#theyre european for sneak peak

[boeingboingboing]

OCs are so fun to make in WoC but i swear the annoying part is the immense research that has to go behind choosing their model and making a backstory accordingly to the history of that model sometimes too.

[thedevilsrain]

favorite and least favorite eroica arcs and why

my favorite is the alaskan front!! no doubt about it

its pretty early on, but i think its almost the series at its peak. its at its funniest, the art is at its most beautiful (still mantaining a lot of shojo elements, but starting to drift from the more dramatic style), and the characters are at their most well written

for dorian especially with that last point. hes exremely intelligent and strategizing through this arc - he outsmarts both the major AND the KGB in this arc!! several times!! i still love to go back and read these chapters, especially since he gets really dumbed down in the later chapters. also he wears this fabulous winter coat

ofc theres also the amazing plot points - eroica gang stops the KGB by giving them laxatives, dorian and james chilling out in a cabin in alaska, dorian and eberbach trapped in a cabin in the woods, the major being flung into the freezing ocean, and as silly as it was, the little nauticla battle at the end of it

also this parallel? insane

now my least favorite is definitely in'shallah. if youre starting to read eroica i 100% recommend skipping this chapter, it aged like milk in the summer. i'll keep the 'why' under a readmore, since it gets pretty heavy

so in'shallah, its. a doozy.

i feel like this chapter actually had some great moments - james pulling on dorian's underwear, the major wearing a spy getup, dorian kissing the major on the cheek and pretending theyre Just Friends, dorian ratting the major out for the KGB and agent Z's introduction

but even i, who dont know anything about iran's history, the plot of this chapter just felt... so condescending, so orientalist, so disrespectful. there's something really nasty about having two european men travel 2 iran in the midst of a revolution, so that they could sneak in and steal treasures, while there were conflicts going on in real time (!!)

and i cant write abt this chapter without mentioning it but yeah the child sex trafficking ring. nothing more to say. its treated as completely normal and only treated as negative for a gag. dorian kisses one of the kids and not only is it treated as romantic but its the last time in the series he kisses someone. horrible chapter, extremely distasteful