the animatronics around here do get a little uhhhh quirky at night

Tech! Tech! Tech! Tech!

To elaborate on this post specifically with regards to Worlds Beyond Number, well, Suvi says it all, really:

They love being on my tab, they love having fun, they love being protected by me, but they never listen to me and they don't care.

Because here is the thing. Suvi is of the Citadel, which is part of the Empire. We do not have a full understanding of the geopolitical system but as a rule an empire is participating in conquest; sometimes two empires both exist and attack each other and so the exact scenario gets very gray and complicated but I think we do all agree the Empire is not great.

Suvi is of the Citadel. She holds a position of great privilege within the Citadel. This is in part because her parents were, as far as we know, betrayed and murdered by an enemy of the Citadel (having themselves been, again, based on what we know, reformers and rule-breakers as well as extremely capable spies) and she was adopted by one of their closest friends, who became the Sword of the Citadel.

She is not the Citadel. She is a 20-year old who was primarily raised within it, with all of the above complications of her parents. She is not single-handedly responsible for every action the citadel takes. She is not personally trying to stop Ame or Eursulon, only saying that there will be consequences if they leave. Consequences that she has experienced after Ame ran into the kudzu and Eursulon went after Naram and they all attempted to break Ame's curse; consequences she knows will become more and more dire if she continues to disobey Steel, particularly a direct order; consequences that already resulted in Ame being in a coma for a month. (The court-martial, I will say, is entirely on Suvi; the rest is not).

And in all of those situations: Ame and Eursulon were, as Suvi says, happy to have Suvi's purse pay for room and board, and her wizard's staff open doors, and to be put up and fed at the Chantry, and take the skyships, and train at the Citadel and have a marvelous time there. It's been several days and they could have left sooner, and they didn't. It's very "no ethical consumption under capitalism, which means that I can do whatever I want" rather than like, attempting to make slightly less harmful choices from Ame and Eursulon. Their choices aren't coming from a principled stance against the Citadel and Empire; they are coming from a "well, thanks for all the fun and the safe place to stay and the resources for research but you told me not to do something I wanted to do and I won't wait an hour to try and see if we can come to a solution that works for everyone."

For that matter, they're making these choices in part because of what a wizard of the citadel is saying to them; and yet Suvi's presence was said by that very wizard to be crucial to Ame's survival, and they're still not waiting.

[stepping outside of all of the above and the below: I think all the actions being taken, as a listener, are fucking great because this is D&D and conflict is fun and also all of these characters are like, the equivalent of 20 years old and level 2; this is not me saying Suvi is right and Ame and Eursulon are wrong. Rather, Suvi is no less right or wrong than the others, and she is extremely justified in feeling hurt and angry and that her friends are willing to take and not give.]

Something I've found in a lot of sf stories but especially actual play is a pretty strong and frankly, weird bias within the fandom of exactly this nature, as the linked post said. Someone affiliated with an empire or a power is somehow, as an individual, responsible for every harmful action that power commits. They're brainwashed. They're evil. They don't get it. They just need to come around to the right mentality. And that right mentality is, of course, that of the good rural person with nature magic. They are a leader within their small community and hold an immense amount of power over them - and perhaps beyond - but don't worry, they use it correctly. They're wise and they're right about everything.

Except they're not. They are frequently either idealistic to the point of ignoring the realities of the situation, or very limited in their viewpoint, or do not realize the immense privilege of being in their position as both a person in nigh absolute benevolent power within a small domain and also the only person with that power. Those wise, provincial, nature-based characters rarely understand that to exist within a complex and yes, extremely flawed and even ill-intentioned system like the Citadel is to be, even as a person with privilege within that hierarchy, a cog.

Suvi cannot just leave. She exists within a vast system and she is not stupid or brainwashed for acknowledging the realities of it. I think that yes, a very possible path forward for her is one in which she grows to question the Citadel's practices. I also think that to treat her as the embodiment of this entire empire, or to expect that her only way to be a good person is via a sudden about-face at the cost of everything she has, when she is a level 2 apprentic, is not just overly simplistic but flat-out incorrect. And I think that to assume Ame is objectively correct for not waiting a very brief amount of time for Steel (when, in fact, one could argue she should have left immediately upon being contacted; she had been absent from her duties for months already) is similarly oversimplifying to the point where one's conclusions are no longer useful.

Recall that witches' familiars are said to embody the traits within them that, to be an effective steward of their position, they often must set aside. Ame has been letting hers lead her.

@sunlaire and I were talking about how different Fitzjames' and Crozier's interpretations of their genre are for the first half of The Terror and I boiled it down to this:

Fitzjames: this is great, i'm getting a good grade in arctic expedition captain, a thing that is both normal to want and possible to acheive,

Crozier: i think the BEAR is eating our men's SOULS

actually i do have something to say about this chapter and it's quite critical of it but also i'm tired tonight and i've been talking about it long and hard on discord already and putting it all together in a coherent post feels like too much of a task tonight. all i'm gonna say is that part 2 was very obviously going in a certain direction from the start, and i loved that direction, and to an extent it is still going in that direction but now very obviously missing a huge chunk of what stirred it in that direction. and i'm hesitant to simply say it's fujimoto that's dropped the ball on this (though it might the idealization, who's to say) because from the actual shape of the writing + slump in paneling/art + recent bitter interview by fujimoto + japanese audience is apparently vocally not a fan of asa + my own cursed knowledge of shounen jump and shueisha editors and how they react to a fall in sales = i think the lack of focus on asa has really hurt the themes of part 2 when she was an integral part of it + i think this wasn't entirely fujimoto's doing and it's very likely because she is apparently strongly disliked in japan and there's good reason to believe that fujimoto was told to not focus on her nearly as much bc sales slump and people complain as soon as she shows up. which sucks. becaue what made part 2 work as well as it did was the synergy and parallel between the two protagonists' paths, and the absence of asa's path in the past few months (both in universe and by real time in the comic) feels like a genuine writing and thematic and emotional hole in the comic that to me shows that she WAS supposed to be there. fujimoto had fully intended to write her in there bc there's a hole in the shape of her where she is very obviously supposed to fit. it isn't simply a question of "author forgets his female character" it's a question of "this crucial part of the manga is missing and the author is painfully aware of it and bitter about it too"

mellifluens, -entis, adj. whose eloquence is sweet as honey, Aus.

BOOM! reblog to force bobby!!!

buen día 😊😘

no but the Alex Rider show is the worst promoted show I've ever seen like did you know there's an Alex Rider show? did you?

nineo

"Don't force me."

"I force you? Li Xun forces me! You all force me!"

where is Nie Huaisang when you need him to destroy a scum man?