cool to me haha. Though it is much the same as I've said about Plain Magic and Lost in that it's well-trod ground for Tammy, Student of Ostriches really works for me. And it's always nice to have a peek into parts of the Tortall-verse we don't often see.

4) Mimic

I think Mimic sticks in my head more than any other story in Tortall and Other Lands. Ri, Mimic, Grandpa, even the dogs and the crow are all great characters. The beautiful setting, with the great plain and the storms, the dragons, the compact between the village and birds, it's all so memorable. I love that it's about choosing to grow up, and how you can't go back but it's worthwhile and necessary.

3) The Dragon's Tale

Call me basic, but I love dragons! It's so nice to see a story about Kitten, so great to see things from her point of view. Not being able to speak for sixteen years sounds like a freaking nightmare, but she handles it pretty well, I'd say. I like that she clearly thinks of Daine and Numair as her parents, and she adores her bestie Spots, it's just so cute! They really love each other, and I will always be a sucker for stories about people who love each other. But it's not just cute, there's some great meat here in the form of new characters like Afra, Uday, and Kawit and, best of all for me, worldbuilding! I really like when we see glimpses of the Tortall universe that we could never have imagined, as with Beka's unusual wild-adjacent magic. Here we get to see Kawit and learn that she's another example of an immortal that humans overlooked when locking them away four hundred years ago (and we get to see more of Tammy's love of opals lol). I like the subtle implication that opal dragons may be almost a link between classic dragons and basilisks, what with the beaded skin and long long tails. We learn more about Kawit's unusual magic. We get an explicit confirmation of the fact that multiple colors of Gift= more powerful Gift. This whole story is just crammed full of fascinating Tortall content with a soft, gooey center.

2) Nawat

This story is heavy, which is why I like it. I enjoy it when non-human characters are actually characterized as being fundamentally different from humans. It's challenging for the reader and the author to connect with a guy who is considering killing his kid, but I think Tammy succeeds here. It's hard to watch Nawat struggle with the different parts of his life coming together, and sad to see him feeling like his heritage is slipping away. It's nice to see that he really will be able to teach his kids about their own crow heritage when Ochobai grows her first quill. It's also fun to see Aly through his eyes.

1) The Hidden Girl

This story is so good that it makes Elder Brother better just by existing. It's really cool to have Fadala and Teky exploring different attitudes with regard to their culture. While Fadala has an almost Alanna-esque rejection of what her society sees as feminine, we also get to see Teky appreciate what powers women in her society are afforded, and also see her work to change some of the things she sees as wrong. While Fadala isn't willing to play by her people's rules and elects to leave them behind, Teky wants something better for everyone in her homeland. Neither of these attitudes is wrong, they're just different reactions to institutionalized inequality. Like Elder Brother, The Hidden Girl shows us new and fascinating Tortall content in the form of the more monotheistic culture on the far side of the world, which is very cool. We've never really seen an oracle before, and it's a cool new 'badass girl' archetype to add to the Tortall roster. It's all just wonderful, knowing women are changing things all over the world in this verse.

#Tortall #Tamora Pierce #Tortall and other Lands #my post #long post

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werewolves-are-real · 5 years

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Are you able to share some snippets of what you are working on?

Sure! I wrote this as part of the immortal-Laurence fic, but I’m not sure yet if i’m keeping it - the fic might go in a very different direction. Undetermined.

Warnings for, uhh, angst and torture? And dissociation? Trauma. Technically murder. Ahem.

The Tswana call hima devil.

Or that is thenearest concept that can be translated. They say he has dark magics,that he is evil. They think that learning how to kill him will helpthem learn how to subdue England and all their enemies. And so theydo kill him, many times, but it never sticks.

They drown him.There's a small cavern near King Moshueshue's hall, a place thatLaurence might have called appealing, once. There's a small spring ofwater that wells up from an invisible source in the ground. Tiny mosscarpets the surrounding rock, green and inviting.

A few Tswanaguardsmen drag Laurence up to the pond. They push him on his knees,on the spongy moss, and press his head into the water.

Sometimes theypull him out choking and gasping for air. Sometimes he lies stillbeneath the water for minutes or hours or days, blinking in and out ofawareness in small sparks of pain, lungs heavy and full. Then he's onland and vomiting impossible amounts of water, impossibly alive. So theywhip him instead. Choke him with their hands. Stab himthrough the heart.

And he lives. Healways lives, even when he dies a thousand times.

They burn hishands and feet. They carve flesh from his arms. Some of the wounds healfast, the ones that should be fatal. Some of the wounds do not. Menpour salt on the seams of his skin and Laurence would scream, excepthe can't, because he's drowning again.

And then there isa reprieve each night - very brief, and almost worse because beingleft alone means he gets to feel every ounce of pain his body candetect. His clothes are drenched with blood the first time they tosshim back into the cave-prison where the other aviators are keptalive.

People shout. Someone starts crying, and everyone panics when a shocked voice cries,“He is still alive!”

Then the voices –the aviators, his crew – torture Laurence further. They try to wraphis wounds, clean them, pushing and pulling at his broken, uselessbody.

There's no point. Laurence doesn't care about infection.

The next day theTswana come back. Instead of taking Laurence they grab a youngLieutenant from Captain Chenery's crew, who lies and says that he isthe next-highest ranking officer before Chenery can volunteer himself.The Tswana do not return that night.

On the thirdmorning they take Laurence again.

He will never knowabout the fierce argument that resulted from this, will never learnthat three aviators died struggling to keep him in the cave beforeCaptain Chenery, desperate and guilty and defeated, ordered them tostand down. And he will remember only in hazy, horrible flashes thethings the Tswana did every day thereafter.

That's probablyfor the best.

Laurence losestrack of time. He's never sure at any given moment whether he is safewith his officers or about to be murdered. He drifts through the painand lets people do what they want. If the Tswana try to question himfurther he cannot hear, and could not muster up the energy to answer,anyway.

One night a voicedrifts up and reaches through his agony.

“I don't know ifhe can survive this for much longer,” says Dorset. “In fact I ambaffled he still lives at all... Captain Laurence? Can you hear me?”

“I think theyare coming back,” says Emily.

______________________________

Everything is verybright

Someone pushesLaurence down a deep gorge, screaming, and he falls and falls andfalls through a layer of clouds. Dragons fight over his body andcarry him away. Leaves flutter across the ground, pressed by a cruelwind. In his ear someone says “It's alright, Sir. Just keepwalking. Keep walking.”

A black dragongrabs him and will not let go. A village is torn apart. People spillfrom the houses like ants, mice. Bodies fall in the dirt. Buildingstopple.

Somewhere there iswater, and when Laurence touches his face he is covered in salt.

“CaptainRiley,” someone says. “Berkley – god – come speak tohim...”

There is noceiling. The sun beats down and it burns. The whole world is beingconsumed. They could not kill him with whips or knives, they couldnot drown him, and now Laurence is going to burn.

But then the windturns gentle. He sleeps and the earth sways, as it should. Sometimeseverything turns dark and quiet and nobody talks at all.

Nothing hurts.

And then, one day,Laurence looks around. He's sitting in a circle with the otheraviator-captains, and oddly with Mr. Ferris, who curls one hand in aloose grip around Laurence's arm. Harcourt is slumped fully onBerkley's shoulder, very pregnant, with her back up against Maximus'broad side. Chenery and Little play piquet while Warren and Suttontalk quietly beside them, both of the latter holding half-depletedbottles of rum.

Laurence issitting on the deck, too. Behind him a dragon shifts around for amore comfortable position, scales sliding against the soft fabric ofLaurence's coat. The striped yellow hide clearly belongs to one ofthe Yellow Reapers. Maybe Immortalis.

“That is nota better hand,” complains Chenery.

Little smiles. “Itis not my fault you cannot keep the cards straight. And I have aquatorze.”

“I only do notunderstand why there are so many card games,” says Chenery.“Look, see, I drew three Kings, and you only have four Sevens.Isn't mine the better hand?”

Laurence assessesthe game at a glance and responds, “No, it is worse.”

The reaction tothis statement is dramatic.

Little drops hiscards. They splay out across the deck when Chenery jumps to his feet.Next to Laurence, Lieutenant Ferris jolts and swears. Harcourt givesa startled shriek. Berkley grabs her, also cursing.

“The devil,Laurence!” Berkley cries.

They are on theAllegiance. Of course they are on the Allegiance, exceptthat doesn't make sense, because weren't they just...

Laurence frowns.Lieutenant Ferris grabs his arm again, holding him fast when Laurencetries to stand.

Everything seemsvery, very bright.

“Pray stayseated,” says Ferris urgently. “I will fetch the surgeon atonce.”

“The surgeon?”asks Laurence, baffled. But Ferris just nods toward the others andsprings to his feet, vanishing.

Harcourt has ahand over her mouth. Warren, eyes wide, stares unblinking at Laurencewhile Captain Chenery moves beside him.

“No, pray do notmove,” Chenery entreats. “Laurence, what do you remember?”

Laurence shakeshis head. He has never been very familiar with Captain Chenery. Themost they ever spoke was when...

Laurence flinches.

He shouldremember, he should. He doesn't want to. “We were captured,” hesays. He looks around; the other captains seem stricken, waiting insilence for him to say... “I do not remember how we arrived here.”

“It's beenalmost three months, Laurence,” says Berkley. He looks horrified.“Gods. We are almost back in England; do you remember none of it?”

“Three months?”Laurence echoes.

“You have notsaid a word,” says Little quietly. “Just wandered around in a daze; youcannot recall?”

He remembers adark cavern, and hands on his shoulders, and the water -

Laurence flinchesforward and presses a hand against his head. Chenery grabs for himimmediately.

“Oh, hell,”says Sutton. “I am going to go find Temeraire before he notices andstarts tearing the place apart. Get him some water, will you? Helooks ready to be sick.”

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seyaryminamoto · 7 years

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Who do you think are the most overrated characters in ATLA?

What a controversial question xD Well, probably under the cut, for the best.

DISCLAIMER: if you adore any of the characters on this list, this is NOT an attempt to attack you or your peers, merely criticism on how the fandom behaves regarding certain characters.

Undeniably, the #1 overrated character is Iroh. A lot of people give him much more credit than he’s due, and he’s much more problematic than he seems on first sight. No doubt he has his fair share of good points, but he is far from perfect and he definitely isn’t the soul of the show for me, despite it seems he is for a lot of people. Proof of how overrated he is? His mere reappearance in LOK made people who had dropped the show return to it just because of him. Because SOMEHOW Iroh being there makes it all better.Truth is, no, it doesn’t make LOK all better. But how to argue with people who adore Iroh and refuse to see his faults?Iroh is not all wisdom, and he’s definitely not infallible. He’s also not the strongest firebender ever, sorry not sorry to burst that bubble but it’s a fact. Iroh was very questionable at many points in the show, and his relationship with his family is very complicated to say the least. Assuming he’s the only pure and good person in the Fire Nation Royal Family just because he was nice to Zuko is one of the fandom’s biggest mistakes and one of my biggest gripes with this character’s interpretations. Not because Bryke decided to sanctify him in LOK, and make him the franchise’s most enlightened character of all, does it mean he really was that perfect. A genuine analysis of who he is and what he did during ATLA can prove as much. So… Iroh is very overrated. Very. I’m certainly interested in hearing about his past, as any fan would be, but I do think there are far more important things the show and comics should deal with than expanding on Iroh’s life. People who would rather hear about his past than about the grown-up lives of the Gaang (… or about Azula’s uncertain future) really baffle me as Iroh’s endgame is clearly what the show gave us. Do we really need to know more about his past than we need to know about everyone else’s futures? I’d like to know more about his past, as I said, but it is far from a priority for me compared to every other main character on the show.

Zuko would be my #2, of course, only because Iroh’s fans tend to be louder and more annoying when you get them going. But the constant praise to Zuko’s development, and ESPECIALLY the praise to his extremely flawed redemption that still leaves a ton of room for him to improve, and that also made him worse in many ways, makes me roll my eyes more often than not. That recent viral tweet about him getting the best redemption arc in the history of TV makes me wonder how much TV did that person watch at all. If Zuko’s the best redemption TV can do, I guess we’re really facing a terrible time for television shows.Mainly, Zuko is overrated because, just as Iroh, he’s credited for a ton of things that aren’t true. There’s a lot of problems with his character that go unaddressed, and a lot of people are happy to describe him with a lot of praising adjectives that I have no idea what relation they could possibly have with his character. Proof of the messed-up understanding fans have of Zuko can be found easily in fanfiction: have you ever wondered why Zuko’s characterization varies so drastically from fic to fic? Whether fics trying to portray him in a good light or in a bad one, more often than not it feels like people are portraying him as who they think he should be, and not who he really is. Having a grasp on his character is difficult, way more difficult than many people believe, but it’s on great measure because of how hard so many people have it to actually see his flaws for what they are.I am not saying loving Zuko is a terrible thing, it isn’t, but some people love and praise the idea of him, and not who he really is. Careful, less biased inspection of his character can reveal he leaves a lot to be desired for a man who changed his ways and became the ruler that would bring peace to a nation he hardly knows or understands. His character development is a rollercoaster, and that’s mainly because of how deeply flawed he is: but you ask the fandom and he’s a cinnamon roll who never did anything wrong, or at least, whose every misdeed can and should be blamed on everyone but him. Because he is perfect, and so is his character arc. So, overrated, or misunderstood character? Hell knows, but the fandom really has turned me off Zuko’s character altogether.

The third most overrated character would be Toph, who, for all her great traits, often gets praised as a fully rounded character when, uh… to put it bluntly, out of the five top-billed Gaang members, Toph is the one who evolved the least. Her growth was exclusively about developing more bending skills, about becoming a stronger fighter, but she has some serious personality flaws that are never explored the way they should be. She barely ever faces consequences for her wrongdoings, which are often framed as funny, and when she’s in the middle of serious conflicts, she is absolutely never in the wrong, just as it is with her every conflict with Katara. In the end… she barely grows in anything but power level. Yet you look around and find a ton of people praising her as the greatest character of the franchise. While I see the appeal, and in her case I like her a lot better as a character than either Iroh or Zuko, I also think she’s not given a chance by the story to actually grow, and that stunted her as a character. Which doesn’t seem to bother anyone because she’s praised for anything and everything to no end. I appreciate her comic relief moments, the message she gives in regards of disabilities, but the show could have made better use of her character and didn’t, and nobody really seems to notice or care.

This one’s going to get me stoned I’m sure (if the first ones didn’t already :’DDDD) but my #4 goes to Kyoshi. Yep. You read that right.Kyoshi is no doubt a hardass, I’ve seen a ton of people praising her as the greatest Avatar of all. There’s a million Chuck Norris-esque memes with her, presenting her as the most unstoppable force in the Avatarverse, and you see people everywhere dissing Avatars like Kuruk, for being so lazy, or Roku, for not being decisive, blah blah blah, and saying she’s awesome for being 100% the opposite of that.What these funny people fail to notice, or maybe they simply don’t know the Avatarverse’s timeline, is that Kyoshi allowed Chin the Conqueror to take over the entire Earth Kingdom and only made a move against him to save HER island. She didn’t act until then, allowing Chin to take over whatever the hell he wanted to take during his rebellion, which, as far as I know, was practically the entire continent, with only Kyoshi Island and Ba Sing Se as exceptions.And the whole thing to help the Earth King to deal with the Earth Kingdom’s problems, by creating the Dai Li for his protection? It happened AFTER Chin died, she didn’t even do this to save Ba Sing Se from him because this is posterior to Chin’s mad quest. She did NOT act to protect the Earth Kingdom from a raving, rising tyrant until it affected herdirectly, and didn’t involve herself with the politics of HER OWN NATION until after they had boiled over and the Earth King had a peasant revolt in his hands. If she couldn’t be bothered to move to save her own people until the last moment, what guarantees that she did anything to help anyone else? How is she that great an Avatar?Sure, people think that, since she actually got involved in worldly events no matter how late she did, she was better than Roku or Kuruk. But in Kuruk’s favor he apparently had no war to deal with, and his wife’s loss is an unexpected tragedy for him. Roku actually kept Sozin at bay for years, and Sozin only dared act openly with his conquest of the world once Roku was out of the way. Kyoshi had a major war brewing in her nation and her best idea to deal with it was to split off her island so she wouldn’t have anything more to do with it. Because a separatist mentality is the best way to handle your Avatar duties (the greatest illusion is the illusion of separation, anyone?). Seriously, if Chin had been standing just a bit futher back? If he hadn’t fallen to his death? He probably would have taken Ba Sing Se later anyways and Kyoshi would’ve been chilling in her village until she noticed that the Earth King was dead. Oops.Long story short, Kyoshi is considered way too great for the reality of her actions and decisions. The fandom’s concept on her duty as an Avatar is absurdly messed up, and as cool as her character design is, as great as her displays of power were, she was actually a pretty bad Avatar if you get objective about what she allowed Chin to do for so long. So in my very humble opinion, the fandom’s circlejerk around her is more than undeserved.

I was planning on making this a top 5, but tbh I don’t think anyone else gets acclaim to the extreme in the way these four do. Everyone else seems to have a more moderate fanbase, or at least enough detractors that the people who praise them don’t come off as loud and annoying as they do for these four.

I’m not saying loving any of them is wrong, but there’s such abundance of praise for them, often for things they never even did, let alone for values they never represented, and yet they get interpreted by the fandom in whichever way the fans decide they like best. And somehow, the fanon interpretations grow more popular than what’s really there… which is truly annoying because these characters are fine the way the show actually portrayed them. They’re flawed, they make mistakes, their actions can be judged, they’re far from perfect: yet the fandom would have you believe otherwise.

#wingsfreedom #if I get an onslaught of hate for this you're responsible okay (?)

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arrowsbane · 7 years

Text

the ghosts that we knew (will flicker from view)

@Sumigakure Halloween Event 2017

Original Prompt: Prompt 14: Bleach AU [FFN | AO3]

Word count: 1243

Notes: This was mainly inspired by the fact that I was dying to have Sasuke tell Naruto “…I see dead people.” and be 1000% serious. I got my wish.

Summary: Sasuke isn’t born seeing ghosts, but it doesn’t change the fact that he spends half his life listening to their complaints. OR, Sasuke can see the dead, and Minato is stuck in limbo ferrying the dead to the Pure Land.

Contrary to popular belief, Sasuke isn’t born with the dead screaming in his ears or lingering in the corner of his eyes. He’s born completely normal, a hundred percent human with a rather simple destiny. Live, love, fight, and die.

But then the massacre happens.

Then Itachi burns his mind with black fire, and something inside his soul… fractures.

Two weeks later, and he’s waking up in a too-white room in a hospital; being told the irrefutable truth – that his family is dead, and his brother is a murderer.

And then he goes home, to an empty compound that seems so cold it’s a wonder it’s not covered in frost and snow. But the thing is, it’s not so empty. In fact, it’s just as full as always.

Because now Sasuke can see the dead, and this changes everything.

…

It doesn’t take long for his family to realise that he can see them just as easily as he can see the living, and they surround him with love and support.

Whether it’s helping him with his homework, or teaching how to cook, listing 1001 non-ninja uses for a kunai, or even just Great Aunt Miwa waffling on about how to tend to onion plants and how important the roots are – and Sasuke is pretty sure there’s something she’s not telling him here, but he’s six and living in the twilight zone, so meh – it doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that it’s important to note that Sasuke is never alone.

It’s also important to understand that this is not necessarily a good thing.

Sasuke is six years old (seven in the summer), and now he lives and breathes death in a way that makes aged veterans look like unbloodied children.

His waking hours are filled with the ghosts of his family, and he finds himself ‘playing ninja’ with the echoes of children so young that they don’t actually know they’re dead, who don’t know they can never grow up, never fulfil their dreams.

And then he closes his eyes, and dreams of blood and screams and why Itachi?

He can never be free of this curse.

…

Summer passes in a blurry haze, fading into autumn, which freezes as winter creeps in, and then melts into spring. The cycle passes at least once more before Sasuke talks to a ghost who wasn’t an Uchiha in life.

It’s a warm, balmy evening, and Sasuke finds himself hiding from the evening heat by relaxing on the roof of one of his cousins’ houses, in the shade provided by the trees. It’s nice up there – the breeze is cooling him off after a long day of training, and best of all, no relatives.

Sasuke closes his eyes and tilts his head back, humming softly in contentment. Two feet up at his three ‘o clock, a roof tile clinks as weight presses down on it.

“Go away Shisui,” Sasuke grumbles, not bothering to open his eyes. Is five minutes of peace and quiet too much to ask for?

Shisui doesn’t answer, which is suspicious, so Sasuke cracks open an eye.

It’s not his cousin after all, the place is occupied by a strange blonde dressed in a black kosade and hakama, over a white shikagi. The blonde’s outline flickers ever-so-slightly, and Sasuke sighs.

Fucking ghosts.

He’s a medium, but that doesn’t mean he’s bound by law or anything to put up with their shit.

“Get off my roof loser,” He snaps. The ghost ignores him.

“Hey,” Sasuke hisses, eyes narrowing, “I’m talking to you, you stupid undead fucker.”

It’s probably a good thing Mikoto is back at home looking over his homework, because if she’d been there to hear the words Shisui and Cousin Arashi had taught him, she’d have washed his mouth out with soap – or at the very least scolded him until he’d apologized, being incorporeal and all.

The blonde shuffles, sweeping his bored gaze from left to right, still completely ignoring Sasuke – who finally loses his patience and tosses a rock (he likes to keep four or five pebbles in his pockets just in case,) through the man, who finally deigns to look his way.

“Get. Off. My. Roof.” He growls, completely fed up with the interloper.

The ghost blinks, shocked.

“You can see me?” He yelps.

And then the fucker trips over thin air, and falls off the roof.

It’s a good thing he’s already dead, because he’s too stunned to land on his feet.

…

As it turns out, the blonde airhead is actually the ghost of the Fourth Hokage – and isn’t that a mindfuck and a half, because how on earth did somebody this ridiculous wind up the military dictator of a shinobi village?

“And you’re bound here because…?” Sasuke prods, eyeing up the dead man.

“That’s… complicated,” Namikaze admits, reaching up to scratch the back of his head in a rather familiar mannerism that Sasuke is so sure he’s seen somewhere before.

“So un-complicate it,” Sasuke drawls, and the proceeds to drag the truth from the ex-Hokage piece by painful piece until all the cards are laid out.

To the average nine year old, the concept of sealing a mass of sentient chakra into an infant might be a bit much to deal with – but Sasuke passed the point of ‘ordinary’, and slid right into the category of ‘rather unusual and altogether most likely unique’ a long time ago.

It’s the beginning of a rather interesting partnership, and as it turns out that between Sasuke’s ability to interact with the dead and Minato’s ability of helping said spirits to cross into the Pure Lands, they make a very good team.

…

In one life, Sasuke would have tread the path of revenge, but in this life… Sasuke just does his best to live. He’s got a thousand voices whispering into his ears – some for peace, some demand revenge, some whisper of a coup that-never-was. But most of all, they encourage him to enjoy what time he has left.

He’s ten, and alone-but-not-alone, and constantly handled with kid gloves by the living.

There’s not really much he can enjoy.

He says as much to his companion one night, when they’re leaning against a slanted rooftop and watching the stars fade into the dawn.

“But have you considered Seals?” Minato says, eyes glinting mischievously.

People always assume that Naruto’s penchant for pranking comes from his mother. They never stop to consider that like attracts like, and that Minato was known for his trapping abilities and his love of surprises – the combination of which, was known to be devastating on the battlefield.

“I’m listening,” Sasuke replies, ever curious.

…

Years later, when they’re stuck on the same Genin team, and grumpily bitching over how late their perverted sensei is, Naruto sucks in a deep breath, turns to his teammates, and blurts out:

“So, I’m a Jinchuriki.” He looks nervous, twitchy, like he’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. Sakura frowns, not understanding the importance of the word, because Jinchuriki isn’t exactly the kind of thing they covered in the Academy.

“Okay,” Sasuke says, not missing a beat, “tell me something I don’t know.”

“How did you know?” Naruto looks baffled, “Until last week, I didn’t know!”

Sasuke shrugs, and goes back to sharpening his kunai, Shisui snickering in the branches above. Beside him, Minato beams. A smile curls at the corners of Sasuke’s mouth, and he shrugs.

“…I see dead people.”

#sumigakure halloween event 2017 #sumigakure halloween event 2017: prompt 14 #i see dead people #sasuke can see ghosts #sumigakure #mine

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janiedean · 6 years

Note

PROMPT (because halloween is my BIRTHDAY gotta go with a classic); Eddie/Roland, something with Ghost of Tom Joad OR Night with the Jersey Devil 😈

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRO one and two] I wrote idek how much time ago because it fit and I could. also, I threw a coin and the jersey devil happened so here u go

“People say what,” Roland says, sounding like he usually does when he thinks Eddie’s world is a place full of madmen.

Given the story Eddie’s just told him, admittedly, he’s not completely wrong.

“Uh, that there’s, like, a devil in this area.”

“A devil.”

“Well, of course it’s bullshit,” Eddie says, wondering why the hell he decided that going camping was a thing Roland should try when it came to his world and its customs.

Admittedly, he didn’t decide it. Or better, he did after Roland saw some people doing it in some kinda movie whose title Eddie forgot already and asked clarifications about the entire concept, and he still looked kind of baffled, and so Eddie had thought that hey, the man earned a reprieve from the universe after reaching the darned Dark Tower twenty times, he might as well learn the joys of camping.

Then again, wherever Eddie was living was where he apparently wanted to end up, and it’s not as if Eddie ever went much farther than New York in this life or the previous one, not counting Mid-World of course, which is why the best Eddie could think of for camping was fucking Jersey.

So, that’s how they ended up somewhere near Batsto Village, in an area where camping’s allowed, and it’s just the two of them. Eddie doesn’t have a doubt of why – as in, no one who comes to the Pine Barrens actually goes camping, most people would go to the village and find a decent hotel instead.

That said, he only launched into the whole Jersey Devil explanation speech because they had seen a number of ghost towns while coming here, which had led to explaining Roland why it was the case (Roland kept on saying it looked like the world had moved on there, too), and now Roland is just looking not very impressed as he sits down on the ground, cross-legged.

“Some people think that there’s a monster with the head of a goat, bat wings and horns and the likes going around this place.”

“Hey, I never said I bought that!”

“You sounded fairly excited,” Roland deadpans, still glancing around their clearing. They’re surrounded by trees, everything is dark bar for the lights courtesy of the camping management and there’s admittedly nothing else to do other than talking, since they had dinner a short while before. He shrugs.

“It’s a good story,” Eddie shrugs. “And you know I’ve got a talent for good stories.”

“It seems ridiculous to me,” Roland says, “but you can tell it, I guess.”

“Wow, thank you. I’m absolutely flattered. Do you wanna hear of that time in 1909 when the entire county apparently saw it?”

“You can, but I have a feeling that was the main point of the story, wasn’t it?”

Eddie laughs – okay, fine, right, got it, Roland had a point.

“Fine, fine, next time I’m gonna be slightly less obvious. So, what’d you do if the Jersey Devil showed up right now in all its demonic self?”

“I’d shoot it,” Roland replies at once. “But since it doesn’t exist, it’s a moot point, isn’t it?”

“You’d become the hero of every conspiracy theorist in existence,” Eddie points out, wishing he had a camera because Roland’s face is priceless.

“I’d much rather not,” Roland says drily, rolling himself a cigarette. “And anyway, what’s so different from what we used to do every night back in Mid-World?”

“Well,” Eddie has to admit, “technically, we were camping. But camping is about having fun.”

“Didn’t we… have fun, though?” Shit, now Roland sounds like he’s doubting they actually did, which is not what Eddie had been aiming for.

“Of course we did,” Eddie says immediately, figuring that the least he needs is getting the guy to think they hated being there, as if they hadn’t chosen it, “but I mean, we were on a mission. If you go camping you don’t go on a mission. You just want to hang out with friends and have fun and, share dumb ghost stories and complain about how hard the ground is while enjoying every second of it. And we don’t have a mission.”

“Fair enough,” Roland concedes. “I suppose that was the, dumb ghost story?”

“Hey, the Jersey Devil isn’t a bloody ghost,” Eddie immediately replies. “It’s a demon.”

“Well, it certainly is dumb. Why would you even curse your child?”

“Because it’s one too many?”

“There’s ways to bed someone without ending up pregnant,” Roland deadpans. “Anyway, was the point scaring me?”

“As if the fucking Jersey Devil would scare you. No, it was to give you the full experience. Well, okay, I should roast marshmallows, but you can’t light up fires in here.”

“Are you supposed to?”

“It’s kind of a staple.”

“So what we were doing in Mid-World was more camping than this?”

… Eddie should give him that, because he’s technically right and honest, he’s delighted that Roland’s back to his old brand of sass that had come out during the branch of their trip in Mid-World that he remembers (loop nineteen – he gave up on remember seventeen, but apparently nineteen was the important one) and he had been way too quiet the first few weeks, except that a moment later the lights go out.

All of them.

“… What,” he says.

“You tell me.”

He shrugs. “Probably a short circuit,” he says, going for the most likely explanation. He shudders – well, it’s cold. That’s why he wanted a fire, but never mind. At least they have a decent enough tent.

It’s completely fucking pitch black now though – there isn’t even the moon out tonight, so he can’t see shit beyond the embers of Roland’s cigarette.

“Maybe,” he says, “we should go inside the tent.”

“We should?”

“Well, it’s the one thing about camping we haven’t done for now,” Eddie snorts, and he can feel more than see Roland shrugging before he crawls back into the tent – Eddie follows him, closing the flap and not even bothering to tell Roland to put the cigarette out. He doesn’t mind the smell, not anymore, and he shouldn’t put it out in the middle of a field anyway. Lest it really catches fire.

“That’d be?” Roland asks.

Eddie doesn’t waste too much time moving on top of him, his hand reaching out and grasping at Roland’s shoulder.

“Making out inside a tent while it’s dark out and the ground is uncomfortable as hell,” he says against Roland’s mouth, and he was going to lean down –

Except that he hears a screech coming from outside the tent and he startles slightly – Roland’s hand goes to his elbow and grasps at it, but Eddie can fucking feel that he’s smirking.

“Interesting,” he says.

“That has to be some wild animal,” Eddie says, and resolutely does not startle again when he hears screeching for the second time.

“Of course it is,” Roland deadpans. “Are you sure you don’t want to check if it’s the Jersey Devil?”

“Roland, my friend, I think that if it was, I’d rather avoid a meet-up. I have much better prospects for now.”

“As in?”

“Showing you the entire point of fucking camping,” Eddie says, and leans down to kiss him already, drowning out the third screech of the evening.

Honestly, now this is the entire point, and as Roland moans lightly into his mouth and rough hands grasp at his hair, Eddie decides that they totally need to do this more often.

And as far as the Jersey Devil is concerned, it can screech as much as it likes – Eddie’s not moving anytime soon and Roland isn’t either.

Then again, maybe next time they could go to Maine.

Or maybe not, he decides, thinking about what happened last time they both were in Maine. All things considered, maybe the Jersey Devil wannabe outside their tente isn’t that much of a price to pay if it gets Roland this worked up, Eddie thinks as Roland’s hands work on undoing his belt, and then he doesn’t pay the thing any attention anymore. He’s got entirely better options to think of, after all.

End.

#roland deschain #eddie dean #roland x eddie #the 2017 halloween prompts extravaganza #dark tower spoilers for ts #the dark tower #my fic #ch: roland deschain #ch: eddie dean #otp of otps #otp: you saved my fucking soul #THANKS FOR INDULGING ME WITH THE OTP #majorheelturn #ask post

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kenbunshokus · 7 years

Text

sic itur ad astra

gen, ichiji and sanji-centric, character study entry for @32daysofsanji; prompt: family

Humans can make out patterns out of nothing. Like discovering shapes in the cloud, or images between the stars. If you listen to static noise long enough they start to form meaningful words, even when there isn’t any.

This is the closest approximation to how Ichiji feels things.

It is almost fascinating, then, for him, to watch Sanji, who seems to feel everything with his entire being, so visceral and open and raw.

(ao3 & disclaimer)

Ichiji is happy.

He is approximately 78% sure about that.

The 22% exists within that assessment because, well. Ichiji grew up with a significant number of scientists and doctors declaring that he does not have emotions—does not possess the capability to even form one—and there are only so many times you can hear about something before you start believing in it.

Ichiji supposes there is merit to that line of thought. He certainly does not feel things, in the most common definition of the word. He is familiar with the concept human feelings, the wide array of emotions that lie between the so-called Happiness to Sadness spectrum, but he never quite knows where he falls on that scale at any given point in time; he just knows that he does.

Humans can make out patterns out of nothing. Like discovering shapes in the cloud, or images in between the stars. If you listen to static noise long enough they start to form meaningful words, even when there isn’t any.

This is the closest approximation to how Ichiji feels things.

“What about Sanji?” He asks into the receiver, ignoring the buzz of celebration around him as another empire falls in the face of Germa’s might.

“He’s already here,” one of the soldiers answers through the transponder snail, and Ichiji feels a smirk tugs at the end of his lips.

There are shapes in the drifting clouds, words in the drawn-out static noise at the back of his mind.

“Oh? How fun,” he says. “I can’t wait to see him.”

“Liar,” Niji spits out, but what does he know.

The stars say Ichiji is happy, so he is.

ii.

“We weren’t always like this,” Reiju says, and Ichiji has heard this one before from her. “We weren’t born without emotions.”

He turns a page of the book he is currently reading, almost too quickly, the papers rustling noisily against each other. “This is me…caring.”

Reiju is undeterred. She always is. “They did this to us when we were young; younger , in your case. It’s like—“ she bites her lower lip, clearly frustrated, before settling with, “remember, when you were six, and all of us visited a village in an island in West Blue? They had this celebration where they carved faces on pumpkins?

“They had to scoop its insides,” she continues. “One of our soldiers took this knife, its blade the size of a man’s forearm, and he scooped out the insides of the pumpkin. Seeds and juices slopped out of the pumpkin, leaving it hollow and empty.”

He doesn’t say anything, and waits. Reiju shakes her head.

“That’s us,” she says, finally. “That pumpkin is us.”

Ichiji never quite likes metaphors; never sees the point of it. “What are you trying to say, Reiju?”

“Sanji is different,” she says, and he thinks, oh . This is where this conversation is going, after all. Unsurprising; their forced reunion after thirteen years of pretending the other party does not exist allows a lot of old grievances to resurface. “Sanji isn’t like us; he isn’t empty . He doesn’t deserve to be pulled back into—” she gestures at the spacious room around her, the mahogany door and the marble floor, as if there is something wrong with them. “ This .”

“It is what our father intended for him,” Ichiji says, because that is what their father said, and their father’s words are absolute. “He should be grateful that he, who was born a mistake, can finally be of use to this family.”

“Sanji was not a mistake,” Reiju fires back. “That was the whole point. Were you even listening?”

“It’s semantics,” he points out, rationally. “A mistake is a mistake is a mistake; no amount of metaphors can change that. He was intended to do one thing, and he could not achieve that. Wouldn’t that what you call a mistake?”

The fact that Reiju does not have anything to say to that is telling.

iii.

The scientists, among other things, taught them all chess. It is part of their war strategy lessons, a feeble attempt to make them remotely interesting to six-year-olds. It yields mixed results—Yonji never managed to understand the rules; Niji threw temper tantrums every time he lost, which happened more often than not; Reiju and Ichiji picked it up just fine.

Sanji loved it.

The first thing they learned (for chess, for war strategies, for everything ) is how to win. The key to winning, they taught him, is to understand your opponent.

Ichiji never won a single game against Sanji.

It can get frustrating, trying to understand Sanji. They are similar—they are brothers , born on the same day—but looking at Sanji is like looking into a broken mirror; his reflection all splintered up, cracking at the edges.

He asked Sanji, once. How he kept winning, when he was so terrible at their war strategy lessons. Whether he cheated.

I think, he remembers Sanji saying, meek and shy and subdued. With chess, you have to make sacrifices to win.

He knew that. Just like war tactics. The key to chess is to sacrifice everything you’ve got except your king.

Sanji shook his head at that. Sacrifices are only easy in chess. In life, if you sacrifice something, you are losing a little bit of yourself, too. There is no point in a victory if you’re a lone victor. He looked down at his hands, and said, almost to himself, You can be a king on an empty chess board, but you can’t lead a kingdom without its people.

Baffling. Downright foolish, really.

And now, years later from that day, Sanji is standing before their father once again. Ichiji has heard of his exploits in the New World, how he defeated Yonji without breaking a sweat, and yet here he is, shaking like a leaf and looks oh, so, very small.

“In the event that you insist on challenging my orders,” their father declared, holding up a picture of a chef from East Blue, “I have it on good authority that this man will meet an untimely death.”

Sanji sucks in an audible breath, all the bravado he’s been boasting gone from his posture—shoulders slumped, head hung low. Ichiji chuckles to himself at the sight. It is so obvious, now that they are older.

The key to understanding Sanji is that he is too afraid to sacrifice too many pieces on his board.

iv.

It is the anniversary of their mother’s death.

They hold a ceremony every year, without fail. It is a nationwide affair—flags half-mast, citizens clad in black, people looking solemn on the street. Above, dark clouds start to gather over their floating kingdom, accompanied by the ominous rumbling of thunder. Beneath their feet, waves crash against their ships, and the ground trembles.

It is the only day that their father cries.

It is the only day that their father looks weak.

Ichiji does not understand the sentiment; everything about their mother always feels distant, detached, like hearing a song he has forgotten the lyrics to, or trying to recall a dream he once had a long time ago. There is a certain kind of urgency to it, a part of his consciousness telling him listen, listen, listen , but the voice is muted, almost faded.

This is also how Ichiji sees himself nowadays. And probably has been for a long time, now that he thinks about it. He does not feel like he has the inherent ownership to his limbs, from the strands of his hair down to the soles of his feet. Distant, detached. Everything pales in comparison to his father’s will, or the objectives of today’s mission.

Sanji asked him once, when they were kids. Why are you doing this to me?

And the answer to that has always been: he does not know.

When your world is narrowed down to your father’s wish and the commands from anyone who is rich and willing to pay enough, soul-searching questions like, why are you doing this? or, how do you feel about this? tend to take a back seat. Ichiji tries not to dwell too much on those.

Maybe Reiju was right. Maybe he was not always like this. He remembers sitting at the edge of his mother’s hospital bed, laughing to a joke she was telling animatedly, and there was something swelling, underneath his ribcage, a loud lub, lub, lub ringing in his ears at the way she smiled—

Or maybe not.

It would not have changed a single thing. The chess pieces were never his to sacrifice. Their father’s words are absolute.

“You got into a fight with Sanji again,” Reiju says as soon as she walks into his room. It is a statement, not a question. Almost accusatory.

Ichiji does not bother to look away from the window. “Yes,” he agrees. “Though ‘fight’ would be a gross exaggeration when our dear little brother could barely put up a struggle, even after all these years.”

Reiju tenses, but does not argue. When he catches her reflection on the window, her shoulders are slumped, and she looks tired.

“Why are you doing this, Ichiji?” She asks.

“He disobeyed our father’s order,” Ichiji says. “He attacked Niji over that pathetic excuse of a chef.”

“You know what I meant,” she presses. “ Why are you still doing this to Sanji?”

Ichiji tilts his head, genuinely confused. The static noise in his head refuses to churn out a single word. “We both know neither of us have the answer to that question.”

Reiju sighs, and Ichiji shares the sentiment.

If trying to understand Sanji is frustrating, trying to understand Reiju is downright exasperating . With Sanji, he knows, at least, that they are fundamentally different—Sanji is the mistake, the failure, the dud. Reiju, however, should be familiar. She should be the same as him. But instead she seems to perceive things differently; like they both have lost the same puzzle pieces, but Reiju still knows how the big picture looks like.

Lightning strikes, illuminating the room for a split second.

“Are you hurt?” Reiju asks. For a moment, he can’t see her eyes, can’t read her expression. “Or do you just want to hurt someone else?”

Drops of rain begin to fall, outside. “Yes,” he answers.

vi.

On the day of the wedding, there are guns pointed at their heads, close enough that Ichiji could feel the metallic chill of the barrels against his temple. Their father is crying (weak, weak, weak) and in that moment two thoughts are formed, unbidden, in Ichiji’s mind, among the static: one fact he already knows, and one fact he begins to learn.

One fact he already knows: the chess pieces were never his to sacrifice.

One fact he begins to learn: he is one of those chess pieces.

Ichiji cannot bring himself to get upset by the revelation, just like he cannot bring himself to get upset by his apparent and inevitable demise. Death is part of war, he has been taught; of life, of anything. They have erred in their judgment on Big Mom and they are paying the price. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And it’s not like Ichiji wants to die, but he does not exactly have a say in this. In the grand scheme of things, if you look at it in all the right ways, he never really had a say in anything, really.

He cannot bring himself to get upset about this, either.

(The voice, far-away and buried, tells him, listen, listen, listen— )

He suddenly thinks of Reiju’s story. He supposes he can finally understand why the empty, hollow pumpkins are smiling.

vii.

Sanji is standing tall on the table, looming and imposing in a way he never thought was possible for that particular brother of his. Ichiji looks up (up, up, implying that he is below, to Sanji, out of all people) and realizes that he does not understand Sanji—his actions, and his reasonings, and his everything.

After all they’ve done. After all they’ve done to him.

It’s a whirlwind of actions after that—one of the Strawhats hands him their raid suits as Big Mom’s army approaches, and it’s a flurry of swings and kicks and groans before he finds himself almost side by side with Sanji as their enemies circle them warily.

“I don’t get it,” he tells Sanji, because any time is as good as any.

Sanji clearly disagrees, because he gives Ichiji a look that is equal parts exasperated and baffled. “This is—what the fuck, this is a shitty time to talk about this.”

“You hate me,” Ichiji goes on talking, because he’s never good at listening to Sanji anyways.

“I hate you,” Sanji agrees. “You’re a scum.”

“Then why should it matter to you that I die?”

Sanji’s kick falters at that, and he misses a soldier; Ichiji punches the lucky soldier in the face to get the job done. “I don’t,” Sanji says, and he sounds like he’s struggling with his own answer. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Didn’t you say so yourself?” Ichiji points out, almost parroting Sanji’s earlier words. “I’m a scum. I deserve everything that is coming to me.” The static is getting louder in his head, and he can’t make out anything from it no matter how hard he tries. “I don’t understand why it should be a big deal to you if I die.”

“Stop saying that,” Sanji grits out. “Stop saying that you’ll die.”

There is another battalion of Big Mom’s soldiers advancing, swinging their blades towards them. Sanji does a spinning kick to bat their blades away, and they don’t talk for a moment, focusing on the enemy’s forces. It is not quiet—there are loud gunshots and louder screams on the battlefield—but Ichiji thinks there’s a certain kind of silence descending in the space between them anyways, suffocating the air.

As their enemy dwindles, it is Sanji who breaks it.

“There’s this—thing, okay. This thing, where you’ve made a lot of mistakes, and done horrible things, and I hate you for it. You don’t get a free pass on that. I fucking despise you for it,” Sanji says, voice trembling imperceptibly; it sounds a lot like he is spitting out poison, acid dripping from his tongue. He takes a moment to take a long, shuddering breath. “But there’s also this thing, this thing where other people made your mistakes for you. This one—this one isn’t on you.”

He points at Vinsmoke Judge, across the battlefield. “This one is on that bastard.”

“That’s semantics,” Ichiji says, almost an echo of his past self, because he doesn’t know anything else anymore. “A mistake is a mistake is a mistake.”

Sanji shakes his head. “A person is not a collection of their mistakes.” He glances at Straw Hat Luffy, grinning widely even in the middle of danger. Sanji must have seen something in Straw Hat, because the edges of his expression smoothen into something softer. “That is not what they taught me.”

Ichiji looks at the man before him. Strong and proud and tall, steel in his spine. He thinks of the small little brother in his memory, bruised and battered, and wonders if they are even the same person.

“Who?” He asks, almost in a whisper; the static turns into a buzz, and then a low hum.

“My captain,” Sanji says, and then adds, like an afterthought: “and my father,” and they both know he is not referring to the man who cried pitifully across the table at the wedding.

The key to understanding Sanji, he always thought, is that he is too afraid to sacrifice too many of his pawns. He holds onto them, like a little kid, stubbornly clasping his hands together so that none of the pieces would slip through his fingers.

He was wrong.

The key to understanding Sanji is that he doesn’t see people as chess pieces to sacrifice.

viii.

It is the day after their mother’s death.

The funeral just ended, and the children are free from their lessons for once—everyone is still grieving, too shell-shocked to continue with their daily lives. Ichiji doesn’t quite understand, but he isn’t about to question father’s decisions.

He finds Sanji at their room, crying noisily into his pillow. Ichiji ignores him, and walks towards the table at the center of the room instead. There’s an open chessboard on it, its pieces still placed in an unfinished game, stopped prematurely when they heard the news about their mother’s death.

“Do you want to play?” Ichiji asks. “I think I can beat you today.”

There’s a choked sob from Sanji’s bed. “We just," Sanji mumbles, voice muffled by the pillow covering his face. "We just came home from mom’s funeral."

Ichiji starts picking the pieces up, resetting the board. “This is me...caring.”

He expected Sanji to get angry, to start throwing those weak punches of his, but when Ichiji looks up Sanji is looking at him with an odd expression.

“Ichiji? You’re…” Sanji says, but he does not finish his sentence.

Sanji rubs his face, wiping his tears, and climbs down the bed. “Okay,” he says, and starts setting the pieces together with Ichiji. “I’ll play with you.” His tone sounds like he’s indulging Ichiji, like he’s doing this for Ichiji. It’s annoying.

When Ichiji touches his cheek, it is wet.

Ichiji scrambles to rub his eyes, erasing the pinpricks of tears that form at the edges of his eyes. It’s not like it means anything to him—he doesn’t feel things, not in the most common definition of the word. The tears won’t stop falling though, and he has to ignore the way something in his chest feels like it doesn't fit quite right, humming with a solid ache around his sternum; and he thinks how he doesn’t quite know where he falls on the scale of emotions at any given point in time, but he knows that he does. He knows that he does.

ix.

The sky is bright and blue and vast, and the Whole Cake Island is disappearing into the horizon.

Ichiji stands on the railings of the Straw Hat’s ship, ready to fly back towards his own. Sanji is standing not far from him; to see him off or to kick him off, he isn’t sure. Sanji does look like he’s going to do the latter sooner rather than later.

So he tilts his head towards Sanji. “What do you want me to do?”

Sanji frowns, nose scrunched up in disgust. “Why the fuck should I care?”

“It is a fair question,” he points out. “Loathe that I am to admit this… I am still indebted to you, after all. We all are.”

Sanji bites down on the cigarette between his teeth, hard. “Don’t ever show your shitty face in front of me again, then. That’s all I give a shit about. Hell, do something that isn’t hurting other people, for once.”

Straw Hat Luffy must have overheard their conversation, because he cranes his neck towards them, holding a hand on his hat to keep it from falling. A grin, quicksilver and free, flashes across his face.

“Well,” Straw Hat Luffy says, like the answer is easy, like the answer has been there all along. “What do you want to do?”

The question punches a breath out of him.

What he wants. That’s funny. Ichiji never thought about that.

Sanji must’ve sensed something from him, because he starts walking threateningly towards Ichiji. “Don’t start getting all philosophical on me, just get your ass off this ship and never come back again!”

Ichiji looks up at the sky. Listen, listen, listen.

For the first time in his life, Ichiji smiles.

#vinsmoke ichiji #vinsmoke reiju #sanji #monkey d. luffy #one piece #my writing #//#ichiji #reiju #vinsmokes #op #so this is...a thing that's been stuck with me ever since they revealed that the vinsmoke kids were genetically modified to not have feeling #consider;;; this ichiji

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sufredux · 5 years

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The Importance of Elsewhere

In October 2016, British Prime Minister Theresa May made her first speech to a Conservative conference as party leader. Evidently seeking to capture the populist spirit of the Brexit vote that brought down her predecessor, she spoke of “a sense—deep, profound, and, let’s face it, often justified—that many people have today that the world works well for a privileged few, but not for them.” What was needed to challenge this, May argued, was a “spirit of citizenship” lacking among the business elites that made up one strand of her party’s base. Citizenship, she said, “means a commitment to the men and women who live around you, who work for you, who buy the goods and services you sell.” She continued:

Today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass on the street. But if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what citizenship means.

Although May never used the term, her target was clear: the so-called cosmopolitan elite.

Days after this speech, I was giving a lecture on nationalism for the BBC. The prime minister had been talking in Birmingham, the only one of the five largest British cities that had voted—by the barest of margins, 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent—for Brexit. I was speaking in the largest Scottish city, Glasgow, where two-thirds of the population had voted to stay in the EU, just as every other Scottish district did. Naturally, somebody asked me what I thought about May’s “citizen of nowhere” comment.

The cosmopolitan task, in fact, is to be able to focus on both far and near.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard such a charge, and it won’t be the last. In the character of Mrs. Jellyby, the “telescopic philanthropist” of Bleak House, Charles Dickens memorably invoked someone who neglects her own children as she makes improving plans for the inhabi-tants of a far-off land and whose eyes “had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off,” as if “they could see nothing nearer than Africa!” The attitude that May evoked has a similar affliction: it’s that of the frequent flyer who can scarcely glimpse his earthbound compatriots through the clouds.

But this is nearly the opposite of cosmopolitanism. The cosmopolitan task, in fact, is to be able to focus on both far and near. Cosmopolitanism is an expansive act of the moral imagination. It sees human beings as shaping their lives within nesting memberships: a family, a neighborhood, a plurality of overlapping identity groups, spiraling out to encompass all humanity. It asks us to be many things, because we are many things. And if its critics have seldom been more clamorous, the creed has never been so necessary.

NOWHERE MEN

Cosmopolitanism was born in the fourth century BC as an act of defiance, when Diogenes the Cynic—who came from Sinope, a Greek-speaking city on the Black Sea—first claimed he was a kosmopolitês. The word, which seems to be a neologism of his own, translates more or less as “citizen of the world.” Diogenes was fond of challenging the common sense of his day, and this word was meant to have a paradox built into it: a politês was a free adult male citizen of a polis, one of the self-governing Greek towns in southeastern Europe and Asia Minor, and the kosmos was, well, the whole of the universe. It would have been obvious to any of Diogenes’ contemporaries that you couldn’t belong to the universe in the same way as you belonged to a town such as Athens, which had some 30,000 free male adult citizens in his day (and a total population of perhaps 100,000). It was a contradiction in terms as obvious as the one in “global village,” a phrase coined by the media theorist Marshall McLuhan a little more than half a century ago. Village equals small; globe equals enormous. Cosmopolitanism takes something small and familiar and projects it onto a whole world of strangers.

Nonetheless, this paradoxical formulation has come to enjoy extraordinary appeal around the planet. Conservative populism may be on the rise in Europe, but in a 2016 study conducted by the BBC, nearly three-quarters of the Chinese and Nigerians polled—along with more than half of the Brazilians, Canadians, and Ghanaians polled—said that they saw themselves “more as a global citizen” than a citizen of their own country. Even two in five Americans felt the same way.

A Chinese tourist supporting Atlético Madrid at the Champions League Final in Milan, Italy, May 2016

Yet there is something misleading about this conception of identity. The BBC poll presupposes that one must weigh the relative importance of global and local allegiances against each other, as if they were bound to be in competition. That seems to be the wrong way to think about things. After all, I am, like millions of people, a voting member of at least three political entities: New York City, New York State, and the United States. If asked which I was more committed to, I’d have a hard time knowing how to answer. I’d feel the same puzzlement if my metaphorical citizenship of the world were added to the list. Because citizenship is a kind of identity, its pull, like that of all identities, varies with the context and the issue. During mayoral elections, it matters most that I’m a New Yorker; in senatorial elections, the city, the state, and the country all matter to me. In presidential elections, I also find myself thinking as both a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the world. So many of the gravest problems that face us—from climate change to pandemics—simply don’t respect political borders.

In her speech to her fellow Conservatives, May was asking not just for a sense of citizenship but also for patriotism, an attachment that is emotional, not merely procedural. Yet there’s no reason a patriot cannot feel strongly in some moments about the fate of the earth, just as a patriot can feel strongly about the prospects of a city. Managing multiple citizenships is something everyone has to do: if people can harbor allegiances to a city and a country, whose interests can diverge, why should it be baffling to speak of an allegiance to the wider world? My father, Joe Appiah, was an independence leader of Ghana and titled his autobiography The Autobiography of an African Patriot; he saw no inconsistency in telling his children, in the letter he left for us when he died, that we should remember always that we were citizens of the world.

PATRIOTIC COSMOPOLITANS

That thought is one my father probably got from Marcus Aurelius, the second-century Roman emperor whose Meditations lived alongside the Bible on his bedside table. Marcus wrote that for him, as a human being, his city and fatherland was the universe. It’s easy to dismiss this as so much imperial grandeur, and yet the point of the metaphor for Stoics such as Marcus was that people were obliged to take care of the whole community, to act responsibly with regard to the well-being of all their fellow world citizens. That has been the central thought of the cosmopolitan tradition for more than two millennia.

But there is something else important in that tradition, which developed more clearly in European cosmopolitanism in the eighteenth century: a recognition and celebration of the fact that our fellow world citizens, in their different places, with their different languages, cultures, and traditions, merit not just our moral concern but also our interest and curiosity. Interactions with foreigners, precisely because they are different, can open us up to new possibilities, as we can open up new possibilities to them. In understanding the metaphor of global citizenship, both the concern for strangers and the curiosity about them matter.

The German intellectual historian Friedrich Meinecke explored the modern philosophical origins of this idea in his 1907 book, Cosmopolitanism and the National State. Through a careful reading of German intellectuals from the Enlightenment until the late nineteenth century, he showed how the rise of German nationalism was intimately intertwined with a form of cosmopolitanism. In the late eighteenth century, Johann Gottfried Herder and other cosmopolitan thinkers began imagining a German nation that brought together the German-speaking peoples of dozens of independent states into a union founded on a shared culture and language, a shared national spirit.

Interactions with foreigners, precisely because they are different, can open us up to new possibilities, as we can open up new possibilities to them.

It took a century for modern Germany to achieve that vision (although without the German-speaking parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). In 1871, a Prussian monarch presided over the unification of more than two dozen federated kingdoms, duchies, principalities, and independent cities. But as Meinecke showed, the thinkers behind this accomplishment were deeply respectful of the national spirits and peoples of other nations, as well. In true cosmopolitan spirit, Herder revered the literature and arts of foreigners. His ideas about national culture inspired a generation of folklorists, including the Brothers Grimm, but he also wrote essays on Shakespeare and Homer. One could be both cosmopolitan and patriotic; indeed, for the great liberal nationalists of the nineteenth century, patriotism was ultimately a vehicle for cosmopolitanism. It’s why Giuseppe Mazzini, a champion of Italian unification, urged his fellow citizens to “embrace the whole human family in your affections.”

The stock modern slander against the cosmopolitans—which played a central role in anti-Semitic Soviet propaganda under Stalin in the period after World War II—is that they are “rootless.” This accusation reflects not just moral blindness but also intellectual confusion. What’s distinctive about modern cosmopolitanism is its celebration of the contribution of every nation to the chorus of humanity. It is about sharing. And you cannot share if you have nothing to bring to the table. Cosmopolitans worthy of the label have rhizomes, spreading horizontally, as well as taproots, delving deep; they are anything but rootless.

At a protest to demonstrate London’s solidarity with the EU, June 2016

Another corollary of cosmopolitanism is worth stressing: in respecting the rights of others to be different from themselves, cosmopolitans extend that right to the uncosmopolitan. The thought that every human being matters—the universalism at the heart of cosmopolitanism—is not optional. Cosmopolitanism is thus also committed to the idea that individuals and societies have the right to settle for themselves many questions about what is worthwhile and many features of their social arrangements. In particular, many people value a sense of place and wish to be surrounded by others who speak a familiar language and who follow customs they think of as their own. Those people—the British journalist David Goodhart has dubbed them “Somewheres,” in contrast to “Anywheres”—are entitled to shape a social world that allows them these things, that grants them the proverbial comforts of home. And if they want to sustain those comforts by keeping away people unlike themselves or cultural imports from elsewhere, then (assuming certain moral basics of nondiscrimination are observed) that is their right.

The thought that every human being matters—the universalism at the heart of cosmopolitanism—is not optional.

The problem, of course, is that these uncosmopolitan localists live in societies with others who think differently. They must cohabit with the cosmopolitans, just as the cosmopolitans must cohabit with them. Furthermore, societies have moral and legal duties to admit at least some foreigners—namely, those escaping persecution and death. Those obligations are shared by the community of nations, so the burden must be distributed fairly. But each society must contribute to meeting the need.

The fact that the localists share societies with cosmopolitans in countries that have duties to asylum seekers constrains the ways in which the localist camp can achieve the comforts of home. But the existence of the localists constrains what the cosmopolitans can do, as well. Democracy is about respecting the legitimate desires of fellow citizens and seeking to accommodate them when you reasonably can.

PLAYING FAVORITES

If nationalism and cosmopolitanism are, far from being incompatible, actually intertwined, how has cosmopolitanism become such a handy bugbear for those who, like the political strategist Steve Bannon, seek to ally themselves with the spirit of nationalism? One reason is that some people have made excessive claims on behalf of cosmopolitanism. They have often been seduced by this tempting line of thought: if everybody matters, then they must matter equally, and if that is true, then each of us has the same moral obligations to everyone. Partiality—favoring those to whom one is connected by blood or culture or territory—can look morally arbitrary. The real enemy of those who worry about “citizens of nowhere” is not a reasonable cosmopolitanism but the different idea, occasionally espoused by people calling themselves “citizens of the world,” that it is wrong to be partial to your own place or people.

What the impartial version of cosmopolitanism fails to understand is that the fact of everybody’s mattering equally from the perspective of universal morality does not mean that each of us has the same obligations to everyone. I have a particular fondness for my nephews and nieces, one that does not extend to your nephews and nieces. Indeed, I believe it would be morally wrong not to favor my relatives when it comes to distributing my limited attention and treasure. Does it follow that I must hate your nephews and nieces or try to shape the world to their disadvantage? Surely not. I can recognize the legitimate moral interests of your family, while still paying special attention to mine. It’s not that my family matters more than yours; it’s that it matters more to me. And requiring people to pay special attention to their own is, as the great cosmopolitan philosopher Martha Nussbaum once put it, “the only sensible way to do good.”

Some people have made excessive claims on behalf of cosmopolitanism.

We generally have a stronger attachment to those with whom we grew up and with whom we make our lives than we do to those outside the family. But we can still favor those with whom we share projects or identities, and it is a distinct feature of human psychology that we are capable of intense feelings around identities that are shared with millions or billions of strangers. Indeed, this characteristic is evident in the forms of nationalism that do not give rise to respect for other nations—as Herder’s did—but explode instead in hostility and xenophobia. That side of nationalism needs taming, and cosmopolitanism is one means of mastering it. But it is absurd to miss the other side of nationalism: its capacity to bring people together in projects such as creating a social welfare state or building a society of equals.

GLOBAL IDENTITY POLITICS

Beyond the charge that cosmopolitanism is inconsistent with nationalism, another objection to it holds that humanity as a whole is too abstract to generate a powerful sense of identity. But scale simply cannot be the problem. There are nearly 1.4 billion Chinese, and yet their Chinese identification is a real force in their lives and politics. The modern nation-state has always been a community too large for everyone to meet face-to-face; it has always been held together not by literal companionship but by imaginative identification. Cosmopolitans extend their imaginations only a small step further, and in doing so, they do not have to imagine away their roots. Gertrude Stein, the Pittsburgh-born, Oakland-raised writer who lived in Paris for four decades, was right: “What good are roots,” she asked, “if you can’t take them with you?”

To speak for global citizenship is not to oppose local citizenship, then. My father, a self-described citizen of the world, was deeply involved in the political life of his hometown, Kumasi, the capital of the old empire of Ashanti, to which he was proud to belong. He was active, too, in the Organization of African Unity (which became the African Union). He served his country, Ghana, at the UN, in which he also believed passionately. He loved Ashanti traditions, proverbs, and folktales, as well as Shakespeare; as a lawyer, he admired Cicero, whom he would quote at the drop of a hat, but also Thurgood Marshall and Mahatma Gandhi. He listened to the music of Bessie Smith (the African American “Empress of the Blues”), Sophie Tucker (a Ukrainian-born vaudeville star), and Umm Kulthum (an Egyptian singer), and he sang along to the work of the English musical-theater duo Gilbert and Sullivan. None of that stopped him from joining the Ghanaian independence movement, serving in Ghana’s national parliament, or laying the foundations of pro bono legal work in the country. He recognized that what May called the “bonds and obligations that make our society work” are global as well as local. He saw that those obligations existed not only in his home country and his hometown but also in the international arena. He recognized what that very English poet Philip Larkin once called “the importance of elsewhere.”

Those who deny the importance of elsewhere have withdrawn from the world, where the greatest challenges and threats must be confronted by a community of nations, with a genuine sense of obligation that transcends borders. Today, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are at their highest point in 800,000 years. Oceanic acidification worsens each year. And according to the UN, there were almost 260 million international migrants in 2017, many fleeing war and oppression in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

As populist demagogues around the world exploit the churn of economic discontent, the danger is that the politics of engagement could give way to the politics of withdrawal. A successful cosmopolitanism must keep its eyes on matters near and far, promoting political systems that also work for localists. The Anywheres must extend their concern to the Somewheres. But forgetting that we are all citizens of the world—a small, warming, intensely vulnerable world—would be a reckless relaxation of vigilance. Elsewhere has never been more important.

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