#but wow this got long surprise surprise

[navree]

this is dc twitter discourse at the moment so i thought i'd ask your thoughts on it do you think red hood jason hurting children is ooc/a bad writing choice???

And this ladies and gents is why I avoid DC Twitter because I don't think I've seen any good takes there ever, no matter where you are. Sometimes people post panel compilations that hurt my heart, that's the like the only good thing to come out of it, I don't even click on the MAWS hashtag if it trends while the show is airing because last time I did it was people bitching that 25 year old Slade did not look or act the same way that current in his forties Slade does (not to mention, how can you complain about MAWS Slade? he's the best part about the show how did anyone not just fall over laughing with delight the second he showed up and proclaimed himself to be literal Slade Wilson?).

With that said, yeah I would consider that to be a bad writing choice. Talking about characterization for comics is hard because, as I've mentioned, comics is an incredibly decentralized creative medium in a way none others are. Movies, TV shows, novels, they all tend to have a main core group of people or even just one solitary person in charge of the creative direction, and for a lot of them, a very finite "this is where we start and this is where we end" mentality that comics do not. These characters have had constantly changing creative heads, with new directions and ideas for characterization attached, since their inception, and they've all been around for a very long time. This is why comics are kind of the only medium where you can, in fact, really pick and choose your canon, because the canon has changed so much depending on who is in charge at a giant company. Like, canonical eighties Batman characterization would be considered super OOC for someone writing canonical modern Batman, and vice versa. So talking about characterization is hard, especially with Jason when nobody has had any idea what to fucking do with him for decades at this point. But, when it comes to Red Hood Jason, there is something I consider gospel canon, which is the Under the Red Hood arc, since that is what nearly all subsequent canon imaginings of Jason take from. That is our gold standard here. And based on UTRH, yeah, Jason harming children is out of character and it is bad writing.

When Jason comes back, he has two very clear goals. Goal one: the Joker's gotta die, preferably Batman kills him so Jason gets concrete proof that he was loved and mourned (Jason is not mentally healthy so his thought process doesn't make sense just roll with it), but Jason is fine killing the man himself, so long as he dies. Goal two: essentially fulfill Batman's mission in a way where it actually accomplishes his goals. Jason outlines this pretty specifically in Batman #641, he tells Bruce "You. I'll be you. The you you're supposed to be." Jason's goal as the Red Hood is to make Gotham better (in his head), safer, and cleaner, but unlike Batman he is willing to take that goal as far as he can and will kill if necessary. What he wants is to just take Batman's mission to its logical extreme. Eradicate the various elements that have caused suffering in Gotham throughout the years, just with more permanence than Batman does, and less of a focus on rehabilitation, because you can't rehabilitate a dead person. And as part of this, Jason does not act unnecessarily. When he kills, it is people who (arguably) deserve it, and it is never innocents. It is always the criminal element, and people he believes are past the point of no return, as well as those who might be trying to stop him in that. His mission statement is literally "Death will come to those who deserve death, and death may come to those who stand in my way of doing what's right." and he means that. This is not a character you've created to then go out and harm children, because kids have not done anything to deserve it, and they are not the cause of the issues that he is trying to eliminate.

There's also the fact that Jason, even in his early Red Hood days where editorial just decided that he's a straight villain now, was never someone who went after kids, but in fact actively tried to help them. He makes it a point to tell his people that they do not sell drugs to kids and that if they do, he'll kill them (along with telling them not to get previously clean people hooked and only sell to repeats, which also paints him as someone who isn't just hurting others willy-nilly). The first person Jason ever kills, as seen in Red Hood: Lost Days, is a man who was involved in child trafficking, and he does it specifically because he wants to save those kids and future victims from him, and considers him scum of the Earth as a result (I think his name was Egan? Egon? idfk I don't reread Lost Days because I find their whole "look at fully adult Talia fucking the mentally ill sixteen year old under her care who is reliant on her for everything, how sexy" shtick abhorrent, and using Talia as their child rapist doubly so). So Jason, even at his most villainous, at his most "this is a bad dude" characterized, is someone who deliberately avoids harming innocents because it's not compatible with his mission or his personal code, and includes children very specifically in that.

It is also out of character and a bad writing choice because of Jason's own childhood. You might think a rebuttal to this is "Jason wants to kill/hurt criminals, what if kids are criminals" well guess what Jason was a kid criminal! It is actually illegal to steal parts off of people's cars, even if that person can afford it because he's Batman (to say nothing of the multiple very heavy handed hints dropped that Jason solicited as a prostitute during his time being homeless, which is also a crime, it is illegal and he would have been picked up by the cops for it if found out). Unless you want to argue that Jason thinks he himself should have been taken out with a Glock at the big of age of eleven for doing illegal things in the name of survival, you can't say that Jason's philosophy would allow him to harm children and remain in character or decently written, you just can't. Like, your other gospel for Jason's characterization should be his original Robin run from the 80s, since that's literally what introduced him to this world in the first fucking place, so duh. And there's nothing in that characterization to suggest that he would harm anyone unnecessarily, especially kids. Like, Robin Jason spares Two-Face's life, after having found out days ago that Two-Face murdered Willis Todd in cold blood; he tries to save Sheila Haywood's life after she straight up helps murder him; this isn't someone whose characterization allows for him to hurt children later in life. Especially once you factor in his struggles as a child, and how that most likely just breeds empathy for other children, especially children who are having a hard time.

Now, I can guess that some of this comes up in discussions of one of my most loathed subjects, the stupid bad stupid dumb stupid attack on fucking Titan's Tower. Now, even beyond the fact that the stupid attack on stupid Titan's Tower is less about Jason wanting to beat up children and more his specific issues with Bruce and the concept of Robin that can't be transplanted to other people, the attack itself is bad writing. It is out of character for Jason. It does not jive at all with his stated characterization and motivations that he himself outlined (also the only other closest thing to that is his fight with Mia Dearden, where he's pretty tame in just warning her to leave vigilantism and straight up beats her twice before letting her go relatively unscathed of his own free will, just saying) and it makes no sense. His issues are that the Joker is alive and Batman didn't do anything about it. Why the fuck would he care about Tim? Tim means nothing to him, he never even met the little dude, he doesn't have an issue with him. He doesn't even have an issue with the idea of Robin being passed down because Jason literally said he was perfectly content to not be Robin and just be Jason, and his problems don't arise from Robin! The issues at the heart of Jason's conflict with Bruce hinge on the Bruce and Jason relationship of father and son, not Batman and Robin! And not fucking Tim! Tim means nothing, he is a nonentity. The only reason this fuckass plot exists is because DC didn't know what to do with Jason and threw shit at the wall to see what would stick, similar to what we saw with that dumb plot with Nightwing from this time that also has similar issues, in that why would Jason care enough to cause problems for Dick, he doesn't have an issue with Dick, he legit interacts with Dick in UTRH and he's fine! (a better writing decision would have been post-UTRH Jason immediately writing the entire Batfam off and treating them as hostiles whenever they wander into Crime Alley and them having to regain his trust back/him agreeing to let down more and more barriers as time goes on and they all reconnect, but I was like seven when all this was being written so DC didn't seek my input) The fucking dumb Titan's Tower thing that people are gonna use to prove that Jason hurting kids isn't bad writing isn't even about Jason, the only reason this shit gets trotted out again and again is because Tim Drake has a lot of fans who are absolutely convinced their poor uwu baby has suffered more than Jesus when the only person in the Batfam who's suffered less than him is, like, Alfred (although I can make the argument that Alfred has still suffered more by having had to put up with Bruce Wayne almost singlehandedly for most of his adult life). It exists in people's minds even tho it is objectively bad writing and out of character for one of the main players because fanon Tim has to be the most special boy ever (and also because these people wanna use it to make Tim interesting which is impossible because nothing can make Tim interesting).

Jason hurting children deliberately is, indeed, bad writing. It is, in fact, incredibly out of character. It does not compute to his explicit motivations and how he was characterized in the stories that have since been used as a jumping off point for his characterization ever since. And ultimately, the thing is this: if Red Hood Jason is just trying to do Batman's job better than Batman, who is he doing it for if not children? Who is he trying to clean up Gotham for, make Gotham a better place for, if not her children? And if that's the case, as it obviously is, why on Earth would him then harming her children be any kind of good character writing or coherent characterization?

TL;DR, yes it is.

[numbuh424]

I'm the one that you loathe

Mature | 3,380 words | read on AO3

Light wants satisfaction. There’s an easy fix for that; he could simply pick any person he wants among the many who want him and take them without even thinking. But that's too easy. It's all too easy. He wants a challenge. He wants L. And L is dead. In the midst of picturing L's hands on him, the thought of his latest adversary comes to mind. He refused to humor Light before; maybe he'll humor him now. Fuck it. Light decides to give him a call.

Took me a while to take this off anon 🫡 Read my fic where Light spends the night before the warehouse meetup missing L, deciding to call Near, and quickly realizing they're not the same. But enjoying it anyway 👍

[goginaporter]

lyrical analysis of love you forever

or, breaking down ricky's love (confession) for gina

we're a little under three months out from the series finale of high school musical: the musical: the series. I've spent those months freaking out over rina and appreciating the beautiful arc they got in s4 that closed out their story over the course of the series. there are a million special moments that rina has in s4 (I mean, a rain kiss? can I have this dance? a duet together about their commitment to each other despite uncertainty? we really got it all) but one definitely stands out among the rest. love you forever is ricky's declaration of love for gina that he sings to her at her press conference for her new movie that, as far as he knows, is about to send her across the world. this post is gonna be a line by line analysis of the lyrics, as well as talking about everything that brought them to that moment and that made it special. enjoy <33

I've been wishing on a falling star for too long

this line opens the song and is such a beautiful callback to when there was me and you, the song ricky all but serenades gina with in 1.06 (the lines it references: I thought you were my fairy tale / A dream when I'm not sleeping / A wish upon a star / That's coming true). wtwmay is a song that gabriella sings after troy's betrayal in hsm and when ricky sings this line, to me, it represents a callback to his past relationship with nini. he was holding on to nini and that relationship too tight, wishing on a falling star. as gabriella says, wishes on stars just "don't come true" and for ricky, this relationship ultimately ended in failure. however, as much as this line signifies the crash and burn nature of that relationship, it's also a reference to the start of his relationship with gina in that bunker room as he strummed on a guitar, in a similar fashion to love you forever, to these lyrics.

I've been running, I don't know what from

this line references the conversation that ricky had with ej in 4.05 when ej forces ricky to reckon with the fact that he runs away from those he loves when faced with hard realities and that this tendency hurts both those around him, but also hurts him. it's incredibly full circle when you pair this with the fact that ricky is singing the song on the guitar ej gave him after they sang speak out, where ej tells him that "you'll probably get more use outta this than me" (4.05). i think it's really cool that this line also references gina's similar character flaw of running when things get hard, which she also sings about in second chance (Maybe I'm safer when I'm on the run / No time to open up my heart / Maybe I'll hide behind my walls again / Instead of tearing them apart) (also important to note that second chance is non-digetic and ricky has never heard gina sing these lyrics). so fascinating that ricky and gina have the same habit of running, with ricky running back to things that are familiar and gina pushing forward to leave things in the past before they can hurt her.

But you and I've become a sacred kinda home

this is one of my favorite lines of the song, especially because this theme of finding a home is such a critical cornerstone for both ricky and gina's arcs throughout the show. ricky's home life in s1 turns on its head when he discovers that his parents are separating. pairing this with his breakup with nini nearly sends him into a spiral, but he finds a new home of sorts in the theater program, telling gina "it's just nice to have somewhere to go after school every day, y'know" (1.05), which she herself resonates with, affirming his feelings.

of course, at the beginning of s2, we find out that ricky and his dad are moving to an apartment after his mom moves out. this drastic shift, the loss of his childhood home, is again disorienting, and again paired with changes with nini, what with her moving to denver. in 2.02, he tells nini that she is his home, which is really interesting, placing that kind of pressure on her. but what's even more interesting is that he knows he's moving, knows from the beginning of 2.01, and yet nini does not find out about his new home until 2.03 on valentine's day, months later. this is juxtaposed to gina showing up to his apartment that same episode. it's especially special that ricky is placed in the same situation that gina typically faces, the unpacking and getting accustomed to a new space. it is those undertones that serve as the undercurrent for their conversation. the apartment is in disarray when gina arrives, and remains that way for much of the season. gina, however, is endeared by the messy environment of the apartment and jokes along with ricky to put him at ease. by the time we return to it in s4, it's (naturally) much more lived in, with clothes strewn about, pictures of gina, and aptly placed posters lining the wall of ricky's room.

as I mentioned earlier, ricky calls nini his home in s2. this line says that he and gina together have become a home of sorts for each other. singing this to gina is important for ricky, but it also speaks to the unpredictable nature of gina's childhood, where she moved from city to city, never staying in one place for more than a few months, which she tells ricky in 1.05. by the end of s1, we think that she has to move again, something that's harder for her now that she's made connections with the wildcats, namely with ricky. as we see in the flashback scene in 2.06, she tells ricky that she wouldn't quit on them if not for her move, that they would essentially remain close if she weren't leaving salt lake. of course, she doesn't leave and instead moves in with ashlyn. it's her first taste of stability that she can really remember, but as she tells carlos in 2.04, she feels out of place living in a house she doesn't own and with a family that isn't hers. these feelings culminate in gina wanting to leave, a subplot we see primarily in 2.05 and 2.06. after revealing to ashlyn what she said to ricky opening night of hsm, ashlyn sings home from beauty and the beast to gina, telling her that she has a home with ashlyn, not just physically, but within their friendship. there is so much symbolism in that one scene that we don't have time to get into but this moment definitely shifts gina's perception of what a home can look like. in s3, we learn that her mom is moving back to salt lake city where she'll be staying long-term to allow gina to complete her time at east high. in fact, it's in this very house that we get our first scene of rina in s4, with ricky sneaking into her window. one's room is a reflection of oneself, and ricky and gina are all over each other's rooms, both literally and figuratively, throughout the season. combining this with the connection between the two that only strengthens over the course of the season, it comes as no surprise that ricky sees his and gina's relationship as a sacred home.

I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love and I know it / No net, no fear, right here in this moment

my twitter account was littered with theories and thoughts and hopes for ricky's love confession to gina, but whether it was public or private, planned or spontaneous, the one thing that I knew I wanted was for ricky to say that he is in love with gina. so on august 9th when ricky got to the chorus of love you forever, tears started pooling in my eyes because the confession, which was already literally perfect, delivered my biggest wish. one of my favorite aspects of the song is how much it reflects their journey because these are all the words that ricky would tell gina in some big speech, evidenced by him practicing all throughout 4.07. but when it comes down to it, after references to moments between them and beautiful metaphors, it builds to him telling gina not only does he love her, but that he's in love with her. there's no doubt in his mind of this fact. the sky is blue, the sun shines, and ricky bowen loves gina porter. so much of ricky's love for nini was tied to fear, especially a fear of change. that his love for gina transcends fear, that he is confident in what he tells her both shows his growth in romantic relationships but also in how much gina has redefined what it means to love someone for him.

I've never been more sure of what I got, yeah / Cause this is so much more than puppy love, so

continuing with the theme of confidence, ricky tells gina that he's never been more sure of what he's got in their relationship. I know I'm bringing rini up a lot but that relationship is a perfect frame of reference for how much ricky has changed when it comes to love. both his singing of I think I kinda you know in 1.01 and his love confession to nini in 1.10, while genuine, are riddled with stuttering and uncertainty ("I think", "I don't know", etc.). when you compare the ricky of 1.01 and the ricky of 4.08 and how he attempts to use song to profess his love, the differences are stark, and that's the point. as he all but said in 3.08, everything he's known about love has been changed by gina and that is reflected in love you forever. I love the puppy love nod and think it's narratively important for so many reasons. for one, it's a reference to their first date, as well as to gina's childhood. in that vein, it seems to mirror what gina tells ricky in 4.02, that mack was a crush of her childhood. calling what they have "more than puppy love" also nods to their growth, not just over the course of the series, but even throughout the season. from dealing with scrutiny in the fallout of the documentary to gina's increasingly busy schedule to their temporary pause to gina nearly moving across the world, they've been faced with many problems, and while they didn't handle all of them perfectly, they handled them together and came out that much stronger.

I'll say it first, no matter what the cost / Here I am full heart, full stop / I love you

in 3.05, ricky talks to jet following the fallout of the real campers of shallow lake drama. he asks jet what he's running from and tells him that sometimes when feelings are hard to articulate, it helps to sing instead. with love you forever, we see ricky taking his own advice. I love that ricky is insistent that he tells gina "I love you" first, both because he wants to rectify mistakes from his last relationship, but also because gina says, in a talking head, that she doesn't want to be the first to say "I love you," (4.06) further cementing the connection that rina has. it also affirms that there is no doubt in either of their minds that they love each other and want to say it to each other. it's also important to note that ricky understands the risk of singing this song at this point in time. for all he knows, gina is about to board a plane that will be taking her to the other side of the world for six months. however, he sings this song, affirms his love for her, no matter the cost, because he just wants her to know. he loves her in salt lake, he loves her in new zealand, and he loves her forever. ricky sings that he is there with a full heart, full stop I love you. in an interview after s3's finale, tim federle, the showrunner, states that while nini will always have a small part of ricky's heart, gina has a way of making hearts race. this line, to me, symbolizes the notion that gina is his heart, that his love for her encompasses it. there's a beautiful analysis of ricky being gina's heart canonically that I think helps tie all of this together, establishing that gina is ricky's heart, just like he is hers.

of course, I would be remiss to not talk about the full stop of it all. as we see in a flashback in 4.06, ricky opens up to gina in their first meeting about how he struggled saying I love you to nini, his ex. after hearing this, gina presents him with a possibility you can tell he's never considered: "maybe you just don't love her, full stop." ricky stutters in response, but doesn't fully negate gina's statement, in fact telling her that he's "kinda" planning on telling nini through song later that night outside her window (ironic that this plan doesn't pan out for him twice in the show, both here and in 2.03). that he brings up this notion of full stop, where there's no room for doubt, in his confession for gina further proves how deep and real and true their love is for each other. super small thing before I move on but I love how "I love you" gets its own special moment of pause in the song to fully communicate the gravity of such a statement.

I never knew that I could feel so sure and so strong /How can three old words feel so brand new?

Again, this idea of being sure comes up again in this second verse/buildup to the chorus. ricky has done the love confession before. he's been in love before. but again, with gina, it's different. it's deeper, more strong, more secure. and so when he says these words, in a situation that mirrors his audition for hsm, of course it feels different. in that auditon, he was singing nini's words back to her. love you forever, in contrast, is all ricky. those three words do feel new because now he's singing them to gina and for gina, where previously he sang them for himself. also a really cool note about the parallels between ricky's audition and love you forever is that tim federle released the initial script for love you forever, and one of the descriptions writes that ricky "launches into the audition of a lifetime." this song, this confession, is the start of his forever with gina. of course these words feel new.

Mm, so rare, so real right here in this moment / And I'm starin' at the only thing I want, so

I tear up hearing ricky say that the love that he has for gina is both rare and real. both ricky and gina, at different points throughout the show, cast doubt on love. ricky says in a talking head in 1.01 that love is dead (fun fact: ricky is wearing the same denim jacket from that talking head during love you forever teehee). gina, in the 4.06 flashback, calls love lame. their faith in love ebbs and flows throughout the show, but once they are together, there's no question. it's why ricky encourages the seblos reconciliation in 4.06 or why gina tells jet to confess his feelings for kourtney in 4.08. if they've found this beautiful love in each other, where they got a second chance on love in every sense of the words, why wouldn't they want that for everyone else, for the people that they love?

the second half of this lyric, of ricky "staring at the only thing he wants," is my absolute favorite line of love you forever. ricky's eyes are naturally drawn to gina in nearly every episode of the show, whether she's looking at him or not, whether they're speaking or not. even before he recognized those feelings in himself, we could see it because she was always the apple of his eye. this rings especially true during love you forever, where ricky does not take his eyes off of gina the entire song, except when miss jenn turns the lights on. gina is the center of his universe and who he has been drawn to since she entered his life. there was a tweet after s4 aired that stated that ricky looks at gina as though he's falling deeper in love with her every time and this line captures that.

I wanna finish what we started in the stairwell where we met

the bridge opens with this line and it's so fitting. to suggest that committing to loving each other forever is finishing what they started when they had that first conversation in the stairwell is so insane and will always make me spiral when I think about it. this line all but confirms that ricky and gina began to fall for each other in that moment. that their conversation in the stairwell is what catalyzed their respective character arcs also all but confirms that they're soulmates, that there was an invisible string that connected them, inexplicably tying their fates together forever.

I wanna live like I have never even heard the word regret

both ricky and gina have instances that they look back on and wish they had done things differently. gina says so explicitly in 2.05 when speaking to kourtney. she alludes to her goodbye to ricky after hsm's opening night, stating that it was something she wishes she could take back. in 3.06, ricky tells jet that he wishes that he didn't let color war gina slip through his fingers, suggesting that he would've done things differently if he were more cognizant of his feelings for her. ricky never wants to feel like that again, that he's missed his chance with gina due to fear. he wholeheartedly embraces his love for her because he knows what it was like to live without it and doesn't want to live in a world where gina isn't his reality.

I wanna scream what's in my heart and I won't ever take it back

ricky and ej's duet in 4.05 is about speaking your truth and speaking even when it's hard. the song even has a line about "screaming out." where in speak out, screaming out solicits no sound, ricky singing this line in love you forever is him being able to vocalize the feelings in his heart. he also commits to never taking these words back. his feelings for gina are eternal and everlasting. this is important for gina to hear because words have always been unreliable to her. people that she cares about, whether her mom or jamie or even e.j., have made verbal commitments to her at one point or another, and each one of them has later reneged on that commitment, whether intentionally or not. ricky can say these words, can say "I love you" to gina, because he's been saying it through his actions the entire show. gina doesn't always trust words, but she trusts actions. ricky has more than proven his love for her, and it's this continued declaration through his works that allows these words to ring true for her.

'Cause I love you feels a lot like high school and forever after that

I made this observation a couple weeks ago but this line is so fascinating. when the season first dropped and I heard the line, I was a tad confused. what does it mean for love to feel like high school? I was listening to the hsm3 soundtrack when it all clicked for me. in high school musical, the final song they sing in hsm3, the last line is "I want the rest of my life to feel just like a / High school musical" with this line, ricky is basically saying that he will love gina for the rest of his life. throwing in a hsm reference is also incredibly fitting given that they've just completed the first night of their run as troyella, further cementing their legacy as the troyella of the show. i love that, even when the bridge is repeated, ricky and gina are the only ones to sing these lines. when the bridge is sung for the third and final time, ricky and gina are now together on stage singing the words "I"m in love, I'm in love, I'm in love" to each other in between the lines of the bridge. the song closes with ricky singing "I love you feels a lot like high school" with gina singing "and forever after that." I love this ending for two reasons: ending the song with rina singing together re-emphasizes that they're in love, and in love together (for the first time), as tim mentions in an interview. I also love it because even as the wildcats join to sing the bridge near the end of the song, ricky and gina are the only people to sing the lines "I'm in love x3" and "I love you feels a lot like high school." even though their friends step in to sing some lines, ultimately, the song is a love song for gina, about gina, and that's why it ends with her. as tim (love how much I'm referencing him) mentioned in an interview, rina is the beating heart of the romance of the show, and their friends coming in to sing along to ricky's love song for gina fully solidifies this.

[knockknockitsnickels]

Thoughts about Prison3r bc she's making me go insane

Spoilers under the cut (also minor spoilers - chapter name & brief discussion of other routes - in the tags, so don't read those lol)

I have a feeling the Cage is going to get overshadowed by Sp3ctre & Happily Ever After, but I was really surprised by the direction they took her in, and I think she makes Pris all the more tragic as a character.

IMO, the Prisoner route kind of functions as a giant trust fall. You've established in the previous chapter that you're skeptical of this whole setup (hence voice of the skeptic, lmao) and willing to help the Princess, and this route puts that to the test. Can you focus on what's important without getting caught up in questioning irrelevant details (the empty shackle)? Can you trust the Princess enough to give her your weapon? And on the other side of that, can she trust you to understand her plan?

Part of what makes the Prisoner compelling to me is the unspoken trust she has in the player (part of why I've never understood the take that she doesn't actually care about you? Maybe we've got some Autism2Autism telepathy going on though). Her lines in the Shifting Mound fight (if you free her) talks about how "shared skepticism blossomed into trust", and the Drowned Grey further implies that she put a lot of trust and hope in the player which they ended up betraying.

I was expecting Prison3r to play with that betrayal of trust - she showed we could trust her, but her trust in us was misplaced. It doesn't really matter if you leaving the head was an honest mistake or not, we still let her down. I was expecting a scenario where we'd be stuck apologizing to a Princess who couldn't bring herself to trust us again, no matter how sincere we were being. I was expecting her to be angry. I didn't expect her to just... give up.

If the Drowned Grey is meant to represent the Prisoner (metaphorically) letting go of the tight control she has of her emotions, (literally) drowning you in her (metaphorical) grief and rage, then the Cage is the opposite, locking her emotions even deeper away. Shifty describes her as (paraphrasing here, emphasis mine) "someone who wishes she could be just a set of eyes and ears." The Cage isn't angry with you for leaving her behind. Why should she be? It was her mistake, after all. She shouldn't have been so stupid to think she could break the cycle and actually be freed.

The route also plays with the contrast between the Princess and the Player (via the voices) in fun ways. While the Cage is already resigned to repeating the cycle, skeptic (and paranoid, if you get him) are panicking for the whole route, trying desperately to find a way out of it while unintentionally forcing you to into the same patterns as before (by forcing us to take the knife. Thanks guys, very cool).

It honestly feels like the perfect response to the common fan complaint of "Why is the Prisoner mad at you for leaving her head behind? It was an accident!". Well, here you go. She's not mad at you. It would honestly feel better if she was.

[shivasdarknight]

Time for your regularly scheduled, "Killjoy Hour with Enya" because we're being a killjoy about Dawntrail (:

So first and foremost: fuck Square and the XIV team for taking this angle. We could've gone any direction and we're going with Colonizer The Adventure. They looked at what we did on the Steppe with Hien and went "let's do it again! :D"

Mandatory CW for racism as it pertains to the indigenous peoples of North America, Mesoamerica and South America, and discussion of the genocide enacted by Spain against Mesoamerica and South America.

(Sections and the first letter of each sentence have been bolded for ease of reading)

But to explain further: Square has a really awful track record with their take on Tural, the "New World", especially in their handling of the Mamoolj'aa that are in Eorzea. This has been an issue since ARR and has been frequently criticized due to their extremely anti-indigenous writing. The way they handle the Eorzean tribes (which have been known as "beast tribes" and "beastmen" for a good part of the past decade that XIV has been around, I Should Not have to explain to you why that's deeply problematic) is an issue in its own right, but I'll only touch on what we've seen of Tural in the game itself and why this doesn't bode well for Dawntrail.

Let's get the obvious one out of the way first, this fucking shit:

For those unaware, this is the New World set. It's a craftable gear set from Heavensward that players can wear as a goddamned costume. I shouldn't have to be saying this in 2023, but this set has caused a great deal of controversy because it's a bastardization of plains tribe regalia. Square never should have added it to the game, but here it is and players constantly wear it in further offensive glams.

The only instance of this set being used with NPCs is in the Blue Mage quests and what we see of the Whalaqee. Again, to those unaware: the ARR Blue Mage quests are an extremely racist storyline that plays into white savior narratives and more offensive caricatures. The only representatives that we get to interact with of the Whalaqee are a little boy in this outfit (who's also extremely pale), and two Mamoolj'aa who are the lackeys of Martyn, the job trainer for Blue Mage - a white man! Further, the magic is notably not from Eorzea and is instead a cultural practice of the Whalaqee that Martyn took and turned into profit, and he's who you're supposed to work for. You are - yet again - considered a master of the practice, and this is written in mind with a default white man in mind considering Meteor being the stand in for everything. There is in-game appropriation of cultural practices, clothing, and tools but it gets worse the further you go into them.

The main plot of the ARR quests is that the Whalaqee are dying from a plague brought toTural by Martyn and other researchers with the Arcanist's guild 🙃 There were two trips: one to study Blue Magic, and one where people from the first trip went back because they found ceruleum in the sacred lands of the Whalaqee and began drilling for it. But remember: you only get to meet the Whalaqee through the two Mamoolj'aa and the Whalaqee child. The fate of the tribe rests in an Eorzean's hands because they put the medicine behind a bet for the further profit of Ul'dah. Win the carnival and make the owner a bunch of money and you get the medicine; lose, and they go raid the place for ceruleum and wipe out the tribe. It's a deeply offensive storyline that turns past and ongoing horrors that indigenous peoples - especially those of North America and Mesoamerica - have faced and are still facing into some trivial goal for a questline for a joke job that's solved through the white savior trope.

Then, of course, there's how the Mamoolj'aa are generally treated. Like the other ARR tribes and anyone the game doesn't consider civilized, their dialogue is written in broken speech patterns to reflect "lower intelligence." They're one of the only ARR tribes (next to the Qiqirn, who only got that somewhat through the SHB Qitari quests) that haven't gotten any kind of humanizing that the others have seen over the years (and even then, that's only been recently). Throughout ARR-HVW storylines, they're portrayed as extremely aggressive, are often throwaway mercs for hire around La Noscea, and they have them use this "cultural dance" of theirs that's described as extremely suggestive and is frequently used to sexually harass the white women of Eorzea. They're also seen in the Wanderer's Palace (Hard) as "aggressive barbarian" types who enslaved the Tonberries, which were originally the Spoken of Nym (so y'know, predominantly white society that became malformed and gangrenous tonberries). And your job as the Warrior of Light is, naturally, to exterminate them. There's other stuff like the naming of abilities they use (frequent use of barbarian/barbaric, which in it of itself is problematic), the totems and standards that you're actively encouraged to destroy, the shaman stuff + the fact that again: they're the only ARR tribe that never got the same kind of humanizing lens that tribes like the Sylphs got early on, or like the Amalj'aa got only recently.

Dawntrail looks to be as if it might be that humanizing effort that began in Stormblood and was most prominent in 5.X (ARR-SHB tribe side quests don't count as it's side content, not MSQ), but of course there comes the problem: beyond them never treating the Mamoolj'aa with any respect in the content we already have, they've already framed 7.0 as you meddling in the rite of succession for this new area. An area that is ruled by a two-headed Mamoolj'aa that we have to help overthrow (which is not new, as a two-headed Mamoolj'aa was already shown in The Wanderer's Palace (Hard) - but that one was portrayed as brutish, unintelligent, and played into inbred stuff as...the final boss of the dungeon who gets a special end dungeon cutscene to showcase the Tonberries brutalizing his corpse). And again, this plot thread isn't new! We already helped Hien do that to the Steppe back in Stormblood! This is yet another instance of the game treating imperialism and colonization as a fun thing for you to get in on, especially since they're using the setting and the getting to the setting as a summer vacation.

The fact that they are framing Dawntrail as summer vacation-like is insidious. You are a party of fantasy Europeans sailing to fantasy Mesoamerica/South America to meddle in their governing process.

And let's quickly go over that: the fact Tural is the "New World" as you search for "a city of gold."

These names are rooted heavily in European colonization. The idea that Europe is the "civilized Old World" and that the Americas were the "uncivilized, waiting-to-be-conquered New World" is what drove the colonization of the region, especially in Mesoamerica and South America. The term "New World" is inseparable from white supremacist narratives about the colonizers that engaged with the peoples of the Americas. It's bad enough that XIV introduced Tural as "the New World" to begin with and populated it with a fantasy race that's characterized by violence, a lack of intelligence, and sexual harassment + a gross caricature of North American plains nations, but they have now made it into the destination for the Scions' "summer vacation adventure"? So that you can go do an imperialism there, too? They even framed it as some tropical paradise as if that's not an extension of how colonization of these regions is perpetuated today through the tourism industry.

The other term - city of gold - was a myth that was used as the excuse to ransack Mesoamerica and South America. You've definitely seen it, as that was the entire plot of Road to El Dorado. It was under this pretense that Spanish colonizers decimated indigenous populations in the search of glory and gold. The search for the "city of gold" in the "New World" was a mass genocide - enabled through widespread massacre, and a vicious plague that wiped out 80% of just the population in Mexico alone.

In Mexico, the pestilence reached the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, before its fall in 1521. Pathogens also reached Peru, inciting a civil war among the Incas. Both of these situations were extremely favorable for Spain. The plague—cocoliztli—was the most devastating post-conquest epidemic in large parts of Mexico, wiping out somewhere around 80 percent of the native population.

(from "How Aztecs Reacted to Colonial Epidemics" by Richard Herzog on JSTOR)

This is not a subject to touch upon lightly in any respect. And for XIV to use it for their "fun adventure in a foreign land" is deeply inappropriate and frankly disgusting. But is anyone surprised? This is the same company that ignored the demands of the Saami council to remove the offensive Far Northern attire from the store.

What I'm disappointed the most about, however, is the number of fans chomping at the bit with angles about a tropical tourist destination, taking the summer vacation angle the devs are actively encouraging, and even stuff with pirates (do not get me started on how white pirates contributed to colonization of the Americas). As a friend put it very aptly: how do you see "new world," "city of gold," and a fleet of European ships sailing towards fantasy Mesoamerica and not get skeeved out at the prospect? This isn't something you should be excited about because they're having us role play imperialism Yet Again. But this time, it's all to the tune of "tropical summer vacation in a foreign land". And y'all are excited to join in?

I don't want the expansion to turn out this way. We barely have any information on this, I understand. But what I've laid out here is what the game has already done with regards to Tural's pre-7.0 depictions and what they've shown they want to continue perpetuating. If Dawntrail turns out to be somewhat decent (and it better be better handled than Thavnair and feature fewer white people populating the countries that are inspired by black and brown cultures), then fine. But as it stands, Square has not given us any reason to trust them in how they've handled their indigenous stories leading up to 7.0. This entire concept is rife with the potential to be extremely offensive and extremely racist, and the main takeaway most fans seem to have from this isn't that this is a gross depiction of indigenous cultures, but instead a fun summer vacation with the Scions?

Really?

[pastellmochi]

non paralive moots im begging yuo listen to my wife singing

[raventhekittycat]

I know it's Ryousuke but I genuinely thought it was a woman there for a hot second

[cahootings]

Just having a little moment of gratitude for my body and how strong and resilient it is and trying to hold on to that

[howthesleeplesswander]

another random starter for @jackdup bc Rhysie demanded a silly, fluffy thread to let him love on his sweetheart 🥺💖

“...and then, if you can believe it—y-you know what she says to me?” Rhys’s slurred voice echoed in the vastness of his office. What had started as an evening chat with Timothy had led to more drinks than he could handle with any amount of grace, hence the tirade that was still going strong after ten minutes. He gestured wildly as he paced in front of the plush armchair where Tim had settled. 

“She looks me right in the eyes and says, ‘With all due respect’—and like, okay, listen Brenda, I-I wasn’t born yesterday, first of all, we alllll know what that saying actually means, so ya’ know? I don’t really care what stupidness you follow it with; that’s already a biiiig strike towards me not caring! A-anyway—then she says, ‘With all due respect’—” and this time Rhys mimicked a higher pitched, haughty tone reminiscent of the software developer from the morning's infuriating meeting, “—‘You must have the coding skills of a brain-dead bandit if you don’t understand how big this project is. How have you even made it this far in life with such a tiny, smooth brain?'” He was definitely paraphrasing now, but he’d blame the booze for that. 

Rhys threw his arms wide, and his eyes rolled so hard that he almost tipped backwards. “I was a Hyperion programmer for years! You think I don’t know how much work it takes to implement something like that? I mean, I dealt with plenty of programming overhauls for the Loader Bots, and you know how many more of those there are than janitorial bots in HQ?"

Here he paused briefly, squinting into middle-distance as if actually attempting to count in his head. "I-I mean…I dunno exactly, I have spreadsheets n' shit for that, but like—it’s gotta be millions, at least! A butt-load, is what I’m saying! One one-thousandth of that is hardly a big ask, but nooo, Brenda was all like—”

But before he could continue his barely-coherent rant, the world lurched around him when he spun on his heel. Rhys tripped over himself and stumbled directly into Timmy’s chair—and while he miraculously caught himself before hitting the floor, he still fell halfway on top of Timothy in a flurry of flailing limbs. By the time his head stopped spinning enough to process which way was up again, he was awkwardly perched semi-on Timmy’s knee and semi-on the armrest. One hand clung to the back of the chair like a lifeline.

“Haaa—whoo, wow, alright, Iiii am…way too drunk right now.” And he was supposed to be the big, cool, head-honcho-of-Atlas. Rhys laughed at himself, free-spirited and floaty. “Whyyy did you let me get so drunk?? I have an earnings call at ass-o’-clock in the morning, you’re the woooorst.” And yet he buried his face in the crook of Timmy's neck and nuzzled him affectionately, so how effective was his whining, really?

[awesamforehead]

Good morning, 150 followers yippee ^-^

[gregmarriage]

i have GOT to stop cursing myself for my mental health not being good, or for having literal human emotions, (as if i didn’t suffer a manic episode literally two months ago and i’m still recovering and healing from it)

[sorikaied]

the past week has been the most ariel-centric i’ve ever been. from seeing the new little mermaid film twice last weekend and now enjoying my first day at fan expo cosplaying as ariel. the best part of today was the lovely jodi benson herself! when i say i almost cried after leaving is an understatement.

truly living my best life

[todayisafridaynight]

your wrist was hurting sorry man I know how drawing and presumably college work does that get well soon ❤️‍🩹

LMAO NAW ITS FINE for one thing my hurt wrist is my non-writing/drawing hand so i can still draw/write/use utensils, drawing's just a lot slower without my hotkeys so i figure this is a sign i should take a proper break and rest up. plus i hurt my wrist rollerskating so dont worry i didnt sprain anything from drawing too much

[goblin-enjoyer]

Ok concept for a homestuck challengey thing.

you know those "googling [INSERT CHARACTER INTERNET IS HORNY ABOUT] until I find r34/porn" videos? ( I know bad opening here, hear me out. ) And have yall ever seen that one dougdoug video of him trying to find something on wikipedia only using the random page feature and links inside the page itself? What if there was a thing of a similar nature where you go onto a random youtube video and try and see how long it takes to find a homestuck profile picture? Perhaps allow for video hopping to try and find one if there are either: not a lot of comments or too many comments to check or even if that video just doesn't seem to have any homestuck pfps in its comment section. Thank you shark tank investors for your time, I am now going to check my little poll i have currently going on. it seems like jade and jake are neck and neck, but kanaya is catching up! dave and karkat are pretty even ( that tracks ) and aradia and jane were just passed for last by sollux! though i doubt he will make a comeback as its like almost i want to say 120 votes in? and he only got one vote last poll so i don't expect him to stay slightly ahead of the other 5 percenters for long. tavros still has a mid ( AS IN MEDIUM AS IN MEDIUM, I DO NOT THINK TAVROS IS MID ) amount of votes that's been consistent all poll, not too much, not too little. man i missed the fun of a good poll, i should do this a wee bit more often.

[astrxealis]

i am so used to my pinned post i kinda don't want to change the format but i want to

[scarletenvy]

Hey it's me the pearlet thingy anon, yes she did mention buying the red bob wig "and I went with pearl" (that's her exact words). You should probably watch mistress isabelle brooks vlog with violet as her guest she kinda give comments there about her s7 sisters, I find it funny because it seems like violet still remember everything that happened that season like when kandy ho try to come for pearl 😭😭😭

thank you for the recommendation !! i admit i’ve been very lousy with following anything drag (race) related the past couple years but i do miss s7 so much so i’ll definitely check that one out !!