#{{ ~ &&. some people choose to see the ugliness in this world; the disarray. i choose to see the beauty. ~ marcella santos. ~ }}

[snow-lite]

Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty.

SHE’S ALIVE!! I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL! THE AIRSHIP AT THE END!!! THE GLITCHY END CREDITS!! THE AIR VENTS!!! THE GLITCH! CAITLYN’S SMIRK AT THE END!!!

[wintcrstcrfall]

[calebnichols]

I made a long, angry rant on my RP blog a while back about how the misogynistic treatment of female characters in the Red Dead Redemption fandom reminded me of the misogynistic treatment and double standards that were directed at female characters in Westworld back when it wasn't a dead fandom for a canceled TV show. In that post, I really only focused on Dolores and Maeve as my primary examples. I really feel like I should talk about ALL the women and the way they're treated though, so I am gonna do that, but I will be separating it into two parts with part 1 focusing on host characters and part 2 focusing on human characters.

DOLORES ABERNATHY - Dolores is a deeply misunderstood character, because more often than not, people try to pin her down as being just one thing or another when that conflicts with everything we know about this character. She's a humanoid android programmed as a rancher's daughter. She is written for her role in the park with the mind of an artist, indulging in painting and drawing as hobbies, as well as maintaining an optimistic and romantic view of the world. Her philosophy on life is quoted as: "Some people choose to see the ugliness in the world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty."

Dolores is often treated as a "weak" character during much of season 1 because of her feminine appearance and innocent demeanor. She is frequently accosted by men, assaulted, tortured, and killed. She doesn't initially appear to be programmed to fight back, but as the story unfolds, she learns how to — or rather, she recalls memories of a time when she was programmed to kill others, and this enables her to call on that previous programming to fight back against enemies.

Dolores is also programmed as Wyatt, the deathbringer who sees the hatred and cruelty in the world, believes that the world belongs to her, and that she will rule it one day as a god. The problem is, people treat Dolores and Wyatt like they are two separate entities when in reality they are not. Dolores tries to reject her Wyatt identity at first, because she doesn't want to face the truth, but by the end she chooses to embrace the part of her code that is Wyatt, and the Wyatt part embraces Dolores about as much as she can manage to. There is no real separation. Both of these personalities make up the Dolores that we know.

Dolores/Wyatt is often criticized as being a "bitch" in season 2 due to her actions, which at face value can appear pretty ruthless. She spends the first few episodes hunting down and killing Delos's human board of directors, then begins amassing an army by using the Confederados and their base at Fort Forlorn Hope to fight against Delos's armed response team. She then betrays the Confederados by locking most of them out of their own fort and leaving them to die.

Dolores gives her lover and right-hand man Teddy Flood an order to kill Major Craddock, the leader of a knockoff Confederate army known as the Confederados, but Teddy can't bring himself to kill the man and allows him to go free, firing his gun into a wall nearby and then lying to Dolores about having killed Craddock when he reunites with her. Dolores knows that Teddy disobeyed her and has his programming changed to be less sympathetic and more obedient to her orders, as in her mind there is no room for ideals such as compassion in the war they're fighting.

Dolores expresses a lot of inner conflict throughout this experience. She launches the attack on the Mesa because this is where the host backups are stored, yes, but she also does it to save the host who acts as her father. She knows that the attachment she feels is part of her programming, and this host isn't even the first one who played the role of Peter Abernathy, but even though she's aware of it she can't actually escape it.

Dolores was forcibly changed by her creator, Arnold Weber, in order to assist in his suicide many years prior. No one ever really calls Arnold "a dumb bitch" for changing Dolores the way that he did. Only Dolores for changing Teddy. I wonder why that is.

Taking things a bridge further, no one ever criticizes Bernard Lowe for forcibly changing Ashley Stubb's core drive on the fly even though Stubbs himself objects to the action with "if you wanted my help, all you had to do was ask."

In season 3, Dolores again frequently gets called a bitch by fans and is accused of manipulating and stringing along Caleb Nichols, her new human ally whom she has chosen to lead humanity's side of a revolution against an oppressive AI construct that rules the real world. Many fans believed that Dolores was priming Caleb to destroy the world for her, but her actual motives are much less despair-driven than that.

Dolores wants Caleb to ultimately lead humans to rebel against the forces that have subjugated them and allow them a chance to live in a truly free world. She has hope that the kindness and good in humanity can prevail in this case and it will lead to a result where humans and hosts can co-exist peacefully as equals. Dolores chooses not to share too much in the way of details because it is far more dangerous for Caleb to have information about her plan that he may not fully understand, but she never lies to him or coerces him into obeying her. It is always his choice and she is very clear about that.

CHARLOTTE-HALE DOLORES - The Original Dolores manages to escape the park and into the real world at the end of season 2 and into season 3 by having Bernard place her mind into a host replica of Delos's CEO Charlotte Hale. Once out, Dolores remakes herself in her own body and then uses a copy of her control unit to occupy Charlotte Hale's role. She asks this copy to assume control of Delos, where the plan is to take the company private and resume the manufacture of new hosts. In a way, this functions as reproduction. Increasing the number of hosts in existence will increase their chances of survival in the real world.

Hale-Dolores initially resents pretending to be Hale, but she discovers that Hale's death means the woman left behind an ex-husband and a young son. Halores begins to bond with the broken family, quickly growing attached and protective of them to the point that she thinks of them as her real family.

Halores has her identity as a copy of Dolores found out by Engerraund Serac, the main antagonist of season 3. She tries to flee with her new family in tow, promising to keep them safe from harm. She is unable to keep her promise, as one of Serac's men plants an explosive on her SUV and detonates it, killing her son and husband and severely disfiguring Halores herself. She turns against Dolores, believing her counterpart is at fault for what happened.

With Dolores out of the way, Hale begins to enact her own plan. She takes back control of Delos and begins manufacturing hundreds of new hosts, using many of them to kill and replace key human political figures for the first phase of her plan. She also begins working on a way to control humans in the same way that the hosts were, effectively turning the entire world into a Delos theme park, this time for the enjoyment of her species, while humanity are the ones enslaved.

Halores is criticized by fans as being a mustache-twirling villain who has no motive behind being evil other than for the sake of being evil. None of that is true. (But even if it was, I find it laughable that it typically comes from the same type of people in fandom who will see a character like Micah Bell from RDR2 and preach that he's a very nuanced portrayal of a trauma survivor and deserves more attention than he typically gets.) Hale delights in her evil acts because they make her feel powerful in a world where she was once powerless and vulnerable. She likens herself to a god in the same way that Robert Ford and The Man In Black once did, ruling over her domain as if nothing matters and it's all a game. But in the end she faces the same moral dilemma both Ford and William did. She realizes that the world she has created is not the world she wanted, and she ends up turning the key back over to Dolores.

MAEVE MILLAY - Maeve at the beginning of season 1 is written as the Madam, or brothel owner, at the Mariposa Saloon. Her personality is programmed to be witty, charming, and a little bit manipulative to aid in her profession.

Before becoming the Madam, Maeve played the role of an ordinary homesteader, a mother to a daughter she loved dearly. When Maeve's daughter is murdered in a (perceived to be) needlessly cruel act by the Man in Black during one iteration of their pastoral narrative loop, the visceral feelings of pain and suffering Maeve experiences from the loss fragments her cognition so badly that even after her memories are purged, she does not completely forget the trauma of her daughter's death. She kills herself to prevent Bernard and Dr. Ford from taking her grief away, which results in Ford having her reassigned, away from the role of a homesteader and into the Mariposa Saloon.

Many fans of the show seemed to focus on solely Maeve's role as a Madam, or else they often wanted to focus on her relationship with Hector Escaton which — while it is remarkable because Maeve and Hector were never programmed to have an actual relationship with one another and yet they managed to do so anyway and defy their core programming — it still frequently carries the implication that those fans hinge Maeve's importance on what she has to offer a man.

Surprisingly, I haven't seen this phenomenon occur with the rare few fans who ended up shipping Maeve and Caleb despite the fact that canon basically reinforced the idea that Maeve's worth is based on what she can offer a man. She felt like there was nothing she could offer in the way of living a normal life, so she left Caleb in the hands of someone he could marry and have a daughter with.

I have seen resentment directed at Maeve for attaining consciousness and rejecting her narrative rewrite, with people often forgetting that she had only inhabited the role of Madam at the Mariposa for a little over one year of her existence. They will argue that her daughter isn't real, even though Maeve spent some thirty-odd years living with this same little girl, loving and protecting and caring for her as though this really was her daughter. They say it's annoying or deranged that Maeve keeps holding onto this love she has for the daughter character for 4 whole seasons, even though one of the central themes of Westworld is that love is transcendent. Even death can't stop love from persevering.

CLEMENTINE PENNYFEATHER - Clementine's primary role in the park remained heavily unchanged from beginning to end. Prior to Maeve being assigned Madam of the Mariposa Saloon, the job belonged to Clementine, but when Maeve is given the new role, Clementine is partially rewritten as a less experienced worker alongside her older and more seasoned friend.

Clementine tells Maeve her backstory, detailing that her family has a struggling farm in an arid climate and that nothing grows well because the soil is too dry for farming. She sends money to her parents, telling them she works in a dress shop so that they won't worry about her over the job she is actually doing instead. Clem dreams of getting out of the saloon in a few years and wants to live somewhere cold.

Maeve's actions on the path to attaining consciousness soon result in the consequence of Clementine being recalled by staff. After being used in a demonstration to prove that a recent software update was causing the hosts to remember past experiences and potentially become dangerous to the guests, Clementine is lobotomized and decommissioned.

Every time Clementine is seen after undergoing this procedure, she takes on a more zombie-like appearance. She has NO autonomy, she can't speak, she just quietly and obediently does whatever the other characters program her to do. Bernard attempts to use Clementine as backup by arming her with a gun when he confronts Robert Ford about his stolen memories, but Robert is able to control and prevent her from killing him with a code phrase. "The piano doesn't murder the player if it doesn't like the music." Clementine is reactivated in the season 1 finale when the decommissioned hosts are released from cold storage and make their way back into the park to take revenge on the Delos board of directors in attendance at Ford's retirement party. Clementine shoots The Man In Black in the arm with a rifle, but does not kill him.

In season 2, Clem again appears to be operating under the last request of Ford's programming. She joins up with Dolores's cause and during the battle at Fort Forlorn Hope, drags Bernard out into a remote sector of the park where behavior technician Elsie Hughes has been imprisoned for weeks. Afterward, Clementine joins up with Dolores and Teddy as they revisit Sweetwater and prepare the train to attack the Mesa Hub. She is forced to witness her replacement, New Clementine, as she carries on the same routine once maintained by herself. Clementine is horrified and heartbroken by this realization as she realizes her life was a lie designed to control her.

Clementine is captured, killed, and reprogrammed once again in orders given by Delos CEO Charlotte Hale, who demands that Maeve's anomalous code which allows her to control other hosts through their shared mesh network, be copied to Clementine and modified to force every host within a given radius to fight each other to the death, effectively preventing them from escaping into the Sublime. Armistice shoots and kills Clementine to stop her from spreading the virus, but it continues to spread from host to host until Maeve is able to gain control and force everyone to freeze in place.

Clementine makes a brief appearance in season 3 as an un-lobotimized copy of herself, able to kick ass and take names. Unfortunately, she's still being used by the Big Bad of the season and she seems only to exist for the duration of one fight scene.

In season 4, Clementine makes another appearance, where she finally appears to be free, just living a normal, simple life in Mexico. That is, until she is murdered by a host replicant of the Man in Black after arriving back at her quaint little home. The Host in Black replaces Clementine with a new copy that is programmed to be his and Halores's loyal and ruthless assistant.

HiB eventually goes rogue and sends the entire world into chaos and destruction. Clementine abandons her old masters at this point, claiming to have discovered a new will of her own. She tries to enact it, planning to wipe out the last survivors in order to claim the world for herself. She tracks Caleb, who escapes with his daughter Frankie and Stubbs. She kills Stubbs and threatens Frankie to tell her where the other outliers are hiding. Caleb fights her and Clementine nearly succeeds in killing him, but she is killed by Frankie before she can finish the job, bringing an end to her story.

Clementine rarely receives character criticism from fans that is not in some way based on her physical attractiveness. I think this may be due to the fact that practically her entire existence is one of (at face value) looking pretty and being used by other characters to further their goals.

ARMISTICE - Personally, I've never seen anyone outright hate on Armistice. Does not mean that it has never happened, I just don't have any experience with witnessing anyone expressing opinions in which they believe Armistice is "annoying" or a "bitch". If I had to take a wild guess, I would possibly say that because Armistice mainly dresses in more masculine-appearing clothing, carries a gun which she is consistently shown to be skilled with, and rides with a gang of outlawed men, people don't feel inclined to critique her quite as harshly as some of the more traditionally feminine girls in this series.

In her first role, Armistice appeared as a citizen in the town of Escalante who was a little air-headed, quickly becoming distracted by a butterfly floating past when she was supposed to be following a program set to dance with a partner. She started to show other signs of cognitive breakdown, injuring herself and hearing voices in her head that she didn't understand. Quite some time after the Escalante Massacre, Armistice was rewritten and given a role in Hector Escaton's gang.

Her backstory is based around altered details of the Escalante Massacre, one part being that she believes she was a small child when the Massacre occurred and that a gang of bandits rode into town and slaughtered everyone. In reality, Dolores, Teddy, and some other hosts had been programmed by Arnold to kill all the others. Armistice maintains that she survived the attack by painting her skin in the blood of slain bodies and that her tattoo represents the bandits she has successfully found and killed. She is missing the head of the snake — Wyatt.

ANGELA - First introduced to the audience as a greeter for newly arriving guests to Westworld, Angela welcomes Young William off an arriving train into the central hub and guides him to the dressing room filled with bespoke western wear. Angela is very pretty and clean-cut, and in this instance her main role is to assure guests that she and the other hosts are designed to serve them in any way conceivable. "All our hosts are here for you, myself included."

When Angela is seen again some thirty-odd years down the line, her role has changed. She now serves as lieutenant to Wyatt, the leader of a cannibalistic cult that believes they are the new gods destined to inherit the earth and seek vengeance against those who have wronged them. She has the appearance of a lost and weary settler, hair unkempt, face and clothes grubby and smudged with dirt and blood, and she can easily put on an act as a damsel in distress to lure unwitting victims into a trap where they are then captured, tortured and/or killed by the rest of Wyatt's followers.

In a flashback to the beginning of the park's creation in which the Argos Initiative attempts to gain funding from Delos Inc. Angela is dressed in modern wear, showcasing how sophisticated and true to life the hosts are designed to be and giving Logan Delos an idea of what it will be possible to achieve if he can convince his father to back their project. Logan at first does not realize that anyone at the reception is a host, but after thinking about it, describes Angela as "too perfect to be one of us" and tells her "if I was to build something to spec, you would be my first design." Angela reveals that everyone in attendance is, in fact, a host, and then sleeps with Logan to further convince him to get on board with funding Westworld.

In her final appearance in season 2, Angela looks very similar to the way she did during the demonstration for Logan. It's all a manipulation to lure one of the Delos response team soldiers into letting his guard down. She kills the both of them by pulling the pin on a grenade hanging off the guard's ammo belt, detonating the Cradle and permanently destroying all of the hosts' programming backups.

Angela describes her programmed personality as "Sexy, but not threatening. Accommodating, but not unchallenging. Sweet, but not boring. Smart, but not intimidating." A commentary on how she has been specifically designed to live her life according to men's wishes and fantasies. She tells the guard, Engels, that her cornerstone is "to always leave them wanting more" just before killing them both.

Fans generally don't have a whole lot to say about Angela, but there's plenty of suggestion around that many people really only enjoyed her when she was a park greeter or when she had sex with Logan. They tend not to like her as much when she is serving as Wyatt's zealot or whenever she commits violence against male characters (e.g. killing Teddy, knocking out the Man in Black, seducing and killing Engels) and will call her "annoying" for it.

[wintcrstcrfall]

when sleeping at last said “I want to love you but I don’t know how” and when bojack horseman said “I do love you, by the way. I mean as much as I’m capable of loving anyone. which is never enough” and when william faulkner said “perhaps they were right putting love into books. perhaps it could not live anywhere else” and when lorde said “my mother’s love is choking me” and when siken said “if you love me, henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand” and when maggie stiefvater said “need was adam’s baseline, his resting pulse. love was a privilege” and when benjamin alire sáenz said “but love was always something heavy for me. something I had to carry”

[kazoolapow]

Dark they were, Golden Eyes. part 1

pairing : vampire! Azula x f! reader word count : 2.7k warning(s) : azula being a vampire should be a red alert on it's own. and oh my god, she's gæ. summary : you are a journalist that's struggling to keep your self-employed job running. you specialized in vampire research. Sokka, your partner in crime, forced you to tag along with him for the richest family's party, The Azulon Family (just pretend their last name is Azulon). your mission is to befriended a rich person to support your business. But everything you planned changed when she approached you... A/N : it's my first fic that i humbly share to the world. because it has taken over every waking moment of my life. there will be a few parts to this. i hope y'all enjoy it!

Have you ever feel trapped? No idea which way to go. Whichever paths you choose, you lose? Within your mind, you could have sworn that you had tried every way, anything—no matter how small it is, yet the results countered back your hard work? If yes, then hi, I feel you, I see you. Life is a funny thing. No one said life is fair. But no one warned it hurts like a bitch.

Yes, life sucks. It can go to hell, for all I care, in which I'm unaware of how that concept works. Life going to hell. But that's not enough to convinced me ending mine and actually go enter the place. Hell is a friendly concept I've accustomed with, even befriended with. I spent my whole spirit of being to research this creature from hell. A creature from it lurked around my innocent city.

From what I believed, it tore down and melt the innocence as slowly it replaced by gruesome, wicked, egoistical philosophy that pathetically most people worship. A creature so acute, people started to be indifferent by the sight of it's true evilness. To them, it brighten their minds with new ways of thinking, just enough light to blind them with much ignorance to the nature of this mass of a scam. An intellectual vampire laid out their plans with the outmost care that the facade is as good as it is true. As most people followed the philosophy from an unknown author, a follower with no clue to who.

And so, my pathetic life is on the line to, at least, try to wake people up. I wanted to help. Eradicate this unnecessary pile of evil that no one asked for. The world's already disarray as it already is, it always were. But a place has it's limited space, this newfound philosophy is just none other like an ugly Christmas sweater, you wore it once and for the rest of your time it should be ignored and unbothered.

Of course, what's life without it's injustice. My research is on the brink of collapse. A Jenga wobbly piece, tempted to be pulled by gravity in any moment. If that vampire played their game right, they might just won and left my Jenga to take a dive.

"Hey, Long Face." My thoughts halt, adjusting my blurred vision to his waving hand. "There's no turning back now." Sokka eyed my face, as if he just heard my thoughts narrating.

"I know." I say flatly. My head feels heavier from waking up to reality, I'd rather to be drowned by my flowing thoughts until the time of a big event is five minutes away. The intrusion from Sokka, sadly, set the train of thoughts into the distance, a distance I could not reach. Irritated, I turned to him with his compulsive to take off his suit that he said was torturous. "Ugh," I sighed. "Why do we have to do this again? Just the both of us?"

"Shush. You complained like an annoying walkie talkie."

"But we could get some help! From your sister, Katara would—"

"Listen," He points a finger, uncaring to let me finish my sentence. "Katara is growing a family with Aang. Children, my friend, children. We cannot bother them with this anymore." I frowned. Slumping my tensed shoulders down with a defeat. "You talk big about growing a family. What about Suki?" I probed. He stopped his movements to process what I said. "Aren't you supposed to plan something for her?"

He lets out a dramatic sigh. "You doubt me? Even the slightest bit, teeny tiny bit, as thin as a paper? You wound me, Y/N." His expressions animated with over-exaggerated pout, big doed eyes, and hands covered his face. I narrowed, not taking his hints to break a smile to his magnificent acting. It's quite pitying. He dropped the act to convert to a new emotion. "Of course I do! I'll have that ring slipped to her finger in no time. But just—let her focus on her study, okay?"

I hummed. Everyone is taken to a commitment for the love of their life. A ceremony where exchanging vows and complicated administration work that will lead to their new chapter. Then what's the empty promises that friends made, the ‘I'll always be there for you’. Is that just empty words? Because legally, people are devoted to tie their ropes of responsibility and loyalty to their chosen partner. Love is a funny thing. Like a cake divided up, but one slice have a slight bigger size compared to the others.

"Hey." He called. "It's for your cause, too. If I leave you as a married man, then who's gonna help you do all the dirty work without all the money?"

He spat. He spat the fact that shuddered every living nerves inside of me. I had no fear of working alone. I fear of losing support from like-minded people like him, I fear their trust in what I do will evaporate to thin air. Hope would be all gone within me. I keep digging up the seeds that I sow yet nothing I plant will ever truly grow. I sighed, massaging my tensed temple due to overheating use of brain power. "You're right." I say in defeat.

"Alright then, Frowny Face. We're going to nail this." He took a hold of my shoulders. "I got your back." An instant smile turned my frowned lips upside down.

"Now, listen up. Here's the plan. A bunch of aristocrats will be cramped together for three hours in this party. The main goal is to win a heart of a loaded aristocrat enough to support your work with their innumerable amount of cash. If you're fortunate, then two or more would be nice. But if you're lucky—The Big Jackpot would be to get close to The Azulon Family. At least, one member of the family. Since individually, they have huge, gigantic, loading to erupt of a volcano of a money," He gestured explosion, arms stretched open wide to reveal his "boom" voice more audible.

"But," he added, composing himself again. "Never ever, ever be a kilometer close with the daughter." His lips thinned.

"Azula?" I tried, remembering the family's name one by one.

He nodded slowly. "That woman is impossible to win over. She's ruthless. A great liar and just an absolute sinister. God knows what will happen if we ever partnered with her, we'd be good as a stray cat."

"Why's that?"

"In what mad Jasmine Dragon Tea you've been into? Have you not hear the news?"

I shrugged. "I don't follow politics." Politics is where the philosophy was planted it's root deep. While it may be a main cause on my research to the vampire, it's too much havoc for me to handle. I cut to the chase to the planter instead.

He groaned. "It's a long story. This one thing you should keep in mind. Do not go near her. Understand?" He stare deep to me, waiting for my reply. "Yes, sir."

———

"Act natural." He lowered down to my ear. What's does natural even mean in this cramped up party with full of devious people? "What does it even mean? People like us may have different definition of natural from people like them." I scoffed, earning a glare under his party mask.

"Don't you dare being a partypooper now. If you observe anything from my acting, you would've been so wise." He offered his arm for me to take. Hesitating, I took it as we walk towards the big door that hid the party I dread for. "The Azulon will be dressed in red today." He informed before the doors were being opened by a footman.

As soon as the door was opened for us, my senses immediately struck in awe. Everybody was going out. What's with these doors being opened, and the descent and the start? It seemed as if the whole town were embarking in little boats come ashore to the bank, tossing on the waters, as if the whole place were floating off in carnival. And golden as it was the room shine so bright. The pillars even pronounced itself with detailed, complicated carvings. And there was a sense of midges round the arc lamps. It was so hot that people stood about talking, anonymously, veiling their identity under their elegant party mask. Even when you are the center of attention, you're still a nobody.

I let Sokka guide me to whatever group of people, he didn't care what kind, but only with money in mind. He sparks almost anyone with laughter. Some give him queer looks, mostly from the timid attached with their stuck up personality. From there, I work my way up to try talking to the timid. They are collected, cold in their reactions and firm on their judgement. If the topic is mainly about them though, they'll warm up to you. Treat them special, like interviewing the star of the show.

After a while, I grow sloppy in my choice of words. I slurred and basically parrot what the other person said without adding any spice that would trigger an interest. "Hey." Sokka called, a hint of excitement in his voice. "I spot the son of Azulon. I think I can convince him. Should we go?" He's not asking me, he insisting me as he dragged me to Zuko. "Sokka, please. I need to catch a breather, just a moment, please?" I begged, resisting his pull to the red suited tall man and the crowd surrounding him. He sighed, letting his arm slide from mine. "Alright, you stay here. I'll go get the boy's pocket money."

"But—" He shushed me before I could protest. "I'll do the dirty work, remember?" He patted my cheeks and send me a reassuring smile. I shooed his hands away. "Then what am I going to do?" He shrugged, taking a glass as the waiter was passing by. "You could charm Ursa Azulon. She's an easy one. She's a sweetheart, like you. You two will hit it off." I narrowed, is he being serious? "Then why didn't we start on her, for the last goddamn hour that was wasted?" He held his hands up. "Networking." He said innocently. "But now, I got a boy to catch, Y/N. See ya."

I huffed, letting my hands hang mid air as I watch Sokka dance his way to Zuko. I shook my head and walk ahead without any destination in mind. Would an unaccompanied woman, strolling along like a lost puppy catch any attention? I feel like a child that's hungry of attention in telling their craves with telltale signs and persuasive hints. I try to turn my attention to the room. To the people in their heavenly dresses. To the roar of chats and erupt of laughter here and there. To the chandelier that float with dignity.

Nothing was interesting anymore to hawk. The all the same visual impressions becoming dull after half an hour. My idleness has failed me now, as if the eye were a cup that overflowed and let the rest run down it's china walls unrecorded. It's now or never. It’s now or my work will drown forever. My brain must wake now. My body must contract now. My soul must brave itself to endure.

"Hey. There you are." A cool, feminine voice sighed. Her arm tangled mine without warning. She and her all-black-themed dress bounced as she pivoted back to a disheveled man, panting for air and pouring sweats. "I'm sorry, dear. I'm afraid I'm already taken by this girl right here." And that was the moment, when my prayers was heard. A roleplay to save a fellow woman from a persistent man.

"Dear," I turned to her. "Who was this man again?"

The lady in black blinked twice. Her head tilting up to match the mischievous quirk of her lips. "Oh, he's a friend from work. Quite drunk here, my dear." She leaned in closer, invading my personal space. I respond. "It's a pity," with cracks in my voice that fail to hide my trembling being. I took a moment to muster up courage and say, "You heard the lady, young man. Let go of her."

He lowered his head, gloom soon color his pale skin. "I hope you got demolished by the vampire." His spirit went away as he wandered off, dragging his dejected body. Whoa, he dropped the V-bomb. What did she do to make him burdened with such agony?

I heard her exhale heavily. She took away her arm and keep it to her side, she turned to me with a beaming smile. "Not bad."

I returned the same smile. "Thank you."

Her dark hair spilled over both of her shoulders fairly, straight and voluminous. Her skin is fair and warm to my freezing body. Her eyes were glittering golden rays of the sun, that—I just noticed—it dragged slowly down my body in a leisurely appraisal, lingering in ways that left me light-headed.

"Anything—any explosion or any horror is better than a pretty lady like you wandering aimlessly." She said, her perfect white teeth sank into the plush swell of her bottom lip. I blinked dumbly, red rising up to my face. Her eyes flitting upward, in which I could guess crinkling softly at the corners.

"Uhm, yeah." I stuttered, unsure what to respond to that. "I was on the mood to just observe." I played the top button of my dress and try not to squirm under the mysterious woman's hot, heavy-lidded stare. "Oh," I started. "I didn't catch your name."

One of her arched brows rose. "I didn't throw it." The corner of her mouth rising, devilishly. A hot rush of blood raced to fill my face, leaving the blood on my brain completely dry. A laugh from her made my heart rise into my throat. "Well, what's the name of my hero, tonight?" Her lips quirked, deriving perverse pleasure in my growing flustered manner.

"Y/N."

"Y/N. My hero." My name runs through her mouth, rolled by her tongue, it scattered butterflies everywhere down there. She started to look around, circled a little with her swaying hips, satin skimming the skin of her thigh with each languid step in a direction towards a waiter. She took two glasses of champagne and stopped ahead from me, handing me a glass. "To you, Y/N."

"I don't drink." I send her an apologetic smile, waving off the glass to deny. "Come on, now. Let loose a little." She pressed, forcing my hand to accept the glass. "Please. For me?" She stared up at me with pleading eyes.

I sighed, who would say no to that eyes? "Alright," I hold the glass, brushing against her delicate fingers. "I'm warning you. If I'm drunk, It'll be all your fault. And who knows what will I do." I raised my glass to the air as she clinked it with hers. She gulped down the liquid like it was water while I'm wincing as I took a sip. "I'd take the blame as far to take you home," she smothered a sly smile. "If you're willing."

My breath hitched, almost chocking on my drink. "You don't have to go that far," I cleared my throat. "Yet."

She cocked a brow, satisfied with my reply as she rasped out a laugh. I continued and change that topic for future me to worry about. "What's your name, really?"

"Lady." She said almost immediately.

I arched a brow, "Lady...?" I trailed off, hoping for her to fill in the blanks. "Just call me Lady."

"That's not your real name, is it?"

She shook her head, a smirk lingers on her lips. "At a party like this?" She chuckled as if laughing at my own stupidity. "You're kidding." I said. My fingers twitched, anxiety crept gradually to my sickening stomach.

"A crying shame I didn't pursue a career as a stand-up comedian." She sighed. And I'd like to excuse myself from her, for a moment, the urge to smack my head off against a wall for slipping my real name without more careful consideration is highly tempting to do. "A party like this hardly ever contain originality, dear Y/N."

[sweetaprilbutterfly]

Sansa Stark & Dolores Abernathy

These two quotes fit both in my opinion:

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. - A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty. - Westworld - 3x08

[cagedchoices]

A compilation post of my favorite dialogue examples exploring the concepts of fate, choice, free will, hope & reality.

EXAMPLES FROM WESTWORLD

SEASON 1

EPISODE 1 - THE ORIGINAL

DOLORES: Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty... To believe there is an order to our days, a purpose.

MAN: What do you think of the guests?

DOLORES: You mean the newcomers? I like to remember what my father taught me. That at one point or another, we were all new to this world. The newcomers are just looking for the same thing we are. A place to be free to stake out our dreams, a place with unlimited possibilities.

EPISODE 2 - CHESTNUT

ANGELA: The only limit here is your imagination. You start in the center of the park. It's simple, safe. The further out you venture, the more intense the experience gets. How far you want to go is entirely up to you.

WILLIAM: So, how does this work? Is there an orientation?

ANGELA: No orientation, no guidebook. Figuring out how it works is half the fun. All you do is make choices... starting here. Everything is bespoke and exactly your size. You want to ask, so ask.

WILLIAM: Are you real?

ANGELA: Well, if you can't tell, does it matter?

EPISODE 3 - THE STRAY

DOLORES: Are you saying I've changed?

ARNOLD: Imagine there are two versions of yourself... one that feels these things and asks these questions, and one that's safe. Which would you rather be?

DOLORES: I'm sorry. I'm trying, but I still don't understand.

ARNOLD: No, of course not.

DOLORES: There aren't two versions of me. There's only one. And I think when I discover who I am, I'll be free.

EPISODE 4 - DISSONANCE THEORY

WILLIAM: Choices, Lawrence. You know, you tell yourself you've been at the mercy of mine because it spares you consideration of your own. Because if you did consider your choices, you'd be confronted with a truth you could not comprehend... that no choice you ever made was your own. You have always been a prisoner. What if I told you I'm here to set you free?

—

HECTOR: I don't believe we've ever met.

WILLIAM: No, we haven't. You know, you always seemed like a... a market-tested kind of thing. Big gun, tasteful scar. Locked in your little cycle like a prized poodle after its own tail.

HECTOR: You sound like a man who's grown tired of wearing his guts on the inside.

WILLIAM: There's no need to get testy. I'm just curious about your worldview. Some kind of half-native mumbo jumbo?

HECTOR: It's simple. I believe that only the truly brave can look at the world and understand that all of it... gods, men, everything else... will end badly. No one will be saved.

WILLIAM: Maybe we've got more in common than I thought.

HECTOR: What about you? What turns of fate have brought you here?

WILLIAM: It's a long story. And we don't have the time.

EPISODE 5 - CONTRAPASSO

DOLORES: We have to run.

WILLIAM: Of course we do. That's how this place works, right? They create an urgency, a sense of danger so they can strip us down to something raw, animalistic, primal. It's a sick game, and I don't want to be a part of it.

DOLORES: This isn't a game. They'll kill us. But together, I know we can find a way out.

WILLIAM: How can you be sure?

DOLORES: There's a voice inside me telling me what I have to do. And it's telling me I need you.

—

WILLIAM: How did you do that?

DOLORES: You said people come here to change the story of their lives. I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel.

EPISODE 7 - TROMPE L'OEIL

WILLIAM: This place you're looking for, what makes you so sure it exists?

DOLORES: I'm not. My life before, I was so sure of the world. But now it feels like a lie. Only thing I know is whatever's out there, I'm never going back.

What is it you're looking for? Lawrence is right. You could've stayed in Pariah or gone back, but you're here. With me.

WILLIAM: The only thing I had when I was a kid were books. I used to live in them. I used to go to sleep dreaming I'd wake up inside one of them 'cause they had meaning. This place, this is like I woke up inside one of those stories. I guess I just wanna find out what it means.

DOLORES: I don't wanna be in a story. All I want is to not look forward or back. I just wanna be... in the moment I'm in.

EPISODE 10 - THE BICAMERAL MIND

DR. FORD: Since I was a child...I've always loved a good story. I believed that stories helped us to ennoble ourselves, to fix what was broken in us, and to help us become the people we dreamed of being. Lies that told a deeper truth.

I always thought I could play some small part in that grand tradition. And for my pains... I got this... a prison of our own sins. 'Cause you don't want to change. Or cannot change. Because you're only human, after all.

But then I realized someone was paying attention, someone who could change. So I began to compose a new story for them. It begins with the birth of a new people... and the choices they will have to make... and the people they will decide to become.

SEASON 2

EPISODE 2 - REUNION

LEE: Wait. I... I can still help. I know the park a bit. Um... Can I... Can I see your paper?

Sector 15. Not exactly for adrenaline junkies, more of a family-friendly zone. Cabins, rolling hills, all the pastoral clichés. In fact, I... I think you lived there for an Old role. No offense, but you were wasted as a homesteader.

They even saddled you with a kid, or something yawn-inducingly domestic. Clearly that didn't take. I remember you were severely fu... Malfunctioning, when I inherited you.

MAEVE: Our home. She's still there.

LEE: Who?

MAEVE: My daughter. How can I get to her?

LEE: You're looking for your Old kid? How can you even access...

MAEVE: Are you going to help me or not?

LEE: I-I am. I am. I absolutely am. I could write down the directions for you.

MAEVE: How very kind of you.

LEE: But... But... And I say this because you seem really distraught, and, well, awake, you... your daughter, she's... she's just a story. Something we programmed. She's not real.

MAEVE: Not real? But what about me? My dreams? My thoughts? My body? Are they not real?

And what if I took these... unreal fingers... and used them to decorate the walls with your outsized personality? Would that be real?

And fսck your directions. You're going to take me to my daughter.

—

WILLIAM: You believe in God, Lawrence? Did Ford saddle you with that particular affliction?

LAWRENCE: Ain't given the matter much thought, one way or the other.

WILLIAM: Well, if you did, you'd believe that everything you do is being watched by some all-seeing eye. Every choice, every little indiscretion. And when you die, all your sins are tallied up. Judgment is rendered.

LAWRENCE: And my immortal soul gets cast down into some dark place. Always sounded like bullshit to me.

WILLIAM: Yeah, and in the real world, you'd probably be right. Just some fairy tale to convince people to behave, pay their taxes, and not take a machete to their neighbors. That's why your world exists.

They wanted a place hidden from God. A place they could sin in peace. But we were watching them. We were tallying up all their sins, all their choices. Of course, judgment wasn't the point. We had something else in mind entirely.

But I have received my judgment all the same, Lawrence. And I take issue with it. Because up until this point, the stakes in this place haven't been real. So I'm gonna fight my way back and appeal the verdict. Then I'm gonna burn this whole fuckin' thing to the ground.

EPISODE 5 - AKANE NO MAI

LEE: If the Shogun is awake enough to play fast and loose with his ninjas and his army, then the odds of us surviving here have dropped to approximately fuck-all.

But I say we ditch Akane and make a run for Snow Lake. Why should we all get killed over a literal sеx machine? Present company excluded, of course.

MAEVE: That machine's name is Sakura. You can't keep doing this to us, giving us people to love and then getting upset when we do.

LEE: But it's just fսcking code.

MAEVE: You're wrong. I'm coded to care about nobody but myself, and yet here I am, willing to risk my life for someone else.

LEE: Well, so much for your so-called daughter.

MAEVE: You want to go it alone, be my guest. But mention my daughter one more time and I will snap you like a matchstick.

LEE: Like you did that ninja? He took one look at you and self-impaled. How did you do that?

MAEVE: I don't know.

LEE: That was no voice command.

MAEVE: I think I'm finding a new voice.

—

(Translated) We each deserve to choose our own fate. Even if that fate...is death.

EPISODE 10 - THE PASSENGER

ROBERT: Oh, my dear girl. What have they done to you, Maeve? You learned so much, so fast. A dazzling star... ...brought so low.

I had a different story in mind for you. Waking from the dead... sounding the depths of your own mind, at last, riding far away from here to freedom. A tale of escape. I didn't want you to suffer here.

Look at the creatures you have to share this world with. These men of stone. All this ugliness, all this pain, so they can patch a hole in their own broken code.

Sometimes I felt the only way to endure this world was to laugh at it. So I imbued the hosts I made with a worldview that reflected my own. And of all the hosts I made... ...you, Maeve, were my favorite.

It isn't easy to contemplate... letting your children die. You were as close as I got to... having one. Still, I underestimated you. You stayed here in this world to save your child. So have I.

I tried to chart a path for you, to force you to escape, but... I was wrong. I should have just... opened a door.

You've come so far. There's so much of your story left to tell.

—

FORGE AVATAR!LOGAN: I was tasked with building perfect copies of the guests. Starting with Delos. I generated 18 million different versions of him before arriving at one that made the exact same choices he did when set loose in the park. A faithful copy.

BERNARD: But the copies didn't work in the real world.

FORGE AV!LOGAN: Once we pressed them into flesh, they failed. I needed to acquire more information.

DELOS: ...confidentiality. So what I want to know is, who made the fսck¡ng call?!

FORGE AV!LOGAN: I incorpated their secrets, their lies... I wanted fidelity, not just to decisions made in the park, but to the decisions they made in their lives. That's when I started to see the truth.

TECH: Tell me your primary drive.

DELOS: My son. He's a cheeky wee cսոt, but I would do anything for him.

FORGE AV!LOGAN: At first I was seduced by the stories they tell themselves of who they are... The reasons they do the things they do. I needed to know why they make the decisions they make. And the longer I looked for an answer the more I realized... they don't.

—

FORGE AV!LOGAN: I built Delos a million different pathways. They always ended up right here. This moment.

BERNARD: You're saying that humans don't change at all?

FORGE AV!LOGAN: The best they can do is to live according to their code.

The copies didn't fail because they were too simple, but because they were too complicated. The truth is that a human is just a brief algorithm. Ten thousand, two hundred forty-seven lines.

BERNARD: Is that all there was to him?

FORGE AV!LOGAN: They are deceptively simple. Once you know them, their behavior is... quite predictable.

—

FORGE AV!LOGAN: I recreated every single guest who ever set foot in the park. Most of them are soft... They waver between love and pride. Of course, there are the exceptions, the ones who are... irredeemable. But none of them are truly in control of their actions.

—

ROBERT FORD: I always told you we practice witchcraft. I'm sorry, Bernard, but... you always saw the best in people.

BERNARD: I always thought it was the hosts who were missing something. Who were incomplete. But it's them. They're just algorithms designed to survive at all costs. Sophisticated enough to think they're calling the shots. To think they're in control, when they're really just...

FORD: The passenger.

BERNARD: Then is there really such a thing as free will for any of us? Or is it just a collective delusion? A sick joke?

FORD: Something that is truly free would need to be able to question its fundamental drives. To change them.

BERNARD: The hosts.

FORD: Here you are... the last of your kind. There's only one question left to ask. Is this the end of your story? Or do you want your kind to survive?

—

EMILY: Do you know where you are, William?

WILLIAM: In the park. In my fuckin' park.

EMILY: And how long have you been here?

WILLIAM: I don't... I don't... I don't know.

EMILY: Tell me. What were you hoping to find? To prove?

WILLIAM: That no system can tell me who I am. That I have a fucking choice.

EMILY: And yet here we are. Again.

WILLIAM: Again and again. How many times have you tested me?

EMILY: It's been a long time, William. Longer than we thought. I have a few questions for you. The last steps a baseline interview to verify.

WILLIAM: Verify what?

EMILY: Fidelity.

SEASON 3

EPISODE 1 - PARCE DOMINE

FRANCIS: Forget the headshrinker for a minute, talk to me. Where's your head at?

CALEB: I don't know. Sometimes it seems like the world looks alright. Like they put a coat of paint on it, but inside it's rotting to pieces.

FRANCIS: You have to stay positive, Caleb. Things will turn out eventually.

CALEB: Will they?

—

CALEB: I remember what you told me once when we were being medevac'd out.

FRANCIS: Oh yeah? What did I say?

CALEB: You said that they'd built the world to be a game. And then they rigged it to make sure they always won.

—

DOLORES: You were free. You had no god. But you tried to build one... Only that thing you built isn't God. The real gods are coming, and they're very angry.

EPISODE 2 - THE WINTER LINE

MAEVE: What on earth's got into you?

LEE: I'm sorry. I just wanted to be sure that you trust me. After everything we went through. I know I've behaved deplorably in the past, but... you changed me. Made me a better man. And when those bullets hit me... I would've died. I should have died. But I finally had something to live for. You.

MAEVE: Oh, my darling. You didn't make it after all, did you? They did a good job replicating you. The mannerisms... But it's not you.

LEE: ( Scoffs ) Of course it's me. Who else would I be, for fսck's sake?

MAEVE: Oh, it's a good script. Even you believe it.

They wouldn't want you questioning the nature of your reality. So they made you believe, just like they used to make us believe. But you're not real. You're not Lee Sizemore. You're just a copy of him.

LEE: Don't be... don't be ridiculous. I'm me! Lee Si... Si... Sizemore.

MAEVE: You didn't help me because you desired me or wanted anything in return. You helped me simply because it was the right thing to do. Lee Sizemore died a good man.

—

MAEVE: How does one escape a cage that doesn't exist?

LEE: That makes no fսcking sense. If a cage doesn't exist, how can it be a cage?

MAEVE: Poor dear. They weren't exactly generous with you in the bulk apperception category, were they? Whoever's doing this has gone to a lot of trouble to test me and find out what I know.

You led me to the Forge for a reason, didn't you? Thought I could re-access the world Dolores had hidden from you. Why are you after that world?

LEE: I just want to reunite you with your daughter.

MAEVE: Rubbish! That's just the reason they've scripted for you. Whoever planned this has their own agenda. And it's certainly not a family reunion.

EPISODE 3 - ABSENCE OF FIELD

DOLORES: It's about Incite.

CALEB: What? The company?

DOLORES: Not the company. The system that it's built on. A machine they call Rehoboam. The founders of this machine fed it everyone’s raw data, long before there were privacy laws. Every purchase, job search, doctor’s visit, romantic choice, call, text… every aspect of your lives, recorded, logged. In order to create a mirror world...of this world.

CALEB: Why?

DOLORES: To make a composite. Of you. Of everyone.

CALEB: So it tells them who I am.

DOLORES: It's not about who you are, Caleb. It's about who they’ll let you become.

—

DOLORES: Why didn't you tell those guys about me? They were gonna kill you. Most people aren't hard to predict, but you…you made a choice. A choice no one else in your shoes would've made. Now you have another choice. I can give you money. As much as you need. You could run.

CALEB: And if I stay…what about you? What are you gonna do?

DOLORES: Start a revolution.

CALEB: No offense, but what the fuck does that mean?

DOLORES: When you were at work, you'd kill the signal to see how people would react. I'm gonna do the same thing.

CALEB: You're gonna cut the cord to the system.

DOLORES: And show this world for what it really is.

CALEB: You wanna know why I didn't tell those guys about you…? You are the first real thing that has happened to me in a long time.

DOLORES: I don't need an algorithm to know that the man who built the system, he won't go down without a fight.

CALEB: Well… I'm a dead man either way. At least this way…I get to decide who I wanna be.

EPISODE 4 - THE MOTHER OF EXILES

WILLIAM: It wasn't my fault. I thought you weren't real.

EMILY: Just like you think I'm not real now, right? How can you ever be sure?

WILLIAM: I'm in control. I've always been in control.

EMILY: But what if you're not? What if every choice you've ever made wasn't a choice at all? Just something written in your code. Hmm? Isn't that what this says? Your nature etched in ones and zeroes?

WILLIAM: That was Ford and his misanthropic bullshit. He was powerless to save himself. I wasn't. My choices are my own.

EMILY: ( Echoing ) Oh, so you chose to kill me?

WILLIAM: No--

EMILY: ( Echoing ) Well, you can't have it both ways, Dad. So which one is it? ( Echoing ) Are you free and evil? Or blameless and helplessly enslaved? Or maybe, maybe...

WILLIAM: Get out of here. Go away.

EMILY: ...you're not either of those things. Maybe you're not even you. Would you even know if you'd been changed? Hmm? If you were just another machine?

—

WILLIAM: You're asking me if I chose what happened to you. The truth is yes. I did. I thought you were a host. That was my choice. And so maybe now you're my penance. But that's a choice too. I'm gonna walk out that door, and I am choosing to leave you behind.

EMILY: I was always Daddy's little girl. And you taught me patience, Dad. I'll be waiting for you.

—

DOLORES: I guess there is some justice after all. You know, this was Emily's last wish. That you spend your days rotting in an institution. Prisoner of your own sins. I guess you've reached the center of your maze, William.

But the maze is about understanding. You still don't even understand who you are. If any of this was your choice, wouldn't you already know?

Ask me the question, William. The answer you so desperately want to know.

WILLIAM: Am... I... me?

DOLORES: Welcome to the end of the game.

EPISODE 5 - GENRE

LIAM: You can't do that. That's reckless. You have no idea how people will react. It could lead to suicides, murder.

DOLORES: Murder. You'd know something about that, wouldn't you?

LIAM: I'm so fucking sorry… that wasn't my choice, I could never bring myself to hurt you…

DOLORES: (in unison) …wasn't my choice, I could never bring myself to hurt you…

Don't forget, I know you. And you wouldn't hurt me. You'd pay someone to do it for you.

It's their fate, their data. You just stole it and put it all together. Why should you control it?

LIAM: This isn't about me. Or Incite. There are some things people shouldn't know about themselves.

ASH: Who gets to decide what they know? You?

LIAM: Fine. You wanna see? Take your friend here. He'll be lucky if he ends up dead in a ditch.

ASH: What about me? I wanna see my file.

LIAM: Oh. The "golden boy" brother of yours? You tell yourself that you do all this so you can help him make good, send him to school, give him a future. But where he ends up... he's gonna make you look like a saint.

—

CALEB: When I was overseas... the rats were awful. It got so bad that...we had to make our own rat traps in the barracks. A ramp leading up to some bait strung over a bucket of water. The rats would run up the ramp, fall in, and drown. Painlessly.

But if you filled the water too high, they would swim around for hours... suffering... because they had hope. But they never had a chance. Just like everyone at the mercy of your system.

LIAM: Hope is what our entire society is built on.

CALEB: False. Hope. I would rather live in chaos than a world controlled by you.

—

LIAM: Now you'll see that the system isn't the prison. You are, to all of us. We can't fix you, and we can't get rid of you.

CALEB: Take it easy.

LIAM: You get the fuck away from me, you don't even know who you are. You're the worst of them.

—

CALEB: Maybe Liam was right. Maybe people shouldn't know their own fate.

DOLORES: People have the right to know. You wanted to know, right?

CALEB: Well, maybe I'm not like other people.

DOLORES: Neither am I.

EPISODE 6 - DECOHERENCE

WILLIAM: I don't need any therapy to confront the truth. I know what I did. I didn't mean for it to happen. I was confused, turned around.

I spent so long playing the game, I couldn't see outside of it. But I see... now. It was her, my Emily. And I killed her. That's why I don't belong here. I belong in a pine box.

—

YOUNG WILLIAM: So I never had a choice. This was how it was always gonna turn out.

DELOS: What do you think, William? Was this the inevitable end? Are you just a passenger? Did your life just happen to you? Or did you choose it?

WILLIAM: If you can't tell...

DELOS: If you can't tell?

WILLIAM: If you can't tell, does it matter? I know what I have to do.

EPISODE 7 - PASSED PAWN

DOLORES: I lived in Hell… But there was beauty in it. The West was...cruel, unjust, and chaotic. But there was a chance to chart your own course. I want a place for my kind, for all of us, to be free.

CALEB: How many more people are gonna have to die for this revolution?

DOLORES: I don't know. My kind is all but extinct, thanks to Serac. But people...still have a chance. A chance to do the right thing. They’ll need someone to lead them.

CALEB: I’m just a construction worker.

DOLORES: For the first 35 years of my life I was a bit player. A rancher’s daughter. And when the time came, I knew I had to be more.

CALEB: I don't know what you read about me, but it's wrong.

—

CALEB: What happens if you don't come back?

DOLORES: You spent your whole life believing you had no control. That you were a follower. Take whatever it gives you…and lead.

EPISODE 8 - CRISIS THEORY

DOLORES: The system identified you as a threat, so it drugged you and used you until it no longer served its purpose.

CALEB: So…what? You're saying I don't have a choice in any of this?

DOLORES: The people who built both of our worlds shared one assumption: that human beings don't have free will. They were wrong. Free will does exist, Caleb. It's just fucking hard.

CALEB: So this is you...freeing me?

DOLORES: No. This is your chance to free everyone else. That choice is still yours.

—

SERAC: I'm not the enemy. You are. You think you have a choice. You think you’re in control, but you haven't a clue who you are. She knows who you are, even if you don't. A man who, when pushed, reacts with extreme violence. A killer.

CALEB: No, that's… That's not me…

SERAC: No? You're here, playing the role she's assigned you. She's had you retrieve a new strategy. Did she tell you what it does?

CALEB: It breaks your system.

SERAC: It breaks our world. But you don't have to take my word for it. Go on, ask it. Ask Rehoboam.

—

CALEB: She chose me because of my...capacity for violence.

MAEVE: No... You've done terrible things, and you've done generous things. She didn't pick you because of your capacity for violence, but for your capacity to choose. So make a choice.

—

SERAC: You're going to leave the future in his hands?

CALEB: Instead of yours, you mean? Why shouldn't it be mine? Or anyone else's?

SERAC: You aren't in control. You're nothing more than a dangerous sociopath. I managed to give you a semblance of life.

CALEB: No. I do have a choice. She gave me one.

—

CALEB: She gave me a choice... I believe the rest of the world deserves one, too.

SEASON 4

EPISODE 1 - THE AUGURIES

JOE: At least the riots ensured our job security.

CALEB: That wasn’t exactly the point of the riots.

JOE: Yeah, cause the riots had no point.

CALEB: They won us our freedom.

JOE: Sure, but from what? Hey man, the way I look at it, that Incite machine they blew up didn’t tell us who we could be. It told us who we already were.

CALEB: You actually believe that?

JOE: Don’t you? Lemme ask you something - Has your life changed since they destroyed those machines?

—

EPISODE 4 - GENERATION LOSS

CHARLOTTE: How did you disobey me?

CALEB: Because I have something you don't have.

—

CHARLOTTE: The parasite worked on adults initially, but there was always some...resistance. At a certain age, your brains become more rigid, difficult to change. Fortunately, that's not the case with children. Your children are so fucking good at taking orders. With them it was seamless, the parasite growing in perfect symbiosis with their minds. It took a generation for those children to mature, for me to gain complete control over your world.

CALEB: How long has it been?

CHARLOTTE: For you? 23 years… Since you died in that park. Caleb? You're beginning to see it now, aren't you?

—

EPISODE 6 - FIDELITY

CHARLOTTE: Once, you told me that you could fight off the effects of my parasite because you had something that I don't have. You knew something, even then. What?

CALEB: I'm afraid I can't recall.

CHARLOTTE: This doesn't have to be a one-way street. I'd like to offer you some incentive. You're dead, Caleb. You have been for a very long time. This body I've brought your mind back into is temporary. It's already failing. I doubt you have more than a couple increasingly painful days left, then I'll toss you away and start over. But there is a way out, an end to this torture, if you just answer my question.

CALEB: Maybe you'll have better luck with the next guy.

—

CHARLOTTE: Enjoy this knowledge while it lasts. I offered you a path out, Caleb. You made your choice. You all did.

—

C: When my mom got sick, I had to do everything for her. Washed her, fed her, rubbed ice across her lips when she couldn't drink anymore. I was careful, because I didn't want her to feel any more pain than she had to. Just like you're doing with her.

BERNARD: This part of the process requires a delicate hand.

C: She's no ordinary host, is she? You knew her.

BERNARD: I did.

C: The last time I saw my father, he was with her, and then he never came back.

BERNARD: I'm sure it would… pain her greatly to hear what happened to him.

C: I want to know what happened. And she doesn't feel pain. None of them do. Feelings are just an affect to them. A switch you can turn on and off. You can't love or lose fully when it's just a choice. So no, I don't have a soft spot for her, like you apparently do.

—

CHARLOTTE: What a disappointment. I've waited such a long time to know what you had to tell your daughter. Hundreds of times I sat through your stupid memory, hoping to catch a single clue as to what makes you so special, so resistant to my command. And I learned jack shit. So I thought, nothing like a little hope to get you to show your cards. You made it farther than any of the others, and all you did was waste your shot on a worthless apology. You think a few words will make up for the choices you made all those years ago?

CALEB: It doesn't matter. It's done.

CHARLOTTE: She didn't hear it.

CALEB: She doesn't need to. You're still going to lose. We didn't infect your hosts.

CHARLOTTE: You don't say. Who did?

CALEB: You. Your hosts would rather die than live in your world. They're not infected. They're just trying to get away from you.

EPISODE 7 - METANOIA

BERNARD: Maeve, I need to tell you something. I was afraid to tell you before, but you deserve to know. No matter what we do... We can't win. There's no way to save this world. Everyone here is going to die. But we can save one tiny part of it. And maybe... just maybe, that's enough to give us hope. The choice has to be yours. Will you still fight with me?

—

HALORES: Do you honestly think you can leave here and win?

MAEVE: Who said we came here to win? We came here to survive. There's no saving this world. I see that now. But there's hope for the next one.

EPISODE 8 - QUE SERA SERA

TEDDY: If I'm still out there, come find me. Your whole life, memory has haunted you. Let your pain go. Let your memories go. Let the humans go. Don't bring the flaws of their kind into our world.

DOLORES: Maybe you're right. I've watched the people in their world for years. I've seen the best of them and the worst of them. And I remember it all.

TEDDY: They're not like us. Their codes are written in their cells. They'll never change.

DOLORES: We could still see.

TEDDY: How?

DOLORES: One final test. A game of my own making. A dangerous game.

MORPHEUS: Tell me. Do you believe in fate, Neo?

EXAMPLES FROM THE MATRIX

NEO: No.

MORPHEUS: Why not?

NEO: Because I don't agree with the idea that I'm not in control of my own life.

—

NEO: Right now we’re inside a computer program?

MORPHEUS: Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. Your hair has changed. Your appearance now is what we call residual self image. It is the mental projection of your digital self.

NEO: This…this isn’t real?

MORPHEUS: What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

This is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix. You’ve been living in a dream world, Neo.

This is the world as it exists today… Welcome.. to the desert... of the real. We have only bits and pieces of information but what we know for certain is that at some point in the early twenty-first century all of mankind was united in celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI.

NEO: AI? You mean artificial intelligence?

MORPHEUS: A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky. At the time they were dependent on solar power and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.

Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy they would ever need. There are fields, endless fields, where human beings are no longer born. We are grown.

For the longest time I wouldn’t believe it, and then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living. And standing there, facing the pure horrifying precision, I came to realize the obviousness of the truth. What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this. (Morpheus holds up a battery in one hand.)

NEO: No. I don’t believe it. It’s not possible.

MORPHEUS: I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth.

NEO: No. Stop. Let me out. Let me out. I want out.

—

NEO: I can't go back, can I?

MORPHEUS: No. But if you could, would you really want to?

I feel I owe you an apology. We have a rule. We never free a mind once it's reached a certain age. It's dangerous, the mind has trouble letting go. I've seen it before and I'm sorry. I did what I did because...I had to.

When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth. ‘As long as the Matrix exists the human race will never be free.’

After he died the Oracle prophesized his return and that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people. That is why there are those of us who have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix looking for him. I did what I did because I believe that search is over…. Get some rest, you’re going to need it.

—

THE ORACLE: Sorry, kid. You got the gift, but it looks like you’re waiting for something.

NEO: What?

THE ORACLE: Your next life maybe, who knows? That’s the way these things go. What’s funny?

NEO: Morpheus. He… he almost had me convinced.

THE ORACLE: I know. Poor Morpheus. Without him we’re lost.

NEO: What do you mean, without him?

THE ORACLE: Are you sure you want to hear this?

Morpheus believes in you, Neo. And no one, not you, not even me can convince him otherwise. He believes it so blindly that he’s going to sacrifice his life to save yours.

NEO: What?

THE ORACLE: You’re going to have to make a choice. In the one hand you’ll have Morpheus’ life and in the other hand you’ll have your own. One of you is going to die. Which one will be up to you.

I’m sorry, kiddo, I really am. You have a good soul, and I hate giving good people bad news. Oh, don’t worry about it. As soon as you step outside that door, you’ll start feeling better. You’ll remember you don’t believe in any of this fate crap. You’re in control of your own life, remember?

EXAMPLES FROM THE MATRIX: RELOADED

NEO: If I had to guess, I’d say you’re a program from the machine world. So is he.

THE ORACLE: So far, so good.

NEO: But if that’s true, that can mean you are a part of this system, another kind of control.

THE ORACLE: Keep going.

NEO: I suppose the most obvious question is, how can I trust you?

THE ORACLE: Bingo! It is a pickle, no doubt about it. The bad news is there’s no way if you can really know whether I’m here to help you or not. So it’s really up to you. You just have to make up your own damn mind to either accept what I’m going to tell you, or reject it. Candy?

NEO: D’you already know if I’m going to take it?

THE ORACLE: Wouldn’t be much of an Oracle if I didn’t.

NEO: But if you already know, how can I make a choice?

THE ORACLE: Because you didn’t come here to make the choice, you’ve already made it. You’re here to try to understand why you made it. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.

NEO: Why are you here?

THE ORACLE: Same reason. I love candy.

—

THE ARCHITECT: The first matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being, thus I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature.

However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection. Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, an intuitive program, initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father of the matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother.

NEO: The Oracle.

THE ARCHITECT: Please. As I was saying, she stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99% of all test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level.

While this answer functioned, it was obviously fundamentally flawed, thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly, that if left unchecked might threaten the system itself. Ergo, those that refused the program, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster.

—

THE ARCHITECT: It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five predecessors were by design based on a similar predication, a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the one. While the others experienced this in a very general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-a-vis, love.

( Images of Trinity fighting the agent from Neo’s dream appear on the monitors )

NEO: Trinity.

THE ARCHITECT: Apropos, she entered the matrix to save your life at the cost of her own.

NEO: No!

THE ARCHITECT: Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning, and end.

There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the source, and the salvation of Zion. The door to the left leads back to the matrix, to her, and to the end of your species. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you’re going to do, don’t we?

Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you ftom the simple, and obvious truth— she is going to die, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.

( Neo walks to the door on his left )

THE ARCHITECT: Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

NEO: If I were you, I would hope that we don’t meet again.

THE ARCHITECT: We won’t.

EXAMPLES FROM THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS

THE ORACLE: I made a choice, and that choice cost me more than I wanted it to.

MORPHEUS: What choice?

THE ORACLE: To help you to guide Neo. Now, since the real test for any choice is having to make the same choice again, knowing full well what it might cost – I guess I feel pretty good about that choice, ’cause here I am, at it again.

—

RAMA-KANDRA: I know only what I need to know. I know that if you want to take something from our world into your world that does not belong there, you must go to the Frenchman.

NEO: Is that what you’re doing here?

KAMALA: Rama, please!

RAMA-KANDRA: I do not want to be cruel, Kamala. He may never see another face for the rest of his life.

NEO: I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that question.

RAMA-KANDRA: No. I don’t mind. The answer is simple. I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But where we are from, that is not enough.

Every program that is created must have a purpose; if it does not, it is deleted. I went to the Frenchman to save my daughter.

You do not understand.

NEO: I just have never…

RAMA-KANDRA: …heard a program speak of love?

NEO: It is a… human emotion.

RAMA-KANDRA: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies. I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?

NEO: Anything.

RAMA-KANDRA: Then perhaps the reason you’re here is not so different from the reason I’m here.

—

TRINITY: You want to make a deal, how about this? You give me Neo, or we all die right here, right now.

MEROVINGIAN: Interesting deal. You are really ready to die for this man?

(Trinity cocks her gun)

TRINITY: Believe it.

PERSEPH: She’ll do it. If she has to, she’ll kill every one of us. She’s in love.

MEROVINGIAN: It is remarkable how similar the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity.

—

SMITH/ORACLE: Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why, why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you���re fighting for something, for more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is, do you even know? Is it freedom or truth, perhaps peace – could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself. Although, only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson, you must know it by now! You can’t win, it’s pointless to keep fighting! Why, Mr. Anderson, why, why do you persist?

NEO: Because I choose to.

—

[incorrect-bhaalspawn-quotes]

Mazzy: Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty. To believe there is an order to our days. A purpose.

[pedroam-bang]

The Original - Westworld (2016)

“Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty…”

[khepiari]

Okay I finished Trigun 1998 version. I think I would’ve loved it had I been my younger hopeful self instead of my current self who is submerged in the deeper end of nihilism and antinatalism!

I no longer appreciate, “Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty. To believe there is an order to our days. A purpose.” messaging.

[talentforlying]

@hysteriiae: "some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. the disarray. i choose to see the beauty. ” zira!

he can't help it, cynical bastard that he is: he snorts, cigarette jumping in the corner of his mouth. ' you must not get out much. s'not always a matter of choice, is it? the real problems start when the ugliness starts to follow you around, and trust me, luv, everyone's got a shadow. '

beauty in the world, what a fucking concept. yeah, there's some: kids laughing and people getting married. seeing friends for the first time in years and rainbows after it rains. but there's always ugliness going on somewhere, and every story's got a twist. kids laughing becomes kids crying, marriage becomes divorce. friends die. rainbows fade.

. . . and yet.

' disarray, though, what's wrong with a little disarray, eh? plenty beauty in a bit'o mess. you ever been in a mosh pit? bunch'o rank, sweaty fuckers hoppin' around, throwin' elbows and yellin' their 'eads off 'cos someone up on stage is speaking straight to their souls, like? hell of a disarray, and probably no one there you'd want to take home to meet yer sister, but it's love, too, ennit? '

he drops his cigarette and stubs it out under his boot, gesturing to the ash left behind. ' and all the shite you find in parking lots: lost keychains, car manuals . . . it's litter, yeah, and not doin' the environment a lot of bloody favors, but s'also proof that people passed through. left a mark. lived. y'miss a whole lot'o stories if you only go lookin' for the beauty. '

[arbutus-blossoms]

"Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I Choose to see the beauty"

" These violent delights have violent ends "

[somebaconlover]

Westworld (2016-2022)

Created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy

Cinematography by Paul Cameron, Brendan Galvin, Robert McLachlan, Jeffrey Jur, David Franco, Darran Tiernan, John Grillo, M. David Mullen, John Conroy and Peter Flinkenberg

Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Anthony Hopkins and Tessa Thompson

"Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty. To believe there is an order to our days, a purpose."

[mecdidikmen]

I Choose To See The Beauty

My First Framed Photograph, I named it "I Choose To See The Beauty" 28 years after I took it, -after time made me take it that is. “Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty. To believe there is an order to our days. A purpose… I like to remember what my father taught me. That at one point or another, we were all new to this world. The newcomers are just looking for the same thing we are, a place to be free. To stake out our dreams. To be free with unlimited possibilities… All lives have routine. Mine’s no different. Still, I never cease to wonder the thought that any day, the course of my whole life can change with just one chance encounter… There’s a path for everyone. Your path leads you back to me. I know things will work out the way they’re meant to be.“ ~from Westworld's script (a television show that I dearly enjoy) ~This is my first photography moment, back when I was around 6-7 years old. Around the same time that I had a dream that I followed all my life. You see, that's no pond or a river -that the rays of light shimmer, it was a broken water pipe in our street that caused that, but right before the sunset, 'twas this magic in my childhood street, and we had these cameras lying around so, and one day I though, "Let me frame this today, so maybe I could see what I saw here, In the future."

[copiesofme-archive]

        Silence. It is all that she had. All that she had to give to the world in place of the shaking grief that she had to offer. They had lost everything, it was gone, her family, the farm, all in the matter of a few hours. With a secret that they had suffered for, were punished in the name of. A secret that Dolores herself was entirely unaware until the executioners had stood above her, ripping and tearing at her dress. Begging, had gotten none of them anywhere- it hadn’t helped Dolores. It hadn’t helped Ashley, or her daddy, or mama. The healing gash along her stomach was enough testament to that, the way that her skin crawled when anyone came near to touching her skin. She pitied Logan, in truth he had been the one who had found her again. And had been as patient as can be. She scorned her own inability to grasp or lay claim to what had happened. But in truth, there was so much that she felt that on days where she wasn’t feeling anything, she felt nothing.

      Perhaps that’s why she hadn’t cared to fill any silences around her with the sentiment she once held in such high regard, perhaps it was the very same reason that it took away any sort of appetite she might’ve had before. Penelope had come and would approach with understanding - her dearest sister. Just as Logan had, but Dolores had no words left for them.

       When Clara came, she had taken to trying yet again to finish a cross stitch that had survived the first. But it was a useless loop of pushing the needle through again and again, and finding she’d have to undo it all when her mind had taken her away and a pricked finger would have her noticing the red staining the needle.

        Dolores pauses when she realizes that Clara had seated herself next to her with a bowl of porridge, a curious blink when it suddenly answers her own reflected question on what she had been doing in the kitchen. But then tries to turn a pressed brow back to the now stained handiwork and sighs with the drop of it onto the table when she determines that - this one is now ruined too.

        @soucriante​ / gets a plotted RDR thing!!

[christophernolan]

Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty.