#I know this certainly isn't a new concept either. but just thinking about it with the added aspect of 'NEW MOVIE WITH THE DUO IN IT'

[quinngefail]

Wouldn't it be absolutely fucked if like. In some future Saw entry, you see the cast. And oh my god, both Cary and Leigh are in it. Does this mean more Adam content?? More content with the two of them??? Adam alive confirmed??!?!

And then cue the influx of theory posts and videos, the hype, the the countdown to the release date, the people going 'I KNEW IT, HE'S ALIVE, I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS, ALIVE ADAM TRUTHERS UNITE, WE'VE WON', etc etc etc.....

Then flash forward to this hypothetical movie. And at some point in it, you have Lawrence catching a glimpse of someone in public who absolutely catches him off guard- because undeniably, that is Adam Stanheight. Same face, same slim build, same clothing style, cigarette in his mouth and all. Of course, about ten million different things are going through Lawrence's head; and despite everything that's happened (and everything he's become), he just can't keep himself from walking closer, and talking to him. More accurately though, he stammers and fumbles through the words, utter disbelief in his eyes.

But Adam looks at him like he's a stranger, nothing but confusion written in his undeniably Adam features. This only bewilders Lawrence further, because how in the world does Adam not recognize him. Does he not remember everything they went through together? Is he just fucking with him? Is that confused stare going to drop, a snarky little look will take its place, and he'll go, "of course I fucking recognize you, prick. You're the asshole who shot me, and left me to die."

But Adam doesn't do that, or say anything like that. Instead, his brows furrow further, and the words leave his mouth.

"Look, I don't know who the hell you are, man. You've got me confused with someone else, or something. My name is David."

Like wouldn't that be. Just a little bit fucked for them to pull LMAOO

[arokalypse]

i always thought romantic love was the plague and i was a plague doctor.

so here's an aro-colored plague doctor

me oversharing beneath the cut about how amatonormativity has screwed me up in ways I have never been screwed up before.

(rant beneath the cut is full of negativity, triggering, but perhaps relatable. idk. read at your own risk)

okay so let's have a mini story telling time about how romance plagued every aspect of my life until now.

My bestfriend in high school treated me of less value after she gets her boyfriend. This experience was what drove me into drawing plague doctors during valentines. These doodles were captioned with "Plague is in the air", because my friends in my circle told me to not hang out with her on that day because it's valentines day. So cool, I thought I should avoid them like they were the plague.

For the first half of college, I've been a wingman for way too many of my friends for my only female and best friend.

It has gotten to a point where the meaning of my companionship with my male friends had become solely for providing a connection to a girl they want to date.

In the long run, my bestfriend, who my 'friends' were pining for, actually has been pining for me. She asked if we could be a thing, I said yes because I thought that, romance isn't probably as disgusting as I think of it.

To protect tradition and to protect the feelings of the men she rejected (who I also wingmanned), we kept it hidden.

For the entire time, she emphasized how I was dense and oblivious about romance. For the entire time I was confused, disoriented, and even repulsed. I didn't know how to reciprocate and I certainly did not have THOSE feelings either at all.

Of course it didn't end well.

After that failed attempt at romance, I have been involved in three more encounters after that. Men suddenly started talking to me out of nowhere. Initially, I thought that they were just trying to make new friends. I didn't realize they were hitting on me but when I did, I cold-shouldered them out of my life.

The last one was the most traumatic. I have explicitly stated that he shouldn't attempt to romance me because I've admitted that I'm way too tired of dealing with it, but he was stubborn. He has also gone as far as sexualizing me against my will.

So yeah.

Amatonormativity made me lose faith in the meaning of my friendships.

It made me realize how friendship is easily overshadowed by romantic relationships.

It made me worry that my kindness is misread as a romantic gesture.

It made me constantly hate how friendship is only seen as a stepping stone for a romantic relationship.

And because amatonormativity has rendered all my significant connections meaningless, I'll spend every second of my life hating amatonormativity. I will always be repulsed at the concept that destroyed every goddamned friendship that I had. Nothing has ever made me feel THS sick. I will always think of it as the plague.

[headspace-hotel]

This year has, so far, been for me a series of rapid realizations of what I have been unlearning.

I went to the library. This was a couple weeks ago. I knew I needed to read a book, fiction. I hadn't done so in over a year and it was the longest period of time I had ever gone without doing so. I made a rule: I would only pick books I had never heard of, by authors I had never heard of, and I would not do any preliminary research or even bother to look at what the book was about. I would make my decision on whether to read or not purely on my impression of the title, cover and opening lines.

The book was The Connoisseur by Evan S. Connell. It was kind of a random selection. I sat down with it in a corner of the library and straight up devoured it. I tore through the book within a few hours, without taking a single break. I was captivated. I couldn't put it down.

It is a book about a guy who buys a Mayan figurine in a knickknack shop while he's on a business trip. and becomes obsessed with pre-Columbian sculptural art. There isn't really much of a plot apart from this. He goes to sketchy antique shows, has conversations with museum curators, wealthy art dealers and forgers, and seeks to learn how to distinguish a genuine pre-Columbian piece from a fake one. It was written in the 1970's, so the views on Native Americans are antiquated and sometimes offensive, and there is the troubling thread of the very concept of looting another culture's treasures and treating them as collectibles, though the book is not without commentary on this.

All the same, it was a completely intoxicating read. The vicarious experience of becoming fascinated with a topic and having it unfold a whole world for you was ferociously gripping, and so was the intrigue of the art collecting world itself. The frauds, forgeries, smuggling, museums, academics, aristocrats, auctions and seedy flea markets. Will he ever be able to tell if a piece is "real?" Does it matter if it's "real?" Why does he want to own and possess a piece of art, and how does its "realness" affect that desire? The book leaves you not knowing what to think.

It is a book about curiosity, portrayed in the narrative as a totally unreasonable lightning bolt that strikes a man who has never been fascinated by anything and changes him forever. Why? Why does a Mayan figurine, in particular, speak to him? Why does any piece of art, or any fascinating thing in the world, speak to anyone? It is unknowable.

I went to the library again. I picked a new book using the same rules. This book was Fragile Beasts by Tawni O'Dell. Just like the last time, I was totally captivated. I couldn't put it down.

Did I have a couple major problems with the portrayal of some important aspects of the story? Yes. (It would make the post much longer to discuss.) Was I completely captured by and invested in the story for the time I was reading it? Also yes. The book braids together several very different strands-- the story of a legendary Spanish bullfighter and a wealthy American woman that he loved, two brothers stuck in an ugly family situation after their father's death in a car accident, and a rich old heir to a Pennsylvania coal mining fortune and to the sinister underbelly of her family's business.

There was a lot about baseball, which I know nothing about, and bullfighting, which I know nothing about, and I certainly don't know anything about being a teenaged boy who resents and mistrusts his estranged mother, or an aristocratic old lady who lives in a mansion and eats fancy Spanish food. It was fun to experience so much unfamiliar stuff and to care about things I wouldn't normally care about. Once again I couldn't stop reading until I had finished it.

I don't know that either book was "good," though I thought they were both well written; I just know that reading them was like being hooked up to an IV of something essential and life-giving and feeling it reanimating my body.

It had been a year since I had read any fiction, but it had been much, much longer since I had loved to read. As I became an adult I had become picky and critical about books, and developed a highly sophisticated sense of my taste and the books I considered good- which were very rare. My taste in books became so sophisticated, eventually, that I didn't like books at all anymore.

I had almost withered away from deficiency of that essential nutrient known as STORY. I'd almost crumbled myself into dust from pretentiousness! I may have been terribly wrong about the kinds of things I liked to read, on top of it. And I certainly hadn't realized that story was such an essential nutrient.

"Just entertainment" the pretentious sorts of people might say of a book they think is useless-- but what is entertainment but to absorb your mind in something, and what is absorbing your mind in a book but to experience things you would never have experienced? It expands you and makes you more complicated. It is the study of human existence itself.

Now all I have been able to think about today is finishing my work and going to the library again...

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

thinking about Lucanis again (always). and how so much of his narrative boils down to the theme of "control". and of course also about how this applies to the Rook x Lucanis relationship.

like the first scenes with him in the game are, in theory, about freeing him from the Ossuary (although he seems to have an escape attempt already in progress at the time, they certainly weren't just letting him keep those knives on him for enrichment purposes, Rook just provided an opening/distraction he could take advantage of and crucially Rook has A Way Out of the whole place not just a cell). but ACTUALLY the purpose it to put him right into a new contract for Us, one set up by his own grandmother and first talon no less, and the person he has the MOST trouble saying no to. He's escaped torture and the Venatori for sure but he still isn't free, which I think is part of what leads to Spite's confusion/the Inner Demons plotline. He agrees to the contract but you can tell it's in many parts out of a sense of duty/mourning vs something he actively wants to do for himself. And then the FIRST real heartfelt conversation you have with him, where he tells you "even before I was captured, my life was not really my own. So much had been determined for me." But he's chaffaing at that! He thinks "to live truly is to live fully" and so directly tells you he doesn't think he's lived a life true to himself. He's been constantly smothered by the weight of expectations around him, even though he longs for more.

And then once you get him to the Lighthouse you see how this Big lack of control in his life comes out as all these smaller frustrations. He's terrified of sleeping and downing 11 cups of coffee per hour because sleeping means he will lose control to Spite, even though Spite is shown to flee rather than fight when he feels threatened, and once calmed down, is more drawn to just benign curiosity/mischief than anything actively malicious. Like if Lucanis loses control and sleeps for a few hours he is not going to wake up surrounded by bloodshed, he's going to wake up to a belly full of candle wax because he wouldn't like Spite taste one while they were awake. Which is the other half of this--he constantly denying Spite's impulses for reasons that in some ways make sense (HE doesn't want to eat candles), but not in a way that's actually satisfying to either of them (why not just take a bite, chew for a bit, and spit it out so Spite knows they kind of suck actually?). But he CAN say no to Spite and so he does. Over and over. Spite's one of the few people he can deny things without feeling bad about it, because it's HIS body he doesn't like that has to share now (<- this is what he thinks about it at first anyway, but he's wrong, it's both of theirs and it's useless to try to hold those kind of boundaries forever. but the "no its mine" spiteful instinct is very beautifully ironic and reflective of them both and their early relationship).

And personally I think this is where his fear of his own desires and intimacy is coming from, at the root. I don't think he's afraid of the concept of being in a romance or having feelings (even if they're unusual and rare for him, this is by no means incompatible with him being demi) but I DO think he is afraid of the kind of power it gives people over you. Getting something you want means there's something else that can be taken away. Admitting your desire means the other person has the opportunity to deny that. The more you have, the more you have to lose, and he has lost again and again and again in his life--his parents, his childhood to the crows, his independence, even his future--he doesn't aspire to be first Talon but he knows the rumors. He knows his grandmother wanted it for him, not Illario. His life path has been laid out for him by others and up to this point he has simply been going along with it anyway, even though it bothers him. He COULD argue and fight Caterina and push for Illario who actually wants the job to be First Talon instead, but from The Wigmaker Job we know he doesn't. He just ignores it and pretends maybe it won't happen, without him having to do any of the work. Which is why in the end Illario is the one who has to make a move about it (and even warns Lucanis of this!!!!). Lucanis KNOWS all this makes him a target but is neither taking charge or getting off of the train tracks, just closes his eyes.

And I think THIS context is what makes the almost kiss scene in the pantry make more sense to me. Rather than being afraid of having feelings (and then NEVER addressing this in game with a Rook who pursues him anyway) or not knowing how to finish what he's started via crow seduction training, it's more like this is a pivotal moment where he can actively choose to step off the planned path of be given a job -> kill the gods -> enact revenge -> go home. even if he doesn't at that point realize that a relationship with Rook could be something that lasts long-term, the very act of doing something just for himself is what's foreign and scary and hard. It's that first step off the tracks, and even if he were to keep walking in the same direction, it means he's making a choice about it. he's accepting that one way or another it IS in his power to go along with everyone else's plans or not. Hence the hesitation, and drawing back, and needing to clear his head.

And then the rest of Rook's role in his narrative IS about giving him more and more control for himself. Inner Demons, dealing with Illario, his questlines move less towards revenge and more towards just... not being locked into one fate. Which of course Caterina comes back and immediately tries to overturn by declaring him First Talon after all, even though she and him and everyone else knows she's not ACTUALLY ready to give up her rule/decision making power yet. Which in a way is maddening because cmon I did all this work here so this sad man could have some agency in his own life just to watch him get sucked right back in (which, at least we get many directions to headcanon from here), but there's no denying that THIS version of Lucanis at least is actually going in with his eyes open now. THIS Lucanis has had a taste of life outside the Crows, and seen the politics and power dynamics in other places/organizations, and finally has emotional ties to the big picture state of the world now, both in relationship and friendship paths with Rook. He's not just hyper focused on each contract as it's given to him now, he's looking at the whole thing.

Anyway of course the beautiful culmination of all this within the romance is the lighthouse scene with Rook, where he finally is willing to let himself be vulnerable (emotionally and physically), and fall asleep without fear of what Spite's going to do in the meanwhile. He also (depending on dialogue choice) finally talks about his feelings directly with you for the first time instead of in roundabout ways (the dessert being "not enough" is it really the dessert you mean, Lucanis. is it.). Even though he is STILL reluctant to verbally admit his feelings or let Rook share their own at this point, I think that's more a narrative choice about saving those last emotional dialogue options for the big final battle. but it is another point where he does have to stop just following along and ACTIVELY choose that yes, yes sometimes loving is worth the risk of losing it. Even if someone takes it away from you later, even if you don't survive it, sometimes the love alone makes it worth it.

I have like another 5000 words I could add into about how Spite ties into all this, about how having the demon in him is something he both fears AND how it forces him to acknowledge that actually yes he DOES share the same base feelings/instincts Spite does in terms of not wanting to be told what to do. And how this in a way is part of what gives him permission to act on it since he can no longer just shove it down out of sight. but this post is long enough already so i'm just going to take the rest of this and gnaw on it all day like a chew toy I guess.

anyway. AHG. it is kind of frustrating that the culmination of his arc seems to be "and then he got the job he never wanted anyway" but I do think at least all this prepares him for it in a way Caterina actively failed to actually do on her own. He NEEDED that step away from his straightforward path. Whether he stays first talon or not, and with or without rook as a romantic partner, he's finally been able to explore ideas outside the expectations of others.

[cripplecharacters]

sorry if this is a little too vast, but how often do you feel the whole fantasy concept of curses falls into harmful stereotypes? just because a lot of ‘curses’ in fantasy media:

a) display either symptoms of real disabilities, especially chronic illnesses, or have fantastical symptoms that disable the character in some way or another

b) are often tied to some form of morality, whether a person is cursed because they’re evil and it’s a punishment, or they’re helpless and need to be saved from the horrible life of being ill

c) are usually curable through some sort of magic solution, even though disabled readers cannot magically cure their body

d) overall are linked to magic, and it is my understanding that ‘disability caused by a magic spell’ is very tropey with conditions such as vitiligo.

as an (aspiring) fantasy author, i think the whole concept of curses holds a lot of potential, i just wanted to know if it’s something that could likely be taken as hurtful and ableist, and if so is there a specific aspect of curses that shouldn’t be written about or is it a case of ‘abandon the whole concept of curses’.

sorry if this isn’t very coherent, i’m currently on a flare up right now so words are harder for me than usual. thank you all for running such a cool and helpful blog.

Hello!

You're right that this is a very broad topic. Curses on their own aren't inherently problematic but they certainly can be, especially when they're tied with the first point you've mentioned (That is, having symptoms of real disabilities).

Something also worth noting is that none of those points are necessarily bad on their own, it's all about how the author handles it. For example, a character that becomes cursed with immortality after stealing a child from the fae would be okay. A character that becomes cursed with paralysis after offending a sorcerer, however, would be different.

One example that comes to mind is Eda's curse in The Owl House. For those who aren't familiar with it, Eda was cursed by an unknown person for unknown reasons (Though this is later revealed). Her curse caused things such as limbs that pop off easily (Literally becoming removed from her body, in a cartoon-y way), changes to her appearance (Eye and hair colour), occasional transformation into a large demonic beast, negative effects to her magic, and several other things that are more similar to chronic illnesses (Periods of low energy, etc.).

Even before Eda became disabled (She becomes an amputee later on), her curse felt a lot like a disability narrative to me. She's found ways to cope with it and manage the symptoms she experiences such as taking naps and using an elixir (Which has a similar use to medication for her) that keeps her beast form at bay. There are days when the curse is worse and other days when it's better.

Two main things that stick out to me the most about this example is that, though she obviously doesn't enjoy the curse, Eda is more upset about (And focused on) the fact that she doesn't know who cursed her or why. The fact that curing her curse isn't her main goal is very refreshing to me.

The other thing is one particular arc where her mother comes to visit and it's shown that she comes every year with a new proposed cure. Although this is a magic world, the proposed cures are equated to the whole idea of curing paralysis with certain herbs or ADHD with a certain diet. What was especially relatable to me about this was that Eda doesn't want these so-called cures and her mother's actions are shown as an imposition rather than an act of kindness or charity. As somebody who has accepted my own disabilities while my friends and family members have not, this was something that felt very close to home for me.

Eda's curse has some similarities with real world disabilities -- both in some of the symptoms such as low energy as well as in the way it's treated -- but it isn't a disability in and of itself. That said, it's still one of the best portrayals of living with disability that I've seen and it's an excellent example of how curses can be done and related to disability in a way that isn't ableist or poorly designed.

The main reason that the portrayal of Eda's curse is so well done is because it's designed with consideration for the show's disabled audience. Although some able-bodied people may pick up on certain things, the whole narrative around Eda's curse is much more relatable and obvious to people who live with a disability than those who don't.

Essentially, it's the story that a lot of disabled people want to see.

Not somebody with a disability being cured or fixed but somebody with a disability living a full, meaningful life and with those around them learning to understand and accept that.

Eda's mother doesn't stop looking for a cure because she gives up on her daughter or because her daughter pushes her away. She stops because she realizes how her efforts were hurting Eda and how their relationship was suffering from it.

Not only that but she also accepts that Eda knows her curse better than her mother does AND she wants to learn more about Eda's methods for dealing with it.

This is huge!

The series is showing respect for Eda's bodily autonomy and her independence. It's recognizing that disabled people know our disabilities and our bodies better than others do. A lot of us have to deal with constant unsolicited advice on how to deal with our disabilities from friends, family members, and even complete strangers so to see this situation portrayed in this way was especially refreshing.

This is a smaller factor but another way that Eda's curse was done well is that it's clearly fantasy. The cause is fantasy, the manifestations are fantasy, and the resulting effects are fantasy.

While the effects may have some similarities to real life disabilities, the manifestations are enough to differentiate the curse from actual disabilities. For example, people with dissociative disorders may have moments they can't remember but they don't turn into a large demonic beast during them.

There's enough of a distance there that it isn't equated one-to-one as disability, even if the narrative is very similar to disability narratives.

Unfortunately, I have also seen curses portrayed in a way that is ableist and rather poorly dealt with.

I don't intend to name it (I'll explain my reasoning below*) but I recently read a book where one of the side characters was cursed as punishment for her own selfish actions and ended up functionally mute. She used ASL to communicate for the most part. Within the book, the character is shown to be so bitter and upset about her curse and the resulting effects that she takes it out on her family and her child in particular.

This is bad for several reasons.

First, by making the curse so similar to a real-world disability/symptom, any associations made with the curse are also, by extension, being made with that disability. In showing how much this character hates her curse, it's also showing how much she hates being disabled.

If her curse was something like waking up every day in a different body (Or something else that has no real-world equivalent), it's easier to put distance between the curse and any similarities to disability. It also allows you, as the writer, to focus more on other aspects as opposed to the immediate focus of how the curse disables a character (Such as how Eda was bothered by not knowing how or why she was cursed rather than the curse itself).

Because the curse is equated to her disability, this also falls into several ableist tropes.

As the curse was a punishment from the fae for her own selfish actions, it falls into the "disability as punishment" trope.

The fact that her curse -- or at least her frustration/bitterness from the curse -- is pushing her to act the way that she does also causes it to fall into several problematic tropes involving disabled villains. For one thing, the prime cause of her "bad behaviour" (For lack of a better term) being her curse/disability.

In contrast, Eda from The Owl House does push people away because of her curse but it's because of her fear (Specifically the fear of losing control of her beast form and hurting somebody) that causes her to do that. This habit of pushing people away out of fear is also touched on and shown outside of the context of her curse.

With the book, the character's actions are directly shown to be because she's mute and the anger/bitterness/frustration she feels around that.

A lot of this specific problem comes from the writing itself. If the author had wrote it so the character was lashing out at her family because she felt like she wasn't being heard or because she was afraid they might do something dangerous (Such as going after the fae that did this) and she wouldn't be able to stop them, that would be a different situation. There may still be some negative associations but it's less of a direct correlation between being cursed/disabled and being a jerk.

Now, having a character become cursed as a punishment isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In the show Lucifer, the side character Cain is cursed with immortality after killing his brother (And, as this is the same Cain from the bible, committing the first murder). Throughout his arc on the show, Cain is looking for a way to cure his curse and, essentially, die.

Because immortality isn't anywhere close to a real-world disability, these other factors aren't a problem as there's no association with disability.

Essentially what I'm getting at here is that curses can be perfectly fine. They aren't inherently ableist or problematic in any way but they certainly can be. It's all about how you, as the writer, handle it and what associations you're making -- whether you intend to or not.

The main thing to keep in mind when including curses in your writing is to consider what purpose they're serving and what you want to do with them.

If you want the curse to be a punishment for something terrible that the character has done, it's best to stay far away from disability and lean more into the fantasy side of things.

If you want curing the curse to serve as the character's main goal throughout the story, it could be okay to have some elements of real-world disability in there. For example, in a world where magic is used freely maybe your character is cursed to only be able to use their magic through a specific conduit and if it goes unused for a while, it causes tics or spasms.

While this is still similar to real-world disabilities (Such as Tourette's syndrome or epilepsy), there's enough distance between the manifestation of the curse (Only being able to use their magic through a specific conduit) and the disability-like effect of it (The tics/spasms). This distance gives you the ability to focus on other aspects of the curse (Such as the problems with magic) as the motivation for wanting to cure it rather than the disability aspects of it.

One final word of caution is to be careful when mixing the "curse as an allegory for disability" and "curse as a punishment for doing something evil". I'd generally suggest avoiding it. I have never seen it done in a way that doesn't end up incredibly ableist and reading as a bad cautionary tale for children ("Eat your veggies or you'll end up in a wheelchair" = "Don't kick children because they might be witches and you'll end up blind").

This is especially important to keep in mind if you want to use the curse as a disability narrative or otherwise have it be treated/showed similarly to disability (Like The Owl House did with Eda). If you want to do that, explore explore other causes for the curse. Maybe it was the result of a training mishap with a new witch? Or maybe they accidentally broke a dangerous artifact? Just as long as it's not shown to be a punishment/consequence of sorts.

As promised, I've explained my reasoning for not naming the book down below.

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

*So my reasoning for not naming the book is because of a few things. The main one is that, while the rest of the examples I gave have a fairly large and established presence, this book is by a new author and published by a small publishing company. Simply put, they don't have the same resources that corporations such as Disney and Fox do.

The other thing is that while there are multiple writers working on tv shows like The Owl House and Lucifer, this book has a singular creator and this is her first book. Although I did criticize her portrayal of the character's curse heavily, there were several parts I enjoyed and I am reluctant to put the book on blast and risk discouraging her from writing more.

If this was the work of a more established author (Such as Rick Riordan or JK Rowling) or I was discussing it in a more positive light, I'd be more comfortable naming the book openly.

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! I wanted to ask if you feel lately like you've been getting anything positive out of your therapy, because a lot of your initial thoughts about it kind of mirror mine. I'm very logical (except when I'm upset at myself) and very skeptical, so I feel like a therapist either isn't going to tell me anything new, or that I'm going to just disregard it because I can't trick myself into believing things that I just plain don't believe.

But I'm also starting to come to a realization, two years after my ADHD diagnosis and letting go (without therapy!) of most of the executive dysfunction-fueled self worth issues I was having, that I'm kind of Not Okay in other ways. I'm safe —going to work every day and doing my job so I won't lose my livelihood and have never had a self harm urge in my life— But I'm not really okay. I'm having major self esteem issues related to my personality separate from the executive dysfunction that are putting me in a bad place. I don't want to take antidepressants for reasons I won't go into but that means my other option is therapy and... I don't know if I'm a person that therapy will actually work on. I found a lot of validation in some of your perspectives, about affirmations being bullshit and "mindfulness" exercises feeling impossible and useless, about not having an inner monologue and how that might be causing issues with traditional methods. So I was just wondering, do you feel like therapy is working now that you've been in it longer?

I've wasted a lot of money on "elective" (and ultimately useless, back to square one) medical nonsense this year and I'm not eager to waste more, but I've also met my insurance deductible so it's the best time to try it if I'm going to.

I mean, it depends on the modality a little but I don't think trying basic talk therapy can hurt, as long as you find a decent therapist. And it's better to try it now when you're feeling Mostly Okay than waiting until you are Really Not Okay. But this entire paragraph comes with a lot of context so....

A lot of what I talked about in terms of struggling with mindfulness, etc. was less related to the therapy I am still in than it was to the DBT class I took at Therapist's suggestion. We were both aware that she was basically throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, and while it was an interesting class I don't think for me it was helpful. As you mention, I struggled with affirmations and visualization since neurologically I'm not really set up for those; I don't think they're objectively bullshit but I do think there's an assumption within the mental health industry that they will have function for everyone and that's simply untrue, and the expectation that it will is very damaging. I also struggled with the physical-intervention aspects (called TIPP usually) which didn't work at all for me and felt frankly like doctor-approved self harm. DBT can get very culty, which set off a ton of red flags for me -- possibly false flags, but they still waved real big.

And that's because I also have a lot of trust issues surrounding therapy. To the point where, the minute one of the people running the DBT class made actually quite gentle fun of me for asking a question he couldn't answer, I checked out on anything he said. We were learning about a DBT concept called Wise Mind and I asked, "If wise mind is an identifiable mental state, how do we know if we're in it?" and when he couldn't quite answer beyond "It's different for everyone" I said, "But if we know it's real there must be some kind of common denominator, a measurable data point," and he said "Well, Sam, you're not going to levitate" and the rest of the class laughed. Sorry bud, this is almost certainly an over-reaction, but I'm me and you lost me when you came at me instead of just admitting you didn't know. (Also it turns out I just live in Wise Mind like 80% of the time which is one reason I couldn't tell.)

But basic talk therapy outside of DBT is just...you talk at someone about your problems and come up with ways to try and solve them, which is a lot more straightforward and way less frustrating. You have to be an active participant, you have to both have a goal and be willing to discuss reaching it, but that goal can be as simple as just "figure out what my mental health goals should be" at first. You don't have to learn like, vocabulary for it.

The thing is, while I have seen some improvement in regulation issues, I also struggle with basic talk therapy. Most people, and this blew my mind, see measurable improvement in nine to eighteen therapy sessions. A lot of people don't go long-term, they just are having a moment and get help getting through the moment and then can disengage, with their therapist's approval.

I was in therapy consistently from the age of nine to eighteen and only stopped because I reached legal majority and physically refused to go.

Not one minute of those nine years did I want to be there. And, because none of the three therapists I saw across those years actually explained to me why I was there or how therapy worked, for me it felt like "Your punishment for having feelings is to speedrun every feeling you had this week in an hour, to a stranger." There was also what my current therapist believes to be some extremely unethical behavior going on, which didn't help.

So it has taken actually a lot of time to get to a place where I would even allow her to understand what help I need. I've been in therapy for about a year (generally weekly but there have been some gaps) and it has only recently gotten deeper than very basic interpersonal problem-solving.

Like, two weeks ago I told her, "I had a thought this week that I couldn't tell you about something I was doing because then you'd have material on me" (meaning blackmail material) "and that's a fucked-up thing to think." And once I'd actually identified it as fucked up I had zero issue telling her about it, wasn't even nervous as I did so. Who's she going to tell? She's literally legally constrained from telling.

I think well over half of what she does is either validate that whatever emotion I'm having is normal, affirm my reactions so I don't keep believing I behaved weirdly, or praise something I've done that was a positive act. Does this work? Not always, because I'm unfortunately very aware that it's part of her job to do those things. But yeah, sometimes. Even if you don't fully believe it, "Hey that was a really smart move" is nice to hear. Sometimes she helps me come up with a plan for stressful future events or (rarely) behavior modification, and sometimes she either provides me with research or points me towards research I can do on my own. We don't do meditation or affirmations or stuff like that.

Like, last week I brought up the fact that I hadn't really ever thought about how if I have a disability that causes emotional dysregulation and I got it from my parents, they also likely had undiagnosed emotional dysregulation when raising me. So she said I should look into research on children with emotionally dysregulated parents. I was pretty annoyed by what I found (the ONE TIME adults are the focus instead of the kids is the ONE TIME I needed to learn about the kids, really?) but it led to something that was both informative and upsetting, so we discussed that. And when I was stumped about how to move forward with the information, she suggested that my general coping mechanism of writing about it was probably a good plan.

(At which point I just silently advanced my powerpoint presentation to the next slide, where I had a series of quotes from the Shivadh novels where Michaelis, acting as a parent, repeatedly does the exact opposite of the upsetting thing, because I realized even before the meeting that it's an ongoing theme in my work whenever I deal with people being parents. It's a good thing she has a sense of humor and also that I do.)

So yeah. Going into therapy you have to be ready to reject a therapist if you don't like them or if they get weird and pushy, you have to be ready to be a self-advocate, but you are the client; it shouldn't be super difficult to find someone who can at least walk you through what you want from it and agree not to do the stuff you don't want, and if you want to stop going you just...stop going.

Good luck, in any case! I hope you get what you need, whether or not that ends up being therapy.

[faraway-sunshine]

We Interrupt This Blog To Show You Something Awesome

Omori has a Lego Ideas set! This awesomeness is brought to you by designer FoodIsScarce.

Under the cut, I'll be showing more images, explaining my thoughts, and give clarifications on how Lego Ideas works for this set. But if you want to skip that, link is here.

Lego Ideas Neighbor's Room and White Space Set Breakdown

To start off, this set has a whopping three components, all of which stand alone.

First, we have Neighbor's room!

The colors are honestly so nice in this mock-up. Lego has a fairly limited palette, but being bright and poppy works really well here.

Compared to the in-game room, it's pretty compact, but that makes sense so it doesn't dominate your shelves. Everything important is there, to outstanding detail. The leaves may ride up higher above the doorframe, but it doesn't break the immersion for me. It all feels like a piece of really nice fanart or even concept art.

The yellow cat is the centerpiece and I am very impressed with it. It isn't as stretched out as the original, though that's affected by the build size, but the shape of the paws, ears and head are spot-on and the face sticker really sells it.

Also, building the set sideways so it's smooth? Genius in my books. Sure, the minifigs won't stick, but all the smooth edges in this make the set stand out from Lego's lineup without seeming like a jarring oddity. Kind of like Omori's world compared to a bunch of other RPGs, really, so it's fitting.

I guess if I have a nitpick it'd be that the leaves are entirely different in vibe due to being all fluffy and rounded instead of the big sharp shapes in the original, but I don't think that's even really a bad thing. Just part of the Lego-ifying process. Also I groan at how I know I will place the cat's eyes wrong. Stickers are the bane of my existence. For Yellow Cat though, I would in theory persist.

Next, we have Mari's picnic blanket!

Gotta be honest, this caught me off guard, even as someone who was keeping track of this project for a while, but this is AWESOME. Colors are nailed, the existing basket and fruit pieces translate so well, and I just want to place all my fave figs on it immediately. I do hope that Mari's square could be subbed out with something with studs to keep her in place, as nothing else seems to be (maybe the basket has a 1 by 2 piece keeping it locked?).

I think it's an excellent choice even if it doesn't appear in either main room because you can plonk it by any other set or the huge pile of loose bricks you haven't gotten around to sorting yet and boom. You've just made a new corner of Headspace!

Last but certainly not least, White Space!

The computer and tissue box I think were really well done. Smooth place also tickles my fancy. I'm not as sold by the suspended light bulb; some white walls that maybe has a claw on the side would have helped sell the room more to me, I think. But it's solid.

And then you get to my favorite part in the room:

Original creator, you have my vote.

What about the minifigs?

This set still has you covered!

In this current iteration it includes six minifigs for your main characters as well as the cat and snake seen in earlier pictures. Everyone except Hero and Mari seem to be those shorter models, which always used to annoy me as a kid cause I couldn't bend the legs, but gets a pass here because remembering that height difference is nice.

The hair is a hot point of contest with the comments and Reddit posts. I'll explain more below, but Lego Ideas has rules about custom molds for new figures, so these were the closest the creator could get. And hey, I think Hero is spot on!

All the outfits and faces are custom prints, which are far easier than custom molds, and I think were done really well! Basil's top might be a bit bright, but otherwise the colors are perfect, and so is all the printing.

I also saw that Mari, Basil and Aubrey all had one extra face, which is rad. Not sure yet if Hero and Kel do too or if it's just the girls (I should assume Omori is just slate-faced as ever).

Just one more note: I love how spoiler-free this set is. You know everything in the first few moments of play. Our community is really bad with spoilers, I admit, so this is perfect for a shelf.

Here's some pics of them in action:

How does Lego Ideas even work? Is my vote worth it?

Short answer: Heck yeah!

Long answer:

Lego Ideas is a really popular program with a lot of new builds all the time, and people put a lot of work into both the models and promoting them just for the off-chance of it becoming a product.

I compiled some questions you might have based on this set specifically, but there's plenty of info yourself if you want to learn more.

How does a set get selected?

Lego Ideas has three intake periods a year for products that get over 10k signatures between the last period and that date. Each intake only has a select few that actually get to that mark; the record number in 2021 according to Wikipedia is 57 in one 2021 intake. It sounds like a lot, but in the site's 10-year run it's had over 135,000 ideas shared, not including a bunch that would have been struck down prior to going live due to breaking rules.

Each set gets 60 days to meet that goal on first launch, then an additional 365 once 100 people have signed on. Getting 1,000 supporters gives you an extra 6 months on top of that, and 5,000 (the halfway mark) another 6 months.

Meeting that 10k mark is non-negotiable for that specific set to receive the expert review through Ideas, though successful ideas that are lower may spark inspiration from their own teams.

Do I need to pledge money?

No! Lego Ideas is not a Kickstarter or crowdfund campaign. Those ask for money as they need a way to produce and distribute the product. Lego handles this on the creator's behalf.

All you need is to make a free Lego account and click the support button. You don't even have to enable email notifications on signup.

Where will I find the set then if it's made?

Anywhere else you find Lego! Even toyshops I go to have a small shelf for Ideas sets. If none of your local retailers have it, it'd be on online storefronts worldwide.

But Omori is a licensed product!

So are most of Lego Ideas' concepts that make it to becoming a set! Out of the 65 sets announced and confirmed for production (or who have already had their run!) just 29 are not tied to an IP.

So Omocat will be involved?

Yes. If the idea gets far enough, Lego would reach out to Omocat and any other copyright holders of Omori to discuss how to proceed. They will also get a say in any tweaks, and likely make a licensing fee off of Lego.

However, due to the Ideas streamline, the set likely won't be sold on Omocat's storefront (and if they are, it'd be because Omocat got a few sets to sell from them; they'll never be exclusive to Omocat's store).

Will the creator get paid?

If it makes it, yes! Lego Ideas people get a 1% cut. It's not much, but for all the work it gets to 10k I think it's earned.

But Omori isn't for kids!

Guess what: Neither are most Ideas! They're packed in black boxes and kept near the architecture and more advanced Technic sets targeted towards adults. Each set also has an age recommendation based both on set difficulty and the IP.

Is Omori even appropriate for Lego as a brand?

Omori is on the list of approved IP for Lego Ideas. This may be reviewed, but I think it will remain appropriate both because the set does not portray any of the concerning content in the game and because of the nature.

Lego says they won't make sets for franchises built around graphic violence, alcohol, or sex. Omori lacks all that. I doubt it would be yanked down based on that.

I don't care about Omori. Why should I support this?

First, why did you make it down here?

And second, look. I get it even as a fan. But if we can get an Omori set even to the review stage, that opens up the door for people to try with all other kinds of indie franchises. Undertale, Oneshot, Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, whatever you think of!

Lego Ideas is a portal to Lego working with IP that isn't just owned by a mega corporation, and I think that is awesome.

I signed! What else can I do?

Spread the word! Reblog this post, tell your friends about it, repost (with links and credit) to other social media. Every little bit helps on the road to 10k, to catch Lego's attention, or even just to inspire someone else with a set idea they worry is too niche to share.

Cause this isn't just about Omori. It's about supporting the creativity of a dedicated fan who spent a long time working on something clearly inspired by a game held closely. And I am always going to support that.

Thank you for reading this far! If you're a regular, sorry for the break, lol. I will get back to regular posts soon. I just had an exam so am still a bit drained.

LINK IS HERE FOR A SECOND TIME: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/a73aaefc-9bc2-44f8-b106-63d66817fd1a/official_comments#content_nav_tabs

[pvlvsdog]

How experienced are they and would you finish

Nsfw themes!

Dante has no idea if they are experienced or not so they are pretty much ruled a virgin until further notice. They didn't forget everything but they still manage to stress over getting something wrong. They’re clumsy and stressed out the first few times, but receptive to feedback. Just kind of too frantic to really follow through on it fully. If you're really into them, finishing is not out of the question, they are trying really hard. But the situation is really hard to navigate for them. They do care about you finishing more than getting to a climax themselves. Something about being constantly conditioned to be seen as a mere tool does that to a person

I firmly believe Ishmael has the knowledge surpassing all humanity when it comes to that area. Being on the sea does that to a person. So she knows exactly what to do and though she might judge you a bit (or at least tease you), she will go along with your fantasies and needs. There is not a thing that she wouldn't at least consider. And so you will have no problem finishing

I'm sorry but Heathcliff, to me, has not had sex. Ever. He’s not very experienced to put it lightly and im low-key bordering on making a claim here that you would probably have to put it in for him. He’s far to repressed/sexually frustrated and inexperienced not to miss the hole (either hole, really). But! He is certainly… eager. And wants to please you. To treat you good. Might be a leftover from his past, the same thing that I mentioned in the skinny dipping headcanons. So, while it would be clumsy sex for sure, he would do his best to make you orgasm. Make sure to praise him when you do, it'll make him very proud

Well, I would assume that Meursault fucked? I think he has decent experience and enough of deeply buried desires to be decent in bed. No problems with making you finish either

Rodya is a bit tricky because despite being experienced and knowing what to do with herself, your orgasm really depends on who you are to her. In sexual encounters she prioritizes herself. Learned that from an early age. If she won't take care of her needs, nobody will. So she might as well lead sex in such a way that satisfies her. If you're a drunken one night stand or she's not ready to consider you as a permanent part of her life, sex life included, she will do everything to finish herself. You're just along for the ride. Nothing personal, its not like she would do anything to prevent you from reaching the climax. But before a certain level of commitment, she wouldn't see it as a priority

Don also has a solid amount of experience. She does her best so that both of you finish, since she thinks that's just fair. And way more fun for her to be honest

With Ryoshu it’s 50/50 because I think she definitely had sexual encounters before. She’s a bit rusty though, since she hasn't had sex in a bit. You finishing is more so about what you're into because, just as she is with the act of killing, this too is art for her. She doesn't do quickies, doesn't do fast, desperate spikes of desire. The act of sleeping together is an experience she wants to live through fully and thus, there's a lot she will do before letting you come

Hong Lu is a mystery to me. I mean… he definitely isn't a virgin but im not sure how many sexual encounters that man had had. It could go anywhere between 3 and 300 and it wouldn't be any more surprising to me. But I think his willingness to try out your suggestions and openness to go with the flow would definitely make it easier for you to come. Like, if the current position isn't doing it for you, he’ll switch no problem, searching for a way to also give you pleasure. Sure, it’s a new concept for him. To not be the sole center of things. But he goes with the flow easily. It’s just a fun switch up for him to take a more active role

Outis fucked. And definitely made love too, but that was before the war took its toll on her. She's more familiar with quickies these days. If she actually puts you somewhere high in the hierarchy, she’ll do her best to please you. But if you're just ‘the best thing there was’ don't expect her to try hard. If you don't come she might actually act disappointed in you honestly. Are you really going to make her do all the work? She did her part, it’s on you if you didn't orgasm

With Faust it’s a bit unclear because I can't really see her seeking out sex too often but also like… she is a woman of science, she definitely tried in the very least. So she isn't totally inexperienced but making advances on someone to sleep with them is not an initiative she often takes, I think. Her actual skills might be a bit lacking but again, she has knowledge, so she’s definitely got a rough idea as to what she’s supposed to do to make you finish. I do see her as a more passive party in general, though

I might be a bit rough at writing Yi Sang. In my head, he definitely has had some sex, more than most would assume. But it’s not a very recent thing for him either. Not a very distant memory but there was a little break he had since the last time he had sex. Don't think about what I could be implying too hard (especially since I'm not sure how that would work physically). His skills are pretty good and the ability to just go along with things definitely helps. So in the end you have a pretty good chance at finishing. He’s not the best on the bus, but the probability is pretty high

Oh, it’s a bit tricky with Greg. If he were just an average soldier, he would have a much more extensive list of experiences. But as the “poster boy” it’s less likely that he got to have some undetected casual sex on the side. I mean, historically speaking, it’s not uncommon for those that have to partake in wars to blow off steam in such way. He wasn't an average soldier though so it hindered such possibility for him. And to sleep with a civilian after he got out… well he probably tried. Maybe succeeded once or twice. But even that is up for debate. He’s way too repulsed by his own body and even more scared of that same body acting up. So he’s very nervous and clumsy, restraining himself for a very long time. He feels like he has to “make it up to you” (and by ‘it’ I mean having sex with him, he see that as a charity case kind of situation) so he will do his best to make you finish. He lacks a lot of stamina and experience though. Feels awful if he doesn't make you come and does wonder if a part of it is because of his physique. Especially since it's not that hard to make him finish so he doesn't like when he doesn't manage to return the favour

Now I firmly believe Sinclair is a virgin. I think he and Heathcliff could be in competition for the place of the least experienced. And given Heath’s past, Sinclair would win, I recon. There are two possible routes sex with him could take. Most likely is a nervous, shirt-on encounter born out of pure hornyness that often overcomes him. There is a possibility that his anger issues aid him and he takes more initiative (while making things definitely more rough). In both cases he’s going to be clumsy, sexually frustrated and very fast to finish. You on the other hand… have less of a chance to do the same. Post nut clarity hits him hard and he will grow silent and distant, withdrawing whilst letting his insecurity flood his brain with double the force

[rowanthestrange]

The Media Overanalysis (O)Mega Essay: Why Rogue Is The Bad Guy. Duh.

Code Mauve. Sorry, you’re a mutual and directly responded, so now you get The Post. It was bound to be someone eventually, and it was you. It’s nothing personal. You were just the first to dare my parapet.

@icantleave replied: rogue definitely isn't the master because the master is simply incapable of cosplaying someone this genuine and unlike himself, his disguises are always essentially very him with a few traits hidden or amplified.

Either there is a psy-op and Disney aired a different version of this or a solid quarter of you got brain broken by American Mr Darcy- no don’t try and run, get back here. The only running you’re doing is this essay equivalent of a 10k.

You are intelligent. All of you. And yet what the hell does this mean? “rogue definitely isn't the master because the master is simply incapable of cosplaying someone this genuine and unlike himself”

We’re going through this episode. All of it. This is not actually an ‘it is the Master’ post, it is a ‘but at the very least he sure acts like the Master would’ post, which is the above premise. But also just in general that Rogue is The Bad Guy.

Take it as the Master cosplaying Jack; a Pantheon member whose theme is Roleplay who like the others has watched the show and is deliberately filling the void daddy created and getting in by cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack (has to be doing both to be skilled at Roleplay ala Maestro and the Toymaker’s skills in their areas, else he’d just be shittily cosplaying Jack); or literally he is just baddie Chuldur #6 fanboy who wants to bang the Doctor he saw on TV cus he’s sexy and they get Doctor Who out there as well as Bridgerton. All the concepts are adjacent:

Baddie fanboy roleplaying as Jack to fuck-slash-fuck-with the Doctor.

Places people. Let’s take it from the top:

-We start with a scene showing someone (Chuldur #2) who wants to roleplay as the bad guy because that would be fun.

-(Bonus: the writers talking about themselves - “Wonderful party, your Grace.” “Some are saying best of the season. A triumph. A new standard set. And I, of course, could not comment. But I think the real estimation of an evening is in the matches made.” I quite agree.)

-(We are also in Tredegar House, which you may recognise from The End Of Time, Spyfall, and other times in New Who. We like this place.

-There is electronic interference in Ruby’s earpiece. The Doctor scans this and finds it’s coming from Rogue. The Master is a frequent user of manipulative electronics both towards other people and to disguise himself. Put a pin in this, it’ll come up at the end. ✅

-The Doctor meets Rogue to the backing of hit pop song, Billie Eilish’s “I’m The Bad Guy”. The Master is a famous lover of fun pop, and being obvious to an oblivious Doctor. ✅✅

I wrestled with iMovie at midnight to put the lyric subtitles to this video and you are going to watch and appreciate it:

[If at any point you want out of this essay, all you have to do is come back to here and watch this video again while singing in your head along with the lyrics to receive a passing grade.]

-They deliberately work the lines around the music, not just thematically but so you can clearly hear what the backing song is. And made sure they kept the scene going long enough all the way into the next section just so they could keep the line: “I like it when you take control, even if you know that you don't, own me, I'll let you play the role, I'll be your animal.” Fuck’s sake. Most Thoschei song. Interchangeable freaks.

-Rogue is critiqued by the Doctor for not acting appropriately broody enough. The Master well known for being a fairly shit actor. ✅

-That is an American accent. This is a red flag for either being a Pantheon member, or the Master Dressing For The Occasion (which Rogue certainly has).

-“Do you practise in a mirror?” - him roleplaying would mean literally yes.

-“I didn’t know the Duchess employs a court jester.” - Alexa please search every time the Master has called the Doctor some derivation of clown. ✅

-“O…Kay…Rude. Lord-?” “Not a Lord.” Our last outing with the Master was all about his psyche-destroying discovery of being made from the Not-A-Time Lord Doctor; and if he is Pantheon The Rogue roleplaying as the Master, then just chef’s kiss line. But I will be magnanimous this early in proceedings, and let you go ‘technically a valid meta read is saying that conforms he’s not a Time Lord’. But the paragraph stands.

-He calls himself Rogue:

1. noun: a dishonest or unprincipled person. "You are a rogue and an embezzler" Similar: scoundrel, villain, reprobate. 2. noun: an elephant or other large wild animal living apart from the herd and having savage or destructive tendencies. "a rogue elephant"

If it’s the Master then straight up naming himself “The Bad Guy” is on brand. The Master is a Rogue Time Lord. That is what fandom has long called them - ‘Rogues and Renegades’. The Master is shite at names, if you haven’t had the pleasure of the Third Doctor’s company yet. Shitty anagrams, tenuous links to goals and character aspects, and crappy puns are the standard ✅. If Pantheon, then his choice in lifestyle that’s more about personally having fun (ultimately still Doctor compatible), with a group, in a non-competitive game which has no win condition other than enjoying the game, though rip to the NPC’s being played with as character, would definitely put him somewhat apart from the wreaking havoc on the universe others. If a Pantheon member, he literally did choose his own name from D&D.

-Just generalised throughout: Rogue is not actually suave. Some people find his secret awkwardness under the posh gear charming. The Master is not suave and is awkward, but desperately tries to style it out like he is anyway, that’s just his character. ✅

-We kinda feel like we’re going into some Karny Shobogony kind of cave area, we’re not, but just for the hitting home that this is another Upper Class Gallifrey mirror for the season. You don’t need to think the Master’s involved for this, don’t worry, wasn’t in Dot And Bubble was he, but that was a clear enough mirror. A person appearing as a servant forces their way up the social ladder. If you like some mirror play and are really deep in your TC ‘what kind of person would name themselves Master’, you’re having fun. Also I can’t see that type of death lightning without thinking of Simm!Master. Costly effect, but we went with it, and it does add some panache.

-Chuldur #5 is roleplaying Emily (this is used both in her disguise and out - potentially playing the same ‘character’. We’ll come back to this too, explore more later), who will be something of our Master this evening in the Gallifrey mirror if you’re going in for it. Also coincidentally is half the mirror pair with Ruby to the Doctor and Rogue. “Emily, please-” “But you consume me sir. I think of you every waking hour and I hate myself for it!” yeah we know babe… Anyone else hearing Dhawan!Master’s “I cannot bear that”?

-“I love these old skies” - all the stars makes it arguably sound more like a Flux reference rather than just light pollution. And we all know what event by who triggered that off.

-Finally we get more lines from Rogue, this has all been very one-sided. “Do you never stop chattering?” - a frequent refrain of the Master, who, fun fact has told the Doctor to shut up in every incarnation in New Who (and probably Old but this is the trivia I have) ✅

-If Rogue is supposedly wanting to stop the bad birdies, real weird he doesn’t give an appropriately flying fuck about the mysterious lone shoe. And simply says “I suggest look for the other shoe” like it doesn’t matter with a shrug. Because the Master is stupid and shite at keeping in-character. ✅ Makes sense if he’s on the bad guy’s team though. Also Cinderella. Noticing themes in today’s mirror subtext.

-They find it plus corpse. “And you knew. You didn’t even flinch.” Actually wrong, the Doctor can’t see behind him but we can. Rogue doesn’t flinch at the shoe, or coming up to the body, but when the Doctor says it’s the Duchess, Rogue does a slight ‘oh’ lean back, and then a sigh with a bit of a slump. To me this reads as a ‘oh you fucking idiots’ for doing it this blatantly, but I won’t mark it, cus you could argue that ultimately maybe a bounty hunter might care more about the death of the duchess in particular and sigh about it etc. (Or he is Pantheon roleplayer getting annoyed his gang can’t stick to a character and risking the outline going off-track and more bodycounty). “And you knew” - Rogue doesn’t keep eye contact but closes his eyes, opens them immediately up and a little to the side, thinking of what to say next style. ((This specific circumstance he couldn’t have known about prior, cus the murder happens while he’s inside))

-“This is a murder far beyond the technologies of planet Earth. It could only be done by someone brilliant.” “And monstrous.” [-horny flirting tone looking him up and down] “And ruthless.” “And contemptible.” Both: “You.” He is the Master and in with the bird gang. No bounty hunter with a heart of gold is calling the murderer brilliant because also, may have been easy to miss, but the Doctor hasn’t done anything brilliant yet unless you include owning a scanner and briefly infodumping about constellations. That is a Master talking about himself kinda line. ✅

-The Doctor thought Rogue was a murderer who was calling himself brilliant, and it only made him more horny, and proceeded to dance along with that little two-step. If I’m Master-brained, what’s he? Cus he’s usually only into one murderer. If that guy had snogged him instead of pulling the gun they’d have fucked right then and there, that scene has so much sexual tension that should not be there.

-Edit - courtesy of @katoska: “#though dimensionally transcendental pockets would explain where he'd hidden that big gun in that form fitting outfit.” - And why wouldn’t you have given him one of Jack’s guns, they’re all smaller? But they made Rogue a huge one.

-“So who do you think I am?” “I know you’re a Chuldur.” “The shapeshifters? Ha, I’ve heard of them. I’ve never met one,” *tilting head back towards Rogue and smiling* “Unless I have.” Please, if nothing else, come out of this thinking at minimum he is bad birdie Chuldur #6. Maybe we’re rewriting Frobisher. Heavily, heavily rewriting.

-“[his ship] cloaked behind that shed.” Calling the TARDIS a shed. It was Three that technically said it but the Master has repeatedly expressed his disdain for our beautiful police box before so that’s a Master-fitting line, be it intentional disdain or not yet. ✅

-Won’t call it a point, but he tells us he is a bounty hunter sent here to find them for the money. (Note: not kill - at the very least a bounty hunter would be bringing back the body to get, you know, the bounty). Aside from being a cheap and easy backstory it’s evidently morally bad, for all the Doctor literally goes ‘that is so…cool’ - which is absolutely not his usual position on bounty hunters.

-The thing he uncloaks the ship with? Same thing that controls the traps. How multitool. How sonic screwdriver. Or Laser screwdriver TCE as you prefer.

-His ship is a bird. It has wings, two eyes, and a beak. He is with the birds. He is The Bad Guy ✅. He is using and familiar with the bird ship; or at the insane alternative a TARDIS that completely disguised itself both outside and inside as neighbouring bird ship. There is no good guy answer for why he is in a bird ship. We never ask how the birds got here. But it was probably the bird ship. Bird ship.

-Meta so I can’t give it a point cus it’s beyond our scope but: “Oh you’re the Duchess! Of course, I should have scented you.” Not immediately recognising one of your own species when you should have sensed them thank god that’s not a mirror.

-His ship has an angular console in the middle of it with mirroring angular shape above it, the same taste in decor as the Master does with a TARDIS, like it’s almost designed to put you in mind of one, cute. ✅

-“This place is a mess.” Dhawan!Master’s TARDIS house and console room proper were a massive mess, these guys share housekeeping habits too. ✅

-“I live alone.” The Doctor notes this sort of ship would be piloted by two. Aw sad. Except he’s lying, he’s obviously lying, because he has dice on the table and he’s not playing D&D in his bird-shaped ship alone or with only two fucking people, is he? You need a group. Maybe of Bird roleplaying enthusiasts. Liar. Bad conduct. And failed to remove the evidence that contradicted the lie - dumbass Master behaviour. ✅

-Rogue declares “You’re a killer.” And the Doctor goes “Oh well,” before trying to sonic himself out of the situation, without actually defending himself against the charges. Maybe doesn’t feel the need to. For some reason.

-“What do those things do?” “It’s a trap. Triform on.” Now that could easily be a Master when he’s being sexier line, complete with his classic dumbass behaviour of declaring to the Doctor that something’s a trap before actually springing it. ✅

-He says he is going to send the Doctor to the incinerator. Why? ‘Uh he’s a bounty hunter’ Yeah. So why would he burn the evidence that would get him the money? Can’t just rock up and say ‘I dealt with it I pinkie-promise’.

-The Doctor attempts to sonic his way out of the trap before it finishes charging. Rogue says immediately that it’s deadlocked. The one thing that stops a sonic screwdriver. You can’t deny, that is the level of forethought the Master would manage to scrounge together. ✅

-Rogue scans the Doctor’s gadget, allowed in cus it doesn’t recognise it as dangerous device (oh the old ‘temporal grace field’ in the TARDIS, that’s a nice little mirror), and apparently the scans say it’s a screwdriver. I can’t prove this is a lie, but even we don’t think it’s a screwdriver, the last one with 14 literally was so much not a screwdriver it couldn’t unscrew screws, so unless it connects to the system with the name 15_screwdriver_1 again, feels too convenient. But a toxic Doctor fanboy would be able to identify what it was.

-I don’t know why we have a Sonic Monocular scene that cost us money and effort to produce when we could have just glanced across the table, but since all things that cost money in production have a reason, maybe the laser screwdriver style object we pan over? Point of interest but not a countable one, and either way the main argument is aligning character traits not convincing you he literally is the Master.

-“Roll for insight”, he cracked a smile, so surprising it uncloaked the Doctor’s full Scottish accent. This is the first positive character trait we have seen. We are just shy of halfway through the story.

-Telling the Doctor to “Roll for insight” after he sees the dice, is a dungeon Master’s instruction.

-of course he likes D&D, he plays it with the birds on the bird ship, he’s sent the birds he plays it with off out to continue the game in Bridgerton, he’s being their dungeon Master in real life too

-Seriously if you think Rogue is genuinely just a good guy bounty hunter and we should believe that uncritically, why would they tell us he likes roleplaying in D&D so much he picked his name from it? He roleplays. That’s one of the very few things we know about him. Why not chess? Or Minecraft? He could have liked Tetris? Why would he like roleplaying in the episode about roleplaying if him roleplaying isn’t relevant?

-The Master too adores roleplaying while also not being that great at it. Just putting that out there.

-“And it says that you’re wired for sound!” *sonics* ‘I Just Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ by Kylie Minogue plays. *Rogue looks up in full wide-eyed uh-oh then turns to the Doctor* “Now this is a surprise.” - I mean, yeah, it is actually. I mean why would there be such anachronistic music playing in a ship owned by a guy from…well funny I guess he never said and the Doctor never asked. Well from a species like…well alright uh guess we didn’t do that either. Said ‘planet Earth’ that’s a pretty alien way of phrasing it. “Hey but in the Whoniverse Britney Spears’ Toxic is a traditional Earth ballad”, and maybe usually I’d let it go, but this is the second anachronistic bit of music we’ve heard, and the third we hear later is even more pointed to draw your attention to it. No. It’s weird. You know who it wouldn’t be weird to though? Our pop loving Master! And that’s the most Thoschei Thesis Statement song in Kylie’s repertoire! ✅ (Or Pantheon sharing daddy’s Spice Girls thing for 90’s pop). The Master would also absolutely have forgotten to delete his playback history before all this and pull an ‘oh shit’ face not from embarrassment but cus he knows this looks fucky because he doesn’t have a poker face he’s an idiot that panics the second anything in his plans ever goes wrong. ✅

-The Doctor mouthing: “Boy your loving is all I think about.” A sentiment that’s cropped up multiple times now this episode. Also in a Master mirror. Mhm. It’s a sickness babes.

-But hey we’re up to two positive character traits for Rogue so far - likes D&D and Kylie (both anachronisticly).The Doctor was willing to follow him out and blow him in the shrubbery for less, and honestly, respectable. “I just have a crush on prettyboy American Mr Darcy” is a defence, not a good one, but still.

-The Doctor and Master with one turning the music on and the other trying to turn it off would be a scene, you can imagine it, don’t lie, you’re imagining Missy and Twelve right now. (I think for annoyer-and-annoyed Three and Delgado could go either way depending on the episode. How appropriate for them.) ✅

-Also Rogue attempting to snatch the sonic screwdriver from the taller Doctor’s hand as he plays keep-away. Bitchy, gay, very character-breaking with the rest of the episode, deeply funny. The Master would. ✅ Then gathering himself, putting on the I’m In Charge voice and holding out his hand for the Doctor to hand it over and he does. (Huh, have you guys as a whole watched Delgado? Is this what creates the ‘the Master would never’? Cus actually if you’ve not seen these two just be a bit silly with each other and think that’s just fan characterisation that would actually explain a lot. Eh, but Missy and Twelve(/Clara) have some silly too, if not Three and Delgado level. Hm, to ponder).

-Psychic paper would also not work on the Master and he would say “it says ‘you’re hot’” to fluster the Doctor. Also we know he’s lying about it saying that, because he’s the one saying he’s seen it written, yet immediately follows up as the Doctor babbles with, Rogue: “Is it ‘you’re hot’, or I’m hot’?” Rogue would know which word was written the funny ambiguity is only from the non-seer’s side on hearing the other person say ‘you’re’. ✅

-“Suits you, flustered, it’s a good look for you.” Finally we get some fun confidence - which only appears the second he actually gets an upper hand with the Doctor on the back foot. Like someone else we know. Also yet again we have the phrase “a good look” for you in this episode all about shapeshifting. The phrase is applied to Rogue by the Doctor, to the Doctor from Rogue, and among the birds to each other. It establishes an equivalence between them, which is odd if Rogue is supposedly the only one not shapeshifting and roleplaying.

-The boss thing, callback to the Meep. Again this isn’t a ‘convince you it really is the Master’ thing, it’s character analysis that their traits overlap and he is a bad guy. But since we’re here, the Master is often technically working for someone else he intends to double-cross while thinking he’s ahead of them (nearly every time incorrectly), and we know he is/will be involved with the Pantheon — given this guy is a dice rolling gameplayer, the Master gambling and losing to the Toymaker, just vibes like it’d be out of order and future toothening imo — while there’s nothing to say our hidden ‘The Boss’ is Pantheon, I’m gonna Occam’s Razor and assume both those plot threads tie together, and for now that’s a reasonable way to explain how the Master got involved with the Toymaker at all.

-“I’m just so trigger happy.” Literally a Master line, and one we just had: “Oh, shoot. I should've said, somebody needs to cut you down to size, then zapped you. I was just trigger-happy. I'll use it next time.” ✅

-Floating Doctor heads literally the Master’s nightmare. Literally literally but I can’t remember where from and ‘master nightmare floating head doctor who’ gets you about as useless information as you’d imagine.

-Look. Rogue goes from confidently being about to kill the Doctor. The Doctor forces the scanner to show some other of his faces with the psychic paper, does his whole speech saying he’s “not a Chuldur. I’m something much older and far more powerful. A Lord of Time from the lost and fallen planet of Gallifrey” (this is a special surprise that will help us later) “Now, let me go, bounty hunter. We have work to do.” It is cringe, it is up himself and lording over others which is nearly always punished, the Doctor uses his special Deep And Majestic voice, and our stoic confident Rogue is suddenly wide-and-starry-eyed and breathily says, “Wow.” In the fakest response I have ever seen. Sadly I am not allowed more than one video. But oh my God, if you need a refresher it’s 18:14. And if you think it isn’t fake, yes you need the refresher.

You can’t be buying that OwO “Wow”. You think that was the turning point? I know I’m supposed to provide better analysis, but the writing is cringe, the acting is completely counter to what it was a moment ago for both parties, is over the top, and you think a bounty hunter would do a 180 from that?? Why?? ‘Oh you’re showing me the faces you’ve been before, yeah, I know, you’re a shapeshifter’. Nothing in the scanner says he’s a Time Lord, just the words from his mouth, why would he not be lying to save his own skin? And again, what would a Time Lord mean in the universe now? Who gives a shit, if you know what they are you know they’re all dead and reasonable shot you’re happy about that. Failing even that, Rogue is working for the same Boss as the Meep - if the word Time Lord rang a bell it’d be cus Fourteen caused problems last time ‘bring him to me’, surely. “Wow” uwu so cool! Really??? Nothing, not a thing Rogue has done so far, indicates he would be “Wow” to that. Not a damn thing.

Fakest response I’ve ever seen - Groff is actually a good actor so it’s supposed to be fake, at least one of the writers is award winning and may well be both, and Ncuti went out of his way to make it look like unnatural arrogance that doesn’t fit with the previous acting choices either in this scene or the whole show so far. So either all these people were crap at their jobs, or, it’s supposed to smell like bullshit. Would the Master look exactly as fake going “wow” because his character needs to have the heel-turn now? Yes ✅. And that you pulled this speech in front of him would complete its vast circle of cringe and roleplaying.

And what happens next? We cut straight to Ruby and Cosplaying Chuldur #5: [Giggling] “We can’t keep hiding like this!” You guys are smart, don’t pretend you’re not smart, if you follow me you know how good writing works, and are choosing to ignore the meta and mirrors and themes of the episode in a way you wouldn’t with a normal Rusty-written one that you’d sit and deeply analyse. Different writers yes, but smart and capable and award winning ones. These aren’t two disparate stories smushed together, they’re the same story in different keys, that’s the Rule One here.

Continuing, Ruby tries to convince High Society Lord- Lady that she doesn’t have to marry another Lord but could be a normal person, and then the Lady says “I’ll marry someone lesser, and smaller…it may not be love but perhaps a kindly smile at dinner…and then a shared grave” cus she doesn’t want a normal person, that’s what Ruby wants her to want, she wants to marry her kinda shitty Lord. Because that’s what this fantasy roleplay is all about.

Okay essay portion over we got out of hand, bullet points, re-engage.

-A motherfucking owl hoots, with the subtitle “owl hoots”, while Rogue recloaks the giant bird ship, giving us a second look at it again, making sure we get the full distance shot and shimmery cloaking effect to highlight the wings if they get lost in the shadows. Rogue. Is with. The birds. It’s a bird ship. There is no good guy explanation for the bird ship and its D&D equipment that can only be used by multiple people in our episode about obsessive-roleplaying birds.

-Rogue has now packed. ‘What?’ Rogue has now packed. He is now carrying a small bag, cross-body strap over his shoulder. We will not use anything from this bag or see him access it or acknowledge it at all. He’s just brought it with him. Perhaps like he knows he’s not going to be going back to the ship again. Curious.

Dice Bag propoganda post

-“You ready for this?” [low tone] “It’s not my first shed.” - woah woah woah, where’s all the sparkle of a minute ago babes, I thought you were ‘OwO wow’, if you know what a Time Lord is you know what a TARDIS is, but you’re not excited no mo? Or he’s doing it to deliberately make the TARDIS inside reveal cooler in contrast because he knows how much the Doctor likes this moment.

-“O my God” - haha namedrop. This happens to be Mastery behaviour cus this is just the Dhawan!Master pretending to be O entering the TARDIS scene. You were catfished by this before, come on babes. ✅

-“Come with me, and we’ll be, in a world of pure imagination…” - what are you imagining babes? Are ya roleplaying son? Cosplaying? Engaging in a bit of the old fantasy right now. No? He’s just feeling in a chocolatey kind of mood? Uhuh.

-“I’m in love!” - Now isn’t this a 180 on the character? From so reticent and ‘most serious man on earth’ to loudly declaring his love for the ship. Which just so happens to be the Doctor’s number one kink. And what does the TARDIS do in response? She growls. Rule one basic storytelling - the new boyfriend is evil, we knew cus the beloved dog growls at him. Rogue said he was in love and she growled. Gave Jack a bar, an ensuite, and let him tinker with her insides. But to Rogue she growls. Baddie. ✅

-The TARDIS lights are in a red-and-white checkerboard pattern. Our dimensionally transcendental TARDIS is literally a 5d chessboard. I won’t count it, but come on.

-Speaking of dimensionally transcendental, that’s exactly what Rogue called her. Yet didn’t anticipate a TARDIS thirty seconds ago. It takes work to argue he knows about dimensionally transcendental spacetime ships but not know of TARDISes that Time Lords travel in, but does know enough about Time Lords to be dazzled by them when he clearly isn’t of earthly Lords. Much easier to go ‘eh’ keeping the story straight when you’ve got extra knowledge you’re pretending you don’t have, but also need to come across as intelligent, is hard. We’ve all played D&D or at least Let’s Pretend. It’s hard. Lying is hard.

-After a quick “and so clean” back-and-forth, Rogue runs up the stairs, hand on the bannister and leans on the railing. The TARDIS growls again, louder, like a whale. Like she did in the episode with the Not-Things, and with The Maestro. (Arguably her ‘Pantheon’ noise?) Both of them notice. Rogue’s expression immediately turns from an awed open-mouthed smile to blankness, with a head tilt and turn, slowly coming back. “What was that?” The Doctor claims indigestion and she doesn’t like bounty hunters. Not true of the ones with hearts of gold. We’ve seen her with Jack, and River, and she adores them. “It’s the moral void - no offence.” So you’re admitting it. Stating it directly. He’s not got a heart of gold, the omnipotent spacetime ship can see that he’s a moral void. That is what you have said. ✅

-“And this, from the ancient and fallen world of Gallifrey…Where the hell is that?” *buzzer* Wrong. You tried to be clever and aren’t - that wasn’t the line. The line was ‘lost and fallen’ not ‘ancient and fallen’. Oh but Gallifrey is ancient though- *buzzer* He says in the same sentence he doesn’t know of Gallifrey. And yet, he got all wide and starry-eyed over a Time Lord, when he is saying he knows nothing about them. Why? Because he can’t keep his character straight pun intended, which is a character trait of another undercover ex-agent we know. ✅

-“Well I might take you one day.” - bananas response by the Doctor for multiple reasons. ‘I’ll take you to my lost and fallen homeworld’ ok what? Second, Fifteen has for once been very open about his loss in this regard, said repeatedly that it’s gone, and how much it hurts him. Said it to Ruby, to Carla, to complete strangers. But here he’s out of character. Why? Maybe he’s roleplaying one that doesn’t hurt. Maybe because he thinks it’s the Master and is fucking with him. But I’m going with the roleplaying and saying what this character feels. Fucky from the Doctor rather than Rogue.

-“In a few minutes it will no longer be a deathtrap, you are welcome.” [Rogue casually] “Why, what does it do now?” This is all important but also pause to reflect for a moment on whether the character we saw up to this point would have handed his essential survival and work gear to a shapeshifter who claimed to be a Time Lord with zero proof and let him just modify it however. ‘He’s just a very trusting bounty hunter, is all.’ I mean he wasn’t at the start of all this though, was he.

-Doctor boundaries: I can’t let you kill it, “So instead we will transport it to a random barren dimension, no-one to hurt, no way back.” Passing over the obvious, the Doctor is the one programming this. We agree we’re probably not literally installing a randomiser onto the device, we’re just randomly picking one and assigning those coordinates. How do you know it’s barren? Oh the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental we just reminded people, so she can probably see, she’s picking it. Ok. …So there’s no reason she wouldn’t have a record of what she set it to. That’s information we should have. Ok. Which are the letters Rogue says. Ok. What about your bounty job? Not even a response to the no-killing? Or that this seems worse if anything? No. Just ok. We’re saying that a lot in this episode. Ok. Just going along with things. Ok. I know what that word means. Ok.

-“Who did you lose?” “How do you know?” “Cus I know.” Cus we covered this earlier actually when he mentioned the usually two-person’s for captaining an asteroid hopper. Forgot? No worries Rogue, been a long ten minutes. No attempt to make a proper backstory just stares at the Doctor like a cow looking at an oncoming train and goes, “There was- …Yeah. We travelled together, we had fun, you know. And then a day came along, and at the end of that day…I lost them.” Now if this was the Master you’d be saying no shit he can’t provide details and only parrot what the Doctor always says in these situations, he is a moral void, bro has one friend and only knows what it’s like to love that one friend obsessively, he can’t even empathise enough to improvise a backstory that feels realistic. Maybe only lies have details but you can argue my guy didn’t even commit to a gender. It’s also a valid read to assume he’s just short on words at losing his fellow they/them bounty-hunter crook friend. Maybe the OwO Time Lord thing is enough to make him open up a little even if the Doctor’s done nothing to earn that trust yet. But both work just fine, if it was the Master it’d be how he’d do it. ✅

-“What about you?” The Doctor’s expression hardens here. Maybe cus it just hurts. Maybe for other reasons. [coldly, we linger on him] “I lost everyone.” Rogue still with too-wide-cow-train eyes . “But at the party I saw you with that woman...” That tone. And how we immediately wave his ‘Best Friend’ aside. Look, again it’s a watch the scene. These two are good actors, they’re excellent. And down to the ‘huh’ head tilt before Groff’s line with every microexpression he is radiating a guy playing a role while still trying to poke his roleplaymate in his open wound with a stick. There has never been just one layer in anything in the show so far why would it start now in the episode about cosplaying people to death do you part, why? Why?? The one mirror everyone can accept is Captain Jack and he was literally a con man. This is a con man you are being conned. If you look at his face and think he’s being earnest you are extra weak to con men do not give strangers your credit card details. Didn’t you have jerk friends? We all had jerk friends. That is the expression the jerk friend made when they were just asking questions *blink* *blink* don’t get upset. Or Groff is a garbage actor. But he isn’t. Just the character he’s playing is crap at acting. Go back and watch O, the cow-eyes are textbook liar, any liar, but especially the Master ✅. They’re doing a scene, it is diegetic. The acting is diegetic.

-“You don’t have to stay a bounty hunter, [beat pause] Rogue.” You can say it’s just cus he knows Rogue isn’t his real name but the Doctor’s usually fine with that sort of thing. “You could travel with me[…]the worlds I could show you…” “And what if I like what I do? Would you travel with me?” “That is quite an argument. ((No it isn’t he doesn’t like bounty hunters)) I’ll tell you what, when we both get out of this, let’s argue across the stars.” This is the Doctor and Master scene, we do these scenes every incarnation all the way since half-share in the universe, you don’t have to think he’s the Master but we know these lines damn well are. ✅

-They nearly kiss but the TARDIS cockblocks them with a beep of being finished with the rewiring, because again, she doesn’t like the moral void, and does not want the Doctor to stick his dick in it. And what does the Doctor say as he steps back from their almost kiss? “The trap is ready.”

-[Rogue is sans new bag for the indoor scenes here, I believe this is just a costuming error that happened from them probably reshooting the dancing a bajillion times, it will come back when they’re back outside again and in every subsequent scene onwards]

-They meet back up with Rubes and Roleplaying Chuldur #5. Ruby asks a very good question. “Ok, but what does anyone get out of killing these people? I mean I know they’re posh nobs and all that, but we found the housekeeper dead. I mean why would anybody do that?” And the Doctor, instead of saying ‘it’s how they steal their bodies they’re shapeshifters’ says the meta-important answer first. “The dance. The drama. The emotion.” THIS IS ABOUT GALLIFREY. High society here is a mirror for the aforementioned fallen Gallifrey. The Master didn’t just genocide the Time Lords, he killed every Shobogon/lay-Gallifreyan without Child-stolen regenerations, he killed every TARDIS, every living thing on the planet. Why? The drama.

-“It’s cosplay. All of this is cosplay.”

-The Doctor turns to a non-plussed looking Rogue and says: “You said that a Chuldur comes to a planet and tries on people like outfits just for the fun of it.” …Wh- when? When did he say that?? (I’m being facetious - he doesn’t). Also does that seem rich coming from the ‘multiple costume changes per episode’ Doctor? Mirrors.

-(If the background music here is Vitamin String Quartet I don’t recognise it unfortunately. Fun Fact, I used them exclusively as background music for my own wedding, cus I thought it’d be fun for people to try and guess the songs if things got boring and it’d be a conversation starter. Ate my wedding cake to Poker Face. We like resonating with the universe here.)

-“Those TV signals beam out across the stars.” “What are these T-V signals?” I can’t add more than one video, so if you’re not willing to take the description on faith it’s 24:45. But watch Rogue here. He slightly turns to her with a little glare and that exact same frustrated little sigh he did with the Duchess corpse earlier. Dungeon Master’s stupidest soldier? Cus you’d think if he was annoyed she was being anachronismatised (real word), he’d have given the Doctor the shut up glare but doesn’t give him bother for it at all. Maybe he’s just a conflict averse bounty hunter. But that’s what the Master would have done, he has low lackey/idiot friend tolerance. Both reads valid. ✅

-The Doctor dances, we know what that’s a metaphor for and what episode it’s from. Good thing Rogue knows all the moves ahead of time.

-Just putting the reminder here cus there’s no clear place - I go with Master because Dungeon Master, I’m A Bad Guy, the mirrors *gestures at everything above* etc. but mostly because this is a deliberate attempt to cosplay Jack. Thus it requires someone who has watched the show. The Pantheon, the Master seems like a good bet, however, could admittedly be Chulder #6 (and they’re just supposed to be a very strong but purely mirror for the Master) and because of their different dimension-ness has watched the show on TV and has figured out how their self-insert is gonna bang the Doctor. But one way or the other, our baddie here has seen Doctor Who The TV Show in the same way the birds watched Bridgerton and this is an intrinsic part of this that shouldn’t be separated. That we have a fanboy who is deliberately cosplaying Jack and invoking him and references to that episode is important.

-Rogue: “So what is this ancient Earth tradition of cosplay?” No-one said it was ancient (twice now), no-one said it was Earth, no-one said it was tradition, even Ruby had to clarify ‘so you mean it’s literally dressing up and playing at Bridgerton?’ Rogue almost certainly already knows what it means. And we know the birds do. This is our baddie having fun. Because as the Doctor says next: “Oh, Rogue. It’s when fans dress up as characters that they like.” (Point to Pantheon, because roleplaying the Master would be dressing up as a character from Doctor Who that they like).

-General note again: both prior to but especially 13’s era really spent some subtext time building up the whole ‘The Doctor’ and ‘The Master’ are roles they play. If you know you know. We’ve been continuing on Chibs’s themes. Just reminding.

-The Doctor takes the male i.e. leading position judging by the other couples visible. As per traditional Thoschei.

-Lights dim in our usual diegetic/non-diegetic playing that we’ve been doing. Soft point to Pantheon - remember if The Rogue’s theme is Roleplaying it must be a double bluff for him to actually be being skilled at it, and he is cosplaying the Master cosplaying the Doctor, with the conceit that the Doctor gets this but not that it’s someone cosplaying the Master, thus he’s winning. If he is Pantheon this is the only potential evidence of fuckery besides having brought non-native-dimensional creatures into ours, which we do have other explanations for.

-“We need to have a big fight so one of us can storm out and the Duchess follow us.” “The Chuldur cosplay, not me.” Mhmm. You had D&D dice. But regardless if you buy that, we have now spontaneously swapped from engaging starry-eyed Personality B, back to Personality A: strong and silent.

-“How dare you my Lord! You would ask me to give up my title? My fortune? But what future can you promise me? *Rogue shaking his head, not good at deviations from the script, nor is the Master fwiw* ✅ “You cad! Tell me what your heart wants, or I shall turn my back forever!” “I…” Fifteen whispers, “Say anything.” If you are not internally writing the pre-show Doctor/Master fanfiction I cannot help you. Jo describing the Master like a jilted lover or whatever the hell it was. But at least here, with admittedly a little open-mouthed smirky smile, Rogue gets down on one knee and offers his ring. (From non-marriage hand, 4th finger, don’t completely see him pull it off but he was wearing it in the dance scene). If we are re-writing history with this cosplay, which given the Doctor’s reaction he certainly seems to consider it meaningful, that’s definitely what the Master would do here. ‘This is what I wanted you to do back then.’ ✅

-Obviously the Master has used that sort of flat-topped large round ring before, we’ve had the callback to it with the red-nailed woman and the tooth just recently. The insignia is not entirely decipherable. Most default I’ve seen is an angel (Master coding, especially if we’re wearing it upside-down hoo), I’ve also seen a ‘rod of asclepius with 3d coiling tails’ (A Doctor fanboy who has come prepared for this moment), and just plain bird of some kind given the little wings.

-The Doctor says a very genuine “Sorry I can’t- …I ca-” and runs off. (Which definitely happened the first time). This almost certainly isn’t River trauma, Twelve wore the implied wedding ring until it fell off when he regenerated. And we’re just supposed to be making a scene and this is an obvious way to do it - he’s already nearly kissed him and invited him, the Doctor put relationship on the cards, and could easily still be haha fun joke but you are still coming right? If it was just Yaz Making Everything Feel Like Touching A Hot Mind Stove then the near kiss feels like that would have been included in the trauma reaction. So presumably engagement based triggering specifically. Probably not from Cameca either. That had cocoa involved.

-Rogue seems a little surprised at this reaction. Fair all round, the Master might not have expected it either, but also the sort of thing a fanboy might not have been able to pre-empt - it wasn’t in the show after all.

-They actually join back together almost immediately and they run outside, so it wasn’t that overwhelming.

-“Oh, we must play them!” - no ‘aha’s’ from the peanut gallery, we already saw the birds can potentially not recognise each other in costume, and in the baddie camp (bird ship, he’s in a bird ship) we can be pretty sure that Rogue didn’t arrive here looking like Mr Darcy since none of the others were pre-costumed and just nicked people when they got here. (number 2 shows they didn’t pre-organise characters - “nice costume”). If Chulder #6 - nicked a guy. If Pantheon - conjured himself a bespoke Darcy form. If the Master potentially still body-stealing or simply we’re cloaked - remember the electronic interference from the start that pointed the Doctor to him specifically rather than the Chuldur? Dhawan!Master previously cloaked himself, plenty of scope there. (Why would the Master need to cloak? If the Doctor’s already familiar with his form. Either from other plans or the fact that, well, there’s a world where this could literally still be Dhawan!Master.)

-The Master nicks bodies by the way, for New Who-onlys. We haven’t actually done it for a while, and for earring interference reasons I don’t believe we’re doing it now, but it’s actually a Classic Who staple.

-“Now keep the Duchess talking, a Chuldur is strong, and if she starts to change you it won’t stop.” First, now that’s a meta, second, do we want to add a sketchy point for the gendering of the Chuldur? Cus we’ve seen one of them explicitly say they’re fine with different bodies (‘oh I wanted to be the Duchess’)? Hm. It’s an assumption on thin ice but I’ll allow it. We don’t ask Rogue why he knows so much about the Chuldurs considering they’re different dimension beings. There are non-problematic options there to be sure. But will say that Dhawan!Master was previously messing around with different dimension beings hoping to find out if they were what the Doctor was, got trapped in their dimension at the end, and these ones are literal shapeshifters. If it is the Master, he has plenty of reason to be here with them and know a lot about them. ✅ If he is a Chuldur, well, obvious reason.

-[Rogue now has his bag back on. This is why I believe it’s a costuming error it wasn’t on indoors just then - the TARDIS and real outdoor areas were obviously filmed in very different times and places, the fact the bag travelled to both is suggestive that it was clearly supposed to be a part of his outfit at this point. BTS: the indoor and outdoor scenes were obviously filmed at different times, (3 weeks of night shoots oof) they’re not actually walking in and out of the building. But it’s also a deliberate costuming addition after the ship because he wasn’t wearing it in the night scenes where he’s holding the Doctor at gunpoint or anything. Tl;dr - no bag before the “Wow” heelturn in the ship, carries bag after.]

-There’s not one but multiple of the Chuldur shapeshifters. A ‘family’ according to Rogue. (Who are playing two characters that are getting married. Oh Doctor-Master mirrors, never change). Something you’d think would be on the bounty hunter note - are you just getting paid for the first one? Can you claim extra if you make multiple runs? These are important questions. Or not.

-“I want to be the Doctor.” …How does she know it’s the Doctor? ‘Uh, the Duchess was introduced to him earlier.’ Yeah. The Duchess. Who died. Childur 1 was still the housekeeper when that happened. She knows who the Doctor is.

-Doctor-Master inverting with the “Run.” “I’m the one who usually says that.” Our beloved theme returns to us. Of course maybe it’s just the cosplaying self-inserting whatever could be any baddie by which i mean really only Pantheon or Chulder #6. Bird ship. The Master was literally cosplaying as the Doctor the last time we saw him, like physically in the Doctors clothes. And probably underwear. Does anyone in this essay smoke weed?

-“Breaking spines! Removing tonsils! Live vivisection!” Gallifrey Time Lords mirror previously engaged, re-engage plus Timeless Child. But we uh haven’t had them do any of that stuff yet and they already suck people dry (don’t. I think it’s meant to be a kind of bolus, if you know your birds of prey) so I don’t know why this line is here. Actually maybe I do - now they’re roleplaying playing scary beasts hunting prey, doesn’t mean they’re actually going to do any of those things. Removing tonsils stands out. …We have a rogue (can’t say that now. Odd?) line from Ruby at the beginning about falling over in front of a fit dentist, the Master’s in the Toymaker’s gold tooth, tonsils feel adjacent, it’s almost certainly just funny, and it is, but if that bangs any bricks together in someone’s head go to town.

-I think the “breaking spines! removing tonsils! live vivisection” line is there to showcase that they are roleplaying Baddies. Because while murdering, they have done literally nothing like that, and it’s the sort of silly thing a child would say when playing a monster trying to think of the nastiest things a monster could do). “We still have the big finale wedding to come. And then… London. We can play our games on a magnificent scale. Parliament first, then royalty. I can be King. And we can start wars with the French and the Spanish and the Portuguese, and everyone who doesn’t look British.” This is their spitballing Season Two. As another point to all being one character and that them being Secret Monsters may be accounted for in the game - Emily is always called Emily whether humanning or in bird form.

-The Doctor and Rogue hide in the carriages. (Matilda style). If you’re building that pre-show Thoschei story, hiding from Time Lords in a TARDIS was probably already there, but if it wasn’t, now it is. Or hurr durr hiding in a carriage is funny I don’t know.

-“Back to the house. We must advance with the wedding! That should get them out of hiding.” …Bestie? What does that mean? Why would that get what we were led to believe that you believe are ‘two random interesting people one introduced to you earlier as the Doctor’ out of hiding? They have skedaddled so as not to be eaten by birds, right? They’re gone, lassie, why would they come back? …Unless she already knew who a character called the Doctor was before they were introduced? And that the Doctor’s M.O. will bring him back? Cus they’ve been watching more than one show.

-We modify the transporter: “I can make this transport gate carry four.” “What if there’s more?” “Right…Six. Six maximum.” How convenient. Personally don’t feel that worry is realistic for the character to have (while acceptable to write), and that if Rogue was as he was originally portrayed, he would be saying “Worst comes to worst, I could always…” *lifts jacket* *Doctor has brief moment of distracted horniness* “Nobody is going to be shooting anybody.” But he’s so perfect pacifist for the Doctor so quickly, I guess he just never would. Of course if he’s on their side, especially if also a Chuldur, he’s not wanting to kill any of them.

-Also feels like a Dungeon Master-whisper in the ear the Doctor just goes with: What if there’s more birds? *sets it to 4* What if there were more. *immediately sets it to 6 skipping 5 entirely*. (We talked about Missy’s comment of there always being a way out being potentially meaningful re: the Master’s traps for the Doctor; and counterbalancing the Doctor giving them a way out ‘come with me don’t be evil’. This would be a fun thing to do with that. Trying to create and order a good story and satisfying conclusion based on the Doctor and other players’ choices - pure DMing work at its finest.).

-“And I thought I was interesting. A bookish little wallflower risking it all for a secret love… But you. You are wild, and brave, and rude, living a life of adventure” again you don’t have to be team Master to enjoy the Gallifrey mirror. The potential in these mirrors for the Master is mmm gorgeous and I’m so here for it. Going back in time to when One ran away with Susan and slapping him for not proposing because he would have come with you, we could fix the universe, we-

-Question, cus I’m bored and this has become sort of a general analysis essay: When the birds transformed there were at least some people inside who screamed, you hear them. …Why is the party still here and going on and everyone’s chilling. Eh maybe Dot And Bubble explained that. Or maybe it was delayed screaming at seeing the gays. That’d be a Time Lord mirror. A marriage proposal probably gets you arrested for public indecency.

-The birds speak English, French, and German. Or at least a few words thereof. Multidimensional telly and I’m surprised it’s got foreign channels? How anglocentric of me. *shakes head*.

-“This is the endgame, Chuldur’s leave no witnesses ((yes they do they just abandoned bodies everywhere)), they’ll slaughter everyone.” If he’s not a bad guy then why, why the fuck, did he spend about fifteen minutes fucking around and not shouting “If we don’t stop the Chuldur they’re going to massacre everybody the second they stop having fun! Yeah, I’m bringing the gun!” like you mention this now??? Of course he mentions it now, he’s building dramatic tension because he is like our favourite dramatic bitch. ✅

-R:“I’m sorry.” 15:“They got her.” Ruby cosplaying as a Chuldur cosplaying as Ruby (see you thought my Pantheon cosplaying as the Master cosplaying as Jack was too much - we did double-layering in the episode itself) enters the room. Rogue gives his line but immediately turns away and watches only the Doctor and his reaction (who stares for a moment then gets up and walks away). Autism collective that we all are, this:

is not an expression of someone whose heart is breaking for his new friend. Just so we’re clear. Which is an odd choice for a new love interest - no sympathetic pain, eyes closing, not even a pat on the arm. He’s just observing what the Doctor does, and then gets up and follows the Doctor out. ✅ If he’s a good guy (he’s not, bird ship) you’re not selling him well. And if he’s a bad guy turning noble, he doesn’t have that part down yet. (Also Rogue said he’d tried looking for Ruby but they’d locked the doors. They manage to get through the section they’re in just fine. YMMV. Not enough on its own imo).

-“Madam. Your Grace …Your Birdiness. I cannot sanction wedlocke…between creatures from Hell.” They let the vicar be the one with the banger line, damn. Only one with a spine. Dead obviously but getting a high-five from some angel out there. (Me turning that into a vicar’s reaction to being asked to wed the Doctor and Master, whatever the fuck they are.)

-Speaking of which, here we explicitly see a Chuldur kill a man and copy his outfit but not his face. The Chuldur. Have no difference. Between body. And clothing. *flashback the Not-Things, and Fourteen regenerating* If you weren’t sure they were mirrors, you should be now.

-“How long do they live for?” “Chuldur?” “Mhm.” *Rogue comes up from behind to stand alongside him where he can see him.* “They have a lifespan of about six-hundred years.” “Good, good. That’s a long time to suffer.” A slight negative in ‘this can be validly read as the Master’ behaviour, because this yields only a tiny expression change of a slight raise of eyebrows, not a wild-eyed smile, and I don’t think the Master’s been able to restrain himself that well since he was Delgado. God what that man could convey with an eyebrow. Also we’ve all agreed that the funniest thing is that the plan doesn’t even change, he just knows how long their torment will last now and is happy about it, and if you ever need to explain the horror underpinning the Doctor it’s that.

-Now this is a hell of a thing to reveal about yourself to your brand new love interest and companion. That you’re down for some serious torture. Thirteen went well out of her way to be a monster only when they couldn’t see her. (Works nicely as a soft threat though. ‘If you’re involved with killing mine, I will torture you til you die or the sun does’. Good to have boundaries in a relationship.)

-“Taste his inhuman scent.” - A) Nice double-meaning line considering *gestures above*, B) Confirmation she knew earlier the Doctor wasn’t human, and so combining that with the belief he would come back if they started the wedding…

-“And I am one of a kind.” “He is quite unique…” Hold this in your mind we’ll be back to it in just a minute. *

-The birds immediately recognise the transport trap, by name, and that there’s only one third of it. Which would make a lot of sense if Rogue and the birds’ ship are the same bird ship so they’ve seen it before. Can’t be that they’ve encountered Just A Bounty Hunter Rogue before - he ‘didn’t know’ there was more than one, there’s no visual recognition, and previously it led to an incinerator not something escapable from.

-That we don’t see presumably Rogue placing the other traps, not even a glimpse of someone shuffling in the background, is to me extremely interesting. Not only like with the Carla flashback scene, playing with the unseen, but perhaps critically that this certain someone might know where the cameras are…

-Were you going “why don’t they just take their shoes off” when they got stuck in the triform? Well makes sense that they didn’t now, right?! Cus we know now there’s no difference to them between their clothing and their skin! …Admittedly Ruby…hopefully is fine and as human…well maybe not human…hopefully she’s whatever she was at the start of the episode. I, uh, maybe would mark that down as a concern though.

-Ruby’s chemistry with Lady roleplaying #5 was rewarded by attempted murder as Emily sought to turn into her. That happens a lot here. Let’s not worry about them as the partner mirror for Doctor-Rogue. Or what just happened with Dhawan!Master and 13. If you consider ‘Poker Face’ to be obviously meta-relevant here but ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ not earlier, question yourself.

-* I told you we’d be back. “She smells like a Chuldur.” “Idiot! It’s a false scent from that cheap psychic jewellery!” - The Doctor smells unique but this doesn’t mean they aren’t palling around with the Master. We’re specifically given a reason for this to not be an issue and well, I guess that would explain why she gets earring interference when Rogue’s around huh? If they’re using the same technology. (Same goes for a Chuldur faking being a human etc.)

-Do I believe the Master could perform a fireman’s lift to yeet #5, yes surprisingly, he is actually physically strong, a fencer, rower, and it’s been noted before. (Ainley’s six pack haunts me still). Dhawan!Master in particular has lugged corpses. It’s only running he doesn’t do/have stamina for. However, do I think he would risk it in-situ just for cool points? Don’t know. However, for this free bit of mental torture to work, the final bird has got to be in the enclosure. If it’s not all or nothing, then of course the Doctor would release Ruby. To get the Doctor to have to choose either to kill his companion or the world? He would carry the earth like Atlas. ✅

And that’s what he immediately proceeds to do with no hesitation. ✅

“Doctor, press send. We’ve only got one chance.” “I can’t.” “Press. The button.” *The Doctor openly, loudly panicking* “It will send Ruby!” “No, Doctor, it’s fine.” “NO! No! No! No!” “If you don’t press send, the Chuldur will escape and Ruby dies anyway.”

The Rogue that you think is real is not doing this. Is not convincing the Doctor to kill his companion. He is taking out his gun, and shooting the struggling birds while they are still stuck to the glue trap. It’s not a nice thing. But it is the Heart Of Gold thing. But he’s not that. He’s just The Bad Guy. ✅

“They’ll kill us. Then this house. Then London. Then the world. You know that. You absolutely know it.”

He doesn’t. The Doctor doesn’t know a thing about the Chuldur other than that they are shapeshifters and what he’s seen. How does he even know what London is?? And he wasn’t there for the scene where the Chuldur said it themselves.

He can’t have logicked that out. There were a few deaths sure, but one housekeeper and a duchess not only isn’t ‘these are extremely dangerous and fast killing machines’-worthy, that leap doesn’t make sense.

It’s not even true in their possibly-just-roleplay Baddie Plan. ‘And we’ll start wars with x y and z and everyone who isn’t British! Bloodshed, cannons, gunpowder!’, like that is a lonnnnnnng plan. Like I said before this situation is no ‘we don’t have time to run away and regroup’ thing, they’re slow killers, and especially with Ruby with battle mode engaged she at least would be fine. But it’s that taking over London bit. Very specifically. He claims he hasn’t met them, doesn’t know how many there are, he’s not admitting to any prior knowledge of these guys. So the only way he comes up with that line is if he already knew what they wanted out of their campaign in the first place.

They have not yet proven any more dangerous than any human gunman, in fact less, they clearly can’t spray bullets, they kill one at a time and so far only people they’ve wanted the appearance of in some way. They have been in rooms crammed with people who survived the encounter. Are you going to have to leg it to the TARDIS to regroup? Yes. Would people die? Sure. But probably not her, she’s fast and has a battle bot controlling her movements. Multiple posh nobs have died already and we only got a little sad over the housekeeper. Our hearts will survive. The one putting the pressure on the situation is not the Chuldur. It’s Rogue. There is no time limit. No rush. It’s waiting for you to press the button on the Laser TCE- I mean control stick. But Rogue is not giving him a second to think. ✅

*Rogue approaches, step by step.*

“So can you do it?”

GUYS, your supposed hero is TORTURING the Doctor, who is fucking ugly crying his two broken little hearts out. ✅

“Can you lose your friend to save the world.”

‘I am very sane and staring at you in a normal way the normal amount. Choose to kill your friend yourself, or choose to allow the genocide of every person on this planet including her. I want to see you choose, choose, choose.’

“Ok, but what does anyone get out of killing these people? I mean I know they’re posh nobs and all that, but we found the housekeeper dead. I mean why would anybody do that?”

“Remember how we used to run through those streets as children? The alleys where we'd hide from Borusa as we skipped classes? All gone now. Come on, ask me why I did this.”

*Sobbing Doctor shakes his head, making his decision* [quietly] “No.”

*Rogue with hitherto unseen tenderness, wiping one of his tear away* “I know.”

No, he doesn’t! If he is a random fucking bounty hunter he does not in fact know that. He knows because he already knows the Doctor. From real life or from being a bad guy who just kind of likes to watch TV - which actually I guess does describe the Master✅✅

*Rogue kisses him. Because a tortured ugly crying Doctor is hot to him.* ✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅

(If I need to explain why the Master snogging the Doctor here, or the fact that he genuinely loves him in his own twisted way, you can’t be helped, or maybe were just a Ten viewer when you were 8 so missed stuff, and have watched nothing else in the show and just stumbled back in here - go watch Twelve there’s Simm!Master in it for you, and Thirteen’s second series onwards).

Live ‘About To Be Ripped Apart By Murderous Birds In Another Dimension If She Even Physically Survives The Trip’ Slug Reaction. Ruby straight up like ‘well at least he won’t be alone’, babes we’re gonna get you some sertraline, a psychologist, it’s gonna be ok, you’re worthy of life, we’re gonna get you help, we have a therapy circle.

The grin and hoppidy-skip jump Rogue does here when they break for air and he’s holding the Laser TCE/controller is a level of happiness we have yet to see from Rogue. A still cannot do it justice. (40:17 - though if you’re going, may as well watch the whole torturing scene from 39:00). It’s a bit more than a wee smile.

Then Rogue leaps over and knocks Ruby out of the triangle! Something he could apparently have done at literally any time before or during torturing the Doctor to his breaking point!

Why can he do this when she is molecularly bonded to the floor? We don’t know! It’s not explained! But he clearly knows his fucking device doesn’t he?! Why didn’t he tell the Doctor at any point that it would be possible to get Ruby out with a thing called a matter exchange? Who knows?! Maybe it slipped his mind til the last moment? The Doctor being the one to take her place would sure have been an answer, but oh well!

‘Maybe he didn’t want to risk his life for Ruby’s unless he really had to.’ - Then that’s shit hero and love interest behaviour isn’t it! But since it says “Matter Exchange” I’m pretty sure he could also have knocked Ruby out of the triangle using that vicar corpse on the floor a few feet away, then neither would have to die! So he must be real sure he’s gonna be ok! ✅

He’s so happy and chill. The music is happy too. Rogue jauntily throws the bouquet - ahh look who’s next to be married *wink*. This is the happiest and funnest and most genuine he’s looked the entire episode. Almost like he got exactly what he wanted! ✅

“Find me.” *click*

Ruby you’re such a dick, why couldn’t you be as happy as him? If you’d trusted the Doctor to find you instead of you die by bird and/or dimensional anomaly before he got there this could have been such a peppy scene the whole time. It’s almost like Rogue is absolutely certain he’s not going to die doing this. You know I know a character who’s been transported to a different dimension at the end of his episode before and got out of that just fine! ✅

Almost like this was the end of a live D&D session he was hosting. That’s a wrap everyone, great job. Just imagine what I’ve got in store for us next week. Good thing the car transports all six of us together! Well done for not panicking, screaming, or interrupting what I had going on with the Doctor at the end, and trusting this wasn’t going to teleport you into an incinerator. Thanks for playing along, excellent improv as always, I’ll be marking your RP points highly.

And then the Doctor screamed “I’ll find you! I promise I’ll find you!” it was very romantic, and then he got out the sonic and started scanning everything for traces, anything, he was still upset and panicky of course, I mean his new love interest had just snogged him and given his own life to save Ruby’s. But Rogue had believed in him to do this impossible impossible task so he would. So he and Ruby ran back to the TARDIS as fast as they could, maybe she’d picked something up or *gasp* she was the one who configured the trap in the first place so maybe there would be a record of what random dimension she chose! Except she wouldn’t let them access it for some reason and she kept growling and the Doctor was crying with anger and-

No wait, none of that happened, sorry, not sure why I thought it did.

Actually the Doctor went to comfort Ruby and her comfort him, sombrely put the bouquet down where Rogue was. (And left the trap technology behind. So got engaged and invented a glue/tarmac trap.) The Doctor remotely sent the Bird Ship to orbit around the moon, “so it can wait…as long as it takes”. In the 19th century. …Babe, you know they can see the moon, right? They have telescopes. This is a mavity waiting to happen.

(Genuinely choosing not to think about how we last left Dhawan!Master messing about with the two moons in the 1900’s, I’mma be real, I don’t know what was going on and when there, hope it doesn’t fit in actually because I’m not gonna get it. If he’s the Master he turns up, that’s all I ever need to know.)

-“Can’t we use the TARDIS and go find him?” Ruby asks. Good question. If the TARDIS can determine whether a dimension is uninhabited or not that’s definitely gonna narrow it down. Maybe she could outright search for him? If she, you know, didn’t hate his moral void.

-“There are as many dimensions as there are atoms in the universe.” *Ruby arm cuddles* “Anyway! It is what it is, so onwards, fine, next.” So is it ‘as long as it takes’ or are you not even going to try and find him? That and the bouquet really feels like you’re giving him up for dead and just hoping he finds his way back himself some day. It’s not what you were told to do. You can wear that ring and salute the sky with a smile all you like. He said “Find him.” Bad fiancé behaviour.

Cus the thing is, here is the ‘uwu small bean Rogue’ paradox. If this is just a normal guy, he’s not making it back on his own. He’s dying to the birds. The Doctor isn’t looking for him, and Rogue clearly didn’t think he could return on his own - he says “Find me” not “I’ll be back”. So if you believe we’re going to see Rogue again…he’s going to not be a normal guy, but be the type who can survive and make his own way back from a wrong dimension surrounded by free murderous birds. *piano rendition of The Cat Came Back starts playing* ✅

But luckily he’s not normal. He’s a man/bird with so much forethought he knew he wasn’t going to be coming back to his bird ship and took whatever it was that can save him from a teleport trap from the spaceship with him in that bag. Always have a getaway plan. That’s Masterful thinking. Unless you just think he wanted his wallet and keys on him ✅ (Point against Pantheon though - pretty sure being able to move reality around doesn’t require props. But then D&D. Maybe he just likes props.)

-“Doctor, you don’t have to be like this.” “I have to be like this because this is what I’m like.” And in our story about roleplaying, shouting out our longtime theme of the most important roleplaying of all, that we follow a character who’d rather be called Lulubelle playing The Doctor™. Doctor Who is a show.

-The fires whole and reflected and internal everywhere, like our Gallifrey mirror is on fire.

-Final additional literal-meta that may be of interest: the costume designer said Ncuti’s outfit is designed as a nod to Three - the original Thoschei pairing origin. We canonise Shalka!Doctor - famously and frankly exclusively known as ‘that animated one who made a robot boyfriend Master to be his Companion’, with lines in the episode Cornell said was indeed intended to suggest a relationship there and would have continued had that pilot been picked up. Relevant or not we’ll see.

And to all those who read that and yet still think that I am just very cynical and mean, and he really does have a single heart of gold, he’s just got flat affect and is socially awkward and autistic maybe and-

His ship IS A FUCKING BIRD. OWL HOOTS.

🎉 You did it! You read the full analysis! Great job! You passed Media Overanalysis, Rogue Edition. I told you it was a 10K. Look at how much you just read that had already been effectively covered in the first minute with just one thing.

“I’m The Bad Guy. Duh.”

(‘I am now convinced, but do you have a blessedly far shorter essay about why a Chuldur/Pantheon The Rogue perfectly cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack would be the way to go?’ Why yes I do, strawman.)

Assorted later Additions:

Pantheon!Rogue: Why the bird ship?

Maybe that’s why the ship’s so fucky actually, DM’s love their props, this is about playing D&D In The Real World, so maybe he got one originally, short hop standard Asteroid Hopper. but now they’ve just kept (perhaps Pantheon-magically) editing it over time as the campaign and rule of cool needed. Appearance, better space travel, time travel etc. “It should look like a bird!” “…Yeah! It should look like a bird! Great idea Emily, we’ll work that in!” Of course if he’s a Chuldur this is just…their ship. Maybe classicly upgraded.

What might Rogue’s original plan for the Chuldur’s live D&D Session supposed to have been:

We know they were going to have a big wedding, but maybe that they’re also Baddies going to take over the world muhahaha! Cus they went into that monster-playing real quick and also they said that the panicking and screaming is their favourite bit - so there must have been a plan to include that after the wedding part of the game! They thought the wedding would lure The Doctor out so there must have been nefariousness in it or else why would The Doctor be drawn out? They were playing Baddies! So, thinking like what our lead bird would want for a moment, if you were to DM that, maybe he’s both playing the bounty hunter sent to catch them …But maybe also was going to do an “I Object!” scene too. Their faces in that scene, they’re so excited. Let’s say Rogue doesn’t know the Doctor was coming in advance. He’s already got ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ playing if this wasn’t a live magical edit on seeing him. Oh, maybe that’s why he chose to look like Mr Darcy. Maybe he was going to woo one of them - a good reason to already have the ring. Cus a big wedding can’t go right, that’s not drama, that’s boring. We know he’s probably cloaked - not only do they not recognise him but we have Ruby’s earring interference pointed directly at him (same tech frequency problems?) and even mention the psychic jewellery’s ability to mask a scent with a false one. So he was an NPC just meant to turn up and add some of their beloved drama. So he’d woo a Chuldur, he’ll object and then he would reveal himself as a bounty hunter with his Big Glowy Gun and trap! It was a dastardly trick! You knew he was a Rogue and a cad all along, you just let yourself fall for his deceit! *teleports to ship rather than incinerator* BRO. Even the bird’s D&D plot would naturally be the ‘I was tricking you and am actually your enemy’ twist!

Post-Empire, The case for the Chuldur Phoenix: Rogue being (unbeknownst to himself) the Master cosplaying a Chuldur cosplaying the Master.

[yanderes-galore]

Is it possible to ask for concept of Frank + Julie (DBD) sharing a darling???

Sure! Here's the couple that sucks equally :)

Yandere! Frank + Julie Concept

(The Legion)

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic - Sharing

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Manipulation, Possessive behavior, Violence, Blood, Murder, Controlling behavior, Alcohol mention/Underaged drinking, Coercion, Fear mongering, Forced companionship/relationship (Not specified).

The best pairing I can come up with is before The Fog.

You're in a similar situation to the rest of The Legion.

You find Ormund boring and wish there was something fun to do.

You wanted more friends and things to do.

So you went to one of Julie's parties after being invited, wanting something to pass the time.

That's when you met your new friend group.

At that party you met Julie, Susie, Joey, and Frank.

At first they seemed like your typical teenage rebel group.

Which, of course, made you feel at home when talking to them.

Most of you were around the age of nineteen, fed up with the world.

Although, your angst was certainly much different than the rest.

While you vented your frustrations in small ways like graffiti and maybe petty theft...

People like Frank and Julie preferred things like arson and murder.

Another thing to know about the two...

They're skilled in the art of manipulation.

Something you end up learning relatively soon as you get to know them.

So, I imagine you being part of The Legion is a good way to get you to know the two of them.

Now, while I originally thought Frank would be the worst in this pairing... That isn't entirely true.

While Frank himself enjoys causing trouble and messing with others...

Julie is just as bad of a manipulator as Frank, if not worse if we take her tome into account.

The dynamic I'm getting is this... The two would be so controlling.

It takes peer pressure to a whole other level.

After all, compared to them, you're quite innocent.

More akin to Susie than anything.

But that's okay...

They'll enjoy molding you into the person they want to be.

I do think they'd enjoy an impressionable obsession.

If you aren't, they'll make you.

You may not be into doing vandalism, arson, or even larger theft yet...

But you'll learn with them.

Not like you have much of a choice, right?

Peer pressure is such a dangerous thing.

I feel their pairing/intentions here don't matter much.

In canon the two definitely seem to be dating.

Although, when it comes to their obsession, their intentions with you could go either way.

Maybe they're just really close friends with you... doing everything they can to make you crave their companionship and approval.

You're bored, aren't you?

Don't you want to do something cool?

You want a group to hang out with, right?

So listen to them.

They'd be a similar way if they were trying to drag you into a relationship with them.

The two are so toxic.

Dangling attention and affection over your head like a dog with a treat.

They seem like the type of yanderes that would slowly make you begin to rely on them.

It's small things... just to make you ache for approval.

After all, to join The Legion, you must be having some troubles of your own.

Be that at home or socially...

You're vulnerable.

They prey on that.

It starts with cutting off others around you.

So even if you had good connections...

They'll make you crave them.

The two are possessive, treating you like a toy.

Two cats... one mouse... all in their little game.

You feel so small compared to them.

This friend circle feels more like a trap than anything.

Even more so when they drag you into more dangerous tasks.

By the time you're committing arson and doing robberies... You're in too deep.

After all, how can you leave?

The two no doubt make you feel dependent on them.

What happens if you leave?

Will they follow you?

Will they hurt you?

Will they hurt who you're close to?

These two do horrible things...

Only to act all friendly with you right after.

You could witness them kill a man or rob a store...

Only for Julie to invite you to another party...

Or Frank to suggest you discuss killers with them.

If that doesn't tempt you enough... Frank brings alcohol like a bribe.

To them, there's no way you can leave them by now.

Within months they'll have you dependent on them.

They'll know your biggest secrets, or maybe even frame you for something.

You'll be so scared of what they could do...

You'd follow through with anything they said.

If they told you to help them, you help them.

If they coax you into drinking, you're drinking.

Hell... If they had romantic intentions and invited you to more... intense activities.

You already know the answer.

The two would have you wrapped around their fingers.

Even to the point of when they rob Joey's job he was fired at and they kill a man?

You're right there with them.

The two would make a blood pact with you.

Anything to prevent you from leaving.

If you try to run, they'll give chase and keep their grip firm.

Honestly, you should've turned back when you could.

You should've never gone to that party or skipped school when they asked.

Such thoughts flicker in your mind as you help them bury the body.

The blood is still coating your clothes.

They praised you, said you did well to follow them.

Even as The Fog begins to envelop you, The Entity beckoning...

You don't think you could ever escape them.

When you enter a new realm, you expect to be alone.

But no... Even now, the two are right beside you... and you become a pawn.

Suddenly it isn't just peer pressure anymore...

Perhaps you were always in too deep.

[centrally-unplanned]

I blogged before about this company, Orange, that is an AI-powered manga translation company. Essentially, their pitch is that most manga is still (officially) untranslated, a ton of manga gets made after all but few become mainstream enough to get ported overseas. They posit the barrier to that is the cost of translation; if they could automate that process, then they can make viable for release what previously was not. That concept rests on two questions - does the tech pan out, and does the economics add up?

Recently they went live, under the name Emaqi, so we can better explore those questions. What I notice on first glance is the pitch seems to have shifted a little bit in post:

You are not the translators of Vinland Saga, Witch Hat Atelier, or Magic Knight Rayearth, very obviously so. They have Sailor Moon in here lol. These are just the official translations being cross-listed into their "manga platform", where you buy it there and it lives, DRM-locked, in their app. Which is fair enough as a model, that is just Kindle, it works. Though Kindle and a dozen others already exist, so their value-add has to be the AI translation stuff right? That is why I would choose this over another app.

Which they do have, though it is kind of buried:

"Only on emaqi" - there is no mention of the translation approach, poor guys! Can't fault the branding decision I guess given the state of the discourse. When it comes to the products themselves, I went through ~6 or so of the sample chapters of different manga, did a few spot checks with the original Japanese, and read the reviews of some others who looked into it. They seem fine! I am cautiously impressed, I think there proofers did a good job smoothing out some edges, it has a "manga tone", and while small issues like the hyphenation the reviewer above mentioned do exist and are legit noticeable, they aren't common and not a huge deal. It has flow issues? Some dialogue should link together in how it is written, but doesn't. But it isn't crazy off or anything. You will not be wowed by these, but certainly if you are someone who reads bootleg scanlations you are gonna have no problems. A lot of manga uses pretty simple vocab and isn't breaking new ground on plot, I can see how a purpose-built tool could handle it well enough.

The economics though...here is where I don't think this case was ever going to pencil out and isn't now. Because I am pretty sure no one here has heard of any of the manga listed above as exclusives. (I saw 90's manga Geobreeders in there, but that was already partially translated in the 2000's, not sure if they did a new one? Setting it aside) Which, of course you haven't, if you had it probably would have been translated! Books are a 90:10 market, most books never get read and some books get read a ton. Anything big enough can justify a professional translation, and the other can't really sell to begin with.

On top of that, their model is mass translation; which means these obscure manga are presented to you with no context, no hype, no build-up. Wtf is The Blood Blooms In the Barrens?? See, if you were like a boutique publisher, selecting "the best of the best" in untranslated manga, you would promote your specific product. Interviews, social media, the value of the brand-itself as a quality seal. Publishing less is more, actually, your value as a publisher is as a quality selector. Or you could be say the porn market, where you max quantity so people can search "foot fetish breeding kink oshi no ko" and get results; they know what they want. But they aren't doing either! And to be blunt a lot of these are not gonna sell on their art alone:

I'm not mocking The Delayed Highschool Life of a Laborer here, that is better than I could do; but if you want to me spend money on a whim the bar is high and these don't reach it. Which of course they don't, they would be professionally translated if they did.

And finally, the price - $5 dollars, for volume 1's, like a 100-200 pages. The cross-listed manga typically sells for ~$10? That isn't much cheaper! If "translation" was this big cost barrier, and all you got is cutting the price of ebooks in half, I don't know if the analysis was so solid. This is a new product, I doubt they are overcharging to make a quick buck right now - this is the "sell at cost to scale" era.

In all of their lead up press they would say things like this:

Orange's process uses AI to read the manga through image analysis and character recognition, then to translate the words into English, Chinese and other languages. The technology is specialized for manga, meaning it is able to handle wordplay and other difficult-to-translate phrases. A human translator then makes corrections and adjustments. The process can deliver a manga translation in as little as two days. Orange will work with multiple Japanese publishers. The company looks initially to complete 500 translations monthly.

But this is missing a lot of context. For one, these manga are simple high school or battle manga that are ~200 pages long, many of those pages have only a few lines of dialogue, etc. Imagine you are a professional translator, and you are given that manga to translate, all the set-up done for you, all you gotta do is write. How long do you think that would take? Not that long! It could probably take like a week if it's actually all you did (calc'd from a 10k word count manga volume, 2k is a typical "good translator" per day count - many manga are shorter than that). And note how they said "as little as two days" - not median two days! Just, you know, aspirationally.

Translation is just not a big bottleneck. You gotta do layouts, lettering, proofs, etc, these can all take just as much time - and are being done by people, they still need wage workers doing all this. But that is small fry in comparison to publishing contracts, author approvals, distribution, all of that. And most importantly, product acquisition - you have to get authors to sign with you! That can be months of work. I am sure they are trying to get bulk agreements with publishers and such, but authors will push back on that, this is not an easy endeavor.

Which is why, in above, they say they hope to have "500 translations monthly". And after a year+ of work, on launch, they have...

...18. As best I can tell at least, their site deliberately obfuscates what they actually translated versus are just hosting for resale after all.

So yeah, as mentioned I don't think the economics pencil out. These aren't worth $5 dollars, they can't actually generate volume that makes "massive economies of scale" actually valuable, and their approach is currently antithetical to the idea of generating traction for any of their individual works. Niche publishing just doesn't work this way.

But it is early days, and hey I respect the experiment! I do think the tech is pretty good, and it is nice to see a company showcase it. It isn't quite good enough yet for prime time, but it could get there. I do want more manga to get exposure and audience; I will give a fair shake to any who try.

[pilferingapples]

I am, regrettably, thinking about Gillenormand

and I think--part of why he's so deeply unpleasant is because his basis of morality isn't centered around considering people as people, themselves, individuals with their own unique needs and wants , but as Roles

for Gillenormand, doing the Right Thing is not about how his actions actually affect other people, but about how well he's playing his perceived role (which in his case is Haute Bourgeoisie, with a pre-FRev understanding of that role)

This is why there's no problem for him with being generous, in paying his servants or offering individual charity or just giving gifts, etc; that's what a man of his station SHOULD be like, in his reckoning of the world ; it's a way of asserting his social status, arguably even a social duty in that (to him) it enforces social order. Servants, poor people, and/or the women and children of a household should expect financial largesse from their patriarch; certainly they shouldn't be independent of their betters! And a good bourgeois patriarch should be able to extend gifts on a whim-- it proves his security and enforces his social power. The flipside to this of course is that the beneficiaries of this should be Grateful, and above all should recognize the rightness of his authority here. He provides them with material possessions; they center their lives around doing everything he wants, and acknowledge his authority. Huzzah for the patriarchy!

So in terms of less material generosity, in terms of anything that would require considering his kids or his servants as fully separate people who not only could but even perhaps should have desires and plans that aren't About Him -- oh he's not having that. That is Defiance! Chaos! Romanticism, Probably! Scandal! The Reds!

Exceptions exist , to be sure-- if they fit a person's Role. Gillenormand is entirely fine with the idea that Marius is having affairs without telling him, that's what a good bourgeois boy should be doing! It's Fine if Magnon tries to extort money from him, with the implication of affairs-- that's playing into their respective social roles. But if his own daughter wants to talk about their family? When he said not to? HORRIBLE. Marius isn't psychic and doesn't spend enough time ferreting out Gillenormand's True Secret Meaning? Treachery! Marius is hurting him on purpose!

It's not entirely unlike Javert's concept of social order, although Gillenormand's version is nigh-inifinitely more complicated--but then, both he and Javert would probably agree that Gillenormand should be the one handling complexities; Javert only needs to know who he should Obey (practically everyone, by the rules either of them keeps).

if all of that's right, I think part of what's going on with him after Marius recovers is not just that he's realized Marius is able to operate independently of him and thus isn't someone he can bully anymore--it's that Marius is , in his eyes, really moving into being the acting male head of household, and thus the person the rest of them owe fealty to. Especially with Marius getting married and probably starting his own family, and ESPECIALLY especially with Marius being independently wealthy--he's becoming the center of the family, instead of Gillenormand.

I really hope that's right, actually, because if it is then Marius and his new role in the household is something Gillenormand won't be trying to work his way around to taking over the household again; this is the order of things and he's got his new role. But also: gad, what a depressing ideology. What a depressing person.

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.2 thoughts

[Woo-hoo! Witchy...Man...]

(Contents: character analysis - Ichi/Uroro/Desscaras, predictions - narrative progression)

Okay, chapter 2, and once again I feel compelled to talk about it! I'll take that as a good sign for my engagement with the series going forward

Not only is ch. 2 even prettier than ch. 1, but it expands on a few things that I felt were missing last week, helping to strengthen the story in my mind

Where last week felt like it was meant specifically to set up the high concept of the series (boy becomes first male witch) and the basic philosophy (killing with purpose is hunting, killing without is murder), this week gives us a bit more depth into the cast themselves and their greater purpose

Ichi the Healer

Naturally, the most noteworthy exploration of the chapter is certainly Ichi himself, at least to me. I said last week that his philosophy of "death for death" seemed like a thin veil separating him from his base desire to kill, and given the gleam in his eye when he heard the word "hunt" in this chapter I stand by that as a possibility, but his actions this week imply a much greater commitment to his claim of respecting life than I initially gave him credit for

He didn't seem too broken up about it when he was shown the damage he had inadvertently done to the land, but the moment he was told there was a way to fix it, he did so without hesitation. Ichi was likely capable of forgiving himself for something he did completely unintentionally because it was on such a grand scale that he didn't think there was any use dwelling on it, but with the capability of making reparations came the responsibility to do so. The cost of being unconscious for a few days is paltry in comparison to bringing back the lives he inadvertently took, and that speaks to his opinion on life far more than the circumstances that allow him to justify killing

I don't know how or if Nishi intends to develop the dichotomy of Ichi's desire to hunt and his desire not to do unnecessary harm specifically, but I'm glad we got to see both extremes so early

Likewise, I think that there's a bit of a dichotomy in Uroro's character as well, though a bit more subtly

Shoulder Devil

As I predicted, Uroro isn't dead, he's more sealed within Ichi, presumably a familiar pactbound to the one who passed his trial. I don't know if other Magiks behave the same way, but I could go either way on it. If they do, that would give us a Shaman+Guardian Ghost or Weapon+Meister style dynamic, but that could also carry the risk of overloading us with new characters when a Witch has acquired multiple Magiks. I imagine they tend not to since there's no indication that Desscaras has a bunch of familiars hanging out with her, but they might also just not be inclined to come out at the moment

In the meantime, Uroro immediately tries to use his familiar status to manipulate Ichi into putting himself in danger, which would theoretically get him killed and allow Uroro to be released. When he gets called out on it, he notes that he has more motivations beyond trying to regain freedom: he also doesn't want to be forced into serving the Witches

While Uroro looks down on humanity, he doesn't seem to be a heartless monster, as he refuses to turn on his own kind. We'll need to see him interact with other Magiks first to get a clear picture of his opinion on them as individuals, but considering that he cites the depth of their history, we can reasonably assume that he holds the species itself as a whole in high regard

This sets up a strong conflict of interest for Uroro going forward, as he will be forced to face off against other Magiks, and there will most likely come a time when he needs or wants to do so. Like how Ichi won't kill until he's given external justification, what will it take for Uroro to justify turning against one of his own? Will it be because a particular Magik angers him? Will one stand between him and his freedom? Will one have clearly sided with humanity or disrespected Magik culture?

Whatever happens, how will Uroro reconcile that? How will he forgive himself? Will he even need to, or is he a hypocrite who's perfectly willing to fight his kind so long as it's not on behalf of humans?

Of course, this projection is assuming that Uroro is meant to be Ichi's partner who will develop alongside him, rather than the series' main antagonistic force deliberately trying to thwart his development at all times. Obviously, he's going to think he's that for the foreseeable future, but the question is whether that will always be the case or if sooner or later he'll turn around. I always thought Sukuna would have that kind of development, but ultimately that wasn't the case, so I won't make that assumption at face value this time

Now, if Uroro is the Sukuna of this series, then Desscaras is likely the Gojo

The Strongest Teacher

Ichi's situation is a little different from Yuji's, in that if Ichi dies, Uroro goes free, while Yuji's death would weaken or ultimately erase Sukuna. However, to keep these ultimate monsters in check, the ultimate sorcerers of these respective worlds decide to take these vessels under their wings

Unlike Gojo, though, Desscaras immediately loses control of the situation, with Ichi doing his own thing and getting her into trouble with her superior and making her regret her decision to look after him. They're both goofy characters, but Desscaras' power doesn't protect her from getting comeuppance for her self-aggrandizing and transparently nasty personality, which to me makes her a more endearing iteration of the same basic trope

While we don't know what her teachings will look like at this exact moment, this chapter does give us at least a little glimpse into what to expect for the series going forward

On the Hunt

I probably should have seen this coming when the narrator called the Witches "hunters," but of course the Magiks need to be literally hunted. It's what Ichi is best at, so it would be odd to make him learn a new skillset to use in an unrelated context

With hunting solidified as the feedback loop, I think we can expect something akin to Toriko, an adventure where the cast needs to determine the locations, personalities, habits, weaknesses etc. of the various Magiks to facilitate passing their trials. However, since we learned of an academy in the first chapter, it's also possible that it'll be more of a mission-based structure like early Soul Eater, using the school as a hub until a Magik has been located

Personally, I would rather the locating be a big part of the hunt, but I can see how that would slow the pacing, so I won't be too broken up if it isn't part of it. Plus, having the rest of the core cast be students rather than professionals makes it a bit easier to incorporate them into the story, so there would certainly be benefits if it ends up happening. Whichever way the chips fall, I'll talk more in-depth about it when we get there

Whether it's a school or a business, though, I highly doubt that Ichi is just going to accept organizational regulations at face value and go along with "tradition." He's the first and only man ever to become a Witch, and he possesses the King of Magic; even before being introduced to the world proper, he's already a shakeup to the established order, so his methods must not only be outside of the norm, but a necessary addition to reform outdated ways

As Uroro says, Magiks are "an indigenous species" being preyed upon by the Witches, who certainly are trying to further their own power. It's all well and good for Desscaras to say it's for a noble goal like protecting people from rampaging monsters, but it's undeniable that Witches grow in strength after acquiring a Magik. There's simply no way that all of them are trying to make the world better, and based on her personality, I highly doubt that Desscaras is either (though she may surprise me). Even if they are, they definitely don't hold the life or well-being of the Magiks in any regard

This is where I think "death for death" comes in; Ichi will absolutely respect the Magiks. Whatever locations they hide in, however they interact with nature, Ichi will undoubtedly take the time to respect and understand them, even if that understanding leads to him deciding that there's no value in hunting them. The prejudices of the Witches likely equate to "Magik = target," but Uroro suggests that they have their own society and culture, so a fresh perspective like Ichi's will likely be necessary for finding mutual peace between the two races

Or at least, that's what I hope. It could easily turn out that the Magiks are wholly malefic and only introduced spells to the Witches to sew discord among humanity, and they're ultimately no different from the Curses of JJK or the majority of UMAs in Undead Unluck. I would much rather this series, with its themes already reminiscent of the circle of life ideology, find a way to work in an angle of coexistence, but I won't proclaim that the series is bad if it goes a more common direction

Conclusion

I...did not expect this post to go this long, honestly. I figured each segment would be one paragraph and I'd move on, but apparently I'm incapable of being concise. Oops!

But again, the fact that we're two-for-two on this series' chapters making me write reviews on par with those I write for Undead Unluck each week is a great sign for how much I currently like and can expect to like this series in the future. It could end up losing me sooner or later, especially if it gets overly complex in its power system and geopolitical worldbuilding, but for now looking forward to how both of those subjects develop

[thedeerman]

ummm someone tell me why listening to system/BOOT PearlFinal (3) from the SU Movie just gave me the wildest fucking Hazbin AU concept (this is fucking long pls forgive me)

So- Steven Universe Movie x Hazbin Hotel. All of them have just had their memories wiped, their 'default' personalities reset, and not having any idea who they once were. you get to really see what each character would have been like had they not faced whatever horrible thing landed them in Hell to begin with.

Going through that song in particular made me really think, guys. Hear me out.

Lucifer is Rose/Pink in this, so he wouldn't really be there.

Obv Charlie takes her rightful place as Steven, as she is literally, in almost all fucking ways, Adult Demon Steven Universe. Take out the aliens and add in the bible and you got Charlie Morningstar

Lilith is Pearl- She fell in love with the angel that took a liking to her, dedicating everything about her existence to Lucifer. Even when it came to giving up everything, she did it for him. Reset, she's just as dedicated but has no one to give that dedication to. Until...

Yes, ALASTOR HAS TO BE GREG. Lilith may have come from Eden with Lucifer, by his side from the very beginning, but after all those years, I never thought I'd lose... Also, the whole 'pearl latching on to greg as her new diamond' thing makes that EXTRA hilarious. Charlie's gonna be all "Mom, don't you recognize them? Don't you recognize me?" Lilith's overly helpful ass is gonna be like "Hmmmm... Well I certainly recognize my Um Radio Demon!" And Al just, "...Oh boy."

Angel is Ruby, even if he hadn't been raised in the mafia, I'd like to think that Angel would be a solid badass mf either way, dedicated to protecting what he cares about.

Husk is Sapphire, ever think that maybe the reason the oddly wise bartender always seems to know everything isn't because he's a bartender? Uh oh, secret's out, Husky. (not to mention the idea of Huskerdust 'isn't it love' is killing me)

Niffty is Amethyst- except an amethyst is big, and strong... this one is not the best example, something is clearly wrong! (im sorry i have no self control). anyway yall can't tell me that cute little reset 'who am i? whats going on? idk, lemme just copy this guy over here' Niffty wouldn't be the best fucking thing

Now, I don't think it even needs saying that Sir Pentious needs to be Peridot, if you show me both of their pictures I will say 'that's the same picture'

And that means Cherri takes her role as Lapis, which I fuckin adore

As much as I'd like to make Vaggie be Connie, Connie is entirely absent the whole movie lmao and I also think that Bismuth is a damn good gem for Vaggie anyway. Bold, determined, has a deadly hatred of the place she came from and will do anything to defend her new home (gay as shit)

And for spinel, I'm not 100% sure. I'm thinking it could be an adamsapple situation where Adam was left in Eden, forever waiting for Lucifer to return despite the fact that he's essentially dead to the rest of Heaven. once he finds out about Lucifer having made a life for himself in Hell, he goes to take out his jealousy on Charlie and the others. and when he's reset he goes back to a silly, fun loving innocent guy that wants nothing but to make others happy.

Uhhhh oops that got long, im Very Normal about these two shows, guys. i swear.

[saxandviolins77]

IIRC in your review of TF One you said it was a "good movie" but a lot of what you described made it sound focus-tested into oblivion and generic? And I know I thought the movie was pretty nonsensical and hypocritical and had many issues with how it handled the characters, so I'm really curious about in more detail what led to your ultimate take? I know you described how it was very focused and stuff but like, a movie that has a focus but is focused on something that doesn't make any sense isn't necessarily good, especially if the theme has problems. I'm curious since your review you named a lot of specifics and I feel like my opinion that it was a bad kids' movie seems really rare! -arceespinkgun

Hey! Thanks for the ask! I'll try to make my stance more clear on the TF: ONE topic.

Well, focused on telling a riveting story with the characters and universe it certainly was not.

Focused on making revenue? Definitely, but every movie is like that, I'm more interested in the hows.

You see, this movie was written backward. As in, they already knew where the characters needed to be and who they needed to turn into.

Why was Orion considered worthy of the Matrix? Because he needs to be.

Why did D-16 go from a meek rule-abiding guy to a violent "kill everyone tyrant" in the span of a day? Because he needs to be.

The "high-guard" stuff? Just a very weak excuse for them to shove the already-built Decepticon army into a fight scene.

It's a good movie for two reasons and neither of them really has to do with the story or characters as they appear!

It knows its audience: as in, the general audience of TF fans, the TF fans who go into the cinema expecting the tried and true story of "cherik but robots" will have a grand time! And will go to the cinema 26 times to make sure this movie has revenue (see Twitter, it's embarrassing). AND, it's also great franchise bait! Tell me, how many people have you seen that are new to the franchise BECAUSE of ROTB? Now, TF: ONE? I assume your answer will be a little different. It's a movie that dangles a carrot for the audience, if you already like the carrot, sweet! If you never tasted the carrot, you may enjoy it without thinking.

Focus-tested: great use of the word, I'm stealing it. I would say this movie is a calculated risk, but it isn't a risk at all. I appreciate the motives behind this movie a ton! Because it wasn't just something Hasbro green-lighted to ignite the Bayverse flame back, it's calculated and the time it was left in the oven means this is pure aligned sauce, and it works. This movie sexes so much with core concepts from the Aligned continuity that it was bound to never be its own thing, and even better! All the "new" concepts this movie has to offer are either animated movie jerking off (Comedic-relief character that adds nothing, Girlboss...) or smoothing out Aligned things that would not fly in deeper examination (Op and Megs are both miners, Sentinel, no "alternative mode racism").

It's a good movie, in comparison to what came before (that I felt the need to point out in my review). It's cohesive, unlike ROTB, AND more importantly, it's approachable (not only for newcomers but also for the fandom at large). It's an above-average kids' movie (which aside from a few surprising offers, has been on the slop side of things for YEARS now, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Blockbuster schmuck).

It's a good movie because it was calculated, the only factors that may intervene are Paramount's shitty distribution AND toy sales, but that doesn't change the fact that it is critically acclaimed already.

Now you might be asking:

Do I support this?

Who am I to support anything? Just a small account on a near-dead site. However, I cannot deny I find it quite ingenious of the Hasbro team (who has been wanting to amalgamize TF for YEARS) and the fandom reaction to it has been great to watch.

Does this kill artistic integrity?

LMAO YEAH! I don't thing anyone watching a big studio movie would be really surprised by that, better luck with animated series and/or comics. Tho, I sure the people working on this movie did put their hearts into it, it just happened to be a really strategic place to put it.

Wow, I wasn't expecting this.

Yeah, it is what it is. At the end of the day TF:ONE is a very great marketing scheme, I'd be more worried about it seeping into other things (beware of what's to come after the failure of the GI:JOE/TF movie and after they finish killing off ES).

I didn't really like it, but for reasons I already don't like Aligned. The forced godhood of Orion (which makes the Autobot/Decepticon conflict into a religious war!! Why?), the fact that D-16 is the fucking anti-christ that was dictated by THE ALREADY MENTIONED NARRATIVE into villainy (even though, he was in the right! Orion's only plan towards Sentinel was... 'the people will know'... Then...?), the High-guard was completely fodder for the main four (notice how I never mentioned them in my original review), and Arachnid... LOL MOMENT FOR THAT BLUNDER AMIRITE?!

But that ⬆️ was not the point of this movie's existence.

Sorry if this reads a little too hateful or cynical, I am genuinely neutral about this movie, but I just wanted to make my stance clear. My account is not made to dwell on or endorse parts of the franchise that I do not like, I prefer talking and uplifting what I enjoy... And maybe reblogging a hateful post every once a week.

[tumblydovereviews]

Could a LazyTown Revival Work?

Earlier this week, it was announced that Magnus Scheving, the creator of the hit preschool live-action series LazyTown, had bought back the rights to the series from WBD, with impending plans to bring the series back to a new generation as a reboot under his wings.

This would not be the first time LazyTown has, or attempted to be, revived. The original series only lasted two seasons before being commissioned by Sprout for two more after the series' massive success in the USA. After the end of the show's run, a movie was pitched, but ultimately ended up being scraped for unknown reasons.

In concept, this seems like a great thing. LazyTown was initially created as a combative show against rising cases of childhood obesity worldwide, and the Icelandic obesity rate actually dropped as after the release of the show. LazyTown encourages kids to be healthy- to get outside, eat nutritiously, and take care of themselves and others. With the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic still impacting today's children, bringing this show back to a new audience would be great.

And, LazyTown wouldn't be completely unknown to the public, either. According to a Collider article, LazyTown's following hasn't died down in the slightest, with the show amassing over 5.5 billion views on Youtube alone. It is clear that Sportacus, Stephanie, and Robbie Rotten are long from being forgotten totally.

However, not everything about a reboot would be too exciting.

For instance, there would be no Robbie Rotten. Stefan Karl Stefansson, Robbie's actor, passed in August of 2018 after a battle with bile duct cancer. While Robbie's actor could easily be replaced or his character in general be swapped out for a new gimmick, nothing would be completely able to mimic the personality of the iconic villain.

Also, if the show did come back, there's a high chance that it wouldn't be in the same form that we all know and love. Shows such as Caillou and Barney have also made their triumphant returns, albeit in the same CGI models, straying far away from their original forms, 2D and live-action respectively. Animation, specifically 3D, is more efficient to produce them mixed media or live action, and with more children flocking to brightly-colored, YouTube based animation, making LazyTown an animated series would not only result in flexibility in choosing actors for the characters, but also boost ratings more likely than not.

This isn't to say that live-action reboots, such as Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock, and the upcoming Yo Gabba Gabbaland can't be successful- it's just not necessarily in the norm.

Now that Magnus has the rights to the show back, the question also arises on which channel this reboot, if produced, would air on. LazyTown did air on Nick Jr. at one point, and also made appearances on the now-defunct Sprout. Chances are since they willingly gave up the rights to this show, WBD channels probably will not be airing it, assuming it goes mainstream and doesn't become a Youtube-exclusive.

If done correctly, I think this reboot could be very successful! After all, it has happened once, so why not again. But, it goes without saying that it certainly wouldn't be the same for what we are used to from the franchise.