#(there's a huge meta behind this)

[lassieposting]

Absolutely obsessed with the ecosystem and interpersonal political implications going on in Poppy Playtime right now, like.

What we have in the Playtime Co factory is a society made up of creatures who were all, at one point, human. And while it's stated that the experiments have varying levels of intelligence and ability to recall their former lives, we know that a lot of them, if not all of them, retained at least some of their humanity post-transformation. For example:

Most of the experiments are angry, resentful and vengeful towards Playtime Co - they understand they have been wronged, and they are capable of holding grudges.

Poppy and the Prototype seem to have the same end goals (putting a stop to the experiments and saving the innocents being used in them), but diametrically opposing views on how to go about achieving them (the Prototype is a gritty realist who knows no war was ever won without bloodshed and is willing to cause collateral damage in the name of his cause, where Poppy is far more idealistic, moderate and morally opposed to/upset by the deaths of the Playtime Co employees). This dispute has escalated far enough that the Prototype apparently shut Poppy away before the Hour of Joy could begin, and Poppy now wants the Prototype dead for what she sees as a crime equal in atrocity to Playtime Co's - they are able to understand ideologies, have ideological disagreements, and strategise against each other.

Huggy Wuggy, who seems to be only slightly more intelligent than a predatory animal, can still write, and uses the ability to try to guide fleeing prey in the wrong direction - that suggests he uses the vents to hunt on a regular basis, and he's clever enough to use basic deception.

On the subject of Huggy Wuggy, when he escapes the facility, his first instinct is to go home.

There are also numerous examples of the experiments being able to form and maintain social bonds, and work together:

Mommy Long-Legs is described as "nurturing" and "motherly" towards the other experiments, as well as the children. She's placed in the Game Station precisely because her desire to protect and care for the children outweighs her hatred for her captors: she won't act aggressively in front of them.

DogDay says that he's "the last of the Smiling Critters", implying that the Playcare originally had a full complement of Bigger Bodies Critters and that they were all able to coexist peacefully.

Kissy Missy and Poppy clearly have a friendship, with Poppy willing to charge into unknown danger to help her friend.

Miss Delight originally calls the other teachers her sisters, and she's horrified and grief-stricken by her own actions when she turns on them.

Miss Delight and CatNap form a non-aggression pact that seems to include some kind of respect for territorial boundaries, as Ollie claims that CatNap usually avoids the school. That's Miss Delight's turf, and he clearly respects her space, even though it technically falls inside his own territory.

The Prototype - who's usually kept in isolation and under surveillance precisely because he's known to be violent - was on multiple occasions set loose in a room with at least CatNap (and potentially other experiments) without bloodshed. He's even confirmed to have patiently tolerated CatNap lowkey imprinting on him and following him around like a duckling.

The Prototype also opts to save Theo Grambell's life, knowing damn well that to do so means sacrificing his shot at freedom. There is no reason for him to do this other than caring for Theo.

Again, DogDay is the last of the Smiling Critters. Despite the fact that there would have been six of them, and one of CatNap. Working together, they should have been able to overpower him easily, and the fact that they couldn't makes me think that either a) there was a big confrontation in which CatNap either arrived with or was able to call out for backup or b) CatNap became an infinitely more capable strategist and picked them off quietly one at a time, using skills he'd have to have learned from someone.

Anyway. My point here: these were originally people, with all the associated moral hangups and emotional messiness, and they retained a lot of their humanity post-transformation. And they were on the same side, to begin with. During the Hour of Joy, they all turn on the workers together.

But after that? The complete breakdown of that unity and those complex social relations into an essentially animal ecosystem, and the psychological impact on the surviving experiments, fascinates me.

By the time the game starts, the experiments have run out of food, and they've begun turning on each other out of desperation. The Bigger Bodies monsters, previously social and cooperative, have been forced into direct competition for food, and as a result they've largely become solitary apex predators with fiercely-defended territories, where they can pick off smaller, weaker experiments at will. There's some evidence of cooperation and coexistence between predators - Bunzo Bunny and the Mini-Huggies survive ten years in Mommy Long-Legs' territory, possibly filling the scavenger niche and surviving off her leftovers, and Miss Delight is tolerated in CatNap's - but the small toys we see scattered bloodily all across the factory (and the small Bunzo we see picked off by CatNap as it tries to cross a room) show that there's a whole category of experiments whose lives would've become all about hiding, and sneaking, and being where the Bigger Bodies critters aren't. The predators, driven to the edge of starvation, have had to surrender a lot of the human values and morals they had before. The prey have essentially become rodents - they're in danger every second they're not safely hidden away somewhere.

And yet!

The way they've reacted to their trauma is still so human.

Like. Take the difference between CatNap and Mommy Long-Legs.

Mommy and CatNap - Marie and Theo - have a very similar start in life. Both were children when they were experimented on and transferred into their mascot bodies. Both were orphans, and both are described as not fitting in or being particularly happy in the Playcare - Marie was bullied, and Theo is described as "odd" and "antisocial with other children".

But post-transformation, it seems Marie was largely left to, essentially, raise herself. We know that she was aggressively hostile towards staff, and gentle and nurturing towards orphans and other experiments, but we have no suggestion that anyone was caring or parental towards her. Like most of the experiments, she has a digestive tract and would have needed to eat, so she must have had a "keeper" of some kind, but she doesn't seem to have had any attachment to anyone who could serve as a parental substitute and guide her into adulthood.

When we meet her as Mommy Long-Legs, she would be a young adult - she's grown up in her mascot body. But even acknowledging that she's been driven mad by fear and isolation, her emotional development shows several damage markers you'd expect from a child so utterly deprived of love and care and guidance. She's emotionally unstable and prone to throwing extreme tantrums over small and arbitrary inciting factors, like "cheating" at a rigged game - there's very limited ability or desire to moderate or regulate her emotions. She's erratic, has poor impulse control, and when she's angry she lashes out violently at whoever is most convenient - like Bunzo - even though it's someone else - the player - that she's actually mad at. She does try to hide her disappointment at our continued existence behind her bubblegum Mommy persona, but she never quite learned to convincingly mask her emotions the way adults can. Nor has she mastered the art of making and executing a plan - when she attacks, it's all aggression - the single-minded grab-and-smash of an angry, thwarted child. Even Huggy, limited though his intelligence is, stalks the player and tries to chase them into a kill zone. But Mommy relies solely on her stretch ability - automatic, instinctive - and her sheer rage to make her the GameStation's apex predator. Left to raise herself, she never learned a lot of adult skills or survival strategies, and it's become a fatal flaw - she knows her territory, she knows where there would be machinery to look out for, but she's so single-mindedly focused on punishing the player that she completely overlooks her own safety.

Contrast: CatNap.

CatNap is also a young adult when we meet him, and if he'd also been left alone to raise himself, he'd probably have a lot of the same developmental stunting. But he doesn't, and that's interesting.

Now, let's take a very quick detour to look at the behaviour we've seen, not from CatNap, but from the Prototype. We know he's fiercely intelligent, calculating, and a tactical thinker with a talent for using his environment and anything in it (up to and including the player - he makes use of Mommy after we kill her, even though he's the facility's super predator and could easily have done it himself) to his advantage. We know he's stealthy - from how close to us he is at the close of each chapter, he's likely been tailing us from the moment we entered the factory, keeping his distance and watching us to see what we'll do and how he can make use of our actions. Some of his behaviours are strongly reminiscent of a soldier in action - I have a theory here that whoever became the Prototype had, at some point in his previous life, been a military man.

And now look at CatNap. Who has he become?

An intelligent, calculating stealth predator who uses his environment and any weaponizable thing he can get his claws on to take out his prey with minimal risk to himself. He's capable of adult logic and reasoning skills - i.e. the teachers will get hungry and harm the surviving children, so locking them in the school to fight to the death removes all but one threat, who can then be negotiated with once the children have been moved to safety. He's able to form and maintain alliances and agreements. He's even able to identify that the player is either a) not a threat to him or b) proving useful to the Prototype, and overlook his own hunger to offer them mercy: leave Playcare, or I'm coming for you.

In other words, he's grown up a lot like the Prototype.

And there's a reason for that! We know from the interdepartmental report on CatNap that for some reason, after his transformation procedure, he was allowed to socialise with the Prototype - an experiment who's considered so dangerous usually kept on lockdown in isolation under constant surveillance. And the report notes that CatNap "follows [the Prototype] around like a lost puppy" and that the Prototype "doesn't seem to mind".

Which, on its own, could just mean that the Prototype recognised Theo for what he was - a traumatized, hurting, confused little boy - and, aware that CatNap was not a threat, opted for tolerance over violence. But when you consider CatNap's history with the Prototype, I don't think that's it. Theo befriended the Prototype, or vice versa, long before Theo ever became CatNap. He was mortally injured trying to help the Prototype escape, and the Prototype gave up that shot at freedom to get Theo medical attention. They are close, and the fact that CatNap, a decade later, has assumed so many of the Prototype's traits and skills implies that they remained close for a good long while after the Hour of Joy.

Theo, aged 7, is clinging to the one person he feels safe with and protected by after a major trauma. If he follows the Prototype everywhere, he won't be left alone with the scientists. If he's not left alone with the scientists, they can't hurt him anymore. And the Prototype lets him, reinforcing the idea that you're safe with me. It's not unlikely that he feels responsible for CatNap's fate - if he hadn't taken Theo to the Playtime counselors for medical attention, the boy would have peacefully died, and wouldn't be living a nightmare - and he's stepped up to parent CatNap.

And you can see echoes of that ongoing bond in how CatNap behaves a decade later. Who taught him to hunt? The Prototype. Who taught him strategy and tactical thinking? The Prototype. Who gave him the survival skills he needed to make his way to the top of the food chain and stay there? The Prototype.

Unlike Marie, Theo had someone to protect him. Someone to play with and care for him. Someone to hunt for and feed him once the bodies began to run out, at least until he was fully capable of catching, killing and pulling apart his own prey. Someone to socialise with. And he's better adjusted - for a given value of "better adjusted", because like, nobody in this factory is even remotely okay - as a result.

And that's still so human. Despite the absolute horror-show feral animal situation they're all living in.

Just? idk man i have a lot of feelings

[sha-brytols]

the reason why i'm so endlessly obsessed with the dynamic between the magi warden and jowan is because of how. insane the PRIVILEGE you get from irving is. like they're both around the same-ish age (with jowan likely being just a couple years older), they both came to the circle at similar ages (jowan being there longest), they're both arguably very similar in their skill level (the part where the warden and jowan both have to open the door through magic i think can be used as proof of this!) and more than that, they're both so inseparable as a pair that jowan says he sees them as a younger sibling.

but even despite this jowan was literally constantly thrown under the bus by irving literally every chance he got. we know jowan's blood magic was almost definitely a symptom of irving enticing young apprentices towards the forbidden arts in order to weed out the "weak" willed mages, but the thing is, we also know that the only reason jowan turned to blood magic at all was because he was being denied his harrowing, and at a certain age if you haven't had your harrowing then you're essentially guaranteed to be made tranquil. so the insane dogging on jowan from irving was done even *before* he was put on irving's radar for practicing blood magic.

meanwhile the magi warden is irving's favorite student. his pride and joy. he constantly sticks his neck out for them (literally having to be told off by greagoir for essentially cheating during the warden's harrowing by telling them exactly what they will have to face in order to succeed), practically showers them in praise when introducing them to duncan, defends them after helping jowan escape EVEN IF if they were doing it directly under his nose, and all but verbally thanks duncan for rescuing them from the circle. it's very clear that irving sees the warden as almost his own child. but its also like. why did he choose them as an apprentice? you can play the warden as belligerently hostile towards the circle as possible and he still adores you.

meanwhile jowan was doing everything in his power to be as compliant as he could even despite his obvious resentment towards the system, but he was always just so replaceable. the kid literally never stood a chance and i'm almost certain at least part of it is because irving already chose his model student to groom and mentor into his successor, and it happened to be the magi warden.

the fact that one of the two magi wardens is a human noble from the free marches as well also adds a delicious layer to me too because then its like. now the problem seems way more systemic. your star pupil just Happens to be a young mage from a prestigious human family. and then its like. fuck why was amell even In kinloch hold to begin with? why werent they sent to the gallows? they're canonically the eldest of their siblings, so it couldnt have been to avoid having two relatives in the same circle at once. you know what i think though. i think they were only sent there because their family was influential enough to avoid having them locked away in what is essentially the most notoriously evil circle in all of thedas.

just very delicious to me how depending on your origin theres almost very clearly a class element at play. jowan was just a random village kid compared to amell. insane.

[mswyrr]

the Sept scene was fully in character for Rhaenyra & Alicent

I've seen fans--even Rhaenicent fans!--saying it was ooc or "fanfic." It wasn't. The original scene was much shorter: Emma and Olivia, two very talented actors who know their characters well, expanded it. They weren't just wasting time or suddenly lacking in talent and insight. They knew what they were doing and it connects all the way back.

So let's go all the way back! Where do we begin? Episode 1x01, King Viserys wants a son and male heir; he has wanted a son for so long that Rhaenyra, his 14-year-old daughter says (ep 1x01) "For as long as I can recall, it’s all he’s wanted." What has this done to her? Well, for one thing, it has made her mother, who has difficult pregnancies, in ill health for most of her life. This ill health means that Aemma did a lot of lecturing (and trying to keep Rhaenyra from flying and doing other risky things while she was sick) and not a lot of getting to spend quality time with her daughter. A distracted father, ruling the realm, and a mother sick with trying to give him the male heir he prioritizes above his wife and daughter.

Who has been there for Rhaenyra? Alicent. Alicent was hers. When Rhaenyra flies on her dragon, experiencing freedom from all her worries and power and joy, she wants ALICENT to be there with her, high above the sea, looking out over the city:

[source: 1x01 script]

When Rhaenyra had to have a difficult conversation with her mother, it was Alicent she looked to for comfort and emotional support -- in an act a cut scene from the script *explicitly calls "flirting"*. Rhaenyra relies on and longs for that "disarming kindness" she says Alicent has.

And it was Alicent's lap that Rhaenyra flirts about loving to lie upon. Alicent is so much to Rhaenyra that she dreams of running away together, just the two of them and Rhaenyra's bonded dragon Syrax.

Alicent was her cherished girl, her comfort and her chief supporter and advisor. She was Rhaenyra's heart's rest. And, yes - it was a friendship blossoming into flirtation and desire as the two matured. They were on the cusp of something. They were the world to each other.

[source]

Emma and Olivia get it and have always gotten it. Rhaenyra has this gorgeous yang or solar energy that finds balance with Alicent's yin or lunar energy. They're a sun and moon couple, balancing each other's strengths and weaknesses. With Alicent, the sword of Rhaenyra's intense energy has a sheath. A resting place. Her fire has a hearth. And Alicent isn't drained by people (like Viserys would later do...) who just take and take and take -- hurting her and draining that "disarming kindness" of hers until she's broken and ruined inside. Rhaenyra gives and cherishes in a way that made Alicent feel whole and appreciated.

Rhaenyra goes from being angry (angry the way a jilted lover would be - calling Alicent a "whore" for what she felt emotionally imo as Alicent cheating on Rhaenyra with her father) to instantly deeply protective and possessive once she learns more. See the cut scene after Viserys reveals his engagement to Alicent:

[script pages source] [photo source]

Rhaenyra is ready to take on the whole Seven Kingdoms to protect her girl!

Rhaenyra liked being the focus of Alicent playing the "lady beloved" role - reading soothingly to her, supporting and encouraging and admiring her, teasing her for being naughty, advising her about her political situation. She found rest and comfort there - and then Viserys took her mother, cutting her open to get his precious son out. And then, in his remorse and grief, he took comfort in Rhaenyra's girl (who was forced to give him that precious kindness of hers by her father) and her father *stole her girl too*. Not only did he steal her girl, he put her own status as heir into question by having a firstborn son with her - after wounding Rhaenyra deeply by chasing a son as far back as she could remember!

All the "she should be over it" stuff about Alicent... if Rhaenyra were a male character people would recognize the wound of having his crush stolen out from under him by his old man at the same time his old man refuses to fully back his status as heir - it's archetypal! It's gd Greek. Your old man trying to keep you from the girl you want, from your desires and destiny as an adult.

Rhaenyra makes total sense in the Sept scene - she has the primal wound of a girl who is an HEIR - who wanted to have things and act and possess and stand tall and be the lover to a girl's beloved in a way only boys are allowed in this society... and whose father took her girl away from her as well as making her feel uncertain of her status in a deeply wounding way. Rhaenyra correctly locates, emotionally, her rupture from Alicent as where it all went wrong. The Sept scene is about all of that emotionally and it makes total sense. It is also about Rhaenyra's sheer desperation and comprehension of the horror coming... and the most heartbreaking longing to return to a time when Alicent's heart was her home.

Alicent's heart was Rhaenyra's home. And her father stole the girl she loved. He took her and savaged and used and broke her and made her give birth to children she didn't want (at least not with him) from decades of sex she did. not. want. because even men who think they're nice in this society are allowed that - to cut a wife open for a son, to use a girl young enough to be his daughter. He vacillated between wounding and affirming Rhaenyra, never fully able to honor her as his heir because she was not a boy. And he couldn't even conceive of her feelings for Alicent because this is a deeply homophobic society - but he was also, even seeing it in a platonic light, selfish and inconsiderate of her feelings for her best friend.

He kept putting his feelings and needs first, over his wife, over his daughter, over her best friend.

I don't care if nobody else gets it - the way Emma plays it? They get it. They're an extremely talented actor who wasn't going "ooc" in the Sept - they were playing *that*. My father inflicted these primal wounds on me because my coming of age was more like a boy's--like things that should be allowed girls but are denied them-- and he thwarted me and yet I love him. And I love Alicent and I long for her heart, though it's full of poison and broken things now. Why does it all have to be like this? Why does it have to hurt so much?

The Sept scene is entirely in character for both of them. It is not "fanfic." It is not OOC. It is the broken heart of this tragedy bleeding before our eyes.

[evilkitten3]

i have a theory about shinji, gin, and aizen, but i'm not really sure how to word it.

we never really see shinji and gin interact all that much, which makes sense bc both of them have significantly more important relationships with aizen, but at the same time it's a little odd how much there isn't.

like. gin cut hiyori in half. shinji is understandably pissed about that, but he aims that anger at aizen - and this seems to be one of the very few things in the bleach world that honestly isn't on him bc he never told gin to do that, he never even implied it. hiyori was never a threat to him. hell, we don't even know if she was charging in the right direction; if anything, attacking her implies that she was which is a really stupid thing to do when you're surrounded by a bunch of people who super want you dead and would kill you if they could be sure you weren't tricking them into stabbing each other (ofc it could also be a fakeout but still)

but i don't remember shinji's beef ever really being with gin, even tho he didn't seem to anticipate that gin was working with aizen the whole time during tbtp. so like does he feel responsibility there? cuz gin went straight from academy to 3rd seat and shinji could plausibly feel like that sent him right to aizen bc he doesn't know that gin was always aiming for that. did he blame himself? does he feel like he should've seen it coming? does he still see him as some weird genius kid? does he just view gin as an extension of aizen, which is both dehumanizing to an extent but also entirely fair bc gin did that to himself?

the thing is, since we never really see them interact much, it's kind of only interesting on shinji's side of things, bc gin doesn't really care about much outside of whatever the fuck he thought he was doing and the version of rangiku that he has in his head who needs back something that the real one doesn't ever seem to have realized she lost to begin with. gin's so disconnected with basically everybody that most of the time you can usually assume his thoughts are just "lol. lmao" and there's no reason to think that doesn't extend to shinji as well (gin has deep thoughts on: aizen, ichigo, and matsumoto (massive asterisk on that one ofc) and i think everyone else is kinda set dressing to him lmao the guy is Fucked Up)

anyway i think it's interesting to toy around with that relationship as it was in reality as well as how it might've been perceived, but also in the sense of both of them being sort of opposite ends of the manchild spectrum - shinji leans into his childish side but still has a fairly adult worldview, and gin is able to pull off maturity to an extent but was never able to escape a deeply childish mindset

[spyridonya]

Once upon a time, not very long ago in terms of the planes, Raphael once fully supported his father during a coup under Baron Molikroth. Baron Molikroth was a sadistic pit fiend in appearance, gluttonous and obscene, who began a rebellion under Mephistopheles' nose. When sorting through the dead Archfiend's bastards, Raphael was defiant, refusing to join against his father's killer despite the tides of change. Many of his siblings found favor under Molikroth, but Raphael honored his oath.

In the decade that followed, those who served Baron Molikroth were killed by Molikroth's own hand. The coup and persona of the baron was planned by Mephistopheles who posed at Molikroth to find who was loyal and who was not. Raphael survived the purge than many of his siblings did not. Unlike his siblings, Raphael recognized exactly what was going on with the baron. It wasn't a sense of loyalty but knowing his father remarkably well.

He is his father's son, after all.

And then Daddy Mephistopheles went and started the Reckoning.

[redroyalblues]

to be so honest i’m really glad the rwrb movie seemingly did as much as possible to separate itself from the actual monarchy (changing the grandmother queen to grandfather king, taking out the name windsor, etc.) it feels more storybook and less ethically iffy (😭) to me that way

[chisungie]

.

[evilkitten3]

ok so like i agree with you in theory but. tbh there's not really a set "this is when you are an adult" age, biologically-speaking. generally, 16-22 seems to be where the average falls among cultural understandings of adulthood, but there's a wide range of ages that have been Official Adult Ages over time.

kawarama was seven, and itama even younger, but as shinobi they were considered to no longer be children (which.... understandable, in a deeply fucked-up way). let's say itama was 5/6. by the time naruto comes along, that age has doubled. that's an absolutely enormous difference.

hiruzen was 69 (nice) years old when he died. it's incredibly likely that he was born before the village was founded and thus spent his early years in that time of war where children barely out of toddlerhood were sent to die in battle. he may have even gone himself. so a 12yo being an adult in his eyes is progress. almost radically so.

kakashi, itachi, and the sannin were all noted to be exceptionally talented. the children in the warring states area were just regular kids, who unlike any of the aforementioned 5 had little training outside of what their families could provide them, and no "pass this test so we know you know what you're doing" verification. moreover, all of them were placed on teams with people meant to be guiding them along the way. itama died alone in the woods surrounded by five grown men with no qualms about killing a tiny kid shaking with terror with nothing but a kunai to defend himself (granted we don't actually know this for sure bc hashirama is telling this story and he. was not actually there in the moment)

hashirama and madara formed konoha to stop children - as in, people who were children in their eyes - from being sent to die on the battlefield. hashirama pretty clearly states that he doesn't think the current training being provided to child soldiers is sufficient. it should be noted that he and madara are maybe 13 here, and they seem not to consider themselves as children or adults, but somehow divorced from either. they talk about children as a separate group from themselves, but they clearly separate themselves from adults as well, seemingly for ideological reasons.

i've talked before about why butsuma's like that (and again @komehyappyou's explanation is better imo) so i'll skip that here, but i really don't think this should be viewed as things "staying the same". in terms of protecting children, the village system absolutely improved things. it's still a terrible situation, but it makes complete sense that people living in it - especially people who remember when it was significantly worse - would see it as reasonable.

i think a lot of the issue with how the child soldier thing is talked about in the fandom is due to the readers interpreting the words "child" and "adult" by their own cultural standards, and while that's not inherently wrong, it does leave a lot to be desired bc the world of naruto simply does not have a reason for those standards to exist. i mention real life historical japanese adulthood ages here, but i'll reiterate again that naruto by its nature can only draw so much from real life (for example: the time between the extremely modern-esque boruto era and the sengoku-based founders era is barely over a hundred years, whereas the real life reiwa and muromachi eras are separated by 446 minimum, meaning the timeline is operating on an incredibly condensed level in comparison to real life history)

This line from Hiruzen is brief but it says so much about the way Konoha operates. In this panel, Naruto is 12, but because he graduated from the academy and earned his headband, by Konoha standards he is now an adult. Following this logic that means that Itachi, the Sannin, and Kakashi, who graduated at ages 7, 6, and 5 respectively, would have also been regarded as adults. I don't think I need to explain why that's fucked up.

But what makes it worse is that it reminds me of another scene:

Kawarama Senju was only 7 when he died, but being a Shinobi meant Butsuma and the other adult ninjas viewed him as an adult. Hashirama and Madara formed Konoha in part to stop this attitude because they'd seen how badly it impacted their own families...but it took relatively little time for this practice to return, enforced by one of Hashirama's followers no less.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[saving-people-haunting-things]

Out of all of the things to go full conspiracy theory over, why Destiel?

[demonic0angel]

Inmate Dan part 2 where he meets the other orange jumpsuit "friends" in Arkham Asylum?

Part 1, part 3

"Ooh, Wraith!" Harley called, pointing to Jonathan. "That's Scarecrow! We call 'em Johnny!"

"No, you don't," he spat. "What're you doing here, Harley?"

"That's Dr. Quinzel to you, Dr. Crane!" Harley said faux-pompously, sticking out her tongue.

Wraith paused and his eyes lit up. "Wait, Dr. Quinzel? Youngest psychiatrist in the tri-state area? And Dr. Crane? Professor at Gotham University?"

Ivy leaned closer to Wraith and hissed a warning, "Stay away from him. He once drove two inmates to suicide only by speaking. He's dangerous."

Wraith grinned and his teeth flashed with fangs as he stared at Jonathan with interest. "Hello, Doctor," Wraith said, his deep voice almost a purr, "Could I get an autograph, please?”

Jonathan stared at him cooly and then he nodded once, although he looked slightly confused.

Wraith slipped a hand inside of himself, making everyone around him pause in shock as he then pulled out a textbook and a pen. He handed it to Jonathan, who stared at the textbook with a strange look before signing it. As Wraith placed it back inside of himself, he pulled out another book and let Harley sign it.

Delightedly, she realized that it was a book that she published.

“You’re a meta,” Jonathan said. “You seem powerful, so why didn’t you escape? How come you were captured?”

Wraith shrugged with a light smile. “My sister told me to relax and enjoy myself here. She also told me to explore what I want. I heard that there was a particularly hated criminal in here, so I wanted to see what the fuss was all about, so I let myself be captured.” He sighed a little. “My little birdie also personally handcuffed me, so I couldn’t get out.”

Harley tilted her head, catching onto a piece of information. “Who was it that you were interested in?”

“Someone named Clown? Jester? No, it was….”

“Joker,” everyone besides Wraith muttered disdainfully. They were all criminals who did violent things, but no one was as vile as the Joker.

Wraith hummed and nodded. “Yes, him. I wanted to see what he looked like. Thank you for signing the book, Dr. Quinzel, Dr. Crane. My sister is a huge fan and she’s studying psychiatry right now.”

Both Jonathan and Harley smiled. “That’s good!” Harley squealed. “Tell her that I’m rooting for her!”

Wraith nodded with a small, genuine smile, and Harley then dragged him around to introduce him to the other inmates, Ivy following behind as a silent guard.

He was surprisingly civil. Wraith treated Waylon with no fear or disgust despite his appearance, chatted calmly about law with Harvey (since his sister also studied law. She seemed to be a sort of genius), exchanged riddles and puzzles with Edwin, and was generally pleasant and even friendly to the other inmates.

However, he couldn’t hide his true nature to Harley. Wraith didn't allow anyone to touch him unless he initiated it. Although he seemed calm and collected, he was unable to hide his disgust and hatred of the general population. It seemed as though in general, he hated everyone around him. He had no fear of the guards and even seemed amused by the more frightening prisoners of Arkham Asylum. Although he was polite, it was clear that he hated them all, even Harley and Ivy.

Harley was utterly fascinated.

Eventually, after exploring the yard where the many inmates were lingering around, Wraith asked, “Where’s the Joker?”

Ivy answered, “He’s in solitude. He’s too dangerous to be around.”

Wraith frowned. “Where’s that?”

Harley giggled and said, “You wanna see him that badly? Maybe I’ll show you!” She wanted to see more of Wraith’s reactions, to study him like a bug. She also wanted to see what it would take to make Wraith enjoy her and Ivy’s presences.

“Harley!” Ivy scolded. “I don’t want you around him anymore! He’s a hazard to your safety and health!”

“It’s fineeee,” Harley said, dancing around her playfully, “I can take it! I just wanna show Wraith what he looks like! I promise not to fall for Mr. J anymore! Pleaseee, Ivy?”

In the end, Ivy relented and they snuck to the area of the asylum where the Joker stayed.

They dodged past the lazy guards and eventually, they were in front of the Joker’s cell. Harley stepped in front of his cage, suppressing a shiver as she looked inside.

There he was, her worst nightmare, wrapped up in a straitjacket and already watching her with a cold, cold gaze and a wide smile.

Why had she done this again?

The Joker laughed when she saw her. “Harley!” He crooned. “Here to release me? I knew you’d come around.”

This time, Harley couldn’t suppress the full shudder. “No thanks!” She snapped. “I’m not your lil doll anymore! You can’t order me around!”

The Joker’s friendly expression immediately twisted into a glare as he snarled. “I made you! And I can break you. You’re nothing but a harlequin, a toy for me to do what I want with! You’re nothing without me!”

Ivy bristled and she moved to pull back Harley, who was almost in tears, when Wraith moved first. He phased through the metal doors and with one casual click of bones breaking, the Joker laid slumped into his cell, quieted forever.

Wraith stepped back out and both Ivy and Harley scrambled to look back inside, recognizing the sound of a neck snapping, but unable to comprehend how easily it took.

Harley sputtered, “W-W-What?!”

Wraith shrugged.

“He was annoying. And I hate clowns.”

[fraddit]

This is the first post in a series of four about the 118 firehouse on 9-1-1, including floor plans, screen shots, and detailed discussion.

The other posts in this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

My other floor plans: Diaz House | Buck's Loft | Madney House

They're also on my Ao3

Overview

Broadly speaking I’ll start by talking about the actual building, then move on to discuss the model I built, then I’ll go into detail by section/room, starting with the stuff I’m absolutely certain about, then stuff that’s less cut and dry, and finally stuff that’s purely theoretical at this point, along with some extras.

Here we have a bird's eye view of the entire thing, both upstairs and downstairs. There will be additional close up bird's eye views of each individual section when I discuss them in detail throughout the posts.

The Real Building

First, let’s talk about the actual real life building that they film in. The firehouse set lives in a converted warehouse in Glendale, which makes that line from The Bachelor scene in s7e04 an extremely funny (to me) meta joke.

As for dimensions, the building is 60 feet wide and roughly 165 feet long. She’s big y’all. For scale, here are both Eddie and Buck’s living spaces inside the firehouse:

Below are some grungy google maps exterior shots for your viewing pleasure. I’m particularly delighted by the graffiti on the front garage door that reads: Don’t call 911. BAKE! (wake & bake)

It's here that I need to be pedantic about the roof. As you can see, this building has a sloped roof. That little smaller bit that pokes out the top is called a monitor and it allows for clerestory windows to let daylight into the full length of the building. This sloped roof is held up inside by massive wood trusses which feature very prominently in many of the interior shots. Below are some example screen shots. I have passive aggressively highlighted the slope of the interior roof. Also, you can see the monitor roof with all the windows in it.

Obviously they cannot hang out in lawn chairs on top of this roof. They film all the roof scenes at the Fox studios lot. You can tell by the surrounding buildings visible in the background of those shots. Note Fox Plaza (the Die Hard building) behind Athena below.

Additionally, it’s not always the same roof. I’ve highlighted two of the buildings I’m certain or mostly certain about below. I also labeled Stage 6 toward the top left of the image, which was the 9-1-1 sound stage through season 8.

I have a mental workaround that allows me to reconcile these conflicting roof situations that I’ll explain in depth toward the end of all this, because it’s also relevant to a couple other things too.

Also, this isn’t relevant to anything really, but I need to say that at no point in this entire process did I notice any evidence of climate control systems in the building, and there also appears to be zero insulation. So I cannot imagine this place is comfortable to film in a lot of the time. They seem to always have huge fans in bts videos during the summer, and I imagine it’s pretty chilly in there during winter filming. Thank god for the temperate Los Angeles weather, I suppose.

The Exterior

As far as the exterior goes, three sides of the building are exposed, and one wall is shared with the building next door.

The front facade in the show is mostly red brick and is completely computer generated. There’s a side alleyway that has like an engine hoist or something? I am not a mechanical expert. Sometimes the hose racks are out there, etc.

Also, when Buck was going insane and ordering basketballs to the station and suggesting they get a hoop, I could have sworn they already had one in the side alley, and sure enough, I wasn’t insane. It’s there in the background of Hen Begins. I guess canonically, it's gone by the time Buck’s losing his marbles, but at least I have proof I didn’t lose mine.

Around the back is an extremely tall wall covered with greenery. There’s also a few trees and other planters and what seems to be a pretty nice sitting area with concrete benches, but those might belong to the building next door.

About The 3D Model I Built

I built the model in a program called Chief Architect. I first started this project in *checks notes* March?? of 2022. However, then it kind of fell by the wayside for a while, gathering digital dust. When I started working on it in earnest again last year, I added updated screen shots to my reference files up through s7e05. So the model I built is accurate through that point.

Things like wall decor and various props will not necessarily match to current seasons. But they change that stuff pretty regularly between seasons anyway, so it’s not technically fully accurate to any one season.

There’s really not much that’s different in s8, so it’s not a big deal, but, where relevant, I’ve noted a few things I’ve noticed off hand while watching the episodes as they aired.

The dimensions and angles of everything are reasonably accurate. And the roof trusses are accurate to their location within the building and their height off the floor, but I let the program auto-generate all the cross beams and I left a lot of detail above that out, like the monitor roof and the lighting.

Also, I didn’t build anything that we haven’t actually seen. So those three corners of the building downstairs are just shown as big empty rooms. Are there walls and rooms in there? Probably! Can I show you them? Nope! I've seen glimpses through some of those doors in bts videos, and it seems like they store equipment in those sections irl.

Next up, in depth exploration of the upstairs sections.

Continue to part two...

[tackykachowch]

Silco was set up to be Fishbones from the start

Disclaimer: I won't take season 2 into account At All, because it can't work with setups and payoffs even if its life depends on it.

Alrighty. As we've seen Season 1 paid a lot of attention to set up canon things from LoL into the show as naturally and logically as possible, and at least from my point of view, it handled the job with flying colors. Jayce's hammer, Vi's gauntlets, Vander/Warwick etc, nothing felt out of place. But how does Silco fit into this at all? Let's get down to business to defeat the huns

First of all, what even is Fishbones? In the canon of LoL, it's one of if not the most iconic weapon Jinx has. And it is not only a weapon to her, but a loyal and "beloved" companion, as it's described in one of her skins. She constantly talks to it, and in contrast to her chaotic and impulsive nature, Fishbones is very pragmatic and calm. Sounds like a certain someone, doesn't it? But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

But how does Silco go from being Jinx's father to one of her weapons? There are a lot of points that support that actually, I was surprised myself ngl.

- Silco is the only character in the entire series who is directly and tightly connected to water and underwater creatures. Silco was "reborn" in the water when Vander tried to kill him, the first office he had was placed under the water, with a huge observational window. Silco is also fond of underwater creatures, and while other people call and see them as monsters, Silco pays no attention to it, as he thinks that there's "a monster inside all of us". And here's Fishbones, who is designed after a shark, arguably the most famous "underwater monster". But what is more interesting is that it debuted is the finale of season 1, which is titled "The monster you created". Quite a throughline there.

- Silco was the reason behind Fishbones' creation in the first place. While it does seem that it all started with Jinx, who stole the hex gemstone on the Progress Day, we also need to remember WHY she did it. She did it to impress Silco specifically, to make him to be proud of her. This want was triggered by her screwing up the smuggling mission earlier that day, and while Silco didn't scold her for it much and only advised her to rest for a bit, she saw this as him thinking that she's weak. So, after all of this Silco asks Jinx to make a weapon with the use of gemstone. Not necessarily to use it against Piltover, but to have it as a wild card if his plans go wrong. Jinx agrees and attempts to reverse engineer it, but it triggers her memories when she killed Mylo and Claggor with her bomb, so she tells Silco that she can't do it. He then goes to the river he was nearly killed in with her, and "baptises" her to help her let go of her fear of pain. This seemed to have worked, at least for a little while, because she managed to finish the weapon. So, in conclusion: Fishbones' creation was triggered by Jinx's want to impress Silco, and he helped her with its creation on every step of the way.

- this point is somewhat meta, but I'll use it anyway. In previously mentioned episode 9 Silco tells Jinx that everybody around them betrays them, and they have only each other to love and lean on. He says, quote: "Everyone betrays us, Jinx. Vander, her. It's only us". At the same time, in LoL Jinx says this line to Fishbones: "It's just you and me, Fishbones!". Well.....it's certainly a callback if I've seen one. Like- it's not even funny. They couldn't have written this line on accident.

- now onto the most interesting part for me personally. We all now that there are no accidents in animation, like. At all. Even if there are this is extremely rare, as every frame is created intentionally. Now, we do now that there are quite. A few discrepancies between writers and animators of arcane, but I don't think this applies in this particular case. Now onto the actual point. So, in the finale of season 1 Jinx kills Silco, and it's shown to us like this.

He's turned with right side ("human") of his face to the camera, while the left side ("monster") side is hidden.

As Jinx fires Fishbones at the council

It's positioned with its right side to the camera, which alignes with Silco's "monster eye". Also, Fishbone's eye has a black scar pattern around its eye, which again, resembles Silco's damadged eye. That could mean that Silco is once again "reborn", and now continues to live on in the monster Jinx created.

And here comes the most awesome part in all of this. When Silco adopts Powder, he hugs her and tells her

Do you see how the frame is positioned? Exactly. It is exactly the same framing scene with Jinx and Fishbones has. And, most importantly, when Jinx pulls the trigger, we hear the exactly same line on the background: "We will show them all". It simultaneously shows: that Jinx's attack on the council is her way of dealing with grief of killing Silco; her way of honoring Silco's fight against Piltover; and a direct transition of Silco into Fishbones. Although he's dead in body, but Jinx's memories of him and his voice now continue to live in Fishbones, her new eternal companion.

I am at awe with the fundamental work that's been done with this setup, and although s2 never followed up on this, I still can get enjoyment from the clear intent creators put here originally.

[softantlers]

natalie as daddy meta (part 1)

(happy father's day to this depressed italian!)

okay, okay, okay. silly title aside, something that has really been tugging at me with regard to natalie scatorccio is the concept of fatherhood. ever since season 3 aired, i've been seeing a lot of callbacks to natalie's upbringing and her dad's death. interestingly, much of the discussion has centered around nat's relationship with coach ben & tends to position ben as another father figure to nat (thus making her move to kill him all the more tragic).

and yes, yes, GO OFF. however, i think a more fruitful examination of nat's relationship to fatherhood can be explored by considering nat as never actually being fathered (not even by coach ben). rather, nat is character who, by virtue of her own trauma, naturally seeks to fill in the gaps left by shitty fathers. she's a character who understands deeply a father's capacity for disappointment, for abandonment, and even for violence. and the way she moves through this intuition is to become a type of caregiver, to become a protector, & to essentially adopt the role of father in the wilderness (as far as it will let her).

to this end, i would even argue coach ben is not a father figure to natalie-- she's actually a father figure to him.

(the crowd GASPS.)

okay, okay stay with me.

a little note on language

i think it's important for this conversation to consider nat's relationship to becoming a father figure (more on this, i promise) as a gendered thing. yes, "parent" could work just as well, but the show is naturally attuned to the absence of man as the structures & hierarchies of home collapse under the yellowjackets' experience in the wilderness. the notion that teenage girls now have the autonomy to take on roles that they would never normally be expected to in the outside world is meaningful, and the ways the yellowjackets expand and grow past the social limitations they left when they entered the wilderness is a big fucking deal. therefore, natalie adopting a position as father really needs that gendered texture to drive home its significance, which is why i'm avoiding neutral language like "caregiver" and expressly moving away from "mother."

nat is becoming a father.

coach ben didn't want this

okay, but what the fuck do i mean? well, the absence of dad is a huge theme in yellowjackets. as soon as the plane crashes, it's just the girls. all probable father figures are dead or injured, and there was no adult woman on the plane to play mother. coach ben's leg is fucked, and coach martinez was impaled by a tree. the only people left to make choices on how to survive are the girls, and you see them moving with (and against) each other to do so.

when ben finally comes to, he's totally checked out. it makes sense, given what he's lost, but all the same, he's not a leader for quite a bit. instead, he's processing what's happened to his leg & he's letting the girls lead the way. when taissa discovers the lake, he expresses some passive suicidal ideation, suggesting that they could just leave him behind. the offshoot of that is... well, what the fuck, dude? you're the adult here. yes, yes, he is going THROUGH IT. but comments such as this begin to cement a particular dynamic for the yellowjackets: they can't depend on ben. ben isn't who they can look to. he's more or less telling them he isn't the adult in the room.

for nat, this isn't too much of a change of pace. she grew up with a violent alcoholic father and a mother who was tapped out and passively letting the abuse happen (therefore, complicit). she's a fiercely independent person by virtue of the terrible parenting she received. honestly, when i think of natalie scatorccio the certainty that "no one is going to save you" comes to mind. i think this principle is what drives nat to be such a proactive presence in the wilderness. she has already learned not to rely on dad, or anyone, and so it's natural for her to step up & take matters into her own hands.

the gun as fatherhood

it's actually a bit sad because in s1e4 (bear down) we get our first glimpse into nat's trauma, and it starts with her dream about the plane. we have imagery of all of the yellowjackets freaking out as the plane begins to crash, and nat is looking horrified and her hand flies out. she reaches out for something, and what she gets is terrible.

there is the briefest flash of relief in nat's gasp of "dad" before her father turns and becomes a fucking nightmare. no reassurance for natalie scatorccio-- that was never her father's role. instead, he's there to show her how hopeless the situation really is, invoking the darkest parts of her own trauma in the very moment she reached for some comfort.

the gun is a potent symbol of fatherhood to nat because the gun is what defined and ended her own father. and here it's actually been put in her hands as the plane goes down and they descend into the wilderness. nat has fatherhood in her hands, and her reaction is absolute fear, panic, before it all settles into a slow steadying breath as the chaos of the plane and the screaming continues around her.

to me, this is the moment of handoff. natalie is taking the central figure of her trauma (the gun = her father) and she's resolving herself into something. "no one is coming to save me. i am what i am and what i've done. i have to keep going."

so later in the same episode, we have coach ben acknowledging his limitations. he is trying to step up despite his earlier crashout, but there's no way around it: he can't be the hunter. and so he's offering up his knowledge (interestingly, knowledge handed down from his own father) to one of the yellowjackets. essentially, ben is saying one of you is going to have to adopt this responsibility that should more naturally be associated with me. one of you is going to have to become an extension of me. one of you will be chosen to provide, to hunt, and if you take the gun as a symbol of fatherhood (as well as ben's stilted attempt to express this caregiving), here we are: one of you has to help me actualize father. because i can't do it on my own.

and natalie, despite her trauma, despite everything that should put her far far far FAR away from guns, is the one who pushes past the flashbacks and the pain and the fear, and steps up. in that moment, she's moving toward ben & saying, "i can do this for you. we're going to do this." and they move forward as co-fathers of the group.

handing off the mantle

so here's the thing about dads and father figures. there's a specific form of abandonment that people in these roles can inflict without actually leaving. a father is a father. a father is NOT your brother. a father is NOT your peer. a father is DEFINITELY NOT your child.

it's a common theme with immature father figures to abdicate responsibility by turning the child figure into a peer, a sibling, and at the very worst, inversing the father-child relationship altogether. let me be clear here: ben did not sign up to be a father! he's a young man that never expected to lose his leg in a plane crash and get stranded in the wilderness with a pack of teenage girls.

all the same, i would argue that his failed attempts at fathering and his quiet resignation to stop trying altogether have a similar trajectory into abandonment. with regard to nat specifically, ben forfeits the father role and becomes the child altogether.

flight of the bumblebee

i think a really interesting example of ben's movement into the child figure is when nat approaches him by the stream and clocks the ever-loving shit out of him!! this is during s1e8 (flight of the bumblebee), so they've settled into nat's dynamic as the primary hunter by now.

she sets down her rifle, teases him about misty, before getting right to it: "you like guys, right?" at first, ben is totally freaking out ("what the hell, nat?") but the panic doesn't last very long. because now nat's sitting down next to him and playing it sweet and reassuring. she's shrugging and smiling and telling him she thinks it's cool...

this is... peak good dad behavior??? honestly, if you were ben and you were concerned about coming out to your family--certain even that they would not accept you--an interaction like this would be all that you could have ever hoped for.

the way nat reassures ben, shows a bit of interest in who he is & who he's dating, and makes that quiet spot by the stream a safe space... this is the kind of coming out that ben never got to have with his parents. this is a gift he never expected from a teenage girl, and yet here it is. nat opened the conversation and gave him the freedom to self-actualize in that moment. it's a big fucking deal. and it's also a vulnerable exchange that brings ben down to her level. he's not a towering, untouchable father figure. he's something smaller. he's almost, dare i say it, a little brother...? and when ben shares that he's fearful of this getting out, big sibling nat promises she won't tell.

doomcoming

nat and ben's shifting dynamic continues into s1e9 (doomcoming). like i said, following the gun training and nat taking on the role as hunter, she and ben have basically moved forward in the group as co-fathers. when they have their moment alone together during the doomcoming celebration, nat is passing ben some hooch she found under the cabin porch and they're sitting together like old friends-- there's very much a peer-to-peer or a siblings vibe going on versus a father-daughter one.

there's a moment when ben offers the drink back to nat, and nat reveals that actually she's doing okay sober... honestly, there's some vulnerability in nat's statement, but i'm not sure that it breaks through to ben how significant it is that she's saying no to the drink. instead, he raises his eyebrows and essentially says "more for me!" for me, this scene is interesting because it seems like nat is reaching for something... maybe some sort of encouragement about what she's doing? but ben is just a peer. he's not a dad. and he's not really in the position to say that he's proud of her. he doesn't.

immediately after this interaction, nat prods ben about his "secret boyfriend" approach to dealing with misty, which is admittedly a bit immature and probably not a wise way to approach the advances of a minor!! in any case, he deflects by bringing up her relationship with travis and nat laments their recent tension, but before ben can give any advice the shrooms kick in. he starts to freak out a little bit but nat's aware that they're tripping. she doesn't seem concerned at all and this seems to soothe ben. they spiral into the trip together, but nat's the steady hand, the older sibling... you get the vibe it would have been a lot more scary for ben if she wasn't there.

ben's spiral into becoming the child

okay, so if season 1 showed nat and ben moving into a peer relationship (with moments of nat subbing in as an almost older sibling figure for ben), then season 2-3 tracks the reversal of the father-child dynamic altogether.

following the cannibalization of jackie and the yellowjackets surviving through the winter, ben is clearly not good. there's just not enough space here to go into a deep dive about his mental health and the ways he begins to untether himself from being a guardian to the girls, but suffice it to say, ben is no longer a figure of any sort of authority. on the one hand, he's beginning to be othered for not eating jackie (and for casting judgment about it), and on the other, he's starting to lose the plot entirely and is spending days on end laying in bed, starving, and hallucinating.

meanwhile, nat is hunting. she's having confrontations with lottie. she's making difficult decisions that are (in her view) for the betterment of her peers. she's still a teenager, and not all of the decisions she makes are mature! when she lies to travis about javi in order to get him to stop looking, she has to deal with it later when travis loses trust in her. when she plays into the hunting game with lottie, she has to stomach the fact that everything went sideways when they needed to work together most to retrieve the moose. nat is doing her very best. she's going out every day. she's trying to bring back food. she's taking jackie's bones to the plane. she's trying to make a map of the wilderness...

but nat's very best isn't appreciated by the group. she's trying, and really she's trying alone, because ben just isn't present. and really, if you take nat and ben as co-fathers of the group, it boils down to this. nat is a father who is staying and striving despite the struggle. she's still working for the kids. ben? is not. he's checking out. he's done. he's losing the willpower to keep going.

letting down shauna

a pretty brutal example of the disparity between nat and ben is shauna's miscarriage. nat literally drags ben to shauna during the delivery. she says, "ben, we need your help. come on!" he tries to tell her he can't help, and she says no. she doesn't let him bail out of this. she's begging him to snap out of it, to be there for them. and when his reaction is such a wildly apparent "oh shit" that's likely to scare the hell out of everyone (including shauna), you can see the disappointment in nat's face.

ben says, "shauna, i'm sorry," and nat gasps "no." he can't be doing this to them. he can't be doing this to her. this is the moment where it all falls apart. ben isn't the father. he's isn't even a peer. he's abandoning shauna obviously, but what i think gets overlooked in this scene is that he's abandoning nat. they were supposed to be doing this together. that was the deal when she took on the rifle. that was the deal when she sat by him by the stream.

but ben's letting her down. and that is fucking that! nat rushes away from ben and tells shauna to ignore him! she reassures her that women have been having babies forever. shauna is going to be fine. she's going to be fine!

nat tells shauna to breathe. from a positional standpoint, she is very much looking like a father during the midst of a delivery. she is at the mother's side, she is offering encouragement, she has water at the ready. this is the moment of transmutation: ben isn't the father anymore. and natalie is.

"you don't belong here, coach."

the handoff during shauna's miscarriage guides nat and ben's relationship through the end of season 2. while ben was off discovering his escape route from the yellowjackets, nat stayed behind. she never left the children. she was even ready to sacrifice herself for the children during the queen hunt, but she's still just a teenager. when travis broke the circle and everything went to shit, she ran. nat's just a fucking kid after all. all the same, she weathered javi's death (and the escalation of the wilderness) with the rest of the yellowjackets while ben was gone.

when the yellowjackets return to the cabin, nat is walking with resolve. she tells travis that the wilderness chose (although whether she believes this is debatable) and she works with tai, van, and shauna to prepare javi for the butchering. ben returns back to this absolute-fucking-nightmare, and he can't do it. he can't deal with this. he turns to see nat and he offers her an escape route.

she says no. because at the end of the day, the yellowjackets need natalie. she's the hunter. in ben's absence, she's the father. she has to stay because the children need her. she has to stay because she's like the children. ben, on the other hand? he's not cut out for this. nat understands this and she sees it and after shauna's miscarriage? well, she knows not to expect anything of ben anymore.

so, nat relinquishes him of his duties. she lets him run off into the wilderness, an abdicated child scampering away. this cements their dynamic moving forward: ben is now the child, nat is now the father. he's not what she needed him to be, but she doesn't hate him for it. instead, she spends the rest of season 3 trying to protect him as best she can, wearily wielding the leadership that he was never cut out for.

putting a child to rest

as we move into season 3, we learn that nat has guided the yellowjackets through the cabin burning down and into the spring. she's taught others like gen how to hunt (mimicking fatherhood as it started with ben's father and then was handed down to nat), and under her leadership, the yellowjackets have cultivated and organized a functioning society that requires no cannibalism. nat is firmly in the father role now, and it's definitely wearing her down (the camp counselor bit with mari and shauna fighting). she's by no means a perfect leader, but she never rats out ben (in the same way she never outs him).

there's a lot, a lot, a lot i could go into here about how nat plays father within group dynamics in season 3, but i'm going to save that for a part 2 on this meta. focusing on her relationship with ben specifically, we see the lengths that nat tries to go to protect him and how she ultimately fails when shauna encourages the group to vote for his execution.

as it turns out, akilah's prophecy convinces the group to keep ben alive, but now nat is in the position of seeing her former co-father, her peer, her little brother, and now someone who seems as weak as a frail child suffer for weeks or months on end. she tries to play into the group's wishes, she tries to focus on the hope of it all. when she speaks to ben and he expresses suicidality, she tries to be authoritative and tell him it'll pass. she tries to be strict and tells him to eat as you would a petulant kid.

but it's all taking it's toll on nat. she can't watch ben wither away like this. and so in the end, she takes him into her arms. this is not the positioning of peers... this is not the positioning of a daughter and her father. this is the positioning of a father and a sick child. this is the loving care of being with someone so small and so weak and guiding them to their rest. being strong for someone who isn't strong enough to drive a knife into their own chest. at its root, nat is fathering ben when she kills him. it has the vibe of a father who has spent months caring for a sick child only to realize the time as come. the only thing nat can do for ben now is be there for him and hold him as he passes.

nat was never supposed to be ben's father figure. but also their plane was never meant to crash. so be it.

[dcpridefanzine]

🌟Team Interview- Epiphany 🌟

​​For our final story we have an interview from the duo behind the GLAAD and Harvey nominated, Stonewall Award winning, graphic novel Lunar Boy! (You can find it here!)

Here is a panel they've chosen to share as a sneak peak!

@jesncin : I'm a huge Martian Manhunter fan. When it comes to fanfiction, I always gravitate more to characters who aren't very popular. There's something so satisfying about reading/watching their stories and figuring out what it is about them that's made them struggle to gain footing as a character. I’ll do research about the context this character is written in, the meta surrounding them, and then add something personal about myself and my tastes onto my take of the character. A lot of people usually like making a Greatest Hits version of a character they like when they make an AU, but I really enjoy re-working the stuff about a character that doesn’t work. It’s untapped potential. That whole transformative process is so fun for me! J’onn is canonically a queer character, but most people wouldn’t know this because DC as a company doesn’t market him as one. Martian Manhunter’s fluid identity and themes of marginalization tend to be written off as alien shapeshifter science fiction “fish out water” stories. J’onn has canonically said he’s asexual (in context he meant agender), shapeshifted across gender identities (one of which was a woman who represented his heart), transformed into a transphobic genderbent version of himself, kissed Aquaman and has been purposely written as a queer allegory paralleled with a canonized queer character in Orlando and Rossmo’s limited run. So it's about time he got spotlighted as a queer character. The story we wrote for the DC Pride fanzine is a re-imagining of Martian Manhunter’s limited New 52 run. It’s an arc where J’onn accidentally splits himself into 4 people and has to find a way to save the world from a cosmic alien invasion. It’s a convoluted run with potential, so we felt this arc was a perfect basis to do a character study of J’onn and his relationship to the human forms he takes on Earth. Something that’s been taken for granted about J’onn is that because of how he’s appeared in adapted media, J’onn has become a Black and Black coded character. He’s talked about his complex relationship with race and what it means to choose a marginalized form when he has the ability to look like anything he wants. Actors David Harewood and Carl Lumbly have talked about a responsibility J’onn has with shapeshifting, and it separates him from so many other shapeshifters in fiction. What J’onn means to me is this evolution from a character who represents xenophobic fears of body snatching, to a character who empathizes with marginalization across race and gender. My favorite part of this project is finally being able to define J’onn’s relationship to humanity in a way that feels holistic to his history as a character.

[cirrusin]

Reading a Ghost Story: Kim Soleum vs. Baek Saheon

there seems to be a consensus that there’s somebody "right" in this freak-off and it's KSE (the "right or wrong" argument starting all the way from what the "correct" solution to abyss transpo was, to just. [gestures] their current beef). i personally think "right or wrong" is a bad framework here. they're fundamentally just different kinds of ghost story readers-- not even in a "one misunderstands, one understands" way, they just aim to get different things out of the text. we see this again and again but it's particularly encapsulated in where the feud started: abyss transpo

KSE taunting BSH in the subway

strangely... there are a lot of different interpretations on what happened? so i'm going to say the interpretation i think is the most compliant with the text

KSE intends on making BSH regret assaulting someone out of the concern that only one lost item was eligible. whether this concern was justified is irrelevant. this is the rationale behind KSE showing BSH the disembodied female eye

off the bat, BSH misinterprets this. instead of feeling regret for assaulting someone, he regrets sacrificing his own eye when there was a perfectly disembodied one that KSE knew about. this is a false assumption, because the disembodied eye didn't fit the criteria

now: was BSH's original concern justified?

the announcement says, "There is a lost item. If you've found the lost item, please disembark at the next station and hand it over to the station staff." KSE makes his later remarks based on the nature of a "lost item"- and BSH uses that approach too! after a person loses their hat and gets it returned to them, do they want a second identical hat? a "lost item" is no longer lost when it is returned for the first time. BSH's original concern is justified

a lot of horror puzzles require a kind of leap of faith (ex. "the 75% chance must be true, and the 25% chance false). KSE knows that the metaphorical 75% is canonically true im DER- he is only certain that he can definitely get off later because he is a cheater with meta knowledge. BSH is unable to be certain and unwilling to take a leap of faith about his own survival, so he (rationally and ruthlessly) takes care of it

Their feud

famously, this difference in abyss transpo kickstarts their legendary freak-off

Viper from DER canon thrives in daydream. he's suited for ghost stories- reading them, and surviving them. and in abyss transpo, KSE finds out that BSH is fundamentally Viper

this is why KSE is so unnerved by him!!

some people seem to think BSH is "stopped from being Viper by KSE's mind games"? but that's not true. BSH never loses his instinct to always go for the coldly rational solution (as GSGW goes on, every time KSE appears to bare his neck, BSH goes for it. despite--and even because of-- how KSE is seen as a threat)

interestingly, BSH (who isn't afraid of ghost stories) is more single-minded about survival than KSE (who is a HUGE COWARD, yet finds the time to worry about others)

KSE's feud with BSH stems from that. if someone were doing everything BSH did out of panic, KSE wouldn't be nearly as on-guard. but BSH doesn't need cowardice to do what he does

As ghost story readers

KSE's position within GSGW is "a good reader- one who understands ghost stories." so with their feud, does this mean that BSH is a bad reader?

again, BSH thrives in daydream, and he's good at nailing what it takes to survive. BSH is an equally valid reader- he simply lacks the evolutionary pressure (KSE's fear) to become the kind of reader that KSE is

BSH's nature means he (can afford to) embrace the ghost story at face value

KSE's cowardice does not allow him to do this- he doesn't share BSH's resilience (and ruthlessness). naturally, KSE takes a lesser-walked perspective on the ghost story. one where he makes textual analysis leaps of logic

it's important to note how KSE's knowledge of previous escape records/DER plays a crucial role in his reasoning. as stated previously for abyss transpo, concluding that "people who got off at colored stations were likely not wearing those colors" etc can only be done through knowing about other escape records. and sure, BSH could've chosen to skip this blatant escape opportunity like the rest of them-- tried to use the deeper nature of what a "destination" is, like KSE did

... but BSH would never throw away a blatant escape opportunity for himself

again, KSE and BSH have different priorities when reading ghost stories: mainly, "empathy" vs. "self-preservation." despite being a coward, KSE loses the "self-preservation" olympics. he places as much emphasis on others as he does on himself in terms of escaping alive and well. maybe even more, when considering what he does at the bureau (Looky Mart). and this empathy extends to the actual ghost story! KSE's evolving relationship with Braun can take up an entire post by itself

meanwhile, BSH is willing to pay the price of taking ghost stories at face value- any blatant escape opportunity will do, he lacks the standards that KSE's empathy gives him. whatever gets him out and alive

BSH was born to survive ghost stories, KSE was born to manipulate them

*end note: this is tangential, but it's funny how a lot of people interpret all of this as KSE being a good person. i mean he does good things certainly. and he's a "better person" than BSH is. but... wow KSE's sense of morality can be its own post

[odinsblog]

While his so-called Department of Government Efficiency is laying waste to the federal government, unelected White House advisor Elon Musk has massively benefited from government contracts propping up his business over more than 20 years.

As the Washington Post reports, Musk and his businesses have collected at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits.

The entrepreneur's EV maker Tesla and space company SpaceX, in particular, have relied greatly on cash infusions, especially when facing existential crises — a perfect example of how the government spending that Musk is now ripping apart can help innovative businesses thrive.

The investigation paints a dire picture of the current state of the US government. Despite Musk receiving huge amounts of government funds over the last two decades, his DOGE is slashing federal spending and firing thousands of government workers. It's also laying waste to federal grant programs and other initiatives that could help nascent businesses compete with Musk's established enterprises.

Put simply, it's a sign that Musk has no interest in furthering the interest of taxpayers — it's his own bottom line that matters, and little else, even if it comes directly at the cost of the American people and their social safety net. He got wealthy off the taxes others paid, and now he's slamming the door in everyone else's face.

The majority of the $38 billion we know about went from NASA and the Defense Department to SpaceX. Tesla accounts for less than a third, and includes federal and state programs designed to boost EV adoption.

And given the many classified defense and intelligence contracts, the total amount of funds Musk has extracted from the government is likely even higher. According to the WaPo, many grants and reimbursements didn't include specific amounts of money.

"Not every entrepreneur at this scale has been this dependent on federal money — certainly not Nvidia, not Microsoft, nor Amazon, nor Meta," Yale School of Management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld told the newspaper. "With DOGE, there does seem to be a paradox there. He has been a big beneficiary of national industrial policy, especially Democrat industrial policy, through government funding."

Musk has also been gutting key government agencies that have investigated his companies in the past, showing a clear willingness to abuse his power to benefit his business interests.

After greatly benefiting from government payouts, Musk has attempted to pull the ladder up behind him, effectively trying to shut out the competition.

(continue reading)