#like a relative or somebody else entirely

[starchaser667]

Hey so, has anyone else like , , , thought about this??

Because I have,

And it's making me incredibly anxious

[inthelittlewood]

Questions about Eyes And Ears AU

I had somebody ask for a brief interview regarding my storytelling for their university project and thought I'd lend a hand.

I thought those of you that follow the story might like the insight too, so here ya go:

When you first introduced the Listeners in Evo SMP, did you have a broader narrative or concept in mind, or were they more of an atmospheric element at that point?

The honest answer is that I didn't want to write too much about somebody else's character(s), that being Grian's Watchers. If I could write the conflict from the side of the Listeners then we could continue the narrative with a pre-designed opposing force but have them be relatively mute for the most part. Partly to build anticipation of when they might act or retaliate but it also worked for behind the scenes purposes too. If the series hadn't slowed/stopped as suddenly as it did, I definitely would have poked Grian to pick his brain about what story elements fit his original imagining of the Watchers. So it was mostly narrative reasoning but they also served a mechanical behind the scenes purpose of transporting us to a new area which was necessary due to bugs we'd encountered with world gen etc.

What inspired you to flesh out the Eyes and Ears AU more in recent years? Was that mostly a personal creative decision, or was it influenced by fan interest?

Honestly I hadn't premeditated too much their reintroduction into anything that I was working on. Sure I'd seen a little chattering here and there about the Watchers but I honestly just wanted to write an individual story beat (albeit a tropey one) of c!Martyn snapping and turning on Ren but that never came to fruition due to Scar taking us out. The plan was always to backstab Ren then say a cool line like "Red Winter is over, Red Spring has begun" or something else punny. Seeing the fevered reaction of the audience though gave me some confidence that I could try my hand at some layered or entirely post-production storytelling, so heading into Last Life I was all guns blazing.

The Eyes and Ears AU is quite open-ended — do you intentionally approach it with the idea of leaving narrative space for fan interpretation?

It really is right? Yes, it's a very mindful decision to leave it open-ended but not so much for the audience's benefit or interpretations, but to give myself creative freedom to take the story wherever I'd like to. Committing to too many power scale, multiverse or narrative shackles early can really strangle stories I've noticed (from reading comics and manga) meaning back pedalling or aggressive retcons are required to explore certain paths, which is rarely a good experience for the reader. I do enjoy their versatility and capability to be applied to any Minecraft or adjacent story too. Some might call it too broad, I call it malleable.

How do you feel about fans expanding the lore through headcanons and theories? Have any fan interpretations stood out or surprised you?

I think it's brilliant! People inundate my inbox on Tumblr seeking permission to write stories or create characters / AUs but I've literally no authority on that. I suppose it might be a different conversation if they were profiting off of those works, but 99% of people simply want to write for fun which I highly encourage!! I'll be honest that I haven't read a great deal of AUs or headcanons, my exposure to them is mostly via chat messages during lore talk streams or questions that come through regarding the Eyes And Ears AU. As a general rule I try to avoid reading too much of other people's works on the topic because I worry I'll accidentally regurgitate it in some way then stumble into plagiarism, you know? It's why I focus more on digesting stories outside the fandom whether it's manga, Sanderson books, reading old Japanese folk tales and the like. I can source inspiration from those on how to weave narrative and execute plot twists without having to glance in my front yard.

Has fan content (art, theories, animatics, etc.) ever influenced how you think about or approach the AU?

Oh for sure they have. It's literally why after every season we'll do a sit down stream and talk about the lore in detail. Figure out the puzzle and potential trip wires of plot points from the episodes and how we can neatly pack them into the pre-existing story. A lot of people wouldn't do that as they'd be precious about their work and believe their opinion is th only correct one, but I looooove soundboarding with the audience on it. I also take that mindset in game and sometimes think about the scenery of an impactful moment whenever I'm able to control / design it. I'll have little quips or quotes cooked in my mind for how I'd ideally deliver a blow or plot twist, buuuuut given the nature of the Life series you very rarely get to execute things how you'd like haha! I definitely wouldn't have done as many of the poems had their not been such a positive reaction to those. I often see individual lines or entire passages make their way into art pieces as typography or highlighted in animatics which is really gratifying. It's why I also put such an emphasis and priority on audio production in my editing. If I can craft something that feels atmospheric, driving and punctuating with music, staggering vocals or sound effects then the auditory portion is already done, they can focus solely on the visual aspect of things. I try and be as cinematic / TV like as my skillset allows for that reason.

You’ve mentioned trying not to fully canonise the AU, but still referencing it consistently — how do you balance telling your own story effectively, while trying not to involve other creators, particularly on the Life Series, when a lot of your time is spent in a group?

The easiest way to do this, is to not do it. For the most part the only storytelling done with the AU is done in post-production. I never name drop the Watchers or Listeners in world (believe me, I was as surprised as all of you when I saw that Secret Keeper statue in Secret Life!!) and in recent seasons they haven't even reared their head as an influence whatsoever. They're on holiday, they deserve it. But when they do whisper in my ear, they're motivated decisions that I would likely make as a player/character anyway because the win objective is always the thing I'm striving towards. I can just pepper angst around it to make things seem more manipulated rather than selfish ha. I think that's why the open ended nature of the Watchers has served me well because as much as they have a singular motive which is to feed on negative emotions, that can be achieved in so many ways ranging from bloodlust to deception, heartbreak to panic. It's versatile for storytelling. It can be in your face, or a slow burn.

What do the Watchers and Listeners represent to you, symbolically or narratively? Do they serve a specific function in the stories you tell?

The Watchers used to represent the audience when Grian first introduced them, but after departing EVO I've definitely breathed more of an egotistical and sinister air into them. They're very much a unique entity / faction now, they in some ways represent gluttony, selfishness and neglect in achieving their goals. The Listeners on the other hand, are a lot of the opposite traits, but I'm still wanting to explore how being the hard end of most conflicts can be dangerous. I want to explore that at some point, whether it be with infighting or failures. They shouldn't be seen as simply bad/good, they're just, different. It shouldn't be too hard navigating that nuance but I want it to reflect elements and motives that we find in our own lives.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

IT's weird and annoying how America-centric this website can be, where everyone assumes that everyone is from the USA and that USA culture, government, history and general practices are the default for the entire world. But what's even more annoying is when somebody sees a take that *is* actually relatively universal, disagree with it, and call it an American issue (usually claiming that people in the USA are weird or stupid to try to invalidate the position).

Like... yeah, it is irritating that some American will just say "the President" to foreigners, assume you know which president they mean without any further context, and assume that he's also your president for some reason. But outdoor cats are not some niche American issue that are harmless and fine to have everywhere else. These people somehow manage to assume I'm American more than the Americans do. The US-centrism is coming from inside the house.

[cressidagrey]

Regarding White Horse, who would be Belle's husband/boyfriend and how would the entire dynamic change if it wasn't Max, in an alternate universe? I think if Belle was young adult/teenager we would be reading completely another story (of course) but imagine if Belle was the youngest... But if it wasn't Max and instead of him, Belle got together with someone else entirely (doesn't have to be someone on the grid, maybe just someone rich but doesn't have connections to F1) whole story would become something entirely different and I would like to see your thoughts about that. What do you think?

I think that if Belle had met any kind of guy that treated her well during her uni years, she would have never come back to Monaco. Like if she met somebody that treated her decently and they didn't break up? She would have probably stayed with that guy in Paris and her family treating her like a secretary probably wouldn't have spiralled as badly as it did in White Horse Canon...but they also wouldn't have really fixed their problems either. Belle would have just been far enough away, kind of distant, to have a life that would have made her content. Not happy, but content at the very least, I think.

Oh and if I needed to pick another F1 driver for an alternate universe Belle, it would be Oscar.

I think that actually would work really well, because he seems like a very...sort of emotionally relatively "even" guy. (Doesn't mean that he doesn't have emotions, just that he's very good at keeping himself in check.)

I actually have two story ideas that deal with sort of an alternate universe of White Horse: Both have a Leclerc Sister that is the youngest.

They are sort of two sides of the same coin: In one they are actually a functioning family and she is the spoiled little sister that they would do everything for, which I think would also be very believable. (It's titled "Got Some Colour Back" and is about her and Oscar being Neighbours post each of them having a horrible break-up and so they bond over being cheated on. It also features an adorable King Charles Spaniel that loves Oscar and hates everybody else.

And then the second one is more similar to White Horse, in the sense that she has a job that has nothing to do with F1 and her brothers don't really take it seriously. (She's a model and has a pyjama brand while also studying and her brother's treat that like it's some cute hobby she picked up on the side...). I think in that she would be way less forgiving than Belle is. And she would probably also have more than one screaming match with her brothers. (Also the subplot would probably be her and Oscar having a relationship for like a year and nobody knowing because they are very content to just be very boring when it's the two of them and spent way too much time at home. So nobody ever connects the dots.)

[transmechanicus]

look this is really probably unnecessary, but I've seen tons of posts about how everyone is mad about the page that's going to post unmasked pics of the st guys and how outrageously disrespectful it is to them and well... I gotta say that it's just not that deep.

it's been pointed out that they've only ever said that 'their identities aren't important to the music or the story'. and that's it in terms of the "extreme lengths" they go to hide their identities.

i'm a regular follower of the reddit page where their identities are openly discussed and there is a decent amount of evidence that one of them or someone from their team lurks there and plays around a little with that community. ie, a few of the recent "the summoning solo shenanigans" were suggested in that thread and then seen on stage the next show. but who knows.

some of the guys are actually still participating in other media to a small extent. one of them still streams with a friend on twitch often. one of them just put out some older official music project on Spotify. one of them gets his new tattoos posted unmasked on his tattoo artist's page.

look, I'm not saying that this person who plans to bring this stuff to Tumblr shouldn't be warned about and of course everyone should have the opportunity to block and avoid it to keep their experience of the band how they prefer. that's no question how it should be.

but like... everyone is saying that this person who's starting the unmasked blog is like, evil and so disrespectful to the band. and I think that's just not right. it's their right to start whatever kind of page they want. it's everyone else's right to avoid it.

like I said, this is not really going anywhere, and it's not personal, I just have seen so many people bashing that person on a personal level and I just gotta tell someone, it's not that deep. thank you for reading

To me it is that deep, from what i’ve heard there was a major panic on Instagram in 2023 bc freaks were using info on there to harass II and his family. Hell he still alters his voice in videos, which you only do if you’re concerned someone is dedicated enough to scrape the internet with audio of your vocal patterns. I’ve seen video footage of Vessel cussing out a guy at a festival for yelling real names in the audience. There is direct evidence that the band members dislike off-stage info being known and shared, and that a portion of Sleep Token’s fanbase cannot be trusted to respect the secrecy that allows the band members to live comfortable lives relatively peacefully and out of the public eye.

In my personal opinion, your examples of how they’re still on other social media, and that you know that info abt them are reinforcement of my dislike for unmasked data aggregates. Unless the tattoo artist’s posts or the twitch stream is tagged #SleepToken there is probably a reasonable expectation that they don’t want band related attention for those things. Even if somebody does recognize them as the band members, it would be a minority population if it weren’t for subreddits and archives directly connecting dots between those things and Sleep Token, which is presumably why you have that info yourself in the first place.

By aggregating and collecting unmasked info, a resource is being provided that essentially says “Hey i know these guys have almost entirely retreated from the internet for their own safety and comfort…but here’s their names and faces and loved ones and colleagues and past projects and every little activity they do in their spare time. All gathered together and directly tagged and marked in relation to the band they’ve purposefully tried to anonymize and distance their real lives from”.

It’s stalker behavior, it’s unhealthy, it could be genuinely dangerous for the members if the wrong person made use of it, and i reserve the right to passionately condemn it.

[youngbirdtree]

You know what my favorite Paul McCartney is 80s Paul, you can see that he’s in a period of change almost seems like a mid-life crisis! But that produced a lot of rare unguarded moments of him!

Professionally speaking you can see he doesn’t know where to go, not dissimilar to many of his peers who found themselves disregarded by the new generation as the institution, old and need to go away leading many of them to produce awful AWFUL music.

Paul in particular suffered many professional hits to his music and that film by the general public and critics who criticized it harshly “not entirely unfair” and was relegated to old corny man, didn’t Kurt Cobain say that “he embarrassed him”? correct me if I’m wrong.

And you can tell it’s starting to get to him, he almost seems like he lost confidence in himself you can see on Carson show he seemed withdrawn, awkward and uncomfortable no matter how much Carson tried to calm him. And then of course john’s death and the subsequent books that mythologized john and spurred a new wave of narrative against Paul in particular.

And thus, the birth of my favorite Paul, him starting to open up a little bit about how he felt all these years, going back at the criticism he received, petty and unfiltered response. Even going back and forth with unfiltered king petty himself George Harrison you can see their petty and hilarious comments on the blog of the lovely @georgeharrisonsmiling.

But where else can you find these quotes:

“Yes, I did take the Beatles to the high court which is like highly traumatic period having to front that out imagine that!..it felt crazy I was so insecure” come on paul open up

“We brushed off that whole Beatles episode as if it’s no big deal I don’t think half of us knows what happened to us really”

“John could be a maneuvering swine... I still stick to that, the point was john was very human guy”, “If I come out now that he died tragically ... I’m kind of expected to just say he was a saint he was always a saint I remember him as a saint and I love him as I saint but that would be a lie part of his greatness was that he wasn’t that was half of the fun” yes Paul!! Fight back!

“Interviewer: peter brown pictures you as being self-centered

 Paul: you don’t want me to tell you on national tv what I think of HIM!

Interviewer: well, you can

Paul: HE STINKS!!” tone of his voice and facial expression killed me! Had me laughing. Fight Paul fight.

And underrated part of that decade you can see him start planting the seeds of his narrative of the Beatles years. Him being the avant-garde beatle “Way before john and yoko and got avant-garde I was the avant-garde London bachelor...i was quietly into avant-garde heavy, but I was not upfront about it”...ok, George being bitter about him because of hey jude even though George himself never said that, a lot of their issues is because he is the better musician , “I’m very aware that.. its weird thing to know you can do a thing that somebody else is having trouble with” no paul doing everything is not always great, i'm not just a balladeer, etc. These seeds became the dominate narrative now 40 years later!

Still, it’s my favorite era of him cause the memories is still relatively fresh and he’s not drowning in nostalgia and he was letting his guard down, wish he wrote a book but at least he had many in depth interviews as opposed to George who rarely had hours long interview, a lot of his point of view on many things were lost. And ringo unfortunately was a lost cause during that era” maybe early 80s was good?”

[kings-highway]

Hello, dear author! Just want to say, thanks for sharing your wonderful fics...Love them...!

Can I ask your top favorite fics that you've written (feel free how much that you want to list)? Why they're special to you? Is there a specific inspiration when you wrote them? Thanks if you want to answer....

Hmmmmmmm 🤔

I think there are a couple metrics I could use to make my favourites list, but I'll try to keep it relatively simple and actually answer the question. I think it can easily change, too, depending on whether you think like "what I like the best" versus "which ones make me happy" or "what was the most fun to write" but I'm gonna just go with gut instinct "favourite"

First of all, Honourable Mentions:

"This Is Not The End" - I can almost guarantee you that this will become my favourite story I've written. However, since it's still in progress, I can't say that yet. I still need to stick the landing before I can confirm it's gold star status, y'know?

the "Captain of Captains" series - while I no longer consider Bear Daichi and his exploits my best or favourite work, the support I received on those stories is so important to me and will keep it incredibly well ranked in my heart forever. That many people can't be wrong, right?

Now, ranking! Let's just do a top five...

5. Literally all my longer one shots are tied here... There's a certain "Class" of canon-compliantist one shots that I cannot decide between. Imperfect Facial Symmetry, the Magazine King, You Can't Play Volleyball in a Blizzard, Unforgivable Acts, Somebody Told Me, All for the Love of an Energetic Redhead, Doghouse, Daichi "Dearest", Suga Vs. The Sawamura Family Line, they all have a certain... Spice to them that I can't quite explain that sets them apart from some of my other stories, and some of the more tongue and cheek self referential humour ones, or the short form oneshots. I honestly wouldn't be able to pick. MAYBE let's go with Imperfect Facial Symmetry as my #5 just because I think it is the best written and handles its themes the best.

4. Astrophilia & Stardust - both count as one, as they really need to be read together. Astrophilia was 100% meant to be a stand alone No Comfort story, but the response I had from readers (several people threatening to write and give them the happy ending themselves) made me realize that their paramours back home would not have given up, ever. Stardust, then, to me, is filled with so much genuine heart of the boyfriends, who I so often force to sit and watch the captains suffer, finally taking control of the narrative and doing it themselves driven entirely by the people who demanded I get them home, and that means so much to me.

3. Paranormality - uhhhhhhh yeah Alien Daichi is cool as fuck, this is the QPR OiDai fic of my dreams, the dynamic between all the captains is incredible, Daichi's slow descent into an unhinged nervous wreck is delicious, the monsters, the mayhem, the Ushiten in this is some of my favourite, it has an assortment of OCs that were stupidly fun to write, Daichi's anarchist father being both a government sellout and deeply annoyed by his son's early desire to be a cop is probably one of my favourite headcanons and will probably come back. Rich Sawamura is awesome, Ryukyuan Daichi is actually one of my favourite things ever and I can guarantee you is true in all my other fics going forward unless stated otherwise. Lucky cat! It just has so many of my favourite headcanons and AU ideas all crammed into one and how could I not love it.

2. Danza Della Morte - not at all everyone elses, favourite, probably bc of the MCD tag, but oh my GOD do I love this story. Priest Daichi and his Musician Angel trying to survive 1349 in Venice, my Heart, my Heart. Asahi is a superb supporting cast member, the want between them is wonderful, and the historical subject matter is one of my absolute favourites so it was a joy to write. VASTLY underrated in my opinion.

1. Time Enough to Risk It All - this story has such a special place in my heart, namely because I adore how many people were baffled first by my choice to put Daichi in a Time Loop at all, and then mad at me for making them root for OiDai endgame 🤍 This story was directly inspired by a video essay by Jacob Geller entitled "Time Loop Nihilism," which I HIGHLY suggest you watch if you haven't already. I finished watching it, and essentially immediately opened a blank doc to get to work.

[konnosaurus]

iiiiit's sonny!!

sonny is such an intriguing little character to me. i really like him, but am very curious about his character and his placement in the series. i'm gonna stick a few thoughts about him (and diesel, honestly, and their interesting dynamic) under the cut!

even though sonny first appeared in the Last Series of the show, he felt like he had been designed with longevity in mind (at least to me!). he had personal character relationships with thomas (positive), diesel (complicated) and james (intriguing). unlike a lot of the characters introduced at the very of the series run, sonny was given these relationships that made you feel he could have his own character growth and also influence other characters and their stories.

sonny and diesel specifically are an interesting pair. diesel had only relatively recently had his minor/major redemption arc in springtime for diesel, but more recent relevant episodes, in my opinion, are diesel glows away & diesel do right. these episodes have a very interesting understanding of diesel which honestly remind me quite a bit of james (which is probably odd to say!). he thinks he is great, and that his presence makes the railway a better place, but in reality… he isn't really helping all that much because his high opinion of himself makes him do his jobs worse than if he just… tried to do them himself. it makes the other engines have a worse opinion of him than if he just talked to them as equals.

this is where sonny comes in. diesel, who has learnt through his past few episodes that he can't make other engines like him by being a nuisance and that he must put his own effort in to do his jobs correctly, is introduced to a new engine who has no preconceptions about him at all. in fact, he seems to enjoy his presence! but this is a whole new thing to diesel, who has not really had a chance to have a new interaction without the other engine involved having been told about his ways~~. while he probably hadn't had toooo many interactions with nia before diesel glows away, it was never implied she was unaware of the way he is, where as this is clearly all new to sonny.

these interactions between sonny and diesel show the two growing close very quickly- neither has really had any close buddies at any recent point, as far as we know. nobody seems to particularly enjoy the company of diesel, and sonny has been implied to have been on his own engine-wise, with only baz and bernie for a while at least. sonny is shown as inherently good- he tries to help james, he tries to do the other engines jobs. diesel as shown as inherently bad- even though he has grown, and we have seen him grow, his first instinct when given the opportunity is to use someone for his own gain. but it is different this time! when diesel causes something to go wrong for somebody else, he apologises without having to make it a whole ~thing~, which was exactly what he struggled with in springtime for diesel. he could apologise, then, but not directly. now he was able to manage it!

sonny managed to bring out the best in diesel, get a direct apology from him ((and also a direct (though sliiiightly reluctant) apology from james)), and get himself into the good books of other engines in essentially one day. though this happens quite a lot in the childrens-morals stories of thomas, there is something about him that brought that out in the characters in a way that felt entirely natural. and i just think that is neat!!

[moonsandloons]

Mysterious People in BFDI

I was thinking about it earlier and man, there are a lot of weird unnamed figures in BFDI! People we know nothing about, don’t have names or faces or known personalities. And I was thinking, what if I gathered them all in one place to see what’s up with ‘em?

(DISCLAIMER) I love yapping. Soooooo much yapping under the cut. Lots and lots of yapping. I may never shut up.

1 - The figure in Golf Ball’s flashback

Of all the mystery people in BFDI, this may be one of the most well known. In IDFB, Golf Ball has a flashback when inside the science museum. The flashback involves a ball (possibly GB or one of her relatives) being tormented by a mysterious figure. The ball tries to hide behind a vase, but someone breaks it apart with a bat. It’s unclear what happens afterwards. During the flashback, the figure repeatedly calls the ball ‘bozo’ which is one of Golf Ball’s iconic nicknames.

As for who the figure is, we’ve really got no idea. Some people believe it to be Match, since their voices are similar and Needle says Freesmart has secret business with the science museum, but that theory has some flaws. The figure seems more antagonistic than Match. Match and the rest of the freesmarters aren’t particularly nice, but GB seems genuinely traumatized, and after her flashback she immediately gets uncomfortable and insists that they leave the museum.

Hopefully this will be expanded on if IDFB ever continues, because that is indeed quite a mysterious figure.

2 - The evil ruler of the numeric realm

If you follow me, you already know this one. I post about them a concerning amount. In fact, I already made a post dedicated to the evil ruler just the other day! Right here: https://www.tumblr.com/ghostsandfools/773643752598290433/basics

But that post is long, so I’ll recap here. The evil ruler is mentioned a couple times in the book of division. Apparently they ruled over the algebraliens and are responsible for hiding the division symbol. It’s unclear what planet they ruled on, what they look like, what their name could be, and even how many there are! The evil ruler could be multiple people. There’s really a lot of options here.

It’s probably just wishful thinking, but I hope the evil ruler gets expanded on, they’re the best <333

3 - The author of the book of division

Hey, speaking of the book of division! Who wrote it?

I don’t want this post to get too wordy, so I’ll just refer to them as ‘the author.’ The author has no name or face, but a VERY distinct personality.

They tend to ramble a LOT. Full blown tangents about the most random things imaginable. It’s unclear if they’re like this in real life as well or if they’re just spewing nonsense so they can reach the word count they need.

They also don’t seem very interested in writing the book. They state that they were commissioned by somebody else to write the book, and they don’t seem to care about algebraliens at all.

On that note, the author is decidedly NOT an algebralien. They seem weirdly prejudiced actually. They call the algebraliens dumb a couple of times, they seem to not like them.

The author also claims to not know that much about algebraliens (even though they do know a lot. Like they know so much about algebraliens it is weirdly specific)

It’s unclear how educated this person actually is. They could’ve just made up the entirety of the book and that’s why it’s so specific, we actually have no clue. Could this be someone we already know, or a different entity entirely?

4 - Just Not’s narrator

Alright kinda surprised more people aren’t talking about this. In episode 6 of tpot, Just Not decides they wanna go on a quest to slay a dragon. And they get their own cool little singing narrator to accompany them.

Except. The narrator is not cool. The narrator keeps trying to lead them directly to their deaths. Eventually the team gets fed up with it and decides to just ignore it and do their own thing, and the narrator is never seen again that I know of.

So… Who was that??? Seriously who was that. Like, I’m surprised more people aren’t freaking out over this thing. What the actual heck.

We currently have no explanation why it’s so malicious towards Just Not or where it came from in the first place. I really hope they explain that eventually because I’m so confused!

5 - Three

I just realized I probably should’ve like. Ordered this list differently. Because if it were a top 5 list then this should’ve been number one and the numbers should’ve counted down instead of up… Or I could’ve been funny and put them at number 3…. None of that’s important though!

Three is. Probably the most well known mysterious figure in bfdi. We see them in jail inside of Four’s exit, but it’s important to remember that Four’s exit is connected to a lot of places- Like, they have a door that leads to the equation playground, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually inside of them!

That being said, Three could be imprisoned somewhere else and Four just has a portal or something that leads to their cell.

There are little references to Three ALL over the place, and I don’t think they’re going to stay a mystery for long. Still, as of writing this post, we don’t know much about them! We don’t know what they sound like or much about their personality.

Three was first seen in xfohv, in which they are notably not in jail! If xfohv is canon to bfdi, Three would have to have been jailed sometime between then and now.

It’s also strange that they have their own special cell in an actual prison. Fourteen is a literal cannibal and all they did to him was lock him up outside where anyone could find him, so Three must’ve done something pretty messed up.

They also appeared as a host a couple of times in Tpot 15, and considering the fact that ‘a couple changes’ remained at the end of the episode, Three could possibly have been freed during the shift.

Out of all of these entries, Three is the most lore relevant and the one we know the most about.

So… Anyways. Oki doki, I’m done yapping now ^_^

If you’re more familiar with bfdi lore than I am and think I’ve gotten anything wrong, feel free to correct me!! I’m still fairly new around here, kind of, not really, it’s been a couple months, idk-

[bondsmagii]

Do you have any more creepy shit to share? I reread your tag semi annually

I do!! I am super psyched because it was a rare proper apparition. like I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen bodily apparitions. it's pretty straightforward but holy shit.

I was away for work and I was borrowing somebody's apartment for the night. technically I was sub-borrowing it, because he was borrowing it from the owner. anyway, it was a one-night only thing, I was only going to spend about eight hours there in total, but there was one Strict Rule. do not touch the owner's cabinet. this was non-negotiable. absolutely no touching the cabinet. not even a little bit.

the apartment was pretty small, a living room with a bedroom off it, a small bathroom and kitchen off a tiny hall. the cabinet was huge. it took up basically the entire wall of the living room. it was beautiful, too -- hand-carved, filled with ornaments, real attention to detail. it was easy to avoid, as it was against the wall and my little camp bed was on the wall perpendicular to it, but in the way of all forbidden things I was thinking 'oh god, what if I fall into it? what if I'm possessed by the urge to go and touch it? what if I sleepwalk and go over to it and start swinging an axe--'

anyway, as I'm thinking this, looking out into the room, I suddenly see a man standing beside the cabinet. one moment he's not there, the next he is. I can't see any lower legs, but the rest of him is very solid, matching the colour and shading of the rest of the room, but there's something vague about him. I can't tell how he's dressed -- it's bulky clothing with his face covered. he looks either like a soldier in full gear, or a miner about to go into the pits. considering the city I'm in is both an old mining city and there's lots of soldiers about, either of these things could match. but what's for certain is he's standing right there looking at me, as if checking out who's staying in the apartment (and making sure they don't touch the cabinet).

I send a thought to him that he does not have to worry, I am not going to touch the cabinet. or I try. the country I'm in is not an English-speaking country and my language skills are rudimentary at best. I guess it must have worked, though, because after another few moments he just fades from view. there was no other incident and we left the next morning as planned.

I'm not sure who the ghost was -- the current owner of the flat was alive and well. possibly the cabinet belonged to somebody before him and this person was checking up on it, or maybe it was somebody else making sure his friend/relative's wishes were respected. it was very cool though.

[tentenismybitch]

Ohhh i'm really interested to hear about post-war depression team gai, tenzo and tenten, and team gai but make them the main characters au

post-war depression team gai is a carthatic fic for me, who struggles w/ depression! basically the whole team is going thru it:

neji survives the war (thanks to tenten! shoutout to @erumai-maadu for the genius idea of tenten learning hiraishin), but is no longer on active duty due to his injuries. since his entire life up until that point has been defined by serving, both his clan and his village, this fucks him up for a while!!

similarly! gai. the blue beast of konoha. greatest taijutsu specialist to ever live. no longer has a leg (did his entire leg disintegrate or can he just not use it anymore? i honestly don’t know lol.) he’s put his entire body on the line for his village and his loved ones time and time again, and his ability to do that has been stripped from him. enter sad boy era the likes of which nobody has ever seen - or will see, if he can help it, cus he’s repressing his feelings and trying to put on a brave face for his students (and kakashi.) nobody’s checking on pawpaw!!

meanwhile. btwn tenten doing an untested and dangerous jutsu TWICE, in the span of like, 1 min, and believing that neji is gonna die anyway b/c she isn’t fast/strong enough to save anyone, she ends up getting a chakra exhaustion/dying of a broken heart fever that almost kills her. even after she recovers and it becomes clear neji will live, she feels weak and useless so she keeps trying to get put in ANBU, which does not work out, which makes her feel even weaker and more useless!!!

then lee, sweet precious lee, has survivor’s guilt for being the one who comes out relatively unscathed from the war (at least physically), and for forming a bond with someone else while his entire team is in medically-induced comas (yall know what the fuck is going on!!! gaara comforts him while his team is all in critical condition!!) everyone is guilty and sad and doesn’t communicate well. phew somebody get them a therapist!

as for team gai as mains au, it’s a fic idea i’ve had for years and it even has the first chapter written! basically it’s like a fix-it fic but if the fix was that team gai were the main characters of naruto. LOL. it’s entirely self-indulgent, with a lot of the fic being purely of my own invention (ie team gai’s first year as a squad, flashbacks from the academy, what they were doing during the timeskip, etc) and some of it being rewrites of canon events that team gai were already part of, but it’s more from their perspectives and focuses on them a lot more.

i’m not sure if i will ever actually write this one in its entirety b/c it would require me to actually like. thoroughly read/watch naruto so that i can diverge from it in a way that makes sense. or maybe not??? maybe it’s a fanfic that i’m making up where team gai are the main characters so i can do whatever i want??? IDK IDK. what i do know is that if i ever finish it, neji will live, the hyuga clan will be fixed (or abolished! idk!), tenten will have all the screentime, and team gai are not going to be regulated to side characters who disappear from the narrative. they WILL BE the narrative!!!

thank you so much for asking!!

[innaillus]

I got a bunch of questions concerning this AU Sukuna of mine. They inspired a lot of thoughts.

Please remember that my view is just my own subjective opinion. It is clouded by my unhealthy affection towards him, and it is developed based on my own bias and unprofessional analysis of him.

Let me go one by one.

1) Occupation

He is either a mafia boss or just a good old CEO. In my opinion, one does not need to be in the underworld to be the devil he is. (I actually find it attractive if somebody "makes it" in legal ways. Seems much harder.)

On the other hand, I see parallels between yakuza and the historical/mythical figure of Ryomen Sukuna (being a folk hero and anti-government), so I think being an oyabun kinda suits him (or maybe someone lower-ranked, he seems a bit young, but who knows when it comes to him...)

Note: yes I'm aware that Gege specified that he is not identical to the mythical figure, but those stories line up with the background I imagine for him, the background that contributed to him turning out like this. That is an entirely different analysis though...

2) His thoughts? Hobbies?

He probably suffers/suffered from every drawback of a dysfunctional family or growing up in an orphanage, including but not exclusive to trust issues, attachment issues and self-control issues (alcohol, drug, women), etc. However, he got these setbacks under his control. He had nothing so he wants and gets everything, he had no one so now he wants and gets everyone but never keeps anyone close by for too long (unless they are useful in a professional environment).

He is a very active and competitive person. He is a workaholic, he made it to the top at a relatively young age. He ruthlessly used everything and everyone at his disposal and reached all of his goals. He ended up lonely at the top, which, on one hand, is the essence of his nature and source of his ego and pride, and it is also how he feels comfortable, utterly detached from the good will of anyone. On the other hand, it's probably very lonely. Of course he also rationalised this and swept it under the rug. It turned him bitter, quite a nihilist and even more selfish. He very likely prioritises low-effort relationships in his personal life, unwilling to create attachment to anything other than himself.

His hobbies may include

culinary pleasures (as canon)

mastering new skills, such as languages, shooting, cooking, etc

he enjoys pushing his own boundaries in gym/sport (probably everything else too)

he also enjoys fine and expensive things in life, like cigars, wine, etc

He needs constant mental stimulation to stay content.

3) Deformities

Option A:

He is just a human. He has only 4 limbs. He lost his right eye (and his right cheek?) in a fight or accident.

Option B:

Reincarnated demon lord fitting into society. I think he can morph his own body at will. He is hiding his deformed face that is also a source of some secret abilities.

4) His type?

If the question concerns his type in partners...

Option 1: Toys.

Anything goes. I think he likes people he can get rid of without much problem. Probably someone who doesn't need too much mental investment. Just make them have an interesting quirk that piques his curiosity, and easy to deal with. One thing though: I believe he is always 100% honest about his intentions. He never needs to lie and manipulate someone into any kind of relationship with him.

Option 2: Partner.

He probably doesn't believe this person exists, as he is used to being alone and never experienced devotion and care. He automatically treats everyone as a toy, that's all he knows how to do, that is what is comfortable for him.

The problems start when he discovers emotional attachment to somebody. It probably stresses him out greatly, he doesn't know how to deal with it. It infuriates him and it takes a toll on his confidence and usually calm demeanor. Probably to a point till he behaves aggressive even towards the subject of his affection, unintentionally hurting her. It probably takes a lot of patience on both sides to get through this. It's possible he would try to treat her even more harshly than everyone else, to punish her for causing him such misery, hoping that she would abandon him - because he cannot abandon her.

This person is someone who can challenge him mentally. Somebody who is not identical to him, but he sees her as his equal, somebody who shares similar views and values but can broaden his horizons. She is intelligent, a free spirit willing to obey only him, mysterious but also honest, reserved and opens up only to him to reveal an endless treasury of new experiences. She is somebody who can challenge his authority and forces him to step up his game, but is also able to admit defeat and happy to submit. Power play is fine, but at the end of the day, it's him on top, always. Most importantly though, she is loyal and naturally reciprocates his efforts (if they ever reach that stage).

As far as physical traits go... (...was this what you really wanted to know and I was babbling about her character?)

I think he likes it when a woman takes care of herself, but doesn't like them "fake". I also think he likes long hair and feminine characteristics (typical beauty standards of the Heian period). I think he admires natural beauty and can be fascinated by many different features though.

5) Colors

complexion: slightly darker (not super fair like Gojo's skintone) Google says it's "medium beige" but it sounds weird, haha

eyes: red

hair: I use a darker shade than the official true form art, resulting in a pale mahogany color

Here you go, @rosemaydone321 ! Sorry, it got long.... Hope this is what you meant with the questions. Thank you!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The final tally for the Big Ugly Bill

July 22, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued its final report on the “cost” of the Big Ugly Bill. According to the CBO, the bill will increase the deficit by $3.4 trillion and result in 10 million Americans losing health coverage.

No need to believe me. See the CBO’s original summary and detailed report here: CBO, Estimated Budgetary Effects of Public Law 119-21, Relative to CBO’s January 2025 Baseline. (“CBO estimates that Public Law 119-21 will . . . result in a net increase in the unified budget deficit totaling $3.4 trillion over the 2025-2034 period.”) See also Politico, GOP megabill’s final score: $3.4T in red ink and 10 million kicked off health insurance, CBO says.

Let’s pause here for a moment. Republicans have managed to normalize previously unthinkable outcomes by dragging them out over a long period, thereby ensuring that the media loses interest because the stories no longer help sell advertising. Although the deficit increase in the Big Ugly Bill is not the largest in our nation’s history, it is among the largest during non-wartime (WWII and the Civil War), non-pandemic response, and non-economic emergency (e.g., the 2008 Recession). See Peterson Foundation, The One Big Beautiful Bill Act Is the Most Expensive Reconciliation Package in Recent History.

Moreover, the shocking increase in the deficit was spent almost entirely on tax breaks for millionaires and grotesque increases in the budgets for ICE and the military. To the extent the deficit was offset, it was “paid for” by removing 10 million Americans from healthcare.

I realize this is “old” news, but the final CBO report is the most reliable and objective estimate of the Big Ugly Bill’s impact. Let’s hold onto those facts as Democrats fashion their message about the future in 2026.

And before we leave the Big Ugly Bill, it is worth noting that Trump forced through passage of the bill by promising “side deals” to various Senators, including Alaska’s Senator Murkowski. To the surprise of no one (except Senator Murkowski), Trump immediately reneged on one of his promises to Murkowski. See Charlotte Clymer on Substack, Sen. Murkowski Discovers Trump Will Lie and Betray Her.

Per Charlotte Clymer, Senator Murkowski said the following in the Alaska Daily News,

I feel cheated. I feel like we made a deal and then hours later, a deal was made to somebody else. . . . I read it as just a total affront to what we had negotiated. . . . To me, it’s just reckless by the administration . . . . So now you have an executive order that goes against what the president himself signed into law, in my view.

Given that the Constitution means nothing to Trump, Murkowski should not be shocked that Trump would break a side deal the moment that it became in his interest to do so. What is unusual about Murkowski’s complaint is that Trump broke his promise within hours of making it.

Indeed, given that Trump is ignoring congressional appropriations, we should consider the Big Ugly Bill to be more of a mere “guideline” for Trump's cruelty, not a binding piece of legislation. For more on that topic, read on!

Federal judge orders Trump and OMB to comply with congressional law regarding appropriations disclosures

Virtually every executive order signed by Trump in his second term has violated a congressional statute or the Constitution. Every dollar of congressionally appropriated funding that Trump has withheld violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution or the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Trump’s actions in impounding funds justify impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.

According to the running tally by DOGE, the administration has withheld approximately $180 billion in appropriated funds for which it has not sought congressional approval. See the DOGE tracker here: DOGE Live Tracker | Government Spending Transparency.

The DOGE website claims $190 billion in “savings.” Last week, Congress approved $9 billion in rescissions of previously appropriated funds—leaving $181 billion in unapproved impoundments by Trump.

One method of oversight established by Congress to ensure that the executive branch complies with its appropriations bills is a statutory requirement for an “appropriations tracker website” that details every dollar spent by the executive under an appropriation.

The Trump administration decided that it didn’t like having to disclose what it was doing with the money appropriated by Congress, so it decided to ignore the statutorily required appropriations tracker. So, the Trump administration simply deleted the appropriations tracker website.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Protect Democracy Project sued the Trump administration, claiming that Trump lacked the authority to refuse to follow the federal statute requiring the public disclosure of funds appropriated by Congress.

On Monday, US District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that Trump's removal of the appropriations disclosure website violated two congressional statutes. See CREW v. OMB | Memoraundum Opinion | July 21, 2025

Under the United States Constitution, it is the job of Congress to decide how American taxpayer dollars are spent, including how many dollars to spend and on what priorities to spend them. Once Congress authorizes funding through an appropriations bill, and the President signs the bill into law, constitutional responsibility shifts to the Executive Branch to allocate the funds according to congressional instructions. To facilitate congressional oversight of the apportionment decisions of the Executive Branch and provide the public with insight into the decisions, in 2022, Congress passed, and the President signed into law, a statute requiring the Executive Branch to publish its apportionment decisions on a publicly available online database within two days of the decision. Defendants argue that this public disclosure law is an unconstitutional encroachment on the Executive Branch’s decision-making authority. Relying on an extravagant and unsupported theory of presidential power, Defendants claim that their apportionment decisions—which are legally binding and result in the actual spending of public funds—cannot be publicly disclosed because they are not final decisions about how to administer the spending of public funds. However, the law is clear: Congress has sweeping authority to require public disclosure of how the Executive Branch is apportioning the funds appropriated by Congress. Under the law, the decision of the Executive Branch must be made public within two days of the decision.

The order goes into effect on Wednesday, giving the Trump administration time to appeal and seek a stay of Judge Sullivan’s ruling. This clash frames a clear contest between Congress’s authority to appropriate funds and Trump's ridiculous claim that he can change congressional appropriations to suit his “agenda.”

I have no faith the Roberts Court will uphold Congress’s Article I power to control appropriations. But if the Court were not corrupt, hopelessly partisan, and controlled by billionaire puppet masters, it should leave in place Judge Sullivan’s order during the pendency of the appeal.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[scary-grace]

HARBINGER - two

a prologue

A bizarre crime scene. A brutal murder. A pair of suspects to whom there's more than meets the eye. As Detective Yamada Hizashi and his colleagues investigate the worst murder their town has seen in seven years, they find themselves skirting the line between reason and emotion, between stark truth and supernatural terror. The answers are out there. Yamada's not sure he wants to find them.

warnings: dark content, including murder, torture, body horror, and mutilation. vague but disturbing supernatural content. maybe erasermic, maybe not, not romantically focused. this is the prelude to another fic. not necessary to read in advance, but may be interesting to consider. all dividers by @cafekitsune.

part of the true crime prompt challenge I'm doing with @surlyraconteur! please make sure to check out her work as well.

"where were you that night?" (1500 words)

“This good-cop thing isn’t working,” Shirakumo mumbles as he steps out of the padded room. “He’s just been staring at me. I don’t even think he blinked.”

“He has been blinking. I’ve been counting,” Yamada says. Not much else to do – only one suspect in what the media is calling the Grey House murder is awake, and while Aizawa and Kayama are out dissecting the crime scene still further, Shirakumo and Yamada are doing an interrogation. Or trying to. “What do they have him on? It must be something pretty heavy.”

“Did the parents sign a release of information?” Shirakumo rubs his eyes. “If they haven’t, we can’t see his records.”

Yamada checks the binder he’s using to collect paper copies of all the electronic evidence. So far, it’s pretty slim. “We’ve got one. They’re really leaning into this ‘nothing to hide’ thing."

In Yamada’s opinion, the suspects’ parents have plenty to hide – they just haven’t realized it yet. Three kids entered the abandoned house, and both of theirs came out alive, while another family’s been devastated and the family of the driver who hit the second suspect is already trying to figure out how to sue them. If they haven’t lawyered up already, Yamada bets it’ll happen in the next twenty-four hours. Which means that Yamada’s got exactly that long to get something out of this suspect that he can use.

“Go check with the parents,” he suggests to Shirakumo. “Even though we’ve got the release, they’ll be more likely to keep cooperating if we act like they’ve got a choice in the matter.”

“Right.” Shirakumo rolls his shoulders. “What are you going to do?”

“Play the bad cop.” Yamada starts to set his binder aside, then changes his mind. “Wish me luck.”

Shirakumo nods and departs, and Yamada steps through the door into the padded room, where the older of the two suspects in the Grey House murder has spent the last thirty-six hours.

He’s not a very big kid. Tall, sure, but not all that broad. According to his parents and his school, he’s not much of an athlete – chess club and student council are more of his vibe, and video games are his main hobby. Compared to the corpse of his best friend and whatever the hell happened to his little sister, this suspect escaped from the house relatively unscathed. The most damage he’s taken is a bunch of nasty gouges from the barbed wire he got stuck in, to go with a big, deep, four-fingered scratch across his cheek.

That’s Yamada’s in. He sits down a safe distance from the suspect. “What happened to your face? Somebody got you bad.”

The kid blinks. His eyes flicker to Yamada, then to the binder Yamada’s holding. “What’s that?”

He didn’t say two words to Shirakumo, the entire time Shirakumo was in here. “It’s my evidence binder,” Yamada says. “Wanna see?”

The kid shakes his head. Okay. At least he’s communicating a little bit. “My friend was in here for an hour and you didn’t say a word to him. How come you feel like talking to me?”

“My sister,” the kid says. “What happened to her?”

“She got banged up pretty bad,” Yamada says. No point in lying, and if he can get the suspect talking about the other suspect, he might learn something useful. “They think she’ll pull through, but she hasn’t woken up yet. She’s not talking, same as you.”

Yamada doesn’t miss the way the kid’s shoulders relax. If it’s visible, he must have been insanely tense. “Wanna tell me what happened?”

“If I tell you, can I see my sister?”

“Uh – sure,” Yamada says after a moment. “If you answer my questions, I can see about making that happen. So let’s start with an easy one. Where were you that night? Or, uh – last night.”

“At the gate,” the boy says. He blinks. “It wouldn’t open.”

Huh. Yamada doesn’t remember seeing a gate at the house. It was basically a straight shot from the road to the front door – other than the barbed wire fence. “Which gate do you mean?” The kid looks blankly at him. “Where is it?”

“It’s here.”

“Like, here in this room?”

“Here,” the boy says again. “Can I see my sister?”

“I’ve got some other questions first,” Yamada says. “So you were trying to open a gate. If it’s here, how come you ended up at that house?”

“That was where the gate was. It wouldn’t open.”

The kid’s tone is flat, inflectionless. He’s not moving in his seat – hasn’t moved in hours, not since Shirakumo sat down across from him. Yamada’s not an expert, but he’s willing to bet that the kid’s either drugged to the gills or completely psychotic. Or both. “The gate was at the house. The gate’s here now. Is that right?”

“I want to see my sister.”

Perseverative speech, flat affect, what looks a lot like catatonia. Was there any mental health history in the kid’s record? Yamada doesn’t remember seeing it, but he knows from Kayama, who majored in psychology so she could become a sex therapist before switching to being a cop, that the late teens are when a lot of psychotic disorders start to show their teeth. “Three more questions, okay? Then I’ll take you to see her.”

The kid doesn’t argue, but he doesn’t repeat his demand. Yamada casts around for a question that’ll be helpful. “How much do you remember about what happened at the house?”

“Everything.”

“Who scratched your face?”

“It was his fault,” the boy says, and a jolt travels through Yamada’s nervous system. “It wouldn’t open because of him.”

Motive. That sounds like motive to Yamada. Neither the kid nor his parents have invoked their right to an attorney, and everything that happens in this room is being recorded on a closed-circuit TV. “He must have messed things up pretty bad if you wound up with your face like that. What did he do?”

The kid’s eyes slant away from Yamada’s, and he mumbles something. Something about a key, or the key, and Yamada can’t get him to repeat himself. Okay. Yamada asked three questions, the kid answered three questions, and if Yamada wants to keep this rapport going, he needs to hold up his end of the bargain. “Hang on a second. I’m going to go talk to some people, and then we can go see your sister.”

The nurses say he can’t go without two orderlies to guard him, and Shirakumo wants to put him in handcuffs, but he hasn’t been charged with anything yet. Since the victim and the suspects are all kids, and this case is practically designed to drive the media wild, Yamada’s going to avoid the visual. The kid seems to be walking okay on his way up to the ICU, where his sister’s still under close supervision. “Like I said, she’s kind of in bad shape,” Yamada cautions as they step through the door. “She’s not going to be able to talk or anything. You can just see – yeah, there she is.”

The only person who looks worse than the twelve-year-old suspect is the actual corpse. She’s wrapped in bandages practically head-to-toe, her face bruised and her eyes almost swollen shut. If she was like that when she went tearing out of the house, no wonder she never saw the car that hit her. The suspects’ parents are sitting beside her bed, and at the sight of their son, they both break out into nervous smiles. “I’m so glad you’re here,” his mother says, her voice wavering. “I know your sister –”

She breaks off in a shrill, horrifying scream. Yamada hears the sound of shattering glass from somewhere on the unit, but that’s nothing compared to what’s happening next to him – the suspect lunging forward, so fast and sudden that the orderlies can’t get a good grip. In a split second, he’s up on the bed, looming over his sister. The suspects’ mom faints, while his father and Yamada and the orderlies seize the kid and yank him off the bed. He’s fighting like a lunatic again. Just like he was when the EMTs were pulling him out of the fence.

Yamada fucked up, big-time, and he’s not even partially equipped to manage it. The orderlies pile onto the suspect, and more come running. Nurses to check on the mom. A nearby security guard to stop the father from interfering with what’s happening to his son. Nobody’s paying attention to the girl in the bed. Yamada, feeling sick to his stomach, turns to her.

Her brother’s torn up her face. There are bloody nail-marks on her cheekbone, furrows dragged into her forehead. She’s already beat to shit from whatever happened in that house, and Yamada went ahead and let this happen, too. “I’m sorry,” he says, and for the first time since she collapsed trying to crawl away from the accident, the second suspect opens her eyes.

[markantonys]

i am capital S Shook that the irish red sitter is none other than galina!! i would never have predicted that! since galina only does One Thing in the books, i was sure she was a prime candidate for being absorbed by somebody else; my theory had been that elaida would lead rand's kidnapping personally to give elaida something more to do during midseries when she's not up to much in the books, in part so as not to sideline shohreh. but maybe it's actually preferable to shohreh to only have a main role in her first and last seasons and more of a guest/recurring role in the seasons in between, or maybe they'll bulk up elaida's storyline inside the tower and with alviarin in order to increase elaida's presence during the time between the coup and egwene's kidnapping.

anyway! at the time of watching the cold open i was like "man i wish i was watching this on regular prime x-ray so i could see the names of all the characters in the scene in case these new aes sedai are anyone i would know", but now i'm glad that i didn't find out this was galina until a week later. i liked her! i thought she had a cool vibe! i now feel betrayed (in a good way) to know this is galina! once again wotshow getting an impeccable record in managing to make the antagonists likable even when we know how decisively unlikable their book counterparts are. a very different viewing experience for me than if i'd known straight off this was galina and had therefore gone "oh i've got my eye on you" the second she arrived!

this revelation also increases my hopes that my girl tsutama survived. before, i'd thought that they were two relatively minor reds who might only be needed for this one scene and that their odds of having survived the hallway battle weren't good, especially since we do see red figures dead/unconscious on the floor afterwards. now, i'm certain galina had to have survived because if she was only a random character who's in one scene and dies immediately, they would never have chosen such a loaded name for the character; she's got to be alive. and in turn, tsutama got markedly more focus than galina did in this scene (more lines, more closeup shots), which would be an odd choice if galina is the only one who goes on to become a notable character and tsutama is never seen again after this scene, so i think this is good news for tsutama too. and having tsutama around longer would be a good counterbalance to show that, truly, there ARE some reds who aren't secretly black ajah!

exciting stuff! i have to say, you all know my hatred of WOT Minor Characters and the space they take up, i'm famous for it, but the show continues to do incredibly well at getting even me, their biggest hater, interested and invested in the minor characters. from the moment tsutama and galina arrived, i felt attached to them and wanted to see more of them! (i think being a visual medium also inherently helps with this, since it's easier to feel quick attachment when you have a face and not just a name.) i AM getting a bit "okay, maybe we should slow down" at the number of separate minor characters being introduced, but i trust rafe & co to know their limits and not go over the line with too many characters the way the books did (not least because they have budgetary constraints keeping them in check!). and tower politics is such an important thread throughout the entire series, and having a good number of Specific Aes Sedai We Know can only help with audience investment in that thread, especially since it's a thread that's so often separate from most of our main cast; it needs to include enough strong secondary characters to support it during the times when no primary characters are involved in it.

[coraniaid]

I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to suggest that, if Buffy the Vampire Slayer were being made today – in the age of streaming and binge-watching, when even as many as twelve episodes in a single season seems like a luxury – neither Phases nor Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered would ever have made it to the screen.  

To use a term I’m not sure Tumblr really approves of, they’re both very clearly filler episodes: moments of relative calm between the major events of Innocence and Passion. They don’t do much if anything to advance the main plot of the season, and they’re primarily focused on characters other than the star of the show.  Phases is about Willow and her relationship with Oz; Bewitched… Is about Xander and his relationship with Cordelia.

Actually, I think these are a type of episode that we haven’t really seen in Buffy before.  In Season 1, there wasn’t really any obvious season-long arc for the monster of the week episodes to distract from.  The Master didn’t have a concrete plan to escape the Hellmouth that we ever saw after the first two episodes, and between The Harvest and Prophecy Girl Buffy didn’t exactly do much to try to stop him.  Yes, the episodes of the season still fall into a fairly natural order and sometimes have long-term consequences – we meet the Anointed One in Never Kill A Boy On The First Date, say goodbye to Principal Flutie in The Pack, learn about Angel being a vampire in Angel, meet Jenny Calendar in I Robot, You Jane and Principal Snyder in The Puppet Show  – but there just isn’t the same divide between “arc episode” and “filler episode” that I think there is for the later seasons.

And that didn’t change immediately in Season 2, even with the introduction of Spike and Drusilla.  These characters, let’s not forget, were not really interested in Buffy except as an obstacle.  Spike was in Sunnydale looking for a cure for Drusilla.  It never seemed particularly strange to spend a few episodes focusing on something else.  It’s only now, in the second half of the season, that there’s a sense of urgency.  It’s only now – with Angelus out there and actively planning to hurt Buffy and her friends – that it starts to seem a little strange that the show isn’t carrying directly on with that part of the story.

Of course, neither of these episodes is entirely divorced from the events of the wider season. It’s not at all an original observation on my part to note that both episodes are, on a metaphorical level, very much about Buffy and Angel’s doomed relationship.  

In Phases, Oz is Angel: the show repeatedly makes a point of reminding us that he is older than Willow; Xander worries about the fact he is “attractive” (compare with his complaint in Teacher’s Pet that nobody had told him that Angel was “a very attractive man”); Oz’s peers can only think of one reason why he might be dating somebody younger than him: “she’s got to be putting out, or what’s the point?”.   

And that’s before we learn that Oz is cursed to transform into something monstrous, something that  “acts on pure instinct: no conscience, predatory and aggressive.”  A monster that, Buffy is told, her refusal to kill makes her uniquely responsible for: “if that thing out there harms anyone, it’s gonna be on your pretty little head.”  You don’t need to look very hard to find the subtext here.

Meanwhile, while Xander and Cordelia’s relationship in Bewitched… isn’t quite so obvious a parallel to Buffy and Angel, the spell Xander is responsible for casting has an impact that’s not totally dissimilar to the curse affecting Angel.  When Giles says “it’s not love, it’s obsession.  Selfish, banal obsession” he could just as easily be talking about the nature of Angelus’s new obsession with Buffy as he is about the actual plot of the episode.  “He would think of it as affection, I suppose.”

But other people have gone into all this in much more depth than I can, and I don’t really have anything new to say about that.

What’s more interesting to me is to realize that it’s not the only thing these two episodes have in common.  Not only are these episodes that I don’t think we saw in Season 1, in a sense they are episodes that we couldn’t have seen in Season 1. 

I’ve talked a bit before about how Season 2 has started fleshing out the world of Sunnydale a little bit more, with more minor recurring characters and callbacks to the events of previous episodes.  These minor characters and history are, in some sense, essential to the plot of both episodes.  Xander brings up his memories of being possessed by a hyena spirit in Phases while Oz stares curiously at the statue that imprisons Amy’s mother; Cordelia’s friend Harmony returns for the first time since Season 1 in Bewitched… and this is the first episode that really solidifies her group of friends. This is a show with a history now, and these episodes take place in that context. It helps a lot that we’ve met so many of the minor characters in these two episodes already.  It’s just a shame the show couldn’t have made Angelus’s victim of the week Theresa somebody we’d seen before.

And as well taking advantage of this existing world-building, both these episodes continue that trend: bringing back a character who’d only appeared in a single episode of the show before and making them recurring.  Phases brings back Larry Blaisdell, who’d previously only appeared in Halloween, while Bewitched… brings back Amy Madison, last seen almost a year ago in Season 1’s Witch.  But neither character is quite the person we thought they were.  In Phases we find out that Larry is gay – the first and, in fact, only man on the show to explicitly come out as gay (no, obviously Scott Hope doesn’t count, come on) – and in Bewitched we find out that Amy has (for reasons the show will never bother to explain) taken up her mother’s interest in witchcraft.

How consequential either of these things really are in the longer term is perhaps a matter for debate.  After Phases, Larry will appear in just three episodes of the show, all in Season 3, before being killed off in the season finale.  Amy will be a little more fortunate – she will also almost be killed in Season 3, and while she survives she will be almost written out of the show for some years, but she will at least be talked about quite a few times before finally being brought back for three episodes in Season 6 and one last episode in Season 7.

The show won’t forget that Larry’s gay – in fact it will quite literally be the second-to-last thing anybody ever says about him – but at the same time he’s out in a very limited way.  We never see any of the boys his grandmother is apparently setting him up with; nor do we see Larry show any sign of being attracted to any other man on the show.

Equally the show will never forget that Amy is a witch, but it will discard almost everything else about her.  The show reminded us about her mother in Phases, but has already forgotten about her father.  She uses her magic purely for selfish reasons here, but Season 3 will have her practicing “harmless” magic with Willow for other people’s benefit, while Season 6 will retcon her as a magical junkie.  Amy will go on to be mentioned in or appear in every single season of the show without the writers ever bothering to give her a consistent personality. 

(It’s a little odd too that, despite the show very firmly settling on the idea that being a witch is a metaphor for being a lesbian in its fourth and fifth seasons – and despite the fact that this episode introduces Amy by having her ask Willow if she’s planning to go to the school’s Valentine’s Dance – there’s never any suggestion that Amy might be gay.   In fact, Season 6’s Smashed tells us that she was planning to ask Larry out to the end of year Prom before she turned herself into a rat.  Perhaps he wasn’t quite as out as he told Xander he was?)

The longer term consequences of the main plots of these two episodes are also rather limited. Cordelia chooses to give up on her social standing because her friends are “sheep” (for which read: susceptible to magical mind control, I guess?) in order to date Xander (who might have spent the season insulting and belittling her, but did buy her one (1) nice gift) but this relationship will last for only a dozen further episodes.   And while Oz and Willow will stay together for much longer, the show won’t ever find anything interesting to do with the fact Oz is a werewolf until Season 4, when it uses it as a pretext for writing him out of the show.

So yes, these episodes aren’t just filler – they have something to say about the season arc, even if they don’t advance it directly, and they introduce real changes into the world of the show – but they are still somehow insubstantial.  I don’t think anything happens in either of them that really matters.  If you forget that Oz is a werewolf, or that Cordelia apparently thought Xander’s attempt to mind control her for “revenge” was romantic, you really won’t be missing much.

And in the interests of transparency, I should probably admit – if it wasn’t already obvious – that I simply don’t think either of them is very good.  Yes, on one level, I’m glad that the show’s writers had the space to make these sorts of episodes – episodes that explore characterisation and flesh out the world and don’t directly advance the plot – but the specific episodes that were actually made honestly kind of suck.  

Phases has its moments, but it’s decidedly uneven with at least as many misses as hits,  and overall I think it’s a pretty average episode at best.  The fact that Oz’s werewolf costume is terrible is balanced only by the knowledge it will somehow get worse.  And Bewitched… is, by some distance, the episode I’ve least enjoyed of all my current rewatch.  Even just trying to summarize the plot makes me feel a little sick.  I would genuinely think better of the show if this episode hadn’t ever made it to air. 

(So, yeah: for those following along, I think the worst episodes of the rewatch so far, by some distance, have been Teacher’s Pet, The Pack and now Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered.  No need to point out the common theme or character-focus of these three episodes.

Going into this rewatch I really didn’t think of myself as somebody who hates Xander Harris.  He certainly isn’t my favorite character, but I think the show does ultimately find some pretty interesting and sympathetic things to do with him.  And I think the popular fandom idea that Xander is uniquely a ‘Whedon self-insert’ while all the other characters on Buffy are somehow not is pretty silly.  But quite a large part of my rewatch experience so far has involved having to remind myself, over and over, that Xander gets better.  Eventually.  Surely.

And … well, it must be true.  Because right now his character has nowhere to go but up.)