#he just happens to be a murderous one. we all have our flaws

[thecrowandtheraven08]

I had the other two in other posts, but I figured I’d put them here so it’s more organized and so I don’t lose them

4. Cassian is surprisingly strong! They’re able to pick up and carry Astarion. They’re likely able to lift Halsin slightly, much to his surprise. Though they would never consider their physical strength their greatest strength though. They much prefer to think that is their mind

5. Oh there’s not a doubt in my mind that Cassian and Astarion have Scratch with them on the road. I don’t exactly know where Yenna goes after everything and since the game didn’t tell me what happened to her*, so she and Grub went to go stay with Halsin. Also the owlbear, whom I’m still thinking of a name for, is staying with Halsin.

Honestly, Cassian, Astarion and Halsin would likely have a bunch of animals around in general. Points to Halsin being a Druid and Cassian’s love for animals. I’m sure one day Cassian will bring home a feral kitten, bring him to Astarion and be all “he reminded me of you. I couldn’t just leave him out there all alone”. Halsin for sure agrees that the feral kitten reminds him of Astarion.

*Note: Lae’zel was kidnapped and the party found out in the sewers. Yenna was still in camp with Grub

6. Cassian has had to escape many things. From their predicament with the tadpoles, to having to sneak out of the hells with Hope and a hammer and even having to escape from messy social situations they got themself into. Sorry Gale, they do not feel the same way. The hardest thing for them to escape has been their ties to Lolth.

Even after managing to escape the Underdark, finding friends, eventually finding a partner and a loving family willing to take them in, and even starting to plan out a future, they still couldn’t shake the grip Lolth had on them and the dark requests she makes.

Many of their worst qualities came from their deep religious conditioning and the whispers Lolth would send. They tried so hard, but even when trying to find another deity to follow, Lolth had ways to have them come back. It’s not until after they finally get rid of the tadpoles and Cassian faces their trauma head on in the Underdark that they’re finally able to shake her influences completely.

7. Cassian is fascinated with mythology. One of the first things they’d want to learn when they finally come up to the surface would be the myths the surface dwellers tell. They love to hear stories of monsters and heroes of old. They’d totally be the type to tell old myths to the kids Halsin takes care of. They’d have a lot of mythological tales from the Underdark memorized. They’d make sure not to tell anything too spooky

Saw this floating around and honestly I think you guys should do some of these for your tavs and their relationships or characters in general uwu

[the-thing-withfeathers]

exceeded caution part 5

how dare you?

series masterlist | previous part | next part

a/n: ohhhh i had so much fucking fun with this chapter. i couldnt stop once i started. i hope u all enjoyyyy

pairing: ex!tara carpenter x f!reader into sam carpenter x f!reader

warnings: cursing, threatening language, mention of blood and violence, mention of sustained injuries, mention of stabbing. 3.9k words.

𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩

"i really don't want you doing this." you said to sam as you fixed the collar on her jacket, using your palm to flatten the fabric.

"i will be fine. and i'll be back in no time." sam placed her hand over yours. you just stared at your joined hands for a moment.

she noticed that you were starting to zone out and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

"it'll work. i know it will." she said, confidently.

"it might work. but at what risk?" you asked, finally making eye contact with her. "they're putting you out there like lambs for the slaughter. i don't want anything to happen to you or tara. it's not worth it."

sam placed a hand on your cheek, holding your attention.

"i'll take any chance to catch this motherfucker and put an end to this if it means we get to be together at the end."

god, you hated her.

"you'll need to be alive for that, samantha." you rolled your eyes at her.

"i will be alive. i promise."

𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩

you were sat in the back of a van while sam and tara wandered out in the open. you hated the idea of using them as bait. no matter how good kirby and detective bailey were at their jobs, you knew ghostface was always a few steps ahead.

as mindy and kirby butted heads over the plan, you glanced at ethan. the boy was shamelessly snacking on a bag of cheetos, how could he even stomach anything right now? he noticed your staring and turned the bag of cheetos to you, offering you some. you waved your hand to dismiss him and looked away.

you offered to join the two sisters in their escapade to gain an advantage over ghostface, but they didn't need you in an even worse state.

you realised that you didn't even have a theory as to who the killer could be. there were too many people around and too many things happening for you to even make a guess. you also wondered if anyone suspected you.

"heart of gold with a dark past." mindy said, describing you to tara and sam. "it's the perfect cover up."

"she's got a rock solid alibi." tara said, crossing her arms at mindy. the girl still held a protective nature for you. "i was breaking up with her."

"she still left after." mindy countered. "you never know. isn't it weird that she always just seems to be around when you need her most?"

sam hated to even consider that you were capable of taking a life. unfortunately, despite her growing feelings, she had to be cautious with you. that was one of the risks she had to ponder on after you two decided to take things further.

fortunately for you, she looked into your eyes enough to know that there was not a single murderous spark in that head of yours.

"this is exactly how our uncle randy died." mindy's frustrated voice echoed in the van, taking you out of your investigative headspace. "broad daylight, public place, yanked into a van." the girl's monologue was never-ending, she was hard to stop when she got like this.

"stab. stab. stab. no more randy!" she exclaimed.

"huh." kirby responded, seemingly ignoring mindy's efforts at pointing out flaws in the operation. she turned back to the computer in front of her. "hey sam? stay frosty out there, okay?"

"we're good." you heard her voice through the computer's soft speaker. the tone of her voice reassured you, you knew she just wanted this to end.

you leaned back against the wall of the van, letting out a small yawn. you can't remember the last time you got a decent sleep.

you heard a faint ringing. you sat up as sam picked up the phone.

"you're gonna die, you know?" you almost felt your attraction to her increasingly grow with her determination. but now wasn't the time to think about that.

kirby typed away on her computer, tracking the killer's location. you leaned forward, trying to hear better.

"for a mastermind, you’re not very bright. waiting for me to call, desperately hoping i’m nearby so the police can grab me." the voice changer was haunting, it was the type of voice that wouldn't leave your nightmares. he was terrifying, you had to give him that. "but i’m not nearby. i'm one step ahead. be seeing you, samantha."

hearing sam's full name come from ghostface sent chills down your spine. it was intense, like the name held a lot of weight.

he hung up just like that, you watched as kirby discovered his location. the radius slowly started to narrow down to the upper west side.

kirby informed the two girls that ghostface was nowhere near them.

"on west 96th?" tara asked, kirby furrowed her eyebrows.

"how did you know that?" kirby inquired.

"gale." sam spoke.

you thought back to how kirby turned gale away from joining everyone, how press wasn't allowed anywhere near this. while her action was valid, you now realise it may have turned around to bite her back harder.

you heard heavy breathing and footsteps from the other end of the comms, deducing that they were running.

"my friend danny works on the upper west side. he can get there quicker!" you heard sam say through her short breaths. you had only met danny a few times, you had no doubt that he was a good presence in the carpenter's lives. although, he was still a viable suspect. you know he had a history with sam, you couldn't tell if it was just jealousy or actual logic that caused you to suspect him.

"or he could finish her off! it's possible he's the killer." detective bailey had a point there, it was convenient that he just so happened to work in the area.

"fuck. we have to get there now." sam said, stopping in her tracks as bailey protested, asking her to take a minute.

the comms started to fizzle out suddenly, you realised it was because they were getting further away.

you couldn't help yourself and lunged out of the van you were sitting in. you looked around and scanned the area. you spotted bailey and squinted, only to see that there was a police vehicle driving away with it's sirens blaring. you had no doubt that it was tara's doing, she could be reckless when she wanted to be.

"fuck this." you mumbled, turning back around to kirby. "can you take us there?" kirby heard the worry laced in your voice, she sighed and nodded.

𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩

the car ride was silent, you sat in the passenger seat while the other three squeezed into the back seat. chad looked uncomfortable in the middle, seeing as he was the most built one out of all of them.

you jumped as your phone buzzed, you were doing that more often.

caller id — tara carpenter

you quickly answered.

"tara. are you okay?" you immediately asked. "is gale okay?"

"sam and i are fine. gale isn't. she's been hurt." tara answered your question.

"sit tight. we're almost there." you said.

"okay." tara sounded exhausted. this would have been extremely hard for the both of them. gale was someone that was there when this all started, despite their differences, she was a constant that they could depend on. "i'll see you soon..." tara proceeded to hang up the phone.

you turned to everyone else in the car. "gale's been hurt. i'm not sure how bad but we'll find out soon enough." you wished that there were no other cars present on the road. you wished that you could just plow through every other vehicle just to get there faster.

when you arrived, the sisters were standing shoulder to shoulder by the steps of the apartment complex.

sam looked like she had years taken off her lifespan. she was staring into nothing, her mind was racing and her shoulders were holding the weight of the world.

you hopped out of the car and felt your feet pick up the pace, you had to get to her as soon as possible.

as you crashed into the girl, you wrapped your arms around her neck, enveloping her into a hug. she took her hands out of her pockets and hugged your waist, her face burrowing itself into your neck. she inhaled deeply, taking in your scent and warmth. she felt herself relax a little more as she held you in your arms.

"i was so fucking worried about you both." you said, slowly pulling away to suddenly pull tara into a hug. she didn't expect it but she was pleasantly surprised. she hugged your waist and put her head on your chest. you were tall enough to rest your chin on her head. hearing your heartbeat was enough to calm her as well.

"any word on gale?" chad asked, walking up the stairs. you all collectively decided to sit on the couches that were in the lobby. you took a seat directly next to sam.

"she had a pulse the last time we saw her." tara cleared the air a bit more. "they said she's strong enough to pull through."

you sighed in relief. you spotted danny suddenly run into the building, breathless as he looked like he was running.

"i got here as fast as i could." he spoke in between breaths.

"did you?" tara asked, her tone accusatory.

had tara also been suspecting him? you had to give her credit for that. she was incredibly quick with picking up things like this. you glanced at danny and realised he was staring right at sam. was there still something lingering there? did sam have any lingering feelings? you wanted to pull her closer, stake some form of claim on her but you knew you had no right to do that just yet. instead, you settled for placing a hand on her upper arm.

"i'm scared. i don't wanna get hurt again." mindy said, her voice just barely above a whisper.

"neither do i." chad followed. mindy eyed him.

"i don't want you getting hurt again either." she told him.

"i know. i know." chad leaned his head on his sister's shoulder. as much as they butted heads, they loved each other more than anyone.

tara leaned her head on mindy's shoulder too. a part of you would have loved to be there when they were all happy together, enjoying life as normal teenagers back in woodsboro. maybe then you'd be able to understand them.

"so what do we do now?" chad asked, turning to sam.

"maybe he gets to win this time." sam said, softly. your eyes flickered to her, your eyebrows furrowing at her statement. win? what did she mean by that?

tara, mindy, and chad had the same expression as you. they raised their heads to look at sam, confused looks on their faces.

"he wants to punish me." your was pushed away as she stood up from her seat. "me." you saw tears starting to pool around her eyes, a choked down sob almost making it through her hardened exterior. "so maybe i let him."

you looked over to everyone else, did this sound absolutely ridiculous to them too?

"i'll just give myself up." she said, allowing the tears to flow freely and the rasp to take control of her voice. "if this is what i have to do to keep you safe, it's worth it."

you were stunned to silence. sam just wanted to give up. that wasn't the sam you knew, that wasn't the girl you fell for. you wondered where this was suddenly coming from. you thought that all the loss just got too much for her, she was willing to give herself up to end it all. you couldn't let that happen.

"no!" tara spoke up before you could. "we're not doing that, sam." the girl scrambled to stand up from her chair. "you came back to woodsboro to protect me. every single day, you make the decision to protect me. none of us would even be alive if it wasn't for you."

"she's right." chad nodded. "you have to let us help you too, sam."

"no." sam shook her head. she couldn't take it anymore. she hated how much you've all been through just because she happened to draw the short straw in a gene pool.

"yes. we're a team, remember?" tara stared her sister down, which was impressive given that tara has never been able to stare anyone down.

"actually, we're family." mindy said. you watched as the four of them came together, chad clapping and standing up. you wondered how the lovable knucklehead managed to brighten up the moment no matter what.

"core four!" core four. that was cute.

"he's gonna keep coming after us." sam said.

"isn't there somewhere safe we could just hole up in?" ethan asked. you forgot he was there for a second. maybe he felt like just as much of an outsider as you did sometimes.

"he's just gonna keep finding us." tara said to him. suddenly, it was like the gears turned in her head. "we could use that though. i have an idea."

tara held her hand out and asked for chad's phone, walking outwith the rest of the crew. sam was about to follow but you pulled her back.

"i didn't get to say what i thought." you said, your voice was firm. sam met your eyes and her lips pressed into a thin line. you were glaring at her. you shoved her chest back. it wasn't enough to topple her but it was enough to stun her. in fact, it was impressive how you were able to do it with just one hand. "how fucking dare you?!"

she stared at you with wide, shocked eyes.

"don't look at me like that. how dare you even think about giving yourself up?!" you almost screamed at her but you kept your voice down. "did you not even think of how that would affect everyone else?"

sam was rendered to silence. she wanted you to let it all out, even if it meant taking your sudden change of tone. she didn't know how to handle this side of you, but she was glad you allowed yourself to be vulnerable with her. in fact, you challenged her.

"tara would be left without anybody! you're practically chad and mindy's triplet! and me! and... and me..." you started to stutter out your words as the sobs laced themselves in between your words. "did you even remember that you made me a promise?" you asked, weakly.

"i'm sorry. i remember that promise like i made it two seconds ago." sam said, reaching for your hand and placing it over her heart. "please forgive me. i'll never bring it up again. this heart will continue to beat for you." it was criminal how easily she eased your worries.

"you stress me the fuck out." you scoffed out through tears.

"i'm afraid you will have to deal with that for a very long time then." she said, placing her own hand over yours.

"good."

𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩

you two rejoined everyone else outside, tara was already on the phone to detective bailey.

"we wanna lure him to a secure location and trap him inside." was tara's opening line that you walked in on. the girl was clever. she probably already had an entire plan mapped out in her head. you were always impressed by her level of intelligence.

"and then what?" you heard bailey over the phone.

"we execute him." you almost laughed at the aggressive word used by tara. but you felt that it was fitting.

bailey went quiet, you chalked it up to the fact that he was probably thinking the entire thing over. he had lost his daughter, you thought that he wouldn't think twice.

"are you gonna help us?" tara asked, an attitude sparking. she was growing impatient. and nobody liked impatient tara.

"let's kill this son of a bitch." bailey said.

you looked over to sam as bailey explained that you had access to the theater. he also warned you all to travel in public to minimize the chances of ghostface attacking you.

so you decided to take the subway.

𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩

the hustle and bustle of new york.

it had been a while since you've actually been out with other people. this was an unconventional reason for you and all your friends to suddenly immerse yourself in the crowd but it was better than nothing.

you almost forgot it was time to play dress up. most of the people underground were all dressed up in costumes, probably about to make their way to halloween parties.

as you pushed through the crowd. you felt yourself get pulled in a million different directions. before you knew it, you had gotten separated from your friends.

you were shoved into a tightly packed train car, trying to shove your way through to find someone familiar. you squeezed your way through the sardine-like formation that everyone situated themselves in.

eventually, though the clearing, you spotted chad. you started to slowly make your way over to them. your arm was in pain, constantly being bumped into by strangers or the train itself. you winced as someone backed into you, lightly pushing them away,

when you reached the group of four, the train shook. you stumbled into tara, reaching for her shoulder with your good arm.

"sorry." you mumbled. sam let out a breath, she was glad you made it on with them.

"it's okay. i'm glad you're here." tara said, turning to face you. you grabbed the hanging strap right above her, staying close.

"me too. where's mindy?" you asked chad. "and ethan...?"

"we got split apart. pretty boy here pulled me in. maybe if you didn't do that, i'd be with them." chad practically spat at him.

"i was just trying to keep us together." danny said, on the defensive side.

you and tara turned to him at the same time, the same expression on your faces. you squinted at him, studying him a bit. he was a local, he knew how busy the subway could get. sometimes you just had to go with the ocean and not force anything.

the lights started flickering and you made sure to keep an eye on everyone when they did turn back on. chad suddenly straightened his posture when he realised the state of the train.

"holy shit." he looked just behind sam's shoulder. you followed his eyes.

ghostface. pinhead. ghostface. michael myers. ghostface. ghostface. ghostface. ghostface. another ghostface. and another ghostface.

they were everywhere.

"fuck." you whispered under your breath.

"how many stops do we have?" tara asked, sam leaned over to look at the map.

"ten." she said.

fuck. double digits. were you even gonna make it to the first?

it was like the universe was actively working against you. there was no way you all happened to board this train on this day and get separated.

people started to funnel out of the train with each stop. you looked over at sam and realised something had caught her eye. you tried to track where she was looking but there were just too many people.

"guys." she caught the attention of everyone else.

there.

one of the ghostfaces was moving towards you at an alarming pace. just as he was about to reach sam, you stepped in front of her. she grabbed your waist to steady you and pull you back against her chest.

the person in the costume turned to exit the train. you exhaled sharply and grabbed another hanging strap, this time on sam's side. tara frowned at the loss of your closeness but admired that you stood in between sam and a potential murderer.

with sam's hand resting on your waist still, you stayed close to her side, practically leaning on the girl. your mind was racing. nine more stops to go.

you hoped that mindy was okay on the other train. she'd be just as terrified, there would be just as many ghostfaces.

stop after stop, the pit in your stomach failed to resolve itself. even if you were going to make it off the train, you still had an entire night ahead of you.

screech!

you had dozed off on about stop number six, you were now seated but still leaning on sam's shoulder. you blinked your sleep away and sat up as you hit your final stop.

the four of you exited the train, quickly jogging up the steps and out of the subway. as you walked towards the theater, you felt yourself gravitate towards sam.

fuck it.

tara, danny, and chad walked ahead of you both anyway. you reached for her hand and intertwined your fingers. you needed that moment with her before you walked into your doom. she roughly pulled her hand away, looking irritated suddenly. you looked up at her with concern, did you miss something?

as you fell asleep on stop number six, chad turned to sam.

"you have to be careful of her." he whispered. he had never been the theory type, that was more mindy's thing. but mindy wasn't there, and she had her thoughts about you. as much as she did care for you, she cared for everyone else too. "she's got just as much motivation as the rest of them."

sam looked at the floor, silently processing.

"tara broke her heart. she could be out for revenge." he continued. "i know you like her a lot. and i get it. i was like that with liv ages ago. i let my feelings cloud my judgement. and you can't do that, sam. we're counting on you."

sam gritted her teeth at what chad was saying. she knew he was right. she had to do what it took to protect her family. unfortunately, you didn't go through what they went through, and you did have motive.

"and even then, she's already taken a lot of hits. we can't have anyone slowing us down. she's down one arm and it might bite us in the ass harder than we think." chad said. she hated that he used your injury to built the case against you.

even then, it didn't stop the doubt that grew in sam's mind.

she had to make the right call tonight. and it was going to be hard.

as you met kirby outside the theater, she mentioned that she had everything set up.

"let's get you all inside." she said.

sam abruptly turned to you and danny.

"not you guys."

what?

"sam, what are you talking about?" you asked her, stepping towards her, nearly shouldering danny just to get in her eyeline.

"i can't trust anyone. and yes, i know... i know what we are. but we don't know you." you felt your heart shatter at the fact that maybe you didn't open yourself up as well as you thought. when she said that, you knew that she didn't eliminate you entirely from her list of suspects, no matter how deep her feelings ran.

"but i have to be in there with you. i promised i wouldn't leave!" you said, reaching out to her. she only stepped backwards, away from you.

"you're not woodsboro."

she was right. you weren't woodsboro. you never were and you never will be. you were never going to be a part of that little family they shared. you were never going to understand.

as you stood outside with danny, you didn't know what to do with yourself. when you saw the group round the corner, you heard danny's muffled groans. you turned around to be met with the infamous masked killer himself.

and then everything went black.

𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩 𓆪𓆩

author's journal okay once again this came out a lot sooner than i expected but i had a lot of writing muse today and i promised emma that i would get this out for her! i hope you enjoy this, liefje. oooh i am sososososososo incredibly excited to write the next part of this series. cause u alllll know whats coming next. i promise it won't end when the canon ends though, i'm estimating a few more parts even after the ghostface stuff is resolved. i also fuck so hard w the music i listened to when writing this chapter. a lot of paris again but the live version of labour this time. that song just sends chills down my spine. but i promise i listened to more! particularly this song riiiiight here.

i also kinda wanna start timing myself when writing like hm just curious to see how long i usually take esp for long chapters. i hope u all have been enjoying the series so far cause i've had SUCH a good time writing it. i have an assessment due in two days so i will have to focus on that for a hot sec but i promise part 6 wont be ages cause i'll write it in my free time. anyways, i wish that everyone has the bestest day ever. kisses x

[simpforsolas]

As I continue to progress through the games on my replay leading up to Dragon Age: The Veilguard's release, the more I'm reflecting upon the heart of the series. As an RPG, the purpose has always been to create a dynamic game that responds to our choices, and part of that is to create a believable world that's real enough that there are multiple ways you can play the game. No ultimate "right" answer or "wrong" answer. Even if there are perspectives you disagree with, you can understand why characters may hold different opinions from you if you think about why they think the way they do.

With all these thoughts spinning around in my mind, I began my DAI replay and got a dialogue with Solas that I think gets right to the heart of the entire series:

Inquisitor: I've heard the stories [about Ostagar]. It'd be interesting to hear what it was really like. Solas: That's just it. In the fade I see reflections created by the spirits who react to the emotions of the warriors. One moment, I see heroic wardens lighting the fire and a power-mad villain sneering as he lets King Cailan fall. The next, I see and army overwhelmed and a veteran commander refusing to let more soldiers die in a lost cause. Inquisitor: And you can't tell which is real. Solas: It is the fade. They are all real.

This is it, people! This is what Dragon Age is all about! This is why we have characters who some people love and some people hate, why no one is perfect. This is why there's so much discourse about the game. Dragon Age is all about different people reacting to an imperfect world and understanding why they act the way they do. Especially in recent times, writers often fall into a trap of not wanting their characters to be problematic in any way that it can take the life out of them and leave them feeling stale. But Dragon Age does not do that. It fully commits to its characters, for better or for worse, allowing their pasts and perspectives to shape their imperfect world views and inform their behaviors. Ironically, Solas's exact words here about Loghain can be applied to him, and it's exactly why some people hate him while others love. Like Loghain, some see him as an egotistical murderer while others see him is a tragic figure whose empathy and idealism drive him to monstrous acts.

What's the truth? What is real? Ultimately, it doesn't matter. All that matters are the emotions and interactions people (players included) have with the world and characters. That's why the choices in games like Dragon Age matter so much. There shouldn't be a right answer or a wrong answer; all that matters is what feels right to the player. Because in Solas's words, all our different perspectives on things that happened? They're all real. And this is where so much discourse comes from. People try to take away the nuanced view of these characters and the world and insist that their perspective is the objective truth. Someone who loves Anders could be in danger of brushing past his many flaws while someone who hates him might be incapable of understanding the complexities that drove him to become the person he ended up. But in the end, all our different reactions to these characters are valid and real, both the positive and the negative. These characters are complex and three-dimensional, and to fully appreciate them it's imperative that we recognize that.

The Dragon Age world and its characters are so meticulously crafted that at its practically its own living thing at this point. As players interact with it, we all end up having our own experiences that influence our opinions of everything, from the characters, to what decisions are the best, to opinions on in-game power dynamics and politics.

[cyren-myadd]

James Cameron has written Neytiri and Spider's relationship before...

Recently I went on a kick of rewatching old sci-fi movies, including the James Cameron ones of course, and I noticed an interesting little pattern in JC's storytelling:

In Terminator 2 we have our protagonist Sarah Connor. In the first movie she was almost killed by the first terminator, so in the second movie, when she meets the new terminator, she's understandably distrustful of it even though her son, John, trusts it. However, the new terminator proves itself to be loyal to John, so she realizes she doesn't have to be distrustful and even comes to rely on it in the end.

Then in Alien 2 we have Ellen Ripley. In the first movie, Ripley was almost killed because of the android Rook, so in the second movie, when she meets a new android, Bishop, she's understandably distrustful of him even though the other human characters trust him. Just like the new terminator, Bishop proves himself to be loyal, and Ripley realizes she can trust him and they become friends by the end (and stay friends for the rest of their lives because I like to pretend Alien 3 didn't happen 😭)

Now we have the Avatar sequels and Neytiri. In the first Avatar, Neytiri was almost killed by Quaritch, so in the second movie, when she's around his son, she's extremely distrustful even though her family members trust Spider... hmm I wonder how James Cameron is going to resolve that conflict? 🤔

Obviously, Neytiri/Spider's relationship is more complicated and ugly than Ripley/Bishop and Sarah Connor/the second Terminator, but the story beats are still lining up the same. We don't know the conclusion to Neytiri and Spider's relationship conflict just yet, but looking at James Cameron's other works, I think he may be setting up to follow the same pattern as Alien 2 and Terminator 2.

Having a main protagonist realize she was wrong about someone and change her views on them is a story beat James Cameron seems to enjoy writing, and it's one that works really well. Giving a character flaws and having them grow and change is what creates compelling character arcs!

Avatar co-writer Amanda Silver even commented on the narrative purpose of Neytiri disliking Spider in an interview: "Neytiri is a fully fleshed-out character. She’s got flaws. So it’s okay to let her have flaws, we think. And that’s where Jim was coming from."

All this is to say that no, we are not going to see Neytiri murder Spider in Avatar 3 like many young fans hope, that would be a horribly depressing conclusion for her character arc; to never be challenged on her biases and never have to reflect on her views and grow. I for one am really excited to see how James Cameron and co resolve their conflict since their relationship has a lot more bad blood than the other two examples did!

[kandadze]

The death of the nameless guard in FoF ep 1

I was planning on including this in my bigger meta on deaths in FoF, especially since it's shown in juxtaposition to the death of the bunny demon WX caught earlier in the episode, but seeing that I'm here anyway...

I think that especially on the first watch, this senseless death, basically a kill in cold blood to make a point, is understandably considered a serious flaw in ZYZ's characterization overall. I also think that on the first watch, and in the very first episode, we're *supposed* to be disturbed by this. We're *supposed* to sit there with our mouths gaping open, going, what the fuck, man? Because in ep 1, ZYZ is supposed to look and feel and *be* the villain. We shouldn't forget that this is a powerful being who ZYC must hate for a good reason; oh sure he folds like a wet tissue when WX knifes him later, hahaha, great demon who? but she's the only one he allows to treat him like this, and we need to remember how terrifying this guy could be, if he chose to - he can literally kill someone by crooking his finger at them.

Cool motive still murder? Sure it is. The great demon killed a human being in cold blood. A few blocks down the road, the Chongwu Camp killed a defenseless bunny demon, also in cold blood.

Now what I didn't quite think of on my first watch, but realize is pretty obvious now, is that we need to look at the context of where we are when ZYZ makes his point so drastically, which will help us realize that there's (at least) one key difference between the bunny and the nameless guard (or at least the one difference I'm going to focus on). Our nameless guard is *not* a defenseless petty criminal, or a random human who just waltzed in from the street. (Like, y'know, not to look far, those patients who stepped into WZY's clinic that just happened to be situated above a dungeon full of captive demons.) He's a guy who signed up to work for a Demon Hunting Bureau. His *job* is to hunt - and often to kill, no doubt - demons. Right at the time ZYZ taunts ZYC with his powers, this guard, along with 15 others, is at the ready to step in and help ZYC to subdue the great demon, by any means necessary. Our nameless guard should know the risks of this line of job - how easy it is to turn from hunter to prey; heck, he probably signed a Tiandu equivalent of a safety waiver.

So, was this guy's death untimely? Sure it was. Was it senseless? No more than the bunny's. The difference is, even so early in the story, and painted as the villain, ZYZ didn't kill a civilian. For all intents and purposes, he killed a fantasy equivalent of a border patrol officer, who was ready to kill *him*.

(I have more thoughts but I think I got my point across. Off to gif stuff.)

[jennysparksandtheauthority]

I wish I could believe any Pricefield's criticisms in good faith, but this is the same fandom that harassed and abused Dontnod when Life is Strange 2 came out and it wasn't about Max and Chloe. The game got review bombed in the early days, and along with harassing the staff, the VAs and characters both received terrible racist comments. We also saw similar instances with True Colors. Harassment, review bombing, and racism.

Both Dontnod and Square/Deck Nine wanted to make this series into an anthology.

It was the Pricefield shippers who continually demanded the return of Max and Chloe.

Seeing how horrifically this fandom has treated so many people who worked on these games, many of whom are just as big of fans and passionate about it as they are, is it any wonder the latest entry is now a souless cash grab meant to bring in money banking on nostalgia while disrespecting the fans and hating on one half of a big ship?

And ever since the first two episodes of Double Exposure has come out, when the fandom isn't talking about Pricefield, I've seen nothing but transphobic comments about Gwen (constantly misgendering her and calling her a pedo because she's trans), racist comments towards Moses and Safi (accusing Moses of being the murderer just because he's black or being hoping Safi is going to die in both timelines because she's Arabic), bisexual erasure towards Max (which Michael confirmed was always supposed to happen, Square didn't influence her sexuality like so many of the fandom and the "former D9 employee" keep insisting), and attacking the VAs who are actually excited for this project and want to play the game on their youtube channels.

I used to love Pricefield when I was younger. I grew out of it as I got older because I saw all the flaws with the ship and figured out it wasn't for me. Any chance of enjoying the ship ever again was ruined by this fandom.

The Life is Strange fandom, and the Pricefield fandom especially, are incredibly entitled and bigoted. One of the worst fandoms I've ever had the displeasure to be a part of. And I'm not surprised at all that things ended up this way.

Big fandoms are always bound to be toxic at some point. The more people in a fandom, the higher the chances of having assholes among us. Unfortunately, it happens. And you’re right about all the fucked up shit that happened through the years, the LIS2 situation was especially heartbreaking.

But you’re also leaning into confirmation bias.

I’ve seen people on Twitter and TikTok and Instagram and here making fan cams of Gwen, saying she’s the best new character, arguing that she would have been a better love interest for Max than whatshisname and Amanda (and I echo that sentiment, Gwen rocks and I’ll fight the transphobes with my bare hands if I have to).

I’ve seen people hold dearly Sean and Daniel’s story, making the ‘squad’ sweatshirt sell out repeatedly in that website that has LIS stuff.

I’ve seen people saying they want to protect Moses at all costs, even calling for everyone to be respectful to the VA and to leave him out of the madness, just like with Hannah Tell.

If we’re having dinner in a restaurant with 100 well behaved people and there’s one or two or even ten assholes screaming and throwing things to other people, they’re going to ruin the experience for everyone else. They’re going to be loud and annoying and you could leave saying you’re never coming back to that restaurant. That’s fair. But the fault falls specifically on that group, not the other hundred people that were minding their own business and enjoying their dinners.

Nowadays, it’s impossible to enjoy any fandom if you don’t find the four/five weirdos that enjoy the thing as much as you and you create a nice little bubble of the stuff you like and the people you want to interact with. It’s sad, but it’s true.

This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be held accountable and that we shouldn’t try to take out our own trash — I’ve been calling out an awful person on Twitter that’s been harassing and insulting the devs for the last few days. I reported them, I tried to reason, I did all the work until there was nothing left to do but to block them.

Sometimes you can make a difference. Other times, you can’t.

Now, are you suggesting that the whole pricefield fandom deserved this? That we all should be punished? That we’re all implicitly responsible for the misogyny, the homophobia and the greed of the capitalistic machine? Wow.

The simple truth is SE and D9 wanted to pander to casual gamers and gamebros cause they thought that would give them more money. The truth is that D9’s toxic work environment (reason enough to boycott everything they put out well before the pricefield fiasco) influenced this game to the point of being lead by people who didn’t understand the first game and that hated the themes at its core.

You think the pricefield fandom is bigoted and entitled? Oh boy, have a look at all the articles about D9’s internal affairs: N*ZI symbolism, misogyny, sexual harassment, homophobia…

You think the majority of the LIS fandom is toxic? Then take a look at what the casual cismale straight gamers are saying now. They’re the new LIS:DE fandom. I’m not going to reproduce the comments and the absolute vile things I’ve seen them say post-DE gameplay reveal and the break up confirmation, but I’ll show you a glimpse of the reactions:

So, in the bitter conclusion, you might be right: just like Chloe, we might deserve all of this because after all we’re loud, we’re queer, and we deserve to be punished.

Just like Nathan said to Chloe in the bathroom, the devs were asking this to the pricefield fandom… “Nobody would ever even miss your "punk ass" would they?”

Well, fuck around and find out.

[bengiyo]

Only Friends: There are No Heroines. They're Just Dudes.

I’ve been meditating on what I want to say about Only Friends for a while. I’ve read so many great posts coming from a lot of lenses I respect and admire. I loved @shouldiusemyname pointing out the 90s aesthetic of the show and how the creative team is unpacking some of what informed their early experiences. I think @respectthepetty is right to call out the way Boston’s aggression crosses lines and @syrena-del-mar reading Boston as a Machiavellian Prince, even as I think @waitmyturtles, @wen-kexing-apologist and @lurkingshan provide good reminders of the kinds of lenses we need to interrogate as we approach stories about queer people written by queer people. I’m enjoying the discussions on ephemerality happening around the show from @waitmyturtles, @ranchthoughts, @twig-tea, @neuroticbookworm, and others. I think, when it comes to how I’m approaching this show, I’m watching I the same way I watched Queer as Folk, a text we know the creative team is familiar with (@omarandjohnny).

I don’t watch this as a story about heroes and villains. They’re just people with mundane goals reacting to each other as their desires interface with each other. I watch this show the same way I watched Queer as Folk, Black Sails, Game of Thrones, How to Get Away With Murder, and similar ensemble cast shows. None of these characters are heroines dealing with flawed suitors. They’re a bunch of dudes in their early 20s with problems, many of which have to deal with sex. This show isn’t like La Pluie, which was big romance in which Saengtai was the heroine and Phat was the romantic lead. Only Friends isn’t a big romance that’s interrogating the nature of romance itself. It’s a gay ensemble drama.

At first, I wondered if this show would center on Mew’s perspective because he was our opening narrator, but it’s clear by episode three that the show doesn’t have a central narrator. This was a similar shift I had to learn while watching Queer as Folk (2000) in realizing that Michael’s perspective is not sacrosanct and that he can be an asshole just as much as any of the other guys. It was also something we had to appreciate in Noah’s Arc (2005). When you’re watching Game of Thrones or Black Sails, you choose the faction you most want to see win or most respect or admire. For Only Friends, I’m mostly watching it from a third-person perspective; I am watching to see how each character’s choices impact the other characters.

I want to stress how mundane much of this show feels to me. Watching these guys interact with each other and their world reminds me exactly of how I felt interacting with other people when I was 21-24 and hanging out in spaces like this. Just like with my argument that Sailom (Wedding Plan) is just closeted, I think most of these guys are just young and a little messed up.

I liked @respectthepetty talking about how she feels bad for Top because of how people see him as a body, and how Top may just be using sex as a coping mechanism to not be alone. I like how obvious Ray’s abandonment issues have played into his substance issues, and how that informs the way he tries to cling so tightly onto people. I like that there have been huge warning signs over Nick ever since we saw him violate Boston’s privacy and look at his photos (I was not surprised he bugged the car at all). I am so fascinated by Mew’s apparent need for control (@lurkingshan), which may be over appearances. I am curious to see how Sand responds to Ray throwing him back after opening himself up past one of his boundaries. I am stoked to see how everyone eventually responds to Boston’s callousness now that things are going to start coming out (@ranchthoughts). I want to know how Cheum and April deal with all the gays losing focus on their project when they were the only ones trying to secure the bag during the party.

For me, I find myself waiting for context from these characters rather than trying to dig it out myself. I think I am worrying less about why anyone is doing anything and more on the responses they illicit from everyone else. I think it’s fascinating for me that prior to this episode I don’t think Top had done anything egregious we’d seen. He’s said he’s tired of hooking up with guys like Boston and wanted to try Mew and, despite their games, he’s been straightforward with Mew; he’s only faltered at the point that he believed Mew lied to him first. No matter how sad and lonely Ray is, I don’t want him driving his car around Bangkok, and I think he needs to stop dicking around with Sand. I think Sand needs to stop playing Captain Save-a-Hoe with Ray and reaffirm his solo stance. I think Nick needs to recognize that Boston’s insinuations that they could be more are hollow and he should just move on. I think Mew should stop trying to win his relationships and be honest about what he wants. I think Boston should probably taste a little fist and have his worldview rearranged a little bit.

Please keep writing and unpacking the psyches of these characters! I’m enjoying reading all of the ways people are connecting to these characters. Still, I want to avoid blowing them up into high-drama figures because they’re just like a lot of the folks I knew (and still know) in the community. I had dinner with some of them last night. These guys are just people, and people sometimes fuck each other up. I think the mundanity of their actions is probably the most appealing part of this show for me.

[hectorthedoggo]

@kani-miso i'll edit this later but here's some food for you. (live reactions encouraged)

When the warden awoke, a feeling of mental emptiness and a physical warmth next to them assaulted them. Huh…

They looked over, and there was another them, face at rest. They had matching eyebags and gauze wrapped around their wounds.

They curiously reached out, and they were real.

The warden sat up, and moved closer to the entity. They pat the head of the being with their bandaged hand, to which stirred them. Wow, their hair is so soft… 

Hang on, we have to work. Can’t be doing stuff like this. They gave their counterpart one last pat, and got out of bed.

They brushed out their hair in the bathroom, despite there being no more mirror left. We can’t let another incident occur.

The warden stepped out of the bathroom, and was met with a surprised other them. They let out a little yelp, and started to shake. “Who the hell are you?”

The warden stepped towards them. “The warden of Milgram, you?”

The warden was surprisingly nonchalant about this development. It was like they knew there was some other them, a gut feeling.

This part of them looked ready to bolt. What are they gonna do, embarrass us? No way I’m going to let that happen.

The warden stepped in front of the door, so they couldn’t run away.

Aforementioned person did not appreciate this turn of events, and tried to push past their superior counterpart. That only caused them to be pushed back by their warden protection.

Are they a prisoner? But, why are they wearing my face?

“Again, who are you?”

The person wearing their face stared back at them. “Es. Anyways, can you please let me leave?”

The warden shook their head. “No. Due to the fact that the protection works on us when you attack, the system of Milgram has deemed you a prisoner. We have to figure out what to do with you.”

Es looked genuinely scared by this possibility. “Wait, wait. Does that mean I’m a murderer?”

Then, something happened to them.

Their breathing started to fasten, as their eyes darkened. “Wait, no, shut up, I didn’t, I, don’t, get-”

The warden somehow knew exactly what was happening. They roughly tugged Es off the ground, putting most of their strength into their arms..

The warden wasn’t very strong, but they managed to drag their slightly unresponsive self onto their lap, going onto the bed for structural supponr, with some help on Es’ part.

They were muttering incoherently, and the warden simply stayed silent, stroking their hair until they sputtered out.

While this is a waste of time, I bet Es could help me with work. Double the productivity, but…

“I- please,” they started to sob, “Just leave me alone… I don’t want to be the warden, I never asked for this…”

The warden peered down at their fragile form. Why wouldn’t they want to be the warden?

This distress was caused by resistence, so why do they resist?

The warden grabbed their injured hand, and their sobs started to fizzle out. They held the hand back, weakly.

Oh, is there a correlation between the hand and the voices stopping?

Dang, if we hold their hand like that, we can’t do work well. That throws a stake in our plans.

They sat up. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t understand why they keep doing that.”

“It’s stupid, I know, but if you embraced being warden, it wouldn’t happen.”

Es shook their head. “Milgram is flawed. I don’t want to dedicate my will to making people suffer.”

“It doesn’t matter, Es, they’re all murderers.”

“Shidou has saved our life, do you think he deserves to suffer?” 

“He’s just doing it out of some sort of twisted obligation. I’m sure that if it got bad, Milgram would take care of us.” Shidou doesn’t matter. We don’t care about him. We don’t care about him, it would simply impede our decision-making.

“But why hasn’t it helped before?” They’re just repeating what he said. It doesn’t mean anything.

“I’m sure Milgram has its plans for us.”

The warden decided this conversation would be over, and tugged them off of the bed. “Let’s go eat. I’m sure you’ll be more reasonable after that.”

Es didn’t have a choice in the matter, and they had to keep their hold on the hand, lest they lose themself to the voices.

They’re basically a prisoner, just living in my quarters. 

I’m being merciful, by not locking them in the 11th cell. They’ll help me with work, so I’ll keep them around.

Es followed along compliantly, but they looked around, like an exit would pop up and they could escape.

The warden tightened their hold on the bandaged hand.

The two entered the cafeteria, disturbing a forlorn Mu picking at her food alone. “Warden, is that- ah! Why the hell are there two of you?”

Es opened their mouth to answer, but the warden beat them to it. “I don’t believe that’s any of your buisness, prisoner.”

They stared her down, an intimidation tactic they were coming to learn the effectiveness of.

She shrunk to the chair, and Es stepped forward. “Stop that, you’re scaring her.”

“That’s the point. We have to assert dominance, as warden.”

“Do you enjoy hurting people?”

“She’s a murderer. Ask her that question. Also, don’t forget that you might also be a murderer. Do murderers really deserve rights?”

Es gave them a deadpan stare. “We’re the same person. If I’m a murderer, than so are you.”

The warden let go of their hand. “Say that again.”

Mu was confused by this development, but stayed silent in fear that the warden would give her the good old staredown.

They started to look around, and shiver. The voices have started again, haven’t they. That’ll teach them.

The warden shook their head, gently taking their hand again, guiding them away from this bad influence. “C’mon Es, we shouldn’t be associating with this person.”

Mu was having a crisis of some sort.

Two meals lay on the counter, cooked by Jackalope. Wow, he actually bothered this time! Hang on, no, we should be more grateful.

Right, Jackalope is an associate of Milgram, so we can’t be disloyal.

They picked out some rabbit hair they saw in the food.

The warden easily grabbed their food with their bandaged hand, but Es fumbled with their non-dominant hand, eventually getting it.

They guided Es over to the table farthest from Mu, and sat them down. We can’t have them going too close to her. It might make them start to want to leave, a useless wish.

They stared down at their food, but didn’t have the ability to eat it due to their dominant hand being held.

Es tried to tug it away from their steel grip, and once the warden registered their intention, they let go.

They both ate, a silence as dead as roadkill; the warden kept peering over at their counterpart.

Es’ face stayed blank. It was a weak repression, though. It looked as if anything would break them.

Once they both had finished eating, the warden grabbed their hand again.

There was no resistance, but there was also no reciprocation. Their hand was limp; all of the fight was gone.

The warden informed them, “Alright, we have to work now. Would you be fine with that?” It’s not as if they have any other choice.

They shrugged, allowing themself to be led back to the room. I’m glad they’ve come to their senses.

They got to the room, and the warden brought out their work papers, assisted clumsily by Es, happily humming. I’m glad I’ll have someone to help me with work. The hand thing is a little burdensome.

Well, I don’t think the voices bother them while working, unless they get distracted. 

They let go of Es’ hand, and they seemed fine, just a little suprised. “C’mon, so, you can do this, and I’ll do that work. If you’re just as productive as we are, we can finish this in 5 hours, and then…”

We usually finish work in 10 hours, on a good day, but then what should we do? This is strange. I don’t like having free time.

Well, maybe they’ll constitute for a good distraction. Also, we may have to eat in around 5 hours, so there’s that. Also, we have to get our check-up.

Es stared at the work given to them, then sighed drearily. Our work is a blessing, they need to stop being dramatic.

They eventually grabbed a clipboard, and got to work. Well, at least they’re doing it.

Their face scrunched up in focus, they soon lost their troubles. Alright, good. Maybe this will at least slightly convince them why being a warden had benefits.

The warden grabbed their clipboard, good thing Milgram has more, and sat shoulder-to-shoulder to them.

It felt nice, having another breathing person next to them; another pen scribbling on paper. It was good ambience.

After about 2 hours, Es set the paperwork they had down. They had completed a lot, nice.

The warden looked up from their work. “What are you doing?”

“I’m tired.”

“Hah, well, what would make you stop being tired?” I forgot that they would have human needs like that.

“A break, maybe some water. I think we need to stay hydrated.” Es was still unaffected with the voices, still in a daze from doing work.

The warden had long been desensitized to that. But, it might improve productivity, so that would be nice. “Alright, let’s go.”

Es smiled ever so faintly. “Didn’t think you’d agree to this.”

“Why not?”

They gave the warden a raised eyebrow, but it was sarcastic, like they were attempting humor. Why are they looking at me like that?

A dry chuckle escaped Es’ mouth. “Of course you would.”

“Okay, but we shouldn’t interact with the prisoners.”

“What about Shidou? Shouldn’t we get our medical treatment?” They’re right, I guess.

“Just him. Pretend the other prisoners don’t exist. Attention just encourages them.”

“Okay, I-” They were cut off, and started to lose the little light that was back in their eyes. Ugh, those voices are so troublesome.

The warden came up and clutched Es’ hand, saving them from the incessant voices. That isn’t fair though, they did work, and therefore should be forgiven by the Milgram system…

Whatever, I should keep my faith.

This time, they followed along with a little more life in their eyes, unlike earlier.

“Alright, should we go to Shidou’s first, or-”

“Shidou.”

Why are they so insistent on that? I might have to- 

Their hand slightly ached. “Fine.”

Es smiled, brighter than the warden had ever seen. What does that man have that I don’t? C’mon, they can’t feel happy like that because of a prisoner.

“Calm down.” Es wiped the smile off of their face.

“Alright.” They imitated -- whether it was in jest or not, the warden didn’t know -- their pose, putting their shoulders up. 

However, it was slightly restricted by something.

The warden peered under their cape, and there were restraints around their shoulders. Wait, so they really are a prisoner.

Hmm… Should we keep them? They really help with work, and they’re technically ‘me’.

I guess… Yeah, we’ll keep them. Plus, maybe this is a mistake by Milgram’s system, as much as I hate to admit it. After the John incident, maybe unclassified people in the prison become prisoners.

Yeah.

The pair navigated to Shidou’s cell, and the warden knocked with their uninjured hand. “Shidou? We’re here to get our checkup.”

They heard a rustling noise come from inside, and Shidou opened the door with a tired smile. “Alright! You-”

He trailed off when he saw the other them. “Uh, what?”

Shidou looked lost. The warden tried to clarify, tone attempting leaving no room for argument. “You need to give double treatment, now.”

That didn’t clear anything up for the poor man, but he let them in, pinching himself. 

“Uhm… Es on the left, um, sit over here.”

He indicated the warden, and they scowled. “I’m not Es. They’re Es.”

They pointed at Es, and they sat on the bed.

This confused Shidou even further, but he started to slowly clean out Es’ wound. “What should I call you, then?”

“I am the warden.”

“A name?”

“No.”

Shidou pondered for a second. “I’m not calling you the warden, you’re so much more than that. So, what should I call you?”

“The warden. I’m not anything more than that.”

He stared at them for a second. “Alright… I don’t know. Anyways, Es, what have you been doing with this hand? It’s a little irritated. Are those nail marks?”

The warden looked away. “Yeah, but-”

“Don’t do that to Es. It’s not nice.”

“What am I, 12? I don’t have to listen to you.”

Es gave them a glare. They had gotten a lot more brave with Shidou around. That’s annoying.

Shidou finished the bandaging for their counterpart, and motioned for the warden to come over.

They did so, and he did their bandages.

-

The rest of the day was relatively monotone, doing work and getting the occasional meal. Eventually, the two finished their work, after about 7 boring hours.

Es silently yawned, eyes slowly closing. The warden peered over at them. So, what should we do in our free time?

I think that… Es in trial 1 liked to read law books? I don’t like this free time, so, I guess we can…

The warden got up, and then, Es’ breathing quickened and their gaze grew far away. Right, I can’t leave them for long.

It’s kind of nice, like taking care of a needy houseplant.

They came back over, lightly grabbing their hand as an attempt to take the pain away, but that didn’t stop the tears, and the words.

Stopping the voices didn’t stop the impact of them, after all. They softly sobbed, “Oh, oh no, I, I’m a horrible person. No, we’re horrible people, warden, we killed Mahiru, it’s all our fault, even I’m a murderer, and I know why, I-”

The warden didn’t appreciate their inclusion in this, but stayed patient. “No, we didn’t kill Mahiru, it was Milgram, and I’m sure that they were doing it for a just reason. The greater good.”

They’re just being irrational.

Es flinched, and yelled at them, still emotionally charged. “How could you say that! Mahiru died, and it was because of our verdict! And yet, you still follow Milgram’s orders; none of this would have happened if it weren’t for this… stupid prison.”

The warden slowly and gently carded through their soft hair, deciding to not listen to their valid points. ��It doesn’t matter. None of it does. I mean, we were just doing our job. It’s not our fault.”

“But- but… they said-” They broke into sobs again.

“Shh… we’re alright, we’re alright.” The warden shushed them. It was an imitation of Kotoko’s method, but it worked earlier.

“No! No, we’re not- I can’t be-”

“We can all be warden. It is what we exist for, is it not?”

They tensed up even further, which had the opposite effect that the warden intended. 

But then, they relaxed, which was more worrying. “Why can’t I just stop existing, then?” Their voice was eerily calm.

They grabbed a chunk of Es’ hair, and they let out a little yelp. “You’re not disappearing. We won’t let you.”

They did not relent. Why aren’t they going back on it? C’mon, you don’t want to die.

The warden tried to reassure themself in some way, “Es, you can’t exactly live without me, can’t you? You can’t stray too far from us, and we will ensure your safety, whether you like it or not.”

Es stayed silent, but the message was clear. I guess this just comes with the less work. I have to keep them alive.

They released their hair, going back to playing with it gently. Right, we’ll keep them safe. As long as they are in my field of visions.

“Shh… you’re not going to die.” The words were more for the speaker. Es stared up at the person, and again, did not answer.

It doesn’t matter. We’re keeping them here.

They stayed down, knowing that leaving was futile.

The warden hummed a prisoner’s song, then noticed they had started to fall asleep. “Hey, would you want to go to bed?”

Es nodded.

They walked to the bed together, and Es crawled into the bed, breathing soon evening out. The warden didn’t understand how they were tired, it was pretty early, but also lay next to them.

The warden clung to them from the back, attempting to envelope them in warmth.

However, there was little warmth to be had.

They won’t die. They won’t die.

It’ll all be alright, as long as we don’t let go.

a/n: they’re a little toxic. But. cute!! Enyu’s gonna have to get one of those child leashes to make sure es doesn't go lol

[arguablysomaya]

please, elaborate on merlin bbc propaganda and stuff

okay basically:

bbc merlin is a show taking place during a genocide

camelot for 20 years has been genociding and ethnically cleansing everyone who can use magic, including magical creatures. They were all either exiled, fled, live in refugee camps or in hiding, and a great many were executed and slaughtered. Generally speaking, life is inhospitable in camelot for magic users.

And the show makes no attempt to hide this fact, either. We see multiple times over the death and destruction this genocide has wraught, and how radicalized most of the remaining magic population is because of it. For the past few decades, camelot has essentially been doing 2 things: persecuting magic users, and defending itself from vengeful/liberationist magic users

the king (uther) believes that magic users are (stop me if you've heard this one) corruptive, shifty, and evil. he's always paranoid that a magic user will take their revenge on him. and in a way, he's right: there are in fact a lot of magic users eager to kill him, but given the whole Great Purge and literally drowning children thing, you'd thing the show would be a bit more sympathetic to their plight. Nope.

in come merlin and gaius, our two main magic users. merlin is the protagonist, and gaius his benevolent mentor, so the audience is primed to be on their side. only one problem: from bascially the beginning of the series, these two are nothing more than agents for the very state carrying out the genocide. they devote their time to wholeheartedly defending camelot, especially from magic users, something they are rightfully called traitors for. they actively intervene to prolong the lives (and therefore regimes) of both arthur and uther, despite neither king showing any real interest in freeing their people. gauis represents the "diversity" of a genocidaire state; as someone uther only keeps around so long as he shuns any involvement with magic except what helps uther carry put his genocide, gaius hides and rejects every marginalized part of himself that threatens his access to power. even as a member of the oppressed class, he aids and abets the oppressors every step of the way. merlin, as an extremely powerful agic user in hiding, follows suit. the thing is, like so many other minority collaborators, this doesn't actually buy them safety, since they are Other, they still have to walk around on eggshells knowing one wrong move could get their heads chopped off. but this action of defending a regime that would kill you without a second's hesitation is presented as noble and heroic in the show, when in reality it's stupid at best and evil at worst. merlin and gaius might save a token kid from being brutally murdered, but they will never let anyone take action, let alone take action themselves, to proactively stop the brutality.

merlin is literally the most powerful sorcerer alive. if he wanted to, he could create a more fair, more just, better world in a blink. instead, he spends his time pretending to be a hapless servent, messing around with his war criminal friends, and killing any freedom fighter who dares to even look at the prince or king. why? well, he believes in the institutions (and a prophecy that never comes true... lol). ultimately, merlin and gauis hold the same prejudices and stereotypes about magic users that uther does: that they're untrustworthy, dangerous, and that it would be better for everyone if all but themselves (the good ones) just died or left.

and all the people they're defending the empire against... are other oppressed magic users. the VAST majority of antagonists are either magicians or magic sympathizers. even in the context of a genocide, the show takes the firm stance that the architects of genocide (the literal kings who order it to happen) are just flawed human beings who still don't deserve to be killed, while when the people they seek to wipe out fight back, our protagonists will happily mow them down. the show has no problem with killing people,and even killing innocents is only worthy of a fingerwag. it's fighting for liberation that the show makes the real problem. even when uther finally dies the show plays it like something sad, as if anyone is supposed to feel anything but joy that this old tyrant genocidaire finally kicked the bucket after having been saved a million times over from getting his comeuppance. Every magic user that has genuinely good reasons to want to tear down the kingdom are all painted with the "crazy evil person" brush.

another thing is that this show likes to get ~quirky~ with their agents of the state. along with arthur and merlin come a colorful cast of characters like the knights that you can laugh and cry with. the only problem is that despite how lovable these people are, they're still actively carrying out and enforcing a genocide. it's a bit like those tiktoks of IDF soldiers dancing or proposing. i can't feel for these people because despite seeming like relatable people, they're still engaging in something horrific. you can't escape the fact that these people can only exist in the relatively easy capacity that they do because the empire they work for is brutally repressing and eliminating entire cultures.

but the thing is, this strategy actually works. the fandom is often so taken in by fun character interactions and shipping moments that you can often witness people literally look past, or even praise their acts of genocide. these characters are so charming with each other that you can look past how awfully they treat oppressed people. yay! the prevalence of merthur brings up too many idf pinkwashing parallels it's actually insufferable. i had hoped we left oppressor/oppressed person ships behind in the 2010s but guess it's still around

by the time he takes over as king, the "great, kind" arthur is essentially an IDF soldier who only realized that Killing Is Bad Actually when he's got crosshairs on a random kid. now Reformed (TM), he takes the brave stance that he should only kill the angry bad magic users who try to exact their revenge for the whole genocide thing on him, and the peaceful (more often than not, harmless) magic users should accept the merciful counterplan of ethnically cleansing themselves from the region, or continuing to live in refugee camps, but this time with less threat of massacre. in this show, the only acceptable answer to being genocided is to either lay down and die, hide forever, or displace yourself hoping the empire doesn't come and kill you anyway. fighting back, getting revenge, defending oneself, trying to change things: these are all reserved only for the genocidal state.

in other words, bbc merlin is the exact type of genocide obfuscation that most modern genocides engage in. the suffering of oppressed peoples, even innocents, is a footnote. when they suffer, sometimes it's presented as sad, and other times it's presented as deserved. meanwhile, the suffering of the oppressors, no matter how justifyable, is always landmark and deserves our full attention and sympathies, because the thing about the oppressors is that it's always their story.

(the last thing is a common fantasy problem, which is that when you create stories where different classes have actual, material, biological distinctions, it can end up justifying the oppression. in the real world, there is a very limited range of innate human abilities, and people from across the world are largely evenly matched. but in merlin, a sorcerer actually does pose an increased threat to those around them. in terms of allegory... kinda not the best thing to so without any real refutation to the idea that magic corrupts)

so yeah. that's why i don't fuck with this show even though it's enjoyable to watch.

[starbeltconstellation]

No matter how I look at it, I get the feeling that Lesyle Headland is racist against Asians. Seeing all those characters portrayed by Asian people get mistreated horribly makes me very uncomfortable because I'm Asian myself, and I've been through that multiple times during my life. I'm not the only one who thinks that. I saw there are a couple of other people who think that Lesyle Headland is against Asians too. Kathleen Kennedy keeps pointing out the racism in the fandom, yet she ignores the racism that she HERSELF and her co-workers are doing, and that includes Lesyle Headland! Why did Star Wars now have to be in the hands of a Western company where they keep mistreating Asian characters and Asian people??? Now, with what happened in Sol in the finale, the SW fandom is going to be even more racist and spout more BS against Asians now. I'm tired af of all the hatred towards my people! Both Asians and the Jedi deserve better!!!

Hello, dear anon. ❤️

Firstly, I just want to DEEPLY apologize for the long wait in my response. 😅💔😖 I try not to get behind on asks, but life has been crazy for me at the moment, and especially with longer asks like yours, I really want to take my time and give a good and in depth response.

And yesssss! 👏👏 Speak your truth, dear anon! 😖✊

I will be honest and say that my view—while I HEAVILY dislike LH’s writing morals and style (and just the whole concept of The Acolyte show in general being some ‘girl power fantasy’ for women when the Dark Side is anything but that and is nothing but weighted chains tying you to the ocean floor to drown)—was more charitable at first where I know in my SOUL if I ever met this woman that we probably would not be able to get along if we talked about SW fandom lore too much. And I can accept that! 😂

Not everyone will like or agree with each other. At least she’s not as bad as Karen Traviss, because dear GOD I have recently just learned about the petty hatred that woman has towards the Jedi (with a WORD FOR WORD line of a character in her books EXPLICITLY saying the Jedi Order deserved their genocide! 🤢), and I KNOWWW I would dislike that woman if I met her on the street. I can acknowledge the incredible feat she accomplished with developing Mando’a, while still maintaining that she seems like a very mean spirited person to be around), and it is literally nauseating in the most highly disgusting and disturbing way.

KT is basically a rapid and foaming at the mouth Jedi anti who believes they “got what was coming to them.🤢🥶” LH on the other hand (at least in HER head), views herself as Jedi CRITICAL. And while there is a little bit of a difference there, it’s not as stark a line as fans would try to convince us pro Jedi’s to believe.

There are plenty of fair criticisms about the Jedi that I can acknowledge: the Shimi thing, for one, which is I think just a bad symptom of GL’s writing being more “metaphorical” than literal. Shimi HAS to stay on Tatooine because Anakin eventually HAS to murder the Tuskens in cold blood so GL can tell the story he wants to tell of how Anakin can’t let go, and so the Jedi are never given the opportunity to do what I truly BELIEVE they would’ve done, which is go back and free her, at least for the peace of mind of one of their newest initiate. The plot literally physically bars them from doing so.

And even THIS is not without its flaws, because they would ONLY have wiggle room to free Shimi after the heat of TPM problems had died down where they had time to do so… while walking past/avoiding eye contact with all of Shimi’s slave neighbors, because as specified before—The Jedi have no jurisdiction in the Outer Rim, and you bet your ass if they freed all those slaves and started a war with the Hutts with their little 10,000 strong army, the Republic would take one look and go “Lol, good luck with that,” and not help them at all, which would be basically suicide for the Order to try and accomplish on abolishment of slavery on the Outer Rim all on their own in the TRILLIONS of people in the galaxy. They do not have the MAN POWER for that. Not without the Senate army/clones.

People want the Jedi to do something about it? Get on the Senate’s ass about it then—the REAL people who are responsible for all of the shit going wrong in the Outer Rim while they line their pockets and kiss up to clueless galactic citizens for votes come election time. THEY are the ones that should be responsible for the problems of an ENTIRE galaxy—not a small little minority group (which I’ve already come to realize that the Jedi are. They are a culture/religion/family, and 10,000 is but a drop in the ocean of the galaxy. They are so small in the grand scheme of things that it’s SCARY when considering how easy it was for Palpatine to lead them to almost total annihilation) that try and try and TRY as hard as they can, which is apparently somehow NEVER enough, for the galactic citizens AND the SW fandom itself.

And why is that? Why is it so HARD for SW fandom to relate to them? Why does LH (who I’m sure in her head BELIEVES she’s as progressive as they come) view the Jedi as some type of “space cops” who are “oppressing 🙄” the Sith as a representation of her religious trauma that she is clearly projecting onto them as something completely separate than what the Jedi Culture actually is? Why does she view them as “emotionally repressed” and “almost catholic-like”, and views the fucking SITH (literal SPACE NAZIS 😭🤦‍♀️) as a representation for her persecution as a gay woman?

It’s because—just like MOST SW fans in the US—she cannot fathom a culture outside of the lens of western philosophy. In her mind, the Jedi aren’t a “real 🙄🤢” family. In HER mind, the Jedi aren’t necessarily evil, but she still believes those “poor little culty Jedi 😔💔🙄” didn’t see they were ‘sewing their own destruction’. (Which is blaming them. It’s BLAMING the victims of genocide, and it’s to this day the most disgusting thing I will always remember about the show’s “your actions will cause the destruction of every Jedi in the galaxy” quote that made Twitter go wild with genocide apologia galore).

Some lovely examples! 😁🙃🙃

Disgusting Example 1:

Disgusting Example 2:

Disgusting Example 3:

Disgusting Example 4: REALLY YIKES. 🥶

Disgusting Example 5: Ahhh, would you look at that? We’ve made it into good ol’ ✨dehumanization✨. 🙃🙃🤢

ALL of those examples are not a small portion of the fandom. They are the MAJORITY. This is what the MAJORITY of the fandom truly deep in their hearts believe about the Jedi and their culture and way of life, even if they won’t word it as bluntly as those commenters did out loud.

THIS is what I believe LH’s beliefs regarding the Jedi’s non-western culture is like. She thinks she’s being “fair”, because hey! I made you like Jecki and Yord, didn’t I? 😘😘😘

… And then mere episodes later, she throws the rug out from under you in having Quimir (who she has ADMITTED in interviews is basically her mouthpiece for her own personal thoughts on SW) dehumanize not just Jecki and Yord by saying they were “incapable of going deeper to care about Osha like she deserves 🤢🙄🥶”, but also just by dehumanizing the Jedi in general. It becomes CLEAR in the final episodes that everything was meant to lead up to Osha and Quimir meeting (because they’re clearly Reylo 2.0, and this was LH’s way of getting to smash her Barbie dolls together), which basically gives a feeling of hollowness to the entire backdrop of the show—because the rest of the characters ARE a backdrop to them. She FAKES THE AUDIENCE OUT by pretending to humanize Sol as someone repentant, teasing the possibility of him and Osha being able to talk things out, before swiftly turning him into a one-dimensional caricature of himself who seems to have done a complete 180 on his remorse, only for the sheer purpose of him and Osha not being able to have a conversation. You may say, “Oh, but the show is an unreliable narrator! 🤪🤪🤪”

Except… no, it’s really not. 😭🤦‍♀️ Especially with the way LH spells out that she AGREES with Quimir’s philosophy, she AGREES with that asshole Senator treating the Jedi like shit who are “corrupt/emotionally repressed space monks”, she AGREES with Oshamir fans’s interpretations that the finale of turning to the Dark Side is a TRIUMPH for Osha instead of a heartbreaking moment that will lead to only ruin.

And it’s because—just like most western fans—she just doesn’t even WANT or CARE to understand the eastern philosophy of the Jedi’s culture, and instead projects her feelings from no doubt sympathetic trauma onto something that has no true basis for it. She views something that doesn’t have the “passion” of the Sith’s ‘love 🙄’ as lesser than. She doesn’t really view them as a family, because she only believes in a more standard family dynamic, and instead views them as an institution that “brought everything on themselves. 🥶”

And… honestly? I think you’re basically RIGHT, anon. I don’t think it’s truly this big CONSCIOUS thing. I don’t think she wrote out Sol’s death for the sheer purpose of “Muah-ha-ha”-ing over Asian fans losing some of the honestly most MEMORABLE and AMAZING representation they’ve had in YEARS in the very franchise that borrows from their own culture and philosophy. But I DO think she doesn’t view it as something worth considering. Oshamir is where her mind was at at the end of the day (because ROMANTIC love is something she clearly views as the most important and powerful thing, because OSHAMIR is who stand together at the end. Not Osha or her sister), and I think any other storyline factors became all but insignificant to her in the grand scheme of things. It was easy to kill all of the Jedi characters, because the “new fave” was here—the Sith. And to be fair, his hotness drew in a lot of buzz! But the cancellation and the renew the series petition signatures I think show the gap in how many people were truly interested going forward that weren’t reylo 2.0 fans. Yeah, a lot of people are into villains. But even MORE people want to root for their heros. The Jedi are supposed to be the heroes of SW, and such a show PURPOSELY and VINDICTIVELY portraying them in the worst way possible (the EMPATHETIC SPACE MONKS covered up a massacre? REALLY? 😭🤦‍♀️) throws more people off than LH would like to believe.

The way she killed Sol… it was brutal. And in interviews, she says some bullshit like Sol was “taking away Osha’s agency” by forgiving her and telling her it was okay. Because the portrayal of the Jedi in this show isn’t just “showing their flaws! 🤪🤪🤪” It is purposely writing them in a way that they’ve NEVER been shown to act on screen before—all to make the villain sympathetic, because LH clearly has adopted the thinking (much as radical Anakin fans have), that because someone has become a villain, then SOMEONE must’ve forced their hand. But that’s not how all true three dimensional characters WORK. Yes, there are tragic characters whose circumstances make things worse, but the idea that a villain is always “misunderstood” creates the narrative that the HERO is somehow in the wrong. LH does this because both Osha and Quimir are her new OCs. She makes the Jedi almost completely OOC and portrays them as oppressive to JUSTIFY Quimir and Osha’s actions. Because THIS is what The Acolyte was about: giving Reylo 2.0 a happy ending.

There has been criticism from fans that Jecki and Yord were killed too early which only gave fans an “awww ☹️💔” feeling, because they barely had the chance to even solidify into real characters to make the audience sob and cry at their loss. And I would argue this thinking is right. Because if you look CLOSELY at the background, you can see how it all was just a hollow backdrop for LH’s “dark romance” idea. And I’m not saying such an idea was BAD—I’m saying it wasn’t originally marketed that way. Sol is marketed as the main character (representing Asians in a fantastic way), and then she brutally kills him off, because he was never REALLY important to LH’s story. None of the Jedi were. She was always more interested in the Sith. And so, she tries to make the Sith the “oppressed 🙃🙄”. And I would argue she fails at this with the larger audience, even if loud fans of reylo are chanting about it on tumblr and twitter. The viewership is lower than expected for the show (and part of that is because of the horrible racism and campaign against it from SW dudebros). But honestly, I think a part of it is just… what’s left? Everyone except Osha and Quimir are dead. Sol was brutally murdered on his knees (one of the best Asian representation I’ve seen in a while in SW) like he was nothing but garbage. The Jedi lost, and apparently LH has also character assassinated Vernestra by what she does in the finale, if the character’s fans huffing on tumblr are anything to go by (which is TOTALLY within their right to feel disappointed and angry over an aroace character being treated by the narrative like she and the culture she believes in have ‘no emotion or empathy’ 🥶🤢. There’s that good ol’ ✨dehumanization✨ kicking in again, huh?)

THIS is what SW has apparently decayed into. Into being vindictive and petty and blaming victims for their own persecution and pain. It’s a sign of a self involved culture, which is what the USA/the west is, I’ll admit. Other countries are collectivist. We are individualists. (ie; “I got mine.”) People ENJOY these tales of flipping everything around to blame the heroes and not the villains, because they SEE themselves in villains like Anakin or Kylo Ren or Osha and Quimir. And look—there’s nothing wrong with seeing yourself in a villain and even with sympathizing with them! Anakin’s past as a slave no doubt makes him very much deserving of empathy in that regard.

But the problem is—since they SEE themselves in the villain—then they don’t want the villain to be in the wrong (ie; Anakin). Because if the VILLAIN is in the wrong, then they TOO can also be in the wrong, and a lot of people don’t like to grapple with that. I have seen a recent post going around from someone I was pretty disappointed with that switched sides from pro jedi into anti jedi territory so vindictively and quickly (do NOT attack this person if you know who I’m talking about. I am bringing this up for the sheer purpose of meta. Not to pettily call them out or something), who was responding to an ask where the asker was thanking this person in basically defending Anakin by excusing his actions. The anon said they related heavily to Anakin, and apparently hated recent posts going around which call Anakin out on his behavior, because the anon and this person both believe that the criticism is meant to be vindictive and cruel, when that is rarely the case.

This is where the “Anakin was bullied by The Council/Mace/Obi-Wan” excuses come in. Because Obi-Wan gently offers CONSTRUCTIVE criticism at times, he is somehow viewed as someone who never truly respected or understood Anakin as a person. Because the Council didn’t worship the ground Anakin walked on and didn’t just let him get away with things without a sometimes gentle/firm reprimand, they are somehow viewed as people who have been out to get Anakin and ‘didn’t trust him’ since he was a child. Because Mace butted heads with Anakin at times because they had different opinions on how to be a good Jedi and in their battle strategies on the war, Mace is somehow the most petty and worst man alive who has been “jealous” of Anakin his whole life.

All of these above excuses—in the most nicest way I can state possible—sound like the platitudes that children tell themselves against parents who they’re angry at. This is WHY Anakin went to Palpatine; because Palpatine always told him “Yes.”

And believe it or not?

Sometimes being told “no” isn’t the end of the world or means people hate you.

Sometimes you’re a good person who made a mistake, and just need to be called out to get back on the right track.

Accountability.

LH apparently believes in none of this for her characters. The backstory crafted for Osha and Quirmir clearly shows that. It’s meant to ABSOLVE them.

Funny how the JEDI (the ones based off of Asian inspired culture in certain areas) aren’t given the same courtesy, huh? 🙃🙃

This is why the pro jedi fanfic I’m writing is free therapy. Loooool. 😂❤️

In conclusion—yessss, I think you’re pretty on the mark in a certain type of way, anon, even if we both have a little bit of a charitable gap for LH between the two of us.

I apologize for the late reply again! 😭❤️❤️❤️❤️ I hope the wait was worth it!

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To any readers that stumble across this and are curious enough to check out my fic:

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[youling-the-ghost]

More sfth incorrect quotes! ft. hopefully better formatting (the link I used to generate these)

*obligatory "none of the shipping quotes are me actually shipping them"

Tom: When I said you should try being friendlier this isn't what I meant. Luke, stirring a cup of tea aggressively: Oh, so now I'm TOO friendly? There's no pleasing you. AJ, who broke into his house an hour ago: Two sugars please. Luke: Coming right up. Luke: Tom, I don’t think I can handle any more of your tomfuckery. Tom: Oh yeah? Well I can keep going until you’re all tomfuckered out!

Tom: CHARACTER. FLAWS. ARE. FUCKING. IMPORTANT. Luke: Me when someone tells me to stop eating mayo packets like they’re gogurt tubes. Sam, making a cup of tea: Yeah, get into that leaf juice, you sexy, sexy bee sauce. Tom: Hey, do you take constructive criticism? Sam: I absolutely fucking do not. Tom: I never understood why people cared so much about their dumb friends until I got a dumb friend myself. Tom: *Picks up AJ* Tom: I’ve only befriended AJ for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then my self. AJ: Everyone has a toxic trait. Except Tom, he's perfect. Tom: Wrong! My toxic trait is how badly I want to domesticate a raccoon. Luke: Ew. What kind of tea is this? AJ: I boiled gatorade. AJ: I know what a prism is! It's where you put bad people. Sam: Do you want this handful of moss? Tom: Why would I want a handful of fucking moss? Sam: Damn, you could’ve just said no. Tom: For self defense reasons, I'm going to pretend to be a burglar and you guys have to act wisely. AJ, Sam, & Luke: Okay. Tom: If you don't want to die, give me all your money. AJ: Bold of you to assume I have money. Sam: Bold of you to assume I don't want to die. Luke: Bold of you to assume I can die. Luke: Two brooooos! Sam: Chillin' in a hot tub! Luke: Five feet apart 'cause we're not gay! Sam: Luke: Sam: *tearing up* Luke: Babe, c'mon… Sam: AND HERE YOU REALLY HAD ME THINKING WE HAD SOMETHING. Luke: Babe… Luke: Wow, they really hate us. Sam: Yes, perhaps they’re homophobic. Luke: But we’re not gay, Sam. Sam: Luke: Sam: We’re not? Sam: What’s it like being tall? Luke: Is it nice? AJ: Can you reach comfortably for the cupboards? Tom: We live in constant fear of the short ones who, in my experience, will climb four chairs, two boxes, a small coffee table, and six oddly placed stools to get what they want. Luke: I think we should have glow stick juice injected in our bones when we're born, so if we break our bones, we get a fun little surprise. AJ: What's the surprise? Tom: Blood poisoning. Tom: There's nothing worse than people using big words they don't understand. AJ: I photosynthesize with this. Luke: What is it called when you kill a friend? Tom: Homicide. Sam: Murder. AJ: Homiecide. Tom: What do we say when making bread? AJ, glumly: That's the dough rising. Tom: And what do we NOT say? Sam, sadly: That's the yeast fucking. Sam: What if people had food names and food had people names? Luke: Hey, spaghetti, we’re having Sam for dinner. Tom: What is wrong with you people? AJ: Shut up, chocolate. Sam: Time freezes for everyone but you one day. What do you do? Luke: Oh… I’d mildly trouble everyone. Sam: Alright, so what would you do? Luke: I’d shave a one-inch thick line in every thick beard I saw. Luke: I’d twist all the lightbulbs just a little bit so no one would know when they aren’t working. Luke: I’d make every wing on girls eyeliner just a little bit higher than the other one. Luke: And I’d tie everyone’s shoelaces together. Luke: And then lastly, I’d snip a little hole in every tea bag. Sam: Sam: Remind me to never allow you to have power.

[my-drama-heart2406]

Okay everyone, so here's my piece on the "Han Daon is Satan" issue. And I stand... on affirmative.

So I'd like to take credit and say that I called it(I'll tell you why), but then I wasn't sure of myself and somebody else did call it on Tumblr so...

But here's my pov. Han Daon being Satan would actually make a lot of sense. Does it raise a lot of questions? Ofcourse, but none that can't be answered.

So while everyone started talking about this since the recent episodes, I got the idea of Daon being Satan wayyy back in ep 5, when Daon barged into that demons comittee meeting. See Daon is VERY SMART. But when he was told the Satan and Kylum fairytale story he acted completely clueless as if he didn't understand a word the other demon said. Which seemed kinda odd. The point that hit was that all of this supposedly happened 26 yrs ago. Daon's family was killed in 1999, 25 yrs ago. Suspicious 🧐.

And I thought hey wouldn't it be fun if Daon was actually Satan? It would be so ironic that Satan is standing, openly chilling in a meeting about where and how to find him. But then I blamed my twisted brain for making up all this bullshit. Turns out it wasn't bullshit, because apparently everyone was thinking the same thing.

Which brings us to our first question how did Satan get into Daon's body? Which can be answered very easily. We see from Daon's perspective many times, the serial killer walking towards him, his shadow looming over Daon's little form, we never see after that. Now we've seen and known lot's of stories where the serial killer leaves a victim alive to pass down the trauma. But considering that he killed Daon's parents and brother, he didn't have any reason NOT to kill Daon too. So what if he did? What if Daon was killed too? What if Satan was roaming around looking for a body and saw this boy and his family getting murdered and chose to inhabit him? Like @musings-of-a-kjdrama-addict said in her post, what if the narrative from our ML's perspective is already flawed?

But going by Daon's priorities, he had followed Bitna there because he suspected her of murder and wanted to get evidence, or at the very least get some info about her. Which then became obvious that it wasn't going to happen because 1: all the demons over there were meeting Bitna/Justitia for the first time. And 2: Justitia introduced him as "Poppy", her driver, also a demon. So when Bitna tells him to go back, he doesn't have any reason not to, instead of maybe just to rile Bitna.

Watching n no. of dramas has made it clear to me that writers don't do anything reasonlessly. So the whole purpose of the ML to be there just to see a side character demon, who has around 5 min screen time, cry to later making it an arc about another character(arong killing demons who feel) seems... strange.

Ofcourse there's the question of Daon's strength. If he's a demon, Satan at that, shouldn't he be strong like all other demons or infact stronger? Who knows, maybe he is, but after living in a human body he's learnt to control it? Now, using simple human strength is like normal nature to him? Or maybe, and this is more probable, he doesn't have demonic strength. See the other demons were all sent to earth, on missions. Officially, as demons. But Satan fled from hell. Maybe the rules change when a demon leaves hell of their own volition. Maybe that's why he stole the kylum. We are told that with the help of the kylum someone can become immortal even in a human body. But there's no shortage of dead people, and seeing that Satan is on the run, he can just escape from one dead body to another and keep living. (Ofcourse it would be very difficult to find one as gorgeous as Han Daon)

Ofcourse a lot of guesses for Satan was Arong, but she already had a reveal with a twist. The writers won't put 2 big reveals on the same side character. I read in a post that maybe the Assemblyman is Satan. Which is okay but... Given the demonstration of demons in this show, wouldn't Satan be someone cool and hot? Also logically Satan fled from hell 26 yrs ago, the Assemblyman would have already been in late 30s or early 40s by that time. Seeing that Satan had lost the Kylum why would he choose to inhabit a middle aged man? Wouldn't it make more sense for him to choose a child so he can live for a longer time, and so would have more time to find Kylum?

Now on how he remembers his childhood? Maybe the conditions are different for Satan than other demons. Maybe he can remember the memories of the human body before death.

As far as detectives are concerned the main highlight is on 2 of them: Han Daon and Kim So Young. Kim So Young is the perfect role model detective. She's smart, intuitive, patient, doesn't lose her calm, and she wants to help people. Daon has all these characteristics too, except he's much more extreme. A thing that stood out to me since the beginning of the show is Daon's intense need for doing the right thing. To make sure that perpetrators are caught and criminals are punished for their crimes. He goes out of his way to make sure that the victims are protected. He hid under the bed of the murderer to catch Bitna, he made a scene in court and made everyone listen to the recording when it wasn't admitted as evidence. He loses his calm so many times infront of the criminals. He's so hell bent on punishing bad guys that he told So Young that sometimes he actually wants to kill these people.

While these can be simple human charactersistics, you know who else is also hell bent on punishing criminals? Justitia. A demon from hell.

Imagine the no 1 authority in hell, who'd want to punish criminals more than him? But then he's on earth in the body of a small child. And he couldn't even help to catch the psycho murderer because he was a child, because no one would listen to him. So he grew up learning and perfecting ways to punish criminals. Lawfully. And then comes another demon from hell, here to punish criminals and then she openly mocks those laws that he abided by and wanted to uphold, just to punish the criminals in the perfectly deserving way that he had wanted to do for so long. Which is why he's so he'll bent on catching her.

And there shouldn't be any argument about his very human emotions. It took Justitia only a few months to fall in love. We see even other demon who've stayed on earth for a few years develop human emotions. So it isn't surprising at all if he's very human after 25 yrs on earth.

And lastly remains the matter of the cross. Honestly if this is your only argument against Daon being Satan, it is a very weak one. It can be entirely intentional of the writers to keep it there to deviate us from thinking that Daon is Satan. And when we see Daon initially, he's not wearing the cross, it's hanging from the rearview mirror in his truck. And when Justitia asks him if he's religious he deflects the question and changes the topic. He starts wearing the cross only because he could use it against her.

Also Daon being Satan would save the story, in a way. Because how do you see this ending. The logical one would be Justitia finishes her mission and goes back to hell, and Daon continues being a detective. Wouldn't the story make more sense if Daon is Satan. Satan's introduction was Arong telling Bitna about him and saying that if a demon catches him he would surely be rewarded by Bael. We see Justitia willing to merge hell and heaven for Daon. It would be the paradox of the century if it turns out that he's Satan and now she has to turn against all of hell to protect him.

Like I said Daon being Satan would explain a lot of things. Like how he has this insane unhumanly amount of rizz.

Or Daon is human, and I could be completely wrong and this could be just my twisted brain not being able to wait for the next episode and ranting on Tumblr when I should be studying.

[spellbooksandcricketbats]

Thinking about why DBD managed to hit me so hard in the Older Queer feelings place.

I went to high school from 2002-2006 and it fucking sucked. For reference, YouTube wasn't founded until 2006, and this was before smartphones and social media and thus easier access to ~*~socially transgressive~*~ material.

The only queer characters I remember seeing on TV while growing up were punchlines (Will & Grace) or grimdark suffering and tragedy (Queer as Folk, The L Word, Nip/Tuck). The biggest slur hurled at us was gay ("Dude, that's so fuckin gay, don't be such a pussy!"). I never actually came out of the closet in high school, but I was still bullied for being perceived as queer because I dressed goth and, at the time, goth was still enough of a subculture to get mashed in with 'everything else society considers fucked up.' I knew two 'out' queer kids in high school, both gay cis boys who leaned effeminate, and dear god they were not treated kindly. Matthew Shepard's brutal torture and murder was still fresh in our collective memory. I also made the classic mistake of falling in love with one of my oldest, and straightest, girl friends. 🙃

And this was near the California Bay Area, traditionally considered one of the most queer-friendly regions!

So anyway, fast-forward to today, and here's Edwin, being unabashedly effeminate in all the ways that I learned to associate with getting a fast fuckin beatdown, and he's...treated with respect, both by other characters and ALSO the broader narrative. He's the recipient of multiple different kinds of love and attraction. None of his flaws have anything to do with being effeminate. And even the surface-level dynamic of Charles being his self-proclaimed protector has nothing to do with Edwin's own abilities -- that he is, in fact, able to endure in ways that no other character has been shown capable of yet, and again, not for any reasons that have to do with the narrative itself punishing Edwin for daring to be gay.

And then: the confession in Hell. When I eventually confessed to my best friend, she hemmed and hawed and put me off without a concrete answer, only that she was happy with her current boyfriend. Fair enough! But then she strung me along for a couple of years until I finally pushed for an answer on whether or not there was any hope, and only then did she said no, she's straight. In retrospect, both of us could have handled it better than we did; we haven't spoken since.

So when Edwin confessed, I found myself getting tense, bracing myself for the inevitable brush-off and awkwardness, which is a common reaction IRL, just...not the fictional wish-fulfillment one from a viewer, y'know? Except that's not what happened! It's not that Charles didn't give Edwin a hard 'no' (no one is ever, ever obligated to return affection), it's that Charles gave Edwin an HONEST one, AND it was kind, and there wasn't a sense that their friendship had lost any trust or anything!

And I'll be honest, that made my cracked, stoic heart cry just a little bit and healed something from my late teen/young adult self.

[daemon-in-my-head]

Gortash symbolises humanity. Bear with me.

He is a researcher, a scientist, an inventor. He is progress personified. He constructed the Steelwatch from nothing, and he discarded all ethics to do so. And while vile, that is something that has been done a lot in the past. Humans have ever since crossed the line in the name of research and progress. They have done unspeakable things, all in the name of 'advancement' and knowledge. Especially those who had certain degrees of power or in not exceptionally peaceful times, ethics are the first thing that is discarded to conduct research properly. And that is precisely what Gortash does. He ranked his desire for progress higher than personal attachments or sentimentality, and in its name, he's done unspeakably sadistic things in his 'lair' like countless did before him.

But that's not the only thing. Gortash is a tyrant, a conqueror. He invaded places people already existed in and claimed these places, their treasures and their people for himself—something humans love to do and still do to this day. And he was also an arms dealer. The thing that allowed humans to suppress even those physically stronger and more advanced was weaponry. The thing that allowed progression to this degree is where his roots lie.

He paid attention in his history lessons. He made sure to learn from Sarevok's failures. Perhaps even the shortcomings of Bane's old chosen. But even despite, or perhaps because he knew that history, he made the mistake of repeating it. He was so focused on not repeating Sarevok's mistakes that he forgot the other downfalls others have had to experience. Exactly how humanity continues to learn of its own history but always gets focused on specific parts, and as such, he forgot some others and was bound to repeat them just like we're currently repeating mistakes that have happened before.

There is also Gortash's dismissal of the Netherbrain. His 'how bad could it be'-stance. He dismissed a force of nature, dismissed natural evolution because he thought himself above it, kept silent about it, and as such allowed a plague to spread through the sword coast. Something that has happened repeatedly in our past. The last time wasn't even that long ago, if we're honest.

Even the god he serves, his patron, is the only 'humane' one out of the dead three. Bhaal is a force of nature. He is death itself. Myrkul is almost an eldritch being. He's the explanation for what happens after death, and how to defeat the unknown. But Bane is human. His domain is human. Conquest, rulership, tyranny, worship. Those are human things. These are desires only humans have in that way.

But most importantly, he reigned in and controlled the weapon that is Durge. After their murder spree, and after their worship and temple management, he was the one who stilled Durge's hand. Who reminded them of their own humanity. Who insisted they were human. He became their ties to humanity to them.

So, Gortash symbolises humanity, but simply all it's flaws. He's the brutality, the ruthlessness, the endless desire and strive for progress. The desperation to be 'more'. The cruelty we display in the name of power and knowledge. The sheer lack of compassion, empathy and humanity that only humans are capable of.

And now, this also makes it really funny that he needs to die for you and your companions to succeed. It's almost like you need to kill off that cruelty in a last act of brutality to embrace a 'peaceful' future.

Expect if you're durge cuz you're fucked regardless but that's a diff topic.

[bored-trans-orchidsexual]

A Starstruck Odyssey, and Masculinity

I have thoughts and am just gonna unload them on Tumblr. That's what we do here, right? I recently have been re-listening to Starstruck and have had some thoughts on it's depictions of masculinity. This isn't a serious post per se, just some thoughts and observations. Starstruck has a wide spectrum of masculine characters on display, though a lot of it is hostile/toxic. Most men or male-coded characters are either outright villains, or more neutral parties with some toxic and selfish tendencies. Don't get me wrong it's a wild violent galaxy and that's the point, the entire party participates in scamming, kidnapping, exploitations, and unnecessary murder and we love to see it, it's not like it explicitly makes all men out to be inherently more monstrous and evil than others. But I do think the depictions of masculinity can be interesting to observe. Amercadia is a pretty cut and dry critism of the patriarchy and American nationalist culture, which is fantastic worldbuilding to include. Many of the masculine-coded androids are actually pretty nice, friendly and helpful or serious about their jobs, aside from a bitchy one in the beginning who injects our main 'droid with an anxiety spike about being one of a kind. Pretty much all of the Slugs we meet occupy masculine bodies, and they seem to have an abstract gender that picks up pronouns from the body they occupy, though the monarch is objectively a king and uses masculine pronouns even before getting a body, and he's pretty selfish and stupid.

But the main pair I'm thinking of, is Barry and Gunnie. Looking at the two of them, there's a lot you can assume. Big Barry Syx is this massive, bulky dude in power armor and shades with a mullet, while Gunnie is a 4' 11" techie cyborg with a big ol' smile. Listen to them in action and many of your assumptions are reinforced; Barry is a total dude-bro associated with nuts, steroids, working out, and acting much like gym bros in our modern life, while Gunnie is a hyperactive technician just doing his best, despite being mired in sympathetic tragedy. Barry's trauma is fairly fantastical or common to stories, having his family gunned down by one of his own, while Gunnie is mostly weighted down by medical debt after he got in an accident after trusting the wrong person. Based on these apperent details one would assume Barry is this toxicly masculine jackass who's insecure about his flaws, while Gunnie is the smartest man on board and is trying to keep everyone in line, doing the right thing, ect. And of course, you'd be dead wrong. Gunnie, while a sympathetic and likable character, is *mired* in toxic masculine traits. While it was an accident that put him in his situation, it was brash foolishness and ignoring obvious red flags that got him in that position in the first place, not to mention a rebellion against his family driving him to it. Furthermore, as Lou himself admits in Adventuring party, Gunnie's *pride* is the reason his problems are so vast; He comes from a lot of money, his initial debt might have never happened or mostly gone away to begin with if he went back to his dads for help. His toxicity doesn't make him an unlikable character but he does have these traits. He's brash, prideful, and ignores common sense a lot. He is also very nice and friendly with others, listens to people, ect. He doesn't have *every* toxic trait in the book, but has them which I tend to not even notice because he's just a funny little guy. Barry, meanwhile, is just about the most wholesome and giving person in the entire 'verse. Syx *And* Nyne, when not under a slug's control, are these total sweetheart bros. Sure, they shit talk each other with friendly ribbing, and yes they are very good at violence, but this violence is always motivated by helping those in need or fighting for those who can't fight for themselves, the Barry Battalion way. Barrys hate it when people are rude, or hurt the innocent. Barrys fight for their friends, provide endless support and praise, and will throw their very bodies into danger to protect or help, as seen on Rec 97 and in the big finale of the battle of the brands. And while the thing the love most is other Barrys, that does not mean that what they respect is also being heavily macho dudes. Barry one (or was is spelled differently? Barry Won? who knows) was the professor who created the other Barrys, a nerdy and fragile professor type, that the Barrys loved and treated as a fellow Barry *literally* the moment they were created. Even Syd is a Barry now, and that's accepted both by Barry Syx who's known her a long time and bonded with her, as well as Barry Nyne who literally, to his perception, *Just* met her, despite her appearance as like a waitress with an arm canon. Being a Barry, in other words, isn't about being just like them, having the name Barry, or anything like that. It's a vibe, it's a way to be, and the 'verse is better off with these super wholesome boys who, despite embodying many stereotypes of the gym bro, posses *none* of the commonly toxic traits also associated with that. They aren't insecure around smarter people or those with different skillsets, they hold no gendered assumptions, and they never wanna use their might to opress others for their own satisfaction.

Just, some thoughts.

[welivetodream]

Camilla Macaulay: the twist villain that never was.

(ps: this is just a headcanon and personal opinion, nothing serious!)

Out of all the characters in TSH, Camilla to me seemed the most enigmatic, more than even Henry Winter. There's something about her that I cannot understand. I couldn't trust her when I was reading TSH for the first time, I thought she was going to be the mastermind behind it all.

Why? Isn't Camilla the nicest of all of them? So was Charles, and look at what happened to him. The twins gave me the ick a lot of the times, especially during re-reads where I could see the early hints of the incest reveal and the abuse. It could have been completely believable, if Camilla, behind the scenes was the one causing the drama all along.

1. Richard's rose coloured lens: since the story is told from his point of view, it's understandable if he decided to leave some details, changed the story or was oblivious to some things he didn't want to remember or think about. He had the most bias for Camilla, she was his crush. And we often look at our crushes with rose tinted glasses and often hide their flaws and mistakes. Richard shows bias towards the Greek class even before he was in it and his infatuation with Camilla could be the reason why we don't get any bad details about her throughout the story.

2. Motives: while Bunny did get murdered for blackmailing and trying to betray the Greek class. Only Camilla had other motives to cause distress among the others. Particularly, Charles. We know he was extremely possessive with her and has caused her emotional and physical abuse (there's background info we get at times about the twins having broken objects in the house and other times where Charles is possessive of Camilla). I don't think she truly loves Henry, it's more that being with him gives her the protection and safety she needs. She has shown some kind of liking to Francis, they seem good friends and have kissed two times (I call it gay solidarity). She plays with Richard's heart a lot, kissing him when no one is looking and making him think he has a chance when he clearly doesn't. Camilla is overshadowed by the guys in her friend group; getting the "only girl treatment". Bunny is always trying to get under her nerves and is misogynistic towards her. Charles is controlling and abusive (her own brother). Henry is cold and sociopathic, as well as someone you can't trust ("I call it redistribution of matter"). Richard is a simp. Francis is there.

3. What could have happened: Camilla, tired of the way her life is tied to Charles, Henry and Richard and their feelings towards her forcing her into a corner with no choice of her own. As well as, mentally scared from the murder of the farmer, decides to end all of the misfortunes in her life. Instead of Henry making the plans, it's Camilla in this version of the story that decides to kill Bunny both to get rid of him from her life as well as to hide the first murder. But she does this from the shadows. And the person that discovers her plan is Francis, since they have a relatively good relationship, it's possible he wouldn't spill her plans and stay quiet. She gaslights Henry into believing he ended up killing Bunny (let's say he went through with the poisonous mushrooms but instead Camilla gave Bunny actual posion)

When Charles goes into his villain arc, Camilla uses Henry as a shield to keep him away. And in the final scene, instead of Henry shooting himself, Charles ends up shooting him and Camilla shoots Charles as an act of revenge. She then threatens Richard that if he says a word about this (both Bunny and Charles's murder) then he would die too, she does that to seal her secret; she knows Richard has a big mouth and might betray her and spares Francis, since he already knew and is trustable. Camilla cleans her fingerprints from the gun and puts it in Charles's hand in order to frame it as a murder-suicide. Camilla attends their funerals and gives an alibi in front of the police that her, Richard and Francis were in the country house during the murder-suicide and then testified that Charles and Henry were the ones who were involved in the two murders and were holding them hostage with that information, clearing the three of them from the murders. Then she finally leaves for a better life. (Maybe the epilogue would be about Francis telling Richard about Camilla's behind-the-scenes story, showcasing the aftermath and what they are doing in the present)

4. Character arc: making Camilla crucial to the plot and a twist villain would give so much to her character. Her mysterious nature, absence from the main plot and lack of impact at the start of the story could be explained by her secretly planning their downfalls and her escape. Instead of her being the object of affection for the three guys and being the typical "girl that ruins the friendships between guy friends", she is the hidden mastermind with her own motives, personality and story. She was the only one who didn't change in the second part. But in this version of the story, she is the one who drives it's entire narrative.

Let her be manipulative, a liar, a gaslighter. Let her show the wrath of female rage.

When the twins were introduced in white clothing, looking like angels. Maybe they were wolves in sheep's clothing. Both of the twins. Not just Charles but Camilla too. They were creepy, eerie, and strange. They hid their true personalities behind southern hospitality and beautiful features.

"Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it"

After all, the best characters are the grey ones.