#and when the narrative spends the whole time shitting and shitting and shitting on a guy i go 'ok he is not THAT bad can you shut up'

[zhuoyichenpretty]

Ep 26 Commentary

Alrightyy I've mustered up what's left of my brain for a belated ep 26 commentary post. IRL responsibilities are getting a bit away from me so I wasn't able to spend as much time on this as usual; apologies if the haste shows through! Consider this more reaction than meta.

As always, spoilers under the cut:

A carry-over comment, but I really do appreciate the Li Lun/ZYC scene in ep 25 for how it solidified ZYC's resolve and reminded him of where his heart is, what he believes in, what he chooses to defend. Such a load-bearing and pivotal conversation for both characters in opposite directions of development. It also makes ZYC's return to the Bureau triumphant in a way, despite all the preceding trauma, despair, and hopelessness. WX embraces him in relief that he's safe and in comfort for what they've all just been through, and for us, it's doubly meaningful as a sort of homecoming after a confrontation that only we have witnessed. It's also interesting, the cutaway as they hug, the things we have been made privy to and the things that are kept private from us.

Ouuughh the lines voiced over as ZYZ and ZYC meet eyes for the first time since all that transpired in Tianxiang Pavilion. It gives such a deep sense of wordless understanding and intimacy. I'm reminded of when the show did that for Ranyi and Miss Qi's final lines.

As I mentioned previously, a lot of subtext became text in this episode, which was quite exciting (and also extremely adorable the way ZYC was like "I think I've said too much" /// afterwards). I didn't expect ZYC to convey his understanding of ZYZ to him so soon, but that really goes back to something I love about ZYC: that he doesn't really waste time expressing something once he's come to an emotional conclusion. Maybe there's something to be said there about how he knows, after the loss of his family, how important it is to say the words when you have them to the people in front of you while they're still here.

If ZYC's words and his tears offered to a catatonic ZYZ in ep 23 were an expression of star-crossed and conflicted love, this parallel scene is just an utterly unrestrained confession, the stars be damned.

Also, tbh I never found ZYC's reactions to ZYZ to be unfounded or unreasonable, even when misguided in the beginning (and necessarily so, given the narrative and premise) or at times harsh (which I also found much-needed for ZYZ to hear, and delivered with obvious sympathetic anguish). He was clearly reflecting and actively revising his own preconceived notions this entire time, feeling for ZYZ the whole way through, and I do think he's demonstrated realistically and impressively the full extent of empathy perhaps as far as it can possibly stretch without personally experiencing ZYZ's life himself and while still living and feeling for his own. But to see ZYC so ready to address his previous flaws, to admit them and correct them, to go beyond them and to reach out so plainly for ZYZ in front of him now that he has that personal experience—the relationship between them has transcended the initial set-up of two opposing characters meeting in the middle. The show has gone that extra step and made their perspectives one. And given that I didn't personally find that step to be narratively necessary, so to say, (as in, even without it there's not truly a narrative obstacle because I already believed ZYC loves ZYZ despite everything and we've already seen the lengths he'll go to not to kill ZYZ), it feels like a choice in every definition of the word. Like a development motivated by love all the way down.

WX gets the least traumatic cloak-draping scenes out of the three of them, thank god.

Oh shit I forgot about fixing the Wilderness I'm so glad they didn't lmao.

Ahhh the crossroads moment at a literal (kind of) crossroads right before entering the Bingyi Clan's forbidden area. ZYC suddenly wanting to go alone or back out, stuck weighing the danger to everyone's lives, who they can and can't save depending on his choices. It makes me think of what happens when we let intense love in and it comes with intense fear, makes us freeze up. Suddenly, the stakes are in sharp relief, and the courage to move forward isn't so simple anymore.

"修好了，你也別死" ("Once it's fixed, don't die either.") Head in hands. ZYC's voice here, his expression, that desperation. Yeah I think this episode was so draining because of how all pretense is being stripped away and all that's left is ZYC's profound love for everyone, so raw and vulnerable that it hurts to watch, especially knowing he won't have it easy trying to keep everyone alive.

Kind of love how freely ZYC cries and says the vulnerable things in front of all his loved ones. Like. That's truly his family, his people, his heart.

ZYZ please. Imagine ZYC's grief without you. Please just stay.

Yay 12 seconds of angst-free bickering right before (as someone else called it) the trolley problem

Ok so, I'm not sure how common this interpretation/reading of the following scene is, but it's been rattling around in my head for a while now so I'm just gonna include it here. If y'all disagree, pls disregard! Basically, when ZYC first turned to PSJ and thanked her, I was terrified for a moment that he would ask her to stay. Because on one hand, ZYC would never, but on the other hand, imo there's a lot of (I think deliberate) ambiguity baked into the scene. In ZYC turning to PSJ right after we're told "one of your friends or all three of them," in him starting the series of goodbyes with the character he has the least onscreen development with, in the finality of what he says to her but also the lack of clarity on just who this is final for, in PSJ's expression and WX's reaction, in the dramatic turning away at the end. Like, until he turns away from her, I think there's room for interpretation on what he's decided to do, and as someone who's grown quite surprisingly invested in the ZYC-PSJ dynamic, I'm kind of morbidly interested in this reading of events.

What might be going through PSJ's head at ZYC's words, if at this moment she hasn't yet realized his self-sacrificial intent? Does she think she's going to be asked to stay? Does she assess the situation, conclude that she's the person ZYC is least close to and perhaps the one least able to contribute in whatever comes next as the only human here, and begin resigning herself to this outcome? Are the tears in her eyes the sole indication of her conflicted unwillingness to die here that makes it through because as he's talking, she's evaluated that this is the best possible scenario for them all (esp for WX) and will commit herself to his decision even if it also breaks her heart to be chosen this way?

I may be taking this and running a bit far with it, but I just think the ambiguity of this one brief moment can create such angsty implications between the lines (as if we needed more angst...) and despite their scarce onscreen interactions, I'm kind of a sucker for the "extremely noble (to the point of tragedy) knight choosing to acknowledge and follow and dedicate their silent loyalty to a leader they deeply respect" dynamic, even if it is understated with all the other relationships going on in this show. Given how reticent PSJ is, it makes a meaningful impact on me every time she displays concern for ZYC, so you know it crushed me to watch her desperately and irrationally (the most pragmatic of them all!) try to shoot at him with her arrows while knowing there's no way it'd work. The way she was the first to act, the sound of nothing but the ice and the stretch of the bowstring. I really do love their platonic bond much more than I expected to.

Oof. The freezing. I don't want to sound like a broken record but I loved TJR's acting here because I think it's so easy for this scene to look awkward as he's stuck facing forward and pretending to freeze haha. His microexpressions as he realizes ZYZ is behind him, as he tries to chase him away with his words, as he's probably burning from the inside out with all that ice. That last tear as his gaze turns hollow. A+

I also love ZYZ's lines about not believing he can't overcome ZYC's powers like yeah this is a newborn demon with no inner core and ice powers that he taught him lmao

Okay, that's a wrap for my thoughts on this ep! I was originally going to include ep 27 reactions here too, but seeing as this is getting a little long, maybe I'll roll 27 into my thoughts on ep 28? We shall see!

[dukeofthomas]

On the post you recently reblogged.

It's also funny when they condemn Jason wholeheartedly then justify the victim blaming as a valid coping mechanism.

It's a bad coping mechanism. I would have a problem with it if Jason was a guy I knew in real life and his family victim blamed him. I would be disgusted in real life if people did this.

He wasn't even dead for most of it, even if they didn't know that. So in canon it was victim blaming of the falsely assumed dead. I.E. the living. Bruce also did it to his face in Hush.

You know what is also normal. Wanting the person who hurt you so deeply dead. People have campaigned for people who hurt them or a loved one to get the death penalty in real life. Are they non-validly coping with/responding to trauma unlike victim blamers?

Like, they can be biased, we all are. But pretending rational morality when it doesn't actually 100% make sense. Why can't people admit their blorbo did something immoral by victim blaming? I know murder isn't moral. (I also know 'enhanced interrogation techniques' are not only immoral but famously ineffective.) I can enjoy Jason.

Being angry at someone after they died is normal. Those thoughts are just Anger from the five stages of grief. But that's supposed to be moved past; it's supposed to be temporary. It's not supposed to become a 'coping mechanism', and it's not okay for it to be verbalized and continued for years. That's unacceptable and disgusting. I agree with you 👍

And actually funnily enough, IRL I'm anti-death penalty and not an eye-for-an-eye type of guy, all for rehabilitation and restorative justice and shit along those lines. But those are my logical, moral stances. On an emotional scale, I understand wanting those who hurt you to suffer and die, and Jason is oftentimes my fantasy for getting to do that. I can't judge anyone for wanting revenge and suffering on the ppl who have harmed them, I am one of them.

I find Jason a lot more tolerable in a lot of ways because when he tortures people for information, it's acknowledged (and oftentimes condemned) for being a horrible thing to do, but when it's one of the more Heroic batfamily members, there's no issue with it, and it's not portrayed as the horrific thing it is (can we retire Batman beating a tied-up Joker in Arkham for information and this not being presented as a vile thing to do. Please? For me?)

[luxraydyne]

honestly thinking abt it i’d definitely have preferred if danganronpa v3 had actually fully committed to the “fiction that hates you and mocks you and wants you to question why you still enjoy it bc you become brainless amoral voyeurs whenever you engage with it, you people kinda suck ass tbh actually” reading all the way to the bitter salted earth end. like i doubt i’d have *liked* the weird superiority complex vibes from it and the whole deflected creative ennui onto the audience still. but i’d for sure have to at least *respect* the gumption, the sheer full-chested audacity of the choice, especially in the context of this specific franchise, if the writing didn’t spend like an extra hour pussyfooting around doing a watered down, sugarcoated little backpedal into “oh no, not you actually bc you specifically are special and nice and good and don’t count”. this trial is way too fuckin long anyway like pick your bit and stick to it binch. call me a sucker to my face binch come on!

[dolche-tejada]

You know, I think this ending would have been slightly less of a fucking disappointment if the heroes hadn't been so unfairly favored by Horikoshi compared to the villains. I mean, seriously

Deku destroys every bone in his body multiple times throughout the story and is warned that if he continues, he'll permanently lose the use of his limbs ? Everything's fine, his body's just got used to being reduced to a bloody pulp somehow so there's no consequences for him. In fact even when he literally loses his arms to Shigaraki, he gets them back two minutes later thanks to Eri because guess what ? Her horn still works even when cut off from her body. How convenient.

Gran Torino gets his ribcage obliterated by Shigaraki ? Don't worry guys, he'll survive that despite his old age and injuries, and this to have no particular role in the plot afterwards.

Bakugo dies heroically trying to buy time before Deku arrives ? Lmao, did you really believe it ?? No of course not, Edgeshot just uses his last-minute Deus Ex Machina to save his life at the cost of his own and- Oops nope he's fine too, my bad !

Hawks murders a criminal fleeing for his life in cold-blood ? The best Hori has to offer is him completely free and in charge of the HSPC.

And no, losing his quirk isn't a real consequence for him because not only it literally played a major part in saving the world with Vestige!Hawks raising an insurrection among AFO's quirks, but also because his quirk has always been the element through which people exploited him.

Endeavor abused his family for years and completely destroyed his eldest son ? No jail time and no media backlash for that, the only blame he received was due to the heroes' failure to stop the League during the Raid Arc.

And don't even get me started on this bs about facing hell or whatever for what he's done : He's literally free and wealthy ; he have Rei, Fuyumi, Shoto, his sidekicks and Hawks on his side ; and all the difficulties he's apparently going to suffer are off-screened.

Deku had to sacrifice OFA and his future hero career to save the world ? Guess what, Bakugo invested all his time and money to make him an Iron-Man suit and now he can still be a hero with everyone else.

There are plenty more examples of this but I think you get the idea. Now let's take a look at the villains' ending :

Toya is now a piece of charcoal kept artificially alive for the few years he has left, unable to move a finger, and whose few minutes a day during which he can stay awake will be spent talking to his father who abused him as a child.

Toga, a literal teenager, killed herself to save Ochako and because she knew it's still better than rotting at Tartarus her whole life.

And not only did she die but she did by bleding to death. Let me repeat for those who have trouble grasping what I've just said : In a manga where the heroes can survive having their heart blown to bits, being impaled Kakyoin-style or smashed against buildings like a fly on a windshield, one of the main antagonists died of a fucking hemorrhage…

As for Shigaraki, after learning that his very birth and all the tragedies of his life have been orchestrated by AFO, after all this development and narrative promises about him being saved in the end... Deku just kills him.

Because despite all his speeches about saving him, it seems like the best he could do was beating him both physically and mentally until he crumbles to dust…

Compress on his side is apparently locked up for life and kept alive by machines too.

A begging Kurogiri tried in a desperate attempt to save Shigaraki, only to be unceremoniously blown up by Bakugo and dying off-screen without anyone giving a shit, including Aizawa and Mic.

And Spinner will now spend the rest of his life struggling with the extra quirks inside him that affect his body and mind, while having to cope with the thought that his boyfriend best friend and companions have either died alone or are locked away for life in horrifying circumstances.

Clearly not the same as with the heroes...

Now don't get me wrong, even if they suffered just as much from the consequences of their actions or the plot as the League, this ending would still be a disaster in terms of writing but AT LEAST it wouldn't reek that much of hypocrisy.

[genericpuff]

Wait, if Hera hated nymphs, does that mean she had beef with Poseidon's wife???

Who knows, but it does shed a whole new light on this scene from Episode 1:

Like, in the context of the scene, it's clear the point of this interaction is to highlight how "lonely" Hades is that he's the only one at the party without a date. Though I do think it's funny that Hades is frustrated / shocked at the revelation that Poseidon brought his wife to a party that she would presumably be invited to attend, like... of course Poseidon is here with his wife, that makes Amphitrite royalty by extension and so at the very least she'd likely be obligated to attend even if she, for some reason, didn't want to go.

So Hades being like "GOD you mean I'm the ONLY UNMARRIED GUY without a DATE???" like yeah man that's what it means to not be married LOL

But in hindsight, knowing what we know now about Hera being cruel to satyrs and nymphs who are canonically lower class (making it a double whammy of racism AND classism) that interaction of Hades asking Hera if Poseidon brought Amphitrite right after Hera called Minthe "nymph trash" almost feels like Hades calling her out, to which she responds sheepishly, "... Yes."

Again, I know that's not the intention of this scene, but it does come with deeper implications now that the series is over and we know that Hera has a history of racism and classism which largely goes unaddressed.

And those implications kind of read like this:

Hera: "I, for one, am grateful! I don't have to spend the evening with that nymph trash :)"

Hades: "Did Poseidon bring his (oceanid) wife?"

Hera: "(・_・;)... yes, okay, Poseidon brought his wife, Amphritite, but she's not nymph trash or anything, she's one of the good ones!"

Again though, just food for thought that's kinda messed up and kinda funny to think about on re-reads. There's so much classism and racism baked into LO even from the very beginning and it's wild that it wound up going unnoticed for years. Even I didn't really notice it as much as I ought to have when I first started reading. To anyone who's new to the series, LO does a good job at bombarding you with colors, characters, Greek myth references, and feel good fluff moments between H x P to distract you from the often biased and outdated viewpoints in its narrative.

TBH, none of that is to say that Rachel herself is some massive racist for writing a story like this, but I do think she didn't really spend enough time analyzing the works that clearly inspired her and/or challenging her own inspirations to ensure she wasn't continuing the cycle of casual racism. It's really easy to be blissfully aware of your own biases if you never learn to address them, especially when it comes to writing fantasy stories which we tend to "disconnect" from real life, never once realizing that the messages and undertones we might accidentally be sending are often still realities for many people in real life today. Fiction isn't real life, sure, but it can still perpetuate some really dog shit thought patterns and subconscious beliefs if left unchecked, which LO is frankly full of especially upon re-reads with a more critical eye when you're not as likely to get distracted or swept away by the pretty colors and whirlwind romance.

[tossawary]

I finished Volume 3 of SVSSS, which encompasses the main story, and currently have my bookmark sitting at the first chapter of the Airplane Extras in Volume 4. I took a bunch of quote pics but have yet to review them and add thoughts.

Every time I read SVSSS, I forget how... incredible... the inside of Shen Yuan's head is. He's fascinating.

Like, he's misogynistic (even while criticizing Airplane's own misogynistic writing), he's homophobic, AND he's transphobic. Not in a way where I think he thinks anyone deserves fewer rights than anyone else (I think he's generally a nice person, although, holy shit, I would not trust this man to craft policy of any kind) or would prevent anyone from living however they chose to live, a lot of his problematic bullshit stays inside his own head as he tries to understand the world around him using the stallion novel formulas he was given, but he's carrying around SO MUCH unexamined bias that supports his refusal to examine himself and his own desires.

Some of it reads (presumably intentionally) a LOT like the kind of conflicting, problematic bullshit a lot of queer people carry around inside their heads as they struggle to untangle themselves and their beliefs.

And while I do wish that Shen Yuan had been forced to confront and address his misogyny and transmisogyny even further than it does come up (in part because it is DEFINITELY affecting the way he thinks about gay men as well, including and especially Binghe), I do kind of... appreciate on some level that he thinks this way? From a character standpoint? Because I think it's probably realistic for a privileged young man spending a lot of time on the internet reading shit like PIDW to look at the world this way. And it's clear even through his own narration that his blindness in certain areas is causing him a lot of trouble. While I do have criticisms and personal wishes, I do appreciate the depiction of personal character development that is just... a cringeworthy mess of internalized bullshit the whole fucking time.

Also, it's SO funny to me that he reads as SO aro-ace-spectrum to me (probably gay, but generally detached from sexuality and possibly also partially from gender) AND he actually knows... the word asexual, I don't think he has a very broad understanding of asexuality... but he knows the word and yet doesn't personally identify that way. He mentally accuses both Luo Binghe (main story, before finding out Binghe is into him) and Liu Qingge (Succubus Extra) of being asexual for showing no interest in women, only to fail to reflect on how he ALSO demonstrably has no lasting personal interest in the women around them, which doesn't read as very genuine to me.

(EDIT: Again, I am not against a bisexual Shen Yuan interpretation either! I am willing to be persuaded by any author who wishes to tell a particular story. But Shen Yuan's attraction towards women often reads personally to me as very shallow and possibly insincere.)

"I willingly read PIDW, that proves I'm straight!" he sincerely thinks to himself, even though his favorite wife is the one without explicit sex scenes and he also admits to skipping over a lot of them.

"I'm able to tell when women are beautiful, that makes me straight!" thinks the guy who mentally censors nudity whenever demon women lose their clothes, and keeps telling us how "the average reader" of PIDW would react to these beautiful women instead of conveying his own attracted reactions. His actual reactions are generally centered on a woman's narrative significance. The only people he personally seems to find attractive are Luo Binghe and maybe Liu Qingge.

Though my interpretation was that he does probably experience sexual arousal and have a sex drive (see his username), which probably helps with his conviction of straightness, I'm not sure that there's any mention of Shen Yuan even masturbating at all in the entire main story of SVSSS? He never tried to hook up with anyone. Sex is apparently not a priority for him.

(EDIT: He does seem to enjoy sex with Binghe in the "Bing-mei vs. Bing-ge" Extra. He loves Binghe and likes the closeness and the physical pleasure. I appreciate the indication that they're working on moving on from the AWFUL intercourse pushed by Xin Mo's possession and possibly also the System's Scenario Pusher.)

And Shen Yuan seems to view women as being and behaving Fundamentally Differently from men and gay men as behaving Fundamentally Differently from straight men (as soon as he learns Binghe is into him, he thinks about how Binghe isn't behaving like the characters in his sister's gay, non-con, BDSM erotica novels), seeing everything through the lens of novel tropes, such that he seems to view sex and sexuality and gender as being deeply mixed with a person's personality. So he can't be a gay man, because he's too "Normal", in his mind at first, because he doesn't behave like his own mental image of "How Gay Men Behave" (or "How Women Behave / A PIDW Wife Behaves"), while also demonstrably not being anything like "the average reader" of PIDW and also apparently not caring too much about his own masculinity? Like, I do think he likes being the gentleman scholar of Qing Jing Peak, he does like appearing dignified and strong and cool, he doesn't like losing, he doesn't really like playing "damsel in distress" roles, and I do think he likes being gallant towards women, but he's not too concerned about seriously competing with figures like Luo Binghe or Liu Qingge? He's happy enough to back down and let someone else take the lead if necessary. He puts up with being put into the roles of female leads even if it embarrasses him and he rolls with the punches to his pride easily enough. He seems to have decided his Sexuality By Default, so it does make me have a lot of thoughts about whether or not he's potentially going with Gender By Default / Convenience as well.

Someone get this man some amateur and academic literature on gender and sexuality (and a lot of other stuff), stat, so he can ignore it, probably.

[nevertheless-moving]

unable to stop dwelling on the discworld trouser leg of time where, in the penultimate fight scene in Nightwatch, Carcer manages to kill teenage Sam Vimes.

Which means that the future that Duke Vimes came from can no longer exist, which means he can’t go home. Meanwhile you’ve got a bunch of history monks with stored up temporal energy, a prepared space outside of time, and the need to do some desperate damage control before the Auditors get involved. Death shows up, reality is unweaving, Sam is reading Carcer his discworld miranda rights because what else is he supposed to do.

and finally, with little other option, the monks de-age Sam so he fits the time period and send him back out into the fray.

(they didn't call it deageing of course. His memory is hazy, splintered during that terrible in between moment, They....took the time out of him? Sanded away the edges of his self for a terrible, workable fit? It...wasn't a good feeling.)

Just—damn. Sam Vimes having to live his whole crapsack life over again, but this time as his disillusioned-reillusioned, unwillingly-character-developed, noir-epic, Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes self. 

Younger (Older? He's never felt so Old, His steps so Childlike, reality twisting in his gut like one of Dibbler's pies) Sam Vimes walking around in a haze after the revolution. Desperate to go home, knowing he can’t. Wanting to drink. Knowing he can’t.

The whole precinct feels pity, he really took Keel’s death hard, hardly speaks except to do his job. Eventually he has to grit his teeth and start being present, because what else is there to do?

Resists the urge to drink until Colon takes the whole watch out to celebrate because -he’s going to be a father!

Come on Sammy, one drink won’t kill you— and after the first drink he’s cracking jokes and after the second hes smiling and after the third hes honestly the life of the party and sometime after that he’s crying about how he was going to be a father and my wife would be ashamed if she saw me drinking like this and— 

Oh shit, Did anyone else know he had a wife?? A PREGNANT wife??? What—aren’t you like 12—no you're 17 now aren't you but when did—

You guys n’ver met ’er—oh gods none if you ev’n know ‘er, is jus’ me...

What—when did you lose—

I lost her the same damn day I los’ ev’rythin else, whadya think...bleeding Carcer...the fuckin revolution...

So! That! Sam only vaguely remembers the night, but rumors travel faster than light on the disc, so by the next day the whole damn city knows about poor Sam brung low by the loss of his poor, tragic, pregnant wife, so young to be a widower, and the Seamstresses nod because they already knew, don’t ask them how, somethings you just have to know in that trade.

And his mother—I don’t know, sue me, I’m a time travel fiend but there’s something deeply intriguing about a man meeting his dead parent, who is somewhat younger than him, and stepping into the old relationship like a badly fitting thing that's supposed to fit well. She would know, right? How would she deal with her son’s impossible grief? Maybe she wouldn’t know—he spent most of the time out of the house, running with different street gangs, maybe he avoids her until she dies and lives with the guilt twice over. God, we don’t even know her name. There’s just so much narrative and emotional potential that I don’t even know where to start.

When he’s on duty, which is most time - it’s agonizing because at first he remembers cases, saves lives that would have been lost. But the more time passes, the hazier his memory because in the original timeline he was becoming an alcoholic. Fuck! A kid dies and he could have saved her if he hadn’t been such a drunk, if he had just remembered where the asshole lived, but it’s all a haze, and he wants to drown out his guilt, but that’s what caused this in the first place.

Good young Sammy, who spends his rare off-time in dusty libraries (and yes, the irony that he’s apparently Carrot now is not lost on him) reading gods-only-know.

It’s not like he can ask the wizards for help, cutthroat and vicious as they are now in the not-so-distant-past.

Good young Sam, who...talks to the Broken Drum’s pet Bouncer like he’s a real person and not a dumb rock? That’s a bit weird, but he’s a bit of a funny guy.

Good old Sam, who believed the testimony of the dwarf who said the humans were trying to rob him and let the dwarf go??

the PROBLEMS this man would cause, good grief. Can you imagine a moderately progressive middle aged man with some degree of begrudging diversity and equity training that he did, for all his sins, pay attention to, suddenly going back to like, 1990, going back just 30 years, and going...oh damn this is kind of fucked up, no man you can’t say that, holy shit.

Except Sam’s lived through even more rapidly shifting social moroes! There’s no seamstress guild, there’s no women allowed inside the university, there’s no black ribboner’s society. People hunted trolls for their teeth! But Sam can’t just unlearn everything, and he can’t shut up, and he has no real luck and anyway he would absolutely get himself (temporarily) fired.

FUCK. Sam has no idea what to do with that. None. Zero clue. Wanders around in a haze until that dwarf he saved from police brutality finds him and insists on repaying the debt. No, he insists, do you have any idea what debt means to a dwarf?

“Sort-of?” he replies hesitantly, and that honest admission of incomplete knowledge shows a hell of a lot more respect and understanding than any self proclaimed dwarf-expert ever did.

Gets a job as a surface man, hauling rocks into the city. It’s backbreaking work, but, in true Discworld fashion, it’s also one hell of a workout (again the irony of being Carrot is not lost him. he freezes for a minute while hauling a rock cart, when he remembers he's technically Lost Nobility too, in a strict sense, but someone curses at him in the street and he's comfortingly grounded)

And here is where this au slides into a SPECTACULAR romantic comedy, BEAR WITH ME. Because in his time on the Watch he’s already done noir, action adventure, war story, detective who dunnit, psychological horror, but guards guards only allowed him to be a romance protagonist in an extremely limited context.

Give me righteous, twenty-something-looking, can’t-say-he-doesn’t-have-style, young Sam Vimes, not an alcoholic,  being fed three square meals a day by his dwarven forced found family, hauling rocks. He is startled to find him bumping his head on a low hanging bar that he doesn’t think used to be there, eventually realizing that he’s an inch or two taller than he remembers. Huh. Guess all that bearhuggers really did stunt his growth.

Still doesn’t get what some of the looks from women he’s getting are about, sure, he’s dirty but so is everyone else. Fine, he took his shirt off, but it’s hot out, there’s far wrinklier than him hauling heavy loads, get a life. 

Happens to glance in the Ankh one day when it’s particularly slow and shiny and is startled to realize that he might be turning heads for a different reason. Oh. Right, not that he was ever a heartbreaker, but he did alright for himself... when he was a younger and his face hadn’t been broken so many times. Which...it isn't now.

Is mildly disturbed by the revelation.

Especially once things blow over at the precinct and what with high mortality rates, he ends up with getting hired again. The boys are delighted to have him back, nevermind that he’s an odd one, noone is ever quite in your corner like Vimsey, absence makes the heart fonder, no one else works that hard, and he’s not even competition for promotion. All around great guy, we should set him up with somebody and just, no.

It just keeps getting worse! He’s literate! He’s a feminist! He believes abuse victims! He’s got a tragic backstory! He’s unreasonably good in a fistfight! He’s kind to animals! Word gets around that there’s a good man on the watch and he’s just waiting for a good woman to come snap him up. The widower excuse doesn’t hold people off completely, and for some it’s its own sort-of appeal. 

Things REALLY become stressful after he rescues that carriage full of noblewoman.

What’s he supposed to do? Let them get robbed? Or worse? Chasing down and beating up 10 goons is as easy as beating up one, when they’re that stupid, getting separated like that, drunk and distracted, and he knows these streets better than anyone, really it’s nothing. And oh lord he’s Modest too.

I mean, they were genuinely greatful, as genuine as people like that are capable of being, the skill having grown rusty. And then there is something...magnetic about the man. An air of command.

So, soon enough you get Lady Marigold of Marigrave calling on Treckle Road for that gallant young officer who rescued them, she really needs to thank him. And Viscountess Elanor Thitzferal specifically requesting that he guard her at her next soiree. And Baroness Julieta van Shoeholten insisting that he come to her home while her husband’s away, for... manly protection.

Aaaah just zero sympathy from the guys. None. 'It’s become a competition, they’re just trying to see who can get me into bed first, it’s like I’m a piece of meat, you can’t send me sir, the Marquess greeted me in a nightee last time you made me go to—' and 'small gods Vimes are you even listening to yourself, shut the hell up'.

Simultaneous to this, (again this is several years into the timeline) swamp dragon accessories come into style. Which means abandoned swamp dragons scrounging on the street. Vimes takes one back to his apartment, blows his paycheck on dragon medicine, and eventually, heart in his chest, brings it to the Ramkin estate. The sunshine orphanage doesn’t even exist yet and he’s just standing outside the gates like an idiot, what is he thinking. Turns around, but her carriage is pulling up and—

well. they meet. it's cute. he's never felt so young. he's never felt so old, too old for her, too poor—

and certainly her thoughts linger too long on the awkward, kindly, handsome young commoner, but is it any wonder she doesn't quite connect it to the stern, dangerous, sexy young guard the ladies seem to be in some quiet, cuthroat competition over?

i have this gorgeous, absurd scene in my head in which Vimes is strong armed into standing guard at some high society soiree and one of the pushiest ladies insists he dance with here, or, if he prefers, if he's not confident about his skills, he can dance with her in-private at her home and he’s like [grinding teeth, looking for a way out, seeinf one] “I would be honored to dance with you.”

Steps right into some ultra-complex dance with multiple partner swaps (she never thought he'd pick this one, devilishly intimidating to one not strictly trained, and you barely spend anytime with your first partner).

But he does alright. Better than alright, for a common man, sometimes misstepping but his hands and feet always end up where they need to be. Raises several eyebrows part way into the song because he's throuwing in some slightly scandalous, no innovative, extra lifts and twirls that wouldn't become fashionable for another decade or two. Who even is that guy? Some out of towner? No, no he's in a guards uniform...how very strange.

Gets to Sybll and she's used to embarrassment during these dances, she tries to get out of them when she can... but can't always. Men awkwardly skipping the lifts, or worse, trying and failing. But him — oh it's him, the one who helped little Erold, and looked at her like—like—well like she was someone beautiful. And he's doing it again, and he's strong and there's a quiet moment where she's in the air, they lock eyes, and the rest of the room melts away.

And then the partners change again, the moment ended.

Just...living throught it all again. To the left, a dance he almost knows the steps to, throwing others off balance with erratic moves , honest mistakes, and delibrate stepping on toes. Improvising. Ruining. Improving. Getting far, far too much attention.

Hes almost excited when the first assassains start coming after him. It's like a hobby.

Everyone tells him he should get a hobby.

Interactions with young vetinari...I don't have the energy to write it all down, the slow circling in on each other, both burning with the need to fix the city, save it, their city.

needless to say he ends up fired again, life under real threat after offending some high lord.

Conveniently enough he has an employment opportunity- bodyguard to fucking Vetinari on his 'grand sneer.' The bastard knows vimes isn't what he seems, though sam is pretty sure that he doesnt know the exacts.

Vetinari hypothesis:(the ghost of keel? Keels son, with some hereditary curse? Or a larger spirit of justice possessing a string of unrelated souls? He knows things he shouldn't- mind reader? Fortune teller? Havelock once arranged for a wizard to bump into him on the street, the magical fool gave an odd double look and then muttered something about destiny looping in on itself giving him a headache. Destiny? Lost noble? And hes far too familiar with sybyl, one of the few bearable noblewomen in this city. And his thoughts on guilds, when havelock can trip him into speaking... Most of all, if hes reading him at all correctly (for all the mystery hes not that hard to read, unless thats a very clever cover) then it seems that behind those dark haunted eyes is Respect. Loyalty. For vetinari. What an interesting man. A puzzling asset. An intriguing threat. )

Did I mention the timeline is changing, healing slowly around the place where it was torn? Healing enough around scars to perhaps get some flexibility back, with some painful stretches and...massaging of said scar tissue?

And hes heading to unresting uberwald, a place where a werewolf pack still hunts humans and, truely unrelated but perhaps equally exhausting, an eldritch spirit of vengeance just might be looking to stretch its legs in a hapless vessel?

Opening drabble Vimes Vetinari Meta (Unwell) Scene from the Uberwald Grand Sneer

[sixstepsaway]

so here's the thing

i've seen a bunch of people say on twitter and stuff how... ed's behavior is very abusive and his anger is dangerous and he isn't romantic lead material because of it

and i get where they're coming from

but to me the main issue isn't putting ed in the position of a romantic lead, but not crafting the narrative around his characterization so that it allows for a spicy romantic pirates-in-love narrative instead of...whatever this is.

i'm going to try and explain this. idk if i'll do well but i'll try

the way she show presents stede is as an innocent baby who isn't really equipped for pirate life. he goes into a fugue/disassociative state whenever there's any real violence, apparently, and needs protecting by other characters when things get too rough - for example when ed is telling ned lowe not to take the poker to stede.

that's fine! it's honestly adorable to see a masc character being so soft around the edges and being protected by other characters this way.

(i'm not going to touch on stede's... eh... not great characterization this season rn)

then there's izzy, who is shown as a bit violent, a bit rough around the edges. he's more likely to draw a sword or throw a punch or hit someone with a chair or take a punch like a champ. violence is just part of life for him and that's okay, it just Is, from small things like smacking stede on the ass to bigger things like being wall slammed, it's not all that big or bad for violence to happen around and with him, he tends to give as good as he gets (there's some nuance here but i'm talking the macro themes not the micro of what izzy does vs is done to him)

and finally there's ed

ed is presented as violent (stabbing knives at guys, telling fang to use the snail fork etc) and used to a life of violence, and then in season 2 he's presented as really violent, his anger coming out in dangerous and terrifying ways

and frankly, i'd be super into it if he and izzy were the main ship and that twisted dynamic from the first two episodes of s2 was explored and fleshed out into something deeper

friends to enemies to lovers who fight and fuck. angry pirates who lay hands on each other, who break the whole ship with each other in the heat of passion.

except instead, s2 gives us... abuse. it gives us izzy cringing and lowering his head and trying to protect the kids crew from ed's angry outbursts.

so when stede comes back and he's still soft around the edges and ed headbutts him and it's deliberate, it's... not a great look, and the vibes are a bit skewed

if stede fought back, if when ed struck out at him he struck back, if they fought rather than it being one-sided, if it was friends to enemies to lovers and not presented as healthy, but maybe they can work their way there, who knows, maybe even more like anne bonnie and mary read because hey, they were doing something very similar?

except they were both into it. they were both enjoying the fighting and the fucking and the burning down the house.

stede's not enjoying it.

i cannot describe how much i hate this sequence just because of the way stede flinches

anne and mary don't!! mary jumps at the unexpected bang but she doesnt flinch, she doesn't cover her face like she thinks the vase will be coming for her not the wall and anne? looks so into it

and the thing is that in real life, no, you don't want to date someone who throws shit around, or headbutts you

but in fiction when it's two fucked up people doing this shit together like anne and mary?

that can be fun.

but instead what we've been given is stede flinching and apologizing to ed and then all of ed's...what, semi-redemption???? is done away from the other collection of people he abused, and then he spends some time on a fishing boat wearing a dog collar and everything is fine because he's good now and won't be doing anything bad ever again

and it's just... poor writing. the vibes are rancid.

i spent a really big chunk of time between s1 and s2 defending ed. i kept saying how what he did to izzy by making him eat his toe wasn't abuse, it was a one-off and abuse isn't a one-off thing it's a pattern, and then s2 made it a pattern.

explicitly. explicitly a pattern.

not just one toe but three.

jim saying "you're in an unhealthy relationship with blackbeard"

and all ed offered izzy was a "sorry about your leg" which might've been fine if izzy survived and they could work on this more, but instead that's all the apology and closure izzy will ever get

ed threw a chair and a vase and made stede flinch in fear and stede was right to do that. what part of any of this implies this will never happen again? that stede won't press the wrong button at some point and be on the receiving end? none of it

and if we'd been presented with a s2 stede bonnet who could handle himself and stand up for himself and fight back, then maybe i could imagine that turning into a weird sexy fucked up anne/mary like thing and maybe that could be why they put that episode in, but instead it feels like that episode was going, "look, see, ed's violence is fine because these two are fine with it with each other"

but stede isn't

ed and izzy or ed and stede in an unhealthy battle of a relationship could be such a fun, interesting and downright sexy thing to watch unfold on tv, and could honestly end somewhere far more down the chill end of the spectrum, but that's not what we've been given here

i cannot argue that ed isn't an abuser anymore, and not just of izzy but of the whole crew. he terrified frenchie.

it's not good writing to try and lean into the idea that ed and the pirates are violent and live a life of violence, so it's okay that ed's been violent, while simultaneously presenting his violence as traumatic and abusive, and then less than three episodes later saying oh it's fine now, he's just a little meow meow who can do no wrong, see?

especially considering they had him murdering people at the end of the season. and sure, you can say the english are just cannon fodder and they dont 'count', but they did before. ed explicitly did not kill before, and that included the english, or the spanish, or anyone else. so either they count or they don't, but flipping him on a dime makes no sense.

ALSO

having ed be the son of an abusive man who threw plates at his mother and made her cringe and then having ed kill his father to protect his mother and then a season later having ed become the kind of man who throws chairs and vases and makes his love interest cringe is, again, not bloody optimal

i want to say again i dont CARE about tv always presenting healthy relationships or tv always giving us aspirational goals. i want messy fucked up dynamics and terrible people making terrible choices, and still, to this day, i fucking love ed teach. i would honestly love to have seen them continue with ed's darkness and bring stede into it and see where they went with that, to have stede kill ned lowe and not just bury his feelings in ed but get off on it, enjoy the violence, and see where that led, but no

and so instead all we end up with is a protagonist who is being set up for a lifetime of abuse from an intimate partner, and a romantic lead who abuses his love interests (and yes. izzy is a love interest, he is set up like one and positioned like one and treated like one), frightens his love interests with his violence, is erratic and most of all inconsistently written. he was so sorry about scaring fang as though he hadn't been deliberately terrifying the whole crew for fuck knows how long? what?!

the whole fandom has spent so long saying, "no no, i know stede bonnet irl was a slave owner, but ofmd is using the names and not any real piracy, it's more disney piracy, you know? so that kind of stuff doesnt exist!" and then they flipped around and went "blackbeard is blackbeard and so he is evil and does all these horrible things" and i dont know how to rationalize the two sides of that because it feels so out of place

i'm getting rambly, this isnt a particularly well constructed thought process, i just feel like we were robbed both of a toxic, violent relationship that could be fun to see explored on tv and a soft and sweet love story between two middle aged men exploring their first loves in one fell swoop and there's no way for s3 to bring either of those things back because they got utterly torpedoed by making ed a horrible person

ugh

[abubblingcandle]

The DnD Movie was so DnD it is unreal!

1) The backstory drop at the beginning

2) The completely unnecessary and over the top plan that comes out of left field but somehow works out

3) The super over powered NPC that comes in to do a lore drop, help the party escape from some high level baddies and then wanders off for no real reason citing that their part of this is done (when justifiably they could have just won on their own)

4) A group of idiots discover that they grow in power as they overcome more challenges

5) The power of friendship - they would die for each other but they still spend the whole time low key insulting each other at every opportunity

6) Party member discovers magical item, sticks it in a bag and forgets about it until narratively relevant (aka the DM reminds them they have a thing)

7) Far more powerful baddie being wrecked by action economy

8) As soon as you split the party things go to shit (never split the party)

[lizardsfromspace]

We still think of celebrity callout posts as these sprawling documents with link after link, but increasingly, they involve no citations or links at all. Just people asking "is [name] a bad person?", being told "yes", and saying, wow, I'll make sure not to support them anymore. Which is excusable if they know each other, but people will just ask the screaming void of the internet "can you decide if this person is evil or not for me?" and then accept the yes/no answer they get unquestioningly

This makes it difficult to find The Proof, since it's so often a trail of vagueposts about someone's vagueposts of a discourse they witnessed second hand, and when you get to the source, it's often just embarrassing. "Everyone is doing this" gradually turning into "some people are doing this" until you discover the whole furor was sparked by...some random person's tweet with one or two likes. Days of rage based on something very few people, including most of the people angry about it, ever saw. That's part of why people have gone complete citationless, but also let's face it, when people with a deep parasocial hatred of a celebrity look into them and don't discover anything, they didn't go "ah well, nothing to see here". They would make shit up or take minor incidents out of context to make up a narrative anyway. Fully removing the sourcing and making it purely about vibes really streamlines the process

But I think it's more fundamental since in my experience - both personal and witnessed - people who do this genuinely just seem confused when people ask for sources. They get hostile to the idea that people won't just accept that someone's an irredeemable monster off being told they are with no elaboration. It's nice to think people are so trusting they've naively forgotten that, y'know, people can lie or be wrong, but really, they know, they just don't care. Because these people by and large don't have any real beliefs beyond Disliking The Same Famous Person, and will accept anything said about them into their mythology, and only spend time in a circle of other people obsessed with the same person & don't realize no one knows the mythology but them, and so don't really get why you'd ask for a single citation. What, do you support them? You monster. You're supposed to hear that, yes, they are evil, and then spend time in a bubble of constant dislike of them, where you commiserate with the other obsessive stalkers about how awful it is that pop singers are mad when you obsessively stalk them

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 41 part one

(Masterpost) (Pinboard)  (whole thing on AO3)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Empathy

We start off with Wei Wuxian, paper edition, flinging himself onto the surprisingly well-preserved face of Nie Mingjue.

Back in their room, Lan Wangji immediately recognizes that Wei Wuxian is doing empathy, even though it's an advanced technique that Lan Wangji hasn't seen him use before, as far as I can recall. Maybe the wind from nowhere that kicks up as soon as the empathy session starts is an indicator he's been trained to recognize.

Lan Wangji: Where's my fan?

Watercooler Gossip

We head into an extended flashback from Nie Mingjue's memories.

Dead-Nie-Mingjue spends a surprising amount of time thinking about how sexy and imposing he used to be, as well as remembering things he wasn't actually there to witness. The whole sequence is presented in usual close-third-person narrative POV. Maybe when we die, we switch to third-person camera view. *shrug*

Nie Mingjue finishes off a couple of Zombies without wiping his sabre, which would make Aslan very unhappy if we were in Narnia.

Then he glares angrily at his crew of cheerful disciples and their unbloodied swords, for reasons that are unclear. He's an angry guy.

(More behind the cut!)

He says to call the dude who was "the last one to stay guard last time." When they say it's Meng Yao he looks shocked. I don't know why he's shocked because I don't know what he actually means by "the last one to stay guard last time." On Netflix this is translated as the dude who "stayed the latest last time," which I guess means that Meng Yao works harder than everyone else? But apparently the result is that he is required to carry water for the rest of the group, so maybe it means he's a slacker? Without seeing the duty roster I can't really tell what the deal is here.

Next we see Meng Yao walking up with a whole bunch of water bottles on a hill above the CDrama River of Questionable Life Choices, where we have previously seen Wei Wuxian, Wen Kexing, A-Qing, and maybe those Lotus Casebook guys.

He approaches the mouth of a (incredibly beautiful) cave, where he can hear people talking shit about him inside.

Instead of going inside and telling them to shut their collective pie hole, he goes and sits by a tree to have lunch by himself. With…all the water? They should have waited to insult him until AFTER the water delivery. Jeez, these guys are dumb.

While he chows down on his bread, he keeps glancing wistfully at the cave where the dudes are, but somehow fails to notice Nie Mingjue walking up to him until he's 2 feet away.

Nie Mingjue asks why Meng Yao isn't in the cave with the others. Meng Yao makes a face at the cave and Nie Mingjue strides over there, eager for an opportunity to be pissed off about something.

They walk into the cave together and the dudes are STILL talking shit about him. I get that gossip is fun, but there are only 3 things to know about Meng Yao. 1. Mom was a sex worker 2. dad is reknowned creep Jin Guangshan 3. got kicked down the stairs at Jinlintai. That's it.

Anyone who enjoys gossip knows that the conversation would have shifted by now, to one of the following topics: 1. who else's mom is a sex worker? Yours, no yours! 2. the further creep adventures of Jin Guangshan 3. every over-long staircase that anyone in the group has ever heard of, and everyone who either climbed up it or fell down it.

Instead, the conversation has stayed resolutely on the topic of Meng Yao, and Nie Mingjue just stands there with him behind a rock wall, listening while his guys lay out all of the embarrasing detail, along with their big opinions.

One guy says that Meng Yao has accepted his fate and has to run and get water for them, but another guy says he hasn't accepted it, that he's diligent & working hard all the time so he can gain fame and get his father to acknowledge him. This is the only guy who has said anything positive about him, and this is the speech Nie Mingjue decides to interrupt, rather than the speech about how many men Meng Yao's mom has fucked. What the hell, Nie Mingjue? Nie Minjue clearly has no interest in saving Meng Yao embarrassment.

Nie Mingjue yells at everyone and tells Meng Yao that the more that these assholes talk shit about him, the more he has to achieve to make sure there's nothing they can say. Which is…pretty decent advice, sadly.

While Nie Mingjue delivers his lecture, Meng Yao mentally counts up how many guys he's going to be murdering later. Then Nie Mingjue pointedly promotes him to be his deputy General. Meng Yao thanks him formally and apparently sincerely.

Before we jump ahead to what happens next, let's talk about how this scene sets up the relationship between Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao. I think it's a super toxic relationship right from the get-go.

When I first watched this scene it played like a leader seeing the value in his subordinate, defending him from his peers, and elevating him as a reward for his hard work. But I think that's not really what we're seeing. Nie Mingjue's focus throughout this encounter is on the rest of his men; specifically on their unvirtuous behavior and his rage about it. He's using Meng Yao to teach them a lesson, and it seems like he elevates him above them not as a reward for himself, but as a punishment for them.

On the flip side, Meng Yao's lunchtime pity party seems a lot less spontaneous to me, now that I've seen so many other Wuxia & Xianxia dramas, than it did when I first fell into this CDrama rabbit hole. His meek, butthurt reaction to people talking shit about him is inappropriate for a cultivator or any fighter in the Jianghu. It's an entire culture based around fighting and responding to challenges. He definitely doesn't lack courage, so I think his meekness in this situation is crafted for its effect on Nie Mingjue.

Cloud Recesses Revisited

Let's have a flashback of our own, so we can compare this meeting with Meng Yao's first meeting with Lan Xichen, back in Episode 4.

When Meng Yao is presented, some Jiang sect douchebags in the back lay out his whole backstory in loud stage whispers. Lan Qiren quickly silences them -- without losing his temper, notably.

Even though he's a grumpy SOB who doesn't normally hesitate to yell at Wei Wuxian students, he does not embarrass Meng Yao by making a big deal of the situation; not even to say Gossip is Forbidden.

Lan Xichen then steps up and, smooth king that he is, drops the piece of gossip HE has heard about Meng Yao: "I've heard that Clan Leader Nie has a helpful assistant." Then he compliments the elegance of his speech, saying that he matches up to his expectations.

Then he strokes his fingers while he praises the gift he's brought. Then he grabs him and kisses him passionately in front of everyone Ahem. Pardon me.

Where Nie Mingjue's reaction to malicious gossip is to listen to every word of it and then make a big show of criticizing the people speaking, Lan Xichen moves to counteract it with praise, subtly shaming the gossipers in a way that genuinely uplifts Meng Yao. And he does it just because he's a nice guy who finds Meng Yao pleasing, not because he requires anything from him. Whereas Nie Mingjue appears to require quite a lot from Meng Yao.

Nie Mingjue's goal seems to be to improve Meng Yao in a fundamental way; to educate him and sort of force him onto the path of virtue. He also wants to use him to force his men onto the path of virtue...a path he himself does not, actually, walk.

Murder Will Out

Next we jump ahead to Meng Yao shanking the guard captain.

I think Nie Mingjue needs to overhaul his hiring practices because this dude is very easy to stab and perhaps should not be in charge of anything relating to combat. Maybe the "block" button on his game controller broke.

Note that Meng Yao picks up a saber to do this - not a Wen sword, but a Nie saber, which might be a props error, since later Nie Mingjue accuses him of deliberately using a Wen sword to disguise his actions.

We've seen these events before, back in episode 10, but the editing adds some things in the current episode, and removes others. Let's look at the differences.

1. Drunk Guard Captain

The night before this fight, there's a banquet and Meng Yao spends most of it making out with guarding Xue Yang. He does this by checking on him a bunch, which doesn't seem like it should be necessary in a fortress with a proper dungeon, but whatevs.

In Episode 10, we see Meng Yao briefly encounter the drunken, hostile guard captain, who shoulder-checks him and calls him son of a [sex worker], but otherwise we don't see any of their conversation.

In Episode 41, Nie Mingjue's head remembers a longer version of the encounter, with bonus vomiting. The captain tells Meng Yao he saw him talking to someone, asks what he's up to, accuses him of lying, and Meng Yao tells the captain's sidekick to put his drunk ass to bed.

This whole scene is HILARIOUS when you consider that this is Nie Mingjue's mental account of events, which means the Captain must have put everything we see in his report to the boss.

"Well, sir, I was incredibly drunk and vomiting in public near the Lan guest quarters when that twink that you like was seen talking to someone, so I roughed him up a bit and insulted his mother before I went to pass out from drunkenness. I hope you will reprimand him for his bad behavior."

That scene, in Episode 41, ends with Meng Yao all alone, straightening and brushing off his clothes and making his "I'm plotting your death" face.

Nie Mingjue sure does remember a lot of stuff he wasn't actually around to see. Maybe he's filling in gaps with everything he's heard during all the times Meng Yao has stood in front of his head-shelf and gloated out loud about stuff.

2. Wens Attack

In episode 10, Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu bring some guys to attack the Unclean Realm. Meng Yao goes and stabs the guard captain while Nie Mingjue is in a melee 1-on-1 with Wen Zhuliu, which requires all of his focus and spinning.

Nie Mingjue glances to the side in a moment of respite and sees Meng Yao stabbing the guard captain; he promptly forgets about fighting Wen Zhuliu in order to go shout at Meng Yao.

Meng Yao pulls on a tee shirt that says "commmit to the bit" and proceeds to say "it wasn't me" over and over despite having been caught red-handed.

This distraction enables Wen Zhuliu to almost stab Nie Mingjue, but he's saved by Meng Yao throwing himself in the way of the blade. These people should learn to block with something besides their torsos.

In Episode 41, Nie Mingjue's head has forgotten that Wen Zhuliu was ever there, and doesn't focus on the other Wen dudes right in his eye line. He notices Meng Yao acting a tiny bit squirrely and stops fighting in order to go follow him. Like. Stops fighting to defend his fortress, seat of his power, family home, etc., because he doesn't trust his subordinate.

Did I mention the need to overhaul Nie Clan hiring practices? Also some management training wouldn't be out of place.

Nie Mingjue's head also remembers that Meng Yao smirked evilly while doing the stabbing.

It's cool that he had time to notice this and be shocked and appalled rather than, you know, moving quickly to intercept the blow or otherwise help his captain out.

Side note: Meng Yao doesn't wipe his saber when he's done with it. Aslan is sad now.

3. You're Fired

After the battle is resolved, we go to Nie Mingjue's office. In episode 10 we jump in with Meng Yao groveling on the floor while Nie Mingjue yells at him. In Episode 41, we learn that he's on the floor not because he put himself there, but because Nie Mingjue apparently kicked him and his recent chest wound across the room.

In Episode 10, Meng Yao makes it makes it clear that he killed the guard captain on purpose, and gives a pretty good list of reasons for killing him.

you promoted me to vice general, but he always looked down on me

insulting, beating, and humiliating me

taking credit for my achievements

he let Xue Yang go

Meng Yao says that he could tolerate the first two problems, but he 100% will not tolerate #3. It's not about personal pride, for him, it's about ambition.

There's always gonna be another mountain I'm always gonna wanna make it move Always gonna be an uphill battle Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose Ain't about how fast I get there Ain't about what's waiting on the other side It's the climb

The part about Xue Yang is bullshit, of course, but the rest seem like pretty okay reasons for killing the guy. I mean, in the world of the show, where justice is mostly determined by stabbing.

Nie Mingjue doesn't think pride in your own achievements is a good enough reason, and banishes him.

In Episode 41, Nie Mingjue remembers things differently; this time Meng Yao's justification is:

He let Xue Yang go

He wanted to kill me

He insulted my mother

This time, Nie Mingjue feels like it would be ok to kill the captain in a sudden moment of anger, but if that was how it went down, you wouldn't have an evil smirk on your face. Also, why pretend that Xue Yang did it and why use a Wen Sword? [it was clearly a Nie saber, bruh]

Nie Mingjue thinks he's been planning this for a long time, because the guard captain told him that Meng Yao was colluding with Xue Yang. Nie Mingjue has ALMOST figured out what's going on here, but his anger is making him stupid.

Instead of following through to the logical conclusion that Meng Yao is getting up to some shenanigans with Xue Yang, he focuses on his own hurt feelings, suspecting that Meng Yao was manipulating him from the beginning. Which, of course, he was, but Nie Mingjue was using Meng Yao, too. Red flags all around.

He wonders if Meng Yao would have killed the caveful of bullies if Nie Mingjue hadn't come to help him out. Which is ridiculous since Meng Yao was just sitting and having his lunch when NMJ showed up; if he felt like killing those guys it would be pretty simple to poison the water they were making him carry for them.

Nie Mingjue proceeds to banish Meng Yao not precisely for killing a guy without permission, but for having the wrong priorities and values. So he really shouldn't be surprised when Meng Yao goes to work for Wen Ruohan.

Soundtrack: The Climb, Alan Cumming version

[weebsinstash]

Ok no I'm not done being weird yet, here's another idea for the marriage canon event stuff

Miguel and other Spiders are getting on your ass about, "oh, how old are you now? Why aren't you looking for a husband yet? Why are you spending so much time here?" And are, you know, your friends who love you and for your own good are trying to get you to complete your canon so you, you know, LIVE, but the way you see it is, being forced to do something like that and sacrifice yourself like that isn't living. You're not going to actively pursue and seek out a relationship, you want one to happen naturally, and nothing has felt natural to you and you're afraid of being hurt like that, of being rejected, of opening yourself up to someone and not being good enough, but, O'Hara and the Society don't really want to hear that. It's escalating over time. Little comments here and there, people randomly interjecting their personal anecdotes about their family and their kids into the conversation, "oh this is just like when me and Mary Jane--" "oh my kid loves this flavor, she gets so excited, I like to be naughty and get her these as a treat"

So you reach the point where you're fed up. This is so massively fucking inappropriate of them. There's no "set age" for this kind of thing so why are they harassing you like this, acting like, oh, you gotta hurry and pursue shit right now, it's for your own good? It's just pissing you off and pushing you away. You love traveling to different dimensions and exploring new places and experiencing things that are literally out of this world but if the trade-off for that is constantly being badgered with this stupid narrative of having to sacrifice yourself, you'll happily go home and break canon and die, because at least you'll be truly living and making a choice

So anyways to get to the meat of this post: you've decided you're leaving the Spider Society and you're not going to talk to any of these bitches anymore, just haven't fully decided on when, but like, you're literally thinking within the next week, but you're still, there. And one day you're in the lobby, trying to stand around because you're supposed to go on some sort of stupid assignment, Peter B and Jess with you, the parents talking about baby stuff as you roll your eyes and Peter suspiciously needs you to keep holding Mayday until you're literally refusing, "just put her on the ground or something, you let her climb on walls and shit anyways"

And because you're in the lobby, this big open space with tons of people passing through, suddenly in walks Miguel with. Another Miguel, completely unrelated to the mission you and the others are about to do, kind of just bumping into each other as they pass through. Miguel2 just got scouted by his counterpart that he met during chasing an anomaly, and they're getting to know each other, and at some point Miguel2 is like "can my wife come too 🥺👉👈 she's also a Spider and I can't be here without her" and everyone is a little confused because there's supposed to be the whole only 'one Spider per dimension' rule besides like family, like Peter and Mayday, and you'll just never guess whose alternate universe variant is his wife :) another you comes bounding in wearing casual baggy clothes but looks so radiant and happy, all "hubby 🥰" as she kisses her husband, you're just awkwardly sending glances to 'your' Miguel as you two are, understandably feeling awkward because, you're, coworkers, and here are two people who look exactly like you being all lovey dovey "princesa 🥰" "guapito 🥰"

This other you just seems so, VIBRANT and she's introducing herself and shaking hands and she sees Peter B, "oh my god you have a baby, I'm so happy for you, she's so cute!" And she's hugging him, and you watch Peter B's eyes go kind of wide and he looks down, "OH, you're like--" and Other You just kind of laughs and parts her coat, showing off her rounded tummy, "haha yeah, there's a baby in there! Number 3, we're so excited! 🥰" and you're just. Simultaneously feeling some sort of fucked up combination of the most visceral and extreme discomfort you've ever felt in your entire life and also some kind of. Envy. Because she has everything you thought you didn't want and she seems so, SO fucking happy, with a husband who loves her, she clearly loves her babies, and she's being accepted by all of your friends instantly, like they're all gathered around talking as you're just, basically on the outside of the circle, actively putting up distance, only standing around because, uh hey guys weren't we supposed to be doing something--

Your skin is crawling as Other You uses her own watch from her husband to zip back to her own dimension and comes back with her babies on each hip, twins that she's just so happy to introduce to her new friends, who are SUPPOSED to be YOUR friends, "THIS one is Gabriella, and this one is Gabriel. Aren't they so cute? 🥰 theyre both so chunky they almost killed me but it was SO worth it" And once she realizes you're you, or, you're her, she wants to immediately chat you up and be buddy-buddy and goes to hand one of her babies to you and you. Refuse. Absolutely refuse. Suddenly you're the pariah of the group, both Miguels are sending you looks. Why are you being so fucking rude? Just put your arms out??? But you won't. You're just, soul-suckingly disgusted by this entire scenario. Not only is it putting an unspoken pressure onto you, but, seeing this other you be so fucking happy AND accomplishing all the things your "friends" have been badgering you about makes you feel SO indescribably insecure

Fine. Let it be like a revolving door. Another you enters Spider Society, one of you leaves. But you're so bitter and hurt you can't help but get in a jab at her, wanting to tarnish her "fake" happiness, feeling so personally hurt and offended by her very presence and existence in the room. "Hey so wouldn't your babies also be Spiders and have to suffer through the canon events too? And since you don't have any other family members, your kids' canon events might be YOU or Miguel dying? Aren't you glad you gave birth to your kids only to die and leave them without a mom and dad and forever doom them to a narrative where they can never make their own choices and are cosmically destined to be unhappy just because YOU wanted a cute baby? Sorry I guess I'm just built different. Hey remember how when we were little girls and we used to feel like mom only gave birth to us because she wanted someone who would love her and we resented her for bringing us into the world to have such a harsh life, aren't you so happy that's EXACTLY how your kids are going to feel about YOU?"

Mom!You is instantly bursting into tears and holding her little belly for comfort as her husband looks ready to tear you to ribbons, FURIOUS, all the healthy people in the room understandably disappointed and upset with you, like what the FUCK girl, meanwhile you're opening up a portal to your home dimension and just chucking your watch straight into the floor. "Keep this. I won't be coming back" while everyone is kind of dismissive of how truly upset you are, kind of just like "come on, don't be like this 🙄" like you're throwing a tantrum when in actuality you're going home and are seriously considering selling Osborne or Doc Ock all of your radioactive eggs. You'll always be YOU before you're a Spider, and if they want to force you to put The Job above yourself your entire life, they're dead wrong.

Meanwhile after you leave, pulling each other aside for privacy, Miguel2 is asking your Miguel why he's risking breaking his own canon by not wife-ing you up yet and comparing notes from all of the other dimensions where you and him are together as your Miguel is shocked by the sheer number of same occurrences. Miguel is all on about, "what does this even mean, we're from entirely different dimensions", and Miguel2 over here just unapologetically, "so? My wife is also from another dimension, I just took her, she got used to it, it's totally fine bro, it's canon, just do it, just do whatever you want. it's fine bro I'M TELLING YOU--" and maybe even Mom!You is so, sucked into her own "it's ok I was initially forced into this because I'm happy now" world that she's even advocating, "oh gosh if I was her I'd be SO lonely, hearing how you two aren't even that close, especially not anymore, and you've all been avoiding her, and she doesn't even have a baby to care for and give her love 🥺 most 'me's are at least dating right now, so, i bet she's feeling so much pain, she NEEDS YOU right now 🥺"

Peter B is sent to give you another watch and tell you, it's ok, you can come back, they promise they're not gonna bug you about dating and stuff anymore, and you're just all "nah, I'm ok! :) you can keep it :) I've had enough of you guys :) dont let the door hit your ass on the way out :)" meanwhile Miguel 1 and 2 are comparing strategies, "see, when MY wife was refusing to come back to me, what I did was..."

[lili-is-an-artist-not]

AAI2 being an accidental (intentional? It’s hard to tell) masterclass in how people will write off or excuse abusive behavior if they think the recipient deserves it will never not make me wild

Blaise, from the moment he appears as a character, takes literally every opportunity to belittle and humiliate Sebastian that he can and NO ONE gives a Shit. Because they agree. Sebastian Is a useless idiot, almost everything he says Is worthless and can be ignored- all this time he’s been an arrogant, idiotic, spoilt brat that at best wastes your time and at worst could very easily get innocent people hurt. So yeah say it out loud, knock him down a peg, nothing wrong with Sebastian finally learning his lesson.

Never mind it’s his dad saying it (the person he doubtlessly spends the most time around), never mind being told you’re useless, worthless or a stupid idiot doesn’t teach you anything and isn’t criticism you can learn from, never mind that Sebastian Never Once tries to defend himself -a character we see consistently get upset at the slightest hint of reproach- he just quietly takes it.

It’s effective on both the meta and narrative levels too, since it’s not just the characters that don’t care, it’s also the players. You‘ve dealt with this idiot for the past two and a half cases, and watched him be coddled through his incompetence the whole time, seeing his dad walk in -someone it’s clear Sebastian looks up to- look his son in the eyes and go „Shut up, no one wants to listen to your nonsense“ is Funny! Until the ‚Oh shit‘ moment anyway.

This is in part due to the fact that this is an ace attorney game and it’s nearly impossible to tell when they’re going for something serious or playing something as a bit- which is why I’m unsure how intentional it was at least on the meta level. A non ace attorney game I think would have had players raising red flags about Sebastian‘s situation from the get go

Congrats AA on having such notoriously inconsistent writing that it accidentally worked to emphasize and underline the message of your narrative this one time I guess.

[ganondoodle]

so guess what they released more interviews and i think given what a writing shitshow totk was and what they have been saying in all these interviews is actually painting a really bad picture; i dont have the time, nor the energy to go over every detail

but they were commenting on people wanting the more linear format back and aonuma himself basically said that he thinks people who feel like that do so only bc of nostalgia and "Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you're more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?"

what .. the fuck, more freedom DOESNT automatically mean better??? like ... restriction can be a GOOD thing just as tooo much freedom can be BAD?? like in totk??? are you fukcing shitting me- what the hell are games even for then, has he had an awakening to the fact that he actually just loves sandbox games without realizing it???? im not playing fucking zelda for a sandbox, especially not when its advertised as a somethign else

its pretty clear that they want to keep this format going with everything they say there, ... maybe it really is over huh

also i hate how they kept talking around answering anything about story/lore; they go asked how ganondorf even connects to ganon since theres nothign about it in game, and all they got out was welllll we dont wanna say anything bc its up to the player; about every question you got the answer of "make somethign up yourself" which is just ... its really clear they dont actually care but dont want to say everything is meaningless actually, so they try to be vague about it and with doing that really just confirm they didnt think about it and they dont care- so no lore actually matters, nothing thats been said or established has any meaning bc they will get rid of it the second it crosses paths with their new -more freedom equals better- philosophy, they say its bc they want you to be "free" to think up anything but apparently dont realize that when there are no rules, no consistent lore or anything that it ROBS it, it stops having meaning, its fun to connect dots only when there are rules you need to work with and dots to connect in the first place, when you have an established world with its restrictions it drives you to think more creatively about things- but when there are no rules?? its fucking boring!! thats what it is!!

when you discard all rules i wont care to get invested into anything bc i know it will not be considered again, be done away with without any reason and wont have influence on coming or previous games ... bc there are no rules, anything is possible and everything can be changed any second, so nothing matters

(they also talked about the many viral videos of those very few dedicated people that make godzilla mechs in totk and how happy they are about that- i get that to some extent, but the way they kept talkign about it really just felt like it confirmed my suspicion that that whole mechanic was mainly implemented to let people do that since that gets shared around en masse making it seem like that is why people enjoy it while neither the game nor the narrative are build around it in any way ..)

it just makes all the time i spend thinking, feeling and theorizing about zelda like a true waste of time, bc nothing matters and there are no rules-

i am someone who greatly enjoys working with and around established lore/rules, its fun to me to recontextulize things by being smart or creative with it all without breaking anything or as little as possible of the established things!

if i wanted to do just do anything i want I COULD HAVE ALREADY DONE THAT bc theres nothing actually stopping anyone to just make up what they want! i DONT need canon to lose all rules for that??!!

maybe ill have to make myself believe the franchise ended with botw on a good note ... ono

[yooniesim]

Statement from Overwolf

...Okay, first of all, this whole statement is sadly nothing but them taking the same exact route as before: misdirecting & changing the narrative to only be about "victims" when their Home Support initiative is partnered with the ILF, an openly Zionist organization. This isn't about innocent parties only when they're partnered with an organization that contributes directly towards IDF Military Intelligence. All of the money from the fund goes to the ILF's bank account to distribute, per their own FAQ page. And even without that, the association alone is enough to boycott. Overwolf and Curseforge cannot be "clean of politics" while their CEO partners with and therefore directly supports Zionist parties.

Screenshots directly from Home Support website & ILF website

This statement overall stinks because it puts the blame fully onto people with legitimate concerns by calling them all harassers. Have some people gone too far towards creators? 100%. I know that well. But Overwolf is clearly using that to deflect off of themselves, and this is why it never should have been done in the first place. Y'all focused on the wrong shit- the smaller targets instead of the big ones, and the wrong claim that they're directly funding the IDF with CF revenue, and now they're doing exactly what I said they would: once again using the fact that that's not technically true to weasel out of people's concerns. They even directly call out the fact that it's misinformation like I said they would! They clarified fucking nothing, they repeated the same shit they already said because they know they can. We need to change the focus of the boycott so that they are forced to address their actual wrongdoing! Stop spending all your time sending threatening messages on anon and instead spread factual information with sources and reach out to creators in good faith effort to get them to speak without the fear of being attacked. They will stay silent as long as the negative consequences (financially & socially) is all on them and not Overwolf & EA.

I'm still working on a comprehensive post with everything, but in the meantime, please spread this post around.

[yuurivoice]

We've hit the stage of Echoes of Evalas' creation that I'm spending a lot of my quiet time with scenes and characters, including time that is usually occupied by...well, nothing creative. At least, it hasn't been creative time in a long while.

Some of the dearest and most important moments of my young creative daydreaming was before bed. If I might overshare, it was specifically as I lay in bed and tried to drown out unpleasantness I'd hear from other rooms of the house. I'll spare you the details.

I didn't even have music at the time, though in later years as I became a depressed teen, I'd throw some music on my computer to fantasize and fall asleep to.

Oftentimes, these stories and characters I'd contemplate were favorites from various things I enjoyed. In time they'd adapt and evolve into something of my own, in worlds and stories of my own making.

Sometimes it wasn't so grand. There were no sweeping narratives or adventures. Just some self insert character being comforted by a friend or a lover.

Recent nights, I've thrown on my EoE playlist and let my mind wander. I haven't really done that in a long time. Haven't had the need to these days. I'm not running from much. Life is quiet. But as I start to turn over more stones and find what's beneath some of the characters and themes I'm exploring, I've found myself here again.

I don't know if anyone will love what I am making, and I never have. Every person who has let my characters and stories into their hearts means a whole lot to me, though. I've not forgotten when all of this was nothing more than a comfort to myself to soothe away all my fear and loneliness.

As it all starts to come together I'm seeing a stark difference between where I am at as a writer and creative in general in comparison to BitterSweet Chapter 1, as I've revisited it recently.

The pieces were there but it's so clear to me that I didn't have the conviction that I do now. I didn't have the comfort or security of knowing that I can take chances and be bold. I thought I had to color within the lines, and lacked the confidence to really let it rip.

So as much as I've been looking forward, I've also looked back. Further back than I typically like to.

When Charlie said he never thought he'd be this old, that was real shit man. I was a morbid kid. I have a crystal clear memory of being on a school bus in Washington state. Blink 182 just dropped an album. I hate Blink 182, but I listened with a friend whose face I can barely remember. As the high schoolers got on the bus I remember thinking...damn, I'll never be that old.

Not sure what could possess a child to feel that way. Or how that feeling could linger for years. It took a long time to find enough faith in myself to live. Now that I've got it, I think I'm encouraged to give breath to those lost dreams and wandering fantasies. Echoes of Evalas is an exploration of that.

I can't even grasp what that really means yet.

Things like faith, anger, insecurity, and longing for change. I've rattled a lot of locked doors while digging up this story and putting it together.

I am uneasy. That's probably how I've ended up writing this essay in bed, and boy is it a rambling one.

There was a point somewhere. I am excited for what's to come, but uneasy. Not out of fear that anyone will like it or content brained thinking like that. More like...a reverence for this magical thing I've found. Storytelling is magical for me. And that's not me waxing poetic, I think there's something terrifying and beautiful about it. It is the thing I was made to do, and the actual experience of crafting a story like this isn't just fun. I'm removing chains from my soul.

If that ain't magic, I don't know what is.

Anywho, I need to sleep. If you read all that, thank you for putting up with my yapping. 💖