#my personal characterization of her- which i am subjecting everyone else to

[pedrocomicreviews]

NYX #8

"The only heroic thing a nail can do is not break."

Hey just a heads-up, NYX is my favorite X-book in From the Ashes and currently one of three of those I still read. I know Tumblr doesn't like it-- or at least the Tumblr algorithm keeps sending me people who don't like it over and over again-- but if you're wondering why am I talking positively about a book the hivemind has decided is problematic and poorly written, well it's because I usually like it. And I like this issue too, let's gush about it.

I think at the end of the day, NYX is about turning grief into the next chapter of your life.

Every issue so far has been about characters reacting to losing things, and dealing with the pieces of themselves left on the ground after trauma. While the theme of every mutant dealing with the loss of Krakoa is the overarching trauma, everyone also has their own: Kamala is losing her connection to parts of her family she took for granted, Sophie is losing her place in the Cuckoos, Laura is losing herself like a good Wolverine always does. And they're all in a worse place for it, some of them in the worst place they've ever been in.

Hellion, for instance, is trying to take on a villainous persona much like Magneto used to back when he was dealing with his own trauma. He wants to lash out and he wants others to feel his pain, but he just can't. He's an asshole, he's arrogant, he's belligerent, but he's ultimately a good person who believes things can be better. Having the safety and the reality of Krakoa taken away from him only to be dragged into the trenches of oppression again broke something in him, but not enough that he's not himself anymore.

And I think this issue really makes a good case for hope, so to speak? Much like a lot of other issues, while they're obviously not dedicating a full run to these characters coming to God as it were, we do get to rely on canon and previous characterization to let the text guide us through questions like, what would it actually take for these people to act like this? What would be their internal process? Would that resist pressure? Would it resist someone else cutting through their defenses and asking them directly?

Laura's place in the narrative has been the subject of a lot of controversy, but I'll be honest, if it was Logan people would be shrugging it off as typical. The difficulty in reading NYX is that these are imperfect characters saying imperfect things, many of which they don't even believe in, because they're all hurting and they're all lost to some extent. Main conflicts based around fifty different points of view that all disagree with each other but also change over time are always difficult to handle, because when someone reads a character saying "I hate red!", it takes a significant amount of effort on the reader's part to keep reading and internalize it when the character is then shown wishing they could be nicer to red, but they don't feel like it would be right, and they're already committed to this bad red opinion debacle they announced to the world.

I'm not saying NYX is too fucking advanced for the feeble mind of comic book readers or anything like that, but I am saying that NYX feels designed around giving you a gut reaction and then zooming out, analyzing the event that shocked you, and then trying to do it again but under a more good faith lenses this time around. Because this is how personal conflict and fights with real people usually go. This is how miscommunication and overly committing to something just because you feel defensive or being attacked works. This is what difficult conversations about history, trauma, loss and the horrible effects they have on real people usually go like.

And, of course, that doesn't make the book good inherently. It's a type of story people are more than welcome to despise, and it's a type of characterization that will likely not stick around for everyone involved-- Laura simply does not think or act like this in her own solo, for instance. But I do think the writing and the art are working overtime to sell you these characters as complex and not one-note, and to sell their epiphanies about hope, found family and community as, if simple, at least more positive than they were one issue ago.

This is a bit of a rant about how people read and talk about comics, yes, but I think NYX deserves to have it included a little bit. It is a book about how people perceive you, and about how you are not the worst days of your life, or the worst takes you've ever had. It's nice to have a book where characters aren't constantly making either the right or wrong decision, but are constantly struggling in-between, winning some and losing some and ultimately left to figure out how to hold water with vases that will never be the same as they were before a fascist came in and cracked them.

Many characters are trying to do this by becoming their own versions of old leaders: Synch is taking after Magneto, Prodigy is taking after Xavier, Sophie is taking after Emma. Hellion tried to take after his betters, only to realize that all he really needs to do is to be true to himself, and find his own way to navigate through the world. And that's good ass X-Men.

[amethystfairy1]

Just read the new Bedrock chapter and this is going to be on my mind ALL DAY WHAT THE HECK WHAT THE HECK IM SO SCARED WTF DID BLACKWELL COME UP WITH AAAAAA EVERYONE PANIC THIS IS NOT GOOD

Long rambling ahead that has a very real possibility to be majorly me misinterpreting things, but I wanted to share anyhow

Anyhow...Now that I've gotten most of my panicked ramblings out, I absolutely ADORE this!!!! Your characterization is beautiful, and even though I'm usually too emotionally invested to properly appreciate it, the fact that it has me emotionally invested shows just how good it is!! Obviously the way you write the Minecraft sillies is amazing, but the way you write and incorporate your OCs is just!!! I love it!!! Especially getting to see more of the way Blackwell and The Director act personally through Blackwell's POV in the first chapter...what makes them tick, the way Blackwell thinks he's in charge, but really, The Director pulls the strings here. Like she said, she's the entire reason he's in power in the first place, and even with his crazy ideas she'll likely keep him in power. Her motives? Him being the high councilman gives her the position she wants to keep, as the director in the bio tech labs. Blackwell gets to keep his vanity and sense of control, and she gets to stay in control of the labs.

And Amori is fascinating. We've only just found out about her, and we've barely gotten a glimpse of what she's like. Because even though we've only gotten a little bit of insight into Blackwell's POV, or even anyone interacting with him directly; and The Director has only personally been in a couple of fics, the impact they have on the readers in the short screentime they've had in addition to the lasting impact on the other characters (and the entire society) shines through. But Amori may as well be a wild card. It makes sense that The Director needed a new subject to conduct her experiments on, but Amori's loyalty to her is fascinating. And while she was mostly cold and dismissive towards Blackwell, the moment she started talking to The Director...her attitude did a 180. Which leaves me wondering what happened between them to get to that point. Doc and Cleo are almost the only characters we know personally who were under The Director's "care", but it seems that generally, those kids grow to despise her. But Amori seems to, in a way, almost revere her. And while any relationship The Director has seems to be toxic, mainly for the other individual, Amori is still extremely emotionally invested in the relationship despite that. It seems that Amori has nowhere else to go, so she's desperate to give The Director a reason to keep her around. We've seen how The Director is - the moment something or someone is no longer useful for her, she discards it. She did it with Cleo, and there's absolutely no reason to think she wouldn't do the same with Amori, and Amori evidently knows this.

...And this is where I realize that i don't really know where I was trying to go with this. So. Chances are im overanalyzing this, and there's even higher chances that I've misinterpreted things (I have not actually thought through any of this I started rambling and it didn't stop and now I have this), but hopefully my attempted analysis isn't too boring :p

So! I keep just rambling on and this is getting really long so I'm gonna say that I love your writing and I'm so excited (and terrified) to see where Bedrock takes us!!!

I LOVE THE RAMBLIES!

I can't confirm or deny anything of course, but I am SO GLAD you are enjoying the OCs! I always get a little nervous when I give OCs a lot of screentime in fanfic, because I mean, they aren't what y'all are here for, you're here for the block people, but like...the fact that everyone really seems to enjoy Blackwell, the Director, and Amari makes me SOOO happy! Thank you for sharing the ramblies!!!

[dangermousie]

would you happen to have thoughts about the acting/casting and/or depth of characterization in rise of ning? i'm watching it and wanna be more into it but fsr most of the cast (besides wanyi and the stepmom) are not very...charismatic? to me 😧 would love a convincing mousie blog on the topic if you have one up your sleeve!

I am a terrible person for this kind of question because (a) I tend to watch most shows for the mains and supportings are less important to me in general and (b) I am not really a person who wants to convince others to like what I like because all my liking means is I enjoy it; others may or may not - I am no arbiter.

This said, while the OTP are the shining stars of the show for me, I do find the rest of the characters interesting (even if a lot of them are not likable - I dare anyone to find Dad likable.) I think it's because they all feel like real people to me - in their good and their petty. Even minor characters like First Aunt - I knooow women like this. Or the Dad - too many men are like that. Or take oldest daughter of First Aunt - so many other narratives would make her evil or besotted stupidly to the end but she is not - she ends up doing the sane thing and moving on from her crush and repaying FL's favor; but they don't become BFFs, they basically a nicely tolerant, which is a realistic thing in families.

And it allows characters both greyness and consistency. Take Lady Qiao. Awful person but loving mother and you really understand how Dad and societal structures pushed her into what she is. Or, even better, grandma - she is very much a grande dame of society, I am sure she was a good wife, but it's clear she is part of all the generational trauma and dad got his tendency to favoritism from her. And I love that she's consistently so - no magic change of heart vis-a-vis ML. It's realistic.

As to non-Luos, the only ones we really see are Ci Sha's sinister sexy marquis and his nephew. I am interested in the former not just for the hotness (tho mmmm) but because I want to know what his deal is, and nephew is interesting enough for a minor character.

(I am leaving actors out of this write up because I think they all do fine jobs, but mainly because unless acting is truly bad, I care about the characters only.)

This said - this is (a) very much a costume take on slice of life or, perhaps better, a cdrama take on something like a Gaskell novel - I love that small but wonderful subgenre but depending on one's taste, it just might not be one's bag (no matter how well a proper harem drama is made, for example, I just don't like them) and (b) this is all my very subjective take - I am a big fan of "clicking." I believe things either click for us or don't, somewhere in the lizard brain; we can then write a long explanation as to why but it really is an attempt to explain after the fact. And this just might be a situation where those characters/narratives just don't click for you. I mean, plenty of people enjoyed Are You the One this year and I felt like it poisoned my puppy - not even 100 essays could ever make me like it because it's so subjective. I could very well go "I get why X likes it" but it would, alas, not make me like it any more than I do now. I am one of probably three people who dislike the main premise of Nirvana in Fire (could write essays on it!) and the fact that everyone else loves it has not changed my mind.

I can perhaps explain (badly) why I think the click happened for me here, but I have no eloquence to make that click happen for anyone else (if I did, mwhahahahahaha I would take over the world and adapt every good danmei out there :P)

[foxofsunholt]

NOT RELATED TO FOS but just want to ask for my own fun:

I am very interested in knowing what your favourite novel/book series are! Please reply or send in asks with them—I’m always interested in recs! Doesn’t matter what genre or type of novel; I like everything, I assure you lol

Please let me know what your favourite books are ❤️

Under the cut are some recent liked reads of mine:

FIRSTLY… use your libraries. truly the best places in the world. 90% of what I read was from a library and the other 10% was books I bought years ago and finally decided to read

The Spear Cuts Through Water — Two men shepherd a dying god through the lands to help overthrow a tyrannical regime. One pet love letter to oral history, one part gay love story, one part creative epic fantasy. This novel is stylish, artsy and not for everyone but for the people that it’s for!!! it’s for you!!! The story is told in layers: YOU, the reader in second person, the story itself, the ghosts of the people inside of the story. I think to see if this is for you, reading the first couple of pages is a good indication of the style and prose and if you’d like it. (I paired it with the audiobook and enjoyed reading both in tandem)

Know My Name — a memoir by Chanel Miller—certainly read the description and check TWs for this. because the subject is not easy but I sobbed so hard during this. Not just for her pain but for her joy. If you’re interested in memoirs, I recommend this one! (I also enjoyed Tara Westover’s “Educated”, which i read years ago). Honestly reading this book I kept thinking THIS IS A MUST READ, THIS IS A MUST READ–heartbreaking, poignant, cathartic. It’s long, but if the subject matter interests you at all, i’d say give it a try!

Chain Gang All-Stars — Fight to the death to earn your freedom from prison! I’ve read some reviews of this book that call the allegory heavy-handed, but I didn’t mind that at all. A novel obviously about the prison industrial complex in America, Chain Gang All Stars made me rethink how I view compassion, and personally seek out and research the prison abolition movement. This novel isn’t perfect, but it did for me exactly what the author was intending. I also couldn’t put it down. The Audiobook is great, it has multiple narrators! If you’re interested in thought-provoking speculative fiction…

Project Hail Mary — A man wakes up on a spaceship with no recollection of why he’s there—learning that he needs to save the world. I didn’t like this as much as everything else on this list but I think it’s a more easy recommendation. I had a lot of fun with this book and found it to be an engaging read all around. This is the only Weir I’ve read, and I don’t think I’ll be seeking out The Martian anytime soon if that says anything about the novel (I did really like it I swear lol)

ANYTHING SHIRLEY JACKSON — I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Haunting of Hill House and loved both a lot. Not the sort of books if you like plot, but if you’re into creepy atmosphere and characterization…i think there might just be a reason Shirley Jackson is a classic. The way she bends reality, seeds chilling aspects and weaves horror around settings is very sharp. I recommend We Have Always Lived In The Castle more (it’s short!) and it’s great as audiobook or physical

JUNJI ITO…king — I read Uzumaki and re-read a lot of his short stories and Gyo. KING. The visions of his art haunted me. If possible, I recommend reading these physically, as the act of turning the page on to whatever unspeakable horror awaits you is incomparable. If you like body horror at all, even a little, this is a mangaka I think you should try as if you haven’t already lol

Our Wives Under The Sea — God. What can I say about this? A story about grief, a story about watching your loved ones change beyond recognition. Body horror. Sapphic. Beautiful prose. Tragic. Loved all of it.

Metamorphosis — Yes the Kafka one. Yes I liked it. Yes I related a lot to being turned into a burdensome, ugly roach.

Roaming (graphic novel) — Not a story where a lot (or anything) happens. But I found this relatable and able to capture that age of girlhood with expert precision. Not much happens, really nothing happens; just a snapshot and fragment of this price of these girls lives. They are immature, messy, weird. (I also really enjoyed It Happened One Summer and one of my favourite movies is Only Yesterday so that should tell you a lot about my tastes in slow, character snapshot pieces). The art is lovely, of course

Eileen — Stinky, miserable, unlikeable Eileen Dunlop becomes obsessed with mysterious, attractive Rebecca. This one very aggressively I have to say ITS NOT FOR EVERYONE. I can’t even explain why I liked it so much, but I as so absorbed into the setting. I had the feeling of being transported into Eileen’s cold, gloomy New England. Eileen is gross, putrid, hard to read and nothing happens at all until the end. But also i loved it. I can’t explain this one. I don’t even recommend it but definitely check TWs. Now it’s a movie starring Anne Hathaway and I finally got to say “the book was better”

Bluest Eye — CHECK TW FOR THIS ONE I’ve loved Toni Morrison since highschool, but I never actually finished any of her novels. This being her debut novel is so shocking; it was poetic, devastating, uncomfortable. Another book I don’t exactly recommend because of its graphic nature, and how sharply and uncomfortably certain scenes are written, but so much was so poignant—I have a lot of this book highlighted and to share:

I recommend reading the Author’s Note, the description and the TWs and see if it interests you! I think Toni Morrison explains herself and her intentions well in the author’s note. (I need to get around to Morrison’s other work, but for some reason I started in chronological order)

I’m going to stop here because I’m realizing I like a lot of “weird” books that I know are probably not widely liked but akfjkskd WHAT CAN I SAY I LIKE A WEIRD LITTLE FREAK

Other notables: I read a lot of Grady Hendrix and I don’t LOVE love him, but reliably I do have fun. I couldn’t even stomach the scene (YOU KNOW THE SCENE) in my best friend’s exorcism—i’d recommend him for some intro to horror! I liked How to Sell a Haunted House but my friend didn’t so there’s that too.

I read this around when it was published but I will never shut up about In The Dream House (another memoir) so good. so strong. so beautiful. AH.

I also started the Locked Tomb series and I only didn’t put it on this list because I’ve only read Gideon so far but I liked it a lot also.

I’m very excited to do more reading this year. Mostly I’ve been getting through the popular titles…as you can see…. But i’m hoping to read more fantasy and sci-fi this year! it’s just unfortunate they’re so long 😭

[loregoddess]

For the unpopular opinion ask game, how about🤍🖤 and 💔? (for any series you want to do!)

It's funny, albeit a little baffling, that I got the questions about fictional character morality twice. Not a bad thing, but definitely not the two nickels I was expecting to collect.

I wrote a sort of "overview to my epistemological approach when thinking about morality in fiction" over here, but the tl;dr is that analyzing morality in fiction is tricky, and I currently feel that looking at the morals of characters and fictional settings in the context of the narrative is important to separate from my personal responses to the work which stem from my own moral sensibilities, but that it's also important to talk about both when trying to do critical analyses because both are valid sources of experiences and information w/ fiction works (and other forms of art) worth contemplating.

And I'll go with...hmm...FE:3H bc I can hit all three questions for that. (Under the cut bc, you guessed it, length!)

🤍: Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

Hmmmmmmmmm I'm gonna just say it as it is: Ingrid. See, AM was my first route, and I went in blind and therefore did not know about the A-support roulette, and the game mechanics worked so well for getting all the characters I was using for my main force (the Lions kids for AM obviously) to full supports with each other. Which meant that while Ingrid and Dedue's C and B supports did not leave a good taste in my mouth, I still went ahead and viewed their A support where lo and behold, Ingrid has some amazing and very important character development where she apologizes to Dedue, and admits her racism was wrong. Which is like, huge for her characterization, since some of her own racist attitudes are deeply tied to the fact that she lost Glenn, which is a huge defining event for a lot of her characterization beyond just the learned racism from Farghus culture.

And again, I didn't know how A-support roulette worked my first run, and bc of this and that, I also ended up getting Ingrid and Dedue's paired ending, which is...surprisingly fine. Very typical fare for a lot of Ingrid's endings actually, but with the bonus that apparently relations between the people of Faeghus and Duscur did improve bc of Ingrid and Dedue's unfailing friendship.

Honestly, Ingrid's arc is fairly well handled all things considered, and the writers of Hopes also decided that "Ingrid learns to seriously look at her core beliefs and reevaluate them, and actively chooses to work against her internalized racist feelings towards Duscur" was such an integral part of Ingrid's character that rather than just being hidden in one easily missed A-support and ending card, Ingrid's growth is a fundamental part of her character in the AG route as a whole (and works alongside the themes of that route), and it's worked into several of Ingrid's supports and her paralogue.

But the thing is the fandom might as well have burned Ingrid at the stake for a character flaw that was written to be a flaw and also written as something she can grow past, but this is the piss on the poor reading comprehension website, so it's not like anyone actually bothered reading/watching her A-support with Dedue or think critically about literally any of her writing (at least in the early days of the 3H fandom, I dunno what the fandom's like now since I have so many blogs blocked).

Ingrid's not even my favorite character, but her treatment by the fandom really irked me, and even when fans of color wrote up actual critical analyses on her character and pointed out that she's technically not that bad as a person and decently written, and that moving past her racism is part of her characterization, well, as is typical for fandom spaces, those fans got harassed despite being y'know, people of color themselves who definitely knew what they were talking about. There's not really a whole lot else I could write on that subject specifically that hasn't been said already and better by fans of color, but it really is telling of a fandom space's racism when they performativity demonize a fictional character over said fictional character's fictional racism, and then turn around and harass actual real live people of color.

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

Aaaand the flipside of Ingrid's treatment by the fandom is Hilda. Now, this is partly the fault of 3H's writing, since Hilda's overall writing is much weaker than Ingrid's, as the writers don't often branch out much from the "Hilda is super strong and capable, but lazy af" joke trait. But then they drop the whole story bit with Cyril being a former "servant" of House Goneril, and it's strongly implied that after being used as a child soldier in Almyra's army and losing a battle, he was captured by House Goneril and made to work for them, only being saved (quite literally) by Rhea when she happened to visit.

This is never addressed in any of Hilda's supports with Cyril, and even the idea that House Goneril apparently takes Almyran soldiers as prisoners of war is never brought up. Ever. Not even in Three Hopes, where we get Holst as a character and theoretically more insight into House Goneril, do we get any explanation for whatever the hell happened to Cyril.

So, unlike Ingrid, who has an entire "I'm in the wrong and I need to be a better person" moment (in two games!), Hilda doesn't get this. The writers entirely ignore the inherent racism present in Hilda's characterization. This doesn't necessarily make Hilda herself a "bad person" or morally bankrupt, since again, a lot of this hinges on the fact that the writing just straight-up isn't there, so we can't even look at the narrative worldbuilding for in-story morality to analyze Hilda.

But the fandom had no problem overlooking the whole "foreign servants captured from battle" thing, in part bc the fandom loves to ignore Cyril, and in part bc Hilda ended up being treated as the poster lesbian, which is more or less what most of her fanon rep dilutes her character to. Which again, the lackluster writing bugs me, but the way the fandom decided to handle Hilda's character bugs me 100x more, bc I don't like characters being boiled down to one or two traits and I don't like watching one character who actually gets character development and decent writing be sent through a witch hunt while another, with arguably the same issues but significantly less development and writing, is treated as having done nothing wrong ever. Which like, sure they're both fictional characters, neither can actually do anything, but the fandom's behavior still bothers me.

💔: If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

I'm not really keen on removing characters from finished stories bc usually every character serves some sort of purpose (I mean sure, there are some finished stories where I feel story elements served no purpose and should have been cut, but that's neither here no there), and whatever my gripes with 3H's wild writing are, I think this applies to 3H as well: every character serves a purpose of some sort or other.

However, if I had to remove a "character", I'd remove all of the Agarthans and all of the worldbuilding for Agartha, but only for the "what if Edelgard was actually the main villain" rewrite ideas in my head. Mostly this is bc the Agarthans, as the "actual" villains behind everything, significantly weaken Edelgard's role and impact as an antagonist. Also, since we never actually get to learn anything about the war that "killed" Sothis or anything about Sothis's lifetime, nothing about the Agarthans or Agartha really feels like it matters to the overall narrative of 3H.

So, yeet the Agartha subplot and we suddenly have so much more room to try out different ways to write Edelgard into an actual antagonist, which like, I enjoy a really well-written antagonist, I love when I find women who are villains who are well-written and interesting and devastating in the stories they inhabit, I would have loved to see the sort of villain Edelgard could have been sans the Agarthans.

Of course though, I contain multitudes, and would also have liked to see an actual proper redemption arc for her, but in any of my speculative "how would I (re)write 3H?" daydreams, the only way I can achieve both "Edelgard should be an interesting antagonist in her own right", and also "have the chance at a redemption arc" I actually do need to keep the Agarthans around, and would have to expand all the Agarthan lore (and likewise Sothis's writing), so in the end it's not like I feel like the Agarthan characters actually have to go for 3H story's loose ends to be sewn up. And they've got the potential to be interesting, like with a little polish they could have been really fun, terrifying villains, so I don't hate the Agarthans. If nothing else, the FE dubstep is still the funniest song I've ever come across in a FE game, and I want that to stay around.