The World We Make

Manny is a graduate student and a newcomer to New York City, having transformed into the avatar of Manhattan almost immediately after his arrival. Much like Manhattan itself, Manny is charming and professional on the exterior while housing a multitude of secrets, shady connections, and cutthroat tendencies. While he does not ever instigate harm, he is the first to step up and protect those he cares about. His central conflict is deciding whether or not he will continue to be the avatar of Manhattan or return home to his family’s calling as the avatar of Chicago. This conflict pits Family of Origin Versus Family of Choice, paralleling many individuals’ struggles with queer identity. Ultimately, Manny chooses to stay Manhattan and pursue a relationship with Neek.

Manny is the wealthiest of the avatars, with substantial savings as well as several streams of income from his family’s shadow dealings. He primarily uses this wealth to help the others, as when he gets an apartment so that Neek can have a home address. This demonstrates that despite his shady past, Manny’s nature is protective and generous.

Padmini is a graduate student who is being exploited and overworked by her employer. She initially puts up with these injustices in hopes that the company will sponsor her visa so that she can continue working in the United States. However, when she fails to secure the job she was counting on, she comes to understand that working there would have forced her to lose touch with herself and her family. This would be a devastating loss: While her analytical side allows her to use math to understand the world around her, traverse other worlds, and effect change within the city, Padmini also feels deep loyalty to and love for her family. She chooses the struggle of being an immigrant working abroad to provide for them and make their lives a little easier.

Padmini often encounters xenophobia from strangers, echoing the experience of many working-class families in her borough. Padmini is also the first avatar to see the multiversal tree and to understand how R’lyeh is influencing New York City. This sharp mind and curiosity ultimately lead to her discovery about the Ur, which saves New York City.

Bronca is a queer Lenape woman who runs the Bronx Arts Center. She’s the oldest of the group and thus the recipient of the lexicon compiled by the other cities, which holds ancestral knowledge and the abilities and powers of the avatars. Her connection to her Indigenous heritage gives her an understanding of how systemic injustice works, as when she tells the Ur that the way they have attempted to influence humankind resembles the tactics of colonizers. Bronca’s awareness of the past does not curtail her freedom or ability to live in the present, which are in fact born out of her awareness of how bleak and unjust life can be. When Bronca learns of impending doom from Paris, she decides to try to enjoy her scheduled date, knowing that time is precious and worrying about things can’t do any good.

Brooklyn is a Black woman who juggles a lot of different roles: attorney, city council member, mayoral candidate, mother, avatar, and former hip-hop artist MC Free. While she often struggles to reconcile these roles, she is unafraid to use the connections they give her to promote causes that she believes in; she accepts help from Manny’s family and even calls on Beyonce for a favor. Brooklyn’s mayoral candidacy demonstrates that she is willing to use systems of power to effect change. While characters like Neek and Manny work outside of these structures, Brooklyn seeks to enact change from within. There is a pragmatism to her character, and she is often the first to respond or begin problem-solving in a crisis.

However, Brooklyn is also very aware of her anti-establishment past as the hip-hop artist MC Free, which still informs her present. As a Black woman, she also understands the history of racial injustices and systemic discrimination: “Sometimes Brooklyn wonders what it was like for her ancestors who survived these thoroughly American pogroms, building lives and futures for themselves again and again only to have it all shot and lynched away” (53). Even while Navigating Corrupt Systems, she recognizes that those systems were designed to oppress her.

Veneza is a young Black woman of Portuguese descent who works with Bronca at the arts center. She becomes the avatar of Jersey City, an honorary borough of New York City due to its proximity and attitude. She is Bronca’s protégée and close friend as well as her foil. Veneza’s youthfulness is one of her defining characteristics: She is tech and social media savvy in a way others are not, allowing her to make a big impact on Brooklyn’s campaign when she creates a graphic that goes viral. As the newest member of New York City and not technically yet a part of it, she represents growth, evolution, and flexibility.

Like many of the other avatars, Veneza has had to struggle against discrimination, racial microaggressions, and profiling her entire life, even hearing racial slurs and judgments from her own father. Instead of internalizing this racism or becoming cowed by it, she has grown into someone unafraid to begin difficult conversations. She is not the kind of person who is passive in matters that are important to her, which is why she reaches out to Aislyn to try to convince her to join the other avatars.

Aislyn is a young white woman who was raised in a traditional household. Her domineering father strongly discouraged her from developing a sense of self, warning her of the dangers and horrors of New York City. While she attended college and works at the local library, she continues to live with her parents, afraid of the outside world. Her agoraphobia and deep anxieties have made her vulnerable to manipulation: She initially thinks of R’lyeh as her friend and clings to the validation this provides her. The friendship is genuine, both recognizing the other as an outsider and viewing them with a mixture of care and respect. Unfortunately, they also share similar anxieties about difference that they use to justify destruction.

Aislyn loves Staten Island, which eventually leads her to join the other avatars to save it. Paralleling Neek’s exploration of New York City, she spends a lot of time driving around the island and exploring, returning frequently to favorite spots. When R’lyeh begins to strip Staten Island of its individuality in order to make it more homogenous, Aislyn is frustrated and saddened. This ultimately pushes her to renounce their friendship and protect her borough.