#i think there's a case for either and it's probably to some degree both

[elizabethrobertajones]

summer scions!! I absolutely love the new portraits for all their smug happy expressions. Except Y'shtola, who is not going to deign to give a camera a proper saucy look because that's silly. Urianger is smirking twice as hard on her behalf.

Glam review under the cut!

I unlocked Alphinaud first of the twins and didn't know Alisaie had a little necktie yet, so I'm deducting a point from my first impression because the sheer delight that he had a silly little necktie of some sort no matter the situation delighted me so thoroughly. Since they're still engaging in matchy twin dressing to some degree, I have to assume they either like it and won't admit it after digging in so hard, or Ameliance sent them off with cute outfits and matching backpacks, and they still don't really shop for themselves.

He's got the practical watch/compass gloves which are good for a technically proficient Sage and probably the most practical gear he's ever worn except for when he was poncho Alphy, but wearing ankle-length jeans seem like the least weather-appropriate choice of the Scions if we assume their average skin coverage is a good weathervane for the temperature in Tural. I chalk it up to teenage awkwardness.

8/10 unless he and Alisaie chose their outfits themselves, in which case it's a 9/10

I think Alisaie is the only Scion to keep a single piece of their default gear, and those are her usual gloves. She's colour-matched around it.

Because of the gloves and boots, she looks the most ready for hardcore hiking, somehow, and her matching Alphinaud with a cute button down shirt with rolled up sleeves along with that particular choice of baggier shorts (when she normally wears more form fitting shorts) do give me the closest to butch vibes it's probably likely to get for main characters. So I'm giving her an extra point I stole from Alphinaud for the lesbian vibes.

9/10 or 10/10 if she made these choices all by herself.

Everything about this cracks me up, from his portrait above to the image of him tanking open shirted once he pulls mobs.

Believe it or not, he's getting an additional point for those shoes simply because the competition in practicality in tanking is G'raha.

I had a moment of excitement when I thought the necklace was pink because that's always a cute Ryne/Minfillia thing fanartists give him with ribbons and such, but once I got zoomed in on him it was red, so I guess he's just been shopping. Although, the turquoise shorts are her eye colour and the actual large diamond shapes are secretly Mothercrystal coded in those colours, which just cracks me up that you can pick out one of the worse days of his life (Urianger's grand Warrior of Darkness plan) in his Chill Summer Beach Vibes look.

Douchebag beach bro shell bracelet as well, which really makes me double down on him and Urianger spending way too much on tourist bait along the stalls in the Famous Turali Market. The hat and sunglasses are giving him one of the Most tourist-y looks thematically reflecting how a lot of the Scion guys were just here to hang out, narratively or literally. Maybe he's trying not to get such an intense tan again, which is the only reason he's not entirely topless.

11/10 I could not stop laughing when I got him and Urianger to 100 and Beheld The Brilliance in the same moment.

Please note the raised sunglasses in Urianger's portrait, which are not the model his character uses.

I am delighted that I had been incorporating that island watch into my healer glams on both the logic you need to know your clock positionals but also they're largely the smarty pants jobs (WHM being vibes only aside - it gets its own glams :P). And here's Urianger and Alphinaud both using watches.

Now, I had a moment of being vaguely disappointed he had trousers not a skirt or something else swishy and androgynous, but then I did realise that I, a nonbinary weirdo who relates to Urianger since he made me nonbinary, have actually gone to a couple of garden parties dressed in some variation of this exact outfit of light trousers and a nice button up. Plus, the earrings are in both ears, so no "Google, which ear is the gay one?", these are just straight up cute femme dangly earrings with his favourite little dudes on.

More importantly, the colours he's repping are those of Lopporit Radio. He probably tunes in every night for his broadcasts :')

Mirrored sunglasses for the guy notorious for keeping thoughts and plans close to his chest and choosing deliberately to be enigmatic even when it serves zero purpose except for I guess gender affirming care. (The gender is Weird Bitch.)

I can't tell how I feel about those dad sandals. I suppose it depends if he's wearing them like a fashion model (brand new and clean with perfect pedicured feet) or if those are REALLY dad at the beach-like and, since I'm not a foot person, this for me is only a choice between "not off-putting" and "AURGH".

9/10 the proximity to Thancred hauls him up several points of misgivings I had, and the lopporit shout outs are killing me :')

I unlocked Y'shtola last and holy fuck I am a lesbian. I don't even recognise where those boots come from, so either a really expensive glam or something I just have not stumbled on. She has toe rings I think? And painted nails? I have no idea if the garter (?) is part of the boots glam or a custom thing as result of not recognising the boots and how much of them is normal. I feel like they customised a lot on her anyway - the back of her top has purple beads that match her staff (not dyable on the real piece)

and I think the necklace has to be part of the top instead of a separate necklace piece with the way it hangs, AND the bracelets are a glove piece with the original summer glam, but I assume they're layered with the false nails, also in the glove slot. All in all it's giving the sort of effort which is starting to creep up to what I'd expect from the modding community not the game. I mean, not THAT good but getting close. Baby steps towards what fandom can make :P

She really is god's favourite meow meow.

Anyway I can't really judge this fairly because it's really hot and I love her so I'm just going to give it 100/10 and move on. :)

how did I get a picture where Estinien looks like he's stooping to get in the frame...

The fact he has Azure Dragoon Blue Top and then Violently Nidhogg Fuchsia shorts is the colour theory that absolutely killed me. When he lights up during his burst and starts glowing pink all over his shorts are like. Taking him over like the eye once did I think.

love a guy who can embrace his past trauma and dress to match all that has passed before and all that he intends to do now (kill something large and tasty, grill it on the beach, fall asleep with a beer in hand until the waves come in and wake him up).

I gave him that wooden bracelet in the glam he has on my desktop screen so once again I'm feeling weirdly vindicated.

Other details: no ponytail despite the warm weather because he's got enough ventilation. The fact there's cactaurs on his shirt when he's on record for eating them is amazing. We should imagine he's wearing his jobstone like that pendant (since he's one of the only guys with a confirmed jobstone despite being the Guy Without A Job notoriously that one time.)

Unlike Thancred's hat and sunglasses combo, which seems fun and boisterous somehow, he seems the most walled off of all the sunglasses wearers even though he's not the most mysterious. The visor really helps make it a sort of wall. Maybe just because his terse upfront personality and somehow despite his clothes horse habits THIS amount of whimsy seems the most out of character at first glance, but he DOES look uncomfortable to me.

Somehow I find everything about this outfit excellent for his character but also like maybe he was forced into it, everyone cornering him and telling him the Scion Beach Party was a mandatory work event and he was not allowed to beg off of it and he did put some work in expressing himself but also is going to go find a much quieter corner to lurk in for the day, when not competing with Thancred (can't grill, loves it) for the barbeque (Estinien can grill, would only do it because the threat of Thancred doing it wrong is too high).

confused 7/10 mostly because I think Krile is blackmailing him and not because I don't love everything about this.

Here's how G'reenha Tia can still win -

Anyway here's the deducted point for tanking in flip flops (PERFECTLY acceptable BLM gear btw but he's Mr Versatile.)

(I joke but the main character of my novels is a flip-flop wearing menace who could and would tank in them)

Between the padlock and key necklace and the woven bracelet right after we all went feral over the Thavnarian bracelets for couples thing so recently (and Corvos is just across the water!) he's absolutely dripping cutie pie love interest coding yet again.

(Also yes I know the lock and key thing is very funny because we were introduced to him learning he was a fancy key to a big door.)

Gains a point back because the other green g'raha thing is I'm pretty sure people use this shirt glam because it kinda looks like it has weed on it.

Don't quote me on that, vibes only.

Anyway he came colour coordinated (with his original eye colour and hair colour not the bright Allagan dalamud red dye that goes with his normal outfit) so so precise and neat, like he's going to some sort of formal event, and even with flip flops he really does seem incredibly put together like the twins or Y'shtola, just for full outfit cohesiveness.

As someone who would hold G'raha's hand on the romantic gondola vibe, 10/10.

3 out of 10 and a huge cringe if you would not. He's got to stop Striving.

Hey it's the star of the show!! Adorable hairstyle out, cute plot-important earring on, and wearing her exact character colours but adorable beach wear :)

I love that she looks kind of like she went to the girls for advice and got the top from Y'shtola and the shorts from Alisaie, and she probably was very serious and stressed about getting this right even though there's no rules and no one's judging her -

oops.

Anyway the ballet shoes are adorable and go with all the cute picto spins and twirls :)

I think the strict colour scheme does speak to the slight lack of fleshing out she got so far in the story (we don't really have any real character reason that picto in particular spoke to her and this glam isn't one of the many fun takes people had on how to dress to meet that brief ). I don't think DT did more than just repeat that she's serious and sweet and trying really hard to get out of her shell and be more fun and creative and also she's been practicing dodging really hard she shouts mid-Trust combat (bless her). But ALSO getting out of the shell is really hard and she only found out everything and got some closure in the final level 100 quests so there wasn't really much to do with her after that.

This is like her First Non-Plot-Critical Whimsy Moment and losing the hood or any cat ears entirely (and there are perfectly functional cat ears to wear in game) is a good step considering we know she wears it precisely because she needed a sort of advance PR campaign to make her look cute and approachable before she opened her mouth and started bringing down the vibe (serious scary children are SO funny though and i love that for her). Having the same top as Y'shtola is a good thing for trying to make her less childish and have her trying to show that now as she takes this huge step out from the background. I mean, it still has a slight sense of her costuming herself and pushing herself out of comfort zones as she always does, but it's 100% in character so I adore it.

1000/10 because Krile is great and there's so much going on here and it's so fun when a character's whole personality is a costume and then they're like aurgh wait do I even want that??

[supermenz]

one

summary: One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do; two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one. Or: you're two years old when you lose your parents. Your brother, a kid himself, is unable to give you the love you deserve, and you end up at twenty being as burn out as only a Gotham University student can be. So, what do you do? Change scenery, of course.

pairing(s): clark kent x wayne!reader, bruce wayne x sister!reader, eventual platonic batfam x reader (no use of y/n)

warnings: genius kid trope, kinda doomed siblings, language, there are reference to what happens in "the batman" but there will be a merge of both comics and films, written with david!superman in mind cuz he's my pookie 😞, bruce is so pathetic i love him sm

word count: 2.2k

author's note: my first ever fanfic for the dc universe!! constructive criticism is welcomed as english is not my first language,

next | series masterlist

Gotham has left you feeling more claustrophobic in the last few months than it did all your life. 

Maybe it’s because you’re seeing your brother slip into his work — aka beating criminals in the night as a hobby — more and more, or maybe it’s just your brain playing tricks on you. It’s probably the latter. 

You’ve never been good with emotions — it comes with being a Wayne, and surely, having your parents die before you were three didn’t help your situation. Bruce spending most of your childhood abroad with barely any contact with you also probably didn’t help either. 

“But I’m here now,” he had said once, “Am I not?”

He is, but even if you love him with all your heart, sometimes you think that you’re more like colleagues rather than siblings. Your bond is strained, with him being so closed-off and spending most of his free time cosplaying as a bat, and you having just entered your twenties, trying to get your second degree in biology after an early graduation and an even earlier PhD in engineering. And since his first big case four years ago, neither of you has been the same. 

Your relationship has never been easy. The flood and the Riddler’s case basically forced you to trauma bond over what you both had experienced, as surely no therapist would’ve wanted to hear about all the horrors that you two experienced, even for all the money in the world. Besides, it’s not like Bruce could just enter a therapist’s office and tell them that he’s the fucking Batman. 

As of now, you tend to have your… ups and downs. Both prefer to just hide behind paperwork, projects, cases or research rather than just talk some things out. Because yes, Bruce’s your brother, but that doesn’t mean he’s easy to love. There are some days where he seems to be barely able to talk to you, others where you know he just wants to scream at you for whatever reason, others where… others where you think he might just crumble at your feet and start crying. 

You don’t have a lot in common. Maybe that’s why he manages to stay in Gotham even after all that’s happened — combined with the fact that he’s spent ten years or so abroad. Maybe you need that, too. 

“I’m thinking of moving out,” you tell him during one of your rare dinners together. You have already talked about your plan to Alfred, who has shown his support towards the idea and urged you to get out of Gotham as soon as you could, but you also wanted to tell Bruce — just to be honest with him. 

Yes, he left you to study abroad all those years ago without any kind of goodbye or anything, but you have no intention of leaving him behind like he did to you — you may be grown adults now, but that doesn’t mean that being left behind doesn’t exist anymore. You doubt Bruce would ever feel left behind by you, of all people, but still. “Found a faculty in Metropolis that will be able to transfer all my credits and studies and a nice flat downtown near the Wayne Enterprises’ site there. I think I need a breath of fresh air– I need to go somewhere where the sun actually shines and not everyone has hidden agendas.”

You’ve heard good things about Metropolis, and you think that the Martha Wayne Foundation could be expanded a bit more — somewhere far from Gotham, where surely there are other orphanages, other people in need that could use some help. “I could handle Wayne Enterprise’s gestion and settle our matters there while continuing my studies in a more… calm environment.” calm is a big word for a metropolitan city as big and populated as Metropolis, but every city is calm in contrast to Gotham.  

Your brother doesn’t say anything. He just stares at you, wide-eyed, fork still raised to eat the potatoes Alfred cooked, his face blank. Is he having a heart attack? You didn’t think that you moving out would’ve been such horrendous news for him. Yes, even if you are not that close he’s still very protective, but he went to live abroad at ten. You’re twenty and you’re just… moving to Delaware. It’s not like you’re going to the fucking Himalaya mountains as he did. 

(Meanwhile, Bruce is spiraling. He wonders when the hell did his little sister grow up, how it can be that she isn’t the little girl he used to sway around anymore, and why would she ever want to move out. Is it because of him? Did something happen? 

Isn’t Metropolis in another state? Is he so tremendous that you have to move states in hopes to forget about him? Is he too overbearing? He thought he had always given you enough space to do your own thing–)

Instead of saying all of the things he’s thinking, he tries to muster up a smile, even if it comes out as a grimace. “Alright.” 

He nearly jumps out of his seat when you beam at him — is he really that obnoxious that you can’t wait to move out and have him out of your life? “Oh, I’m happy that you’re taking it well! I was afraid you’d freak out.” you get up from your seat and move over to hug him, and he chuckles nervously. “Why would I? You’re an adult, you can do what you want.” 

(What do you mean?!, his conscience screams in his head, She isn’t even twelve! Just yesterday she was talking about going to the homecoming dance with her friends–

But time has passed, and even if Bruce feels that it was particularly hard on him, he didn’t think it’d affect you too, somehow. It’s weird acknowledging something’s — someone’s — changes in the years in… so little. He had gotten so used to you being his little sister that he didn’t even think about you becoming a full on woman. He still remembers the pink bundle of blankets your parents had given him that day at the hospital, telling him to be careful with her, she’s your little sister.

When have you grown this much? Where did the time go? He swears it was just yesterday when you were admitted to Gotham University.) 

“But… a flat? Are you sure you’ll be comfortable there? It’s not exactly as big as a manor.” 

You avoid his gaze, scratching the back of your head. “Yeah, about that…”

He raises an eyebrow, “Let me guess, you bought the whole building?” 

You snap your fingers, “They don’t call you the greatest detective for nothing!” you sit back down, cutting the meat on your plate, “I plan on making the floors I won’t live in into a laboratory of sort– almost like the Batcave, y’know, so I can continue working on the models I designed undisturbed.”

When Bruce had started his crusade as Batman, you had just gotten your bachelor’s degree in engineering, and were working on your master’s degree. You had basically given him the head-start, creating the software of the Batcomputer (or of the computer, as he calls it), designed and adapted a sport’s car to the Batmobile (just call it the car, Bruce always insists) and basically modified and created every single one of the gadgets and systems he uses. 

You just hope he won’t let the Batcomputer get hacked as soon as you land in Metropolis — you spent weeks programming her and years perfecting her system. You spent so much time on her, she might as well be your firstborn by now. 

“I’ll always be a call away,” you murmur when your brother’s eyes get a little dazy, unfocused– like he’s in another world, always thinking about the worst that could happen. “You know that, right?”

Bruce blinks. “Yeah. Yeah, I– I know that.” 

(He isn't sure about that.) 

You pat his hand, mustering a smile. "Maybe you should take a break, too. Why don't you book a vacation in, let's say... the Bahamas? Just to get a bit tanned and remember what the sun actually looks like."

He shakes his head. "Can't. Batman doesn't go on vacation."

You raise an eyebrow, sighing in defeat. "Well, I'm sure the GCPD could handle Gotham for a few days, but do as you like."

Your arrival in Metropolis is, of course, followed by an unhinged swarm of journalists and press that surround you as soon as you land.

You can already see the headlines — THE PRINCESS OF GOTHAM NOW IN METROPOLIS or some other corny predictable shit like that — as they shove their cameras in your face, screaming and trying to grab you, as your bodyguards try to contain them. You're much calmer than they are, having already endured years and years of invasive journalists.

“Miss Wayne, would you care to tell us the reason for this abrupt change in scenery?”

“Has your move got anything to do with your relationship with your brother?”

“Miss Wayne, look here! A smile for the front page–”

“Miss Wayne, why Metropolis, of all places?”

“Miss Wayne, a word for the Daily Planet?”

The guy for the Daily Planet catches your attention– he seems far too nice and isn’t elbowing anyone; he must be either new at the job or is too nice for it. He’s got a mop of curly, black hair atop his head, thick glasses perched on his nose, baby blue eyes behind them. His posture is a little crooked — he’s getting squeezed by reporters on both of his sides — but, even as disheveled as he is, you notice a thing. 

Ohh, he’s pretty. Like, jaw-dropping pretty, the kind of pretty that makes you want to bite his cheek and never let go for the rest of your life. 

You stop in your tracks, lifting your sunglasses to your head, bodyguards panicking at the swarm of journalists that suddenly all point to one direction; you reach for the pocket of your jeans and take out a business card that you pat on the pretty reporter’s chest. “Another time, pretty boy,” you promise as he takes the card, his fingers brushing yours, the other journalists speechless around you. “I’m kinda busy right now.” 

You don’t stay long enough to see him blush and hold the business card tight in his palm so that the other reporters don’t snatch it out of his grip — the bodyguards urge you forward, towards the SUV with obscured windows that is waiting for you right in front of the arrivals’ exit of the airport. One of them opens the door for you, and you don’t hesitate to get inside, the car speeding off as soon as everyone’s inside. 

“Never seen anything like this,” one of the men mutters.

You shrug, “I’ve had worse.” 

The ride to your building is short, mostly because it’s late in the evening and there aren’t many people still around. You leave a generous tip to both the bodyguards and the driver, thanking them but assuring them that you can walk alone the thirty steps that separate you from the entrance to what’ll be your home for the foreseeable future. They help you take out your trolley and duffle bag, which you swing over your shoulder right after taking the keys of the building out. 

You open the front door, carefully closing it behind you, taking the elevator right in front of it. You press the number thirty out of thirty-four, which turns green with a ding, and wait for the doors to open back up. And once they do, you’re not disappointed. 

The loft is arranged just like how you asked the movers to — it would’ve been hard not to, as you sent them the 3D interior design plan you had made, but still. You’ve been raised with the idea that if you want something done well, you have to do it yourself, so you’re pretty happy about how it turned out. 

Still, something’s missing. 

You check around the loft for any pieces of missing furniture or something like that, not finding anything. You even go back to the 3D model to make sure that everything got here safe and sound, only to find that yes, everything is in the colour you ordered and exactly in the place you asked for it to be. 

You sit on the U-shaped couch that sits right in front of the giant windows that let on the skyline of Metropolis, eyebrows knit in deep thought. The house is nice — for fuck’s sake, you bought a whole building just for you and your projects — but it’s weird not having anyone else around. There’s no Alfred to welcome you, no half-asleep Bruce roaming without an idea of where he is, no squeaking and creaking of the floor when you walk. 

You sigh. “Maybe I should get a cat.” 

[cognitiveleague]

Something I really enjoy about the Dressrosa arc is the narrative comparison and contrast presented between Law and Doflamingo.

Oda, especially post-timeskip, devotes a lot of storytelling to looking closely at protagonists and villains alike, asking the audience to join him in exploring questions of “what made them like this?” and “does it matter what drove them, at the end of the day?”

And Dressrosa is one of the places where those questions hit the hardest for me, because one after the other, he shows us two children — both having experienced a fall from (different degrees of) privilege and into incredibly traumatic situations at a young age, both victimized for things they had no means of controlling as children. Law and Doflamingo are both shown as being radicalized by that trauma and loss of control, rejecting the gentler values their parents tried to instill in them because they reached a point of not being able to see a point in compassion, or hope for any justice but revenge.

In the present, Doflamingo hasn’t really known for a very long time who Law truly is, but in a sense, he wasn’t wrong when he saw himself in the way a younger Law reacted to the loss of his former life by wanting to lash out at the world. In that moment, there was something in Law that DID reflect his own wounded inner child’s rage, and in a strange way, he clung to the connection he felt with that worst possible version of Law long after Law had discarded it and moved on.

The question implied there is “what made them different in the end? What redeemed Law, and what (if anything) pushed Doflamingo past the point of redemption?”

While the second question (as is often the case) is up to a lot of interpretation, the answer (as with Big Mom in the following arc) seems to me to lean toward “while his choices were his own and he ultimately has responsibility for them, it’s also true that when he was young and vulnerable and poised to go down a path of destruction for himself and everyone around him, the adults in his life used his brokenness to their own selfish advantage, encouraging him along that path instead of teaching him better; whether or not it absolves him of ANYTHING at this point (and it certainly doesn’t absolve him of EVERYTHING), there is a tragedy in the fact that we will never see who he might have been if he wasn’t encouraged and enabled to embrace his worst impulses.”

That tragedy is a core part of Corazón’s story — Corazón’s big brother who never grew past fear and rage and clinging to the selfish comfort of the memory of how easy their past life of privilege had been, who thought he loved him on some level, and who on another level probably knew he never developed the capacity to truly love anyone but himself. I think it’s probably why Corazón didn’t pull the trigger fast enough, when it came down to it — even after seeing what a monster his brother had become, even after dedicating his whole adult life to stopping him from hurting even more people, part of him still remembered the wounded, frightened child in his big brother, and the times he’d tried in his selfish way to protect him. Something in him still had sympathy for that child, and wanted, if not to believe, then at least to hope (even against all evidence) that enough of him was still in there that HE wouldn’t pull the trigger without hesitation, either.

We know how that story ended. It was far too late for his kindness to save Doffy by then, if it had ever been possible — there might have been something left in him that could feel something akin to regret over killing Corazón after the fact, or at least greedily resent the loss of him, but if there was, it wasn’t able to stop him.

But in the end, Corazón’s kindness — his compassion, his determination to believe that even a deeply wounded, deeply flawed world was worth placing his hope in and fighting for, his unrelenting love — was worth it, because it saved Law. It was enough to save the bitter, broken child Doffy saw so much of himself in.

Corazón took Law away from the adults who would have enabled him the way Doffy was enabled at his age, and put in the hard work of showing him, day after day, that while his pain was worth acknowledging and sympathizing with, he was worth more than just revenge — he was worth love, and healing, and the fight for a world better than the one that had hurt him so badly. He taught him not a naïve hope like the one the adults in Flevance had tried to give him, but a stubborn, bitter hope, one that laughed and spat a bloody declaration of victory right in the face of the enemy even when their backs were to the wall, hope with its teeth bared in defiance of a world that Law already knew to be unjust and pitiless.

That is what made Law’s story end differently than Doflamingo’s, and how we ended up with the version of Law that we and the Strawhats get to know - a man determined to trudge on, in spite of his own pain and disillusionment, as the bearer of lights that would otherwise be lost, those left in his hands by people he saw (still sees) as having been kinder, gentler, more deserving than he was of survival. A man who covered his body with reminders of the love that dragged him kicking and screaming into the light when he’d given his own heart up for lost, who named his crew in honor of that love, who devoted the rest of his life to making sure that love and that sacrifice mattered. A man all too familiar with his own worst impulses, who struggles to see or to trust in his own kindness, but who has chosen to be a defender like Corazón was to him, to be a healer like his birth parents were to those around them, to be not a tyrant like his former mentor, but a leader who loves and respects the people who follow him, and who is genuinely cared for by them in return.

And, despite his own misgivings, despite not being someone who reads to strangers as warm or caring, he is kind. He has chosen, through the love that was shown to him, to be a genuinely good man — faithful and just to his friends and allies and those he’s seen wronged in front of him, unwilling to demand sacrifices of others that he wouldn’t give of himself, determined to fight back against the ugliness and apathy and cruelty of the world, to wrest every bit of hard-fought justice he can from life not only for himself, but for others who have been crushed down by life.

It’s thematically fitting that he specializes in surgery, even completely aside from how suited his power is for it. As a character, his narrative is fundamentally about having chosen to become someone who can offer the world a surgeon’s sort of kindness —not warmth or softness, usually, but the mercy of a sharp, careful blade, a steady hand, and a clear understanding that sometimes, you have to roll up your sleeves and do the ugly, messy work of cutting away what’s too damaged to save before the healing can begin.

[mellxncollie]

Part 1 of looking into some of the technical cinematography aspects of the show

(or, why does Dead Boy Detectives look Like That?)

(update 6/30/24: there's now a part 2! check it out here)

Dead Boy Detectives has some interesting things going on with the cameras. You probably noticed it at some point while watching the show. Whether it was the weird blurs or the sort-of-fisheye, there’s something about many of the shots that doesn’t look the way many people expect TV shows to look.  

The main reason why is because it uses an anamorphic lens instead of a spherical lens. These lenses are pretty different from spherical lenses, and the recent rise of anamorphic lenses in TV has not been without some pushback, as viewers unaccustomed to them may find the look weird, distorted, or that it pulls their focus away from the content. Whether you enjoy how Dead Boy Detectives looks or find the cinematography distracting, this post is designed to explain the different effects that the lens has on the show.

This post is very long and very graphics heavy (I made lots of gifs to illustrate my points) so the rest is under a read more.

What is an anamorphic lens and what is it used for?

To begin with, a bit of history and technical info. Say you’re making a movie at most any point before the mid-'90s and you want it to be widescreen. However, the 35mm film you’re shooting on has a smaller aspect ratio (closer to a square than widescreen). You could use letterboxing (black bars on top and bottom) but then you waste the top and bottom parts of the film, and it ends up being slightly lower in ‘resolution.’ The solution: use a lens that records the full height onto the film, but squishes the picture horizontally so that it fills up the whole film frame without any letterboxing. Then, a projector (or a computer) can stretch it out again to display the whole thing in widescreen. The kind of lens that can do that is an anamorphic lens. They've technically been around since before the 1920s but were mostly used between the 1950s and the 1990s.

Up until sort of recently, television networks broadcasted using a smaller aspect ratio that they required shows to be in, and TV shows were not given the kind of cinematography budgets that movies were afforded. Anamorphic lenses are expensive and for widescreen, so they really just weren’t used for TV shows. Instead, a spherical lens was used, which is just the standard lens you think of when you picture a camera lens. 

In the 90s, new flat/spherical film formats came out that allowed for widescreen (one of the popular ones being Super 35) caused anamorphic lenses to drastically drop in popularity. However, there has been a recent resurgence, one that you’ve probably subconsciously noticed in both film and television.

In the last 10-15 years, TV has been given larger and larger budgets. Additionally, the rise of streaming services and the use of phones and computers to watch shows rather than actual televisions has meant that networks have started allowing wider aspect ratios, paving the way for anamorphic lenses to begin to be used for series. 

The history of these lens’ usage means they’re associated with a ‘cinematic’ look. They have a lot of characteristic effects that are not really ‘natural’ and depending on the viewer, this either enhances the experience or detracts from it.

Lots of recent series have been embracing these lenses (to varying degrees of success), including The Witcher, Sandman, Shōgun, Narcos: Mexico, The Mandalorian, Andor and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Doctor Who also started using anamorphic lenses at the switch to the 13th Doctor, so that may be a good reference point. For some of these, it’s a very subtle look, for others, the lens choice is glaringly obvious and overdone (I’m looking at you Sabrina), and sometimes, as is the case with Dead Boy Detectives, it’s really obvious but it remains an effective and compelling choice. 

Why use an anamorphic lens in the 21st century when you could just use a spherical lens?

Anamorphic lenses create a look that some filmmakers desire, whether for their associations with a more cinematic look or their sometimes unusual quirks. In a film and tv world filled with spherical lenses that are nice, clean, and precise, anamorphic lenses introduce some irregularity and character. Making an informed decision on what kind of lens to use can enhance different themes of the work. 

I want to briefly bring up Moonlight to illustrate this point. Go watch the trailer if you haven’t seen it, and you’ll probably see some parallels with the cinematography of Dead Boy Detectives. There’s less of the ‘radial’ look, but otherwise, there’s a lot of the same kinds of things. Moonlight uses an anamorphic lens and it makes the whole thing look dream-like, nostalgic, and a bit like we’re getting into the character’s heads. To me, it indicates that the story is being filtered through people. We’re not detached from the characters, observing them. The story we are watching is personal, emotional, and necessitates intimacy. 

Dead Boy Detectives really benefits from the same visual effects. This is not because it enhances a dream-like or nostalgic quality, but because in the context of the show, it makes it look a bit otherworldly, magical, or otherwise supernatural. Additionally, the constraints of the lens means we get lots of focusing in on individual characters, with nice long looks at their faces allowing for more reflection on their dialogue and reactions.

So, here’s 5 different effects of anamorphic lenses to point out to you all. Starting with the one that allows us to easily identify that anamorphic lenses are being used in the first place.

You’ve probably heard of bokeh before. It's the way the lens renders the direct sources of light that are in the background but out-of-focus. You can see in this shot of Jenny how all the string lights are not circular, but elongated. On a spherical lens, these would be round.

In this next shot of the Cat King, the candles around the floor are all those elliptical shapes. Additionally, lots of other details in the background that aren’t from direct light sources also have an elongated shape. This is sometimes called waterfall bokeh.

Finally, check out this shot of one of the cats. Not only are the lights in the background irregular and elongated, but if you look to the left where the ��horizon’ line is, there's a series of elliptical shapes where the light hits the edge of the docks.

The bokeh effect is one of those things that just happens because of the lens, and makes it pretty easy to identify that an anamorphic lens is being used. Unlike some of the other effects I’ll mention, I don’t have much to say about how this does or doesn’t add to the visuals.

Breathing is how the field of view changes when you refocus to a subject closer or farther from the lens. While spherical lenses also breathe, there’s a much more distorted look to the breathing that occurs with an anamorphic lens.

Lets start with this shot:

You can see how much the frame widens when the focus shifts from the jar of coins to Jenny. It affects the edges much more than the middle of the frame. Here’s the same shot, but with some of the features outlined (forgive my messy outlining, I used my laptop trackpad) so you can see the movement.

The frame widens when the focus goes from the foreground to the background. It appears like the whole shot is being stretched apart horizontally and compressed vertically.

However, it also does the reverse, narrowing as the focus moves from the background to the foreground.

(also in that last shot of hell, notice how the two points of light in the background elongate into those oval bokeh once they are no longer in focus)

Breathing is a very dramatic way of refocusing, and it forces us to pay attention to different things. In the shot of the Night Nurse, we have a light but the important thing after it turns on is not the light but the reaction that the people have to the cause of the light. In that shot of Niko and Edwin, it’s telling us: listen to Niko. In the shot of hell, it’s not letting us forget what the characters are running from. 

The next effect is the lens flare. You can get a lens flare from a spherical lens too, but anamorphic lenses typically generate strong, horizontal flares. A spherical lens would typically create a more radial flare, with multiple lines shooting out in different directions from the light source like rays from the sun.

We see these all over the show, sometimes they’re very prominent, such as in these shots with obvious light sources:

And sometimes they're a bit more subtle. Take this shot of Edwin, Charles, and Crystal on the dock:

While the lens flare at the top of the frame has a clear source, there’s a bunch of other horizontal lines cutting across near the middle and bottom half of the frame. These likely come from light sources outside of the frame.

Some directors, cinematographers, and other creators really like anamorphic flares. Others don’t. For a show with so many dark scenes that have colorful and dramatic lighting, the lens flares seem to enhance this. They are also a constant reminder of the interaction between the lights and the camera, kind of a fingerprint of the production. Sure, they make it seem more ‘cinematic,’ but I think they also ground us in the physicality of the production. (Kind of ironic given the lack of physicality of the main characters, and also you could consider the flares themselves to be the ghosts of the lights and the camera!)

Barrel distortion is where we start getting into why exactly the show looks the way it does. This is basically a subtle fisheye effect. Because of the squishing and stretching of the footage, anamorphic lenses have more distortion than spherical lenses, and it is strongest around the edges. 

You can see it most clearly in shots that have lots of vertical lines. They are relatively straight in the middle of the frame, but the closer to the edges, the more they are warped.

Looking at that shame shot of Niko in the bathroom, I have set it to stop at 3 different spots. Pay attention to the shape of the edge of the door.

At the start, it’s curved outward, like an open parentheses: (

Then, in the middle, it’s a vertical line: |

Finally, as the door passes all the way across the frame to the opposite side, it curves inward, like a closed parentheses: )

Again, notice how the lines in this shot of the Lost & Found Department change as they move from the outside towards the center. The door has an outward bulge at the beginning but becomes more 'normal’ shaped as it gets further away.

Anamorphic lenses can also have a pretty shallow depth of field and it’s used a lot in this show which is why we get a lot of those centered close-ups, and why we get that ‘radial blur.’ 

The center of the frame is where the actors are least likely to be distorted, meaning its easiest to have just one character in the dead center (pun intended). With a shallow depth of field, the background is out of focus, and since the actor is in the center, the background gets the most affected by the barrel distortion, leading to the sense that the background has been radially blurred. 

This blurred background with a strong, centered foreground really makes objects in the foreground pop. We are then able to really focus in on different objects and characters. It brings immediacy and intimacy. Here, we have nothing to do but consider Charles. He isn’t speaking so we must consider his reaction to what’s being said. 

Also, the further a character is from the center of a shot, the more they are distorted, such as Edwin and Charles in this still:

This kind of distortion definitely lends a more unnatural look to the shots, which definitely supports a show about ghosts and the supernatural. If the subjects are able to see things in our world in a way the viewers cannot, then why display the physical world the way we see it?

Finally, we have focus falloff. This is (like some of the other effects) a distortion that occurs around the edges. Here, the focus decreases the further from the center of the frame even if they’re all about the same distance from the camera.

In this shot of the Tongue & Tail, the sign 'Butcher Shop’ is clear and legible. But imagine if that sign was up in the top left or right corners, where things start to get blurry. We probably wouldn’t be able to read it.

It's also visible in this shot of Edwin. Not only does the floor get blurrier the further you get from the center, but you can see how the rope is less in focus in very top and very bottom of the frame.

The falloff (combined with the barrel distortion) is how we get the really unique dream-like look of the Edwin and Niko scene on the roof in Episode 8. (If you’re having a hard time spotting the falloff here, look at their legs)

When you start looking for falloff in this show, you start to see it everywhere. It’s easiest to spot in the corners of shots, but you can usually see all the way around the edges.

Look at the corners of this still of Edwin, or the way the top and bottom of Niko’s rent envelope aren’t as clear as the middle of it.

Or in this still, look at Charles’ jacket. The arm closest to the center has a much more defined line between it and the background compared to the arm closest to the edge. 

This blur definitely is one of the more noticeable effects in the show, and it’s good at focusing our attention on the center of the frame. It guides the viewer exactly to what we should be looking at. We get tons of centered shots in this show because of this and the barrel distortion. 

The falloff makes the show look softer and artistic, sometimes painterly or impressionistic. More than any other effect, the falloff is what makes me feel like I’m watching a dream or a vision. It puts us into the sensation of being fully immersed in a story.

I would argue that all of these effects (but especially the last two) not only enhace the supernatural aspect of the show, but they help us fall in love with the characters. They focus us on their faces, and encourage us to reflect on their motivations, reactions, and thoughts. The lens is telling us that we are not to take things at face value. It’s not letting us forget that there are multiple people and multiple stories involved, that things are blurry around the edges, and that things are not perfect and clean-cut. 

-----------

Sometime in the next week or so I’ll be working on part 2, where we’ll take a closer look at the cinematography of Edwin’s flashback to 1916 in Episode 1. It's posted! Read it here.

I really wanted to highlight the work of the cinematographers, Marc Laliberté, Craig Powell, and Pierre Gill because it’s clear that there was so much care and intention put into every aspect of this show. 

I’m so glad fans of this show are really embracing the work of different crew members, like the work of costume designer Kelli Dunsmore (and if you somehow haven’t seen @captainfantasticalright's posts about the costumes and other aspects of the show, please go check them out right now. My roommates and I have a kind of 'stop everything, new costume analysis dropped' attitude towards their posts, and their approach to show analysis was definiteily an inspiration for this)

If you want to read more about anamorphic lenses, the article Why ‘Shogun’ (and the Rest of TV) Is Slightly Out of Focus in The Ringer is about Shōgun and the rise of anamorphic lenses in TV (Marc Laliberté also worked on a few episodes of Shōgun) and it's a great place to start.

Finally, I want to first thank @skyvoice for these tags on one of my gifsets for semi-inspiring this post (I was already considering making this but these made it into a reality).

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Okay, I've Read Worm: A Retrospective Part 2: What The Fuck Did I Just Read?

So I don't mean literally 'what did I read'. I know and understand the plot, and while I probably didn't pick up on all the references and cape theme stuff Wildbow was going for, it was established a while ago that I wouldn't. And I may not have understood every scene and character the way may intended, but sincerely, fuck his intent, it sometimes sucks.

What I mean by this is -

I heard a lot about Worm before I read it. "Grimdark" "Depressing" "Optimistic" (Yes, someone actually called Worm an Optimistic Work which is... a take), "Bleak" "A Deconstruction" "A Love Letter To The Superhero Genre" "A Takedown of the Superhero Genre" "Just A Fucking Story" "The Greatest Piece Of Superhero Media Ever" and god knows what else.

I didn't hear anyone call worm a Reconstruction until I was partway into the Work, when I also discovered TV tropes calls it that which is... well, we'll get into that.

And I heard Wildbow called "A Hack" "A Nihilist" "A Guy Who Lets His Problems With Authority Get Ahead Of Him" (Or something to that effect" "An Amazing Writer" "A God Amongst Men" (Okay, not really on that last one, but I have made jokes about Wildbow having cultists or the 'Church of Wildbow' for a reason, because some people are really fucking out here acting like he's just... way better than he is, imo. Like, beyond just the degree of just subjective opinion. Not that I think Wildbow deliberately fostered such a mentality... probably)

So. What the fuck did I just read? What is Worm?

Well I am comfortable in saying that Worm is Grim, Bleak, Depressing. A lot of really bad shit happens without neat narrative resolution, there's a lot of hurt and not a lot of comfort. Taylor's life mostly gets worse, and most other people's lives mostly get worse. There's not a lot of unambiguous victories, even the ones that are straight up victories come at hilariously lopsided costs, the whole damn world is slowly collapsing, and everyone in authority is largely either complicit, incompetent, overwhelmed, corrupt, or useless. Almost nobody is just straight up heroic, and those who are usually die (in often pointless ways) or get treated as incredibly naïve by the narrative. Often both. Worm often feels pretty hopeless, and even the hope is pretty fragile and strained, when it's there.

Is Worm dark? Is it Grimdark? Well... that's trickier. There are a hell of a lot of dark implications of Worm, a lot of dark stuff that is hinted at, or insisted is there by the writer (*cough* *Cough*) but in terms of the actual darkness onscreen... depending on how one defines 'Grimdark' - how reliant are they on the conventional 4chan inspired definition or if they've expanded their understanding of the word and so on - it could qualify, but... *equivocating hand gesture*. I am reasonably comfortable that Worm itself never really quite qualifies as grimdark. The darkness on the screen is not really enough, and really, under the narrowest of 4chan definitions, it probably isn't even grim. Though I would say that there's a point where the 4chan Noble/Grim Bright/Dark four quadrant approach becomes a useless category of analysis.

I think in most cases people who call Worm grimdark are either parroting other people, lack adequate terminology to really describe what they mean (because Worm is rather hard to put a box around) or have very low standards for 'grimdark'. But I don't think everyone is talking out of their ass, because like I said, there's a lot of really dark implications of Worm. Some likely intended by Wildbow, some the result of probably oversights by him or didn't really quite grasp certain things and just kinda... threw stuff out there without following through. (Not that I blame him, Worm was huge and not every single detail needed to be followed through on, but still. Happens). Worm's entire universe and setting runs on people rather consistently making the decisions that make shit worse.

Like in 90% of the cases, each individual person's decision to make shit worse makes sense from their perspective and understanding their psyches, but it does strain credulity a little, and make it hard to say the story isn't kinda grimdark when almost every decision almost everyone makes makes things worse.

But... technically, I think Worm manages to skate by being grimdark. Sometimes just barely, but just barely can be enough.

I don't think it's particularly controversial to call Worm 'A Deconstruction' or to say that Worm deconstructs elements of the superhero genre. Does Worm Reconstruct... well, yes. It does the deconstructing thing (exploring how so many common elements of the superhero genre don't make a lot of sense) and then it does the reconstructing thing (putting them back together and designing the physics and rules of the universe so they kind of do make more sense).

But I would say that calling Worm a 'Reconstruction' is false advertising. Not because it isn't, but when most people hear the word Deconstruction, they expect a kind of depressing, bleak, grim, sometimes dark, etc story. Reconstructions are thus expected to be more upbeat and optimistic and bright. I don't think this is just me. To be fair, this doesn't have to be true. A deconstructed slasher flick would probably be fairly upbeat and bright, and a reconstructed slasher flick would... probably not be those things. But I think the general implications of the words remain true.

Telling someone Worm is a Reconstruction of the Superhero Genre, before they read it, without a lot of qualifiers, would, I think, be pretty deceptive. Accurate, but deceptive. It is possible to be misleading while being totally accurate, after all.

One thing I hear a lot about is how much more 'realistic' Worm is compared to other superhero media. Without being a deep aficionado about superhero media, I honestly can't say if this is true, but I can say that, as of itself, Worm is not what I would call realistic. Leaving aside the way Wildbow puts his thumb on the scale of 'everyone makes decisions that make shit worse' across the board, there's the fact that every element of the underlying rules of the universe are deliberately, and sometimes quite obviously, contrived to create the necessary parameters for the story he wants. Which is fine, that's perfectly fine worldbuilding and writing, but it's not 'realistic'.

He covers his ass with PtV, using it as an excuse for a lot of shit, but uh... that's still covering his ass, it's still obvious plot device is obvious. Not the worst thing the world, and I've seen much worse handlings of obvious plot device is obvious, but... man, sometimes with his worst WoGs, Wildbow really would have benefited from just admitting it was a plot hole and he made a mistake or he didn't consider something or that 'you know what, yes, it's unlikely that no one shot Jack Slash in the face during his entire career pre-Bonesaw's modifications, but it happened' (i.e. the Cauldron gun social engineering WoG is just so goddamn dumb. Less in of itself and more how it fits to everything else. String enough of his WoGs together and the whole damn setting starts to fall apart)

Things like the CUI, and the Gesellschaft and the way Africa and South America are written speak to the profound lack of realism and the contrived way that the Wormverse got constructed. The Gesellschaft is a perfectly fine plot device to have in a story - a reference and use of the way Nazi and Nazi-created and Nazi-descended and Nazi-related villains and villain organizations are a common trope in superhero comics - but it's not really all that realistic as presented. Wildbow has rather repeatedly insisted that it is, but uh... no, he's wrong. (He has admitted that his handling of South America and Africa weren't great, and to be fair, most of what we know of both could just be filtered through Taylor's own distinctly American Teenager view of the world, and to be more fair, developing entire continents that aren't even close to being in-focus for the story is a tall ask for anyone). But like, Worm isn't realistic. The way Shards work was deliberately contrived to have his intended outcome. Endbringers too. Cauldron. The backstories of characters and organizations show the way they were bent that way to achieve the outcome he wanted. And again, I don't really have a problem with elements of a story being constructed to achieve the intended outcome. People who get too focused on the worldbuilding will sometimes write themselves into a hole where the needs of the story and the needs of the Worldbuilding conflict. Wildbow almost always picked the story. It can be frustrating for people trying to isolate the elements of the world to write fanfics or analyze the world for like, versus fights or whatever, but... I don't blame the author for that. (Though his inability to just admit that he picked story over worldbuilding and instead keeps pulling a WoG out of the ether to cover his ass is... not great) To be fair, I don't think Wildbow has ever called his work 'More Realistic than Other Superhero Media'. I don't think he set out to create some hyperrealistic superhero story. And the word 'Realistic' is tossed around a lot without really clarifying what someone means. I honestly don't really call things realistic that often for that reason.

The problem here isn't Worm, or Wildbow, but some of his fans. Like I said, there's a reason why I joke about a 'Church of Wildbow.' There's people who have said that Worm has 'ruined' other superhero media for them and to those people... I mean, ruined is subjective, and like I've said repeatedly, I'm not really into superhero media, but like, deconstructing and even reconstructing the Superhero genre is not new? DC and Marvel and a lot of smaller presses have been doing that since like, the 90s? At least? I've already address how Worm doesn't seem particularly realistic to me. I think in some cases, what they may mean is that Worm is more cohesive. It's one single story told by one guy with one clear vision. Comic books in particular can experience all sorts of tonal and narrative whiplash between runs, as writers change, as artists change, as executive meddling can interfere. And that's pretty true. (*sings* We don't talk about Waaard oh-no-no).

But I also feel like if Worm really did ruin all other superhero media for you... maybe you weren't actually that into superhero media? Even if you've read a lot of it, maybe Superhero media wasn't actually for you? Just maybe?

Now, this all brings us back to the question that started this: What the Fuck did I just Read? And the disappointing answer is that... putting a box around Worm is really fucking hard. It doesn't really fit into a nice, simple, easy, pithy descriptor. Not one that doesn't mislead. I mean, Worm is grim, bleak and depressing, but it is more than that. Worm is... Worm a lot of things.

I think honestly the closest thing to a nice, succicnt, easy way to describe Worm is this one:

I don't know if Wildbow was the one to use this to describe Worm first, or if a Fan did or what, but... yeah. That's Worm.

That's what the fuck I just read.

(I did hope to go into 'Who the Hell is Worm For' question here, but uh... this is pretty long as it is, so we'll leave that off for later.)

[cobragardens]

The 3 Falls of Anthony J Crowley

So far, Crowley has told three different stories to three different audiences about why he Fell, and there's some important information that can be inferred from them. Let's get nerdy.

(Nb. C. 25% of this is from a previous post I made about Crowley's memory problems.)

Here's Crowley's 1st story (gifs courtesy of Fuck Yeah Good Omens), in 1867:

In Book Omens this line is narration about Crowley, and means that Crowley didn't embrace evil and side with Hell so much as he just wasn't into the whole Heaven shindig.

In Show Omens, this phrase becomes a little more fraught, because Crowley says it about himself, and he says it to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale has just disagreed with Crowley's assertion that the two of them have a lot in common. Az thinks Crowley means their origins as angels, and demurs, "I don't know. We may have both started off as angels, but you are fallen."

But what Crowley means, as we find out in pretty much every other scene the two of them share in S1 and S2, is that that he and Aziraphale have a lot in common now, in their current positions. He wants Aziraphale to see him as a friend--and to be his friend--so he elides the difference his Fallenness makes to Aziraphale, all "Ehhh, it wasn't really a fall kind of Fall, it wasn't that bad."

Also, given the conversation they have in the Final Fifteen, I feel like his phrasing is kind of important here, because falling is not voluntary, but sauntering is. In saying this Crowley is claiming that to some degree he chose to reject Heaven.

It's entirely possible that Crowley may have been lying to Aziraphale in 1867--he is, as he says, a demon, and he's lied to him before to make something bad seem less bad--but maybe not. Remember what the Metatron says about Crowley:

And this is another interesting point: The Metatron knew Crowley as an angel. The Metatron. The being who, after shepherding Aziraphale out of the bookshop, turned back and looked at Crowley with hate.

(And tense music playing, in case you weren't sure.)

So maybe that's it. Maybe Crowley just chose to be on his own side.

But in 2019, and addressing God, Crowley's story of his Fall is slightly different:

I think we can take this as Crowley's sincere belief. It's unlikely that he would lie when speaking to God, because that is Aziraphale's job because he doesn't have any reason to do so: God hasn't been listening to Crowley for 6,000 years at this point, and if She were listening, lying would not work. So Crowley probably believes he's telling the truth here with this story: Crowley believes one reason he Fell is that he asked questions.

But is he right?

Another line from the Metatron:

The Metatron seems to speak of Crowley's habit of asking questions as though he finds it obnoxious rather than damning, so maybe the questions weren't the problem. Then again we know that the Metatron is a lying piece of shit and an authoritarian who doesn't want his regime questioned, willing to erase memories and destroy lives to cover up the 'institutional problem' that Heaven doesn't know what the Plan is and is run by a handful of warmongers who want everyone dead or indentured.

Either way, this is the third time in the series someone has talked about the problem of Crowley asking questions, so my guess is his questions were probably a salient feature of his Fall.

Onward!

Before we look at the 3rd story, remember that we have strong evidence now that Crowley has had his memories erased by Heaven.

But we also know Furfur, another demon, still has his memories. Inference: Heaven don't erase the memories of every angel who Falls. This suggests that Heaven erased Crowley's memories because he had knowledge in those memories Heaven didn't want him to have anymore.

This may not be specific knowledge. We know Crowley has a high security clearance in Heaven and therefore must have been a high-ranking angel, and we know he created a nebula with Saraqael, so presumably there was a lot of stuff in his head Heaven wanted stripped out.

But I think there was something specific, and here's why. Firstly, there's no reason to assume that importance in Heaven is a guarantee of importance in Hell. Furfur could have been a high-ranking angel too before ending up an admin in Hell. (Hell does not seem to be any more of a meritocracy than Heaven does.)

Secondly, it's clear that Crowley doesn't know his memories have been erased. If he knew, then when Furfur says "We were in the same Legion? Just before the Fall? Doing dubious battle on the Plains of Heaven? Remember?" he'd say something like "Don't be stupid, of course I don't remember, Heaven erased my memories."

Instead he says,

Now, maybe Crowley is just being a dick here. Certainly we're supposed to take it that way until he goes up to Heaven with Muriel and doesn't remember Saraqael either.

But what if he's being truthful? If Crowley is being honest (and a dick), that would mean the Fash didn't erase all of Crowley's memories of his time in Heaven. We know this because Furfur says he and Crowley fought together "on the Plains of Heaven," and "just before the Fall" [emphasis added].

This suggests that Maybe Heaven didn't erase time from Crowley's memory. Maybe they erased people.

Okay, now here's Crowley's 3rd story about how he Fell:

It's a cute line, but what if it's not just a throwaway joke referencing what people say about kids who go down the wrong path and become criminals?

Crowley mutters this 3rd story to himself, so we can be confident Crowley believes this to be true. But Crowley doesn't know who the wrong people are. He doesn't know whose company got him thrown out of Heaven, because his memories of all those people have been taken from him.

And taken together, these three stories and Crowley's stolen memories suggest a bigger, more disturbing inference: Crowley doesn't know why he Fell. (Or sauntered vaguely downwards.)

Like Crowley, Job was once a favorite of God. But he has fallen out of that favor and been delivered to demons for reasons God refuses to tell him.

We the audience are meant to draw a parallel between Job and Crowley. We know this not just because of the speech Crowley cathartically gives Job's goats, in which everything he says to the goats can be just as easily applied to Job or himself, but from two other indications. Here's one:

Job is wearing Crowley's color.

The other is the minisode title, "A Companion to Owls." This phrase comes from the Book of Job, specifically Job 30:29. Job, lamenting what has happened to him, says,

 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

In Biblical symbolism, dragon=serpent=snake=demon. And in some Mesopotamian beliefs--one of them Judaism--owls were associated with demons as well:

and

and

So the Job of the Bible is saying in this verse the same thing the Job of Good Omens says: God has forsaken me and delivered me to demons. Or even: God has forsaken me and I am now being treated like demons are treated.

And he's also saying something else. In the Bible, owls symbolize loneliness, desolation, and solitude. They're consistently depicted as living in barren, abandoned, isolated places. Seriously. Go search owl(s) in a Biblical concordance and read all 30 entries: it comes up a lot. If you're a companion to owls, you're alone (except for the owls) in the wilderness. You're forsaken.

WHOMST do we know whose signal color is yellow, who's a brother of demons, and who admits at the end of the episode that being alone and forsaken in the wilderness is lonely?

So. Job, a character whose claim to fame is that God punished him and he didn't know why, is a mirror character to Crowley. This on its own isn't enough to say definitely that Crowley doesn't know why he Fell, but combined with the three different stories he tells about his Fall, I think there's enough textual evidence to conclude that Crowley isn't entirely sure why he fell; he only has educated guesses. Either he knew and the memory was erased, or he was never told at all.

My question about Crowley's Fall is this: Who pushed him?

Was Crowley's Fall an act of God Herself, or was it an act of Heaven? What did the fucking Metatron have to do with it? What was Crowley's crime? When Aziraphale takes charge of Heaven and the Second Coming, will he read Crowley's file?

[maespri]

your turn to die characters ranked by how painful their death was (and why)

okay. crazy title, i KNOW. but this was actually so interesting to talk and think about. at least for me.

spoilers ahead, and TRIGGER WARNING. this post is going to go into detail about each death. it’s going to get gory and upsetting. if you don’t think you can handle hearing about that, please keep scrolling!

everything is under the cut, because this post is LONG, i'm warning you now.

some backstory: i have a special interest in anatomy and physiology, and i've always thought about how the different deaths in your turn to die worked. my wonderful friend @lovivelle and i talked about this topic extensively last night and they made this tier list with me! so, here's the ranking and explanations!

this ranking ONLY covers HUMAN deaths, because dolls/dummies do not feel pain.

quick glossary: exsanguination: death caused by bleeding out hemorrhaging: bleeding necrosis: cell/tissue death hypoxia: inadequate oxygen supply hypovolemic: loss of fluid in the body, often referring to blood or water shock: life-threatening condition where the body does not have enough blood circulating through it crush syndrome: medical condition where skeletal muscle is crushed for a prolonged time, resulting in shock and organ failure hematemesis: vomiting up blood hemoptysis: coughing up blood TBI: traumatic brain injury immolation: death by burning; being burned alive

the tier list:

OUCH!! (most painful):

nao: nao's death involves her ribcage being crushed. i put her at number one for what i hope are obvious reasons. for starters, her death is drawn-out, making the pain last even longer. while her ribcage is being crushed, any internal organs are being crushed as well. her bones are probably splintering and breaking off and piercing her insides and organs. overall... just horrible pain. official cause of death: internal hemorrhaging and irreparable damage to organs.

kurumada: kurumada's death involved being crushed (between two walls), which is similar to nao's. i would put their pain levels as being equal to each other, but kurumada's has the potential to have been less painful than nao's, because we don't know how quickly the walls crushed his body. if they were moving slowly, the pain would've been drawn-out and agonizing, and in that case, i would make the argument that his death was more painful than nao's. but if it was very quick, he would've just felt blinding pain in his entire body for a few seconds before it would end. we do have to keep in mind that kurumada is clearly quite muscular however, which probably provided some resistance against the walls, but only served to draw out his pain even further. official cause of death: muscle necrosis, internal hemorrhaging, and irreparable damage to internal organs due to crush syndrome.

either way, both definitely experienced, in my opinion, the most painful deaths in the game.

YOWZA! (very painful):

mishima: mishima's death results from his collar slowly heating up and burning his neck until his head disconnects from it. i don't even have the words to describe how painful this would be. the fact that the collar heats up slowly and it is drawn out only makes it worse. if you've ever burned yourself before anywhere on your body, you know how painful it is. imagine that pain centralized around your neck. mishima might have the fortune of his nerves being burned off after a certain amount of time, which would mean he wouldn't feel anything (think third-degree burns burning through to muscle, tissue, and nerve endings). but at that point, because the burning is around his neck and your neck contains- A) your spine/spinal cord and B) your trachea, which allows you to breathe- anyway and burning it in half would definitely kill you, he may be dead before he even has time to not feel any pain. either way, this shit would hurt so bad. official cause of death: cerebral hypoxia due to decapitation.

hinako: hinako technically has two deaths, but we ranked her based off of her being drilled. a lot of questions actually arose when my friend and i were talking about the drill deaths, because we don't know the speed at which the drills move. i mean, whether they're moving quickly or slowly, it would still obviously hurt- but the faster the drill, the quicker the death, which would make it less painful. being drilled would be unbearably painful for the sole fact that she might be alive for a lot of the drilling until it reaches any vital organs. no matter what, it'd be very painful. official cause of death: hard to say for certain, but would most likely be from exsanguination... y'know, from her body being split in half by a giant drill.

kugie (kanna's sister): my friend and i were FLOORED when we looked into kugie's death. in the game, i don't think we get a canonical answer specifically as to how she dies, but in the manga, we do. kugie and kanna have the same first trial as joe and sara, but they don't succeed. in it, kugie's bed literally snaps and essentially folds her in half. in the image from the manga, we can see blood flying out from the bed (implying it happened very quickly, because if it were slow, the blood would instead drip and flow), and kugie's hand sticking out between the two slabs of the bed. i think this death is the most painful out of the entire "YOWZA!" category because kugie was probably alive and in immense pain for at least a few seconds or even minutes after the bed snapped. if i had to speculate official cause(s) of death:

i would guess her lumbar vertebrae (basically the bottom discs of the spine) and spinal cord snapped, cutting off sensation and sending her into shock.

if she was folded in half, her legs would have quickly shot up, meaning her torso was likely unnaturally slammed into by both them and the bed, and sustained massive trauma. this would cause internal hemorrhaging and damage to her organs.

the blood spurting out of the bed was likely from her head. i'm a teenage girl, likely the same height or around the same height as kugie, and when i bend in half, my face is level with my knees. knowing this, her knees probably slammed into her face and broke her skull, causing a TBI.

the combination of all of that would have first caused terrible pain for, like i said, at least a few seconds or minutes- we don't see how extensive the damage really was, so i can't say for certain... but yeah.

aughhh (painful):

joe: joe's death is really interesting to think about, because upon first glance, you might think it's one of the most painful- but there are a few things i considered with him. his death is a result of wrigglers draining the blood out of his body. because we don't know how large the wrigglers are, i can't say how painful it would be when they enter his body- but i'd have to guess they're on the smaller side, like little tubes, because if they were big, they would have difficulty sucking out his blood due to how small blood vessels are. it would hurt horribly to have the wrigglers enter his body and drain the blood. we don't know if they moved around through his blood vessels- if they did, that would definitely exacerbate the pain- or if it was more just like getting blood drawn. but what i considered with him, the thing that makes his death less painful than the others, is the fact that he would probably pass out long before he's even fully dead. the amount of blood he's losing at such a rapid pace would first make him dizzy and disoriented before he just... passes out. his entire body would start shutting down very quickly and he wouldn't even be awake for it. his body would give up on transporting blood to the extremities and non-vital organs and shift only to transporting what little blood it can to keep vital organs running. when that blood runs out, the heart will stop being able to pump enough blood throughout the body and to the brain, and joe would actually be dead. so... yeah. official cause of death: hypovolemic shock resulting in organ failure.

shin: shin dies after being fatally injured by the death game's security system. while it's unclear exactly how the security system killed him, i believe he was stabbed/impaled somehow. there are a few questions regarding exactly where he was stabbed, but i assume he was hit somewhere in the torso because he has blood coming out of his mouth. if you don't know:

blood coming out of the mouth can be a result of haematemesis (vomiting up blood), which is where blood wells up in the stomach/digestive tract due to trauma in that area

it can also be a result of haemoptosis (coughing up blood), which results from being stabbed in the lungs/trachea due to trauma in that area

my guess is he was stabbed in the stomach, because if he were stabbed in the lungs, he'd be coughing and frothing at the mouth struggling to breathe. if i'm remembering correctly, he's also shown to be clutching his abdomen after turning on the joe AI, so... my money is definitely in the stomach.

which, you guessed it, would hurt. a lot. and there's no workaround. he's strong enough to drag himself to the rubble room and turn on an AI before dying. he would've been in blinding pain that entire time before dying.

official cause of death: exsanguination.

reko: reko technically has three canonical deaths, which made her hard to rank. i'll cover them all.

strangulation (hanging by collar): being hung is painful, but i think people underestimate how terrifying it is too. reko would have been terrified and in immense pain for a few minutes before dying. everything in her neck would be getting crushed and pressed on by the collar thanks to gravity. overall... awful death. official cause of death: cerebral hypoxia due to strangulation.

stabbed: same as what i said for shin. terrible pain for however long until she ultimately bleeds out. official cause of death: exsanguination.

fake-reko falling headfirst onto a spike: this one's... interesting! mainly because i think she would actually just be dead instantly. if the spike pierces her brain, she won't even really have time to process "ow!" before just. being dead. official cause of death: severe TBI resulting in death.

owie (painful, but not as painful as others):

q-taro: q-taro is stabbed in the back by mai and slowly bleeds to death over the course of the chapter. the reason i put him so low is because he would definitely be in some pain, but i don't think mai stabbed him very well (no offense girl). he's able to walk around, talk, and do stuff with the others after being stabbed, at least for a little while. it's difficult for me to pinpoint what exactly killed him because of this. i'd imagine his body began repairing the stab wound in his back, but ultimately, blood loss and the disruption to everything surrounding his spine (because mai stabs him in the back) is probably what killed him. depending on how deep mai's knife was, the blade may have even pierced or grazed internal organs such as q-taro's heart or a lung. his body probably put most of its focus on keeping his internal organs running whilst simultaneously trying to repair them, which tired him out over the course of the chapter, before it ultimately couldn't keep up with the amount of blood being lost. a hasty bandaging job using an office first-aid kit is not ideal for stab wounds.

*edit: this person corrected me regarding q-taro's death! i still think the severity of his injury could have killed him before the coffin cremation system actually killed him, plus the information is interesting, so i'm keeping it. but technically, being burned alive is actually what killed him. ouch.

official cause of death: exsanguination OR immolation.

kai: kai's death is kind of up in the air in terms of the specifics, but we know he kills himself during the first main game by cutting his arms. in order for this to kill him, and for him to have bled out as fast as he did, he likely cut his axillary and/or brachial artery. your brachial artery runs down the front of your bicep and is an extension of your axillary artery, which is in your upper arm/armpit. if kai cut deeply into both his brachial arteries, and/or his axillary arteries, he would bleed to death very quickly. it would be really painful, but i think adrenaline and the probability he'd pass out immediately would certainly be on his side here, making it at least a little less painful. either way, he dies quite fast, so. official cause of death: exsanguination.

uncertain (i'm not sure!):

this category is for the characters who have one or more variables that make it difficult or impossible to determine how painful their death was.

kanna: first of all, the way kanna dies is impossible in real life. lets just get that out of the way. you cannot have flowers sprout out of your body. that immediately makes it impossible to tell how painful it would be for her.

if i were to suspend my disbelief for this, however, here's what i have to say about it:

safalin says kanna is numb during her death, which would instantly give her a pain rating of zero. kanna is screaming during her death, but given what safalin says, that doesn't necessarily prove she's in pain. she could just be screaming out of fear.

if she weren't numb, yeah, she would be in a lot of pain. flowers and vines growing out of your body, poking out of your skin, running through your insides- that would hurt insanely bad.

but the fact that:

this death isn't possible in real life

kanna is presumably numb during her death

we don't specifically know how the seeds are working/moving inside her body

kind of made it impossible to rank her.

if i had to guess a cause of death, i'd guess severe disruption by the vines to her internal organs and processes is what ultimately killed her.

hayasaka: hayasaka's head is presumably cut off by a swinging axe. there are two reasons we put him in 'uncertain'; we don't know how sharp the blade of the axe is, and we don't know the velocity it's swinging at.

if the blade is swinging slowly and is very dull, it would take a few swings to fully cut off hayasaka's head, which would make it incredibly painful.

but if the blade is swinging very quickly and is super sharp, his death would be instantaneous, making it essentially painless.

so it's difficult to say, but either way:

official cause of death: decapitation.

ranmaru: ranmaru's death is in 'uncertain' because we

don't know exactly how that happened to his stomach

hear him talk about how he's numb to it

don't know how long he's been sitting there

i imagine he was in some pain and just putting up a front, but we just don't know for sure. and like i just said, we don't know what specifically killed him or how. we just see a wound in his stomach.

probable cause of death: exsanguination/hemorrhaging.

anzu: anzu's was between 'uncertain' and 'so quick.' we see spikes piercing her body, but the angle makes it difficult to tell exactly where they pierce, or how sharp they are, etc. if the spikes didn't hit her face/brain, she probably felt intense pain for some time from the neck-down before rapidly bleeding to death. if the spikes got her head, she'd die instantly. so.

probable cause of death: exsanguination? TBI? damage to internal organs/processes?

ranger: according to ranger's wiki, his human form was stabbed by an assassin. not nearly enough information to rank him with certainty.

cause of death: stabbed?

so quick (too fast to be painful):

both mai and alice's deaths were so fast, they fell into this category.

mai: mai shoots herself in the head. her death would have been immediate and painless since she shot herself in the brain.

official cause of death: fatal TBI.

alice: alice's abdomen explodes. if that happens, you're probably going to feel a very brief flash of pain before immediately dying, because the damage would be so extensive (shrapnel exploded his stomach, but there was undoubtedly collateral damage to his heart, lungs, and other organs around there). he would have been in shock if he did somehow manage to survive for a few more seconds. pain would be minimal or nonexistent in my opinion due to the sheer severity of the injury. and in terms of him being hung in chapter 3, it's the same as reko.

official cause of death: shock resulting from traumatic abdominal injury.

thats it!

if you for god knows what reason read all this, thank you! i'm honestly only posting it kind of for myself and my friend to look back on if i ever want to think about it again, but maybe someone will find it interesting.

questions, comments, concerns (of which i'm sure there are many)- i'm an open book. i'm not a professional by any means, but i am insane. bye!

[cheesus-doodles]

i wonder how izana is like if he had a s/o during the time when he was the black dragon leader

Red Dragonflies Masterlist | Masterlist

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i have actually answered this previously in these Relationship HCs ! and this is also the case in my red dragonflies AU, former gang leader reader is actually Izzy's s/o when he was the black dragon leader - have linked the masterlist up top cough

but because I like to rant, here are some more thoughts about yan black dragon-era Izzy and you, which can apply to both regular reader and gang leader reader!

Izana was probably already very unstable and jealous during his time as the 8th Gen Black Dragon leader, what with the entire situation between Shinichiro constantly talking about Mikey, and learning that the Black Dragon gang would go to said boy instead of him. Combined that with him having found you as an s/o, someone that Izana would see as his, something that he could finally own and keep to himself without having to share (unlike the whole situation with Shinichiro), no doubt that it wouldn't take long for Izana to swing into yandere tendencies, becoming extremely overbearing and overprotective over you.

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With you around, there is a very clear difference in Izana's mannerisms and general behavior. Almost a personality flip in fact, it's night and day how he acts in your presence and when you aren't present. After all, there's a certain way that Izana wants you to perceive him as, and then there's everything else - so this white-haired boy would be sure to carefully tailor and adjust how he acts around you to what he knows you like (to a certain degree of course). As long as you don't threaten the status quo, as long as you keep by his side and his side only, your precious Izzy is whoever you want him to be. Loving, kind, doting, he can almost seem to read your mind and predict your moods.

Knows how to make you feel better after a shitty day, knows what to say and what to do to get you falling heads over heels for him over and over. But don't let that fool you into thinking that you were beyond his manipulation, because nope, not a chance. If he even has the slightest doubt that you were drifting away from him, or worse, thinking of leaving him, expect for Izzy to start subtly tearing you down. He wouldn't sound any different from what he usually does, cooing, low, soft murmur, but the things that slip from his mouth; it pokes at your insecurities, stirs the doubts you have about yourself. Yes, you were the most beautiful person he had laid eyes on, but did you think that really extended to everyone? Surely, surely you know that only he can love you like this? You couldn't possibly survive away from his side the way you are, right?

In his mind, Izzy is only doing it because he loved you as much as he did - you were made for him, like he was made for you. He couldn't live without you, so even if he had to hurt you a little, it'll all be worth it. You'll see that it was all for you.

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Wouldn't be uncommon to see him roaring down streets, both city and mountain ones alike, on his motorbike with you clung to his back and with no specific destination in mind - just likes to spend time with you, brings you anywhere that you want to go. Besides, the delinquents in the city, be they Black Dragons or rival scum, know better than to stare at the two of you. Loves light, airy places, so be prepared to spend a lot of time just hanging out together on rooftops and mountains, somewhere where you can feel the breeze through your hair, where Izzy can get you all to himself. All your attention being on him is the best kind of date.

There's no such thing as privacy, period. He absolutely needs to know everything that happens in your life, and anything less would earn you a full tantrum and fit. Put simply, its either Izana is there, hovering next to you and keeping one violet eye on all your ongoings, and no doubt this baby boy has someone (cough Inupi cough) tagging you from a respectable distance when he isn't free. That is, on top of having unfettered access to everything on your phone; call logs, messages, photos. Nothing is secret from him, why would it be? What do you have to hide from your partner?

You don't go anywhere new without Izzy. Why do you have to? What were you hiding? Your future husband would be happy to take you anywhere you have to go: cafe, the new department store downtown, even festivals. So unless you were trying to hide something from him, why wouldn't you want him to go along? Don't you know how dangerous it is out there? What if you get jumped by a rival gang? Needless to say, keeping presents a secret from this boy isn't a walk in a park.

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Everything else that Izana doesn't think you would approve of seeing would be done out of your sight. He doesn't like having you see the darker side of your boyfriend, the one that deals with weapons and drugs, the one that beats people, both civilians and his own gang members alike for the mildest of perceived infringements against you. You were too soft, too delicate for that. What if you got scared off? What would he do if you became frightened of him?

Instead, all his rage, all his hatred, he poured into the Black Dragon gang, leading them down darker and darker paths. The entire world was scum as far as he was concerned, trash that he had to beat and flatten into perfection so you didn't have to foul your hands and feet.

Sure Izana couldn't keep Shinichiro to himself as much as he desperately wanted to, the first time he truly found family - the source of a lot of his anger and jealousy. He hated Mikey, and always will, for stealing his older brother. But you were perfection, divinity, and you filled the hole in his heart; you didn't have to see that side of him if you just stuck by his side and returned his love. You were the only thing giving stability to a very fragile Izzy, and god only knows what would happen to him if that stability ever left. Izana would give you the sun and the moon if you wanted them both, all he asked for in return was your loyalty.

[wangmiao]

An Incomplete History of Zhang Luyi & Chen Minghao's Friendship

Do you like Pangxie's chemistry in Tibetan Sea Flower? Do you feel that they are really old friends? Besides the fact that Zhang Luyi and Chen Minghao are very good actors, they are indeed old friends, and the earliest record that I can find of them working together dates back to 2006. However, CMH was in the 1996 class of acting at the The Central Academy of Drama, while ZLY was in the 1999 class of directing at the same university, so I figured they definitely got to know each other before 2006. So more or less, on Chinese social media, people usually assume that they've been friends for almost 20 years.

Before I dig into the history, I want to mention that some Pangxie scenes are actually improvised by ZLY and CMH on set. CHM has played Pangzi several times, and is insanely good at it, so he knows about Pangzi and the character dynamics inside out. While ZLY is new to the DMBJ universe, he did read all the DMBJ novels before the filming of Tibetan Sea Flower, so he has very insightful understanding of the characters and relationship dynamics as well.

For example, according to an interview of the director, this iconic & funny "拜年/new year's greeting" scene in episode 6 was improvised, and the director just decided to keep it in the final cut. In a BTS footage, Pangxie putting peanuts on Feng's very wrinkled test paper in episode 9 was also shown to be something that ZLY and CMH came up with during rehearsing.

The History

In the first paragraph, I mentioned that they went to the same undergraduate university. Another thing that connects them even more is that they went to the same graduate school - Peking University's School of Arts, and both have the master's degree in arts. ZLY fans sometimes just endearingly call CMH “师哥/shige" because of all of this.

In 2006, ZLY and CMH were in the stage play 琥珀/Amber. Here are some rare photos of 26-year old ZLY and 31 year old CMH LOL:

Both of them continued to do a lot of theatre works, some tv/film roles, and also attended grad school in the coming years. ZLY got his breakthrough leading role in 2014, and started to lead in shows/films.

In 2016, ZLY and South Korean actor Jang Hyuk starred in the drama 新海/New Sea, and CMH was seen sharing the following scene with ZLY. Unfortunately, due to China's ban on South Korean entertainment content in the same year, this drama will probably never see the light of day.

Then, I think some of you already know this, in late 2016, CMH directed the stage play Big D, and ZLY was his lead actor in this play. According to different news articles, the tickets of this play were sold out in either 5, 7, or 8 minutes (LOL no idea why there were such discrepancies, but they were sold out within 10 minutes for sure).

In 2018, they appeared in The Sound which is a very good variety show about dubbing. Celebrities were asked to dub domestic and international shows/films (sometimes in both Chinese and English) to show case their voice acting skills and language skills. What's really funny is that ZLY is one of the typical introverts who can be a clown when he's surrounded by people he's familiar with, but once you put him in an unfamiliar environment, he gets nervous and shy. So after he and CMH entered the room together, he just naturally and subconsciously stood right beside CMH, the one he was most comfortable with, even though he was supposed to team up with another actress (who was off screen). He got really confused for a minute when all the other guests and hosts were questioning why he didn't stand beside his teammate LOL.

Both ZLY and CMH are really very low key actors in c-ent, so you don't see them in public events a lot. The last time that they were spotted chatting in public was during the premiere of the movie Under the Light last September.

Anyways, thanks for reading! I hope this can bring some insight into their friendship. You can tell they are just so comfortable with each other, and shooting Tibetan Sea Flower seemed to be such a fun experience for them. I hope they get to work together again soon in the future!

Edit: if you noticed my tags and saw the reply of someone requesting to know why ZLY was picked as Wu Xie: I made a long post here.

[sophie-frm-mars]

I'm gonna plural discourse for a bit

There's a video that I saw that proposed changing the diagnosis of DID/OSDD to either Dissociative type PTSD or BPD with dissociative amnesia. I think this is not a wholly sensible suggestion and I get into why in the first half of The Mad & The Mentally Ill (text up on my patreon video out in a few months probably) but without getting into a deep critique of the diagnostic model itself I wanna talk about the merits and problems with that suggestion

So on the one hand, PTSD and BPD are already both dissociative in their lived experience. With PTSD you have both the dissociation of feeling like your trauma happened to someone else and the dissociation of feeling like you aren't where and when you really are when you're experiencing a flashback. BPD is dissociative in all its core mechanisms, and there is a sort of emotional "dissociative amnesia" at play when someone with BPD moves from one extreme emotional state to another, because they shift emotional reality so fast it can give them and people around them whiplash. This is a part of what gets people with BPD called manipulative - they change emotional states so fast people assume they must be faking how they're feeling to get what they want.

Therefore it makes some sense to some degree to say that someone whose dissociative identities are formed out of intense trauma has PTSD and that a system of alters that resemble different "personality states" of one core identity is BPD. Or at least it's a somewhat internally consistent model

On the other hand, the lived experience of plurality isn't like that and the best way to explain the difference is to say "it's like you are several different people". In other words I think that there's something potentially useful in this suggestion for helping plural people understand themselves but the suggestion itself is coming from a strictly singular perspective that wants to insist that the ontological nature of the self is singular and in reality the self is simply plural in all cases. "Singular self" people are radically different people who experience radically different thoughts and feelings at work, at home, with friends, with family, when stressed, when tired, when reminded of childhood. As Richard Schwartz says "parts work is for everyone" and I think this attempt to legislate plurality out of the DSM is philosophically an acknowledgement that in effect everyone is at least a little bit plural and an attempt to reconcile that by saying "therefore no one is" instead of opening up your conception of the self to a little more possibility than previously allowed.

Besides all of this, and now I am getting a bit into my critique of the diagnostic model, trauma works differently for different people, and for some people the minor traumas of simply being alive are enough to have profound psychological effects. In the plural community I've seen discussion of "endogenic systems", i.e systems where "they're just like that" rather than there being a specific root trauma. The trauma that forms something like BPD is everyday and commonplace - an environment of traumatic invalidation - just kinda being gaslit by life. Also I think there's a popular understanding that the way people heal from wounds is not their "natural" state and is therefore wrong, but you just have to accept that you are the shape you are and you have no choice but to love yourself. I guess after writing that sentence I should probably acknowledge that I'm plural and that I've known since I was a teenager but was too scared to tell anyone until about two years ago. Where was i. Okay you need to accept that every experience shapes and affects you some amount and lose the idea that trauma is a unique kind of experience which is bad and makes you somehow bad or less or deformed.

Just because someone is some kind of way because of experiences they had doesn't mean they need fixing. Everyone who will ever live is ways they are because of stuff that happened. My point is that I don't see a distinction between systems being "born this way" or formed through specific trauma as long as they are comfortable and happy existing as themselves in the world, and it's stupid and reductive to try and redefine plurality in singular terms when no one is truly singular anyway

[ew01z]

weird i feel like some force is compelling me to ask,,, what are your thoughts on krisnix and langworth during the 7 year gap with endgame narumitsu ?? the masses need to know

something crazy is happening ...... apologising in advance cause i think about this sooo much but have never articulated any of my thoughts on it but THANK YOU FOR ASKING this lives in my mind rent free

BASICALLY between the original aa trilogy and phoenix being disbarred, we know miles goes travelling, canonically he is a prosecutor in several jurisdictions but because i'm self indulgent i think he also took up lecturing at universities (unrelated, this concept just itches my brain)

at this point in time he knows he's in love with phoenix and has been for a considerable amount of time HOWEVER. because he catastrophises everything, he absolutely would have convinced himself that either phoenix is straight (looks left looks right) or he doesn't deserve phoenix or both. in the midst of this hardcore yearning, he meets lang Often. lang, who is actively trying to get into miles' pants quite brazenly (although i imagine miles doesn't notice at first)

they end up having this weird fwb situation wherein they sleep together, probably go on dates that aren't dates (sometimes case related, sometimes not) and imo end up like way more soft and intimate than the original fwb arrangement. but because miles is still yearning like a motherfucker, he's extremely emotionally unavailable. which would be fine except lang has definitely at this point caught some feelings

i'm imagining angsty shit like lang trying to hold miles' hand while they walk somewhere and miles just Not having it. or like wanting to cuddle/spoon after sleeping together and miles is like Nope. but because miles has developed some degree of care for lang, he feels super guilty about it so now he's brooding Even More. that being said, they still keep hooking up as the rules of toxic yaoi would dictate

on the OTHER hand we have krisnix which i saw someone describe as psychosexual warfare and honestly i can't think of a better way to describe it. phoenix definitely knew something was up with kristoph almost immediately. the issue w this is that unfortunately kristoph is also sexy so this posed a problem.

phoenix, who was undoubtedly extremely in love with miles, who didn't know if he possibly could or would ever confess this (especially now that miles is prosecuting abroad), originally got involved with kristoph both like professionally and in a sexy way because he was extremely intrigued with kristoph's terrifying vibes.

phoenix gets disbarred, adopts trucy etc etc, but as we know phoenix keeps kristoph close in order to try stop him from Literally Killing People and because he knew kristoph had a hand in the forged evidence that got him disbarred. however this Also ends up slightly more intimate than anticipated. phoenix hates kristoph's guts and yet .. they have toothbrushes at each other's apartments?? know how each other like their eggs in the morning?? i imagine even though trucy is young and extremely perceptive, she was also somewhat won over by kristoph too. in short, waaaay too in each other's orbits for either of their likings.

while all this toxic yaoi is going on, miles and phoenix have kept in touch sporadically. miles offering to fly home in a heartbeat because he knows phoenix is innocent and phoenix having his weird complex about accepting help. not wanting to tell miles too much because he knows kristoph knows Everything.

however, miles flies phoenix (and trucy too sometimes) out to wherever he's based to try covertly prove phoenix's innocence by looking at the evidence again, other case documents etc. during this time, i think they realistically both realise they're in love with each other but ultimately can't act on it due to distance and the kristoph situation. it would be at this point that miles halts the fwb situation with lang (angst likely ensues, although i imagine lang saw it coming to some extent and knew miles was truly in love with phoenix). however it's more complicated for phoenix, who has to keep up the appearance of normality so kristoph doesn't suspect anything. the more emotional aspects of his relationship with kristoph like the toothbrushes in each others apartments etc etc stops and the fwb situation dies down, although its less eloquent and more messy than the langworth situation (which i imagine was more of an actual cut and dry breakup)

but eventually miles does come back to japanifornia and the events of aa4 take place. phoenix gets his badge back, gay kisses miles and realises that if shi long lang has no haters then he's dead. miles and phoenix are definitely both aware of the relationships the other had before they were together, however phoenix wright is jealous and a bitch so now he hates lang's guts despite having never met him.

the end!!!!! i'll honestly be really surprised if anyone reads this all as this was Very self indulgent. this is just how my head filled the blanks in canon in the messiest, gayest way possible and i'm so glad i had an excuse to post about it

[quixoticanarchy]

Maglor saying "the oath says not that we may not bide our time" is very interesting (not, unfortunately, conducive to conciseness). bear with me.

a) if they can bide their time, that kind of undermines the idea that they are driven by the oath into atrocity; rather, they can choose the moment to obey it (to some degree). the truth of this statement is unclear because it does seem that they spend a lot of the First Age biding their time, but also when they try to bide their time before the third kinslaying, it was said that they were tormented by the oath. was that false? what is it that pushes them into action, if not the pressure of the oath? or, is it the knowledge and shame of the unfulfilled oath combined with events that enable them to strike out for the jewels, but not actually any metaphysical pressure forcing their hand?

b) Maglor is also saying here, let's go back to Valinor and just see what happens. maybe eventually we can get the silmarils peacefully and be forgiven (I have to agree with Maedhros that that seems.. unlikely). probably correctly, Maedhros envisions the difficulty of trying to get the silmarils in Valinor while unforgiven, and what it would entail and cost to do violence there again. Maglor imagines peace; Maedhros definitely anticipates violence

c) I think Maglor also just wants to go home. he wants to stop. he would probably like to fulfill the oath (or be freed from it), but also would be fine with kicking the can down the road, presuming the oath will allow that. but once Maedhros talks him out of the likelihood of success if they wait til Valinor, he's also willing to break it entirely. his contention that Manwë and Varda making the oath impossible to fulfill would also make it void could be interpreted as a hope that both these things would happen

Maedhros makes the points that they can't be released bc they swore also to Ilúvatar, and therefore they're still facing the Everlasting Darkness if they fail. to which Maglor makes the fair point that if they can't be released, then either they hold themselves bound by the oath and keep trying for the silmarils (and if they fail, face Everlasting Darkness), or try to give up the oath, find they are still bound by it and, having auto-failed their task by breaking the oath, face Everlasting Darkness anyway. therefore yes, they would do less evil in the breaking, but the result is the same to them - as long as in neither case do they actually anticipate fulfilling the oath. Maglor therefore is maybe ready to give it up as impossible; possibly, Maedhros is arguing that it remains achievable for now, but "its fulfilment be byeond all hope" only once back in Aman, lending urgency to the final attempt to get the silmarils now.

a follow-up question: do they at this point believe that success is still possible? what is success? if they have to get all 3 silmarils to satisfy the oath, they're up against Earendil, but they never mention that. what does fulfilling the oath mean - that they evade the consequence of failure? is the force that 'drives' them to stick to the oath not so much (or not only) a metaphysical pain or burden that torments them, but the fear of the failure condition itself - the Everlasting Darkness?

this would explain Maglor's interest in wanting to stop pursuing the oath, but also wanting it somehow neutralized - whether by biding time or having the oath declared void. and Maedhros is arguing that a) they can't be released, b) they can only keep the darkness at bay by continuing to actually try for fulfilment, and c) they should take this one last shot while arguably they still have a chance (or at least it's easier than it would be in Aman). it may not matter whether success is ultimately possible (i.e. if Earendil does come into the picture, or the crosshairs), but it matters that they are trying.

but then, what to make of them reportedly realizing Eönwë was right and they've lost their right to the silmarils? what does that matter to the oath? the oath declares they'll do anything to get them back, and they do. as much as it sucks to get burned, getting them back (ignore the 3rd silmaril) should mean their deed has not failed so they should not face Everlasting Darkness.

I see a couple of possibilities here: a) they ceased being bound by the oath when they lost their right to the silmarils, which would make it vain and mean none of the atrocities had to happen. but is that how the oath operates? did they stop being bound by it long ago and just not realize? or, alternately, b) does their losing their right to the silmarils mean they auto-fail the oath bc they’ll never truly “reclaim” them? and therefore, rather than their never being at risk of Everlasting Darkness, are they consigned to it now no matter what? (but Maglor at least seems to evade that, unless it’s very metaphorical…) or, c) were they indeed bound by the oath all along and indeed fulfilled it, it just doesn't really matter bc the victory is hollow, and they themselves can’t hold the very things they killed others for holding? could be harsh enough on its own, whether or not the oath responds to the status of their “right” to the silmarils.

there is also the matter of we don’t know what the Everlasting Darkness is. lol. but I’m not touching that now beyond I think it’s a thing the SoF are genuinely afraid of

[max1461]

Registering this prediction early: in 10 to 40 years when the Sahel region calms down politically, a lot of important medieval manuscripts (both in Arabic and in sub-Saharan African languages) are going to come to scholarly attention, which are going to significantly rewrite what we know about African history and linguistics.

It's basically already known that these manuscripts exist, the Timbuktu manuscripts have already been widely commented on and, in addition to Arabic texts, there are also Songhay texts and evidently texts in other languages too. Someone just pointed me to these (c. 15th century?) manuscripts in Old Kanembu. People have this impression of sub-Saharan Africa as a place that wasn't literate prior to colonialism, and while that's true of the interior and southernmost regions, it is varying degrees of not true for West Africa, the Sahel, and East Africa (most people know this about the Horn of Africa, fewer about the Swahili coast, etc.).

In any case the problem is that most of this writing is not exactly accessible to the wider scholarly community, it's either difficult to access due to political circumstances or because it's privately owned (as is the case for many of the Timbuktu manuscripts). But I think we should probably prepare for some quite revelatory discoveries about medieval Africa in the next half century or so as more texts come to light. It's going to be a cool time I suspect.

[merrinpippy]

on masks

so shockingly miracle mask has huge mask theming in like every aspect. basically every significant character is 'wearing' a mask literally or metaphorically, except for luke who remarks in ludmilla's costume shop that he doesn't think any of the masks suit him (since the events of the previous game luke can be authentically himself now.) this is fun to notice on its own, but there's more to be discussed than just the presence of masks.

every mask in miracle mask backfires on its wearer to some degree! the most obvious case of this is descole and the masked gentleman straight up underestimating their own mask/s and failing to see their plans to the end, and the resulting consequences. dalston and henry's masks of stoicism turn out to have kept them from years of friendship they could have enjoyed, and paint them both as suspects in the masked gentleman case. angela's aloof facade and distance from everyone around her allows her to be kidnapped for a significant portion of the game without anyone but the professor noticing (and even then, he notices that something's up with her, but chalks it up initially as not knowing her anymore). less obviously, emmy's mask only means she'll end up hurting the people she has come to care for even more when the time comes.

most interesting to me, though, is hershel! even as a teen he's remarkably reserved, though clearly passionate. he keeps himself very controlled, and seems to care very much about coming across to others as helpful, grounded, and 'normal'. the interests that we know he has he keeps locked up, literally hidden away in cupboards, not to be acknowledged aloud to himself or others. he never gets angry or ever really displays any stereotypical teen behaviours apart from awkwardness.

now what this means is he is treated as the reliable one who will nonetheless go along with whatever randall wants him to do. he's never particularly assertive (something he will learn to be as an adult) so his willingness is taken for granted. he's put in mortal danger in akbadain because it never occurs to randall that hershel's protests are anything more than for appearance's sake.

and when randall falls and hershel is alone, he yells! he falls to his knees, completely overcome. he cries. he pushes through. and when he reaches angela and henry, alone, covered in dirt, looking completely haunted... they don't even ask him if he's okay. angela bodily shakes him. in the past and present, nobody treats hershel as if he's been through something traumatic - to everyone else, he was either a bystander to or complicit in randall's death, but controlled, mild-mannered and rational hershel is never considered a victim in his own right even after years have passed for everyone to think on it. years after the fact angela apologises to hershel... when she realises she needs his help. and henry immediately accuses him of betraying randall's memory and abandoning him.

and to be clear this isn't me saying oh they're evil or whatever but it's significant that they acknowledge how the trauma affected them and their behaviour from that point forward but it doesn't occur to them that hershel's behaviour and life trajectory was also altered forever! because hershel has for his whole life masked so well that to everyone else he does not have an interior life that isn't puzzle solving.

and the absolute funniest thing about it is that when hershel confesses this all to emmy and luke.... it's immediately back to the investigation, "where do we go now professor!" i'm sure there's no reason to ask if hershel's okay, he's probably unaffected by all that, let's go! readers i laughed out loud. tfw you mask so well everyone forgets you're a person

[ladytauria]

actually, I'll give you something cute

Jason and Tim gotta pretend to be a married couple in a suburb or smth, specifically thinking they adopt like a dog/or cat while there (and then keep them obv)

but yeah playing happy married couple while totally not pining after each other

this is so messy i’m sorry lmao

mutual pining is one of my absolute favorite tropes <3 & you know i love a good undercover + identity shenanigans fic

I don’t have a lot of clear, defined ideas for the set up (I find casefics so hard to conceptualize for some reason???? Sigh.) But. I have a few thoughts— first, I don’t want them going undercover together to have been the original plan. Second, I kind of want to have originally been Jason’s case? Bc I kind of want there to be an opening thread of like. Jason’s such a planner that having his plans over turned is always upsetting for him—he’s adaptable, it rarely ever affects his actual work, but he still gets grumpy about it :/ So him reaching out for Tim’s help isn’t like. A Big Deal but it isn’t Not a Deal at all, you know? Like it means something that he’s asking Tim to come in for… SO many reasons.

Alternatively I suppose it could be something they were assigned to do by Bruce or Babs or asked to do by Steph, even, ‘cause it’s someone else’s case & they need intel but also more freedom to do stuff?? I dunnoooo. ALSO thinking that maybe Tim & Jason are the obv choice for such an assignment bc Jason is still legally dead & doesn’t have much of a civilian life that anyone knows about, and Tim is no longer involved with WE or doesn’t have to do much with the company so his free time is also… very open.

I’m also torn on like. WHERE I would want them to be. In a Gotham suburb? Or outside of Gotham completely? Like, say, Metropolis? There’s something appealing about the latter bc like. They’re already undercover, posing as different people, but NOW they’re also someWHERE else so it feels even more like this is a distant dream they can never have. However, if it’s in Gotham you could have that underlying “we could have been this if life had been different.” (You can kind of get that with the former too, but.)

Also thinking that as much as I love the gendefuckery of crossdressing / going undercover as a woman, AND as much as I love the idea of genderqueer/fluid/trans Tim, I want them to be going undercover as an MM couple? (Although, now I’m thinking about a similar situation where Tim, who doesn’t oft explore the femme side of himself in depth, actually would get to… hm.) ANYWAY. But yeah for this one, they’re going undercover as husband & husband.

Tim’s undercover persona… I’m split between something with tech or working as a mechanic. (Hush.) Jason… hmm. College TA or going for a college degree, so he’s mostly the stay at home/house husband type. Or maybe one or both of them should have a career that calls for traveling a lot?? Hm.

Both of them expect themselves and/or the other to kind of struggle with it. For multiple reasons! The first being that they have feelings for the other—there’s a part of me that actually wants to make one of them (probably Tim) oblivious to their own feelings until a week or so into the charade & have a sudden realization? But also I like the idea of both of them going into it knowing that they like each other and resolving not to let it affect things. They both also expect to miss vigilante work, because while they’re able to go out occasionally it’s not like either of them are used to.

And while it’s definitely difficult to find things to occupy their time with at first… it’s not as hard as they expect.

Thinking they adopt an animal fairly early on (thinking it should be a stray they start feeding & fall in love w). I’m leaning hard on the idea of a cat but a dog could be fun too lmao. There’s a lot of joking arguments about post-case custody but then those peter off as they start letting their roles bleed over into their lives.

And then. The case ends. They get the intel they needed, bust the operation, and it’s time for Tim & Jason to quietly pack up and leave.

Thinking the last couple of days they spend as their fake identities are awkward. They can’t find the ease they had before because they know they’re about to leave, so when they’re not actively performing for their neighbors… they’re more withdrawn.

And then they both go to their separate homes. Thinking Jason got primary custody of their dog or cat? But I could be convinced for Tim as well. Anyway. Both of them feel a little hollow; like they’re missing something. They cant stop thinking about their life together, how *real* it felt & how much they miss waking up to the other. How much they miss even the idiosyncrasies they used to argue over. (Even if at least half of those idiosyncrasies were made up for the persona. They still know each other well enough to know which ones were real and which were fake… & they find themselves wondering which parts of their private lives they left out, good and bad, what living together would *really* be like.)

Eventually one of them makes an excuse to go see the other—to check in on the cat/dog, obviously. And maybe there’s an awkward invitation to keep visiting, and a sort of. Ambiguous/open ending with an obvious/hopeful slant for them to be a couple in the future.

And then maybe an epilogue / one shot sequel set a few months in the future with a look at their established life <3333

[ send me an AU & i’ll give you at least 5 things i would include in it ]