#chris elman

[delicatestones]

Wave of Wardposts sliding across my dash reminding me I have unresolved issues with the fact that Chris is one of the most categorically telling fumbles in Ward.

Like you have a character who touches on:

The way that the physical form links to the mind and how embodiment is part of identity

Living with severe harm done to you by a sibling

Forging a future for yourself while struggling with the expectations of an abusive parent of who they made you to be

The strain of pushing yourself to constantly perform new stunts with your power in ways that don't necessarily align with its 'intention'

Dealing with a 'villainous' origin and the stigma of that in the world of capes

The difficulty of forming relationships when you're kind of an asshole

Chris has one of the most 'easy to make thematically relevant' powers in the therapy group to boot. And we can't say it's too high concept and convoluted to make legible to readers because let us consider some of the other fucking powers in Ward. 'Guy mutates based on emotional states he wants to evoke' is pretty straightforward compared to some!

But for reasons that remain beyond me Chris betrays the therapy group because...it was time for the scheduled shocking betrayal, and he did it because...reasons that don't quite follow from prior characterization but okay, well, surely Villain Chris will provide some kind of interesting - ah no never mind he's just apathetically Evil now in ways that occasionally show a glimmer of promise but ultimately conclude in "our viewpoint character doesn't care about the interiority of people who aren't her + Wildbow was in the weeds by that point".

And I could dissect this all more but the way Chris' potential is spilled like a soda behind sticky theatre seats feels like a symptom of the many ways Ward did that with everything. We got rid of Chris so we could, bless her, spend approximately one million years resolving Rain's issues as a central hinge of Ward's dissolving thematic tissue only to - and this part also gets me - not resolve Rain's issues or arc to the extent of concluding a major part of it offscreen.

Salvaging Chris wouldn't have saved Ward and it's far from the biggest issue with Ward, but in the version of Ward in my head that's good Chris sticks around to force Victoria to have ongoing beef with a child in orthodontic headgear. I think it would be funny.

[germesthegenie]

The silly kids but one of them isn’t a kid but also is a kid

[victoriadallonfan]

You know how Victoria did the flying rides for the sick kids at the hospital?

Now that she can detach Fragile One, she can rent a sleigh carried by her forcefield, buy a Santa outfit, and deliver presents to different hospitals (flying rides included of course)

Cryptid being the reindeer was soundly rejected after he refused to give his form skin and only a single head.

[il3x]

uhm. uhm. think I jusr had a tinker fugue

so, observation, huh? was veeery tempted to fit the simurgh in somehow but three headshots were enough.

[witchofanguish]

really annoys me how interesting I found the interactions between Chris and the rest of the team (especially Victoria) in early Ward, and then he just kind of fucks off for the rest of the book

[byronvera]

breakthrough breakin' through

[absyyynth]

why couldn't we get the reality where chris stays cool

[glitterblossom]

Either Wildbow protagonists need to stop being so relatable, or we need to go to the therapist.

[wouldtheybecomeafearavatar]

Would Chris Elman from Ward become an avatar of the Flesh?

(art is by yours truly, and also shameless propaganda)

Ooh cool art! Thanks for sharing :)

[lemurlord]

Victoria, reading Chris's interlude, scraping her teeth in anger, adding "Stranger 1" to Amy's character sheet.

[ewingstan]

Here's at least the start of an answer.

I do like this moment. I still feel like there's more interesting things to do with Chris than have him be the one member of Breakthrough who wont change to contrast the rest of the team against*, but its a better thematic move than a lot of the messaging has been recently. And there's still room for Chris to do something interesting.

But Christ, I wish it wasn't capped with this:

There's already been a lot written about how having Amy blaming others for her actions comes at the expense of her characterization in Worm and the themes of her narrative there. I won't repeat all those arguments here, but I'll say that I'm frustrated that she's getting tied up in the "unwilling to change for the better" theme, especially like this. I don't want to hear wildbow complain about how people are too willing to blame others for their own defects. I don't think he has anything interesting to contribute to that conversation.

*And it wouldn't just be rehashes Ashley's clone blues. Having Chris' weird identity issues mix with a confrontation on whether he wants to be tied to the desires of his past self would be really cool. The conflict between what you want out of your life at different points in time is interesting to explore—especially when the past self knows that his future self might not resemble him or share his desires, and takes steps to limit his future self's options. It pulls at deep questions about what the important part of having autonomy is.

[eowynluna]

What do yall think Breakthrough's fursonas would be if they were furries?

[heyitschartic]

I do think that Kaluza, the String Theory clone, basically gets two options after she's made. The first is that the Wardens find out about her and she immediately gets arrested, an armed guard put on her at all times, and treated somewhat like Riley. Too dangerous of a person to be left running around and is basically forced to be a deterrent for a full scale invasion from Shin or Cheit. Like I said, hard to argue with the woman who can blow your moon out of the sky. She uses the free time she's allowed during crisis' to needle Chris about how he isn't even important enough for the Wardens to hold at gunpoint.

The more fun option is that she pulls the same shtick Chris is doing. She's got her second chance and she's not going to spend the rest of her new life locked away in the Wardens tower. But her power is very distinctive and incredibly limiting for trying to pretend it's something else. Only way I think she could swing it is if she starts trying to game her limitations. We know she can tinker together drones and other equipment to help her build her mega-projects, so I'm thinking she begins the incredibly delicate act of setting those projects in motion. She starts some new massive machine and uses it as a point to jump off for making gear, drones, and other equipment she can use to keep the illusion up of her being a slightly mediocre tinker. All the while, she's preparing larger schemes in the background all centered around this massive tinker tech death-ray or whatever.

She presents herself as a mediocre drone tinker with a few additions, so that when she pulls the rug out from under everyone, no one is ready to react to it.

Only problem is she's barely a teen age-wise, so she's not as good at handling everything as she likes to think she is. No matter if she finishes the project or not, it's probably all gonna explode in her face.

[victoriadallonfan]

Erin: "So what did you guys do for your sweet sixteen?"

Victoria: "Pretty sure I fought the giant nazi twins."

Sveta: "I was stuck in an asylum for broken powers."

Tristan: "Trial."

Byron: "Also his trial."

Rain: "Arson."

Chris: "Kidnapping."

Erin: ....

Chris: "Oh, and I went to Dave & Busters."

[il3x]

negative space

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

Dark Introspection is just a lil guy. has anyone drawn him as a sweet lettol ball of fluffy feathers with big wet eyes bc thats what he is. hes such a sweet tiny birdie man