#this thing that has ingrained itself into my very being and the way i think

[iamthemaestro]

had a character development moment today where I realized maybe I simply do not have a healthy relationship to classical music anymore

[moe-broey]

VIVID fucking idea I had last night....

Background info, I think Moe has some really distinct tendencies that Alfonse ends up being able to immediately identify it by (and finds a lot of comfort in doing so). One of which, is it doing a quiet, hesitant, but steady knock. Persistent, but with long pauses in between.

ENTER..... the Vision........ just. This entire sequence. "You'll never hear from me again". Into, the quiet knock only a few hours later. Into bursting in with the MOST enthusiastic, "HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Moe really is Some Type of Guy LMFAOO

Fave panels.......

[azen13]

CW: Yandere Themes, Power Imbalance, Mind Control

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Yandere!Zhongli, despite his nature as the Archon of Geo, isn't as restrictive as one might think at first. Quite the opposite, actually. He'll say it himself, as he forces you to stay still in his strong arms, trapped inside his Adeptal Domain. He wishes he could give you more privileges, but he simply can't trust you.

Of course, you press him about this, you say he can trust you. With no other option but to fight for any scraps of freedom you can get, you're willing to grovel on your knees for anything, as much as you hate yourself for doing so.

At the sight of your desperation, Zhongli has to mask the way the corners of his lips twitch up, eyes predatory, draconic instinct seeping through a human facade. With the flick of a hand, a thick roll of paper pops into existence in front of your head. The very end of it unfurls, revealing what looks like a place where a signature is written.

For a contract.

Sign it, Zhongli says, and he will grant you multiple privileges listed in the contract: he'll allow you to leave his Adeptal Domain when possible, write to your family and friends, leave you alone for a set time if you so desire, and more listed in the contract.

Your hand itches for the crystalline, amber pen floating next to the contract, beckoning you to write your name, but you control the urge. You've already been played for a fool by a foe you once called a friend, and you won't fall for his foul ploys any longer.

So, you pull the contract to unfurl it. The paper flows like water, gushing across the floor like a wild stream down the bed to the floor, across the bedroom, through the door, into the kitchen, continuing on, and on, and on. It seems like days go by until finally, the contract is fully unscrolled.

Zhongli is less than pleased at your wariness, a disappointed sigh echoing through the still room. He had hoped you would be less uncooperative, but he will allow you a day to read the contents of the contract. After all, time is of the utmost importance, even for the immortal.

You glare at the god, but know that you cannot allow anger to cloud your mind. With only a day to read such a dense document, there's no time to spare.

When you look down to start reading the contract itself, though, your eyes widen in confusion.

The words on the paper are almost kaleidoscopic, warping and twisting and forming new phrases every second. One moment, you think you can read "the"; the next, those same letters have become "remain". Looking back up, Zhongli has a pitying smile on his face. "Dearest treasure, do you see now that this game is a fruitless endeavor?" He asks, a hand reaching to brush against your jaw, sliding tenderly across your skin. "I would not lie to you about these things. I have never lied to you," he says.

For a moment, you almost mistake his tone as kind, like you almost mistook everything about Zhongli—a polite, cultured gentleman who turned out to be a possessive, obsessed dragon—until you realize how patronizing his words are. You want to curse him to the Abyss and back, but hold back your hatred. "I'd prefer to read the contract." You look back down, and begin attempting to decipher the undulating paragraphs.

Hours pass by, and you've made no progress. Through it all, Zhongli has stayed by your side, whispering cloying words in an attempt at disarming your defenses. You've managed to stay strong in the face of his unending patience though.

But while you're smart, Zhongli is a god, with thousands of years of knowledge ingrained in his mind. And he knows eventually, one argument will break you down. So, he keeps trying.

"Time is running out, my sweet. But before this offer disappears, I will give you one last chance to sign," he says. "Besides, even if I am being dishonest about the contents of the contract, can things really get worse than this? At least by signing the contract, there's a chance your circumstances may improve."

His logic is sound, drowning out the dissonant thoughts scrambling your mind. You hate the idea of agreeing with Zhongli, but at this point, it's hard to see a reason not to sign it.

With trembling fingers, you pick up the pen. It's slightly warm in your hand, the way a rock in the afternoon sun would be. Smiling like he knew this would happen all along, Zhongli makes a motion with one hand, causing the contract to begin rolling up. After waiting several moments, all that's left unrolled is the space where you will sign your name.

The pen slashes against the paper, marring it with an ink-black scar that reads your name.

Then you feel it. The lightness in your chest, as though you're untethered to the world around you. Thoughts in your mind begin to pop like soap bubbles, fear dissipating into pure nothingness. You can hardly hear your spouse chuckling over the absolute blankness blanketing your mind.

Yes, Zhongli would allow you many more freedoms now. After all, you had sold your mind, body, and soul to him. Escape was impossible. You were clay in his hands, and he would mold you into a perfect, obedient lover.

[foibles-fables]

thinking once again about the delicious concept of Talanah having deeper and more numerous hang-ups about sex than Aloy would...

When it comes to the act itself, at least. We all know Aloy has a metric fuckton of interpersonal baggage to work through, and she's certainly gotten started on that. But I think, in an early established relationship with the two of them on equal ground communication-wise, she'd be way more clearheaded about the act of sex specifically.

The Nora are an incredibly sex-positive tribe, as long as it don't result in babies outside of a sanctioned mate blessing. They use contraceptives liberally ("my sister stopped taking her tea!") and same-sex couplings are accepted and not outside of the social norm. While the tribal leadership is a matriarchy specifically based on the merit of having progeny, the rest of their society is an egalitarian one.

Rost, as a devout Nora, would've felt the same way about sex. And he would have impressed these ideas upon Aloy--with frankness, with no nonsense or baggage (since there's no social backing for it)--in preparation for her to join the tribe after her Proving, as was his wish. I think any angst Aloy would have about sex would be connected to her heaps of internalized otherness rather than upbringing--but if that was settled beforehand, I don't think she'd feel shame about the act itself.

The Carja, on the other hand. lmao.

Unlike the Nora, we don't have a canon outline of their attitude toward sex specifically--however, one can infer that it would fall into the rest of their patriarchal societal structure. They're kinda Catholic-lite, if you will, but make it the Sun. Only a couple blips of ambient dialogue give reference to it and they're mostly played for idle laughs.

We know Talanah herself is a badass and hellbent on breaking social barriers--but I think it's also interesting to view her through the lens of also being a product of not only Carja society at large, but also a noble upbringing. I just think it's fascinating, character-wise, to think of her having no shame or trepidation about kicking down the door of the Lodge--but still having to fight internalized shame about sex, when it comes down to it. Obviously, that wouldn't be a part of her everyday behavior we've seen portrayed. But it's just so compelling to think about from a theoretical standpoint.

AND it ties pretty much directly into the Comphet Talanah Hypothesis. Shame about sex is one thing--shame about having and/or wanting to have sex with women is another thing entirely. To me, in-game evidence points to the idea that the Carja are at least somewhat tolerant of same-sex couples in the peasantry. But I do see it being viewed as very very very much against the grain for the upper class, because noble patriarchy. Not downright condemned as sinful in and of itself, but regarded and responded to with an extreme amount of otherness as one falls out of line re: their "rightful duty" to their Khane. For a noble who is gay, lots of repression, lots of internalized homophobia.

So consider Talanah. Already othered to the point of some pretty bitter social rejection, as we see in HZD. Why would she, as a noble with the ingrained upbringing that comes with it, want to embrace that part of herself and bring more otherness upon herself? If she's going to feel shame about sex and baggage about sexual relationships, wouldn't it just be easier to make herself take the path of least resistance and have it be with a man? Because at least that's what she's supposed to do. Right? And she barely even has the language for anything else. Even though she's never really done anything she's "supposed to do" before. Maybe it would just be better to do that, for once. But why does that feel so wrong? Why does it feel like she's going against herself? Why does the thought of being with a man actually make her recoil? That’s what she’s supposed to want, isn’t it? After everything why does this make her want to hide? Why can't she stop thinking about Aloy? Aloy's hands, Aloy's mouth? Why can't this one Sun-damned thing just be easy?

Just. Ough. I love that this concept puts another line of give and take into their developing relationship. Talanah helping Aloy come further out of her internalized isolation through shared experience--Aloy helping Talanah come out of her internalized sexual shame and homophobia thanks to her own lack of baggage surrounding the two.

I have so many moment-specific headcanons about all of this BUT this is already long enough so I'll just spare you and leave you with the meta. for now. (that's a threat)

[lucabyte]

thinking about the very specific reading of isat i had during act 3 for the most part

anyway yeah ill ramble here about this. since it actually explains my headcanons for what the disappearing island wish was

disclaimer: taken as a whole this is way too allegorical for what i'd consider a holistic reading of isat, but it was part of my running theories at the time.

anyway my guess for the real-world equivalent of the island ended up being French Polynesia by the end of the game. I had initially thrown a dart at siffrin being greek wrt europe, sisyphus allusion, enjoyment of plays and seafairing-- but the moment that little guy started getting real weird about stars and specified they were from an island i switched my guess to him being polynesian. And then that reading only really strengthened from there (and i was pretty close, tbf!)

but yeah during act 3, especially the king plotline, i started thinking about the themes of cultural erasure + lack of identity that the game has and how that plays wrt vaugarde's extremely welcoming and diverse nature.

reading far too much into it but it made me wonder if they are the results of a fallen empire of some kind. somewhere that gathered people from across the globe (as empires are known to do) before dissolving into what seems to be a localised theocracy of some kind?

like. vaugarde is basically the Good End for an empire. Fully demilitarised (they barely have use for police to the point where the defenders are surprised by burglaries, and almost CERTAINLY have zero army), extremely diverse, not caring where one comes from.

(either that or they've been a socialist utopia like, forever? and thus just aquired migrants perpetually... but ka bue is characterised as harsher by odile in a lot of respects so one can assume its not that the whole planet is Niceys All The Time.)

this lines up pretty well with the um. Whole France Thing. Boy do they own a lot of islands still that they maybe shouldn't. Also lines up with bonnie's word-of-god french creole dialect. So Vaugarde as the welcoming, ideal form of former-colonialiser-nation is like. one i vibe with if we're gonna read too hard into the worldbuilding as presented.

Anyway all this to say I did for a time wonder if the Northern Island wish was 'For The Island To Be Safe'. Assuming this world to have any level of inter-country conflict-- Wish craft is powerful stuff, and a singular island might not be able to defend itself against those seeking to take it by force. Hiding the island from the world would protect it.

... though that felt like an unusually cruel read. The implication that cloistering away like that is a 'valid' strategy for a culture to be safe (albeit with the splash damage of hurting any diaspora).

Plus, wish craft is superbly powerful, with evidently its use on the island only becoming more widespread after it was discovered how to make it work Consistently.

(i work here under the assumption that Siffrin's growing cloak is imbued with wish craft, assumedly the same as the king's armour? Since there's no way that was created at that scale...)

So it almost makes more sense, to me, for the wish to be to 'Protect The World (universe) From Us' or to 'Keep The Universe Safe'.

Wish craft being so second nature to the Islanders (See: Siffrin, favour tree), that a wish that breaks the universe is almost inevitable were the knowledge to become widespread and ingrained.

This too is an oddly cruel read, that a culture's rituals can be dangerous to that degree, but ... ? Dunno. Like I said, reading it as hard allegory makes it fall apart somewhat. Symbols can mean many different things at once until you flatten them for direct analysis like this. I don't think it's quite so 1-to-1, and it's honestly slightly too 'no story only lore' for my tastes, so I did push a lot of this stuff out of my analytical mind once I started getting to the back and of act 3 and into act 4.

Anyway. Not the most coherent explanation in the world, but still some thoughts I had mid-game that i figure i should put somewhere at least, even if I don't think they are really what the game is going for.

As a bonus, the discussions on what the island wish were in this context also lead my friend @samhainian to speculation on the colour wish that i really enjoy. Which is....

The wish that removed colour from humans perception of the world being something along the lines of:

"I wish the world was simpler"

ergo, removing colour as an invocation of Nuiance VS Black and White Morality. The world is simpler, easier to understand.

I think it's a fun headcanon! I like it.

Well anyway. A work is more than the sum of its parts and dissecting something so sloppily as this often does it a disservice. So don't take my theorising as anything more than a general rundown of where my head was at mid-game before i had all the pieces. The emotional core of the story is far more where it's at for ISAT sooooo. [Shrugs and scampers away]

[snickerdoodlles]

#I think a lot of my dislike of the movie might have been just differences in taste #That movie was NOT my sense of humor and I disliked how they handled some things #Like...it kinda bugged me how they went about Ballister's prosthetic limb I won't lie. #I also don't know if Nimona ''not wanting to be a monster'' yet also wanting to cause so much destruction around her worked for me #Or at least not the way it was done #Like. I'm ALL for a character that wants to hurt others because of the way they've been hurt. That's based. #But that's not...really what they did? Or at least I don't think so #Like she's not REALLY a villain but she did sincerely want Ballister to be. #She values life. But she also wants to murder people? She wants violence??? Idk. It was a weird mix #She's SO sad that child was scared of her but earlier she like. Completely fucks up another kid's game. For no reason. #God and Nimona being 1000 years old makes a lot of her actions kinda weird. She feels so 14 to me yet she's immortal afssf #Also just not that big a fan of the trope where it's revealed ''this ancient legend was actually kids the whole time!!!'' #but I know that's just my tastes #HOWEVER. I also think it made the movie weaker in certain aspects. #Prejudice is learned. So making it feel SO ingrained into the very beings of this world's people #IDK man did not hit it's mark for me #the queer allegory was legitimately very good though. loved that (op's tags)

Nimoma has good emotional payoff and animation but nothing else to really write home about TBH

It's very SPOP in that way, where the arcs and scenes are solid when viewed outside of the media in gifset or clip form but don't work as well when actually watching what they're from

For sure! I think that's a problem she-ra and toh both share with Nimona—they struggle with setup but then go ham on the payoff, which leaves everything feeling somewhat unearned.

The end of the movie bugged me in particular—Ballister's 180 with calling Nimona a monster (something he KNOWS pushes her to the brink) after one conversation with his ex-boyfriend was...I think out of place?

Normally if you have a character make a wrong choice like that you, as the audience, would be questioning the whole movie if they had ever REALLY changed. Was Ballister's loyalty truly to Nimona or to the Institute/Goldenloin? But, by that point in the movie they had really sold me on Ballister's complete acceptance of Nimona and disregard of the institute, so....why would he turn on Nimona then? I'm surprised they didn't do this plot the other way, which would instead have only made it seem like Ballister betrayed Nimona, you know? Like they did in Tangled. That way you don't undo Ballister's movie long arc with one scene, but you can still have Nimona go berserk and make her way into the heart of the city.

There were also a couple of other things that felt kinda dropped by the end. Ballister being the first commoner to become a knight? The Queen's important role in this society? This kingdom's prejudice going SO deep that not even a child would give Nimona a chance after saving their life, yet blowing up the wall changed everyone's minds in the end?

There were a lot of good pieces, but they weren't quite put together in the right ways.

[sk-touchthesun]

It has been a bit over a month since the first time I watched Dead Boy Detectives and I now have watched it from start to finish four times. Oops. I don't know how that happened—I certainly wasn't prepared for this level of love for a series.

Since I haven't really been in any fandoms or tumblr in, like... ten years or whatever, I wanted to write about why I fell in love with Dead Boy Detectives when I saw the series for the first time. I don't know if anyone's interested in reading a long-ish post, but in case you are, buckle up because this is going to be pure love and positivity from start to finish. It's mainly about Edwin and Charles, though.

I started watching the show without any background information and never having seen the Sandman either. I rotate streaming services and it was Netflix's turn. I read queer fiction quite a lot and watch queer movies and series as a hobby, and remembered someone mentioning Dead Boy Detectives.

The beginning on the series was intriguing enough already, but it was during this scene that I knew I was going to watch the entire thing:

This leads me to the reason I love the series so much: the carrying force of the story is the love Edwin and Charles have for each other, be it platonic or romantic. I'm a sucker for themes like found family and being loved as your authentic self because that's something I crave. I have always been more or less lonely because of social anxiety and struggling with social situations. Perhaps that's why stories containing those themes have such a profound effect on me each time.

Of course, the way the series combines elements of horror and comedy with heartwarming and wholesome sweetness is delightfully refreshing in itself. Dead Boy Detectives kept me glued to the screen so that I finished it in a day the first time I watched it. However, the characters are what makes the show so brilliant. I think the cast in general is phenomenal, but it's the love between Edwin and Charles that I felt most while watching.

This obviously is where I have to praise George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri for their acting. I think it's largely thanks to them that I love Edwin and Charles so much. Their characters' chemistry and the fond way Edwin and Charles interact with each other in the series is something I felt viscerally right from the beginning. It's obviously ingrained in the overall plot, but the love can also be felt in the smallest gestures. How many shows do you have where your favorite character dying is one of your favorite moments in the series because it's so sweet? (I'm sure you can deduce my favorite character from this...)

Personally, I also think that George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri's acting is particularly spellbinding during the moments their characters break down and show raw emotion. In an odd way the characters' suffering is what makes episodes like The Case of the Devlin House and The Case of the Very Long Stairway so brilliant. The characters' emotions during their most vulnerable moments are so tangible.

I know there has been talk about how season two would look like if the series was revived, and honestly, I think there's one crucial thing that should be kept as it is or the entire thing would be ruined: the carrying force of the show being that Edwin and Charles are willing to do anything to not to get separated.

I can't see any universe where someone becomes more important to the two main characters than what they're to each other. Charles says that Edwin is the only person he'd go to Hell for. We know how Edwin feels. The love is there already. If either of them had a long-lasting romance with someone else, the love interest would get two with the price of one. Equally important? Well—possibly. Love isn't finite. More important? Never.

I'd like to see Edwin and Charles get together, though. They're like an old married couple already and I can't imagine them being together with anyone else in the long run. At least the first season left things open enough for interpretation, with the cancellation and all.

Last but not least, it's a bit crazy that I only saw the show for the first time a bit over a month ago and was ready to splurge on a cameo. It was my birthday during the gameoden week and I got a birthday message! It was very sweet and has cheered me up ever since. I'm not sharing it here because I feel it's a bit personal with my birthday and all, but I loved it.

In case you ended up reading all this, thanks for reading my love letter for the show and the characters and the actors!

[hikarry]

As immortal beings, by definition, Crowley and Aziraphale don't have to worry much with mortality.

Sure, they are surrounded by it constantly. After all, they live amongst humans, and they watch the few friends or acquaintance they make through the ages come and go systematically. They are aware of mortality, of death, they just don't think much about it in regards to themselves

To them mortality is not scary. It's just another step in the humans' lives when their eternal house is decided. It's something natural and unavoidable. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Aziraphale has helped some humans cross to the other side more peacefully.

My point is: As immortals, they are aware of mortality. But they don't think much about their own unless they are thinking about being caught by Heaven and Hell, but that's just a what if. An hypothetical. A real one at that, yes, but not reality yet.

Now, the bookshop fire.

In this moment, Crowley is punched in the face by the mortality of immortals.

Something he doesn't think that much about just falls into his lap by the hand of no other but Aziraphale.

Suddenly he is faced with utter loneliness. The ending of a life that, technically, should be eternal. A life he took for granted for more or less 6000 years.

In theory, he has always known both him Aziraphale could die. By their bosses' hands. By the end of the world itself. But it's very different to think about it in theory and living it.

Crowley wasn't prepared. This happened suddenly.

He was on his way to find Aziraphale, possibly to apologize again over the stupid shit he said and talk about the whereabouts of the Anti Christ, and suddenly a day that was actually not going that bad anymore (aka escaping Ligur and Hastur with little to no collateral damage) turns into his worst nightmare.

For 6000 years he has had the theory, and suddenly he his gifted with reality.

And the last thing he had said to Aziraphale's face was that he wouldn't even think about him when he left. You bet those last words started playing in his head as soon as he saw the fire.

And there's a whole hidden layer there: it wasn't just his best friend that went up in flames, which in on itself is already painful as fuck. No. The man he has loved for 6000 years also was destroyed.

Coming to terms with your own mortality as a supernatural being and the destruction of your companion since Eden would drive anyone into shock. Would be ingrained in their brains like a new trauma. The new notion of how actually fragile life is gifting you a whole new perspective.

No surprise Crowley probably has PTSD with fires. Or that he has nightmares about that day often. Or that he forbade Aziraphale from having anything fire related in the bookshop and convinced him to buy electric candles and a shit tone of fire extinguishers. Or that his mind went into "Fuck this, let the Apocalypse come. I'm too tired to deal with this anymore". OR that his first instinct was hidding in a random bar and getting sloshed out of his own mind to try and put the pieces all together. (Like, cmon, my man was about to open his third bottle)

The actual relief he must have felt when he found out Aziraphale was only discorporated must have been fucking abysmal! Like taking a cold shower after a fever! But you bet his encounter with mortality has changed him. You can't go through something like that and remain the same. And he didn't.

Imagine how he must have felt when Beelzebub told him about the Book of Life. The fucking flashbacks he must have had. No surprise the first thing he did was drive to Aziraphale, apologize and agree to his dumb plan of helping Gabriel. Anything to keep him under his eyes. At least if they go down then, they will go down together.

Or so he thought, innit? We know how this story ended.

[longing-for-rain]

regarding aang becoming offended bc of his portrayal as a woman in ember island players, i think his anger was justified on that specific occassion? I mean, the fire nation was mocking his gentle nature and pacifism by portraying him as a blithering naive idiot who never took things seriously and the belittling of his culture and beliefs. This is one of the worst episodes for him, dont get me wrong, but in this case, femininity was utilized as a source of derision and weakness imo. I dont say this with bad intentions, just thought i would write this bc i also condemned aang for the same thing before

If that was what Aang was upset about I might be inclined to agree, but everything he says and does throughout that episode points to the contrary. Aang doesn’t say anything about the incorrect portrayal of his culture and personal values. Here is what he does say:

[Note: the above expression is before the actress hardly says anything so he’s clearly just mad about the fact that she’s female]

Aang: [angrily] Is that a woman playing me?

Aang: I don't do that! That's not what I'm like! And I'm not a woman!

[Note: the official script includes the emphasis; again, it’s very obvious that he’s most bothered by being played by a woman]

Then this exchange:

Toph: I don't know, you are more in touch with your feminine side than most guys.

Aang: [Standing up, angrily] Argh!

Katara: Relax, Aang. They're not accurate portrayals. It's not like I'm a preachy crybaby who can't resist giving overemotional speeches about hope all the time. [Everyone looks at her] What?

Aang: [Turns around and sits down. Sarcastically.] Yeah, that's not you at all.

You know what I love about this conversation is that is proves two things at once. Firstly, yet again, it’s clear that being portrayed by a woman is what is most upsetting to Aang. Secondly, his reaction (and, honestly, insult) to Katara’s values here shows that he’s not thinking that deeply about this. It has nothing to do with values. Aang is offended at the idea that he is being portrayed by a woman and with more “feminine” qualities, which honestly plays well with his creepy, possessive behavior with Katara later this same episode.

And I actually do like the fact that you brought up femininity being used as “a source of derision and weakness” because guess what! That’s the definition of femininity itself. Femininity doesn’t mean simply being a woman; femininity is the social behaviors and roles that women are expected to fulfill. Which is why I don’t have any sympathy for a man who is offended by being called feminine or compared to a woman because it’s reflective of a deeply misogynistic attitude on his part. If Aang thinks femininity is so degrading and weak, what does that say about the fact he expects his crush to behave that way? I mean, this is what he thinks of Katara, through his own perspective:

So yeah, that’s my question. If being compared to a woman is so insulting and humiliating to Aang, what does that say about how he intuitively views actual women? Why does he think he’s above that treatment but women aren’t? People act like I’m crazy for saying that he exhibits toxic masculinity this episode but this only furthers that point.

Oh and before someone jumps in here and acts like this goes both ways, let me point you to this:

Toph’s reaction to finding out she’s being played by a big, buff, stereotypically-masculine man. She’s thrilled! Why? Because we are products of a misogynistic society and therefore intuitively view being compared to a man as a compliment and a woman as an insult. The respective roles assigned to each are not equal. Masculinity and femininity were never equal and the system was deliberately created that way. You can see this idea ingrained in the writing of this episode because it’s a bias we all hold to some degree, including the writing and creative team here.

So I’m sorry, but considering the bias clearly present within the writing team and the way the characters behave this episode, it’s clear to me that Aang’s reaction has nothing to do with his culture and everything to do with his misogyny.

[generalluxun]

Hey. Asking about how Chloe was abused. My knowldge of abuse is fairly limited to general pop knowledge so I'm curious as to what abuse was done to her.

Okay caveats first:

I am not a medical professional, I am simply someone with a vested interest in the topic who has done more research than the average person.

There are many definitions of abuse. Legal definitions are rarely useful, as they are limited to concrete, provable, gross violations. Just as you can inflict a lot of pain on someone without leaving the marks to prove assault, you can do a lot of damage to a child without it being legally 'provable'. Medical definitions are much more helpful for discussions.

Lastly some level of extrapolation is required as it is a show. We take what we are shown. For example:We actually only have Felix's word that he was ever abused, and his first character traits sre being deceitful and manipulative. We still take his word though, because it's a show. (And also we should give weight to victim accounts!)

So both parents are guilty in different ways. We will start with Audrey, the simpler one. There's clear verbal and emotional abuse demonstrated on screen. Mis-naming your child is a form of abuse:please ask the trans community about the impact of deadnaming even in full grown adults.

Beyond that she is constantly dismissive and belittling of her child- to the exclusion of all else. Style Queen/Queen Wasp is rife with examples. There is also the clear behavior shift in Chloé. The wheeling, approval seeking, hunched posture expecting rejection. This is a *pattern* not a one off. Audrey may live in NY, but no fashion movil would be away from Paris for 13yrs straight. We are simply seeing the most recent interaction. This culminates im a child having to ask 'Why don't you love me mother?' and the response is telling

Audrey barely chokes out the strange word when trying to contradict the question. It takes Marinette literally making them both mad at her to get a bare minimum of interaction on Audrey's part. It doesn't last though. Audrey falls back into her negation behaviors and is now present to inflict them more regularly on Chloé, while also being a constant target for/model of behavior for Chloé. (Seriously it was such a misstep to write Marinette reuniting a victim with an abuser) We know the show itself considers Audrey'ss care as a bad thing because the original script had André divorcing her and takin Zoé because Zoé 'doesn't deserve you' so Chloé being in an abusive parenting situation in Representation is supposed to be 'punishment'(ewww)

André is not off the hook either. People look at him 'spoiling' her and leave it at that. Well, 'spoiling' can in fact be abusive too. Let's look at what we see:

André has been her primary caregiver for 14 years now, so he has had the most responsibility in molding what we see for good or bad(mostly bad). She does learn from him too. Darkblade she proudly announces she learned everything about winning elections from watching her father. He's also excessively arrogant (I'm the symbol of Paris!) and quite willing to abuse his power for his own ends(having Roger round up protestors etc) which explains where Chloé learned where power is to be abused.

André is also extremely neglectful as a parent, extreeeeemely. Let's hit a bunch of points in the order they come to me.

Chloé lives *alone* in a hotel suite. There's no shared space, no family area. It's not even really her room. It's commercial, sterile. Where sre her hobbies? Posters? Even her *colors*? She is so used to being ignored at home that the girl who is loud as heck everywhere else doesn't make a single mark on her living space.

A hotel employee seems to think he needs to step in to raise Chloé. Let that sink in. An employee can see how bad it is and tried to make some kind of change, (he's working against a lifetime of ingrained behavior and is not very good at it himself). He doesn't even think to you know... Get Andre in to do this.

André was unaware or didn't care his daughter hasn't done schoolwork since Sabrina *learned to write*(5/6 yrs old) that is a shocking level of disinterest in your child. 6yr olds aren't criminal masterminds.

Andre supplants actual attention and affection with *stuff* he gives material possessions in *place* of parenting. This is somewhat similar to spoiling but not the same. André's method denies the child something vital. You see- things aren't a substitute for affection/attention, developmentally. And so while they may delight they never satisfy the need. They never validate the emotional attachment. So after the shine wears off, the hole is still there. So, like someone with an addiction, the child needs more, and more, and more. Since the needs are never met, it is never enough. And this is what the child views as *normal* this is simply *how it is*. They rarely know they are being given inadequate care because it's just life to them. Seeing something different in a one off doesn't make a dent vs a whole life.

This sort of thing makes a potent cocktail when mixed with the abandonment issues from her mother too. See- if her mother left, and daddy doesn't pay attention, anyone can leave. This leads to a cycle of pushing/demanding/hurting. The child expects to be left and let down, so they both try to reassure themselves it won't happen, and *make* it happen on their own terms (because they believe deep down it will) so more outrageous demands, because when those demands are met, it shows that you are still 'loved' and when they are not met, then there you go, you are not loved and they will leave you. It's a self-destructive spiral.

You see it play out with her interactions with her classmates and Sabrina specifically. How does she express affection? Gifts. What does she do? Push. Push and push and find the breaking point because if she can make Sabrina actually leave then it shows that she herself is worthless and her mother was right to leave her and her father is right to ignore her. Pretty messed up right? Yeah. Child abuse does horrible things to kids.

We're not done with André yet. Some people might say 'he expresses love for Chloé!' and to that I say- performatively.

André likes the idea of being a father. It's what respectable people do. It looks good on camera. It's someone to love him unconditionally. It's an ally against his wife.(broken home dynamics are horrible too) André just doesn't like having to parent for more than a snapshot.

We can see his interactions with Zoé highlight this too. He's delighted she's here!(a potential person on his side vs his wife and daughter) what's his first parenting advice? 'lock your dreams away and get on with life' A+ André.

What's he do in Queen Banana? He uses his power to let Chloé manipulate the movie *kicking Zoé out of it* This is the guy who is supposed to be supporting her? He only draws the line when it comes to sending Zoé away... Why? He doesn't want to lose an 'ally'. It's power dynamics. Not parenting. Where was he when Zoé was stuck in boarding school? He was going to keep Zoé in the divorce so clearly Mr Lee isn't in the picture, Audrey probably forgot Zoé existed, why didn't André bring Zoé to France and let the sisters grow up together? Oh, right, that might be work.

André likes Zoé because she comes pre-raised(boarding school was probably better than either parent) he doesn't have to put in work and he gets a free good kid to make him look like a father. She's his 'do over' as he throws the one he raised in the trash.

André shows his true colors when he's lamenting to Gabe about his corruption and abuse and blames ot on his 'heartless daughter' you know... The child he raised. The grown man is actually shoving his own corruption and misdeeds onto his child. You really don't need much more than that.

So, via neglect, verbal abuse, and emotional abuse the Bourgeois parents raised an incredibly messed up child. Chloé is not a 'good victim' like Adrien, she doesn't sulk quietly under abuse. She lashes out. She is hurt and angry and she passes the pain on. This is why they call it the cycle of abuse.

The end of Revolution illustrates this perfectly. Audrey throws verbal abuse at her on the plane. Angry that Chloé embarrassed her(not that she did wrong, Audrey loved the power grab) and calls her a loser by implication. You *see* it hit, the physical cringe. Then Chloé immedietely goes to try and pass on the pain. She is hurt and making someone else hurt is the only way to lessen it. She calls Marinette. Marinette breaks the cycle though, and good for her. But the show seems to have forgotten there's still one hurt child in this scene, and it doesn't seem to care.

I'm going to stop here for now. I probably left a bunch out, but I do have other things I need to do. Feel free to ask more questions. Thanks for taking the time to seek answers.

[bleue-flora]

why do people think cdream was obsessed with ctommy like i read stellos analysis on it and its well written and nice but they fail to take into account that cdream has a persona and 90 percent of the time is not telling the truth

Ummm well many reasons actually. Ones I’ve talked about a bit before, but basically I think it actually comes down to Tommy himself for a few reasons.

a) Firstly, I think because Tommy believes it, it’s hard for us not to believe it. In other words, by watching his stream, being in his head, that perception is ingrained into the lore itself so we are more inclined to believe it, simply because the character we are watching through does. This is true not just for Tommy but other characters as well and it makes sense, we are seeing things for the first time through their eyes - how could it not taint our view? This is also not helped by the fact that Dream leans into Tommy’s expectations. In multiple scenes we see him bring to life Tommy’s world view, giving him and us more inclination to take it at face value. Like Dream becomes who Tommy thinks he is so it makes it really convincing from Tommy’s head to believe it.

b) Secondly, in many ways Dream is obsessed with Tommy. Sure not in the way Tommy thinks - like him constantly trying to kill him and take his discs and yada yada… but he tears up Tommy’s whole yard for Tommy’s discs, he fights wars for the discs against Tommy, and in some ways that is Tommy obsessing over Dream forcing Dream to engage. The problem I think is not so much that Dream is really obsessed with Tommy but that he’s obsessed with keeping his “big happy family” and Tommy continues to threaten that and be the center of chaos and conflict, there by making him a priority for Dream. And it doesn’t help that Tommy is also the very center of Dream’s hurt, and beginning and end of his downfall.

c) Lastly, and I think probably most notably, I kinda touched upon this already, but because Tommy is obsessed with Dream, he forces Dream to constantly be involved with him, making it look like a focus/obsession/priority when Dream really may be just trying to defend himself, defend his friends, get back his stuff… etc. Dream can’t not be involved with Tommy because just like the finale Tommy inserts himself right at Dream’s throat again.

So is Dream obsessed with Tommy? Or is he obsessed with getting to live his life, something Tommy continues to make impossible?

And yea the fact alone that Spirit, Mars, and Bekerson existed before Tommy and that Dream built a prison but plans on putting Skeppy in a little cage, should be enough to highlight that Dream is talking nonsense in the disc confrontation about Tommy being the key and him needing Tommy alive and yada yada… like it should be enough to showcase that maybe he isn’t really obsessed with Tommy like he depicts. But perhaps it’s much easier to believe that narrative than the one that Dream is actually a relatively sane person who’s just lying (like he’s accused to be lol - “All you do is lie, Dream…”). It’s a less messy reality then the what ifs and considerations and dissecting needed to find the actual truth. And who doesn’t want to just do the things that are easier?…

[philtstone]

for the writing meme - Juliet and Lassiter, platonic? :)

this pov is so wildly outside my comfort zone that im in the stratosphere rn and as such i have no idea how i feel about this. that said: tag for 4x09, aka shawn spencers horrible no good very bad day, ft. a scene i am convinced must have happened.

As if the rest of today hasn’t been horrifying enough, when Lassiter gets back to the empty hospital waiting room with the requested 9-p.m.-hail-mary-verge-of-collapse coffee and truly-unwieldy large-sized woman’s purse in his hands, O’Hara is blubbering.

Despite his partner’s bubbly exterior and inexplicable desire to speak with awful regularity about his feelings, she has, since first meeting, more than impressed him with her steel stomach, unflappable cool, and general fortitude in the face of evil, gore, and worldly destruction. Coming head on against the lowest scum of humanity’s underbelly has yet to have cracked her almost belligerent, cotton-candy-wrapped, peach-scented determination to take their job seriously, and it isn’t until right now, right at this exact miserable unfortunate second, that Lassiter realizes: 

Beyond a few stoic cases of Misty Eye and, admittedly, more than a few instances of dreamy girlish exuberance, he has never actually seen Juliet O'Hara cry.

As in, the Real McCoy. Unfiltered feminine waterworks. Mascara smeared down her face, perfect updo unraveling, exhausted, snotty, blubbery sobbing into her dainty little manicured hands.  

Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Mary and Joseph and Christmas and Justice and everything in between.

Lassiter freezes with the coffee and the purse precariously in arm, his exhausted body wedged within the half-open door, and stares at her. 

She stares back, equally frozen. Her watery miserable bloodshot eyes, already in the realm of grotesquely-Disney-princess-flavored large, grow unbearably larger until they achieve the size of small and glassy bluebell colored dinner plates. 

“Oh! C-Carlton,” she squeaks.

Then sniffles.

Her chin is wobbling.

Horror he did not know he was capable of feeling clouds his general consciousness. Panic, borne of a fight-or-flight instinct ingrained into the hard edged fiber of his belligerent being since aged twenty, wells up rapidly within his chest.

Even when confined to an ICU bed with a bullet hole in his goddamn shoulder, Shawn Spencer is still capable of causing him problems. One of these days, Lassiter's going to lock the little twerp up in that smelly corner alcove underneath Dobson’s desk for a full forty-eight hours – maybe more! – just to teach him a lesson.

Except O’Hara would probably disapprove.

Which is exactly the fucking problem, isn’t it.

“O – O’Hara,” he manages to croak, before squeezing with an ungaining shimmy through the rest of the way into the room. He makes it two awkward steps forward before a slow and sad zzziiip sounds out and O'Hara's too-full purse and the tray of coffees in his hands flop forward and overbalance. Fumbling, he tries to fit all the indiscernibly woman-ish bits and pieces of her handbag back together into some semblance of organization so she doesn't think he's gone through her things while also balancing the coffees in his other hand. A tube of lipstick clatters to the floor while a disastrous bundle of frilly pink yarn tangles itself around his arm. He can hear the faint sound of a nurse paging someone over the hospital speaker system and the white lights of the waiting room grate against his eyeballs.

Who carries their knitting in their purse to a car chase?

… O’Hara, he supposes. O’Hara does that. He already knew this about her.

"Goddam -- goddammit."

“... Carlton?” she says again, querulously, in the smallest, most pathetic tone of voice he has ever heard emit from her smiley pink mouth. She looks flustered, almost afraid, like he wasn’t supposed to see her like this.

He probably wasn't. She'd forgotten her bag in the back of Guster's stupid little car, she said not ten minutes ago, and could he please go grab it when he went to get the coffee? She'd stay behind and get started on their ass-load of paperwork. That was the deal! The straightforward, simple deal. Basic series of steps. He'd had to go get the keys from Gus, who'd finally convinced the doctors to let them into the surgery room. Abigail sat beside him, pale and shaken but pleasant. Shawn was sleeping but fine. The purse was half-spilled against the backseat but there. The day was over but not really, because Lassiter had been waiting, hands itching with a vicious twitchiness he hasn’t felt in a long time, to get the hell out of Santa Barbara General so he could head to the station – a place of blessed and reliable familiarity – and book their miserable scum sucking lowlife rat bastard shit stick of a perp away for life. 

Lot of buts today, he thinks. It's a generally unhelpful thought.

“You – coffee – I – here –” He clears his throat, gives up, and lets the twirling trail of little crocheted flowers dangle sadly from his arm. Then he frowns, and straightens up. “O’Hara,” he says, loudly and a little too firmly.

She looks anguished. It’s terrible. 

“I d-didn’t mean – I w-was only just – I’m like, really tired? And sometimes when you’re tired, y-you just n-need to – to cry a little bit, but that’s not –! There’s nothing wron – it’s fine, I am – J-just because he said – and I can't even go in the - it’s not even th-that – n-none of this means – it’s just been a v-very – day, and –”

Somehow the panicked and incoherent babbling is worse.

“Jesus,” is all he can offer, still holding the purse out like a fool.

She squeezes her eyes shut, as if trying to block some horrible and mortifying memory out, and buries her face in her hands again, giving up on her explanation. Her cheeks are red, with embarrassment and probably exhaustion. Lassiter is exhausted, and he’d definitely feel embarrassed if he was her. His stomach churns with discomfort. As he lamely uses the yarn to blot at the dribble of coffee that’s transferred onto his rumpled tie, he notices that his shirt is stained. Dirt and gravel and just one smear of blood, right over his stomach, where Shawn’s hand fumbled as Lassiter and Henry helped him get upright and against the car's vaguely cushioned backseat while they waited for the paramedics. 

He’s not stupid, or blind, no matter what the rest of the world likes to presume sometimes. He knows that whatever juvenile attachment O’Hara has to the Great And Irritating Thorn In His Side goes beyond the platonic and has elbowed itself into something greater than the immature and saccharine attraction that was regularly horrifying and – only sometimes – mildly amusing. Spencer is an idiot; O’Hara is not. 

Doesn’t make any of today feel different, though. 

He feels his shoulders sag. He feels the adrenaline drain out of him. He feels a surge of strange, complicated protectiveness trip over its metaphorical feet and land face-first in the back part of his throat, angry somehow, on her behalf – it’s difficult to explain precisely why – and then, through some cosmic magic that Shawn would probably claim he can commune with and Carlton absolutely does not believe in, his mouth opens of its own accord and her name comes out a second time, with more gentleness than he knew himself genuinely capable of:

“Juliet,” he says. 

Still awkward, and stilted, but maybe three percent less of a disaster. He watches his partner’s – his friend’s – mouth snap shut in surprise. He watches her sniff, and look at him a little desperately, a little lost, like even she’s not sure what to do with whatever horrible and unavoidable human indignity just accosted them. 

Lassiter swallows painfully and casts around for something else to say.

“You – you want a ride home?” he finally lands on.

Thank God: she nods. Exhaling loudly, he holds his arm out and the door open while Juliet scrambles to her feet in those confounding heels and accepts her bulky purse and his poorly-delivered grace with simple, slowly-settling determination. Or maybe it’s just plain relief.

He can work with that, he thinks, before absently raising one of the coffee cups to his mouth and immediately choking on the awful bitter sludge that is her black, one Stevia order.

“Oh, Carlton, this is undrinkable,” he hears her croak beside him, in between his own disgusted spluttering. He wonders miserably if Karen’s already worked her way through the interrogation he was so looking forward to conducting. “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack twenty years premature …”

One of these days, he thinks again, wondering how many Tylenols it’ll take to kick the day’s headache. 

Spencer, chained to that desk armpit.

Forty-eight whole hours.

It’s a blissful fantasy that wouldn’t be possible if the man wasn’t going to be perfectly, one hundred percent alright, but that’s neither here nor there, just now; he said he would get his partner home.

The rest, he'll just have to figure out later.

[fandomtrashcan]

Robbie Reyes, poverty and being stuck in survival mode.

(Or why does he keep making questionable choices)

Edited. The core of this is that he's not dumb, he's not just desperate, he's also trapped in this perpetual state of fight or flight that stunts his ability to assess the consequences of his actions in the long term and damages his ability to relax and enjoy things in benefit of staying alert for immediate threats. And he's been in this state for so long that he's not even aware of it. Because poverty and violence are traumatizing, and there is plenty of that in Hillrock Heights. 

You can just read this first paragraph instead of the long ass essay I wrote because I was bored in a 3 hour flight. Also probably a plane is not the best place to redact things that make sense, so this is why this has been edited. Beware that I did not have internet connection so some of the wording and terms might be wrong because I was translating in my head to my best ability. More under the cut

The survival mode activates when you are in grave danger, allowing you to stay more alert of threats and react faster. It rushes you with cortisol and adrenaline, and activates your fight or flight instincts. It's supposed to last only while the threat is active, not stay on at all times. If it does, there are consequences.

It is hard to get out of the survival mode, because most of the time you are not even aware of it, but it's even harder if most people around you act the same way.

Having the survival state as default is what happens when humans stay in traumatic and stressful situations for too long. It affects your ability to priorize your well being in the long term, and analyze the lasting repercussions of your actions, focusing instead in immediate threats and rewards. After all, what's the point in focusing in long term goals if you don't survive long enough to reap the benefits? Robbie does have long term goals (getting out of Hillrock Heights, dating Lisa), but he is terrible at assessing the consequences of his choices in the long run.

Being stuck in survival mode also damages your ability to just relax and enjoy things, because if you chill too much you might miss the threats around you. Because your brain evolved to priorize making sure you stayed alive over making you happy.

Poverty on itself is already traumatizing. The stress of not knowing if you'll be able to pay rent, meds or grosseries takes a toll. But Hillrock Heights is actively dangerous. There is gang violence. Gunshots are a common thing. People, even young people like Robbie, die on the streets. With the rampant drug trafficking I'm 100% sure that at this point most people know or has heard of someone who has died of overdose. You gotta learn to be alert and pay attention to your surroundings, because you don't want to mess with the wrong people or be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

There is this collective trauma and shared desperation that gets ingrained in the culture of places like Hillrock Heights. There aren't a lot of opportunities there, so you learn to take what you can get. You keep your mind fast and your hands even faster, because if you don't take the chance somebody else will reach it before you do. You'll think about the details later because if you stop to think now, that  rare, shining opportunity might be gone forever. It's a ruthless, dog eat dog world.

So if you look at it that way, I think it makes perfect sense why Robbie joins that race. The prize is unusually high and there is a car in Canelo's that just happens to be good enough for him to actually give him a chance at winning. When is he gonna have an opportunity to get his hands in that amount of money ever again? So of course he "borrows" the drug dealers car to participate in the very probably drug dealer sponsored race. He'll think about the details later, once he has the money.

And then everything goes to hell.

Even his reaction to discovering that he's possessed makes sense. He has powers now. That gives him  an unique advantage over everybody else. Of course he's going to use it to try to improve his and Gabe's life, he's trying to climb from the bottom of the pit of the social ladder so they can have better chances at surviving.

I think this mentality explains Robbie's choices, but also some of Guero's and his friends. And it's not even a conscious thing, most of the time.

Other people have already pointed this out, but it seems that while Robbie takes pride in cooking for Gabe, he sees food more like fuel when it comes to himself. Relaxing and just enjoying things is hard for him and I think it also shows in his relationship with Lisa.

Speaking about that. He's, at this point, walking around the neighborhood beating the shit out of gang members. He transforms into a demon. He's possessed and his car is haunted. He knows now that the asshole that lives in his head cannot be trusted. 

Not the best grounds to start a relationship. It doesn't even seem like he's planning on ever opening up to her about that, to be honest, because when Lisa tries to reach him at his house and connect with him, he's emotionally unavailable. 

How are you even gonna make that work in the long-term, Robbie?

Well. He is not planning long-term. Not that he wouldn't want to be with her long-term, mind you. He is just way too focused on the immediate threats. Like Eli, pestering in his head. So he doesn't even get to relax and fully enjoy his time with her most of the time, because he's busy arguing with Eli, who won't shut up. 

I think that deep down he knows that his circumstances are not the best for a relationship. That's one of the reasons why he hasn't made a move, as she puts, even if he likes her and is starting to realize that she likes him too. But when she basically throws herself at him... Well, that's too good of a chance to say no. He really likes her, and maybe he can get to enjoy this tiny beacon of happiness in the middle of all the despair. He gets to "have something for himself". Maybe he can have this, just for once. 

He'll... figure out the details later.

So yeah, he's a traumatized young man, surrounded by traumatized people. Because poverty sucks.

[joanofexys]

tell me about cult shit (every time I read your cult posts I feel super enlightened I think it’s great that you’re sharing your experience because I feel like it teaches so many others including me) specifically about things cults do to normalize their actions? idk if that makes sense but I was thinking about how jean thought that what he went through was something he deserved and like normal punishments etc

yay cult shit!

warning: this got long and i think i veered off topic and a lot of it is incoherent. To sum it up, there's a lot of ways that cults manage to normalize things. And a lot of it boils down to your brain not wanting to admit you're trapped and that it's worse than you thought.

A lot of it is subtle integration. If you're not learning it from birth and they're trying to convert you they're obviously not going to hit you with the worst of the worst right off the bat.

This is a rough comparison because it is comparing two forms of abuse and two traumas but it's the best I can think of right now. It's kind of similar to how domestic abuse in relationships can work. A man hits his girlfriend for the first time. He swears it won't happen again. She accepts that. It obviously happens again. And grows more frequent over time.

A lot of cults don't function off of physical abuse. At least not as their foundation. A lot of cult members are physically abused, are more likely to end up in relationships where they will be abuse victims, and in many husband/wife relationships or parent/child relationships there can be physical abuse present. But that's often not what a cult sustains itself on. But it is does to a similar thing to physical abuse where it eases into things and as people are manipulated and get in too deep then the abuse becomes more obvious or more frequent.

With the way I grew up it was largely that I came to associate unnatural punish/consequence as natural consequences. A child drops a plate. Natural consequence: they clean up the mess (with help, if needed). Unnatural consequence: some form of corporal punishment. This is a specific example that we still see very frequently. Many kids who grrew up being hit or spanked do still believe that it is a natural thing/natural consequence. Your child misbehaves and therefore the "natural" consequence is that you spank them. Obviously we have evidence and psychological studies that contradict this. But that doesn't change the fact that based on the way many people were raised they still believe that to be a natural punishment.

Cults work similarly. Growing up if I messed up there wasn't often a natural or connected punishment. The obvious answer, or the consequences for my actions, were often based in religious/cult related things. It erases the sense of the natural consequences and replaces them with things ingrained in the cult. Until it seems natural.

I'd honestly assume the ravens work similarly. You mess up a drill and instead of re-running it you get hit and then you do it again. It adds the factor of physical abuse into the process until it becomes a regular and expected part of it. Until it seems like the obvious thing.

There's also the aspect of fear and fear mongering. I thought I deserved certain things because I had sinned. Because I was going to hell and that was something I feared greatly. Anything that comes from a higher power is deserved. Whether that's a god or a cult leader or anyone else above you. And a huge part of that probably factors into Jean's abuse and his sense of deserving. He has never held a position of power over Riko in any form. Not in name, not on the court, not anywhere. Riko has always been above him. And even when Jean fought back that was something that still existed. There's a huge power play involved there and your mind and body can only put up that fight for so long before fear wins out.

When there's no clear out you will eventually succumb to it and normalize it. To put it in very simple terms. Jean could never get up and walk out. And there was only so much abuse and torment that his mind and body could withstand before he learned to give in. Before he learned that Riko, and Tetsuji, were things to be afraid of.

You don't just get up and walk out of a cult. Maybe in the early days, but they don't show you the worst of it early on. But once you're in it becomes normal because there's no way to leave. So you have to rationlize it. Justify it. Find a reason why it's the way it is. Obviously for Jean it was abusive from the get go. And that was because he has absolutely no out. For the other Ravens they could, in theory, drop out at any point. But that's not how cults work. Even if it seems like there's a way to leave, most cult members can't see it. You never know you're in a cult till you leave it. Why would you be looking for the exit?

[billpottsismygf]

The Devil's Chord! This was my most highly anticipated episode of the series because of The Beatles - who I'm very nostalgic for, sue me - but they had a much smaller part than I expected. That may be for the best, as the actors don't look anything like the real deal, but they did an admirable job considering the circumstances.

I love the idea behind this one. I'm a musician myself and love things about music. Music being important, music being holy, I love it all. Everything from Maestro playing us into the theme tune, to the way it aligns with the characters' established personalities (the Doctor's jukebox and Ruby's band), made me very happy. The music battle was especially cool. Very The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Out there, but I liked it a lot.

Maestro was also a lot. I liked them, though. Great costumes, great performance. A campy villain in the best way. They're the Toymaker's child, which is interesting in itself, and I like that the rules around fair play seemed to extend to them as well.

There was a lot of series arc stuff here. So, Ruby has Carol of the Bells deeply ingrained within her. There was some important figure (another of the Pantheon, presumably) at her birth - is Ruby herself a child of the Pantheon? More snow, as well. There's also the One Who Waits coming up again. It all feels a little too self-conscious and crammed in - "remember, there's pay-off coming for these random mysteries that you have no context for!". I know we live in an era of heavily serialised media, in large part because of streaming and the binge model, and obviously Doctor Who has been semi-serialised since the revival, but it just seems like a lot. Maybe even too much, especially since the first episode was quite heavy with it too.

Although, I did wonder if this one was meant to be later in the series. First Ruby saying "you never hide" and then "you always know what to do" signaled a far longer association with the Doctor than she has had, but then it was especially jarring when she said it was hard to keep track of when her time is and it could be June or July... That sounds like someone who's been travelling with the Doctor for a while, not like someone who's on their second trip. And it was Christmas for her only last episode. Obviously there can be off-screen trips, but usually for the first couple of episodes we want to feel that this is the start of their journey as the audience gets to know them. Did this get plucked from later in the series and dropped into the episode 2 slot? Because it seems a bit of a shame, if so.

There was a lot of fourth wall breaking in this one as well. There was a wink to camera each from Maestro and the Doctor, as well as the Doctor's comment about thinking the music was non-diegetic (a nice little moment that probably a lot of people will miss). I do quite like a meta moment, and particularly loved the Twelfth Doctor's partaking in them, but I wonder if these serve a particular purpose, because we also had Mrs Flood talking to camera at the end of the Christmas special. Since RTD seems to be going with a theme that the rules of the universe have changed and become a bit more magical, I wouldn't be surprised if the meta elements tied in somehow.

Then, this is less meta and more fully surreal, but that whole ending musical number was... odd. I don't know what I think about it yet. The Doctor with his wink and "there's always a twist at the end" seemed to signal that we were leaving the normal reality of the show, but then... Did that musical number literally happen? How about the Abbey Road zebra crossing acting like a piano? It's part of my specific brand of autism that I struggle with surreal things when it's not clear how/whether they relate to the more realistic things going on, so maybe other people love it. It just made me feel confused, though, and slightly annoyed. I expected a musical number because the trailers showing this made that fairly clear, but I'd assumed it would be explicitly connected to the strange happenings of the episode. Instead it's just plonked at the end after everything has been fixed.

A lot of this latter stuff sounds quite negative, but overall I really liked this one! As I said before, the music stuff speaks to me personally very much, and I'll withhold final judgement about the serialisation stuff and even the meta/surreal stuff, as it may well pay off yet.

Small things

Love their outfits so much, and obviously we've known about them for a while, but it was funny they were worried about blending in when both of them (especially Ruby) were wearing pretty 60s adjacent outfits at the start. The Doctor was more 70s, but I don't think many people would have looked askance.

Ahhhh, Fifteen mentioning that One was in the junkyard made me exceedingly happy! The speculation about what happened to Susan also has me hoping beyond hope that this might be set-up for a Susan return.

I loved that extended instrumental scene where Ruby just played on the rooftop and people listened. It was quite moving!

Love hearing the word "lesbians" on Doctor Who <3 - I don't think even Bill explicitly got to use that word!

Just the general queerness is really nice. Ruby writing a song for her friend's gay break up. Maestro being they/them and it not really being a thing beyond their introduction. Ruby's mum having a "girlfriend" who was a Beatles fan that makes me wonder if that's in the platonic or gay sense.

I want to know the behind the scenes details of how they chose the music they did, especially when it comes to the chords that both summon and banish Maestro.

Henry the child is real and alive at the end! (Though it's during the musical number, so I guess real is dubious.) When he vanished into nothingness (and his music teacher didn't seem to care), I had thought he wasn't real. Does he have his own world-ending powers?

The Doctor referring to bigeneration as having had his soul "torn in half". Hmm, don't like that! I won't rehash my feelings on bigeneration here, but this implies that there is not continuity between the end of Fourteen and the start of Fifteen, which mucks up one of the only ways I could hold onto being just about okay with it.

[driven-to-abstraction]

So a theory I've developed that I surprisingly haven't seen anywhere else on the internet (by which I mean here on Tumblr bc I'm not actually anywhere else on the internet these days) is this:

Will Ferrell's character. The Mattel CEO.

This guy. This guy is a Ken who wandered into the real world and stayed there.

Think about it. Despite being framed as very much the villain of the story (at least the part in the Real World), the CEO never has any aggression toward Barbie. He wants her to go back to Barbieland because he's concerned for the ramifications to both realms if she doesn't. When they meet in person he is awed and respectful and-- dare I say it-- understanding of what she's been through since she came to the Real World. He isn't surprised when she doesn't know how to drink real water. He never threatens or commands her. He suggests she get back in the box so she can go home, but even when she evades and asks to go to the bathroom first, he lets her go without question. Because why would he ever question Barbie?

Even when Barbie escapes and the executives are chasing her through the building, the CEO comes face-to-face with her at one point, but does he grab her? No. She screams, and he screams, and they both keep running in opposite directions.

That feels like Kenergy, but maybe that's just me.

Also, he knows how to get to and from Barbieland. I can see how maybe, if it's something that can happen, Mattel executives might get briefed on the possibility of a Barbie entering the Real World and what to do if it happens, but I can't imagine the particulars of the journey itself are common knowledge. Yet this guy knows it immediately.

ALSO also, the bit that sticks out in my mind is his conversation with the other executives as they start making their way to Barbieland (which is now transforming into Kendomland). When they hear about the success of the Mojo Dojo Casa House playsets and the new Ken movie and everything that's changing, he's upset. The other executives even say, "what does it matter if we're still making money?" and he has his whole mini-rant about how that's not the point. He's not in this for the money, he's in it for the little girls, and the imagination, and the power that Barbie should have. Now, that doesn't sound like the opinion of an (admittedly bumbling) executive in the otherwise painfully accurate Real World. It sounds more like a holdover of a Ken's ingrained adoration of Barbie and everything she represents.

Not to mention that Allan explains to Gloria and Sasha (when he's trying to convince them to take him with them to the Real World) that others have left Barbieland and stayed in the Real World. At the time, he's referring specifically to Allans, but who's to say it couldn't happen to a Ken? In the original order of things, Kens aren't much more important than Allans, and might be equally unlikely to shift either world in a noticeable way. And if a Ken did manage to wander into the Real World, is it such a stretch to think he might have had a similar patriarchy awakening as the Ken we know, and also ended up at Mattel (like Barbie did), but instead of being captured, he could have talked his way into a position there (thanks, patriarchy) and worked his way up from there?

And he knows there are no real weapons in Barbieland. And I'm pretty sure he's the only man in the Real World (including Ken) we ever see wearing iconic Barbie pink. And, in the end, he's just happy things got back to normal and he's willing to give Barbie whatever ending she wants.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk.