Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions.

[cadhla]

Title: Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions.
Summary: What happens when a former child superhero returns from her travels in the seasonal lands, only to discover that things have changed, possibly forever? Velveteen is home. Home is not the same.

Comments

[mneme]

Oh, wow. Things are getting very dark, and I'm not sure how they can combat this (although heaven knows they're going to try).

It's fascinating to me that unlike the first major arc, there's no (as far as we know) big threat/conspiracy here; nothing you can punch. The first Vel arc -- like Newsflesh, like the Parasitology books and the Toby books and Reflections (and, sure, to a lesser degree the Price series)--had a huge helping of authority as enemy--where at the center of the worst of your troubles, there's a broad, unbelievably powerful organization--but because it is a single organization/conspiracy, it also has a head or heads you can punch.

Here, though, there's no sense we have that there's an enemy, or an authority beyond consensus belief, democratic politics. The old authority set wheels in motion--demonizing Vel, setting up a pattern that anyone powered but not a superhero was a villain, and that authority having been conclusively defeated, we're left with terrible and nigh-inexorable waves of thought, operating on both a magical and a political level, sweeping away whatever is in their path.

How do you punch -that-?