#very good episode and editing my notes to post them only made me more emotional than i already was which is impressive

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 17 thoughts

this episode took a few days to work... and it built up the suspense! i tried to watch it on thursday- i was ready for my scullynmulder time- but it wouldn't play. and then i finally had time to try again yesterday, and it STILL wouldn't work.

(i had to go on reddit and learned that i needed to change a single number in a random string of code, because apparently a new firefox update just killed any ability to use hulu? the hoops i jump through for these two...)

but, i really enjoyed this episode! it had cute lil moments and then also some soul-crushing angst, which is the way i like it. so allow me to begin, and all of my note taking shall begin below!

YAYYYYY it’s scullynmulder time… my heart is so happy

so we open in a grocery store in virginia. it’s a nice looking grocery store. would browse there.

a guy is buying like a billion cans of stuff that has a muscle on it. and then a magazine with the freaky worm baby from s2 on it! haha a nice callback! again. shoutout to the props team <3

but then, the scene of tranquil grocery shopping was interrupted, as the guy with all the cans grabs the jacket of the guy in front of him- and it turns out the whole thing was a sting operation!!! guy who wanted his cans is referred to as “pusher”. the FBI has a TON of guys dealing with him. 5 cars full. wow! he must be very scary.

he’s in the back of the last car. and going on about this officer’s uniform color. 

he keeps saying cerulean over and over until somehow the guy driving the car stops seeing the big tractor trailer coming his way. and so when he drives straight ahead, he is immediately hit!!! is this some sort of hypnosis?

the intro was different again!! who do they think they are fooling by changing this?? not me!

mulder's office time. side note: it really is THEIR office as a collective. because we never see her at her desk. but anyway.

the police car’s driver died after hitting the tractor trailer that was magically invisible to him, but not before he unlocked the prisoner, pusher. pusher had confessed to contracted killings over two years that had been staged to look not like murders, if you catch my drift.

why would this otherwise great agent unlock this prisoner and also drive straight into a tractor trailer? a great question! one we can hopefully answer.

pusher had kept mumbling about cerulean until the driver ran into a truck for a business called cerulean. then he had written a clue at the scene of the crime! it says “nin or” which mulder flips backwards to read… ronin. ronin! i know that word!

mulder points out that this means a samurai without a master (nerd), and that this is the name of a… self defense magazine? so off to go read some magazines!

a young woman who we later learned is named holly brings them a big stack of the aforementioned magazines- maybe she's an archivist! maybe that should be my job!

she has a giant bruise on her face from getting mugged. mulder asks if they got whoever did this to her, and she says “do they ever? ….no offense” awww, holly, you're gonna make him sad. but seriously, poor girl, that is awful :(

she heads out, and scully is like, how did pusher do all of these killings? mulder says that he was probably utilizing the power of suggestion 

so they find an advertisement for someone “who solves problems” in all of the ronin magazines since 1994- which was when the murders started! a clue! with a phone number to go with it!

and in the ad were the letters OSU, which they thought meant ohio state but no! it’s a japanese word that means “to push”! gasp! it's definitely their guy!

(there was very conveniently a japanese to english dictionary on the shelf of the room where they were reading the magazines. i guess it's important to keep your language learning tools around in the FBI, but it was funny because all the other books looked like boring legal stuff)

they call the number, and it goes to a phone in virginia. mulder is in a car nearby and scully is there too, but she is sleeping. ON HIS SHOULDER!!!!

he lightly taps her face to wake her up and says “i think you drooled on me” and she quickly apologizes... NOOO DON’T BE MEAN TO HER!!! SHE’S SLEEPY 😭😭😭 awwwwww oh my HEART <3

(i need to scream real quick, because that was so precious. AHHHHHHHHHhhhhhHHHH)

((nah i'm never gonna move on from this actually. never never. the way he tapped her face.......... how she seemed so embarrassed.... the intimacy of falling asleep on someone's shoulder, how long he must have sat there trying not to make any sudden movements while still keeping his attention on the case........... i need to collect myself))

but then the phone rings back!!! they sprint sprint sprint and they pick it up… to someone asking if they are just going to sit there all night!!!! the pusher!!!

oh he’s creepy… he comments on how mulder “and his pretty partner seem awfully close”. now, is he invested in whatever the hell it is they have going on like i am (which is valid), or is he just a creep (less valid)? 

pusher seems to be a freak at least in some regards, saying that "they have to follow his breadcrumbs", and that the next one is right in front of mulder, who he keeps calling “g man”. he also says to let his fingers do the walking, which makes slim to no sense to me. 

but they figure that it means to call the last number on the pay phone, and it reaches a golf course! they hold the phone up so they both can hear the message and it’s so CUTE AWWW

mulder calls her “g-woman” as they leave <- STOP I’M GONNA SCREAM!!!

off to the golf course. where pusher is golfing with a very beat up face from the accident. he spots snipers hiding in the grass, mumbles that it is “about time”, and tries to get out. 

they have him cornered!!! but when he tells the dude with the gun on him to relax, he really does. and when pusher tells him to show him his face, he does. he knows the guy by name?!?

pusher tells this collins fellow to pour a ton of gasoline, which he does while crying. collins screams at the agents to stop him as he flicks on a lighter, but scully is fast and grabs a fire extinguisher, and mulder uses his jacket to induce a sort of stop drop and roll maneuver. huh, they really do work so well together!

a car horn is blaring, so mulder goes to see what is going on and it’s… a dude with his head on the horn. he says “bet you five bucks i get off”… it’s pusher! he was mumbling as if he was remotely controlling the dude who lit the flame... okay, weird.

mulder at da court. he is fidgeting as they question him about this pusher fellow and his 14 murders. mulder explains that he thinks pusher can talk his way into his victims hurting themselves, which is by far not the most outlandish thing we’ve heard on this television program, but the people in the court act like this is akin to spotting a unicorn, and scoff at mulder for proposing such a bizarre idea.

(usually i agree that mulder's ideas are bizarre, but this one seems entirely possible to me, with or without mind control. people can be talked into doing all sorts of things. mulder i am on your side and would not laugh at you like these fakes)

AND pusher had called and confessed to 14 murders, but his defense tries to write it off as a drunk prank call. while this is the most absurd thing we (both the viewer and the characters in court) have ever heard, and surely no one would ever believe it, pusher uses his mind power skills to get into the judge’s brain and make him be declared innocent.

pusher walks up to mulder and says he owes him five dollars. this dude majorly sucks.

cutscene to mulder practicing his aim. it’s pretty good!! he must be really unsettled by this whole situation to work on his marksmanship.

scully comes in (with the ear protection things on so mulder's firing doesn't blast her ears <3 queen of precautions) with more information on this pusher fellow. mulder starts reciting all the things he can guess about the pusher’s life, from his college to his military service to which branch and i'm thinking man, did he study up on this? is he that unsettled by this case? but ohhh yeah, mulder does profiling, seemingly very successfully.

but he didn’t know that the pusher applied to the FBI!!! and had flopped at the psych evaluation, where he had been ego-centric and lied and claimed to be trained by ninjas. mulder seems to think this could be true, but i don’t know if he knows the ninja lore and that they were not as historically common as media would make you think 💔

luckily, scully doesn't break this terrible news to him. man, this reminds me i need to get a good translation of the kojiki and the nihon shoki

(at this point i did a bit of a wikipedia rabbit hole into japanese medieval literature before remembering the plot at hand. focus!)

mulder says that they should have had enough evidence to at least get him in custody, and that the pusher “put the whammy” on the judge. to which scully deadpans “please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy” <- HDHEJSNWJSKDMND i love her sooooo terribly. 

mulder is still thinking this guy was a ninja, but scully points out that if he could control people’s minds, why wouldn’t he be an FBI agent like he wanted? a very good point! well, maybe it’s a new skill, mulder posits.

he seems very frustrated that scully isn’t buying his mind control theory, but she makes it very clear she believes he is guilty of murder!!! they just need to figure out what went down. queen of communicating her logic. she won’t communicate her feelings though, but that's okay we can work on that in the future.

pusher at da FBI. writes himself a note that says “pass” and sticks it in his lapel, goes in and asks for computer records. the guard immediately gives it to him. and he waltzes in! 

no!! the poor girl with the bruised face from before, holly!!! he starts talking to her, and she gives him the keyboard to her super secret FBI computer. he asks for printouts and says he wants to hurt whoever did that to her face. hmm. well, maybe a little revenge on her behalf wouldn’t hurt...

but skinner is here! he heard an unfamiliar voice and walks in, asking if he can help this strange fellow. skinner realizes that he is up to no good, and grabs him, but the pusher convinces holly that skinner is the guy who mugged her!!! so she busts out her mace the minute that skinner manages to call for security and starts KICKING HIM??

things escalated very quickly there.

holly is in his office, apologizing profusely to skinner and whole bunch of other people for kicking the hell out of his face. scully is there too. okayyyyy, she’s moving up in the world, helping out when skinner gets attacked!!!! she is very calm about the whole thing though, which makes her a great choice, so she deserves it.

holly says that it was like the pusher was in her head, and she was watching herself do the things she did. creepy...

she’s crying, and skinner doesn’t honestly seem too mad about the whole thing. i would be very mad if one of my employees let a random guy have access to secret files and then pepper sprayed and kicked me, but clearly he understands something was afoot.

OH! scully agrees that it is the pusher’s persuasive powers that made holly attack him, even if she can’t explain why it is he can do that! wow! the evidence is undeniable, even if it is inexplicable!

the pusher left with mulder’s file… so now he knows where he lives. so they should have a sleepover at her place!!! and watch movies!!! <3 before they catch him ofc, because now that he was trespassing, they have him on hook for a crime

(sadly, i must report that no sleepover took place. but it would be nice to imagine that it did)

they go to the pusher's apartment to try and find him, and scully announces before she turns the lights on. okayyyy! giving everyone a warning.

something about her with a trench coat and a gun in investigation mode makes my stomach do flips. we don't have to unpack that right now. i just was very aware that it happened.

he left a movie on the tv, that scully immediately identified as svengali. hold on let me google something. okay, that is a book/movie about guy that uses mind control. fitting. a clue, perhaps…

and is she watching horror films on the regular to be able to identify the film after seeing like three frames….? love that for her <3

(wait, she did say before that the exorcist was one of her favorite movies! so this further proves that she is going to be seated for a spooky film <3)

mulder opens his fridge to find a million and a half of those protein cans from before. you think those are giving him psychic powers? hmm…

oh!!! scully found something in his cabinet: epilepsy medication!!! a clue, perhaps? i’m just gonna keep saying that about anything they find. so that means they know more about him, and that he will need medication, which could be a way to try and find him, because he’ll need to get more at some point probably… AND HE STARTED TAKING THE PILLS AT THE SAME TIME THE MURDERS STARTED!

mulder asks what can cause epilepsy late in life. her answers: head injury, neurological disease, a tumor…

mulder perks up because he thinks a tumor might give you psychic powers. which would be a bright side to an otherwise very dismal situation, i’m sure. 

she says that if he had a brain tumor, he would not be well enough to do all of these shenanigans- a very valid point. mulder responds with: maybe he isn’t well at all!! he was too tired to escape at the driving range, after all, and he had confessed to murders he had gotten away with… maybe he wants to go out in a blaze of glory!

huh. bold theory.

phone rings as this theory is proposed. and the pusher is in fact on the phone. he asks for mulder and scully, who are sitting next to each other on a bed with their heads close, listening in. it’s endearing. 

anyway, the pusher is going on and on with the dude on the phone named frank, saying he looks super unhealthy, and i get that they are trying to trace the call, but they also should know by now to not listen to a damn thing he says because of the mind control. but again, he could be offering a clue, so someone has to listen. agh! such a conundrum.

mulder says to hang up the phone, right as the pusher talks frank into having some sort of medical condition where his blood thickens (gag. gag gag gag bleurghhhh). mulder and scully are trying to get him to hang up the phone but he won’t, he keeps listening so they can get a trace on the call!! and then frank is dead.

scully’s trying to save his life, but mulder picks up the phone. the pusher says that he wants a real adversary, and he’s read up on mulder, who he deems worthy. okay just ignore scully at your own peril i guess...

scully realizes she can’t save frank :( and mulder is mad because he killed this dude for nothing!! but he says no no, all these people die by themselves. 

they trace him to near a hospital, where he must be getting regular treatment for his condition. they find his car outside. and he’s scheduled for an MRI.

mulder says he should go in by himself, so that no one else gets hurt. a bold choice...

he gets all suited up with a camera and some fancy equipment to go in, then he gives scully his gun, so he won’t shoot anyone even if the pusher uses his mind games on him. and then they hold hands for a second. and look into each other’s eyes. and i will sob like a baby. 

mulder is going into the hospital. scully is watching all of this from his fancy camera. the og live stream. 

we hear two shots fired; the pusher made the guard shoot the technician and then himself. scully sees the monitor and asks mulder to get closer. and he does indeed have a tumor…. and is dying, so he has nothing to lose. which makes him even scarier!

scully is begging him to get out of there. but he turns and scully sees from the camera the pusher holding him at gun point!!! she yells “god!” and then runs into action. oh you know it’s serious when the catholic is yelling the name of the lord as an exclamation….

scully putting on a bullet proof vest to go in there and save him😳oh wow… i am learning so much about myself

she goes in, tells the SWAT team to wait for a signal. everything is very very very tense as she makes her way into the hospital. so slowly. she finally comes to the right door, and pushes it open.

mulder is seated with the pusher in the room of a patient, while the two stare at each other. they’re both very sweaty, and pusher has a gun in his hand. the pusher is going on about martial arts and a fight to the death and stuff. he gives mulder the gun and says to pull the trigger, one pull with a one in six chance to kill him.

scully is suspicious because they are, again, in a hospital, which has pure oxygen, and who knows what could happen if he pulls the trigger? but despite her very logical warning, he does pull the trigger, right away, and nothing happens. 

but the pusher talks mulder into putting the gun against his own head. she is begging him not to do it, to listen to her, to get out of there together, and everything will be okay.

and despite scully’s best efforts, he DOES pull the trigger. no bullet this time, but she is FREAKING OUT that he did that. she yells, and that yell will probably haunt me forever, how furious and terrified she sounded to watch him do such a horrific thing.

and then he turns the gun on HER, she’s crying, telling him to fight this. terrified she's about to die at his hands.

(oh my gosh, i really hope he’s faking the mind control working on him, so he can turn the gun on the pusher at the last minute)

the pusher mentions that SHE SHOT HIM, he read it in his files, “PAYBACK TIME, SHOOT THE LITTLE SPY” <- OMFG???? this escalated SOSOSOSOSO fast????

he tells scully to RUN while he still has the gun pointed at her, but then once she gets out and pulls the fire alarm, mulder shoots him!!!!! he keeps clicking the gun over and over at him despite it being empty. and he looks so tired, handing the gun over to scully, holding his head in his hands. 

man, he must have been horrified, to have someone in his mind, making him try to hurt himself and hurt scully, watching her scream at him after he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, watching her cry as the gun was pointed at her, fighting for access to his own mind... and after he had left his gun with her, just to make sure he wouldn't hurt anyone, he found himself in this situation...... how he kept firing even after the single bullet had been shot, just to ensure that no one else would be hurt..... woah. there is a lot to unpack here about the lack of agency and losing loved ones and mulder's deepest fears.... i will be gnawing on this in my head for a while...

so, the pusher is on a ventilation system, and mulder is watching. scully enters and says he will never regain consciousness. apparently, he had been refusing treatment, refused to have the tumor removed even though it was possible. mulder says that it’s like she had proposed, he was a little man, and this finally made him feel big.

they linger long enough for me to wonder if they’re actually going to kiss, right in front of this comatose murderer, but she does something just as intimate: grabs his hand and says to not let this dude take up another minute of their time. we end with mulder taking one last look and leaving the room.

oh, this episode was GOOD. REALLY GOOD. the suspense was killer, the mind games were trippy, and these two. these two.

scully falling asleep on his shoulder? the fluff of an indulgent fanfic writer. but it REALLY HAPPENED. them holding their heads close multiple times to listen to the phone... the hand grab at the end. listening and trusting each other's wild theories.

this episode showed how well they work as a team, and it made me so happy. it felt in very sharp contrast to a few episodes before where they were not working together at all. and i get that was cosmic opposite day, but still, this episode and their dynamic felt so right.

and then at the end, the level of angst was unexpected. and honestly, they go through a LOT on this show, but scully seeing him held at gunpoint and then watching him pull the trigger on his own head made me lose my MIND. how she begged him to stop, pleaded and yelled, how she cried as he pointed the gun on her, him using every ounce of energy he had to try and resist mind control to keep her safe. and the minute she is away, he unloads the gun into the pusher, again and again and again despite knowing it was empty, just to be sure no other bullets could hurt anyone else. how exhausted he was when he sat down at the end, his head in his hands; how he watched him in his comatose state until scully told him they should leave.

(insert prolonged muffled screaming as a way to comprehend the feelings i am experiencing)

and a massive shoutout to skinner for showing up for 5 minutes, realizing there was a problem, addressing the problem, and not being too mad when the girl in the computer department beat his ass because he was sympathetic to her mind control quandary. really a solid fellow. skinner, you and i have had our disagreements in the past, but i have come to see you as a friend. now, do i trust him fully? no. but can he come to a birthday party? yeah <3

wow. just wow. a really great episode. definitely making it onto the best episodes list! i'm trying to make a mental list of all the ones that stick out as the most enjoyable, especially the ones that are single episodes rather than the larger two or three part ones, and this is a contender surely.

"please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy"... how could you not love her?

[butterflydm]

wot rewatch (book spoilers edition): 2x3

And here are my additional thoughts that contain spoilers through all the teasers and the books through book 13: A Memory of Light.

I was watching show-only reviews to try to figure out if it's safe to call Ishy 'Ishamael' yet but reaction seems mixed on whether or not Moiraine's words clued people in on the situation, so I'm going to stay ambiguous about him in my book spoiler-free posts for now.

I loved the changes that the show made to all Nynaeve's tests. They all make sense in context of the show and Nynaeve's character, they all tell us something about her, and there's also some great connective threads between them. We've known for a while (or guessed) that her first test would take place when she was a kid because her mom appeared in the casting lists... quite a few months ago. Ages ago. But I definitely prefer this one to the book version. It was so heartrending and touching.

2. The crimsonthorn strand throughout the tests is very interesting to me. I talked about this in the other post, but on a more spoilerly note, I like that the show is not defaulting to "all the Wondergirls feel a draw towards Green because They Like Men" and that Nynaeve is actually getting tugged between Yellow and Red in these last two episodes, as Liandrin tries to influence her. It makes me wonder if maybe they'll have Elayne incline towards maybe Brown ("I like to tinker with things") instead of Green. Though Nynaeve did put Egwene in the Green Ajah in her personal AU (which did such a good job in only using elements that Nynaeve was aware of when she went into the arches! No Elayne in Nynaeve's AU; and no Rand because she believes him to be dead).

4. Side note: thrilled that Nynaeve does not have to be naked for the test. The amount of times that women have to strip down for rituals in the books gets pretty ridiculous (especially when men doing the same kind of ritual -- ex. going to Rhuidean -- does not require them to strip). Stripping down to her shift makes the point well enough.

5. A thought I had about the people attacking the Two Rivers -- could this have been happening during the Andoran Succession Crisis that led to Morgase being Queen? And so the Queen's Guard, instead of keeping the roads clear of bandits, were busy with the civil war among the nobility, which let bandits get even as far as the Mountains of Mist. That could actually serve as a really good reason for the Two Rivers to basically nope out of being part of Andor -- "you were so busy squabbling amongst yourself that you let bandits rove the lands and kill innocent people". I'm not certain if the timeline matches up, but I will put it out there as a theory.

6. Her second test is based on the same worries that she had in the books -- that she's abandoned the Two Rivers and she won't be there when they need her and someone who isn't a good Wisdom will have taken over for her -- but shifted the details to hit harder in the show version, and to use characters that the show viewers are already familiar with. It really worked for me. I also liked them essentially using Perrin's lies about Rand to Tam in the books for Nynaeve here instead, where it makes a lot more sense -- she doesn't want to steal the only comfort that she can give a dying man by telling him that his son is dead.

7. Liandrin genuinely got herself invested in Nynaeve! I liked seeing that. I really like that the show is giving more emotional depth to our Darkfriends. Both Sheriam and Liandrin come across as very genuinely upset that Nynaeve hasn't returned through the arches. Because they both think of themselves as the good guys! Liandrin's motives in the show seems to be along the lines of "You need to have power so that others can't have power over you" while Sheriam's in the books were about being Black Ajah essentially to get ahead in the Tower but never expecting that she would actually need to do anything TOO terribly bad in exchange. Neither of them wanted Nynaeve to die or get hurt (they were both probably hoping to turn her to the Black Ajah). It's also really funny that it's entirely possible that they do not know that the other one is also Black Ajah.

8. Theory: being able to sense latent channelers may be a Talent rather than something either everyone or no one can do. Because it's one specific damane who comes out to point out the individual women to get dragged off to be damane, rather than it being the two women who were used to attack the village.

They are hitting the dehumanization angle hard. Egwene's 'training' is going to be so hard to watch.

9. Ishamael doesn't seem like he was expecting to find Perrin here, so I don't think Ingtar has been in regular contact with him. I really do wonder where exactly the Darkfriend social happened, timeline-wise, to the rest of the season thus far.

10. Ah, goodbye, Uno. I'll miss you, but you went out like a boss. Given the changes that were made to the plot, this does make a ton of sense -- Uno is not a man who backs down easily and he's also not a plot-relevant character really... ever, at any point. He's a fun character for flavor but someone who can be sacrificed to illustrate a narrative point without needing to change any of the story in the future.

11. Changing Logain to being able to see men who can channel as opposed to ta'veren makes a lot of sense on a practical level -- Mat was sitting right next to Rand, so if he saw ta'veren, then he would have seen both of them glowing; making it about Rand being a channeling focuses Logain's attention and memory in on Rand specifically.

12. Rand being kept out of the knowledge loop here kinda cracks me up because "Rand is on an information diet" is something that kept coming up in the books and it frustrated me so much because, in the books, it was consistently a result of his allies just never being willing to tell him a fucking thing ever unless he bullied them into it or spied on them. It makes a lot more sense here that he doesn't know what's going on with anyone else's plotlines! Taking something frustrating from the books and making it make sense is a really good habit that the show has been doing.

13. Lanfear continues to be the funniest girl in the world. She is just on cloud nine so far in s2, cruising along living her best life. Also, we see that her inn cheekily has her personal symbols as their sign.

14. Given how much Rand is experiencing the class divide in Cairhien and how much he's seen the poor get mistreated and looked down on by the rich and titled, I almost wonder if he isn't going to get a bit of Mat's arc from the books when he finds out that Elayne is a noble and needs to realize that she's not like the Cairhienin nobles.

15. Mat escaping from one abusive situation only to land right into another one definitely reminds me of the Tylin->Tuon pipeline in the books, of course. The main difference being is that we're dealing with mother figures in the show and not 'romances' (please take that word with a very large grain of salt). Possibly the biggest way that they can set Mat x Tuon up for success is actually showing us her relationship with her mother and how toxic and cruel the environment that she grew up in is. I feel like not killing off the old Empress at all and instead having Tuon take over a faction of the people and split off them off from the Empire would give us a sense that she really IS Not Like The Other Seanchan, instead of just wanting people to believe Mat when he says it despite there being no evidence in Tuon's actual behavior (I'm trying to remember who originally suggested that idea, but it was a while ago, so I have forgotten; I'm sorry!).

16. Liandrin grinding in to Mat how worthless and what an awful friend he is will, presumably, be some pretty good setup for him to show himself to be both loyal and vital in the final episode, though there will probably be more pain for him in the upcoming episodes (maybe involving what happens with Min's viewing about him stabbing Rand).

17. Lanfear is buzzing on such a high of getting show off of her Personal Dragon to a fancy group of lords and ladies at the start of this party.

18. Rand's conversation with Moiraine's sister is particularly fascinating! There's a queen of Cairhien but I suspect that it's not a Damodred (maybe I'll be wrong and Anvaere is the queen! We'll see!). That Anvaere reaches out to the mysterious ~outlander lord~ and shares so much with him is very intriguing, especially if we end up seeing her again later in the season (once Moiraine arrives in Cairhien?).

18. Here is where the cracks in Lanfear's illusion of perfect happiness with her New Lews Therin are beginning to show: he's keeping secrets from her, he's doubting her, and then he just leaves her behind. She is probably getting some very unhappy flashbacks right about now.

19. I wonder if Rand's bad experience with Logain here will inform his choices in the future. In the books, there isn't really a good reason for him to give Taim free rein over the school, but if it's more of a "Taim vs Logain" situation and he already doesn't trust Logain (and Taim appears less affected by the madness), then him trusting Taim might make more sense.

20. Mat being released from a prison cell and not knowing where to go and then (temporarily in this case) returning to his prison gives me echoes of "Mat inexplicably appears by magic in Ebou fucking Dar, a place that treated him like shit for months" from A Memory of Light, lol.

21. Perrin feeling wary about getting too wolfy because of his encounter with Ishamael feels like a much better reason that we got in the books... though I wonder if we'll follow it up by having him meet... shit, the guy who lost himself to the wolf; do not remember his name. But I'm thrilled to have him hanging out with Elyas and the wolves (Hopper?) for now.

22. Liandrin calling Mat Cauthon, agent of chaos, "nothing if not predictable" feels like it needs to bite her in the ass at some point.

23. Yeah, on rewatch, the sex dream is definitely Lanfear feeling like she can finally show her possessiveness and anger in Rand's dream. She is MAD at him for keeping secrets and leaving without her, but she can't show it when he's awake because it doesn't fit her carefully crafted persona. She does NOT like her men with an air of mystery -- she wants to know every tiny thing that he's thinking and feeling. I wonder if Rand actually did light the roof on fire or if Lanfear helped it along -- she's definitely taking advantage of his vulnerability in the aftermath of the fire. "If you ever leave me like that again, I will kill you." Yeah, that's absolutely Lanfear.

And, you know, her inn burning down does mean that she doesn't have to worry about dealing with it anymore. Now that she's had a taste of Rand in fancy coats, I think she probably wants to try to figure out a way to make it happen again.

24. Nynaeve's dream does have a couple of painful easter eggs in it -- Mat gets a wound over his eye; Perrin gets killed by an axe.

Nynaeve does forcibly bring back the arches in the books too, just without so much happening in the illusionary life. But I liked this a lot because of how much it gave us from the other characters who believed that Nynaeve was dead.

25. So, my theories about what we might get in episode four. Wow.

Rand's trajectory... I don't think he's done with Logain. But I feel like ep4 is going to be a big one for him, based on the title (Daughter of the Night). Rand may find out the truth about Selene in this episode, which would be a. be a pretty big betrayal but also b. might make him realize that it's not likely that the Dark One is actually dead.

Moiraine is presumably on her way to Cairhien right now, but it doesn't seem like she thinks Rand himself is there, but more that she's investigating the poem situation, so they may run across each other by accident.

Everyone is going to get to react to Nynaeve powering her way out of the arches (like a boss). I am very curious if Lan is going to spend an episode in the Tower before going after Moiraine... but if Actual Lan goes to the Tower... hard to imagine he wouldn't tell Nynaeve, at least, that Rand is still alive. He knows how deeply Nynaeve cares about the Two Rivers kids.

Unless Liandrin tricks Nynaeve, Elayne, and Egwene into leaving the Tower before Lan arrives there?

Where are Mat and Min going! Mat can't be going after Egwene & co to save them because... nothing to save them from at the moment. Where would Liandrin want him to be led? Falme? I mean, maybe, but he can't channel, so it's not a secure prison for Mat like it would be for the girls.

Perrin's storyline is going to teach us more about the Seanchan and wolfbrothering, I imagine. Maybe some scouting. He can truthfully tell any Seanchan soldiers (if he runs across any) that he's taken the oaths.

Will we follow right on from episode 3 or is there going to be a timeskip to give the characters some time to travel to new locations?

[hologramcowboy]

I just finished writing this ask and I’m so sorry it ended up so long. While I’d love to read more of your insight, please feel free not to post this if you think it takes up too much of your blog space. I don’t know where to edit it as one idea sort of flowed into another. Whether you post this and respond or not, I hope you have a good day/week.

I think part of what made Jensen's portrayal of Dean feel so real and compelling is that he truly liked, then loved, Jared since a good chunk of Dean's character is his love for Sam. That isn’t to say that Jensen didn’t bring his own unique flavor to Dean or play him very well in other aspects because he’s a popular character for a reason beyond Jensen's looks, but I think the fact that he and Jared were close helped. A lot. For the most part, I found the most emotional and compelling scenes by both Jared and Jensen to be the ones they shared with each other (not all, of course, but most). However, I feel a very slight disconnect between them in the latest seasons. They still have amazing chemistry, but it’s not the palpable level it was in earlier seasons, at least to me. I think Jared got tired and put up boundaries with Jensen, and Jensen got resentful (and bought into his own hype) and they started to pull apart. Jensen’s ego didn’t need him bring "crowned" king of Bacchus, or whatever that was around that time. It could just be hindsight (I’m not immune to bias, especially as I started the show only a few years ago, then the prequel happened) but I think it noticeable that "Sam and Dean" don’t feel quite the same, even though I still love them. Even in the gag reels, while they are still funny, maybe even more so than earlier seasons, don’t feel as "real."

Anyway, my point with the above is, Jensen prides himself on going off instinct, acting more off the cuff, and enjoying "playing." These are all good skills to have, but they can’t be the ONLY tools one utilizes. It worked well with a Jared because they had a high level of comfort and intimacy and friends and long-term co-stars. In his new roles, Jensen isn’t playing opposite people he knows well and loves (or the role doesn’t lend itself to that, like SB), and the lack of connection comes through in his performances, or he is hit and miss. If he relies too much of his feelings or just letting the scene go where it does, but hasn’t done the background work of getting into his character’s head (as you’ve noted many times) then his portrayal can quickly go off course or lack focus / consistency. I still tend to mostly find him interesting to watch because he often does have a special spark, but SB was not as intense as he could be and Beau has some love,y moments but is inconsistent. I guess all of this rambling was just to say, I agree with the points you and anons have been making about Jensen.

Selfishly, I’m glad Supernatural went on for a long time because I love it, but it could have probably been more focused or maintained better quality if it ended by Season 12 or 13 at the latest (not on those story lines per se, but those amount of years). The show going for over 15 years didn’t really do Jared or Jensen any favors in the growth department. Jared got to play more variety of characters, but the last time he was anyone other than regular Sam (although a Sam has changed considerably from where he started) was season 9, and Dean, even after the mark of Cain in Season 10 was still just Dean, just slightly more open to Talking and more angry. He was Michael for about 4 episodes and that wasn’t overly focused or well-developed because the show runners were too lazy to give Jensen the guidance he asked for. So, the show wasn’t giving them a ton of room to stretch or play with new versions of their characters for quite a few years. It was safe, but not really a place for craft development for years. Frankly, the show was lucky that Jared and Jensen seemed to care as much as they did at the time because their chemistry (even if I think it wasn’t as strong as in earlier years, at times) was the only thing that kept the lazy Supernatural ship afloat.

If you or others disagree about their chemistry, I’d love to hear it. Maybe it’s just bias on my part.

Sadly, Jensen seems to have relied on being comfortable too much. I think he both resented that Jared's character was mostly the focus of the arcs (While this is understandable, he signed on to be second on the call sheet, so get over it.), and yet also resented the fact that Jared wanted out. Meanwhile, AAs and hellers are shrieking from the mountaintops that Dean is the best, Sam is boring, and Jensen is carrying the show (🙄). So, Jensen gets wind of at least some of the fan histrionics and buys into the notion that he’s the one making this ship sail. Meanwhile, Jared gets a holding deal with CBS and they decided to end the show if he’s going to be around. Then, they kill Dean and Sam lives (until he dies as an old man), killing off Jensen's lofty dreams of carrying on the Dean show as he mourns his dead brother in a badass, womanizing, drunken stupor. He probably thought it would be a success since EVERYONE knows Dean is the favorite and Jensen is the golden boy. But what he, and the AAs and hellers failed to bank on was that Sam AND Dean, Jared AND Jensen were what made the show work and beloved. Jensen is mad that Jared bailed and he (Jensen) didn’t get to pick up the first-building torch, but he should have realized that the show had been steadily declining in content for years and if he had just moved on gracefully, maybe discussed going a movie or shorter season in a few years WITH Jared, he would be in a better position today. He bought into his own hype and let his resentment build until he lashed out in a selfish and hurtful move with the terrible joke of a prequel. He’s like a spouse who lets their little resentments build until they get so angry that they feel justified in cheating and betray their significant other for some trashy new person, who is crass and cheap, and ends up leaving them and stealing all their money. (I’m not a tinhat, by the way, this just felt like an apt comparison.). Thus, he’s now known as professional on set (from all accounts I’ve heard), but unprofessional and disloyal on the greater scale, lazy as an EP, and a bad friend, who attached his name to a brand grab that is little more than a joke and an insult to the original show, its fans and his friend. Not a good look.

All this being sad, I don’t think Jensen is doomed in his career or even his friendship with Jared. If he humbles himself, stops bragging about himself and the roles he may or may not have been considered for, and starts memorizing his lines again and doing character work, picks a brand and sticks to it, he has the raw talent to still do well. On the other hand, I have no clue where he and Jared are in their friendship off camera. All I know is they do spend some time together beyond at cons, through people getting vids and pics of them, and they do seem to enjoy each other’s company on stage, and still make each other laugh. I think they can patch things up if Jensen acknowledge (or has) that what he did was sh*tty, but how can a friendship ever fully recover from a betrayal that big? Even if they still care about each other, and Jared seems very loyal, it might be a case of forgive but don’t forget. Jensen should have held on to those values fans still praise him for (however erroneously) of humility, groundedness and work ethic. I hope he genuinely had those qualities at one time because if he did, I believe he can get back to them, if he learns from the last two years.

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 Thank you for this beautiful post. I enjoyed reading each paragraph and there's no need to edit as it all flows beautifully and logically and it is expressed with sensitivity, empathy and objectivity.

"he often does have a special spark" he truly does, he has a vitality and charisma that can be quite extremely captivating and if he were to back that up with well developed performances, he would be unstoppable. "I hope he genuinely had those qualities at one time because if he did, I believe he can get back to them, if he learns from the last two years." I hope the same. As for the chemistry, I do agree, it started to dim at a certain point and it truly seemed Jensen was just going through the motions with his character. It's not uncommon for actors to go through phases where they feel disconnected from their craft and no longer into it so perhaps that was the case with Jensen, he failed to stimulate himself by deep diving into his craft and at some point got bored by repeating the same choices over and over again (as you said he runs on instinct but it's very easy to get tired of yourself when you do that). "Jensen’s ego didn’t need him bring "crowned" king of Bacchus, or whatever that was around that time." Danneel arranged for that to happen because she wanted to call herself Queen of New Orleans, her interest in doing that was also earning a standing for her own family to benefit financially due to the increase in image. She basically pretended to do something for Jensen, when in reality the end goal was boosting her family all along. Just like the sad prequel, the Bacchus thing was Danneel's suggestion. Funny how all the things she suggests always end up benefiting her and her family way more than Jensen, isn't it? "Thus, he’s now known as professional on set (from all accounts I’ve heard), but unprofessional and disloyal on the greater scale, lazy as an EP, and a bad friend, who attached his name to a brand grab that is little more than a joke and an insult to the original show, its fans and his friend. Not a good look." Exactly, fans will only focus on co-stars raving but all professionals will look at how he handled things, the comments he made about Jared, Alba as well as the name dropping, complaining about roles or even worse trying to lay claim on roles he could never even be up for due to type mismatch which shows he has no preparation branding wise. Also, the fact that is constantly buzzed and promoting alcohol even out of context. All those things tell potential buyers he is a production risk. They will first and foremost look at his performances and because he often lacks credibility to due histrionic mannerisms and expressions and also lacks the required inner work to take a performance to the next level, he won't really be competition with the colleagues he so often likes to create comparisons to. I agree, he's definitely not doomed, it will take a lot of pure intention, clear focus followed by massive action but he can redeem his image and his relationship with Jared as well. I'm going to stop here as my reply is quite long, thank you again for the incredibly beautiful post. I know I wrote text above but this is my actual response: 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 Have a beautiful, fulfilling week ahead!

[dearsheroozle]

i finally subscribed to dropout after seeing your posts about dimension 20 and game changer! i was wondering if you had any recommendations for campaigns (or other shows) to watch first? i've only seen clips or gif sets of all of them

OMG anon this makes me so so so so so happy and I hope you know what can of worms you just opened because this is one of my hyperfixations.

This is probably going to be a bit long (ETA: it was), so I'm throwing a cut down. I apologize in advance for the length. I am going to operate on you knowing very little background, so I apologize if I say things you already know. Just tryna cover my bases!

Hmmm okay. As far as campaigns for dimension 20 goes, it'll depend on your taste and how you like to do things.

Fantasy High is their first season, and if you like to watch things in order, I'd start there. I'd caution that this is true early days, and the cast (including Brennan, sometimes) are not as familiar with 5e yet, so please note that rules will be kinda wonky sometimes. Personally, I found it charming to watch them grow as players! Anyways, here is a bulleted list, in no particular order, that may or may not be helpful:

Fantasy High, Fantasy High: Sophomore Year (also referred to as D20: Live), Pirates of Leviathan, and The Seven, are all part of the same universe, released in the order I put them in. You can watch Pirates and the Seven without watching FH (they're side quests, which means they bring in guest players who are not of the main cast, and the seasons typically are shorter in episode quantity), but you might miss some easter eggs and references. Set in a world based on if John Hughes 80s movies vibes were translated to dnd! Very Breakfast Club right out the gate. I love it very much, and The Seven made me laugh and cry the most out of any season I think, as far as range of emotion goes.

If you don't care if it's about dnd, and want something shorter, I'd recommend Misfits and Magic. This was part of the Summer of Aabria Event, also a side quest, and she GMed a modified game of Kids on Brooms (Brennan is a player in this one). Subverting tropes and ideas that stemmed from... well, you know, that wizard series. And it made me cry like a baby and I loved the dynamic between the players very much. It's only four episodes, with a holiday special as well. It's a good place to start if you wanna get used to D20's edited production format.

I have a soft spot for The Unsleeping City (and its second season), as it has some of my very favorite Intrepid Heroes (this is how the fandom refers to the main cast of d20) player characters. It's Brennan's love letter to New York City, and it's an urban fantasy with very heroic themes. This is a Great full season to start with in my opinion!

My personal favorite season is A Crown of Candy. Please don't start with this one. It will be devastating. Low magic fantasy akin to Game of Thrones, but with way less misogyny and way more anthropomorphic foods. I know how it sounds. Believe me. Don't start here. (You can do what you want, really, but I have to be able to say I warned you.)

A Starstruck Odyssey uses a modified version of Star Wars 5e, and they made probably the most busted overpowered characters I've ever seen them make. It's really fun, and if you love space, you'll love this! I also loved this because while I'm very familiar with regular 5e, SW5e is completely different. So watching them do things I've never even heard of was incredibly refreshing.

Aabria also DMed a side quest that mixed 5e with Good Society, and it's regency meets the FeyWild. RP-heavy, and shenanigans abound. Absolutely unhinged repression arcs that had me screaming into my hands. A Court of Fey and Flowers!

Escape from the Bloodkeep is their first side quest, and notable guest star in this season is Matthew Mercer himself. It's a Lord of the Rings parody where everyone plays... a villain? 👀 Somehow incredibly wholesome regardless. This is also a very good side quest to start with, if you want a taste of how Brennan DMs.

As far as other shows go, Game Changer IS excellent. I would also recommend the spin-off Make Some Noise. Other shows I love are:

Breaking News Network: It will make you laugh. Pretty much guaranteed. They have people read from a teleprompter and they do not know what it will say. They are not allowed to smile or laugh.

A message from the CEO, starring Brennan Lee Mulligan: You might find most of these on YouTube already, but basically Brennan plays multiple beleaguered CEOs trying to make publicity videos for their products. Satirical and hilarious.

Dirty Laundry: Guests come in and submit secrets to the production team, and the host will read a secret out loud, and they try to guess whose secret it was. I have learned some truly insane things about people.

Total Forgiveness: Two cast members come up with challenges for each other, on the premise that if they complete the challenge, the production company will give them money to go towards their college loans. It's incredibly funny, but also if you suffer from secondhand embarrassment easily, this may not be for you.

Um, Actually: This is another game show! Players are given prompts where part of the prompt is incorrect, and they have to buzz in with the correction. Jeopardy rules: they have to say Um, Actually first, or else no points. The most pedantic show (affectionate).

Jesus I am so sorry about the length, and probably the incoherent nature of this entire thing. I could give you a breakdown of every single season of d20 easily, in chronological order, but I feel like I'm already on the verge of overwhelming and scaring you away LMAO.

Thank you for indulging me as well. I love talking about Dimension 20 and Dropout is truly the best streaming service I'm paying for currently.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

idk how many people would even want to see this BUT i wanna yell about Leela and Brax so here's a list of all their scenes togethr/scenes pertainng to them that i can recall (pLEASE add on if i missed anything/ you have any additional thoughts!! i could talk about these two all day!)

right off the bat in Weapon of Choice when Leela is on the outskirts of the Citadel and Brax goes to bring her back (which is interesting in and of itself, bc usually i would imagine a chancellery guard would go do that so what made Brax decide to instead??), Leela kinda goes off at him bc she's hurting and instead of trying to actually explain what's going on Brax doesn't even try to argue he just says "we need you" which is great bc Leela has that instinctive desire to be needed and to help people and he's speaking right to that -- also as far as we know, this is Leela and Brax's first actual meeting in canon? it's implied that they know of each other, which makes sense, but it doesn't seem like they've ever directly interacted before: Brax seems almost slightly uncertain, and Leela is combative, but when he's gentle with her she's actually quite receptive

the literal next scene after that, where the OT4 is all in one room for the first time (they still kinda hate each other at this point but still !!!). Narvin explaining Gryben and being a real jerk about it and Leela (understandibly!) questions if Gryben is a prison world, and Brax (who to this point has been mostly quiet as Narvin and Romana brief Leela) jumps in to both clarify Narvin's previous xenophobic statements while also maintaining the inherent questionable/negative connotations

(btw it's actually pretty important to note that Romana self-edits herself a lot when talking to Leela, especially in the earlier seasons; you can actually hear her revising the things she says to put it in terms that she thinks Leela will better understand. and i mean she does it out of genuine consideration for her friend associate but it often comes across as varying levels of patronizing. Narvin also obviously "dumbs things down" when dealing with Leela early on, but like... Brax never does that on any level. the only difference i can tell in how he addresses Leela vs how he talks to anybody else is that he seems much more kind with her than almost anyone else???)

their conversation about the Matrix in The Inquiry: this is REALLY important (and if you've ever talked to me on ao3 i've probably gone off to you about it lol) because it's layered. they're talking about the Matrix but they're also not because in answering Leela's question Brax is making a very thinly veiled allegory (which he outright states a minute later) to Time Lord society/politicians/most importantly HIMSELF -- he's actually strangely open about his morals/beliefs in this scene and i'm living for it tbh -- and i find it very interesting that even though he does directly explain what he means ("how do you know all this?" / "because i am a politician.") he also leaves it for Leela to work out the implications. like it's a very nuanced conversation bc there's double meaning in it and most people on Gallifrey seem to think that Leela is tone-deaf and can't pick up on that stuff (even Romana sometimes oversimplifies things to her) but Brax totally just lets her take from it what she will bc he believes her intelligent enough to understand. he doesn't think her any lesser because she's human.

ALSO on a secondary note to the above: the fact that Leela has a question/needed clarification (sorry, haven't listened to this in a while i forget how it actually happened) and actively sought out Brax to talk to about it?? like she knows Romana better she could have gone to her but i feel like Leela kinda imprinted on Brax and someone she can go to for help if she needs it; maybe it's partly bc she knows he's under marginally less pressure than Romana is but also the truth of the matter is that Brax was the most genuinely helpful person to her in the previous stories and that probably means a lot to her (esp. bc he acts like the essence of everything she hates about Gallifrey but he doesn't treat her the way she would expect from that). btw this topic is gonna come up again in a hot minute

that part where Brax gives her that information that might help her re: the Andred thing, even though he really probably shouldn't have done that -- it kinda makes me think about what he must have been like with Theta tbh???

actually this is mostly my own conjecture but there's some neat stuff in Spirit bc during the *waves hand vaguely* bodyswap dream sequence thing, Romana is very "!!!! Brax can help us !!!" which is tecnically Leela brain talking, so like there's the implications of the stuff i've said above about Leela having this idea of Brax where she knows he's someone she can go to for help

can u tell i'm soft for them

Leela sounding really sad/distracted when she talks about how Brax isn't there YES i'm grasping at straws but a lot of this relationship really is conveyed through the voice acting bc of how little direct focus there is on the characters. there's actually several scenes in Mindbomb where she mentions him and she outright says that she misses him during her discussion with Matthias

that implied scene with them in Mindbomb!! i have a Lot of thoughts about that!!! it's all conjecture and fanfic fodder!!! but the reason i mention this is because it seems pretty meta that out of the whole Gally Gang, it's Leela who first sees Brax when he comes back to Gallifrey and in turn she's the first person (besides Matthias, i guess) that he sees upon his return?? idk i just feel like that's somehow a meaningful detail??? also her reaction of utter shock after spending the entire episode missing him and how worked up she is when she tries to tell Romana, like I desperately need to know what happened in this missing scene MR RICHARDS PLEASE TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED

Leela insisting on going with Brax when Pandora starts hurting him and their whole conversation there is just. so good. like they're both just so soft and then when Darkel comes in Leela instantly goes into protective mode. like they just have such an open relationship bc Brax doesn't even try to be all pretentious with her, like he doesn't even try to keep up any facades when he's with her he's just very genuine and it really says a lot about both of them -- Leela is so good at seeing people, like getting down to the core of who people are and what makes them them (which is why she's good for Romana, btw, bc Romana has a lot of identity issues) and Brax is so tangled up in who he presents himself as that he barely knows who he actually is anymore but Leela can see that and she makes it so he can truly be himself and he doesn't have to hide. also she's so gentle with him when they talk about Pandora, she's very caring and empathetic and wants to make sure he's okay and i am WEAK

it's been a hot while since i listened to Panacea but I think i remember Brax being really soft with Leela when he first brings the gang to the Axis, like just sounding really glad to see her

ok other than the fact that Brax is lowkey relatable in Reborn (daydreaming fanfic about yourself/people you know? simping for Mary Tamm Romana? yeah mood, my man) there's that scene where they're first appraoching the Citadel on the alt!Gallifrey and it seems like none of them, and Brax specifically, have seen it from the outside in a good long while bc he's very in awe and he tells Leela that he wishes she could see it and he sounds sO hEcKiNg sOFT oh my word-

and once again with Leela thinking of Brax as someone she trusts for help: in Dissassembled when everything is going to crap she straight-up says that she wants to go find Brax bc he'll know what to do/be able to help

at the beginning of Annihilation when Romana is depressed and questioning if Brax truly was her friend and Leela INSTANTLY, NO HESITATION assures her that he was; i lost where i had her exact lines written down but she actually kinda goes off to make sure Romana gets the point

literally forcing myself to talk about this bc it makes my brain stall out but like,,, the Brax Hound in Annihilation,,, Leela being like "goodbye, Braxiatel... again" she sounds so sad and like UGH i always kinda forget how sad it actually is for them to lose Brax in Dissassembled bc like, it was so sudden and they didn't get to say goodbye and Leela is always losing people and i have many many feels about this scene and how all that emotion is made very clear in how they each respond to the Hound (might make a separate post abt this later if anyone is interested ::eyes::)

Enemy Lines is utter bullcrap about these two and I will never stop being salty about how they not only sidelined the very good, very subtle friendship they had in s1-4, but they??? made Leela acutally not trust Brax??? when literally this entire time she's been the one person who probably genuinely trusts him the most?? what the heck, David

I haven't heard TW3 or 4 yet but i'm assuming there's nothing worthwhile in those with regards to this duo (correct me if i'm wrong tho lol, i would love to be mistaken in this assumption)

TL;DR Leela and Brax mututally imprinted on each other and have probably the most open and healthy relationship within the OT4 and it is an absolute CRIME that nobody besides Gary Russell and Justin Richards cared enough to actually build on it in canon

[eldritch-bf]

Writing A Character With Borderline Personality Disorder

First of, thank you for wanting to include a Borderline character into your work. We have very little representation in media and when it is there, it’s negative. The antagonist in Single White Female and it’s remake is said to either be Borderline or Bipolar, for example. A few Borderline-coded characters also exist but their symptoms are probably closer to bipolar depression.

Trigger Warning for discussions of suicide, abuse, and hospitalization

What is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)?

It is called “Borderline” because it is “on the border of psychosis and neurosis. It used to be believed that Borderlines had a tendency to regress into “borderline schizophrenia,” but this really isn’t the case anymore. The term was coined in 1938 and there have been attempts to rename it but this is what it’s called for now.

Here is the raw list from the DSMV. My notes are below and italicized. Important take-always are in orange text.

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment; this does not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in criterion 5.

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

Markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (eg, spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating) [5] ; this does not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in criterion 5

Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (eg, intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

Chronic feelings of emptiness

Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (eg, frequent displays of temper, constant anger, or recurrent physical fights)

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

Generally, a diagnosis is only given if a person has at least 5 of these symptoms.

My comments:

Re: #1 There doesn’t have to be a literal abandonment in childhood. For me, I was emotionally abandoned by both my mother and father during my formative years. My mother also hated physical contact so now I have an impulse to seek it constantly. Touch-starvation is an easy trait to add to your Borderline character.

The stipulation in #1 that the frantic efforts cannot be the behaviors listed in #5 means that a Borderline person might: drive 3 hours in the middle of the night to the person who they feel might abandon them; do some extreme begging or bartering to keep the relationship. Also important: these do not have to be romantic relationships.

Re: #3 If Dissociative Identity Disorder means a person has multiple distinct personalities, for BPD we generally feel like an incomplete person, like we only have fragments of a whole personality.

A common joke in the BPD community is “Oh, you have a great personality.” And the Borderline person’s response is, “thanks, I made it specially for you!” You may also hear Borderlines called “chameleons” because we take pieces of other people’s personalities and incorporate it into ourselves. It can be a fictional character, too. I incorporated a lot of NBC Hannibal’s Will Graham into my personality at a point. Another aspect of this is that Borderlines are very good at code-switching. For me, when I’m in a new group of people, I have to “feel out” the vibe and everything and then alter my behavior to fit this social circle. Most people do this to some extent but Borderlines do it constantly and unconsciously and often extremely well. It’s not meant to be manipulative. It’s unconscious, we can’t control it.

Re: #8 The anger is a big one for me and it often leads to homicidal ideation. But Borderlines are incredibly unlikely to act on it.

Other Borderline Behaviors

Favorite Person/FP: Probably the most important aspect of BPD. An FP is specific to BPD. It can be a romantic partner, a crush, a parent, an authority figure, a sibling, or a child (specifically the child of the person with BPD of they have kids). This is the single most important thing in a Borderline’s life. An FP is an idealized person who can never do any wrong in our minds. Even abusive behaviors will be overlooked or reframed.

We don’t always have an FP and I’ve also never heard of someone having 2 FPs simultaneously. I had 2 at the same time once but I would split on one and then idealize them other one. I would never idealize both at the exact same moment. A real or imagined negative interaction with an FP can make or break a Borderline’s day and if it is negative, they can “split” on them.

Splitting/Black-And-White Thinking/All-Or-Nothing Thinking: Borderlines “split” on people, usually an FP. This is how an interaction with an FP can “make or break” your day. If an FP doesn’t text us back right away we might think they don’t like us anymore or are mad or will leave us. So we, unconsciously without our control, “split” on them. When “splitting negative” on a person it is impossible to recall good memories of the person, or they are framed negatively. A once loved birthday gift from an FP might now be seen as insincere or irrelevant. This is the “devaluation” mention in criteria #2.

However, once the person texts back, say 2 hours later, we usually split back, and now the person’s real or imagined negative behaviors are gone and they are once again idealized, as mentioned in criteria #2. You can see how taxing such a sudden shift in emotions can be for a person.

It is also taxing on the FP if they are present during the split or received panicked or angry messages with the above scenario. It causes fights and the FP might view the Borderline person as “Bipolar” “irrational” or “unstable”.

We can split on people that are not FPs.

Tips For Your Character

Your Borderline character could easily be in out-patient therapy. I won’t go into the details but they could be in DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy). The structure is 2 sessions a week, one with a small group, and then another one-on-one with their psychiatrist who is probably also running the group. Psychiatrists need special training to treat people with BPD.

Your character would also do “diary cards” each day and record their mood and any notes about their day. These are easy to add in as throw-away comments like “I’m going to therapy, I’ll be back in an hour or so” or “damn it, I forgot to do my diary card”.

Fun fact: Therapists have been known to drop clients upon finding out they have BPD or giving them the diagnosis because apparently some therapists can’t handle us.

Your character might also be on some medication and an easy scene for angst could be them refusing to take their medication, forgetting to take it, or the meds being of of balance and them needing to go to an ER to be stabilized (usually they become suicidal or paranoid) and have their meds adjusted. This happened to me once. Lithium can be used in extreme cases as a medication but usually a combination of anti-depressants and mood-stabilizers is used.

BPD is often comorbid with depression so your character will probably exhibit depression symptoms as well.

Final Thoughts:

As long as you don’t make your Borderline character the antagonist or a manipulative partner who kills pets like in Single White Female, you should be fine.

Edit: tumblr glitched and I didn’t mean to post this now. I’ll try to get on my laptop when I get home and add a read more.

If you need clarification on anything or additional resources feel free to DM me or come into my inbox!

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 20, part three(!)

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

This episode has so much crucially important stuff in it I had to write 3 posts about it! Part one is here, part two is here. 

Don't Start None, Won't Be None

Lan Wangji has never had a real fight with Wei Wuxian before--remember, in their rooftop fight Wei Wuxian never even drew his sword. And since this is going to be a verbal fight, Lan Wangji is going to lose, badly. He's an elegant and articulate speaker, but he's not quick with words, and he speaks directly and sincerely. Weaponized speech is not his area at all, so he's pretty much bringing a knife to a gunfight. A guqin to a flute fight. Whatever. He tries to turn it into a physical confrontation, twice, but Jiang Cheng holds him back.

This throwdown is 100% about religion and orthodoxy; something that is fundamental to both of these young men's lives. Lan Wangji has made it his mission to be as orthodox as possible, doing shit like volunteering to be beaten for drinking when he didn't choose to drink. He's constantly overwhelmed by emotion, and the Lan rules are a source of regulation and safety for him. His emotions around Wei Wuxian are among the most overwhelming he's got, possibly only second to his feelings about his mom.

Right now his feelings are extra overwhelming. 

It's complicated because his relationship with Wei Wuxian literally started off with him punishing Wei Wuxian for heterodoxy. All that time they spent together in the library? Was because Wei Wuxian talked--JUST talked--about using resentful energy for cultivation. Which is precisely the ability he's just shown them, along with a style of killing enemies that's borderline evil and definitely, DEFINITELY unsportsmanlike.

So this is not, Lan Wangji is lovingly worried about Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is pushing him away to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. This is Lan Wangji freaking out because his entire system of belief is being challenged and he's in love with the person who's challenging it.  

Wei Wuxian has shown up to the party wearing an International Mr. Leather tee shirt with a enamel pin stuck to it that says "I get my kicks on route 666" and Lan Wangji just. cannot. deal.  

Never Start a Fight But Always Finish One

Wei Wuxian has a couple of options here. One is to accept, kindly, that he and his friend can't be friends any more because of religion. In this option, in order to preserve his friend's comfortable sense of being right, he would have to tacitly accept that he himself is bad in some way, and allow his friend to keep having his value system, while walking away from him.  

The other choice is to hit so hard that he makes his friend feel really, really bad, and potentially rocks him off of his comfortable foundation. In the short term, the friendship breaks, but if it forces him to actually question his value system, it might lay the groundwork for a new, more accepting friendship.  Anyone who is queer with an anti-queer-religious best friend is probably familiar with this dilemma.

Wei Wuxian chooses the second option, and goes all in from the first moment, calling Lan Wangji "Lan Er Gongzi" and then upgrading to "Hanguang Jun" and even bowing. If it's possible to bow sarcastically, that's what Wei Wuxian is doing. Then he meets his eyes and sticks his chin out, essentially saying "how do you like them apples?"

(more after the cut!)

Lan Wangji's feelings are probably hurt, but he's too busy being mad to show it, and he goes straight to grilling Wei Wuxian, asking him about the killing, the talismans, and giving up the sword, all while Jiang Cheng stands by and wonders what the fuck is happening. 

Lan Wangji is making a fundamental error here, which is he's speaking as if he's an authority instead of as a peer. Wei Wuxian has only ever accepted one authority in his entire life, and that was Jiang Fengmian. Jiang Cheng is the one who, for a change, is approaching as a worried friend, while Lan Wangji approaches as if he has the right to call Wei Wuxian to account.  

Wei Wuxian won't answer his questions and is getting in his face, provoking him in a very quiet and controlled way, and Lan Wangji responds by just being really aggressive. It's interesting to see Wei Wuxian completely mastering his emotions while Lan Wangji is completely....not.  Wei Wuxian pushes harder, saying he's being rude, saying he's being a bad friend.  Which doesn't make any difference to Lan Wanji, who keeps pressing for an answer while Jiang Cheng wonders what the fuck is happening.

Come to Gusu

Wei Wuxian says he already explained, that it's complicated, it will take time to explain, so then Lan Wangji makes the utterly dumbassed demand that Wei Wuxian return to Gusu with him to explain it. What, exactly, is his plan? Bring Wei Wuxian to Gusu and have Lan Xichen (at the very least) and probably also Lan Qiren help him to convince Wei Wuxian that resentful cultivation is bad? How is that likely to work out? Let's have our own flashback, to that classroom interaction that led to the punishment in the library.

Lan Qiren: How will you make sure the resentful energy will only listen to you and not harm others? [Note: he's not wrong, Wei Wuxian] Wei Wuxian: I haven't figured that out yet ["details," as OP's dad used to say] Lan Qiren: If you did, the cultivation world would not allow your existence [i.e. we, the Lan Clan of Gusu, will kill your ass]

Lan Wangji probably doesn't think he's threatening Wei Wuxian with death by inviting him to Gusu, but he kinda is, if Lan Qiren was serious back then.  Lan Wangji is so upset and fearful that he's not really thinking clearly at this point. He loves Wei Wuxian and he's certain that cultivating with resentful energy will destroy him. [Note: he's not wrong, Wei Wuxian]  But Wei Wuxian is beyond fear. He's already been destroyed once.

Wei Wuxian rips on Gusu and then says, in a super-provocative way, that he prefers Yunmeng, which prompts Lan Wangji to say "don't joke around" as angrily as possible. 

This part of the interaction always confuses me because...shouldn't he prefer Yunmeng? He's actually from there and lives there and belongs there and stuff? He's just saying "I think I'll go with my brother" yet WWX and LWJ both act like he said he'd rather go to Demon City.

Lan Wangji takes a big step forward and Jiang Cheng blocks him while Wei Wuxian continues to act unperturbed and puzzled while holding his demon flute out in between them. 

Finally, FINALLY, Wei Wuxian calls him Lan Zhan, and asks him a serious question: What do you really want. Lan Wangji calms down for a second--although he keeps leaning into Jiang Cheng's sword block--and gets to the point, which is that the unorthodox path is dangerous, and harmful to his temperament.  

Kill one turtle together and you think you're the boss of me

So, these dudes are talking about 2 different levels of unacceptable cultivation, in this episode and the next few. Netflix translates these as "wicked tricks" and "crafty tricks," which both sound absolutely ludicrous in English, so I'm going to use my own preferred terms, going forward.  

I think what they are calling "Wicked Tricks," which includes spirit snatching and feeding people to the murder turtle on purpose in order to harvest their resentment could be translated as Heresy--adhering to a forbidden belief or practice; standing in opposition to Orthodoxy.  

Edit: After rewatching Episode 35, in which Nie Huaisang explains why their whole blade thing doesn’t count as “wicked tricks,” I’ve changed my mind about what to call this. NHS says that “wicked tricks” specifically involve the use of humans & human spirits (killing, sacrificing, etc.). Which means Necromancy is probably the better term for this particular type of cultivation, although it is still (also) Heresy. 

"Crafty Tricks," which is using resentful energy to raise and control already-dead people (ghosts and zombies) as well as just generally using resentment for basic stuff like beating Jin Zixuan's ass, could be translated as Heterodoxy--deviating from the accepted belief or practice, but not to the point of complete opposition.

Wei Wuxian laughs while Lan Wangji tries to be convincing, but since Lan Wangji is just repeating what he's been taught, he's not making much headway. Instead of saying "there's no exception throughout history" he could have, instead, gone with his own actual observations, such as "you are acting like a sadistic prick" or "you seem amazingly miserable" or "you aren't hugging your brother, what the fuck is that about?" But no.

Wei Wuxian responds to the charge of heresy by saying nuh-uh, and explains his methods, sort of, while going back to calling him Lan Er Gongzi. Lan Er Gongzi responds by actually literally yelling at him, and saying he's not allowed to decide for himself about what he's doing, as if the words "allowed to" have ever meant a goddamn thing to Wei Wuxian.

Temperament

At this point Wei Wuxian is done. He goes and gets right up in Lan Wangji's face and sticks a metaphorical knife right in his heart, smiling as he does it. "How do others know my temperament?" he asks; "and why should it be their concern?" i.e. you are not in my heart. 

This makes Lan Wangji so mad he calls Wei Wuxian "Wei Wuxian" for possibly the only time in the show, and he also flashes a whole bunch of angry teeth. (Gifset here). In a callback to the JFM-YZY fight back in Lotus Pier before the war, Wei Wuxian just calmly says "Lan Wangji" back at him, and then tells him to go fuck himself.

Jiang Cheng still doesn't understand what the fuck is happening, but this is a sentiment he understands, so he also tells Lan Wangji to go fuck himself, reminding him that Wei Wuxian is Jiang clan property and it's not the Lans' place to discipline him. Adding "and I'm not going to discipline him any way, look how good he is at killing people!"

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji continue to stare into each others' eyes from a distance so close that it really should lead to making out, but they are both much too angry for that. 

Wei Wuxian is as cold as we ever see him, smiling as he silently confirms: I do not belong to you. Lan Wangji glares back, his anger maybe finally giving way, a little bit, to being hurt.

Finish Him!

Wen Chao picks this moment to wake up and crawl over to the trio, begging Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng to save his life, since he presumably knows it's pointless to beg Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian turns around and gives him the EXACT SAME dead-eyed smile he just gave Lan Wangji, and kicks him.

Then he tells Lan Wangji to please leave so he and his brother can finish torturing this dude to death, and caps it with an official Jiang Clan eye roll.  

Lan Wangji, poor bb, just throws in the towel, and turns and leaves, the anger finally starting to leave his face and be replaced with something else...chagrin, maybe? Or maybe just softer anger, for the moment. 

After he's out of sight Wei Wuxian turns and looks after him sadly, all of the cruelty and hardness gone from his expression, while Wen Chao says "forgive me,"  possibly voicing what Wei Wuxian is thinking.

Lan Wangji walks out the front gate, troubled, and hears Wen Chao scream. He stops and replays the most pointed part of the fight in his head - the part where Wei Wuxian asked him, "who do you think you are?" Lan Wangji went into the fight believing he was completely right and was entitled to judge Wei Wuxian, but he's come out of it with his certainty shaken. 

Family Time

The Yunmeng brothers go to the ancestral shrine in Lotus Pier even though the whole "reclaiming Lotus Pier" scene doesn't happen until Episode 24. So apparently they just kind of sneak into the the shrine, and then sneak back out. Or, you know, continuity error.  Anyway Wei Wuxian is nothing if not adept at sneaking around death-related places.

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng bow and offer incense. It's nice that the Wens didn't fuck up everybody's name plaques when they were in control of the place...or the tassels, candles, etc. 

Wei Wuxian quietly tells Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian that he did what they asked--taking care of Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli--and they can rest now. Nosy parker Jiang Cheng wants to know what he's saying, but Wei Wuxian just changes the subject. 

They talk about going to Qinghe for the final combat of the Sunshot Campaign. Wei Wuxian says that's why he returned, which...dude, you can't even pretend you came back to be with your loved ones? Ouch. Jiang Cheng doesn't really react to that, but he's happy when Wei Wuxian says he wants to see Jiang Yanli. Wei Wuxian wants to know if she's ok and if she's mad at him, and Jiang Cheng says wait and see, because direct answers are not the Jiang Clan way.

Jiang Yanli is helping tend to the wounded, and we see her telling a particularly fussy wounded dude to suck it up and stop complaining. 

When Wei Wuxian shows up she totally stops paying attention to the wounded dude so that she can smile at Wei Wuxian. 

He looks back at her tearfully, briefly managing to smile but then just trying to hold it together. He has been to hell and back, and doing his very best to hide it, but when he sees the person who loves him most--the person who will NOT spend 20 minutes yelling at him as soon as they see him--he starts to crack open.

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 9

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

How the turnabouts have turned! It's time for Twisted Karma and His Last Bow!

Episode 2-4: Twisted Karma and His Last Bow

With Van Zieks's tragic backstory (…) exposed, it's time to head on into waters we've charted before, waaay back in the very first Ace Attorney game: The Prosecutor becomes the Defendant. It all starts off with some shenanigans which appear to have very little to do with Van Zieks (the arrival of Mikotoba and Jigoku, the Red-headed League, a missing prison warder, etc.).. Ryu does still run into Van Zieks very briefly in Stronghart's office, with Susato noting that there appears to be an awful lot of tension in the air. I expect Van Zieks is questioning that decision to leave Genshin Asogi's son in his care, but even so, he's very civil towards Stronghart. Susato also notes that Van Zieks gives Ryu a cold stare as he leaves, with Ryu wondering what he's done to earn that. This may also be a result of him being besties with Kazuma, since Van Zieks had already buried the hatchet towards Ryu for the most part. When Ryu asks about the decision to leave Kazuma in Van Zieks's care, Stronghart explains it was to best keep an eye on this 'mysterious amnesiac with no identifying papers'. Well OK then. Stronghart also explains he made Kazuma wear a mask because he didn't want to “burden Van Zieks with tiresome explanations about why he had an Eastern appearance.” … I would assume the very simple explanation is that it's because he's of Eastern descent, Stronghart. Regardless, the Lord Chief Justice has high hopes for Kazuma's future and isn't at all bothered by the fact that the guy has gone missing for a little bit.

Things take a turn later when Gina Lestrade comes barging into 221B with some pretty shocking news. Inspector Gregson was murdered. Yes, THAT Inspector Gregson. The suspect has already been arrested:

It's true that to the average civilian like Gina, Van Zieks's name is pretty much synonymous to the Reaper (of the Old Bailey). Even so, to have her outright calling him by that title adds a sort of emotional distance that's really striking. Gina explains they caught him at the scene and there were several witnesses, but Ryu thinks to himself that there's no way Van Zieks would have taken Gregson's life. So naturally, we owe it to our good pal Gregson (who actually was just coming around and being nicer to Ryu) to find the truth. Time to go have a talk with Van Zieks in prison!

… Okay that's funny. Don't worry, Barok, one day we'll all look back on this and laugh. Anyway, Van Zieks says he's in the last place on earth he'd want to be, with the last person on earth he'd want to see. And this line can easily be misinterpreted as Van Zieks saying he hates Ryu more than anyone else in the world, but what he's actually saying is that Ryu is the last person he wishes would see him in this troublesome situation. Ryu says he couldn't very well not come, but Van Zieks tells him to go home since it has nothing to do with him. Susato interjects, pointing out that Gregson has helped them out on numerous occasions and so, they're indebted to him. She pleads for Van Zieks's help with the investigation and he's silent for a moment, only to say: “There's really nothing I can tell you.” Which I suppose means he doesn't think he has anything helpful to say. Ryu asks about what Van Zieks was reading when they came in and assumes it to be a case report. Van Zieks says the Yard wouldn't share case details with a suspect (keep that one in mind) and explains it's a letter from Albert. Dear Professor Harebrayne has arrived in Germany safely! Ryu notes that Van Zieks usually never minces his words, but they seem to have less bite than usual now. No wonder, really, since he's in prison for the murder of an old friend. Van Zieks asks how much they already know about the case, so the two of them go through the facts and Van Zieks says they're well-informed. He's got nothing to add, because... Well.

Oh, this is going to be another one of those cases, huh. Susato asks what Van Zieks was doing at the crime scene in the first place, but Van Zieks points out he doesn't need to answer that, as they aren't representing him. When asked who is representing him in court, he says it'd be anyone other than Ryu. That said, he doesn't actually have any representation because of his reputation as the Reaper. Sixteen people he's prosecuted have mysteriously died and now that he's actually been apprehended for a murder, that whole Reaper ordeal is sure to be thoroughly examined.

BOY, have we got news for you! When it's pointed out that Van Zieks didn't actually have anything to do with those mysterious deaths (right???), he replies that no one wants to know the true identity of that killer more than he does, but it seems things may come to a head before he can uncover the truth. Van Zieks basically tells Ryu to leave, but being the kind-hearted gentleman that he is, Ryu offers to advocate for him in court. Van Zieks asks whether Ryu trusts him, which is a pretty fair question to ask. He's built up so many racist scumbag points and has such a bad reputation in town, it would be weird for Ryu to trust him unconditionally. Luckily, Ryu has been paying attention just as much as I have; he's heard Van Zieks speak in court and seen the way he treats people (uhh, English citizens, anyway), so he doesn't believe this 'Reaper' has it in him to take a life. Unfortunately, Ryu also has to acknowledge that feelings can't be used as evidence in court. Van Zieks considers the offer gracious, but...

“Not the police, not the judiciary... And not you Nipponese.”

One more scumbag point for putting “you Nipponese” in its own category for no reason. Either way, this man has built up such high defensive walls, you could see them from three galaxies away. Trusting no one is a pretty drastic way of living. Ryu thinks to himself that there's a chasm between the two of them that's 'just too wide and too deep'.

As a sidenote, presenting the attorney armband doesn't lead to any interesting conversation this time, but we can also present the Red-headed League advertisement! Van Zieks surmises that if it were a Black-headed League, Ryu would join without delay, which Ryu then confirms. Van Zieks says that sadly, his hair is neither black nor red. He goes into a most curious identity crisis of sorts, where he looks quite anguished as he wonders which coloured league he should join instead. There have been several debates over his hair color, actually, from lavender to purple to grey. Regardless, Susato points out that “people are troubled by the most unexpected problems at times.” It is unexpected, since Van Zieks needs neither the money nor the company that he would get from joining any such league. It's just the principle of the matter, I suppose.

Over by the crime scene in Fresno Street, Gina gets a little razzled when she suspects Ryu is thinking of defending “that Reaper bloke”. Susato points out that if “Lord van Zieks” really is responsible for the crime, he'll be judged fairly in court. This gets Gina to calm down again, because she really wants to know the truth of what happened and much like Van Zieks, she must know that getting the truth is what Ryu does best. A bit of conversation later, Gina points out one more interesting thing; Gregson apparently held a lot of respect for 'the Reaper'. “I take my hat off to that fella,” were his exact words, apparently. Ryu is skeptical, as am I, because I've seen the way Gregson talks about Van Zieks behind his back.

Gina explains that's exactly why he respected Van Zieks. That's... a little weird and ambiguous. So either he respected Van Zieks's ability to stand tall despite all the public scorn, or he respected the fear he struck into people's hearts. There's one more option; Gina keeps talking about the Reaper instead of Van Zieks, so it's possible that Gregson was talking about the actual Reaper. This seems unlikely, though, since he didn't seem to enjoy being part of the Reaper organization.

And now that we know Van Zieks is the defendant, one might be wondering: Who is the prosecutor? Who is the antagonistic force who will try to stop Ryu from uncovering the truth? Well, we find him over in Stronghart's office. Apparently he took an express train back to London from wherever it was he's been these past few days.

YOOOOUUUU!!! Though before we can address his presence properly, we need to discuss the new case. Stronghart wastes no time asking Ryu and Susato whether they've heard “the sickening news about the Reaper's latest devilry.” Which stands out, to say the least, since Stronghart has always been a strong supporter of Van Zieks up until this point. When Susato points out that surely he doesn't believe it, Stronghart says he believes only in facts, which all point to the unavoidable accusal of Lord van Zieks. Someone sure had a quick turnaround when it comes to his number one prosecutor, geez... Stronghart points out the irony that there's no salvation for anyone prosecuted by the Reaper of the Bailey, and now the Reaper himself must stand in the dock. Just as Van Zieks had already alluded to, Stronghart now claims the public will want answers about those mysterious deaths. Ryu and Susato both point out that which had been rubbed into our faces several times already; Van Zieks denies any involvement, and also there have been several investigations into whether he had anything to do with it. Stronghart kind of brushes this off, though. Turns out, Van Zieks is being traded in for a newer model number one prosecutor: Kazuma Asogi! Which seems weird at first glance, since Kazuma is a defense attorney, but Stronghart considers that a bonus:

“A devastation combination, wouldn't you agree?”

I do agree. Granted, it seems Van Zieks had already figured out the defense's strategies too, he just never actively used them to his own advantage. It also turns out that Kazuma personally requested the prosecutor position for this trial. Susato thinks it's pretty unprecedented to grant a newcomer exchange student such a request, but Stronghart offers some petty excuse about how this way, it won't look like the judiciary are closing ranks. Kazuma, who assumes his friend will take on the defense, says he'll see how Ryu's skills have been honed after practicing law in England for so many months. (Uhh. Actually, bestie, it was only about two months of being a defense attorney and six months of disbarment.) Ryu notes that Kazuma is being hostile towards him and wonders why. On a final note, when asking Stronghart about the gun found at the crime scene, we're told that it's issued to all members of law enforcement, including prosecutors. Van Zieks claims to have lost his. That's a troubling claim indeed, because it's difficult to prove or disprove. GOSH, if only fingerprints were allowed in court.

As Ryu and Susato turn to leave, Kazuma stops them. He once again states he wants Ryu to witness this trial as the defense counsel, to “see how it ends”. Since Kazuma has a very distinct vision for how he wants it to end, I guess this means he intends to confront Ryu with Van Zieks's guilt and have his bestie see that a man like him is unworthy of his trust. Either that, or he expects Ryu to use this trial to find the truth of what really happened with the Professor ten years ago, just as he used Albert's trial to dig into that incident. Still though, this reads as pretty scummy to me, because it means he wants Ryu to lose a trial and lose some of his belief in his clients. In the trial itself, it seems to me that Kazuma desperately believes Van Zieks to be a horrible person deserving of the guilty verdict. Therefore, he in no way can hold hope that Ryu will prove him wrong (unlike what went down in case 2-3 with Albert). Anyway, Ryu says that Van Zieks would never put his fate in his hands.

“... It's not easy to see behind the facade sometimes.”

Case 2-3 already told us this, but it's nice to have it confirmed by someone who was closer to Van Zieks. Because remember, Kazuma spent three months by Van Zieks's side (and even fighting by his side), so of course he would know more about his personality than we do. Kazuma hands over a photograph of Barok when he was younger and

GOOD LORD, HE CAN SMILE. Or he could when he was younger, anyway. Kazuma states the picture was displayed in Gregson's office. What he's 'trying to say' is that if Ryu really thinks he can trust “the Reaper” (distancing choice of words again), he might find that some straight talking will change his view. I got the impression we've been straight talking Van Zieks ever since we first met him, but okay. Let's take the picture and back to the gaol we go! Van Zieks is once again reading from some paper and Ryu points out that either he's an incredibly slow reader or it's an incredibly long letter, but either way, Ryu might even be able to read English faster than him. Naturally, this was said loud enough for Van Zieks to overhear.

Scumbag point for hypocrisy, but also a scumbag point for “Nipponese”. When Ryu asks whether it's still Albert's letter he's reading, Van Zieks says he had the case report brought to him in secret. So wait, the Yard does share case details with its suspect? Hilarious. Once again, Van Zieks insists the situation has nothing to do with Ryu, up until the prosecutor's name is revealed to him. And so, the masked cardboard cutout student has become the master! Ryu notes that all the color drained from Van Zieks's face, which is pretty impressive when there's barely any color there to begin with. Ryu has the opportunity now to thrust the photograph into his face, so let's do that. He's immediately alarmed, since he assumed it to be lost and would never have expected Gregson to have it. When Ryu says that Gregson had a deep respect for him, he dismisses that as nonsense, only to correct himself. “There was a time things were like that.”

Van Zieks thanks Ryu for that nice glimpse into the past, and Ryu thinks to himself that there was a glimmer in Van Zieks's eyes- a brief twinkle. He considers that “an insight into the true nature of this man known to all as the stone-cold Reaper of the Bailey”, with “the true nature” being highlighted as orange. So this right here is undeniable; this is what the narrative is illustrating to us now. The true nature of Barok van Zieks is that of someone who was hopeful and jovial; kind-hearted, as Albert knew him. What we see now, that harsh exterior full of harsh words, is not his nature at all.

Van Zieks is more willing to talk now. He once again speaks of Klint, rehashing the same story we've heard several times already. Van Zieks claims there's not a single day where he doesn't curse the name Asogi. He considers it a cruel twist of fate that the man's son intends to crucify him in 'some kangaroo court'. Clearly, he doesn't think highly of the upcoming trial if he refers to it as a kangaroo court, but that's likely because he knows he isn't the real killer. When Ryu points out that he still doesn't understand why Stronghart apprenticed Kazuma to Van Zieks, the explanation is that “it's what he does”. Van Zieks believes that Stronghart knew Kazuma's true identity from the outset, but still provides no real explanation as to why Stronghart 'did what he did' and even assigned Kazuma as the prosecutor this time. Van Zieks goes on to contemplate the name Asogi some more and calls it 'the epitome of his bane'.

I've talked before about how utterly flawed it is that Van Zieks attributes Genshin's crime to his race and/or cultural upbringing and proceeds to tar every single Japanese person with the same brush. There's no need to go into this again; we all know it's wrong. Turns out, even Van Zieks knows it's wrong, but we'll get back to that momentarily. First, Van Zieks needs to talk about Klint even more. (good lord...) He explains that Klint van Zieks was hunting down a mass murderer and “assigned to the investigation as his partner was a certain visiting student dispatched by the Yard.” This was Genshin, of course, and I believe this is the first time it's said that he too was looking into the Professor case. So Van Zieks already mentioned in the previous case that the Japanese students had left a deep impact on him, and also that he once toasted friendship with a Japanese person, but now we have this:

“But none of us saw the true nature of the man.”

True nature is once again in orange here, but this time as a red herring. Van Zieks believes that the Professor murders were Genshin's true nature, when it isn't quite true at all. Regardless, since Van Zieks was still in university at the time the exchange students were in the country, I don't think he would've had that much contact with Genshin. I expect he encountered the man on rare occasion while Klint associated most with him. Every meeting was enough to foster this respect and friendship, though, so it's clear that young Van Zieks was easily influenced and had a very open mind towards a foreign exchange student. But then, that's what makes the next portion of the story all the more damaging.

“My esteemed brother... The people I believed in... And any semblance of right prevailing over wrong!”

As Van Zieks also already alluded to in the previous case, he found himself in a very dark place. That isn't surprising. Every positive thing Van Zieks knew in his life, from his family to his closest friends, was ripped away from him in extremely close succession. What must've been the final nail in the coffin was Genshin outright admitting to his crimes. It erased all doubt that perhaps there was some sort of misunderstanding or a frame job. Going over everything Van Zieks has said so far, it seems he didn't just blame Genshin for the tremendous loss he suffered; he blamed himself. He must believe that his trust in Genshin blinded him to this supposed 'true nature', just as it must've also blinded Klint, and that the whole tragedy could've been prevented if only he'd been more cautious. So now, in present day, he no longer trusts anyone. He outright says so.

Van Zieks goes on to talk about how he was the one who prosecuted the Professor. Since he'd only just graduated, such a thing usually wouldn't be allowed, but he “beleaguered the ascribed prosecutor until he consented.” This person was Mael Stronghart, who back then was apparently still no more than a prosecutor. A highly accomplished one, but a prosecutor nonetheless. Since Klint was the Director of Prosecutions (or Chief Prosecutor???) at the time, that means he actually ranked above Stronghart. Interesting. Regardless, since Stronghart agreed to let Van Zieks lead the prosecution and instead only acted as an advisor, Van Zieks now feels indebted to him. That certainly explains why he's usually so good about following Stronghart's orders and not asking questions.

“And, of all things, as a lawyer.”

Ahhh, this is the part where Ryu enters the chronology. Our protagonist points out that he's felt Van Zieks's animosity since the first time he faced him in the courtroom; his obvious deep loathing of Japanese people. And here comes perhaps one of the most important, yet most overlooked lines Van Zieks will ever utter in these games:

“But for so many years, that hatred had festered inside me, I could no longer control it.”

So here, Van Zieks admits to two things. First of all, he admits that he was wrong to hold such deep loathing and by extension, to give that loathing a voice. He's a man of logic, after all. To cling to something which he refers to as illogical is about as wrong as one could get. Not only that, he admits that this was an unstoppable force he should have controlled, but was too weak to do so. The hatred overpowered him and did away with common sense. He behaved stupidly and irrationally because for ten years, hatred and negativity was all he knew. But what's even more striking here is Ryu's answer, which is also often overlooked:

Ryu, bless his heart, doesn't blame Van Zieks for succumbing to this weakness. Bear in mind, he's the victim here. Van Zieks wouldn't have encountered many other Japanese people in those ten years, if at all. This means the first person he lashed out against was Ryu. Naturally, Ryu can't speak for Susato or Soseki, who received their own verbal assaults and might have different opinions on the matter. Ryu is just one man, but in our narrative, he's the main protagonist and the main target of these outbursts. Is it misleading and perhaps even problematic in the grand scheme of things to have the protagonist sympathize with such motivation? Well, that depends on many different factors. There's no easy answer for this because it's a nuanced, cultural sort of thing. Personally, I was a bit bothered by it, but not to the point that it ruined the experience for me.

Van Zieks admits that just as the Japanese were the bane of his life, Kazuma Asogi must believe Van Zieks to be the bane of his. He is, after all, the Reaper who sent his father to the gallows. Van Zieks thinks that Kazuma intends to take revenge in court and... Really, this is true.

There's a quick bit of conversation about Gregson now. Turns out, the only reason the Professor was caught at all was because Gregson forced an autopsy on Klint despite it being considered the highest taboo at the time. Van Zieks says that as a result of Gregson's powerful conviction, he could avenge his brother's death. He looks quite torn, a bit pained. He must believe he owes Gregson something for this. The conversation then moves on to Van Zieks's revolver, which he claims to have misplaced an undetermined amount of time ago. “I must have stowed it somewhere, I suppose. Or left it somewhere, perhaps.” Van Zieks clearly doesn't think highly of firearms as a weapon, since he's constantly carrying a sword around instead. Susato points out that Ryu has a talent for misplacing things in common with Van Zieks, which leads to one more scumbag outburst.

… Dude. Come on. You just admitted it was illogical. You came so far! Scumbag point for you. Still, as the conversation rounds to a close, Van Zieks utters the words “Mister... Naruhodo”, much to Ryu's surprise. This is the first time he's actually said Ryu's name! Van Zieks once again reiterates that he's lost all confidence in England's judiciary system. He doesn't trust the police, the judiciary or lawyers. Even so, there's still one thing he's willing to believe in.

“That which you see in the eyes of another across the courtroom: a simple determination to know the truth. From the very first time we clashed in the Bailey almost a year ago now... I couldn't deny it, even though I dearly wished I could. 'Here is a loathsome Japanese... who has absolute integrity as a lawyer.' There are only two other men I've known with that same look in their eyes: my brother, Klint. … And Genshin Asogi.”

This is interesting. So at first when he saw that look in Ryu's eyes, he must've been reminded of Genshin. And again, this is why he directed such hatred towards Ryu; he saw someone who wasn't alive anymore. But now he recalls that Klint also had that same gaze, and so he wants to believe that Ryu is not similar to a deceitful murderer, he's instead similar to his beloved brother. (Boy is he going to have to reevaluate how he judges people when he finds out that his beloved brother was the deceitful murderer.) Van Zieks says that when he saw the photograph, he was reminded of a time when he could laugh, free of the shackles of mistrust which plague him now. This is very relevant since Van Zieks indeed can't laugh anymore. We never see him do it. He can't even smile.

“But at times the mire into which I've sunk makes it almost impossible to breathe.”

Someone please get this man to a professional therapist. If he means that in a more literal sense and he does occasionally feel like he can't breathe, that's telltale signs of panic attacks. It could just be, of course, that he's being overdramatic and the “impossible to breathe” bit is just fanciful wordplay to go with the mire analogy. Still though, considering he's also mentioned being in a dark place and that he's willing to die so long as it serves a useful purpose, and that he drinks his wine to stave off tedium... He's clearly depressed. But then, he seems to know it. He acknowledges that the way he is now is not the way things should be, and that he needs to fight to overcome it. And so:

“... In tomorrow's trial... Will you advocate for me?”

Boom. Swallowed his pride and turned to Ryu for help because he knows it's what's best for him. He no longer trusts anyone, but he's willing to trust Ryu because once he starts opening up again and has that trust repaid, then perhaps things can gradually go back to the way things were when he was younger. Mind, he still hasn't apologized for his actions, but that doesn't change that Ryu at least is willing to extend a hand to Van Zieks. It's a little sad that Susato doesn't properly form her own opinion on this and instead just goes along with whatever Ryu says. I would've liked to know just how she feels about Van Zieks's attitude and whether or not he deserves to be helped. She doesn't object to it, at least, and since Susato usually always speaks her mind, I can only assume she genuinely agrees with Ryu's sentiments.

The next day, in the defendant's lobby, it's remarked there's a 'menacing tension' in the air and Ryu surmises out loud it's the result of the menacing appearance of the defendant. Well-deserved, that remark. Touché. Van Zieks asks him for a little more courtesy in a polite enough manner, but considering the lack of courtesy he's shown Ryu over the past 8 months, that's hypocritical. He informs Ryu that this is a closed trial without a jury, which bums me out because it means no more Summation Examination. I would've liked to see Asogi react to that. (S)Holmes comes in and has the weirdest little banter with Van Zieks that I honestly can't... really decipher. There's several things about it that really strike me as being off:

- “And I you. I see London's celebrated great detective is as active as ever.”

- “Oh, you exaggerate, my dear fellow. Compared to my paltry engagements with a few trivial cases... The Reaper's overbearing presence is a far greater deterrent to the black roots of crime in our capital. And whilst I may not agree with your methods... There is at least one point on which I would readily commend you.”

- “What an honour. And that would be...?”

- “Your eye for a good lawyer, sir. […] Behind this lawyer there is a very great mind. My own.”

Alright, so... First of all, we know (S)Holmes is super arrogant and would never refer to his past cases as “trivial” in all sincerity. Plus, it's established that he's very weird with compliments, such as referring to Gregson as “the best of those blunderers of the Yard”, so complimenting Van Zieks directly on the effect he has on crime feels off. Aside from that, (S)Holmes addresses Van Zieks as the Reaper and continues to talk about 'his methods', when it's already been established (S)Holmes doesn't believe Van Zieks has anything to do with the Reaper killings. Taking all that into account, I can only really assume that the first half of this above conversation is (S)Holmes being weirdly passive aggressive towards Van Zieks, with Van Zieks being passive aggressive in turn. It really, truly feels as if there was some sort of backstory between these two that they had to scrap at the last second. Regardless, the exchange ends with (S)Holmes warning Van Zieks that this will be “quite a trial”.

Gina Lestrade shows up with Yujin Mikotoba (….. when did they meet???), saying they intend to watch the trial, and I am very impressed with how (S)Holmes manages to disappear from the scene and not say a word when his old partner arrives. Anyway, Gina looks Ryu square in the eye and asks him why he agreed to take Van Zieks on. Everyone's saying it was him who killed Gregson. Considering everyone was saying it was her who killed Pop Windibank six months ago, you'd think she might want to tone down her attitude, but she's clearly in mourning and lashing out. See? People who are hurting can say insensitive things. Ryu insists he doesn't believe it to be true, but Gina demands to know that if it wasn't him, then who?

“An' if it turns out it was 'im wot killed the boss... Then God 'elp 'im!”

It's interesting to remember that during The Unspeakable Story, Gina wasn't afraid of Van Zieks for his Reaper reputation. She didn't believe in the curse and didn't think she would end up like the other defendants. Now, she absolutely no longer gives a damn whether Van Zieks is the mysterious Reaper or not. She only thinks he might be a murderer who took away her mentor and that's what has her judge him so fiercely. Van Zieks remarks on her fiery eyes and tells her that the culprit does indeed deserve every inch of her loathing. “At least that may be some solace to the deceased.” So here, in a roundabout way, it rather looks as if Van Zieks is sympathizing with Gina's anger. At the very least, he's condoning it, just not towards himself.

Entering the courtroom, it becomes clear very fast just how serious this trial will become. Just as was alluded to before, the judge confirms that the 'Reaper of the Old Bailey' has been undermining Her Majesty's justice system and therefore, the people will demand answers on this matter. Ryu thinks to himself the trial will be a lot more far-reaching than just Gregson's murder. Sure enough, Kazuma is at the prosecutor's bench and ready to get that vengeance Van Zieks referred to in jail. Shockingly, the first witness he summons is actually Van Zieks himself. The judge is surprised, but Kazuma explains that as a prosecutor, Van Zieks believes in the oath of office he's taken; he'll be compelled to tell the truth. Because contrary to what happened in Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro, Van Zieks is against perjury! (I WILL NEVER GET OVER WHAT HAPPENED WITH SHAMSPEARE!) Sure enough, he takes the stand and Kazuma says the court would like to hear him explain some things away.

He really is just brutally honest, isn't he? Both in his courtroom methods and in how he shows his emotions. He doesn't sugarcoat, he doesn't beat around the bush, he definitely doesn't lie... At most, he may withhold some information. Unfortunately, his testimony is mostly useless. The judge remarks that he didn't want to imagine this day would come, but ever since Van Zieks became known as the Reaper, he's been dreading it. The judge, our neutral ground, seems to be convinced that Van Zieks may have actually done the deed. That's not good. Kazuma acts all smug, saying that Van Zieks indeed hasn't explained anything away and that his testimony barely qualifies as an excuse. Van Zieks notes that his 'mute apprentice' has a way with words. Meanwhile, Ryu thinks to himself that Kazuma isn't behaving like himself, which is a sentiment they'll keep repeating throughout the case. … I gotta be honest here, I didn't notice all that much of a difference between this Kazuma and the one from the very first case of the game. I mean, come on, he sliced a man's hair off and cursed his descendants just for insulting Ryu. He's slightly more arrogant here, maybe, but since he was only the assistant there and is a leading counsel here, it makes sense for him to be more proactive and confident in his methods. Then again, I'm not a Kazuma expert; maybe there's something I'm missing.

In his testimony, Van Zieks revealed that he was investigating Gregson, but when pressed on it he won't admit the exact reason for it. He only says he'd identified a distinct possibility Gregson was involved in a case he was investigating. When asked how he even knew where Gregson would be, he openly admits to having stolen into his office and consulted his diary. (“Dear Diary, today I dropped my fish 'n chips on the way to Fresno Street-”) When told that illegally entering Gregson's office would warrant serious consequences, Van Zieks says he was aware of that risk.

The rest of the testimony is pressed without further hitches, though what did strike me as interesting is that at one point, Ryu suggests the gunshot might've originated from outside the room, but Van Zieks immediately says it's out of the question. He shoots the possibility down with evidence only he could have experienced (the bang sounded inside the room and he could smell gunpowder), and in doing so, only implicates himself further. Detrimentally honest, this one. Not only that, but he picked the gun up.

NO KIDDING that was carelessness. Is he related to Miles Edgeworth after all? Kazuma talks about how three street peddlers overheard the bang and burst through the door with some force. Van Zieks states they almost gave him a heart attack in the process (omg) and Ryu thinks to himself: “(But you're supposed to be the Reaper...)” C'mon Ryu, haven't you seen enough of this man by now to know he gets jarred easily?

When the testimony rounds to a close, things get interesting. Kazuma uses his defense attorney skills, as promised. He uses evidence from the Court Record to point out contradictions in Van Zieks's testimony, thereby 'proving he's lying'. Hey, what happened to Van Zieks believing in the oath of office and being compelled to tell the truth? Did Kazuma call Van Zieks to the stand just to expose him as a liar? He wins the judge over quite easily by illustrating these contradictions and casting doubt on Van Zieks's integrity. Tragic, because as Van Zieks says:

Van Zieks steps down from the stand and disappears for the remainder of the trial day. He doesn't even show up during intermission in the defendant's lobby. Characters do still talk about him, though!

I mean... He ain't lyin'. At one point, Kazuma utters the words “the defence is fated to lose. And the prosecution to win,” which once again confirms that Kazuma basically asked Ryu to take part in an 'unwinnable' trial. Which, y'know, is technically fine. Losing a trial isn't the end of the world, especially when the defendant (in Kazuma's eyes) is actually guilty. Still though, personally asking Ryu to take on Van Zieks just so he can watch the man be exposed as a killer is kind of... Kazuma, sir, are you also unable to control your hatred and having it lash out in illogical ways? Is that a parallel with Van Zieks I spy?

The rest of the trial isn't directly related to Van Zieks. It's just a whole bunch of roundabout arguing with street peddlers, red-headed scammers and the revelation that one of those peddlers is actually Daley Vigil, the missing former prison warder. Despite knowing of the dangers, Kazuma asks Ryu to help him forcefully break some of the man's black psyche-locks (c'mon, we all know that's what's impeding his memories) and they send the man to the hospital as a result. Welp. Unveiling the truth is becoming increasingly dangerous in this game and that's really upping the stakes for us.

Into the next investigation day we go! Ryu surmises that it's clear now “Van Zieks definitely didn't do it.” Even so, there are some unanswered questions about the man. What was he even doing at the crime scene and what's with that investigation into Gregson he didn't want to talk about in court? Heading on over to the Chief Justice's office, we overhear him pressuring Kazuma into 'continuing the trial as instructed'. Once he takes note of Ryu and the others, he tells them that he wanted Van Zieks's trial concluded that day and blames 'Asogi's unwelcome inquiries' for it taking longer than necessary. Stronghart's becoming increasingly ominous, here... I don't know for certain why he doesn't just go the extra mile to have Van Zieks proven innocent so he can keep using his Reaper tool to intimidate the masses. I suppose it's because with Gregson dead, he's lost his most important strategist in the killings and the tool of the Reaper's curse can't be used as easily anymore. Assassins probably come a dime a dozen, so Shinn can be replaced, but Gregson... Not so much. Ryu asks Stronghart whether Kazuma truly believes Van Zieks to be the Reaper, but Stronghart says he wouldn't know. He once again talks about the history of the Reaper with its very long run of coincidental deaths and tells us nothing new or interesting.

To prison we go, to visit Van Zieks himself! He's reading a book now, but we're never told what it is. He tries to ignore the visitors, but just as always, eventually comes up to the bars to talk.

YOU FREAKIN- I CAN'T- WHY- How many more times must we teach you this lesson, old man?!!! Thankfully, even Ryu is fed up at this point.

Finally. He spoke up. I've seen a lot of people criticize the fact that Ryu never properly confronts Van Zieks with the damage he's been doing, and on the one hand I would agree. Calling people out on their bullshit is a very useful step in having them notice their mistakes. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that is also a very Western view. It's very easy for us to think that Ryu should stand up for himself and call Van Zieks a prejudiced little tosser who needs to think before he speaks, but that simply isn't part of his character. There may be several reasons to explain why he doesn't confront Van Zieks more firmly, but I'd like to focus on just two. The first is that Ryu is an exchange student who came to England as a 'guest' and is facing not just one racist. Not even five or ten. Everywhere he goes, he's surrounded by people just like Van Zieks. We've seen it in the judge, we've seen it in the jurors, we've seen it in Gregson and in witnesses... Ryu is a minority in a very literal sense, since there's only one other Japanese person (two if we count Soseki) we know of in this entire city. There's a very natural, very understandable defense mechanism which may kick in when surrounded by potentially dangerous individuals, and that is to withdraw; to be as quiet as possible and to attract as little trouble as possible, since 'they outnumber you'. Bonus points for the extreme difference in social standing between Ryu and Van Zieks.

There's one other thing which adds to the above. Ryu was written to be your everyday Japanese person, and their view on confrontation is quite different from our own. I remembered this from a job interview I once had with a Japanese company and looked into it again to refresh my memory: Japanese people are non-confrontational. It's very important for them to maintain a sort of harmony during conversation and therefore, they'll rarely utter negative sentiments, such as criticism, in a way that will cause embarrassment to the person they're addressing. Instead, they employ something often referred to as indirect communication. “The pattern of Japanese indirect communication uses far less words to convey intent in a more subtle manner. Indirect communication uses expression, posture, and tone of voice of the speaker to draw meaning from the actual conversation.” This is very deeply ingrained into the Japanese culture and, if the sources I reviewed are correct, it goes all the way back to the feudal days. Mind, this attitude isn't even limited to Japan. I've been told there's several other countries who adopt that very same attitude and if you cause someone else to lose face, it can have some very severe repercussions for you. Kazuma is a bit more outspoken than Ryu, for example when they face Jezail, but this makes sense also, since Asogi was written to be more progressive. It seems to me that Ryu has been using indirect communication quite often already and, since Van Zieks is woefully unequipped to read this type of communication, Ryu has now finally resorted to something more direct. It's still not a sharp call-out, but rather, the above line reads to me as something in-between direct and indirect communication. And it works.

HELL FROZE OVER! We've done it, lads! Or, as Iris puts it:

So even the rest of the cast is acknowledging this is a big deal and we've made tremendous progress. Could someone else have confronted Van Zieks in a more direct, more Western way before this point? Sure. But would he have listened? The judge has already snarked at him several times during trials and it's always been brushed off as nothing. The only person he might've listened to would've been Albert, but what is the narrative significance of having a side character confront Van Zieks? There isn't one. This was a very impactful moment where Ryu himself resorted to a more Western tactic to get his point across and Van Zieks, in turn, finally uttered an apology. So now we get to have an earnest conversation with the man at last. Van Zieks says he was impressed; not by Ryu but by Kazuma. On first glance, this seems like a mean thing to say, but... Van Zieks is already intimately familiar with Ryu's performance in the courtroom. Why would he still be impressed by that? Kazuma, however, he's never seen in action before. Van Zieks thinks it's all rather “sardonic”.

It's called a cruel irony, Barok. A common tool in storytelling. He himself considers it “retribution for having played the part of the Reaper all these years”. So once again it's discussed how the Reaper minimizes the amount of crime in the capital and since that's a goal Van Zieks is committed to, he never said anything to disprove the rumors. Ryu insists that someone else is profiting off Van Zieks's silence on the matter and is basically using him as a scapegoat. As it turns out, Van Zieks wasn't quite as passive about the matter as he's led us to believe.

Hm. Alright, so he thinks it's good the Reaper's curse is reducing crime in London, but clearly he wants the Reaper organization brought to justice. In a way, he's profiting off these 'accidental deaths' since the fear that comes from them aligns with his goal of crime reduction, but he doesn't actively condone the Reaper murders and wants them halted. Since there's so much accurate information about the accused used in the killings, Van Zieks surmised a while ago that someone from Scotland Yard must've been involved in the killings. It's taken him “many years” to identify the central figure in the organization: Tobias Gregson. Naturally, everyone is shocked. We knew Gregson! And sure, he wasn't exactly a kind person, but he certainly didn't appear to be a killer. He was very rough around the edges, but from what we'd been led to believe, he had a good heart. … A decent heart. Mediocre, one might say. Ryu asks whether the reason Van Zieks was investigating Gregson was to expose him as the Reaper, but Van Zieks repeats the notion that the Reaper is not a single person. He doesn't have a doubt, though, that Gregson was a key member of the organization who did all of the planning. Believe it or not, Gregson was the brains behind the killings; the tactician who investigated and plotted, then left the dirty work to an assassin by the name of Asa Shinn. (LOCALIZATION WHY)

So now that we have this information, we can come to a very interesting conclusion. Both Gregson and Shinn are dead now, so by Van Zieks's reasoning, the Reaper is dead. You'd think this is good, but it does in fact make it very difficult to find the truth. Rather, Van Zieks believes that the truth died with Gregson (he hinted as much twice already) and while the seasoned Ace Attorney player knows it won't be impossible to expose a dead person as a killer, it'd be a hectic ordeal. The seasoned Great Ace Attorney player will know the Reaper hierarchy extends just a bit higher and the two who died are only pawns, but... Y'know. Approaching this from a first-time-player point of view, you'll know things will get troublesome.

There's another topic of conversation where Van Zieks once again addresses how sharp Kazuma is in court. He didn't miss a thing.

OUCH. So when Ryu first arrived, Van Zieks saw Genshin whenever he looked at him, not only due to his roots but due to 'the look in his eyes when searching for the truth'. Now, he sees Genshin in Kazuma, which surely makes a lot more sense. Van Zieks goes on to say that it's true some of the aristocracy from 10 years ago were problematic and abusing their power. “In a way, Asogi was carving out a canker from society that we British couldn't deal with ourselves.” So here, he sounds almost complimentary of the Professor's actions- specifically Asogi's actions. As if it would've all been well and good, were it not for the Professor's final victim. “But that's precisely why it makes no sense. Klint van Zieks was a noble and upstanding man. He wasn't corrupt.”

Remember way back in The Unspeakable Story when I surmised that Van Zieks boiled Genshin's actions down to his race in order to avoid the belief that there might've been a reason his brother was killed? We see it here again. Van Zieks is in doubt. He may say vocally that “it makes no sense”, but that line in itself is already telling. The fact that he acknowledges it and draws it into question implies to us that he's skeptical of the story. Deep down, he knows something is amiss. He knows there's some sort of explanation he's missing, but if he were to dig too deeply into it, he'd have to acknowledge that perhaps his brother was corrupt. And this still isn't all of it. There's one more thing Van Zieks has to discuss before we can round this conversation to a close. Ten years ago, shortly after Klint died, Genshin saved his life.

There's that phrasing again. “True nature”. It's not in orange this time, but it's there all the same. Van Zieks is convinced that Genshin is the one who had a hidden true nature. In this story, we learn that 'the scum of London' had already targeted him several times even before he became known as the Reaper, simply because of who he was and who his brother was. JEESH. Harsh. So on the night in question, a couple of thugs also tried to kill him (allegedly) but Genshin stepped in to protect him. Genshin became lightly wounded as a result. This is the part where I would have expected them to explain Van Zieks's scars, but he never mentions being wounded himself, so we can't be sure this is when it happened. Curious. This was the perfect opportunity and they let it slide. So anyway, two days after that incident, Genshin was arrested.

Some more telling lines here. Van Zieks thinks he'd never recount the story to anyone; not because there's no need to tell it. It's because it must be difficult to talk about. On its own, that might be a farfetched conclusion I wouldn't make, but Ryu confirms it with his follow-up line: “Thank you... for confiding in me.” We can take this line to mean exactly what it says; Van Zieks confided something painful. He let down some more walls. Growth!

So with all this out of the way, there's a whole load more investigation to do before this case is over. Most of it has to do with Genshin's will, a mysterious trunk belonging to Gregson, the missing time of death on the autopsy report... Nothing too relevant to Van Zieks's character. However, if we go into the prosecutor's office and examine things while Kazuma is there, we do get some fun tidbits about how Van Zieks wouldn't trust anyone else to touch his things and would rearrange it all himself whenever needed. From the sound of it, Van Zieks is very meticulous and a loner, which aligns with what we know about him. Some more conversation later, we reach the topic of the Reaper with Kazuma. He agrees that Gregson was definitely involved in the Reaper organization, but there's one thing that's more important. “Who's been giving orders to the Inspector?” In my eyes, it's a bit of a stretch to assume with certainty anyone was giving orders; Gregson might've just taken up the vigilante justice by himself and found some way to pay Shinn enough money to get in on it. Kazuma insists, though, that Van Zieks is 'the real Reaper'. We as the audience already know that's nonsense, we know Kazuma is wrong. Or perhaps we might think that if somehow Van Zieks pulled the wool over our eyes and Kazuma is correct, that'd be one heck of a wild twist. Kazuma gives no real reason why he believes this, he only goes on to say that ten years ago, it was Van Zieks who 'decided his father must be a mass murderer'. Shockingly, Susato is the one to jump in here and outright say to Kazuma that he's wrong; that Van Zieks only saw that 'justice was done as the law dictates' and he wasn't to blame for Genshin's execution. Kazuma insists that people condemn people and the law is just a tool they use for it. So I suppose that's exactly what he's doing right now. He's condemning Van Zieks, just as Van Zieks once condemned Genshin. We're cycling! And my main question now is this: If Stronghart had been the prosecutor in the Professor's trial instead, would Kazuma be just as vengeful towards him? Because remember, it's people who condemn people. This implies that anyone who had taken on the job of prosecutor at that time is the one who 'decided that Genshin must've been a murderer' and would need to take responsibility in Kazuma's eyes. Kazuma's beef isn't with Van Zieks personally, it's with the prosecutor who used that tool of the law and also evidence.

HAHAHAAA! HAH! If you align this screenshot next to the “Klint van Zieks was a noble and upstanding man” line, you get a wonderful parallel. These two prosecutors are both dead wrong about their beloved family, and they're about to find out in the worst way possible.

One murder mystery spread out over two episodes? You bet! Stay tuned for the last case, The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo!

[zkfanworkweek]

ZFAW Fan Content Creator Interviews: HayleyNFoster

Hey everyone! We hope you’re all excited for ZFAW, and to honor (ha!) ZFAW’s commitment to supporting and celebrating fan content creators in the Zutara fandom, we’re going to be rolling out a series of interviews with well-known and widely-beloved content creators over the next few weeks. We’ve got artists and fanfiction authors, some names you recognize as well as a few phenomenal up-and-coming talents, and we can’t wait for you to meet them all!

For the second interview in this cycle, we have our best propaganda creator and this fandom’s hottest new artist/undisputed queen of the animatic, @hayleynfoster!

1. Tell us about how you came to ship Zutara. What does this ship mean to you?

When I was around 14 or 15 and caught Avatar: The Last Airbender on television, I was drawn in by the art style, the humor, and the wonderful characters. I caught the episodes out of order, and the first one I saw and wasn’t prepared to be sucked in by was The Waterbending Scroll. It intrigued me at that age, and the line “I’ll save you from the pirates” combined with the tension between Katara and Zuko in that whole scene was electrifying. I remember my teenage self thinking these two have so much chemistry! And when I saw a commercial on Nickelodeon that featured fanart submitted by fellow Avatar fans, I realized that I could do that to! So I set about making Zutara fanart for myself. I stumbled onto Youtube, practically in its infancy, and discovered that people set clips of Zuko and Katara set to music (And this was still in season 1 days… so people who made these amvs were the real mvps because they were able to make compelling narratives in their amvs with like practically nothing to work with!). The AMVs really spurred my interest in this couple, I remember distinctly one Zutara AMV using the Dido song White Flag utterly capturing my imagination. I found fandom shortly after, getting into deviantart and forums. But the ship really began to mean something to me when, as I was working on my drawings in the computer lab at school, a buoyant presence hovered over my shoulder noticing my Zutara art on the computer screen. The girl was someone I had never really talked to and had only seen from afar but she immediately started excitedly saying she shipped Zuko and Katara too! In this simple shared obsession, I made one of the best friends I’ve ever had and we’re still friends to this day. We would theorize and fangirl over Avatar like it was nobody’s business; we poured over bootleg San Diego Comic Con footage that showed spoilers for season 2 before it aired; we lost our freaking minds when we finally saw The Crossroads of Destiny. We had watch parties every week as Season 3 of A:TLA aired, and comforted each other when the show ended as it did (much ranting was shared). Those are some of my happiest memories from high school… all because this one pairing from this wonderful show. Even though Zutara didn’t happen, we still chat every now and then about it. Zutara will probably be a lifelong obsession, always bubbling under the surface. And without it, I would have never realized that animation was a viable career path. It really did inspire everything including the work I’m doing to this day in the animation industry. I owe a lot to this ship and to Avatar: the Last Airbender.

2. What inspires you to create zutara fanworks?

The resurgence of Avatar: The Last Airbender this year really helped sort of spark that dormant love I had for Zutara. The show’s ending still disappointed me on the rewatch, but Zuko and Katara’s relationship arc was as captivating as ever, so I turned to some fanfiction and looking at people’s pretty Zutara art and AMVs to just revel in fanon instead of getting to hung up on the actual ending of the show. But then I realized, with quarantine and my work load being pretty light, I had time to actually make all new Zutara art for myself, art I was never fully capable of making as a kid, but now could do with my 7 years of industry experience and just… life experience. And I was inspired to do some corrective animatics to satisfy my own desire for a different ending. I just really like exploring these two characters, doing different and interesting things with them, and frankly I’m inspired to make cute, fluffy, romantic art simply by virtue of living in a really sad and depressing world. Things are so crazy right now, creating art about two characters I love being in love, is comforting. And it helps to have inspiring music and amazing Zutara amvs to just sort of stir up my emotions and imagery in my head to make into animatics and art.

3. Be selfish - if you could request one fanwork based on your own art/fanfic, what would it be? What would you absolutely love to see someone create?

Ohhhh… Well, It’s always nice to have people write fanfiction that puts words to my animatics. I am not that great at coming up with dialog myself, so I’ve just chosen to indulge in visuals and emotions for my boards. But when I read things like RideBoldlyRide’s take on my Reunion Animatic, it makes me pretty giddy. (They finally have voices!) :) And this is the MOST selfish thing I could request, but I’m not shy about saying how much I love well done amvs, so I will literally kill for someone to make Zutara AMVs to songs I like… Like, most of AURORA’s songs but especially Exist for Love, Sunseeker by The Naked and Famous, Promises or Take Me by Aly & AJ, Adore You by Harry Styles, Human Enough by ONR, Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine, and/or Almost (Sweet Music) by Hozier just… I can see the AMVs so clearly to any of these songs in my head, but I don’t have the tools or skill set at my disposal to make a compelling fan video. When I was in high school, I originally thought I wanted to go into video editing simply because I loved making very crappy AMVs (they were so bad you guys), but I figured out being a storyboard artist was more in my wheelhouse. haha

4. Any words for people who are new to the fandom and/or nervous about sharing their work for the first time?

If you’re new to the Zutara fandom, just have a good time! Don’t waste too much time arguing with people over your shipping preferences. I wasted so much of my teen years having pointless shipping wars with people on DeviantArt, and I’m just so much happier nowadays because I’m just making Zutara art in my little corner of the internet, and honestly, in the politest of ways, I don’t give a shit if people don’t like my art or Zutara. haha I think that’s sort of a key thing for people thinking of posting creative works here in the fandom, just make art for yourself, satisfy your own desires for the pairing, get your creative sparks flying, and create just for the joy of creating. It’s always nice to get comments and such, but simply making the art should be what spurs you on, not the external validation. And have a good time, don’t worry too much - I say as someone who worries about EVERYTHING. But honestly, making art for A:TLA is some of the most relaxed I’ve been because I make it just for me. I’m lucky others seem to like it too!

5. What’s an idea for a fanwork that you have but haven't gotten around to making?

I have an idea for a second generation storyline with my Zutara kids that involves Kya (the eldest firebending daughter) falling in love with an airbender boy (tentatively named Gora in my headcanon who’s a bit of a rabble rouser and one of Aang’s kids he had with a Kyoshi Warrior), and then they start a socialist revolution in the Fire Nation in order to dismantle all of the hierarchical societies across the Avatar world… Together Kya and Gora Fan the Flames of revolution… ehhhhh... Get it?? Oh! Oh, and then Katara, who had put in legit liberal reforms in her time as Fire Lady listens to her daughter after resisting in the first part of the story, but then realizes she can actually play a part in the dissolution of the royalty and is also active in the revolution realizing that moderate liberal reforms are no substitute for a society free of serving royalty (which she had always been uncomfortable with but had rationalized with herself that she was doing good in her capacity as Fire Lady.) I just feel like there’s a lot of cool potential for discussing these ideas and also having some aspirational change in the Avatar world. lol For aesthetics and just happy fluffy times, I can indulge in Fire Lady and Fire Lord Zuko stuff, but really at the end of the day, I take issue with the structures in a society that have to exist for monarchies to exist. Soooo, I kind of want to do my own corrective story for that… if I ever have the time or guts. On a less ambitious note, I would love to do a Zutara sparring animatic to practice doing action, but I need a good story; I am not good at doing fights just for fighting’s sake. Those are just some things I have rattling around in my head.  

6. Are you participating in ZFAW? If so want to give us a hint as to your plans?

Yes! The most I can say is I have one animatic almost finished and one that’s still being thumbnailed. The rest are probably going to be comics or emotive single pieces based on the fanfics I really like right now. :)

[likehandlingroses]

“Realistic” Tom/Thomas Relationship Timeline

The S3/S4 Tom/Thomas affair is a theory that has been making its way around lately, and it is centered around the contrast in the interactions between Thomas and Tom during the Season 3 Christmas Special and their interactions in the Season 4 Christmas Special. 

This means that usually the start of the relationship is viewed as coinciding with the immediate aftermath of Matthew’s death, which occurs in the Christmas Special of Season 3 (September 1921). Due to the interactions between Tom and Thomas in the Christmas Special of Season 4, the relationship can almost certainly be considered over by that time (May-ish of 1923). But what happened in between, and how long were they actually together? There’s one view that the affair occurs in between Seasons 3 and 4, which means that at the very longest they lasted just under six months (generally I think this view cuts it even shorter than that)...but this leaves some unanswered questions and some peculiarities, so I took another look at the canon to determine when, in fact, Thomas and Tom broke up.

(Note: I definitely know that Julian Fellowes did not intend for them to be having an affair, but also Julian if I’m right just DM me)

Let’s start with what we know about September 1921 and May 1923—the definite before and after points—for reference:

Christmas Special Season 3—September, 1921

In this Christmas special, we see Tom left behind while the rest of the family goes to Duneagle, and we see Thomas still dealing with the Jimmy situation a year after its apparent resolution. On its face, this episode features Tom being challenged in his new role in the house—and being encouraged to step up and face that role—and Thomas finding a way to resolve things with Jimmy.

Except there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on in the periphery of those stories: Tom knows that Jimmy is bothering Thomas and appears to want to intervene at the fair, but he is stopped by Edna, who at one point uses Thomas’s injuries as an excuse to visit Tom and assure him that Thomas is “feeling much better.” And—of course—there’s the fact that Tom and Thomas hug at the fair (and lest you think this was a RJC/Allen Leech moment not caught by editing, it was in multiple takes! Someone—multiple someones actually—included it on purpose). They are friendly, aware of each other, and to be honest it isn’t impossible to argue that maybe the relationship predates Matthew’s death! I’m going to argue otherwise, however, based on how Tom breaks down when Edna kisses him—I think Edna is the first time he’s even really thought of himself in romantic terms for a long time! But Thomas is right there in the wings, and he just finally made some progress on the emotional problem that’s been plaguing him for over a year!

It’s a big difference from what we see in the next Christmas special, big enough to start the theory of the affair in the first place...

Season 4 Christmas Special—Summer 1923

Once again, Tom is left alone at Downton while the rest of the family goes to London...and the difference in how Thomas responds is striking. He’s furious at having to wait on Tom, for reasons both we and the characters cannot quite understand. The excuses don’t add up—at this point, Tom has been living at Downton for three YEARS, and this has never been a problem before. Now all of a sudden Thomas is slamming trays and clenching his fists and provoking Tom into admitting that he sees himself as Above sitting next to him...what?

Then there’s Sarah Bunting, a Miss Sarah Bunting...whose presence infuriates Thomas while also making him eager to use her as a way to embarrass Tom. And Tom knows it, immediately. He’s embarrassed, he’s uncomfortable, but still he’s quick to pull rank with Thomas when challenged. Something has fundamentally altered the way they interact with and perceive each other while sharing the same space.

All of this speaks to a breakup, and a messy one at that...so with the knowledge we have, WHAT exactly happened between September of 1921 and May of 1923? Let’s look at what Season 4 has to say:

4.1/4.2–February, 1922

“That’s right: it’s Valentine’s Day.” 

This is an important piece of the puzzle, because Thomas—Nanny West drama aside—is in a pretty good mood for the Valentine’s Day episode! He engages with Daisy and Jimmy’s Valentine’s card drama with good humor and even some genuine interest...something I do not believe he’d do if he’d only recently been broken up with, and by someone who lived in the house! The big one here, though, is the dialogue Thomas has with Nanny West in which she calls him “Thomas” and he says, “that’s Mr. Barrow to you...”

Now, where did Nanny West hear him referred to as Thomas? The episode makes a point of the fact that nannies do not as a rule spend much time with the downstairs staff—and even if they did, not many of the downstairs crew call Thomas “Thomas” on a regular basis. Nor do the upstairs folks...with one notable exception. Tom, who has to be reminded by Thomas in 4.3 to address him as “Barrow” (more on that later), routinely messes up names and titles.

To me, this suggests that Tom and Thomas are still talking, and it’s pretty clear from Thomas’s attentions to Sybbie in the episode that it would have been easy for Nanny West to overhear it in that context. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re still seeing each romantically, but the “Mr. Barrow TO YOU” element implies that the correction was NOT made to whoever Nanny West heard using the name (we presume it’s Tom)...and the distinction is that Nanny West does not *get* to call him that! It definitely seems like whoever she grabbed the name from has been granted permission to do that, and she Has Not. And if it’s Tom...well.

So does that mean that Thomas and Tom were done by 4.3, when Thomas DOES correct Tom on his title? Not exactly...

4.3/4.4��The House Party (pre July 1922)

(tw on this section for discussions involving sexual assault)

The party features Edna’s schemes and assault on Tom in order to extract a promise of marriage from him. It also features a Tom who is incredibly vulnerable and entirely out of his element with the introduction of the Crawley’s friends. This is somewhat of a contrast from the Tom of the first two episodes, who stands up to Robert several times to intervene on Mary’s behalf, and even ropes Carson into the mission. It feels, for a moment, that despite Matthew’s death Tom has taken up the challenge presented to him at the end of Season 3 and begun seeing himself as a valuable, contributing member of the household and family.

But here, Tom speaks of himself as a fool, as walking a tightrope, and of not being understood. He relies on alcohol to get through the event, which Edna takes advantage of—and which gives us a Tom/Thomas interaction that speaks to, in my opinion, a continuing relationship (although perhaps an altering one):

Now, if I had to guess, I would say that Tom might be less *keen* than usual, given his overall demeanor and the new scrutiny placed on him by Edna coming back to the house (not to mention the house party itself). It’s very possible there’s been a lull between the two of them as of late. I do not believe, however, that there is evidence of a clear break between Tom and Thomas as of the house party.

For one, Tom doesn’t just say the wrong thing when addressing Thomas in the drawing room—he says, “Thomas, would you get me a drink for God’s sake?” That is Not how he talks to him in the Christmas Special, where he is stilted and uncomfortable and concerned about how the words will be taken. He isn’t worried about any of that, and while Thomas corrects him, he doesn’t seem all that bothered by it. Tom’s look of irritation at the correction isn’t overdone either.

“It’s Barrow now,” also has flexible meanings. Of course it literally is what Tom is supposed to call him now...but “now” seems like a weird word to use when it’s been what Thomas is meant to be called for several years. It could be a post-breakup smackdown, but we’ve seen what those look like in the Christmas Special, and this doesn’t feel like that! I believe, rather, that Thomas is making reference to the fact that it is incorrect at that moment, something Tom should know and has been discussed!!!

The house party has both of them overworked and tense (this is also the time where Thomas has to fill in for Jimmy because Jimmy hurt his hand...which is SO ridiculous if you think about it for more than two seconds), but Edna’s transgression still draws Thomas’s attention

And that’s important! Thomas had been friends with Edna until this point, largely for convenience it seems—she is a new lady’s maid, and she can feed him information. Thomas even worked with her to mess with Anna, who had earlier made a comment to Edna about his intentions in befriending her. There’s a bond forming there, and while I don’t believe Thomas would genuinely support the literal details of Edna’s plot, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that he would be Opposed to Edna taking advantage of what she would frame as an indiscretion on Tom’s part. Not if he disliked Tom or was predisposed to believe Tom was at fault (ie: someone who expects to be “waited on Hand and Foot while he decides what Might Please Him Next”).

But right away, Thomas is suspicious the morning after. We see Thomas spying on Edna as she corners Tom, and he specifically brings it up to her later to catch her out. Already his tone is soured where she’s concerned. He’s sensed she’s up to something and he can probably guess the vague idea if not the particulars...and it turns him against her almost instinctively.

So what’s that about? Could it just be jealousy? The thing is, we know what Thomas would do if he believed that Edna and Tom were simply having an affair—we see what happens in the S4 Christmas Special with Sarah Bunting. This isn’t like that at all. 

Thomas immediately blames Edna for what’s happened, calling her a manipulative little witch and declaring that he’s delighted her plans didn’t work. There’s no question of Thomas’s loyalties, even though Edna assumes he’ll want to “keep in with” her. Not for one second does he appear to consider this, and that seems to distinguish this incident from later ones.

4.5/4.6–What Are These Episodes (pre-July 1922)

There isn’t a lot to remember about these episodes for Tom or Thomas, and so what people may not remember is that these are the episodes Tom starts floating the idea of leaving for America—a full season before he tries starting that conversation again, and over two years before he actually DOES temporarily move to Boston. Now, that kind of decision takes time, but it’s kind of...strange that he begins making it here in the spring of 1922 and will not seriously consider it again until well into 1924!

Whether this has anything at all to do with Thomas can’t be determined, but I do enjoy hearing Tom say it will be impossible for him to marry anyone at Downton because an upper class woman won’t have him, and would an “nice Irish working class girl” make everyone “comfy?”...and Thomas is standing Right There! What does it mean...

Thomas is also getting more paranoid, he’s got Baxter in the house feeding him information...and he’s generally giving off a different vibe than he has all season. 

Here is where I think the connection is starting to see some serious cracks—Tom is realizing he doesn’t belong and is making moves to change that. Meanwhile, Thomas is making moves to ensure Nothing Ever changes without him knowing about it ahead of time! Tension abounds, though we don’t see any evidence of it being directed at each other just yet...

4.7/4.8–Interesting and Modern (July 1922)

Thomas goes to America and Tom meets Miss Bunting...weird how that just happened like that!

Thomas is excited to go to New York, and it seems...pretty clear he fucked while he was there. I think if you’re gay and you go to New York in the 1920s and you come back and all you can tell your coworkers is that it was “interesting and modern” you definitely were not doing anything you can actually talk about

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he and Tom are Done (they may not have ever been exclusive on paper), but the overall feeling from Tom is a dejected man in limbo...he can’t even say he’s a Socialist anymore. It’s not going well. So my inclination is to say that Tom hit pause (maybe not for the first time), and Thomas is dealing with it by getting some in New York (great!) and bullying his coworkers (bad!) So why do I think they weren’t totally done at that time? Because these episodes happen in the summer of 1922...the Christmas Special for S4 takes place in May of 1923. That’s a long time to have passed! A long time for Tom to keep Miss Bunting at arm’s length, a long time for Thomas to be fuming over something...I believe that in the Christmas Special what we are seeing is the last stand of two people who are grappling with finally cutting a fraying thread.

Another Look At The S4 Christmas Special

These scenes are truly some of the most incomprehensible things Downton Abbey ever presented to us with virtually no explanation.  So let’s take another look at what’s happening here.  

First of all, we have the scene with Tom and Thomas entering the house after sending Edith off and leaving Tom offically on his own--they don’t appear openly hostile, though there’s some tense looking when the other person isn’t and looking back down again when they are energy...but nothing egregious. 

Not until we see Thomas slam down a tray, that is. In fact, this whole thing seems to be coming from Thomas’s anger, while Tom appears eager to just smooth it over by not causing trouble and following the rules set forth by the household norms. This seems in line with Tom’s general dispositon--with both Edna and Miss Bunting he tries to ease out rather than break things off. 

 But Thomas interprets this as dismissive, and while he says to Ivy it’s about their positions in the house...as discussed above this really doesn’t logically check out. I do think it irritates him that Tom is essentially avoiding Thomas because it’s what “pleases him,” but it runs deeper than “he used to be the chauffeur.” Because that was always the case. 

And then Tom brings Miss Bunting back without telling anyone, and he takes her upstairs. And this makes Thomas INSANE, and Tom knows IMMEDIATELY that it will! And Tom is eager to assure “Mr. Barrow” that nothing happened (actually, what he’s really eager to do is have Thomas not stand there while he eats, but Thomas is not budging). 

Thomas is furious. He’s said to Ivy that he is SICK of this man, he’s tired of dealing with him...and then he tries to get Tom to sit next to him the car? 

Thomas stole a dog one time, and I still think this might be his wildest attempt at controlling a situation we see on the show. What is going on? If Tom HAD let him sit in the back, would Thomas have still gone to Lord Grantham about Miss Bunting? If Thomas hadn’t been such a jerk about Miss Bunting, would Tom have LET him? What is poor Ivy even processing this as? Am I the only one hearing Taylor Swift’s Better Than Revenge playing? 

Thomas acts immediately on coming to London, dropping the line of “Mr. Branson is stil a young man, and he can’t be expected to stay single forever”...he’s Angry Angry!! If they were on a break before, I don’t think it had fully set in for Thomas that it might be Permanent until now. And I think Tom’s newly avoidant personality we see in other scenarios gave him the wrong impression in this respect.

In Summary

I think that the relationship was relatively “on” from the period of September 1921 through whenever the house party took place. The house party caused some huge issues, mostly for Tom (understandably)—he may have unfairly blamed himself for what happened and drew wrongful parallels to what’s happening with Thomas. I think that after that it was very “off,” but I believe that neither Thomas nor Tom really committed to ending it either...and when we see them in 1923 they are in the peak stages of finally facing the end of things.

So what caused the final shift? Perhaps Thomas came back from New York with expectations, expectations Tom found himself intimidated by. Perhaps Thomas’s increasing paranoia and Tom’s growing agnosticism towards his own beliefs and identity are related and fed off of each other until they both just did not like the person they were seeing! Maybe it’s just that Downton Abbey is a really bad place for both of them, and even though they started off trying to protect each other from that, they got sucked in and turned on each other!

In any case, by Season 5 the romantic relationship appears over for good, though there is some evidence in later episodes that Tom and Thomas settled down a bit over time (Thomas defending Tom in S5 at Brancaster, and Tom saying he hates goodbyes in reference to Thomas). 

We will just have to see what happens when they realize they both are dating someone new, and they work together too :) 

[artsy0wl]

Maul: A Broken Evil Retrospective

On a Star Wars Amino I’m in, I had made an introspective on why I feel that Maul, while he is a villain is not whole heartedly evil, but broken.  I took from said Amino post, with a few needed edit tweaks.

Chaotic Evil

Of course given the fact he was a Sith and some of the decisions he’s made, I don’t completely want to negate that in this discussion. If we were to use the alignment chart (lawful good, true neutral, chaotic evil, etc), he would probably fit best in Neutral Evil. From my understanding, Maul would fit Neutral Evil as a lot if what he does has to do with benefiting himself. Even if that means using allies (i.e. Ezra initially) and potentially betraying them (i.e. blinding Kanan once the Inquisitors were dealt with). He’ll follow things as he needs and can be calculating when he needs (like his take over of Mandalore). He’s not spontaneous enough or lacks enough restraint to be Chaotic Evil (like the Joker for instance), nor is he as calculating and “lawful” to be Lawful Evil (like say Thrawn and/or Palpatine). With that said, I’d agree that Maul has a darkness/evil in him considering all of the things he’s done. Obviously, he’s not winning any hero points by killing people like Qui Gon and Satine or blinding and attempting to kill Kanan. 

Onto why I feel he’s broken.

Palpatine: Taken From a Young Age and Molded into what Sidious Wanted

Whether it be Talzin offering Maul as a child in Canon or his mother giving Palpatine Maul as a baby in Legends (Darth Plagueis), Maul was caught in a situation that he really didn’t have much control over. Granted, his life may not have been much better on Dathomir, given how the Nightsisters used their male counterparts, but there’s no telling what kind of life he could have had, had he not been handed over to Palpatine. Maul was molded into a weapon as Darth Sidious’ apprentice. And Maul spent most of his younger years being molded into what Sidious wants. Only to be “cast aside” when he is presumed dead. With Sidious being his only form of human contact/interaction, it’s fair to say that Maul feels a level of rejection/abandonment by the only person he had a bond with.

However, rather than having a level of depression because of it, he’s angry about it. For him that seems to be a common response, along with hatred and arrogance (the latter of which was used to explain how he survived the Phantom Menace). Sidious created a weapon out of Maul. And with that, a character with no real coping mechanism or knowing how to let things go.

A lot of, if not all of, Maul’s issues can be linked back to Sidious in some way. Sidious isn’t exactly Mentor of the Year material. Especially with Maul.  Though that could be chopped up to him being a Sith and very manipulative.  He wasn’t the kindest person to the Zabrak pre or post Phantom Menace (both in canon and Legends). Either way, a lot of Maul’s issues are a direct result of Palpatine’s involvement in his life.

If it weren’t for Sidious, Maul would have a normal life (or whatever that would equate to on Dathomir). He would have had his family, would have been more level headed and maybe less cocky, and he wouldn’t have enraged abandonment issues. The amount of grief, trauma, and hatred would be vastly different

Family: He Lost a Brother and a Mother

Let’s be real, thanks to Sidious, Maul’s lost a brother and a mother (two brothers when you count Feral, though he never got to meet him). By the time Savage came around in Clone Wars, we got to see Maul sort of build his character more than say the Phantom Menace (the novels did too, but I can’t say that everyone’s read them). We also get to see Maul exhibit more emotion where, again, the movie lacks as well as the introduction of his family, Mother Talzin, Feral, and Savage. And while Maul may not have been what you’d call an “affectionate” brother, he does care for Savage to the best of his ability.

Their deaths still haunted him years after the events of the Prequel Trilogy and Clone Wars. These deaths stuck with him psychologically to the point that he is still effected by it in Rebels. Which in turn, may have contributed some to him wanting Ezra as an apprentice (among other factors).

Torture After Loss

In Son of Dathomir after Maul tries to get back at Sidious, he is captured after his last battle with Sidious in Clone Wars (season 5). It starts off with Maul being interrogated and tortured by Sidious. He makes it through without faltering and escapes with the help of the Shadow Collective. That being said, we never really get to see where his mindset is. During Son of Dathomir, he gets a lot done, capturing Dooku and Grievous (taunting Sidious and working with Dooku to fight Obi Wan and a few other Jedi before escaping). However, we don’t get to see the mental toll Savage’s death here. Though with everything going on, I guess there wasn’t time.

Now the reason I bring this up, is because part of me felt like I should and the timing. Prior to Son of Dathomir, Maul had recently lost Savage. At the end, he loses his mother. The torture and the scheming in between shows how he didn’t catch a break. And while he was able to stay strong when he had to, they never really explored how the torture effected him, which one would think he would have been.

Obsession, Insanity, Arrogance: Maul’s Faults

I do feel like I address this point. I’ve already kind of touched on his anger and arrogance (synonymously with cockiness). While training Maul, Sidious didn’t consider how arrogant he had let the Zabrak become (according to Darth Plagueis, the novel). This has Maul’s Achilles Heel since the Phantom Menace. While having a healthy dose of pride never hurt anyone, a healthy dose, Maul dose not possess.

His obsession with getting Obi Wan and Sidious is another issue. This really only pops up after his apparent death in Phantom Menace. Because after that point, Maul finds out that he was replaced by Sidious (with Dooku) and that he was bested by a mere Padawan (Obi Wan). I feel like this obsessive tendency is a combination of his feelings of abandonment and having his ego damaged.

And of course, I feel like Maul’s roughly decade long battle with insanity really didn’t help his psyche. While his sanity was restored thanks to Mother Talzin and Savage, I do feel like that’s caused more harm than good. Something like that had to feel draining after getting his sanity restored. He was sitting on a trash planet and on his own. Along with not having anything from the waist down and forced to manage with what he had. Hatred may have helped keep him alive, but his psyche during those ten years didn’t.

He has a lot of internal conflict in an emotional and mental sense. Unfortunately, these negative emotions, obsession and pride especially, cause him more harm than good.

The Ezra Bond: Feeling a Need to Replicate a Connection, Even if He Approaches it Incorrectly

By the time Rebels rolls around, Maul is older and calmer (though still proud). Obviously, he still wants to get back at the Empire for what they (more specifically Sidious) did to him. And at first, Ezra seemed like someone that he could use. This is an element that is prevalent, however, not the only aspect of their relationship.

According to Sam Witwer, Maul’s VA, Maul did have a (platonic) fondness for Ezra. And on top of wanting to make Ezra his apprentice, Maul wanted to emulate a sense of brotherhood between him and Ezra. For example, his phrase in Visions and Voices when Maul says “...We can walk that path together. As friends. As brothers.” How he said it shows how he does miss Savage and wants that family back.

That being said, how he approached this connection could be seen as manipulative and more than likely one sided.  Sure, over the course of Twilight of the Apprentice, Ezra grows on Maul, to the point where Maul wants to make him his apprentice and has an appreciation for Ezra. However, his pride and lack of planning cause a rift between them and there was a lot of mistrust on Ezra’s part, not that one could blame him.

Subsequent episodes show that Maul is hellbent on making Ezra his apprentice through any means possible. 

Maul lost Savage and Talzin, and Ezra was one of the first few people to trust him in years.  I think it’s safe to say that, in Maul’s mind, Ezra gave him a sense of belonging or connection.

Maul’s need for a connection could be interpreted as him trying to find something good in life. However, manipulative tendencies and how he was brought up, hinder him doing that in a healthy and positive way. With Savage, he didn’t need to do anything as they both had a similar plan when they met (Savage being indoctrinated into the ways of the Sith). But subsequent relationships (i.e. Ezra), Maul is at a bit of a disadvantage emotionally and morally. 

Sure, he could relate to Ezra since they both lost people they care for because of the Empire (and by extent Sidious), but manipulation and harming Ezra’s allies hinder a smoother connection. Even if a force bond was eventually made. Ezra, arguably, could have been what he needed for what he wanted and a possible change/redemption/blank slate only for things not to entirely go as plan.

Could Maul Have Something Along the Lines of PTSD?

Now, I could do a mini theory about this as I’ve speculated that with another character before. It’d be an interesting way to look at Maul’s psychology. It’s one last little avenue I thought I’d address before closing this post out. Of course, it’s worth noting that I am not a Psychology major (as interesting as psychology is). I have, however, done some research.

I do believe that Maul, to some degree, may have PTSD. But instead of exhibiting panic/anxiety, depression or easily startled, Maul has more aggressive tendencies and is easy to anger. He still lives with the trauma of the death of his brother (and mother) and flashbacks of that and other events in his life, I’m sure he’d be effected by.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while I certainly think that Maul is no hero, his life experiences certainly effected what kind of person he became. Being raised as a weapon, abandoned, and tortured would bring any normal person way down. And because that was all Maul knew, I don’t think that entirely means he’s evil. Rather, he’s a character who’s been used and abused to the point that he’s mentally and psychologically broken. Unfortunately, that effects his life in ways that make him arrogant, hateful and obsessive. And when he tries to build bonds later in life, he doesn’t know how to in a way that, while laced in trauma, has manipulative and one sided undertones.

That being said, I feel like I should round out this introspective with a little positive. While he’s definitely been through a lot, Maul is pretty resilient all things considered. He’s cheated death and managed to live through a lot of abuse. The fact that he could keep bouncing back shows just hoe resilient and determined the character is.

[kpopmakesmequestionmylifechoices]

Kingdom Round 3, pt. 2: How to discourage idols and kill versatility in K-pop - a guide by "experts".

As in my last post I'll talk about my thoughts on the performances, but mostly I'll question the freaking ranking because wth those experts should really reveal themselves at this point (I'm salty). Anyways, let's get into it.

1. A small "disappointment" and two big surprises.

ATEEZ: Oh guys the beginning made me emotional because it reminded me hardcore of Block B Very Good hahaha. Generally I must say, ATEEZ rearrangements are always good. It just sounded very ATEEZ-ish, and that's cool. I personally prefer the original Rhythm Ta over the rearrangement tho. About the performance, I don't have any criticism I think. I personally found that rope scene a bit strange tho, and overall I just wasn't impressed by that stage. Possibly because nothing can top the Symphony Nr.9 for me hahaha.

BTOB: First of all, SKZ X BTOB interactions are peak comedy I loved this so much. Minhyuk fangirling on SKZ back door stage is me tho. And "Kingdom is 15+ right?" Oh man I love those dudes.

About the concept, totally loved it because it was super fun to watch. I was worried beforehand because I couldn't imagine anyone pulling off SKZ' powerful rap. They didn't tho. They did it their own way and I was surprised. The meaning change to a more uh...mature sorta concept was also quite interesting. The moment Eunkwang knocked and opened the door: chefkiss. Those lyrics? Rude but chefkiss. I in general really liked the rearrangement, but in the end it lost its power a bit. Maybe also because I have the original Back Door burned into my brain and the ending just rocks af. But honestly, my brain also was fried by THIS:

[*my edit/gif - I made a full gifset in that style now]

Stray Kids: I must say, I was a bit scared before because anyone having to do a BTOB cover must have absolutely stable vocals. This was the stage I was most concerned about when I heard about the song choices. Without a reason. Because SKZ absolutely killed it. Sure, I.N didn't hit that note as it was planned but let me tell you, it didn't affect my enjoyment of this stage at all. The stage setting? Fantastic. Changbin's rap sounded as if he's in utter pain and despair, Felix added to that with his hyper low tone part which was ABSOLUTELY cool. This was just great, full of feels, and I have NO criticism, bye.

Recap: When thinking about the past 6 performances, I feel that ATEEZ and iKON did the best job with making the others' song their own. In my eyes, SF9 and TBZ both stayed in their comfort zone with their song choices, while BTOB and SKZ took on the extreme challenge to pick songs that are basically the opposite of what they usually do. As I Iove versatility and surprises, SKZ and BTOB have a special place in my heart with those two stages.

Hence, my personal ranking looks as follows:

1. BTOB & SKZ (tied): For me those were the biggest surprises and caused the biggest enjoyment and entertainment for me. If I HAD TO choose a first place, I'd pick BTOB - because Back Door is one of my FAVOURITE songs of all time, and solely evaluating the songs, I heavily prefer Back Door over I'll be your man. Anyways, with that ranking, SKZ jumped from my personal lowest rank in the first round to my personal highest rank.

2. SF9: After seeing SF9's stage last week, I was sure that I'll have them as #1 in today's post. I loved everything about the performance (besides the weird gun dance sry), and I especially loved how they stepped up their game without making the perfomance too huge and too overwhelming. Nevertheless, due to the fact they stayed pretty close to their usual style, I'll rank them 2nd because I was more impressed by the others' style change.

3. iKON / ATEEZ: The performances were good, but to me personally they were absolutely not memorable. It's a matter of taste after all.

4. TBZ: I know, I again rank them last. And again, no I don't hate them. I simply neither am touched by their stages, nor do I understand their plots. So I once again rank them last. I don't find their performances bad tho, because as all groups, they're doing an amazing job. The stages are simply not my cup of tea.

2. Oh you prove that you're a versatile artist? That must be punished!

↑ That's how I imagine the experts' thoughts. Expert ranking was as follows: ATEEZ / TBZ / iKON / SF9 / BTOB / SKZ.

Okay I must say. Which freaking expert would place SKZ last??? I'm not biased in the slightest, if I'm biased then for SF9 and BTOB, but bruh. SKZ last? That's like, ridiculous. Considering the immense challenge SKZ had from switching from their usual style to freaking I'll be your man?

I don't know man, I can't take this ranking seriously. I really wish we'd know what the criteria is...It's a mystery to me how this could happen. Those boys get punished for stepping out of their comfort zone and doing an amazing job? Literally same story with BTOB. Both groups completely stepped outta their comfort zone and that's what they got for it...Well done, experts, well done. This is how you destroy versatility in K-pop, but sure, go on.

Honestly at this point I hope stays and melodies work together to catapult both groups up in the ranking because this is just utter nonsense...

3. Ya all groups, why don't you support your exchange partners :')))))))

↑ This is me hysterically laughing and crying at the same time at the fact that they don't vote for each other. Groups' ranking was as follows: ATEEZ / SF9 / BTOB / iKON / SKZ / TBZ.

Honestly my only explanation for this result is that the groups don't vote for those people they see as their biggest opponents? It's weird man. I personally for example don't understand why the groups which exchange songs don't vote for each other? None of the performances was bad, and I think it's low-key a matter of respect to give the group you exchanged songs with one of your votes? Because after all they tried their best to present your song in a presentable way even tho it's not their own? Idk man. I don't like this weird feeling of "hostility". But might only be my own feeling idk hahahahaha.

Honestly I wish we'd get to see the groups' evaluation and reasoning behind their choices...

That was it from my side this week...As always, thanks for reading! As for next episode, I'm super excited to see proper interactions and them finally having fun...ouf and after all those years Minhyuk going back to vault jumping I'm hyped hahahah. And now I'll go rewatch SKZ and BTOB lol.

[im-like-if-a-girl]

*THE* mean-girl-dean-girl's Supernatural reboot MEGAPOST!

I'm gonna stick a little "keeping reading" here because hoooooo boy, this is a very long post.

Let's start with

Plot

Season 1

Dean kills John while they are out on a hunt in a crime of passion, but Dean doesn't remember because he blacked out. Cue Dean going to Stanford to get Sam and tell him "Dad's on a hunting trip... and he hasn't been home in a couple days."

The audience doesn't know what happened to John, but slowly figures it out with Dean and Sam as Dean slowly remembers what happened that night.

The entire first season, the boys are following the trail John left and fighting monsters as well. They find out Dean was with John, Sam realizes Dean has an unreliable memory, they have heart to hearts about their childhood and the fire, they find John's body, "how could you kill Dad?" but maybe Dean didn't kill dad, whooaaaaaa, misdirection.

It was actually good ole yeller eyes (Azazel) and he made it look like Dean killed John.

Okay, now let's move on to the first episode

Not sure how the opening would work, I would like the story of the fire to be revealed over the course of the first season, but maybe the opening scene could be a little bit of an establishing character relationships and backstory, idk, I haven't thought that far yet.

I'm thinking maybe it's like, Dean gets back to a motel room covered in blood and he listens to a voicemail on his phone from John saying he was on a hunt or something, I don't really know lol.

HOWEVER

I do know that after the intro rolls, we get a scene of Sam waking up to his alarm and "Nine to Five" by Dolly Parton starts playing.

Y'all know where this is going.

Cue a montage of Sam's normal Stanford college life (him sitting through lectures, walking through the campus with friends) spliced with scenes of Dean absolutely slaughtering a nest of vampires (or some other monsters, whatever works best.)

But

Now onto

Characters!!! (And descriptions)

Dean Winchester

Some lovely person on this site made edits of Dean with platinum blond hair and it made me feel some kind of way so we're doing that, homie's gonna have platinum blond hair

Side note about the hair, later when the brothers are running from the FBI he dyes it a dirty blond/light brown (insert jackles hair color controversy here) as a disguise.

He also gets tattoos because we were robbed.

Speaking of tattoos, concept: when Dean comes back from Hell, all of his tattoos are gone. His body is a clean slate, devoid of tattoos, scars, etc. So he gets his tattoos done all over again, which he doesn't mind because he made some bad, drunk tattoo decisions in his youth.

(And before you ask, yes, he does get one for Cas, either a bee or Cas's name in enochian, something cute.)

Dean goes to therapy after Sam gets sent to the Cage.

It's actually court mandated because he got in trouble, lol, he would never go to therapy on his own.

Along with the hair, Dean gets to be the grade A twunk we all know he is.

Sam Winchester

His hair gets longer in every scene he's in

No jk, but imagine

King of Microaggressions

Sam starts off like the sweetheart he is in season 1 but in later seasons he starts enjoying killing a little too much...

It's that demon blood, ba-by!!!

He brings up issues of morality to Dean, i.e. killing monsters who aren't hurting anyone. (Yes I know this is contradictory to my previous statement, but these two facets of Sam can and will coexist.)

Sam and Jess's relationship is explored further, meaning we'll need to start with a different inciting incident, but that's fine, I think everyone can agree fridgings are *(thumbs down)*

Sam doesn't truly know what happened the night of the fire until later, and then he understands why Dean is so protective of him.

Jess

She gets to live beyond the first episode

She is also trans

No, I don't feel like I have to explain myself and I won't 💜

She urges Sam to join Dean in a search for their brother, kind of gets pulled into the hunter lifestyle by association lol.

She dies on a rusty nail after fighting vampires on a routine hunt with Sam

No jk!!!

But imagine....

She's amazing and I love her and Lucifer also uses her as leverage against Sam and possesses her because I think that'd be cool.

She supports Sam 100% and also she and Dean are buddies, pals if you will.

She meets Cas Thee El and immediately she Knows, that is a homosexual.

She dies still so that we can have a Saileen Endgame but she's not dying the first episode or in a fridging. Not on my watch.

Castiel

He gets to keep his raw, light-fixture-exploding power.

I want more of that "I pulled you out of hell, I can throw you back in" energy except over dumb shit like Dean not cleaning up after himself.

He looks like a Dilf in every scene he's in, yeah, that's right, dilf with a capital D for *(GUNSHOTS)* *(gets sent to horny jail)*

Claire

She gets pink hair

And more time with Cas

And maybe a nose piercing

Feel like she should be able to kill a couple angels onscreen, punch a couple homophobes

She gets to meet Jack and teaches him swears and fun slang words.

She deserves it.

Jack

I says "that's my baby and I'm proud."

Jack starts off as a baby, but like Amara he grows up super quickly.

Like, baby to 11 year old in a couple days or less.

This is because Jack's emotional age on the show is on par with that of a 5th grader.

It's at this point when he's a young kid that he runs away from the Bunker and shenanigans ensue.

It's also at this point that Dean threatens to k*ll him.

(Still not sure if I want that in my Supernatural (threatened infanticide? In my Supernatural? It's more likely than you think) but we'll see. We'll see.)

Throughout a majority of season 13, Jack is like an 11 y.o. kid

Season 14 he's like a 16 y.o. teenager

Season 15 he's 21, you get the picture.

Listen, I love Alex Calvert a lot. He's great.

But Jack is a child and should be a child.

Kelly Kline

Kelly, baby, stay right where you are, you're perfect.

Eileen

SHE DOESN'T DIE

SHE GETS TO BE IN THE FINALE BECAUSE SHE'S AMAZING AND I LOVE HER.

BLURRY WIFE WHO? I ONLY KNOW SAILEEN ENDGAME!

She teaches Claire and Jack swears in sign-language. Castiel is not impressed.

John

J*hn W*nchester stans, DNI.

He's dead.

We only see him in flashbacks and only sometimes hear his voice in voice overs.

He's not "down the road" from Dean in Heaven, in fact he instead gets to wander around in some Purgatory like Hell for the rest of his time :)

People who get to say "fuck" on the show:

Cas (but only Once)

Jody

Bobby

Now onto other things

I want more of

Ghostfacers

(they need more screentime because I love them)

Dean/Benny

We know they had a thing.

They definitely had a thing.

Demon Dean

Again, I feel like more should've been done with this. All that build up for what, 2 episodes? was not utilized well at all.

Dean's Bisexuality

Straight Dean truthers DNI, my Supernatural is a show about love and being true to yourself

You think Supernatural is a show about 2 straight brothers fighting monsters?

Naw bitch, this is a show about the Gay Experience

He will get to have relations with men on this show.

Of course, only after John dies does he, y'know, display it. Maybe he kisses Cas on his dad's grave just to fuck John over, make him roll in grave.

We all agree John would be/is a homophobe piece of shit, right?

Okay, glad we're on the same page.

Dads

3 men and a baby with Jack is what I'm saying.

I love it when the Trio are father-figures to younger troubled characters they see themselves in, even better if it's like reluctant-but-loving father figure, oh, that trope gets me every time :'^)

Dadstiel and DadDean are my favorites, but I like it when Sam plays "Uncle Sam" to kids too lol.

"Fellas, is it gay to want a tight knit family with your husband, his son, his vessel's daughter, your brother, his wife, your cop mother figure and her wife and their adopted daughters? Asking for a friend."

Garth

Biggest flaw of Supernatural was underutilizing Garth.

I will never not be bitter that Garth was only in like, 7 episodes out of the whole 15 season series.

Every episode with Garth gets immediately 5 times better.

I love Garth.

Follow ups on characters who had entire episodes featured around them and then just... vanished???

This is mostly about Jesse, the magic kid whose imagination ruled an entire town like, his daddy was a demon and nothing came of that kid??? Only one episode about him?? No follow up???

KID CAN MANIPULATE REALITY AND WE'RE NOT GONNA GET A FOLLOW UP ON THAT?????

Uh, there was that one episode with Ennis the guy whose girlfriend was killed by a monster? I think?? Who we never see again, that was weird.

Tamara from season 3, episode 1.

And of course-

Cassie

She was so cool, and then we never saw her again :////

She gets to be a badass.

Religious imagery

As a former Catholic school student who has become for the most part, disillusioned with religion, religious imagery in TV shows like Supernatural make my brain go "brrrrrr."

Fun episodes!!!

Like, after season 6 or so, there's a drop in funny episodes

I'm talking Changing Channels, The French Mistake type stuff. (Scoobynatural is an outlier and should not be counted.)

So anyway

In my version we would have more fun episodes

I'm thinking

GENDER-SWAP EPISODE, BABY!!

(why they didn't do that in the original, we'll never know.)

An episode where Dean gets to wear eyeliner

That's it, end of post.

I want less

Racism

Yeah I feel like this is self explanatory, nearly every reoccurring character in SPN is white, and black side characters normally die in the episode they first appear in, or they'll be featured as a villain (Uriel, Raphael, Billie, etc)

Also there's a lot of... uh... asian fetishism featured in the show (what with "Busty Asian Beauties) that's really gross, also Kevin was a bit of a stereotype...

Also also it's super yucky how they kill the gods from other religions like???? Uh??? That's super disrespectful, let's not do that????

I know Supernatural is like, inherently racist because monsters are a separate race that are seen as some dangerous "other" that must be eradicated by hunters in a form of genocide-

Okay we won't get into that but

Still

Stop killing all your POC

Fridgings/Unecessary murders of female characters

I know Supernatural starts with a fridging, so this will be a hard thing to remedy, but

One death that really pissed me off was the death of Charlie

Yeah, that was pointless and we're not doing that. Charlie gets to live and be an awesome aunt to Jack.

And also Claire

Charlie Bradbury Superiority

Charlie and Garth get to meet because they're nerd/geek solidarity.

British Men of Letters

I fucking hate these guys

They're "litcherally" the worst.

The worst part is that the actors they have playing the British AREN'T. EVEN. BRITISH.

And you can tell

Uh, and that's all for now, I'll add more later.

tag list for people who liked my "if this post gets one like I'll post my SPN reboot masterpost" post.

@darianyunidi @sarasidlesaid @crazybananaalpaca @playfulpanthress @ultfreakme @fififeelsmellow @heller-char @luna8eaton @princessmeganfire @insanebot109 @queenofnightsnow @mongoose-underthehouse

Thank you for the support, hope the wait was worth it.

[mimdecisive]

The Blatant Fandom Sexism Regarding Castaspella

Or, things that bother me about Castaspella's treatment by the fandom.

Woman Emotional

I don't know how many times I have to reference my post about Castaspella masking her emotions, but considering it has (1) note as I'm typing this, the fandom doesn't seem to be getting it.

Castaspella rarely lets herself feel emotions for more than a minute, and I've read Castaspella fics and I regret most of them. One in particular had Castaspella as essentially a sobbing, incoherent mess upset about something irrational, rambling about Angella keeping excluding her from Glimmer's life or something.

Which, uh, yikes.

There's a tvtrope for this. Because, I guess, woman emotional. It's not like Castaspella is calm and practical even when she had to deal with Shadow Weaver for hours.

This is a common thing in Castaspella fanfictions. She'll turn into a sputtering mess if, say, she's questioned about not being there after Glimmer's coronation, which is a real fic. You know, because apparently Castaspella doesn't have a full-time job and can just move in with her niece. Fun.

You know Castaspella probably came to Bright Moon after the Portal Incident, as soon as she got the news, and stayed a little after the Coronation. She probably told Glimmer to write if she needed anything.

But apparently, she has an obligation to abandon all of her other obligations in favour of her niece who constantly pushes her away. Her ruling a kingdom? Nah, that's not important. The health and safety of all the students in Mystacor, or the protection of non-Runestone related magic... not important at all.

(here's an edit: it's actually the same person who wrote both fics I'm vagueposting about, and I feel very strong dislike towards them.)

This also feeds into this next part.

Woman Overreacting

Oftentimes, in both fics and the show, Castaspella is framed as if she's overreacting. Her yelling at Adora in S1? That was justified. Adora could have gotten people hurt because she was 'sleepy'.

Not to brag, but I've not slept before. I've never taken a magic sword and used some kind of laser beam to trash my house, or blown a hole in the door with it. Which is the equivalent of what Adora did, except it's also an important door.

She could have taken down the lenses that protect Mystacor, but Castaspella doesn't ban her from Mystacor or even demand she leave. She instead gives Adora room to sleep in while she and the other Sorcerer's guild members inevitably cleaned up the mess Adora made.

Her strained relationship with Angella? That's justified, on Casta's part at least. Castaspella actively tries to have a good relationship with Angella, and is actively reaching out to Angella.

She is actively writing letters. Angella just chooses not to send one back. Angella will not make time for her, and will not let Casta in. She will, however, call Casta the moment she needs her. And Casta will come, in the middle of the night, to interrogate a prisoner.

Castaspella throughout this whole episode is being quite pleasant with Angella, not even making fun of the "prison" despite the fact before Casta showed up, they didn't have the forcefield. They didn't even have a guard in the room while SW was unconscious.

I would have made fun of Angella for this, honestly. They didn't even remove all of the cushions.

Her being upset Glimmer never visits is also valid, considering Angella never writing and Micah being presumed dead, means that Glimmer is her only family and she never makes time for her.

Castaspella is always making time for Glimmer, and Angella, but no one ever makes time for her. She's allowed to be upset about this.

Obeying Canon Only When It Suits You

Canon Castaspella should be stronger than she is, and I've never seen anyone try to fix that. She was severely powered down from her original version, and they gave all of her power to Micah.

Let her be strong. It's not hard. Any problem you could solve with Micah, you can solve with Casta instead.

Shipped With A Side Character or a Child Abuser

This is self-explanatory. I'm not shy about being Anti-C*stawe*ver. It's really gross to ship her with SW when Castaspella is literally an amazing aunt and has never abused a child, and said child abuser also groomed her brother and tortured her niece???

But I'm also not personally interested in Casta/Juliet, because for one, Juliet is probably not the General's name. Noelle was just choosing random names, and called Catra "Elizabeth", and everyone takes it as canon. Most of the things Noelle says just isn't canon.

And if it is the General's name, it's really lazy. I mean, come on, I've seen much more creative names that fit better into the She-Ra world than 'Juliet'. Lumina, Titania, etc. I even saw someone suggest she could be a Rebooted version of General Sunder.

And secondly, "Juliet" has the absolute bare minimum of a personaltiy. She wasn't given a name in the show, and she's kind of just a blank sheet of paper. I guess send me Juliet headcanons to make her more interesting.

I obviously prefer castaliet to c*stawe*ver, but I do wish there was Castaspella content that was focused less on her romantic relationships and more on the family relationships she's been chasing throughout the show. Between her niece never having time for her, Angella shutting her out and Micah being MIA, I just want to see her family appreciate her for once.

She knits Glimmer sweaters. Knitting is hard, and Glimmer won't wear the sweater or even tell Casta if she doesn't like it. How is Casta supposed to know if she should make another one, Glimmer? Are you just going to leave her knitting sweaters that don't get worn forever, pouring her heart into it?

Anyways, Castaspella deserves better treatment by the fandom.

[adarlingwrites]

Dormouse

Summary:

After playing a game with two of The Beach's most dangerous members, the dormouse gets her tail caught by a tiger's paw.

He’ll make a wildcat out of her.

Author’s notes: Huge spoilers for episode 8 and the manga.

TW: blood, references to past self harm.

Edit 5/5/2021: Fleshed out a scene involving Aguni and Yamane’s arm injuries.

VI

propaganda is in our flesh and blood and we rejoice in the control of others / euphoria – poisoning the minds of the future / and it is turning our kids to murder, to murder

A few floors below them, as Last Boss trails his fingers behind Yamane’s legs to point out a few more arteries, their chief converses with his friend, a secret no other Beach members knew.

“That girl is concerning me,” Aguni admits, crossing his arms. “Accepting her in the military sect might have been a mistake. The kid couldn’t even kill without the guilt gnawing her alive. She’s innocent compared to the likes of Niragi.”

“But isn’t that a good thing, Mori?” Hatter asks, leaning back into the sofa and putting his arms behind his back. “She’s a stabilizing element. It might help you with keeping the violent members of the Beach in check by having someone with her restraint around,” he continues, chuckling as he puts his feet up on the coffee table between the sofas. “Plus, it’ll help me sleep better knowing that the military sect of our utopia has members who aren’t simple, mindless killers.”

Aguni’s brow furrows. “Takeru, I’m afraid she’d become more like those two who took her here. I asked Saiko what she knew about that girl. That girl has problems that could drive her over the edge.”

At Aguni’s response, the Hatter smiles and moves to sit next to his friend. “Reminds you too much of yourself?”

Aguni merely nods.

“Remember that quote by Gandhi that I said to recruit the first members of the Beach, Mori? ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ Do what you can to help her stay sane.”

Nodding, he pats Hatter’s back.

Above them, another militant was heading towards the balcony. “Last Boss, there’s- whoa. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

The other man stopped in his tracks when he saw the silent militant kneeling in front of a woman.

“I-it’s not what it looks like,” Yamane blurts out, stepping away from the tattooed militant.

The interrupter gave her an awkward nod and rubs the back of his head. Seeing Last Boss with a woman came as a surprise to him; the tattooed man was known for keeping to himself instead of sleeping around like Niragi. Last Boss turns around to give the interrupter a sour look.

“There’s a group of traitors who kept their cards from the previous game. We gotta get rid of them,” the man says, averting his gaze from the two of them.

Last Boss unsheathes his sword, and he turns to Yamane, motioning her to follow.

“Wait- me?” Yamane asks, blood running cold.

“Part of our duty is to discreetly kill traitors,” the other militant says. “Didn’t they tell you that when you came here?”

Gulping, Yamane wordlessly follows the two. It’s finally sinking in; her role in the military sect meant dealing with not just most physical games, but these ugly matters as well.

They walked all the way to the basement, and the other militant waited outside, keeping watch. There were three people kneeling, eyes and mouth bound by duct tape. Their arms and legs are bound as well. Yamane recognizes one of them as the medic that helped Sunohara treat Last Boss’ injuries.

“Go ahead,” Last Boss tells her, kicking a bucket in front of the captive.

Yamane freezes at his command. Eyes flicking towards the captive, she could see the sweat dripping from his skin as he struggled in futility. The taller militant advances on her, tilting her chin with his fingers, and the words don't come to her.

“Put what I taught you into practice. This is the perfect opportunity.”

The dormouse’s only response is a slow, nervous nod. Her small fingers reach for the dagger from her holster, and she kneels behind the bound medic, who was thrashing and sobbing as her other hand pushed his head down.

A gasp escapes Yamane as Last Boss knelt behind her as well, wiry arms guiding her, and his hand over hers. Warm breaths on her neck and his proximity made Yamane feel the heat surge between her legs again, mind muddled by a cocktail of fear and lust hormones. The dagger presses into the victim’s skin, and with Last Boss’ guidance, they make a quick slash to the artery, blood pumping and draining out to the bucket.

“Good Yamaneko,” he whispers, not letting go of her despite the deed being done. His scent engulfs her, and Yamane chokes back a moan, disguising by clearing her throat.

“Let’s move on to the others,” she whispers, moving away from him.

Later that night, in an attempt to purge the mental image of slicing three people’s throats, Yamane’s feet bring her to the loud merrymaking at the pool. She grabs one drink, and sits in a corner. It helps that her status as a militant meant people left her alone.

It didn’t stop Sunohara from sitting next to her, though.

“You really shouldn’t be drinking alcohol while you’re taking tramadol, you know,” she casually mentions, lighting a cigarette. Smoke wafts to Yamane’s face and she waves it away with her free hand. “I thought doctors advise people to stay away from cigarettes, why are you smoking?”

Sunohara laughs. “Touche. I guess I can’t stop you. Just don’t drink before a game. It’ll make you drowsy.”

“Sure, I’ll keep it in mind.”

In consideration, Sunohara blows the smoke away from Yamane’s direction. “So, what was your game tonight? You had so much blood on you.”

“A Spade.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sunohara comments, taking another hit of her cigarette. “Physical games tend to get messy. Though, Heart games can get messy too.”

Now Yamane’s interest is piqued. She never had a heart game before. “What’s in a Heart game?”

“Ah, never played one before? Heart games play with, well, your heart.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Yamane replies, taking a sip of her cocktail. “What do you mean by it plays with your heart?”

Sunohara flicks her spent cigarette away and crushes it with her sandal. “They’re psychological, the type that uses your emotions to make a fool out of you. They mislead you into thinking that you’d have to do something terrible, but losses can be avoided if you think things through and don’t let your emotions get the best of you.”

“You sound like you’ve seen a lot of Heart games, Sunohara,” Yamane comments, setting her empty drink down.

“Not really. Just two. When you’re a doctor like me, you need to be calm in an emergency. Assess the situation properly, and give proper treatment. I just applied my experiences.”

Sunohara stands up to shake off the ash from her coat, and gives Yamane a smile. “I need to go. My assistant disappeared on me and I need to check the medication supply.”

With that, she sets off. Yamane gulps the last of her drink, and guilt drops like a heavy stone in her stomach. That assistant must have been the man she executed.

Drowsiness settling in, she needs to rest for the games. Unlike when she was surviving on her own, Beach members play them every night regardless of how many days they have left on their visas. Yamane lies on the bed, but her body is still buzzing. She recounts her experiences for the day, and her mind wanders back to the time she spent with Last Boss.

Against her better judgment, her fingers trail downward to the waistband of her shorts, and she pulls them off of her legs, underwear coming off with it. A string of her juices coats her finger as she glided it against her folds.

The little dormouse pleasures herself that night thinking about the tiger above her, fantasizing about him doing unspeakable things to her body. She comes quietly, intensely. Then, she drifts off, the post-orgasmic bliss calming her down.

The next morning, she wakes up feeling worse.

Sluggish, she climbs out of bed, and goes to the bathroom. The blood had come off of her clothes now, so she scrubbed them, rinsed them, took them out of the sink and hung them to dry. In the middle of hanging up her skirt, her stomach rumbles. She forgot to eat last night.

At the lobby, the usual banquet is set out for the residents. Yamane takes all the food she can fit on a plate, goes back up to her room, and eats in peace. She’ll need the strength and energy to survive tonight.

She didn’t know if she should be dismayed or relieved that she’s not grouped with Niragi and Last Boss in the game tonight. Instead, she was grouped with Saiko, Sunohara, Aguni, and another Beach member that she hasn’t spoken to yet. One of them wears a plain white hood, a distant, sly look on his face. They all went through the laser grid, and there were enough phones for ten players.

Soon, other participants arrived.

This game takes place in a hospital, and various implements are laid on the table. Yamane takes note of them; stress balls, large needles, blood bags, scalpels, and buckets. Sunohara was eyeing them as well, deep in thought.

In the middle of the room was a large electronic weighing scale.

“Registration closed. There are currently eight players. Difficulty: Five of Hearts.”

Ice runs through Yamane’s veins. Just last night she was talking to Sunohara about Heart games, and here she was.

“Game: Bloodletting. Rules: There is a bomb in this building. Players must spill enough blood to defuse them all. Time limit: thirty minutes.”

“Spill blood? This should be easy,” Saiko comments, loading her gun.

“Game Start!”

At the cue, Saiko shoots an unaffiliated player dead. Yamane’s eyes widen in surprise, while Sunohara screams, bracing herself against a medical gurney. Aguni is quiet, looking at the corpse, while the man with the white hood rolls his eyes. The others were too shocked to say anything.

“Not enough blood is spilled,” the robotic voice announces.

“Dammit!” Saiko shouts, shooting another player dead. The other one tries to flee, but she makes quick work of her.

“Not enough blood is spilled,” the robotic voice continues.

Saiko points the gun at Sunohara, but Yamane shoves her aside. “Idiot. It didn’t work the first time, what makes you think that it’ll work the fourth time?”

“Huh. Will you look at that. A militant that isn’t entirely stupid,” the man in white comments in a sing-song voice. Saiko turns to him and points her gun. “Would you rather I shoot you, Chishiya?”

“Saiko. Enough,” Aguni commands, crouching to look at the fallen man. “Your strategy clearly doesn’t work.”

Collecting herself, Sunohara sighs. “This is a Heart game. The rules aren’t what they seem. Look around you, there are implements for blood transfusion, and a weighing scale in the middle of the room. The game’s name is ‘Bloodletting’ too.”

“Let’s use the dead’s blood to fill the buckets then,” Aguni suggests. “How long does it take to drain the blood from a man his size?”

“A man that size looks like he has about 1.5 gallons of blood. That’s roughly 5.6 liters, enough to fill ten blood bags, which holds 525 milliliters of blood,” Chishiya comments. “The heart pumps five liters of blood per minute, but that man is dead.” 

Saiko and Yamane look at him with bewilderment. “He’s a medical student. I was his senior,” Sunohara comments sheepishly. “But, still, each transfusion would last eight to ten minutes, and that’s on someone alive. There wouldn’t be enough time for us to drain all their blood before the building blows up.”

“It’s still worth the try,” Yamane comments, taking a bucket. She kneels in front of one of the dead players, takes a deep breath to steady her hands, and applies what she learned from Last Boss the night before, the blood spilling into the bucket. Horrified, Sunohara could only watch as Yamane worked. Aguni takes a scalpel and starts to drain the other dead player as well.

“Twenty minutes remaining.”

The doctor takes a steadying breath when she takes a scalpel and kneels. The rest follow suit except for Chishiya, who merely observes. Soon, they were moving buckets of blood to the weighing scale.

“Not enough blood is spilled,” the robotic voice chimes in, and Saiko groans. Sunohara is nervously eyeing the militants, including Yamane, while Chishiya smirks. Impatient, Saiko points her gun at Chishiya again, and Sunohara gets in the way, eyes defiant.

“Get out of my face before I blow your face off instead of his,” Saiko hisses, but Sunohara remains firm. “Stop. I’m not letting anyone else die. This is a Heart game! It’s deliberately fucking with your head to make you think that killing each other is the only solution.”

“There’s something in the rules you’re all overlooking,” Chishiya comments, unfazed. “The rules said players must spill enough blood.”

Upon hearing his remark, Yamane has an epiphany. “Maybe it meant that we should all fill a bag?”

Chishiya smirks.

“Ten minutes remaining.”

Sunohara rushes to gather the blood bags and stress balls, giving them to the remaining players. “We better hurry,” she says, panting. “Hold out your arms,” she instructs. “Chishiya, don’t just stand there, help me!”

He gives her a cheeky smile and gets to work.

Plunging the needle in Yamane’s arm, Chishiya gives her a look. “You’re too clever for this lot.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she responds. “Let’s just focus on the game.”

“Fair.”

Soon, everyone had their needles inserted in their veins. “Now what?” Saiko asks, scowling.

“Squeeze those stress balls!” Sunohara directs, and everyone starts. Slowly but steady, they all fill a bag.

“Five minutes remaining.”

“How long does this take again?” Saiko asks, still hard at squeezing. “Eight to ten minutes,” Sunohara replies, eyeing the weighing scale.

“Three minutes remaining.”

At that point, Yamane was cursing, bag filled only three-fourths of the way through. She looks to the other players’ bags.

“Two minutes remaining.”

Aguni is first to finish his bag, and Sunohara promptly helps him move it to the weighing scale. Chishiya follows, then Saiko, then Sunohara. Yamane’s bag still isn’t full.

“One minute remaining,” the robotic voice chirps again, and Yamane curses. “Hurry the hell up!” Saiko yells, distressed.

“Thirty seconds remaining.”

In desperation, Yamane grabs her bag, puts it on the scale, and takes one of her daggers to slash her arm, blood spilling on the weighing scale.

“Enough blood has been spilled. Game Clear. Congratulations!”

Collective relief rushes through the group. Yamane should be relieved herself, but now, blood continues to spill from her arm. “S-Sunohara, I won’t stop bleeding,” she gasps.

Cursing, Sunohara scrambles to find supplies to help stop the flow. But the pressure wasn't enough; Yamane continues to bleed all over the table. Aguni steps in, meaty palm pressing against the wound. As he kept the pressure on her arm, he notices a few scars on the surface of his underling's skin. Multiple stripes lined up on her wrist, and it only took one look for him to realize that they were self-inflicted. Sensing the discomfort in Yamane's gaze as she watched him stare at her scars, Aguni looks away.

Once the bleeding stopped, Sunohara treats Yamane’s arm, wrapping a bandage around it. “You’re lucky,” Sunohara comments. “The cut wasn’t deep enough to sever your radial artery. A little deeper, and you would be dead in two minutes.”

“Let’s go,” Aguni grunts, collecting the card from the round table that always shows up after a game.

Before they leave, Yamane eyes the bodies of the dead players Saiko shot, and she feels less horrified. Desensitized.

As soon as they arrived in the Beach, she passed through the pool, most of the Beach residents already hard at partying, and Yamane couldn’t stop the dread from creeping up her spine. These people probably saw other people die in a game tonight, yet they’re more than happy to forget all that with a drink and a good fuck.

“Maybe I should try drinking and fucking my sorrows away like them,” a small part of Yamane’s psych tells her. But her own thoughts are interrupted by the rumble of her stomach.

The blood loss made her ravenous, and she went directly to the banquet. Yamane didn’t even take the food back to her room; she just picked up whatever she found appealing and started eating right there. Biting into a chicken leg, Yamane didn’t care for what the onlookers thought. Sauce pooled in the corner of her mouth as she polished off the chicken, not a single shred of meat left on the bone.

“Yamaneko.”

Abruptly, she turns around to see Last Boss giving her an amused look.

Almost choking, Yamane forces herself to swallow the meat in her mouth. She couldn’t look him in the eye after pleasuring herself at the thought of him the night before. “Last Boss. Hey.”

She moves aside to allow him to gather his serving too. Yamane follows him afterwards to a secluded area afterwards, and he seemed to tolerate her presence, allowing her to sit next to him.

“Thank you for last night,” Yamane tells him. “It helped me clear my game tonight.”

Last Boss only stares at her as she ate, which made her self-conscious. She slowed her chewing, and when he didn’t stop, she turned to face him.

“Yes?”

Goosebumps ripple through Yamane’s skin again as the other militant brushes his thumb on her lips, towards the corner of her mouth. He proceeds to lick it off of his finger. Yamane’s entire face is red now, and she rubs the rest of the sauce off of her mouth with a napkin.

“Y-you could’ve just told me I have sauce on me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he finally speaks up.

Yamane just knew that she was going to spend nights touching herself to the thought of him again. Several nights.

Four days later, after a Club, a Diamond, and two Spade games, Yamane is given her new player tag. Number twenty five. She’s slowly becoming a seasoned player.

Every after game, Yamane sought out Last Boss’ company more and more. Whether they spoke or just sat in silence didn’t matter. He hasn’t told her to go away once, so Yamane continues to spend more time with him. People started to talk. Not like Yamane cared; she endured all of that in the real world, it doesn’t faze her anymore in this strange land. Soon, the thoughts of home started to dissipate from her psyche, preoccupied with the games and the twisted sense of acceptance she received from her fellow members of the Beach’s militia.

A day after Yamane’s Spade game, she received her next team assignment. She looks at her slip of paper and proceeds to look for other members. Last Boss locks eyes with her, and holds out his slip of paper. They were grouped with a couple who couldn’t get their hands off of each other in the backseat as Yamane drove. Last Boss sits next to her in the front seat, eyes occasionally wandering to her.

Yamane pretended not to notice, locking her eyes on the road.

Soon, they arrive at the game venue.

A love hotel.

As the two other Beach players walked towards the venue, Yamane leaned against the car, eyeing the neon sign. “This… this probably won't be a Spade game, huh?” she mumbles to her companion, whose mouth was slightly open.

“Ever been to a place like this before?” Yamane asks him, wrapping her arms around herself.

“No.”

Yamane didn’t say anything else after that, proceeding inside the venue with Last Boss.

The signs led them to a large suite, where X-crosses are lined up. Smartwatches are laid out for the players, along with guns. Yamane and Last Boss pick up a phone, and proceed to wear the watches. On Yamane’s watch, an arrow pops up in the display, while a heart shows up on Last Boss’ watch.

As another pair gets in the room, Yamane inspects the guns, which had an arrow engraved on the handle. Her eyes flick to the restraints, and dread washes over her when she sees the heart designs in the red light.

“Please sort yourselves accordingly,” a sign on the table instructs them, and the players are done as they’re told. Last Boss went to the X-cross, which had automatic cuffs that bound his arms and legs. Yamane looks at him with slight discomfort, but he stares at her with a blank expression.

“Registration closed. There are currently six players. Difficulty: Nine of Hearts.”

The other players started to mumble amongst themselves, while Yamane’s eyes remained locked on to her fellow militant.

“Game: Desire. Rules: Arrows must take turns to confess their feelings to the Heart they find most desirable. Arrows must fire the gun at the Heart of their choice. Lying or failing to fire the gun would result in a Game Over. Time limit: five minutes.”

“Shit,” was all Yamane could say.

“First player: Daisuke Inamine.”

Yamane turns to the said player, whose tears are streaming down his face as he looks at his lover. “Shit, I can’t do this! I can’t do this,” he sobs, putting the gun down and running out of the room. A laser fired and killed him in an instant. His lover was crying and screaming, fighting against the X-cross’ restraints.

“Next player: Rina Yamada.”

Hands shaking, the other player picks up the gun, and points it at the boy she came to the venue with. “Hiro,” she starts, voice shaking. “I’ve- I’ve always liked you since middle school,” she confesses, sobs wracking her body. “I appreciate that you enjoy the bento I’d always make for you. I like how you’d always come to protect me from my bullies. I- oh god, Hiro, please, please forgive me.”

“Three minutes remaining.”

Hiro was looking at her with resignation in his eyes. “Enough, Rina. I’ve always liked you too. Please, do what you can to survive.”

Shaking, sobbing, Rina pulls the trigger, firing the gun at Hiro’s chest. She then tosses it away, covering her face as she wails.

“Next player: Minami Yamane.”

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: Da Vinci Magazine December 2020 Edition

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

“Hanyou No Yashahime” Tripartite Cast Talk

Matsumoto Sara X Komatsu Mikako X Tadokoro Azusa

Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter and Sesshomaru’s two daughters play an active role in “Hanyou No Yashahime”. As an original anime with no original work (translator’s note: As in not an adaptation of something like a manga or light novel), the subject is the next generation of “Inuyasha” done in the same style. Being “Inuyasha” fans themselves, we had the three lead voice actresses talk about the charm of the series.

The main character design was done by Takahashi Rumiko!

Towa

A 14-year-old middle school girl. 10 years ago, she time traveled from the Feudal Era to the Modern Era and became the adopted daughter of Kagome’s little brother, Souta. Upon reuniting with her younger twin sister, Setsuna, after she time travels to the Modern Era with Moroha, Towa decides to return to the Feudal Era. She is Sesshomaru’s daughter.

Setsuna

14 years old. Towa’s younger twin sister. A member of the demon slayers led by Kohaku. She has lost her memories of her childhood and is unable to fall asleep. She has the gold rainbow pearl in her left eye. While she does not believe Towa is her older twin sister, she travels with her as she tries to take back Setsuna’s memories and sleep.

The 3 of you reacted shocked with “What you mean daughters?!”

Moroha

Commonly known as “Monster Killer Moroha”. A 14-year-old bounty hunter. When she puts on rouge stored in a shell with the red rainbow pearl on it, she becomes “The Country Destroying Beniyasha” and goes on a rampage. While she is Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter, she does not know her parents and has lived mostly on her own apparently.

Komatsu: When the work was announced, the world was shocked like “Sesshomaru has a daughter?!” and we were the same. When I opened the audition documents, it was written that the setting takes place over 10 years after the conclusion of the original work and that Setsuna, who I was auditioning for, is Sesshomaru’s daughter. I thought “What does this mean?” and reflexively grabbed the last volume of the manga.

Matsumoto: I was handed Takahashi Rumiko-sensei’s character design and a simple correlation diagram. In regards to Towa, who I auditioned for, it was also written that all that was known was that she is Sesshomaru’s daughter. I was given lines without knowing the context or anything so I wondered what to do. However, at the same time, I was so happy to the point that I was like “The “Inuyasha” world is coming back!”

Tadokoro: I completely freaked out (laughs). Also, my manager knew I was big fan of “Inuyasha” and calmly told me before I looked at the audition documents “Azusa, you absolutely can’t miss out on this. This a huge opportunity.”

Komatsu: A lot of pressure!

Tadokoro: Then when I looked at the documents, I saw that Moroha, who I was auditioning for, was the daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome. After getting excited like “They had a child~!”, I saw Towa and Setsuna and screamed “I will be upset if they’re not XX’s children!” (translator’s note: they’re referring to the mother)

Komatsu and Matsumoto: I know!

Tadokoro: As a fan, I worried endlessly but as a voice actress, I thought I couldn’t miss out on this. However, when I went to the studio audition, I was told “Keep the base but try to say these lines a little more like a middle-aged man”. I became flustered like “Even though she’s a 14-year-old girl?” … I felt like I didn’t respond properly and was really down going home.

Komatsu: Me too. Maybe it was because I was pulling too strongly from Sesshomaru’s image but I was told “Not only coolness but we would also like for you to show the cuteness of a 14-year-old” and I couldn’t make the switch the very well. I didn’t get the reaction that I got the part at all.

Matsumoto: I over considered the setting of (Towa) wearing a boy’s uniform and I was told “Don’t make her a boy”. After that no matter how many retries I did, the direction I took didn’t match up… I cried a lot when I got home like “I totally bombed it”. That moment, I realized that I had really wanted the part and was surprised. “Inuyasha” was a work that was more special to me than I thought.

Overcoming different boundaries, their feelings melt together

Komatsu: For me, “Inuyasha” was also a textbook on love. Especially the relationship between Inuyasha, Kagome, and Kikyou. It’s a little hard for kids to understand and I thought, “Why does Kikyou always get in the way?” and “Inuyasha too, make up your mind” but in a certain scene, Kagome asks Inuyasha “I… What exactly am I to you?”. In between the feelings of it can’t be helped that he overlaps her face with Kikyou’s and this has nothing to do with her, she properly checked what her existence meant to him. Seeing that, I realized. Not only in love but that’s important in life in general as well.

Tadokoro: It’s so cool isn’t it? She acknowledged all her feelings of jealousy and hate towards Kikyou and still saved her on top of that. She showed us her resolve to properly face her heart and Kikyou and accept them. It was so cool that I cried. Then when I became an adult, I came to understand Kikyou’s feelings and it hurt.

Matsumoto: Well she was also a victim… I think when you read “Inuyasha”, you become emotionally attached to each individual character because depictions that give you a sense that they’re “alive” are inlaid in all sorts of places. For example, the scene in volume 1 where Kagome offers food to Inuyasha whom she had just met. While Inuyasha makes his wariness known, he takes a bite of the radish in the next frame. I always laugh like “Even though you say it’s annoying, you’re still eating it!” but at the same time I feel that it’s really “like” him. From those ordinary depictions, over time we accept “something” without realizing it. That accumulation turns into a big emotion that overflows when you get to the important scenes.

Komatsu: At times when those complexly wrapped emotions sublimate, even sad endings become beautiful. For example, Kagura. Even though she was born from Naraku, she was guided to good through Inuyasha and the others who were supposed to be her enemy. Kagome and Kikyou’s relationship too but ally or enemy, good or evil, all sorts of borders are crossed and seeing drawings of humans and demons coming together I think is the charm of “Inuyasha”.

We haven’t been told the answers to the mysteries

Matsumoto: Continuing onward to “Hanyou no Yashahime”, the character I play, Towa, passed through space-time and got sent to the Modern Era at age 4. However, possibly because she was raised by Kagome’s little brother, Souta, even though she is Sesshomaru’s daughter, I feel like she’s also similar to Kagome.

Komatsu: While blood inheritance is important, the person who raised you has a big influence as well. Also, what environment you were raised in. Setsuna lost her childhood memories due to certain circumstances. So of course, she doesn’t remember her older twin sister, Towa, whom she got separated from at 4 years old. Due to that hole and being raised in an environment where you could be killed by anyone at any time, she gives off an air of not allowing others to get close to her. But just when you think that, there are times where you can feel that she’s actually kind and that makes it heartrending.

Matsumoto: Feeling she (Towa) needs to fill in the 10-year void with Setsuna who became like that, the highlight is seeing their relationship change as Towa closes the gap between them. Add Moroha in and there’s a lot of chattering.

Tadokoro: Moroha speaks in a vulgar manner (translator’s note: it actually translates to abusive language but abusive didn’t sound right to me) but in reality, I have a feeling that she truly enjoys traveling with the two of them. To her, those two are probably the first friends she has ever had. That form is so precious and I feel lonely when I wonder what sort of environment she grew up in. I wonder why she’s desperately earning money by slaying demons. We were only told who she was raised by but at this time, we have not been told things like happened to Inuyasha and Kagome.

Matsumoto: This includes who Towa and Setsuna’s mother is. This is something fans have been wondering the most but the answers will be revealed eventually and I have faith that this work will properly continue on what was drawn in “Inuyasha”.

Tadokoro: That’s why we would like everyone to watch over them until the very end and love the 3 Yashahimes as they survive with each of their individual strengths.

Komatsu: While there are a lot of cheerful episodes, there will be times when the inlaid depictions within those episodes will be collected in an instant which I think people will enjoy. For that, we will give it our all!

We Asked Takahashi-sensei!

Q: What did you especially focus on when doing the character design?

A: Series composition writer Sumisawa (Katsuyuki) requested me to draw the image of Towa as a white Sesshomaru and Setsuna as a black Sesshomaru. Upon reading the scenario, I designed them incorporating their father’s facial look. Moroha was the same, being Inuyasha and Kagome’s child. As such, I made it so that Inuyasha’s mischievousness came through.