#i mean hey when it's relevant it's relevant!

[everliving-everblaze]

Fitz's characterization is so interesting and so hard. He's both very kind AND a bit of an entitled jerk, and most people only manage to capture one of the two.

I think this is well-illustrated in the first few chapters of the series. Fitz and Sophie spend a lot of these chapters rolling their eyes and sniping at each other, because they both have an attitude about the whole thing. In particular, Fitz has his attitude about elvin superiority, and Sophie immediately responds to that negatively.

He'd never heard of Albert Einstein? The theory of relativity was dumb? She wasn't sure how to argue. He seemed so ridiculously confident—it was unnerving.

On the other hand, it's very clear that Fitz's heart is in the right place (or at least, a well-meaning place). He has his attitude of elvin superiority, but he's thrilled to welcome Sophie into it as well.

Fitz nudged her arm. "Hey. It's not your fault. You believed what they taught you—I'm sure I'd have done the same thing. But it's time you knew the truth. This is how the world really works. It's not magic. It's just how it is."

(And undoubtedly, he's right. He would have believed what he'd been taught—he did, just different beliefs!)

The thing is, Sophie doesn't particularly want to jump aboard the elvin superiority train that he's so excited about.

"Well, it's like you're saying, 'Hey, Sophie, take everything you've ever learned about anything and throw it away.'" "Actually, that is what I'm saying." He flashed a smug grin. "Humans do the best they can—but their minds can't begin to comprehend the complexities of reality." "And what, elves' minds are better?" "Of course.

Fitz reads as a total jerk with what he's saying! He's completely ignorant of the fact that his belief that humans are stupid and evil is like, gonna hurt Sophie's feelings. Because that's what he's been taught!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Fitz's character is hugely about prejudice, about people who believe what they are taught, even though it's wrong. And his character is about those people who then have to relearn their beliefs!

Fitz makes so much progress throughout the series in combating his own prejudice, largely through befriending Sophie. His character arc is one of my absolute favorites from any media, ever. I've gone through a lot of the same things he has, having to learn about prejudice and deal with my own biases, the lies that I was taught. His character is very meaningful to me!

But I think that's a piece that so often gets missed when people try to capture Fitz's character. Some people only see the bad parts and choose to portray him as totally evil. Some people focus on the good parts and portray him as more of a victim.

But I don't think either interpretation is totally right. Fitz is nuanced. He means well and truly tries to be kind within his worldview, and once he truly starts to realize his worldview is bad, he works on it! That's way more than a lot of people do. But he he makes a lot of mistakes along the way.

That's a fascinating, relevant character. And that's why he'll always be one of my favorites.

[greyvvardenfell]

i have to ask about verian because i love them: the magican, the lovers, the star. but i also want to learn a little about oddity!! the fool, the fool in reverse, the moon

The Magician: How does your character unleash their creativity or resourcefulness?

Genuinely just on this last little trip, Verian decided to tell me that he's so good at playing cards. Any game, doesn't matter. If he gambled, he would be deeply unpopular in many, many taverns. Luckily he's just in it for the thrill (categorizing, rules that everyone must know and obey, straightforward win conditions).

Damn, I need to have him paint something in Rosohna, don't I... In the morning he's going to start a very green-hued study of the city.

The Lovers: Which of your character’s relationships has been the most positive? (Romantic or otherwise)

Grandmother Elluciya he misses you every dayyyyyy 😭 But he is rapidly coming to see that, perhaps, his days of close connections with other people are not entirely behind him... and a really cool big tiddy goth priestess suggested that he make home where he is rather than hoping for something that can never be returned to him, so.... idk he might be thinking about that. at the moment. and seeing some positivity in his current companions. uwu

The Star: When has your character been most hopeful?

Two times: when the Raven Queen first came to him with salvation and brought him back to himself, and when the Moonlighters gave him a big group hug after he revealed what he'd done to require salvation in the first place.

------

The Fool: When has your character been excited to start a new journey?

She was truly excited by the prospect of the tadpoles and the whole Mind Flayer thing. She got to walk in the Astral Realm! She's been in the Underdark and met a hag! Her lover is undead! Sure, all that is probably supposed to be a little freaky too, but how novel! Haha yeah I mean it feels like a dream and maybe she wouldn't be so excited if she didn't have Emotion (Happiness) cast on herself at all times like she's had ever since Eldorne's betrayal and abandonment and the other numbing behaviors coping mechanisms weren't enough anymore but hey! If you can't make your own excitement, store-bought is fine, right?

The Fool in Reverse: When has your character acted recklessly?

Having a character whose primary motivation is curiosity in a world where you have to be nosy (and somewhat reckless) in order to make any progress was a good call tbh. I feel like letting Volo do his uhhhhhh "surgery" was pretty reckless, though. As was letting Astarion feed on her, both the first time she caught him and during sex. Anything to feel alive!

The Moon: When has your character’s path been unclear?

The worst off she's been was when her fiance Eldorne cheated on her and left her at the altar, and her dad died shortly thereafter. Bad times for Oddity. It was actually during that time that she took the virtue name and resolved to live more in the moment... and also took up several vices of escalating intensity, forcing her already-shaky impulse control into submission.

[kindaorangey]

well i'm comforted by the knowledge that book!armand has some faith in the christian god (and, like, that this faith is vital to his character) because it means theres absolutely no fucking way they'd just do that one-to-one in the show and so we're one step closer to an exploration of show!armand's relationship with islam

[astral-circuitry]

i think i rly am the cutest when i embarrass myself bc i was like "hey uhhhh i don't wanna be unprofessional but my friends say you're flirting.......?" which was probably kinda blunt and she started laughing and was like "well i was trying. *my* friend tried to convince me you might just be straight."

and then she asked if she could have my number and i was like "......i just wanna be super open, I'm trans" which was Definitely blunt but seemed kinda relevant, and she grinned and was "yeah" which i Did Not think could be clock-able but either it is or she's just rly cool??

anyway i gave her my number and she immediately texted me so i'd have hers and she didn't even buy a book, she just fucking left again. which might mean my recs suck, I'm not sure she read any of the books she bought, chat.

the third Saturday in a row, this clearly and loudly queer young woman came in and she keeps asking me for recs and i just bullshit it but she always somehow likes the books i tell her to read i guess even tho i haven't even read them myself so she keeps coming back and she's very pretty so you can only imagine how stressful this all is for me. today she said she likes my hoodie. it's the cm punk one. last week she asked me if i dyed my hair myself. like please ma'am. this is so scary I can't do small talk

[scarefox]

Just heard that everyone who has 1000+ followers on whatever social media site counts as influencer

oh 💀

but many of them are bots, spam or dead accounts lol ... I think. realistically there are only like 10 people interacting with my untagged posts.

(would love to have better access to that list so I could block bot accounts and inactive blogs better)

[every-eye-evermore]

tell me your ancient names pt.i revelation bestie share your wisdom

There are a lot of different interpretations on the fortune telling from ancient names, but now that we can see the scene for ourselves, we know exactly what went down!

Here’s everything lady Moonbeam tells Buck:

- You’re looking for a woman

- To find her, follow the emerald star

That is literally it. That’s all. Outside of asking for Lee’s sign and that it’s “difficult to say” that’s all she says.

SO WHERE THE HELL DID HE GET THIS?

ARE WE GONNA ELABORATE ON THAT?

And we still have no clue what this was all about

What the hell is going on in ancient names part 1.

I’m not even going to get started on the vide noir hotline

My theories are

- plot changed (boring)

- he’s talking about the second time he spoke to lady moonbeam, under the bridge when she told him in no uncertain terms that what he was doing was a bad idea. But that still doesn’t fully account for

- what the hell is going on with the vide noir hotline seriously we don’t talk about this enough the world ender was barely a character in vide noir so what was all of that about what’s going on here why are there ghosts in the semi-realistic neo-noir movie

[aromanticasterisms]

haha xbox wings [reads the description] hey what the fuck

[variousqueerthings]

not negating that chris eccleston had a bad time on dw and rightfully wouldn't want to work with that team again for his own sake (minus billie i assume), but i have reservations about people in fandom jumping on the "yeah rtd is a dick who's incredibly hated in television actually, it's just a big secret," train when i have never heard anything to that effect outside of this working relationship that ended poorly and that as far as im aware rtd has never spoken about, so it's still a relatively private affair (of which we know a scant few details/that rtd didn't stick up for eccleston when he needed that support). i mean, he might be the worst guy ever, i've never worked with him, but i don't think the people saying this have either, and i think it's way too easy for people to assume the worst and go looking for confirmation bias, because it can justify their own dislike of rtd as a showrunner or his return as pure "nostalgia baiting" (that's another post). but yeah, if i see one more person go "oh i just have a feeling he's probably an asshole actually and the fact that we know that eccleston doesn't like him (as if that's new news) confirms that" as a roundabout way of going actually his era of the show wasn't that good or that him coming back to the show is a mistake, im simply not taking that seriously. just say you don't like the writing or whatever, don't make up a guy to personally dislike. there'll be another showrunner after him.

[thefirstknife]

Is the Witness cutscene viewable to people who did not pay for access to the season (or will it be post-year)? Like people who only bought the expansion and not the season pass? I know they shove important story and lore info behind timegated paywalls constantly (reason I hate the season model), but that seems like a really especially vital scene I would hope would be viewable in-game by everyone

Right now, it's only a part of the season. Obviously it's available for free online on their official and non-official channels, but in-game it's only for those that have Season of the Deep, for now, since it's a part of this season.

As for the future, honestly no clue. I will assume yes because of one simple fact: you will no longer be able to buy the past seasons when Lightfall year ends. That would mean that only people who bought the season during this year would continue to have access to the cutscene going forward, but no new players would have the same access, which kinda defeats the purpose of having it accessible in the game later.

So I can assume that they might be working on some universally accessible cutscene viewer that will allow all players to see cutscenes from content no longer in the game, regardless of whether they've previously purchased it or not. That's the best scenario because it would mean we'd get all other cutscenes in the game too. The middle scenario is that only the Witness cutscene will be viewable somewhere as part of another mission or some quest, also without having to have purchased Season of the Deep (since you won't be able to once TFS starts: technically you'll be able to purchase Lightfall so maybe it will require you to at least have purchased that, but the season itself will no longer exist).

We'll have to wait for more info on that. As of now, I would assume that once this year is done and the season is no longer purchasable, the cutscene will be a part of content that is available to everyone. While it's still purchasable, it's only in-game for those that bought it, but can be viewed with no problem on their official channel (and elsewhere).

[unproduciblesmackdown]

take 4: the tension (gulf spanned with incomplete, continuously crumbling bridges) between the perspective of oneself as the Deservingly Epic Winner Protagonist Person who dares to be Out Of Line versus the need to actually completely stay in line within this b/c it hinges on being in harmony with the preexisting hierarchies which will supposedly reward the "merit" of this Actor. while everyone whose existence is Inferior, according to the hierarchies, is defined by being Out Of Line, which these same people resent & respond to, also Staying In Line with the hierarchy, by trying to reinforce the dynamics of these inferior / superior groupings. "everything pathologized about the inferior groups / rejected as what's Wrong with their existence so as to "cause" these dynamics is "take 4" b/c this is from me trying to write about winston quant kid 2 billions like holy shit a series operating on this logic huh, giving this unvarnished expression of this perspective b/c it's assuming (& requiring...) we all have it. winston is constantly responded to as Guy Who's Out Of Line. the "superior" parties who hate him & get to have him as their punching bag / hit with the butt of the joke / at least ignored & excluded, but taken advantage of, but who all have to Stay In Line, how's that going for them even when it comes to the writing, where characters can't do anything if it's too disruptive of the In Universe hierarchy, unless it's a finale zone for a permissable shakeup, where ppl insulating/supporting each other being a bit Out Of Line is not a problem b/c they individually recognize each other's transcendently True worthiness in thee objective hierarchy we all assume exists, but definitely can never disrupt the out of universe hierarchy, e.g. the show decides wendy is the true hero, b/c she deserves to be. taylor has to hire back dollar bill & stand back while wags & wendy take the lead & the spotlight & hate the autistic guy they hired & show up so the Winner, who was written into the show with nothing to do but tell taylor they're not quite as good as wendy & then provide a vagina amidst otherwise being an Everyemployee who fails to even differentiate from an Axe Cap style everyemployee, can announce their winningness detached from anything that actually happened ever.

counterpart to winston's departure needing an audience of people to stand there & stay in line, which on that side of the same coin meant punishing his Out Of Lineness that doesn't even act like anyone bothered to think of [this is one particular preexisting guy. you thought he liked scifi once before you lost interest in even suggesting he has interests, though, will roland likes scifi, will roland wore his own open buttonup as quant kid 2 that'd define the Look, will roland happened to have the facial hair just kept for production b/c who would care, will roland brought the entire je ne sais quoi acting interpretation that made quant kid 2 go from "out of line guy we kill once" to "out of line guy we keep around to kill all thee time until finale 'haha but seriously though' material means pushing him out of the way in s6 & then s7 alike" like hmm] like everyone just spitballed "annoying things! cringe loser things! things that would never happen to me, a deserving winner!!" & put it in as easter eggs as though that would even make sense, much less [you have no other priority?] but like. rian's sendoff didn't do any better for acting like she's a specific character who's said & done things we're meant to remember & have thought about then & now. taylor didn't get to have resolution with philip. they Had to have resolution with wendy that, again, has nothing to do with any/everything prior, except perhaps to contradict it. this is what anyone got for Staying In Line like superior winners. the autistic [annoying arrogant inferior undeserving etc] Out Of Lineness that would be so supposedly admired instead seen as pure Other shit that's projected upon ppl so as to Reject it thusly. couldn't be me!! i'm a winner who will always have Superior ranking in the hierarchy & treated accordingly!!! i Must be!!!! like i must Kill people who seem to be disrupting this, even by acting like a person who assumes they're equal to me despite being Different. there all along like wow winston existing Out Of Line is so powerful. he can harmonize with & support taylor so well b/c they're introduced as being so Out Of Line, up to the inevitable point of breaking out & starting their own thing entirely!!! but while it's like, okay yeah, you Have to reel them back in by thwarting them b/c otherwise they break so far from central men's orbit they exit the series or you have to put Them at the center (imagine...) (plus! the role winston plays in them getting as close to this as they ever can be!) but then in the end taylor's just shortchanged b/c when it comes time to take down a central man as thee main thing all season, series finale style, they should be knocking it out in a few episodes with sacker & philip. instead we focus on wendy given the helm & fucking around all season. after disposing of winston b/c who even needs him for anything, this is Stay In Line times, and to do that we can do nothing w/autistic people but hate them & punish them for being undeserving. but don't worry b/c he doesn't get to be so Out Of Line as to easily cause problems for them & thwart them, b/c he just doesn't. taylor waits around on wendy & tells her she's the best b/c they just do. we are all in line on all of this ourselves so whew, there's no Disruption to notice if that key Alignment is maintained. rian was never holding herself Above winston if we just really tentatively suggest she doesn't think that she was, while letting every double standard at play be acted out. rian being "out of line" was that she wasn't being aggressive enough about any of her Superiority, b/c if you didn't leave bruising then nothing was That Bad; cue the assaults and boundary violations Reserved for the inferior losers as fun times & nothing anyone is beholden to with Consequences, we don't even make the viewer stick with the consequences of how it affects the target a second too long, lest you start to think it's Drama & not Jokes.

anyways it's all about the [categorization as inferior Other based on an assumed Hierarchy = inherently defined as Out Of Line] all "why get a formal diagnosis from a professional who doesn't know what to look for when at age 5 my peers went 'something's wrong with this one' & acted 'accordingly'" like even when people "know" what's Wrong with someone to make them the odd one out / "incompatible" w/what makes others exist Right, it's time to interpret everything else about them as "backing that up" no matter what, certainly no matter if it involves theoretically Valued concepts, b/c it's all first & foremost Staying In Line with the hierarchy, where the correct way to do things is: if you Can push someone else into greater vulnerability while you're established as Insulated, you Do. tl;dr winston inherently continuously Out Of Line; being "superior" requires an ultimate (&/or also quite Immediate. especially when it comes to "simple" matters already "correctly" arranged in the supposed Objective Hierarchy, like: winston's "objectively" inferiority (autistic swag)) Staying In Line. and what comes of it. all the most engaging & complex shit when people get to not actually stay in line. the power of it if taylor & tmc & allies didn't have to ultimately be shoved into Staying In Line even when it means wendy is the best & oh who cares about taylor & philip when wags is around etc etc. if winston being someone Out Of Line was seen as relevant & not an easy nonstop joke. while a quant who is so In Line as to correctly personally abuse him even more than others are doing is so ""out of line"" as to decide she's already gotten everything she wants & may as well live the dream now, b/c she's not an aggressive man, one has to suppose, same diff as wendy getting to believe she's Better than everyone & is nobly in charge of orchestrating their fates when she Means & Knows so well, & is somehow pitted against prince being this same figure but without having to confront that fact. he's mean! or whatever. he's talking about killing people & wendy isn't so that sorts it out forever. "abuse your local autists; it's funny & their fault & consequenceless b/c they're not real people" is also harmonious with all our ideas. edgy rulebreaking bold independent Out of Line heroes completely in accord w/the established hierarchies. & those whose existence threatening peership disrupts it who are written off losers who could never upend those heroes' goings on. everyone Actually being peers is unimagineable, not as a figure of speech. we do not imagine it, what are you even talking about. now for the Merited Hierarchy to be acted out as arranged, which is fun, god i wish that were me. Independent Agents ascending it only!! & people who Cheat to get in like loser nerds w/their math, b/c they can't Deserve it. now to keep insisting that everyone else could just be On My Level if they tried, while also responding violently if it seems like weirdos / ppl who aren't Supposed to be here are infringing on my level (the only violence is physical strikes that made contact, & perhaps killed you)

anyways just another installment of [fake fans haunted by billions, & other things which are in real life, such as the fictional series billions] musings i have to excise at all b/c [this was take 4]. winston Out Of Line. superior correct winners who have to Stay In Line at related great costs despite the supposed associated wins of that. his autistic swag. knowing ppl Are different autism style b/c they're "out of line." encountering irl autistic people without realizing it & repeatedly writing "this nerd guy is just So annoying ugh!! he's just like weird & doing everything wrong for no reason & won't just Be Normal or Shut Up & Go Away!! but at least his intractible arrogant cluelessness also means we have fun punishing & taking advantage of him" Type butt of jokes into things. those cringe loser Insistently Annoying Weirdo nerds who we all find insufferable & punish, we all know them, inherent Inferior Other Out Of Line that they are. now it's a Guy we all hate & enjoy seeing suffer & Understand as a less deserving less [person] just dropped into the periphery of this fiction. he will easily be thwarted from an alliance with the [person designed to be Out of Line in a way that Is considered Legitimate] that would let them shatter the limits of the series in 5 sec which we're also holding them back by the scruff of the neck to prevent anyways while pushing forward ppl supposed to be even More correct b/c uh um they're a little more Normal, & perhaps even Women, who are innately more caring & gentle. there they go hurting those around them as much as they can, with nothing stopping them at all, but they're using their inside voices & not issuing physical threats so that's what i'm talking about. that is heroic, vs the villainous efforts to navigate life as though everyone will respect them as a fellow person which Autists egregiously pull, to which you can do anything you want to Reject this. maybe even decide you wanna personally use them. isn't that nice of you. no, we don't know what to do with the "this guy won't stop acting like he gets to think he's a person" but eventually send him away after the dozen trampled boundaries to punish him for fun b/c what else was the point of him? anyways don't worry i saw the autistic swag. the nonbinary swag it didn't even know was there. the nonbinary swag it knew was there but held back by the scruff of the neck b/c all billions' most engaging, potential filled characters are the ones Held Back b/c they're threatening too much [out of line] / their out of Lineness must be contained; vs everyone perfectly in line who keeps being pushed in front of them no matter what b/c uhhh.

let's go Out of Line gang. continual inevitable Disruption of the norm(tm). like even just standing there vs "oh immediately i fucking Hate this guy." billions where anyone considers winston for 5 sec would also shatter apart. taylor would be too powerful even more than they already are if they didn't have to stay wendy's sidekick no matter what. rian who didn't have to come back from the hiatus even more "right" than they presumably intended her to always be (bound to thee hierachy / actually always Staying In Line. if she's out of it, psych, actually that was just a correction of the "objective" hierarchal order waiting to reconfigure itself around the situation). standing around waiting like okay but the payoff that Could happen....okay still time though lol....well here we are

the fundamentalness of the Out Of Lineness. quantessential....send post

[trollbreak]

just dropping by to say all of the emoji adopts you're doing are SO cool lookin like you are on a roll

Thank you! I’m enjoying designing them, and it’s made for a nice thing to focus on when I’ve got the spoons today

[palmettoshenanigans]

THIS is why people say Andrew is normal. He's a freak to people who don't understand trauma responses but to those who DO he's quite run of the mill. In the grand scheme of responses to unspeakable childhood CPTSD Andrew isn't that weird.

NEIL? He's a freak to the freaks. Freaks look at him and do a double take. Other freaks give him a wide berth. Someone pray to a god and thank them that Neil likes Exy and not Crime cus diabolical doesn't cover it.

andreil rlly shines when ppl realize that andrew is the normal one in the relationship. this is also why aaron was being psychologically tortured by neil (unknowingly) during all 3 books

[lieutenantselnia]

This is super random, but I've recently been watching more German movies (I really enjoyed the performances of some Downfall actors and wanted to see some of their other works), and like what the hell is it with 2000s German movies that there's way too often one entirely random scene with someone having their bare ass out😭😂

Of course it doesn't happen in every movie but still often enough that it's somehow noticeable? I'm not sure if it's more of a time or a country dependent thing, but at least in my perception I just don't feel like this occurs as often in more recent movies and series especially in those from the US (like, I feel I'd have noticed if it did because I'd probably be lowkey annoyed by it😂)

[zhengzi]

it's great that ishin is set around the time period that cartographies of desire (which surveys male-male sexuality within historical Japanese literature) covers

as soon as my insomnia is under control, gonna try to finish the book (or at least skip to the parts where it does cover the bakumatsu period, because that book is dense as hell) so that i can write gay ishin fics that deal with male-male sexuality in a way that's faithful to the time period

[pixiedustandbluebutterflies]

I absolutely DESPISE having to set my alarm for earlier on in my day off than on my work days. Like that's some fucked up shit.

[probablyaseamonster]

THANK YOU! I was waiting for someone to bring this up!

I picked up on Husk's dehumanization after the first few viewings of the pilot, and it surprised me that I haven't found anyone else talking about it? It's the same thing with me picking up pretty early into s1 that Loona (and by extension other Hellhounds) were probably dehumanized in some way (ALSO I TOTALLY CALLED THE LOONA BEING RAISED IN A POUND THING), but it was hard to find other people with similar theories.

I felt like I had to add something to this conversation, so I'd like to bring up something that plenty of other people have pointed out. In the flashback to the moment when Alastor took Husk's soul, we see that Husk was wearing CLOTHES (I know, shocker, right?), and fancy ones at that. My current theory is that Alastor doesn't allow Husk to wear shirts or anything while under his service, and unlike most demons who'd probably make it to be about looking sexy, we know Al doesn't really get that (problematic ace rep let's go), so it's probably something "innocent" like "You're too fluffy to be hiding it away!" (hypocrite, if the tail theory turns out to be true). Which maybe could parallel Angel's chest fluff being sexualized (although I'm not sure at this point if that was Angel's aesthetic choice or not). Basically I think that Alastor would get touchy with Husk just because he's just a soft, furry cat to him, and clothes would get in the way. Alastor himself would never not be fully dressed, but would he humiliate others like that?... Yeah, as long as it doesn't turn into a sex scene.

And continuing on with that, when all the other hotel residents are given their outfit changes before the filming, Husk just gets given cuffs. Almost like... you get what I'm saying, right? And additionally, Husk's bowtie (which was the only thing he retained from his previous outfit) used to be yellow, which matched his eyes. Alastor is probably the one who changed it to red, to match his colour scheme, and potentially also his wings (and isn't it ironic that the one demon with wings is one of the least free of all?). But the eyes are the windows to the soul, and I'd say that Husk probably prefers those to his useless stupid card-coded feathers. At least black-and-yellow eyes are slightly intimidating.

And don't even get me STARTED on that one theory that sprung up from a frame in Loser, Baby. Some people find it funny but I personally find it horrifying. I've had nightmares about something like that being done to a human, and Husk is a former human... no wonder he hates his form. Especially in a society where being sexual is the norm.

I've got a LOT of thoughts about this and I hope stuff like this gets acknowledged in season 2, because I definitely think Husk's story is not done (especially if he dies like the theorists think) and we have a lot more characters and plot points that are more critical to discuss before things like the characters' pasts.

So I wonder if Husk’s dislike of his form is (at least somewhat) a result of Alastor’s treatment of him?

It’s mentioned on his wiki that Husk does not like his form. He’s essentially a house cat with bird add-ons, which isn’t exactly intimidating.

His dislike could be for plenty of reasons but to me it kinda came across like he’s used to being treated as less than human? Like a pet.

Angel’s “kitty has claws” and “meow” are the flirtations that seem to cause the most visceral reaction out of husk (outside of “I can make those wings flap” which is, again, about Husk’s actual form). Angel was also touching Husk on both situations, moving him in the way he wanted to emphasize his point (tilting and holding Husk’s chin and tilting his wings). Part of Husk’s dislike is definitely because he dislikes Angel’s fakeness and the infringement on his boundaries, but these comments in particular set him off in a way the others don’t. It’s genuine anger over exasperation.

Then we get the Husk and Alastor scene in Episode 5 where Alastor openly talks down to Husk and scratches him behind the ear like an actual cat. This sets Husk off enough that, even knowing he’s owned by Alastor who is extremely dangerous (because I doubt he’s just forget that), he still snaps back. The first thing he says is “You may own my soul but I’m not your damn pet” and the level of anger here seems to imply Alastor treats him like this with at least some frequency. This is further proven when Alastor responds with a simple “oh, but you are!” Which is what leads to Husk snapping enough that he sets Alastor off.

Alastor then proceeds to push Husk to the ground and show his chain, pulling Husk closer against his will the same way one might an unruly dog pulling on its leash.

I think it’s also worth noting that Alastor is not usually a touchy person. This episode is an exception in that he’s being extra nice to Charlie to piss off Lucifer but this is still far from the norm. The only one he’s really touched up to this point is Nifty and that was only because she climbed on him. Him petting Husk was only a move of control, which is probably part of why it set Husk off so badly.

I think this also changes our perspectives on “Loser, baby” and the comparison there, since we now actually know what Husk and Alastor’s relationship is like. Angel may be Val’s toy but Husk is Alastor’s pet. His cat who’s brought in to take care of the mice.