It’s been a hot minute since I read the S&S chapters so forgive me if I’m getting some details wrong but I believe there’s a way to look at the S&S fight without labeling it as an unnecessary fight
It’s about how S&S was inspired by All Might, much like Izuku. However, S&S is a kind of justice that’s ignorant, that uses excessive force to win a fight, that believes what she is doing is in the best of interests but refuses to see it any other way
It’s like. It’s a fight with only one ending, between two/three stubborn enemies
One who believes what she is doing is the only right way but actively goes out of her way to kill the enemy no matter what, one who will stop at nothing to get whatever he wants and controls his victim’s mind and body (takes away his autonomy to the point where they aren’t “separate people” but instead “one person”), and one who is a victim in all of this but wholeheartedly believes he was always bad and so has his heart set on destruction despite the fact that, deep down, he wants to be saved
It’s sad because if S&S had taken All Might’s influence and HADN’T turned it into a whole Strength thing, if she was someone like Izuku who saw All Might’s influence and learned that incredible power should be used to save, not to kill, then she probably could have stopped TomurAFO, captured him and taken him to All Might or something
I believe the point of S&S, one of the points at least, is that if you solely view All Might’s existence as a power fantasy, then you’re getting nowhere and completely missing what it means to be a hero
Look at it this way - S&S’ role in the manga was just to rule out one route the story could have taken
Anybody looking at TomurAFO and thinking “If All Might were in his prime form, HE could have taken him out and the world would be saved!” is then faced with a character who was inspired a lot by All Might and gives off the impression that they can do anything (COUGH confident intimidating appearance COUGH a quirk that allows the user incredible power COUGH)
She then serves her purpose by cutting AFO’s quirks down by half, showing that not everybody inspired by All Might does the right thing and shows the audience that Tomura immediately thought about Izuku when “someone who will inherit the will of heroism” is mentioned
Yes, while someone like All Might may be able to go head to head with TomurAFO and do some real damage, the point ISN’T that TomurAFO needs to be defeated and killed
The point is that TomurAFO is a fusion of an abuser and his victim, and anybody who NEEDS help should be given that help no matter what
S&S, someone similar to All Might who COULD have killed TomurAFO and prevented destruction, someone who saw his death as the only way to end this, is taken out of the running
Enter: Izuku Midoriya
You know, the one Tenko thought of at the mention “inheriting the will of heroism”
Idk I just. I can’t see the S&S chapters as pointless. They serve their purpose by letting the reader know that force and death is not the way out of this, that it’s not the story this manga is trying to tell
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Cats are liquide, so is Daniel
... that's what Damian decided after having watched the other for a while and noticed behavior similarites to Alfred, the cat.
Daniel comes and go like he wants unless you made a set plan with him, the only times he appears for sure where the meals Alfred made sure he attended. Otherwise, good luck finding the other if he doesn't want to be found.
That had irked Damian a lot at first but he had learned to accept it, if not completely willingly but Richard insisted that it was good brotherly behavior of him to not demand to Daniel's location when he doesn't want to be found.
Another thing was that his newly acquired brother purred. Like a cat. Damian would never admit it towards his other siblings. But his efforts in getting along with Daniel tripled when he learned this fact. For one, the switch from calling him Fenton to Daniel gained him a pleased purring. He was not calling him by nickname yet, that was something he would refuse longer until he ran out of tactics to make the other comfortable enough to purr.
But the most common fact that Daniel appeared to have with Alfred, the cat, was that his body must be made of liquid or at least as flexible like a cats. While Alfred, again the cat, found tight spaces like vases, bags, bowls and other things comfortable to rest in, Daniel appeared to show something similar.
Tight spaces, like a cupboard, the nocks between to shelves, the little space between a shelve and the ceilings. If Daniel disappeared he could be found in spaces like that. But what him appear even more liquid like was the was Daniel also tented to rest in more common spaces.
Damian had blinked in disbelieve the first time he found Danial in the common room. One leg on the couch, the other on a side table his back laying on the floor a book in his hands he was reading while his head was under the coffee table. And he though is elder siblings were bad with the way the collapsed couches or other seating spaces at times. How was that comfortable?
Another time Damian had found him sleeping, hanging upside down from a bookshelf in the library with his knees hooked on the top of the shelve. The book he appeared to have been reading like that laid fallen on the floor Daniel's arms hanging down above it and his face was getting a rather red coloring with all the blood gravity was pulling down towards it.
Then, there was also that time he found Daniel curled up in a spare tire of the Batmobile after patrol. How did he even manage to fit in there?
So Damian decided Daniel was a human cat. Because as weird as his family was, this was in no shape or form normal behavior. The fact that he was now finding Daniel napping in the chandelier of the foyer like it was a bed proved it. Not even Richard did that.
Really Damian wouldn't even have noticed it if he hadn't happened to look up. He was going to have a talk with Daniel about this even Alfred, the cat, knew to behave better than this. And if that didn't work, then he would allert his other siblings or maybe he should go directly to Pennyworth with this.
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When you’re trying a new colouring style…,
ANYWAY, Wu Spinjitzu!!
Rambling & screenshot under cut
I’ve been doodling Wu a lot in general lately, this was a piece from my sketchbook that i digitalised.
I just love him so much, hes so so so so tragic and sad and sweet and and.. i wish i could squish him and study him under a microscope for scientific purposes.
I also wish we had more Wu moments especially with family (like brotherly bonding and uncle-nephew bonding) his powers etc etc, missed opportunities i swear…
Here’s the screenshot i got inspired by btw
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Do you have any opinions on Scholomance?
I do! I like it a lot. I really enjoyed all three books, blitzed through them easily and was much more excited to see how the plots unfolded than I'm used to these days, as a jaded adult, and I also really appreciated them as works of craft.
Especially the first one, I spent the whole time being all 'wow!' at how simple it was. So easy to read, but no waste. You really need to know what you're doing, to get that kind of pared-down elegance of form to work and still fit so much content in.
Like these are dense, there's a fantastic stylistic minimalism that allows El's character all the space it needs to breathe by making absolutely every other thing and person in the whole novel also do character work for her, which is exactly where the first person voice shines.
Also great use of character perspective to make the pacing feel really natural, so the fact that the first book takes three weeks, the second book takes one year, and the third book is like. Five or so incredibly stressful days spread out over the course of a few weeks? Doesn't feel imbalanced.
I actually got distracted from the story a few times by noticing the strength of Novik's technique. 😂 This is a me problem, in itself it's the opposite of distracting. Very low-profile.
I think the Scholomance is a great example of how far you can go in specfic when you aren't cringing from the label 'derivative,' because the Scholomance books feel very fresh ad clean specifically because nothing in them is concerned with standing out as 'original,' whatever that's supposed to mean, only with being well-executed and suitable to its task.
Hm, maybe that's where Liesel was born, the intersection of the efficient narrative style and the vast proportion of the story that concerns the maximization of utility and the instrumentalization of persons by themselves and others, and the forces that incentivize these behaviors. Or maybe she's just the narrative counterweight to Orion 'Head Empty' Lake lmao. How's that for a principle of balance, Galadriel?
I really did enjoy how beautifully it was laid out, over and over, in dozens of shades of humanity, how no matter where you go in an exploitative system almost everyone is being driven by the same survival instincts.
Because I don't think I've ever seen made so cleanly clear why you just can't expect any person or small group of people, no matter their level of goodwill or status, to unmake one of these systems from the inside; how it's not a matter of people being bad but of every single person being very...small.
And then not retreating into the idea of a person who is Big coming and breaking the cruel system from the outside as some kind of panacea, because 1) that is terrible, even if it's necessary and done in the best way possible and 2) that's not a sustainable answer to anything. Getting a balance between the protagonist being able to effect change and not subscribing to the great man theory of history can be really tricky!
Also did I mention, I love El, and I love most of the cast, even the dreadful ones. How am I going around with this many feelings about Li Shanfeng who doesn't appear until the actual climax?
The romance murdered me a bit, but it took up no more space than it absolutely needed to do its job, and I respect that. Also I appreciated Orion as a love interest; Novik has a slight record at this point of a version of that style of male love interest who's like a caricature of Mr. Darcy but old, which was shaping up to be my least favorite thing about her body of work.
...Orion is kind of like if you took the human king from Spinning Silver and gave him an alignment flip come to think of it, so he's not coming out of nowhere. Lmao.
Which reminds me (re: romance character typing) I've heard Novik didn't want it to be known she was astolat, which this series has renewed my sympathies if so. Because if I were a published novelist I wouldn't want people going 'you know, that resolution was really emotionally satisfying! reminds me of that fic she wrote where optimus prime and megatron get stuck in a hole underground and hatefuck about it.'
I don't even like Transformers. That fic almost made me cry. Actually I suspect it reads better if you don't like Transformers because I'm sure it does not give a shit about canon.
Anyway, whoever pointed out that one of the things El has going on is she's Enoby (and we're going to sit down and explore what the true reason to put your middle finger up at preps is, and what are some constructive ways to channel that socioeconomic wrath, and what it means that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism) was right and I'm not entirely over that either.
Fucking love El's mom as a character. Spectacular level of parent relevance and usefulness. A+.
Aadhya and Liu are also characters who fucking delivered.
Re: minimalism though, I laughed at the start of The Golden Enclaves when I realized that none of the enclaver characters who'd gotten development in the the first two books were from London, the enclave El was theoretically shooting for when we met her.
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