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terramythos · 3 years

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TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 33 of 26

Title: The Edge of Worlds (2016) (The Books of the Raksura #4)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person

Rating: 9/10

Date Began: 11/28/2020

Date Finished: 12/09/2020

Two turns after The Siren Depths, Moon has settled into life in the Indigo Cloud colony with young children of his own. But when all the adult Raksura experience a disturbing, shared nightmare that foretells the destruction of their home at the hands of the Fell, things are about to change. Soon an expedition of strange groundlings visit The Reaches, claiming they need the Raksura to help investigate a mysterious abandoned city far to the west. Believing the two events are linked, Moon and the others embark on a journey to avert disaster. However, they soon find more than they bargained for when a Fell attack traps them in the deadly, labyrinthine city ruins.

If eyes fall on this, and no one is here to greet you, then we have failed. Yet you exist, so our failure is not complete.

Full review, some spoilers, and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Graphic violence and action. Some mind control stuff (par for the course at this point).

This is a difficult book to review because it is, for all intents and purposes, part one of a longer two-part story. While the three previous books were all self-contained, The Edge of Worlds isn't, even ending on a cliffhanger. I feel like this duology might have been written as a single book but got split for publishing reasons. As of this writing I have not read the next book, The Harbors of the Sun. So take what I say with a grain of salt, because my commentary assumes the next book will address certain things.

The Edge of Worlds’ core plot builds on threads from the previous book-- mysterious ancestors, bizarre dead cities, the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds, and so on. This book doesn't include any new details about the ancestors, which are just called "the forerunners", but I expect the next book to touch on this more, as it’s been a consistent Thing in the series. There's also another mysterious, ancient ruin critical to the plot. However, it’s pretty different than the underwater city in The Siren Depths, so doesn't seem repetitive. Oddly, it reminds me of House Of Leaves with its vast size, impenetrable darkness, and sentient (?) traps.

The book also explores Fell/Raksura crossbreeds in yet another way. Previous books depicted them as terrifying weapons (The Cloud Roads) or just weird looking Raksura (The Siren Depths). The Edge of Worlds splits the difference, introducing a Fell flight that seems much more sympathetic and reasonable than any encountered thus far-- led by a crossbreed queen. My criticism of the Fell way back in The Cloud Roads is they're basically an Always Chaotic Evil horde of predators, but this new idea adds a lot of nuance. Though I am assuming the next book goes into this more, as they’re just introduced here. It's important to remember the Fell and Raksura are descended from the same ancestor, and even though Raksura are the heroes of the story, there are a lot of similarities between the two species. Overall this is one of the most intriguing threads in the series, and I'm glad we keep coming back to it in new ways.

Another thing this book does differently is perspective. Moon is the POV character in the other main entries. While that's still true, there are several interludes from the perspectives of others. For practical purposes this is to show what's going on outside of the main party, particularly so Malachite showing up at the end doesn't feel like an asspull. Also, certain events really do need to be explained when Moon isn't present. I can respect that.

From a reading standpoint I really like these alternate points of view. They're all minor characters-- Lithe, Ember, Merit, River, and Niran-- which is an interesting choice. Ember's interlude is actually my favorite part of the book. It's fun to see a more "traditional" consort approach an awkward situation, and I like his initial struggle to accept and treat Shade (one of the crossbreeds and a personal fave of mine from the last book) as a regular consort. Ember comes off as very submissive in the rest of the series so it's fun to see him take charge. Also this part features a scene in which two intimidating Raksuran queens, Pearl and Malachite, have the most tense tea service of all time. It's just hilarious.

This book actually has a trans analogue with the Janderan, the primary groundling species, who apparently choose their gender when they reach adulthood. Specifically there’s a focus on a young man named Kalam, who just took that step. This doesn't feel like the standard fantasy/scifi copout because humans literally do not exist in the series. Wells handles trans/nonbinary/agender characters (human and otherwise) extremely well in The Murderbot Diaries so I feel it’s in good faith. LGBT rep in the Raksura series has been great so far, honestly. Moon/Jade/Chime is like... canon, man.

Another general observation I haven't previously noted... I love how many interesting and varied flying ships there are in this world. They're all boat-like (nothing like airplanes) but there has been a different kind in each book. Considering that most of the main cast can fly it's interesting that flying ships are consistently integral to the plot. It would be so easy to cop out and design one ship that every society uses, but Wells really makes them all unique despite serving similar functions to the story. The ship in this one is organic, powered by living, cultivated moss. I dunno! I just think it’s neat.

I do have one criticism for The Edge of Worlds, keeping in mind it's part one of a longer story. The pacing. This book is pretty slow; it takes a while to get going and then there are lots of lengthy travel sequences. As long as there’s interesting flavor to it, I generally don't mind this approach. It allows for breathing room and character interaction. But even I started feeling bored at points and had to power through. It feels like a lot of the travel could have been cut from the book without losing much. For example, the journey to the colony tree in The Serpent Sea took up maybe a few chapters. I appreciate travel in this series from a worldbuilding perspective, but in this case I think some time gaps would have been fine. The action doesn't pick up until the party arrives at the ruin, in the latter half of the book.

Also, this isn't really a criticism, but there are several references to the Raksura novellas and short stories. I haven't read them (yet) so they’re totally lost on me. I can't blame Wells for including references, both as a wink/nudge to people who have read them and because ignoring relevant ideas makes no sense. But as someone lacking context it comes off as awkward to have a character think “WOW, this is just like that one time Jade had to do this one thing!” and I’m just like “...it is???”

Despite this I like just about everything else in the story, especially the second half. It really does feel like a proper finale, bringing back notable characters from throughout the series (not anyone from The Serpent Sea yet... I do have my suspicions here, though). River seems to be getting a mini redemption? The labyrinthine, dark city is creepy, and the artifact they find inside it is super unsettling. All the climactic action is intriguing, particularly regarding the new Fell crossbreeds. The novel ends abruptly, but that’s understandable since the next book leads right off from it. I'm really excited to see how the Raksura story concludes.

#taylor reads #2020 reading challenge #BONUS ROUND #9/10 #me: well that line is foreboding and probably foreshadowing let's use it with no context

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lanonima · 4 years

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10 Reasons I like Chinese dramas better than American shows

I'm actually only going to be talking about fantasy shows because that's what I like. The only "modern style" shows I tend to like are mystery shows, but I've only seen one mystery show from China so I can't actually talk about that yet.

That being said, these are reasons why I've come to really appreciate Chinese military, historical, and fantasy dramas. I'm not putting this under a read more, because it doesn't deserve to be hidden.

1) Absolutely amazing female characters. There are so many female characters, so many, and they're always fantastic. Not only fantastic but different. These are female characters who are huge breakaways from American stereotypes (although there are archetypes in Chinese media and they're great, like the overbearing and unyielding badass lady warrior who uses a whip. Excellent archetype, I really love it). They're so much better written and so much more enjoyable. They almost always seen like real people, you know, how women are real people with diverse personalities, interests, and goals? Even on the more comedic side where they’re not as realistic, they're still so much more diverse. Also they can be super badass, and usually don't become not badass as soon as a dude enters the picture.

With the exception of Guardian which was based on a BL series, I haven't found a single drama with bland or boring female characters, and even that one had some interesting lady characters.

2) The costume design is absolutely incredible. Traditional Chinese clothing is so pretty and I just love looking at it. While period shows made in America and Europe can be interesting, they usually use costumes from periods of time where I think the outfits were honestly pretty boring. I’m much more into folk outfits and traditional clothing so watching Chinese dramas for that reason, you can't ever go wrong. Because the source material is so interesting, their fantasy takes on it are also interesting and beautiful.

3) The backgrounds and set designs are gorgeous. I wanted to talk about clothing specifically, but it should be mentioned that Chinese dramas just look good. The country itself is gorgeous and so they have so many places where they can film, and traditional Chinese architecture and aesthetics are beautiful in a completely different way from traditional Western looks. Basically from an aesthetic standpoint Chinese dramas are amazing.

4) Dramas are a single season which tells a contained story. While they may have between 50 to 80 episodes usually, they're all filmed at once, released at once, and are a contained story, one with possibly many subplots but one overarching plot. There may occasionally be a sequel, and there are still some issues with pacing and filler depending on the show (like Lingjian Mountain, which is based on long source material and so it has a very abrupt ending when they decide to stop telling the story), but they don't drag on for years and years and years like American shows do. For that reason they seem much tighter and well-written, and I always appreciate a story that is actually planned and not the writers making shit up as they go along.

5) A lot of them are based on books. This is really cool, because it allows stories to be told from many different writers and sources. A lot of them are based on published novels, and a lot of them are based on popular web novels, so things don't get stagnated and bogged down. It also kind of goes along with something that I wish Americans would do which is really embrace the miniseries as opposed to movies as far as book adaptations are concerned. Also it gives me lots of new things that I want to read in the future.

6) Chinese dramas based on gay source material are better than American shows that are gay. Yes, censorship is an issue in China and it probably will be for the foreseeable future. However the people making the shows (at least now) care so much and try so hard. The relationships are still very obvious to a Western audience, and so much effort is put into portraying them in the best way possible that they come off as so much more sincere than queer media here, which I almost always dislike.

7) Honestly even straight relationships in Chinese dramas are better. While I don't dislike sexual content, it's way oversaturated in the American market. People seem to think that a show can't be for adults unless there is sexual content, and a romance isn't complete without it. Comparing something like Game of Thrones (which I hate anyway but you know) or the Witcher (which I love) to something like the Story of Yanxi Palace, or the Untamed, or the show I'm watching now the Legends… There is no comparison. I think the reason why the censored gay relationships still work in Chinese media is because even the straight relationships are very tame. They take a long time to build up, which gives them ample time for chemistry to develop, before any sexual content happens or is alluded to. Basically! If you like yearning, and pining, and slow burn, watch Chinese dramas. If you don't like overly sexual shows, watch Chinese dramas. You will not be disappointed.

8) The cheesiness of their special-effects is constantly entertaining (to me). When it comes to 3D animated shows, China is way ahead of the curve and their animation is fantastic. But when it comes to their live-action shows they don't usually seem to devote a lot of budget to it. But every obviously fake weapon, and piece of foam armor, every line of red paint to indicate an injury, every weird CGI monster, they all fill me with such delight. I understand that this is not for everyone but I personally love it.

9) They're not held back by a fake idea of "historical accuracy”. We all know that Western fantasy is bogged down by stupid ideas of "the way things were back then" which are actually not true, but people refuse to think in any depth about the past whatsoever. And they refuse to take advantage of the fantasy genre to make their own rules. How can a fantasy story be historically accurate? Don't ask me, ask a lazy white male writer who does not care about thinking.

In Chinese dramas anything goes. Do you want there to be more women in fantasy, women with agency? Watch Chinese fantasy dramas. Do you want historical dramas that include really strong interesting female characters? Watch Chinese historical dramas. Same goes for queer characters as mentioned above. Do you want historical and fantasy stories wherein sexual assault is not a constant factor for female characters? Watch Chinese dramas. I won't say it never happens, but they do so many more interesting things and the times were does happen actually seem important to the plot. Chinese history is so long and interesting, but they also don't seem to care about historical accuracy a lot of the time. And that is so refreshing. Even though in doing so, they probably are being more historically accurate, but compared to the idea of “historical accuracy” that is wedged in the American subconscious, it's such a breath of fresh air.

10) The dialogue is amazing. If there's one thing that I really wish I could take away from the books and dramas that I'm consuming, it would be how to write dialogue like a Chinese author. God damn. What the fuck. There are so many lines that I remember Word for Word because they're just that good. There are lines that make me literally yell. There are lines of dialogue that I think about on a daily basis. I want to be able to write like this!!

BONUS ROUND: Xianxia is an incredibly unique genre. It's exactly what I was missing in fantasy, and this doesn't only apply to shows and movies but books and the entire Western fantasy genre as well. Actually when I started reading it, I realized that a lot of ways that I conceptualize magic in my work is kind of proto-xianxia. The history that led up to this genre, the tropes that it has, the character archetypes, the kinds of stories that are told… They're all so interesting and unique. It's a whole new world to explore, and I really wish people would give it a chance because it's absolutely full of interesting, hilarious, wild, and downright bizarre things. For anyone who wants to be a writer you should always try and expand your horizons and this is a great way to do it.

#basically Chinese dramas are good #long post

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catelyngrant · 7 years

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I think I’ve pinpointed what my biggest issue with the Bates finale was.

There have been a few things I’ve struggled with this season - the lack of Norma and some of the pacing choices, primarily - but one of the biggest has been the under-utilization of Alex Romero. While I do fully understand that this is a show at its core about Norman and Norma Bates, I was disappointed that we didn’t really get a chance to see him grieving Norma, or really expressing any emotion beyond the furious drive to kill Norman. This season, after all, was about all of the people who loved Norma Bates, and from Caleb to Chick of all people, we got to explore the complicated emotions they felt for her. Caleb in particular - a man who had raped and abused Norma - had an entire bizarrely romantic episode dedicated to him finding some sort of peace before he died. I was also disappointed by the lack of Dylan and Emma in the beginning, though, and while Emma in particular had a small but pivotal role at the end I thought that they were both given a lot of care and closure in the last few episodes. And considering that the entire season but particularly the last couple of episodes prior to the finale seemed to be setting up for a showdown between Norman and Alex, the two men who loved Norma, I was expecting that we would finally have a chance to see Alex Romero get his due. Whatever your feelings about him, from a narrative standpoint he was one of the show’s main characters - by season four, though arguably earlier, he was equal to Dylan and second only to Norma and Norman in terms of the driving forces and narrative weight - and he was the only man that had ever loved Norma, and been loved by Norma, in a romantic sense without the spectre of abuse and/or incest. He was the only person besides Norman that Norma had ever loved unreservedly and had a healthy relationship with, and Norma was - clearly - the love of his life.

All of these were things that I was counting to be addressed in that final confrontation between Norman and Alex, because all that we’ve really seen this season (apart from a couple of beats like the moment with his wedding ring and his return to the house) has been an unhinged man dead-set on murdering Norman. His grief, and his love, took a backseat to that. We did get to see those things front and center in the beautiful, heartbreaking scene where he uncovered her body, and I’m glad for it. I liked how that scene played out and how in the end he honestly didn’t seem to care whether Norman lived or died - his focus was once again entirely on Norma, and that made sense to me. In a way I think it would have been a really good ending to last week’s episode: a bookmark to Norma’s death in 4x09, and an appropriate place to send him off and give fans a week to breathe and say goodbye to that character.

The way it was framed in the finale, however, really bothers me, because however nicely the scene itself may have played out it felt far more like a narrative stepping-stone for Norman than a closing point for Romero. Even his last words rubbed me the wrong way because they were so clearly designed to drive Norman to the headspace he needed to be in for the rest of the episode rather than feeling like something that Romero would actually say in that moment. I barely had time to process that he was actually dead before the commercial was over and the story was once again focused entirely on Norman, where it remained - with added Dylan - for the remainder of the episode, not counting a split-second tag showing that Alex’s body had been found. (Would it have killed them to show a “Beloved husband” headstone or something?)

Again, I know that this is a show about Norman and Norma, and I’m not saying that this entire season should have been focused on Alex Romero and his Emotions. I would have liked, though, to feel like the character and what he meant to both Norma and the audience had been honored and that his final moments had been about him, and not only about setting up Norman’s ultimate end. And again, having this at the end of last week and then devoting the entire finale to Norman’s end would have been a good way to mitigate this.

Finally - I know that we were never going to get a scene like Norman’s “reunion” with Norma as he died, for the simple reason that the show isn’t from Alex’s point of view. Still, it would have been nice for him to have had any sense of peace or closure. There was a lovely split second where you sort of see him smile right as he dies, and I certainly took that to mean that he was either thinking about Norma or seeing some vision of her, but that’s more because I really really want that to be true than because that’s what we were seeing. And considering that Caleb had an episode full of conversations with dream/angel Norma, Dylan and Emma got a happy(ish) ending together, and then compared to Norman’s romantic afterlife reunion with Norma in the same episode that Alex died and got nothing, it really does stand out as kind of blatant that his ending was as sudden, sad, and lonely as it was.

#bates motel #bates motel spoilers #alex romero #thoughts and feelings #SO MANY FEELINGS

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fountainpenguin · 7 years

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In "The Fairly OddParents", we see fairies who seem to be of different ethnicities (Juandissimo is Hispanic, Jorgen is Austrian, etc.). But Fairy World doesn't seem to operate on the same basis as Planet Earth, so how did the variations come about? Is Fairy World divided into countries, each of which is home to different races? Does a fairy's ethnicity depend on the human country they live directly above? And how can Anti-Cosmo be British when Cosmo is American?

Boy howdy, we’ve got a huge Fairy worldbuilding Ask, folks! It’s been awhile!

First off, this is a tough question because the Fairykind can teleport and that can mess with or eliminate the idea of different ethnicities developing in certain areas of the magical world.

The true answer I presume is “because those are the ethnicities Butch wanted to work with”, but from a worldbuilding perspective, I’ll see what I can offer.

Overview of Regions

I have this map I put together awhile back based off an image that was listed as giving me the right to mess with it but has apparently now been removed from the location where I found it with the regions of the cloudlands.

Each one functions like a country in the sense that you’re supposed to have a passport to legally move between them (and most wands are outfitted to allow fairies to teleport as long as their passport has been approved/certified before- especially with the competition in this field and the backlash Twinkletuft got, few providers wouldn’t include this as a feature).

However, these regions all answer to the Supreme Fairy Council, meaning that there is no figurehead over each one that makes individual laws for each region. So from a political standpoint, you really only have two “countries”:

Anti-Fairy World is darker here, Fairy World is lighter. Each of these Worlds answers to their Council representatives. In present times:

(We’ve met Mortikor and Anti-Ted in my works. Cattahan will be here soon.)

These seven figureheads frequently meet together, as well as with the High Count and Countess (Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda), H.P., and a single representative (ambassador) from each of the 30+ Fairy subspecies.

Such ambassadors are mainly for show and have limited real say in things, but as a general rule of thumb they’re rich and/or powerful (Ex: royal bloodlines), so they try to speak for their people. The only real people of power here are the seven Council members, H.P., Jorgen, and Anti-Cosmo/Anti-Wanda.

The funny thing is, despite being subspecies ambassadors, they tend to be biased more to their location and the circumstances of that location anyway, but having a representative from each subspecies helps to eliminate the racism concept somewhat.

So to answer your question, regions don’t necessarily correspond with different races, no, because people can teleport anywhere if they can afford it.

Region-Based Culture

So far, I know that Anti-Cosmo and his family live in the High South (Navy) Region, seeing as that’s the spot that covers the mythical island of Hy-Brasil. As a result, I made this the region that’s based heavily on medieval England, with some scattered influence from France, Sweden, and Denmark throughout.

Point being, for the sake of making things easy because I don’t hate myself, Fairy architecture mostly reflects that of those below them. Fairies aren’t so strict about culture belonging to ETHNICITIES, I think, due to how easy it is to travel and settle anyway they want at any given time.

While some aspects of cultures can be related back to the different Fairy subspecies, most culture will be attributed to the region they live in, and each region is a melting pot of different traits, beliefs, dress, accents, etc.

Ergo, you end up with some food and architecture parallels (architecture involving shape more than materials), so it boils down to this:

Green: Heavy Greek parallel (the gate between Fairy World and Anti-Fairy World is here near or on Mount Olympus) that fizzles out into more of an Indian influence as you move further from Mount Olympus. The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is Indian.

Purple: Heavy Spanish/South American parallel; some aspects may seem more Native American, though not a lot because this is the cloudlands and there aren’t wild animals to hunt the way there are on Earth, nor logs for building wooden homes. The shapes of homes may be similar, though. The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is Spanish.

Blue: A bizarre combination of Pacific Island-esque parallels and people who dress warmly because of the cold (though then again, in my headcanon, the entire expanse of the cloudlands is cold because clouds).The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is Australian.

Pink: Some Russian parallels, some Inuit ones, and maybe something like Norway because I think of Norway when I think of the North Pole, and the pink region here is very close to Santa’s workshop (which lies in neutral territory). Basically, this is the region where people dress even more warmly than they do elsewhere in the cloudlands, and culture formed around that.The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is Russian.

Teal: African parallels- most prominently Egyptian, but like Greek, that fizzles as you move further from Egypt. This region is in Anti-Fairy World, so I was thinking tall buildings with thick, strong walls and flat roofs.The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is an American Southern drawl (cough Lau Rell is right next to the border and also anti-pixies exist cough).

Navy: As mentioned above, this region has a European/Scandinavian/Nordic base. The capital city of Anti-Fairy World is located here and is considered the most advanced part of Anti-Fairy World. While Anti-Fairy cities are rare, the capital is called Luna’s Landing; elsewhere, you mostly get factories, forests of dead trees, scattered homes, and the occasional town. The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is high-class British (maybe some cockney in some areas, and a little Swedish or Danish in others).

Maroon: Heavy Asian parallel; I’m thinking thinner, slightly taller buildings in this area with scooped roofs, mostly. During many sections of the timeline, including Timmy’s era, Anti-Fairies don’t have permission or direct access allowing them to leave their world to visit Earth. Thus, they may or may not eat rice or other foods associated with Asian culture because of the way the food system works in the cloudlands. It all depends on one’s personal tastes.The accents most commonly stereotyped with this region are Japanese and German.

If you’re sad because I left your culture out here, I just picked the biggest ones. Other architecture/food parallels do exist, but these are ones I’m familiar with.

A House Is a House For Me

As a general rule, the majority of houses in the cloudlands are made from a material called cloudstones, which is like a brick except made from cloud vapor instead of clay. An exception to this rule is Patio World, the nickname for a town that consists almost entirely of carved wooden buildings. Aesthetic.

And of course, anyone can build a house in any region inspired by a home in one of the other regions (columns are usually associated with wealth). This chart I’ve given here is just to give you some ideas of what a stereotypical resident of one of those regions may favor in terms of housing and food.

Your typical Fairy house is going to be only one or two stories high, with a vertical emphasis as opposed to a horizontal one. This offers some space for Fairies to gather and remain airborne. Godparents, who spend much of their time away from Fairy World, are going to have smaller homes.

While not every fairy is a godparent, you do get lots of small houses lined up. Fairies are friendly and social creatures who rarely live in small towns, because those small towns will quickly evolve into bigger towns and then cities.

There are lots of large and low buildings in Anti-Fairy World, which allows for many anti-fairies to roost together in groups like bats, and are designed to be somewhat low specifically because real-life baby bats will die if they fall to the ground, so it can’t be good for baby anti-fairies either. Mostly you get “rest stop/homeless shelter” buildings because the antis rarely have cities.

As creatures that cause bad luck and can’t die unless their counterpart does, many anti-fairies simply wander around and do their own thing, like hang out at the acid pool beaches or whatever all day because they can’t die -> can’t starve -> don’t need food -> don’t need to work -> don’t have money to buy their own homes -> don’t really need shelter because they can’t die.

You get tall buildings in Pixie World because against all odds they’re surrounded by a pine forest and a jungle with a cave system made of gingerbread. While the Anti-Fairies build out, Pixies build up. You would just never find a long and low building there, with one exception: the big warehouse. But even so, the warehouse is very tall with many floors, so it’s just huge all over. But yeah, no little houses. Just apartment complexes.

So a typical Fairy would feel overwhelmed by the size of Anti-Fairy buildings lengthwise, as these tend to feature huge, sprawling rooms. In Fairy society, it’s generally assumed that if you’re visiting someone’s place, you’re going to be talking a lot. Most visits consist of showing up, talking, and then leaving. They like small rooms where everyone can remain within earshot.

An anti-fairy would think it was very rude for someone to arrive unannounced, show no interest in anything but hearing their own voice or pressuring another, and then leave almost as quickly as they came. They prefer relaxing and carrying on slow conversations, as opposed to the fast-paced Fairy way of life. A Fairy would think it was rude if an anti-fairy was taking their sweet time here.

Pixies like having everything under one roof, or at least close by. Anti-Fairies may have large buildings, but they’re few and far between. Pixies have towers with some sort of food court or other little shop somewhere in them where you can grab coffee and breakfast or whatever. No matter where you are in Pixie World, you’re only two minutes away from a place where you can buy food/drinks/toiletries/paper/basic stuff, no teleporting required. If you were an anti-fairy and had a pixie over to your place, and he asked for something you didn’t have and you told him the closest location where he could go to buy it, you’d get a long stare of fierce judging because this is all your fault.

What’s In a Personality?

There’s a scene in “Frayed Knots” where Anti-Cosmo runs into H.P. out drinking and gambling in an Anti-Fairy casino, and it goes roughly like this:

“You should remember me. My name is Anti-Cosmo Anti-Cosma.”

He sipped from his soda bottle and motioned for Sanderson to place another bet on the unicorn segment of the wheel. “And here I thought you were Anti-Cosmo Julius Anti-Lunifly.”

My wings recoiled at the sound of my mother’s family line, not to mention my private name. Nonetheless, I set my jaw. “And how, pray tell, did you know all of that?”

“I just finished documenting your family tree a month ago. Mother a concubine, father a servant. It’s a very interesting situation, you ending up as pompous as you did. All previous evidence suggests you should have followed in their footsteps to be a belly-scraping groveler. And here you are. You were a rule-breaker from the second you were born.”

The way I see it, Anti-Fairies believe heavily in the idea of nature > nurture because they’re born very functional and with the ability to care for themselves- a helpful trait in a world where their parents (forced to mate with the counterpart of whoever their own does) may give birth to a child they didn’t want, and whom they subsequently abandon because the child will live so long as its host does.

What I’m getting at here is, Anti-Fairy personalities are quite biological. I’ve been working from this angle: 60% of their personality is based on being opposite their counterpart, 20% is taken after their father, 10% the mother, and 10% nurture (so, in a sense, I try not to allow more than 40% overlap in interests or personality between two counterparts; for every trait they share, I try to find three they disagree on. Refracts work on a similar system. While Antis take mainly after dad, Fairies usually take after Mom; we’ve gone over this.)

In Foop’s case, we started with Poof, who seems sweet and kindly on most days, but if you tick him off then man alive are you in for it, compared with Foop who views people as enemies from the start and takes time to warm up to them. Foop generally scoffs at his father and taunts him for his social awkwardness/cowardice/attempts to get what he wants very slowly through the legal system step by step, but underneath that attitude he does idolize and respect his father to some degree.

Poof openly accepts Cosmo, but quietly doesn’t trust him with anything (case in point: Wesley the egg). Poof tends to be a lazy but helpful sort, whereas Foop likes to get things done and often pulls pranks. While Poof likes sports, Foop tends towards academics. Poof likes watching action and heroics on TV and is easily-influenced by the media, whereas I gave Foop a fear of constant flickering light and static noises, and his immediate reaction to seeing advertisements is to go, “You’re wrong!” and turn himself off to a product.

Foop is also a bit of a socially-awkward, well-dressed fellow with big dreams about reshaping the universe, just like his father. And he’s easily distracted and sensitive like his mother, with the same craving for friendship and willingness to do whatever it takes to keep his friends with him.

Like Poof, Foop craves the limelight. The pair also share the same core part of their soul, which in their case is a strong sense of pride and a love of revenge; neither of these two will ever let themselves be one-upped for long.

THEREFORE, Anti-Fairy personalities are biological, and stereotypical accents tend to spring up along with each one individually. As you can see from my quoted section above, H.P. knows Anti-Cosmo’s past and, after learning it, was rather surprised that the Anti-Cosmo he knows originated from such a repressive background.

The whole concept in “Frayed Knots” is, Anti-Cosmo is constantly torn between wanting to be loved, but being terrified of what others might do to him if he screws up in any way on anything. You can probably tell which parent passed which trait along. His pompous British aristocrat side renders him opposite Cosmo, and all of this has left A.C. a conflicted, disoriented mess.

But, no matter what other traits he has, the biggest part of his personality is that innate need to reflect Cosmo, that drive to be smart and act as a good leader. Anti-Cosmo was born with that personality, so as he grew up he unconsciously strove to make it a reality by selecting clothing and habits (such as drinking tea) that fit with his personality. This is called “niche picking”.

You are correct in suggesting that where A.C. grew up might influence his personality- for example, his baby personality may not have been “British aristocrat” so much as a craving for leadership and wisdom. He sort of developed into what he is due to the culture of the area where he grew up.

So my guess would be that there are some very basic personality types laid down by the universe, such as “loves to learn” or “enjoys the outdoors”, and that nurture does indeed play a role as one grows up. However, if you asked them, most Anti-Fairies would insist that personalities are biological and that they’re influenced by the zodiac.

As for the part of your Ask that relates to “variations”, which I’m assuming means phenotypes, I might chalk that up to the Aos Sí ancestor thing.

…….. That’s my headcanoned view on all these subjects, anyway.

#130 Prompts #Anon #Bat cube and associates #FAIRIES!#Frayed Knots #Origin of the Pixies #Purple hippie dragonfly #The bat with the hat #Woooorrrldbuilding! (Yum!)#asks #ridwriting #screenshots #Nerdy blue bat son

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