#and they're just there... because. no particular reason for it

[tothewhirlwind]

I kind of disagree with you on porn in part because I think you're making a mistake about the structure of the pleasures you're drawing into analogy. The coffee example and the hamburger example both rely on the true idea that ordinary pleasures, even supernormal ones, don't typically put one on a hedonic treadmill that makes them seek out more and more potent versions of the source of pleasure.

But the mistake that I think you make is that you aren't seeing that sexual pleasures are slightly more mediated than food pleasures, most visibly through the orgasm. Let's stick with food. The pleasures of eating are basically immediate and relatively well-anchored to the particular food (there are exceptions, such as eating after brushing your teeth. The general case holds). there's no situation in which, having chewed a piece of celery in just the right way for about twenty minutes, it suddenly tastes absolutely phenomenal for a short while. But sex does have this feature, so sexual pleasure exhibits a little more autonomy from the source of pleasure than many basic pleasures do.

If you think an associationist view of pleasures and desires is a model that's close to the truth — that is, the idea that learning to associate great pleasure with certain things leads one to desire those things more — then you can imagine why this could make porn worrisome. But it's a different problem than the claimed supernormal stimulus. Rather than addicting someone to porn as such, the problem here would be that particular porn could lead to self-reinforcing enjoyment of more instances of that sort of porn.

But a problem with this is that it's actually not specific to porn videos at all. This same thing could happen with reading porn, masturbating over something you saw, or even just imagining scenarios. So it's not like mediated pleasure + association problem = a harm caused by porn as such.

I think a worry that sounds more reasonable is that the above combination of factors combines to give whatever specific mechanism of delivery for erotic content online predominates an undue influence over the desiring psychology of users of those delivery mechanisms. And this just leads to a particular instance of the general concerns about opaque algorithmic content delivery that others have already written about.

The nutshell version of this post is that maybe sex videos can hurt you, not because they're sex videos but because the structure of sexual enjoyment has self-reinforcement potential that could lead to bad results in the wrong content delivery environments.

So like, it's obvious to me reading the comments on my post that anti-porn people are largely like, afraid of porn. Like the concept of a sex video is really spooky to them. They're not making thoughtful critiques of the porn industry, which is genuinely a really fucked up industry, they're mostly just spooked by the concept of a sex video and what it could Do To You If You See It.

I said this in another post, but it's like, the difference between "a ton of coffee is produced using slave labor" (valid, important criticism of the coffee industry) and "coffee turns people into raving coffee addicts who forget how to interact with anyone because they're so obsessed with their coffee" (objectively not true, insane viewpoint).

It's literally just sex videos. They really cannot hurt you.

[croquettish]

I am still going insane over The Rings (tm). Like? Did Sam have it made for John? Did John give him something in return? Do they consider themselves married or just sort of "promised to each other"? DOES JEHUDA KNOW? (Sara definitely knows tbh)

Also obsessed at how John yells at Kubyenka when they're going back to Kuttenberg through the tunnels. Boy probably can't lift a sword without taking his own eye out, but he was so ready to throw hands at that moment.

Also also need to know what John got up to in Kolín and how his reunion with Sam went down when he get back from Suchdol.

I've been so in my feels about these two the last few days. Got the start of a fic going and everything (send help).

So I went back to check, and before the patch we had Sam wearing three (!) rings when he meets Henry before taking him to see John.

Which he then took off for some reason???:

And, as we know, John wasn't wearing any at that time either.

On the wagon ride, they also weren't wearing any rings at the time:

And since I did just... go out of my way to replay all of Into the Underworld again, I can now say that they are both wearing them in that scene:

And the same is true in the wagon:

All three rings match. So here's what I think happened from a dev team perspective. They realized that there had been an oversight and that there was a mismatch between the cinematic that plays right before you go and meet Liechtenstein and all other times that Sam is on screen. And so they decided, you know what, while we're here doing this anyway, we might as well canonize Jamuel and watch the fandom implode (fair tbh).

My initial thought had been that a naysayer could come in to argue that Sam had given him such a ring as protection so that he could freely traverse the Jewish quarter with impunity (even tho we know he is actively in hiding and unlikely to leave the tavern, if the basement at all). But this kind of disproves that in a big way. Because it's three matching rings. There's no way that wasn't deliberate.

Anyway, your question got me thinking about Sam asking a blacksmith to make a matching set of rings for this man he's besotted with (probably told him they were meant to be spares in case he lost the others... it's possible that he would have made the one that reads Samuel read John instead otherwise; as it is, it does just look like a sign of ownership... joke's on you, homophobia, I'm into that shit!), and that got me real emotional because holy shit. His father, the man who couldn't be with the person he loved, was a blacksmith. And here is Sam, seeking out a blacksmith to craft him these signs of love and promise for the person he loves but can't be with. It's like he's seeking out Martin's blessing to say "you couldn't have this, and I can't have this, but this is the closest thing, and at least I'll have that."

All of this is of course pure conjecture. Maybe they're promised to each other, maybe they're meant to act as wedding rings. I personally think it's a case of "we can't be wedded before the eyes of God, but this is as close as it gets, and that will have to be good enough for both of our Gods."

There's no way Sara doesn't know. She and Sam are so close and Sam is such a mama's boy. Sara knows. And given her own history with... love... she'd obviously understand. Love this particular comic a whole lot.

And tbh, I think this is one reason why Sam recognizes Hansry for what it is:

We can have this exchange with Sara about Jehuda trying to find her another husband. Alongside the existence of his own relationship, I think this contributes heavily. He sees Hans not wanting to get married, then sees him interact with Henry (and also with himself), and realizes that the emotions he's seeing in Hans echo those he's seen in his mother's own resistance. As she was already in love with someone else that she couldn't be with.

Does Jehuda know? That's a good question. I couldn't say for certain, but I'm going to err on the side of saying no. There's enough friction between those two that I don't think Sam would trust him with something that contentious. That said, one of my top two favorite pieces of fanart for Jamuel is this comic, and I'm kind of obsessed with the idea that Jehuda has started catching on that There's Something There and is trying to put a stop to it... not that it's very... effective... sorry, Jehuda, they're already gay married...

Anyway you activated a particular trap card with your mention of John yelling at Kubyenka because when I replayed Exodus yesterday that shit took the fuck OUT. Because he sounds SO ANGRY.

He legitimately gets so pissed on Sam's behalf, and that speaks volumes to me. That and the fact that Kubyenka can call him out even on the wagon ride to Kuttenberg already:

Incidentally, I think this is also part of the reason why he and Sam end up as close as they are by the time that Suchdol happens, so much so that they insist on only doing the raid if they can go together. Kubyenka might not know about Hansry, but I think he knows about Jamuel, and he respects it enough not to comment on it.

THAT SAID, when I replayed Exodus yesterday I did learn the delightful news that the game insists on you killing the murderers that killed Sam's friends. I tried knocking them out at first and was struggling (fam, this pacifist playthrough might be impossible if I don't turn on invincibility and even if I do it'll be hard lmfao) and then John joined Henry and started punching himself. I mean full fisticuffs. Like he's a trained pugilist!

Anyway, I think he can wield a sword just fine, I just think he vastly prefers not to!!

You mentioned their Kolin reunion, and godddddddddddd... can you even imagine? John going absolutely mad from lack of information, naturally he'd send out spies to figure out where Sam was and if he was all right, only to then learn that they were under siege. That, or no one ever returned alive. That would leave him panicked. Even if he did learn, all of his attempts at sending aid would also have failed bc they would have been led by individuals trying to sneak through. Maybe he learns about what happened after Henry sneaks out, but-- oh my god he'd have Sam with him!!!! Sam would be in a bad way, but he'd most likely send word to John at least, and the chances are that John would then meet him at Suchdol if he could. Most likely it wouldn't be safe, in which case he'd send word that he'd make it to Kolin as quickly as he could but that he was alive.

[radicaldreemurrs]

admittedly i have no idea whether this topic is personal to you and that’s why you’re pushing for this particular interpretation, but do you really not think that ‘oh kris isn’t possessed, it’s an evil alter that is making them kill and manipulate their friends’ is incredibly ableist

well that's just plain bad faith, putting it like that. i'm not suggesting that the SOUL is an ""evil"" alter, this is deltarune we're working with here, it's never as simple as good and evil. what i'm positing is that the SOUL is representative of a deeply scarred and damaged part of kris that has a lot of personal reasons to lash out and hurt others, having been saddled with all the internalized baggage kris has around being a human in a world of monsters. this doesn't make the SOUL an ""evil alter"" — it is still where kris's compassionate choices come from as well — it makes kris a more complex character overall as someone with repressed and intrusive impulses of violence and cruelty that were allowed to develop from the carelessness of their circumstances, which are very real things to struggle with.

like. psychotic people can struggle with delusions that they're an innate danger to the people they love and that there's nothing they can do to stop it, and sometimes even act on those delusions! and they can still have webs of internal reasoning behind it that justifies it to themselves, just like anyone!! and this doesn't make kris any less sympathetic of a character at all to me, it makes them feel a lot realer that there's this real mental divide between parts of themself that they're actively struggling against, that choosing to be kind is more innately difficult for them because of the hurt they've endured and the damage their mind can't heal from alone. and i think kris will end up being a test of forgiveness on the part of the player of deltarune, like. are you willing to forgive someone who has fucked up this much in ways that are real, unlike with flowey, where all the things he did may as well have been fantasies playing out in his head.

[alexanderwales]

Not the asker from before, just saw that you were open to questions about web serial preferences.

I'm particularly curious about your opinions on the Wildbow serials; you called Worm out as a prior hyperfixation, but I saw on the chart that you'd checked out early re: the author's other stories.

Did you just not find them interesting? Do you think there's something about what made Worm compelling that was absent in the others? I've always been curious about why Worm in particular was such an explosive success, but it's hard to discuss because the Worm and Wildbow fanbases almost feel like distinct entities sometimes. People talk past each other.

I really enjoyed Worm, yeah, and spent a fair amount of time on the discord, the subreddit, spot-reading, fact-checking, doing analysis, stuff like that. It was ages ago: I read Worm as it was coming out.

As for why I didn't stick with the others ... it's complicated.

I think Wildbow is, for my tastes, actively bad at pacing. This showed in Worm, then showed a lot more in Pact. Part of the issue is that the stories (to the extent I've read them) begin to have this monotone feel to them, like each chapter has the same "energy" as the last, which is often anxious, angry, stressful, cornered, etc. Over the course of, say, half a million words, I tend to get fatigued. So Pact ended up being something that I dropped relatively early, before the Toronto arc.

Ward was just ... not what I wanted. The premise is that the world has ended and they're reconstructing society on an entirely different alternate Earth, and then this felt like it was largely background, and I didn't enjoy the therapy stuff, and the worldbuilding seemed so lazy to me, which was not at all the case in Worm. I wrote some fanfic, fairly early on, which was my attempt to express the things that I wished it was about, and to come to grips with the fact that it wasn't about the things I wanted it to be about. Still, I used to wait up until midnight for new chapters to drop, so I could read them and discuss with people, and eventually the chapter were coming later and later, and they'd come when I was tired, and that's how I fell off, because I also wasn't having that great a time with it. I didn't care about Victoria, who had too much baggage and uninteresting thoughts. One of the things I remember sticking out to me is that she focused a lot on clothes and appearances, giving much more detailed descriptions of them, and I thought that this was something that Wildbow was doing to differentiate her from other protagonists, and also that I did not really give a shit about Victoria's interest in clothing. I keep wanting to go back to it and finish it, just for the sake of completion, so it's not technically dropped by my standards, and I never hit a point where I thought "okay, I'm done with this, I'm not finishing this". I've been spoiled on a fair amount of what happens after the point I stopped reading the updates (I'm not spoiler averse), and nothing really made me think that it would be a good fit for me. Still, a very decent chance that I come back to it and binge the stuff I haven't read in a handful of weeks.

Twig ... people kept telling me that it was good, and I think I tried three times to get into it. I have no idea how far I actually got, but I gave it a fair shake, maybe ... four arcs? I think biopunk is also not a favored genre for me, and the characters didn't grip me very much, and it felt a bit like a "monster of the week" thing except that there was just so much word count, and not in a good way.

I hear people praising Claw, and Seek, and I think "okay, maybe I should check those out", but it's very possible that after Worm I was just too familiar with Wildbow as an author and thought that there was some ... redundancy to reading more? Especially millions of words more?

I've always been curious about why Worm in particular was such an explosive success

I think there are a few reasons for this, but this answer is already getting pretty long, so I'll be brief: Worm came along very early on, did things with the superhero genre that people hadn't seen much of before, had a particular ethos when it came to powers, munchkinry, and characters, and for all that I would argue it had "bad pacing" it did contain a pretty steady progression from idea to idea, and most of them worked. It also had a lot of structure that helped the fanfic scene explode, in a way other works didn't. I think most people who have read Worm could write a dozen half-decent "Worm-style" heroes without much trouble, but the same can't be said of any of Wildbow's other works (at least, to my admittedly incomplete knowledge). It's a combination of a lot of things, and I don't think most of them are repeatable by Wildbow or anyone else.

[odysseus-day]

SO glad we're finally admitting that show!louis was also toxic as hell in the show!loumand relationship.

because yes, armand killed claudia to hurt louis. we know this. we've known this. stating it over and over in every discussion to prove whatever innocence you think that gives louis adds nothing to the conversation.

but mind you, louis has also, in no particular order:

routinely mocked/brought up armand's past as a CSA VICTIM to win arguments ("i'm the vampire armand and my daddy vampire groomed me into a little bitch.")

perpetuated the cycles of abuse armand uses to indirectly self-harm (i.e. calling him by his slave name with the whole "you sure about that arun?" "yes, maître..." scene immediately after hearing about where armand comes from, "what is it gonna be? are you gonna lick my boots or chop off my hands?", armand's strangled little "are you asking or making me?")

provoked violent and angry reactions out of armand just to keep fights going, specifically by targeting known insecurities and hitting him with the absolute lowest blows ("colorless, flavorless, dull... dull nights, dull weeks, dull as fuck—")

consent avoidance/pushing at least once with his partner who he, again, knows is a csa victim ("take off your clothes." "...i'm reading through, uh, sam's pages—" "clothes off, face down, in the coffin. you can read them to me while i fuck you.")

pulled a lestat and cheated on armand A HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT TIMES in the 70's but still acts like he's so far above lestat.

that's not all of my problems with louis, but it's plenty enough to realize he is not the angel half of the fandom makes him out to be. and that's okay!! they're ANNE. RICE. VAMPIRES. they're supposed to be bad people! all of them! that's the whole point!

there's literally no reason to take a moral high ground on defending louis' actions. he's a bad person sometimes. armand is a bad person sometimes. lestat is a bad person sometimes. THEY'RE ALL BAD PEOPLE SOMETIMES. IT'S OKAY. THEY'RE NOT REAL!!!!

it's not racism to point out that a character of color's bad actions or to acknowledge that they are, canonically, morally gray. it is, however, horrifically patronizing to dumb down such an incredibly complex character into nothing but "sweet perfect baby angel who has never done anything wrong and continues to be victimized by everyone he meets. 🥺"

this is not to say there aren't ANY racist louis haters in the fandom because there ARE and THAT'S definitely a PROBLEM. but we should all just band together and collectively bully the shit out of those freaks instead of splitting down the middle of the "angel louis" vs "devil louis" debate and bashing ppl with alternating opinions. because it's a stupid fucking debate y'all. he's morally gray. he's both good and bad at all times. he's COMPLEX. IT'S ON PURPOSE.

Addressing a large trend and no particular person or opinion but the overwhelming framing of Armand as the uber bad guy and Louis as the innocent little damsel feels part of the weird overcorrection some of yall do with Louis when you try to proof you're not racist.

Avoiding falling into racist stereotypes like the angry black man trope is a good thing but completely "feminizing" and taking away all consequence of a characters actions is maybe not the solution here. Louis is a complex layered character, we don't need to reduce him to such a flat one instead. Jacob Anderson himself said he loves being able to portray this kind of problematic complex monster, finally.

Also kinda wild to see how lost the degrassi school of social justice crowd is with this. Yall consume so much ya/childresn content (which im not judging for theres some great stuff out there, but it's just a lot simpler, less nuanced, good or bad type stuff) so now you'reunable to judge a toxic relationship between two dark skinned man cause damn have we ever seen that before? We don't have a template for that.

Anyway Louis was fucking vile to Armand and had that coming, RIP Claudia though you didn't deserve that shit from any of these fuckers

[secretlycursedd]

Okay, I've been thinking about this for a long time, so here's my (probably unpopular) take on Jack and Dean's relationship (With examples of Dean loving and caring for Jack).

Let me start by saying that I don't consider myself either a Dean girl or a Sam girl (If you think about it, I'm actually more of a Jack girl), so my opinion is unbiased and doesn't lean towards just one brother (I love them equally).

I think the main reason why people think Dean really hated Jack is because of the complexity of his character.

Dean's defense mechanism is aggression, so every time he is scared, upset, doesn't know what to do, he starts getting angry and aggressive, and obviously this is not a healthy coping mechanism, but no one said that Dean is obviously a positive character who only does good. No, this is a complex character with childhood trauma, a soldier's upbringing and a lot of problems and responsibilities on his shoulders, he will not waste time sorting out all his feelings and putting them on the shelves, he will act in a way that is best for the majority, but this doesn't mean that his actions are necessarily right or that his actions fully reflect his feelings to a particular situation. His main rule in life is literally "Shoot first, think later." And because of that, a lot of things he said to Jack or did to him were mean or evil, but that doesn't mean Dean actually hated him to the core.

For example, after Mary died, Dean literally told Castiel that he was dead to him, and then they didn't talk and Dean didn't even want to hear about taking a step towards Castiel and forgiving him, but for some reason I haven't seen people say that Dean hates Castiel. Because he doesn't, and the same thing is true with Jack.

"Oh but Dean was mad at Jack, all those horrible things he said" Because Jack killed his mom???? Like are you trying to tell me you wouldn't be mad at the person who killed your mom (even if he didn't do it on purpose)? Dean's reaction and behavior were completely justified, and I'm not saying the things he said or did were right or good, I'm saying they were realistic. Dean may have loved Jack and cared about him, but he always loved his mom more, and of course her death (which happened not for the first time) hit Dean harder than Jack needing support.

And it's precisely because of Dean's complexity and character that characters like Sam and Castiel seemed like great father figures to Jack, because they had the privilege of emotions and time, and it always had been that way.

Sam was always able to show weakness and express his emotions, precisely because Dean didn't have that luxury. Sam always had time to think things through and be more gentle because Dean, who was always on guard, had his back. And it's not that Sam loved Jack more, it's that he had the opportunity to approach Jack from a different angle, and Dean was the one who gave him that opportunity.

The funny thing is that Jack and Dean are mirrors of each other in some ways. I think a lot of people focused so much on how the show paralleled Sam and Jack that the parallels between Dean and Jack went unnoticed because they weren't so obvious, but that doesn't mean they weren't there.

Both Jack and Dean grew up without mothers, had abusive fathers, were forced to grow up way too early, and were both forced to grow up into a life of hunters and warriors, neither of them asking for it, but they had no choice.

Dean and Jack loved the same people (Sam and Castiel) and were willing to do anything to protect them, even sacrifice themselves, but they both forgot that they weren't the only ones who could love, and that all these people they were trying to protect loved them too, and that's what's problematic about their relationship. It's not about hate, it's because they're actually so similar, and to some extent it was difficult for both of them to see their own feelings reflected in each other.

For example, when Dean insisted on letting Jack die, he literally did it to save the only and most important person he had left (Sam), but Jack himself was willing to do it, not only to atone for his guilt for Mary's death, but also to save his family.

Dean and Jack did not hate each other, they just had people they loved more than each other, and to protect them they were both willing to do anything, which once again parallels them.

And in a world where everyone only remembers the bad between Jack and Dean, let's remember the good.

For example, how Dean worried about Jack when he was in pain and dying, and he tried to do everything to ease his pain and make everything better.

Overall, this entire episode (14x07) confirms everything I wrote above.

Like the parallels such as Jack saying he doesn't want to be special anymore and that before he dies he just wants to live his life, and that's literally Dean's entire arc in season 15, how he wanted to break free from God's control and live his own life. The way Jack himself says he's like Dean, and Dean gently denies it, even though we then literally get visual confirmation that they are similar. The way Dean wanted to give Jack a day filled with the things Dean loved, and how Jack ultimately wanted to go fishing because Dean told him he did it with John. Jack always saw Dean as his third father, and there's no arguing with that.

How Dean couldn't stand to see Jack die, but Jack needed him.

The fact that Jack's heaven included all three of the most important people in his life - Sam, Dean, and Castiel.

Also some of my favorite moments are how Dean constantly calls Jack "their kid" (which just goes to show that he always loved and accepted Jack).

And the fact that even Nick talks about Jack having three dads.

And one of my favorite moments, which even made me cry when I watched it for the first time, was when Dean baked Jack a birthday cake.

They were always a full-fledged family, Dean has always been as much of a father to Jack as Sam or Castiel, and Dean always took care of Jack, and I think their relationship is one of the best and most complex in the entire series. Yes, Jack was not the most important person in Dean's life, just as Dean was not the most important person for Jack, but they still loved each other and did so until the very end.

[akechi-stole-my-heart]

Ooh "Akechi knew Joker was a PT at rank 3 and I have the evidence to back it up??" Would you be willing to prove your justice I mean assertion that Akechi knows who Joker is

yeah, so, before we get started i wanna make clear: nothing i have is a slam-dunk absolute proof that cannot be argued with. but i think there is a solid case to be made that akechi strongly suspected joker was a phantom thief before they even met at the tv station. and that, in fact, joker being called on during the show was an orchestrated attempt on goro's part to both get a reading on him as a potential phantom thief and establish a connection in order to get close to him as a prime suspect.

alright, so first of all, what does akechi know before june? well, we know he was in madarame's palace around the same time the phantom thieves were.

madarame mentions "the one with the black mask" almost as if he expects the black mask to be a part of the group. he's referred to as "the other one" and when madarame mentions him, he first looks across everyone in the group like he expects to find him among them. like i said, this isn't a slam-dunk case or anything, there are alternative explanations. but i don't think it's unreasonable to infer that madarame assumed the black mask was one of them--perhaps because he was trailing them throughout the palace.

we don't know why akechi might have paid a visit to madarame. maybe he was there for unrelated reasons to the phantom thieves--we know madarame had connections to shido. madarame also appears to believe in this same conversation that the thieves are here to kill him, so maybe he was here to make some threats and instill fear in madarame's subconscious. but regardless, we have good reason to think that akechi saw the phantom thieves inside madarame's palace. if he saw them, then that means he would have a general idea of their appearances, even if they are wearing those masks.

okay, so there's that. but i have some other evidence as well. in particular, a scene that was added to royal--and the extended version that was cut.

the scene that made it into royal cut off before sae and akechi could talk, but they still included the rest of it, meaning sae and akechi still walk past right after ryuji is loudly proclaiming their intentions to steal kamoshida's heart.

i would speculate that they ended up cutting this because it doesn't make much sense why this would mean anything to akechi. there's been no public change of heart yet, and there's no reason for a random conversation like this to catch his attention when akechi doesn't know what's going on at shujin and he isn't prescient, he doesn't have kamoshida's change of heart to give this conversation context. that said, the fact they wrote this scene at all shows they wanted to include something that hinted at the idea that akechi knows what's going on and has reasons to suspect them from very early on.

(personally, i don't think it's unreasonable for akechi to retroactively recall the loud blonde boy yelling on the street about taking kamoshida down after he's had his change of heart. and when he sees that same blonde boy in the metaverse and hanging around akira at the tv station later, well, the connections draw themselves...)

but okay, so far i've just been pointing at scenes that might loosely imply akechi has information that would lead him to suspect akira, but nothing concrete. but here is where we get concrete confirmation that akechi knows/suspects the phantom thieves, and it's this scene with the siu director that triggers after the phantom thieves change kaneshiro's heart.

right here the siu director is talking to the principal of shujin and pressing for information on suspects. in the conversation, he says that their other operative gave them a list of suspects "without delay." this other operative is akechi. his list of suspects, by this point, would almost certainly be akira kurusu and his friends. they're the most obvious suspects, which brings me to my other point--

suspecting joker as being a phantom thief is an extremely obvious inference. akechi is supposed to be intelligent, and there really isn't another suspect that would fit better than him. he transferred into shujin immediately before the first incident, has a criminal record, and is constantly seen with both kamoshida's and madarame's biggest victims. it would not be difficult to pin him down before the kaneshiro incident at all.

but back to the siu director--notice that he says "without delay." we know for a fact that akechi has given his suspect list by the time of kaneshiro's change of heart, but it's likely that his list predated this conversation by quite a bit. akechi could have given his suspect list any time before the end of june. personally, i think it's likely he submitted a suspect list shortly after madarame's change of heart, around the time of his and akira's first meeting.

but on the note of akechi's rank 3, even if you don't think akechi suspected who akira was before they met like i do, the scene with the siu director is proof he knows before rank 3. there is no hard date for either the siu director's scene (which is triggered on the date you change kaneshiro's heart) or akechi's rank 3 (which can be triggered at any time depending on how quickly you go through his ranks). but the earliest akechi's rank 3 can take place is around the end of june, the same rough time as the siu director scene--meaning that he's submitted his suspect list by then. so he absolutely suspects who akira is by rank 3.

okay, so there's my case. i'll end this by saying that the ultimate reason i think akechi already suspected who akira was when they met is because i think it makes narrative sense and is just extremely fun for their dynamic. both akechi and akira (because of the pancakes slip-up) thinking they have the other figured out, while also believing they have the other completely fooled, is extremely entertaining. i have to imagine that every single conversation these boys have is a game they're playing where they're trying to get the other to slip up while also not revealing who they really are.

so, yeah. i believe that when akechi met the phantom thieves on 6/9, he already suspected them as being as such. and so the next day he orchestrated it so the boy he suspected as being their leader would be called on, so he could sus out his reaction to the phantom thieves while being broadcasted on live tv, and so he could use that interaction to corner him afterwards and befriend him in order to pin down his already existing suspicions. i think it was a game for both of them from the very start.

(and if you're wondering why the shido conspiracy waited so long to do anything if they knew who the phantom thieves were from the start, it's because they're playing the long game. they need to let the phantom thieves rise to stardom before they could orchestrate their downfall. the phantom thieves are extremely lucky the shido conspiracy decided to play the long game, because otherwise they would have been so fucked so quickly. they are not doing a good job of laying low or keeping their identities secret. at all.)

[rainbowolfe]

Sun and Mimic and Moon

Secret of the Mimic dropping and confirming outright that their ""bad"" half (read: broken half) is Sun.

Ah, I love the feeling of vindication at 1 in the morning.

Sun, in Ruin, gets sorted as orange up in their room. His color pallet, red and yellow, makes orange. Moon's color pallet is blue and yellow, which makes green.

Sun and Moon's common denominator is yellow. Which is the color of joy (see: The Silver Eyes). But joy-seeking without humanity, or a conscience, can lead to cruelty. Hence why you have M2 hunting people for sport (paired with Edwin showing it that violence is okay and makes you feel better). Technically speaking, yellow is M2. Their programming. (F10-N4 calls it 'it' for a reason)

While yellow is joy, orange is fear, and fear makes you irrational. AI tends not to jive well with that, generally speaking. Super cool/important that they updated Mimic's eyes in the final encounter (post-activating Cradle.EXE) to distinctly glow orange instead of their usual yellow.

The Secret-Secret ending shows us that yellow and light blue coexist separately within the body. And light blue is dormant until the correct stimuli are given. Based on everything we're told light blue is sadness.

What does joy and sadness make?

//squints

Ambivalence? Melancholy? I think I like melancholy.

Regardless, at the end of the parachute ending, Mimic(S) falls. And this fall reintroduces red back into his system. Doubly so when he crashes the fucking van XD

Red is rage, but it's also pain. There may be a difference in shade, but is like. You can use fire to burn, but fire can also burn you. Mimic (both) got burned. Twice. Maybe even three times!

On the flipside, Mimic (M) would be made either purple or blue depending on the intensity of pain felt and how they're mixing colors. And like, Jack-O-Moon's primary colors are purple and green. It would also mean that one more significant event is due to happen to specifically Moon that will shift the purple to dark blue.

Er. I guess two events, because the carousel fire definitely introduced more red.

Which can be done by adding more light blue (sadness) OR by introducing blue (loathing) or green (unknown) into the mix.

Being that green is the White Tiger and also F10-N4s end-goal for M2, it's probably something like love or trust. GOD I hope its love or trust, give him a break already.

Red and orange, unfortunately, are not a great mix. If you want to see why, just take a look at Big Top. He... obliterates Arnold for "trespassing". But only when the power's out. And then relentlessly pursues him to its own detriment. Falls on his face and dies at the end there. Anger and fear. Basically a wild animal.

And this color stuff in particular is why I think that when Moon says "no more Sun" he's saying that Sun's not there. The 'Sun' Cassie's seeing is most likely just a fabrication of Helpy. The actual Sun is what's down in the caves. Each color is a personality.

There is no orange personality for the daycare attendant.

In fact, by the time they're at the Pizzaplex, there's no yellow personality either. There's green, light blue, black, and magenta. Who all run yellow programming.

Sun is a side effect of Moon being dormant.

[lutervania]

BULLY OC - C.C. I saw a bunch of these in the fandom and theyre so goated so i made a Bully oc Slash self insert too Yeauhhhh ❤️❤️ Kinda Lengthy Introduction to him below (template by jimothy-hopkins)

Hi this is C.C., or Cici, or or Sissy (via Gary)... Everyone knows his real name from the yearbook but he prefers to just shorten it to his initials.

Literally just a random ass guy. Born in New York, he had a pretty awesome life before coming to Bullworth. He grew up fairly well, but a split in his parent's marriage resulted him in moving to possibly his worst nightmare, a small town.

A really avid thrill seeker, though personality-wise he's very down to earth and doesn't have any real beef with any of the cliques regardless of what they think of him. Thinks the jocks are really annoying though (except Mandy <3). "Life is too short to care about that nonsense!"

Regardless, he does hold grudges if you piss him off even slightly. Cici is extremely particular about understanding people's motivations at first glance, so it can feel like walking on eggshells if he can't become quickly accustomed to how you act, talk, or your reasonings for interacting with him in the first place if he didn't initiate it first.

He won't go out of his way to ruin anyones' lives or whatever over it, but he'll definitely act more distant and "esoteric" than he already is.

Knows a lot about everyone and a lot of people know nothing about him. Not that he's a loner but he had decided that Maybe Bullworth Isn't The Best Place To Make Too Many Friends. ❤️

Considers himself to only be friends with Gary, Christy, Mandy, and Johnny. He'll always talk with anybody in class if possible, though. His archnemesis is boredom.

His red duffle jacket makes people see him from a mile away, so atleast he's known for something unique.

He's from the pre-Jimmy era... Him and Gary were 'close friends' before he eventually dropped out. He still doesn't know if Gary actually liked him or not, but it's was fun as shit anyways.

It was hard to see them not near eachother, their crafty personalities clicked a little too well (as well as their adhd diagnosis')!!! They had to stop hanging out constantly at school because Gary had told him they looked like homosexuals.

Having been around a multitude of greasers and Italian-Americans while growing up, he found himself immediately drawn to them all and they hit it off fairly quickly after he steadily convinced them that he's not as suspicious as many would assume.

He thinks too highly of himself as nobody thought of him as a threat in the first place anyways LOL.

Johnny Vincent specifically reminded him of Al Pacino, so he had an ENORMOUS crush on him that was never pursued.

Would be more friendly with the other factions if they made the effort to get to know eachother, but he honestly prefers to keep his distance from more insanity.

Despite this, he secretly admires like half the cast. He just loves messy people and how distinctive everyone is at this horrendous school. It's for very shallow reasons, though, such as simply liking how they style their hair or the tone of their voice.

This appreciation for others is never publically stated just so he can keep up his self-described "eccentric but unknown" reputation.

He only maintains said image not because he specifically wants people to like him, but to rather gain the benefits of others around him.

He's a free baller. If shit hits the fan and then someone he was chill with starts disliking him he Doesn't exactly care about the fact that they're not a fan of his character anymore. He Does care about losing another lifeline so this is why he prefers to keep the #PEACEANDLOVE.

If he wasn't associated with Gary and the greasers, he'd be considered a nerd more than anything. Really into pop culture all around, especially movies and anime. Makes references literally no one understands all the time.

Fun Facts..... Aka me just talking more Sorryyyy:

He's Colombian and Salvadoran. Does not know a lick of Spanish but he's very intertwined with his culture. (ESPECIALLY THE FOOD!!!!!!)

Biggest Anglophile ever. Without England he would be dead. He basically snatched his entire wardrobe from what he saw in British media.

Into indie/garage rock and digital hardcore (or just edm in general). On the side of Oasis during the Britpop War. Other bands he likes include Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys (their 2004 demos changed his entire life), Bloc Party, The Velvet Underground, The London Suede, etc

Interested in science, specifically biology and psychology, so observing Gary and the rest of the school was crazy entertaining for him. Also very invested in the mafia (which is understandable considering where he grew up).

Artist but doesn't show anybody what he draws even though it's not all that in the first place.

(Playfully) teases the hell out of everyone he knows about the randomest things. You stutter once and it's Over. None of them like it but it Could be worse considering it's Bullworth Academy.

GAMBLING ADDICTION

Outside of that, he practices abstinence. Someone has to be the designated driver even if that someone doesn't have a license. ❤️

He's the bisexual that eats hot chip and lies

Voiceclaim is Julian Casablancas (adjacent) from The Strokes.... Specifically during 2001-2006.....

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR I Hope you enjoy my annoying guy Lol...

[marafey345]

How Great Ace Attorney uses Outside Information to Strenghen Twists (Big spoilers for both Great Ace Attorney games)

One of the reasons why Great Ace Attorney is my favourite title out of all the Ace Attorney series titles is because it manages to feel so unique while also still having that typical AA charm. Not just with the different period and setting, but also with its game mechanics and most definitely its story. I felt like the story took a massive leap away from how Ace Attorney stories usually play out and it resulted in an amazing story that I fell in love with. But that also got me thinking about how some twists impacted me more because I assumed things would play out a certain way because that's how those things played out before outside of GAA, but it didn't. It never was going to play out that way, we just thought it would. In this post, I'll be talking about 3 events in particular, in the order they occur in and how outside knowledge strenghen the impact of these twists: Case 1-3, Kazuma Asogi and Herlock Sholme's partner.

Case 1-3: Anyone familiar with the trials of Ace Attorney knows that each case will end with some kind of a happy ending. The truth is revealed, the murderer is punished somehow and there's hope of a brighter future for those affected. This case... doesn't do that. They set up this case's importance with the risk of being deported if Ryu's defendant got a guilty verdict and the first half of the trial goes the normal route of a typical Ace Attonery case trying to teach you the mechanics of the British trial system. But then things get murky after Gina fills the courtroom with smoke.

The trial goes on normally until you return to the carraige and notice things are different. There's now blood on the floor, the area under the seats is now empty and the skylight on top can now open. You swear this stuff wasn't there before, but maybe you didn't look down enough to see the blood at first? Maybe you had to click the skylight twice to try and open it? The game tries to gaslight you into thinking that these changes were always there because why would these changes even happen in the first place? These new points were proving the client's innocence! If he's innocent, nothing needed to be altered, right...? Wrong. Because as you play, a realisation slowly dawns on you. You're defending a guilty man.

This is a massive gut punch when you first experience it because nothing like this ever happens. The closest thing was the Engarde case but that was a final case, a story ender. This is case 3! What makes it even worse is the fact that McGilded, the murderer, is found Not Guilty by the end of the trial. For the first time, the murderer gets away with it. We also don't figure out the full truth until case 1-5 and Gina is still in a bad place until that case happens. This case sets the mood for what both Britian and GAA is going to be like. It's early enough that you believe the same formula will be followed and don't expect it to break the 3 major rules that's been established. Breaking this trend helps to strenghen the impact of this case and shape how GAA will go forward.

Kazuma Asogi: Let me try describing someone for you. At the start of the game, this person serves as a mentor, helping us to navigate the courtroom. They stand by our side and guide us through our first trial as a reliable figure while also stepping back when we get our footing. At the end of the trial, they're impressed by how well we do and can't wait to see us get even better. Move to the next case and they're dead. If you're thinking I'm describing Kazuma, you're wrong. I'm describing Mia Fey, and that's the point.

Kazuma shares so much energy with Mia at the start of the game that if you've played the first Ace Attorney game, you already know he won't live past the start of case 2 and are just waiting for the ball to drop, which it does. You also know that Ryu will carry on Kazuma's legacy and become a defence attorney and for Kazuma to become a sort of goal-post, a level of skill Ryu wants to reach, and these two events do occur. What I'm sure you didn't know was that Kazuma comes back.

Unlike the main trilogy, GAA doesn't have spirit mediums so there was no chance of a Mia-like possession happening to bring Kazuma back. But he does come back and he plays a much different role than what we thought he'd play. He changes from a legacy to a rival, making Ryu want to improve so he can face off against him as a fair foe. This change of course in Kazuma's character is made much more impactful because it deviates so much from the role we put him in when he was never supposed to be Ryu's Mia. He became Ryu's Edgeworth.

Herlock Sholme's Partner: Finally, the twist I'm sure no one even anticipated was even a possibility. A twist that doesn't even play with your knowledge of Ace Attorney at all. It relies purely on your knowledge of the Sherlock Holmes franchise. More specifically, it relies on the simple fact that you know his partner's name, John Watson, and who doesn't? They're an iconic duo! Partners who are together through and through. Not here though, as in the universe of GAA, I don't even think Herlock Sholmes and John Wilson have ever met.

When playing the game, you can obviously see by their names that they're based off Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, the Japanese version even uses their actual names. And if that wasn't enough, Herlock is raising a girl named Iris Wilson so you already know it as fact that Herlock's mysterious partner is John, even if it's never said. However, when you think about it, there's barely any in-game evidence to support this claim.

Iris only believes that John is Herlock's partner because the handwriting of the stories that Herlock's partner wrote matched the autopsy report signed as John and Herlock never really looked sad when he should know that his "partner" was dead, along with more subtle things I can't remember off the top of my head. Because we take it at face-value that, naturally, Watson would be Holme's partner, the twist of Yujin Mikotoba being Holme's partner hits so much harder. All because we believed such an obvious rule would be followed.

Great Ace Attorney is such a wonderful game to play with diverse characters, complex mysteries and a wonderful story that kept me engaged until the very end. The twists that I mentioned, even without the added context, work so well and there's many more in the story that are executed wonderfully. If you read this but haven't played GAA, there's still so much story left that I didn't even mention and I haven't even touched the over-arching plot here so I heavily recommend you play the game yourself if you haven't. Trust me, it's worth your time.

[andy-wm]

This is where I stand

I'm discovering that quite a few people in this community have different ideas of what engaging with Jikook content looks like, and that's to be expected I guess.

And yeah, things can get heated when we disagree, especially if we disagree on sensitive issues, but we should be able to have a rational discussion about it.

For me, respect is a big part of being here. I don't see Jikook as entertainment or as something to consume. For me, being in their world, even on the periphery, is a privilege.

I'm overtly aware that they are fallible human beings living in a sometimes ruthless world, and that their relationship is a precious fragile thing. Im also aware there are thousands of people trying to tear them down for any number of reasons from prejudice to jealousy. So many people who would love to see them fail.

Yesterday I went at somone who was unfortunately the last in a long line of people sharing what I consider to be inappropriately personal and invasive content. That person didn't deserve to be verbally slapped by me and I've since apologised. And I am genuinely sorry i lashed out at them. Considering how peeved I get when I'm on the receiving end on that type of thing, you'd think id be more conscientious. I've got no excuse. I'll do better in future.

The other thing I need to own is yes, i did engage with the photo of Jikook in NY on their way to dinner when they were about to start filming AYS. And yes, I've since reflected on that and it wasn't right thing to do. So I'm not taking the moral high ground here.

I'm quite okay with reflecting on my actions and looking at situations from all sides. I don't mind hearing constructive criticism because i sure as hell don't think I'm perfect. In fact I appreciate the feedback. Growth comes from seeing things in new ways and reconsidering your viewpoint, right?

So why am i making this post?

Partly because i can be hot headed and an asshole and sometimes I say and do things I regret. The best way to deal with my regret is to acknowledge my mistakes.

But I'm also making this post because the way the Jikook community is sharing this particular content seems careless and irresponsible.

You can say i'm overreacting but the voice recording that was shared? To me that is wrong on every level. And it was posted and reposted before a translation was available - even worse.

Compare the current situation to when Jikook were shooting AYS.

When the boat owner shared a photo of them, ARMY was ready to tear that man's legs off. I don't see how it's suddenly okay to share videos of what are possibly/probably private moments after that response to a photo on a boat. Is it just because it's apparently army taking the videos?

So what exactly are our standards here? What's okay to share? Some of the justifications I've had thrown at me are so flimsy they're barely comprehensible.

Maybe I am being overcautious - the lawful-good part of my brain can be very black and white. And like every paladin, i can be overzealous.

But my thinking is that none of what's being shared is ok to share.

Firstly because we always used to work hard not to spoil content. When BTS went to NZ to film BV4 we had code words and chat groups actively working to send people in the wrong direction if they thought they spotted BTS.

Secondly, with Jikook especially, the careful editing and the presence of staff around them when they're filming means they aren't accidentally (or purposefully) exposed.

We know they push that line, even when they're working. So when they're not working, when they believe they're alone and incognito, there's every chance they'll push it further.

And they should be able to.

They've been in a more socially progressive country and so maybe just this one time they could hold hands while walking down a road.

But that can never happen if there's a culture of not respecting their privacy.

We don't need to wonder why Jimin sang "I wanna hold your hand" in SGMB. That's their situation. Holding hands is a simple pleasure of life denied to them.

I see people discussing how Jikook always choose Japan for their personal time and it's pretty easy to understand why. Their privacy is taken more seriously, despite the huge number of J-army who are Jikookers. I'm not saying there's no breech of privacy but far more care is taken to keep their location and activities quiet. Even now we have almost no images of them in Japan despite the number of times theyve been there together.

I wish more of I-army had the same outlook.

Feel free to disagree with me. I'm sure plenty of people do. They can always find ways to justify their choices. But i live by the mantra that what you walk past is what you accept. So i will continue to call out posts or content that in my mind cross the line.

I'm not going to be an asshole about it but I'm also not going to stand aside when i feel there's an issue.

As always, I'm happy to have a rational conversation but please do us both a favour and block me now if you don't like my outlook.

No hard feelings.

[ducktracy]

Ya know I've been meaning to ask you, do you have any particular favorite cartoons in the Looney Tunes era that are not of the main casts people know? Like stuff that isn't the main Looney Tunes, Mickey Mouse, or most of Hanna Barbera's cast commonly known?

HEY THERE!! OH MAN what an interesting question!! HMMMM... i'm struggling to answer this, both because i think the answer is "no" but also, i feel like there are characters i know that i assume everyone knows, even though that's not the case? like i was just thinking "well, Gandy and Sourpuss are pretty mainstream aren't they...?" when the answer is, likely, no HAHA

BUT! okay so my favorite non WB shorts are the Fleischer Popeyes and MGM cartoons such as Tex Avery's shorts and Tom and Jerry--i'd argue those are all pretty popular and well known characters/franchises. i do tend to stick with what i like, but i do think they're so beloved and popular for a reason (whereas, say, Famous Studios' Little Audrey is not HAHA)

BUT! YEAH, i do like the Gandy Goose and Sourpuss cartoons a lot, and likewise with Heckle and Jeckle--i don't really go out of my way to watch them, but i get happy and excited when i come across them, so yay for Terrytoons!

OH! I JUST REMEMBERED THE FOX AND CROW!!!! FOX AND CROW!! i haven't seen all the Fox and Crow cartoons, but i enjoy what i've seen greatly--it helps that Frank Tashlin directed the first one, and it really just comes off as a psuedo-LT short (with Mel Blanc doing the voices, and gags that'd be reused in some later Tashlin shorts after he returned to WB!). the few Fox and Crow shorts at UPA are very fun as well, The Magic Fluke is tied with Rooty Toot Toot for my favorite UPA short

you can also call the first Fox and Crow short the first Roadrunner and Coyote short... really fun short, especially for Screen Gems, whichhhh is not exactly in the same trifecta of quality as WB/MGM/Disney etc HAHA

AND SPEAKING OF COLUMBIA! the early Scrappy shorts are very fun and charming too. i got to see a Scrappy short on the big screen! they're very charming. i recall enjoying this one quite a bit, timestamped this bit i like but the whole cartoon is very fun iirc

i'm not the biggest Famous Studios fan, but i've enjoyed what few Little Lulu shorts i've seen and am excited to see more! though maybe that's cheating since the shorts are animated adaptations... but they've made me wanna read John Stanley's Little Lulu comics. look at how charming this is! i've seen multiple people compare them to the Peanuts comics, particularly when the Peanuts characters are mean little bastards (which is my favorite type of Peanuts) so i'm eager to dive in. though, maybe i'm biased, as one of the first Little Lulu shorts i saw is a direct rip-off of Porky's Romance (which is the first Porky i saw! is the world trying to tell me something?) and i kinda love it for that reason. but she's fun

hmmm... i'm on a mission to see every golden age cartoon that i can possibly find, and i've seen at least a few hundred now (well, in addition to the thousand LT shorts i've seen + cumulative hundreds of MGM/Popeye shorts i'd already seen before i started this mission)--you find that there is a reason why people celebrate the series' and characters that we do, and there's a reason for the opposite, too. but there are often a whole lot of one off characters and shorts, too, not every short having an established character, so it makes this a little hairy to answer because there's just so much! i haven't kept up with this mission very well lately, been too busy and sometimes i just wanna go back to the goodness of a LT short, so i can't think of many one-off shorts that have super impressed me recently. but they're out there!

[too-antigonish]

Lots to talk about here. You bring up so many good points. For the sake of length and sanity, I'll only respond to a few of them!

1. <<…Every time I start thinking about it, I feel the need to launch a separate monograph, so I'll just stick to what's churning the most. Caveat lector.>>

I think it took me a year to fully process the final season as a whole and Exeunt in particular. Even now I'm still up in the air about some aspects.

2. <<Fred Thursday is not a murderer.>> 

I absolutely agree. I think if Fred had been in his right mind, *he* would have agreed. But instead, as you point out, he is ill and under an immense amount of stress.  All of that is in addition to his untreated PTSD/CPTSD. I'd also throw in that much of his stress is related to his belief (in my opinion *very* misguided) that he needs to keep his son's addictions and the fact that he is a victim of blackmail completely hidden from trustworthy friends who have his back. All of these things play into the panicked decision to completely cover up the killing. 

It's possible that Thursday may have been worried about the possibility of reprisals against Sam or the impossibility of a fair trial for himself with so many corrupt cops pulling strings. That to me seems all the more reason to turn to Morse or Bright or Strange or even all three. To someone who is ill, traumatized yet again, not thinking clearly, and who knows that his tendency towards violence has already been seen as problematic in the past, I find his decision plausible. It's *clearly* not murder, but in his muddled state, I'm not so sure that Fred really knows that.

That brings me to Morse. His take-down of Thursday in the final pub scene is still painful to watch, but perhaps I've made it more palatable for myself by analyzing it to death. Morse notes that Sam was in no fit state to defend himself and he specifically talks about killing, not murder. His strongest words are for Thursday's behavior after the killing, how he was, "Someone who came home that night unrecognizable as the captain I would've followed into hell." Of course he was unrecognizable. He was a traumatized and panicking and the one man who probably knows him best in the world just showed up at his door. The "I know thee not, old man," that follows is famous in and of itself for its ambiguity. Is it a total rejection or does the use of the intimate "thee" imply that the rebuke is somehow softened?

At this point I think it's important to bring up the fact that Morse ultimately has no idea what actually happened between Thursday and Tomahawk! He's guessed that Thursday is the killer, but that's *all* he knows. We are shown the actual event through Fred's eyes via flashbacks, but Morse does not see what we see. He knows nothing and Fred doesn't tell him. It's at that point that we come to the really disturbing part of their exchange:

THURSDAY: Instinct. One minute he was there, the next he wasn't. He'd have done for Sam. I don't regret it. I'd do it again in an instant. That type. He was nothing. He was...

MORSE: He was someone's son.

THURSDAY: But not mine. Not mine. 

Morse knows nothing about what actually happened behind that pub, but Thursday's first words to him after being confronted about it had to have been shocking. In my mind I see Thursday guilty and panicking—and so, so tired— and just reaching for the nearest, easiest excuses he can make. For Morse though, I see someone who has just put himself in an incredibly vulnerable position with the most important person in his life only to be met with words that are…what? In one sense, they betray everything Thursday and Morse have stood for. In another way, they're just flippant. I don't think Thursday truly believes them—but again, he's emotional and tired and scared.

3. <<Yes, the Requiem, Morse closing his heart forever, everyone is dead to him, etc etc.>> 

For me the "Morse. Just Morse," was more of the closing his heart forever moment—but I say that with a caveat because I completely agree with you. The Morse of IM has a rich set of relationships and is constantly searching for connection. He's prickly, but certainly not closed off. That said, however, Morse sees his life in dramatic terms and I have no problem imagining that a young Endeavour, having just said goodbye to Thursday (and the "Dream of the Thursdays") forever, would in that moment slam the door of his heart shut with a resounding bang and resolve never to love again. That resolve would last…a week? Two weeks? Maybe? 

For me, the Faure Requiem scene is more about creating a sort of transition between the narrative of Endeavour and the narrative of IM. You have the Requiem itself connecting the "death" of Endeavour to the later death of Morse in IM. You have the flashbacks of all of the major characters with the Tempest monologue providing a bookend for Endeavour as a series. What delights me most about it though is that when Endeavour and IM pass each other in their respective Jags, we know IM is headed to Blenheim Palace. But Endeavour? Who knows? In a sense, it leaves a space for the two narratives to diverge…

endeavour musings xix

featuring: Exeunt i

MORSE: "Is that it?" CONDUCTOR: "That's it."

1. I just watched this last night, and the rest of the season in the last week or so. This is probably not the only thing I'll write on this (and the show as a whole), but I had to write something because, well, that's it. So, you can call this a bit of a first impressions post, reacting in the cooldown of the moment. And honestly? I'm a bit disappointed. And hurt -- if I'm allowed to be such a thing about a fictional show with made-up characters. One of the lessons you learn as a musician is that what the audience remembers is the beginning and the end: those are the two bits you have to land and land well. And Exeunt? Well, it's a bit of a mess isn't it? Every time I start thinking about it, I feel the need to launch a separate monograph, so I'll just stick to what's churning the most. Caveat lector.

2. Fred Thursday is not a murderer. He absolutely killed Tomahawk, but what is clearly depicted on screen is self defence. Tomahawk has verbally threatened Sam, he has a knife out, Thursday tells him to be "on [his] way" and Tomahawk replies he'll "do for the pair of them," and tries to stab Thursday. Thursday at this moment is unarmed, has not provoked him or threatened him--he has no intention of killing him. We later learn that Tomahawk in particular has two convictions for GBH, and is wanted for attempted murder. Thursday is more than twice his age, clearly ill, and under an immense amount of stress. Thursday even calls it "instinct." What little we are shown is absolutely self defence. The fact that even TvTropes lists Thursday as having "murdered" Tomahawk ! There are a lot of other unvoiced problems I have with this scenario, but the fact that the show managed to leave this ambiguous for viewers really bugs me. Laying everything else about Thursday aside, I don't think Morse would ever cover up an actual murder or attempted murder. Even for Thursday.  

3. Yes, the Requiem, Morse closing his heart forever, everyone is dead to him, etc etc. I'm not trying to be trivial, I did think it was a beautiful fitting meta ending, but also, I do think it doesn't really work. Do I think it's a lovely mirror action of the Pilot? Absolutely. Do I think it works as a last scene? Yes. Is it beautiful? Yes. But does it wooooork to cast off Endeavour for IM? For me? No. The man who is IM tries over and over to let people in; to the point where his desperation blinds him to people who are murderers (should I say especially murderesses?). His old university professors, his old friends, random drunks he meets in pubs, the old guy around the corner with his car, Adele, Strange, Lewis. He still loves Joyce, and eventually his niece / nephew. He has an extended correspondence all over the world. Whatever he thinks of Gwen (you know, the stepmother who drove him to think about suicide as a teenager, and contributed to his serious drinking problem in Scherzo), he still helps take care of her in a nursing home. This is not a man who's closed his heart forever. 

4. The way the show treats Morse's alcoholism and Sam's alcoholism / drug problem or dealing. I'm sorry, but what? Magical wand waved, and Morse has managed to get sober, go back to drinking but only in an as-needed way as the plot demands? The same thing with Sam, he's been wandering around in a drunken stupor for three episodes but now magically, at the end, he's bright-eyed, cleaned up and going to join the police. I do think this is a serious flaw of this season, and of the show as a whole, standing in the shadow of both Book!Morse and Thaw!Morse, where alcoholism is treated in a much more realistic and sophisticated way. 

5. Justice and redemption: these have been our key motifs throughout the seasons. I do think part of the issue with Exeunt for me on a philosophical level is the loss of exactly what thrilled and consoled me about Deguello. Which is that Morse finally has to face up to the fact that ideal justice isn't possible. It's not just the dilemma with Thursday either. We have Jakes too, who shows up at BV because " It's like half of me has always been here.  Half of me never left," and wanting to know about Peter Williams. And Morse (we assume) can't tell him for the same reason he can't tell Thursday: because Peter Williams was dead a long time ago. He can never "find" him for Jakes. He can never get justice for either Peter. Half of Peter Jakes will always be at BV. In some sense, it's just like Morse all over: justice for the dead is an answer that can be gotten because the dead no longer have questions, or change, or live. They are a book to be read, a puzzle to be solved. But in Deguello, into that gap -- which is always there, in justice-- stepped mercy and the hope of redemption.  Box: "The world is bent.  Always has been. We can't fix it." Thursday:  "We can try." We don't get that hope here -- and that's what feels like a kick in the teeth about this ending. Justice, suum cuique, is impossible, and thus drives away Morse. There is no redemption; this death is the end. 

6. Morse is once again saved by the narrative. Those bikers just neatly showed up so Morse never has to kill anyone. I don't know how many times I've pointed this out over the course of 36 episodes, but unlike Thursday, Morse is never faced with that final dilemma: it's always taken away from him by deus ex machina.  Even in this episode: Lott shoots at Thursday, and he has to defend his brother and himself. There's no one to save him. Tomahawk tries to stab him and Sam, and he has to defend himself. There's no one to save him. And yet, Morse is saved here just like every other single time Morse is saved by the narrative. 

7. The Joan / Morse plotline and wedding fantasy. I didn't think they put in the work to show us a happy Joan/Strange wedding but making it Morse-centric really is something else.

8.  One of the themes about this episode / season in particular is straight out of 1850 and I Do Not Like It. We've learned, over the course of 9 seasons, that Thursday's background is the worst in the show (save perhaps Jakes). His father was an abusive alcoholic, he grew up in extreme poverty in the East End (an outside privy, "one for every eight houses. 20 families." Quartet), and as a result of that he is personally known to many of the villains who come from the East End: Vic Kasper, Eddie Nero, Ken Drury, Mickey Flood. Arthur Lott, the Big Bad, is his former bagman. Charlie, his brother, is responsible for involving him in a long term fraud ("My whole life. Everything I've worked for. You've dragged me into the sewer." Icarus), which as of Exeunt was revealed to be a blind, just so Lott would have something on Thursday--we're not actually sure how much Charlie is involved but he clearly has serious connections to Lott ( Lott: "It's only being Charlie's brother that's kept you above ground.") Thursday is betrayed and stolen from by Charlie btw s5-s9, and Sam in s9; his life savings are all gone. This giant messy web of corruption eventually sucks Thursday in: he's trapped by it and as a result, shuts down BV and also covers up Tomahawk's death. It's that old Victorian favorite: Poor People Have No Moral Fiber. Perhaps it's not on purpose? But there's a definite correlation between working class poverty and corruption here with a fatalism that I don't like.  9. I promise there are things I liked, even loved about this final show: I just need to wait out the frustrated heartsickness of it first. And I have no doubt I'm going to write more about it. And I will absolutely defend that every single actor in this was magnificent, but particular shout-outs to James Bradshaw, Sara Vickers, Anton Lesser, Roger Allam and Shaun Evans. 

[hellaverse-critical-confessions]

*cracks knuckles* Get ready for a long ask As an animator/artist myself, I have a lot to say about the character designs. I'm sure you've heard this before, but these characters are not animation friendly. More detail just makes it harder to animate. (While Bee is a notorious example, nearly all of the characters suffer from this) When designing a character for animation, you need to pick and choose the key parts of their design, because you're going to be drawing the same thing over and over. Another thing: The characters have so much freaking red to them. I won't dwell on this for long, but they don't stand out from the background because there's so much freaking red (Another thing that bugs me is that the characters don't look like what the artist wanted them to be like) Ex: Charlie doesn't look like a doll Vaggie barely has a moth resemblance Angel Dust doesn't look like a spider Alastor doesn't look like a deer Niffty doesn't look like a bug or B-movie styled aliens Ozzie doesn't look like a rooster Beelzebub doesn't look like an animal trainer (you would think with all the suits and shit she likes to use, an animal trainer's outfit would be perfect for this)

Another thing: Her characters reuse the same design tropes. Bow ties, suits, fingerless gloves, gold tooth, stick thin figure, top hat, etc I'd excuse it if this was a beginner artist (heck, I used to do this, but eventually learned and grew out of it) but this is a woman in her 30's who graduated art school. TL;DR The designs are bad and hard as heck to animate

Couldn't have said it better myself

I feel like, when Viv sits down to design a new character, her personal preferences come first and everything they're actually supposed to represent second. Sort of tacked onto the final product like "yeah sure that'll do it"

As for the details, if I may add on: not long ago I've studied screencaps of a character from Helluva for redesign purposes. The amount of inconsistencies I came across was surprising! I'm pretty sure he didn't even have an official ref sheet (nor has one been posted to date), but I've heard that even for more prevalent characters the animators only have the most basic turnarounds? Also stuff like Millie's hair and spots tend to be inconsistent. With so much gratuitous/weird detail and apparently lack of proper reference, consistency suffers

Everyone is also very spiky and full of triangles; I'd love a more soft or even square character. Also some different body types... I mean, remember Mimzy from Hazbin? I don't know if Viv does. I wonder if she's still gonna appear at some point. But anyway

On a more positive note, there's a lot of background character designs that I find really cool & enjoyable! Maybe I'll make an appreciation post for them sometime

[vaguely-concerned]

tiny animation detail from this scene I really like: rook glances towards the locations of lucanis and bellara's rooms (and possibly where they're most likely to be found in this moment?) respectively when they deliver this line!

(honestly I expect that lucanis is hanging out somewhere other than the pantry during this to give everyone in this unfolding catastrophe some space, but consider: it's so much funnier if he IS sitting in the pantry hearing this all go down on the other side of the wall like

taash stomps in with thunder and trepidation in their eyes like 'hey. I need vegetables. can we make vegetables happen.' and lucanis already handing them a lettuce and tomato like i gotchu fam this is literally the only thing I know how to do for you in this situation go with the maker and these salad ingredients I resignedly already know you'll just put on a plate with no dressing no spices no nothing. just the most sleep deprived caffeinated to the point of vibrating gently in place awkward-yet-painfully-well-meaning man in the world standing there before his friend about to have one of the most difficult conversations of their life like '...can I offer you a turnip in these trying times' while rye desperately treads social water out in the dining room to buy time. amazing. our lives really all do touch each other. headcanon passionately embraced)

[alexanderwales]

When you finish writing a big story and you became very close the characters, was there a time after where you were like "i kind of want to revisit these characters again, but i should probably just let the story be, they deserve to rest" Im not talking about wanting to write a sequel, is more about still coming up with fun ideas for them, maybe a little scene or something, but choosing not to do anything with it because it'd feel disrespectful to the ending you gave them?

Hrm. I think for me, characters exist as a vehicle to tell a story, and when that story is done, I'm off to the next character and the next story. It's vanishingly rare that I want to revisit anything that's been "completed".

There are a few exceptions. Worth the Candle had some conceits that worked well for specific jokes and gimmicks and discourse, and sometimes I'll have an idea and then think "ah, but that only really works in the context of Worth the Candle, not the other things I'm working on". I keep having an itch to get back to Shadows of the Limelight because there's always stuff that interests me about fame, fandoms, parasocial relationships, and the act of creating for an audience. But in both these cases, it's about what the framework allows for.

I think that characters get slowly pinned down over time as you add in backstory and traits, and eventually you've pinned everything down. Or to use another metaphor, you've mined them out. Ideally they've gone through some kind of narrative arc in the process of all this, or maybe they haven't, but there's nothing "new" left to them, nothing to discover or explore or say. They're less interesting to me.

And in the course of writing webfic this is especially the case, because by the end you've done like three to five books, and what more could there be that you didn't already get at? Unless you're doing the sort of book with no interest in diving into their personality and psychology, I guess, where there's nothing you actually had to say about this person and how they operate.

That said, I do think that I'm drawn to particular archetypes, and those I'm much more inclined to return to, but part of the reason I'd prefer that to an old character is that there's new stuff to discover, even if I'm working within familiar ground. There's backstory that will provide a particular texture, there are variations, places that I couldn't explore the first time around because it didn't work for that other character. I'm sure that someone who's read all my stuff could draw a bunch of parallels between characters, but hopefully they would see the ways in which they're all importantly different from each other, and how it was worth doing "the same" character a second time.

And to answer part of the ask: I have no regard for endings, except that the ending usually means that I've said all that I wanted to say. If I had some hot new idea, I would write a short story in a heartbeat using some old characters, if I needed to use them. (But also, I would still probably not want to do that because of all the old stuff that I would have to load back into RAM, and all the continuity checking, which takes some time.)