#shoddy worldbuilding

[mangotortoise]

Oops

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Ben 10 Series, Danny Phantom Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Danny Fenton & Ben Tennyson, Ben Tennyson & Gwen Tennyson, Valerie Gray & Kevin Levin, Mild Danny Fenton/Valerie Gray, Kevin Levin/Gwen Tennyson, One-Sided Danny/Sam Characters: Danny Fenton, Ben Tennyson, Gwen Tennyson, Kevin Levin, Valerie Gray, Ghostfreak | Zs'Skayr, Minor Original Character - Character, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley Additional Tags: Horror, Angst, Body Horror, Demonic Possession, Swearing, Disfigurement, minor original character death, Identity Reveal, the kids are not alright, Ben Tennyson and Danny Fenton Casually Exist in the Same Universe Because I Say So, Gwen is an Anodite, I am aware physics does not work this way lol, shoddy worldbuilding Summary:

Ben, Kevin, and Gwen are sent to Amity Park in the wake of the disappearance of several High Profile Plumber Agents. Once there, they cross paths with the (in)famous undead hero: Danny Phantom. But when the Ultimatrix starts glitching out, it would serve them well to remember: not all ghosts are as friendly as Danny.

#Ben 10 #Danny Phantom #Crossover #Ben 10 Fic #Danny Phantom Fic #B10 X DP #Shoddy Worldbuilding #My Fic #But Never Any More the Dead #No Thots Head Empty

[spectralscathath]

Official Dust Colour Chart for my Scorruby AU, because canon/crwby can't ever keep their shit straight (looking at you white dust specifically, are you air or earth or WHAT). Some of my notes under the cut.

Naturally-Occuring

Fire, Water, Air, Earth: standard elemental usage as seen in show. Fire dust also gets used in heating.

Gravity, Lightning, Plant, Metal: Again, same as above, basically the show stuff or what can be extrapolated from the name. Plant dust is used in Atlas's agriculture (they don't have farmland they have very fancy greenhouses), while metal dust is known for only being able to manipulate surrounding metal instead of creating the stuff like the other types.

Combination Types

Ice: Water + Air dust, allows for all the standard ice dust stuff, or for dropping the temperature in a localised area.

Magma: Fire + Earth dust, creates and controls lava. Used mainly by Cinder to create her ground explosion attacks.

Steam: Fire + Water dust, mostly used as a power source in areas where combustion dust is unavailable and they've had to adapt to steam-powered technology. Can be used offensively.

Sand: Earth + Air Dust, most commonly used in Vacuo to allow for desert navigation and control of the dunes.

Artificially Created

Hard-Light: Used for creating solid constructs (walls, shields, etc), or percussive attacks (Weiss's glyph blasts, Penny's lazers). colloqially called 'Energy Dust', by non-Atlesians/people who aren't weapon nerds like Ruby.

Combustion: The most commonly used type of dust, for engines, ballistics, bullets, etc. Generally fused with Lightning Dust to power technology, from Atlesian Robots to a standard household. It's dyable to allow Huntsmen to get those cool colour-coded bullet attacks.

Light and Shadow: Newly innovated in Antares by Atlas R&D, it's still not quite understood what these dusts are capable of beyond producing a flashbang or a light source, vs Shadow Dust's inverse of creating a pure blackout that stymies even Faunus night vision.

Mostly just wanted to have my own reference for the worldbuilding, since the show apparently has no clue what their own magic system (one of many) can do.

#rwby #rwde #rwby au #rwby rewrite #scorruby au #“what if we took this shoddy worldbuilding full of retcons and holes” #“and actually figured out what does what” #said crwby NEVER #Still have no tablet pen so made all this in MS Paint but I like how the crystals turned out #love drawing crystals

[chryzure]

whew, people get heated over their fav booktok book.

#memorie.txt #once you’ve read more you’re more willing to admit that you love a kinda poorly written book #by god i love jackaby. the writing style is a solid 3/5 and the plot stuff is cheesy as hell. #you get a better frame of reference for ‘this book requires an award’ style of good #and a ‘god this is so my dumb little niche that scratches all those weird little itches nobody else has’ style of good #one of my fav series is the ghost and the goth!! is it good?? i don’t know if i’d go that far!! #is it fun and does it make me think of trysi / chryzure stuff??? yes :) #i’m beginning to wonder abt ppl rabid abt their fav books. anyway this one person was losing their shit over ppl liking apollo #and aurora and i’m an aurora shooter but i digress #they were foaming at the mouth and im like Well. its a little not that serious . #he is letters on a page. and also mostly irrelevant to the story as a whole so im kinda confused as to why ppl feel so strongly abt him #it’s funny because most of my complaints stem from an outside pov #where i critique the worldbuilding / plot work / character writing and its inconsistencies #whereas ppl assume im encouraging villainy irl. it is quite seriously more that the villainy is unmotivated #or otherwise poorly done. i love to hate a good villain if the proper legwork is put into it #because i like observing how others work their craft!!! #but my irritation with stephanie is that she doesn’t work her craft well. it’s shoddy craftsmanship full of retcons or #convenience required for plot that otherwise hold no reasoning in the story #and i can admit that i find the series unsatisfying because it’s marketed as a romance (the romance had little chemistry that could be #understood by anyone that’s not straight. straight romances are always laziest because it’s the ‘norm’ so that equates to chem) #and also it was marketed as having plot when rlly the ‘plot’ was trying to put these characters in weird chemistry-less situations together #so yeah i’ll complain abt the villains being jealous shallow archetypes when it could’ve had depth. #i’ll complain abt a lot. but in the end it’s a silly basic ya romance series that isn’t anything unique #most unique stories will not be found on booktok. i’m sorry #i can show you the beautiful world of horror novels though! #or weird lil 80s fantasy novels that are actually quite long that my dad likes showing me #truly no romance novel will be better than the darkangel trilogy though.. that is what stephanie wanted to write. #but that’s lightning in a bottle ithink. #okay anyway. good night. i worked a long day and i have appts in the morning

[toast-com]

*angrily shakes my fists at SJM, for not giving us the exact ages of the current High Lords.*

#anti sjm #trying to make an au an I'd like the exact ages of the high lords #sjm and her shoddy terrible worldbuilding 😡

[sexcromancy]

the craziest thing about slave to sensation, which is the first in a long running series called the psy-changeling books because they are romances taking place, in almost every instance, between psy (cold unfeeling telekinetic humanoid species) and changelings (humanoids who can turn into one of a wide variety of animals), the craziest thing is that human history is exactly the same. you're telling me there's mind reader freaks and leopard people in 2079 and Russia still exists? the same Russia? the Golden gate bridge? none of this interspecies drama significantly altered human history? hello?

#i can forgive a lot of things but I cannot brook shoddy historical worldbuilding!

[the-most-pathetic-edge-marquis]

finally read the trials of apollo series. regret to say that rick riordan did it again

#this man's writing has a hold on me like nothing else #every time!! #every time i say 'i don't need to read this i'm done' #and then i read it!!! #also like Wow he remembered how to write books 4 and 5 of a series huh. damn #i was Not prepared for the number of characters he was willing to kill!! #like blood of olympus was Bad #but this was good! #i have some complaints bc it would be impossible for me to not #but damn he really cleaned up his universe w this series #he said 'i wrote some shitty middle grade novels that introduced a lot of shoddy worldbuilding' #but then he fixed it! #idk how to feel about any of this #but i'm VERY EXCITED for the nico di angelo book #also yes. i do mean that i read all five books #today. #this is what happens when i Don't have schoolwork to worry about

[seaseren]

It really says something that after all the time I spent in that fandom, the FFXV scene that sticks in my head the most was when Besithia was explaining his fucking meat alternative and Ardyn yells, "SPARE me the RAVINGS of a MADMAN!"

#i was already upset that the other dlc episodes with any women at all were cancelled #and then i watched episode ardyn and went 'oh this is hot fucking garbage' #honestly the big turning point for me was probably episode ignis #the sheer...just the audacity to include an au where actually there was no tragedy at all and then NOT EXPLAIN HOW IT HAPPENED #Ignis got a lore dump half a week early and somehow that means Noctis lives! fuck you is why! #it gave me that jolt to really look at the game and go #yeah the vibes are really good but everythung about the plot and worldbuilding is shoddy or only half done or #surface level fine but dont look too deep!

[unravelingwires]

Carbonic

“To the fire,” Kali prays, toasting the new source of clean water.

“To the fire,” Kali calls, running to the next building.

“To the fire,” Kali murmurs as she drops next to the crumbled body.

“To the fire,” Kali snarls as she slashes with her sister’s hooked sword.

“To the fire,” Kali laughs as she lets herself be drawn closer.

“To the fire,” Kali sighs, brushing the child’s hair behind her ear.

“To the fire,” Kali screams in one last rallying cry.

“To the fire,” Kali says, watching the smoke rise into the air.

#Carbonic means related to carbon #I have no idea how much of this universe I want to be public #the worldbuilding is really shoddy #I do like some of the mood pieces I can get out of it though #and I love Kali #fantasy politics #fantasy world #rebellion #specifically #the cost of rebellion #fantasy religion #my writing #creative writing #the island #library of babel #unedited #original characters #my ocs

[lionofstone]

sometimes i want to write something profound and sometimes i want to write a short story about girls being obsessed with each other (and also vampires) or a fake myth or about a boy who would do anything to get back to his best friend

#ljs life #ref n&n #ref pharentine #ref convergent #listen the short stories are self indulgent NONSENSE ab character dynamics with plots that may or may not make sense & shoddy worldbuilding #thats the POINT they are FUN and for ME

[lawrencegarte]

the truth has always been that overwatch should just be like a tv show or even just a long form comic but that is especially true after these ddos attacks on overwatch 2

#like i still like a lot of the characters and the (shoddy) #there’s a lot of good bits and pieces there they’ve just been slapped onto something less than ideal #and yeah obvi there’s problems but overall I personally think overwatch still slaps as an overall concept #i'm laughing i just realized the word worldbuilding got deleted from my first tag #shoddy wordlbuilding is what i meant to say

[arclundarchivist]

Reading through the Heroes Ascension Book, and here’s the stuff I found that seemed like set up for future, likely sidelined story content :/

But there are also hints for stuff that could show up in the main blame through interactions and some possible new characters.

Rebuilding Ruins: Symmetra/Lifeweaver Story

• ⁠Lifeweaver is living at the Atlantic Arcology, which comes under attack by Null Sector, which could have been a major problem due to their “guests”.

• ⁠Symmetra is working against negative influences inside Vishkar, but how far that will get her is up in the air and Lifeweaver invites her to join him at the Arcology as a member of the “Collective”, an altruistic group of scientists and intellectuals.

Unity: Orisa/Efi Story

• ⁠Numbani comes under assault by Null Sector, with Humans defending their Omnic neighbors much more openly than other places.

• ⁠Efi creates a bunch of small drones to help defend Numbani, so that Orisa and her can leave Numbani to help people.

• ⁠Story ends with the pair planning on setting out immediately, and takes place around the same time as the Rio Mission, Efi may be seeking out Overwatch.

Luck of the Draw: Ashe Story

• ⁠Ashe and the Deadlocks were attempting to break into the Las Vegas criminal underground.

• ⁠Ashe nearly died defending BOB, who in turn is almost taken captive by Null Sector.

• ⁠It confirmed damaging or removing the “helmets” on an Omnic causes them to have a “seizure” and die. (What the fuck Rammatra?)

A Friendly Rivalry: Junkers Story.

• ⁠Junker Queen almost had Roadhog and Junkrat executed.

• ⁠Junkrat reveals his secret treasure: A giant airship stored within the last remnants of the Omnium beneath Junkertown. Queen and Hammond begin making plans to get it airborne again.

Thoughtless Gods: Hammond Story (And boy these is a lot of worldbuilding in this one)

• ⁠Direct sequel to the previous story.

• ⁠Reveals that Omnics remaining in the Outback are oddly feral and corrupted in some fashion, cannibalizing each other for parts and actively “hunting” Junkers. Hammond has no idea what caused this.

• ⁠Hammond remembers his time being experimented on the Moon Colony, he is apparently “older” than Winston has he gained awareness before hand, and sort of became a “big brother” to Winston.

• ⁠The apes and Hammond were not the first experiments. There were failures, apparently some other kind of animals, that are still up on the Moonbase. Hammond calls them “wrong”.

• ⁠The apes have a whole society, are building weapons and armor and may be constructing a whole new building/device on the Colony.

• ⁠Possible hints at the Mars Colony.

• ⁠Two apes are named. Oscar, unknown, and Dyson, a large, cruel Orangutan - feels like a character set up.

Where Honor Lives: Hanzo/Kiriko Story

• ⁠Shimada weaponry have “special energy tech”, throws more confusion on the “is this magic” question surrounding the Japanese characters abilities. The Hashimoto are attempting to copy the designs but “they can’t manifest the proper power”. (This seems to be due to Kiriko’s father purposefully give them shoddy work but they don’t know that).

• ⁠The Hashimoto can work with impunity in Tokyo, and are causing trouble even with Null Sector literally on the horizon.

• ⁠Hanzo and Kiriko’s interactions again confuse the whole age gap, because he treats her as if she was a tween when he was a teen.

• ⁠Hanzo joins Kiriko in protecting Kanezaka from the invasion.

Lost Ghosts: Soldier/Ana Story

• ⁠Ana splits from Jack after learning he’s been sitting on the list of Overwatch agent names using it to track Talon movements and not warning the targets. She isn’t joining Overwatch but is going to be trying to protect remaining Agents who haven’t answered the Recall but are not yet dead to Talon.

• ⁠We meet another old Overwatch agent Mirembe, who is thinking about answering the Recall, I think she’s the woman that was standing in the group photo from Ana’s trailer.

• ⁠Another, Kimiko, is named.

Lucky Man: Soldier/Sombra Story

• ⁠Sombra has been leaking info to Soldier, because she believes the cabal she is after is also to blame for that happened in Zurich.

• ⁠Jack has been hunting Talon as a proxy because he never truly believed they took down the HQ. He also doesn’t believe Reyes knew what was going to happen.

• ⁠Sombra and Jack seem to be set up to continue working together, and Jack is headed to Oasis hunting for more clues on the Cabal.

#overwatch 2 #overwatch #symmetra #lifeweaver #ow orisa #efi oladele #ow ashe #roadhog #junkrat #junker queen #hammond #winston #ow hanzo #ow kiriko #soldier 76 #ow ana #sombra

[doctorprofessorsong]

Destiel Fic Recs

Some more recs for your reading pleasure. This one is AU heavy, so enjoy the feast if that's what you crave.

First Response to Love by Briston and Whitster_lizzy @whitster-lizzy (Explicit, 98k)

This crack taken seriously rom com is an absolute delight. You will be giggling the entire time at this one.

Cas is stuck in a dead end reporter job at a failing station in the unfortunately or hilariously (depending on your level of middle school humor) named town of Uranus.

When Cas' cat gets stuck in a tree, his panicked call results in the fire department (and half of emergency services) showing up - including his wet-dream-slash-crush Dean Winchester. He recognizes Dean from a charity calendar, and he may be just a smidge obsessed with him. Like owns a bunch of merch with his picture obsessed. But what he doesn’t know is Dean also has a massive crush on Castiel. Like an embarrassing, watch DVR recordings of the man over and over crush. Dean manages to get it together enough to ask Cas to report on a public safety measure and what follows is a very public and adorable courtship that just might save the station.

Expect mutual disaster idiots, lots and lots of humor and a delightful cast of residents. But also this fic has an underlying softness that will have you unable to put it down. Also, a developing friendship between Balthazar, Gabriel and Crowley that is the best thing that has happened to me personally in a long time.

Seriously, it's a delight.

Linden by fleeceframe @tasteslikevelvet (Explicit, 76k)

Look, fleeceframe has this incredible ability to write gorgeous, gentle stories that take apart your heart like a 500 piece puzzle and put it back together. This one is both particularly soft and particularly beautiful.

A fairytale AU, this tells the story of Cas, a shy and lonely honey merchant who falls in love with one of the Swans, local celebrities, who as a result of a curse, turn into swans. There are wings. There is gorgeous worldbuilding. But most importantly, there is just this gorgeous love story between two very lonely men who feel invisible.

They don't just accept each other, they cherish each other. It’s gorgeous.

The Handyman's Special by Carrieosity @carrieosity (Explicit, 51k)

If you want a good laugh, this is the fic for you. I was cracking up the ENTIRE time.

Dean, a professor with minimal construction experience and a shoddy home inspection, buys a fixer upper that's more like a money pit. But he can’t face the "I told you so" from Sam, so he hires a contractor in secret. And then to keep that secret, he lies and says the contractor, Cas, is his boyfriend.

What follows is a disaster-Dean rom com with a lot of heart. The angst never gets too angsty. It's fun and sweet and hilarious.

Too Hot To Hunt by Englandwouldfall (Teen, 19k)

A canon fix-it case fic that reverses the fuck or die trope. Dean and Cas encounter a monster that attacks couples during intimacy. Which means two things: 1. Dean has to reveal to his brother that he and Cas have been an item since he came back, and 2. Dean and Cas may have to use their words instead of hiding behind sexual intimacy. So that’s not awkward at all.

This one is just immensely satisfying, digging into all of the things that make Dean and Cas so bad at communicating. It's soft, awkward, and mildly angsty in the best way.

Jurassicatural by anyrei and queerwerewolf @anyreiart @queerwerewolf @the-real-anywolf (Explicit, 34k)

A delightful mashup of Jurassic Park and SPN, this one is just really fun. Chuck Shurley had created a new theme park for long extinct monsters, but his investors have one requirement before opening: sign-off from experts on the creatures.

Enter the Winchester brothers, a Paleontologist and Paleobotanist, and Dr. Cas Novak, Historian. But life finds a way and so does trouble.

In addition to just being fun, this one features an instant obsession between Destiel that is really fun to watch, a delightfully moody Claire, a sunny Jack and some really fun monsters.

Fata morgana by orange_crushed (Teen, 6.6k)

This is a short read but woof. It really packs a punch. A canon adjacent story in Hell told from the perspective of Bela Talbot, it's the kind of fic that will make you want to munch on the shower door.

There's an angel in Hell and Bela is going to find him. The angel? Cas seeking out Dean, the King of Hell.

This one plays with the lore in an extremely satisfying way. It's justice for Bela, though not in a saccharine sweet way, and also some really lovely Cas stuff.

A Demon Like Him by EllenOfOz @ellen-of-oz (Explicit, 24k)

If you are looking for some fun worldbuilding, this fic has you. Set in a world powered by magic, Dean is on the cusp of graduating and becoming a warlock. It's everything his father has ever wanted…and now he has to admit nothing he actually wants. Dean is determined to fail the final exam - to summon and bind himself to a demon - so that he can finally be free. Unfortunately for Dean, he fails at failing and instead summons an incubus, Castiel.

This one has some gorgeous nods to canon and it's simply a fun, sizzling read. The angst isn't too angsty. Cas is basically a sex God. It’s good, dirty fun. On top of that, Dean and Cas have some absolutely gorgeous soft moments.

Dark Side of the Moon by imogenbynight @thevioletcaptain (Mature, 37k)

An astronaut AU similar in some aspects to the Martian: after Dean's crew is killed in an accident on the moon, he's left alone and traumatized. Cas volunteers to help retrieve him, but can they make it in time and what will they find when they get there?

This one has a nice balance of horror elements, trauma, and humor. It also has just really likeable cast of characters. Even though you know it will all end well, there are some delightfully tense moments and the immediate bond between Cas and Dean is a delight.

See my other fic recs on my new sideblog @riversrecs

Tag list

@varlysca @naturallyathief @greatbigbugger @fandoms-and-things @cascodedtech @you-cant-spell-subtext-without @deanwasalwaysbi @fellshish @valleydean @raspberry-tooth @the15yearhatecrime @sunglassesmish

#destiel #deancas #deancas fic rec #destiel fic rec #deancas fic recs #destiel fic recs #spn fic recs #supernatural #spn

[liketolaugh-writes]

I know I've talked about this before, but God, I'm never going to stop resenting the hold that Harry Potter has on me.

As an autistic person, special interests never really leave you, and that's more true for longer-standing ones. I really can't explain how all-consuming they are, how much time and energy and love you pour into them, how much joy and comfort you get from them. I'm kind of between special interests right now, after finishing both Constellations and Blue Food Project, and it's unsettling. Makes me restless, leaves a lot of time in my day. (Time I can use to look for jobs! Positives.)

Anyway. Harry Potter was definitely my longest-standing special interest to date. It was my SI through most of elementary school, and given the choice, I would do nothing except reread them, over and over and over and over again. My parents had to institute a rule where every time I finished the series, I had to wait a certain amount of time before I read it again, and I always did as soon as the time was up. There are parts of it, useless stupid lines, that I can still recite from memory. ("And he was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one that turned out to be pepper" has always been my favorite example.) I don't engage much with the Harry Potter fandom, because it's a mutant factioned thing that kind of scares me, but the story stays with me nonetheless.

Like many other fans, this letter broke my heart; I'm sure you know the one even without clicking the link. She's only gotten worse since then (every so often I still look at her Twitter account and mourn) but this was the beginning of the end. Most authors, I can forgive their transgressions; I can trust that they've grown, I can accept that their work is flawed, and I can enjoy what I read despite that.

Every since that letter, and plenty of the subsequent scandals besides, I've been unable to do that. I read any part of Harry Potter and I can see nothing but flaws. I see sexism, and ableism, and cultural appropriation and colonialism and hypocrisy. I think, why are there so many crowds of tittering girls? and why does everyone hate Fleur seemingly just for being French and pretty? and why did she design the Slug Club without any acknowledgement of 'this is literally how to break into a career field?' There is nothing there for me but frustration and hurt.

I've seen people in the trans community complain about cis folk asking if they can 'still enjoy' Harry Potter, which I understand. (I consider myself nonbinary, but my gender identity is so unimportant to me that I still consider my place in that community tenuous.) But this isn't that. This is frustration. Harry Potter was carved into me years ago, and I can't seem to dig it out, and I have yet to decide what to do with that.

But the story stays with me. The memory of it is inescapable. I don't even really need to reread the books to write fanfics, most of the time; I know every plot point by heart. How could I not? And every unanswered question, every point of shoddy worldbuilding that drives me nuts about that world - I can fix those. I do it all the time in other fandoms. It's really not that hard to create the answers to the plot holes that bother you.

Most of the Harry Potter fics I write are crossovers - Harry Potter goes well with just about any world, kind of like Avengers does. But there's one I've been playing with that bugs me in a special way.

I mentioned finishing 'Constellations,' my two part series where Percy Jackson goes to therapy for everything he goes through in the PJO and HoO books. That was a love letter to Percy Jackson, to Rick Riordan's writing. Like any writer, he has his flaws and weak points, but I love it nonetheless, every part of it. I wrote it with the intent to supplement and highlight canon for everything I love about it.

Now, I find myself writing a similar fic for Harry Potter, with Harry Potter going through therapy. It's in the beginning stages yet (such stories are obviously difficult) but it's such a fascinating topic that I can't shake it. What happens when a survivor of such vicious neglect suddenly is accused of seeking attention at every turn? How can someone so victimized by the Ministry come to trust them enough to work as an Auror? Did Dumbledore truly understand what he subjected Harry to with the Dursleys?

But with Constellations, I had respect for Riordan's writing that I don't have for Rowling's. Such a story would come from a completely different place. And that's fascinating, too. It's just complicated.

I'm not going anywhere with this, I guess. It's just- frustrating, to so thoroughly resent a story and a cast that I also love so much.

#long post #harry potter #hp #jk rowling #sorry it didn't seem right to break it anywhere #it has been YEARS now of trying to deal with this #autism #special interests #just because this post is arguably almost more about that than about harry potter #i kind of want to do a complete reread of the books and annotate everything that bothers me #would that help? maybe! #i don't know

[greensaplinggrace]

Do you not like Leigh? Did you enjoy the books?

overall, i found the books fun and enjoyable, in the way i find many pieces of literature and media that aren't masterfully crafted enjoyable. the writing grows weary at times, and the worldbuilding is messy. often, the books discard tone and consistency to force the reader in a certain direction or thought process. this happens many times, and in many ways - the least appealing of which to me is the obvious retconning later in the series, where other methods could have been employed to convey the desired messages without manipulating the reader.

i don't find leigh herself personally unpleasant (although i do have issues with a lot of her statements on certain things), and i think her later writing is passable. but shadow and bone suffers from being her first, and it shows. her lack of experience isn't the only thing to show, either, considering how bluntly she breaks apart her narrative to push her own biases through.

shadow and bone is largely appealing to me as a work of potential. there are some shining moments within it that captured my interest and elevated it in my eyes. leigh has a habit of striking real gold, and then selling it as fool's. i enjoyed the books in some aspects, and didn't like them in others. i also love the concept of them so much and adore the parts that i do like so severely that a lot of my criticism is done out of affection and out of a certain type of grief for what could have been.

i also have extremely heavy criticisms of the implications wrought throughout the story, and the ways leigh handled the characters and world-state she created. sometimes, my ability to separate my offense at many of her messages from my appreciation for her writing gets too weak. it's hard to appreciate a certain line, no matter how much it feels good, when one has spent so long considering the larger implications of that line and the terrible stereotypes and propaganda it's supporting.

so overall - sorry for the ramble lol - i do like the books when i'm just reading them for fun. because they are fun and they do often have good moments, plus a wealth of really interesting potential. but i do have issues with the messages as well as the writing, and honestly i think it's bizarre that people laud the series as something more than it is. it's middling fantasy with shoddy worldbuilding and characters that possess sparks of potential that carry them into success, written by someone who clearly doesn't understand the finer workings of a lot of the things she tries (and fails) to tackle.

that doesn't make it bad, certainly, nor unenjoyable. but i am also the type of person that finds enjoyment in deep literary analysis and heavy criticism. it's a love language to literature, really.

#shadow and bone #grishaverse #leigh bardugo critical #anon #myramblings #shadow and bone critical #sab critical #negative #fandomcourse #asks and answers

[maxwell-grant]

🔥 X-men/Krakoa?

Allright let me swing at the hornet's nest here a bit: Krakoa was wasted on the X-Men, not the other way around.

Krakoa was, however problematic and shitty and complicated it might have been even from day one, was onto something enough to generate the intense interest and instant fandom it did, and it's biggest problem wasn't with the forgiving of unrepentant monstrous villains (because that door got blown open forever ago), or the no-humans-allowed policy, or the genocide in Latin America, or the pod people resurrection that took the bite out of every mutant genocide and death past and future, or that the entire premise was built around them trusting the funi haha eugenicist Nazi to build their paradise and let himself be stopped later, or that it kept revolving around the petty courtly intrigues of the arch assholes in charge with only like, two writers capable of propping up this to make it worth reading about. The central problem didn't have as much to do with the fact that the newfound central focus on shadowy detached superhumans huffing their supremacist royalist fumes 24/7 is precisely why nobody likes the Inhumans and especially why nobody liked them as a replacement to the X-Men, and you can't cobble a story out of Magneto/Emma Frost/Mr Sinister mean girl one-liners and hot takes even if that's all the fans want (yes, the X-Men are bastards and so is everyone in the MU, how cutting and insightful and powerful they are yes very impressed, but an Epic Bastard Moments compilation is still not a story). I don't even think it can be entirely blamed on the fact that they had the X-Men speedrun through the 14 rules of fascism as the opening act to a larger story only to decide that actually, we don't need that larger story after all, thanks Hickster but we can just take it from here and keep Stage One as is, everyone's gonna be cool with the cult shit if it still feels like it's going anywhere other than back to the school, we can keep this up forever now! This isn't even a bit, I don't think these things were the biggest cause of death for Krakoa even if they all were there.

I think the biggest problem is that, no matter how many cool or great characters they add to their ranks or what turns into epic pulp sci-fi bombast they take, the X-Men might just be foundationally, irreperably broken as a concept, smothered under the weight of the selling metaphor that just gets more dated and problematic and easier to tear holes into with every passing year, and Krakoa ultimately just elevated all these problems to center stage. There was never going to be a world where Magneto says something as full of shit as "There has never been a mutant war and we've never conquered or stolen land or made slaves and that's why we're better, by the way we're going to be your new gods now" with a straight-face and didn't have that proven immediately wrong (not counting all the people in the Council who absolutely did do all of those things). Krakoa couldn't be both the terra nullius dream clubhouse and the "queer separatist utopia" people desperately craved and a cult backed up by genocide run by self-destructive warmongering hypocrites and a next step in evolution and the headquarters to a superhero team you need to tell monthly exploding punchy stories about and a place that was going to live forever and lead us into the better future and a house of cards waiting to be toppled. It didn't have a future because quite frankly, the mutants don't have a future.

The mutants are, even after all this time, still a half-baked idea of people entirely defined by their oppression, by their death and torture and the hollow space where you're expected to insert your own marginalized traits to identify with instead of much of anything akin to how real marginalized identities are formed and developed and solidified over time. Pretending that the mutants can subsist forever on past shoddy worldbuilding and dated, vague parallels just gets more embarassing over time. It's not an issue individually cool comics or characters are going to fundamentally fix. Krakoa, to it's credit, was some way towards trying to define the mutants past their oppression, but they barely had a language or a flag, and even these attempts were smothered under the Claremontian shadow that's been choking this franchise forever and by the inability of The Big Two to truly hand the reins to anyone other than the same stables of white dudes who always get the final say in everything. Krakoa was Going Somewhere up until it wasn't, and the promise alone breathed a whole new life into the X-books, we really did get some very good comics out of this era, but it was always going to end the way it ended.

Actually scrap all of that, my hot take is, not for racist reasons or anything, but we should destroy the X-Men and replace them with big cool robots that can make us safe forever. Has anyone tried that already?

#replies tag #I really do mourn Fred Dukes as a bartender though #the last years went such a long way towards making a character out of him and addressing all the fatphobia and doing such good work with hi #there were indeed decisions made with the characters in this period I did like #but that's more of a case-by-case basis

[greatwyrmgold]

I find it so frustrating when people complain that Ward isn't very post-apocalyptic. Like, yes, that is accurate, but you don't see people complaining that Twig isn't very steampunk, do you?

It is true that Gold Morning was a world-shaping destructive events. Other things that are true about Ward's backstory:

The world had been preparing for an apocalyptic event for years, creating portals to other worlds and setting up what they'd need on the other side.

Cauldron had been preparing for this exact apocalyptic event for decades, stockpiling the resources and making the connections humanity would need to rebuild.

There are several other Earths largely untouched by Gold Morning, who are supporting Gimel's construction and such through various means and for various reasons.

We're not talking about a world suddenly razed to the ground and then two years later it's back to a shoddy approximation of normal. We're talking about a world which was expecting something like this, which had preparations in place for rebuilding, and also connections to massive pools of basically untouched resources and industry. Also, superpowers.

Plus...post-apocalypse has been done endlessly before. Post-post-apocalypse, where society is starting to rebuild despite everything, are much rarer. I'm glad Wildbow decided to take the road less traveled; what would get get from reading the surviving Undersiders Mad-Maxing it across a half-rebuilt industrial zone? And I'm glad Wildbow established reasons that the Earth Bet refugees would be able to rebuild (or at least that they could fall back on what was pre-built) back in the middle of Worm.

Is Ward's worldbuilding perfect? Of course not. Compared to Worm and the Otherverse, it's weaker. But so is almost every setting! Yeah, there are holes I'd like filled in; more detail about the organizations and institutions trying to control the Megalopolis's chaos, details about what other Earths are getting out of their trade deals, some idea of why the ramshackle bodge-job of a justice system is seen as legitimate in a world where elections are still a WIP, etc.

But Ward's world is still sturdier than most worlds, whether superhero, post-apocalyptic, or biopunk. Which sounds like an odd thing to specify, but it's a segue to me arguing that Twig's worldbuilding is even worse than Ward's. I mean, the Crown dismantled the Anglican Church and expected that to improve its control over the citizenry?

#ward #parahumans #wildbow #worldbuilding #apocalypse #post post apocalypse #essay