#but i want there to be a little bit of a speculative biology aspect to her design

[flareguncalamity]

Lt. Commander Killian: So what was your name again?

Nevularxi: I have not already told you. I’m afraid my name may not translate into your language.

Lt. Commander Killian: Oh yeah?

Nevularxi: I am named for a period of time on my home planet that surrounds the immediate aftermath of the second yearly equinox of our planet’s solar star. It’s the period following our fertile rainy season, and marked the beginning of the harvest in years of antiquity, as well as the coming of the colder, darker season which our species typically spends in isolation or hibernation. The period is considered to be a time of great liminality and spiritual importance in our ancient religions, although since the dawn of the modern technological age it has lost some of its transient meaning.

Lt. Commander Killian: …Okay, but i meant more like. how do I say your name.

Nevularxi: Oh, it’s nev-you-LARK-zee.

Lt. Commander Killian: Gotcha. by the way, your name in english is October.

[ckret2]

How married are you to shapes carrying pregnancies at all? As opposed to other methods of making babies, such as spores or eggs or more outlandish sci fi options like parts assembly

Bare minimum, we know that shape reproduction needs a mother and a father.

I'm going to take it as a given that for Euclideans "mother" and "father" refers to "two individuals performing two different but necessary parts of a reproductive act to produce offspring," and not something like "they're totally not necessary at all but the government requires two people to sign up to co-parent before they'll hand out a baby" or whatever.

I'm taking it as a given because if I didn't, the contrary alien worldbuilder in me would go "well if mother and father are made up social roles rather than social roles derived from pre-existing biological roles, then why did they have to make up social roles that just so happened to be so similar to humanity's? I'm calling bull, bad worldbuilding, how dare you foist mom/dad pairs on a species that had no reason to develop mom/dad pairs as if we're supposed to just accept that that's the only NATURAL and NECESSARY way to rear offspring—" so I'm not giving my inner worldbuilder that option.

So, with "reproduction requires two different roles" as our starting point: at the moment, my own personal purpose in worldbuilding how Bill's species works is for use in the post-canon fic I'm working on that explores Bill's home dimension in flashbacks. That's what I'm keeping in mind when I worldbuild.

And I say that to give context to this: for my own personal purpose, my motivation is to worldbuild the way Euclideans' reproduction works in a way that ISN'T so interesting that mentioning it in fic will cause the readers' imaginations to immediately veer off the plot and focus on that detail. I'd rather how they do the do to be unremarkable as hell.

Anything mentioned about Bill's homeworld in the fic is put in either to explain who and what he is and why he's that way, or to sprinkle in a jazzy little bit of flavor. I'm trying to avoid turning his species into a deep exercise in alien speculative biology, since that doesn't mesh with the vibes of the story I'm telling. (As I say this i'm covering that "which shape sexes are reproductively compatible" chart with my body so you can't see it. I said I'm trying to avoid getting deep into the biology, not that i'm succeeding lmao. I'm too interested in how Bill sees his gender.)

Every aspect of Flatland was worldbuilt specifically to comment on the horrors of contemporary Victorian society, even the stuff that surprises readers that don't know much about the Victorian era like "well surely the stuff about irregulars being euthanized or poor babies being stolen and given to middle-class families is a dystopian invention," and anything that DOESN'T serve the social satire is handwaved away with "we have a very interesting way of propelling our bodies but unfortunately I don't have time to talk about it." Bill is written into Gravity Falls to be a foil to every member of the Pines family and to show what they could be like without love, trust, support, and family. That's the same role I want Euclydia to serve in my fic. Anything that diverges from rather than reflects Gravity Falls' contemporary society is out of place.

Putting in something like "eggs" or "spores" opens up cans of worms. How would laying eggs make their society different—are they less attached to their own kids, is trading eggs around and pre-hatching adoption more common, do people steal a neighbor's egg and leave their own? If it's spores, is it even possible to identify your own kid, does anyone care to, do kids ever just spawn out of a rotten log in the forest that spores settled on, are babies self-sufficient since they might be born without an adult nearby? These are fascinating avenues for some great alien worldbuilding! However I'm currently motivated to keep alien worldbuilding to a minimum lol.

In truth, I'll probably never need to know or explain HOW the shapes reproduce—pregnancy, eggs, spores, ritualistic magical waltz, collaborative geometry homework, whatever. Taking time to explain it means talking about details that aren't relevant to the fic, and the ghost of Edwin Abbott Abbott would sadly shake his head at me. However: if I don't explain reproduction, and if it requires two roles, most people are gonna default to assuming pregnancy. I can live with that.

All I need to figure out is how the two roles in the Two Roles Needed For Reproduction are assigned—like, can every member of the species automatically perform both roles at any time? (I don't wanna do that.) Are they born performing one of the two functions? (I don't wanna do that either, because now we've just invented a new male/female sexual dichotomy.) Does which you perform depend on your sides, the one with less sides does X and more does Y? Does it switch seasonally? Does it switch based on your age? Does it switch based on the number of each shape in the local population? Etc. (I'm not attached to any of these ideas, they're just examples.)

And the only reason that's something I need to figure out is that that could affect how Bill thinks about himself and his identity. Like, if which role you perform switches based on the amount of similar shapes in the local population, then it would have some kinda impact on him knowing that his body's been locked into the Lmao There Are NO Other Triangles Nearby role for the past trillion years. If it switches based on your age, then the fact that he never got old enough to switch would be one of many examples of the way his biological age has been in stasis since his dimension was destroyed. Etc.

[lackadaisycats]

Hello Tracy, I am curious about something. I'm looking to make an OC who is a welder and I cannot help but wonder the following, how do one-piece protective suits work with cat tails?

With this suit as an example, how would the tail, likely needing to be covered too, be implemented into the suit?

For the comic, the cat tails are not treated as explicitly literal. They're more of an exclamation point or italicization of gesture and expression. I don't alter the tailoring of the clothing at all to accommodate them. We treated the tails like more of a physical reality in the animated pilot because, when things are in full motion, it's hard to pretend they wouldn't interact with the environment (or repeatedly smack Freckle in the face). Nevertheless, we'll continue to leave tails unclothed because I don't want the premise to be misunderstood as speculative biology of some sort. My sense is that their world would look and function much differently if they were actually bipedal cats. The feline aspect remains more a visual device than anything else.

But those are just my personal inclinations. I think any approach is valid for you as the character creator, though, and the idea of adding some extra protective layering to the one-piece suit to armor the tail would probably make for a fun design challenge. Maybe a little bit of articulated, laminated leather?

[creatively-cosmic]

What up, Starry—You already know who it is! B)

Sorry about Tumblr being a buggy mess and crashing halfway through! I’ve experienced the frustration of losing writing due to crashes and it always sucks. But thank you for continuing to answer these questions and satiate my curiosity! Learning more about Missing Numbers is like reading a book that just keeps getting better and better and better with every new chapter. Also: don’t worry about the delays or how long responding takes! You come first and foremost. Your health/work/school/whatever it is ya got going on in your personal life, is infinitely more important than me getting an answer to a question. So please, take your time, as much as you need—I will wait.

(Also, young Red being just as much of a little shit as Blue was is surprisingly wholesome and I love that. And after seeing their heights I realized I’m the same height as Blue! That detail is not important in the slightest, I just thought it was funny.)

Anywho, let’s get into the meat and potatoes, shall we?

First things first: Y’all mentioned biology mechanics and the nature of Glitches? 👀 Well, guess what? I love that kinda stuff! My curiosity is piqued—please explain.

Second question though: What is Leaf’s Duty? What does she do and how do her powers(?) work? Are her abilities like how the move Imprison was in Fallen Leaf?

And third: What’s the relationship/dynamic between Leaf and Red? That comic y’all posted has me wondering what Leaf is warning others about.

That’s all for now though! Please take care of yourself. Have a good day/afternoon/night!

Ahh, thank you so much for your patience! its really appreciated,, im glad youve still been enjoying things- your comments (and your FANART OH MY GOD??) have still been giving us LIFE i truly cannot thank you enough!

Red and Blue’s childhood friendship and rivalry has always been something we’ve wanted to come off as just plain silly and enjoyable- I’m glad we’ve been succeeding in that, hehe. And Blue was actually originally going to be shorter (our height, actually), we just added a few inches to be nicer to him lol

Per usual now, we’ll keep the big stuff under the cut! It’s another long one: Consider this Leaf Lore Part Two.

For the Glitch stuff, we’ve been thinking and might make a BIG formal post going over all of Professor Maple’s speculation and studies, to make it a good access point for the worldbuilding of Missing Numbers. I can’t promise it’ll come soon, but! As a starting point, I do have a pre-written thing with information on different classifications of Glitch that should clear up a good bit to start with. 

Unless we get any sudden further realizations, every Glitch, Corruption, and Anomaly in Missing Numbers (and arguably in Pokemon as a whole) can fall under these five classifications.

Leaf’s duty is the main aspect of what we failed to touch on in your previous question. So, I’ll finish that part of the story. :) 

To answer your questions, we first have to establish how she got her powers. When Leaf died, she did not get to rest peacefully. Most who die in this world don’t. The afterlife for the fallen and forgotten is not pretty. It is not merciful. There is no heaven for the ones who do not matter to God. 

The Distortion exists in layers. At it’s lowest, the farthest from contact with the main reality, is a void of unused, scrapped, and null data. A graveyard, or worse yet, a dump where things that can no longer exist in the surface world go to rot. Unused data. Scrapped NPCs. Removed characters, Pokemon, items. 

Assets of old games that never carried over.

Leaf's soul was discarded here when she was erased from existence at the end of Abandoned Loneliness. Left to rot with the unborn Ghosts that had haunted them both with the intent to drag someone of significance down with them. Hoping they too might escape. That they might receive mercy through her. 

Unfortunately, Leaf was the unloved child. So instead she fell to their ranks, swallowed up by the abyss that was their resting place- thrust as far from reality, from her home, from her friends, from her purpose as feasibly possible. Still conscious. Still aware. Still suffering.

… Leaf was not one to accept things lying down. Leaf was a fighter. She hated injustice, unfairness. She wouldn’t stand for this. She wouldn’t lie down and give up. No matter how suffocating the darkness was. No matter how the bloodied hands tried to drag her further down. No matter how the chaos and corruption tried to break and dismantle her. 

No. Matter. What.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And if there was one thing that defined Leaf even more than her bleeding heart, it was that her will was unbreakable.

So she climbed. Climbing over the damned- the forgotten- the spiteful- the vengeful- everything trying to hurt her and pull her down. Focused solely on escaping, on going up. Until things began to become more tangible. Until she could see more than black and red. Until there was light, and color. Until data became form- albeit still broken, chaotic. Numbers. Misplaced bricks. Impossible plants. Incomprehensible collision. 

Glitch City.

She broke through the floor of the second lowest layer of the Distortion, and though the surface’s light was still so far… She’d found solid footing. 

And here, though it may have been quieter… She wasn’t so alone.

The City had the odd few inhabitants. But the first that she met was a strangely familiar boy, a teenager that reminded her of someone she knew, but wrong. With a cocky, lopsided grin, unruly black hair, and bright red eyes. 

Someone who wanted out just as badly as she did.

Leaf and Red never knew each other outside of Glitch City. But during their time trapped there together as children, they were friends. Leaf wasn’t the first person Red befriended there… 

But she was significant. They were allies with a shared goal, after all, and if one of them could find a way out, they could get out together! They worked in tandem to find hope, grasp at an escape. Everything they could, as a possibility. They were friends, after all. Right?

Right?

… Leaf didn’t wholly trust Red. It wasn’t personal, but there were things that were risky. She could see the instability of corruption plaguing him, and she wanted to ensure her loved ones’ safety more than she wanted to escape. The greater picture was something that she could wrap her head around, even if it was hard to grasp.

Red was not the same. Laser focused on his goal and uncaring of the consequences, it was a factor that, over time, divided them more and more as Leaf realized the severity of Red’s condition, and began to think…

Maybe he was here for a reason. … Still, she tried to turn a blind eye. Let herself hope things weren’t that bad. 

The growing obviousness for his resentment towards Fire, though Red tried to hide it, didn’t help- her distrust towards him only grew, further clouded by her personal fears and dedication to protecting her loved ones.

And one day, while discussing a possible window for escape… She let a thought she’d been hiding slip. The final nail in the coffin.

Afraid for her brother’s life, and angry seeing how Red reveled in the idea of hurting him, she left him behind and didn’t look back.

From there, we aren’t sure of the exact details of how she escaped. But we know she had help on the surface- from someone a little too curious about the nature of the Anomalous, who was all too eager to free a willing entity. Professor Ace Maple (specializing in “anomalies”, and original to the Missing Numbers story!) helped free her soul. 

Of course, releasing a long-buried corrupted entity wouldn’t go unnoticed by the higher power that had put her there. But… It saw how careful she was. How she was now completely wary of all glitches. How she’d come to understand the dangers they posed to the world and the people in it.

So, the Almighty came to her in a Golden light. Extending an offer to her.

YOU CANNOT BE PERMITTED TO EXIST IN THIS WORLD AS YOU ARE.

THERE IS A REASON YOUR KIND WERE BURIED.

THIS WORLD IS ENDANGERED EVERY TIME CORRUPTION ESCAPES.

I MUST PRESERVE THE ORDER OF THIS REALITY.

BUT YOU, HEROINE, HAVE PROVEN TO BE SPECIAL.

I AM WILLING TO MAKE A COMPROMISE FOR YOU ALONE.

YOU KNOW THINGS I CANNOT PERMIT ANYONE TO KNOW.

YOU’VE SEEN THINGS I CANNOT PERMIT ANYONE TO SEE.

I CAN ALLOW YOU TO KEEP THESE MEMORIES, AND YOUR PRESENCE HERE, ON SIMPLE TERMS.

DO NOT SPEAK OF IT TO ANOTHER SOUL…

AND PUT THIS KNOWLEDGE TO USE.

YOUR SHACKLES WILL BE YOUR WEAPON. KNOWLEDGE. POWER. 

PROTECT MY WORLD. CLEANSE THE CORRUPTION. HOLD THEM BELOW.

YOU ALONE WILL SEE EVERYTHING, FOR YOU ALONE SHALL BE THE WARDEN.

BUT DO NOT FORGET WHERE YOU CAME FROM.

DO NOT FORSAKE ME.

… Of course she accepted the bargain. It was all beneficial in her eyes. Her complete freedom, and the ability to protect those she loved most in ways she never could have before. What happened in their childhood would never happen again now.

Thus, Leaf was blessed with her body yet again. Rightfully hers, and aged to grow with her. Though she’d never again be a Vessel, that was okay. She was something far greater now. 

The chains could Imprison any code they touched, and they were completely under her control. With these, she could fight and restrain any anomalies necessary. She was also given the one-of-a-kind ability to freely move between the Main world, and the Distortion… To ensure that no activity occurred in either that could allow the escape of something catastrophic.

Of course, things weren’t perfect. The world and the people in it had changed since she’d been gone. It had been years. People would be different.

Blue, for one. It was hard to face him again. Tensions never stopped being high between them. They both remembered, after all.

She mostly just cared about her brother, now. It took her a bit to find him, idle at the top of Mount Silver. 

It was heartbreaking to see the emptiness in his eyes. Him barely acknowledging her. The realization that he’d never… He’d never looked for her. Never tried to free her. 

Never even mourned. 

She still loved him. She always would. He was her family. He was the only one who’d been anything like her.

It was okay that he got everything she had. It was okay that he’d completely replaced her. It was okay that he now had everything she ever wanted. It was okay that he wasn’t the one who looked for, found, freed her, instead of a complete stranger. It was okay that when he spoke it was soulless and objective and only reminding her of her duties. it was okay. it was okay. 

It was okay that he didn’t care. 

It was okay that he was living the life she should’ve wanted DESERVED that he was destined to.

It was okay that she had to protect him. It was part of her duty, after all.

She wasn’t bitter. She wasn’t mad. She loved him.

… And then there was Red- “Glitchy,” as she now called him, unwilling to give him the name that belonged to her brother. He never did give up on her. He was PISSED, mind you, that somehow she had escaped and left him and the others stuck down there behind- but he still refused to back down.

They were enemies now, though. As he grew more restless- and more powerful, much to Leaf’s horror- his imprisonment became a direct responsibility of hers. And as Professor Maple grew more curious about glitches, unknowingly bringing him closer and closer to true freedom, even though she felt indebted to them, she had to resist their studies. Warn them of everything- especially him.

“I thought you hated injustice. Don’t you think this is unfair?”

Still, she had to face him often. And even in his madness, and even in chains, Red could speak so… Persuasively. 

“If you could escape, why shouldn’t I? You have the ability to free me.”

“And I know you’re hiding me from the others. Don’t they deserve to know?”

“You knew as a KID that Blue was looking for me. Doesn’t HE deserve it?”

“I think you know this isn’t the right thing to do.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“But it’s okay. I’m not mad. I can be patient.”

“I’m sure you’ll come around.”

“After all, you’re just like me and you know it.”

[sabugabr]

Why the Clone problem in Star Wars animated media is also a Mandalorian problem, and why we have to talk about it (PART 2)

Hi! I finally finished wrapping this up, so here’s part 2 of what has already become a mini article (you can find Part 1 here, if you like!)

And for this part, it won’t be as much as a critic as part 1 was, but instead I’d like to focus more on what I consider to be a wasted potential regarding the representation of the Clones in the Star Wars animated media, from the first season of The Clone Wars till now, and why I believe it to be an extension of the Mandalorian problem I discussed in part 1 —  the good old colonialism.

Sources used, as always, will be linked at the end of this post!

PART 2: THE CLONES

Cody will never know peace

So I’d like to state that I won’t focus as much on the blatantly whitewashing aspect, for I believe it to be very clear by now. If you aren’t familiar with it, I highly recommend you search around tumblr and the internet, there are a lot of interesting articles and posts about it that explain things very didactically and in detail. The only thing you need to know to get this started is that even at the first seasons of Clone Wars (when the troopers still had this somewhat darker skin complexion and all) they were still a whitewashed version of Temuera Morrison (Jango’s actor). And from then, as we all know, they only got whiter and whiter till we get where we are now, in rage.

Look at this very ambiguously non-white but still westernized men fiercely guarding their pin-up space poster

Now look at this still westernized but slightly (sarcasm) whiter men who for some reason now have different tanning levels among them (See how Rex now has a lighter skin tone? WHEN THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN KKKKKKK) Anyway you got the idea. So without further ado...

2.1 THE FANTASY METAPHOR

As I mentioned before in Part 1, one thing that has to be very clear if you want to follow my train of thought is that it’s impossible to consume something without attributing cultural meanings to it, or without making cultural associations. This things will naturally happen and it often can improve our connection to certain narratives, especially fantastic ones. Even if a story takes place in a fantastic/sci fi universe, with all fictional species and people and worlds and cultures, they never come from nowhere, and almost always they have some or a lot of basing in real people and cultures. And when done properly, this can help making these stories resonate in a very beautifull, meaningfull way. I actually believe this intrisic cultural associations are the things that make these stories work at all. As the brilliant american speculative/science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin says in the introduction (added in 1976) of her novel The Left Hand of Darkness, and that I was not able to chopp much because it’s absolutely genious and i’ll be leaving the link to the full text right here,

“The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrodinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future — indeed Schrodinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the ‘future,’ on the quantum level, cannot be predicted — but to describe reality, the present world.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.”

[...] “Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth!

They may use all kinds of facts to support their tissue of lies. They may describe the Marshalsea Prison, which was a real place, or the battle of Borodino, which really was fought, or the process of cloning, which really takes place in laboratories, or the deterioration of a personality, which is described in real textbooks of psychology; and so on. This weight of verifiable place-event-phenomenon-behavior makes the reader forget that he is reading a pure invention, a history that never took place anywhere but in that unlocalisable region, the author's mind. In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane —bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with  them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.”

[...] “ In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find — if it's a good novel — that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words.

The artist whose medium is fiction does this within words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words. Words can be used thus paradoxically because they have, along with a semiotic usage, a symbolic or metaphoric usage. [...]  All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life — science, all the sciences, and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is a metaphor.

A metaphor for what?” [1]

A metaphor for what indeed. I won’t be going into what Star Wars as a whole is a metaphor for, because I am certain that it varies from person to person, and everyone can and has the total right to take whatever they want from this story, and understand it as they see fit. That’s why it’s called the modern myth. And therefore, all I’ll be saying here is playinly my take not only on what I understand the Clones to be, but what I believe they could have meant.

2.2 SO, BOBA IS A CLONE

I don’t want to get too repetitive, but I wanted to adress it because even though I by no means intend to put Boba and the Clones in the same bag, there is one aspect about them that I find very similar and interesting, that is the persue of individuality. While the Clones have this very intrinsically connected to their narratives, in Boba’s case this appears more in his concept design. As I mentioned in Part 1, one of the things the CW staff had in mind while designing the mandalorians is that they wanted to make Boba seem unique and distinguishable from them, and honestly even in the original trilogy he stands out a lot. He is unique and memorable and that’s one of the things that draws us to him.

And as we all know, both Boba and Jango and the Clones are played by Temuera Morrison — and occasionally by the wonderful Bodie Taylor and Daniel Logan. And Temuera Morrison comes from the Maori people. And differently from the mandalorian case, where we were talking about a whole planet, in this situation we’re talking about portraying one single person, so there’s nowhere to go around his appearance and phenotypes, right? I mean, you are literally representing an actual individual, so there’s no way you could alter their looks, right?

(hahahaha wrong)

And besides that, I think that is in situations like that (when we are talking about individuals) that the actor’s perspective could really have a place to shine (just the same as how Lea was mostly written by Carrie Fisher). In this very heart-warming interview for The New York Times (which you can read full signing up for their 5-free-articles-per-month policy), Temuera Morrison talks a little bit about how he incorporated his cultural background to Boba Fett in The Mandalorian:

“I come from the Maori nation of New Zealand, the Indigenous people — we’re the Down Under Polynesians — and I wanted to bring that kind of spirit and energy, which we call wairua. I’ve been trained in my cultural dance, which we call the haka. I’ve also been trained in some of our weapons, so that’s how I was able to manipulate some of the weapons in my fight scenes and work with the gaffi stick, which my character has.” [2]

The Gaffi stick (or Gaderffii), btw, is the weapon used by the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine, and according to oceanic art expert Bruno Claessens it’s design was inspired by wooden Fijian war clubs called totokia. [3]

And I think is very clear how this background can influence one’s performance and approach to a character, and majorly how much more alive this character will feel like. Beyond that, having an actor from your culture to play and add elements to a character will higly improve your sense of connection with them (besides all the impact of seeying yourself on screen, and seeying yourself portrayed with respect). It would only make sense if the cultural elements that the actor brought when giving life to a fictional individual would’ve been kept and even deepened while expanding this role. And if you’re familiar with Star Wars Legends you’ll probably rememeber that in Legends Jango would train and raise all Clone troopers in the Mandalorian culture, so that the Clones would sing traditional war chants before battles, be fluent in Mando’a (Mandalore’s language) and some would proudly take mandalorian names for themselves. So why didn’t Filoni Inc. take that into account when they went to delve into the clones in The Clone Wars?

2.3 THE WHITE MINORITY

First of all I’d like to state that all this is 100% me conjecturing, and by no means at all I’m saying that this is what really happened. But while I was re-watching CW before The Bad Batch premiere, something came to my mind regarding the whitewashing of the Clones, and I’d like to leave that on the table.

So, you know this kind of recent movies and series that depicted like, fairies in this fictional world where fairies were very opressed, but there would be a lot of fairies played by white actors? Just like Bright and Carnival Row. If you’ve watched some of these and have some racial conscience, you’ll probably know where I’m going here. And the issue with it is that often this medias will portray real situations of racism and opression and prejudice, but all applied to white people. Like in Carnival Row, when going to work as a maid in a rich human house, our girl Cara Delevingne had to fight not to have her braids (which held a lot of significance in her culture) cut by her intolerant human mistress, because the braids were not “appropriate”. Got it? hahahaha what a joy

Look at her ethnic braids!!!

One of the reasons this happens might be to relieve a white audience of the burden of watching these stories and feeling what I like to call “white guilt”. Because, as we all know, white people were never very oppressed.  Historically speaking, white people have always been in privileged social positions, and in an exploitative relationship between two ethnic groups, white people very usually would be the exploiters  —  the opressors. So while watching situations (that every minority would know to be very real) of opression in fiction, if these situations were lived by a white actor, there would be no real-life associations, because we have no historical parameter to associate this situation with anything in real life — if you are white. Thus, there is less chance that, when consuming one of these narratives, whoever is watching will question the "truthfulness" of these situations (because it's not "real racism", see, "they're just fairies"). It's easier for a person to watch without having to step out of their comfort zone, or confront the reality of real people who actually go through things like that. There's even a chance that this might diminish empathy for these people.

Once again, not saying this is specifically the case of the Clones, majorly because one of the main feelings you have when watching CW is exactly empathy for the troopers (at least for me, honestly, the galaxy could explode, I just wanted those poor men to be happy for God’s sake). But I’ll talk more about it later.

The thing is, the whole thing with the Clones, if you think about it, it’s not pretty. If you step on little tiny bit outside the bubble of “fictional fantasy”, the concept is very outrageous. They are kept in conditions analogous to slavery, to say the least. To say the more, they were literally made in an on-demand lab to serve a purpose they are personally not a part of, for which they will neither receive any reward nor share any part of the gains. On the contrary, as we saw in The Bad Batch, as soon as the war was over and the clones were no longer useful as cannonballs, they were discarded. In the (wonderful) episode 6 of the third season of (the almost flawless) Rebels, “The Last Battle”, we're even personally introduced to the analogy that there really wasn't much difference in value between clones and droids, something that was pretty clear in Clone Wars but hadn't been said explicitly yet.

In fact, technically the Separatists can be considered to be more human than the Republic. But that's just my opinion.

So, you had this whole army of pretty much slaves. I know this is a heavy term, but these were people who were originally stripped of any sense of humanity or individuality, made literally to go to war and die in it, doing so purely in exchange for food and lodging, under the false pretense that they belonged to a glorious purpose (yes, Loki me taught that term, that was the only thing I absorbed from this series). Doing all this under extremely precarious conditions from which they had no chance of getting out, actually, getting out was tantamount to the death penalty. They were slaves. In milder terms, an oppressed minority. And again, I don't know if that was the case, but I can understand why Filoni Inc would be apprehensive about representing phenotically indigenous people in this situation. Especially since we in theory should see Anakin and Obi-Wan as the good guys.

(and here I’d like to leave a little disclaimer that I believe the whole Anakin-was-a-slave-once plot was HUGELY misused (and honestly just badly done) both in the prequels and in the animeted series  — maybe for the best, since he was, you know, white and all that, and I don’t know how the writers would have handled it, but ANYWAY — I believe this could have been further explored, particularly regarding his relationship with the Clones, and how it could have influenced his revolt against the Jedi, and manipulated to add to his anger and all that. I mean, we already HAD the fact that Anakin shared a deeper conection with his troopers than usual)

Yes, Rex, you have common trauma experiences to share. But anyway, backing to my track

As I was saying, we are to see them as good guys, and maybe that could’ve been tricky if we saw them hooping up on slavery practices. Like, idk, a “nice” sugar plantation owner? (I don’t know the correct word for it in english, but in portuguese they were called senhores de engenho) Like this guy from 12 Years a Slave?

You know, the slave owner who was “nice”. IDK, anyway  

No one will ever watch Clone Wars and make this association (I believe not, at least), of course not. But if we were to see how CW deepened the clone arcs, and see them as phenotypically indigenous, subjected to certain situations that occur in CW (yes, like Umbara), maybe some kind of association would’ve been easier to make.

I mean, come onnnn I can’t be the only one seeing it

You see, maybe not the whole 12 Years a Slave association one, but I don’t think it’s hard to see there was something there. And maybe this could’ve been even more evident if they looked non-white. Because historically, both black peoples and indigenous peoples went through processes of slavery, from which we as a society are still impacted today. And to slave a people, the first thing you have to do is strip them from their humanity. So it might be easier to see this situation and apply it to real life. And maybe that could lead to a whole lot of other questions regarding the Clones, the Republic, the Jedi, and even how chill Obi-Wan was about all this. We might come out of it, as lady Ursula Le Guin stated in the fragment above, a bit different from what we were before we watch it.

Maybe even unconsciously, Filoni Inc thought we would be more confortable watching if they just looked white (and because of colonialism and all that, but I’m adding thoughts here).

And of course I don’t like the idea of, idk, looking at Obi-Wan and thinking about Benedict Cumberbatch in 12 Years a Slave or something like that. Of course that, if the Clones were to play the same role as they did in the prequels, to obediently serve the Jedi and quietly die for them, that would have been bad, and hurtfull, and pejorative if added to all that I said here. But the thing is that Clone Wars, consciously or not, already solved that. At least to my point of view, they already managed to approach this situation in an incredible competent way, that is giving them agency.

2.4 AGENCY AND INDIVIDUALITY

So, one of the things I love most in Clone Wars is how it really feels like it’s about the Clones. Like, we have the bigger scene of Palpatine taking over, Ahsoka’s growth arc, Anakin’s turn to The Dark Side, the dawn of the Jedi and rise of the Empire and all that, but it also has this idk, vibe, of there’s actually something going on that no one in scene is talking about? And this something is the Clones. We have these episodes spread throughout the seasons, even out of chronological order, which when watched together tell a parallel story to the war, to everything I mentioned. Which is a story about individuals. Clone Wars manages to, in a (at least to me) very touching way, make the Clones be the heros. 

Can you really look me in the eye and say that Five’s story didn’t CRASH you like a full-speed train???? He may not have the same amount of screen-time as the protagonists, but his story is just as important as theirs (and to me, it might be the most meaningful one). Because he is the first to break free from the opression cicle all the Clones were trapped into. 

His story can be divided into 6 phases.

1 - First, the construction of his individuality, in other words, the reclaiming of his humanity. 

2 - Then the assimilation of understanding yourself as an individual of value, and then extending this to all his brothers, not as a unit, but as a set of individuals collectively having this same newly discovered value.

3 - This makes him realize that in the situation they find themselves in, they are not being recognized as such. This makes him question the reality of their situation.

4 - Freed from the illusion of his state, he seeks the truth about it.

5 - This then leads him to seek liberation not just for himself, but for all the Clones (it's basically Plato's Cave, and I'm not exaggerating here).

6 - And finally, precisely because he has assimilated his individuality and sought freedom for himself and his brothers, he is punished for it.

His story is all about agency. Agency, according to the Wikipedia page that is the first to appear if you type “agency” on Google, is that agency is “the abstract principle that autonomous beings, agents, are capable of acting by themselves” [4], and this abstract principle can be dissected in 7 segments:

Law - a person acting on behalf of another person

Religious -  "the privilege of choice... introduced by God"

Moral -  capacity for making moral judgments

Philosophical -  the capacity of an autonomous agent to act, relating to action theory in philosophy

Psychological -  the ability to recognize or attribute agency in humans and non-human animals

Sociological -  the ability of social actors to make independent choices, relating to action theory in sociology

Structural - ability of an individual to organize future situations and resource distribution

All of them apply here. And this is just the story of one Clone. We know there are many others throughout the series. 

Agency is what can make the world of a difference when you are telling a story about an opressed minority. Because opressed minorities do exist, and opression exists, and if you are insecure about consuming a fictional media about opressed minorities, see if they have agency might be a good place to start. So that’s why I think that everything I said before in 2.3 falls short. Because the solution already existed, and was indeed done. Honestly, making the non-agency representation of the Clones (the one we see in the prequels) to be the one played by Temuera Morrison, and then giving them agency in the version where they appear to be white, just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

And honestly, if they were to make the Clones look like Temuera Morrison, and by that mean, take more inspiration in the Māori culture, maybe they wouldn’t even have to change much of their representation besides their facial features. As I said in part 1, I am not by any means an expert in polynesian cultures, but there was something that really got me while I was researching about it. And is the facial tattoos. More precisely, the tā moko. 

2.5  TĀ MOKO

Once again I’ll be using the Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand as source, and you can find the articles used linked at the end of this post. 

Etymologically speaking,

“The term moko traditionally applied to male facial tattooing, while kauae referred to moko on the chins of women. There were other specific terms for tattooing on other parts of the body. Eventually ‘moko’ came to be used for Māori tattooing in general.” [5]

So moko is the correct name for the characteristic tattoos we often see when we look for Māori culture. 

These ones ^. Please also look this book up, it’s beautiful. It’s written by  Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, a New Zealand academic specialising in Māori cultural issues and a lesbian activist. She’s wonderful. 

According to the Tourism NewZealand website, 

“In Māori culture, it [moko] reflects the individual's whakapapa (ancestry) and personal history. In earlier times it was an important signifier of social rank, knowledge, skill and eligibility to marry.”

“Traditionally men received moko on their faces, buttocks and thighs. Māori face tattoos are the ultimate expression of Māori identity. Māori believe the head is the most sacred part of the body, so facial tattoos have special significance.”

[...] “The main lines in a Māori tattoo are called manawa, which is the Māori word for heart.” [6]

Therefore, in the Māori culture, there’s this incredibly deep meaning attributed to the (specific of their culture) tattooing of the face. The act of tattooing the body, any part of the body, is incredibly powerful in many cultures around the globe. The adornment of the body can have different meanings for these different cultures, but all of which I've come into contact with do mean a lot. It’s one of the oldest and most beautiful human expressions of individuality and identity. 

And in the Star Wars universe, the Clones are the group that has the deeper connection to, and the best narrative regarding, tattoos. In fact, besides Hera’s father, Cham Syndulla, the Clones are the only individuals to have tattooed skin, at least that I can recall of. And they do share a deep connection to it. 

For the Clones, the tattoos (added to hairstyles) are the most meaningful way in which they can express themselves. Is what makes them distinguishable from each other to other people. Tattoos are one of the things that represent them as individuals.

And I’m not BY ANY MEANS sayin that the Clones facial tattoos = Moko. That’s not my point. But that’s one of the things I meant when I said earlier about the wasted potential of the representation of the Clones (in my point of view). Because maybe if it were their intention to base the culture of the clones after the polynesian culture, maybe if it were their intention to make the Clones actually look like Temuera Morrison, this could have meant a whole deal. More than it’d appear looking to it from outside this culture. Maybe if there were actual polynesian people in the team that designed the Clones and wrote them (or at least indigenous people, something), who knows what we could’ve had. 

Even in Hunter’s design, I noticed that if you take for example this frame of Temuera from the movie River Queen (2005), where we can have a closer look at the design of his tā moko

Speaking purely plastically (because I don’t want to get into the movie itself, just using it as example because then I can use Temuera himself as a comparison), see the lines around the contours of his mouth? Now look at Hunter’s. 

I find it interesting that they choose to design this lines coming from around his nose like that. But at this point I am stretching A LOT into plastic and semiotics, so this comparison is just a little thing that got my attention. I know that his tattoo is a skull and etc etc, I’m just poiting this out. And it even makes me a little frustrated, because they could have taken so many interesting paths in the Bad Batch designs. But instead they choose to pay homage to Rambo. And I mean, I like Rambo, I think he’s cool and all that.

Look at him doing Filipino martial arts

But then, as we say in Brasil, they had the knife and the cheese in their hands (all they had to do was cut the cheese, but they didn’t). Istead, it seems like in order to make Hunter look like Rambo, they made him even whiter??? 

2.6 SO...

Look, I love The Clone Wars. I’m crazy about it. I love the Clones, I love their stories and plots. They are great characters and one of the greatest addings ever made in the Star Wars universe. They even have, in my opinion, the best soundtrack piece to feature in a Star Wars media since John Williams’ wonderful score. It just feels to me as if their narrative core is full of bagage, and meanings, and associations that were just wiped under the carpet when they suddenly became white. It just feels to me as if, once again, they were trying to erase the person behing the trooper mask, and the people they were to represent, and the history they should evoke.

I don’t know why they were whitewashed. Maybe it was just the old due racism and colonialism. Maybe it was meant for us to not question the Jedi, or our good guys, or the real morality of this fictional universe where we were immersed. But then, was it meant for what?

The Clones were a metaphor for what? 

(spoiler: the answer still contains colonialism)

Thank you so much for reading !!!! (and congratulations for getting this far, you are a true hero)

SOURCES USED IN THIS:

[1] Ursulla K. Le Guin, 'The Left Hand of Darkness', 14th ACE print run of June, 1977

[2] Dave Itzkoff, 'Being Boba Fett: Temuera Morrison Discusses ‘The Mandalorian’', The New York Times, published Dec. 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/arts/television/the-mandalorian-boba-fett-temuera-morrison.html (accessed 15 September 2021)

[3] Bruno Claessens, 'George Lucas' "Star Wars" and Oceanic art' , Archived from the original on December 5, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20201205114353/http://brunoclaessens.com/2015/07/george-lucas-star-wars-and-oceanic-art/#.YEiJ-p37RhF (accessed 15 September 2021)

[4]  Wikipedia contributors, "Agency," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agency&oldid=1037924611 (accessed September 17, 2021)

[5] Rawinia Higgins, 'Tā moko – Māori tattooing - Origins of tā moko', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ta-moko-maori-tattooing/page-1 (accessed 17 September 2021)

[6] Tourism New Zealand, ‘The meaning of tā moko, traditional Māori tattoos’,  The Tourism New Zealand website, https://www.newzealand.com/us/feature/ta-moko-maori-tattoo/ (accessed 17 September 2021)

[eldrai]

Hi hi sam how are you? Chem sucks but I hope you get through it! I use lifeat.io to make studying less stressful :) if you need any cm distractions after you go ace that test tomorrow, here's something fun to think about - how do you think early bau was when it was just hotch, max ryan, gideon, and rossi? They're all self-absorbed assholes and he's just a kid in a suit that's too big for him... how was the team dynamic? I'd love to hear your thoughts AFTER you go study! ily <3

Anastasia hi! I did get through it, chemistry was a bit rubbish but biology went much better. I didn't have much time to use it when you sent it but I looked at lifeat.io and it is so cool!! Thank you for telling me about it.

Self-absorbed assholes and a kid in a suit is definitely a take that I can't say I fully disagree with!

Early days BAU... I'll be honest and say I have completely forgotten everything about Max Ryan or haven't gotten to the part(s) where he gets mentioned. I think my brain just does not retain anything about him because his name reads like two first names hahaha so I may be massively contradicting canon in which case disregard this but I think Ryan was just... sort of a dick? Not massively but just not someone you'd want to spend time outside of work with and given how much time the BAU spends together, I can imagine things might get a little strained from time to time. And again with what is 100% speculation but I imagine him as the second youngest and wanting to prove himself. Maybe perceiving a rivalry between him and Hotch when there isn't really one, never says anything about it but there's always that little coldness from Ryan's end.

Because I think the difference between Hotch and Ryan would be that Hotch is ambitious. No doubt about that. You don't get that high up in his career without being very very motivated. And yeah, that means taking advantage of opportunities when they arise but he's not going out of his way to step on other people's toes to do that - he'll defend himself when he has to but there's no point burning bridges unnecessarily. Whereas I see Ryan as being more malicious in it and when they're both in (relatively) the same position at the start he wants to get ahead of Hotch.

For his part I'm sure Hotch would've known that but they worked well enough, and it was never enough of an issue they ever felt unsafe in the field working with each other. Just this thin dislike from both ends. Hotch being well spoken and very very good at not showing emotion would only make it more frustrating because getting a rise out of him was damn near impossible - and possibly perceived as him being deliberately cold when he isn't, he's just... Hotch.

(oh god this got long and I'm only on ryan aslkfhglkhfilgh)

I feel like Gideon was very much in charge. He definitely took on the role as the leader but the more friendly aspects in that role mostly fell to Rossi despite him being closer in age to the other two.

I think there'd be a divide between the slightly more experienced two and then Hotch and Ryan. And Hotch and Ryan would naturally want their approval - for Hotch, I think Gideon's in particular would take on a subconscious and probably very small paternalistic edge to it because. Older male authority figure telling him he's doing a good job? Yeah, he did not have that for most of his life. I think they'd mesh quite well in general, Gideon's eccentricness (because he ran out of fucks to give as he got older but he was never,, the biggest fan of tradition, let's say that much) balancing out Hotch's formality.

(Side note here but people who would work with the unit tended to feel sorry for Hotch having to mediate between Gideon - being Gideon - and Rossi - who just can get loud - when they get into arguments about the ridiculous and/or dangerous plans to lure out unsubs.

However, the real danger was leaving Gideon and Hotch alone for too long because their plan would also be dangerous, but it would sound fine on the surface level so it wasn't until, say, Hotch disappeared into a building with two unsubs and no bulletproof vest and Gideon did not seem as surprised by this as he should've been, that Rossi and Ryan realised they'd made a mistake by agreeing.

And Gideon wouldn't have discouraged the recklessness, I don't think. At the very least he wouldn't have encouraged Hotch to stop. Because his recklessness is a very particular kind where he'll risk his own self/his health but generally not much else if things were to go wrong? So aside from Hotch himself, the consequences to their work were a net positive. It got them praise even from their handling of "difficult" cases.

So that was a thing. And that continued to be a thing, Hotch being too willing to endanger himself despite being protective over his own team.)

I feel like it got less formal over time because at first, it's a new unit and they aren't completely sure they are actually going to be a permanent thing but then they settled into it slightly, got funding (and look, I know logically the cases across the country came after the jet but it's still funny to imagine the lot of them in a single SUV for hours - road trip from hell) and the behavioural analysis unit became a proper established unit instead of this little fledgling thing crammed into a spare room somewhere.

But at first they were a little awkward because... they're all themselves really and they have very distinct personalities. I think the early BAU days are definitely where Hotch and the others became the kind of friends you'd miss if they left the job, not just work colleagues.

Also I think there was also a Kate(?) someone (not Joyner) as a former member but uhhhh let's pretend there isn't.

[downtofragglerock]

ATOM Kaiju contest submission

Name: Saroguana

Alias: “The Shark of the Skies”

Date Discovered: December 26, 1956

Place of Origin: The Pacific Northwest

Stomping Grounds: The Pacific Northwest, Typhon Island

Height: 60 feet

Length: 90 feet

Wingspan: 110 Feet

Biology: Saroguana is a rather interesting look into the evolutionary process between the Tiny Tyrant and Flying Tyrant Retrosaur clades. Whereas evolution gradually transformed the arms of some species of Tiny Tyrants into wings, Saroguana seems to belong to an offshoot where the opposite occurred, their forelimbs remained relatively unchanged, but their hindlimbs became great sets of wings. Because of this, Saroguana’s center of gravity and the maintaining of that center is more complicated than that of most Flying Tyrants. Their bright orange body naturally leans forward more, on account for the fact that their forelimbs are being used for support. Saroguana has a rather flexible neck to compensate for this so they can still have a full field of vision. Saroguana also has various structures to help maintain balance, mainly their tail and backfins. The tail, while long, acts more like the short rudder tail seen on some Flying Tyrants, rather than the lizard like one seen on most long-tailed Flying Tyrants. The backfins are a more interesting case. They’re lime green, much like a lot of the accents on Saroguana’s body, and have an odd, hockey stick-like shape to them. They stand straight up on the kaiju’s back when grounded and during takeoff, but during flight, they collapse on top of one another, creating a fin-like shape that makes the body more aerodynamic, especially during Saroguana’s divebomb descents, the source for the creature’s moniker of “The Shark of the Skies”.

Personality: Saroguana is seemingly scatterbrained kaiju, never being able to focus on one thing at a time for very long. While the way they dance around in the air is oddly graceful, they’re quite clumsy when it comes to walking on the ground. Most of the time they waddle around wide-eyed like a confused toddler. They’re a bit of a kleptomaniac, taking seemingly random things either because said things are shiny or just interesting in the kaiju’s eyes. Researchers are still trying to figure out what qualifies as “interesting” to this kaiju, as there is almost no legitimate correlation between items. Saroguana is quite friendly, although they have a somewhat hard time befriending other kaiju due to their klutzy and slightly random nature, and despite being in the size range to get some sustenance out of human meat, has no record of actually eating humans strangely enough. And despite their scatterbrain-ed ness, Saroguana is quite curious, investigating even seemingly innocuous things. Of course, these fixations are quite sporadic, quickly moving from one thing to the next and back again, but the dedication seen in those periods is actually quite admirable.

History: It wasn’t too long after Christmas that reports came in about missing… well, just about everything past a certain size. Cars, cattle, roofs, even lampposts where there one moment and seemingly taken the next. A few years prior, this would had left authorities baffled, but the world was now firmly in an age of giant monsters, and the now-reasonable assumption that a kaiju was behind this was quickly assumed. But what kind of monster and where it was were questions still up in the air. A couple days later, a nearby thermal power plant reported disturbances, and several hunches where proven (as well as several bets won) when those assigned to investigate saw two large deep blue eyes staring right at them. The kaiju went on a brief rampage, surprising some with its leg-wings and besting various fighter jets with its dive-bombing prowess. However, during said scuffle, the creature spontaneously retreated and was later found resting in the same plant it was found in. The beast’s motives were realized when a crude cow carcass-ridden nest made up of wrecked cars, building pieces, and lampposts was discovered in one of the hotter areas of the plant, with the kaiju nestled in there like a bird. The creature (which would later be dubbed Saroguana for unknown reasons) was a large reptile in the height of winter, and simply trying to find a nice warm place to rest for the season, like a family during the holidays. Saroguana would later be shipped off to Typhon island where they have acclimated rather well to their new warmer surroundings.

---

At first it was a bit challenging trying to come up with an idea for a kaiju that fit within the parameters of ATOM’s fictional universe, since I’m more of a fan of the “ancient quasi mythical” aspect of kaiju rather than the “giant creature products of the atomic age” that ATOM’s kaiju are more inclined to. My original idea was a heavily mutated deranged crow, as sort of a reference to the infamous knife-wielding crow of Vancouver and the Giant Claw, but it didn’t really feel right. Considering a majority of ATOM’s kaiju are a reference to some distinct type of Mesozoic reptile, I decided to go from there. I wanted my kaiju to stand out, so I looked at the Triassic, and its menagerie of somewhat unappreciated reptilian oddities, for inspiration. I remember a majority of the dinosaur books I had as a kid, during the obligatory “before the dinosaurs” bit, had various stock species shown off, and two creatures that where often featured together where Longisquama and Sharovipteryx, mainly because of the outdated belief that they were connected in some way to pterosaur evolution. I had also been playing around with a speculative evolutionary concept involving the latter animal, wondering if the hind leg gliders could have evolved into full blown wings, said concept was also partly inspired by Sebulba from Star Wars. So, taking a page out of Toho’s notebook of prehistoric chimera kaiju, I decided to combine them, taking Longisquama’s quills and the main body plan of Sharovipteryx. The name is also a combination of the two as well, though I did change “guama” to “guana” to make it sound more like iguana, since the retrosaurs are tied to the old belief of dinosaurs being “big lizards”.

While the color scheme wasn’t featured on the illustration, (I’ve grown more confident in my drawing skills over the years, my coloring abilities, not so much) I decided to base Saroguana’s colors off of the Nui Rama from Bionicle. One was bright orange and the other was lime green, so much like with the design and name, I combined the color schemes into one.

The discovery date is the original Japanese release date for Rodan. It was the first kaiju film I ever saw, and seeing as how I was creating a flying monster, I decided to give it a little shoutout.

For @tyrantisterror​ and his kaiju contest

[rwby-redux]

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: Genetics

If any of my Deconstruction posts were going to turn heads, I had a hunch it would be this one. You’ll probably find this topic incongruous with the others simply because—unlike Aura, Semblances, Dust, and Grimm—genetics isn’t one of RWBY’s unique gimmicks. If I’m being entirely honest, part of why this post exists is because I still had some miscellaneous talking points to address, but lacked a proper heading to file them under. Call it what it is: a dumping ground for wayward thoughts.

But there’s a bit more to it than just that. The reason why I want to talk about this is because, much like the other mechanical aspects, genetics does have a bearing on RWBY’s worldbuilding, and the stories that were subsequently built around it. It has an undeniable impact on the sociopolitical human-Faunus schism that set the stage for Remnant’s immediate past, and the present-day terrorist acts committed by the White Fang. Genetics is also an extension of RWBY’s adherence to color theory, reflected in the hair and eye color choices of the ensemble cast.

Before we can finally conclude Part 1 of the Worldbuilding posts, we need to discuss this topic from both a narrative and a production standpoint. Genetics is firmly rooted in the development and design choices of the writers—choices which, as you’ll quickly see, had long-lasting consequences for the show.

Today we’re going to be dividing this topic into two sections. Since I’m sure it’s already on your mind, let’s get the obvious one out of the way first:

The Genetics of the Faunus

The Faunus are going to have an entire post dedicated just to them, but it’s impossible to talk about genetics without at least a passing mention of one of Remnant’s two main species.

Subspecies.

Races?

Yeah. You can quickly see where this is going.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me provide some context. Just like the conception of the Maidens, the Faunus can trace their developmental history to a rather impulsive design choice:

“Monty really wanted a character with cat ears,” admits Miles Luna. Shawcross expands on how Blake Belladonna’s look resulted in a cornerstone of the show’s lore. “So if Blake has cat ears, does that mean anyone can have cat ears? Could they have other animal traits? It’d be cool to see someone with scales or a fox tail…” [1]

Let me clarify by saying that there’s nothing wrong with basing a decision on aesthetics (in principle, anyway). And RWBY isn’t the only franchise guilty of doing this. It only takes a few seconds of consulting TV Tropes to see that zoomorphism is extremely pervasive. And while I have a tendency to complain a lot on this blog, I’m not such a kvetch that I’ll deny that animal-people with lion tails and ram horns look fucking sweet.

The problem I have with Faunus (from a genetic standpoint) is the way they’re inconsistently described in relation to humans. While Qrow unambiguously refers to them as a separate species, [2] we have Faunus characters that contradict him by describing themselves as a race. [3] This leads to the inevitable issue of whose account do we trust? On one hand, the information provided to us by Qrow is through World of Remnant, a spin-off series whose entire purpose is to clarify information and teach the audience about core worldbuilding concepts. On the other hand, what we’re told about the Faunus being a race comes directly from Ghira Belladonna. In this context, who would you expect to be the better authority on Faunus—a human, or a Faunus?

Even if we set aside the complicated implications of an outgroup member talking over a minority, we’re still left with the issue of well, which is it? Are they a race or a species? And why does it even matter?

Before we can answer any of those questions, let’s quickly define both terms:

A species is a taxonomic rank used for classifying groups of organisms together on the basis of being able to participate in genetic interchange via sexual reproduction, to produce fertile offspring.

A race (in biology) is an informal/unrecognized taxonomic rank below subspecies, defined as unique subgroups with either geographic, physiological, or genetic distinctions from other subgroups within their species. In anthropology, however, a race is typically regarded as a social construct. In this case, it refers to an identity held by members of a population that share physical or social qualities that are seen as categorically distinct.

The answer, if we’re being objective, is probably something along the lines of “RWBY’s writers thought that the two terms were interchangeable, or they didn’t think the distinction mattered enough to do the research and settle on a definition.” Unless someone specifically reached out to a Rooster Teeth employee and asked, we’ll never truly know. Speculation will only get us so far, and where this blog is concerned, we need a definitive answer—or at the very least, we need to talk about why the distinction matters to us.

So, are Faunus their own race? Meaning, are they a self-identifying ethnic group with a common language, ancestry, history, culture, nation, or social treatment within their residing area?

Common language: That’s a definite no. RWBY still hasn’t managed to explain how everyone across the four kingdoms speaks the same language, let alone develop any conlangs.

Ancestry: We actually don’t have a canon answer for this. The show has yet to tell us where the Faunus came from, so we can’t make any assumptions about how related they are to one another.

History: Technically, yes. But the series has a gross tendency to homogenize the experience of Faunus across Remnant, so the history of Faunus in Vale is virtually identical to that of Mistral. This trend results in storytelling discrepancies, like the Faunus in culturally-unprejudiced Vacuo [4] being equally threatened by and involved with the Faunus Rights Revolution, when there shouldn’t have been an in-world basis for this scenario.

Culture: Don’t make me laugh. RWBY couldn’t even be bothered to give any of its four kingdoms distinct cultures. Apart from a few scenes in Menagerie where you see a bunch of background characters hanging out in the Shallow Sea district of Kuo Kuana, there really isn’t anything culturally unique to the Faunus.

Nation: I guess? I personally wouldn’t consider Menagerie a nation, simply because it’s not one the Faunus originated from, but were rather given in the aftermath of the Great War. As far as we know, Faunus have always been just as widespread across Remnant as humans.

Social treatment: We’re told that social treatment for the Faunus as a whole is shitty, but that the degree of shittiness varies from place to place. Forgive me if I don’t buy that. Not after we’ve seen students in Vale physically harass a Faunus, [5] shops in Mistral refuse service to Faunus, [6] and companies in Atlas extract labor from Faunus. [7] If social treatment is contingent on shared experiences, then why are we told that these experiences change depending on the kingdom? And if the kingdoms vary in levels of racial acceptance, then why are we repeatedly shown the exact opposite?

Based on the aforementioned criteria, I’m inclined to say that Faunus don’t fit the definition of race.

So, are the Faunus a separate species from humans?

“History gets a little fuzzy past a certain point, but we do know that their kind and ours are completely compatible, from a—a biological standpoint.” | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 6: “Faunus.”

That’s a resounding no.

As much as the taxonomist in me wants to talk about things like the multiple competing species concepts, or the fact that plants frequently violate the definition of species by producing fertile hybrids through polyploidy (chromosomal doubling), I have to restrain myself. For simplicity’s sake, we’re accepting that Faunus and humans are members of the same species on the basis that they’re not reproductively isolated.

The reason why genetics matters in regards to the race-species discourse is because we have yet to learn what the Faunus truly are. If we ignore the fact that they exist because Monty Oum wanted to stick cat ears on a girl, then we have to figure out what their existence means to Remnant’s past: Did the Brother Gods intervene in the early evolution of Humanity v2.0, by creating a subset of people with animal traits that would sow discord, for the sole purpose of giving Ozma another obstacle to overcome? Did Salem (who watched Humanity v2.0 evolve) try to influence their evolution, and somehow managed to bestow animalistic traits upon select groups of early hominids? Is Dust like a magically-radioactive fossil fuel that by pure chance mutated early people through exposure, resulting in their animalistic traits? Are the Faunus’ animal traits completely irrelevant to the plot, and are only there for the sake of style?

That’s why the Faunus’ genetic background matters—because as the story progresses, it’s going to inform what questions the audience asks.

There’s a good chance that all of this will end up being nitpicky conjecture, and there won’t be any storytelling payoff. But I think it’s still important to address, if for no other reason than to illustrate why pre-production worldbuilding is essential for telling a coherent story. But I digress.

Genetics, and Its Relationship with Color Theory

It goes without saying that RWBY is defined by color. It’s reflected in nearly every facet of the franchise—team names, wardrobe, Dust color, Aura color, emblems, characters’ names, even the show’s title—and it’s just as important from a worldbuilding standpoint as it is from a narrative one. [8]

Where color theory and genetics cross paths is in the field of character appearance—specifically, hair and eye color. For the moment, let’s set aside eye color as a visual device for foiling and paralleling characters (like Yang Xiao Long’s purple eyes compared to Blake Belladonna’s yellow eyes). Instead, we’re going to talk about these phenotypes from a hereditary perspective.

We’re going to streamline this discussion a bit by focusing on hair for the moment, and picking three colors that would be considered unnatural by our world’s standards. Let’s go with blue, green, and pink. Here’s a handful of characters who have these traits:

Blue hair: Neptune Vasilias, Ciel Soleil, Henry Marigold, May Marigold, Nebula Violette, Sky Lark, Trifa

Green hair: Emerald Sustrai, Marrow Amin, Bartholomew Oobleck, Reese Chloris, Russel Thrush, Sage Ayana

Pink hair: An Ren, May Zedong, Nadir Shiko

Now we’re going to take those lists and swap out the characters’ names for their inferred country of origin:

Blue hair: Mistral, Atlas, Atlas, Atlas, Vacuo, Vale, Menagerie

Green hair: Vale, Atlas, Vale, Mistral, Vale, Mistral

Pink hair: Mistral, Vacuo, Mistral

We can conclude that these hair colors are natural on the basis that we never see characters dying their hair, and that similarly unusual eye colors (red, pink, purple, yellow) would also be natural in Remnant. Unless we’re assuming that everyone is wearing custom contact lenses, then it’s safe to say they’re legit. With the example of hair color, you’ll notice that they’re distributed across a wide number of nationalities, with little hint of consistency among them.

At the end of the day, it’s easy to write this off as “the writers wanted to have cool character designs and not have to think too hard about the worldbuilding implications behind them.” But there is a worldbuilding implication behind them, and it’s one that I’ll be focusing on in later Deconstruction and Amendment posts, so I want to make sure we talk about it now:

RWBY has repeatedly shown us that people are fairly geographically isolated from each other, and travel between kingdoms has always been difficult due to the Grimm. It wasn’t until eighty years ago, when the Great War ended, that a combo of international political cooperation and technological advancements made travel safer and more commonplace. Keep in mind that when populations of humans are geographically isolated from each other over prolonged periods of time, it results in those populations evolving specific anatomical traits.

Let me give you a few real world examples. Epicanthic folds are predominantly found in East Asian, Polynesian, and North Asian ethnic groups. Red hair, while not exclusive to any one nationality, is statistically highest in people of Northwestern European ancestry. Darker complexion is most common in equatorial populations, where high melanin production (especially eumelanin) protects against UVR exposure.

RWBY has every reason under the sun to ascribe certain phenotypes to the ethnicities of each kingdom, and for some reason it just doesn’t. Like, why not make green hair a trait common to people with Sanus ancestry? How about red eyes originating from Anima?

Avatar: The Last Airbender pulled this off by making dark skin, brown hair, and blue/gray eyes features of the Water Tribes. The Fire Nation, to reflect its broader geographic distribution, has a much wider range of phenotypes, with both light and dark skin tones and black or brown hair. However, it still retained golden, amber, and bronze eyes as a distinguishing characteristic of people descended from this ancestry. Frankly, I love that the show took the time to establish those traits among its ethnic groups. Not only was it a great way to visually communicate to the audience the ethnicity of the characters, but those traits took on entirely new meanings in the sequel Avatar: The Legend of Korra. When we meet the brothers Mako and Bolin for the first time and see their respective eye colors—amber and green—we’re immediately able to deduce that they’re the products of successful multiculturalism, something that would’ve seemed impossible seventy years ago when the world was gripped by war. It’s a powerful statement that was conveyed through careful attention to detail and excellent worldbuilding. Given that RWBY also takes place several decades after a global war, the writers had the opportunity to pull off a similar feat. And I don’t think it ever occurred to them once.

At the end of the day, it’s not the worst thing RWBY could’ve done. I think I’m just disappointed by the missed opportunities. The show already has so little going for it when it comes to shaping the identities of its four main kingdoms, so with color being such a vital motif for the show, this feels like it should have been a natural progression of those ideas.

On a more positive note, we’ve finally reached the end of Worldbuilding (Part I) - Mechanical Aspects! Next time, we’ll get to introduce the second section of worldbuilding topics: history.

-

[1] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 42.

[2] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 6: “Faunus.”

[3] Volume 5, Episode 3: “Unforeseen Complications.” Ghira Belladonna: “[Adam’s] actions not only tarnished the reputation of an organization originally created to bring peace and equality to all, but to our entire race.”

[4] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 4: “Vacuo.”

[5] Volume 1, Episode 11: “Jaunedice - Part 1.”

[6] Volume 5, Episode 6: “Known by Its Song.”

[7] Volume 7, Episode 1: “The Greatest Kingdom.”

[8] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 44.

[and-all-that-szasz]

So I tend to cycle through the fandoms I'm a part of, focusing on primarily one or two at a time, and recently I've been back on my bull**** with My Hero Academia. I know this seems like a bit of a non sequitur, but I also love science. I love the real stuff, what cool new things are happening in the world, and learning how and why things happen from the microscopic to the macroscopic. I love the fake stuff too though, trying to apply rules of logic and biology and physics to fantasy worlds and mechanisms and tropes. The whole "humans are space orcs" tag? One of my very favorite things. To bring it back to topic, so too is the theoretical science of Quirk biology in MHA. It's crazy and fun to think about, especially with the various headcanons of what a 'quirk factor' is and how it would or would not physically manifest, whether individuals do or do not regularly develop adaptations for the more harmful aspects of their Quirk, and the endless speculation of Quirk genetics and the inner workings of canon Quirks. It's all awesome! And just like most people in this fandom (I assume, haha), every so often it's fun to think about what Quirk *you* would have, and how it would manifest or you would go about discovering it. Some people subscribe to the idea that if you have a Quirk, you can kind of just feel it, and can pull on that power to make it manifest or scope out the edges of it. Others say that the existence of 'invisible' Quirks, or people that have a Quirk but dont know what it is because the criteria that would cause it to activate have never been met, mean that clearly that's at least not always the case. (I have a whole side vent about whether people with invisible Quirks are discriminated against the same as Quirkless individuals or not, and if not, then how is that even remotely fair and why didnt Izuku ever just claim to have an invisible one, but of course would that even really change anything in his school situation...)

ANYWAY. All of this to say, I've been thinking myself in loops lately fantasizing about Quirk abilities and then remembering that the Quirk doesnt really have anything to do with the appearance, temperament, or likes and dislikes of the individual at all. Which then led back into pondering on how someone could possibly discover their Quirk (going with the idea that a person doesnt inherently know everything about it) with the neverending possibilities and combinations that a Quirk could have, compounded by whatever limitations or activation criteria it may have. Or what about the ones that make you invulnerable to something that would normally kill you? Say you developed a Quirk that allowed you to breathe underwater. How on earth would discover that? Who goes around and in the interest of having to test every possibility, decides to trust and inhale a lungful of water?? I suppose for most, the search is narrowed down a bit since most children's Quirks are a derivative of one or both of their parents'. But that's not always the case! Because remember, this is a *genetic* thing. You can have Quirks or Quirk components that skip generations, Quirks that mutate into something similar, true, but so fundamentally different in a critical way that nobody ever thinks to try it, or rare but not impossible, a Quirk that is completely different and new from either parent. And heaven help any poor kid that is orphaned young enough to not know their parents/their parents' Quirks (this is kinda shaky, because I know that detailed paperwork is generally kept about the biological parents of any orphaned child, in some shape or form. This could still be a problem if a child is abandoned discreetly/unofficially, or that paperwork is lost somehow)

Tldr: Quirks are weird and wonderful, and I like to think about them. The process of discovering your Quirk could be more complicated than initially thought.

So that was really long and offered little in the way of openings for discussion (which is what I hope for most), so if nothing else, feel free to comment what you think a cool Quirk would be! Could be one you want for yourself, one that you think would be just neat, or even one that you think is thought provoking, strange, scary, subversive, complex, etc!

[irarelypostanything]

HBO’s “Silicon Valley” - A brilliant but shocking ending

A friend told me that he didn’t mind having the plot of “Silicon Valley” spoiled for him, but even he probably wouldn’t want to hear what happens in the last episode.  It completely changes a person’s interpretation of the show, and it definitely isn’t something a person should hear about before the end.  It’s not a huge twist, per se, but a tone shift.

*Spoilers*

Someone on Reddit pointed out an easter egg in Silicon Valley season 5: There’s a task on a scrum board that simply referenced “p = np.”  This, I’d say, is the main equation for the final episode.  I’m surprised only one other comment on the forum so far points it out, so I really hope I’m not wrong about this, but the significance of the AI solving one “impossible” encryption time in polynomial time proves something really significant.

That’s the first layer of brilliance in this final episode.

If we could solve a certain type of problem in polynomial time, the implications would be far-reaching.  It would break encryption, but there are positive aspects to consider as well.  Some speculate (though others think it’s a stretch) that solving P = NP could be used to cure cancer, because of the application in protein-folding.

I’m probably oversimplifying, and maybe getting certain elements wrong, but here’s my favorite video on the topic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX40hbAHx3s

Anyway, the reason I think this is so brilliant is that it makes an ironic twist on the supposed deux ex machina of the previous episode.  They just succeed, spectacularly, with some speculating that Gilfoyle foreshadowed a kind of skynet revolution.  The show doesn’t take that route, and I’m so glad they didn’t.  Instead of gaining sentience, which is a possibility for AI but one that has become a tired cliche, the series enables their AI to solve a problem a little bit obscure to your average person, but very widely discussed in the software and biology sectors.  It not only shows that the writers did their homework, but also really challenges what we should do if such a solution fell into our lap.  They extinguished it.  I never thought someone in that situation would.

And that leads to the second layer of brilliance: The end scene complication.

Read again through the lens of Richard’s missing flash drive, and this story paints a very different picture for how things played out.  Monica stole the drive and gave it to the NSA; Gilfoyle and Dinesh likely used it in their cybersecurity company.  It’s a whole new reading of the characters in this show, but with a kind of dark take.

Finally, in the last layer of brilliance, this episode manages to be bittersweet and shocking without giving into cliches.

They fail.  On purpose.  They succeed at failing.  Dinesh finally does one right thing with Gilfoyle’s decisive trust.  Everyone goes their separate ways, and the epilogue in the beginning was actually just taken out of context.  Belson allies with a person he had plagiarized to become even more successful; the other characters meet their own respective fates.  And in spite of these diverging paths, they still end at the same place.

Closing thoughts

But...I don’t know.  I think I need to take some time for it to air out.

We begin with Richard and Big Head, two friends who are profoundly unhappy.  Richard is unhappy until he realizes his value; Big Head is unhappy until he gets lucky.  But Richard, in that final scene, desperately wanting to tell the truth and also having to bow down to something Belson had started?

It just seems too sad, and a lot of things aren’t explained...like Bream in prison.  And the fake TJ Miller reappearance seemed out of place to me.

I am going to miss the show, though.  Pretty great, probably one of my all-time favorites, and definitely with a finale I didn’t see coming.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Hello, I would like some help with typing if you don’t mind. So far my speculation is that I’m on the Fi/Te axis and maybe the Si/Ne axis. I am someone who tends to know a little bit about a lot. I like theatre because it combines a bunch of different arts (writing, art, acting, music, costuming, etc.) as well as the interdisciplinary sciences that borrow aspects from physics, biology, biochemistry, etc. at the same time. I feel like a few of those distinctions can be arbitrary in practice, 1/

but good for categorizing topics in literature. I have good work ethic when it comes to my job because if I fail to do my job, other people are negatively affected. Also I have no intention of burning bridges unnecessarily. In college my work ethic wasn’t quite as good, (good enough to still get me decent grades) but usually that was because I would be the only one affected by my lack of diligence. I had pretty good faith in my ability to “wing it” in classes that didn’t take as much effort. 2/

At any point in time I am not very good at knowing what I am doing with my life next. I also tend to worry about missed opportunities that I didn’t take advantage of at the time or didn’t even know about. I can come up with grand ideas that take me into different careers until my 70’s, but whatever the next big thing is is lost on me until it has to happen in the next few months or so. In my everyday life I am absolutely horrible at sticking with hobbies, but have probably tried most of them 3/

at some point. This goes for everything from running to soap-making to music writing. I just loose interest so quickly. Sometimes this happens before I’ve even begun. I have a lot of difficulty combining my social life with school and work, and this has contributed to my social circle shrinking quite a bit. I also left my old group of friends half-way through college after too many differences in beliefs made me loose respect for a lot of them. I don’t spend excess time deliberating over 4/everyday problems. This comes in handy at work where lots of often physically demanding things have to happen in a short time span and prioritizing tasks keeps people from getting hurt. This is good for me because boredom at work drives me nuts. (If you want to pay me to do nothing and be useless, you can pay me to go home and sleep.) When I am discussing a topic with someone, sometimes I have a pre-thought-out response to the topic. Sometimes this doesn’t quite fit the situation, but I’m so 5/

excited to share my thought, that I lose a bit of the nuance. If I haven’t thought it out, I can usually think out loud and come up with reasonable answers to questions on the fly without much forethought. (I think this might just be a normal human behavior.) I think that’s all. Thank you! 6/

------------------------

I would definitely agree with high Fi here (also, future askers take note - if you want to mention that you have an idea of your type, and you don’t need to, this is how to do it: say it at the beginning and then provide speculation-free info below). The way you describe your social circle and leaving your group of friends are all very in line with Fi, and the way you describe a lot of the rest of yourself is indicative of high extroverted perceiving and therefore high Fi; the bit about work ethic also indicates lower rather than higher Te.

I’m not absolutely positive on Ne or Se, but I would lean Ne for this. I don’t think interdisciplinary interest is only an Si-Ne axis thing but in my experience it is often more common, and the way you struggle to plan for shorter term things and come up with elaborate but unlikely to be realized plans for the long term both sound far more like Ne than Se.

The bit at the end about talking is all just how people are, but I can see a high Ne user feeling this especially hard. My guess from how you talk about things is that you’re an ENFP; I see more Te in what you wrote than Si.

[thetygre]

Dark Souls Lore Rambling #8

Hey, remember when I said these mini-lores were going to be shorter to write? Or shorter at all? Ha ha ha ha what a liar I am

The Lesser Lords

Now that we’ve covered Gwyn and the Lords in general, I wanted to take a break and cover some of the minor divinities in Dark Souls before we get back into the meatier subjects. There’s a bunch of lesser deities mentioned in passing in Dark Souls, so I thought I’d try to shine some light on them. Please note, I’m only covering the gods referenced in Dark Souls 1; the rest are just going to have to wait.

Flan

What we know about Flan is equal to almost the sum value of bupkis. He is apparently married to Gwynevere and is a god of fire. Also, his name means ‘red haired’ in Gaelic. That’s it; everything else is a mystery. Was his marriage to Gwynevere an arranged one, or did they meet naturally? Is Flan now the King of the Gods by virtue of Gwyn being dead, bereft of male heirs (sorry, Gwyndolin), and Flan being married to Gwynevere? Is he even alive? Who knows.

I think it’s worth noting that Flan is the fire god. That could potentially have a lot of connotations, given that fire is central to the Dark Souls universe. All civilization and life stem from fire. The very cosmic order of duality is set in motion because of the First Flame. So does Flan have some tie to the First Flame? Or perhaps he has some ties to Izalith and pyromancy? Maybe Flan’s marriage to Gwynevere was the sealing pact between the Lords and Witches? Interesting theories, but still just theories.

The only thing I can speculate on for certain is the interesting juxtaposition of divine portfolios in Gwynevere and Flan’s union. Gwynevere, as established earlier, is a benevolent and providing goddess of sunlight, representing the nurturing and feminine aspects of her father Gwyn’s purview. Flan is simply a god of fire; rawer, unrefined, and more elemental. In a way, Flan fills in for the Nameless King as the warrior-prince deity, complementing Gwynevere in a dual relationship. United with Gwynevere, Flan represents not just fire in its elemental aspects, but also fire in its domestic uses, including smithing and the hearth. Or, at least that’s how I envision it.

 Allfather Lloyd

Lloyd. Not much of a deity name. Barely edges out ‘Greg the Thunderer’ and ‘Karen the Earth Mother’. The lore states that Allfather Lloyd is Gwyn’s uncle, was the founder of the Way of White, and his clerics are noted Undead hunters. His face is emblazoned on coins which are apparently currency outside Lordran, which travelers cling to as mementoes of the outside world. That alone indicates that Lloyd is a pretty big deal. It might even give us some details about economics outside Lordran; maybe coins are minted in one of the more theocratic countries, like Astora of Thorolund.

Lloyd’s clerics are even given a certain amount of respect for their Undead hunts, which tells us how the outside world views the Undead; at best cursed and unnatural, at worst slavering zombies. (Which, to be fair, isn’t exactly one hundred percent unfounded.) When everything is taken into account, Lloyd is a figure of central importance to not just the Way of White, but the whole world outside Lordran.

But things get interesting when you start to break down his name. ‘Lloyd’ is easy; it stems from the Welsh ‘llwyd’, which means both ‘holy’ and ‘grey’. But the meat of Lloyd’s etymology comes from the important part of his name; ‘Allfather’. Those of you who have been paying attention might recall that Dark Souls draws from Norse mythology a smidge. And in Norse mythology, ‘Allfather’ (or Alfodr and/or Aldafoor, if you’re feeling fancy) was one of the more important epithets for Odin, King of the Gods. Allfather has two applicable meanings for Odin; first, he and his brothers Villi and Ve are responsible for slaying the primordial frost giant Ymir and using his body to construct the cosmos, as well as the human race. In this capacity, Odin is literally all things’ father in that the universe would not exist without him. Second, Odin was the king over all the other gods, or Aesir, and his word was law. And in between is the fact that Odin is listed as the literal father of some of Norse mythology’s more famous deities, including Thor, Balder, and Tyr.

The thing of it is, when you take these meanings, a creator deity and a divine patriarch, and apply them to Lloyd, old Lloyd starts to turn up short. For starts, Lloyd didn’t create anything. The world existed even before the Lords did, so he wouldn’t be in the running as a creator deity anyway. Adding on to that, he’s listed as Gwyn’s uncle, not Gwyn’s father; if he was going to be called a creator deity by association with Gwyn, he would at least need a paternal link. Lloyd isn’t even the king of the Lords, Gwyn is. Lloyd might still have some kind of ruling position, but he definitely isn’t top banana. And, as far as we know, Lloyd isn’t the biological father of any other important Lords. So what gives?

All these inconsistencies, and a little bit of the lore from Dark Souls 3, point to Lloyd being a fraud. Lloyd started the Way of White touting himself as some distant relative of the Lords from on high. This even ties into my theory that the Way of White wasn’t always the religion of Lord worship, but originally the name for the alliance between humans and Lords during the war with the Everlasting Dragons and against the demons. Lloyd took advantage of, or may even have been responsible, for the shift to a more traditional church. The Undead Hunts are just a way to garner favor with the people and direct attention on a common scapegoat; people won’t notice that the Way of White is rotten from the inside if they’re too busy hunting Hollows.

But for old Lloyd’s sake, let’s consider a second option, and accept Lloyd’s story at face value. Even as only Gwyn’s uncle, that still gives Lloyd a lot of leverage with both humans and Lords. Lloyd might have been the one to oversee relations between humans and Lords during the Age of Ancients and the Age of Fire. The Undead Hunts are genuine efforts to protect humanity and/or to contain the Undead curse. His Allfather title is a religious one, associated with the pseudo-Catholic structure of the Way of White (Havel is a bishop, etc.). ‘Father’, after all, is the title given to a priest in Catholicism after all. So it might be that, as the head of the church of the Way of White, Lloyd is equivalent to the Pope, the high priest to whom all other priests defer; the All-Father.

Of course, these answers aren’t mutually incompatible. Lloyd still could have been the founder of the Way of White and still been a fraud as well. He might even have still been a Lord, a rogue deity like Velka. Either way, by Dark Souls 3 the Way of White has gotten so old that old Lloyd has fallen to the wayside completely.

 The Nameless Blacksmith God

There’s surprisingly more to the Nameless Blacksmith God then you would think, especially if you look at the Dark Souls meta and concept lore. The canon lore on the deity is actually very sparse, but pretty straightforward; the Blacksmith God was the Lord that forged the armor and weapons for the other Lords. I generally take this to mean the Blacksmith God did not literally craft every arm and armament for the Lords, or invented the process of smithing; rather, like how Seath is the father of sorcery, the Blacksmith God was a pioneer in his field, exemplary in his profession. He was the Lord who spearheaded the arming work during the war with the Everlasting Dragons, and may even have been the one to discover titanite and how to use it.

At some point, the Nameless Blacksmith God died, though nobody knows when or how. For a while, I entertained the theory that maybe Gwyn killed the Blacksmith to keep his secrets out of enemy hands, but I’ve come to reject that now. Gwyn’s a dick, but he’s not a stupid dick, and the Blacksmith God was a bigger asset than liability. I kind of like the idea that the Blacksmith was assassinated during the war with the Everlasting Dragons; dragon forces tried to weaken the Lords by cutting off their biggest arms supplier. There’s nothing to even remotely back that up, though.

When the Blacksmith God died, he left behind two things; the titanite demons, and the titanite slabs. I doubt that these were meant to be the Blacksmith’s legacy because I frankly doubt the Blacsmith ever planned on dying. The demons might have been made as servants for the Lords, but I’ll cover them later. Why the Blacksmith God made titanite slabs, I don’t know. There’s obviously writing on the slabs, and Dark Souls 3 actually has the slabs have translatable runes on them that tell the story of the Lords. It is entirely within reason to assume that the Blacksmith God did not leave behind the titanite slabs as resources at all; they were records, preserving history and knowledge in the strongest material available. By the time of Dark Souls, however, titanite is so scarce and so valuable that humans have started cannibalizing what would otherwise be historical artifacts, maybe without even realizing their true value.

 Gwyn’s Wife

We know even less about Gwyn’s wife than we do about Flan or the Nameless Blacksmith God. The Blacksmith God is at least referenced; no one even mentions Gwyn’s wife. It’s assumed he had a wife; he fathered his children, after all. We’re operating on the assumption that the kids actually are biologically Gwyn’s, and not just extremely devout disciples. So unless something is radically different about Lord biology from humans, then Gwyn must have bumped uglies with someone at some point.

We keep seeing a statue of a woman holding a child throughout Lordran. The statue is of a woman wearing a crown, indicating royalty; Queen of the Gods is as good a queen as any. The child she’s holding is grasping a sword, which indicates that he’s meant to grow up to be a warrior. Maybe the Nameless King? I like to think the statue depicts Gwyn’s wife. She’s worshiped as a general maternal goddess, a deity of home, family, women, and fertility. She represents renewal, and the providence of the future. Basically equivalent to the Greek Hera or Juno. Or maybe it’s some random female saint from the Way of White. Maybe there is no explanation for the mother statue, just like there’s no explanation for the statues of Athena in the Undead Parish. It’s just there for the aesthetic.

 Fina

Fina is another deity mentioned in passing reference. The only real detail we get about her as that she is described as having ‘fateful beauty’. Her name is most likely derived from the Celtic ‘Fiona’, which means ‘blond’ or ‘fair’. So, established; she’s pretty, and maybe blond. The ‘fateful’ part of her ‘fateful beauty’ description makes me think that there’s a history of people becoming infatuated with her and driving themselves to their own doom trying to serve her, kind of like our boy Lautrec. It could be that it is literally referring to the concept of fate, however, which means that Fina is also associated with destiny in some capacity. The symbol on the Ring of Favor and Protection is also the symbol of Venus, associated with the goddess of the same name, femininity, and copper. This points to Fina being roughly analogous to the Greco-Roman goddess Aphrodite/Venus, but even that is kind of self-evident.

I was originally going to propose that Fina herself was a Fire Keeper, only worshipped as a god and conscripting men like Lautrec to hunt Humanity for her, but that got thrown out the window when I realized Lautrec leaves the Fire Keeper Soul of Anastacia of Astora behind when he kills her, which is a valuable nugget of Humanity. But that in itself raises a question; if Lautrec was just hunting for Humanity and Fina is only his matron, why leave behind the valuable Fire Keeper Soul?

Maybe Fina is a jealous goddess, vain like the Greek gods, and has any woman she deems too beautiful killed, no matter how far away they are. She could also be acting on her potential purview as a deity of fate, condemning Anastacia of Astora specifically for being a heretic. Or perhaps Lautrec simply didn’t know about Fire Keeper Souls, and left behind the soul the same way he left behind the Black Eye Orb out of ignorance. I’m still partial to my theory of Fina as a Fire Keeper and Lautrec as a kind of alternate Kirk of Thorns, but I have to admit, it’s a theory standing on some pretty shaky ground.

 Old Man McLoyf

I’m gonna’ level with you, I’d completely forgotten about Old Man McLoyf until about twenty minutes ago. His face is on the Copper Coin, where he’s mentioned as the god of drink and medicine. From his name, we can gather that he is both A.) a man and B.) old. ‘Mc’ means ‘son of’, and ‘Loyf’ means ‘to praise’; both parts are Scottish. We can infer from his placement on the Copper Coin that he comes from the same general pantheon as Allfather Lloyd, revered in whatever potentially theocratic state made the coins.

And… that’s about it. I’ve seen it posited that McLoyf might have some connections to Catarina, with his connection to alcohol for celebration and medicine for healing combat wounds. I’ve even seen a theory that he might be Gwyn’s father, but there’s nothing to really substantiate that. It’s possible that, like Lloyd, he might not actually be a Lord and instead be a hero-deity or charlatan. I doubt that he’s a chaotic and wild deity of drinking like Dionysus or Bacchus. The connecting thread between medicine and alcohol is that they both cause chemical alterations within the body, so I suppose that’s McLoyf’s root purview. In that capacity, he might also be a god of bravery in the face of harm, which really only reinforces the idea that he might be popular in Catarina. Another mystery god.

 Velka

And of course I saved the best for last. There’s a lot of controversy surrounding Velka in the Souls lore community. I think it’s best to start by laying out the facts. And by ‘the facts’, I mean ‘a summary of the lore with some of my thoughts sprinkled in’. Velka is described as a ‘black-haired witch’, as well as a ‘rogue deity’. Right off the bat, this gives some cause for speculation; ‘witch’ in Dark Souls can refer to either a female practitioner of magic or the specific race of people inhabiting Izalith. I want to err on the side of simplicity and say that she’s just a woman capable of spellcasting. The ‘rogue’ part makes me think that she operates outside of the standard pantheon of gods. Velka is stated to be the goddess of sin; not of sinning itself, but of defining sin and meting out justice to those who do it.

Her priests are also pardoners, where, similar to Catholic priests, an individual can confess their sins and be told how to atone, or offer one’s self up for punishment. Also like medieval Catholic priests is the practice of indulgences with Velka’s pardoners, where one can simply pay to be absolved; however, this may be unique to the pardoner in the Undead Parish. She also appears to a goddess of magic, both performing it and countering it. She is so closely aligned with sorcery that she allows the usage of intelligence instead of faith for her followers. Her name is either Czech for ‘great one’ or ‘famous, or Finnish for ‘debt’; both meanings are appropriate to Velka’s character, but it’s more likely meant to be the Czech meaning since that is the language Dark Souls draws more from. Finally, she has black hair and is associated with ravens. Ravens already have mystical significance in both European and Asian mythology, but are universally associated with death and the presence of the gods. It’s also worth noting that Velka’s connection to ravens and witchcraft gives her some parallels to the Celtic Morrigan; however, Morrigan is a goddess of warfare and sovereignty, not justice.

Velka’s rogue status might tie into her purview as the goddess of sin and justice. The theory I subscribe to is that Velka’s sense of justice was universal, and so she indicted the Lords as well as humanity. This didn’t sit well with the Gwyn et al, and so Velka had to be disappeared into the Painted World of Ariamis, with all the other undesirables of the gods. Clearly, the Lords were not wholly successful in banishing Velka; she appears to still have some presence in Carim, or at least one surviving pardoner from Carim, and some of her items and spells are still in Lordran. As of Dark Souls, her exact portfolio is trying to be absorbed by Gwyndolin, and the two appear to have a standing rivalry; or, more correctly, Gwyndolin still has a standing bounty on Velka’s worshipers. Velka may have once had control of the Blades of the Darkmoon, but the very name indicates that they’ve shifted allegiance to Gwyndolin.

We now descend into the realm of complete conspiracy, where I state my stance on some of the theories surrounding Velka. First and foremost; no, I do not believe the Chosen Undead is an unwitting pawn of Velka’s to strike back against the gods. True, a giant raven carries the Chosen Undead from the Undead Asylum to Firelink Shrine, but this entire plot thread just seems too tenuous to me. It is placing an undue amount of agency and significance on a character that, for all intents and purposes, is barely more relevant than the Nameless Blacksmith God or Allfather Lloyd. Miyazaki has a history of letting characters directly confront their manipulators; the Fool’s Idol in Demon’s Souls, Gwyndolin in Dark Souls, the Amygdalae in Bloodborne, etc. The importance of Dark Souls is that the Chosen Undead is not significant beyond the fact that they are a person and they control their own fate; an unknown manipulator seems contrary to that philosophy.

That being said, I can’t help but see the giant raven as somehow being tied to Velka. Perhaps, once, long ago, it did indeed serve Velka. But with her disappearance, it now acts on instinct and more like an animal rather than an active agent. The raven, with the hindsight of Velka’s lore, becomes symbolic of the inevitable karmic cycle that comes to Gwyn and the other inhabitants of Lordran. If nothing else, it’s a powerful visual; ravens in the West are considered birds of death and ill omen (before we began associating them with being preternaturally smart). In Japanese folklore, ravens are the servants of the gods and act on their behalf. Given that Dark Souls is distinctly aiming for a European aesthetic, however, I think Miyazaki was going for a more Western signifier with the giant raven. It is both death and justice.

Second, I do not think that Velka is Crossbreed Priscilla’s mother. While Priscilla’s Dagger does do Dark damage and Velka’s rapier also does dark damage, I operate on the general assumption that Seath is Priscilla’s father/creator. Velka, once again, was the goddess of sin and punishment, which means that ‘Weird Science’ Seath would probably want to avoid her. At the very least, he would be in some hot water for betraying the Everlasting Dragons. If she wouldn’t discriminate for the other Lords, she certainly wouldn’t discriminate for a dragon.

Third, I do not believe that Velka was involved with the Four Kings and New Londo. True; the darkwraithes do dark damage with their Dark Hand, and they have what appear to be raven feathers on their armor. But we have no way of knowing if that material is supposed to raven feathers; it could very well be fur. Furthermore, connecting the darkwraithes of New Londo to Velka because of an aesthetic feature seems like a mighty leap to conclusions. By that logic, the darkwraithes also have something to do with Gravelord Nito because their armor looks like skeletons. The presence of the same statue that is in the Painted World is also circumstantial at best; there are also giant rats with Humanity in the Painted World as in the sewers, but nobody calls them part of a greater plot.

And finally, I do not believe Velka is the narrator at the beginning of the game. This ties in especially with the theory that Velka is the grand mastermind behind the Chosen Undead, and perhaps even the Dark Sign. And that’s just silly; the bad guy is not the narrator. That was a stupid plot twist in RWBY, mildly effective in God of War 2, and just out of place here. Dark Souls is known for its subtle storytelling, but this is just esoteric. And I say that as someone who has just written 3300 words about some astoundingly esoteric entities. What purpose does it serve for Velka to be the narrator and mastermind of the game? What does it say about Dark Souls’ broader themes? Humanity, the cycle of life, the rise and fall of civilization, empathy, hope, loss, decay, the inevitability of entropy and the ephemerality of life; those are the themes of Dark Souls. Gwyn is usurped because it’s part of an uncontrollable and inexorable cosmic cycle that repeats endlessly and meaninglessly; the concept that divine justice plays into that is simply counterintuitive.

With all that out of the way, I do think Velka used the Dark. The Dark did not originate with her, and she did not try to push the Dark to act a certain way, but I do think she used it. The pardoner’s rapier does have dark damage, after all, and the Dark Ember mentions specifically that it was used to forge weapons that could hurt the Lords. It could be that, growing desperate to mete out divine punishment to the other Lords, Velka drew on the Dark and taught her priesthood how to do the same. And this, ultimately, is the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back and got Velka banished to the Painted World. Velka, in her own way, became was broken down by the passage of time, as all things are.

And now that I’ve had my fill of lesser Lords, stay tuned for when we turn our sights back to the main stage. Darkmoon Tomb, here we come!

[writingscififantasy]

Science Fiction Subgenres from A to N

So, to start this blog off with something fun, I thought I’d do a series of big ol’ masterlists covering sci-fi and fantasy subgenres!  There is a heckin’ large amount of them, so I’ve split it up into four sections with about five or six posts- this one right here is for, you guessed it, science fiction, from A to N.  *cue distant cheering*

First up, a little recap:

Science Fiction: This can be considered a difficult genre to define, simply because it can encompass nearly anything- but the best definition I’ve heard is that it’s “the literature of change”, particularly in areas of scientific advancement and technological growth.  According to Wikipedia, this is a genre of speculative fiction “typically dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life.” (x)  Science fiction generally encompasses imaginary worlds and universes bound to laws of physics (although not necessarily the laws we know of or follow) that are advanced in some way by science and technology, and experiencing some form of change because of that.  To put it very simply, science fiction can be viewed as fiction based upon science.  Science fiction tends to evoke thoughts of aliens, spaceships, robots, AI, new planets, futuristic cities, flying cars, high-tech things made of shiny metals, lightsabers and phasers, environmental sustainability, and far-future social themes.  Examples include Dune (Dune series) by Frank Herbert, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor, The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley, 1984 by George Orwell, Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse series) by James A. Corey, Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, and Parable of the Sower (Parable series) by Octavia E. Butler.

With that refresher in mind, let’s begin!  (I’d apologize for the word count, but we’re all nerdy writers here.)

Apocalyptic Sci-Fi: Ah, one of the favorites for anybody who enjoys good ol�� destruction and chaos in their books.  This subgenre is characterized by a cataclysmic event occurring that wipes out the vast majority of the human population, often with extensive destruction across the globe.

Common tropes for this include alien invasions, environmental disasters (oooh, one of my favorites- things such as catastrophic climate change), plagues or viruses (bioweapons and bioengineering, including the “zombie” virus as one of the current most popular- who doesn’t love zombies), the technological singularity or failure (the “robot uprising” vs. a worldwide EMP), astronomical events such as meteors, super-flares, or radiation bursts, supernatural events (demonic war, the Four Horsemen on Earth, vampires or other monsters), etc.  

Apocalyptic sci-fi goes hand in hand with post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but the former can be set apart from its counterpart in that it takes place during the exact time of the “apocalyptic” event- however, keep in mind that most books, even if they show the apocalyptic event in the beginning, tend to shift towards post-apocalyptic as the characters learn to survive in the aftermath.  Finding something that is solely an apocalyptic sci-fi novel is rare, and I will admit I had some trouble with it.  

This subgenre is often used to show human nature in chaotic times (how people panic, the “sheep” effect, mass hysteria, how individuals respond to their impending demise), as well as portray extreme destruction of cities and civilization, exemplify survival tactics, and use the setting as a source of action, drama, suspense, plot twists, and personal growth for characters as they act and react to their rapidly changing and dangerous world.

Examples: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (astronomical event, meteor strikes moon), The Stand by Stephen King (bioengineered virus and supernatural events), Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (astronomical event, moon is destroyed), Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson (technological singularity, robot uprising), Ashfall by Mike Mullin (environmental disaster, supervolcanic eruption), The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (alien invasion, environmental disaster, technological failure, and a deadly plague, for all your apocalyptic needs)

Note: Although not books, I also like to include the movies 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, World War Z, and Independence Day.

“Dying Earth”: If I’m being honest, this is probably the most depressing science fiction subgenre- probably even more so than the related-but-not-quite-the-same apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic subgenres- so thank goodness it’s fairly small.  Given the name from the series of works (aptly titled “The Dying Earth”) by Jack Vance which portrayed our Earth, millennia from now, as an exhausted, dying world orbiting an equally exhausted, dying star, the “Dying Earth” subgenre embodies themes of bone-deep exhaustion, depletion of planetary resources, innocence and idealism and (potentially) the loss of both, and The End of Time/Earth/The Universe.  

Common tropes include Earth or other planets physically dying (from the aforementioned resource depletion, going sterile, the sun burning out, being too old), stars burning out/going supernova and dying, laws of the universe failing as it dies, and species falling to extinction (from their planet/sun dying, out of apathy or exhaustion or physical/emotional/spiritual weariness, etc).  The subgenre as a whole can pretty much be summed up as “melancholic”.  

Although it also shows an end-of-the-world scenario, this subgenre differs from simple “apocalyptic events” and the related subgenres by virtue of not having anything so dramatic- instead, it simply shows the world as it winds down into a slow death.  

But wait- perhaps it’s not entirely depressing!  Some works in this subgenre also employ themes of hope and renewal, and the “Dying Earth” subgenre is often used to show optimism in the face of death, human endurance, looking forward to the unknown, and future promise.  Thankfully, it’s not all about the “entropic exhaustion of the Earth” and the fading of “the current comprehensible state of the universe”- talk about a bummer.  

Examples: The Dying Earth (series) by Jack Vance (the books that gave the subgenre its name), The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, City at the End of Time by Greg Bear, Dying of the Light by George R. R. Martin, certain stories in Sunfall (anthology) by C. J. Cherryh, Earthchild by Doris Piserchia (interestingly enough, I haven’t found anything in this subgenre over the past 10 years or so)

Note: Outside of books, the comic series Low by Rick Remender and the video game Dark Souls can be included in the subgenre.  Movies such as Reign of Fire, I Am Legend, The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, and The Quiet Earth could be considered vaguely “Dying Earth”, although they really don’t capture the melancholic, tired aspects that the subgenre embodies, and the endings distinctly lead away from the subgenre.

“Edisonade”: This one’s kind of short, because not only is it really small and generally unheard of, it’s also pretty old- old enough to be primarily from the time of “all sci-fi writers were men” and everything was written to appeal to the male gaze.  Basically, it’s a subgenre that includes stories about a character who is “a brilliant young inventor” in the ways of Thomas Edison, as they use their invention(s) to save their nation, save their love interest, defeat the villain, and presumably get rich and live prosperously as a quirky inventor forevermore.  

Although it is, at its core, something that could be very interesting to write and read- who doesn’t want to write about brilliant inventors?- the fact of the matter is that all the books in this subgenre tend towards a teenage/young man being the inventor, and saving the girl, and defeating the villain (normally foreigners, evil scientists, or aliens).  At the time that stories in this subgenre were written, a lot of them (not all!) reflected nationalistic, misogynistic, and generally racist views and tended to feature things like widespread colonization, exploration of parts of the world with “untamed lands and peoples”, and self-insert characters for boys to relate with on the premise of superiority and “saving the day”.  

The good part?  The “Edisonade” subgenre tends to be progressive in the ways of science, technology, and engineering, and it can be somewhat related to steampunk.  Other than that...the subgenre itself needs a bit of a reboot, so to speak.  Any takers?

Examples: The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis, Tom Edison, Jr.(series) by Philip Reade, Tom Swift (series) by Victor Appleton

Hard Sci-Fi: And so we come to one of the ongoing debates amongst sci-fi communities- “hard” science fiction versus “soft” science fiction.  Hard sci-fi can be defined in a number of ways, and that has caused quite some controversy over the years- but the general consensus is that hard sci-fi is generally a subgenre of science fiction that depends upon more science, as well as greater scientific accuracy and explanation in its novels.

Novels in this subgenre are generally characterized by a large amount of science to go with the fiction- the “science and technology parts of science fiction are featured front and center, the scientific concepts are founded upon legitimacy, research, and lots of explanation, and the stories are more realistic and heavy.  

Here’s where some controversy comes in- sometimes a novel is “science-y” like that, but it’s primarily left in the background of the story, so it could be considered “soft” sci-fi.  

Also, many “hard” sci-fi works tend to focus on STEM-like areas (engineering, math, formal sciences like physics), or assume that the natural sciences (biology, environmental science, geology, etc) make a sci-fi story inherently “soft”.  

Sometimes, technology is left almost entirely in the background of a sci-fi story, with those natural sciences featuring more.  

Other times, the science that the novel is based upon proves to be faulty, or something is incorrect, or some of it is just plain implausible.  See the dilemmas?  

Anyways, here I am simply defining “hard sci-fi” as science fiction writing that focuses more on the scientific and technological aspects of a story, with an emphasis on legitimate scientific concepts, research, theories, and fact, and that incorporates much of those ideals into the writing and story itself (as plots, background, etc).  

Common tropes in this subgenre include hypothetical, explained logistics for futuristic technologies (faster-than-light travel, terraforming, spaceships, space habitats, etc), more realistic-looking tech, sometimes at the expense of being “less pretty” (spaceships that aren’t made of shiny stuff and still cause pollution, for instance, or spacesuits that look more like spacesuits rather than trendy plastic-wrap), and sometimes a lot of lengthy explanations within the story that you have to read a few times to really understand or some words you have to look up (keep a dictionary with you for some of these books, I mean, wow).  

This subgenre is often meant to show how the future could be soon, to show science fiction in a less out-there, more relatable light, appeal to more literal-minded people who desire scientific fact in their fiction or plots based upon legitimacy, explain the fundamentals of a story without “hand-waving”, and to explore far-future ideals, sciences, and technologies while remaining within the realms of current possibility.  

When done without a certain sense of grace, timing, and ability for relating lengthy expositions of science to plot, character, and setting, “hard” sci-fi can be difficult and overwhelming to read, occasionally preachy if the author tries to explain too much, and generally drag on.  However, when done well, “hard” sci-fi is a wonderful creation, something that teaches its readers, explores the world through the lenses of science, and portrays science as a general positive thing (something we all need in this world). 

Examples: Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse series) by James S. A. Corey, Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch series) by Ann Leckie, The Martian by Andy Weir, Ringworld (series) by Larry Niven, vN by Madeline Ashby, Up Against It by M. J. Locke, Diaspora by Greg Egan, Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon, A Door Into Ocean (Elysium series) by Joan Slonczewski, Downbelow Station (The Company Wars series) by C. J. Cherryh, The Bohr Maker (the Nanotech Succession series) by Linda Nagata, Lilith’s Brood (Xenogenesis Trilogy: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago) by Octavia E. Butler

“Lost Worlds”: A lesser known subgenre, “Lost Worlds” is characterized by the discovery of a new “world” (i.e, planet, galaxy, continent) that is “out of time, place, or both”- meaning that the world is generally untouched by anything other than native flora and fauna, or that the civilizations there have never been seen before and were isolated from everyone else, or that the remnants of a civilization have been found there.  This subgenre came into popularity when people started finding actual remnants of previous civilizations- the Mayan temples, Egyptian tombs, etc- and began speculating about it and using it for fictional purposes.

Common tropes in this subgenre include, unfortunately, things like references to colonization and “a more advanced civilization meets a less advanced civilization”, in terms of technology/science/weapons.  On the positive side, tropes can also include exploration and travel throughout the world, survival tactics while within inhospitable lands, archaeological intrigue and findings, and good anthropological ideals where newcomers are curious and respectful of their cultures they come across, science fiction mixed with social sciences (anthropological science fiction is a subgenre that will come up in a later post!), and sometimes some pretty Star Trek-like stuff.  

Examples: Dinotopia (series) by James Gurney, The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, Pym by Mat Johnson

Military Sci-Fi: This sci-fi subgenre is pretty self-explanatory- military sci-fi is characterized by a militarized setting, generally with characters within a military organization/army.  The sci-fi part tends to come along with the futuristic technologies being applied to weaponry, battleships, and military tech, and in that the settings of these battles, wars, or general military outposts tend to be in space (on a spaceship) or on a different planet.  Oftentimes the battle being waged is against alien species, or if it’s far enough in the future, it might be against other humans that are on a different planet/colony/outpost.  

Common tropes in this subgenre include political maneuverings amongst the higher-ups of this military or the people causing the war, characters that are soldiers and/or act out of interest in this war, (have military training, follow military orders, carry out missions, etc), war, fighting, and weaponry tactics discussed in the writing, traditional personality traits for military personnel (such as self-sacrifice, deep loyalty between soldiers, obedience and duty, bravery, and respect as well as disobeying orders to act in the interest of others), and spaceships taking the place of tanks, planes, or battleships of today.  

Military sci-fi can often overlap with the “space opera” genre- it speculates about the future and future wars, uses futuristic weaponry and ships, and is often large-scale in terms of the battle layouts and how/where the battle affects people and places.  

This subgenre is often used to show the political dynamics of a world or the future, how humans might react to meeting alien species (hopefully hostile, otherwise this subgenre would get pretty ugly), and how the military and corporations, government, and agendas expand into space.

Examples: Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, Mechanical Failure (Epic Failure series) by Joe Zieja, Valor’s Choice (Confederation series) by Tanya Huff, Vatta’s War (series) by Elizabeth Moon, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, The Red by Linda Nagata, Unbreakable by W. C. Bauers, Terms of Enlistment (series) by Marko Kloos, War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, Fortune’s Pawn by Rachel Bach

Mundane Sci-Fi: This subgenre can be a bit iffy, depending on how you view it.  Generally, it’s described as sci-fi that doesn’t use “high claims” such as faster-than-light travel or aliens, but rather focuses on down-to-Earth (literally) works that use only believable technology and science from the modern day.  Therefore, it’s considered an extension of hard sci-fi, but even more legitimized than that- where hard sci-fi can hypothesize about “high claims” of worm holes and interstellar travel while using a strong basis in science, mundane sci-fi drops that altogether and sticks only to what is known to be plausible. 

Common tropes in this subgenre include hard sci-fi principles, technologies and science based upon proven fact and areas of study existing today, and no speculative technologies.

This subgenre is, to me, something to be viewed both positively and negatively.  On one hand, mundane science fiction promotes the idea of focusing only on current science/technology, rather than speculating about things such as warp drives and spaceships and intergalactic communities, because thinking about such ideas leads to negligence of the current issues we- and the planet- already face.  That’s not a bad thing- focusing on current issues are definitely something that should be done, and ignoring them won’t help anyone- but the mundane sci-fi community also claims, in some areas, that science fiction as a whole should abandon the ideas of space travel and a lot of the typical themes because it’s wrong to speculate on such ideals and it’s “running away from the problem”.  Take that as you will- there’s been a bit of an argument, so to speak, on the matter.  

Overall, the subgenre of mundane sci-fi is meant to show current science and technology through a fictional lens, the effects of current events such as climate change, biotechnology, global politics, and advancing robotics, how the world is changing in the now, “reawaken” the sense of wonder people feel towards sci-fi in the context of Earth alone, and bring in high levels of characterization and plot that are inherently realistic.

Examples: Air by Geoff Ryman, Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling, The Beast with Nine Billion Feet by Anil Menon, The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker, Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, Arctic Rising by Tobias S. Buckell

New Wave Sci-Fi: Also a social and cultural movement as well as a literary one, “new wave sci-fi” doesn’t have as much bearing today in terms of being written as often (in the same way as it was then, at the very least).  This subgenre came about in the 60′s and 70′s, and it’s characterized as being “advant-garde” and “experimental” in the context of literature and art- it was more focused on being new and exciting and unique rather than purely accurate, scientifically speaking.  However, this period of time is also what saw a large increase in science fiction in mainstream culture, as well as more writers and readers- the subject itself shifted to become more aware of things such as language, politics, subject matter, writing techniques, and futuristic ideals.  There’s quite a large historical movement there, which I could get into later, but for now I’m gonna stick with the literary stuff.

Common tropes in this subgenre (there are lots) include rejection of classic sci-fi ideals (the Antihero, for instance, came about in sci-fi as a rejection of the typical “science hero”), deconstruction of regular themes, rejection of typical plots and “happy” endings, blurred boundaries between science fiction and fantasy (science fantasy is a subgenre I’ll also get into later!), and high amounts of progressive ideals (this was in the 60′s and 70′s- free-love, equality, and inclusiveness was, and is, a major part of the writing in this subgenre.

Much of what science fiction is now is owed, at least in part, to the new wave literary movement for science fiction.  The genre was more open for women and minorities (to an extent), the stories more all-encompassing, the themes more substantial, dynamic, and fluid- overall, it helped set the course for a lot of what sci-fi is now.

Examples: Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney, The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, The Elric Saga (series) by Michael Moorcock, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, And Chaos Died by Joanna Russ, The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith by Josephine Saxton, The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

And that’s about it!  The next installment, “Science Fiction Subgenres from P to Z”, should be up in a day or two- after that, I’ll be moving onto Fantasy Subgenres (the Part 2 of the series).  I’ll start adding links as I write them- in the meantime, feel free to send me questions or thoughts about these subgenres and anything else!

Parting thoughts- are any of these subgenres completely new to you?  Can you think of any other novels in any of them?  Does your writing fall under any of these subgenres?

[sketchy-vore]

Speculative Biology 3: The Threequel

First of all, I helped start a series? That’s awesome!

… anyways, with that minor freak out out of the way, onto the biology!

Many revenants can’t swim, as they have an automatic reaction of curling up and mellowing out to being in wet places (also applicable here are low light and/or squishy places, and might explain Sans is so mellow all the time: low light from being underground). This is like a cat’s automatic reaction to do the same when picked up by the scruff, and for similar reasons. Pap is the exeption to this rule as he is just a bundle of energy.

Because of Gaster getting trapped in the void and/or goopified, and we don’t know what happened to his mother, perhaps the reason Sans is so small (and only glows in one eye) is due to stunted growth due to lack of pouch time in early development.

And with the biology aspect out of the way, onto something else that I’ve been wanting to adress: Revenant culture.

So, in the story Sans ran a magic current running through fluff on jacket to fluff it up. But why does he even have a jacket? I believe it could be for one of or a mix of the following reasons.

Because revanants have no markings or fur, clothing for them is a cosmetic thing. Other monsters have skin or scales or fur or feathers or frills or some mix of that kind of thing to identify themselves visually, but Revenants are for the most part very similar. Yes, the horns, sizes, and even slightly the shapes might be a bit different (one Revenant for example might be lankier than another, but there’s not a lot), but for the most part it might be hard for a monster to tell Revenants apart. I believe that Revenants can tell each other apart with fair ease (perhaps through smell or magic signature), but other monsters would have a problem, which is why Revenants would wear clothing as a way to mark themselves appear from their neighbor.

On the other hand, clothing could be more practical in nature, used for warmth or intimidation. Or both. Perhaps it’s even used for padding when Revenants nuzzle each other (because you know they do). Nuzzling bone doesn’t sound to appealing, but with padding…

My guess would be some mix of the above.

Next, long term communication, a.k.a., writing.

Paper books wouldn’t make much sense for Revenants, as they would be very difficult to make, and extremely easy to shred with claws. Clay and/or stone tablets would be used rather than paper books, as those are harder to tear, last longer, and easier to etch with claws, teeth, and/or magic… or even blasters.

Blasters are probably the Revenant equivalent to calligraphy mixed with smelting or woodworking. They are used as an art form as the more powerful and/or older you are, the more control you have over the blasts, leading to lower power/smaller blasts and the ability to summon smaller, more “fine tip” blasters, as it were. This kind of writing would probably also be useful for marking territory as well.

And to wrap it up, let me try and clarify the rotating jaw thing from last time: imagine you have two keys, one in each hand (don’t imagine any locks, it’s just the key shape that’s important right now) both keys are being held side by side so that the rod part of the key is horizontal to the ground and the tooth part is facing upwards. Now, rotate each key simultaneously (either clockwise or counter-clockwise, it doesn’t matter) so that now the teeth are facing downwards. The keys are the two sections of the lower jaw, and the teeth are the teeth.

I hope that clears stuff up.

-Anon Seven

Hi, nice to hear from you again!

Let’s do this!

Revenants can’t swim very well, but not for the reason you think. They are literally just bone. They have no tissue or air pockets to help them float (except maybe the pouch for those who have one) and they have no steady surface-area on their paws or feet to use as paddles.

Also, they’re crepuscular and usually just rest or hang around during the day, some low light isn't gonna stop them from going out and doing stuff. The twilight lighting in the caverns actually makes Papyrus more active throughout the whole day. Sans’ sleep pattern is deregulated by stress and some mild depression.

Revenants do have a similar thing to scruffing, but it’s entirely linked to the smell of the magic residue inside the pouch and disappears as they mature.

I think I told this before, but Sans’ stunted growth isn’t a result of a lack of pouching, or low magic, or even malnutrition. An individual’s magic reacts to what the individual needs and thus influences the growth. Sans needed to be more stable, be able to carry more weight, and form a bigger pouch to safely take in his younger brother and properly care for him like that. Because of this, his bones developed to be thicker and sturdier, but also shorter.

If anything, Sans’ magic levels are even a little higher than usual because his ‘mom’ was a Pseudo Revenant.

Hmmm, culture, nice!

The reason why Sans and Papyrus wear clothing is a combination of two factors:

1. Revenants did use to clothe themselves even before they were driven to near extinction. They would gather scraps of cloth, old clothing, and animal furs and fashion them into decent body coverage. They would usually do this to hide a pouch from potential threats, but also to prevent cold wind from blowing through their rib cage (which feels very irritating). On top of that, fur actually helped them to mimic and communicate with large mammals.

2. After Chara fell down they were taken in by the Dreemurrs. They noticed pretty quickly, however, that, especially with bipedal monsters, the child was too shy to look anywhere lower than the shoulders (even when there really wasn’t much to see). Asriel noticed this and quickly made the connection with the human’s own clothing and only their head (and hands) being uncovered. So Asriel started looking for ways to clothe himself, even looking for long sweaters for himself to wear. When the interactions between the two instantly improved, the family and their whole royal entourage started looking for clothing of their own to help the human feel more comfortable. Some monsters even learned to make clothing of their own. Other monsters quickly learned of this new trend and to the more intelligent of them it quickly became a form of individuality and self-expression.

Sans wears his jacket because he likes the padding, the color blue calms him, and the fur in his neck helps him express himself to the furred creatures in Snowdin.

Revenants do recognize individuals easily by their souls, but outsiders can actually identify different Revenants in a similar way that people can with, for instance, okapis.

The club at the end of the tail is smooth when they are born. But through their childhood, the base shape will change and as they reach sexual maturity it will start to get some of bumps and ridges that will grow into spikes. The base shape will be influenced by the parents but the placement of these spikes is completely unique in every individual.

Then to writing. Revenants have no written language. Knowledge is either instinctually known or passed down by their ancestors.

Gaster taught himself how to read and to understand human speech. This way he hoped to gain more knowledge and have an edge over humans that most monsters didn’t have. He taught these same skills in detail to Sans, the more eager to learn of his sons, but that skill has been seriously neglected for most of his life. Gaster also had his own limited version of sign language, Sans could learn ASL, but writing will never be a good way to communicate for any Revenant since they don’t quite have that kind of dexterity in their fingers.

Blasters are a weapon, a skill few can master and often is even performed with their own skulls. One has to be able to control their own abillity before they can even dream of summoning assistance.

Also, Revenants have a different perspective on art than humans do. If you give them a picture with strong mimesis or even a cartoon figure they’ll be quick to figure out what they’re looking at and marvel at the craft. Give them something abstract and they will look at you in confusion, get bored, and look for something else to do.

Fantastical creativity is a skill that’s very rare in Revenants.

And now, for the jaw turning part: No, they can’t. Trying that could seriously mess up and even damage the soft bone tissue, especially in their cheeks.

[waylonfarcry-blog]

7 Things About click here Your Boss Wants to Know

Away from the new FPS game titles that gaming admirers are eagerly waiting for this yr, the Significantly Cry five video game is apparently the newest achievement out this calendar year. Nevertheless, not everything is perfect in Hope county and if You are looking for motives to not purchase Significantly Cry 5 Now we have a pair.

™

To start out we will checklist The great as well as the poor in regards to the video game just before we delve into Just about every facet of the sport.

The Poor:

The nice:

Significantly Cry 5 - Match CoverThe protect artwork of the first-human being-shooter recreation Much Cry five showcasing Joseph Seed, a.k.a 'The daddy,' the primary antagonist of the game in addition to his cronies.Far Cry five GamePlay

The quilt artwork of the very first-human being-shooter game Much Cry five featuring Joseph Seed, a.k.a 'The Father,' the primary antagonist of the sport coupled with his cronies.

Established within the fictitious Hope County of Montana, the Much Cry five sport boasts a gameplay that it deserves kudos for. The sport is rarely unexciting and with areas that the sport combines from earlier editions, it succeeds in leaving out every thing that admirers hated in regards to the sequence till now. It features almost every one of the exciting bits with the Far Cry five universe.

Noteworthy mentions are the companion program along with the co-operative gameplay choice With all the Much Cry Arcade method which is apparently attention-grabbing.

Far Cry 5 Combat Technique

The combat method in the game just isn't something that is revolutionary, nonetheless, it is actually pretty much as good as any Far Cry activity has actually been until now. The combat process presents the prospect for many violent, motion-packed gameplay, combined with the enjoyable of utilising melee attacks as you're taking apart the undesirable guys, one particular degree at a time.

So, if gore, blood and mindless violence is your thing then you will discover the Much Cry 5 sport being adequately satisfying. If not, then the sport may not be worth it as It will just be an easy operate in the mill FPS - albeit, a person which provides enough engagement.

Far Cry five Degree Design and style

The extent style is just what the Significantly Cry 5 activity will be remembered for, at the least it ought to be. The extent style is partaking and by no means uninteresting, with a lot of NPCs featuring help and side mission that you should preserve you fast paced. Nevertheless, and This can be the great Component of the game, the aspect missions you engage in, actively get the job done to add to the game development and as over a mundane way to extend video game-time. Additionally, a small amount of environment-based puzzles in side missions also provides a little bit of variety for the gameplay.

Summing Up The great

So, the game is an effective try at an FPS, nonetheless it lacks just about anything sizeable in means of new mechanics or improvements that should define the game sequence for a long period.

The gameplay and amount development are undoubtedly up towards the mark plus the companion process is seamless. The co-op mode also can make it exciting to Enjoy the sport. So, While using the elimination of your crafting mechanism, a far more purely natural amount progression and an even better reward method for upskilling, the Considerably Cry five activity seems to be the very best while in the collection still.

Summing up the Terrible

Likely only by the Significantly Cry 5 sport, in-recreation visuals remain anything Ubisoft should work on, paradoxically! The level of detailing is practically nothing in comparison with Assassin's Creed Origins (also by Ubisoft) out very last 12 months. That's something that is simply annoying. So, the in-video game visuals are alright, just about. Nothing good.

One more element which Ubisoft didn't get suitable may be the storyline itself. I realize, it's a video clip game instead of a political satire. But, looking at the advertising and marketing slant across the storyline, it Practically looks like Ubisoft was leading fans alongside for any bit. Although the storyline lacks an ending or floor-breaking revelation that might have reinforced or ridiculed present stereotypes and judgements, In addition, it winds up not declaring anything at all with regards to the social ailments that it was meant being a dystopic reflection off; at the very least, based on the hype and marketing and advertising that is!

Qualified Assistance on the Humanity:

Unexpected emergency predicaments and the incidents are a number of the key and in addition repeating conditions of a person's lifetime. Nearly, Many of us encounters this kind of predicaments in which the humanity is while in the dire require of An immediate support. Pretty much all this sort of hectic eventualities create desire to be a part of an occupation that goes a good distance in assisting the dying and craving humanity. Furthermore, for a lot of people, it will come out to become a supply of satiating their thirst for currently being humane to the humanity. Amongst this sort of professions is radiology. It works with using the MRI, Ultrasound evaluation and also the X-ray devices towards the extent which the analysis imaging is going to be executed in a professional way. Remaining one of the most acknowledged professions throughout the world, in the sector of health care care, the radiology specialists are normally participating in a significant purpose by promptly resolving the emergent ailments and complying with all of the skilled requirements. These are at really a dependable placement because it is about the major effective Assessment that's accompanied by a successful get rid of.

Serve Improved to Gain Much better:

Radiology professionals are earning handsome At the moment as a result of frustrating need for this job. Talking about this occupation along with the linked compliance, Every person Appears to get curious. Just one element that is actually expanding the scope and the necessity for this job is that this occupation delivers high spending Work opportunities. Furthermore, it is not merely a essential work to accomplish a radiology technician certification but click here will also you now not need to speculate a fantastic amount of time. It's going to just take only eighteen to 24 months of time to obtain this skillful certification. The analyze hours are not to transcend limits to acquire this acknowledged certification so you can get the same without the need of getting a bookworm.

Choices are Ready:

It actually deals with not a lot more than 2 many years of your daily life to carry the very regarded certification. Moreover, just after finishing this clear-cut teaching, you might be able sufficient to gain superior occupations at the following clinical-linked platforms:

• Professional medical facilities

• Laboratories

• Clinics

• Another associated health-connected fields

Scope of Radiology Technician Profession and the necessities:

Regardless that Each individual scholar is in just how to obtaining carried out Along with the program, that man or woman to control many Understanding modules. The students should figure out how to prepare the individuals for your smoother and soothing diagnosis course of action. Additionally, the whole and the professional use with the related Health care units is usually protected from the scope of this profession. The radiology performs with working towards from the labs and other health-related destinations that they needs to be extremely technological and proficient As a result they ought to have an excellent understanding of Physics and Biology. These demands are now being set primarily simply because not a soul is taken for granted for remaining professional at these spots. Once ending the two years of education and learning, the scholar receives the radiology technician certification. Another phase is to get the license. The holding of the license enables the student to apply for the job in almost any with the health and fitness treatment Section involving the diagnostic application. This license will entitle somebody to prepare for two a long time and precisely the same ought to be renewed right after each 2 many years.

[aion-rsa]

Interview: Author K.A. Doore on The Perfect Assassin

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Fantasy author K.A. Doore introduces a desert city haunted by spirits and assassins.

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Coming from a family of assassins, Amastan has to grapple with the reality of killing someone. In The Perfect Assassin, K.A. Doore explores this in a fantasy novel set in an inhospitable landscape. She talked to Den of Geek about desert world-building, writing LGBT characters in a fantasy world without prejudice, and drawing inspiration from the Arizona desert. 

Published by Tor Books on March 19, The Perfect Assassin will be followed by a sequel, The Impossible Contract, in November and The Unconquered City in June of 2020. Doore wrote The Impossible Contract first, then returned to the same world to explore Amastan’s character.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Den of Geek: Your main character is Amastan, an assassin by family trade who isn’t certain he actually wants to kill anyone. What appealed to you about the idea of a reluctant assassin? 

K.A. Doore: I was originally drawn to writing about assassins in general just because they seem so cool! It’s that ‘competence porn’ aspect of it, honestly. They usually are really good at what they’re doing. Specifically, the reluctant assassin trait stemmed from him as a character himself. I ended up writing this book in a roundabout way. I actually wrote the second book first, so I had already written about this family and about Thana, one of his cousins, who is a little bit more gung ho than he is. 

So when I went back and wrote this book, which is a prequel to that, I wanted to explore who he was. In a way he already had that characterization in place, that he was quieter and sort of a foil to Thana. So exploring him as being reluctant to it was the opposite of her, but also it was exploring the idea [that] you can be really interested in something, you can go through years of studying something, and then suddenly realize you don’t actually want to apply that knowledge. 

read more: An Introduction to Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive

I’ve actually talked to a few friends, since writing this, who have said they saw themselves in Amastan in that they would go and do master’s programs or PH.D programs, and were really interested in studying biology or what have you, but when it came time to actually find a job and apply it, they were like maybe this isn’t actually what I want to do. So I took that route in assigning that to an assassin type. Of course learning about how to strangle people and poison people would be interesting to somebody, I’m sure! Everybody. But actually whether or not you can go through with it is, I feel a bigger question. 

You listed “violence isn’t the answer” as one of the AO3 tags when you described this book on your website. Talk abut how that informs a story about assassins. (Note: AO3 tags are a way to list what kind of scenes a reader can expect to find in the story. They originated on the fanfiction website Archive Of Our Own.)

I really wanted to get away from the type of stories where he can kill a bunch of people and there are no repercussions. It’s in direct conversation with … I played a lot of games where you go around and rack up a body count. This book specifically was questioning that. Trying to reassert that racking up body count isn’t the answer. And what does that mean? When you end up killing all those people, they have families, they have lives. Those are giant holes that you just created, and there should be some sort of repercussion to that. The whole second half of the book basically has a whole history there, coming from how one death, however many years ago, has continued to have repercussions. Whether or not it was right that it happened doesn’t matter so much as [the fact that] there were consequences. 

What came first for you in the writing, the world-building or the characters?

Technically the world for me was already done! But at the same time, going back and writing this book after the first gave me the option to really dig down into the world-building. But at the same time, it was the character, because it came down to the publisher being like we want more than one book, and I was like okay I will write a sequel for you, I just don’t really know what about yet. They were like ‘Why don’t you write something about Amastan?’ 

So in a way it was character first. I thought it would be cool to do a spy vs spy thing, but assassin vs assassin. It didn’t really turn out that way in the plot, but that was the framework I initially started with. 

What was your inspiration for the desert city of Ghadid and what research did you do for it?

I lived in Arizona for six years. I’m actually originally from Florida. The world-building originated from moving to Arizona and thinking it was cool, and wondering why there aren’t more stories set in the desert. Of course, it ended up being a different type of desert than the Sonoran Desert. I did three months of intense research using the University of Arizona library and my wife’s library privileges to get inter-library loans. I read as much as I could on desert ecology, and also specifically the Sahara, the history of the Sahara, and the peoples who lived in and around it. So that’s where a lot of the world-building came from, this idea of people who live out in this very harsh area and what kind of culture or rituals would come from that isolation as well as from that environment.

read more: Best New Young Adult Speculative Fiction Books

 Specifically, the jaan, the spirits, are kind of a mixture of djinn and several religions that are very spirit-based out in that area. It seems to come from being in the middle of nowhere, it’s really quiet all the time. You can go for days and days or weeks and weeks without seeing a city or a town. Mirages are something everybody knows about. You see things, you hear things, and it lends to that idea that there are spirits out in the desert. 

What would you like readers to know about sexuality in your world? 

That it’s not a big deal. That was one of the biggest impetus for writing this series. I wanted to write something where people could love who they wanted and no one would give them shit about it. The whole reason I wrote the first book was I was so, so tired of the hetero dude falling in love with the one woman who happened to be around. So this time I was like there’s going to be a dude, and there’s going to be a woman, and they’re not going to get together! It’ll be very explicit they’re not going to get together. They will have their own people. So that was built into the world-building that they don’t give a shit. 

Part of that is that they are living in a size-limited city. Population-wise it’s not good for them to advance, so there isn’t that pressure to be straight and have kids. 

Anything else you want readers to know about the romantic relationship that is part of Amastan’s journey? 

Asexuality has a lot of gray areas, so I wrote this understanding that. I’m not ace myself but I have an ace friend, so I told the friend this, and that helped me tweak it a bit. But also it isn’t the only representation of asexuality, and we really just need more of that. It just runs a whole gamut. 

What other books are you reading now that you would recommend? 

I’m currently reading Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons, which is a monster of a book but sounds amazing and I just started it. I’m 50 pages in. It’s funny, it’s entertaining, and it has ridiculous footnotes. She’s an amazing human being, so that helps too. 

read more: Ruin of Kings is a Must-Read Fantasy Epic

Lord of Secrets, by Breanna Teintze. That is a second world fantasy that comes out in August and has so much beautiful necromancy! It’s kind of amazing. There are bone monstrosities that haunt mazes, and it’s one of those really fun fantasies I feel like I don’t find as much lately.

Anything else you’d like readers to know before they go into The Perfect Assassin?

That it is not as stabby as perhaps they would expect from the title. We talked about how violence is not the answer. I think that if people go in with the expectation that it is a slightly brighter book, it is not 300 pages of running around killing people, that tends to help people’s expectations.

Megan Crouse writes about Star Wars and pop culture for StarWars.com, Star Wars Insider, and Den of Geek. Read more of her work here. Find her on Twitter @blogfullofwords.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Megan Crouse

Jul 24, 2019

Tor Books

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