#this is not subtext or open to interpretation anymore--

[bestworstcase]

…salem did not do anything wrong.

she was a grieving young woman who prayed to the gods to spare her lover from death. because she was religious. she had faith in her creators and felt hope that they might help her. when the god of light denied her, she got upset in the moment, but she accepted that he had refused and—this part is important—she left him the flowers she'd brought him.

the way rwby handles divinity is very polytheistic and specifically influenced by ancient greek and roman practice (also hellenistic philosophy). a fundamental concept in roman polytheism is "do ut des," which we might translate loosely as "i give so that you may give." polytheistic worship involves reciprocation, a give and take between human and divine, and roman polytheism was particularly contractual in nature. you perform a ritual, make an offering, and pray to inform the god of why: either you're asking for a favor, or returning a favor already given, or you're simply trying to stay on good terms.

of course, asking (even in the right way) does not guarantee that the god will do what you want. but there is an expectation of reciprocity; that the god will participate in this arrangement with you. you must ask—ritual without prayer is futile—and you must accept that sometimes the answer will be "no."

salem brings flowers to the god of light, which appear to be an appropriate offering based on the assortment of other items placed around the shrine. then she asks him for a favor he is unwilling to give, and he refuses and sends her away from his domain. her "no" (in response to "let him rest") is generally interpreted as a refusal to take no for an answer—but it isn't. she does not try to force her way back into light's domain to demand that he bring ozma back, nor does take back her offering.

this woman felt no qualms about going before the god of darkness—a god nobody else dared to worship, one known solely as the progenitor of monsters—to pray for ozma's life. if she truly felt entitled to a miracle, her respect for this reciprocal form of worship would have ended when the god of light told her no; she would not have felt bound to uphold her end of the arrangement. she would not have left the flowers there.

but she did.

her decision to then petition the god of darkness is similarly often taken as an act of disobedience, of going behind the god of light's back to get what she wanted after he told her no, but:

the god of light told her that she had asked something he "cannot make so"—not will not, cannot. if salem took him at his word, it would not have been unreasonable to assume that he said no because bringing ozma back was beyond his power, but that perhaps the god of darkness could do it.

the brothers shared in the creation of the world and made humans together, as equals. there was not a hierarchy with the god of light above his brother—the god of light did not have standing to forbid worship of darkness. (which darkness points out during their confrontation.)

because we do not get to hear what salem told the god of darkness, we only have jinn's word that salem "made no mention of his elder" with intent to deceive and manipulate him. jinn is not a reliable narrator—there are details in her telling that are verifiably factually untrue, like the god of light being "the elder"—so this information is suspect. it is equally plausible that salem did not mention light because he wasn't relevant, having no involvement in whatever pact she struck with darkness, or that she made an implicit promise to revere darkness above his brother if he granted her wish. both would be within her rights.

from the very beginning, salem intended to petition both brothers. when ozma dies, she asks "how could the gods let this happen?" and jinn clarifies that she meant both light and darkness. she could not go to both of them at once—they were not in the same place—so she chose to approach the "safer" brother first. but she always meant to ask them both.

all of that is to say, returning to the point i made in the op: when salem offered ozma's staff to the god of darkness, she chose to risk that he, too, would take it from her and then turn her away empty-handed. that staff was her most prized possession, the only thing she had left of ozma, and offering it as a votive gave the god of darkness the means to hurt her very badly. she knew that, he knew that, and i think that is something salem did very deliberately because she thought about what he might want from her in return for this favor she asked of him. the grimm are drawn to pain and suffering, the god of darkness made the grimm, she offers him an object that represents her loss, one which she would be devastated to lose. you see the line of reasoning? there was no established praxis for her to follow with darkness (as she did with light), so she did her best to give him something he would appreciate.

and that is exactly why he gives her what she wants: salem believed in him, proved that her faith in him was true, so he gives back. reciprocity. insofar as there was any wrongdoing here, it was darkness neglecting to get his brother's consent per their agreement not to act unilaterally—but… light did that too, and he's been doing it ever since their fight over jabber, so that agreement was never made in good faith.

salem did nothing wrong. she was literally just a religious woman who prayed to the gods she had been worshipping all her life. what she does in the lost fable—making offerings to them both and asking a favor in return—is literally just practicing her religion. that is How Polytheistic Religion Works. the gods punish her brutally for worshipping them.

and she does learn from this experience. she learns that her faith in the brothers was misplaced, that the god of light does not want to be worshipped but rather obeyed, that the god of darkness was fickle and cruel, that the permanence of death is not the inherent natural way of the world but an artificial order imposed by the brothers—she hears light say that explicitly while he's arguing with darkness and they punish her by excluding her from their "delicate balance of life and death"—and that the brothers are neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. that they're fallible. that humankind does not need them, and would in fact be better off without them.

salem, er, "doubles down" every time she's given a choice to recant and submit to the god of light because she's right. she refuses to "learn her lesson" because the intended lesson is that the god of light is entitled to demand absolute, unquestioning obedience and give nothing in return because humans are worthless. she rejects ozma and his divine mandate because she does not believe that the brothers have the right to kill everyone if they don't get their way.

ruby learns from her experience too: she learns that the brothers are not absolute cosmic authorities, that they are not all-powerful or all-knowing, that the god of light was wrong. the blacksmith tells them all in no uncertain terms that light's understanding of balance is wrong. salem knows this. she has known this for hundreds of millions of years. she doesn't need to learn it because she already knows—and there's also, uh, a serious possibility that she knows the blacksmith too:

"aura is a manifestation of the soul." world of remnant is narrated in character and all of them carry implications about what the narrating character believes or perceives about their subject—for example, see qrow's blatant editorializing in all of his spots. salem narrates the aura episode; when she describes aura as a manifestation of the soul, a life-force running through every living thing on remnant, the associated imagery is a blacksmith. what does this imply about what—or who—she might know?

rolls over

yeah yeah, the ruby-salem grief weapon parallel, we've all seen it

salem offers up the staff as a votive to the god of darkness after telling him of her story and what she hopes to receive in return. he deems this a fair bargain and grants her wish; salem drops the staff at his feet and rushes to ozma's side. do ut des. this is an act of prayer, of worship. salem knows what she's doing—she's pious—and does everything correctly.

(including making an offering of something she must have put some serious thought into: she gives the god of grimm her most precious possession and a token of her suffering.)

and what she asks for in return is ozma's life. the staff was precious to her only in ozma's absence, because it represented her lost love. had the god of darkness answered no, salem would still be obliged to leave the staff in his domain—just as she left light his flowers, you don't take back an offering if the god's answer is not to your liking—and to part with it and walk away empty-handed would have been devastating. but the moment she sees ozma again, the staff means nothing; she lets it fall from her grasp without a thought.

she chose to make herself vulnerable to that pain, offering darkness her own heart as a fair sacrifice for the mere possibility of ozma getting to live. and he tells her to rise and see her faith rewarded.

<- faith.

ruby is in pain. ruby is grieving and boiling in guilt because penny died again and ruby could do nothing to save her again. the sword is all she has left of one of her best friends. and then she offers it up to the toy soldiers—who have come to take them to the red castle—in exchange for, er… being taken to the prince's birthday celebration so that she can present the sword as a gift.

why?

"look, we may not know exactly what's going on, but for whatever reason, this place is putting us on a similar path as a book we all read as kids. i say we follow it—and stop pretending we know what we're doing."

the consequence of this choice of course is that any emotional or spiritual significance this offering might have had is elided by the toy soldiers' grift and the red prince is a child who throws the sword away in a fit of pique: "how could you!?" ruby whispers, before swallowing that pain and stunting around in a scramble to keep the story on the "right" path.

<- fate.

rolls over again.

salem had faith. ozpin believes in fate.

faith is—asking. trying. communion with something greater than oneself. but to believe in fate is to believe in a single narrow path which must be followed no matter the cost because…because.

this is what "look how you've diminished" is about. how you've lessened yourself—and for what? ruby tears out her own heart in a futile effort to appease a spoiled child who kicks it away out of utter indifference—and for what? because the story said so. because she's afraid. because she doesn't know what else to do. she's lost her faith.

[askfordoodles]

A detail I don't see mentioned about the confrontation between Blitzø and Stolas is that while Blitzø is understandably angry and lashing out, he also ends his rant with an invitation to Stolas, imploring, no, demanding he meet him at his level, to get as angry as he is, to FIGHT HIM, right then and there.

We've seen frequently that imps are violent in general, they're originally native to Wrath, and we see that most of their bonding rituals often involve violence and/or bodily harm (just look at how much Millie and Sallie May messed each other up at the end and while being able to laugh about it; a broken bottle fight and broken bones is their version of a light-hearted pillow fight)

While Blitzø is also very self-destructive, even by Hell's standards, it should be noted that he's technically begging for Stolas to connect with him in this moment, to speak a language he understands. "At least respect me enough to fight me! If you care, why walk away? Get real with me, if we can't get physical with our genitals, then at least let us get physical with our fists!"

Unfortunately, Stolas has had the exact opposite cultural upbringing, having been taught his whole life that emotional outbursts are unseemly and improper, so his main go-to for conflicts is avoidance. He avoided confrontation with his father, he basically avoided Stella as much as he could even when she was openly shitting on him at parties; and ONLY just recently has he managed to stand up for himself and when he finally does, it's not to strike back, but simply stand his ground for once, emboldened his new-found love for Blitzø and the knowledge that his daughter isn't fooled by the act anymore and will soon be of age anyway.

It is not currently in Stolas' nature to be confrontational the way Blitzø desperately needs him to be.

Blitzø says: "Please, if you ever actually cared, you'd fight for us Get mad, show me that you care!"

What Stolas hears is just the most literal interpretation with zero subtext, because he isn't attuned to the subtleties of arguing and especially not what it looks like for imps, i.e. he focuses on the "I always hated you" interpretation.

Both gave the other an opening, but only heard dismissal, because it wasn't spoken in a language they were familiar with.

I'm not saying either handled things well here, Blitzø shouldn't immediately respond with anger and Stolas shouldn't default to walking away, that's my whole point.

I just thought it was an interesting angle that their differences aren't just societal (privilege/wealth/respect) but also cultural in how it influences how they each handle emotional confrontation, or, in the case of Stolas, how they don't.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I was wondering, what's your interpretation of tTPD as a whole?. I know a lot of people think it's a 31 album dedicated to one main muse minus 2 songs for his ex long term relationship but i was curious about your thoughts.

Also, some theorists are talking about a potential 10 years situationship between taylor and one muse and it makes me feel... weird. Because she was committed to someone else and i don't know how to feel knowing the other muse could be in some of my fave albums... sorry for the long rant

So there’s a lot going on here and it’s nuanced.

I don’t think it’s as simple as “it’s all about one person minus two songs.” There are several muses woven in both the text and subtext of the songs. And what happened with one muse in many cases was only possible because what happened with another. There are some songs that are explicitly about specific people’s actions, but overall things get muddy because situations are muddy.

This is a cop out answer, but ultimately to me the album is about Taylor. It’s about her pain and grief and trauma and also healing and recovery and joy. To reduce it to a man in particular discounts that she is the main character of her own life and story.

I do not think the story she put down in TTPD is one of a decade long situationship. As I said yesterday, I will gladly change my mind if new information comes to light. The story I picked up in TTPD is one where someone entered her life at a very vulnerable time, exploited their shared history to sow the seeds of this fantasy life to her that she was desperately grieving in her very real current life, which caused her to play revisionist history with her memories because she needed to make it “real” to herself as an escape hatch.

But even if that isn’t the case, and if it turns out that yes, she was pining for this person for ten years… it doesn’t take away from the fact that her past music is excellent, regardless of the inspiration. IMO fans would be better served to not always recall the muses when listening to music for their enjoyment. I know Taylor’s music is different because her life is so well documented and she used to be so open about who she was writing about, but very few artists do that and their music still hits. I don’t think at all about the artists’ lives when listening to any other band; hell, even in well-known messy situations like Fleetwood Mac, I’m not thinking about Stevie and Mick, I’m thinking that Landslide is beautiful and Rhiannon is a banger or whatever. If you think too much about the artists’ personal lives, you’re gonna get twisted in knots and may find there are few people you can listen to, because humans are fallible and messy and make mistakes. Like Taylor says, once the songs are out in the world, they’re not hers anymore, and you need to ascribe your own meaning to them.

Which is not to say I wasn’t surprised when I first figured out who she was writing about when I listened to TTPD, and yes the first few listens of the album made my head spin a bit for the lore of it all, but i truly listen to it like any other album now. It’s good music plain and simple.

What I’m trying to say is that you have to set your own boundaries I guess. If it really bothers you then you don’t have to listen to or engage with it. But personally I’m also not going to moralize Taylor’s or anyone else’s music because she’s human just like any of us and we all make choices in our lives. She was just brave enough to share the mess. It’s not a condoning of her actions because she doesn’t need my or anyone else’s approval for her choices. She’s recording a moment of time in her life and turned it into art, and now it takes on new meaning for listeners.

(Also if people are moralizing her choices because of the “commitment” thing well… I think they weren’t picking up on other parts of the album but. Well.)

Also my pet peeve is that I hate the word “theory” when applied to real people. They’re humans with lives, not characters in a TV show. This isn’t directed at you anon, just a general sentiment.

[destiel-wings]

I've gathered some of my thoughts about The Winchesters season finale and here's why i think it gave me some peace

(yes, this does contain a destiel interpretation, too 💚💙)

Did i want to see Cas in it? Yes.

Was i disappointed that he wasn't? Actually, no (more on that later).

But I loved it. I was so stunned as I saw it and I felt like somehow it healed some of the wounds from the spn finale... but i couldn't quite understand why.

Here's why.

We basically watched Supernatural. Jensen reopened the finale and went further with it. What we saw in The Winchesters felt like a continuation of 15x20, even if it technically happened in between the last two scenes of the finale. But we got Bobby, we got Jack. They all actually talked, in a way that felt alive and real. Jack broke his rule of no interfering, showing that he still cared for Dean (just like he had broken his own rule off screen by saving Cas from the Empty). The Winchesters wasn't a prequel, but a sequel.

Dean got his own story, got to make something for himself (instead of just waiting for Sam on a bridge), and it's something that he wanted to do. He went back to look for hope and love, for a version of his parents where they could have a real chance.

We learn love (or we don't) and how to be in a happy relationship as kids by watching our parents, and Dean was doomed that way. He never had that example, to learn how to build a relationship and let himself be loved. He never learned that. So when he gets to heaven and he has the chance, before getting on that bridge, before meeting up with his family, with Sam... and yes, with Cas (even if we haven't seen him yet), he just needs a freaking minute. He needs a little time to himself. To reconnect. To understand. To reflect on love and what it means to love and be loved.

So he does what any fond child would do... he looks up at his parents. Only his parents that are right there in heaven didn't exactly have a happy ending (or even a happy middle), so he explores further, searching for a chance, a hope, a version of his own legacy where love was possible. Because if his parents can make it... so can he.

And we see all that through his own lenses (the weird use of the camera lenses with all those flares and glow resembles the aura of Dean's drive in heaven, thinking about it in retrospect).

screencaps of the glowy amber look and those camera flares, there's probably better examples but these are some of the best ones i could find

Dean's mission might have been the Akrida, but the reason he went looking, the real quest he was after, was hope. Hope for a happy ending. Hope for love, where said love was doomed from the start.

And it's not surprising that there were destiel parallels everywhere, because that was Dean's POV, and he's processing his own feelings. Which is something he needs to do before he sees Cas again.

And personally, I think Dean loves Cas back and he knew that before dying, but still, that doesn't mean that he's not afraid of messing it up. That he knows how to approach him, or face Cas, after all that's happened.

He may not even be doing all of this thinking consciously, but the Castiel subtext we've seen in The Winchesters, from a narrative POV, is Dean's.

We're seeing the parallels because he's seeing them, making them, it's his way of processing. Of seeing what he and Cas had, and what they could have. Looking for hope.

And, as he himself said before leaving again... i think he found it.

So i don't know how things are going to go on from here. I can't imagine how we could have Dean in a season two. I've been saying all along that The Winchesters might open the story for a SPN revival/s16, and i think it is perfectly possible that this might happen here.

The Winchesters might not have Dean anymore, becoming its own show (but still having lots of references and guest stars from Supernatural) and *as Jensen loves to say* when we get the revival, there will be the space to address Castiel's confession and give his character the importance that it needs.

It wouldn't have made sense to see Cas here in a little cameo, it wouldn't have been enough. But what we saw here, was the confirmation of Jensen reopening the finale, and his willingness to bring Dean back (as he's always stated), for whatever more he's allowed to do.

I love the way they handled it, we still got peace and hope (even if there were to be no s2), and i feel like we're all more confident that the bridge scene is not an ending, but a beginning of something more. Dean has said he's gonna go look for his family. That's not just Sam.

Of course he's gonna see Cas too. But i don't think any of us would've been satisfied to see him pop up randomly for a couple of minutes in TW, with little to no mention of what happened between them.

Also, i want to point out that this was supposed to be the midseason finale but they had to adapt it when they found out they didn't get a full season, we could've had much more (like more narrating voices as Jensen had teased) or even seeing more of Dean, instead of just seeing him in the pilot and the season finale. They even asked Misha to be there (and he refused for scheduling conflicts since he was busy filming Gotham Knights *but said he's absolutely willing to appear later*).

So i think there's still so much story to tell here and i am absolutely hopeful and trust that we will love it.

I think they did an amazing job in 13 episodes, and I can't wait to see what's next 💖

[girl4music]

The whole Gabrielle and Virgil thing going on all throughout Season 6.

I think,... just like with Joxer, it was an unreciprocated situation. I mean if you want to interpret Gabrielle as bi or pan, then maybe there was something reciprocated on her part. But for those of us that interpret her as a lesbian, you can also just see it as she only showed an interest back because she was drunk. She wasn't in her right state of mind because people often do out of character stuff when they're drunk or influenced by some type of substance. That seemed to very much be the case in 'Heart Of Darkness' because they do show you once they've come out of that dark compulsion Gabrielle shrugging off Virgil with an expression on her face of "What the hell have I done with Joxer's son?" You know? They show that she regrets or is even revolted by her actions while she was under the influence and they hold space for Xena to have a moment where she's also wondering what the hell happened between them then and Lucy plays that beat so brilliantly. She shows Xena concerned and even throwing it back to Gabrielle like "I was under the influence too but the whole time I thought of you,... did you even think of me?" Making it unresolved playful tension between them rather than anything serious.

At least that's how I interpreted all of what went on in 'Heart Of Darkness' anyway. That it was very much a situation where they both could have cheated on the other or maybe if they were in an open romantic relationship - they couldn't stand it anymore to see each other with other people. As I said in a previous post - the debate seemed to be more so "were they monogamous or polygamous?" rather than "were they/weren't they?" That's a lot more interesting.

But once again... you've got direct confirmation that Renee never allowed anything like that to happen between Gabrielle and a character that wasn't Xena to be shown on screen. It could be implied. It could be an unreciprocated thing... but ultimately she believed it never made any sense for the character to have shown any romantic attraction to anyone - man or woman- unless it was Xena. By that point in the show the subtext was the straight stuff. That was the stuff left ambiguous and given a "will they/won't they?" sort of vibe to it because they all agreed that the ship was Xena and Gabrielle and even if they couldn't confirm anything - they made it very clear that there was a legendary romance there between them as much as they could for the time Season 6 was filmed and aired in and you need only to listen to the creators/cast/crew commentary to learn that they were on the same side of the shippers by this point. Maybe initially they had some hesitation but I think that's completely fine because Xena and Gabrielle were depicted as a slow burn thing and I personally think that it's absolutely true that for the majority of the show they were nothing more than best friends with benefits and that it's even conceivable that they never became an official couple at all and they sort of remained in this in-between state of lovers and friends which doesn't invalidate that they weren't canon either because a lot of WLW/queer couples do that to avoid complications.

I do fully acknowledge that they wanted to "have their cake and eat it too" - as the analogy goes - but I think it worked so well that they did given that the creators/cast/crew were very sincere with the WLW/queer representation. So any time they would have a "Man-Insert" happen, I think you can just as easily and validly interpret it as a bisexual narrative because they also do the same with the female characters. Maybe it's a little more frustrating with Gabrielle but with Renee being adamant that it's inconsistent with her character to be doing any of that, I really don't think there's a problem there either and I think it also works to provide delicious romantic/sexual tension between the leads that all the more validates that they're the ship because as I keep saying - they more so use the "Man-Insert" as a straightbaiting tactic in the same way other shows do queerbaiting.

The intention and purpose of that tactic is always to represent and develop on Xena and Gabrielle and never to pull them away from anything romantic/sexual that is evidently going on between them. It's the complete opposite of what other shows do and they know it and they use it to their great advantage because they wanted X&G.

But as far as Gabrielle and Virgil, I personally had less of a problem with the whole sexuality thing and more of a problem with the fact that it's JOXER'S SON and were Xena and Gabrielle never frozen in ice for 25 years, Gabrielle likely would have been changing his diapers. And if anything romantic/sexual had come from it from both sides, that would have been insanely difficult for me to watch regardless of however I interpret Gabrielle and Virgil's sexualities. Even if Virgil was of age to be romantically/sexually involved with someone much older than him - that's still fucking weird and uncomfortable as fuck man. There's no way that did not influence Renee and William's decision to not let anything happen between them beyond this episode because it would absolutely be the first thing I'd think of why not to. And the thing about this show compared to many other TV shows is that the cast had a lot of authoritative leeway on the way the final product ended up. Especially Lucy and Renee. It's absolutely true that XENA is male-created and male-dominated but THEY were the authority of it. That means no ultimate decision was made without consulting Lucy and Renee. If it passed their judgement, it passed production and that's a rare experience even by today's TV show-making standards.

[laylajeffany]

Can men do any form of divination work in your interpretation of outcasts? There have been plenty of male psychics, but none doing Wednesday's sort of magic. Though very few men were accused during the most well-known witch trials (though there were still some), there were many men accused in other countries like Russia Many authors intentionally choose to exclude male witches from their work simply because there's plenty of male representation already, but it varies whether not that means no men at all or if simply none are presented to the audience. So I'm curious to know your view on it in the context of outcasts and the Network (I will say I'm only on chapter 21 so there may be a character I'm not aware of yet)

I just snorted; there is a character you are loosely aware of and haven’t met in-person yet as of chapter twenty-one and oh boy, can he perform psychic/magic-adjecent feats.  For the magic “rules” I have in place in CftF, anyone is capable of tapping into the energy of the universe and perform feats of divination, though obviously Psychics, particularly Seers, would be more naturally inclined to be open to these channels due to their Outcast abilities. Wednesday’s lineage on the Frump side and the whole “homespun magic” piece is intentionally matriarchal. Indeed, all the way up to the end, you will notice that only women (outside of QBB in the ether) have been seen doing divination in the story regardless of the Frump family, though. Is this a coded message that women are stronger than men in this area within the CftF world? Or does the author just think about men so infrequently that she didn’t even consider to include any males in the scenes that involved these practices, lmfao?

In general - my writings are by The Girls™ for The Girls™ All other genders and expressions of gender are welcome to read of course, but might not find themselves connecting as deeply as I specifically call to some of the female and lesbian struggle, written by a lesbian who really writes for herself, and edited only by lesbian eyes as well lol (even before Wednesday and Enid are together in chapter 13 - the subtext of her struggle prior to is related to that experience). I used to write a lot of stories that featured men more, including het ships. Now I’m like, “Why would I write something that I don’t really like?” And I don’t really like men lol. (To be fair I also do not have great men in my real life who inspire me in any capacity, I am constantly having to teach them very basic things, do their jobs for them and/or remind them that I am not just here to be used - I do know there are good men out there, T. Martel’s father being one of them a la Gomez). (I think Kate McKinnon’s team has scrubbed lot of her pre-SNL content from the internet…she used to have an interview from when she worked on LogoTV that explained this so well that I can’t find anymore.) Regardless, the entire world centers men, and my 1.4 million word story was a place where that simply would not happen. As an author I absolutely try to center women and write from a lesbian lens as often as it is appropriate and makes sense for the story. We will be seeing more Gomez and Pugs in the sequel though as the first 300k will probably be taking place prior to arriving at Nevermore for the fall semester and be far more Addams family (which includes Enid now) centric. I recently finished an extremely heartwarming father-daughter part of chapter one and it tugged on my own heartstrings, lol. I would love to play with more Gomez and Morticia pre-children visions or memories if I can find a way to meaningfully incorporate them into the story. I think that Gomez’s love for his wife is a conduit for her to tap into more powerful divination practices - she is a light seeker, and her husband is part of where she draws inspiration (even if it grosses Wednesday and I out lol). This was very briefly mentioned when Wednesday asked if she had a difficult time conceiving when she realized that it was nearly seventeen years into Gomez and Morticia's relationship before she was born. Love power is real lmfao.

[patricia-taxxon]

defining AI art out of the capacity to have context or subtext because there's an intermediary step where the prompt crafter doesn't have direct control over the finished product seems wrongfooted to me. Would Duchamp have had to create Fountain by hand for it to count as art ? Would it have had to be a bespoke urinal design? If his signature had been printed on a label digitally and plastered on, would that have removed the capacity of the piece to be interpreted, in absence of the ethereal Creators Intent which we can never have access to across any medium? I'm not prepared to categorically deny algorithmic art as being crafted, but also I'm not sure that craft or intentionality are metaphysically relevant to classification or valuation of art (the former because a dividing line between acceptable tools for lessening strain on creators vs Theres No Craft Anymore So Its Trash would inherently be an arbitrary distinction so long as there's any level of input at all, the latter because intentionality is epistemically inaccessible to audiences by definition). I can understand an aesthetic distaste for particular works but this essentialist attitude of "oh there's somehow a miraculous spiritual process by which the context of a pieces production determines whether it is Imbued With The Animating Spark Of Creativity" just feels wrong to me. All that being said I do want to say I respect your aesthetic arguments infinitely more than any copyright based objections to the theft at the heart of derivative works or whatever, and make it clear that I'm not a stringent advocate for AI art as like, an actually Really Good Thing, I think the majority of what the software produces will be uninspired and uninteresting, but the construction of it as opposed to Real Art doesn't feel well grounded to me

Once again, your winding diatribe opens with a few odd assumptions that I can't follow, mainly that the craft of AI art prompting is comparable to generative or readymade art, which it isn't. It's not even comparable to the purposefully text-less minimalist sculptures of Carl Andre or Dan Flavin, cold arrangements of industrial materials (bricks, lamps etc) the artist had no hand in making contain more of an authorial voice than a diffusion engine's output does, and your thoughtless conflation of the two shows your lack of respect for the former more than your advocacy for the latter. Minimalist sculpture was born from a human desire to represent space and dimension as literally as possible with resistance to biographical interpretation, readymade sculpture came from a want to see beauty in the mundane and not-yet-arted, the use of consumer grade AI art engines barely requires the application of taste let alone craft.

It is absurd to paint my argument as some takedown of the nebulous concept of art made via process, when that is a distinction that I have been working to reinforce this entire time. My arguments remain in opposition to the specific concerted ideological push we are seeing from the massively funded actors in this specific industry.

[lesser-mook]

"The logical conclusion to Kratos fighting every pantheon." (I really, really like this concept, only because of how batshit insane Lore acc Jesus is strictly from a power-scaling perspective and despite everyone on the Planet knowing who Jesus is, most have NO idea what he is.)

not a bad concept, though they wouldn't have a reason to fight beyond Jesus' 2nd mission:

Off the top of my head, according to lore, he projects a sword out of his mouth (RV 1:16), can wield starts casually (RV 1:16), while riding a flaming horse or some shit, the sky split open (meaning the fabric of reality is breached) hence commanding legions of Angles hording through (which from text & recent visual interpretation actually look like Lovecraftian demons) to literally conquer Earth. like an interdimensional alien warlord pressing the sleep button on Humanity.

The popular central theme of this guy is he doesn't die or live in a traditional sense, and the only reason he allowed himself to be killed was to be a martyr by choice, to make a point.

Give humanity a couple thousand years to find "his/the way" supposedly, otherwise according to lore, his comeback is "The End" of post-modern humanity itself than it is the literal end of humans, I have to read it again tho.

Then another millennia of apocalyptic fallout. No nukes, no armor, just this guy showing up.

Not only would biblically acc angels be a horrifying aspect to put in a game, but Jesus himself is actually a terrifying entity despite the nice guy nature humans took for granted at the time.

Them just sounding off Trumpets will rumble the earth and cause extinction level events.

Technically he can't be beaten, because everyone knows his mortality. Nobody knows what he can actually do, which is everything. He's the original Gary Stu.

We're not even factoring in the Quantum intelligence that is "God" or even the Holy Spirit which is like a glorified proxy medium. All the Angels, their ranks, their subordinates, etc.

That game would have to be psychological/cosmic horror epic themed, surrealism.

most People only know the Sunday school tales of the human side of prophets and judges, the people God used to manipulate lives to set a narrative. From beginning to end.

Going by the book, Humanity is the original (The SIMS) game.

The BIBLE? In it's raw form, it's a tale of hope, flawed characters, redemption, perseverance, with an over-arching horror story subtext. Constant genocides at God's hands, only for Humanity to pick up the slack without his help.

And In a meta sense, in theory, WE ARE The Cliffhanger.

God itself doesn't reside in Heaven strictly, like Zeus or Odin. He has a throne, he's there, but not there.

That's just where the followers go to honor "it".

Jesus likely wouldn't want to kill Kratos, but if this is post Revelations arc Jesus. This would definitely be the game Kratos dies in cosmic epic glory.

Because that Jesus isn't preaching love, he brings war, and his physical form is G.O.N.E.

I would love to see Kratos go up against a straight up hax-ego centric narcissist being that can't bleed, be reached or touched. Having no form.

And it's only form, his kinder nicer, human self, his Son. In canon is no more. Jesus as a physical being that can be hurt, doesn't exist anymore.

(JESUS), unbeknownst to most "Christians", actually existed simultaneously throughout the Bible since Genesis/possibly pre-Gen.

Meaning this guy CHRIST, can pass through time itself. Because he did, does, will do.

I shit you not.

Superman RED Son's (novel) ending plottwist has NOTHING ON this.

There's this narrative that repeats multiple times in just Relevation Chapter 1 "Was, Is, is to come"

Revelation 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Past, Present, Future. It's consistent.

That's what i mean by "-doesn't die or live in a traditional sense", the guy existed before he was born, before he did, before he resec himself. Think about that.

Kratos needed to go on a whole ass side-quest to go through time. Jesus can just do it, technically the fabric of space-time is something he can possess, re-write, or see. Because REALLY think about what it means to exist in the past, present, and future: At the same time.

The past is gone for humans, we always live in the present. But Jesus still exists in back then. As we're in the present, waiting for the future, where he ALSO exists.

See how broken that is?

Even Asura couldn't touch this guy. DOOMSLAYER can't touch this dude, you can't.

How in the actual fuck, do you "fight" that?

Everyone says the meme "Flash can go back and kill you as a baby". Jesus apparently can do the same thing. He is simultaneous.

When the text states God is everywhere, that includes timelines, dimensions, etc. This is a beyond 10th dimensional being.

Manifested himself in flesh.

Defied death after 3 days, the only one to do that, Lazarus needed re-animation, Christ is the ONLY one to do it himself.

Not as a rule, but just to make a fucking point. That shit is both petty and scary.

The (Pan) in Pantheon.

Post-Revelations Jesus IS THE God, of War. And death.

That would be the sheer irony of pulling this off as a game

This is why it claims to be "THE" God. The thing, It, is literally every superpower you can imagine. We're talking serious beyond Haruhi Suzumiya+Dr.Manhattan+Cthulhu on steroids type shit.

no god of the sea, no god of dreams, none of that shit. This one wanted the title of "THE".

Alpha--Omega, period.

Revelation 5:1, There's God's throne, and he's holding like this book no one man or anyone in the pantheon can open except his successor, Christ.

It has Seven seals, the book does, and Christ just opening the seals is summoning horseman, like these summoned executioners RV 6:4

Revelation 6:1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

2 And I saw, and behold a white horse:

And then another event where the people over the course of all time that died for God, are paid tribute and given royalty treatment after they question him as to what is their reward for their spilled blood?

Revelation 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. 12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

Instead of tyranny for being questioned, he took care of them, gave them quality clothes, rest and a seat in the Kingdom to wait for the others after them: Theoretically any of us who would join.

Basically sit back, here's some drip and wait for immending immortality for being killed for his sake.

If this was OT, they would've been struck out of existence, but the era of Christ was God himself having a character arc that he himself determined in advance because technically before it happened, it happened already.

And the

RV 6:12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

Just him opening a seal of this book warped physics to change the shades of celestial bodies on a level of an eclipse.

JUST HIM OPENING THE SEAL.

This thing is next level.

The religion aspect is what people turn away from, including me, but from a strictly "kaiju"/Cosmic being standpoint, "Yahweh", "Elohim", "Christ" is a serious monster.

Unless Kratos drops in during the NT or before OT even happens, because again Jesus existed during & thus by proxy before Genesis.

I used to think the whole book was corny but the Shit is mind-numbing apocalyptic, straight insanity.

Kratos cannot afford to be holding back with this one, even if he doesn't, it won't help.

The problem is most god's Kratos has fought has had physical silhouette's one way or another

Or that time he fought Zeus' ghost

or he’s had some kind of weapon to tangibly touch spirits. (GOW3)

This one, pantheon and all, is a whole different beast. These things are omi-dimensional avatars-- Vibrating between dimensions because reality is just a frequency that our atoms reside in.

Which is why we're not going to find Aliens in space or in the Earths Core. They're literally next to you, in another frequency of reality-- A dimension, that's what Parallel Earths in Comics represent. Thats what Heaven is. A frequency.

That's HOW this God does it, through sound, frequency science. Not spaceships.

Revelation 8:2  And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

These trumpets according to lore will change landscapes, cause great events and summon greater angels.

And that's why people resonate with music so much, how it can control moods, frequency of sound is power, it taps into dimensions if the sound is strong enough.

Specifically the method that Christs coming is announced is through Horns, Sound. Punching through our dimension like a battering-ram on a door.

It's no accident that the "Arrowhead project" let in aliens from another dimension into this one in 'The Mist' story because the military went and knocked on their front door.

Sound is a stronger element than Humanity realizes, well the uninitiated anyway.

All in all, I genuinely want to see that game happen. Even if not accurate, (because if it is, Kratos loses hard, it's not even a fight), the interpretation alone would be cool.

Though his death was trash, GOW Thor was awesome.

[pynkhues]

Sorry if you already wrote about your opinions on nicki's and lestat's relashionship but I'm confused about some interpretations I've seen here and on x. For reference the only book I've read so far is tvl and nicki seemed so tragic the whole time and his relashionship with lestat was obviously always doomed plus they didn't really understand each other.

I just felt sorry for both of them but I wouldn't call nicki abusive and say that he didn't love lestat at all. I don't know maybe I didn't get some subtext or was being too forgiving? But also I don't think they were childhood sweethearts/were solely wholesome either. And I really hope they do their relashionship justice because there is no reason to make them more toxic in order to uplift loustat because nicki literally doesn't exist anymore.

I wouldn't call him abusive either, anon, but I've seen a bit of it recently too which - - mm. I mean, I wish I could say that it surprised me, but honestly it doesn't? Their relationship is not a healthy one, and Nicki is extremely prone to jealousy with Lestat and can be cruel to him, to say nothing of the fact that he arguably forces Lestat to turn him, and then to give him the theatre, but they're two abused, traumatised young men who find, briefly, an escape in one another. There's a really unhealthy codependency in that emotionally, particularly when you add in Nicki's depression, but also with the fact that Lestat's very much relying on Nicki due to his own illiteracy (and it's explicit in the book - he needs Nicki to read the news to him and plays so he can memorise them, and he's his only way to communicate with Gabrielle through letters), and Nicki relies on Lestat to both leave in the first place with Gabrielle's money and to get work in Paris.

It's a complicated relationship - one that's actually, I think, a lot more complicated than it gets credit for being, and I do hope the show depicts that - and like you said, ultimately a doomed one, but not every unhealthy relationship is abusive.

I do think people probably point to the break-up a bit in this where Nicki tells Lestat that he doesn't love him and that he only went to Paris with him because he thought they would both die there, but I mean, the context of that scene is Nicki's reached a breaking point. There might be an element of truth to it - Nicki hates Lestat for being able to move forwards, for people loving him, for finding success in the way he's never been able to - for being, as he says! Filled with light when he is filled with darkness! - and I'm sure part of it too is that he thought that they might die in Paris - but we see over and over again in those first parts of the book that Nicki loves him, and if he meant them to die in Paris, he meant them to die together.

My read of that has always been that he says it to hurt him because Nicki's hurting. He's been so low for so long, and he thought being turned would make everything better and it's made everything worse, and it's just what like Louis tells Lestat that he did in their reunion - he wanted Lestat to suffer because he was suffering. In that sense, their relationships do have similarities, but Nicki's not Louis. Louis can find his way out of it, because at the end of it all, Louis' somebody who survives, even when he wants to die, and Nicki is not.

So yeah, this is all to say that I agree with you. Their relationship is just sad, but it has its moments of genuine beauty and love, that's part of what makes it both tragic and compelling. They're two traumatised boys escaping abusive fathers and an isolated, impovered, ignorant small town, who make it to the city with their hands clasped together, and the world opens up for them in ways that are both wonderful and terrible and only one of them survives it.

[king-wens-king]

To me, there is such a deep vindication I feel with this.

"You and Mr. Fell don't ever talk to each other. You never say what you're really thinking."

Because its acknowledging every interaction and dialogue they had beforehand saying that yes, this is what they've been saying in hidden words for the entire time and you're not crazy for seeing it as such.

But its not just that either. It is also saying that regardless of how romantic those lines and interactions are even without having to put it explicitly-

You go too fast for me, Crowley

I lost my best friend.

To the world.

- those same lines and interactions alone are not enough. Crowley and Aziraphale have been speaking to each other in hidden meaning out of necessity for their entire existence so as to keep each other safe, but often they omit and they keep things ouy and end up just miscommunicating and falling out. They end up pushing each other away. No, it is not enough that they say these things, we see it as peak romance, and we leave it at that. It is not enough that we dance around it for thousands of years without putting what we actually feel into words. Subtext is not enough anymore.

And that was so amazing to me!!! Its what changed my mind with my complicated feelings with the series. I am tired of clapping creators on the back for the bare minimum! Yes, those interactions, those double-meaning dialogues are delicious and rich, but we can't have it be something dismissed as 'up to interpretation' anymore! I am done with that!

The fact that Nina and Maggies advice are given the narrative importance of it being the solution to Aziraphale and Crowley's issues - the need to put subtext to text and actually say what they mean (what they want and what they have felt for the last millenia) and actually communicate? It was so vindicating. They need to be vulnerable enough and get whats out of their heads and actually have a conversation with the other clearly. It is powerfully speaking to the need for Crowley and Aziraphale to actually be vulnerable and honest this time, along with the metatextual nature of acknowledging past writing.

We end the season on a very rough patch - they are both on completely different wave lengths and neither really given the proper chance to say what they want. But at the very least, we know now that in order to fix it, the both of them are DEMANDED by the narrative to have a long talk where they are on the same page, and speak plainly about what they want and feel.

Next season is courting and long talk and reconciliation baby- mr darcy open shirt moment. Only then can they take on the forces of heaven and hell and save the world.

[skyefullofdaisies]

Why do I have someone on Tik Tok called The Mystery Spot Podcast telling me Destiel, which she annoyingly pronounces wrong along with Gabriel’s name, was canon when the show ended?? Girly pop, no they were not.

The only thing ya’ll got was Misha Collins continuing to queer bait the shippers by saying Castiel’s “I love you” was open to interpretation. When it wasn’t. When Dean still was a straight character. I don’t know what more evidence they need other than the creator of the characters AND the man who played Dean for 15 years saying he is straight. To the point where Jensen won’t even really talk about Destiel anymore because the toxic shippers harassed the hell out of him since he wouldn’t support their delusion that Dean was secretly in love with Castiel. What evidence you ask? A kiss? A mutual love confession that was guaranteed canon? Nope. A few intense looks over the years that Dean also shared with Sam so I suppose Wincest is canon too with their logic. Let’s not forget the slowed down gif sets and all this subtext only they saw.

Now they’re out here desperately hoping Castiel will show up on The Winchesters and Dean will confess his undying love there, I guess. Idk. You’d think nearly 3 years since the show ended they’d get over that Destiel never was and never will be canon but apparently not 🤷‍♀️

[leandra-kinard]

All of this.

Also, sometimes subtext - i.e. intentionally added secondary levels of interpretation - is something that is only added as breadcrumbs and not intended to be textualized anytime soon or ever. Sometimes, writers do blur the lines between messages intentionally because they want different viewer groups to see different things reflected and 'up for interpretation'.

This is something that may apply to some of the potentially romantic interactions between Buck and Eddie in the past. There was subtext there; some of it was a potential seen through a valid interpretative process of the actual text. (That is not the case with any tension or malintent seen in the Bucktommy dinner scene of 7x10).

There was usage of certain cinematographic cues, and also in the way certain lines of dialog were delivered, or how they stood in context to the plot (e.g., and this was one thing that stood out to me in the past, at the end of season 5 Buck asks Maddie if love shouldn't rather be when things are difficult and you step in and are there regardless to try and try again because it's worth it. That is highly reflective of what Buck had just been doing for Eddie when he had his mental health crisis and therefore felt as deliberate subtext).

There are several reasons why subtext as authorial intent may be present but then never gets textualized - one being because it's the only thing they can get away with; two being because they have not decided yet where they are going with the story, and are using it as a door opener; in other instances it may be a nod towards the fans only to be picked up by them and not the general viewer; and so on.

Distinguishing between genuine (i.e. intended) subtext and personal interpretations can be difficult, as the lines are blurry, and we often cannot tell for sure without asking the author.

In the end, it has a lot to do with what OP said about "reverse engineering" a scene to get to a specific interpretation. Intentional subtext should be relatively blatant, and it shouldn't stand in contradiction to the main text; it needs to work as a theory without having to disregard a larger portion of the textual cues.

A good example would be Eddie's panic attacks. The main text tells us Eddie has a panic attack when someone assumes he and Ana are in a seriously committed relationship and that Ana even is Christopher's mother. The text then concludes that Ana wasn't the right person for Eddie; that it had all gone too fast ("a ready made family") and didn't reflect Eddie's personal choice or wishes.

That text doesn't get invalidated at all if we interpret the underlying reason for this being Eddie's repressed homosexuality. So that could, potentially, have been one intended, subtextual reason (and knowing now that Eddie/Tommy was at least a consideration, it might have been something that, in hindsight, would have been confirmed as true).

But that subtextual interpretation being valid at the time does not mean the subtext has to be made into text. As we saw now, the reason for why both of Eddie's relationships failed is that he's not yet over Shannon. That is textualized and got a pretty big arc this season.

Is it still possible that he's been repressing his homosexuality and is only using his grief over Shannon to further repress the true reason? Psychologically, sure. Textually/subtextually? Not as much anymore. We did not get any further cues that this was still a possible avenue. So that interpretation is now (most likely and from all the cues I could observe) in the realm of personal head canon rather than intended subtext.

TL;DR: authorial intent matters. Intentional subtext requires textual cues and is and a door opener for potential textualization, later, but it's no guarantee for it. And personal head canons without or with very little textual cues are precisely that: personal.

i've just finished my s7 rewatch and it's kinda so funny to me how much discourse people created over every bucktommy interaction when their whole arc boils down to tommy being patient and vulnerable with buck and showing up for him. like when you are not wearing shipper goggles under the name of "analysis" and don't try to reverse-engineer every word and look and shot with utmost bad faith, that's what it is. a simple and sweet story of a new exciting relationship with a guy who's understanding and willing to show up. literally the two things buck needs from a relationship but never had with his previous love interests. they are kinda sickeningly sweet and well-communicating actually lol

[wheelercurse]

Heart motif.

Will/Mike/El love triangle analysis - Part 1

In this analysis, I’m going to read beyond the surface level; it’s about subtext, so maybe some points could sound like a reach, but this is just my interpretation of what they’re trying to tell us without explicitly saying it.

The heart is an essential element in the story of this love triangle. It’s used for these characters, but the main focus is Mike. So, with this motif, they tell you how these three characters feel, but especially Mike. 

First thing first, what is a motif? 

It’s a literary device that consists of a repeated element; it could be a symbol, a word, or a sound. It helps illuminate main ideas, themes, or deeper meanings. Motifs also are used to connect scenes. 

To put this easily:

Motif - Heart 

Theme - Feelings + Love. 

Will’s speech and painting are clear examples of when they used this motif. But what if I told you this element has appeared since season 3? 

Scenes with the heart motif:

Joyce suggests to Hopper to have a heart-to-heart with Mike and El.

El tells Mike: “you talked about your feelings, your heart.” 

Joyce gives El Hopper’s letters (heart-to-heart)

Will tells Mike: “Without heart, we’d fall apart.” 

Will tells Mike: “You’re the heart.” 

1. Joyce suggests to Hopper to have a heart-to-heart with Mike and El.

In this scene, Joyce describes it like this:

“You sit them down, and you talk to them like you’re their friend. I find if you talk to them like you’re on their level, then they really start to listen.”

Hopper tried to have this heart-to-heart. And he followed Joyce's advice, but ultimately, he lost his temper. 

See how he sat them down and put himself on their level.  

That’s what heart-to-hearts are. A conversation in which two parties listen to each other and open up about their feelings. See how many conversations like that Will and Mike have during s4.

Mike and El have one conversation that turns into a fight, ending with El standing up and Mike looking up at her. And the other conversation was interrupted when Mike was about to open up. 

The most important scene is Mike’s monologue. Because when he finally said I love you. 1) They weren’t at the same level. 2) Mike wasn’t sure if she was hearing him. 

So, that wasn’t a heart-to-heart. 

2. El tells Mike: “you talked about your feelings, your heart.” 

The second time the heart motif was mentioned was in the last scene with Mike and El’s last conversation. 

She was referring to the cabin scene when he blurted out that he loved her and couldn’t lose her again. El came out of the bathroom and asked what was happening, but Mike didn’t want to tell her. But he tried to declare his love in the supermarket. 

Mike couldn’t finish because Dustin interrupted him, but he intended to tell her he loved her. But then, at the end of the season, he didn’t want to say those words to her anymore. That’s why he pretended he didn’t remember nor said it back. 

I would think that the only reason he didn’t say it back was that he was afraid of losing her. You know she was moving away, BUT why didn’t he kiss her back? And that would make sense if he didn’t have another potential love interest: Will. 

side note: The soundtrack that plays during this scene is “The First I love You.” It also played during Robin’s coming out scene.

In the next scene of this one, the heart motif is back again. 

3. Joyce gives El Hopper’s letters (heart-to-heart)

El: What is that?

Joyce: The speech that Hopper wrote for you and Mike.

El: Speech?

Joyce: Yeah, you know, the heart-to-heart. 

In Hopper’s letter, the central theme is feelings. This is how it starts: 

“I know you care about each other very much. [...] so we can build an environment where we all feel comfortable, trusted, and open to share our feelings.” 

This line also relates to Mike saying, “I care for you so much.” And also Will said: “Sometimes  I think it’s just scary to open up like that. To say how you really feel, especially to people you care about the most. Because what if they don’t like the truth?” 

These three lines are connected because everything seemed to lead to Mike opening up about his feelings in a heart-to-heart. Will’s arc was the same, but in the end, Will wasn’t completely honest about them. Yes, he talked about them but disguised as El. And Mike didn’t close his arc either because like I mentioned in the first point he didn’t have a heart-to-heart with El. 

Then we have a sequence that illustrates Mike’s thoughts and feelings about Will. 

At first sight, it seems like he’s thinking about Will and El, and yes, he was hurt because El was moving away; he cares for her too, and of course, he would miss her. But these lines connect her central conflict with Will in s4.

“But lately, I guess I’ve been feeling distant from you. Like you’re pulling away from me or something.” 

Mike, in s4, told Will: “I felt like I lost you or something.” At that moment, he felt like he was losing Will again. 

Also, Will told him: “If she was mean to you or it seems like she was pushing you away, it’s because she’s scared of losing you like you’re scared of losing her.” 

That was referring to their relationship. Also, if you doubt it was about them, the following line is about playing board games every night. The rain fight has many layers, but it started when Mike was being mean when playing d&d.

And the following sequence focuses on Mike and his feelings; it’s when the subject is about change. There’s no way that this wasn’t about Will. Mike is looking at his house, then we have a shot of Will crying, and finally, Mike arrives at his home and hugs his mom as he did back in s1 when he thought he had lost Will. 

I’m gonna explain more about this line: “I don’t want things to change.” If you take this only at face value, you will think that it’s only referring to the fact that they don’t want to get separated. But it’s more than that. Because the main theme of season 3 was “change”. And this was the main conflict between Mike and Will. Like this line says, both of them didn’t want things to change, but Mike was acting like he didn’t want things to stay the same because they have grown up. 

That’s why he said to Will. 

“We’re not kids anymore. I mean what did you think really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? We were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?” 

Mike said it like he didn’t want that, but then at the end of season 3 he looked worried when Will gave away his d&d, and the next season he joined the Hellfire Club. So his actions speak louder than his words. He still wants to play games and especially with Will. He doesn’t want things to change. 

“play games for the rest of our lives” has romantic connotations, and this has a double meaning. And this was confirmed  when Will brought back this line during the van scene. “We can play Nintendo and d&d for the rest of our lives.” And Will is in love with Mike, that’s a fact, so yes it’s not far-fetched to think that line is an allegory for their wishes of spending their lives together

So back to my point, that letter talks about feelings and is used to illustrate Mike’s feelings for Will. 

First, I know this letter is also used to illustrate how other characters felt, but when the focus was on Mike, it was about Will, not El. The question is, why doesn’t he use it to reflect his feelings for his girlfriend, who is moving away? And also, it seemed that his feelings had changed, or something had changed. Because he was trying to say he loved her in the supermarket, but in the end, he didn’t want to say the words. 

These scenes are connected with the heart motif. Mike couldn’t talk about his heart, his feelings for El when she told him she loved him. The heart-to-heart letter is used to explain how he feels about Will. 

My point is he couldn’t say I love you because of his feelings for Will.  

And with the plot of s4, they practically confirmed this. I’ll explain it more in the next part. 

[tearblossom]

Orbital Station Scene Analysis: Part 3

Lmao here we go again. Ready to fall even deeper down the rabbit hole that is this scene with me!? This one scene functions simultaneously as my source of joy and depression and I watch it more than I would care to admit. So, naturally, I have even more to say about it! It’s going to be long. Sorry.

Part 1- https://tearblossom.tumblr.com/post/645095661644251136/scene-analysis-this-is-just-what-i-personally-feel

Part 2- https://tearblossom.tumblr.com/post/645776311115186176/i-was-thinking-some-more-about-the-final-scene

In this one, I’ll be going into more detail explaining the emotional mask that I believe Takemura is trying so desperately to keep on during this scene (and undeniably fails at several times, with it coming off entirely upon the scene reaching a certain pivotal moment) and also pointing out the instances that I feel the mask slips occur. Honestly, it’s pretty easy to tell for reasons that I will explain. I’m going to reiterate the fact that I am not a facial expression/body language expert. This is just one human being looking at another human being and trying to figure them out. This is just my personal interpretation of this scene. Prepare yourself for many, many screenshots and gifs. Also, I will be using the same video sources as the other two posts because I don’t have my own footage. 

https://youtu.be/ra-Ij1KU8r4

https://youtu.be/PUmQqVOq5oY

I failed to mention before the reason that Takemura even had to put up the cruel facade in the first place because I didn’t want to state the obvious and insult everyone’s intelligence. We all know the reason but I’ll just say it here anyway: Arasaka. 

Arasaka is listening to Takemura’s every word so he literally cannot say shit to V that would hint at any sort of affection for him/her and absolutely nothing that would indicate any growing uncertainty in said corporation. Words mean nothing here. He has to speak through his eyes and expressions because that is all he has to offer, the only cards he has to play. That is why the meaning of this scene can be so easily missed and flies over so many people’s heads. I do not fault anyone that may have missed this on a first playthrough or even those that are still unaware of it whatsoever because Takemura is very, very convincing at first (his face becomes an open book once the contract gets brought out but we’ll get into that later) and besides, to truly understand something that involves emotions as complex as these caused by equally as complex reasons or anything involving subtext really, takes multiple viewings to truly appreciate.

In summary, what I believe is happening here is that during the entire scene up until the contract gets brought out, his mental state is constantly teetering on the edge of a cliff so to speak. He is trying so hard to fight his sentimentality and control his emotional responses not only to V’s misery and pain but also his own wavering faith in Arasaka because they are watching, listening, and monitoring. And he succeeds extremely well at first but it gets harder and harder for him to maintain the mask. The closer he physically gets to V, the harder it is to pretend, to hide. His eyes alone betray him on several occasions but eventually the whole facade just crumbles and he falls. And when the contract comes into play is when he truly, honestly looks at V and the communication through his eyes really begins.

Here is the key thing- it is the most important visual clue to understanding when things happen: When Takemura is feeling any doubt or his emotions begin to overwhelm him or he fears that they might, he promptly averts his eyes to get himself under control and readjusts the mask that has slipped. 

He looks away from V during these moments!

(Just to clarify, I don’t think that every single moment in the scene that he looks away from V has this deeper meaning behind it. When people talk it’s completely natural for them to turn their heads, avert their eyes to look at other things, etc. These are just some moments that particularly stood out to me as signs pointing to my little theory.) 

Okay...let’s start deciphering this conflicted, broken mess of a man.

Scene starts. Takemura is fiddling with the Rubik’s Cube. He puts it down. Expression cold as ice.

mask on full display in all of it’s glory

They talk about Saburo being back in the body of his son and have this exchange of words:

V: “Saw Saburo Arasaka’s back. In Yorinobu’s body.”

Goro: “Yes. Justice has been done.”

And then it happens for the first time...

(Could this be...doubt perhaps? Has justice really been done?)

Moving on- he walks over to stand behind the chair across from V, telling them of their imminent death.

Goro: “I will be blunt - the surgery did not help. You will be dead before winter.”

And then he proceeds to make this face immediately after...

(Lovely, isn’t it? Just full of sympathy. His mask game is strong. But don’t worry though because V wins in the end BIG TIME.)

Understandably, V gets very upset upon hearing this news.

V: “How... how’s that possible? Arasaka’s got the best and the brightest.”

And then something happens again. Whatever could it be, I wonder!

But wait, there’s more!

(He couldn’t even wait until he finished talking before looking away! It’s getting more difficult for him to look at V with a straight face every second! Also, his expression here is the most broken looking yet.) :(

He must not reveal what is hidden behind this emotional wall that he’s worked so hard to build up specifically for this meeting because the room they are speaking in may just as well be made of glass with Arasaka’s unrelenting gaze, an ever-present entity, on the other side of it. He will do so soon though, when he offers V salvation. The contract raises the stakes. The rules change. He feels the wall breaking and there isn’t anything he can do about it and he knows it.

IT’S CHAIR TIME, CHOOMS!

He looks away another 6 TIMES! Leaning more and more over that edge. Feast your eyes...

IT’S CONTRACT TIME, BABY!

Oh, shit!

It’s happening!!

He does look away here but there’s no mask on when he looks back...only despair.

It’s gone.

TO SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN

The disguise is off now. From this point onward, Takemura looks at V with his true feelings on display. This is where the ability to read the emotion portrayed solely through one’s eyes really comes into play because even though he’s not trying to hide anything anymore, he still can’t say what he really wants to say. We have to feel it through his expressions. His thoughts are so loud during these final moments of the scene that we don’t even need words to know what he’s saying.  

REFUSE TO SIGN

SIGN

HOLY GRAIL MOMENT!

(I’m literally going to copy and paste what I have in my part 2 analysis about this section because I explained my thoughts on it about as well as I am able to there and have nothing else to add. My apologies for repeating myself but I feel the exact same way about it so it still applies here.) 

These reactions make perfect sense because we’ve always known that he cares deeply for V and never stopped. He just couldn’t hide it! But even with this treasure trove of emotional mask slips and unintentional displays of affection, I still wasn’t sure exactly how deeply he cared for V. In other words- if he was actually in love with V or not.

Is he already in love or is he still in the process of falling in love? Is it just a friendly love? (hell no! I knew that was definitely not the case but I still had to ask just so I could cross it off the list!)

And then the two of them walked to the door and said their parting words.

V: “Gonna see each other again?”

Goro: “I believe we will.”

V: “So… see you.”

Goro: “Visit me in Kagawa - I will show you what is real food.”

And then…

he proceeded to make these faces…

HOLY

SHIT!

(The mask isn’t just gone now- it’s burned, splintered, shattered, exploded in a million pieces, disintegrated!)

This man just had the biggest revelation of his entire life: the realization that he is in love with V. These are looks of love and I will not be convinced otherwise. I’m not a facial expression expert or anything, only stating my humble opinions here, but are you seeing this!?

He realizes the truth and it catches him so off guard that he has to look away. He contemplates these newfound feelings and tries to sort them out in the few seconds that he has left with V. And he does. He accepts them. He welcomes them. The gentle, knowing look he gives V when he looks back at them is saying just this.

He also knows that he is now fucked because his love for V is going to complicate things so much more than they already were. Now that he is fully aware that he is in love, these feelings are going to directly conflict with his duties to Arasaka later if a situation arises that places V and Arasaka on opposing sides and I think we all know that is most definitely going to happen at some point.

And now he has to see the love of his life die and just leave this place and go on with his day. Damn. This is turning into one of the saddest love stories I’ve ever seen. Something major is going to happen in the dlc that is going to force his hand one way or another: V or Arasaka? I hope that Arasaka somehow fucks up so bad that it makes his choice easier but my heart breaks imagining the amount of conflict and torment that await him.

The Beginning and The End

[amwritingmeta]

15x20: Oh fuck it’s actually really good. Dammit Dabb.

So I slept. And waking up the first thought in my head was... but there is this open ending with them all in Heaven and Cas not a stated angel even, just a helper to Jack...

And then I felt the need to watch the episode again. Because of how I’ve said, perhaps not for always, but often enough, that this show of ours was never about Destiel, was never about Dean and Cas’ love story, and beginning to hope that the ending would be focused on them... it wasn’t fair. Not really. And I remembered reading somewhere that a big chunk of the internet accepted Cas’ death as final, and seeing posts to that effect and thinking LUDICROUS and NO WAY and knowing all along that it could all be denial on my part.

And oh boy was it. 

I know there were plenty of us who kept that hope alive, and I’m thankful for you, but I made myself believe that he’d be back because I couldn’t imagine he’d die like that, or that the love story would end unreciprocated like that. And I guess, in a way, it still did, BUT... in another way, it really didn’t. 

It’s not enough. Subtext is not the representation I’ve always hoped for, but it wasn’t just erased either. And we got as much as we could get, because obviously Dean being textually bi and us getting an I Love You out of him was just never going to get green lit by the studio.

I’ve always believed the writers would’ve gone there if allowed. I think Cas’ love declaration underlines that they would’ve. But they weren’t given the opportunity, and I’ll lament it until the end of time, but it is what is.

What we did get, though, is quite beautiful. No, listen, IT IS.

There’s the emotional substitute Miracle Dog, getting so much LOVE from Dean, which I know most of us all went the big awwww at, no matter what we thought of the rest of the ep. 

There’s the healthy way Dean is dealing with the loss of Cas, and of Jack, knowing that pain will never go away, and accepting it. Accepting it because he’s feeling worthy of moving on without them. He’s no longer attaching his self-image to the perceived failure of protecting others. He’s letting them go, believing that they may meet somewhere further down the road.

But looking at the finale for what it is, rather than for what I wanted it to be (cardinal sin omfg my emotions really ran away with me and I wish I could’ve been more level headed and come on here with this positivity and calm) (but) (no dice) (anyway) it’s just beautiful how Cas is in the background, not waiting, not really, because he’s busy preparing Heaven and fixing his home in ways that will actually mean peace AND freedom when the brothers are done.

Something Cas would not have been able to do if he’d not fallen in love with Dean. If he’d not gone through his journey. I mean. Those implications are highly satisfying. 

Last night all I could think, ALL I could think, was that it’s not ENOUGH.

But it has to be. Because it’s not dismissive. It’s not erasing anything. It’s the same subtextual thread we’ve always been pulling on, and it’s there for us to continue to pull on, and that’s a goddamn gift.

I wish that 15x18 hadn’t been quite so in our face “kill your gays” buuuuuuuut that’s if you’re surface watching, yeah? Cas isn’t dead, for starters, and everyone was, obviously, brought back when Jack took Chuck’s power, so even if it wasn’t visually established that Stevie and Charlie are back and thriving, it’s narrative fact that they must be. What it is, more than anything else, is what I read it as to begin with: a love letter to the love story, where we get the subtext of couples loosing each other so strongly stated that there’s no way we’re not meant to understand that Dean losing Cas is within that exact same context.

We didn’t get textual Destiel, but we did get the love story textually confirmed through Cas’ declaration, and we did get it subtextually confirmed, not hinted, subtextually confirmed through all those other couples losing each other, that the love story EXISTS there, on that level, for us. 

Oh guys I feel so sad that I was so SAD yesterday. Why didn’t I just take a breath?? Guys, guys, guys, there’s such BEAUTY.

And Jensen.

Jensen in how he played that death scene. Jensen who kept it so even, so gentle, so... brotherly. These brothers have been through hell. Dean ending this way... it’s a travesty, but it also means he meant to go to the place where he doesn’t have to hope to see Cas again--because he will see Cas again.

And why didn’t Cas come right back to Dean once he was out of the Empty, why did he go off with Jack to fix Heaven?

I would say that it’s another underlining of Cas’ independence, and this his entire focus isn’t Dean, but, of course, I would assume the thought of Dean is ever present, and the rearranging of Heaven is as much about making sure Dean gets that freedom, as well as that peace, once he’s done as it is about Cas simply not being able to stand for souls being trapped in their memories anymore. Cas knows how to fix Heaven. I mean... that’s a fucking gorgeous and highly satisfying ending to his individual arc. And he’s with Jack!

Like. I mean. That implication that Cas is fixing Heaven with Dean at the back of his mind is quite head-exploding to me. And yeah, sure, that’s how I’m interpreting it, but all the ingredients for that delicious pie is left right there for us in this ending.

What about the legacy issue? What about found family? What about Dean finding happiness in death? What about Dean opening himself up to love?

Yeah, it’s not without issues, depending on how we interpret these things. Do I believe Dabb set out to write an offensive, horrifying, deeply problematic ending to this show and pretty much hand it over to the side of this fandom that has always been the... well, shall we say, less stabile? 

No. I kept saying yesterday that I just didn’t understand what happened, I didn’t understand why our writers room would choose THIS ending, I couldn’t fit the pieces together. That was on me, not on them. Get me?

Interpretation is deeply subjective. It’s personal. And it’s tainted. Always tainted, guys, and there’s no way around that. It’s not perfect and it’s not absolute and all the writers can hope for is that their core message will get across strongly enough to avoid misunderstanding.

I misunderstood the intention yesterday because my interpretation was tainted by what I wanted and felt I needed from this narrative.

For years I’ve refused to put expectation on the story because I know what that does to one’s perspective. It’s futile to engage with hopes and wishes on a deeper level because the show will never deliver exactly what you want. It’s delivered stuff in the ballpark enough times for me to dance alongside it, but to place so much expectation on this finale was just... oh man. Bad. 

I take full responsibility. :)

What about the legacy issue?

The legacy is that you live the best life you can and you end up in happiness, with the people you care about. You LIVE. Nothing about Dean’s death is prescribing dying to get what you want. We have it established that Dean is not suicidal in any way, that he’s mentally stabile and that he’s carrying on without Cas, even though he thinks about him. Not living would make the sacrifice pointless.

What about found family?

Found family was meant to be a part of this ending, but due to COVID (I’m assuming along with everyone) we didn’t get a collection of oldies and goodies at the Roadhouse. We got a father figure to signal the father/son thread that this finale was pulling on, a thread always tied so tightly around Dean and Sam and underlined for us in this episode. The codependency finally broken because they were ready to let each other go. Not forever, because that would’ve been tragic, but for now.

What about Dean finding happiness in death?

The implications of Dean having to die to be happy are quite dark, I know that, but he was never going to hang it up. Not entirely, right? He would never be able to rest on Earth. And he’s always afraid. So instead of spending a lifetime alone, growing into a crusty Bobby (who lost the love of his life too early too), Dean got to go to the place where his happiness actually is. He got to go where Cas is.

I mean, that’s my interpretation here, but rather than set both brothers up with a love life and families and all that, we got a Dean who’s lost the love of his life and is dealing with that loss as best as he can, but who is also ready to go when it’s his time. He wasn’t expecting it to be right then, that day, and he says as much, but he’s ready. As long as Sam is ready to let him go. And Sam isn’t, but he does, and Sam deals with that loss, and finds his way into life and living and loving and happiness in a way that Dean simply wouldn’t have been able to. Because he lost the love of his life.

And Dean waited for Sam to show because of course he would. Sam was the only thing missing: Cas, and Jack, and everyone else Dean has ever loved and cared about, were already in Heaven. For the show to go on, Sam had to return too.

Hope.

That hopeful ending that I, and so many, many of us, have always wanted. Sure, everyone’s DEAD, which, you know, bummer, but they are at peace, they are together, and they are done sacrificing, bleeding and dying. Isn’t that remarkable? Isn’t that the greatest reward? Love and happiness and togetherness. Forever!

And for this fandom, we got what we hoped we’d get, right? An ending open enough for us to keep returning to this narrative over and over and over.

Let me formally apologise for the despair of yesterday. For all of you still feeling it, I send you so much love. Know I understand, I honestly do, but I hope, perhaps, some of these words will offer a sliver of comfort.

So, this is first impression based on second watch of 15x20 positivity. Let me know if anything hits right or hits wrong and let’s talk. <3

[dirty-droid]

So I believe you asked this in good faith and I want to answer in good faith, and write a bit of a long form essay. I don't quite speak for every shipper or even each of my own friends in this fandom, some are a bit more open than I am but I digress. You've posed a much shorter list of more abstract questions, but I've seen other questions and speculations throughout my time in this fandom and I will answer those as well to build my point. It's also just been a while since I've gone on a rant publicly, especially since I had to remake my account recently, and I've always wanted to go on a point by point rant both about this discourse and my own love for this ship, so this might be overkill but less is not more when it comes to having fun analyzing fandom.

First and most important point being that we don't believe that we're denying or bypassing any canonical familial relationship between Hank and Connor. I don't believe it exists in the first place. I do not see it in the text or the subtext of the story, I believe such an interpretation runs counter to the storyline and the characterization within it. Simply stated, it's not obvious to us because it's not there.

Canonically, Hank and Connor begin as strangers, become acquainted with one another through sharing a workspace, become coworkers, and maybe they develop a friendship, and maybe they cause each other to die.

There's a few intertwined reasons that I think the father-son interpretation falls flat, so in no particular order, this is where it gets messy: the storyline only takes place over the course of a week and I can't realistically buy that a familial bond could be forged that fast when- Hank spends half, if not most, of the game questioning if he even believes Connor to be a person and Connor doesn't believe himself to be a person and is still juggling how much he prioritizes Hank's approval of his actions. On top of that, I buy into the meta analysis that Connor is manipulating Hank throughout the story in order to achieve his mission, as he can even state that he's being friendly with Hank in order to make this mission run smoother and achieve success.

In regards to those points, I don't believe the storyline has room for a paternal type relationship arc, by the time the Eden club arc is over, Hank has explicitly threatened Connor's life at least twice, the threat to burn Connor in a dumpster and the threat of pointing a gun at Connor at the bridge are both unavoidable, and Connor's had the chance to threaten to report Hank, presumably to get him fired, about three times. They're warming up to one another, they've had some warm moments, but they're still butting heads, arguing, and not treating each other very well at the halfway point of the week and the story. Personally I feel like this is unacceptable in a familial dynamic, parents shouldn't be threatening the lives of their children, and while that happens all the time in real life and in fiction, I don't tend to enjoy those parents as parents, I don't want those people around their children, whether it happens in real life or is being depicted in fiction. So, if Hank were truly meant to be, or be acting or feeling as though he was Connor's father, I wouldn't like him very much anymore, I wouldn't want their relationship to continue, and I wouldn't be invested.

So because they canonically aren't considered family members, I see no reason to think of them as being parent and child when their canonical relationship is full of so much violence, plausible hatred, and lack of communication. If I were to be thinking of them as family members, this would be a very dark situation, one that holds fear and trauma and possible resentment. If I'm going to enjoy a familial relationship in my fiction, bitch should either be acknowledging how painful that relationship is, or it should be actually, truly wholesome. I hold much higher standards for character analysis then I do shipping. And I put my money where my mouth is on that one, I adore the relationship between Markus and Carl, I find it to be very realistic, I find it to be very relatable, the relationship holds real genuine affection, but it also acknowledges and leaves room for the pain that Carl has caused Markus in his pseudo upbringing, as well as the pain that was caused with Carl replacing Leo with Markus in his life. They don't ignore it and they don't brush over it, Carl loves Markus and has put time and effort into guiding him but he's also a bit of a blundering asshole who doesn't know what he's doing, and I love it. Their feelings toward one another are explicitly stated, it's well written, and it feels real to me. I have rarely, if ever seen the same energy given to Hank and Connor's relationship by father-sonners.

So I don't think it's a great found family dynamic, I think it's a very flawed one, if I would even acknowledge it as a family dynamic in the first place. Hank's affection for Connor is very conditional, though he is naturally protective, he does not hold back on being aggressive when Connor has pushed him or disobeyed his orders prioritize the Cyberlife mission over Hank's personal priorities and preferences. He certainly wants to care, but that goes out the window when Connor disappoints him enough. He'll go as far as to kill Connor. I don't buy that as fatherly behavior. Regardless of what David Cage says, Cage has also been reported saying that all the women in his games are whores, and that he doesn't make games for fags, so I'll take his opinion with a grain of salt, and I think it's relevant that he stated that he thinks of Hank and Connor as being father and son after he'd caught wind that people were shipping them, and didn't explicitly write it into the game as it was done for Markus and Kara, It's very easy for me to believe that he's taken that stance as a homophobe upset that the internet is doing gay things, and not as a writer who wants his work viewed a certain way.

So we're starting to get into the Hankcon support, and I will make the point that found family also isn't strictly familial dynamics, and is often simply platonic, which I'm sure you already know but is becoming a bit of a rampant problem in fandom I'm finding. The things we're typically replacing in a found family when we are young adults that we're not getting from our relatives is support, so the relationships themselves don't have to be strictly platonic. I do think of Hankcon, as a romantic and/or sexual relationship, as a found family situation, as I understand that our romantic partnerships, long-term serious relationships and marriages, are typically the first things we think of when we think of the family that we've found and made ourselves. My fiance is the first on my list. Friends, and friends with benefits is typically next, I've been intimate with the friends I hold the most dear in my life, these people are my family, and this is what I think of as being realistic in speculative fiction, this is what feels normal to me. One can fuck one's friends and still call them family, ex-partners can stay in one's life and still be called family. Family in this sense is best defined as Who Shows Up when you call for help, and the people that you show up for, the individual relationships and how they function emotionally aren't what's important. Just because I love you, need you, doesn't mean you're my brother or my sister or any other relation now.

I did see in your tags that you didn't mean the 'kid' comment literally, but I do think it is worth saying that shippers tend to only view Connor as young in comparison to Hank, and otherwise see them as equals in regard to their partnership, and typically the light in the balance of their power. While there is undeniably an age gap, which is a valid reason to not enjoy a ship though I don't think that makes it problematic, we typically fervently believe that they're quite well matched in power, there isn't an imbalanced power dynamic, where Hank might be experienced, Connor is programmed with the experience of others and has the world's knowledge at his fingertips, they are both incredibly strong, they're strong willed, stubborn, they both carry some aggression, neither would be able to easily take advantage. Connor is just as mature as Hank is, sometimes it even feels like more so, and he drags Hank through the game, he's not a rookie and he's not in need of guidance.

Which actually leads me to another point, I actually think the father son dynamic is a misinterpretation of a mentor/student dynamic between Hank and Connor that, while usually present in buddy cop stories, doesn't actually exist in Detroit become human, it's not a part of the plot. Connor is not technically a rookie, he comes in with his own mission that has nothing to do with whatever Hank was doing in homicide, he's using Hank to get into crime scenes he should have no clearance into, and Hank is not teaching Connor the ropes, he's typically watching Connor excell from the sidelines because he's curious about how well Connor was built. And Hank doesn't act as a mentor to Connor, Hank has his own priorities and morals and ideas about how their job should be done, and he does not teach Connor what these are, he expects Connor to meet them without guidance. He values life, both their own and that of others, and expects Connor to do the same, and they can bond when Connor does align with Hank and it causes a rift between them when he doesn't. This isn't typically how mentor/student relationships work, the mentor is typically invested in the student's learning in a way that Hank isn't, he's accepting of the fact that Connor might fail and leave, if their relationship progresses to friendship, he won't want that to happen, but he certainly thinks of it as being out of his hands and accepts that there's only so much he can do.

Now comes the real Hankcon textual support, and while I don't believe that shipping requires canonical, textual support, the nature of shipping is that it's merely a thought experiment for the purpose of fun and games, shipping is not an interpretation of a story or of a relationship between certain characters, shipping simply IS, I do think that there's some good subtext for Hankcon in particular that guides us in that direction of thought, that it's a little more than just them being friends and looking good together, and I think it's pretty juicy stuff. Shipping is also a bit different than an interpretation in that the basis of, "what if this character was attracted to this other character? What if those feelings were reciprocated?" comes with the understanding that people and characters can be sexually attracted to one another without doing anything about it, sexual attraction can fly under the radar of a story because it doesn't need to be acted upon, there are other things that are more important emotionally and logically for a character. It's part of why I think Hankcon undertones work so well throughout Detroit become human, because it doesn't matter if Hank and Connor are attracted to each other, there's no conflict of interest when it comes to throwing a man you think is handsome off a roof because you're busy fighting him to the death, him being handsome or sexy doesn't interfere with being on opposite sides of a war, (in short, the shipping goggles don't interfere with the machine path the way I think the father-son goggles do, not a lot of folks seem down for patricide and filicide, although I'd love to hear more about that arc from that perspective, but as a shipper... Characters fighting to the death is hot, characters being violent towards each other is hot, even if it is a tragic situation that they're killing each other instead of coming together)

Ultimately, I put a lot of stock in the Eden Club arc as a whole. Because it's more than just the one chapter, I'd say it really starts at Russian roulette, but there's foreshadowing for it as early as Partners. I think that whether the player has interest in it or not, Hank is actually being pressured by his society to view Connor as a sex object or a romantic companion, without agency. I'd go as far as to joke that Hank is being sexually harassed by the narrative.

It starts with the set dressing of the magazine on Hank's bedroom floor that Connor can find, the first article is about companionship androids, in-home sex bots that will pretend to be your spouse and do anything you ask. And we see twice that he's got companion androids on the brain, first he gets teased by Ben for showing up with an android in Partners, which is obviously less explicit, but I don't think it should go unstated, and then there's one of my favorite things in the game, Hank's monologue about companion androids in the back room of the Eden club.

I LOVE this monologue. It's loaded with subtext, a lot can be implied from what Hank isn't saying, as he rants and raves about how disgusting he thinks it is that humans use androids for sex, that they would rather buy an android to play house with instead of investing their hearts into another human being that has needs and is imperfect. The thing that I love about this, is that the flip side to these statements looks like it ought to be Hank expressing disgust with androids and a preference for humans when it comes to being in a relationship, but the longer he goes on the more you can sense that that's not what he's really saying. It's not necessarily a human being that he wants, it's a Person. And as the game goes on he understands deviants to be people more and more, especially after seeing the Tracis express their love, romantic love, for one another not five minutes later, and it weighs heavily on his mind in the next chapter. So what he's really expressing isn't a species preference, it's a need to be in a relationship of equals, he's inadvertently describing a marriage, caring for someone else's needs, being asked to show up as a man and have something to offer a potential mate, He wants to worry about how someone else feels, he wants to cater to an extent to have someone else feels, he says that pretty explicitly, "-they cook when you want, they screw when you want, and you don't have to worry about how they feel." Having an android sex slave is disgusting to him because he WANTS someone to make room for themselves in his life, he wants the hard realities of loving someone, true intimacy. As it stands in that moment, he believes that only a human could fulfill that, but as time goes on, deviant androids, with their own feelings and their own opinions, wants and needs, start to look like they could feel that role.

And then he asks Connor if he's a man or a machine. And it's hard for me not to feel like he's also asking if Connor could ever love him, if Hank were to love him first.

Because they're not in love at this time, Hank isn't falling that fast, Connor hasn't quite unlocked that ability yet, that we know he has it in him, but Connor answers that he's whatever Hank wants him to be, and it's hard for me to believe that doesn't or couldn't have a sexual tilt to it, after Connor teases him about going to a brothel together, after we hear the club owner heavily imply that Hank should fuck an android, after we learn that Hank is thinking about being in some fake relationship with an Android, after learning that deviants can feel romantic love, Hank demands to know if Connor can feel, and Connor replies that he could choose to fake it for Hank if he wanted.

Now I understand Hank being pressured by his society and the people around him (specifically that sleazy club owner) to view Connor not as a romantic interest, but as a sex object, can be distasteful, but I think it's just as important as Hank's initial insistence that he hates androids and wants them all destroyed. He's only adopted these beliefs, they aren't how he truly feels deep down, and he grows throughout the game to accept deviants and see them as his equals, and he lets those beliefs and pressures go when they stop making any lick of sense. In the world of D:BH, androids are not viewed as human, and because this game is directed at adults, it touches quite heavily on the concept of humans using androids for sex, and a possible counter to that as the setting evolves is androids occasionally choosing to consent to romantic and sexual entanglements with humans, with informed consent. So maybe Hank starts off knowing that he could use Connor sexually, that it would be socially acceptable, and as the relationship evolves he could either completely do away with that thought, or put it in his back pocket because once Connor's a deviant, with his consent, intimacy could be on the table. We start to get into the what if's of speculative fiction and shipping.

But moving on, maybe Connor keeps impressing Hank. Maybe he keeps saving his life. Maybe he keeps choosing to prioritize Hank's morals, and saves and preserve lives the way Hank wants him to, and he keeps finding out that Hank is easier to please than Amanda and freer with his praise, more accepting of failure, Maybe he understands that he'd be safer fighting for a chance to be free than by completing a mission for cyberlife, who doesn't care if he lives or dies. Maybe he deviates.

But I think Connor pushes Hank to want to live again not because he's deciding on his morality and deciding that it aligns with Hank's values, I think it's because Connor's, well he's kind of an asshole to Hank. Connor demands Hank be as mature and focused as he is, Connor's asking Hank to act as his partner, and not be dragged like dead weight. He's not walking on eggshells in regards to Hank's grief, he's asking questions and not making excuses and worming his way in closer to Hank by doing so. He's not letting Hank slack off, he drags him out of his drunken stupor, Hank gets no breaks from Connor barging into his life for a week straight... And I think he likes it. He likes it when Connor disobeys him a little, he likes it when Connor thinks for himself, he likes it when Connor kicks ass, but I think he mostly likes how Connor refuses to leave him alone.

It reminds me of this story my dad told me about when he was in basic training for the army, he writes home to my grandfather, complaining and bitching about how rough the training is, how awful the Sargents are, how bad the food is, how strict the standards are, how tired he is from all the PT, bitching and moaning about how he fucking hates it, and my grandfather writes back, "Well, it sounds to me like you're having fun!".... And it pissed him off at first, of course it's not fun to get pushed around like this, bossed around... But ultimately he realized he did kind of fucking like it, that he enjoy the challenge of having his ass kicked.

Maybe it seems like a silly comparison, but I think that's Hank's vibe. He likes his job... But he LOVES a challenge, and he hasn't had one in a long time, He hasn't had anyone to fight for or anyone to fight with. Connor walks in with these interesting cases that he's never seen before, makes him rethink his entire worldview, the adrenaline is running high because Connor thrusts them into dangerous situations, and saves his life over and over, and sure, Connor's annoying Hank, he's poking and prodding at Hank until he snaps, but fuck, he's having *fun* for the first time in a long time. He has a partner who gives a shit about him getting off his ass and putting some effort in.

By the end of it, they've grown to admire each other for their strengths and they're covering each other's weaknesses, they've learned to work together, as partners, they've seen each other at their best and at their worst. Hank's opened himself up to the mortifying ordeal of being known so he can receive the rewards of being loved, and Connor's finally figured out what that means. He's found his personhood, learned to put himself first and stop asking cyberlife to protect him, those strings are cut and they can come together as equals. They can be grateful to one another while also learning or relearning how to live.

I think also ultimately I think with them being equals, with them having gone through this journey together and found themselves in the places that they have, with Hank and Connor both kind of apologizing for their actions, now that they understand each other, It's a lot more reasonable that they would be able to sort of forgive and forget, live and let live about what assholes they were to each other. They were both dicks, so now they're square, they're even, and they've got shit to do.

And because I can't leave well enough alone, I do also enjoy the positive authority figure vibes that Hank gives off, I just think it's sexy.

If folks wanna judge me for being a kinky, perverted shipper, I get it, I dabble in the taboo from time to time, but honestly I've found solace in the world of kink, I've found solace and friendships on the sexy side of things, and I'd rather live in a world of romantic bliss. Please don't fall into the trap of believing that just because someone sees two characters and thinks they have chemistry, with not valuing or respecting platonic or familial relationships. Preferences are ever evolving, they're not static, and we don't see the reasons behind everyone's sense of taste.

I guess the thing that confuses me most about hankcon shippers is why y'all would pass up a great found family dynamic? Or why romantic love is better to you than familial? Personally, I find great joy in the idea that Connor has a positive authority figure in his life who actually cares about him, and that Hank has this kid android following him around who reminds him what it's like to find meaning in life again. That's what they mean to each other in game. I don't understand why that's lesser to some of you, or why you'd over look obvious signs of it in the game for the sake of a ship.