#yes this is also a ploy to get people to interact with me

[hdawg1995]

I made a wheel cause i'm dreading the month hiatus my D&D game is going to have so spin this wheel and find out what character (NPC or Player Character) from my campaign would date you.

note: i excluded all NPCs younger than 18 but there are some undead and 1 joke entry (a horse).

[anxious-witch]

I know, I know we talked about the forest scene with Monty, Edwin and the Cat King to death. But, but. Hear me out.

Edwin was ready to both forgive Monty and thank the Cat King right then and there if they didn't push him, aka crossed a line in the sand for him.

When the Cat King initially informs him of Monty's betrayal, this is Edwin's reaction:

He looks confused, he looks hurt. But he doesn't look angry. Not yet. When he says "Were you just pretending to be my friend" he sounds hurt, but when he sees how Monty is affected, he still looks oddly touched. Especially when Monty says: "At first, yes! Then...no."

I know we joke about Edwin being awful at reading people, but Monty is obviously distressed and Edwin reacts to it. Besides, Monty is his friend. He wants to believe it wasn't all a ploy. But then, Monty makes a fatal mistake and brings up Charles. Immediately, Edwin's expression falls and then it turns angry and says: "Even if it were true, you are a bloody crow!"

We see Edwin forgive Simon, his killer, the person who was responsible for sending him to Hell, in mere minutes, once he finds out why Simon did it. I don't believe for a second he wouldn't have forgiven Monty in a heartbeat if Monty properly explained himself, instead of falling back to his hurt feelings and in turn, trying to hurt Edwin the same way by bringing up Charles. Which is a shame, because they really could have used each other's help.

As for the Cat King, I think it's a very similar story too!

Immediately after Monty walks away, Edwin closes his eyes and says: "I am such an idiot." And the Cat King nods, but you can already see most of the anger Edwin held towards Monty dispersing.

When the Cat King stops him from leaving and says: "I came all the way into this ridiculous forest to save you, I think I am at least owed a thank you," Edwin doesn't seem mad. I'd even go as far as to describe his expression as soft surprise. I think he is thankful, in that moment. And why wouldn't he be? The Cat King did save him from a trap.

It's only when the Cat King brings up a second kiss, implying he should thank him by kissing him, does Edwin grow angry again.

Also, importantly, the way Edwin pushes the Cat King away is almost gentle. Bitchy, and pissed off, for sure, but also gentle. Like, if it was someone who I genuinely didn't want anwhere near me, I'd shove them away by the shoulders, and with much more force. And sure! Edwin isn't a type for violence, but c'mon. We know he is capable if pressed, as seen when Esther hurt Charles.

Edwin keeps his anger tightly locked, only letting it out through his words. He practically spits out "I am not your toy to yank around." But even so, the only tense action we see from his is the way he cocks his head and demingly looks thr Cat King up and down.

Only after the Cat King threatens him, does Edwin get up in his personal space and almost violently(by his standards) shows him the bracelet, saying "This is all that you are. Do you understand?"

My point is, if both the Cat King and Monty essentially told/showed Edwin their actions are somehow tied into his reciprocation of his feelings. Funnily, enough, I feel like if either of them didn't base this interaction on that, and instead rather connected with Edwin emotionally, they would have had a shot at getting exactly what they wanted that night. Monty, Edwin's forgivness and the Cat King, Edwin's thankfulness, perhaps even a sense that he owes him, next time they see each other.

Which is great! Because it shows us sm about the characters, their flaws, and their priorities! But yeah. Talking about shooting themselves in the foot.

I also think that, for all we joke around Edwin holding grudges, he is actually incredible in how quickly he forgives people, as soon as they show the skightest initative for change/goodwill. Part of me hopes he and Monty meet again, just so Edwin can understand his pov, the same way he understood Simon and thr Cat King's but alas. I suppose we'll see

[houserautha]

Pain & Pleasure

Summary: Based off this ask. Your husband only wants to protect you.

Pairings: Feyd-Rautha x f!Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: MDNI. Most of my warnings fall under the prompts given for Fangtober. Also, spanking. In the wise words of Cloud Guy, “A little slappy, make daddy happy.”

A/N: This is my submission for @lady-phasma’s Fangtober!! I kept writing and rewriting until I saw this ask and then was inspired. Prompts: blood, ejaculation, bondage, dominance, S&M, some humiliation and discipline, and tears.

The spice-laden wine goes straight to your head, blurring the harsh edges of the Harkonnen party. It's certainly more tolerable this way. You float through the throng of courtiers as if pulled along by a slow moving current, smiling and offering platitudes when necessary.

Distantly, you're aware of Feyd's eyes on you.

They never really leave — a constant, watchful presence that burns between the blades of your shoulders. He likes to keep you within view, preside over every interaction and conversation. And when you complain about this, he always tells you, "You are my jewel. You do not leave precious treasure unguarded."

Precious treasure, you muse, sipping the dredges of your drink.

If you tried hard enough you would surely find Feyd in the crowd, dark gaze trained on you. He would be charming the courtiers all while keeping you in his sights, somehow straddling the line between host and careful guard. You, on the other hand, struggle with the act of entertaining your guests. Not from lack of trying.

And thus, when one of the courtiers presses his hand to your lower back as he passes by, you don't threaten to cut it off. Hopefully the smile on your face doesn't resemble a grimace. The courtier, a man dressed in a trim suit, removes his hand but does not leave.

"na-Baroness," he says, feigning surprise. He's a terrible actor. "I didn't realize it was you. My humble apologies."

"You're forgiven."

Why do all of your smiles feel as if you're baring your teeth?

"May I get you another drink?" The man asks.

Before letting you answer, he waves down one of the servants and thrusts another glass into your hand. His fingers graze yours in the process, in such a fashion that cannot be mistaken as an accident. There's no spark of attraction, no pinch of arousal in your lower belly that a touch from your husband would usually incite, but you let this go too. Not only because you need to develop repertoire with the courtiers, because usually people are too frightened to speak to you.

This man might be a brash idiot but at least he doesn’t shy away from you.

"You look magnificent," the man says, his mouth close to your ear. The music isn't really that loud, and you recognize this as a ploy to get closer to you. "The na-Baron is a fortunate man indeed."

You swirl the spice-wine coyly. "That's what I tell him."

“You shouldn’t need to remind him.”

“Mm. Why’s that?”

"He should know to take care of such a beautiful woman, lest someone start to covet her." He adds boldly, "There are more things a man can offer you than prestige and wealth."

"And what would that be?" You peer up at him from beneath your lashes.

Feyd has given you quite literally anything you could ask for — a home, a protector, an equal. And more orgasms than you can count, which you understand is what this man before you is implying the na-Baron cannot provide.

The man steps closer to you. "I would be more than willing to show you, na-Baroness, if you would let me."

“You are very bold," you counter.

“Among other things.”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

"Don't be." He flashes you a winning smile that does absolutely nothing to you. You might as well have been speaking to a rotting corpse. "You can ask me anything and I will answer as truthfully as I can."

You study him, considering, tapping your nails on the stem of your glass. "Do you truly think I will stray from my husband for you?"

"Yes," he says. "Next."

"Do you truly think you can best him in pursuit of my...pleasures?"

"If you come with me, you might answer that question yourself," the man says in way of reply, hand lingering over your elbow.

"Go with you where?"

Feyd appears nonchalantly at your side. A part of you sighs in relief, as it always does when you're together. But there's an underlying current of danger in his voice, double-edged and pointed at both you and this courtier, who apparently does not sense it or does not care.

"I was going to let her choose," the man answers coolly.

Feyd's jaw feathers. "How quaint."

"Excuse me?" The man's brow furrows and you almost feel bad for him, this stupid, arrogant courtier.

"My wife goes where I tell her. She quite likes a...strong hand." Feyd curls a possessive hand at your waist and, without breaking eye contact with the man, orders, "Go to our room and kneel on the bed, naked, and wait for me to join you."

Desire pulses deep within you. You shoot the man an apologetic, slightly triumphant look, knowing that his demise is eminent, and disappear into the crowd. Anticipation carries you all of the way to your shared quarters with the na-Baron, where you undress and then arrange yourself at the foot of the bed. An inordinate amount of time passes before the door finally opens and your husband steps through it, a phantom in the shadows.

Feyd prowls toward you. Only once he's in reach of the light do you realize that his hands, the front of his tunic, are drenched in blood.

You breathe out, "You killed him."

Not that you're shocked, necessarily; it's the quantity of blood that disturbs you, painting him in a study of crimson. Goosebumps pimple over your skin.

Feyd does not deign you with a response.

When he comes to you, you flinch away reflexively from his blooded hands. A growl rips from his chest and you don't even have time to regret your decision when he's grabbing you by the jaw and squeezing. "You did this to him."

"I didn't make him do anything," you hiss. Feyd's grip tightens. The pressure becomes nearly too much for you to handle, fingers digging into your flesh, pouting your lips.

"You didn't stop him either, did you?" Feyd looms dangerously close to you, fury radiating off him. The brunt of his anger comes when he releases you, roughly shoving you away.

You're then aware, vaguely, that the man's blood is now smeared on your face in the shape of your husband's hand, inviting a coppery smell that invades your senses and churns your stomach. The weight of Feyd dips the mattress as he sits down then pats his thigh. "Lie down on my lap."

You hesitate. Another stupid, reckless decision.

Feyd grabs the hair at the base of your skull. A squeal escapes you as he forces you down over his knees, exposing you entirely to him. Liquid embarrassment floods over you and a protest begins to form on your tongue — you are the na-Baroness, after all, not a child to be ridiculed.

Like he can hear this particular train of thought, Feyd snatches your wrists with one hand and secures them behind your back. When he leans in, discomfort sprouts from the awkward position, your back bowing to keep your arms from snapping. "If you're going to act like a whore, then I'm going to treat you as one. Do you understand?"

“Y-Yes.”

“Yes, who?”

Your face burns. “Yes, na-Baron.”

“Good girl.”

You’re perched over his lap now, ass up, cunt exposed to the coolness of the room. It’s shameful how wet you already are. There’s a moment of jostling as Feyd removes his belt and snakes it over your wrists to keep you bound.

Now that both of his hands are free, Feyd drags his fingers through your slick folds. He continues up, up, up, circling your wetness over the tight ring of muscles of your ass. Your breath hitches as he then palms one cheek and gives it an experimental squeeze.

A dull roar consumes your mind. The inevitability of his punishment ratchets —

White-hot pain explodes over the surface of your ass. You gasp but there’s barely any time to recover before he’s striking you again, open-palmed, the contact of skin on skin ringing out. A sob builds in your throat. No matter how you tense or prepare, his hand collides with your backside in a sear of blinding heat.

And, worst of all, your traitorous cunt clenches with anticipation.

Feyd ceases long enough to snarl in your ear, “I know what men think when they look at you. Look at my wife.”

His palm cracks against you. You try to jerk away but he keeps you in place. Beneath you, his hardening cock nudges against your belly.

“I know —” smack, “—what—” smack, “—men—” smack, “are capable of.”

Tears spring to your eyes. The memory of his hand prickles as you attempt to collect yourself, only to yowl out as he spanks you again. The repeated action robs you of any thought or rationality, any plea that you might be able to summon. And he seems to be enjoying it as much as you are, bucking his hips as you thrash and squirm. Everything burns.

Pain lances through you, fiery and sharp. You feel your backside blistering from his touch, feel the welts raise. And you’re completely helpless to stop this. The leather of his belt bites into your wrists, scrapes against you as you writhe, trying to escape his hand while also dripping wet at the promise of being dealt another strike.

“It’s for your own good, you know,” Feyd murmurs almost lovingly, large hand brushing over your ass. The reprieve has you sputtering and gasping for air, aware that your front — and likely your backside — is covered with sticky, dried blood. Feyd strokes your hair as you whimper. “I just want to protect you, jewel.”

The sentiment is punctuated by another bone-rattling smack. You howl out and in reply he snaps his hips up, grinding into you.

“And that’s why I have to punish you.” He cracks his hand down again. There’s a tremor of emotion in his voice. “So I can protect you.”

Feyd spanks you again and again until you’re freely sobbing. He’s managed to unravel you completely, cast you adrift in a sea of pleasure and pain. You barely know who you are anymore, wave after wave of burning heat making you somehow both deliriously empty and wanting.

“You are mine, jewel,” he rasps finally.

“I-I am yours, na-Baron.”

He murmurs his approval, setting to work removing his pants. “Now get up and take this cock.”

You wince. “Feyd, I —”

“You can and you will.”

He wrenches you up by your hair again, tossing you to the side as he rises to his feet. You fall awkwardly to your side and Feyd takes advantage of your stumble, whipping you around so that your front is now pressed to the mattress. Another bought of embarrassment grips you as you realize how easily it will be for him to see your arousal — how ruined you must look, skin flaring with welts and bruises and blood.

Feyd keeps your head pushed against the mattress as he forces his cock inside you. He buries himself deeply without giving you time to adjust, and with your arms bound behind your back you can do nothing but squirm.

Saliva gathers in the corners of your mouth. You struggle to breathe against the mattress, breathe through the combined waves of pain and pleasure. Each snap of his hips sends a jolt through you as he comes in contact with your ass, reigniting the burn. He ruts into you as if he knows this and your whole body jostles with his thrusts, growing more fervent as you choke out sob after sob, muffled into the bed.

“Maybe next time you’ll remember to be a good wife,” Feyd all but seethes.

He claws his hands over your hips and ass, fingers digging into the reddened flesh. Blood and your own juices mingle, filling the air with wet noises — sending you over the edge with the reminder of you and the courtier’s punishments.

The mattress muffles your scream as you come, a loud, cathartic release. Feyd bucks into you until you’ve finished, and even then, wringing out every drop of your pleasure until he reaches the peak of his own. He pulls out at the last second, deriving you of his cum, and you howl. Warm splashes of his seed spill on your ass, agitating the already raw skin, and your cunt clenches in displeasure of not being filled.

Feyd lingers in you until his cock softens and slips out. You’re sniveling and crying still as he disappears from behind you — you’re half afraid he’s going to come back and continue his punishment.

But when he returns, it’s to gently wipe away the mess of blood and cum with a towel, taking precaution not to hurt you more than he already did. His hands replace the towel next, massaging a soothing balm over each cheek. You’re still sniffing by the time he unties the belt from your wrists and pulls you further up onto the bed, cradling you against himself.

“Shh, now, jewel,” he breathes into your hair. “I will always keep you safe.”

[drama-glob]

Okay, I've been seeing some Ozzie hate/criticism for a while now that mainly pertains to "Ozzie's" and "Oops," namely his interactions with Stolas/Stolas and Blitz with three points being brought up the most. I can concede to agree with one of the points, but what I don't like is that there is then no consideration for Ozzie's perspective on the matter in regards to "Ozzie's;" as for the other two points, they just make me want to pinch the bridge of my nose because I feel they are overlooking some very important stuff/factors. >_< So, hopefully I can get my points across on what I saw/heard in these situations and give at least some people pause for thought and if not, well, at least I got it off my chest. :/

First off, the point I concede on is that yes, Ozzie should apologize to Stolas for what happened at Ozzie's.

Stolas did not ask to get spotlighted and made into an example for all of Ozzie's to see, and bringing up Octavia is always going to be a sensitive subject, especially with how the divorce is affecting her.

Now for the perspective taking:

For Ozzie, he is seeing a consenting, adult couple out looking for some lusty, kinky fun; they are at Ozzie's after all. He doesn't know the circumstances that led to Stolas and Blitz winding up here. Ozzie likely even assumes that Stolas brought Blitz here given that he used his status to get into the club without a reservation. How is Ozzie supposed to know that Blitz was the one who brought him as a ploy to spy on Moxxie and Millie (so not a real date) as well as know the problems that are in the Stolitz relationship such as Stolas talking down to Blitz or that Blitz is using him too?

Also, it just irks me how people can come to understand Fizz's attitude towards Blitz in "Ozzie's" now that we know about the fire and believing that he was left for dead by Blitz, but see that it's Ozzie's fault for not knowing everything that's going on in Stolas's life (such as the trouble between him and his daughter arising from the divorce). True, Stolas does not have to tell Ozzie about his trauma/problems and that's completely fair, but then it's not right to go around and criticize Ozzie for not knowing that it's a sensitive subject. Stolas has been hiding so much from Octavia and likely everyone else because of multiple factors, but his main concern being Octavia learning secondhand about the abuse, depression and/or his drinking.

I know Ozzie's saying this about Fizz's trauma and he loves him, but it's clear he respects that he shouldn't tell Stolas about it/setting boundaries for personal information, so had he known though about Stolas's case, I highly doubt he would have made a spectacle of him cheating, especially considering the subject of abuse. Plus, wouldn't you think if Ozzie knew that Stolas had been physically and sexually abused by Stella, he'd be adamant to tear Stella a new one or see that she was punished, especially given his values on consent? >:(

In addition, all Ozzie had to say about Stella was that she's hot, so he likely has hardly ever met her enough to speak ill of her/know what she's really like; Stella's attitude towards imps alone would tick him off. >:( Anyway, Stella is not going to the Goetia meetings where they could have chatted and I doubt if he talked with Stolas, he'd say anything revealing or maybe even just chalk it up to Stolas not being satisfied by Stella. I also highly doubt Ozzie is going to waste his time going to Stella's parties when he has a ring and business to run along with wanting to spend time with Fizz. Plus, he'd likely favor either his own party or one thrown by Bee. ;)

Something to note too is just how happy Ozzie is that Stolas was with Blitz because besides him and Bee, to have a royal publicly display that they find someone of lower class attractive and wants to be lustful with is a big deal; Andrealphus even mentioned there hasn't been a Goetia like Stolas, although I can believe some Goetias doing the act of sleeping with those deemed the lower class in private. -_- Ozzie thinks the hierarchy is bunk or at the very least, you should treat people fairly and not act superior to them. So, by highlighting Stolas and Blitz, in addition to getting the performance back on track, he's showing lust is not bound be class differences and that giving into pleasure should matter more than saying, "Oh it can't work between us because you're an imp and I'm a Sinner" or one's an imp and one's a prince in Stolas and Blitz's case.

Ozzie's line "Now that's the spirit of lust" is also cause to see why he's so happy since he's seeing Stolas trade everything else in his life for the thing he desires most: to be with Blitz, or in the case of seeing the two of them at his club, inferring it was to have sex with Blitz; it certainly was some first class demonstration of lust, that's for sure.

Also:

There's also a decent chance he didn't see Stolas do this since he was back onstage immediately after, but if he had and with how observant he is, he likely would have had some questions for Stolas since Ozzie's isn't the place to be ashamed about what turns you on, so him doing this would have made him wonder what's up. :/ (Of course, now we know that the Stella part didn't matter to him, but that he was doing this at the expense of his daughter's happiness that Stolas felt ashamed and not for being seen with Blitz, but this moment still unfortunately sent us to the place we are now along with a slew of other problems contributing to it :/ ).

*Also, to nip it in the bud, it was Fizz and Verosika really doing all the Blitz bashing, not Ozzie, with him mainly just letting Fizz vent all his anger since as he put it to Blitz, "You've lived rent-free in Fizz's head for years," so this was supportive BF/husband stuff in hopes that it might help him heal since it seems Fizz and Blitz haven't had contact in those 15years to talk/work it out.

So long story short/just to recap, while Ozzie didn't do what happened at Ozzie's with malice and the fact that intentions do matter, he still did it and the damage was done, which is why I concede to him needing to apologize; until he knows everything though, he likely won't, so please don't see it as a flaw of his character that he hasn't until such time. :/

On to point two: I've been seeing it be said ever since "Oops" came out that Ozzie doesn't actually believe in helping Stolas and Blitz and only did it because Fizz told him he could. -_- Okay, well:

Ozzie is saying right here that he sympathizes with Stolas and why wouldn't he?! He flipping knows exactly what it's like to be in love with someone deeply and wanting to give them something that makes them happy! Yes, the reason he didn't give Stolas the crystal right then and there was because of Fizz, but that's because doing so would be an act of betrayal to Fizz, not that he doesn't see Stolas's side in this or understand why he wants this. Until the end of the episode, Fizz had hated Blitz and had clearly been verbal about it in the ~10yrs Ozzie and him have known each other, so going behind his back to help someone Fizz sees as his enemy is certainly grounds for relationship trouble and they'd lose so much of the trust that we see Fizz and Ozzie have. :(

The last thing that I've been seeing is people saying that Ozzie finds Stolas annoying or that Ozzie may even hate him because they heard him groan during this statement:

For me though, Ozzie groaned the whole sentence and not just Stolas's name, so it was not singling him out or if anything had a sighing aspect to it because it had been a long day, but more importantly, Ozzie's time with Stolas was mostly a flipping 12HR HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION!!!

That is not going to be a fun time no matter who Ozzie was with, okay?!

*I've also seen a comment about it being Stolas is a nerd compared to him when it's like, "Hello! Ozzie is a nerd too! He's literally a mechanical engineer who designs complicated robotic parts and sex toys! That takes a lot of math and physics!" Plus, I could see that being a point of interest for Stolas and Ozzie since calculating orbits, stars, eclipses, prophecies, etc. uses math and physics as well as Stolas would likely be fascinated with Ozzie's crystals.

The other thing people seem to forget is that Ozzie was also stuck with this guy:

The sleazy, asshole lawyer with a power kink, who sat in Ozzie's chair, talked down to him, pulled that move with the first contract so that they really had no choice but to thoroughly vet the bigger one with a fine-tooth comb, and kept delaying everything until the deadline literally came! >:(

Also, for people thinking about Ozzie being happy that he said no to giving Stolas his crystal:

This was him trying to cheer Fizz up, to let him know that although the day was undeniably terrible, Ozzie still respected his partner's wishes and knew that he wouldn't have wanted Blitz to have one of his crystals. Ozzie was even partially laughing while he said it in a "Oh, you're just going to love what happened babe!" or "You are not going to believe this Fizz!" kind of way in that maybe they could laugh about it sounding ridiculous for Blitz to have a crystal with how much Fizz hated him up to that point.

I know people may still think or feel how they want without budging by the end of this, but this is just what's been on my mind and I wanted to give my two cents on it. Also, part of the reason this is so long too is because I already analyzed the "Ozzie's" stuff for a fan fiction I wrote about it a year ago where Ozzie realizes he made some assumptions that night and was wrong. :/ Anyway, thanks for reading this giant thing. <3<3<3

[absolutebl]

Pit Babe - it's time for a Trash Watch!

I had to. Well, no I didn't, but COME ON. It's like Thailand is negging me. Let's burn rubber, shall we? Burn rubbers...?

The things I had been told going in about this show:

it's about car racing (this bores me)

it stars Pavel (my BL ult bias, he is my icon for a reason)

it started as an omegaverse y-novel but the A/B/O aspects would be stripped from the BL series

it's high heat

(There some chatter about whether point 3 was a mistranslation of something the author said, but don't bother me with trifles.)

Here's a definition of omegaverse:

Omegaverse, also known as A/B/O (alpha/beta/omega), is a subgenre of speculative erotic fiction, and originally a subgenre of erotic slash fan fiction. Its premise is that a dominance hierarchy exists in humans, which are divided into dominant "alphas", neutral "betas", and submissive "omegas".[1] This hierarchy determines how people interact with one another in romantic, erotic and sexual contexts.[2] (Wikipedia)

In my experience and opinion, omegaverse archetypes and tropes are often used to strip out female characters (and The Feminine) and as a tool to excuse extreme hyper-masculine behaviors without a critical feminist lens (leading to lazy characterization). Just as heat is an excuse to get nkd quickly, A/O/B is often an excuse for taboo and dubious consent actions and behaviors. Do I get why writers/readers enjoy it? Yes I do. Do I personally like it? Not particularly. (Although there are always exceptions.)

Putting all that aside, the above represents my foundational knowledge before Pit Babe started.

Oh and that the familiar BL faces appearing in this show were follows:

Pavel Naret (aka Pavel Phoom) from 2 Moons 2 & Coffee Melody - Pavel is a fluent English speaker, a bit of a drama monger, and a motorcycle rider/car-dude, this role suits him

Nut Supanut from Oxygen & Something in My Room - has an amazing voice, his somewhat wooden acting has improved steadily since Oxygen

Pon Thanapon - one of Star Hunter's stable first seen in the Gen Y series (where he stole the appeal of an intended pair), also v good in Make a Wish, I wish he'd get a lead role as he has a likable screen presence

Pop Pataraphol from La Cuisine - he's playing the Alpha rival and I'm not convinced he's suited to this role

Michael Kiettisak from Love Sick, Oxygen, Call it What You Want, Till the World Ends - playing the comic relief this time rather than his usual tortured stoic... huh

All the rest are either fresh faces or older experienced actors. Interesting mix. They must have some money behind this.

And now, get out your marshmallows! The dumpster is on fire! Let's start the roast.

Episode 1 - Platypus, Pickles, Pavel, & other Smoking Hot Problems

This first segment told with a 4 day retrospect, because I decided to do a trash watch only after @aliceisathome said I should.

My initial reaction:

the sheer audacity of Thailand being like "PitBabe is not omegaverse" and then serving "Alpha" to us on a platter in the first sex scene is

how dare

but also

what the actual fuck is going on? what world are we living in where a/b/o is LIVE ACTION ON OUR SCREENS?

we getting heat, knotting & mpreg next?

apparently this is my reality now

I'm not sure what weird quantum time stream I've jumped into but someone was all,

yes the whole world is hella screwed, but also...

Thailand has decided live action mm fanfic is gonna win it the culture wars

and I'm beginning to think they may be right

BL is now the platypus of the film industry

4 days later:

Considering how much chatter this caused there's a part of me that wondered if it was all intentional and a marketing ploy (to say it wasn't omegaverse when obviously it is). In which case... brilliant Machiavellian tactics, production.

But Thai studios are rarely this calculated in their promo. So I think it's all accidental. But it certainly caused a raucous few days on Tumblr.

On a completely different note, Babe's house looks like it started life as a particularly inventive Olive Garden. Or is that just me?

More random thoughts:

Pavel has had work done, why honey? You were the definition of perfect.

The smell thing is great, I love stuff to do with scent and necks. If omegaverse brings this to the table, fine. But...

Being all Alpha perfect butch manly man = I do not like Babe at all, I kinda want him to be brought down a peg. (Woo... pegging!) I never like narratives that glorify the captain of the football team (side eyes Cdrama CEO romances and Love O2O), Babe better have depth and damage (forget the pegging) of some kind or his behavior will get old FAST, faster than he drives (also, forget the pegging idea)

Nut is ideal in the Beta role. I mean, that's Way's character right? We all can see that. If it's not intentional, it's a miscast. I love how soft he is as as screen presence. He's great in this part.

None of the other characters are sticking out to me yet, but I'm prepared to love the side dishes in this, please make them swoon worthy!

I'm glad they didn't hold the Charlie = trickster reveal off, I like knowing he is a double agent up front.

Finally, with respect to an adequate trash watch, I'm in a pickle.

How am I going to drink for this show when there is so much else airing on Frigay? I can't keep track, if I'm drunk.

I need a strategy for this trash fire if the puns and snark are to spout forth! (HA Fourth!)

Controlled burn?

Anygay, see you all next week.

Episode 2 - Side Dish Addiction + Second Lead Syndrome are both infecting me at once

[FYI I gotta have my backup computer to watch this so that's why Imma sometimes be delayed getting the trash out to the curb.]

3 minutes! 3 minutes in and I needed to pause and wax snarkful. (Ouch, bet that hurts. Is waxing snark similar to a Brazilian but for BL? Is that why they all so hairless in The Sign?... I digress, where was I?)

Okay so the subber said Daddy but I don't think that word means what they think it means. Because Way said simply nong paa.

Usually they'll use the English word Daddy (pronounced Dah-deee) for, ya know, Actual Daddies (tm).

Wait wait:

Calling Daddy Actual

(My dumb sci-fi loving arse will see myself out the back before I start drawing Battlestar Galactica = Pit Babe connections. TOO FAR ABL. Too far.)

Look, I like the tension in this show. It's good to set up an unlikeable Alpha dog and then immediately turn him into an underdog, makes him a bit more likable. I still don't like Babe, but now at least I'm on his side.

Charlie = cute but v sus. Fortunately for him, Babe = cute but v thick.

Everyone calls Charlie Babe's dek. Yes sounds a bit like what you think but also means kid/child and SHOULD be translated as boy in this show. Why doesn't the subber get that? They a sub...ber after all. (I'll see myself out.)

Honestly, the script writers might know what they are doing with abo but our eng sub translator sadly does NOT. I'm so glad this is coming now in my BL watching life. When my ear and knowledge of Thai is so much better than it once was. Others much be SO CONFUSED.

Snicker. They just fucking with us, but it's fun to watch the mpeg speculation abound.

File this one under: Thailand's trouble with ESL plurals and also "you should have Pavel helping with these subs" sweethearts.

Production knows entirely what it's doing with this show and its omegaverse shizz (even if the subber doesn't) and I am very much enjoying the online carnage that results.

This dumpster fire continues off screen into the blogosphere and I continue to roast things over it.

Meanwhile, hi Pon! You so adorable! When you gonna lead out a BL for us?

Is Idol Factory stealing all of Star Hunter's talent? Are they the Red Racers of the BL world? These are the questions I ask myself as I watch this.

Is that AGE GAP I smell before me?

Is the 20 yr old college kid meant for the pit boss? Cause you all know I am a slut for age gaps.

Moment of a/b/o: Jeff's fear of touch/heightened personal space would be a plot marker for "baby doesn't want Alphas close cause he smells like an omega" but of course this show it not omegaverse. Not omegaverse at all.

nuh-uh

Linguistic corner!

Lung (sounds a bit like loo) is uncle(ish) it means basically a male relation older than phi. So Alan is the oldest in the crew.

Alan calls Jeff nu (which the subber translated as boy I would have gone with cutie or little one). Nu is a diminutive affectionate term that's technically gender neutral but is most often used by/on cute girls/women. Jeff did NOT like it. Then Alan sort of dodges through pronouns/particles settling on phi for I, ger for you, and ja for a particle. This is interesting because ger & ja kinda lower his age and status into a casual sphere. Not more intimate more equal to jeff... fascinating.

I love the new "Korean" red racer, he drinks my brand of soy milk. He is now my baby snake in the grass.

Get it? Snake.

He and Babe should end up together.

The fight wasn't bad, do both actors have kickbox training in their backgrounds?

Who am I kidding, I care only about Uncle Alan and Nu Jeff now. All others are irrelevant to me.

Also...

WHERE IS A BOY FOR WAY?!!! Or a Daddy. I do not care. (Methinks nether does he.)

I am now captain of the Way Appreciation Society. Let's all find a way... to get him some dick.

Also the BTS stingers are tons of fun. Looks like the set was a blast.

Finally, and I mean this kindly. Why isn't Noh Phouluang in this? He should have been cast as Winner. Bah. I'm biased.

But one should be with Noh.

Episode 3 - Side Dishes Delux

Gayest bridge n Thailand has made its obligatory appearance.

How much do I love uncle & nu? They are SO damn cute. Also nu flustered is the best kind of nu.

I could not care less about Babe and Charlie. Except I do love the smell thing.

Way will break my heart by getting his broken. He is right tho.

Tra la la. I feel like this is a bit like KP 2.0.

Charlie is a such a princess (and ace manipulator). Good thing Babe clearly likes being buttered up.

Babe's backstory was more interesting than I expected, I didn't think we would go so far into the paranormal side of a/b/o. I like it and I hope they lean into it quite a bit more. Make it part of the plot.

Unlike the kissing thing which seems to have been gotten over rather quickly.

I gotta say I'm enjoying the corporate sponsorship jockeying and tension more than I thought I would. I'm curious as to who Jef and Charlie are working for and what their motivation is. The plot itself is keeping me intrigued and that is rare for me with BL.

So no trash talk this ep, I was largely absorbed and entertained. I didn't event need booze. Shocking behavior on my part.

#giveWayaboy2023

Episode 4 - I (who never ship) am shipping the impossible

Here’s the thing. I just want this to be a better story than it is. Right now it’s kind of like a soap opera. I don’t hate lakorn, I really don't. To Sir With Love is a glorious chewing of the diamanté scenery (completed with death glitter). But...

If this is gonna be a soap opera it needs to lean into the messy side more than the tailored high concept side. Support characters and evil needs more screen time.

Instead, right now, I don’t know where I am with this show because it doesn't know where it wants to be. I’m kind of dangling in the middle of a dirty situation. It’s uncomfortable for me, and the show feels uncomfortable for the performers. 

Also... I have questions.

Yes, of course I want to know what Charlie & Jeff are up to. Why can Jeff see the future?

But more importantly I NEED to know why Babe has a flying saucer bed?

That kind of lighting makes nobody look good, especially not at that angle. It’s very traumatic and I’m not wild about the shag rug either. I have concerns about Babe's taste. I guess is what I am saying. 

On a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT note:

There’s absolutely no chemistry to justify this, but I have decided that I am going to personally advocate for, and ship, Way and the interloping not-really-Korean. They are both sort of own-moral-code types. I have tiny crush on Kim, and Nut is the prettiest, and Way is Best Boy so there it is, I would like them to hook up, please & thank you.

#giveWay2Kim2023

Arrow guy is cute, too. Will we get to see him bone?

Is he going to be another one of the adopted alpha super-kid pets?

What the hell, throw Arrow Boy a bone! All hot boys in BLs deserve bones.

Plot thickens.

Hah.

Thickens.

(I am an immature idiot.)

Episode 5 - wait wait way-t, can arrow boy have Way?

Look, BLabies, I didn’t get any screen caps this episode because frankly there wasn’t anything worth capturing.

I guess Charlie really does love Babe? Very dramatic if idiotic saving from the burning car. But Babe has gone to the broken Alpha place of extremely unlikeablability (frankly he was almost there at the start). If I were Charles B Spectacled I would be OUT by now. 

Is that?

NO.

Don't get the plastic bowl.

No white towel sponge bath. Please kill this trope.  

I mean, it's not as bad as singing, but that's because NOTHING is as bad as singing in a Thai BL.

AND the main boys are back together.

I don’t find their relationship or Babe’s lack of senses a particularly interesting aspect of the plot.

Unless, of course, Babe is pregnant and that's why he lost his Alpha sniffer.

BUT I do love the sides.

Jeff = the introvert precog who can’t/wont do people and Alan = the extrovert people person who WANTS but doesn’t understand him. 

Were Jeff and Charlie ALSO raised by Evil Daddy MacEvilPants? 

I liked the way Arrow CEO & Way looked at each other. Way, hon, give up on Babe (he sucks) and get thyself a billionaire bf with great aim and BDE.

On a completely different note, the best thing about this show is the blooper reel. That thing with the green smoothie going down his pants was hilarious!

In conclusion, this was a green smoothie down the pants episode. I was entertained, and it’s probably gonna be good for the plot in retrospect, but it was kind of squishy and unpleasant at the time.

Episode 6 - Are they actually listening to us now? Is Tumblr bugged?

This was a fun ep full of like actual racing and shizz.

Whatever.

Charlie is on the team now. All the teams, apparently.

Can we talk about Jeff and Alan?

The apology scene! Did you hear that Alan dropped to chan/ger? Eeeee!!! So cute. (He equalized their relationship in a soft way.)

Get it with that language play hottie. Next up: lengua play.

Please & thank you. 

Meanwhile, as all of the Internet knows, they went fully in for omegaverse - no bars.

I have to say, one of the greatest typos (or whatever) in existence is enigma instead of omega.

That's where I personally would rank in the omegaverse.

Hello, my gender is... enigma.

 Apparently it's a/b/o and sometimes e!  Also sometimes switch-ee 

Oh I'm very proud of myself with that one.

Funfunfun

Charlie. Babes. When a man asks to be thrown up against the wall. You throw him against that wall.

OMG is that arrow boy looking at Way in the bar?

3 seconds later.

Noooo.

Wait come back.

Noooooo.

That’s what I actually want to watch! 

OMG. Who said nu was the first step to teelak?

I flipping love Alan. 

Ah the boyfriend ep. Thank you, but I still don't trust Charlie.

Poor Way.

But nice crying jag, and I don’t say that often in Thai BL.

Now let him go, Way.

A boy with his arrows is waiting. 

(source)

Note for the future: tumblr has a bug that stops allowing edits after a certain time/number, thus my full trash often occur in 2 segments as a result. Click on the "abl trash watches bl" tag for the full thing if you're reading this and later episodes are missing.

[herejusttosufferalong]

"This made me think about the press tour strategy, which was certainly planned since the beginning, way before January, I would imagine."

Sorry, this might also be long...I don't necessarily disagree completely here, but I do have a rebuttal. Yes, ShondaLand and Netflix knew what they had with Nic and Luke. However, the people who are in with them daily and see their dynamic are not the ones designing the promotional tour. Yes, they might have designed a press tour around a friends to lovers plot, but that doesn't mean they were purposefully exploiting any romantic feelings between them. There have been plenty of costars who don't get along who have had to go promote together and fake it. That's just part of the job. Studios expect them to put in the work, but they don't expect them to (fake) fall in love over the course of the tour. Nic and Luke were given talking points for the press tour. We can see that all the way back in summer 2023 when Nic first brings up the broken furniture. So the repetitive questions everyone complained about as well as saying Nic and Luke were unhinged cause they couldn't stop talking about their intimacy scenes, those were because of the marketing/PR team. HOW Nic and Luke responded was their own. That's why we saw their answers changing and the different levels of comfort between the two of them.

As far as Luke and Nic's behavior, I genuinely don't understand how people say they were purposefully playing up their connection. If anything, I think they interacted on a more surface level than they typically would. To me it has always been clear that Luke was super uncomfortable talking about anything personal. Anytime he was asked something about himself or his relationship with Nic he always brought it back to the show and his character. Seriously, go back and watch their interviews. It drove me crazy haha. This is one of the reasons people have been so frustrated with him. He very rarely shares actual personal details or feelings about Nic. She is willing to share more than him, but even still you know there is a lot more that isn't being said. She has a few key traits of his she'll hit on each time. Neither of them are being disingenuous, just different degrees of guarded. What frustrates people and makes them think they've been played are the times when their guard is dropped or they forget they're being filmed/watched and we see more than they're wanting to share peak out. We aren't owed their actual relationship, but we've seen glimpses of it and it's magical so we're all obsessed. We want to dissect and either put it on a pedestal or rip it down because we can't stand living in this uncomfortable grey space of not actually knowing anything.

Now to my biggest issue, Nic would NEVER exploit her family for show numbers. She doesn't even follow them on social media to keep them protected. You'll notice none of them were in any of the official materials put out. What we got were cell phone videos from fans inside the theater. Nic saw her mom for the first time in months in that theater. They didn't meet up prior. Her hugging her mom was genuine. Her excitement about introducing Luke was genuine. People took a sweet moment and made it weird. Marketing didn't orchestrate that. It's this type of narrative that makes celebrities stop sharing their private lives at all. If this was a marketing ploy, there would have been cameras at that dinner. We would all LOVE to see Nic's brother in law try to get Luke drunk. The teeny bit of footage we got from fan cell phone videos in that theater showed her sister in law, brother and best friend all emotional and loving the moments between Nic and her mom and Luke and her mom. Can't we appreciate and accept this was a real moment of connection? Or are we just too jaded?

Not everything with actors is fake. Not everything that happens while they happen to be on a press tour is PR. Some things are calculated, but it's not as disgusting as people are wanting to make it out to be.

another great perspective

thank you for sharing 💜

[vaguely-concerned]

A Stitch In Time First Read Reactions & Thoughts Monster Post Part 3

Stumbling over the finish line if not in style then with enthusiasm!

Part 1, Part 2

- Odo looked as if he could use a spell in his bucket; I had rarely seen him looking so run-down.

<3 I love one goo man 

“I’d better get this information to Captain Sisko,” Odo decided.

“Would you rather I tell him?” I offered. Odo looked positively drained; he needed to return to his liquid state.

Every time Odo is changeling-sleep deprived Garak starts to hear kill bill sirens and flash back to ‘the die is cast’. It is kind of sweet that he seems to be worried for his friend and not trying to gain an advantage or sneak around here tho. 

The ironies of the situation both amused and irritated me. Here I was, the invaluable decoder of Cardassian encryptions containing life-and-death information for the Federation—and they won’t trust me with the code to wake up Captain Sisko. Ah well, it was never easy being a Cardassian on this suspended chunk of desolation. And then I laughed out loud. But what about Odo? The last time I looked he was a changeling, a member of the race of Founders that was determined to destroy the Alpha Quadrant. Not only did he have the captain’s wake-up code, he also slept with the station’s second-in-command.

LMAO you know what fair fucking point garak. Tbf I’m sure there are some people who’ve been assuming you’ve been fucking the chief medical officer too 

But if Damar had thrown his support to the rebels … if it wasn’t a ploy… I wanted my revenge on him, yes, but not at the expense of liberating Cardassia. And it wasn’t just liberating the planet from the control of a foreign power. It was closer… more personal. I wanted something that was even more difficult to attain—redemption.

The doors opened, and once again I was alert as I stepped into the deserted corridor and moved past the sleeping quarters to my own. It was time, I kept repeating in my head. It was time to take our place among the planets and peoples of the Alpha Quadrant as a civilized and open society. It was time to repair the damage. “A stitch in time saves….” What? What was that expression?

*pats him very gently and lovingly on the head* This man can unironically fit so much character development in him

“You’re Khon-Ma, aren’t you?” She didn’t respond. “Being the only Cardassian on this station, I expected you a long time ago. What kept you?”

She should shoot you actually just for this

I stopped. What’s the point, I thought. All the stories were beginning to run together and they all had the same ending.

Smoking gun of ‘hm I think there might be some unreliable narration still lingering here’ lol. In a way all but openly admitting that like this is probably more like telling the truth for garak than telling the actual truth would be. From how we see him interact with Toran in the show I buy that the emotional truth about this is basically as he tells it tho — I think he’s angry and disgusted with himself more for having been unable to stop something from happening and taking that as being as responsible for it as the asshole who caused it, rather than actively making it happen himself. That’s the kind of pattern he has in so many other places in his life too, trying to navigate in the very limited space and with the very limited agency being submissive to personalities like Tain and Toran leaves you. 

“And they were all killed,” she said even more softly.

“End of story, Remara.” I considered telling her how I had exacted my own revenge upon Toran, and that my only regret was that his death hadn’t come sooner… but what was the point? Another treacherous opportunist dies after tearing another hole in the fabric. What’s gained except the potential for more damage? I rose. The station’s gravity felt like it had increased threefold.

“If you’re going to kill me, get it over with. One way or the other I’d like to go to sleep.”

“Who gave the order?” she asked.

“What difference does it make? I did, if you like.”

Remara just looked at me. She lowered the phaser. Part of me was deeply disappointed. 

The ‘has he been thinking with his horny brain this whole time or is he passive-actively suicidal’ conundrum. I suppose there’s nothing saying it can’t be both but I also think it’s more on the second side than he’d like anyone to know. I guess there’s no easy way to tell the guy who saved your life that you don’t really care that much for said life most days, and if you were offered some plausible deniability…

“You’re going to have to leave this station. They’ll keep coming after you until someone succeeds. Goodbye, Elim.” She put her hand against the side of my face, and I felt the heat coming through. Perhaps her passion was a curse as a terrorist, but she was a whole person … and she had found redemption.

Chewing on the idea of being a whole person vs. ‘unfinished man’ and ‘mosaic person’ 

- Gul Toran is someone Tain has warned me to monitor periodically.

Ah so Four Lubak is the future Gul Toran (the asshole in the Natima Lang ep if I remember correctly)! I see. That also means his snarking about Toran being made Gul is entirely performative he’s known about it for years lmao that was literally just to be a bitch  yes wonderful

- The fact that Tain has an evil Romulan twin/soulmate and they hate each other fdskjfhdsa

- So interesting that it does take until middle-age and Palandine’s extended presence in his life before Garak’s sense of humor really emerges fully. It seems such an integral part of him in the show, it sure is Something that it basically had to be carefully tended to and supported like a lil flower by careful gardener’s hands (thank you Palandine I’m sorry your life is a nightmare) 

- But I must confess that the toast proposed by proconsul Merrok left me feeling much better about the whole affair.

. . . 

“At first I couldn’t think why you hated him,” I confessed.

“I don’t hate anyone, Elim,” he carefully explained. “I have a job to do—and sometimes it’s necessary to eliminate those enemies who can’t otherwise be dissuaded. And he was determined to block our interests at every juncture.”

“I don’t hate anyone” says man composed of about 98% hate per volume

“Oh yes, my boy—yes, you did excellent work. A job well done.” He had never complimented me with such unconditional enthusiasm. It was almost a demonstration of paternal pride.

“You see, I had this planned for a long time, Elim. But Tolan wouldn’t agree. He wouldn’t take on the assignment, and he wouldn’t pass on the information. But thankfully he trusted you, Elim.” Tain patted me on the shoulder, which meant I was dismissed.

Weaponizing Tolan’s memory against him. Fucked Up. 

- Fear and isolation, Doctor. You can’t have one without the other. Fear isolates and isolation is fear’s natural home. Just as my orchids need carefully prepared soil to protect them against disease and pests, fear needs the isolated circumstances to deepen and grow without connective or relational interference. When fear is allowed to flourish in its dark and lonely medium, then any evil that can be conceived by the fearful imagination will emerge.<

This whole chapter is so fucking good, and it starts slapping right from the beginning. The way this works not only as a description of the larger crimes of Cardassia, but also the shape of his own life. 

‘My orchids’ is very sweet, and a phrasing that occurs several times. 

My feelings are spent, my moral rationalizations are empty, and I can’t say it’s not my problem when I’m pulling and lifting and throwing bodies of people who once only wanted to go about the business of their lives.

His life has been a series of violent deconstruction followed by reassembly of the broken pieces, and this should have been the most shattering of all but it comes across as almost peaceful. He finally gets to have his soul to himself enough to make something meaningful with it and put it together in his own time and in the shape of his own truth, even in the middle of such a painful realization.  

Colonel Kira once told me how many Bajorans died during the Cardassian Occupation, and my mind rejected the figure like a piece of garbage. We’d been in the service of the state, I had told myself, and the state had determined what was necessary. But now I understand why she hated me. More important, I now understand that constant burning, almost insane look in her eyes.

. . . 

Most of us who are left, Doctor, are insane. We have to be in order to survive and emerge from our isolation. It’s the only way we can live with the pain of what we did. Or didn’t. Each of us accepts the amount of responsibility we are capable of bearing. Some accept nothing, and these people are quickly swallowed by their isolation, their insanity transformed into a rationalized evil. A smaller group accepts total responsibility, and their insanity is an unbearable burden that cripples and eventually grinds them down. The rest of us carry what we can and leave the rest. For myself, Doctor, when a corpse is too heavy to bury I try to remember to ask someone to help me.

This man can hold so much fucking character development 2 electric boogaloo and HOW!! Imagine early seasons Garak saying anything like this! Even while I’ll also buy that early seasons Garak does have the capacity to get to this point in the end after enough work. AND the way it goes with his dream of Cardassia as a mass grave earlier/later on in the book — which also sort of indicates that the person he’s asked to ‘bury these bodies with’, as it were, before, was specifically Bashir. ‘You taught me to ask for help’. I’m so fucking soft for all the ways Garak is showing him that he touched his life in the very best and most beautiful way anyone could, no matter where they go from here.  

- “I don’t know. I suppose I’m just trying to reconcile statistical analysis with Romulan gardens.” We lapsed into a long, stony silence. Usually she knew better than to expect a real answer when she did ask about my working life. We both tried not to venture into certain personal spaces; often the attempt functioned as a barrier. I’m sure she knew that I was more than a data analyst at the Hall of Records. She also understood that the less she knew about what I did the more chance our relationship had to survive. For the same reason I never asked about Lokar. The less information, the less damage if either one of us was betrayed.

Garak that’s kind of sloppy, of course she knows something’s up if you’re making it that easy to figure out lol

Another interesting detail: Palandine seemingly never learns that Tain is Garak’s biological father, then. Very emblematic of the way all those secrets were still getting between them despite their best efforts. And lending even more meaning to the fact that many years later he lets Julian find out in uh perhaps the most direct way possible haha. 

“I’m of two minds. I know, that’s just another way of saying that I’m confused.”

Huh. I wonder if the way this is phrased suggests that that’s not a common expression in Cardassian and he’s translating it directly from Standard or something, or that his uh. Mental confusion/dissociation/fragmentation pops up enough that she’s familiar with it already here? 

“Yes. What if they’re right? What if they could help us reclaim something noble in ourselves? Where does that leave us?” We stood looking at each other. The night wind gusted through the foliage and I wondered where I’d be if I didn’t have this woman’s friendship.

What a soft way to describe it. Really drives home the like. Wholeness of what she meant to him. 

“It was a while ago, Palandine. I don’t know if they’re in the same place … or if they even meet tonight.” Her enthusiasm rendered me as helpless as it did when I first met her.

Julian/Palandine parallels time yet again 

I looked at Palandine, and she now radiated with such light that I turned away, inexplicably embarrassed as if I had seen something I shouldn’t.

So sad somehow that they kind of drift apart in this scene, where Palandine finds something that helps her and he mostly seems to come away lost and confused, if cleansed. (and he still can’t cry with someone else in the room) 

After Palandine had left, I had spent the rest of the night sitting in the Grounds near the children’s area.

How is this so goddamn sad fhkjshfa. They’re still just children, and no one is going to come pick them up from the playground, no one is going to protect them

- “Yes, of course,” I replied. I took a deep breath, and my disparate parts began to snap back. 

Adrift from himseeelf. This is kind of what I meant about Palandine maybe picking up on some of his — this stuff. Which structurally pops back up in The Wire too, with how he tells the stories. 

“You look like you’re not eating anything,” Prang observed. If Tain was the father of the Obsidian Order, Prang was its mother.

LMAO. And he’s constantly worried about his saddest son I guess. Tain/Prang most cursed DS9 rarepair idea???

- His other hand was now probing my skull behind the right ear. The man’s ambidexterity was impressive.

Lol diversity win: the mad doctor about to implant you with experimental tech is ambidextrous!

Oh. Oh no it’s the wire time. The fact that he’s one of the first agents fitted with it b/c his hindbrain distress tolerance is too worryingly low  for their comfort…

When I tell you that this wire will give you no trouble, as long as you don’t meddle with it, you can believe me. You know that, don’t you, Elim?”

“Yes, I do, Mindur.” The man had never given me anything but superb technology and sound advice. “Please continue,” I submitted.

“Good boy.” Timor thumped my shoulder again.

HORROR SHOW CULTURE ONCE MORE and also. Praise kink revisited and made more interestingly fucked up. Also submission theme thread. 

Do you think he’d meddle with the wire eventually even if he hadn’t been exiled. I feel like there’s a non-zero chance of that.  

- I remembered the Hebitian frieze and its lush background. Of course we were different people: it was a different world. The more the forests receded, it seems, the more we covered ourselves. Their world didn’t need an agent of the Obsidian Order to investigate a group of prominent Cardassians who “happened” to be spending their vacation together. It didn’t have Enabran Tain targeting one of his bitterest enemies, Procal Dukat, a powerful member of the Central Command. And I’m certain it didn’t have fathers who refused to acknowledge their sons. If we lived on the next spiral of the cycle of life, how did we know it wasn’t going downward?

a) ‘what if the glass is not only half-empty but also leaking’ yes very cheery Garak and b) one of the rare times he lets not just his bitterness with Tain but also his longing to be acknowledged by him fully shine through. To me it seems like that’s the one thing that’s still too raw for him to dwell on in this narrative. He mostly doesn’t get into or sit with the pretty obvious fact that he loved Tain, and desperately wanted Tain to love him too. You can see the traces through the whole thing of just how angry he is with him now that he’s dead (GOOD! HE SHOULD BE! HE SHOULD BE ANGRIER; IF ANYTHING!), but that particular element of it seems too vulnerable to keep in sight most times

- PYTHAS IS BACK BA-BEY! 

His grace was even more refined as he moved to the small house that was our assigned base of operations. If anything could have taken my mind off downward spirals it was the appearance of Pythas. 

And the mutual crush endures (also with me I love a sneaky little twink)

“What was good for you, Elim, was usually agreeable to me as well,” he wryly observed.

The way Pythas is like Garak’s shadow — except in Garak’s eyes he does everything ‘right’, he doesn’t seem to have that same aching need for connection, he follows his orders easily, he’s perfect and he reaps the rewards Garak never gets. Garak never even resents or begrudges him any of it. And yet they end up in basically the same place when all’s said and done, in the ruins of Cardassia, and Garak might even win out b/c his trials with the mortifying ordeal of being known mean he has some people in his life he’s starting to truly trust, the way Pythas seems to with Nal as well. Thinking. A lot of things. 

Over the years, his modest demeanor and quiet ways had turned him into more of a solitary person than I ever was. I had learned to withdraw my presence as a tool, but I was always aware of my need for contact, and that my value as an operative lay in my ability to engage others in a nonthreatening manner that drew them out. Pythas had learned to withdraw his presence as a way of life—and he moved through the world like a shadow. I was not surprised that Tain had recruited him for the “invisibles.” It took a special person to be able to operate in such unrelentingly anonymous circumstances—no family, no fixed base or identity—and there was no doubt in my mind that he was one of the most brilliant agents in the Order. Our relationship picked right up where it had left off at Bamarren. Other than Prang, I have never met anyone where so much was communicated with so few words. His eyes had a depth and eloquence that told me everything I wanted to know. How ironic that my lust for conversation was satisfied by someone who rarely spoke.

Ah, so if Palandine is the proto-Julian, as it were (and Parmak is the silver fox Ersatz Julian), Pythas is definitely the anti-Julian as well as Garak’s shadow hahaha. 

- Garak is undeniably a city boy at the end of the day haha. Pythas help him out there in the jungle he doesn’t belong here I understand why you’re so worried

- In a way it was touching: the old man reverting to the mind control exercises he had learned as a child.

Garak. The warning bells. Should they perhaps be ringing merrily in your mind at this combination of words and letters. Oh well. 

- “Yes, it’s me.” I squatted so that I was at eye level. I tried to soften myself, round off all the sharp edges.

Yes yes yes this is such a good description of that Thing he does. His ‘just a lil guy/tailor/gardener/funny spy man’ move

‘Carriers of disease’ and spreading poison motifs are back. Dukat Sr. uses it here to describe cowardice/Federation ideals/hashtag the SJWs/the forces that threaten to disrupt the status quo of the fascist state. 

- I left the containment field in place and stepped outside to clear my head. No matter how objective I tried to remain, I could never remain totally unaffected by another man’s horror. Fear was a contagious disease.

This seems right to me — I don’t think anyone who could truly shrug off other people’s suffering would have to make up such webs of justification and alienation as Garak does to do what he does. Maybe that empathy is why he’s so good at it and also why it messes him up so bad over time 

His *Working 9-5 slowed down & with reverb plays softly in the background* vibe about it is undeniably kind of funny tho

Contagious disease thread cont too, and not the first time fear is spoken of that way

“Who are you?” he asked for the second time, fighting against the toxin’s effect. This was one tough old warrior.

“Your worst nightmare,” I replied.

“Ah,” he croaked. “Then Tain sent you.”

- YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE fhdkjshasjh good for you Pythas isn’t there to hear it that is so embarrassing Garak (affectionate)

- Garak dreaming of being buried with the still-whispering mass grave of Old Cardassia… what the fuck I don’t think I’d sleep ever again after that haha

Of all of the people he dreams of, most of them are dead (or potentially soon about to be dead? Not entirely sure how that works out for Mila in particular. And I guess we technically don’t know if Calyx is dead, but after so long it seems very likely), except as we find out later Pythas. And Palandine isn’t there. 

NO. NO YOU CANNOT TELL ME THE FIRST THING HE DOES IS CALL JULIAN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING NIGHT  W H A  T 

“It’s not a medical emergency. Please, I realize this is an imposition.” There was a silence and I heard another voice in the background. Ezri Dax. A muffled conversation. The Doctor cleared his throat again.

“I’ll be right over,” he said.

This is so melancholy I want to disappear into a puddle of quiet yearning and never come back to solid form just put me in a bucket like the Odo. 

This is also the first time in this book Garak has asked Julian for help rather than Julian trying to approach him to give him help (and being rebuffed). He’s called for and he comes :’)

He gave me his puzzled look, which wrinkled his brow. I was always amazed at how deep the furrows were for one so young.

Soft little detail time yet again. Garak has been sitting across Julian for years just looking at this face and picking out new details. 

“ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’” he quoted.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Shakespeare,” the Doctor replied.

“Hmmh.” I nodded in agreement, surprised that for once the author of the politically misguided Julius Caesar made sense.

Fhdskhfskjdfhsdjak you say that as if you didn’t quote the politically misguided Julius Caesar to your father’s face on a burning spaceship as you for the first time truly saw that he was as fallible as anyone else and invoking Bashir’s name in the process Garak

“Of who we are, Doctor. Our being. Human being. Cardassian being. But we have become these beings—are becoming, always in the process of becoming—on these other dimensional levels that are not limited by the measures of time and space. And the great determining factor of our becoming is relationship. Unrelated, I become unrelated. Alienated. Opposed, I become an antagonist. Unified, I become integrated. A functioning member of the whole.” The Doctor was thoughtful; his previous agitation had dissolved.

“You’re a scientist, Doctor. You have a deep understanding of this level. I don’t mean just the mechanics. You understand about relationship, the laws that attract and repel, the combinations that nurture and poison. Health and disease. Integrity and breakdown.”

“In your dream,” he said, “I presided over the burial of yourself and the people you were most intimately related to. Why?”

“You said, ‘for the good of the quadrant…. they must never be allowed to return.’ Why would you say that?” I asked.

“I can only think that….” He stopped and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Garak. This is not easy for me. I still can’t help thinking this was your dream. Even if I was invited … you were the playwright.”

“Yes, but put yourself in that part. Why would you bury these people and cover up the pit?” The Doctor looked at me in frustration. “Please. Indulge me. It’s vital that I have your answer.”

“If you and the others were carriers of some disease,” he shrugged. “In our fourteenth century on Earth there was a terrible plague, the Black Plague, which wiped out half of Europe’s population. People believed that the dead bodies had to be destroyed, burned … buried … because it was the only way to prevent the spread of the disease….”

. . . 

The Doctor was studying me with an interest in his face I hadn’t seen in years.

“Well? Is it the Black Plague, Doctor? Or just the ramblings of an old spy on the eve of battle?”

“You’re an amazing man, Garak.”

“And my gratitude to you can never be adequately expressed. But I shall try,” I promised.

“Please. What have I done?” he asked genuinely.

“That time you extended yourself so generously and found a way to remove the wire from my brain without killing me …”

“I would have done that for anyone,” the Doctor interrupted.

“I’m sure that’s true, but that’s not what I mean. All during the time the device was deteriorating, I was convinced I was going to die.”

“You were even resigned to it,” he reminded me.

“I was also convinced that it was all a dream, and I kept asking myself what you were doing there.”

The Doctor was puzzled. “But what you just told me, that our dreams are just another way we relate … ?”

“I had forgotten. That point of my life was perhaps the lowest. I had forgotten many things. When I ‘woke up’ and realized that because of you I was going to live—at that moment, I began to recollect some valuable information.”

“About dreams?” he asked.

“Yes. But specifically about relationships, and how they set the course of our lives. You not only ’saved’ my life, you also made it possible for me to live it.” The Doctor’s face darkened.

“What is it, Doctor?”

“The time I wounded you in that holosuite program ….”

“Yes,” I prompted expectantly.

“I never apologized for my action.”

“And you must never apologize!” I urged.

“Please, Garak. This is not the time to give me a lesson on how to behave like a hardened spy….”

“No, no, no. On the contrary, when you shot me, my dear friend, that was the next step in my process of remembering. I was going to sacrifice the others, the people you considered your friends, because that was the only way I could be sure to save myself. You opposed me. Indeed, you would have killed me if necessary.”

“I’m sure it would never have gotten to that point,” the Doctor muttered.

“You would have killed me,” I repeated. “For the greater good.” The cliche suddenly had another meaning for both of us. “This is my last trip to Cardassia. I’m not returning. You were in the dream for a very specific reason. Once again, you helped me remember. Thank you, Julian.” I put my hand on his shoulder.

“You’re welcome,” he smiled warmly. “And by the way. It wasn’t the dead bodies that carried the disease. It was later determined that it was the rats feeding on the bodies who were the transmitters.”

“Then I guess we’ll go to Cardassia and look for the rats,” I said.

“Be careful, Garak. And look after my hot-headed friend, will you?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll look after each other,” I answered him. He moved to the door. “Did you really have a dream about Hippocrates?” I asked.

“Yes. Actually I did.”

“Why am I not surprised?” I replied.

First name use…

Disease contagion imagery, and this time it’s very clearly symbolizing y’know the fascism of it all. Weirdly moving that Julian takes a moment to gently imply that the disease isn’t inherent in the people Garak loves and has loved (or in him, for that matter), but in the conditions that created them. 

There’s so much going on here idk if I could start to pick it apart yet, I may need to let this percolate in my skull for a while before I know what to say haha. I think part of it is Garak telling Julian to never apologize for showing him the full truth of himself (not least because that also lets Garak see the full truth of himself in turn), and Julian finally relaxing about. Something. He’s been ashamed about something he can finally let go of. 

‘I thought it was a dream, and kept asking myself what you were doing there’.......I will never emotionally recover from this I want to write fic specifically about this lord have mercy on me

- *Tain Voice* with your hippie bullshit and your women! 

*tiny garak voice* woman…

Over the years we rarely met outside his office; only an emergency or drastic change of plan would alter the routine. Now as we walked through the late morning sun and pedestrians at a leisurely pace I experienced a connection to the surrounding bustle and energy in a way that felt almost normal. A father and his son taking a stroll. Tain was heavier, and I could hear his breathing labor with the effort. He’s an old man, I thought. He’s mortal. I’d never thought about Tain in this way, and I became protective as we approached an aggressive knot of pedestrians at the edge of the Coranum Sector. One man was about to run Tain down when I intercepted his path and bumped him to the side. I ignored his challenge as we continued. “Yes, Elim. I’m getting old.” It wasn’t the first time he picked up my thoughts; this was how our conversations usually went.

HE BECAME PROTECTIVE 

You know the way he keeps touching Tain’s arm and shoulder in The Die is Cast, like he’s steadying him or about to step in front of him to protect him or something? Yeah… he burns his hands on this stove over and over and over but he can’t stop trying to touch it :(

This was so typical of his manipulation. Just moments ago I was feeling protective of this benign old man, my father. And now… the irony filled my mouth with a bitter taste.

This is always & forever first and foremost an Enabran Tain hate zone

He moved to the covered seating area, where the sun filtered through the old vegetation. I had never been here with anyone but Palandine. With a long sigh he settled into a patch of sunlight on the low bench.

He’s like a fucking strangle vine he just winds himself into every single part of garak’s existence and chokes the life out of it 

“Yes,” I answered. The benign mask was slipping, and I began to see the depth of his anger.

. . . 

“You don’t know!” he repeated with a disgust I hadn’t heard since I was a boy and failed to record all the details of one of our walks.

Oof. Ow. Ack. 

“And all this while, instead of giving up your life to the work, hardening yourself into a leader who could inspire others and expand the vision, you’re playing out Hebitian fantasies with another man’s wife!”

“Yes. Just like Tolan!” I exploded. “Perhaps he was my real father after all.”

Tain rose like a man many years younger and grabbed my shoulder in a powerful grip. His anger was now a murderous fury and it was all I could do to hold my stance against the pain of his grip. His cold eyes told me I had betrayed him. Worse, I had failed him. He let go of my shoulder and turned away from me. My entire body trembled. When he turned back he had regained his composure.

The biggest sin Garak could commit in Tain’s eyes is to dare to separate himself from him in any way; to be anything but his mirror, to act as if he has any claim to his own soul. I feel like more than what happens with Barkan right after this, this is what Tain considers the real betrayal. 

Tain has never needed to hit him or become physically violent with him to keep him under control ever since he was a very small child, he’s relied on the terrorizing force of emotional violence. And as is so often the case with emotional violence, it’s been insidious and hidden enough, kept to private spaces and in the shadows, that Tain can pretend at plausible deniability b/c like. Who’s Garak even going to tell about it, for the longest time, if a miracle happened and he even found he could? Mila, who has joined the war on emotional violence on the side of emotional violence since probably before Garak was even born? (For understandable psychological reasons, but in unforgivable ways in the role of a parent.) I wonder if ‘making him’ lose control and expose himself and his violence for what it is like this (in public, even!) is also part of what he can’t forgive Garak for. This ah ‘slip-up’ is the first big crack we see in Tain’s image of perfect implacable control (which is very much still the impression you’re left with in Garak’s stories in The Wire too), in the same way that Improbable Cause/The Die Is Cast completely breaks that image down. He is getting old. He stayed in the game too long in the end and his iron grip is starting to slip and everything he’s forced to stay in place starts to slip out of that order with it.

Characterizing what Tolan was doing as ‘living with another man’s wife’ is SUCH a subtle burn tho lol like yeah maybe after the strictures of our society you SHOULD have married the mother of your child instead of outsourcing all your decency to the said mother’s BROTHER, Tain 

Aside from anything else going on here (and there is a lot going on)... does Tain even know who Garak is at all, just on a personal level? Why, after knowing him for like 40+ years at this point, presumably, would you expect him to have aspirations or the natural inclination towards leadership, have you ever met him??? He’s one of nature’s perfect right hand men (well. Maybe not entirely nature’s, Tain did this to him very deliberately on top of some basic natural tendencies lol), he’ll get you whatever you ask of him and I think organizing a team under him for you could be part of that when need be, but never has he shown the least inclination towards leadership. (In fact, despite longing for the recognition coming out on top would get him from daddy I mean his peers, he seems vaguely relieved each time Pythas gets to sit in the big important chair instead of him.) He isn’t Tain’s mirror, for all he dutifully tries to move in the ways that make it seem like he is. And Tain should be smart enough to know that, if the narcissism didn’t completely blot out his sight in this situation, and/or it’s just the ‘setting him up to fail and then acting outraged when he does’ pure maliciousness reaching its apex.

(In a kinder time and a kinder world I think Garak could have a real nice time being one of nature’s extremely devoted Partners rather than simply right hand man. And I would like to see it please)  

“From now on you will report to Corbin Entek.”

Oh, that’s the Entek of Second Skin, probably. Wish you a very ‘get vaporized for not knowing when to quit’ in the future entek 

As I watched him leave, I felt completely empty and wondered how I could feel such emptiness. This sudden, wrenching reversal of fortune … everything changed beyond recognition…. And yet … there was no anger, no self-pity … no fear. Only release. Release from the secrets. Release from the limbo where, ever since I was a boy, I had been trapped between imposed obligations and feelings of mysterious longing mixed with shame. I felt empty … and free.

Listen to that voice maybe garak (not that I think there IS any way out at this point or that there ever has been in truth, that’s kind of the tragedy of the whole thing, tain would never ever have let go of him)

- Mila goodbye time: 

“I’m afraid we’re not leaving you much,” she said. “The furnishings have already been taken away.”

“I wasn’t expecting anything.” I tried to keep all irony out of my tone.

“It’s your choice, Elim.” Her voice was just as neutral. “The house is yours to live in.”

Mother and son having a Carefully Extremely Civil conversation lol

“Do you know the circumstances … Mila?”

She looked at me. It was the first real contact we’d had in many years. She nodded slowly.

“Before I make my ‘choice,’ I need your help,” I said, surprised that the request emerged so simply. I wasn’t as angry with her as I wanted to be. Mila saw this and softened perceptibly.

This running thread that almost despite himself he understands and empathizes with her and her situation too much to be as angry with her as he probably should be. He understands her better than she understands him (than she could allow herself to understand him, even if she had the ability to). 

I think that these apparently contradictory elements of his personality are part of what makes him feel so real in some ways, too — interpersonally he can be incredibly petty and jealous and judgemental AND almost absurdly forgiving and generous, sometimes seemingly simultaneously, somehow. The classic containing multitudes meme but like forreals tho haha. That is what real people are like too. 

“I love her, Mila.”

“You’re a grown man, Elim.” I couldn’t decide whether she thought I didn’t know this or was seeing it for the first time herself.

“And Palandine’s a grown woman,” I replied.

“I don’t care about her. It’s you! You have to learn…” She broke off and passed me a cup which exuded the herbal aroma I’ve always associated with her and Tolan. Bitterbark and sweet groundroot. Moist rich soil.

“To control myself?” Mila blew on her tea. I shrugged at the obvious irony; I didn’t want to get into a fight.

. . . 

Mila sat on a bin and sipped her tea. She avoided my look. As I positioned another bin across from her, I experienced a deep pain in my shoulder. It was still throbbing.

“Tain’s angry … with me. He wants me never to see her again and … to kill Barkan.” Still she avoided looking at me. “But you know this, don’t you? And you know what’s possible. Because you have your own … thoughts about this. Don’t you Mila?” I persisted.

Again she jerked away from me. Tea from her cup slopped onto the floor. “There’s no time, Elim.” She put the cup down, wiped her hands on the protective smock she wore, and looked for something to clean the floor with. “There’s no time for this.”

The mother/child relationship here is… y’know I talk a lot about Garak’s daddy issues for obvious reasons, but the fact that his mother recoils in fear when he tries to engage some sliver of real emotional intimacy with her prrrrrobably did some similar amounts of shaping him huh haha. (and he does this too in many ways — that’s partially where his trouble with Julian comes from in this book, whenever Julian tries to get too close Garak flinches away or counterattacks, for all that he clearly longs for it as well.)

The  roundabout way you can tell her love for him even so tho. ‘I don’t care about her’. Palandine is not her baby, Elim, you are. Mila hasn’t been left with the luxury of love to spare for someone she doesn’t even know when you’re setting yourself up for destruction right in front of her eyes…. 

“I mean it, Mila. I would. But I think about her, feel her, all the time. Especially when I’m alone.”

Palandine/Bashir parallels once more and I really mean it!! There used to be a little Palandine in his head the way there’s a little Julian in there now. (and sadly she doesn’t seem to be there anymore, or maybe he’s just integrated what he got from her and let the rest go for both of their sakes, the same way he let Mila the regnar go when it was time.) 

“Sacrifices?” In frustration Mila took off her smock to wipe the tea from the floor. “Elim, you amaze me.” Shaking her head, she got down on her knees and began scrubbing vigorously, as if the spilled drops of tea were hostile agents capable of spreading disease and destruction.

“Really? Well, I’m pleased I still have the ability—”

“Sacrifices,” she hissed, her control escaping like steam from a narrow rift. “What was the name of that book you once gave me? When you first came back from Bamarren. The one you proclaimed as the greatest Cardassian novel ever written and insisted that we read it.” Mila was still on her knees, but now I was the offending spot she vigorously rubbed with her words and eyes. “Generations of one family, each faced with the same choice at a crucial moment. Do they serve their personal needs or do they serve future generations? Do they choose the comfort of their own lives over the life of the state and its mission? I read it, Elim. You told me to and I did.”

“The Never-Ending Sacrifice,” I answered.

“Yes. That’s the one.” She made a sighing sound as she stood up. Mila was heavier now, and moved with greater deliberation. She, too, had grown old. “I suggest you reread it.”

“Tain always came first, didn’t he? I suppose that was your never-ending sacrifice.” I no longer reined in the irony.

I’m CRYING this is SUCH a mom thing to do. Her teen son came home with a book he waxed poetic about and she read it to try to understand him and never told him until now. 

Also: disease contagion theme thread! To Mila, it seems to be tied in with the sentiment reading of it — the way her child’s suffering stains all her safe stable justifications and rationalizations that she needs to stay alive in this system. The remaining humanity that can’t be completely stamped out, even by Tain and a lifetime of fuckery. The ‘imperfections’ of life that can’t be subsumed completely into order. 

Garak I think it’s better if you don’t recommend that book to people it clearly leads to disappointing interpersonal outcomes every time haha

“Tolan understood and accepted his obligations,” Mila said coldly. “But he was sentimental. Like you. That was the one thing Enabran worried about.”

I smiled in sad recognition. Sentimental. Yes, Tain and Mila had definitely shared their confidences and judgments with each other.

“But I don’t blame Tolan. He was a good man.” Mila watched me as I rose.

“Yes. So you keep saying.” I wanted to leave.

“She’s nothing but trouble for you, Elim. End it now. Do what Enabran says and reclaim your rightful place.”

“My place,” I repeated.

“Now, Elim. Otherwise you’re in real danger,” she warned with a certainty that reminded me of the time she’d brought me to Tain after I’d left Bamarren. Mila always knew what was at the heart of the never-ending sacrifice.

“Thank you for your help,” I said, too weary for irony.

“What did you expect from me?”

“To be honest, I can’t remember,” I answered. “Have a pleasant trip.” I smiled and bowed.

“What did you expect from me?”/“To be honest, I can’t remember,” is THE realest description I’ve seen of a mother/child relationship. This might say more about me than I should be comfortable with probably but still. 

“Let Limor know if you’ll be living here.” I nodded. Yes, I thought, that would be my answer. My choice. She shook out her smock to determine whether or not to put it back on.

“Mila.” She looked at me and took a deep breath, as if preparing herself for my question.

“Who was Tolan?”

“My brother.” She decided to wear the smock, and I left.

I am SO FUCKING SAD. She puts the smock back on. That’s the closest thing to keeping either of them she gets to have, just the second hand reminder that they were there, small and innocuous enough that no one will know and no one can blame her. In the end Tain takes everything else, and she lets him because it’s the only way to survive him. GET OUT OF THERE ELIM PLEASE 

- On an impulse, instead of leaving immediately, I went down the corridor to Tain’s old office. The door was open, and I stopped at the threshold just as Pythas looked up from a now much cleaner desk. He smiled shyly and stood up.

“Please come in, Elim,” he offered. What surprised me was how pleased I was to see him. Just as I had felt he was the only other person who deserved to be One Lubak, I now believed he was the only other person who deserved to occupy this office.

He smiled shyly did he fhskja. Also Garak’s enduring lack of bitterness towards Pythas is amazing. ‘Yeah I would be mad but he really is that good if it had to be anyone it should be him’

- She stopped just short of my covering shrub, and the sight of her face shocked me. It was swollen and bruised. One eye was completely closed, and the other contained enough pain for ten. It took every bit of my willpower not to reach out and hold her. Her one eye held mine, I knew she wanted to tell me something so important that she was willing to wait all night if necessary. 

I’m so fucking glad Barkan is about to eat it for good. I only wish it could have gone slower and more painfully for him. 

I wanted to laugh, and it took a concerted effort to gather my disparate parts in order to integrate my will.

‘Disparate parts’ motif (dare we say mosaic motif?) detected

“At least the smile’s gone,” the first voice said. I was fully awake now. 

Barkan’s life is just being haunted by fifty shades of Garak’s shit eating grin apparently 

“Flaunting your ‘relationship’ in public like infatuated schoolchildren.”

“Yes, I suppose it would have been wiser to behave like experienced adulterers,” I replied with a sigh.

“You’re the lowest form of scavenger, Elim. You have no attachments of your own, and so you feed on the emotional vulnerabilities of others.

. . .

“But you’re a failure, Elim. You even failed in your attempt to assassinate me.”

“I didn’t fail with Palandine,” I said quietly.

LMAO gottem 

The chemical makeup of Garak’s brain during Barkan’s beating should probably have been studied by science it must be the strangest rave in there

The others were there—my fellow travelers, their voices murmuring tonelessly, producing a steady sound that permeated the medium and intensified our connection. Their voices speaking to me. Their faces, serene and loving, illuminating the darkness as they floated by. Everyone I have ever known. Family. Faces from childhood. Bamarren. People I had known briefly. People I have known forever. Loved. Hated. We were all just together now, sharing the same nurturing medium as we traveled along our currents until we gradually separated.

This… near-death hallucination or spiritual experience or whatever it is vs. his mass grave dream later… very birth vs. death themed

Faces formed and reformed. Each one superimposed on the next in a long line emerging from blackness. Maladek. Merrok…. The molecular structure of one giving way to the next…. Procal Dukat. Tolan. Floating into focus, receding back into the darkness. I shook my head, trying to stop the flow. The Hebitian mask. My face. I grabbed my “face” and screamed into it. The flow stopped. The molecules rushed together and instantly formed Barkan Lokar’s death mask.

I think maybe something came a tiny little bit completely untethered in his head in a way it’s been threatening to for a long time in this moment. It may just be my imagination tho who’s to say

- “Elim Garak. How the mighty have fallen. Welcome to Terok Nor.”

“Oh, I try to visit even our humblest outposts, Dukat.”

“This is going to be more than a visit, trust me. You’ll soon wish that the execution had not been commuted.”

a) ah garak/dukat sniping my old friend b) It seems Tain never spoke to him in that whole process, so that time in the park was probably the last time before ‘Improbable Cause’?. I’m only surprised he didn’t give Dukat the neutral face of displeasure to convey to Garak second hand honestly 

- “I’m sure you gave him a more ennobling position,” I said.

“He was executed,” the toady replied.

“A promotion of sorts,” I muttered. “Certainly in this place.”

The passionate enduring Garak/Terok Nor hateship off to an immediate and roaring start

- Real ‘he gave them the heebie jeebies. He had nothing else left to give’ vibes on garak in this part of his life 

- He arched his brows in a manner that told me he’d worked long and hard in front of a mirror.

There’s always time to appreciate some good Dukat dunking

“Your life means nothing to me. Just as my father’s meant nothing to you.”

“I beg your pardon? Do I know your father?” Dukat made a move to grab me and immediately stopped himself. I was impressed by his self-control; I knew how much energy fueled his hatred.

“No offense,” I went on, further testing his control. “Of course, Procal Dukat was a famous military figure. We all mourned his passing. But I never had the pleasure personally….”

At his most miserable, but also his funniest. It IS really interesting that his humor only really reaches its current state here, when he’s lost Palandine and everything else in his life. It’s almost like the only remaining way to be close to her. 

No, I decided that I was not going to sacrifice myself to Dukat’s desire for revenge. I would do this work; I would do it so well as to become indispensable to the station… and I would survive. I refused to be buried alive in this humiliation.

‘Sort of suicidal: yes; willing to go down in history as one of Dukat’s Ws… fuck no’

- I pick up their garments and mend them flawlessly. When they complain that the price is steep (because I’m treated like a slave doesn’t mean I’m going to start undervaluing my work), I just give them the smile—the smile she taught me.

Fdsahfasj hilarious. You go Garak you know your worth

- (About Pythas and Palandine) At this moment I am almost afraid to discover that they’d survived. A part of me has wanted to bury that part of my life. The defenses I set up to survive my exile are obviously still intact.

I am often joined on my walks by Dr. Parmak. He’s a charming conversationalist, with a first-rate mind. His perspectives are always provocative. He does, however, have a tendency to proselytize for Alon Ghemor and the “Reunion Project” (the name they’ve given their group to remind people of the principles that formed the original Union). Whenever we encounter other pedestrians along our route, Parmak engages them and attempts to win them over to the Reunion side. This often makes for spirited exchanges, and although I am subjected to the opinions of people who should be given a new brain, I rather enjoy this peripatetic politicking. It’s something I would never have done on my own. In some respects he is so much like you, Doctor. If I’ve found someone’s opinion insufferably boring, he’ll kindly but sternly lecture me on the value of tolerance.

The wistful longing of ‘in some respects he’s so much like you’. ‘Although i am subjected to the opinions of people who should be given a new brain’. ‘Charming conversationalist’, is he. Garak you are a nonsense person and I adore you 

One day I asked him how he had been brought to Enabran Tain’s attention. He never struck me as being a dangerous radical. It turns out that he was Tain’s personal physician, and that the great man had him interrogated because, the Doctor assumed, “he was concerned that I was in an ideal position to assassinate him.”

“I think he was more threatened by the fact that you were intimate with his weaknesses,” I pointed out.

“Well, certainly his physical infirmities,” he admitted.

“Which are also a man’s weaknesses,” I reminded him.

“The paranoia, the secrets, the power he held….” The doctor shook his head. “He must have been a difficult man to work for.” I smiled at his understated tact.

“He once tried to have me killed,” I said.

“Really? What did you do, Elim?”

“I survived.” The Doctor gave me a confused look.

“Survived … what?” he asked.

“Working for my father,” I replied. The Doctor stopped and just looked at me. His former fear of my eyes was long gone.

“A father who would murder his own son?” The idea horrified him. We were in the Barvonok Sector, where the tall structures of business and finance once dominated. “Oh, my dear Elim,” he said, this time with an empathy that stripped me of any illusions I had about Enabran Tain as a father. Surrounded by the piles of debris, oppressed by the low leaden sky, I finally began to surrender to the loneliness and loss that has preyed upon my dreams ever since I can remember. Even nothing is better than the ideas that have brought us here.

Go on without me I’ll be over here crying my eyes out 

- I wonder if Limor Prang was one of the people killed in Tain’s Obsidian Order purge in Improbable Cause. If he  was still alive that seems pretty likely huh. Well. RIP terrifying team mom I guess.  

- Garak got his business up and running for real through a deal with Quark! Puts some of their interactions into perspective haha

I don’t do well with the kind of emotional exchanges humans seem to engage in regularly, and I have little sympathy for those who confuse the responsibilities of family with their duty to the state; but I confess that I am deeply moved by this woman’s plight.

Well it’s good the guy you have a thing for was raised British then he’ll probably feel pretty much the same way you’re perfect for each other

At one point she looked at me and asked me to hold her. I did. As I tentatively put my arms around her, I was so afraid of her need that I tried to keep her body at a distance. She would have none of it. She collapsed against me, and the sobs that convulsed and rolled through her body found correspondence in mine. I bit my tongue until I could taste blood in the effort not to surrender. Gratefully, the door to the Promenade was closed.

He keeps claiming he doesn’t care for the human tendency towards displays of emotionality even as we see it draw him in like a stupid horny sentimental moth to the flame repeatedly. The lizard doth protest too much methinks

- Unless I have business I rarely go to Quark’s; I have little tolerance for noise and stupidity. So when he saw me he assumed that I had another proposition, and I observed him shift into his engage mode.

Fun to see how this changes over the years, then! By the ca. Season 7 part of the book he has a few regular tables and everything. Also isn’t it so sweet that his kind of snotty attitude about this has not changed at all since Bamarren haha <3

- “The dead are dead. Those of us left—who believe in the ideals that have guided our race for millennia—are faced with the threat of utter annihilation by the very disease that has brought us to this sad place. Federation ideas will finish the work the Dominion began.”

Disease/contagion imagery (This is Legate Parn speaking, and he’s basically espousing the same view as Dukat Sr. As far as he’s concerned the call is not and never has been coming from inside the house thank you ever so much lol)

On the other side of Madred was Nal Dejar, a sharp-faced, saturnine woman who had been a member of my last cell at the Order. She once came to Deep Space 9 on an assignment with two scientists, and refused to make any contact with me. Judging from her averted look, she was still refusing. Next to her was a man with a severely disfigured face that was still recovering from what appeared to be burns. One eye was completely covered, and I was careful not to be rude in my inspection.

OH so it’s the lady who came along with Gilora and Ulani! The one who does not care for foreign food 

Gul Ocett was persuasive in her quiet and reasoned strength. Indeed, the irony, Doctor, is that she was espousing the very argument I had made to you any number of times. Even now there was a part of me that accepted the logic of her argument, especially when coming from someone who was neither a fool nor an opportunist.

While you were stealth mentoring Julian in having enough spysmarts not go and get his beautiful twink ass killed at the first opportunity he was stealth mentoring you in the political and ideological underpinnings of democracy and the possibility of being loved BITCH!!!!

I simply smiled at him, genuinely amused by his amateur attempts to discredit me. I was surprised by my responses. I was here to play the role of double agent, and I found that as the meeting went on I didn’t have the energy for the requisite guile and misdirection.

Fdkjfhdsa ‘Aw. That’s cute’. He just doesn’t have it in him to work up the energy for cloak and dagger bullshit and it’s so good and so funny 

And then a strange sensation went through me, Doctor. I looked at the faces of these people. Here we are, I thought, sitting in the basement of a ruined civilization and conducting business as if nothing significant had changed. The enemies were still the same, somewhere “out there,” plotting how to “destroy our character” and colonize us with their political system. And we were down in the basement with our own plots and shifting alliances, tenaciously holding on to the very ideas that had brought us here. But what ideas, Doctor? There’s nothing left. Only fantasies of power. These faces with their masks. With the ironic exception of the disfigured face, the masks hadn’t changed. They reflected the usual range of hidden agendas, each competing for dominance and ascendancy with an energy commensurate to the amount of fear and self-loathing that fueled and motivated that person. I started to laugh.

Amazing showstopping revolutionary good for you Garak

It was him, Doctor. It was Pythas.

EIGHT MY BELOVED WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE

“Thank you, Gul Madred, but I can find my way out.” I bowed to the company, and turned my back on them.

I continue to be so proud of him I have no words. And also this is why I don’t like Castellan Garak as a concept AT ALL. Leave him alone to his orchids and sewing and doctor fucking he’s been through enough he doesn’t need that in his life anymore he can do other things to help. Parmak and Julian would stage an intervention. 

- Oh my GOD the cardassians literally just left terok nor without him overnight like Sid’s family in Ice Age fhdskjafh

Garak has been combining the wire AND being a barely functional alcoholic all this time. So at any given time in the first two season the chances that he is not only high but also profoundly drunk are overwhelmingly likely. This explains a lot.  

Rom had a sensitivity, almost a delicacy that was totally lacking in his brother. Was there such a thing as a typical Ferengi? Most people judged him to be simple, as if simplicity was somehow a substandard quality.

Aw. Also maybe some hints as to his reconciliation with Tolan’s memory. 

“Well, Rom, the trousers and tunic fit quite well, don’t you think?” I pulled the tunic down at the back. “Don’t wear it so far up on the neck; it ruins the line. And I’d be grateful if you’d tell any interested parties that indeed I’m still here and very much open for business.”

“Oh, yes … yes! And I like….” Rom made a broad, awkward gesture toward his new ensemble. I thanked him, and we walked out onto the Promenade, as if it were just another business day. We said goodbye, and I watched him march proudly through the ragged celebrants. I had a fondness for him. It was an odd relief, especially at this moment, to converse with someone who literally meant everything he said. 

T________________________T surprise most wholesome dynamic continues to wreck me. 

He stood for a moment, studying me, trying to divine why I had not been allowed to join the withdrawal. Unlike the others who assumed that because I was a Cardassian I had a choice, Odo knew that I’d been abandoned.

“Was there any damage or theft?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. I knew little about Constable Odo, but I was confident that he would never ask me questions that went beyond his function as security chief. He kept his distance and carried himself like someone who understood exile.

Odo appreciation moment as this is his last appearance in the book. Here’s to the small part of the fascist hivemind that harnessed those impulses towards the aim of becoming the world’s best and beigest mall cop. Unproblematic? No. But sometimes you simply love a good problem. 

The fact that the narrative of this section ends right before Garak meets Julian. Probably a matter of weeks, max. You big sentimental sap lmao

- Parmak, Ghemor, and I stood silently among the formations, inspecting the results of our work in the first light.“I mean no disrespect, Elim,” the Doctor said, “but the memorial looks even better.” I nodded in agreement.

“Please, Doctor,” I replied. “ ‘Restoration’ is fine for artifacts and museum pieces. When it comes to building a new community, I think what we did tonight is more to the point.”

“And we did it without murdering each other,” Ghemor added.

“How un-Cardassian of us,” I observed.

This all rules btw . Restoration is fine for artifacts and museum pieces it’s not for things that are alive. Gardener vs. architect/collector, Tolan vs. Tain. 

Alon said: “I think we should get some rest before the competition begins. We’ve done what we can.” It was a wise suggestion, but each of us knew that we were taking a step into the unknown, and sleep at this point was not really a choice. We had done what we could, and probably it was best if each of us retired to the privacy of his own thoughts. We said our goodnights, and as I watched them leave I felt an enormous gratitude that I had been given the opportunity to work with these men. Once again in my life I felt that I had been resurrected from the dead.

Nodding and crying gif. Yeah. Yeah… you’ve done all you could and no one could ask anything more of you. 

- “You know, Elim, I’m neither a soldier nor a politician. I’m a doctor.”

“I do know that. I also know that we’ve been betrayed by our previous leaders. Our only hope is that men like yourself can offer an alternative.”

“But you have the expertise that can….”

“Doctor, I have the expertise that comes from survival and compromise. There’s already plenty of that on the other side … and it’s not an alternative that will create a new and lasting union.”

“No, I suppose you’re right,” he conceded.

“You’re a doctor, yes, and that’s your strength. I’ve learned something about your profession over the past several years. Don’t think like a politician. Think of the planet as a patient barely hanging on to life. Think like a doctor. How would you save this planet?” He considered what I’d said in his careful manner.

Just as it is vital for a person like Garak to have a little Julian Bashir who lives in his head, it’s probably also good for the Bashirs and Parmaks of the world to develop a little Garak who lives in their heads to go ‘yeah that sounds real nice in theory but now imagine that there are in fact bad people in this world (I should know) who’ll interact with that theory and then act accordingly’ . Garak realizing where he belongs in this whole process tho… 

“Ah, Doctor,” I stopped him. “You can’t go to your meeting like that.”

“Like what?” he asked with a puzzled look. Without explaining, I helped him out of his worn outer coat and showed him a ragged tear in the fabric. Despite his protests, I made him sit down and wait while I gathered my sewing kit and repaired the tear.

“Appearances are very important to these people. You can’t let them think you’re oblivious to details,” I said, as I reunited the torn and separated threads.

The Mila fussing-as-a-love language of it all…

- (About Pythas) The thought occurred to me that perhaps I should include him in a chant for the dead.

DAMN but also YEAH

- I moved to the constructed formation that stood in the space formerly occupied by Tain’s study and almost directly above where Mila’s body had been sadly abandoned in the basement. When I was a boy, I had unending dreams that centered around the memorials of Tarlak. As I lay on my pallet in the basement of Tain’s house, I would plan the scenario that would play out when Tolan took me with him to Tarlak. It would always involve me as the hero paying homage to a comrade fallen in a battle where we had both distinguished ourselves. I would tell the gathered assembly of notables every detail of the battle; people would weep, cheer, listen in stunned amazement as I explained how we had saved the Union from certain destruction. When I had finished, Mila and Tolan would escort me through the adoring crowd. What a terrible irony, Doctor, that those forbidding, impersonal memorials to the heroes of the Cardassian Union should ultimately become transformed into these ragged formations on the grounds of my childhood home … and that I would sit here, a middle-aged man, trying to mourn a fallen comrade who was still standing but barely recognizable. And yet, the irony of a Cardassia reborn with the help of a memorial built from the remains of Tain’s home didn’t escape me either.

Taking immense psychic damage with every word. When do you stop wanting your mom and dad to come pick you up and take you home, even when they’re both dead and kind of not your parents anymore in two different ways even before that? Never, probably 

- “What changed your mind?”

“Your friends, Elim. Very impressive people … and persuasive.”

“What had you expected?” I asked.

“The usual amateurs who never understood what was at stake … the hard choices that had to be made,” [Pythas] explained. “To be honest, I had thought your attachment to this Reunion Project was….”

“Sentimental,” I finished. He smiled knowingly at the reference.

CACKLING. All but openly saying ‘yeah I thought it’s was because you’re fucking the doctor and I know exactly what a god-awful simp you are’ fhskdjafhaskjdh

“As I listened to him speak of the responsibility that we had as survivors to the life that remained, I also realized how bitter and hardened I had become.” He stopped and looked back to Nal Dejar, as if he were making sure she was still there. She met his eyes with a communication I couldn’t decipher, and he nodded. “Nal nursed me back to where I could function … part of me wished she hadn’t. Until your doctor spoke about healing … on every level. It’s what the body wants, he told us … unless we choose otherwise.” Pythas sat with his head bowed for a long moment. “I’d become very bitter, Elim.” I sat on a rock across from him and gently put my hand on his. What was it about this place, I wondered.

Hmngh. ‘I’d become very bitter, Elim’. No matter what choices they made along the way, where they fucked up or where they did everything right, they both ended up in basically the same place, embittered and broken, until someone touched their life with kindness. Nal is Pythas’ Julian Bashir. Coming back to life not as an act of will but because there’s someone waiting for you there saying ‘I’ll help you through it’. 

“Do you know where Palandine is?” I asked. He just looked at me. “Is she still alive?”

In the darkness, it was difficult to read the expression in his one good eye. The silence that followed my question was broken only by his rasping breath. Behind her mask of disinterest Nal Dejar was studying me carefully. Even when she was a probe I was impressed by the strength of her focus. Pythas was fortunate to have her care and devotion.

I think Pythas and Nal Dejar’s whole deal could make for a really interesting story all on its own. Presumably they’ve known or at least known about each other for a long time now, since Garak has seen Nal around even though they’ve never worked together closely 

- Just enough light for lovers; just enough light to begin he says, only to open the next chapter/epilogue with ‘My dear Doctor’ and explaining how he finally decided to send the letter. Healing on every level? Maybe? If we’re real lucky??? 

- My dear Doctor:

Again, forgive my further tardiness in sending this—I don’t even know what to call it. Memoirs of a Cardassian tailor? I suppose that’s as accurate a description as any. You see, Doctor, I seriously debated whether or not I should send this to you. As I went over it I wondered who this mawkish and self-serving person was. Grow up! I wanted to tell him. Get on with your life.

Well, I am; and sending this to you is going to further that cause. As I said, I’m an unfinished man reassembling the pieces of a broken world, and I have asked you to be a witness because you would never judge me as harshly as I judge myself. You would never deny me the opportunity of a second chance.

I feel like those last two sentences are the most important ones in this whole book — it’s what all the rest of it is built on, what made any of it possible. And also it will haunt me for the rest of my days but like in a good life-affirming way lol

His playful grousing about ugh your vaunted democracy *eyeroll*  <3<3<3<3 come down to cardassia so you can have spirited debates turned makeout sessions/foreplay about it already julian please he’s setting you up for so many slam dunks here

I live with my orchids, which have unified and softened the increasingly popular grounds of my home. Their beguiling blooms, and the presence of children who come to play among the structures (as I did in Tarlak), help to dispel the somber mood that initially hung like those clouds of dust over our world. The sounds of their voices as they play function as a music that never fails to lighten my work. The children call it the “tailor’s grounds,” and the name has caught on. Yes, Doctor, I continue to work at my “new” profession. As you can imagine, there’s a good deal of mending to be done.

TAIN’S HOUSE TURNED INTO JUST ‘THE TAILOR’S GROUNDS’ BY THE VOICES OF PLAYING CHILDREN Y_____Y I hope enabran ‘let history be my judge’ tain gets forgotten for anything but his massive fuckup and that garak works some magic with what little fabric he has at his disposal to make the neighbourhood kids like. Stuffed toys he sews clothes for and he’s known as the person to go to when one is damaged so he can patch it back up good as new  while teary little faces watch intently and then brighten. Julian seriously pretends to be his medical consultant as they perform teddy bear operations, what with his extensive expertise in the field and excellent bedside manner. No arm is too amputated to be reattached and we can always find a good button to replace Mr. Tinny’s missing eye in fact he’ll see even better now. I have such hopes for them I have such dreams 

 I have expanded my shed in the never-ending quest to find my place. I feel that I’m getting closer, Doctor, especially as I continue to refine the structures. One, which began as a memorial to Tolan, has a crude but effective representation of the winged creature from the Hebitian sun disc—turned toward the radiating sun, reaching, striving, while the sun-fed filaments stream down from the body and connect with the bodies of people standing on a globe and looking up to the creature for this divine connection…. I’ve attached the recitation mask he gave me to the creature’s face, and somehow it has become my personal totem. I hope that someday you’ll have the opportunity to see it. Nothing would please me more. You’re always welcome, Doctor.

You are always welcome, Doctor is one of those ‘you could slap that on my gravestone and I’d be happy about it’ lines. What a ride huh 

Aside from anything else about this book (I think we can safely let this absolute monster of a three part reaction post be testament to my enjoyment and admiration right I hope I have made no secret of it lol) I want to congratulate Andrew Robinson for getting a novel-length character study written in first person (my beloved) published — as I understand it that’s normally a pretty hard sell in the publishing industry haha he was living the dream I one day fervently hope to as well and the results rule

[ask-everafteracademy]

Hey guys, can we chat?

I started this blog almost two full years ago (which is insane to me). Honestly it’s been so exhilarating being able to make content and speak about something so near and dear to my heart with people who share the same passion as me. I’ve met so many wonderful people in this fandom who have stuck with me (special shoutout to the one and only @arinlangdon) and this blog has been one of the greatest experiences I’ve had while being online. I feel like the way I’m wording this could make people nervous so I want to clear the air

The blog is not over, nor is it being taken down

This post is mainly to answer some questions I’ve been getting, and also to explain myself. If my co admin decides they want to make their own statement I’ll leave that up to them, but here is mine

Why haven’t you been posting?

The main reason this account hasn’t been very active is simply due to a lack of motivation. We have so many ideas for this blog (an email, Pinterest boards, Google docs, even Spotify playlists) but just not enough source material to run with them. On top of that, we feel like we aren’t getting that much traction on our posts, which really puts a dent in our moral. That’s not a ploy for pity, obviously people can’t help if they aren’t interested in a story from an app that’s been dead for two years. We can’t force people to still care, and we’re not expecting it from anyone, but it doesn’t change the fact that it sucks

What does this mean for the blog?

Honestly, I’m not sure. I feel like with all the effort we’ve been putting into our bigger ideas it’d be a shame for it all to go to waste. Plus I do enjoy interacting with whoever stops by and posting our silly headcanons or random thoughts. I think the best answer I can give is content will continue to be posted, just not constantly. I do have to take into account that I’m going to college next month and I need to prepare to take my next steps in life so I’m not sure how much I’ll be online at all, but I do want to try.

When are you going to [answer BLANK or post BLANK]?

EVERYTHING WILL BE ANSWERED/FINISHED IN TIME! This blog is run by two people with jobs and lives outside of tumblr so we’re not going to be online constantly. We’re running exclusively on our passion for the story and fandom and pure spite of V*ltage. For me personally it depends on what time I have and if I’m motivated to write (and more often then not I’m channeling that motivation into my book), but I can assure you that we are still here and we will give you the answers you’re craving… just not right now.

In conclusion, yes this blog will still be active, unlike some companies we care deeply about the story that has been given to us and we want to continue to honor it as best we can. We just need some time to collect ourselves.

Thank you for listening to my long rant and for supporting us through this whole crazy journey. I love you guys, keep dreaming <3

- Lightkeeper (Blaire)

[rikebe]

hii if you're still accepting asks about the akihiro x bobby ship meme, could you explain in detail the trust/jealousy/etc scales? also is bobby canonically 5'4" bc 😳❤

I WISH BOBBY WAS THAT SHORT IN CANON </3 unfortunately that's just my hc bc i'm so much smarter and chaddier than all of marvel :/

BUT here's the scales!

bobby:

trust: i def see bobby as having a bit of a cynical streak, so i think he takes a while to warm up to trusting. he has a way of internalizing shit and overthinking and is very neurotic, and i think he can absolutely overthink himself into mistrusting his partner on a wrong day even if he knows he's being irrational :(

jealousy: pretty much the same thing, plus i think growing up as the baby-faced dweeby kid of the x-men doesn't really give you a huge amount of self-confidence. i think he can really struggle w seeing himself as like, hot enough or good enough and project that on other people through jealousy, especially if he has such an objectively sexy partner as akihiro. again i think this is something where he'd KNOW he's being unreasonable but he can't help feeling that way

horny: LISTEN. YES he dresses like the assistant manager of a gamestop. YES he's a boring account. but i know. when i look into that unassuming, boring little face of him i know he's a horndog. if he wasn't he wouldn't have fucking bothered with the little song and dance akihiro and him have, because let's be real, akihiro's a pretty big shithead to him consistently and still bobby's like teehee! let's waltz! teehee! oh no let me kiss that death seed away teehee! that's classic horny for villain behavior. you can't hide behind those cargo shorts, bobby drake. i know what you are.

clingy: to me he's a pretty big relationship guy and is really attached to his partner, which is great if you're on mutual terms but i think can come off as pretty clingy if the other guy's looking for something a little more casual lol. def the type to keep texting a few times after getting ghosted before he gets the hint. oops

akihiro:

trust: BIG HUGE MAJOR trust issues. this guy spent his entire adult life seeing interpersonal relationships as entirely transactional and only started getting into this "unconditional love and trust" shit like five years ago. it's a learning curve. he's the guy in a sitcom who thinks their partner is cheating and starts stalking them

jealousy: see trust. same thing. if some guy is talking to bobby at a bar akihiro WILL stand menacingly close by and then be really annoying about mentioning that thats his BOYFRIEND and they're DATING. the guy asked bobby for the time

horny: controversial BUT: i don't think akihiro is very horny. he's been shown since his first appearance to be very liberal about sex, but in almost all instances these interactions are about control and power. akihiro uses his inherent appeal and other people's attraction to him to get what he wants in his never-ending ploy for power and evil-doing. to him, sex is transactional, it's just something he does just like he lies and pretends to be something he's not. ive seen some interpretations of him as asexual, which i think is really interesting and cool and a great take! i don't know where exactly on that spectrum i see him, i think he does enjoy sex but it would be a really different thing for him to sleep with someone he actually cares about, to the point where i could see it causing whiplash when he's being shy about it all of a sudden :')

clingy: i put him pretty high on the "needs attention" scale which i explained in another post, but i don't really see him being all that clingy. i think i might have coloured it in a little high here even since i think it's a hard thing to define, but basically i think that IN a relationship he would be a little clingy and want to be around his partner a lot, once he gets to a point where he can comfortably express those feelings, but he would never run after someone or try to cling to a partner that's dumped him. he thinks too highly of himself to debase himself by showing that he cares about another human being. this is about SAVING FACE, damn it

[velvetshirtnumber3]

I am kind of late in posting this, but knowing that Non and Phee were a thing (and how much that makes it likely that Phee is helping the masked figure), and now Jin and Phee are sort of a thing, it makes me very curious about how Jin and Phee became a thing.

We now know that Phee knows who Non is, so he was lying to the whole group in the beginning. Not only did he know him, but it seems like he was also in love with him, so he obviously would care a lot about what may have happened to Non, and also knew it was involving this specific group. They is a very high chance that Phee is working with someone to get revenge on the group for whatever happened to Non.

I'll come back to that in a second; right now I want to focus on Jin. His relationship with Non is at the moment the most mysterious. The rest of that original group of five clearly don't like him that much, but Jin is a bit more complicated. He is very nice to him, and after the last episode, with that one look he gave Non while they were working on the project, he may have even started to have feelings for him. However, Jin also doesn't seem to try and stop the rest of his friend's bullying of Non. He does ask them to be nicer a couple times, but he does nothing while the bullying is actually happening, and only really interacts with Non while he and Non are alone. While I could consider that he is scared to stand up to his friends or something, that still doesn't totally excuse him, especially since he encourages Non to continue helping the group with the short film, even after he sees how his friends are treating him.

And in the present, we see that Jin is still friends with that same group, who we also know did something awful to Non. Jin is one of the people who is flat out against revealing anything to do with Non to everyone. I do think that cared about Non at some point, but clearly it wasn't enough to truly keep him safe or happy. So maybe something happened in the past that resulted in him completely stopping caring about Non. (Wouldn't it be interesting if Jin really had a crush, Non rejected him because he liked/was dating Phee, and Jin turned on him? And then later started up a fwb arrangment with Phee not knowing Phee's link to Non?)

OR, Jin is one of the people working on the revenge plot. I don't necessarily buy this theory because Jin a. seems genuinely freaked on, and b. the scene where he and Phee are stuck in the coffin. It seems pretty evident that Phee is helping with the revenge plot, and if Jin was helping there would be no reason for the both of them to be so terrified that they got stuck in a coffin hiding from the masked figure.

It's not really clear how much of a target Jin is (and he better hope he isn't much because the last we saw of him he was stuck with Phee, who might be helping with the revenge, and who Jin isn't going to doubt, making him a potentially easy target). It seems like the inciting incident is the fact that Jin is moving away and the whole original friend isn't going to be together again for a long time. So Jin is clearly relevant in some way.

Another thing I find interesting is that fact that Phee and Jin have a relationship, given the assumption Phee is part of the revenge plot.

No one in that group in the woods seems to believe Phee would know who Non is, which means Phee likely never really interacted with them in the past including Jin. This means Phee also likely doesn't know who exactly was treating Non awfully in a specific sense; he probably knows it was by the group in general, and that based on assumptions because Non doesn't seem like a person who wants people to worry about him, even at cost to himself. Yet Phee starts a fwb relationship with Jin. Could this be a ploy to get closer and make the friend-group trust him or for information? Yes, but it seems like a lot for a teenager to go to. He didn't need to be anything more than friends with Jin, but he went beyond that.

And it is the fact that Phee would hate someone who had hurt Non, but he gets close to Jin. He purposefully seeks him out, as we saw in episode one, for no other reason than that he seems to like him. Phee seems to genuinely care about Jin, shown by instances such as when they are stuck in the coffin and Phee comforts him when he starts freaking out. How Phee acts with him just doesn't line up with the idea that Phee secretly hates him. I think this means that Non must have specifically mentioned Jin in a positive way to Phee.

I guess we'll see soon what role Phee plays in the past with the next episode!

[fightthereality]

Hey I don’t know who doesn’t know this yet but in my experience it’s a LOT of folks so here we go

Hey all! If at the end of a business interaction in which you are the consumer (checking out at the Home Depot, resolving an issue with customer support, etc), you are asked to take a survey to rate your experience

Please, please just do it if you can.

Not only that, but if you are satisfied with your consumer experience

Please

Go ahead and give the highest rating

“But why should I go out of my way to do a corporations research for them for free?”

I hear you asking, because I’m a magical fae creature (queer punk).

Well I’ll

Fucking

Tell you

Yes, obviously, these surveys are just a ploy to get consumer data without conducting actual paid research.

However.

Because of already high turnover rates, a bunch of these corporations use these metrics to measure how well they treat their floor employees.

In other words, these surveys are not only used for wringing out as much money from you as possible— they’re also used as an excuse to keep employees in a state of never being able to meet expectation.

Let me explain.

In [redacted company name that rhymes with Amiibo] we are…well, not so much <I>encouraged</I> as outright told to get as many people to take these surveys as possible. We have a goal metric to meet for percentages, and that metric raises every goddamn year. Right now it’s at 90%.

The ONLY kind of review that contributes to a rise in percentage is a five star review.

The ONLY way for employees to meet the BASELINE expectations is to have a perfect score on these reviews. And the only way to be recognized for it is to be mentioned by name in that survey.

Which means we have to not only push these surveys but ensure that consumers know to rate five stars

Because anything under five stars is seen by the boss as a negative experience

Of course, this metric standard is not at ALL made clear to the people taking the survey, so we’ll meaning people often put in 4 stars and a lovely comment, because that’s now star ratings are SUPPOSED TO FUCKING WORK

but instead, the company sees that as “well these guys aren’t doing enough”

I’ve seen entire departments have their staffing GUTTED after not meeting these metrics for long enough.

They’re used as an excuse not to pay employees more, and can be used as an excuse to terminate someone making waves

So next time you get a chance to survey your minimum wage cashier or garden associate

Please take the time to do so if you can, and just absolutely wreck their metrics with love pleaseandthankyou

[tewwor-moving]

* & INTROSPECTION — GEUMGA PLAZA’S FAV MANAGER .

hi, hello. while i know that mr. cho had ulterior motives prior to meeting vin / well into their ploy…. the sheer respect mr. cho has for vin still gets to me. he very well could have brought a loaded gun when they went for that vault. he could’ve bonked him. could’ve done literally so much other than get his ass beat fair and square, because he’s a very clever and wily guy ( even if he’s dealt the short hand later on ). like, yes, vin did save him once in italy. that’s not a light thing to hurdle over and be done with. but i think he grows to genuinely like vin and full-heartedly respect him.

and for all the distance that’s alluded with him and the geumga tenets throughout the show.. i do think he comes to genuinely care for them. just by ep 19 when struggles to get free ( blink and it’s easy to miss ) after having his ass beat ( again ) before vin and the other tenets show up.

also? not to mention how funny his interaction with giseok is. that whole bit had me wheezing from how rapid fire an understanding was established.

also, also. this bitch just won’t die, huh? car wreck, throw down by vin himself, get bonked by like 10 people when ambushed..

also, also, also — wtf does his family think with how often he drags his scrapped ass home.

[bills-bible-basics]

Are You in the Facebook Desert? My friends, do you find yourself often feeling like you are in a desert on Facebook? If so, believe me when I say that I understand you completely; particularly the discouragement that some of you feel in regards to friend participation on Facebook. I feel it too. Myself, I have just under 5,000 Facebook friends. However, close observation over the years has shown me that only 300-400 take some degree of interest in my posts. Even worse, only a few dozen people engage in regular to semi-regular participation with my work. It might interest you to know that many others have reported this same thing, and it is always the same small group of friends who participate. Sometimes I even wonder how many of them are real people, and not just Facebook bots who are pretending to be people. For example, participation on my Facebook page is about zero. But get this: Prior to November of 2017 when Facebook began making adjustments to their algorithms, I used to get dozens, hundreds, and in some cases, even several thousand reactions — likes, shares and comments — PER POST on my page. Yes, for each and every post. Beginning in November of 2017, interaction and participation began to drop like a rock in a matter of a few days. My timeline has also pretty much become a dead man’s land with very little participation. Most activity occurs in the Bill's Bible Basics group, but even that is far from stellar. But my friends, as I explained before, the problem is NOT necessarily with your friends not liking you, not caring about you, and not being interested in the things which you post. The REAL problem, as far as I can tell, is with Facebook itself and their algorithms, their attitudes towards Christians and conservative viewpoints, and their d-i-s-c-r-i-m-i-n-a-t-o-r-y practices against us. This begins with their army of liberal-minded editors. In short, one of the BIG reasons why — like me — you seem to be out in the desert alone most of the time, is because Facebook has sandboxed us for the most part, and is NOT allowing others to see our posts. I know this for a fact, because my friends have repeatedly told me so. They simply think that I am participating less on Facebook because they see less of my work in their news feed. However, this is NOT true. I normally make hundreds of posts each and every month. Now think about this: Your friends cannot possibly react to your posts, if they aren’t even seeing your posts. It makes sense, right? Yes, YOU will see your posts, but most others will not, because Facebook has you sandboxed. It is an i-l-l-u-s-i-o-n. Aside from the d-i-s-c-r-i-m-i-n-a-t-i-o-n against us, I am convinced that it is also a business ploy that Facebook purposely uses to try to pressure us and e-n-t-i-c-e us into spending money on ads. If you doubt my word regarding this issue, spend $100 on an ad campaign and see what happens. All of a sudden, you will reach more people and get more likes and comments. But beware, because even their ad campaigns are a s-c-a-m. Again, I know from experience that while running an ad may possibly result in quick reactions and comments, ads will garner you very few real friends in the long term. Once you stop paying for the ad, all of that traffic just dries up and disappears. So was spending the money really worth it? Whatever you do, as hard as it may be at times, don't let discouragement overcome you, because that is EXACTLY what the enemy wants you to do. That is, to throw up your hands in defeat and say "What's the use? Nobody cares. Nobody reacts to what I post. Why am I wasting so much of my time here if it is not bearing any fruit?" Before you give in to that ruse, remember this: "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Isaiah 55:10-11, KJV "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves ‭with him‭.‭" Psalm 126:6, KJV "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days." Ecclesiastes 11:1, KJV "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Galatians 6:9, KJV "But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing." 2 Thessalonians 3:13, KJV So if you reach even one person, isn’t it worth it? If even one person is blessed and encouraged by your work on Facebook, or on any other social network for that matter, isn’t it worth it? If even one person comes to the Lord as a result of what you do here, isn’t it worth it? https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/index.php/are-you-in-the-facebook-desert/?feed_id=254550&Are%20You%20in%20the%20Facebook%20Desert%3F

[naniskys]

hiiii gmmtv anon again ✨

i’ve been wanting to message you way earlier bc it’s so much fun to talk to you but life has once again been busy af 😮‍💨

the idol thing is funny but also kind of annoying when you’re actually here to watch them act even tho some of the content we’re getting out of it is cute despite 98% being cringe. and yes, a lot of them are very mediocre singers - like first, my beloved, for example. i don’t want to hate on him bc i’ve seen people saying he’s self-conscious about his singing so frankly i don’t understand why gmmtv keep making him sing like pls let him be 😭. gmmtv jumping on any opportunity to make money isn’t surprising tho like there’s even a forcebook fanmeeting in europe which is insane, and firstkhao going to brazil is also 🤯🤯🤯.

oh there will 100% be at least one het show for one of them in part 2. and idk why but gemfourth strikes me as a branded pair that wants to branch out a lot more into het shows asap especially gem. oh and honestly, i hate when people are losing their shit when their faves are hanging out with girls 😭. tbh i hate that dating is so taboo for a lot of famous people bc delulus be losing their mind when their faves aren’t dating the person they’re shipping them with. like let celebrities live laugh love and fuck whoever they want 😭.

i do hope that winny and satang will get to lead a show one day bc they’re great and i’m sure they will cement their status as a branded pair after “we are” is out. however, satang called winny and him “an underground pair” at a fanmeeting the other week and then proceeded to cry :5. this made me so sad bc they’re amazing and gmmtv also seems to believe in them since they’ve given them a logo and such.

i’m gonna skip through ploy’s yearbook and keep you updated. deal hahaha?

joong is so annoying but i adore him. yeah, ppw weren’t subtle at all with their spoilers hahahah. maybe they’re really gonna skip next year and then come back twice as strong in 2025 even tho i would love to get a joongdunk show every year.

oh, and did you see that gmmtv finally gave them a variety show??? it’s not something i would watch if joongdunk weren’t hosting but i love to see them interact so imma be watching every episode.

(i’m with you when it comes to the jd fanservice like i’m a fan and i love to be serviced by them. tbh they are the only cp where i’m mostly fine with it like i do cringe so much when firstkhao try fanservice bc they’re just too bestie-coded™️. i guess it’s due to joong just being a smooth motherfucker and on top of that he just seems to be a person whose love language is physical touch so the whole thing doesn’t seem forced or awkward. tho them being so good at it also invites people to be very delulu about them like the amount of “they’re for sure dating” posts i’ve seen on twitter in the last couple of weeks is insane like pls 😭

mark deserves a lead role and i am actuallycrossing my fingers for 2024 or 2025 at the latest like cmon. him getting a show as lead with neo would be the cherry on top tho hahahahah.

i’m with you when it comes to part 2. i’m hyped and excited to see what else gmmtv has in store, and tbh i’m already lowkey losing my mind bc jojo said something about him having 2 shows(?) in part two and that the trailer has already been filmed - the first thought that popped into my head when i read that was the firstkhao arm tattoo story like firstkhao leads with jojo as the director??? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. and idk if i’m in the minority here but i would also love if they did our skyy 3 bc it’s so fun to get another glimpse into the world of your favorite characters 😭.

i was so sad when they postponed the last twilight trailer but oh my god it was worth the wait. i didn’t have a lot of expectations bc i couldn’t get into vice versa at all - maybe i was too biased towards jimmy bc i watched bad buddy before i started vice versa hahaha.

i’m so sorry for writing another essay 😭😭😭

hi anon!! :D gonna put this under the cut so i don't block up everyone's dash 😂

omg yeah it's actually super cool that they're having fms in so many places, like lbr if they came to my country i'd 100 percent go 😂 but ofc i wanna see the actors, y'know act. making first the singer character in only friends was definitely a Choice xD but honestly he's not too bad, like ohm's one of my favs but goddamn that man rlly cannot sing hajskdjhf 😭😭

msp was pretty much gem4th's debut so i get wanting to work in different things. given how tied together their branding is rn, it would suck if their only projects for the next however long were just with each other. but also at this rate, they have events/fms/lives practically every day, when are they gonna film my love mixup and then potentially other series 😭😭 after they pulled out of 23.5 i thought we'd get their next series very early 2024, but at this rate who knows (lbr gmmtv's just gonna keep milking them for cash with all the events first 😬)

"let celebrities live laugh love and fuck whoever they want" - words to live by, i tend to stay out of fandom spaces to do with the actual actors just coz it gets so toxic so quickly lmao, i'm here to watch my shows and fangirl in peace ✌️

naww i saw that clip of satang from the fm ahhh 🥺🥺 i have such a soft spot for wnst (especailly satang). gmm definitely seems to see their hype too and i'm so glad, honestly do think we're gonna get a main series with them soon enough (maybe they'll see how well We Are does first and go from there?)

on the topic of We Are, dangerous romance has turned me into a marcpawin stan, so i'm even more excited for it now

ahaha yes do keep me updated, i might skip through and watch specific scenes for the Plot (joong). just rewatched the trailer for the first time since the lineup and why did no one tell me joong's boxing in the show 😳😳

also apparently they've already started filming ploy's yearbook?? honestly so impressed with how quickly filming's going these days, apparently the trainee has already started filming and cooking crush isnt even out yet 😭😭

the jd show!! kinda wish gmm would branch out a bit with the variety show concepts, but yeah i'm absolutely tuning in for joongdunk xD (and the obnoxious sponsorships 😭 honestly kinda funny, and i'd definitely rather have the product placement in a variety show than in an actual series lol)

and yep the fanservice, honestly with jd they seem to be having fun with it too which works out for everyone. also joong's Insane (affectionate) i love jd but i kinda wanna see joong paired up with anyone and everyone atp. (do u know what lives rent free in my mind? that kiss or slap challenge joong pawin kiss) (also just joong in warp effect) the dating comments are honestly so 😭😭, the delulu shippers can never be stopped its very ajskdjfj

mark said recently in an interview that he has a main role planned for part 2!!! dont think it was confirmed or anything (he said he might have the role) but honestly that's enough for me rn

DAMN 2 shows?? jojo's always so busy hajskjd AND WAIT OH MY GOD IF WE ACTUALLY GET ANOTHER FK JOJO SHOW (!!!) completely forgot about that tattoo arm story but yeah that was hella sus, i'm gonna be keeping my eyes out 👀 although i was hoping for an fk romcom, that doesnt seem like it would be lmao

ngl wasn't a big fan of most of the our skyy 2 storylines, but the good thing about os and special eps is that i can choose to ignore them if i want 😂 so yeah, i'd be totally down for our skyy 3, although i dont think they'd do one so soon after the last? maybe for 2025 or 2026?

LMAOO bad buddy did jimmy dirty for so many people 😂 i wasn't planning on watching vice versa but then i saw sea in 55:15 (banger show if u haven't watched it, i'm forever on my spreading 55:15 agenda). apart from the product placement i thought it was a rlly solid show!! (but also the product placement is kinda hard to get past at times 😭)

friday nights have been my bl nights for almost a year now (i think i only skipped abaab in the middle) so i'd probably be continuing the tradition regardless of what aired lmao

ooh also anon do u have any show recs (gmmtv or not), i trust ur taste lmao and i need to fill up my to watch list 👀

[lunacornfan2k24]

My apologies. In the third paragraph I was talking about headcanons for Zor. I also didn’t not mean to imply that the player can project themselves onto Zor just their interpretations of the character based on canon (which can fall into theory and head canon-y territory). That’s on me I should’ve been clearer.

You’re also right. The non confirmed pronouns could lead in an increase in fighting within the fandom. I realize now that I was just using it as a scapegoat instead of focusing what was the root of the problem for the fights I’ve seen. (I had in the tags of the original post that the creators are not responsible for fandom reactions/interactions/head canons, etc)

The rest of the post was on my personal opinion on how Schell games has handled Zor and their pronouns. I completely agree that Zor should be the complete creation of Schell games and Jared Mason but with so little to go on, it’s only natural to me that people would fill in the blanks and because they/them is glaringly absent for Zor in the game it would only make sense for people’s interpretations to include different pronouns. (ieytd 3 spoilers: I rewatched the Roxana’s speech at the end of Cold Shoulders and she uses “Zor” every time even though some “they”s would’ve flowed better in my opinion as a writer)

As for Zor being non-binary, I never said they weren’t. You can think that it’s great representation. I am not taking that away from you.

But to me it feels cheap because it hasn’t been used in game, not even in ieytd3 where they had known their pronouns by the end of the 2nd game and still didn’t use them for the third. I feel played as someone who enjoys these games and is non-binary because they aren’t committed to lose people who don’t like a major character having they/them pronouns.

It doesn’t feel like they made the character non-binary for fun because it’s not apparent within the canon itself.

You are frustrated because you feel like my disbelief takes away non-binary representation.

I’m frustrated because I have seen this kind of marketing ploy before: Disney characters that are confirmed queer but can be easily removed from the movie for international audiences, Dumbledore being “confirmed” gay after all the hp movies we’re out and not being shown once in the prequels (fuck jk r*wling), etc, and I’m tired of being played like that. (Yeah those examples are from shit people and shit corporations and I know Zor’s gender isn’t part of the marketing but I am getting the same vibes from Schell games)

I firmly believe in my personal opinion that until they/them is used in the game that I will not consider it good non-binary rep. Yes it’s good that they’re trying to be inclusive but I would appreciate them putting their money where their mouth is.

Do not get me wrong, I want Zor to be excellent non-binary rep. We desperately need more of it but in my personal opinion we have not seen it reach that level yet.

This is a hot take but I really dislike how Schell games went about making Dr. Zor’s pronouns they/them

I vagued about this before outside of any ieytd tags but the fact that they had to confirm in the official discord their pronouns doesn’t sit right with me. To my knowledge, I don’t believe that Zor has been addressed with they/them in the games so the only way for people to know their pronouns is if they have the brain rot (which happens to largely be the mentally ill trans fans like me 👋). However that does mean that most people that watch and play the games don’t really know which feels like cheap representation to me personally.

Im not saying that I dislike they/them Zor, but all it leads to is people in the know picking fights with people who don’t know. For me, I feel like Zor should be able to be any gender you’d prefer, like Agent Phoenix. I think people should take Dr. Zor and shape them as how they imagine the cunning villain to be, whether that’s feminine or masculine, she/her or he/him or xe/xer or several different pronouns (speaking as a she/they/he). Hell even the goddamn wiki page has Zor’s gender as “unknown” instead of non-binary

The only thing I’ve seen come out of a confirmed they/them Zor was the worst case of infighting in an otherwise fairly peaceful part of the fandom.

At the end of the day, the only pronouns that have been used for Dr. Zor in game that haven’t been retconned are Zor/Zor’s and to be honest they should’ve kept it that way.

[saurons-pr-department]

@valar-did-me-wrong

I'm responding to your tag on this post in a separate post because I'm not one to rain on other people's parades and I don't want to ruin your friend's fun but eh.... mine is not a blog on which to find love for Halbrand as Sauron...

Of course I love Sauron fans! And I love seeing people getting into the character, but Amazon have defanged him. They've skipped over one of his greatest long-cons and betrayals in the form of not going over his loooong time working with the Elves of Eregion in order to try bring them under his sway. They've completely removed the set up for one of the greatest tragedies of the Second Age. They've ripped out the heart of that whole story in place of some weird romance thing? (which, even if it is a ploy to corrupt Galadriel it's on such a small scale comepared to what Second Age Sauron should be plotting as to be laughable).

Basically, as much am I'm very much team "hehehehehe mwahahahahahah! Yes! Now you see the wonders of the Dark Lord! Please join me in weeping when Barad-dur falls in The Return of the King" (don't judge me T_T) and want everyone to know what a great and fun a character he is.... I'm probably not going to be much fun for anyone who likes Halbrand flavoured Sauron specifically. Everyone is welcome here! But eh... don't anyone expect me to refrain from talking about how much this show has missed much of the point of these characters' stories and what makes them great.

However, I agree whole-heartedly with the sentiment that we should all go live in Mordor and love Sauron, for his is The Best.

So yeah... please don't anyone take this to mean that they are not welcome to interact with this blog if they like the show and it's version of Sauron, just know that I deeply hate it and will gladly say many many negative things about it.

But also know that you are particularly welcome if you saw the show, thought that Sauron guy might be interesting and now want to know about him in canon because in that case, call me a Ring of Power because I will more than happily bind you to the Dark Lord's allegiance!