#its like. i like the nuance there. much to chew on

[pummelingbat]

the situation between jimmy + curly is so weirdly yandere archetypical. like the actual textually-supported angle of "i dont want you to outgrow me, so im going to do everything in my power to drag you down to my level and keep you there" is... kind of insane?

[aropride]

that post has actually shifted my perception of stupid fucking PrObLeMaTiC MeDiA discourse forever i think i need to chew on the topic for like 8 hours and decide how i feel about it then

[sleevebuscemii]

i will die on the hill that black sails is one of the greatest shows of all time but i think the reason it never truly entered my psyche is that so much nuance went right over my fucking head

[syrasenturi]

If people start hating on Cassandra on that post I'll personally be throwing hands

[vintageandroid]

Star Trek Voyager is weird I think because it's so inconsistently written and the actors are so good. Like. You'll have these really amazing moments, and then the dumbest thing you've ever heard in your life, and it's not even like TNG where those are different episodes; in Voyager those bits are 10 seconds after one another. Robert Duncan McNeill is turning into a lizard because of his daddy issues. Janeway's committing to the Prime Directive today and letting it go for pragmatism tomorrow without any sort of acknowledgement, and it's because the writers aren't talking to each other or something and not a fault of the character, but because Kate Mulgrew conveys it all with such conviction you get fanboys decades later talking about what a horribly inconsistent monster Janeway is. Jeri Ryan is delivering her lines with such nuance and restrained emotion that you totally overlook the way the Borg apparently constructed its drones entirely out of spandex and padded bras. And I know Robert Beltran stopped bothering in the last half or so of Voyager, but the first couple seasons he was actually quite charming, or so it seemed like from whatever of his dialogue you could hear over the Weird Racist Flutes that played anytime he spoke. Neelix is annoying as hell and then you find out he survived a brutal war and has so much rage simmering under the surface. IT'S INSANE. WHAT IS HAPPENING.

Meanwhile we've got TOS, where William Shatner is chewing the cardboard scenery and leaving it soggy, and batting his eyelashes at Leonard Nimoy because who wouldn't, and the sci fi concepts are so good they'll blow your dick clean off.

[rad-roche]

i have more thoughts on mouthwashing

not a full Analysis Post since i need to chew on it still, this is off the cuff, but the way jimmy perceives curly throughout the game is absolutely fascinating. in the flashbacks as curly you see the crew through his eyes - a well-respected captain of a freighter, and through that, how his crew see him. you meet nuanced people dealing with difficult circumstances, and while they continue to be that by the time jimmy takes command, you don't see as much of that because (barring daisuke) they rightfully hate him. the crew exist to prop up jimmy's ego by either being means to 'fix' the problem he thinks they have created, or to do what he thinks they ought to be doing which is cheering on his heroism and celebrating him. captain jimmy. this is taken to its extreme in curly.

before the crash, curly is not a person to jimmy. he's a lofty, unattainable ideal, the dazzling captain everybody likes. he, and his station, are coveted objects to be acted around and upon. the moment the crew recovers and curly is left horrifically incapacitated, jimmy immediately throws him under the bus to be the most special lauded boy in space, insisting he's captain even as he becomes increasingly aware that everybody is going to die there and taking curly's status and respect as his own. curly, and anya, and everybody on that ship, were toys in jimmy's make-believe freighter, dying when their assigned role butted up against their reality as people. but curly is the one person he was the most fond of at the end because he was the only one jimmy could fully articulate

[qvrcll]

Hi! So I love your blog and I have a request if you're up for it!

So imagine Vendetta!Leon or ID!Leon with a younger, Rookie D.S.O agent. So the reader is learning about what it takes to be an agent and they are skilled but a little reckless. The reader and Leon end up going on a mission together and something happens to where the reader does something risky/reckless to save Leon and afterwards while Leon is patching them up he's also scolding them for putting themselves into a dangerous situation...

I just thought it was a cute idea and I adore your blog so obviously no pressure and thank you regardless! :)

change

summary: training to be a d.s.o agent has its perks and its fair share of dangers, and who would know that best other than the acclaimed leon s. kennedy? former rookie cop turned myth, you’re troubled as you try to not question your worth to your duty — to him.

warnings: intense violent imagery, d.s.o. agent reader, talk of death / loss, talk of wounds / stabbing, weapons mentioned, angst (comfort i swear!!!!!!!), written with infinite darkness ! leon in mind

a/n: bam stop using deftones songs as titles FAILED. and hello??? ur mind??? revolutionary. but thank u so much for the request!! i did make it more angsty than intended 😭 but happy ending i swear !! this is just a general disclaimer, but i’m trying my best to get as many requests done as possible, but finding myself easily burnt out, so please bare with me if i take some time to get these pieces out!! enjoy :-)

word count: 3.5k+ (help)

You’re well put together — inundated at the seams and bursting in the areas that made you an excelling recruit, something of a common place practice when one gets appointed to a station as alpine as the D.S.O.

It’s gruelling at first. The training, not the people — the people here offer you awkward but veritable grins, cloying pats on the head when you’d surpassed a notable fix in your inculcation, maybe even conversation in places you’d expect hard worn expressions, bumps of the shoulders, a lack of acquiescence for a new comer such as you.

“Turns out, there’s a new donut place opening in the city” someone speaks through a mouthful of food, grinning when admonished by their peer. They look at you with tired yet cordial won eyes, something like a respite in comparison to the gruelling training and pains you endure in staple hours.

You laugh, craning backwards, replying “Really? Wanna go sometime?”

And they teem, sheen with surety as you set a date. The date passes and you’ve got your fridge brimmed with donuts — pastel, sugar coated and chockfull of profuse fillings.

You’re home. You’re staring at your laptop. The device whirrs with effort, the screen fulgent with simulated light as block words stare back at you — MULTIPLE KILLED IN GOVERNMENT ORDAINED PROJECT. SEVERAL INJURED.

The next day, you press your lips together and wait for the space ahead to be filled with a familiar face, some day old blistering talk about donut shops and parties and mandated leaves.

No one comes. You chew your bread in wanton silence.

And your days blur as usual — your attitude is unparalleled. You give yourself the credit for coarsening against such losses, of confidants who offered you their time and remaining nuance of sentience. You don’t, however, congeal like they do. You do not die or recoup.

You move senselessly and so do the days.

It’s several months later, when you’ve gathered yourself in the training room, greased with sweat and vigour, when you meet him.

Leon S. Kennedy, in the flesh.

There’s talk of him in the corridors, rumours of his barely capricious resolve and even more so of his loyalty to the D.S.O. Of his habitual reclusiveness, ordained leaves and near blank appearances.

He’s almost a myth.

Still, you’re real and working and need to cavort around your training till your muscles bleed and chalk up with pain that marks enough effort for the night — you do not want to stay a rookie forever. There’s a insecurity underscored in your brain somewhere, in bright red lines and despite the sweat of your skill in your hands, but you decide to delineate it for tonight. Try to focus on the knotty feel of the compress against your knuckles as you strengthen your feet, begin to get into a stance most up to par, a gracing thought of ‘please don’t break my bones’ pressed into the bean bag before—

“Hello?”

The addition of another voice, besides the earsplitting one in your mind, makes you falter. Makes you lose your footing and touch the target in front of you, rather than skirting it with a hard worn touch — the sight would’ve made you chuckle on a normal day. But today was not normal, it was marked with a accent of irresolutions. So you swivel on your feet, baring your teeth like the caitiff the D.S.O had disillusioned everyone into being. The pretence doesn’t fool anyone, not even yourself, but you give it a try.

And maybe you give yourself some credit, for stoking it up to the myth, the caricature of duty himself, Leon Kennedy. In the flesh, complexion enervated in his well earned stack of muscle, that seemed to be garbed with a leather jacket. Jeans.

How… normal.

You lose tension in your muscles. Ditch the shout in your brows. Abandon the faux, heavy lined bellicosity in your belly for curiosity. Some guilt and embarrassment, too.

“Leon S. Kennedy?” you gasp, feel the air hit your tongue. The room grows a faltering few degrees hotter, and some part of you is convinced you’ll sink into the floor in a matter of minutes.

But Leon offers you one of his complimentary smiles that scream business. His hands are discarded in the wide sinews of his jeans, where they are distracted and nonplussed with the goal of hurting the material with diverted fingers. Yet you linger ahead of him, visibly sweaty and awkward, and it blunders his heart with some peace that you’re biding that same level of awkwardness.

“In the flesh,” he jokes, but the room is too small, too dark to determine tone. To determine the weight of his words or his presence. You still find sentience in you to laugh, snort even, and it makes the air between a lot more genuine, “I’ve come to discuss something here with you.”

“With me?” you croak, not wanting to sound delirious but inevitably falling for the trap — what did the Leon Kennedy want to do with a single recruit that is you? Skilled, yes, but sharing the innumerable roster of missions as him? Not a chance. Still, you grab a towel and a bottle of water, finding rhythm in your step as you talk alongside him to the exit.

Slogging be damned.

He offers a small nod, resigned in a way that made sense to the both of you, “We’re to be assigned in a collaborative project. A mission, if you will,” he opens the door, allows you to step past the threshold first and doesn’t miss the way you flesh out with a terrible blush as you skitter ahead, “Nothing too out of the ordinary for agents like you and me. Just a simple clear up.”

But we are nothing alike, you want to ink the air with the words. And some part of you stiffens as you hear the intractable comparison. Still, you’re curious above all things else and hear him out — not that I can refuse, you add mentally. Scribble out with imaginable red ink.

“When will it be?” you ask, feet jittery and muscles still sheening.

“A month from now” he confirmes. You work to notice the exigent lines of wear and tear on his face, the follow of a stubble beginning to thread against his chin and jaw. The sharpness giving way to kindness in his eyes as he looks at you.

Oh god, he’s looking at you.

“I see,” you say, gaze falling to the gravel and spit of stone as you corner the exit. As the wind hits your skin, you’re pathetically assuming a shiver. You hope Leon isn’t as perceptive as the rumours pin him to be, but you never truly get anywhere with that wish — he places a warm, kind hand on your shoulder, “You’re freezing.”

“Yeah I should probably—“

“Get back?”

“Home, yeah.”

And an awkward, painfully annoying silence courses the space between you two — between you and this acclaimed proxy you barely knew prior to these graceless seconds. The better part of you ushers the thought away and the worse part of you is antsy to prove something — anything.

“Get home safe…” he offers some semblance of a tight lipped smile, again as reclusive as he can get. His back is turned to you, departing, and you’re pulled in the other direction by your feet, when you suddenly turn around.

He’s gone already.

The month beneath his guidance is as you expect it — resilient and tough on the flesh. He manoeuvres you in ways you’d never have begun to correct yourself (“Lift the end of your arms here, instead of down here.”)

He presses feeling and rigour to his praise (“That’s it — you got it. Good job — now give me 20 more.”)

He holds you back from splintering push forwards, from the bridge between you and your apex. Holds a hand against your wet shoulder to shoulder your eagerness (“Woah, woah — don’t get too ahead of yourself.”)

You make it known of your gratefulness. You buy takeout and share it on the stairs. You communicate your worries and walk out free of them.

You also hate him for rubbing raw of your potential. You hate him for the wounded look in his eyes when you falter. You hate him for the itch in his fingers when you push yourself some more.

But you keep that one for the shadows. Don’t make it known. Hide it behind falsity.

You share takeout on the stairs again.

The night before the assignment couldn’t be more gruelling.

You’re welcome by the sheets, yet find no recluse in them, as you twist and turn as the hours come. Your feet are stretched and throbbing with hurt from the range of pushing exercises from the day before, your fingers curling with effort only.

And your head is plagued. Swimming, bathed, with those reticent thoughts. Those same block letters that spoke back to you, flagged the death of thousands you knew from passing glances to remembered conversations.

You turn on your side, try to flush the thought away. But they come back with vigour, with spit.

You knew them.

You’d eaten with them.

You’ll die just the same.

Fuck this.

Your feet find the cold, hard-wood floors immediately. They’re a ridged comparison to the heat of the sheets, but a blistering reminder of what’s to come tomorrow. You pace your apartment, crowd your brain with tasks, busy your hands, till the sun flits past the clouds like routine.

And with your heart in your throat, you ready yourself to the chin, gripping yourself with the promise of doing what you must to euchre death on its own doorstep — both for you and Leon.

The day arrives with a quick start. You’re deployed in a vehicular that is smaller than anticipated, holding your fears in your hands with cupped palms. Leon sits beside you, eyes vacant of anything palpable. You’d talked once, but that’s all of what either of you offered each other up till now — now, it’s you and your fears, cut-throat and fusty, ahead of you.

A thought of your friend passes your mind.

A thought of the donut shop.

A thought of the bottom of your coffee cup.

A thought of the post-mortem images. Of the flesh. The blood. The time. The place.

“Remember,” Leon cards you out of your worst, thoughts crumbling against themselves as you swivel to glance at him, “on me at all times. No sudden moves. Got it?”

He is far more profound here, the spitting image of the rumours materialised into the skin of a battle worn agent — his tone is pebbly, no semblance of that night’s patience in it anymore.

He’s in it for good. And you should be too.

“Got it,” you reply when the seconds flow too far. He nods back, curt and sharp and you want to talk him up. Want to offer your share of strategies. Want to card through the wounds on your arm and how to avoid the bloody things. Want to loop your fingers through half of his experience and not want to set him back.

But it was never that simple. And the ride is just as silent.

Two hours in and you’re stationed against crumbling brick, jagged stone, MK-45 gripped tightly in your hands. The smell of rot, mycelium, abused your lungs. Makes you stagger forward and hold yourself by the seams like flesh on plying bone.

But when you look at Leon, he’s everything but as discomposed as you — his eyebrows are tightly drawn, a shadow to his eyes that wasn’t there prior. There’s a bite in his step, in the way he holds his weapon, in the way he surveys the area.

Get yourself together, you think.

Within minutes, you force yourself to straighten your back, swallow back the burdensome bile stretching against your mouth and prime yourself to the futile smell of the dead at every carrefour you cross.

“Ahead,” Leon speaks and clings to your attention.

You look ahead, noticing an array of groaning zombies clawing at a car that seemed to have initiated its alarm. The smell is amplified by the rub of petrol curdling out of the car (from the repeated clash of the zombies, you’re sure) and you frustrate yourself into not gagging — think ‘fucking hell, I really hate these things.’

��You go to the left, I’ll take the right,” Leon whispers and you realise his motive.

Mutual accomplishment built on the precipice of trust.

Still, he looks at you like he’ll splinter without a response.

Like he relies on this circulation, no matter how damning, how short. His eyes scream ‘don’t you dare do anything stupid’ and you choose to blur it into something nonsensical, a thought of ‘it’s common procedure, a set of instructions he needs to hand feed me’, choosing to ignore the obvious side of things, the bleeding flush of his words, the trepidation nailing every withering seam of his body.

He’d grown to interpret you as more than just a rookie, someone capable of vigour and strength of the winning.

He needed you alive.

You needed him to look at you other than a wounded animal.

You offer him some little nod, feet hurrying up to the fluster of zombies against the few cars gathered there — as you get close, you can see the vegetation cram against the side walk, the stink of flesh against the windshield.

But you’re skilled, not stupid.

Your weapon purrs with warmth in your hand as you pin down the first vier, working your second round of bullets with the other five you’ve attracted— their fractured groans are animalistic, orotund where human capability shouldn’t be.

But you’re twice the work than they ever are.

“Fuck,” you whisper, realising close proximity doesn’t hold up with your choice of weapon — so, working against better judgement, you retrieve your knife by the hilt, scoring it against the reeking flesh of the first two. You quickly gain footing and stab the other two point black in the skull, feeling the vibrating collusion fill the blade.

And you’re close — you feel it. With another plow, the last of them falters to the floor with a wet thump. Blood pools at your feet, curdles against the material of your boot as you curl a hand against your hip in weariness.

And yet, you have half the nerve to concern yourself with Leon.

As you turn, you quickly see that he is struggling. He’s cornered, stuck between a stretch of the building that allows a swift gateway of those creatures to buckle within arm’s reach. And there’s little solace as you learn the fact, as you ready your weapon — you’re aiming before you can think, firing before you can feel.

Leon spots you, as his jaw goes slack.

His voice is swollen with disbelief and you’re sure you catch the words “get out of here!” but you’re moving on the pure pump of your blood, of the stretch of muscle and skill in your body. Two, three, four enemies crumble at the bite of your bullet and your fingers sink against the sting of gunmetal.

Memorise the step of their movements.

Formulate an opening.

Ignore Leon’s snare and his warnings and the way his arms curl around his weapon and the look in his eye and the fickle hope in them and the way they look at you like you’re something wounded.

Ignore the way a grunt sounds in your ear, a pale and cleft palm clinching your shoulder like an orifice — and finally, you realise, Leon had been right.

The zombie is quick to remind you of your mortality — it swings you to the side with it’s astounding asperity, frightens you with the dexterity of its bones as it makes quick work of the distance between you. It’s teeth stitch against cold bone, blood and meat between the gaps.

You gasp out a hoarse cry — your weapon is out of reach and your arm stings with a burn, a swelter. Your leg feels numb and you’re sure you’ve caught it on something, and you’re convinced you’ll be half mauled to death, when suddenly,

“Shit!”

Leon rattles through the zombie towering you, sears it with a knife — it falls atop you like meat and you shove it off with awfully numb hands. You’re barely catching respite as Leon hauls you above his shoulder as he runs to some place else, and the world quickly melts beneath your eyelids.

The next time you’re conscious, it’s much quieter.

There’s a dripping noise from your right — you try to play with that recurring sound till you’ve figured your bearings, but the throb in your head is searing. Your leg jumps with a pain so awful you choke a cry when you’re all opened eyed and slack jaw, and you catch sight of Leon in front of you, balancing your leg atop his lap for inspection.

“L-Leon?” you gasp, feel the burn of your throat. You’ve said nothing but he quickly hands you a water bottle, and you allow yourself the contents almost immediately — “Where are we…?”

“A few ways off the target location. Recuperating,” he answers, too quick, too harsh. You wince, both from his demeanour and the growing image of your maimed leg — the skin is dented with much blood, the flesh peeling apart with ease and the pain hits you like a train. His fingers are trembling and spat with your blood, moseying around the quiver of the wound.

And you can’t figure out where your pain ends and where his anger begins.

For one, there’s some grip to his movement, in the way he bandages the broken flesh of your leg. The way he swats your hand away when you go to dictate the amount of hurt it would bring.

Only then does he look up and your breath hitches — his eyes are red rimmed, mouth set like hard stone in a frown and his jaw sharp, blistering to a furious degree.

“I’m sorry—“

“Are you? Because you would’ve been dead without me having been there” he spits out, lashing against your apologetic words. You press your lips together, a bitter feeling fermenting in every space your framework can produce.

“I said I’m sorry Leon.”

“Will that fix your wound?” He grates and his voice sounds like a threat. It worries you. It angers you. Its rends you like glass, cuts you like a skiver.

“Maybe if you didn’t look at me like a fucking wounded animal, I would quit taking my chances at dying” you force out, tone through clattering teeth when his fingers pause over that delicate and awfully repulsive spot on your leg.

“What?”

“Oh, please don’t play pretend with me Leon,” it’s your turn to hit the brakes, “It’s that look you give me — like I’m some backwater D.S.O rookie here to drag you through glass. Like—Like I’m here to get myself killed.”

You pause, breath cut short with an unsatisfactory cry as you throw your head back from the gushing pain from the wound. You crack open a weary eye to spot his movements have resumed, but his jaw is quivering, jagged, his eyes unfocused and his hair in his face.

Shit, shit, shit — I’ve really done it now.

“Wait, Leon—“

“Is that what you think this is?”

You blink — his fingers are on the ground beside your hips, his eyes flooded with disbelief. Much like earlier, only this time, it’s counterpart being woe instead of anger of disappointment. He lifts his head, cradles the anguish in his eyes with a tattered sigh and you realise, oh. You had it all wrong.

“That you’re just some agent I don’t care about?” he’s close, somehow, “that—that I care for you out of duty?” closer, now, with his breath on your neck, on your face, in your ear, “That I don’t want you gone so soon because I only tolerate you? Not because—I like you?”

Your anger drops its futile act.

“What?” you whisper, because you’re so beguiled that it’s a trick. A trick from the pump of adrenaline in you, from the fear. The sweat. But he’s looking into you, at you, and his stare is not sympathetic. It stinks of love and admiration and truth and some close call of fear.

“I’m saying that I like you.”

There’s a few moments of clouded breath. You’ve never done this before — never held this song and dance of emotion between another and certainly not at a time like this, but god, Leon looks at you like you’re something to be worshipped, not admonished like the wounded thing that you are.

He looks at you like hope.

Like love and love and love.

And you’ve never appreciated the stench of rot on you or another, and you’ve never appreciated distractions. But the burn of his lips against yours is delicious and swirling with something addictive when you meet him with nothing but rigour — he kisses you back like he’s meant to, like he’s going to run out of you if he doesn’t.

And when you pull away, groaning as your leg spasms with hurt, you smile at him gently, curve a laugh from your overworked lungs.

“Buy me dinner first, Kennedy.”

“Kennedy?”

“Would you prefer Scott?”

“God, you’re awful.”

© 2023 qvrcll ! do not repost any of my works on any platform.

[narwhalandchill]

spicy take incoming but i kinda wish ppl werent so desperately attached to and protective of this moniker of Great Big Brother 100% Perfect So True And Real when it comes to childe bc honestly. he really isnt (perfect or even that good at times) and to me acknowledging the ways both he and his family (for enabling him) are in some ways kinda just. doing teucer incredibly dirty in the long term but only with the best of intentions in the short term is so much more interesting than just pretending hes a flawless brother?? like it only adds to the drama and irony of it all man like theyre rly so dysfunctional as a family unit its great. even if hoyos likely never exploring that shit in its true depth it still lives rent free in my head for sure lol

like. you rly dont have to turn ajax into some sort of unfeeling uncaring monster of a shit brother to acknowledge that he does, in fact, repeatedly make incredibly reckless and selfish choices during his SQ with teucer and in general by choosing to obstruct the truth of who he is from lil bro so completely?

like this stuff can be nuanced and coexist with his absolutely 100% genuine commitment to protecting teucers bubble of a worldview (and w the theme of childlike dreams and wishes being so prevalent in general who knows what could be cooking w that one in particular) and his loyalty and love for his family without just having to whitewash the dumb shit he does lmao

like just bc hes capable of and willing to face the potentially grave repercussions of absolute bangers (🙄🙄) like teaching an actual fucking child to consider ruin machines fun besties and 100% insta ready to fuck himself up by protecting teucer at the cost of aggravating his still-unhealed injuries from the liyue AQ when dottores abandoned lab turns out to be more lively than expected doesnt. make that choice not a very irresponsible one yall im begging 💀

like. hes the adult here . the entire situation unfolding as dangerously as it does in the factory is Absolutely all on HIM for not being able and/or willing to disappoint teucer by just . Doing the mature thing and sending him away to safety because HES gotten too attached to this idea of being his lil siblings' loyal knight and perfect brother that Always finds a way to surpass the expectations no matter the cost its a role HE wants to keep playing despite the risk

like its So obviously a pride thing for him too and thats so fucking interesting because Of how flawed and questionable the logic is!! like yes he truly cares about teucer and ensuring he has a great unforgettable time during this impromptu escapade in liyue like thats not up to debate but the point im trying to make is that the choices he makes are Still very much intertwined with his ego and overconfidence and not really based all that much on Whats Actually The Best Approach Here. he improvises a way to give teucer the best mr cyclops outing he has ever seen bc HE wants to be the one offering him that experience and ends up biting off a bit more than he can chew and he can only blame himself for that one and This Isnt Fucking Sustainable

like i dont think that makes him evil but i do think it showcases his arrogance and flaws in a very concrete way and is a part of why calling him a perfect brother or at least one without an asterix just. rubs me off wrong lmao

like idk feel free to keep calling him that if its important to u and all if u want idc (and i do to some extent get why this defensive narrative of insisting hes great no issues at all emerged bc i remember 1.1 some ppl acting like hes childcare satan for how he treats teucer lol) but. at least like . Be willing to chip in to fund the therapy teucers going to need for those lifelong trust issues in the future man 💀

Bc Thats The Other Thing. now tonia and anthon i dont consider a part of this bc at least they Know hes in the fatui and hiding the gory details of ur harbinger job from ur baby sibs is like. fair enough and reasonable. but. crafting an Entire different AU version of yourself and feeding it to your baby brother as what constitutes actual reality surely is a choice of all times like ajax ily but genuinely . What the fuck if you were real id throttle you

AND HIS FAMILY ENABLING IT THE ENTIRE TIME ITS CRAZY LIKE. As a person with multiple siblings both older n younger with some similar age gap cohorts involved. God id snitch so fucking fast i dont think ppl rly stop and think much abt how objectively horrifying this shit is from teucers long term pov 😭 in the best way obviously given its fiction like its so scrumptiously awful and dysfunctional .

(& just in general man im just so obsessed with the way ajax 14 basically broke the eggshell of his past life and emerged to rise towards his destiny drowned in the guts and gore of the place and people and community he once called home unconditionally. Bro he fucked that town UP and now his family relations will never ever be the same its so fucking Delicious. those 3 days missing and what followed are just Actually a literal fucking horror movie when you stop blindly stanning our ginger menace, forget ajax' side and take the pov of his family and morepesok in general Why Are People Not Talking About This)

like. its not that i dont understand Why this is sth childe ended up doing as i said Thats The Point. its human. teucer is the only one in the family who wasnt there during that fateful 3 days/months . Like yea anthon and tonia were prolly sheltered from most of the carnage back then too but they still Know where he was sent when he became literally uncontrollable and almost killed the neighbors (everybody & their mom loves demonizing his parents as if his demon spawn ass left them a fucking choice JFEJSJSJSKDKS) . like its at least Known.

but then theres teucer.

And like. teucers the Only one with whom ajax can even pretend to have that delusion (ha) of normalcy and a family that hasnt seen him gaze into the abyss and stare back bloodied and grinning ear to ear . like. hes the only shot childe can have at even playacting some crude imitation of normalcy before Everything and even That comes with an expiration date hes fully aware of. so theres just lies after lies after lies and the fact that even his family just. if not actively partaking in the charade then at least silently allows the entirety of it to happen to teucer whos the Only fucking one out of the loop is just..... dude its not fair on him At All

Misleading teucer THIS much is just. its fucking horrible man but i GET it. thats why its so delicious man i GET it but god its just . imagine being teucer in this situation.... thats his entire fucking World shattered once the truth comes out. Everyone close to him has been lying to him his entire time. They all knew and they let him be misled. Like sure he might be happier Now with ajax dutifully protecting that childhood dream of his but after that. Just. sit on this for a bit. after everything do we Really think teucers just going to understand why it came to be and see it as worth it???? Will he really????

yet at the same time as awfully cruel it all is its just So human!!!!! Its so human of both ajax and his family to use the innocence of the only child that was spared the aftermath of worlds best/worst 3 month abyss training camp to indulge in this flawed false reality where their third son didnt walk into the void and come back hungry for More until only the fatui could take him and even then it only spurred him on further on that path. Like its all an act and a lie and its just. Not fucking fair on teucer but hes still doing it and theyre letting him even tho they Know it wont last theyre all looking teucer in the eye every day and letting him believe like man....

like in both the entire ruin factory sequence And in general hiding the truth from teucer as extensively as childe does hes being incredibly selfish but at the same time its selfishness only rly in the way all people are when it comes to Wanting to be seen a certain way by the ones they love and care about. and thats what makes it so interesting. bc as much as the choices he makes are dubious (or like. this decision makes sense to him. a morally bisexual total omnivore ethics-wise narwhalpilled since 14 who sees exclusively in abyss shrimp colors and acts accordingly) both they and the motivations behind them are also just. So very human ones . as terrible as the implications and eventual inevitable downfall of those choices can (will) be.

like. is it not that much more fascinating to consider all the ways that childe is neither a particularly exemplary nor an egregiously bad brother just one that. Happens to be wired weird in the head and proud and flawed and with a track record of heavily suspect decision-making but that also very much genuinely loves his family man. Like i can love that about him without dismissing the fact that theres parts to how hes treating teucer that 100% can and imo rly should backfire horrifically bc. It really just is that fucked up

hes not a good brother hes Worse AMD better than that and also not alone in this like. his family is an active fucking part of this . But like still . Is he trying his best with his abyss shrimp colored vision ? Yes. Is his love genuine? Absolutely. What are the marks? 3/10 meet me in the office after class mister youre just actually horrible (affectionate) 😭

A perfect brother? Not My Ajax man 🗣🗣 and like theres SO MUCH to explore in that it makes me so sad you just. Never see any of it p much in fanworks bc we all just call him best bro and whatever and thats that like its so sad. this family is terrible horrible awful and no good and they deserve it but also didnt deserve it it was misfortune it was fate it was inevitable . justice for teucer man i need to get him in therapy asap

[kobitoshiningneedle]

My fandom hot take is: Ace Attorney has legal corruption as a theme and no idea what it's doing with it. It starts as a pretty straightforward "the legal system is unfair and slated towards the defence, prosecutors care about nothing but guilty verdicts and routinely forge evidence, you are the underdog attorney performing miracles" before retconning that the two major prosecutors implied to have forged evidence didn't do it on purpose after all, instead pinning it on higher officials, which at once widens the scope of the universe and makes the corruption run much deeper, but also somewhat "exonerates" the prosecutors of their more blatant wrongdoings (although not of all of them). And then after that, it makes two defence attorneys, including our heroes, into forgers, which itself is never retconned. And then there's this whole impersonating officers thing and it just goes completely sideways. It makes no sense. It's fascinating.

A really interesting question! The thematic inconsistency in Ace Attorney is really palpable, despite having some of the most comprehensive stories, so I'm with you on this one

Strongly agree | Agree | Neutral | Disagree | Strongly disagree

There are many, many Doylist reasons as to why the theme of corruption gets thrown from one side to the other, but saying that "Well yeah DD is kinda shit without nuance because it wasn't written by Takumi" would be a low-hanging fruit in terms of criticism. So I will try to compile my scattered thoughts about this topic here with another approach.

Seems like as a series Ace Attorney has this "protagonist biased" fault. We are rooting for Phoenix when he tricks Furio Tigre with the bottle. And we are supposed to be mad at Edgeworth for coaching Bellboy to deliberately misinform the court. And considering that, we can't even say that the series tried to imply the "defense attorney always good, prosecutor always bad" type of mindset - despite being first and foremost a game with a necessary element of satisfaction of defeating a malicious foe - because in the very first game there's Robert Hammond. And some time later we see Klavier Gavin. Apollo was a protagonist, so presenting the bloody ace was never called out. Meanwhile Edgeworth has entire drama around him handling SL-9. So that's why in my opinion this is exactly protagonist bias, when you win a game against Edgeworth and prove that this pink suit indeed tried to coach Bellboy to give a false testimony you get a portion of serotonin. The same serotonin runs through your brain when this sleazy new lawyer character gets caught.

But when you think about the grander scope, the things start getting sketchy.

In my opinion, it all can boil down to one sentiment, that again stems from the essence of this series - it's a game, and a story with black-while morals (yes, even games like Apollo Justice are pretty clear cut about who's in the right and who is not in my opinion). So it's a given that the protagonist will do things for the good of others. And the antagonists (which are often the prosecutors) will hinder that objective. So it's much more understandable that Phoenix will use tricks when he was trying to corner a loan shark who manipulated many people, or when he tried to bring the man who ruined his career and lives of others to justice. And with Edgeworth in SL-9 and Manfred in IS-7 is more like a flashback material, a foundation that have its story being built upon. SL-9 was a past case that doesn't quite have this urgency of saving a friend. And Manfred tried to put an innocent man in the jail anyway. I don't really like both of these (in my opinion) retcons, because they make the things unnecessarily complicated and REALLY rob Miles and Mandfred from their agency in some capacity whatsoever - but your writeup makes me think that my distaste could be precisely because these plot points have some serious implications which makes the inherent story structure of AA to bite more than it could chew. Anyway "you can use some tricks if it's helping people" is a pretty concise message that may encapsulate this conundrum...

...which is understandable in a game and a heroic, but an utter rubbish if we detach ourselves from the protagonists' POV. Like, even Edgeworth was truly believing he's doing the right thing in his early career. Besides even the "helping other people" part is fluctuating between different representatives of one profession. Phoenix is called out by Edgeworth in 2-4 becuse defense attorneys aren't heroes and they just make sure everyone is tried fairly. But only 4 games later we got a character who represents this message - Raymond Shie Eddie Fender. I probably derailed your ask beyong possible, but this too, is an argument of how inconsistent the series in its priorities.

I hope there is at least one comprehensive thought about this matter, because this issue is something that could be explored and discussed from very different perspectives... And here I mused about how and why these inconsistencies work, but all in all, I agree that there's no clear-cut stance in the series about what is corrupt and what is not even within one writer team's works

[rosesradio]

luke and annabeth were like yes i will love you unconditionally and truly and its the most toxic shit ever that no one understands but we both know its real even if its wrong and its just so fun to think about

okay yesss exactly, chewing on them throwing them around like a dog toy etc

allow me to yap

analysis can be different & i'm sure people will think differently than i do (which is fine & encouraged!) though i'm of the belief of like...if not for annabeth's loyalty for percy as well as thalia's return, annabeth probably would have joined luke. i feel like this was kind of a given struggle given her remaining loyalty to luke even to the latest point as well as hubris being her fatal flaw.

thinking about that one post about how percy was the hero of the prophecy because he knew exactly when to give the knife & allow luke to sacrifice himself. thalia was too distrusting of him & never would have given him the knife, while annabeth was too trusting of him & would have given him the knife before he was ready (& she'd probably find herself stabbed in the back for it).

there's just so much to their relationship that is unexplored i think because people are scared to explore it? & like look, i understand Completely. imo, they're probably one of the darkest ships in the rrverse depending on how you slice it. i respect people's preferences & icks alike in fiction—though i'll admit i'm a little disappointed people immediately dismiss it as "too problematic" because like...of course it is. so is sweeney todd, a musical about murder, rape, grooming, and cannibalism. & yet it's been performed & beloved by theaters for decades (my favorite musical <33 anyways—)

one of my fave things about lukabeth (that i haven't really explored in my fics because i always make lukabeth!luke into a literal predator but it's fine—) is a pivitol plot point i feel like a lot of fans ignore: luke was one of annabeth's weaknesses, but annabeth was also one of luke's, if not his only weakness. i feel like a lot of people dismiss him as one-dimensional & manipulative, which like...sure, he's a manipulative bastard. he did some fucked up stuff. but he's also morally grey, & he too has a soft spot for annabeth until the end, it's literally what saves the war.

ofc, the debate on luke's death scene will remain the most toxic sludge on the bottom of the pjo fandom's shoe until the end of time (that is, until the show erases this scene entirely as charlie bushnell stands up mid-death speech to clarify "hey, i mean this completely platonically!" lmao). tbh, i don't want it to have a black & white answer, because i don't trust Uncle Richard with anything these days, plus the nuance of it all is really interesting to explore instead of it all being laid out for us. it really is up to the individual to determine how they feel about luke & annabeth's relationship & what their final words meant.

am i always gonna interpret it a bit romantic because i'm a Freak that's interested in Whatever The Fuck they have going on? yeah ofc. would i endorse a relationship like theirs at all in real life? no, go to therapy.

that's all i have for now, thanks for giving me the space to yap anon 💌

[beesmygod]

What's your take, if you have one, on the cut moon presence boss on the lake of mud?

as always, i dont know. i thought i didn't really have much to say but the more i typed the more i Realized. but i still don't really know lol. this is really image heavy, which made it long, so most of it is under a readmore.

e: hello bea from the future here. hey. this gave me so much to chew on for the next section in a shockingly positive direction. thank you so much for getting this ball rolling

it half-relevant but there's also some kind of. intermediary thing. i think it's the same shape as the used moon presence but its blue. for some reason.

no animations on this one, so it was cut early. different "faces" as well. or the low quality of the cut one doesn't maintain the "features" as accurately.

oh what the fuck. hold on. look at the head of the "lake of mud" (LOM from now on) moon presence compared to the others

ive made posts in the past about anti-clockwise and clockwise metamorphosis runes possibly referencing the in-game phenomenon of creature's heads being turned in odd directions. loran silverbeasts and the crawler enemies (ostensibly both loran/nightmare frontier residents) have their "heads" turned clockwise, like above. slime scholar and probably other things i cant remember turn anti-clockwise.

the crawlers are....i mean they're gross. but also uncanny. there's SOMETHING going on here, right? god only know what though. they are also known for the grim sight you can take in when they rear up to Get You: their...stomach?? is rife with messengers. being consumed? maybe? it evokes the image of the artbook moon presence, who is swarming with messengers in the same area of its body.

anyway back to the little creep.

in the center of its chest there's this bizarre unknown thing. if you peel away the majority of its body it looks like this. a grey blob with tentacles. as far as i can tell it doesn't have bones to animate, unlike the rest of the model. the entire model has unfinished textures so its hard to tell what it's supposed to be.

judging from the blisters on the creature, it is CURSED. the orphan of kos' placenta weapon (which is, i think, just a huge cursed blood gem?) has these same blisters, marking it as a fellow "cursed" great one infant (? probably? look at what a runt it is).

curses are a complex aspect of the bloodborne universe. sometimes they can be identified by the appearance of "sickly spots", but other times, curses are color-coded with purple (or red, but that seems strictly related to cainhurst nope i forgot foetid offering can give enemies red rally auras and change their drop tables to include cursed blood gems. much to think about) auras and magic.

a curse is exactly what you expect it to be: great power at a high price (like a huge weapon bonus but your health depletes per second), but the source is arcane. the cursed and defiled pthumerian chalice states, "curses are caused by inciting the anger of the Great Ones, and used to hex others." winter lanterns, the enemies with the heads made out of messengers fused into a brain shape, are the only enemy that consistently only drops cursed blood gems (and, evidently, blood gems only form in the dungeon or nears its entrances). given the pattern of these spots appearing on bosses, it can be reasonably assumed that winter lanterns are the result of a great one's wrath. what the fuck! i dont know what that means!

we're not going to bother going into the nuances of rites and data-mining because holy shit. this garbage is needlessly complex for how half-baked its implementation is. but cursed offerings create cursed dungeons to explore with cursed blood gems to collect. cursed and defiled pthumeru is differentiated by the purple (!) skull vapor overflowing from the chalice. cursed rites required cursed materials: bastards of loran are the mummified bodies of infants who died midway through their transformation into a silverbeast. with the clockwise heads.

okay. that wrapped us up back around to the beginning. i think the lake of mud arena was intended to be in loran, canonically. it has a bunch of different variations that probably would have been used for root dungeon generation rather than canon usage. a lake of dried up water fits perfectly with the terrifyingly arid climate of loran (which generates the blue bolts in the atmosphere). at one point, it seems that several chalice dungeons would have had secret 4th layers (they're still in the game and can be accessed with some light hex editing); i propose that this is where that fight would have taken place. the previous layer would have been the cut great one beast. and layer 2 would have been the loran darkbeast. layer 1 would have been the abhorrent beast instead of the baffling loran silverbeast boss fight that's completely inexplicable otherwise. isz has similar pacing issues. oh shit, i wonder if that's what that blue one is supposed to be. fuuuuccckkk.

the ailing loran chalice tells the player that "some have made the dreaded extrapolation that Yharnam may be next" but the game is telling YOU the player that YOU are supposed to look at loran and extrapolate the fate of yharnam from it. loran was also using old blood as medicine and became a place overrun with beasts and abandoned by god. the loran moon presence is bloated with curses and lives in a place devoid of water, a horrible thing for a great one given how much they love to yammer about lakes and the sea. the area outside of the LOM arena is, amazingly, the exact same facade as the entrance to mergo's loft. there's a stained glass window above the door that's shared between locations, yet again linking loran, the nightmare frontier, and the nightmare of mensis together. and, really, the hunter's nightmare, since the LOM arena was very, VERY similar to the orphan's ocean with identical architecture.

holy shit i guess this is what im working on tonight. and now i see how micolash fits into the entire timeline. neat

[realchemistry]

Everything that went right and wrong with 9-1-1 season 7 (according to me, duh!)

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed the season a lot, but that doesn't mean that it was flawless and I thought the finale didn't deliver. So, this is me pointing out what I did and didn't like and why, and how I wish it'd happened instead.

Also: it's a short and somewhat rushed season due to the writers' strike, this I know. You know who else knew? TPTB. So, nope, it’s not a valid excuse for any of its shortcomings. If they tried to bite off more than they could chew, that's on them.

Everyone knows that having a three-episode arc for the honeymoon was a bad choice, it was clear because the episodes dragged due to it and the Bathena drama made no sense. Let's say they had to keep up with the tradition and that it's a huge budget deal to build those sets so they had to milk them for all they were worth. Fine. It could've still been made more interesting, but wrong choices were made. I didn't appreciate the whole pirates taking over thing, and the season ended with the cartel, which... why do you want to have POCs being the bad guys so badly?

So, let's go by the assumption that having a three episode arc for Bathena's honeymoon was the only choice possible, fine... but didn't Madney deserve a lot of attention as well considering they got freaking married? Why was that not a two-parter? Why not have a first part with cases and some fun bachelor/bachelorette shenanigans, and have Chim disappearing be the cliffhanger? Why not dedicate a big chunk of the second part to that, like they did, and then actually give the wedding some breathing room? Sure, it mirrored their kiss after the whole Doug debacle but these are two main characters who got married. It's a drama show but the drama gets old if there are no bright moments in between.

The inclusion of Amir was interesting because of what it brought up in Bobby. Plus, the actor was clearly great and he was such a big deal that he, well, he was given A LOT of screentime. This made me mad because the show, as previously mentioned, was short on time as it was. Having a new character come in and have such a huge role would make sense if we were talking about a full season. As it was, his presence meant that some of our regulars were pushed to the background. Their storylines suffered for it, and while the show usually does this, it's sorta okay when screentime is divvied up between the regular cast. When it's an outsider... well, I have some issues with that. Like, we literally know more about Amir than we do about Ravi at this point. Also: Amir was clearly an amazing person and he was wronged time and time again. Athena got to play solo-cop as it's her thing, and we're supposed to think she was being heroic instead of downright wrong and abusing her power? If I were Amir, I'd sue her and I'd burn their house down for real (not really, but you know what I mean). They put this man through hell. Sure, Bobby saved him... which felt such a white savior redemption thing. And I know the show and the character said otherwise, but it still felt awful and then it just got worse. In any case, they could’ve made this story play out with more nuances instead of devoting so much of a short season to it to the detriment of our stable cast. 

Buck had an amazing start of the season, finding himself and his truth and sharing it with his family. The fact that they had him entering the dating scene with a character like T*mmy... I didn't like that. Any random person would've been better. But, also, I don't wanna be that person but this is my blog so I'm gonna be: Oliver clearly hasn't been enjoying the latest interactions between these characters to the point where their scenes, few as they are, are actually hard to watch. The last one was literally the most cringe inducing moment of TV I've ever witnessed. Instead of Buck exploring himself, we have him reacting to the odd, negative and out of place comments that T*mmy keeps throwing his way. It's just weird and not at all the happy story Oliver was hoping for, so I get him. I hope this gets better next season, with BT being bones and Buck being able to thrive instead of falling back into a revamped awful dating life.

On the other hand, this season was the Buddiest of them all. Well, I mean, it had the most hints of it actually happening at some point. When Buck talked about there being underlying sexual tension in the premiere, it was just ashslgjñhjsdñgjsñdg. They were comparing Chris's interactions with girl friends and boy friends but we all know that wasn't all that was. We had Eddie talking about how much growth Buck had done from being a playboy, which funnily enough he never got to meet, to the person he's today. Another great indicator were the whole 100th/101st episodes, with Buck clearly wanting to get Eddie's attention due to jealousy, which everybody could see, and the ~reveal that the episode was from Buck’s POV which was also incredible because that man is so in love it’s just insane. But, even most importantly maybe, was Maddie's scene with Buck... It was a mirror of her calling him out on his guy crush on Eddie from season 2, with the circled with a heart around it, but the next episode it got real. To me, her words and her face spoke volumes: first she couldn’t believe Buck was with Eddie’s friend, then she told him he might not be sure of his own feelings and finally that if there’s something he needs to tell Eddie, he will, just in his own time. That was NOT about Buck being bisexual, it was Maddie reading right what Buck was reading wrong: how Buck had been jealous because of the way he feels about Eddie and how he was putting his feelings for Eddie into somebody else. Someone safe for the time being, all things considered. That's a thread waiting to be pulled when the right time comes if I ever saw one! I've been giddy just thinking about it ever since, tbh. We also had a Buddie scene in pretty much every episode, and I absolutely adored them in the bachelor party because they were so in sync, as they were all season long actually. The parallel of Eddie asking for Buck’s help at the end was nice as just that, but the story... I’ll rant about it later. I love that Oliver has been pushing the Buddie agenda harder than ever, so I'm hoping he's talking Ryan's ear off about it and that they'll demand it from Tim soon enough.

Onto Eddie, the problem with the whole Kim thing actually starts because they killed Shannon in the first place. They should've never done that, I've always thought this way. She was a great character and seeing Eddie co-parent with his ex would've been great storytelling, he could've still had a breakdown due to divorcing her or even her dating again or whatever. Besides the insanity of Kim going back to his house after learning the truth, the fact that Eddie broke down and caved in was understandable. I actually thought that was pretty well done. The problem was all that followed. We don't care about Marisol because the show never made us care about her, so her part in all of this is completely irrelevant.

As for Chris, I honestly have SO many issues with his reaction. Him being confused would only be right, but being that mad with Eddie? I honestly feel like I'm missing something because the two of them have developed such a strong relationship that it feels like Chris's reaction was totally OOC. Why wouldn't Chris want to know Eddie's side of the story? Why would he want to leave his dad and his house? Why would he want to leave the state? Why would he want to go live with his grandparents? Sure, he has a good relationship with them at this point, but we can only gather that by... imagining it, for the most part. How long since they been around? Why not mention that they were visiting or that Chris was with them when he was away to set the stage? It honestly feels like it was all improvised and they wanted to leave Eddie without Chris and this was all they could come up with. There were other ways that could've actually made more sense to get to this place, but they chose to do it in a way that's both hurtful to the characters and to their progression throughout the seasons. Make it make sense!!! There's also the fact that the finale script was all written under the assumption that Eddie and Kim were kissing when Chris showed up. That didn't actually make the cut. This is clearly a consequence of rushed scripts and filming schedules, and while we can interpret every scene saying they kissed as an exaggeration or simply a wrong interpretation of the situation, it actually made me very mad. Having characters rehash what happened the episode before so the people who missed it can catch up is normal but I hate it with my whole heart. Those people can go to hell, but if they're gonna spend time of the finale doing that, the least they could do is make the facts fact. Sure, Eddie was going insane and he said it was hard to explain but everyone in-show very much believed that Eddie kissed Kim. This is upsetting because of the exact reason why that kiss was cut, as said by Ryan in an interview this week.

On top of this, Chris is 13 years old. Eddie letting him go is not it. Eddie has every right to tell him he's staying whether he likes it or not because he's his father and he gets to decide where he lives. The show tried to make the whole thing come out as noble but I thought it was bullshit. From what we know about Eddie, he wouldn't just let him go: he would either tell Chris to stay put or go with him. The fact that, again, they clearly wanted to have Eddie alone for whatever reason, and they couldn't find a better way to pull it off... that's just bad on TPTB's part.

Hen and Karen were put through hell once more for no reason. Why can't the big obstacle for them be simply getting through Mara? Why do they have to get to a good place only for it to be ripped away? Don't say it's drama tv, I don't care, people on screen deserve happiness, damn it! They most of all, tbh, and the fact that Denny was so upset just made it 5464641636469 worse. Then we had Madney helping out, which was lovely but completely unrealistic from a legal pov and also... why can't HenRen just get what they want without a het couple's intervention? So Ortiz has enough power to get Mara away from them but she didn't know that the people wanting to foster her were part of the 118 even though she had something to do with Gerrard being reinstated? I know this is what Tim implied on his socials to explain why someone as shitty as Gerrard would be taken back by the firehouse... which, I don't know if that even makes sense? Does she have the kind of power to do any of this?

A lot of questions now:

Why was a random woman given so many precious minutes of the finale just so Athena could have a car to go after an innocent man? Why does she keep getting away with asking for personal favors, recklessly involving Maddie too? Why wouldn't the editor of the episode give us a frame at least of Buddie by Bobbie's hospital bed? This made me particularly mad because it actually looked like Oliver and Ryan were not there filming (though we knew they were), and that's why they kept showing their backs. Maybe they had lines, maybe not, but a few seconds while Chim, Hen and Maddie talked would've been nice... since it clearly seemed like nobody was particularly perturbed by Bobbie's state. I'm sorry but I can't fear for his life when his wife is away trying to get revenge and his team are just... there. Also, why are him, Athena, the aforementioned neighbor and Amir allowed to just walk into a house that suffered that much fire damage? Wouldn't the structure be compromised? Plus, Athena and Bobbie kinda were awful to Amir, first killing his wife and then accusing him and all, so why would he want to talk about anything with Bobbie, nevermind say he's earned his family? He was wronged so badly, he didn't owe them a thing, it's honestly ridiculous. Then Bobby came back so fast... but he had quit before and forgot about it? The Gerrard reveal was actually not something I hated because I love a good shake up. I bet he'll last three episodes at most. We know this isn't gonna be good exactly, and it makes zero sense, but a change in dynamics is always refreshing and could put some things into perspective. I hated when Buddie weren't partnered, but I ADORED the way Hen was weirded the fuck out by the closeness she is not used to having with Chim while on the field, so I can't wait for some of it.

Things I wanna see:

More May, more Ravi, Eddie’s sisters. More Buddie. No dating people to fill up time for either of them. Eddie’s gay/demi awakening (I swear, if this is not where his story is going, it will all feel like such a waste, much like during his previous breakdown). Chris and Mara going back home soon. Gerrard and Ortiz getting what they deserve.

This is so long it's insane, if you've read it, I thank you. If I think of anything I forgot, I'll add it later. If you have anything to contribute, please do. I'm around and I'd love to discuss this show and all its intricacies.

[kaurwreck]

Whatcha think of how Mori is depicted by Asagiri? People are always mad about it, so I do wonder your own opinion of it.

I think Kafka Asagiri is cheeky and clever, but I'm not very objective about his choices because I knew next to nothing when I first began watching the anime, and researching complex, multidisciplinary, and context-laden subject matter about which I have very little prior knowledge is something I love doing so much that I've made it my career and most of my hobbies. I'm very, very easily delighted by layers I can sink my teeth into, and I get immense satisfaction (i.e., a lot of dopamine) from untangling patterns, recognizing references, and exploring contours I hadn't initially noticed by deepening my contextual knowledge.

The rush I get from learning means that engaging from a starting place of near total ignorance and then retroactively piecing together more information ensures I'm continously starry eyed and dazzled by the depth I'm perceiving. But I'm an American reader who was entirely unfamiliar with the Japanese literary references or relevant Japanese history prior to watching the anime or reading the manga, and I'm piecing together context from limited English-language resources. So, much of what I'm getting a rush out of learning for the first time is likely common knowledge to the native Japanese audience. It's easy to think that the water is deep when you first jump in and can't touch the ground.

For an example of how my unfamiliarity manifests as bias: I love Fitzgerald as an antagonist and then uneasy ally, and I enjoy that Fitzgerald's skill manifests as green light. But I've already chewed his themes and source material references to bits, having studied the Great Gatsby and its period-relevance re: the disillusionment of the jazz age in high school. I was already familiar with the significance of the green light to Fitzgerald's relationship with wealth and how it enchants him such that he becomes so obsessed with its hazy distortion of his dreams that he forgets himself. I liked how the anime and manga both interpret the green light, and I especially like how the green light wraps around his body, lightly paralleling Chuuya's Corruption runes and thus tinting Fitzgerald's skill with the suggestion of possession/loss of control.

But although it's a lot of fun to trace those familiar patterns in a novel interpretation, it can't compare to the thrill I felt when I belatedly realized that Vita Sexualis isn't erotica but instead a skeptical reflection on sex and the purported objectivity of naturalism; or when I learned that irl!Mori was the most girl dad to ever girl dad. With Mori, my expectations were subverted, Mori's character became brilliantly nuanced where he was flat to me before, and I felt the same rush of pleasure as if I was made privy to an inside joke. Fitzgerald felt comparatively like rediscovering a favorite blanket buried in the back of my closet; warm and fond, but not gripping or perspective-shifting. (Unlike when I first read the Great Gatsby, and thought it saturated in clever and well wrought commentary that complicated my prior feelings and prompted me to grapple with my own sources of green light.)

In other words, I don't have any objectivity here for the same reason I shouldn't be trusted regarding how badly any of my tattoos hurt. I remember vaguely that they did, but the process flooded me with enough endorphins that the edges of my memories are blunted and tinted rose.

So, to actually answer your question, I think Kafka Asagiri's depiction of Mori is brilliant and witty and subversive, layered with insight into the blurred lines between love and imperative, fear and intuition. I think Mori is emotionally wrought but manicured with pathological attenuation, which renders his bursts of passion all the more compelling. He's also funny and silly and horrifying in how his levity only ornaments and never softens the weight and gravitas of his presence.

I used to feel like Kafka Asagiri's suggestive playfulness regarding Mori was in bad taste, given the severity of the implications. I don't anymore; Kafka Asagiri is hardly as irreverent as academic commentary on Mori Ogai's medical legacy regarding beriberi or Mari Mori's love for him. I wouldn't enjoy Mori nearly as much if he were reduced to an easily digested archetype or caricature without any of the dissonance that humanizes him.

I also can't take seriously my own first impressions of Mori's character either; I've rewatched and reread bsd several times over, and I can't recall the narrative ever affirming or validating my initial presumptions. I reacted rather than engaged, which is fine as an instinct, but I certainly shouldn't conflate it with analysis.

But, as I said, I'm not objective about bsd. I think Kafka Asagiri is brilliant and fun and thoughtful. I think Mori is a watermelon full of hamburger meat that I love gnawing. I think bsd is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Carthago delenda est.

[finisnihil]

Watching people fight about death of the author and reader response is exhausting like yeah I have respect for death of the author but why are you using death of the author to erase their specific experiences?

Like I see people on TikTok chewing out queer people who get upset when they completely misinterpret Good Luck Babe, like yeah probably because the authorial intent is rooted in queer experience and grief so your reader response of making it about straight women marrying shitty men contributes to erasure of queer experience.

It is well within one's right to declare an author dead and that is healthy for fanbases. Like as an example, lot of Void Archives content I see is rooted in death of the author, because that's how you play with fiction, thats how you make fiction into your own story, you kill the authorial intent and loot it for the concepts you like. It keeps you engaged in the down time between updates on that character's place in the story.

The difference I see between like character/story oriented death of the author and music/art death of the author though is that character/story disregard of authorial intent still uses it as a reference or still reveres core aspects of the character/narrative. For example, Epic the Musical v. The Odyssey. Epic may rely on death of the author in some aspects of the story and characterization, but it still utilizes aspects of the authorial intent. It's an apple that doesn't fall too far from the tree, which is expected for an adaptation of something, but it goes to show that someone liked this character/story as it was. To retextualize too much will make it unrecognizable. It loses what made you fall in love with it.

Stuff like songs, on the other hand, can be liked more freely for other things, like their beat and their style more than their message. It's much easier to have conflicting reader response because I may like Good Luck Babe for its meaning, but so-and-so may like Good Luck Babe for its style and beat and as such, a personal meaning is attached to it that is wildly different from authorial intent.

At the end of the day I feel like it's a delicate balance with lots of nuance. Reader response is valuable but authorial intent is as well, especially when the subject matter struggles to exist without the context of the author. Sometimes, the killing of authorial intent is an act of malice and negligence and sometimes it's a new perspective on a broad environment and discussion. I feel what's important is knowing when and where to prioritize authorial intent or reader response. For as many specific pieces of art, there are also vague ones meant to have a personal value based on your experience with it. Extremism kills nuance, and putting too many coins in one side's scale will only break your place in the measurement.

[mike-haters-dni]

So while I'm Saying Shit, I also have a problem with this idea that El was upset that Mike wasn't saying I love you specifically because her love language is words of affirmation so she really needed to hear it? I mean, first of all I think the idea of love languages is mostly useful as a quick generalized way to discuss how we respond to and express affection—a messy nuanced human behavior thing that is hard to talk about, and the show is written with that nuance, but even then I don't think El particularly craves or requires words to feel loved anymore than anyone else does. I think in s4 she was really just confused about why her boyfriend was refusing to say the word 'love' under any circumstance to her? Especially after she heard him say it once already and then she said it back to his face in response so its like, he said he loves me before and I let him know I feel the same and now he won't say it again? Not even as a way to end letters—a normal thing people do for someone who means much less to them than she supposedly does to him sooooooooooo like what's the fucking deal? The contents of the letters sure implies he holds a lot of affection for her and he brings her flowers in her favorite colors and ok we're in love and then he signs 'from' on the card and its like ????? like even as the audience you're supposed to be confused lol like he clearly has some kind of hang up I wonder what it is? Then after El smashes a girl's face in she thinks "oh yeah, the hang up is that he actually hates me because I'm evil haha lemme just start projecting real quick" and then, you know, s4 happens. I mean, it's not like she doesn't value words at all, I just don't think her relationship to them is particularly tied to her trauma like people say, or if anything, maybe she values them less because that's all Brenner would ever give her? Like, perhaps the big Love Confession hits the hardest because it came after Mike and company spent a week or whatever driving across the entire western united states to save her from the government. Idk, something to chew on.

Honestly, if anyone's love language is words its Mike lmao he's the one whos constantly telling El how amazing she is. He's also desperately trying to tell her he loves her in like 5 scenes (arguably succeeding except for not saying the actual word in most of them) before he actually does like, he wants to so bad it almost comes spilling out of his mouth against his will (except for that one time it does ha) he's just terrified of doing so because it would essentially be ripping his entire beating heart out of his chest and handing it to this powerful-in-every-way girl on a silver platter for her to do whatever she wants with—like crushing it into a fine paste in front of his eyes, killing him instantly and preventing him from having the strength to love anything ever again. Like, the other half of the love language thing is that you also speak the love language, meaning you are more likely to show affection by doing the thing you want for other people, and Mike does this waaaaay more than El does for anyone actually (something I would love to see her do more in s5 lowkey. Like, she was at a severe disadvantage before and was too busy dealing with her own shit to have a ton of emotional energy for anyone else so it makes sense, but we're matured now. I think now is the time for a heart-to-heart that goes both ways u kno).

If I wanted to be cute, I could argue that both Mike and El's main love language is actually acts of service. They're both little heroes who jump at the chance to do anything for the people they love with no regard for their own personal wellbeing. Also, adorably, the thing that gets them back together in s3 is Mike saving El from Billy, which El responds to by helping him and Lucas with the vending machine. One offering of m&ms later and we're back baybee it's the quiet understanding that no matter what they'll always be there for each other for meeee

If I'm not being cute I'm saying the idea that everyone has a main 'love language' is bullshit and you're gonna appreciate different things at different times and people are not that easily categorized but it's still a good jumping off point for discussion so—

Anyway El saves the world and Mike saves her and they're dying in each other's arms thank you for your time <3

[chickenstrangers]

I knew Our Skyy was gonna give us something to chew on with the architecture/engineering plays plot but this was so good!

I have talked extensively (too much?) about the Romeo and Juliet/Kwan and Riam framework in Bad Buddy, but the new plays fit really well into the themes I explored there. Bad Buddy uses two literary tragedies to explicitly create an optimistic and revisionist story of queer possibility and queer futurity.

The original show follows the story of Romeo and Juliet and Kwan and Riam (Plae Kao). As I wrote before, Bad Buddy uses multiple moments of crises (the outing, the gun shot, and the fake breakup) that specifically emulate these stories but subverts them so that tragedy is averted.

Most relevant for Our Skyy 2, the time jump between episodes 11 and 12, reflects a revised version of Juliet's faked death. While in the play, Juliet fakes her own death and Romeo is deceived, in Bad Buddy, Pat and Pran are both in on the trick, pretending to be dead (broken up) to the outside world while continuing to be together. So this is the moment in time where we find ourselves now.

But now we bring in two additional literary references (yes, one of them is P'Aof's own show, but I am treating it as a literary text in its own right). Both of these texts nuance the original Romeo and Juliet story line.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is a fairy tale. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, it has a happy ending, even in the Grimm version. But just like in Romeo and Juliet, it has a false death when Snow White eats the poisoned apple. Just as in Shakespeare's play, people believe her to be dead, putting her in a coffin.

If we take the time gap in episode 11 and 12 as the scene when Juliet has taken the poison and appears dead, these two episodes take place in a very liminal moment between life and death. Like Juliet, Pat and Pran give the appearance of death (that they have broken up), but they are both in on the deception.

The death motif continues into the Snow White allusions as well. They explicitly discuss Snow White's coffin, with Pran playacting as dead. The show is deliberately bringing focus to this part of the story. The four year gap takes place during both Juliet and Snow White's false deaths.

It's also significant how Snow White is buried. She still looks so alive that the dwarves cannot bear to bury her in the earth; instead they put her in a glass coffin. Here she can be seen in her state of death. The glass coffin is analogous to the glass closet that Pran and Pat are in. Many people know or at least strongly suspect that they're in a relationship. Even in the Bad Buddy finale, we see that the parents know even if they're not ready to acknowledge it yet. Pat and Pran are both Snow White, pretending to be dead, their false death on display.

And then we have the A Tale of a Thousand Stars play, which we learn is based on a true story and written by Tian, so presumably it follows the events of the show.

ATOTS is also not a tragedy, but it too inhabits a liminal space, playing with the idea of life and death. Tian nearly dies at the beginning of the series due to heart failure, but like Juliet and Snow White's, it is a false death.

Tian's story is about learning to live again, learning to not feel guilty for his life. He gets a second chance at life, but in his chest beats the heart of a dead girl. Throughout ATOTS, Tian's mortality is a looming question, as he keeps pushing himself harder than someone who just had a heart transplant really should. But being in the mountains is the first time Tian gets to really feel alive.

All of these stories are about death to an extent. Romeo and Juliet and Plae Kao end in both the lovers' deaths. Bad Buddy the series subverts these deaths, refusing to end in tragedy. Now in Our Skyy, we see Bad Buddy specifically aligning itself with stories that have happy endings. Even in this illusion of death, Pat and Pran are living.

I talked before about genre awareness in Bad Buddy, and especially episode 12 is about Pat and Pran taking control of their own narrative, choosing to not become Romeo and Juliet or Kwan and Riam. They break the fourth wall when they narrate in voiceover how they have been dating in secret. This is the exact same voiceover that is used at the start of Our Skyy! Pat and Pran get to tell their own story, subvert the genre conventions of tragedy and romance, and live their life as they want to.

And now we have Tian and Phupha telling their own story as well. Tian apparently wrote it down, and a central tension surrounds whether or not to give away the rights to their narrative, wanting whoever else tells it to tell it with care. Both these shows are about the characters taking control of their own stories, queering the narrative.

When given the choice about which stories to tell, which plays to put on, this time Pat and Pran don't want to tell a tragedy. They want to tell a romance.