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Obligatory AI hate post bc I intend to be even more annoying about this

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the face of a man who may have just realized he's looking at the real person making him miserable

because think about it!

We, the viewers, know Demerzel's true origins. But she got the alert about Dusk/Rue finding the basement at the end of S2, and once they knew the truth, she killed them. So the rest of the Cleons, before and after, don't know that it was Cleon I who programmed Demerzel to protect the dynasty above all else.

but now!

XXIV learns that I gave Demerzel her tools. He knows the tools can repair Demerzel, can put her back together. He might, just might, be able to put the pieces together enough to realize that Cleon I had something to do with Demerzel being the way she is. And if Demerzel is the one who's currently making him miserable (by forcing him to do all these awful things like "sit on the throne occasionally" and "put on a shirt and look presentable for five goddamn minutes" and "not abdicate to go spend the rest of his life with his girlfriend"), and Cleon I programmed Demerzel, then it was Cleon I who not only built the gilded cage they live in but also created the lock and threw away the key

and hooooboy is that a recipe for EVEN MORE DELICIOUS SELF-LOATHING than xxiv already has!

(like, he already knows I created the genetic dynasty obviously but if he learned about the full extent of Demerzel's programming he would be sooooo pissed)

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Day was incredible this episode. The scene of him with the original Cleon was fucking perfect. “You may have overstated the resemblance” says Cleon I. And yeah, the whole season so far, this is the most different Day we’ve ever seen. He’s the odd one out of his two brothers, he’s the butt of everyone’s jokes, he goes to speak with Cleon I in a fur bathrobe! But his last line, before he spits on his predecessor/father/god is “We’re hardly worth loving”, asserting that he is like Cleon, that they’re all the same, and that they’re all horrible. And then he spends the rest of the episode doing dangerous, impulsive things, manipulating and killing with little to no remorse, revealing that even as he looked like he was being scammed out of his money in the Clavigers’ games, he was in control the entire time. Proving absolutely and in a wonderfully and painfully self-aware way that he is the same man he’s always been.

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We know from the trailers that Day ends up back in the palace with Demerzel, but istg if he is late for Dusk’s death like he was for Dawn’s robing ceremony…

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I keep thinking back to Dusk watching the recordings of previous Dusks who have run or tried to fight when being sent to be killed. Dawn asking him if he could do it and him saying “I don’t have it in here”, and this episode, everyone else running, proving him right. He shows the Prime Radiant to the Foundation Ambassador, which shows that humanity may be extinct in four months, and she marvels at the object’s beauty instead of worrying at the end of the world. The Prime Radiant is the clock that keeps the time of Empire’s life, and of humanity as a whole, and it’s kept in the chest of Demerzel, the clock that keeps the time of every Cleon’s life, as she told Dusk. Neither Dusk nor the ambassador ran; it’s the death of old institutions, I think, and the building of something new (the escape of Dawn) in their ashes.

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When the scooters were coming down the tunnel at Dawn and Gaal I thought it was Day and of course it wasn’t but can you imagine that interaction

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I’m crying I cannot wait to see her try to deal with this, she’s been existentialcrisising so bad she’s misplaced Two emperors in a single fucking day

It would be so funny if Demerzel still dusts Brother Dusk so that 4 months out from humanity’s possible extinction the empire consists of a stoner failson, a robot having a crisis of faith so dire she’s just gone to confession for the first time in 18,000 years, a college freshman, and a baby

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“Woke is officially dead at Brown” is such a funny statement about a school that is and will continue to be ~50% queer/trans with an administration that is and will continue to be incredibly and horribly conservative. At Brown, Woke has never lived and will never die

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Just wanted everyone to know that I opened my (paper) notebook and thought, Gosh, I haven’t charged this in a while, I hope it’s not on low battery, and looked briefly for a charging cable before I realized that I’m just completely cooked. Shriveled husk of a brain rattling around inside my skull.

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20,000 year old lovesick fashion icon drama queen conflicted morally gray boy crazy girl boss mother father vodka aunt deity demon robot human something new bitchy old queen i love you let me fund your lifestyle

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Star Wars has a Yuri Index of 0.097

Read more about the Yuri Index here

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Art by Clyde Caldwell ‘Spellbinder’ (1980)

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Just appreciating my vindication from anon

was just about to go to sleep but then i got brutally hit. this is what i get for my terrorist activity

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Gonna go ahead and call it here that this Dawn is dying this season. Ik he’s colluding with Foundation but he’s still too perfect, too original Cleon. Demerzel keeps looking at him like Yes Good Thank You and being a pleasure to have in class never ended well for anyone. This Dawn is neat, he’s dedicated, he’s clever, he’s got his shit together—he feels like he belongs to an earlier age, when the Empire was at full strength. More specifically, Dawn is everything Day should be and isn’t. Dawn dying would be not only a nail-in-the-coffin metaphor of the Empire having no future, but also a wake up call for Day. This Day wants nothing to do with the plot of this show. He wanted to get high with his girlfriend and get the fuck off Trantor—he wants Out. Obviously, something is going to drag him back in—and I think, now sans spores, it’ll be his brothers. And given that Dawn is too perfect to stay (idk how to support this better, it just feels that he is out of step with what stage the Empire is at, tone-wise) I really think he’s going to die, perhaps inspiring Day to take on some of Dawn’s better qualities to become the last great emperor of the Cleonic Age.

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So funny how Gaal was so tired of Hari for constantly manipulating and lying to her and then the second he’s dead she’s turning around and doing precisely the same thing to Dawn. Good for her!

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Omg I didn't even CONSIDER that the reason Day's injured in those scenes from the trailer is bc he tried attacking/killing Demerzel & her blood is poisonous!! There HAS to be a reason she mentioned the golden apples are poisonous to the Zephyr in episode 1, omg. Also yes, I 100% believe that is Song and that she's the leader of the Inheritance (or her family is, at least).

look, this is the kind of posts i make at 3am and then next day scratch my head at my choices lmao i'm not the right person to send this asks to because i have never been right in my life, and also i haven't yet rewatched previous seasons, and barely remember eps 1&2 from this one 🧍‍♂️🍅🍅🍅🖐

i, obviously, don't know the chronology of these events, so idk if Day's face “injuries”, that look fresh, were there before the conflict.

women seem distressed, especially the one on the left

it's probably his ferret 😔 rip

#isn't Dem's blood gold and poisonous? did it leave scars on his skin? did he try to kill her?

i love the fucked up relationship Days have with Demerzel, this one is even better imho. can't wait to see how it develops. he called her an obstacle. Day when i get you

i didn't mean his bloody nose and scratches. i meant those little craters on his shoulder and chest, that were previously covered by the yellow liquid. looks like irritation, or a healed burn. she's putting out cigs on him🔫

since he no longer has his bracelet, those wounds can't be that serious (wtf are those holes on his shirt). maybe the cult has healed the wounds and not his face. i know nothing!

very interesting reaction to Day's nanobots from Song, now that we know her background

ignore me, i'm seeing shit, and, again, focusing on the wrong things🤡

that has to be Song, if that scene is real, and not some drugged hallucination. can be both

this shot is killing me

from the intro. that's Song, right? familiar color😌

very intrigued about that yellow/golden liquid tbh. there's a lot of attention on robots this season. agreed, i don't think they told us about Demerzel's blood with no meaning behind it.

the location and position of that tree tho 👀

also very curious about this shot. Cleon I jumpscare. what is Day's plan?!