#throwing a lot of survivors under the bus by telling them there is only one specific way trauma should be dealt with

[kunstpause]

I am really tired of the discourse already, but there is one thing I need to get off my chest:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with anyone who finds catharsis in the darker Astarion ending, no matter what loud voices online want to make you believe.

You are not wrong or immoral or in any way a bad person for using this narrative in a game exactly the way it is meant to-as an outlet for things that are rarely an option or maybe even undesirable in real life. You are not wrong for finding peace in revenge. This is a story, it is supposed to evoke strong emotions, and the virtual reality of a video game is a wonderful outlet because it has no consequences for anyone else, ever.

And finding joy/healing/relief in the thought of turning the tables on your abuser does not make you a bad person, it makes you very human. And once more, there is nothing wrong with exploring that via media. In fact, that is probably one of the healthiest ways to engage with these feelings.

So embrace what you're feeling, and please know that it says nothing about your actual morals or what kind of person you are, no matter what others want to make you think. Everyone deals with trauma differently, and it's not always pretty, and that is completely ok!

[starlightshadowsworld]

I'm gonna end up bashing Kirigiri a lot in this one.

I do actually like her I swear but this bit... Nope. So... You've been warned.

You know what really pisses me off about Makoto's trial situation.

It's not even the execution.

Like I get it, you know?

Someone had to die.

And the two most suspicious individuals especially in the trial were Makoto and Kirigiri.

And Makoto was very much protecting Kirigiri and thus dodging the questions.

Which isn't exactly the best strategy, even without Kirigiri throwing him under the bus.

It was rigged by Monokuma.

We're honestly just lucky everyone voted the same person.

I don't like it.

I think it's scummy but so are the rest of the trials.

So I can deal with that.

I can even understand Kirigiri's rather blunt point that she gets Makoto was protecting her.

But that she couldn't bring herself to do the same.

I get it.

Its easy to say you would die for a person you care about but being in that situation is hard.

You can never truly know what you'll do.

And Kirigiri has a lot of self preservation.

So it makes sense to her character she wouldn't.

And she told it to him straight.

Which for Kirigiri, someone who is notorious for hiding things from people.

It's a big step for her to honestly admit her feelings like that.

I respect that.

Does it hurt?

Absolutely but it's the truth, and she owes it to Makoto to give him the truth.

To tell him that yes she did do what she did.

She can't change what happened but she almost lost him, the only person she has left.

And in doing so she realises how important he is to her.

That Kirigiri snuck down here with the hope he had survived, that she would never have forgiven herself if she had caused his death.

Kirigiri was left in a world without Makoto in it and it wasn't a world she wanted to live in.

And so, she's going to protect him too.

Because they are a team, she can't do this without him and so they are going to end this nightmare.

Together.

Except... None of this happens.

Instead of a possible heart touching moment between two survivors.

Even an apology.

Kirigiri says "and not to make excuses but" and tells Makoto that it was very important that she survived.

She's found out her talent, she's the Ultimate Detective.

And so her survival is important as she's the only one to defeat the mastermind.

... And that's when I flipped the table.

This.

This is the bit that just pisses me off.

Because it's not "I could have gotten you killed, my hands were tied in a death game and I made the difficult choice that will haunt me forever."

No.

It comes across as I have to live because my talent is more important than yours.

Thus your survival is not as important as mine.

Which is so incredibly fucked up.

It's basically the Danganronpa equivalent of eugenics.

Your talent is objectively lesser than my talent so you deserve to die so I can live.

I hate this.

I hate this sooo much.

I wasn't even playing I was watching a play through and I wanted to rage quit.

How fucking dare you.

You didn't even know what your talent was for the entire game.

But now you do, somehow now your the most valuable person here?

Like Makoto hadn't been destroying himself. Trying to keep everyone alive.

Basically carrying all the trials on his back.

And she spends the rest of the time talking about her talent and such.

And just wow how did you make Makoto almost dying about you?

That's impressive.

Also, you know who else does something like this.

Someone who finds out the main character has a lesser/no talent and than proceeds to treat them like shit for it?

Nagito.

You know, Nagito the guy everyone whether you love him or hate em can all agree is cuckoo in the coconuts?

That Nagito.

Nagito spends the whole game friendly to Hajime but also extremely hot and cold with him.

Only to learn that Hajime is a reserve course student, thus without talent.

And proceeds to turn a 180 and berate and insult him for it.

And minus that last part, very similiar to Kirigiri.

Even down to the fact both are hiding huge secrets from everyone.

The only real difference is Nagito doesn't see his talent as impressive, but in the face of no talent Hajime?

It's makes him better than him.

It means that Hajime is beneath him.

But when Nagito does it it's fucked and when Kirigiri does it it's cool I guess.

But you know what the icing on the cake is?

Kirigiri is someone who generally keeps a stoic face.

She's unflappable, she's always serious and cool headed.

Gives me the ice queen with a heart of gold vibes.

But in this scene, Kirigiri is smiling.

She's telling Makoto how her life means more than his, and she's smiling.

Now I actually like Kirigiri.

Shocking I know.

I do, I like her and I know she's in Danganronpa 3 and I can't wait to see her in it.

But this?

Fuck this.

Fuck her.

Fuck all of this.

I know the Kirigiri stans are gonna rip me a new one like they do everytime I talk about Makoto's trial.

But I don't care.

And Makoto's a better person than me cos I'd have just sat in the corner of the trial room.

Like oh I thought you were so talented and this was your whole reason for being here.

And you're the only person who can beat the mastermind.

I'm gonna go get actual pain killers and a bed that doesn't come with murderers.

Okay, baiiiii.

You know for someone who's Jin Kirigiri's apparently neglected daughter...

... He sure passed on his fucked up ideology to her.

[jeremycollinsstan]

in defense of emily's move last night

okay so basically i had the night to think abt it and tbh i rly should be studying and doing work for finals but i can't move on until i've said my comprehensive piece on this.

note: my opinions r not all original as i've watched the know-it-alls and have been occasionally checking the reddit but here are my thoughts:

bruce. emily knows bruce is a polarizing and erratic player. at the start of the episode, she vocalized that its very very hard to make a move with the belos because they are such a fractured group, specifically with bruce being the core of that rupture within belo. it would be completely out of character for her to say something so logical at the top of the episode then, later, do something completely contradictory.

katurah. at the sanctuary, she watched katurah throw bruce under the bus and immediately reveal his lie about the idol. while i don't necessarily fault katurah for doing that, it also showed emily that katurah and bruce were simply never going to work together. if they can't even pull together to tell a single lie, why would she move forward with such an unconnected pair?

women. she keeps the women in the game. side note, i know a lot of people have hated on emily for ratting out the all-womens alliance in the kellie boot episode but in kellie's exit press with rob c, she said that the women's alliance was basically a non-factor and almost no one, at that time, thought it was real so...take that how you will. anyway, this point is mostly speculation on my part and, in all honesty, is likely to be completely disproven in the next episode but there has been a lot of focus on drew + austin + emily as the trio she's most tightly entangled with. however, at the sanctuary, there was a lot of talk about a woman winning the game and big bonding moments between the women. i'm a bit of a edgic tin hatter but why would they keep that in the show if a woman wasn't going to win or if the women don't come together in some way? maybe, because of the reward, emily is now seeing a path forward with dee + julie or even katurah. by eliminating bruce, she keeps the women's numbers up against the mens. **NOTE: this is pure speculation and i'm going to be hella embarrassed when that doesn't happen next week but, hey, a girl can dream, i guess. so much of my survivor watching experience is pure delusion!**

jury management. emily has been jury managing her ASS off. she is leveraging her position as the sole lulu left to disseminate information to people on the bottom and i LOVE it. stephen pointed out that her brutal honesty really worked with jake in last nights episode. she basically told him the information he needed to hear about drew targeting him (which, in turn, strengthened her relationship with jake as he had been desiring both a human and game connection) while also not being the one to make a move either way. she said "i'm in a good position right now so i can't." if anyone else had said that, jake probably would've gotten pissed at them but he understood where emily was coming from as she is the lone lulu left the game. furthermore, it seems from the edit that the jury is giving her sole credit for the bruce move (deserved, honestly) which bruce will probably only echo when he gets to ponderosa as she, seemingly, had been the one to convince him not to play his idol. i think she's been using the adam klein brutal honesty strategy to great effect. shes probably doing it better than adam did it, honestly lmfao. it may blow up in her face if drew and jake come together to compare notes but right now it seems to be working well.

finally, timing. i think that if she pulled trigger on the julie move, it would've been way too early. by getting rid of julie this round, she would open herself up as a target to dee + drew + austin, who probably all see katurah and jake as more of a goat than they see her to be. she would've revealed herself to a) be against reba (which dee is staunchly and vindictively against) and b) the most strategic person of the last three non-reba remaining. if she pulled the move against julie then, at best, for the next round, she could force a tie with katurah and jake but honestly they seem more interested in being the fifth reba than working against the power alliance so that wouldn't be ideal either. i think that by holding back, she's hoping to find and exploit a crack later in the very endgame. whether there even will be a crack remains to be seen.

tldr; i can't say with 100% confidence that financial analyst emily flippen will win the game but i think her move last night to vote out bruce is being way over-hated and i can honestly see a lot of merit and her thinking behind it. she's a logical player and, given the cards she has, i think it was a pretty logical move.

[jimintomystery]

Kyoko headcanons

[Above: "And now I spend my time looking all around / For a man that's nowhere to be found"]

This is easily my favorite Danganronpa character; I'm not even sure I'd like Danganronpa if she weren't in it. I'd need a whole other post to explain why I just think she's neat. So let's just get into the stuff I like to think about her...

Kyoko's fixation on her father is a fixation on what she can't have. Whether Jin Kirigiri loves her or not, whether he left by choice or coersion, whether he's far away or nearby, whether he's alive or dead...these details just move the problem around. The problem is that Kyoko needs more from Jin than he ever provided, and she hates that she needs it. It's a weakness she can't afford and doesn't want to expose, and she certainly doesn't want to make it worse by getting this attached to anyone else.

Ostensibly, Kyoko represses her feelings to maintain her objectivity as a detective, and focus on the truth. But deep down, she's become overreliant on that discipline to avoid dealing with her trauma. By age 16 it's like keeping a wild bull locked up in a pen, and she's reluctant to crack the gate open even a little. She associates her deepest emotions with anxiety, which in turn makes her anxious about revealing them, creating a feedback loop.

The Killing Game in Trigger Happy Havoc strains Kyoko's resolve like nothing else could. It's terrible in general that the kids' memories were wiped, but Kyoko finds this violation particularly offensive. Moreover, the amnesia resets her to a critical moment, when she's defied family tradition by revealing herself as a detective so she can finally confront her father. So she's already got a lot to bottle up and then on top of that she's trapped and people are dying and so on.

Only under this particular strain, I think, could she lower her guard enough to get so close with Makoto. And even then, "close" means she's pretty rude and bossy to him. But I think the arc of their relationship is that she sees something special in him during the first trial, and then she gets frustrated when he doesn't quickly live up to her expectations, and then she's impressed that he could believe in her. She has no choice in the fifth trial but to throw him under the bus, and she feels awful about it because she's grown fond of him in spite of herself. (And she feels awful about growing fond, just in principle.) Rescuing him and revealing her secrets to him is as close as she can come to embracing their bond instead of downplaying it.

I don't think Kyoko and Makoto's bond has to be romantic, but I choose to interpret it that way because it makes me happy. If you've read my fanfic you'll notice I had them kiss almost immediately after escaping the school, because I am impatient. For me the core of this relationship is Kyoko slowly accepting that she's worthy of being loved, even when she's being kind of a jerk. On the other end of things, Makoto accepts her for who she is (rather than what he might want her to become), but he has to remember he can accept her without being a pushover about it. They both have to put in the work, and they rise to the challenge.

Once Kyoko and Makoto admit their feelings, they agree to keep it to themselves. (Kyoko can barely talk about this stuff to Makoto, much less anyone else.) Over time, the other THH survivors eventually put two and two together, but they don't let on. Any ideas about revealing the relationship are cut short when Kyoko becomes Makoto's boss at the Future Foundation. The conflict of interest would force one of them to transfer to another division, and they can't bear to be separated.

I think the ending of Danganronpa 3 implies Kyoko is Makoto's subordinate at the reopened academy, but I don't like that at all. So I choose to believe she's telling him "they're waiting for you" because she's the one who brought "them" to the school, in her purview as the Foundation's head of PR. Since Makoto is heading up his own thing now, the conflict of interest problem is resolved. They've worked it out so they can each run their divisions from within the campus (or at least from within Tokyo) so work doesn't keep them apart too much.

Kyoko and Hina obviously grow very close between THH and DR3, but I don't think that happened right away. Coming out of THH I think they're friendly but mostly in a "part of the gang" kind of way, not because of any particular one-on-one connection. But Makoto is Hina's best friend, and she thinks he has a shot with Kyoko, so she would make it her business to get to know Kyoko better. Eventually Hina is as close to Kyoko as anyone can be without really knowing all her dark secrets and stuff.

I think Byakuya and Hiro are both a little intimidated by Kyoko. Byakuya hides it pretty well, but Kyoko can still tell, and she likes it. Hiro openly wonders if she's a evil spirit or something. As Hiro gets to know her, he settles into a mentality of "well, at least she's our evil spirit," and stops worrying that she's going to eat his soul or whatever. Kyoko finds Hiro foolish and irrational, but she can't completely dismiss his belief in the supernatural, given that she can hear the footsteps of the god of death.

Toko finds Kyoko super creepy as fuck, but since Toko is also super creepy as fuck it sort of cancels out. She sees past the aura of "super spooky relentless detective" and recognizes an edgelord loner that's too smart to make friends--takes one to know one. This becomes oddly endearing over time. Of course, Toko is even less willing to admit she's made a friend than Kyoko is, so whatever connection they have is so lowkey that it's almost undetectable. But it's there, which Makoto and Komaru find adorable.

I could probably go on and on about this kid, but I gotta draw the line somewhere. If you want to hear more Kyoko thoughts, feel free to bug me whenever.

[meltingpenguins]

Dead by Daylight is a mean-spirited sociopsychological experiment

YMMV, but this is not entirely tongue-in-cheek.

There's a lot of games that are frustrating and taxing. But games like 'Getting Over It' have the reward of being able to tell the game to go fuck itself whenever one did get to a new, remotely safe area, as short as this satisfaction may last.

Other games have frustrating elements in the form of tedious quests, tough, multi-phase bosses or brain-wrangling puzzles. But for the most part, they all reward you in a way appropriate for the hassle.

Dead By Daylight? Not so much.

What are the 'rewards' that supposedly reflect how well you did?

Bloodpoints (and pips)

Iri Shards

Achievements

However, are these rewards in practice? Answer, of course, is 'No'.

Let's start with achievements:

Achievements come in various flavours throughout the gaming world (in order of satisfaction):

Rewarding skillfull and creative playing

Changing gameplay for a specific outcome, in a way that is NOT hindering the progress

Changing gameplay for a specific outcome, in a way that IS hindering the progress

Playing the game

DbD seems to have only achievements of the lowest two ranks. Even achievements that at first glance look as if they reward skillfull playing often come with a requirement that turns it into slogging, dreary work that's more counterproductive to playing the game than it is making things interesting. Most commonly seems to be the 'in one match' caveat (or similar expressions) that will only add to the frustration due to something that would have been doable often now requires the stars to align.

The other kind of achievements DbD offers boils down to plain grinding.

So here we have a 'reward' that isn't really a reward, but one source of frustration without fitting payoff.

Next point: Iri Shards.

This one is another 'just play the game' reward that yet still comes with a high level of frustration: Various content creators have done the math on how useless shards are, and how massive the grind is if you actually want to use shards to buy outfits or characters.

So, another 'reward' that isn't one.

And now, for the worst offender: BloodPoints and Pips

BP are the only thing in the game that are made out to reflect how well you did. Or do they?

There's constant arguing whether the game is killer or survivor sided. I'd say it's neither. It's scumbag sided.

What is the most surefire way to gain the highest amount of BP and pips? Play scummy as killer. Trying to play skilfull and fair won't give you as high a payoff as slugging, tunneling and camping. Similar on survivor side: you get more points for endangering your fellow teammates and/or throwing them under the bus than for playing well (an example is unhooking under the killers nose, making a run for it, and then immediately coming back to do the same thing with the tunneled teammate)

And the game seems to be designed to have this happen, as if to increase the toll playing it might take on the player.

Be it mechanics already in the game that could very well counter camping etc being handwaved by the devs as not applicable. And no explanation why (e.g. there's several elements that take into account how close someone's to a hook and what they are doing. To the point it even influences the pip calculation. But making it so that if you camp you get a de-buff is impossible somehow)

There's update after update that seems intended to make the game more obnoxious, less fun and less fair for all sides, all while the devs claim that they are only reacting to community feedback.

Leaving the community wonder just what part is meant. Cause even people that stouthearted defend camping etc are baffled.

Therefore, one really has to wonder if Dead By Daylight is nothing but a malicious psychological experiment meant to test for how long pointless, pretentious rewards like bloodpoints will keep someone playing, even if the frustration, anger and tediousness are taking a genuine toll on someone's health.

[sock-to-the-third]

Dead Space

By Kali Wallace

Let’s just say, combining kick ass writing, lil jab at capitalism, living in space and a cute ass artificial intelligence called mother-fucking BUG— how the fuck am I not supposed to fall in love with your writing Wallace.

*from a distance* JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ITS SO FUCKING GOOD! FUCK*

*calmly adjusts my bow tie*

Anyway…

. . .

Marley

Basically, Marley is a survivor of an extremist’s attack on her exploratory vessel that was meant to chart this distant planet. She accumulated serious injuries due to the fires leading to the loss of her eye, arm and part of her hip I think. (Don’t quote me on that) Since the company Parthenope wasn’t the type for charity, she could only afford the minimum to function. So no better than human sight and plenty of drawbacks.

Circumstances cause it to get brought up, like how stress affects her prosthetics. She can’t clench her fist for too long or it’ll damage it. Plus she does it on accident sometimes. Her hips get fatigued easily when she runs for long periods.

Then there’s the social aspect like how people look at her. Sometimes she’s a sideshow attraction, othertimes its this weird admiration like she’s the next step in humanity’s evolution.

Plus, due to her being in serious debt to the company and all the NDA’s, she can’t get help for them outside of their doctors who treat her like a lab rat and will use any excuse to bring her in for more tests so she’ll do anything to avoid going to the prothetist.

Also, she works with her kinda ex Ryu (they/them) and they got an adorbs platonic dynamic.

The way she describes the trauma she went through and her aching to be reunited with her family on Earth is so palpable yet unable to tell them. (Emotionally, I don’t think anything is physically stopping her from explaining her feelings around being forced into indentured servitude.). Idk, something about her brother talking about his kids and growing up but Marley being unable to see them is so heartwrenching.

I also just love that they’re still in contact. Even if they don’t have page time together, I just love sibling relationships. Hit right in the soul.

Ryu

THEY/THEM-ER FOR THE WIN!!!

Ryu is I think some kind of foresic analyst person??? They collect the evidence CSI style idk. They don’t get a ton of page time but it’s nice seeing rep.

Also, didn’t expect Wallace to dig into Ryu’s background living in some fundamentalist cult who they had to cut contact with who wasn’t cool with their identity I think.

Ryu gets like 2 good scenes and mostly is just spoken about after that. A little lampy tbh but as a minor side character, they vibed.

Adisa

Adisa, Adisa, Adisa, a fella full of surprises and talks in a way that makes me think “ah.. space Canandian.” He’s a survivor from the war against Mars that saw such intense war crimes with AI and nightmarish weapons (like exploding spiders) that all weapons above tasers were banned galaxy wide.

He broke into a prison vessel trying to free the prisoners who were being held indefinitely and starved without trial.

He’s a sweet fella with a steely undertoe that you can’t just help but love.

Also, omfg, he gets so many microaggressions directed toward him. I want to punch like all those characters. Jeez, if they were alive…

Anyway, he gets lots of screentime in Act 1 and 2. I like how he’s not cruel despite him being someone Marley could never trust because if he’s survived the company so far, he’s had to cross a couple lines to keep his job.

Sigrah

GAAAAAWWWD! I hate her so much. Think every HR style manager who covers her ass and throws everyone and anyone under the bus to keep the production train going.

Like, she’s written very compellingly as an antagonist and oo, does it feel good to hate.

Also, just how she outright lies in the 3rd Act in a monotone voice from the cameras like “yo, somebody’s killing us. Send backup” while she’s the one setting the murder spiders on the crew and even killing her accomplice. *chief’s kiss* gotta love a villain who can go all the way.

van Arendonk

An absolutely annoying af uppity lawyer but damn, I didn’t even consider part of it was a front. He helped out Adisa in the past when after breaking into the prison vessel. Attempts to help out Marley after releasing Bug.

There’s this silly moment when they meet in the Weapons Factory where Marley breaks his nose thinking he’s Sigrah and there just arguing and he just seems so human and not some rich above it all fansy pants, idk, he added some fun flare to the story.

Overseer (AI)

I love how Overseer didn’t end up being the end antagonist but used the lock down to attempt to protect the crew.

TvT it’s so endeering. I wish that Overseer had more page time but at the same time, I see how the story would suffer for it since Bug was more vital for what Wallace was going for.

Just makes wish for AI centric stories all the more.

Bug (AI)

1. Cute nickname

2. Can transform into a praying mantis

3. Is baby

4. Love AI kid and parent relationship

Okay, maybe Bug isn’t literally a child. Fucker’s probably mentally older than Marley with how AI’s experience time in this story but still!

My favorite scene by far is when Marley and Bug went to this underwater research facility. There was this mansplainer going on and on about how Marley should do this and that despite his team stealing their AI designs from someone else.

Big thing was Bug was scared of moving around in the water (I think). Routinely curled up and retreated. Then one day Marley told it to “make her proud” and the little guy swam up to the other AI’s vessel, swallowed it, then let go and darted off. All the while the jackass researching is shouting “WTF IS HAPPENING?!!!” Sort of thing and omfg, it’s so adorable how Bug caused all that.

. . .

In conclusion, great book. Awesome writing. Superb suspense and world. I love me some magical prosthetics that can let you be super human but I also love these down to earth ones as well.

[melancholic-pigeon]

a bit of a rant incoming.

Firstly: disclaimer that pulling the marginalization card in a conversation has a lot of problems associated with it, namely that on the internet no one knows you're a dog and literally anyone can say "I AM [MARGINALIZED GROUP] AND I AM AN EXPERT AND [spurious claim]" and you would have no possible way of knowing whether they're lying through their teeth. (And no, you can't always tell; some people are extremely brilliant liars.)

HOWEVER and tangentially related, ~as a disabled trauma survivor~, I'm a little tired of "Listen to [marginalized group]; they all have come to the universal conclusion that [x] is the worst thing in the world to every single one of them!!"

because there's such a thing as competing access needs, and people are different.

Especially when it comes to fucking ships and characters. "listen to assault survivors and stop shipping/liking these characters! It's harmful and ableist to survivors!"

You know what's harmful and ableist to survivors?

Treating us like a monolith and throwing those who disagree with what you've decided is the One True Survivor Opinion under the bus. Yet again.

And that's a problem with the first thing I mentioned, too. Whenever you decide "One opinion is correct and every possible other one is offensive and harmful to [marginalized group]", you are telling members of that marginalized group who disagree that they don't count, they don't matter to you, you're happy to use them as a prop and when you're done you write it off as collateral damage.

I'm not saying that's the intent behind these statements. In my experience, it's people who mean well and haven't really encountered a situation like this, where they have been told something is always beyond redemption and the only people who disagree are monsters, and yet there are people from the exact same group who find the idea that those people are monsters to be offensive— and that can be jarring if it's new to you.

But if we matter to you, you should listen to us, too, not just those of us who share your opinions on fictional characters.

[robotslenderman]

For the 21 questions otp ask, Elisa/Lettow, 3, 6, 11 and 12. I hope that wasn’t too much for you 😊

:3!!!!

OTP ask box game.

3. What is your favourite AU/prompt idea/trope for your pairing?

Favourite AU is the one where Lettow didn’t lose track of Elisa and managed to adopt her.

It did... not work out well at first, lol. Lettow had severe depression and had never had a childe before and had no idea what to do with her. Elisa had gone absolutely feral after three months of surviving night-to-night and sleeping in burrows she’d dug herself.

Over those three months Elisa had slowly gone batshit insane. In canon, Lampago scraped her out of it and taught her some survival skills, but this takes place earlier, before Elisa could do anything more than solve intra-kindred issues with “run away or claw their face off.” So in this AU Elisa has gone from a kind, generous and loving vet nurse that loved animals... to this near-wight who actually killed a couple of kindred over territory disputes.

Basically, she couldn’t control her Beast and was getting awfully close to wighting herself. In canon this was reversed by her watching Lampago and fighting hard not to be like her -- in this AU she doesn’t have a bad example to warn her away from going down that path, so she keeps indulging the Beast’s impulses by killing her prey and anyone trying to claim her territory.

Eventually it got bad enough that Lettow intervened before the Prince could put a blood hunt on her head (or his).

At first Lettow had a hard problem just keeping her around -- Elisa kept running away because she’d be overwhelmed or pissed off enough. Each time Lettow would give her a few nights then reappear at her burrow and talk her into coming back, because if she stayed out on her own there was no way she wouldn’t wind up killing someone else and he was highkey really worried the Prince would have her executed.

(Dove thought this was hilarious and that Lettow reaped what he sowed. “You left her so she could learn to survive on her own. Well, now she’s trying to do what you wanted her to do!”)

Needless to say, Elisa developed a Reputation among the Kindred of Tucson for being Lettow’s feral, low-humanity brat.

It did reach a turning point. In canon Lettow wouldn’t give her Stellaluna for thirty years, but in this one he had the same idea and gifted her her own famulus -- that little vampire bat she named Stellaluna. A bit of Elisa’s old humanity came back enough at the gesture that he was able to get through to her, and bond with her through teaching her animalism. Her love for Stellaluna, and her being touched at Lettow’s gesture, was a counterbalance to the Beast.

Yep, that’s right, Elisa had an emotional support vampire bat.

He’d been so desperate he’d seriously considered blood binding her to him until they both got her out of it; a blood bond would have made her so attached to him and desperate to please him it would have given her positive emotions to help lift her out of it instead of primal instinct and impulse, and would have given her willpower to fight her Beast at his behest.

Years later, she’d mention to Lettow that she attributed this phase of her life to severe depression. And he’d be like, “no, you weren’t depressed, you were turning into a wight.”

6. Least favourite canon moment of them?

I honestly can’t think of any explicit moments. All that comes to mind are concepts (that Elisa couldn’t bitch at Lettow about the blood bag thing) or moments that aren’t their moment (Lettow’s bizarre response to Jasper’s torture of Modian and his callousness to Dove), or something that isn’t even a moment (lack of more Reremouse-like missions in-game where you get to work with him hands on!).

11. If they aren’t a canon pairing, how would you get them together?

Their relationship didn’t happen as it did in canon.

Basically, canon moved too fast for them. Elisa strongly resented Lettow at least until the midpoint where he offered her the final three jobs, and she was terrified of him for the whole game except the epilogue because she kept waiting for him to throw her under the bus (the first half) or execute her for Diablerie (the second half). Even after he confronted her about Aila, she was mostly convinced that him having her be the bait was his attempt at killing her without having to execute her.

(Years later he’d tell her that that was sincerely not the case -- that he had her be bait because he firmly believed she could survive anything.)

Needless to say, that’s... not a healthy base for a relationship, even though she was crushing damn hard by the end of the game and was genuinely upset that he didn’t even intend to say goodbye.

But they did get together. After Lettow returned from the Middle East Dove wanted Elisa to do some dangerous jobs and was like, “hey, why don’t we get mister fucking invincible to play bodyguard?”

Lettow was genuinely surprised at how emotional she was at his return -- she would’ve been brought to tears if she could cry. They bonded better this time around, as equals. They talked about Aila and laid that to rest -- it was harder for Elisa to talk about than Lettow. Elisa talked about how Aila was still around. Lettow talked about how he resented Aila for leaving him and letting herself get Diablerised. Elisa got to be turned on by watching him beat the crap out of people who tried to hurt her.

But it was a slow burn because, well. Elisa ate his wife so how could she, in good conscience, ever make a move on him? And on Lettow’s side -- he absolutely despised himself and thought he wasn’t good enough for Aila to stay awake or even alive, and if Aila hated him so fucking much she basically killed herself and put an (in his mind) innocent childe at risk to get away from him, how could he possibly make Elisa happy?

Cue months of mutual pining, and occasionally doing couple things like sharing a bed or cuddling without acknowledging them as couple things.

At one point Lettow bites off more than he can chew even by his standards, which Elisa was able to see plain as day at the time. Their usual tactics when overwhelmed was for Lettow to distract the attackers and for Elisa to run, but this time the opposition was so overwhelming that Elisa knew if she ran Lettow would get destroyed, so she refused to run, which only made things more dangerous for both of them. They had a huge argument about it -- Elisa accusing Lettow of trying to kill himself, Lettow accusing Elisa of being an idiot who didn’t trust him to do his job -- but the whole “oh my god the other person almost DIED” helped them realise that

hey

maybe they should stop letting the Aila thing get in the way and just... get together anyway.

Because they loved each other.

So they did.

And they’ve been together ever since.

12. If you had to take them and plunk them into another fandom, what fandom would that be? Why?

Ooof I really had to think about this one.

There’s no one fandom I’d put them in, but I went into a lot of detail with just one so here’s the one I did:

Subnautica -- Human AU. Elisa is a courier on the Aurora delivering classified governmental data, stuff too important to trust to the post or the internet (or extranet, as it would be). She becomes the only survivor of its crash on 4546B. She feels guilty about falling in love with the planet she’s on and genuinely enjoying much of her time there (when she’s not pissing herself in fear) while knowing at home she has a boyfriend/husband who must be absolutely frantic with worry. She keeps a video diary of her survival there and documents the world as best as she can, tries to find other survivors, and wonders if she’ll ever make it out alive and see Lettow and her parents again -- and if she’ll ever be able to come back if she does.

Meanwhile Lettow is losing his shit, alternating between thinking she’s dead and hoping she’s alive. His subplot is him getting in touch with the loved ones of other survivors and harassing Alterra into mounting a rescue; his hopes are shot down, quite literally, with the discovery of the orbital canon and the fate of the Sunbeam. Alterra is refusing to destroy the orbital canon because uhh we don’t want war with ALIENS??? WE’VE GOT NO DIPLOMATIC TIES WITH ANY ALIENS??? DESTROYING IT MIGHT GET US ALL KILLED???,

but they have a satellite in orbit, out of range of the canon, and it’s looking for evidence of survivors. And it’s been picking up activity -- somebody they can’t identify swimming around near a life pod, or moving on one of the islands, or moving around the Aurora. It’s only when she one day takes a nap on the beach near the orbital canon, her face up to the sky, that they’re able to identify the first survivor -- Elisa Mulgrew, government worker.

That picture of her sleeping face and wet hair makes headlines across multiple systems.

So Lettow finds out she’s alive -- but there’s nothing he can do to bring her home. Nothing. And he doesn’t know how long she’ll live for, or how long Alterra will keep up the expense of the satellite. Because over time it’s becoming clear that Alterra is sinking millions into these efforts and there’s no evidence of any other survivors. There’s only camera recordings of one vehicle moving at a time, one person moving at a time, and the only person they’ve ever managed to record always has the same reddish-brown hair as Elisa. Alterra are trying to stop the search because they see it as essentially wasting millions on one person, who’s “only” a courier, who they can’t even save.

The only reason they’ve been humouring people this long is because of the amount of anti-Alterra political sentiment being whipped up in the wake of the disaster and Alterra’s handling of it, and how many people even within Alterra are upset about the whole thing, and how many people are behind the families of the people who were on the Aurora. And with less and less evidence that anyone other than Elisa survived, even they are starting to lose interest.

Yeah Lettow really copes badly in this AU. “Barely gets out of bed each day” badly.

(When Elisa eventually gets home she leaks the “the usual” audio, which starts a whole new wave of people being mad at Alterra and the guy on it almost certainly getting fired so hard nobody will ever employ him again. Elisa actually feels kind of bad for him.)

[arlocedwards]

╰ ✧ HARRY STYLES. MUSE NINE. PANSEXUAL ❞ say hello to the s club’s very own ARLO EDWARDS! a TWENTY-FOUR YEAR OLD, CISMALE that goes by HE/HIM pronouns. i heard they were voted BEST SHOULDER TO CRY ON in high school, which says a lot about them because they’re very IDEALISTIC and INTUITIVE, but watch out for their DETACHED and DESTRUCTIVE side as well. i hope they’re ready to take a break from being a MUSICIAN and finally get this summer started! ( kt / 24 / pst / she/her )

hiya! i am kt &+ underneath the read more is some info about my bb, arlo. ** insert clown emoji but make him yee-haw ** 

trigger warning : death .

NAME: arlo cornelius edwards. GENDER: cismale. PRONOUNS: he, him. AGE: twenty-four ( 24 ). BIRTHDAY: february 14th. ZODIAC: aquarius !! HOMETOWN: kent, england. ORIENTATION: pansexual OCCUPATION: drummer. LANGUAGES SPOKEN: english & french. FACECLAIM: harry styles ~ currently featuring long hair.  :’-) 

kt’s note: I KNOW THIS IS SO LONG, SO IF YOU DON’T READ IT, I WILL NOT GET OFFENDED. 

but, just read this so y’know what you’re getting yourself into when interactions open : death tw: arlo will be joining this summers reunion coming from his parents home, post-funeral, trying to escape boxing up his brothers stuff and wanting to not be pitied. :’-( my boy is going through it, so his typical behavior and personality is gonna be v muted for a while.

ᴀʀʟᴏ'ꜱ ʙᴀᴄᴋɢʀᴏᴜɴᴅ

arlo was born in kent, england. i know what you’re wondering, and yes, he does have an accent. :’-) his family moved to new york when he was five years old because arlo’s father was offered a high level position within his company.

arlo was born into a loving family, him being the middle child. he has two supportive parents, sasha edwards (his mother), & carter edwards (his father). there are two years separating him from both his older brother and younger sister. his older brother ( now deceased ) was named holden edwards, and his little sister is named ivy edwards. his older brother can be imagined as eric matthews from boy meets world ( at the end of the day, they were bffs ) & his little sister is quite literally cher horowitz from clueless mixed w/ a splash of bianca stratford from 10 things i hate about you  ( they are polar opposites which makes for a fun dynamic !! )

growing up, arlo enjoyed playing all types of sports - there truly wasn’t anything that he wasn’t really good at, and that’s simply because he’s always been such a competitive individual. he would go home and practice a skill or trick for hours in order to be able to come back the next day and whoop everyone’s asses. he will fight  you over board games and make alliances in monopoly to mess w/ you. 

his interest in taking up an instrument kicked in when he was seven years old. he and his dad were driving back from a hockey game together late at night, and his dad played him the song moby dick by led zeppelin & he knew it was something that he wanted to pursue bc “john bonham was a genius.” ~ arlo vc. and so his dad gifted him a drum set on his eighth birthday !! :’-) soft. but over the years he was exposed to other instruments and can also play the guitar, piano, and he has a nice set of pipes !! harry styles being his vc as well ~ makes it easy. he really wants to learn the saxophone tho??? don’t get him started - he will go on and on and on.

throughout highschoool ; arlo was a v dedicated student. although he’s a bit reckless and loved to goof off, he was always acing classes and applying himself. he genuinely cares for others, you could’ve seen his ass volunteering at a soup kitchen with his mom on sundays and what not! just soft things.

until now - now anti-soft. hard things.  sdgjdjgd okay, so, arlo is A Mess™️. and i say that with so much love in my bones. arlo is the type of friend that is honest, and all about tough love when it’s needed. he doesn’t mind getting into a fight or two if he knows its worth the outcome he’s envisioned. he will tell you when you’re fucking up, and if you’re throwing a punch as a result - catch him leaning into it. this ties in l8r !!

he’s just a bit desperate to feel against following the death of his brother & also post-break up with shanley? ( which give me one hot sec and i’ll go into those v soon ) but overall he just wants to feel like himself again, y’know ?? don’t we all. amen & what not. to break it down, he just feels so intensely that he ends up numbing himself in the aftermath of it all, and he’s sadly willing to put himself into harms way in order to get a bit of that - happiness / pain, it doesn’t matter to him as long as he no longer feels numb. so, if ya see him with some scrapes and stitches ~ MIND YA BUSINESS.

arlo’s lurve life : woo ! okay, welcome back -- let’s get into it. so shanley and arlo dated throughout hs and into their first year of college, for a whopping five years together before they broke up. god if you’ve made it this far, i applaud you...but hmu and let me know your fav color, okay? like and comment below ?? subscribe ?? thx. OKAY BACK TO BUSINESS. in case you’re wondering who broke up with who, gosh so nosy, let me just tell you ‘twas arlo. he did it, we can unfollow his ass now. BUT ~ he didn’t want to ? y’know. he felt like due to the long distance, she was missing out on college experiences and her waiting by the phone for him to call was just sad, and he felt guilty. he wanted her to enjoy her time and felt as if he was weighing her down. although he did try make an effort to fix this doing by visiting her that weekend at her university in chicago, but when he came across her with friends he felt stupid and bailed back to cali again. a couple months later he called her, hoping to apologize for his poor judgement and admit to his mistake of ending the relationship, but she wasn’t the one who answered the phone. arlo assumed the random guy who answered was shanley’s new boyfriend (although , he was shanley’s roommates boyfriend but my sad dumb ass boi didn’t know ). arlo only assumed the voice belonged to shan’s bf bc he swears the voice distinctly said “coming, babe!” ( although he did, just not to shanley) and ever since arlo’s been a bit jaded when it comes to romance. shanley called him back later that day, and arlo shrugged her off bc he was jealous af and drunk - claiming he “butt dialed her and it wouldn’t happen again.” :’-( since then they haven’t been in contact. 

he was so in love with shanley, and despite him being the one to end things, he’s never fully gotten over her. he’s definitely hooked up with other people, but my boy is not the committing type after that relationship. 

after high school, arlo attended stanford university, as they offer one of the best criminal law programs across the nation. wahoo ! yahtzee !

after graduating college, arlo moved to san francisco & moved in with ali !! they have a nice little place overlooking the golden gate bridge w/ quality acoustics for their creative music projects. / also where he currently lives !! :’-) we love a bromance.

while in san francisco, arlo attended university to continue on pursuing his law degree  and after two years was able to graduate with his juris doctor. 

TRIGGER WARNING : DEATH / CAR ACCIDENT / DRUNK DRIVING. the death of his brother is very recent, like four weeks ago recent. arlo and his brother were road tripping across the states back to their family home in NY to visit their parents, when a drunk driver struck the driver side of their vehicle, which on impact killed his brother. arlo has survivors guilt as a result from the accident. he and his brother had switched seats a couple minutes prior to the collision, after arlo had asked to switch with him in order to rest for a bit. :’-( miraculously, arlo was unscathed in the greater scheme of all things injury-based. he’s entering the villa w/ a couple broken ribs, broken left arm and scrapes/cuts. so plz sign his cast. 

post-break up with shanley, they had some type of unspoken agreement of trading off years of who gets to attend the summer( aka who has custody of the sclub ) and so last year, arlo did not attend. however, this year, they somehow got their info wrong about who was going / not going, so they have found themselves here at the same time. this being the first time they’ve seen each other since holidays during their first year of college previous to their break up. so get ready for some spice.

last summer, since arlo wasn’t attending the sclub reunion, he was taking the california state bar exam. which is only offered twice a year - he opted for the one in july and passed! :’-) he spent some time after the exam in europe with hastrid. <3

however, arlo will be joining this summers reunion coming from his parents home, post-funeral, trying to escape boxing up his brothers stuff and wanting to not be pitied. :’-( my boy is going through it, so his typical behavior and personality is gonna be v muted for a while.

ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴᴀʟɪᴛʏ

overall : arlo truly strives to be kind, and genuinely wants for everyone to get along. treat people with kindness and the like. he has the best of intentions, but often times that can get a bit muddled with the way he goes about things due to his chaotic energy. he will do anything to lighten a dark mood, and will sacrifice / throw himself under the bus if its needed. however, he also is the type to cause the dark mood depending on the day.

however rn, with his current state of mind, arlo is just going through the motions. numbing himself with unhealthy outlets and has a different type of mentality. definitely engaging in a bit of the more chaotic activities, as well as leaving everyone alone to their own vices as well. whereas his typical behavior would be more so attempting to lead them onto a better path if it meant well for their overall wellbeing. 

habits : smoking cigarettes ( ali likely nags him bc they aren’t herbal ) . staying up into the early hours of the morning, and yet somehow still an early riser ( hence, he drinks an absurd amount of coffee ). yeah, hence. - get it, from the house bunny? sdjfkngdg any who, he’s in a phase of numbing via alcohol and drugs rn. 

personality type : INTP - T / THE LOGICIAN

moral alignment : chaotic good

tarot card : the hermit ( currently )

character inspo : connor walsh from how to get away with murder, jess mariano from gilmore girls, & ambrose spellman from chilling adventures of sabrina ( literally his #1 ranked personality match on a quiz i took ) !! so, we have that ! and also a heavy sprinkle of seth cohen from the o.c.

ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ

the album ‘fine line’ by golden child, harry styles in this case will be used as a hc for arlo. arlo wrote and recorded the album - all songs included, with his muse being shanley over the course of the last couple of years. he’s just kind of been sitting on the entire thing, never really feeling it was the right time to release his work/side solo project...but later this summer, he may just leak it. :’-)

arlo is a vegetarian ! he has been since his freshman year of high school.

those who inspire him : roger taylor, mick jagger, alex van halen, john bonham.

LUNA : ali and arlo co-founded the band with friends edie dorn and guy perkins in junior high. playing gigs where they could as often as possible. arlo was on lead vocals, ali as lead guitarist, edie on bass, and guy on drums. although when it came down to recording and what not they seemed to bounce around when it came to other instruments - v experimental. the band took off in college, prior to something strange and over the years they’ve produced numerous albums and have won a couple awards. 

red roses are his Thing™️ ; fans of the band will walk up and hand him them. i think that’s soft. and i am here for it.

he loves fancy wine ~ he’s cultured.

fun fact : dirty dancing is v much so a sharlo movie. they used to practice and be able to successfully pull of the jump & lift dance move literally just for fun / bc they wanted to. after nailing the lift, they learned the entire dance - i can't. dfjkgndjkg SOFT.

arlo has all of harry’s tattoos !! makes it simpler, might add more along the way !! stay tuned, folks !!

also the ‘ h & s ‘ rings that will be seen in photographs later on are for his brother, holden, and bbg, shanley </3

arlo is a gucci enthusiast - having much of his closet filled with staple pieces over the years. to further his love for the brand, he was recently asked to be in an upcoming campaign for the fall season - he’s v jazzed about it.

ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴄᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴꜱ

𝖌𝖔𝖔𝖉 𝖎𝖓𝖋𝖑𝖚𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖊 ( open connection ) : with arlo being a bit chaotic in nature, he needs somebody that is likely going to steer him clear from all the ideas that’ll bring him to the brink of disaster. he’s impulsive and in that desperate attempt to feel again, he’s very likely to bring a bit of mayhem upon himself. so while they may constantly worrying and attempting to talk his ideas down, he’s trying to get them to go along with his plan. it may be rare that he actually takes their advice, but when he does it seems to be for the best.

𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖞 𝖋𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖉 / 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖋𝖎𝖉𝖆𝖓𝖙 ( open connection ) : these two know how to have a good time together. despite the amount of alcohol they are throwing back and the shenanigans they find themselves in as a result, this is a time where they also find themselves confiding in one another. if you look at their camera rolls, it’s likely they have tons of embracing and unflattering videos and pics of one another, in between their sob-worthy confessionals and venting/rants. these two trust one another, and although they love getting wreckT together, they find themselves discussing very raw and personal details.

open to other connection you may have in mind! :’-)  LMK!!!! <3 i love me some chemistry !!!

ᴛᴀᴋᴇɴ ᴄᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ( featured on arlo’s connections page here !! )

𝖋𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖘 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖇𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖋𝖎𝖙𝖘 ( taken - simon peralta ) : these two went through rough break ups of their own, and a rebound didn’t sound too bad to either of them at the time things started. it may not occur all the time, but they sometimes still find themselves offering up to one another. this occurred more frequently then any of arlo’s one night stands, obvi, but it never surpassed anything other than the physical aspect of their relationship. the nature of their relationship outside of the bedroom can go either way !!!  :’-)

𝖆 𝖇𝖗𝖔𝖒𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖆𝖌𝖊𝖘 ( taken - ali mallick ) : as if living together for the past two years wasn’t enough, ali & arlo are also roommates every summer that arlo attends the sclub reunions. these two are always laughing, and saying some ridiculous ish. you’ll likely hear loud jam sessions and howling laughter / the occasional excited shouting back and forth from their room in the late hours. they are truly nothing but a good time and tbh, they know it. that and the fact that they have the best hair in the villa. djfgnjkdfg FIGHT ME !!

𝖍𝖎𝖌𝖍 𝖘𝖈𝖍𝖔𝖔𝖑 𝖘𝖜𝖊𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖘 ( taken - shanley evans ) : these two began their relationship in their freshman year of high school - spending five years together before breaking up in their freshman year of college. * cries in sharlo * they were the “it” couple, no pennywise included … unless ? anyways, everyone thought that they were going to get married, and arlo was v much in love / thinking shanley was his romantic soulmate. yet when they did break up everyone was shookith - even the birds and the bees.

𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖞 𝖜𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖗𝖔𝖔𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖘 𝖇𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖒𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖘 ( taken - ali mallick , willow finch , sirena rose ) : these four formed something strange. arlo is the drummer of the group, and also writes some songs for the group. they’ve blown up over the years and are a quite successful group.

𝖛 𝖘𝖎𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖌-𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊 𝖗𝖊𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖕 ( taken - sirena rose / willow finch ) : these two have a love/hate relationship, very sibling like filled with pranks, competition, teasing and playful banter. however, when it comes down to it they have so much love and respect for one another. they know that no matter what happens they will always have one anothers back and be supportive of the other. pure relationship.

𝖗𝖎𝖉𝖊 𝖔𝖗 𝖉𝖎𝖊 ( taken - delilah jacobs ) : ride or dies ! need i say more ?? these two have one anothers backs despite anything and everything going on otherwise. they play in to one anothers antics and enjoy one anothers presence as they can likely be seen dragging one another across town and causing a bit of mayhem together. you can catch them in their beautiful, bitch #1 & #2 tee's.

𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖔𝖙𝖎𝖈 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖕𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖔𝖓 ( taken - ramona verdez ) : it would be wrong to say one is the more likely the bad influence over the other, although arlo may just be. these two find themselves bounding into, well hell, ( i guess??? ) together. playing on one anothers impulsiveness and if one ends up in the back of a police car, the other is handcuffed to them. and yet despite the length of their potential injuries, they find themselves thinking of something crazier to subject them to the next time around. with arlo having his law degree, he’s always able to squeeze them out of trouble before it gets too serious, so trust - it’s ok !! 

𝖚𝖓𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊𝖑𝖞 𝖋𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖘 / 𝖕𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖗 𝖔𝖕𝖕𝖔𝖘𝖎𝖙𝖊𝖘 ( taken -  izzy de la rosa ) : these two may have ran in the same circle, but were complete opposites when it came down to their personalities / styles / perhaps even humor, so it was expected for them to stand their distance. however despite the odds, they just clicked !! opposites attract and what not, ya dig??  somehow their dynamic just works and they have a lot of fun together by introducing new things to one another.

[tslasvegas]

Episode 12: “I’ve been awakened.” - Xavier

Well that vote went exactly how I had hoped it would... and then the super idol came out! I'm glad that it's out of the game now once and for all, but I guarantee that Liv is going to find something else along the way. It's so hard for me to summarize everything that I'm doing around here because I feel like I'm doing a lot. Maybe that's going to come bite me in the ass this coming vote but idk, I'm not mad about it. I definitely limited myself a lot by really not going for the money shot and convincing Jeff to use his vote steal on Joey to get Joey the hell out of here, but maybe in some weird way it works. Because now I have John's 8 chips and I'm going to need as many as I can get to somehow beat Livingston. I definitely think that snubbing this vote is going to be my biggest detriment only bc it provides the opportunity for Livingston to ascend higher as a threat, but also avoid getting voted out at our next convenience. I still really want Kailyn to go, but I think the goal for everyone else is to get rid of Livingston or myself (maybe Joey) at the next tribal council. Ugh. Heh... I never would've thought that I could pull off that kind of a move and have it not fully work out in my favor. It was a cool feeling regardless and I'm not crushed if it means I played myself out of the game. I give myself credit where it's due, I'm going to continue fighting as always and hopefully I come out on top :~)

Last Luxor standing 

Whelp, there goes the Super Idol. Jaiden is a snakey little snake snake. Pat and Jeff are naïve as all hell. I'm not 100% sure I believe Jaiden now, but apparently Joey's plan was to cut me at like final 6 or something. And people are so convinced that Livingston and I are a duo. I mean we are, but like maybe if anyone would ACTUALLY FUCKING TALK TO ME AND TRY TO WORK WITH ME, we wouldn't be??? Like don't whine and bitch that Livingston and I are a duo who are going to stick together and not turn against each other if you can't even be bothered to respond to a single fucking message of mine. I have no issues voting out whoever is necessary for me to get farther in the game. But when only a limited number of people express in interest in going farther with me? You better fucking bet I'm working with those people. Anyways, can't wait to vote out Jaiden, Kailyn and Xavier. xoxo Gossip Girl 

Waiting on Immunity Results, but whatever happens the 5 of us need to vote together, and be smart about it! We know that liv, Keegan and Joey will vote together. Probably for me next. So Jeff Pat need to stick with us. We need to split the votes 3-2, and use a vote steal, cancel or extra to get it to 3-3 just in case of idols. We need to be smart about this. Going all out and proposing this once results are in. I am going to the Jury next anyway, go out guns blazing.

...five seconds later

OMG I WON IMMUNITY! Finally something good! I figured most people gave their correct numbers, and if not, just chose a number close to theirs. OR they didn't coordinate so well, so some gave a higher number and others gave a lower one, so it cancelled out. Also helps that I knew Liv and Pat's numbers with the advantage. Pat gave mine accidentally so I knew his was in the 40s as well. Phew. Now to figure out whether to use the Steal a Vote now or not.

I came so close to winning immunity but it was rudely snatched away from me by Xavier. On the plus side, Livingston found the hidden immunity idol on the idol board! Heck yeah! As long as there isn’t a full blindside we should be good now! 

(originally written 11/23, night after super idol) Anyways what rly bugs me is that Jeff is actually mad at me now for the fact that he wasted his vote on Joey and I tried to get rid of Livingston instead... and I think I put myself into a spot where I need to apologize to him and make him feel good about me again. Tbh no I don’t. Jeff said to me that he’s got to play his own game first and mine second. So why am I playing some other people’s games first? Because it benefits me to play everyone’s hand for them, yes, but also I’ve been caught trying to run the entire table a little too early. So maybe now it’s time for me to do something a little different - play my game first. It’s now fully Jeff’s fault that Joey didn’t leave. I told Jeff precisely what he needed to do to ensure Joey went home. He needed to play the vote steal and send Joey on packing... and he didn’t. So now when Pat and I finally talk tomorrow and he tells me what’s up, I’m not gonna hold back. I’m going to throw Jeff under that bus so fucking hard his head will spin. Pat doesn’t know about the vote steal and I think I’ll hold that piece of information over Jeff’s head a little bit longer - I know something no one else knows about you, keep me safe or it’s coming out and everyone’s going to come after you. So tomorrow I will blame Jeff to Pat. Sure I was the person who made the move, but it’s my game and I’m playing it now. If Pat doesn’t like my apology, then kiss my ass and take eighth place. Bye!

...five seconds later

I'm pessimistic as FUCK so I'm fully expecting to go home tonight and I'm writing this confessional against better judgment because I need to rly focus on letting my mental state get back to normal rather than Survivor mode before I get voted out lmfao. Anyways, tonight is FINALLY the night where I'm making my last move against Joey, one way or another. This is the decision that will either determine oops sorry as I was writing that, I just realized something else... this is ME making yet another move that makes Jeff think I'm controlling the whole entire game I love that for me hehe. Should I convince the entire tribe to vote out Jeff instead??? Let's go fully with the chaos mode. DRAW ROCKS BITCHES!!!! Jk Jk Back to my original point - this is the vote that determines whether I was worth being brought back for this game or not. I'm not trying to be this like crazy strategist who has all these cracked plans to take out Joey but that's where we're at rn. One side of me like, trusts Jeff but the other side of me doesn't. So I told Jeff about Joey's legacy advantage and now it's like, getting Jeff to want to turn on Joey. Even though Joey told me he wanted to get rid of Jeff it seems like Jeff is not as stressed about it. I'm pretty sure Jeff turned votes against me instead, it is what it is. It's the game. However, Jeff would be really stupid to not vote out Joey now while he has the chance... it's probably going to come down to Jeff winning this whole entire thing if he makes the correct move tonight because I'm certainly not going to turn my back on him if he follows through. But, crazy things have happened tonight. And it's about to get a whole lot crazier. :) Although I'm like, CERTAIN I'm going home tonight or at least getting votes. OK IM TRYING SO HARD TO WRITE THIS CONFESSIONAL BUT SO MUCH IS HAPPENING AHHHH IM STRESSING OUT BUT I KNOW THERES A GOOD PLAN OUT THERE FOR ME TO MAKE AND HOPEFULLY IM NOT SCREWING MYSELF OVER 

...five seconds later

OKAY I think I'm gonna be ok but I'm taking a HUGE risk rn!!! Basically putting my vote onto Liv with Joey and hoping Joey 1) doesnt have an idol and 2) gets the rest of the votes. But my logic for voting Liv is simple. If Joey actually has an idol he's been hiding, he plays it and reveals I voted for him again if I don't do it. It also prevents me/Kailyn from going home 2-1-0 since Keegan and Liv seem to be locked in on one of us (likely me). If somehow Jeff/Pat are lying and are part of split, it'll go 2-2-2-2 which is not only insane but it also gives me a PERFECT platform to light people up, namely Jeff and his vote steal advantage. But we'll see! I'm predicting to go home tonight :) But at least I made a move when I could. Good luck to me <3

[christiewryte]

Something Beautiful

Aryll heaved the body of the unconscious goblin onto the bed with a groan, and resisted the urge to throw herself down next to her. It had been three days since the warband had attacked the little village of Groat, and Aryll, who by chance had been passing through, had rallied the villagers in the inn. She had spent the next three long, sleepless days and nights fending off attempts to break in, of listening to their worgs scratching at the doors, or trying her damnedest to keep up a smile and keep telling the survivors that it was all going to turn out alright. And by some miracle, it had. A group of adventurers had come along, and with their help, the goblins had been defeated. Some driven off, most killed. 

But not this one. Aryll knew the goblins had taken captives, so she’d stopped the adventurers from finishing off the unconscious one she’d found pinned under the body of her felled worg. She was their best chance of finding out where the villagers had been taken. 

This was the room Aryll had rented the night before the attack came, and her rucksack was still sitting in the corner. She dragged herself over to it, ignored the coil of rope that hung off the side, and dug down to the other one in the velvet bag at the bottom of the pack. Her fingers worked through her mental fatigue on sheer muscle memory to tie the knots from the goblin’s wrists and ankles to the bedposts, not helped by the fact that the bed was sized for humans. 

She groped at her waist until her fingers found her last healing potion. Boy, she’d had a lot more of these a few days ago. What quest had she even been on that had brought her through this little podunk town? It seemed like a lifetime ago. 

The thought swam aside like her vision as she climbed onto the bed and uncorked the bottle with her teeth. Cradling the unconscious goblin’s head upright, she parted the goblin’s lips with one hand and brought the potion to them with the other. Like this, it looked like the goblin was just sleeping peacefully, and maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking, but right up close and not trying to kill her, the goblin was actually pretty cute. Even when she sputtered on the potion and jerked awake in a panic. 

“Easy, easy,” Aryll said. She couldn’t understand the literal meaning of the gibberish coming from the goblin’s mouth, but she had more than enough experience to recognize, “Where am I? What happened?” in any language. “It’s okay, I’m hurt gonna not you,” she assured, paused, shook her head, and tried again. “Not gonna hurt you.” She swirled the rest of the potion around the bottle for emphasis. “D’you want the rest of this? I just wanna ask you some question. Questions.”

The goblin twisted her neck to look from the bottle, to Aryll, to her bonds, and grimaced in horror. “What are you gonna do to me?”

Aryll blinked a couple times, trying to focus her vision. Oh, yeah, huh, this probably looked pretty bad from the goblin’s perspective, didn’t it? “I’m not gonna do anythin’ to ya. I jus’ wan’ ya ta answer some questions, and then I’ll lecha go. Now d’you wan’ the resta this, or not?” She shook the bottle again. 

The goblin eyed it suspiciously. “Is this a trick?”

Aryll groaned, and took a swig of the potion herself, reducing both the small amount left in the bottle and a few more of her own lingering wounds. Her head even felt a little clearer for the moment; clear enough to recognize how close she was to falling asleep on the spot, at least. She offered the potion once again. 

The goblin still hesitated for a moment, but finally opened her mouth as if she was the one doing Aryll a favor. Aryll shook her head, and put the bottle to the goblin’s lips. A stray thought crossed her mind, and she couldn’t stop herself from vocalizing it. “Heh, indirect kiss.”

The goblin sputtered on the potion. Aryll couldn’t help but giggle. “Careful!” she said. “Don’t choke to death!”

“You can’t choke to death on healing potion, fool,” the goblin said, wiping her mouth on her shoulder and refusing to meet her eyes. So cute…

“Sure y’can, my uncle’s sister-in-law’s neighbor’s… niece? I think? Totally knew a guy once who died that way.” Aryll brought the bottle back to her own lips again. No point letting the last few drops go to waste. When she tilted her head back down, the goblin was blushing furiously. At least, Aryll thought that was blushing. Her cheeks were violet, but with green skin, maybe that was just how goblins did it? 

“What?” she said, wondering why the goblin was staring.

“You just said that was an indirect kiss.”

“I said wha?” Ayrll yawned, rubbing her eyes as her short term memory groped around its bedside table in the dark and found nothing. “Look, you’re cute, but you’re not seducing your way outta this,” she said, plowing right over the goblin’s sputtering protest. “I jus’ wanna know two things. Why’d’ja guys kidnap the villagers, and where’d’ja take ‘em?”

The goblin’s mouth worked up and down, as if chewing on words she couldn’t articulate in her flustered state. 

“Alright,” Aryll sighed, sliding off the bed. Leaning heavily on the corner post for support, she unbuckled her sword belt and tossed it into the corner, then started undoing the fly of her pants. 

“What are you doing?” the goblin asked in a panic.

“Gettin’ ready for bed,” Aryll grumbled. She had gotten her pants down to her knees and hit a brick wall in getting them off, and only now put it together that it was because her calf boots were still fully laced up. “If yer not gonna talk now, then I’m goin’a sleep and we can try this again in th’ mornin’.”

The goblin squeaked anxiously. “An… and what, leave me like this all night?”

Aryll got her first boot off. “Well I can’t exactly take yer word y’won’ run off, now can I?”

“Nyerrrrgh,” the goblin groaned, writhing against her restraints. “Okay, fine! You win!”

Aryll sighed as she finally got the second boot off and her pants along with it, and climbed back onto the bed. Sitting cross-legged with her chin in her hands, she pinched herself on the cheek for a quick booster shot of wakefulness, and tried to focus on the tale being spun. 

By the time the goblin was finished, Aryll’s face was stinging like a hornet’s nest from all the pinching and slapping she’d done to keep herself from simply toppling forward into unconsciousness. Her informant had rambled on and on about a lot of information that Aryll hoped was extraneous, because she’d only managed to absorb the jist of it, which was that a sorceress had recently seized control of her clan by blasting any opposition into cinders, and turned them on the local settlements in search of treasure, slaves, and, for some reason, a dwarf. 

“We’ve got them in a cave a couple miles northeast of here, following the river to a toppled snag, and with all the losses we took in this fight, they’ll probably abandon the prisoners and just retreat. Now let me go!” the goblin finished. 

“Uhkay,” Aryll groaned, teetering forward until she landed on her hands and knees, and crawled over to the bindings around the goblin’s left wrist. “Y’see? I’mma wommun of m’word. Y’r freeta go, but fair warnin’, those ‘venturers are pro’ly still up, an’ I hadta stoppem from killin’ y’ once already.” She reached for the rope and started fiddling with the knot. Crud. Either she’d been too far out of it when she tied it, or she was super far out of it now, because it should have come undone with a single tug. “Bu’ listen, if y’stay th’ night, I’ll gecha outta here in th’ mornin’, and even help y’with yer sorceress problem.” 

The goblin frowned. “Why would you do that?”

“‘cause tha’ witch sounds like a bad time f’r e’eryone ‘round here.” There. She had been tugging on the wrong part of the rope. The knot came undone, freeing the goblin’s wrist. “Y’got m’word. An’ as y’know, I’mma wommun of m’word.” 

That was as far as she could force her beleaguered state of consciousness to keep chugging, and as she collapsed toward the pillow, she was asleep before the end of her last sentence could stumble drunkenly past her lips. 

* * *

Aryll stirred late the next morning to a pounding on her door. One of the adventurers was checking up on her.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she called back, rubbing her eyes with a groan. She felt like she could have slept another day and a half easily. As her lids creaked open, the unexpected feeling her brain had been lagging too hard to identify without visual aid suddenly made sense. The goblin was still there. Not only that, Aryll had apparently cuddled up to her in her sleep, and the goblin’s free hand had wrapped around her back. 

“You stayed,” she yawned happily, as the goblin also stirred awake, realized she’d been caught snuggling, and shyly jerked away. At least, as far as her remaining three bindings let her. 

“I didn’t have much choice, did I?” the goblin grumbled, but the way she blushed and wouldn’t look Aryll in the eye made her suspect that the goblin hadn’t made much attempt. “You fell asleep right on top of the only arm you untied.”

“Sorry,” Aryll chuckled. Yeah, that was definitely just an excuse. The goblin was absolutely strong enough to pull her own arm out from under Aryll’s scant 36 pound body. “Let me get those for you.” 

The remaining bonds each came loose with a single tug in the right spot, and the goblin sat up rubbing at her tender wrists and ankles, watching her warily. “So… you’re really gonna help me get rid of the sorceress?”

“Absolutely,” Aryll said, digging a fresh pair of leggings out of her pack while the fragments of last night’s conversation slotted themselves back into her brain. As she shimmied into them, her stomach rumbled, reminding her that while she’d been running the previous three days on no sleep, she’d also been running on only whatever food she could scarf between skirmishes with the raiders. Hopefully someone downstairs had made breakfast by now. “Hey, I’m gonna pop downstairs for a minute. You want some brekkie?”

The goblin frowned in confusion. “Do I want some of what?”

Aryll frowned back. “Brekkie.”

“Yeah, what?” the goblin snapped. 

Delight spread across Aryll’s face as understanding set in. “Wait, is your name, ‘Brekkie’?”

The goblin fidgeted and turned deep violet. “N-no! Of course not! What kind of name is that?”

“Then what is it?” Aryll was beaming.

“...Brekogba.”

By the gods, she was adorable, Aryll thought. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Brekogba.” Aryll knew she was never using that name again. This goblin was 100% Brekkie from now on. “I’m Aryll Flynn.” She offered her hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Brekkie took it. 

“Nice to meet you, too, I guess,” Brekkie said, shyly looking toward the window. 

Aryll hummed happily as she left the room and skipped down the stairs. She had a feeling that this was the start of something beautiful.

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 4x08 God Complex

Together with 4x07 Gimme Shelter, this is one of my top 5 episodes of season 4. What I’ve always loved most about season 4 is the way that having an unavoidable natural catastrophe as the Big Bad made it completely different than any other season of the show, and gave it that sense of desperation, bringing up the best and the worst in people. It’s the only season where I can really say that, most of the time, there were no good choices – characters were left to choose whatever they thought was the best of the two or more terrible options.

This episode was basically about three different approaches to the problem of Praimfaya – two attempts to find salvation: 1) through experiments with Nightblood, which could save everybody, but which led to some uncomfortable, morally ambiguous moments, and 2) through the search for the Second Dawn bunker that could not save everyone, but could certainly save quite a few people; while some people, like Jasper, were taking the third option of - not to trying to survive at all.

The biggest and most intense part of this episode was the drama in Becca’s lab, where a group of people were struggling with the issue of whether to conduct unwilling human experiments and potentially murder someone that way – knowing that the stakes were the survival of the human race and that, if they don’t find the solution through these experiments, everyone will die in less than two weeks. (Reminder: this is after Arkadia has been wrecked and cannot be used for shelter, and before Jaha manages to find the bunker. As far as the people in Becca’s lab knew, the Nightblood solution was the only way to prevent the extinction of the human race.)

This is a really serious and compelling moral dilemma. The characters present in Becca’s lab reacted in a number of different ways, and it’s hard to call any of them villainous or evil over it, as all the responses were understandable. However, in this case, there was one morally right choice: volunteer to be the test subject and risk your own life for the benefit of saving everybody. And just 1 (one) person did that: one Clarke Griffin. Which I could see coming when I watched this episode the first time, because this is what Clarke is like, ready to take responsibility and risk or potentially sacrifice her life, when saving everyone is at stake. The episode drags it out, hiding Clarke’s intentions till the last moment (though I’m sure she made her mind quite some time before she injected herself – around the time when she promised Murphy that Emori would be fine), but the fact that the “twist” was not a surprise to me, was not a bad thing at all: what matters is that characters act in character and that the story makes sense, and when you can predict it based on characterizations, it is actually satisfying to see the story unfold and stay true to who the characters are.

But this is also one of the examples of how much my outlook has changed since I first watched season 4 (even though that was less than a year ago) – because I have seen how it all turns out, and probably even more so, because of the way this episode has been referenced in season 6 (specifically, by Murphy). When I watched this the first time, Somehow, since the only references to what happens here were through Murphy’s weirdly selective memory, 4x08 has become all about how Clarke Griffin is such a baaad guy, ya all. Evil Clarke wanted to put Emori in the oven! Well, actually, a bunch of people (Clarke, Abby, Jackson, Miller, Roan, and Raven, who was complaining but not doing anything to stop it) were planning to put Emori in the oven, but just one (1) of them tried to take Emori’s place – yep, it was Clarke, after she listened to Murphy desperately pleading for Emori to be spared, and was moved by his love for her.

But, hey, details. Just like it’s a minor detail that Emori had previously (in 4x07) framed a random thief as a monster just to get him experimented on instead of her – and Murphy was very impressed by that as a “survivor’s move”. He likes to complain about evil Clarke treating people as “disposable”, but it only bothers him if it’s him or his girlfriend, while he himself treats people as disposable to a much higher degree – when it’s a random dude, rather than Murphy’s girlfriend.

Yes. I’m bitter and snarky about this, thanks to certain character behaviors in season 6 and certain fandom responses. I was sympathetic to Murphy and Emori in this episode, and to everyone involved, and the first time I watched this episode, I was mostly worried about Emori and scared that our protagonists, in particular Clarke – because she is my favorite character – would not go too far in their ruthlessness under the motto “End justifies the means”. Even though the end was, in this case, saving the human race from extinction that was coming in ten days. I was uncomfortable with the whole “oh, no – they are almost like the Mountain Men now!” parallel. Now I feel like rolling my eyes and pointing: no, they weren’t like the Mountain Men – because they were trying to save everyone, and if they didn’t find the solution, everyone, including Emori and Murphy, was going to die in ten days. (That’s what being in the fandom that takes moral grayness way too literally does to you. After seeing “there are no good guys, Clarke is as bad as the Mountain Men/Primes/Josephine” one too many times, I’ve had enough of the moral relativism and I prefer to point out that these parallels doesn’t mean that those completely different situations should be treated as the same.) The first time, I liked Raven pointing out the parallels, because I saw it as a warning: let’s try not to be the bad guys. But season 6 Raven has made me see season 4 Raven in a harsher light, too – now I can’t help but see it as one of the instances of her criticizing how immoral something is, while participating in it or not doing anything to stop it, and while not offering any other alternative options.

I was rooting for Clarke to do the right thing, and was happy when she did it, because of what it meant for her character. People kept telling her that she was the leader and had to make the tough decision. (Because everyone always keeps giving Clarke all the credit or all the blame, even though a bunch of people were involved in what was done. In this case, Roan was the most in favor and the first to suggest testing Emori, while Abby and Jackson were most directly conducting the experiments, and while Clarke was seen as the decision-maker, it’s not like she had the power on her own to force anyone to do this or that, if they had refused to. Actually, Miller and Roan were the ones physically restraining and forcing people – Emori, Luna, Murphy.) She told herself that “she bears it so they don’t have to”, But she interpreted that differently – not to mean deciding to risk or sacrifice others as “disposable”, but to risk or potentially sacrifice her own life. Which is really the old school, original view of what being a leader/ruler is: leaders and kings were originally those who led armies, fought on the frontlines, and, in some ancient cultures, were even literally sacrificed to the gods – before the of the ruler or leader changed to that of a person who remains safe and sends others to risk their lives to fight their battles.

…And then I was shocked by what Abby did right afterwards, smashing the machine, though I could understand why. When Abby told Clarke she couldn’t let her die, the camera focused on Emori, who was understandably thinking “So, you really thought the machine would kill me and you still wanted to test me?” But, to Abby’s defense, she freaked out because she had seen a vision of Clarke covered in radiation burns.

The first time I watched season 4, I still didn’t take Praimfaya as seriously. You keep waiting for some solution that would save most of the people – and things just got worse, all the solutions kept falling apart, except for the bunker – which presented a bunch of problems in itself. The first time, I was worried about Clarke losing so much of herself by focusing on the Big Picture. Now I like and relate to her even more than before, knowing how season 4 turns out – because if a natural disaster that’s about to wipe out the entire human race is not a reason to focus on the Big Picture, what is? Abby’s emotional reaction is human and understandable – similar to Murphy’s over Emori – but it is still a fact that the Nightblood solution worked, and that, if not everyone, than many more/most people could have been saved if they had tested Clarke  and found out that the solution worked. But that would have jettisoned the entire plot of the finale and season 5. No need for the bunker, or going into space, no Conclave, no Osleya or Blodreina, no Spacekru, no horrors of the bunker, no single mom Clarke all alone with Madi, etc. Everyone would have survived and settled in Eden. It’s a bit off how rarely people mention this – even now that hating on Abby is such a popular sport, no one mentions the fact that she basically doomed thousands of people to die because she was worried about her daughter dying. It’s odd that we never see Abby explicitly feeling guilty over that, instead of just conducting experiments or suggesting cannibalism.

Are the sins of doing ruthless but necessary things for the survival of the group considered less forgivable, at least when women are concerned, than the sins of dooming a lot of people to death by prioritizing your child? Abby certainly seems to think so. She repeated Kane’s old line: “First we survive, then we get our humanity back” to Raven, and then felt so guilty over the experiments she conducted, that she wanted to die in Praimfaya and asked Kane to leave her outside. But even in season 5, she was arguing to Clarke that throwing everyone under the bus for your daughter is right and reinforcing Clarke’s decision. And in season 6, she is convinced that saving Kane is worth doing inhumane things. As if she, since Jake’s death, has decided she would rather do horrible things to save her loved ones at the expense of other people, than risk/sacrifice her loved ones for the common good, which is what she, sort of, did with her husband.

There’s also the fact that, if Clarke had been more selfish and less willing to risk and sacrifice herself instead of others – if she had gone through with it and let Emori be tested, Abby wouldn’t have smashed the machine, they would have found out that the Nightblood solution worked, and saved everyone. But I don’t know how to feel about that, except to see it as a painful irony.

While the plot A found and then threw away a solution to save people, plot B came up with some hope as Jaha managed to find the real Second Dawn bunker, after hearing the lines from the Grounder prayer “From the ashes, we will rise” and recognizing the motto of the Second Dawn. Jaha was, in a way, uniquely qualified to realize that there is another bunker, and that the one they found was just a red herring to keep the real one from being overrun, since, by his admission, he figured it out because that’s what he himself would do. Jaha has never had a problem with treating people as disposable and focusing on the Big Picture while sacrificing some individual lives.

It should be noted that Jaha didn’t find the bunker on his own, but that Monty, Kane, Gaia and Indra played crucial roles as well. (So much for the argument that Jaha had the right to steal and keep the bunker in 4x10/11 because he found it. He was going to leave all of those other people outside.) Gaia helped compare and decipher the symbols, and Monty was the one who managed to find a way in, Kane used Roan’s symbol to get Azgeda warriors to let them through the temple where the bunker was in the first place (though Indra then shot them anyway), and Indra helped by ordering Trikru warriors to leave the tower to Azgeda and focus on defending the temple instead.

If there is a way to make any sense out of the Grounder culture and religion, it is through this major revelation about the role of the Second Dawn cult. It never made sense that these descendants of regular 21st century people from USA/Canada somehow forgot all technology (even with memories of a top scientist on a computer chip their leaders had in their heads), developed a pidgin language, a medieval-like warrior culture, a love of fake tans and a culture-appropriation-mishmash fashion sense, in less than a century. But if these people were descendants of members of a Doomsday cult whose members hated technology and wanted to cosplay Game of Thrones? Well, that explains a lot.

The C plot was about the group of people back in Arkadia who chose not to fight to survive Praimfaya, but to spend the last days before it having the party of their lives. (And to eventually kill themselves, going out on their own terms, before Praimfaya has a chance to kill them – but we only find that out in later episodes.) Aside from Jasper, that was also Harper, and Riley and Bree.

Harper’s depressed state and lack of will to live was becoming clear with the way she acted when Monty said goodbye to her. She even let out that she wasn’t expecting him to come back (saying “If you come back”) – maybe because she really didn’t think she was worth it?

Bellamy was worried about Jasper – who tried and eventually got him to join their party (with dancing, drinking, and drugs – aka jobi nuts), throwing Bellamy’s own line from early season 1 at him: “Whatever the hell we want… Really mean it this time”. Bellamy decided to relax and let go, and flirted with (and possibly had a one-night stand off-screen?) with Bree, his old friend with benefits from the threesome days of early season 1, after she had approached him and hit on him. (Judge for yourself if the hairstyling department intentionally gave Bree a similar haircut as Clarke’s, and if that was meant to mean something.) But this is a two-part plot that only gets resolved in the next episode, when Bellamy will change his attitude after learning that there is, after all, some salvation in the form of the bunker.

Timeline: This episode starts exactly where the previous left off, which means that it’s about two weeks since the start of season 4. But Clarke and Kane are now saying that the death wave is coming in 10 days. This means that, not only was ALIE’s initial calculation that the death wave was coming in 6 months wrong, but so is Raven’s calculation from 2x03 (which took place 10 days from the start of season 4) that the death wave would come in two months. There can’t be more than 4-5 days since 4x03, based on what was going on, so the new calculation must have been made in the meantime. This means that the death wave would actually come, according to these newest predictions, 20 days from the beginning of season 4/end of season 3. Unless it comes even faster… As far as I remember, episodes 4x09-4x13 happened over a short period of time.

Maybe the writers miscalculated how much season 4 would actually last and ended up writing everything happening much faster – just as it was in every other season. In any case, this means that the timeline of seasons 1-4 is even more compressed than I thought, because, as of 4x08, it’s been a little less than six months from the Pilot. I’ll do the full calculation when I get to 4x13.

Body count:

The thief from the Rock Line clan, aka fake “Baylis”, in the radiation chamber

An unknown number of people died from the black rain in Polis (this technically happened during the timeline of the previous episode)

A number of Azgeda warriors were shot by Indra (which is another instance where a major supporting character simply goes and murders a bunch of enemy warriors while they were not posing a danger, like Roan did to Trikru warriors in 4x04, but no one cares or has much of a problem with that, in the show or the fandom… What a contrast to Bellamy participating in something similar in season 3 and then feeling guilty forever and getting endlessly called “Genocide King” and whatnot in the fandom…)

A number of Azgeda and Trikru warriors probably died in the fighting outside the temple

Rating: 9/10

[nancykali]

I think the moment Nancy realized that it wasn't working with Steve was when he told her that he would stay in Hawkins with her and work for his dad, because that really showed the lack of depth in their relationship. For someone who seems to be planning their future, Steve didn't bother to ask her what she wanted...but Nancy didn't bother to tell him either. And they had a year to talk about it. If they were truly in love, then these are the things that they would WANT to talk about.

Thank you SO much for sending me an ask about this! It meansso much, I felt so alone with my post about this whole issue of Nancy’sfeelings for Steve pre-s2 getting no response after I’d responded to others disagreeing.

And I agree with everything you said. Of course the writingwas so condensed in s2 that they chose to show all these issues in theirrelationship in just one scene, but it still was a good way to indicate thattheir relationship was already on the rocks. But it also didn’t define how longthey had been avoiding the topic, what they talked about instead, how theyspent time together, what kept them together.They were together for nearly a year—that matters.

There was more than just physical chemistry between them—there’sno way Nancy only stayed with him out of uncertainty of how to end therelationship. She would not have stayed with Steve out of a sense ofobligation, or fear of hurting his feelings and fear of the fallout of abreakup. She truly believed she loved him, or cared about him deeply, and being16-17, she would have mistaken those feelings for love. There is also the hugefactor of the circumstances around the beginning of their relationship—the deathof Barb and Nancy’s PTSD and survivor’s guilt. She had to see Barb’s parents atleast once a week for an indeterminate amount of time (how long had they beenhaving dinner with them every week? That entire 11 months? We don’t know).

So many people have talked about Steve loving Nancy andNancy not loving him (believe me, I saw a lot of hate posts…so many), but howmany have examined if what Steve felt was really love? He’s only 18. He thinkshe loves Nancy, but like you said, he never thought to ask her what she wanted. After 11 months of dating,he just assumed she’d want a cushy home in Hawkins while he worked for his dad,getting those benefits. He didn’t even consider what Nancy wanted out of life.A career? A family? Nothing. We, the audience, don’t even know what Nancy wantsout of her future, we know what she doesn’twant.

And Steve offered her something so similar to what TedWheeler must’ve offered her mother. Of course Nancy would balk, and probablyfelt guilt that she never told him what she wanted or didn’t want. I have astrong headcanon that Nancy blames herself for her supposed shortcomings (some real, some not), because Karenemphasizes what she sees as Nancy’s shortcomings before showing concern or encouragement (Karenwas more worried about reputation and Nancy’s sex life than the disappearanceof Nancy’s best friend). 

Nancy also formed a habit, especially since Barb’sdeath, of not speaking her mind when it has to do with her discomfort. We seethat in the library scene with Steve where she’s clearly distraught over whatBarb’s parents are doing out of hope Barb is alive. But when Steve tells herthey can’t do anything, they should just go to the party, she withdraws backinto herself. The issue becomes Nancy’s emotions having to be put aside so sheand Steve can act like things are normal. She prioritizes his comfort overhers. But her anger and hurt wins out, hence her getting drunk and venting athim.

I also saw hardly any discussion over Steve choosing tofocus on his own emotions rather than Nancy’s, even when he was sober at theparty and Nancy was stumbling drunk, crying, telling him how upset she was, howshe believes they are at fault for Barb’s death, obviously too drunk to thinkclearly. But his first action is to think of her not loving him. His thoughtsjump straight to himself. 

He’s of course not a bad person for this, and here’s agood meta on how Steve’s character is about passivity whereas Jonathanand Nancy are about action. But this detail also shows how Steve never reallyconsidered Nancy’s feelings fully. They were both selfish in their own ways, that’svery clear. Neither of them confided in each other enough. We don’t know howthis started, but the beginning of their relationship being marred by Nancy’sloss and grief is the biggest indicator that Nancy chose to withdraw, and atwhatever point Steve could not get her to open up to him. We don’t even know ifhe tried or not.

Like @huntingpeople-savingsam said here, it’s a hugefrustration that the canon didn’t let us see the effects of those 11 monthsthey dated. We only saw the barest hint, and it was a very abbreviated,underwritten end to a relationship that was special but also tragic. And thatend was written to elevate Steve and throw Nancy under the bus. She did nothingmanipulative or abusive, she didn’t lie, or refrain from breaking up with Steveout of cowardice. But the canon put her in a place where the worst could beassumed about her, with no evidence, only conjecture.

[a-room-of-my-own]

Authenticity & empathy: Meghan Murphy

Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer and journalist. She has been podcasting and writing about feminism since 2010, is the founder and editor Feminist Current, Canada’s leading feminist website and has published work in numerous national and international publications.

This is the text of the speech she gave at the 22nd meeting of Woman’s Place UK.

I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity lately. We’re currently living in a culture wherein authenticity has been traded in for fakery. We support and reward virtue signalling and punish those who are real, those who tell the truth, those with integrity, those who insist on making political arguments based on critical thinking and what is right, rational, and ethical, instead of based on what is politically correct or popular.

I have a rather overzealous commitment to authenticity, which I think has played a sizable role in my insistence on pushing back against gender identity ideology and legislation. I know I have friends, or acquaintances, or friends of friends, or random internet followers with self righteous opinions who think maybe I should just back off of this. Or who claim I’m being ‘mean’ or unempathetic, because I continue to operate in reality rather than the fantasy land we’re told is the new normal, wherein black is white, up is down, and men are women.

But I see no empathy for women and girls on the part of trans activists, that is to say, those pushing gender identity ideology and legislation. What I see is bullying, threats, ostracization, and a misogynist backlash against the feminist movement and much of the work it’s accomplished over years.

I see no empathy for women who are now being forced to compete against male athletes in sport, essentially rendering women’s sport nonexistant, as they can no longer compete on fair ground, if forced to compete against men. I see no empathy for the female athletes speaking out against this reprehensible trend — instead they’re being smeared and threatened. I see no empathy for the lesbians being bullied right out of their own events and communities, as the LGBTQxyz+++ whatever movement does nothing to support them, and in fact seems instead to support the men pushing them around and hurling verbal abuse at them, simply for asserting that lesbians are females who are attracted to other females, not heterosexual men interested in playing around with lipstick.

We held an event in Vancouver earlier this month, addressing the issue of gender identity and kids, and our venue — the Croatian Cultural Centre — received so many threats they had to file a police report, hire their own security, and bring in the Vancouver Police Department to keep protesters off the property. They, for once, didn’t blame us — women, feminists — for the threats of violence sent their way, and rather asked, with disbelief, how it was us the trans activists were accusing of being ‘hateful’, while simultaneously verbally abusing and threatening violence against the venue’s staff.

Somewhere between 150 and 200 protesters showed up, and stood outside with signs saying things like, “Support trans youth”, “Love and Solidarity”, “Love trans kids”, “be careful who you hate, it might be someone you love” and “love wins.”

All this branding around “love” has been incredibly successful, of course. We — women fighting for women’s rights, people fighting for the truth, those of us who insist on acknowledging that biology is real, that females and males are real things, and that, no, there is no such thing as a “female penis” —have been painted as hateful, intolerant, and bigoted, despite the fact that we are the only ones engaging (or trying to engage in) respectful, civil, rational debate and discussion, and being shut down over and over again.

Despite the fact that WE are the ones concerned about male violence against women and how gender identity ideology and legislation will hurt women, as well as kids, who are now being sent down a path towards hormones and surgery that will destroy their bodies permanently, simply because they don’t conform to sexist gender stereotypes, it is trans activists who have positioned themselves as caring and politically correct, and us as cruel and intolerant.

As I was leaving the venue after that event, the stragglers screamed at me that I had blood on my hands. Which of course I do not, and which, of course, is incredibly ironic considering how many times I’ve been told I should be murdered on account of my belief that you can’t change sex, and that it is not possible to be ‘born in the wrong body.’

I see no empathy in trans activism for the girls who will lose scholarships and opportunities to boys who can easily beat them in athletic competitions.

I see no empathy for women and girls who don’t feel comfortable with naked men in their change rooms at the pool. I see no empathy for youth being put on hormones that will have a lasting impact on them, including permanent sterilization, all to accommodate adults who don’t want to see trans ideology questioned under any circumstances.

I see no empathy for the women and their children who will have nowhere to turn if their local transition house is defunded on account of a women-only policy.

I see no empathy for Kristi Hanna, a Toronto woman and survivor of sexual assault, who had leave her room at Palmerston house, a shelter for recovering addicts, because she was made to share a room with a man, and did not feel safe.

I see no empathy for the 14 female estheticians who were asked to give a male a brazilian bikini wax, then dragged to court when they declined, saying they only offered the service to women.

I see no empathy for the girls allegedly predated on by this man, who is being protected by our very liberal, very progressive society that’s choosing to put male feelings and desires above all else, under the guise of ‘inclusion’, and thanks to trans activism.

Women and girls are being told they may not have boundaries. That they may not say ‘no’ to men. And this is what we are told it means to ‘choose love’. This is what we are being told is ‘feminism’.

Trans activism says women may not define their own bodies as female. That we may not have our own rights, services, and spaces, that ‘exclude’ men. It says gender stereotypes are real and innate, but the female body is a social construction. It says that ‘woman’ is based only on adherence to or an affinity towards femininity, something feminism has fought against for years.

So much of what women fought for over the past century is being rolled back, and progressives are insisting we all shut up and take it, because it’s ‘nice’, and of course, women must always be ‘nice’, even if it means putting our lives, autonomy, safety, opinions, and rights aside.

NOTHING about the trans movement is progressive and nothing about it is feminist.

I brought up authenticity earlier on, partly because I am sick to death of this social media based culture wherein we put forth personas we believe our audience will like, modeling perfect faces, lives, and thoughts, which I find incredibly boring and depressing, but also because I see this devaluing of authenticity as having an incredibly destructive impact on political discourse, and certainly it’s manifested itself powerfully in the trans movement.

I don’t believe that, aside from a few exceptionally delusional or troubled people, a majority of the population believes it’s possible to change sex. I don’t believe that all these so called progressives look at a man we call him ‘she’, and believe he is literally a woman. I don’t believe all these people claiming ‘love wins’ and insisting women be more ‘empathetic’ as they give up all their rights and spaces, while these activists spout vile, hateful insults and threats at us, are really very loving at all.

I think people are not telling the truth. I think they are repeating mantras and going along with ideas and policies in order to appease their Facebook friends. I think they value social status a lot, and are willing to give up ethics and truth in order to be liked. And I think it’s pathetic. I think that these people are throwing women under the bus and even selling themselves out in the process, knowing that they’re spouting lies for virtual cookies and using us all to fake politics.

And I refuse to be used as some kind of stepping stool for empty headed, cowardly hipsters — these extremely privileged people who have fetishized oppression, but have no idea what marginalized groups actually face and deal with on a daily basis, because certainly it’s not ‘misgendering’ that is keeping people poor and vulnerable — who can’t be bothered to read, listen, or think before announcing, boldly, that women with actual politics, who actually understand history, and who are bold enough to take a stand against actual bigotry and oppression should be silenced, punched, or even killed.

The wrong side of history is an embarrassing place to be.

But unfortunately I worry that, by the time these people realize how much damage they’ve caused by going along with such a destructive trend, it will be too late. What does give me hope is all of you. This massive and growing movement of people standing up and saying ‘no’, we won’t take this silently and sitting down. This groundswell of people insisting on telling the truth, despite the fact that we lose friends, jobs, social status, and sometimes safety, for doing so.

And the more we keep doing it, the more will join us.

Meghan Murphy

20th May 2019

[braddersbangerz]

How about Ronnie Brooks for the character-ask-thingy?

Oh, now that’s a surprise and definitely a welcome one. (I’m now watching Law and Order: UK again) So, this was a character thing, right? Well it turned into a breakdown between Ronnie and Jimmy, whoops.

Favourite thing about them?

Ronnie is a funny character because who he is to who he was is the massive difference between them and that fact that he’s sober even after witnessing someone who he loved like a son shot and killed in front of him, their blood coating his hands while he pressed his coat on them.

And then after another friend shot and killed in his car on his birthday. Another friend throwing him under the bus when said friend murdered someone, dangled and dragged him down with him.

So his tenacity in the face of what has happened to him and who he’s lost. He never once turned to the bottle again.

Least favourite thing about them?

His alcoholism ruined cases. He knows he fucked up, ruined his marriage, and wasn't there for his daughters and he still isn’t in a way because he chose to stop Sam going down the same path as he did at the cost of his relationship with one of his daughters again. So his priority of the job over the priority of his daughters and personal life.

Favourite line:

Ronnie: I lost an entire decade to cheap whisky. Luckily, it was the 1980s.

brOTP:

Matty and Ronnie. I hate watching Survivor’s Guilt even though the acting of Bradley Walsh is so fucking good in it... I just hate it because it hurts.

OTP (Although it’s not an OTP, it’s just a pairing that I thought about once, true OTP is Ronnie/The Job) I will go into detail about this one.

Ronnie Brooks/Jimmy Valentine.

In a sense that Jimmy would encourage Ronnie to stop drinking, but he’s doing shady shit on the side and because Ronnie is mainly drunk all the time he just didn’t or refused to see it.

Like, everyone saw right through Jimmy but Ronnie refused to. He’s constantly defending Jimmy and it just leads me to believe that maybe there was something more on Ronnie’s side. Like he owed Jimmy a lot, he really did, but maybe felt more for him.

Investigator: Do you know him socially?Ronnie: Is that relevant?Investigator: If I asked you, yes.Ronnie, after a moment of thought: Yes, we’ve socialised.

Jimmy knows Ronnie’s routine, and he’s like “You and me, we’ve had some times-” and he brings up Ronnie’s alcoholism. He’s manipulative of Ronnie, and Ronnie doesn’t see it. Jimmy pays for his stuff, drives ‘friends’ home and then comments to Matty “I’m starting to think you want to marry me.” Like, I just have this feeling he’s helped Ronnie but has also used him and Ronnie never suspected because he owed him so much.

Ronnie even risks what he built with Matty. It’s only when Jimmy doesn’t answer Matty’s question, but as soon as Ronnie brings it up, Jimmy reminds him what he has done for him and then threatens him.

That’s when Ronnie finally realises that his mate, isn’t his mate and that he’s been used and perhaps he’s been used more than he ever lets on. Like Jimmy, lent into his insecurities. It’s only when Ronnie goes against him that he shows his true colours against him.

When he’s arrested he comes out and gets in Ronnie’s face “I'm not finished with you yet” and a man like Ronnie who didn’t back away from a man with a knife looks down and avoids eye contact. 

What I’m saying is that Jimmy is mentally abusive towards him, he knows how to get what he wants out of Ronnie and I would argue that he did. Constantly because Ronnie ‘owed’ him so much.

And when Jimmy is finally in the dock he pulls Ronnie down with him because he knows what Ronnie was doing and where Ronnie was. He knows when Ronnie was clocked in and when he wasn’t. He knew his life.

They want to know what he’s hiding and he says “Don’t push me on stuff you don’t understand” to his friends. He shouts “Don’t!” at James and then goes “James, don’t tell me what I have to do, thank you” and I feel like Jimmy always told him what he had to do.

But he’s hiding the fact that he was having an affair with a married woman, he was single but she wasn’t, and if he had an affair with her, then it’s up in the air with Jimmy.

And we get on the final part and it’s on the rooftop.

And Jimmy says “We know each other too well.” with Ronnie saying next “Thing’s we’ve been through, stuff we’ve done, mate. We got to sort this out between us.” And yes he’s playing a role and getting evidence, but I reckon he’s also speaking the truth.

But when jimmy pats him down he says “I didn’t know you cared, Jimmy,” and Jimmy looks up at him and there is silence between them and perhaps Jimmy did care, but he twisted it into a power dynamic that Ronnie only just managed to break free from.

The very end of the episode has Ronnie say to Matty “Liz is trying to talk to her husband, begging him not to leave.” Pause. “I loved her once, ya know. Her and Jimmy were my life for a while.” And that’s what makes me think Ronnie and Jimmy friendship was more. 

Basically, if the rumour that Robert Glenister is going to be in Series Twelve Doctor Who then I’m gonna scream if I get Graham and whatever character he’s playing interacting together. I would answer the rest but I can’t think now that I wrote that out.

[ryouverua]

One last time

HE’S BACK -

Fair warning - lots of text below. Like. Lots.

... But first, just before he came to meet with us again -

So all of his classmates in turn talk about how relieve they are that they can work together without suspecting each other, but something about the way she says it rings............ false. But then again, that might be my own bias colouring things. She outright states it in a way that the others don’t, idk. 8′D

Shuichi, though... he’s realized. Maybe not with an exact name, but he knows that isn’t true. He literally can’t bring himself to pretend that it’s true at all.

Oh Himiko...

5 survivors.... or maybe 4, depending on how the mastermind goes out. That’s definitely a new, sad record. :(

I CAN NAME A REASON -

Look who’s back with a brand new ahoge! It’s got that new-hair smell and everything -

H-He was never going to outright attack any of us though, right??? Even if he was willing to let us become collateral damage (which admittedly is super Not Great either, but -). That’s a really morbid thought Shuichi - where did it come from?

And of course, now that his hairpiece is back, he’s gone back to his more deferential, timid self.

“I’m telling you, that ahoge was 95% of my impulse control! Literally!”

But the fact that he’s apologizing now, when he was completely unapologetic before... that has to be that inner voice directing him now, right? But I wonder if it influences his ‘emotions’ (or whatever the equivalent would be for him) as well. Is the voice literally telling him to apologize or does he just ‘feel the urge’ to apologize?

So it is back.

Has it always been that tall???

Maybe if Miu and Kokichi had let him talk before Korekiyo’s trial, we could have followed up on this!!

Honestly though, I’m curious about this too. Is it a literal voice that tells him what to do? Does it appear as a suggestion to him? It sounds like it isn’t ordering him around but more ‘offering suggestions’... something that wouldn’t come across as obtrusive, but welcoming. Something that wouldn’t raise any alarm bells in him. Or maybe he was programmed to accept that just the way things were supposed to be.

.......... Actually the fact that it came up around Korekiyo’s trial, someone else who was revealed to be doing things based on a voice of sorts in his head, is a very strange coincidence? That... may or may not bode well for K1-b0. Is he going to be a foil to Korekiyo, or a parallel?

The inner voice may be good after all if it helped him realize this. 8′D 

Wait, they said there was an accident when he was first created, right? And he reset? This had to have been a fail-safe because something similar to this happened...

As much as I want to comment on the fact that he’s said he can’t cry and he literally is sweating and his ‘eyes’ are ready to overflow, but fffff every single time I see this sprite my heart clenches and I kind of want to hug him. >3>

We’ve officially got everyone on the same side now! ......... well okay there’s technically one specific exception but on the surface we’re all good!

Look at Maki getting better at shedding her tsundere side! She’s getting better at being outright kind and welcoming to people, yay ~

oh my god

This is so..... blatant.... especially with Maki literally saying K1-b0 created this opportunity and Monokuma throwing her under the bus to have another trial. She.... she’s mad at him, isn’t she? And Monokuma too? 

Oh man anyone who doesn’t realize at this point probably thinks it’s one of her anime-reference non-sequiters! But it’s not! It’s definitely a distraction! And she’s totally established herself as someone whose head is in the clouds so she she says random things like this, no one blinks an eye! What other comments has she covered like this?

ARE YOU THOUGH.............

Anyway, it’s time for the trial now so - 

Yeah that’s true - we haven’t actually resolved this clue yet, have we?

I thought your eyesight wasn’t good? But okay, why not! Have a go at it, K1-b0!

Okay before plot progression though, fluff text time -

................................

WHELP THIS IS A HELL OF A FLUFF TEXT

I have so many things to say about this despite the fact that I’ve definitely talked about it before, because I actually relate to the idea of feeling like a different person in cosplay - of, well, letting yourself become the role. And I’ve definitely said that the theme of ‘becoming the role’ is a huge secondary theme of the game, just under ‘truth vs lies’, which is actually why I originally had Tsumugi as my potential mastermind back in Chapter 3. It’s telling that she’s comparing K1-b0 and his ‘personality enhancement’ with her own cosplay though - she’s often said that she only finds herself interesting when she isn’t being herself, so maybe it applies here too. Is this her way of enhancing her own self? Of becoming what she thinks is a ‘better’ self, a more interesting and charismatic person?

With that reveal of ‘Junko’ at the end of the last trial and Tsumugi often comparing cosplay to ‘bringing someone to life’, ‘channeling’ and ‘and being a vessel for the gods’, that means she’s basically resurrecting Junko in a sense... or acting as her vessel? Is that what will happen here? I think it’s possible for her to bring the ‘larger than life’ Junko from history (like the way long-dead historical figures can often become their own entities that walk the line between fiction and reality) as a way to get around the cospox issue unless I’ve really been accusing the wrong person this whole time lmao. It also lines up with all the times resurrection has been brought up in the game which is A LOT - the funeral scene/reviving the Ultimates, Ryoma describing himself as an empty shell walking around (and trying to ‘revive’ himself via a reason to live, killing off the initial protagonist then reviving the role for Shuichi, the Necronomicon, the seance, Korekiyo and his sister, and lastly, Kokichi via Kaito in the exisal. Combine that with my theory of the students just being normal kids who were reborn with the memories of actual Ultimate students who already died... and them even being forced to dress for those roles... this line of hers becomes really important!

Is this going to become a showdown between personalities who died ages ago? But for what purpose? Even though it looks like there’s a decent amount of things that were made up/embellished in those lights, the clip of the funeral, Kaede wearing the helmet and the meteors were shown outside of the flashback light scene - so are we still facing a doomsday scenario?

And back to Tsumugi herself - does she not have enough conviction to follow through with these plans and Monokuma unless she’s in Junko-wear? That would explain why she and Monokuma don’t seem to be on the same page... So which one of them is pulling the strings, exactly?? They’re definitely independent entities!

Meanwhile Himiko is having a grand old time because she’s finally got a friend in Maki. Aaaaaaw ~

We’re, uh, going to have problems if that’s true.

SHUICHI REMEMBERS TOO LMAO

Strength of an old man, average or below-average agility, eyesight and intelligence... what else was there?

And it wasn’t stripped from you???

But... maybe they didn’t realize you had it. Or don’t care? It’s not a dangerous upgrade, so maybe they didn’t realize it could be used in a way that could possibly hinder them...

He says he’s accepted it, but I think it was more out of necessity. It’ll take him some time to adjust to this new state of mind... but I’m happy to hear it, tbh. Just like Shuichi, he’s really struggled with his Ultimate identity up until now, you know? And even though it’s on more of an extreme level, these talents created differences in everyone and how they related to the world, not just him. It’s just a bit more... well, obvious in his case.

It’s all about accepting the good with the bad, K1-b0! And despite some, uh, questionable actions on your part, you really did do so much for us - we never would have gotten to Kokichi’s and Rantaro’s lab, the mastermind’s room, or discovered the flashback light machine without you!

Oh???

.... Uh.

Uh. What. What are those. What.... What are those?!?!

GONTA WAS RIGHT - !

w h a t they’re so stupid and cute

Tiny.... cameras....??? They look like little camera men?

..... I.... I don’t know... if this rules out VR or not. Because if they need little these little guys with cameras, doesn’t that mean they don’t have the omniscient power of a computer program behind them....????

Again, why did they not strip you of these new functions along with the weapons???

First of all, damn, K1-b0! Getting your ahoge back didn’t kill all of that fire in you after all!

Second of all.............. your skin???? Shell??? It’s definitely changed colour? Since when has it been so human-like -

Looks like K1-b0 can still be tough with his ahoge. :D

Oh god, there’s a whole swarm of hivemind Camera-kubs all over the campus? And they’re literally everywhere?!?! wtf -

I guess that’s a similar concept to the regular Monokumas??? Sure there’s usually only one operational at a time, but they always seem to pick up where the last left off. kind of like Kyuubey

First of all, ew.

Second of all, TRAUMATIC BUZZING NOISE FLASHBACKS

THE ONES THAT I STUPIDLY THOUGHT WERE PART OF THE MONITOR SETUP AROUND THE SCHOOL

but that wouldn’t have made sense because there’s nothing like that outside -

So there’s nanotechnology that exists on such a scale............

MONOKAMERA, THE SIXTH MONOKUB, HIDING ALL OVER THE ACADEMY. THE ONE THEY CALL THE ULTIMATE CAMERA GUY. WATCH OUT FOR HER THEM....

Can we note that once again it is Maki declaring that Kokichi was correct? She is doing her damnedest to check her own prejudices against him this chapter as penance and it’s great.

It’s not ideal, but I also wonder if some of the things he uncovered were only possible using his methods. not that you probably actually are happy about that

actually I bet you were pissed about the whole chapter 5 thing too

..... I want to go back and see that tbh

TALK OF REINCARNATION AGAIN.... also lol Himiko that’s kind of mean

Monokuma thinks he’s going to win... and if I’m reading this correctly, he can still win at the expense of Tsumugi losing....? Is that why? Even if Tsumugi’s plan fails and we see past her trap of ‘Kaede is the mastermind’, identifying Tsumugi will still end up being a victory for him....?

And your sudden hope!extremism, yeah? Because that really was something. 8′D

OH GOD WE’RE GOING IN I MEAN... I’M READY BUT I’M ALSO NOT TBH, I’M NOT 100% SOLID ABOUT THE BIG MYSTERY SURROUNDING THE GAME

like

I feel like I ~get~ some stuff but there’s still something just beyond...........

“M-Maki I know you’re trying to put my mind at ease but can we not bring up dying before we’ve even tried to win -”

Real talk - I love Himiko’s spell names.

Y.... Yeah........ but why are you excited about this....?

Then again, I feel like you were actually really attached to Gonta? I mean, you were always defending him, right? Is this your way of giving him some postmortem love? ...... AAAAH I DON’T KNOW -

aslkdjf I know this was the same amount as last time but this is such a small cast left -

Man, we’re just... swinging right back to despair and hope again. Look, I know we’re appeasing K1-b0 but -

Why.... why is it back again. Why is Monokuma back again. Why did the killing game come back at all - what is the point of trying to be Junko? What’s to gain from all of this?

I remember thinking and really liking the idea that this game was completely separate from the last two, so it’s strange to have arrived at this point at the very end, but.... well. Here we go, I suppose.

Well said, Sweetcheeks.

So.... normally I’d have a drawn out map of the crime scene, but this is a pretty different situation so I made this at the trial save point:

It’s a bit small, so I’ll recap and expand on that and a few other things:

“TSUMUGI IS THE FUCKING MASTERMIND AND SHE IS TOTALLY TRYING TO SET KAEDE UP AS THE ‘FAKE’ MASTERMIND TO SCREW WITH SHUICHI’S (ET AL)’S HEADS

She set up the document saying Kaede has a twin and is trying to draw parallels to Junko (to trick Shuichi)

She planted the shot-put ball in the mastermind’s lair

She didn’t talk about ‘birthing a Monokuma’ (when everyone else did)

SHE IS THE ‘MOTHER’ THAT WAS REFERRED TO BY MONOTARO IN TRIAL 4, NOT MOTHERKUMA

So I went into some detail earlier about Tsumugi herself, and over the last few investigation posts I ended up decided on what I outlined above. On top of everything else, I think we’re going to nail her on the idea that while Kaede’s murder occurred, she went to the library via the mastermind’s lab and stole Rantaro’s Survivor’s Perk. The problem is... then what? What exactly will we do after that? Also I swear Kaede thought of the same thing, with no idea what to do once we confronted the mastermind -

As for the general situation, I’m sticking to my guns about the class not actually being the Ultimates they think they are - I saw the ‘talents’ part of the flashback light setup menu. Actually, the flashback lights themselves.... jeez. Okay. Ironically enough, my thoughts on them are that their execution in the game is similar to Kokichi’s lying style.

First the game has a cutscene that’s completely truthful. Kaede and Shuichi remember being kidnapped at the beginning of the game. The entire prologue scene. The funeral at the beginning of chapter 2. The meteors in chapter 3. Hell, the kid at the beginning of this chapter, who seems to be watching them and getting inspired by them...??? Then... that’s when the flashback light comes in and embellishes that truth with fantasy. That funeral? It was for the entire class, and they all see themselves as being part of it (picturing ‘themselves’ in those photos rather than the students whose memories they all have). The meteors? It gave rise to an entire death cult - the Ultimate Despair, in fact - and they, themselves, were hunted (which plays off of the players’ knowledge of knowing they remember being kidnapped off the streets). Or something like that....

I’m just trying to place a few things, like that picture of Kaito with his grandparents in the motive video and the flashbacks of Shuichi and Kaede in the helmets. Where do they get placed in all of this? Was Shuichi able to project the image of ‘Kaito’ he knew when watching the video, or is that part of the technomagic of the video itself? We did have a whole segment of the VR chapter talking about the mind being able to be fooled into overcoming the reality of the situation (dying via simulation murder) so is it safe to extrapolate from there? And did Shuichi and Kaede remember themselves with those helmets separately from those flashback lights, as a delayed reaction (which as of this chapter is proven to be possible) or is that real?

As for whether this is a simulation, there’s evidence for and against that. The flashbacks with the helmets - pro. The physical presence of cameras - false. Though with that said, I’ve done a bit of work in computer programs where you actually have to set up cameras in-program and when testing the animation, it’ll only capture what’s set up in the frame - so then again, maybe not??? Those computerized cameras can be programmed to move along a certain path and the lens/frame/etc itself can also be altered.... and they did counteract having blind spots by swarming the campus with them so. Hm. Honestly, it could go both ways. I don’t want to dwell too much on this only because I don’t think that’s going to be the ‘big’ reveal anyhow tbh...

Still though; roles, escapism, resurrection. That’s what I picked up on the most through this entire thing. So how does that work together...? The students were told they were replaceable, and the game will never end. Rantaro lived through one but died in the next. Did he live through a game with this same group of classmates or other people? Or, hell, were they ‘other people’ but with the same names/personalities/memories, but different physical people? And if he was willing to repeat the game again, then why? Was it for a chance to break the loop? Or is there a goal to be accomplished if he wins it properly?

Okay, I think I’m starting to go in circles here. What I know: Tsumugi is the mastermind, and she’s not in complete sync with Monokuma. She’s trying to get Kaede(’s twin) framed; Monokuma is perfectly fine with Tsumugi being identified. Tsumugi falls back on the Junko persona when she’s in mastermind mode - when she was alone, she couldn’t help but be that way with Motherkuma. It’s a role she’s able to take - maybe passed down. Anyway, the point is, she uses it to ‘enhance herself’ or maybe to ‘escape her plain self’. Almost like an emotional support thing....? I wonder...

A lot of the truth as we know it is embellished. Only things we can trust from the flashback lights are things we saw independently of them as well, I think? At the bare minimum, pre-Chapter 4. After that point we didn’t have any corresponding prologue clips to match with the lights. With that said, the students were given talents and memories to match them - I think the Ultimate students they belonged to were actually killed... by the Ultimate Hunt, perhaps. Either way, these kids were brought in as ‘replacements’, the same way the Monokids were replaced. Rantaro, at the very least, was not a replacement though - he had a chance to do this again and took it, for whatever reason... Is this a simulation for the Gopher Project? Or something else entirely? Why ‘resurrect’ the Ultimate students at all? And why is there potentially a scenario where Tsumugi loses, but Monokuma still wins? WHY DON’T I HAVE A FULLY CONFIDENT ANSWER FOR EVERYTHING FFS -

Oh, and of course, Kokichi Ouma was 25 steps ahead of everyone and had Rantaro’s figure in his room too, so that’s cool.