#ash does meta

[caeslxys]

Something I think is extremely interesting thematically when it comes to connecting what Downfall and the ideas it tackled to the overarching narrative of campaign three is that the things Downfall made a point to showcase of Aeor—Cassida, Hallis, the visual of an aeormaton proposing to her partner, the specific and intentional decision to shed light on a far from insignificant amount of the population being civilians or refugees—is that it plays in perfect parallel across from what is happening (and, really, has been happening) to the ruidusborn on Exandria in present.

Bear with me for a moment. Aeor is ultimately a city that was collectively punished for the decisions of its leadership. We could (and, judging by the amount of discourse around this particular topic already, probably will) argue about what the Gods’ motivation for all of this was—whether it be that they could not, in the end, bear to kill their siblings or that they were terrified at the prospect of mortality—for me it is a very healthy dose of both—but for this I am much more interested in the latter. They were scared. That, really, is the driving force behind both this arc and their role in c3 as a whole.

Why I point this out is: It is far more interesting to me, especially as we go back to Bells Hells this week, to dissect the Gods and their decisions not purely on sympathetic motivation alone but as beings in the highest seat of power in the highest social class in Exandria.

So, having established that the Gods (in relation to mortals) are more a higher social class than anything we could compare to our real life understanding of divinity and that Aeor was eviscerated largely because of their fear—what is the difference between those innocents in Aeor caught in the trappings of their autocratic government leadership and a divine war on the ground, and those of the ruidusborn being manipulated both by Ludinus and by the very thing that inspired such visceral fear in the Gods to start with. I would argue very little.

I think of Cassida, doing what she genuinely thought was right and good and would save people, her son, and the object of her worship—and how that did not matter enough to any of them to spare her because of the fear they held at the very concept of mortality. I think of Liliana and Imogen, one of which we know begged for the gods to help her or send her a sign for years on years, and how every single one of their largest struggles could have been avoided had the gods loved them, their supposed children, as much as they feared what they could be. I think of how the thing that did save Imogen, in the end, was a woman who herself existed in direct defiance of the gods will. I think of that young boy, sixteen years old, that Laudna exalted on Ruidus.

I think it’s completely fair to judge Aeor’s overall society as deeply corrupt—it was!—but its leadership and police force are not a reflection of every one of its citizens. Similarly, it is fair to judge the Ruby Vanguard as corrupt—it is!—but its multiple heads of leadership and even the god-eater further are not a reflection of every one of its members.

Notably, and what I think the Hells will latch onto, this did not matter to the Gods. It did not matter that Cassida was trying to help. She was still too much of a risk. Will it matter, what Imogen does? Will it matter, if that young boy is in the blast radius when they decide to take no further chances?

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the Hells will side with the gods and I don’t think I agree. Especially as Imogen has been scolded and villainized over and over for daring to try and save her mother—who herself has been seen by some as an irredeemable evil in spite of her drive being the exact same—her family—but when it’s the Gods it’s justified? When it’s the Gods, it’s sympathetic? Too sympathetic to criticize further than “they’re family”?

I obviously do not think the Gods should die or be eaten or what have you, and I certainly don’t agree with Ludinus (though I find him much more compelling than just a variation of hubris wizard), but when talking about the Gods in Aeor and in present it isn’t really at all about their motivation or their family. It can’t be. Too many people, including our active protagonists, lives have been effected for it to be as cut and dry as “they’re family”. These are your children. They are your family, too.

[tritoch]

Something that bugs me a lot in Dawntrail discourse is watching people who think they are defending the expansion argue away its best aspect. Because here's the thing: Wuk Lamat isn't like prior FFXIV characters. She takes up way more space than them. That's good!

A common thread you see in defenses is that people are complaining about things they were fine with earlier in the story. "Oh well actually Lyse was also the main character of Stormblood and people didn't hate her as much!" or "Heavensward is the story of Aymeric and Estinien and Ysayle, and the Warrior of Light doesn't do that much!" or "No one complained when Gaia jumped into the Eden raids, or when Emet showed up during Seat of Sacrifice" with the implied conclusion of "Wuk Lamat's not different from any other previous major character, your complaints have more to do with [sexism/transphobia/your crippling insecurity about not being the main character] than the way she's written." First of all people did hate Lyse. I get what you are saying but they very much did hate Lyse.

But Wuk Lamat is different. She's different because Dawntrail is unapologetically, full-throatedly her story. She is there at the start, she is there at the end, she is there basically all the way through except for a brief interlude. She is the character you talk to the most, she is also the character that talks the most. She has more of a complete arc than anyone else in the expansion. The antagonists develop much stronger direct and personal relationships to her than they ever do with you. Several major characters have relationships to you through her more than they do with you directly. At multiple points in the story you explicitly step back and are like "Go right ahead, queen, do the main character stuff." She 100% takes your role in certain ways. She's literally a new WL to your WoL!

and that's awesome! Like, holy shit! If you had traveled back in time and told me after Endwalker, "Hey, the next expansion will be almost solely and entirely focused on the character journey of a young woman, and she'll be nuanced and complex and allowed to fail but also allowed to succeed wildly, and her characterization will be interesting and her ideals will be very directly challenged, and she'll get to do some real classic 'sorry my noble opponent but I must stop you, even though I sympathize' shit, and the way she is framed won't feel excessively male-gazey, and she won't get stuck in the FFXII Ashe Miniskirt, and she won't just be someone you watch and clap for while the real protagonist and narrator is some random guy in her entourage," I would've been like "haha, okay, I like FFXIV as much as the next guy but I don't think it's shaken its baseline sexism off enough to do an expansion entirely about a woman and her personal growth and what makes her a good leader, especially after Stormblood's mixed reception. And CBU3 definitely doesn't have the guts to make her even more of a main character than any other prior NPC, and you didn't mention this part future time traveler, but I also don't believe they'll be willing to cast a trans woman in the role." And I would have been fucking wrong!

Yes, Wuk Lamat is the main character. Yes, she does get more attention than other NPCs, or even your Warrior of Light. And yes, that's totally fine, and even something to praise!!! You don't have to run from it to accommodate people who are looking for something to complain about!

[shouldhavebeenpersephone]

So I was re-reading Nona. And. Have we talked about this yet? Have we gone through the implications of this section?

NtN John 5:4. Analysis under the cut.

I always assumed the tower was a part of the Ninth because right after this chapter Nona sees the tower in the River and after that drives the truck everyone is in to the Ninth. But nowhere does it say that the tower is the Ninth.

I mean, looking at the description it certainly sounds like it - all grey and death, which is why I assumed it was. The Ninth is tall even if embedded inside of a planet, one could argue shafts are towers. But why would a tower of the Ninth be in the River?

First things first; the tower in Tarot stands for sudden change, confusion and awakening - I don't feel this needs further explanation on why it's relevant (I might, however, someday do a Tarot Locked Tomb analysis because there is A LOT there). It also refers to the Tower of Babel, which was destroyed by God along with the uniform language of Earth so that people would not come so close to Him again, so that they stayed vincible. Sound familiar?

John did make a uniform language technically, but he also separated the population to different planets, rendering them unable to unite and overcome him not only due to instilled nationalism but also due to the faults in the Houses. We know that the Sixth is struggling to keep up their lineages and population number - we know the Fourth die too young to really leave anything behind - we know the Second is too busy fighting wars.

This leads me to believe that whatever the tower represents will be the end of the world as they know it - maybe through a new God and an end to the Houses, maybe the end of Godhood and Lyctorhood in general. Either way, something is piercing through the River - something that has the power to change it all.

NtN Chapter 30. Nona's mind knew what it was "above" and "below". Does this refer to Harrow and Alecto?

Now let's go back to that first passage from John 5:4. The parts that stand out to me are 'speared-through and mute', 'a tower that soared, impossible and deadly grey', and 'lurching out of the River as though gasping for air.' All of this sounds like Gideon.

GtN Chapter 37. Very much speared-through and mute.

NtN Chapter 16. Ramrod posture? Soaring, impossible and deadly grey.

NtN Chapter 25. And Gideon knows what's in the River. Chances are that the tower is a construct created by John for whatever purposes. Gideon is also a construct created by John - at least Kiriona is.

I obviously don't know how accurate this connection my brain jumped on is, but it honestly makes a lot of sense to me. There is something below the River, just like how 'reality' is above the river. Especially when considering Nona referred to a thought above and below that knew what the tower was, it appears to me like the below is a plane much like reality and the River where things exist and can continue to exist. I have not yet sat with or developed an opinion on what exactly might be there, but there is something there. I think it might be the cavaliers.

So what if Gideon ended up there? What if, when she ended up in the River at the end of HtN, Gideon ended up in the below once Alecto was forced into Harrow's body? What if John knew all along how to reach there and he finally decided this was the time to bring something - no - someone back?

But you can't really reach the other plane without the River, can you? We have seen it with the Resurrection Beasts - they travel through the River and exist in it while simultaneously being above it. And, if we look at Palamedes, one who has passed and is part of the River needs a container of sorts to be above. Perhaps, then, one can sink while tethered higher in the three layers, but one cannot soar from below without a container to carry them up. An integrated cavalier is forced down, not reaching up - they are buried in the below.

So let's say John brought Gideon back. Her corpse would obviously be the container for her above. The tower, then, could be her container for the River. Ianthe could be using Gideon's aberration in the River as a means to anchor herself as well. That could be why they are the Tower Princes.

Alecto would know the tower was a gateway of sorts. She would understand, like presumably any other Resurrection Beast would understand. But Harrow. Harrow.

GtN Chapter 36. I cannot let go of this passage in relation to the tower. "Instead, she was Drearburh." "She took the whole putrid, quiet, filth-strewn madness of the place, and she opened her doors to it."

Cavaliers' tethers are shown through the eyes, through altering the look of that which binds them to above - so, maybe through being Gideon the tower became Drearburh. Maybe Harrow saw it, and felt it, and she saw Gideon, and she saw home. So she walked, and she walked, and she knew that it would lead back to her.

The tower - Gideon, then, will be the changer of things in the end. Maybe Gideon and Harrow, but definitely Gideon.

[hualianisms]

the way HC grew up thinking he was weak, monstrous, repulsive, was told that he was cursed, and believed that he had to spend 800 years becoming better, stronger, more powerful, for XL, bc he wanted to protect XL -

but then he meets XL again, and shortly after becoming friends, XL tells HC that he doesn't care if HC is hideous, doesn't care if HC is a beggar or royalty, a ghost or human. later on, XL even tells HC that he doesn't care if HC is strong or weak, at his lowest or highest point, in worst or best moments - XL loves HC no matter what state HC may be in, he loves him simply bc he is HC.

and this unconditional love from XL is so important to HC, so healing for HC, and is exactly why it shaped HC so inexorably, both 800 years ago and 800 years later. bc XL truly is the kind of person who loves someone for who they are, not how they appear on the outside.

and HC fully reciprocates this unconditional love by loving XL no matter if XL is the god-pleasing crown prince or the broken husk of a man wearing bwx's mask trying to take revenge. HC returns this unconditional love by repeating XL's words back to him, what matters is you, not the state of you.

[isan0rt]

I saw your Dedue post you made recently and OMG THANK YOU SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT. I’d love to message you further about your other 3houses opinions cause gd your mind.

Honestly like lmao I wasn't specifically trying to call anyone out in particular but it's so so so hard to find interpretations of Dedue that like. Actually consider that perhaps he has complex reasons for talking about himself like he does before the time skip, that rationally follow from his experiences and aren't just like, oh he's got such poor self esteem. Dedue's not Bernadetta, he's as assertive as it's safe for him to be given PEOPLE EXPLICITLY WANT TO KILL HIM for just fucking existing.

If Dimitri wasn't protecting him he would have gotten straight up murdered well before he learned to tank as hard as he tanks, and that's not even counting that first time Dimitri intervened in people actively trying to murder Dedue after successfully murdering his family for the crime of Existing While From Duscur. Like, hello!!!! He's been isolated from his community, from his language, from his culture, surrounded by people who hate him, but with nowhere else to go. Literally everyone else he knew died and his homeland was burned to the ground.

Dimitri is the only person in the WORLD who wants him to live. Of course he's neurotic as fuck about Dimitri. Dimitri is literally all he has left in the world to cling to, and people keep trying to kill Dimitri! It's 100% reasonable for Dedue before the timeskip to feel like he has fucking nothing if he doesn't have Dimitri. Objectively that's true!!!

Like, after the timeskip, he comes back having spent time back among his own people, seeing that his culture isn't gone and he does have something to fight to preserve. He survives because his community comes to save him. He comes back wearing VERY expensive full-body armor (like for real that's absurd amounts of steel and master craftsmanship) with Duscur's motif enameled on the pauldrons, wearing Duscur-woven clothing and accompanied by a whole group of his countrymen fighting alongside him to reach Dimitri. His post-timeskip design screams that he's been reintegrated into his home culture. Of course he's in a better place after that!

None of his emotional development happens in a vacuum! Dedue struggles with his self-worth when he's cut off from his community, and is able to self-actualize only after reconnecting with his community. Azure Moon has so many themes about community healing after trauma, and about relying on support in order to lift all boats together. All the Lions start the game fractured and damaged because of the breakdown of the social contract in Faerghus and improve through Azure Moon by banding together and healing the fractured relationships. Dedue can't be his best self when he's isolated from his roots. Ignoring that I feel like really misses the themes Dedue brings to the table.

[stopthatfool]

in top gun meta hell rn. what the fuck am i doing in top gun meta hell. i don't think i'm supposed to be thinking so hard about this movie. it's not designed for this.

[kohakhearts]

hey that pokemon 2000 gifset + your jn dub analysis made me think about the pokemon 2000 dub - I've only seen it subbed once (compared to the hundred times I watched it dubbed as a child) so I could be misremembering, but didn't the dub completely change the themes of the movie with the chosen one ash thing?

i actually haven’t watched the sub nearly as many as times as the dub either :p but i have read extensively about this topic bc it’s personally my favourite pokemon movie and yes! the first and second pokemon movies are both victim to this (like mewtwo’s epic speech we all love so much at the end of the first movie…being a complete fabrication by the dub team :p you gotta give those writers credit - they were VERY good at what they did), largely i’m guessing due to cultural values and expectations. since they were trying to sell the anime to an american audience, not a japanese one.

tangentially, i will say i also think that’s the root of this like…subtle distinction some people have between the characters “ash” and “satoshi.” i don’t differentiate them in any big way myself because fundamentally they still are very much the same, but it is true that in japanese, ash has somewhat different mannerisms and responds differently to events at times, especially in the early anime when it was so much easier to get away with making big changes for…a big assortment of reasons haha.

in THIS movie in particular, some of those things are like…well. the prophecy is probably the most obvious change. the dub team rewrote it to include the chosen one reference, which works great because of the word play on ash’s name. in japanese, it just says “an exceptional trainer will appear to help calm the wrath of the gods.” ash’s response to this is more mild trepidation than outright fear. he doesn’t hesitate like he does in the dub. and tbh? both reactions make perfect sense for his character in my opinion.

in japanese, his concern is more "do you really think i can fit that role?" this...tracks pretty well with his character development by this point. like yeah he said he could win the indigo league, but he's also thinking about dropping out after gary loses; it's that little grain of insecurity he has, which he's normally good at covering up with arrogance (a lot of which is also very genuine, don't get me wrong). but he sees the opportunity to help and he takes it. that's just...what ash does.

in english, though, the prophecy is pretty clearly about him. there's no one else it could be. it has to be him. and he...doesn't like that? that scares him. which, fair. anyone would be terrified by being singled out like that. it's also so much...not ash's thing, even at this point in the series. his character development is about embracing having to work hard to do well. to keep trying until you get it right, no matter how many times you get it wrong. the idea of being a "chosen one" completely robs him of his ability to be so single-minded about what he wants his destiny to be that it manifests as pre-determined; it just...pre-determines it for him, if that makes sense. lol.

the thesis of the japanese version of the film is that no one person or pokemon can stand on their own. everyone needs help. it's about harmonizing with each other and with nature. about letting others help you, and helping them in turn. the english version rewrites that into a story about power and destiny. the title alone says it all, right? it's called "the power of one" - no reference to lugia, no reference to the birds. in japan, the title is about the revelation (or "birth") of lugia.

westerners love a good chosen one story, so this was a really good choice by the dub team in that respect. i mean, it's a narrative that's stuck really well. fandom loves chosen one ash! in general, western fanbases are really into this narrative. it's everywhere. and there's a lot that goes into that, culturally, and especially religiously, historically, etc. so at the end of the day, i don't think the change is so much about conflicting ideas about collectivism and individualism. it's more about goals and ideals, on a personal level.

let me say again for the 273456784th time, i love that they resolved ash's story by having him realize that the goal he's really been striving for all this time is to meet and befriend pokemon. to learn from them. to earn their trust. it's like...he did the thing that everyone else thought represented his goal, maybe even himself included, only to realize that his dream was never about the end of it anyway. it was about everything he learnt and everyone he met along the way. (i also suspect nobody writing in 1997 knew that that would be the ultimate resolution, either. but it makes sense in the entire context. it's kind of a nice irony, even. to only figure it out after writing the story :p)

and i think this little distinction is important to that goal! it's his whole character! which is why even though i too love chosen one characters, i don't necessarily think of ash as one. because even if he is, his whole Thing is that he wants to try. a lot of the chosen one narrative is about characters being reluctant to be used for a "greater good," or about them collapsing under that pressure. ash doesn't really have that. he does what he thinks is right because he...thinks it's right. sometimes, sure, others have to push him into it a bit, but usually they're actually pushing the other way - it's too dangerous, you're going to get hurt, etc. and to me, i don't know - thinking of times he's died, or nearly died, and some legendary or mythical pokemon has saved him at the last minute...i don't think that has to mean he's special in a cosmic sort of way. i think it just means he's special to them. that he did something for them, or for someone else they had come to care for (thinking manaphy responding to may's emotions, not just to the fact that ash was drowning, or in mpm ash convincing latios to trust him because of their mutual desire to save latias, etc.), and so they want to help him. which is completely opposite to the typical chosen one narrative, i think? because he doesn't do those things out of obligation...he does them because he thinks he can become a better trainer by doing them, and he wants to do that. and well. he did do that.

anyway my tl;dr here is YES they changed the theme a lot haha, but i find it fun that they also changed the characters’ responses to that theme. funnily that’s…kind of also what fanfiction writers do all the time, lmao, but that’s a whole other conversation.

[shouldhavebeenpersephone]

Oh she knew MUCH more.

In GtN after the Ninths finds the Fifth, we get the following scene:

She was already eating Babs.

Then there is the matter of the trials - the og Lyctors didn't leave those for them, these trials were there to help the first batch figure out what to do. Did Jod come up with the trials? Who else than the first necromancer could have shown them?

The og Lyctors (from what I gathered from dialogue with Mercy and Augustine at least) figured out that Alecto was John's cavalier after becoming Lyctors. They first had to understand Lyctorhood before they drew the lines to John's power. They were granted skills their cavaliers held, and since John is able to perform things Resurrection Beasts can, they must have figured out Alecto was one and that she was his cavalier.

Ianthe did the opposite. She didn't only reverse engineer the mega-theorem, but she reverse engineered Godhood. She studied what happened and figured out God must have eaten a planet, started applying this to Babs, saw that it worked, and her arrival on the First confirmed it - the thanergy signature of the First was all wrong. Then, using that information, she figured out Lyctorhood. (She couldn't have done the trials because Babs didn't even know the basement existed, and we know she would have needed him to complete them. She didn't fucking need the trials.)

I am so extremely curious on what Ianthe's intentions are. Why did she bring Coronabeth to Canaan? She presumably knew they could never go back, at the start of GtN she assumes Teacher dropped their ships into the waters. If she knew so much already, why wait until the end to use it?

I think Ianthe was aiming higher than Lyctorhood. Or still is. Once she recognized she wouldn't get out alive, she ate Babs and became a Lyctor. In HtN we see her experiment with non-decaying apples - I think she is experimenting with energy transferrence to give away some of her own, not to consume. She is working towards Godhood, towards being able to provide energy to others. To Coronabeth.

Or not, it's all speculation. Tamsyn has done such an incredible job at making Ianthe come across so drab that we, the readers, treat her the same way people in-universe do - she goes unnoticed mostly. I cannot wait to see what scheme she pulls in AtN.

I’M SORRY, were we just gonna GLOSS OVER the fact Ianthe knows SO MUCH MORE than she ever lets on in htn and ntn?? My brain completely glossed over this part and holy—

[deifyruby]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤlittle theorizing timeee~~~

beware, spoilers for i spent 100 days hidden in a secret minecraft base.

(ps ps. i didn't do a post for the other eps, but fuck yeah, FUCK YEah, i called it. the director is sooooo meta. fist up in the air moment.)

the moment the director involves themselves in the story they wrote, egg stops being meta (mentioning his irl life, literally said he watched spoke's videos when wemmbu asked him if he knew spoke) and starts taking uu seriously (literally told someone to chill because minecraft empires were Not That Serious, famous words thirty minutes before taking a minecraft empire Very Seriously), and spoke is acting out of character + there's clearly missing story between s1finale and s2e1. do you reckon the director is finally stepping up, busy with hunting down parrot and orchestrating tax duo's gradual descend, so they don't have enough time to fill in spoke's blank spots? couldn't bother to write anything abt minute and mape? because, a director only has two hands. godly being or not, i assume the director has a human-like form. maybe someone like cc parrot. :)

since we're going down this rabbit hole, do the mcs have protagonist halos? is it a halo granted to them by the director? then, can they lose it? when they lose it, will they stop uploading, because they are no longer center piece? also, i believe s2 is gonna heavily revolve around taking away the mcs' support network. isolating them from their best friends (wifies, eggchan and mape. i had a feeling when they killed off wifies, but egg suddenly doing a 180° just furthered my suspicions. and today we Clearly saw, mapicc and minute were not even Mentioned or referenced).

on that line of thought. the video was so out of character and Not unstable universe like at all, that when spoke actually brought up s1 after being weirdly vague about squiddo and ash as if he hadn't known them more closely than he was acting like, that it actually broke my immersion a little bit? so not immersive i got immersed in the not-immersiveness. 😭

side note, i don't have the ss but squidswag kiss in uu i know that's right... i knowww ash did that on purpose, and the way squiddo went quiet. 😭🫵🏻 why are We third wheeling. why is Spoke third wheeling rn.

also we saw a new side to ash today. :) he's a retired guy who just wants to live in his bunker with squiddo. i can respect that, to the point i felt... kinda bad for ash! crazy isn't it? since when do i, the viewer, feel bad for ash and (mildly) upset at spoke? after the stunts ash pulled? whatever spoke did may lowkey be his karma ngl. :crying:

by the way... ash is changed now that he is no longer the director's pawn. does this mean uu characters were already existing, not entirely the director's creation; just being influenced by the director? but when the director is no longer puppeteering their strings, they are now perhaps free to be the person they always were. maybe ash liked squiddo because squiddo was not a big character in the director's plot, so they saw through the role that was put upon him by the director.

not to cleanse ash of his sins, i think it'd be interesting if the director actually chose the puppets for their play based on pre-existing ambitions and traits. would make ash still a greedy manipulator, but maybe he wouldn't make a whole ass mafia?

hey. doesn't this whole yap remind you about someone else? egg, perhaps? what if the director got egg. influencing him, taking away the bits from egg that inconvenienced his plans. the fact that egg was so meta was inconvenient, wasn't it? egg may just be the closest to busting your whole play. without egg, wemmbu always seems to crack less jokes. to take the situation more seriously. without egg around, wemmbu is less likely to break the fourth wall; to even realize it's there in the first place.

wowieee i went a bit crazy yapping my head off, but hey. we'll see how far fetched this was. :P

you 🫵🏻 will not convince me that spoke s2e1 isn't intentionally edited that way. it feels meta in a weird way. if i can care enough i'll rewatch it and hopefully come out with a theory about why it's this way.

[shouldhavebeenpersephone]

In GTN chapter 36, Cytherea says “None of you have learned how to die gracefully. I learned over 10,000 years ago"

Do you know/have a theory as to how Cyth could have learned anything pre-resurrection? She was not one of the original lyctors present for the resurrection and it was only 10,000 years ago. It could be hyperbole but I am suspicious of the “over 10,000 years”.

Thank you so much for the ask! I wanted to take my time with it, I hope you didn't mind the wait.

I actually had been chewing on this with my most recent GtN reread. Bear with me as I cut and paste all the pieces that form my thoughts on this - hopefully it's somewhat coherent to read.

Could "over 10000 years" be a hyperbole? Maybe. A lot of characters tell the 'truth' as far as they believe it to be so even if it's factually incorrect. I don't think, however, that Tamsyn would make Cytherea say it in this specific way if it was a hyperbole. In GtN chapter 35 where Palamedes confronts Cytherea we get the following lines, which are what feed my intuition about this:

"Don't lie to me, please."

Dulcinea said, "I have never lied to any of you."

Cytherea has no reason to lie, especially not after being confronted by Palamedes. She tells him herself - she has been giving pieces of the truth and using those to manipulate the narrative. Because of this and because it's much more fun if it isn't a hyperbole I see no point to dismiss it as an emotional inaccuracy.

So let's say she is over 10,000 years old. How does that work?

First thing I went looking for while trying to figure this out was the question of Cytherea's birth. On the fandom wiki, it states that Cytherea was born into the established Seventh. I have been combing through the books, and I cannot find anything in canon that truly confirms this. What we do know of the timeline and her age is the following from HtN chapter 9:

"When they first brought her to Canaan House, I thought there'd been some mistake. - She was just shy of thirty then, I recall. -

-Was she the first gen, or second?"

"Second," said God. "Early second. We were still experimenting with getting the Sixth installation up and running. Some of the Houses were empty."

Mercymorn spoke up: "No. We had it running by then. Because Valancy was with us, and Anastasia."

-"Yes, you're right. We were all there to meet her. All sixteen of us -

'Some of the houses were empty' is the important line here, because in NtN John 5:4 Harrow describes how the resurrection happened:

-You resurrected some of them. You wake up fewer still. You start out with a few thousand, then, later, some hundred thousand, then millions, but never more than millions. You teach them how to live all over again. You teach yourself. -

The houses are named in order of resurrection. The Seventh, then, comes after the Sixth, which should make it obvious that by the time Cytherea arrived the Sixth was already established - or the Seventh wouldn't have existed. Yet, for some reason, for John this is not as obvious. I have found what could be an explanation in HtN chapter 2:

He said, "No. I haven't truly resurrected anyone in ten thousand years. But at that time... I set many aside, for safety... and I've often felt bad about just keeping them as insurance. They've been asleep all this myriad, Harrow, -

The difference wouldn't be as obvious to John, because he didn't resurrect the houses one by one. He resurrected a chunk of the earth's population, kept them dormant, and piece by piece woke them up to populate the houses. Beyond the fact that Cytherea is never said to have been born on the Seventh in canon (again, to my knowledge - please correct me if I missed it), the following from HtN chapter 2 really seals the deal in my eyes that she was not born on the Seventh but rather woken up for the Seventh.

The emperor said gently, "She needs to go home, Harrow."

"That was never her home," he said.

You did not look. "And will the Seventh House accept her?"

I also considered John might feel Cytherea belongs at home with the other Lyctors and therefore denies that the Seventh is her home, but then remembered the following from the same chapter:

He said, "No Lyctor has ever returned home, once we understood the reprecussions... no Lyctor except one, who knew I would come to intercept her for that very reason."

He is talking about how Harrow cannot go home to the Ninth, and referring to Cytherea going home by returning to Canaan house located on earth. John also talks about the kind of people he resurrected in NtN John 5:4:

-We'll get them all back... some of them, anyway... or at least, the ones I want to bring back. Anyone I feel didn't do it. Anyone I feel had no part in it. Anyone I can look at the face of and forgive. -

Part of the same chapter I included above in combination with this one make me itchy almost. Harrow says 'You teach them how to live all over again.' That almost feels like it should be people who recently learned how to live. Like John only resurrected kids.

Think about it. He resurrects his loved ones and ones he can forgive. People who did not take part in the destruction of earth in his eyes. Who other than children could he really be talking about? Children, babies, who have no power to decide or influence to exert, who - even if they did have the power - do not have the capacity to understand the consequences of their actions. Whose memories will be easiest to erase because there is so little to begin with.

It then also makes sense why there were two generations of Lyctors. The population he woke up had to grow up into adults first. Why else would he have half a band of Lyctors trying to settle all of the Houses? If he was able to pick adults worthy of resurrection, he would have been able to pick adults capable of establishing his houses and becoming his hands and gestures.

One final point that drives this home is the following from the very beginning of GtN in chapter 7 when Teacher tells the Ninth about Dulcinea's condition:

"Dulcinea Septimus was not meant to live to twenty-five,"-

Dulcinea's hereditary disease is the same as Cytherea's. John did not know she was sick when she first was brought to Canaan house, which means that when he resurrected her, she must have been young enough to not be actively dying yet. Perhaps a toddler or a child who had been sick for some time - long enough to know what it feels like to slowly be dying.

So, all in all, my answer is that Cytherea was not born on the Seventh. I am not sure where the idea that the second generation was born on their planets of origin came from, but I honestly doubt any of them were born instead of woken. Cytherea claiming to have learned something 10,000 years ago would be a great way for Tamsyn to give us just enough to figure it out - this is, after all, the same author who gave us the big reveal of the second book in the first sentence of the first book of her series.

[eternalmomentss]

yes king give us the orym meta!

You asked so nicely...

Oh boy, oh boy, where to even start. This has probably been said a million times before, so I might just word vomit a little bit here. I fear this might get a little messy, but just hold on...

So, first of all I have never really enjoyed the idea that Orym is the rational one in the party or that he serves as the one and only true moral compass. I've seen the take that he is the only "normal" person in this group and that he might have exploded and left them at any second because their chaotic, stubborn and messy nature doesn't fit in with his own personality and values. To that I have to say no, he is not the "normal" one, he is not the most "morally correct" one, and yes he fits in very well with this group.

Orym is heavily biased when it comes to the idea of what justice is and what the right course of action might be in their situation, which - just like with most of Bell's Hells, is due to his trauma and genuine concern for the world. His experience with it has just been very different and he gravitates toward the "pro-god" / "anti-ludinus/predathos" side of the conflict because of it, unlike most of the other Hells. But that doesn't mean he isn't a necessary and valuable part of the entire puzzle that led to the outcome they eventually decided on.

Most of the time Orym himself doesn't even realize just how stubbornly narrow-minded and biased he is and how his idea of justice becomes more and more resentful and unyielding. In a way, it's the exact same thing as with say Ash or Dorian, who hold onto their hatred of the gods and the system due to their own trauma. Just because Orym's raw disdain is directed at a more well defined embodiment of a "big bad villain" rather than a concept, doesn't mean it's different at its core. His beliefs kind of remained stagnant and onesided with the appearance of Luda, which makes complete sense. Being confronted with the source of all his misery obviously does that, but he is not more moral or correct than the rest of the group because if it. He says he doesn't want revenge but it's a clear lie.

He regresses hard throughout the course of the narrative, which is the entire focus of his character arc. In his case, regression is progression. He goes from claiming that his family died fulfilling their duty and protecting their home to insisting they died for nothing and Luda is responsible for everything bad that has ever happened in the world. He gets stuck in this deep hatred and focuses on this strict narrative to ease his own feelings of guilt and try to make sense of his trauma (which is valid, of course, I am not saying he shouldn't hate Luda). But with each new terrible thing that happens, he finds a way to pin it on Da'leth. When they discuss the power structure of the current situation, he circles back to the man again and again, even in moments when they really didn't mean to talk about him (for example, at Essek's when Ash and Dorian lamented the power imbalance between gods and people and Orym immediately felt attacked and made it about Ludinus again). He is unable to seperate the two concepts in his head. There is evil, which is Ludinus and there is in turn good, which is everything and anything that man calls an enemy: the gods and the current status quo, because it stands in contrast to him.

And yes he says he is not pro-god, but his understanding and sympathy of the gods grows at the same pace that his hatred for Luda does, to the point that what he fears about Predathos actually happens with the Wildmother (she accidentally pushes him to hard and has her "steps on ants" moment so to speak), but he overlooks it, latches onto her and is quick to forgive, because they have a common enemy and that's all that matters.

Orym's idea of good and bad is basically along the lines of "the thing that hurt me and the side that's against it" (and I am not sayin that isn't understandable, it absolutely is, given what he has been through). He cannot let go of that idea. He kills Ludinus and he enjoys the idea of getting rid of something evil, but once he has done it, he feels empty. Because really, he didn't succeed in snuffing out all evil in the world or ending his pain and guilt just by killing that man. He didn't fix the situation, like he so adamantly told himself he could. It's not that easy. In that moment, he realizes that this is so much bigger and so much more complicated. For probably the first time, Orym has to cave, he shuts down completely because now he sees that the world was never that black and white to start with. And it's so, so heartbreaking.

Orym is fundamentally just as scared and biased and bitter as everyone else. And he does everything to reach his own goals. He gets himself into a pact with Morri, he gaslights himself into believing he has to sell his entire soul away for it (which we know now was never true), risks being enslaved and losing his life. He persists on being noble and dutiful to the point where he feels the need to keep sacrificing himself, keep pushing, keep doing the things he has been doing all this time. In those moments when he might start to see the greyscales around him and he needs to question his own judgement. He needs to revaluate and make this journey make sense again, because there is no way he could be wrong at this point, right? Not after all this time. It's a compulsion inside of him, it makes him run in circles.

(Here I would like to say; I enjoy he idea of ptsd and ocd Orym, which has come up a few times. It really does work well, especially considering the obsessive and compulsive thoughts and behaviour, rituals, rumination, etc.

I am not a therapist, nor am I qualified to porperly evaluate a fictional character's mental state, so of course I cannot claim to know this for sure, it's a headcanon I've seen pop up that I found to be fitting.)

So, there ya go....

Orym of the Air Ashari I adore you, you are not okay.

[shouldhavebeenpersephone]

I don't know about a better literary analyst but I do have thoughts for your ring.

To me, the biggest difference between Perfect Lyctorhood and Grand Lysis tracks back to the og Lyctors and the interpretations of "One Flesh, One End". The two pairings specifically are John/Alecto and G1deon/Pyrrha, both of which are not entirely right but feel narratively close to Harrow/Gideon and Palamedes/Camilla.

Let's look at John/Alecto first. They have Perfect Lyctorhood. "One Flesh" for them is the mutual consumption in a physical and carnal way, even though we can only assume the ways in which John and Alecto interacted were fucked up. "One End" for them is the mutual Achilles's Heel - they are both truly immortal and invulnerable, except when it comes to one another. The origin of their dynamic is Alecto as Earth giving herself to John and feeding him her energy to grant him powers, this ending in her death which was the plan - except John fucked up by eating her partially and forcing her into a body for whatever remained, giving her a part of himself back to keep her together and chained to him.

When it comes to Harrow/Gideon, the origin story is not too different. Gideon offers herself up for Harrow, and Harrow fucks it up by not following Gideon's intentions. They have a push-and-pull that prevents them from being individuals without the other's context - Harrow would not be Harrow without Gideon and Gideon would not be Gideon without Harrow. They do not complete eachother, but one cannot be defined without the other, just like John and Alecto. Both pairs could not exist without the interference of their other half.

Then we have G1deon/Pyrrha. They never achieved Grand Lysis, but they come closest from what we have seen. "One Flesh" for them is the literal body they share. "One End" for them is their common goals, common moves and their devotion to one another. I will not explore this here, but I think Pyrrha was also a necromancer if not the necromancer of the pair, and I think John resurrected her as one to discourage or sabotage her and G1deon's close partnership - I think John was jealous of Pyrrha, because G1deon was meant to be his right hand man and yet Pyrrha always came first. Pyrrha shows to have had an extremely intimate and intricate understanding of G1deon in NtN. In GtN we see their work space as the only one that is truly lived in, with beds side by side. They were absolutely inseparable.

Palamedes/Camilla end up in very similar circumstances. They are always shown to complete each other, down to uncanny knowledge of one another that no average human has of even themselves. They fill where the other leaves a gap, and by doing so and having done so their entire lives (as was alluded to in The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex) they can no longer feel complete alone. They do exist without the other and make the impression of very capable separate entities - they just cannot be active agents on their own, they need their duo dynamic to truly be themselves.

The connection John makes with Harrow and Pyrrha makes with Camilla fortifies their parallels - John sees himself in Harrow and goes far enough to say he wishes she was his; Pyrrha knows from the very beginning the type of sacrifice Camilla will make even without Palamedes having to ask and reminisces with Varun about G1deon the night her suspicions get confirmed.

But what does this mean for AtN? I think Harrow/Gideon and Palamedes/Camilla are meant to be the same stories as John/Alecto and G1deon/Pyrrha, but this time it's retold with the question of what would have happened if it went well. What if John was driven by love for the Earth alone and did not have his own agenda and hunger for power? What if G1deon had kept prioritising his partnership with Pyrrha at all times? What if Alecto had gotten a choice? What if Pyrrha still could communicate with G1deon?

We have seen the Grand Lysis. I think chances are we will also see Perfect Lyctorhood done right - maybe even through an actual kiss rather than whatever John tricked Alecto into believing a kiss should be.

Nona spoilers ahead

It seems so obvious that Gideon and Harrow are set up for perfect lyctorhood. Harrow is already chilling in her body with a little bit of Gideon's soul, and Gideon is chilling in her own body now, she just needs a little bit of Harrow's soul.

I'm really interested in how this contrasts with Paul though. If the Warden hadn't blown himself up, surely he and Camilla could've achieved perfect lyctorhood, but would they have wanted to? Would they have preferred to continue separately, or would they have chosen Grand Lysis anyway? I like to think that their Grand Lysis is a reflection on their relationship, how they've always been two halves of a greater whole. I don't know, maybe a better literary analyst can throw their thoughts in the ring

[cbrownjc]

My Long IWTV Season 2 Prediction Post:

So this is a long post containing all my (more or less) final predictions for Season 2 of IWTV. Mostly so I can keep track of everything I've been predicting since Season 1 ended.

I'm breaking this all up between General Predictions and some specific Episode Predictions. And I'll put it all under a spoiler cut due to the length and just in case any of this is correct, which would mean massive spoilers. Because yes, many of these predictions are based on things found in many of the books in the VC, not just IWTV; as well as recent trailers and other press material.

General Predictions:

Louis will attempt to end his life like he did in the book Merrick by the end of the season, likely in EP08: This is something that I've been predicting since EP05 of Season 1 first aired. I think it is pretty much my oldest prediction wrt the show, and one I've never wavered from. Now it's time to see if this prediction is right or not.

Lestat is asleep in a coma somewhere in the Al Shafar Tower, and is the source of The Groan: I first made this prediction back before EP07 of S01 aired. I wasn't too confident about it being proven during Season 1, but I think now is the time. Maybe Lestat's in the penthouse. Maybe he's in the basement. Maybe he is on some floor in between, I don't know. But something like The Groan wasn't spoken about as just some throw-away line. There is a reason it was pointed out. And I think that is because Lestat is the source for the sound and makes it sometimes while he is in his post-Memnoch coma state. And what is going to finally wake him up will be Louis doing what I predicted above in my first prediction.

Armand and Daniel's relationship (ie their past romantic relationship) will be revealed in EP08: I've been predicting this more times than I can count during the hiatus. Simply because, as far as general/causal audiences go, revealing it in the finale always just seemed like the most impactful place to reveal it.

The missing pages of Claudia's diaries will reveal the information about her that we learned in the book Merrick, particularly regarding her feelings toward Louis: Via the link above I made a long meta post about that. I'll say more about it below, but in general, why Louis is going to do what he does by the end of EP08 will be because of what he reads/learns from Claudia's missing diary pages, just like as what happened with book!Louis in Merrick.

Louis will begin to awaken his Fire Gift abilities during the season: There is a quick shot in one of the preview trailers of what looks to be Louis setting one of his photographs on fire, but not with a match or candle or anything, but just by staring at it. I think when Louis first discovers he has the ability to light things on fire like that, he'll not be overly excited about it or anything, and only reluctantly test it out sometimes . . . until he unleashes it in full in the season finale against the theater coven.

--------

Episode Predictions (Spoilers):

Episode One (many people have already seen this episode at the premiere, but there is one thing I was already predicting about it before then that I want to say again):

-- Louis and Claudia will not arrive in Paris until either the end of the episode or the beginning of Episode Two.

-- This episode will be a set up to explain how revenants are created. That they are made if you try to turn a human but don't give them enough blood; OR if you don't scatter the ashes of a vampire that has been reduced to one. This will be done to set up both why Claudia's ashes had to be scattered AND the risks being made to bring Louis back either at the end of Season 2 or the beginning of Season 3.

---

Episode Two:

-- Not much to say really that most don't already know/suspect. Louis and Claudia arrive in Paris, and Armand and Louis first meet. Louis and Claudia meet the whole theater coven.

---

Episode Three:

-- Again, not much to say. Armand's full backstory will be told. This is also the main episode where we'll see Nicki and what his fate was. We will probably also get confirmation from Armand that the backstory that Lestat told Louis and Claudia about Magnus and how Lestat said he was turned was true.

credit: gif by @sheisraging

---

Episode Four:

-- Louis and Armand have sex for the first time (with Dreamstat in Louis' head giving commentary 🤪).

credit: gif by @sheisraging

-- The "banquet" scene, where Armand puts the coven members to sleep and Louis and Santiago have a confrontation (Louis looking like he's going to cut Santiago's tongue out.)

-- We will see the rift between Claudia and Louis continue to grow, as well as Claudia's distrust/dislike of Armand.

credit: gif by @sophsun1

---

Episode Five:

-- "Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat." 😂

credit: gif by @loo-nuh-tik

Yeah. We'll see this moment above in Episode 5. And Louis and Armand will basically deliver all their break-up dialogue from the end of the first book HERE, in Louis' shitty apartment in San Francisco; after Louis has attacked and almost killed Daniel.

This means that yes, Louis will confirm to Armand that he knows what Armand did to Claudia here. (With only heavy illusions made about what her ultimate fate has been.) And then Armand will give his "I thought you'd get over it" monologue.

And while Louis and Armand won't fully go their separate ways as they did in the book after all of this (because Armand will still feel he needs to look after Louis), we will very much understand that these two are not a happy couple at this point in time, and are full-on toxic in their own unique way.

credit: gif by @loo-nuh-tik

-- Along with the FULL 1973 interview, The Chase between Armand and Daniel will be shown almost in full. We'll see a lot of things about The Chase, but we will probably not see fully when, or how, it ended.

---

Episode Six:

-- "I betrayed Louis once in my life and it wasn't in San Francisco." Armand says this to Daniel in Dubai in this episode.

-- Madeleine gets turned in this episode.

-- Louis says goodbye/breaks up with Armand.

credit: gif by @hermit-frog

-- "The Last Supper."

credit: gif by @nalyra-dreaming

-- The episode will end with Louis, Claudia, and Madeleine all being taken by the Theater coven to be put on trial. Armand gives Louis a "Judas kiss" and leaves the three alone at the dinner table right before they are taken.

credit: gif by @ofinkandust

---

Episode Seven:

-- Okay so, back when the Jones Cut trailer first aired, I said that this moment was Rockstar Lestat:

credit: gif by @virginiaisforvampires

Well, I was wrong about that. Why? Well take a look at this:

credit: gif by @sheisraging

Do you see it? Behind Santiago, in the upper left. That is the same key prop on the railing as in the shot with Lestat on the right on the railing. If you squint, you can also kind of make out the musical notes on the railing to the left of the Lestat image on the railing on the right in the Santiago one.

The shot of Lestat isn't Rockstar Lestat, as I first thought it was. It is the real Lestat's first entrance into Season 2. And it's going to be at the trial, in Episode Seven.

-- And because Lestat is making his first entrance in the way I talked about above? This is 100% from Armand's POV with some of Louis' misremembered POV with it. Because Lestat was not in any condition to make THIS kind of entrance on his own.

-- The revisit of Mardi Gras Murder Night from EP07 of Season 1 will happen here, during the trial. And it will be revealed that Claudia alone slit Lestat's throat while Louis stood by passively, while Lestat begged Louis to put him in his coffin. (Matching up to what Claudia wrote, in Lestat's blood, what his last words were.) Giving the full context to this moment we only saw in a flash in EP07 of Season 1:

Which will then lead into . . .

-- The revisit of the Louis-Lestat fight from EP05 of Season 1 will be shown in this episode as well. (And will give viewers, particularly non-book readers, their first hints of Amel.) And because of what happened in that fight, specifically why that fight started in the first place, will tie into . . .

-- Claudia's diaries, which will be read at the trial. Out loud. By Santiago. And more specifically the missing pages, which we see Louis and Armand talk about in this preview, will contain some damning evidence that will all lead to . . .

credit: gif by @mundaneandmagicalcreature

-- Claudia will reveal right there, on stage, to Louis himself, how much she hates him and blames him more for her situation than she does Lestat. Because "It's never been about me." Lestat made her for Louis. If Louis hadn't wanted her, she would never have been turned.

-- This episode will end with Claudia's death. Louis will be rescued from his coffin prison by Armand, and the episode will end with Louis breaking down over her loss -- both in the past and in the present in Dubai now that he remembers everything about Claudia's true feelings towards him right before she died.

---

Episode Eight:

-- Louis goes all Carrie/Firestarter on the Theater coven (after warning Armand to stay away first), unleashing his full Fire Gift powers on them all.

credit: gif by @sam-reid

-- Louis grieving in the park -- the same park where he first met Armand -- in the rain after destroying the theater coven, comforted by Dreamstat. And then Armand arrives . . . because Armand is whom Louis was actually waiting for. Why? Because, as Louis said about it in the book --

Where to go then, if not to die? It was strange how the answer came to me.

credit: gif by @hermit-frog

-- Louis and Armand (and Dreamstat) go to the "Louver" for that moment from the book; which in the show has been replaced with someplace else since, post WWII, the Louver was apparently still closed at that time. It will be revealed that Louis knows of Armand's hand in Claudia's fate, shown via Dreamstat's reaction to everything Armand says about what happened.

-- And this will all now tie everything together into what will be alluded to about Claudia -- and Louis knowing Armand had a hand in it whatever it was -- in Episode 5 . . . and this now reveals why Louis and Armand's relationship has not been a happy one at all over the years, as we will see in Episode 5. And this will all be summed up by Louis probably saying this from the book directly to Armand:

"Yes, that is the crowning evil, that we can even go so far as to love each other, you and I. And who else would show us a particle of love, a particle of compassion or mercy? Who else, knowing us as we know each other, could do anything but destroy us? Yet we can love each other."

-- And the "Louver" scene will be the last scene we see Dreamstat in, as it will be here that Armand will tell Louis that Lestat died in the destruction of the theater. And Louis will believe him.

-- Armand, in the present in Dubai, will reveal the head thing he did to Claudia before she died.

-- Armand will reveal how he threw Lestat off Magnus' tower, even after Lestat was badly burned by Louis setting fire to the theater (but survived).

-- we will find out WHY Louis stopped feeding on humans in the year 2000. And it's probably not something anyone expects.

-- At some point in here it will be revealed that Lestat and Louis do reunite after Paris -- for real -- for a time, in the recent past. As seen by this hug:

credit: gif by @nalyra-dreaming

However, something happened that made Lestat unavailable/incapacitated again (some Memnoch-type event is my guess.) So Lestat is now in a coma and Louis, rather than be alone, chooses to stay with Armand for the same reason he did after losing Claudia in Paris.

-- In Dubai, Louis will try to end his life via sunlight exposure, as he did in the book Merrick (as I noted above). Because, along with finally remembering the truth about how Claudia really felt about him, Louis will also be under the impression that Lestat will never wake from his coma again.

-- The bookcase collapsing around Daniel is a consequence of Lestat waking up from his coma after he stops hearing Louis' heart beating. (I.E. a visual representation of Lestat "shattering the realm" as it is apparently explained in the book Prince Lestat about this moment when he woke up in Merrick.)

-- Armand saves Daniel from getting crushed by the bookcase, which will also come tumbling down after the books and glass do.

-- Somewhere in all of that, Daniel will have a flashback that reveals he and Armand were actually lovers in the past. Daniel will be stunned by the memory. Armand will just be surprised that Daniel finally remembered it.

-- Armand and Daniel won't have time to talk about it though because Armand fears/will realize that Louis has done something that caused the commotion to happen (and likely because he also notices The Groan has stopped).

-- Armand and Daniel find Louis' body, burnt to coal ash. Lestat is either already there with Louis' body or arrives very soon after they do.

-- Whether we see Lestat revive Louis (as he was revived in Merrick) at the end of the episode (with Armand's help) or if we are left on a cliffhanger about it? IDK.

--------

The predictions above are all the ones I feel most confident about right now. There are some others I have, but I'm not very confident about them, so I'm not listing them. I might mention them in individual posts after certain episodes air or not.

[rei-ismyname]

Exceptional X-Men #7 review

Yew! It's Exceptional time again, and I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that it's an X-Manhunt tie in. The good news is that Chuck doesn't appear at all - he's too busy resurrecting [REDACTED] over in X-Force. He is mentioned and briefly discussed, but it adds to the story instead of disrupting it. Good times.

I feel the same way, Emma.

The issue kicks off with Emma Frost thinking about Krakoa. It's framed as her thinking on her true loves, with various men (including Scott) coming in second to Krakoa. It looks like she's reflecting on safety, loss, and thwarted attempts to pass something on to younger generations. It's still an open wound for her and it hurts. Exceptional has shown Emma keeping herself busy to try and hold it together but these thoughts keep creeping in.

In the here and now Emma and Kitty are working with the kids and trying to figure out their place in the world. The students continue to grow and assert themselves, with Melee deferring to Kate in matters of phasing and Axo drifting away from the group. He's late because he's hanging with Mr X, who's drawing him in close with performative transparency and working HARD to making him feel valued. As established in previous issues, Axo's very visible mutation (and Xenos' manipulation) feeds feelings of isolation from his friends and teachers.

I wasn't sure if it was a one off the last few times, but it looks like this book is sticking with these fourth wall breaks in place of thought bubbles of times past. It's a really difficult thing to pull off without looking like The Office, but I think it does heavy lifting here. The technique requires the reader to use context to figure out when a character 'talks to the camera' but now it's happened a few times it feels natural. It's the kind of thing that's easy to overdo - once an issue max doesn't define the book's identity or use it as a crutch for exposition.

It requires a kind of sincerity to distinguish itself from the formalism of Deadpool or the meta awareness of She-Hulk - having Axo clearly state what he's thinking to the reader/himself shows us his awareness and idealism. He wants to believe that Xenos is for real, so it's more obvious to us that he's working him than it is for Axo. Grooming him, even, by saying exactly what he wants to hear. The part of his mutant power that causes people to tell him their secrets sounds awful, frankly. That really would compromise your ability to trust people.

Sadly, that's extending to the rest of the squad, festering with the isolation and Xenos' influence. Axo feels deeply and doesn't react well to feeling ganged up on. As the team tries to reach him, calling out a blatant lie but offering support, Axo switches through emotions (as shown by his hue shifts) and lets it all out.

Poor kid is not coping well. More than anything, this reminds me of how abusers work to establish themselves as the only person their victim can trust, cutting them off from their support networks and isolating them socially. Not to diminish Axo's very justified feelings of course - that's what makes Xenos' manipulation of what's already there all the more insidious.

Aaaand Bobby bursts in at the worst possible time with the news of Chuck's escape. Even from afar, Xavier manages to fuck with mutant lives. Axo just leaves, with him feeling even more isolated and nobody realising that Xavier isn't that important to them right now. Kate and Emma have a ton of questions that don't get answered, but the kids have no idea who he is.

Honestly, it's a little surprising that they wouldn't have at least head of him - dude has been the most prominent person in the world ever since he telepathically spoke to everyone on the planet. But that's the direction From The Ashes has taken and it works better for this situation I think. As much as I want Kate and Emma to tell Xavier what they think of him etc, that hasn't exactly played out in other X-Manhunt books. Would they help him? My instinct says no, but given the arbitrariness of who has and hasn't it's complicated.

It's impossible to sum up Charles Xavier in a few sentences, especially for teachers trying to learn from the mistakes of the past and empower the kids to choose their own destiny. Knowing history can help you avoid the same pitfalls, and mutant history is barely even past in the Faulknerian sense. Thao is the best informed of the students, believing that Krakoa is something that happened to other people. Emma disagrees, and it's hard to argue against. Every refuge or safe space mutants have had has been destroyed or compromised, opposed by humans both individual and institutional. It's a very interesting and relevant conversation for this group to have, and I hope it's followed up on next issue.

Xavier the absent symbol drives this discussion, and I'm really glad he didn't show up for it. In the abstract I'd love to have the back and forth, but Chuck isn't doing that right now. He's getting the fuck out of dodge. He'll come up again, but I think using his escape as a means to exacerbate the adults' personal problems and putting the very recent loss centre stage is clever.

Axo heads back to Xenos, and before everything goes to shit we get another source of support for him and confirmation of fan speculation. Sophie Cuckoo in NYX and Axo have both been playing Summoner. Turns out they've got a thing going on, and it's completely digital which means Axo's powers don't 'tarnish' it. That's really cute, and given both are connected to Emma there's so much potential.

It looks like he's not entirely sold on Mr X, who seems maybe too good to be true? It's a really clever way of confirming that he feels like they don't listen to him without coming out of nowhere. For a line that's so disconnected, this tie-in is perfect.

Xenos takes Axo to his private lab, as he's in the 'inner circle.' There's nobody else around and it's a network dead zone. That plus his creepy villain speech has Axo seeing red flags. He's not comfortable and wants to bail right now.

Yeah, no, he can't get out. Xenos gives off huge 'Fae in the process of abducting you' vibes as he explains what he needs him for then drops the mask entirely. If it wasn't already spoiled and hinted half a dozen ways, the empathetic parts of his being that are 'long gone' would. That he needs Axo's gifts specifically for his fucked up plans hints at what he might be up to.

This is awful. Axo is a super empathetic person who has difficulty trusting people. Sinister has slowly broken down his barriers and just as Axo feels really uncomfortable this monster bursts out of the person he felt he could trust. In general, Axo has been part of a book that hasn't had to deal with outside context problems like this - being objectified and dehumanised is going to crush and traumatise him. Poor kid.

Yeah, it's Mister Sinister. Fuck. He seems to need Axo alive which is a good thing, though it won't be pleasant for the poor kid. Exceptional X-Men has its first bad guy, officially. One of my personal metrics for an ongoing is how well it handles being part of a crossover. Granted, we don't know how much latitude each writer had with that but X-Manhunt is only used here to further existing themes and to push Axo out the door. I wonder if it'll be included in the trade, assuming X-Manhunt gets one. Probably not. If you were reading this to get more information on Chuck's quest, you'll probably be disappointed, if you didn't feel like that already.

As an issue of an ongoing it's excellent, as usual. We know who the characters are and we're invested in them. The generational and interpersonal tension is running hot, and now Axo is in Mr Sinister's clutches. Exceptional isn't your traditional X-Men team - they haven't been on any missions and the adults only have the authority the kids give them. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with a problem like this, even if solicits have spoiled the broad strokes. That's related to line-wide oddities and editorial decisions, but I think I'll discuss those separately. My brain and body are misbehaving at the moment and I don't want to overtax myself.

[queen-simia]

now that ep 4 is live to the public, I can finally post what I've been sitting (and spinning) on for like a week, wheeee!

Major Monkey Wrench spoilers abound, so putting below a cut if you haven't yet seen the latest episode. And if you haven't seen it (or the rest of the series), you can do so here:

now ON TO THE INFODUMP

Shrike's status

so, since the beginning, I've been putting all my money on Shrike being an artificial being. Not in the sense of robotics/cyborgs and the like, but in the sense of a one-of-a-kind bioengineered creature. Since he was confirmed as an endling (as opposed to just hinted at in past episodes), I'm choosing to take that as a bit of reinforcement; his species is still marked as "unknown" by LAW, and if no one knows what you are and you're the only one they've ever seen, it's safe to assume they assume you're the last of whatever you are.

now, in a leap on my part, I'm further going to postulate that Shrike is actually an engineered squid. As in an honest-to-god Earth cephalopod, albeit in the same sense you can call a human a monkey. I think that maybe our boy Shrike is the end result of years-long genetic modification and breeding programs to create something closer to human shape and intelligence, but with whatever attributes his human creators wanted from squid...

...maybe attributes like producing ink.

"that's stupid, what makes you think that?" Glad you asked, Strawman! Here's what I'm drawing from:

Scratch's nicknames for Shrike

As much as these can be considered throwaways, Zeurel and Ash have been very good about sneaking in foreshadowing in dialogue. I don't fully think Scratch is calling Shrike "squidhead" just to be antagonistic (though in-universe, he certainly is; I doubt the character himself in canon has that kind of insight); I'm choosing to believe it may be a bit of a Chekhov's gun.

Shrike's design inspiration

In Tumblr ask replies, Zeurel's confirmed Shrike's design is based heavily on Humboldt squid, and he finds cephalopods and deep-sea life in general interesting. It's going into meta rather than narrative precedent, but I think for these reasons, having Shrike actually be an ascended squid wouldn't be that far out of the blue.

Shrike's terran connections

It's been established that Earth no longer exists, and what humans remain are persona non grata in LAW space. They're the reason behind the Cataclysm/the creation of Secondary Green, and what artifacts remain are traded on the black market (as implied by Scratch and Jaw Bone dealing in them, neither of whom are exactly upstanding citizens).

Yet somehow, Shrike speaks primarily in a canonically dead Earth language—Latin Spanish—and thinks highly of terrans/terran culture. He apparently is the only being in LAW space who does both. One could argue he picked up Spanish through exposure to contraband as a LAW officer, but even his translated speech is Spanish-accented. That to me is a clue it's his native language, as opposed to one picked up later in life. Maybe he doesn't speak it all that well, but it's what he learned as he grew up.

I believe that Shrike's interest in terran artifacts isn't so much fannish as it is nostalgic, though he doesn't realize it (yet). Remember, we don't know his true age—he's only estimated to be in his mid- to late 20s. He could very well be several decades or even 800+ years old, and for reasons yet unknown he isn't aware of it. Hell, he knows what VHS tapes are and how to watch them, something present-day kids are unfamiliar with right now. Even if he was treated as only a scientific specimen in his youth, something about Earth/its people may have been warm and familiar enough to endear terran mementos to him. But it's now too far gone in the past for him to remember why exactly he loves them so much.

Shrike got no dick

(originally posted to Twitter before the Shittening)

Canonically, the boy is Ken-doll smooth both front and back. Even though he has a gender (Questionably Masc™), he has no sex. Maybe his species could reproduce asexually, but it's pretty unusual for complex bipedal critters to do that. Plus, there's the fact that no peehole and no butthole also mean no bodily waste excretion, which is pretty much a death sentence for most life forms that run on metabolic processes. Therefore, I'm taking all these as artifacts of Shrike's artificial creation (and not just so it's more difficult to make show-accurate porn of him).

The Primaries, LAW, and Secondary Green

So there are three godlike beings that ostensibly also serve as the basis for government, referred to as the Primaries. Only one has been directly referenced as active in LAW government—Primary Red—but given the colors of the three LAW divisions, one can safely assume there must be a Primary Yellow and Primary Blue (whether they also govern, are off doing something else, or are AWOL is a mystery for now). It also just so happens that interstellar travel takes place in subspace pathways in the same colors as the Primaries (with varying speed depending on color), and spacecraft is fueled by "ink" in those corresponding primary colors.

It's also revealed in a news chyron in ep 4 that an intergalactic-capable drive had been in development (and had been stalled by bureaucracy) for at least 20 years, and is now ready to deploy. It's referred to as a Trinity drive, and required Primary Red's approval before it could officially launch. I think it's pretty safe to assume it's a form of propulsion that combines all 3 colors, however the in-universe physics work in that case. At the moment, it's been shown that using the wrong type of ink in a color drive will cause an explosion and a tear in space at best (at worst, we don't know yet), so whatever science went into developing a drive that combines colors must have been fairly dangerous (or potentially threatens to weaken whatever power the Primaries hold over LAW citizens).

Secondary Green

Background details are vital lore sources in Monkey Wrench. If you paid close attention near the beginning of ep 1 (and can easily read backwards text), you already know what's in the box the boys pick up in ep 2: something called "Secondary Green." It was evidently once in Chester's possession, but by the time Kara caught up to him, he'd already sent it on its way to LAW.

The second and third episodes refer to the Cataclysm being caused by terrans. The third episode explains the green corruption's effect on life forms, and LAW subsequently quarantining it to prevent its spread. It also shows Secondary Green corrupting the bit of Them that gets too close into the horrific black-green monster that overtakes the Bucket. The fourth ep has Jaw Bone directly refer to the terrans' "false idol" in reference to the Cataclysm.

While I was typing later paragraphs, I hit upon a possibility I hadn't even considered for what Secondary Green could be. So now, I've got 2 potential reads:

1. Secondary Green was the humans' attempt at recreating the Primaries' power for themselves. Whether this was to undermine LAW or to try to join the galactic stage at the Primaries' level has yet to be seen, but either way, it ended up biting humanity in the ass. Secondary Green and/or a byproduct of it/its creation ended up destroying Earth and a good chunk of its neighboring Milky Way space, and landed whatever humans remain squarely on LAW's shit list.

Now, those of you who remember me from pre-2018 Tumblr also know I'm pretty heavily into Mass Effect. That universe's version of the Milky Way also was governed by an alien-run coalition: the Citadel, which tightly controlled the means to interstellar travel (although the Citadel species did not create these means, they just found and activated them first). Thus, the similarities to the idea of a three-pronged alien government holding the keys to interstellar travel and commerce and forcing you to play nice if you want in have been resonating in the back of my mind whenever I watch Monkey Wrench.

The similarities end in that MW's answer to the Protheans are still very much alive and active, and are directly overseeing galactic travel, commerce, and government. There aren't established mass relays, but every ship contains its own "relay" in the form of ink drives. These can open portals into respective colors of subspace to get from one side of the galaxy to another faster than conventional propulsion (so far, red is the fastest, and blue seems to be the median speed everyday schmoes like our boys can access). And, most importantly, the means of this travel are less an external technological development and more appear to be tied to the nature of the Primaries themselves; these beings are not just obeyed, but worshiped (see Scratch's oaths in ep 3 and the red officer greeting Shrike and Armstrong exchange in ep 4).

However, there are still two very important similarities between these two settings that I think should be kept in mind:

i. Trouble started when humans started sticking their fingers into the galactic government's pie. In Mass Effect, it was shoehorning Shepard into the Spectre program and wriggling humanity's way into the Citadel Council. In Monkey Wrench, it was messing with fundamental forces it didn't yet understand and (maybe) creating human-made Great Value primaries, which resulted in at least one: Secondary Green.

ii. Control over interstellar travel—specifically, access to subspace—is a cornerstone of power. In Mass Effect, you need a specific form of reactor in order to engage the mass relays and "cheat" your way to FTL travel. These relays are heavily guarded and regulated by the Citadel; humanity famously learned this when it activated Relay 314 near Pluto and got a knock-knock from the police in the form of a turian armada. In Monkey Wrench, you need to equip specific color drives and fuel up at ink stations, which presumably are subject to LAW regulation and pricing.

In both settings, Earth appears to have taken a look at the galaxy already being run by someone else and immediately thought, "but how do I get around this?"

Engineering Secondary Green was MW Earth's answer to this question. Unfortunately, it backfired and drove humanity to (functional) extinction and criminal status.

2. Secondary Green is an unintended fusion of Primaries Yellow and Blue. This would explain their current-day absence (provided they don't directly appear in later episodes), and the subsequent fall of LAW enforcement into disorder that Armstrong alludes to in ep 4. Humanity was up to something that attracted the Primaries' attention—perhaps tapping into pocket dimensions, like the one embedded in Shrike's head?—and maybe things went awry. One way or another, Primaries Yellow and Blue's intervention ended in them fusing into a new anti-entity, Secondary Green. Instead of fostering life, their combined and imbalanced power corrupted it.

Left to their own devices (and likely hawkish methods, given Red oversees enforcement), Primary Red sealed off Earth's part of the galaxy and declared humanity LAW's enemy. The quarantine for justifiable safety/life preservation reasons, the outlawing likely to create the narrative that humanity was entirely to blame and not at all any fault of Primary interference (and maybe some vengeance for losing their comrades).

Or maybe, Red is covering their tracks.

LAW and Order

So the League of Aligned Worlds (LAW—yes, it's an acronym) is the current empire ruling civilized space in the Milky Way galaxy, under direct command of the Primaries (or at least Primary Red). There are three established branches: enforcement/military (red, which Shrike was once and has since defected from), science (yellow, which Dr. Agness impersonated), and commerce (blue, as represented by Killix and Sixty-Two, who appear to be led by an as-yet unseen Commander Tezzoree).

Being a centralized civilization, LAW has certain cultural and legal standards it expects its citizens to observe. Commerce and community are enabled by way of implanted universal translators á là Star Trek, but with one specific caveat: swearing is not allowed. It's so not allowed that it's physically punishable through painful translator auditory feedback—interestingly, people in earshot get punished this way as well just for hearing it.

Maybe it's a form of socialization, in that LAW hopes you're nice enough not to want to hurt your fellow citizens by swearing? Or that your fellow citizens, having had pain inflicted on them, will browbeat you into compliance? Either way, it's a window into current LAW space being severely authoritarian in both the moral and legal senses.

This extreme authoritarian approach doesn't prevent corruption, however. Corporate lobbyists exist, as demonstrated by Chester in ep 1, and LAW officials patronizing vice industries like sex work (see the end of ep 3) is not unusual. And current LAW is disorganized to the point of each division being largely ignorant of what's going on in the others: Neither Killix nor Sixty-Two were aware Shrike is a defector, nor do they bat an eye at him admitting as such. Armstrong is able to impersonate a red officer with either stolen or purchased equipment, and even he's astonished that LAW keeps such loose tabs on itself that they still have Shrike registered as an active officer. Dr. Agness is able to get away with impersonating a LAW scientist, and the LAW representatives who collect her don't appear especially ruffled by it.

It's possible that this rigid adherence to authority and subsequent breakdown in the ability to enforce it is due to Primary Red being the only Primary left. The harder you clench your fist, the more sand slips through your fingers, and all that. However it happened, Red is at the moment the only one at the wheel, and they don't seem to be able to keep it together on their own.

aight, so where's this leave us

so for now, I think these are where we may be headed:

a: Shrike was genetically engineered to be in the running as a peer to/defense against the Primaries, but aligned with Earth. He has a means to access a pocket dimension/subspace, could possibly be a source of ink (either as secretion or in the form of his blood), is an exceptional marksman, and possesses anthropomorphic form and (allegedly) intellect. The problem is, he turned out anti-authoritarian, impulsive, and kinda stupid. He was disposed of at some point and now wanders space as the only one of his kind.

b: The same program that produced Shrike also created Secondary Green. Unfortunately, something happened—whether through accident or external manipulation—that turned it into a rampaging force of destruction. We have yet to see whether humans really did just monumentally fuck up, or if LAW is rewriting history.

c: LAW is on its way to collapse through Primary Red's mismanagement. Whether said mismanagement is through the other Primaries going missing on their own, or through a power grab on Red's part is the main mystery.

hooray done for now oh god

[sammaggs]

1x01 Pilot // 3x01 Burning Down the House | Reset

I love the way that Burning Down the House is a basically a remix of the original Pilot, and all the different ways this speaks to where the show has been and where it’s about to go.

Season 3 is the start of something new for the show, maintaining elements of the early seasons but sacrificing big and important pieces of the rest. Paul Gross steps in as writer and EP and effectively burns the place down around him. From the ashes of the CBS version of the show, we get the version that American sensibilities have no influence over at all.

And this acknowledgement of the past while looking toward the future is a complex balancing act! due South does this so well here, maybe better than any other show I’ve ever seen: paying respect to Ray Vecchio, to Fraser’s apartment, to the old consulate, even (sort of) to the Riv, while also firmly parting ways with them for what comes next.

Motherwell: I was a slave to everything […] Until I realized it could be reduced to ashes. Wiped clean.

Our villain this episode pins down exactly what’s going on here diagetically and non-. We are starting from a clean slate—but even the ashes of Fraser’s apartment offer some comfort: Dief’s bowl; assumptively, his footlocker with his father’s journals.

So here, in BDtH, we also get beautiful Pilot and early season callbacks in the rethink. Dief making intimate with Ray’s ear, Ray blowing through stop signs in the Riv—and, of course, Fraser walking from O’Hare into Chicago.

I love the parallel here. In the Pilot, Fraser has to walk because the strange Americans are selfish and uncaring, and Fraser is all alone. In BDtH, Fraser has to walk because his best friend in the whole world has been forced to abandon him—and Fraser is still all alone.

But not for long. Something good might come from it, you know.

(Cue meta about how Victoria is immolation and self-destruction while Ray K is warm coals and thawing ice etc.)

It’s Burning Down the House week in our due South Stacked Rewatch!