#This one is going the Show People We Don't Know Burning Alive Clearly That Will Make More Of An Impression route

[muffinlance]

I'm barely to the massacre and I can already tell I'm going to be screaming at every this-makes-no-sense decision made by the writers (your temple is under violent attack, and you evacuate the kids... to a barely enclosed corner in a prominent temple room? Instead of to the hundreds of sky bison that were highlighted as flying in earlier? Why?) (And Aang left to clear his head and think instead of to run from his duties? That's such a less compelling plot arc?) (And the show had him briefly monologue about being a goofy kid who loves pies and his friends instead of using the extended temple scene to show any of that? Didn't want to pay more child actors, did you, Netflix?)

Yeah I'm just. Going to be screaming at the screen instead of enjoying this. Different decisions aren't necessarily bad, but when those decisions seem to be in the direction of "show a man burning alive before we even get to the on-screen massacre" this is just... not the show for me.

[highfantasy-soul]

I'm loving how complex and flawed both K and Evan are this season - Brennan and Erika bring so much nuance and reality to their portrayals and in that last episode, I genuinely think both characters are right and wrong with what they're doing.

K should never have tried to 'heal' Evan's already healed arm without his permission.

But Evan is wrong when he said "you don't get to tell me what my problems are, I know what my problems are"

I think a lot of people are seeing that as the truth and treating Evan like some perfect person who's magically 100% fully self-aware when like....he's not. No one is. Quite literally, that's why we have community (and interventions) - we don't always see ourselves clearly and friends are there to point it out and try to help us through it.

Evan DOES ignore his own health. Evan DOES ignore his own need for therapy and community. He has convinced himself so thoroughly that no one actually likes him that yeah, it's a problem - and his friends DO get to call that out. [Seriously, Evan reminds me of Goob from Meet the Robinsons where his internal monologue is "Everyone hates me, they all despise me, I have to ostracize myself" while in the background, literally everyone is saying hi to him, inviting him to hang out, etc]

He literally does that to Sam in the previous episode - she tells him he's not awful to be around, that they do love him, and his response? "You're full of shit - you couldn't possibly actually like hanging out with me."

You know how terrible and hurtful that is? It's not just uwu sad boi isn't he so tragic and in need of love!!! That's him treating his friends like shit.

His own self-depreciation reflects back onto the people who care about him and he devalues THEM as people because of it. That's an issue of his he doesn't see. He DOES do things that are harmful for his mental health and when the others encourage him to do things differently, he ignores them and chooses to continue the self-destructive behavior. Is it born of trauma? Yeah. But again, there's an issue of Evan's that he doesn't identify as an issue.

i think Brennan is fully aware of this. I think he's very purposefully playing this character to show that just because a character is riddled with trauma and has been victimized so much in their lives, doesn't mean that it makes them a perfect person. That trauma, ya know, traumatizes them and can lead to them having behaviors that hurt others around them.

K attempting to 'heal' Evan wasn't out of nowhere nor was it them reverting back to their season 1 self (after all, as they pointed out, K wasn't trying to fix him season 1, K fetishized Evan's "brokenness" (*cough cough* just like a big section of the fandom is doing right now *cough*)), that act was the culmination of her loving Evan and him constantly rejecting expressions of that love by saying 'you're faking it - I love you, but you don't actually love me, but I'm going to stay in this relationship for some reason while constantly belittling you and calling you a liar'.

It was K trying to help Evan after seeing his shirt on fire for so many years and Evan being burned alive but continually telling K "no, I don't need to take off this shirt, don't try to pour water on me, I'm fine" all the while his flesh is peeling off and he's suffering and K is getting singed by the fire too.

100% K was wrong to try to heal his already healed arm without his permission, but the sentiment DOES ring true.

Evan isn't perfect and I think Brennan has very carefully crafted him that way. His trauma doesn't excuse the way he treats his friends - and they're perfectly within their rights to call him on it.

[the-music-maniac]

You know what confuses me about Crisis Core.

So, we learn when Zack is dispatched with Tseng to Banora that Genesis murdered most of the townfolk, his own parents, a bunch of Shinra soldiers, and then started bombing the place with the arsenal he took. I mean, he fails because of Zack and then Shinra like. Sends an airstrike anyways to destroy evidence of company involvement, rendering that attempt moot. Then he like. Sends another summon after Zack.

In the course of the entirety of Genesis' rampage, it's implied that he killed probably a shit ton more people in cold blood and for his own ends, he turns a bunch of them into Genesis copies for crying out loud, which is quite horrific.

When Genesis is doing his rambling thing in front of the damn statue at the end of the game, Zack tells him he's here to help Genesis. And when he goes to contact the statue, Zack yells, "Don't let it take over, you're not a monster, you're one of us." Keep in mind Zack is aware of the atrocities Genesis committed of his own volition, even if he wasn't necessarily sound of mind because of the degeneration.

In contrast, during the Nibelheim incident, after Sephiroth locked himself inside the library for like a week without eating or sleeping, joined Jenova and then burned down the village, Zack finds him and demands answers. Sephiroth is clearly...not himself. His speech patterns are entirely different (creepy), he can't take his eyes off the containment unit, he ignores Zack's demands. Zack realizes Sephiroth isn't being himself, I recognize that, but it confuses me, that he didn't attempt to get through to Sephiroth harder, when he at least showed signs of doing so with Genesis and Angeal. Angeal I get, that was his mentor. Genesis though? Like even while Zack and Sephiroth were fighting, I expected at least some dialogue of Zack attempting to reason with him.

We know as players that Sephiroth goes on to do more heinous shit, but until then, his crimes are about the same as all those that Genesis committed. Genesis destroyed an entire village. Sephiroth destroyed an entire village. Genesis destroyed more than a village, so I'd argue the shit (outside of Shinra's orders of course) he did was worse.

Was it because Zack was too angry at the time? Nibelheim was still burning, Tifa was hurt, while the atrocities Genesis committed were distanced - Zack didn't see a majority of them. Maybe the whole "take over the planet" thing? Was it because Sephiroth was attacking him, and so Zack had to concentrate on surviving? Why was Genesis given grace, when Sephiroth wasn't? Yes, I understand Cloud and Tifa watched their parents get murdered in cold blood, so they're understandably furious, but what of all those families Genesis had destroyed? Even while Zack was at Shinra, he still intended to get Genesis back alive.

The entire theme of the game had been posing a question - are the SOLDIERS monsters. Zack had been adamant that they aren't at the beginning, while the three that were affected, Angeal, Sephiroth and Genesis hadn't been sure. Sephiroth was the only one who hadn't received any sort of contradiction to his own beliefs. Angeal did. Genesis did. And Zack fully WITNESSED the breakdown Sephiroth had in the reactor. I can't be certain if he witnessed the awful shit that Genesis had said to Seph, I know he was knocked down - but was he unconscious? Even if he didn't hear it all, he had to have heard the "no such luck, you are a monster." because Genesis said it BEFORE Zack was knocked over. Did he not see the pattern? I don't understand how it could be possible that he didn't see it.

And I get that Zack himself was starting to lose conviction on the idea that SOLDIERS aren't monsters, but if you knew what Angeal and Genesis had been feeling - their bitterness over being turned into monsters coinciding with Sephiroth's own breakdown and questioning of his humanity - then why did Zack let Sephiroth go through that mental breakdown on his own? Yeah, so he told him to leave him be - Zack thought Angeal had killed his own mother in cold blood and yet he still went after him. Zack said Sephiroth was like a man possessed, so he KNEW this was unusual behaviour too. Also, isn't it weird to just be stuck somewhere for seven days with no further orders? Did Zack try to get through to him repeatedly and fail? The game didn't show that to be the case, Sephiroth was alone the entire time he was reading in that library.

Or did he assume that the Silver General could've handled it on his own, once again holding Sephiroth to a different standard than everyone else?

I don't know, I just find it hypocritical. I know the Final Fantasy games are a series that only really shows you glimpses of the main villain, in an attempt to get a player to question what it means to be a hero - they did it well, the entire thing reaps of hypocrisy.

Shinra does what it wants, sends airstrikes to cover up their tracks, maintains the image it wants to via control of the news, holds a monopoly on everything, destroys a different lands for resources, and while Zack begins to question what he's doing because of Angeal and Genesis, the questioning has nothing to do with Shinra as an entity, only the soldiers within. Why didn't he question Shinra, for inflicting this onto Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth? Why didn't he question that apparently Shinra has fucking cloning technology that can be used on the SOLDIERS? He picks up Angeal's blade while he was talking to Cloud, and is reminded of his SOLDIER honour. What honour? How did Angeal and Zack go for so long in Shinra while being "good people" without being disillusioned sooner by everything else they were doing? I understand the general population being fooled, but Angeal was one of the freaking firsts. They didn't question anything until Angeal and Genesis began to degrade? They weren't quite like Sephiroth, I'm assuming they weren't physically unable to leave if they wanted to be discharged. None of them were raised in a place where this was all they've ever known. None of them were raised to be disillusioned with death, to believe any empathy and compassion was weakness. Unlike Sephiroth, they had options.

And Sephiroth STILL had the mind to not only be compassionate with his own soldiers, but to want to defect. Because that was the only way he could've ever left Shinra.

I'm more convinced now then ever that Sephiroth was done dirty.

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

Okay I'm having another thought about Isaac (I am thinking about Isaac again, big fucking surprise)

I feel like it says a lot about Isaac that during Motel California when Stiles found him and used the flare to snap him out of the mental torture spell that the motel ghost and the Wolfsbane had put all of the wolves in, Isaac was the only one not actively trying to physically harm himself. Isaac was hiding under the bed.

(If you haven't seen the episode and/or don't watch the show, mentions of trauma, suicide and self harm below.)

Like - let's run it down.

Ethan was being tortured by visions of someone trapped inside of his body and he tried to use a circular saw to cut that someone out (trying to cut himself free). It likely represents the idea that he was coming to resent merging with Aiden in their Alpha state, hating not having his own individual identity, hating the fact that Aiden might make him hurt someone (against his will while they're merged) innocent like Danny in the name of Deucalion's cause.

Boyd was being reminded of a childhood trauma (and I am actually so pissed that the show didn't go into more detail about this story and if they weren't planning on revealing the full details - why didn't they just make his visions about Erica? because he's clearly tortured and fucked up about that) where it seems like he was responsible for a younger sibling in a public place and that sibling was then abducted or went missing (and maybe turned up dead later?) and he feels responsible for her disappearance and/or death.

So he takes the safe out of the office and places it on top of himself to weigh himself down while he drowns in the bathtub - one, because he knows that no one of humans who are conscious of the goings on can lift it off and free him, and two, likely to represent the crushing weight that he feels over the guilt of losing his sibling. The crushing 'responsibility' he felt (even though he was just a child and it wasn't his fault). And it probably comes back to Erica - how he felt responsible for taking care of her during the time they were captured, and he likely felt responsible for her death too.

And Scott - sees a vision of his mother kidnapped and murdered by Deucalion, and he is told that it's all his fault. And he tries to burn himself alive while questioning if there is a ghost trying to convince him to do it or if there's something truly wrong with him. (And not knowing that Derek is alive, he feels responsible for Derek's 'death' and the lives of everyone around him - so the message here is pretty clear.)

What happens to Isaac is what interests me the most. He remembers something that happened during his childhood, a distinct memory with his father - a seemingly random, average conversation where his father is trying to teach him about tools, and things escalate quickly. When Isaac makes a simple mistake, his father's anger booms out of control, and he tells Isaac that he is inherently flawed, and then - Isaac has a vision of himself being locked back in the freezer that his father used to punish him, which we later find out means that the ghost prompted him to crawl under the bed, a tight space that would normally send him spiralling into a panic attack. The ghost is using his claustrophobia to torture him (when Stiles finds him, he's sweaty and shaking and clearly very poor off), but he's the only one of the wolves not actively trying to kill himself.

What this says to me is that - Isaac has already lived through a fate worse than death. Worse than the kind of mystery that drives the average person to suicide. This says to me that a demon (or whatever lives in the motel) that thrives off people killing themselves, gets more pain and suffering to feed off of from Isaac having a claustrophobic panic attack and believing that he's back in his father's basement in the freezer than it would if he was actually miserable enough to want to kill himself.

Isaac already died while locked in that freezer many, many times.

Idk that's just what that moment in the show says to me.

[starstofillmydream]

Unpopular opinion on Commander Cody?

Hi anon! Thank you for the question! 😊

Okay, I can see this ruffling some feathers, so if you don't agree with my opinion, that's okay! I just want things to stay civil, even if people disagree 😅

My unpopular opinion of Commander Cody is twofold: 1) the "sunshine commander" narrative needs to go, and 2) Cody needs to be separated from Obi-Wan's character.

(1) The "sunshine commander" narrative needs to go.

I've talked about this before, but I'm sick of seeing Cody being characterized as "the sunshine." It's inaccurate and a tired assessment. Just because the fandom assumes the sunrise is painted on his armor doesn't mean we should automatically ascribe him to "sunshine" traits—you have to think about the connotations. In media, personifying characters as "the sun" and personifying characters as "the sunshine" are two completely different projects. A character personified as "the sun" has steadfastness and strength/power—after all, the sun leads the day. But it also burns and is dangerous. A character personified as "the sunshine" is cheery, upbeat, quirky, optimistic/idealistic, and sometimes, ditzy. Because Cody clearly doesn't fall under the latter, it would be more fitting to characterize him as a "sun" character (if you're even going to do that at all, because honestly, it's not even necessary. Categorizing clones as stock characters/characters in a trope minimizes the individuality and complexity they try so hard to establish, since you're only attributing them to one personality trait). Cody is a marshal commander—he leads a third of the Grand Army of the Republic under Kenobi, and for good reason. He's calm and collected under pressure; extremely intelligent, especially in military strategy/tactics; has insane combat skills, both with a blaster and hand-to-hand; he's stern and disciplined in order to keep his men alive; and he's diplomatic and has a sound moral compass. Most clones, including Cody, have a jaded outlook on life because of all they experienced during the war, both in combat and out of combat (e.g., Cody's hesitance to believe Rex that Echo was alive in TCW S7E1). There is nothing cheery, upbeat, quirky, optimistic/idealistic, ditzy, and thus sunshine-y, about the guy. He's not frolicking in a field of flowers and stopping to smell the roses—he's a soldier, a highly-trained and cunning one at that. So stop diminishing that core part of him just to fit an inaccurate narrative.

(2) Cody needs to be separated from Obi-Wan's character.

I swear, I can't see a sentence with Cody's name in it without Obi-Wan being in there too. Let Cody live his own life on his own terms without his general encroaching on it! There is so much more to Cody as a person than being Obi-Wan's shadow, and thank God for the writers of TBB S2E3 for showing that so clearly (I know people love to bring up the fact Cody frowned when Crosshair mentioned the Jedi being traitors and that Cody's negotiation skills with Tawni Ames came from Obi-Wan being "the negotiator" and all...but what if...and stay with me...Cody did that all on his own? You know, because he's one of the most brilliant minds in the Republic's military?). It hurts me so much to see Cody cast aside as a side-kick (or romantic interest, which I'm not personally a fan of. Cody would not be desperate enough to be in love with his general. Come on now. The man has standards, and disrupting the military hierarchy is a little icky, in my opinion. The power dynamics will always be off, whether people want to recognize that or not.)—I listed a whole bunch of canon attributes above that people seem to conveniently forget. People in the fandom are very selective as to which clones they give grace and which clones they do not. Cody is one of the clones they do not, as well as Bly, Crosshair, and Dogma, to name a few. But, what blows my mind is that clones like Fox—who only get a few minutes of screen time in the entire Clone Wars series—are given complex personalities, fanon-created faces, and ships with multiple people while Cody, who is the first live-action named clone we meet, is completely dependent on Obi-Wan. It's such a strange phenomenon.

That was long-winded, sorry anon 😅

Hang out with me ask game!

[babbletaels]

Like the problem I have with the jedi are the way they're a large institution that thinks they know what's best for everyone and breeds that mindset into their pupils. There are rules they have to follow to not get shunned from the jedi order, we see this as anakin can't tell anyone he's married and about to have children. It's apparently so secretive that even after anakin is left half dead and whats left of his body is actively burning to a crisp, Obi wan still doesn't call for help for padmé to give birth. It's only him and a robot! sorry I mean "droid" or whatever.

They freely host these rules that make their members want to hide their "mistakes" and their flaws instead of being able to work on their issues, and they see no fault in this system until it all goes wrong of course. It's clearly displayed this way for a reason, no?

One of the issues the jedi have is that they recruit children as young as possible, and when a person becomes a jedi they're not allowed to meet their family again because they're constantly on the job basically. We hear this being talked about in the movies and in shows too. I almost thought it was just a once or twice happenstance kind of thing, because anakins mom was a slave so she couldn't follow them, but it seems like they just literally do this every time. It's not healthy for children to be taken away from their families. Even kids from abusive or otherwise incapable families will have trauma from being taken away from their family. Even surrogate children can display trauma because of this.

Ask yourself, why are the jedi portrayed to do this instead of being portrayed as letting their pupils go home on the weekends or going home on summer break or why are they not portrayed as getting to bring one of their parents? You think it's unrealistic, that they can't host that many families. But there's fire in space. There's light sabers. There's an entire planet that's just one big industrialized city - and people actually like that place and want to be there. Why can't there be a family quarters? Some parents probably don't want to move and will let their kid go alone, so you can still have stories about sad kids who miss their parents.

The jedi are just simply portrayed as having flaws. Their methods of bringing up padawans became their downfall when one of their pupils couldn't handle these situations. In A new hope, only two jedi are left alive. They take in Luke who is an adult and train him to be a jedi, even though the jedi order doesn't take in adults to train them to become jedi. And Luke turns out great, so like what's even the issue. Why can't they take in force sensitive people of all ages based on requests? Post flyers that say "is your kid scaring you by making things fly? contact us". Everyone in the galaxy already know what the jedi order is. Instead of going somewhere and saying "your kid is force sensitive, I want to take him with me to train him because he's dangerous blah blah, and you have to make the decision right now" just let people contact you when they feel like they need you? And also let your employees have some time off where they can visit their fucking families?

Like the jedi order has flaws! Why are people so pissy when you point out that they have flaws, when the movies and everything ever deliberately made these flaws a thing in the first place! They didn't need to have flaws, they could've been perfect if they had been written as such!

[onyourstageleft]

severance s2 ep3 thoughts: (spoilers under the cut since the ep just dropped yesterday)

- no Mrs. Selvig don't turn around please become a traitor go wherever the fuck you were going that was 280something miles away. please answer my burning questions about the hospital arm band

- Lumon better not buy Dylan out of the plotting, he was growing on me but if they lure him back in with the family visitation center thing I will be deeply saddened

- we still don't trust Helly

- before Milkshake opened the box me and my partner knew where it was going, I said out loud "please don't be blackface" and yet

- also I find Natalie or whatever her name is, the board liaison, so creepy. I think it's her eyes

- "tiny hall for goats" - my partner

- is that Frolic tattoo man!?! frolic, as in frolic with the goats?! (update maybe it's not but I think it was a valid assumption in the less than two seconds we saw him initially)

- Felicia giving Irving a mom hug is so wholesome

- the angry farmers materialize, this is actually starting to give horror movie vibes now

- #wifereveal #clearbagpolicy

- his wife is so cute though I love her

- apparently this actress was also a major character on walking dead, one of my partner's special interest shows

- "we live on a cattle ranch?" innie Dylan doesn't understand the charm of vintage dress up photography!

- the drawings of Burt are so cute!! and we get new info! the exports hall!

- glad they talked the goat people down but why are we showing off our bellies

- OH SHIT it's the pouches that they are believed to keep their larvae in for that whole MDR propaganda thing Burt mentioned before

- is Dylan's wife an overnight security guard somewhere or something?

- Natalie what the fuck are you doing there, Ricken does not need you. Ricken please do not buy into anything they're trying to sell you

- I love Devon she hates Lumon so fucking much and she loves her brother a lot, enough to not tell her husband whatever the fuck it is that they're doing with apparently trying to burn an image into his eyes

- my partner said it on the last EP and I forgot to write it but I agree, Mark is clearly the important one, the rest of them were expendable, and it has to do with his dead wife and whatever Cold Harbor is

- asking them to fire Milkshake after all he did, running around and serving cunt all week on his motorcycle? I mean I guess

- run bitch run! please become a traitor to Lumon, you could tell that whatever the fuck that was was gonna be a trap

- "who told you that" no really ma'am who did tell you that how did you know that his wife is alive at Lumon

- oh shit yeah she did used to work there and was involved in the severance brain lab, definitely forgot about that major plot point (as did Mark apparently)

- I did not expect her to set up shop in his fuckin basement for this but I guess. also vaguely surprised he agreed to it so readily now, but grief do be strong

- well shit is definitely gonna start popping off soon!

- next ep I need outie Mark to be vaguely aware of Helena Eagen and recognize Helly but not be able to place it and then figure it out and blow shit up

[eponymous-rose]

Continuing my Arcane spiral, after coming back to the show, I am much, much more on board with this season than I was on first viewing. Call it a shift from 8.5/10 to 9.5/10 for me. Spoilers under the cut!

I'll admit, Jinx's death really put a huge damper on the show for me, so realizing that it likely wasn't intended to be seen as an unambiguous death makes the final tone of the show much, much more interesting to me (that final struggle with Vander was Jinx letting go of her old life, walking away, and leaving Vi with the gift of not having Vander's final death on her hands so she can move forward).

People have gone over the Jinx-is-alive stuff ad nauseam, but to sum it up briefly:

Cait is looking at the tunnels and vents near where she fell at the end of the show.

If you pause, you can see a shimmer-colored bolt moving away from the explosion (this one's less convincing to me, but sure).

The only recycled asset in the entire show is that footage of the airship at the end, grabbed exactly from the first scene ("one day, I'm gonna ride in one of those").

The bridge theme (which became Jinx's theme) playing at the end doesn't actually resolve its final chord.

The "the end" screens in Jinx's style.

The hilarious way the cast reacted to the question of whether Jinx was alive - after being super definitive about all other deaths, this was a super quick "uhhhhhhhh no comment".

The song that plays during the depths of Jinx's suicidal thoughts ("Wasteland") has a final verse in a completely different tone, about finding someone to help you through.

Ekko burns only one memorial, which I now assume is for his mentor, Heimerdinger.

So yeah, I'll buy it. I think the unpleasant crash of having this character whose arc is all about walking away and finding a new start just decide to die instead is rough enough that they needed a little more of a hint for the more oblivious viewers like me, but I'm happy with it on subsequent viewings.

I'm even okay with the silly Viktor-is-the-robed-man thing, because you know what? I don't think it was a season 2 retcon after all - the theme that plays under the flashback sequence in s1e2 is the first few notes of Viktor's theme.

I think Isha's death and all the Vander stuff had a lot of goofy and sort of unearned elements, but it was realized so completely sincerely and effectively that, you know what? I'm cool with it. If we can't embrace goofy tropes in our genre fiction, where can we embrace them?

I think I've come around a bit on the Vander and Silco flashback stuff - it was clear to me from the very first scene in season one that Vi clearly recognized Vander on the bridge, so that part didn't bug me. My theory is that Felicia and Connol were not a super serious thing and had just recently started seeing each other ("I'm knocked up"/"Does Connol know?" felt a lot more to me like "oh shit, this early relationship just got complicated" rather than "congrats on the long-tried-for baby!"), and while it looks like he stepped up and stuck around, the fondness between Felicia, Vander, and Silco went back a lot further.

The thing I really, really struggled with was reconciling flashback Silco, who was super close with Vi and Powder's family, with season one Silco, who threatens to kill both of them. So my half-baked headcanon here is that there was that there was a bit of a natural drift apart during the ~7-8 years between the flashback sequence and pre-show, which culminated in Vander trying to kill Silco when his plan got Felicia and Connol killed on the bridge (great, great parallel to Vi & Powder). The thing that stood out to me on a rewatch was that in season 1, Silco lays a trap for Vander's kids specifically to lure them in! Why do that? He's clearly interested in Vi's potential, which works as an uninterested supervillain, but becomes kind of complex as someone who is horribly determined to make his earlier mistake worthwhile by going all-in on Zaun. I think he sees Vi as a twisted extension of his promise to Felicia - if I can take her in and transform her into a force for Zaun (possibly via shimmer), points for effort, right? I could see him preventing Deckard from killing her, if he got the chance.

And to an extent, I'm not sure Powder was ever on his radar, either because he was less close with the family by the time she came around, or because he didn't see her as useful for Zaun in the same way as stubborn-fighter Vi. But the end result was the same, beautifully twisted by seeing her as a mirror - he took her in and he changed her. And I think the idea of having him do that in spite of this connection with her family is actually pretty effective.

You were also absolutely correct, I missed a lot of Cait's transition away from Ambessa's shadow (my only excuse is that I watched Act II on a massive adrenaline high after vending at my first major card show and wasn't retaining much) - I also managed to miss that she purposely let Jinx escape at the end by calling away all the guards (look, I may have been slightly distracted by what happened next). I was already pretty happy with her arc, but I think this solidifies it and ties in really nicely with the season's themes of forgiveness.

I do still think the need to project onto the next shows somewhat hurt the way this show works as an ending, but I think it'll age better as we figure out what those next shows are.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

if dorian didn't show up, do you think louis would have shot minnie?

I do. I know some people think either he wouldn't have or he would've missed so that's why the writers had him shoot Dorian instead, but mmmmmm no, I don't personally think so. I like to think that if he had taken the shot, his shaky hands would've caused him to shoot her fatally.

Mostly because I'm already so normal about the fact that of the Ericson crew, Marlon and Louis are the only ones with a body count. Well, that we know of, but shown to us in the game, at least. Plus, we know it's Louis' first kill.

Like yeah, Clementine and AJ become part of the crew and they have bigger body counts, and if we're counting indirect kills caused by actions, then Tenn has a count... and I guess everyone has blood on their hands for blowing up the boat... but I'm talking about killed directly with a weapon like....... I lied, I'm not normal about that at all, Louis and Marlon are the ones who have killed someone in Louis' route. I'm also not normal about the fact that Louis kills Dorian and then even as he's clearly in shock, he tries to go with Clementine to get AJ, and then later on when they talk about it, he says it feels like bile but not quite and he's glad he has it in him to do it.... listen, listen, listen... I'm obsessed with that.

Anyway, so if Louis shot Minerva, I think he would've accidentally killed her and can you imagine? He's already enough of a mess after killing the woman who pinned him down and tried to cut his finger off [or succeeded] but he knew Minerva, they were friends before the twins were taken. Even Violet couldn't kill her even though that would've been the smarter thing to do, and we know thanks to meta knowledge that killing her would've saved lives, but Violet couldn't, and I don't think Louis would intentionally either.

Speaking of Violet, if Louis killed Minerva, I hate to think about what that would've done to Vi. I think she might've actually left at that point, like what was planned before it got changed to her being burned. I don't think she would've attacked Louis over it, though, like yeah she attacked Clementine in the cell but Louis? I don't know, but I don't think so just because it's Louis and he'd be a mess about it anyway.

Though if he did kill her, it would be a neat parallel to draw... y'know, because Louis forgave AJ for killing Marlon even though he was pissed and heartbroken, and Violet was annoyed with him the entire time... but could she ever forgive Louis for killing Minerva? Y'know? We already have a similar parallel with AJ shooting Tenn, but still.

If Clementine killed Minerva in that moment, though, then I could see Violet attacking her since in her eyes, Clem proved her right.

So yeah, I get why they added the Dorian kill to his route. It adds another compelling element to Louis as a character, but we also need Minerva alive for episode 4; Louis can't kill her, he can't miss, and he's not going to stay with her because we need Violet to stay on the boat and him to be on shore for all routes.

[queenofallwitches]

I FEAR NO FIRE

SALAMANDER SPEAKS THROUGH ME

Tuesday morning, past midnight.

I don't fear fire, I fear the people who fear the fire

I'm my own salvation

I am worthy of my goals, dreams and visions of the future

I will manifest all my purpose in life drives me towards pursuing. My soul will find its fire and once more, the ashes begin to pile from the scraps that settled after the last fire.

The entrails of scorched trails torched in the wake of the flame, the flame roaring. Soaring.

The flames devour. Hungry orange flickers of fury.

Glowing red.

Unable to be contained.

Burning. Brazen. Brilliant.

Flickering in mega monolithic shades of sunset and sunrise hues but bound by the inferno of allegories painted in the stories of hellfire and inferno.

Burning, screaming, howling, people in ego, fire comes to pick up possessions and they aimlessly try to kill natures warrior with a garden hose made of plastic.

The human error, the human created hell set upon the place from where it rose. The earth. Now the fire is here to prove to us who know how it is to burn, be burnt alive, life after life, and we rise to excitement and adoration when fire is venerated. We fear not fire, nor nature.

Those who are averting the burn of the fire of self annihilation are those fire follows. If not metaphorical fire, literal fires spark up awakening. If not that, then, only realising how the life is never ending and the soul lives on, could save suffering; instead; they face nothing but shallow soul devoid placating life that is flat. Society is approving, not the self or the soul of self.

Should we know we are infinite sparks, sunlight sustained beings who began from temperature and matter colliding, time immemorial, beings who are souls that fire or any way to die could kill, then we can no longer be afraid. For one thing that we know, is death is the only certainty.

The other we are born to be told anything, but we all share being born into this world as a common human attribute. We all share the end of life in whatever way as the other. Nothing else can be categorised or defined because it splits us and divides us. Nothing can progress until we as humans together, find a way forward. Not in adversity, but harmony.

Only individual humans journey into the soul, to discovery a spark. That spark becomes the only light as we analyse, define and resign to the presence of that burning drive inside.

We realise over time to follow our spark, creates a feeling that gives us light. The shadows from the valley of death we once knew from our dark night of the soul illuminate.

Our life now depends on pursuing that spark, knowing that each time we temper the spark, by ignoring or going against what the spark wills for us to do, we learn the lesson. But when we follow it, we see a beautiful inferno ignite the social worlds we inhabit, people find this passion we speak with, contagious, and from there, they are ignited to journey on the quest to find what give them light.

For some of us, the brightest ones I was told, once, those who burn the brightest, are deliberately hurt the most.

I am mastering the destruction of what was, to the rebuilding of what will be. Learning no matter how many times my lapse into dark valleys of desolate emotionally draining labyrinth forests that I go through.

I seem to ignite a heat, a warmth, a tiny little sparkle.

The scintillating glistening that whispers in the windless night of no light 'I will guide you on your way".

A fairy, a fantasy, a figment of unreality?

The end result begins the art of alchemy.

Igniting a spark, begins a flame, the flame burns to expose a light, a light trail is eyes able to perceive the way out of the unholy forest of decay.

As I find the fire once more to illuminate shadows.

I see clearly as my fire grows to encompass a ball of flame.

In this flame sphere its showing me what was not seen.

to expose things that led to my transient trip, into what tangled vines, a never ending, timeless, cold, dark, desolate, dread ridden devoid of all feelings of hope, help, promise, happiness or love.

Nothing of positive intonation resides with these Cthulhu wispy warping black ink squids drooling.

Sticky, slug slash tentacle, the bottom of the ocean with no light. Days are the same as the plutonian nights of tendrils siphoning infinite squids sucking the dreams from a sleeping brain, as we wake, wrapped in the remnants of a tendril or ten, tight on the brain.

All we can hear is the howling of burning children over millennia, molech, mammon, black matter sacrificial lambs. The time chunks blown in space and time, only perceived by the rifts in the lack of space and time.

The sounds, the silence, the all and nothing. Is what drives the evil stuck here mad.

They would rather be tormented by the black holes blowing parallel worlds apart, won't matter. If you cannot look inside.

I spent years in self reflection.

I had a lapse because of a bad experience with a loser from the america.

Now I move on!

In the end the inferno leads me into my truth, my passion, purpose, prosperity, progress, positive drive and peace all flow in this blaze, burning bright, crackling the desolate vines that wrap alien concepts by the nature of not of this world, burning, bursting and crackling, bubbling into nothing but void. For void is where it was concocted. Void is where it returns.

I dance, in harmony, hallowed kindred soul merging into the ever growing flames that devour the devoid of soul, transyuggothian, beyond time and space and into the infinite nothingness, filling with fires that are contagious.

outrageously sparking by the will of furious dancing witches from burnt ancestral pain who forge another way out.

We fear nothing, no fire, no flame, no water, no wave, no earthquake, no mountain, no wind or thunder or lightning.

For our souls are ashes to embers, embers to inferno, for centuries, so we become one with the earth, the trees and the leaves. Our souls are oak, granite, stone and lava.

Our lives are not easy. But they are here to be ready, ready to roll with nature; not letting the transient cycles be a cause for fear but a collective faith we can see as a spark that drives a new start.

Start from the ashes and watch the world around you burn.

Those who are too, alike to you, will be there dancing around the fire too.

[no-passaran]

This is award-winning Israeli philosopher, public intellectual and polymath, Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz. He was appearing on the Israeli TV show Popolitika, back in 1992. Leibowitz argues with pundit Tommy Lapid, the father of Yair Lapid, former Israeli Prime Minister.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz argues that Israel is not a democracy after its 1967 occupation of the West Bank and that there are circles in Israeli society that possess a Judeo-Nazi mentality.

Transcription of the video's English subtitles under the cut.

Link to the tweet / Link to the video on IG.

It's interesting to hear the end of this clip. The other man is arguing that until Israel is burning Arabs (Palestinians), Leibowitz's comparison has no base. Leibowitz's answer is that, after the concentration camps (which Israel has used to jail Palestinians in for decades), burning them is the "prophecy". That is: after the dehumanization, ghettification, ethnic separation, and apartheid that Israel puts Palestinians through, the next step is genocide, and it can be seen before it happens because we know what leads to it. In the tweet above, journalist Samira Mohyeddin remembers this "prophecy" now that Israel is, indeed, burning Palestinians alive to kill them.

But it made me think of something else, too. The man arguing with Prof. Leibowitz says that this isn't the case because Israelis don't "burn millions of Arabs just for fun". And, again, this is another place where the "prophecy" has been fulfilled:

Israeli extremist groups linked to the government's party take families (including children) to boat tours to watch Gaza getting bombed and cheer on the deaths and suffering of Palestinians. To extremist Israelis, Palestinian death is fun.

I'm aware it isn't new, we've seen news like this for years, like this one from 2014:

But it goes to show how Professor Leibowitz was right. Regardless of wether you agree or not with his word choice or semantics, genocide is where all these decades of occupation, dehumanization, and apartheid were headed to.

Transcription.

Interviewer: In this situation where you get an award from the government that you referred to as the government of a Judeo-Nazi state. When you get The Israel Prize from that state, do you still think as you said here before, that this state is not a democracy?

Leibowitz: these are two different things. The first, since you raised that issue then I'm forced to respond to it even though I never found the need to respond on the matter, as if I said that the state is a Nazi state.

Interviewer: Judeo-Nazi.

Leibowitz: I used the term Judeo-Nazi to describe a certain MENTALITY which exists among certain circles. A Judeo-Nazi mentality indeed exists within certain circles.

Lapid: Would you go back on this statement for a better atmosphere while receiving the prize?

Leibowitz: the Judeo-Nazi mentality within certain circles is alive and well.

Lapid: Jews who burn millions of Arabs just for fun? Right, professor Leibowitz?! Certain circles whose wish is to establish concentration camps and burn Arabs in a crematorium...

Leibowitz: I do know that the State of Israel holds many thousands of Arabs in concentration camps.

Lapid: And once in a while places them in gas chambers and burns them?!

Leibowitz: I know that the State of Israel holds many thousands of Arabs in concentration camps!

Lapid: and then burns them...?! And places them in gas chambers... Professor Leibowitz?!

Leibowitz: I spoke very clearly! I know that the State of Israel holds many thousands of Arabs in concentration camps.

Lapid: And then burns them?! And puts them in gas chambers!

Leibowitz: That is your prophecy! That is YOUR future prophecy!

[everythingwillsurelybealright]

OOPS don't mind me, it's a frantically written unhinged Black Butler theory post

IMAGINE.

IT'S THE PRESENT DAY.

BLACK BUTLER SEASON 4 IS PARTWAY THROUGH AIRING.

I know nothing about what happens in the manga but THESE THOUGHTS WILL NOT LEAVE ME ALONE.

AND SO: A POST

I present to you; WHAT'S GOING ON AT WESTON COLLEGE, as pieced together entirely by the parts of the Intro that haven't shown up in the show yet.

LET'S SEE WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE

(1) The lake, and something blood-like coming out of it

(2) A tree growing out of the courtyard, and something rising up out of the ground

(3) The Undertaker's medallions show up several times

(4) Imagery of recreating bodies

(5) The Zombies at the end

SO WHAT COULD THIS MEAN? LET'S TAKE A WILD STAB IN THE DARK.

Put these together and I would guess that the Undertaker is 100% involved in the mystery behind the missing students, but also that it's a direct continuation of what he was trying to do on the Worst Boat Trip of All Time. Ie, he's trying to perfect his process of bringing people back from the dead - not just as zombies like last time but as actual functioning people.

Let's add more screenshots to the recipe!

(6) The four elements of Alchemy show up in the intro - Earth, Air, Fire and Water

(7) The four house colours merge together to make a shining new fire - like they did for the cricket competition cup

(8) The shot of a body turning to ash and a shining soul hovering above the remains

So add these to the mix and I'd guess that the new theory of resurrection is based on where the failure in the old one was. Previously, just altering someone's Cinematic Record wasn't enough to really keep them alive after death, as their body kept moving but the soul was gone.

This time it looks like the process might revolve around destroying the old body altogether (ie, turning it to ash), capturing the soul, and building an entirely new body to house it.

ALSO throw into the mix that the four house colours combine into FIRE, since in Alchemy the soul is associated with the idea of Combustibility

Extra symbols for this could be:

(9) The Whole Diamond in the intro which is then split four ways -

leaving a separate smaller diamond to the side (which would be the soul, captured and kept separate from the four elements that make up the rest of the body)

(10) The diamond is present again when the tree is growing in the courtyard, where the implied undead bursts out of the ground

(11) The newly recreated body looking like it's breathing fire, notably against the same backdrop of the school that was present when the diamonds split apart in the first place

Anyway! This new body should in theory be free of the limits of the Cinematic Record (since the old body is already gone), and because the soul is still intact it could freely return to the new body and function normal.

I suspect the Alchemy theme might also be the conceptual connection behind the old body burning (leaving behind the pile of ash) and the new body (or maybe just the soul itself?) being made of fire, like this:

(12)

So that's what I think happened to the students! They were tests to see if the process worked, hidden by the prefects - who may or may not have even known what the process was for or even if it worked.

Either way, with the reappearance of Derrick at the end of Episode 8 I would say that it does indeed work.

But! Also! The mystery of the headmaster.

He's clearly not really there, or not really alive. This could be for a number of reasons but for now I'd guess that (a) he's partway through the process, so his soul is technically around but his new body isn't finished yet, which is why he never speaks and vanished completely when Sebastian tried to grab him, or (b) the process failed on him, but they're keeping him around as a convenient figure head while the prefects run the school instead.

AND ONE MORE THING?

There's always a hovering question mark over what exactly happened to Ciel in his big dark secret backstory that I assume we learn later, but this OP in particular is giving me a few ideas that are probably hugely wrong BUT CONSIDER

(13) In the courtyard the undead rising up out of the ground is in the middle of the frame, and the VERY next shot is of Ciel in the same place

COINCIDENCE? Yes probably! But also:

(14) The shot of Sebastian holding his cloak protectively over Ciel, who flashes briefly as a skeleton

WHICH IS INTERESTING? Ciel is often depicted as dead or dying, I would assume in reference to Sebastian taking his soul in the future. BUT WHAT IF?

It makes me guess that PERHAPS perfect resurrection has already been performed and potentially it was used on Ciel.

Which would also match the brief sequence when the body burns to ash and leaves behind a ghost, the fire seems to come FROM Ciel

(15)

Which is wild and I don't understand whatsoever. Was Ciel resurrected? Was his soul kept and put inside a new body (and maybe that's why he's so short? He's not growing?) Or did Ciel raise someone else from the dead? Or is there some other mystery behind Ciel's identity that just hasn't been hinted at yet?

EITHER WAY THERE WE ARE. BRAIN WORMS: EXPELLED. ENJOY.

[msunitedstatesjames]

As someone who legitimately enjoys House of the Dragon, this show has some real issues with side characters. Specifically, the timing and scene quality of side characters.

I feel like I have to point out that I have read Fire and Blood, as well as all the published A Song of Ice and Fire books, but I read them all years ago and don't remember a lot of the specifics.

I'm also going to be comparing HotD to Game of Thrones in here, even though I realize this show and that one are very different beasts.

One of the great things about early Game of Thrones was its characters. Almost every character was given a unique personality, story, and enough time to thrive. Even the side characters were given this more often than not. And frequently, even characters with incredibly small parts, who might show up in just a few episodes, were memorable.

In total, Game of Thrones had 73 episodes. Hot Pie was only in 12 episodes. Shireen Baratheon was only in 10. Lyanna Mormont was in 9. The Blackfish was in 7. Robert Baratheon was in 7. Mance Rayder was in 5. Hell, Maggy the Frog was in 1 episode and I still remember her. You probably remember most or all of these characters by name and face if you watched GoT, as well as knowing some of their traits, motivations, and possibly deaths. But I'm struggling with the sheer number of side characters being introduced and rushed past our faces with very little fanfare in House of the Dragon.

I thought this was highlighted quite clearly in episode 6 with Ser Darklyn. He's been in 9 episodes, which is more than Robert Baratheon and, perhaps a fairer comparison, the same amount as Lyanna Mormont. His attempt to become a dragon rider and his subsequent death could have been a genuinely impactful scene. I really wasn't sure going into the scene if he would be successful or not. I've read the book, so I knew some of the off-shoot Targaryens did eventually succeed, but I didn't remember specifically if he was one of them. They had five episodes before this (not even counting season 1) to try to make him a memorable character whose death had some impact, and they just didn't really try. I knew this guy had been in other scenes, but his character was so bland that I couldn't have told you anything specific about him. The only reason I remembered he was in the Queensguard was because of the armor and cloak. Even when I looked him up on the wiki most of the description was just like, "he escorted Rhaenyra." I feel like Game of Thrones would have really taken the time to make this dude likeable before they had him burned alive. And it's not like they didn't have the time. Daemon's been fumbling around Harrenhal for like 5 episodes, doing very little. He even had Alys tell him in this episode to just wait 3 days for something to happen. I know he's kind of become the flagship character of this show, and I like the little cameos we're getting, but I feel like I've seen the same 3 scenes happening over and over there: Daemon is awoken from a weird dream by Ser Simon, Daemon talks to Alys, Daemon saunters around trying to threaten people. I get it. But what I don't get is why I'm supposed to care about all these randos who have been given 5 minutes of time total in the last 5 episodes.

There's Alyn, a sailor who apparently saved Corlys off screen and who has a seemingly ambitious brother. That's all we know about him for the first 4ish episodes until we find out he's Corlys's bastard. Now we also know he doesn't want others to think he's getting special treatment for being Corlys's son, but that's about it, and he's already been in 5 episodes I think.

There's Hugh, the obviously Targaryen blacksmith with the sick daughter and long suffering wife. Honestly I wouldn't remember his name if not for subtitles. I think he's been in four episodes so far.

There's Ulf, whose name I had to Google. He's another bastard Targaryen allegedly, and he seems to be a typical struggling peasant of King's Landing. That's honestly all I can remember about him. I think he’s been in 3 episodes.

I could have told you Hot Pie's name after 3 episodes. Or Shireen's. Or Lyanna's.

I understand that all of these characters will have narrative importance eventually, but the writing is just not doing a good job of making you really care. Look at Lyanna Mormont, we loved her from her very first scene.

I feel like the writers are really relying on the audience having read Fire and Blood, and either being superfans or having read it so recently that they remember minor characters who might have gotten a few pages of mentions in the sprawling narrative of that book. And this just isn't realistic for a show with a fanbase of this size.

Again, I really do enjoy this show. I think compared to other fantasy shows it is overall of good quality. It's just a shame that the writers weren't able to fill in some of the blanks left by the "historical" slant of Fire and Blood.

[tobiasdrake]

On a quest for primal forces concentrated into music. What the fuck is my job description?

I saw these things when I was in the past. So that's what they are. They're. Like. Time Spotlights creating a window into the past. For platforming.

What the hell is that? Is it like a laser barrier to stop me from going that way?

Only one way to find out. When in doubt, ram your face into things. That's how you get Bestie Time.

...or it's a time portal. Valuable tool to facilitate an adventure across time and space? Or a useful mechanism to avoid needing to re-render every area in 16-bit? Two things can be true.

Oh, never mind. There are casual portals to flippy-floppy everything whenever you want. Huh.

With dramatic effects on the landscape, at that.

This is going to be a trippy adventure.

YOU GUYS WERE ALIVE THIS WHOLE TIME!?

I mean, I knew you were, but I thought the other ninjas were all killed in the firebombing.

That sounds like a fuck-up on your part. You had... Ambiguous Many Years to teach me everything I knew and prepare me for this adventure. Don't let my poor attentiveness in class be an excuse for your teaching failures.

Is it as cosmic as it sounds, or is that just a brand name? Because if it's as mind-bending as properly ground up Time Shards then I will stab people for it.

I'll stab that guy over there. The one by the door. He's always rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, look at him. Standing out of formation just so he can be closer to the master. Fucking teacher's pet.

Funny that, I might have a solution!

We grind the seed up and make coffee out of it. ^_^ Oh, fine, I'll use time travel instead.

It needs DIRT. Why can't I plant it in the DIRT. We could put it right fucking here in front of the training hall. Then it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to the future where demonic forces have once again burned to ash every single thing in the regi--

...

I'll go find a flowerbed.

Just gonna throw this out there but if I were a flowerbed, the Forlorn Temple is probably where I'd be.

Never did manage to get inside that place. Shopkeeper/Archer just laughed at me over it. I should make a point to go raid that place when I get a chance.

Allegedly the Demon King lives there. But. Like. Then what's the fucking point of the Underworld? There's a non-zero chance the Forlorn Temple is, like, a cardboard pop-up of a castle just to inspire Messengers to make bad choices.

So these are the notes. Finding all of these notes is going to be the key to breaking the curse, allegedly.

And this one's made of... crystallized hope? Ugh, this really does have Immortal Alchemist written all over it.

So survivors have well-wished Messengers off on their journey so many times over loop after loop after loop after loop that their hopes have crystallized into a physical object.

This one's been haunting me. It's been bothering me since my very first Power Seal. There was clearly a passage into the ground behind destructible rocks, but I didn't have the ability to strike downwards at them.

Things are different now. I'm different. I'm stronger. Faster. This time, I'm no fresh-from-the-village rookie, dashing along with a sparkle in his eye.

This time, I soar.

.........

Shut up, I'm different now. T-T I am a big boy ninja who glides like a falcon illuminated by a moonbeam. Shut up, I am!

So. I guess. Since we're hoping to break the cycle for realsies, we don't need the Cabinet of Broken Dreams anymore.

...but I want to know now--

OH GODDAMMIT This is "Don't touch my cabinet" all over again. Fuck you. I don't even care what landfill your stupid cabinet is rotting in. It's no skin off my back if I never see it again!

...which is why you should tell me, so I can show you how aggressively I don't care!

[lhs3020b]

The Fallout TV show

So, you may remember the days before my social energy-level suddenly collapsed, back in early 2022, and never really recovered? The days when I used to post regularly with idle speculation on media, video games, books and other things? Apparently tonight we're taking one for memory lane on all that.

I just saw the first two episodes of the Fallout TV show, and I have some thoughts…

First, a small surprise: it's actually good. It's a thing. In 2024. Which is enjoyable. Yes, I know, I know, I know. It shows the crisis in popular entertainment that I'm surprised by this. (It's the same feeling, actually, as when Baldur's Gate 3 came out and my socks were blown off by the unexpected experience of properly falling in love with a thing again.)

(By the way? From now on I'm going to call the show FoTV, on the same principle as Fo3 or Fo4 or FNV, just because I can't be bothered to type "Fallout TV show" over and over again.)

Also, somewhat-related to the above, FoTV is the best game adaptation I think I have ever seen. The world of the games is there, from props and set-pieces to the wasteland environment itself, even little nods to actual in-game mechanics. There are also lots of call-backs to the games themselves. For instance, FoTV's opening sequence was, to me, very reminiscent of the opening sections of Fo4, where the perfect suburbia is first set up, and then implodes in front of your horrified eyes, then is incinerated by a literal atomic bomb. The opening sequences of FoTV also do a good job of nailing the fact that while it's a future, it's not our future. It isn't spelled out directly, but we're shown it very smoothly through the mise-en-scène, whether it's news coming via an analogue radio, oldschool chemical-film cameras, or fashions that we just don't wear in our 2024, and so on.

And then Los Angeles gets nuked.

(I do have a small nitpick here. While I understand why the writers structured this scene the way they do, and it works narratively, nonetheless several characters are looking DIRECTLY at the first explosion when it happens. At the absolute minimum, they would have been blinded. More realistically, the radiant heat from the explosion - even at this distance! - would have given them extreme burns on exposed skin. And for that matter the UV component of the flashover would have given them an extreme case of sunburn. Also, the shockwave should actually have been a one-two-three punch - effectively-instantaneous light-flashover first, then the ground shaking as the speed of sound in rock is about three times faster than in the air, then the window getting smashed in by the airburst. Also, uh, they all cope unrealistically well with a storm of knife-sharp broken glass fragments being hurled into their faces.)

(You'll also note that I haven't said a single word about what the hard gamma rays might be doing to the cellular machinery inside their bodies. Actually, this I'm a bit less sure about - gamma rays do attenuate in air, at least somewhat, and also high-energy photons have a tendency just to go straight through people without actually stopping - our soft tissues, at least, semi-transparent to X-rays! -, so I suspect that at the distance the birthday party was from Ground Zero, you could possibly argue this one either way.)

Anyway. Moving on from all of that, before I feel a need to go and look up cumulative radiation-exposure tables or something, because this is supposed to be a Tumblr post, not a peer-reviewed academic paper.

Regarding Lucy's characterisation, I found it interesting how she flips from "sheltered and naive" to "unexpectedly competent". While she's lacking in knowledge of the world outside her vault, she's also clearly very adaptable and good at thinking on her feet. She figures out that the visitors from the other vault are actually Raiders without any direct help, and actually manages to get out of THAT room alive - all the more surprising when you realise she was up against someone who a) had the benefit of surprise, b) had prior experience with violence and killing and c) was also the person with weapons (at least at first). Lucy may be a bit of a cloud-cuckoolander in some ways, but she's not a pushover either. She's also clearly capable of taking initiative and acting on her own when she needs to, and she's also seemingly not averse to taking a third option if she thinks other people are in the wrong. (In particular, her decision to let herself out of the vault stands out here.) On the other hand, she also alternates these merits with getting easily-flustered and off-balance around other people, along with a tendency to telegraph her actions in a very overt manner. (There's a mildly-hilarious moment early on where you basically get to watch her flub her first speech-check.)

The Brotherhood of Steel are, unsurprisingly, back. So far there hasn't been any explanation for how they apparently recovered from the events of Fallout 2 or (possibly, depending on whatever the "canonical" ending is) the events of Fallout: New Vegas. They're also back in the arrogant/dickish mode of behaviour that they fall into very easily. They're also implied to be amoral in their own way - one interpretation of Maximus's trial scene is that he gets assigned to be Knight Titus's squire precisely because they do think he's the guilty party for the "boot-razor" incident, and the higher-ups actually like this bit of backstabbiness. (Perhaps they interpret it as ruthless determination, or a willingness to do "whatever is necessary for the mission". Or maybe they just think it's funny to kick him a little bit upstairs, just so they can see what happens next.)

(As far as I could tell, the narrative and the evidence-in-the-text are coy about whether he's actually guilty concerning Initiate Dane. Personally, I suspect Max isn't the guilty party - given that he had the bunk next to the victim, it would be the dumbest crime imaginable if he was. It's also clear that he has enemies amongst the other aspirants who might be willing to frame him. But who knows? And less favourable interpretations of the events definitely exist.)

While it's subtle, some of the Brotherhood's flaws are also on display here. Remember the overconfident Knights who got themselves blown up by the Boomers in FNV? Knight Titus shows a lot of that sort of behaviour too. Going AWOL in the middle of the mission to do some big game hunting, because he was "bored"? Yeah, arrogance and overconfidence there! Also he displays some real stupidity with his treatment of Maximus, being extremely rude to him and blaming Max for his own failures while he's also too injured to stand up, and there are no independent witnesses present. You'd think anyone who's a wasteland native would know to be extra careful when there's no backup or support! And to add extra sauce to the stupidity, this after he had Max remove his helmet!

The narrative doesn't make it quite clear whether Max either gave Titus a quick headshot, or just stood there until the internal bleeding or whatever ran its course, but it seems clear enough what happened there. And honestly, it's hard to hold it against Max given that Titus was both an incompetent and a dickhead. (Though, one subtlety - as I recall, we don't ever see Titus's body, so I wouldn't be totally surprised if he reappears at some point.)

Somewhat related to the Brotherhood stuff, I was also interested to see how the writers handled what we might call the power armour question. Basically, it's depicted as being, well, powerful, but it's also clear that Max doesn't really know what he's doing, so his T-60 doesn't turn into any kind of Disk One Nuke. (As the Ghoul puts it, "you should've read the manual" after Max gets his leg stuck after landing on a surface that couldn't take his weight.)

As for the Ghoul and what his agenda is, at two episodes in, it's hard to say, and there's not enough evidence to even begin to speculate. However, one detail I did notice was that Lucy's father seems distinctly unsurprised (if horrified) by the break-in to the Vault. Also, while I couldn't entirely sure, he seemed to recognise Moldaver and doesn't seem particularly-surprised to see her there. Moldaver's comment to Lucy - "you look just like your mother" - also seems to confirm that she has some prior history with Lucy's family.

Then there's the vault attack itself. For the Wasteland, the survival-rate among the residents its actually rather high. The Raiders could very easily have exterminated them … and they don't. "Restraint" and "mercy" are not qualities we associate with Raiders, so this is an interesting turn of events. (The "hostages and bomb" scene in particular had a bit of a dog-and-pony-show sense to it - notably, the delay on the bomb is long enough for the hostage vault-dwellers to make an escape, almost as if it was never really intended to kill them in the first place.) There also seemed to be a suggestion that Moldaver wanted them to stay inside the vault, which is interesting for its implications.

Anyway, I look forward to the chance to see future episodes. This has proved to be the most interesting TV experience in some time.

[review-anon]

ah hey you know what? Perfect time to use this lil sprite i made for myself just to show my pissed off side cause mikado fucked up- *ahem*

mikado?

shut the ever living fuck up..you magician wannabe..

Oh look, the other Miss Sahpree is coming to defend her inferior self. How-

*Suddenly Mikado is slammed into the floor as a fist collides with his body*

Owwww...what was that?

SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP!

Given everything you have done, I have half a mind to beat you to death right here and there!

Aliza is NOT responsible for what transpired here. You teleported away before she had the chance to end you, so yeah Aliza WAS planning to kill you for what you've done.

Besides I never got my own back for you trying to burn me alive for no good reason, and this seems like an ideal time to do so!

Well then...this got boring very quickly.

Besides I only really came to see if Miss Magorobi is here and she is, so we are gonna go and find Mr. Makunouchi and Miss Nijiue.

That is NOT happening Sannoji! Magorobi didn't plan for Review Anon to behave like this, and I'm sure the same applies to Ouma and Yomiuri as well!

Oh you are so sure of that Mr. Naegi? Well I'm sorry to say but we all planned this.

No we didn't-

....*Mikado glares at Kokichi*

...*Kokichi backs down*

...Maybe I should have killed you when I had the chance.

But Nikei...Kokichi...Emma...listen to me...Don't listen to Sannoji. He's the one in the wrong here, he's just gaslighting you three into thinking you wanted this, when you clearly didn't.

Trust me...I know from experience about people who claim to love you twisting the truth to benefit themselves. Sannoji was the only one who wanted the events that transpired to occur.

So come on...help us out here and tell your boss how you really feel about him.

...Does it matter? Everyone on the Voidship hates us now. Our mistake is that we shouldn't have agreed to the plan anyway.

Besides why are you trying to apply to our better natures? We are evil, we have no better natures!

Kokichi...I know when you act like this, its because you don't want people to see you as weak.

But its not a excuse to not try to redeem ourselves guys?

Emma please stop...you know what Mikado would do if this keeps up.

And? He wasn't our original leader and his magic is drained now, so he's lost a lot of his power. We didn't want this to occur, we didn't want anyone getting seriously hurt here.

Oh that's rich coming from you Miss Magorobi...After all...I might have been fighting Miss Sahpree at the time but...

Didn't you try to strike Miss Maizono with a brick covered in snow behind her head?

WHAT?!

H-how did you....H-how did you...know?