#utopia spoilers

[unknownorigins-uo]

im having my conservative brother watch the show utopia with me, and its a truly odd experience. he keeps interupting the conspiracy thriller whenever they introduce a conspiracy element to go "yeah but in real life [different conspiracy]"

also he just took milner at her word when she said mr.rabbits backstory and got confused why in season 2, after we saw milners backstory, and after we saw the assistant was the one who had the rabbit symbol on his chest, the show wasnt utilizing her super-spy killing potential she used when she killed that whole mafia organization as mr.rabbit. he didnt realize she was lying.

and of course obviously he keeps insistening that the characters actions dont make sense because natural resources like oil and gas are renewable and will never run out (actual thing he said). he isnt engaging in the moral dilemma because hes plugging his ears and saying it doesnt exist.

[powerup-the-revolution]

ah yes, my new favorite ship: The Truther x The Bullshitter

[alisha-on-arcane]

I just realised something. Initially it annoyed me a little that AU Powder doesn't seem to have psychosis. Which Powder had on the bridge!

But no, Ekko had a bad reaction and threw a tool at Powder, then Benzo comes in and... they both laugh it off? "Oi, one of those days huh?" "You know those ugly twins. Genius and madness!"

...they're all used to working around Powder's psychosis, aren't they? She's okay because multiple people are helping her to understand what's real and what isn't, and not blaming her for being unsure. And they're automatically doing the same for Ekko.

[catinfroghat]

I think the biggest grievance I have with severance season 2 was they still gave reghabi absolutely nothing and I think this goes along with the no black writers criticism quite well because you have this morally grey genius neurosurgeon who is also an older black woman so of course she literally just turns up to help the protagonist out of nowhere acts mysterious and then disappears again. We know nothing about why she turned against Lumon how she developed the reintegration technique how she managed to get in touch with Petey/convince him to reintegrate. It's a mystery show and we don't need all the answers straight away but even just some interiority for her would have been nice what are her beliefs is she feeling anything after the murder she committed how about after accidentally killing a patient does she have a family where has she been living all this time if she's on the run what's her history with Cobel just a crumb please

[egophiliac]

I have never been more concerned for a JP update from your art than I am seeing a Cheka knowing the context of Leona’s dream.

My bois ok right?????? My sweet nephews ok right??????

well

uhhhh

I'm sure the real one is fine :)

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - Scala ad Caelum

[utilitycaster]

For what it's worth, I think Campaign 3 suffers when compared to, to put it bluntly, pretty much anything else Critical Role has ever put out, as well as most actual play that I've watched/listened to. But I think it uniquely suffers when juxtaposed with a narrative that says "if you do not make rapid decisions you and others around you will die; if you spend too much time whining about how it's unfair that you are called to make these decisions, including ones that might challenge you, you and others around you will die; and if you do not above all prioritize community and deal with threats to that community - and expand your understanding of community to be a very broad one - you will be destroyed." It was jarring and hypocritical to watch Campaign 3's defenders who had been calling for the gods to be slaughtered for much of the campaign suddenly spin around and praise Bells Hells for finding [having handed to them] the nonviolent option because that's actually always the best one, don't you know; and I think EXU Divergence challenges not just that ideal but the concept that there's a universal solution. Sometimes the right thing is to hide; sometimes it's necessary to commit violence to prevent further violence. Sometimes the right thing is to secretly eat some of the cheese yourself to prevent you from dying; sometimes it's to be on the lookout for someone trying to take more of their share in a resource-limited community and to stop them. Sometimes the right thing is to carry others; sometimes it's to give them to someone stronger and more able. And above all, many of these choices will be extremely unfair and difficult and put you at risk, and you do still have to make them, and soon.

[maelancoli]

i'm kind of late to this but i just finished reading the scholomance trilogy by naomi novik and i feel like it is such an underrated urban fantasy?? taking the chosen one trope and turning it on its head with a fmc who has been prophesied to bring death and destruction, who is imbued with terrible power, but cannot even properly use said power to solve any of her obstacles because it would obliterate them and her soul. it takes a tired trope and the idea of an 'overpowered mary sue' and throws it back in your face by showing how all the power and destiny in the world is useless against a system filled with corruption that has burdened you with an easy way out (evil/destructive magic) that you can't take so now you have to work twice as hard as everyone else just to do simple, constructive spells instead of flicking your wrist and being done with it.

[lanschpaket]

Appreciation for our lord and savior! Do you have a little time to spare to talk about our lord and savior Arcane Jesus Viktor? Vander apparently rejected him and his truths

[smilingaspera]

I found extremely funny that Carla’s first reaction was thinking the Doctor abandoned Ruby here and there because that is EXACTLY what the Doctor does BUT not to Ruby because she’s BLONDE

[alisha-on-arcane]

Just realised that there is actually conflict in the Zaun Utopia AU. Powder feels she is not living up to her full potential; Vander implies that she is only helping Ekko, Heimerdinger, Mylo and Claggor with their science, rather than doing her own.

Which is hilarious and seems like a good thing when we know that one alternative is Jinx.

But say what you like about main timeline Silco, he supported female inventors to succeed at their independent research efforts.

[fumifooms]

I should have touched on dark elves in my beauty standards post... Let me just slap this on here real quick. So as we went into there, beauty standards can show political dynamics and sort of reflects the politics of who get to be seen as human, who get to be seen as desirable and promoted within a society. So like, beauty is power right, in the sense that beauty standards are highly influenced by the ones in power, the ones who have the time & resources to look a certain way and the power to present that look as desirable to large groups. It’s complex and diverse but generally beauty standards are upheld by the elite, the influential.

By the former 'time & resources' thing I mean stuff like clothes, health, makeup or even cosmetic surgeries, or even simply the freedom to only go out in public when you look your best— Meanwhile the latter, the power to present that look as desirable to large groups, usually applies more to situations where it’s about a whole category of people like an ethnicity that was uplifted as the ideal. Not just in a political or economic dynamic, but discrimination on a systematic level without regard for individual appearance or action.

For example in the former, not all people who wear makeup are rich, and while makeup did historically help signal status, if you’re poor and wear nice makeup you can still touch some of that beneficial association with the beauty standards that makeup helps you attain. In the latter……. Well you get, "no, all elves are good! So the elves who do bad things must be something else!". Where, in trying to have uniform standards for a whole group, you kinda just get erased or othered if you don’t conform to expectations. The elves especially put effort into giving off this air of perfection, which they've successfully made tallmen populations believe. So, for those people, the answer that "But elves are inherently good and beautiful and perfect?" asks, isn't "well elves mustn't be inherently perfect", but instead is "there must be bad ones too, innately too." A similar phenomenon happens with the reverse too, where people will say there are "the good ones" within a group that's seen negatively.

"But Fumi, in this case the difference is purely linguistic and perceived, there’s no visual difference!" Yeah, and there being little visual distinction between two groups has never stopped people from being discriminated tbh. Different types of christians seeing each other as heathwbs for example, or the deep british vs irish hatred that has existed. A tidbit of history I find fascinating was the infamous use of "speak white" from english-speaking canadians against french-speaking canadians especially, because complicated history aside, last century as the business owners the anglophones had the power over the majoritarily francophone working class and a lot of political sway even though they were the minority in the Québec region. There’s a different cultural and ethnic identity there, and language was the most important difference between the two groups- and I suppose the most noticeable one.

The way we as social creatures and social groups categorize people and the groups they form is complex, interesting and very important to our society and the way we approach both the world and social interactions, and that's what leads to discrimination. We decide what’s important and then we decide it’s what people should be judged and distinguished by. Belonging to a group is a show of status, and can be a weaponized both ways, for and against. If you’re not worthy to be an elf, a "good" elf, then you’re not.

Interesting especially because looking at the elf portraits page there seems to be many different cultures within the elf race, so yes "good elf" vs "dark elf" is considered something like a race rather than an ethnicity or culture presumably. There's definitely a "main" elven culture since it seems pretty uniform whenever it's brought up in the adventurer's bible and the story, though, wether the differenr cultures form different communities in different places or live together as one nation. But maybe more treated like a mental illness since it’s acquired, or sometimes slang? It's not completely clear wether it's thought of as fully innate or something learned, a chosen moral failure like sin is, but with how they speak about it they do sound very essentialists, even Chilchuck seems to get a chill considering Marcille could be one. Quoting Kui's lore comic, "There are two kinds of elves, nice holy elves and evil elves bewitched by darkness". It’s just considered like an innate thing that separates them from the concept of elves... 🤔 But this sort of category being vague is often a feature and not a bug, because then they can be a boogeyman to bring up just whenever is convenient, that can fit whoever, like calling a kid a "fairy's child" for whatever behavior in the olden days, because if you don't precise a lot what a dark elf is then it can apply to whoever you see fit, and it doesn't need to be coherent or consistent. The sort of discrimination headspace that leads to the classic fascist "the enemy is both strong and weak" type rethoric.

"Dark elves" is interesting within Dunmeshi because it's about people trying to fully separate elves from the concept of bad and untrustworthy people, even though they look the same. "Elf" isn’t just a beauty standard, it is The ultimate ideal of perfection both in appearance and morality, and if something threatens that perception and reputation it has to get rationalized and compartmentalized. Those are coping mechanisms to avoid having your whole world view challenged or shattered. To tallmen who practically worship elves, it’s a huge deal!! To them that makes it make sense! Some elves are born good and some elves are born evil, simple as! No world view re-examination needed!

So for Marcille for example... It’s interesting because she has an outside view of elven society despite being elven herself. She was raised amongst tallmen, aka the people who idolize elves to this intense degree. It had to have affected her dynamics with others— not unlike the academy students, mostly gnomes and tallmen, who looked up to her as some natural-born genius, even though she did do research and study to get her skills and grades. It also had to affect her relationship with having a role model growing up (having none around except for her mother who pretty much renounced her elven culture, a novel series that sensationalizes and glamorizes elves), her dynamic with being elven itself, because even though she doesn't feel like she fully fits into it she's interested in elven culture, and she herself enforces the beauty standards around elves and acts elitist about it- as seen when tallmen actors playing Daltian Clan opera, when men are very masculine rather than very androgynous like with Laios, having long hair, having no facial or body hair. With this angle, all of this behavior of hers is very "internalized high standards that were my bible to follow growing up and so others must follow them too and these high standards must be worth upholding".

Considering everything, elves being looked up to as a role model in appearance and behavior, plus them having the reputation of being great at magic, and Marcille having grown up amongst mostly tallmen, we start understanding that there was IMMENSE pressure on Marcille to conform to that idea of an elf. She has a lot of pressure and a very high beauty & behavior compass to conform to. She also has an idealist and rigid sense of justice and morals, like how Namari is a heartless traitor for leaving instead of coming along to save Falin, and she needs people to believe she has noooo facial or body hair. She probably WAS afraid of being seen as a dark elf, aka fundamentally evil, for her dark magic research. You don't want to be a letdown, do you? You don't want to be the ugliest elf, do you? You don't want to be a dark elf, do you? You don't want to be one of the bad ones.

Shave your facial hair and deny you have any body hair. Take care of elven traditions like hair-braiding and have pride. Be the kind, smartest model student. Do magic by the book. Never do dark magic. Ah shit-

And so she hid the domain of her research, and so she hid being a half-elf.

[girlshambogames]

so does anyone else feel like zam naming his sanctuary Garden of Eden is a self fulfilling prophecy waiting to happen or.....

[omnis-hostis-resurrexit]

The Light of Absent Eyes

Vander has taken to visiting Ekko's mural on quiet evenings. Without the oppressive haze of the grey, Zaun's nights are colder than they used to be. Silco, ever observant, brings him his sweater. Sentimental shenanigans ensue.

Read on AO3

Rating: T for mild smut

Tags: Silco/Vander, S2 Utopia AU, Fluff, Old men being sappy and cute, Multiverse-Typical OOC

Word Count: 2110

Without early winter's chill in the air, Silco thought, this place would smell intolerably swampy. A few browning lilypads still clung to the surface of the pool, and a carpet of the giant ginkgo tree's shed leaves slid and squished under his boots as he made his way through the water. Dusk barely filtered down into the abandoned reservoir, and the only clear light came from a cluster of mismatched candles in front of the mural of a young woman's face. A young woman with fiery red hair and a fighter's wraps on her hands. A young woman whose expressions made her look by turns angry and angular, soft and smiling, and utterly at home in her own skin.

A young woman Silco had never met, and never would.

"Missed me that much, eh?" Vander was leaning against one of the mossy concrete pipes that littered the reflecting pool, and his voice echoed off the metal walls around them.

"Were you gone?" Silco asked with a mocking tilt of his head, slinging Vander's thick, much-mended cardigan off his shoulders and holding it out toward him. "You shouldn't be wandering around the fissures this time of night in your shirtsleeves."

"Yeah, alright, mum," Vander said with a good-humored roll of his eyes as he shrugged his arms into the sweater. In the poor light, Powder's riotously-colored darning washed out to a shadowy camouflage around the cuffs and elbows like flashes of unpolished ore emerging from the mud-brown yarn.

"I'm serious. Winter's getting colder every year since they redid the air filters," he said, wrapping his arms across his chest and burrowing his chin further into his scarf as he settled himself next to Vander on the concrete pipe. "Not that I miss the grey, mind, but I'm beginning to understand the topsiders' penchant for hats and gloves and twenty-seven petticoats at a time."

"Oh?" Vander reached over to twine a finger absently through the fringe on Silco's scarf. "Is that why a pallet of Shuriman cashmere shawls fell off the back of an airship straight into the upstairs storage closet?"

"Just reading the market, darling. Remember our deal," he said as he gently unwound Vander's hand and held it in his own. "You don't stick your nose into my perfectly legitimate import-export business, and I don't complain that you still don't put enough bitters in an Old Fashioned."

"I did agree to that, didn't I." He shook his head and settled his hand comfortably on Silco's knee. Wind sighed across the mouth of the reservoir far above, scattering a grace of golden leaves across them. Vander looked up into the branches, one fan-shaped leaf caught against his hair.

It pulled at something in Silco's chest, the thin thread between them that had been cut and re-tied against all better judgment, frayed and worn and haphazardly repaired again and again. Stronger at the mended places, he thought as he plucked the leaf between his fingers and quietly slipped it into his shirt pocket.

He didn't know how long Vander had been here communing with this uncanny vision of his dead child, older and more fully-formed than she'd ever been in life. His girl, his Violet, his fierce little firecracker, and Felicia's and Connol's before that. Never really Silco's. He was an infrequent visitor to their cramped little rooms under the old water tower, while her parents lived. And after? Forgiveness refused to be rushed, it took its own hard-bitten time, and time in Zaun always had casualties.

"She's definitely Connol's work, no mistaking that," he commented as he drew one leg up, perching on the dry moss. "The one on the far left? Tell me that's not exactly the scowl he'd give every scab who walked past us on the picket line."

Vander chuckled and shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Gods, he was a force of nature, eh? Always the quiet ones."

"Hmm," Silco nodded. "They made an odd pair. I always thought he grounded her a bit. Not always a bad thing." He pressed the side of his leg against Vander's warmth and felt him shift closer.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Vander gave him a brief sidelong glance. "What else is different over there. Who else might've…" He dropped his head slightly, and his grip on Silco's hand tightened.

"Been spared?" A corner of Silco's mouth contracted, and he squeezed Vander's hand in return. "We were children of Zaun when that meant even odds we wouldn't live to lose our milk-teeth," he said, his voice tempered by something like remorse. "Who knows if any of us survived to see her at that age?"

Vander made a soft grumbling sound in the back of his throat. "The way Ekko talked, sounds like I never did learn to give a good apology. The other Ekko, I mean. Her Ekko." He tilted his head toward the mural.

Silco tucked a strand of Vander's hair behind his ear and saw how the candlelight glimmered in his eyes. "Sounds like I was never smart enough to let you try until you got it right. I would have been a great fool to walk away and leave all this on the table."

His fingers strayed to the back of Vander's neck, warming under the smooth blanket of his hair. Every silver strand still felt like victory to him, a shining thread of resistance against the years of want and days of ash and blood.

Vander leaned into his touch, and his breaths deepened. "That your way of saying it's time to head home?"

"It is where we keep our bed, for better or worse," Silco murmured as he gently scraped his nails over the base of Vander's skull, just to feel him shudder.

Vander turned, placing himself between Silco's legs and sliding his hands slowly and firmly along them, pulling him closer. "Since when did we need a bed?"

Without waiting for an answer, he pressed his lips to Silco's with a gentle familiarity that did little to hide the underlying hunger. Silco clutched at him, hid his hands under the warm wool, strained to twine his calves against the backs of Vander's thighs. The cold air around them seemed to hone every exposed edge, every shirt-hem lifted, every collar drawn aside. It made the warmth of Vander's skin even more precious and ever more urgent.

They kissed like drowning men with something true to live for, lips and tongues a sliding, driven dance, Vander's hand at the small of his back, both increasingly ravenous for the other's heat. Vander bit gingerly at Silco's lower lip as he sucked it into his mouth, and Silco swallowed back the needy sound that threatened to leave his throat. He scraped a fingernail over Vander's nipple through his shirt, provoking a low and blissfully undignified whimper.

Never let it be said that Silco didn't give as good as he got.

Vander's thumb was toying with one of the brass buttons on Silco's trousers, making maddeningly patient little circles that just barely grazed the head of his cock through the stiff twill. "S'alright?" He breathed into Silco's ear, just a shade of hesitation in his words.

Silco's breath hitched, and he put his hand on top of Vander's, stilling them both. In an instant, Vander had gently tilted out of Silco's embrace and propped himself one hip against the mossy concrete, his other hand still resting on Silco's ribcage.

"Happy to take my time, you know," he offered. "You could wear my sweater if you're cold." He couldn't see the tentative smile on Vander's face in the dark, but he could hear it. He couldn't hear the concerned little line between Vander's eyebrows, but he knew it was there.

"No, it's not — it's fine, Vander. It's not you." He leaned forward and tucked his cold fingers under the waistband of Vander's trousers, nodding toward the mural. "I just can't shake the feeling we're being watched."

Vander let out a breath that sounded relieved, and clouded in the air. "Well, I can't say my knees aren't grateful," he said with a subtle lilt of laughter, dragging one heavy boot through the limestone gravel beneath it. He held one hand out, and Silco slid down from the concrete pipe into his arms.

"Don't go making them any promises," Silco said, pressing himself closer, hands flush with Vander's chest. "Plenty of dark and relatively dry alcoves between here and the Drop. You might get your chance yet." He patted one hand in joking reassurance and pulled away with languid steps, heading toward the tunnel mouth.

Vander's answering low laugh was a banked coal, deep in the belly. "Relatively dry, hm?" He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "You really know how to show a fella a good time."

"So you keep telling me," he said, the scars on his cheek straining against the slow, vulpine smile that overtook his face in the dark.

He stood at the edge of the water while Vander put out the candles under the mural, one gentle hand lingering on Vi's painted hair for a moment. Silco might have heard a murmured g'night, love in the gathering dark. He must have heard it. Nothing else explained the swell of sentiment that rose beneath his sternum for a breath.

Vander slung his arm across Silco's shoulders, and they fell into step as they sloshed back toward the tunnel. Its inky depth was broken only by a thin trace of glow-chalk on one wall — Powder's helpful contribution, a new invention she was justifiably proud of. Its light pulsed faintly in time with the hollow sound of their even steps.

And if their youngest cast a skeptical eye at the smear of chalk across the back of Silco's jacket, or looked askance at the mud on Vander's knees before he hid them conveniently behind the bar? Well. There were worse things out there than two old rabble-rousers having a nostalgic fuck in a forgotten corner of the infrastructure.

As Silco stood by the back counter and made them both a proper cocktail, still loose-limbed and supple with fading afterglow, he pondered over all his hard-won blessings. How many did the other Silco have? Useless thought, but there it was.

Had he already died an ignominious, lonely death? Died young? Been cut down in his prime, coughing up blood until he drowned in it, like so many of their comrades from the mines? Lived still, driven by spite and distrust, fighting for every scrap until a violent end became inevitable? It didn't bear imagining. Not standing here in the warm light of the Last Drop, two full glasses in his hands, gazing at his partner's broad back as he pulled another pint of lager.

"There you are, love." He sat one glass on the counter near the taps. "That one's yours."

Vander handed the pints off to Gert with practiced efficiency and picked up his drink, reflexively wiping a wet ring from the counter with the bar towel. Behind him, a table of academy students boisterously toasted Live forever!, leaving a careless shower of suds in their wake.

"Now that's a prayer for bad luck if I've ever heard one," Silco mused, swirling the liquid in his glass.

Vander gave him a thin smile and cast his eyes briefly over his shoulder. "At their age, anything feels possible. Even in Zaun."

Silco rested his drink against his breastbone, looking aside in a satire of shame. "Gods, what am I like. You'll tell me, won't you, if I become one of those hideous old men who can't stop going on about how the younger generation's gone soft? Just say the word, and I'll give Powder a length of piano wire and tell her I hate her haircut."

"Oh, now I definitely won't tell you," Vander replied, his smile broadening into something genuine and bubbling under the surface. "Besides, someone has to teach these young'uns what their city's made of."

Silco raised his glass. "Blisters and bedrock?"

There was a warm shadow in Vander's eyes as he clicked the worn gold rims of their glasses together and returned the age-old toast. He held Silco's gaze longer than usual, looking at him as if he was something Vander couldn't bear to lose, someone he couldn't imagine living without. And for a moment, Silco felt the terrible, dizzying weight of the trust he'd placed in this man. The other Silco — Vi's Silco — would no doubt scoff, and fume about the catastrophic foolishness of his choice. In any other timeline, he'd be right.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he said.

[witchofthemidlands]

i theorised mrs. flood was the rani for a laugh as i've been guessing the rani for mystery characters since 2014, didn't think they'd actually do it.

[bluesyjean]

Do you ever sit around and think “well, if nothing else at least Leonard Peabody/Harold Jenkins is alive and well in the final timeline.”

Thank goodness they defeated the family who made everyone the worst versions of themselves.