and like....a huge part of wwx’s character/desires even though it rarely comes though in his actual actions (bc he’s driven by things other than what he personally wants) is how deeply he wants to be part of a home and to belong somewhere, and to belong with someone. and this arose naturally due to his childhood but it keeps getting reinforced throughout each tragedy he encounters in the story as well

orphaned at such a young age, naturally he clung to LP and to the family he found there and to the community of people there....and later he threw everything he had into making the BM hospitable and the wens made it more comfortable for him by building him a place that reminded him of his old home...he loves so fiercely and so selflessly and every single family he’s had and every single home he’s had he’s lost to violence and destruction and misfortune and cruelty and he’s been abandoned, relentlessly, again and again and again, left to pick up the pieces and expected to deal with it all alone, rarely with anyone to comfort or reassure him. all this as a teenager/very young adult. all this. the fight that killed jxz was terrible for so many reasons, but one of the smallest details was the most painful - jin ling’s bracelet being destroyed, wwx being told you can never have this, you don’t belong with them. no wonder he was moved to tears when jiang yanli stepped in front of him to defend him to the jins. no wonder he took the estrangement with the jiangs so poorly. no wonder he craves returning to LP long after he believes it to be impossible

and that’s (one of the reasons) why lwj simply standing beside him and vowing to help him postres is so important to him. even if he can’t articulate it, even if he’s too used to solitude not to deny himself it out of habit. there’s a lot of things he wants but this reassurance from lwj satisfied a very deep need he’s had for a long time. to belong with someone, to be supported, to be able to rely on someone else and not do everything alone. something this basic, this foundational to him that he craves even as he reflexively rejects it

I do think he needed that journey at the end of the show but I also think once he’s done with it he’ll never want to be alone for that long again. I think postcanon wwx wants stability. a home. to belong to a place and to a community, and most importantly, to belong with a person, a partner who’s on his side. and I don’t know if that place will be CR but that person will definitely be lwj

Levi and the importance of staying true to ones heart:

I'm gonna' talk about another aspect of Levi's choice in Shinganshina, but first, I want to dedicate this post to all the little bitch eruri shippers out there who are too scared to come off anon, who now can't send me hate messages over it since I turned anon asks off and ya'll are a bunch of cowards. Hope you enjoy this one, because it's for you.

I was thinking about an ask I got a few days ago, about why Erwin chose Hange over Levi to take over as commander, and why in turn Hange chose Armin, and I answered that I thought it had a lot to do with Levi's own philosophy of "no regrets", that is, Levi's insistence on always following ones heart, doing what one feels is the right thing in any, given situation. Not necessarily right in terms of what the outcome will be, but right in terms of how your choice will sit with your conscience.

I think obviously, this aspect of Levi's character, his belief in always doing what your heart tells you to do, is evidenced by his choice in Shinganshina, to give Armin the serum and to let Erwin die.

Putting aside all arguments regarding whether it was the right thing to do "for humanity", I think what maybe people don't focus on enough when it comes to this moment is whether it was the right thing to do morally.

I've talked before about how Levi's choice was really an act of compassion over ideology, here: https://www.tumblr.com/cosmicjoke/737207612761915392/the-importance-of-compassion-over-ideology-levis?source=share And I think it's worth revisiting this aspect of his choice again.

I think people get so caught up in the concept of "the greater good" when discussing "Attack on Titan", and this moment in particular, that they miss one of the main overarching themes of the story, which is that the "greater good", particularly, things done in the name of the greater good, can actually lead to horrific atrocities and cruelty, and that the idea of the "greater good" itself is based in subjectivity, and never absolute. It isn't something we should ever prioritize over the tangible and concrete reality before us. That tangible and concrete reality being the things we can do to alleviate the suffering of others now, rather than hoping for and pursuing some idyllic utopian future where nobody ever has to suffer, and, ironically, causing people to suffer in the pursuit of that goal.

I talk a lot too about how I don't think Levi has ever held any great faith in the concept of a better world. I think Levi is a realist. Someone who understands and accepts the bleak reality of life on this planet, someone who accepts human nature, who knows that a utopian existence isn't really possible because of that reality, but who, despite that, still maintains a great depth of kindness and compassion toward others, still values life and the right of others to live.

His support of his comrades in the Survey Corps has more to do with his wish to fight for them, to support their own, personal dream of a better world, than it does his own belief in that better world. He thinks of Erwin as a "greater existence" than himself, to quote Isayama, because he believes Erwin is able to conceptualize and believe in a better world, to see that possibility, while Levi himself can't.

What Levi is fighting for is people, not a concept. That's always been true of Levi, I think. We see that manifest in multiple ways, multiple times throughout the story. In Levi's first appearance, when he holds that dying soldier's hand and promises him that his sacrifice will give Levi the strength to keep fighting. When he gives Petra's patch to that grieving soldier. When he goes out of his way to help the people of Trost. When he saves Ramzi, endangering their mission to rescue a single child. When he refuses to accept right away that Eren has gone rogue, to turn on him, because so many of his comrades died for him and Levi can't bear the thought of them having sacrificed their lives for nothing. And we see it manifest in his choice to let Erwin die. He prioritizes a person over a concept. And I think that fact emphasizes the great morality of Levi's choice, and ultimately, the rightness of it. Concepts are just that. They aren't real. They're ideas. But people are real. People exist. People matter.

Armin talks early on about the need to abandon ones humanity in order to achieve victory. Erwin's entire character revolves around this premise. He's seen as a great and visionary leader because of his ability to detach himself from human emotion and make tough decisions and sacrifices. Basically, for his ability to engage the concept of the ends justifying the means. Whatever it takes to "win".

But then, what does winning even mean, what does salvation for humanity mean, if in the pursuit of it, we lose our humanity?

Levi talks about being willing to take on the role of a "monster" if it means nobody else having to. He understands that, if people are forced to lose their humanity in pursuit of freedom, then freedom itself is rendered meaningless. There is no salvation for humanity if we ourselves lose sight of what it means to be human. Levi says he's willing to become a monster, that he's willing to lose his humanity, as long as no one else has to. He's willing to make that sacrifice.

But what Levi's choice in Shinganshina shows us is that he actually wasn't able to abandon his humanity at all. He never was a monster, and never actually could be. Because he couldn't, in the end, look upon the suffering of another human being, and ignore it.

That goes back to what I said about why Erwin chose Hange, and why Hange chose Armin. To be an effective leader, in order to achieve "victory" of some abstract goal, one has to be able to abandon their humanity. And Levi can't.

Levi is the most compassionate and empathetic character in AoT. And part of the reason for that is because of the inherent nature of that compassion. He isn't able to give up his humanity, he isn't able to lose it, because it's too much a part of him, too deeply rooted in who he actually is. It's the driving force behind everything he is and does. The beating, bleeding heart and soul of the Survey Corps. His presence, his role within the story, in many ways, functions as the moral compass by which both the audience and the other characters are guided.

Even in the face of violence, war, atrocity, and prejudice, even in pursuit of some concept of "the greater good", Levi can't bring himself to actual cruelty. Because that's what it would have been, to give Erwin the serum. It would have been an act of cruelty, against a man who didn't deserve it. And, again, if in the pursuit of a better tomorrow, we ourselves become cruel, pitiless, unempathetic, merciless, how can a better tomorrow actually be achieved? What salvation is there for humanity if, by the end, we have no humanity left in ourselves?

Erwin was able to abandon his humanity in pursuit of a personal dream, and we saw where it ultimately lead him. Into a state of such utter depression, and so wracked by guilt, that he became ineffectual, needing Levi to do the right thing for him. Erwin had strayed down a path that went against his heart.

That's something Levi was never able to do. Go against his heart. Go against what he felt was right. The only time we really see Levi do something that doesn't sit right with him is when he helps Hange to torture Sannes, under Erwin's orders and as a favor to Hange. Levi is noticeably less enthused about the whole affair than Hange, taking no actual pleasure in the exercise, even visibly distraught over Hange's level of cruelty. And still we see after how heavily that weighs on him. He completely forgets to inform Historia of the information they tortured Sannes for in the first place, and then explodes on her when she refuses out of self-pity to take on the role of queen, threatening to render the whole thing pointless. Do what your heart tells you, this is something Levi emphasizes to others again and again, which is what I mean when I say he acts as the moral compass of the story. Do the best you can, make the choice you won't regret. That doesn't mean the choice that will have the best outcome. That means the choice which will sit well with your conscience.

And I think in order to understand Levi's choice in Shinganshina, one needs to understand what sort of choice it was. Levi's choice, in its purist form, was a choice of the heart. It was a moral choice, decided upon through conscience, through the understanding, at an intrinsic level, what was right, rather than some ideological pursuit with an intangible endpoint.

He knew it was wrong to bring Erwin back into the world, and to put the same expectations on him to be the great leader he had been. He knew, in its way, that to do so would be to betray his own declaration, of taking on the role of a monster for himself so long as it spared anyone else from having to do the same. Erwin was corrupted by his dream. The threat of that corruption promised to make him into a monster. And Levi wasn't going to let that happen, just like he said. He wasn't going to allow Erwin to lose his humanity, even if it meant condemning himself.

Whether one wants to argue over Levi's choice being the right choice for humanity's salvation or not, what I don't think is up for discussion is that Levi's choice was, in the end, the right choice morally. And no, that doesn't mean Levi chose Erwin over humanity, or that he sacrificed humanity for Erwin because he loved him. It means he chose compassion over an idea. He chose humanity over a concept. He chose a person over an ideal. Because it was the choice that rejected the ideology and the dogmatism of "the greater good" in favor of something real, which was kindness and mercy for another human being. It was a rejection of cruelty and barbarism in pursuit of some evanescent and ultimately meaningless concept.

There is no greater good without morality. There is no salvation for humanity without mercy or compassion.

“Characters in search of a plot” is a pretty good way of putting it. And you aren’t wrong about really weak villains. I think a lot of bigotry allegories tend to fall apart if you scratch them a bit but this one is particularly bad. Mostly I think I just don’t like how the war machines get treated with more leniency by the writing than any human it seems.

I’m pretty new to the franchise and was initially really interested in the IDW comics but the more I’ve heard about them the less enthused I am. I mostly gather wonky characterizations, a weirdly BNF-y trend to the fandom and poorly written space politics.

I also… may have spent a decent amount of time in a fandom with a weird amount of imperialism apologia because “well things had to change!” so I get really antsy if I feel any rumblings in that direction. Pity because I love Space Operas, I’m interested in Cybertronian worldbuilding and I’d like less focus on the humans but little of it sounds done well. I may try them at some point to at least form proper opinions but they sound like an incohesive mess, and not in the fun way.

I do hope that the people who enjoy them are having fun though. And despite my reservations and some issues I am quite enjoying the Skybound comics for the most part! Though time will tell if it stays that way.

There's a decent amount here, so let's go through it one step at a time since I don't want to come off as ignoring things:

One could argue that "characters in search of a plot" is probably a better conundrum than a plot where you just don't like the characters. I fully believe some of the Terrans might get another shot at being featured in something, even if it is with modified backstories not connected to the Maltos. Twitch is probably the most likely to get another crack at a big role, although I could see her being portrayed as just a regular Autobot in a subsequent production. Hashtag, despite a name that might make some cringe, actually seems to be the closest the brand has come to a proper Blaster replacement, and Jawbreaker as the Dinobots kid sibling would make a lot of sense and serve to humanize them in a future work. Unfortunately Thrash, who doesn't have much of a personality, and Nightshade, who has become a lightning rod of controversy, I'm less sure about.

That said, bigotry allegories are tough in the best of times. Even in good cases, they're often subject to bad faith readings, and in bad cases, like here? Forget it. It's an awkward, clunky mess that heavily contradicts the rest of the franchise, in particular the comic they're releasing right now where the Cons could not give a damn about anything other than themselves, and whose Starscream is a sadistic bully. But the writers here are clearly fans of the fanfic Cons, so in trying to make them as sympathetic as possible, their cruelty and issues are swept under the rug. It was worse in IDW admittedly since the Autobots were oftentimes just terrible people, so you were often let with no one to root for. For all its problems, the Autobots in Earthspark are more often than not ineffectual, not evil, which is probably because Hasbro pumped the brakes on having cash cows like Optimus Prime be shown as evil without say, brainwashing.

I would not recommend the IDW comics to anyone. The few gems of characterization and concepts cannot make up for the mountains of coal that was most of their run, and IDW2, the prequel that tries to establish a framework for the Great War? The damned thing was so slow and boring that no one mourned IDW losing the license. Not to mention if you're not REALLY familiar with these characters and why you should care about the variances in how they're portrayed, I find most people would just be completely lost, and if you don't like how the portrayals are altered, frustrated. It's simply put, not a fun comic unless you are in the market for a very specific portrayal.

The main issue with the humans (something the very first Transformers comic writer, Bob Budinansky noted was important) was that without that connection, the Transformers could be anything else. They could be humans with power armor, weird bug aliens, or freakish mutants. But it's that relationship and contrast with the humans that makes them special. That's not to say that there are versions of the story that significantly overdo the human element, because there assuredly are, but to have it be completely absent is to cut off part of why we invest in these characters.

Finally, while the Skybound Energon Universe is a little less than a year old, and there are definitely some concerns as well as plot holes that hopefully the narrative will fill in later, I argue that those comics have bought something that seemed to be missing from so much Transformers media as of late, a sense of actual fun. The writers get mecha and what makes them cool. They get the core of why these characters work. I can only hope that the quality stays high, especially with Daniel Warren Johnson, part of why I think the comics have been so good (no one in IDW would dare think of references pro wrestling or the 08th MS Team) phasing out of the book.

Takayuki Tatsumi: The extrapolation of the American situation in your sense seems a fiction technique closely related to the traditional way of writing SF.

Samuel R. Delany: You assume there is a traditional way of writing science fiction. . . . You may be confusing a way of reading with a way of writing. But I see what you mean.

Well, if you're a science fiction writer, those are the generic conventions you have to work with and within. You're stuck with them, for better or worse. The thing to do is see what you can make them into. What you want to do is take those conventions—and break their necks!

TT: What about Butcher in Babel-17? Although at first he looks like a slave, later the linguistic explosion makes him free. Is the linguistic system a kind of slavery for you?

SRD: Again I detect an embryo allegory between me and one of my characters in mitosis within your question. Let me stall its formation just a little. The Butcher was, for me, primarily an object of desire. He was someone I wanted to possess; not someone I wanted to be—or, indeed, thought I already was. I wanted to rub up against him—like a large, dangerous teddy bear. Here and there I'd seen aspects of him in the streets, or now and again glimpsed him in the pages of other books. So I polished him up and put him in a novel, where he would be safe. Or where I would be safe from him—at least for a while.

Now to your question.

Glibly speaking, all speaking subjects are trapped in Nietzsche's "prison-house of language." But who are these glibly speaking speaking subjects who so speak? (Isn't "glib" the perfect modifier with which to characterize that particular linguistic figuration for the materiality of language?) What do they risk (what can they win? what can they lose? and what must they remain blind to?) by reminding us of that slavery? (Perhaps I remain blind to one or another three volume explanation of history I accidentally wrote in this decade or that, while I wasn't looking. . . .) A writer is usually someone who gets a masochistic enjoyment out of being enslaved to that particular house. I used to say very frequently—and have written occasionally—that you only gain some control over language when you become clearly aware of all the things language cannot do. I love language. I love the specificity of English. I love to play with it. And I love the way it plays with me.

TT: So there exists a kind of "love-hate relationship" between you and language?

SRD: With more emphasis on the fact of love. Oh, certainly the hateful side is there. There's always the frustration that comes with the problems I try to solve. But if you don't enjoy trying to solve the problems (that's probably where the masochism lies), you wouldn't have become a writer.

TT: Can you be sadistic rather than masochist about language?

SRD: I don't think it's possible. It's all variations of masochism. With both sex and language, I think the sadists who take themselves too seriously are fooling themselves just a little. Sadism is a matter of desiring the desire of the masochist so strongly that, eventually, that desire becomes sexualized. Sadists almost always go through a masochistic period first, even if it's in early childhood. But it's surprising—and reassuring, at least in sex—how rarely you run into that sort of self-deceived sadist. The vast majority of the ones I've known personally have a pretty clear memory of the earlier stage and a pretty clear understanding of the process of transformation. One of the great crimes of the Frankfurt school, in The Authoritarian Personality, was the writers' uncritical association of real sadism—the social sexual practice—with social blindness, personal cruelty, and political oppression. They thought that sadism—which is, of course, the material social strategies of real people split by a particular formation of desire, some of which practices are responsible and some of which are irresponsible, and, as with any other social group, some of whom follow those practices and some of whom balk at them—was a safe metaphor, something so anomalous, so beyond the cultural pale, that they could pretty well use it anyway they wanted. It was an attempt to make their topic glitter.

But what they did was blind a generation of thinkers to what was actually going on in a whole range of social and sexual life with a whole range of men and women, children and adults, white and black, Jewish and gentile, gay and straight, rulers and ruled, oppressed. They momentarily forgot that sadism is traditionally known as "the perversion of philosophers"—philosophers as they were. And why.

from "science fiction and criticism: the diacritics interview", collected in samuel r. delany: silent interviews

Commentary on "Black Sun" by Rebecca Roanhorse

Black Sun is...a lot to digest. By "a lot" I don't mean that it was packed with filler that distracted from the story itself and should have been cut. It's an apocalyptic high fantasy tale-which alone calls for it to be a bit heavy- with a distinct Indigenous American flavor where a sense of belonging or pride in one's people and their struggles played a big part. For me, as someone three generations removed from my Irish/German ancestors who came over to the US just prior to WWI, and who doesn't assign any particular personal value to ideas of heritage or tradition, that meant I had to slow down and think critically from a cultural standpoint, lest I make any serious erroneous background assumptions. But it was a fascinating, emotional read and not a slog by any means.

This story is also a bit complicated to explain at length without giving blatant spoilers, but what stood out to me was that all three main characters suffered from a sharp sense of alienation from their people, and the consequences of that alienation was a central theme.

There's Xiala, a reckless-but-resourceful alcoholic rogue Teek sailor who's estranged and exiled from her people, which places her at an extremely rough disadvantage because of the bigoted and superstitious ideas that other clans have about the Teek and supposed magical properties of their bones. It's even revealed that she's sold off a finger segment or two to escape a couple of dire rough patches. However, the Teek also have a special relationship with the sea, and as such tend to be valued as navigators or even sea captains, which gives her some wiggle room to make a living, even if she has to sleep with one eye open. It is while playing this role that Xiala comes to meet Serapio, an apparent pilgrim who she has been hired to ferry to Tova, the city that stands as the religious/spiritual center in this world, in time for a holy event marked by an eclipse known as Convergence. Her conversations with him reveal her to be someone who harbors a great deal of homesickness and resentment, and they connect along those feelings of non-belonging.

Serapio's arc is what truly drives the narrative. He was born to a cultist mother who conceived him with a vengeful agenda. She was of the Carrion Crow clan, a people who'd been subject to scapegoating and genocidal action by the ruling priesthood. The cult, the Odohaa, hold that the time is nigh for the rebirth of the Odo Sedoh, or Grandfather Crow, one of the clan's old gods from before the dominion of the Sun. They prophesied that he will return to Tova to avenge the Carrion Crow, toppling the hegemony of the Celestial Tower and killing off the Sun Priest to bring in a new era of divine power. It is immediately clear at the start of the book that Serapio's mother seems to believe that her son is meant to fulfill this prophecy, and for this purpose births him far away from their clan. Between rituals she performs on him that render him intentionally disabled, and the grueling, cruel path of training he must suffer afterward, Serapio experiences alienation not only from his own family and kin, but from any other 'normal' person he meets. As a result, Serapio is character who runs hot and cold between extremes of cruelty and compassion, is extraordinarily patient and stoic most of the time, and finds a sort of fanaticism of his own in the duty that his mother left at his feet. To become what she has charged him to be is his way home, in a manner of speaking.

Lastly, there is Naranpa, the most recently appointed Sun Priest. Although originally from a destitute Dry Earth background growing up in Tova's Coyote Maw--a sort of slum built along narrow cliffside roads and into deep caverns--Naranpa exceeded expectations (and to many, her welcome) when the previous Sun Priest appointed her as his successor. Though not uncommon for Dry Earth peoples to act as servants and dedicants, it was unheard of for anyone not of the wealthier and influential Sky Made clans to ascend to the priesthood, much less be appointed the Sun Priest. Her low stature lineage earns her a great deal of political strife and betrayal from her colleagues in the priesthood, while the long time she'd already spent in the Celestial Tower has estranged her from her birth family. As the story moves along, she becomes increasingly isolated, regretful, and finds that she must ultimately treat nearly everyone she knows as though they may have a knife prepared for her back.

The story ends with incomplete apocalyptic happenings in progress, and is somwhat ambiguous about who survived what, but each character's implicit or explicit role was complete, save Naranpa's. This seems to be by design, however, as there's a sequel being released in April called "Fevered Star". I am very much looking forward to a second helping of these complexity-rich characters and world.