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ufonaut · 4 months

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WELCOME TO THE FOURTH ANNUAL COMIX OF THE YEAR EXTRAVAGANZA!

I've grown very fond of this little tradition we've started here, and it's nice to get a chance to showcase all the books I've read and loved and could shout about from the rooftops. This year I've read 140 completed series out of a total of 474 over all completed series (as always, that's not counting single issues or current ongoings!) and I've come to expand my physical collection to 735 issues -- that's more than any previous year!

It's been a really great year, from getting to see my first article published in print and getting to write a couple dream articles for a magazine that's meant the world to me to getting to visit Graceland & Memphis with some of my best friends in the universe and then getting another two weeks with my beloved best buddy @slaapkat right here in London! I also feel like I've gotten more into the local comics scene and grown more confident as the true real fanboy I am.

The JSA's renaissance also remains a miracle to me and the definitie highlight of these past two years. Without further ado, here's this year's favourites:

Justice Society of America (2022) #8 In a November 2022 interview, Geoff Johns said: "to me, he's the most iconic character in the Justice Society of America. […] To me, Alan Scott is the main character." Right then and there, I knew we were in good hands. I have loved this series from day one and I still love it like nothing else in the world but this particular story might be the best single issue I've read this year -- it feels like coming home, it feels like the first time we've seen the real Alan Scott in so long. There's something very special about the few occasions team books have allowed a spotlight to shine on Alan alone, more so when he's found himself the heart of the story. This issue with its gorgeous art and picture-perfect characterisation feels like just the thing I've spent so long searching for.

Slam-Bang Comics (1940) It's hard to explain how the funniest comic you've ever read is a wildly obscure Fawcett publication that lasted six issues in 1940, but that's precisely what the Diamond Jack stories in Slam-Bang Comics are to me. Diamond Jack is early absurdist comedy, Diamond Jack is a case study in what made the Golden Age sincerely and genuinely the medium's best era -- its endless room for innovation, the lawless approach of creators building a new art form from the ground up. On the first page of his first appearance, we learn Diamond Jack was given a miraculous gem by an "old magician": this is all we ever learn of our hero. In the third panel of that same page, he dares a pair of robbers to shoot him. It only gets better from there.

Enigma (1993) An eight-issue miniseries about an ordinary guy whose favorite 1970s obscure comic book character seemingly comes to life with all that implies and in the process of investigating this bizarre series of events with the help of the original series' writer, he also comes to terms with his sexuality as a gay man. It's the single most compelling, complex, meaningful book I've ever read. It's also the very first explicitly gay mainstream comic, and it might as well be the only one for its radical no holds barred approach to sexuality (on-screen gay sex included, a complete rarity in this era of sanitized intimacy).

A Contract with God (1978) Widely acknowledged as the world's first graphic novel, Will Eisner's classic anthology certainly lives up to the immensity of its legacy. As the man himself writes in the introduction to the 2000 edition, "I realize I was really only working around one core concept – that the medium was an art form in itself. Unique, with a structure and gestalt all its own, this medium could deal with meaningful themes. Certainly there was more for the cartoonist working in this technique to deal with than superheroes who were preventing the destruction of Earth by supervillains." Four stand-alone tales make up the book, all following Jewish characters living in the same New York tenement in the 1930s, all based on Eisner's childhood recollections and impressions. I remember crying, really crying, at that first story and then laughing uproariously at the next and so on. There's really no way to express just how special this book is without reading it for yourself.

Seven Miles a Second (1996) Published posthumously, Seven Miles a Second is David Wojnarowicz's autobiographical graphic novel detailing the last years of his life before his AIDS-related death. It's urgent, angry, hard-hitting, bleak, and a sincere mandatory read for any gay person interested in our history. It made me sob like few things have. In the here and now, it's surreal to think that DC Comics had published this in the mid-1990s under its Vertigo imprint -- it's often surreal to me that we used to have genuinely daring gay comics published by one of the 'big two', and we've been left with less than a shadow of comic books' former self. Still, the few we have are some of the most significant to have ever graced the medium.

Catwoman: Selina's Big Score (2002) This is a funny one. I'm not a library-goer but while wasting time at the library down the street early this year, I ran into this big collection of all of Darwyn Cooke's Batman stories -- they're great, they're always great because Darwyn himself was a giant of the industry, but Selina's Big Score was one I hadn't read before and it's ended up being something of a life-changing chance encounter for yours truly. Something about this little book utterly changed the way I look at Selina Kyle as a character. I'm a big crime fiction buff, there's no denying that, but it's the subtext that makes the book; the exploration of the cold, hard, mean way Selina navigates the limitations imposed by her gender and social class. It's something else, it's really something else.

Parker (2009) And speaking of cold, hard, mean things. Darwyn Cooke's Parker is something of a package deal with the above, Selina's man friday in Big Score is named Stark and undoubtedly based on Richard Stark's Parker. That's how I got here, but I certainly never left. Months and months later, Parker's still on my mind as one of the most compelling characters I've ever encountered and one of the most beautiful, right-up-my-alley series in existence. Darwyn's four graphic novel adaptations are masterpieces in their own right and I cannot recommend them enough to anyone who's willing to listen but I'm also forever grateful that they've introduced me to my ongoing obsession with Stark's actual novels -- one of the few pieces of fiction I've been genuinely blown away by in recent times. "Rough, macho stuff but tight and exciting, too" is what a blurb on the back of one of the books says and I couldn't agree more, and I can't say I've ever found anything else so uniquely suited to all my interests.

Stargirl: The Lost Children (2022) I'm not the biggest fan of sidekicks or original characters, or children. Yet, somehow, this series won me over in a heartbeat. Geoff Johns has a truly uncanny ability to make a new character feel like they've been here for decades; in this particular case, the so-called Lost Children mix so well with actual Golden Age characters that their introduction betrays nothing except a genuine passion for and knowledge of 1940s comics. Geoff's work has been some of the best of the modern era for a long while now but this one's really a beautiful and beautifully self-contained little story hitting some great emotional beats.

I Die at Midnight (2000) On New Year's Eve 1999, a man decides to kill himself by swallowing too many pills after a bad breakup. Immediately afterwards, his ex decides she wants to reconcile and he's sent into a mad-dash attempt to save himself without her finding out about his impending death. Misunderstandings, frustrations, lies and hare-brained schemes ensue. It might not sound like the makings of a comedy but I Die at Midnight ranks up there with the funniest books I've ever read, I've spent this last year making my way through all of Kyle Baker's DC work and it's certainly tough to choose a favourite but there's simply no other book that captures his delightfully offbeat humour quite like this one.

Silverblade (1987) One thing's clear: 1987 was a magical year for DC Comics. I don't think there's a single year in the industry's entire history that's produced more hits or better books. Silverblade's a special one though, it's the Sunset Boulevard of comics. If there's anything I love half as much as crime fiction, it's anything dealing with Old Hollywood, throw in a heavy dose of gaycoding and it's the book for me. I read this one very early in the year but it left a lasting impression and I've definitely come to consider it something of an all-time favorite.

SPECIAL MENTION:

Flashpoint (2011)

Blackest Night (2009)

Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan (2012)

Face (1995)

Jay Garrick: The Flash (2023)

A History of Violence (1997)

Batman: Death and the Maidens (2004)

You Are Here (1999)

Stuck Rubber Baby (1995)

V for Vendetta (1988)

#THE BEST OF THE BEST RIGHT HERE FOLKS AND MY GOD I DO LOVE DOING THIS #comix of the year #personal #u can rb though etc

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neonjawbone · 1 year

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So, out of curiosity: as someone who's got a long-running web comic AND who's got a novel coming as well, have you found that your process for writing each are very different?

Are there things that are the same?

Did you find one easier than the other?

Did the type of media you were making influence the genre you chose to work with?

Sorry, just super curious since I haven't seen anyone do both before!

ooh!! I love this question!

Yes, I'd say, the process is very different! I've said this to a couple friends so far, but working in prose has been like reuniting with an old friend. Pretty common story, but I was a huge reader until sometime in college (around the time i got on social media and my adhd really took a nosedive), so actually writing (and by extension, trying to get back into reading) has been REALLY fun and interesting. My process for storytelling itself is really similar, but writing for comics can leave a lot up to the visuals. What the backgrounds look like, expressions and character acting, these are things i tend to leave to myself on the page. When you rely on them overmuch in prose, what you get is a kind of boring slog. Working in prose has lead me to try and write not how things *look* (as is my instinct coming from comics) but how they *feel*.

Furthermore, prose is such a different game. Idk how else to put it. The act of writing is so uniquely vulnerable, and while theres things I miss from comics (expressions being wayyyy up there) theres also so much cool shit you can only do in prose. Stuff like really getting into characters interiority, and through multiple pov characters painting different pictures of the world and your cast.

Prose is easier, bar none (okay, this is kind of incendiary) what I mean is, prose is less labor intensive. The act of creating/storytelling/art is still WORK. No matter how you're doing it. And certainly, sometimes I'll beat my head trying to convey something in prose that isn't like, boring. But I can bang out 1k-5k words in a day without aggravating my RSIs, it is not draining in the way that comics are, simply put, yeah. It's physically easier to type words (for me) than it is to draw a comic.

Example: Though I started work on my novel, OTAS, about a year and a half ago, maybe only 6-7 months were spent writing with any regularity (and even on writing days I was still able to do many other things!). The graphic novel I worked on, TPATPG (out in AUGUST!!) took two years of near constant, daily work which allotted a majority of my drawing energy..

Now, I don't think my influences have really changed so much, BUT I made a conscious effort to read prose books with more regularity since starting to incorporate fiction writing. I think it's very important to take in the media you want to work in!!

In conclusion, working in prose has been really fun, and I'm excited to do more of it!

#asks

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bibuckbuckley · 1 year

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Sleepover time!!!!!

What are your favorite headcanons for each of the fire fam??<3 or just for your favorite of the firefam????<3

I came up with (most of) these just now so I'm not sure if they're my favorites but I do love them

Bobby:

Since we know he did figure skating competitions growing up, I think to this day he loves watching them with Athena and definitely has a lot of Opions™️ (especially on the judges and their scores).

Chimney:

He LOVES Star Wars movies and Empire Strikes Back is his favorite. (Finding out your dad is the villain your afraid of becoming? Yeah he relates) He also is a comic book collector and he loves reading Star Wars EU books (both Legenda and current EU).

Hen:

She makes fun of reality shows all the times but she secretly loves them (people can be SO stupid sometimes and she eats it up). The main reasons she loves it is making fun of everyone making the WORST decisions and saying the WORST things. But watching them with Karen is the best part and is the only way to get her to watch them.

Buck:

Growing up he loved reading. It was hard for him to concentrate sometimes so he especially loved it when Maddie would read to him. When she left and he told his local liberian about how sometimes it was hard to focus on reading (usually if it wasn't the topic he was currently into or a fictional story) she gave him an old cassette player and introduced him to the world of audiobooks. Nowa days he still physically reads but when he can’t focus he LOVES listening to an audiobook while doing other things too like working out or cooking or drawing. (lol I did not mean for that to be so long 😂)

Eddie:

Well I absolutely love the headcanons that he's close with his sisters and they made him watch things like the HSM movies (that he secretly loved but didn't admitted to anyone besides his sisters) and (a recent hc) they forced him into playing Barbies and watching Barbie movies (Princess And The Pauper was his favorite). I also love the hc that since we know he's into baseball that he used to play baseball in high school. But I wanna take it a step further and say that he played it since little league. Also his favorite team is the Texas Rangers (he still faithfully follows them). We know he's a self pro-claimed dancer, but I hc that Abuela taught him at a young age and when his sisters would be in dance and needed to practice he'd help them (while also secretly wishing he could take dance too but was always to afraid to ask). Also I just really love the idea that he secretly loves romance novels (lol I just have a lot of Eddie hc's that I just love)

Athena:

Watching cooking shows was a always a stress reliever for her and since she married Bobby it's become their Thing™️ where they would watch them and ALWAYS make comments if it was the right dish to make with those ingredients and make bets on who's dish would win.

Maddie:

Growing up she loved romcoms and teen movies and would watch them with Buck (who also loved them) and she loved reading books (they'd be her escape. Nowadays she absolutely loves reading romance novels and making fun of some of them with Chimney. She also likes it when at night (after Jee is in bed) sometimes she would read her current read and he'd read his current comic/graphic novel or Star Wars EU book and they'd talk about what they're reading.

May:

She loves Taylor Swift and she definitely has a Tumblr (I need more hc's for her alskdjdh)

Thank you so much!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

sleepover weekend

#911 #my headcanons #kj gets an ask #thespermdonorstorylineisstupid

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maxalotlxl · 7 months

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My Reading Year* So Far (June - September)

*I have started reading again near the end of June this year so I've only started my reading year almost midway through 2024.

I won't be including any comics/graphic novels/manga's in this list.

June Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes 3 Stars. This was an easy enough read to get me out of my reading slump, and I enjoyed the mystery premise enough.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir 4 Stars. Didn't enjoy this as much as Gideon the Ninth, but oh how much I love these characters so much and the more we learn the less we know and somehow it makes me love it even more.

July The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M Harris 3 Stars. Easy to follow, and of course having Loki as a narrator is very entertaining, was disappointed how quickly Ragnorok was dealt with, felt like I needed more.

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir 5 Stars. Hitting my favourites list easily. Of course I bought Nona the day after I finished Harrow, my only complaint is having to wait for Alecto.

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark 5 Stars. Menaces to Society, both of them, love them but damn I was screaming at them at every page because they could not make one good decision between them for the entire book.

August Gwen & Art Are Not In Love by Lex Croucher 4 Stars. I picked a romance book up. Like I was trying to get into romance. I wouldn't call this a romance, It was so much more focused on the accepting of self and the friendships than the romance.

The Faithless by C.L. Clark 5 Stars. I've never related to a character more than Sabine, such a thirsty lady, but I get you. I too would be throwing myself shamelessly at both Touraine and Luca.

Kill for me Kill for you by Steve Cavanagh 5 Stars. Thriller/Mystery book I read alongside my mother and older sister. Definitely gonna start reading more Mystery type books.

She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen 3 Stars. Read within 24hrs, very quick and easy read. My only issue was I am obviously older than it's target audience.

The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (DNF) I hate not finishing books, but I'm sorry the love interests are boring, copies of one another, that are apparently just great at everything and the main character is somehow the most self-centred, awful sister and friend. NOPE.

Shadows Fall by Simon R Green 3 Stars. Gifted to read by a regular at work, I can not for the life of me explain this book, it's bizarre start to finish. Sea Goat is the best, also read this through both physical and audiobooks.

September Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 4 Stars. It is not the best fantasy book ever but it was really enjoyable and I'm very excited for next one in the series, just maybe don't get over hyped over this.

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner 3 Stars. Felt like I was reading someone's fantasy fanfiction. Just turned out to be the same as my own fantasy.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree 4 Stars. For everyone that imagines their DnD characters retirement, a cute and cozy story that I enjoyed every second of. Thimble <3

Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation by Catherynne M. Valente 3 Stars. Confession, I still haven't finished Andromeda. I'm not really good at reading Sci-Fi books, but since I used an audiobook to help me through it I really enjoyed this mystery read based in the universe of one of my favourite game series ever.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone 4 Stars. Me with these Sci-Fi reads, did I understand what the hell was happening. No, of course I didn't. But I know these characters love story was something that gripped my heart in the end.

Harley Quinn : Reckoning by Rachael Allen 5 Stars. This book was clearly made for me, Harley Quinn has been a character that I've loved for years, so it only made sense I picked up DC Icons Harley Quinn book to read. Then I find out it has a mystery plot. Thank you Racheal Allen for just creating this amazing book for me, like she definitely made this just for me right?

Red Rising by Pierce Brown 4 Stars. I had read this back in like 2015 maybe, but never came round to reading the rest of the series. Had to start over again to remember exactly what happened in this book, I understand peoples issues with this book though as the language and themes were a most of the time dark.

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ohpleaselarry · 2 years

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Hi i hope you're having a good day i finally read the book for your fic, the one from your anon and i love it. So im wondering if you or your anons have any recommendation for book that has Larry vibe or books that could be a good fic in Larry AU. Thank you

I love that everyone’s reading josh&hazel now haha! I’m gonna be totally honest anon, when I read any books even remotely romantic, I’m imagining L&H in the character’s places haha I’ve spent so long writing them and thinking of them in different situations that I genuinely can’t read a regular book (or watch a show) without thinking “hmm..this could make a fic”

That being said, I don’t really read casually as much as I used to, as I’m so busy with uni and writing in my free time, but I did in the last month buy the entire Heartstopper graphic novel series in physical copies despite having read them for free online and already watched the show, and anything gay is going to be a great Larry vibe haha. I’m sure you’ve seen the show, but Alice Oseman has the full comics posted online to read for free! They’re very good.

I’m sorry I don’t have much more of an answer, that’s the only thing I’ve had time to read in the last year and only bc it’s a graphic novel so it’s quick and easy :’)

#reader asks

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eofdragons · 2 months

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Today I finished all the Fazbear Frights stories.

yay.🎉🎉🎉🎉😹😹😹👏🏼👏🏼😭

I only have three of the physical books with me so most of it was through YouTube audio books (thank you Ozone). This last day of my journey was me going through an anxiety attack listening to the bonus stories and the last couple of epilogues, while cleaning my home.

My journey started with me listening to my best friend reading me the stories as a bedtime story, around 2 years ago. Which then turned into me listening to the story's audio books in art class, last year. and whenever I had to do work outside I would listen to the stories, getting at least two stories down. As for the two physical books that I had left over from my friend I read them in my budgeting class.

I remember when the graphic novels came out I had to read some of the stories earlier so I could read the graphic novels, without getting spoiled. The graphic novels are the only part I haven't finished yet. I'm so ready to finish the rest of the graphic novels.

I hear a lot of people hating on the stories in the books and I can agree for some of them but I really love most of them, especially lonely Freddy. I don't think I truly hate any of the stories. I wish some of the stories were expanded on, like finding player two. I also wish some got sequels, sea Bonnie's or fetch. Although the epilogues were kind of wasted with the Eleanor stuff.

My next Journey will be the audio books for Tales From The pizzaplex (also by Ozone). All while I'm reading the Twisted Ones and the Fourth Closet. It will take hours but I'm ready.

I can't wait to get into all the fan-made stuff about the Fazbear Fright stories. I've been waiting to watch some of those big videos about them.

I'm going to make so much art about my favorite characters and stories. I'm probably also going to try and rewrite the epilogues. But that's for a few years from now because I'm already trying to do some other stuff, like my welcome to Dreamworld fan comic, writing my own original story, writing a Five Nights at Freddy's fan comic and it being my last year of high school then to college. That project is for years away.

I will make a list of all my favorite Fazbear Fright stories, why I like them why I dislike them and how I think they could have been approved.

#fnaf #fazbear frights #fnaf books #op

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alicepooryorick · 11 months

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Hey, I’m reaching out to you in an ask so you don’t have to share this publicly if you don’t want to. I know you probably didn’t mean any harm, but I’d recommend deleting your post about Oracle!Jason because it comes off as unintentionally sexist and ableist. Idk how familiar you are with The Killing Joke, but in comics there’s a long-standing issue regarding the “refrigerator woman.” When a woman is “fridged” in a comic, it means that she is the victim of something horrific (i.e. torture, rape, murder) but the storyline focuses only on how her experience affects the men around her, with no regard for how it actually affects her. The Killing Joke is one of the most infamous examples of this, because Babs’s assault is very graphic and sexualized, but the narrative is focused on how her father (Commissioner Gordon) and Batman are affected, not her. (For more information on fridging, I recommend this, this, and Gail Simone’s website, which coined the term.) Following the events of The Killing Joke, Babs’s character was discarded for several real life years. Her reemergence as Oracle is important because it allowed her to reclaim her trauma and reframed the narrative; she was no longer a victim, she was a survivor. I know that, at first glance, Babs’s assault and Jason’s murder can seem comparable because they were both at the hands of The Joker, they were both senseless acts of violence, etc. but the sexual nature of Babs’s torture and the lack of respect she was given as a character before she reemerged as Oracle separates these stories. (Also, I’m not disabled, but it’s my understanding that the word “crippled” is offensive.) I know you probably didn’t mean any harm, but sexism and ableism are really big issues in comics (and irl), and it can be easy to lean into unconscious biases when you aren’t fully aware of the harm your words may cause. I would also urge you to read The Killing Joke, it’s a tough read but it’s important to experience it firsthand in order to fully understand just how far the sexism and ableism go. There’s an animated movie adaptation from a few years ago, but it’s worse than the graphic novel (there’s an unnecessarily added rape scene) so I’d avoid it. Feel free to respond to this message or ignore it as you please. My DMs aren’t usually open, but send me an ask and I’ll message you first so we can talk about this further if you have any questions.

Hi there, first off thank you for bringing this to my attention. I really appreciate it.

Looking back now, yeah. My choice of language is bad. I'm not fully sure why I chose crippled over any other word that's FAR better. Nothing really to say there but sorry. Even as someone physically disabled that word isn't like faggot. It's not going to get better.

And yeah. I've never read the Killing Joke in its entirety. Alan Moore himself said in an interview he wishes people would not read it because he thinks it's a really bad book that has to many issues. But maybe after this I will go read it. I knew it was a horribly awful book, for godsake it's about the assault physical, sexual, and mental of Barbara and her father. All to get rid of Barbara Gordon from the role of Batgirl.

I agree I had bias here, this isn't the first time I've said shit unintentionally about Barbara Gordon. If you look back far enough there's probably still some posts I made lamenting that she didn't become like Marvel's Silhouette. I'm not proud of those either. And now that I look at it, as much as I do think the idea of seeing how two of my favorite characters swapping positions and how they'd interact with eachother's position... It's the same as my old posts about Barbara and Silhouette. It's pretty hurtful.

And again, thank you. I really appreciate your kind words while explaining the issue. It really helped, and I hope you have a great rest of your day <3

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sheepisreading · 1 year

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Books I finished in Febuary 2023

The first three I grabbed at the same time at the boostore because I was bored and needed cheering up!

Naked, David Sedaris, 1997

This is an essay collection! I’d previously read Calypso by the same author and loved it. It’s a fun read, not hard to read or get into and doesn’t require too much concentration to read while still being very entertaining. I chose it as my next book for that reason, because I’ve been pretty fucking stressed recently and thought I could read it without spiralling. It worked! I loved it, it was funny and earnest, recounting amusing anecdotes and real learning moments. I love these kinds of essay collections heartfelt but self aware and comedic.

(Also, because I’ll probably never review it since I read it like six years ago: in the same vein I can only recommend Watsky’s essay collection “How to ruin everything”, probably even more than Naked! It’s I think less emotional or about emotions but I honestly loved it, it made me very happy, Watsky is awesome.)

Assembly, Natasha Brown, 2020

Fully picked this one up in the bookshop because the cover is pretty but after reading the blurb I immediately bought it. It’s fiction but clearly inspired by the authors life. The main character muses on her life so far and the decisions she’s made. It says clearly some shit that’s obvious but for some reason still an issue! The author clearly writes about the differences in class and upbringing between rich old money white people (her colleages) and hardworking new money black people (her). It’s about stuff we take for granted and casual racism. Very good ! It packs a punch in only a hundred pages.

Bluets, Maggie Nelson, 2009

Maggie Nelson writes “propositions” meaning short prose-poetry rambling-things about blue. I’m very into blue and gave a school presentation two years ago on the history of blue in art inspired by the vsauce video about it (which is amazing by the way, I rewatch it often), so I’ve been wanting to read it for a while. It’s good! Maggie Nelson writes beautifully about artists who have used the colour in the past (which is good inspiration) and her own relationship with blue, as well as with two people she cares about at the moment of writing. Her writing is absolutely beautiful! There is a lot of mention of romantic and physical longing which I cannot relate to, but that’s an issue I run into often and her way of discussing it remains interesting. It’s a beautiful book and its atmosphere stays with you.

The Nice House on the Lake vol. 1, James Tynion IV, 2021

Okay apparently the author is well known but I’ve never heard of him as I don’t really read comics and read like one graphic novel a year. As I understand it what I read (volume 1) spans the first six issues of the comic (out of 12). I grabbed it while browsing and loved the colours and was intrigued by the premise (having watched and thoroughly enjoyed Glass Onion not long before, I kinda thought it was a hardcore version of that, turns out: way more sci-fi shit in Nice House). I got home after my first day of internship, spent an hour doing jack shit and then picked this book up and read the whole thing straight. It’s amazing, there are fleshed out characters (some of them are queer yay), suspense, tension, emotion, it’s just really good! I will warn for like apocalypse, discussions of suicide and body horror though if that’s a thing you can’t go near! But if you can and are into weird sci-fi horror I recommend it! (I actually kind of like Walter I have to say, he just loves his friends !)

Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse, 1927

!!! My mum is a big Hermann Hesse fan and always advocated for me reading one of his books. I happened upon this one at the used book market and immediately bought it because I noticed someone had anotated parts of it which. Yeah. Anyways, a bit of a slow start with the introduction written from an outside perspective from the narrator of the remainder of the book but absolutely hang in there! It's absolutely amazing; reflections on selfhood and the way we choose to live or not live our lives, connections with others, finding joy and excitement. It really did exceed my expectations. I thought there would be too much romance talk for my taste but it's so beautifully written that it's not an issue at all. It left a mark on me, that's for sure, it's a really powerful book.

#david sedaris #natasha brown #maggie nelson #james tynion iv #hermann hesse #book community #bookblr #bookish #books #book review #book isnt a word anymore

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infinity-squared-comics · 2 years

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Happy Transgender day of visibility! To celebrate, here are some Trans media recommendations (some of which are available on this very website)

The Deep & Dark Blue

The Deep & Dark Blue is a graphic novel that has achieved some notoriety for being banned in certain countries for the simple act of Transness. It stories the tale of a pair of twins, Hawke and (Grayce), heirs to a noble house who were forced by an inheritance scheme to hide in an all female order of weavers, who, with their blue thread, weave the very future itself. Because of this, they must act as girls. Except, Grayce is a girl. Transness. Also there’s a gender-affirming magical tapestry. I read this while egg, and related to it on a level I couldn’t quite describe yet. It’s really good.

Sleepless Domain

More gender affirming magic! In the world of this webcomic, girls and only girls are gifted mystical powers to fight monsters. So it was pretty neat for Zoe Blecher to gain these gender-affirming superpowers. I’d probably call Zoe a deuteragonist. She’s not one of the main characters, but she is a fairly major one. The story does not make much of a big deal of Zoe’s Transness, and we only really find out when one of her cousins over shared and explains Transness in general in that cute simplified way that children understand things.

https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-19-page-29

Transcendent

More trans, more magic, although none of it has anything to do with gender. Despite being a magic user, the main character Olive still needs HRT. From aliens. Yeah there are aliens, but I only remember them coming up once. Nbd. It has a great balance of wonderful stories about gender stuff and wonderful stories having nothing to do with gender. Every single one of the stories is wonderful. It’s one of my favorite comics, and can be found right here on tumblr

https://allthingstranscendent.tumblr.com/post/617598276930289664/introductions

El Goonish Shive

This webcomic is not technically on tumblr but it can be viewed through tumblr. It does… not to great with gender stuff at first, but as the author improves so does the representation, in terms of both gender and orientation. It currently has the second most Gender cast of any media I consume (for the life of me I can’t figure out the first)

https://egscomics.tumblr.com/post/680206699132534784/sandwich

The Owl House

Great show, has an older Enby character, screwed over by Disney (also please more spoilers I’m not caught up with season 2B)

She-Ra and the princesses of power

Available on Netflix, this wondrous show has one (1) cool non-binary shapeshifter person, and one (1) major Trans female character who was confirmed outside of the show itself (for safety purposes)

Steven Universe Future

Shep. There probably would’ve been more explicit Trans rep if the higher-ups had allowed, but oh well, still an amazing franchise (this installment in particular handles trauma really well)

Magnus Chase and The Gods of Asgard

Alex Fierro is a genderfluid icon. So is xer mom Loki, but he’s especially evil in this so… also great pan realization from Magnus himself later in the books.

Shameful self promotion

I feel kinda bad about this, but this is supposed to be a full list of trans media, and I happen to specialize in trans media. I’ve got Infinity Squared, a pixel art comedy comic made up of 1. Wordplay 2. Geek culture references 3. Queer jokes and most often 4. Two or more of the above. I’ve also got spectrum force, a pretty cool hand-drawn comic in which a bunch of color-coded trans youths battle physical manifestations of the fear that comes from hope, and then shoot them with arrows. It’s fun, we have fun.

So… yeah.

#The Deep and Dark Blue #sleepless domain #transcendent #el goonish shive #the owl house #toh #spop #she ra and the princesses of power #Steven universe #Steven universe future #Magnus chase and the gods of Asgard #trans #transgender day of visibility #lgbtq+

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kmclaude · 3 years

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Forgive me Father, I have no awful headcanons for you, only a general question on comic making. How do you do it, writing-wise/how do you decide what points go where, how do you plot it out (or do you have any resources on the writing aspect that you find useful?) Not to get too bogged down in details, but I attended a writer’s workshop and the author in residence suggested I transfer my wordy sci-fi WIP into graphic novel script, as it might work better. (I do draw, but I don’t know if I have it in me to draw a whole comic—characters in motion? Doing things? With backgrounds? How dare, why can’t everyone just stand around looking pretty)

I was interested but it quickly turned into a lot of internal screaming as I tried to figure out how to compress the hell out of it, since novels are free to do a lot more internal monologuing and such compared to a comic format (to say nothing of trying to write a script without seeing how the panels lay out—just for my own sake, I might have to do both concurrently.)

As an aside, to get a feel for graphic novels I was rereading 99RM and was reminded of how great it was—tightly plotted, intriguing, and anything to do with Ashmedai was just beautifully drawn. I need more Monsignor Tiefer and something something there are parallels between Jehan and Daniel in my head and I don’t know if they make sense but it works for me. (As an aside, I liked the emphasis on atonement being more than just the word sorry, but acknowledgment you did wrong and an attempt to remedy it—I don’t know why that spoke to me the way that it did.)

I thought Tumblr had a word count limit for asks but so far it has offered zero resistance, oh well. I don’t have much else to say but on the topic of 99RM, Adam getting under Monsignor’s skin is amazing, 10/10 (about the Pride picture earlier)

wow tumblr got rid of the markdown editor! or at least in asks which means the new editor probably has no markdown....god i hate this site! anyway...

Totally! So first, giant thank you for the compliments! Second, I have a few questions in turn for you before I dive into a sort of answer, since I can give some advice to your questions in general but it also sounds like you have a specific conundrum on your hands.

My questions to your specific situation are:

did the author give any reason for recommending a, in your words, "wordy" story be turned into a graphic novel?

is the story you're writing more, like you said, "internal monologuing"? action packed? where do the visuals come from?

do you WANT it to be a comic? furthermore, do you want it to be a comic you then must turn around and draw? or would you be interested in writing for comics as a comic writer to have your words turned into art?

With those questions in mind, let me jump into the questions you posed me!

Let me start with a confession...

I've said this before but let me say it again: Ninety-Nine Righteous Men was not originally a comic — it was a feature-length screenplay! And furthermore, it was written for a class so it got workshopped again and again to tighten the plot by a classroom of other nerds — so as kind as your compliments are, I'm giving credit where credit is due as that was not just a solo ship sailing on the sea. On top of that, it got adapted (by me) into a comic for my thesis, so my advisor also helped me make it translate or "read" well given I was director, actor, set designer, writer, editor, SFX guy, etc. all in one. And it was a huge help to have someone say "there is no way you can go blow by blow from script to comic: you need to make edits!" For instance, two scenes got compressed to simple dialogue overlaid on the splashpage of Ashmedai raping Caleb (with an insert panel of Adam and Daniel talking the next day.) What had been probably at least 5 pages became 1.

Additionally, I don't consider myself a strong plotter. That said, I found learning to write for film made the plotting process finally make some damn sense since the old plot diagram we all got taught in grammar school English never made sense as a reader and definitely made 0 sense as a writer — for me, for some reason, the breakdown of 25-50-25 (approx. 25 pages for act 1, 50 for act 2 split into 2 parts of 25 each, 25 pages for act 3) and the breaking down of the beats (the act turning points, the mid points, the low point) helped give me a structure that just "draw a mountain, rising action, climax is there, figure it out" never did. Maybe the plot diagram is visually too linear when stories have ebb and flow? I don't know. But it never clicked until screenwriting. So that's where I am coming from. YMMV.

I should also state that there's Official Ways To Write Comic Scripts to Be Drawn By An Artist (Especially If You Work For A Real Publisher As a Writer) and there's What Works For You/Your Team. I don't give a rat's ass about the former (and as an artist, I kind of hate panel by panel breakdowns like you see there) so I'm pretty much entirely writing on the latter here. I don't give a good god damn about official ways of doing anything: what works for you to get it done is what matters.

What Goes Where?

Like I said, 99RM was a screenplay so it follows, beat-wise, the 3-act screenplay structure (hell, it's probably more accurate to say it follows the act 1/act 2A/act 2B/act 3 structure.) So there was the story idea or concept that then got applied to those story beats associated with the structure, and from there came the Scene-by-scene Breakdown (or Expanded Scene Breakdown) which basically is an outline of beats broken down into individual scenes in short prose form so you get an overview of what happens, can see pacing, etc. In the resources at the end I put some links that give information on the whole story beat thing.

(As an aside: for all my short comics, I don't bother with all that, frankly. I usually have an image or a concept or a bit of writing — usually dialogue or monologue, sometimes a concrete scene — that I pick at and pick at in a little sketchbook, going back and forth between writing and thumbnail sketches of the page. Or I just go by the seat of my pants and bullshit my way through. Either or. Those in many ways are a bit more like poems, in my mind: they are images, they are snapshots, they are feelings that I'm capturing in a few panels. Think doing mental math rather than writing out geometric proofs, yanno?)

Personally, I tend to lean on dialogue as it comes easier for me (it's probably why I'm so drawn to screenwriting!) so for me, if I were to do another longform GN, I'd probably take my general "uhhhhhh I have an idea and some beats maybe so I guess this should happen this way?" outline and start breaking it down scene by scene (I tend to write down scenes or scene sketches in that "uhhhh?" outline anyway LOL) and then figure out basic dialogue and action beats — in short, I'd kind of do the work of writing a screenplay without necessarily going full screenplay format (though I did find the format gave me an idea of timing/pacing, as 1 page of formatted script is about equal to 1 minute of screentime, and gave me room to sketch thumbnails or make edits on the large margins!) If you're not a monologue/soliloque/dialogue/speech person and more an image and description person, you may lean more into visuals and scenes that cut to each other.

Either way this of course introduces the elephant in the panel: art! How do you choose what to draw?

The answer is, well, it depends! The freedom of comics is if you can imagine it, you can make it happen. You have the freedoms (and audio limitations) of a truly silent film with none of the physical limitations. Your words can move in real time with the images or they can be a narrative related to the scene or they could be nonsequitors entirely! The better question is how do you think? Do you need all the words and action written first before you break down the visuals? Do you need a panel by panel breakdown to be happy, or can you freewheel and translate from word and general outlines to thumbnails? What suits you? I really cannot answer this because I think when it comes to what goes where with regard to art, it's a bit of "how do you process visuals" and also a bit of "who's drawing this?" — effectively, who is the interpreter for the exact thing you are writing? Is it you or someone else? If it's you, would you benefit from a barebones script alongside thumbnailed paneling? Would you be served by a barebones script, then thumbnails, then a new script that includes panel and page breakdowns? What frees you up to do what you need to do to tell your story?

If I'm being honest, I don't necessarily worry about panels or what something will look like necessarily until I'm done writing. I may have an image that I clearly state needs to happen. I may even have a sequence of panels that I want to see and I do indeed sketch that out and make note of it in my script. But exactly how things will be laid out, paneled, situated? That could change up until I've sketched my final pencils in CSP (but I am writer and artist so admittedly I get that luxury.)

How do I compress from novel to comic?

Honest answer? You don't. Not really. You adapt from one to another. It's more a translation. Something that would take forever to write may take 1 page in a comic or may take a whole issue.

I'm going to pick on Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo spent a whole-ass book in Notre-Dame de Paris talking about a bird's eye view of Paris and other medieval architecture boring stuff, with I guess some foreshadowing with Montfaucon. Who cares. Not me. I like story. Anyway. When we translate that book to a movie any of the billion times someone's done that, we don't spend a billion years talking at length about medieval Paris. There's no great monologuing about the gibbet or whatever: you get to have some establishing shots, maybe a musical number, and then you move tf on. Because it's a movie, right? Your visuals are right there. We can see medieval Paris. We can see the cathedral. We can see the gibbet. We don't need a whole book: it's visually right there. Same with a comic: you may need many paragraphs to describe, say, a space station off of Sirius and one panel to show it.

On the flip side, you may take one line, maybe two, to say a character keyed in the special code to activate the holodeck; depending on the visual pacing, that could be a whole page of panels (are we trying to stretch time? slow it down? what are we emphasizing?) A character gives a sigh of relief — one line of text, yeah? That could be a frozen panel while a conversation continues on or that could be two (or more!) panels, similar to the direction [a beat] in screenwriting.

Sorry there's not a super easy answer there to the question of compression: it's a lot more of a tug, a push-pull, that depends on what you're conveying.

So Do I Have It In Me to Write & Draw a GN?

The only way you'll know is by doing. Scary, right? The thing is, you don't necessarily need to be an animation king or God's gift to background artists to draw a comic.

Hell, I hate backgrounds. I still remember sitting across from my friend who said "Claude you really need to draw an establishing exterior of the church at some point" and me being like "why do you hate me specifically" because drawing architecture? Again? I already drew the interior of the church altar ONCE, that should be enough, right? But I did draw an exterior of the church. Sorta. More like the top steeple. Enough to suggest what I needed to suggest to give the audience a better sense of place without me absolutely losing my gourd trying to render something out of my wheelhouse at the time.

And that's kinda the ticket, I think. Not everyone's a master draftsman. Not everyone has all the skills in every area. And regardless, from page one to page one hundred, your skills will improve. That's all part of it — and in the meantime, you should lean into your strengths and cheat where you can.

Do you need to lovingly render a background every single panel? Christ no! Does every little detail need to be drawn out? Sure if you want your hand to fall off. Cheat! Use Sketchup to build models! Use Blender to sculpt forms to paint over! Use CSP Assets for prebuilt models and brushes if you use CSP! Take photographs and manip them! Cheat! Do what you need to do to convey what you need to convey!

For instance, a tip/axiom/"rule" I've seen is one establishing shot per scene minimum and a corollary to that has been include a background once per page minimum as grounding (no we cannot all have eternal floating heads and characters in the void. Unless your comic is set in the void. In which case, you do you.) People ain't out here drawing hyper detailed backgrounds per each tiny panel. The people who DO do that are insane. Or stupid. Or both. Or have no deadline? Either way, someone's gonna have a repetitive stress injury... Save yourself the pain and the headache. Take shortcuts. Save your punches for the big K.O. moments.

Start small. Make an 8-page zine. Tell a beginning, a middle, an end in comic form. Bring a scene to life in a few pages. See what you're comfortable drawing and where you struggle. See where you can lean heavily into your comfort zones. Learn how to lean out of your comfort zone. Learn when it's worth it to do the latter.

Or start large. Technically my first finished comic (that wasn't "a dumb pencil thing I drew in elementary school" or "that 13 volume manga I outlined and only penciled, what, 7 pages of in sixth grade" or "random one page things I draw about my characters on throw up on the interwebz") was 99RM so what do I know. I'm just some guy on the internet.

(That's not self-deprecating, I literally am some guy on the internet talking about my path. A lot of this is gonna come down to you and what vibes with you.)

Resources on writing

Some of these are things that help me and some are things that I crowd-sourced from others. Some of these are going to be screenwriting based, some will be comic based.

Making Comics by Scott McCloud: I think everyone recommends this but I think it is a useful book if you're like "ahh!!! christ!! where do I start!!!???" It very much breaks down the elements of comics and the world they exist in and the principles involved, with the caveat that there are no rules! In fact, I need to re-read it.

Comic Book Design: I picked this up at B&N on a whim and in terms of just getting a bird's eye view of varied ways to tackle layout and paneling? It's such a great resource and reference! I personally recommend it as a way to really get a feel for what can be done.

the screenwriter's bible: this is a book that was used in my class. we also used another book that's escaping me but to be honest, I never read anything in school and that's why I'm so stupid. anyway, I'd say check it out if you want, especially if you start googling screenwriting stuff and it's like 20 billion pieces of advice that make 0 sense -- get the core advice from one place and then go from there.

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures: many people I know recommended this. I think I have it? It may be in storage. So frankly, I'd already read a bunch of books on comics before grabbing this that it kind of felt like a rehash. Which isn't shade on the authors — I personally was just a sort of "girl, I don't need comics 101!!!"

Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate: this has been recommended so many times to me. I cannot personally speak on it but I can say I do trust those who rec'd it to me so I am passing it along

the story circle: this is pretty much the hero's journey. a useful way to think of journeys! a homie pretty much swears by it

a primer on beats: quick google search got me this that outlines storybeats

save the cat!: what the above refers to, this gives a more genre-specific breakdown. also wants to sell you on the software but you don't need that.

I hope this helps and please feel free to touch base with more info about your specific situation and hopefully I'll have more applicable answers.

#writing #making a graphic novel #writing a graphic novel #tutorial #writing tutorial

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kummatty · 2 years

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Do you have any tips on reading more :)

scream I really feel like I'm the last person you should be asking, I've been struggling for years to try to read more and I made my book goal 9 books for this year bc I couldn't conceptualize double digits... but I can share what's helped me some, first this post is rly great, and a lot of what ive been doing echoes it :

put reading materials all around you - I have stuff on my phone/laptop & often have tabs open to what im reading/want to read, a physical book in my bag, the pocket app is also great for keeping track of articles, it makes it easier to read throughout spaces in the day & reducing the time, distance, and decision making it takes to open something is critical for me; i prefer having a variety of materials too- articles, short stories, books, novellas, comics, poetry, graphic novels etc, the variety and different forms keep me engaged

know what kind of reading is going to hold your attention the most rn - to build a habit and build focus for reading, its abt knowing what im able to move through easier, I've been reading shorter books (more than 300 pages makes me hyperventilate), mostly fiction, and books I feel are at my current reading level; in addition to short form anything

on rebuilding focus, ive had to be conscious of where my mind is straying, and when it absent mindedly picks up other things or starts scrolling I have to remind it of what we were doing, and with that the intervals start to get less frequent if u keep doing it, and removing distractions helps; ill also say that i’ve been working on balancing/mediating my relationship to social media over time and that’s helped w focus and reading; all of it is such slow deliberate work

reading several things at a time - maybe this only works if your brain is already so scattered but rly not putting any boundaries on what i start and finish, i like having different genres/types of books, varying the content, jumping into one i just found out abt, returning to ones i started before, im always downloading something or the other just so its there when I want to turn to it,, idk sometimes u do have to stop yourself from jumping too much cuz you'll never settle enough to read anything but it's helped me to be able to shuffle bw readings based on my energy/attention levels and what I'm feeling like reading that day

the feeling of accomplishment has been important, shorter books help w it a lot - also so many great novellas/graphic novels/short stories/articles - and so do rly achievable goals like 9 books, u start to pick up momentum when u find yourself finishing things and feeling good abt it

making associations is also good advice, ive not done this very well but the idea of signaling to ur brain that you're transitioning into a reading space, could be time of day, where u sit in ur house, drinking something like tea whenever u start reading; I'm still trying to make a habit of reading an article/short story every morning so that I can read something complete before the day starts (and usually gets away from me)

and I do believe in hopes prayers and giving it attention in ur mind even if u don't do the reading that much yet - like having in my mind that I want to read I want to read has eventually helped me move towards making it a bigger priority even if it's taken years lol, it's honestly v difficult w work and other things to find the time, part of the reason I read so much this month was cuz of a lot of time off

im sorry this is so long when i don’t think i’ve said anything new, but i hope its helpful somehow! <3

#replies #put it under a cut cuz it got long #for no good reason #when yall ask me things like this #im so flattered and perplexed #and i want so much to be helpful but sincerely i dont know anything #im just trying a bunch of things to see what sticks

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fandom-pardes · 3 years

Text

According to halacha, which actions are Azula liable for?

Reposted from my Tumblr.

One of my favorite ways to study Jewish texts is to take a fictional character or situation and examine it through the lens of Jewish text and tradition.

I’ve done this before with ABC’s Once Upon A Time. Now I’m going to take up this exercise again with Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Before I begin, a few things to keep in mind.

I’m not a Talmud scholar.

There is no definitive Jewish Opinion™ about any issue pertaining to halacha. Unanimous opinions on halacha are so rare that when we find one, we assume something went wrong in the process..

Azula is a morally polarizing character in AtLA fandom. Regardless of who you ask, you’re bound to get some strong opinions about exactly what she’s done, the extent to which she’s responsible for it, and what this says about her morality or lack thereof. I’m not going to rehash those arguments. I think I’ve made it clear that I care less about whether people approve of her behavior than I do about how their statements about her reinforce harmful messages about women, people of color, LGBT people and mentally ill people.

Nevertheless, she’s incredibly interesting, and studying Jewish text is fun, so here we are.

Why examine Azula’s actions through the lens of halacha?

Halacha gets a lot of flack because it comes off as excessively legalistic. But, in my opinion, that’s based on a misunderstanding of what halacha is. Usually translated as “Jewish law,” the word halacha actually comes from the root word that means “to go/walk.”

Halacha is not a collection of rules for the sake of having rules. It’s meant to take us somewhere. You can write a library of books about exactly what that is and what it means. But for the sake of simplicity, halacha is how we show that we recognize the holiness of everything in creation. So we aim to do right by one another, by the land we live in and by the creatures we share this world with.

Before we can launch into examining the halachic ramifications of the things Azula does, we need to establish some boundaries.

Only the show counts. It’s the common frame of reference universally accepted by the vast majority of fandom. Fandom’s stances on the comics, novelizations and other tie-in materials are too variable to base an analysis on.

Word of God is immaterial. While some would use the phrase Death of the Author, Jewish tradition has a more entertaining take on it. In the Talmud, there’s a dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and some of his peers. In that story, Rabbi Eliezer says that if he’s right, this or that miraculous thing would happen, and those miraculous things do happen. But the other rabbis still reject it because we don’t determine halacha by miraculous signs. Eventually, God parts the heavens and says, “Rabbi Eliezer is right.” But another rabbi responds, “The Torah is not in heaven,” meaning that the Torah was meant for human beings on earth to interpret for themselves. And God’s response? To smile and say, “My children have defeated Me.”

Now, let’s begin.

Is Azula bound by halacha?

She’s not Jewish, so no. However, all human beings are bound by the Noahide laws. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the Noahide covenant applies to all humans on all worlds. According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 56a.24):

Since the halakhot of the descendants of Noah have been mentioned, a full discussion of the Noahide mitzvot is presented. The Sages taught in a baraita: The descendants of Noah, i.e., all of humanity, were commanded to observe seven mitzvot: The mitzva of establishing courts of judgment; and the prohibition against blessing, i.e., cursing, the name of God; and the prohibition of idol worship; and the prohibition against forbidden sexual relations; and the prohibition of bloodshed; and the prohibition of robbery; and the prohibition against eating a limb from a living animal.

What is Azula’s legal status?

In any case, we know the rules, and now we have to decide whether Azula broke them or not, right?

Not so fast.

First, we have to determine if Azula is of the appropriate legal status to be held accountable for upholding the Noahide laws. In other words: when she committed certain acts, was Azula an adult capable of making rational decisions?

Clear your mind of the idea that being an adult is the same as being a grownup. Instead, think of it as a term that defines when people can make legally binding decisions.

As far as I can tell, the Talmud doesn’t say when a gentile becomes an adult. However, we can use halacha as a guide.

Now for a warning.

If frank talk about the physical development of adolescents makes you uncomfortable, you might want to skip this next part. There’s nothing graphic or titillating about what I’m going to discuss, but if breasts and pubic hair squick you out, skip this part until I say it’s safe in bold like this.

According to halacha, a girl reaches adulthood when she’s twelve years and one day old and has two pubic hairs. Yeah, you read that right. Twelve and two pubes are the requirement. Before this point, nothing she does is legally binding, even if she’s really smart and claims to be fully aware of what she’s doing. After this point, her actions are legally binding, even if she says she had no idea what she was doing.

On the show, we see Azula in a range of ages. In “Zuko Alone,” we see her at roughly eight years old. In “The Storm,” she’s about eleven. In all the other episodes she’s in, she’s fourteen. So, from a legal standpoint, flashback!Azula is too young for her actions to be legally binding. At that point in time, the responsibility would fall to her parents.

Um, I’m not willing to speculate about the genitals of an underage cartoon character, so for the sake of argument, I’m assuming that 14-year-old Azula meets the two pubes requirement. Thus, 14-year-old Azula is responsible for her actions.

If you skipped that last part, it’s safe to continue now.

OK, we’ve established that flashback!Azula is too young for her actions to be legally binding, but in the main story, Azula is legally an adult and responsible for her actions.

We good? Alright.

Which Noahide laws does Azula actually break?

This is both easier and harder than it seems.

The laws about idol worship, cursing God, and forbidden sexual acts don’t apply to her because neither religion nor sex are portrayed as such on the show. Also, the law about establishing courts of justice is a communal obligation, not one that falls on a single individual, so that’s another one we don’t have to concern ourselves with.

That leaves the prohibitions against bloodshed, robbery and eating a limb cut from a living animal.

First up: bloodshed.

The connotation of the prohibition against bloodshed is not for general acts of violence, but actual murder.

Here’s where I think I’m going to throw a lot of people for a loop. Azula doesn’t kill anyone on the show. She tries. She comes close. She wouldn’t lose sleep over it if she did. But nobody’s dead because of her. She doesn’t even take lives as collateral damage.

One could argue that zapping Aang with lightning counts as killing, but when the Sages talk about death and dying, I assume they mean the kind where the dead stay dead, not people who are revived by magic spirit water. Furthermore, if someone’s about to kill you (and I think entering the Avatar State qualifies here), you are halachically obligated to save your own life, even if it means killing that person.

Second: robbery.

We’ll come back to that.

Third: eating a limb from a living animal.

This prohibition is often expanded to incorporate all forms of animal cruelty.

The show does portray animal cruelty. We see a prime example with the circus in “Appa’s Lost Days.”

But what about Azula? We don’t see her interact with many animals on the show, but there are two notable examples: Appa the sky bison in “Appa’s Lost Days” and Bosco the bear in “The Crossroads of Destiny.”

How does her behavior measure up? Despite her earlier behavior of terrorizing turtleducks, Azula does not harm either Appa or Bosco.

On the show, Mai and Ty Lee are seen spending time with Bosco in the throne room while the Earth King is imprisoned. So, at the very least, they treat the bear well.

So, Azula is not liable for animal cruelty.

*hands Azula her Not As Big A Jerk As She Could Have Been award*

Now, let’s revisit that prohibition against robbery.

Given the prescribed punishment (decapitation), the connotation seems to be taking the rightful property of another through violent means. That being said, the prohibition against robbery is often extended to include all sorts of theft.

This one might have some legs. On the show, does Azula take the rightful property of another, and does she use violent means to do so?

Absolutely.

A major example is stealing the clothes of the Kyoshi Warriors after defeating them in combat.

But!

The show takes place during a time of war, and the Kyoshi Warriors, as allies of the Avatar, are enemies of the Fire Nation. So does beating them up and taking their uniforms fall under the prohibition against robbery, or are the Kyoshi Warrior uniforms considered the spoils of war and thus free for the taking?

Halachically speaking, it might actually be the latter. When fighting the Kyoshi Warriors, Azula acts as a military commander during a time of war and achieves a decisive victory against an elite combat unit. Thus, she is entitled to take their stuff.

So, back to the original question: which actions does Azula commit during the show that she’s halachically liable for?

The answer, shockingly, may be: none.

On the show, we’re encouraged to think of Azula as a Very Bad Girl who does Very Bad Things. She’s calculating, ruthless and deceptive. She’s also full of herself. She’s not someone who inspires warm, fuzzy feelings in most people. But when you put her actions under the microscope, she exercises remarkable restraint compared to what she’s capable of.

Don’t worry. No one’s going to nominate her for a Nobel Peace Prize just yet. This is Azula we’re talking about. She’s not acting out of an overwhelming love for humanity. But it is interesting that despite her threats to kill, maim and destroy, she doesn’t participate in wanton destruction or wasteful loss of life.

#azula #atla meta #jewish meta

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popwasabi · 3 years

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“The Mandalorian” S2 is a power fantasy with mini Star Wars trailers

The term “Plot armor” is often used by readers and viewers to describe the myriad of ways writers keep their heroes away from any real danger no matter what choices or actions they make in the narrative. It’s typically a derisive phrase for the way a writer’s hero seems to escape death no matter what is thrown at him for the sole purpose of moving the plot forward.

In Disney+’s “The Mandalorian” this term takes a far more literal description in the form of our main anti-hero, played by Pedro Pascal, in his beskar armor which seems to be, by all accounts the most indestructible material in the galaxy far, far away.

(I mean, it still looks really cool too, of course.)

The result of this narrative decision in this series is that action scenes often don’t have real tension to them. In another series you might be able to reasonably believe the hero might be in danger with blaster fire shooting all around them but with beskar it’s almost comically not the case at all. Stormtroopers fire laser blast after laser blast at The Mando and each time they bounce harmlessly off him as if he were fucking Superman. It makes scenes feel devoid of stakes and danger no matter what situation they are in.

The show thus becomes a power fantasy, as action scenes serve as extended highlight reels for the Mando. Where season 1 of the show mitigated the power of the Mando’s plot armor by putting him more often in situations where his beskar alone wasn’t enough to save the day, season 2 goes mostly full power fantasy as The Mando rarely runs into a situation he can’t just quite literally walk through.

(“Aim for his armor, men! That’s his weak point!”)

This isn’t to say the season wasn’t without its high moments or even that it wasn’t enjoyable plenty of times but the series’ devotion to fan servicey action and callbacks to “Hey remember ____” makes it a fairly shallow story. At least for myself.

Season 2 of “The Mandalorian” continues the story of Din and his small Yoda-like companion, The Child (later known officially as Grogu), as he looks to complete a quest to return the burgeoning Force wielder to the Jedi. As he seeks to reunite The Child with the ancient Order, he encounters other Mandalorians who are on a quest to retake Mandalore and right on their tail is the nefarious Grand Moff Gideon who is still bent on capturing Grogu for whatever it is he has planned for the Empire.

Let me start this review by saying power fantasies aren’t inherently bad to watch or read. They can be good, cathartic junk food for the soul and can also be compelling, artistic, or even deeply metaphorical in their own way. A movie series like “John Wick” for instance is a power fantasy that aims to reinvent the wheel in action film-making with Keanu Reeves performing perhaps the best gun kata of all-time onscreen. Another film like Paul Verhoueven’s “Total Recall” can satirize the power fantasy to show how ridiculous it is in concept.

So, making your hero an unstoppable killing machine isn’t necessarily always a bad thing if used properly.

(Seriously, this is one of the smartest action films ever made. Don’t @ me.)

Now that that’s established, however, “The Mandalorian” season 2, despite some strong moments here and there, is a power fantasy that lacks these elements for a more interesting narrative. If you believe killing dozens of stormtroopers onscreen while never suffering so much as a scratch for eight episodes equals compelling storytelling then boy does Disney have a series for you.

Through the first four-ish episodes, the new season is mostly just fine and even quite enjoyable. We have the Mando getting a fun side quest with Timothy Olyphant on Tatooine where they get to wrangle a sand worm in a callback to the Westerns that inspired much of the franchise’s aesthetic. The Mando gets to escort a frog lady to her home planet to give birth to some tadpoles and they run into some actual danger in this episode in the form of kyrnknas/space spiders. And we get the return of Bo Katan from Dave Filoni’s “Clone Wars” and “Rebels” cartoon series, with Katee Sackhoff herself reprising the role in a fun Mandalorian team-up episode.

(I’m just so happy to see my girl, Starbuck, again more than anything honestly ;_;)

But the wheels started officially falling off for me in the next episode.

Episode 5 marked the live-action debut of fan favorite Ahsoka Tano, played by Rosario Dawson, and she meets the Mando by getting the jump on him with her lightsabers. In virtually any other situation we have been told lightsabers can cut through virtually anything. Now, beskar has been shown to be plenty durable throughout the series so far but lightsabers? Surely not.

Well…

It is an overall good episode despite this but it marked the point for me where I badly wanted The Mando to just go the rest of the series without it. Obviously, the writers aren’t going to actually kill our hero, afterall The Mouse needs more money and he can’t have it unless we get 50 more Mandalorian episodes and spin-offs, but at some point I gotta feel like there’s a possibility at least that our hero might actually die or at least is in danger. It is actually super funny to me each time The Mando ducks or seeks cover in a shootout when I know, and the viewer damn well knows, he can literally walk right into the middle of it and shoot all these motherfuckers at his own leisure cause his actual plot armor is the stuff of adamantium and vibranium combined.

Episode 5 is mostly good though, it’s a nice callback to old school samurai flicks and for an old fan like myself it was enough to ignore beskar again saving the Mando’s ass.

(This was cool...This...was...cool.)

If episode 5 marked the point in which the wheels began to come off though, episode 6 is where the show really spun out into the ditch for me. Perhaps, this series worst episode, personally, episode 6 reintroduces fan favorite and series inspiration Boba Fett back officially into the fold and the result was perhaps the most self-indulgent entry of the series.

(I mean, it was directed by Robert Rodriguez so...)

Boba arrives to demand his beskar from The Mando who promptly tells him “no” before they are ambushed by a platoon of stormtroopers. Alongside Ming-Na Wen’s Fennec Shand, the three do battle with the stormtroopers with ridiculous ease. I’m aware that stormtroopers exist to be on the highlight reel of our heroes in this franchise and have a long history of not being able to hit the broad side of a bantha but again, I can only watch these guys die by the dozens onscreen over and over again while our heroes get away without suffering even a bruise before it starts feeling boring and repetitive.

It only gets worse once Boba actually puts on his armor. In a sequence that I would describe as “gratuitously” fan servicey, Boba wastes just about every last stormtrooper in this scene culminating with him destroying their two get-away vehicles in a single shot with a rocket. Considering he was killing them with ease just moments before with nothing more than a battle club and a bathrobe, it seemed almost hilariously needless that he donned his iconic armor.

youtube

(It would be tempting to say the stormtroopers fought as ineptly as the Putty Patrol here but even the Power Rangers have struggled a few times against these guys...)

I get that Boba is really important to a lot of fans, based on their perceptions of him in the original trilogy and subsequent books and graphic novels that came out in the following years, but here’s a hot take; this series didn’t need him in it. Maybe they didn’t need to keep him rotting in the Sarlacc Pit but this episode, alongside Ahsoka Tano’s feels more like marketing choices for the story rather than narrative ones. I’ll concede that there is a bit more substance to having Ahsoka there to commune with Grogu but their additions to the plot don’t actually show much of anything about the Mando outside physically helping him in a fight.

The way they tease, in both cases, stories that exist outside the internal narrative between Ahsoka’s search for Admiral Thrawn and Boba taking over Jabba’s palace at the end of the final episode, it feels like Disney threw in mini trailers for fans to nibble on at the expense of telling the Mando’s own story and letting it stand on its own like the first season.

The choice to have these characters shoved into this season again appears to be market driven not narrative. Once more, I get that these characters are important personally to many fans, but the appearance of these characters alone DO NOT equal good storytelling.

(Me when a fan tells me “But Boba was such a badass in *obscurely titled EU book that a handful of general audiences have read*! He deserves this moment!”)

The final episode of the season is truly encapsulating of all these issues “The Mandalorian” has, however. Moff Gideon, played by the always sharp Giancarlo Esposito, has Grogu imprisoned aboard his ship. The Mando and his friends plan a rescue mission to save him and, just like nearly every episode before, it is stupidly easy for our protagonists.

The crew of five, again, walk through every Imperial on the ship. I don’t mean this metaphorically by the way, I mean this literally as Cara, Fennec, Bo Katan and Koshka Reeves (played by WWE’s Sasha Banks) without a single moment of real adversity just blast through every stormtrooper on the ship and never get hit once in the process.

A good action scene needs an element of danger, a sense that our hero might actually not come out of this alive even though we all know they will. An action scene without this has no tension and without tension it becomes booooooooring.

(Even John fucking Wick is capable of bleeding, guys...)

The finale had a chance, however, to add real stakes and danger to the scene in the form of this season’s new enemy; The Dark Troopers. These Imperial battle droids were foreshadowed as these super soldiers at the end of episode 4 and seemed to be billed as a real dangerous match for our heroes to faceup against. When the Mando finally gets himself face to face with one he finds they are not as easy to kill as the nameless stormtroopers from before. To see The Mando briefly face real adversity for a change snapped me out of my cynical mood so sharply for a moment I thought I had turned on another series by accident.

But of course, danger never lasts long in this series as The Mando’s armor again saves him first from getting pummeled to death by the droid’s super fists then he uses his plot spear, cause of course he has one of those too, to finish the job.

Danger over.

Moff Gideon doesn’t fair much better in this episode. This villain who had been built up for two seasons as this calculative monster gets stopped rather easily with Mando and his friends barely breaking a sweat. This character feels wasted because of this, even though I’m sure Giancarlo Esposito will return in the next season. He just feels about as much like a pushover as the nameless stormtroopers in this series.

The episode had one more chance though to show these Dark Troopers meant business toward the end as we found the heroes cornered on the command deck with nowhere to run and a dozen of these droids ready to blast and pound them into the floorboards. But help arrives in the form of a Deus X-Wing Machina.

Without having to face even one Dark Trooper, Luke fucking Skywalker arrives on the ship and kills every droid without breaking a sweat. It plays as inspiring in the moment but again I just found myself bored and irritated. A chance to see the series heroes actually use their wits and show their creativity in a moment of true danger thwarted to please fan boys.

I get that Grogu called out to him in episode 6 but creatively this felt like an extremley lazy way to solve the heroes’ dilemna.

(“Hello my name is Jedi. I enjoy doing...*computes script* Jedi things.”)

This season wasn’t all bad. It certainly had nice production value that made each alien world pop and beautiful to look at. Every actor and actress played their parts expertly well, with what they were given, and made for interesting characters at times. There are also nice homages to both Western and Samurai cinema throughout the season that fans of both will appreciate. And Pedro Pascal is just so good on his own, especially in tender moments with Grogu, that you forget that his character is kind of a Gary Stu.

But the main crux of the issue here that I’m trying to get across is the reason you need to remove the plot armor of your heroes is not just because action scenes need tension and stakes, it’s that when faced with danger these scenes reveal who these characters are. I used to believe that the reason Mandalorians and Jedi had such a fierce rivalry in the lore despite the obvious advantages of wielding the Force was because these famed bounty hunters were just that fucking good at killing. That despite being, on paper, normal people they had great martial prowess, athletic skill, and the tactical wit to outsmart people who can literally sense their feelings. But now with beskar and the way this series is written, it appears the Mandalorians were challenging warriors just because they happened to harness the most OP armor building material in the galaxy.

It makes you wonder how the fuck they were conquered to begin with…

(Maybe they just needed more knee rockets...)

This takes away from the mysticism of the Mandalorians for me. It makes The Mando less interesting to me in the way he fights. Yea he can shoot really good too but really it’s the armor that makes him the fighter that he is and I find that kind of boring. We occasionally get this character to remove the armor during the series, including a whole episode that was easily one of the best of the season, and in every case he’s more interesting once the helmet comes off. I get that fans hold a lot of reverence for that armor, yea it still looks really cool, but making it this impenetrable super material doesn’t add anything to the story.

If anything, it takes away from it.

(Plus how could you not love Pedro Pascal when he’s out of armor? uWu)

I wouldn’t go as far as to say I hate season 2, even though I spent 2000 plus words just now lambasting it but I guess I just want to say I am unimpressed more than anything. I feel like I’ve seen better Star Wars be it in the movies, cartoons, books, video games, etc and I’ve certainly seen better action in the franchise as well.

Considering fan reaction so far appears to be overwhelmingly positive, I am definitely in the minority here and you are welcome to enjoy this series as much as you want in spite of how unimpressed I am with the season. But considering all I have seen of this fandom the last few years, regarding complaints about fan service (“Rogue One”), easily defeated/underdeveloped bad guys (“The Last Jedi”), and Mary Sues (The sequel trilogy in general), I have to ask again what is it actually that fans like or don’t like about new entries in the franchise? It’s not that there isn’t valid criticisms there and “The Mandalorian” is enjoyable in sincere ways too but it has many of the issues I hear commonly said of more divisive entries in the Disneyverse. So why does it get a pass?

I’ve been told it’s not worth my energy to talk too derisively about the fans in one of my earlier write-ups, so I’ll leave it at that but it does make me wonder.

(“Rogue One” admittedly has a simarily self-indulgent action sequence though haha...)

Season 2 of “The Mandalorian” isn’t the worst piece of Star Wars media ever created, far from it, and for most part its solid enjoyable Saturday morning cartoon theater but if the series wants to really take steps to become more compelling in the future it might be good to stop bubble wrapping their heroes in plot armor. Literally.

Until then this is the way…I guess…

Me getting ready for the backlash...

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nightbloomwitch · 2 years

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All the Wizards I've Loved Before: Inspirations for the Darkling - Dragonlance Legends: Time of the Twins - Book 2, Chapters 1-3

<--- Previous post

I’ve pulled it together now, sorry about the brief detour. Obviously we’ll revisit those points about immortality properly when we cover the Vampire Chronicles later on.

Yes I did see the news about the DitW graphic novel and I cheered. It’s so funny to me that this character Leigh hates so much will always be the one thing the series is known for.

I can't wait to see how she tries to convince us not to care about ethnic persecution and attempted child murder this time.

"cool motive, still murder", remember?

Also can’t wait for the drama that ensues if the comic adds new information or changes anything at all from the prose version. If you’ve read The Dark Tower comics, then you know exactly how wrong comic adaptations can go for tragic bad wizard backstories. Do ur worst Leigh, you will never fuck over bad wizard defenders as violently as Robin Furth did.

Every day of my life I praise Gan that Furth herself confirmed the comics aren’t canon, thus sparing me from an eternity of losing arguments with Kingverse nerds.

I’m not even going to attempt to explain all the time-travel quackery in this series until at least the second book, and even then only if I absolutely can’t avoid it.

Suffice to say for now that Caramon, Tas and Crysania have been sent over 300 years into the past, to the last days before the Cataclysm – the apocalyptic event that devastated the geography of Ansalon and signaled the departure of the gods from Krynn until their eventual return in Chronicles. Presumably Raistlin is around here somewhere as well, since he needs to get to Crysania once she’s been woken up.

Krynn was a different world 300 years ago, and in fact it was quite a bit more like Ravka, except that the Shadow Fold equivalent event that resulted in the near-destruction of the world was caused not by an overwhelming swathe of darkness, but by a ruinous blaze of light.

At that time, the most powerful city-state in the world was the shining city of Istar, capital of the Empire and seat of the Kingpriest, who was both the head of state and the supreme priest of the church of Paladine.

The Cataclysm was the gods’ retribution against the Kingpriest, who sought to purge the world of the creatures and philosophies of Evil, and even to become a god himself. The gods sent him many warnings that his ambition threatened to destroy the Doctrine of Balance that preserves the existence of all life on Krynn, however the Kingpriest and his followers refused to heed the omens, and so the gods sent ‘a burning mountain’ from the heavens (a meteor) to destroy Istar.

The true clerics – those who had genuine faith in the gods, rather than the Kingpriest – were taken directly to the afterlife before the devastation began. This is why Crysania had to be sent back in time – the only one with the power to restore her soul to her body is a true cleric in direct communication with Paladine.

However, as long as she’s alive, there’s a danger that Raistlin will convince her to help him open the Door to Darkness, and so Par-Salian’s true intention is for Crysania to be taken in the rapture along with the other clerics, where she will be beyond Raistlin’s reach forever, and, since the only other true cleric in the present time is Elistan, who is on his deathbed and can be trusted never to give in to Raistlin anyway, the mages can stop him without needing to fight him directly.

---

The narrator for Chapter 1 is Denubis, one of the lower-ranked clerics of Istar.

“This time the cleric looked more closely into the shadows formed by the huge marble columns supporting the gilded ceiling. A darker shadow, a patch of blackness within the darkness was now discernible. Denubis checked an exclamation of irritation. Suppressing the second shudder that swept over his body, he halted in his course and moved slowly over to the figure that stood in the shadows, knowing that the figure would never move out of the shadows to meet him. It was not that light was harmful to the one who awaited Denubis, as light is harmful to some of the creatures of darkness. In fact, Denubis wondered if anything on the face of this world could be harmful to this man. No, it was simply that he preferred shadows. Theatrics, Denubis thought sarcastically.

“You called me, Dark One?” Denubis asked in a voice he tried hard to make sound pleasant.

Ooh, who could this be?! Let’s jump ahead a few chapters and get a really good look:

"Standing on the fringes of the crowd was a black-robed figure. He stood alone. Indeed, there was even a wide, empty circle around him. None in the crowd came near him. Many made detours, going out of their way to avoid coming close to him. No one spoke to him, but all were aware of his presence. Those near him, who had been talking animatedly, fell into uncomfortable silence, casting nervous glances his direction.

The man’s robes were a deep black, without ornamentation. No silver thread glittered on his sleeves, no border surrounded the black hood he wore pulled low over his face. He carried no staff, no familiar walked by his side. Let other mages wear runes of warding and protection, let other mages carry staves of power or have animals do their bidding. This man needed none. His power sprang from within – so great, it had spanned the centuries, spanned even planes of existence. It could be felt, it shimmered around him like the heat from the smith’s furnace.

He was tall and well-built, the black robes fell from shoulders that were slender but muscular. His white hands – the only parts of his body that were visible – were strong and delicate and supple. Though so old that few on Krynn could venture even to guess his age, he had the body of one young and strong. Dark rumours told how he used his magic arts to overcome the debilities of age.

And so he stood alone, as if a black sun had been dropped into the courtyard. Not even the glitter of his eyes could be seen within the dark depths of his hood.

“Who’s that?” Tas asked a fellow prisoner conversationally, nodding at the black-robed figure.

“Don’t you know?” the prisoner said nervously, as if reluctant to reply.

“I’m from out of town,” Tas apologised.

“Why, that’s the Dark One – Fistandantilus. You’ve heard of him, I suppose?”

“Yes.” Tas said, glancing at Caramon as much as to say I told you so! “We’ve heard of him.”

The resounding hush that accompanies Fistandantilus everywhere he goes is reminiscent of people’s reactions to the Darkling, particularly in the early scenes in S&B (the tent scene and the presentation to the King).

S&B is very thin on physical descriptions, but I think of all the novels and films we’re going to go through, the above passage is the closest to all the physical descriptors given of the Darkling across the series. Along the same lines as the contrasting descriptions of hands given in the Chapter 11 post, Mal is described as “broad” a couple of times, whereas the Darkling is “lean” in S&B and “all lean muscle” in The Tailor, and in WWSF he’s almost androgynous with a “slender-reed build”.

The other details about power great enough to span centuries need no explanation, though of course it’s important to note that Fistandantilus has attained his greatly elongated lifespan through dark magic rather than having been born immortal, and the implications of this are explained further in the below sections. Unlike the Darkling, he feels no need to invent ridiculous cover stories about untimely deaths and secret heirs, but instead wears his perpetual youth as a badge of his absolute mastery of the dark arts.

(Note from my inner editor: This passage is nonsense because how are we able to see such detail of what his body looks like inside these voluminous robes. Cut it out).

---

Dark One

Is a bad wizard even worthy of his black robes if he doesn’t have at least three different names and titles?

Leigh doesn’t think so, and neither do most of the writers on our list. My word count is going to explode wonderfully once we get to the Kingverse and I undertake the tortuous but fascinating labour of laying out and explaining each one of the legion of titles for the Dark Man.

For future reference, the full list of the Darkling’s titles is:

The Darkling

The Black Heretic

The Shadow King (in R&R prologue)

The Starless Saint, the Starless One, The Saint With No Stars (in The Lives of Saints)

His past pseudonyms are given as:

Leonid (the first Darkling), Staski, Kiril, Kirigan, Anton, Eryk (in RoW)

Eryk, Arkady, Iosef, Stasik, Kirill (in DitW)

Raistlin is a Hero of the Lance (yes, really, a hero), and the Master of Past and Present (not as good as it sounds, I only call him this when I’m making fun of him), but oddly enough it’s Fistandantilus’ title of ‘the Dark One’ that was semi-appropriated for TGV.

Where the title ‘Darkling’ originally comes from is something that, surprisingly, Leigh never seems to have been asked about, even after all the fuss and bother about changing it into a ‘slur’ on the show.

Dr Johnson’s dictionary defined ‘darkling’ as:

“a participle, as it seems, from darkle, which yet I have never found. Being in the dark, being without light: a word merely poetical.”

‘Poetical’ is the key, here. Historically, the word appears to have been used only in poetry, and was so rare that even Johnson couldn’t find evidence to speculate on the etymology of it. The only pre-20th century prose usage I can find is from Coleridge, who was, of course, a poet.

Like so many words, the earliest recorded use of the word ‘darkling’ is in Shakespeare, not as a noun but as an adverb meaning ‘in the dark’ or ‘in a dark way’. Shakespeare used it three times – Act 2, Scene 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 4 of King Lear, and most interestingly:

CLEOPATRA: O sun,

Burn the great sphere thou mov’st in. Darkling stand

The varying shore o’ the world!

Act 4, Scene 15, Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1607)

In modern English this line, from Cleopatra upon seeing Antony’s dead body, might be rendered as, “O Sun, burn away your orbit. Let all the shores of the world stand in darkness!”

The image of the sun breaking free of its orbit and burning out relates very well to Alina’s powers burning out and leaving her ‘orbit’ by being transferred to the otkazat'sya, as Mal’s corpse lies nearby.

As for the ‘shores of the world’, the other appearance of ‘darkling’ I want to draw specific attention to is Matthew Arnold’s 1867 poem Dover Beach:

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The whole of Dover Beach connects incredibly well with TGT and I intend to return to it in full in the eventual Shadow Fold post.

Here’s another good one:

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

- Lord Byron, Darkness (1816)

According to Leigh’s 18 May 2012 blog post for Pub(lishing) Crawl, The Darkling was her original working title for S&B, but she thought it was too similar to Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, and she even considered changing the character’s name.

The other potential title she seemed to like the most, saying she was “smitten” with it, was The Black Shore, and I wonder whether she loved that title so much because it evokes both Shakespeare and Arnold’s poem.

Presumably at some point ‘darkling’ became a noun meaning ‘creature of darkness’, and I have very occasionally seen it used that way in other places, but if there’s any evidence of the transition, I can’t find it.

The only thing that ties the word ‘darkling’ directly to any of the other wizards on our list is this description of the Ageless Stranger in Book 5, Chapter 7 of The Gunslinger:

“He darkles. He tincts. He is in all times.”

This description recurs a few times in The Dark Tower (series) in relation to different characters. As for where Stephen King got it from, who knows. What does it mean? Unlike the Stranger, I only have so many hours, so we’ll have to come back to it later, along with the question of why wizards always seem to have so many names.

---

Fistantandilus was vaguely alluded to in Chronicles, but this is the first time in the series that he’s appeared in person and so the narration goes out of its way to confirm that he is, at this specific time, a human (hence why light does not harm him).

The reason I point this out is because it will become relevant Later. The D&D alignment system which dictates the actions characters of various religions and species are and aren’t permitted to take against other characters, far from strangling the story, is actually an extraordinarily good device for keeping the writers honest. There are no moral double standards in favour of the heroes; everyone must act in accordance with their alignment or face the consequences.. Switching alignments is possible,but it’s a momentous occasion when it happens, since it often results in in permanent excommunication from family, friends, and socio-political groups.

Although Fistandantilus is human for now, Dragonlance doesn’t intend for the reader to consider him as a human most of the time.

Fistandantilus is the type of character I refer to as an ‘Outsider’. In this specific genre of psychological metaphor stories about epic battles between light and darkness, where light is personified in an ‘ego’ character and darkness in a ‘shadow’ character, due to the requirement that the ego and shadow be ‘integrated’ or reconciled in the end in order for psychological healing (outwardly manifested as world saving and world healing) to take place, the ego and shadow characters are not ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ but rather they are both protagonists who antagonise one another with opposing moral codes, until they must put aside their differences and combine their strengths in order to defeat the true villain who is endangering the world.

The Outsider is not always physically powerful in his own right (and in fact usually isn’t, since the majority of the story is focused on the rivalry of the ego and shadow characters), but may be a character who lurks in the background and tempts, corrupts or coerces other characters into carrying out his will. Since the ‘shadow’ character embodies humanity’s ‘dark’ or negative qualities such as selfishness, jealousy and fear, it’s the shadow character who is more vulnerable to the Outsider’s manipulation. In some cases, the Outsider need not even be present in the story, and might be a villain who was already defeated, but it’s the lingering effects of the trauma inflicted by the Outsider that must be overcome.

In SFF it’s common for the Outsider to be non-human, or a human who has willingly surrendered their humanity, which exempts the reader from any need to sympathise with them, and exempts the characters from needing to abide by any in-universe moral standards regarding the treatment of humans. This is useful in D&D settings where committing ‘murder’ of any sentient being is considered to be the worst sin, because killing an undead isn’t counted as murder.

Although he’s technically alive in the past, as we heard in the previous chapters, Fistandantilus learned magic that allowed him to escape from death and bind his soul to the Tower of High Sorcery until he could claim a new vessel for it. Mortality is one of the defining traits of humanity on Krynn, and trying to extend one’s natural lifespan is a grave sin, because it’s an act in defiance of the design of humans as they were created by the god Gilean at the beginning of time. Thus, there’s a clearly defined and indisputable justification in Dragonlance for why humans trying to become immortal is in violation of the laws of nature. When he used magic to extend his mortal lifespan, and later became a spirit and tried to claim another body, Fistandantilus lost the ‘right’ to be treated as a human, both by the other characters in the story and by the reader.

This ego/shadow/Outsider plot structure is the structure of Legends. Fistandantilus in his original lifetime was a rogue operator – a mysterious but legendarily evil figure who had no known origin, no allegiances, no weaknesses – and the Black Robes of the present day have no desire to see him return. It’s the possibility of Fistandantilus’ return by his possession of Raistlin that convinces Ladonna to go along with Par-Salian’s time travel plan.

Raistlin is not an Outsider. He’s a human, from the same hometown as most of the other heroes; he went to school; he did mercenary work with his brother. As much as he likes to pretend otherwise, he has friends and family who care about him. Until the events of Chronicles, his life wasn’t remarkably different from anybody else’s (Krynn being full to bursting with adventuresome types). Raistlin is the ‘shadow’ character in the possession of the Outsider, and so the goal of the story is not to defeat him, but for the ‘ego’ characters (Caramon and Crysania) to redeem him by breaking him away from Fistandantilus’ malevolent influence, and preventing him from sacrificing his own humanity in his attempt to become a god.

This is a plot structure we’re going to see several more times, in both its most simple and most complicated forms in the Stephen King novels, and in the Vampire Chronicles as well, where Lestat and his allies who try to exist by human(ish) standards are often pitted against the really evil vampires and demons and so on.

TGT seems to be attempting something along these lines but it’s very muddled because there’s a character missing. Alina is the ‘ego’ and the Darkling is the ‘shadow’, that’s straightforward enough, but the Darkling is also the Outsider.

As we said above, the ego and shadow characters are usually both humans, but the Outsider is usually a non-human so it can be destroyed without breaking the moral bounds of the story. If anything, it seems that Alina is the ‘ego’ and Aleksander (being the ‘human’ aspect of the Darkling) is the ‘shadow’, with his persona as the Darkling being the Outsider (representing the use of merzost that corrupted him) but ‘Aleksander’ can’t be separated or redeemed away from the Darkling, due to the story’s insistence that use of merzost for any reason is unavoidably and irreversibly corrosive to one’s humanity. According to the end of R&R, Aleksander’s humanity was worth mourning, but it wasn’t worth saving, and in RoW Alina seems to no longer care about Aleksander at all.

There’s an odd turn in the sequel books where the Darkling’s humanity is no longer represented by Aleksander but rather by Yuri, but I’ll elaborate on that in a future post.

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“Why does the Kingpriest keep him around the court? Why not send him away, as the others were banished?”

He said this to himself, of course, because – deep within his soul – Denubis knew the answer. This one was too dangerous, too powerful. This one was not like the others. The Kingpriest kept him as a man keeps a ferocious dog to protect his house; he knows the dog will attack when ordered, but he must constantly make certain that the dog’s leash is secure. If the leash ever broke, the animal would go for his throat.”

Ah, this sounds familiar. I’m sure it’s coincidence, but I like the way the dog metaphor relates back to all the other dog/wolf metaphors listed in the Chapter 7 post.

The ‘sinister court mage’ character type in modern fiction probably goes back to tales of John Dee in the court of Elizabeth I (who was possibly the inspiration for Spenser’s Archimago and/or Busirane in The Faerie Queene, and Shakespeare’s Prospero in The Tempest), as well as Marlowe’s Dr. Faust in the court of Charles V, with some later influence from the assorted evil viziers (or Wazirs) from Sir Richard F. Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights. Of course, the most famous Slavic ‘court mage’ was the rogue monk Grigori Rasputin, whose historical life shares a handful of superficial similarities with the Darkling’s, but instead Rasputin was primarily the inspiration for the Apparat:

I also love that you've got a religious mystic, an adviser to the royal family who's one of the more sympathetic figures at court. Are you trying to rehabilitate Rasputin?

I wanted to play with the idea...that when you abdicate power, when you give it to someone else, bad things happen. It doesn't matter if you give it to somebody good or somebody bad. The easy thing is with great power comes great responsibility. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there are a lot of ways to abdicate power. You can hide power, you can delegate it...One of the appeals of Rasputin is he has the answers. One of the appeals of the Darkling is he has the answers. These people turn to Alina because they want her to have the answers. It's a very compelling thing to look to someone else to lead. And I wouldn't say that I was trying in any way to rehabilitate Rasputin, who, frankly, given how hard it was to kill him, I wouldn't want to bring him back. But the Apparat is meant to evoke a lot of our suspicions and fears about the particular character. People who don't know anything about Russian history know that name.

- The Atlantic, 20 June 2012

The Darkling’s political meddling has the most in common with Flagg’s performance in Eyes of the Dragon, so we’ll defer an in-depth discussion of the trope to that book.

“The doors swung open, emitting a glorious light. His time of audience had come.

The Hall of Audience first gave those who came here a sense of their own meekness and humility. This was the heart of goodness. Here was represented the power and glory of the church. The doors opened onto a huge circular room with a floor of polished white granite. The floor continued upward to form the walls into the petals of a gigantic rose, soaring skyward to support a great dome. The dome itself was of frosted crystal that absorbed the glow of the sun and moons. Their radiance filled every part of the room.”

Resemblant of the palace of Istar is the bright opulence of Ravka’s Grand Palace:

“...we were climbing the white marble steps to the Grand Palace. As we moved through a spacious entry hall into a long corridor lined with mirrors and ornamented in gold, I though how different this place was from the Little Palace. Everywhere I looked, I saw marble and gold, soaring walls of white and palest blue, gleaming chandeliers, liveried footmen, polished parquet floors laid out in elaborate geometric designs.”

The point of including Fistandantilus in the Kingpriest’s court is to once again emphasise Dragonlance’s philosophy of balance between light and dark. The Kingpriest is the world’s most powerful user of light magic, and Fistandantilus is the only one who can balance him with powers of darkness. It’s once Fistandantilus disappears from the court that the final days begin, because then the Kingpriest’s path on his quest for godhood is unobstructed.

I think TGT is trying to take this approach to the Darkling’s presence in Ravka’s court, but it’s not communicated well because the Darkling is the primary villain, whilst the Lanstovs are an impotent secondary distraction, and so much of the story’s moralising focuses on scolding Alina and the Darkling for using their magical powers. In a way, the King and the Darkling do keep one another in check – the King (with the support of the otkazat'sya peasantry) and the First Army prevents the Darkling from just taking over the country himself, whilst the Darkling prevents the nobility and the church from carrying out pogroms on the Grisha population.

The design of the Grand Palace is contrasted with that of the Little Palace, which is built of dark wood. The diamond-encrusted Grand Palace is presumably supposed to indicate the unfeeling ignorance of the nobility, but the Little Palace with its painstakingly carved wood paneling and mother-of-pearl-inlaid-everything is not very much less grandiose, merely a bit more naturalistic, and the detachment of the Grisha from the common people is also drawn attention to through the Darkling’s pantomime insistence on peasant-inspired food and clothing.

In Legends, the Kingpriest and Fistandantilus are both equally bad – one is trying to rule the world by becoming the supreme god of Good, the other by trying to become the supreme god of Evil, and for either of them to succeed will cause the end of existence – whilst both must be removed personally, the story’s ultimate solution in the end is not to eliminate the church or the wizards or the powers of light and darkness, but to ensure that the balance between them is maintained by teaching people on both sides to be good and to love and respect one another.

In TGT, the King and the Darkling are both equally(?) bad, but the King is villainous mostly on a personal scale – his primary crime being his assault of Genya, with the poverty of the peasants being as much a consequence of the centuries of invasions by other countries as much as anything internal to Ravka – whereas the Darkling has world-ruling ambitions which are couched in similar terms to godhood in Dragonlance. The two are not equals in ambition or competence, and so the Darkling is made out to be the more credible and sinister threat. Both the King and the Darkling must be removed personally in the end as well, but the conclusion of TGT doesn’t come out the same as Legends, because of TGT’s stances that darkness is evil and must be purged, and that an excess of Grisha power renders one inhuman and unfit to rule (until RoW, apparently).

There’s a lot of story to go yet, so we’ll wait until the end of Legends to consider the differences between the conclusions in proper detail.

---

“You mentioned the Dark One. What do you know of him? I mean, why is he here? He-- he frightens me.”

…

“Who knows anything of the ways of magic-users,” he answered, “except that their ways are not our ways, nor yet the ways of the gods. It was for that reason the Kingpriest felt compelled to rid Ansalon of them, as much as was possible. Now they are holed up in their one remaining Tower of High Sorcery in that cast-off Forest of Wayreth. Soon, even that will disappear as their numbers dwindle, since we have closed the schools. You heard about the cursing of the Tower at Palanthas?”

…

“That terrible incident!” Quarath frowned. “It just goes to show you how the gods have cursed these wizards, driving that one soul to such madness that he impaled himself upon the gates, bringing down the wrath of the gods and sealing the Tower forever, we suppose. But, what were we discussing?”

“Fistandantilus,” Denubis murmured, sorry he had brought it up.

…

Quarath raised his feathery eyebrows. “All I know of him is that he was here when I came, some one hundred years ago. He is old – older even than many of my kindred, for there are few even of the eldest of my race who can remember a time when his name was not whispered. But he is human, and therefore must use his magic arts to sustain his life. How, I dare not imagine.” Quarath looked at Denubis intently. “You understand now, of course, why the Kingpriest keeps him at court?”

“He fears him?” Denubis asked innocently.

Quarath’s porcelain smile became fixed for a moment, then it was the smile of a parent explaining a simple matter to a dull child. “No, Revered Son,” he said patiently. “Fistandantilus is of great use to us. Who knows the world better? He has traveled its width and breadth. He knows the languages, the customs, the lore of every race on Krynn. His knowledge is vast. He is useful to the Kingpriest, and so we allow him to remain here, rather than banish him to Wayreth, as we have banished his fellows.”

The grisly tale about the Tower being cursed is the sort of thing you could imagine forming the basis for one of the stories inThe Lives of Saints, but what happened wouldn’t be told in detail until later books, so we’ll skip over it.

Once again the comparison between Legends and TGT serves to emphasis how the Darkling doesn’t work as an Outsider character. Rather than abandoning the Grisha, he forms the Second Army and builds the Little Palace for the protection of the Grisha and of Ravka because he sees himself as being part of those groups and subject to the social contract of mutual rights and responsibilities with them, as opposed to Fistandantilus who does nothing to protect or defend anyone but himself, because he has no interest in other mages, no known homeland, and no national allegiance.

Fistandantilus lurks around the Kingpriest’s court seemingly for no other reason that because he can, because it brings him a perverse joy to be the only mage to be indispensable enough to remain. It’s proof that he’s more powerful and more feared than any of his fellows. Although wizards as a social class are being persecuted, this is no concern of his; he’s exceptionally self-serving even for a Black Robe.

I think the chatter about Fistandantilus’ use to the court because of his vast knowledge is implicit about the Darkling in S&B, though there aren’t any quotes to support it. The Darkling (under a succession of false identities) has also traveled the world extensively:

“Aleksander had traveled throughout Ravka, to places he and his mother had visited before, to distant lands where he’d gone on his own to study. He knew the secret ways and hiding places of Grisha...”

We get a regrettably brief glimpse at one of his youthful adventures in WWSF, but other than that all his centuries prior to the trilogy, and all the wondrous things he must have learned about, are left to our imaginations.

---

If there’s one argument I’m likely to beat to death by the end of this exercise, it’s that the ongoing Grisha/Fjerda/Shu Han conflict and the overwrought analogy of the Grisha as fantasy Jews is what killed the whole story.

Fistandantilus is a cut-and-dry villain because he has never cared about anyone or anything other than himself, and he conspires against and takes advantage of people in his own social groups, not for any kind of ‘greater good’, but rather for his own gain and no other reason.

The Darkling’s status as the leader of his own oppressed minority group and the very person who originally built, and subsequently spent hundreds of years maintaining, all the social infrastructure that protects them from harm makes him too sympathetic. Regardless of how many Genyas there might have been along the way, it’s inarguable that he has saved far more lives than he has ruined. He’s not completely in the right, he does need to be stopped from destroying the world with the Shadow Fold, but unlike Fistandantilus he’s not completely in the wrong, either, because the cause is worthy.

The Darkling creating the Second Army and the Shadow Fold is the only thing that's kept the Grisha alive and kept Ravka from losing the war. The story acts like the Darkling is the main problem but in fact he's a symptom and a victim of it. No one can 'move on' from the war or the persecution because it's still happening.

In Legends, the war is over, but everyone has PTSD. Raistlin really is the main problem now, but the story still acknowledges that all of this is because he's suffering. He talks a good game to Crysania about how there are all these neglected and impoverished populations suffering out there in the world and he’s the only one who can do anything about it, but he’s not part of any of those groups, and no one has asked for his help nor has he gone to anyone and offered it; he’s denying people self-determination because he’s the chosen one and the cleverest and most powerful wizard ever, and so he thinks he knows better than anyone else. The failed time travel plot relates to the theme that you can't change the past, but you can heal from it and create a better future. But that theme only works because the war really is over.

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Full disclosure: ‘Outsider’ is a term I made up because I have never seen this famous and very common plot structure seriously written about anywhere. My term comes from Stephen King’s ‘Outer Dark’, which was named after the Cormac McCarthy novel, which was named after Jesus’ line from Matthew “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness”.

If there is an existing technical term for this type of plot/character I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO KNOW, PLEASE.

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‘Darkling’ is very cute and almost twee, like‘Inkling’. The childlike FF black mages (like Vivi) could be called darklings, but it’s not much of a title for an ancient and mighty sorcerer, is it? It only works for him in the books because he’s such an ickle baby and he’s stuck at about 21 years old.

I was really disappointed when I read that the book was originally titled after the Darkling, it seems that Alina barely exists even in the author’s mind, she’s just a vessel for Leigh to get revenge on this conglomerate imaginary wizard (for whatever reason). LotR is named after Sauron but that’s the only other epic fantasy villain title I can think of. Even Stephen King names his fantasy novels after the heroes. It’s more like naming a horror novel after the monster (Dracula, Phantom of the Opera, IT).

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I wonder whether Leigh just plain forgot that Raistlin is the chosen one and personally saved the world in Chronicles and is an official capital-H Hero in-universe. That won’t be the last time, either. He’s very good at Hero-ing actually, I am so proud of him.

Fistandantilus is great, he’s only my 4th favourite of the Black Robes but that’s not much of a slander because Dragonlance has the best total cast of anything ever.

Less than zero redeeming qualities, this guy, he is without doubt the most evil human who ever lived. You can tell that Leigh never read any of the books beyond the original 6 because Fistandantilus’ later-revealed backstory was designed to show what Raistlin would have been like without Caramon, which is to say really fucking terrifying and absolutely nothing like the Darkling. Leigh underestimates both how good and how evil he can be.

It’s always funny seeing perspectives of people who are totally oblivious to fandoms. Raistlin is the most beloved character in all of D&D history other than maybe Drizzt on a good day. Strahd is the new hotness but he’s just a pretty face and doesn’t inspire the same bottomless pathos.

The fact that Leigh thought she could retool him into a villain and murder him is a level of insane hubris that’s worthy of Fistandantilus. That’s exactly what Fistandantilus tried to do to him and IT DIDN’T WORK BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE LOVED HIM TOO MUCH, tell me more about how you didn’t learn anything from the story at all lmao

I wonder if she thinks Lestat is the villain of his own novels too.

Next post --->

#shadow and bone #darklina #the darkling

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