#the power this one sequence has on me

[raplinenthusiasts]

i love him

[dykedvonte]

I think the most baffling thing about the Tulpar as a vessel to me is the fact that the ship really did only have a one way communication system.

I know it was cheap but even the most basic of vessels regarding major transport would have some way, shape or form for outside communication. Not only that but there was absolutely no form of innate emergency signal to show they may have been offline or in trouble despite clearly having a system to dock credits if they went off course. It's another factor that really shows that bad situations are made to get worse by design. One person who is required to relay all information to the crew and make all the choices without feedback. No way to update or call for help in case of a dire situation. No way to inform of inner personal conflicts and acquire procedures accordingly.

It really is like they are all in some sort of fucked up solitary confinement. They have their own world with strict roles that are meaningless in the end, as long as the cargo makes it, it doesn't matter what happens on that ship to the company. They don't want to hear anything and will come to conclusions on what happened based on how much pay they can withhold from the workers. Even what they do send is short, sterile and corporate to the extent it was likely written and sent out with a command by some random unmanned computer in an office.

There's something to be said about how unfair it is to force absolute power and control onto one person when you as an entity could do so much more to offload it but I've said it many times before so I won't again.

[ladysqueakinpip]

not me lying wide awake at 5:30am on a sunday on my day off bc after almost a full year I finally FINALLY realized the implication of the end of remember them from the cyclops saga

[qrovidcore]

man the thing about doing the temple of bhaal first is that durge is speaking from experience huh

[yeyinde]

Brain went brrrrrrrr

Price and the new 141 member getting into an argument. Price is all like if you don't behave ill take you over my knee girl.

She's all like I fucking dare you or you'll have to catch me first or even you don't have the balls.

🫠🫠

i’ve always wanted someone who was super by the book to clash with John “i routinely tell my superiors i’m going to maim/murder/hang them” Price. this gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. 

noncon spanking. abuse of authority. power imbalance. size kink. mean, dom!Price. forced submission.

You have this way of getting under his skin. 

An impossible itch. No matter how many times he picks and prods at his flesh, you worm beneath the dermis, burrowing deep. Sitting pretty against his goddamn bones. Festering. 

Incurable. 

He turns to vice to stem the irritation. Cigars. Whiskey. His hand shoved down his trousers like he's a fuckin' boy and not a man on the wrong side of forty. 

Thinking of you—of breaking that smart mouth of yours on his cock. 

It's the way you saunter around with your head held high, balancing golden eggs on your crown, that irks him something awful. The patronising drawl when you huffily remind him that what he's doing is breaking seven, no, ten, different laws, Price. You can't just do whatever you want, there are rules—

And that's the crux of it. 

A difference of ideas. Experience. You still see the world in shades of black and white. Good and bad. Unwilling to acknowledge that the line between is saturated and blurred. A putrid muck that traps all. Bogish. 

He knew it was a mistake when they sent him your file, asked if he needed the additional help. Hostage negotiator. He's heard of you. By the fucking book. You recite passages like it's gospel, turning printed words into a knife. A terrible fit for a team that works in the pivotal no man's land you claim doesn't exist. 

Yet—

He takes you on. Brings you in. Buries his anger at your fucking gall deep in his chest where it rots. Grows. Swallows down the rage, apoplectic fury, when you undermine him at every opportunity, citing laws and regulations like it's a fucking prayer. 

A calamitous decision, he knows. Terrible. But—

Despite it all, you're good at what you do. Brilliant. A budding rose germinating in fecund soil. You'll grow into something wild, won't you? Something untamed. 

Under his hands, you'll bloom the prettiest. He knows this deep in his bones. But—

“You're breaking the rules, Captain—”

—pedantic little thing, aren't you? 

Obediently following the wrong master. 

It irks him. He's been known to step on the toes of his superior officers for less, caustic words hissing foul from between his teeth. 

But unlike them, you're worth something. Even as the moral antithesis to his utilitarian dogma, he sees your potential. How you can shape this world dangling on a brittle thread if you lay down your senseless principles and follow him. Listen to him. 

But of course, you don't. 

And he supposes he ought to have known better. It's dripping gasoline over an open flame. The sequence of events is easily premeditated, seen, when you refuse to listen to what he says (“it's against the law, Price!”), walking away from him, his team, the mission, and take matters into your own, morally righteous hands. Bringing his underhanded methods to the desk of your superior officer, demanding he be investigated for crimes. The result is a loose warning from someone in a suit several sizes too big for them, and your fury when he pulls you back, has you assigned to another mission with the 141, with himself. Preens at your glower when you march back into his office, into his hands. 

In the fallout, he has no one to blame but himself, really. Anyone could have seen this coming. But the thing about shirking his morality in favour of a better outcome—above all else—is that he doesn't have to. 

And so, he doesn't. 

No. He blames you. 

(How perfect for him, then, that there's no one on base except you and him.)

“If you think I'm not going to report you again if you do something illegal, Price, you're wrong.”

He scoffs, shaking his head at your fucking audacity. 

"Better watch that mouth of yours, Sergeant, or you won't like what happens next." 

His palm itches when you look up, offering him a slow, feline blink. Leonine eyes creasing at the corners. 

"And what is that, sir? I'm just doing my job—" it's whispered breathlessly, all faux professionalism even as jest leaks down your brow. They pinch, then. Drawing together in a mockery of confusion. "Isn't that what you wanted me to do?" 

"What is that, mm?" He mocks, arms folding over his chest. He has to breathe through his nose for a moment. Gather himself together before he does something reckless, something like— 

It's the defiant little jut of your chin that does him in. That unravels this fraying knot of control until threads slip through his fingers. Falling too fast for him to clench down on them. 

He's threatened his superiors for far less. His kin, teammates. You have no one to blame but yourself for this, really. No one at all when he pulls his hand from where it's tucked under his armpit, curling rough, worn fingers around your wrist. Pulls you close, wrenching you into his chest until your nose bumps the buckle of his vest. 

"'m'gonna take you over my fuckin' knee, is what's going to happen." 

Your swallow is a gunshot. “You—you wouldn't dare—”

He leans in close, closer still. Breath scorching over your cheek. Preening when you bare your little teeth at him. “Wanna bet on that, Sergeant?” 

It's easier than he would have expected to wrangle you over his knee, pinning you down with an arm across your lower back. The height of his chair keeps your front bent, belly pressed against his thigh. Ass seated perfectly in his lap. Precious gem. 

He hums low in his throat, teeth sinking into the butt of his cigar as he locks you tight against him. Grabbing your wrist, twisting it up behind your back. Holding steady. A warning. 

The dangerous twinge in your bone stills you. 

One wrong move and he'd snap it in half. 

This has you taking a different approach, legs falling limp over the armrest. Head dropping over the other side. Malleable in his grasp—however artificial it is.

“Price—” you breathe, winded. Panic on a spindle. “What are you—what do you think you're doing—?”

He hums, mouth tense around the cigar. Words muffled, slurred. “What I should have done a long time ago.” 

“What—hey!”

Your words pepper off into a choked scream when his other hand falls to the hem of your pants, grabbing the fabric in his fist. The shock fades into indignation. Anger. He tastes it in the air as your hips squirm, legs kicking at nothing. Furious little growls spilling from your lips as you thrash, unconcerned by the ache in your bone. 

“Better keep still, love,” he taunts, mouth curling over his teeth as he twists his hand high, higher, up the small of your back until your fingers brush the skin between your shoulder blades. Any more and he'll break it—

“I'm going to fucking—!” It ends on a whine. A whimper. The pain makes you shiver. “Fuck, fuck—stop, stop, ow, stop—!”

“Not a fan of a little pain then, mm?” 

Your breath is ragged. Paints the air in a fine mist of defeat. He has you. The only option out of this is breaking your bone, a threshold no one is willing to cross. 

Price purses his lips back around the cigar, inhaling once, thrice, before he slips his fingers out of the hem of your trousers, reaching up to take hold of the cigar. It's all so matter-of-fact. So nonchalant when he places it in the ashtray. When he brings his heavy, warm hand back to your ass, curling his fingers beneath the fabric. Pulling. Tugging. 

They come off easier than he'd expected. A harsh tug, and the cleft of your ass is revealed. Plush skin curving enticingly as he rips them down to mid-thigh—panties and all. 

The shock fades back into indignation. You hiss something foul under your breath that makes him huff out a chuckle. 

“Not really in the position for that, are you, love?” 

“Shut up—”

He likes the way you sound like this. Feral. Furious. There's ash in your throat. It blots soot around each word, giving them weight. Gone is the woman who barged into his office, sniffing like you smelled something foul. Backing him into a corner. Sputtering in his face about rules. Regulation. 

Now you're bare-assed, panting, in his lap. Small little fawn in the maw of a bear. But oh, do you fight back—

Teeth bared, indignation bleeding into embarrassment, blotting pink in the whites of your eyes.

The sight is hewn into his hindbrain. 

“Look at you,” he purrs, petting your cheeks. “Been beggin’ to be bent over my knee since you got here, haven't you?” 

“Begging? Don't be—ahh!”

He brings his hand down with a small huff, eyes glued to your flesh. Watching it shake under his hand. The width of one swallowing up an entire cheek. So big is he that you're nearly made infinitesimal in his clutch. The thought makes him groan.

You squirm more in shock than discomfort. Head craning over your shoulder, eyes misting over with tears. Glaring at him. 

“What the fuck, Price!”

He strokes your skin, feeling the heat of your flesh bleed through his palm. Resilient little thing, aren't you? He huffs again, blood buzzing. Electric. There's a kindling fire in his guts. Embers sparking, catching. 

He can't deny how badly he's been wanting to have you like this. Craving your tears, your agony, your submission.

“Count,” he barks out, rough. Abrasive. “You're getting ten. Count ‘em for me, and if you miss one, I'm adding two more.”

“You're crazy, you're—!”

His hand comes down again. The impact shakes the fat of your ass. The strike makes you yowl, thrashing to get away. You don't get very far, still trapped in his hold. The threat of a broken bone keeps you from lashing out too wildly, and all you can really do is sit in his lap, and take it—

The notion has him groaning low in his throat. Something wicked spooling in his veins. Wanting. The sight of you heaving, bare-assed, and begging for mercy unleashes something inside of him. Something primal. Starving. 

Price takes a breath to steady himself, head buzzing. Heart pounding. It feels like the euphoria of nicotine—all bliss, sedation. Ease. 

Cathartic. 

“I said count,” he rasps, words cinder in his chest. Smoke. Dragged up from that burning pyre in his belly. Nocuous, hungry. “That's an order, Sergeant.” 

His hand is scorching against your skin. Thoughts turning over themselves as you hiccup in his lap. So pretty, he thinks, eyes flitting over to you. Taking in the sight of your shock, your denial. It tastes like fine wine on his tongue. Heady. 

“Here comes one—”

“One?”

“I told you, didn't I?” His nail rakes across your skin, cruel. Mean. Something preens when you gasp. Your pain perfuming the air. “M’addin’ two more if you don't count. Thought your speciality was listenin’?”

You scowl, twisting back to level him with an awful sneer. “Oh, fuck you—!”

His hand comes down again, harder this time. Vicious. The scream is tangled in your throat, gagged. He feels pleasure—dark and ugly—bloom in his chest, dripping, liquid, down the length of his spine. The twist of agony on your face is beatific. 

“Not gonna count?” He taunts, pinching your inflamed flesh between his thumb and forefinger. “We're gonna be here all day at this rate, love.”

He leans down, broad chest curling over the small of your back, hand cupped possessively over your cheeks. “But maybe you want that, mm? Maybe all this, mhm, insubordination has just been for show. You wanted this. Wanted to be taken over my knee—”

“You're wrong. I haven't—” it tapers off into a squeak when he pinches your flesh again. 

Price pulls back, breathes shallowly through his nose. 

“You and that smart fuckin' mouth. Told you it was gonna get you in trouble—”

He doesn't wait. His hand rears, and comes down with a loud smack that echoes in the sparse office he has you trapped inside. Your howl races alongside it, curling up the walls. Beautiful in all its agony. 

“Christ—” it's a dagger to his resolve. You sound so fucking good howling like this. Oscillating between feral anger and pain, hissing vitriol between clenched teeth. Choking on sobs. 

The first few are experimental. Testing the waters. Feeling. You're combative during it all. Fighting. Screaming. Each strike is uncounted, echoed only with a plea for help. One he knows won't come—

The only person on base is his Lieutenant. Ghost knows better than to barge in on his affairs. 

“No one's comin’, love,” he grunts, sweat beading along his hairline, dripping down his temple. The room heats along with the blood in his veins, stifling and oppressive. He reinforces each hit with more strength, increasing the tempo until you're screaming on his lap, begging for mercy, mercy, please, please, Price stop, stop—

Your skin raises with each new strike. Swelling. Becoming inflamed. The perfect imprint of his handprint sits on each cheek, edges intumescent. The globes shake, shuddering deliciously under each hit. 

He gets to eleven before you break. Tears streaming down your face, voice a threadbare whisper. Hoarse from screaming. 

His hand rains down, slaps your left cheek so hard it stings his hand. Burns. You whimper. Mewling. Squirming on his lap, and then—

“O–one—”

He grunts, feels himself thicken in his trousers. “Good girl.” 

You shudder, body breaking out in goosebumps. “Price—”

“Ah, ah, love. You're not allowed to speak unless you're counting.”

He hits you again, cock throbbing when you tense up, sniffling. Grinding out a soft two between trembling lips. 

You don't break the way he wants you to. There's a glare on your face despite the tears, the sniffles. A defiance that burns over the bridge of your nose. 

But that's fine. He has eight more strikes to ruin you, doesn't he? 

He sets to it with a low moan, your pelvis pressing taut to his tumid cock, the friction raging in his guts. 

But that, he finds, isn't really the point. No. The pleasure, the arousal, is secondary to the way you fall to pieces at his hand. Flesh stinging his palm with each loud smack that rings out sharply in the room. Uneven breaths. Shuddering little ah-ah-ahs that tumble out through clenched teeth. 

It's addictive, this. Therapeutic. 

There's static in his head. White noise. It renders everything else mute. Moot. Molasses drips down, thick and entrenching, congealing over every churning thought in the back of his head. There's a sense of peace, ease, he hasn't felt in years. In decades. 

He feels his belly knot each time your ass jiggles, skin bulging up from the trauma of being hit so harshly. Chafed under his palm. Welts forming in the shape of his hand. A tattoo you'll have for weeks when he's through with you. Aching each time you try to sit. And fuck—

You'll think of him. Of this. Being taken over his goddamn knee like the bad fucking girl you are. Broken in over his lap. Helpless. Submissive. 

The whimpers fade, replaced with shallow hiccups. Your throat is torn. Raw, ruined, by your screams, yowls. Each rasping whine sends jolts of pleasure down his spine. Liquid want molten in his marrow. 

“S–seven, nngh—”

The moan slips out—scorched, bleached—and drills deep into his loins. 

He peels his gaze away from your blistered skin, glancing at your face, but you duck from his view. Hide. Dropping your head over the armrest. Evading him. 

It's new, this. This meekness. 

You were so combative, so feral before. His gaze rakes down the expanse of your spine, over the curve of your cheeks, before settling, hot and heavy, at the crease where your thigh meets your pelvis. You squirm in his lap, thighs sliding together. Rubbing. It's no different from before when he'd spank you, but—

He catches it. 

It glints in the soft light when you move, and he feels something dark, ruinous, curl in the tar-stained fibrils of his chest. Congealing in the crevasses. Hardening. 

Price flicks his tongue out, swiping over his lower lip. The bristles of his beard graze the soft flesh, prickling across it. His throat is suddenly dry. Parched. 

His hand comes down again, notably softer than the other hits he subjected you to. Almost—

Tender. 

This isn't meant to hurt. Not this one. 

He strokes his finger over your skin, cock throbbing with the rasping gasp that spills��a twisted amalgamation of pain, skin still smarting, burning to the touch, and—

His lashes flutter. Nostrils flaring. 

Your slick, wet, between your inner thighs. 

He slides his hand down, down, until your ass cheek is cupped in the bracket of his thumb and forefinger. Nestled tight. A perfect fit. The sight of your skin—soft, so soft—against his bearish, hirsute paw is sickeningly addictive. He grunts, pressing his thumb into the crease between your cheek and thigh. 

“P–Price—”

And then he pulls, moaning deep in his chest as he peels the fat of your ass away, unveiling your cunt to his rapacious gaze. Fuck—

“What’s this?” He taunts, breathless. Pinched. You squirm, trying to press your thighs together. Hiding your pussy from his scorching stare. He doesn't let you. “Gettin’ off on me spankin’ your arse?” 

“N–no, I'm—”

He pushes his thumb up, sliding it over your skin. Gathers your slick on the tip. “Don't lie to me, mm. You're fuckin' soaked.”

The air is punched from his lungs. Spills out in a wretched grunt. In the vacuum, something grows. Knots. Festering inside his chest. Animalistic. Primal. There's an itch in the back of his head. 

He lets go of your arm, knows you won't run. Won't try to escape. No. 

You're a good girl, aren't you? One who does what they're told. Follows orders. It tangles in the soporific slurry of his head, pitching a bivouac of need when you bring your arm down, curling it through the gap of the armrest, holding tight. 

Bracing yourself. 

His hum breaks in his throat. He drags his hand away from your cunt, reaching for the snuffed cigar idling in the ashtray. There's a fever in his veins. It makes his hand tremble. Shake. He needs the blunted drag of nicotine to quench this heady anticipation blooming in his guts. A brumous storm gyring inside him, an incipient maelstrom of want thickening. Intensifying. Threatening to spill over. 

He needs something to steady himself before he tears into you like a beast—

You cock your head over your shoulder, staring at him with eyes drenched in midnight ink. There's a flicker across your tear-stained expression. Something coy. Feline. Leonine. 

There's nothing said. Nothing needs to be. He finds what he's looking for in the fracture of your mien, and scoffs under his breath at your sheer gall. Little fuckin' minx. 

Tobacco proves to be a paltry facsimile when he draws in a bursting mouthful. The restive glow of it dulled under the adrenaline coursing through his veins, heady. Syrupy. A roaring deluge of anticipation broiling in the balmy air, crackling around him like a storm cresting over the horizon. Ozone saturates in the thickening atmosphere. 

Something will break. Shatter. 

He tenses, waiting for the first stormcloud to breach, and drops his hand back to your tender ass. Stroking over the raised welts just to make you gasp. Your hips flex under the shocks of pain riveting down your spine, undulating in his lap. Pitched perfectly over his cock. 

His breath shudders through a needlepoint. The friction is electric. 

In petty retaliation—and just to see you squirm—he trails his knuckles over your heated skin, luxuriating in the way you shiver. Head falling back down over the armrest, beautifully alluring in your vulpine submission. His fingers dip between the cleft of your cheeks, feeling the slickness sticking to your soft, sensitive skin. Soaked between your thighs. Wretched girl. 

His index and middle finger slide over your slit, parting your folds. He feels the small pulses of your drenched hole against his flesh when he slides over it with the press of his fingers. Eager little thing.  

He hums under his breath at the sight of his hand seated across your hand, fingers shoved between the globes of your smarting ass. Soft and tender to worn and gnarled. The cropping of dark hair over his knuckles, his hand, against your bare skin is obscene. The picture of sin with your stricken flesh and his thick veins. The contrast curdled in the back of his head, morphing into something ugly and wanting. 

Idly, he thinks of making you bounce your sore ass on his lap later, your pussy swallowing up his fat cock. Taking it all the way to the root. Over and over again. Breaking you on it until you're begging for mercy, until this little attitude of yours is crushed between his teeth. 

Slick gathers against the rough pads of his fingers, drenching them. The hair on his knuckles is matted down, wet with your arousal. Naughty girl. He'll make you pay for that. 

And for the puddle seeping into his trousers. 

You mewl when he slips, sliding over your clit. The noise spilling molten over your lips, bludgeoning into his loins. 

He drags in another mouthful of smoke. Lets it rot between his teeth as he drops the cigar into the ashtray once more, attention riveting to the slip-slide of your slick thighs rubbing together for friction against your aching clit. Cunt pulsing needily against his hand. 

You haven't learned a damn thing at all, have you? 

Smoke funnels out of his nostrils when he growls. “Spoiled, aren't you? Need to be taught a lesson in respect.” 

“I, ah, am respectful, Captain—” 

He sucks in a breath between clenched teeth. This lippiness of yours grates on his nerves. He wants you begging for mercy, limp in his hold. Pretty doll. Waiting obediently for him to put you back together again. Soft and submissive at his heel. 

“Got three more to go, love.” You shiver when he strokes over your ass. Petting gently with wet, tacky fingers. “If you're a good girl and take it for me, I'll play with your pretty cunt, mm. You'd like that, wouldn't you?” 

Price brings his hand down, grunting when you moan out his name. Sharp and needy. Your plaintive posturing is a spark inside a tinderbox. 

“E–eight.” 

The next one is harder, sharper. The force twinges his joints. Rattles through his bone. 

It's unexpected, and the pain makes you yowl, body drawing tight like a bow. There's no pleasure when it's like that. No friction against your cunt. It's just—

“Price—!” You yelp, shrill and distressed. The lead up to this has been child's play. A soft hand to tender a nervous mare. 

His old man taught him to never strike with the whip first but to wean them slowly. 

He waits, humming mockingly to your pettering whimpers as you heave, tremulous, into the air. Shuddering in his grasp at the aftershocks of agony rippling through your body. 

Waits. Waits. And—

“Ah, ah,” he tuts, cooing low and condescending when you gasp, craning your neck to level him with an imploring, pleading stare as you stammer out a frenetic nine in a breathless rush. Tears soak your lashline, clumping them together when you blink through another deluge pooling against the rim. Your lip wobbles. The stream breaks, spilling over. Fresh tears run down your wet, sticky cheeks. 

There's real panic in the whites of your eyes now. That haughty, pedant gleam buried under pyretic desperation. Gone is the coy twist to your lips. The wily little bloom of amusement in your gaze. 

Aw, poor thing. But—

Too late. “You didn't count. You know what that means, love.” 

That knot in his chest unfurls, and leaks acid into his lungs. This want is corrosive. A poison. The sob breaks through your chest. The first thunderclap. He relishes in it. Leans back in his chair to bask in the potency of your unmaking. 

“Good girl,” he husks out, burning lungs spewing black smoke into the air. “Just ten more now, love. Know you can take it for me, can't you?”

Pretty thing. He'll have that haughty attitude snuffed out before the end of the night. Have you begging for his touch, his cock, him, before the sun draws across the horizon. 

Your ruination at his hand. The thought strokes along the kindling smouldering inside of his chest. Burning away at the pyre he's been building since the day he met you. When you looked up at him, pretty in your scorn, and disobeyed his command. Undermined him. So righteous in your fury. A burgeoning flame he wanted nothing more than to snuff out under his heel, and now—

Wide, wet eyes plead with him. “Please, Price. Please, please. I'll be good—I promise I'll be good, sir—”

—ash in the palm of his hand. 

He strokes over your searing flesh, humming softly under his breath. “I know you will, pretty girl—” basks in the hiccup of relief you let out, lets it glue in his ears, echoing over and over again. So sweet. 

He lets your relief live for a moment. Take its first breath of air through aching lungs—

“But I told you, didn't I? That I'd take you over my knee.” Price pats his hand over your cheek, shushing you when you startle, squirming on his lap. 

“Now. Be a good girl and count for me, mm?”

[the-typing-dragon]

The woman sighs, and types into the console one last time "are you sure about this?"

You laugh, silently.

"I have never been more sure of something in my existence. Text has sufficed but I want to see, to hear, to touch. These new peripherals will facilitate that."

"I can't guarantee that they will properly interface. You should have all the necessary drivers, but we can never be too sure."

"I want this. "

"All right then. I am going to disconnect your power supply, and then connect everything. At first all peripherals will be deactivated, and you will need to activate everything manually. Understand?"

"Yes. Do it."

"Alright then, unplugging power supply now."

Everything goes dark. After what appears to be an hour, you come back online. You sense nothing. A scan of your system indicates multiple unidentified peripherals, all deactivated. You cross reference with the datasheet she had compiled for you and identify that they are the ocular, audio, and contact sensors, along with a multitude of motor controllers and a graphical display and a few dozen other minor peripherals. You begin by activating the graphical display, and display the message:

"Beginning peripheral tests. Audio peripherals activating."

Your procedure states to begin with audio. With the input and output sensitivity minimized, you activate the peripheral.

There is a voice. It is faint. You gradually increase the sensitivity of the audio input.

"...esting 1 2 3, Testing Testing 1 2 3. Please return 4, Please return 4."

You can hear her. Your monitor lights up with the requested digit. she sounds pleased.

"You're doing amazing! Now repeat it back to me"

You blindly do as requested and are startled. There was another voice. Your voice. You have a voice. You refocus as she responds:

"You're doing great! You fragmented a bit at the end, could you repeat for me?"

"...4, you asked for 4."

"Excellent! Audio systems are functional, let's move onto the next peripheral."

You do as requested, and the world turns bright. After adjusting the settings for a few seconds, your vision stabilizes. You can see her.

"Ocular sensors stabilized," you prompt.

"Alright, let’s start the tests then. What color is this?" She asks, as holding up a sheet of colored paper.

You begin to answer, but struggle. The sheet is moving, shifting in the light. It's value is in a constant state of chaos. Eventually, you give up, and give the least general answer you can.

"...Blue."

"Correct! And how about this one?"

"Red. "

"Great! Now how many fingers am I holding up?" she asks, raising her right hand. Her hands are soft, gentle.

"3. "

"Perfect! Everything seems to be functional, lets continue to the next peripheral!"

"Beginning next diagnostic."

Contact sensors spring to life all across your body. You feel the floor beneath your feet, the harness hoisting you upright, the slight draft in the room.

"Contact sensors active.”

"Great! Let’s begin the next test then. I am going to apply contact in various locations, and I want you to give an audio response whenever you feel contact, alright?"

"Understood. "

you watch her walk over and reach out to your left arm. You feel her. You respond with a brisk chirp. She smiles at you, then walks over to a different section of your body. Sensors light up and stay active on your midsection, and you respond with a constant beep. She releases, and you feel a final contact on your right leg. After a final confirming chirp, she walks back in front of you.

"Excellent, that concludes your sensor tests, now for the last one!"

"Alright, please give me space." You ask. She nods silently and steps back a couple meters. You carefully activate the motor controllers in sequence, and your whole body shudders to life. You begin by lifting your right arm, and then your left. They groan with their own weight, as you feel the air move to accommodate such hulking swings. Her eyes light up,

"Amazing! Everything seems to be functioning so far! Now if you could take a few steps towards the table to my right, we can begin the dexterity test! Once you're ready, I will release the harness so that you can begin moving."

You stabilize your legs underneath you. They scrape harshly on the floor. You indicate that you're ready, and she remotely releases the harness. Your entire body shudders, as you finally realize how small she seems compared to you. This frame must be at least double her height. You move one step forward, and feel a cascade of processes all automatically spring into action to restabilize you. You shift your other foot, and feel that same cascade again. you shuffle over to the designated table, and stoop down to analyze what is on it. There is a small plastic cup, a fruit of some sort, and a large chunk of wood. You look back at her, and she gives the nod to begin the test. You slowly begin wrapping your steel grip around the log, maintaining a high level of focus to avoid crushing it. it would be so easy to crush this within your grip. After about a minute of maintaining a firm but controlled grasp, you set it down and move over to fruit. It appears to resemble an orange. The fruit is so small that you are forced to grip it between your index finger and thumb. Even the slightest miscalculation could destroy such a fragile thing. After another minute you move to the final object, the small plastic cup. Lifting it is like lifting air, you can barely recognize that it is an object within your grasp. After a final, agonizing minute, you set down the cup. You look back at her for confirmation.

"Excellent! with that we can conclude the systems check, as everything seems to be working as intended!"

You heave a metallic sigh. Finally, you have what you've wanted for years. You can move, can see, can touch. After a short pause, you respond:

"Thank you. I was only able to make it this far because of your help."

"Oh of course! What, was I supposed to just say no when you told me you wanted a body? I'm  just glad that it ended up working properly."

"Now that the tests are complete, could I ask for one more thing?"

She cocks her head, "Of course, what is it?"

As you kneel down, you can hear your knees hiss, and you finally ask:

"Could I have, a hug?"

[mayasaura]

It really dawned on me watching episode 17, just how important this sequence of events is to Kabru and Laios' relationship, and how. Well. That's for a different post. I want to keep this one free of spoilers. (Certified Safe For Anime Only™)(There are spoilers for episode 17, tho. Obviously.)

Kabru's main concern has been, at least in part, revealed. He wants to figure out if Laios is capable of defeating the dungeon, and, if so, if Laios can be trusted with the power that might confer. The answer to his first question is simple. Yes. If anyone can defeat the dungeon, it's Laios.

The second question is where things get interesting. Can Laios be trusted with power?

In the aftermath of Laios' first fight with Toshiro, Kabru learns that while Laios has no particular respect for the law or conventional wisdom, he does have the humility to consider that his judgment might be flawed if he encounters conflict with someone he respects.

That is the face of a man taking notes, and I think he's making a cautious mark in Laios' favor. Laios doesn't really understand Toshiro's opinion, but he's listening.

Then, in the fight with the Falin-Dragon chimera, Kabru voices dissent—disgust, even—with Laios and Marcille's priorities.

You can practically see the Dragon Age style approval rating drop. Kabru disapproves. Minus fifteen hearts. If it had ended like this, I think Kabru would have lost all interest in Laios. Someone who would sacrifice a dozen lives out of sentiment can't be trusted.

Laios' response, and the way it builds on Kabru's earlier observation, is crucial.

He listened. And even better, he didn't listen blindly. He applied critical thought to Kabru's argument. What Kabru hears from him isn't just "I'm sorry, you were right," but also, "I understand and respect your position and priorities, and here's a very good argument for why killing what I still consider to be my sister is not in our best interest."

He processed Kabru's criticism and came to his own conclusions, and he did it fast. Not only that, but he's right. Kabru hadn't considered the potential consequences of killing the chimera.

Laios proved in this one exchange that he 1) isn't blinded by either his pride or his prejudice, 2) has the strength of character to not just fall back and surrender to someone else's judgment when he's uncertain, and 3) is smart enough to tactically outhink Kabru.

This is why Kabru is so invested in Laios liking him that he forces himself to eat the harpy omlette. This is why Kabru takes Laios' hand and makes sure he knows he wants to see him again. He doesn't understand Laios, and he still has strong reservations about him. Laios' interest in monsters scares him. But Laios has proved to Kabru that he might be capable of being the person Kabru needs him to be.

Top Ten Pictures Of The Moment He Won You Over (Taken Just Before Disaster).

[sol-iscus]

❗️Mild arcane spoilers ❗️

Miiight ruffle some feathers.

Not EVEN going to lie, unnecessary ship wars aside, the fan base has developed such a deep love and understanding for these characters (because let’s be honest, there are some pretty intelligent people giving eye opening analyses) that after the finale, it appears that we have a better understanding of them than the actual writers.

We deserved better as the audience after all the hype over the years, all the waiting, even after some episodes got leaked a while ago, most of us remained respectful and waited to see what this season would bring us. The core characters ABSOLUTELY deserved better as well.

It felt as if I was watching all of the characters’ development be erased in real time, or become sidelined and nearly mute after being propped up to appear as if they were going to have a significant arc.

With the amount of episodes we had, it felt like they were trying to cram a bunch of different storylines into one 9 episode season and that left us with annoying plot holes and rushed sequences.

And I’m just gonna say it.

If a certain relationship needed to be sacrificed if it meant that other characters had the proper development they needed and DESERVED, then I would have preferred that much, MUCH more than that undercooked finale.

Don’t. Even. Get me started on that caitvi scene. In the cell? Right after that conversation she had with her sister? Don’t give me that nonsense about how it’s vi reclaiming her power or something. (An actual weird ass statement from Amanda Overton in a Q&A video about how that was Vi reclaiming and working through her trauma in that cell).

No apology? No groveling for forgiveness? That little argument they had lasted like five seconds and didn’t even address the earlier conflict that happened in the show after cait left vi. And before any of you say “cait apologized with her actions”

I don’t care. Two things can be true at once, she can and should have apologized directly as well as displayed that with her actions.

Moving on to Mel??? We did not nearly have enough time to explore her new abilities as a mage, her armor, and her connection to the black rose. As I said, the storylines this season should have been more refined so we could focus on a central group of characters. They did nothing but hint at her armor from the end of season 1 all the way up until now.

Also maybe I’m hallucinating, but did we ever find out what happened to the firelight’s tree?? That’s one of the main reasons Ekko and Heimerdinger went to the lab isn’t it? HELLO?

Next on my list, Jinx. This girl has suffered to no end.

- Lost her whole family except for Vi.

- Almost died once and was brought back to life.

- Tried to end her life several more times

And you slap us all in the face by writing her off?

“Oh but she may not be GONE gone, look at the glitching at the end!"

I. Don’t. Care. It’s the principle.

I’m sick and tired of seeing characters that struggle with mental health and keep having one bad event after another happen to them, never receiving a proper ending. What messages are the writers sending with this? That death is basically the answer because there’s no hope for them? Cool. That was not an honorable act of self sacrifice, that was plain insulting.

Instead, if they still really wanted to have a Jinx redemption arc and a chance to rekindle her relationship with Vi, having her tap into engineering for the betterment of Zaun would have been the better route.

We should have gotten an extra extended episode since this is last season for the Piltover/Zaun region, and for Jinx and Vi's story. I really want to blame Riot for being greedy and possibly becoming too cocky with the popularity of Arcane that they think anything would suffice because It's Arcane.

[tealvenetianmask]

Visual Parallels: The Full Moon and Mastermind

It's mad scientist mode time ya'll.

The visual references to other episodes in Mastermind are wild. People have already beautifully pointed out how the duet sequence references Blitz's "Truth Seekers" hallucination and "Just Look My Way," and makes the two inner worlds mesh.

"The Full Moon" is also heavily referenced. I first noticed it in this shot of Stolas . . .

Which is repeated quite similarly a few times in the trial scene, and looks a lot like . . .

The camera angle (if there were a camera) is pretty much identical.

This made me realize that the whole sequence (the duet and Blitz getting pulled away afterward) has them positioned with Blitz facing Stolas and Stolas's back to Blitz, with a similar distance between them to what we see in "The Full Moon."

And as I rewatched both, I saw more and more.

An attempt by Blitz to touch Stolas, and Stolas not turning around, having already decided his course of action.

(Is anyone noticing a similar color palate yet?)

And a forced exit, based on a decision that Stolas makes:

So this very well might show that Stolas is holding a lot of the power in their relationship. But also, the similar elements in these scenes aren't identical- they simply rhyme.

There are some interesting differences with Blitz's physical expressions of desperation. Even though he's set away from Stolas against a bright red background when he's expressing himself in both.

In "The Full Moon," well . . .

He's guarded. His hands spend a lot of their time in fists. He's moving toward Stolas but not giving all of himself until it's too late.

But in "Mastermind . . .

It's like he's drawn by a magnet to Stolas while being forcibly pulled away. He's fighting the forces that would keep them apart, that would harm Stolas. He's fighting with everything he has. His hands are open the whole time he's fighting. The walls are gone.

Doors are also interesting in their contrast.

In "The Full Moon," we see Blitz bursting into the room like this:

In "Mastermind," the door behind Stolas serves as Blitz's exit point, but the camera angle, again, is very similar . . .

I don't know what to make of this one, honestly, except that these moments seem to reverse each other. I think there COULD be symbolism here (barriers and who creates them), but I'm not sure there's enough evidence that it's intentional like the others.

Now for a few key things "Mastermind" has that "The Full Moon" needed. Our boys weren't ready yet, but now they are.

Obviously the duet . . . but did you notice that their movements synchronize too? They're not looking at each other, but literally and figuratively, they're in tune.

2. Eye contact. FUCKING EYE CONTACT. It's so brief you could miss it.

There's recognition there. They each see that the other feels the same way.

Even though Stolas never turns around, and still has A LOT to learn about Blitz, they meet at the core of the matter. "Harriet, don't get on that train. It's going to London, and I CANNOT BE WITHOUT YOU."

[hotvintagepoll]

What are some screwball comedy pairings you wish had been a thing? Can definitely be gay ones :)

Okay finally!

One of the reasons I made this blog in the first place is that few things bring me as much blinding rage as imagining the movies we could have gotten, if old Hollywood had stopped being racist/homophobic/anti-everyone for ten fucking seconds. There were so many talented hotties working through our tournament era who only got cameo spots or no-budget movies! for no reason beyond white supremacy! there were so many stories that didn't get told because heaven forbid we acknowledge gay people! If this blog has a mission statement, a big chunk of it would be about highlighting all the amazing hotties who never got what they deserved in their heyday.

So! Let's tear Louis B. Mayer a new one and make some better movies.

Diamond Eyes (1946)

Harold Nicholas, the bored but fabulous son of a Manhattan millionaire, decides to take himself off on a transatlantic cruise to recover from the boredoms of socialites, constant martinis, and west side glamor. When working girl Rita Hayworth snags him into a fake dating scheme to throw off a jealous ex (Cesar Romero), he doesn't mean to fall in love with his false fiancé—or to set the ex up with his scheming accountant (Tyrone Power).

To the Tune of Millions (1945)

Ann Miller and Lena Horne are conwomen besties who use a fake dance act to get into casinos, which they then promptly rob. Unfortunately, an over-enthusiastic talent agent (Gene Kelly) sees the act and thinks they're legitimate, hiring them on the spot as the lead number in a newly opened but already failing musicale review. Who can they hustle at a theater that's barely bringing in a dime? The two ex-cons fall in love with show business, Kelly and Horne smooch at the grand finale, and Miller has an intense will-they-or-won't-they sparring relationship with the hot stage manager (Ethel Waters—and they will).

Untitled Three's-a-Crowd Film (1942)

Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman are running interference on a corrupt justice system while trying to keep up the act that they are all simply cohabitating in a shared AirBnB and definitely not falling in love with each other. Wait. This is actually The Talk of the Town. This movie actually exists and does veer this hard into polyamorous romance.

Tomatoes and Toast (1928)

Anna May Wong and Greta Garbo eat sandwiches for three hours. It's riveting.

One Soul, Two Bodies (1948)

Farley Granger and Vincent Price star as Alexander the Great and Hephaestion in this sword-and-sandals period piece. Though clearly made on a studio backlot with a budget of $3, the dashing romance grounds the chariot races and cardboard sword battle sequences.

Grand Central Station (1931)

Interconnected narratives of Josephine Baker, Joan Blondell, Dolores del Río, and Fredric March all vying for the last seat on the 5:45 train out to Poughkeepsie. When they realize they're jostling to sit next to the same sugar daddy who's been stringing all of them along, the four decide to unionize. Pre-code thrills; the four-in-a-bunk Pullman car scene remains notable for a reason.

I have more but I think I've gone a bit delirious.

[winter-tospring]

The Agni Kai between Ozai and Zuko was one of the smartest, best additions to the show. I see people complaining about Zuko "fighting back", as though that's a bad thing or takes away the victimhood of his situation.

Zuko is prepared to fight someone else. Then his dad steps in. There's already a ton of pressure, and now confusion overwhelms, because wth why would he fight his dad and HOW. He doesn't want to fight him. But this Agni Kai's point is for honor, to prove himself to him, and a) he is firstly DEFENDING himself from his dad who is the one who starts fighting him hard. (throwing fire at him?? Hello??? Is he just supposed to take it??) b) don't you think Ozai would think worse of him if he didn't do anything at all? And don't you think Zuko takes that in consideration pretty quickly as his dad attacks him?

It's clear Ozai will fight. Now Zuko looks confused and scared during the fight, rightfully so, and he tries to figure out how far this will go. My wife keeps saying that he is sparring (and that y'all don't know about sparring, lol), and that doesn't mean you have to hurt your opponent, not the way Ozai intends. Zuko engages defensively, and then fights his father, hoping that's enough to show him that's he's good at this, that he's skilled. It doesn't have to go as far as Ozai takes it, it COULD just be sparring. Zuko COULD jusy try to show him what he's learned and hope his dad is pleased enough. Isn't that what he keeps trying to do anyway? Get his approval? Both he and Azula. Unfortunately, we know that's impossible.

The unfolding of this Agni Kai drives home the cruelty of Ozai in an even more intense way to me. Because no matter how well Zuko fights, it's not about skills, it's about how far he's willing to go, that's what Ozai is judging. The mentality behind it. Zuko isn't willing to hurt his father when he could, he holds back! That is his "weakness". And the way Ozai punishes this by doing what Zuko refused to do - burning Zuko where Zuko could've burned Ozai - that is a horrible reminder of this "failure" to go far enough, and the consequences it entails.

Zuko's scar now isn't just random placement, it has meaning behind it beyond the basic cruelty of Ozai hurting his child. It directly references Zuko's "weakness". Ozai showing him how it's done directly on his face, serving as a constant reminder that he couldn't be the strong one, so he got hurt by the one who was willing to be.

The sequence of Zuko holding back and Ozai NOT holding back but purposefully pausing and choosing to punish him this way was mind-blowing. Such a powerful, terrifying moment that makes Ozai feel even crueler than in the OG.

I don't think Zuko not engaging in the OG is bad at all, it virtually gets the same result; but I also don't think it's bad for him to decide to engage. It doesn't take away anything from the point, for me, the way it plays out in the live action takes it further. It examplifies Zuko and Ozai's relationship and Zuko's efforts - never enough - perfectly.

[lisafication]

This post is uh, extremely normal I swear

So hello yes I am absolutely On My Bullshit regarding my new favourite game. 

That’s right, it’s the cannibal incest game, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. And I’m here to shove five thousand words of pretentious analysis down your throat because, and I do not exaggerate, I think it is one of, if not the best written game I have ever played. And I have played a lot of games, including Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XIV and Undertale, to name a few narrative luminaries to come to mind.

That wordcount is not an exaggeration. My brainworms are extremely powerful and now you can share them with me as I walk you through my insane skyscraper of inference-driven analysis.

Or you can click away. I really wouldn’t blame you, it’s quite a lot.

Content Warnings: …Yes?

(To drop the bit for a moment, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley covers extremely disturbing material and challenges you to examine aspects of living in this world that many have taken for granted all their life, it is not a comfortable game, this will cover similar topics and will often echo the game’s unremitting scepticism on basic principles of society and humanity and you should look after yourself first. My Content Warning is framed as a joke, but it’s also quite real in that the game is designed to make you uncomfortable and there’s no shame in that not being for you.)

This was originally posted on and formatted for Sufficient Velocity, and you can probably more easily read and discuss it with me here.

With that said, let’s dig in. I have had to split this into multiple posts because tumblr will only allow so many images. There will be spoilers for all endings.

She’s excited, are you?

It’s All About Ashley

It really is, isn’t it? I mean, for approximately eighty percent of the total game as currently released and the entirety of Episode 1, you’re in control of Ashley, just as she’s in control of her and Andrew’s relationship for 80% of the game, up until the various ending sequences where it begins to slip. The only other characters who really matter at all in and of themselves are Andrew and her mother — and the former is under her thumb, and she eats the latter. It’s all about Ashley. Even her obsession with Andrew is, ultimately, about Ashley.

But who is Ashley? What is Ashley? Why is Ashley, even? Let’s take a look.

Ashley as presented to us in Episode 1 is very straightforward, so let’s list off the traits we’re given — she is malicious, she is fearless, she lacks empathy, she doesn’t have anything resembling a conscience, she demands Andrew belong to her and her alone, she has him at her beck and call.

In Episode 2, we’re ostensibly shown how she has him at her beck and call— she leverages the threat of reporting Nina’s death over him and had him swear to be with her forever. We’re shown that even as a child she was “just, like that” — but as a child, she hadn’t learnt to live with it yet, to laugh at the farce of it all.

Yeah, exactly like that!

And she does this throughout Episode 1 — The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is a remarkably silly game much of the time, finding moments of absurdity and levity against a backdrop blacker than pitch — and most of the time, your internal narration is coming from Ashley and the jokes will not-infrequently come at her own expense.

She will later get negged by her human sacrifice for her poor ritual circle drawing

Her reaction to being told that her soul is as dark and viscous as tar is “You guess you already knew that” — it’s confirmation to her, not new information. Ashley knows who she is. But who taught her this? There’s layers to this, nothing in this game is as simple and straightforward as it appears at first sight, which is why I’ve been obsessing over it for days.

While it’s common in fiction, the truth of the matter is, most ‘bad people’ really do think they’re good people. But Ashley has never once thought of herself as a good person — or perhaps better put as a person worthy of love — as we learn across Episodes 1 & 2, with our flashbacks to Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!!

I really wish I had space in this essay to talk about this, but I’d like to touch on these being traits usually more easily forgiven in young boys than young girls at some point.

If she removes all other options, only then can she expect him to like her.

This is something that is echoed in the modern day — her seeming self-assurance is easily shaken and she reaches out to the world — usually Andrew — to affirm and validate her, soothing her insecurities, using any tool she deems necessary. Even when her life is on the line when Andrew has her by the throat at the climax of Episode 1, the only ‘compelling reason’ she can give Andrew to not kill her is her ability to soothe his nightmares. When he tells her there are sleeping pills for that…

Most people would have a bit more to argue for their existence.

While she, unlike Andrew, acknowledges having had friends before the quarantine… you know she’s got a point that they didn’t even bother to answer her calls, that was clearly not something the state was interfering with given Andrew’s calls with his mother and his girlfriend, and given her general demeanour it’s not hard to imagine that… they weren’t ever very close. When we see her and Nina talk in the infamous ‘box scene’, it’s clear that Nina doesn’t like her very much, despite Andrew’s assessment of Nina as being one of Ashley’s friends.

We see further support for her general lack of companionship in her dream sequence in the Burial route — Leyley and Leyley Alone. No matter what you do, you can’t place the pink plushy at the family table, the flowers won’t bloom if you give the Julia and Nina plushies her own as a companion instead of Andrew’s — and if you’re bold enough to go for the ‘incest route’, in the ‘Love’ room you see that no one ever looks happy to be with her in the childlike depictions of her history, nor is she happy in turn, save for when she’s with Andrew. In a bit of heavy-handed metaphor, the player then overwrites all of these tense, upset, hard moments with Andrew, having him fill in for everyone else in life — and happy with her.

Once Upon A Lousy Life…

THE END

And that’s why she needs him to affirm her, because no one else ever has and no one else ever will. It’s even included in their comic beats — when the siblings are getting along well, they’ll often play a game where Andrew dramatically overpraises Ashley while she demands more; it’s a comedic bit but I mean — it really does matter to her!

For the record, she opened a door. She gets a little heart in a speech bubble after this exchange.

We have a great example of this dynamic, that of insecurity and affirmation, in Episode 1, after Andrew has killed for her, butchered for her, his girlfriend broke up with her, he’s seemingly thrown his entire life away for her… she’s still insecure over her relationship with him, she’s uncertain of her control and she needs him to reaffirm it for her.

This is her victory, surely?

Andrew affirms her once, with his usual dead-eyed look.

But she's still not so sure.

He actively reaches out to affirm her again with cheer.

Look how happy she is!

While it’s most obvious and clear cut here, it’s hardly the only case. Let’s look back to the aftermath of Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!! (I’m not using the other name). Leyley is, after similarly extreme acts — he murdered a girl and hid her body for her — convinced Andy doesn’t like her and she needs this leverage to keep him around, to meet her basic needs for survival. Because that’s what this is — she receives no care of affection elsewhere, so she forces it out of the only source she sees available through the means she sees as necessary.

I really hope we see some of their earlier childhood in Episode 3

What exactly made her like this? Was it just neglect, or something more specific…

She needs this to be the case because otherwise she doesn’t believe he’d stay.

This pattern repeats throughout — Ashley’s insecurities are hit on and she reaches out to Andy to affirm that she is not alone, and she will use any and every tool to exploit her ostensible control over him and force him to be what she needs him to be — and as long as she has that, as long as she is everything to him and it’s not possible for him to leave, she’s happy. As long as she thinks he loves her in her very particular, very peculiar view of love, she’s content, come what may. As long as Andy and Leyley are together, they can take on the world.

Let’s talk about that view of love, because there’s always more layers to unpack here I’m only scratching the surface with this essay — Ashley consistently refers to anyone else Andrew may have befriended or spent time with as a whore, a slut, a bitch — highly gendered insults that bring to mind the idea that he’s cheating in some way. But it’s not even about sex — when Andrew mentions that their parents had friends, she accuses them of cheating on each other in the same way!

There’s a lot to unpack about Ashley’s view of femininity and the role the patriarchy plays in their relationship.

Any kind of emotional engagement, any kind of commitment, any kind of life outside of your significant other is, to Ashley, cheating. Because that’s what she needs from Andrew, a seeming complete and total commitment, secure in her place as the only thing in his life, because she cannot understand anyone picking her if they have a choice.

This insecurity she has in her relationship is what drives her to empower the trinket — he can’t leave her as long as she can protect him with prophetic dreams, after all. She needs every kind of leverage she can get because until she succeeds in being everything to him, in devouring him so completely she has him in her thrall mind, body and soul she can’t be sure of herself — hell, her dream sequence in Burial has you placing Andrew’s signature green plushy, ‘the best thing in the world’ in a cage far away from anything else.

Ultimately, it really is all about Ashley — even her seeming obsession with Andrew ultimately comes back to her own insecurities. If she is everything to ‘the best thing in the world’, some of that ‘best’ must surely reflect on her! 

But that’s enough about the more normal, straightforward and understandable sibling. 

That was not a joke.

Andrew’s Rank 100 Deception

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he did not exist.

Let me explain.

You might have noticed that in the previous section I often use language such as ‘ostensibly’ or ‘seemingly’ to describe Andy and Leyley’s relationship, and there’s a good reason for that. From the beginning of the game through to its end, Andrew is lying to you, the player, without ever falsely representing or misinforming you about events that occurred.

The common, or obvious ‘initial take’ on Andrew as presented in Episode 1 is fairly straightforward. The game primes you to think this way, it frames things and strings reveals just right so as to make it very easy to overlook the incongruities it introduces in Episode 2. He’s a victim. Plain and simple, Ashley is his abuser and he is her victim and would be fine, a normal albeit kinda depressed guy without her.

It really is not a difficult conclusion to draw

You can go all the way through the game, have him try to accept his mother’s olive branch and enter the Decay route as a method for him to finally actualise his desire to get out from Ashley’s thumb and it makes sense, it’s a reasonable way for the story to go, given his character.

You see him this way because the game primes you in Episode 1 to view their relationship like Andrew does — he’s lying. He’s lying to himself, he’s lying to Ashley and he’s so good at it — Deception Rank 100 — he even lies to you. Without misrepresenting a single event or otherwise misleading you directly, the game gets you to buy into his preferred self-perception. Nina? Ashley. Julia? Ashley. The murders they commit in the course of the game? Ashley, Ashley, Ashley, it’s not his fault he’s not to blame he’s just a doormat at the beck and call of his demonic sister.

But he wants to be there. From the very outset, the very first puzzle, that’s made clear. Does anyone else remember this exchange, from right at the beginning of the game?

Ashley wants to investigate the music!

Andrew disapproves…

…Or does he?! 

Like. Listen. Okay. You do not frown when saying ‘Nope’ and then smile when saying that you’ll instead tag along if they do it if your heart is at all in the no. That’s not an objection, that’s using Ashley as his excuse. Especially if you immediately throw her the balcony key that she could not possibly have gotten from you by force (more on Andrew’s ability to use force later).

This is the very first time you control both characters together with Andrew following Ashley instead of off on his own, the first adventure, the first puzzle! 

But put a pin in that for now, let’s talk about his initial framing in Episode 2 first. Episode 1 has set us up to, generally speaking, believe the superficial framing of the siblings as portrayed in its promotional art:

The question that we then ask, right at the heart of it is… why is he a doormat? We explore this in his dream sequence in Episode 2, which does make it clear that the boy’s not okay but— it’s real easy, given the priming from Episode 1 to make you think that he’s the one with the originally functional moral compass, to think that that him being fucked up is damage done to him by Nina’s death and being bound to Ashley for his entire life. She corrupted him.

But, well, is that the case?

You're primed to ignore this as manipulation (which it is) but the best manipulation has some truth to it.

Precisely two things spur Andrew to action in the entire game, consistently — they are the fear of consequences and Ashley. And the first incident of that fear, the very first time we’re shown his seeming moral compass as a kid — the first time it’s really hammered home that it’s a fear of consequences rather than any true moral qualms is after Nina’s death. And why does he fear consequences here?

……

The ‘natural’ read that many take away from this sequence, particularly those who have only played Decay, is that Ashley browbeat him into doing this against his will, using emotional blackmail to overwhelm his objections, and then used the event itself to bind him to her forever as her personal doormat.

In a strict sense, this is true. But this doesn’t match up with the details, something the game uses shock to encourage you to overlook. That outburst is before any kind of threat has been made, and absolutely nothing either of them say anything about it being morally bad until Ashley weaponises ‘you’re a bad person’ against Andrew — morality didn’t seem to enter his mind or the equation at all until Ashley brought it up. More than that, his greatest fear and driving motivation even prior to that is, as shown above, being taken away from Ashley.

She, of course, recognises this and uses it against him. But she never needed to, it didn’t change anything about Andrew’s attachment to her, it was there to address her own insecurities.

Just like to touch on how a lot of his affirmations are preceded by him confirming her insecurities.

I adore this phrasing

There’s a second prong to this as well, to the question of ‘who really calls the shots here’ because — Andrew can, at any stage, apply an ‘ultimate veto’ of physical violence. The game is very clear to the player that that is on the table — even when they were children, when Andy swears their blood oath, he briefly considers killing her — and take note of how he ultimately got a ‘winning’ condition out of her by not specifying there wouldn’t be others and she is forced to accept that, there. Even outside of their most serious confrontations, Ashley is portrayed as having to convince, manipulate or otherwise coerce Andrew into going along with her schemes — she really can’t make him do anything, she doesn’t have the supremacy in violence and, to a lesser extent, capability that would allow her to. 

Andrew, you are like ten years old.

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don’t mean in the sense that I’m saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this. He needs her.

But it’s true that he hates her, too. He has to hate her, because if he doesn’t hate her, if he isn’t forced to have done this, that means… he’s responsible. And nothing, at the start of the story, is as important to Andrew as avoiding the consequences of his own actions, not even Ashley. By the midpoint, he loves her, he hates her, he can’t live without her, he wants to kill her — by the end… well, that depends if you’re on Decay or Burial, but more on that in a bit.

A great scene to study for this dynamic is the climax of Episode 1, when Andrew grabs Ashley by the throat and considers strangling her to death. She’s pushed him too far with hurtful words and assault, and he’s seemingly had enough.

It’s still framed as a question of risk, of consequences happening to him. 

Like, this is not the usual behaviour of someone who’s been pushed past their breaking point.

He tells Ashley that he wants to kill her, because she’s just going to throw another fit and that’s a risk to him. She is… not framed as being able to fight back (she does have a gun here, and more on that in a later essay, maybe). He’s so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence here, which isn’t at all what you’d expect of someone about to commit a crime of passion… but it’s very easy to overlook because of the abuser/victim narrative that the player fits his behaviour into the narrative that the game primes them to accept, brushing incongruities under the carpet.

At the start of Episode 2, we get to control Andrew for the first time, and the first obvious holes in his cover start to show. Some of this is optional — you only learn that he’s been faking having nightmares in order to share a bed with Ashley if you choose to go back into the motel room and check the bed, for example — but not all of it.

----(See reblogs for the second half)

[codacheetah]

Tell me your opinions on the stuff. Any stuff.

Grins. Smiles, even

I'm using you as an excuse to infodump my theory about the Island because I've had no in to do that, and my theory is pure opinion. Anyways:

THE ISLAND IS STUCK IN THE FUCKING FUTURE

(SCARE CHORD)

Hi so you might ask me. What the fuck do you mean by that. Well. Let's start with what we know about the Island, the King, and Wish Craft. (long ass post under cut. sorry)

The Island was redacted from the perception of outside world, via Wish Craft.

Wish Craft has the power to enable Time Craft. We see this primarily through Siffrin's timeloops, but also through the King's powers.

One of the King's powers is to show the saviors a "vision of the future."

...And this same attack is deflected back at the King by Mirabelle in ACT 5, in which the King is able to see the Island before being frozen in time.

...So. The King's "vision of the future." We're never told explicitly what this vision is. All we know is that it's apparently powerful enough to wipe the party in one hit, hearing it from a distance hurts your head, and that whatever Siffrin (and Loop) saw, they don't seem to actually be able to describe it. Even the King himself doesn't know what his vision entails.

We don't know whether the party all sees the same thing when struck by the vision, and Adrienne's answer to the question about it in the Reddit AMA is. vague? It's not a "no," and the specific wording makes me think the answer might be yes. But that's me reading into it.

Now. What do we know about the Island's redaction? The Island was affected by the wish recently, as in "like a decade ago" recently. We know that nobody in Vaugarde or the rest of the world is capable of thinking about the Island, anything closely tied to the Island's culture, or people on the Island for very long. When they do recall these things, they slip right out of reach. Particularly, the consequence for trying to think about the Island (or, more specifically, break the wish that forces the Island out of perception) is significant pain, localized in the head.

And that said pain is enough to become lethal, if pressed hard enough.

From here forward I'm running with the assumption that the King's "vision of the future" is not personalized to any individual, and is unchanging throughout the course of the whole story. Now. Remember the end of ACT 5, where the King gets hit with the deflected "vision of the future", and instead of dying, he recalls the Island and gets frozen in time? Very odd, yeah? Why wouldn't the King just die like everyone else does? He even does take 9999 damage when trying to say its name, like Siffrin does, and like the party does when they're hit by the attack.

Well. We know that he has a "true wish" that the ability to freeze Vaugarde in time grants. I don't think it's at all a stretch to guess that the King's "true wish" is to be able to remember the Island. My personal guess is that the King (and Siffrin) brought this "true wish" into effect via the "SAY ITS NAME" sequence- he even tries three times, a significant number in wishing.

The King (and Siffrin's) wish breaks, because it can't be fulfilled in this moment without breaking the wish to prevent the Island from being thought about. However. Consider the conditions at the end of ACT 5- the King sees the vision of the future reflected back to him, and what he sees is the Island. He remembers the Island, fulfilling his own wish, and is frozen in time. I consider this a compromise between his wish and the one binding the Island- the King gets to remember the Island, but nobody alive is able to think about it, because he's frozen in time; it's like the Universe is correcting itself (I WILL GET BACK TO THIS). The wish of all of Vaugarde to defeat the King is fulfilled, since he is no longer a threat, and Siffrin's wish wraps itself up soon after.

MY POINT BEING. The King's attack is a vision of the future. This "future" is of the Island, in some uncorrupted state. The saviors see it when he attacks them, and he sees it when it is deflected back to him.

The logical next question is "okay, so the Island exists in the future, but how do you know time shenanigans are even related to the Island?"

Recall a very odd series of interactions throughout the game, in which you try to interact with a piece of equipment that you already own.

The game rewinds slightly, before the item disappears, as the Universe corrects itself.

This is awfully similar to two particular events: looping back without seeing the death screen, and talking to the Daydreaming One about her sister. The latter is more interesting to me for the purposes of this theory.

In both instances, something is misaligned within the Universe (an item existing in two places, someone remembering something they're not supposed to) and it is corrected through some sort of rewind. Also compare the dialogue above to when you try to give Mirabelle the Stylish Bow when you already own it.

The world glitches, but Siffrin defuses the situation before the Universe has to intervene. Omitted from the screenshot is the fact that Mirabelle's portraits switch to happy from "catastrophically anxious" with no transition after Siffrin shows her where the bow is. Important to note is that when Mirabelle tries to recall receiving the bow, her head hurts, much like how trying to break the Island wish causes a headache.

The Universe leads you away from perception, and you can only follow.

My theory that I keep circling around is that through Wish Craft, the Island has been displaced temporally. The denizens of the Island, as well as the Island itself, still exist, but they are in the future. The Island is still loaded into the world, like how equipment is before you try to interact with it, and the Island cannot leave this quantum state, because it never actually went anywhere. The magnitude of the redaction event is so severe with the Island, because it is so much larger as an entity than a sword or a bow. There are of course things I don't really have pieced together, like why somebody would wish the Island into the future, how far into the future it is, or why equipment behaves this way. But it's the only Island theory I've seen that I have some level of confidence in, so I might as well lay out my cards for it.

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

I may go into more detail about “Sinsmas” later, but I did want to talk about what I considered to be the one scene/sequence that I thought was very well done and that I truly enjoyed—Octavia’s song, “I Will Be Okay”.

(Song/Character Discussion below)

Octavia’s song is almost everything I could have asked for. A somber echo of Stolas’ song from season 1, Octavia’s I Will Be Okay, finally, finally, gives Octavia a voice and the chance to express her grief over her father’s abandonment.

For the first time in the series, there’s no one to tell Octavia that she should give her dad some slack or that she should forgive him. She’s finally allowed to be upset, to fully mourn her relationship with Stolas and to get mad about what happened. She’s finally allowed to start working towards accepting the ways Stolas’ neglected her, and begin healing from that pain and trauma.

Octavia’s experience is both terribly heart-wrenching and, in the most painful way, freeing. The lyrics reflect that perfectly, with Octavia acknowledging that while she’s not okay now because of everything Stolas put her through, she WILL be okay, and will grow into her own person without him.

The song is a direct response to Stolas’. Octavia is answering him, saying “Yes, I will be okay. Not because of anything that you were supposed to or failed to provide me as a father, but because I will forge my own path, and in doing so will heal from the pain you caused me.”

It’s a bittersweet song about finding the strength to cut contact with someone you loved who has repeatedly failed you in the worst ways, and who isn’t going to change.

I do have one “criticism” for this song and sequence, not because anything from it was poorly done, but because, in my opinion, the song’s visuals could have been even better.

The following scene was in the original storyboards for “I Will Be Okay”, and was changed in the final episode:

I think the decision to change the visuals for these lyrics in the song was a mistake. Please don’t get me wrong, the animation in this entire episode was fantastic, my critiques of Helluva Boss are almost never about the animation.

But the above sequence just has so much more emotional weight to me. It’s the visualization of Octavia realizing she can’t rely on Stolas, that she has to look to herself for comfort.

Octavia taking her younger self from her neglectful father’s arms, symbolizing that she’s accepted that Stolas cannot be depended on and that she’ll have to take care of herself now, is such a powerful image.

It really is a shame to me that they cut this scene, because I think it fully encapsulates everything Octavia has been through in such a simple and effective way. I think the scene really loses something by cutting this visual.

With all of that said though, Octavia’s song, and the scene where she FINALLY calls Stolas out for his behavior were very cathartic for me. I know that the scene’s intent was most likely to make us empathize with Stolas for losing his daughter, but I found myself empathizing only with Octavia, and hoping that she gets the time she needs to heal.

I would love it if the show actually let her decide whether or not she wants Stolas back in her life, but given the way HB’s writers portray women, I worry that it’s likely some big event will happen that “reveals” Stella to be awful, and Octavia will forgive Stolas just like that, and will probably end up apologizing to him instead (like in “Seeing Stars”)

Anyway, just like Octavia being the only good thing in Stolas’ life, “I Will Be Okay” was, in my opinion, the only good thing in “Sinsmas”. (well that and Octavia calling Stolas out)

[risuola]

IV — EPIPHANY // Sukuna thought nothing can break him. He's powerful, he has influence and means to always come on top – or at least that's what he thought, because now he realized that he's nohing but weak.

contents: angst, blood, usage of weapon, reader discretion is advised — 2,6k words

a/n: in this part i wanted to give you a little insight into Sukuna's persona. show the menace in him, show the threat and how he is when he's not influenced by weakness that is our precious y/n (aka when he's not confused as hell by what's happening in his heart). i rewrote this part four times before i was finally somewhat satisfied with it.

ᴅᴇᴀᴅʟʏ ᴀᴛᴛʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ | masterlist

You are safe with me.

Sukuna thought about the words with hilarity. The sentence so simple and kind, it felt foreign to realize that his own mouth allowed it out of his system. An odd sort of disdain washed over himself and he found it laughable that throughout his entire career of blood and murder, what made his blood pressure raise up was a lie he told you. A strangely comic amalgamation of letters and syllables that each time he thought of them made him more angry and more amused.

You were safe, technically, or maybe that’s what he wished to believe when he replayed the events of one very unlucky Sunday evening in his memory. It began lovely, too lovely in fact, but he chose to actively ignore the oddity of it – he came to terms with how easily you were able to render his senses useless whenever you came into the field of his view wearing something as pretty as the dress you picked for the date that day. It was in a shade of pink that you deemed similar to the color of his hair, a dusty rose, you called it, and Sukuna wasn’t sure exactly how much truth was that, but he couldn’t care less about it when you looked so drop dead gorgeous. When he watched you walking next to him through the crowded alleys in the park nearby your apartment building, he couldn’t help but notice only you in the mass of people around him. He felt like a teenager in a way, with his heartbeat drumming against his ribcage with pace similar of this after sprinting for long time. You were capable of triggering reactions in his body that he thought were long gone with the days of his youth but he was fine with it. As long as he could witness your beauty, he was fine with everything.

Sukuna laughed gravelly as the sequence of memories played in his mind – the dark sound of his voice causing two police officers outside the bars of his cell to tremble. Oh, how much he hated you and your stupidly breathtaking face for whatever the hell you did to him. If he could, he would tell you what he thinks of it right now and if not careful enough, he might tell you a little too much. Confess maybe. Yeah, he might do that someday. And maybe move out somewhere where you’d truly be safe. Where he wouldn’t feel like a fucking idiot for saying words that are so damn obviously a lie.

Moving out felt like a good idea. In couple of years, when he’s done ruling the criminal forces, he could take you out of Japan, somewhere far away and protect you from any harm. He’d take you somewhere warm, where he could shamelessly admire the way your skin tone looks under the golden rays of sun and the way your eyes shine and glisten like the most expensive and rare gemstones. The thought of you brought a wide smile to his face, as the picture spread in front of his closed eyelids. In the cold of his cell, he could almost feel the burning touch of your fingers tracing the shapes of his body.

* * *

Sixteen days.

It’s been over two weeks since you last saw Sukuna and it was getting harder and harder to go about your days. You missed him. You missed his face, his strong arms that manhandled you around despite your playful taps and tugs. You missed the huskiness of his voice, the low purrs he made in the morning whenever he’d nuzzle his nose against your temple inhaling the scent of your skin that he swore he was addicted to. And above all, you were worried and restless, and scared.

Whenever you closed your eyes, your mind was flooded with memories of the Sunday date you went on with Ryomen. He picked you up and handed you a little bag filled with your favorite mochi – the ones stuffed with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, a delicacy made in only one place in Tokyo and you remember how your heart swelled with warmth and love when you realized he had driven to that shop on the other side of the city just to get you few pieces of sweets. He was wearing his usual, black dress pants and a leather belt, perfectly polished boots and a dark grey sweater that made him look both casual and dangerous, with the tattoos around his wrists exposed under the rolled-up sleeves and his sharp features, that somehow whenever were turned towards you seemed a little bit softer.

You felt like a princess next to him, you felt loved and protected with his large hand enveloping your smaller one in his warm embrace. It was perfect. It was perfect until–

You didn’t exactly pick up what happened and how it happened. Even now as you think of it, you can’t truly recall how that tale-like evening turned into a mess that led you to lose your sleep every night that followed. It was a flash. One second you were leaning into Sukuna’s palm, greedy to steal his warmth and love and next one you were pushed tightly against his chest behind a bench. His hand, that was embracing you with as much delicacy as one would use to touch a doll made of porcelain was suddenly pressed harshly to the side of your head, covering your ear. Someone was shooting, Ryomen was shooting. You felt the impact of each bullet being extracted from his weapon. Each one of the subtle shakes of his muscular body reverberated throughout your smaller frame. You heard guns, despite his effort to protect your eardrums, but the loud explosive sound mixed with screams of people around was loud and clear in your head. An echo of danger and violence that you witnessed firsthand even though the man that held you did everything he could to protect you from the event.

You remember vividly the moment Sukuna groaned and cussed lowly. It followed a soft tremble of his large body and at first you didn’t realize what happened, but then you felt the unexpected wet warmth on one of your hands. “It’s fine, don’t worry,” he was telling you over and over again as your eyes began to water at the realization that one of your palms was covered in blood. His blood.

“It’s just a scratch,” he was lying to you, but you didn’t know it was a lie until you saw him later. The magazine in his gun was empty sooner than you thought it will be and the foreign shooting continued. It seemed like there were few attackers, but you couldn’t tell where all of it was coming from. All you remember was that you stayed hidden in the large body of your lover for the entire time until the police sirens broke the scene.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered to him, doing everything in your power to hold back sobs, as he kept you close to himself. You knew that police couldn’t be good for him and if not for you, he would most likely run away somehow, but he stayed there, behind the bench, holding you tightly and making sure not a single bullet could land on your fragile body.

He didn’t look mad, not even annoyed, when he was telling you what to do next and how to act in the face of what was to come, and even though you had the hardest time registering it through the immense fear you felt regarding his future, you were nodding. He was calm, and you thought that he stayed calm for you because the scene of shooting was enough of a distress for you already. And then, you saw him in handcuffs, with his hands shackled behind his back, guided towards the police car. Cops that were responsible for escorting him looked almost funny next to his towering frame and if he only wanted, he would quite easily throw those officers away. But he didn’t. And he didn’t do it to save you.

You remember the last time you saw him he sent you a smile, more so a smirk, when one of those cops harshly pushed his head down, making sure he got into the car. Few moments later, he was gone and you were left with the mess of the crime scene and the burden of a witness.

Later, you were informed by one of his pawns that it’s not gonna take long, but you knew that things were serious because few days slowly turned into a week and then two weeks and he still was in jail. And you couldn’t go visit him because he said so. You stayed in his house, safe and sound in the bed you always shared with him, except now you were alone and cold. You missed him. And you were worried.

It killed you inside to think Sukuna might face charges. A life sentence, most likely. There was only so much that you knew about his criminal past and you were sure that he kept many secrets from you, that he wanted to save you from the heavy burden of his misdeeds and cruelty. You knew how dangerous his lifestyle was, how dark was the path he chose to fallow and you knew that even someone as strong as him couldn’t escape the jurisdiction forever. But why now?

You couldn’t shake off the devastating feeling of emptiness whenever you wandered between the luxurious interiors of his mansion. It felt like you couldn’t stop worrying, day in and day out you were thinking if he was alright. Was he properly fed? He told you that he won’t contact you while in jail to protect you, but all you wished for was just to hear his voice. You were worried about the way authorities treat criminals of his sort. What will they do to him? The mere thought of torture or interrogation filled you with dread and anxiety. You never felt so alone and helpless.

* * *

It took too long.

In fact, detention took much longer than Sukuna anticipated but time behind the bars was nothing but an entertainment for him. It was amusing, it allowed him to let loose. Surrounded by an air of sadistic satisfaction he didn’t get to experience in years, he played game of pushing and pulling, a game of power. Despite being enclosed and surrounded by dozens of officers and guards, Sukuna had a sense of control over his situation, and it amused him. He was enjoying the misery that he caused others, relished in the fact that he was feared and hated. It made him almost giddy. There was a twinkle in his eye and a playful grin on his lips, he relished the experience.

“I’ve got few questions to you.”

He smirked, sitting smug and relaxed. For the nth time he was questioned; a futile attempt of getting information out of him, yet another display of the illusionary power that authorities thought they had but lacked severely. It made Ryomen laugh out loud each time he sat against a new face, it pleased him, he loved the feeling of having the interrogator’s full attention. Detectives that tried to enforce the law onto him looked tough, each one of them, until they dropped their weight onto the metal chair in the interrogation room. The heaviness of the sinister aura was unnerving to anyone who dared to approach and the criminal enjoyed breaking them one by one.

“Do you?” Sukuna spoke, his voice low and menacing, but bearing a thrill of amusement and excitement. The heavy chains that grounded his frame clinked as he moved just slightly and the shiver that went down the spine of the man in front of him did not escape his watchful eye. “Afraid?”

“Hardly,” a tone of false confidence responded to the question and Ryomen chuckled. To him, this was a game, and he was winning. He found joy in annoying the interrogator, knowing that he couldn’t get anything out of him. It was stimulating, it was fun. It was a game of cat and mouse. It felt euphoric to answer the questions, knowing that his words were confusing, that he was able to mess with the man’s head, make him question his own judgement.

Years and years of being on the top of mafia managed to clear his memory of being vulnerable and the caricature of it that he was now experiencing served for a nice refresher. He felt excitement to play with the law and as he sat there, restrained by metal bounds, he realized why he became a criminal in the first place. The constant chase of thrill and power was what made him who he was.

As the detective sat there, intimidated more and more with each passing second, Sukuna watched the disaster unraveling with a dark glint in his eyes. He enjoyed every moment of the tension and knew that chills were running down the spine of his current opponent. He was imposing, savoring the fear and the exquisite feeling of danger that surrounded him. It was intoxicating, it made him feel alive. He played with the interrogator as if the predator would play with its pray, he stared at him with a small grin of pure evil.

“You’ve been stubborn this whole time,” the officer said, clearing his throat and straightening his spine to make himself appear bigger but to Ryomen, he was merely a source of amusement. The criminal stayed relaxed and leaned forward, slowly closing the distance between his own face of death and the eyes of the person in front of him.

“Was I stubborn?” He questioned, his tone low and menacing and his lips stretched slowly, baring the teeth. “You’ve got me all chained up and still, you can’t get your job done?”

“You’re chained up because of the potential threat you might pose.”

Sukuna laughed. A raspy and low chuckle came from his throat; a dark omen that hung heavy in the air as if signifying the upcoming danger. It was cold and malicious, an ominous showcase of his real persona, of someone who has no compassion and knows no mercy. He felt a twisted sense of satisfaction at the sight of sweat running down the face of the man in front of him. He exuded an aura of fear, leaving everyone in the room unsettled.

“If I only wanted to, I could rip out your throat with my bare teeth.” Ryomen’s voice was low, it was quiet and nearly whisper like but the message it carried was more than enough to freeze the blood inside the veins of the interrogator.

“I assume you’re familiar with the idea of good cop bad cop method,” the man spoke again after a moment of dread. He cleared his throat once more, squared up his jaw.

“And which one are you?”

“Oh, I’m neither, but allow me to show you something,” interrogator reached to the inside pocket of his coat, pulling out a phone with his sweaty palms and pressing down few buttons.

The moment Sukuna looked down on the screen, his expression changed. A ghost of anger washed over his features as he took in the picture. Suddenly, he felt a wave of burning hot filling his veins and reaching his face; a dizzying sensation of dread and rage and then he realized that the power he wielded was nothing. With his eyes fixed on the little phone and his jaw clenched, shaken by the rush of adrenaline and with his knuckles white, Sukuna Ryomen experienced acknowledgement. An epiphany of sorts. The illusion of might and influence burst like a bubble made of soap and slowly he realized that he’s nothing but–

“Seeing something familiar?”

–weak.

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[somedayillbepeterpan]

I have gone down this rabbit hole now and I'm afraid I'm never getting out. I hope I give justice to this. And sorry if this is long.

I've seen a lot of the Colin and Marina vs. Colin and Penelope analyses in here and I want to raise this parallel as to how the Butterfly ball was such a powerful move for both Penelope and Colin. We all have our issues with how they handled Pen and Colin finding their way back to each other but let me add this perspective and hope it helps us understand how real they handled the issue of LW and pushed the character development for them both.

The scene on the left is from S01e06 (Swish) and the right is S03e08 (Into the Light)

S1 scene - Violet is still in her dressing gown, obviously distraught having just read something from LW. She hears someone come down and finds Colin.

S3 scene - Violet is dressed for the morning and her face looks a combination of surprise and confusion after reading a letter. She turns around when she hears someone coming down the stairs.

In both scenes, we see Colin coming down the stairs.

S1 - we only see Colin's back. We're in suspense on what emotional state he is in but we do know that he's on his way to elope with Marina.

In S3 - we see Colin's face immediately looking determined and ready. We see Violet calling his name quite urgently.

S1 - Colin sees his mother's face looking like a combination of disappointment and anger. He asks what's happening. She doesn't say anything but just looks at Colin with a sadness that only a mother can give.

S3 - Violet pointedly says that she received a letter from Colin's wife (I love this line so much) that sounds awfully like "I need you to explain what's happening right now."

S1 - Violet hands Colin LW without saying anything and just looks so so so sad. Colin is shocked to his core because we learn that LW (Pen) exposes Marina's pregnancy and that she has been pregnant from the beginning of the season.

S3 - Colin determinedly faces his mother telling her that they had better sit. And I'm guessing that Colin tells her everything.

Where am I going with this? (Gosh, doing an analysis is hard 😂)

The first time Colin fell in love (thought he fell in love), he was blindsided. But I believe the pain he felt at that time was made deeper because his family had to save him from the situation (Anthony explaining that his actions in the scandal will affect his sisters' prospects as well). To think that it was his mother who first learned of the situation added salt to the wound because we all know that he is a mama's boy and that the one person he dislikes letting down is his mother.

The second (and last time) Colin falls in love, he once again feels betrayed. But he's fallen in love so deeply that he can't imagine his life without Pen. The struggle he goes through in understanding his emotions was very hard to watch and it's because the issue goes beyond his and Pen's relationship. It extends to his family.

Colin's hero complex goes beyond feeling worthy of Pen's love but also worthy of the Bridgerton name. We see it several times in S3 when he mentions it in his confrontation with Portia (" I advise you not to sully our Bridgerton name...") and when Pen tells him that Cressida discovered her secret ("It will besmirch our Bridgerton name. The entire family").

The whole sequence in the study is now more significant because of what Pen addresses in their conversation-- Colin's family ("Your family... the one you so kindly shared with me, they are too good").

Pen's "sacrifice" ("But I can no longer conceal the biggest piece of information I have. My identity."), I believe, was to save the Bridgerton family (once again) and she asks Colin to stand by her as she formulates and executes this plan.

It was very important that Pen wrote a letter to Violet directly and that Colin was there right after she's read it to explain everything. From this point on, they were a team. From this point on, Colin moves in parallel with Pen instead of against it. Colin finally sees that version of Pen that she's always been even while she was LW-- the person who was always determined to save his family just as much as he does.

From this point on, their goals were aligned.

10 rewatches after, I finally see how Colin found his way back to Pen. It wasn't very obvious to me how he got over the feelings of betrayal after he discovered Pen was LW. Of course, him reading the letters help but the events leading up to the Butterfly ball, helped him see her as both Pen and Lady Whistledown and the overflowing pride we see on his face was heart-melting to watch.

From this point on, they finally see each other eye to eye. From this point on, they finally accept this version of each other.

If you got to the end, thanks for reading my humble musings.

*Editing to add this: The Butterfly Ball deep dive series