#i can tell you put in a lot of thought into this character

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 12: The One Where We Start Laying the Yellow Brick Road to Italy

I realized the other day that, even though I like to bounce around from place to place in the Lukola timeline, I probably needed to start tightening things up on the ship if I ever wanted to get to the end of the story. And, yes, dammit, this story better have a finale at some point because there’s nothing more annoying than an open-ended ending, particularly in the romance genre.

Today we’re going to take a quick jaunt over to Italy because –

NO! Not because Luke is allegedly filming there. If you’re into real-time stalking, you’re in the wrong blog. But, I’m sure there’s a Discord for that.

It’s because I’ve had several people ask for my opinion about the change in behavior between Luke and Nicola during their Day 1 interviews there. Wait – people are interested in my thoughts? Wow, that’s actually kind of nice. Thank you! Okay, back to what I was saying –

Was there a change in behavior when Luke and Nicola reached Italy? Yeah, actually, there kind of was.

By May 9, we had been gifted with a slew of material from Luke, Nicola, and the Bridgerton cast and, I must admit, those early interviews are some of the most entertaining of the tour. In the very beginning, Nicola appeared as the utmost professional – charming, intelligent, and witty at the right moments – and Luke played her likeable counterpart to “Book Colin” perfection – bouncing between being awkwardly boyish and wickedly roguish, all while looking at Nicola like she had just served him homemade peanut butter crumble.

The two of them together, playing off each other, in my opinion, was better than Bridgerton Season 3 (you cannot beat the World Tour being 99% Luke and Nicola, with only a few random side characters taking up screentime). There was some major “Electric Love” radiating from those two throughout the tour, but it seemed very much heightened in the beginning (probably because they hadn’t yet answered the same question 67 times). By the way, if you haven’t heard that song by Børns, go have a listen. It will, at the very least – hopefully – put you in an upbeat mood for the day.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes – was there a change in behavior between Luke and Nicola when they reached Italy?

Absolutely.

Do I know why?

Absolutely not.

Perhaps Luke was bent because someone spilled his coffee, or Nicola was upset because her stylist made her to wear that little silver bow in her hair. In my opinion, the most intriguing part of Day 1 of the Italy press junket was that Luke and Nicola struggled with answering the question, “What is love?” I swear they both babbled on like two kids in debate class who hadn’t bothered to read the material given to them before taking their respective podiums. They finally seemed to settle on Luke’s “Maybe it’s, like, connection.” Well, they seemed to be missing the “connection” that day.

Honestly, no one can explain their “don’t stand so close to me” vibe during those first day interviews except Luke and Nicola. But, we can at least have some fun and speculate about it with a bird’s eye view. At this point, you should know that I love spreading the puzzle pieces out and seeing how they might all connect. Most people – when putting a puzzle together – start with the side pieces, right? You’ll get my joke in a moment (I hope).

In March 2024 – I don’t know the specific date because my timeline is rather murky going back that far (I was unaware Lukola even existed!) – Luke traveled to Los Angeles for a photo spread with InStyle magazine. I’ve heard two versions of this story. The first being that Luke traveled to Los Angeles with Antonia alone; the second being that he traveled to Los Angeles with his friend group, which included Antonia. I couldn’t tell you which is true, and it really doesn’t matter because it doesn’t necessarily add or take away from today’s story.

Before I get started, I wanted to give a “hurrah” to The-One-Whose-Group-Chat-Fills-in-Lots-of-Missing-Bits-for-Me-Including-the-Part-Where-Video-Footage-of-Antonia-in-Los-Angeles-Seemed-to-Indicate-a-Celebrity-Was-Not-the-Videographer-and-There-Were-So-Many-British-Accents-in-the-Background-One-Would-Fancy-a-Guess-She-was-Traveling-with-a-Group.

Moving along…

On April 7, 2024, Antonia posted a series of photographs and clips to her Instagram grid indicating she had been in Los Angeles, including one where she was laying on a blanket in front of the Griffith Observatory and one where she was sitting at a table marked with the number “95.” On April 14, she posted a second set of photographs, tagging her location as Beverly Hills, California and using “End of Beginning” as her audio (yes, I side-eyed this choice of music so don’t feel bad if you did as well). The second photo dump included her lounging on a rooftop.

I’m not going to delve into posts made by Luke and Nicola during that timeframe. I mean, I’m sure Nicola’s comment, “’Friends’…sure Jan,” on Luke’s April 11 reshared post about Bridgerton Season 3 was only meant to be applicable to Polin. And, if Luke wanted to use yellow and black hearts to represent the colors Nicola and he were wearing in his April 12 post, that’s cool, too. And, I am definitely not going to speculate on Nicola’s April 15 post (for Big Mood) that Luke liked, and she captioned, “I will bite off anything that dangles.”

By April 21, Luke and Nicola were in Australia at the World Premiere of Bridgerton. I am only going to provide a quick overview of Australia instead of a full-fledged recital because, at some point, I will almost certainly dedicate an entry to this country. Let’s start with Luke pulling off the hottest walk-up in Netflix human history (I mean, have you watched it in slow motion?). Then, we had the hard launch of the handholding business (because why again?). And, we had Luke tripping over his words, “We’re very, like, giving…I’m not talking about those scenes…” Oh, and Nicola telling an interviewer that, “[y]ou can’t keep a good girl down,” and, in response, Luke’s lips curling into a wicked-ass Cheshire cat's. We had them in the garden, with Nicola bending down to hug Luke after she had scratched/hit/petted his head. Perhaps I should not mention the possibility of a man’s shirt being visible on a bed behind Nicola (I said possibility not that it was). And, Nicola telling Luke, “You’re the funnier one,” when he was concerned that perhaps Benedict was funnier than Colin. Then we had the “Nicola-in-the-green-dress” day where, as they were going down the steps, Luke seemed to instinctively reach for Nicola’s hand, but she played it cool and took his arm instead. Oh, and that entire “green dress” day in general (I mean, there was so much shit going on that day). And, best we do not forget Nicola saying, “the best foundation for love is friendship,” which mirrored the bracelet “someone…in Australia” gave Luke that read, “Do you believe the best foundation for love is friendship?” Because that’s not suspicious at all. Alright, let’s get the fuck out of Australia – but not before I mention Nicola commenting on Luke’s April 27 Instagram post with “Ready for the next?” and Luke replying, “Absolutely.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, their shenanigans in Australia expanded the USS Lukola tenfold.

Oh, also, let me throw this in here because, if you are a “ring truther,” this fact plays a significant role in the Lukola timeline. If you do not know what a “ring truther” is, that’s perfectly fine. You can catch up by reading Entry 6 (The One Where I Explained the Claddagh Ring to My Dad) of my blog. I mentioned in Entry 6 that some Lukola sleuths have stated the metadata they pulled from the sketches of the Claddagh ring uploaded by Chupi indicate they were done as early as April 26. In other words, it means the Claddagh was likely commissioned between Australia and Italy. In fact, if we are to believe Chupi when it said it took four weeks to make the ring, then it had to have been commissioned by May 9, 2024, at the latest. Oh, lookie there, that’s Day 1 of the Italy interviews.

But, before we get to May 9, let’s pause on April 29. That was the day Luke’s InStyle spread was published – yes, the one I mentioned earlier. Luke has pictures from this photoshoot still on his Instagram grid – in fact, Nicola commented, “Yess dude!!” on them – but those aren’t the pictures I want to talk about. No, I want to talk about the pictures InStyle posted on its Instagram grid that day. These photographs came directly from Luke, which was confirmed by the InStyle article when it said, “…the actor delighted the InStyle team by delivering the polaroid photos he’d taken for this story tucked oh-so-carefully in a little brown bag for safekeeping.” The pictures Luke provided, among others, included one where he was laying on a blanket in front of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles; one where he was sitting at a table marked with the number “95;” and one where he is sitting in a lounge chair on a rooftop. If you want to see the pictures, InStyle still has them available – you just need to go through hundreds of posts to find them. Luke did not like this InStyle post, which was kind of odd because he was tagged in it, and they were reportedly his pictures.

Why did these InStyle polaroids seem so familiar?

Oh, that’s right, because they were.

Remember that April 7 post of Antonia’s I mentioned a bit ago? Yeah, the one where Antonia posted a bunch of random pictures from Los Angeles and – only after InStyle posted Luke’s polaroids – fans realized Antonia had preemptively posted her version of some of Luke’s polaroids.

I am not going to speculate too much about these pictures or their implications in this blog post, but these pictures may resurface in future posts because I find myself side-eyeing the fact they even exist. And, we should probably accept that Luke was aware of them before his pictures came out on April 29 because he threw a like on Antonia’s April 7 post. Could it have been a “blind” like? Sure, I guess, but the logical side of my brain says he probably looked through them at the time she posted. Let’s not worry too much about it right now, though.

After trying to write out my “general” opinion about the pictures several times, I finally decided that the best way I could articulate my thoughts was through the conversation I had with my father. Yes, Dear Dad returns again for another insightful Q&A.

I started by showing Luke and Antonia’s three “matchy” pictures to my dad and then asked him to compare them. To be clear, the pictures were their respective Griffith Observatory, Table 95, and Rooftop Lounging pictures.

Me: “So what do you think?”

Dad: “About what?”

Me: “Ugh! Why did Antonia take those pictures?”

Dad: “Well, to show she’s part of the ‘in’ crowd. The only reason I can see them being taken is if she was going to put them on the Internet.”

Me: “Uhh, as a matter of fact, she did put them on the Internet! Approximately three weeks before Luke’s were published.”

Dad: “See! I’m not as dumb as you think.”

Me: “Whatever. So, you really believe that? She took them to show people that she was, like, there?”

Dad: “Yeah. Why else would she take them? They’re not the kind of photos you’d take normally. What’s she going to do, put them in an album and show her friends in five years and say, ‘Look, I sat in Luke’s chair?’ Who does that? Nobody. Plus, Luke’s pictures look like they were taken with a polaroid camera and Antonia took hers with, I guess, a phone. Why use two different cameras? Again, it doesn’t make sense. Seems to me like she knew what pictures he was taking, and she was trying to copy them so she could put them on the Internet.”

Thanks, Dad.

You do not have to accept my father’s thoughts on the photographs. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, I think we can meet in the middle and opine that, at a minimum, Antonia’s pictures caused the weak Lukolas to jump overboard; at most, they gave some people stalker vibes; and somewhere in between, they introduced Antonia's negative influence over the fandom and what some may consider trolling behavior (even if it wasn’t recognized then).

Now, before we land in Italy on May 9, let’s summarize what has happened during the preceding two months.

First, we had Luke traveling to Los Angeles in March with Antonia, either alone or as part of a friend group. Luke had pictures of himself taken while there.

Second, we had Antonia posting pictures in early April that would be linked directly to Luke’s pictures by the end of the month.

Third, throughout the month of April, we had Luke and Nicola traveling together for the World Tour. We have all seen these interviews, and we have all formed independent opinions about them.

Fourth, based on Chupi’s own words, we know the Claddagh ring must have been commissioned no later than May 9.

Okay, now we’ve reached May 9, Day 1 of the Italy press junket.

Besides the press interviews, what happened on that day?

Well, Antonia reposted Luke singing Coldplay’s “Yellow” to her TikTok account.

Uhh… Huh. Interesting.

I mean, it’s possible that this was just a coincidence and she just liked Luke’s version of it. Or, it’s possible Antonia knew that “Yellow” was the Polin wedding song and she anticipated trolling Nicola and/or the fandom with it. But, if we believe she knew “Yellow” was the Polin wedding song, that means either Luke told her, or someone with that knowledge told her (i.e., someone from Luke’s team or family/friend group). We also know that Luke mentioned this song in the May 16, 2022 Netflix Tudum article when Nicola and he were asked about their song choices for Season 3. Luke stated his frontrunner was “Yellow” by Coldplay “because of Penelope’s dresses.” Regardless of why Antonia posted the song, I find it hard to imagine Netflix, Bridgerton, Shondaland, Nicola, or Luke were too impressed by Antonia resharing it on TikTok. I mean, at this point, Netflix & Co. would surely have been aware that Antonia’s “copycat post” went over with the fandom like a wet blanket in December in Canada. I imagine some questions were being asked and Luke may very well have received a hand slap from Corporate – and maybe even from Nicola.

But, that’s not the only thing that happened on May 9.

Luke posted his Homme magazine spread to his Instagram grid on that day, too. He captioned the post, “Chatting through all things S3 with @hommeplusmag [o]ut next week x.” Nicola commented, “Yessss,” and Luke tagged his post with the location of Hackney, London. That last part – about Luke tagging the location in Hackney – apparently sent the fandom into a deep-dive of…Nicola’s backyard. Why? Because Nicola lives in Hackney (Nicola herself confirmed she lived in Hackney in a March 18, 2024 interview with Derry Now), and rumors started to circulate that Luke’s pictures were taken at her home.

Hmm, I didn’t realize May 9 was such a busy day, did you?

So, which came first – the chicken or the egg? Did Antonia repost “Yellow” to her TikTok before Luke posted his Homme in Hackney images to Instagram, or vice versa? I’m sure someone out there has this information. The answer might help shine some light as to why Luke and Nicola seemed “off” in the early part of their Day 1 Italy interviews. But, then again, does the order really matter? Regardless of who posted first, it would seem to me that “Yellow” was a very possible culprit for the different energy on set that day.

That, or Luke really was peeved over someone spilling his coffee.

[carlyraejepsans]

would you be okay pitching ghost trick to someone who doesn’t rly know anything about it? i’ve heard of it before and that it’s good but idk why, and i don’t really get a lot out of advertisements or game descriptions

you know the toby-typical campiness in how he writes his characters in UTDR? over the top, extremely iconic, clearly working from preestablished tropes but doing his own special spin on them? put toby fox on acid and you've got shu takumi's writing style.

ghost trick isn't "just" good. ghost trick is the type of good that invents a whole new categorization for itself. ghost trick invented a situation to put little fictional bitches in that is so good, the most popular works in the tag are people from other fandoms being like "oh shit, let me put MY fictional bitches through in this situation as well"

it is one of the most hooking, satisfyingly delivered mysteries I've ever seen in a videogame. there is not a single second of the game that feels unutilised, everything pushes you forward in the mystery, and still it never feels choking. the way it handles tension and delivers its information is phenomenal. if this were a normal recommendation i would start talking about the gameplay and how fun and good it feels to play and how genuinely clever it is but you're not here for that, are you, so let me tell you the real selling point: every single character in this game is fucking insane. not a single one of them is normal. it's a noir. it's a parody. it's an animator's wet dream. my friend is playing the game on stream and they said his fiancée can tell when we're streaming because she can hear him doing his pathetic man voice on call.

listen to me. you will fall in love with sissel. i played One Shot earlier this year. i thought i was never going to find a game with a protagonist that crawled into my heart as much as niko. i was wrong. jesus christ i was wrong. you need to understand, this is a puzzle game. once you know the answers that's it for the gameplay. the replay value is extremely low. I have replayed it 5 times in three weeks just to make the wrong choices and watch what sissel says and quips about it. he's my guy. i need to hold his face in my hands. you will see his fuckass red suit, you will see his fuckass banana hair, you willl see his goofy little smile and his dirk strider ass sunglasses and you will whimper like a DOG because you miss him so much. i am missing him right now as we speak. fuck.

play ghost trick.

[postcardsfromheapside]

I need to be salty for a hot second about people who are upset about aspects of Lucanis' romance.

I'll put everything else under the break for spoilers, but in general, I am so disappointed in a large portion of this fanbase who apparently thought "disaster" meant "romantasy," but also it's in keeping with how a lot of people seem unable to put things in context.

One of the complaints I keep seeing run past is that the scene where you commit to a relationship with Lucanis seems pefunctory, or out of the blue, there's nothing really romantic about it, it's too similar to the platonic route, etc, etc, ETC.

I romanced Emmrich, but I've seen other people's versions of romancing Lucanis. I'm just going to kind of word vomit here, and hope I can come up with something cohesive.

As someone who id's with Lucanis for "generational abuse" and "dumpster fire disaster bi" and "using socially acceptable drugs as coping mechanisms in place of addressing your problems" reasons, it's been really fucking annoying watching the almost deliberate misinterpretation of his character even after Mary Kirby dropped several explanations on social media. It's like a large part of the fanbase saw all that and turned into the "yes yes, very sad...anyway!" meme and went right on fetishizing him...then got mad when he didn't turn into the seductive Dom with wings they were hoping for.

You commit to Lucanis after (what I consider) a very intense scene inside his "mind prison." He's struggling so much internally that Spite wrests control of his body from him in front of witnesses and begs Rook to help them. Lucanis would never ask Rook to do so on his own, he's terrible at asking for the help he truly needs. Spite drags Rook into the Fade Ossuary and demands they free Lucanis from his self-imposed prison. And whether you're a friend or would-be lover, Rook slowly talks Lucanis out of a host of self doubts regarding his family and friends. Can he trust himself not to hurt other people, now that he's saddled with this affliction? Has he disappointed the people he cares about most? Do these new people he's coming to care about actually trust and care about him? The rooms are filled with fragmented thoughts that peter out into regrets. You're literally seeing Lucanis' fractured and complicated emotions.

One of them tore a hole straight through me: "You'd have to kill me...And Spite would die."

You'd have to kill him to get rid of the demon. And he'd regret the death of the demon that's protected him and given him strength, through a brutal year of betrayal and torment. I don't know if y'all remember the scenes in the Ossuary of the failed experiments and the corpses you had to pass to get to his jar of blood. It wasn't fun.

When you break out of the mind prison after helping him bond with Spite, it's intimate and momentous, even on a platonic route. You've seen desperate and lonely parts of him he'd never willingly show anyone.

As you're convincing Lucanis that it's okay to leave his mind-prison, you tell him you understand that it's easier to deal with problems like the Ossuary and Zara than healing and living with Spite, potentially hurting people he cares about. But he wants to. It's Rook's job to help him see a path out, a way for him to make the struggle easier so he can begin to heal himself.

I need to stress: you aren't "fixing" him. You're acting as his lighthouse, regardless of whether you're a friend or a lover. Sometimes people need help. He's still going to have to do the work to get there.

As a friend, it was extremely rewarding to come back to the kitchen and see him doing exactly as I'd hoped: moving on with the business of *living*. He made a nice dinner for everyone he's come to care for, and a special dessert for Neve. Cooking is where Lucanis finds creativity, and comfort, and connection with his friends and family. He isn't very good with words, but he will note everything you consume, and try to make you feel loved by expressing it that way.

Which is why I think it's important you don't dismiss the commitment on the romantic route. He remembers YOUR favorite drink and makes YOU a special dessert if you're romancing him. Lucanis isn't going to get poetic. You've already made him feel raw. You've seen the ugly, embarassing parts of him. What is he supposed to say? Usually it takes Spite reaching through his body to actually be direct. Instead, Lucanis reaches for food, his favorite medium, to try and apologize for inadvertently showing you those things, to thank you for helping him despite seeing what he considers the most shameful parts of him. Your commitment is letting him know that you value him, that he has nothing to be ashamed of, that you understand what he's trying to express with his struggling communication skills, which appear to get better as your relationship progresses from there.

It's weird that some of y'all don't feel that this is heartfelt and important, because you'd rather him act out some sensuous fantasy trope. It's also weird that some of you haven't figured out that many scenes in RPG's can be similar on platonic and romantic routes with tweaks to shade context.

(Also just in case this comes up: cooking is not his "love language" - that whole concept was invented by a misogynistic weirdo and we should remove it from our ideas of communication)

Anyway, this guy is my Rook's bestie and I'll go down swinging for him, you should appreciate the fuck out of him and stop acting like his writer didn't craft a perfectly funny little weirdo who is bad at showing people his tender parts and terrible at interpersonal relationships.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows 7

Warnings: non/dubcon, clashing personalities, exclusion, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

Characters: moody boy Curtis Everett x bubbly, plus-size reader

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You sit at your desk, shaken as the sound of the mug shattering repeats in your head. You can smell the dark roast as you stare fuzzily at your monitor. You hadn’t even taken the coffee you brewed. You can see it in your mind, forgotten on the counter, lonely, going cold. 

You have no thirst for the maple shortbread roast. You rub your fingers together, the feeling of the shards, the incessant jitter that won’t leave you. You tried to play it cool but now you’re really scared. 

You open your Teams and type out a message to your manager. You’re spending half a sick day and going home. Her curt response betrays her agitation. She’s not impressed but you don’t care. Work isn’t as important as taking care of yourself. 

You shut down and pack up your bag. You slide your chair under your desk and keep your head down as you head for the stairs. You avoid the elevators to evade any notice. It feels like admitting defeat but you’re not sure there’s any victory to be had with that man. 

As you exit the building, the weight lifts from your chest and the slouch eases in your shoulders. Maybe you can ask to change desks. That would be a start. You can get a bigger thermos and bring lots of coffee so you never need to venture into the breakroom. This could work. 

Oh boy. You think you’re going to have to quit. You really don’t want to, you feel like you’ve barely begun. And he isn’t the only person there, it isn’t his company, so why should you have to run away? 

Dana can be… decent and there’s that woman with the vintage blouse you met in the breakroom. Somehow, you never managed to spill her coveted hot chocolates in your carelessness. It’s as if the universe put you on the path of this angry man, but why? 

Screw the universe. It can’t tell you how to live. You’ve never really worried about fitting into its machinations and you won’t start now. 

You don’t want to go home right away. You veer around and head down to the cafe a few blocks down. It’s a bit of a trek but you’ve heard good things. You go inside and wait your turn, ordering an iced fruity tea and a lemon scone. 

As you turn to go, you see that woman through the window. The one from the office in her thrifted clothes. You love her style. A braid red belt with brown tweed pants and a bell sleeved button up. She doesn’t see you wave as she turns away and carries on, earbuds tucked into her ears. 

You claim a table by the window and as you unwrap your scone, a man marches by, raising your hackles as you see the determination in his step. He heads in the same direction as that woman, intent and unbothered by his surroundings. You’ve seen him too, he works in one of the fancy offices. 

You pick at the scone and nibble on the corner before sliding it away again. You’re still addled by your breakroom run-in. You thought this would be a distraction. Or hoped it would. 

You leave, unsatisfied. Home it is. Alone, but safe. 

You take the bus halfway then walk a few blocks to your apartment. As you get inside, you’re restless. You do your best to settle in.  

Gaming doesn’t calm you down, even as you go around to say hello to your villagers. You shut that off and grab your half-done crochet project but the hippo is too much of a challenge to ease your nerves. So you get up and run yourself a hot bath. 

You undress with the door open. You bask in your newfound solace. It took you a while to get out of your parents’ place but now you’re on your own, you don’t have to worry. 

You slip into the water with a sigh. A playlist drones from your phone on the counter and you mix in scented epsom salts. You start to feel a bit bed as you recline and close your eyes. You stay like that until the water is lukewarm. 

You get out and pull on your fluff rope with the pink cheetah print. You feel renewed and ready to relax. Just don’t think about the inevitable. Tomorrow you’ll have to be back in office. 

You shuffle around you apartment lazily and turn on the television. You curl up in the corner of the couch as Sailor Moon transforms in the intro sequence. The music fills your small space. You’re comforted by the childhood favourite. 

You ease into the cushions and feel yourself starting to doze. You’d still be at work if you didn’t take the half-day. You shouldn’t be falling asleep already but you can’t resist the nap. 

You close your eyes and something scratches down ear canal. Some sort of friction. You don’t pay it much mind. There’s always noise from the hallway or the street. But it happens again and again, then you feel something. 

You sit up in fright and turn to the figure sat next to you. You’re so stunned, you can’t find your voice to scream. You take a deep breath and Curtis raises his index fingers. 

“If you scream, I’m going to have be bad,” he warns. “So let’s not do that.” 

“How’d you get in here?” 

He tilts his head as he watches the television. You peek over. You like this episode too—but that’s not the point! 

“Curtis--” 

He hushes you and sits back. “You don’t make it hard to follow you. You’re so oblivious, you have no clue what’s going on right in front of your face.” 

“I...” 

He shushes you again and looks at you. “You’re going to get real hurt one of these days.” He crosses his arms and puts his head straight again. “It’s up to you. Is today that day?” 

[makiitabaki]

Finally answering this:

Thank you, @saintjustitude for asking me to rant—I adore doing just that :]

(First of all, thank you to everyone for waiting. I know I took a lot of time to write this, but I had only around an hour free every day, and I usually spent it searching for sources. My knowledge is limited; the play isn't available. I rely on memoirs, interviews, and reviews. 

My inbox is always open, and if anyone has any Wojtek questions, I'd be absolutely delighted to answer them. And I mean it. It can be anything. 

 Every quote was translated by me. All my sources are listed.

Unfortunately a part of it wasn't saved, and I don't have access to some info anymore but this post will probably serve as the beginning of a longer thread.)

And now: “Sprawa Dantona” (1975).

1. How did it all come to be? Why was ‘The Danton Case’ and not any other play?

When I say ‘Danton’ directed by Wajda, most probably think of the 1983 version, a political metaphor: Comsal representing the Polish government, Dantonist representing Solidarity. Was it like that originally? Was Wajda just calling for a fight with the government, transforming Przybyszewska's work to fit his own narrative?

In short: No! (At least if we're referring to the 1975 version, the film is completely another story; I'll gladly make another post about it.).

Zygmunt Hübner (I have mentioned him already in this post) chose Wajda to direct the play even though the latter was a relatively young director; something was telling Hübner that giving the play to him would be absolutely necessary. Pszoniak later referred to that event as Wajda being cast in it as much as he himself was.

The play was simply a way to introduce the artistic team Hübner created. There was none of some “noble patriotism’ or 'anti communism'. (None of what Wajda described as the purpose of the later film.)

Why was that play in particular chosen? That is unknown.

“The idea [of exhibiting that play] came from the fact that Hübner was looking for a play (…) that would present his artistic team as a whole, which he assembled with great imagination and intuition.”

At first, Pszoniak laughed into Hübner's face when offered the role. He thought it fine, intruiging, but the character of Robespierre was so foreign to him that he couldn't give anything from his own person or his own experiences to his Maximilien.

He asked for the role of Danton; that role seemed to fit him way better with "his [Danton's] sensuality, his dynamic physiognomy, and his balls."

Wajda and Hübner were quite insistent and more or less forced Pszoniak into the role.

“Hübner and Wajda were so stubborn that they did not take my objection into account. Nothing there [in the role] suited me; there was no starting point for the role. I had no right to play it. But they convinced me for so long that the whole situation with ‘The Danton Case’ became a dead end.”

The transformation from simply a good play to something entirely political in Wajda's eyes was very slow but steady. On that a little later.

2. Pszoniak wasn't ready to play Robespierre? How did he prepare for the role then?

It's very important to note that it was not bad will that made Pszoniak initially refuse the role, but the theater typecast he was put into and which he almost got used to. All of his power and stage presence were connected to his own physicality, to this sort of mobility and expression that he had to (presumably at Wajda's request) abandon while playing Robespierre.

Wojtekspierre getting his hair cut from a man with surprisingly modern glasses

Whether he was in a tragedy or comedy, it was the unique liveliness that made him so different. Suddenly he was offered the role of Robespierre, a man he only knew from unfavorable history books, portrayed a certain way by Przybyszewska, and he's made to stand before the expanse of that character's personality in a try to make him someone physical.

While it might seem quite shocking, when preparing for the role, Pszoniak didn't even read any Robespierre biography. Why? According to him:

“I didn’t think at all about a historical figure, and besides, you can’t play any historical figure. I put aside the books on the French Revolution. I read them much later, when, years later, in Paris. (…) I didn't want to portray a historical figure, so I didn't judge or evaluate him. I simply tried to get closer to him, to understand him as a person. Przybyszewska herself made it easier for me. The text of the play clearly indicated that she was fascinated by him. (...) Przybyszewska constructed this character in an unusual, enigmatic way. I clung to this fascination, it was a reason for treating Robespierre with empathy. This is a necessary condition for creating a character, without empathy you will never be able to get closer to the man you are to become on stage. Wandering through the labyrinth of his emotions, motives for action, opinions he expresses, I became so strongly attached to him, he took over me so much, that as a result I became Robespierre-Pszoniak.”

Pszoniak admitted he didn't want to play a politician [but, of course, as we all know, he was later forced to in ‘Danton’ (1983)].

The preparations took time and patience (especially from his wife - Barbara). Pszoniak tends to describe it as a painful process. Robespierre's physical expression was compared to being bound tightly by his own flesh, almost imprisoned by it, but freed by his mind. Pszoniak realized that all of the power in portraying Robespierre could only be gained from a deeper reflection. How to show a mind on stage?

That Pszoniak didn't know, and so he made the decision to show Robespierre's determination and faith instead of simply a calculated brain. To show a path, an objective. That's why the last scene was so hard to play (conversation between Robespierre and Saint-Just after Danton's death); he even asked Wajda for a white cloth as a makeshift shroud. To Pszoniak, that scene meant the symbolic death of his character. Robespierre (described by Pszoniak as a “very intelligent man") feels that inevitable peril awaits in the near future. The actor often described a feeling of mourning something or someone after the performance.

The challenge of creating the role, in the words of Wojciech Pszoniak:

“I started to control all my reflexes morning till night; from waking up to falling asleep, I was destroying myself. In everyday life, even the smallest activity, I slowed down; I was reducing and cleaning up [every one of] my habits. Torment, the absolute torment of controlling yourself, of managing yourself. Zero spontaneity, the phone rings, my first reaction—run to answer it—I stop myself calmly, in control of every slowed-down gesture. I imitated Zygmunt Hübner's focused gait; I noticed how he placed his feet. And I started walking like that myself. That's how I set a different, more controlled way of moving. After that, I turned to gestures, head movements, the way of getting up, and gesticulation. I felt that I was different. Acquaintances and friends both asked where this change came from. I suppressed the dynamic, extraverted myself.”

And

“I was pushing the boundaries of supervision [over myself], checking how I would behave after drinking a larger amount of vodka. One day I went out with Basia [wife] and friends (...) After a few bottles, at four in the morning, they were amused, cheered up, asking if I was sick because I was behaving like a machine. After three weeks of suffering, I reached ground zero. This happened during the rehearsals. A conversation about Robespierre and Danton. I joined the discussion, exclaiming, 'I disagree!’ - and suddenly I saw that my hand was no longer my hand, that it was not the hand of that Pszoniak that I am, but that it was already a hand—the beginning of someone else.”

3. What of Danton?

Here the problem with the play began. The man cast as Danton, Bronisław Pawlik, was just... terrible.

He was a good actor in general, definitely, but in short (explanation for the anglophones), it was like casting Danny DeVito as Danton.

He was short of stature, weak of voice, much older than Pszoniak, and simply unfit for the role.

He didn't have a stage presence; his voice was silenced by the other people on stage, and Pszoniak kept acting as if there was some great, dangerous opponent when there wasn't—the audience seemed to notice it.

It all added to a kind of feeling of resentment after preparing so long for the role of Robespierre.

Danton (Bronisław Pawlik), Camille (Olgierd Łukaszewicz) and Westermann (Franciszek Pieczka) celebrating

Pawlik was more concerned with the position of the props or the costume instead of conversing and shaping their roles. To Pszoniak it was the role of a lifetime, to Pawlik it wasn't.

“The audience was sitting on the stage because the entire theater had been transformed into the Revolutionary Tribunal. Here, a powerful voice and a [kind of] broad gesture were needed... Pawlik's charm disappeared in the feverish crowd. What consequences did this have for the play? Enormous, Danton was deprived of the strength [for both the audience and actors] to believe that he posed a deadly serious threat to the revolution. And this lack bothered me terribly...”

4. How did it become political then?

As I have previously mentioned, it was a slow, steady process. Even Wajda himself didn't think much of the play; it was the audience that began the change. 

As the first example, Pszoniak recalls a scene when Eleonore comes in with tea but not sugar—in the audience at first only a few laughing, but gradually along with the many performances it turned into the whole audience cackling. The play was exhibited just when a time of increasing problems with sugar supplies began in Poland (food stamps for sugar were introduced).

Pszoniak admitted that the cast would often laugh along with the audience. It seemed almost absurd—a tragic play blending with the real world. 

When it comes to Pszoniak himself in that time, the more he played the role, the more it felt like “punching the air.” Instead of having a genuine conflict, he had no support, no reference point in Pawlik as Danton or the audience. For the role to have meaning, to be something, it all had to be a matter of life and death. His co-actor was slipping into comedic grotesque while playing the second main role. 

"The success of the play was huge, but the audience was eager to read the play [only] in the context of political allusions. (…) The audience felt that something was happening [on and off stage], (…) the tension grew."

The audience's reaction seemed to be a direct answer to the Danton shown on stage. Instead of a political opponent, there stood a sad, tired victim of the committee who seems completely and utterly innocent, all his words said with a kind of saddened charm (doesn't that remind you of a certain film Wajda made later?).

5. What of the other actors?

Here is where I have the least information. If anyone has any more sources of information, actor memoirs, etc., feel free to reblog this post with additional info or simply contact me about it so I could make Part 2. :]

The cast.

I have to tell you something shocking... Wajda is capable of giving actual, normal characterization to secondary characters (gasp, thunderstrike, wolf howling).

Or perhaps that was just the actor/Zygmunt Hübner (I guess we'll never know).

The most information I could gather was about Saint-Just (played by the excellent Władysław Kowalski).

Based off the limited amount of reviews I could gather, he was a positive character in general. Described as “a man gifted with exceptional warmth and [someone] unconditionally devoted to his cause” or “full of raw passion."

AND HE GIVES MAXIME FLOWERS IN THIS VERSION AS WELL, EXCEPT IN THIS ONE ROBESPIERRE (KIND OF) SMILES!

I couldn't find much on Eleonore, Louise, or Lucille, though I've searched and searched for a few days. All I could find is that the actresses were excellent—that is, unfortunately, no source of any relevant information. Frankly speaking, since Wajda, in kind words, doesn't excel at writing women, I don't have much faith in their characterization on the director's part.

Camille played Łukaszewicz is usually called a “complicated youth"—that is, of course, an opinion—or “spontaneous in reflexes"—that's a bit better of a description. As you can see, I am limited by the fact the play isn't available, and I must depend on biased or subjective sources.

Worried Camille Desmoulins (Olgierd Łukaszewicz) - I do think this Camille looks quite nice.

6. And did the critics like it? Was it well directed?

In short, it was a very, very liked play by both the critics and the audience. It ran for 5 years; it ended around 1980, when many of the actors simply left Poland.

About critics and reviews written by them: What surprised me immensely is the fact that most available reviews (written before the release of the film ‘Danton’) of the play weren't anti-Robespierre. The play is often described as something of a moral discussion, something for the viewer to assess, a work that doesn't suggest one solution to understand the conflict, or revolution (in other words, a great play).

A thing I've noticed is that along with time, the descriptions of the main characters seem to change. Danton—in earliest reviews described as “absolutely repulsive," then later as a tragic man, someone who adores life. Robespierre—in earliest reviews described as an absolute “marble statue," an idealist, someone pure, then in later reviews as just a fanatic.

 

7. What about Wajda? Did he change the text much? What about the scenography?

I was surprised to learn that Wajda absolutely could make a good, Przybyszewska-accurate play.

 

From all I could find, there is not much I can accuse Wajda of when it comes to ‘The Danton Case’ stage adaptations. It was made very well. What most likely contributed to the later change in people's mentality when met with the play is the fact that the audience was sort of a part of the performance. How? Like this:

“It [the play] takes place on a stage placed in front of the audience; on the actual stage and in the rest of the audience sit in rows of chairs rising upwards. Everything encompassed by the scenography is one theater. This played out brilliantly in the second parts, in the beautifully composed group scenes, where the audience not only looks at the stage but is drawn into it as an extra audience at the hearings of the revolutionary tribunal.”

And

“Wajda made "The Danton Case" as if against himself—against his previous self: he gave up on visual effects, music, and symbolism. He built a spectacle—a spectacle indeed!—raw and beautiful. (…) During the (…) presentation of "The Danton Case," seats for viewers were also installed on the stage, which was fortunately spacious, the audience surrounds the actors, the actors are among the audience, on the balcony, in the passages.”

If Danton or Robespierre were so close to the audience, I think it really did influence the people's opinion of it later on. Pawlik was terrified, jumping like a fish out of water from one audience member to the other, and there was Pszoniak, white and still under his shroud just a few meters away. That did certainly change the performance's reception.

8. Where can I watch this?!

As I have mentioned here: the play isn't available online, but most certainly is somewhere in the archives (confirmed by Pszoniak), when it was supposed to have a TV debut the martial law was introduced, and a few years later everyone seemed to have forgotten about it.

So, erm… Who's raiding the archives with me? (By the way, fragments of the play exist online, but only 10-20 minute excerpts, so if I find the time, I'll try to track them down.).

Sources:

Books:

Aktor. Wojciech Pszoniak w rozmowie z Michałem Komarem, Wydawnictwo Literackie 2009;

Maciej Karpiński, Pszoniak, Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe Warszawa 1976;

Małgorzata Terlecka-Reksnis, Pszoniak. Fragmenty, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie 2024

Photos used and play reviews (pardon the rhyme):

http://encyklopediateatru.pl

[alexanderwales]

I finished the rest of Save the Cat almost in a single sitting, not because it was particularly riveting, but because I had time to kill, so this pseudo-liveblog is at an end.

Chapter 6 and 7 are basically the same, collections of small tricks and tips. Neither of them are terribly helpful, and all the tricks have terrible shorthand names like "Pope in a Pool". There's very little in the way of any thematic cohesion to these bits of advice, and no grand theory of the Laws of Storytelling emerges, in spite of the laws being invoked a number of times.

The advice itself is, I think, generally good:

give the reader something to root for early on to kickstart investment

spice up exposition with something entertaining

only one kind of magic per plot

don't tell a story that requires too much setup

don't tell a story with too many moving parts

include a ticking clock

have character arcs

keep the scope limited to the characters we care about

make the hero proactive

show, don't tell

make the bad guy very bad

the plot should go faster the further in it goes

use the whole spectrum of emotion

make sure each character has a distinct voice

make sure desires are "primal"

give characters something that makes them stand out

I don't endorse this whole list, and I especially don't endorse the way that Blake Snyder talks about them or the examples that he gives. And if I endorsed the list, then I would include a lot of caveats, and some general principles of storytelling that should be followed, rather than these specific pieces of advice, which are all conditional. Like ... okay, here's an example:

Exposition is a broccoli that the audience doesn't want to eat. There are very different ways of dealing with this, but we can start with "minimize exposition" as the first "law" of storytelling, and from there, we have different strategies:

Spruce up the exposition, making it into a mini-story, delivered in an entertaining way, so that people aren't bored.

Run something alongside the exposition so that people aren't bored, like sight gags in a comedy or an action scene in a thriller.

Have the exposition delivered through implication and clues, rather than stated outright, like having a character limp rather than explaining to the audience that they were wounded in the war. This is show, don't tell, and it's harder than it seems.

But while Snyder lays out some of this advice, it's all in different sections even though it's dealing with the same fundamental problem, and I'm not sure that he really understands that. If he does understand it, then he's not making that clear for the reader.

My thesis is that to understand storytelling, you want to understand root issues and classes of solutions. I have not written a book on writing, nor do I think there's a market for that, nor do I think I'm qualified, but it's the kind of thing that I would strive to deliver. There are a lot of writing problems that are parallel to each other, and there are a lot of structural elements that are mirrors of each other, so why not try to put it all together that way?

But Snyder makes basically no attempt to put even very related problems together, it's just little bits of advice to gnaw at the most common problems, and ... maybe that's fine, but it felt lazy to me.

Chapter 8 was the final chapter, and was mostly about trying to sell screenplays. This was irrelevant to me, but kind of interesting, and also made me feel like Blake Snyder is a better marketer and salesman than a screenwriter, and also maybe just got lucky to be working at a time when scripts were getting huge bidding wars for no good reason. The efficient market hypothesis gets clowned on again, I guess.

I'll probably write up some overall thoughts, a short review: I think I am unsuited to liveblogging because I go long. But the even shorter version is that I think I picked up a few things that were interesting to think about, and while Blake Snyder is a hack, he's an entertaining writer.

[leandra-carstairs]

Per your OC get-to-know then post ☺️

Tenebrus Crayor, mostly bald due to the scarring on his head (like his player), is a proud Slytherin. His best friend is Natsai Onsai, who he adores like a sister. Tenebrus is sensitive to human suffering, and was anti-unforgivable curses before the story started. He was a tad put off to Ominis when he met him in the common room, but once he started to adventure with Sebastian, he and Ominis bonded from shared perspectives. At the end, they both agreed to turn in Sebastian, since they couldn't forgive him for his actions. They thought it would be best and safest for everyone (including Seb). However, Ominis and Tenebrus will need to emotionally support each other from now on, since despite their decision being the correct one, it didn't make it any easier. Seb was very dear to them 😭 who just made a series of worse and worse choices. Tenebrus never learned the curses, and he is at least satisfied that he won't have the temptation any more.

Tenebrus..what a powerful name. I love it. That is such a heartbreaking thought. Have a tri of close friends, and two of them have to make a serious decision for their safety. It's not easy to come to that conclusion and it certainly requires a lot of healing and support required to keep on going that way. Bless Tenebrus and his gentle soul, we certainly need more people like him. I can only hope that Ominis and Tenebrus continue to support one another and heal.

(Poor Sebastian..I just want to give him a big hug)

[puhpandas]

as someone who isnt super excited for sotm for certain reasons I am really glad that like. it's clear that since ruin theyve been setting up for carnival and sotm IS carnival. so now that carnival is finally coming out, afterwards theyll be moving on to other plotlines since the main villain stuff is sorted out

I'm just rlly happy to finally see a clear direction for how the story is gonna be playing out with like "okay these games were leading up to this so after this will be open possibilites" instead of like. absolutely no info about each upcoming game and being left guessing before it releases and just having to wait and see what's in it and if anything you're looking forward to will be in it

it feels like they have a plan and a solid direction for what they're trying to do and after carnival releases thatll be all that buildup coming to fruition. & we already know from the Scott interview that theres another release 'beyond sotm' that's 'super exciting' so maybe thatll be focusing on another big currently untouched (which is basically all of them) plotline, or even the big campaign game that dawko has been calling security breach 2

[puppyeared]

who up seeing their disorder in a fictional character but feel like its not their place to put a name on it

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 5 thoughts

i’m back. i’m back and i’m intrigued. because i'm reading the episode description, and if we get more mulder ex lore here, which the episode description makes it sound like we will, i am… not sure how i will feel on the subject. the term “reincarnation” makes it sound like whoever it was… died. did an ex of his die? and that is a lot of mulder marked by pain and suffering. and maybe i’m getting ahead of myself. but the writers KNOW we want our agents to smooch, so focusing on an ex might make me, the viewer, feel weird. i just need to get all these thoughts out in writing before we begin.

how is he gonna tell if someone is a reincarnated lover? or am i misunderstanding this entirely. 

only one way to find out

author’s note: oh my gosh…… nothing could have prepared me for this. at all. here i was thinking it was ex lore time, but it was past life time, and there are TEARS in my eyes.

(serious author's note: i ask for some grace in this episode recap. there may be some things i word poorly. i am familiar with the terminology used to describe DID, and did my best, but acknowledge that i may have come up short. please understand that this is intended to capture my live reactions to what i was seeing for the very first time. at times here, there are no reactions, just a sort of a nebulous recapping of what i saw because i was feeling So Many Things. so this one might be messy, and i hope that is okay. i don't understand what i am feeling, but i am feeling a Lot of it, and humbly ask for your patience in my clumsy wording as well as some helpful discussion on what just went down)

let us begin, i type as i sniff up some tears

we open with mulder in a field… is he reciting poetry? and looking very sad. 

wait, is he not actually reciting poetry and he just talks like that? while holding two pictures of old timey people. i’d guess civil war era.

okay. so now we jump right to the intro. that was quick. i’m still processing what we just saw because we were really dropped into that one with no context whatsoever.

federal agents break into a temple in tennessee. they’re looking for illegal firearms! and a guy named ephesian.

but mulder sees a window… and he is staring at it… walking out the door as if led by some sort of spiritual quest while scully yells his name and wonders wtf he’s doing. he is not responding to her at all, but she’s chasing after him because she is a good friend.

so he’s hearing things while scully is pulling her gun out, and it does appear that he found a trapdoor!

he busts in, and slaps some poison out of the hand of a woman who was taking sips, and then grabs the dude who i assume is the cult leader. whew… that was close

now they’re at some sort of meeting, listening to tapes, and skinner is here!!! hiiii skinner. everybody say hi skinner!

so, someone on the tape seems to be whistleblowing on this cult- the seven stars or something- saying that the leader is hurting children and stockpiling weapons. mulder looks incredibly pensive during all of this.

oh! someone refers to mulder as “our man spooky”, which is kind of hilarious, while complaining that the reports were weak. scully leans in and asks yeah, how did he know that? while the men are fighting.

and skinner yells KNOCK IT OFF!!!! because the folks at the compound were somehow able to hide all the evidence before they got there, and now they’re forced to hold ephesian and “his wives” on “BS charges”. so now the agents MUST find evidence of firearms and who the informant was NOW because they will try to get an arraignment fast.

woah. no pressure.

skinner comes over talk to mulder and scully- they must look into this ephesian fellow's claims of supernatural abilities. scully says he can use the book of revelations to manipulate his followers, but seems to suspect no real powers. 

they to talk to this ephesian fellow, who says he knew for 9 centuries that scully was coming, and starts going on about the bible, quoting stuff. very scary behavior.

mulder comes in with the fact check. jesus said that at smyrna, not about some church in tennessee! (his knowledge…. it always impresses me)

this dude is being super creepy, telling them to put aside their investigation “for your own souls”, because soon all unfaithful shall “be destroyed by God’s mighty men”. so this is some pretty standard cult rhetoric here. if you've studied religions, you've heard this one many times. it seems that ephesian thinks he and his people shall be the ones doing this violence. a tight zoom in on mulder’s troubled face as he quotes more scripture.

they have 6 wives to question, and mulder says to start with one in particular. interesting… i wonder why that one. is it because she was the one they caught ephesian with in the hidden area... or something more?

her name is melissa, and she says she’s 25 as she smokes a cigarette and dodges their questions. she’s been at the compound and married to ephesian for a year. 

mulder asks if it troubles her that ephesian has so many other wives, and she just recites scripture instead of answering. so scully comes in with the “i’d have a tough time if my husband had so many children with other women”. this seems to begin to get her to crack, as she tears up.

wait... it’s so wrong to hear scully call someone else, who isn't her sister, melissa :(

melissa she doesn’t have any children with ephesian yet... because he has to wait for God to tell him that the right soul is ready to be reincarnated, which is why his children are the most sacred members of the temple. naturally, of course /s

things get quiet when they ask if he had been hurting the children until melissa starts talking with a very different voice and set of mannerisms, and she no longer replies to the name melissa. so scully scrawls “multiple personality” in her loopy handwriting and passes it over to mulder. oh! is this sydney?

(at this point, i shall begin to refer to sydney with he/him pronouns, as this is what mulder does. normally i would stick to my journalistic integrity and keep reporting the things i wrote down incorrectly while watching the episode, but i'm trying to be very respectful- i hope you understand)

but mulder writes back to scully no, this is not a multiple personality case, it's a past life case! his handwriting is very blocky. to prove his point, he asks sydney who the current president is, and he responds that it is harry truman. ah. so, he's a few years off.

mulder claims that “somehow he just knew” sydney was melissa's past life, which doesn’t reveal a lot, but his eyes are very soulful and i want to hold his hand.

skinner says they need to find something to get this case moving forward, and mulder is like dude, we found sydney, the voice matched! i would agree with his judgement that this in fact a sizeable discovery.

mulder is saying that what they have seen matches the criteria of DID in the DSM4 (woah, need to look up when we switched to 5), but scully is saying that some people don’t even think it exists as a condition, and skinner thinks it could be a trap to buy more time for ephesian. so no one is in agreement here.

but mulder is going into his psychology expert mode and is making a very compelling case that this is an example of DID, particularly in the fact that sydney emerged when the topic of child abuse came up, which fulfilled the protector role. scully wants to know more before giving any sort of diagnosis, but she doesn't seem opposed to the hypothesis.

(skinner seems to fumble over which pronouns to use for each personality here)

skinner says to go ahead and take her back to the compound and see if it gets any results in prompting memories that could be useful to the investigation, but scully is mad at mulder! he didn’t even have the courage to tell skinner he thinks they're dealing with past lives here! mulder, who is usually so brave!!

he mumbles that skinner wouldn’t believe him. which is true.

woah, i don’t know how to interpret this line here, so i’ll just write it down for further analysis:

“i don’t believe that you feel responsible for those 50 lives. or melissa reidel. you are only responsible to yourself, mulder”

(is she saying he doesn’t care about those 50 people?? is she saying he has an ulterior motive? is she calling him a liar, and that he is using this case to gain support for his supernatural ideas?? is she calling him selfish? or is she trying to tell him that he can only be responsible for himself and control his own actions, that he cannot place the burden of saving everyone upon his shoulders? is she berating or reassuring him or both? does she think he isn't serious about the lives in danger?)

i can’t figure it out, but he gets up and leaves. (after watching the episode, i still can't figure it out- what did you think?)

so they take melissa back to the temple, and scully asks her to recall the painful memories so they can keep herself and others safe. it is very tense as she walks into a bedroom and sees many photos on the wall of ephesian and his wives. she knocks some of them over and starts crying.

scully still looks furious with mulder. it's as if she thinks his desire for supernatural entities to be proven comes ahead of his desire to save actual lives, and it's recalling her comparison to ahab during the conversation on the rock. she must feel that there is no time for this, that they need to get concrete answers right away or horrible things will happen; perhaps she thinks he isn't focused, is being fanciful. and i understand the pressure of a ticking clock, but after so long, this rift between them, it doesn't feel right.

oh my goodness, we see some horrific artwork on the wall by the kids at the temple. woah. shoutout to the set design team.

melissa is in the playroom sobbing, but asks why she is being called melissa. scully asks what she should call her, and that is how we meet lily. but lily isn’t there for very long before sydney comes back, saying to “leave the kid alone”. mulder says they can all be safe if they just are told where the guns are. then melissa seems to come back, and she goes back out the window where mulder was staring earlier!!! what does this window know?!?

and the score here is really pretty as she walks outside, scully following behind her. mulder is clearly unwell, though, and scully asks what is wrong, which he ignores and walks past her. typical him.

a new alter of melissa's seems to front, now with a southern accent, saying the guns are in a bunker. but… it’s the civil war she’s talking about. she was a nurse, looking for someone who was staying in tennessee. and she found that someone here, dead. then she was hidden in a bunker while the battle raged above her. it is very horrific, what she is describing.

she clarifies that she was there in november 1863, then turns to mulder and says “as were you”. he doesn’t seem shocked by this, but scully is, as this new southern belle proclaims “this is the field where i watched you die” OH!

(mulder, a confederate in a past life… this is deeply unfortunate)

mulder is trying to make a phone call to a hypnotist while they drive melissa back to the police station, but scully figures out he’s trying to do past life regression on her and says not to. and that her life is in shreds, and that is too much for her to handle. i hate to say it, but i agree with her. melissa has been through so much, and with such a tight deadline, i don't know if they have time for such a journey.

OH! mulder is angry. his voice is all growly as he yells “YOU WERE THERE, SCULLY! you saw it, you heard it, why can’t you feel it?” oh my gosh… the way he slammed his hand on the wheel... why can't she see it, it seems so obvious to him... how infuriating it must be...

scully asks why ephesian is a paranoid sociopath for claiming to be in greece years ago, but he isn’t for claiming to have died in that field……. damn…….

(idk what’s going on here between them exactly but i’m stressed. they are stressing me out)

(at this point, we begin a sequence in which i am so enraptured with what is going on, i have no reactions to all of the things i am seeing, and just recount them to you, with occasional interjections of "oh my god"- but i think if you've seen the episode, you get why it had this effect on me)

so they do get a therapist, who is talking to melissa. she begins to answer the therapist's questions about seeing anything upsetting at the compound, talking about a woman named elizabeth and her son scott, who came to live in the temple. and ephesian took the son away. but ephesian caught his mother visiting her son, and “the mighty men” beat her, which brings melissa to tears as she recounts this. and he hit the boy, calling him garbage, beating him.

scully looks very stressed in the background to hear all of this, but sydney is now fronting at this point, saying to leave melissa alone, and that the guns are in the bunkers… somewhere. where they are is a mystery, though.

scully leans down to mulder and says that maybe there is a map somewhere, but mulder says she knows where to find them. and at this she says “mulder…” in a very breathy fashion and i still can’t quite articulate what is going on between them…. but he’s going in.

he says it’s me, melissa, and asks her to go back to the field. “your eyes may have changed shade, but it cannot color the soul behind them”, she says. that they are only to meet in passing in this life. and she misses him. he just stared and stares, before his head falls into his hands

scully is trying to explain to him that this is a product of melissa's illness, and she can’t give any specifics- no names or locations, and they don’t have time to do this, because ephesian’s arraignment is in two hours.

“wouldn’t you, scully? wouldn’t anybody?” <- oh my god…. is he compelled by a terrible sense of duty or by his own curiosity? is she scared to watch him go down this path he cannot return from?

okay, so now he is going back into his past lives. this sequence is almost entirely a close up of his face, for minutes on end, which adds to the intensity. he's really panting as he remembers. “ghetto streets. shattered glass. bodies of the dead. a jewish woman. poland.” oh my god…… 

he says that he is samantha’s mother in this life; “in this life, she is my son”

his father is dead, and… HIS FATHER IS SCULLY? WHAT? i didn’t see that coming. she’s troubled by this, all of this, not just learning he believes her soul to have been his father before.

but he says that his father is waiting now for their souls to come back together, different, but always together, again and again, to learn.

and he is crying. he can’t go to his father. a gestapo man is there, and he is cancer man; “evil returns as evil, but love… souls mate eternal”. and his wife is melissa, who is taken away to the camps. and he’s crying, and scully is watching with great concern.

now, he’s rising above the field, near the bunker. and his sergeant is also dead, and “he is scully”, and we cut to her face of increasing sadness. sarah holds him, who is melissa. she is sarah kavanaugh, and he is sullivan biddle. she doesn’t know that he’s waiting for her, that they will live again. 

scully tries to ask if he sees any bunkers, but he keeps saying his soul is tired, and he wants to rest.

and this is devastating. it was if i was the one undergoing the hypnosis here. i couldn't look away, i couldn't react, i was so entirely absorbed and confused and busy feeling things.

scully is consulting a map in the town records to try and find this bunker where the weapons are stored, and then she looks up the names he mentioned. sure enough, they are in the county records. then she reaches for some photos, where she finds one of sullivan and sarah. 

a lot of things are being processed in her brain, so we might need to give her a minute. i think we can see some long-held systems of belief being challenged in her mind.

but she brings him back the photos of their past lives, even as she is telling him that ephesian is going to be released soon. why would she do this? to comfort him? to validate him without using words?

oh my god, mulder just called her “dana”. wait. hold on. oh my god, hold on.

“dana, if, um… early in the four years we’ve been working together… an event occurred that suggested or somebody told you that… we’d been friends together in other lifetimes- always- wouldn’t it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?”

“even if i knew for certain, i wouldn’t change a day”

WAUGHHHHHHHH (ripping my clothes off in grief) WAOUGHHHHHH wouavhhhghhhh……… she wouldn’t change a day….

(and what event was it that he is referring to? is there a certain one...? am i forgetting something from early s1...? damn you, my obsessive note-taking impulses, for not kicking into gear until s2...)

“well… maybe that flukeman thing, i could have lived without that just fine” HDHJSNSME he smiles as she leaves….

(i had to google what that even was because i was like ??? but the flukeman was the season 2 sewer baby!!! for those of you who are going into this whole thing blind and also don't know what the fandom calls stuff! i think to me he was "baby sewer mermaid" or something along those lines... but now we know)

so now he and melissa are in the room together, trying to recall. she says she wants to believe (!!!), and he’s rubbing her hand, but ephesian comes in, saying it’s time to leave. so she rips the photo in half and leaves crying. 

does he know he was supposed to love her? is he mourning that he hasn't? is he wondering if he has time to?

mulder gets up, and leans his head against the wall. scully comes in to say that they are still searching for more bunkers as the temple people return to their home. there is a deep sense of grief.

ephesian seems suspicious. 

mulder is talking to skinner, saying that those in the temple believe that the FBI are the devil’s army, prophesied to be defeated by the armies of god. but ephesian must not really believe that, because he hid the weapons. mulder emphasizes that he may “deny himself”.

back at the compound, all the members are being called to worship. the music is getting scary, and guns are being pulled out. 

scully looks up some bible verses and realizes that ephesian is calling his members to the end of times, which gives skinner the go ahead to launch a raid.

back at the compound, the poison is being distributed to the members of the temple. and a few are shooting at the agents outside, and mulder and scully pull up as the sipping of the poison begins inside. 

NO! mulder puts his hands up and begins to walk into the compound!!!!! WHAT IS HE DOING!!! scully shouts out that he is dead. as we see inside there are piles and piles of bodies, including melissa.

but wait! is she still alive???? she’s getting up!!! 

but no! ephesian is still there watching her. giving her poison to take. mulder is running in as fast as he can, trying to figure out what is going on. and he finds the room full of the bodies while gregorian chanting is in the background. 

he finds melissa, with no pulse, holding onto the photo she had torn. 

scully sees him touching her arm, raising his eyes and crying. 

we end where we began, with him in the field, holding the pictures of his and melissa’s past lives. 

end episode. 

what…..

first thoughts: i don’t quite know what to make of this, but i can tell it is going to tear me apart for the rest of my life.

second and third thoughts are also variations of my first thought.

i feel so sad? to know that mulder has (or thinks he has) lived these horrific past lives, and that he is reunited with the same people over and over again, to learn and lose them. and that scully was there with all of them- but so was melissa, and he said that soulmates are eternal, so if that is true he lost his for this life. and he said he was so tired, so tired... how can he escape the eternal cycle of samsara?

and scully, watching all of this- what did she mean when she said that he wasn't responsible for anything but himself? was it an insult? was she begging him? what was she feeling when she heard him talk about her being there in his past? was she trying to hurt him in their conversation in the car? will they ever actually be able to see eye to eye? does she believe him? can she? how does hearing all of this shake her own faith?

can you have many soulmates that come with you again and again, just in different forms? so would his soulmates be scully, and his mother and father and sister, and this melissa figure? and what are the implications of losing a soulmate in this world? is that a life of feeling that something is missing, until death? do they shuffle roles, but come again and again? is that comforting or horrific? are we to believe him?

and that terrible, terrible ending, him finding the bodies... how are we supposed to interpret that? just more grief on top of already endless grief? or are we supposed to see the poetry moment as an answer to a question that provides relief, even if it is bittersweet?

why did he want to know so badly? was he driven by duty to save? duty to find the Truth? duty to protect his loved ones and seek cosmic answers? are these separate things, or are they all intertwined in him?

i'm... really going to have to think this one over. i would really appreciate hearing your thoughts, as well. i wish i had a solid interpretation. it was very serious and sad, and it was bittersweet but filled with grief. i once again echo my earlier request for fluff. but how do you go back to the way things were once he says she was with him in every life? how does scully rationalize that? what are they to each other?

i'm pondering. it feels like something has shifted. and you can't go back now, even if i can't pinpoint what it is that changed.

i want to go back to daydreaming about apple cider dates. but it feels like you can't, you know? huh.

[moonstandardtime]

i want to put link in isat. im sure hed do fine. the heros spirit endures

[deviousdiesel]

.

[oathofkaslana]

i cant talk for any other hyv game but i do think it’s interesting how hi3 and genshin’s story flaws/ideals are bc of the very specific medium they’re in.

[mcytnpcshowdown]

Personally, I think Ariana Griande is a pretty clear cut example of an NPC being a completely different character. She’s originally from a gag grian did where he made a fake hermit news segment, and Ariana was only briefly mentioned with a picture shown (the 59th ep of s6, about 12 minutes in)

See, personally I always read the bit with Ariana Griande being that she isn't real, and that's why it's funny when he claims that all of their budget went to her. But I definitely understand why people see it either way. If she makes the running I may run a quick poll to see if the general public consider her an NPC or not!

[paradizetobefound]

I do think games that follow the rp ideas of DE will actually be quite a good development. The thing is. Uh. To do such kind of integration of story and narrative... you actually need to have things to say. And it's a lot of things to say. You must be ready to talk about things at length and do it at different angles. And those things must mean something and you must figure out how to relate it to the game part of the system so even when you have things to say, you must be ready to talk about them and how those things relate to other things and how people feel about those things and and and

Like, it's okay to not have much to say, I do not have lots to say about many many things. But I think this particular approach to integrating roleplay and story is precisely not that popular because it is kinda like writing a book on steroids. Talking to the reader except they are even more of a participant.

[barnabybrainrot]

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