#storm of echoes

[pristina-nomine]

Well, guess who won’t be able to listen to L’amour est un oiseau rebelle for at least a month.

(I started writing a lot of stuff in the tags, so why not make a full post. Overflow of unedited immediate-post-ending thoughts incoming)

Ok, this book is a mess, I’ll be brutally honest, it almost felt like reading an unedited manuscript with lots and lots of good ideas that were being thrown at me without a breathing moment. And Dabos really got carried away with borrowing stuff from His Dark Materials. And I didn’t really grasped the character arcs (this is my fault though, I'll need a reread yada yada yada).

But as I said, I really esteem Christelle Dabos for choosing to change entirely the scope and taste of her series; here it takes a truly dark and disturbing turn (the claustophobric anxiety of the Observatoire, the straigh-up body horror of the Horn of Plenty)... only for the ending to be the most hopeful possible. (spoilers under the cut)

I was lead to think this would be a bleak conclusion thrown in for shock value, but it's just not? Eulalie turning out to be a genuinely good person who was really striving for the best; Victoire and Second getting to have a childood and the Family Spirits getting to have a life. The last scene perfectly mirroring the very first of the series in tome 1. Ophèlie entering her Orpheus era and yet never ever loosing her willpower. Thorn who, after four books of costant trying, finally managed to sacrifice himself for her, but she just won't let him. His answer on the other side of the page/mirror!! Perfection.

[vynne-reads]

Ophelia: He sent me to prison and beat me to a bloody pulp. It sucks.

Thorn: Okay. I'll do something about that. *casually kills him*

[pan-withnoplan]

Listening to Numbers by Daughter while reading ThornOphélie in La Tempête des Échos >>>>>>>>>>>>

[skywalker-swift]

im almost done with a storm of echoes (book four of the mirror visitor series) and I’m having mental zoomies I love these books

[saltlog]

▶ 15 years ago

[fantasy-seal]

"Comfort"

Fan art of Thorn and Ophelia from the Mirror Visitor book series, specifically in this painting the last book, the Storm of Echoes

[artaintfartwarriors]

[yen-stanning]

The Bad Batch S3 locksreens/wallpapers

please like or reblog, if you save :)

[jrbsfx]

A walk down to the lakeshore in the pouring rain, followed by a mug of hot tomato soup by the stove

[reader3]

The way I am trying to dodge bad batch and x-men spoilers. Got me looking like Muhammad Ali, that king 👑

(First of my own post?)

[anolis3]

"The Storm of Echoes", by Christelle Dabos.

"She gazed at the paving where the iridescent lights were dancing. She now understood that this chapel was an improved version of the telephone cellar. What had taken Eulalija Gond months would happen here in accelerated form. The moment Ophelia raised her eyes to the mechanical reflectors, she would condemn her shadow. Would she survive?", from The Storm of Echoes.

"-You're impossible. -Impossible? The voice on the receiver is as broken as her own. Anyone would have thought it an ordinary echo, but Eulalija isn't just anyone. She has spent years preparing for this moment.", from The Storm of Echoes.

[kimherbst]

Happy International Women's Day! This was a dream freelance gig for me since I loved the 90s X-MEN cartoon growing up!!! What a blast to draw so many powerful women 💖💖💖😳 big thanks to Marvel for the opportunity!

[panic-in-the-multiverse]

… So I just watched the two episodes of Bad Batch and I… I need some time to process that last episode, not just the content of it but what it means for the future of the last 4 episodes

[clem-l-orange]

my long essay about why Babel is such an interesting ark and deserves to be explored more

(Prefacing this by saying I read the books in French, so if I make any mistakes I apologize, French is also my first language so I may make some mistakes)

SPOILERS FOR BOOKS 3 & 4 AHEAD!!!!

We are introduced to the Ark of Babel in book 3 of La Passe Miroir when Ophelia escapes Anima to find Thorn, and chooses to go to Babel after following some clues to his location.

Babel is a “cosmopolitan ark”, where many different cultures mix due to the high rate of immigration. However, there is a divide in between the “Sons of Pollux” (Babelians descended from Pollux, who have Babelian powers) and the “Godchildren of Helen” (I apologize for the poor translation please correct me), who are either powerless and native to Babel, or not native to Babel at all. From the first chapters in Babel, we can see that these two social groups are segregated with dress codes, and there is even a time when Ambrose, the son of Lazarus, a wealthy and influential Powerless man, gets insults hurled at him for his background. In book 4, “A Storm of Echoes”, recent immigrants as well as political opposers are rounded up and sent to their deaths/deported from the Ark, . There is also a clear segregation within the city of Babel between Powerless people and others, with a majoritarily Powerless neighborhood being referred to as “The Powerless Quarters” (I may have translated wrong). This neighborhood is considered the “slum” of Babel, and is clearly described as a poorly maintained, badly policed and dangerous place to live.

Another dystopian aspect of Babel that we learn in the first few chapters is the extreme censorship of words relating to violence, war, crime… etc. The “Index” suppresses the use of these words, going as far as punishing those who say the words, even in non-violent contexts. This goes as far as branding murders and clearly voluntary deaths as “accidents”. The suppression of the words in the Index leads to misinformation in journals, and even book burning in what is supposed to be the oldest library on the arch, the Memorial. There are many parallels to be drawn from instances in history where books were burnt to stop the spread of information, but I love how this book spins it to make this censorship “in advocacy for peace”. Books about war are cleansed from libraries, collections of ancient artifacts as well. The “Master Censurer” at the memorial even goes as far as burning any book that Professor Wolf, the Memorial’s resident expert on “Prehistoric Wars” goes near. Babel is a dystopia under a blanket of pacifism.

We later learn about the “Observatory of Deviations”, which concept resembles a mental asylum/psych ward/home for the troubled??? All we learn about this place from the third book is that it is very secretive and treats it’s patients like property, which is even more enforced in the fourth book, when we see firsthand what happens in the Observatory, and when we learn that certain patients get branded with tattoos against their will. Blaise, a friend Ophelia made on Babel, describes the place to her, and makes a point that if you go there, you are the property of the workers, you cannot leave, and no information about your progress is ever disclosed to you. They are more interested in your “deviation” than your “personal preferences”. After reading about Ophelia’s own experiences at the Observatory, it became clear that the place was meant to be an allegory for some abusive psychiatric asylum, that the “deviants” were meant to represent neurodivergent and physically disabled people. Later in book 4, it is revealed that Lazarus is the master of this operation. When I heard this, my brain did a double take and I circled back to the part where Lazarus was described as a “father figure” to Blaise. The fact that Lazarus used his patients and their trust for his own personal gain (in this case for “scientific discovery”) I feel really reflects into real life in other situations.

Unemployment and the replacement of people by AI is also addressed in books 3 and 4, as automatons take up most of the manual labor on Babel, leaving Powerless people no jobs to support them. When visiting the Powerless Quarters with Octavio in book 3, Ophelia runs in to the Fearless and Almost Blameless, who proceeds to shame Octavio and tell him that, by walking around in his Forerunners uniform, he is humiliating those around him who have no future. Since almost all of the jobs that do not require powers are taken by automatons or people with power and influence, it seems like the poorer Powerless people have no future. In book 4, when Lady Septima announces that those with no familial or contractual tie to Babel are to be deported to their old Arks, there is an uprising that leads to violence, where the Unemployed people of Babel demand Octavio hire them in the place of his automaton. This truly mirrors our world today, as many jobs are in danger of being taken by AI or automation.

There are also other issues on Babel that mirror real world issues, with topics such as homophobia being brought up as side plots. I could literally write a whole other essay about the parallels and differences between Ophelia and Thorn vs. Blaise and Wolf, but that’s for another day.

Feel free to correct me if I got a translation wrong or if you agree/disagree with one of my points.

also a side note: Native Babelians are clearly supposed to look South Asian, right? Because sometimes I see fanart where some of the Babelian characters are considerably pale and it kind of weirds me out but this may be a misconception.

[f4nd0mlife]

Women of Marvel #1 covers by Carmen Carnero, Elena Casagrande and Jan Bazaldua

[saltlog]

BRIEFING <<BLUESUMMERS>> Mercenary nicknamed Typhoon by his enemies, with seemingly abnormal capabilities has been interfering with our plans. Your task, S106, is to escort him to us alive no questions asked. You'll be undercover and the destination is Bernardelli intelligence's air base, location of last sighted landing. The base officially has no pilots, but our source mentions a Calm squadron. Find the pilot and gain his trust, failure is not an option. [PLAYLIST]