#and yeah a lot of them are obviously based on existing ME characters and backstories but I still like this

[persephoneggsy]

so i did this a while back, finally remembered it, and now i'm posting it

Mass Effect x Dragon Age AU

I did one of these already, sort of, for ME: Andromeda, but this one is set in the Milky Way.

Elaborations below:

Merrill is a quarian who was exiled from the Migrant Fleet. She's looking for a way not to destroy the geth, but to bring them back under quarian control, thinking they're too valuable a resource to just get rid of. Unfortunately, this made many quarians view her as dangerous, and she was exiled for the crime of experimental geth research. Making Merrill a quarian was the first choice I did for this AU, I think it fits really well.

Aveline is an asari. I'd considered krogan or turian, or simply keeping her human, but in the end I went with asari mostly because Aveline always struck me as condescending in the same way many asari are, lol. She's a commando who later moved to the Citadel to join C-SEC.

Isabela is a turian. She's a barefaced turian, meaning she has no association to a colony. Instead of following the typical turian tradition of proudly serving in the Hierarchy's military, Isabela instead ran off to become a space pirate, specializing in smuggling. She frequents the bars around Omega and has earned herself a fearsome reputation among the mercenaries.

Bethany remains a human; she grew up on a colony world with her siblings, and had a relatively peaceful childhood, despite the Alliance constantly badgering her parents to send her and her older sister to their biotic training program.

Marian, also a human, eventually ran away from home to become a mercenary. She resented her father for forbidding her and her siblings from joining the Alliance - not because she was particularly patriotic, but she felt like her father's grudge against the Alliance prevented her and her siblings from receiving the best training possible. Her powerful biotics made her both an asset and a target, and she soon caught the eye of a certain Council Spectre...

Fenris is a drell. He was raised under the Compact, an agreement between the drell and the hanar, and his purpose was to become a bodyguard... And then his training group was attacked by batarian slavers and he was taken captive. For many years, Fenris suffered under the batarians' rule, until he finally managed to escape. Unwilling to return home, he instead roams the galaxy, taking out as many batarian slaving operations as he can.

Anders is a human who escaped from a biotic testing facility run by Cerberus. Though this left him with a grudge against Cerberus, he also hates the Alliance, whom he sees as no better and will also use biotic children as weapons. He dreams of establishing a safe haven for biotics, and is willing to go to increasingly drastic measures to see that dream become a reality.

Varric is a volus. Unlike his business-minded brother, Varric does not spend his days negotiating trade agreements or doing finance consultations. Spending his days at the Afterlife bar on Omega, he's an information broker, and a pretty damn good one at that. With his specially crafted weapon Bianca, he's not too bad in a fight, either.

Carver, much like his older sister, left home to seek out his own path, and ended up joining the Alliance against his parents' wishes. He thrived in the military, quickly climbing the ranks due to his strength and competency. He's being primed for N7 training under the wathcful eye of Spectre Sebastian Vael.

Sebastian is a human, and a Council Spectre (I'm imagining this AU as a sort of nebulous period where humanity isn't as looked down upon as they were at the start of ME1, and there are a fair number of human Spectres running around). A wild child in his youth, his parents sent him to the Alliance to straighten him out, and to their relief, it worked like a charm. He specializes in covert missions and favors sniper rifles and tech powers.

[burr-ell]

I'm afraid to ask, but here goes... who is that Matt Colville guy?

Regarding your tags about Colville and how he had written Vex. Why do you think his Vex sucks? I've seen some fans who think he did her justice and those who despise his portrayal of Vex, so I'm always curious to hear people's thoughts about his writing of Vex, as well as his handling of other VM members. Also, less important, but what did he do that didn't help you like Scanlan any better? Is it just the way he had written him in the comics or something else?

Matt Colville wrote Vox Machina Origins Series I, the first 6-issue arc of the prequel comic, and I...really don't like that take on Vox Machina, and I think his comic writing in and of itself leaves a lot to be desired. Now I've talked about him before, but that was in my dumbass era, so lemme take a crack at it now that I'm not filtering all my opinions through one subset of fandom.

(To be clear, I don't think he's like. a terrible person or "problematic" or what have you; I don't know the guy. This is purely a criticism of his writing, and I'm going to try to be as objective as possible in explaining my entirely subjective opinion.)

If my understanding is correct (and in fairness, my source for things Colville has said is gonna be "dude trust me" because I started writing this at almost 11pm and I don't feel like hunting around), Colville openly admitted to not having watched a fair bit of the show, including the Feywild arc. He considered those things to be "mining for backstory", and largely watched Critical Role for the combat. And that makes a certain amount of sense because DnD combat mechanics are his thing, but it also means that he wasn't necessarily a great choice to write here. He could have been! But over the course of this first volume he proves that he wasn't, and you'll notice that he's not writing for them anymore.

So to address the first topic: I really don't like his take on Vex, but it's not because she's written as mean—it's because of how she's written as mean and why she's written that way. Now, we know from canon that Vex doesn't start out as an especially nice person to people she doesn't know, and Laura has openly said regarding TLOVM that she wanted to show that Vex can be bitchy sometimes. And I like that about her; I think it's a good character trait. But there's a very specific way in which Vex is bitchy, and Colville's writing does not suggest that he understands it.

...Yeah, that's gonna be a no from me, chief.

Obviously we don't know what Vex was like pre-stream because otherwise these comics wouldn't exist, but we can reasonably extrapolate based on her behavior in the show, as well as the way she was written in TLOVM where Laura was an executive producer, that this is not the way Vex's frostiness would have manifested itself. She wouldn't disdain or dismiss lower-class people as "peasants", and she wouldn't reject the idea of asking them for information on that basis—Vex is usually the first person to start talking to locals about whatever it is she's investigating; she's one of the faces of the team whenever they have to talk to people.

What Colville has written instead is a character clinging to aristocratic status explicitly in order to establish herself in a hierarchy, suggesting that she sees herself as above peasants. But canonically, Vex never considers herself noble-born; no one else ever suggests that she did; and there aren't any indications that she takes pride in Syldor's position and what that might have granted her. Just on the face of it, it seems like Colville heard that Percy gave Vex a title and then she fell in love with him and worked backwards to deduce that Vex always wanted nobility, rather than engaging with her character as it exists.

Another indication that Colville really wasn't paying very close attention is the presence of Trinket—specifically, the lack thereof. The reason Trinket doesn't appear in the first three issues is that Colville didn't think Vex would have had him yet, because Beastmaster Rangers don't get their animal companions until Level 3. Except Vex had Trinket before the campaign even started; not only did Laura write a short story about it that was available on Geek and Sundry, but it's also a major moment in episode 65 because even Vax doesn't know the full details and finally asks her about it, and Vex makes it clear that it happened before they were anywhere near meeting Vox Machina. Colville brought Trinket in starting at issue 4 and wrote around the problem by having Vex explain that Vax made her leave him outside of town, but the fact that this was an issue at all doesn't speak well of the organization of this process. Like...he couldn't have just asked? Did nobody give him a lore document?

Additionally, in the above panels Vex says something about "the school". This is, by Colville's own admission, something he came up with, and it's elaborated on a bit later:

Y'all. I'm sorry, but this is the absolute dumbest possible addition to the twins' backstory.

Now, at exactly what age the twins ran away from Syngorn wasn't entirely set in stone by this point. But for one thing, again, that's probably something he should have asked about if it wasn't provided in any kind of lore document, and for another, while we didn't have exact numbers, the general idea was already that the twins were no older than their mid-teens when they finally left, probably closer to 13-14. So of course if they went to assassin school and graduated (lmao can you imagine), they probably started attending when they were a couple years younger.

Which raises the question of why Syldor Vessar, a diplomat with no martial interests whatsoever, fully aware that he has a rocky relationship with his preteen problem children, sent them to a secret murder school.

I get wanting to explain why Vex and Vax are so good at bows and daggers and why Vex knows five languages, but there have to have been ways to address that besides whatever this is. It's very telling to me that both Kith & Kin and TLOVM seem to be just quietly ignoring this, and it's never been brought up again as a legitimate part of the twins' backstory, even within the later comics.

Secondly (yeah, that was all under "firstly"), I really don't like Colville's take on Scanlan.

SHUT UP.

I'm going to get more into this a bit later, but Colville's Scanlan will. not. stop. talking. He is incredibly smarmy and obnoxious, but not in the fun lovable way that Sam Riegel actually played him; this Scanlan has the single most punchable face in Exandria. Canon Scanlan did not ever talk this much or in this way.

Like, look at all that "story" language—theatrical critiques and scenes and narratives and treating all of life like it's a story. When has Scanlan ever talked like that? He didn't in Kraghammer and he didn't while fighting Vecna. That's not the kind of bard Scanlan is or ever has been.

This Scanlan is very cool. He's collected. He's confident. He's smug. He never takes a hit in a way that matters. He even gets to lecture Vex about her insecurities. There's never a hint at any of his flaws, like that he's actually very unobservant and self-absorbed. His perception and insight modifiers were +1 in part because even by the end of the campaign, his wisdom score was a 7. Scanlan's never been very good at reading people; what he's good at is persuading or deceiving them. We don't see any of that charisma here; what we see is a loudmouthed fratboy who runs his mouth nonstop.

Speaking of running one's mouth nonstop, my final major issue with Colville's writing is his exposition scenes.

I mean, look at this:

Look, some of this is down to personal taste, but I also just don't think this is good comic writing. Comics are a visual medium; the script is meant to work with the art to tell us a full story. This is just massive walls of text in giant word balloons that take up far too much space for what they're doing, and the panels are flat and boring—it's just a bunch of talking heads jabbering at each other. We're clearly meant to focus on the words being said, but nothing about the art gives us anything else to work with. In fact, it's as if the art itself is saying that this scene is just the same thing over and over again with small modifications here and there. We're watching a conversation between people who all sound more or less alike rather than being genuinely immersed in visual storytelling.

Compare the above to these pages from VM Origins II #5 and VM Origins III #5:

Now, some of this is down to lettering—the letterer and colorist were both changed between Series I and Series II—but it's also down to a change in script and art direction. These scenes lay down some necessary exposition, but they’re much more interesting to look at. These aren't just full pages of talking heads; there are different angles and shots, breaking up the sequence as the conversation goes on to help it flow much more naturally and maintain the reader's attention. You can tell that Houser is giving these characters room to breathe and trying to write in their voices, not just making them exposition-dump at each other.

Colville was, and as far as I know still is, a friend of the cast of Critical Role; he just isn't working on the Vox Machina Origins comics and the writing has since changed hands to Jody Houser. I think this was a much better choice; she's a seasoned professional comic book writer and a long-time viewer of the show. Her Vex is a significant step up, taking the clear lead of the group and keeping them together while still maintaining a frosty and snarky personality. Her writing for Scanlan is also a lot closer to canon, allowing him to shine in endearingly goofy comedic scenes rather than giving the entire script to a smug fourth-wall-breaking theatre kid.

Like I said, I don't think Matt Colville is or was a bad person with bad intentions. I just don't think he was a good choice to be writing these comics because I don't think he understood who these characters were or what Critical Role was trying to do with them.

[chzdavmpr]

Delicious in Dungeon Volume 1 Reading Diary/ Review thing idk

I wanna try doing a thing where I write down and post my thoughts on books I'm reading as I read them. The first one I plan on doing is Delicious in Dungeon aka Dungeon Meshi. If this gets traction I may do this with other stuff I read.

Spoilers for volume 1, obviously.

Well this is a significantly darker inciting incident then I was expecting.

❗❗OUTDATED FOOD PYRAMID SPOTTED❗❗PLEASE REMAIN CALM❗❗

Me when I'm angy and spin on my head like a top

You know, for eating monsters supposedly being a thing Laios proposes out of desperation, he sure seems prepared. Like he has a dungeon gourmet guide and everything. It's almost like he-

(2 pages later)

Yeah I figured.

This book makes me hungry.

He was kinda a freak for this. Based.

I can see why I've seen a lot of people say Senshi is a big health and wellness inspiration

Make a health app where Senshi gives you tips and tells you you're doing a good job and it would sell like hotcakes.

Who is this lady? Probably someone to be seen in later backstory.

Honestly I'm surprised that the author not only found a way for something like living armor to be edible, but so soon into the run. Makes me wonder how things like ghosts can be eaten

[Note: there used to be a several paragraphs here about "wonky translations" but now having read more volumes and also thinking about it more, I feel like I was just making a big stink about 1 weird translation choice and frankly it was unwarranted]

Overall I would say a strong start. Really strong character writing and art. It kinda feels like a nature documentary with really fun hosts, except the animals don't exist and also the hosts eat the animals. I can see why enough people stuck around to make this franchise a big thing. I will say that while the general goal of saving the sister works well enough for these early chapters, I hope there is eventually more overarching story from chapter to chapter, to prevent it from becoming too formulaic.

[bunnieshoneys]

Hello! It's a me, one of the many essay writers in your comments section here to spam you with a million questions!!!

How far into his G1 rookie season did Getou's dad die? (don't have to answer if this is spoilery btw)

Would you say it was inevitable for STSG to have a falling out, or was them being teammates the main factor in their not breakup-breakup? And if this is spoilery, do I get to attempt to start discourse on it?

Where are you finding all these banger songs for inspo?!?!?!? I haven't been able to find crackers for ages (my Discover weekly was admittedly screwed over by streaming a certain artist for three months but that's a whole other issue imo) and am in desperate need for new stuff ;-;

Do any of the characters have pets outside of Megumi having Toto?

Is Go/jo having engineering student level knowledge just him being a nerdy lil' guy or is it a product of his upbringing?

Sorta relating to the last one, how important is Go/jo's non-Getou related backstory (like parental relationships and stuff) to the narrative/his character? (Well I mean I assume it'd be important in general regarding who he is considering developmental years are always important since, y'know, they DEVELOP who you are and stuff, unless you're doing an amnesia fic which this is not so whatever)

Did kid Tsumiki just... go into Go/jo's house with Megumi when he told them to stay in the guest room (while very drunk/hungover)???

Does Ui Ui exist?

Relating to previous question, is Mei Mei still.. uh... *gestures to recent episodes* ????

How bad has the media been in the past regarding Go/jo and Megumi's relationship?

Did Megumi's mom stop racing after marrying Toji?

Did Yuta only win the 2021 championship, or has he won multiple?

Based off the previous question, which championships has Go/jo won?

Again, faaantastic fic!!! Wow wow wow, this is seriously so much fun lmfao, I don't think I've been this invested in something for a good while, so yeah, good job!!!! Looking forward to the next chapter :p

HI !! answering this on my phone whilst on the move, so i apologise for spellings etc

1. spoilers, although i dont think ive ever explicitly stated the time period his dad dies, correct me if im wrong!

2. aaaah, now this is a good one! id say it was relatively inevitable. they, at some point, would have fought close and hard for championships with each other and that wouldve have caused something to go down. however being teammates compounded this i would also say. so both yes and no, but the nature of teammates in racing means that the fight would have been much more intense than if they were in diff teams. i would, however, also say its pretty inevitable that they became teammates, too: their connections in the sport and their shared childhoods mean that they would likely have been on the same team together at some point: gojo was also DESPERATE to be teammates with getou, and what gojo wants, he gets.

3. i listen to A LOT of music lol. my spotify in 2020 was 130k minutes on lockdown, and this year it was 79k. i listen to over 3k minutes a week on avg according to my apps! so i guess its just a lot of time, and artist radios on spotify

4. ive not thought about that! i think haibara and nanami probably have cats, and yuuji would probably have cats too, but not many of them would have pets i dont think :( youre not allowed to take them on the road, and theyre away from home for so much time its not worth it.

5. product of upbringing, and absorbing info. it comes up a little later, but gojo isnt as smart when it comes to engineering as either shoko or getou (getou defo could have been an engineer, if he wanted). yuki is also very engineering-minded, but obviously the only actual engineer here is shoko, and she’s very, very good at her job.

6. its pretty important. the post-getou years (2014-2021) are pretty important, as is his childhood. but it comes up in past pov, and getou just considers him priveleged lol so it doesnt come up until later. but it does get expanded upon!

7. she looked up his address and basically demanded to know where their dad had gone - she was also angry at gojo in particular since gojo was the one beating toji in the championship - this is vaguely spoilery, but tsumiki didnt know the real reason toji left at the time.

8. probably!

9. uh. tbh i needed filler names more than anything. mei mei isnt squeaky clean in this au, but shes not *gestures* that, either. honestly, shes not a major part of the au and i plan to keep her that way

10. theyve not been great! but we get into that a bit later down the line - the media isnt the kindest to megumi in general tbh.

expanding on media, gojo / megumi are probably the drivers that have the media be harsher to them more than most. haibara is kind to everyone, but megumi’s link to toji and gojo’s general personality mean the media doesnt particularly enjoy them. yuuji, and getou are much more popular and well liked, but in the future i imagine nobara and the press not really getting on either.

mai also should be treated badly by the media considering her overall temperament, but she gets away with much more bc shes a zenin. another element of megumi being treated badly is bc hes a zenin reject as such

11. yes. she stopped racing when she got pregnant, she was G2 at the time but this isnt really expanded upon (at least, unless i write a more in depth itafushi of this au lol)

12. yuuta has only won one championship, 2021. in an early draft that was posted, he also won 2020, but thats no longer canon. theres also an interview snippet somewhere that refers to 2022 being possibly his third championship somewhere that i need to correct, but yuuta only won in 2021. his rookie season was 2020.

13. gojo won 2012,2013, 2015,2016,2017, and 2018. in 2019 and 2020, the car was Bad, lol

i love u and i love answering these teehee :)

[x0401x]

The more I read horimiya the more I root for the other couples than the main characters themselves (ex: yuki and tooru just became much more interesting than hori and izumi).

Have you feel the same way reading it?

Yeah, and in my years being on this site, I can guarantee that it's not just me. I mean, Izumi and Kyouko are cute and I love this couple to bits, but mostly because their moments together are adorable. My love for them, as much as it pains me to admit, is almost entirely based on the fluff rather than the actual content of their relationship. I personally find the foundations of it a little too superficial.

It's the imbalance between Izumi's problems and Kyouko's, I guess. Izumi has gone through very traumatic experiences that mentally and emotionally scarred him for life, while Kyouko... doesn't want her schoolmates to ever see her without make-up. It's just not on the same level, no matter how much the authors try to make it look like it is.

It's also kinda dumb when you think about it, because there's no way everyone thinks that a perm is Kyouko's natural hair or that she wears make-up 24/7. Of course she lets loose and takes it off when she's at home. And let's be honest, nobody would give much of a shit about it. Or about the fact that she has to take care of her brother. In my opinion, the authors really should've thought better about her character arc, because when you compare the two, her issues just don't seem like issues. Because they really aren't.

When you look at it that way, the whole reason for she and Izumi to become close and Izumi to fall for her feels forced. Like, "it's this way because the authors say so" kind of forced. Horimiya is very obviously a KareKano fanfiction, and it could have learned a thing or two with its predecessor about backstories.

And so, the other pairings, which have a lot more attentiveness invested into them than the main couple so that they wouldn't pale in comparison, seem way more appealing. Because, let's be honest, they are. And they're also healthier. Another thing that turns me off about Izumi and Kyouko is that it's pretty problematic in some aspects, and I actually have no issues with problematic couples, except when the problems are unfounded and don't have a reason to exist other than maybe humor. Kyouko being unfavorable towards Izumi's obvious bisexuality and wanting Izumi to be "authoritative" with her just freaks me out. That amongst other things.

So yeah, on one hand, I do find them to be boring and often unhealthy, but on the other, I still love them. Contradictory, I know. Not double standards at all, though, lol.

[bonesandthebees]

So Everything else has gone wrong is giving me major Pogtopia vs. Manburg vibes. It’s always fun trying to spot the events and relationships referencing canon in AUs. The crimeboys be doing crime, but they aren’t the only ones. They are just slightly better at it because of some supernatural abilities. And I love how that is 1. Not a common thing at all, which explains all the secretly having to switch you could just take as trying not to be seen because Wilbur’s being cased.

2. It seems to be a hard magic system. Wilbur can’t just change into anyone, he has to constantly consciously keep the change in position. Because of that he has to know what the person he shifts into looks like, and I love that how well he knows a person affects how fast he can shift into them. On top of that there’s some serious painful drawbacks and a clear limit on how long he can keep going (which depend on how often his shifts and how much energy he has).

Tommy seems to have the same thing. I don’t know what things clairvoyance is capable of because I don’t think I know what the word means in English, but it seems to be some combination of telepathy and being all-knowing, but in a way where you have to focus to do it. So obviously Tommy uses that to always bet on the right outcome. Also, his drawbacks seem like shit.

Gotta love all the references to backstory such as whatever happened between Niki and Schlatt as well as Quackity, Schlatt and Wilbur. It’s a nice example of showing vs. Telling. We are technically told what happened between Niki and Schlatt (though it’s vague enough to not feel like exposition and it’s done by a character talking). We are very clearly told something happened between Schlatt, Quackity and Wilbur, but then we are shown how close they were via Wilbur knowing him well enough to know he’s not bluffing and the touching knees. Also, Quackity not selling Wilbur out mainly because Schlatt’s a bitch but also a little because Wilbur indirectly says he deserves better than Schlatt. (though Schlatt not believing him is a very good point.

Also, gotta love self-sacrificial Wilbur. Though he does have a much better chance at getting away with it and Tommy has the money on him, but it’s more protective older brother than common sense. Still, it’s a solid plan, it’s just a shame he overexerted himself by running and shifting and couldn’t hold on until he was actually safe. Also, that he didn’t think of Niki because that held him up and made him have to shift longer.

As you can tell, I’m mild obsessed with this concept. I love the worldbuilding. It’s very intriguing and fun.

-🌲

YEAHHHH the dynamics were definitely inspired by pogtopia vs manberg. I love including loose parallels to dsmp events I feel like it's just such a fun thing to base conflict on

yeah I wanted to make crimeboys abilities not be a normal thing in the world bc i see so many aus where 'powers' are considered the norm. and that's all well and good I've written those myself, but I just wanted to try something different. so yeah the general public does not know those abilities exist at all, hence why wilbur and tommy have to keep it a secret.

I wanted wilbur's shapeshifting to feel realistic. I had to think to myself how I wanted it to function—whether it was more of an illusion-type thing where wilbur can just project an alternate image to everyone around him, or if he's actually physically changing his body. I went with the latter because I felt like it had a lot more restriction to it, which made it more interesting for me to work with. technically he doesn't have to personally know someone well enough to shift into them, but he has to have spent a LOT of time observing them which is almost only going to happen when he, y'know, hangs out with someone a lot. like could he stalk a stranger for days on end and be able to shift into them really well without saying a single word to them? technically yes. but it's just easiest if he knows the individual personally.

clairvoyance is defined as 'the claimed psychic ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception.' it can also be described as being able to perceive future events 'beyond normal sensory contact'. it's kind of a loose term when it comes to describing psychic abilities, but for tommy specifically I decided he's got three main things he can do. 1) he can remotely view a location or person he's not physically near. technically, he can only do this to a limited range, so if he's inside a building he'll just be able to look out onto the street but not go much further than a block or two. but because of the psychic link he and wilbur have, he can remotely view wilbur and the area he's in up to way greater distances, so that's what he's doing for most of the chase scene. 2) he was able to form that psychic link with wilbur, giving them the ability to communicate telepathically (not technically part of clairvoyance but it's just a bonus I gave him). wilbur didn't do this at all, that's not in his wheelhouse. tommy bonded them. 3) perceive future events but only in a very limited sense. this is how tommy was good at gambling. he can see what's going to happen right in front of him in the next few minutes. it tires him out to do this because it's an ability he has to 'activate', and he can only see what's going to happen around him specifically, hence why he doesn't use this during the chase. but if he's about to bet on a dice game or a roulette wheel, he'll be able to see what the winning number will be before it happens

I had so much fun indirectly explaining the backstory between those four characters (wilbur schlatt niki and quackity). especially with the 'niki' and schlatt interaction. it's such a unique perspective to get for a convo like that (schlatt thinking he's talking to niki but he's actually talking to wilbur), and I had a lot of fun playing around with how I'd imagine wilbur would act pretending to be niki while also setting up schlatt and niki's dynamic in this.

and then of course quackity. ah, tntduo. they gotta have something going on in every universe lmao

yeah while wilbur's plan was him pulling a self-sacrificial move it was also the best option for their situation. they were going to be way slower running through that crowd together, so getting tommy away was the priority. and what better way to do that than by tricking the guys following them? yeah, it exhausted him, but if he had chosen someone other than niki to shift into after tommy then he would've gotten back to tommy way faster. it was only bc pulled that stupid move that he was delayed talking to schlatt and overexerted himself so much.

i'm so glad you enjoyed!! i had so much fun with the worldbuilding and dynamics of it all

[raven-quill-and-willow-wand]

I was going through old notes where I was brainstorming random collections of letters and syllables to come up with potential names for some fantasy creatures for some writing I am working on, and one of the monster species I named were called tamlins, and I had a description written out and everything, and then I never used them and forgot about this note that has been sitting in my phone for a couple years, but I needed a creature for a minor character and knew I had a note somewhere that had a bunch of unused species. I cannot believe this happened again. They were described as lion-like bipedal creatures, and there was a lot more to it, but I wrote this long before I had any idea A Court of Thorns and Roses existed, and now I obviously cannot use that word as a fantasy creature because that series is way too popular and even though I absolutely did not base them off him whatsoever, there are too many similarities between the tamlins in my notes and THE TAMLIN. Like, Tampon-Tamlin. UGH.

This also (but even worse) happened years ago when I was daydreaming in class all the way back in high school (so it’s been over a decade since this happened), and I came up with these stone people who weren’t evil but were very misunderstood and villainized because of old conflicts with them before they were driven underground, and I had a whole backstory about the existence of these people and their god who sculpted them and descriptions of their black armor and everything, and I was like, “You know what I should call these? Dredge! That would be a cool name for them!” Yeah… If you know, you already know where this is going. A few years later, I played the game series The Banner Saga… Shocked, appalled, offended, the works. Obviously I had to rename them, but in my head, the creatures I came up with will always be called dredge even though they’ll have to use the new name if I ever try to get this stuff published. I just could not believe these things when I found out they already existed. I felt like such a creative fraud even though I had no knowledge of these things before designing them myself. The dredge thing really fucked me up, though. I had to go back through everything I could recall ever seeing about The Banner Saga to see if somehow I had accidentally copied it, but no. I even remember exactly when I stumbled upon the name during class. We were discussing Frederick Douglas in my English class, and the teacher was making sure we all knew the definition of “dregs” (it turned out a shocking number of the other students did not, so good thing she covered it because only a couple of them looked it up when they read it and the rest just… kept reading without knowing what it meant????) and then I was like, “Ooooooh, that totally fits with what I am going for here, but I want to change it up just a little bit, and ‘dredge’ is also a word that feels right with these!”

This post was way too long, but nobody will ever see it anyway, so that’s fine. I love that I wrote this out as though telling another person because imagining fake conversations with people is sometimes the way I process things.

[fangaminghell]

🍾 (I love hearing about your OC)

Aw, thank you!

🍾: Does your OC believe in luck? If so, do they have any charm or ritual they do before a stressful event?

This is a weird one, since it really depends on how things play out for each of them, as well as their backstory.

For Imani, I'm seriously questioning whether or not she actually had a childhood, given everything I know currently about the Interceptor ( only on chapter 13 right now). So going off on how the game is, I think in the beginning, she did believe in luck. Now, after everything that she's been through, she believes in it less. Because at the point she's in, she learned that literally everything goes. What matters is what she does on that moment. She doesn't dismiss luck, not at all, but crazy shenanigans does things to people, and to her it just made her tired. I will say, that despite this lack of belief in luck, Imani's denim jacket and her cherry earrings does act like a good luck charm. They give her comfort that things will hopefully turn out okay in the end. When things get stressful, she would try and design outfits or logos if she have the time to. Or she just cries. Crying helps a lot.

Leo is a down on is luck type of guy. As in he feels like it. He lost his friends, which was a huge wake up call for him. He feels incredibly shitty, and just couldn't stay where he was before. Then , when he on the train to what he thought was a peaceful trip to Reborn- it blows up. With lots of people dead. And then he gets wrapped up in literal everything that's happening in reborn. So all of this is to say that, yes, Leo believes in luck, specifically that he has the worst of it. Now, this is me making stuff up on the spot,but a cool idea o just had is Leo's good luck charm not being his jewelry or his shades, but something that his older sister gave him. Not as a parting gift, he ran away without anyone knowing , but something from the past. I don't know Leo's relationship with his parents, but I do know that him and his sister were very close. If I end up going the route of Leo having shitty parents, she practically raised him. I don't know what this gift would be, but it would be important to him, and much like Imani's denim jacket and cherry earrings. Whenever things get stressful, he would probably take it out or hold it.

Asra is the least developed out of the trio, only with a gimmick so to speak, which is being goth royalty and being able to kick ass. But I think they would not believe in luck. Again, this is on the spot character ideas, but maybe Asra grew up being thought that success isn't based on luck. Cause luck doesn't exist. It's all about the effort you put into something. If you put no effort, then you get nowhere. Obviously, there's some flaws in this, but let's say this is what Asra grew up by. So naturally they don't believe in luck. They don't judge those who do, given one thing that works for them might not work for another person. They don't want to be incredibly close minded. Because they don't really believe in luck , they just do. Their parasol is important to them, but not in a " this gives me hope" kinda way, but a " I literally need this with me" type of way. This might change, but I never thought of Asra without their parasol.

And yeah! Thank you for the ask!

[carrotkicks]

I’m white so it might not be my place to say. But it really seems like Duke, Cass, and Damian’s constant mischaracterization within fandom is all about shoving them into the only archetypes readers can see them fitting into based on their race. Like...Cass being martial arts based and mostly nonverbal is probably already kind of stereotyping on the part of her creators, but the fandoms remaking of her as a quiet and demure little nonentity when she’s historically been a full of herself little shit. Or, like, Duke being made into “the calm sensible one” when he’s just as Batshit (pun intended) as everyone else in Gotham really just seems like him getting put into the “witty black guy serving as voice of reason for a bunch of white people” box. And I can’t even begin to parse out Damian’s simultaneous CONSTANT whitewashing andvilification for his ethnicity.

hoo boy this one is MEATY. In short: You're right, and your right for saying it. But you obviously brought your take to me for a reason, so lemme offer ya my perspective. As a person of color.

It's fairly easy to recognize racism in canon since a.) we know exactly who's writing (usually an old white cishet guy :/) b.) we as the audience tend to use actual critical thinking skills more often with official works, we actually pay attention to and can identify racist subtext much easier. And this is a general statement for all fandoms but like,,, when people consume fan content, they tend to turn the critical thinking switch off -- which is fine! totally fair because fanart, fanfiction, headcanons? thats all for self-indulgence more than anything.

Now since fandoms are much more prominent on platforms like Twitter and Tumblr you’d imagine people would display more awareness for racist/misogynistic/bigoted subtext, considering these sites are known to host people who are,,, well, socially aware is how I’d put it. (don’t believe me? take a trip down to some Reddit discussions. it can shrivel your soul) Uhhhh... but sometimes I find the double standard in fans so offputting. 

For more Batman-fandom specific racism,,, it’s kinda a lot actually. Listen, listen comic books are kinda racist sometimes. It’s an old medium, and has had a long line of old white guys penning them, it’s just a thing. Not a good thing, but what’s been printed just is y’know? I see a lot of these racist storylines or characterizations from old and I just cringe and move on bc a lot of the problematic writers are out of the game now, and in modern books we can go harass the creative team on Twitter. That’s in the bag. But in the actual fandom? Like i said, people don’t really think. they don’t understand or just don’t care if their art/writing/hcs are problematic bc it was made for fun - being morally correct isn’t really a concern. (especially considering we got murder/abuse sympathizers in this one but lest definatly not get into that agian--)

Since you mentioned some specific ones I’ll talk about them for a sec. Takes like “Cass Cain is the most powerful baddest b*tch in the fam and she can do no wrong at all” but also portray her as only existing to support her brothers or Steph is a huge disservice to her entire character. Like yeAH Cass is obviously the best fighter in the fam but there is so much more to her than that! (actually now that the cat’s outta the bag, i’m a lil wary of Cass ships in general bc SO OFTEN they use her as just a prop for the other partner and im just hhhhh ok back on track) and lemme be real with ya, the reason Cass is so often portrayed like this because they are blatantly riffing on the “Dragon Lady” and Asian houswife tropes. (now Cassie defs has some dragon lady as a part of her base character/backstory but, her solo actually worked to make her way less one dimensional.) And while I’m still talking about Cass and how she’s always portrayed as the perfect Good Daughter-- I feel like it’s kinda a lil just maybe a bit sexist to portray female characters as flawless since it’s kinda takes away a central part of their character that humanizes them perhaps? I know I was just talking about how some people unecessarily emphasize female character’s problems but I feel like the opposite is true as well where some people gloss over their issues and make them out to be too good for anyone unproblematic queens. I see it a lot with the Batgirl trio and honestly I’m annoyed by it a little bit. Flaws make a human too, and depicting females without them feels like taking a piece of their humanity, if you get what I mean? I just wanna be able to relate to the ladies being crappy! I have enough self awarness to want that.

Okay back on the rails for reals now haha! I ALSO see that people sorta box Duke into the stoic black guy trope a lot too which is also.. yanno... racist? Duke is definiely as insane as the rest of the fam- homie jumped off a bridge from a moving police car. Honestly that trope kinda reads to me like they either don’t care about Duke, or just don’t wanna let him have fun too? (ok adding this but I don’t wanna sound hypocritical or anything bc I know I hardly talk about Duke either. I just.. don’t have any strong opinions on him? I feel kinda bad but also,, i can talk about what i want. That being said i will talk about how he gets the sh*tty end of the stick which homeslice doesn’t deserve)

With Damian, it’s not even disguised, just plain racism. Nothing I can say more than that regarding his villification based on his backstory and ethnicity. The whitewashing though... uh okay so listen closely. Lisght skinned Arabs do exist but is it proper representation to depict him as white passing? no. I’m not Arab but lemme explain it to you in terms I know. In India, colorism is a really BIG problem. Most Bollywood stars you’ll see are very fair skinned for an Indian, and they’re praised for that specifically. Sometimes when I tune into whatever program my Mom is watching, ads for skin whitening treatments come on and it’s so strange. Like, as a more overt example, dark skinned people are considered “dirty” in some castes. (note, I didn’t grow up in India, that is from my parent’s accounts) Soo rounding back to Batman, a lot of Damian’s whitewashing is also rooted in colorism. Which is why I feel like drawing him with darker skin is much more fair representation.

This is getting really long but I really wanna mention this just to kill (what? 5) birds with one stone. But i feel like some of the fandom’s racebends are pretty... sus. the Latino!Jason headcanon in particular kinda feels not right to me. It’s just, did they decide he was Latino because he was a street kid? because he’s more rough and violent? Guys that’s kinda stereotyping... Also that one hc with Tim as an asian? I’m lukewarm on it. obviously riffing on the “smart asian” thing (and i’ll admit it’s not wholly inaccurate this coming from a rather unintelligent indian) but it’s still really i dunno... it’s based on racist stereotypes. And look. Racebending is great! I do it too! (Tim Kon and Dick are drawn with darker skin sometimes cuz ur local brown girl is feeling self indulgent haha) but I feel like if you’re gonna racebend, maybe don’t do it in an obviously racist way maybe?

Anyways the true takeaway from this crazy long wall of text is that fandoms are racist sometimes. And problematic in a bunch of different ways. The Batfandom is no exception apparently, and that should be called out. which I just did. great job me! and you too anon

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

time travel aus, amirite? since we’ve all decided to start talking about our ideas, i thought i’d throw my hat into the ring. i’ve actually had this idea for a while, i just wasn’t sure what to do with it because i barely have the patience for one-shots, let alone the continuous plotted longfic this would need

it’s not my idea, of course, i’m incapable of original thought. it’s based off this can-i-really-call-it-a-genre-if-it’s-two-fics-with-the-same-premise where some combination of maedhros, maglor, elros, and elrond land in the blessed realm before - even the unchaining, in my take, when the ambarussa are still children and the world is blissful. it’s more specifically my take on this fic, which takes elrond and elros from very early in their captivity and maedhros from just before the silmaril theft and maglor from several centuries into the second age. i just plugged my own characterisations into it, and, uh. the specific setup this not-genre uses is that maitimo and makalaurë *~mysteriously disappear,~* throwing their extended family into chaos, blah blah blah, and then a few decades later -

well. with my characterisations, we have a nightmare hellbeast who’s burned up everything he used to be in singular pursuit of an unreachable goal and has carved his very self into a weapon, a completely drained beaten-up husk barely cognisant of reality past the screaming in his mind who’s so utterly broken it’s debatable if he even counts as an elda, and two extremely young extremely traumatised children in a completely unfamiliar land- and skyscape whose only adult they can maybe-kind-of trust is currently bleeding from the eyes and shrieking wordless notes of utter despair

yeah, this au’s Fun. elrond and elros have maybe eight words of quenya between them, most of which are obscene, maedhros will act completely normal until he suddenly stabs himself in the arm because can’t this stupid hallucination end already, he has a character arc to tank, and maglor seems completely unaware he’s not still on the beach having the same cyclic arguments with the ghosts of the people he failed. the elves of valinor aren’t completely unprepared to deal with this, at least not the ones who remember cuiviénen, but it’s still a massive shock to see two of the children they came to the land of the gods to protect twisted and scarred like the worst victims of the dark. especially since noone can figure out why

so yeah. i have trouble finishing oneshot collections, so i doubt i’ll ever write this out in full, but i do have a lot of Scenes. fëanáro staring in utter horror at the oath, whispering ‘i made this.’ elros and elrond’s somewhat hole-filled explanation of their backstory devolving into a sindarin argument, and when the family asks tyelkormo what they’re talking about he freezes before saying ‘they’re arguing about whether maitimo killed their mother.’ the moment maglor finally managed to get through what happened after they got the silmarils to maedhros, who immediately switches from off-the-cuff self-harm to well-planned suicide attempts. the five-minute period the family hellspawn’s working theory was ‘they’re maitimo and makalaurë from an alternate universe where we’re evil’ (‘is there an evil version of me??? does he eat kids???????’ - tyelko) finwë going full bulldoze taniquetil in the background. fun times, might write some snippets in the future

but i like to think through the mechanics of this kind of time travel story too much, so i started wondering where maitimo and makalaurë, yanno, went. i quickly came to the conclusion that they probably swapped places with their evil future selves, giving me three time travel aus for the price of one! technically four but (a) i’m not sure if or with who the twins would swap and (b) if they did their alternate selves are probably having a really bad time and i don’t particularly want to think about it. the stories maitimo and makalaurë are in... they’re not necessarily any happier, but they are a lot more wtftastic

maitimo falls asleep under the light of the trees, on a relaxing retreat from the demands of court life and family-induced disasters. he wakes up in a world that’s almost completely dark, surrounded by plants he’s never seen before and wearing clothing designed for a much warmer climate, the scent of death in the air. now permanently separated from all his old problems, maitimo rapidly acquires several exciting new ones, including but not limited to:

everyone he ever loved being dead or worse

the lone possible exception, his last surviving little brother, being an almost unrecognisable blood-drenched kinslayer who hates everything in the universe especially himself

said blood-drenched kinslayer almost immediately imprinting on him like a grouchy murderous duckling

his future self having apparently wanted to kill even more people, why

getting dogpiled by like thirty dudes in full armour the instant they showed up at the army of the west’s camp to surrender

getting soul-scanned by eönw two minutes later. not fun

arafinwë pulling him into an enormous hug and then bursting into tears

the subsequent explanation as to just what happened to him and his brothers, which somehow got worse after he’d already thought they’d hit rock bottom like four separate times

proceeding to lose a staring contest with findaráto

the way everyone in camp looks at him like he’s an incredibly dangerous wild animal that might bite at any time

how if half of what arafinwë said is true he can’t even blame them, fuck, fuck

the twin half-elven(?????????????) princes he and his brother apparently kidnapped and held hostage for years, inflicting unimaginable cruelties as far as anyone knows

his first meeting with the kids happening when elrond broke into where they were holding maglor to scream at him in very loud very fast very angry sindarin for like half an hour

maglor just staring at him, eyes wide, ears pinned back, the whole time, and then trying to maul the first guard who mocked him for it

getting saddled with kinslayer containment duties in the aftermath of that whole incident

elrond punching him in the collarbone when he tried to apologise, shouting ‘you weren’t there, don’t you dare try to tell me what it was like’

elros’ visible half second of pure terror after the blow hit home

elros then using recognisable techniques from maitimo’s debate team circuit during a speech to the edain

like, clearly some shit did happen, but it’s obviously not what the local leadership’s afraid of

this sour-faced scar-covered warrior slipping out of the shadows in an unpopulated part of camp, kneeling before him, intoning ‘the swords of the host remain at your disposal my lord’ and then immediately vanishing

he didn’t recognise them until after they’d left but they were definitely one of his philosophy club friends, what even

just generally having woken up in a future a thousand times worse than his darkest nightmares

his natural instinct is to try and fix things, but how?? what’s even left to fix????

maglor sometimes goes into these unhinged desperate spiralling rambles directed at the older brother who exists in his head rather than the one in front of his eyes. whatever’s left of maitimo’s biggest little brother is clearly in so much pain

all the things he’s trying extremely hard not to think about because if he slows down enough to he’s pretty sure he’ll collapse

all the people he’s never met who hate him for pretty understandable reasons and whose social structure he now has to learn to have any hope of making it out of All This

the edain’s collective insistence on calling him pasthros

curufinwë isn’t even a hundred how does he have a kid

makalaurë, on the other hand, wakes up on a beach beneath a giant glowing orb. finding himself in a land so much barer than what he knows, among people whose souls don’t even work like his, his initial working theory is he’s been abducted by aliens

[lokiondisneyplus]

Most Marvel post-credit scenes hint at the future. Loki opted for a blunter approach: the God of Mischief would return in season 2.

Based on the final turn of events, there was really no other choice: Loki (Tom Hiddleston), having journeyed to the furthest point in spacetime with his variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) to meet the founder of the TVA, a scientist-turned-survivor-of-multiversal-war known as He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), finds himself zapped into a new reality when his lady self slays the omnipresent being. The mind reels!

Creator Michael Waldron takes delight in the endless possibilities of Loki’s core premise. And as a veteran of Rick and Morty, he knows what anchors a mind-bending show, and what will keep Hiddleston’s character hurtling through his chaotic, rewritten future. Below, Polygon talks to Waldron about landing on the key choices of Loki season 1, what to expect from season 2, and a bit on his next project, the wrestling drama Heels, which is set to premiere on Aug. 15.

Did you know there’d be a second season of Loki from the beginning or was that choice made later in the process?

Michael Waldron: We always knew that it was a possibility. We always knew that we wanted to propel Loki and these characters out into the MCU after this, into further stories. But that didn’t really crystallize as a sure thing until we were in production and everything. And as we were really figuring out the finale.

So you were still cracking the ending as you shot the show?

There was a hiatus due to the pandemic. So things were constantly being retooled because of that. I think, by and large, everything with He Who Remains and the Sylvie-Loki conflict was always there. But that cliffhanger was the sort of thing that suddenly became a really appealing opportunity, a chance for that to lead into a second season.

What element of the series helped you crack the macro story of Loki, and made all the other pieces fall into place? Each episode almost feels like a standalone adventure, similar to Rick and Morty, but what helped it all click?

The first couple of weeks in the writers room was just laying out the individual episodes. It was very important to me that each episode stood on its own, and you could say “This is the Lamentis episode,” “This is the apocalypse moon episode,” “This is the Void episode.” I didn’t want it to just be cut up chapters and have one long continuous story. Obviously, we had to figure out the time travel for things to slot into place. I think a big idea for us was the way you get around the TVA by hiding in apocalypses. That felt like such a big, cool, exciting idea that it drove the action of episode 2, episode 3, and in a way it’s like Alioth is the ultimate apocalypse that He Who Remains is hiding behind. That sci-fi idea cracked a lot open for us. I know that after we had that I went home and I slept a little sounder.

Did adding the multiverse to the Marvel Cinematic Universe feel like blowing something up or expanding it, in terms of narrative possibilities?

In the same way that after the first couple Iron Man movies, and with the first Avengers, suddenly these movies were kind of going to space. Then we had Guardians. I think of the multiverse as another version of that. It’s new ground to cover, and particularly interesting because characters meeting other versions of themselves and other versions of people they know is... cool. That’s just a cool sci-fi concept! But I think with anything, as you expand outward, it only works if the humanity remains. It’s exciting to watch characters dealing with big crazy multiversal conflicts because we can see ourselves in them. I think you just have to hold on to the humanity that makes these stories work in the first place.

Did you go back to the Thor movies for Loki? Was there anything to find in the past of Marvel as you were paving the future?

Absolutely. I mean I watched them many times, contrary to what Twitter might think because I did some bits on there saying that I’ve never seen Avengers and I upset some people [laughs]. I have seen it many times. “Confirmed: Loki writer has seen Avengers and saw it before writing Loki show.”

In fact, I was watching all these movies on a loop in the writers’ room. I gleaned so much because you watch the evolution of the character. Avengers was particularly informative because our story picks up Loki right after that, but I also I found a lot of inspiration in Thor: The Dark World, a maybe sometimes maligned movie that I actually really enjoy. I just think there’s great stuff with Loki being tangentially responsible for the death of his mother, how he reacts to that. That is the start of his journey of that version of Loki’s redemption, so I was inspired by that.

What’s propelling the characters into season 2? Where are you headed in basic terms?

In season 1, you saw a lot of characters reckoning with and questioning their own glorious purpose, and that glorious purpose changing, [characters] realizing that that can change. Everybody except for Sylvie. I think she holds onto hers, which is vengeance, and to the detriment of us all, perhaps. And we’ve got a Loki who, at the top of our show, assessed himself as a villain and, I would argue, at the end of our show, has become a little bit of a hero. There’s nothing more heroic to me than fighting for the right thing and losing. You see that washing over him as he’s there back at the TVA, after Sylvie has knocked back there. And then he gets up because that is what heroes do — they keep going. So I think that you’re gonna see a Loki that looks at himself in a different way certainly that at the top of this.

Do you hope to explore more of Sylvie’s backstory in season 2?

I guess we’ll see. We certainly have our own rich backstory for her, stuff that didn’t get to make it into the show. Elissa Karasik, our episode 2 writer, wrote a lot of amazing backstory for Sylvia and everything. So those ideas exist out there.

And her version of Thor?

Tune in.

How did He Who Remains come about? Did you bring the character to Marvel or was that a character Marvel hoped to introduce?

I was pushing and our team was pushing early on in the writers’ room that it should be a version of Kang up in that Citadel, sort of fusing the mythology of He Who Remains with a little bit of the Immortus mythology. And that was a thing we were excited to do. And it became clear that it actually made sense for our story. The only way we were going to do it was if it made sense, but it was like, who had a better argument for creating the TVA to prevent other versions of themselves from existing then a guy as evil as Kang the Conqueror?

You wrote the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — did Marvel hire you for that after Loki? Does the movie feel like a continuation of the show?

Yeah, that opportunity came as we were getting ready to start production on Loki. It was a pleasure. I got to work with Sam Raimi, a hero of mine. I was in London for five months making that movie at the top of this year. We had a blast. I think that it’s a continuation in as much as ever every Marvel movie is to some extent a chapter in an ongoing story, but these things are meant to stand alone and the most important thing about Doctor Strange too is making the most kick ass Doctor Strange movie we could.

Is Loki a two-part show now or are you invested in telling a longer story with future seasons beyond season 2?

Time will tell, but I do my hope is that season 1 stands on its own. We always wanted to tell a complete story there. And in whatever the next chapter may be will stand on its own as well.

Your next show, Heels, is already on the way. We got a big preview out of Comic-Con this year, but I’m curious about the scope of this story. You’re starting with two brothers running an independent wrestling franchise, but you’ve dropped the name “Vince McMahon” a few times — is this about the building of an empire? Would you liken it to The Godfather or Breaking Bad?

I always thought about it a little bit of a Scorsese-sort-of rise, and we’ll see if there’s a fall. Starting from humble beginnings and trying to build some crazy. Wrestling was certainly not always the empire that it is and that’s what’s interesting, to watch the evolution of a family-run wrestling business from something you do in your small towns and perhaps a national, even global empire. That would be a really compelling arc for a show over the course of several seasons. I’d be excited to explore that.

What’s the most dramatically fulfilling wrestling moment you’ve witnessed? What’s the bar for the wrestling drama of Heels?

It’s gotta be Hulk Hogan turning heel in the WCW. There was an invasion storyline, these guys from WWF, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, came over and they were the bad guys. It was at a Pay-per-view and and they were beating up on the good guys that you love, and here comes Hulk Hogan in the yellow and red and he’s the hero. “The Hulk’s gonna get ‘em! The good guy’s here!” And then the Hulk just leg drops Randy Savage. That was the original Red Wedding. I just think about the boldness of turning him heel. To a little kid... I wasn’t even like a massive Hulk fan, but he was just such a mythological figure. What a chance that Hulk Hogan took as a performer, as a bankable kind of movie star at that point. That was bold, risky storytelling and it set off two years of amazing storytelling with Hogan just playing a craven, cowardly heel and just being so evil. I really respect the hell out of them for doing that. That was a great storyline.

[logicalbookthief]

Class Disparity and Narrative Framing

Since a bunch of people liked my tags on this post, I thought I’d expand on this this topic.

I’m hoping we delve more into this once we get a proper backstory for Mr. Compress / Oji Harima, as it seems to be the basis for Harima’s actions in his era.

This was originally going to be just an analysis of how similar characters of different classes are treated by the narrative (specifically in regards to Ch 299) but want to first establish the role that class plays in the story overall.

Let’s start with the Peerless Thief (Oji Harima) and what we know of his ideology.

And his criticism isn’t unfounded. Heroes make a lot of money.  And that’s in addition to the benefits they receive, such as medical care, education, internships. All free of charge. Once you become a hero, you’re pretty much set financially. That’s the main reason Ochako enrolls in UA, because she wants to help her struggling, working-class family.

But why did Harima find this system so unfair? If everyone has an equal opportunity to become a hero, where’s the harm in it being so profitable?

Except. Not everyone can become a hero. That is a fact Izuku had to contend with his entire childhood. For one thing, they need to have a quirk. So this eliminates the quirkless portion of the population automatically.

You need to also have a quirk that is useful in rescue & combat situations (eliminating more mundane quirks / quirks that have drawbacks that outweigh its ability) and a quirk that is marketable to the public (eliminating any quirks that are off-putting or unpalatable to people, such as Toga drinking blood or mutation quirks that aren’t “cute” or “aesthetically pleasing” enough to tolerate).

Essentially, you need to win the genetic lottery to get a quirk that qualifies you for heroism, an opportunity that offers a large degree of wealth and influence. And that’s where we get into the issue of class.

Class is defined as a group of people who share a socioeconomic status; and in BNHA, this is determined not only by birth, but also can be tied to quirks. The socio part is non-explanatory, as Izuku begins the manga showing how not having a quirk caused him to be treated differently by his peers.

The economic aspect of this is more subtle, but it’s started to come into focus with characters like Twice, Hawks and Compress.

Probably the reason Harima called for reform is this: Children inherit their quirks from their parents. Just as they inherit their socioeconomic status. Someone with a quirk that enables them to become a hero will not only pass on this wealth to their child, but also will likely pass on a quirk that would allow the child to pursue a hero career. This is why you see legacy heroes like Tenya, Shouto, etc.

This ensures that wealth remains in the family, generation after generation. Likewise, it can ensure that another family remains in poverty without any chance for mobility. In a sense, it’s the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

Obviously, you have examples of mobility — Hawks and Ochako are the first that come to mind — but they had/have this opportunity because of their quirks.

Yes, you can still be a hero without the permission of the Hero Commission. Without a license, though, you will a) not be paid and b) be labeled a vigilante, which is the same as a criminal.

As an side-note, because I’m a nerd for words and history— in English, the origin for villain comes from the Medieval Latin villanus, or villa, a dwelling where poor farmers in the village would live. Yeah, that’s right: Villain used to just refer to a person of lower class. If you look at the etymology, many words with these connotations began as words associated with the poor. And in the hands of the aristocracy, they were effectively used to criminalize the poor.

And with that, we’ve circled back to the analysis of characters I promised at the beginning: Thief Takami and Enji Todoroki. Many have pointed out their similarity since Ch 299 was released. Rightfully so!

Both abused their children.

Both isolated their children.

Both of their wives (idk if it’s confirmed Tomie was married to Takami but that’s essentially how they lived) viewed their children through the lens of their fathers due to the unhealthy relationships they had with their husbands.

Both of the mothers were driven to a point where they couldn’t take care of their children, due to either the father’s presence/absence in the family.

What strikes me most in this comparison is how you can’t separate these characters from the issue of class. It permeates every panel and informs our understanding of their situations.

Takami is a piece of shit who blames his child for existing, something this poor kid had no control over. He views Keigo as a burden to him and his freedom and resents him for it. 

The glimpses we get of the house show they live in squalor. A child is an extra mouth to feed, an extra person to provide for. You can’t examine the abuse without acknowledging the role of their nonexistent finances: Thief Takami was literally a criminal so he could get money.

Meanwhile, you have Endeavor, who is also a piece of shit, wrapped in a shinier package. He bought his wife with the intention of making children -- as many as needed -- so he could create the perfect combination quirk. Money was no object. 

Expenses for Rei’s decade-long hospital stay, the nanny/housekeeper to care for the neglected kids, the fact he can so casually decide to build a new house for his family... It is never addressed by anyone in the story, because it doesn’t need to be. Money is no object.

I’m curious as to what class Rei’s family was (and I’m not exactly hopeful we’ll get this info, based on she’s been treated so far) that they agreed to this arrangement. If they were poor, the idea that their daughter would be taken care of financially might’ve enticed them. Hell, the idea that her family would be taken care of financially might’ve enticed Rei. 

Through this analysis, I’ve also realized just how paranoid / concerned the Takamis act in comparison. Thief Takami isolates his whole family out of fear they will sell him out. Tomie is afraid she will be criminalized by mere association and chooses a life on the streets over the risk of going to the police.

Contrast this to how Shouto has revealed his father’s abuse to classmates he barely knew. How Fuyumi mentions in front of his friends who are interning under Endeavor that Natsuo blames their father for Touya’s death; later, Enji admits he is responsible. Remember when Endeavor flat-out told All Might, who was the most influential hero in the country at the time, that he created his son for the sole purpose of surpassing the Number One??

Yet the narrative gives this none of the weight it deserves. Because there are no stakes for Endeavor and everybody knows he will face no consequences for his crimes. The difference is that Takami & Tomie were well-aware that they would be punished if they were caught; while Endeavor & the Torodorkis are well-aware that he would not.

Suffice to say, it is telling that while the narrative has no qualms with condemning Thief Takami for his crimes and abuse of his family -- as it should -- it gives Endeavor the benefit of the doubt and chance after chance to prove he is “worthy” of redemption, even though his victims have never once denied his guilt and they certainly hold him accountable. And the only difference is that one man is from poverty while the other is from privilege.

Anyway, I could say more on this subject -- I would like to touch on how Ochako fits into the class discussion but this got longer than anticipated, so I may have to make a separate post for her -- but I’ll leave it at that for now.

[wheelofmeta]

The Androl Problem

So! Something I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while.

Androl original appeared in Winter’s Heart with a few lines, reporting to Logain. Toveine had a point of view where she looks at him, thinking about for all he’s wearing a signet ring (traditionally something on nobles do) he looks more like he’s an apprentice who shaved off his mustache. It’s during a scene where the men loyal to Logain are reporting to him on things. That’s the only time we see him before Towers of Midnight. And easy enough moment to miss.

Excluding that moment he’d been named, everything else was a creation of Sanderson’s. 

So, you may be staring at me. Then what’s the problem?

The problem is Sanderson quite literally gave Androl too much to do. 

Androl was the result (in part) of Sanderson wanting to do something with a character who actually was, for lack of better term, a true teleporter. Someone who actually took full advantage of how to use Traveling. So Sanderson took a canon Asha’man (Androl) who’d had limited screen time and could serve as a blank slate for his writing purposes. Which is exactly what he did. 

Okay, neat, great. Honestly gotta agree a character like that needed to exist because wow. Was Traveling underutilized when it came down to it. Taking advantage of named character who had limited affect on the previous storyline to do that made sense. 

The thing with Androl is that in many ways Sanderson used him to fill in basically any hanging plot threads that Jordan hadn’t given to a previous character. So things like the fight for the Black Tower, he used Androl to lead that. He used Androl to save the Andoran forces. He used Androl to get the seals. He used Androl to do the double bond shit with Pevera.

Androl, Androl, Androl. 

Androl, a character who basically had no previous affect on the plotline now has an absolutely massive one. And we know, per Sanderson’s own words, that Androl and everything he does is his own creation, though he is filling in the blanks for certain plot threads that remained from Jordan’s writing, such as the Black Tower stuff. So yeah, Sanderson deciding to use what’s basically his OC to fill some of that makes sense. 

What’s aggravating is how much that then meant Androl overshadowed previously introduced Asha’man, such as Narishma. It’s heavily hinted early on that Narishma is going to be important in the future (he’s fucking mentioned in the Prophesies of the Dragon), but during the Last Battle we see him maybe twice, and he doesn’t do anything distinct beyond heal Lan post his fight with Demandred. On the other hand, Androl seems to have his hand in everything *but* the fighting at Shayol Ghul. Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but not as bit of one as it really should be.

Seriously. I understand the desire to have your OC do things, but you can’t over do it.

The other thing is, that in Androl’s ‘backstory’, Sanderson also had him have too many adventures. Seriously though, it seemed every time he and Pevera spoke, he brought up a different thing he did and none of them where anywhere near each other. She does too, but she’s also a hundred plus year old Aes Sedai, so she’s had the time to do a lot of shit. The issue there is, per Toveine’s point of view in Winters Heart, Androl should be only in his twenties. Based on her mental description of him (looking like he could be an apprentice), it means he looked young. Almost every apprentice who appears on page is implied to be under thirty. But if you don’t remember Androl’s original appearance, based on all the things he tells Pevera it would be fair to think he was closer to his late thirties, early forties. And men generally start channeling on the later side of things, so he shouldn’t even be slowing that soon (I think Androl may even have been specified as not starting to channel on his own but needing to be taugh, in contrast to Logain or Taim).

On top of that was a pretty common issue of Sanderson’s; namely, his habit of dropping and adding random character aspects (hello the fact apparently Mat can’t fucking write a letter that isn’t full of grammar and spelling errors, even though we’ve seen him write on-page before and it was just fine; obviously this is a major pet peeve of mine). Like, a really interesting thing he could have done with the original bits? Explain why Androl was wearing a signet ring, especially with the explanation that apparently he was a leatherworker. Was he pretending to be a noble? Was he actually a noble? Who the hell knows because Sanderson never followed up on that detail. 

I would have much preferred it if Sanderson had actually allowed the previous appearing Asha’man to play more major roles during the Last Battle rather than over using Androl (and he was overused). Narishima, again, should have played a bigger role. We never get an explanation for the ‘he will follow after’ stuff; is that supposed to hint he’d eventually lead the Asha’man after Logaine? Again, who knows since Sanderson never wrote anything about that.

(And before someone asks, at some point I will be doing meta about Sanderson’s penchant for dropping character traits/apparently forgetting certain plot threads. Like it wouldn’t be so aggravating for me if I didn’t like Mat so much and found Sanderson to just not be very good at writing him.)

[toastandjamie]

I have- so many feelings. I’ve been trying to write an analysis since last night but everything I wrote is incomprehensible so this is an attempt: advanced apologies. Originally I wanted to make a post about C!Quackity and C!Tommy’s relationship but then it got me thinking of talking about what makes Tommy so vulnerable to manipulation even incidentally which brought me to Wilbur and Techno. So I’ve decided to just make a mishmash comparing Tommy’s relationships to these three complicated people.

Starting with Quackity I think we can all agree, Quackity GETS Tommy. In a way others on the server(like Fundy or Foolish) just straight up don’t. Quackity treats Tommy a lot like he treats Slime, with this understanding that Tommy isn’t like everyone else and won’t respond to things like others would. Because Tommy in spite of everything really does act like a kid. He acts out because of boredom or frustration especially when he’s ignored. Often others get frustrated when dealing with Tommy, but Quackity has this odd level of patience different from say Sam, Puffy or even Foolish in that he puts himself at Tommy’s level. At the start I think this was just a genuine attempt at having fun with our chaos raccoon but at the moment it’s almost patronizing(a reoccurring theme). Quackity understands that pushing Tommy will only result in property damage, but he also knows that he can’t let him run around unsupervised(because property damage). When Quackity is unaware that Tommy is listening he sounds more than a little frustrated at his antics, but then Tommy throws on a pair of pants claiming to be called Trousers and insists that he is not in fact Tommyinnit. Quackity plays along, he doesn’t try and force Tommy to stop, he humors him. This is something Quackity does a lot with Tommy, and it’s why Tommy still seems to have positive feelings towards him. Quackity humors him the way adults will humor a child who’s insisting that they are a wizard. Through this lense(which I think Quackity is fully aware of) he’s able to get Tommy into a less aggressive state and get information out him. Like why he’s working with Wilbur, and Tommy’s feelings about it. Which also unfortunately makes him super easy to use. I think in the future as Quackity slowly succumbs to the inevitable power hungry corruption that’ll bury whatever soft spot he has for Tommy, we’ll see Quackity take advantage of Tommy’s blatant abandonment issues using the trust he’s built through these small appeasement based interactions.

Moving on; C!Wilbur Soot! This is a land mine let me tell you. Because Listen, Wilbur is obviously, severely traumatized and mentally ill. I don’t think Wilbur necessarily has any malicious intentions towards Tommy. But unfortunately this bad boy is backing a fuck load of unhealthy coping mechanisms and behaviors. Such as his possessive streak! We saw with L’manburg the whole “if I can’t have you no one can!” Mentality, which has now been transferred to Tommy. It’s a move to assert his control over a situation and unfortunately for Tommy he’s a prime vessel for this behavior because he has absolutely no concept of healthy boundaries! Since his backstory and relationships are a bit blurry we can’t make any definitive explanation for where this came from but for the sake of argument let’s say Tommy has known Wilbur since he was young, and Wilbur was always someone with a possessive personality(albeit less obvious due to the fact that he wasn’t traumatized yet). Being raised by or around someone who never sets boundaries with you can lead to a person growing up not able to do so themselves. And wouldn’t you know it Tommy has clearly never had a stable healthy relationship because all of them have been transactional or codependent. Which is, bad.(shout out to Tubbo and Ranboo though for trying to enforce healthy boundaries sadly though the timing of this separation couldn’t have been worse). Currently I think it’s safe to say Wilbur and Tommy have a codependent relationship. One with a very clear imbalance of power, comparable to a codependent parent-child relationship. In which Tommy excuses Wilbur’s bad behaviors out of a sense of responsibility, this feeling that because they’re “family” he owes it to Wilbur to stay by his side. Not to mention how Tommy obviously craves guidance and leadership from paternal/fraternal figures, which he originally found in Wilbur(later in Dream, Techno and Sam afterwards). Tommy very clearly desires a family structure in which he is loved and protected no matter what, and Wilbur fills that role easily and willingly. Wilbur wants someone who’ll be loyal to him and will never leave or betray him, and Tommy wants someone who’ll protect and care for and, say it with me boys, will never leave or betray him. There isn’t anything wrong with wanting someone to be there for you, but because of their complexes and traumas these feelings of fraternal affection are twisted into a relationship lacking boundaries and for Tommy, complete absence of autonomy. Only doing things because Wilbur wants him to me, because he wants Wilbur to be happy and Wilbur is never wrong. Not a good mindset to have when dealing with someone like Wilbur who is destructive as a means of coping.

Lastly another landmine, in the form of Technoblade! Ah yes, bedrock bros. We love them and miss them. But newsflash guys they ALSO had an unhealthy transactional relationship! But here’s the thing about unhealthy relationships, sometimes people are just not good for eachother. There’s no bad guy or good guy. No ones in the right or wrong. They just, weren’t good for eachother. Now whether this was situational or not can only be answered if they reconnect with healthier mindsets but for now we’ll say it’s situational. Obviously, Tommy was clearly in a bad place. Just barely managing to escape exile after a narrowly thwarted suicide attempt: now packing a whole slew of issues, from paranoia, depression, fear of abandonment, low self worth, and just general debilitating stress. Techno was ALSO in a bad place, he just hides it under a sense of self righteous justice: like guys, his only friend was put under house arrest because of him associating with him, and he was then executed under the threat of death of his faithful horse companion. Techno was angry and blinded by revenge. A bad mix when you toss in a traumatized codependent teenager desperately searching for someone to fill the empty void of fraternal leadership left by Wilbur’s death. Tommy really just wants someone to tell him what to do, like let’s not kid ourselves here. Techno offered Tommy protection from Dream, which yay! But also creates an unbalanced power dynamic(bringing that one back!). I genuinely believe that it wasn’t Techno’s intention, but the thing is, the relationship became transactional: a “I’ll protect you and take care of you if you do what I say and help me.” Type scenario. It was impossible for Tommy to really comfortably say no, at risk of being tossed out of straight up given to Dream to face whatever horrible consequences running away had. BESIDES that, they are just two very different people who had very different priorities. Techno wanted vengeance against L’manburg, Tommy wanted to be protected but always had the intention of returning to L’manburg one day(clearly believing getting the discs would be a catch all problem solver). These two priorities are in direct conflict with eachother; as a result they’re partnership would never have worked in the long term. Here’s the kicker to what makes this relationship so unhealthy though, because those things in isolation don’t make an unhealthy relationship but the fact that Tommy’s poor mental state fueled by Techno’s blood seeking revenge made him act in ways HE deemed wrong, makes it unhealthy. Tommy wasn’t lying, being with Techno made him become a person he didn’t want to be, and it’s NOT Techno’s fault. It was the unfortunate consequence of their opposing view points and unhealthy mental states. Perhaps in a world where the Butcher Army never existed the Bedrock Bro’s team up could have been a moment of healing for both characters; but alas that was not the world we are privy to in canon.

Yeah so that’s it for now I guess

[geekynichelle]

So, I saw this tweet, and it started a conversation about the appeal of Harley Quinn, and I wrote this because I was possessed. It’s long so I put it below the cut. All opinions are my own.

Is Harleen Quinzel overrated? Honestly, I don’t know. Nor do I really care. Plenty of people love characters that others find overdone, and that shouldn’t have any bearing on whether or not they are liked on a personal level. You could equally say that Loki or Deadpool are overrated, and while I do believe race plays a role in why all three of these chaos agents are popular, gender is obviously why more people are vocal about finding Harley played out. 

Getting that out of the way, let’s dive into the nitty gritty. What the hell is appealing about this clown to a Black, queer and neurodivergent woman? To start I want to bring into play the idea that what Black women do and don’t enjoy is often put in a narrow box. Growing up I knew my mother liked action movies (even more so than my step-dad- huzzah for breaking gender stereotypes), and in her own words the reason for that is that she likes to see “people who deserve it get their ass kicked”. In our real life, society rarely dishes out justice for Black people the way we deserve, and while the action genre is made up of mostly white dudes, who is good and who is bad are clear cut, and we can always root for someone who punches out racists and misogynists. As a result I should have been less surprised that my mother would like Deadpool, but it still amuses me to this day. 

Deadpool, in his sequel film, has a moment when he with no hesitation shoots a man who he knows to be a child abuser, because unlike a traditional heroic figure there’s no question in his mind that that was the right thing to do. Whether this would be good in the real world or not is irrelevant because the catharsis comes from the fact that to Deadpool the child harmed mattered way more than anything other factors in that scenario. 

This is the appeal of those types of characters in general. Translating this to Harley Quinn in that way is easy. Evil deeds aside, her initial/general backstory is that she was a doctor (of psychology) that fresh out of grad school was sent to talk to the Joker, who in turn manipulated her compassion and convinced her to free him/join him. In the 90s animated series, which is where she first appears, the episode Mad Love shows us that not only was Harley taken advantage of, but also that she is extremely capable on her own. Batman point blank tells the Joker (after he’s hit her/tossed her out a window) that Harley is the only person that’s come that close to killing him. The Joker (who was initially going to leave her for good) realizes that he’s unleashed someone arguably better than him into the world, and like any abuser decides to get back on her good side to maintain control over her chaos rather than let her realize her worth. 

The new animated series dedicated just to Quinn, explores that notion further, and at some point during the second season sees Harley realize that she isn’t a hero or a villain, but rather a reactionary. She seems to have a soft spot for other abuse victims and in the series draws the line at over excessive killing, especially of innocent people. Ivy even states that while Harley is a criminal she is (at least in Ivy’s eyes) a good person. She has after all genuinely helped Ivy, and on occasion has helped save the day of her own free will. 

Obviously, like with any comic book character, how she is characterized depends on the writer, but it’s fair to say based on the media I’ve personally consumed putting Harley in a morality box is a wasted effort. What makes her special is that she resides in those grey areas. As I mentioned earlier her ability to reside there and remain popular of course relates to her whiteness, however I do think it’s important to remember that Harley Quinn is also Jewish and is therefore not a complete stranger to concepts of oppression. She is also in recent years officially considered Bisexual, and while all Batman villains are vaguely mental ill, she does fill up that category as well. 

I came across a tweet earlier today that suggested her whiteness is why many of her fans have turned her into a girlboss and downplayed her violence. I can certainly see where that person was coming from, but on a personal note, based on the above information that is certainly not the case for me. I know that I would enjoy Harley just as much (if not more) if she was a non-white woman, and that her violence and moral ambiguity are apart of what makes her a fun character. I’d never downplay her evil deeds. Granted, what I consider canon has a lot to do with the stories I’ve consumed (i.e I’ve never read anything about her involvement in the Jason Todd storyline therefore to me it doesn’t really exist), but ultimately Harley is no girlboss. She is a mess, and to quote Marie Kondo, “I love mess.” 

To put this further in perspective, when I was a kid I didn’t even know Bisexuality was a thing, but I did know that I liked when Harley and Ivy were together, and now as an adult who is out, seeing them officially canon affected me a bit more than I thought it would. They might not be good people, but I don’t think representation needs to always be about being squeaky clean. And ultimately that’s the rub isn’t it? Harley isn’t exactly like me and I’m not exactly like her, but she represents a level of chaos that yeah, as a marginalized person I’m not allowed to express. She can be a good person, but she can also be extremely outrageous. She shows that being the victim of abuse isn’t about how smart you are and that it can happen to anyone. She also shows that you can leave that behind and get stronger mentally and physically. In the case of the new animated series she does this without motherhood/babies thrust upon her, but through good friends who love her. 

Why Harley Quinn? Well, for me my current answer is because she’s complex. If you asked me as a child though, I’d probably say it’s because she was goofy and fun, and I wanted better for her than the Joker. Either way she’s currently being written by a Black, Disabled, Queer writer and as a long time fan, I absolutely look forward to the nuisances that’ll be added to the character as a result.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Thoughts on Mistborn Era 2 (Wax & Wayne):

My main take on these was “ah, looks like Brandon’s taking some time off from his magnum opus to write pulp Western/detective/crime novels”, and I was very amused to look up Brandon’s comments and see a ton of interviews with him saying, “so, this is absolutely me having some fun writing pulp Western/crime novels”. It’s nice to have a writer who’s not too proud to - accurately - describe his own stuff as pulp yet still do a good job of it. They remind me a little of the Dresden Files in terms of the mystery aspects, the urban fantasy tone, the wit, the lack of diplomatic/political subtlety of the protagonists and, of course, the rampant property destruction. But Brandon’s a much more thoughtful author than Jim Butcher, and treats his female characters better.

On the topic of gratuitous property destruction: Wax, for goodness’ sakes, stop shooting the ground! That’s infrastructure, Wax! Fixing the streets takes work, Wax! You’re not a dusty dirt road in the middle of nowhere any more, Wax! Just drop a coin like they dud in the old days! Or a shell casing or bullet if you desperately need to be hardcore. But rampantly firing off weapons in urban areas just to get a base for your Allomancy is a terrible idea.

This was a wonderful follow-up to Mistborn because it was a lot lighter and the stakes were a lot lower, which is nice for a change. I was reading the intro to Elantris where it was talking about people in Brandon’s early writing group telling him he needed to raise the stakes, and personally, I like low stakes. Well of Ascension/Hero of Ages were a grind, much as I liked the ending, and I would be up for more stories like Dawnshard, with low stakes and the heroes resolving the plot by non-violent means.

Marasi and Steris are both very well-done characters - I was definitely shipping Wax/Marasi in the first book and had no expectations of the Wax/Steris engagement lasting, so I was quite surprised, but the switch was well done and I liked it. Marasi and Wax’s feelings were a crush/hero worship and a rebound, respectively. And it’s nice to see a relationship grow gradually like Wax and Steris’ did. What Brandon did with Steris, starting out with a portrayal readers are unlikely to lije and letting her grow on them, is risky (especially with female characters) because readers may hold to first impressions, but I thought it worked very well.

Wayne’s backstory and reaction to it hit hard and was one of the best elements in the series. Another entry in the diverse array of Sanderson redemption arcs. It’s interesting because Wayne both is and isn’t haunted by it - he takes it seriously, it affects him deeply, but he doesn’t habitually brood, and it doesn’t prevent him from being a generally lighthearted, funny, silly person most of the time.

Wayne is absolutely right about the value of certain goids being an arbitrary thing invented by rich people. I’ve had caviar, once (as a garnish on a nice pasta dish at a fancy restaurant). It tastes like nothing. Entirely nodescript. The sole purpose of caviar is to communicate “this dish is fancy (and so, by connection, is the person eating it)”.

I’m deeply protective of Sazed and get very affonted when characters criticize him. I think he’s done an excellent job. It’s hard to wrap my head around the sheer scale of Bleeder’s overreaction to the possibility of her boyfriend moving back to the city. Though on one level it makes sense in that the kandra are of Preservation: she is going to see maintwnance of an existing situation as inherently better and more desirable, even if a change could still turn out well and be something Wax enjoyed. And I don’t feel like Sazed telling him about Bleeder being Lessie would have helped anything - it just would have made the decision to kill her harder, not less necessary, because she was incredibly malicious, destructive, and dangerous and there was no other way of containing her.

The resolution of Shadows of Self is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to see, politically: the mass protests and risk of riot over poor wages, unemployment, and mustreatment of workers is resolved by a committment to address those problems, because the workers’ anger is legitimate and their cause is just.

I’m heartily frustrated by Wax, because it is his responsibility - it is literally his job, he has employees and a Senate seat! - to address the major political and economic problems of Elendel, and he neglects them. I don’t care if you’d rather be out shooting things! You have resposibilities! The workers in your factories are the source of the money and prestige that lets you engage in your gentleman-crimefighter hobby, and you owe it to them to see that the city operates in their interests. You can do far more good in that way than by shootin’ bad guys. Do. Your. Damn. Job. Steris seems to be nudging him in that direction, at least.

In general I’m impatient with a lot of the law-enforcement attitudes. Miles is a villain for whom I have absolutely no sympathy. Oh, so you’ve turned evil because, despite your 15 years of work in law enforcement, crime still exists? Yeah, maybe that’s because your belief that crime will stop existing if you shoot and/or hang enough people was never realistic. Likewise with Wax’s skepticism regarding Marasi’s ideas on how crime can be reduced through better urban planning and social policies - no, Wax, it won’t entirely eliminate crime, there will always be people who are just plain malicious, greedy, venal, or violent, but if you can reduce it by, say, 50-70% by better social policy, that would still be a good thing, right?

The period newspapers are great fun. I want a TenSoon plushie! Come on, Brandon, you’re musding out on a fantastic marketing opportunity! The one thing that bugged me was the ‘Pewternauts’ in The Bands of Mourning. In the first place, it’s a nonsensical name - real-world dreadnaughts, of which these are obviously supposed to be the equivalent, were called that because it literally meant ‘these having nothing they should fear’. The apex predator of military warships at the time, if you will. You can’t just create a random fantasy portmanteau amd pretend that it works - it’s like calling a scandal in a fantasy novel something-gate even though the Watergate scandal doesn’t exist in that world! Secondly, dreadnaughts were part of a massive military arms race in a world where European wars had been commonplace for centuries. The Elendel basin had never had a war in 300 years - these aren’t something that someone would invent just off the bat. Having similar technology to turn-of-the-century earth doesn’t mean it will be applied in the same ways, not with a completely different political context.

In general, New Seran’s complaints seemed overblown. Yes, the transit system treating Elendel as a hub and lacking effective connections between the outlying regions in aggravating. (It’s a provlem that plagues urban public transit systems even now - most routes are either local or feed into the city centre, with relatively few goung from one suburb to another, even as trans-suburban commuting vecomes more common.) But it’s not remotely the kind of thing you fight a war over! I feel like Brandon’s trying to recall the American Revolution, a bit, but the distances are so small (Elendel and New Seran are about as far apart as Ottawa and Toronto) as to make that ludicrous. What they really need is some kind of equivalent to a regional district authority, where representatives of multiple local governments can get together to work on issues of regional planning.