All series featured on this blog have their masterlists posted here! This is a master post of master posts! A master-masterpost. A masterpostception, if you will.
Side note it is Baelpenrose policy regarding shipping conundrums that all characters within stories on this blog are canonically either bisexual or asexual unless cannon decrees otherwise.
Edit YET AGAIN: I am always available on the Archive of Our Own, linked below. Tumblr’s increasing attempts to retire itself from relevance to bend over for Apple make it increasingly relevant to support Ao3. I will continue updating here, naturally, however, should I ever up and vanish, come find me there under the same username.
Final Forward: While I have written all of these, and am not ASHAMED of any of them, I have grown significantly enough as a writer and as a person since time of writing that I do not believe that Tiger Squadron is terribly reflective of the writer (or human being) that I am now, and encourage people to read my other stuff first, then go back to it if they want to get an idea of how I started.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: No character in the following works is based off a real, living person with the exception of fan submissions, some of which are based off the fans submitting them. All other resemblances to living people is purely coincidental. Resemblance or reference to deceased historical figures, however, is usually on purpose.
Afterverse Studios Staff Announcement:
Afterverse Studios Staff, Writing Team, Beta Readers, etc
Beta-reading Policy
Tiger Squadron Universe:
Campy military sci-fi written for "humans are space orcs" - my first ever written works.
Original Series. (Complete!)
Next Generation (Complete!)
The Healing Earth:
Solarpunk fiction reflecting on humanity, government, religion, anti-capitalism, and possibilities for post-colonial life.
Arcadian Inquisition: Adept (Complete)
Nihilus Rex: Ongoing (Prequel series) (On Hiatus)
The Miys (Partner Series by CanyouheartheLight) (Complete!)
From the Ashes (Forthcoming) - Founder Era story
Under Avandra’s Eyes Series!
Sword and Sorcery fiction dealing with themes of trauma, healing, justice, found family, and coming-of-age.
Under Avandra’s Eyes Book 1: Companions of Torin pt I (Complete)
Under Avandra’s Eyes Book 1: Companions of Torin Pt II (Complete, very much meant to be read as one book with the previous link, split because Tumblr only allows up to 100 links on a given post)
Under Avandra’s Eyes Book 2: Exile’s Path (In Progress!)
Under Avandra’s Eyes Book 3: Netherworld's Reckoning (Forthcoming)
Project Praetorian Series:
Science fiction dealing with themes of trauma, colonialism, and the challenge of complicity vs. agency.
Phase 1: The Project (Complete)
Phase 2: The Invasion (Forthcoming)
Phase 3: The Last Gambit (Forthcoming)
Phase 4: the Aftermath (forthcoming)
Masterpost-ception by CanyouheartheLight (included here as both partner author and frequently cross-promoted. Also because her Miys series is part of the Afterverse)
And if you’re the type who would rather binge via Ao3....
Enjoy!
And support the ongoing madness on Ko-fi if you wish!
I know it’s a super racist meme but the white nationalist thing about “we should have picked our own cotton” is such a wild self own because. Yeah. Yeah you should have. No shit. You know who told you that at the time? Black people.
There's a certain phenomenon I've observed where like. There's a sensible criticism to be made about a broader media trend, which is considered a fringe opinion by most whether it's correct or not, and then some new piece of media in that trend becomes popular and is slightly more diverse than past iterations were, and suddenly it stops being a fringe opinion and everybody's always felt very strongly about that criticism, and if you point this pattern out, people will treat you like the one guy left on the wrong side of the argument
I'm choosing not to give specific examples intentionally, because I don't want the conversation to become about whether or not the criticisms are correct with regards to each individual piece of media. This isn't specifically about whatever Culture War Du Jour you're imagining it's referring to, so even though I can think of at least four examples of the top of my head, I don't want it to be mistaken for that. What I want noted is the trend of people who would've ignored, dismissed, or even fought against a criticism before, who've now latched onto it wholeheartedly because the alternative is admitting they're mad that a popular thing now has a black person in it.
i was training a young person at work, and she referred to sexual assault as "SA" out loud, and i immediately was like, "no, it's sexual assault, call it what it is," bc idgaf if the algorithm overlords have taught y'all that you should fear direct language, how tf do any of you expect to ever address real issues with any amount of seriousness if you can't even say the words? imagine an advocate looking a sexual assault survivor in the eyes and asking "did he grape you?" it's absolutely fucking absurd, but these young interns and new hires are coming into an environment where we deal with survivors of all different kinds of abuse, and they're coming with the mindset that the words are as bad as the actions, and that makes them shitty at the job and look juvenile af
i HATE self-censorship for a lot of reasons, but being in crisis work makes it even more frustrating. who are you censoring for? like i am being so fr, WHO are you censoring for? have you even thought it through? people who have been raped know that they have been raped. if someone attempts suicide or is grieving someone who did, saying "sewer slide" isn't going to protect them from any of the feelings. a murder victim's family isn't going to feel better bc you said "unalived" instead of murdered. if anything, it's just extremely invalidating and othering. it's saying "what happened to you is so bad that i won't even say the word," which is NOT trauma-informed care. you are not protecting survivors/victims when you self-censor. the ONLY things you protect when you self-censor are the puritanical ideologies that are being encouraged by rich fascists who want your money and obedience
say the fucking words, guys. just say the goddamn words before i go insane!!!
Why is there a diarrhea parasite outbreak in America?
Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies cut funding to disease prevention and control.
Why is measles back in America?
Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including RFK Jr, cut vaccine and measles prevention funding and programs.
Why is the New World Screwworm infecting cattle in Texas, when it had previously been eliminated from the area?
Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including Elon Musk, cut USAID funding, which in part worked to monitor and prevent screwworm outbreaks.
Why was there a flu outbreak in our armed forces?
Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including Pete Hegseth, cut vaccination requirements for our armed forces, putting all of them at risk alongside our military readiness.
What contributed to the Covid outbreak?
Donald Trump and his Republican allies cut funding to a pandemic prevention program in his first term because Barack Obama had created it.
“America first” sends its regards. Trump voters, please learn your lesson. And if you don’t, it’ll be taught to you again with yet another diarrhea outbreak.
Please give credit to Matthew Cortland, the disabled lawyer and activist whose work is reflected in that last screenshot. They work hard on documenting what Trump and his cronies have been doing & they deserve credit.
To @vaspider's point, this otherwise useful Bloomberg article is sullied by them just taking an individual's work and repeating it without credit:
The US Food and Drug Administration had apologized, Taylor Farms said in a post on X. An agency lab test linking its produce to the country’
Taylor Farms gave $1 million to a political action committee supporting the president last year. Chief Executive Officer Bruce Taylor had attended an event with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and hundreds of agriculture executives, members of Congress, and federal staff just days earlier, celebrating 250 years of American farming at Mount Vernon.
This is good and true except Zoe Washburn would never have chosen a weak, pathetic man. Wash is soft and kind and really weird (affectionate), but those are very different things.
ohhh my god I just fact-checked, Nolan actually DID cut the "Nobody" scene from his Odyssey movie. Mfer that is like cutting the Father reveal from Star Wars. Let me speak in a language you understand this is like not dressing Batman up in his suit. "It was not possible to work it in" the TikTok musical with a budget of $4 and a scratched Hamilton CD managed to work it in in SONG form, step up your FUCKING GAME
As someone who has written academic papers about the role of disguise and deceit in the Odyssey — Nobody is so damn important.
Prior to this point, when Odysseus tries to exercise Xenia (ancient Greek guest rites/hospitality code), he did what he was supposed to do. (Well, we think so anyway — notably, the most famous books of the Odyssey are told by Odysseus, who isn’t exactly a reliable narrator.)
But when Polyphemus kills and eats some of the men, the game changes. The Cyclops makes it clear he has no intention of abiding by Zeus’s laws, and will cannibalize the lot of the men. So, Odysseus responds in kind — he breaks Xenia and lies. He introduces himself under a false name as part of a trick. Polyphemus then breaks Xenia again — he tells Nobody he’ll be eaten last, and that is the Cyclops’ guest gift to him.
Odysseus’ transgression is clearly the lesser one. The Nobody trick works. It gets Odysseus and most of his crew out of the cave alive.
But, crucially, before leaving Odysseus sheds his disguise. He admits his true identity, in detail, so he can boast of his achievements and add vanquishing a Cyclops to the list. And it bites him in the ass spectacularly.
The only reason why Polyphemus can curse Odysseus, can bid his father Poseidon to curse the man who blinded him, is because he now knows who did it. If Odysseus had kept his mouth shut, he might have safely made it home from there. But while a big part of why the Nobody disguise vs. real name reveal is showing Odysseus’s hubris, it’s not just about that. It’s also about the start of a pattern that hurts him more than it helps him.
From this point in the Odyssey on, Odysseus lies about his identity constantly. And sometimes it protects him, but more often it’s a detriment or at least unnecessary. He’s lying about his identity primarily to people who are on his side — a kindly loyal swineherd, his son, his faithful wife, his ailing father.
The last one is especially damning, because happens when Odysseus has already killed the suitors and returned home and reunited with the rest of his family sans disguises. He knows from everyone else that Laertes never betrayed him or his legacy, but was mourning his son and heartbroken for almost a decade. Odysseus has publicly declared his return to everyone else — his father doesn’t know because he’s living in squalor remotely. But Odysseus doesn’t tell his father who he is. He makes up a fake identity and tells a story implying Laertes’ son is dead. And when Laertes bursts out crying, then Odysseus drops the charade and finally admits who he really was.
There was no utility to that lie. No loyalty to test. No hidden threats to worry about. But Odysseus still instinctively lies to his beloved father about who he is, only dropping the charade when he sees the damage it’s doing to his relationships.
Because at this point, lying is pathological for Odysseus. He can’t seem to stop doing it. Because with Polyphemus, a lie protected him and the truth hurt him. That is the point of the “ Nobody” disguise.
On this day, 18 July 1969, Black Panthers held a conference in Oakland alongside the predominantly white anti-racist Young Patriots Organisation and Puerto Rican street gang-turned-radical group the Young Lords.
A KPIX news report described the event as an “unconventional convention” which was nevertheless “well-organised and orderly”, and explained that the Panthers’ motivation in holding it was to emphasise “class struggle” and “revolutionary unity”.
The Young Patriots were a group of poor, mostly Appalachian migrants in Chicago. Although they opposed racism, they originally wore Confederate flags, which they believed were a symbol of rebellion.
Leading Panther Fred Hampton played a key role in building links with them and other white working-class youth, until he was assassinated by police.
In his speech, William "Preacherman" Fesperman of the Young Patriots, argued for armed self-defence against police brutality: "A gun on the side of a pig means two things: it means racism and it means capitalism and the gun on the side of a revolutionary, on the side of the people, means solidarity and socialism."
Later, the Young Patriots abandoned the Confederate flag symbol as an irredeemable symbol of white supremacy. As former-Patriot Hy Thurman explained to Redneck Revolt: “As we grew politically and respected the Black Panthers and the Young Lords we determined that there was no place in the movement or the world for the Confederate flag. It symbolises a period of time when our Black brothers and sisters were mere property to be sold or destroyed at the white man's convenience. And that the Confederate flag was created to serve as a symbol of plantation owners to perpetuate slavocracy.”
Learn more about the Panthers in these books by former members: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/black-panthers
call me terminally academia-brained but i do think a lot of the fun of character analysis is figuring out how to build a compelling argument for a particular reading using lines of evidence from canon as well as meta/intertextual support
and you could say that what i’m saying here is basically “a lot of the fun of doing character analysis is doing character analysis” but let’s be real a lot of fandom character analysis is pretty heavily vibes-based. and i think that’s where i really chafe up against the traditional thought-terminating fandom attitude of like, everyone’s opinions hold equal weight and any interrogation of that is inherently hostile. because i think it’s fascinating to dig into where others are coming from in terms of their views on characters or dynamics or whatever, especially when they differ significantly from more commonly expressed views, and part of that digging is asking people okay what parts of canon are you drawing from to support your opinion? what parts of canon are you disregarding or downplaying? how does this argument hold up in the light of how race, gender, class, ability, etc. operate both in the piece’s in-fiction and real world contexts?
nolan’s odyssey is such a textbook study on the idiocy and dangers of presentism. yes of course penelope is a modern day feminist who wants to rule ithaca by herself. they make telemachus say that GREECE IS THE GREATEST CIVILIZATION IN THE WORLD as if the entire point of the massing of achaeans at troy for one unified cause isn’t spectacular precisely because THERE IS NO CONCEPT OF A UNIFIED GREECE NATIONS DO NOT EXISTTTTTT YETTTTT. literally 101 on historical writing is making sure that you’re avoiding strict periodization because the people living in a “period” will not identify themselves that way. ever. five million cheeky nods to “the sea peoples” but we’re being cute and coy and calling them “the people from the sea.” the obsession with xenia but refusal to call it xenia yes let’s say “zeus’s law” a hundred times and reduce it to the literal expectation that any stranger could be a god in disguise. how was penelope just hanging out in the main hall of the palace with her husband’s dinner guests while they were playing with weapons with her HAIR COMPLETELY DOWN no veil no nothing just chilling casually. comical. stoppppp making movies that engage in historical viewpoints if you’re going to slather a modernized coat of paint over the top. “the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” or fucking whatever.
Under Avandra's Eyes II: Exile's Path
Chapter LXI: Alleys are Alleys
Thomas does some skulking in a red light district, which, fun fact, has the historically accurate origin of that term. He also meets a Maomao (apothecary diaries) shoutout. Oh, and he gets in a one-sided knife fight with someone, but it's thomas, ya know? Beta-read by @writing-with-olive
Thomas
Thomas was glad to be back in the big city – but it had been a long time since he’d been to Nistria – not since he’d come here as a teenager with a crew of pirates, in fact, only a few years older than Itene. On one hand, that meant the wanted posters were likely to be wildly inaccurate, since he’d grown a beard and shaved it since then, and grown almost a foot, but on the other hand, it meant that he couldn’t simply announce himself and expect to immediately command respect and dread the way he was used to.
Still, being given the run of the place meant more freedom to learn about the city they’d be operating in. He helped himself to some strings of coin from one of the men he could see in the kinds of elegant robes that mean nobleman in this region, then slipped over to the moneychangers who seemed to be trading copper for slips of paper with the Imperial Seal.
Apparently they used paper money, to make it easier than carrying coins, and with the amount of goods being traded, it was easier to issue paper money from the government and trade for some of the actual coins, to let the government control how much money was in circulation. Thomas thought that was stupid – what kind of fool would take paper just because some guy with a crown said it was good? – but a quick glance around the market showed that it was accepted, and he supposed it was quieter than a string full of coins that clacked when he was trying to sneak, so he traded the strings that he had stolen for a few notes.
Then he started actually looking around in earnest.
There was a place that looked to be an apothecary. Neith would be more of an expert in the things bought and sold there, but he could ask questions of the man to see if anyone had been through here. And certainly, if the Alchemist had done business, this man might answer Thomas’s questions.
The apothecary was actually a small woman with a flat affect, and bandages tracing up both arms, a smattering of spots across her nose, and a remarkable ability to communicate distaste with a look. Thomas tried not to be too unsettled by her stare, merely asking the professional questions he needed answered, fumbling through a language he only mostly knew. “Need to know. Did a man come here? Strange, would have had hood.”
She gave him an uninterested stare. “You’re all of those things.”
“Man I look for is an Alchemist,” he fumbled, Hansean clumsy on his lips. “Flesh Alchemist. May have changed his form.”
She gave him a sharp look. “Ah. One man. Hunched under his cloak. Few days ago. Said he had business at the palace, with an immortality elixir. I don’t know if he go through to the emperor or not. But the way he talked – and some of the things he bought – I wouldn’t put bets on him being up to anything good.”
Thomas blinked. “And. You still sold him these things?”
The woman shrugged. “He gave me a bunch of interesting components for my own experiments in trade. Nothing for flesh alchemy. Just. Poisons and antagonists. Things I like studying. Things illegal to have here.”
That didn’t make sense to Thomas, but he had no interest in investigating the experimental proclivities of this oddity of an a apothecary when he had just gotten a lead on his actual goal. He made his excuses and left, heading towards the palace. His chances of actually getting inside with permission would be limited, but…on the outer wall, there was an easy point of entry. Servants’ quarters. He shuffled around the dozen or so knives on his person and reflected as he did so.
The alchemist was already inside the palace, or at least, he was theoreticaly. That already raised some concerns. Either the emperor was a fool, or he was desperate – or, very possibly, both. It was also possible the man had been turned away. He supposed it was possible that he could check around the city further – check to see if there were any rumors of odd disappearances that would indicate the work of the Flesh Alchemist, especially since the group that had already gone to the palace would see him if he was already there.
So he headed to the town's red light district - a turn of phrase that was used in the empire, probably picked up from sailors without knowing where it came from. Here, though, it actually meant something. The cities here marked the side of town with ill repute with red lanterns, marking the place of disgraceful business, where women did not go if they were of proper dignity. Where married men did not go if they were faithful, or honest. Where rich men went if they sought cheap pleasures, and poor men went only if they sought profit they could make without honor.
Thomas didn't find anything dishonest in a poor man robbing a rich man, at least not a poor man robbing a rich nobleman, though he admitted privately he'd have some objections to a man such as himself robbing a rich man like Xerxes who had more than earned his money and was using it for the benefit of others. Then again, Thomas was practically a rich man himself these days, even if he didn't ever have much cash on him, he couldn't remember the last time he'd worried about food, or shelter, or money. He was part of a knight's retinue, and even if Baldor was a hedge knight, his association with the man had changed him.
Shaking aside the unsettling thought, he walked into the red light district. Saw a few sailors here and there, a few merchants, a few rich men, and as always, the usual assortment of men whose broad cloaks and bulging pockets marked them for smugglers. He made a snap decision - smugglers, then prostitutes. Then sailors.
The first smuggler he approached had an offer. Thomas turned him down - he wasn't interested in poppy, but he was interested in information. "No poppy. I'll pay the same price if you've seen the man I'm looking for. Give me bad information and I'll cut your throat."
The man looked at him. "Maybe I've seen him. What's his name?"
"He wouldn't give you a name. Cloak, hood. Foreigner. Hunch, probably reeks like he's carrying a bunch of potions. Lots of scars, but scars like acid burns."
"Seen no one like that. Sorry. Keep your coin." The man was clearly nervous about lying, and Thomas realized he might have gone too far.
He flipped the man a small value coin. "Thanks for your honesty."
The smuggler paused. "I don't know anything about the guy. But could be I could give you the name of a brothel keeper who would. And where to find the madame."
Thomas paused. "Oh?"
"Madame Cixi. Two streets over. The big green sign. She hosts a lot of strange travellers. Buys sometimes. You may be able to get more out of her."
Thomas threw him another few coins. "If that's good, you'll have more. If it isn't, I'll come back with a knife."
The man slunk back to the alley, and Thomas followed his directions to the brothel he was directed to. One thing he admitted to himself he appreciated about the red light district - because it accepted travellers and sailors, its traders spoke a mix of Common and Hansean he found much easier to navigate.
The brothel was easy to enter. Rich red curtains lay over different rooms, and sliding doors on runners covered entrances to deeper halls. The air hung heavy with heady smoke, and Thomas drew a cloth over his nose and mouth to prevent it from dulling his senses. He saw a woman behind a table, reclining on a chair - an older woman, in rich dress, once a beauty, undoubtedly, now gone to the abuse she had suffered and inflicted on herself with wine and powders, and with the clear signs of a poppy gum addict gripping her in the tremor of her hands and the sunken sockets of her eyes. She was Liza's age, but she looked older. At a guess, this woman had once worked in this brothel before controlling it, but unlike Octavia, who he'd helped gain control of Nemedia, Madame Cixi had fallen prey to the cycle of abuse and violence that too often claimed people in the brothel, and now played her own part in perpetuating it.
He lay coins across the table. "Madame Cixi, I presume?"
She scooped the coins, eagerly. "Yes. Here for a girl? Or a boy?"
"Neither. I'm here about a man. Not for a bedmate. I want information. I was told a man had come through here, a man I'm hunting. Foreigner, with a cowl. Supposedly has scars that look like they came from caustic potions. Probably moved strange, since he had done Alchemic things to himself."
The woman thought about it. Thomas put coins down on the table again, impatient. Cixi picked it up. "Alright, yes. Such a man did come through here. He told me that he'd been given my name as a brothel madame who could make good trade for what he wanted."
Thomas got impatient as she went silent again, chewing on the stem of her pipe. "And what did he want?" He put another coin on the table.
"He wanted something for his experiments. He gave me some special powder for my help finding it. Powder he said I could mix with the poppy in the pipe, to take the worst off the withdrawals, make the supply stretch a little longer." She drew a big drag from the pipe, and for a moment, Thomas thought he could see something ugly flicker in her sunken eyes. "He wanted - what did he want? He wanted something I didn't need. Something that aggravated the customers."
Thomas was starting to realize, with a growing sense of horror, what she had traded. "What was it?"
She reached out a hand, and he, already fairly certain that he'd be taking the money back, gave it to her. "One of the whores here, she had a bastard she couldn't feed. Too strung out on the poppy, too often. He'd get hungry and start wandering around, bothering the others, bothering the customers. The man you're hunting took him off our hands. Gave him some kind of candy and the kid followed him willingly enough."
The child was dead, or worse, no question. Thomas knew that. "You sold a kid to that. To that man. Do you know what he was?"
Cixi shook her head. "No. No I don't. He was a customer. What was he?" Her voice was curious, but not overly so.
"He was a Flesh Alchemist." Thomas felt a cold sense of rage fall over him. Almost as though he felt nothing. "That boy probably died one of the worst deaths imaginable, and probably didn't know what was happening to him until it started - and that's if he's lucky. If he's not…" If he was not, as Neith had explained the nature of Flesh Alchemy, the boy had doubtless been turned into something else, combined with other creatures. Still alive, unaware of what he had become, mentally fused with other things, beasts most likely, hungry, angry and afraid. With just enough humanity to continually learn.
"DId he mention where he was going?"
"Said he'd made agreements with the palace. I don't know if he has or not."
Thomas nodded. "One more question. Where is the powder he sold you?"
Cixi paused. "Do you want it? You gonna pay for it?" That had her attention.
Thomas rolled his wrist. "Just curious. I'm hunting him for a reason. I'd not trust that it doesn't have secondary effects. Ones that will kill you. Then again - you gave succor to my enemy. If I wanted it, you'd be well served to give it to me."
The madame paused, and handed him a small bag. Thomas looked within it and saw a small collection of powder. Confident Neith would be able to identify it, he tied it back off, then pinned Cixi to the wall and stabbed her repeatedly.
As the madame slumped to the ground, picking up his money first, then leaving it for those the madame had kept here.
Someday, he hoped to find somehwere it wasn't true. But everywhere he went, alleys were alleys and brothels were brothels.
But the Alchemist was in the Palace, and he was doing work on people here. That was a start.
Parts that made me tweak in a dim-lit movie theater:
1. Every time we meet a woman or enslaved individual that, y’know, had some semblance of agency in the text, Nolan has just… removed that? Circe’s commanding presence & how she genuinely overpowers Odysseus? Gone. Helen actually stealing the show in Book 4 where she walks down into the room and controls the conversation re: Odysseus & Troy? Gone. Utterly Gone. Lupita Nyong’o gets 0 chance to speak on her own terms and its actually so depressing. Athena doesnt get to do ANYTHING it was actually shocking. Telemachus is instead accompanied by Real Mentor for fuck knows how long. Athena is the one who pushes him to leave in the first place??? But not in Nolan’s adaptation ifg 😭 Also I’m genuinely unsure here but it seemed like Circe & Calypso’s divine status was… nonexistent?? They’re both goddesses but apparently not to Christopher Nolan 🫤
And this treatment extends to Odysseus’ slaves, specifically Eumaeus & Eurycleia (eurynome & philoetius not appearing in this goddamn film ifg). Almost every action taken by Eurycleia in the Odyssey is attributed to someone else in Nolan’s adaptation, she gets 0.2 seconds of screentime, its actually absurd. I think she has two lines in the whole movie. Eurycleia. Odysseus and Telemachus’ nurse. The woman who canonically organizes the doors to be locked during the suitor’s slaughter? Who canonically helps secure Telemachus’ provisions for Pylos? fuckin. Not There. And Eumaeus (who literally perfectly models xenia to a disguised Odysseys while living in extreme poverty) notably Does Not Get To Do That in Nolan’s odyssey, instead he’s like. injured I guess? I’m so fuckin confused as to why that happened, it just made the plot more convoluted. Medon is also just not there at all. Medon who is actually the fuckin best?? My underestimated king??? Where Is He.
2. oh my god everything abt the scene with Polyphemus makes me want to claw my eyes out (except maybe his eye? that looked kinda cool idfk). yknow how polyphemus appears, speaks to the crew, and they let their guard down? how the polyphemus episode represents the world outside of greek customs like xenia? how he fucking talks to them? he talks to them and his neighbors? yeah. in Nolan’s odyssey, there are no neighbors. there is no existential mirror/cyclopean foil to ithacan society. there are no other cyclopes. He doesnt even fucking talk 😭😭 <- i mean he gets one line but the audios so distorted that without captions i had no idea what he said
3. Anticleia reunion scene? Nonexistent. Laertes? Nonexistent. Allegedly still around. Sir Not-Appearing In-This-Film. Book 15 reunion between Telemachus and Odysseus? Nonexistent. Reunion between Odysseus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius? Not there. The fucking marriage bed scene? The goddamn marriage bed? NOT THERE. screams into a bag
4. ODYSSEUS “DIDNT WANT TO RETURN HOME” 😭 they keep fucking saying this over and over again too and. No he very much did. No home means no guaranteed kleos guys. his sons life is in jeopardy but Ok christopher shitlan do whatever the fuck you want, i guess
5. every time i heard them say “our civilization is collapsing” or “they say the peoples from the sea are attacking” or “our age of bronze is ending” not only did i feel my soul die a little more inside but i also kept thinking “man, this sounds a lot like the white supremacist belief in ‘western civilization’ just superimposed onto a falsified image of the late bronze age” and thats because It Is.
strange decisions:
1. boar scar apparently occurred when odysseus was an adult???
2. elliot page’s sinon gets one helluva backstory which i guess was kinda cool if you ignore elliot page getting brutally slaughtered in the first 30 seconds of the movie? not sure how to feel about that
3. travis scott kept showing up randomly which was like. fine i guess? genuinely im not sure what the difference between him & phemius was supposed to be. i didnt even see phemius. tbf i was taking notes this whole time so maybe i missed him? but travis scott shouldve just been phemius idfk why he wasnt
4. The Phaecians are just not there guys and i have no idea why. odysseus’ wanderings are being narrated to calypso?
5. the crew mutinies at scylla instead? odysseus tries to sail towards charybdis??? this was a bizarre sequence
6. no nestor or peisistratus. somehow telemachus sails to the 100% inland palace of menelaus. who needs a chariot when you’ve got a Boat i guess
7. half of my notes just say “what happened to show, don’t tell” because the amount of exposition made me want to slam my head into the wall
highlights:
1. anne hathaway and tom holland had a very good dynamic, i feel like they really captured some of the tension between penelope & telemachus, ie penelope running the house for 20 years and still assuming some of that authority vs. telemachus trying to grow up/assume control of the household/establish his own kleos. loved that dynamic tbh. one of the better parts of the telemachy sections
2. lupita nyong’o was great in the uh. 30 seconds she had on screen. im so serious helen was fucking robbed in this movie
3. himesh patel fucking carried every scene he was in on his Back
4. rare cicones appearance
maybe the real sea peoples was the troy we sacked along the way
some may wonder. if no phaecians, how does odysseus talk about his wanderings? well ☝️
nolan has decided to merge calypso’s island with the lotus-eaters and the phaecians. Somehow. its basically an amnesiac odysseus explaining to calypso what happened but its really unclear when or how he lost his memory i guess he was too hopped up on lotus
i like "social ergonomics" bc like yeah. furniture is usually made in a way that's like "we think this is probably what is needed for a human to immediately perform any given task" and often we are wrong about what types of furniture or spaces will have a detrimental long term impact on our bodies. ergonomics ideally looks at the evidence of the impact on bodies and then works backwards from there to come up with design.
social ergonomics should mean looking at social structures and analyzing the outcomes they have re: human welfare, and then taking that information back to the design board and redesigning things to hurt people less.
this should also be a zine. someday. but that would require me being able to sit upright
Under Avandra's Eyes II: Exiles Path
Chapter LXII: Grand City of the East
Hello everyone, I am BACK. Sorry for the week and a day hiatus from your regularly scheduled sword and sorcery shennanigans, I was having some very annoying computer troubles that have now, thank Hephaestus, been resolved. A big thank you to @writing-with-olive for beta reading, and a big thanks to @1978sah for discord discussion, as well as to @generalperfectionbread for their legendary binge.
Malzan is a bit of a fish out of water in giant, non-hostile cities, but don't worry, there;s plenty of trouble to find.
Malzan
The road had been long to get to the first of the great cities of Hansea. He had seen some of them from a distance before, and they dwarfed even the vast metropoles of the Aquilonian Empire. Aquilonia Imperia, he'd been told, had around a hundred thousand people within its walls and the farming cantons around them.
The grand cities of Hansea averaged around a quarter million.
The road had allowed them to learn a little more. apparently, the civil wars that had wracked Hansea a decade ago were now settled. The Emperor ruled from the jade palace, with three lesser rulers reigning at three corners of his kingdom, but all three jockeyed for power, and according to their princess, the emperor was a widower with a sickly son, and civil war was at risk of breaking out again. For this reason, each of those regional rulers was attempting to marry their daughter to emperor in hopes of stabilizing the dynasty to avert another war that no one could afford - and also, do so on their terms.
None of this particularly excited Malzan, who just saw all of the explanation as a sign that he was liable to spend too much time stuck in this enormous city with all these people, and merchants shouting to sell all manner of wares, from steel, to strange paper notes, to spices, to silks, to tea. People were carried about on carts pulled by men, and he could see Baldor raise an eyebrow at the sight.
"Is that common?"
"Within eastern cities, yes." Liza said, struggling to be heard over the noise.
The princess shoved a set of tokens into Liza's hands, carved wooden pieces on silken ribbons, and marcus immediately tied his to his belt in the style of one of the Faldrean belt favors. Malzan was fairly certain that wasn't how those were supposed to be worn, but he tied his in similar manner to the baldric from whence hung his axe, having no better place to put it.
"So, we have run of the city now?" mazlan rumbled to LIza. "That's what these wooden tokens mean? The city and the country?"
"Yes. We have run of Hansea without being attacked or harassed as foreigners. But she did say that if we ran into those working for her family's rivals they might decide to attack us anyway, and they'd face few, if any, consequences for slaying foreign mercenaries. She said that these would give us the legal right to protect ourselves from such attacks without making more enemies, but…"
Marcus shrugged. "Good enough. I've seen the quality of armor folk wear around here, and I don't find it cause for concern. As long as defending ourselvs from hostile attention doesn't draw higher degrees of aggression, we can get our job done and leave."
Malzan more than agreed with the swordsman - his goal was to settle scores with the alchemist and go, before he was stuck dealing with matters in a court whose protocols of rank and heirarchy were second only to those in the court of the island nation off the coast. Overly convoluted protocols he had no interest in navigating, not now or ever, really. He was entirely to simple. No, not simple, Neith had reassured him over the years she'd practically raised him, half older sister and half mother. Simply blunt. Honest, and uninterested in subtletey.
Malzan drew closer to the others. "We are here to find the Alchemist, yes?"
Liza nodded. "Should we also be trying to help that princess? Marry the emperor, prevent a civil war in Hansea, all that? If nothing else, the loss of life and number of destroyed fields would leave this area unstable for years, and gods only know what the dragonkin would do, or Nitlan, who have never been on great terms with Hansea."
Thomas shook his head. "We came here with one job, Liza. Kill the Alchemist, find out if he had any idea where any of the Cathedral's other allies might have gone, leave. That's it. We aren't trying to meddle in politics."
Marcus - to Malzan's suprise - shook his head. "I disagree. To the north of here is the dragonkin's last territory. Let's remember, they gave aid to Aegir during the Imperial civil war, and we never figured out what the reason was. If they gain from a weakened Hansea, then I think we have an obligation to make sure they don't get it."
Iris thought about it. "I don't like it. I agree, but I really don't like the idea of playing politics in a place that we barely understand. If we can kill the Alchemist and go, that might be better. Again, if we pitch in on the wrong side, that might be worse. After all, if we know so little, couldn't we wind up throwing power to the side of this land's version of an Irwin Aegir, or stabilizing the rule of an Augustus?"
Marcus nodded. Malzan knew that they had fought for now-Emperor Alexander of Aquilonia, and had been responsible for the defeat of Irwin Aegir and the overthrow of Augustus, but he'd not heard many of hte details that would explain the comparisons they were making.
Thomas was already pouncing on Iris's statement. "Exaclty! We don't know what we're doing here. If we dive in, we could easily wind up enpowering someone worse. We ought to just find our mark, kill him, and leave. Don't take any chances and get out of here."
Malzan nodded. "Agreed. I have nothing I can offer here, and I think that being here entangles us - our skills are better used elsewhere." He actually could speak some of the local tongue, as could Thomas, from listening to Thomas's conversations with the guards, but the others were unable to. That alone limited the companions' ability to actually gather information.
Liza shook her head. "It almost doesn't matter. Any civil war in this area will kill hundreds of thousands of people, create refugees who might be snatched by the Cathedral, or allow Nitlan and the Dragonkin to landgrab."
Neith looked between them all. "If the emperor's son is sick, then perhaps I could have a look at him. I've studied in Tamilia, and Ghulia, and they have some of the greatest doctors in the world. If I could heal him, that may render all of this irrelevant, and then we can leave. Liza, maybe get me through to the boy? Or Thomas, if liza fails and I need to be snuck in and out."
That got everyone's attention. Baldor suddenly spoke. "And…pardon, but was the original plan to find the alchemist not based on being near the Emperor? Seeing as the Alchemist planned to sell some sort of immortality drug to the man in the first place?"
That brought Malzan up short. That had been the idea, but seeing the sheer size of this place made him nervous about staying here longer than he had to.
Neith nodded. "I will go to court to dispute the Alchemist's claims and treat the prince. Liza can present as my translator. Marcus, Iris, stay with the princess as her guards, so that you can be on hand if the Alchemist is there. Baldor, come with us as well, but with me and Liza, add some credibility to the idea that I am someone of import with an escort. Itene will come as well, as child mystics are not uncommon in the East. Thomas, Malzan, you speak the local language well enough, go out into the city and learn what you can. We'll come back together at nightfall in the travellers' housing that the princess said she'd buy for us."
"Understood."
**
Malzan walked off, watching the way that people stared at him. There were Chimmaerian bands this far east, just as there were Urken holds in the Hykranian mountains, but Chimmaerians rarely actually wandered through the major metropoles, whether west or east it made no matter.
Better, though, because he was a stranger, most of the folk who spoke near him did not seem to believe he'd speak the language. So often, with city dwellers, he experienced this. In all five corners of the Aquilonian Empire, people only spoke their local dialect of high imperial when they feared he was listening in, so often forgetting that Chimmaerians were polyglots near as often as Wanderlings. Hansea was no different.
And so, from this, beneath the pagoda roofs, he heard conversations of rumor from merchnants selling coins on strings, offering to change money from foreign coin to local currency. They had the money Neith had made trading the medicines she'd made from teh horn, so he didn't need their trade, but he listened. There was a mystic in court, who'd come with some kind of retinue. He listened carefully for any more information about this mystic, but none was forthcoming, so after a while, he kept walking.
He saw those man-pulled carts careen through the street, and wondered about making a bit more money hauling them - he didn't like the idea, seemed degrading, but if he saw a sufficiently wealthy or important person doing it, he might take that person up to hear that person's mutterings.
A few women stared at him - peasant women, doubtless, workers. Their feet had not been bound, they moved properly, which was a good sign. A few men as well, strong men with broad backs and sunburned faces. One family that was struggling to haul a cart caught his eye, and he approached them, silently. He siezed their cart, and lifted it. One of them spoke, in their own language. "Robber!"
"no. Help." He spoke, softly. "I am here, hunting an enemy. But I can spare effort for honest folk. Say nothing of this."
The wife of the couple - he assumed she was the wife - smiled at him, and the man grinned. It was then he realized that the man was actually significantly younger, and the woman spoke. "My husband died last year, and our ox the year before. We've not had the money to replace any of it. Bringing crops to market has been hard. Thank you, stranger. If we can help you…"
"If you've seen a strange man, a foreigner, with strange beasts, tell me. If not, say nothing of me."
Teh farmers shook their heads, but swore themselves to silence.
Malzan hauled their cart - a trivial matter for him - and set it where he was asked.
He wandered the streets, attempting to spot something, anything, that might be a step forward. He crossed a bridge, over a river, full of strange paddleboats of a design he'd not seen before, even the last time he'd been to Hansea. The sounds of hammering smiths, the smell of forges, the shouting of merchants, all of it served to overwhelm him.
Until he smelled something that finally twigged his senses. Something unnatural. The scent of rot and blood. Such a thing was common in cities, but it didn't normally come tinged with the scent of alchemic reagents. He bolted in that direction, entire body in motion. His ax would be too much to draw without drawing suspicion, but his knife, that could serve.
He bolted around corners, jumping over carts and wagons. Several people were startled, but Malzan, with his advanage of height, chest and shoulders over the commoners around him, now saw a stranger in the crowd, another foreigner, not Belial but perhaps an accomplice, one who carried a bundle that reeked of alchemic reagents. He bolted after that man, with people darting out of his path. Malzan charged after the stranger, watching him bolt around, and finally saw him dart into an alley.
Malzan rushed after him, knife upraised - only to see that the man had vanished. It was an empty alleyway. On the ground was a bag. When Malzan opened it, it contained bloodstained bandages that carried the scent he'd been after - and when he looked up, to try to see where the man had gone, to see if he could see any passage, any bolt-hole, anything…he found nothing.
But he suddenly heard mocking laughter in a voice he remembered.
Malzan had faced hydras. He had slain trolls, bloodvelds, howlers, and all manner of horrors.
That laugh, and the strange horror of magic in that alley, the realization that he'd chased an illusion sent to taunt him, made him turn and run, with all the knowledge that a hunter could stumble and become prey.
