#Nexus positivity post

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

I love Nexus so much.

Well, I love the idea behind Nexus.

A Moon who cared so much he broke himself and forced himself to not care because caring brought him nothing but pain.

However, Nexus wanting to be God is a milk toast boring motivation. It's like saying "I'm evil because I'm evil." Do better tsams please I beg lol

[thelivingautomaton]

nowhere man, episode 1: "absolute zero" (dir. tobe hooper)

"They're so real, Thomas. So uncompromising." "The truth is uncompromising. Don't shoot the messenger."

[bluejay-07]

At what point do I just email someone about this?! Why wouldn’t you tell someone if they didn’t get the fucking job? Does extending the deadline also mean extending when they’re getting back to me?

[pinacoladamatata]

Pssst there are 2 versions of download in the replies. 1 clean. 1 grimy when he's supposed to be. I removed the (redacted) here for testing/photo purposes

i love this freckle mod so much shut up no one look at me

bonus pics under the cut

[sunderwight]

Cumplane where Airplane, in a fit of either bravery or insanity or positive or negative self-esteem (he's not totally sure) decides to cosplay as Luo Binghe and post the pictures online.

Of course, he doesn't do it as "Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky", he knows he has some questionable fans and doesn't really want to hand them a picture of his face. So he posts the images under one of the pseudonyms he uses for lurking around the comment section and social media tags. It's just a handful of images of him looking like the protagonist in his head, attempting to strike cool poses in a wig and some period clothes (he rented both).

The reception is... mixed. Airplane does not have abs, after all, nor a flawless complexion or much skill with makeup. He is fat, freckled, and awkward. The PIDW readership is not known for being particularly supportive either. In fact they're mostly a crab bucket of negativity and masculine posturing, so he gets a lot of mean-spirited commentary.

It's fine. Nothing he hadn't expected. Really solidifies for him that posting was a fit of madness, actually! What did he even expect? He's bracing himself for the worst when he sees that Peerless Cucumber, notorious hate-reader and defender of Luo Binghe's honor, has commented. Ah, shit. He's probably going to rip into Airplane for daring to sully his precious Binghe's reputation by dressing up like that, isn't he?

The comment is long, too. Fuck. Airplane's not sure if his self-esteem can take a comprehensive beating from the champion hater himself, but he's too curious not to look.

Shen Yuan, in the meanwhile, is just pleased that there has FINALLY been a Luo Binghe cosplayer who looks the part. Of course Luo Binghe wouldn't have exaggerated muscles, those are just a product of dehydration. Binghe spent most of his disciple years running around chopping wood and hauling laundry, and then later doing whatever he could to pack on the calories in order to make it through the Abyss. A hefty workman's build would only make sense for him, anything else would be nonsense. Airplane also described Luo Binghe as having a beautiful face, which Shen Yuan won't blame most cosplayers for not being able to just make happen, but a beautiful face doesn't mean "covered in so much makeup it looks like an anime character"! When would Luo Binghe have the time or inclination to put on makeup? A natural beauty with some inevitable blemishes would make more sense and be much more appealing, and this "Airplane Crashing to the Ground" (funny play on the author's name, Shen Yuan approves) has very pretty features! Everyone hating on this cosplay is just an idiot, the only actual problem is that his wig is poorly fitted.

So in true Peerless Cucumber fashion, he lays this all out.

This gets him embroiled in arguments with several other fans, who even accuse him of actually being the guy in the photos, claiming that there's no other reason why he would defend them. Shen Yuan doesn't care if people think that's him, because that's still the best Luo Binghe cosplay he's ever seen, but he doesn't want them doubting the sincerity of his arguments. So, he decides that the only reasonable thing to do is dress himself up in cosplay as well and then post the actual photos of himself.

While he'd like to dress up as one of Luo Binghe's allies like Mobei Jun, or maybe someone cool like Yue Qingyuan, he is too pedantic to think he could pull that off. Those guys are all strong warrior types, and Shen Yuan is a scrawny pale rich kid who looks like he'd probably lose a fight with a wet paper towel. The only characters he could plausibly pull off would be some of the more consumptive members of Binghe's harem and maybe, maybe, one of the weaker villains like Shen Qingqiu.

Shen Yuan is NOT posting pictures of himself crossplaying to the central nexus of toxic masculinity itself, so... Shen Qingqiu it is!

Poor Airplane has to go sit and stare at a while for a while. Peerless Cucumber likes his cosplay. Peerless Cucumber, ardent defender of Shang Qinghua's sellout crappy main character mary-sue, thinks Airplane is good-looking enough to cosplay as him. And said so. Repeatedly. And then posted borderline thirst-trap villain cosplay of himself, inadvertently revealing in the process that he is hot.

What the. What. What?!

Anyway, Shen Yuan suggests that they attend the next convention both cosplaying together because Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky is supposed to be doing a meet & greet at that one, and wouldn't it be fun to go as a pair? And Airplane agrees before his brain catches up and he realizes that might present a problem.

[tentakrool]

re: “helly was never cruel”

saw a post this morning talking about how that line ruined helly’s characterization in the fandom because in s1, she “definitely was cruel” — and I don’t necessarily disagree, but i wanted to explore that a bit without clogging up that person’s post

so first of all, what makes something “cruel”, as opposed to “careless, rude, insensitive”? to me, i think cruelty requires two things:

1. the intent to harm

2. the exertion of power and control over someone less powerful

for example, when a child at school is bullied by classmates for their appearance, i would call that cruelty. however, if a child loses their temper and calls their friend a “poopyhead”, i would not consider that cruelty. the difference there is that the bullies want to exert power over their peer by making them feel weird or “wrong”, whereas the poopyhead child was just expressing frustration and anger in a hurtful way.

so let’s take a look at helly vs helena and see where we land with those two things.

example 1: helly tells mark that “with a knife to her throat”, she would not want to be part of his family

that’s a pretty hurtful statement, right? at this point, mark cares a lot about MDR being a unit. he perceives them as family and cares about them. he has also just lost a member of his team that he really cares about.

however, i would not call this cruelty on helly’s part, because it lacks the element of power and control. helly isn’t trying to exert control over mark, or make him feel small and vulnerable. on the contrary, i would argue that helly is the one feeling threatened by her situation. she is lashing out against her surroundings because she knows something is wrong, that this is not right.

now, one could argue that it’s because she is helena that she responds with aggression at all, and i would agree with that. she has a lot of pent up rage and hurt from living her life as an eagan. but again, what is missing is the intention to subjugate mark, to attack specific things that make him feel vulnerable. from a narrative perspective, it makes sense that she said what she did, because it builds tension between mark and helly, and because the audience knows this is a sensitive spot for him. helly doesn’t.

example 2: helena jabs at irving about his relationship with burt at the campsite

this, i would argue, is absolutely cruelty. helena shouldn’t even know about irving’s relationship with burt — as an outie, she doesn’t retain that knowledge. however, she has deliberately kept herself apprised of the innies’ lives in order to play the role of helly. she makes this jab because she knows it will hurt him, and she makes it from a place of power over him. her knowledge and position in LUMON makes this action one of cruelty.

now, let’s dig into this a bit more, because while i do think helena’s actions were cruel and helly’s were not in these examples, there’s more to consider.

1. cruelty often begets cruelty. helena lives in a torture nexus where she is constantly berated, examined and criticized. it makes a lot of sense that she behaves the way she does, even though it’s wrong. a child who bullies is often exerting power as a way to feel powerful in an otherwise oppressive life. not always true, but commonly so. most people aren’t inherently cruel; they’re made that way.

2. helly and helena are sharing the same mind, body and soul (scientifically speaking). this means that while helly does not have the social capital of helena eagan, she does have the vulnerability, the trauma, the mentality of a dog backed into a corner. she doesn’t respond with kindness and respect until she feels safe. the biting back at others goes away when she learns to trust her team. again — the intent to harm as a way to feel powerful over others isn’t there unless she feels threatened

when both of these things are taken into consideration, it reveals that certain behaviors that appear cruel might not actually come from a place of cruelty, but from a trauma response that belongs to another part of helly’s psyche. it also means that helena likely lives in a constant state of anxiety, on high alert, and that her behaviors are carefully designed to protect herself as well as harm others. cruelty is learned.

now, let’s talk about a third example — the way helly talks to milchick after learning who her outie is. milchick has treated the innies unfairly, exerted power over them, has been cruel. now, she knows that she is effectively his boss, and while she cannot fully inhabit the power that might give her, she definitely uses it to intimidate and threaten him.

is that cruelty? well, it’s complicated. personally, i would say no, simply because at the end of the day, she still feels as if she is punching up at an oppressive force. to the audience, it’s more complex, because they know that milchick is also a victim. they have seen the ways milchick is berated, made to torture himself, racially profiled. from his perspective, it probably does feel kinda fucking cruel that a woman he had control over is now using her outie identity to do the same shit his company does every day of his life.

cruelty is a complicated creature, but i would argue that the intent of the action and the context in which it exists really matters. is helly truly “never cruel”? probably not. does helena’s tormented life give her an excuse to be cruel? definitely not. the complication is the point — helly is no angel, but helena has been raised in hell so long, she doesn’t really know how to live.

[silvermoon424]

can u explain roko's basilisk in layman's terms pls, i tried reading about it on wikipedia and i think my brain leaked down my spine

Lmaoooo I totally get it! Let me try to explain.

Roko’s Basilisk was posited by a user named Roko on the rationalist forum Less Wrong. Less Wrong and the rationalist movement in general are REALLY fascinating rabbit holes to go down btw; Strange Aeons has a video about one of the founders of the movement- Eliezer Yudkowsky- who got a lot of traction via his Harry Potter fanfic.

The idea of Roko’s Basilisk is that a hypothetical, godlike Torment Nexus AI could come into existence. Using its godlike abilities, it could determine which people 1) tried to prevent it from being born or 2) didn’t actively help it get born, especially if they had some knowledge of the hypothetical AI. It will then trap all of these people (so like. The overwhelming majority of humanity) in the Torment Nexus for eternity for not directly enabling it to exist.

The “solution” to Roko’s Basilisk is to directly help create the hypothetical, godlike Torment Nexus AI so that it will spare you. Hence this joke:

It’s often called the techbro equivalent of Paschal’s Wager, which is a centuries-old Christian thought experiment that basically says “you may as well be a Christian because the benefits of doing so if God isn’t real outweighs the consequences of being an atheist if God is real” (bc you’ll go to hell lol)

Anyway, Roko’s Basilisk is famous because of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s response to it, which was to treat it like an SCP cognitohazard that instantly damns everyone who reads it. Needless to say seeing one of the leaders of the movement treat Roko’s Basilisk like it was the most dangerous thing in existence made it gain quite a lot of infamy. I’ve heard stories of people spiraling into panic attacks because they sincerely believe they are eternally damned for reading a forum post.

Also, apparently Elon Musk and Grimes bonded over discussing Roko’s Basilisk, which lowkey makes me want to create the Torment Nexus myself so I can screw Musk over lol

[fandom-susceptible]

Moonshadow Culture and Values

So, I've seen a few posts going around that made me wanna do this to sort of explain my interpretation of the choices made by the Moonfam in the context of their culture. I'm just making my own post to avoid starting drama with the people who dislike or hate Ruthari as a result of their behavior, or think that they're poorly written.

Buckle up, because this is a whole essay I should probably clean up and put in a google doc.

(also, while a lot of this is pulled from canon, I've also extrapolated quite a bit. I've tried to make it clear where the line is, and my sources will be at the end to check if you're unsure. If you dislike or disagree with any of the extrapolation, that's your prerogative - it's a fictional show! Have fun with it however you have fun! But I do ask that you have the same courtesy as I've had in making this post, and either keep it to your own blog or respond constructively. Let's keep this a safe space, yeah?)

(Now with important map edit!)

First of all, the thing I see overlooked the most in every post, positive or negative, about the Moonfam is that they aren't human. They are not human and are not coming into this situation with human values or viewpoints. We as a fandom need to stop applying human standards of behavior to non human characters (this is a problem in a lot of fandoms with non humans, honestly). It's something that even comes up in the show, with Callum and Ezran (as they're the ones most often with Rayla) forgetting her cultural background is wildly different from theirs.

So to address some of those cultural values I think it's important to take a look at what we know about Moonshadow elves' history. Some of the furthest history back that we know about is from the Mage Wars, when the continent was split. Humans weren't the only ones displaced by that breach. Moonshadow elves specifically were also forced to leave their native lands, to the point of actively destroying their own settlements and holy places to keep their magic from being tapped and twisted by the humans who would take the land. We don't really talk about it in the show because it's a kids' show (or it was when they introduced this information), but realistically, a shit ton of both humans and Moonshadow elves died in these forced migrations.

Then, looking at a map of Xadia leads us to another point. See where Moonshadow Forest is?

It's right there next to the border with the human kingdoms.

They barely made it into Xadia. Plus look at the geography and ecology of the land they left compared to where they settled. This doesn't seem like an ideal location given where they lived before. Plus, Bloodmoon Huntress informs us that Moonshadow Forest is dangerous even to those who live there. It's not a safe place to live, and yet all of them live there.

There's also something to be said about how the Moonshadow elves have a whole path through lava called the Moonstone Path from their ancestral lands to the Silvergrove, when the military focus of both sides of the Mage Wars are focused further north up the Breach. My guess is that the Moonstone path isn't for assassins sneaking back over the border, especially given how the narrative talks about the violence between the human kingdoms and Xadia until recently. It's mostly been open battles. I'm guessing the Moonstone Path was for the refugees fleeing the Moon Nexus and their old home in the mountains, south of the worst of the fighting, and that's why most elves don't know about it now either.

Also, look at the sheer scale of the other elves' range in comparison to theirs.

Dark blue: Tidebound, which is every coastline in Xadia and out into the ocean

Edit: I'm slightly color blind and just looked at this map on a screen with different color settings. The "gold" I refer to in a minute is the darker of the two yellows. The other yellow appeared green to me. Sorry about that 😅 you can also just look for Lux Aurea in the north and Umber Tor/the Drakewood in the east for context of which is which.

Gold: Sunfire Empire minimum boundaries, they seem to imply its reaches are very large

Green: Earthblood elves that we know of; there's also a population of crystal-connected ones that we don't even know where they live for sure, though my guess would be the mountains beside the Uncharted Forest and the Tidebound Archipelago.

Light blue: Skywing, who have at least two distinct cultures (the Celestials in the north and the nomads who range everywhere) in Xadia

White: Moonshadow, whose society is comprised of a scattered group of villages inside the smallest forest in Xadia.

In addition, Bloodmoon Huntress tells us that those stories that humans tell about elves being blood drinking monsters that eat people are also told in Xadia about Moonshadow elves. Moonshadow elves tell them about The Bloodmoon Huntress. All of this is rooted back to Kim'dael and her Cult of the Blood Moon, a sect of Moonshadow elves from about 300 years ago who did absolutely do that.

(300 years ago is a guess because she was eventually captured by Queen Aditi, but we don't actually have a date that I know of, and Aditi reigned for over a century)

When we think about that in context, it gets a bit dark, doesn't it? To this day, other elves believe that all Moonshadow elves are like that, or at least tell stories about it. Do we really think that they were making exceptions when there actually was substance behind the stories, on a larger scale? Or do we think that when the Sunfire Empire and the dragons hunted down the Cult, they were just hunting whatever Moonshadow elves they could find, because they didn't know or didn't care that there was a difference? And that's not even touching on the decades or perhaps centuries of predation by the Cult on their own kind before they turned towards the rest of Xadia and caught Aditi and Avizandum's attention.

There was also the Shadow-Eater incident, which we only know about through Zubeia's recollection, which consisted of a creature called a Shadow-Eater hunting down the Moonshadow elves of the southern forest and their being unable to protect themselves from it. Avizandum was the one who eventually eliminated it. In the same short story where Zubeia remembers it, though, she refers to the Moonshadow elves as tribes, which is only really interesting because it's not a word we really see used elsewhere in the franchise, even for the nomadic Skywing or the similarly brutal Riders of the Drakewood.

So, the political situation on Xadia's side of the border amongst the elves seems to be as follows:

The mighty Sunfire Empire, which sprawls across much of Xadia and is widely considered to be the most powerful military force on their side of the border. They have multiple cities, though Lux Aurea was the main one and the only one we see on the map (we also only see the Silvergrove on the map because it's the only Moonshadow settlement that matters to the narrative, it's not because others don't exist). They also have outlying villages and variance within their cultures, and are known for their advanced engineering.

The Tidebound, who don't seem to have a unifying government, but do have a couple of overlying cultures. They have several coastline cities and settlements and a thriving maritime civilization, including some who live entirely underwater, and may have been the most chill with humans during the war (they are the source of humans' stories about mermaids and sirens, implying a mix of benevolent and malevolent ones). A significant portion of their population lives entirely out at sea, similarly to their Archdragon Domina Profundis.

The Earthblood elves, who have not one, not two, but at least three different populations. There are the more violently-dispositioned Riders of the Drakewood, another less-explored forest Earthblood population (Terry may be from that one, as he mentions being from the Uncharted Forest but lacks some characteristics typical of the Riders, but we don't know for sure), and the crystal-based Earthblood whose location we haven't been shown yet. They're also said to have the largest population of any type of elf, even more than Sunfire elves, and range the farthest other than the Skywing.

The Skywing nomads can be found anywhere in Xadia at different times, and they have a subculture of the Celestial elves that live in a singular place. The Skywing also are known for some of the most impressive architectural feats in all of Xadia, ranging from the stairs of the Storm Spire, to the Celestial Spire, to the floating city of Innea.

Finally, the Moonshadow tribes, which are isolated to a handful of villages in the smallest forest in Xadia, all of which share an overarching culture and are mere days apart on foot.

So let's think about this for a second.

Moonshadow elves were forced to emigrate from their homeland during the Mage Wars, and likely lost a significant percentage of their population then.

They arrive in Xadia, and they barely make it past the border and they stop. All the other land in Xadia appears to be already largely taken up by other elven civilizations or is somehow inhospitable (i.e. the Midnight Desert), but this particular forest is so afflicted with the dark side of their own arcanum that the Earthblood elves have said "fuck it" and left it alone. It's dangerous. One night every year it's so dangerous even their most skilled warriors could be lost if they make one mistake - and that's in the modern day, with well established villages and safe zones (per Runaan's warning in Bloodmoon Huntress). It was likely worse before they had those.

At some point after this, the Cult of the Blood Moon was founded and began preying on others to extend their own lives. My personal pet theory is that Kim'dael did this because she realized their people were dying out, and she turned to immortality rather than mixing with other elves or just encouraging new generations, but we don't have canon for her reasons really.

The Cult's activities eventually catch the attention of Queen Aditi's Sunfire Empire and the dragons, who turn on the Cult. Stories pin the blame on all of the Moonshadow elves, so it's likely that they were all blamed even then, and the war was launched on the entire Moonshadow Forest until Kim'dael turned herself over to Aditi in hopes of tricking her (and was herself tricked).

And in the modern day, Moonshadow elves are by far the fewest and most isolated elven society, comprised of a few tribes whose settlements are all described as villages - they don't have cities or towns or an overarching government. They're villages that operate on democracy.

After that history, it starts to make perfect sense why abandoning their duty or their companions is the gravest sin they can commit culturally, doesn't it? Especially for a people so deeply connected to the afterlife. They told us in season 1 that Moonshadow elves do not fear death; by season 7, they've elaborated on that to explain that they don't fear death because they know for a fact that death isn't an end. Spirits move on to the next phase of existence, and their magic is so connected to that afterlife that they can summon those spirits back temporarily to conclude unfinished business (such as the Ritual of the New Moon, but Lujanne mentions it used to be done far more commonly when they had access to the Moonhenge). So they'd have no reason to be afraid of dying individually.

But with their numbers so drastically decimated, sacrificing other lives in favor of yours, forcing their families to live with a loss because you were a coward about facing the death that you already know isn't an end for you -

Yeah, it makes sense that's worse in their eyes than personally dying.

It's also likely that Kim'dael surrendering to Aditi didn't fully cool tensions between other elves and the Moonshadow. Assassins came into existence at some point between the Mage Wars and the modern day, and my hunch is that they were the remaining Moonshadow's attempt at containing the Cult. So after Aditi captured Kim'dael, the rest of the Moonshadow were left in a position where everyone considers them bloodthirsty savages and the only warriors they have left are built for precision violence against much stronger enemies that they cannot fight outright. Hence, later service to the dragons and other elves' leaders as assassins. If they don't go along with the more powerful elves and dragons' instructions, if they abandon their obligations to Aditi or Avizandum or Zubeia, what happens to the rest of them? They can't afford to betray or fail their much more powerful neighbors. There's nowhere left for them to retreat to. The humans would kill them, the Earthblood could kill them, the Sunfire or dragons could burn their entire forest to the ground and kill them all too. So they commit. The rest of Xadia believes them to be killers, so they send their killers to serve the rest of Xadia - on pain of death to save the rest of them.

To be very clear, I'm not saying that Moonshadow culture is just okay and we shouldn't criticize it. Their focus on duty and family and the good of the many prioritizes those things to such a degree that suicide is culturally preferable to making mistakes sometimes. That's fucked up! It's harsh! It's flawed! However, given the history we have of them, I can follow the logic of how they got there.

Now thinking about this in the context of the show -

Tiadrin and Lain appeared to abandon their duty, sacrificing a child that isn't their own and not even coming back home to explain themselves (they never show a lotus being connected to the Dragonguard, I'm inclined to believe that's an assassin-specific tradition and they just got the news from Zubeia about what happened). They didn't get a choice about becoming Dragonguard; they were selected by the dragons. So they've left their own child in the care of someone else, only to abandon the other child they were sent to protect, and it wasn't even to come back for their own.

Now we know as viewers that's not what happened, but within the world and their cultural context, that's what their community knows. So they've committed the gravest sin in their culture twice - they've left their child behind, but that was forgivable because they didn't have a choice. But then, they sacrifice another's child, and they didn't even do it for the sake of their own. So they get Ghosted. (I have a whole other post about my theories on Ghosting, but this is getting too long to get into it here).

Runaan and Ethari, who they entrusted their daughter to, take Rayla further into their home as a result. Rayla has already asked to train with Runaan because he's rescued her from her first brush with death, and she's got a bit of hero worship going on. Runaan cautions her about it, and visibly has doubts about his own path in life, but he commits to it because it's what she wants, and his husband reassures him. When Zubeia calls on him as leader of the assassins to take vengeance for her mate and son, he's left with a choice of bringing Rayla along even though he doubts if she's mentally and emotionally ready (he knows she physically is), in order to restore her honor that was stained by her parents' cowardice, or forcing her to stay behind and suffer with their shame for the rest of her life. This is a no-win scenario. Either he brings her on a mission he knows she isn't ready for, and risks her failing and suffering with that, or he forcibly condemns her to living with failures that aren't her own. So either she suffers from Tiadrin and Lain's failures, or from his. So he chooses to bring her, against his husband's advice, and to take on responsibility for it.

And then he fucks up. He tests her by sending her after the guard that witnesses them, and he doesn't follow her. He doesn't make sure she gets the job done. When she comes back and lies about it, and they discover the truth, the rest of their team - their whole cultural view, really - demands that he kill her for this failure, for condemning them all, and he doesn't. They respect him enough not to kill her without his permission, either, even though by lying to them and dooming the mission she has committed the worst crime she possibly could. And I think this choice on Runaan's part is partially the fact that he cares about her as a daughter, but also guilt, because he knows he's the one who backed her into that corner. He put her in that position knowing she wasn't ready for it. It's his fault she failed, not hers. So he just tells her to sit it out, sacrifice her hand if they fail but survive, because she doesn't deserve to die for his sins. She may have to live with the guilt of their deaths, but if he succeeds in this, she will at least get to live longer and go home.

Rayla throws a wrench in this by showing up anyway, and she betrays the mission again by not only holding him up, but insisting on rescuing one of their targets. He still doesn't kill her. He threatens to, but when it comes down to it, he's the one that turns away from the fight, not her, to focus on the mission - which again, if he succeeds in it, means she can go home, she can live with his honor and not her parents' shame, even if he can't.

It doesn't happen that way, obviously, but here's where things get interesting - and complicated - with Ethari.

So from Ethari's perspective, all he knows in the end of season 1 is that the mission isn't done, the other assassins are dead, and Rayla is alive. I think it's a disservice to his character and the rest of the Silvergrove to assume they just didn't notice that Runaan's lotus didn't fully sink; more likely is that a sunk lotus means the assassin is as good as dead. They're in a position like Runaan's where they've been captured and declared themselves dead because they know there's no other way out, there will be no rescue and they're not likely to escape on their own. So Runaan's been captured and will die there, and Rayla escaped but has not completed the mission or gone back for him, nor does he expect her to.

So what is Ethari supposed to believe? That she's somehow done the impossible, and found a third way out that will lead to a new era of peace for all of Xadia?

Or, is he to believe that he was right the whole time, she wasn't ready, but instead of committing like she swore she would, she fled, like her other parents did? She sacrificed everyone, including her other father, and ran?

Which one of those seems like the more likely option from his perspective?

Then she comes home, and he learns the truth, but there's nothing he can do about it, because the Ghost spell is permanent. He doesn't even know it can be broken - Runaan has to tell them that's a thing three years later in season 7. So he's left with this horrible knowledge that while on a small scale, it looks like Rayla sacrificed five lives for one (or three, her own with Ez and Zym), with a wider perspective, she was actually doing the most Moonshadow thing possible and focusing on saving more lives than anyone knew could be saved. And there's nothing he can do to reverse his vote, to make up for what he's done to her, so he gives her what he can and lives with that guilt for two years.

The moment she comes back and he sees her again, and finds out there is something he can do, he's willing to throw his entire life away to mitigate the harm their community caused her. I don't think that was demonstrative of his solidarity with Runaan; I think it was driven by spending the last two years knowing that their society is flawed and living with the harm their community did to Rayla.

Also, backing up a bit to season 3 to touch on an example of humans applying their cultural context to Moonshadow things, is Callum accusing Rayla of staying at the Storm Spire out of pride.

He's misunderstanding her dedication here. It's not about personal pride for her. At this point, from her perspective, her parents have committed the gravest sin in their native culture in abandoning Zym's egg. She's been living in the shadow of that shame for a year. She's also abandoned her original duty - sure it was for a good reason, but it doesn't change the fact that she sacrificed the lives of her friends and father. She made a choice for them that ended their lives. The only thing she can do now, culturally, to make up for those crimes is to sacrifice herself in the name of duty and saving who she can; and there's still a chance her spirit won't be welcomed into their afterlife when it's over.

That's why this moment matters. "Just - remember me, okay?" It's not about personal pride, it's about deeply ingrained cultural values. Her name is banned at home. She's asking him to remember her because no one else will (or in Ethari's case, will be permitted to acknowledge they do). I'm not trying to bash Callum here, because he genuinely does not understand this and in the end he works with her and ends up staying just as she does. It's just an example of how even characters in the narrative make the mistake of forgetting that there's cultural divides here.

All in all, within what we know for sure and can extrapolate about Moonshadow elves' culture and history, I think our three main Moonshadows' choices do all make sense. It also makes sense how they're all willing to forgive each other in the end, because while they've all fucked each other up, it was heavily influenced by a culture that, while attempting to preserve as much as they can, has turned harsh and unforgiving about it. It's not as simple as "Runaan and Ethari are abusive fathers because Runaan took a child to a murder and Ethari ghosted her after". (On that point it's also worth noting that no one questions Rayla being on a high-profile assassination anyways. She's treated as an adult within her own society, just as Soren was at only a year older than her. This one's a spot where we're applying modern day values about adulthood to a medieval world in which being treated as an adult at 15-16 was not unusual.) Runaan and Rayla both fucked up, culturally, and fucked each other up doing so. Ethari did everything right, culturally, and harmed both Rayla and himself in doing so, and then was just alone with that for three years. He couldn't even lean on the rest of the Silvergrove for support because of the Ghost spell and its rules (Lyrennus refuses to even say Rayla's name until she's restored, and Rayla never mentions her parents' names; it's likely all discussion of them is banned).

Anyway, I really hope we get Arc 3 and I hope they expand upon how this experience has challenged the Moonfam's cultural views, and what ripple effects that will have on Moonshadow society as a whole. Runaan and Ethari are both well-respected members of the community, and Rayla is very likely to become a significant figure in their histories too now that she's returned.

TL;DR we need to stop putting human values on inhuman characters. Stop putting inappropriate cultural values onto characters in general.

Sources:

Contents of the show

Through The Moon (graphic novel)

Book One (referenced via This Page on the official wiki)

Bloodmoon Huntress (graphic novel)

The Queen's Mercy short story (found here)

All Storms End short story (found here)

Hot Brown Morning Potion podcast interview with creators (here)

[sillylittlecharacters]

very VERY silly isat au:

you know how InsertDisc5 said that anyone else stuck in a timeloop would get out really easily? What if... what if that wasn't a net positive? What if they got out of the timeloop, but the wish they made still put them in a personal torment nexus afterwards?

(This isn't to bash on other party members looping aus, btw. I love them to death!! They're all so cool!!! And so many people have such cool ideas for them!!! This is merely a silly writing exercise to see how I can ruin a 'happy ending'.)

For argument's sake let's take Isabeau. Immediately after defeating the King he's just. completely stonefaced. Odile's like 'what, are kids these days too cool to get excited about ending our quest?' and he's like 'it get's less exciting the third time around, lol' and everyone else is like 'THE THIRD TIME??' In the end they all agree to stick together for as long as the loops would allow to help him figure out the time travel shenanigans, whether that be for a whole second journey or just to make talking to Euphrasie a little less lonely. This promise breaks the loops!

But it doesn't break the wish entirely.

You see, the phrasing of a wish and the intent behind it is really important. Siffrin's wish was - thank you ISAT script project - (You want to stay with them!) and it directly led to the timeloop, no extra world-breaking complications needed.

But if it was phrased slightly differently? Coloured by the independent traumas and insecurities of the different characters? Siffrin would know that a wish had to be something 'small and simple' so that the Universe would be easily able to take the path of no resistance to fulfill it clearly, but the others would lack the cultural context or the muscle memory to narrow the scope into specifics.

For example, Isabeau's version of the wish could be (You want to be yourself with them. Your true self - whoever that ends up being, for however long they'll want you.)

A timeloop that's broken in like... 10-15 loops max has got nothing on unwanted mitosis. Isabeau keeps being multiplied, his clones representing different sections of his personality. At first they're practically identical: the only difference between them is that IsaOne seems to be louder and more giggly whilst IsaTwo is slightly more anxious and reserved. But as time goes on, each IsaClone is more exaggerated and uncanny than the last. One clone might be as physically affectionate as a tipsy koala bear, latching onto anything that comes close, whilst another is almost neurotic, completely paralysed in fear.

He's left with a choice. Does he continue trying to compartmentalize his personality until he becomes a parody of himself - utterly inoffensive, utterly likable, and utterly unrecogniseable? Or does he accept every part of himself, no matter how flawed they might be, as his true self?

That's pretty much the blueprint for the au! A fun twist on the base 'stay with them' wish that leads to an even worse postcanon torment nexus for the focus character! Because my philosophy is that even fix-its can make it worse!!

I haven't hashed out the details for the other family members yet, but I'll reblog this post with the editions once I do. In the meantime, please feel free to add your own ideas!!

[lover-of-mine]

Do you ever think about how the way fans are saying Tommy is getting the Marisol treatment just isn’t correct ? (Don’t run away this isn’t a positive Tommy post I swear 😂)

But like with Marisol yeah she had no last name. And she barely talked. And she vanished for episodes at a time. So far we are tracking the similarities between them. But beyond that

Marisol had a brother we saw and knew about

Marisol had a house we saw and knew about and was even talked about (something that’s a big sticking point for those fans 💀)

Marisol was actively developed (to a degree) with the whole nun plot point. And then the whole emotional conversation she had with Eddie about why she tends not to tell guys she’s dating about it.

She was actively mentioned by characters a decent amount of times even when she wasn’t there.

And what has Tommy gotten?

No house. No family beyond a quick toss away line about his dad, we never see him. We never hear about him. There been no character development of any kind. No emotional conversations or connections of any kind.

Like he’s not getting the Marisol treatment this season. He’s getting even worse treatment then she did 😂😂😂😂

He's not getting Marisol'ed, he's getting Ali'ed. Only there because they need Buck not to be single while Eddie goes through the torment nexus.

[eyedoeluhn]

Any thoughts how the rest of the Undersiders are handled in bcf?

Pretty poorly. TLDR

The undersiders as a team have not bonded. They are in a fraught situation barely held together by their individual obligations to Jozef and the assumption that they are a proxy team slash frequent clients of his putting scrutiny and pressure on them from all sides, and times are aggressive towards each other. They are each in difficult positions and far more stressed physically and mentally due to the city being in tatters and Joe's involvement. There is very little love lost between the team and less trust. This is like a natural consequence of Joe's meddling but it sucks and Joe really doesn't fucking care. The undersiders right now are an annoying semi obligation he doesnt really care about beyond bare minimum support and he only ever gave half of a fuck because of Taylor and moving to why their lives indivudally suck....its weird!

Taylor has an extremely unhealthy relationship with Joe where she feels guilty and responsible for his actions and his inappropriate level of attachment to her despite the lack of actual contact. This trend starts from the very beginning where she "seduces" Joe over to villany via his shard and the problems start from there.

Lisa is just put into a torment nexus, BCF does not shy away from #dunking on her narrative wise. She attempts to manipulate Joe, 'falls in over her head' and Joe is continually aggressive towards her and leaving her to deal with the fallout of his more rash actions. Semi recently Joe came across a power that lets him spot manipulation so you know how that goes. Lisa has also spent much of her time with chronic headaches that only Joe can provide occasional relief from. Currently she is contemplating how to inform Joe of Noelle without causing an S Class event because she is unaware Joe and the Forge are already immune to anything Noelle could do anyway. Great.

Alec has had...changes. After the first clash with Bakuda, he was tortured with a blowtorch by the ABB. Joe used nanite technology to heal him and he discovered afterwards he couldn't hijack Bakuda. Joe with his technology went over his neural pathways and identified his brain as damaged due to his upbringing in Heartbreaker's household and in correcting it gave Alec a full range of emotion. Alec is now apparently the emotional center of the team while Taylor and Rachel are orbiting and Lisa and Brian attempt to control the situation. He is also not dealing with this particularly well but Joe approves of the change I guess. BCF and Joe are incredibly weird and hypocritical about neurological changes. So now he's made some attempts to reach out and support his teammates, i guess

Rachel honestly hasn't been given that much screen time. She initially was very against Joe joining the undersiders and was involved in some of their schisms about behavior like the grudge held against Alec for his failed hijack attempt. After the Forge debuts as a team she finds Fleet, a male AI, attractive and goes out on a date riding their dogs together. Rachel is largely positive towards the Forge.

Brian....jeeze where do I begin. I need to do a comprehensive post about his recent triple-terlude. But through most of the story he's been a frazzled control freak unaware of Aisha's contact with Joe. And his dad thinks he's gay now I guess.

As a bonus, Joe approached Lily with the offer to make her immortal via nanites and she also thought he was objectively hot and was like okay sure and now has some dumb sword from him. Joe cannot stop contacting children and telling them to not tell their authority figures.

I could elaborate on any of these but that would make a very long post so i would have to do them separately. Tumblr does have an image limit.

you guys hate me. I'm getting to this. I'm working with these guidelines since i think it follows the spirit of the question:

1 I am not allowed to depower Joe by deleting the CF from existence*

1 (a) i AM allowed to make alterations to its function and characterization (citation, lordroustabout)

1 (b) i am not allowed to "reboot" the fic from the beginning (A la A Daring Synthesis, A Bad Name, etc)

2 i am not allowed to discard Joe as the main character

2 (a) i AM allowed to follow the interludes system of BCF which include alternate perspective addendums. More perspectives, quicker plot. Don't know how BCF fumbled this change

3 No edits to the posted chapters whatsoever.

3 (a) word of God is not legally binding (citation, lordroustabout)

[percheduphere]

LET'S TALK ABOUT MOBIUS'S HEAVY KEYS

I wrote a meta on S1 Mobius here, mostly exploring his interrogation persona and emotional trajectory toward S1E6. I also have a fun little list on all the things I love about him here.

@mitromana posted about how we should talk about Mobius's sass and even cruelty more. @wowwwmobius posted how Mobius realistically would not be doing well post-S2E6 (I wholeheartedly agree), and they and @inwantofamuse shared amazing comments. All of this inspired this meta.

Thank you @mitromana @wowwwmobius @inwantofamuse!

Mobius's interrogation scenes are him at his most cruel and ruthless. The flipside of being a highly empathetic person is that it is very VERY easy to use this skill in highly abusive, cunning, and powerful ways. This is especially true if the person armed with this skill is exceptionally intelligent and is convinced their motivations are good. At the TVA, before Loki's exposure of the truth, Mobius is both of these things. Worse, he has access to the TVA's more ethically unconscionable technology, which he does not hesitate to use.

The road to evil is paved with good intentions. Mobius strolls onto this road more than once, but he manages to not stay on it because two people curb this risk: Loki and, yes, Sylvie.

Take in Loki's words and posture in this scene. The words alone are a frail and weak comeback for a silver-tongue God of lies. They do nothing but reveal Loki is in FACT scared. His arms are crossed tightly over his abdomen, a primal protective response. He's leaned as far away from Mobius as possible. This is the best Loki can come up with in the face of a boring man in a boring suit, really?

You can see why Mobius was moved into the position of Analyst from Hunter. He may not be able to prune children, but he can literally bring a God like Loki to the ground, breathless, confused, and frightened, with nothing more than WORDS. And this is with a variant Mobius likes. Imagine what he can do to a variant he hates.

For HWR and Ravonna's purposes, Mobius is the perfect weapon to get whatever they want out of whatever variant they capture before sending them off to get pruned. How do they keep him from questioning anything?

Memory-wiping (more than once), brainwashing, propaganda, and:

A little something for Mobius's identity, something that fulfills his intrinsic need to take care of others while also gently stroking his ego.

Yes, the genocide of multiple timelines over the span of eons is horrifying. But Mobius is capable of being complicit with it as long as his environment feeds his intrinsic psychological and emotional needs. The people on the Sacred Timeline become his new children, and he will do anything ANYTHING to protect them.

There was one thing HWR and Ravonna didn't anticipate: that this man's empathy for a specific Loki would be the very thing that liberates the multiverse and his own bondage from a corrupt bureaucracy.

However...

I don't believe Mobius ever anticipated becoming emotionally compromised when he advocated on Loki's behalf. He likely genuinely believed that after centuries of studying Loki, he knew him well enough to make him useful for the TVA. But the subconscious, oh. That is a different story, and in Loki's own words, Mobius has a gift for lying to himself.

I discuss the interrogation scene and Sif loop scene in depth here, so I won't repeat myself, but I'd like to draw our attention to the 2 gifs below, framing my analysis:

Imagine where Mobius's mind must be at:

I spent centuries studying you and believing in you. I waited more centuries for your nexus event to come. I tasked every hunter to inform me of your arrival immediately, no matter what I was doing, no matter where I was. I abandoned a case. I ran to your trial. I put my job, reputation, and eons-long friendship with Ravonna on the line. I tested your theory. I brought you with me on the field. You talked to me. You challenged me. You made me proud. You made me laugh.

I gave you daggers and you stabbed me. You STABBED me. When all I wanted to give you was--

Mobius cracked hard and fast. Applaud Owen Wilson for THIS interpretation of the script and THIS delivery.

Thankfully, the very person who put Mobius in this fragile state of mind is also the person Mobius deeply wants to believe in. Even after being betrayed, Mobius still wants to believe in Loki and his capacity to be a wonderful person. And so he looks at Ravonna's TemPad, decides Loki deserves to be with whoever he wants to be with (even if that person will never be Mobius himself), frees Loki to help him save the woman he loves, and gets pruned for it.

Mobius survives thanks to plot-armor. And who is the first person he meets?

The bane of his existence.

And Sylvie wastes no time driving a knife into a very fresh wound. Mobius, however, only recently unleashed all his rage. His reservoir for compartamentalizing has refreshed, so he can take Sylvie's truth bravely, without a flinch, and acknowledge that truth with one of his own.

Mobius owns it. He doesn't deny it. He tacitly agrees with her and gives her a reason why.

We should remember how dangerous Mobius can be. He is currently sitting in a car with the variant he is most likely to hate. Sylvie is strong, clever, and resilient, but her ability to regulate her emotions is weak, especially if she is triggered. Mobius can destroy her very easily with his words.

But Mobius can't hate her. He can't. She was right and he was wrong, but most importantly Loki loves her.

He won't hurt the person Loki loves most. No. He will take her to him instead. He can stomach the pain, the disappointment. He's good at that. Loki's well-being, his happiness, comes first.

In fact, Mobius stomachs Sylvie's knife twists a second time and chooses not to defend himself. I don't doubt a large part of him agrees with her. Nevertheless, he can't help but hope Loki might stand up for him in that moment. He tries, and fails, to make light of it by rolling his eyes and turning to his friend. When Loki leaves him not explaining why, his true feelings about this interaction surfaces on his face.

Aren't you going to say anything?

The saddest thing is that this is the LAST intimate moment THIS Mobius has with Loki before Loki crosses the gangway and never returns. This is it. This is what he's left with: the thought Loki didn't care enough to defend him and Loki leaving.

HE doesn't get to hear that he's just trying to see in the dark and is doing everything he can to keep the surviving timelines alive. SYLVIE does.

HE doesn't get to hear Loki tell him he saved his life. DON does.

HE doesn't get the final goodbye and "thank you, Mobius", his PAST SELF does. And if Mobius happens to remember this moment in the present, he will know that he was the one who propelled Loki to bear this massive burden ALONE.

My worry for Mobius post-S2E6 is that he is more than talented at ignoring his own needs and addressing his own problems. He is infinitely better--a master, even--at taking care of anyone else. It's a devastating flaw, but it comes from a very raw place:

His heart, his soul, will always remember being a single parent.

Being a parent at all is hard to begin with. There are only so many hours in a day, and the majority of it is devoted to putting someone else's needs before your own. Being a single parent is even harder. You might have a few people to help you, but ultimately, there's no partner to share every high and low intimately. To be a single parent of not one but TWO children?

Game over.

Some viewers have interpreted Don ignoring his sons' phone calls at work as negligent. Honestly, I don't think that's the case. He will call them back. Don is Mobius and Mobius is Don. He will take care of them. But refusing every beck and call at work is the only personal boundary he has. He cannot have many boundaries for himself at home or anywhere else. He has to decline not one but two calls for his own sanity. Nevermind that he works Monday through Saturday, nine to five, to make enough money to keep them healthy and happy. Where is the break? There is none. This is Don's glorious purpose.

Mobius leaving the TVA is understandable for two crucial reasons: One, it is a reminder of all his horrifying acts and complicity. Two, it is a reminder Loki is no longer there. But by leaving the TVA, Mobius separates himself from his only support system. That's not good. That is decidely unhealthy. The fact that it doesn't cross B-15, Casey, or OB's minds that this is a very bad idea tells you everything you need to know about the number of genuinely close friends Mobius has.

Mobius has two. He walked away from one to be with the second, and the second walked away from him, too. TWICE.

But he still loves him anyway.

When you take a man like this and take away everything that's kept him functional: the TVA, Ravonna, Loki, and then show him a content life in which he cannot even be with his own children because another version of him already exists, what do you think will happen to him given we've seen how violently Mobius can snap?

And guess what: only one person has ever seen Mobius snap on more than one occasion. Only one person understands the triggers and how to handle them. I'll give you three guesses as to who it is.

Mobius "has a happy ending" is absolute bullshit. He is at risk.

[sawbuckplus]

FBI Director Kash Patel announced this week that he had handed over to Congress long-sought bureau records related to the 2017 congressional baseball game shooting following years of House Republicans arguing the bureau was stonewalling on why it had labeled the attack "suicide by cop" instead of domestic terrorism. James Hodgkinson, an extreme left-wing activist living out of a van in northern Virginia opened fire on Republicans at an Alexandria baseball field on June 14, 2017 after asking GOP congressmen who had left the practice early if the players were Republicans or Democrats. GOP Congressman Steve Scalise nearly died as a result of the attack. Before opening fire, Hodgkinson reportedly asked if the players on the field were Republicans, and then proceeded with his armed assault. Republican congressmen have for years harshly criticized the 2017 decision by the FBI, led in an acting capacity at the time by Andrew McCabe, not to label the shooting by Hodgkinson as domestic terrorism despite his targeting of elected Republican leaders as they practiced for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. The FBI had instead dubbed the attack "suicide by cop" -- a position the bureau refused to reverse until 2021, and a position the FBI has never fully explained. ... As he sprayed bullets at the GOP members practicing for a baseball game, Hodgkinson's gunfire struck Scalise in the hip, hit lobbyist Matt Mika in the chest, and injured two Capitol Police officers, Crystal Griner and David Bailey. Scalise nearly bled to death and required multiple surgeries before returning to Congress. The shooter, who was killed by police, had written down the names of GOP congressmen. McCabe, who was deeply involved in the FBI's roundly criticized Crossfire Hurricane investigation, took over the FBI after the May 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, who himself had played a key role in the false Trump-Russia collusion saga. It was during McCabe's tenure that the bureau rejected calling the shooting "domestic terrorism." McCabe did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News through his LinkedIn page. ... Hodgkinson supporter of Democratic presidential primary candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, was killed by law enforcement after the attack. Infuriated by Trump winning the 2016 election, he had posted on Facebook that "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co." and had joined other groups such as "Terminate The Republican Party" and "Join The Resistance Worldwide!!" The FBI declared just a week after the shooting in June 2017 that it did not consider the baseball shooting a terrorist attack, saying, "The FBI is investigating this shooting as an assault on a member of Congress and an assault on a federal officer. At this point in the investigation, the FBI does not believe there is a nexus to terrorism." The FBI held onto this position for years. ... "Much to our shock that day, the FBI concluded that this was a case of the attacker seeking suicide by cop," Wenstrup said. "Director, you want suicide by cop, you just pull a gun on a cop. It doesn't take 136 rounds. It takes one bullet. Both [Department of Homeland Security] and the [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] published products labeling this attack as a domestic violent extremism event, specifically targeting Republican members of Congress. The FBI did not. The FBI still has not."

Hat tip to AoSHQ

[knaveumineko]

Umineko Episode 5 Blog: The Adventure of the Noble Battler

It seems that, despite enjoying the story, I don't have too much left to say on Episode 5, so let's wrap it up here. A few topics in no particular order.

Battler's characterisation has undergone quite the shift with Lambdadelta controlling his piece for most of the story. In particular, the story keeps drawing parallels between him and Kinzo. He's being used as a puppet by the adults who think they're better off with him in charge. He has this "madness" to him (I believe someone remarks that Battler leaping from the window to prove a point is the sort of bizarre action that inspired the legend around Kinzo). He's consistently presented as being on the same side as Kinzo, although this is open to interpretation, since it is generally clear that he's allying himself specifically with Natsuhi's illusion of Kinzo. He's being called the Golden Sorcerer. Of course, he's also drawing from Kinzo's Dante parallel in that his shift in demeanour was prompted by the loss of Beatrice.

These parallels are unsettling, in that Kinzo is the kind of man who should prompt some serious reflection if you find yourself relating to him. Battler's triumphs are exciting in the moment, but are they actually a sign of positive change for his character, or is he also going to end up a lunatic pleading for a smile from a portrait that offers only a cold glare? We'll have to see what he's like as a gamemaster. If nothing else, the witches acknowledge that Battler has discovered the truth of the game and seen into Beatrice's heart. It seems doubtful that Kinzo could say the same.

Battler's comparison to Kinzo is not without precedent. I don't believe I went into this in my Episode 4 post, but you can draw comparisons with Ange as well: made new head of the family after a disaster wiped out every other candidate, constantly fighting against the adults who don't respect her and want to use her new position for their own ends, a self-styled user of magic to the point of delusion. The connection has only been strengthened by having Battler take a page out of her book and jump off the 3rd floor. Are we going to get to Episode 8 and get a Kinzo backstory where Beatrice tells him he can have a stack of gold as high as he can jump from without dying and he has the original Ushiromoment?

Battler's ascendency to the Ushiromiya Family Head is paralleled by him reaching the position of gamemaster, and with his understanding of Beatrice's game board, Battler has gained a new power: the gold truth. Ryukishi has decided to withhold an explicit answer about what gold truths are thus far, but after 5000 hours in the Ange Torment Nexus there's no excuse to give up on thinking whenever one sees new magic.

We know explicitly that gold truths are something quite distinct from red truths, and that neither can completely defeat the other. Rather, which of them might win out is contextual. In some sense, this was true of blue truths as well. It would seem that gold truth is unmistakable to those who understand Beatrice's game at its core, and Battler's ability to use it is proof of his right to take control of the game.

Battler's specific gold truth was used to confirm that a certain corpse was truly Kinzo's. (This scene is rather vague. Are we to assume that the Battler on the gameboard is revealing Kinzo's corpse as the trial in the meta world occurs?) Regardless, this statement is notable in that it does not directly contradict any factual statement made in red. If Knox had said in red "this corpse is not Ushiromiya Kinzo," the gold may have failed to counter it. Instead, the gold has the ability to override the Knox's 2nd as a storytelling convention and establish a fact through completely irrational means.

It would seem thematically resonant for gold truths to represent faith. A statement in gold is taken as true simply because the user insists upon it on an emotional level. That being said, the nature of the gold truth has to tie into the rules of the game somehow. Then, perhaps the ability to use the gold truth comes down to understanding not just the mysteries, but the themes of the narrative and the hearts of its characters, to the point where you can reject a proposition, not on any factual basis, but simply because it being true would completely miss the point of the story. Kinzo is dead because him being dead is a basic premise of the narrative. The conflict between the siblings, and the servants' shady manoeuvring, don't make sense in a story where Kinzo is still alive to fill the power vacuum. Hence, even without the red, we can declare him dead.

I have a feeling that if you're willing to stretch the red truths as far as I have already, then you could probably turn anyone you want into the culprit. I bet you could even make Battler the killer, if you suggest that he's an imposter the entire time so any statement about Battler not being the culprit doesn't actually apply to him. Still, if the culprit turned out to be Jessica or Nanjo or something, then Umineko would probably be a pretty awful story, since the ending wouldn't be properly supported by anything that came before it. In this sense, red truths are by no means the be-all and end-all of reasoning.

Did my earlier claims in this blog that Maria can't be the culprit, because she's fundamentally an honest person who tries to share what makes her happy, even when it constantly results in her getting hurt; or that Kinzo is certainly dead, because that's the kind of trick an author like Ryukishi would pull given the framework he chose to tell the story through, constitute gold truths in their own way? Probably not, since I certainly didn't understand much about what the story was going for back then, but perhaps it's a similar sort of thing.

This last point doesn't really connect to anything else, but it hardly deserves its own post. It seems that Ryukishi might be teasing an upcoming reveal that there are only 16 people on Rokkenjima. We got a whole scene dedicated to the narrator doing everything possible to tell us that we should be suspicious about how many people are in the room. Shannon and Kanon finally appeared together in front of Battler, only after he stops being a reliable narrator. Very funny. The complicating factor is that, at this point, any scene intended to make clear that the number of people on the island is now established would look suspicious by how much attention it draws to the issue, only making me question it more, and Ryukishi is certainly savvy enough to leverage a reader's contrarianism against them. Still, I feel like Shannon and Kanon never being seen together before this Episode is too big a deal for a simple red herring. Episode 2 makes way more sense through that lens, too. I've persuaded myself of the Shannon/Kanon theory to the point where I'd probably need a direct red truth disproving it before I dismiss it, now. There's a gold truth for you.

[bite-the-bloody-hand]

Got some loose meta observations about Daeran floating around my head that might turn into a longer character observation post because I think way too much about where the devs choose to put characters on the map, but like. I love how wherever he's positioned on the hub maps he's always Keeping Watch.

In Kenabras, he's seated right at the door of the first floor bedroom, in the chair that has the best view of the entire Inn. He has an eye on all the exits and is all but guarding the door to the room where everyone sleeps.

In the Crusader camp, his tent is situated in such a way that he can keep an eye on the main entrance to the camp, the commander's tent, and all the communal areas.

In Drezen, I find it very interesting that he's right in the center road to the posh district, where he'd have full view of the markets, the main road, and the Keep. And if Camellia is in the party it's almost like he's barring the way to her moving freely through the city, keeping an eye on her coming and goings.

Then in the Nexus of the Abyss, he's positioned by the fire, the most central area he's been in since Kenabras. (I find it especially compelling because, if you leave him at the camp when going to Colophyr mines, he's the one that organizes everyone to get a secure camp together.)

He's always being watched, and always watching out.

[deviouscrackers]

MY opinion on todays TSAMS ep

Going to try and keep this constructive, because criticism without offered solutions is just dumb. (Got a bit long, sorry)

(I've had to use data to watch it since my wifi isn't existing for some reason (like everything is working but for some reason it ain't showing up on the connect list).)

Todays TSAMS episode... hm.

What did I like about it? Well, I liked Dark Sun pressuring Sun, the desperation in Sun's voice and his reluctance to kill Nexus at first. I liked how Moon came rushing in, and the fact that both him and Solar were willing to die to protect Sun. Nexus's scream was pretty good too. I think Reed and Davis did pretty well acting-wise.

(I can't comment too much on the exact dialogue, since I had to rush through and conserve my data.)

All in all, a solid episode.

Where the episode falls flat, at least for me, is that it's very noticeably lacking something.

Ironically, it's also very similar to why I no longer watch TFF Fnaf, even though the potential of Bryan's character rotates in my brain like it's in a microwave.

Today's episode had too much buildup for what ended up being. I'm not purely talking about Nexus's death and the months of buildup, I'm talking about from a viewing stand point as well.

The "marketed appeal" (I dunno what else to call it tbh), of this particular episode set was that it was a three parter halloween special/arc finale that had the last part premiering.

The first part, The Halloween Party, did very well with the collab, the way the events took place, the editing was good... it was very solid, and I enjoyed it. It got me interested in what was to come, got me wondering who took Moon, what's going to happen next?

The second part was also excellent. Goliath versus the Dragon was a thrilling addition and Ruin helping Moon nicely showed off his character. The way Nexus yelled when he realized what had happened, nicely done too. I left that episode wondering what would happen to Ruin, who would win the dragon fight, will Sun and Moon find each other in time, will Sun's trance come into play at any point in time?

The last episode did not deliever on what the first two episodes were bringing up. The dragon did not come back, and with what Dark Sun said about not wanting to see Sun again, it most likely won't. Sun and Moon did find eachother, but it wasn't all that impactful? It felt more silly than anything else.

After writing this all, I realize what exactly I felt was missing.

The episode felt like filler, almost?

Throughout Dark Sun's regular antagonist position on the channel, and specifically near the end, after the dragon had been revealed, it felt like he had a plan. Something cooking up in the background that involved all these complex pieces. And in a way he did, but it wasn't satisfying. What was the point of the dragon? What was the point of asking Ruin how long? What was the point of all of that, if he's just going to leave? Dark Sun did almost nothing, and while I want to believe that all of it was because he that "data", he went about it in such a stupid way!

Nexus's death, while well acted, also just wasn't satisfying either.

I think ultimately, the disappointment I feel with the episode is a result of things feeling rushed, underdeveloped, or just not elaborated on. Nexus felt uncared for as a character and I think the story could've done without Dark Sun. It could also be that we just haven't seen everything that's too come with the story yet, and there's loose ends or extra stuff to be told. I want to continue watching, because I enjoy TSAMS, and I'm a huge fan of Davis and his va work.

Because I don't want to sound like all I'm doing is complaining, I want to offer a solution.

I think, something that's bogging TSAMS down as a whole, is how often it's being posted and how that really spreads the story thin. Three times a week with one "lore" episode per week would work well. Yes, that mean less daily views, but it could potentially boost the lifetime of the channel for a while. It'd be easier to catch up when a viewer has fallen behind and allow the episodes, both gaming and story, to breathe.

At the end of the day though, I don't know how the channel works, I'm not a va for the channel, I don't work for them. This is just my own opinion on it and if I write anymore I will begin rambling on about why Season 1 of TFF Fnaf was peak and the others weren't (jokes but I do think both TFF Fnaf and TSAMS have a lot of similarities when it comes to the writing issues).

Anywyayyyaahha Happy North Hemisphere Halloween, losers :P