make it a good one

Hey anon! Sorry it took a while to get to this, I don't even know if the drive is still going on, but the question came in while I was traveling and I didn't really have the time for stuff that wasn't travel-related. In any case, let's dig in! (I am not offended, no worries.)

So really there are two issues here and as much as some people who are critical of AO3 want to conflate them, they are different. While some criticism of AO3 may be valid, rhetoric against AO3 tends to misinterpret both in separate ways.

First there's the issue of what AO3 hosts -- RPF, yes, but more broadly, varied content that some people find distasteful or think should be illegal, which is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the archive and more broadly a dangerous attitude towards the concept of freedom of expression.

Second, there's the issue of AO3 generally outpacing its fundraising goals while not allowing monetization, which is a misunderstanding of the legal status of AO3 and to an extent a misunderstanding of philanthropy as a whole.

The longer I watch debates about content go on, the more I come to the conclusion that I was fortunate to have a teacher who really wanted to instill in us an understanding of free speech not as a policy but as an ongoing dialogue. It's not only that freedom of expression "protects you from the government, not the Justin" as the meme goes, but also that freedom of expression is not a static thing. It's an ongoing process of identifying what we find harmful in society and what we want to do about it.

Should the freedom to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater be restricted? Should the freedom to yell slurs at drag performers? Should the freedom to teach prepubescent kids about gender, sexuality, and/or safe sex? Should the freedom to wear a leather puppy hood at Pride? Who gets to say, and why?

I was nine when my teacher did a unit on freedom of speech and the intersection of "harm prevention" and "censorship", which is (and should be) a discussion, not a set of ironclad rules. This ambiguity has thus been with me for over thirty years, and I'm comfortable with the ambiguity, with the process; I'm not sure a lot of people critical of AO3's content truly are. Perhaps some can't be, especially those affected by hate speech, but RPF is not hate speech. It's just fiction. Or is fiction "just fiction"? This is a question society as a whole is grappling with, although fandom seems to be a little out ahead of society in terms of how explicitly we discuss it.

The idea that prose can incite violence or cause harm is both valid to examine (witness the rise of fascism on the radio in the 20s, on Facebook and Twitter in the past ten years; they're very similar processes) and a very slippery slope. Because again: who decides what harm is, and what causes it, and what we do about it? Our values align us with certain beliefs, but those are only our values, not universal truths. So AO3 is part of the ongoing question of harm and benefit both to society and individuals.

Marco would be the most open in-your-face unapologetic mental health advocate the 1990s ever saw.  He’d advocate for other stuff as well — disaster relief, representation in films, LGBTQ+ rights — but his big thing would be going into interviews with “the other day IN THERAPY, by the way I was talking to A THERAPIST, and she said the funniest thing…”  He’s amazing at walking up to the elephant in the room and hanging a party hat from its tusk, and that’s exactly what he’d use as his primary weapon.  He’d be the celebrity who would lean across the table and loudly announce the hidden assumptions behind interview questions: “So you’re saying my appearance is the only thing that matters about me?” he’d say loudly, or “Oh, sure, since the American public is toootally entitled to know personal information about celebrities.”  And he’d do it with such flair, such aplomb, such grinning self-deprecation, that most of the time it’d get aired anyway.  He’d probably still be bored some of the time, but any time the itch started under his skin he’d go find a hurricane in need of an elephant or orca to help pull people out of the mud, or a village in need of a famous actor to show up with a camera crew and loudly demand enough donations to build a new school.

Rachel would probably start out by finishing high school (she’s a Packard Foundation Outstanding Student; she can’t waste all that good work) and then go straight on to college and law school.  Whereas Marco would play the press like a finely-tuned violin, Rachel would come at them with chin raised and jaw clenched.  She’d earn a reputation for responding to people who stared or took pictures or whisper about her in public by simply pointing right at the gawkers and loudly announcing “Those people are staring at me” to see how they like getting gawked at for a change.  In spite of her brains and dedication and painfully direct style, she’d probably take a few extra years to finish her education.  Not only would she be almost as direct as Marco about fighting for her need to take mental health days and work-life breaks, she’d have a quadrillion other things to do: skydive straight into the Arctic Ocean without a parachute, sneak a “borrowed” Bug fighter out of a dry dock and go joyriding with Tobias, find that lady who called Jake a war criminal and punch her in the face…  Rachel would do the full college experience, from white-water rafting trips to silly philosophy electives, from guest lectures at current events seminars to blackout drinking at bars downtown.  And at the end of it she’d be certified to go out there and start building a career: first as a paralegal, then as a D.A., then in her first political job as mayor, all the way on up.

Cassie would just jump straight into politics without bothering to get the kind of credentials that would make racist conservative pundits cry.  She’d have too much to do, with almost five hundred thousand yeerk hosts — and twice that number of yeerks — whose interests she’d try and represent.  Cassie’s the type who sure as hell knows privilege when she sees it, so Cassie would use her brand-new host of privileges (wealth, fame, media attention, humanity, political power) to advocate as loudly and thoroughly as possible for everyone who didn’t have access to those powers.  Although she would cede to Rachel the need to play the game of appearances, she wouldn’t let herself lose sight of herself: she’d show up to board meetings in slightly used designer jeans and animal-safe mascara, attending benefit banquets in gowns custom-tailored by designers dedicated to ecological conservation in all of their product choices.

Jake would find his way after the war almost accidentally.  Out of a desire to help, to make up for the damage however he could, he’d probably join a bucket line carrying water to one of the burning houses downtown in the first hours after the war.  From there he’d find himself rushing over to help a group of relief workers bringing medical supplies to injured hork-bajir, and it’d be almost an accident when he’d sign his name to spend the next month sorting donations at a FEMA warehouse… So on and so forth.  Whereas Marco would understand the value of attracting the cameras to places that need the world’s attention, Jake would instead embrace the value of ignoring them and responding to “Hey, aren’t you…?” with a shrug and a subject change.  Eventually Jake would be a full-time volunteer at a nonprofit in need of manual labor.  He’d work a hammer and saw and only rarely work a rope line in order to earn more funds for UNICEF or Doctors Without Borders.  Jake would find that kind of steady, repetitive work soothing, and he would derive deep satisfaction out of getting to spend the rest of his life building rather than destroying.

Ax would sweep Tobias up in his mad quest to visit every country on planet Earth for the express purpose of eating as many local foods as it is possible to sample.  The blog he started would be an incidental thing — just a place where he’d ask the denizens of the internet for assistance in finding where to go next — but soon it would be its own thing.  The reviews wouldn’t be so much reviews, per se (every single one would give the food 10 stars, no matter how many times Tobias told him that he was supposed to cap it at 3 stars at most to imitate Michelin) as they would be rambling thoughts on everything Ax got to see about planet Earth.  By the time his quick trip around the world was in its eighth year and his blog was the most-visited site of 2007, he’d give in to the inevitable and start writing full-time.  Of course, The Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill would already be a bestseller on five planets by this time (much to Ax’s embarrassment) so offering a whole series of books with an outsider’s perspective on the entire food industry of the planet would be almost a natural next step.  Plus, the perks would outweigh the annoyances right around the time restaurants started offering all-you-can-eat deals in exchange for Ax’s patronage.

The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed

The woman who raised the changeling alongside her biological child

Cinderella finding Araura (and falling in love)

The God of Arepo (graphic novel 1 / 2 / 3) (ebook)

The Monster of Sentan

The Witch’s Cat

Raise Both Children

Stabby the Roomba (honorable mention)

Cinderella Marries the Prince (comic)

My Arch Nemesis Cynthia

Pirates and Mermaid

Eindred and the Witch

The Demon King

The Cornerwitch

Grandmother Beetroot

Apocalypse Daycare Worker

Grandmother Accidentally Summons a Demon

New Year Saga

A Story About Changelings

Ranger in the King’s Forest

The Difference Between a Hare and a Rabbit

They’re all wrong.

Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nate’s shift in morality and position at the opening of the series. But the show as well as I and other fans have then tried to take that equation and apply it to other jobs and to the crew as a whole. This is fun and awesome, but I believe you’re going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line. 

Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.

Couple important things about kings in chess: 1. They don’t move much. They can only move one space at a time, and for most of the game they stay in their own little box, well guarded by other pieces. This is because 2. When the king is checkmated (threatened with capture and no possible escape), it’s game over. There is no more hope. This is the sole requirement for losing the game. No matter who else is in play, if the king is down, you lose.

This is NOT how Nate operates. Yeah, he makes the plans, but he doesn’t just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. He’s almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, it’s not game over, in fact, it often isn’t even a PROBLEM. Let’s look at a few times that happens, just for fun: - In The King George Job, Nate’s getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says “NOPE, don’t do that, I can fix this without blowing our cover” and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isn’t up and she’s not even particularly concerned about him getting punched. I love it. - In the Maltese Falcon Job, Nate sacrifices himself to save the team. This is a classic thing to do in chess and chess metaphors, but, I cannot stress this enough, you cannot sacrifice your king. That’s just called LOSING. -In The Long Goodbye Job of course the whole con is structured around Nate getting caught. I guess this one kind of makes sense because the whole point is to look like they HAVE completely lost, but then at the end it appears that Nate’s going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job. 

So if Nate isn’t the king, who is?

Hardison.

Let’s look at our points about kings again:

1. Doesn’t move as far or as quickly: Yes, Hardison ALSO gets out there and participates in the cons, everybody does. But Hardison does stay in the background more often, because that’s where his power is. He does the behind the scenes tech stuff and the remote stuff, he can wreck your shop without showing up through the power of the internet. He also does the forgeries of identities and objects, which are also done in his own space. At the same time, he has less physical power and less range – you don’t want him in a fistfight, or a gunfight, and his grifts are notorious for being a little… uh… interesting. So he has limited physical range and power but at the same time… .

2. The game is over if you lose him. That far-reaching behind the scenes power is absolutely vital for 90% of the jobs. He does the massive amounts of research and hacking legwork needed just to START a job, even before you get to actually completing the job. You are pretty much dead in the water without Hardison. But that’s just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. He’s our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no “well he’ll be fine for a few minutes” and no “well he kinda had it coming.” No, when Hardison is in trouble everything else grinds to a halt and everyone comes running. (See: The Experimental Job, The Grave Danger Job, The Long Goodbye Job.)

So like, yes Nate is in charge. But the king isn’t in charge on a chessboard, the king is just a piece with a very unique role, which Hardison fills much better than Nate does. So, now that we have our real king, who are our other pieces?

Queen: Parker. This has nothing to do with her dating Hardison. The thing about the queen is she can do a little bit of everything – she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parker’s whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. She’s the only one who plans and executes an entire episode-length job by herself (okay, with a little help from her girlfriend). Plus, the other cool thing about a queen is she has a built-in transformation story – a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as “the crazy one” and ultimately becoming the mastermind.

Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knight’s deal is that it’s sneaky – it’s the only piece that can turn corners – and it can jump over obstacles. Sophie’s whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldn’t need to know about safes or security systems, she should be able to bypass (jump over) all that by insinuating herself with the mark (being sneaky by playing a character to get behind enemy lines)

Rook: Eliot. This is the straightforward one – it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. It’s also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. It’s your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but I’m jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, it’s not all gonna be nuanced. And I think Mr. Punchy would like being seen as the fortress that everybody depends on, and to let all the nuance go under the radar. That’s where he likes it. 

Bishop: Finally, here’s where Nate is hiding. While the rook can only go straight (lol), the bishop can only go diagonally. Nothing can be straightforward for the bishop, he always has to come at things from an angle. Like, you know, constantly looking at all the different angles of a situation and finding the right angle to come at a mark from. Also, the bishops sit right in the middle right next to the king and queen. I don’t know that this is historically accurate, but when my dad taught me to play he told me that was because the bishops were important councilors to the rulers, they were the ones who had important wisdom that would tell them the best plan of attack. So the king here isn’t necessarily the one making the plans – that’s the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but we’re operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.

the focus and motivation of the whole game, but very minimal personal agency in it

usually/preferably stays on the sidelines, out of the action

if the client does get involved, and is in danger, all hands on goddamn deck until they’re safe

He’s The Pawn.

Or rather, to correct myself: The Pawn Sss. Because while pawns individually are limited, weak pieces that are often taken out and used only to support others, The Pawns as a unit are an ever-present force on the board, one which shapes the flow of the battle. Pawns create a protective barrier that’s the first thing the enemy must engage with if they want to interact with your pieces. Pawns create openings, drawing out pieces by creating threats they can’t ignore and must respond to. Pawn are in constant flux, being taken, creating threats that are meant to be eliminated, when in actuality drawing your opponent into a trap.

Hardison’s role as the hacker means that his job is to allow the others to do their job unhindered. He’ll set up identities that let them get where they need to go. He’ll drain accounts or conjure phantom opponents, forcing the enemy to react and allow the team to strike. And often, when the mark thinks they’ve beaten him, pulled the plug, uncovered the false identity, transferred the money to safety… It turns out that that was the plan all along.

However, one of the biggest arguments for Hardison as the pawns? If you ever. Ever. Turn your back on hardison for too long, he will have crossed the board, promoted to Queen, and be a whole new problem right where you can least afford it.

Study buddy

Northern Vietnamese pronounce it as the Q sound [kw]; Southern Vietnamese (as Veronica Ngo) pronounce with the G sound [gw].

The northern accent is kind of “standard” accent, because the government is in the north. That’s quite clear why Nile and Nicky (and Joe) pronounce it as [kween] (they spoke her name only one time in movie).

But Andy (Charlize Theron) pronouces it as [gween]- because- that’s her wife’s name Andy and Quynh are in a relationship, right? So Veronica might talk to Theron a lot more than the other actors. Veronica told her about the [kw] and the [gw] thing, and she is southern Vietnamese so she mostly uses [gw] and Theron got it. Who-are-you-to-be-a-6000-year-old-woman-that-no-languages-she-can’t-speak-can-not-say-your-wife’s-name-in-a-proper-way?

Joe: “Yeah, so much worse.”

I am SUPER DUPER not the person to ask about this sort of thing, Anon, I do my best to research thoroughly but I have no authority whatsoever to say anything besides do your research and maybe get a beta reader to double-check your draft. 

I really don’t like the idea of Nile = Lykon because you’ve just a) taken two black characters and mashed them into one, b) erased Nile’s individuality because now she’s just Lykon reborn which means c) you’ve made her story about Lykon not Nile and d) both Nile and Lykon deserve their own stories

(more under the cut)

(its IMPOSSIBLE to find a good picture of nicky holding this gun)

but its actually neither of those things, thats a pistol slapped inside of a carbine conversion kit. heres a random picture i found of something similar (w/ no sight attached tho)

a gun like this has the exact same firepower capabilities as a regular old pistol. it is *quite literally* a pistol with a shoulder brace and a sight attached to it. thats why you dont see nicky use it in the kill floor fight– its the same thing as the pistol he uses with his sword, except bulkier.

we see andy use the same exact gun at copley’s house, and then later nile uses it briefly when she kills those three guards at the penthouse.

Well, Nile backs out explicitly because she’s struggling with having killed a man. She talks about it right before she leaves: that they taught her how in the military but they didn’t teach her how to live with it, that she needs to have a reason, a purpose behind it. That she needs to know the Old Guard does what they do for some cause. She’s asking “why” from the moment she meets Andy, she’s asking if they’re “the good guys” at the safe house and no one can give her a straight answer. Nile leaves because she needs to find that answer, that reason to keep fighting. She’s not willing to commit more violence, more murder, before that and we can’t fault her for that. This is the crux of her struggle, not just missing her family, and we can’t ignore that.

Also: Nile has just seen the aftermath of Andy’s warpath at the church. She has every reason to think Andy and Booker are competent enough to take care of this themselves. And she’s not wrong to do so: we’ve seen what even one of them can do and all her interactions with them have supported this. At this point, Nile isn’t bringing anything to the table that would be essential if lost. In fact, it’s been re-iterated that the Old Guard is going to protect Nile, not the other way around. She doesn’t believe they need her and that’s a fair conclusion to make.

Nile returns because she makes the instant connection between “empty gun” + “Booker gave out the guns” = “betrayal.” She heads back when she realizes that Andy’s heading into a trap and that she’s the only one that can stop it, even though she still does not have the answers she’s looking for at this point! When it’s clear that the rescue mission is in jeopardy and that they need help, she puts aside her misgivings! And who else is going to help? The Old Guard lives in secrecy, they have no one to rely on except each other, Nile knows this and knows that walking away now would mean truly leaving them to a terrible fate.

I think you’re splitting hairs here and going “Nile wanted to rescue Andy but not Joe and Nicky!” when that’s not the case. The circumstances changed, Booker’s betrayal means that Andy’s in trouble, that Joe&Nicky’s rescue operation has failed, and that there is literally no one else who can save them. Nile is the only one left. She’s the only option. This was not the case when it was only Joe and Nicky that needed rescue. Then Andy and Booker were there and, frankly, the driving force. Then, Nile could step back and think “they’ll be fine, they don’t need me” and take the time to figure shit out for herself. She takes the time to talk it out with Andy and explain her reasons. She gives Andy the space to say, “no, we need you.” And then goes back when she realizes, oh wait, yes they do need her.

After the East-West Schism of 1054, the Eastern Church adopts the term “orthodox” as an adjective. Technically, its official name is Orthodox Catholic Church but in practice, we know it as the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Western Church, also known as the Latin Church, similarly takes on “catholic” as a descriptor but this is consistently applied to the entirety of the “Roman Catholic Church” after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Because then we needed language to refer to both sides of the split that occurred during the reformation and by then, the Eastern Church had already well established that “orthodox” was theirs. Thus, the whole protestant vs catholic dicotomy.

But important here is that, to consistently refer to a Catholic Church when talking about Nicky’s life pre-immortality is weird as we’ve got about 500ish years before Martin Luthor nails some complaints on a church door. Even the Great Schism is only about 50ish years old when he first dies. The Catholic Church as we know it, in the 21st century, is an entirely different beast in 1099, my friends. (Historically speaking; theologically, I have no idea.)

But also, imagine all the Catholic Church’s transformations and related events that Nicky has lived through. And then imagine his reaction to them. Just off the top of my head: Henry VIII of England, that time Europe had three popes running around, all the illegitimate children popes had running around during the 15th-16th century, when mass was no longer in Latin, Joan of Arc, etc.

I noted illegitimate children of popes during the 15-16th century because they were one of the reasons why Martin Luthor was very pissed off at everyone, which is why I mentioned anything about them because Luthor was such a ballsy dude and I love the image of him just hammering complaints onto church doors.