#-i- was going to draw this with cute chibis or make otherwise more palatable ...

[apocatastasis]

it keeps boiling down to

cruel manipulative right-wing nationalist murderer: my enemy X groomed you for his evil purposes

me: yeah like I'd believe you

X: *starts killing ppl too*

me: ok, X really is a killer just like the tyrant but not on the same scale

TPTB: *pull the Hitler card* *colour it in neon and pin it onto X's forehead*

me: *groans* but that doesn't fit any of his behaviour, unlike all the other devious things!

c m r-w n m: stabs X in back + nukes his remains, possibly gets the love he wanted + his place

me: that's it?

TPTB srsly says out loud: X is a horrible, horrible person

me a day later: *tries to forget pplontheinternetbeingwrong*

me days later: *has awful group meetings*

*gets upsetting phone calls from mentally ill ppl*

_this_ is emotional manipulation

me a week after ep 13: *watches psychological thriller*

_this_ is grooming

*throws book aside during tense reveal* ep 13 is

STILL JUST BAD WRITING OKAY?!: TPTB decided that X scheming and disobeying orders and having sex with your boss and lying some more MIGHT still be excused by non-regulation fans if X just want to save his MU crew and rebel against evil tyrant, so X had to be shown doing _more heinous_ acts. Given that there was only one ep to convince non-regulation viewers that X was worse than the tyrant, he was turned into a "creepy old man".

doctorate-aside: all sex scenes in STD involved evil ppl!!

me: And just in case all that would be explained away - eg. by rigidly uncreepy, nigh to impersonal interactions shown all season, or because LeatherX with a sword might look attractive even when hating poetry - the nationalist rulers of the galaxy aren't nationalist _enough_ for evil speciest X, so there, everyone has to shut up now.

It's a wonder TPTB didn't actively show X dismember that Tribble with his bare hands. THE ONLY REASON X WASN'T VISIBILY TWIRLING A MOUSTACHE WAS that nationalists cut them too short to be twirlable.

TPTB faintly from a distance: ... horrible horrible ...

me: I hope Michael gets some justice next season - and NOT her tormentors, whom she saved even while enduring massive trauma - but I no longer trust TPTB to do her character justice. Gabriel's un-avenge-able ghost will be haunting me *tries to shove him away again*