#it also feels really fucking targeted

[phaedra-mero]

its so fucking frustrating to me that this site is full of porn bots, full of full frontal nudity and sexual gifs/ads/videos/pictures etc. and they never get flagged or taken down. (its there. any time 'gay' or 'transgender' comes up on the 'trending topics' on the app, the preview posts are ALWAYS full on nudity, genitals out, ans sexually explicit. Not artful or tasteful nude for art's sake.).

but it seems each time i upload some screenshots that are suggestive where there's sex taking place but you can't see anything those posts get flagged and taken down within 30 minutes.

fuckin... lesson learned, won't be bothering with that shit any more i guess.

if you want to see any of the more explicit gpose stuff i have a blueksy account: phaedra-mero.bsky.social where at least everything i do doesn't get immediately flagged and removed. because fuck me i guess.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s7 episode 7 "orison" thoughts

i’m baaaaack!

it feels like it’s been so long, but i think it’s only been 5 days since i’ve seen an episode. regardless! last one was cute and light, which is good, because i imagine that this one is going to be heavy.

we don’t often get to see a return of a baddie of the week. last time we saw this happen, it was a return of the pusher, and i didn’t find the second episode as good as the original, which i consider to have an important role in the x files canon. as does irresistible. so i’m really hoping for a suitable sequel, but i don’t want to be overly optimistic. 

(post-episode thoughts: sometimes, i read my little pre-episode predictions and marvel at how very off i was. other times, my ability to see what is coming is a curse. this is one of those times. SIGH.

what is frustrating me the most, beyond the demonic retcon, is that i cannot figure out what mulder was going for during this episode. he starts out so concerned for her- rightfully so- and from there, it blurs to me. is he teasing her playfully to try and keep her from spiraling? is he genuinely listening to her theories? is he pushing them down because he sees them as potentially dangerous in that they can be used to manipulate her, or is he pushing them down because he thinks they're foolish? is it a mix of all of these? i just cannot get a read on him here, and it is driving me up a wall.

after a very lengthy pondering, i think i've decided that he was trying to be protective and genuine- and this interpretation is especially influenced by one of his final comments i'll analyze later- but it came off awkward

while i am curious as to how others interpreted this episode- so please do tell me your thoughts- overall i didn't like it very much and i think i will mostly pretend it didn't happen.

but we got to see more of scully's apartment. is it still the same one? the bedroom angle looked different from the anasazi arc. it almost looked like a house, tbh. need to make a mental layout of both their living spaces for fic purposes)

back to past me: let’s begin.

we open with a man preaching the gospel to some men who seem to be in prison. huh! i accidentally typed “orison” first, which is the name of the episode, and one letter away from prison. interested to see why this was chosen as the title.

he asks who believes. and he kinda looks like joe biden. he gets right in someone i assume to be donnie’s face and ask if he believes. and donnie says nothing. “well, believe, because god’s love is not just some slogan”

why is donnie smirking…. what has he planned…. 

now the preacher guy is tossing holy water, shouting glory, amen. but donnie does not partake in the hollering. 

the prisoners are at work making shoes, it seems? one of the guards asks donnie if he really believes god loves him- he kills women and cuts their pinkies off- god has a place for him in hell.

augh! someone cut their fingers off with the saw?? did donnie do this somehow?? he is watching everything in slow motion…. the screen is very dark. in the chaos of someone cutting their own fingers off, he tosses his jacket and walks away.

now, i haven’t gotten very much information here, so i shall keep an open mind. anyway, it’s intro time! and we get the full one!!

woooow. always a treat to watch such visuals.

scully is sleeping!! do not wake her up!!!

alas. there is wind. ah. it seems to just be from her open window. we can allow this to disturb her slumber, for it is a mostly peaceful way to wake up.

wait. it can’t really be 6:66. that isn’t how digital clocks work!!

the electricity is flickering. and now it says 6:06. oh… poor girl. she is being tormented by signs.

now she’s at the prison. they’re handing her donnie’s file!!! mulder is watching her like a hawk… somehow donnie escaped and they need to get him back behind bars.

scully stares at the photo….. and nearly gags as mulder describes to the prison guards what donnie does

mulder does a little smile when the guard asks about them working with the supernatural LMAO- it almost seems embarrassed or like he just does not want to have that conversation right now.

then he’s back to watching scully. she had to step out of his line of vision to see donnie's photo again. very interesting. 

she promises that there is nothing supernatural about this man- he is just plain evil. and she walks away. into the room where the men were shouting glory. she hears some sort of song.

oh…. he’s telling her to go home. “mulder, this case doesn’t bother me” “the man abducted you. donnie pfaster did a number on your head like i’ve never seen, and it’s okay to walk away” i appreciate his moment of tenderness so much....

but her body language is so defiant. “mulder, that man does things to people that no one should ever have to think about. it’s not a question of if i should stay. i don’t have a choice” <- THERE!!! RIGHT THERE!!! HER BEING MORALLY FORCED TO DO WHAT SHE CONSIDERS THE RIGHT THING!! ALL OTHER CONSEQUENCES BE DAMNED!!! GOD!!! it’s such a fascinating character trait of hers.

she says they have to get to work. 

ohhh, donnie left the prison at 6:06 in the morning…. when she saw the alarm clock….

huh. is this going to retcon the whole thing about donnie being pure evil without the aid of any sort of devils or witchcraft? i liked that a lot about the original- that the evil was entirely human, like scully said. 

okay. no more predictions from me.

mulder describes how donnie was the third person to walk out of maximum security prisons in recent years. no one who was at the scene remembers anything. and the other 2 that walked away were never seen again. 

they’re asking a prisoner about donnie’s disappearance from the garment shop. oh no! it’s finger guy! but he still has them all?

so other people saw his fingers come off too, and he felt them cut off, but they’re still here. “god works in mysterious ways, brother”

when mulder lifts his hand, he says glory and raises his foot. hmm…… very weird. 

mulder thinks this reaction is from hypnosis. and he makes a joke about it not working on her- trying hard to keep the mood from becoming a void of darkness- but she adamantly does not think it’s possible. her words are harsh. i understand.

ooo! mulder has figured out the one person all the escaped prisoners had contact with!! the chaplain. he is good at finding out this sort of thing.

and scully hears music once again coming from the vents. mulder can barely hear it.

“well i think if it was a make out song, it’d be ruined forever, huh?”

ohhhhh, his jokes seem nervous today…. or maybe i’m over-analyzing. both have been known to happen.

donnie is at a diner!!! he almost gets distracted by a woman he sees, but then goes to sit down. oh. and he’s watching the waitress’s fingers…. gross.

a woman sits next to him. asking if he’s hungry for today’s special. he stares at her fingers, and he declares she needs a buff and polish. and he says he just got out of prison- he’ll do it for free. 

who is this missy figure and why does the waitress know her by name…?

OH! the reverend is here in the diner!!! saying it was the grace of god that got him out.

the marshals arrive. reverend dangles his car keys in front of donnie. and when he says “glory, amen”, the waitress tosses a pot of hot coffee at the cops, allowing donnie, missy, and the reverend to escape.

(author's note: now, having seen the whole episode, this too seems like a plot hole. because how did his mind tricks work on the waitress he had never met before to hypnotize? unless i missed something and one of the cops started to attack her and her coffee pot launch was an act of self-defense? that seems like the most logical conclusion, but i didn't see it happen and also there isn't a whole lot of logic in these sort of things)

BAHAHAAAAA but as the escapes the diner, the reverend gets hit by a car!!!!!!!! DAMN!!! that caught me off guard, LMAOOOO

i thought it was mulder and scully in the car, but it’s donnie and missy!!! and they drive away, leaving him on the ground. 

NOW scully and mulder are here, and the cops can’t answer if they saw donnie or not. it is like their minds were wiped. but they do know that reverend orison was hit by a car. and scully hears that song again!!!! she asks the waitress to turn it up. she is so confused.

they go to talk to orison. he says some vaguely religious stuff and she replies “that’s nice”. a measured scully response.

he says that god has those who have left the prisons. “you’re a believer, aren’t you?” “this has nothing to do with me, sir” <- GET HIM!!! 

but he says it does. she still isn’t taking it- she grabs her cross necklace, shows him- “it’s not exactly a long shot, sir” and he says she is longing, afraid, waiting for a sign. now. what is that supposed to mean.

he’s quoting something to her…. "the devil’s instant is our eternity". 

OH MY GOD! mulder comes in with a photo of missy slaughtered in a bathtub. “missy”. they sure do love giving people in this show that name.

mulder asks the reverend where donnie is- orison says she wasn’t supposed to die. mulder thinks that orison was supposed to kill donnie!

“the reverend orison is really robert gailen orison- convinced in 1959 of first-degree murder. served 22 years in soledad” oooo.... the plot thickens.

he says god spoke to him, told him to look after donnie. “when god spoke to you, reverend, did he happen to mention where donnie was headed?” mulder is NOT happy!!!

scully is trying to process this. they walk into the hall.

this is deeply fascinating. she wants to know how to prove somebody isn’t being directed by god. “god is a spectator, scully. he just reads the box scores” “i don’t believe that” “you think god directs that man? you think he directs him to kill?”

oh my god. this is so tense. she says she knows the reverend believes it is god speaking through him. mulder replies that a lot of nutcases think the same thing.

“has he ever spoken to you?” (brief stunned scully silence) she looks him in the eyes and says “i’m trying not to take offense”. which is a nicer reply than he deserved- if he meant that as a dig instead of a rare moment of vulnerability. but he keeps going: “what did he say?”

(is he bullying her? or is he able to see what she is hiding from him? is it both? why can he be so hard to read? what is going through his mind? does he actually care about scully communicating with god? or does he think she is also a nutcase? the different ways you can interpret this are killing me. i want to analyze the script for any sort of clues)

she sighs and admits to hearing that song three times now. it may not mean anything to him, but it does to her. and he asks what it means.

she was in san diego at age 13, listening to that song, when her mother came in and said her sunday school teacher was killed. mulder softly says “oh”. “he had been murdered in his front yard. and that was the first time that i ever felt that there was real evil in the world”

and orison called her “scout”, which is what the sunday school teacher called her. see, i just thought he was quoting something, but that instead explains why she was so taken aback. and she tells him that she woke up exactly at 6:06, when her power went out and donnie escaped.

“so what do you think god is telling you?” 

is he going to approach this with sensitivity? god, i hope so.

she’s at a loss for words.

“well, come with me, scout. i’ll show you how the reverend talks to god” and they’re on their way

this is so juicy…. i will be analyzing this for centuries to come.

(but him calling her scout made me uncomfy. again. was he trying to be reassuring? is he mocking her? i cannot tell. i feel like i'm trying to decode something here with slim to nothing to go off of. i want to read the script. i want to compare this with other episodes. i can't get a read on anything.

does he pity her? is he unintentionally condescending towards her? is he fundamentally incapable of understanding her worldview to the point where it comes off as disrespectful and malicious? is he trying, and he's just not very good at it?)

donnie is listening to the radio, which is describing his escape. the trunk of orison’s car is filled with bloody clothes, and donnie finds his license plate and his keys. 

mulder is showing scully some brain swelling. she thinks it came from the car accident, but orison told mulder that he had a hole put in his head, so more blood pumps in through his brain.

listen. i recall someone else once getting a hole cut in his skull to get information from mystic sources. so i'm not trying to hear any judgement.

mulder thinks that mental powers might be limited by blood supply, and holy men in the andes used to remove parts of their skull to do just this. they could perform tricks like “stopping the world” <- aha! the slowing down thing! 'twas not a mere trick of the camera for us, the viewers, to enjoy!

so mulder thinks maybe orison was going to kill donnie, but he unleashed something he couldn’t control. hmm...

back in his hospital bed, orison says "glory, amen" and his heart rate slows. or not! the guard’s perception of the world slows! he gets up and takes his keys!! and leaves the hospital!!!

donnie is in a kitchen, cooking fingers naked. which is a crazy sentence.

well, technically he isn’t fully naked- he has a towel on. and he’s not cooking the fingers- he’s freezing them. but. you know. the initial image was visually striking. 

a knock at the door… a woman arrives from a gentlemen’s service. he lets her in. 

she knows it’s not his place- a reverend orison lives here. he stares at her fingers. her face. 

“something you want to say?” “love your hair” ooooo…. it's spooky.

very interesting that they so blatantly queercoded the death fetishist. that's a topic of a different essay.

she is in the tub, soaking. he’s in the bathroom, asking if her hair is chemically treated. he doesn’t know which product to use. she does NOT like this. “you’re not using no product- i’m clean, my hair’s clean. if you’re gonna be that weird about it, i ought to just leave” and she gets up to go. asks for a towel. he wraps it around her. he's staring at her hair. it’s a wig. 

“they lied to me” (he rips it off) “YOU lied to me!”  he throws it away…

she tosses the candle wax in his face and makes an escape!!!! 

when mulder and scully come back for orison, he’s gone!!! the guard has no idea where he went and his gun is gone. 

scully finds a message…. “don’t look any further” ITS THE SONG TITLE?? mulder thinks maybe he overhead them talking in the hall, but she’s positive she didn’t mention the name of the song. 

orison finds donnie…. cocks his gun. says he’s taking him home. the wicked will be punished.

orison digs a grave, with donnie's hands tied behind his back nearby. he asks him to repent. and donnie whimpers. cries. says he can’t. he cries for the reverend. “because you cannot kill me”

HUH??? donnie morphs into the devil. or a devil. WHAT.

LMAO WHAT. I’M SO CAUGHT OFF GUARD. BAHAHAHA, HOLD ON. 

okay. i need a minute for this!

well! way to ruin the thing i liked the best about the first episode. 

maybe i’m being harsh. we can…. see where this takes us. i guess. 

mulder and scully are here. donnie's body is in the grave. she apologies to mulder. “there’s not much mystery in murder” “and for that, i owe you an apology, mulder” “what do you mean?” “well, you were right. i was looking too hard for connections that weren’t there. orison was a murder, plain and simple. he liberated those prisoners so he could bring them out here and pass judgement on them”

does she really believe that?? is that easier to believe than what she thinks she felt before?? and that she apologizes to him... was she aware of how worried he was for her? but did his worry come off as genuine concern or something closer to derision? is she used to that?

donnie placed the call that led them out there… scully seems to think he’s still around. but mulder says the x file is over, let’s go home, let the marshals deal with it. “don’t look any further, scully” <- wild to quote that song that is traumatizing her again

AUGH! but of course, donnie is still about, as he is a devil and i'm not sure how you go about killing those. and he’s in scully’s place, it seems. walking through her apartment. peeking into her bedroom. picking up her bible. putting it away. 

and she comes home. oh my god. i’m so tense. she sets down her keys, takes off her coat. he’s watching her get changed. putting on pajamas. she’s standing outside the closet…. and her clock says 6:66 again. and the lights flicker out. she sees the closet open.

he opens the door and grabs her….

mulder’s phone rings, he isn’t home, but the marshal says a call girl identified her attacker as donnie- he was upset she wasn’t a real redhead. he gets home. 

donnie’s choking her. she scratches his eyes. but he slams her into the mirror. she stabs him with broken glass. throws a bookshelf on him. runs and dials 911. but he grabs her. wraps up her wrists. “who did your nails, girly girl?”, he says as he slams her to the ground.

“the only reason you’re alive is because i asked the judge for life. the only reason you’re alive is because we didn’t kill you when we could”

MULDER IS STILL AT HOME??? he hears the song. 

donnie is dragging scully into the bath. he tells her to be good- don’t cause any problems. she’s gagged and bound. the phone is ringing. and the song is playing. 

she’s trying to get free…. looking under the door. she sees her gun. donnie looks through her products. 

she got under the bed!!!! she’s rolling around.

he takes scissors from her kitchen. i can't help but think of how, once she gets through this, she will never want to use those scissors again. she inches towards the shattered glass from the mirror to cut the ties and grab her gun.

donnie is lighting the candles. he sees her on the ground. time slows down. mulder comes in. tells him something. we can't hear what he's saying, but his lips seem to read "put your hands in the air"

he turns to her. she’s free. she has her gun. she's bleeding from the nose. mulder’s screaming. the lights pop as she fires the gun. she looks at him. tears in her eyes. 

woah.

later, they’re still in her place, and the cops are here. she’s wrapped in a blanket, and goes to her bedroom. mulder excuses himself from talking to a policeman to go see her. 

“if you want to pack some things, we can get out of here”. are they going to spend some time at his apartment while the cops investigate? is she going to move out?

she finds the bible hidden in the drawer. “you can’t judge yourself”, he says

she sits on the bed. “maybe i don’t have to” “the bible allows for vengeance” “but the law doesn’t”

he leans in close. “the way i see it, he didn’t give you a choice. and my report will reflect that… in case you’re worried”

there's something she doesn't understand: “what made me pull the trigger” “you mean, if it was god?” “i mean… what if it wasn’t?”

(thus concludes the episode)

hmm….

i’m not sure how i feel. the best thing, in my opinion, about irresistible was the fact that donnie was entirely ordinary. so the demon reveal made me face palm. actually, i laughed out loud. i was thinking “please don’t go there” and boy, they sure did.

still, i could see some merit in the episode concept. he takes her again. okay. we’ve done this before- it's getting old. but this time she saves herself. a nice reversal. puts a bullet in his chest.

but she feels guilty at the end?? like the devil made her do it??

girl, you kill people all the time. is he different and special because you feel like your reasons for killing him were personal? and normally you feel disconnected from the action, so it’s fine?

hmm. hmm.

it’s always interesting when we see scully’s faith weaponized against her. i loved seeing her be like “yeah, fuck you” to the reverend who was trying to manipulate her. and very interesting to get that lore reveal about her childhood and the discovery of evil. orison somehow knew exactly which words to say. how? 

i guess this episode feels like it wasn’t fully formulated to me. wasn’t thought all the way through. orison aimed to extract divine justice but didn’t for once, and then because of him more blood was shed. why did he change his mind that one time and spare donnie instead of killing him right away? why did he know what nickname and note to leave scully? was that sent by god? that makes no sense in a narrative role of god from a writer’s perspective. obviously, god is fully unknowable, but the writers of a tv show are, and i’m not sure wtf they were going for here.

idk, i think the original irresistible has so much to say about gendered violence, about things mulder could never understand, about scully’s worldview where real evil is out there, and it is impossible to comprehend. and at that point they hadn’t dived into her catholic lore, but it still feels like a major retcon to go over that initial terror of what humanity is capable of and blame it on the supernatural. even if she didn’t fully see his demonic transformation, she thought she felt it in herself with the lights flickering as she pulled the trigger. scully believes in the holy and the demonic, but most of the time, good and evil are just done by the human. and i love that about her. 

i feel that the most interesting moments here were mulder’s. him telling her that she can go home (and her steadfast refusal out of her strict moral compass). him saying god is just here for the box scores- has he ever made any comment on what he really believes in terms of religion, ever? that view sounds like deism. is that really what he thinks or just another of his one liners?

and when scully opens up to him- even though he basically calls her a nutcase, and she specifies that she is trying not to be hurt by such a statement- he seems to listen. but is he? is he really trying? i cannot tell. is he concerned and trying to keep her from being manipulated but in doing so coming off as disrespectful? is he genuinely trying? i cannot fucking tell.

then, it is god (or fate or coincidence) that ends up talking to him when he hears the song and goes to help her. how interesting that choice is. for god to talk to someone who isn’t interested in listening. 

would he be interested in listening after experiencing something like that?

i made that post the other day about how i would have loved to see them talk religion completely openly and without his trademark scorn. just to pick scully’s brain and learn what is important to her. but he seems almost unable to comprehend (or respect?) where she’s coming from. he inches close to it when he asks what god is saying to her. but then he dismisses orison as having extra brain blood. is that also dismissal of her theory that god can speak to people?

it’s frustrating, the give and take of it. she doesn’t believe in his theories, but she goes along with them. okay, sure, she says, let’s imagine that drilling holes in orison’s brain would make him connect with the divine or perform parlor tricks- why would he use that power to free donnie? she can put herself in the “what if” shoes and work around his theories even if she doesn’t adhere to them. but he seems unable to reciprocate. and it’s frustrating!

and i know this is a point of contention because i have had angry mulder fans leave comments (which is a funny statement to make, because it makes me sound like i am NOT a mulder fan, and obviously i am, look at my URL, look at my whole blog)- those fans have said: "well, she never believes him about his ghouls"- but there is something a lot more intimate and disrespectful about scoffing at another’s god, don’t you think? idk. i understand that he is a fictional character and fictional characters have flaws, but for someone who spends so much time researching other people’s belief systems out of what seems like genuine curiosity, his disregard for what scully thinks irks me.

i’m not expecting them to agree on everything, i’m just expecting him to listen. in my experience, as someone who studies religion, it’s really great to talk to someone who has different beliefs than you!! you get an inside scoop! learn about how the people you love see the world! is there any greater way to know someone? but he’s so cynical about the whole thing, it comes off as him dismissing her faith as childish, when he himself knows that wanting to believe in anything is an act of hope. which pisses me off. 

but his comment at the end about the bible allowing for vengeance makes me think he really was trying. he really was making an effort to understand where she was coming from and reassure her of her validity in her own belief system. was this whole episode an awkward tango of him trying to protect her but not being sure how to do it? because that line recontextualizes everything for me!

hmm. i’m not sure what to think. i guess it would have been a fine episode on its own, but in the context of rewriting the narrative around an older iconic episode, it displeases me. i was engaged because i love to learn more about what they think on the world, but there are so many other plots that don’t involve the brutalization of women by men. 

even if i think the choice of the queercoding for the villain- "who did your nails, girly girl?"- is incredibly interesting, and you could really mine that for social commentary. is that choice a 90's legacy of homophobia, or an acknowledgement of the fact that misogyny, femicide, and other violence against women can also be perpetrated by any man? and is that is part of what makes the randomness of the evil so impossible to comprehend? that who does it is entirely without pattern? well. that is a subject for another day.

on a base human level, how did the episode make me feel? i was invested. i like the religion stuff. i like protective mulder and scully who could be considered walking a line between listening to the divine and being a participant in her own demise. it’s interesting. but then we got to donnie in her place, and i was scared. again. really the only time i’ve felt fear during this show is with the femicide or stalking cases. i don’t think i’ll ever watch milagro again. maybe not this one, either. 

i guess that is reasoning enough. i don’t like the cases where we see scully brutalized and tortured and hurt on the basis of her gender. and i don’t like that the original episode was shifted into the domain of the demonic. so those are two solid reasons to not like the episode. add in mulder’s inability to understand her and you can get some bonus points there- and him calling her scout also made me uncomfy. was he trying to joke with her? about her murdered sunday school teacher? was he trying and failing at being genuine? AND the sudden guilt when it came to scully defending herself made me mad too. girl, where did that come from? i’m looking all around for clues and i cannot find them.

there are definitely worse episodes, and definitely ones i’ve hated more. i don’t hate this one with a super intense and firey passion. just the sort of tired “ugh, why’d they do that?” you experience every so often when things should have been left well enough alone.

same with revisiting pusher. they should know when they’ve nailed something once that coming back to it is setting everyone up for failure. except for that one actor that gets to return and a sweet paycheck. for that guy, it rocks. although personally, if i played donnie i’d be mad they made him a demon LMAO but hey. you have to make a living. 

[sieglinde-freud]

one time eva told me that inigo was basically just a total drama character and i cant like that kinda hit me like a slap in the face but like in a good way because like. she was right. and that was several months ago but the concept was so good i sometimes just come back to it and now i have a question for the class

no i dont think inigo (or anyone else i excluded) would win but if you have a case for him im open

[clegfly]

Thought I had today that I decided to doodle. Oh em gee I wonder what musical cleg’s been obsessing over for the last like month

[bunnyb34r]

Who would have thought that eating cherrios 2x daily when I'm allergic to oats, and several pastries when I'm allergic to wheat, would come back to bite me in the ass? Surely not I! 🙃

[joshuamj]

also i watch The Wild Robot the other day and oh my god 11/10, absolutely beautiful in every sense of the word, would cry again 👍

[romantically-yours]

I wanna pick up a girl and pin her against a wall and give her lots of lil smooches while we giggle like the little gay goblin gremlins that we are

[gibbearish]

btw similar to the whole "if you try adderall at a party and it calms you down, get an adhd test" thing, if at some point in your life you try microdosing shrooms with a friend and end up feeling like a functional person for the first time in your life, get tested for depression. like yeah hallucinogens come with elation so youre probably gonna have some "this is the best ive ever felt in my life" vibes regardless, but like. if that in and of itself feels like finally breathing in for the first time in years, thats for sure a sign that something is up with your ability to process serotonin most of the time. feeling better than ever before should be a nice bonus, not a crushing weight off your chest

[presiding]

What is your favourite thing about Billie Lurk?

(Answers are obvious possibly but i love when people talk about her👍)

thanks for the ask!! YEAH ME TOO I love when people talk about Billie! I can't say I have a favourite thing specifically, but I can explain why she's my fav. apologies for not taking this qn literally, but -

short answer: she’s really cool

& you can stop reading there, or, for the maybe 2 mutuals who might have time to read this my thoughts on her as a character, her meta, and her character as raw potential...

long answer:

i considered making this entire thing a gush so you could read a gush about Billie. but, part of what draws me to her is that she’s not always well written, and in fandom she’s underrated for a literal protagonist.

since you ask...

billie is a cool character

when I played Dh2 (hadn't played Dh1), I was excited to see a black woman with disabilities who was captaining a massive ship by herself. wow.

then I discovered Billie’s backstory with Deirdre, the way she responded to that, then having to survive while living on the run, and her bisexuality. as well as her history with daud & delilah. fascinating!

she’s an outsider who has so much to lose, and knows what it's like to lose everything - having lost everything not once but three times - but nevertheless speaks truth to power. she's so brave! she went and helped Emily & Corvo and she must have known they might kill her! plus, she’s smart, she’s funny, she gets shit done, she’s gorgeous.

but... the meta

mild critique of fandom & arkane incoming.

skip this bit if you want - you've been warned twice now - jump to tired Hayao Miyazaki and read from there if you'd like my thoughts on writing her.

i thought Death of the Outsider was going to be amazing and then... well. *sad trombone* i've written about that before so i won't keep banging on. i figured others must be disappointed too, so I joined a few fandom spaces in hopes of finding camaraderie.

most people with complaints about DotO didn’t like how the Outsider and Daud were handled. which is valid & I agree. but it seemed like most paid no attention to Billie; when people talk about her it’s with respect to Daud, as opposed to in her own right. you could argue for fandom misogyny because people don’t talk about adult Emily Kaldwin that much either, but in Billie's case, it’s misogynoir (compare & contrast with the popularity of thomas, particularly the popularity of thomas portrayed as a white man for no particular reason that i've been able to discern - i keep asking around, is it in the books???).

i think this is a LOT better now than it used to be, which is fantastic. or perhaps i have found the correct echo-chamber? ha.

ultimately, The Fandom is a fraction of the entire picture, and not even the important bit since The Fandom is not who these games are made for. you can't make money relying on only your hardcore fans even if all of them spent a fortune on merch, this is true for any AAA game.

while it's true that Billie is underrated from a fandom perspective - but Billie as an underwritten protagonist is squarely Arkane’s fault.

it was reasonable when she was a side character - the lack of info in Dh2 makes perfect sense (if anything there was more lore in Dh2 which is kind of wild)-

- but as a protagonist in Death of the Outsider?

.... there’s lousy writing, and there’s whatever is going on with Billie Lurk, a black woman who mostly exists as a foil or saviour for light-skinned characters. In her own game there’s barely any of her own lore except where it's relevant to saving two dudes.

lore hints at, but barely touches on what race means in the Dh universe (xenophobia is stronger in Dh1; separate essay i guess), but Arkane has patted themselves on the back for portraying non-white characters, which feels like the same thing as the aesthetic of diversity we're seeing in advertising currently because it’s in marketing trend guides. it's self-congratulatory and it's a missed opportunity for deeper storytelling.

you can see an example of diversity at its most shallow in the way that Billie’s written: there’s little engagement with her as an entire person with history & wants & preferences, and the world she walks through in that game feels like it has nothing to do with her. you could make a case for alienation as a theme, but then, how do you handle the titular premise of 'Dishonored' without ever letting Billie make changes in an environment without a chaos system? it's disappointing from that angle too.

in my opinion, whatever it's worth, it was an accident Arkane created such an awesome character - they needed someone to betray daud. congrats billie.

all this said, it makes her an underdog as far as characters to enjoy & create art & stories for. it's nice to find so many like-minded, switched on people! <3

billie's character potential

she’s got a wealth of unexplored lore, being deeply intertwined with both Karnaca & Dunwall’s fates & criminal underbellies, as well as her connections to the witches & whalers, and three Empresses.

she’s lived a few distinct lifetimes and in the games we get to meet her at two peaks (KoD & DotO) & a low (Dh2 as Meagan).

her voice is very distinct, her dry & often dark humour is entertaining & fun to write. her perspective is really interesting - she’s had the widest variety of void-powers of anyone canonically, and she’s also lived through the highest highs and lowest lows.

she's got everything going for her :) i couldn't really pick a fav thing!

[winter-hoof]

My new ornaments this year 🎄

[rotisseries]

i don't read enough loz fic to know what the popular fanon is so maybe this already exists but there should be a revali and zelda besties agenda i think it would be good for them

[subaru-meteorlight]

ok yeah esupuri is getting to me sooooo fucking bad I LOVE KANNA……….. HIS VOICEE!!!!! MELLOW!!!!! SOFT BOY!!! UUWWAUUGHHFHH his dance movements!! Give us nothing!! I really like esu’s movements, it’s high energy and skilled… truly knights kouhai…. Raika is super cute too, his strength to me is his facial expressions in mvs being more expressive than the others and pushing his cute charm

[knaveofmogadore]

I dunno. I think once everyone realizes that the urge to commit violence and hoard things is a stress response we'd make a lot of progress in, like, everything

[captainfightingflower]

Dodo Re Mi’s entire presentation just looks like a mobile game that forces an unhealthy amount of microtransactions on you.

[devotedlystrangewizard]

life before aventurine - life with aventurine

[ilikeyoshi]

you ever just absolutely bawl your eyes out at an article.