#long live evil meta

[dabblingreturns]

30 hours after finishing Long Live Evil and I'm still reeling over how the charecters deal with goodness.

Spoilers below

I was thinking about how Rae vs Marius, and lia vs Eric approach goodness

Marius goes through life miserable because he can't find anyone flawless enough to live up to his ideal of goodness. So he believes that no one should be saved because they arnt innocent enough to justify risking him loosing control.

Rae on the other hand smashes through the world and consistently finds admirable virtues in people that it wpuld be fair easier for her to abandon. But she can't. Became how could she abandon sisters who love each other, or such an interesting maid, or a guard with a great smile who.she knows has been doomed by the naritive. In the end sje is even able to give kindness to the women whose life she took over. Rae loves freely and frequently looses control, and changes the world in ways that marius inaction never can.

Speaking of snakes who lie in wait (complimentary) there is Lia and Eric. Lia has plans to make the country better. She has plans to rule. She is ready to to "put up with some guy" if it gets her the power she needs to start improving things. And she is kind towards men in a most calculating and cold manner. She isn't kind to the because they deserve her kindness, she is kind to them because her best defense is kindness. She weilds kindness like armor to cover her ambitious.

Then there is Eric, Who is above all else effective in his kindness. Something the other three haven't fully mastered. Eric is kind on a personal level. But more importantly Eric is helping people on a systematic level. Eric is laying infrastructure to get the most venerable people through an apocalypse. Eric is protecting the marginalized. Eric is a one man revolution. Eric is incandescent. Eric is gaudy, and camp, hedonistic, and judgy. But Eric believes that asshole people that he hasn't even met also deserve to be saved and has laid that groundwork. Eric blew into a story about retribution and said, "that's not the way I roll" Eric has died before and he's willing to die again.

Raes kindness could change a story. But Eric's kindness could change a world.

[incorrect-in-other-lands-quotes]

Luke: My kink is doing jock stuff and watching Elliot speed-run the five stages of grief as he realises that he still wants to date me.

[sarahreesbrennan]

The Before Picture

So… TIME OF IRON. The book within the book of LONG LIVE EVIL. Book 1 in the Once and Forever Emperor series. An epic popular fantasy series about gods and monsters, old sins and dark secrets. Starring the most beautiful and doomed lady in the world, the loyal white knight who can defeat anyone in battle, and the ruler whose coming has been prophesied for centuries. A little Game of Thrones, a little Wicked, a good bit of Arthuriana and the Lord of the Rings, and a little whatever you thought when you read ‘epic popular fantasy series.’ It’s not about the love triangle, but its readers discuss the love triangle frequently. You’ve got a vast and varied cast of characters, living on the edge of a dread ravine filled with flame. Wars from within and without. Many shocking deaths. Every reader has a different favourite character. Nobody is expecting a happy ending. And everything is about to change… @vkelleyart did amazing work with the green crystalline throne room as well as the characters, each fulfilling a traditional role yet each with their own energy. If you want to see this story overturned, you could preorder…

[bellshazes]

if I have any unpopular minecraft opinion at all its that I think it should stop updating at some point and probably not that far from now. for all people bitch and moan about insufficient updates minecraft is a miracle in that it’s mostly free of the issues of modern "live service" games - although bedrock particularly has its microtransaction marketplace. but over a decade of free updates is offset by the bald truth that the only reason it gets updates (all of which you can revert since past versions including snapshots are always available!) is to feed the obsession with the game and, circularly, the internet content vortex made by people who love the game/can profit off others' love of it which generates more people who discover and love the game, which is how sales can be made when by and large the player base makes one purchase that nets them years of new content.

I love the new updates, I look forward to them, I've spent money on EA games as an adult so I'm very grateful they come to me for free. but their purpose is to ensure mc stays relevant and selling - itself, merch, spin-off games, etc. I don't envy the devs who are crushed between player entitlement to always more and corporate interests whose large scale preoccupations with brand integrity are more poisonous than any irate yt commenter yelling about how not vanilla 1.56 is going to be. basically I hope it dies before it gets crushed under the weight of cultural and capitalistic sicknesses it already has and that the often intolerable, crass sentimentalism of its fan base allows people to see its ceasing to update as a gift and not taking away what they're owed.

[goodgrammaritan]

"What's a girl like you doing in a narrative dead end like this?" she asked Lia.

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

[thespoonisvictory]

still making excuses for oisin in my head btw just to keep you all updated

[izartn]

One of the most interest things as of Long Live Evil is that Rae is now in the book, has become a character.

For us the readers she always was one of course, but entering the conceit of the narrative, that characters aren't concious they're characters, Rae herself is real. Or was.

It's one of the problems she has from the start with her "other people aren't real" but by the end of LLE she's accepted the world of Eyam as also real, decided to stay and deal with the consequences of her actions with the people she cares about in Eyam.

Paradoxically this marks her acceptance that she's now another character in her favourite book even if Rae doesn't put it in those terms.

Given how the start of Long Live Evil opens with her and Alice discussing the impossibility of the apocalyptic love of the Emperor in real life, and the impossible highs and lows of the fantasy in a story I wonder what this means for Rae herself as a person in the future books.

We've already started with LLE showing us the characters of Time of Iron as people Rae has her own relationship with, now I wonder if Rae will embrace actively what she was starting to do acting as stereotypical evil lady, create her own story/legend. What the Cobra has been doing all along; he did arrive at least like 6 years before Rae so he had time to perfect that balance in making himself a character in a play.

And how will that come into conflict with the fact of the very real human heart she has.

We saw that kind of division a bit already but I bet whatever happens in book 2 will pull even more harshly on this, especially because now Key will be acting as Emperor actively, not as a minor secondary (as far as Rae was willing to acknowledge we all knew he was there to stay) and with Rae as his queen.

Really that last scene was very, "and now we truly start the show!" in vibes. Long live evil indeed.

[spacetravels]

I am insane abt noah too… I’d love to know some of your hcs or thoughts or anything you have in that doc you’ve written, if you don’t mind sharing 💓

[insert sickos meme]

YEAH i think in my meta i just wrote too much about how the it lives series is like. the heart of it is mc & the marshall twins. i'll die on that hill. and also ofc the entirety of it lives being about breaking cycles. & like ofc bias here as a noah apologist but here have some paraphrased bullets frm my essay LOL I COULD TALK ABOUT THIS ALL DAY:

Essentially my thesis is like. The Marshall twins: Noah was Jane's whole world and he’ll always feel guilty that he couldn’t save her. MC’s her best friend and the love they had for each other was strong and real and MC will always feel guilt and blame for her her death.It’s a fucked up little circle of grief and blame because they’re both like: Why didn’t I stop this/Why didn’t I save her/Why was it not me/This is my fault

the way the horror genre is often about loss… like the horror of It Lives lies in how painful grief is, and exploring how grief can manifest itself and pain breeding pain and stuff. and it's so different across the book 1 cast but i think noah and mc are so similar in just. they blame themselves and carry jane's death the hardest... and uhhh

the fact they’re in their senior year. And how after this they’re “grown ups” and they have to go to college or get jobs or both. And how redfield/jane represents the youth they lost and will never have again. And red/jane bringing the gang all back for one last game because there’d be no games after that--all of jane’s friends will have to grow up. All of jane’s friends will become adults and she’ll be left behind in this terrible limbo state where she’ll never get to move on the way everyone else could. Like they have to grow up, they can’t stop and stay and play games in the woods like they used to anymore because then they'd never let go of what happened to them. And the end scene where everyone, if they're strong, can declare they're not scared--that's it. They've learned they can let go.

And it aches and it aches so much in the finale when you realize that this happens for everyone EXCEPT MC and Noah. everyone grows up. They played together. They finish the game. They can move on. Their arcs are wonderfully done. But these two people literally don't have the option of that!

so sacrifice MC and Noah have that choice to make that like. They both can’t make it out alive by this point, and they have to choose (assuming like. you get the choice lol the tragedy of noah flying off the handle and killing mc is another thing entirely re: nerve mechanic and whatnot)

And like definitely up to player perception and completely fair at this point if ppl make their choice becuz Fuck Noah Marshall or other reasons to save MC lol no judgement but my thoughts on like. the choice is like.

MC dies, because MC thinks Noah has to live. Despite it all and no matter what consequences he has to face, Noah Marshall has to keep being alive because he’s spent his entire youth stuck in a limbo state of wanting to disappear and be gone and he can’t even have the grace of dying now. He has to live.

Noah dies, because Noah thinks MC has to live, because MC saved him. He’s made peace with his death a long time ago, and this was his fault. MC has been nothing but grounded and carries in them the optimism and belief that grief does not end in pain, but you carry it with you, and you live. MC has to live for the person who can’t

anywyays i'm like. i'm TOTALLY fine and having a NORMAL one

[laozubun]

i think wei wuxian had initially come to nightless city with genuine desire to settle things in a non violent manner. granted with his attitude, they would have likely took offense. but this-- the fact jgs had lied about his promise. this made him change his mind. i think even on hhis way there it was pretty hopeless, but he sat there quietly up until it was clear the sects sought to kill the wens anyway.

like yeah wei wuxian is so abrasive in his approach. but he's just lost two of his friends. he, them, the other wens were lied to. the wens he saved were elderly, women, and children. they were innocent people. plus, even though he did lose control...jinzixun was the one who ambushed wei wuxian.

and of course to make matters worse-- they shot him. again...wei wuxian did act quite rashly, and killed the boy by throwing the arrow back. but with all the arguments here about self defense and justification. it really isn't so unfair for him to respond in kind. was it cruel to kill him? sure, but the sects have spit this "tooth for a tooth" nonsense. and they've made it clear now that-- no matter what wei wuxian does, it'll never be allowed. anyone can attack him, and even kill him, but the moment he defends himself he's the demon.

[veganineden]

On the Evolution of “Happily Ever After” and Why “Nothing Lasts Forever”

A reflection inspired by Good Omens 2

One of my favorite Tumblr posts on the second season of Good Omens 2 was actually not about the series at all, but our reaction to it, primarily the ending. @zehwulf wrote, “I think a lot of us—myself included—got a little too comfortable with assuming [Aziraphale and Crowley would] work on their issues right away post-Armageddon.” We did the work for them through meta, fanfiction, fanart, and building a plethora of headcanons. Who among us AO3-surfing fans didn’t read and love Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm?

In the 4 long years since season one was released, we did more than seek to understand and repair rifts between two fictional beings: we were forced to reckon with ourselves too. We faced a global pandemic, suffered traumatizing losses and isolation, and were forced to really and truly look into the face of our atrocities-ridden and capitalistic world. The mainstream rise of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice work, and our participation in this work, showed us that the systems in place were built to oppress and harm most of us, and they are. 

So, what does this have to do with the evolution of “happily ever after”? 

My friend put it best in a conversation we had following the season finale, when she pointed out a shift in media focus. The “happy end” in old stories about wars and kingdoms used to be “we killed the evil old king and put a noble young king in his place and now citizens can live in peace” and we’re transitioning into a period of “we tore down the whole fucking monarchy.” 

If we look at season one, written to follow the beats of a love story, it comforted us by offering a pretty traditional happy ending pattern: you get your fancy dinner with your special someone, the romantic music plays, and you have a place to call your own. Season one’s finale provided a temporary freedom for Aziraphale and Crowley, the “breathing room,” but it didn't solve the problem that was Heaven and Hell, or the agendas belonging to those systems of oppression. 

Is it good enough to keep our heads down, pretend the bad stuff isn’t happening, and live our own personal happy endings until we die? Moral quandaries aside, if you don't die (or if you care about the generations after you), then, like Aziraphale said, it “can’t last forever.” There’s a clear unpleasant end to the “happily ever after” that’s based on ignoring our problems– it’s the destruction of our relationships, and humanity. 

Ineffable Bureaucracy can go off into the stars because they do not care about humanity. 

You know who does?

Aziraphale. 

And Aziraphale knows that Crowley cares about humanity too. (He knows because Crowley was the one who proposed sabotaging Armageddon in the first place, who only invited him to the stars when he thought all was lost, because Crowley would save humanity if he thought it was possible, and Aziraphale knows Crowley has survived losing Everything before, and he will do all in his power so that Crowley does not need to experience that again.) 

In season one and two, we see how much they care about humanity, beyond their orders, to the point The Systems begin to frown at them. Aziraphale hears Crowley’s offer to run away together in the final episode of season two, to leave Earth behind, and just like the first time that offer was made in season one, he declines. He knows choosing only “us” is not a choice either of them can live with for the rest of eternity.

I believe season 3 will provide an opportunity to “dismantle the system,” but I don’t know how it will play out. I worry that Aziraphale has put himself in the now-dead trope of the “young noble king.” (I wish Crowley had told him why Gabriel was dismissed from his duties.) I worry that he would martyr himself as a sole agent for change. I worry that he doesn’t actually know how to dismantle anything by himself: because you can’t. He needs Crowley. He DOES. He needs Crowley, and Muriel, and other angels and demons and humans without fixed mindsets to help him. Only by learning to listen and making room at the table for all can they (and we) move past personal satisfaction to collective liberation. 

Crowley was right when he said that Aziraphale had discovered his “civic obligations.”

So, I think we will get our modern-day happy ending– and it’s going to involve a lot of pain and discomfort, communication, healing and teamwork– and in the end, it’ll all be okay. There will be a time for rest and a time for “us.” 

And most likely a cottage. 

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

 - Maya Angelou

Support the SAG-AFTRA strike and other unions. Trust @neil-gaiman. Register to vote if you haven’t yet. Hold yourself and others accountable with compassion. Read books. Keep doing the work. Rest. Then watch Good Omens 2 again.  

[powdermelonkeg]

just saw ur gale/mystra analysis post. im new to the game and dnd lore and honestly… ur take on their relationship feels like the most natural/compelling one??? esp since its all too easy to simplify topics that have many facets and nuance….

thanks for sharing i love analysis and reading people’s takes on narratives : D

My pleasure! (Bee from the future here: congrats, you spawned another meta!)

I love complicated characters, WAY more than I like a clear cut-and-dry case. Flaws, to me, are what make a character compelling and lead to interesting stories about them with choices that can get them into situations. I'm both writing a fanfic and running a campaign where I'm playing as Gale, and in the interest of portraying him properly and in-character, I've gone into SUCH a deep dive into all the decisions and facts that make him him.

It helps to, y'know, also be in love with the fictional wizard, but I digress

The thing about Baldur's Gate 3 is that no character in there is perfect. I've seen a couple analyses about the theme of continuing cycles of abuse vs breaking out of them, but in my mind, in terms of the characters themselves, it goes like this:

The origin characters have just come out of the lowest situation of their lives (Lae'zel being the exception; being tadpoled is a gith's worst nightmare. You're seeing that lowest situation in real time).

Not the lowest point, mind. Gale's lowest was probably the day after he got the Orb. Wyll's was probably the day his father cast him out. Karlach's was the day she lost her heart. But the lowest, accepted normal for them is what they've just left.

They're then thrown out of their depth and forced to rely on you to live. That's #1 priority: living. We get the extremes of these characters before we get their nuances, because they're quite literally at their breaking points.

Then once we get to know them, we see their wants, their hopes, their fears, as they open up to us. Every companion's story is at their own pace, but they all have a moment where they ping-pong between despondency and desire. Sometimes that desire is what we know isn't good for them, like Shadowheart wanting to be a Dark Justiciar. Sometimes that despondency is only for a flicker, like Astarion's realization that he's condemned 7000 people to a half-life of tortured spawnhood for as long as he's been a vampire.

Romance lets us crack all that open more, because if you pursue a romantic partner, they see you as their closest confidant. They WANT to trust you, so they're more willing to explain how they see the world and what decisions they want to chase.

And then their endings. Those often get simplified as good/bad, continuing the cycle vs breaking away from it. But how is Duke Wyll on the same platform as Ascended Astarion? He's not evil, he's not even entirely unhappy. He might even have broken out of his abusive cycle with Mizora, if you played your cards right. And Ascended Astarion is overjoyed, even if he is remarkably more cold.

I think that the endings are less a dichotomy of "this is good for them" vs "this is bad for them," and more one of "bringing out their best traits" vs "bringing out their worst."

Wyll's worst trait is being willing to sacrifice his own wants for whatever people desire of him. His best is standing for what he believes in and ensuring people are safe. Duke Wyll leans into that necessity to turn the other cheek in the name of people who count on him, while the Blade of Avernus has seized that moral compass of his and forged it out of mithral.

Shadowheart's worst trait is blind obedience at the cost of her individuality, while her best is her desire to be kind to things that don't deserve to be hurt. Mother Superior Shadowheart's whole life is defined by Shar. Selûnite Shadowheart's life is defined by her hospitality, especially towards animals.

Karlach's worst trait is how willing she is to accept that things are (to quote her) fucked, letting despair override hope. Her best is her durability in the face of horror. Exploded Karlach would rather die than try to work out a solution in the Hells, because she's terrified of facing Zariel alone. Mindflayer Karlach has accepted her fate and decides to give up her heart and soul to go out a hero, losing who she is. Fury of Avernus Karlach is willing to keep fighting for a solution, and by the time the epilogue happens, she's got her sights set on one.

Astarion's worst trait is his desire for power over people. His best trait is using the tools he has to his advantage. Ascended Astarion has let his powerhungry nature and paranoia lead all of his decisions, with his sights set on dominating mankind. Spawn Astarion has embraced what he is, and carved out a life for himself where he can do as he pleases.

Lae'zel's worst trait is her blind fanaticism, while her best trait is her individual dedication, making her loyalty a marriage of the two. Ascended Lae'zel is a meal for the lich queen, turning a blind eye to all Vlaakith's tried to do to her and literally being consumed by her fervor. Champion of Orpheus Lae'zel has turned her loyalty into something productive for diplomacy. Faerûnian Lae'zel has seized her individuality by the throat and decided her own future.

And then Gale. Gale's worst traits are his hubris and, paradoxically, his low self worth. His best traits are his creativity and wonder for the world. God Gale is the embodiment of ambition, having burned away all but that in pursuit of perfection. Exploded Gale has let his remorse blot out all hope for a redemption in which he does not die, because he thinks he's earned it. Professor Gale leads his life by embracing the school of Illusion and letting his creativity thrive, teaching others to do the same. House Husband Gale has multiple creative projects he's working on, and Adventurer Gale is always finding new sights to see and wanting to share them with you.

There are arguments to be made on which ending the origins are happiest in, certainly, or which one benefits them the most, but each ending represents the extreme of a facet they possess.

So with all that, there's a sort of malleable method to figuring out the ins and outs of a character.

You take their endings—all of them, all variables they can have—and reverse-engineer the flaws and details they carry. Then you start to notice how those work into their approvals for minor things: Astarion approving of your taking of the Blood of Lathander, or Shadowheart approving of standing up for Arabella. Getting a list of approvals and disapprovals is helpful, but having those endings on hand tells you why they react like that to a majority of their decisions.

You take their romance-route explanations of how they act, and apply those to earlier decisions. Astarion's confession to manipulating you and Araj-prompted admittance to using himself as a tool brings to light how he reacts to your decisions, regardless of his actual opinions on them. Wyll's fairytale romance and love of poetic adages speaks to his idealistic nature, and why he takes a sometimes-blinded approach to decisions in which the "right" answer isn't always the smart one.

You take their beginning reactions to stress and use that to measure how future decisions impact them. Lae'zel locks down and gets snappy when she's scared, while Gale immediately turns to diplomacy. Shadowheart has gallows humor, while Wyll turns to quiet acceptance. If they break from these and seem even worse, you know the situation is more dire in their minds than having seven days to live.

And then you factor in all their fun facts and dialogue choices and backstories.

A wizard falls in love with a goddess and her magic, attempts to retrieve a piece of her power for her, is scorned for his attempt and is cursed to die.

Give that backstory to a Tav. Look at how it changes.

A chaotic good wizard fell in love with a goddess, thought retrieving a piece of power for her would be a showy bouquet of love, and was punished for not thinking things through.

A lawful evil wizard fell in love with a goddess's power, snatched the most precious thing she owned, tried to use it to barter his way through to the secrets she kept, and was given a swift retribution.

Same backstory. Same class, same act, same goddess. Wildly different connotations. Wildly different conclusions as to who is in the wrong.

If you take all there is to Gale, all that the game shows us makes up his character, and apply it to this backstory, you get what really happened:

A wizard, enamored with magic, fell in love with a goddess. His desires led him to want more than she was willing to give. In his well-buried fear of inadequacy, he concluded that the reason she wouldn't indulge his ambitions was because he just hadn't proven himself worthy enough. So he tried to prove himself, but he lacked the context for what he was proving himself with. And the goddess, seeing a weapon that had killed her predecessor, saw this ambitious wizard as losing his way and coming for her just like the weapon's creator had. She was angry, she withdrew his link to her, and he didn't know why. So he drew the conclusion that she took his powers to punish him, and let that encompass his fall from grace.

Was he wrong to reach for what was out there?

If you knew that the answers to everything you cared about were not only known, but kept by someone you loved—someone who adored you—what would you do to ask to see them? What if your curiosities were if there were other planets with life out there, or how dark matter worked, or whether or not we could one day travel in the stars? What if it was the potential cure to an illness that's little-understood, or the way to make a program you dreamt up, or the scope of the true limits of your artistic talents? Would your answer change?

Was she wrong to cut him off?

If you were once hurt, and the person you loved—the person who adored you—brought the thing that caused it to your door, believing you'd want it, how would you react to seeing it? What if that thing was someone you thought you'd broken contact with, like a friend or family member you'd been trying to avoid? Would your answer change?

That's the sort of scope that needs to be applied to this, on both sides. You have to take the perspectives of each party, and apply two analogies instead of one.

Gale saw the vastness of the universe, untold wonders, the solution to every question he could ever dream up, and saw Mystra as withholding this from him because she thought he just wasn't worthy enough. To claim Mystra knew his perspective does her a disservice.

Mystra saw a cruel weapon she thought long gone, in the hands of someone who could use it, brought right to her, and thought Gale was willingly following the path of Karsus. To claim Gale knew her perspective does him a disservice.

Should Gale have researched his prize more, so he knew just what he was obtaining? Should he have kept his hands off a cursed book that would devour him? Of course he should have.

Should he have given up on chasing his dreams?

Should Mystra have understood that Gale's pursuit of power was nothing like Karsus'? Should she have communicated when she was angry instead of giving the cold shoulder? Of course she should have.

Should she have given him the benefit of the doubt?

That's the root of their falling out. That's what leads to hurt being inflicted. Understandable, human reactions to the situations they perceive. Unhealthy, unwise choices made afterwards.

You work backwards from this to figure out their dynamic as Chosen and goddess. You work forward from this to understand more of where Gale and Mystra are during the events of Baldur's Gate 3. Gale reached too high, and understands this. His goddess hates him, and he regrets this. Mystra isolated Gale, and understands this. Her Chosen wants redemption, and she wants to make it happen.

Just like we took Gale's character into account, we also have to take Mystra's.

A goddess is faced with a problem. She uses someone who's desperate for approval to solve it, by telling him to kill himself.

An evil goddess is faced with a threat to her reign. She sees someone who's unfailingly loyal and hates himself, and elects to have him tear himself apart rather than do anything about it.

A good goddess is terrified of the future. She sees someone who tried to hurt her, who's going to die anyways, and tells him to use it to save the world.

Same story. Same act, same power, same pawn. Different character. Different perspective. Different outlook on whether or not this is the right thing to do.

Mystra has died, multiple times, to people trying to stake claim to her domain. Someone appears with the very thing that could do it again, right as she's regained her stability.

She does not see mortals the way mortals do. She is timeless. She is eternal. She has a duty to protect billions of people, and one person lost to protect that number is more than worth the sacrifice.

People like to bring up the Seven Sisters as proof of Mystra's cruelty. For those unaware, Mystra asked permission to, then possessed, a woman, used her to court a man (with dubious consent from the woman), and bore seven children, all of whom were capable of bearing Mystra's power as Chosen without dying. The woman she possessed was killed in the process (reduced to no more than a husk, then slain by her now-husband, hoping to end her suffering), and the husband was horrified by the whole story.

Mystra needed Chosen in order to restore herself in the event that she was killed again, to prevent magic as a whole from collapsing and wreaking havoc on the mortal realm, like it had in the few seconds Mystryl had been dead. Elminster, Khelben Blackstaff, and the Seven Sisters contributed to this. The more Chosen she has, the better; what happens if Elminster dies? She can't afford to have all her eggs in one basket.

Mystra has Volo (yeah, that Volo) as a Weave Anchor, imparted with a portion of her power to prevent the Weave from shredding itself to pieces in her absence. All Chosen of Mystra are Weave Anchors by nature. The creation of Weave Anchors was mandated by Ao, the Overgod, and Chosen are the best way to make sure those anchors aren't drained by ambitious people hoping for godlike power. Chosen can, and will, defend themselves, unlike static locations (which Mystra also has). The anchors are why the Weave wasn't completely obliterated during Mystra's last death, when the Spellplague rose up, because they stabilized the Weave around them.

Everything Mystra does is in the name of the big picture, to prevent a catastrophe like the fall of Netheril from happening again. Her restriction of magic, her numerous Chosen, her creation of Weave Anchors, her destruction of those who would claim her power, it's all in the name of the stability she's been charged with. Dornal Silverhand's grief and Elué Silverhand's death, while regrettable, were worth it to bring seven more anchors into existence to save all of the Material.

So someone appears with the Crown of Karsus, potentially powerful enough to try to kill the other gods in the name of the Dead Three. She can't risk being a target of them. She can't risk the destruction of magic again.

Gale is going to die. He lives in fear. He begs for forgiveness.

In Mystra's eyes, she's offering him the best outcome. She'll let him die in service to her, to save Faerûn, and she'll forgive him. He's going to die anyways, and if he does this, she'll give him everything (she thinks) he could ever want in her realm. She's asking him to do what (she thinks) is the right thing.

"She would consider what she considers to be forgiveness."

Notably, she leaves the decision in his hands. She doesn't have Elminster lead him to the Nether Brain. She doesn't activate him as soon as he's there. When he lives yet, she doesn't revoke the charm that keeps him stable. And when he declines, when he lets it go and starts pursuing Karsus' path, she doesn't smite him on the spot.

She is (she thinks) being incredibly patient. If Gale is going to try to be Karsus II, she's ready for him. If he decides to walk off and keep the Orb, he's dug his own grave in the Fugue Plane (those who don't have a god to claim them roam endlessly as husks and form a wall of bodies around the City of Judgement).

From her perspective, she's not being unreasonable. But from the perspective of a mortal, she absolutely is.

"Now, I have a question for thee: what is the worth of a single mortal's life?"

This is a question she cannot answer properly.

I think a lot of characterization is lost whenever someone paints one of them as being totally in the right. But I also think you have to be invested in them as characters to want to see that characterization. If you want to write about Mystra, you have to try to get into her head, analyze the decisions she made, figure out why she thinks she was right, and follow the pattern.

Gale's sacrifice is a very predictable thing for her to ask for.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Live Nation/Ticketmaster is buying Congress

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THURSDAY (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. Monopolies are intrinsically destabilizing and inevitably implode…eventually. Guessing which of the loathesome monopolies that make us all miserable will be the first domino is a hard call, but Ticketmaster is definitely high on my list.

It's not that event tickets are the most consequential aspect of our lives. The monopolies over pharma, fuel, finance, tech, and even beer are all more important to our day-to-day. But while Ticketmaster – and its many ramified tentacles, like Live Nation – may not be the most destructive monopoly in our world, but it pisses off people with giant megaphones and armies of rabid fans.

It's been a minute since Ticketmaster was last in the news, so let's recap. Ticketmaster bought out most of its ticketing rivals, then merged with Live Nation, the country's largest concert promoter, and bought out many of the country's largest music, stage and sports venues. They used this iron grip on the entire supply chain for performances and events to pile innumerable junk fees on every ticket sold, while drastically eroding the wages of the creative workers they nominally represented. They created a secret secondary market for tickets and worked with ticket-touts to help them run bots that bought every ticket within an instant of the opening of ticket sales, then ran an auction marketplace that made them gigantic fees on every re-sold ticket – fees the performers were not entitled to share in.

The Ticketmaster/Live Nation/venue octopus is nearly impossible to escape. Independent venues can't book Live Nation acts unless they use Ticketmaster for their tickets. Acts can't get into the large venues owned by Ticketmaster unless they sign up to have Live Nation book their tour. And when Ticketmaster buys a venue, it creams off the most successful acts, starving competing venues of blockbuster shows. They also illegally colluded with their vendors to jack up the price of concerts across the board:

https://pascrell.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ful.pdf

When Rebecca Giblin and I were writing Chokepoint Capitalism, our book about how tech and entertainment monopolies impoverish all kinds of creative workers, we were able to get insiders to go on record about every kind of monopoly, from the labels to Spotify, Kindle to the Big Five publishers and the Google-Meta ad-tech duopoly. The only exception was Ticketmaster/Live Nation: everyone involved in live performance – performers, bookers, club owners – was palpably terrified about speaking out on the record about the conglomerate:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

No wonder. The company has a long and notorious history of using its market power to ruin anyone who challenges it. Remember Pearl Jam?

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/

But anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. Not only is Ticketmaster a rapacious, vindictive monopolist – it's also an incompetent monopolist, whose IT systems are optimized for rent-extraction first, with ticket sales as a distant afterthought. This is bad no matter which artist it effects, but when Ticketmaster totally, utterly fucked up Taylor Swift's first post-lockdown tour, they incurred the wrath of the Swifties:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2022/11/21/23471763/taylor-swift-ticketmaster-monopoly

All of which explains why I've always given good odds that Ticketmaster would be first up against the wall come the antitrust revolution. It may not be the most destructive monopolist, but it is absurdly evil, and the people who hate it most are the most famous and beloved artists in the country.

For a while, it looked like I was right. Ticketmaster's colossal Taylor Swift fuckup prompted Senator Amy Klobuchar – a leading antitrust crusader – to hold hearings on the company's conduct, and led to the introduction of a raft of bills to rein in predatory ticketing practices. But as David Dayen writes for The American Prospect, Ticketmaster/Live Nation is spreading a fortune around on the Hill, hiring a deep bench of ex-Congressmen and ex-senior staffers (including Klobuchar's former chief of staff) and they've found a way to create the appearance of justice without having to suffer any consequences for their decades-long campaign of fraud and abuse:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-04-30-live-nation-strikes-up-band-washington/

Dayen opens his article with the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which is always bracketed by a week's worth of lavish parties for Congress and hill staffers. One of the fanciest of these parties was thrown by Axios – and sponsored by Live Nation, with a performance by Jelly Roll (whose touring contract is owned by Live Nation). Attendees at the Axios/Live Nation event were bombarded with messages about the essential goodness of Live Nation (they were even printed on the cocktail napkins) and exhortations to support the Fans First Act, co-sponsored by Klobuchar and Sen John Cornyn (R-TX):

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/arts/music/fans-first-act-ticket-bill.html

Ticketmaster/Live Nation loves the Fans First Act, because – unlike other bills – it focuses primarily on the secondary market for tickets, and its main measure is a requirement for ticketing companies to disclose their junk fees upfront. Neither of these represents a major challenge to Ticketmaster/Live Nation's control over the market, which gives it the ability to slash performers' wages while jacking up prices for fans.

Fans First represents the triumph of Ticketmaster/Live Nation's media strategy, which is to blame the entire problem on bottom-feeding ticket-touts (who are mostly scum!) instead of on the single monopoly that controls the entire industry and can't stop committing financial crimes.

Axios isn't Live Nation's only partner in selling this distraction tactic. Over the past five years, the company has flushed gigantic sums of money through Washington. Its lobbying spend rose from $240k in 2018 to $1.1m in 2022, and $2.38m in 2023:

https://thehill.com/business/4431886-live-nation-doubled-lobbying-spending-to-2-4m-in-2023-amid-antitrust-threat/

The company has 37 paid lobbyists selling Congress on its behalf. 25 of them are former congressional staffers. Two are former Congressmen: Ed Whitfield (R-KY), a 21 year veteran of the House, and Mark Pryor (D-AR), a two-term senator:

https://www.bhfs.com/people/attorneys/p-s/mark-pryor

But perhaps the most galling celebrant in this lavish hymn to Citizen United is Jonathan Becker, Amy Klobuchar's former chief of staff, who jumped ship to lobby Congress on behalf of monopolists like Live Nation, who paid him $120k last year to sell their story to the Hill:

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/lobbyists?cycle=2023&id=D000053134

Not everyone hates Fans First: it's been endorsed by the Nix the Tix coalition, largely on the strength of its regulation of secondary ticket sales. But the largest secondary seller in America by far is Live Nation itself, with a $4.5b market in reselling the tickets it sold in the first place. Fans First shifts focus from this sleazy self-dealing to competitors like Stubhub.

Fans First can be seen as an opening salvo in the long war against Ticketmaster/Live Nation. But compared to more muscular bills – like Klobuchar's stalled-out Unlock Ticketing Markets Act, it's pretty weaksauce. The Unlocking act will "prevent exclusive contracts between ticketing services and venues" – hitting Ticketmaster/Live Nation where it hurts, right in the bank-account:

https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/4/following-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing-klobuchar-blumenthal-introduce-legislation-to-increase-competition-in-live-event-ticketing-markets

It's not all gloom. Dayen reports that Ticketmaster's active lobbying in favor of Fans First has made many in Congress more skeptical of the bill, not less. And Congress isn't the only – or even the best – way to smash Ticketmaster's criminal empire. That's something the DoJ's antitrust division could power through with a lot less exposure to the legalized bribery that dominates Congress.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/30/nix-fix-the-tix/#something-must-be-done-there-we-did-something

Image: Matt Biddulph (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mbiddulph/13904063945/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

--

Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[literarybutconditional]

Okay but seriously. This is why I sometimes get lost in the fanfiction black hole because why on Earth not read a new flavor of my favorite ship?

This book is so meta and brilliant.

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

[sarahreesbrennan]

Publishers Weekly Review LONG LIVE EVIL

Today the print edition of Publishers’ Weekly is out and with it their kind review of LONG LIVE EVIL. Delighted to hear I hook readers from the first page and that my adult debut is spellbinding. Long Live Evil INDEED. 😈 More detail below… ‘Brennan (In Other Lands) hooks readers from page one of her spellbinding adult debut. Rae, who has cancer, delights in having her sister Alice read from their favorite fantasy series, Time of Iron, in her hospital bed. One night, she meets a mysterious woman who offers her a cure. All Rae has to do to be cancer-free is enter the books and pluck the Flower of Life and Death. But if she fails, she’ll die in her earthly body and wind up trapped in the story forever. Rae takes the deal and is transported into Time of Iron—in the role of villainess Rahela Domitia. Arriving in medias res, she must evade execution or risk dying in both worlds. Brennan has a lot of infectious fun with her meta conceit, and as Rae interferes with the plot she knows so well, the stakes ratchet up and the story takes some unexpected turns. Readers won’t be able to turn the pages fast enough.’

[dabblingreturns]

Sorry guys.....

I think im gonna be on a "make long live evil fandom happen"

I think it needs to happen.....

I'm gonna spam, I'm gonna write Meta

Im gonna listen to Playlists mostly made out of musicals

I'm also gonna highly encourage anyone who wants to come along to do so

[my-pjo-stuff]

*YAPPING AHEAD, THIS IS LONG*

As someone who has circled through a LOT of fandoms, you know what differentiates the PJO fandom from most of the others? Their raging hatred for what normally would be a very popular character archetype. "Who's that character archetype then" you ask? The answer is Luke Castellan. Unirnonically, I'm complety straight with this.

Luke Castellan is one of the most popular character archetypes in most other fandoms I am/were in.

Now before I get further into this meta, we should establish what archetype Luke actually is and what the criteria are. To me, Luke is the classical Sympathetic Fallen Hero. Someone who only wanted what's best at the end of the day who was wronged by an unjust system, and pushed into straight-up villainy and evil deeds in a desperate attempt for revenge or justice. Oftentimes that push happened by him joining up with a larger, more evil figure who manipulated his hatred into serving this larger, evil goal. Generally also has some deep-rooted trauma in the form of a DARK backstory.

Like literally, that guy is TEXTBOOK. He checks all the boxes. -Someone who only wanted what's best at the end of the day

Check. His goal was a "golden age" for demigods, a future where they would no longer have to die during quests or would be abandoned by their godly parents.

-and pushed into straight-up villainy and evil deeds in a desperate attempt for revenge or justice.

Check. Luke wanted both revenge and justice, which led him to form the Titan Army and all the bad stuff he did. Some include attempting to kill Percy multiple times and leading attacks on camp. The obvious superiority the gods would have over a demigod army led to Luke allying himself with Kronos and other evil forces. (Thus the "desperate" part)

-Oftentimes that push happened by him joining up with a larger, more evil figure who manipulated his hatred into serving this larger, evil goal.

Check. On multiple occasions has it been mentioned that Kronos punished and pressured Luke, using fear tactics to get him to do what he wanted. I mean- Kronos himself said that he would have preferred Percy because he "did things easier" referring to taking the CoA ("I had to pressure Luke in many ways(.....)")

-Generally also has some deep-rooted trauma in the form of a DARK backstory.

Check. His mother went insane when he was still an infant. Hermes practically abandoned them, leaving Luke to be raised by his mentally unstable mother having episodes that scarred him so bad he hid in closets. He proceeded to run away at 9, living on the streets completely alone before meeting Thalia. From then on he went around with her having to deal with monsters. Hal happened, they met Annabeth and Luke started to get parentified/parentified himself. He proceeded to watch Thalia die as he attempted to get to camp at 14. At the same age he had his quest, which he failed and got himself a nasty scar. Luke proceeded to get no discernable mental help or sufficient support to deal with the mental strain resulting from that. Instead, he was put into a caretaker role for younger children not only showing him the results of the system's neglect first hand but also effectivley robbing him of any semblance of a childhood. Once Kronos got to him he continued to the plagued by nightmares.

All that being said, we now established that Luke in fact is a textbook example of what I call the Sympathetic Fallen Hero. (SFL for short from now on) Now onto my point that the other fandoms generally really love the SFL archetype that Luke is. That I will do with examples. Before I list these examples, a short disclaimer. I HEAVILY shortened and abridged the plot and storylines on here as to not make this post overly long. I definitely recommend checking each of these media/characters out for yourself.

Anyway, here we go : STAR WARS :

A big part of the fandom LOVE Anankin/Darth Vader whom they view as a SFH. (Even though him not really being a SFL in the way that he checks all the boxes. But I'm going with the majority fandom view here so ig Vaderkin counts. For those who want, I made a post on my main comparing him to Luke here and how Luke is what the star wars fandom pretends Vader is.)

MY HERO ACADEMIA/BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA:

I want to talk the Villain Deku AU. Which is basically just an evil version of the MC who also checks all the SFH boces. The AU is hugely popular in the fandom with tons of fanart, animatics, cosplays and even a fan song. Honorable mention to the main anatonigst from the League of Villains, but especially Shigaraki and Dabi. They may not check ALL SFH boxes but an overwhelming majority. They are very popular with the fandom and generally regarded very kindly. Another honorable mention goes out to Stain. Also doesn't check ALL the SFH boxes, but most, and is also regarded generally positivley by the fandom.

THE PROMISED NEVERLAND

Norman, one of the main trio, spends a good part of the later manga seperated and leading his own resistance group against the main bad guy race (of monsters eating human brains- long story but I recommend the manga(don't watch s2 of the anime tho, it's basically the pjo movies for the manga)). Later on it is revealed that the main bad race isn't pure evil. Norman however got to the point where he wanted to commit a straight-up genocide against the race. Women, children, and elderly included. Bit of an outlier for a SFH, since he has no higher figure manipulating him into wanting to commit that genocide- but I'll let it slide. I did use the words "oftentimes" and "generally"- he also get's "redeemed" at the end/stopped from committing said genocide. Again the fandom regards him positively, even having him as a fan favorite.

NARUTO CLASSIC/NARUTO SHIPPUDEN

..... I mean most of the villains are SFH in that show. To the point where we would be here ages if I wanted to list them all. The two main examples most popular with the fandom tho would be Pain and Sasuke. Pain is a main villain whose home got destroyed, partially because of the MC's own home village. He watched his own parents die, and later lost one of his two best friends which finally pushed him over the edge (among others). Pain is also an outlier in terms of a SFH since he didn't have a major bad guy to manipulate him, instead leading his own evil (basically) terrorist cell. His goal was to achieve world peace by harnessing an ancient power, wanting others to suffer as much as he did so they recognize the value of peace. He killed a BUNCH of people. Pain did later revive a good chunk at the price of his own life however post redemption by the MC. Sasuke is the secondary MC and rival of the protagonist. Honestly he has so much going on I couldn't possibly mention it all. Basics are that his family got killed by his own brother due to difficult politics, he was the only survivor. His drive for revenge against his older brother caused him to join up with the main bad guy of Naruto Classic who rly only wanted him as a vessel (flashbacks much). Sasuke betrays his home for the bad guy to get the power he needs to take revenge. All that was stoked by the main bad guy and his comments. More plot happens, turns out the brother rly wasn't entierly bad and was also just used by other higher powers. Sasuke switches sides again and kills OG bad guy and joins up with Pain's previously mentioned terrorist group. The main goal from there is to destroy his home village who used his brother. He was not shy to kill ppl at that point, and was also basically ready to just commit a genocide on his own home. More plot happens, he get's redeemed eventually. Again in both cases the two are CRAZY popular with the fandom.

PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS

I talked about this once already on here, but the fandom seems to LOVE AUs where dark!Percy just opts to straight up overthrow Olympus. I don't think i have to elaborate more on that tbh, but for those that are interested: Here's the post I made about the fandom's hypocrisy concerning dark!Percy and Luke.

And those were only 5 examples, there are many more SFL examples LOVED by the fandom I haven't mentioned here. I'm sure of that.

Seeing this pattern really makes me wonder why Luke seems to be so despised. Logic would dictate him to be rather popular.

My personal theory ? It's a mix of a few factors. Those being : A) The fandom over-sympathizes with Percy Jackson

Percy is easily the most popular character in the fandom. He is the MC afterall. The fandom tends to take his side no matter what, without properly and honestly empathizing with his enemies. It's similar to having rose tinted glasses with a relative or friend. You take their side no matter what- not even wanting to hear out the other side. The fandom seems to have an inherent bias towards Percy, those nice to Percy are viewed positivley. Those having more negative interactions (,even if the interaction is relatively low on the nagtive scale, like a character being critical of Percy for example,) are generally viewed more negativley.

B) The First Person POV of the books and the average age of the fans when they first read the books.

This relates to the first factor in the way that the very Percy-centric set up of the fandom AND the books influence the fandom's perception of characters. The books where Luke appears in are all in Percy's POV. Luke as a character in very complex and needs a lot of empathy and reading between the lines to properly understand and analyze. The books being in Percy's POV hurt Luke in the way that Percy's opinion of Luke is omnipresent with him. Any First Person POV is inherently unreliable, thus Luke often gets presented as a rather one-dimensional evil since that's what Percy views him as for most the book. Luke lacks his own POV, meaning he doesn't really get the chance to truly explain himself. Then ontop of that is the fact that everything he does is filtered through Percy's eyes which are inherently hostile towards him ost the time. Such delivers a wrong first impression of Luke throughout the books. The fandom, due to their attachment to Percy, often do not take their time to objectivley reevaluate his POV or confront the fact that he's an inherently unreliable narrator. Especially for Luke. Furthermore, from what I have seen are a lot of the fans in the fandom "old timers". People who read the first few books as young children and were children when their opinions of characters formed. Them having been so young when first getting introduced to the characters saw them often unable to even really realize all I said above. It also further glorifies Percy as he get's the nostalgia bonus. People generally do not like to challenge their own believes, so large parts of the fandom never took their time to reevaluate Luke and his story once they got older and learnt about the concept of Unreliable Narrators.

C) The fandoms views Luke as a threat to Percy and Percabeth.

This relates to both factors above, while also including the popular false narrative of Luke being a "pedo" or "groomer" If you read the first five books you will see that besides his last question to Annabeth at the end, nothing Luke does can be even remotely read as pedophilic or grooming of nature. Quite the opposite acctualy! He has stated on multiple occasions canonically that he sees his relationship with Annabeth as platonic. The ONLY canonical romantic relationship he had was with a grown monster. He's only ever portrayed having interest in adult women (monsters) , and even that romance plot is just barely there. The fandom, again, is overly attached to Percy however. And they do not like it when other characters challenge him. Luke however is the MOST challenging character for Percy. Not only does he serve as main antagonist, but he also serves as a narrative foil to Percy. He is what Percy could become. He's the canonical dark!Percy AU. He's the other side of the coin toss. Furthermore, Luke also challenges Percy not only on the physical department (fights) but also in terms of morals. At the end of the day Luke was right afterall. One could argue that Percy wasn't really fighting for the "good guys"- he was simply fighting for the "lesser of two evils" Luke brings moral challenges to Percy. He doesn't allow Percy to be a wholly good , squeaky-clean hero. Percy was fighting for the upkeep of an oppressive system. (If U wanna argue with me on the gods being oppressive, take it up with the offical wiki article first : found here) Percy killed other demigods. Percy had flawed views. The fandom who over sympathise with Percy didn't like that Luke was an active threat towards the "goodness" of their favorite. The easiest way out eliminate that "threat" was to demonize Luke. Thus making his points "invalid" as he now was a pure evil villain only aiming to hurt. (Same for the entier TA btw) Percabeth is just as popular as Percy. Annabeth had a deep and important connection to Luke- at the time of the books arguably even deeper and more important than her connection to Percy. Throughout the book has Percy expresses annoyance at Annabeth's insistence in holding onto Luke. This combined with the points above saw Luke being viewed as a possibly threat, due to him being arguably the most important person of the other gender in Annabeth's life. And an obvious point of contention between Percabeth. Inorder to lessen that "threat" the fandom turned to demonizing Luke (again). Annabeth's and Luke's relationship can easily be swept away by saying that Luke was interested in her romantically thus making him a pedo, no ? As for the grooming....... honestly? People just used a buzzword there, because if Luke truly had groomed Annabeth she would have been on his side on the books. All I can say there is please you guys, read a dictionary and know what words mean before you use them.

D) Rick fumbled HARD writing Luke

Luke may just have been the biggest continuous mistake Uncle Rick made in terms of writing. His characterisation in the first two books made him seem VERY evil and unlikable, which is bad as a first impression for a character such as him. SFL like Luke need a lot of focus and insight aswell as sympathy to get behind them. In most examples I mentioned for SFL they backstory was known very early on and they had a lot more focus outside of villainy. Rick simply didn't give that. The backstory reveal with Luke happened far too late, he was far too evil with too little insight for a SFL in the first two books. His "redemtion" was a bit rushed. We got basically nothing on his relationship with his army. His goods sides and his doubts weren't really highlighted enough early on. His last words and questions to Annabeth were frankly said stupid. It broke the themes of family between Luke and Annabeth to some degree and only served as fodder for later accusations. The fact that it was (apperantly) later confirmed that he romantically loved Annabeth was just straight up stupid. It wasn't in character at all and just broke the themes even more, not to mention that it goes against everything we previously saw or heard of Luke. Not to mention that it also just served as further fodder for the fandom to demonize Luke.

Thanks for everyone who stuck around to read this absolute giant of a meta XD Probably was the largest Tumblr post I have written so far.