#i am actually referring more to the whole. precedent stuff

[swallowtail-ageha]

This is like terminal "has only read two stories in her entire life" shit but also like. Elden ring demigod family is so thebes royal family coded. To me

[gerdy-sertorius]

The Definitive Damsel Analysis (if I do say so myself)

(Disclaimer: I know it’s absurdly long, and for that I apologize. I apparently am more unwilling to make cuts than I am to present subpar work. I’m working on it. Only editing I do for my autistic ramblings is copyediting, baby! Whoo! I will be updating this for the Pristine Cut once it comes out and we get even *more* Damsel. Obviously, as I’m sure you can tell from the length, I really like Damsel. There will be all of the bias. It will be great.)

(Author’s Note: For the love of the most high God, it took me like twenty read throughs for me to standardize what I wanted to call the Scorched Grey. Here is a brief list of all the terms I used to refer to her: Scorched Grey, Burned Grey, Burning Grey, Fire Grey, Damsel Chapter 3. Sometimes but not always preceded by “the” or “The”.)

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. I have oft made the statement on here that Damsel is the best route in the game, and this began as me trying to definitively prove that, by microscopically going through the route, I could establish exactly why, it would seem, that Damsel has objective superiority. It sorta… evolved, though, so instead I will be going relatively chronologically throughout, and trying to point out a couple things that all of you know about and maybe a couple things you don’t about the best character in the game. With that preamble out of the way, let’s begin with the goofy stuff, the grab bag if you will. 

This will certainly be more personal taste than anything else, but I do think there’s a lot of miscellaneous stuff that Damsel does better than the other chapters. For example, I am convinced that it has the third best music, behind Tower and her routes and then Thorn. I am genuinely obsessed with “It Was Always That Easy”. The basement has some *fantastic* art, and I think that really carries a chapter that is otherwise generally bland when it comes to actual visual activity. It’s really carried by its genuinely perfect dialogue. 

Overall, and most importantly, this chapter is the undisputed master of the idea of positive ambience. You know elevator music? How it’s there to artificially increase the cheeriness of an otherwise dreary moment, like a hotel hallway or, yanno, an elevator? Well, this is the chapter that does it perfectly. Everything is designed to make it “nicer” than it actually is. The Narrator even takes that into account when describing the basement. The sound design is fresh and relaxing, the music is uplifting, the Princess’s voice is obviously fantastically done, but also the Voice of the Smitten plays a large role in making it feel “good”. It’s something that exists in order to communicate exactly the feelings it wants the player to feel, which is all warm and fuzzy inside. But let’s move on to the actual content, shall we?

Damsel has *the* best Chapter One and it isn’t even close. Certainly not in the horror department, where I think Beast and Nightmare shine, or even in the whole characterization bit, where the award can only go to Spectre and the masterclass that is her Chapter One. But Damsel has something else to it. Damsel has tragedy, almost Shakespearean in nature. Nobody else has it (except Witch, to some extent, but nowhere close to the same level), nobody manages to reach that connection, there and then broken, to honestly feel for both Princess and Slayer. Allow me to paint a picture of a playthrough. 

You are on a path in the woods. At the end of that path is a cabin. In the basement of that cabin is a princess. You are here to slay her. But you don’t do that. That voice itching in the back of your skull, the one you quite literally call Hero, your moral compass even, raises some objections. You don’t want to kill *anybody*. That isn’t something you want to mark yourself with, especially not solely on the word of an individual you just met. For now, violence is a nonstarter.

You enter the cabin. And you hear her voice. And you see her. You even talk with her for a while. The moment is… hypnotizing. Despite the Narrator’s warning of manipulation, well, you cannot help but be manipulated. This is a genuinely nice, sweet, scared Princess who simply wants to be free. You have to save her. It is the right thing to do, it is the… only thing to do. Anything else marks you with the dirtiness of simply being unwilling to help someone in need when you had the full ability to. 

You go to get a key. Unsuccessful. The door locks. Even worse. The Narrator is moving from irritating to downright malicious, clearly enjoying recounting the lock of the door. Disgust for Him has been present since you entered the cabin, but it shifts to anger very quickly. That shift continues with full force as you attempt with what little ability you have to save the Princess, even if you don’t quite know how you will get out. The question does not last long. For the shift to anger shifts once more, to a sort of incomprehensible fury.

For the Narrator has crossed a line. Not only has he taken away any semblance of choice, not only has he raised your own knife against an innocent, someone who has been nothing but kind to you, but you are the one who must bear the shame for it. You are the only one who is doing the foul deed in any eyes but your own. Speaking of, the Princess’s eyes are filled with genuine happiness at the moment, as you are finally giving her the freedom she has yearned for such a  long time. Yet through no fault of your own, you raise the pristine blade, the one you refused to bring down to the basement in the first place. You scramble through the list of options, attempting to find anything that could provide a sliver of hope in the situation, anything without the grim finality of “Slay the Princess”. 

At last, you find one, and are able to bark out a warning to the Princess. That happiness in her eyes is shifted to a look of fear, one directed at you alone, one condemning you with such a sorrowful betrayal that it almost hurts to see. She begs for you to stop, and then she says something that almost calms the internal storm of the player: “Please, I know this isn’t you.” She recognizes that it isn’t us that betrayed her, she understands that we aren’t trying to do this, that we are flat-out trying to stop it. But the eye of that storm is passing, and soon.

And as she takes the blade, as she prepares to do what she must to live, that same look of tragic betrayal crosses her eyes, this time not directed at us, but at herself. She hates that this is her only option, the only way that she can live is to kill another, one with every intention of freeing her and no intention of harming her. And in the end, she simultaneously underscores the tragedy of the moment while confirming our perception that she could never be a threat to the world. As she plunges the blade into our chest, she has failed to even do the bare minimum of making our death painless, something that fills her with even more guilt, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tries and fails to end our own agony. The last thing we see of her are her endless cascade of both tears and apologies, as everything goes dark. 

This… is beautiful. A glorious tragedy, one with limited theming, simply two characters with emotions that feel natural. And, quite strangely, the first chapter has almost nothing to do with the second chapter. But it is still important. I’ll get to that later. Better things await now! For with the end of the tale of the Hero and the Princess, we have a new individual, everyone’s favorite buddy, the Voice of the Smitten. 

I am certain I do not need to underscore just how popular Smitten is. Easily the most fan favorite of the fan favorites, especially solidifying his place within that roster with the Kiss from a Thorn. He is jovial, passionate, he is Don Quixote, complete with the unlimited self-delusion that comes with the territory. There’s a reason people love him. Romantic in a game entitled a love story, the largest of personalities in a game stuffed with them, he is the storybook hero come to life in a game that has just as much reverence for storybook heroes as the deconstructions of them. In short, he is the visage of likability itself, with all the bombast that comes with that. Yet that is only from a wholly external perspective. 

For what I am certain I do need to underscore is just how sinister Smitten is. For all of his likability, the Smitten is also probably the single slimiest voice out of all of them with the possible exception of the Opportunist. This is not a new revelation – people have understood that since the beginning with his frankly disturbing behavior regarding the Princess. What is perhaps more interesting is his relationship with the player. For he is one of the two options that reflect the player at this point within the story. Either the player is trying to do the right thing and free an innocent, or they have somewhat… different motivations. 

The former reflects the Hero. Somewhat naive, in many routes somewhat bumbling even, but first and foremost focused on the external. That is, “how can I make a positive impact on the world around me?” As contradictory as it may seem to how the Hero is presented, it’s something of an intellectualist approach. The Hero is trying to find the best possible world and working towards that with all of his might. It is, one could say, devoid of emotion except that determination to change the world, to make it a better place. While the goal remains the same, the path to get there is fundamentally continuously being calculated. The Hero is your conscience, and as such he must *always* work overtime for that. 

The Smitten is not that. No, he has made no secret that he is the path of passion. Even when he is generally considered to be a better person, he declares that, “Whatever world would condemn two star-crossed lovers to a cycle of violence and despair isn’t a world worth saving.” His focus is internal, it is on ourself and our romance. There is no extensive study into what is the correct option, there is only what would assist in our relationship, which is somehow ordained by the universe. To put it into understandable terms, Hero is a modern hero while Smitten is a Romantic-era hero. 

There’s an important line when going down the stairs that I think speaks volumes about the type of player and playthrough currently occurring. That is “We can still do right by her without all this over-the-top fawning.” *That* is the line of demarcation between the route of the Hero and the route of the Smitten. If you decide to embrace or repudiate the Smitten at that point, I think the route is sealed. I am convinced that the game will continue on in a fixed way based on that philosophy. The point where you must, internally that is, decide if you are doing this out of a desire for what is right, or an infatuation with the Princess. 

Now, of course there isn’t anything wrong with taking the path of the Smitten, and it’s personally one of my top points in the game, but whether you admit it or not, you are long past morality being what decides your actions. That has come and gone. Now, the goal is to express the passion of the moment and delve into your romantic relationship with the Princess. I’ll be evaluating each of the routes differently, loosely organized with a focus on how it reacts to the player. After that, I’ll go on into theming of each route one by one and all that jazz.

The path of the Smitten first. The player embraces that he has been sent to save the Princess from her unjust and foul imprisonment above all else. So that is what he does. He marches downstairs, the blade being nothing but a passing afterthought as it is immediately dismissed out of hand. When it comes to the crucial point of “doing right by her”, the justification is made that two things can be done at once, that you can do this for her and do a little bit of fawning on the way. Doesn’t harm anyone.

And with that the basement arrives, and you see the Princess on the floor. She is perfect in all ways. There is nothing wrong with her. And that’s before you start talking to her. When you do begin talking to her, all of the kindness and innocence from Chapter 1 are magnified to the greatest degree possible. She can do no wrong. And, from a meta standpoint, there’s another thing that stands out – it is really, *really* funny. From everything the Smitten says to the “Then I didn’t end the world!” to the Narrator’s (a villain at this point) growing exasperation at your trust for the Princess, it endears you to the moment even more. 

Because it’s not only that it’s funny. It’s not only that the Princess is genuinely nice to you. It’s something more than that. Something that I am loath to talk about but will anyway. The Princess is incredibly – *sigh* – **cute** within this chapter. This is objective, with science to back me up, I’m sure. But she is specifically designed to be as heartwarming as possible, and every line makes her more and more into someone who should be saved by you, into, well, a Damsel. While it isn’t explicitly stated, throughout the progression of dialogue, the need to protect her becomes more pronounced. You were already primed to like the Princess, you already internally committed to a romantic future. But after stepping into the bear trap willingly, you cannot escape. 

And if you’re anything like me, you are perfectly fine with that. So you take in the moment, you rescue her from her chains and laugh at the way her hands slipped out of the chains and the Narrator’s comical anger at it. It’s all very feel-good, all cleanly written dialogue, and both the Princess and the Smitten are likable, they’re fun, and the Narrator is a fun enough villain for the Smitten and you to unite against. The Hero, if we’re being honest, barely registers, and if he does it’s usually as an extension to the Narrator, as a foil to yourself. And with her finally free, she embraces you, sealing the deal on her perfection. 

And after that, something else happens. The deconstruction begins. You want to see if her dialogue has any more of that saccharine present throughout the rest of the chapter, and are immediately rewarded with the “The princess closes her eyes in deep reflection” and the follow up joke. Hungry for more, you click through some more of the dialogue, but something begins to happen. She begins to… unwind. The Smitten seems to reciprocate in turn, to a lesser extent. In fact, she really starts to return to the horror that this chapter was a nice respite from. So you cut your losses, decide to leave with her, and everything returns to normal. Bathed in the glow of your future, you immediately forget about the deconstruction.

After that, you finally get out of the basement, get a genuinely great moment opening the door alongside the Princess, never think twice about clicking “You’re not doing that.” as fast as humanly possible, and finally await the door at the end of the cabin. You finally get your fairytale ending. The princess goes out into the world together with you. You brought her out. And then she is taken by the Shifting Mound in a way reminiscent of her dying. Even if this wasn’t your first playthrough, it still comes as a shock. For the most part, you were being that Romantic hero, living in the moment with your passion. The thought of this happening was gone entirely. This wasn’t supposed to happen. And it *hurts*. And the chapter is over. 

The route of the Hero has a different point of view on the whole situation. That’s not to say it’s not easy to get drawn in by the hilarious dialogue and sheer cuteness of the Princess – far from it. It is, after all, what drives the conflict within this. For the Hero, and the player that goes along his path, has one bit of information stand out. That the world ended after the Princess killed you. Now, you can naturally be skeptical of the information, but the Princess isn’t helping her case here. Entirely vague, entirely unwilling to mention anything about it. The only thing she seems to care about is getting on your good side. 

Now, you still want to save her. That much is clear. You still don’t take the knife in the beginning, and you saw her Chapter 1 incarnation. She is still a good person, kind and loving. But there are questions raised, important questions. Which is why not all Hero routers get the same ending. There is a conflict between how far you’re able to go before the risk of the world ending eclipses your distrust of the Narrator and your trust of the Princess. If the whole world really does end if she’s free, is it worth it? And as such you get to the major points of the Hero ending. 

The first is the Deconstructed ending. As you question the Princess, you desperately try to figure out what the best way to go forward is for you. And that starts with getting a straight answer from the Princess on what exactly she plans on doing. The operation… does not go well. As you try and push for anything, any sign that she isn’t going to end the world, the same rejoinder comes in, alongside a distorted track. “I just want to make you happy.” The Princess is not an individual anymore, and begins to change shape. But you are locked in with a horrified inability to look away, like one who sees a car accident. And with that, the Princess is a Princess no longer, and the Shifting Mound takes her away. 

There’s also the option of taking the Hero’s advice when confronted with the scenario: to leave. You don’t like what’s going on and you try to do whatever you can to undo the doing. Perhaps surprisingly, it works. And then you’re forced to deal with the cognitive dissonance of the Princess and *that* being the same individual. But you, not without a healthy dose of skepticism, still head upstairs alongside the Princess. In the end, you can’t bring yourself to kill her. Throughout it all, she still has been the beautifully endearing picture of innocence, if a questionable one, and especially with regards to the knife on the table, there is no way you can take it to her chest with no warning, especially after everything you did in the first Chapter. So you leave with her, and the “end of the world” really does come in one fell swoop with the call of the Shifting Mound. You can’t help but wonder if the decision you made was the right one, not really. Like, you still believe she didn’t deserve to die, but maybe, just maybe, it would have been a better ending.

So what if you did kill her? What happens when love *truly* melts away into skepticism. After the continuous question dodging and whatever the… other thing was, this is clearly not an ordinary Princess, it is not the same Princess that you tried to save at the beginning. There is only a sliver of her, a shadow of her former self. Slaying her, well, slaying her is probably doing her a favor. It might be doing the world a favor, too. Maybe she is an individual with malicious intent. And as you take the blade and plunge it into her chest, you instantly know you made the wrong decision. She does not oppose it. She simply lets you kill her with a single tear hanging in her eye, saying “I think this is what you want.” It’s meant to feel dirty and it does, even heartbreaking in the moment, although it is immediately counterbalanced by the effect of the Smitten killing you over it.

I won’t exactly go over Scorched Grey the same way, I think there’s generally only two frames of mind going into it, and that’s either the standard “Hero-Skeptic” framework that I’ll expand on later, or simply a completionist mindset. Plus, it’s technically not The Damsel. Plus I’m lazy. But this is the point where I will try to expand on the theming of each and every route and mindset to go through within the Chapter, and that *will* include the Scorched Grey theming. 

It’s made quite clear from the chapter that one of the primary themes is objectification, the making of the Princess into nothing more than a vehicle to live one’s fantasy into. The taking of an individual and making them into an it. The destruction of humanity by your own desire, and what that says about your desires in the first place. Ironically, this is merely one fourth wall away from the rest of the Princesses, each of them being a piece of fiction that many simply engage with *because* they are an object, but with the Damsel it is directly nodded to within the narrative. One meta-layer is peeled back, if you will. 

Nothing hammers this more home than the entirely jarring line that escapes the Shifting Mound’s lips when you ask about the vessel she holds. Unlike the rest of the fragments, which are all given an indication that they have been fulfilled after the Shifting Mound takes them, the only note she has to say is that the Damsel has “served her purpose”. There is nothing that she wished for, as anyone who has obtained the deconstructed ending can attest to. But even in the more standard runs, she is simply a tool to be used and discarded. And there are three general reactions to this line. 

The first is the hardcore Smitten route’s preferred choice, denial. “The Princess was far more than an object, she had character, she had kindness, she had motivations from the beginning! The narrative is what is wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the Princess. She. Is. Perfect. Not just from a narrative standpoint but a metanarrative one as well. She has depth, she *is* a character.” All in the hopes that if they insist on it enough, it will become true. The Damsel was not designed to be viewed in a vacuum. There are themes that run through her character, and including negative ones, and the denial of them is a far truer denial of the character than any sort of objectification could ever be. 

Then the more moderate Smitten routers get a different response. A slap in the face. They did all of this, they had fun, they laughed with her, they cried when she was taken. They were connected to her, they had a real connection to what she was. One could even accuse them of… loving her. They honest to goodness cared about this Princess, they were invested in her story. Yet, in the end, they also formed her around themselves. They “molded her to love you”. As much as they loved the Princess, that was only because they cut out a piece of the Shifting Mound that they *could* love, a caricature of her true nature. They still took an individual, and despite truly loving her, made her into something that she was not so they could do that very thing. She is not a person. She is a plot device, an individual made to love and be loved with nothing beyond that. She is an object. 

Lastly, those who went on the route of the Hero get that same slap in the face, that selfsame bucket of water poured over their heads, but in a different way. They didn’t try to objectify her. They didn’t want anything of the sort. All they wanted to do was the right thing. Right? Yet even in that desire to do the right thing, they still get that same chilling text from the Shifting Mound. They have built an individual just like those who went on the route of the Smitten. Just a different one. Not one who was built around your “glorious romance”, but rather one built around something of a glorious Romance. The need to be a Hero. The desire to do what was right, to save an unjustly imprisoned Princess. The Princess became a plot device in the end anyway, just one that needed to be saved rather than one who needed to be loved. 

I want to continue off of that. The player is trying to do nothing more than the right thing, he is simply doing what a Hero should. And that determination to do what is right leads to him getting impacted the most by that line in the ending, the line that implies that whatever right he was doing, he was still being driven by selfishness, by that need to be a Hero. That hits the player right within where it hurts, it almost could be said to strike at the one emotional vulnerability of them. To have your hard work, your pain, your desire for what is right to be considered nothing more than the delusions of a Don Quixote tilting at windmills in order to fight giants, just as lost as Smitten, that doesn’t feel too great. It almost minimizes your struggle, and it is genius. You play as a Hero because you want to feel like a Hero, not because the morality of this world means anything to you. It is stripping that meta-layer down one by one.

But objectification is not the only theme present. While it may seem like something of a potpourri topic to throw in, earlier on the server we were talking about the Damsel in particular’s perceptiveness with regards to perception. When the door shuts and locks, it is the first and only time the Princess gets visibly **negative** in any way during the entirety of the Chapter. Even when you kill her, she still does so with nary a frown on her face. Even as a tear rolls down her cheek, she still smiles. But not at the door. The narration points out quite clearly that she frowns. This is, I reiterate, the only thing that happens. And her response is not “we’re stuck down here”, it is not “I’m unable to leave now”. 

What it is happens to be “that’s not supposed to happen”. She recognizes the construct in a way very few allude to within the game. Adding onto that note, within the Scorched Grey chapter, she (correctly) determines the very nature of the construct and that inherent “cycle of violence and despair” inherent to it, even (correctly) determining that the only way to leave was to annihilate that very construct. This is shown even clearer at the other major event at the door. When you ask if the Princess can open the door, the sole question she throws back at you is “Do you think I can?”, and after a response in the affirmative, “Then I can”. In the end, it is quite clear that she is, *heavily* ironically, one of the more aware characters in the game with regards to your circumstance. 

While speaking of the Scorched Grey, I think this route also exemplifies another major theme – the nature of the Princess as a being of perception. All routes exemplify one facet of the Shifting Mound: Spectre represents the gravity of her, Tower her divinity, Prisoner the very incarnation in and of itself of her within the construct, and so on. Damsel has something different, though, and that is that she’s just a slippery little fella. Far more than anybody else, Damsel changes throughout her chapters, in ways more pronounced than anybody else. The Shifting Mound declares that we “molded her to love you”, as I quoted previously. That molding takes stage front and center throughout all of our interactions with her. 

The most obvious example is her deconstruction, which when her sole true motivation (to leave) is discarded, she begins to break down, unable to offer to the player anything beyond the only desire every other Princess has. With the compulsive need to love the player, etched into her core, there is nothing she can do other than try to add to that love, losing herself within the process. But that is not the only time she changes. Because she is willing to give up that freedom in, well, a heartbeat. Attempting to kill her does not lead to any sort of resistance from her. The one goal she had, staying alive and winning her freedom, is out the window despite being (questionably) willing to kill for it in the last chapter. Now, throughout the Scorched Grey, it’s made clear that she did not, in fact, want to die, that she just wanted to be free together, but the complete unwillingness to save her own life is a stark contrast to the first chapter. 

In fact, that perpetually changing nature alongside her being so objectified means that it’s really, *really* hard to figure out her true character. There is very little in her that does not change and very little remaining that isn’t specifically put there by you. She is an eel, wriggling out of your grasp and impossible to pin down, in a large way like the Shifting Mound herself. But… for the most part, there are two facets to her character beyond the already listed themes. And a sharp divide between them. 

Chapter One Damsel and Chapter Two Damsel are not the same person. That’s usually true for most of them, but they also usually have some semblance of similarity between their counterparts. The only exceptions I can think off the top of my head are Spectre and *maaybe* Stranger if you want to count that. The rest of them act as exaggerated versions of the existing individuals shown. Chapter One Adversary likes fights. Chapter Two Adversary likes fights. Chapter One Witch is built on the back of distrust. Chapter Two Witch is built on the back of distrust. Everything lines up nicely. 

That is not the case for the Damsel. The only thing that you can say with both of them is that they are nice and do not want to hurt you. The Chapter One incarnation (henceforth Princess) is a tragedy of a character that doesn’t want to kill you but still must to secure her own life and freedom against a renegade puppeting you. The Chapter Two incarnation (henceforth Damsel) is a Horror-”Feel-Good”-Comedic-Tragic character that shows nothing about the emotional anguish she went through in chapter one. I love both of them, but they have an unmatched disconnect. And I think that sort of adds to the character. Now, there is absolutely a benefit from an emotional through-line (there’s a reason Thorn is my second-favorite chapter), but in this case, only brief touches to the beginning enhance the story. 

The most striking thing is the sense of comedic horror that comes when Damsel just completely ignores any expected trauma from the Princess’s emotional destruction. It, depending on the route you take, either makes you love her character more and more as the humor begins to entrap you, or it begins the process of getting the player unnerved, exactly like the developers wanted. It is a key dividing point in the mindset of the player and the route that they have chosen. The Damsel says nothing about what happened, heck, she barely acknowledges it except to indicate that “You died!” 

Secondly, it sets up Damsel as a sympathetic figure while still allowing her to begin establishing herself. Without the setup from the Princess, the player has no idea how to view Damsel, potentially even seeing her as a less on-the-nose Razor, with her comedically hiding her sinister intentions. The Princess allows the player to begin on a note that the Princess is *actually* friendly rather than simply pretending to be so. At the same time, it’s divorced enough that apart from that frame of reference at the beginning, Damsel is still allowed to shine within her own character. 

Lastly, and most importantly, it sets her up for the Scorched Grey. The guilt at causing the death of an innocent and the belief that you would be unable to cause the death of an innocent yourself leads her to blame the construct and attempt to bring it down, which seals your fate in the third Damsel chapter, the only time where the two chapters meet in a beautiful climax of Passion going too far and causing pain, in attempt of running away from that very thing, morphing into something that not even the Smitten is able to remain devoted to in an awful tragedy of love being not enough in the end. 

Wait, wait, wait. Did I hear “the end” being spoken? At this time of year? Localized entirely within this essay? Well then, it’s time to talk about what puts this saga at pure perfection, shall we? I probably could just use the awesome power of Ctrl + V to get the desired effect, but I still do want to offer my narration, so I’ll compromise and do a bit of both. “Your lover drives a stake into your body. And another. And another. And another. And another. Do I miss your heart because I cannot stand to see it go? But the stakes meant nothing to you. You had a desire, and you set that desire free, you lifting me and me lifting you, forever and ever and ever, consumed by true belief, there was nothing that could hold us back.” 

Do I even need to explain why that’s so good? Definitively the best poem in the end, it isn’t even close, especially when coupled with Ms. Goodnight’s awe-inspiring delivery. Did I say that the Scorched Grey was the perfect synthesis of the Princess and the Damsel? I was lying. This is. Every word so lovingly placed, the language sounds like it comes from the pen of God Himself. It is emotionally resonant, the art is beautiful, I have not run into such a short piece of dialogue that outdoes it. Gonna be honest, mostly just wrote up this essay to gush about it. Even now, it is considered by most everyone to be one of the best lines of dialogue in a game filled with magnificent ones. 

And the other one, that of the Scorched Grey. It’s simpler, ironically. “I kill you. You kill me. Back and forth we go, faster and faster and faster. I kill you. You kill me. Hollow eyes watch from the dry corners of a memory. A home built on all of the futures that were supposed to be, preserved until the moment of reunion. The fire of the heart sets it all ablaze. I kill you and me.”

This, this right here is one of the most slept on ending poems and it’s not even funny. So fantastic at expressing the heartbreak inherent to the Scorched Grey’s character. I don’t know how you can see the line “A home built on all the futures that were supposed to be”, especially with the Scorched Grey dead and charring in a wedding gown, and not feel *something*. It’s not as good as the standard Damsel stuff, but then again, nothing is. It’s still deserving of more praise than it currently receives, and one of my top three ending poems of all time, only edged out by Prisoner. Gosh, this game belongs in a museum. 

Seems I need to debunk some stuff that happens to get a lot of traction regarding those who speculate on Damsel, too. First of all, her character motivation is not guilt nor gratitude. That sort of thing works incredibly well in fanworks, and I’m happy to see it ~~because that means I get to see Damsel in a fanwork~~. It has little to no backing within canon. Damsel is a chapter about the only motivations for the Princess being those put in place by the objectification of the player. There is nothing regarding anything beyond that, and it detracts from the existing, well-elucidated themes that are actually within the chapter. The only sort of substance to them is both Chapter 1 Princess and Scorched Grey indicating guilt for killing you, but that is almost entirely repudiated within the actual Chapter 2. 

Speaking of the Scorched Grey, another thing I saw somewhat extensively is that you somehow “taught her” that killing is the way to love one another, and that’s why she kills you in Chapter 3, and I honestly do not know how that gained any traction at all. It’s pretty clear that she views all the death as a pretty terrible and messed up thing and only kills the two of you to escape the cycle of death. It’s spoken of as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. I am genuinely confused on how this got started, because it really just… opposes the main *in-narrative* themes of the Chapter??? Like, you don’t even have to analyze it, it’s just within the text, plain and simple. 

Anyway, I deeply apologize for the length of this once again, look forward to an appendix when Pristine Cut comes out. I’ve already played it because my uncle works at Black Tabby, but I don’t want to spoil it for you gents. If my opinions change massively after playing through the new update from today, I will change that too. Anyway, Damsel is the best character, literally does not do a single thing wrong within any of her chapters, has definitively the best Shifty stuff, and you should invest in her. As more people vocally become willing to throw money at anything related to Damsel, the likelier it is that we get Damsel merch. I need it so badly. Please. Anyway, if anything stands out to you or you disagree, I am begging you to tell me to get my act together and explain what I said wrong, so do that. Also please. 

[joshriku]

I guess CB fans already talk abt this a lot— or do they? tbh i dont rlly see much Cap comic talk from CB fans.. but tbh that's prob for the best b/c they are...... so bad, esp w/ this topic. they only had one decent story that had potential w/ WS in the aughts + the shieldra plot before going into their American BS —but nyways mayve its a good thing no one talks abt them bc Captain America comics were already not very good with the hydra-nazi thing but omg why am I finding out that the latest run dilutes/copsout the hydra origins even more....

It's rlly pmo b/c the hydra thing hasn't been treated well/properly ever but they retconned Hydra to be the original "big bad" and just a front for a group that precedes the nazis by decades 🙃🙃 and the amount of dogwhistles and poorly thought out historical references in the names/setup... ihate it!

Things like this r y this is the few times where i say the mcu version is better— up until like civil war or definitely afterwards —b/c at least they— until later on with Z3m0 —kept in mind that the villains are nazis 🙃 The amount of Cold War politics the Cap franchise— and tbh in the Black Widow side too once they started to retcon them together —throws in to make hydra some generic "anti USA" villain and sidestep the whole "hydra being nazis + part of the US government and keeping a major character as an enslaved WW2 POW as a major foundation of Cap mythos" thing. Now they obscure the origins of the hydra stuff even more and its so...... i guess theyre trying to make the whole Captain America schtick seem less bad if the nazi villains the story keeps downplaying/ignoring the impact of just keep getting made to be "less bad" over and over, but I hate it. And i hate even more how these types of stories littered all over the Cap mythos are seen as "not political" by a certain crowd, but theyre very political.it's just that the politics are so trash and distort serious historical references in service to American jingoist conception of history.

i have no idea how you ended up here. nonetheless iagree because captain america runs are just... so.. so... [vaguely gestures] and i hate the crowd surrounding it! i really like characters from the cap universe (sam/bucky/misty/nat) but it's literally impossible to read because it's so. so. so .. WEIRD! i think you're right bc back in the actual cap bucky run these topics were somewhat better handled? than the way they are now? and i don't want to blame everything on nick spencer's 2015 hydra cap thing but i will blame it all on it because oh my god the disservice that did to the way hydra is treated in these comics lmao. like you said they keep being like 'weeelll the nazis are *nooot so bad*'. like the red skull treatment they give the comics are so?? what?? hes a nazi?? why are you trying to get me to sympathize with the nazi?? I GET SUPER WEIRDED OUT WHENEVER I TRY TO READ AXIS FOR EVENT REASONS BC OF.. THE RED SKULL BEING WRITTEN SO SYMPATHETICALLY.. IM LIKE EWW I DONT LIKE THAT GET IT AWAY FROM MEEE. likewise i did try to read the other 2015 cap america run with sam but it also suffers of this same exact problem and it's SOOOOO HARD.

i read sentinel of liberty and symbol of truth recently and i swear to god i did not pay any attention other than the scenes were bucky was in AND EVEN THAT I HAVE SOME ISSUES WITH I THOUGHT SOME OF IT WAS A LITTLE WEIRD but. (SIGHS) . i also agree the mcu was.. fairly fine with this til fatws and everyone became a zemo loverweiogoudsigSDG IM GLAD I WASNT THE ONLY ONE WEIRDED OUT BY THAT?!?! dont even get me started on the subsection of mcu fans that make found family out of hydra members its very fucking weird. anyway. i think you might have gotten the wrong blog but nonetheless ive had these thoughts in my head for a few years now so thank u for this little bonding moment

[rainbowjay20]

So a little googling and a bit of archeology, and we went through about 100 years of wallpaper. Including fabric. Embossed. Felt like suede or velvet? Hard to tell after so long. The glue was still good. Wheat Paste.

Found it later in the basement. Someone kept some in case they needed more. SMDH

This seemed the earliest and was crumbling when I came to it, so I didn't get many intact layers. If you were that old and came out and saw the world today, wouldn't you?

The next oldest was this.

It looks like a standard Art Deco geometric diamond pattern. As pictured in the top corner. The picture next to it is closer to the coloring and texture, except it is gold and brown instead of gold and silver.

[Art Deco, short for the French Arts Décoratifs, and sometimes referred to simply as Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s, and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s and 1930s.]

I believe the next layer was blue paint. Boy, did that make a mess.

I think I may have seen the trace of a nursery print, but it was only in a small spot. To be fair, we had been huffing vinegar and getting steamed by the professional wallpaper steamer that we rented for so long that I might have been imagining things.

Boy and Girls, Ladies and Germs,

Please, For the love of all that you hold dear, strip your walls between mess and masterpiece. Don't leave the next person to clean up your mistakes! Also, NEVER EVER USE FABRIC OR WHEAT PASTE ON YOUR WALLS! Thank you from a person who just spent two days cleaning half a room with a professional wallpaper steamer.

The next paper on our mystery tours seems to have been the flowery one. Again, this was disentagrating at the touch, but I managed to get a few pieces to photograph. Unfortunately, google can't identify it. Similar styles seem to have been in vogue in the 20s and 30s, and the fact that it was the next layer allows me to guess at the date.

I think this one may have been very pretty, and my Aunt found what she thought was Cardinal too.

But I am not positive if it was preceded or followed by the blue Americana paper because I found evidence of both.

However, in several spots, the Purple Flowers ALSO HAVE TWO LAYERS!

Next comes the Greco-Roman ruins/countryside. This was popular, and it was also all over the house. I actually really liked this where it was still up in closets and stuff. I don't think I could handle a whole wall, though.

Now, here is where it gets complicated. How did we get to 9/10 layers, and why don't we have a definitive number of layers? Several papers appear to have been re-papered over the top of the previous layer. Perhaps the owner liked the paper or bought too much the first time and wanted to reuse it. Perhaps large parts were patched, and that is what we were seeing.

As these were peeling badly, and not at the same time, it was hard to tell which one came first.

It looks like there was a layer of this Americana paper next.

But, it does appear to be at least two layers of this because I had a photo of it where the Eagle was in the middle of the circle motif thing.

Next is either the floral print or the yellow marbled paper. GoogleFu matches it to the Biltmore Estate. That doesn't help date it because it was opened to the public in the 1950's.

This print seems psychedelic, but there are similar prints all the back to the 40s. I think a small area of this would be good, but a large amount would be vomit/migraine inducing.

The final layer is the one I hated so much that we embarked on this project.

Now it could be older, but I'm pretty sure that this was there when my parents moved in in the 70s. When we removed it, a few spots had two layers, and it turned out it that the stripe was blue. For years, I thought it was intentionally baby shit green.

That doesn't quite account for the gold stripe in the corner,

but we are guessing that the textured wall fabric or the Greco-Roman countryside. Or they started to paint the walls, realized the amount of work and went fuck it.

All in all, it was a lot of work to undo someone else's bad work. We still have to patch, sand, and paint. I could just imagine the amount of work it would have been if we had pulled down the wainscoting! It was about light switch level, around four foot high. It was a dark olive green that helped contribute to the wallpaper above looking green.

My plan to paint it-

Wainscoting dark grey instead of dark green.

The wall above a silvery purple grey.

My Aunt is not amused.

I keep telling her it will work.

Updates pending.

[baeddel]

Please. Please can you tell me what a baeddel is and why people (terfs?) used it in a derogatory manner on this website for a hot minute but now no one ever uses it at all

you asked for it, fucker

[2k words; philology and drama]

baeddel is an Old English word. i have no idea where it actually occurs in the Old English written corpus, but it occurs in a few placenames. its diminuitive form, baedling, is much better documented. it appears in the (untranslated) Canons of Theodore, a penitential handbook, a sort of guidebook for priests offering advice on what penances should be recommended for which sins. in a passage devoted to sexual transgressions it gives the penances suggested for a man who sleeps with a woman, a man who sleeps with another man, and then a man who sleeps with a baedling. so you have this construction of a baedling as something other than a man or a woman. and then it gives the penance for a baedling who sleeps with another baedling (a ludicrous one-year fast). then, by way of an explaination, Theodore delivers us one of the most enigmatic phrases in the Old English corpus: "for she is soft, like an adulturess."

the -ling suffix in baedling is masculine. but Theodore uses feminine pronouns and suffixes to describe baedlings. as we said, it's also used separately from male and female. but it's also used separately from their words for intersex and it never appears in this context. all of this means that you have this word that denotes a subject who is, as Christopher Monk put it, "of problematic gender." interested historians have typically interpreted it as referring to some category of homosexual male, such as Wayne R. Dines in his two-volume Encyclopedia of Homosexuality who discusses it in the context of an Old English glossary which works a bit like an Old English-Latin dictionary, giving Old English words and their Latin counterparts. the Latin words the Anglo-Saxon lexicographer chose to correspond with baedling were effeminatus and mollis, and Lang concludes that it refers to an "effeminate homosexual" (pg 60, Anglo Saxon). this same glossary gives as an Old English synonym the word waepenwifstere which literally means "woman with a penis," and which Dines gives the approximate translation (hold on tight) male wife.

R. D. Fulk, a philologist and medievalist, made a separate analysis of the term in his study on the Canons of Theodore 'Male Homoeroticism in the Old English Canons of Theodore', collected in Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England, 2004. he analysed it as a 'sexual category' (sexual as in sexuality), owing to the context of sexual transgressions in the Canons. he decides that it refers to a man who bottoms in sexual relationships with another man. i don't have the article on hand so i'm not sure what his reasoning was, but this seems obviously inadequate given what we know from the glossary described by Dines. Latin has a word for bottom, pathica, and the lexicographer did not use this in their translation, preferring words that emphasized the baedling's femininity like effeminatus, and doesn't address the sexual context at all. Dines, however, only reading this glossary, seems to decide that it refers to a type of male homosexual too hastily, considering the Canons explicitly treat them separately. both Dines and Fulk immediately reduce the baedling to a subcategory of homosexual when neither of the sources to hand actually do so themselves.

by now it should be obvious why, seven or so years ago, we interpreted it as an equivalent to trans woman. I mean come on - a woman with a penis! these days I tend to add a bit of a caution to this understanding, which is that trans woman is the translation of baedling which seems most adequate to us, just as baedling was the translation of effeminatus that seemed most adequate to our lexicographer. but the term cannot translate perfectly; its sense was derived from some minimal context; a legal context, a doctrinal context, and so forth... the way Anglo-Saxons understood sex/gender is complicated but it has been argued that they had a 'one sex model' and didn't regard men and women as biologically separate types, which is obviously quite different from the sexual model accepted today; in any case they didn't have access to the karyotype and so on. the basic categories they used to understand gender and sexuality were different from ours. in particular, Hirschfield et al. should be understood as a particularly revolutionary moment in the genealogy of transsexuality; the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft essentially invented the concept of the 'sex change', the 'transition', conceived as a biological passage from one sex to the other. even in other contexts where (forgive me) #girlslikeus changed their bodies in some way, like the castration of the priestesses of Cybele, or those belonging to the various historical societies which we believe used premarin for feminization [disputed; see this post], there is no record that they were ever considered men at any stage or had some kind of male biology that preceded their 'gender identity.' the concept of the trans woman requires the minimal context of the coercive assignment at birth and its subsequent (civil and bio-technological) rejection. i have never encountered evidence that this has ever been true in any previous society. nonetheless, these societies still had gendered relations, and essentially wherever we find these gendered relations we also find some subject which is omitted or for whom it has been necessary to note exceptions. what is of chief interest to us is not so much that there was such a subject here or there in history (and whatever propagandistic uses this fact might have), but understanding why these regularities exist.

a very parsimonious explanation is that gender is a biological reality, and there is some particular biological subject which a whole host of words have been conjured to denote. if this were the case then we would expect that, no matter what gender/sexual system we encounter in a given society, it will inevitably find some linguistic expression. if, like me, you find this idea revolting, then you should busy yourself trying to come up with an alternative explanation which is not just plausible, but more plausible. my best guesses are outside the scope of this answer...

anyway, all of this must be very interesting to the five or six people invested in the confluence of philology and gender studies. but why on earth did it become so widely used, in so many strange and unusual contexts, in the 2010s? we're very sorry, but yes, it's our fault. you see apart from all of this, there is also a little piece of information which goes along with the word baeddel, which is that it's the root of the Modern English word bad. by way of, no less, the word baedan, 'to defile'. how this defiled historical subject came to bear responsibility for everything bad to English-speakers doesn't seem to be known from linguistic evidence. however, it makes for a very pithy little remark on transmisogyny. my dear friend [REDACTED] made a playful little post making this point and, good Lord, had we only known...

it went like this. its such a funny little idea that we all start changing our urls to include the word baeddel. in those days it was common to make puns with your url (we always did halloween and christmas ones); i was baeddelaire, a play on the French poet Baudelaire. while we all still had these urls a series of events which everyone would like to forget happened, and we became Enemies of Everyone in the Whole World. because of the url thing people started to call us "the baeddels." then there was "a cult" called "the baeddels" and so forth. this cult had various infamies attatched to it and a constellation of indefensible political positions. ultimately we faced a metric fucking shit ton of harassment, including, for some of my friends, really serious and bad irl harassment that had long-term bad awful consequences relating to stable housing and physical safety and i basically never want to talk about that part of my life ever again. and i never have to, because i've come to realize that for most people, when they use the word baeddel, they don't know about that stuff. it doesn't mean that anymore.

so what does it mean? you'll see it in a few contexts. TERFs do use it, as you guessed. i am not quite sure what they really mean by it and how it differs from other TERF barbs. i think being a baeddel invovles being politically active or at least having a political consciousness, but in a way thats distinct from just any 'TRA' or trans activist. so perhaps 'militant' trans women, but perhaps also just any trans woman with any opinions at all. how this was transmitted from tumblr/west coast tranny drama to TERF vocabulary i have no idea. but you will also find - or, could have found a few years ago - i would say 'copycat' groups who didn't know us or what we believed but heard the rumours, and established their own (generously) organizations (usually facebook groups) dedicated to putting those principles into practice. they considered themselves trans lesbian separatists and did things like doxx and harass trans women who dated cafabs. if you don't know about this, yes, there really were such groups. they mostly collapsed and disappeared because they were evildoers who based their ideology on a caricature. i knew a black trans woman who was treated very badly by one of these groups, for predictable reasons. so long-time readers: if you see people talking about their bad experiences with 'baeddels', you can't necessarily relate it to the 2014 context and assume they're carrying around old baggage. there are other dreams in the nightmare.

the most common way you'll see it today, in my experience, is in this form: people will say that it was a "slur" for trans women. they might bring up that it's the root of the word bad, and they might even think that you shouldn't use the word bad because of it, or that you shouldn't use the word baeddel because it's a slur. all of this is a silly game of internet telephone and not worth addressing. except to say that it's by no means clear that baeddel, or baedling, were slurs, or even insulting at all. while Theodore doesn't provide us with a description of how we can have sex with a baedling without sinning, and it may be the case that any sexual relations with a baedling was considered sinful, sexuality-based transgressions were not taken all that seriously in those days. there was a period where homosexuality within the Church was almost sanctioned, and it wasn't until much later that homosexuality became so harshly proscribed, to the extent that it was thought to represent a threat to society, etc. and as i mentioned, there are places in England named after baedlings. there is a little parish near Kent which is called Badlesmere, Baeddel's Lake, which was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Domesday Book (as having a lord, a handful of villagers and a few slaves; perhaps only one or two households). it's not unheard of, but i just don't know very many places called Faggot Town or some such. it's possible that baedlings had some role in Anglo-Saxon society which we are not aware of; it could even have been a prestigious one, as it was in other societies. there is just no evidence other than a couple of passing references in the literature and we'll probably never have a complete picture.

[radramblog]

What happened to Dirk in Homestuck^2?

Why am I doing this to myself.

I memed a little yesterday when I was posting that article around social medias about Homestuck jokes, because once again we are in lockdown and I am therefore Stuck at Home. Canned laughter goes here. But there’s a topic related to the comic- or more specifically, its aborted sequel, Homestuck^2, that I’m interested in delving into a little bit. I’m going to avoid talking about spoilers as much as possible, but considering said comic takes place not only after the events of the massive sprawl that is Homestuck but also the more linear but still messy Epilogues, some amount of sus shit is inevitable.

Anyway. Much maligned is what the Epilogues and 2 did to everyone’s favourite decapitation target, Dirk Strider, and I have a theory as to why it happened this way.

To begin with, let’s summarise what and who Dirk is through the course of the comics. Fair warning from me, though, it’s been a while since I read through this.

Dirk Strider is a teenager who grew up in a post-apocalyptic future Earth, completely devoid of physical contact with other people and only really ever gets to talk to 3 other people, only one of whom is in anything remotely resembling a relatable situation. He struggles with self-identity, having created numerous robots including an artificial intelligence based on his own brain, aka Lil’ Hal. He’s somewhat of a control freak, and a bit of a cold aloof asshole, but means well, and is pretty gay. NBD. The kinda guy to set up a plan meticulously and thoroughly, not informing any of the moving parts even if said parts are his friends, and often involving some form of self-sacrifice.

Throughout the comic he further reckons with self-identity problems and his own self-loathing including entering a relationship with Jake which doesn’t go well and he eventually breaks off since he knows his overbearing and manipulative behaviour is Not Cool and Pretty Toxic but doesn’t know how to shut it off. Eventually he reaches the God Tier as a Prince of Heart, gaining the power to literally annihilate souls, which he never actually uses since he gets yeeted into deep (Paradox) space and then everything goes to shit. Except none of that happens because of the Retcon (aside from the God Tier bit) and we don’t actually see how that shit progressed in the canon timeline. I think. Dirk’s arc, as it were, doesn’t really come full circle- while he does assist in Dave’s character…growth? he really isn’t the focus of that conversation. This immediately precedes the action climax and there isn’t literally any dialogue after that so that’s what we’re left with.

I like Dirk in Homestuck a lot. It’s hard not to, considering the flashes heavily featuring him (Unite/Synchronise and Prince of Heart: Rise Up) are genuinely excellent, along with many of his music themes being absolute bangers. He gets to interact with Caliborn a lot, with a pretty great banter, there, and the whole splintered personality thing is a really interesting hook for a character. I think he’s my favourite of the Alpha kids, a controversial pick considering I know everyone loves Roxy so much. I think, I’m not as in tune with the fandom as that statement implies I am.

And then the Epilogues/Homestuck 2 came.

Now I read the Meat half of the epilogues first, but that’s more interesting, so we’ll tackle Candy first (this is going to get real confusing for those who haven’t read this comic, huh).

In Candy, Dirk almost immediately kills himself, citing the irrelevance of the timeline as cause, an act considered by whatever mechanism governs God Tier deaths to be Just because he hates himself (and also bc of things we’ll get into), so it actually sticks. This isn’t super relevant for the discussion, but that’s just kinda so unbelievably fucked up? Entirely? I’d imagine if you read Candy first you might get entirely turned off by this, which I’m sure a lot of people did.

Meat is where the, well, meat of post-canon Dirk is. You see, a concept very quickly introduced in the tail end of the original comic is the Ultimate Self, an idea where you somehow encompass every different timeline iteration or alternate version of yourself. This was pretty clearly tacked on to make it so characters whose arcs all happened in the retcon timeline could have their not getting an actual arc explained away, but it didn’t land then and it sure doesn’t land for me now. Anyway, in Meat, Dirk becomes his ultimate self, making him near-omniscient and able to control the fabric of the story himself- for much of this story, he is the narrator. And he uses this power to fuck with all his friends really distressingly without their knowledge (or consent), including breaking up a marriage, in order to further his own goals which largely appear to be just keep the story going so to not fade out of relevance. It’s a plot that makes no sense with his previous characterisation, but I guess now that he’s the Ultimate Self he’s a different person? But I liked old Dirk, and I don’t like New Dirk. He’s a villain now, but he made a much better anti-hero.

But this would be fine if he (or the epilogues, or Homestuck^2) were written well. But they aren’t. Dirk’s dialogue is long, painfully drawn out, with tangents that tend to amount to pure wank, misused literary references and pointless metaphors that go on and on, filling the screen with a bright orange screed that hurts to look at as much as it does to comprehend. It’s not fun. And we’ve seen Dirk communicate before, obviously, the story of Homestuck is built around chatlogs, but it wasn’t like this. He was sarcastic, dryly witty, blunt at times. Even when he was literally talking to a different version of himself it didn’t get that masturbatory.

I was so confused about what the hell happened to Dirk, because I had no idea what the hell someone writing this character was thinking when they turned him into this. And then, the 21st page of Homestuck^2 dropped.

And it all came together.

What Ultimate Dirk and Terezi are referring to is Pony Pals: Detective Pony, a children’s book about some girls who hang out with ponies and solve a mystery. It’s a real book, buy it for your 5-year-old.

Except they’re not referring to that, they’re referring to the Homestuck Canon version of Detective Pony- a birthday gift from Dirk to Jane, heavily edited and to be much more obscene and eventually developing into it’s own story, stated to be “tough, emotionally draining, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible”.

Except the quote “Remember Longcat, Jane?” and references to philosophy, dead languages, and ancient earth culture aren’t referring to the three pages of the Dirk-edited Detective Pony we see in the actual comic itself. That quote doesn’t appear there.

That image is from Detective Pony, by Sonnetstuck- the 40,000 word fanfiction from 2014 that serves as a completed version of Jane’s copy of the book. An expansion of what we see in canon. And it’s a tough, emotionally draining read, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible.

It’s a very good fanfiction.

In the later bits of Detective Pony, we can start to see the origins of what would become Ultimate Dirk’s signature style of writing. Long blocks of rambling text, orange dripping down the page, references to philosophy and history and language that go on and on. And it probably does look familiar to those who read the Epilogues and ^2. 

But there are a couple of key differences here. First of all, it’s just better written? The way these rambles circle back on themselves is so excellent, the absolute absurdity of this being written on top of a pony book for little girls, the humour (beyond some of the more immature stuff), it’s just a really well-written piece of fiction. Hell, you don’t even need to be familiar with the character of Dirk to enjoy it. It’s a harrowing piece, but it’s also self-aware- because it’s not supposed to be tough, draining, cathartic etc. just for Jane- it’s clearly that for Dirk himself.

The second part is, of course, that this is a fanfiction. It’s not canon, it’s not official, this is by someone who really likes Dirk for people who really like Dirk. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, so if you bounce off it (and I’m sure a lot did), then you don’t have to keep reading it, it’s fine, thanks for playing. As much as Homestuck^2 tried to doll itself up as “dubiously canon” it’s still the official continuation of the story, and that means if it’s as difficult to get into as Detective Pony, that’s going to be a problem for a lot of people.

The other part of it is that Detective Pony’s exploration of Dirk’s character is, well, in character. When the man himself steps in as a character in his own book, the explorations of what he is as an author, who he is as a person, make perfect sense for what we see of him at the start of the comic. He is that manipulative, blunt person, and he is aware of his faults. He’s the kind of person to hide a lamentation on his own failings inside an impenetrable maze of a story layered on top of a book about fucking ponies. Ultimate Dirk does not act like Dirk, outside of the “manipulator” angle, something that Dirk was aware of and trying to improve in the comic. But I guess people don’t have arcs, right?

It’s so interesting to see the seeds of Homestuck^2 laden within Detective Pony- because the meta angle that and the epilogues take is also represented in said fanfiction. While the nature of canon is a facet of the work, the idea of authors and narrators fighting for control of a story, different ideas in mind for the characters, one being more personally connected to them than the other, it’s all there. When I wrote about Fallout 4 in the past, I mentioned being worried that Bethesda took the wrong lessons from Skyrim- seeing something successful and trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle. I think Homestuck^2 is an extreme example of this- the writers of the comic saw Sonnetstuck’s masterwork and thought, yeah that’s great, we can do that. But they just can’t. And with the comic crashed and burning, the probably won’t ever get a chance to. Dirk is forever stuck as this amalgamation of himself that looks nothing like any individual version of him ever did.

At least we will still have Detective Pony, and many other excellent fanworks, for actually good Dirk content. I admittedly haven’t looked into much fanfic written during/post-epilogues, and I’m kind of afraid of what I’ll see- I can only hope the fanbase didn’t take the same wrong lessons as the official team did.

[betafibiiiiiivviiixiiixxixxxiv]

Alright, this whole thing with Honey Impact is a clusterfuck, so I’m gonna make a rant (written with the help of friends) about it breaking every leg Honey Impact seems to think they can stand on. Buckle on in kids, because this is gonna be a long one.

Disclaimer: I am not a legal expert, but you do not have to be a legal expert to do some basic fucking research, which Honey Impact has clearly not done despite saying that they have.

First, it should be known that months ago Mihoyo released a statement asking people to stop supporting leaks and that they would be increasing efforts to deal with illegal disclosures of their unreleased content. This has been a long time coming, and honestly with the recent actions of leakers and/or dataminers, I think it’s deserved.

https://twitter.com/GenshinImpact/status/1372142018621706240

Second, unlike what many people seem to think, it is not unfair of Mihoyo to shut down Honey Impact’s site. It is within their rights. Honey Impact is sharing and profiting from content that does not belong to them. That is the bottom line of this. They do not own that content and they do not have the permission, nor the right, to share it.

Furthermore, Mihoyo did not go behind Honey Impact’s back to shut down their website. For example, if a streamer or youtube video infringes copyright, the company/corporation/individual/whatever entity holding that copyright would go to the highest power to tell the streamer or person who uploaded that youtube video that they’re infringing on that copyright, which would be Twitch and Youtube respectively. In this case, the highest power was the host domain hosting Honey Impact’s website.

https://twitter.com/HoneyDodogama/status/1436309421932548098?s=20

https://genshin.honeyhunterworld.com/2021/09/10/mhy-is-trying-to-take-us-down/?lang=EN

Heading on to the points from the 9/11 update Honey Impact shared on their website and on their discord blatantly trying to paint Mihoyo as the bad guy and claiming that what they’re doing is in fact not illegal and pretty much digging a bigger hole for themselves:

Here is where they claim they did some legal work to try and keep their website afloat. Honestly, it seems more like they were trying to find a way to keep doing their illegal work for profit.

1)    In their first point, they claim that the Terms of Service (ToS) is not a contract. That is incorrect. It is a contract. You may not have signed with your name in blood, but you agreed to it when you checked the little box(es) to access the game because a digital signature is still your signature. If you agreed to the ToS and you violate it, you can be held accountable for doing so. What kind of legal work are you doing that you don’t even know this?

2)     In this point they say that Mihoyo provides a software that requires Kernel level of access to your PC. First of all, you have to grant Mihoyo/Genshin this permission. It is like when an app on your phone asks you for permission to access your photos, your microphone, your camera, etc. Second, the Kernel level of access to your PC isn’t to steal and sell your information, install a virus, etc., but to enforce anti-cheat measures which is common in other games.

Furthermore, it has been adjusted to be as minimally invasive as possible and if they violated any rules or laws regarding invasion of privacy or if they made it so that your computer turned into a bitcoin farm, the Google Play Store and the Apple Store and other platforms would have removed Genshin Impact from their platform. (And Mihoyo would’ve gotten into a whole lot of trouble.) What kind of developer are you that you don’t even know this?

On top of their misleading accusations, they use cookie based ads on their own site. Aka the things that save and keep track of your emails, passwords, browser history, etc, and they sell it to the highest bidder without informing you of who or what it's for or giving you a single share of the profits they're making off the private information you have stored on your device(s) while accessing their site. So who is actually being invasive?

3)     Honey Impact does give credit where credit is due with the watermarks, but they host ads on the website and they run a Patreon asking people to support them in developing their website. Which is very hypocritical of them since they themselves said that they make 10kUSD+ a month and stated that they don’t want people in their discord server to donate to them. They also beg for donations in their streams.

They are not only illegally distributing someone else’s content, they are also profiting from it. This violates the fair use clause of copyright law.

This is like people taking artists’ work and selling them behind their back. Even if the artist is making bank compared to whatever you are making, it is still theft of intellectual property. You are pretty much reposting art that the artist has said not to repost. You are a thief. What kind of content creator are you that you don’t even know this?

4)     Unlike what Honey Impact has said, everything that is under the Genshin Impact banner, be it released content or unreleased is covered under the trademark that Mihoyo owns. As the owners of that trademark, they want Honey Impact to stop using their website to illegally share unreleased content that they illegally acquired.

Honey Impact also refers to their website as a fansite. But fansites generally aren’t for profit/have ad revenue, as profiting off of someone else's content goes directly against Fair Use, which they seem to think they are somehow entitled to if they scream about it loud enough… 

Just look at the Genshin Impact fandom wiki. There is a reason why they do not allow leaked/datamined/unreleased content on their page. (Because it is illegal!!!!!!!) Also, since Honey Impact was using Fandom, the host domain of the Genshin Impact fanwiki, as an example of an entity making money off of official content: first, Fandom hosts a lot more fanwikis than just the Genshin Impact fanwiki (which, btw, has no for-profit ads), which culminates in a lot more overall traffic compared to Honey Impact’s site of stolen goods. Which means Fandom needs more money.

https://twitter.com/HoneyDodogama/status/1436990491942342662?s=20

Second, again, the Genshin fanwiki DOES NOT POST UNRELEASED/LEAKED/DATAMINED CONTENT ON THEIR PAGES. BECAUSE DOING SO IS ILLEGAL. I don't know why Honey Impact thinks the fanwiki has that kind of content on its pages, but it doesn't.

Moreover, about not being subject to the NDA; it does not matter that Honey Impact, or anyone else on their team, did not sign an NDA. The crux of the matter is that the stuff they’re sharing doesn’t fucking belong to them. It is still theft of intellectual property.

Furthermore, this is not a grey area in law. Any company/corporation/individual/entitiy with a copyright has the right to tell other people to stop using their content protected by that copyright if they so choose. There has been precedent for this. D*sney is one such example as is Anne Rice.

As for other content creators that aren’t dataminers and/or leakers, they have been sanctioned by Mihoyo to release the content they have been releasing. Don't drag down other content creators such as streamers, artists, fanmerch creators, etc as they comply with a very much public list of conditions that Mihoyo has published to allow them to LEGALLY profit. They make fun of Mihoyo’s legal department not even being able to make a clear paragraph in English, yet Honey Impact’s English isn’t perfect either. So what if Mihoyo can’t spell? Honey Impact apparently can’t even read.

5)     What they are asking Honey Impact to do with their website is to follow the law. It is not some fraud company politics, it. Is. The. Fucking. Law. The reason they don’t want Honey Impact to have backups is because they’re not supposed to fucking have it in the first place. Furthermore, company politics has to do with what goes on inside the company, not what the company does to people/entities outside of it.

Ultimately, the stuff related to unreleased content of Genshin Impact Honey Impact has been posting on their website DOES NOT BELONG TO THEM. It’s bad enough that they were posting it without permission, it’s even worse that they were getting money for it.

Not to mention, with the way they have been acting, if you’ve been sympathetic and/or defending them, they really don’t deserve it. They added a pretty nasty disclaimer on their new website (which has since been deleted), which, by the way, can get them sued for libel, so that’s another charge on them, and also really shows how petty and childish they’re acting.

Moving on to how they claim they’re back, which at this rate won’t be for long, they say they’ve moved to an Amsterdam based server and that that server is non-DMCA compliant.

So Ionos, their former host server for their website, is, in Honey's words, "DMCA compliant" only in the sense that they take responsibility for the content posted on their platform(s) and domain(s). All that means is that Mihoyo has to go through the DMCA process with the company to officiate the start of the paperwork.

Moving to an Amsterdam server that claims to be "not DMCA compliant" doesn't mean they can't get struck by DMCA. It just means that the company disclaims any and all legal obligations regarding the content posted and it will be solely the content creator's responsibility. So all that means is that they'll get their DMCA even faster now because Mihoyo will not be legally obligated to send the paperwork to the hosting company before sending it to them.

By the way, DMCA laws are INTERNATIONAL. Just because you moved servers from the US to Amsterdam does not mean you suddenly do not have to follow DMCA laws. Also, Mihoyo does have a local EU branch to deal with such things in Europe.

[recurring-polynya]

You actually reblogged it! Yay! Thank you so much, I'm glad you did. I keep thinking about 'Brothers in Arms' because it's one of my favorite fics ever and i love everything about it, and just how well you nailed the ChadIshi dynamic down to a T. I think a lot about the dialogue right before this too, because it's my favorite part, but I mainly would love to see a breakdown of this bit: “Do you think he’s in Soul Society?” Uryuu asked. Chad must have been tempted to look. Uryuu knew he would have been, if he didn’t know for a fact that Souken had already moved on.

“I asked Abarai about that, actually,” Chad replied. “Abarai says it’s complicated, exactly how it gets decided where you go, but Oscar had a strong connection to his home and his friends, so he is most likely in the Mexican Land of the Dead.” A small smile crept onto Chad’s face. “My dream is to one day take a trip back to Mexico for el Día de los Muertos, and see him again.”

brothers in arms

Wowwww this bit is really rich! You would not think I would have so much to say about two paragraphs AND YET.

So for starters, you ever read a fic and it’s not even that big of a fic, but it just sticks in your head forever? Anyway, I am never not thinking about Not a Good Idea, a drabble about Oscar and Souken and Sora meeting up in Soul Society. It’s funny that each of the Karakura kids has some really important person that died on them, and even though the whole series is about life after death, aside from Sora’s short storyline, we never get to see any of them again.

I thoroughly admit that I may be wrong, but my reading of the dialogue in Uryuu’s fight with Kurotsuchi is that Souken went to Soul Society after dying, was immediately captured, and experimented on until he died again. I’ve posited this before-- that when the shinigami “exterminated” the Quincy, they killed them as living humans, and then hunted down and killed them as souls again so that they would get chucked back into the resurrection cycle and lose their Quincy powers. I think that the Wandenreich Quincy are actually either dead, and escaped this second killing, or born-as-souls (like shinigami nobles), descended from dead Quincy. I have absolutely no basis for this, it’s just what I think. That’s what I meant about Uryuu knowing that Souken had moved on.

I really, really love writing Renji knowing things. Something that you don’t really pick up the first time you read/watch Bleach is that Rukia seems like she knows a lot about how the afterlife works, but honestly, she is constantly just spitballin’. This makes sense! She never finished school! She’s a con artist! And if she’s learned anything as a noble, it’s that you can just say stuff with authority, and people will believe you! She’s a liar and a mansplainer and I love this for her. Conversely, Renji did finish school and he works for Byakuya and some of his best friends are nerds. I always like to write him as a guy who is very curious how things work, cities and squads and bureaucracies, and even though he pretends to be a cool himbo jock, he actually knows a shit-ton about the practicalities of being a grim reaper, beyond just killing monsters. I am also enamored with the idea of Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, and Hell being just a few of an infinite set of spiritual/magical planes (this may have come out of another fanfic that lives in my head rent-free, The Roots of Heaven). Afterlives are one of my very favorite bits of folklore, they are so varied and cool! I wrote a fic once that mentioned Renji corresponding with the Russian Afterlife, I have precedent. I also like to think about Renji and Chad spending a ton of time together during the Advance Team Arc, just hanging out and talking about little things, and I love to drop in little references to that whenever possible.

As soon as I put in that bit about going to Mexico for Day of the Dead, I wanted it as a fic more than I could say. The Karakura Kids would all be young adults, maybe shortly after Uryuu and Chad get married. (What if Ryuuken paid for it? As a wedding gift??? I would die) I feel like Chad would have this deep yearning to know if Oscar approved of him. People tend to get really hung up on the wording for Chad’s vow not to use his fists for Bad, but these things are rarely so clear-cut in real life. I mean, Oscar wanted Chad to not get in fights with neighborhood kids, he certainly did not foresee his grandson developing supernatural powers and traveling to other realms to save the nature of existence. Not to mention the gay thing. Astute readers may note that everytime I write a post-canon fic, I make Chad a social worker who boxes as a hobby. I feel strongly that this is perfectly canon compliant (just like Chad and Uryuu getting married, of course)

This is one of those fics that I would love to read but do not feel qualified to write (to be perfectly honest, in my heart, I want you to write it 😂)-- I would probably crib a bunch of the worldbuilding from Coco, because that movie slapped. I actually think that Oscar was probably a pretty fun-loving guy, I mean, look at this dude, he clearly fucks:

and I like to believe that in any Afterlife, you shed some of effects of age, and also, he’s not responsible for an angry kid who just lost his parents. I think he would be way more Fun than Chad was expecting, and by Fun, I mean, he and Ichigo would definitely cause an International Afterlife Incident, like they would release some ancient spirit or something that would then run around Starting Shit. The Mexican Afterlife calls up Soul Society and is like “come get your boy” and they send Rukia and Renji because who else wants to deal with Ichigo, and Renji has to spend the entire time negotiating extradition treaties at the embassy, except he can’t sit down because he’s got Ichika strapped to his chest. Rukia would run off to help the Karakura Kids and be like “I am off maternity leave and am down to clown” and she and Oscar would get along great.

Anyway, OF COURSE Oscar would approve of Chad, who would not approve of Chad? and he would be like "Uryuu is not a person I ever would have imagined for you, but he clearly really loves you, what else matters?” Again, look at him, I think he had some boyfriends in the 70′s and also I do not care to write homophobia in my fics, I prefer to make everyone at least a little gay instead. Also, Uryuu deserves someone to take a look at him and say, “hi there, you’re my family now,” with no caveats or expectations, which is basically how I imagined it going down in Tell You My Sins.

[dragon-snoots-a-boopin]

Well it seems that Ghostbusters Afterlife is causing controversary just by existing and it is the same stuff that happened when the trailer for this movie first came on to the scene. Here’s the second part of what I was doing.

“Everyone involved embraced the lunacy with a modern sense of humor, upped the ante on the supernatural bedlam, and threw out just enough references to function while standing firm that this was its very own beast”

Yeah I really don’t think that 2016′s cast and director really understood what makes the original Ghostbusters movie so great. If they did, they would have gave the actors more direction.

“Every character, joke, and ghostly figure worked to solidify that this vision was going to be working on its own terms.“

I really don’t feel like our writer actually watched the movie at all, much less recently before writing this article. He constantly keeps referring to Ghostbusters 2016 as a reboot but also as a stand alone Ghostbusters movie and yeah some movies can do that and are that but that isn’t Ghostbusters 2016.

“And yet, despite making a wildly fun movie that lived up to the spirit of the original and opened a portal to a world of new opportunities, the damage was perhaps done before opening weekend.”

Alright, I am just going to say it because it’s the entire tone of the article. This entire article comes off as writer really like Ghostbusters 2016 and is upset that other people don’t like and also upset that Ghostbusters Afterlife is MORE successful than Ghostbusters 2016 and so they wrote this whole article and somehow got is published.

“The antithesis of what preceded it, Afterlife is two hours of a studio issuing a response to a very small contingent of angry fanboys that reads, “We’re sorry we didn’t make the movie you wanted to see, so here’s some free Easter Eggs, and we hope you remain a loyal customer.”

Okay, writer person, listen up. Movie studios, like Sony, like money. Movies that do well bring in lots of money and that shows studios, like Sony, when a certain movie works or when it doesn’t work. Ghostbusters 2016 didn’t make the numbers that Sony wanted it to and so there was no chance in hell that anything was going to happen with the characters in that movie. Studios like Sony go back what brings in the money. It doesn’t matter what the “angry fanboys” say. Also, writer person, STOP REFERRING TO PEOPLE THAT DON’T LIKE GHOSTBUSTER 2016 BY NAMES LIKE ANGRY FANBOYS!!!!

“As if gulping down a witch’s brew of ‘80s nostalgia that combines the explosive hit Things, the more explosive box office of The Force Awakens, and the deafening screams of a subset of Ghostbusters fanboys who possessed rage towards the 2016 movie before it hit theaters, Afterlife functions as a feckless, weak-willed studio hodgepodge.”

Again, why are you bringing up movies like The Force Awakens??? Before this, writer mentions the younger cast and the whole passing of the torch to a younger generation and say that as a negative of Afterlife. I mean, that’s probably going to happen to a lot of our MCU heroes too. They’ll probably get someone younger to be the next Iron Man, it’s not an uncommon thing. Anyway, What writer is saying is that Afterlife has literal digging up the past in reference to things from past Ghostbusters movie, not the 2016 one, and saying that is because of the “fanboys who possessed rage towards the 2016 movie” fault for this. I mean, do you want actual Ghostbusters in your Ghostbusters movie? Ghostbusters is the Ecto-1, the proton packs, the ghost traps etc. plus, for Sony, this is the shot that gets butts in seats and money in the pockets of Sony. It honestly has NOTHING to do with those fanboys you keep bringing up.

Here is the link to the article if you want to read it: https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/ghostbusters/ghostbusters-afterlife-lazy-nostalgia/

I shall continue this in a third part.

[superman86to99]

Superman #84 (December 1993)

Superman takes a short Paris vacation! Like, one day short. What's the worst that could happen?

Oh, man.

So, for the past few issues, we've been hearing about children being abducted in Metropolis. Now we see that they're being kept inside a giant toy house by some creepy bald man in Quasimodo clothes who seems to be obsessed with toys -- a "Man of Toys," if you will. Side note: no wonder the children haven't been found... all the articles about them are just gibberish! (See clip below.)

The kidnapper thinks that these kids' parents don't deserve them, and that they're much better off here, in an underground hideout with a man who threatens to starve them if they don't play with him. (And I do mean literally play, with action figures and stuff.) Meanwhile, as these children cry for help, Superman is having the time of his life. While helping move a stranded ship with some huge-ass chains, Superman spots a sunken galleon with a treasure chest inside and fantasizes about keeping the booty...

...before turning it over to the authorities anyway, the big boy scout. Then, he wakes up Lois at 6 AM and tells her they should go to Paris right now, which usually means your significant other is having a mental breakdown, but in this case they can actually do it. And so, after deciding that he deserves to use his powers for fun every once in a while, Superman and Lois drop everything and fly to France with super-speed for the rest of the day/issue.

Anyway: back to the child abduction! Cat Grant and her son Adam attend a Halloween party at Adam's school, but there's a disturbed weirdo in a hideous costume lurking among the crowd. Yes, I'm talking about Jimmy Olsen in his Turtle Boy suit.

Shortly after that, a guy in a dinosaur costume (see, all the creeps are dressed as reptiles) lures Adam out of the party with the promise of "superb video games." What child could resist that? Of course, that turns out to be the kidnapper and Adam ends up in his hideout along with the rest of the missing children and, worst of all, not a single "Lextendo" console.

The kidnapper gets angry at Adam when he refers to the toys at the hideout as "old-fashioned junk" (he was REALLY looking forward to those video games), and even angrier when Adam tries to free the other kids. Adam is brave and puts up a good fight, but...

And those were Adam Morgan's final words. "Uh-oh."

Next, we have a pretty harrowing scene of Detective Turpin letting Cat know Adam’s body was found, and Jimmy and Perry White taking her to the morgue to identify the body (most people probably wouldn't bring their former boss to something like that, but Perry sadly knows more than most about losing a kid). As for Lois and Clark, they were gone so long that the Daily Planet had time to print a headline about the murders. The issue ends when the lovebirds walk into the office smiling like two people who just spent the night fooling around in Paris... only to feel like jackasses when they find out what happened.

To be continued!

Character-Watch:

And that's it for little Adam Morgan who, unlike the also tragically diseased Jerry White, didn't even get any post-death appearances. Adam went from a little kid scared of Superman, to a huge brat, to a character who was approaching likeability as of last week. That's why I hate it when DC kills off young characters like Adam or Liam Harper: in long-form storytelling, children represent potential. Look at how much Wally West or Dick Grayson evolved over the years compared to their mentors! Sure, there's a huge probability that Adam would have ended up disappearing from comics for 25 years anyway, but who knows, maybe we'd now know him as Teen Gangbuster or something. GangbusTEEN.

This issue also represents a turning point for the kidnapper, who is never named or seen clearly in the story itself but I don't think I'm shocking anyone by spoiling the fact that he's Toyman (it's in the cover, for one thing). In his last two appearances before this storyline, Toyman helped Superman save some kids from Sleez and looked genuinely sad to learn about Superman's death, so this is a pretty dramatic change for the character. We'll find out why he went from big softy to child killer in Superman #85 (but don't get your hopes up).

Plotline-Watch:

The most disturbing part of the issue, all things considered, is still the part where Toyman climbs into a giant crib and hugs a huge stuffed bunny. Look at serial killer Tommy Pickles here:

Don Sparrow says:  “Even with the upgrade, Toyman is still just a man in a suit, a common complaint about Superman’s rogues gallery.” Funny you should say that, because I JUST shared an old Wizard interview in our Twitter in which Dan Jurgens talks about how Doomsday came out of his frustration with the fact that most Superman villains are dudes in suits (plus other interesting tidbits from the era, like how it was actually Roger Stern’s idea to bring back Hank Henshaw, so check out that link!).

Don again: “The entire Superman storyline of this issue feels like filler. Diving for buried treasure and soaring off to Paris -- it all feels like wasted time next to the Adam storyline.” I have a theory that the entire ship sequence is there as an excuse to put Superman in those big chains and make that Spawn joke (which I didn’t get until now, since I’ve always read this issue in Spanish).

Superman says that pulling that big ship was "a little easier than expected" -- that's either another hint that there's something going on with Superman's powers since he came back, or a subtle dig at the state of American ship manufacturing.

Another adorable "window tap" scene for the books, and this is the sexiest one so far. Is it me or has Jurgens started copying more than just Teri Hatcher's hairdo from Lois & Clark? (For anyone who thinks Lois has gotten implants, I refer you to this clip.)

While in Paris, Lois asks Clark if he's ever wondered what would happen if his rocket had landed in other countries. Don: “Clark’s conversation with Lois sounds like a bunch of concepts for Elseworlds stories. We eventually would see a Russian Superman, and a British Superman, but not yet the French Superman. (Hire us, DC!)” Yep, got my French Superman pitch ready, Jim Lee. Or just let us do Russian Superman again, since Red Son wasn’t even the first time you published that idea.

Don once more: “Another thing that makes no sense about the ‘new’ Toyman is his resentment of technological toys—when in previous appearances he himself had deadly high-tech toys to vex Superman over the years.” I especially resent his hatred of video game consoles. Incidentally, I wonder what types of games are available for Adam’s beloved Lextendo. Star Lex 64? Mega Man Lex? Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles & Lex?

No one is more upset at Lois and Clark for going AWOL than Whit. NO ONE. He's so furious that his usually grey mustache turned black.

Patreon-Watch:

As always, shout out to our patrons, Aaron, Murray Qualie, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Samuel Doran, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush and Raphael Fischer! Last month’s exclusive Patreon article was about the recently unearthed sequel to Superman 64 for the PlayStation, featuring Metallo, Parasite, and Lois looking even hotter than in this issue:

Hot damn. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99!

And believe it or not, Don Sparrow has even more to say about this issue. Read his section after the jump:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow​):

I should start off my section with a big caveat:  I flat out hate this issue. There were several weird decisions made in the post-Death-and-Return era (most of them along the same lines of making the Superman titles more grim-and-gritty), and this story was one of the worst of them.  My theory is that, despite the praise and record-breaking sales of the Death and Return storyline, the Superman creative team felt pressure to have more extreme storylines, perhaps in response to the wildly successful Image books coming out at the time.  Between this story, and the upcoming “Spilled Blood” storyline, the Super books take a hard—but temporary--turn into more violent and upsetting storytelling—even though these stories are by the same writers as the previous few years. While death has always been a part of comics, and Superman comics was no exception, there is a jarring glibness and unfeeling toward the way violence is handled in these pages that is quite different from the stories that preceded it.  It’s made all the more jarring by the fact that well-established personalities suddenly veer wildly out of character, Toyman chief among them.  

We start with the cover, and while it is technically well-drawn (by the familiar team of Jurgens and Breeding) it’s also a very upsetting visual.  I think they should have gone with the pieta type pose with Adam and Superman, OR the scary badass bowie-knife Toyman (who apparently has a Cheshire cat smile now) but not both.  But the cover is a good hint at the tonal dissonance of the comic within.

We open with a splash of the now-extreme 90s looking Toyman, with his serial killer shaved head and spooky cloak, ignoring the pleas of hungry kids he has locked up in a tiny jail cell for days at a time (if that sentence doesn’t ring alarm bells for how wrong this is for a Superman story, I don’t know what will). For much of the issue Toyman’s eyes are obscured by glare on his lenses, further de-humanizing a character who was once one of Superman’s more empathetic bad guys.

We cut to Superman tugboating a huge tanker with giant chains and it’s a cool visual (one repeated in the Batman V Superman film).  It feels especially out of place to focus on, given how upsetting this issue is otherwise, but throughout the whole comic, Lois is drawn smoking hot, especially on the two page spread on pages 9-10.

The scenes depicting the actual murder, while still wildly out of place in a Superman comic, are well done, and give a real sense of darkness and menace, which I suppose is the intent.  Perhaps my least favourite visual is the Big Bird stuffie, silently bearing witness to what’s about to occur.

The edges of the panels on get more slashy and off-kilter (to me, looking very much like the layouts more typically seen in Image comics of the day) and I suppose I appreciate the restraint of how little Dan Jurgens shows of the death of a child, showing only a bloody slash on a black background.  This is still a pretty baroque image for a Superman comic, but certainly less violent than it could be, given what is happening.

Cat Grant’s silent horror is well staged, and powerful in its way.   Lastly, Clark Kent bending in sorrow and regret is a powerful image.

While this issue is handled marginally better, and more maturely than other comics on the shelf at this time, I still believe it is one of the biggest mistakes of the era.  Giving a long-established character an unceremonious death for shock value is gross on its own, but making it a child definitely crosses a line for me.  Making it worse is that, while the Toyman is a criminal and a killer, he has shown in past issues (a similar kidnapping storyline involving Sleez) that he genuinely cares for the well-being of children.  So for a long-time reader, this also felt like a betrayal of a long-established, fully developed character.   Adding to the ugliness of this is that Adam dies heroically, trying to free the children who have been caged, unfed, for days, but even in that regard, he fails.  The headline at the end of the issue confirms all the children are dead.  Adam’s death did not buy the other kids enough time to get away. It was all for nothing. Had Adam died, but the other children lived, maybe this issue wouldn’t leave quite as bad a taste. [Max: It’s weird because it’s all told in a way where it’s told in a way where it would make sense, narratively and within the story universe, that the other kids survived, but then it’s almost casually revealed that nope, they died too. A scene of one of the kids relaying Adam’s heroism to Cat in a future issue would have gone a long way.]

Superman doesn’t come off well in these pages, either.  It’s honestly the type of story they should just stay away from, because the more you think about all the calamity that is going on around the clock, the less defensible the whole Clark Kent persona becomes. Superman carving out time to romance his fiancée directly led to the preventable deaths of innocent children—how do you come back from that?

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I’m always looking for hints that perhaps Jimmy or Perry know Superman’s secret identity deep down, and Jimmy’s anger at Lois and Clark on their return to the Daily Planet offices would seem to give that theory some credence, as he’s as angry at them as if he knew Clark really were Superman.  Either that, or he’s ticked that it fell to him, and none of them to escort Cat into the morgue. [Max: Has this issue finally converted you to the “Jimmy is terrible” side now, Don?]

I don’t think I’m the only one who disliked the new Toyman—SPOILERS BE HERE: years later, in Action Comics #865, Geoff Johns retconned this whole story, reverting Schott into the criminal who over-relates to kids, rather than the child-killer of this story.  Apparently the infantile Schott, who speaks to “Mother” a la Norman Bates, is a robot so lifelike it fools even Superman, and the “Mother” he’s constantly replying to was the real Winslow Schott trying to recall the malfunctioning robot. [Max: That’s one Geoff Johns retcon I really didn’t mind, even if it felt kind of derivative of his similar “all the Brainiacs are robots made by the real Brainiac” reveal.]

[morwensteelsheen]

WIP wednesday thoughts:

willow cabin is utterly fucked because i changed my intended ~moral~ halfway through and now im stuck trying to integrate this shitty political intrigue plot into what should’ve been a more interesting story about éowyn adapting to life in gondor. hugely fucking annoyed by it and just totally unsure how to proceed. i could significantly increase the chapter count, but im worried that because the initial framing device was this bandits shit that closing out that plot and then still going for ages afterwards would be really shitty? i honestly don’t know, it’s so difficult. really i just need someone to read my outline and tell me if im being a dumb twat about it lol

meanwhile I know exactly where I want to go with AFTA but for some unaccountable reason im stressed that my ass is gonna get roasted for the direction i want to take it in. it’s all based in both tolkien’s personal politics and (some) historical precedent, but im worried people are gonna see it as a marysue-ification? but also im hoping to do sthg of a sequel to afta to practice the political intrigue writing so i don’t make the same mistakes i did in wc, and to do that it would require this specific set up in AFTA. im gonna put my AFTA thing under the cut so don’t click read more unless you’re gucci with potential AFTA spoilers!!

this royal affair au is definitely gonna get published at some point but im trying to decide if i want to do ~tasteful~ smut that drives a longer narrative or if im really just gonna do a whole 3,000 word build up to some run of the mill, old fashioned PWP lmao

okay so i have spent a Lot of time thinking about what impact i think éowyn and faramir would have on each other in a pre-ring war setting, and the honest to god conclusion ive come to is that they would somewhat inadvertently egg on each other’s (wildly divergent) idealism.

faramir’s an idealist politically in ways that, as Big D rightly points out, are not super productive in a wartime scenario. but so far as im concerned, the war doesn’t feel as warlike until they have to blow the bridge at osgiliath. until that point, there’s not really anything to say that faramir’s whole throwback optimism isn’t a perfectly justifiable position to have.

but what that idealism is and how it manifests are two really important considerations. the crux of his idealistic politics is that he looks at númenor and sees something valuable in it, and looks at gondor and sees a lot that he thinks is fucked up. outside of articulating a general angst towards the glory hunting, it’s not like he’s spending time talking about his specific policy prescriptions. however, we do know a few things that can guide us to a more coherent reconstruction of his politics:

he’s pretty rigidly hierarchical (when it’s convenient for him). as seen in: him basically telling sam to fuck off and stay in his lane in WOTW, and in how and when he chooses to refer to his father as ‘father’ vs ‘my lord’ or ‘lord of the city’ in the aftermath of the osgiliath retreat and then before he gets his ass sent back there. i don’t want to go into too much detail here but if i go with this i’ll definitely justify it more thoroughly in the footnotes.

so we’ve got faramir’s emphasis on hierarchy and his occasional (when convenient) belief that the upper echelons of a hierarchy are there because they’re intellectually and/or morally better. or, maybe to remove the causation from that instance, because they are in those upper echelons, they have an obligation to be more morally/intellectually upstanding, and the people in the structure below them have an obligation to show deference. unless you’re faramir and you’re dealing with denethor in which case that all goes out the window. classic.

we know there is some sort of nascent pseudo-democratic tradition of popular sovereignty in gondor. we know this because faramir asks the masses at aragorn’s coronation if they’ll accept him as king. faramir is a lot of things, but he is certainly not a progressive political radical, and i cannot imagine any situation in which he cooked up that rigmarole himself. that then implies to me that it’s building on some sort of political/cultural expectation in gondor. so: some sort of relationship to popular legitimacy. the people of gondor are subjects, but perhaps not as totally passive and unconsidered in the power structure as we might assume given the comparability to feudal europe/asia.

given those two things, i want to use AFTA to argue:

that faramir, in looking to assign blame for the faults he sees in gondor, would not directly assign blame to the lower classes, but rather to the aristocracy, because he will have seen them as failing in their moral obligations to the people they rule over. this is not to say that he isn’t fucked off about The People™ valorising war, but i think he’d take the position that they couldn’t possibly be expected to form those values and opinions of their own volition, and the fault lies in their rules. faramir: not gramscian.

faramir lacks any power that is non-military, and even that is of questionable worth because the rangers seem to be fairly distinct to the general structure of the army, and are not exactly a huge force.

faramir lacking any political power isn’t necessarily a huge concern for him (as in, he’s not actively trying to change that), because he knows he’s not going to lead a moral revolution and isn’t interested in taking up the responsibilities having political capital would engender because he’s stuck dealing with this war, that he fucking hates btw has he mentioned that he hates it?

however, given that he is apparently eminently versed in lore and scholarship, he is probably keenly aware that there is this incipient notion of popular legitimacy somewhere in gondor’s culture. it’s not, for most of his life, knowledge that actually does anything for him, but it is there.

éowyn, meanwhile, doesn’t really have many strong political convictions (yet). not because she’s a dumbass or whatever, but because she looks at court politics as kind of a farce, and doesn’t believe that power legitimately emanates from anywhere that isn’t a Big Fucking Army. and why, strictly speaking, would she not think that? the event that brought about the creation of her kingdom was not careful, soft spoken negotiation, it was her ancestors being in the right place at the right time with a Big Fucking Army.

and the internal politics of the Riddermark actually seem to be fairly stable, all things considered. i sincerely doubt that Théoden or Théodred are having to negotiate complex politicking in the way Denethor and Boromir are. so where, then, would éowyn see that kind of political behaviour outside gondor? with gríma.

éowyn, then, will see the immediate contrast between gríma (backroom dealer, manipulator extraordinaire) and théoden (owner of Big Fucking Army). and gríma goes and fucking wins that fight. that forces éowyn to confront the fact that, jesus christ, maybe there are different types of power.

at the same time, she’s going to be in minas tirith and needing to cover for théoden letting his shit get wrecked. not just because she’s prideful, which of course she is, but because if denethor/gondor think that théoden is too weak to hold up his end of the bargain, why would they ever go help the Mark? éowyn, seeing that théoden’s f-f-fucked, knows that there’s a very very good chance the Mark will need help.

against her feelings about courtly politics, she starts to accept that she’s going to need to do something to get power in gondor. not anything substantial, it’s not like she’s trying to overthrow anybody, but enough that when push comes to shove she can force denethor to help out the Mark (if he doesn’t do so willingly).

but, as ive sort of already shown in AFTA, she’s a bit of a dogshit diplomat. good for a little big-brawny-enforcer stuff, but not exactly brimming with cultural sensitivity. by the time she realises théoden + the Mark are fucked, she’ll have burnt quite a few bridges with the gondorrim nobles, and it’s not like she’s the sort of person to go running cap-in-hand begging for mercy.

so: she has to look elsewhere. and wow! a chance for faramir to do his favourite thing — talk about his opinions! and by god, his weird idealistic politics are… actually kind of helpful? because he’s like, look, you’re never gonna be a diplomat, but there are other ways of consolidating power. and one of those ways is by appealing to The People™. so why not work that angle?

and actually, we know that this is a viable route for éowyn because hama, in arguing for her to take up the mantle of théoden’s heir when théoden and éomer fuck off to helm’s deep, basically says that The People™ love her and would have willingly chosen her to lead them.

we also know, based on faramir’s middle men speech, that the people of gondor and the mark have grown alike in nature. not totally unreasonable to then think that the people of gondor would take to her like the people of the mark did.

éowyn, then, in various ways begins to try to win over the people of minas tirith. i need to do a little more research on this bc what ive got on the practicalities of that so far are a bit, uhhh, sketchy, but the least jargony way to describe this is to point to when natalie dormer’s character in GOT gets out of the carriage to go hug and kiss some babies. (marc bloch, eat your heart out)

this would later segue into a potential sequel where, while trying to secure the way for aragorn’s coronation, éowyn actually plays an interesting role because she’s fallen into this incidental Diana, People’s Princess™ role and so is better positioned than almost anyone to go advocate on his behalf. wow! cool! éowyn getting to be politically useful in more ways than just getting hitched!

so yeah. that’s how i am thinking it might play out. this would obviously have a rolling impact on the remainder of AFTA and how certain (🔥) events pan out later, but i think that building up part has to begin pretty much now, narratively. also this lets me get in a reference to “and then her heart changed, or else at last she understood it” and have it not be almost entirely about wanting to shag faramir, but actually about her gradual evolution from valorising war above all else to being like, hmm, maybe there are other ways of being powerful. which i think still largely captures the “no longer I will vie with the great riders” stuff, but more subtly and without feeling quite so… deferential, I guess? Like it’s not that she’s swapping one form of power (violence) for nothing (gardening?? healing?? tolkien accidental articulation of necropolitics??) but swapping violence for a different type of more sustainable power.

yeah. that’s the take, basically. who fucking knows.

[adultswim2021]

Welcome to Eltingville: “Bring Me the Head of Boba Fett” | February 26, 2002 - 4:00 AM | Special

Lots of personal baggage to unpack on this one, so please forgive what will surely read as a personal blog post:

Welcome to Eltingville was the first of Adult Swim’s “failed pilots” which aired as a special. It’s failed in the sense that it didn’t get picked up, presumably for being too expensive. It originally aired as a stealth premiere at 4:00AM on Monday night/Tuesday morning, I’m assuming to fulfill a contractual agreement. It had a “for real” advertised premiere on March 3rd, which is what you’ll find cited on various web sources.

It’s time I confess something here: I didn’t like this show the first time around. The early 2000s was a time when “nerd” culture was being clumsily embraced as a novelty. People suddenly started gravitating towards movies and shows about nerds, all usually portrayed in a cutesy and toothless way. Yes, I was too blinded by my own shunning of this trend to realize that this show was the antithesis of that. And yes, I was unfamiliar with the original comics that these were based on, which probably would have blown my mind if I was aware of them in the 90s. Hell, I would have shunned a Dan Pussey cartoon if I weren’t already in love with Dan Clowes comics.

Was it all overblown in my own head? Well, I can only come up with two examples to illustrate my distaste for “nerds stuff”, so yes, it probably was. First, Super Nerds, which was a 2000 pilot staring Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn as two nerds who worked at a comic book store. I was sold on it by a friend as being the best sitcom he’d ever seen in his life. I also loved Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn. But good lord, did I hate that show, a lot. The more mainstream example is the Comedy Central show Beat the Geeks, a trivia game show where normal people compete against experts (or geeks) in certain fields (usually popular culture related). The promos showed the geeks in question strutting around and ironically looking cool and triumphant. These promos were so profoundly unfunny to me that I found it insane and offensive when the whole “geek” angle seemed to hook other members of my family. “there’s this game show where guys have to compete... against GEEKS! haw haw!” I can still hear my dad’s voice echo in my head. I still hate it!

I also didn’t relate to traditionally geeky things, like superhero comics, science fiction/fantasy, etc. I hated all of that stuff, and I still mostly do (did I go through a multiple year phase in my early 30s where I tried to force myself to like super hero comics? Yes! I did! It didn’t particularly take). I am absolutely a comedy nerd, though, which is a much MUCH lonelier pursuit.

Hell, the comedy nerd isn’t even an archetype on TV shows; Freaks and Geeks came fairly close, but those guys also liked sci-fi and role-playing games and stuff. Square Pegs also had a comedy nerd character. There was that episode of Undeclared where Martin Starr is boring the rest of the cast by trying to explain that Freddy Got Fingered was an intelligent anti-comedy (the closest I’ve ever seen myself be portrayed on screen). All of these shows lasted one season, making the comedy nerd character the most potent poison since (NOTE TO SELF: google FAMOUS FICTIONAL POISONS, please pick a cool non-nerdy one [leave note-to-self in write-up if coming up with one is impossible {will come off as intentional meta-humor (everyone will love this)}]).

Welcome to Eltingville is about four friends who have created The Eltingville Comc Book, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Role-Playing Club. They’ve presumably been together for a long time when this episode starts, and we see the dynamics of the club right away, the main thing being the constant petty bickering that quickly becomes violent and destructive. They’re all gigantic jerks who presumably only hang with each other because nobody else will. The main conflict of this show has to do with Bill, the Stan of the group, and Josh, the Cartman, who eventually come to blows over a rare Boba Fett doll-- I mean, figure. The first half of the show is a pretty good introduction to the would-be-series, with the guys playing a D&D style role-playing game and then getting into a full-fledged fist-fight over a VHS compilation of nude scenes that turns out to be a recording of the Hair Bear Bunch. The second half is an adaptation of the comic story “Bring Me The Head of Boba Fett”. Had I thought of it I might have read the entire run of Eltingville Club comics before reviewing this. Unfortunately it was a bit of an afterthought so I just read the first two stories, including the Boba Fett one. For the record, I own the Eltingville book, and definitely read and loved the two-issue series that serves as the ending of the Eltingville comics. It’s all those comics in the middle I still need to get to.

The show is very funny and it looks beautiful. According to the few interviews that I’ve found regarding the show (including a page of text found in the Eltingville book, which precedes a section showing off some of the character design sheets), there really wasn’t much reason given for the show not getting picked up. The show definitely looked better than anything else on Adult Swim, so the whole “too expensive” thing seems like as good an assumption as any. Apparently Dorkin spread himself too thin working on this, attempting to design/draw every little thing seen on screen. I actually wondered that while watching the show, because his art style is faithfully preserved here, which is great! The episode ends the same way the comic story does, with Bill & Josh in a trivia-off, competing over the buying rights for a 12 inch Boba Fett action figure at their local comic shop. With every rewatch of this show I confront one basic thing about myself, and it’s how much of the trivia I’ve picked up since the last rewatch. Bill & Josh’s trivia-off is a flurry of questions regarding all kinds of geek garbage, and the few years between viewings of this results in me knowing a few more answers. But, I have the internet, and can usually get hold of a movie or TV show or comic book almost instantly. It’s important to not lose sight that these kids (especially in the comics) are either high-school or college-aged and they learned all of this shit in an era when the internet wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today. The original comic is set firmly in 1994, and when there’s a dispute over a question Josh runs home to get a large Godzilla reference book to prove that he’s correct. This changed in the pilot to Josh losing on a technicality with a slip-of-the-tongue; attributing a famous catchphrase to a fellow club-member who had adopted it for himself (the comic actually SEEMS to set this up, but doesn’t go in that direction at all, which is weird when you read it AFTER watching this special. I think that means the cartoon improved on that idea).

Wikipedia makes no mention of this stealth broadcast. It would SEEM to make more sense that it aired Monday morning following late night Sunday, but Adult Swim ended at 1AM back in these days, making early Monday morning still technically “out of bounds”. In fact, I very nearly “corrected” the air date to reflect this, but a quick google search for “Welcome to Eltingville” + “4AM” yielded this message board thread where we can see in real time that early Tuesday morning is indeed correct. So, if you’re ever arguing over a 12 inch Boba Fett feel free to uses this trivia in your trivia off.

[kindafooey]

Blood Chains - Chapter 27

Prologue

Arc I: Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 //Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7 // Chapter 8 // Chapter 9 // Chapter 10 // Chapter 11

Arc II: Chapter 12 // Chapter 13 // Chapter 14 // Chapter 15 // Chapter 16 // Chapter 17 // Chapter 18 // Chapter 19 // Chapter 20 // Chapter 21

Arc III: Chapter 22 // Chapter 23 // Chapter 24 // Chapter 25 // Chapter 26 // Chapter 27 // Chapter 28 // Chapter 29

Epilogue

Entry No. 28.

Am I doomed to simply float by currents beyond my control?

“…so that pretty much wraps it up for last summer. After I got back from the hospital, the whole superanomaly crisis happened, and I didn’t get any further with my investigations. Pacifica joined forces with me in the fall, due to a series of discoveries and connections that we’ll get back to later. We made some progress working on this together, but it didn’t amount to much – not until Great uncle Ford disappeared six weeks ago, and while searching for something that might give us a clue on where he and Bill might be headed, we found… this.”

Dipper sat down, gesturing to shift everyone’s attention from himself to the small, cylindrical object on the table.

Soos squinted at it. “Yep, that’s a tube. Looks familiar, too… I wanna say McGucket kind of familiar.”

“It’s Stan’s memory capsule”, Pacifica took a turn in explaining to give Dipper a breather, “from the time his brother wiped out his identity.”

“Ouch”, said Soos, while the rest of the family grimaced in unison.

“Jeez, Paci, could you glam it up a little?” Mabel whispered. “Be more sensitive, it was basically murder. Just call it a fratricide or something!”

Pacifica gave Mabel a look. “Sure. Fratricide. Because that’s both glam and considerate, right?”

“Dipper”, Ford joined in on the conversation, “how did you come into contact with the capsule? I’m quite certain I’ve kept it locked away in my personal safe.”

“Oh, that’s because Dipper habitually goes through your stuff whenever you’re away for a longer while”, Mabel put in knowingly. “He experimented with pretty much everything you own back when you were at sea with Grunkle Stan.”

“Mabel”, Dipper hissed before shrugging rather nonchalantly. “It’s true, though. I dig around. And I’ve done it so often I’m not even ashamed anymore.”

“Well, I don’t blame you”, said Ford. “That President’s Key of yours is an astoundingly powerful artifact. It would be a waste not to use it, but, well…” He scratched his head. “I would appreciate it if you were more mindful of my privacy, that is all.” Apparently, he’d been right to hide his secret journal in plain sight instead of somewhere he considered ‘safe’.

“Your privacy? What about my privacy?” Stan protested. “Those are my memories the kid’s been snooping around, right?”

“Relax, Grunkle Stan”, Dipper said instantly. “I was only looking for clues, so I didn’t pry into your personal stuff. It was Pacifica’s idea, actually. I didn’t think we’d find anything useful in your memories, but…”

“Some new intel never hurt anyone”, Pacifica put in with a hint of a bold smile.

“Well, she was right. We did find something groundbreaking – something that was no memory at all, but instead… an encrypted message.”

Ford knew at once what he was referring to. “Bill’s dying words”, he muttered. “‘My time has come to burn… I invoke the ancient power that I may return.’ I made the same discovery mere weeks after the memory gun incident, and it was where I first learned that Bill could be resurrected.”

“You forgot a little something there, Six”, Bill pointed out.

The man blinked. “No, I’m quite sure I have memorized the message in its entirety.”

“You don’t remember, Great uncle Ford? Just before the part you recited just now, Bill spells out the word ‘Axolotl’.”

“W-what?” Ford startled. “But the only thing that precedes the message is a nonsensical chain of random letters that… oh…”

Of course. In all the years he’d spent studying the memory capsule, he’d never made the connection that now seemed laughably simple and obvious.

How could that be?

“Okay, I gotta say it’s really odd that you didn’t catch on to that”, said Pacifica and crossed her arms. “Because it pretty much jumps at you as the most solvable part of the mystery. Like a key or something.”

“Well, I…” Ford scratched his head in utter confusion. “This may sound far-fetched, but… that isn’t the only occasion of something similar happening. Every time I came across her name during my fugitive years, my attempts to learn anything about her were proven futile. Even Jheselbraum refused to share her wisdom with me when it came to the Axolotl… Quite honestly, I’m beginning to think it is her name itself that shuns me.”

“You’re not wrong”, Dipper said obscurely, but didn’t elaborate when Ford gave him a quizzical look.

“No need to make a sad face, Fordsy”, Bill put in loudly before anyone else could continue, “it’s not like you’re missing out on anything! The only thing you need to know about good old Big Frilly is that she’s the biggest, high-horsiest, most hypocritical player of them all! The reason you can’t make heads or tails of her is because she’s two-timing chaos and harmony as we speak – at least most of us choose to swing one way or the other! But no, she’s gotta keep it all to herself and the selected few she calls her alliance, because she knows what’s best for all of us. No differing opinions allowed, and Hell forbid your attire of choice is anything but pink and saggy!”

Ford frowned deep in thought; as always with the shreds of knowledge Bill shared with him, he would have to relearn the alphabet, as the demon himself had said. “So, does that mean she’s one of the all-knowing?”

“Haha, nope! That’s what she’s got Nanny Seven-Eyes in her inner circle for! Think me – I’m the nice traveling salesman teaching people how to fish, and I mean every possible method of fishing, for a small favor in return – then you have an evil Corporate with a monopoly on fishing rod sales – you with me so far? Here comes the white whale: in this lovely not-at-all-historically-accurate scenario, Big Frilly is the fat greedy banker trying to scrap all the fish and green to herself! What for, you ask? To dump all that fresh, delicious, nutritious seafood into her tax-funded mush factories, pump it into the mush pipes, and provide humanity and other sentient species with a lifelong supply of – that’s right, you guessed it – gross, smelly, stale, mass-produced mush, only mush and nothing but mush to eat for the rest of your days! All about that mush, right, Pine Tree?”

“Are you done?” Dipper asked in a fed up tone.

“Am I done? Who knows! Got something else you want me to put in metaphorical syllables for ya?”

“He’s done”, Ford confirmed in Bill’s stead. “Thank you, Bill – I, for one, did find that quite informative. Please continue, Dipper.”

Dipper rolled his eyes, but went on as requested. “Okay, so when the Axolotl came up in our investigation, the first thing I thought of was, well, there’s one living in the water tank in the living room, right? So that’s where we went. Turns out all you have to do is invoke her name in the presence of her image.”

“Isn’t that exactly the same as…” Ford glanced at Bill.

“Yeah, it is. They’re not that different, actually, no matter what Bill says.”

The demon scoffed. “Hah! Sameness, difference, same difference.”

“You told me that… you made a deal with her.”

“Yeah”, Dipper nodded. “I did. And I also told you why.”

“Because you could no longer bear the weight of not knowing the consequences of your actions”, said Ford, remembering what Dipper had told him about the hacker, and the code he’d unwittingly delivered to him.

Something else moved in his memory at his own words.

As you know, the result could be anything between laughably insignificant and mass destruction beyond anyone’s control… or it could be a vanishingly small butterfly effect that could bring about immeasurable anguish and suffering to a thousand strangers, and you would never know any better. Yet for the rest of your mortal life, whenever you look and see the hardships all living things face, some part in your brain would freeze with fear and wonder, ‘was I the cause of this?’ That, as I am sure you understand, is the ultimate price of playing the role of a god.

He gulped. “And… the Axolotl showed you those consequences, is that it?”

“It’s actually the opposite. You see, the Axolotl is like the dark side of the moon when it comes to knowledge. Like we heard just now, she isn’t one of the all-knowing like this wiseguy here used to be, and that’s why her deals are different, too. So instead of information, she sells ignorance.”

“Fascinating”, muttered Ford. “But what does it mean in terms of your deal? If you still don’t know what all your actions led to…”

“It simply means that I’m no longer responsible for any of it. And I did gain new knowledge, in a way, once I officially joined her alliance later on. Sometimes, when it’s something that’s troubling me, like, uh, on an emotional level… I get to ask her a question, and she gives me the answer I’m looking for, but there’s a catch.”

“What is it?” asked Ford, leaning forward across the table; Bill, on the other hand, looked immensely bored.

“It’s just raw data, meaning that I can’t really process it myself – it’s more of a gut feeling that can’t be put into words or a proper context. This is so that I won’t be able to use it for personal gain, or share it with anyone else. It’s a system that prevents knowledge from becoming a currency that only creates conflict in the Multiverse, which is the exact thing Bill has been promoting for eons.”

“Told you, didn’t I?” Bill put in in a flat tone. “Stale mush.”

Dipper threw a sour glance at the demon before continuing. “So… That’s the creed I’ve chosen to live by. To preserve knowledge in its pure form, so that it won’t fall into wrong hands and be turned into a tool of warfare between mortals. Well, immortals, too, but that’s a whole different story, and not really any of my business, anyway.”

Ford had to interrupt. “But, Dipper… Before the trials, even though you were unable to tell us any details, you did know more about the Corporate than I did.”

“Yeah”, said Dipper, “because at that time, I was supposed to act the role of a juror as part of the Axolotl’s alliance. So I had access to some knowledge on the Corporate. Just little bits and pieces that allowed me to stay on top of things. Same thing with this whole conspiracy business, actually… I don’t think we could’ve ever gotten this far if it wasn’t for the Axolotl’s guidance.”

“Ah… I see.” Something about it rang deeply unnatural to Ford, but he had nothing else to say.

Pacifica looked around her. “So are we done talking about the Axolotl?” Her tone made clear she was growing bored of the topic. “Can we move on to less otherworldly things now? Like the reason I got involved in this in the first place?”

“Because you’re a paranormal northwestigator?” Mabel suggested.

“Yeah”, said Stan, “haven’t you two been joined at the hip ever since you found out you’re both equally nerdy?”

“No”, Pacifica snapped. “We’re not ‘joined at the hip’, and try calling me a nerd again, old man! You of all people should know what my connection to this whole deal is – or should I say our connection?” Her stare bit meaningfully into Stan’s confused eyes.

“Sorry, sweetie, you lost me there.”

“Pacifica, he probably doesn’t remember”, Dipper pointed out quietly.

Pacifica looked uncomfortable. “Oh, right.”

“What? Remember what?”

Dipper stood up and approached Soos. “Grunkle Stan”, he said as he locked eyes with his grand uncle, pointing at the slightly crooked fez on the current Mr. Mystery’s head, “do you remember what this symbol on your old fez stands for? It’s okay if you don’t.”

“Oh, that. Yeah.” Stan frowned. “Sure, I know what it is.” He crossed his arms, but said nothing else.

“Are you sure?” Pacifica asked cautiously.

“Yeah, yeah, I just told you so, didn’t I?”

“So… why don’t you tell us what it is?”

Stan loosened the bunch of his arms to spread them a little as though the answer was obvious. “Because it pretty much says so on the label, right? Hats are meant to be worn, not talked through. Maybe I’m only a nominal member with no say in anything, but I’m no rat, either.”

Soos grabbed his fez and checked its insides. “‘Do not use for telecommunication.’ Huh, it really does say so on the label.”

“Told you he wouldn’t talk, Pacifica”, Dipper said before turning back to Stan. “It’s okay, Grunkle Stan. This is a legitimate secret society we’re talking about, after all.”

“Oh. So you know, huh?”

“Yep. We’ll just do the introductions for you, okay?”

“Well, I’m not stopping ya.”

“Wait”, Ford had to chime in, looking at his brother, “what secret society?”

Stan shrugged. “Wait for it, bro. Sounds like these two nerd-tectives got it all figured out.”

“This is all the information we’ve managed to gather on the secret society in question.” Dipper walked to point at one end of his conspiracy map. “It’s called the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel.”

“My dad is in it, too”, said Pacifica rather darkly. “Like every other filthy rich family head, and their fathers before them, and their fathers before them…”

“But Mr. Pines isn’t filthy rich, right? Unless you count in his heart made of gold.”

“Can it, Soos”, Stan grunted despite a small smile that rippled on his face for a second. “Nah, mine’s one of those inherited memberships, like Nancy Drew here said. Dad wasn’t rich, either, but I hear his European gramps was, back in the old days. Anyway… I was never treated as much of a member myself, you know, being broke and all, but the network of bigwig connections came in pretty handy when… uh, if I ever found use for it.”

Ford was stunned. “Stanley, how come this is the first time I’ve heard of this inheritance of yours? This is Dad we’re talking about! And it’s not like I would need or even want it, but as the firstborn son, shouldn’t I have been the one to inherit the membership? Unless…” His eyes went wide. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes”, his twin nodded nonchalantly. “By the time Dad left to meet his maker, Stan Pines was already dead and buried in an empty grave, remember? And there’s no way Dad would’ve left his deadbeat loser son something so valuable in the first place. Nah, it’s your name on that membership card, buddy.”

Ford turned swiftly to Dipper. “The plutonium! That must explain – Stanley, did you acquire the plutonium needed for the portal through the connections you had with the Royal Order?”

“Well, yeah, that’s really the only way I could’ve –“

“Was there a man named John Smith? I asked you the same question last summer, and you said you don’t remember – was that a lie?”

“Jeez.” Stan scratched his head. “Just take it easy, okay? The kids already told ya, this is a secret society we’re talking about. So technically it wasn’t a lie, because I never dealt with the man in person, but I guess there’s no point in denying it at this –“

“What did you trade the plutonium for, Stanley?”

“Calm down, Sixer! Obviously you already guessed what it was, so gimme a break!” Stan finally flared up. “It’s not like I had anything else in my hands that was valuable enough for them, all right? You know how desperate I was back then!”

“And that”, said Dipper quietly, disrupting the brothers’ argument, “is how the conspirators acquired what they needed the most… The blueprints for an interdimensional portal of their own.”

Silence fell in the room.

“Wait”, Stan said slowly, “so they’re in it with this whole…”

“I told you, didn’t I? It’s the conspiracy behind conspiracies. They’re all connected.”

“Okay, fine”, Stan grunted with an angry shrug, “so a bunch of shady rich people got themselves a sci-fi spacehole, big whoop. I brought this smartass back in the end, so it was all worth it, right? There’s no way you can make me regret that.”

“Stanley, did you not hear what Dipper and Pacifica have been saying this whole time? The entire world as we know it is facing a threat the likes of which it’s never seen before. Mind control is unnerving enough between individuals, but were it to happen on a global scale, in the hands of a selected few… The mere thought of it is beyond anything –”

“But we can stop it”, Dipper stated firmly and stood up, effectively cutting Ford off. “We will stop it. We… Pacifica and I… have a plan.”

“That we do. We’ve been polishing it the whole year”, confirmed Pacifica, giving Dipper a glance that was both warm and confident, “and by now, it’s nearly flawless. We’ve factored in every piece of intel we’ve managed to gather, and with a little bit of help from Dipper’s new, uh, cosmic friend, we’ve even been able to rule out most irregularities and anomalies that might get in our way. I really couldn’t be more sure about this. It’s going to work.”

“Big Frilly ruling out anomalies? Boy, I got a bad feeling about this”, Bill muttered so quietly only Ford could hear it. Their eyes met for a fleeting second, and Ford couldn’t deny sharing the demon’s foreboding premonition… assuming it was similar to his.

“In order for our plan to succeed, we’re gonna need your help”, said Dipper. It wasn’t a plea, or even a suggestion; this was a kind of confidence Ford had never seen in his apprentice before. “I’m gonna cut to the chase and go through our plan of action now. Everyone has a role in this, so listen carefully.”

“So hey”, Soos started cautiously, “I loved going on all kinds of fun-filled, potentially deadly adventures with you kids some years back, but these days, y’know, being a family dude and all…“

“Don’t worry, Soos, you and Melody can do your part from home. And I’m sure you’re going to love it. All right, here’s how it’s all gonna play out.”

“Our mission has three objectives: finding the leak between the Mindscape and the Nightmare Realm, shutting down the portal and destroying its blueprints so it can’t be rebuilt, and dismantling the conspiracy by using their own weapons against them.”

“We also have three different destinations. First, we break into the research institute in India, this one right here…” He pointed at a large world map pinned to the wall behind him, then at a layout of a three-story building he’d spread on the table, “…where we’re supposed to steal the original blueprints and hack into the database of every person linked to the conspiracy. That’ll grant us access to a radio tower in Antarctica, which is the key to dismantling Smith’s web of connections once and for all. After that, all that’s left is shutting down the portal, and a quick visit to the Nightmare Realm to make sure the leak hasn’t been tampered with.”

“And how will we travel to all these faraway destinations?” asked Ford. He had a feeling he already knew what the answer would be, and he wasn’t too happy about it; but there was no point in being discouraged before he’d heard every detail of Dipper’s plan.

“We’re going to have Bill teleport us wherever we need to go”, Dipper replied matter-of-factly. “It’s our only option, really.”

“But Dipper –“ But the researcher was strictly hushed by Pacifica, and Dipper had already turned his eyes back to the table.

“We don’t know the location of the portal yet, but we’ll find out soon enough. All we know at the moment is that it’s hidden somewhere deep in the ocean in an underwater cave. Now, remember that set of blueprints I found from the bunker that was a little different from the portal Great uncle Ford built? This one right here. I struggled to make sense of it for months, but the technical quirks didn’t seem to add up. Then one day, Pacifica had a stroke of genius: maybe, she said, our way of looking at it was just too… two-dimensional.” From underneath the sheet of paper, he drew out two more identical sheets.

“Thanks to the few extra decades of technological advancement, their portal is a step up from ours. It’s built in the shape of an upside-down pyramid for added stability, and its apex is directly linked to the Earth’s electromagnetism. Not only it is an endless power supply, but it looks like they were also planning to use electromagnetic interference to fortify their means of mind control. That means even people who wear tinfoil hats all the time, or have metal plates installed in their heads, won’t be safe from their villainous plan.”

Ford gulped.

“The only people safe are their own. That’s thanks to a microchip planted in every associate that’s ever had access to information that’s even distantly linked to the portal. Right, Grunkle Stan?” Everyone looked at Stan, who tapped the space between two of his knuckles rather nonchalantly.

“Yep, it’s there all right. Got mine along with the plutonium shipment.”

“Each microchip is linked to an old radio tower in Antarctica. The tower is built on several metric tons of permafrost and icecap that separates it from the electromagnetic flow, and it serves as the loophole that keeps them safe from their own plan… But it’s also the loophole that enables ours.”

He turned to the Ramirez family. “Soos, remember how Wendy and the others used McGucket’s giant robots to defend Gravity Falls last summer?”

“You know it, dog!” Soos enthused, grinning with excitement at the memory.

“I bet you were bummed out because you never got to steer one yourself.”

Soos made a sad face. “You know it, dog.”

“Well, what if I told you this is your chance to steer a robot that McGucket has built just for this mission?”

Soos’ eyes widened. “Wait. For real, dude?”

“Yeah, for real. Though it’s a smaller one, remote-controlled, and needs two people to steer it in unison. Melody, are you in?”

“Wait”, Melody’s eyes widened, “for real, dude?”

“Yeah, yeah, for real”, Dipper smiled. “This is dead-serious business, but I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda jealous for the robot. I’d call dibs on it any day if I wasn’t needed in person during the operation.”

“Leave the robot to us!” Soos announced firmly. “We shall call it the Moose-Bot. Right, honey?”

“I got to have my way with naming our son”, Melody shrugged, “so the robot is all yours.”

“The robot – sorry, the Moose-Bot – has a built-in component that resembles the upgraded memory gun McGucket threatened Great uncle Ford with last summer. Your mission is to seize control of the radio tower, and plug this feature into the internal safeguard transmission device that’s linked to the microchips. Using the member database we should’ve acquired from the research institute by then, we can meddle with the memories of every single conspirator. We’ll only snatch some specific details and do a little scrambling where it matters, so the web of interpersonal connections falls apart.”

“Now hang on just a sec”, Stan put in. “I might not have jack to do with those people, but this thing in my hand puts me in the line of fire as well, right? I’m not exactly on good terms with this whole memory gun business.”

“You’ll forget some minor details from the years you spent on the portal”, Dipper admitted, “and lose your connection to the conspiracy, but that’s just a good thing, right? It’s a very small but necessary sacrifice. And you don’t have to worry about side effects – McGucket promised it won’t cause permanent damage to the targeted minds. It’s a pretty humane solution, actually, compared to what the rest of those guys have done, let alone what they’re planning to do.”

Stan looked less alarmed, though still not particularly happy. “Yeah, okay. Sounds like I don’t have much of a choice. And what’s another lost memory or two, when they’re all eventually going down the drain, anyway?”

“You won’t even notice they’re gone”, Dipper assured. “That’s the biggest improvement McGucket has made to his invention. The blind spots in your memory no longer cause disorientation or unease, because the gun doesn’t erase large chunks of your identity like it used to.”

“Well, all right then. I trust ya, kiddo.”

“You can trust us, too, Mr. Pines”, Soos promised. “The Moose-Bot will do you no harm.”

“Also, before you guys grow too attached to the robot”, Pacifica put in cautiously, “you should know that once the memory manipulation is complete, it has to self-destruct. That’s the only way to make sure the conspirators won’t regain their memories and try to reassemble.”

Soos gasped. “Oh no. My baby!”

“Don’t worry”, Melody said comfortingly. “What’s one baby when the fate of humanity is at stake? We’ll just ask McGucket to make us another one. Okay?”

“That, or… we make another one ourselves.”

“What, you mean an actual baby? Sure, that’s another option. But we’re still not naming it Moose.”

“Well, obviously, since that’s the name of our robot baby. How about… Moose the Second?”

“This sounds like a discussion for another day”, Melody put a lid on it with a slant smile.

“Thanks, Melody”, Dipper nodded as he took back the figurative stage. “All right then, back to business… After the conspiracy is taken care of, all that’s left is the portal. As for its whereabouts… Mabel?”

“I’m on it”, his twin nodded tenaciously and turned to face the others. “I told you, didn’t I? I keep in touch with everyone, and I mean everyone”, she reminded. “This underwater business calls for a man – well, half man, half fish, really – that both Dipper and I have shared a tender moment with.”

Pacifica made a face. “Ew.”

“I’m talking about Mermando, of course”, Mabel grinned. “I sent him a bottled message asking him if he knows any caves with weird stuff happening around them, like messed up gravity or water currents. He told me in his reply that he knows the exact kind of cave I described, and promised to get back to me soon with its coordinates.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “In fact, his next bottle should be here any moment now. I’ll go check!”

“Mabel, I’m not finished – a-nd she’s gone“, Dipper settled for noting as his sister’s footsteps disappeared into the staircase. He seemed to quickly decide there was no time for frustration. “I was gonna show you all this before she leaves, because she can’t help screaming her lungs out whenever she sees it. Oh well, just prepare your ears for when she gets back.”

He walked to what looked like a human-sized tank in the corner of the room and pulled off the sheet covering it, earning a series of gasps from his audience.

“Dipper, isn’t that… you?”

“No”, said Ford, who was the first to realize the true identity of the frozen figure of his nephew, only six years younger and wearing an expression of unimaginable terror. “That’s… the Shapeshifter. How did you…”

“Well, it did take us some serious engineering to move it from the secret bunker room to here”, said Dipper. “I wasn’t one hundred percent sure how I was gonna convince it to work with us, but now that Bill is here, that problem is solved. He can just make a fake deal with it, you know, make something up that’ll lead it to believe we’re on the same side, promise it whatever it wants, that sort of thing.” He glanced at Bill. “I’m sure a master manipulator like him can figure something out.”

This time, Ford was sure Bill would flat-out refuse to take orders, ask Dipper how he was planning to pay for his cooperation, or at least roll his eye in disbelief; but the triangle demon’s expression remained attentive, if only mildly amused.

“The Shapeshifter”, Dipper continued as if he’d said nothing out of the ordinary, “has a key role in our plan. Once we’ve broken into the membership database of the conspiracy, it’ll be able to wear the face of whoever we need it to be in order to gain access to our next goal or destination. Its shapeshifting powers are also necessary for us to get into the research institute in the first place.”

“How so?”

“The first floor of the institute has regular human guards, so getting through is just a matter of proper distractions and sneaking around. The security on the second floor, however, is fully automatized and based on a facial recognition program, so it gets a little more complicated from there on. The answer to our problems is Grunkle Stan, who happens to be a member himself. With Great uncle Ford and the Shapeshifter counted in, we’ll have three people with a face the system can identify as trustworthy. This way we can move in three separate teams, at least one of which will reach the technical center before the system catches on to us.”

“I’ll hack into the database, and it’ll be smooth sailing from there. With the Shapeshifter wearing the face of John Smith himself, we’ll steal the original copy of the blueprints from the third floor, and our work in India is done. While the Moose-Bot completes its mission in Antarctica, we’ll head to wherever the portal is.”

“Great uncle Ford can no longer leave this dimension, so he’ll have to remain in the cave with Grunkle Stan. Pacifica, Mabel, Bill and I will enter the portal to see what part of the Nightmare Realm it’s connected to, and figure out what to do with the leak. If it can be fixed, our best shot is Batch Three – a mixture of Mabel Juice and alien adhesive so powerful that it was enough to silence Mabel for a full day. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Our grunkles will get everything ready in the meantime, and once we return from the other side, the portal will be shut down and taken apart. And that… is our plan in its entirety.”

“Well, almost”, Pacifica added. “The last bit of intel is on its way, but other than that, all that’s left for us to do is figuring out the perfect strategy that’ll get us through the various security measures in India.”

“And not only one strategy, but several”, Dipper joined in, “so we’ll have a few safety nets to fall back on in the extremely unlikely case that something goes wrong. We have everything we need to go through with this. We just need to figure out how.”

“We’re on it, dudes”, Soos said firmly and clenched his fist.

“The first thing we need to figure out is our inventory. As long as it’s something we can carry along with us, anything goes – whatever helps us distract the guards, hamper with the security, move quickly from one place to another, or attack if needed, literally anything you can think of and realistically get your hands on.”

“Next we need to go over all the things that we have to take into consideration. For instance, Dipper said we’ll divide into three teams, right? Each team can’t have more than four people in it, because the security will go off if it detects five people in the same room. Also, a team must always have either Stan, Ford, or the Shapeshifter with them. We can switch between team members by using Bill’s teleportation powers while carefully keeping track of the number of people in each team so it won’t go over four. What else… Oh, yeah. The Shapeshifter must always be in the presence of someone who’s armed with an appropriate weapon in case it tries anything. Also, Bill has to be teamed up with either Ford or Dipper at all times, since they’re the only ones who can control him in the worst case scenario.” Pacifica looked at Dipper. “That’s it, I think?”

“Yeah, that’s all you need to know. It’s quite a lot, actually, but it’s just a question of puzzling out the pieces in just the right order.”

“So in other words, it’s just another of your nerdy little games, right?”

Bill’s unexpected input drew everyone’s attention to him.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Pacifica asked with a frown.

“Well, you see – how was it again, Fordsy? Cooking up a scenario, putting yourselves in it, and coming up with a plan of action according to a bunch of rules you’ve all agreed on. That’s roleplay for ya, kids!”

Pacifica turned to Dipper, who shrugged. “Well, it’s not like he’s wrong”, he said. “Technically, we could think of it as a loosely defined game of Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons. Might even help us visualize what all we need to prepare for.”

Bill shone with delight. “That’s the spirit! Maybe we don’t need dice or spell charts this time around, but it’s a game of ‘what if’ peppered with a pinch of a good old logic puzzle all the same!” With a smirk, he floated down right between Dipper and Pacifica and wound his arms around their shoulders; both drew away instantly with a profoundly disturbed look on their faces. “So whadya say, folks? Ready to get crackin’?”

The game, as Bill had chosen to call it, continued for hours. Just as Dipper stood up and, after skimming through all the different strategic designs and drafts the table was covered with and nodding in satisfaction, decided to call it a wrap, his twin sister came running down the basement stairs.

“AAAHHH!” Just as Dipper had predicted, she let out a blood-curling scream the second she spotted the Shapeshifter stuck in Dipper’s young form. Then she shrugged. “All right, got that out of my system. Time to get super serious.”

She made a rigorous salute as she approached his brother. “Agent Mabel reporting to General Dipper. Informant Mermando sends his regards”, she announced and handed the bottle over. “Or at least I think he does. I didn’t have time to actually read his letter yet.”

Dipper accepted the bottle and, to Mabel’s great delight, saluted back. For a moment, the room was silent while he read through the lengthy letter inside.

“Just as I thought”, he muttered with a squint. Keeping his eyes on the letter, he walked to point at the map on the wall.

“The underwater cave where the portal is built is located… right…” His index finger sought the right latitude and longitude with ease as if he already knew where to go. “…here.”

Melody leant forward to take a closer look at the marked coordinates. “Isn’t that right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle?”

“Yep”, nodded Dipper. “And that’s where we’re headed.”                        

The others exchanged unnerved glances.

“Well”, Stan said after a while, “I’m in for an early grave anyway, so I might as well go missing in the world’s biggest graveyard for ships and their captains. Who knows, maybe we end up where the Stan-o-War II is after we get brainwashed or killed by the conspiracy high-ups.”

“Nobody’s getting brainwashed or killed”, Pacifica swished off his grim visions. “We have everything under control.”

“Also, ‘sail-metery’ was right there, dude”, Soos pointed out, shaking his head as if in grave disappointment.

“All right”, Dipper said, his voice slightly raised to regain his sense of authority, “now that we’ve obtained the last missing piece of the puzzle… This is it, guys. It’s all here. And I want all of you to take your time and internalize every detail we’ve gone through. Thanks to our brainstorming just now, the plan has some leeway for blunders and misunderstandings, but I really can’t stretch enough how important it is that we all work in sync.” He looked around him. “Any questions?”

There was a moment of silence. “Well, what do I know”, Melody said then. “I feel like this is one of those things where you have to trust the people in charge. If you two say we’re ready, we’re ready. That’s just how it is.”

But Dipper’s eyes had stopped at someone who had remained silent for a longer while. “Great uncle Ford?” he asked. “Is there something you want to say?”

Ford clenched his fists. He didn’t want to say anything out of respect for his nephew, but… “Well, I… do have some concerns.”

“Then let’s hear them.”

Dipper’s tone of voice left Ford no more room for evasiveness. “Is it not obvious?” he asked weakly. “You call this plan perfect, and yet so much of its alleged infallibility rests upon someone who is more than likely to meddle with it at the first chance.”

“You mean Bill.”

“That’s right. How can you expect him to cooperate and play by your rules, when he’s inclined by his very nature to do the opposite?”

Bill cut him off with a burst of nasal laughter. “Well, tough break, Sixer, ‘cause that’s where you’re off! The moment you say I’m inclined to do anything is the moment I slice up your know-it-all expectations and make myself a sandwich. Count me in, kid! There’s nothing in the prospect of mass mind control for me, anyway – the whole thing sounds like something that’d take Big Frilly’s fancy, so why’s she trying to throw a spanner in their works instead of, I dunno, hijacking the works as usual? Beats me, but that’s none of my business! Besides, I'm having a whale of a time just imagining everything that could go wrong with this so-called plan of yours! I'll be damned if I'm not there to witness the debacle with my own eye!”

“And there you have it”, said Dipper. “The Axolotl taught me something about Bill… There’s no point for me to live in fear of what he might or might not do. And it’s not worth a shot trying to negotiate with him, either, because that’s his home field where he always comes out on top. So instead I just tell him what to do, and then let him do whatever he wants. No ifs, no buts, no expectations… Turns out we get along just fine, as long as we don’t waste our time trying to communicate with each other.”

“Amen to that”, Bill agreed haughtily.

And at this incomprehensible truce between the two, Ford finally lost his temper.

“Dipper, that’s insane!” he nearly shouted. “If your plan fails, it could put all of our lives on the line! Are you willing to risk that? Please think this through – remember what happened last time you thought you and Bill were working together!”

“So in other words, it’s not Bill you can’t trust.” Dipper’s voice was chilly. “It’s me. Isn’t that right?”

Ford found himself at a loss of words. “I –“

“Yeah, that’s it. Bill isn’t the problem here, because you think you know him well enough to deal with him – that you’re the only one who can deal with him. I’m the problem. You can’t trust me.”

“That… That isn’t true”, Ford tried; but he knew the boy was right.

“You let Bill into our lives. You let him spend his days in the same house with us. You let him take us to the Multiverse, and you let him decide the fate of Gravity Falls in the face of last summer’s crisis. And it all ended well, right? As long as you were in charge of him, he can be rendered harmless, right? Judging from all that, you shouldn’t have any issues with leaving us in Bill’s hands. Unless, of course…”

Their eyes met, and Ford couldn’t find the assurance he so desperately needed.

“Unless the real reason for your distress”, Dipper said slowly, his words as foreboding as the look on his face, “is the thought of leaving Bill in mine.”

[panharmonium]

I'm curious if you have any headcanon/any fic plans or just ideas about how Hunith learnt Will knew about Merlin's magic. Sorry if you already talked about it and has slipped out of my attention!

Oh my gosh, any message that asks me about Will or Hunith or Ealdor in any fashion makes me so happy; thank you!  

I'll avoid drawing up an outline for an exact scenario, only because I am always writing more fic about Merlin’s pre-Camelot life and if I end up deciding to actually do this in a fic I’ll be mad at myself for already typing it all out in meta XD  I will, however, talk about some general thoughts, because I do have solid opinions about certain aspects of this whole thing (all my own, obviously; folks are free to imagine this in different ways - these are just my own personal inferences from the canon we’re given).

Putting this under a cut because it got long - you always write me such detailed notes that I wanted to be thorough! <3

So!  Here are some of my thoughts about how Hunith learnt that Will knew about Merlin’s magic.

i. it was not careless.  

In my opinion, Will and Merlin, by the age where we meet them in canon, are not out there goofing around with Merlin’s magic in risky ways.  It doesn’t make sense for Merlin, who is old enough to understand the dangers to his own life and who is also desperately committed to making sure his mother never finds out that Will is in the know (because Merlin knows it won’t go well), and it definitely doesn’t make sense for Will, who, despite his fanon reputation for mischief, is...not actually shown to be like that in canon.

I talked before in my big meta dump about Will that I very much do not read the “he’s always been a troublemaker” line to be indicative of the “pranks and shenanigans” theme that I tend to see in a lot of fic.  The “troublemaker” line, in context, is not referring to Will causing mischief; it’s about Will’s inability to shut his mouth and stop stirring the pot, in the sense of him yelling about stuff that nobody else wants to think about; it’s about him not being able to put his head down and go with the flow.  It’s immediately followed by the line “they’re used to ignoring him,” and what we’re being told here is that Will is the cousin who can’t stop himself from getting political at the holiday dinner table even when the rest of the family is begging him to let them have one single meal in peace.  He cannot let things go, and the rest of his neighbors are completely sick of it (see: Hunith’s ZERO patience with Will when he challenges Arthur in front of the community).

Canon Will, in contrast to some fanon interpretations, is actually a very intense, guarded person?  He’s suspicious and pragmatic and risk-averse.  And I just think it’s important to remember that Will, in his current situation, does not have a lot of time to be messing around.  He was orphaned and left to run a whole homestead as a child.  That’s like...he’s doing the work of an entire family.  Life in Ealdor already leaves little room to slack off, and Will is completely overburdened - somebody in his situation would be desperately busy, almost all of the time, and always on the verge of a potential disaster, if he fell behind on anything.  

So I just don’t read him as someone who is out doing silly things with Merlin in a way that got them discovered by Hunith.  Like - Merlin isn’t careless enough to be goofing off in his own house, for example, and Will isn’t a character who’s daring Merlin to do foolish things for the fun of it.  Merlin is comfortable using his magic around Will, definitely, and we know he’s had at least one mishap in the past (the tree), but at this point in their lives, I don’t see either of them as frivolous or clueless enough to use magic in a way that could get them caught by anyone, or for the purpose of risky/trivial games.

ii. merlin was the one who let it slip

I personally think the lead-up to Hunith discovering Will’s involvement was preceded by two things:

an increase in external stressors (related to the political situation between Camelot and Cenred’s kingdom), making Merlin’s position in Ealdor progressively more precarious/dangerous

Merlin becoming increasingly frustrated, rebellious, and unwilling to hide himself the way his mother wanted him to

The first point is something that I've incorporated into fic, so I think @blueclaw7 is already familiar with it :)  But essentially, when I was collecting info on Ealdor and Cenred's kingdom prior to a previous fic-writing endeavour, there were a few things that led me to wonder just what sort of trouble was brewing in that corner of the world, prior to Merlin's departure:

We know that Cenred makes agreements with slave traders, allowing them to work certain areas of his land without interference (see: Cenred's discussion with Morgause about Jarl in 3.12 - “He's been working our western border for months...We have an understanding.”)  Cenred likely would not allow this unless it benefited him in some way, so I think we can safely assume that he is receiving some sort of kickback from allowing slavers to operate in his kingdom, either in the form of financial compensation or perhaps by having people like Jarl on-call in case Cenred himself needs specific targets rounded up.

We also know that sometime prior to 1.10, Cenred's kingdom and Camelot signed some sort of peace treaty, which according to Uther was “years in the making.”  We're not told how long the two kingdoms had been enemies before that, but my personal interpretation is that they have been at odds for a long time, because the peace treaty doesn’t appear to be very successful - by 2.12, Uther says, “Our treaty with Cenred no longer holds.  We are at war,” despite the fact that we actually haven't even met Cenred in the show yet and he hasn't attacked Camelot or anything (he doesn't agree to do that until Season 3, when Uther is incapacitated and the kingdom is weak).  Uther also later refers to Cenred as Camelot’s “sworn enemy.”  So the treaty just appears to have been a temporary, shaky peace between kingdoms that are frequently in conflict, the terms of which we are not privy to.

We know that Uther “offers a handsome reward for anyone with magic” (2.09, when the bounty hunter shows up with Freya), and we know that normal people will turn others over to bounty hunters for their own benefit (“How did he find you?” / “You can't always trust people.”)

We know that Aredian (the witchfinder) has been operating “in foreign lands” (aka, not Camelot).

So, the question I asked myself was this: why would Cenred and Uther even agree to a peace treaty in the first place, when their kingdoms are clearly constantly at odds with one another?  And looking at the other tidbits of information above, the framework I constructed for myself was that I personally think part of the aforementioned treaty involves Cenred turning people with magic over to Uther - and perhaps allowing Uther's agents over the border to do their own hunting - in exchange for some kind of compensation (probably financial).  We know Cenred is greedy (he's aiming to conquer Camelot even though he is, per his own words, “rich and powerful already”), and we know he canonically has the means to give Uther what he wants (agreements with slave traders working within his borders).  And given that the treaty appears to have been a fairly recent development in 1.10, my personal read is that this treaty was signed sometime before Merlin left Ealdor, and that it prompted an uptick in dangerous activity that frightened Merlin's mother and made her more willing to send him away.  Bounty hunters nabbing people on the road, slave traders being given the freedom to operate without interference, rumors of single agents like the Witchfinder roaming the countryside - all of this would lead to the far more immediate concern of “what happens if somebody in Ealdor thinks Merlin might be magic and decides to make a quick shilling by turning him in????”

I think that is Hunith's biggest concern.  Ealdor is poor.  And Merlin himself says his departure was prompted by not being able to trust the people around him.  When Freya tells him, “you can't always trust people,” he replies, “I know.  That's why I left home.”  And if there were suddenly a higher demand for people with magic, due to Cenred and Uther's arrangement, then there would be more incentive for regular people to look for a way they could turn it to their advantage, especially if they've already been conditioned to see magic as an evil/dangerous thing.  

I think this leads to Hunith being even more cautious, and putting even tighter restrictions on Merlin re: where he can go and when he can be out and who he can go wandering around with, and even on using magic for little things at home where no one can see.  And the problem with this is that Merlin won't tolerate it anymore, not the way he did when he was younger.  Not because he doesn't want to listen to her or because he doesn't understand that she's trying to help him, but because he just can't.  He can't.  It's killing him.  He tells Gaius in 1.01, “if I can't use magic, I might as well die,” and that’s not just him being dramatic; he really feels that way.  He doesn’t just have magic, he is magic.  He can't suppress it that way, without feeling like he's killing himself.

So, to bring us back around to the point of this segment - I think what ends up happening is that Merlin starts pushing back on Hunith’s restrictions, not so he can goof around and do stupid things, but so he can live his life in a way that doesn't make him feel like he's suffocating, so he can just be, without feeling like his entire existence is a crime.  I think the increased pressure drives him more and more frequently to Will, the only person around whom Merlin can exist as a complete person, and I think he becomes increasingly resistant to his mother's directives, and I think his mother gets more and more frustrated with him, because she sees it as him needlessly risking his life, but Merlin is tired of hearing that he can't trust anybody, because he CAN trust somebody; he has somebody to trust right now and he’s had them for ages, and he doesn't think things have to be so dire all the time, if his mother would just see that, but she won't -

And then, when his frustration reaches a boiling point, Merlin accidentally spills the beans.

I don't think Hunith walks in on Merlin doing magic in front of Will, personally.  I think Merlin slips up and tells her, in the course of their increasingly frequent, tense conflicts between “you can't trust ANYBODY/things are too dangerous” and “i CAN trust somebody/i can’t live like this anymore.” 

I think he lets it slip in an argument, as a frustrated justification for “it doesn't have to be like this all the time; things could be better; will's known about it for X years and nothing bad has ever happened to me.”  

And then, of course, it goes very, very badly.

Which brings us to Point #3 -

iii. it was a Disaster.

What I mean by this is that Hunith discovering that Will knew about Merlin’s magic was not a chill situation.  It did not go over well, and it created an interpersonal crisis between the three of them that persists all the way into 1.10.

We’ve already heard canon confirmation of this - “when she found out you knew, she was SO angry” - and it’s obvious that this conflict was never resolved.  I’ve already talked in another post about Hunith’s weird disinterest in/disapproval of Will in favor of Arthur (even after Will’s death!), and Will clearly isn’t feeling very generous with her in 1.10, either - they only interact once, when Hunith snaps at Will to “keep quiet” after he challenges Arthur in front of the village, and after that, they never talk again.  They never go anywhere near each other, in fact.

I know fandom likes to headcanon Hunith as the ultimate mom who is super generous with everyone and would instantly adopt all of Merlin’s friends out of an overabundance of motherly love, but 1.10 tells a very different story about her relationship with Will, and it’s clearly not a completely new issue.  Merlin knew his mother wouldn’t react well to finding out that he’d shared his secret with Will.  It’s why he lied in the first place.  Whatever the relationship between the three of them was before the reveal, Merlin knew that a history of positive interactions wouldn’t make a difference if the truth came out.  His mother would never be okay with Will knowing.

And he was right!  Because Hunith finding out the truth fractures that relationship.  It’s what finally prompts Hunith to send Merlin away.  And that, of course, makes things worse, because a) Will never did anything to deserve that reaction, and b) as I’ve talked about in another post, Merlin disappears without even telling Will he’s leaving.  He just vanishes.  And Will, blindsided, is left in Ealdor with Hunith, who was party to that decision, and he is so...I don’t even know how to describe how full of grief and rage I would be, if I were in his situation.  Merlin was the only good thing in Will’s life. 

I don’t think Will wants to be anywhere near Hunith, after that.  I think he avoids her like the plague.  I think the only reason Will even knows anything about where Merlin is or what he’s doing is because Hunith is careful to chat about it with other people in casual conversation, while Will is within earshot (hence why Will later says, “I hear you’re skivvying for some prince”).  And I think Hunith is probably making a misguided attempt to be kind, by doing that - giving Will a way to stay sort of updated even though they’re not speaking to each other - but I also don’t think her efforts are effective, at all, because the only thing her secondhand updates do for Will is hammer home the fact that Merlin is writing to Hunith instead of him, that Merlin hasn’t directed Hunith to relay Will any message, that Merlin really did just leave without saying goodbye and apparently has no intention of contacting Will again.  And Will doesn’t know why Merlin did that, or what he did to make Merlin not want him anymore, but because Will is who he is, he ends up feeling like Merlin must have never cared about him that much in the first place, and it was just that Will misread the whole relationship; he got his hopes up and let his guard down and believed that somebody cared for him, and he should have known better, because everybody ALWAYS leaves him, and he was stupid to think this time would be different.  And he is so angry at himself, but he is also devastated, and impossibly lonely, because he has nobody in his life, and he has to just sit and simmer in his own pain, because Merlin is gone, and Will would rather crawl over a bed of hot coals than go anywhere near Hunith right now.

And I honestly don’t blame Will for avoiding her.  It’s like...I hate to put this on Hunith, because I do appreciate her in other areas, but there’s just no getting around this: the way she views and deals with Will is markedly different from the way she treats Merlin’s Camelot friends, even though she barely knows them, and despite the fact that she’s perfectly aware that Arthur hates sorcery.  She’s happy to ignore Merlin’s friendship with Will all throughout 1.10, even though that’s the relationship that is in the most desperate need of attention, and instead she chooses to focus on/encourage/praise Merlin’s relationships with people who hate the thing that makes him who he is.  And that is just so...bizarre to me, and I think...I really believe there is a part of Hunith that blames Will for everything that happened, even if it’s subconscious.  Like - I think there’s a part of her that believes that if Will hadn’t found out about the magic, Merlin wouldn’t have been “in danger,” and she wouldn’t have been put in the difficult position of sending Merlin away.  I’m not sure if she truly believed Will was going to sell Merlin to a bounty hunter when he got desperate enough for money (see above re: Will’s situation being a precarious one, survival-wise), or if it was more her fear that Merlin would be too trusting now that one person had accepted him (what if Merlin went and told someone else, because it worked out the first time???  What if he let this thing with Will lull him into a false sense of security?)  But whatever her reasons, she still ends up pushing Will away.  She never treats him with the same kind of solicitous interest that she extends to Merlin’s new companions, and I do think it all comes back to that moment when she found out that he knew.

It’s hardly rational, given what we know about how dedicated Will actually is to protecting Merlin’s secret.  And I don’t think Hunith is like...actively taking it out on him.  But the attitude is still present, as an undercurrent, and I have to be honest about this: the feeling I get from Hunith in 1.10 (and the vibe that I imagine Will was getting from her while Merlin was gone) is that she thinks Merlin is much better off now that he’s moved on from Ealdor, and that leaving Will behind was ultimately best for everyone, and that Will needs to just get over it and understand that he’s not a part of Merlin’s life anymore, so everyone can be happy that Merlin has met such fantastic, fascinating new friends. 

That’s what I hear her saying, when I see the way she completely ignores him while simultaneously loving on the Camelot crew.  That’s what Will hears, too, even if she doesn’t say it out loud.  

And honestly, my heart breaks for him.  He deserved more than that. 

(tangentially, but - I think it bears mentioning, given certain fic trends I have seen, that Merlin himself does not share this viewpoint.  Merlin has never and will never consider his new friends to be a “step up” from Will, and he has never and will never consider Will to be a “past” or less immediate part of his life.  Even after Will is dead, Merlin refuses to tolerate even the barest suggestion of this from anybody - when Arthur tries to say that Will “was a close friend,” Merlin corrects him, saying “He still is.”  Will is just as relevant and meaningful to Merlin in Camelot as he was when Merlin was still at home, and the fact that Hunith doesn’t assign Will as much importance anymore does not in any way correspond to Merlin’s own feelings on the subject.) 

So - the point of all this is just to say that Hunith finding out about Will isn’t an event that ends with all of them coming together and collectively deciding to send Merlin to Camelot while Will and Hunith promise to look after each other while Merlin is away.  Whatever relationship the three of them had before this happened, it’s broken after Hunith learns the truth.  Hunith and Will are completely done with each other, after Merlin leaves.  Merlin and Will are obviously plunged into an incredibly messy situation, thanks to Merlin vanishing without a word.  And even Merlin and his mother have tension - Merlin references the big blow-up to Will in 1.10, but there’s also a moment in episode 1.01, too, that is VERY subtle but also very telling, when Gaius says “your mother asked me to look after you.”  Merlin’s response is just, “Yes,” but the way he delivers it - he looks away, and his mouth tenses up, and there’s this little hesitation and then the tone is almost - rueful, like there’s more he’d like to say but he refrains.  It’s like a “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” vibe.  And the reason for that is because the circumstances under which his mother asked Gaius to look after him were a mess.  Merlin tells us straight-up in 1.10 that he didn’t want to leave home.  The entire thing was a disaster.

iv.  the reason hunith was “so angry” is because will did not find out about merlin's magic by accident

I think I've talked about this briefly before, but here it is in more detail: I am firmly convinced that Merlin told Will about his magic, as opposed to Will finding out accidentally.

It's not something we can actually know in a canon sense, obviously.  And I know the “Will almost has an accident and Merlin uses magic to help him” motif is more common in fic.  But the reason I’m so set on this is because of how Merlin describes Hunith's reaction to finding out that Will knew.  

“When she found out you knew - she was so angry.”  The way Merlin says that - he shakes his head, almost in awe, like it was something almost frightening to behold - the way he puts an emphasis on “so angry” - to me, this has always been an indication that Merlin voluntarily disclosed his magic to Will.  We know enough about Hunith to be familiar with how gentle and calm she is, and how much she loves Merlin, and how kind and understanding she is with him.  I think if she learned that Will had found out about Merlin's magic in an accidental way - ie, in a way Merlin could not have reasonably prevented - then even though she would still have wished that Merlin had told her sooner, she wouldn't have reacted in a way that made Merlin reflect on it like she was scary-angry.  I think she would have understood, if he explained that he'd been forced into a situation to use his magic to help someone or prevent a bad accident from happening.

However - if Merlin had TOLD Will about his magic, voluntarily, when he didn't have to, just because he felt like it, despite all of Hunith's warnings and all of her efforts to keep Merlin safe - that, I think, is something that would have prompted the kind of anger Merlin references.

To Hunith, that would be unconscionably reckless.  After all she's done to keep Merlin alive, after spending every day of her life sick and sleepless with worry - to have Merlin so easily throw her work away like that, in blatant defiance of every cautionary thing she's ever told him - it's a slap in the face.  Plus, Merlin is now in more danger (she thinks) which just amplifies her fear, and thus her fury.

But what she doesn’t understand is that Merlin didn't do it to hurt her.  He didn't do it because he doesn't appreciate how hard she works to keep him safe.  He did it because he had to.  There came a moment, at some point in the past, where he became so lonely and so desperate to be seen that he made a choice, took a risk, and put his life in someone else's hands.

And he was rewarded for that choice!  Merlin never, ever would have made it in Ealdor without Will’s honest companionship.  A Merlin who did not have a single friend to know and love him for those first two decades would have been utterly unrecognizable by the time he arrived in Camelot - if he even survived long enough to get there.

But Hunith doesn't understand the depth of Merlin's desperation.  She thinks that him telling Will was a foolish, uncalled-for risk, when for Merlin it was a lifesaving necessity.  

So, I think that this is part of what makes Hunith react so badly.  And I also think the severity of her reaction (and the ultimate tragic outcome that follows in 1.10) is something that lingers in Merlin’s mind for a long time, because he never willingly discloses his secret to anyone again.  Gaius and Lancelot find out by accident.  Freya, Gilli, and Daegal find out by necessity, because Merlin needs to leverage his magic in one way or another in order to save their lives.  Even Arthur is a forced confession, demanded by desperate circumstances.  

Merlin doesn't choose to reveal himself to those people.  It's something that's pushed onto him.  Will is a singular instance.  Merlin has only voluntarily shared his secret with one person - just because he wanted to, not because he was forced to, just because he trusted them, just because he wanted that connection so badly.  

And it leads to such painful consequences, in the end, that he never does it again.

in conclusion:

So, to summarize, my foundational thoughts on how this went down can basically be boiled down to those four things: it wasn't the result of carelessness, Merlin was the one who let it slip, it was a huge disaster with long-lasting consequences, and part of the reason why it went so badly is because Hunith found out that Merlin had voluntarily told Will about his magic, as opposed to Will finding out accidentally.  

But, as always, those are just my own personal thoughts about it, and I am still 100% happy to read about all sorts of differing envisionings of this scenario - nothing is confirmed in canon, obviously, so for people who imagine this event differently, have at it!  The world can always use a little more of Merlin’s pre-canon life, if you ask me. :D

[josefavomjaaga]

Sir Robert Wilson on Murat and Eugène

Okay, so I said I would read up on Wilson first before reading anything by him – but I had already looked into the second volume of his diaries, and this is just perfect: During the final days of March and April 1814, when the First Empire ended in Upper Italy, he visited both Murat and Eugène and had dinner with them.

Please bear with me, this is going to be lengthy. Plus, I do not know if these diaries were truely private or intended for publication, so I have no clue in how far they were edited later and how trustworthy they are as a source.

We start off in mid-March. Eugène is still holding the Mincio line for Napoleon. Murat has received the ratification of his treaty with Austria but is still on awful terms with Austrian Field Marshal Bellegarde – and with Bentinck [»Lord William«, as Wilson writes], of course.

March 15th – As I am of the species of anecdote collectors, I must note a speech of Beauharnois at Verona, which has made an impression in his favour, although it is not sufficiently towering for a hero's last struggle and would rather suit a sixth than a fifth Henry:

"Pour moi, je suis monté par un escalier si bas que je ne me ferai pas du mal en descendant. Je n'aurai que du chagrin pour ma femme, née et elevée princesse."

In English: "As for me, I have climbed a staircase from so low that I shall not harm myself on the way down. I will only grieve for my wife, born and bred a princess." That was Eugène’s usual attitude. Auguste did the same, in reverse: Of course she never wanted that crown of Italy for herself. But her Eugène (best of husbands™) deserved it so much more than anyone else in Napoleon’s family!

There are many others recorded equally meek; and this humility of spirit, combined with other good qualities and his present martial and military conduct, excites great interest in his favour.[...]

Yesterday, Colonel Cattanelli arrived and brought me advice that Lord William and Murat were at Reggio, contending for and against the British occupation of Tuscany. [...]

March 20th - We have no further advices from Reggio, but are most anxious to know the result of Murat's and Lord William's final conference.

Cattanelli tells me that Murat said to him: "Whereever I am in all the great battles, I have seen General Wilson. He is certainly one of the most distinguished officers, and if it had not been for him, we should in various instances in Russia have got through much better. He has done us infinite harm, but it is a fatality that he should always be opposed to me." He then continued his remarks, observing that I was an enemy to him, his family, the French nation etc. Cattanelli told him that he had heard me extol his military conduct, which pleased him much.

The fact is that I have not written a line or given an opinion under the influence of personal feeling. I have not shown the smallest prejudice in conversation or official correspondence, although I consider Murat's conduct as very dishonourable with reference to his benefactor. I have always said that the Allies did not give his renegade zeal fair trial, and that our present propositions are inadmissable by a King of Naples having only an armistice with England.

There is a reason, why, personally, I would wish to serve Murat. He now knows it, and will be satisfied that at all events I respect myself too much to wrong him.

March 29th, Bologna. - In consequence of the difficulties which existed and seemed to increase, I was requested by Lord William to negotiate with Murat. Constant to the principle of promoting public utility, I acquiesced, but I felt much personal reluctance. […]

At midday I went with Lord William, and was introduced to Murat. He received me very amicably; and we had more than an hour's very interesting conversation on past military events, particularly those relating to the Russian campaign; and I acquired some valuable information on that subject. Murat's dress was singular. Hair curled in Roman coiffure—two ringlets, or what, à la Parisienne, are styled “pensées”, dependent on each shoulder. Blue uniform coat, red pantaloons, yellow shoes, with spurs; sword, with three pictures in the handle. His countenance martial, his manners soft, his conversation easy and intelligent. I reserve further opinion until I have transacted business with his Majesty.

30th. — I dined with the Duke di Gallo - a handsome entertainment and a well-chosen party. In the evening went to the opera. Murat was seated as a Sultan -- princes and dukes all standing behind his throne-chair. He is by far the best actor that has appeared in the royalty theatre. This morning Lord William is gone to have an interview with the Pope. I am left to negotiate. I find myself much like the Allies in France—without any base for operations, line of communication uncertain, various interests clashing, and no unity of direction. [...]

April 1st. —On the evening of the 29th, at half-past six, I was at the dinner-table with Murat. The banquet was according to all the rules of perfect gastronomy. The master's manners were very gracious. It was impossible for Lord Chesterfield to have done the honours better. A certain high personage in England would, I am sure, ever feel a little jealous of his kingly courtesies. There was somewhat more of ceremony in the arrangement of the table than I ever witnessed before in royal fêtes. Murat occupied one whole side himself. Three persons sat opposite, and two at each end. With the exception of this distinction, there was no extraordinary attention paid to him, and the conversation was as general, fluent, and free as in private society. After dinner was over we remained talking till near eleven o'clock. I fought with his Majesty all the battles over again which we had witnessed together. He was exceedingly interesting, very candid, and by no means a Gascon for himself or his brethren in arms. I profited by this opportunity again to acquire information on various subjects which he was best qualified to give, and which may tend to make a posthumous memorandum of the late campaigns more valuable. […]

3rd. - I, yesterday, had a very long audience of Murat, and received his ultimatum on the subject of Lord William's demands. I begged, however, to have the statement in writing, and Murat promises to give it under his own hand. I think his case a good one. In foro conscientiæ he is justified. He has had much reason to feel mistrust and suspect hostile intentions under the pretext of peace. […]

Wilson actually lists up a whole bunch of reasons why Murat was justified both to mistrust the Allies and to break away from Napoleon, including Napoleon's intended takeover of Naples. So, in comparison with what he wrote on March 20, his opinion of Murat seems to have improved much by the end, on meeting him personally and on hearing his side of the story.

I skip over some stuff: The Allies and a bit later the Italians receive the news of Napoleon's abdication, which leads to a first military convention between Eugène and Bellegarde. Then we get the anti-French riots in Milan as soon as the senate tries to install Eugène as king of Lombardy, Pina gets tortured to death. That’s the point when Eugène quits the game.

25th. —Events have streamed so rapidly that I cannot attempt to note their progress. Yesterday, Marshal Beauharnois agreed to surrender the kingdom of Italy. The insurrection at Milan and the intelligence of Buonaparte's cession of the iron crown, with other circumstances, determined that measure.

I have, in my despatch to Lord Castlereagh, rendered justice to his conduct as an administrator, a general, and a man.

I passed the whole of yesterday evening with Beauharnois and in Mantua, and enjoyed very interesting conversation on all subjects. He treated me with a confidence that very few friends could experience from a person in his situation, and earnestly begged that I would see him again to pursue our discourses. There is unquestionably great satisfaction in a reception which gives proof of previous good repute, and shows the existence of unlimited credit on the heart's stores. [...]

Well, if I may suggest – don’t flatter yourself too much. That has, I fear, a lot to do with Eugène and rather little with you. (And btw, Eugène was not a marshal!)

The dinner was a most agreeable part of the day's entertainment, not only because we did not sit down till 7 o'clock in the evening, which is a great extension beyond 2 o 'clock, but because the society was very select, there not being more than eight, including three ladies appertaining to the Princess whose presence embellished the company. The Princess was herself not visible, having been confined only eight days, but they say she is very handsome. Her children, four of whom I saw, are of the best appearance and manners.

Beauharnois asked much after the Duke and Duchess of Bedford.

And that’s because he kinda knew the duchess pretty well before she became the duchess, during the peace of Amiens, when all the Brits crowded Paris. (There had even been talk about marriage but in the end either First Consul Bonaparte or the Duchess of Gordon decided against it.)

He is altered, but has a great resemblance to Moreau, and is as plain as Murat is gaudy in his dress. He is, in my opinion, just the man to suit some good Englishmen of my acquaintance.

Something makes me think he does not intend this to be a compliment 😉.

27th. — Yesterday, Beauharnois and his Princess arrived here. The preceding day there was much reason to fear that there might be obstacles to his departure, as the Italian generals, etc, were greatly displeased with the second convention which surrendered the capital and the fortresses without any arrangement made for them, according to the express stipulation of the first convention to that effect. I think, however, that Beauharnois does right; especially as Berthier desired him to withdraw, and the people had commenced a senseless and what threatened to be a very sanguinary insurrection, only to be repressed in its first outbreak by the presence of an Austrian force. [...]

The Princess, although only brought to bed twelve days, bore the journey very well; but Assalini tells me that she is very delicate, and that he fears the more for her as her mother died after child-birth. I have just sent her a bottle of Tokay from the cellar of John Sobieski. It was given me when I was in Warsaw, and I have carried it about intact on the presumption that I might one day apply the nectar to a better purpose than the gratification of my own palate. If I have not, as I hope, combined the “ utile dulci,” I have at least combined in this instance the “decorum dulci,” and this is more in character.

28th - Yesterday, Beauharnois showed me a letter from his sister, the Queen of Holland. It was full of anecdote about Buonaparte, the Empresses, etc, and proved that she possessed much good sense and good feeling. One of her remarks was—“Fatality determined that no experience, no counsel, not even the Emperor's own intelligent mind should discover the bandage which it had bound over his eyes. The perception of the heart was wanting, and great geniuses rarely possess it. He has been abandoned almost by all. Rustan (the Mameluke) is even about to quit, and when I saw the Empress Louisa the other day, she had not more than one valet-à-pied in her service. She came to the advanced posts to embrace her father before she followed her husband, but it is now said that she will not be allowed to go after him. It is true that he was not latterly kind to you, but I am sure you will remark only his benefactions at this time.” The tears started in the eyes of Beauharnois as he read.

May 1st. - I dined on the 29th with the Prince Eugène, the Princess and three ladies of her court; no other persons present. A conversation of five hours enabled me to travel over much matter, but without exhausting our subjects. I had every reason to be pleased with the Prince, and to be assured that we did not separate without a mutual wish to meet again. He was very anxious that I should be at Paris when he was there, but as I hate traitors and cowards - however beneficial their treason and baseness — I shall not sojourn in that city. I would rather be Buonaparte, to have written his last bulletin, than any one of the yet prosperous renegades.

So, to sum up: Murat fascinating but hard to assess, Eugène plain boring. No surprises there.

[lightsandlostbells]

wtFOCK season 3, episode 4 reaction

Kiss kiss fall in love? More like kiss kiss stay away from me.

I have to warn you. This is the episode where I lost it. I had to go back and edit so much unhappy capslock out of my notes. 

Episode 4

Clip 1 - Het drama again

Zoë shows Milan a video of the shooting prank. Milan asks about romance on the trip, Robbe says there were too many people and too little privacy.

Senne and Zoë have tension because Zoë is pissed that Senne was partying? And that he was posting pictures of parties on IG when she wasn’t there? I mean … look, I’m never a William fan, but this seems like Zoë’s problem. If you can’t trust him to behave when you’re gone, you SHOULDN’T BE WITH HIM. And if you feel like you can trust him, this dude going to bars or whatever shouldn’t bother you. At least it seems to be portrayed as Zoë’s issues. Milan mentions that she’s jealous. He seems to like Senne, and I do find that dynamic cute so far.

I do appreciate that the Noorhelm drama this time is boring and not like “Senne was mad about how Zoë handled her sexual assault” levels of offensive.

That being said ... Robbe’s story. Where.

If you’ve been telling a very tight story so far, where Robbe’s personal journey has been steadily progressing clip by clip, then a clip like this wouldn’t be that bad. We absolutely have not been watching a tight story. Even with the next clip of Robbe doing some introspection, I’m like ... can we not make every scene count toward his story when there’s so much catching up to do? Ten seconds of Robbe looking vaguely troubled out of a two-minute clip that’s mainly about Zoë and Senne’s relationship does not count. A better writer would find some way to make Zoë/Senne parallel to Robbe/Sander, like how Noora talking about William and “if he loves you, he’ll choose you” in the first clip of episode 4 is relevant to Isak sitting there texting Even and Even choosing his plans with Sonja over Isak.

Clip 2 - Milan and Robbe talk gaydar

Robbe checking out Sander on Britt’s IG … finally, some cyberstalking. Did he take a screenshot of a pic of Sander? Lol.

Milan sits down and asks Robbe his opinion of a guy on Grindr, sexy or not? Robbe is lukewarm, giving neutral answers, Milan says he’s allowed to have an opinion on whether a guy is hot or not.

It feels SO WEIRD to have this clip so late, and I’m trying to like … recalibrate my brain so it’s not just because it’s later than usual. I don’t inherently hate if a remake changes up the order of clips. But the problem is that we’re now FOUR episodes in and it feels like Robbe’s sexuality crisis has just begun, I guess? Or rather, efficient storytelling would start out with this clear view of what Robbe’s issues are, rather than muddling into it a few episodes in.

Milan’s all, this guy says he’s not gay, but he likes to blow guys. This turns into a conversation about Milan’s gaydar and how to know if a guy is gay. In the original scene, the purpose of this conversation with Isak and Eskild was there as a way of Isak figuring out if Even was gay. That ... does not really fit this version, because this clip is so late in the season. Isak was getting Eskild’s wisdom right after meeting Even, when he had nothing but a BJ reference to go on. But Sander eyefucking Robbe while kissing Britt and leaning in to kiss Robbe should be pretty big clues to Robbe that Sander likes men, no? And that he likes Robbe specifically. Yeah, Robbe might be doubtful because Sander is still with Britt, but nothing new has happened since the almost kiss to make Robbe doubt! It would make way more sense if they’d adapted the opening clip of OG season 4, with Even texting Isak that he had plans with Sonja, into the clip prior to this one. If Robbe had texted Sander an invitation to hang out, or even just a “hey, what’s up?” and Sander wrote back “plans with Britt” then it would be an understandable transition for Robbe to have some doubt about Sander’s sexuality in this clip, like hey, maybe he’s not actually into me, after all.

The scene might make sense if you think about Robbe listening and applying Milan’s words to himself. Thinking about how there’s “something trapped in them that desperately wants to come out.” Wondering if it’s obvious to other people that Robbe is gay. It still doesn’t quite work and I actually doubt that was their intention (I think it was all about how to detect if Sander is into guys) but I am searching for any scraps of Robbe introspection, so.

OK, at least they had Robbe immediately look up Grindr (I laughed that he searched “grinder”). Good! Sexuality conflict! Why is it so late! Although it was probably more about trying to find Sander rather than a personal move on Robbe’s part.

This is a very gay song, btw (I Like Boys by Todrick Hall). 

Clip 3 - Robbe and Yasmina talk het drama

Aaron talks to Robbe about sitting close to his teacher to see her boobs and the teacher saying she knows why he’s sitting there. I highly suspect this is just a dream Aaron had, unless the teacher said it in a pissed off way. Throw his ass in the back row, big-breasted teacher!

Robbe meets up with Yasmina. Yasmina wants to know the dirt from the seaside, Robbe fills her in. Soooo are they good friends, or what? He tells her about Aaron and Amber and they laugh and stuff. I mean it’s cute and all but like … where is this coming from? Did they become great friends in the S2 that I didn’t watch?

And that’s the whole clip … again, I ask what was the point? 

To establish that Robbe and Yasmina are friends? Way to undermine the development and importance of that relationship by basically cutting through the buildup and hard work to the payoff. Sana and Isak meant more to people BECAUSE they started off prickly and grew to like each other and respect each other via their actions and words, right? That their conversations were more interesting because of their opposing views and resulting friction? That the friction was extremely relevant to the religion discussion?

Was the point to talk about Aaron/Amber and how Amber supposedly isn’t interested? We don’t need Yasmina’s commentary on that at all since we could see how Amber herself reacted to Aaron. Like if Yasmina was all, yeah, Amber couldn’t stop talking about Aaron, she says she doesn’t like him but I think she does, then I guess I could see the relevance of this conversation since it’s “new” information ... but it’s just the same shit we already know. And again: why spend so much time on a SIDE HET ROMANCE during a gay character’s season? Two of out three clips in this episode so far have been about side het romances!

This clip was just not needed at all except to set up Robbe and Yasmina so the impending religion conversation feels mildly less like two characters who have barely spoken on screen suddenly have an intense and somewhat personal talk. Something they could have done in earlier episodes instead of the other repetitive, unnecessary clips they’ve done this season. 

Clip 4 - Dance chicks

At Noor’s dance performance, Robbe’s pals are drooling over the performers (and honestly being rather inappropriate and distracting). At least they got Robbe’s lack of interest right. Even though they have established this FIFTEEN THOUSAND TIMES with the lack of interest in Noor, like this clip almost doesn’t feel necessary at this point! If they’d had it earlier in the season, sure, but now it feels redundant. Like we really super mega get it by now that Robbe’s not into the girls.

The instructor thanks the performers at the end and Robbe says that he was “so gay.” Hey, except you know what? THERE IS NO BUILDUP TO THIS MOMENT. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NONE. Except for the homophobic jokes from his friends in the previous seasons, but there’s nothing I can recall in this season.  But more importantly, Isak’s similar comment was prompted by him taking the gay test in a preceding clip. Taking a quiz about generalizations of gay people, rooted in homophobia! Which Isak applies to the dance teacher! In order to distance himself from being gay! WE GOT NONE OF THAT HERE. For fuck’s sake.

There is no setup or reason why Robbe goes from being somewhat neutral about gay people with Milan asking him about the Grindr dude two clips ago - where Robbe is just kinda like, yeah OK, whatever, you think everyone’s gay, Milan (but he’s not overly grossed out or homophobic) - to this moment where he’s making a derogatory comment about a person he perceives as flamboyantly gay. This scene just happens because it did in OG. And the thing is, obviously you can attribute Robbe’s reasoning here to internalized homophobia. We know internalized homophobia exists and why he has it. But this is a scripted narrative, and any scripted narrative needs to have things happen for a reason rather than just because.

I remember complaining that Skam Italia had a bizarre take on this scene. But that’s nothing compared to the laziness on display here.  

Jens is like WTF at Robbe’s “so gay” comment, it’s clear he’s not feeling it. I do like that Robbe gets defensive when Jens scoffs at him. They ask Robbe why he’s such a downer lately and if it’s because of his dad, or because of the Vlogs. Robbe blames the vlogs and yells and walks off, they’re confused.

Lol I just realized that I don’t think there was any followup to the prank from the seaside trip that had Robbe all pissed off. Nothing to show that the boys reconciled or that Robbe didn’t get over it right away.

I have a big problem with the way the boy squad is characterized so far, and it might be because they come across as more self-absorbed than other boy squads, as well as having a more superficial bond. I feel like so far they’re a rather cynical take on teenage boyhood. Again, not expecting them to be perfect or to be overly mature, but this show has to do a lot of work to make me believe they have the empathy or maturity to deal with Robbe’s situation kindly. (EDIT from the future: lol)

Clip 5 - Robbe and Yasmina talk religion

Oh shit, somehow I didn’t connect that dots that Aaron mentioning the teacher’s boobs would lead to THE boob teacher making an appearance! Unless there are multiple teachers with notable breasts at this school.

Another scene of Robbe not interested in breasts ... I mean, not to sound like a broken record, but this would have been good about three episodes ago.

The teacher is talking about religion and Darwininsm and creationism, which prompts Robbe to complain about how people still have religious beliefs in 2019.

Heavy fucking sigh. Have we gotten ANY religious moments from Robbe’s mom this season? Or from anyone else? Do the writers realize that Isak grilling Sana about religion was prompted by his OWN MOTHER’S religious beliefs and his fear of her judgment of his sexuality? No? Not surprised.

For real, Robbe just complains about religion out of nowhere … and like, obviously religious homophobia isn’t a rare thing, it exists. But it has not been established why Robbe in particular cares about the effects of religious homophobia, compared to say, the casual homophobia of his friends, or gay stereotypes, or gay bashing … we don’t know why religious homophobia has PERSONAL relevance in Robbe’s life. And yes, this is a concern for every gay person! But from a STORYTELLING perspective, there should be some focus as to what Robbe’s main fears are about being gay. Lack of acceptance from his peers? His family? Religion? Violence? Homophobic slurs?

I would say based on previous seasons, the most compelling basis for Robbe’s internalized homophobia would be the homophobic attitudes of his friend group. A revised take on the dance chicks scene might have been done with this in mind, but it wasn’t, and so it’s all just very muddled. 

Anyway, Robbe goes on this tangent and asks Yasmina why she believes in God. The teacher voices what I thought and is like, why the fuck are you talking in class?

Again, there is NO BUILDUP to the involvement of religion at all. They have this shoehorned in friendship, I guess so he can ask her. He does bring up homosexuality at least, and how religion is so black and white.

Yasmina asks him what he believes. ONE THING they got right: they had Robbe challenge Yasmina on an intellectual level, and so Yasmina challenges him on an intellectual level right back. Because a lot of their dialogue is lifted right from OG, that’s why it works. LMAOOOO. Yasmina points out that homosexuality is an evolutionary “dead end” so therefore it can’t be genetic, so what is it? A disorder? A choice? I will also give some credit for her invoking the most anxiety-causing options to get under Robbe’s skin.

But the tone of their friendship does come across very different, because in the previous scene they seemed like good chums who had a rapport, and here it’s like Robbe lashed out at her for no reason, even less than Isak did with Sana, because Robbe just decided to torch his friendship with Yasmina out of the blue. I guess the answer is that Robbe is cranky so he decided to grill Yasmina over religion, but again, the fucking question is: why was he cranky? Two clips before this one they were on warm, friendly terms. In the last clip, he lashed out at his male friends, but that has nothing to do with religion. What the writers are asking us to do is basically just imagine all the stuff that’s happening in Robbe’s brain instead of doing their jobs and showing it to us. You don’t have to spoon feed us but you don’t also get to stick a few peas on a plate and wonder why we’re going hungry.

(REALLY. IT WAS NOT PROMPTED BY ANYTHING, NOT A TEXT FROM HIS MOM. WHICH IS WHY ISAK WAS UPSET AND LAUNCHED HIS INTERROGATION AT SANA.)

(CAUSE AND EFFECT, MOTHERFUCKER)

Clip 6 - Bowie playlist

Robbe is doing homework when Sander sends him a Bowie playlist. Robbe listens to Space Oddity and has a brief Moment. It’s very nice but wow, wouldn’t it be even better if Robbe fell for Sander listening to that? Say, in the last episode? Before they almost kissed? And before Robbe was suddenly declaring himself a Bowie expert to Noor?

Sander calls him, I like Robbe fixing his hair before he answers. It’s a video chat, gotta look his best! They have an actual conversation about Bowie and they flirt. Sander invites Robbe to the cafe later and Robbe is happy except then Britt is in the background and apparently she’s going with them, so it’s not a date after all, oh no. Robbe’s actor is good at subtly conveying his disappointment here.

Robbe hangs up and sticks his head against the bed (lol) and then goes back to Grindr. He immediately gets messages for horny sex and then gets rid of Grindr. 

At first I was like, yay, this clip had a clear point and a sense of cause-and-effect, but now I’m like ... ehhhhh. Because the purpose of Robbe checking out Grindr is either A) so he can look for Sander or B) so he can check it out as a general way of exploring his sexuality (or both). The suggestion is that it has a lot to do with the former, because it was part of Milan’s advice as to how to find out if someone’s gay. But it’s a little weird here, because Robbe just saw that Britt was coming along to the cafe, so he should be discouraged about Sander. I mean, I think it’s still possible that he’s trying to figure out if Sander likes him because he’s getting mixed signals between the playlist and Britt, but it’s just a little off. And as for option B, I’m not sure why now of all times is the best time for that, like if you think about it, the sting of getting his hopes dashed should be the predominant emotion here, would he go straight to Grindr just to be like hmmm, maybe I’m into dudes?

And it bugs me because there is a super easy fix to this clip! Just have Sander send the Bowie playlist, Robbe listens to it, and as he’s daydreaming and smiling a bit, he gets out his phone and checks out Grindr, ready to search for Sander. But there are too many sex messages so he’s just like WTF and gets rid of it. Then Sander calls and they have this conversation that ends in Robbe being reminded that Britt is still in the picture. (Or he doesn’t need to get the sexy messages at all, I mean they’re kind of funny but I’m not sure they’re plot-necessary here.) 

Noor texts him that they’ll meet up later. It’s not 100% clear but it sounds like she knew about meeting up with Sander and Britt, so that means Britt probably told her previously. Which is a little bit of different context from OG, because I was under the impression that Even asked Isak to hang out with them hoping that they’d be alone, and then somehow Sonja found out and made it into a group thing with Emma, making Even grumpy. With this it seems like it was planned as a group thing from the beginning, Britt knows they’re meeting up later.

Or wait, when Sander says he’ll give Robbe advice at the cafe later, does that mean Robbe already knows they’re meeting up? That would make sense because it’s what happened in OG (Even invited Isak in an earlier clip and then Isak found out Emma and Sonja were coming in a later one). They’re incorporating all kinds of OG elements in this episode so I wouldn’t be surprised. But I assumed that this was the invite because we didn’t see Sander talk to Robbe earlier this week? Shouldn’t we have seen that clip since it’s the first time they’ve interacted since they almost kissed? I checked the texts for this episode and I don’t see anything like Sander inviting Robbe, either? Did I just miss something? What is going on?

Clip 7 - Robbe is late to meet Noor

Later that day …. Robbe rides a bike. Very fast. The music is dramatic! This would not be out of place for an O Helga Natt scene

And yet it’s not OHN, it’s Noor? Noor seems annoyed. Because Robbe is late. OH NO THE TENSION WHATEVER WILL WE DO. WE CARE A TON ABOUT ROBBE AND NOOR.

Noor is super pissed at him and starts screaming and shoving at him. What the actual fuck? She complains that she thought he was dead or something and is mad he didn’t even send a message. She says fuck you and walks off. Robbe follows her on the bike.

I don’t know how popular this opinion is, but Noor did not come across as great here, like when I watched it I was baffled at her response. I say this as someone who is chronically early and also gets annoyed at lateness. She has every right to be annoyed that Robbe is late and that he didn’t message her to tell her he’d be late, and I get that there’s supposedly more to her reaction than just this one incident. But the screaming and especially the shoving at him is just WTF. 

Also, she told him to meet him at 19:00, and the beginning of the clip is at 19:21 (I see what you did there) and Robbe arrives like a minute or two later. So he’s 20 minutes late, which is certainly annoying, especially because it’s dark and chilly outside, but IMO not a cause for “I thought you were dead or in an accident!” and the OTT reaction. 

Clip 8 - Robbe and Noor fight

Sander and Britt are in the cafe, Robbe and Noor argue outside about him giving her mixed signals. Has ... he ...?

OK, I’d say I half-see her case, and I half-don’t. If Noor can somehow sense Robbe’s disinterest during their makeouts or lovey-dovey moments or w/e, then I can buy that. I think there are slight moments where he doesn’t seem into it. But Robbe has put so much more genuine effort into their relationship than Isak did. He hasn’t even turned Noor down for sex, really, they’ve just gotten interrupted every time, or she’s thrown up. He didn’t want to go to her dance performance except then he told her he would go approximately thirty seconds later. He went to her dance performance. He went to the seaside with her and kissed her and slept in the same bed with her. This is the first time he’s actually fucked up with her.

Noor sounds ridiculous right now. “Do you still love me?” Uhhhh what??? You’ve been dating for less than a month, really? Did he tell her he loved her at any point? I’m serious, is there some material I missed? Some nuance in the language that didn’t completely translate?

I get it, I’m watching insecure overdramatic teenagers! I’m just wondering if I’m supposed to be on Noor’s side here. They could have portrayed this less OTT and more fitting to Robbe’s actual offenses.

Anyway Robbe and Noor have a screaming fight in the street and he says he can’t breathe anymore because of her. I can buy that even if it’s dramatic because he’s feeling trapped by her due to his sexuality. She walks off, Sander and Britt come outside. Britt goes after Noor and hugs her, Sander sings Space Oddity to signify the crash and burn of Robbe/Noor. He has on a Pink Floyd shirt so at least his musical taste is more varied than Bowie.

Clip 9 - Robbe and Sander by themselves

Robbe and Sander drink alone at the bar, they don’t think the girls are coming back. Sander texts Britt and then tells Robbe they’re going to do something else. He shows him Britt’s text saying that Noor needs some time alone. I mean. this drastically changes the context of them going off together … it’s not because they want to be together, necessarily (although they do) but it’s by default now.

So they leave.

Yeah, I do not love what they did with this scene. It’s short and to the point but I want to point out a few things.

First, because again, there’s no need to break up most of these clips into such short, choppy scenes just because 15 or 20 minutes have passed in-universe. It might be exciting if you happen to be watching and following at the exact time these are being posted, but it also messed with the flow of the scenes and the build of emotions. Imagine if we cut off after Isak and Even left Emma and Sonja and then 10 minutes later we got them riding around on a bike. We’d missed that beautiful transition from the silent, empty room to Isak on the bike and then Head Over Heels kicking in. That’s one of my favorite moments in season 3 and it’s because of that transition. It’s because I was sitting there watching this uncomfortable scene and wishing Isak and Even could be alone and then they got to be alone and my stomach swooped! If you break up moments like those, there’s just not as much build. (Or imagine - horror of horrors - an O Helga Natt where Isak gets the text from Even and it cuts off after he runs out of the church and then resumes when he arrives at the school, so we don’t see his journey. You lose so much.)

Second, there is a curious lack of romantic/sexual tension in this scene. It’s there on Sander’s end, I think, or at least you can read it there due to his focus on Robbe and even some of his body language. Robbe, on the other hand, seems more upset that his girlfriend who he doesn’t even feel genuine attraction to has walked out on him rather than the fact that he is sitting next to the boy he’s crushing on, alone together, right before they share their first kiss later that evening. And it just makes me want to know why. 

I don’t blame Robbe’s actor at all, because it’s the director’s job to tell him how to play the scene. But I rewatched this scene trying to be generous, and there is not a single shred of attraction or tension from Robbe toward Sander.  He checks the cafe door when it opens, he asks Sander to text Britt, and when Sander suggests they leave, Robbe’s first instinct is to ask what if Noor comes back. He sits there moping into his beer the whole time. He doesn’t sneak looks at Sander. He doesn’t try to talk to Sander about anything except Noor and Britt. No banter, no discussion that’s focused on them, Robbe-and-Sander, you know, the main couple of this season (supposedly). It doesn’t even feel like he’s consciously trying not to look or interact with Sander because of the romantic tension. No, it genuinely feels like Robbe’s #1 thought right now is Noor. Does that make sense to you? It makes sense for him to be a little out of sorts due to the fight, but does it make sense that Robbe seems to have no perceptible reaction to being alone with the guy he likes? Does it make sense that they didn’t take this chance to throw in some romantic and sexual tension in order to pave the way for the kiss that is going to happen very shortly? Gotta say that I think this scene exemplifies my earlier complaints about how Noor was so prevalent early in the season and how Robbe/Noor was built up. Because once again, Robbe/Noor has taken precedence over the undeveloped Robbe/Sander pairing.

Finally, as I said above, the situation makes it so that Robbe and Sander are on their own by default, not by choice. Combined with the bizarre lack of tension, that makes this scene fall totally flat. There’s no sense that these two really really want to be alone together. There’s no joy in them running off together. Robbe actually seems reluctant to go off with Sander. And not even because he’s fearful of what might happen, ooooo things might get a little gayer than I can handle right now, but like he’d rather sit here and drink and think about his girlfriend. 

It’s like they were concerned that Isak and Even were too mean to Emma and Sonja so they decided Robbe and Sander would only be alone because it was the girls’ decision to leave them, not the other way around. We even get that text from Britt so we know that Noor totes isn’t coming back and it’s OK for them to leave. I have no idea what their actual motivation was to construct the scenario this way, though. I would love to know. (The answer would probably annoy me so I’m better off not knowing.)

It’s little stuff like this that makes me want to sit down the writers/directors/whoever’s behind wtFOCK and have them watch scenes from Skam S3 and write an essay on the construction and execution of clips. Do some homework about timing, tension, narrative structure, and everything else that makes S3 work. 

Clip 10 - Smooch time

It’s 21:21 so you know what’s happening. Also, bullshit! Why is this happening so fast. You haven’t earned this!!!!

Sander buys them booze. The Sander actor is very good, honestly. I like his screen presence. It is a testament to his abilities that this relationship is working for me at all, because it sure ain’t the writing. (Robbe’s actor is doing well, too, but the writing is dragging him down since he’s present for all this nonsense.)

This scene of Sander and Robbe drinking and riding bikes is genuinely good on its own and they have strong chemistry when they’re allowed to show it. They have easy banter and interaction, there’s a callback to the booking.com reference from when they met. Really, this part makes me sad, because I can see the potential here! If the writing was GOOD, if the story had a legit direction, if it was just better storytelling all around … this season could have been wonderful, they had the right guys to do Isak and Even’s story justice. Instead it’s like this one terrific moment in a sea of wtFOCK.

If they go in the pool I will roll my eyes. C’mon, guys, you DO NOT HAVE THE SYMBOLISM to do this scene. It had a meaning in Skam, in most of the remakes it’s just an arbitrary location.

Yep, it’s a pool.

Sander takes off all his clothes so he jumps in bare-assed, and Robbe laughs. Sander yells at Robbe to get in the pool so Robbe does a fucking striptease while Sander watches, more or less, and he’s about to get in the pool in his underwear, but Sander is like “all the way or no way” so Robbe takes off his underwear after a brief moment of hesitation and jumps in. So they’re naked in the pool. Cool cool cool.

 Seeeeee, on the one hand this COULD be a moment of liberation, I could see it, taking off the clothes and jumping in as a representation of abandoning the stale hetero life or w/e. But I don’t think wtFOCK has built anything resembling a clear arc for Robbe, to the point where this act means anything, really. (Can you imagine Isak doing this in episode 4? I don’t know if it fits his character at that point, but I could at least be like, OK, this is part of his ~rebirth and I think we’ve built him up enough that this moment of liberation feels like a culmination of something.) I’m also not totally sold on the way they presented this, like we’ve got a closeted gay kid alone with his crush and the crush takes his all his clothes off and then Robbe takes all his clothes off with only the barest reluctance (but he’s not like … distressed or worried, just kinda like “aw, man!”) For some closeted gay kids? Sure, guess I could see it! But in the context of “this kid is struggling with his sexuality and he’s alone with the boy he likes and he’s supposed to be going through Some Shit”? Why doesn’t this have a bigger reaction in Robbe? Since they are drunk and not necessarily overthinking things in the moment, however, I will let this slide. Cynically I think this is mostly about trying to make wtFOCK Sexxxxy. I’m not a prude and I don’t have an objection in theory to a teenage couple skinny dipping together, but wtFOCK has a trend of taking a thing that happened in OG and going “How can we do this but more?” and these remakes know Evak is the big sell in fandom, so. They’re making it spicier. (EDIT from the future: Jumping ahead to later content on wtFOCK ... they very much are trying to make it Sexxxxy.)

Also, these guys just haven’t had a lot of buildup yet! And I can see like … rewriting this scene so the first kiss isn’t necessarily some epic release of a simmering tension and growing love, but more of a tentative, pivotal moment with a gay kid kissing a boy for the first time, and having the relationship grow from there. But wtFOCK isn’t doing that, it’s trying to do the Evak thing with the epic romance, and they haven’t earned it.

They go underwater for the breath-holding contest, Sander tries to kiss Robbe (Robbe’s eyes are pointedly closed so this feels like some unnecessary POV breakage) and Robbe shoves him back. He’s still in a good mood, though. They go back underwater and Robbe kisses Sander. Yay, I guess.

Lol, I don’t actually want to sound like a bitter asshole. The song choice is lovely! The cinematography is pretty good! And like I said, they have nice chemistry. It’s just that the storytelling has been so messy up to this point that I can’t get too invested. The very first clip I saw in real time for Skam season 3 was the pool scene - I had just discovered the show a few days prior, and I kept watching the clips on repeat. I could not get enough of this story. I really really needed those guys to kiss. Yeah, I recognize that at the time the story was brand new and this wasn’t the fourth iteration of the same pool scene and the sixth first kiss for this couple, and you really can’t recreate that feeling of not knowing what comes next in a remake like this. Still, I think that if the writing had just been better, I could have been happy and invested in this moment.

I also think that the pool scene in particularly has a tendency to get written in kind of a rote way in the remakes. Some of them have put their own spin on it - I had plenty of criticisms of Skam France’s S3 but I did enjoy their first kiss and I praised that they made up their own symbolism - but some of them have gotten so close to the original, the exact same banter, the interruption at the end, and it doesn’t feel natural for those versions of the characters. I’m not sure if the remake showrunners think that the original scene is something the fans want to see or if they’re being lazy or if they think the OG is just that good (which it is, lol). I don’t think any remake has been that faithful with their O Helga Natt clips, by comparison. 

Anyway they get caught, yadda yadda.

Clip 11 - Morning after the pool smooch

Robbe gets up and sees Zoë looking at Senne, seemingly hungover, on the couch. She makes coffee to spite him since the coffeemaker is loud.

Zoë asks Robbe about last night and says Noor was at the door. Robbe doesn’t tell her what really happened. Apparently Noor looked like she felt bad. I don’t think I can handle more Robbe/Noor, guys. I appreciate that OG didn’t drag out Isak’s thing with Emma once he kissed Even, but I’m not confident this won’t happen here.

Zoë asks if he’s all right. Man, the most effective relationship this season is probably Zoë and Robbe? Which is fine! But like … boy squad ain’t great, Sander and Robbe aren’t well developed, they fucked up Yasmina and Robbe already, Milan and Robbe are way behind schedule…

What if the reveal were that Sander were in Robbe’s bed?

It’s not. Instead, Sander texts him as a cover of Space Oddity plays. Robbe has angst and blocks Sander on WhatsApp. Ohhhh my. Another thing I appreciated about OG? That Isak was all in after he kissed Even, and that the angst came from different places besides the typical gay coming out storyline of “kissed a boy, regretted it, went back in the closet temporarily.” Not that it’s unrealistic, just that it’s done so much.

I think we’re supposed to take away that Zoë saying Noor was there looking sad made Robbe reconsider what happened with Sander? Or just general internalized homophobia. I don’t think the latter is totally out of Robbe’s characterization based on what we’ve seen so far, although I wish there was clearer writing so it felt more like “Robbe has internalized homophobia that made him block Sander” and less like “????? internalized homophobia I guess.” Again, I’ll letting this slide because I can also rationalize it as him being a little drunk last night, and now that he’s sober he regrets his choice, even if I don’t think this is a great choice at this stage in the season.

Clip 12 - The heaviest of sighs

The subs helpfully gave a trigger warning for homophobic slurs so I knew this was going to be “good.”

Robbe is listening to music as he goes home. Sander comes up to him, smiling, wanting to know why Robbe blocked him. Robbe says to leave him alone, that Sander got him drunk and took advantage of him.

L M A O welp, this would soooo kill this ship for me if I were invested.

FIND SOMEONE ELSE, SANDER, YOU DESERVE BETTER

Oh, so Robbe also shoved him and called him a dirty f****t! What a great romance!

No, really - this is the EXACT THING I was so glad that Evak DID NOT DO. I’m not saying their romance has to be free of flaws, that there can never be fuckups, that Isak can’t ever hurt Even and vice versa. But this is such a common and ugly trope in gay media. 

Robbe goes inside and slams his door, Milan asks what’s wrong, Robbe tells him to leave him alone. We get Milan’s POV and not Robbe’s at the end. 

Anyway lmao. wtFOCK indeed.

Did you enjoy the cuddle scene in Skam, where a same-sex couple got to be tender and sweet and open with each other for almost seven minutes? A clip that felt refreshing and even revolutionary for its normalization of gay intimacy? Hahahaha, fuck you.

Okay, seriously though. It’s not a problem that we didn’t have the cuddle scene immediately after the pool scene. It’s not a problem that they want to change up this storyline and make it their own - though again I would ask the creative powers at wtFOCK why they’re making these particular choices. It’s not a problem if Robbe and Sander’s relationship has some extra bumps along the way to their happy ending.

WHAT EVEN PROMPTED THIS CHANGE IN ROBBE, like I get the answer is “internalized homophobia” but Robbe was BUCK NAKED WITH SANDER IN THE POOL so like. Can we please get SOME context for why he suddenly had a freakout? Can we please get some narrative structure with cause and effect? Can we get a fucking reason that Robbe went from 0 to 100? Because if it was just the blocking Sander on WhatsApp, that’s one thing, but accusing him of sexual assault and calling him slurs is so vastly beyond that. If we’re supposed to take away that Robbe feels bad about Noor, that still doesn’t explain the ugliness of his reaction, rather than just telling Sander that he has a girlfriend and it was a mistake or whatever.

I’m going to add that I understand that Robbe went through some additional homophobic shit from his friends in previous seasons - I remember Moyo saying crappy things to him in S1, and I watched a S2 scene where the same thing happens. So I can understand if  Robbe’s internalized homophobia is very strong. But they’ve also cut out so much stuff in this season that added to Isak’s internalized homophobia (no mom’s religion making him anxious, no gay test, no gay generalizations from Emma...) If they want to rely on internalized homophobia from previous seasons, then we really need a reminder in this season, such as his friends making homophobic jokes, which I do not recall hearing so far. And they need to show what happened between the kiss to provoke such a homophobic reaction.

After Sander said that thing about not knowing if anyone would ever love him … why did they do this? I love me some pain in storytelling but this isn’t just angst, this is needlessly cruel.

There is, believe it or not, a middle ground between “conflictless fluff” and “cruel homophobia and assault allegations” where you can have some tension, even have Robbe have a freakout, without bringing in this kind of material. Robbe could have told Sander to stay away without accusing him of assault or calling him slurs. He could have said he wasn’t gay or that it was a mistake or even “I was drunk” without following it up with “and you took advantage of me.” All of these options might have stung for Sander and for any viewers who were hoping for morning-after cuddles, but they also create conflict without pushing it over the edge into OTT cruelty. 

HOW I WOULD REWRITE THIS EPISODE:

Ahahahaha

So far this season is like a disconnected set of scenes from Skam S3 with bonus filler scenes and unnecessary clips about non-Robbe things. It’s getting hard to think about rewrites because the point, if you will, so often so unclear. It’s also hard because this episode squeezed in so many OG scenes that were missing from earlier in the season that it’s like, well, shouldn’t we have had this a few episodes ago? Should we just leave them out now?

Okay. Start by getting rid of the first clip in this episode that’s mostly about Zoë/Senne, bump up the Milan clip. We start with Robbe looking at pics of Sander on IG, Milan comes in and asks if there was any romance on the trip, then they get into the Grindr talk, etc. The Grindr talk makes more sense before Robbe almost kisses Sander, but like. We can’t do anything about that now. What might be better is if the whole “how do you know if a guy is gay?” thing takes a swerve into not just Robbe trying to figure out Sander, but to something uncomfortably close to Robbe’s own behavior (like IDK, referencing body language and how a guy will lean in closer, like Robbe did with Sander) and then Robbe gets cranky because he’s worried he’s too obviously gay to other people. After Milan leaves, he starts looking up stuff like “how to act straight” or “how not to seem gay” or whatever. That leads us into the next clip...

... the dance chicks scene. Now we’ve seen plenty of Robbe being disinterested in girls already, so this time we’re going to show him trying to be interested in girls instead. Like he’s watching his friends’ annoying horny reactions and he’s clearly trying to imitate them and join in, but we can see that he’s awkward and not totally feeling it. But he’s trying. Then after the performance, Robbe makes the comment about the dance instructor being so gay.

There is a problem, IMO, in that Robbe’s friend group has been shown to be more homophobic than the average boy squad (as seen in S1 and S2). And frankly I don’t really believe yet Jens is the type to shut down a homophobic comment. Like in S2 Moyo and Robbe straight up start calling each other f*gs and Jens is like chill, no one here is a f*g, but if there were, you should date each other. That’s his idea of intervention. So I’m not sure how to handle that. 

I don’t love this idea, because I hate what they’re done with Moyo in particular, making him pointedly more homophobic (to be discussed in a future reaction) but Moyo and Aaron could perhaps laugh at Robbe’s comment and start riffing off it, while Robbe is sitting there pretending to laugh but looking increasingly uncomfortable, and Jens notices something is off with Robbe, and he tells the guys to knock it off, the guy is gay, so what? Big deal. Then aside from the other guys, he asks Robbe if something is wrong, and Robbe snaps at him or attributes it to family problems again. 

I was going to also say that the setting for this clip doesn’t really allow for Sander to swoop in, like Even did to return the snapback, but actually maybe it could? Noor could have invited Britt and Sander to watch the show, right? So maybe when Robbe makes this gay joke and his friends are laughing, Sander comes up while Britt is talking to Noor and is like, hey guys, what’s up? Robbe’s friends are just like, oh nothing, did you see how gay that guy was? Then Sander is like, sorry, what’s the problem with being gay? He tells them off a little. Meanwhile Robbe is standing there awkward as fuck, not looking Sander in the eyes, while Sander is looking at him for backup, but Robbe just makes an excuse to bolt. Maybe he walks past Noor without saying anything, so she looks confused.

Now onto Robbe and Yasmina. Man, I truly hate saying this. But: If you are not going to incorporate other religious themes into this season, then you don’t need to redo the Isak-Sana friendship. Again! I don’t like suggesting this! But what actually is Robbe and Yasmina’s relationship bringing to this season when it’s portrayed like this? 

They left out the weed blackmail, which is really just a plot device in OG, but it’s a plot device that sets up Sana and Isak’s thread. It also gets Isak to kosegruppa to meet Even, something which is irrelevant here.

Sana’s main tie to S3 is Isak’s mom. Isak’s mom is religious, that makes him anxious, and it’s a hurdle to coming out to her. Robbe’s mom is not religious, Robbe’s internalized homophobia doesn’t seem to have anything to do with religion specifically other than this one scene with him and Yasmina. It’s just a disconnected tangent. What’s more, what is Yasmina’s eventual advice going to do for him? Sana’s advice led Isak to come out to his mom.

I really like Yasmina. If there’s another way that her presence is relevant to the themes of this season, by all means let’s find it and include her. As it is, either make it that Robbe’s mom is religious and include the Robbe-Yasmina subplot, or don’t and leave it out. 

I would love to see in-depth and meaningful friendships develop among all the characters in the Skam squads, just because I love all those kids. Jonas and Vilde? Even and girl Chris? Eva and Mahdi? I don’t care how random, let’s have them all! But there is a finite amount of time per season, and we can’t extend time for all possible relationships - just the ones that are most relevant to the story we are trying to tell. 

I mentioned above a fix for the Bowie playlist clip that makes it have a little more sense to me. If you include Sander in the dance chicks clip like I said, you could have Robbe thinking about Sander again and wondering if he’s into men since he called out the boys’ homophobia. That’s how he ends up on Grindr. Then Sander sends him the Bowie playlist, Robbe listens, Sander calls and they talk, Robbe apologizes for bolting out of there the other day. Sander invites him to the cafe later, Robbe’s all :D until he realizes Britt is there and is coming too, then he’s :(

He’s late to meet Noor and Noor is upset, but not like ... screaming and shoving at him. She’s more snippy and passive-aggressive, she walks off. She says she’s upset because he ditched the dance performance without talking to her, and then he’s late to meet her, it seems like he just doesn’t care that much. They have a fight but it’s like a normal fight and not The End of the World. Just tone down Noor’s OTT anger and make it more natural.

I don’t have a preference in this version whether Noor and Britt leave the cafe and Sander and Robbe know they’re not coming back, or whether Noor and Britt just go to get some air and cry it out and Sander is like fuck it, let’s leave. The important thing for me is that Robbe sits there with Sander, painfully aware that they’re alone, and there’s lots of tension and awkwardness and his brain is clearly hyper-focused on the proximity of Sander’s knee to his own. They banter and flirt and then when Sander suggests they leave, Robbe acts like he wants to go.

Don’t do a pool scene for the first kiss. Give a shit, make it your own. Except IMO they have done so little to establish this relationship in terms of larger themes or symbolism that they have nothing to choose from. 

Man, what if THIS episode was about going to the seaside, after they had been talking for several episodes, and they kissed in the sea when they were alone? That would be at least somewhat plausible? A take on the pool scene/underwater kiss that wasn’t the exact same.

You could do something related to graffiti, perhaps? Instead of breaking into a pool, they break into the tagging place or wherever. Or something else related to Sander’s artwork, because I know that this comes up in their version of O Helga Natt.

I’m not wild about adding this blip in Robbe and Sander’s relationship after the kiss, because of how much ground we need to cover the rest of the season (it messes with the pacing yet again) and also just because I like that Skam didn’t do this expected route. However, if they wanted to make Robbe try to shut out Sander again: the strongest case for his internalized homophobia seems to be his friends. So have him meet up with them again the day after kissing Sander. His friends bring up Sander and how weird he was at the dance performance about the gay instructor, like it’s just a joke! He took their comments way too seriously! Is Sander gay or something? And maybe Robbe tries to defend Sander - no, he’s a cool guy, really - and then his friends are like, pffft, what, do you have a crush on him? Robbe denies and everybody chills out, but Robbe seems troubled. Maybe this is when Jens finally gets a fucking clue and realizes something’s up with Robbe, and in the future there’s a scene where he shuts down gay jokes. For now, though, we do see how Robbe would feel compelled to go back in the closet. Sander texts him and Robbe blocks him.

Now we come to the worst part. So. Take out Robbe calling Sander a sexual predator and a homophobic slur and pushing him, that’s for sure. If he must reject Sander, do it in another way. “I’m not gay.” “I was drunk.” “It was a mistake.” “I have a girlfriend.” It’s not actually hard to do this clip without adding this ugly taint to their relationship.

Since I’m trying to think of rewrites without just copying Skam, here is a radical change on how to include a post-kiss freakout from Robbe earlier on so the pacing isn’t as odd. In previous recaps, I suggested Sander should be introduced earlier as a mysterious stranger that Robbe is trying to find. Well, maybe we can rework that. Robbe and the mysterious stranger share a kiss in episode 1. They’re hiding from the police or security or something after getting busted at a party or while tagging or w/e, and they’re both a little drunk and high on adrenaline, they’re smiling and laughing because they actually got away, and it just ... happens. The mysterious stranger can initiate it, but Robbe tentatively reciprocates before running away. Robbe freaks out and it’s after this that he starts heavily pursuing Noor. Because, you see, he’s not gay, he was just drunk, and it was all that other guy’s fault. But at least he doesn’t have to see that random guy again, right? No one will ever know. Just like no one will ever know if late at night when he can’t sleep, he does a Google search to see if he’s gay if he liked kissing a boy or if he can’t get it up with his girlfriend. Or if he goes on Grindr to see if he can find the mystery dude. It’s a bust and Robbe gives up and settles into dating Noor. Except in episode 2, OH SHIT, he’s introduced to Sander again via Noor, and it’s awkward and fuck, Sander has a girlfriend. Well, that’s good, right? Totally not a bummer. Anyway, Robbe tries to avoid Sander or tiptoe around him but they end up spending time together because they’re stuck at the seaside under the same roof. Maybe they directly address the issue by Robbe saying he’s not gay and Sander being like “me neither” (which technically is not a lie, lmao) and brushing it off as a mistake, or maybe they both pretend that it never happened. Maybe Robbe is more aggressive about it at first and Sander is like, whoa dude, chill out, I’m not going to tell anyone. Still, they get to know each other, there’s heaps of sexual/romantic tension, and in episode 4 (or 5 or whenever) they kiss again and it’s Epic.

This arc is definitely not the same as Isak’s or Evak’s and I absolutely won’t claim that it’s in the same league as what Julie Andem did, but I can see a narrative arc like this making some sense. Better than trying to do Isak’s arc half-assed.

It occurs to me just like … how little we know about any of these characters in terms of subtext or something? No hints about Sander’s background, really? Let’s get some clues in there.

I think something I miss about Skam was how kind it was. How all the characters were at heart, good people capable of the most generous love and empathy. And maybe we’ll get there with these characters in the end, but overall, so many of these people just don’t feel like that! There’s so much more ugliness and cruelty involved in this story, and it doesn’t feel like it’s done with good intentions, like to show the audience how to handle these situations and to heal. 

There’s this weird attitude of defense where cruelty, tragedy, and negative events are defended in the name of realism and there’s a backlash to the backlash, acting like the critics just want fluffy plotless hand-holding and cuddling, a conflict-free season, or a story where no one makes mistakes. And it’s like people forget that in Skam season 3, the story was FULL of angst! We know Evak get their happy ending but like … from episode 1 all through O Helga Natt, the story is packed with conflict. People hurt each other. Even in episode 10, not everything is perfect. It is very possible to do angst and conflict without this ugliness. Like … I have to assume people weren’t here for episodes 5 and 6 of Skam S3, or for the hotel scene, or episode 9 up to OHN, because I can assure you, there was no lack of angst. There was just a lack of shock value gratuitousness.

As always, let me know if I missed something due to cultural or linguistic context.