#this snowballed so massively in my brain

[latibvles]

"Bubbles has a crush on you." for Inez, bc I was just reading her description on your oc list and I think it would be funny and also Bubbles having a crush is adorable.

merc, this is delightful. you and @upontherisers lined up on this and it's definitely snowballed into something a lot more than what it was. but for now we can have some funny and sweet baby beginnings. everybody say thank you jean for your service.

—

To Harry’s credit, he waits until they’re a few feet away from the sick bay before springing it onto her, handing off his letter and making a poorly-executed attempt at “suddenly remembering” what Mrs. Jean Crosby wanted him to tell her. He moves his thumb from the part of the letter he’d been hiding from Bubbles when they paid their sick friend a visit — Inez takes the letter in full anyway, skimming its contents, squinting to make it easier on the eyes.

‘Sounds like Bubbles might have a bit of a crush on Inez! Can’t say I blame him, she’s a big sweetheart after all. Let me know how that goes, will you?’

She feels herself go red from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.

“Huh?” Harry is smiling at her now, closed-lipped, hands in his pockets. “I don’t— that’s not— I don’t think…” Harry kisses his teeth, head bowing to watch as he kicks at the dirt.

“Damn, guess that’s a no-go on a double date when we’re back stateside huh?”

“Harry!” Inez hears her own voice rise in pitch and she wants to wither away at the sound. Still she reaches to swat at his arm and he leans to the side like she’s hit him hard enough to knock him off balance. He laughs at that like he had when shoving his damp hair in Bubbles’ face only a couple minutes ago.

“Just trying to figure out what I should say to Jean.” He puts his hands in the air in mock surrender. Inez huffs, cheeks burning as she looks back at Jean’s neat script, rereading the sentences over and over again.

You should say nothing to Jean, she thinks, thoroughly ruffled. She doesn’t even know what she’s supposed to say to that — much less what he should be telling Jean about it. What even was “it”? What’s she supposed to do with this information? If it’s even true, that is.

“What’ve you even told her, Harry?” Inez asks, still trying to wrap her head around the statement. A million different scenarios start racing through her brain: all of them circulating about censors, and fraternization, and they all end with her in Harding’s office having to explain in soft humiliation that no, she isn’t having… “relations” with Lieutenant Payne. The very thought makes her feel like she might spontaneously combust, which might just be better than—

“Nothing crazy. Promise,” he pulls her from her thoughts but she can only glare at him in a way she knows isn’t intimidating because he’s still smiling.

Bastard.

“Just… y’know, he wanted to ask you to dance last week but talked himself out of it. And uh— he was asking if you and Hambone were close.”

“Oh my God.”

“I can stop talking if you want,” Harry offers. If she hadn’t already hit him once, she’d do it now. But she doesn’t do that, just hands back the letter while he snickers and tries in a weak attempt to calm down her brain, which is already leaping back to the blue of his eyes and the gap in his teeth. She huffs and squints at him.

“Don’t tell Jean nothin’ or I’m telling June to come set you straight, Croz.”

[ Send "____ has a crush on you!" to an OC to see their reaction! ]

[stonebutchery]

it's kind of baffling to me that entire sub-groups of queer folks endured a decade of being singled out and targeted for being asexual, aromantic, bisexual, pansexual, nonbinary, polyamorous, etc. and i have yet to see any substantial apologies from people who were directly responsible for causing genuine harm. i find it completely bizarre that there are so many people who want to sweep their past contributions to widespread lateral aggression toward specific queer groups under the rug like it didn't happen so they can wash their hands of it... there are people who are irreversibly traumatized because of this. there are people who took their lives because of it.

i'm wording the post like despite the fact that exclusionism targeting these groups (and more) continues to persist partly because it was a really frighteningly common trend to harass people just because they were ace, aro, bi, pan, nonbinary, poly, etc... and it's crazy to me that many of the people who were affected by this massive multi-pronged public online bullying campaign against the 'unacceptable types of queers' are the ones still receiving messages like "my url got put on an aphobe blocklist in 2016 because apparently a post i made making fun of asexuals got some teenage asexuals harassed and i still distrust asexuals to this day because of that" ...are you fucking kidding me?

we will never achieve any kind of unity as a queer community while we are insisting upon ignoring the hurt that lateral aggression has caused, and acting like the burden lies on the shoulders of the people who were harmed to forgive the people who harmed them and 'just move on', many of whom are not sorry for what they did! or they don't consider what they did to be wrong! how is that not deeply disturbing and troubling to more of you?

03/06/2024 edit: i’m putting a complete moratorium on this post because i am really sick and tired of having my point not only completely misconstrued and distorted entirely but also weaponized against transfems (particularly in replies i have decided to delete about how “ugh yes, exclusionism, and now transfems are bullying transmascs”) i find that really sickening and i’m demanding that it stop, and i can make it stop by turning off reblogs. so i have.

my objective in writing this post was never to request an apology from people who have been laterally-aggressive exclusionists in the past. i don’t think we’ll ever get more than a handful of apologies from those people, anyway. my point was that it was pretty terrifying to witness and experience a lot of lateral aggression that transferred from the real, in-person world to the deeply online spaces back into the real, in-person world in a really fucked up feedback loop and being a young queer person during this time and having that shape me, snd shape the experiences of my queer friends who have been traumatized by it.

however, it is absolutely unacceptable to me that the issue of transmisogyny is so blatantly overlooked by our entire community. for decades, transfems have experienced oppression and exclusion from transmisogyny-exempt women and queers. their exclusion from political queer liberation movements has caused many of the major schisms within our community we are still having arguments about to this day. if you want collective queer liberation, you must uplift transfems. there is no other option. you don’t get to write off all transfems just because one person who happened to be transfem was mean to you online or something.

i have answered and responded to way too many conspiracy-brained transmisogynist reactionaries to allow this post to keep fucking snowballing with people writing paragraphs in the tags about “transmisandry” or “transandrophobia.” please get your heads out of your asses.

this absolutely is the transmisogyny website, as always, and the place where all basic textual comprehension skills go to die, apparently.

[qwimblenorrisstan]

Snow Bunny | Azriel x Reader

Summary: After the bat boys enjoy their annual snowball fight, in which Azriel wins, he gets the best prize of all, a night alone with his mate.

Word Count: ~1.8k

Warnings: Smut, fingering, p in v penetration, nudity, violent snowball rock assault (rip cassian), and tooth rotting fluff.

Minors, do not interact!

A/N: This is my first attempt at writing smut, so go easy on me lol, was just in another feening-over-azriel mood and needed to write, hope you enjoy <3

Requests are open!

It was a cold winter, though all of the winters in Night Court were cold. Compared to Illyrian winters, Azriel supposed that they weren’t too bad. Illyrian winters had everyone shivering and shaking and doing anything for the littlest bit of warmth. Night Court winters usually yielded a bit of snow, maybe a foot or two if the Mother was feeling generous, for the children, or in this case, grown Illyrian males, to play in.

The annual snowball fight began as usual, they built their snow forts, packed them densely, or at least Azriel always did, and went to work making snowballs.

He would admit that using his shadows to make snowballs for him did seem like cheating, but who is he to not use his resources?

Rhys and Cassian went head to head first, predictably, and after hurling snowballs densely packed at each other as hard as they could, their tanned skin was left tinted red and a few bruises. The killer blow was when Cassian hurled a final one at Rhys, and this snowball was packed full of ice in the center.

It knocked the High Lord straight out.

Cassian let out a whoop of victory, but a bit too early, as Azriel then launched a massive snowball with a rock in the center at him, payback, and a guarantee of victory apparently as Cassian then collapsed backward on the snow with a soft groan.

Both Nesta and Feyre came out, not too worried as they were very used to their mates’ shenanigans. Feyre helped drag Rhys into the house, while Nesta fought with Cassian, who was mumbling about how he was “perfectly fine”.

“Really…’m okay, jus’ a few more minutes..”

He mumbled, clearly out of it. Nesta grabbed his legs and began dragging him away.

“You are going inside. I am not letting you die because of a snowball fight of all things.”

Her stern tone rang out, dragging him into the house after Feyre managed to get Rhys inside. Azriel followed soon after.

*********************************************************

You went to the door to drag Azriel back inside but were instead met with the sight of him entering, and you ran smack into his chest. You shuddered slightly at how cold and wet he was. His lips were chapped, crusty, and dry. You pulled your tube of lip gloss out and applied a generous amount on his lips, before leaving a kiss on his forehead.

“I’m assuming you won?”

You asked in an amused tone, glancing over at Cassian and Rhys being dragged away by their mates. Azriel chuckled, the deep sound sending a thrill through your body, before replying with a little smirk.

“Yes, per usual.”

You rolled your eyes playfully.

“Quit being a cocky bastard, and let’s go get you in a hot bath. You’re freezing.”

He gave a little huff of laughter at your quip, before following as his mate dragged him off to their shared bedroom. Your intentions were far from pure, and you wanted much more than a bath, but only if he was willing to provide that. He might be tired.

“Are you sure you want me to take a bath?”

He asked, a knowing glint in his eye as he pushed the door to your shared bedroom closed, locking it painfully slowly, ensuring that the noise would echo through her brain and rattle it.

He began slowly stalking towards you with a predatory, feline grace, his wings flaring behind him in what you could recognize as a symbol of both dominance and desire. Even his shadows seemed eager, slithering up your body as far as he allowed them, their cool touch both soothing your skin and causing goosebumps to rise.

“Maybe a bath isn’t so necessary.”

You said, your voice more feeble than you’d like it to be, swallowing as you sat on the edge of your large bed, with him moving to stand right in front of you and look down at you with nothing short of a lover’s gaze.

“Good. I love our annual snowball fights, but do you know what I love more..?”

He asked in his rich baritone voice, smiling slightly as he pushed you gently back onto the bed, settling over you as he let his hands roam your soft, warm body. His hands went from your thighs, back up to your hair and face, then back to your inner thigh as his leg nudged your knees to open.

As any sensible person would do, you spread your legs for him easily. You'd gotten to a point within the mating bond that submitting to him was as easy as breathing.

“..No, what?”

You asked, your voice wavering slightly as your cheeks flushed, watching him with wide eyes. The arousal in both of your scents could easily be detected. His hand stopped around the waistband of your pants, tugging them off, and the rest of your clothing was soon to go.

Eventually, his large hands began palming your breasts, rubbing your nipples between his thumb and pointer finger. He leaned down near your ear, prolonging his answer as long as possible to build your curiosity and the tension before he spoke.

“My mate.”

He answered simply, his hot breath fanning against your ear, before his mouth moved down to latch onto one of your pert nipples, alternating between swirling his tongue around it and sucking. The sheer dominance and possession in his statement made your desire pool as your heavy breathing turned to light mewls and moans, whining to him.

His mouth then switched from your right nipple to your left, continuing his sinful sucking, before separating with a little ‘pop’ as he smirked up at you.

His hand had trailed down to his leathers, unbuttoning his shirt before pulling it off, if only to give you a little taste of the eye candy he truly was beneath his clothes. One hand reached down to your panties, and ran a finger over them, nearly purring in delight.

“Already so wet? I must've put on quite a show tonight.”

He murmured against your chest as one of his fingers hooked around the waistband of your panties and tugged them down, before throwing them onto the floor with the rest of your clothes. His fingers slid through your wet folds, before beginning to playfully taunt your clit, rubbing just enough for some pleasure, but never enough for any real friction.

One of his fingers slid over to your slit, gathering all the slick that waited there for him, and he coated his fingers in it before slipping it in, easily going knuckle-deep.

“I’m gonna stretch you out, okay? Gonna get you ready for my cock.”

He said with a small smirk in a soft, almost whispered voice, that had deep currents of lust and desire running not far under it. Soon, one finger turned into two pumping in and out, curling into that delicious spot while you whined because of the stretch. The whines soon turned to moans and begging him for more.

“Az, need more..”

You begged, your hips already starting to buck on instinct and try to grind against his fingers.

“I’ll give you more in due time, darling.”

He replied simply. And then a third finger was slipped in, his thumb still running sinful circles and applying just the right amount of pressure to your clit. In no time you were already slipping so, so close to the edge, and he let you get there, rubbing faster and harder until you fell apart around his fingers with a cry.

His fingers continued working you, prolonging your pleasure as much as possible before slipping out when the high had ended. However, you could hear the sound of his leathers slipping off, and when you opened your hazy eyes, you saw a glimpse of his cock, throbbing, the tip pink and leaking, begging for attention. He stroked himself a few times, hissing at the feeling, before running it through your folds thrice to get it soaked and ready.

“Ready? Take a deep breath for me and relax, darling.”

He whispered softly into your ear, and you could feel his tip prodding at your entrance before slowly inching in. No matter how many times you took him, the sheer size of his dick always managed to surprise you.

The stretch immediately took over your senses, making you whine against him. It was a mixture of pleasure and irritable pain that you didn’t want to admit how much you enjoyed.

After what felt like hours of soft, whispered reassurances and praise of how good you were doing for him, and how warm and tight you were, he had finally bottomed out. You immediately jerked your hips against him, breath leaving you at how delicious it felt.

“Please move, Az. Need you to.”

You said, your breathing already shaky. You weren’t going to last long, and from the way he was already groaning and throbbing in you, he wasn't going to either.

He pressed himself against you, beginning a slow and steady rhythm as he moved against you, groaning lewdly into your ear. His place turned to sloppy, loving thrusts as he just began going with instinct.

“You gonna cum with me, sweet girl? Yeah?”

He asked in a breathless tone, panting for air. The moment you hit your climax, your walls clenching and throbbing around his cock, letting you feel every particular inch and vein as it moved inside of you, he also came, thick ropes of his seed shooting deep into you, both of your moans and groaning making a chorus with the sounds of wet squelching and skin slapping skin as he painted your insides white.

You both just laid there for a moment, content to enjoy the afterglow, and as soon as it came down, Azriel was there for his usual godly aftercare.

“Bath?”

He asked, voice raspy and somewhat gruff from all his noises. You gave a wordless nod, and he picked you up, carrying you over to the bathtub and starting a warm bath, easing both of you into it.

He knew your entire haircare routine to the smallest details, and his shadows, still a bit pouty that he hadn’t let them participate in your session, seemed eager to help as you felt their cool touch against your scalp, then moving on to wash your body with your favorite scent of body wash.

You washed his hair, scrubbing shampoo in, then washed out and followed by conditioner, before the shadows helped you clean him off. A few of them helped ‘clean’ his very sensitive cock, causing Azriel to hiss at the feeling and tell them to stop, which only made you and the shadows giggle.

When you finally got out of the bath, you didn’t bother to put on any clothes, and neither did he. You enjoyed the moments of bare skin-to-skin contact with him.

Curled up in the bed, laying beside him with your arms around him, one of his arms around her waist, and his wings curled protectively around you, you whispered something to him.

“I love you.”

You whispered, voice soft and a bit raspy from earlier. He opened one eye, peeking at your serene face, before whispering back with a smile on his lips.

“I love you, too.”

[nsf-watch]

NSFW ENEMIES TO LOVERS HEADCANONS

!! ft. Ramattra & Reaper

!! 18+ • NSFW

!! RAM • DomTop! Ramattra, Ambiguous Reader Genitals, Brief interrogation, Hatefucking, Degrading, Facefucking

!! REA • DomTop! Reaper, Ambiguous Reader Genitals, Pegging if you're a v haver, Degrading, Threats, Claiming / Marking, Choking, Overstim

RAMATTRA

RAMATTRA WHO...

Isn't quite sure how this happened.

You fucking hated each other.

Hate's a strong word for Ramattra, but he was willing to use it for you.

He knew how it started.

You two were fighting each other and he got you pinned down for the first time ever.

He could've killed you, he should've.

You were everything he hated.

But he could feel arousal coming off of you, which fired his own sensors.

He picked you up and took you to his base for "interrogation," effectively holding you as a prisoner.

And after you sit for a while with him in silence, he tells you what he felt when he pinned you down in the most smug voice.

"Do you get aroused every fight we have?"

And when you try to deny it, he knows right away you're lying.

Snowballed from there, really.

Next thing both of you know, you're on the table as Ramattra fucks your brains out.

You didn't even know Ramattra had a dick..

His thick and long cock, pounding into you at a brutal pace as he gropes you hard enough to leave bruises.

"You fucking slut.. So desperate to be used like the fleshlight that you are, that you'd fuck the omnic that wants your head. Fucking pitiful."

And when you tell him to shut the fuck up?

You're earned with a swat to your thigh and a particularly hard thrust, both leaving you moaning louder.

"Tell me to shut up again."

And you do.

So he pulls his cock out of you and walks to the other side of the table where your head hangs off.

Without warning he shoves himself in your mouth, thrusting himself down your throat, forcing you to take every inch of him.

This is something that started to happen regularly.

You'd fight, one of you takes the other back and you end up both end up a mess.

Over time, though, things got... nicer?

He'd be less degrading, less rough with you.

It hits you like a freight train one day.

After a particularly hard thrust that hits you deep, you cry out..

And he stops.

"...Did I hurt you?"

REAPER

GABRIEL WHO...

Hates your guts.

And the feeling is mutual.

Every little thing he does seems to get on your nerves.

Calling you enemies is a massive understatement.

You so often try to kill each other when you're not fucking.

When I say fucking, I hate kill fucking, a more intense version of hate fucking.

Usually, he's thrusting into you at a rough and brutal pace, choking you as you try and claw his hands off his neck.

Not because you're not into being choked, but because you don't want him to have the satisfaction of you completely submitting.

Usually, all dirty talk is him degrading you as you spout threats at him.

"You think I'm scared of you while you're cumming your brains out, wrapped out on my cock? You're pathetic."

Your "retort" is usually a threat to make his pain worse interrupted by a moan.

He laughs at you for it.

You swear that stupid fucking laugh of his makes you want to fucking kiss him.

kill.

Makes you want to kill him.

He lives to make you overstimulated on his dick.

Lives to bring you down a leg by showing you that your worst enemy knows exactly how to pleasure you until you're a bumbling mess.

He fucking loves to embarrass you by leaving marks all over your skin.

He consistently leaves dark hickes around your neck and shoulders, relishing in the fact that everyone that sees will know you're his..

To destroy.

You're his to destroy.

Pins your hands down when you get too handsy for his liking.

"Stop touching me like I'm your lover. I hate you and I will never like you."

Though, some days, it sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than he's telling you.

As you're riding him one day, things come to an abrupt stop

He's just as degrading and rough as ever, saying how pathetic you are as he guides your hips up and down his cock.

You place your hands on his chest, running them over his muscles to steady you..

He grabs your hand and you expect him to yank it off of him, saying what he usually does.

"Fuck, keep touching me like that.."

[aworld-inpink]

my brain has been completely overrun by trans girl levi so now I'm making it everybody else's problem

egg levi who insists that she's not trans but one of her favourite games is Celeste

i genuinely don't think that she would realise for a while

it would start off small, with her getting jealous of other girls for being so pretty and getting to wear dresses and such

and like, because of asmo she wouldn't think that men can't, but her internalised shame would mean she wouldn't mention it to anyone

because getting jealous over other girls experiencing being a woman is very cis male behaviour, of course

but over time it would just completely snowball into this massive thing

asmo definitely helped her figure it out a little bit

levi knows what trans people are, she's chronically online, it would be insane to say she didnt

but asmo helped her realise that she can experiment with her appearance, especially when it comes to clothes, which I think started her realisation

head empty no thoughts just the thought of egg levi trying on a dress for the first time and completely breaking down

she's so pretty <3

and when she figures it out the brothers are so supportive 💞

she's their sister and they wouldn't trade her for the world

also, as a side note, t4t mc and levi would be so powerful - the crazy human and their moe demon girlfriend <3<3<3

[irkendogma]

hey hey! tallest freak intrigues me.,,,,, tell me more

well, last night was a convenient time for me to have finished their toyhouse! the full massive walls of text snowballed of their character can be read there, but in fewer words

the basic premise behind tallest freak was the joke that they have persistent fixation on sexuality...as a member of a species of sterile, sexless test tube babies. and that they died in irken 9/11. unfortunately for my brain these aspects actually managed to gel well together once i considered them in the context of my headcanon that the control brains are the actual primary heads of irken society who cultivate irkens to provide them with the massive amount of resources they need to live like a sentient version of fungi grown in ant colonies

in their actual current writing spiralling off of the joke, freak has the vestigial psychological components of sexuality through their organic body's neural wiring (which, at odds with their PAK programming lacking that "code block", results in chronic migraine-like headaches from the biological version of a program error) without any actual way to address it or ability to discuss it with others who would understand. when combined with their lifelong impressive height meaning that they never had to learn how to actually work for what they want, whether material or social, this has resulted in someone who is, in a word, really, really weird - detached from the people around them due to feelings of fundamental separation and possessing very little regard for the convictions of anyone but themselves

their rule as tallest is kinda an extended commentary on that hubris-level self-assuredness, because with the tremendous amount of resources at their disposal when they're handed the entire empire on a platter they decide they're going to pursue the goal of restoring the relevant irken physical systems, no matter how far-fetched it is or how little public support there is for it, and while theoretically this wouldn't necessarily be bad for irkens they're pursuing it out of nothing but their own very simple, petty wants - and in doing so, they step on the toes of the one group they can't afford to piss off, since irkens getting the idea that they wouldn't have to rely on smeeteries would deal a pretty heavy blow to their dependence on the control brains and the brains' resulting authority

which loops back around to 11/12 being an inside job incited by penis crimes against the state.

[aheathen-conceivably]

Hi! I’m a huge fan of your work (Josephine, in particular, has my heart! Gio, I tolerate… sorry 🫣), so, firstly, thank you for sharing your lovely creative mind with us.

Second, I hope it’s okay to ask a question! There’s a specific story idea that’s been rattling around in my head for ages now, but try as I might, I can’t seem to make it into anything concrete. I have a few things down (mostly snatches of dialogue, basic facts like character names, and start/end points - i.e. “z and a start as enemies but eventually fall in love”) but I’m struggling to connect point a with point b and actually make it, yknow, a story. Do you have any sage advice/pro tips/divinely-inspired guidance for making a handful of loose ends into something real and fit for Tumblr consumption? Lol.

Thank you in advance!

Hello, there! First and foremost let me apologize for some particular writer out there (ahem, it is me) who may have just gotten herself out of a real bad slump by making Gio a main character 😂

I am SORRY y’all I wasn’t supposed to like him this much I was a Jo girlie forever but now, well, the heart wants what the heart wants. Make no mistake Jo still has my heart but…can’t a girl have both? Y’all out here taking sides already oh my goodness I can’t wait to see y’all for the rest of this decade 😜

Now WHEW! Let me also say I appreciate your kindness about the story. I wish I had more advice for you, but I’m afraid I fell into this without much creative or really any writing background at all, so I’m not sure I’m the source for sage advice. Other than going on my resource page for other tricks that might be helpful, what I will tell you is to write every damn thing down. Like I mean it, one line of dialogue, one idea, one thought. I have stuff everywhere, under to do lists, in massive documents, in scribbles on the back of bills. Eventually I do try and organize it (and this would probably be the time to tell you to maybe not put it in random places where it’s hard to find later 😅), but I’m often shocked at what a small little tidbit later turns into.

As far as connecting those tidbits (which bravo for having them, that’s already more than I did for some parts of the story!), I honestly just feel like the more you write and inhabit the mindset of your little world, the more it comes to you when you aren’t thinking about it. Thanks to my boy Gio (please see above oops) I have been writing nonstop. Chopping onions, folding clothes, driving, just trying to live my life and a scene is playing out in my head. Now mind you, this comes after over a month without a single thought of the story, so it is a process that waxes and wanes.

I would also say not to get frustrated with yourself too early, as again, I think the process of getting into your story is a snowball effect. My early decades had much less going on, and that’s very much for a reason. The process moves with you. That means that I don’t really think there’s a benchmark for “fit for Tumblr consumption.” Doing it is practicing it, and the community is very welcoming to changing style and voice as your work goes on.

Just write my Nonny friend, write whenever your brain tells you to and don’t be afraid to share. And then fall in love with Gio with me 😙

[pathogenflock]

I feel like the way people act in the cc fandom, in terms of discourse, is very harmful. To others, yes, obviously, but also to themselves. This post isn't in response to any recent incidents (none have happened that i know of at least - I've been pretty disconnected from the fandom recently, mb). I wanna preface this by saying, first and foremost, that I acknowledge the absurdity of what is basically a heart-to-heart with a fandom for a facebook game LMFAO so lets get that out of the way, but it IS a game - and by extent, fandom - that I hold dear to my heart (no, seriously), so I kinda felt like a post like this would probably do some good, or at the very least wouldnt do harm.

In the time spent in this fandom, I have seen the way in which people treat each other in disagreements. It's hardly constructive, often vitriolic, and always rooted in taking whatever the opposing side has said in bad faith. I've seen massive, weeks-long arguments stem from tiny, petty disagreements, which would otherwise be resolved with simple communication or even letting the whole thing dissolve. (One thing to note is that I am almost never part of these arguments, more so a spectator, or sometimes even a mediator, so do take the way I speak about them with a pinch of salt.) I actually kind of get it, because I've been there. Sometimes you're in the thick of it and you're not really thinking rationally and your brain sort of kicks into high gear and you do and say things that are drastic and escalating because you're locked in this 'act now, think later' mode that just makes things worse. Or maybe it's a slowburn, never nipping something in the bud and just letting it rack up and snowball into a whole thing because you were, again, in the thick of it and convinced that doing something about it at the time it started would be the end of the world.

I digress.

If you find yourself caring about something to the point that it has a negative impact on your mental health — be it stress, anger, anxiety, sadness — I urge you from the bottom of my heart and with your best interest in mind to take a big step back to assess whether it is worth the emotions that it is causing. Ask yourself as many grounding questions as you can. Is it really that important? If I explained this to somebody out loud as neutrally as possible, would it sound silly? In five years, or three years, or even six months, will this matter? Compared to my other priorities, is this really that pressing? Ask this genuinely: try not to go into it with the purpose of belittling OR affirming your initial position.

Treat people nicely. Even the ones you disagree with. Not because you're expected to be perfectly and ontologically good to everybody, but to prevent the harm that you can cause yourself when bickering with people inevitably devolves into a pathological thing. Because it will! Anger is a very addictive emotion, and letting yourself be at the mercy of it is actively detrimental to you. Obviously, don't be a pushover and always respect yourself, but 'letting people walk all over you' and 'constantly being on the offense' are two extremes in interaction that you should never let yourself skew towards because BOTH these things will massively fuck you over.

If you frequently find yourself bickering with or making snide remarks toward somebody, if you are entrenching yourself into drama and discourse about this game, you may be causing harm to yourself. Little by little, this kind of stuff chips away at your mental state and it can leave you as a bitter, perpetually-on-the-offensive version of yourself. I know this because I have been there, and I wish I could take that time back. Please don't feel bad if any of what I've said resonates with your behavior, I am fully aware of how this kind of stuff creeps up on you and becomes tedious to unlearn by the time you're aware of it, so it's nothing I look down on, but it IS something that I want to stop from causing further harm to folks.

Beyond just this fandom, there is no specific target audience for this. Please don't think I'm targeting you. I worded this as broadly as possible for a reason. Likewise, please don't let your takeaway from this post be "Oh, I know someone who needs to hear this." There is no one thing that sparked the decision to make this post, I've simply looked back on past major things, that I have either seen or been told about, and noticed an overarching pattern of behavior. This fandom is and has been peaceful lately, so hopefully this is a good time to stop and soak this in. If you needed to hear this, I hope you take it to heart, and thank you so much for sticking by. If you didn't, then thank you for reading this whole thing anyway lol. Whichever audience you belong to, thank you for making this community what it is, because I could make a post that is twice as long as this one about its merits.

TL;DR: The way people treat each other around here is pretty unhealthy, not just to the other person but to themselves. It's a sadly ongoing problem that stems from a disinterest to engage in good faith with each other, a lack of proper communication, people's addiction to their own anger, and a tendency to perceive inconsequential things as worse than they are, thereby escalating them. This is ultimately harmful to your mental health, so I've written some ways to prevent it. This isn't targeted, don't think it's specifically about you or someone you hate, it's for anyone who needs to hear it and there is no shame at all in needing to hear it. Thank you for reading, and thank you for being part of this wonderful community (/gen).

thanks for making it this far have this extremely compressed jpeg of my wife

[drbased]

being in your brain must be hard considering how many banger, thought out posts you create consistently

Omg thank you so much, this means a lot.

This is another anon I've been putting off answering, because I didn't know how to fully respond. It's hard to anticipate how something you put out into the world will be received, and I attempt to be as unambiguous as possible, but sincerity always runs the risk of coming across as a pompous asshole.

So yeah, I say this with complete sincerity - it's really hard being in my brain. It was harder some years back, and what's made it easier is that I've accepted who I am now, and clearly who I am is someone who is massively enriched by understanding and analysing things, and using precise language to explain things, which then in turn increases my own understanding. I believe that this did not start off as some big-brained genius trait of mine, but rather of deep fear. Me not knowing things always seemed to hurt me in some way, so I felt in constant flux, having to figure out what was happening to me and why, or else the fear became existential terror and would overwhelm me. My brain is in a state of constant chatter that I have never felt much in control of. Deciding to allow myself to be in me instead of quashing my 'overthinking' has caused this snowball effect and I would say I am now reaching a state of comfort in my discomfort. I'm at least purposeful, which is something I didn't have before.

[astralartefact]

just some doodles of some character designs I like from the Inazuma Eleven demo (i love raimon's new long water kazemaru)

i don't know if we even have confirmation that suruga's friends are team members but we need eleven+ people so it seems likely

Thoughts on the Demo (with Story Mode) below the cut

If I had to summarize my feelings in one sentence it would be: "This can't be the last game, right???"

I'm afraid it will be, but nooooooooooo q_q it can't beeee

I know Inazuma Eleven is so beyond niche that it was clear it wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell and given Level5's recent struggles I should be grateful that Victory Road even gets to exist at all, but q_____q I will miss Inazuma Eleven already q_q That's what the Demo makes me feel.

Like, I thought about it, but I think I don't even like Inazuma Eleven ironically, I just genuinely like it so much. If you like RPGs get yourself a copy of one of the DS games and have a good time, just shut your brain off a little bit and do not think even once. Me? I'm fine thinking about it, I was born into this utmost sincerity, I was molded by it, but as irony-poisoned as the world has become I have to point out it's.... a little bit wild. Just be prepared that Soccer might cry.

I like what they're doing with Unmei, I think the idea to have him be a non soccer player makes a lot of sense (no clue how I didn't notice that he wasn't playing in any of the promotional material)

Don't know if I like that 5 vs. 5's are gone. On one hand, probably a good choice, I think they can be much more creative with this new thing they're doing and small battles in the new control scheme would probably take forever and/or be weird af - on the other kind of lame, that takes a bunch of the soccer out of the soccer game.

I'm wondering how important the School Council President and that one other white haired girl are going to be. I kind of hope they won't be relegated to Manager roles, because as fun as those characters might have been (were they?) in OG and Go those don't really get to do anything and we already have 11 Characters + Bench already. you could just make them players...

I don't know what their scope with the Main Story is going to be. It seems very 'regular' - the Story seems to be weirdly front-loaded as usual, where everything happens all at once before the inevitable road to victory happens, but... I don't know, I think if this (last?) game really just has the scope of IE1 or Go1 I would be kind of disappointed ngl :/

In the same vein I'm somewhat scared for how far out this game is? This game seems absolutely massive and given what they've shown so far they could be 15% done and all they have is this little bit of story and all of the imported stuff. Maybe they just are much further along then I'm expecting them to be, but I don't know. Crossing my fingers that they know what they're doing.

Also what is the Budget of this game. Non stop animated segments, even if they were CG heavy. And how many VAs did you have for the Demo alone???? And you want to add everyone from all the games?????

"Escape Freud" you don't understand I'm trying

I don't hate the Translated Names (yet, the Go ones were a struggle though) but I do wish they had a Japanese Name Mode to go with JP VA

I miss drawing the arrows to control the team so much q____q I don't hate the new system and I get why it's kind of hard to translate the old one to gamepad controls but I feel like I have no clear control over anybody... I still think that you could turn that entire mechanic into so many cool game concepts btw, it's kind of weird that nobody ever made 'sensical' Inazuma Eleven clones

I put FF14 and Hasunosora as Cross-Over Requests in the Online Survey. The first one would be hilarious to me (and it would be possible given Yokai Watch) and for the second one I'm pretty certain that that Venn Diagram overlaps in a single dot and that single dot is me. I just think Megumegu would look great in Raimon's Uniform, okay.

[doorrobloxstuff]

Eheheheh..I'm a bit worried about writin about ambush thanks to Kin stuff (if GODS FORBID..I find my canonmate Ambush i'd promptly turn into bone dust if they read this blog)

but Ambush has more then two brain cells help

I’m just gonna do Rush for now if anyone has any Ambush personality hcs I can glue into Ambush so I don’t accidentally write it similar to kin memories pls send them.

Buuuuut..

---

Y/N watched frost grow on the edges of a window. From the window they saw fluffy snow gently falling down and settling in big white mounds and hills.

They smiled nervously, snow was both..well..a blessing and a curse. Don’t get them wrong, they liked snow.

Snow brought joy.

They cherished the memory of little Dupe, Screech, Snare and Sally burrowing in a snowy white courtyard. Cheerful laughter filled the air as they tossed snowballs and made snow angels all while their chuckling parents watched on drinking warm cups of hot cocoa that Y/N had brought.

Figure always did make the silliest snow angels with those long arms of its.~

That, and this particular patch of snow marked the one year anniversary of when they came to the hotel. The three year anniversary since they met these wonderful, strange and beautifully brutal creatures and fell in love with one of them.

Snow also brought hunger.

They remembered Seek’s tired eyes. How stiff and brittle it seemed. What a battle it was to even get it to go out the door and when did it would not stop staring at them. But the way it did, it seemed..off. Sure, Seek was never the most jovial of creatures but something was definitely off.

They vaguely recalled its eyes seemingly growing veiny redness. How its cup was practically empty in only a few minutes and how uncomfortably close it had gotten to them.

How few and far between Its words had been..How Rush seemed to become more and more growly and intense.

Its massive hands firmly wrapping around their waist and pulling them closer to itself. “Don’t want that cute face of yours to gettin any frostbite!” It winked and gave them a little kiss that made them blush. Had it frowned a little? Why was it looking at Seek so hard..?

At the time, they just thought it was some weird joke but now..

As they pressed even further into their mind to recall how Halt getting in between them and Seek. How Seek profusely apologized later for seemingly no..reason?

They had always assumed it had just really liked the hot coca at the time..but now-..

They shook those memories away. It was winter again. Winter was here and it here it was robbing their partner and its children of potential food.. nobody comes in the middle of winter.

That…and that stupid fucking irritatingly blue light. What was it trying to prove? Its not like the entities have access to much else anyways!

They can’t make things worse by being selfish…even if that meant..

They sighed, turning their head away from the window. They plucked a small, glow in the dark band from off the table, secured it around their shoulder exiting the lobby to find Rush.

It wasn’t long before it found them. The dark hallways filled with distant, yet horrible screeches. To anyone else, these screams would’ve been absolutely frightening to hear. But to Y/N, those screams were absolute music to their ears.

Rush came to a screeching halt and advanced forward. For a few seconds, it seemed like the entity was about the attack with the soft glow of the armband driving it into even further excitement.

Its body wiggled and prepared to pounce.

WHOOMPH.

“Gotcha.~”

The next thing Y/N knew, they were pinned on the cold mahogany floor. Rush felt lighter then usual, and its eyes were wrinkled and tired but the mischievous twinkle in its eyes was still very much there.

"Hey there big guy..love squishing all the air out of me, huh?” They said with a smile, managing to pull a hand out from under themselves and reaching through it's fog to give it some scritches.

“Ah, sorry toots-” It carefully lifted its partner out from under its face.

“I’m doin fine, could be better with Dupe and Sally horking up the food like little vacuum cleanahs but eh, the lil rascals are hungry so I can’t blame em ya know?”

Rush set a hand on Y/N’s waist. “Soooo- honeybuns, I was thinkin-“ its eyes drifted over to a nearby window and narrowed. “Sally…quit eavesdropping!The adults are havin a private conversation!”

Y/N turned towards the window as child-like distorted giggles filled the air, but Sally was already gone with the wind.

Rush snickered. “Damn kids..speaking of em.. “

It’s voice grew nervous. “-Puddin..I wonderin if you’d uhhh..like to talk about somethin serious?

Y/N rubbed the back of their neck and took a sharp inhale through their nose.

“O-oh- yea it’s fine, is something wrong?”

“Nah, I just want to talk about..ya know, the big stuff? Like if ya want kiddos, or becomin spouses- or like..well..-“

Please mdon’t say it. Please don’t say it. Please. Don’t. Say it.

Y/N felt beads of sweat race down their nape. Rush’s eyes saddened a bit seeing their reaction. But it continued:

“Well, we’ve spent three years together.. that’s..that’s alota time..”

It pulled them even closer and looked down. Its smile wavering at the edges.

“Oh Rush..”

“And I have alot more time..while you only have so much to spend livin and then ya gone like you were ‘neva even there..I just..I’m not sayin now toots..but I’m just askin for an idea of a when or an if?”

Y/N took a moment, their nervous, sticky-sweaty palms reached for and were met with Rush’s large ones.

“I..I don’t want to be a leech..”

Rush’s eyes blinked in confusion, it’s best to remain serious. But it couldn’t help feeling stupid when the words slid out.

“…What’sa leech?”

Y/N smiled just the tiniest bit. It had forgotten how innocent the entities could be sometimes.

“It’s like- I- uh..I don’t want to be a drain on resources.”

“Y/N, why would ya think that..?”

“Rush, do you remember the winter we met..? When we had hot Coca and watched the kids make snow angels..?”

“Yea..I..I remember it.” It’s face fell further into a frown.

“Seek. Do you remember Seek as well? The way it looked at me Rush. That wasn’t..that wasn’t my friend standing there was it?”

Rush stood there silently, with a hand it pulled Y/N even closer to itself. The black fog emanating from it enclosing itself around Y/N.

“I was hoping you’d forget it.”

“I remember it..I don’t want you to become like that..I don’t want you to lose yourself and do something you’ll regret because you couldn’t even DO anything to stop it.”

Rush stayed silent. Its frown reaching the cold, wooden floor as it stared off into space. It felt as cold as the emptiness in its chest. Finally, it broke the silence as it it hissed and shook its head.

“Listen, that ain’t gonna happen. I’ll use a fuckin crucifix on myself if I have to.. just..it ain’t gonna happen. We’ll work something out okay?”

“You don’t know that..” Y/N murmured.

“Well, I uh..maybe I don’t. But having MY Y/N calling themself greedy? Nah. Not happening.”

Y/N sighed, burying their face into the entities fog. The comforting smell of charcoal dulled their senses. Tears stung at the edge of their eyes.

“I’m scared.” They whispered.

“Me too.”

—

HURT COMFORT BUT ITS LESS HURT AND MORE COMFORT.

I had some difficulty ending this on a good note because during low food times the danger is very much real. So unfortunately the conflict here remains, that and the allergy meds are messing with me. I’ll make a part two of you guys want to.

Short of lying to Y/N (which would be unhealthy and I’m the fluff guy, not the angst guy!) there’s few things Rush can do to comfort them.

Rush Roblox doors isn’t the most emotionally intelligent creature either. Actually it’s a 50/50 on this lad, so..

[gxrlcinema]

🔥 - i need my heart broken, so let's go. you already know some things about me, but i'll try to tell you some new stuff! i'm twenty-one, and i have blue eyes, and light brown hair (got them blonde highlights, but i could honestly cut them out rn and be completely natural). i'm in a master's program for teaching, but i am actually about to apply for some state jobs with a museum near my state's capital! (i'm typing this instead of working on my resume, but we're not going to talk about that). that being said, idk if i'm gonna finish the program any time soon. i'd only have about a year left, but if i get the museum job, i'd be looking at something different.

i love the holidays, and i'm not particular about what happens during the season as long as i'm with family/friends. i do love snow, though. i really wish it would snow. can't remember the last time it snowed in december here.

let's see... my favorite color is still yellow, i'm the eldest of five kids, and i currently work as a substitute teacher. my crystal collection has only grown, but i feel like i have far more rose quartz than i need. idk, if you need more, just let me know!! but my brain is fried cuz i legit never stop working/writing, and this is just about all i've got so far.

also, i don't have any particular gender preference! use that intuition, baby :-)

I ship you with... Wanda Maximoff!

Wanda has heard all about the sub that's in Billy and Tommy's class while their teacher's out with the flu. The cool one, with the yellow shirts and the crystals on her desk that makes class actually not boring. You're Billy and Tommy's favorite teacher, even though you're only temporary.

When Wanda finally gets to meet you, she has a feeling you'll be less temporary than they expected.

She loves snow. Snow was one of the few good things they had growing up in Sokovia, so she is an expert at building snowmen. On one particular snowy day the two of you and the boys get in the ultimate snowball fight, one that ends with you being tackled by Billy and Tommy and surrendering by waving a fistful of white snow. It's all okay though, because Wanda makes everyone hot chocolate afterwards.

As a massive fan of American sitcoms, Wanda loves the holidays. She mixes in her family's Hannukkah and Christmas traditions with her own special blend of crazy American holiday cheer. Her house always has the most lights of any on the street, which means you have to help her put them up. It's worth it to see her eyes sparkle when y'all do get them up though.

She's also really great about incorporating your holiday traditions in to her usual chaos. (Seriously, the woman bakes an impossible amount of cookies).

She thinks your crystals are silly and ineffective at magic, but she indulges you in them anyways. Sometimes she does actually enchant them for you, so they'll do something.

(You think they do something anyways, because every time you look at them, you're reminded of your witchy partner's magical antics).

[likeamothtofame]

// some miscellaneous valentino headcanons, because why not. these are just specifically for my val, but anyone is free to use these for whatever of course. :]

he is a MASSIVE fucking art snob for the worst garbage. he thinks his pizza delivery porno scripts deserve to be published.

he's also sort of a car snob, and it shows in his porn. lots of surprisingly old school cars get used as props for scenes.

somewhat related, his scripts are actually just hot ass. he sucks at writing but nobody is gonna be the one to tell him. half of the outtakes in his films are just people questioning their corny dialogue mid-scene.

he's actually really insecure about his appearance (deserved tbh). not about anything in particular, he just thinks everything about himself could be better. pretty much any insult levied his way becomes a new insecurity. he has the kind of dysmorphia that makes plastic surgeons millionaires.

and yes he 10000% has gotten work done.

him taking 30 minutes to count three bucks isn't an exaggeration, but it's not necessarily that he's stupid as much as it is just the fact that all the drugs have turned his brain into like 75% mashed potatoes so he's not very good at focusing on anything anymore.

his sunglasses are actually prescription, his vision without them is pretty bad.

everything he does is as analog as possible. he knows that he could do everything his camera crew could with his phone, but where is the art in that? that, and that's just how stuff was done when he was alive and he gets really stuck in his ways.

he was actually a straight-laced church boy for most of his life, it wasn't too long before he died that he ended up tangled in cartel business and that's what got him killed in the end is 1982.

his diet fucking sucks. he likes salads drowned in sugary dressing sometimes, but his dinner is usually something like a twinkie and a joint.

// all the headcanons under the cut here lean more towards being nsfw, so be warned or whatever lmao

he actually started out in hell as a prostitute, and got picked up by some other pimp that saw some potential and it snowballed into him becoming what he is over the course of some years. totally no significance to the fact that that's exactly what he did with angel dust. none at all!

he has both a penis and a vagina. his balls are somehere up in there.

he has pierced nipples because obviously, and swaps them out often for fashion purposes.

on the topic of piercings, he definitely has a few downstairs. and by a few, i mean "jesus fucking christ". prince albert, frenum ladder, and guiche piercings if you're curious. he's gotta make up for the lack of ears to pierce somewhere, i guess.

[kaiwritesgood]

“A Neurodivergent Night Out”

           “I like the outfit,” my boyfriend looked me up and down. I was wearing a holiday sweater with a deer on it, the green cargo pants he picked out with the cuffs folded up, and blacked-out vans with a green LAND ROVER beanie. He placed two five-dollar bills in my hand, “I just wanna play pinball,” I planned, and he nodded, “then I’m coming right back.”

           Recently, a friend sent me a last-minute invite to PINS, the bar, and arcade that replaced Claddagh in the Southside Flats, and after motivating myself and peeling my body off the couch, I got dressed. I smoked before I left to enhance my experience but once I arrived, I would come face to face with the scowling, bald bouncer who would toss out my plastic water bottle during the routine search and seizure of my bag only to tell me he had no memory of such event when I tried to retrieve it.

           “You can’t bring bottled drinks in,” he said it like I should have known, and handed a Vizzy and a White Claw to the guy behind him who then hid them behind the counter. Later, I’d have to let my friend know that the bald bouncer confiscated the drinks. I had TSA flashbacks.

           It was St. Patrick’s Day Weekend – my first mistake.

           The first floor was chaotic - loud, bright, and overstimulating, so was the second. But I had a mission: to find my friend. So I squeezed through crowds of yelling people, liquor splashing around in their unopened drinks, cut through bar lines, slithered around corners, got in the elevator, got off the elevator, walked up the steps then down them and up again, and when I felt ready to give up I came face to face with the friend who invited me as she left the stall I was about to enter.

           “This is what you were doing?” I showed her the unanswered texts on my phone.

           “Sorry,” she showed me this massive text message, “I was just reading this note from one of my student’s parents that made me bawl,” I looked past it, instead I looked at her.            She and her boyfriend waited for drinks at the bar and like Moses, I parted the Red Sea to get through to the change machine. It didn’t matter though because the Addams Family pinball machine stole my dollar. No pinball. I got hot. I felt a wave of frustration surface. And in the spirit of the holiday, I made my Irish exit.

           These places are packed, shoulder to shoulder, wall to wall, bodies are sewn together, people are talking into each other’s mouths, and getting through means shrinking yourself by pulling your chest in, holding your breath, and repeating “excuse me” at varying volumes. People bring their roommates, their roommates’ friends, their coworkers, their neighbors, their exes, their friends, their friends’ exes, partners, their partners’ partners, husbands, wives, and even dogs. Yes, dogs.

           I looked down at my phone, “a dog shit on the steps,” popped up. I sat in my car after my anxiety snowballed into a panic attack. Another text, “Why did the owner keep walking?”

           After ten minutes I left Southside’s infamous PINS. I texted them from the car, “this is stressful lowkey,” I hit send and followed it up with, “sorry, that was rude. It was making me anxious.” The combination of the lights, the noise, and the people had successfully overstimulated my brain, “that place made me feel dizzy,” I sent, and she replied, “omg I felt so bad bc u seemed so stressed.”

           As I stuck my key into the ignition and sucked up my tears on the drive home, I wondered how much Klonopin it would take for me to be able to attend an event like that. And I didn’t even get to play any pinball.

           On the five-minute long drive home I kept thinking, I used to be good at this. I used to go out and drink and dance with strangers, I used to trek on foot to Cruze (RIP) in the Strip and ride in random cars, I used to go to work hungover, I used to smuggle alcohol into the Point Park dorms, I used to hotbox their bathrooms, and I used to be dragged back to my dorm after a victorious night. I used to let strangers in my home, I used to go to strangers’ homes, I used to live.

           And at some point, in the last few years, I stopped “living”.

           First Citalopram, then Sertraline then Venlafaxine then Hydroxyzine then Lorazepam then Clonazepam. They all gave me a chance. In the world of psychiatric medicine, I was absolutely ran-through. But nothing cleared my mind like psilocybin.

           I wanted to go out again, I told myself, I will go out again. But I just needed a way to make my brain want to do it. And this would be the way.

           The first time I did mushrooms, I felt fine. The second time I did mushrooms, I fell to my knees at the face of God – not literally but I did feel reborn. I took the most I ever had taken at a May Day festival, in the company of white hippies. I thought about my dad, who had experienced a religious resurgence, after doing PCP in the ‘90s. I wondered if he’d also been on the spectrum and just didn’t know it.

           Being on the spectrum means discovering a way to exist in a world that does little to accommodate you. The spectrum is vast and when I picture it in my brain, I see an outstretched spiral where the colors fade and bleed into one another. But within that spiral lives fear, confusion, disorder, and loneliness.            I often hear neurotypicals gawk at autistic people like children, “autism is beautiful”, “they’re so cute.” They think we see the world Rain Man-style. Many of them are the Tom Cruise to somebody’s Dustin Hoffman – absurdly impatient, annoyed, and impressed all at the same time. But what Tom Cruises’ character can’t see is all the inner turmoil that Dustin Hoffman’s is experiencing, the general confusion of being a sentient human being.            The only talent I share with Rain-Man is speed-reading, other than that, that movie is just that – a movie. Autism’s literally a spectrum disorder [1], and a version of Rain-Man likely exists, but I am not one of them.

             Earlier this week, I’d message a friend on Instagram whom I’d met online but we seldom hung out offline. Once we finally met up for the first time, it felt like I had known them awhile, a natural friendship. I’d come to know this person as Marlene.

             Marlene and I had the commonality of being two black girls in Pittsburgh with very little black friends – so sticking together was imperative.

             “Wyd this weekend?” I sent, then followed up with, “I need someone to go barhopping/club-hopping with to finish my story.” Then I paused, thought about what I would say next then sent it, “we can do it on shrooms.”

           “Let’s do it!!” Double exclamation points, this was a go.

           “We have to have a very interesting night,” I sent, “so I have good shit to turn into my prof. I’m thinking we def do karaoke.”

             Friday, 10:00am:

             “Ayooo,” Marlene texted first, “wanna meet at Blue Moon or my place first tonight?”            “Probably your place first bc I could park there easier.” Send. “We could do [mushroom emoji] and then split an Uber.”            “8:30 ok?” She asked after I let her know I was off at 6.            “I must eat my dinner first so that’s perfect.” Send. I eat dinner every night at the same time.

             7:00pm

                       I talk to the back of my boyfriend’s head as he clicks away on the computer, “I’m going out to Blue Moon with my friend, Marlene in a few.” He nodded, “it’s the gay bar” I explained, “we’re gonna do mushrooms.”            “Why?”            “Because we want to.”            He’s worried. I try to keep it casual, play it cool. I try to act like he has not seen the last few weeks of panic attacks and meltdowns, like we didn’t just spend 12 hours in the hospital two weeks ago, like he hasn’t ever had to leave work early because I’ve been inconsolable.            “You’re a handful,” he told me once, “but I do it because I love you.” And “love” as in the verb.            A few weeks ago, I submerged myself in pink bathwater while I read Donald Antrim’s memoir One Friday in April, he writes:            “We are burdens to our caretakers; we know this, no matter what you say to soothe us, no matter that you love us.” [2] This truth is something that I’ve yet to be able to face.

             I am meticulously planning every detail before I get ready.

           Must sit down and eat my French fries before I can leave. I’ve eaten French fries every day for the past four years. Can’t leave till I clear the plate. If I get hungry when I’m out I get anxious because there’s little to no chance of me being able to access “safe food”[3] (Goldfish lives in my bag for this reason).

             I type Marlene’s address into Google Maps (and Apple Maps to compare routes) even though I’ve been there twice, I check the street view - nothing has changed. Thank God. I plan where I am going to park. I repeat the plan, vocalizing the steps that I’m taking as I get ready - I will wear this pair of pants and this shirt with these shoes and bring this bag and pack these items. Just like the PINS bouncer, I am taking careful inventory of the bag’s contents but unlike him, I am repeating them; phone, wallet, keys, headphones, vape pen, sunglasses, weed gummies. Phone, wallet, keys, headphones, vape pen, sunglasses, weed gummies. Pen is in the zipped compartment on the right side of the bag, buried beneath the Ziploc with the gummies, my keys are wrapped around my wrist because I am about to get in the car and drive off, my phone is in my pocket not my bag but it’s likely I’ll put it in my bag at some point and the night and –.            Before walking out the door, I open the bag and look through it, close it, open it, look through it again. Unzip and rezip and unzip and rezip. I am aware I am being neurotic.            Neuroticism, “a ‘Big Five’ personality trait, has been associated with sub-clinical traits of both autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).”[4]

           WebMD is not very helpful here. “Neurotic” is when you’re afflicted by “neurosis”, the webpage tells me. I scroll on.            “Neurotic” is a term used to “describe mental, emotional, or physical reactions that are drastic and irrational. At its root, a neurotic behavior is an automatic, unconscious effort to manage deep anxiety.”[5]            At our last session, I told my therapist that I “felt like I was stuck in a permanent state of overstimulation” that had gotten so bad I went weeks without watching TV and had very much limited my internet usage (I avoided TikTok at all costs, YouTube was safer, no autoplay). After the day ended, I spent every night alone in the spare room (affectionately known as the “autism room”) and every night I would not allow myself to leave until I fell asleep. And that couldn’t be done until I swallowed 0.5mg of Clonazepam and 0.25mg of Hydroxyzine and stared at the rainbow bubbles on my ceiling coming from a light projector marketed toward children and a 4K YouTube livestream of an aquarium displaying fish swim across my iMac’s monitor. Probably uploaded by a random user in a different country who idealized aquatic life but ended up creating a secret elixir to put babies to sleep across the world. A hero to tired parents, fussy infants, and adults on the spectrum.

           I liked Blue Moon; I trusted Blue Moon. Gay bars had a different atmosphere than straight ones – they prioritized safety, and making you feel safe. The LGBQT+ community (sometimes affectionately called the “girls and gays”) don’t have the luxury of neglecting safety – in these spaces, safety is so imperative that they took the locks off the bathroom doors so no one could (successfully) overdose. I realized this when I went for a pee break – the fastest one I’ve ever taken – as I waited for that door to swing open.            “Safety is so much about perception,” Allison Harnden told me over Zoom a few weeks ago. She would know, she’s Pittsburgh’s Nighttime Economy Manager. When we talked (I had an entirely different plan for this story), I told her that I wondered what everything would look like if her job didn’t exist.            “Some of it [safety] is institutionalized and you know, maybe we need more awareness about what we are doing so that people feel safer.”            Safer, the word echoed against the walls of my brain. Safety. What did it mean to feel safe? And how’s feeling safe different from being safe? And why couldn’t my brain tell the difference?                        The safest I’d ever felt was in hospitals. And I hate admitting that to myself, knowing people die there, and people go into debt there, and people experience traumas there, and malpractice and racism exist, and I am a likely candidate for both.

           The last night I spent at Western Psych, the only item I was allowed was a book (no hardcovers) from my bag and the only book I had was All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner, and although I related heavily to the title, I felt like I should put the book down, considering how strong the Ativan giggles came on.

            “It’s a spectrum,” I announced, presenting a hastily made PowerPoint on autism to my boyfriend, “I believe this leads to those.” I shared my findings with my therapist, and she agreed.[6] [7]

             I drew up a diagram in which a giant circle labeled AUTISM branched off into smaller circles, one labeled GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER and the other DEPRESSION.

           Antrim also talks about how his anxiety over mundane tasks isolated him, and how he fantasized about leaving the hospital but didn’t know what came after it – and that paralyzed him.            “Dining out, driving a car, making coffee – these things were not possible. They were unsafe. My apartment was unsafe. The subway was unsafe. The street was unsafe. Back in the spring, in April, I’d left the Brooklyn hospital and passed in an instant from shelter to exposure. On one side of the steel door, I’d felt competent, ready to resume my life. On the other side of the door, I was frightened and lost.” [8]

                       What waited on the other side of my door that was so frightening to me? And why couldn’t I open it?

 8:00pm            She told me 8:30, but it’s likely I’ll be there around 9. That wasn’t the plan. I ignore my brain trying to give me a reason to panic. But it’s early, and everything’s packed, I took inventory several times. Can’t back out now.            I say bye to my boyfriend several times, every time I come back upstairs to make sure I have everything, I say bye again. I say “love you” in case I die at the Blue Moon.

 8:45-50pm…            The car seems to be driving itself. I have less than a quarter tank, but I can’t stop because it’s nighttime and I’m a girl and that wasn’t the plan anyways.            I arrive and like the last two times, I parked too far. I can’t see the street signs well in the dark, but somehow, I trek up the pathway toward Marlene’s door, awkwardly greeting a guy taking his dog to the bathroom. She buzzes me in, and I grab the door handle too soon, so she has to buzz me in again. I’m an annoyance, a burden.            After setting my things down on her dining table, I immediately pick up one of the three cats roaming the apartment. Marlene’s got her “getting-ready playlist” blaring through the TV. I enjoyed her free spirit.            We sat on the couch and split a piece of mushroom-infused chocolate. I hate chocolate. But I shoved it down, and we waited.

 9:30pm

             The first Uber arrives – a gray SUV. Marlene gets in on the side facing traffic. She is fearless. I scolded her about how that’s dangerous and she should get in on the side facing the sidewalk.            Our driver sang passionately, off key, to a breakup song called Gassed by an artist I’d never heard of called WESLEE – I think he really connected with it. It was quiet in the Uber for most of the ride, so I listened to him sing, even if it was awful.

“I choose to walk this lonely road Change the flow ‘Cause I need the space to grow

Hope you’d know

I will find my way back home”

           “Thank you so much,” Marlene and I repeated in sync when he dropped us off in on Butler Street in front of Blue Moon. We get in by only by the skin of our teeth – the doorman turned us away at first, “we’re full,” but once two people exited, we slid through. Fire code, I thought. I remembered more of my conversation with Allison, and when she talked about how buildings and venues must pass an array of inspections and trainings to have the luxury of hosting such a sacred space as this.            We walk in and head straight for the bar. Neither of us drink.            “Can I get a fucking water?” Marlene yelled over the music, “I just want a fucking water.” And I wanted a sprite. And time was becoming distorted. “I got this,” I told Marlene, “I’m gonna make this mine.”            And when the bartender gallivanted over to us, I proudly spoke up, “could we get one water and one sprite please? Thank you so much.” I smile. I look at Marlene, “I did it, dude.”            While we waited, I couldn’t stop myself from looking around the bar, for perceived threats or anticipated problems. Or a place to sit until karaoke started.            “There’s an empty table,” I whispered, “go snag it!” Marlene demanded, and I did.

           And I sat at that empty table and watched people socialize and play pool and drink and be gay, in every sense. I smiled at the Jello-Shot Man who wore nothing but leather garter belts and was always so nice, he smiled back. There’s that “wrong” feeling – being in a bar and not drinking, but alcohol is a fad that’s fading fast (at least in my friend group), and the kids like psychedelics these days. And benzodiazepines don’t mix well with alcohol.

           I was elated to receive a text from Jess, my best friend, who lived up the street and wanted to make it down in time to see our performance.            In the front of house, people waited for drinks and for karaoke to start – any minute now. In the back, they played pool and some nameless buddy comedy played on an old TV anchored to a corner (it still had the back attached to it). This is where people come to socialize, I thought, it’s normal. I snuck off into the bathroom to hit my pen, the THC mixing with the psylocibin in my brain.

           “I got you a song request slip,” Marlene handed me a tiny white paper slip with a space for my name, a song, and an artist. I knew I had to do this.            And I’d put on the biggest mask[9] – I’d play neurotypical for the night. I’m a local, who frequently visits bars around town, I know people, I’ve been here before, I’m not new to this, I’m a professional.            And I would begin to rehearse and model the behaviors around me, mimic their tone, their sayings, and their stances.

 10:00pm (maybe?)

           The bartender changed the TV’s input – it now displayed a graphic with the title THE EDDIEOKE SHOW. We never did find out who Eddie was.

           We checked the karaoke queue and “Kat” was number four, Marlene number five. I didn’t know who Kat was.            “Is ‘Kat’ supposed to be ‘Kai’?”            And while we tried to figure out who Kat was, I felt a familiar pair of arms grasp me from behind – Jess! Thank God. Being with friends was a natural remedy. And now I had two with me. A feeling of relief consumed me.

           “Kat!?” The DJ would yell into the mic, “where’s Kat at?” I looked around to see if Kat would take the stage, “Kat’s got stage fright,” but she didn’t. So, Marlene, Jess and I approached the DJ booth.            I leaned over the edge, “I think I’m ‘Kat.’”            He squinted.            “It says ‘Kai’. You said my name wrong.”

           Marlene and I took the stage, she agreed to be my backup singer. “You do the girl parts,” I delegated, “and I’ll do the boy parts.”

             A micro dose is just that, I thought, micro. I can do this.

           And in this club full of (mostly) Caucasian gay males, after a night of showtunes and ballads, and Alanis Morrisette, an instrumental version of Notorious B.I.G.’s Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems, blared through the speakers. New mission unlocked: keep up with the lyrics on screen.

           I walked up to the mic stand, it towered over me at 5 feet, but once I took the mic off the stand and pushed it to the side, something came over me. And it wasn’t the usual terror that visited me every day.

           “Now, who’s hot, who’s not?            Tell me who rock, who sell out in the stores?            You tell me who flopped, who copped the blue drop?            Whose jewels got rocks?            Who’s mostly Dolce down to the tube sock?”

             We caught the attention of a Black security guard – likely the only other Black person in the club. He sported a hoodie with the words IT’S A PHILLY THANG plastered across in some bulbous bubble letters. He joined us on stage and helped us finish the song because I ran out of breath butchering it.

           Jess was right in front of the stage, filming us like Amy Poehler and her camcorder in Mean Girls.

           At the end of our performance, Marlene would grab the mic and yell, “we’re on shrooms” and I would collapse in a fit of laughter. 10:30-11pm

           The night was still young (-ish, nobody had the right time). I would finally play Pinball at a place called Mixtape, and none of the machines stole anything from me. All night I had catastrophized, prepared for things to go wrong, and pretended like I didn’t butcher arguably Notorious’ most famous song.

           While waiting for our final Uber, we watched a couple storm out of Mixtape, the girl yelling after the boy, “why are you walking away right now?” We all stopped talking so we could figure out the situation, immediately we sided with the girl. He stormed off, hands stuffed in his pockets, while she continued yelling, “you left me to pay your fucking tab!” That’s when he grabbed her and pleaded, “let’s not argue out here – outside”, probably because he noticed three strangers watching.            And in the Uber, I thought about them, and my boyfriend and me. And I wasn’t happy per-se, just relieved. Our situation was not one of my own wrongdoings, just a result of my brain being wired differently. And he’d never treat me like that, even when my illness (“disorder”, whatever) tries to separate us. Maybe I am not the burden I once thought I was.            

             “I remember that Friday in April, that day on the roof, that time, that life, those friends, the months and years, that eternity. What will you remember? What will you write in your letter to a friend you can trust? And were you to write and send that letter, do you think that it could change the world?” [10]            

    [1] Lord, C., Brugha, T.S., Charman, T. et al. Autism spectrum disorder. Nat Rev Dis Primers 6, 5 (2020).

[2] Antrim, Donald | One Friday in April (pg. 92) (2021)

[3] Dr. Shea, Elizabeth | eating disorder or disordered eating? Eating Patterns in autism | National Autistic Society (2016)

[4] Park, Shin-Ho et al. “Neuroticism and the Overlap Between Autistic and ADHD Traits: Findings From a Population Sample of Young Adult Australian Twins.” Twin research and human genetics: the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies vol. 20,4 (2017)

[5] Key, Powell, Alyson, Bhandari, Smitha, MD | WebMD What is Neurotic Behavior? (2021)

[6] DeFilippis M. Depression in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Children (Basel). 2018 Aug 

[7] Zaboski BA, Storch EA. Comorbid autism spectrum disorder and anxiety disorders: a brief review. Future Neurol. 2018 Feb

[8] Antrim, Donald | One Friday in April (pg. 64) (2021)

[9] Stanborough, Joy, Rebecca, Stevenson, Julia | Autism Masking: To Blend or Not to Blend – Healthline (2022)

[10] Antrim, Donald | One Friday in April (pg. 135) (2021)

[starburyhead]

twenty22 recap

A month late here. I was a little preoccupied with gathering my thoughts around a new investment thesis: ProFrac.

This came a little out of left field, but was standing right in front of us the entire time. As the purchaser of Flotek - and that is a story - it took a year before I had realized the advantages of a true competitive edge.

Flotek, which was a speculative cyclical play the second time around - was a mistake in many ways. Worst yet, we sold two holdings, that had made up 100% of our portfolio - which delivered 85-100% of our cost basis back in cash the two years after we sold. The opportunity cost was massive - and the learnings were slowly learned.

I like to think about ProFrac as a Carnegie Steel in the making. It is too early to tell, but the salad factors are there.

These notes - historically - were much more life focused. The corollary to that is that so much of my life now revolves around thinking about investing, businesses, and the various systems that make up this world. But here are some not so small highlights:

I got engaged! It happened on a small beach in Lisbon. I moved back home to NY - and worked hard to get AT&T to let me work remote. By yearend, Joanna moved too - and was able to find a new job that allowed her to work remote.

At the end of the year, our families met, and we commenced our new lives together with a small and intimate religious ceremony. We then moved in together, back into the same home my parents once lived in - where my sister was first born!

Some other highlights that I have loved include attending the Berkshire Conference after two years of covid delays. Seeing Warren and Charlie in person, sitting in Warren’s booth at Gorats, and walking by his house - were pure ecstasy.

I worked with a career coach - Marielle - who worked much like a therapist. We brought my ego down, my humility up, and raised the bar on my listening and empathy. I owe her many thanks.

Back in NY now - I have had the chance to spend so much more time with my family - especially my dad and grandma, both of whom I have not had this much quality time with, ever. Sunday badminton is now a tradition.

There have been a good number of phenomenal books this year - if my future child is reading this, I’ll list them out below (a list borrowed from a blog who wrote down some of Charlie’s recommendations).

There are 40 on this list. I did not read all of them yet - that will take me quite some time; but, my favorites this year include #1 the Electromagnetic Field (audiobook - need to read  the hardcopy soon), #8 - Carnegie (thank you for ProFrac), #7 - Degrees, #11 - Influence, #21 - No Two Alike (thank you for Naspers/Tencent), #23 - Man’s Search, and #39 & #40 (these two were 2021′s favorite).

Peter Kaufman, summarized - as editor, only he was allowed to - Charlie’s thoughts via his speech on the Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Thinking. The transcript are a must read. The book itself, is worth rereading many times over ones lifetime.

In Carol Loomis’ Tap Dancing to Work - there are two Fortune articles: Buffett Takes Charge - which she talks about BYD (gold), and his thoughts on investing from the 2011 Berkshire annual report. I reread this last night, and I am just blown away at the simplicity of it all. A few years ago, I mimicked this note for my Berkshire thesis - Newsletter #1.

The work that it took for me to get to the point of truly understanding compound interest - is humorous. I thought the concept was easily understood after my first finance class - and even before (doubling up numbers past 1,024). But the magic, of the simple idea behind a piece of farmland, real estate, or business that delivers increasing amounts of cash, at the rate of money supply growth plus - while requiring little capital to maintain - to snowball into new lines of cash - is mind boggling.

I tried writing out the lines - in excel, not by hand - to understand the magnitude, but could not finish it. The brain just does not work that way - even for a period of <50 years. But, using a handy shortcut, I was able to cut the math by an exponential factor. Now, in all - the shortened numbers fit in 860 cells. Get this one down, it will change your life. In short, it really was how Berkshire was built - and it only took me a little over five years of intense studying to figure that one out (lol)!

Here is the list, in case it is ever removed from fs.blog (https://fs.blog/charlie-munger-recommended-books/).

Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics

Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity

Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader

Ice Age

How the Scots Invented the Modern World

Models of My Life

A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe

Andrew Carnegie

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos

The Selfish Gene

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor

The Warren Buffett Portfolio: Mastering the Power of the Focus Investment Strategy

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information

Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company

No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality

Darwin’s Blind Spot: Evolution Beyond Natural Selection

Man’s Search For Meaning

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

Judgment in Managerial Decision Making

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

Master of the Game: Steve Ross and the Creation of Time Warner

In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives

A Universe out of Nothing

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success

Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and the Man Who Created It, with an Introduction to Teledyne Technologies

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire

Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story

The Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Getting It Done: How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Poor Charlie’s Almanac

Happy reading!

[ravenya003]

@jadelotusflower

I have written a dissertation in return! Long story short; I loved this show and it's a pleasure to talk about it some more.

But I was pleasantly surprised as how much this show felt spiritually and aesthetically in tune with the original trilogy, and especially A New Hope, as opposed to Disney!Star Wars. Even if the tone and content of Andor is very different, it feels in conversation with the OT in a way the rest of Disney’s output has not - building on the story we already know, rather than trying replace or rewrite it as something else.

I noticed this too, and it was a relief to enjoy practical effects and actual sets instead of the damn Volume, which still looks obvious to me. I don’t think people realize how much of a relief it is to the brain to just accept reality instead of working around CGI and bluescreen all the time.

So many people have to die for Cassian to make it to the Rebellion - just like Cassian himself will die for the Death Star plans to make it to Leia, like Obi-Wan will die to ensure those plans make it to the Rebellion, and squadrons of rebel pilots will die so Luke can ultimately destroy the Death Star.

This is what I loved about the show in its entirety; that “passing on the torch” effect. That moments that are so tiny and inconsequential ending up having these massive, far-reaching outcomes. It’s pretty mind-blowing to consider that Cassian being unable to resist eyeballing some imperial officers at a seedy brothel starts a snowball effect that leads to the destruction of Death Star.

Of course he's also a credited screenwriter on Rogue One, and I understand his contribution was mostly to the infamous rewrites/reshoots. I desperately want to read a full breakdown/bts of what went down with that film (well all of Disney-led Lucasfilm really) and see the deleted/original material, because I am fascinated.

The closest we’ve got at the moment is Tansy Gardem’s Going Rogue podcast, which is a fascinating listen, but obviously not something told from the inside. Disney will probably have the real story and footage locked up in a vault for some time, though if Andor is any indication of quality, it’s difficult not to mourn the loss of what might have been if Gilroy had been involved from the ground floor.

But first things first. B2EMO made it to the end!

I remember seeing you worrying about him, and had to refrain from providing any reassurance. But really, has anything bad happened to an important droid in a SW film/show? I can’t think of any. They're like the franchise equivalent of pet dogs: too beloved to get killed off in what's (on some level) a story for young people.

Overall I thought the show was excellent (with a few caveats). What's impressive is the sheer number of characters and plots interwoven together, every conversation servicing character, the overall theme or setting something up that will pay off later, playing with coincidence and fate (the will of the Force), the interlocking domino effect.

For me, it was almost dizzying to watch/listen to dialogue that was both intelligent and naturalistic, especially on a mainstream franchise show. I think I’d forgotten what it was like to be treated as an intelligent viewer, and for the writers to assume I was paying attention instead of spoon-feeding me what I needed to hear. Things! Have! Consequences! There’s Cause! And! Effect! I think one of the most rewarding parts of the viewing experience was looking back and thinking “ah, so THAT’S why you spent time on that particular thing.” And sometimes the pay-off doesn’t come until the very end of the season, to stuff that was seeded right off the bat. Watching people complain that it was slow to start with made me roll my eyes, as there’s not a single second wasted on this show.

I love the dialogue in Andor too - which rightly gets high praise, and while it's arguably tighter, in many ways it's no more naturalistic than Lucas's, it's just pitched differently because this is a different genre (and the acting is uniformly excellent because they are actually interacting with each other and being competently directed).

The interactions between Cassian and Bix were particularly good: their entire fraught history was there, in their terse communication and body language. It was SO NICE to be allowed to figure things out for myself, and utilize my own imagination in filling in the blanks.

The Empire casts people out while the Rebellion draws them in.

This is a recurring theme across the franchise; one of my favourite examples is in Star Wars Rebels, when Zeb and Kallus are forced to work together for survival – but when they return to their respective crews, Kallus watches Zeb greeted back with hugs and cheers; when he returns to his ship, nobody had even noticed he was gone.

Contrast this to the jockeying over position and territory and power in the ISB - they serve the Empire, but never at personal cost.

I’ll never get tired of watching Imperials being on the backfoot due to the in-fighting among them. Yet even here, this motif was played with a little on a personal level – the personnel under Deidra’s command were treated with respect, and she got ahead as a result.

And yet we're not there yet - it's important that this is still a Rebellion and not an Alliance, a disparate collection of segmented sedition with a myriad of agendas we see run by Saw Gerrara, Anton Kreegyr, Luthen Rael.

This was also interesting to me; that the piecemeal nature of the Rebellion at this point is reflected in the uncertainty of Cassian himself: he doesn’t know what he wants or who he wants to be at this stage – the Rebellion grows in strength as he grows in conviction, which is a nice Doylistic mirror between the macro and microcosm – AND is further demonstrated in the opening title, during which the music becomes more booming and powerful and structured with each episode.

While much has been said of the moral ambiguity and nuance of Andor, it's not incongruent with the OT, if anything it reinforces its power and message.

So true. This is why I’ve been a little on the fence about The Acolyte (admittedly I haven’t seen yet; I’m only responding to what I’ve heard) which seems to be about how the Jedi are deeply flawed and the Dark Side makes some good points. And yet when one side is unleashing weapons of mass destruction, and the other side is… you know, NOT doing that, I remain skeptical about trying to infuse too much moral ambiguity into this universe.

I love that this show is proving that (like you said) things can be nuanced and complex while also operating within very clear and established definitions of right and wrong, light and dark.

HOWEVER, I have my nits to pick - the lack of aliens is a serious flaw (and in particular, the lack of familiar aliens).

It didn’t bother me as much as it did you, though I can definitely see your point. I can easily imagine that Gilroy cut down on the amount of aliens that could have been involved, since he wanted this to be a “serious human drama.” Which… okay dude, but it’s Star Wars. It reminded me a bit of how all the weirder elements of Frank Herbert’s Dune were removed for the recent films, seemingly because it’s meant to be “serious sci-fi.” And yet the Empire would have certainty been using alien slave labour every chance they got, and places like Coruscant should have at least had some alien extras in the background. And would it have killed them to have at least one person on the Aldani heist with antennae or an extra hand or something?

Which is of course because this was only intended to be season 1 of 5, with each arc a year of Cassian’s life leading up to Rogue One. But sadly Andor has been given a second season only, leaving 12 episodes to wrap everything up, so ultimately I fear the show will feel like a slow setup and rushed conclusion, which is a real shame.

Aw man, I didn’t realize this. I guess we can say goodbye to ever finding out what happened to Cassian’s sister, or any more context to his relationship with Maarva and Clem after their kidnapping of him. There was clearly going to be more meat to these plots, though I imagine they’ll be the first on the chopping block given the limited time-frame and all the pieces they have to put in place for Rogue One (namely K2).

Still, I’m a trilogy-minded person. Two seasons and Rogue One is the trilogy of Cassian’s story, and that works for me..

Diego Luna has such a charismatic presence and it is nice to have a more internal, insular character, but it’s kind of sad that Cassian is really the least developed character in a show ostensibly about him. It’s not really his story, but he’s the fulcrum (pun intended) around which most of the other characters pivot; this is a story of the rebellion of which he is just one part.

Here’s my first big disagreement with you! As a fan of this character, I was pretty happy with what we got, though that’s because I understand Cassian to be a very understated protagonist – not just here, but in Rogue One as well. I remember a bit of a ruckus in the fandom when Jyn repeated his “rebellions are built on hope” line to the rest of the rebels and accusing her of appropriation (*eye-roll*) when I think that very much encapsulates Cassian’s character – he observes, he encourages, he works in the shadows, he puts other people where they need to be without ego or the need for validation. You see this particularly well with Andy Serksis in the prison arc: just like Jyn, Serksis repeats Cassian’s words across the intercom system, while Cassian himself looks on.

In other words, he’s not a leader or a hero in the obvious sense of the word, or what we’d expect from a Star Wars protagonist. I found that really interesting, to see someone at the center of the story who is not a big, flashy character as we’d expect, but rather more like an impetus to spur on other characters. It’s clearly a deliberate choice.

I also didn’t think he was undeveloped; in fact, I was pretty riveted by how he went from someone who was largely content with gnawing at the edges of the Empire (stealing their stuff) to becoming fully committed to the cause – that definitely counts as development in my view. As he says at one point (paraphrasing): “why fight a losing battle, why not just take the money and do what you want?”

This is said in the gap between the heist and his arrest, and of course after learning what he does in the prison complex, the answer to his question is obvious: there is no peaceful living under an oppressive regime. They will always come for you, even if you’re just minding your own business. (Like you said, the Empire forges the weapons that’ll be used against them).

In many ways, this is a story of radicalization: how and why it happens, and whether it can be considered a good thing. We already know that he’ll eventually be all-in on this cause and that it will cost him his life, but that it won’t be a sacrifice made in vain. Hovering over this entire show is the question: “is it worth it?” For me, this tracking of an individual’s radicalization was the crux of his arc, and one of the main points of the show.

And it does feel a little bit skeevy that the actual Axis (pun intended) of the show is Luthen in his middle age white man glory, with a whiff of Gilroy’s self-insert about him.

I often wonder how Luthen would have played if he’d been a woman or an alien or a person of colour. I feel by the end he was deliberately positioned as a foil to Maarva, who was able to incite a riot without any deceit or manipulation, but by only speaking the truth, a point which may well come into play in the second season.

I also have an inkling (or perhaps it’s just wishful thinking) that Luthen will share his philosophy with Cassian at some point: that they’re all destined to die alone, that they’ll have to sacrifice their moral compasses to the cause, etc. And of course, the beauty of this being a prequel is that we already know Cassian doesn’t COMPLETELY give up his sense of right and wrong, and he won’t die alone as a result.

Which is to say, I also think Luthen will get a death scene in season two that will reflect his philosophy: he will indeed die in ignominy, in contrast to Cassian being able to give/derive comfort from Jyn in his final moments.

In other words, I don’t feel that Luthen is being held up as any sort of ideal. I was fascinated by the way he was introduced in a very Sith-like cloak: the dark side of the light side, so to speak. And I think (or hope) Gilroy will commit to NOT glorifying his point-of-view, as a jumping off point for Luke's idealism, though that remains to be seen.

We get a strong start to Cassian and Luthen that peters out - he's intent on recruiting Cassian, but then writes him off when Cassian flees after Aldhani and wants him killed, then goes all the way to Ferrix for him, but is about to leave without actually doing anything? I know Luthen's meant to be ambiguous, but this is one area where plot is obviously driving things not character.

My take was that Luthen was more rattled than he cared to admit by Maarva’s speech – like I said, here’s a woman that is able to incite rebellion WITHOUT any Machiavellian schemes, and – knowing she was Cassian’s mother – decides to let him go.

Cassian is without a reflective character pairing because his true mirror is Jyn Erso, and seeing Cassian’s struggles here does give real weight to his “you’re not the only one who lost everything” speech - in many ways the show is his journey from being Jyn, to being the man who says to her “we don't all have the luxury of deciding when and where we want to care about something.”

In a way it’s a shame that this is a prequel to a prequel; imagine if we got to watch this unravel in the correct chronological order, with Rogue One as the grand finale. Damn. Still, it DOES give us more insight into that Cassian/Jyn rapport, making what the film was going for with the two of them even clearer. Cinta telling Vel that “I’m a mirror; I show you what you need to see,” is how Diego Luna described how Cassian saw Jyn, though in that case it’s “he doesn’t like what she reflects.”

The artifact Luthen gives Mon represents “a sun goddess and a serpent sharing the same mouth” representing their differing philosophical approach to fighting the Empire.

Hey, nice catch. I didn’t twig to this one.

“I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life, to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. No, the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror, or an audience, or the light of gratitude."

Like I said, I guarantee he’ll eventually say some sort of variation of this to Cassian, or that “we will die alone,” the irony being that because Cassian still clings to a semblance of humanity – he at least won’t be alone when he dies.

Ultimately, the Rebellion needs people like Luthen and Cassian to make not only the physical sacrifice, but the moral one as well (noting our first introduction to Cassian is him killing an informant so he can escape) - people who play the Empire's game so Luke can ultimately reject the Emperor's.

It’s interesting, because I knew at least one viewer who disliked Rogue One precisely because of this mentality – the idea that the Rebels had to engage in underhanded tactics in order to secure their victory, when he believed that the OT was so based upon very “clean” black and white moral underpinnings that depicting the Rebellion as guerillas and saboteurs and assassins was undermining the story as a whole.

I can’t say I agree as Star Wars is very compartmentalized in a lot of ways, but I do enjoy the question it poses: it’s easy to make your life a sacrifice, but what if your morality/humanity IS the sacrifice?

I’m surprised Gilroy has said he wrote Deidra to be relatable - she skeeved me out from the first, someone clearly ready to step over anyone and everyone if it served her purposes rather than someone gradually drawn further into an authoritarian regime. There's the slight subtext of sexism - there's only one other women in the ISB briefing and Pendergast alludes to it, but that certainly didn't engender any sympathy or admiration from me.

RIGHT??!! I was rather baffled by this, as well as the actress’s interview in which she states the audience was meant to initially see her as the underdog up against the sexist work environment she was surrounded by (and subsequently root for her) only for her torture of Bix to make you realize “oh right, she’s a victim of sexism AND an evil imperial. You can be both!”

Because I seriously did not see her as the underdog in any of her pre-Bix scenes. From the actress’s facial expressions to the fact that she didn’t really seem to be a target due to her gender, I was actually completely surprised by this take on the character. Which is a shame, as it’s not a bad premise.

I just hope they’re going somewhere more interesting than his creepy crush.

Yeah, I’ve no idea what they’re doing with that one.

Andor happily treats its women as characters, not faux-empowering meme-fodder.

Honestly, for me the best moment of this entire series was when Vel was depicted as completely terrified and on the verge of calling everything off when she and Cinta had to abseil down the dam. What a great moment, and it humanized her so well.

The whole anti-woke crowd are profoundly tedious, but I also get sick of the whole “girlboss” phenomenon, in which girls are never allowed to have any sort of flaws or foibles or weaknesses to overcome. Those few minutes watching Vel force her way through her fear and then finding her courage were such a great antidote to that.

I also noticed that the fact Vel and Cinta were in a relationship went completely unremarked upon by fandom – because hey, when you make same-sex relationships an understated part of how humanity works instead of something to do a big song-and-dance number over, people just accept it and get on with it! Amazing!

In Vel and Cinta we have two more sides of insurgency - from wealth and privilege in Vel, the cousin of Mon Mothma struggling with the weight of it all, to Cinta with her cold fire and unwavering drive, her family killed by stormtroopers and for whom the struggle will always come first.

This show didn’t do Easter eggs, but I do like to think on some level they wanted to get in a “hitherto unknown familial connection between two characters” link as a homage to the Skywalker twins. And of course, the fact that it really doesn’t make much of a difference as to whether Vel/Mon were cousins or not was somehow very funny.

I loved Ferrix as a location, with its own distinct aesthetic, culture, and populace - the work gloves all hung on the wall, the metal tapping warning system, the daily hammer and anvil (the Time Grappler, according to Wookieepedia), funerary practices. etc.

This was SO GOOD. Love me some world-building that’s integrated neatly into the story.

But again there’s a disconnect with the history we’re shown - Maarva and Clem kidnap/save Kassa from Kenari but we don’t really get any sense of how Cassian feels about it or the connection he has to his heritage/childhood.

Yeah, they dropped the ball on this one. A fascinating setup, and they might get into it a little in season two, but it’s the most obvious fatality when it comes to cutting down the seasons from five to two.

The difference, for me, is does inclusion of a known character/object/trope/line of dialogue serve the character and/or story, or is it Leo DiCaprio pointing meme, designed for “hey it’s the thing” nostalgia and YouTube compilations with no substance behind it? Ultimately, is the inclusion Watsonian or Doylist - and if the latter, what of the former justifies it.

I know I’ve said this to you before, but Rogue One itself had the perfect examples of this: the little cameo from C3PO and R2D2 was fine, because it made sense they’d be there and it was only a few seconds long, but earlier in the film everything grounds to a halt so they can showcase the two cantina aliens from Tatooine – which makes NO SENSE, because Jedha is about to be blown to smithereens! We’re just meant to point and say “hey, those guys!”

Not all fanservice is created equal.

This is my fundamental, and possibly at this point, irreconcilable, issue. Disney wanted to get away from Lucas-associated Star Wars as quickly as possible, replacing every character, planet, and theme with their own wholly Disney counterpart, killing off Han, Luke, and Leia so the old and classic couldn’t distract from the shiny and new, tearing down the conclusion of the original trilogy only to try and tell the exact same story (just not as well).

Strange comparison, but it’s a bit like how the writers for the BBC Robin Hood were so eager to get rid of the old guard and shoehorn in their bright shiny new characters that they forgot to give anyone a reason to care about Kate, Tuck, Archer, Isabella, etc. They just plonked them in and hoped no one would notice they’d just thrown out everything we’d invested in for the past two years.

The massive difference being that the RH audience bailed MUCH faster, and the show got cancelled before ever having the chance to fulfil its new vision. Star Wars obviously has more staying power, but even that’s clearly starting to wane. All anyone can do is shake their heads and ask: “why do that?”

It’s funny: when things are good, there’s a myriad of explanations as to why, but when things suck, it’s usually because of just one or two similar reasons.

(I promise I did not bring up Robin Hood just to point out that the Aldani leader who led the pilgrimage under the Eye was the same actor who played the Abbott in the third episode of season three).

So I finally watched Andor...

...and naturally I have thoughts (hey, it’s me). Maybe they're belated, seeing as this show was released almost two years ago, but I've been on the outskirts of the Star Wars fandom for a while now. This in and of itself isn't usual - I tend to drift between my core fandoms in phases, but since TLJ the GFFA hasn't really been a pleasant place to be so I haven't really had a reason to drift back to it for any length of time.

Which isn't to say I've avoided Star Wars altogether, dipping in when something piques my interest like Obi-Wan Kenobi (which I liked aspects of but ultimately felt like just a setup to the show I actually wanted to watch), and have absorbed some of the rest through cultural osmosis. Andor is a show I've been meaning to get to for a while, although it has been praised to the point of being overhyped (and there was a whiff of Not Like Other Star Wars to the critical reception) so I was concerned it would not meet expectations.

But I was pleasantly surprised as how much this show felt spiritually and aesthetically in tune with the original trilogy, and especially A New Hope, as opposed to Disney!Star Wars. Even if the tone and content of Andor is very different, it feels in conversation with the OT in a way the rest of Disney’s output has not - building on the story we already know, rather than trying replace or rewrite it as something else.

Aesthetically, we have the 70's vibe of the set design and costuming in middle-class Coruscant, the stark white jumpsuits and surrounds of Narkina 5 evoking Lucas's early film THX-1138, even the way we are plopped right into the middle of the story with very little exposition, but still eased into the narrative is very reminiscent of the first act of A New Hope. Thematically, of course we’re seeing the Rebellion in its earlier stages - small disparate cells of seditious activity directly acting against Imperial interests that will become the somewhat ragtag but nonetheless organised and unified Alliance.

While Star Wars was a cinema pastiche throwback to Flash Gordan serials and Campbell’s hero’s journey as an antidote to the grimdark antiheroes of the 70’s, in many ways Andor brings things back full circle to the grit of neo-noir. It holds a mirror up to the OT and lets us see the other side of the coin - and the full cost of victory. So many people have to die for Cassian to make it to the Rebellion - just like Cassian himself will die for the Death Star plans to make it to Leia, like Obi-Wan will die to ensure those plans make it to the Rebellion, and squadrons of rebel pilots will die so Luke can ultimately destroy the Death Star.

A stone is dropped in a pond, and we see the ripples but the stone itself sinks.

Overall thoughts

Tony Gilroy is the showrunner here, a veteran screenwriter notable for the Bourne films, and we can certainly see this influence at work. He also wrote The Devil’s Advocate, which is by no means good but I do enjoy in all its ott mythological monologues-and-accents glory, and seminal romcom (of my childhood at least) The Cutting Edge. He also wrote and directed Michael Clayton, which I have not seen but was nominated for several Oscars, including Original Screenplay, Director, and Best Picture (Tilda Swinton won for Supporting Actress).

Of course he's also a credited screenwriter on Rogue One, and I understand his contribution was mostly to the infamous rewrites/reshoots. I desperately want to read a full breakdown/bts of what went down with that film (well all of Disney-led Lucasfilm really) and see the deleted/original material, because I am fascinated. It's also interesting to note that Gilroy took over showrunning duties from Stephen Schiff pre-production. The show does very much feel like Gilroy wanted to make his own stamp on the Andor character and use him as a vehicle in his spy-thriller/political intrigue wheelhouse.

Reading some of Gilroy’s comments around the series had made me wonder how much of Andor being reflective/referential to the OT was intentional (on his part at least), and arguably Gilroy did overwrite the character of Cassian Andor so…there’s nuance. But as a story, to me it felt in tune with what I love about Star Wars rather than at odds with it, and that's what I appreciated most.

But first things first. B2EMO made it to the end! Finally, my expectations are subverted in a good way, because I love this little droid with all my heart. There are several key elements of Star Wars to me that separate it from other sci-fi/space fantasy and that is Jedi, distinctive aliens, and sentient droids. Obviously there's no Jedi here (nor does there need to be), my issues with the lack of aliens I'll address below, but when it comes to droids B2EMO fits right in, and we can assume is a precursor to Cassian's relationship with K-2SO.

Overall I thought the show was excellent (with a few caveats). What's impressive is the sheer number of characters and plots interwoven together, every conversation servicing character, the overall theme or setting something up that will pay off later, playing with coincidence and fate (the will of the Force), the interlocking domino effect. Arvel Skeen recognising the tattoo on Cassian's arm leads to a conversation of his history, but also sets up Skeen later offering to take and split the haul with Cassian (and getting killed for it). The raid on Aldhani triggers the Empire’s harsh new measures that gets Cassian sentenced to six years in prison, but also inspires the rebellion on Ferrix (via Maarva). The Aldhani heist is a triumph for Vel, but traps Mon’s financial contributions to the Rebellion by the Empire’s crackdown on banking, leading her and her daughter into an unwanted family alliance.

I'm a big proponent of Star Wars Dialogue is Good, Actually - not saying there's not clunkers or stilted scenes (the PT moreso than the OT) but there seems to be this weird consensus that Lucas-era dialogue sucks despite being some of the most quoted/referenced movies of all time. Lucas was creating a modern myth, of course a lot of it is arch and operatic. I love the dialogue in Andor too - which rightly gets high praise, and while it's arguably tighter, in many ways it's no more naturalistic than that of the Saga with everyone constantly speaking in metaphor, it's just pitched differently because this is a different genre (and the acting is uniformly excellent because they are actually interacting with each other and being competently directed).

There’s layers of meaning in almost every scene and subtle moments of foreshadowing that I really enjoy - Karis Nemik muses on the role of mercenaries in a rebellion that must use every tool and weapon at its disposal, and obviously Cassian starts out as that mercenary who will be pulled into the wider struggle, but this also foreshadows the importance of Han Solo - at first only out for the promise of a reward but ultimately instrumental in bringing the Empire down. But it’s not because he’s treated as a tool - as the Empire treats its workforce as tools - but because he’s treated as worthwhile, he’s valued as a person. The Empire casts people out while the Rebellion draws them in.

We also see this in the arc on Narkina 5, and the Empire’s tightening grip backfiring against them. In order to force the prisoners to speedily produce parts for the Death Star they work in close-knit teams, creating a close camaraderie ultimately allowing them to escape - because when you turn people into cogs of a machine, the machine can be turned back against you. Contrast this to the jockeying over position and territory and power in the ISB - they serve the Empire, but never at personal cost.

We see the Republic of affiliated systems from the PT turn into an Empire of conquered planets, where local cultures are subsumed into homogeneous Imperial rule. Even Corpsec is replaced by Imperial oversight, and we know that the Senate on Coruscant will be dissolved completely in ANH. But ultimately this ferments rebellion and unites the outcast and oppressed - the Keredians on Narkina 5 hate the Empire for their prison polluting the waterways, and so let Cassian and Melchi go. Cinta’s whole family was killed by stormtroopers turning her single minded focus to destroying them. The people of Ferrix respond to Maarva’s call and riot against the Imperial forces even though it will mean violent reprisal.

The Empire forges the weapons that will be used against them. As Nemik’s manifesto states: “The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.”

And yet we're not there yet - it's important that this is still a Rebellion and not an Alliance, a disparate collection of segmented sedition with a myriad of agendas we see run by Saw Gerrara, Anton Kreegyr, Luthen Rael. They won't be a genuine threat to the Empire until they join forces, share resources and intelligence, and unite behind a collective goal. Although there may be sacrifices in this as well - Separatists, Partisan Front, Sectorists etc mentioned by Saw will either coalesce under the Alliance to Restore the Republic or be driven further to the fringes.

The thrust of Nemik's manifesto is that freedom is a natural state of being, while oppression is unnatural, and even though Andor has nothing to do with the Jedi it nonetheless echoes their philosophy: that the Force is in a natural state of balance, while the existence of the Sith who tap into the Dark Side upset this balance. As we see in Return of the Jedi, the balance is ultimately restored by the return to that natural state buffeted by the most powerful forces - friendship, love, sacrifice - forces that ultimately drive Cassian as well. While much has been said of the moral ambiguity and nuance of Andor, it's not incongruent with the OT, if anything it reinforces its power and message.

HOWEVER, I have my nits to pick - the lack of aliens is a serious flaw (and in particular, the lack of familiar aliens). In some cases they can get away with it and make subtle commentary - Coruscant is stark and grey as the centre of bureaucracy in stark contrast to the vibrant metropolis of the PT. Seeing the streets populated almost exclusively by humans where once it was a melting pot underscores the Empire’s segregationist policies. However the dearth of non-humans elsewhere - Ferrix, Aldhani, even the prison labour camp Narkina 5 - is disconcerting. These are places meant to depict the oppressive rule of the Empire and this undermines the strength of the rebellion as a group of diverse species fighting against the Imperial monoculture. It's odd, for example, that we see all the characters from Ferrix return except Vetch, the muscle employed "just to stand there" by Nurchi (a nice moment with Cassian!), and that Maarva's funeral procession seems entirely human.

Ultimately, I think the setup is much stronger than the payoff, and while I appreciate the slow burn, the show does have sometimes have difficulty juggling the plots. Once set up, characters are parked waiting to be incorporated into the narrative (it feels like we watch Syril stare at his cereal forever) and looking back not much actually happens to a lot of them- there are a lot of threads left hanging and not much resolution. Which is of course because this was only intended to be season 1 of 5, with each arc a year of Cassian’s life leading up to Rogue One. But sadly Andor has been given a second season only, leaving 12 episodes to wrap everything up, so ultimately I fear the show will feel like a slow setup and rushed conclusion, which is a real shame.

Cassian Andor

I’m went into this as someone who doesn’t really have a strong connection to Cassian as a character - I certainly liked him in Rogue One! But let’s just say he’s not my blorbo. And this not the backstory I would have expected for the character five years before Rogue One as someone who has “been in this fight since [he] was six years old.”

Diego Luna has such a charismatic presence and it is nice to have a more internal, insular character, but it’s kind of sad that Cassian is really the least developed character in a show ostensibly about him. It’s not really his story, but he’s the fulcrum (pun intended) around which most of the other characters pivot; this is a story of the rebellion of which he is just one part. So, I can see if Cassian fans may have been upset by his lack of focus, and I personally would have wanted to delve a bit deeper into Cassian Andor on a show called Andor, you know? And it does feel a little bit skeevy that the actual Axis (pun intended) of the show is Luthen in his middle age white man glory, with a whiff of Gilroy’s self-insert about him.

I do wish LFL would abandon simply naming their shows after the main character - presumably it’s for general audience recognition and algorithmic reasons, but my god how boring. If the show had been marketed as the ensemble it actually is I would take less issue with the lack of Cassian focus. But sadly I’m not sure we know that much more about Cassian at the end of the show than we did at the end of the first three episodes - or really, what it adds to his character and arc we see in Rogue One.

Yes he’s further radicalised by his experiences and is now presumably "all in" on the rebellion, but the events of the show are kicked off by Cassian searching for his sister which is a motivation that is all but dropped thereafter - although at one point I was half-expecting (dreading) it to be revealed that Luthen's assistant Kleya Marki was Kerri (and sidebar, Kleya - what a stone cold bitch! I love a stone cold bitch).

This plot will likely continue in season 2, but it felt a bit undercooked and too deep in the subtext given the prominence it had in kicking off the narrative. We get a flashback to Cassian’s childhood, but ultimately it feels like lipservice to his Indigenous heritage rather than true engagement since we don't see him reflect on it in any way, nor does it seem to have any impact on his choices throughout the series that seem primarily motivated by his life and relationships on Ferrix.

We get a strong start to Cassian and Luthen that peters out - he's intent on recruiting Cassian, but then writes him off when Cassian flees after Aldhani and wants him killed, then goes all the way to Ferrix for him, but is about to leave without actually doing anything? I know Luthen's meant to be ambiguous, but this is one area where plot is obviously driving things not character. I get that it was important for Cassian to be the one to go to Luthen at the end and choose the Rebellion unfetted, but the relationship is undercooked. I almost feel like the series is a procession of things that happen to Cassian rather than a journey I was on with him. There's external forces, but very little internal focus.

However, what I did love about the show was the thematic resonance that was happening on a macro and micro level - while the show as a whole is a mirror/reflection of the OT, we also see dichotomy in the character pairings that are mirrors and/or foils of each other in various ways - we have the two sides of the conflict being Empire and Rebellion (with Cassian stuck in the middle), and we are also shown conflict within those two sides.

Cassian is without a reflective character pairing because his true mirror is Jyn Erso, and seeing Cassian’s struggles here does give real weight to his “you’re not the only one who lost everything” speech - in many ways the show is his journey from being Jyn, to being the man who says to her “we don't all have the luxury of deciding when and where we want to care about something.”

Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael

The most obvious mirror/foil pair as the two sides of the Rebellion, although arguably we have a third prong in Saw Gerrara, and kind of a mirror in Luthen as Cassian’s mentor as Saw was Jyn’s - and I do wonder about the show that was a two-handed prequel with Cassian and Jyn growing up in different factions of the Rebellion, but alas.

The artifact Luthen gives Mon represents “a sun goddess and a serpent sharing the same mouth” representing their differing philosophical approach to fighting the Empire. As mirror characters they are alike in many ways - both of the privileged class and living double lives on Coruscant, but while Mon makes political efforts to move the needle on the Empire's activities in the Senate while also funneling money to direct but small rebel efforts, Luthen outright pokes the bear, sacrifices allies, and knowingly making things worse to swell the ranks of the rebellion on the hope it will speed up progress. There's more than a hint of the incrementalism/revolutionary dichotomy here.

It also raises a lot of interesting questions without (rightly) providing many answers - the struggle of the oppressed, the moral weight of insurgency and revolution. Is it right to intentionally provoke an oppressive power into reacting with violence in order to fuel a greater pushback against them? Is short term suffering justified if it achieves eventual victory, and is it right for the few to decide what is a justifiable sacrifice? What are our responsibilities to each other under the threat of/struggle against authoritarianism? As social commentary it's more timely than ever.

Whether Mon or Luthen is right for the viewer to decide, although as Leia tells Tarkin in ANH: "the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." On the other hand, we know Mon survives to the end of the Empire while Luthen (I assume) will not. She will become a leading figure in the Alliance, and eventual Chancellor of the New Republic, while he will be another stone at the bottom of the pond.

This is foreshadowed in the dialogue (with a direct mirror reference):

“I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life, to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. No, the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror, or an audience, or the light of gratitude."

Arguably however, the mirror is the show - we are the audience.

We know Cassian joins Luthen at the end of season 1, and will meet Mon in season 2, so it will be interesting to see him struggle between these two philosophies, although we can infer from Rogue One that he aligns himself (out of necessity) with Luthen's veiwpoint:

"We've all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion. Spies, saboteurs, assassins....And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in. A cause that was worth it. Without that, we're lost."

Ultimately, the Rebellion needs people like Luthen and Cassian to make not only the physical sacrifice, but the moral one as well (noting our first introduction to Cassian is him killing an informant so he can escape) - people who play the Empire's game so Luke can ultimately reject the Emperor's.

But I had mixed feelings on the Mon Mothma storyline. It feels a bit off for Luthen to be her entrée into the Rebellion, when we know she’s been on the ground from the very beginning with the Petition of the 2000 (cut from ROTS, but still canon I assume). She just felt very isolated and fragile which is at odds with her quiet steel that we see in Return of the Jedi and Rogue One. I could maybe see this Mon in the early dark days, but only 5 years before ANH? A scene with Bail Organa would not have gone amiss just to give breadth to her rebellious activities.

We get to see Luthen visit Saw Gerrara on Segra Milo, why not give Mon a scene with Bail to show she has other irons in the fire rather than relying on Luthen? In Saw we see the rough and tumble of disparate rebel factions, I would have liked to see the political machinations of Mon and Bail to serve the metaphor even further.

She is more than just a bank for the rebellion, and I think in the effort to contrast Luthen and Mon there was a bit of disservice done to the latter.

And Mon’s loser husband - ugh. Okay they’re in some kind of arranged marriage but there’s very little substance, nothing us particularly revealed about Mon by including him. Other than her cleverly using his gambling debts to deflect her rebellion spending at the end, the story wouldn’t really have changed by him not existing, and in fact would have been improved by focusing more on Mon’s difficult relationship with her daughter.

But on a purely shallow note, I want her wardrobe!

Dedra Meero and Syril Karn

In some ways Cassian and Syril are the narrative foils and there are parallels between them - their conflict instigated in the first episodes, their maternal relationships, both essentially exiles for the middle section before both end up back on Ferrix where Cassian saves Bix and Syril saves Dedra. But I feel Syril and Dedra work better as mirrors, and their arcs also parallel and intersect.

In the Empire, Dedra and Syril are two sides of the other coin (there's quite a few coins in this metaphor). Regimes need bureaucracy, and you have the true believers, the status-climbers, and those just going along to get along. In Dedra we have the talented star of the prestigious Imperial Security Bureau, and in Syril the over eager Corporate Security officer, two arms of the Empire’s control, although the latter we see becoming obsolete as the former gains more control.

But they're both middlemen who chafe against the inaction of their superiors, both desperate to rise above their station (although those stations are quite far apart). Throughout the series their plots are mostly in parallel; they are reflections of each other without even having met.

It's uncomfortable to watch both of them on screen - all unblinking stares, sucked in cheeks, and pursed lips - fittingly repellent. I’m surprised Gilroy has said he wrote Dedra to be relatable - she skeeved me out from the first, someone clearly ready to step over anyone and everyone if it served her purposes rather than someone gradually drawn further into an authoritarian regime. There's the slight subtext of sexism - there's only one other women in the ISB briefing and Pendergast alludes to it, but that certainly didn't engender any sympathy or admiration from me.

In episode 7 Syril’s mother Eedy says “Everything says something, Syril” and chastises him about tailoring his uniform (just as he did in the first episode, a neat little character tell), and immediately after we see Dedra donning her uniform perfectly in sync with the rest of the ISB. He’s trying to stand out from the crowd, she’s trying to fit in - or, from a different perspective, Syril adjusts his collar to resemble the Imperial style as a signifier of where he wants to be, while Dedra is already there and still looking higher.

But both are thinking outside the rigid Imperial lines and command structures, both on the hunt for Cassian - although for Syril it's personal and Dedra it's about climbing the ranks. Both take it upon themselves to investigate against orders, but Syril’s attempts are clumsy and random while Dedra’s are clinical and targeted.

She identifies that “systems either change or die” to push the ISB’s fragmented and bureaucratic inefficiencies into a cohesive power structure, but while it wins her approval it doesn’t earn her any loyalty; her troops abandon her to the mob on Ferrix. Inexplicably though, Syril does manage to gain the loyalty of Sergeant Mosk, who was also punished for the initial blunder on Ferrix, but ultimately draws Syril back there to in search of Cassian.

The point at which they first intersect in episode 8, Dedra is on an upswing, she holds the power and sends Syril further down, but when they meet again in episode 11, the roles are reversed as he is the one to save her from the mob.

I just hope they’re going somewhere more interesting than his creepy crush.

Vel Sartha and Cinta Kaz

One of the major faults of Rogue One was its Smurfette Syndrome, where Jyn is a great female character surrounded by men, but Andor has pleasingly course corrected from this. See what happens when you don’t have one woman having to embody everything and bear the weight of her entire gender in the narrative (and therefore, also bear the criticism)? Andor happily treats its women as characters, not faux-empowering meme-fodder. Although there is perhaps some valid commentary that it’s still white women on the whole - Dedra, Mon, Vel, Maarva - who get the meatier roles, and I have my issues with Mon’s characterisation, but one thing I will give Disney LFL credit for is it’s ongoing efforts towards gender parity.

In Vel and Cinta we have two more sides of insurgency - from wealth and privilege in Vel, the cousin of Mon Mothma struggling with the weight of it all, to Cinta with her cold fire and unwavering drive, her family killed by stormtroopers and for whom the struggle will always come first.

Cinta’s cool reserve is a contrast to Vel’s nerves (as seen in the Aldhani raid); they’re coming from very different places even if their cause is the same. There may even be a bit of classism in the subtext - Vel leads the mission on Aldhani after asking for the mission from Luthen, when really Cinta is the one who is most committed, and she has to push Vel though several times when she falters.

Vel still has one foot in the Imperial world and the complications of rebellious machinations - worried for Mon and her family, wanting to prove herself to Luthen, jockeying with Kleya - but for Cinta none of that matters, she loves Vel but there's often a sense she's disappointed in her. There's a dichotomy within Cinta - she's not unfeeling, showing kindness to Cassian when he joins their group, yet accepting the mission to kill him later without hesitation.

It seems to me that Cinta is the revolutionary Vel wants to be but can't quite divest herself of enough to become - the metaphor is made explicit with these two - Cinta tells Vel: “I’m a mirror. You love me because I show you what you need to see.”

Which is a pretty interesting dynamic, especially as a romantic one, and I’m interested to see where it will go (and hope that Cinta will get more focus, even though I do love Vel a lot too).

Their storyline did run out of steam by the end through, was there any point to either of these characters being on Ferrix at the end? It very much felt like all the plot lines were being forced to intersect at the climax without all of them necessarily needing to. Although Cinta stabbing that guy in the heart was pretty cathartic.

Bix Callen, Maarva Andor, and Ferrix

I loved Ferrix as a location, with its own distinct aesthetic, culture, and populace - the work gloves all hung on the wall, the metal tapping warning system, the daily hammer and anvil (the Time Grappler, according to Wookieepedia), funerary practices. etc. The first few episodes set up Cassian’s community on Ferrix which we come full circle on in the final two, but I did have some trouble keeping track of who was who at that point.

It is interesting that the trope of “just another brick in the wall” is turned on its head here - rather than representing a cog in the machine, in Ferrix ashes of the deceased are mixed with brick and added to a wall in remembrance - a literal touchstone for Cassian as he remembers his adoptive father Clem. A wall is strong, a bulwark against outside forces, and every brick added makes it stronger. Stones dropped in a pond, bricks built into a wall - reminders of the dead that spur the will to fight.

I do love the relationship between Maarva and Cassian, especially in a franchise that has never really had an interest in mothers and sons. And we have another mirror in the overcritical and cold relationship between Syril and Eedy as the inverse of Cassian’s complicated but loving one with Maarva - contrast the reception Syril gets when he returns home to the one Cassian gets from Maarva, as ultimately Eedy's pointed disappointment is sharp where Maarva's is borne from love and concern for Cassian.

But again there’s a disconnect with the history we’re shown - Maarva and Clem kidnap/save Kassa from Kenari but we don’t really get any sense of how Cassian feels about it or the connection he has to his heritage/childhood. I’m not saying I need everything spelled out, but sometimes I feel the show does err too much on the side of subtext, and as a result we don’t delve as deep into some of the relationships as we could have. Even her final message to Cassian - that she loves him more than anything he could ever do wrong - is a beautiful sentiment, but is it earned? He hasn't really done anything wrong, arguably she did wrong by him by taking him from Kenari but it's never even mentioned, it doesn’t even seem to be a factor in their relationship as adults.

On the other hand, I didn’t mind the treatment of the post-romantic relationship between Cassian and Bix - there’s a sense of history there but it didn’t need to be explored further. Bix's involvement in the Rebellion is interesting though, it's implied she was recruited by Kleya through the black market but are her motives purely profit or does she have rebellious fervor? Luthen knows of Cassian through Bix - did she see him as a candidate for the Rebellion or just another person from whom Luthen could obtain tech? What piqued Luthen's interest from what Bix said about him?

I don't think all these questions need answers, but it is unfortunate that she does get a bit Damseled, spending most of the runtime threatened, captured, and then tortured. On the other hand, there's less to criticise in employing that trope when it's not the only one at work and the breadth of female characters on the show.

I do wonder if we will see Bix, Brasso, and B2EMO again though, or if they’re a part of Cassian’s past he had to leave behind to fully commit himself to the Rebellion.

On nostalgia, fanservice, and the state of the Star Wars universe

A tangent into my frustrations with the sequel trilogy, skip if you’re allergic to salt.

Andor has been lauded for its lack of fanservice, although I’d actually argue it’s a show that (perhaps despite Gilroy's intention) is rooted in nostalgia. Well, perhaps not nostalgia per se, but it’s a show that relies on the audience’s knowledge and affection of Rogue One and the Original Trilogy, and it’s successful because it manages to feel authentic and fulfilling rather than ham-fisted and overly meta - a story set in the Star Wars universe, not about the Star Wars universe.

I know Gilroy intended this to be able to stand alone, but would the story have the same resonance if we weren't aware where Cassian's path leads, that the efforts and actions of Mon and Luthern, Vel and Cinta, Nemik, Bix and Kleya, are ultimately justified? Perhaps it would work in a generic sci-fi setting rather than the GFFA, but would we feel as much watching it? Personally, I think not.

Because nostalgia isn’t inherently bad. It’s a vital part of how we consume media - the stories that resonate with us in childhood will continue to resonate in adulthood because they are foundational, it's a shortcut to that incredible feeling of discovering something new that's nonetheless something very old. It's partly why Star Wars was such a success in the first place - a mix of myth and fairy tale, matinee serial and Kurosawa - a familiar story told in a new way. And like in Hadestown, "we're gonna sing it again and again."

The problem with nostalgia is when it’s empty; window dressing intended to evoke that feeling but without any substance behind it, so it feels cheap and unsatisfying. Andor doesn’t completely escape from this (blue milk, mouse droid), but most inclusions feel organic.

Sometimes I think we go to far decrying fanservice, and of course it's subjective - as I like to say, everyone hates it until they’re the fan being serviced. But there is criticism, and then there's dismissing any references to existing material as mere "fanservice" and therefore contemptible. For example, I’ve seen the treatment of Luke, Han, and Leia in the sequel trilogy defended because to actually have them interact at all would be “silly fanservice” rather than natural because, you know, they’re family.

The difference, for me, is does inclusion of a known character/object/trope/line of dialogue serve the character and/or story, or is it Leo DiCaprio pointing meme, designed for “hey it’s the thing” nostalgia and YouTube compilations with no substance behind it? Ultimately, is the inclusion Watsonian or Doylist - and if the latter, what of the former justifies it.

Mon Mothma or Saw Gerrara in Andor doesn’t feel like fanservice even though they’re existing characters, because it makes sense to include them in a story about the Rebellion’s beginning and they had a part to play in Rogue One, to which Andor is ostensibly a prequel. Conversely Leia and Vader’s inclusion in Obi-Wan Kenobi (even if I did enjoy them both) tip over in the side of fanservice because they really have no place in Obi-Wan’s story at that point and require fanwanking around their dialogue in ANH (and to be fair, Lucas was guilty of this as well). I don’t need to see random object or minor character no 6 from the PT/OT/Clone Wars, iconic catch phrase shoved where it doesn’t make sense, or obscure Legends reference divorced from context, just tell me a good story! Give me characters to care about! Make me feel something! Andor did that, where much of the other Disney Star Wars content has not.

This is my fundamental, and possibly at this point, irreconcilable, issue. Disney wanted to get away from Lucas-associated Star Wars as quickly as possible, replacing every character, planet, and theme with their own wholly Disney counterpart, killing off Han, Luke, and Leia so the old and classic couldn’t distract from the shiny and new, tearing down the conclusion of the original trilogy only to try and tell the exact same story (just not as well). They did it so quickly and so shoddily that many were understandably unsatisfied, leaving Disney to frantically course correct, going back to the well and shoving nostalgia bait into every conceivable project even (especially) if it had no place.

If they’d actually had any sort of plan for the sequel trilogy, if they’d made their focus to conclude the Skywalker Saga in a way that even approached emotional resonance, imo the vast majority of the audience would be happy to move on and embrace the next chapter - new characters, new stories. But people can’t move on from the characters they love because the treatment of those characters and the post-ROTJ timeline was so unsatisfying. Luke wouldn’t have needed to show up in The Mandolorian to try and placate the fans if treatment of the character in the ST hasn’t been so abysmal.

So LFL have been stuck in this weird ancillary storytelling space, where every project seemingly needs to be adjacent to the Skywalker Saga but not actually engaging with the Saga direct - Han has a prequel film no one asked for, Rey is a Skywalker for name recognition only, Luke pops up in pointless cameos but isn’t there when he arguably should be (just recast the damn role already!), we get young Leia in a story where she has no place rather than in one she does, who knows what’s going on with the whole Ashoka/Thrawn/Heir to the Empire stuff, Boba Fett is There with a parade of Hey it’s that character/ship/thing with no contribution to the actual storytelling.

What does this have to do with Andor? Well, Andor is perhaps the only quality tv product of the Disney era, which is fitting since Rogue One is imo the only quality film of the Disney era (TFA being retroactively diminished by what came after). Andor is the type of story Star Wars should be telling - expanding the universe, using known elements and characters where it makes sense to do so, not a collection of ideas on a whiteboard thrown in front of an LED screenstage and a bunch of meaningless easter eggs.

To be fair, this does seem what they are attempting to do with The Acolyte (which I am actually enjoying!) but the planned Rey-focused post-ST film…eh. Admittedly I never bothered to watch Rise of Skywalker, but where can the story possibly go? Is there any investment at all after the mess that was the sequel trilogy? I can’t see how the narrative can possibly be redeemed at this point, which is a shame because I do believe it started with a lot of promise in The Force Awakens that was squandered by a lack of vision, planning, and oversight, and the bizarre need to brutalise and kill off the legacy characters, marginalise the genuinely original and interesting new characters, and waste the immense acting talent they had at their disposal.

They’ve made no meaningful in-universe progress after the ST, the New Republic and Jedi have to be rebuilt again, except Rey is going to do it this time somehow, so what what the point of the last 30 years in the timeline? It’s different with Andor - we know where his story ends, but the series only makes Cassian’s sacrifice stronger, there’s emotional resonance in seeing his journey to Rogue One in knowing that it’s in service of the overall victory of the Rebellion (however undermined that victory is made by the ST).

But I digress. This rant really ended up being kind of off topic - apologies.

Anyway. Andor is good! I liked it! Looking forward to season 2!