#and to make Es feel guilty so they would stop needling her about it.

[purgemarchlockdown]

#i don't think people have to think over those details if it's not fun for them but they really do interest me#those things to me add an extra layer of depth to the prisoners#it's easy to synpathize with someone if you like them but it's much harder usually#for people to objectively hold the people they like accountable outside of doing something objectively jarring or heinous#i feel milgram is trying to teach people even if you like someone even if you relate to them or sympathize with them#it doesn't mean you shouldn't hold them any less accountable then you would someone else who did the exact same thing#we all have reasons for behaving the way we behave or reacting how we react what makes their reasons any more soecial than those they hurt#kotoko highlights this more in her second voice drama by calling to attention#we didn't care about her killing bad guys before but since we know these bad guys it's suddenly different#it'd be nice if that habit of attempting to understand the motivations of the prisoners could be extended to those around us as well#that's what i hope at least#also it'd be fucked up if those voted guilty got let out while those voted innocent were executed#kind of like going you thought innocent meant freedom just because guilt came with punishment but#a person can only avoid consequences for so long and if you don't give it something else will @archivalofsins Yeah! A Lot of Milgram is built on ideas of understanding I've been thinking about it recently. There's that one interview where Yamanaka says he wants people to see people on the news and think that they could be like the characters in Milgram. To extent that sort of understanding that these people are People, capable of both good and bad and everything in-between.

I feel this a lot especially with characters like Mahiru. She's such a Nice and Friendly person that I think it becomes really hard to reconcile how horrible she can be to people with that. But she can and I think it's important to recognize that. Especially since I feel like a lot of people's judgements can be extremely.....extreme? I guess, In the sense that they seem to lie on the extremes of infantalization and demonization. Muu especially is a good example of this where people went from seeing her as the pitiful victim to the evil mastermind.

I think Milgram really tries to make the audience Critical of the narratives that both the Characters and Milgram Itself is feeding you. It's never as simple as it seems and convenient narratives should be given the most suspicion (T1 Mikoto)

But again, to also remember that they are still people at the end of the day and that there should be an attempt to atleast Understand if not anything else. It's a really interesting part of Milgram, and I think it's really Awesome of Yamanaka really to create a work this centered around getting to know and understanding characters even when the circumstances are so grim and serious.

Also that Would Indeed be fucked but I wouldn't put it pass them....really curious to see how they handle not forgiven and forgiven in T3....

I like treating the murders less as actual crimes and more like a concept that just showcases the harm that extreme situations and mindsets can cause. I dunno a better way of explaining it but like- I treat it less like a murder mystery and more like "okay what Made them do something so Extreme and Harmful and Why" if that makes sense....

[hulklinging]

YOO IT'S DRUNK PROMPT TIME? HIT ME WITH SOME SARCHENGSEY + INSOMNIA

Lost(This is a companion to Found, but can be read as a standalone)

They’re four hours outside of Vancouver, because Henry made the mistake of mentioning that the Okanagan had their own Nessie legend, so Gansey couldn’t resist taking a look. Henry isn’t going to complain, because even though he’s a city boy being in BC at all feels like spending time at home, like the air is just a little different past the border. The Litchfield boys had done this same drive, the summer before, hitting up music festivals and farmer’s markets, because they’d decided they wanted to spend some time with the dinosaurs in Drumheller. That trip had been special, even though it was no longer allowed to be brought up in front of Lee-squared, what with the chicken incident and all.

But driving through BC with Blue and Gansey is a totally different experience. Somehow, they’ve gone from a simple roadtrip to writing their own myths, waking up every morning feeling larger than life, every day stretched in front of them, only ending when they let it, when they’ve touched the horizon. The Green Pig is their chariot, and Henry supposes he has to give credit to the Greeks. They knew what divinity could look like.

Henry’s not sure how many pantheons they’ll trek through, on this roadtrip of theirs, but he’ll grasp for whatever metaphors he can to try and capture the casual legends of the two sharing this car with him.

There’s a hidden tension now sneaking through every conversation they have, and Henry’s not sure if it’s just the fact that they’ve technically turned around, are heading back towards home, that if this was a normal summer roadtrip they’d be nearing the end. But there’s the buffer of their gap year, and Venezuela still awaits. Henry can’t let himself start thinking about endings, yet.

(Not when every night he still dreams about them, cave openings and story endings all tangled up together, and Blue’s there too now, in his nightmares, and so he has to live through losing both of them, night after night, running through dark tunnels that always close in on him when he’s not looking)

So Henry blames the tension on the turning of the season, blames the blush on the late summer heat, insists on stopping at every roadside stand for the fruits of the farms they drive by. He says he’s searching for the best peaches, the best pears, and always makes sure to look away when Blue bites into the cherries, lips stained red, or when Gansey makes a mess of the blackberries they pick themselves from a roadside ditch. He focuses instead on how right their hands look, holding each other. They’ve started kissing, which means Henry has started taking walks when they turn in, pretends the space is just for their sakes.

He didn’t mean to fall for them, only he had already spent time hung up on Richard Gansey, and how could one spend time with Blue Sargent and not fall in love with her loud laugh and louder opinions? Between the two of them he’s sure he’s developed some kind of heart condition, because the smallest things they do seems to be enough to send his pulse racing.

They find a strange little piercing place in Hope, and Henry adds a small stone to his nose, tries not to read into it when Gansey holds his hand as the needle passes through his own earlobe. He shoots a smile at Blue, terrified that one of these days he’ll look to her and see jealousy brewing, but she just rolls her eyes fondly at Gansey’s nerves. She opts for a tongue piercing and an industrial too, because Henry insists on getting her a birthday present, and she’d rather he pay for something frivolous than pay more than his share on the road. Gansey matched the offer, of course, and then proceeded to turn the brightest, most beautiful red when Blue informed him his money was going straight to her tongue.

“It’s more like an investment then, right, Three?” Henry teases, and he deserves the punch on the arm he gets for that, he knows he does.

It might be considered some sort of cruel and unusual punishment, stuck on a roadtrip with two people he’s in love with, getting to watch as every day they grow more comfortable in their own relationship. But it makes him happier than it hurts, and he knows he’d rather be here with them than anywhere else.

The walks make falling asleep difficult, which is something he embraces, because he’d rather fight back the exhaustion then lose his friends to the darkness of his dreams again. Tonight, he stares up at the stars, then takes in how they reflect off of the Okanagan River, and he loses himself in thoughts of mirrors and ladies in lakes with swords and kings reborn and how everything feels tied together, a beautiful game of celestial connect the dots. He doesn’t see himself anywhere in the picture that forms, but such legends aren’t his own. He’s got his own mythology, after all.

They wanted to camp once more before they hit Kelowna, so tonight is a camping night. Henry has his own small tent, set a respectful distance from the slightly bigger one that Blue had borrowed from Orla. The exchange had been rife with winks and innuendos, but the tent had served them well so far, so Henry supposes it was worth it. He’s half-tempted to forgo the tent for the hood of their green machine, fall asleep under the careful eyes of the constellations, but he knows he’ll be eaten alive by bugs if he does that. He’ll leave the fly off the tent instead. He knows that’s just asking for rain, but the view will be worth it.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been tucked into his sleeping bag, wide awake, when he hears the tent flap begin to zip open. He sits up, heart in his throat, but it’s only Blue, looking even less grounded in the pale light of her flashlight.

“Hey, sorry, are you awake? I think Gansey must have left the tent open for a bit, because our tent is currently overrun with mosquitoes. Do you mind if I join you?”

Her hair is out of its various pins, but it continues to defy gravity,. Much like Blue herself does. Henry should be surprised that he can look at her, wearing one of Gansey’s old and horrendously bright shirts, still half buried in her own sleeping bag, and still think she looks like something out of a fairy tale, but at this point he’s come to terms with the fact that his brain won’t rest until it’s applied every romcom trope and meetcute to their situation.

He spends a moment chasing the thought of a polyamorous romantic comedy. It sounds like the ideal, room for twice the amount of clichés and crying in the rain. He’s kinda miffed he’s never heard of one before.

“Mi casa es su casa, m'lady,” he says, moving over and dramatically dusting off the space he’s cleared. They opted for thin foam sheets over blow up mattresses, because it’s less space and because Henry kept threatening to try sleeping in one of the Great Lakes. In the moment Blue snuggles down next to him, he is extremely thankful, because no air mattress means nothing beneath him slowly deflating throughout the night, which means no chance of them waking up pressed up against each other, which means he will only lose a little of his sanity tonight, not all of it.

“You call me m'lady again and I’m throwing you in the river.”

“Yessir.”

Blue sighs, the softest sound he’s ever heard her make, and within minutes her breathing evens out. Henry listens to her sleep and wonders if this is another thing he should feel guilty for. Gansey’s going to wake up alone, which hardly seems fair. If he’s sleeping at all. Henry can see a little light on in the other tent, but Gansey could have just as easily fallen asleep with his phone light on. It’s happened before.

RoboBee buzzes by his ear, wanting to go and check on the third member of their party, but that means moving, and Blue’s hand is resting against his upper arm. He stares up at the stars, lets them blur as the moon burns into his vision. He needs to relax, hyperaware of every tense muscle, knowing he won’t be able to sleep if he doesn’t drain the tension.

“Henry.”

When he looks over at Blue, his eyes are still recovering from the light of the moon, so they superimpose the glow over her face. She shines, and he can feel his heart stumble in his chest.

“Gansey’s busy. He’s plotting the way to Niagara Falls, I think. He doesn’t mind that I’m in here.”

Henry doesn’t ask how she knows why he hasn’t relaxed. At this hour, so little space between them, surrounded by the gentle creaking of the night, it is easy to believe that Blue can see his every thought. Hopefully this love is too big to be seen all at once, that only seeing corners and pieces of it makes it impossible to puzzle out. He knows he’s always been obvious with his feelings, and he feels like the longer he spends with these two, the more raw his emotions get. Everything about him peeled back, exposed to the world. He’s sure they must know, but they haven’t said anything and so neither will he.

If Blue sees anything, she says nothing, just stares him down until he forces himself to relax. It’s only in doing so that he realizes he can’t remember the last time he let himself do this, drop all this worry weight off him. He feels strange, a little off kilter, and then Blue brushes the skin of his wrist and he’s sent spinning into the space above them.

“My mother used to do stuff like this with me,” she says, her voice seeming both far away and all too close. “Little things to help keep me grounded. Rooted, Persephone would always say. She knew even then, I guess.” Blue uncurls and lies on her back, mirroring Henry’s pose. The ground beneath them feels less and less real, like any moment they’ll float away. “She’d tell me to lie back and imagine everything that’s bothering me falling away, sinking into the earth to decompose, like how trees drop their dead leaves.” Her voice has taken on a special cadence, like a spell, and Henry knows the consensus is that Blue only reflects, but he’d argue that this is coming straight from her, this magic that has him actually listening, breathing in time with her as he lets his muscles relax one by one and buries his anxieties away in the hard ground beneath them.“Then, once you’re feeling light enough that you could just float away, concentrate on the ground beneath you. Think of the rich soil, and and the richness of good memories, and the strength of family and connection…” Blue makes a frustrated noise. “It’s better with sage. I was never very good at this, sorry.”

“No.” This time, it’s his turn to twist his wrist, run his finger along the inside of her elbow. “No, this is really nice.”

“Really nice? That’s all? No joke or topical reference? Who are you and what have you done with Henry Cheng?”

“Shhh,” he says, letting his eyes close. “I’m not ready to go back to Kansas yet.”

He falls asleep to Blue’s laughter, her skin soft under his fingers. He doesn’t lose her, not even in his dreams. Not tonight.