#but the thing is that doylistically i like listening to things that are well made. i dont like listening to awkward cringy things

[gammija]

Chad chad on YouTube has videos with sound effects like in the casement

aha, THANK you for being the only lead so far, anon!

ok i checked out some of chad chads vids, and i get what you mean, the sound effects used in the case definitely wouldn't stand out in a chad chad vid

but, well, two things, really. Firstly is that she's on youtube while 'vidclick' is more likely a parody of tiktok, based on the way her account is formatted (at first i actually interpreted the 1.4M likes as being individual likes for her account, instead of for all her video's put together, because i dont use tiktok normally). and on tiktok, the styles ive seen so far were to either use a Sound with sound effects included, or a more 'low-effort' style of editing consisting of talking to the camera with only some jumpcuts. That this case's vid uses sound effects in a tiktok-style talking-to-camera vid isnt really a big deal, if the rest of the case had done a better job of sounding like a real video, but it adds to that disconnect.

the second and bigger thing is that. chad chad uses those sound effects in a different way. she uses basically a new sound every second while she keeps talking, does dramatic voices and short sketches, cuts and edits them together in a high paced snappy style. In that style, those sound effects work to emphasise the content. Madam E's way of using sound effects is to drop a pauze - sound effect - continue. She also lets them play out completely, instead of cutting as soon as the joke lands, and she uses only one or two each vid. It's jarring, awkward and calls too much attention to the effect, and doesn't match the low energy and slow pace of her vids (the usual fast pace of this style is another thing that the overuse of slang alone fails to appreciate - she rushes through her lines but there are no audible jumpcuts that i noticed, and even when there should be a beat of silence for audience reactions, she fills up the silence)

it's as with everything else in this case imo; It's not good enough to pass for the real deal, but it's not so clearly bad in a way that it looks intended, making the whole thing come off as vague and directionless with only the parody of 'youth speak' to hold it up

[goldeaglefire1]

so. played the Pristine Cut a few days ago (not the first time I've played Slay the Princess, for the record; I actually got into it like a month ago and have kinda just. lurked in the background, not making any posts about it. so uh. hi guys) and. GOD this game is good for so many reasons, with even more reasons being added by the Pristine Cut, and I know a lot of people have made posts about how good Happily Ever After is already, but, since I haven't seen anyone post about it from the angle I'm looking at it...y'all mind if I ramble about how good the Happily Ever After route is from a narrative perspective. trick question, I wasn't asking; I'm going to ramble about how good the Happily Ever After route is from a narrative perspective.

so! let's talk about the Damsel for a minute. this is all fairly obvious stuff but stick with me here; we need to lay the groundwork for the main discussion. the Damsel, from a purely Doylist perspective, is the archetypical "damsel in distress" trope - the girl at the end of the villain's lair who has no agency of her own and exists purely as a reward for the hero completing his journey and beating up the villain (before you get mad, I know the Damsel is not actually like this in-universe, and that fact is actually a surprise tool that will help us later, but, again, looking at this from a purely Doylist perspective: outside the world of Slay the Princess, not in it) - fundamentally, she's there to make you happy. the Shifting Mound changes based on perception, and by treating her as the archetypical damsel in distress in Chapter 1, she actually becomes one come Chapter 2, with all her hard, unconventional edges like, to pick a random example here, "the capacity to horrifically self-mutilate herself," being sanded away for a perfect storybook ending. that's what you wanted, after all.

and, if you take everything at face value, that's exactly what you get! if you follow the Voice of the Smitten's advice and completely ignore the Narrator's nonsense about how she'll "end the world" or something, you will get exactly what you asked for, because, well. that's all there is to it! there is no deeper story here, it's just "hero saves princess, the end," end scene, move on to the next princess. but that's the Damsel route, and we're here to talk about the Happily Ever After route. and in order to properly get the Happily Ever After route, you have to horribly fuck up the extremely simple narrative presented before you. so, how do you do that? two ways - either try to question the princess's character and see what underlying motives she has, or, the method I'm choosing to focus on (both because it's the one I got when I first got the Happily Ever After route and because it better illustrates my point) - when you get near the end of the Damsel's story, right as you're about to get your Happily Ever After...you listen to the Voice of the Hero. because while the Smitten may be ignoring literally everything the Narrator says, the Hero has not been doing that, and quite frankly has some concerns about the potential end of the world thing. if she really can end the world...well, she just wants to make us happy, right? so surely nothing will go wrong if you just decide to stay in the cabin forever! it's a perfect compromise!

spoiler alert: it is not a perfect compromise. it is in fact as far from a perfect compromise as you can possibly get. makes sense, really, as there are no real compromises in Slay the Princess - you can either choose to trust the Narrator in any given route, trust the Princess in any given route, or you can choose, to quote the Contrarian in the Apotheosis, the third option that nobody wants. and the only two times the third option is any good is, well, when you're very intentionally spiting both parties - hi Contrarian - and when there's an actual third party you can appeal to, as is the case at the end of the game. every other time? you will be massively punished by the narrative for trying to find another option. try the "let's keep the princess in the cabin" maneuver in chapter 1? you get the Nightmare. try to be a smartass and avoid the "slay the princess/save the princess" issue altogether? you get the Stranger.

hell, every chapter 3 is ultimately the result of you not playing the role you're supposed to in the narrative (aside from the Razor who forces you to go to a chapter 3 no matter what but she doesn't count). if you play the role you're given in chapter 2, you'll be fine! for example - did you get the Spectre? congratulations! you get the Voice of the Cold, a cold-blooded killer - except, hmm...the princess is already dead, so no one to kill there...but there is the Narrator, who you're fairly mad at for the frankly terrible reward for doing your damn job, so how do you kill him? easy - take the princess out into the world and let her world-destroying properties do the job for you. did you get the Beast? congratulations! you get the Voice of the Hunted, a meek prey animal trying to avoid a massive predator...except, well, bad news, boss - you're the only food around here, so you're going to have to get eaten. sorry man. did you get the Nightmare? congratulations! you get the Voice of the Paranoid, a nervous wreck who, frankly, does NOT want to be here, and, well. honestly, do you expect to be able to save the world? the fact that you're even managing to stand up next to this eldritch abomination is a miracle; you might as well just let her out, because, frankly, who would blame you? and so on and so forth.

the Damsel's narrative is extremely simple. you get the Voice of the Smitten, a classic, overly dramatic, simple hero to match the simple princess you're given. your job is to swoop in, sweep her off her feet, and leave. that's it. that is all there is to it. the Narrator's talk about her ending the world does not fit into this narrative, so you have to discard it. after all, why would the hero release a world-ending monster into the world? that's preposterous! he must be lying, obviously. but, by giving the Narrator the benefit of a doubt, or trying to dig deeper into the Damsel's narrative role and find depth when there is none, you expose the cracks in that narrative...and chief among those cracks is that the Damsel is not the simple character her narrative role wants her to be.

I'm not going to do a full character analysis on the Damsel because that's not the point of this post, but even on the most surface-level reading, the Damsel has two very clear desires - she wants to make you happy, and she wants to be free. and, yeah, that's fairly straightforward, but it's more than nothing, which, ah, doesn't exactly bode well. after all, the Damsel's narrative role is that of the damsel in distress, a role most known for, very notably, having no agency, and here you are, dangling her freedom right in front of her face and snatching it away, and quite frankly, that sucks! she wants to be free! she wants to be free a LOT more than she wants to make some stranger she barely knows happy, and while normally those two desires have no conflict with each other, now they do, and while the chapter 1 princess could have done something about this situation and gone Nightmare on your ass, being a blank slate as far as the narrative goes, that's not an option anymore - you've locked her into her narrative role, now, and as a damsel in distress, she can't do shit. the worst she can do is be mildly upset but otherwise have zero objections to your proposal

luckily (or, well, unluckily depending on your point of view), that's enough for you to get your proper comeuppance in the form of Smitten. poor, poor Smitten - unlike the Damsel, he really is as simple as he appears to be on the surface. even on other routes, he is always, always madly in love with the princess, no matter how she looks or acts, and all he wants is to make her happy. a simple character for a simple narrative, who, conveniently, is NEVER forced to question the Princess' role in that narrative...until now. until you forced the fact that she is NOT the simple damsel she's supposed to be directly in his face, and that she's unhappy with your decision, well. that can't be right. she can't be unhappy, we're supposed to make her happy no matter what! something's clearly wrong here - it can't be the princess, because blaming the princess for anything is inherently not an option for Smitten; it's not in his nature. it can't be us, or at least he can't figure out how it could be us, because he's a simple character for a simple narrative, and the thought of "dangling the princess's freedom in front of her and then taking it away is a massive dick move" doesn't even occur to him, because he doesn't realize that's what we were doing. so...it must be something else. maybe the Narrator, who's been describing her as this world-ending abomination when she's clearly a maiden in need of rescue, or this cabin, because, well, why would a princess be in a cabin? she need a proper castle, obviously! he can fix this, surely, there has to be some solution here, he can make this work again...and it all begins by bearing out his heart.

or, rather, YOUR heart. which, you know, kills us. everything goes dark, and we die, etc., onto the new chapter! or epilogue, if you want to go by the title card. welcome to Happily Ever After, the reward you deserve! you goddamn bastard. this route is effectively Smitten's attempt to fix the narrative you broke - and, in many ways, his efforts can be compared to the OTHER route you get by breaking the narrative of the Damsel, that being the Burning Grey. in that route, you kill the Damsel, and, well, that very obviously breaks the narrative, so when Smitten kills you in retaliation and a new world is formed, the Damsel, now the titular Burning Grey, tries to fix it. much like Smitten can't blame her, she can't blame you, because her narrative role doesn't allow it, and she doesn't blame herself, because she did literally nothing to deserve that (aside from like. the fact that she killed you that one time but frankly if you hold that against her that's a bit of a dick move), so she comes to the same conclusion that there must be an external force responsible for derailing the story. the difference between Smitten here and the Burning Grey is the solutions they come up with: the Burning Grey, fundamentally, is part the Shifting Mound, the embodiment of change, rebirth, and death. so, naturally, the solution she comes up with is to burn down the cabin with both herself and us inside, finally being together with her love forever. by melting together her and our flesh. which, you know, sucks, but at the very least the death is...relatively quick?

the Happily Ever After route does not give you or the Princess the luxury of death. after all, Smitten is not a part of the Shifting Mound, but a part of you - the Long Quiet, the embodiment of stasis and stagnation. killing you or the princess doesn't even occur to him as an option - at least, it doesn't now that he's outside of you. and while this allows him to get something much closer to what we would associate with a happy ending, it falls apart fast. the same feasts over and over again, growing more stale and bland with time, the same games over and over again, excitement dulling into boredom as you play repeatedly with no end in sight...it's not Happily Ever After, not even close, but it's the best he can manage. after all, isn't this what you wanted? you DID save the princess, and Smitten is a simple character for a simple narrative, so, this is the only option he can think of outside of riding off into the sunset with our beloved. so, this has to be what you wanted, right?

and as for the princess? well, if she was locked by the narrative before, it's even worse now with Smitten. after all, as far as she's concerned, Smitten is us, so all she knows is that, after we dangled her freedom in front of her and took it away, and she showed even the slightest bit of resistance in response, we proceeded to make her already bad situation into a living goddamn nightmare. so, yeah, she is terrified of what could possibly happen if she shows she isn't happy with this, so she's quick to smother any and all signs of dissatisfaction in the hopes that, as long as she seems happy with all this, you can't make this worse somehow. the MOST she does in terms of resistance is wear the Pristine Blade as a necklace, which is honestly more of a vague hope of "if you won't let me free from this cabin alive, then maybe at the very least you'll let me free from this cabin in death? please? on god?"

and, well, you could in fact do that. or, hell, if you REALLY feel like being an asshole, you could decide to NOT break the facade at all. but if you really want to make it up to the princess? if you realize how badly you've fucked up and want to actually make up for your mistakes? you have to let her actually express her discomfort. you have to give her back the agency she's been denied by the narrative - the agency you took away in the first place. and once she finally has that back...she cries. in relief, because she's finally free from the hell you put her in, in sorrow because, despite it all, the facade of a happy ending was nice while it lasted, in a mix of both with the tears she'd been unable to shed for so, so long...and, at the end of the day, despite having every right to hate you...she doesn't. because you DID set her free, in the end. you realized your mistakes, you learned and changed as a person, and you actually made things right, so even though you might have made her life a living nightmare...she's willing to give things a fresh start. and whether you decide to amicably part ways or start something new together, at long last, she'll finally have her chance to dance under the stars.

this is a love story.

[tathrin]

So I've been thinking about Glorfindel's horse recently, okay? (I'm listening to these delightful audio books, and just got to Rivendell.) And I am as ever caught by the inconsistency of Asfaloth's tack with Legolas's later "lol what's a saddle? get rid of that shit man, I'm an elf!" schtick in Rohan. And the question that all of that (plus Gandalf and Shadowfax of course) engenders is why the fuck wasn't Glorfindel "riding elvish style" then?

While the Doylist explanation of "Tolkien hadn't come up with that idea yet + Frodo needed to be able to both hold-onto and steer Asfaloth and he isn't an elf so he had to have a saddle" makes sense, it's obviously not satisfying from an in-universe standpoint, is it?

(And somebody made some extremely good points laying-out a very convincing logistical explanation recently, and I like it quite like a lot, and might well use that in fics myself sometime because it's splendid and seems extremely legit, and opens up some fun things to play around with re: elvish history and culture; but while it's an extremely satisfying answer in terms of Accurate World Building Detail, it's never felt entirely viscerally satisfying to me in terms of Tolkienian Style, if you follow me.)

So I posit: what if the reason why Asfaloth had Conveniently Mortal-Appropriate Tack during that section of story was for the convenience of mortals?

Specifically, the Dúnedain.

What if when the Elves of Rivendell are doing something that involves (or might potentially involve) both horses and their human allies, they put enough tack on their horses to allow one of the Rangers to be able to use that horse in a pinch? That would make sense, right? Just a simple little practical precaution!

Imagine being in a situation where you want to stick one of your human companions on your horse for some reason, or you want one of them to look after your horse for a little while you go off and do a thing, etc etc, but you can't because there aren't any reins. And now you're fucked. What a silly self-inflicted problem that could be avoided with just a little bit of planning ahead!

So, because Glorfindel knew that the Rangers would also be searching around looking for Frodo and/or evidence of the Nine, he put just enough extra tack on Asfaloth that if he, for instance, found an injured mortal in the wild, he could put them on his horse and send them back to Rivendell without him...just as a random example of a hypothetical situation that might happen.

(Anyway, that's the headcanon I'm going to be running with from here out, I think. Also I've gone and retroactively added a little scene revolving around this explanation to my Celebrimbor Fellowship AU fic, for anyone who's been interested in that story.)

*Thoughts and arguments welcome!

[lacependragon]

I am prefacing this with I love Stardew Valley and Demetrius and I am not trying to start a fight. This is a frustration I feel with the game as well as many things I've seen. Just. Sharing it.

You know man I've been playing Stardew since. Forever. And so I've seen dialogue changes quite a bit. Vanilla dialogue can be... repetitive, and so when it changes I very much Notice.

And like. Demetrius' writing, whether intentionally or not, as gotten both much more racist and ableist in the last few years. And maybe it's not on purpose! Maybe it's totally subconscious on CA's part! I don't wanna assign malice. It's easier to think it's ignorance and accidental.

And it's easy to assume it's partially fandom response, considering how much people hate him. And CA is very fandom oriented.

But Demetrius' writing is bad. It is uniquely bad. It is bad in a way that none of the others are (yes I am repeating myself). And that is oh so very obvious in any run where you get hearts up with that family.

Oh the singular Black man in town totally ignores his white step-son, treats his white wife terribly, and dotes on his mixed race daughter as if she's the only person who matters? Insults everything his wife makes? Makes vague threats at the farmer?

"Oh but it's not because he's Black!" How do you know? Are you inside CA's head? Do you know what he thinks? Do you know every unconscious bias of a man you've never met? No. You don't. I bet you don't even know all of yours. Fuck knows no one does.

Don't defend him when you don't even know him. Listen. Listen. LISTEN.

Stardew Valley is a wonderful, awesome game. But it's made by a flawed man (everyone is flawed) and it reflects his biases pretty clearly if you ask me (as many works of art do).

And if that offends you, maybe you should ask yourself why. Maybe you should ask yourself why it's so important this game and man are perfect instead of acknowledging that this amazing game has flaws that can make the game uncomfortable or frustrating for many players. Flaws that diminish characters who could otherwise be very interesting.

I also said Ableist. I'd go on a whole rant about that, too, but because Demetrius' neurodivergence is implied, not explicit, it's hard to know what is and isn't meant to be taken. But again, making the clearly "different" character so awful to others is not ideal. Especially when they're the only one.

And before you ask: Yes. This has a lot to do with Demetrius being the only Black man in town. And fitting into a lot of awful stereotypes along the way. I'd be much much MUCH more lenient if there were other Black men in Stardew. But there aren't. Demetrius is all we get.

And he just keeps getting worse every update.

I love him so much. He's a neurodivergent father. He's the only non-white parent in town. He's the only step-parent in town. He and Robin and Seb and Maru have the only blended and mixed family.

There's so much nuance to him and to his relationships and to his family and his backstory. There could be so much going on with him and science, or him and Maru, or him and anything.

But nah he hates fun, talks about how dancing sucks (even though he dances every week) and seemingly hates both his wife and step-son in many dialogues.

Why? Why? It makes no sense to me in-universe.

Watsonian versus Doylist analysis. When there's no in-universe explanation that follows the world. Look to the people creating the universe.

[garbagequeer]

Can you help me im so confused how archie (and everyone listening to him) had those memories for his poem i thought everyone but betty and jughead forgot 😭

bobbyjean asked: Wait a second were those the good memories. the serial killer gene and jason’s corpse. and archie playing football in leopold and loeb juvenile detention center……

well imo you can work with different theories so like

they dont remember these things as things they lived themselves but they remember them as things tabitha showed them the first time they saw the riverdale memories (so like if they'd watched themselves go through these things in tv but not as if they happened irl for them)

goodbye riverdale is back to jughead's narration and jughead is unreliable he's just making shit up (this also goes with the theory that what jughead showed betty was not real but was a fabrication he made up for her as her dying wish was to relive those days with everyone as they were + the fake reality had plot holes because to be fair jughead was like 86 when he died he cant keep track of who remembers the serial killer genes and who doesn't he's busy)

narrator jughead seems to be in control of this episode more than he was before (we see him corporeally and there's 2 jugheads in the end) so the characters' lives have been rewritten to fit the narrative jughead wanted to tell so they remember because he does too and the story belongs to him and not to them (to me jughead is always afraid of abandonment and change so he keeps his stories ones where his friends don't leave or grow + he has been shown to find it hard to come up with anything other than stories about his friends in riverdale in s5 and as bunker/god jughead). for me this also fits with the idea of the characters and angel tabitha trying to break free and narrator/god jughead(s) not allowing it -> town won

they loved these memories they love cults and killing and corpses and gay juvie. the bad memories were like archie not getting his high school diploma or something

from a doylist pov (boring) this meant nothing about the story and was just an homage to their most iconic moments in the show for the audience and the crew. you could twist this a bit to be meta and make something up about the characters behaving as characters and talking willingly to an audience because they exist only in our eyes if you wanted

which are all fun ideas to consider and theyre not mutually exclusive (like it could be jughead taking over the narrative but it could be in a world he makes up just for betty so all the other characters are in the real sweet hereafter but betty went to purgatory pop's because she does remember it all and this prevented her from being able to leave it behind. also archie for sure would remember some of gay juvie he loved the gay parts of gay juvie he told me. and fangs probably had god times at the cult i mean he dated human kevin maybe a love for cults is what they had in common)

to me it stood out as a moment where i was like oh jughead is lying to us for sure. awesome. one last jughead lying to us and trapping us in the cycle forever for the road yippee

[albertonykus]

Looking into a few other Fujiko F. Fujio works before I return to Doraemon: Esper Mami (1977–1983). This one is unconventional in that the main character, Mami, is a girl (a distinction shared with Chimpui) and is in middle school (instead of elementary school). Following the usual mold of Fujiko F. Fujio protagonists, she is well-meaning, but not particularly skilled at most tasks (though with the exception of her hazardous cooking, her incompetence is not as exaggerated as it tends to be with Fujio’s grade-school-aged leads).

Mami discovers one day that she has psychic powers inherited from her French witch ancestors: mainly telekinesis, teleportation, and limited telepathy. She can also sense people in distress within a certain distance, so most of the series revolves around her responding to these distress signals and helping others in need. (One of the strangest things in this manga, honestly, is the fact that even though the signals are nearly impossible for her to ignore, we almost never see her called away in the middle of school from what I recall. I guess incidents rarely happen during school hours.)

Other than her unusually intelligent dog, Mami’s main associate is her close friend Takahata, who has an eidetic memory and often uses his knowledge to help her master her abilities and solve cases. The relationship between the two is charming and believable, and in a story like this it’s refreshing to see a friendship between a boy and a girl that isn’t founded primarily on romantic attraction on one side or another. (There’s still a little of that, but it’s not a major component of the narrative.)

Mami’s supernatural powers aside, the story premises in this series tend to be pretty down-to-earth, mostly centering around scenarios that could happen in real life. They also get somewhat emotionally heavier than typical Fujiko F. Fujio works, with a few chapters ending on an unexpectedly somber note.

That being said, the atmosphere ultimately stays lighthearted and optimistic for the most part. As usual for Fujiko F. Fujio, humor features heavily in Esper Mami. There are some creative applications of Mami’s powers: a particularly funny one is that when she is too frightened to visit the bathroom at night after listening to ghost stories, she teleports her own urine into her friend’s bladder and makes her want to go instead!

This one panel made me laugh quite hard. When Mami is bored at home and all her friends are off doing other things, she starts narrating herself roleplaying as a lion (casting her dog as another animal that she’s fighting).

(I definitely spent too much time playing similar games when I was little.)

As a fun Easter egg, the main cast of Doraemon have a conspicuous cameo in one Esper Mami story (though surprisingly, I don’t think there’s ever been a proper crossover between the two).

Speaking of Doraemon, in the Esper Mami anime adaptation, Mami has the same voice actor as Dorami (from the 1979 Doraemon anime series). They do indeed sound essentially the same, which I find very amusing.

Esper Mami is funny, the character dynamics are engaging, and the story strikes the balance of “slight fantasy in an otherwise realistic setting while still maintaining an optimistic tone” that appeals to me. If that were all there was to it, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the series to just about anyone... but then we come to the elephant in the room...

A very bizarre and unpleasant recurring element of the story is that Mami poses as a nude model for her artist father in exchange for pocket money. To be clear, this is never presented as suggestive in the context of the plot, but it also doesn’t exactly add anything essential to the narrative, and from a Doylist perspective it’s frankly difficult to fathom any non-creepy reason why it needs to be present in the first place. 😬

Truth be told, I think these scenes do a disservice to the work if anything. Esper Mami contains so much more that is worth discussing, but it is almost impossible to talk about the series without addressing this uncomfortable component. With it taking over the conversation among some potential audiences and putting off others, appreciating the other elements of the series for what they are can be a challenge.

[purlturtle]

❤️🧡🤍🩷💜A WLW ASK MEME❤️🧡🤍🩷💜 List the top 10 ladies you’ve been obsessed with Ever Of All Time! Then send this on to 5 sapphic mutuals 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

Oh wow thank you!

And, I just saw your own answer to this, and I gotta say I relate so hard to the "fictional ladies only" part. When I latch on to someone, it's typically a fictional character, because we know both so much about them (what the story tells us) and so little (the spaces in which we can make up our own ideas and headcanons). And the second half especially is never for me to become obsessed with someone, and it just doesn't sit right with me to do that with real people.

Also, I don't have ten to list, no matter how I slice it. "Obsessed" is a big word; for me, that's the point where I actively (not just reactively in response to someone else's thoughts) think about that character, their backstory (both canon and imagined), their reactions to situations and scenarios, sometimes the question of shipping, all that.

Yeah, of those, I got four.

Deanna Troi was my first love, and will always be my Imzadi, in a way. I identified so much with her. I too felt emotions so strongly, and it was great and wonderful to see that depicted as an *asset*, as something cherished not just by her but by the people around her, as something central to her life and her profession. Also, to see her defend that life and her choices against her mother, who wanted different things for her, and seeing her state very clearly that no, she was choosing *this* path and it was good for her? Came at an entirely crucial time (I was ten when I started watching TNG. It was airing then, so it accompanied me till I was seventeen) to help me take a similar stance with my life.

I also adored the relationship she had with Riker. I adored that even though they broke up, and *badly*, he supported her. Not her him - those storylines are myriad, and often to the woman's detriment, unfortunately - but HE SUPPORTED HER. Without afterthought, just because he still cared for her. I fucking loved that. No jealousy, no pushing, just care offered freely. It spoke to me and shaped me just as much as identifying with her did.

In checking out what else Kate Mulgrew had done, because I didn't want to stop looking at her face and gestures, nor listening to her voice, I found Warehouse 13, and both Myka Bering and Helena Wells full-on whammied me.

I met Kathryn Janeway, *really* met her, in my early thirties. I hadn't watched Voyager when it aired - don't even really know why; just that I didn't - and got my teeth into it DEEPLY after a bad breakup. I instantly fell in love with her. I didn't want to *be* her (that, I already had with Deanna 😂😂), I wanted to be with her. Honest to Xena imagined myself onto Voyager, half like a teenager, half in the fiercest case of "I can fix her" that you can imagine. This obsession carried me into writing, and that carried me, slowly but surely, into fandom as a community space, not just a solitary "I love this show" feeling.

This was the first *ship* I became obsessed with, and that hasn't stopped. I don't ship anyone else as hard as I ship them, and for the first time, I experienced an obsession that wasn't immediately personal (no "I want to be her" no "I want to be with her" just "LOOK AT THEM AAAAARGHH"). I wanted them together. I wanted them to heal each other, for Myka to make Helena better and for Helena to make Myka "worse" (as in, less rule-bound, able to let go and enjoy herself more). I wanted them to be happy ever after, but I also ADORED the pain of them being denied that along the way, because it made them both more complex, more real characters. Helena had so much baggage, had gone through so much (Myka too; I'll get to her) - it would have felt too fairytale for Myka to just waltz in there and suddenly everything was peachy. And I LOVED that the writers sent Helena away to deal with her shit on her own. I know the Doylist explanation is that Jaime didn't have time to appear more often on the show, but the way that the writers chose to deal with that rings so fucking true for her character and her arc. Yes, my heart broke when Myka said that HG was who knew where (God, Jo's face when she stares teary-eyed and forlorn into empty space should come with a fucking warning). And yes, my heart broke in Instinct all over again. But it makes sense. It makes so much sense to me, and I love and respect the writers for giving Helena that. The space to search for healing on her own terms, *on her own*. Fucking feral over it.

And Myka. Closed off from pain incurred through loving and caring. Still protective as fuck so that others might not incur such pain. Like, her loss didn't make her callous! She doesn't take it out on others; she brings it all inside. (And I will love Pete forever for seeing that, and both respecting it and yet still being there, poking in ways that are so very him and yes, probably infuriating at times but also, maybe, the exact thing Myka needed. That man has an instinctive emotional intelligence that is astounding, if you're ready to overlook him licking mustard off Farnsworths.)

I love them. I am obsessed with them. I want to put them in every story I see. I want to make them find each other in the show's canon, in every AU I can think of, in every way I can think of. Their story - both them as individuals and the dynamic between them as a couple - is so fucking intriguing; it's the ultimate catnip and I am full-on addicted. And it is through them that I finally found a home in fandom as a community space, with all my other wonderfully deranged Bering and Wells shippers, all equally feral about them. And I love it; I love y'all, I love this us that we have.

To see her fall in love without even realizing it was - ungh. AND WITH A WOMAN. FUCK ME. JUST. ARGH.

Nothing I've ever felt for any other character comes close to these four. They hold a special place in my life and in my heart, and that is why I'm putting only these four here and not more. Anyone else I were to put next to them would be a desaturated blurry blob, overexposed and overshadowed by these four queens.

Thank you for asking! I loved having the opportunity to gush about these ladies who have my heart.

[antigonewinchester]

Homestuck Made This World, Episode 10, Part 1 [approx 1:21:50-1:23:06]

CAMERON Heat’s leaving fandom. MICHAEL Yep. So this just means that honestly, there’s not a lot of discussion being had. The biggest and most sustained discussion that happens in the Something Awful thread during this reading is whether or not Jake has brain-damage or might be autistic. CAMERON That’s interesting. MICHAEL Yeah. CAMERON I didn’t—I didn’t think about either of those things. Okay. MICHAEL Well, and the thing that people point to regarding brain damage is that there’s a recurring joke that Jake gets hit in the head. CAMERON Uh huh. MICHAEL Things are just constantly hitting him in the head, so people are like, “Hey, Jake seems pretty oblivious to things, do you—” And I think this is very hinky, the logic here I don’t think is great. It’s like, “Maybe one of the reasons Jake is so oblivious to other people and doesn’t seem to know what’s going on is because, that.” And so— CAMERON I mean we all know that the reason Wiley Coyote keeps running into that big fake tunnel is because he’s hit on the head so often. MICHAEL Right! Exactly. CAMERON And he forgets that it’s a big fake tunnel. [MICHAEL sighs.] It has nothing to do with narrative conceit or genre. MICHAEL Right. [MICHAEL laughs.] CAMERON It has everything to do with the materially real and independently existing Wiley Coyote. [MICHAEL: Mhmm.] And his long history of cranial accidents.

I re-listened to Homestuck Made This World and found this brief excerpt very interesting re the fandom divide between Watsonian vs. Doylist / fictional-world vs. real world explanations for narratives.

[richardsphere]

Leverage Log: The Broken Wing Job

So this season's possible fourth episode whose title may be indicitive of an aircraft theme. (DB Cooper, First Contact, Very Big Bird being the others).

Look when they started shooting in a city that, aparently has an airplane museum. Using more plane-related sets makes sense logistically and financially. Playing with the opportunities provided there. Nonetheless, I hope very much it isnt aircraft themed. Maybe the broken wing just refers to like, an actual injury instead?

Maybe the client finds an injured bird, or its a metaphor being "grounded" by an injury? Like maybe this is one of those "1 teammate is stuck at home" episodes, like the one where Hardison overslept because of WOW. (that one had an aircraft too now that I think about it.) My metaphorical money is on "client was grounded, and the plan is to ground the Mark". But I guess we'll see. --- Cold open features the Crew. Thats odd. (i know technically the DB Cooper one also featured Parker. But she was wearing a mask so it could be a dramatic reveal. This one just goes right out and shows Nate frame 1)

Parker's got a bad leg. Wing identified and the crowd goes wild!!! Unfortunately "someone's stuck at home cause injury" is one of my least favourite types of excuse for a bottle episode. (which is usually the doylist reason such a plot is written.) I mean they can be funny, but they tend to overstay their welcome. Either that or everyone's schedules were just very busy for a month or two so they got them all together in a hallway in a hotel for 1 scene and paid Riesgraaf overtime. But these types of episodes are usually Budget or Scheduling motivated is what im saying. --- Quick google says an ACL is one of the ligaments in the knee. Parker better listen to Hardison or the next thing she'll be stealing is Archie's Cane. --- Episode introduces us to the Brewery Staff with a little get-well-soon bear. So it might actually just be an excuse plot to introduce us to a secondary/tertiary cast of characters for the season. (8 episodes into a 15 episode season is perhaps a bit late to do that.) --- Ok so we have a bunch of subplots couple where the girl thinks the boy is cheating. (my bet: Secretly planning to propose or something, hence being away more often for badly explained reasons.) Romeo and Juliet, (end up together, hopefully without double-suicides) "chicken Parm Jerk" who always orders the same thing, takes a single bite and sends it back. (Thats a verry specific behavioural patern. Feels very "Anton Ego" "if i do not love it, I do not swallow". Probably a secretly sympathetic backstory. "Loved it growing up, but it never tastes like Mothers Recipe" sort of deal) V&K, probably the episodes dedicated marks, (very pushy and specific about having the window seat. My bet is they're watchers/lookers for a gang. Either that or casing the security at whatever building is across the street) So they offer 4 coffees, and V (i think its V) takes 2 coffees outside. That means they have cohorts outside. Parker's anger that Hardison didnt wiretap the shit out of their lair-front is hilarious. --- Avoiding eye contact with Amy specifically. (I dont think i saw them lift their hand to block sightlines when they were getting served by another server earlier in the episode when they got the 4 coffees.) Amy's dad wants her to "inherit the family business", a business that is apparantly broad enough that "what is the family business" gets answered with "what isn't the family business". Amy's dad is a large corporate mogul and she's a valuable potential hostage. They're not casing the building across the road, they're casing Amy. Writers thought they could trick me with a feint but im onto them! --- V is smarter then K, (or at least more experienced) Professor Parmesan is fiddling with a thing on his finger (probably a ring, but i cant see it probably). Loved the recipe as made by a deceased wife, not a dead mom. --- Camera zoom in on the map. (IRL security camera's dont work that way. They tend to be shitty. But knowing Hardison and the importance of keeping this multi-billion dollar stock-manipulation enterprise afloat, he'd have sprung for actually good camera's and extra large storage servers. So im gonna say this is one case where the "enhanced zoom" is justified) --- Ok you're telling me that Hardison, in an attempt to set up a place where no cops or FBI would ever show up even by accident placed their front-operation across from a pawnshop full of potentially valuable antiques, a bank and a fucking jeweler. Are the writers fucking kidding with this? Like putting it across from one of these 3 would be a stretch given Hardisons goals in aquiring the Brewpub, putting it on a crossroads with all of these is character assasination on the writers part.

Hardison would not have bought a brewpub located at this crossroad. --- Amy getting really sus of Parker (who she knew was in a French prison) knowing so much about the psychology of a robbery.

"Okay i've got to ask, Is any of this illegal" --- Sid might actually be cheating. (sucks). But i guess Parker's gonna send that picture to his girlfriend. Romeo and Juliet both play the violin,

Parmesan is a doctor. 2 coffees with a tracker, trying to find "O" (the numbers are unknown, but my bet is on time, based on them all being multiples of 5, not one of the second digits being above a 6. I assume the leading 000 is to disguise the nature of the numbers) --- Oh, America aparently has special licensed plates for disabled people. Good to know. Also Parker has leveled up her Social Awareness enough that she now realises that telling Amy how she recognised it was definitly a getaway vehicle would be bad.

"you know what to do and I know how to walk... no offense." Great line 7/10. (cant really go higher then that on a line with no overall importance. Still its a good line) --- Amy's reaction to inadvertantly telling her Employers Girlfriend they've been lazy. (Good for her this entire thing is a front. You'd literally keep your job without customers) ---

Ah the good ol "Watson you're a genius!" trope, (its a classic. I love it.)

Oh no, is she setting Romeo and Juliet up with people who arent cheat and the ex. (which means something? I suspect cops like in the Bottle Job)

--- Oh V using the glass as a mirror, cunning. --- And the kidnapping gone wrong is underway. Dates were cops, Doctor Parmesan is a badass.

V spots the camera's. ---

Parkers beats the guy single-handed (or more like single-legged). Dr. Parmesan is gonna find a new food, one that can bring him joy instead of grief.

Zombie Movienight.

[exhausted-archivist]

Yeah, I was speaking strictly from a doylist perspective and ended with what I thought would have been more compelling for BioWare to have done with her. Because I think they under utilized her (and Cole and Vivienne but that’s a whole other thing).

Personally, I always go Vivienne for Divine like I mentioned in my tags. Because she has the most big picture view, especially if you listen to her talk about concerns for Leliana and Cassandra in the role. As you pointed out the narrative goes out of its way to vilify Vivienne and make her opinions the ultimate bad. When if you actually listen to her, hear her concerns, and read the codices about mages, the war, and templars; she’s not. Which is part of the problem, so much context is packed into codices that isn’t condensed into the base story - which isn’t new player friendly.

If you got the impression I thought Vivinne was presented as an equally good choice, that wasn’t my intention. I was just trying to focus on Cassandra and my thoughts on her narrative uses. My whole thing was just the doylist perspective of how things are geared for Cassandra to not only be the best choice to the player that they just about railroad her into the role despite the entire game showing she sucks at politics, doesn’t want to do them, doesn’t have an open mind, is critical of non-Andrastians, doesn’t work to understand people who don’t share her world view unless forced to, is super big on loyalty to a fault, is act first and ask questions later, runs with the guilty until proven innocent, believes in “holy mandate” to where if you don’t she lashes out is someway, and Cassandra herself mentions that her trainers told her she was brash.

I don’t find her to be a good candidate nor do I like or prefer Cassandra as Divine. But objectively, from a doylist angle (and arguably a watsonian depending on whose perspective/opinions in-world you’re looking at) is the best choice when you’re considering new players. Particularly if you want a simple, non-branching storyline that you’d likely get with Leliana or Vivienne in certain regards. As well as all the stuff I mentioned previously.

When I say she’s the best choice for new players is, I mean that she doesn’t introduce nearly as much new status quos that need context nor is her worldview and opinion buried in codices or previous games. Cassandra isn’t even centrist, she’s stagnant. Which, is helpful for the BioWare canon when introducing the series to a new player.

Not that the BioWare canon doesn’t reflect aspects of the world the writers prefer: King Alistair for example. But simplicity and not introducing highly quantum aspects is also a focus. Why Alistair rules alone in the BioWare canon.

Which is what I was talking about.

As for all the aspects I wished they explored, Cassandra’s story in Inquisition makes it seem like no one knew about the reversal (which isn’t true, we know from ambient dialogue. Dialogue that comes from Avexis and Mother Giselle). I wish we saw something of how finding out Justinia hid going against the Seekers, and more specifically hid it from Cassandra, from 9:35-9:40. I wish that factored into Cassandra’s half baked storyline of becoming disenfranchised from the Seekers. That should have meant something, considering Leliana was in the know to the point where she was helping the mage circles rebel. So knowing that Justinia was putting a bid to get mages more freedom to a degree, since she clearly wasn’t fully supporting the Templars let alone the Seekers.

If what Justinia did/planned on doing really mattered to Cassandra, as her monologue in the prologue suggests and how she goes on about how “we need to act as she would have acted”. Then why didn’t that influence anything? Why does Cassandra put things right back as they were essentially?

I was just questioning Cassandra’s story and musing how if it had explored things it would have at least made her more nuanced and interesting. To me anyways.

Cassandra = worst choice for Divine.

1000% for sure without a doubt!!!!

... at the same time, i do feel like bioware was clearly rooting for her to be divine.

there's no war table option to support leliana's candidacy, which means getting leliana to become divine is entirely dependent on your in-game choices. if leliana and cassandra have the same number of points, leliana defaults to a win -- but that only balances out the fact that the wartable mission gives cassandra +10 points support.

the portrayal of the templars as necessary comparatively to the mages in sealing the breach, and then the subsequent portrayal of the templars as innocent victims is intended to push the player to recruit the templars as allies, which is the outcome that gathers the largest support for cassandra

getting a public truce between briala, gaspard and celene gets no support for leliana

supporting leliana as divine can only happen after you've completed her personal quest, which can happen very late game; by then, you might have already supported cassandra or vivienne instead

at the winter palace in trespasser, leliana as the divine gets an agent to call you outside, only to then call a recess herself, which is a bit confusing -- she could have just called a recess without needing to make the inquisitor look bad by walking out in the middle of negotiations. this sequences of events only makes sense with cass as divine, or even vivienne as divine.

so, uh. yikes.

if bioware had forced that decision on us, like they did with almost EVERYTHING ELSE in this game, could you imagine??? your inquisitor fighting tooth and nail to use this shitty position they've suddenly got to do some real good, enact some real change, only to have the divine just reset everything pre-breach again...

hmmm... turning this concept over in my mind like a rotisserie chicken now...

[ladydragonkiller]

so, back when i when i was listening to malevolent episode 24 for the first time, there was a line that made me do a double take. Let’s see if you can spot it in the following screenshot:

(ID: malevolent transcript, reading as follows: Arthur: So, Jesus… Okay, yeah, w-we’ll sit by the fire. 

John: You’re sure? 

Footsteps

Arthur: If this thing is living down here, it’s not killing them. I don’t get a murderous vibe from them — It-It’s mad, but yeah. L-L-Let’s.)

have you spotted it? 

that’s right! the word “vibe”!

now, this seemed incongruous, but maybe my timeline of slang was off. maybe it’s been a common word in this context for longer than i thought. maybe-

(ID: 1940, short for vibraphone; attested from 1967 as an abbreviated form of vibration in the 1960s slang sense of "instinctive feeling." Related: Vibes.)

hmmm. there’s always a chance this etymology dictionary is wrong, but that doesn’t quite track. malevolent takes place in the 1930’s, yeah? 

(ID: malevolent transcript, reading as follows: So we don’t occupy the same time? Is it not 1934 in these worlds as well?)

1934, to be specific. so why in the world is arthur using a word from the ‘60s a few decades early?

now, there’s a watsonian and doylist explanation for this, as for many things. the doylist explanation is just that it slipped in without harlan noticing. fair enough, there’s a lot of talking and some things are bound to slip under the radar.

the watsonian explanation is a bit more fun. probably incorrect, but fun.

see, what i started thinking about then was a conversation arthur and john had in the desert.

(ID: I suppose… I don’t know. For now let’s just eat an elephant.

What? [Footsteps stop] How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

[Chuckles] How… I-I don’t… man, I...

What?

I just - it baffles me to think about what that means.

Mysterious piano starts

It’s a joke, a way of…

N-No, I mean to say, is that something that you knew as the King, or is that something that I knew and forgot? The question, it-it boggles my mind.

I don’t know

You said, like the religion, there are some things that you’ve picked up from me, and - and something I have to wonder is what aspects of me are you just reflecting, that I’ve forgotten... and which are the King?

The mind is a tricky thing, friend.

Piano fades)

in this exchange as i see it, john has absorbed knowledge about the world without directly being told it by arthur. arthur was clearly astonished by the phrase, it’s not something he’s thought about recently whatsoever. my argument is that to some level, this could have been happening both ways.

just after the earlier snippet from episode 1 is this:

(ID: No, as I said thinking of time as linear would only confuse. These worlds are all acting simultaneously and yet they all exist in varied time. Some billions and billions of years into the future to when the world has been covered twice by dead civilizations. Some over 50 years from now with pathways that have led to world-wide epidemics. Some even have an ancient past where magic was prevalent…)

john has some level of knowledge about these worlds. some of these worlds are in the future. it is highly possible that john would have at least a passing familiarity with the slang and other lingual idiosyncrasies that come with time.

now, this means a couple things. first, if john is able to absorb knowledge from arthur without either of them noticing, and arthur could do the same, arthur may very well use the word “vibe” in its modern meaning without noticing it. 

second, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that other modern slang could be used. please use your imagination to picture john saying the most cursed phrases possible. you’re welcome.

[clonecumber]

Three of those character ask things from way back that I realize now I only had posted on Dreamwidth. Whoops.

Etain, Corr, and Kal. As always, mind the tags.

Anonymous: Etain

Ohhhh, that's a toughie. All right, I don't know you anon, but you're asking about a controversial character so...proceed with caution?

First impression : I don't think I had very many strong feelings about Etain, but I remember being in line with Kal's take on the situation regarding her pregnancy. Reading it now, there are aspects to it that I feel are way more complicated than how the narrative (and KT's multi-book gaslighting campaign) present them, so I've eased up on that, but that whole plot is still...Eugh. She wasn't really a preferred character, but I grudgingly tolerated her, I suppose.

Impression now : *drags hands down face* Look, I have done like...so much drafting in my head for months about specific Etain things and this is hard, okay. I nearly don't even want to talk about it without at least three separate whole entire papers to point to in order to flesh this shit out, but I'm going to try. Etain's very complicated, primarily because, from a Doylist perspective, knowing anything about how the Jedi work, so many things about how she's written just. Don't fucking make sense. They really don't make sense. Trying to Watsonian the mess is more than a humble ask game can hold. I'll do my best, but yeesh.

(PS. I've already made a separate post talking about how I feel Etain's badly underutilized as a character as well, so I won't be talking about that much either, but I still hold true: Etain had amazing narrative-relevant talents and I wish that had gone somewhere.)

But, Etain. She's actually pretty similar to Skirata in personality, I think. Not identical, but they have a lot of overlap, specifically in their flaws and way of behaving toward others, though the way they express these behaviors tends to differ. The core seems the same, though. Etain obviously has shittier self-esteem, but I feel like they both have a fear of abandonment/need to be special that drives a lot of their behaviors, but Etain's more aware of it and Skirata really isn't. I also think they're both very driven by heart-over-head, both compassionate but so starry-eyed with the idea of doing good for people that they steamroll the same people they're trying to help, which leads into them both having major problems with boundaries and basic communication skills, and both very prone to "othering" anyone not in their in-crowd, to differing degrees of severity. If I was going to Watsonian Skirata's lashing out at Etain throughout the books, I'd say the reason might be besides Etain being a less conventionally attractive woman, is rather because Etain and Skirata are too similar, and while she's alive Skirata is probably subconsciously reacting to that - always jumping to the worst possible conclusion because he sees himself in her, and Skirata has a very complex relationship with his own flaws. Case: Skirata attacks her for things his own POV will sometimes point out are things he does too, sometimes to the point of seeming confused at himself for why he's reacting so strongly, though this never actually goes anywhere since it neither changes Skirata's behavior toward Etain nor makes him examine himself in any more detail. I do think it says a lot that it's there. It's also an interesting compare and contrast exercise, primarily for the following reason:

Because where Etain's different is that 1) none of the other characters ever let Etain get away with shit, so most of the things she pulls get her called out promptly and severely and 2) Etain actually wants to get better about how she treats people. She struggles sometimes and doesn't always get it right, but she's nearly always willing to listen to criticism and will try to do better come hell or high water, even if she doesn't really know what that looks like and ends up forging determinedly ahead in entirely the wrong direction. The spirit is there. I really, really wish therapy existed in Star Wars, because Etain would really benefit from it.

I also find her conversations with Darman where we get to see her from Darman's POV interesting to read, especially later in the series. Around Darman she's always more confident and secure, and it shows, I think. The neuroticism we see from other outside-in looks at Etain (basically only Ordo and Kal, really) dials down significantly, and without the anxiety you get a young woman who's a little stiff and abrupt, even a little stern, but also surprisingly funny and kind. Someone who maybe doesn't smile often, but man, when they do. I feel like we also got a bit of this during her interactions with Mereel, since I remember her POV chapters with him being much less...self-disparaging. So I mean, at least she had two people in this clan she could relax around.

I like her character quite a bit now, actually, lol.

Favorite moment : Etain saving Niner and Fi from shrapnel in Hard Contact. She took initiative on her own and was so pleased with herself afterward; it was kinda cute.

Idea for a story : Instead of Etain dying to save the trooper, it was Skirata, for any reason. Doesn't really matter. I feel like losing Kal in that hero's journey "Death of the Mentor" sort of way would have had a much more interesting impact on the story afterward and maybe saved it from a bit of its...uncertain floundering in follow-up story lines. But also Ordo and Etain, on-scene, having to deal with that, and then the associated, longer-term fallout. It probably wouldn't be about Etain, but the narrative could ride around on her shoulder while everything was happening, so it would be Etain-centric. The dynamics alone would be interesting.

Unpopular opinion : This is nowhere near comprehensive, but: I don't really think Etain tricked Darman into unprotected sex with the intent to get pregnant. I feel like there is reasonable evidence to suggest Darman and Etain were already having unprotected sex even before Etain came to her decision that she wanted kids with Darman someday, no false pretenses required. And I mean, sure, even if they were, I definitely feel like her thinking about the possibility of pregnancy in the future should have at least prompted her to start a conversation before continuing to have unprotected sex with him, but that's still a far cry from the idea she actively sabotaged agreed-upon birth control measures, which I remember was the predominant belief on the forums back when I first read these books as a kid. (Not even getting into the "but did they even have quality sex education" thing because that's straight up headcanon vs headcanon and that's a nightmare road that I will not touch.)

Favorite relationship : (Sorry, Darman, but) MEREEL. Etain and Mereel's friendship came out of left field, but I actually really, really liked it.

Favorite headcanon : That Etain's intersex. Possibly also trans or questioning.

walonvaus: Corr

Hi! Thank you for your comment, I really appreciate it! Sorry for the wait; I try to do these in the order I receive them and I had one on Tumblr just before yours.

Corr's tricky for me, and separating what I can draw from him in canon from the way kaasknot's fic fleshed him out in my head is hard, lol. I don't think I entirely succeeded. Not least because I'm falling asleep on my keyboard, whoops.

First impression : I do not remember. He sure existed?

Impression now : For a guy KT liked to use as a MadLibs booklet every time she needed a random character to do anything and then shoved off-screen at every opportunity, he sure managed to make himself interesting. His canon personality is a bit all over the place, but just his story in general? There's so much there. I'm still fascinated by the fact that apparently after finishing his training, Corr was still running with the Nulls for awhile. Presumably he was spinning his wheels until they had a placement for him, like what happened when Skirata recalled him from a mission he was in the middle of with Jaing, but instead of planting him back in the barracks the Nulls just...kept him. Which says something, I feel. Corr's just one of those guys who has an entire novel's worth of shit happening, but it's taking place entirely off screen. His life is a series of noodle incidents and he never talks about himself. Ever. And so noodle incidents they will remain.

Favorite moment : During O66 when Kal's trying to deflect Niner by dropping the bomb about the second army and Corr goes straight on point like a hunting hound so that when Niner starts to go, "That's nice, now back to the topic at ha-" Corr does everything short of slamming a hand over Niner's mouth. I think he actually says something like, "Niner, shut up," or something, with the implied, "What second army?"

Which is very rude of Corr, who up until this point has been characterized as being very careful around Omega in a Must Keep Hands And Feet Inside The Vehicle At All Times approach to this new squad thing. On top of being raised as a line trooper with far stricter standards of behavior. Telling his sergeant to shut up has implications coming from Corr that it doesn't coming from, say, Darman or Atin.

And, sure, it's the exact reaction that Kal wanted, which sucks, but at the same time I think it says a lot about Corr's own priorities as a Line Trooper himself, and a bit that it sort of speaks to me of his time running second to the Nulls' own missions. There's still a part of him that thinks like them, and just like they were Shook upon this discovery, so is Corr. That on top of it being a sudden, intense blow to him as one of the demographics most affected by the war, troopers just like him hit the hardest by dent of numbers and being last in line for everything, feeling the lack of support the hardest, who would hear of these reinforcements who exist but aren't being used or might exist and might be used and just...have a hell of a lot of feelings about it all at once. I just like the characters piece here, that he just doesn't have a reason to care about Jilka over the second army, for all the reasons listed above. Niner doesn't fall for it as an all-or-nothing trade, information on Jilka's situation or information on the second army, but if Corr does, he knows which one he picks. And that's a cool show of his priorities. Also probably something I'm overthinking.

Idea for a story : Corr still being treated like part of Omega once he and Atin make it to Mandalore and reunite with Fi. Just. IDK. A bonding activity. Something. Fi being able to talk to Corr about things Fi might still have a hard time trying to explain to Atin, maybe. Like, you know, maybe Corr's been there before or something.

Unpopular opinion : (I don’t think this series really has popular opinions, but we’ll work with what we have:) Corr still doesn't really understand the One True Marriage/Must Be In Want Of A Wife ideal that most of the rest of the characters in the series were raised with, so him having a "girl in every port" is less him deliberately "playing the field" and more his squad trying to sync his behavior through their own cultural lenses.

Really, Corr's just a friendly guy who sometimes has sex with people he likes, with zero expectations on either side or even the real understanding that there should be (which I wonder about anyway, since Star Wars doesn't have a sex before marriage taboo to my understanding, which would be funny if it was just Skirata but I digress). Those "girls" are his friends. That's literally it. He does not get why his squad mates keep chortling amongst each other and ribbing him about this. Or, he does. Intellectually. But he doesn't get it.

Favorite relationship : I really want to say Mereel even though I've been realizing slowly over the course of the last couple weeks that for all there is so much interesting about their potential dynamic, they basically never interact on-screen in the books? H o w.

All the Nulls he's canonically worked with, so Mereel, Kom'rk, and Jaing.

Favorite headcanon : Corr approaches Jilka flirting because he learned it as a defusing tool from Mereel and no one else was working with her to keep her from eventually snapping and, like, stabbing Besany or something. That's his sole motivation originally, and he's halfway winging it. How the relationship plays out after that - especially when it rapidly grows outside Corr's control on account of him not really understanding why using flirting tactics on someone you live with isn't really the best idea, and maybe or maybe not him actually forming a friendship/actual romantic interest in Jilka - varies to me, but my primary interest is in the culture clash potential.

kaasknot: Kal Skirata

Hi!

Juuust a forewarning, since I don't know if you've seen much of my typical rambling, but I have Strong Feelings about Kal Skirata's character, so. Be warned? Also trying to talk about this without dipping into a bit of TMI is impossible. If you don't want to deal with that, skip the first two impressions, please!

First impression : I first read these books up to True Colors (O66 and 501st came out later) all together when I was a young teenager nearly a decade before I'd finally start being able to admit to myself that I had been abused, and I adored Kal Skirata. He was just like my mom, except better.

Impression now : No argument that KT's main strength is her ability to create vivid characters. Kal as a character is incredibly important to me because he's one of the most perfect characterizations of an (unintentionally but still very) emotionally abusive parent I've ever read. And from a meta standpoint, using Kal - a safe fictional character - as a proxy to sort through my own understanding of my own treatment by my own mother was a useful exercise, since the parallels are so stark. The fact Kal doesn't ever do it on purpose is what matters to me too, because it's too easy for people to decide toxic people are that way by some grand calculating plan, deliberately maneuvering everyone around them like expert chess masters for maximum suffering, when really it's usually just because they're damaged, frightened people lashing out and grasping on instinctively, who aren't capable of recognizing the harm they're doing. Like the emotional equivalent of a drowning person latching on to anyone nearby and not realizing when they shove them down under the water. It's the human desire to be liked and appreciated absent the ability to self-reflect and cope in a healthy, productive manner, and an unwillingness to self-correct when their own lacking behaviors are pointed out to them. Kal wants to be a good person. He wants to do right by his kids and be super-dad and all of that. He really, really wants it, and that makes it easy to excuse him, because his intentions are so good. (Except he's also got a bit of a white savior thing going on, but we're not talking about that right now.)

The fact that being seen as that person (so that he can see himself as that person) matters more to him than actually doing the hard work of correcting his behaviors so he can be that person is where he fails. He wants without putting in any actual, productive effort. If it doesn't make him feel better about himself, it scares him, and he does his best to ignore it away and make everyone validate him so he can pretend he never did anything wrong to start with. This man gaslights like he breathes. He uses dramatic shows to "erase" damage he's done without actually taking into account if the person he's trying to "make amends" to actually feels better after he's done (see: Darman). He can spin the narrative of self-improvement, but he wavers at actually walking it. It's human. It's very, very human. It's part of why a lot of my favorite "what ifs" involve Kal learning how he's fucked up, being forced to confront it, and growing better as a person and forming healthier relationships with his family. At this point I've accepted my mom will never do it, but I like to think Kal would.

But most importantly, that whatever else might have happened in Skirata's life to harm him, whatever his intentions were, that doesn't matter. People aren't allowed to hurt you just because they don't mean to, or because they've been hurt themselves.

TMI OVER

Favorite moment : Okay, so after he shakes hands and leaves Altis's ship and realizes he's still contagious with the vaccine-fever and he just looks at his hand in disgust and then mutters something like, "I should have charged you." I laughed.

I really, really like when Kal actually is the put-out old crook dragged kicking and screaming into something approximating morality by his love for six little boys, and I wish he'd been written that way more often, because he talks about himself that way sometimes but too obviously views himself as more-moral-than-thou at literally all times, not helped by KT warping reality around him to always make sure he's the most right and moral character in the series, and I just feel like it's a series of missed opportunities. The put-out old crook Kal we could have had is an icon.

Idea for a story : Sort of brainstorming this for a little while now, but: Time travel. Falin gets dumped on Ordo shortly after being found by Munin but before Munin manages to erase his name, or Ordo travels back and stumbles across little Falin and promptly kidnaps him because Munin is a Hard No. It'd be about breaking the cycle of abuse, Falin/Kal getting a better start after the hell he had to deal with and deserving much better than fucking Munin, and Ordo/the Nulls having the opportunity to recognize Kal's bad treatment through having to parent Falin/realizing where Kal came from and grappling with their own unwillingness to pass those things on, and coming to terms with why they don't want to pass those things on. For obvious reasons, them coming to terms with their own poor treatment and not really being equipped to deal with Falin's trauma, means there would have to be a broader cast to provide support, possibly even take over as Falin's primary caregiver for awhile (good luck getting past a freaked out and protective Ordo, but I have faith in his clan) but that's more detail than I've got so far. Point is the Nulls (especially Ordo) coming face-to-face with Falin.

I'm actually sort of attached to Laseema in particular recognizing aspects of Falin's treatment under Munin and actually being a good point of connection for him. She understands better than anyone else in that house exactly what sort of thing Falin's gone through, I think. At least the losing everything parts, and being taken, and being expected to perform to a new expectation by these strangers you have no power to combat, not even to keep your own name. Human trafficking victim to human trafficking victim. I have an image of Falin nursing a wild bird back to health, and, being Kal still, wanting to keep it forever even once it's healed, and Laseema walking him out into the yard, and talking to him beyond the range of anyone else's hearing, and eventually convincing him to let it go.

Unpopular opinion : *shrugs* Kal's a polarizing character. I love analyzing him and I'm very critical of him and want him to face some hard consequences, which is going to be very unpopular with 50% of fandom and perfectly fine with the other 50%.

Favorite relationship : Vau. They're both shitty old people and their relationship is hilarious. Literally the only character Kal doesn't have any sort of hold on, and they fight like cats and dogs but with the impression that they'll be shoulder-to-shoulder at the pub later or something. Angry, toxic old couple who fight all the time but will back each other up when it comes to fucking with the HOA inspector.

Favorite headcanon : Okay, I erased the BS I invented on the spot that lived here last time. Honestly, I spend so much time focusing on canon!Kal that I don't really have any headcanons I can point to in a snap. He gets his share of attention already. Unless some of my interpretations of his canon actions dip into headcanon territory, this is all I've got.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

the wolf should’ve been afraid of me.

Titans 3.04

just under the wire! ... i hope.

like with the previous review, i’m typing this up as i see the episode. here we go!

spoilers ahead.

1. ... well. that was an interesting cold open.

1.25. i don’t know whether to admire this show’s restraint when it comes to gotham and its excesses, particularly arkham asylum. it’d be easy to go hammer and tongs, like suicide squad (2016) did, or any number of bat media did, at a tropey, colourful~~insanity~~ that can be quite damaging, casting mental illness in strangeness and criminality. it definitely shows gotham as... separate from the rest of the country, its own ecosystem of heroes and villains, a sort of rogue state. 

but that ecosystem is still human, with its heroes needing to clip parts of themselves away just to survive, growing old and needing to be recycled, its villains languishing in the same kinds of systems that fail everybody else who needs to be helped. it’s a quieter, tenser sort of wrongness: not strange enough that you can dissociate, but not close enough that you can completely empathise. gotham is its own creature.

1.5. i know that the reasoning behind this is more doylist than anything, but i’m so glad that joker was killed off with little fanfare right at the start of the season. he is the one man in the batverse that’s transcended its confines as this sort of ethereal boogeyman/eternal edgelord and to justify his presence in the series would mean giving him this tired, overblown importance and too much of a stab at colourful, tropey “madness” in this otherwise-subdued series. i wish all batmedia would follow suit and get rid of this fucker.

1.75. so jason is bucking scarecrow’s control! or reminding him of who exactly holds all the cards right now. circling back to what i talked about in the last review, it’s remarkable just how little time it’s been since jason’s “death” and he’s already got ‘minions’ and elaborately set up plans to track, break and kill the titans. just how long has he been planning this? when did he first look at WE weapons prototypes and think that’s something i can use to blow somebody up? and the most unsettling question: did he plan his own death at the hands of the joker just so that he could break batman?

at this point it’s obvious that the scarecrow at least started jason down this path, but it’s frightening just how far he’s travelled already.

1.8. aaagh, less than one minute in! i’ll shut up. 

2. conner washing his hands at the sink reminds me that he was directly in the line of explosion when hank got blown up and he’s probably got atomised hank-bits all over his skin that he’s desperately trying to wash off.

... you’re welcome.

2.25. conner, don’t you speak to gar fucking logan like that, sir, no!

2.3. if anything it’s the lex part of him that gave him the knowhow to recognise the weapon and build a de-activator for it. 

anyway, for that ‘half-breed’ and ‘talking tiger’ comment?

(i wish, tho, that we actually see conner more interested in the superman part of his legacy, like maybe listening to stories from gar, or even better, dick, so we get a better idea of the pressure he’s feeling to live up to that part of him and not the part that’s lex.)

((i talked about conner’s stages of moral development in his introductory episode last season, but i wonder if the next stage of his self-actualisation would be to further integrate the parts of himself and realise that they are only parts and he, conner, is an entirely different person unto himself that can make decisions on how to use what he has and what he knows. his superman abilities can be used to destroy. his lex knowledge can be used to save.))

3. oh dawn :((

3.25. is this the last we see of dawn and hank? i mean, we know donna is coming back; would it be a stretch to think they’ll try to have a go at resurrecting hank as well?

3.5. “deathstroke didn’t make us into killers.” good, because deathstroke didn’t make jason a killer either. there’s a missing step there you need to be looking for, dick. 

3.75. dick did try to break the cycle, step away from gotham, run from the possibility that he could turn into batman. it didn’t help; he couldn’t fully withdraw from his vigilante persona the same time he loathed it, and batman literally haunted him both asleep and awake. but maybe gotham doesn’t have to turn anybody into anything. maybe gotham has nothing to do with it at all. it’s about taking responsibility, realising some sacrifices are pure bullshit, and building an actual family instead of merely a team.

anyway: hugs!

(oh, also? mr “i hate flying”? i mean, there’s perfectly valid reasons to hate flying that’s not related to childhood trauma, but then again, this guy was literally a ‘flying grayson’ once. also also, remember that he also gets sea-sick. must’ve a lot of fun stories to tell.)

4. ooh that gar/kory confrontation was brief but cool!

listen, i have never seen a psychiatrist with that extravagant an office and SIR I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW--

4.5. kory’s so unused to reaching out for help and it’s breaking my heart that HPG likely is some kind of impostor that’s maybe causing her symptoms in the first place. 

kory and dick have mostly been apart this season but it’s remarkable how their journeys have paralleled each other; kory processes her grief, isolation and existential dread into a determination to take care of this new family she has, no matter what it takes; dick does much the same, forging ahead with plans and solutions until he has no fuel left in him and spirals into a massive breakdown.

4.25. listen titans this really is a TERRIBLE continuity error. we aren’t goldfish; we can clearly remember that two minutes ago it was gar’s upper arm that was burned, not his forearm. COME ON.

“sensory deprivation tank” *SNORT*

anyway, gar is the BEST

4.5. i wonder where these visions of experimentation took place. was it on tamaran, or on earth, after she came to hunt down rachel/trigon and before she lost all her memories? is HPG a part of the scientist group that experimented on her? ... god, i hope not. i mean, i think he is, but it would be cool to have some positive therapist representation in media. 

5. you’d think the van transporting a dangerous supervillain that only batman could catch would be more secure but... i’m also not entirely surprised. 

5.15. i love dick gives ZERO shits about hiding himself or even ensuring scarecrow is adequately contained. just turns away after kidnapping him in BROAD DAYLIGHT and says ‘let’s go’. I LOVE THIS DUMBASS

6. lmao gar is having a really really shitty day SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN A BREAK or just a goddamn story arc of his own

6.5. i’m really confused about the timeline here. so... sometime ago, kory came down to earth to hunt down trigon, yeah? at some further point down the line she and her sister were kidnapped and experimented on. THEN she somehow escapes but... loses her memory? a few months pass and then we see blackfire alive and well and free; she kills faddei, can impersonate other people, and is clearly seeking out kory. but now she’s still in the experiment facility...? what’s going on?

i’m not entirely surprised about the facility being mostly deserted. either the biggest investors in this project gave up on it and it was left to the most fanatic to carry on, or they were deliberately trying to lure kory and get her to free blackfire--expand the environs of the experiment, so to speak.

7. hopefully barbara is going to get something to do other than listen to various men give her Attitude

8. how do you terrorise a terrorist? well:

i love when dick is a scary-competent motherfucker.

8.25. ooooh, the attack on crane at arkham a ploy to get crane to blackgate? nice one dick, i didn’t even think of that. but why though? to protect crane from the titans? to intercept the van to blackgate and “rescue” him? seems likely--red hood was there, except dick got to crane quicker.

9. still reeeallly unclear about the komand’r situation. was komand’r captured after s2? is this all A TRAP?? if so, why are you stepping into the only thing that can contain you, kory????

9.25. so... definite parallels between dick/jason and kory/kom here. i’m just. i’m still. really confused. i’ll shut up now.

10. this may be my favourite dick look yet:

woodsman!dick in a beanie.

10.5. i unironically love how titans has made this bizarrely-devoted-to-his-moniker, toxin-spewing supervillain into a tamer version of hannibal, psychoanalysing his victims into submission. it’s of a piece with how inward looking titans is, the way all of its villains are obsessed with how our protagonists’ minds work, to the point where they would actually spend time inside of them. 

there are no big plots to end the world. no apocalypses or endgames here. these villains collect the titans’ insecurities like infinity stones. the way the titans defeat them is by achieving character growth--literally winning by the power of love. literally “the real superpower is the friends we made along the way”!

10.7. anyway, i’m betting dick is used to this bullshit from crane and is humouring him in the service of getting more information. the story about the wolf? an implicit threat, not to mention dick getting to control what crane knows about him and what methods he would use to manipulate him.

am i giving dick too much credit here? i don’t think so. he’s really impressed me so far this season.

10.75. like. there’s a real unreliable narrator vibe coming off with every person that talks about bruce (much like how the various members of the titans talked about jason’s motivations) and to buy into crane’s talk about bruce being a psychopath is to fall for the same manipulation that jason fell for. dick is the only person who hasn’t really psychoanalysed bruce this season, and i think some part of his detective brain is piecing things together into a bigger picture.

11. i’m glad kory rescued kom but did she have to kill the scientist?

(i mean, yeah, probably - the less people know that kom escaped the less likely they’re going to have the fucking govt on their doorstep, but still.)

11.5. dick’s gonna come back to wayne manor, stare straight at komand’r and go, well which room would you like? because the team might as well adopt ANOTHER person, yeah?

12. oh MAN that red hood/nightwing fight was AMAZING! and he did the thing! the boomerang escrima thing! i’m so delighted!

12.5. the anger and disbelief in dick’s voice when he says you told crane EVERYTHING?! tells me that he knew exactly what he was telling crane himself.

12.75. “everything you are is because of him” - oh that reminds me of halluci!bruce from last season. i hope we see halluci!bruce again--he is so vicious but so entertaining... so much more effective at tearing dick down than crane or jason combined. goes to show that dick’s biggest enemy is own fucking head.

12.8. oh no! dick’s shot! crane is in the wind with red hood! blackfire is now with the titans! i love it!

honestly this season’s pacing is such a big step up from the last couple. gold star, show.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Your random Trust thought of the day, since writing Primo and Paul interacting once again has me thinking about Paul’s relationship with language:

Much as I enjoy lovingly mocking Paul as a clueless American wandering around Italy speaking English all the time...he doesn’t actually seem to have much difficulty understanding what any of the Italian characters are saying. He seems to have a slightly preternatural ability to understand Primo in particular, even though (I think?) Primo only ever speaks to him in Calabrese, with a very occasional English phrase thrown in. But even beyond that, he seems to at least get the gist of what people are saying to him when he’s motivated to pay attention. And look, he’s been living in Italy for a significant portion of his life by the beginning of the show; even if he speaks English with his family and with his multinational group of friends, I think he understands Italian perfectly fine. And after five months in Calabria he understands at least some Calabrese. Like, he understands what Leonardo and Salvatore are talking about from a good distance away in an echoey tunnel; that’s not an easy listening comprehension situation.

He’s just not very confident at speaking Italian. It’s clearly not the first language he reaches for when trying to express himself. But high listening comprehension + low speaking ability/confidence seems like a very logical pattern of language acquisition for someone who’s spent a long time in an immersion environment but doesn’t have much patience for formal education, and also had the ability to attend school in their native language and spends a lot of time around wealthy expats who are likely to speak English. And of course native-English-speaker privilege is a thing, which means that he can get away with not being completely fluent in the language of the country he’s living in with very few negative consequences to himself.

And yes yes I know that on a Doylist level having Paul almost always be around someone who speaks English is partially for the audience, since this is a TV show made with a primarily Anglophone audience in mind. But I also think “listen and understand in Italian, reply in English” is a pretty logical way for him to interact with the language environment he’s in, and that’s mostly what we see him do with the characters who don’t speak English well.

There’s a couple fun Primo/Paul implications to this, I think. One is the idea that Paul would try to actively maintain his Italian comprehension when he’s not in Italy. Probably in his very haphazard Paul-ish manner, by doing things like “there’s a Rossellini retrospective at Film Forum and I’m going to go and sit there all day and just listen,” but hey, he’s trying. And the idea of flighty, dreamy Paul putting actual work into trying to understand Primo better (both literally and figuratively) is just...delicious.

I also really like the idea that he’d wind up with random Calabrese words and phrases in his vocabulary, probably without even realizing it; like he’ll just repeat something because he heard Primo say it and he understood from context clues what it meant, only to get a weird double-take from one of his Roman friends. Which maybe is awkward and confusing the first few times, but privately he likes the idea of having these little bits of Primo to hold onto.

[laufire]

Imo, potential Saileen was better than canon Saileen. I shipped them when they were cute flirty friends in Seasons 11 and 12 and was upset that they killed her (and not just for ship reasons.) But when they brought her back in Season 15 and made it canon it just... didn't feel like them. All the spark was gone out of the ship. Plus it kinda felt like they shoved Rowena out of the way for it to happen just when I'd started to really get into that ship! (And a certain corner of fandom also killed my love for Saileen, but that's a story for another DM.)

I didn't ship them in s11-12; I didn't feel there was enough material for me to make up my mind one way or the other, but I was expectant regarding s15. Her death was bullshit, that's for sure.

With s15... that scene where he resurrected her pinged my radar, I felt something. But that was pretty much it. I shipped Samwena too and would've definitely preferred that, but I'm a multishipper so that wouldn't have stopped me from adding another ship to my armada lol.

Listen, I've half-joked before about how I never expected to be much of a shipper because I only ship Sam with people Dean wouldn't want him to be with LMAO. It's not just out of a "fuck you, Dean" impulse, I swear. Seriously, there's a direct correlation between how much Dean disapproves of one of Sam's relationships, and how beneficial said relationship is for Sam's narrative (hence Samruby being my OTP for him!).

Sam's narrative is at its best when he has relationships that give him a reason to fight Dean, Watsonian and Doylist-wise. The fact that Dean endorses Sam/Eileen is effectively a ship-killer as far as I'm concerned.

But I would've liked it to be, and I was a bit hopeful it'd be... a nice, uplifting dynamic for Sam; something last minute, not too explored, but something heartwarming that might leave you thinking about the future ~possibilities, you know? Last-season romances are a mixed bag, but I've seen some that managed to stick the landing quite well, and IMO this one wasn't didn't make the cut.

Given what I knew about the finale it was difficult it reached those expectations LOL, but it COULD have happened. Hell, everyone is free to imagine whoever they want as The Blurry Wife, as I've said before, Eileen included. But I don't want to imagine her in that role.

Like I said, with her resurrection and their tentative thing I could enjoy it a bit. But then comes 15x09, with the reveal that Chuck's machinations were what brought them together in the first place.

And that could've been the point where things got turned around and the dynamic could've become something really interesting!! I mean, c'mon, it could've brought at the forefront a lot of the themes of the season itself, Chuck controlling the Winchesters lives, the collateral damage that causes (in this case, Eileen getting used as a pawn and questioning her level of agency within their relationship)...

It could have been used to explore those issues, and to delve into Eileen's relationship (which I hope I get to write one day!), but instead, she leaves and never comes back. We're told the two of them are trying to see if they work, and they have one off-screen date. Then she dies alongside the rest of the world, comes back, and. Nothing.

Nothing.

So. We had option a.) something uplifting that gives you a bit of hope for the future; not an intense world-destroying love, but something softer and kinder; or b.) a chilling exploration of the themes of the season (and larger ones, if you think of how it could mirror John and Mary getting roofied by cupids on Michael's orders!). And the show failed to deliver on both fronts.

So yeah, I found their relationship disappointing. This might be my most controversial SPN opinion. Mutuals are going to desert me over this xDD

(lol I know what you mean. Yeah, it seems to be Sam's convenient ship to pair him off vis a vis Destiel. Something neither of the characters, nor the people that genuinely like the ship, deserve. Plus like, what's safe about a God-forced romance?? That deserves to be explored in fic, not made into the eternal "safe" ship smh)

[sclfmastery]

I’ve just watched the doctor falls and am I going mad or did they never even mention the drums once?? Like I never expected them to carry that theme on with other Masters because it was something quite unique to RTD, but then when simm!master returned they just never even acknowledged it? Yet the last time we saw that incarnation he was on the verge of tears to the doctor saying he didn’t know what he’d be without them? Anyway I just feel like it sums up that they went to the trouble of bringing him back despite not wanting to acknowledge any aspects of the character at all (apart from a couple of small references to LotTL like calling the doctor grandad)

Not once is it mentioned, no.  I genuinely think Moffat omitted it not because he believed that, by the close of End of Time Part 2, the arrival of Gallifrey through the Timelock resolved the Drums (although that is MY personal headcanon), but because they were a motif of suffering and too sympathetic.  He wanted to force Simm into a reductive “bad impenitent Master” box, and Gomez into an equally reductive “listens to the Doctor and is willing to compromise herself and is therefore the good Master” box.  Therefore Simm had to make forced, out of place lines like “you don’t have empathy now, do you?” and “is the future going to be all girl?” (don’t even get me started on how RTD and Moffat made a TIME LORD from a post-gender planet full of elite telepaths who use machines to reproduce into a common twentieth-century human sexist, it is my number one pet peeve lmao ).  

Therefore Simm had to be evil just for the sake of being evil. Therefore any source of trauma or stress had to be eradicated from the fandom’s collective memory, including the HIGHLY complicated iconography of the Drums, which resonates with A LOT of fans  (for instance, the neurodiverse and chronically ill). 

That was the only way to make Missy the unequivocal “hero” Master completing a (really troubling and problematic) "Rehabilitation” that existed entirely to establish the Doctor’s idea of morality as The One True Way.  The Doctor Falls ruined the Master and, I would argue, Missy, in order to make the Doctor look like the tragic superhero, the stuff of legends, the untouchable, the Impossible To Understand.  To wit, Moffat’s own masturbatory Superego persona, a wacky “smart” white man who sighs and suffers to put up with all the cute dumb lesser beings that he has to babysit, but is himself ineffably brilliant and mysterious and sexy.   (p.s. I love Twelve, especially when written by someone who is not Moffat. he was so warped ooc in series 10). 

Mind, Moffat makes sure that (most of) the Doctor’s other actions are infallible, which further muddies the waters for any Simm fans.  I certainly agree with the Doctor’s actions re the Mondasian ship, and rescuing the families and children on that platform, and I certainly roundly condemn the Master weaponizing robots made from living people to his advantage.  But that doesn’t excuse erasing all memory of the character development around coping with and overcoming the Drums in order to (often Moffat’s raison d’etre) make the Doctor this superhuman hero figure, instead of the regular, eccentric bloke he’d always been. 

And I think it’s interesting that as soon as the reins are handed over to Chibnall, he brings back the Drums: in Spyfall Part 2, with the famous Morse code scene. 

But the worst thing that’s happened since The Doctor Falls? Anyone who’s a fan of Simm is presumed some kind of sexist as well: when we are just as likely to condemn the Doylist reasons for Simm’s behavior, which so many other fans mistake as Watsonian reasons.  Moffat has weaponized his stans against people who love Simm’s Master.  He has made his performative allyship seem somehow more “righteous.” 

As convolutedly meta as ever, so very characteristic of him, Moffat has turned his stans into little Twelfth Doctors who are Misunderstood But Always Right, whose job it is to straighten out the Missys in the fandom, and condemn and give up on the Simms.  It makes a tidy, satisfying little narrative for media consumption and wokeness, you see.