#(i am pretending that is the case)

[blueteller]

Classic Clown-To-Clown Communication

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Assisting Acquaintance Acquired.

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[moeblob]

So does he, Gallagher.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Ok So who is down for a bit of a wild Eddie Diaz is Freddie Mercury theory that is actually based in colour theory?!!

Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds insane but hear me out!

So Freddie superstar queer man of moustache wearing fame who also happened to sport a swept back floppy haired look in the 1980’s

Remind you of anyone??

Yeah - similar hairstyle and moustache! Keep that in mind as we continue!

Did you know that he never actually confirmed his sexuality publicly?

He hinted at it in the lyrics of Bo Rhap - which he wrote (and released with Queen) in 1975 when he was figuring things out. At that time he was in a relationship with a woman (Mary Austin - who he called his wife even though they never married. They remained best of friends and she was at his side when he died - he left her most of his estate) but had an affair with a man - and was also dealing with religious and childhood trauma (he was sent to catholic school and had a difficult upbringing at the hands of his mother). Bo Rhap was Freddie sorting through all of his feelings around his sexuality - the lyrics can be interpreted in many ways but the other members of Queen have spoken about its meaning being clear and personal to Freddie at the time. So ‘mama’ is a reference to the Virgin Mary and also to his mother - playing on both his childhood and religious traumas, saying he didn’t mean to make them cry is about not wanting to disappoint them but also about needing to be true to himself. ‘Just killed a man’ is about the death of his heterosexuality. I could go on (I can always write a post explaining the lyrics more fully if that is something that would interest anyone - Queen and Freddie were a hyperfixation of mine as a teenager!!) but I won’t in order to keep to my actual wild theory!

Now I wonder who that sounds like?? Childhoood trauma at the hands of his mother, catholic upbringing that didn’t fit with who he is, relationship with a woman who he loved but didn’t love the right way?? Yeah that sounds remarkably like a certain Edmundo Diaz if you ask me.

Now the moment Freddie actually ‘came out’ without actually coming out and essentially confirming he was not straight (there is debate about if he was gay or bi because he referred to himself as bi) was when he released ‘The Great Pretender’ in 1987 - when he was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS (he had been showing symptoms since 1982 but he also never actually confirmed his diagnosis until the day before his death in 1991) The reason this is significant in relation to Eddie DIaz is multi fold!

Firstly this was the moment Freddie chose to shave off his moustache as a symbol of not hiding who he was anymore and he never grew it back. So for Freddie Mercury his moustache was a literal mask and not a symbol of his queerness. The song is literally about coming out to the world and confessing and not hiding who you are and about wanting to fit in even though you are different. When we have had Episodes titled Masks, confessions, and have wannabes coming up - and we have Eddie Diaz shaving off his moustache as a symbol of not hiding any longer - choosing to embrace his true self - that’s a pretty loud parallel if you ask me.

Now to the colour theory of it all - because you see we have pink coming to the party for both Eddie and Freddie!

Freddie wore this wonderful double breasted pale pink satin suit for the promotional photographs and for the music video of ‘The Great Pretender’ and the scenes he wore it for in the music video were the ones that symbolised him being his true self as he reflected back on his life and all the various costumes and ‘disguises’ he wore throughout his life and career.

And now we’ve had Eddie in Pink for two very key scenes - the only time he has worn pink in the entire show.

Firstly we have the karaoke scene with Eddie in his Crockett and Tubbs pale pink suit and dark pink shirt.

And then we have Risky business Eddie in a pale pink shirt

Both times Eddie has worn pink pale pink have been in connection with being shown his true unmasked and unfiltered self - at the karaoke we see him letting loose and just enjoying himself, and then we have the newly shaven Eddie dancing the Risky business dance finding joy in something. They’re both scenes about Eddies joy, his freedom and him expressing himself. They’re about showing the audience who the real Eddie is - when he isn’t weighed down by all the other things in his life.

Oh hey look, its not even just the pink parallels of it all because we also had drag queens in the great pretender music video (L-R Roger Taylor, Peter Straker and Freddie Mercury) just like we did in the Karaoke scene.

And then we have the green and pink parallel!

Because something I have been side eyeing hard since we first got the stills for the karaoke scene is the colour swap for Buck and Eddie. This was the first time we saw Eddie in pink - in any real colour colour to be honest - Eddie has stuck to a pretty rigid colour palette since he first appeared in Under pressure (oh look yet another Queen reference!) always in muted shades rarely wearing anything bright and generally in a green, grey, blue, black and white colour palette with a little bit of burgundy/maroon thrown in. The only time we’ve really seen him in anything close to a bright colour is the yellow shirt from 601 which we have just seen again in 806. Buck however has worn pink on numerous occasions (Mays graduation party, the tsunami, the hilly coffee maker scene, when Chim figures out Buck knew where Maddie was scene etc etc) and so it is a staple colour for him. Mint green however is not a colour he wears - in fact Buck wearing green more generally is not common at all (especially outside of break up scenes!). So I was already looking for significance in the colour choices that had been made - but didn’t have all the pieces (and not just because the actual karaoke element of the scene had been cut) - until now! Now it is very clear that wardrobe and ABP have to have been given specific colour instructions about Eddies costume colour - because they needed it to play into the Freddie Mercury concept - the pink suit and the swept back hair, the drag queens - the entire thing was a nod to the great pretender and basically the kicking off of a queer arc for Eddie - now backed up by the 806 scene.

I wrote at the time in my meta about pink being the colour for the season and being a play on innocence and naïveté - which did fit with this scene and Eddie in this scene, but it also felt like it wasn’t the entire answer - with the context of the risky business Eddie scene though - now it is making sense - it is about showing Eddie letting go and being free, but it is also symbolic of Eddie becoming lighter (and no I don’t mean in terms of the fact he seems to only wear half his clothes when he’s in pink!) as he allows his true self to see the sunlight.

It also gives us this very interesting parallel/mirroring - Eddie in Pink - Buck in green - in both scenes - the framing is the same - right down to Eddie drinking his beer!

Notice how the tone has swapped though - Eddie darker toned in his darker pink shirt while Buck is super pale in the mint green - switched to Eddie in the super pale pink while Buck is in the very dark green. In S7 both are in relationships and they’re all over each other - because it is ‘safe’ to do so - its the most intimate we’ve ever actually scene them (physically I know they’ve metaphorically been closer) Then when they’re both single they’re keeping a foot apart!

The parallel is a really interesting one - this idea that the episode before - in 705 both Buck and Eddie nearly end up single but choose to stay/ pursue relationships that are not the right fit for them - highlighted by this karaoke scene showing who there person actually is - now backed up by the final scene of 806 - reversed colours and all - showing who their person is after both relationships have ended. The light and dark of both scenes plays into who is in the better place in that moment - So Buck was in the best place in 706 while Eddie is in 806. The other aspect of the two scenes is the loud v quiet. Bucks bi arc being a loud and bright colourful affair full of drama etc, while Eddies is taking a more sedate and quiet route - much like the quiet of a scene where they just sit together in silence. This is a reflection of what each needs in those moments - Buck needed the world to accept him and his bisexuality in 706 and in 806 its about Eddie accepting himself. Their journey’s from here on out are the opposite - Buck now needs to sit in the silence and accept himself while Eddie needs the acceptance of the outside world (namely his parents and Chris) they are holding mirrors up to each other and it perfectly highlights their respective personalities and wider journeys. It also reflects the duality of Freddie Mercury himself - a complete showman - confident and full of charisma on stage - off stage however he was, by all accounts a quiet and unassuming but complex man who accepted himself privately but wasn’t able or wiling to share all of himself with the world (as was and is his right).

So the Freddie Mercury parallel that it seems Tim is playing into is very loud and telling and the colour theory is backing it up perfectly so far.

This is a rambling mess - it’s 2:30am and I should be asleep so apologies if it makes zero sense, but I hope it does!

[alexandraisyes]

The cutest reminder ever that the way family works in TSAMS canon is that two parties have to be in mutual agreement that they are family. If one party doesn't agree then they aren't family. Parties can revoke familial ties whenever they want and that means they are no longer family.

"Code Relation" theory is stupid because you're then implying that Eclipse is Sun and Moon's child. Which he isn't. Or that Killcode is somehow Moon's child and his brother at the same time that he's Eclipse, Lunar and Bloodmoon's "father" at the same time that they're Sun and Moon's grand children. Like, we're seeing the issue here, right?

Don't make things more complicated than it has to be. Just accept the fact that family is literally determined by a verbal agreement between two animatronics and nothing else because none of them were born from wombs. That means respecting canon when characters in canon decide that they aren't comfortable being family (like Eclipse) or just straight-up disown everyone (like Bloodmoon). It's okay to have headcanons, but don't try to push them onto canon.

[wisegentlementyrant]

NOEL POSTING "COUNCIL SKIES" LYRICS ON TWITTER... ON THE SAME DAY IT'S HIS SISTER-IN-LAW'S BIRTHDAY.

Exactly what the title says, guys. Noel posted the following "Council skies" lyrics:

‘Cause I believe in magical I’m dedicated to it on Underneath the council sky I found you ‘Cause life is unpredictable You can win or lose it all Underneath the council sky I found you.. I found you.

If you listened to the album, you may have (Or not) noticed it's all about Liam, once more. Him posting this confirms that speculation.

This isn't the first time Noel has posted lyrics about his brother. We have the famous incident on Liam's birthday, where Noel's account posted "If I had a gun" lyrics, clearly something done specifically for his little brother.

However, now the date isn't something that has to do with Liam himself. Rather, it has to do with Debbie, Liam's girlfriend and manager: Today, it's her birthday.

We know that Noel is a possessive and jealous man, even more with Liam. We have many instances of him showing this, probably the most notable one being the Loch Lomond kiss. Him and Debbie haven't met each other, as far as we're aware.

And I don't think they've met, either.

Debbie is like a female Noel in many ways. Her personality, her role in Liam's life, the dynamic being really really similar to the one Noel and Liam had before, her being the controlling one and Liam submitting to her. So? What am I trying to say?

Considering the timing and the information given, this may be Noel declaring war on her. Pulling rank, right before the tour even starts.

Yeah, that's right. It's not exactly impossible, is it? Like, he did worse and there are prior instances similar to this now.

Could be all a coincidence, maybe. But I can't ignore this. I have to speak up.

And considering Liam's own behaviour... He'd be completely into it, if this is Noel's intention.

[unriding]

i made us dinner if u would like to come (๑⃙⃘´༥`๑⃙⃘)

[obsob]

btw i am goin on a little posting hiatus for like a week !!!! brain is slop

[messiahzzz]

When I came across that "joke" from Tav to Quill and Z'rell's comment (plus Halsin), I had to take a minute to process what happened. Gale might be a bit silly and eccentric but he's the kindest, sweetest and most passionate character in that party. No wonder the poor man has deep insecurities to solve, so many people reduce him to an easy target! Ofc one of the side effects would be overconfidence and ambition as a defense mechanism. He's obv lonely; only Tara and Morena ever loved him for him.

his eccentric nature might be a part of it. he is loquacious, outgoing, and doesn’t see the point in hiding his enthusiasm. he is considered to be the weird one. naturally, wizards in general being seen as somewhat squishy and physically weak might also add to it.

personally, i really don’t like the implications of the (widely considered) autistic-coded character being the one who faces the most ridicule by far by other characters and fans (and larian) alike.

some might disagree with me on that, but i don’t find it funny by any means either. mostly it just makes me feel bad. “he deserves it. cocky, arrogant, hubris-ridden wizard needs to be taken down a peg” like he isn’t… y’know… already at his lowest. it also disregards the fact that much of his bravado is part of his carefully curated Great Wizard of Waterdeep™ persona that he has skillfully adopted to mask his general feeling of being defective. being fiercely proud of your skill and knowledge and being doubtful of having something truly worthwhile to offer are mindsets that can coexist. according to fandom, gale is either secret hubris incarnate that is only waiting to be unleashed upon the world or pure baby that can do no wrong. instead of a character that is just as flawed and traumatized as all the others, but no less deserving of genuine love.

to me, the constant ridicule just reads as further feeding into his deep-rooted insecurities and his belief that he (as gale, the person) isn’t someone who holds inherent worth. it really, really doesn’t sit well with me.

[toomanydramass]

Okay guys hold on i though we were only getting a peck on the lips but they went full on make out session mode??????

Also it's diabolical that we need to wait 4 days for another episode, give me all of them now 😭😭😭

[criticalbeauregard]

god i wish it was tomorrow at 9pm est

[msburgundy]

i must talk to the guy who offered me the part time bookkeeper job again (wasn't 100% sure i was qualified for it when he first brought it up lol) and depending on what the pay is, i may survive after all

[presiding]

I'm not a new follower and I've been here long enough but i do have a relatively bad memory

So I've wanted to ask, what's your opinion on "Dishonored: death of the outsider"?

Right now I'm replaying Dishonored games not in the release order, i already finished DH2 and started Daud dlcs. Maybe I'll go for vanilla DH later

But thoughts about going through death of the outsider again makes me feel something that i can't explain... 😬

It has some interesting ideas but antagonists are underused. Locations repeat a lot. And Billie herself deserved SO much better than whatever is going on with her character

I'm genuinely debating if i should revisit *this* one or pretend that DH2 is the last game. I know that some people love DOTO but i can't find strength in me

love to chat about death of the outsider, ty for the ask!

i feel your pain. it's the one game i struggle to revisit. but! i was thinking about your points and how DotO has the feel of budget cuts.

it's been about a year since my last DotO post - so, essay time -

a measured response to common DotO criticisms

(the thousand bugs of dishonored 2 I had borne as I best could, but when doto ventured upon sidelining billie and retconning daud's arc I vowed revenge*

*can't resist a cask of amontillado joke

criticism is easy and creation is hard, so, if this isn't the type of response you wanted, you can read my other DotO posts:

how i'd write death of the outsider

that post i did after trying to play doto a third time and couldn't make it past the opening scene (you might like my tags on this re: your comment "makes me feel something i can't explain")

billie lurk as a nonprotagonist & misogynoir (more on this below...)

gonna leapfrog off your comments cause I agree!

antagonists are underused/locations repeat a lot.

who is steering the boat?

let's start up at the top; everything stems from there.

DotO was caught up in ownership/transition issues. here's an article about harvey smith and raphael colantanio at that time. if you didnt know, colantonio is the main founder of arkane (semi-related but just for fun look his appearance up then go through arkane's protags and tell me what you notice...).

quote from harvey smith re: DotO -

“Then, just as I move back, [Colantonio is] announcing that he’s leaving. Going forward, I’ll focus more and more on the Austin studio and what we’re going to do there. Death of the Outsider is my wrapping up with the guys in Lyon – the first half of that we planned together while I was living there, but the second half was worked on while I was living in Austin. I’ve been communicating with them through video conferences and stuff, so they carry a lot of the load of the second half of it.”

so the founder jumped ship and the co-creative director has to step away from his usual position (over to sinking ship Austin). meanwhile, DotO is still in development. i'm a big believer in people making art, and not companies (even in this article Smith acknowledges much of their "secret sauce" can be traceable to specific devs but i digress)

$$$ kaching - some speculation

on the note of founders - past this point in arkane's history (ie. the main founder stepping back), arkane would have been being primed for sale. this translates to high scrutiny on project expenditure (such as hiring cheaper early career staff, hiring less workers, denying your best staff raises causing them to leave and hiring cheaper workers in their place, etc) to make the company's EBITDA look more appealing to buyers (briefly, its the piece of paper that proves you're profitable). based on speculative timelines, from a purely $ perspective within the first year of dh2 being released is when you'd be looking to slim down your capitalised expenditure (aka: cutting staff while the revenue is at a peak to make number go brr and make your company look like a better investment) because to maximise the profit of a company's sale, you really have a great track record for a few years.

this is purely speculation based on timelines. companies are very careful to hide when they're doing this, ideally they want ~3 years of a great track record (and staff that will keep working their hardest).

big goals and no money

DotO was meant to be a two-part DLC like the Dh1 DLCs, so shout out to what could have been made if their original pitch had worked.

On locations & antagonists & budget - this dev's site discusses the Conservatory level in game AND specifies it was budget constraints being the reason for cutting off traversable area from that mission. Great link for comparing the original level & the DotO version, especially re: your point about reused assets/levels.

We could pick other examples here but this post is already long so -

Billie herself deserved SO much better than whatever is going on with her character

i would forgive this game anything if there was any good billie storywriting.

:')

its never just the writers

after revisiting articles to fact-check for this essay, i've seen a lot of articles blaming writers by name (you didn't do this anon which i love <3)

games are made by teams, and decision making is generally done top-down, so blaming individual contributors is shit. 1) writer's pay isn't good enough to cop this kind of abuse. 2) it's rarely in their control - you can write a beautiful scene only to have that level cut due to costs (etc), and then you need to work out how to make the story make sense. ideation & decision-making are separate and i guess 'this idea was [X]'s' should not be mistaken for 'this is the fault of [X]'s.'

on hiring fans (& imm-sim writing strategies)

the new writers [...] already had an idea of the world, as they’d seen it from the outside, as fans. “These are all people that knew this world we had created and they took it as canonical, as the gospel. Whereas, for us, it was bits and pieces we’d made up along the way.”

as someone who used to hire writers, and i promise this isn't in bad faith: don't hire fans unless your priority is cost then, sure, fans are likely to put in overtime (and not be in a position in their career where they can ask for higher remuneration - they'll pay the passion tax to be involved).

writers (esp new career writers) have to be open to receiving feedback assuming healthy/functional processes, and being a fan makes that harder because you care more. and, as a fan, you know what loose ends exist and that's where you'll naturally jump to, even though writers should start with target audience and branding, and build from there. if i expand on this i'll get offtopic so let's keep going!

DotO feels lifeless because it doesn't add anything to the DH universe, it only takes away by closing storylines without the satisfaction of closure. sure, stuff was added - the cult subplot, locations, some NPCs/enemies, etc. but they feel like part of the objectives, not part of the dishonored universe. you can feel the decision-making process when you play: there's a feeling that the priority was to finish the assets required for missions, instead of writing a story that feels immersive.

compared to standard videogame writing, where you can generally get away with "everything you touch and read relates to your objectives as the protagonist", as an imm-sim writer, you need to focus on:

how does this text build the universe so that the player feels like they're only seeing a small part of the world?

of course - this is difficult with budget/time concerns. i've said it before but this is part of why we rarely have games as rich as dishonored 1 & 2, because imm-sim design philosophy flies against the current videogame industry trends of microtransactions & cheap-to-make addictive mobile games. given a tight budget you focus on the high level story, but player immersion is a function of details.

most likely, dh2 was the end of an era. typing that out makes me sad.

what did the devs say about writing billie

*breathes deeply*

the death of the outsider protag was originally pitched as being about a regular human, someone not related to emily and corvo but instead an overseer or a brigmore witch. daud was also pitched.

this could have worked! really cool to have a nobody, or a heretic, or an overseer, be involved with the death of a god. and i've mentioned before that storywise DotO's protag could have been anyone (i think i made a joke about wyman? hah) and wouldn't change the story much, bar some daud bits.

quote from the same article:

eventually Arkane settled on Billie Lurk, Emily's companion from Dishonored 2. [...] Bakaba tells me that because Billie had already received her redemption arc in Dishonored 2, Death Of The Outsider's story could be about something more than that.

welp.

so there's two things here - a redemption arc claim, and DotO's actual story.

in addition to not being the first pick, the view was that billie's story was over. i question the 'redemption arc' claim - sure, billie helps the protag in dh2 but after her confession, if you tell her she's changed, she brushes it off and you part awkwardly without forgiving her... does that count? if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? if a character redeems themselves but the story never tells you, are they redeemed?

billie's role in dh2 isn't really that different to the dlcs, where she follows you around being Mr Exposition while withholding a LOT of information that could have actually helped the protag. given DotO's plot, going after the killer who shaped her doesn't scream 'reformed' either. ludonarratively speaking, the lack of chaos implies billie never changed from being a callous killer - which i'm not against, it would have been a cool story.

and! contrast this with daud who already had his redemption arc!

When first conceptualising Death Of The Outsider in around 2014, Smith and Duval knew they wanted two things: Billie Lurk being used to get to The Outsider himself, and closure for Dishonored villain (and later ally) Daud.

in the two DLCs, as we know, he comes to realise his actions sucked, and as the player you actively make things right (related: my post about ludonarrative dissonance in dh2). so if billie had "already received her redemption arc", why was this another daud story?

imo this isn't a budget issue but a misogynoir issue. "we want this story to be not about the protagonist so any random NPC will do, how about we go with billie lurk and get a black woman as a dishonored protag?" this logic, which is what i'm reading of the above two quotes, feels frustratingly tokenistic when she's an established character with a rich background. it's an example of surface level diversity because DotO is not about her by arkane's own admission. it's a similar vibe to the companies who say they have a diverse team but you check their staff page and all the people of colour have 'assistant' in their title and the board is all white, so it's not people of colour who are driving the business. maybe this was entirely by accident but these accidents add up to systematic failure - billie gets her own game but never her own story. it feels like she got assigned the caretaker role for these two guys. great.

for fairness, let's compare to dh2. corvo & emily are relatively hands-off protags in terms of their ongoing thoughts about their surroundings and the lore placement about them specifically is sparse, and this style continues in DotO. the issue is the core narrative: corvo & emily are both the protagonists of their story in the sense that dh2's story reflects their goals ("take back what's yours"), whereas Billie is an established character who has arguably little reason to go along with each mission. worse, the main plotline she's literally forced into going along with. in the opening scene billie gets assaulted and still helps the guy who assaulted her.

fundamentally, DotO's narrative is not about billie but about daud and the outsider, and this article makes clear that was by design.

whats the takeaway

DotO is the weakest entry in the Dishonored series for most people, and blaming budget & a corporate changeover makes me feel... uh well it doesn't really help me tbh but your mileage may vary. it does interest me to think about what we could have had!

for me, my opinion is that if writing billie was a priority (link to my own post where i describe the feeling of playing doto as someone interested in billie) arkane would have made it a priority, even amidst constraints. billie's redemption arc was not resolved imo, and putting her in a game without a chaos system feels like as much a backwards slide for her as daud's plotline to kill the outsider was for his arc.

we absolutely 🤝 on not being in a rush to play the game again.

on the upside. dishonored 2 is a really wonderful game and i love it very much.

[everyone-with-a-para]

hope everyone w paras who have dead siblings have a good day

(i have so many it's starting to become and addiction hahaha /j)

^^^^^

[thenonbinarydetective]

There's something that always bothers me about people saying "Barbara going back to being disabled" doesn't matter if it's positive, negative, or neutral. It's the "going back" part because it's just not true. She wouldn't be going back, she would just be without assistive medical technology.

In the closest real-life example, not everyone who uses similar technology is considered "cured" as the removal of the device would mean they are no longer enabled. In only a few cases have I ever seen "cured" but that's potentially dependent on injury/cause of disability where it was possible the device just made recovery easier and there are many different causes to SCIs/paralysis/similar conditions. Others have no chance of recovery but have a chance of being enabled. But still not fully becoming an able-bodied person. Even some of the ones who recovered their ability to walk were still limited in what they were capable of (and therefore still disabled)

So honestly now, it's just coming to me how bad representation the chip is of similar realistic treatment and disabled people who use that treatment. Before anyone is like "But Barbara's isn't real" I know that, but now I'm literally seeing people say the same shit about REAL PEOPLE who have had nearly THE SAME TREATMENT because they're letting poor representation in a comic book determine how they view this course of medical treatment.

TLDR: No Barbara Gordon wouldn't "go back" to being disabled without the chip. Writers and fans aren't good at writing disability and it shows

[eky-2]

Ah I guess that now that we are still in pride month this must be my first post ❤️🧡🤍🩷💗