Trivial, perhaps, but how does one actually pronounce 'Whateley'? Is it What-lee, Wot-lee, or Wait-lee?
Probably like other surnames that end in -ley like Crowley, where the "Ley" is separate and is Lee / Li, not like Ley Line, although given how the former led to the latter... Anyway, I don't pronounce -ley surnames with Lay. ~~ MaLady
MID (Mutant ID) cards have border colors denoting heroes or villains. Say what?!
It's a stupid idea, really. I mean, who is going to voluntarily get a Villain card? Unless it is meant to be a play on the Card-Carrying Villain, I don't see the logic. Add to that the fact that each country deals with their mutants differently. What happens when one country deems a Mutant a hero and another a Villain? Add to that the fact that there seems to be no classification for mutants who don't hero/villain/merc.
Actually, it makes as much sense as most supervillainry, if you think about it. If you carry a Villain's card, it's not exactly hard to hide untill you get caught, at which point you can whip it out and say 'Look, I surrender. I'm a member of the Guild Of Super-Heroes & Supervillains!' Then they have to treat you nicer than a common criminal and all you need to do in return is obey a few rules. The benefit for the public? Well, those rules are: avoiding property damage, not taking hostages, not harming civilians intentionally (including other superheroes or supervillains in their secret IDs), etc. So the heroes get a clean battle that makes them look good, the public are safe from guys who shoot plasma out of their face, and the villains get a cushier sentence.
And when a threat to people's lives comes up, like an invasion of alien insects, the villains get first killing rights. The Heroes and Villains team up, if the threat is great enough. Because even people who want to rule the world don't want to kill the man who stopped them every time so far, if they are working together against some army that wants to destroy the world that he wants to rule!
Yeah, so they're just going to pigeonhole everyone into good or evil. This is going to cause a lot of mental anguish, especially since they're doing this to kids.
I believe they're allowed to pick Super-neutral. ~~ KiTA
I don't think they choose to get a villain card. I think that it goes something like this: When a mutant gets declared as a supervillain (they declare themselves as such, they have an active warrant for their arrest, etc. etc.) the MCO changes the card's border in their database - when they go in to update their MID, the new card will have the border. Or maybe the MCO has a system that can cause the cards to change color remotely, or something. The point being that I don't think that the mutant gets to choose their border.
According to the wiki, Villain cards are issued to felons upon their release from prison
The governments of the world do not look kindly on unregistered mutants, as their power level is completely unknown then, so the cards are more of a clerical thing than anything else. Being able to produce a card stops you from being executed on the spot or put serious jail, so it's just as much for the supervillains own safety as anything else. Why take the unnecessary risk?
It also doesn't help that some mutants are just Always Chaotic Evil and have no choice in the matter; so one can imagine as long as there are mutants there are some supervillains.
There's one thing that bugs me here in the Whateley Universe: Reading order. According to the FAQ on the site, you're supposed to read the stories in the order presented on the stories page there. But they're ridiculously out of order! For example, the event's of parents day are mentioned as early as Being Merry in Spite of it All, and is mentioned immediately in the next story in the list, To the Mountain, but the parents day story itself is not only FAR later in the listing, it's actually after several CHRISTMAS stories. What? I admit, the latest I've read so far is finishing Being Merry in Spite of it All, but that seems kind of ridiculous to me.
I had the same issue, I finally asked on the forums and was told the same thing, with one of the Canon authors saying that was a horrible idea cause Alya 1 or Merry 1 was never meant to be read with the other origin stories. Or something. There's an alternate reading order on the Wiki, as well. ~~ KiTA
Well, a cursory initial look (and noticing where the new stories are placed) points toward the 'official' order being more-or-less the order of publishing. Despite the regular references to events that were plotted out earlier, but for one reason or another the stories centered on those events weren't done. Both parents' day and Halloween (with the exception of a Lower-Deck Episode) were noodle incidents with important plot buried in them for a long time. ~~ Boobah
This was eventually addressed with the site redesign, which gave the options for viewing them in either Release Order, Chronological Order, or Original Order, but came very late in the series history.
I just realised... How do ANY of the Poesies manage to stay in the closet while attending a school full of psychic espers (who could just read your mind to check your orientation/ fantasies) emotional empaths (who would notice you getting aroused by certain people) and magical scryers (who could "see" you doing weird stuff). Seriously! It's not like they aren't tons of morally bankrupt people with the means to do this (* cough* the Don)!
I actually specifically asked this question on the forums earlier this year. Basically, Whateley is staffed by some of the most powerful psychics, mages, empaths et all in the world, and they're helping cover for Poe. Poe is covered in a psychic and magical shield effect that extends, to a certain degree, to it's residents — and has a cover story about being the school's psych ward. No psychic or mage wants to go near them for fear of catching some psychic disease, breaking their brain against a helping dose of madness, or pissing off some demon that's possessed someone.
So, the cover story is that they are crazy and have psychic AIDS. How, exactly, is that preferable to being outed as gay/bi/trans? Really. People tend to treat mentally ill people worse than homosexuals and trans people, and since at least some of the Poes are supposed to be vaguely contagious, you'd expect the rest of the student body and their parents to complain about them being on campus.
And what about the kids that do have mental illnesses, psychic diseases, and demonic possession? Where do they stay?
Hawthorne, usually.
Not Psychic AIDS, but rather, "They're all nuts." The cover story is that Poe the school loony bin, which works great cause they can explain away any oddities such as people with gender stereotype problems, and why Poe has such a high percentage of people visiting the school shrinks. The rest is all word of mouth fearmongering by the kids, but it's useful fearmongering. ~~ KiTA
As for if it's better or worse, well, from what I understand an important event in the backstory at Whateley was during one fight, a transgirl's powers failed her, leaving her looking like a weedy looking guy in front of everyone — including her somewhat shocked boyfriend, who violently murdered her in a rage (while everyone else looked on too shocked to respond). While being "nuts" might get you picked on at Whateley, being "gay" might get you killed. ~~ KiTA
But that doesn't actually make any sense whatsoever, in fact that line of reasoning is ludicrous beyond description. These kids aren't in more danger from being killed because of gay panic or whatever than kids in normal high schools. One isolated, extremely specific incident causing this is preposterous. They saw the thing happen and then went "Oh well, better segregate the gays and keep them hidden!" It gets even more ridiculous once you consider that a huge amount of students at the school have to deal with gender identity issues and whatnot that make homosexuality look like about as big a deal as whether someone prefers their eggs runny or hard-boiled. Plus, debilitating mental illness probably has an even bigger social stigma attached to it than homosexuality. It is complete nonsense.
If you think about it though, mental illnesses could be seen as a temporary trauma from manifestation. The fellow students could probably overlook that temporarily, especially as many viewpoint mutants have had rather traumatic backstories. Being "nuts" gets you sympathy in this case. Being "gay" however, is still not acceptable in their minds
Do you know what bugs me, the Cult of Kellith. There's no way they could get that many members so fast, and how the hell do they not get in trouble for the animal sacrifices. I mean, there has to be some laws there breaking, and if not, shouldn't animal rights activists and animal lovers in general be angry. And frankly I don't think any real pope or religious figure would recognize anything with Cult in the freaking name as a real religion.
The Cult of Kellith has been going for quite some time. Maybe some Gothmog-touched precog predicted that Gothmog would only have one child, the Mistress of Flesh, The Kellith. Even if this isn't true, the First Book of The Kellith does tell the story of how the Kellith travels through time, so it could be a stable time loop.
That still doesn't answer my other 2 points.
To the best of my understanding, the Cult of Kellith got its start branching off from the already-extant Cult of Gothmog. So, it's just Sara's demon-daddy planning ahead for his only daughter's future. As far as the 'real religion' argument goes, remember that the Whateleyverse is one in which both gods and demons (or at least entities that can reasonably pass for either) do observably exist; it's a surprise that the religious landscape is even as close to real life as it is usually portrayed! Regarding animal sacrifices...I could imagine people actually being grateful for a relatively harmless cult that doesn't go out of its way to sacrifice humans like so many of the others, and since Sara took over it's not even clear how many animals they're sacrificing in her name anymore at all. She is rather fond of kittens, after all.
I'm sure some people wold be grateful, same way I'm sure some people are grateful for racism, but just because it's better then a different cult doesn't mean it's good, and while some people may be okay with it , I think, or at least hope there would be a lot more people against it, and how would people know about human sacrifice and not stop that.
Getting hung up on the word 'cult' doesn't strike me as overly useful here — just about every faith in existence started out that way, after all, even the modern major-league players. Kellith's followers might just end up rather popular as well given time enough, especially with a certain scheming old high priest out of the picture... — As regards the human sacrifice angle, unlike real life (that we know of, anyway) the Whateleyverse does in fact feature entities willing to grant real, demonstrable benefits to people who send enough blood and souls their way. Of course they're going to find some people who think the perks are worth it! And that, in turn, probably means that between those cults and the Kellithists (is that a word?), the police are going to be much more concerned about the former than the latter — sacrificing animals for the benefit of humans, if that's even still going on, may be distasteful to some, but compared to the meat and leather industry any given cult is small potatoes.
From Mimeo, the most recent story - the idea that this guy, who's 55 at the time the final events of the story take place, mentally refers to Tennyo as 'the Ryoko-chick'. Not 'the warper chick', not 'the chick with blue hair', 'the Ryoko-chick'. How does he even know who Ryoko IS? You're expecting me to believe that this supreme badass kicks back and spends his nights watching Tenchi bloody Muyo?
The author actually addressed that issue on the forums. Unfortunately, her comment has been lost along with everything else that was on the forums at the time. From the best of my memory though, this is roughly what she said:
This is something I considered at great length. That is, would Mimeo, in his decades of life, have come across Tenchi Muyo at some point? I decided that the answer was 'yes'. He's nothing if not Mr. Leisure Time, after all, and with an Exemplar 6 memory, he would remember it. In a similar vein, he would know what Hello Kitty was because he has boinked more than one girl who had Hello Kitty merchandise. That doesn't mean he knows anything about the anime, just that Ryoko is the name of the chick with the cyan hair who sometimes runs around bare-assed. He might even know that Tenchi is the guy.
In The Secret Of The Forger's List, who wrote the blackmail note? And how the fuck did Tom, Lindsey and Peter get away with suddenly not having GSD anymore? There would be so many people interested in a cure- and even if there wasn't, becoming normal in appearance overnight wouldn't be overlooked/ignored by anyone.
I get the impression from other cases (Jobe, Tool, Reach...) that massive changes in appearance aren't treated as serious. Although how this relates to the school's current laissez-faire disciplinary policy, I'm not sure. But I do see your point - given that these three would be under heavy investigation over Shelley's death, I can't see people not caring.
That, and the point that in all of those cases, there was an explanation. The three of them were known GSD sufferers and people who, overnight, suddenly don't have GSD anymore with no explanation whatsoever would be incredibly suspicious.
The writers have obviously done their research about real-world firearms, and any stories where the characters go to the shooting range scrupulously observe all relevant safety standards. So why does the school let students whose natural powers are much more destructive blast away at each other with impunity?
The pragmatic reason is probably that unlike a firearm you can't just take a natural power away from a student. There's also the fact that these teens are at Whateley in part precisely to learn how to use their powers, and it'd be silly to expect them to 'practice' only under adult supervision. That said, the fact that the body count among the less-than-completely-indestructible members of the student body each year seems to remain commendably low does seem to owe more to the comic book nature of the setting than to any deliberate action or policy on the part of the school staff. (No, Whateley isn't a school I'd send my own mutant kid to if I had one and some inkling of what actually goes on there that they don't mention in their glossy school brochures. Barring said kid being one of the few chosen nigh-indestructible ones as well, I'd be too worried about him or her not actually living to see graduation.)
This one came as Fridge Logic, but here it is - Lancer has a pair of paper swords which he can surround with his PK field to make indestructible and an Absurdly Sharp Blade. Right now they're being taught how to use weapons, and he's been told to learn how to use sais. This is a sai. Note the part about it being blunt and used more to block, trap, and break blades, and only used offensively to prod people in sensitive areas and strike with the protected knuckles. This is the worst way possible to take advantage of an Absurdly Sharp Blade! And yet two supposed martial arts masters are reccomending he do this, and the two other supposed martial arts experts on his team have nothing to say about this!
So they're defensive weapons? What's wrong with that? He's going to need options other than "slicing people up".
He is a superstrong indestructible brick. He could break blades with his bare hands if he had to, and is fast enough to catch them. He doesn't need defensive weapons, and these don't make full use of his abilities (and aren't representative of the weapons he's already using). As for options other than slicing people up, see above under "superstrong indestructible brick".
So essentially, the only real case where he could use his sai for their intended effect is against a opponent close to his power level; other instances are redundant.
A Single Fold: Why the hell didn't they try to turn Folder back to a guy? It's not like the spellcaster died and they didn't have a clue what he did; Diaz was alive and could be coerced to help. They've got Ophelia Tenent, a Healer and Mage, they've got Fey, they've got all the Whateley staff. Folder sure as hell wanted to be a guy again. There's no mention of even a half-assed attempt to turn him back.
Okay, so the LGBT population in America today is about 5 to 7 percent. There are geniuses at Whateley. Why do they never put together "Where are all the gay people, oh my Poes keep to themselves and they certainly don't act mentally deficient and there are quite a few Exemplars here hmm". Seriously, is it just Transparent Closet or what. Even someone of average intelligence could figure that out in a week. Oh and on further remembering, the basic application has a check box for other orientations and genders. What does everyone think, that they instantly reject all LGBT people?
First, I doubt that there'd be many genii at Whateley who would wonder where the gay people are. Second, having mental problems doesn't automatically equal being mentally deficient. Third, part of their cover is that part of the Poe population are there because they're 'stabilising influences'. Fourth, people stereotype. People who don't know the truth about people like Fey and who don't know many Poesies might well believe things like 'They're all nuts, you know that Fey keeps telling people she's a Fairy Queen, and then you've got Delta Spike and Mega-Girl and all the others...' Fifth, there are Exemplars everywhere. Finally, sixth, there are LGBT people outside of Poe- look at Peril and Diamondback, for a couple.
There are plenty of geniuses at Whateley and many of them have the attention span of a gerbil. All it would take would be a few minutes of deduction. Second point: very few of Poesies act like they have mental problems at all, mental handicaps would simply be the most easily spotted. Third point is valid, Fourth isn't especially considering it's a dorm with people from all backgrounds and the like, unless they are lumping every single Poesie together which admittedly is possible, but unlikely given the circumstances. Fifth was a weak point, and Sixth just points out the ridiculousness of Poes in the first place. There are mind readers and people who can read ley lines. What if someone has the same ability as Fey and can see ley lines from guys in Poes and recognizes pink means gay. There is no logical way that with such a large student population and indeed some of the teachers and staff being in the dark could be keep a secret of this magnitude, unless they are actively mind wiping people who do discover it and that is much worse.
Pink does NOT mean gay. It's for the female gender, and this is why Fey mentions Caitlin, aka Eldritch, having a very dark blue ley line, because she was Erik Mahren first and had been male for several decades. Erik hadn't been Caitlin long enough at that point for the line to start changing, and it might take ages to change at all. Also, it HAS been said that there's protections on the Poe kids. It's not unlikely there's a mental/magical 'look elsewhere' effect attached to them. And, finally, these are stupid teenagers! If a cottage has a rep for being full of crazy people, then your average teen is going to steer clear of them all for fear of what they'll find. They could be depressed, or they could be a psycho on serious medication to control it. And one more thing! Yes, there are LGBT kids outside Poe. However, one of them is out and proud, so to speak. The other is Sandra, aka Diamondback, and the nature of her mutation (being a snake person) means she's put into Whitman with the other 'freakshow' girls. This means any girl who is obviously a mutant, can't change her appearance to hide that, but is no danger to other so long as you don't piss her off.
Pink emanates from the gay males at Poe's; Fey mentions this blatantly several times in her first story. Lesbians have a steely-blueish color. Pink in and of itself doesn't mean female. Assuming all teenagers are stupid is well, stupid.
Again, just because there's heaps of genii doesn't mean that they'd be inclined to make such deductions. Why would they? They have other things to do. Next, 'act like they have mental problems'? I wasn't aware that there's a set way to act if you have mental problems. About the Exemplars- being an Exemplar indicates nothing. Yes, the gender changers are Exemplars, but there are so many Exemplars and so few gender changers that nobody is going to think 'Exemplar = LGBT'. People who have anything to do with ley lines are rare- the only two, AFAIK, are Fey and Geomancer. Yes, there are mind-readers, but they're not meant to do it. I doubt that anyone would think the penalties for doing so would be worth it. And a note to the above- there's more than two LGBT kids outside Poe- Axel, Mule, Saladin, Mokele' and Diamondback are just some of them.
There isn't a set way, but oftentimes people can pick up that sufferers of mental problems act somewhat off or abnormal. Exemplars was a weak point in the first place, and people display their powers all the time so expecting the mind readers to not is kind of a stretch. And once again, that just points out the sheer ridiculousness of Poes in the first place. There is a checkbox for homosexuals and bisexuals and abnormal genders in the general admittance form; does everyone just think they send the gays to another school? And the few that are out don't fit with demographics, LGBT population liberally is 10% and there's no reason to imagine that there aren't gay mutants. There are simply far too many variables for a secret of this magnitude to be kept. Certainly some geniuses at Whateley have figured it out and realize the need for secrecy, but all it takes is one person out of thousands of students to go through Whateley over the years to figure out the secret and blab it to everyone and honestly there is simply too much. There's simply no logical way it could happen. Think of it this way; even entry level cops know about Whateley yet to the general public it's apparently a secret. That kind of fundamental flaw in realization that as the magnitude of people being concealed and being in on the secret grows the secret becomes infinitely harder to keep is the same with Poes, although on a smaller scale.
Jade's "I'm a devisor" act. First, it's totally, stupidly unnecessary. She would be in no danger, either physical or social, if she was honest about her actual powers. But kids do stupid things, I can except this. But there's no way in HELL that the teachers wouldn't see through her deceptions in a heart beat, and the way that the sims are described as working, there's no way she's fooling the computers either. So WHY do the authors have them fall for it?
She's not doing it because she's scared for her safety. She's doing it because she wants to create a false front as the weakest member of the team so that nobody thinks she's a threat. Besides, she's not trying to fool the teachers, she's trying to fool the students. And yes, the teachers know- Ito at least knows- but given that it's a good exercise in deception and that revealing her real powers would help nobody, they're going to stay quiet.
They never mention it in the story, but jade has a very good reason to keep her powers hidden. Tansy has shown that even a weak avatar can take one of her spirits and become more powerful. Consider Jade is an infinite supply of avatar spirits when it comes down to it she could be in greater danger of kidnapping then the girl that sweats mithral.
The way that Sara's fed by the kitchen staff. She can eat anything that is alive, yet the kitchen staff only feed her things that could be considered pets. You'd think that it would be easy to get a live chicken or something but that is apparently not the case. It's like the staff wants her to be bullied for eating puppies.
It could be that less sentient beings are less nutritious; I recall Sara eating a potted plant as a snack, presumably as it isn't self aware.
Yes, but why not a piglet, or a chicken. They are both sentient, and both are less sympathetic than a puppy. Chickens in particular could be sustainable and inexpensive. The point is that there are other options than puppies. Even if they need to feed her sympathetic animals, do they need her to do it publicly?
Elephant in the Living Room time: So, being an unregistered mutant is a felony. Moreover, your mutation manifesting generally comes with telltale physical changes (minimum new eye color — which should be a matter of public and medical record right there —, much more drastic stuff for people with a BIT or the GSD cases), and it does so at puberty, a time in your life when you're arguably really, really not ready yet to deal with all the implications. In lights of all that, how do "secret identities" for mutant superheroes and -villains even work? Do they work at all, or is the fact that they ultimately actually don't just another one of those little "gotchas" that (like having to apply for an MID or leave the school, or the existence of combat finals) the Whateley staff like to spring on their students only when it's already too late?
Assumedly, the government knows. The general PUBLIC, however, does not. It's addressed in http://www.crystalhall.org/EnvyAndTheGildedCage1.html . Basicaly, the main concern is that it doesn't get out in the papers.
How do characters seem to know the difference between words that are spelled different yet sound the same? I mean, how the fuck does Toni correct people when they call her Tony? Or between fay and fey?
Basically, Whateley is staffed by some of the most powerful psychics, mages, empaths et all in the world, and they're helping cover for Poe. Poe is covered in a psychic and magical shield effect that extends, to a certain degree, to it's residents — and has a cover story about being the school's psych ward. No psychic or mage wants to go near them for fear of catching some psychic disease, breaking their brain against a helping dose of madness, or pissing off some demon that's possessed someone.