#there are so many more dynamics i could have talked about

[twistedpink]

Mc Inserts x TWST characters pt.3 pt.2 pt.1

Al-Asim!Mc x Riddle Rosehearts @/kyokills

UGH the one of many kids x only child dynamic is to die for!!! You’re his light, the only person who could be so contradictory to him, while understanding his circumstances fully. He fixes your hair when you mess it up, and you give him the confidence for what his “letting loose” is. It is total balance. The two of you make small talk over tea and biscuits a little too often to just be friendly, but you guys haven’t crossed that line yet- It drives everyone you know insane.

“Why are you here? I swore you were aware of study hall this evening..”

“Ah! Do you have room for one more? I wanted to see you in action! Pew pew”

Pomefiore!Mc x Ace Trappola (Anon suggestion!)

The two of you are bad people in very different ways, so the only solution is to suck together! SDC is the perfect opportunity, too bad both of you are terrible roommates. You’re a judgy little whiner, and he’s a skeezy prick- AKA a match made in heaven <3 The crux of the problem is your assholeish behaviour only multiples when you hang out. Everyone else hates you, so you supplement the lacking connection by getting ever closer,, Soon enough you’ll get the message and hook up. Just not yet.

“Ace! What did I tell you about taking my serums from the fridge??”

“Do I look like I listened? Ow!”

Savanaclaw!Mc x Jade Leech (Anon suggestion!)

Ahhh,, Those enhanced senses, fluffy tail, and downright violent demeaner makes you the perfect lab rat. So many possibilities from taste testing to psychology! Too bad you hate Jade’s guts, he’ll wear you down eventually :) His little test subject was only defending their friend against the big-bad housewarden, and as the nurturing vice, how could he ever turn a blind eye to your struggle? He tries to be magnanimous with you- if only you’d taken his deal in the first place,,, With his stalking loving badgering, in a few short weeks you’re practically domesticated! Those days where you threatened to “swallow him whole” are water under the bridge! Now what is he to do with his new pet?

“My, aren’t your canines impressive?”

“Well you don’t have to say it like that,,”

Civilian!Mc x Silver Vanrouge (Anon suggestion!)

Your poor, neglected (unofficial!) delivery boy being stuck in the rain is not something you want to watch all weekend, no matter how good he looks soaked. Your parents go out around this time anyways, and over the years of cozy meetups he wears down your walls with sweet smiles and even sweeter kisses <3 Silver is the perfect boyfriend, and while getting whisked away to briar valley makes you nervous, he’s worth it. Of course all the sneaking around right now hurts your feelings a bit, but doesn’t distance make the heart grow fonder?

“Aren’t you just darling! Are you sure I can’t keep you til’ dinner?”

“You’ll just have to get by with my jacket, I’ll be back next weekend :)”

Ignihyde!Mc x Sebek Zigvolt @/fidenciocryptidcreechur

Sure, your dorm’s not known for its diplomacy, and maybe you’re a little stunted by it, but you’ll be damned if you fail art. Anything taught by Crewel is a nightmare for the introverts of ignihyde, and for your information it does suck to suck! Self proclaimed “EASIEST” elective your butt (that you fully suck at btw! You really need this freaking credit!) newsflash, nothing about art is easy! It’s all in the interpretation, and the practice, and the reference, and- holy moly is that a muscular extrovert on a HORSE? It’s time to put your big boy pants on, and pay a fifteen year old for their time. + biceps. #lockedin

“MC! I’M READY TO BE DRAWN!”

“alright! Hold that pose..”

Vice president!Mc x Rollo Flamme

Every mysterious hero needs their roguishly annoying best friend, just guess which one you are! You hover around your pampered wittle boss for a couple hours a day in exchange for the elusive office wifi. Rollo insists magicam is rotting your brain. You just respond by his spamming his ancient phone with couple’s challenges, despite being immediately rejected on a daily basis. The student body says you’re “odd” on the best of days, but your office crush hasn’t kicked you out yet- so you must be doing something right! Right?

“Woah, that guy is beautiful!”

“I’d like to assume you aren’t referring to Malleus Draconia, but it seems all your romantic conquests are an effort to “bug” me.”

“I live to serve, sir :)”

[methed-up-marxist]

Lenin said that revolutions are "tribunals of the oppressed" and it is under this banner that us Trotskyists have long - or at least since that cute little Tony Cliff article I read - defended the right for queers to organise for their own self-defence and articulated the necessity of queer liberation in relation to the broader dynamics of the working-class movement. All of these points have been perfectly valid: revolution does draw together large sections of the oppressed and demonstrate the fundamentally interlinked nature of our oppressions. Only global proletarian revolution can end racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia and ableism.   Yet this seems to often be the point where the concessions to the centrality of sexual struggle for revolutionary politics ends. Yes, queer political movements are necessary and must be both assisted as independent formations and encouraged to tie themselves deeper into the actually existing movement to abolish the present state of things - i.e communism but this is all that is required of them. Communists must not be homophobic: Analysis complete (no more questions remain)! No! no! no! The economism of the preachers of such slogans know no bounds. Knowledge is material: ideas do not fall from the sky they emerge as a result of definite social processes. If there is a queer liberation movement, there is an attendant ideology of that movement. Perhaps more importantly there is the ever-present question "why are queers oppressed under capitalism" I mean it's just butt-sex and a little bit of pissing on each other in public toilets right? It's just transforming your body so it's more congruent with who you are as a person, it's just having a weird name that makes no sense right? ""The neglect of this aspect of sociology [that is: the sexual the sensual and the experential] was pointed out by Marx himself in his criticism of 18th century materialism [Feurbach]. The vulgar Marxist considers psychology in itself as a metaphysical system. He neglects to separate the metaphysical character of reactionary psychology from its basic elements which were disclosed by a revolutionary psychological search and which have to be developed. Instead of criticising productively, he simply repudiates; he considers himself as a "materialist" when he throws out as "idealistic" such facts as "instinct," "need" or "psychological process." In doing so, he gets himself into the greatest difficulties and achieves only failure, for his political practice forces him constantly to use practical psychology; he cannot avoid talking about "human needs," "revolutionary consciousness," the "will to strike," etc. The more he repudiates psychology, the more he himself practises metaphysical psychologists"" - Wilhelm Reich, Mass Psychology of Fascism

As gross or as shocking or as transformative as these things may be they don't seem to actually have much to do with interfering with the smooth running of the labour-process. this has led some to suggest that queers are primarily targeted exclusively so as to produce an acceptable target for social discrimination to divide the working class amongst itself. Queers are not just a scapegoat to promote division within the working-class. This argument has never had any merit: there are thousands of potential scapegoats. Could our ruling class not simply pick out one of the other myriad of social differences between people and let this become the axis upon with social exclusion is disseminated throughout the working class as false-consciousness? It seems unlikely we will see the Murdoch press beginning a years long campaign against people with uneven arm lengths anytime soon. it appears implausible that a don't ask don't tell policy will emerge in militaries around the world for men who failed to get laid before 23. Humans vary in so many different ways: why did the ones who like dick up the butt and taking cross-sex hormones get the short end of the cultural hysteria stick? BECAUSE OF CLASS. COME ON GIRLS LETS DO SOME FUCKING MATERIALISM. Class is not a natural social formation, there is not a structure in the human brain that says, "I require someone to rule me and someone who I rule". Class is an invention; a thing that has emerged from the collective set of choices humans have made - under varying degrees of compulsion - on how to organise society. Classes need to be able to perpetuate themselves into the next generation and so they train that generation to become ready to live their lives as people who oppress and dominate brutally. If CEO's and monarchs and warlords we're not trained by family to be such things from day one then they might not successfully reproduce the rules of their station. The control of sexual reproduction is the control of lines of inheritance. No one ever got rich off having poor parents. Class could not perpetrate itself from generation to generation if not for the insistence that when one member of the ruling class dies we can clearly identify who their successor is and be sure that they have been trained in the ideology of the ruling class and more than that provide a strong biological-naturalist explanation for why all the parents wealth must go to this person: some people might begin to suggest redistributing the dead person's wealth - these suggestions must be made not just untenable but unthinkable. So yes, class needs gendered regimes of domination. Not just because it helps sow division amongst the oppressed but because it allows for the emergence of tightly defined lines of inheritance and THE TOTAL CONTROL OF THE LIFE OF THE CHILD FROM DAY ONE means that they are never able to flourish as a human instead sexually repressed from the moment that they are born never knowing what the puberty they experience means until far after it is complete. Every CEOs is a sexually repressed child-monster who resolves what could easily be a sadomasochistic beating by a loving partner into the cataclysmic brutality of making decisions for the IMF. War on war! Sex can save us from brutality.

[marcyvamp1re-blog]

ৎ୭. . . SORORAL ─── Platonic! Harley Quinn

⊹ ٬  Headcanon. Harley showed up at your door after years, broken by the Joker, and you, with more patience than common sense, took care of her. At the end of the day, no matter the fights or crimes, you were two inseparable souls, always ending up on the couch, reminding each other that sisterly love heals all.

⊹ ٬  Word Count. 2.14k

⊹ ٬  Content. MDNI. Violence, Blood, fights, drugs, toxic relationships, mental health, criminal behavior, past traumas, normalization of the self-destructive component.

「 (Adj.) Like a sister 」

You met Harley in college. The first time you talked was because you shared the same team project… and also a hatred for the same professor. It was all downhill from there. For everyone else, that is. You were at your best.

You were the Watson to her Sherlock, the Robin to her Batman, the salt on the edge of her daisy. Harley talked and you nodded, but not because you were quiet, but because no one had the energy to keep up. You tried to interrupt her once and ended up going on a two-hour monologue about why bats are adorable, all without taking a breath.

You were there for everything. Her first cry over a boyfriend who wasn’t worth it (and whose social media you hacked with brotherly love). Her yelling in the cafeteria about how her parents were the worst dynamic duo ever. Her fights with other students, where you just picked up her stuff and said, “You’re still alive, right? So let’s go.”

You were inseparable. You were her rock and she was your... earthquake. An explosive friendship, literally at one point. But then he came along. The guy with the green hair.

You heard about it on the news. "The Clown Prince of Crime Has a New Partner." At first you didn't believe it. Harley wasn't that kind of girl. But when you saw her picture with her makeup smeared and that crooked smile, you knew. Your Harley was there, buried under tons of chaos.

That day, at the medical center where you worked, you broke a cup. Not because you were being dramatic, but because it was the only way to make the pain feel real.

And then you understood: Harley wasn't anyone's Watson. She was always her own Sherlock, and now she was solving a case that was tearing her apart.

The reunion was a coincidence. Well, coincidence for her. You were leaving work, a long and boring shift, when the sound of a loud laugh made your blood run cold. You saw her leaning against your car, wearing a red leather jacket, torn tights, and a baseball bat that she was spinning between her fingers as if she was deciding whether to use it on you or not.

“Friend!” she shouted, as if it hadn’t been years since you last spoke and as if she wasn’t on the country’s most wanted list.

You didn’t know what to say. Harley threw herself at you before you could react, the smell of gunpowder and something sweet permeating the air. It was as if nothing had changed… but everything had changed.

You tried to pretend it was like before. You chatted for a while, forcing a smile while she talked non-stop, as always. She told you how she had “deconstructed” a bank last week, how Joker had said something “so romantic” that she almost cried, and how Commissioner Gordon “needed to relax, because, hey, a little dynamite never killed anyone… well, not many people.”

The Harley you knew was still there, but she was buried under layers of insane laughter and chaos. Her world was no longer yours.

“Why so quiet?” she asked at last, tilting her head like a curious child.

“Harls… I can’t do this.”

The silence that followed was strange. She looked at you as if you had spoken in another language.

“Oh… that’s why, isn’t it? …Because I’m a “criminal” now.”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to.

She smiled, but not in the way you remembered. This smile was broken, crooked, as if she was trying to convince herself that she didn’t care.

—It’s okay, you know. I don’t need everyone to understand me. I have Mr. J. And he understands me better than anyone.

That hurt more than you wanted to admit. But not more than watching her turn around, the bat resting on her shoulder as she walked away, humming a song you didn’t recognize.

Harley didn’t look back again. Not because she didn’t care about you, but because she didn’t have room in her mind for you anymore. She had filled every corner with it, and you knew there was no way to compete with that.

And you, as much as it hurt, didn’t look back either.

Years had passed. A monotonous routine was your life. The medical center, the long hours, the patients who needed an ear more than a prescription. It didn't bother you, not at all. Listening was something you were always good at, and the idea of ​​a partner seemed far away. Between double shifts and sleepless nights, where was there room for romance?

It was a night like any other. Your apartment was silent, except for the sound of the rain hitting the window. You had left a forgotten tea on the table and were about to pick it up when you heard a knock on the door. Not a polite knock, but something desperate, insistent.

When you opened it, you saw her. Soaked, shaking, her makeup running from tears mixed with the rain. Harley. Your Harley.

"He left me," was the first thing she said, her voice broken and trembling.

You didn't know what to do at first. It was like time had gone backwards, but this time you weren’t in college and it wasn’t a fight with some campus jerk. Everything was darker now, more broken. Without saying anything, you let her in.

She plopped down on your couch, clutching a pillow like it was a lifeline. Between sobs and curses, she ranted about Joker. How he’d used her, how he’d betrayed her, how this time it was final.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she suddenly muttered, looking at you with swollen eyes. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? After everything that happened between us…”

You stayed silent for a moment. You knew she was right. Harley had disappeared from your life without looking back, but now she was there, broken, seeking comfort from the only person who ever truly understood her.

“I didn’t think of anyone else,” she whispered, hugging the pillow tighter. “Because… because you’re my sister, you know?” The one person who was always there, even...when I didn't deserve it.

That was enough to make something inside you melt. You sat next to her, gave her a blanket, and let her talk. Because that was your specialty: listening.

Harley talked until she was speechless. Until her voice faded away and only the sound of the rain remained. You offered no advice or judgment, just your presence. Because you knew that, as much as it hurt, she needed you now more than ever. And, even though time had separated you, there was one thing that had never changed: she was still your Harley. And you, as strange as it seemed, were still her sister.

Harley didn't leave after that night. At first, it was like having a permanent storm in the apartment. One day she'd come home drunk, staggering around and singing off-key songs about what was (or wasn't) worth it in life. Another day she'd show up with a black eye and a cut eyebrow, muttering under her breath that "being the clown's ex isn't exactly a queen's title."

You couldn't say you were surprised. Harley was always a controlled mess… until she wasn't. What you didn't expect was how much that mess would absorb you. You became her nurse, her therapist, her babysitter, and, on the worst days, her bodyguard.

"Why do you put up with me?" she asked you one night, half drunk, with an ice pack in her hand and a split lip that you'd cleaned yourself.

"I don't know, Harls. Maybe because I'm dumb. But someone has to take care of you."

She laughed, that cracked laugh that always made something inside you clench.

You couldn't help but be upset. Because, come on, Harley had gotten herself into this mess. She'd decided to dive headfirst into a world of chaos and crime, knowing full well there was no net to catch her. But it wasn't hate you felt, or even resentment. It was frustration. Harley had always been a big girl, someone who saw the world as an amusement park, ignoring the warnings to "stay off the grass" and "be careful, wet floor."

Sometimes you wanted to yell at her. You wanted her to understand that you couldn't rebuild her every time the world broke her into pieces. But then you remembered who she was. Harley had never needed someone to yell at her. What she needed was someone to show her the mirror, to remind her that beneath all that paint and mess she was still her.

So you took care of her. You cleaned her wounds, you put up with her cries and her unhinged laughter. Because even though it wasn't fair, you knew Harley was learning. Maybe not fast, and maybe in the worst way, but at least she was learning. And if that meant being her anchor in the middle of the storm, then you were willing to hold on a little longer.

One day, everything changed. It wasn’t a dramatic moment, or a revelatory speech. It just happened. You woke up one morning to find Harley in the kitchen, her hair in two uneven pigtails, humming a song as she made pancakes that smelled like they were burning.

“Morning, Doc!” she greeted you like they were in a 1950s sitcom.

It took you a few minutes to realize what was different: she was smiling. Not the broken, I’m-going-to-do-something-illegal-in-less-than-five-minutes smile, but a genuine smile. Harley was Harley again.

Sure, she was still a criminal. She wasn’t going to change overnight, and you didn’t expect her to, either. But now she was a criminal with… what did she call it?

“Scruples!” she said, holding up a half-charred pancake like it was a trophy. “No more punching the bird boy in the face. No more blowing up police stations!” Well, maybe one, but only if it's empty.

You found it hard to believe, but you saw it. Harley was different. She was still chaos, but a contained one. And even though she didn't tell you, you knew some of that change had to do with you.

Then the invitations came.

"Come on, doc! You need to get out of this hole," she'd say, tugging on your arm with the same energy as a tornado. "I'm going to introduce you to the girls."

"Ivy" and "Selina" turned out to be Ivy the Poison Ivy and Selina Kyle, Gotham's famous thief. You spent a surreal night in their company, sitting in a speakeasy where laughter was more dangerous than guns. Selina taught you how to pick a lock with a paper clip, Ivy talked to you about the importance of caring for plants, and Harley was still acting like you were the guest star on her own variety show.

But the height of absurdity came when Harley showed up one Friday night and announced,

“Black Canary is coming to party with us! You know how many people can say that? Nobody, because we’re exclusive.”

The night was legendary. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d laughed so hard or danced with such little sense of the ridiculous. Between Harley trying to do karaoke in a bar where no one had asked for karaoke and Dinah watching her next to you in amusement, you almost forgot that you were with a group of women capable of knocking down a building if they put their minds to it.

Harley looked at you at the end of the night, with a knowing smile.

“See? I told you you were one of us, doc. You can’t escape.”

And deep down, you knew she was right. Harley was still Harley: chaotic, unpredictable, impossible to ignore. But now, she was also someone who was trying to be better, in her own way. And you, without realizing it, had gone from being his anchor to being part of his storm... and it wasn't so bad.

The invitations never stopped. Harley was determined to drag you into every corner of her new life, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was like she was making up for the years she’d missed with you.

Roller Derby was one of the first things she forced you to witness.

“Doc, you have to come. I’m a legend on wheels!” she told you one day as she pulled out a t-shirt with her number printed on the back.

And she wasn’t lying. Harley was a storm on the track, charging at her opponents with a mix of skill and sheer madness. From the stands, you found yourself yelling things like “Don’t break that poor girl’s jaw!” and “That’s got to be a foul, Harley!” But she only responded with laughter, making a victory gesture as a rival player tried to regain her dignity after falling on her back.

“What did you think?” she asked you at the end, with a swollen eye and a half-dented helmet.

“I’ll tell you when my nerves are back on track.”

Burrito mornings became a tradition.

One day she showed up at your door at six in the morning, a greasy bag in one hand and two coffees in the other.

“Burritos and eggs, doc! The best hangovers are cured with food for champions.”

That became a recurring thing. Every week, Harley would wake you up early with the excuse that burritos “taste better at dawn.” You never had the heart to turn her down, though sometimes you silently cursed her when the caffeine wasn’t enough to keep you functional.

Other times, she’d take you on her “normal adventures.”

Like the time she decided you both needed a “spa day.” Her definition of a spa included going to a speakeasy with Ivy and Selina, playing poker with handmade cards, and ending up with nails painted impossible colors.

“Are you relaxing or not?” —Harley asked you while trying to dry your hair with a hairdryer she had clearly stolen from some hotel.

—I don’t know if “relaxed” is the right word…

And then there was her obsession with movies.

One random Tuesday, she burst into your living room with a stack of DVDs.

—Bad movie marathon. Time to educate yourself, doc!

You spent the night watching B-movies while Harley laughed more at your sarcastic comments than at the absurd dialogues in the movies.

—You’re a terrible critic, but I love you anyway —she said while throwing popcorn in your face.

But, of course, Harley wouldn’t be Harley without her chaotic touches.

One day she took you to a costume store because they “needed outfits for friends.” You came out dressed as a pirate clown, while she wore a unicorn costume. They passed through an ice cream shop, a park, and of course, a karaoke bar where she forced the entire bar to sing along to "I Will Survive."

It was exhausting, unpredictable, and honestly, the best few weeks you'd had in years. Because even though Harley was still a whirlwind of madness, there was something different about her. She was more herself. A criminal with a heart, a loyal friend, and someone who, after all this time, finally seemed happy.

And you, even though you never would have imagined it, were happy too.

Always, no matter how chaotic or exhausting the day had been, it all ended the same: the two of you lying on the couch in your apartment, too tired to continue talking but too comfortable to move.

Harley always took the larger end, curled up in a blanket she had declared hers. You settled on the other end, legs dangling because Harley managed to take up more space than she physically could.

At first you tried to watch something on TV, but Harley always ended up changing the channel every five minutes, claiming that “everything is boring.” So, in the end, you just stayed silent, enjoying each other’s company.

That night was no different. Harley was half asleep, her head resting on the arm of the couch and her eyes half-closed. She looked at you, somewhat sleepy, but with that mischievous spark that never seemed to completely go out.

“You know something, doc?” she murmured, her voice barely audible.

“What’s wrong, Harls?”

She paused, as if she was gathering the courage to say it, even though you knew Harley rarely had filters.

“I love you.”

Your heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t the first time Harley had said it, but this time it sounded different. Softer. More sincere.

“I love you too, Harls.”

She smiled, small and genuine, and closed her eyes.

“In the end, we are sisters, aren’t we? We always were. Even if we don’t have the same last name.”

“We always were,” you confirmed, settling into the couch, letting the calm of that moment envelop you.

And so they stayed, Harley breathing calmly beside you, and you wondering how something so chaotic had ended up being the most stable and comforting thing in your life. Because in the end, no matter what happened outside, how much trouble they got into, or how many egg burritos they shared, you would always be her sister, and Harley would always be your Harley.

[manicpixiedreamedwins]

Some thoughts on Edwin tonight:

I’ve talked about how I think Edwin is so interesting because he goes against the grain of the very reserved and stiff Edwardian archetype, but something else I find interesting about him is he lets people know exactly where they stand with him. Here are some examples:

Niko:

This one is highly quoted. Admittedly, Edwin does not say this right to Niko because Niko could not see him at this point. To Edwin's knowledge she was not going to be able to see him. She is alive, and perhaps he did not anticipate the sprites a near death experience. All that being said, this was as close as he could get to expressing fondness to her at the moment.

Charles:

Edwin actually does a great job making sure Charles knows when he is doing well on cases, like when he praises Charles' quick thinking with the sprite jar. Even when Charles isn't present, Edwin identifies them as "best friends, if you must know". But of course, Charles is rattled after the Dead Dragon case for a lot of reasons. So Edwin reassures him that he is, in fact, the best person he knows (even after he has met many new faces).

Crystal:

Although they got off to a rocky start, Edwin lets Crystal know (tentatively perhaps, but earnestly still) that he does value having her around. He pushes back against the assertion that he did not want her on the case to find Monty's friend "Gladys" because he did- and he ultimately believes in Crystal and has built a relationship with her.

Monty:

This scene is really interesting to me because we tend to think of Charles as someone who fawns more out of these two (and Charles does-he'll be the first to put his feelings aside to try and smooth the group dynamic time and time again). But here we see that Edwin also has some capacity to fawn, especially with people he considers friends. He continues to try and smooth things over with Monty well into the evening.

Until Monty was revealed to be a crow, Edwin was still working on smoothing things over. Edwin tried to reassure him they were friends, even if his feelings were for Charles. He did seem a bit (or a lot) disappointed by being misled about the whole witch-familiar thing.

The Cat King:

I don’t think we talk nearly enough about this moment :

Their bond is a bracelet. Ultimately, Edwin probably would have left TCK behind in the cannery if not for the caging spell. Some often forget Edwin would not have entertained all of the harassment, taunting, and interruptions to his casework if he hadn’t been trapped in a caging spell- a spell which trapped him in Port Townsend, allowed him to be located by The Lost and Found Department, and ultimately led to him being sent back to Hell. As an aside, that trip back to Hell was the only reason the bracelet fell off- it was never removed intentionally. The Cat King even had his own final cat count wrong- whether by accident or on purpose is debatable (however, TCK did threaten to “stop playing nice” in this forest scene, so it is debatable if he ever would have given Edwin a clear answer).

Charles (again):

When Edwin realizes his feelings for Charles, he attempts a confession before he is sent to Hell- but is sadly interrupted by the giant spider made of babydoll heads. His second attempt on the stairway is much clearer.

Edwin makes it abundantly clear that his feelings for Charles are romantic- and he needs him to know, for better or worse. It's brave to lay a heart bare like that (and admittedly, Charles does his best to meet him where he can, while they are being chased by an eldritch horror).

In short, Edwin is someone who actually knows how he feels about the people in his life and articulates that more clearly than many give him credit for.

[necarion]

It's a really hard dynamic in general! Right now, Democrats seem to have gotten judged by the amalgamation of arguments from its most extreme members (although many of them are correlated). Defund the police. Prison abolition. Ban all gas cars. Ban gas stoves. Ban meat. Let Palestine destroy Israel. Except that while the mainstream Democrats disavowed all those positions, they seem to have stuck in the public mind. Moderating on a lot of them simply didn't matter. Getting inflation under control didn't matter because the numbers were high.

In contrast, Donald Trump somehow managed to not be judged on the extremely unpopular plans his own staffers had written, because he said "oh I'm not doing that" and that somehow stuck. Republicans didn't get judged particularly hard on what conservative judges were doing, or legislation introduced by, like, Marjorie Taylor Green (although Democrats were judged highly by Ilhan Omar, for example).

So there's a harder dynamic than just "talk about popular things and get your extreme members to shut up about unpopular ones" (although that's hard for Democrats in particular, because they tend to pay attention to stuff more and care about things).

There is this dynamic that Republicans are allowed to just lie about what they're doing or not doing, which makes it a whole lot easier to keep the coalition under control. Trump can credibly say to MTG in private "look, I'm going to say I'm not going to ban abortion, but I'll give you what you want in judges and executive orders". He can say "I'm going to fix inflation" and the press somehow gives him "Trump announces plan to fix inflation" and put "he has given no specifics of plan" on like paragraph 18 or something. In general, Democrats are fucking grilled on every details of policy ideas that almost certainly won't pass (medicare for all, etc.), whereas Republicans get a pass on very specific and detailed plans that include specific mechanisms for action.

Hell, right now basically all the party-switching is people running as Democrats and then switching to Republicans, giving supermajorities or something. (We had one this time who won election as a Democrat and within a week of the election ending, said "I no longer recognize this party" and switched and got a high-ranking position.)

So, yes, it would help a lot of Democrats could get their left wing to just shut up about unpopular stuff and help them win. To attack Republicans solely on their unpopular stuff and promise to do popular stuff themselves. But the fact of the matter is, Democrats are generally not the type who would flat-out lie when asked about something unpopular (and gets grilled much more closely when they try to evade), whereas Republicans can avoid the grilling by just lying about it.

And that's a nearly impossible double-standard to deal with.

People think trump is “authentic” even though he lies all the time—even though many voted for him on the assumption he was lying about the few things he is probably being honest about—because he does not speak in cliches, and he is willing to piss people off. That’s it, that’s all it takes. And frankly even democratic politicians who have a reputation as rebels like Bernie Sanders are pretty dang milquetoast in comparison.

I really feel like a lot of centrist pundits had their brains broken by the sister souljah kerfluffle in the 1992 campaign, which has taken on totemic status in the horse-race-obsessed quarters of American politics, but it is simply objectively inarguable that you do not need to establish your moderate bona fides to win elections anymore (if it ever was—the real thing at work there in 1992 was the way race functions in American politics, which has always been pretty sui generis). And I don’t think it’s that the United States tolerates far right radicals better than they tolerate middle-left social democrats, it’s that the far right have stumbled onto a weirdly effective standard bearer and most of his major political opponents don’t understand why he is effective.

[eldritchneuro]

Ah Knives. Classic abuser bullshit - 'You aren't doing what I want so there must be something wrong with you'.

Of course, Knives' evaluation of his brother is a deeply subjective one, and deeply flawed. He considers Vash's attitude towards others nothing but an impediment, even though Vash's empathy has very much saved his hide multiple times. Be kind enough to folks and you too can snag a genetically-modified assassin and a couple of plucky reporters by your side! (If you know anything about what some journalists have to get into for their stories, then you know Meryl and Roberto are far more intimidating then Woowoo in the long term!)

Not that it matters of course. 'Sickness' is just an excuse here. Something to point to in order to justify abuse. And it's not just limited to Knives. It's rhetoric that extends throughout the Eye of Michael itself, and indeed into many real-life evangelical cults.

'These people are sick, and making them not-sick is more important than then their human rights' isn't just the excuse Conrad uses to torture innocent children. It's the drivel of the Nazis, of the colonists that murdered entire indigenous civilizations. It's the excuse used for conversion 'therapy', and the horrific treatment of people in prisons and psych wards. It's the same abusive bullshit swallowed and vomited up again and again and again.

Actually, speaking of stuff like psych wards, are there any other disabled people who find Knives and co's assumptions about the dependent plants rather... uncomfortable? Specifically:

Knives' attitude towards 'freeing' the plants is that they should be made independent. Removed from their bulbs, removed from human care and made into something that can walk around and do stuff.

Which seems fine and dandy. He's right that the plants deserve autonomy and choice. But it's the core assumption underlying this that's the problem. To him, the plants in their bulbs are also sick. They are sick specifically because they are in their bulbs and can't do what he and Vash can do. Therefore, they must be 'cured', even if it means violating them.

Even though Stampede saves it's critique specifically for the way outsiders take advantage of dependent plants, not plants having to be dependent in the first place. And for all his talk, none of Knives' sisters are asked to weigh in on his grand plans. For all we know, many dependents could be quite happy the way they are and have no wish to be anything different.

To clarify my point, what happens if we reframe this dynamic? What if we were talking about, say, a high support needs autistic person, who literally would not be able to survive without being dependent on others? For people like that, the assumption that liberation and agency must mean independence isn't just untrue, but also something that will (and does!) prove fatal.

See the problem?

[peninkwrites]

I didn't want to have my own lil party in the notes of this incredibly based post so I'm gonna make my own to waffle on.

Because, yes, @lacystar is sadly so correct, Wilbur would not volunteer for Tommy in the Hunger Games. My thought being, who WOULD volunteer?? and not just because they'd be all but guaranteed to win ala Technoblade.

Who would volunteer as a sacrifice?

Many thoughts many thoughts. Like, the tragedy of Tommy volunteering on behalf of his older brother perhaps? Tommy was always protecting Wilbur, right?

Like, Tubbo is the sort to do some self sacrifice, but could he, that spur of the moment, think of it? He's our chess player, he strategizes, like when he exiled Tommy, that was a product of prolonged, careful thought (like relatively spur of the moment, but at that meeting he started thinking the moment Tommy started talking and making threats). So the question is not if he would be willing, I think, but if he would have the time to get that far in his thinking.

And this is largely my own cabinetduo biases coming into play, but would Quackity volunteer for Tubbo?? Red festival, he tried to defend him, but he very much didn't get in the way (not that I blame him! but he didn't)(alternatively... would Tubbo volunteer for Quackity? Clingyduo Will Cling, but would Tubbo make the same sacrifice for someone who protected him but also didn't?)

This is also complicated by timelines and such, are these their dsmp selves? where in the timeline? or did just vaguely equivalent events happen which make the dynamics at least translate? idk! Because I do think Manberg Tubbo, President Tubbo, and Snowchester Tubbo would all act differently, both on volunteering in general, (like even if all 3 would volunteer for Tommy, the reasons might vary. although... far enough along, maybe Tubbo wouldn't volunteer because he had Michael to look out for...) and how different times would I think cause variation in who he might volunteer for. I think Snowchester Tubbo would be more likely to volunteer for Quackity than Manberg Tubbo, which may seem ironic/counterintuitive considering going from foxhole buddies to arguably adversaries but it's both Snowchester Tubbo feeling More capable, and maybe viewing Big Q as a little Less capable by the time they get to the cookie outpost.

Tubbo is so so complicated, like would he volunteer for Ranboo during the especially married years?? I'm genuinely not sure. I think Ranboo would Want to volunteer for Tubbo but might fail to out of sheer social anxiety and panic.

Niki and Jack couldn't volunteer for each other, but I'd imagine if one of them got chosen, the other might volunteer for the other guy/girl to make sure they go in together, to keep the other safe. There's something horrible about thinking about Niki (Early Niki, L'Manberg Niki, even in early Manberg.) volunteering to go into the arena with Wilbur, especially because Wilbur would be shocked and horrified by her presence rather than grateful.)

OH would JACK volunteer for Tubbo??? Like, Jack was very ride or die for Tubbo toward the end. But would that mean Jack views Tubbo as less capable? As more valuable? Or does that complicate things too much, when really, Jack would just think he doesn't want his friend to be hurt any more?

Idk much to consider much to consider.

[ruporas]

hugs hugs hugs (ID in alt)

[al-luviec]

juvie buddies

[twinstxrs]

thinking about kageyama’s “it’s the setter’s job to break the wall in front of the spiker” in reference to how kenma sponsoring hinata while he’s in brazil and onwards is effectively doing that on a financial level. once a setter always a setter.

[galactic-rhea]

Thoughts on Padmé x Anakin x Rex?

Padmé and Anakin are so mutually obssesed they would first have to check into that before trying to bring another person to their carefully-balanced-kind-of-damage or something it's going to explode.

Honestly it's a fun ship! But I don't have too many thoughts about them because when I consider them is usually in very low-stakes-fun-AU-scenarios.

And I'm actually a bit of a fan of Rexwalker myself! Athough I tend to like them more as very good buddies, the covering-for-you-dynamic it's so funny for them, lol It's also angsty and complicated because, y'know, the power-imbalance and unchecked trauma? Is funny that the clone that's actually a slave for the republic is the most normal if you bring him into the anidala romance circus.

Also shout out to @phoenixyfriend , she has a lot of rexanidala fics and recs for anyone interested reading this!

[ruvviks]

it's been a hot sec since i've talked about cyberpunk and i was initially working on a fic that would tell the story of this whole thing, but i've abandoned it many months ago and cannot say when i'll be picking it up again SO! i've decided to instead make this timeline. sorry in advance for how much information is in this thing the cyberpunk extended blorboverse essentially refers to the story parallel to the in-game events of cyberpunk 2077 that @mojaves and i came up with. we don't really have a better name for it but at this point the term has been used so many times that i feel like everyone here knows what it is by now, but at the same time we've never really explained the full scope of what the story is by now (it's a lot sorry). so in an attempt to get you guys a little bit more up to date with it all, here's a semi coherent timeline that describes the core events of the story and every branching story that came out of it! for additional background information, you can check out the following posts (timeline 1 / timeline 2 / timeline 3) to catch up with the continuation of the in-game storyline that's referenced in this timeline, but it's mostly irrelevant to everything here save for a couple of referenced events that cross over between the stories. it all ties together very intricately sorry about that. don't worry too much about it i've included my taglist down below to make sure people who are interested won't miss this post, but feel free to skip over this if it's not your thing! won't be doing a lot of this kind of stuff in the future but i'm trying to get back to the cyberpunk roots so this is kind of like, a good starting point and reference point for later posts!

The story starts in early 2077 and is centered around Sebastian Vidal, gang leader of the Cobras and previous test subject of Arasaka Special Programs (the linked page is a lot of information but gives the most coherent overview of what the branch actually is). The current director of the SERPENT projects, Andrew Colton, and Dr. Alana Cartier, both want him dead, to tie up their last loose end before the rest of Arasaka can find out and shut down Special Programs once and for all.

Over the past months they’ve been hiring various assassins in secret, to try and get Seb killed; however, these assassins keep failing, and their latest attempt lies in the hands of Cassidy Shaffer, an ex-corpo turned assassin with a strong moral code and plenty of experience to his name. With little to work with, as his mysterious client doesn’t give out much information, Cassidy starts with what he thinks is gonna be a quick and easy job– but he ends up hunting after Seb for essentially a year.

During this year, the two men have a series of wild encounters that get more and more insane the longer it goes on; it includes, but is unfortunately not limited to, Cassidy biting off a chunk of Seb’s ear, the two of them running over the highway, the two of them getting handcuffed together and chased by the NCPD then hit by a car right in front of the hospital, and Seb sensually licking blood off Cassidy’s face after having stabbed him when Cassidy wanted to strike at a concert Seb is visiting.

All of it comes to a sudden stop when Cassidy learns his client has been lying to him the whole time, and since he does not appreciate lying clients he ends up jumping sides and teams up with the Cobras to do some cleanup duty in Arasaka Special Programs. He and Seb work together to go after a list of targets to get the still ongoing projects mostly to a halt, while remaining in the shadows themselves as to not draw too much attention their way; and during this collaboration they meet several people from their past, bringing back both good and bad memories.

One of these people is Hanan Chisaka, the Head of Security at Special Programs. She ends up becoming the next test subject of Project Cobra after the last successful subjects, Xavier and Gabriel Mason, end up escaping in the midst of the chaos of Hanako Arasaka’s capture in mid-2077. Once Seb’s best friend and Cassidy’s mentor, she’s now forced to hunt the both of them down; but in their final confrontation she snaps out of the controlled mode Arasaka keeps her in and runs away with them, effectively leaving Special Programs without any test subjects. Another one of these people is Reid Bennett, Cassidy’s ex and ex-coworker back at MaxTac. He still works for the corporation and has been on an ongoing investigation into Arasaka Special Programs; seeing Cassidy alive and well, working together with Seb no less, piques his interest and he continues to look further into the case, which will cause him to make a very big mistake later on in the timeline.

By September 2078, Seb and Cassidy have successfully taken down all their planned targets and retreat back into the shadows, leaving Special Programs with many losses and no test subjects. With the APEX program discontinued a month earlier (incident discussed in this fic, which is a continuation of the in-game events), and Hanako Arasaka recovered and ready to take the corporation back from the hands of her corrupt brother, Special Programs ends up having to retreat for the time being, and cook up a new plan in the background.

Special Programs by this point is run by Andrew Colton, Alana Cartier, and Kaida Akiyama, three players who have been in the game for a long time already in the SERPENT projects’ runtime. Colton and Cartier are married– Cartier used to be married to Seb and cheated on him for a good amount of time when he was still at Arasaka– but their marriage is starting to fall apart. Akiyama has had to watch over Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne for a while during his chase after the Mason twins, which ended up with the twins dead and Hawthorne going into early retirement (Arasaka doesn’t know the twins faked their death and Ambrose is now dating one of them lol), and xe is now determined to help Colton and Cartier get Seb back into Arasaka so the projects can continue.

Cassidy’s initial plan was to leave as soon as the collaboration would come to an end, but he has found his place with the Cobras and instead ends up officially joining them.The next chapter in the story is a more laid-back and easygoing chapter, in which Cassidy learns to be part of real life again, and in which Seb learns to let people get close to him again after spending years trying to convince himself he doesn’t need any help. Over the course of a little over a year (all the way to November 2079), the two grow even closer than they had already done, going on gigs together and, you guessed it, slowly but surely falling in love until they inevitably end up together at the end of it.

Not long after the two get together, Reid returns into Cassidy’s life. He wants to try and be friends again and Cassidy gives him a second chance, though this soon enough turns out to have been a mistake, with Reid trying to create distance between Seb and Cassidy and then going as far as trying to sell Cassidy to Kang Tao (one of the few corporations that have been hunting Cassidy down for a while now) in exchange for his own freedom from MaxTac (where he would have otherwise been stuck at for probably the rest of his life). Naturally, Reid can’t watch Cassidy get tortured for long and leaks his location to the Cobras, who find and free Cassidy and take Reid into captivity instead– he does not get killed, but instead has to sit out some time at a safehouse somewhere in solitude, where he gets to decide what kind of person he wants to be in the future.

This brings us to Elysium; a gorgeous spaceship which was supposed to be a relatively cheap escape from reality for everyone who wanted a refreshing break from Earth, but through Arasaka sponsorship has become just another cash-grab project to compete with the Crystal Palace– and considering the megacorporation has its greasy hands all over it, the secret labs in the spaceship are used for a series of very unethical experiments. Naturally so, it would be the perfect place for Colton to continue his SERPENT projects without the risk of Hanako Arasaka finding out and shutting the place down. He sends forces up to Elysium (obviously after his other attempts at relocating the project to space have failed tremendously, having lost contact with every single crew in the smaller Arasaka stations in orbit around the planet), but since he’s not there himself his cousin (one of the CEOs of Elysium), Maxwell Crane, unbeknownst to Colton, takes control of the SERPENT projects in space instead. From the earlier linked Special Programs page: “Project Eryx used the technology of previous projects, but took a completely new approach in the hosts it used; rather than focusing on the human psyche it attempted to create a new type of cyborg which would lack the humanity that caused previous projects to fail. The Cobra chips were no longer used and the software was instead installed directly onto the host’s mainframe. The flexibility of the new hosts– more robot than human, and in some cases the entire human aspect was lacking altogether– allowed for experimentation with highly advanced cybernetic enhancements and military grade tech and upgrades, turning the test subjects– dubbed ‘prototypes’– into dangerous, unstoppable killing machines.”

Things settle down for Seb and Cassidy, but this moment of peace does not last long. In January 2081 the two find themselves traveling to the spaceship Elysium, to investigate a curious situation in the laboratories– they’ve been hired by Arasaka without their knowledge and it’s a setup to get Cassidy killed and Seb back in Cartier’s control.

While in space, they learn that the secret labs have suffered an outbreak of the above mentioned prototypes. They quickly connect the dots and realize Special Programs is back in the game, and they work together with security guards Aubrey Valentine and Leon dello Russo to try and fix the situation before it gets out of hand. Obviously this fails tremendously and Elysium ends up on a complete lockdown after a ship-wide outbreak, which is eventually contained in late March of that year, with CEO Maxwell Crane dead, leaving only his wife Kinsley Osborn behind.

Elysium continues to exist and is rebuilt after the crisis, and Kinsley Osborn can now finally turn it into the retreat it was always meant to be. Previously, most Elysium employees were to be stuck in space for the rest of their lives; however, with Arasaka out of the picture they are free to leave as they please, which results in a gigantic cut in total employee count in the months that follow.

Seb and Cassidy return to Night City and take Aubrey and Leon with them. Aubrey reunites with his sisters; Becca, James, and Rikki, and soon after his return to the city he opens an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Bodytalk with them, found Downtown, City Center, in June 2081. Not only is it a fun place to hang out at, it’s also his main hub as a fixer, and he starts a collaboration with the Cobras to get business going between the gang and the club; and soon enough it grows into a large and powerful network of connections, which is the foundation on which the rest of the stories are built.

After this point in time, many many more things happen but it would take me another hour or ten to go into full detail of all of that, so instead here’s a quick rundown of some of the other things that Bodytalk gets involved in:

Reid Bennett is handed over to Aubrey and he starts working at the club, and he becomes a very valued employee as well as a good friend to many now that he’s no longer fucking insane

Kaida Akiyama returns from Elysium and shows up to Hanan’s doorstep, to ask for her help with getting out of Arasaka for good; much later on, xe starts working for Bodytalk as well, in an attempt to put xyr past behind xem and become a better person

Urban Dynamite starts performing at the club regularly, and it becomes their home base

Luna Serratos, Cassidy’s ripperdoc friend from all the way back to killing era, gets involved in the Harbinger case from Maelstrom (one of the gang’s most feared members); turns out the Harbinger is in fact Reuben de la Rosa, a by then 22-year-old kid who has ended up in Luna’s care with his friend Noah Telavera after the two got caught up in an explosion. She requests the Cobras’ help with getting Maelstrom to let Reuben go

Officer Michele Diaz from Militech (who used to be Cassidy’s boss) is demoted following the lawsuits after the Elysium incident, and her investigation into the incident in hopes to get her job back leads her to Bodytalk; she begins threatening them and sends the whole club and their allies into uncertain times

Many people get married. There’s so many fucking guys here we went a little insane with the numbers but there’s several weddings and there’s a whole polycule going on too feel free to send asks about this if you’re interested

Cobra Cybernetics releases a new line of cyberware, which is incredibly buggy and dangerous to the public; it’s brought to the club’s attention and it makes them realize that Luiza Vidal (Seb’s sister), who not that long ago asked them to kill her husband (William Colton (Andrew’s brother), CEO of Cobra Cybernetics), has gone missing; they now need to get involved without getting the news out that they actually didn’t kill William and that he is still alive somewhere, while also balancing out dynamics between Biotechnica (angry at Cobra Cybernetics for stealing their designs) and Arasaka (the actual reason why Cobra Cybernetics’ designs look like Biotechnica’s designs, because William stole designs from Special Programs after halting their partnership after the Elysium incident, but these designs had been stolen by Arthur Jenkins from Biotechnica even BEFORE that to be able to hijack the European Space Council’s cybernetics following the Frankfurt incident. Are you still with me)

Vitali Dobrynin (fixer and main character from the in-game events storyline and the continuation of it; Vincent “V” Mayer’s boyfriend) ends up visiting Bodytalk after meeting Aubrey at a Fixer Council meeting, which happens in late 2083; this essentially ties the two main storylines together, which means that yes, a lot of the characters from the two separate storylines end up meeting :]

Officer Ulysses Dimakos (used to work with Reid at MaxTac) is sent to investigate Bodytalk following the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and ends up teaming up with the club to get MaxTac on a dead trail in exchange for his freedom of the corporation

On top of the Bodytalk / Cobras centered storyline, there’s a couple of side stories that are still connected to the whole thing but are more of a standalone thing with only a few touching points to the rest of it all:

This obviously takes place a lot earlier because it’s already mentioned above, but Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne is tasked with chasing after the escaped Mason twins; naturally he lets them go and ends up going into retirement, and Xavier Mason later on ends up becoming Bodytalk’s part-time repair guy on account of knowing Kaida

Gabriel Mason ends up in a car crash with retired security specialist Ames Ortega, who was also in Elysium during the incidents there, and the two end up babysitting Ambrose and Xavier’s kids together while those two are helping Hanan with getting Kaida out of Arasaka (Are you still with me. Blink if you can hear me)

Mercenary Frankie Sayyad gets a promotion from his fixer, Vulture (real name Diana Crane, Maxwell Crane’s older sister and cousin of the Coltons), and becomes one of her Bloodhounds; he works together with Evelyn Harris, Nimue Nkuna, and Beckett Rydel, the latter being one of the very first test subjects of Arasaka Special Programs, and the four accidentally get themselves mixed into a mystery concerning their secretive fixer

Caleb Harris, ex-security at Biotechnica, ends up back at Club Bodytalk not long after the conclusion of the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and starts working for Aubrey; he is partnered up with Ramiel Al-Masri, a mercenary who has been working for Vitali Dobrynin for a while and has recently joined Aubrey’s mercenary roster too, and together they dive into a series of gigs neither of them had expected

Journalist Bodhi Shankar has finally found more evidence and information surrounding the mysterious cult gang Umbra and its so-called Prophet, Thiago Salazar; however, his antics have led to him accidentally becoming part of the gang himself, and he has to figure out a way to get Thiago to stop listening to the supposed deity that the gang worships known as Scintilla, before she makes him do things that will get many people killed

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel, @aezyrraeshh, @carlosoliveiraa

[jeanmoreaue]

Do you think jerejean will be endgame? I feel like out of everyone Jeremy is the best fit for Jean

o ya 100% i think Jeremy and Jean are the best fit for each other. they’ve got chemistry, they’ve got shared goals, just symbolically i think they’re good for each other, and i love the dynamic it adds to each of their characters ie Jean liking people who are optimistic/bright and sunny (Renee, Jeremy) and Jean being able to read Jeremy really well/be attuned to whatever he’s repressing lol (I’m just assuming that’s where their dynamic is headed since Jean already has been so perceptive about Jeremy’s feelings)

for Kevin and Jean, i think that Kevin definitely doesn’t feel the same way that Jean did (i think Jean’s kind of moved on a bit), but even if Kevin did like Jean back i don’t think it would be the healthiest option for either of them. personally i just absolutely love the dynamic of Kevin and Jean’s current relationship, how it seems imbalanced with Jean liking Kevin and only having Kevin to rely on, but Kevin not quite as invested (but obv still caring for Jean)

and Jean and Renee just don’t see each other enough, i think it’s been set up narratively that they’re just friends now

[crimsonmonsoon]

If you can’t tell I am entirely obsessed with this guy

[langfield]

do you think vinh was actually in love with safi? i know he starts doubting that he ever was in chapter 5, but if he wasn’t actually in love what do you think his true feelings for her were? emotional attachment maybe? on safi’s side, i think it’s interesting how even after knowing about vinh’s statement about maya she still decides to hook up with him for a time (only to eventually stop sometime prior to the game?? maybe they had another falling out idk). their relationship in general is just very fascinating to me lmao.

god, the safi-vinh dynamic is certainly one filled with intrigue because of all the intense emotions attached to the people within it ; aimed at each other and also at the bystanders whom haunted around their not so defined relationship. there’s just so much baggage attached to them, you know? mostly painful things and a general sense of betrayal or regret, creating a potion of this general wishy washy bullshit that’s hard to parse through … more so in safi’s case than vinh’s, but i’ll touch upon that later! as for your question about vinh and his true feelings, well.

maybe he was in love with safi once upon a time. maybe the fact he believed that he was in love with her is really all that matters. i suppose it depends on what your definition of romantic love and utter devotion is. it’s undeniable he cared fiercely for safi, enough so to become jealous of max ( safi’s object of obsession ), swear off serious relationships in hope she’d want him back, and to engage in a general meddling within her life to make sure she comes out of situations as unscathed as possible. i mean, he schemes to steal a cow skull and then proceeds to throw it through her windshield in an attempt to save yasmin’s and safi’s relationship … it is very extra of him to do, in fact it’s a literal crime, and the game has both max and safi acknowledge the intensity of said action in episode four. we see the memory of the hedgehog he proudly displays on his desk, the carelessness in which safi treats it, her ‘i’ll buy you another one if it breaks’, and how vinh simpers beneath that offer because he doen’t want a new one, he wants this one, the one safi gave him : a gift that was likely unprompted, some sort of surprise maybe, given to him on a whim and cherished better than any other possession he owns. we also see how he breaks it when she dies. then there’s photos upon photos of safi on his phone and it’s implied he takes pictures after they sleep together and -- that isn’t even touching upon how he practically gives up on himself after her death. the mask drops, he starts trying to branch out and find acting gigs elsewhere, wanting to leave caledon forever, and there’s a sense of raw anger and loneliness he feels when she’s gone. he stops hooking up and pushes everyone away besides max, whom he clings to, and it’s a lot, right? there’s love there. obsession, probably. in many ways he’s still the ‘puppy’ following safi around like gwen said, only without maya this time. he waits and stews and he wants, certainly, for her to love him … but was it purely romantic love? who’s to say!

i think vinh wanted safi as his girlfriend before, maybe when things weren’t so tense, and he still believed that fiercely even when he stopped wanting it. i don’t think he knew where his feelings started to dwindle into something less excited and more resigned, or when he started looking for someone else. his priority remained with safi and with yasmin and thus there wasn’t a lot of time to dissect his heart, a rather vulnerable act he already struggles with anyway. he’s a repressive sort of man. he doesn’t do a lot of introspection because he has an act to maintain, a reputation to follow. but i do believe that by the time double exposure takes place, vinh’s love for safi has indeed shifted because his attraction to max veers on something that isn’t purely sexual. there is an undeniable interest, both in dead and living world, that he’s either embracing or squirming away from … i do not think vinh had many crushes at all when he was in love with safi. i don’t think he allowed himself that luxury, because he didn’t want to move on from her, or put himself off the market in case she wanted him again, in bed or in some profound, loving sense. lots of waiting. lots of surrendering, ‘she’ll come around, we’ll make up’, and hoping despite himself. so his romance with max proves to me that vinh is somewhat right in saying ‘or i thought i was’ when talking about safi and being in love with her, because he was before, but he isn’t exactly in love with her now, if that makes sense? i’d say an emotional attachment is a good title for what they have by the time of the games events.

( i do not wish to diminish vinh’s feelings, but i also think there’s a case to be made that he was rather desperate when he thought himself in love with safi ; there was a lot of insecurity within him back when he was a student, weighed down by the fact he was poor and not your standard run-of-the-mill white man … as an adult he scoffs at his acting abilities and wields his power as head of abraxas with a rather tight fist, as though it’s the only control he’s ever had before. it’s rather clear his only two friends were safi and maya and that vinh hasn’t had any since them -- was desperate to stay on their heels despite the fact he was never really apart of whatever they had. it’s not a stretch to speculate that vinh was, perhaps, a cocktail mix of loneliness and desperation rather than strictly in love with safi. maybe confused his all-consuming need to be around her as desire, or maybe just enjoyed feeling wanted by safi enough to mix his wires. after all, why was it safi he was in love with and not maya? vinh also uses sex as a means of coping, as seen by his rather active sex life in game via hookup apps and reggie, so maybe his sex with safi was just that. coping. in it’s own way. regardless, he did love her, or so he thinks so, and to me i think that’s enough, speculation aside )

safiya’s side of things is much more difficult than vinh’s, who is more obvious about his feelings towards her than he thinks he is. there are some brief contradictions, like how it’s stated that safi doesn’t care for vinh ( which is true ) and yet she also acknowledges that when she split apart and lost herself, all that was left of her was moses, lucas, gwen, and vinh. we know that moses and gwen matter to safi, or mattered, and that at one point safi might’ve admired lucas … so where does that leave vinh? if she doesn’t hate him like gwen or lucas now, and if she doesn’t cherish him like moses or max, why is he still apart of her? what does that mean? is it just a metaphor for their times with maya, and how safi will always be connected to that past with vinh because of her love for the caledon’s personal dead girl? was her sleeping with vinh about maya too? or did she actually care for vinh once, albeit weakly and casually, and did that fleeting moment of affection count when she vanished into everyone who’s ever thoroughly affected her life? and, as you said, it’s so fascinating that she hooks up with vinh at all post maya death … it feels strange and odd and unlike her. even in their intimate picture together after fooling around she is nothing but angry, disinterested, her underwear and bra are already back on ( if they were ever off at all? ) and while that’s on account of safi just hating photos, i also think it’s a testament to how irritable she finds vinh’s presence when stuck in it. it’s not a happy photo really, even vinh’s expression is a little red-eyed, forced, like he was likely wasted the night prior. i wouldn’t be surprised if safi was only able to be with vinh if she was … you know … literally out of her mind drunk or high or what have you.

though, that’s just speculation of course. my vague take on things is that safi went to vinh whenever she was partied out or if she was feeling particularly destructive that day ; choked with self loathing over her mom or maya and so sex with vinh was a means for her to feel even worse. some sort of self harm, some sort of outlet where she could be particularly cruel and evil without consequence, because vinh would take it and roll over -- could even be her way of controlling things too, like vinh with abraxas, because we know vinh has no issues with being led around in the bedroom, so that’s some food for thought. i don’t think she thinks about it after or remembers it much … she really doesn’t think about vinh unless it suits her or if she needs to. i always notice how, in episode four, safiya immediately knows what max is talking about when she asks if safi’s ever transformed into amanda, gwen, or lucas. she owns up immediately, confesses, and understands intimately what situation max is referring to. but when max asks about vinh and the phone, there is a brief moment where safi just stares blankly at her -- like she’s thinking about it, like she doesn’t even remember, before it finally clicks after a beat. either she wears vinh’s metaphorical skin a lot ( which, to be fair, she does pretend to be vinh a lot in game ) or she literally thinks of him so little she’ll forget everything about him in minutes. both are likely! she doesn’t even recall what type of alcohol he likes, calling it bougie japanese brandy ‘or whatever’ … and can’t be assed to remember his phone’s pin number exactly, only vague details about a magician scientist that she clearly thought was boring and lame when vinh told her said story, if her hostility and complete forgetfulness is anything to go by. for me, it’s easy to get caught up in a ‘safi did care! she had to!’ angle about vinh, although the game repeatedly shows you over and over again that she does not. she doesn’t even care that max kissed him really, if anything, she’s more jealous of vinh being with max given some of her remarks :

( i know, technically, safi’s ‘come again?’ is more nervous than jealous per se … but there is a certain air to it, especially given the ‘i can be your new boyfriend’ comment as seen above lol. if she loves max and doesn’t care for vinh, i can only imagine how she’d feel about their romance in particular! )

and, of course, there’s that part in episode four where safi can disguise herself as vinh in order to tear lucas a new one. i enjoy that part for many reasons! seeing how safi feels so much more comfortable in someone else’s skin than her own is fascinating and makes for good foreshadowing … but there is also the reveal of her opinions on vinh, unabashed and shameless, when she is finally giving him an ounce of thought :

it’s interesting! she doesn’t care for him, really, doesn’t loathe him like lucas or gwen or her own mother, but there’s a level of vitriol regardless. she thinks him fake. she thinks him a coward. she thinks he’s scared of facing consequences and that he only acts in his own self interest and she hates every bit of that. while safi can confess to doing maya wrong and hating herself for it, she never allows vinh that same courtesy. even says as much to max, claiming that only she had the humanity to regret her choice while vinh apparently didn’t. and yet … she doesn’t hate him? doesn’t feel strongly towards him? he’s still apart of her, a large part, and she can get along with him fine on crosstalk if she so pleases and she can hate his guts but, when the raw truth is revealed, she apparently feels nothing towards him at all? it is fascinating to think about is all. how she doesn’t wish him dead but doesn’t care if he’s alive either despite everything they’ve been through, even though she hates gwen and lucas and her mother more. it’s rather mean, though that’s what makes it so complex and interesting. it shows that safi only ever cares ( and oh, does she care fiercely, obsessively ) for a very slim group of people, and that when push comes to shove, everyone else can fend for themselves for all she cares. she would protect moses and max in a heartbeat, without thought, and the piece of her within them tries valiantly to keep them safe by locking them away from the world ( another thing to dissect, certainly! ), but she doesn’t really extend such empathy towards the innocents caught in her crossfire. she may be tormenting lucas and gwen specifically, but everyone else was going to be collateral damage and safi was fine with that. at least a little bit. vinh falls in that category of inevitable damage, i think, despite their closeness and despite their history, and you can tell that’s what really wounds him at the end of things. safi couldn’t even torment him, didn’t have the want or energy to do so, he was valiantly apart of her and safi didn’t even care about that. very interesting! it’s also heartbreaking in many ways to see two people who should’ve been able to lean on each other, who should’ve loved one another, be nothing but strangers at the end of things. an example of how tragedy doesn’t always bring people closer. sometimes it drives you worlds apart from the one you should be grieving with, which can be seen in other life is strange games, most notably with chloe and joyce, i think.

anyway! tldr : it’s complicated and worth exploring. there are many ways you can interpret their relationship and i highly encourage everyone to find what angle is most interesting to them! and i don’t blame you for finding their dynamic fascinating because it’s easily one of my favorites in double exposure … i don’t think of it often, but it’s always lingering in the back of my mind. regardless, i hope this word vomit is helpful! if i brought up more questions than answers, i do apologize. but thank you so much for such a fun question <3 it was an absolute blast, and tickled my brain enough to pump this out asap.

[shannonsketches]

He said "Fuck this shit, I'm out" I'm crying. Toriyama's Vegeta was so top shelf 🤌

(From Neko Majin Z Chapter 5!)