#not just huge writeups

[inaconstantstateofchange]

Realmslore of the Day: Sharran Hairpieces

The haters have begged me not to put this information out into the world, but I'm dead inside and need to feel something, so I'm choosing chaos today.

A [Sharran] priest’s hair is sometimes natural, and sometimes a wig of the braided hair of many others, enspelled so the tresses can carry daggers, small lanterns, and other items of like size and weight, as well as catch and cling to things. These enchanted wigs are not strong enough to hold the wearer’s body weight, but they could, for example curl around a branch while maintaining hold of a lit lamp, so the cleric can part company with the wig and do something in the lamplight.¹

I'm not saying this is what's going on with Shadowheart's plait? But I'm not... not saying it.

¹ Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster's Forgotten Realms. 2012. p. 162.

[horsefigureoftheday]

What is forcehorse?? 👀

Ponyplay is a kink with a long and proud history, going back centuries - take a scroll through @/dollmaidcrystal's art history tag (nsfw) and you'll see a ton of examples. Also check out cPony's writeup here.

Throughout the years, several types of ponies and several types of play have developed. These days, humiliation and degradation aren't always factors in ponyplay - at least not the elaborate ponyplay with hooves and hoods and bodysuits that I love. Your willingness to be a pony can be part of the play, especially if your owner/trainer just likes playing with you as a pet, without any punishment, vetplay, or bondage (none of which are necessarily degrading, but like,, degradation is usually a huge part of the fun of those things).

However, another really fun way to play is consensual nonconsent. The pony and trainer have agree beforehand that the owner is in control, and that the prospective pony will be trained and geared up until they've become a pony. They're forced to become a horse, without a say in the matter. Depending on the play, the training can involve everything from Pavlovian conditioning to whips and chains, and it can last anywhere from a night to months or years.

cPony has SO many fun ideas for how to train a pony and different disciplines to train them in.

One thing cPony doesn't really discuss is pony slaves, which is basically a mix of slaveplay and ponyplay. The pony slave is perfectly obedient (or they will be once their training is complete. Again, depends on the kind of play you want), and is usually less of a pet and more of a servant. The pony slave has no say in the matter. The pony slave exists to be a good pony and serve their owner.

tl;dr - imagine forcefem, but instead of a girl you're tricked, forced, or "forced" to become a horse.

[dorkshadows]

The Write-Up PART THREE!???????

Ao Bing: I'm 3 years old Nezha: I'm 3 years old too Shen Xiaobao: I'm 300 years old (From Jiaozi’s Nezha doodle celebrating the 14.3 billion record back in March)

Hi, it's me again. Nezhaheads, I truly was not expecting there to be a part 3 to the Nezha fandom shenanigan chronicles. Nezha 2 extended its theatrical run through June, so it'll be a while before it hits streaming and even longer before Nezha 3 comes out. But don't worry- there's plenty of action here to keep everyone busy until Jiaozi finishes the script for Nezha 3! Perhaps too much action.

Part 1 and Part 2 of these Writeups for those interested.

I thought things finally calmed down in the Nezha fandom since the Ao Guang ship wars fizzled out. Everyone went back to vibing and everything was peaceful... or so we thought!

All the previous write-ups will feel like a fin in the water compared to what this post is about. I'll do my best to explain it in ways normal humans can understand, because I'm still struggling to wrap my head around it myself. A lively portion of fans have invented a brand new form of discourse never seen before, and oubing got caught in the crossfire. This is like witnessing the conferred war of the gods, except everyone involved is terminally online.

I stared straight into the sun to obtain the info for the parts 1 and 2. For part 3, I flew a rocket straight to the sun, got cooked in a trigram furnace, and now I have Sun Wukong's fiery eyes!!

Will the following information improve your life in any way? No. Will it teach you anything of value? Also no. But will it be very funny? Perhaps!

Disclaimer: The majority of the fandom is not like this, as far as I know. Most fans ship everything they see and enjoy their own content in peace, but as we all know, 1% of 10,000 people being assholes still means there's 1000 assholes scrambling around. And in a fandom as huge as Nezha 2019/2025, that 1% can feel like a wildfire that won't go out.

And again, blanket note of caution- if you read on, you are prepared to see anything and everything. If you are OK with all this, then- let’s go! 

Most of the drama takes place across pockets of weibo and xhs, less so on lofter but if the drama is big enough, you'll catch whiffs of it. People who don't want to be part of it just close their eyes and pretend not to see it, which is a very good strategy. But other people are jumping into the drama with their eyes wide open and making it everyone else's problem.

To prepare you for the absolute nuclear takes below, I'll first mention some light drama that nobody cares about. This is what I call, "people squabbling in a corner" because these takes have enough people saying them to warrant a mention, but not enough people participating to deserve more of our attention. And again, these are a very small minority among the fandom, because as I said, the majority are just vibing. I won't mention oubing here because that's for the main event. And we're not going to name any ships besides the top 7 for simplicity's sake, but if you're interested, someone on lofter ranked the popularity of each ship here.

Top 7:

Oubing

Bingzha

Dilong

Lubao

Longwangbao (Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao)

Luhe (Lutong/Hetong)

Runhe (Ao Run/Hetong)

(I'm leaving you to figure out everything else on the list at your own risk fyi)

Anyway, you know how astronauts have to go into those spinning things to do anti-gravitational training before heading to space? That's what this is. I'm preparing your tolerance for insanity before launching you into its very depths.

Ready? here we go! 命由我不由天!

The Trinity of things people take turns complaining about:

Emasculated Ao Guang ("What kind of freaks think a 280cm beefcake is a bottom??")

Trophy Wife Ao Bing ("The fujos ruined Ao Bing!")

Punching Bag Shen Gongbao ("Why do you people always have to make him the most miserable person on Earth??")

People Squabbling in a Corner:

Wuliang Xianweng apologism exists for some reason. Not only are there people who believe Wuliang is not a villain, they also think he is the REAL hero of the story! Because everything he did was on behalf of the human race! They are passionate about it too.

Some sickos think a live action adaptation of the movies would be a good idea.

Every once in a blue moon, someone complains about all the Shen Gongbao whump content and calls it "immoral." No, this did not deter anyone. They're still throwing Shen Gonggong into the meat grinder every day. Lots of Things happen to Ao Guang and Ao Bing too in this fandom, but it's particularly excessive and brutal when it comes to SGB, so his is the only one that's prevalent enough to have people complaining about it. That's why "Yuxu Gong abuses cats" is a thing now.

Fanboys are still arguing over who deserved to be the 12th Golden Immortal more, Taiyi or Shen Gongbao

Oubing/Dilong/Lubao shippers are sometimes victims of drama and sometimes instigators. People are not normal about ships they don't like and characters they don't like. Usually not for anything the characters actually did or the actual dynamics of the ship, but instead because the other character/ship gets in the way of another ship or isn't attractive to op.

I originally listed a bunch of bad takes from individuals but deleted them all because it was singling haters out and turning into me going, "get a load of this asshole, guys!" because quite a number were coming from the same people. That's not fair to all the other haters out there! Every time you think someone's come up with the dumbest post, another person comes along to dethrone the last person. It's only fair they all get mentioned at the same time! So instead, see my example of the average weibo vaguepost when you put every terrible vaguepost (yes... these are real takes, and not even all of them asdfasdf) from every hater for every ship and every character out there side by side with each other. No paragraph breaks for true immersion (CW: fandom idiocy):

"Hope you enjoy dilong when Tiandi comes out as an ugly old man! Get your ugly old man away from lutong and go fuck yourselves, lubaos. he belongs to [whoever else I ship lutong with]. Stop mooching off of shen gongbao's popularity and get your abusive deer away from our leopard. also go fuck yourselves lubaos, he belongs to [whoever else I ship sgb with]. nobody likes lutong, fuck that guy. if you think jinzha is a bottom, kill yourself. fans of the ship I don't like all hate my fav even though my fav is 1/2 of the ship, stop making my fav top, stop making my fav bottom, tall people shouldn't bottom, ugly people shouldn't bottom, feminine people shouldn't top, nonexistent characters shouldn't even be here, no Li should ever bottom. Shen Gongbao fans go fuck a bike because you like faces that look like bicycle seats so much. Hope Tiandi enjoys the smell of Ao Guang's giant foot, loser dilongs. Luhe shippers go to hell. Self-shippers, jump off a cliff. Kill the switch fan, kill the switch fan right now!! RunHe shippers fuck off. Dilong shippers invented lubao to fuck with longwangbao. Bingzha shippers are sick in the head. all shippers die. all solo fans kill yourselves. Only X fans ship XY, only Y fans ship XY, YX fans die. Anyone who doesn't ship my ship should burn in hell. My ship will be canon and theirs will burn! I need to vague this loser's idiotic headcanon, unlike my headcanon, which is totally canon. Only a guangying shipper would like longwangbao. Of course an Ao Bing stan would say that, wow die bottom Nezha fan. Oubing fans are delulu because Ao Guang's true love is clearly [redacted for your sakes]-"

Are you following any of that? No? Good, neither can I. The scariest part is that you'd think most people saying those things are minors. No, the worst of them are adults with real jobs.

Thankfully, all that pointless squabbling never led to anything except more vagueing. Any attempts at harassment lacked the manpower of the dilong/guanying drama. So it usually boils down to a couple people beefing it with each other while their friends show emotional support by leaving likes and going "Yeah! That's right, fuck [whichever ship or character's being bashed]."

And yes, the SGB fans being vagued, vagued the "ugly, old man" accusations back by saying "we know he's old and ugly, that's why we're into him <3 we love riding bikes <3" Ironically, I think both the SGB fuckers and the SGB haters are unaware that "bicycle" has a very specific connotation in English fandoms LOL!

Citing a fanlore article I just googled:

Little Black Dress (LBD) refers to a character who, like a little black dress, "goes with anything." These are characters who are easily paired with almost any other character, including crossover characters from other fandoms. Also known as the Fandom Bicycle ("everyone gets a ride"), the Launcher of a Thousand Ships (a reference to Helen of Troy), or the Cargo Container (gets shipped everywhere).

In addition to actually wearing that black dress, SGB is indeed the one character with the most ships now (they're not necessarily hyper popular ships, but they exist), including with characters that aren't even in the movie (Hello Jiang Ziya and King Zhou). It's easier to count who he hasn't been shipped with at this point. He's not just a bicycle anymore, he's the fandom bicycle.

And yes, the dilongs are doing their best to manifest a hot Hao Tian to prove the haters wrong.

But don't take that as a picture of the fandom at large. I've noticed that most people ship oubing/dilong/lubao (and other assorted ships) at the same time without drama. Or just don't talk about things they don't like, which is a very hard task for some fans! Truly the one challenge that keeps all fandoms connected regardless of race, nation, or creed.

Meme Updates:

This time, I have no fanon lore updates for everyone. Nothing's really changed since last time. But there are some more meme variations of Sun Wukong meeting Shen Gongbao. Some examples-

SGB: "The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try to move it, it remains immobile." SWK: "So true, they wouldn't even let me be the Jade Emperor!" SGB: "Wait-"

SGB: "The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try to move it, it remains immobile." SWK: "Skill issue." *invades heaven*

SGB: "The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try to move it, it remains immobile." SWK: "That's a YOU problem. I'm different.*invades heaven* SGB: "I was the only demon disciple under Tianzun. SWK: "Oh cool. Were you your Master's favorite too? SGB: :) :) :) :) :)

EDIT to add: also some random trivia since it's a joke that gets lost in the subs. "Gonggong" is a way to address eunuchs. In court, they're referred to as "[surname] gong gong" so in the first film, Shen Gongbao wasn't just offended that Nezha was mispronouncing his name, Nezha was calling him a eunuch.

A Breather before the next load of insanity:

I don't know if the algorithm's the same now, but a while ago on douyin, the search box would lead to a rabbit hole of search words when I plugged in #dilong or #lubao. As in, enough individuals were searching for these terms that it autofilled asdfasdf:

"Ao Bing gets tied up, Ao Bing gets crucified, Ao Guang gets crucified, Ao Guang gets crucified and tortured, Ao Guang gets bullied by Tiandi, Shen Gongbao gets tied up by Lutong, Lutong tortures Shen Gongbao, Shen Gongbao almost dies, Shen Gongbao coughs up blood, Shen Gongbao gets tied up and tortured, Shen Gongbao gets beat up, Shen Gongbao and his dad get beat up."

No, none of those yielded any results though you're welcome to try LOL. Wait, no actually one of those did yield something- it was someone's dilong fic about Hao Tian beating the shit out of Shen Gongbao and refusing to stop unless Ao Guang agrees to marry him, and then when Ao Guang does, Hao Tian gets really mad that he cares about another man. Average Tiandi behavior. Average day in Shen Gongbao's life.

And Jiaozi and co. work hard, but you know who works harder? Lubao shippers. They finally found a frame of their ship together in the same shot and angled in a position that allows face to face eye contact, and a with a lighting scheme that validates all of their headcanons to boot!

Now, THE MAIN EVENT. It's a wild one, so please strap on your seatbelts!

Solo Nezha fans vs Solo Ao Bing fans vs Oubing shippers vs Bingzha shippers vs Jiaozi vs Everyone Else

If I'm wrong about any of this, please feel free to jump in and correct me. Because I am NOT looking at any of this again. All that weibo-vaguing was hard enough for me to look at, but this next section took away at least 100 years of cultivation from me. But that's how much I love you all, Nezhaheads!

"The human capacity for drama is like a mountain. No matter how much you try, it can never be moved!" - me as I climbed up the mountain with what remained of my brain cells.

This drama, battle, whatever it is, was actually briefly mentioned in my first writeup. Everyone ignored it because it was just some unhinged people going at it with each other, and it never left weibo. Until it did. Then this drama that's been festering since as far back as February has finally reached its fever pitch.

To start us off with the seeds of this drama, you need to understand that there is a minor but extremely loud group of Nezha fans that really hates Jiaozi. To them, Jiaozi is like, Satan. These people are self-proclaimed fans of the "real" Nezha- the deity, the character from fsyy, the character from the 1979 movie, Black Myth Wukong, jttw, and so on. Basically, they stan classic!Nezha.

They hate the Jiaozi movies so much that they have entire tags dedicated to hating on him and his films and his characters and their fans. Mile-long essays, extremely angry rants, etc. They hate the movie, and they especially hate all the attention Nezha 2 got because it's a totally distorted picture of the Nezha myth and an offense to Nezha's character! They also spend like, everyday, writing frame-by-frame analyses of the films with citations and stuff, even though they despise it so much.

(Actual depiction of the Jiaozi haters)

As you can imagine, they HATE Ao Bing, who, according to them, is just an evil throwaway villain that did not deserve this much of a place in Nezha's story. This adaptation is distorting facts by making Ao Bing sympathetic! Tricking children into thinking Nezha is friends with that monster! How dare Jiaozi!? They claim Jiaozi is constantly bashing Nezha to elevate his precious Ao Bing and his precious dragon OCs. And bashing heaven/the Chan Sect to make the yaoguai look better. The spirit pearl/demon orb plotline especially offends them because Ao Bing RUINED Nezha's life by doing that! Poor Nezha suffered so much in his own movies, all because of Ao Bing! And Ao Bing rubbed salt in the wound by calling Nezha ugly! What an asshole, pull out his spine right now!

These stans/haters also spend a LOT of time insulting Ao Bing, unironically calling him "ugly," calling him unpopular ("see? he's not even as popular as shen gongbao! pathetic!"), weak, shameless, "girly," and every other insult under the sun.

By association with Ao Bing, they also despise Ao Guang and Shen Gongbao and Jiaozi's attempts to make us sympathize with them. But they can't decide which one of those two bastard men has more responsibility for the pearl switch-up- it changes depending on their mood. What matters is that Jiaozi is Satan, Ao Bing is the original sin, and Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao are the devil's minions, and they just want to see these two horrible men punished for their crimes. Coincidentally, Ao Bing, Ao Guang, and Shen Gongbao have all been accused of being Jiaozi's self-insert.

(imo, if they were paying attention, they would know that nobody punishes Ao Guang and Shen Gongbao more than their own fans. Every day Ao Guang fans wake up and think to themselves, "what else can we do to Ao Guang?" Every day, Shen Gongbao fans wake up and think to themselves, "what haven't we done to Shen Gongbao?")

Their hatred of Ao Bing extends to Oubing/Bingzha shippers, who they constantly bash, vague, and harass (when they get the chance). Because Ao Bing is just mooching off of Nezha's popularity ("Nezha is the main and most popular character! Nobody cares about Ao Bing aside from shippers!") and anyone who ships him with Nezha only cares about Ao Bing clearly. Nezha is just being used as an ooc plot device for them to further victimize and elevate Ao Bing.

These classic Nezha stans then start overlapping with the Nezha stans from the Jiaozi movies. As in, fans of Nezha the character from the 2019/2025 films, who like him exclusively and believe Ao Bing/Oubing fans are just using him as a prop for their loser fav. They believe Oubing is the worst thing to ever happen because Nezha is always a side character for Ao Bing, an ooc bully towards Ao Bing, a walking yaoi dick with no characterization, etc. They say Ao Bing would have 0 fans if it wasn't for Oubing. Unlike Nezha, who would still be the most popular character and the lead of China's greatest box office success, even without Oubing. In fact, Oubing shippers are just a small minority of losers, and the REAL people responsible for the box office numbers are solo Nezha stans.

If they hate 19/25 oubing, they despise Shangmei/1979 oubing for twisting Nezha into an unrecognizable pervert and Ao Bing into a helpless victim, when Nezha was clearly a pure hero in the original and Ao Bing was a dastardly evil monster! Whose fault is it? Oubing shippers. You guys know why the sun sets at night? Oubing shippers. Oubing shippers are all that is wrong with the world.

[For the context/lore behind Shangmei oubing, see this writeup by the lovely yunsound]

But is it only the Nezha stans running amok? LMAO of course not, this is the war of the (terminally online) gods here! Enter Ao Bing stans, who are, you guessed it, exclusive Ao Bing fans who don't care at all about Nezha. Now take all the arguments those Nezha solo stans made, and flip it around- that's what Ao Bing solo stans sound like.

They believe Ao Bing was cheated out of a good storyline in favor of being reduced to fanservice for the fujoshi. He's clearly the best character and so much cooler than that loser Nezha! And everyone else would see that too if Jiaozi and co. weren't so biased against Ao Bing.

Nezha glowed up, but Ao Bing got downgraded in the sequel! This movie has not one, but TWO protagonists, and the filmmakers were horrible for not seeing that! He was reduced to a plot device to elevate Nezha, and all Oubing shippers ever do is make things worse by turning Ao Bing into Nezha's punching bag, feminizing him into an ooc mess, making him weak in order to show how cool Nezha is, etc. Clearly ALL Oubing shippers are just Nezha fans who don't give a shit about Ao Bing.

They even made callout posts (like with screenshots, timestamps, and everything asdfasdf these are legit endlessly long callouts) of all the horrible things Nezha did to Ao Bing... in fanfiction. This stuff was used as proof of what those nasty Oubing shippers are like and how those nasty Nezha stans are always bullying Ao Bing.

Instead of @ ing Jiaozi like you'd expect, fans cut out the middle man and went straight to Nezha temples to pray for more Ao Bing screentime in the third movie. This riled up the Nezha stans because how dare Ao Bing stans bring their bullshit fantasies into their temple!? Ao Bing stans also kicked up a storm over this one official poster where Ao Bing was standing on the side, while Nezha was in the center with Ao Guang and Shen Gongbao (maybe Nezha is bonding with his in-laws?? ever thought of that, Ao Bing stans? checkmate!). Because they saw that as a sign of neglect and bias from the official team!

Ao Bing stans and Nezha stans then kept going back and forth with each other, while taking turns harassing various popular Oubing artists and accusing them of just being fans of Nezha or fans of Ao Bing and using the other character in the ship as a tool for their sick fantasies. I even saw one artist come out and apologize because?? she was friends with a lubao shipper, who *checks notes* reblogged solo Ao Bing art???????? That's how wild it's gotten. Some of these stans also attempted to harass Ao Bing's VA at some point or something, it was just a mess all around.

And coming into the ring, we have Oubing stans hating on Nezha stans and Ao Bing stans as well. They say that if not for oubing, neither Nezha or Ao Bing would be half as popular as they are today. And the WORST stans are the ones who enjoy all the art/fics/etc. made by Oubing/Bingzha creators, only to turn around and show how much they exclusively love 1 character while not caring about the other. Some of them even dared to view ship art as platonic, or worse, solo art! Depending on which character the Oubing stans favor, they'll either only call Nezha stans the scum of the Earth or only call Ao Bing stans braindead losers.

We also have the combo of Nezha stan + Oubing stan or Ao Bing stan + Oubing stan, who do everything the solo stans accuse Oubing shippers of doing!

In case you're wondering, this is how everyone else in and out of the fandom is reacting to the Nezha/Aobing/Oubing battles:

This behavior is "normal" in real person actor/idol fandoms, but seeing it play out with animated characters was truly a first for many, many people LMAO

And then when the stan wars reached new heights, the 31st ComiCup (CP31) came along. That's the biggest fan convention in China. It primarily focuses on Chinese media (donghua especially), but also includes animanga, hollywood shows/movies, novels, etc. I don't think creators, actors, etc. ever attend it- it's a completely fan-based convention for fanartists and writers to sell merchandise for their blorbos, ships, and favorite media. This year, it happened in Shanghai.

From what I can gather, anyone can set up a booth for their ship, character, etc. but to have an entire "street" (a whole lane/aisle of booths) officially dedicated to your fav character or ship is the highest honor. It gets put on the map guide for con-goers. And it means there's 1) enough creators for your blorbo/ship to host a whole street of different booths 2) enough people interested in your blorbo/ship to pack the whole street. While with the booths, you're just one of several numbered areas in the wider fandom lane.

Anyway, both Oubing and Bingzha had official streets. Every ship mentioned in this writeup (and not mentioned too!) had booths too. Dilong had its own street as well, and they're hoping Jiaozi will notice.

But there were no solo streets for Nezha or Ao Bing, or anyone else in the movie... except one character. It's Shen Gongbao. The only character from the entire cast to have a whole street dedicated to his content. And it's Shen Gongbao. Even his haters had to look at that and begrudgingly respect the dedication of leopard stans. Nobody would believe you if you told them this would happen in 2019, but here we are. So I guess you could say that at the end of all this, Shen Gonggong won the conferred god war?? greatest plot twist of 2025.

Me, explaining this in American terms: "This is like witnessing the popular kids fighting over who will be prom queen for an entire year, and then on prom night, the cranky old teacher from down the hall gets voted queen in front of the whole school"

Oubing/Bingzha stans were ecstatic either way, because this proves that the solo stans were delusional from the start and that the world belongs to the Nezha x Ao Bing shippers (and Shen Gongbao fuckers too, apparently). They're still mocking the solo Nezha and solo Ao Bing stans as we speak. I don't know if there's any way of this drama ending unless Nezha himself descends to Earth and tells everyone to shut up, but I think it'll be like the ABZ drama- something major happens or it just fizzles out on its own.

There's another big con coming up in Chengdu, and this time, in order to avoid being owned by the Shen Gongbao fuckers again, the Nezha stans were quick to establish their street! In order to participate in the Nezha street, you have to obey the following rules: "No Ao Bing content, No Oubing content, No content for the 2019/2025 Demon Child movies)"

But also once again, Oubing/Bingzha and Shen Gongbao have their streets set up.

Lastly, for some better news after ALL THAT!

Pop star Silence Wang, changed the lyrics to his song 梦幻诛仙 to make it Oubing-coded during a recent concert.

The one ship that's had zero drama arise from it is Yishen (Taiyi Zhenren x Shen Gongbao). Why? Because Taiyi is the ultimate Chad.

Hetong canonly reads transmigration novels

Jiaozi is now "unsure" how dragons procreate and says he's toying with the idea of it happening without the need for a partner. Ao Guang m-preg confirmed? Either way, congratulations m-preg Ao Guang fans

There's so much Shen Gongbao whump they were able to play a whump bingo for him LOL! He suffers in canon-era content, he suffers in post-canon content, he suffers in pre-canon content, he suffers in modern AUs. He even suffers in his own self-ship fics. There has to be some kind of lifetime achievement award we can give him for this because in a mere 4 months, there's been so much whump angst content for him that he can give *checks notes* MCU Loki a run for his money. At first, I thought maybe it was just coincidence that every time I clicked on his content, things like this popped up. Then I realized that no, it was because there truly was that much of it. Something about Shen Gonggong compels his own fandom to see him horribly injured in every way possible, good for them.

I made a English ver. bingo here just so the SGBheads can see all the common things he Goes Through in cn fandom. I was not exaggerating about it in any of the writeups. And this is just some of it! There's a lot more going on in that part of the fandom (like- Shen Zhengdao dies in front of him, King Zhou & Daji are actually super nice to him but die violently in front of him, all manner of public humiliation, starvation, brainwashing, a complete lack of self-worth, and so on) :

Maybe because of all the angst now associated with him, half the fandom's legit convinced he'll heroically sacrifice himself for everyone else in the 3rd movie, bringing his "redemption arc" full circle. Are they right? Only time will tell.

And that's a wrap! Will there be a writeup part 4 to dethrone part 3? Only fate can tell! We can't even predict what storms of drama will emerge from the popularity boost of a streaming copy + high profile English dub. If there's ever any drama as ballistic as this in the English fandom, someone please do a writeup and tag me!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I turned my coworker in for using his phone?

☎️ for obvious reasons.

So I’m gonna put this up front: this isn’t actually about the phone, it’s about the coworker. The phone is just convenient.

Our players are me (35 AFAB), Coworker A (~30 M), Supervisor C (N/A M), D (N/A F), and L (N/A F).

So first, the reason I have beef with A: he has never had a conversation with me that didn’t involve hitting on me and/or inappropriate questions. These have included demanding to know who I voted for, how my paycheck is delivered, whether I’m in a throuple with my roommates, and whether I have a boyfriend, which wouldn’t be weird except it was literally the first question he ever asked me—he didn’t even know my name yet. After I yelled at him over the voting thing because he refused to take “I don’t discuss politics at work” for an answer FOUR TIMES, he tried to break my glasses when I put them down so I could put on my safety goggles.

You may be wondering why I haven’t turned A in for harassment, ESPECIALLY after the glasses incident. I have. The problem is, he’s very good at looking pathetic and saying “I was just _________.” In this case, he was just looking at my glasses (never mind that you shouldn’t be playing with someone else’s expensive medical device!), and just making conversation. In spite of the fact that he was ignoring his trainee and distracting me from my work, he somehow got away with this. After a few of my screwdrivers went missing the same day he went pawing through them and he broke my brand-new pen, C told him to stop having anything to do with me, that his attention WAS NOT WELCOME.

Now we get to L and D. They’re two of our coworkers who can solve just about any problem you have. Ever since A was warned off, I’ve noticed that if I’m working with L or D, suddenly A needs all kinds of help that keeps bringing him over to our machine, and he always seeks out help from whoever it is I’m working with—if I’m with L he’ll go to L, if I’m with D he’ll go to D. If you’re a dude and think I’m overreacting, go ask a couple of the women in your life—you probably know someone who’s had similar experiences. (And for the record, another coworker I only know to say hello to has commented that his behavior toward me makes her feel like “he wants to wear your skin or something.”) I don’t think A is actively dangerous, but he’s very clearly a creep—especially because he also has a girlfriend and baby and still keeps doing this.

Now we get to the phone. I work in a factory where we’re not allowed to have phones on the floor because we work with food product and a phone dropping in a box is a huge contamination issue, on top of which distraction at my job can lead to life-changing, possibly even life-threatening injuries. (I was on a machine that threw its chain drive once and the only reason I didn’t lose an eye is because there happened to be another machine piece between me and the snap.) So: phones are a big no. Management will look the other way for people in extenuating circumstances, like having a sick kid at home, but in those cases your phone is to remain in your pocket and if it rings and you need to answer, you have to leave the floor.

I have caught A texting FOUR TIMES in the last month. Once I caught the words on his phone screen, and he was making plans for a party. That’s definitely not extenuating circumstances, and twice I’ve found his phone in the product catch tray.

So: very against rules that are there for the safety of us and our end users, and if I turn him in he’s going to get a writeup and possibly even a termination, which would mean I didn’t have to deal with him anymore. On the other hand, if he gets fired for violating safety standards he’ll have a hard time getting new work, and his baby doesn’t deserve hardship just because Dad is a creeper. Also, while I don’t carry my phone on the floor, I worry that turning him in could lead to a blanket ban that affects those in extenuating circumstances, because I’m almost positive he’d try “I was just checking on the baby” as his excuse.

WIBTA?

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s5 episode 2 "redux, part 2" thoughts

i wrote the following episode writeup two days ago, and still, there is so much to process. but let past me take over as we begin our adventure into some DELICIOUS angst with a happy ending content:

i wasn’t going to watch this episode tonight because i am feeling tired and sick, but then i scrolled down a little bit and read some of the next episode’s descriptions, and boy. i want answers. which i will not receive if i do not watch the episodes prior to them. so. here we are.

i’ve also heard that this episode is really good, so i’m excited to dive in, even if i have a headache while watching it. usually i try to preserve my watching experiences for when i don’t feel ill, but sometimes you just have to push through it.

(it WAS really really REAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY GOOD. my sickness was not fixed but some other part of me was)

okay. the description... mulder is looking for a cure and the FBI snitch. and he receives help from an unlikely source…. is it krycek??? let us see

(it was not krycek)

we begin with the recap, and again, the combination of skinner’s gruff “call a doctor” while holding scully's limp body and mulder’s defeated face at hearing the vial just has water in it is crazy 

mulder is at the hospital at 5 am!!! he’s looking for scully :( no one is helping him!! he is getting maaaaad omg

“i’ll calm down when i have a REASON TO CALM DOWN!!”<- OHHHH he is always going to cause a scene in a hospital. someone please pair up this scene with one breath to make a nice matching gifset thank you <3

the doctor wants to know who tf he is when skinner comes out of the room!!! OH FUCK, I FORGOT SKINNER THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD LMAOOOO “you move pretty good for a dead man” <- well yes he does! 

“i’m only half dead” now what do you mean by that… is he saying that without scully he is only half alive.......

oh skinner is PISSED! he is following him into scully’s room… please save the fighting for when she is not trying to get rest, thank you very much

oh my GOD, mulder sees her in the room and he literally has to put his hands on his knees and breath, and he cannot do it… holy fuck… he asks skinner what happened, and when he doesn’t answer right away he asks “DUE TO WHAT?” again, and skinner has to say she’s dying

(i immediately hit replay to watch him collapsing in on himself and gasping for air again. pain. pain and angst. feels good. like pressing into a bruise)

SKINNER AND MULDER START FIGHTING???? throwing hands. “don’t make me put you under arrest. DON’T” <- this is escalating. very quickly. we haven’t even had the intro yet. holy fuck.

(my skinner and mulder angst heart is deeply satisfied)

oh my god… how he’s watching her through the window……………..

the intro was cut short, but i expected this 

ohhhh no, mulder is here before section chief blevins… he’s in troooOOooOouble!!!

“the fact of you being here alive, it gives the effect of shaping this investigation into something altogether different” <- well yeah. that is very much the case. let's all state the obvious together.

blevins and the squad seem to be surprisingly patient with him as they explain they need to know who the real dead guy found in his apartment was. they say, well, you know, this is going to be a murder charge. so please say something to help yourself out here. and he says idgaf bye <- LEGENDARY!!!

ohhh skinner is following him out… skinner says he has been withholding evidence. he knows mulder shot the guy, killed him, then shot him again to hide his identity!!!! woahhhh!!! this is huge!!!!

skinner tells him to admit why scully lied on his behalf, and he says that her disease was given to her by someone at the FBI. he takes a moment to process that, then asks who, and there is a whole lotta guilt in mulder’s reply: “i failed to find that out, sir” <- NOOOOOOO i’m sad :(

oh mulder, and your intrinsic, ancient guilt.......

“you don’t want to forget who your friends are, agent mulder- to remember who you can trust” <- oh my god oh my gooooood. you KNOW i am a SUCKER for the whole mulder/scully and skinner dynamic, and he knows that skinner made the deal with the devil for him but scully doesn’t know that and she doesn’t trust skinner and oh my goooosh

mulder nods, while skinner watches him leave. i hope he has taken this talk to heart.

section chief blevins is at the racetrack again with CSM?? and he’s watching senator kennedy speak about human cloning. which seems random. how is he even watching that while at the racetrack? they didn't have ipads

CSM points out he said mulder’s not to be underestimated <- haha yeah THAT’S my boy!! 

ohhhh, but blevins knows CSM let him escape…. and CSM isn’t alarmed by this! he’s all smirky, even as blevins says their FBI man has been exposed.

“mulder’s in trouble. he needs help. we can give it to him” “in exchange for?” “his new loyalty. to us” <- WOAHHHH

some dude was behind blevins the whole time and he says “you can proceed now” so is he off to go get mulder???!?!?!

scully is waking up!! OHHHH look at his smile when he sees her…. oh somebody kill me. he loves her SO much

(author's note: tearing up just thinking about this as i make these notes readable. goddddddddd)

she’s so worried that someone is going to see him, but OH MY GOD he grabs her hand, sits on the bed, tells her it’s okay, and kisses her cheek “i’m officially among the undead” <- WAAAAAAAAAH I LOVE HIM

(and while in the moment this only inspired the deepest of affection, i now find myself thinking of a vampire au, and who would be the vampire... but let's get back on track)

she asks what happened, and he says he didn’t come there to talk about that <- YEAH THAT IS WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR!!! you tell her not to worry sweet girl

but she won’t take it, says he doesn’t need to protect her!!! and that is just like her, to die arguing. so he fesses up that he will have to testify everything that he knows 

he does NOT want her to worry oh my god “it doesn’t matter” “yes it does” (gently) “hey scully, how about those yankees?”<- OHHHH MY GOD i cannot stop saying oh my god, but what even is there else to say?

i just. he loves her so much. he wants her to relax and be calm and be okay even when she would never let that happen in a million years. and the fact that she is worried about HIM while she is literally dying… bro. i’m emo.

scully is trying to warn him that skinner is the mole, and he’s touching her face, saying no, it’s not him, and oh, i’m melting. my heart is melting. 

WOAH WHAT??? she is saying to tell the committe he has to testify before that SHE KILLED THAT GUY??? to keep him safe???

he smiles and shakes his head, saying he can’t do that, but she responds with “mulder, if i can save you, let me” oh my god???

“let me give at least some meaning to what’s happened to me” <- OH MY GOD??????? no no no no no no no. 

(the implications here... trying to find meaning... nobility in sacrifice... the religious imagery it inspires....... we need to unpack this at length someday)

OH enter maggie and bill scully, watching as mulder sits on her bed holding her hand, smiling like the dutiful son-in-law he appears to be, which is especially crazy, when you consider the whole “and where has this mulder guy been” thing bill had going on when we last saw him. but mulder says he was just on his way out. 

AND he kisses her hands as he leaves… the tenderness which i feel towards this man is so sensitive and indescribable

and oh my god, mulder introduces himself to bill. he says he’s sorry about his sister… but bill has something else to say- WHAT IS IT??

“mr. mulder… i know something about you, about what dana’s been through with you, so… let’s leave the work away from here, okay? let her die with dignity” <- OH MY GOD????? WHAT THE FUCK???????

bill you literally SUCK what the HELL?? you don’t know ANYTHING about what they have been through!!! 

he looks like he was just slapped :( and bill goes in and holds her hand while mulder is there just standing opened mouthed, unable to believe what he just heard :(

what the fuck.

bill count ur days.

so now the guy from the racetrack that was with blevins seems to be on the loose with a sniper gun!!

ohhhh, mulder is leaving the hospital when he sees CSM!!!! “please tell me you’re here with severe chest pains” <- JHDJSJDJ okay yes i laughed.

OHHHH he says that the water he got in the facility is essential to scully’s survival???? and that he’s here tonight as a friend?? so they go outside to talk about it… but the sniper, isn’t he loose????

cutscene to the lone gunmen’s headquarters, where mulder is emptying the water vial into a little dish, saying CSM promised him something would be in there. and there is some… thing?? a microchip??

OH! he says that maybe it has to do with when the chip was removed from her neck!! because she got very sick shortly after it was removed!!! woah... that is wild to think about. so maybe if it had stayed in there this wouldn't have happened??? but she would have kept getting abducted because they would have known her location? but earlier someone said it was the procedure that takes their eggs that makes them sick. but how does that involve the alien? who knows. probably not chris carter.

kritschgau is here now; he’s been summoned before the committee

he confesses to giving classified information because he knows what the government is hiding from the people!!!! developing a moral compass late in life

but he denies knowing who killed the guy found dead in mulder's apartment, whose name is scott…

“i’m aware of one connected death, though” <- is he going to say scully???

NO!!! his son, who died that morning!!!!! oh no :( i feel bad now 

he says that part of his work comes from a congressional lobbying firm?? called “roush”. blevins and some other guy exchange looks but skinner asks what it means. and kritschgau says idk. well. me neither 

back in scully’s room, mulder is being yelled at by bill as he tries to explain the microchip from the tube might make her better. maggie seems to want bill to settle down, while scully is staring hard at it.

she says that everyone has their heart in the right place, but it needs to be her call… oh, so diplomatic… and she decides to try it

bill looks like he wants to kill mulder, and mulder tries to dodge his eye contact. it was very emotionally charged.... but also a little bit funny 

so now the sniper guy is back. he’s setting up the rifle, but where???? and to shoot which of our characters???

bill comes out of the hospital room and mulder is working overtime to try and avoid his gaze until he realizes it is impossible.

“see, she’s your big defender, but i think the truth is, she just doesn’t want to disappoint you” <- bro WHAT?? how fucking infantilizing can you be??? just because she’s your little sister doesn’t mean she can’t make her own informed decisions about living and dying??

bill, we are GOING to throw hands at some point 

OHHHHHHHH bill blames MULDER for all of this AND for missy’s death……… again…. not very fair…. scully made her own decisions… but if i were bill, i might feel the same if it were my family….

ohhh my god this whole exchange needs to be on my blog:

“has it been worth it? to you, i mean, have you found what you’ve been looking for?”

(mulder pauses, before answering in a whisper) “no”

“you know how that makes me feel?”

“in a way, i think i do. i lost someone very close to me- i lost a sister, i lost my father- all because of this thing i’m looking for”

“this what? little green aliens?”

(mulder looks down, before smiling) “yeah. little green aliens”

“you’re one sorry son of a bitch. not a whole lot more to say”

holy FUCK

1. i love a man who loves so unabashedly and so unapologetically. i love a man with his heart on his sleeve, and i love mulder for this reason, even if he is terribly stubborn and often infuriating. look at him. look how dedicated to the truth he is. look at how much he loves her.

and 2. for their own sake, i hope they elope when they get married, but for the sake of pissing bill off, i hope they get married in a traditional fashion, and he has to sit there and watch and regret everything he said when this inevitably saves her life and they get to grow very old and happy together because of his quest for aliens. and then they say their vows and kiss and bill writhes in the knowledge that he is a mean person. that is all. for now. because i will probably have more to say later.

fuck you bill. all my friends hate bill. 

mulder's phone rings… he answers it, saying “one sorry son of a bitch speaking” and it’s CSM??? asking how’s our patient? well. i guess he can take some credit here for the potential recovery, but “our” feels strong.

he says he’s arranged a meeting he will want to attend??? hmm. hmmmmm. hmmmmm. much to ponder here. mulder do NOT make any deals, CSM is a NASTY FUGLY SLUT!!

so mulder’s sitting in a diner, sipping coffee, when someone pulls into the parking lot??? it’s CSM himself. 

WITH THE CLONE SAMANTHA FROM BEFORE???

“you know 'em or something?” “i think that’s my sister”, he says to the waitress <- WHAT??

obviously though, he realizes it’s the fake samantha, right? like this trick won’t work on him twice... right?

she looks at CSM and says “my father” <- HUH??

nah, i do not believe it’s her at all. she says she was frightened, and she tried to forget everything from that night. she was told she was going to see her father. and CSM said basically that she was an affair baby and he's the bio dad. and he took her in and was so kind.

nah. i’m not buying it at all….

but mulder is crying……….. he’s had a rough go of it though these past few days, okay?!?!?! so don't be mean to him for believing what HAS to be an obvious lie

he tries to explain that CSM is probably lying to her about many, many things, because he has obviously known mulder’s whereabouts for a very long time, and has never told her

he says that she should come see their mom… but she says she can’t do it, she needs time, she has children of their own, and she won’t tell him where to find her. I DON’T BUY IT i’m glad she left before her mom could see her, because she doesn’t deserve that heartbreak AGAIN.

he assures her they will reunite on her time and he lets her go. even though he very much does not want to. which is a lot for his character. how he lets go of the iron grip he had on her arm...

i wonder if he doesn't believe it, deep down.

she says she’ll think about it, and she leaves, getting into the car with CSM. mulder is utterly gagged. 

hmm. HMMM. CSM is trying HARD to get him to pledge to the dark side. but will the same tricks work again???

meanwhile, scully is being injected with something. but she looks so sad as her doctor doesn’t seem hopeful. 

she asks if he’s ever seen a miracle, and he says he’s seen recovery from the brink, but he won’t dare call them that

sniper guy?????? has his rife aimed at CSM??? or mulder??? or both???? because they are standing next to each other

they’re meeting up. “you give me these things- the only things i’ve ever wanted- and i can’t think of any reason for you to do so” <- HE’S LYING ABOUT THE SAMANTHA STUFF, HE HAS TO BE. WE SAW A WHOLE CLONE ARMY OF PEOPLE WITH THAT FACE. IT CANNOT REALLY BE YOUR SAMANTHA, MULDER.

but he says he will offer him the truth, about the project. mulder says he knows the truth. CSM fires back that kritschgau was the one lying!!! 

“in exchange for what?” “quit the FBI, come work for me” <- WOAH he was shockingly forward there. i can kind of admire that. now please say no, mr. mulder. 

AND HE DOES SAY NO!!!!

“what have you given me? a claim of a cure for scully? is she cured?” (oh the way he said that was SO sassy, it felt like a read)

“you show me my sister, only to take her right back” <- again. DID he do that, though?

“you murdered my father. you killed scully’s sister, and if scully dies, i will kill you” TELL HIM BABY!!

“i don’t care whose father you are, i will put you down” OUGHHH GET HIM 

sniper guy puts his gun away when mulder leaves!!! so must be it’s mulder he’s after!!!

cut to scully cam… it’s her mom!! she called to see her and gives her a big hug.

“i fight, and i fight and i fight… but i’ve been so stupid” hey what do you mean. hey sweetheart what do you MEAN by that.

OH she is having a crisis of faith…. she feels guilty for being closed off to father mccue. ohhhh....... is the blaming herself for being too scared to turn to god??

she tells maggie she has no improvement, and they hug and they cry; “i know you’re afraid', maggie says, "i know you’re afraid to tell me, but you have to tell someone”

blevins is watching more press about human cloning. is that why they do these experiments with the women? for cloning purposes? is that what i am supposed to believe from this?

blevins calls someone, and sees skinner in the background of the hearings on cloning… now what is he doing there. blevins says their colleague was supposed to fix the FBI problem, and then he will fix it for good… is he talking about the sniper?????

back to scully’s room, where she is sleeping, and mulder is entering. he’s watching her sleep, then laying his head next to her and SOBBING. WHYYYYY???? OHHHHH....... he couldn't bear to wake her up. someone please hit me with a hammer.

then he is here at a meeting with blevins, who says something urgent has arrived. it’s the analysis that shows he fired the shot into the dead guy!!! from an undisclosed source!!! and unless he offers someone else up, all evidence points to him being the killer!!

is he bluffing??? did skinner sell him out?? no, that cannot be it...

blevins claims that scully was going to name skinner as the mole, and that they have found substantial evidence against him, which mulder refuses to believe. well… he is A mole, but not THE or THIS mole!!!

he’s basically saying name skinner and you walk free????? mulder doesn’t answer, just says he’ll see blevins at the hearing. verrrrry shady

he goes back to scully, who asks why he’s here, he has a hearing!! this has never stopped him in the past. and he confesses to having stopped by last night, but not having the heart to wake her up :( she’s asking why…

he says he was going to take the deal with CSM, but changed his mind after blevins tried to get him to implicate skinner!!!

(skinner being his grounding force to returning to his sense of morality... no no no it's fine i'm definitely super cool about that)

scully offers again to take the blame, but he refuses, saying he couldn’t do that to her family or live that lie (the truth motif)

“we all have our faith… and mine is in the truth” <- YESSSSS the comparison to religion in his dedication… everyone has been saying and observing it for the past 4 seasons, but now HE has!!! 

“then why’d you come here if you’d already made up your mind?” (laughing) “because i knew you’d talk me out of it if i was making a mistake” <- OHHHH to be known is to be loved…. <3

and father mccue walks in right then!! she says “you’ll be in my prayers” and he kisses her cheek, saying “have the father say a few hail mulders for me, okay?” <- LMAOOO AWWWWW BABY

she’s crying as father mccue walks in and mulder walks out…

and her honesty in telling him that she will pray for him, after running from her own belief for so long; it was as if she thought praying would be a declaration of weakness, and maybe it is, to submit yourself to something higher, to ask for a mercy you cannot earn... but she is going to, and not only for herself on the brink of death, but for her best friend who is going through his own turmoil..... oh scully........

now for the hearing. he's late! fashionably so!

they’re setting the stage- we know that man was killed with your weapon- and mulder says he wants to set the record straight.

skinner asks for a break??? but mulder says he’s ready to proceed….. oooo what are they each getting at…. skinner looks stressed af

he says he was assigned to work with scully, who he thinks was to spy on him…

“that agent scully did not follow these orders is a testament to her integrity as an investigator, a scientist, and a human being” <- YESSS 🔥that is my girl who is motivated by the eternal burden of doing the Morally Correct Thing :,)

he’s explaining that she lied about his death because he asked her to, because she was a victim of the grand conspiracy that is killing her (this is cut with footage of the sniper looking at CSM through the scope of his rifle, and scully praying with father mccue)

he’s saying he will name the people responsible for this tonight!!! but they just want to know if he shot scott!!!! it's getting more and more tense and loud, before we boil over to a yell:

“i can’t do that sir, because the section chief is the man i’m about to name!” (murmuring) <- OHHHHHHHHHH HE DROPPED A BOMBSHELL ON THE VILLA

(we enter slo mo) (sniper fires at CSM) (blevins is shot by some other guy, who puts the pistol in his dead hand) (CSM lays on the floor, bloody, holding the picture of baby mulder and samantha)

DID CSM JUST DIE????? i refuse to believe it. that bitch can’t be killed……. nope nope no way. unless i see his corpse (NOT his headstone or his funeral, his actual CORPSE) i shan’t buy it.

so much just happened????

the next morning, skinner is with mulder at the hospital. who, as if just hearing me, tells mulder that CSM is dead, shot holding the photo of him and samantha

NO BODY WAS FOUND??? but it was too much blood loss for anyone to have survived. so someone took the body?? OR someone brought extra blood to dump on the ground and fake a death!!! makes you think!!

mulder claims he just guessed it was blevins behind it all- do i believe it? or do you think it was his years of solving crimes that allowed him to pick up on it subconsciously? i'm going with that interpretation

and blevins had been on roush’s payroll for four years!!! a biotechnology company!!! for cloning??? for aliens?? and of course all connections are now being erased.

BUT NOT EVERYTHING…. SCULLY’S IN REMISSION!!! skinner is shocked and mulder says it’s the best news he’s ever heard 😭🥺 my BABY

when skinner asks what turned it around, he says he doesn’t know, and they’ll never know…

oh my god, i love that their beliefs combined to cure her… his obsession with the Truth and her literal coming to God, and which of them was actually responsible is entirely impossible to tell. oh i actually LOVE THAT SO FUCKING MUCH. RAHHHHHH THAT IS SO POETIC. their guiding forces in life, and we have no way of knowing which is responsible for her life being saved. but it happened.

and skinner wants to see her!!!! leaving mulder to hold the bloody photograph of his baby self… and he’s crying… it’s been a very long few days for him 

oh my god… i need some time to think on this all….

so, 2 days have passed since i watched this episode, and i still have SO many emotions. in no particular order, some things i am dwelling on: bill's cruelty to mulder; mulder smiling as he held scully's hand, trying to distract her; him unable to hold himself up as he sees her in the hospital room; skinner telling mulder to know who his friends are; skinner trying to pause the meeting before it even began so he could offer some sort of advice to mulder; scully crying into her mom's arms, surrendering to god; scully, who knows that mulder is not a believer, and has ridiculed her for being so in the past, telling him that she will pray for him; scully worrying about him when she is the one who is dying; scully reclaiming her agency when she decides that she wants to use the microchip; mulder saying that her remission is the best news he could ever have possibly heard; and skinner going in to see her while she was still surrounded by her family

WAAHHHHHHHHHH

so. a lot on my mind. a very, very, very good episode. i thought the blevins reveal kinda came out of nowhere since he has mostly been a set piece rather than a real character, but honestly, that wasn't the heart of the matter here, so we can disregard it.

i'm not sure how i feel about the potential samantha reintroduction. actually, i do know how i feel: i just didn't much care for it. frankly, i just don't buy it at all, and it felt like a lot to cram into one episode, especially since they've used the whole "is it really her?" plot point before. so it felt like a bit much on top of the already incredibly high emotional stakes.

but other than these thoughts, the episode was fantastic. finally, we get something happy! the potential end of scully's illness! mulder and skinner basking in her presence as she recovers!! her surrender to the omnipotent! his surrender to the truth, but not at the extent of his morals!!! everyone is so happy and the wedding is tomorrow!! i will see you there!!!

(what did you think?? did you like this one as much as i did?? did any moments make you tear up?? anything you noticed that i missed? please tell me!!! i'm really excited and want to chat on the subject :D)

[curse-of-dming-strahd]

hello welcome back to "god there's so much in Strahd's combat writeup", I want to talk about the Heart of Sorrow

because it's kind of weird

and at first I was like "why does he even have this" because if you're fighting him at 10th level and your party picked up their magic items, 50 HP is nothing. that's a trivial amount of protection. there are some builds that average close to 50 damage per turn at 10th level (and that's ignoring whatever insane stuff the 2024 PHB lets PCs do now).

so if I can't rely on this thing to keep this beautiful pipe-organ playing manicure safe from buffs and scratches in the final fight, what else is it good for

well I have some ideas.

mechanically:

this does mean Strahd can do insane stunts around 1st-3rd level parties, like just... let himself get stabbed or set on fire and just kind of laugh about it haha isn't this a fun time we're all having

mid-campaign this is a buffer for if I've fucked up and accidentally left Strahd somewhere the party can damage him

assuming the heart is still active, I'm in love with the image of Strahd opening the bossfight with fireball centered on himself and soaking the damage as an intimidation tactic

plot-wise:

the module kind of tucks the heart way out of the way, but I think it makes more sense to broadcast it to the party as a quest

make it something the party should go out of their way to destroy because for all they know, this thing will protect Strahd indefinitely

it's not like the party destroying it will change my tactics in the final fight because I already can't depend on it to protect Strahd

the party will get to feel like destroying the heart is a major accomplishment that opens a huge hole in Strahd's defenses and I can play along like YEP YOU DID IT, HE DEFINITELY NEEDED THAT HEART AND THIS WILL DEFINITELY NEGATIVELY AFFECT HIM IN THE FUTURE :)

if all else fails and they accidentally destroy the Heart of Sorrow way early by catching Strahd and eating through the damage threshold before he can disconnect from it, it'll be a great excuse for Strahd to be fucking pissed at the party for breaking his very expensive magical hit point rock

[wumblr]

the baby king of facebook, most well-known for being portrayed as kind of an asshole in a biopic and for aging into some kind of absolutely flavorless and unappealing version of once in a century hottie, gene wilder, is really mad that nobody liked his featureless and totally unpopulated generic-brand version of secondlife (now with cryptocurrency and virtual or augmented reality or whatever) and so he's going into the office and smashing all of his toys in a big temper tantrum and removing all of the site features that his yespersons told him would be a good idea and/or a federal regulatory requirement, largely because the american people were manipulated into reelecting another stupid baby king via russian election interference, which he finds empowering due to deep-seated and frankly disgusting daddy issues, who previously got elected due to again russian and also domestic election interference by an advertising firm, what done it as a publicity stunt. all of the world's journalists are quoted as saying "jesus fucking christ matt or mike or whatever isn't that enough press releases already that's like the fifteenth one this week i am so tired of doing writeups on this dumb shit and you sound like a huge zuck-up who's jealous the world's other most annoying baby king hasn't died from physically morphing into sonic the hedgehog villain the eggman and instead became extremely rich and politically powerful among cryptofascists basically just to spite one of his estranged daughters. or is that envy"

[natgoodmans]

ok wait that anon was me. why don’t you like laura osnes 😭 i just know her from bandstand (like one of my fave musicals ever) and the og bonnie in bonnie and clyde … what’s the tea what’s the beef

feel the need to preface this with saying that i used to love laura back in like 2013; was a huge r&h cinderella fan, loved bonnie & clyde, etc. but. this tweet really summarizes it in a nutshell:

can't find a screenshot of this, but during early covid she posted an instagram story about how her cameos were discounted due to a "coronavirus clearance". which like, honestly is just very tacky and tasteless, and on its own not the worst thing in the world but. then we have the whole covid anti-vaxxer thing. she's since deleted this instagram post (and you can read more in that link) but basically insinuated that vaccinations cause infertility which is incredibly false.

here are some more tweets about it:

and then she moved to tennessee with her husband and wrote an album about cancel culture; here's an article about it

here's the onstage blog writeup/review of her album.

and then we've got this tweet that rob madge posted

with this screenshot

and then there's also this:

and most recently, when carrie manolakos (former sophie sheridan in mamma mia, former elphaba standby for wicked 2nt, has since also moved to nashville i think) posted in support of rfk jr. and trump, laura's husband wrote this:

edited to add: when zachary levi was spouting his bullshit about the covid vaccine last month, laura commented and said she commended his bravery (thank you @stevenkodalys for reminding me about this)

anyways i'm sure i forgot something still but that's the gist

[qweerhet]

I see some of your pro-ai stuff, and I also see that you're very good at explaining things, so I have some concerns about ai that I'd like for you to explain if it's okay.

I'm very worried about the amount of pollution it takes to make an ai generated image, story, video, etc. I'm also very worried about ai imagery being used to spread disinformation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to go by the stance that since we can't un-create ai, we should just try our best to manage. How do we manage things like disinformation and massive amounts of pollution? To be fair, I actually don't know the exact amount of pollution ai generated prompts make.

so, first off: the environmental devastation argument is so incorrect, i would honestly consider it intellectually dishonest. here is a good, thorough writeup of the issue.

the tl;dr is that trying to discuss the "environmental cost of AI" as one monolithic thing is incoherent; AI is an umbrella term that refers to a wide breadth of both machine-learning research and, like, random tech that gets swept up in the umbrella as a marketing gimmick. when most people doompost about the environmental cost of AI, they're discussing image generation programs and chat interfaces in particular, and the fact is that running these programs on your computer eats about as much energy as, like, playing an hour of skyrim. bluntly, i consider this argument intellectually dishonest from anyone who does not consider it equally unethical to play skyrim.

the vast majority of the environmental cost of AI such as image generation and chat interfaces comes from implementation by large corporations. this problem isn't tractable by banning the tool; it's a structural problem baked into the existence of massive corporations and the current phase of capitalism we're in. prior to generative AI becoming a worldwide cultural trend, corporations were still responsible for that much environmental devastation, primarily to the end of serving ads--and like. the vast majority of use cases corporations are twisting AI to fit boil down to serving ads. essentially, i think focusing on the tool in this particular case is missing the forest for the trees; as long as you're not addressing the structural incentives for corporations to blindly and mindlessly participate in unsustainable extractivism, they will continue to use any and all tools to participate in such, and i am equally concerned about the energy spent barraging me with literally dozens and dozens of digital animated billboards in a ten-mile radius as i am with the energy spent getting a chatbot to talk up their product to me.

moving onto the disinformation issue: actually, yes, i'm very concerned about that. i don't have any personal opinions on how to manage it, but it's a very strong concern of mine. lowering the skill floor for production of media does, necessarily, mean a lot of bad actors are now capable of producing a much larger glut of malicious content, much faster.

i do think that, historically speaking, similar explosions of disinformation & malicious media haven't been socially managed by banning the tool nor by shaming those who use it for non-malicious purposes--like, when it was adopted for personal use, the internet itself created a sudden huge explosion of spam and disinformation as never before seen in human history, but "get rid of the internet" was never a tractable solution to this, and "shame people you see using the internet" just didn't do anything for the problem.

wish i could be more helpful on solutions for that one--it's just not a field i have any particular knowledge in, but if there's anyone reading who'd like to add on with information about large-scale regulation of the sort of broad field of malicious content i'm discussing, feel free.

[glasscoral]

Finished my fourth (huge) ending cluster in Hundred Line. Slasher Route. 069, 070, 071, 072, 073, 074, 075, 076.

Here are my thoughts on it. I think this is the route so far I've felt the most negatively about, so be wary of that if you're super fond of it.

I'll be completely honest. The first ending I got was 069 and it really made me think that whoever wrote this needed to be immediately taken out back and shot for wasting my time with 10 hours straight of

The thing that really disappointed me about this route was that earlier on it seemed like we were going to get character bonding moments that we hadn't seen elsewhere--it seemed like Takumi and Yugamu were going to get some interactions with each other, or characters who seem like they might get along interestingly like Yugamu and Hiruko were going to talk.

Instead, we got a whole route of nothing. Takumi is obviously suspicious very early on in the route, and while Hiruko is clearly suspicious of him in a way that makes it obvious that she knows something about him and doesn't want to tell him...And then we don't hear anything about it.

To be clear, 'Takumi ignores something obviously suspicious and fucks around' isn't something exclusive to this route--it happens quite a bit in the prologue, but what saves the prologue is that the prologue is full of fun character interactions, so I never felt like I was just being forced to sit through Free Time.

There are a couple of reveals later on in the plot that would be interesting if they were not locked behind Two Straight Months Of Free Time

As an aside, 074 feels a bit better pacing-wise because everyone's trying to avoid the zombies and doesn't have time to fuck around doing free time for 2 months straight--I do think that if I'd played 074 first I would've been a little more willing to give the 069 side of it more grace (and it makes the Hiruko reveal at the end about the aliens actually make sense rather than feeling like More Random Bullshit), given that 074 (the 074 side) has a little bit of interesting character interaction between Kurara and Takumi. Kurara was also very cool in 073 ending. Good for her!

I don't think that would've made me think this was a 'good' route, but maybe a little better.

[Yugamu fucking around and being the 'fake' killer would've been interesting if it'd been revealed earlier, but with that + the Hiruko time travel reveal being so late in the route, they just feel like a waste of time more than anything.]

The thing is that I'm sure other routes will recontextualize this, but right now, coming into this as my first route on the kill eito side, I feel like I didn't really learn anything that interesting except for the fact that Hiruko was a time traveler.

However, this route focuses on that very little, and it just seems like an excuse for why she kisses Takumi at the end/why she isn't killing him despite suspecting that it's him just as early as we the player do, so in this route it just feels like she's hopelessly in love with Takumi for no reason and that doesn't really give me a ton of hope for their relationship.

As I've stated a few times before, I think this route was padded a lot with free time and doesn't stand on its own all that well.

So now it's time for my personal yaoi/yuri/het rating for the route as I have been doing in my past route review writeups.

Yaoi Rating: 3/10

Guys talk to each other in this route but feel like they have less chemistry than the previous route where no male characters talked to each other at length at all.

Yuri Rating: 4/10

Girls talk to each other in this route but feel like they have less chemistry than the previous route where no female characters talk to each other at length at all. Bumping it up to 4/10 because Kyoshika holds Kurara in her arms as she dies so I guess that deserves one extra point.

Het Rating: 8/10

It's higher than the nozomi love confession in coming of age partly because it's a kiss partly because of the lack of other relationships in this route. So it goes.

I didn't exactly feel like anyone was written super annoyingly in this route, but, as I mentioned earlier, this really gave me...doubts about Hiruko.

Anyway, this was the first route where I've felt like it genuinely wasted my time playing. Let's see if future routes change this, either by giving me a better retrospective impression of it or, hopefully not, by making something SO bad it makes me miss this.

^This is the choice that horribly murdered literally everyone in the cast

(not a joke)

[inaconstantstateofchange]

I come to you on my hands and knees (relevant to the topic right lol) begging for any and all info on Bane, Banites and how it all ties in with Gortash. I love you in advance. <3

Bane and His Cult

Alright, so after twelve and a half hours of research I still don’t fully feel like I have enough, but at a certain point I just need to get this out there, and if there is anything you – or anyone else – would like to see explored in more detail, please feel free to ask! 

Note: I love getting asks like this! There is such a vast quantity of Realmslore that having some sort of specific focus for my deep-dives is a huge help, and knowing the topic is of interest to others is a huge motivator. I also greatly enjoy getting to put my training as a historian to work, as there is so much to interpret and archive alike. 

As ever, these writeups will align with current 5e lore, and draw from 3.5e for additional supporting information. On rarer occasions – and always noted – I will reference 1e and 2e, but with the caveats that there is much more in those editions that is tonally dissonant with the modern conception of the Forgotten Realms, and thus generally less applicable.

We’ll begin with one of the most recent conclusive descriptions of Bane, from the 5e Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, an overview of the current world-state of, well, the Sword Coast: 

Bane has a simple ethos: the strong have not just the right but the duty to to rule over the weak. A tyrant who is able to seize power must do so, for not only does the tyrant benefit, but so do those under the tyrant’s rule. When a ruler succumbs to decadence, corruption, or decrepitude, a stronger and more suitable ruler will rise.  Bane is vilified in many legends. Throughout history, those who favor him have committed dark deeds in his name, but most people don’t worship Bane out of malice. Bane represents ambition and control, and those who have the former but lack the latter pray to him to give them strength. It is said that Bane favors those who exhibit drive and courage, and that he aids those who seek to become conquerors, carving kingdoms from the wilderness, and bringing order to the lawless.¹

This gives us the briefest summation of what draws people to the Cult of Bane: the desire for power and control, often deriving from a sense that they lack exactly those two things. Bane is the quintessential deity of lawful evil, which – if you’ve read any of my previous posts on the sociology of the Nine Hells – bears a striking similarity to Baator itself, the realm of lawful evil, and the place where Enver Gortash spent at least a portion of his formative years. 

The majority of the following excerpts derive from 3e, which went into far more detail on the specificities of the Faerûnian gods, including their dogmas, holy days, et cetera. One important point to note, however: any discussions of Bane’s scope of power are no longer accurate, as the time period in reference is about one hundred and twenty years before Baldur’s Gate 3 is set, at a time when Bane had just returned to life – and godhood – as nothing less than a greater god. By comparison, during Baldur’s Gate 3, he is a quasi-deity, having abandoned most of his previous godly power in exchange for the ability to directly meddle with Faerûn – forbidden to the gods by the overgod Ao – and gambling that he would be able to regain his lost power and prestige in so doing.²

The dogma of Bane – that is, the core tenets and philosophies that his followers seek to emulate – is as follows: 

Serve no one but Bane. Fear him always and make others fear him even more than you do. The Black Hand always strikes down those that stand against it in the end. Defy Bane and die — or in death find loyalty to him, for he shall compel it. Submit to the word of Bane as uttered by his ranking clergy, since true power can only be gained through service to him. Spread the dark fear of Bane. It is the doom of those who do not follow him to let power slip through their hands. Those who cross the Black Hand meet their dooms earlier and more harshly than those who worship other deities.³

Even were there nothing else to go off of, this would tell us a great deal about the group dynamics of any followers of Bane, whether established church or fragmented cult. Just as in the Hells, hierarchy is everything to proponents of lawful evil. Any cult of Bane would have a strict order to its power structure, and there would be limited – practically nonexistent – tolerance for any questioning or insubordination of that order. To the minds of Banites, such is simply the natural and superior ordering of the world. These interactions are detailed below: 

Within the church, the church hierarchy resolves internal disputes through cold and decisive thoughts, not rash and uncontrolled behavior. Bane’s clerics and worshipers try to assume positions of power in every realm so that they can turn the world over to Bane. They work subtly and patiently to divide the forces of their enemies and elevate themselves and the church’s allies over all others, although they do not fear swift and decisive violent action to help achieve their aims.³ 

The manner of tyranny that Bane holds to is similarly calculated – he is not interested in mere shows of force, but rather in insidious plots that twist and make use of existing rule of law to legitimize tyranny wherever possible. A social tide operated ostensibly within the laws of the land is far more troublesome to fight back against than a simple army.⁴ 

As far as specific ritual and day-to-day workings of the cult, some can be evidenced here, in broad strokes: 

Bane’s clerics pray for spells at midnight. They have no calendar-based holidays, and rituals are held whenever a senior cleric declares it time. Rites of Bane consist of drumming, chanting, doomful singing, and the sacrifice of intelligent beings, who are humiliated, tortured, and made to show fear before their death by flogging, slashing, or crushing.³ 

In this sense, rituals seem most likely to be used as a display of power and a test of subservience, leaving lower-ranked members of the cult at the whims of their superiors, expected – as noted previously – to attend to their commands with the same alacrity they would use were Bane himself to speak. The rites themselves are designed to reinforce and glorify the primary aspects of their god’s domain: the tyranny of forcing submission and pain from the weak. 

Faiths & Pantheons, published a year after the Campaign Setting supplement, provides a similar description of the rituals of the cult of Bane, along with some intriguing and flavorful additions (noted in bold for ease of comparison): 

Their religion recognizes no official holidays, though servants give thanks to the Black Hand before and after major battles or before a particularly important act of subterfuge. Senior clerics often declare holy days at a moment's notice, usually claiming to act upon divine inspiration granted to them in dreams. Rites include drumming, chanting, and the sacrifice of intelligent beings, usually upon an altar of black basalt or obsidian.”⁴

As, in the “present day” of Baldur’s Gate 3, Bane has lost much of his foothold on power and his Faith’s old domains, the specifics of architecture of Banite keeps are no longer quite so relevant. However, in times past, when his Faith worked far more openly and held much greater power, the philosophy of Bane was expressed through the architecture of his churches and strongholds: 

Tall, sharp-cornered stone structures featuring towers adorned with large spikes and thin windows, most Banite churches suggest the architecture of fortified keeps or small castles. Thin interior passageways lead from an austere foyer to barrackslike common chambers for the lay clergy, each sparsely decorated with tapestries depicting the symbols of Bane or inscribed with embroidered passages from important religious texts.⁴

The social capital of a Faith – a broad term used to encapsulate all followers of a single deity – is often heavily intertwined with the power of its god, a mutualistic relationship that runs in both directions. More social weight behind the Faith means its god’s name and will is conveyed to more people, some or many of whom might apportion some worship or act in alignment with that god and empower them by so doing. More power for the god means more divine actions that can bolster their own image and the reach of their clergy. At its height in the late 1300s, the Faith of Bane was one of the most prominent and powerful, with comparable might to that of a small kingdom.⁵

Something that is important to bear in mind in a setting such as the Forgotten Realms, not only polytheistic, but an environment where the gods being worshiped are demonstrably existent, is that the followers of evil gods are not likely to be obtrusive with the less savory aspects of their dogma. Not only would that, in the majority of cases, do more harm than good to their deity’s long term goals, in the words of Elminster: 

A dead foe is just that: dead, and soon to be replaced by another. An influenced foe, on the other hand, is well on the way to becoming an ally, increasing the sway of the deity.⁶

All of this aligns with what we see of the Cult of Bane and its operation in Baldur’s Gate 3. While it does not have the same sway and might behind it as it did a hundred years before, through manipulation of law and carefully applied pressure – of whatever form most likely to yield the desired results, be it threats, bribery, blackmail, or use of hostages – Gortash has enacted a steel web of delicate, ensnaring tyranny across the entire city. 

We can even find present-day expressions of the interactions of the cult members, and find that they hold true to what their forebears experienced, further proof of the consistency of lawful evil. A personal note found on the body of a dead Banite guard at the Steel Watch Foundry calls the Black Gauntlet in charge of the Foundry Lab, Hahns Rives, a “disgrace to the Tyrant Lord”, and notes the writer’s intent to “compile a list of Rives’ shortcomings for the Overseers.”⁷ These shortcomings include: 

1. Rives failed to reprimand Polandulus for making jokes about Lord Gortash! 2. Rives missed the morning mass to Bane - twice! 3. Rives didn't punish Gondian Ofran when she missed her gyronetics quota merely because she'd lost a finger that day in the punch press.⁷

We can see evidenced here the constant scheming for position and recognition consistent with this manner of lawful evil hierarchy. Both devils and Banites orient their day-to-day lives around how to prove themselves to their superiors, while also undercutting them at any chance they have to prove their own superiority, with hopes of being raised above them. 

This is only reinforced further by another text found within the Steel Watch Foundry, Bane’s Book of Admonitions. Its text is not written out for us, but described as such:

A book of adages and precepts for Banites, providing the basic tenets of worship of the Lord of Tyranny, with suggested prayers for common situations. The heart of the book is Bane's Twelve Admonitions, a dozen rules for proper Banite conduct, with punishments specified for failure to comply. The book opens easily to a page with two of Bane's most popular admonitions, number six, the Reprimand for Leniency, and number seven, the Rebuke for False Compassion.⁸

The most likely scenario is that this book was used by the “Overseers” referenced by the anonymous Banite writing of Rives above. The exact position of the Overseers is not made clear, but from context and knowledge of Banite hierarchy, we can infer that they inhabit a place in the hierarchy above both the guard and Rives himself, and that their role is to ensure all those below them uphold the tenets of Bane at all times, never losing sight of his will. 

In that context, it makes sense that they would both have a book of specific punishments for specific infractions – rule of law, after all – and that, given the attempted report on Rives, punishments (“admonitions”) for the crimes of leniency and false compassion – and all compassion is false when your conception of the world does not allow for its existence – would be those most referenced. It would be incredibly important to the unity of the cult, as well as to Gortash’s plans, to harshly punish any observed leniency or break from Bane’s law among members of the cult.

Not only would failure to control the situation at the Foundry potentially spell failure for the schemes of Bane’s Chosen, any unpunished step out of line by members of the cult would be seen as tempting others to do the same, a trickle of dissent quickly becoming a flood. Better to ensure that all adherents live in merited fear of the consequence of failure. 

After all, it is said of Bane himself: “He has no tolerance of failure and seldom thinks twice about submitting even a loyal servant to rigorous tortures to ensure complete obedience to his demanding, regimented doctrine.”⁴

And, in an appropriately lawful hierarchy, the same rule must apply from the bottom, to the top.

¹ Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. 2014. p. 26.

² Descent into Avernus. 2019. p. 231

³ Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3E. 2001. pp. 237-8

⁴ Faiths & Pantheons. 2002. pp. 15-16.

⁵ Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3E. 2001. p. 93

⁶ Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster’s Guide to the Forgotten Realms. 2012. pp. 135-6.

⁷ Rives’ Failures as a Banite. Baldur’s Gate 3. In-Game Text.

⁸ Bane’s Book of Admonitions. Baldur’s Gate 3. In-Game Text.

[onceinawhilemoon]

The World Hinges on Small Details: Jon vs. Sherlock and The Hand-Me-Down Quest

This quest intrigues me so much. It not only raises questions about Jon's “nature”, but also gives us a glimpse of where Sherlock's focus on the small details, and therefore his struggle to see the big picture, came from.

If you're as intrigued by this quest as I am, read ahead, but before we continue, I highly encourage you to go read @spiteful-crow ‘s wonderful writeup on Jon and Sherlock and the Jungian concepts of “anima” and “persona” (here) if you haven't already. Not only does it explain a lot about them and what/who Jon is, but that analysis also serves as a pretty solid basis for most of this one, and it will help make it make sense, I hope!

Under the cut we go-

Quick recap of The Hand-Me-Down quest: Jon notices a first of three riddles engraved on top of a monument called “The Silver Hand” in Old City, and convinces Sherlock to solve them, saying that the riddles lead to a lost treasure. Sherlock is bewildered by how Jon was able to guess that something was on top of the monument in the first place but goes along with it. Eventually, instead of the treasure, they find a magnifying glass that belonged to Violet, buried under a rock. Sherlock is so confused by the discovery and has no clue as to how the glass made it there. Neither he nor Jon seem to remember ever burying it there.

The third riddle stands out the most here, as the last two lines of it read “you may find only one small detail, but that doesn't mean that you have failed.”

Upong finding this riddle, Jon commends Sherlock on his admirable ability to notice the details. This evokes Sherlock's memory of one of his mother’s core teachings:

S: “In such moments I often recall Mother's voice teaching us of the importance of the smaller details. The world hangs on small hinges, Jon.”

J: “Even the most chaotic miracle becomes sequential when you take a closer look. I remember.”

Sherlock’s keen eye for detail is something almost everyone he meets praises him for, and it's an inherited trait from his mother, who was an authenticator and a truth seeker, she taught him that "the truth lies in the details." Consequently, his struggle with seeing the big picture due to focusing too much on the details sometimes stems from his mother's teachings, which he clearly holds in very high regard. She was also the source of his strong moral stance against lies and obfuscation of truth. He was closer to his mother than his brother, even during her worst days. It's no surprise that Violet had a huge and deep influence on Sherlock-she shaped all of his moral views, many of which are being challenged by what he's discovering on Cordona.

The title of the quest, the quest being strongly tied to Violet and her teachings, specifically the third riddle, and of course the magnifying glass, all lead me to believe that Sherlock put the glass there and made up those riddles and the silver hand treasure, inspired by his mother, the monument, and the pirate it was erected in honor of.

Maybe it was also a ritual like burying Siger’s “skull” to help Sherlock process things and move on. Maybe it was to help him process and reconcile with the negative feelings associated with Violet's abusive nature or with her death, or maybe it was simply just child's play. But, as with everything else, after the pond incident™, his memories of Violet and most of his time on Cordona were suppressed and lost to time, including the magnifying glass and the “ritual”. And since Jon seems to remember or at least seems to have a gut feeling about the past and those lost memories, he recalled the riddles and the legend about the treasure, which, interestingly, can be considered as the “creative” aspects of the ritual. Jon may not have remembered the magnifying glass itself but remembered the steps to get there because Sherlock created them with his help. I do believe he is Sherlock's creativity and imagination personified. I've written a (much shorter, thankfully!) theory about that and how I think it's tied to Sherlock calling him his "anima" (here) if you're interested.

And maybe it was something more, if you think of Jon as a Tulpa or one of Carl Jung's thoughtforms (like Philemon, who Jung described as a "guru" possessing of transcendental knowledge and wisdom) this quest could be an example in which these concepts are explored. Jon does act as a guide in the game. He also seems to notice things before Sherlock does sometimes, and points out things that Sherlock has no way of knowing or verifying with empirical evidence at the time, sometimes even despite his physical limitations, like the “engraving” on top of the Silver Hand monument.

I personally don't think there was ever an engraving on top of the monument. I think the idea was for the first riddle to be memorized by Sherlock while the rest to be written down and hidden. This, I think, makes the whole “ritual” much more personal and special to Sherlock. Of course, after what happened, he forgot everything, and Jon was left to remember the first riddle and made it look like he read it on the monument to entice Sherlock to solve it and remember, just like how he invented the fiction that the skull belonged to Sherlock's father.

Then there's their conversation after discovering the glass, which I think perfectly captures the “rational” vs “irrational” parts of Sherlock, or the "persona" vs. the "anima" :

Jon, the “irrational” and creative part that wants to believe in magic and miracles, tells him that sometimes he just needs to let things happen, that some things can't be explained and we should let them be, and Sherlock, the "rational" part that strives for logic and objective truths, has a hard time accepting that, because to him, everything needs to have a logical explanation and a tangible root in reality.

J: “The whole world is one big unresolved chaotic miracle" - That's the part of Violet's teaching that Jon chooses to follow. Jon finds beauty in leaving mysteries unsolved, in the “who knows?” which leaves the door wide open for imagination, in non-linear thinking which leads to originality and uniqueness. He thrives in chaos.

S: “But they will become sequential if you take a closer look" - And that's the part that Sherlock wants to follow. He finds stability in order. He sees the need to investigate to uncover what's hidden and verify facts with evidence to restore structure into the world.

The two parts are both sides of the same coin. They shouldn't be separated because they balance each other out and make up one whole. Thanks to this balance, Sherlock eventually concedes and lets this particular mystery remain unsolved. It must have been freeing for him to just leave it to "fate" and focus on the beautiful feelings that this strange experience has evoked-him feeling closer to his mother by remembering her wisdom and honoring her legacy.

Which makes me wonder how differently Sherlock would have faced the horrors in The Awakened if Jon was still with him to hold his hand and remind him that it's okay if things didn't make sense, that sometimes you just need to let things happen and free your psyche from the weight of fervently searching for logical explanations. Some things are just meant to not make sense, just like that magnifying glass.

Then there's the title of the quest.

“The Hand-Me-Down” I think, refers either to the magnifying glass itself, being a precious heirloom inherited from Violet which later becomes Sherlock Holmes’ signature crime solving instrument, or the mindset of “the world hinges on small details“, also passed on from Violet and the reason why Sherlock is so keen on the details that he sometimes struggles to consider them within a broader perspective-the big picture-which can cause him to tunnel vision on isolated facts and possibly risk making ill-informed decisions. A notable example is concluding that “Richter tried to save my mother; therefore, he was an innocent man who was wrongly accused,” while disregarding the fact Richter and his medical malpractice caused his mother to deteriorate in the first place.

Finally, there's what Jon wrote in his diary after discovering the glass:

“But when Sherry looked at me through that glass, I was suddenly struck by terror. For a brief moment, it felt as if I weren't there at all, his gaze passing through me and over the horizon.”

Jon rarely gets “deep” in his journal, so this line stuck with me. Jon is pretty aware of his “non”-existence and even seems pretty in peace with it, so why would he be struck by terror at the idea of him “not being there at all”?

The choice of words in “his gaze passing through me and over the horizon” signifies the future; Jon is terrified of a future in which Sherlock doesn't see him anymore; when he favors his rational and mature side so much, that it ends up consuming him and severing Jon, his anima, his irrational and creative part that clings to his childhood, from the whole. If Sherlock stops seeing Jon, only then does Jon truly cease to exist.

I think this means that at this point in the story, deep down in his unconsciousness, Sherlock knew that when he leaves Cordona this time, he'll be leaving Jon with it, and this gut feeling, this terror at being fractured and fragmented, possibly with no way of ever getting mended, manifests through Jon as he constantly tries to alert Sherlock to the danger of the situation, that once he steps through the threshold, there's no turning back.

[androxys]

Comic Ages: Quick Breakdowns of the Dark and Modern Ages

Yesterday I wrote a quick writeup of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages of Comics. Savvy readers may have noticed that those ages ended at 1986, and yet comics have continued to be published. So what Age are we in now? That's what this writeup discusses!

The Dark Age (1986-2016)

After Crisis on Infinite Earths ended in 1986, DC got to make a whole new continuity! The comics that came at this point in time form the foundation of a lot of the characters and stories that we know today. For a good bit of time, we called The Dark Age the Modern Age, because at that point it was modern! But now that we’re nearly forty years removed from Crisis and comics are still being published, there was a fair question about just how “Modern” it was. I’m using the verbiage that DC seems to be endorsing themself—I learned the phrase “The Dark Age” from 2022’s Batman—The Ultimate Guide reference book. Calling this period a Dark Age is not an indictment about the quality of work in this period, rather, it’s to reflect the doubling down on darker, grimmer stories. Crisis ended in 1986, followed almost immediately by Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, two stories very interested in deconstructing the figure of a hero with a cynical eye. While these stories were not in the main DC canon, they would reverberate on the tone of what was to come.

Within the main DC canon, huge shakeups were occurring. There were no more multiple Earths; instead, there was a single New Earth that incorporated the histories of several Earths. The Justice Society had fought in WWII and retired in the 50s, but were still around and able to mentor the younger generation of heroes. There was only ever the one Superman and Batman figure, though DC would later figure out a way to have a Wonder Woman both in the present and among the Justice Society. Many of DC’s biggest heroes were getting revamps to introduce their new continuity: The Man of Steel miniseries detailed Superman’s new origin and once again established him as the sole survivor of Krypton. The Batman: Year One story that ran thorough Batman #403-407 detailed the early history of this Caped Crusader, revamping Jim Gordon and Selina Kyle in the process. Wonder Woman saw her title relaunched with a new #1, with George Perez taking the helm of a sprawling epic that redefined the character. The darker tone of the Dark Age continued to manifest. The Killing Joke was published in 1988, depicting the shooting of Barbara Gordon by the Joker, followed quickly by Jason Todd’s murder in A Death in the Family. Major comic events of the early 90s involved the villain Bane breaking Batman’s back and the monster Doomsday killing Superman.

In the mid 90s, DC was forced to reconcile with the truth that while Crisis had mostly succeeded in tidying things up, things were once again getting messy. To solve this, DC published the Zero Hour event, officially titled Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! (DC really loves to slap the “Crisis” title on anything load-bearing) Zero Hour, published in 1994, featured the Silver Age hero Hal Jordan becoming the villain Parallax and trying to undo time. Heroes banded together to stop him, though the timeline was slightly altered. This introduced many soft retcons—retroactive continuity fixes—that aimed to make things make a bit more sense. The jury still seems to be out on if it succeeded. 

By the early 2000s, DC decided that it was ready for a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, which they helpfully named Infinite Crisis. This event saw the return of several characters from the original Crisis, and more crucially, the return of a multiverse to DC Comics. This multiverse would be refined such that rather than an infinite multiverse of infinite Earths, there were now 52 parallel worlds. Some of the new worlds were established as callbacks to previously depicted alternate Earths, while some were new. Other major events within the Dark Age were Final Crisis, which saw the “death” of Bruce Wayne by Darkseid, and Blackest Night, which saw deceased heroes and villains resurrected as zombies by Black Lantern rings to feast on the emotions of the living.

In 2011, DC decided it was time for another major revamp. They wanted the characters younger and less burdened, and decided to launch The New 52 and end the era of post-Crisis New Earth. This was done with the Flashpoint story, which featured Barry Allen, the Flash, attempting to go back in time and prevent the death of his mother. While well intentioned, this event created a wildly branching timeline that he then had to set right. Though he mostly succeeded, the world Barry returned to was not quite the same. The post-Flashpoint world was dubbed “Prime Earth,” and was… controversial. Much of the post-Flashpoint continuity seemed to harken back to previous Ages–as mentioned, the characters in general were younger. Barbara Gordon, the Silver and Bronze Age Batgirl, was returned to the Batgirl role while her two New Earth successors were written out of continuity. Barry Allen was made the primary Flash of the DC Universe, with the Golden Age’s Jay Garrick and the Bronze/Dark Age’s Wally West removed. 

In 2015, DC would publish the “Convergence” event, which featured an extant Brainiac capturing specific slices from several timelines and pitting them against each other. This included seeing the pre-Crisis Teen Titans operating at the same time as the post-Crisis, pre-Zero Hour Suicide Squad, or the post-Zero Hour but pre-Flashpoint Batgirl. It was messy! But importantly, it showed DC acknowledging their older characters and characterizations, and restoring some of the multiverse that came before.

The Dark Age would eventually come full circle, with the Doomsday Clock event heralding the end of the Dark Age and beginning what we call (for now) the Modern Age. Doomsday Clock was a direct sequel to Watchmen, the iconic comic that helped set the tone for the Dark Age in 1986. Doomsday Clock suggested that part of the reason the New 52 was so different than the pre-Flashpoint New Earth was because Doctor Manhattan, the massively powerful Watchmen character, had removed several years from the timeline to observe how the world would change. Batman and the Flash discovered this meddling during “The Button” storyline, and DC subsequently began its Rebirth initiative.

The Modern Age (2016-Present)

It’s fickle to decide precisely when the Modern Age begins. DC Comics themselves states that the Dark Age ended in 2011, with Flashpoint, though I disagree. Many of the initial New 52 storylines hold on to the darker tone, though there is evidence that around 2014, DC began to pivot away. The DCYou initiative, for example, focused on refreshing some characters to a younger, more upbeat characterization–such as Barbara Gordon in her Batgirl of Burnside era–or by introducing new comics altogether–such as the more lighthearted Gotham Academy series. You may disagree with me on precisely where these eras begin and end, however, and that’s okay.

In 2016, DC began its Rebirth event that sought to reconcile some of the pre-Flashpoint elements into the Prime Earth continuity. This was spearheaded by the return of Wally West, and continued to gradually fold back in pre-Flashpoint elements into the Prime Earth timeline. The events of 2020's Dark Nights and Dark Nights: Death Metal finalized it, placing characters in a sort of super-state of having access to all of the memories of all previous versions of themselves, while still ostensibly having only lived the one life. It’s complicated, but it crucially gave writers the opportunity to have characters make reference to past events that happened on New Earth, canonizing them for the Prime Earth continuity.

The end of the Dark Nights saga resulted in DC’s Future State and Infinite Frontier projects in 2021. Future State’s premise was showing possible futures for various DC characters, and then Infinite Frontier launched characters on possible paths. The emphasis was on this being a new starting point for many characters, both old and new. Jon Kent, the son of Superman, had his own title launched during this time, and Yara Flor, a new Wonder Woman, got a miniseries. On the Nightwing title, a new creative team took over to steer the character out of the “Ric Grayson” amnesia arc, restoring Nightwing to his traditional hero status.

In 2022, DC would publish Dark Crisis, later rebranded Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths (see what I mean about them just reusing the same words for emphasis?) which saw many classic DC villains from across different eras brought together by a powerful force. This continued to delve into the DC Multiverse and establish that everything was metaphorically on the table, leading to the Dawn of DC initiative. Similarly to Infinite Frontier, Dawn of DC was about fresh starts, new beginnings, and updates so that new readers could jump in. The Justice League was disbanded in the wake of Dark Crisis, leading the Titans to become the preeminent Superhero team. The Superman title was relaunched at #1, and many books got new creative teams.

It’s always easier to retrospectively talk about something that has concluded rather than to actively analyze something ongoing. However, I think so far it’s fair to say that DC is attempting to use the Modern Age to craft a more expansive, perpetually new universe. Old characters are getting new attention, new characters are being created, and the depth and breadth of DC’s publication is getting highlighted. The current Modern Age has seen DC focus on expanding its Young Adult graphic novels since 2019, and DC announced in 2024 that they would be bringing back the Elseworlds imprint to tell alternate universe stories. DC has committed to telling more diverse stories in the Modern Age, which I think is crystalized in the various “Celebration” issues published. DC’s annual Pride anthology started in 2021, and subsequent celebration anthologies have featured Asian American and Black heroes and creators. While we don’t know when the current Modern Age will end (I’m already hedging my bets on this eventually being called the “Rebirth Age”) I do think the future is bright.

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 4: Propaganda (Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth)

At first I was going to open my Propaganda writeup with something to the same effect of "unPOpULAr oPinIOn!: propaganda > kimono!!!!" but you know what, even something as tame as this (prefering one album over the other, you know) feels wrong to say when we're dealing with two masterpieces (and even then it's probably not that much of an unpopular opinion anyways, lol). And yeah, I'll admit, that as I hinted at yesterday, for the longest time I really did fully stand by my opinion that Propaganda is not just something I like more than KMH, but it's just objectively BETTER. Well, the funny thing about opinions is that they can change everyday and again, I really don't feel about this quite as strongly as I did before! Not to say that Propaganda isn't still my personal favourite out of these two: it very much is, and it's also much more beyond that.

It used to be EXTREMELY rare for me to listen to an album and and get super obsessed with it and listen to it on repeat, I always needed something else to mix it all with, so when it did happen, it was a very big deal. Even bigger the deal gets when such obsession leads to becoming even more obsessed with everything else put out by the band behind the album over many following months, which only happened to me twice so far... And sure enough, with Sparks, that historic entry point was Propaganda.

I think I should call this album simply addicting: that's how it felt in the beginning and honestly still does to this day. It's impossible to listen to it just once. Something about it just grabs you immediately and completely and it just NEVER gets old or overplayed, I could try to figure out what it is exactly but I've no idea, it's just that Sparks magic I suppose! But as for some of the things I can definitely say that make me love this album this much:

It just flows sooooo well. For the longest time I had no clear favourites and least favourites, they all work so amazingly as a whole package and individually too of course. I think it's a perfect album in the way that you don't even think about it when you listen to it: the sequencing and all the different ideas just work so well together, it's kind of, seamless?

Something about it feels very modern to me once again, and I must say that I still do think that it's a clear improvement over KMH in many ways: more variety, more interesting turns and twists, more energy for sure too (and I have a very big bias for high energy and "intense" music, so I can't pretend that this isn't something that matters to me a lot). And even then we have some slower tracks that don't break the flow at all, I mean, ok, maybe only one such track really, but still, that applies even moreso in that case

So all in all, yes, this is definitely one of my favourite albums in existence. It continues what KMH started while bringing in even more of that special Sparks flavor that feels completely unimitable. And it has lots of cool keyboard lines, as do... most Sparks albums, but maybe it feels more prominent for me on Propaganda since it was the first Sparks thing I listened to on repeat for hours and days on end, so that was also definitely a big part of what drew me in initially. I guess I could really just try to figure out what makes this album as freaking good as it is for hours on end but it feels like I'm already running in circles a bit here so let's give this a rest for now.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Propaganda: he-LLO SOLDIER BOY! perfect opener and lead in into the next track. I'm a HUGE fan of when Sparks do these kind of intros (gratsax.... EXOTIC CREATURES...)

At Home, At Work, At Play: not an EARLY fav but I truly think this is one of the best Sparks songs. Peak intense energy and everything else, very special all in all

Reinforcements: another very early big Sparks fav so I'm pretty partial to it and also somewhat nostalgic about it for that reason

Thanks But No Thanks: love the keyboard line especially....

Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth: the bridge especially is peak, and is that a mellotron I hear here? Or something very similar, either way, that's another certified Iconic moment

Achoo: this song makes me SO nostalgic, I don't know if it's the chord progression or something else but listening to it makes me seriously so unexplainably happy and I love the bridge here an absurd amount too. The baseline is so good also

Bon Voyage: this and Never Turn Your Back are a bit of a duo to me, both more grand in sound than the rest here perhaps, and absolutely showstopping live too

[shithowdy]

i'd really like to see someone do a full writeup on the sheer glut of specifically "black genre art" amongst generative image spammers. it's at the point where if i see something tagged with any iteration of the word "melanin" i'm automatically hunting for generative artifacts and usually end up being disappointed and right.

i think at least part of it has to do with the prompts that are used; just due to the general disparities in representation in art, the pool of art on which black characters can be trained is a lot smaller and often made by black creators themselves. the ai datasets all think "woman" means the same nebulously asian woman with porcelain skin and huge tits, which means that if they want to specifically generate a "black woman" they have to do a lot more inputs with a lot more specific references to the artists they are trying to mimic.

this means that if someone wants to portray a black character with AI, most of the data they are using is from a genre of art that specifically celebrates blackness ("black girl magic", african themes/patterns, lots of yellow, big natural hairstyles, etc.), so anything generated also has that same unrepentant theme to it, just without any of the actual pride and joy that would have gone into an original work, defeating the purpose and saying literally nothing.

the prevalence of this stuff is just kind of overwhelming, though. it somehow feels more predatory than your usual ai stuff.

that person on the radar is a pretty peak example of it. you can see the ghost of a signature on this one... i wonder from whom they stole.

[elvenchevalier]

Lies of P

So I just finished this game and let me tell you something, I never loved Pinocchio more than I do right now. Genuinely, I would not have expected “Bloodborne meets Pinocchio” to work so harmoniously.

Lies of P wears its Bloodborne inspiration on its sleeve, and all the love and passion the devs had for Bloodborne shines through. It’s probably the best spiritual successor it could possibly have asked for. If we had ever gotten that sequel, I’d have wanted it to look something like Lies of P—despite P not having guns.

The story, unlike Bloodborne and other Fromsoft games, is mostly told on its face. It still has lore in item descriptions, but unlike Fromsoft’s games it doesn’t rely solely on environments and item descriptions to convey its story, and that’s hugely to its benefit. One of the flaws of Fromsoft’s souls formula games is that it expects you to dig deep to find the story; Lies of P actually tries to tell its story, and it’s all the better for it.

I’m going to say Bloodborne more times than Lies of P this writeup, I swear.

The weapon crafting system was a little strange to get used to at first, but once I did it felt like the perfect evolution of Bloodborne’s trick weapons. They don’t change form mid-combat, of course, but at any Stargazer or the weapon shop in the hotel you can mix and match to your heart’s content—for normal weapons, anyway. Boss weapons, earned from boss Ergo in the same vein as Remembrances in Elden Ring, cannot be separated into blade and handle like normal weapons can. But there is a wide variety of normal weapons to choose from, so the possibilities are virtually endless.

And that goes almost double when you run an Advance-focused build—Advance, as opposed to Motivity (Strength) or Technique (Dexterity), focuses on elemental weapons (Fire, Shock, and Acid). Advance only boosts your base damage by a tiny amount, because most of your damage is in making the most of elemental weaknesses, and it is STAGGERINGLY effective. I’m glad to have done my first run as an Advance build.

Aside from the not!trick weapons, Lies of P offers another method of attack in the form of the player character’s left arm, a changeable weapon referred to as a Legion Arm, and each one fills different niches. The one I ended up sticking with was a defensive option called the Aegis, but the Puppet String was also a lot of fun. If I had to lose guns for anything in a hypothetical Bloodborne 2, the Legion Arm is a pretty damn good option.

The voice acting was ON POINT. I didn't skip a single voice line in the entire game because the cast went all out. Venigni is painfully Italian--it's very funny.

If I had to give a flaw for the game, I would have to say I strongly dislike the visual similarity between each of the armor pieces. The converters and cartridges all look the same save for their colors and size for progressively stronger variants—and the size is almost negligible, easily missable if you’re not paying attention, sometimes causing you to equip a weaker version of the one you wanted if you aren’t diligently using the storage to prevent that. The liners are the worst of the lot, with three variants all looking nearly identical because they have no colors.

Another problem was that some enemies felt too aggressive; it’s fine for bosses, but when an average mook or even an elite is so aggressive that you barely have a chance to heal, it can get pretty frustrating. I have died more times to aggressive elites than most of the game’s bosses.

Man, it’s hard to come up with stuff to talk about that isn’t riddled with spoilers! Speaking of which: SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

--------------------------------------------------------------

Holy crap the King of Puppets difficulty spike was MASSIVE. It took me the most tries out of any boss in the game, and it’s not even close. KoP took me something like 12 tries, while no other boss broke 5. He’s tough as nails and it’s great—I love a real challenge.

(For the record, the boss that took me the most attempts out of anything in Bloodborne, LoP, and Elden Ring was the Orphan of Kos at 22.)

(I don’t count Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss.) (Fuck that guy.)

(Fuck that guy with Simon’s giant fist.)

(He wasn’t a “challenge”, he was just actively unfair to any but the cheesiest builds.)

...Anyway,

Every boss in the game was interesting, unique, and a LOT of fun. Each fight felt fresh and like a brand new puzzle to solve. I don’t think there was a single boss fight I did not actively enjoy, even when KoP was kicking my ass, and I can’t wait to get my ass kicked some more using different builds and new weapons.

Speaking of unique bosses, the game actually managed to make use of two early-game bosses again, but organically and in a way that made sense! The green monster in the Fromsoft Special’s second phase made use of the Scrapped Watchman by basically using its outer chassis as armor, and then the Parade Master after the game reused the first TWO areas—again, organically—was the same except with bonus attacks. They made sense, they were great, they demonstrated how the story was developing…ace. Absolutely ace.

Also, sidequests don't always end in horrible tragedy and/or death! Looking at you, Elden Ring. You actually feel like you're making the world a better place by doing Lies of P's sidequests, whereas you actively make the world better by IGNORING most sidequests in Elden Ring, save for like, Nepheli and Kenneth, and Ranni of course.

(It is VERY nice that the stargazer teleport menu shows when you can talk to someone to progress a sidequest. Again, looking at you, Elden Ring.)

One thing to really shake me was the reveal that P is Carlo. I actually did not manage to pick up on that before it was outright stated, but it was wonderfully foreshadowed in retrospect. Taking some notes on that one for sure.

...Speaking of foreshadowing, I realized during the Romeo fight that you can actually read the puppet speech—it’s just the regular text but garbled. It’s still very legible. My friend made sure to tell me not to do so, though, cuz it could have meant spoilers—so I don’t know what any of them say. I’m a little scared to find out when I take my character into NG+. Or just start a new run, because I can just read them then. Cuz I rule like that.

The final area is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. It comprises the whole of Chapter 11 and is big enough that there are ELEVEN Stargazers. The run up to it is incredibly foreboding, what with the Ergo crystals everywhere and the Ergo flowing toward the peak of the tower, and the actual climb actually feels as big inside as it looks outside. There are a few points toward the top where you’re granted a view outside, and you can see Krat and the St. Frangelico Cathedral in the distance. The area is also big enough to house six whole bosses—though two are avoidable.

The first one, the Door Guardian, actually made me tap into my latent Bloodborne instincts! Dodge, hang by the left leg, get shots in when you have an opening. Very, very cool fight.

And the MUSIC. For most of the climb, the music is this ominous chanting, fitting for a final dungeon, but toward the top the music actually STOPS, which actually feels MORE foreboding. Like you're finally coming up on the end. It's now or never. Heaven or hell.

Final notes:

Sophia is best girl,

Venigni is best boy,

And you can pet the cat 10/10 goty every year

That’s a wrap, everybody! VERY good game, will absolutely be playing again, probably soon. But next up is going to be Oracle of Seasons which I’m also nearly done with, so I might even have two writeups posted today LOL we’ll see.

じゃね！