#rather than purposefully misleading them

[group-dynamic]

Ooooh, that was some GOOD STUFF

I will OWN my bullshit, I was drinking that "Santos is a bully / not a team player" juice for weeks now. When they pulled the "hold the mirror up to the audience" moment where Langdon lists all the same arguments we were making about Santos, those justifications came across as so weak and petty:

"She's cherry picking cases, she gave Whittaker a shitty nickname, she's not a team player." My God, they really spent the whole episode preparing audiences, too, like: "sometimes the bad guy really is the shitty white man, I don't know what to tell you."

The best moment was having Robby learn from McKay that he has a responsibility to protect the women on the list, not just the one hurt kid aauggh!!!! I knew from the start of this episode that we were in the turn and Langdon was going down because they were framing him differently, but boy did they pull it off without letting any of us who got caught up in Santos ick off the hook.

In my theorizing last week, I had worried that if Santos WAS right, no one would believe her due to Langdon being a favorite white boy(tm), but it's so much better.

Did I want Santos to be right? Not really. I don't enjoy when characters who go maverick by breaking safety rules win. I've never enjoyed that. But, that's not what she did here in this storyline. And I spent this past week rewatching the earlier episodes and trying for the life of me to figure out how they got so many of us--myself included-- to dislike Santos so powerfully. Bad news? They didn't work very hard! The writers put in just enough unlikable moments to tilt us in that direction watching week to week, but when you put her actions all together in a big string, the distaste feels wholly unjustified.

For example, when you put her patiently helping Whittaker with his finger next to her giving him a "rude" nickname, it suddenly comes across as her attempt to be compatriots, not an attempt to be a dick.

I think the wildest thing is that Langdon wasn't even in my top 8: (Mel, Dana, Collins, Robby, Mateo, McKay, Whittaker, Mohan), and we saw him be consistently nice to one person we enjoyed (Mel), and we ignored how many of the women in the department made comments about him being a dick / inconsiderate / full of himself.

And yes, Santos can be more than one thing (edit: and so can Langdon! I'd be satisfied if this was the end of his arc, but would not be mad if it wasn't), and we might be allowed to dislike aspects of Santos's approach or personality, but the writers knew they could get us to dislike her with very little effort. And the writers knew they could get us to like Langdon with very little effort. And if one day they asked "how did the neighbors not know" or "he was always so nice to me" well. . . Boom. They got us. Well, not all of us. Flowers to the believers.

(Sidenote: The skill for the show to never feel like it purposefully mislead us. Like, I'm not even mad, I'm thrilled! I would so enjoy for Santos, Mel, and Whittaker to become closer now, but I have a bad feeling this will only isolate Santos further.)

[julietcpulet]

Hello! I love reading your analysis of The Apothecary Diaries, especially regarding JinMao. However, I’m sad that some of the fans don't share the same interpretation. This isn’t really an ask, but rather me just voicing my frustrations (I hope that's okay.)

I’ve conversed with people who claim to have read the light novels up to Volume 14 and still can’t see Maomao's romantic attraction or feelings for Jinshi. It blows my mind because how are we reading the same material but coming to absolutely different conclusions? Should interpretations really be so subjective? How can we both be right at the same time if there's a canon story with characters who have canon feelings and emotions? And we continue with the story holding these differences, and I’m wondering... won’t this affect how conclusions and endings will soon be perceived?

I am so confused because, as far as I can tell, all the things Maomao does for Jinshi are romantic. She kisses him for God’s sake—how is that non-romantic? 😭 And it’s always the same reason too: obligation and duty. Like, what? They’ve read up to LN 15 and still think this. What’s crazy is they take the time to cite text from the novels to support their point, which is wild because we’re literally reading from the same novel! I know what you’re talking about, but I never interpreted it that way. It’s so frustrating that it sometimes makes me question myself. Maybe I’m overinterpreting, and they actually do have a point? I don’t know.

Voice away 😂 no really though, I’m in the same boat frustration-wise. I think for me it’s always been not getting why people would want to stick with a series if such a major part of it (meaning the romance) bothers them to where they have to try and re-interpret it to fit their own standard.

The author herself wrote Jinmao to be romantic so there’s no conclusion where fans who read their moments and see them as leading to that end are wrong since it’s what the author intended. It’s willfull ignorance on the rest of the fandom who dislikes the ship to be purposefully misleading and take quotes out of context or to twist the underlying meaning and make it fit what they want it to, not what the author wrote it to mean. She hasn’t come out and refuted anything that Jinmao shippers have said regarding their romance or scenes, she’s only brought them closer and had them start a real relationship so in the end, shippers speculations and hypothesis have proven more than correct on the reading of the text vs those who were against it.

While I do believe there’s a certain place for varied interpretation of any book or media, there comes a point where only certain ones are actually canon. While the rest can be fun for speculation, say about future events or if the characters didn’t outright say what they were meaning, if the end result goes one way then that’s not left up to interpretation anymore, that’s unchangeable fact. This is where if people don’t want Jinmao to be canon, they can make their own headcanons or fanons to the contrary but to hate on the ship that is integral and part of the story is just ditching what the author herself has created.

It’s also sad because, kind of like you mentioned, this can affect how endings and conclusions are perceived. Disappointment can arise from the side that doesn’t want Jinmao to be reality if they end up together, when in actuality they always were and they were likely going to take that direction anyway. An inability to accept that also devalues the characters themselves and rich journey the author wove into the story to get them to the path to being together which includes much individual growth and character building, even apart from one another.

In the end there can be a right interpretation of a text and for Apothecary Diaries the key has been seeing how the author made these compelling and multi-faceted characters that we can’t just read at face value. When we do it takes away all the beauty of how Maomao and Jinshi work to push past limits their past, own weaknesses and societal pressures put on them to learn how to love one another in a way that builds them up. It’s a great love story and I’m only sad that people want to fight against it so hard and hurt fans who love it instead of just moving on to whatever media would cause them less stress. Instead of looking for a constant fight, why not look for a series you can uplift?

Thanks for coming to my ask to give your thoughts, you really brought up some key points the fandom can struggle with, I think, and I’m sorry you feel confused at times with these fans who want to misinterpret Jinmao. Definitely don’t think most Jinmao shippers are over-interpreting though, it’s one of the best parts of this series that it makes you think and dig deeper to enjoy the nuance of it. Obviously I have loved that aspect of it 😂. Often haters just want to argue, it’s not about enjoying the novels / anime or finding that piece of the narrative that will convince them. So best thing to do is not engage and just keep posting Jinmao content because you like it, including sticking to the canon and what makes the most sense given the characters development.

[growingwildgardens]

There's a farm on the nearby highway that has a line of American flags. At the lead is a large one that reads, "Pray for America."

Its not as obvious as the farm with 3 American flags, an Israeli flag, and a massive Trump flag. There's even a world where it could be meant in earnest good-will - our country is being attacked by the minority of violent and lost and furious who've searched for hope and only found hate. We do need to pray for America. For the trans teens and adults, for the immigrants and the disabled, for the indigenous women missing and still here, for the history of trauma beating upon trauma beating upon trauma.

People fleeing poverty famine and servitude who took the opportunity to seize and corrupt and take instead of learn and grow. People desperate and willing to trade culture and history and their very souls for the chance of security and the dream life that was promised. Generation after generation of betrayals building a country out of broken treaties and broken backs and broken men. Armies attacking their own, scrabbling, clawing, grasping at the promise of something better if you just stab and fight and use the bodies of your allies and family and neighbors and enemies to climb high enough that one day. You can stop living in fear. Even if for a little while. The promise that you can escape the trauma and betrayals of generations through even more violence. That you can guarantee yourself a place above the desperate violent race to the death of it all.

And if you were to admit, to truly take in, how fabricated it all was. How none of it was built on necessity, but rather the whims of the few with power - aiming to stoke the distracting violence, the hopelessness, the fear and disgust of each other and of the symptoms of a purposefully diseased system, rather than anger at the root cause.

If your neighbor steals bread from you do you blame him, or the system that left him starving in a world of abundance. If your neighbor turns away from you in disgust, do you blame yourself, or the people who taught her that you're the reason her children are not safe in this world. If your neighbors leave you for dead, do you blame the world, or the voices that filled their veins with molten hate, and told them that the Only way to stop hurting is to harm the ones different than them - the rotting apples that must be the cause of this ache, of this decay, of this massive pulsating hole where the promise of a life worth living was.

What is a prayer but to meditate on and ask for something more? An attempt to fill that hole with something besides violence. We Must pray for America. We must ask and demand something more, and we must think on what that really MEANS if we are to depart from our history of violent betrayals to achieve it. We must find a way to direct our action at the root cause, at the voices and systems that mislead, and torture, and decay any sense of humanity. We must take steps to ease the aching pain and open wounds we all pretend we don't see and are not carrying.

So today I bought two pounds of cherries. From the woman with the American flags, and the call to prayer. She couldn't hide her surprise, or double-take, at seeing me - at the differences she's been taught to notice first and foremost between me and her. But we had a good conversation, and we both smiled and meant it, and later she was the first to answer my question in a local group. The men wearing MAGA hats may still walk past my booth, but I smile at them and ask how they're doing regardless. And every time it's a reminder that the story of others they're being sold is less and less real.

It's not a revolution. But it's a step. Away from violence and misdirected blame, and the anger and fear that fill the air like miasma right now. Towards a bit of healing, and something new.

When things that were never built to last fall, the noise can be deafening. The rubble and smoke, the fires and fallout. System upon system held up by duct tape and blame and turning one's back, collapsing in chaos and the desperate, dying shouts of those who Needed the clockwork to keep just barely squeezing by while they raked in the gold of empires. It's disaster. We will lose people. We have lost people.

But the collapse of something so horrible, so built AGAINST the health and livelihood of the people it uses to keep going, is a horrible gift. It is a chance, as the gaping hole of rot is finally exposed in a way that None can pretend it away any longer, to build something better in the fertile remains. To reclaim what we mean when we say neighbor, community, and country. To turn away from building on violence and trauma, and the glorified idea of a revolution where we literally burn it all down, and decide how to build with hope again. How to connect people to each other once more. How to build a system made for us all.

If you're waiting for your call to arms, consider this it. But rather than a weapon, think about the tools you want the future to be built on. Think about what you can do to build up, rather than tear down. Think about what you can accomplish with a conversation alone, or a smile at a stranger. Give yourself back that power.

A time for weapons will always come. There may never be a day humanity escapes violence, or the need for self-defense and tearing something down when it refuses to fall. But if that's what you're waiting for to act, if That's what you want to build a new world on... then our country's history will only be doomed to repeat. Trauma begets trauma begets trauma and the desperate act to survive. Only building the pathways to connect and heal will bring us down a different path, and to do so takes practice. It takes thinking on what you want and how to get there without the only (bloody) tools you were taught. Pray for America... and come with me to build something better

[hxhhasmysoul]

Despite Megumi thinking he’s being very progressive or less shallow by breaking some rules within jujutsu society and with that one answer he gave to Toudou. I think Megumi is still somewhat traditionalist than he wants to admit.

Maybe traditionalists isn’t the right word… He seems very content on not changing the status quo and he would rather be a cog within the horrible system. Perhaps a centrist is a better word for him.

Does this mean I think Megumi will be transphobic or is going to say slurs? No, of course not. But he would be the type to say he supports any minority communities but does nothing when their rights are being taken away.

That’s what I gathered from him in my opinion.

It’s interesting that you specifically mention transphobia in the context of Megumi, considering how a lot of people head canon him to be transmasc due to his comment about his name. Or gay due to the context of his conversation with Toudou. But for the sake of this answer let's put those discussions aside and work with the assumption that Megumi is cishet. 

I find Megumi rather unpleasant as a person, possibly because I see a lot of my teen self in him. I mean this statement should hint at me being sympathetic towards him but considering how I view myself and how I’ve never forgiven myself for anything, I can’t. 

There are a few things converging when it comes to how Megumi seems to view the world: his age, his circumstances, the abuse he’d suffered since early childhood and good grades at school.

Age kinda brings it all together. The younger you are, the less you’ve experienced and your worldview relies on that. You encounter a lot of ideas for the first time, sometimes without even knowing that the person Talking to you is expressing an ideologically-charged opinion. And people purposefully obscure their meaning with language. When recruiting gender criticals don't lead with “all trans people must be exterminated” which would put off most people they haven't indoctrinated into their hate cult. They say that they “protect the rights of women who are survivors of rape” or “women rights in general”, or “the safety of children”. On the surface it sounds like they are doing something noble. You need to have experienced people being misleading like that to pause here, to try to investigate how gender critical ideology is really supposed to protect anyone, and it quickly becomes clear it harms the very people it pretends to want to protect. 

The detention centre situation shows clearly that Megumi has adopted his political views because they sounded good, likely felt emotionally satisfying. Why should a guy who was a repeated offender be saved, let alone prioritised? He killed a little girl after all. He clearly fits into the rigid binary of good and bad. The moral superiority is alluring and Megumi falls for it. 

But his views don't come from some deep convictions. It's clear he never spared them a deeper enquiry because the moment they are challenged by Yuuji, Megumi goes silent. He has nothing. 

Circumstances and abuse

Megumi was dragged into the world of sorcery at a very young age, likely 6-7, so for most of his life that was what he knew best. In that world he was treated as property. He was literally sold to Gojou who then instilled in Megumi that he has to work as a sorcerer to secure his basic needs. And the needs of his sister. 

He essentially works as a child soldier. He sees people around him die at a very young age. 

It’s all dehumanising and traumatising. 

The way you phrase his cog mentality is as if it was an active choice. I see it more as a result of how he has very little control over his life and no adult who’d care for him or at least take care of him. 

It’s very hard to look from the outside at a system you’ve been indoctrinated into since childhood. It’s hard to reject it. But ever since meeting Yuuji, Megumi has been slowly rethinking it all. 

Good grades

There is a bias in our society that associates smartness with good school results. Megumi’s are excellent. It also associates reading with smartness and Megumi likes to read.

It’s pretty clear that he considers himself an intellectual, he speaks with authority, uses long words and so on. But when you look closely at what he says, he’s repeating what he’d been indoctrinated into. He’d never been challenged on it because everyone in the jujutsu world is buying into the same bullshit he is. They all believe in the cult of strength. Even Gojou buys into the system. He says the system is corrupt and he wants to change it, but only change it in such a way as to put his followers at the top. He never challenges the foundational ideology. 

When it comes to political views, the closest to a centrist is Gojou. He used to be seriously rightwing in his youth, very might makes right, why shouldn’t the strong just kill whoever they want. Later he became a centrist. He turned the might is right into bullshit meritocracy, where the elders are idiots who shouldn’t be in power because they are idiots. But he and his handpicked disciples are smarter and will know how to run things. Throughout the manga we see the miracle that is Gojou’s leadership.

Megumi is very much a product of that. The system likely tells Megumi that he’s smart. And that’s all this boy has to build his self worth on. He has his powerful technique (Gojou explains to him that through suicide Megumi could even win with him - Gojou just loves to give this boy more and more trauma casually like that) and good grades which culture tells him make him smart. He can’t make any decisions about his own life because he’s Gojou’s .. I guess the closest word would be “serf” or “indentured servant” with the compounded factor of him being underaged. He’s also heavily traumatised so his ability to challenge his circumstances is impaired.

It's very hard to see outside your context, especially with trauma on breathing down your neck. Megumi adopts an ideology that makes it easier for him to exist in the context he's in. He escapes into the simple black and white world of right-wing morality.

Right-wing worldview

Politically Megumi is right-wing, not centrist, especially at the beginning of the manga. He sees the world in black and white terms. He believes in the legal system and sees jujutsu sorcerers as part of it. He has a disdain for evildoers be it bullies at his middle school or convicts at the detention centre. 

His right wing attitude is very clear in how he beats up all the bullies as a principle to establish order or how he believes the convicts are not worth saving. Like many rightwingers he treats badness as an identity. Someone is either good or bad, no nuance. Jujutsu sorcerers are good because they are legitimised by the legal system, they uphold the law, even if they are kinda dodgy people when it comes to their motivations like Maki, or try to murder people for political reasons like the students from Kyoto - a typical right wing view point. Bullies are bad so they deserve to be beat up. Convicts are bad so they don’t deserve to be saved. Curses are bad so they deserve to be killed. 

Both Megumi and Yuuji beat up bullies in their middle school days, both were delinquents getting into fights. But the political ideology that is at the basis of their characters really shines through in these situations. 

Because for Megumi “badness” is an identity he beats up bullies proactively. He seeks them out to enforce social norms onto them. In his eyes his preventative violence is justified. It's hard to tell whether Megumi’s violence scared the bullies off and saved people from being victimised. We don't even know whether everyone Megumi beat up was indeed a bully, how did compile a list of targets? A very typical issue with law enforcement. 

Yuuji's values are left-wing, he values human life and dignity above some abstract ideas like the law. His violence is reactive, he protects victims in the moment, doesn't try to enforce his rules on a more systemic level. 

Yuuji sees Junpei as a human. He uses violence to fight Junpei to prevent him from killing his schoolmates, but he also tries to reach out to Junpei. He isn't trying to assign the good or bad label to Junpei or the other students, he knows two wrongs don't make a right.

Megumi's rigid worldview is even present in how he views people close to him. Tsumiki is good because she thinks people should concentrate on positive interactions in life, and she always took care of Megumi. Megumi had no idea Tsumiki did dodgy shit like going to cursed bridges at night, because he replaced the real Tsumiki in his head with an image of Tsumiki. 

Right-wingers have a very rigid and binary view of the world. They will ignore things that contradict their beliefs. Megumi's belief in Tsumiki as a good person caused him to dehumanise her and turn her into an icon he could derive his morality from.

When Tsumiki was cursed, a crack appeared in Megumi's worldview. He was feeling cheated because “goodness” didn't protect Tsumiki. The jujutsu society and the law assign people a “good” or “bad” identity. The bad get jailed or exorcised, but the good? Their reward should be being left in peace, but it's not.

Yuuji really throws Megumi a curveball philosophically. Yuuji formally “becomes” not human to the jujutsu society, a curse that should be exorcised. But he’s a good person, he’s so similar to the morally good icon Megumi idolises. 

Megumi’s ideology fails him again, the cognitive dissonance is too much to handle for him - right wing people really struggle with this one. So he does the typical rightwing manoeuvre: people who are on the right side of the law are good, people who are on the wrong side of the law are bad, but there are also special people, that I like, who are awarded special rules. 

It's very clear how confused Megumi is during the Culling Games arc. How he assigns blame to himself and Yuuji for what happened in Shibuya but on the other hand he still considers Yuuji of killing humans during the games.

Yuuji is so “pure” in his mind that Megumi is taken aback by Yuuji's angry outburst, by him directing his bad mood at Angel and Hana.

But by the Culling Games Megumi's already moved away from the rigid right-wing binaries, he's moving left. He thinks that saving people is what will give him a place in the world. A view that he develops through absorbing Yuuji's worldview.

Centrists are usually people who benefit the most from the status quo, like Gojou in JJK. When it comes to rightwingers it’s more mixed. Some of them also greatly benefit from the status quo so they support it, but there are those who cling to the status quo even though it hurts them and direct their anger about their suffering at those who they consider “other” in some way. Minorities often become that other because they are unknown to some extent, because they are not part of the mainstream. In our reality most places around the world are patriarchal, are governed by patriarchal religions where women are not seen as fully human. Queerness through its complicated relationship with gender roles threatens the status quo of these patriarchal societal orders, thus it becomes a target of right-wing ire. And that’s why liberals/centrists only pay lip service to minority rights including queer rights, because it’s in their best interest that the right-wing poors have a target to direct their discontent and fears at.

But Megumi isn’t driven that much by fear and disgust as most rightwingers. He is a young traumatised boy who has never had any guidance and had to fend for himself, also had to make sense of the world on his own. So what drew him to right-wing attitudes was its simplicity, its binary nature. 

Megumi is not an active transphobe, when he sees Kirara, he stops using male pronouns in reference to her. He respects Kirara. Would he fight for trans rights? It’s not impossible. Yuuji is his new morality icon and Yuuji fights for human dignity. If Megumi saw trans people in the same way he sees Tsumiki and Yuuji (good people who are attacked by an unfair system/reality), he’d fight for them. Especially if Yuuji drew his attention to it, or called out his inaction. Is Megumi aware of the issues trans people face? I don’t know. He is interested in politics and society so it wouldn’t be impossible for him.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for. This fandom is going to make me tepidly like Megumi eventually, I'm very susceptible to character exposure (only Kurapika, Yuuta and Gojou's cases exposure just made me actively dislike the characters). Thank you for the ask.

[leastdatablebracket]

QUARTERFINALS, MATCH 4

Propaganda under the cut!

Joseph Christiansen

Propaganda

So many reasons. He's already married, he's a jerk to his wife, he's already slept with at least one of the other romance options. That romance option goes to you before a date with Jospeh and damn near begs you not to be stupid and go with him. The worst part? You put up with all this and he leaves you to "work things out with his wife". She deserves so much better than him! One of the writers even said he's a sociopath. 

Married and a youth minister.

Cheater, cringe man, father of creepy children, possibly evil cultist, left a guy feeling used which said guy also became friends with Joseph's wife who appears to be an alcoholic likely as a coping mechanism since she's married to Joseph

He cheats on his wife, has done so before, lies to you by claiming that he's going to leave his wife when he clearly never intends to (and, in one ending, will even cheerfully suggest that you two continue having an affair in an extremely sleazy way), and judging by the fact that the other guy we know he cheated on his wife with, Robert, hates Joseph and is now very close friends with his wife, it seems clear to me that this whole "purposefully mislead someone into sleeping with you and then later drop the bomb that it was an affair" thing is repeat behavior with him. Also, I just find much of his behavior to be very manipulative and controlling; there are many situations where it seems to me that he's actively trying to paint others in a negative light while still coming off as saintly himself, such as an early scene where he subtly implies his wife is a shitty mom because she *checks notes* let their toddler out of her sight... during a neighborhood barbecue in a fenced-in yard surrounded by trusted adults and other kids. Also notice how in this scene he pushes *her* to go look for their son, rather than just looking himself, all while keeping up his "long-suffering husband" act. (and in other scenes can be found letting his other young children wander off into the woods with sharp implements and visibly not caring, but whatever). He does this with Robert, too -- the other guy he had an affair with. Almost everything he says about or to Robert is a subtle jab about his personality or his alcoholism. Classy, Joseph. Meanwhile, the fact that you can't actually end up with him in the end (because he was never going to leave his wife for you) started some of the most volatile discourse in the fandom and had people calling the devs homophobic and claiming they were spreading a message about "gay men needing to stay in loveless abusive marriages to women" (just ignore the fact that there are several other divorced gay dads in this game who all have great relationships with their kids and are not demonized in the slightest). HOWEVER, if you see people claiming he's a cultist or demon or something, that's untrue and was just going to be a non-canon spooky alternate ending that ended up getting cut. So I empathize with him a little bit for getting literally demonized by some fans for that cut alt ending. But he loses all those points by cheating on his wife multiple times and showing clear intent to continue doing so.

He's still married when you start dating him. He's also got like 5 kids that are some "children of the corn" kinda shit, and all their names have "Christ" in them

You don't even get to date him he's still married to his wife who he doesn't get along with. Tragic really

Cullen Rutherford

Propaganda

stupid racist cop creep whose fans cry about how hes "changed" and "you can't judge him he was addicted to magic drugs" nah he still chose to be a racist cop and abuse his power over innocent people and i hate him. the writers making him romanceable in da:i after how blatantly horrible he was in da:o and da:2 is baffling but i guess they had to appeal to the part of their audience who watch those "mafia boyfriend" videos on tiktok or whatever

He's creepy in origins, though still 100% willing to kill the female mage pc he's crushing on, as well as all the other mages trapped in the circle with him. He's the second-in-command in an even worse circle in 2, listening to and defending the increasingly obviously insane meredith until literally the end. He's one of the people still pushing for the circle system by inquisition, and yes he's going through withdrawals and working through the traumas of previous games. And to be brutally honest his was the first romance i took and while i don't remember much from it, its not worth all the girls going absolutely nuts over knockoff terrible alistair.

He's basically a cop who thinks being born a certain way can revoke personhood and by Inquisition still thinks mages are monsters to be controlled, not people. He gets a fairy tale cutesy romance that focuses on his personal struggles with addiction while showing absolutely no regard to the atrocities he committed and still thinks were justified. He can be romanced BY A MAGE and his actions and beliefs are just glossed over. He believes mages are 'not people like you (Hawke) and me', but if the Warden was a female mage he canonically had a crush on her and would deliberately hang around her despite the fact that he was her *jailer*. If that Warden romanced Leliana, there is war table dialogue in which he pesters Leliana for news of his 'former' crush despite her repeated statement that she doesn't want to talk to him about her. All this shitty behavior and lack of introspection gets swept under the rug by the game, not even giving the PC the chance to really challenge his beliefs. Like damn even Fenris could apologize when he lashed out due to past trauma with mages, and if anyone has a reason to hate mages it's Fenris. If you want an ex Templar hottie Alistair is RIGHT THERE. Tbh I know Cullen is a popular romance and I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do or like in a video game, I'm just saying I think he is deeply undateable

Spends the first two games as an antagonist, fervently devoted to the cause of subjugating mages, then a bunch of "character development" happens off screen and the games treat him like he's completely reformed. However he's actions make it clear he still sees mages as dangerous and lesser. Not to mention if you romance him with an elf he doesn't pay your culture more than lip service respect like most of the devout characters 

He was a total villain in the first two games who was violently prejudiced against mages and uses one single bad experience as an excuse for it (a bad experience that is pretty much exactly what he in his job subjected graduating apprentices to, mind you, but this is never brought up). Now he says he's changed, but his words and actions say otherwise. He still distrusts mages, sympathises with the rebel Templars trying to kill them, and he never owns up to the terrible stuff he did and helped others do in the past two games. He totally knew what Meredith was doing and says he doesn't, and he still tries to defend her intentions. And you have no option to call him out on it. If you romance him as a mage, he angsts about how he might have seen you as subhuman in the past but NOW you're one of the good ones, and when you ask him if he'll kill you if you get possessed, he dodges the question. And the PC is written as being almost sad that she's a mage? Like 'can you love me despite what I am??' Also if Leliana romanced a female mage PC in the first game who is still alive, he asks her creepy questions about their relationship. Fitting considering his original purpose was to be creepy to the female mage Warden. 

I hate him and want to cause chaos. Plus his VA is an asshole.

Cop

I think you covered almost everything but don't forget that beautiful moment in DA2 - Act 2 where you find out some templars had a petition to lobotomize all mages and Meredith, THE HARDCORE TEMPLAR LEADER, rejects it, but Cullen says they got a point. Despite the fact that we just found out that those templars were using lobotomy (or the threat of) to rape people and get away with it. And then Cullen in DA:I is whining that anything that happened it's not his fault because Meredith kept the worse away form him so he didn't know, but also that anyway Meredith had a point and did what she had to do. Meredith does not go mad until Act 3, before she was of sound mind and Culllen was her second in command BECAUSE he hated mages as much as (or even more) than her. What the FUCK did she even hide from you, Cullen. Oh, but he changed! Because the writers make A VICTIM OF THE TEMPLARS say so. And anyway he only says so BECAUSE HE READS MINDS not because Cullen did anything to show it. Also the narrative wants to sympathise with Cullen for his drug problems while Cullen is openly attacking the only other character with the same problem for...having the same problem. And he's the antagonist, so there were OTHER things Cullen could be mad about. But he is mad about the drug problem. Also I'm not an expert on writing characters with addictions but he is an addict only when it's time to have a cut scene where you pity him. Otherwise it has zero impacts on everything else.

[thatdebaterguy]

Usually I would go anon but I am at the point where I don't care what people think anymore. I would rather be honest and have these people off my blog than keep doing it in secret.

Anyways, I was scrolling through a post (because I hate myself). Tumblr wouldn't let me put the link for some reason:

This isn't the whole post, but 2/3 of it. It's about how Israel was "tricking" children into picking up bombs that looked like food cans. Someone corrected this in the comment section.

And in response to the correction (there was more than one person correcting):

This is a massive issue I've seen with that side of the conflict. They don't care if the information they spread is true as long as it fits the narrative of "Palestine = weak, helpless, 100% good and pure victim. Israel: evil, colonists, eats Palestine babies for breakfast." And it's almost scary the lack of critical thinking to make sure everything fits into this mindset.

I once corrected someone's mistranslation on Pinterest of all places, where someone said a Hebrew translation was ""May this (bomb) lands on innocent people". It was just the company name. I was attacked and told I was a "genocidal zionist" and there was my favorite, "well it doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's what they mean".

So basically, "yeah it doesn't matter if it's fake information, it fits with MY beliefs, so it's okay."

I hate the Pro-Palestinian cult.

It is genuinely depressing to see blatant misinformation spread, for example I've been given the link to a site that takes supposed quotes from Israeli officials completely out of context, half the time a complete lie, and told it's some kind of proof Israel is the epitome of moral sin, despite being the most equal state in the middle east. I saw this post and saw another one debunking how the imagine has been altered in a misleading way, just as I saw a post of a server room that's linked to a Hamas database under an UNRWA facility, and someone said it powered a solar panel. Keep in mind they didn't lie for the Palestinian civilians, that was to straight up cover for Hamas.

The screenshot of someone calling Hamas 'freedom fighters' is actually scary.

this is the first thing you see when you search for the ideology of Hamas. Yk the worst part? This would be called zionist propaganda just because it says Hamas have committed terrorism, and October 7th happened. These are literal facts though, Hamas are proud of October 7th, proud of killing thousands, kidnapping hundreds, committing acts of terrorism. If you have any sense of morality, you cannot defend Hamas, even if you see them as on the right side or as freedom fighters, their methods alone make them a monstrous organisation. They wear plain civilian clothes in war, a war crime, they have been verified to use civilian buildings for cover, a war crime, they've killed thousands of innocents purposefully, a war crime, they've openly called for the annexation and occupation of Israel, a sovereign country with millions of ethnic Jews who would be 3rd class citizens in a Hamas ruled Palestine.

Israel doesn't want Gaza. They don't want to destroy it, to own it, they wish they never had to hear about it again, let alone invade it to remove Hamas from power. And the fact that people are scared to voice their beliefs against a literal terror group, against misinformation, is insane. You know, the only reason I'm on Israel's side is because when it comes to debates I follow the science, the figures, the statistics, a fixed code of morality and logic, and that leads to me to Israel because they've never instigated a conflict in their entire history, they've voluntarily surrendered land in pursuit of peace, aided the countries that have invaded them, they're by the definition not committing genocide, they're legally and factually in a war of self defence to topple an extremist dictatorial government, the figures show as far as modern urban warfare goes, the civilian-military death ratio is lower than most conflicts, they factually have a historical claim to the land, they built Tel Aviv, built Jerusalem, 400,000 Jews lived the region of Israel before its existence as a modern state, it just all points to Israel.

But I support the people of Palestine, I empathise with them, I want them to be free of the dictators who lead them to this war and suffering they must endure, and I pray they'll get the liberation they deserve. They deserve better than the nightmare of a government that rule over Gaza. And yet none of the Palestinian supporters protest Hamas. They don't realise, protesting against Hamas doesn't weaken the right for civilians to receive aid, because they're forced into this mindset that the Palestinian government and movement has always been one of perfect ineffable morality and one that you must be insanely villainous to even have any contradicting thoughts on. I'm a more conservative guy who's best friend of 4 years recently told me that they're genderfluid, in a polyamorous relationship with a trans man, and have a 'fursona' but since I know they're a person with good intentions in life I support them in finding happiness and getting better. I'd say that makes me fairly open minded, without tooting my own horn too much. But I will never be open to the idea that Hamas have ever wanted what's best for Palestine. Their actions are selfish, their goals are psychopathic, their behaviour is unwarranted, and their care for being a successful governing body is minimal. Gaza, whether prospering before October 7th or not, was legally an independent, sovereign region of the nation of Palestine, who have their own government, constitution, voting system, currencies they operate with, culture, freedom of movement, unless it's to Israel of course, and have been so since Israel pulled out of Gaza.

Israel actually occupied Gaza once. It was better maintained, the people were more looked after. In the years before Israel pulled out of Gaza, the Palestinian economy grew by the largest margin in at least 20 years, and then under Hamas, became incredibly stagnant, with foreign aid being the only thing propping it up. They let unemployment skyrocket despite the opening of more high tech facilities, once again thanks to foreign aid. Now, Israel doesn't want Gaza back, nor should they have it, but when the people of the nationality that Hamas wish to destroy, governed their land even better despite not even being the sovereign owners of that land and just the occupiers, it says a lot. Don't be afraid to speak out against Hamas, since you have no love for the Palestinian people if you don't want them to be free from the suffering Hamas has brought.

[mylovelytvstuff]

Good Omens Season 2 Was Lovely

I really liked Good Omens season 2 and was very positively surprised by it. I had worried 'they' will ruin it. There are so many ways to ruin a story, and it takes both hard work and inspiration to create a good one. And Good Omens season 2 was really good. Also be warned. Massive SPOILERS ahead.

Waiting for the Apocalypse

I expected another apocalypse story. And I kept waiting and waiting for it, wondering why the pacing was seemingly so odd. 

And as if to throw me off, in episode 3 Gabriel does announce the apocalypse:

“There will come a tempest, and darkness, and great storms. And the dead will leave the graves and walk the earth once more. And there will be great lamentations. Every day it’s getting closer.“

But this turns out to be more of a teaser for season 3. Still, it was enough for me to continue to latch onto the idea of the apocalypse the point where on my first viewing I missed the story that was developing before my eyes. The story about love. 

Apocalypse ended up being more of a background part of the plot. A character motivator rather than the main story: Gabriel is kicked out from his position in Heaven because he refused to get behind apocalypse v2. And he refused to do it because of love. He wanted to be together with Beelzebub. This twist really warmed my heart. It felt like I was eating something not knowing what it will taste like and then it ended up tasting perfect. 

The Clues for the Audience

The great thing about the final reveal is that it isn’t a twist for twist sake. It is well crafted and it makes sense.

They leave us clues throughout the season, in a sort of in your face but impossible to decrypt sort of way. Masterful! Gabriel brings the box and the only thing we see in the box is a fly. And because a fly is such an everyday occurrence to us, we make nothing of it. Then, to throw it in our face further, the fly keeps making an appearance throughout the show. We see Gabriel trying to kill it, in essence trying to wipe himself out! And just in case we have forgotten that Beelzebub is the lord of flies, we see her materialize in Crowley’s car as a swarm of flies. And yet it never occurred to me to make a connection between Gabriel and Beelzebub. 

In one of the more subtle clues, Beelzebub asks one of her demons “Do you ever think, wouldn't it just be nice if someone told you what a good job you're doing?” It tells us that Beelzebub is not content. She wants something different from that hell grind. We are subtly told that Beelzebub has discovered in herself a yearning for love. 

And all of this looks kind of slow and it feels like background to something. But it is indeed a major part of the plot. And the final explanation makes everything fit together perfectly. Have to say it again, masterful. I am really in awe. 

Beelzebub and Gabriel

Beelzebub and Gabriel falling in love is both adorable and hilarious. For instance, when Beelzebub likes Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” and Gabriel says: 

“Then…Then I also like it.“

It is like every time anyone has ever liked anyone else. We all pretend to like all the things the other person likes, we might even learn to like them! But Gabriel does it in a naive, ‘angelic’, extra transparent way. And it works! It succeeds in its desired mission. Beelzebub is moved and charmed. 

And then the resolution of the Aziraphale’s Clue! The jukebox that turns all the songs to “Everyday”! It is not about apocalypse at all! It is a ‘smooth move’ of a guy trying to woe a gal (or in this case an angel wooing a demon). Watching that revelation was like eating chocolate. 

It is through the Beelzebub-Gabriel revelation that the whole season came together for me. It was purposefully slow, misleading. And it isn’t really about apocalypse, it is about love.

While unexpected, the Beelzebub-Gabriel love story makes sense. Both of them have been at it for millennia, in their respective roles. They have been pushing for the ‘Great Plan’ and ended up facing a disaster which made them less keen on their roles. And they slowly discover love together through mutual understanding. Somebody paying attention to them as a person, not because of their function. Gabriel has certainly always been full of himself and his own grandeur. But as it turns out he was still not beyond spying on and ultimately choosing something much better. A voluntarily bestowed appreciation and kindness. To paraphrase Beelzebub, they both found something better than choosing sides.

There is a lot of sweetness in how this came to be. The moment Beelzebub gives the fly to Gabriel and he does not know how to thank her, because no-one has ever given him anything before…You can see how moved she is. And it is not overdone, overplayed. But you can just see them becoming people to each other, with each other, gently, gradually. And at the same time in big swoops somehow. They are no longer their roles. They are vulnerable individuals testing waters. It is incredibly moving.

I said it is hard to write a good love story. Apparently not for Neil Gaiman.

In another hilarious moment, Gabriel explains how he wants to be with Beelzebub and ends it with: 

‘Wherever Beelzebub is…is my heaven.‘

It is so SO cheesy! It is like a cheesy lovers line. But in case of Gabriel it takes on an additional meaning. Because for him heaven is not an abstract, but his home, everything that he knows, that he considers good. So it works in these two ways. Unbelievably good writing.

 

It is lovely. It is unexpected enough to be a good, surprising twist and yet it is believable and well developed.

Crowley and Aziraphale

This season makes it very clear that Aziraphale and Crowley have a thing for each other as early as episode 1. There were a lot of allusions and jokes that referred to them as a couple in season 1. Then there was the desolation of Crowley upon realizing his best friend was gone. And all the sweet happiness that both characters showed when in presence of each other or when doing things for each other. But you could still play it off as non-romantic love. I mean, watching season 1, you do not even know if angels and demons do the whole falling in love thing. I know, Neil Gaiman and Michael Sheen have since professed that it was all there since season 1. Maybe so, but it was subdued and implied rather than stated overtly. 

The first major clue in season 2 is when Aziraphale jumps out of the chair after Gabriel asks him if he knows what it is like when you don’t know anything at all, but that if you were next to one person, that everything would be better. Aziraphale insists he knows no such thing. ‘The lady doth protest too much’ and all that. Then we see Crowley once again abandoning his own self-preservation when he learns from Beelzebub that Aziraphale might get erased from existence for sheltering Gabriel. 

Btw. when Gabriel talked about the one person that makes everything better, he was thinking about Beelzebub, not Aziraphale. Perhaps he felt he can be safe around Aziraphale too, but I believe the feeling and that statement were meant for Beelzebub. Another lovely, delicious little clue. 

I was not really a fan of Crowley and Aziraphale being in love in the first season. I saw them as friends who had many adventures together and who had deep love and loyalty for each other, and that was enough for me. And it was such a rich, hilarious story. Frankly, I thought having them be in love would ruin it, that it would turn the story into something trite. It is hard to write a good love story, I think. It is only sort of watchable before the two get together. Once they are happy in love…there is no more drama to it. Being happily in love is a beautiful experience. It breeds peace, creation. But it is keep you at the edge of your seat drama when you look at it from the outside.

But I ended up being ok with how it was handled in the end. It was not trite or boring or preachy, because there is immediately a plot around it. Crowley in a moving display wants them to go off together and be independent. Aziraphale still does not get it and wants them both in heaven. And there is the story of the looming apocalypse v2 coming. So nothing boring or trite between these too. And at this point I do not think it will ever get boring or trite. Neil Gaiman and the writers have earned my trust.

When first watching the show I was not sure what the point of Maggie and Nina was in the grand scheme of things. Do not get me wrong, both actresses cut beautiful, alive characters across the screen. But what is their place in the bigger plot? Once you realize that the whole show was about love, it starts to seem like they were a stand in for that unspoken thing between Crowley and Aziraphale. Perhaps they were also a means of showing us how little Crowley and Aziraphale know about human romantic relationships. It is a funny dichotomy because on the one hand the two have shared many meaningful romantic moments throughout millennia and yet when they think about falling in love means they have about as much maturity as your average 13 year old. Crowley thinks it is all about standing in the rain, under an awning, Aziraphale goes back even more in time, all the way to Jane Austen.

I want to take a moment here to declare that, based on my reading of Jane Austen and despite what Aziraphale says, NOTHING gets resolved at those balls. Usually everyone gets more confused and the conflicts grow even stronger. I think Aziraphale just wanted to dance with Crowley.

Back to the show. Another way of looking at Maggie/Nina story is having us see Aziraphale and Crowley learn something from humans. Something intimate. Technically speaking only Crowley learned it I guess. But it ripples down to Aziraphale.

And the ending, the ‘break-up’ between the two made sense. It did not make the show trite. They did not kiss to make everything magically ok. They faced the reality of their situation. And the reality was that, despite loving each other, they were not on the same page. They did not want the same things. 

Maggie and Nina resolution made sense too. Aziraphale and Crowley were throwing all this fairy dust in our eyes, pushing a silly narrative that did not have a leg to stand on. But still, it is a TV show, surely they will have a classical happy ending at the end, right? But reality stood strong again and ultimately won over. It certainly won me over. Nina and Maggie get a much more realistic and uncertain ending than one might expect from a comedy show.

What I Did Not Like 

I do have some smaller reproaches about particular things I did not like so much in this season. It will look like this is a big part of the post, but it is only a very tiny part of how I view the show. I will write other posts focusing on the better parts of the show, but here are some of my complaints.

The whole wee Morag story did not really sit well with me. To be honest, I am not sure why. It just was not very fun. It was like an after school special teaching 12 year olds about history of surgery. Aziraphale irritated me for not simply giving a bit of money to the girls to help them out. It kind of makes sense as we know from season one that he encourages humans to do this or that rather doing things for them directly. But still, in those circumstances, with 90 guineas in your pocket he can spare say 5 pounds?? Instead he drags the two poor girls back into the danger of the graveyard. Crowley shines again as the sweetheart he is, but even that part is…oh I do not know, a bit on the nose. Although it was fun to see Crowley wig out and change size.

I also really did not like the dialogue between Aziraphale and Crowley after their Nazi zombie adventure. It was off. Aziraphale thanks Crowley for ‘coming through for him’. He says if he was truly bad, he would have just walked away. But … Aziraphale was doing a favor for Crowley. Aziraphale could have just walked away as well. Crowley had done so many more substantial things to rescue and support Aziraphale as well as to demonstrate his true, good nature than…not running away from a botched magic act. How about helping him with the nazis? I think they just wanted to use that shades of grey shtick. Which is fine, but it should have been done in conjunction with better dialogue. The characters deserve it!

I think both of those needed more polishing, more thoughtfulness put into them.

But I do love the Job story. I think it was well done, moving and important in the characters’ development, especially Aziraphale’s. And in showing us even more about who Crowley is. I plan to dedicate a separate post to the Job minisode.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the bones on this are good. And that is why I hope we get to enjoy season 3 as well. The plot for it has existed, in a rough shape, for a long time, according to Neil Gaiman, so that is a good sign. The Aziraphale-Crowley love story is not boring or empty, and it is intertwined with a larger plot. So I really do hope two see David Tennant and Michael Sheen reprise their roles in a third season. At this point, I trust Neil Gaiman and the writers not to mess it up, even if there is a misstep here and there. The bones on this are good, there is a story there, just waiting to be told. 

Where to Watch, What to Follow it up with

I you haven’t seen the show yet but would like to and do not sail the high sees you can access the show by getting Amazon Prime. Click here for my Amazon Prime affiliate link. If you make a purchase through the link or the links below I will get a small percentage of the proceeds to help me keep blogging.

If you are in deep, you might want to buy the DVD of season 1 or get the book that set all this in motion. I just started reading the book. It is pretty hilarious, as you might expect. 

The show got me into Terry Pratchett. I bought the Color of Magic and Guards, Guards to start with. I have already finished the Color of Magic and it really was a lot of fun. Very creative. Well crafted believable unbelievable plots. I took a peak in Guards, Guards and it starts even stronger than the Color of Magic, so I recommend both. Here is a teaser from Guards, Guards that I found particularly hilarious:

‘It was a five hundred mile journey and, surprisingly, quite uneventful. People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, “Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.“ ‘

I think that gives you a good idea of what you can expect to find in the book.

You won’t get a rerun or a sequel of Good Omens in these books, obviously, but you will get introduced to a really imaginative and hilarious world. It is entertaining and even mind expanding. 

[infiniteeight8]

tagged by @uinuvien ! post the names of the last five files in your wip folders, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

I have three different types of "WIPs": (1) The ones that I haven given up on and which will never be finished (which I call "trunked" but do not delete... just in case). (2) The ones I am actively working on. (3) The plot bunnies that are currently battling for their lives against all the other plot bunnies because there isn't time to write them all.

For the purposes of this tag, I'm only going to count (2), because naming (1) and (3) would just be cruel since most of them will never get written.

That said... I only have two WIPs. lol. I very purposefully try to focus on one at a time. Here are their file names:

IronStrange Fun Arranged Marriage (This is probably a hair misleading. There is some humour, but it's mostly romance, not really comedy. The name is to distinguish it from the unexpectedly super serious arranged marriage fic that got trunked.)

IronStrange Dictator Tony (This is an epic that is temporarily on whole while I write the arranged marriage fic... which is turning out to take longer than expected. Oops.)

I guess you could technically also count Obsession 'Verse, but I think of that as a series, rather than a WIP. (If it was a WIP, I wouldn't be posting it, and probably also wouldn't be writing it, so don't contradict me on this. lol.)

I'm not tagging anyone for this.

[crimsoncold]

Ah yes when authors or creators totally fudge the execution of their story and/or view their character in a way that is not actually supported by the very content they have created...

Complex and flawed characters are often more interesting than ones that are "perfect," whether or not they get the opportunity for growth or change in the story. Anti heroes can be refreshing and more compelling than traditional heroes. Villains themselves can be extremely entertaining, and occasionally are the best part of a piece of media...

But the author and narrative needs to have some coherency in their understanding, treatment, or presentation of their characters.

(When I say this I don't mean an author should be expected to explicitly condemn their character or their character's actions ....that is where one's basic reading comprehension comes in)

But rather I mean that when a creator doesn't understand or has an incredibly inaccurate view of their character or their character's actions- one that is totally unsupported by their actual body of work- it becomes incredibly frustrating as a reader or viewer.

I start to become irritated with the story, suspect the author is incompetent as a storyteller/incapable of engaging with media (even their own) in a thoughtful in depth manner, lose faith in their ability to make an engaging well thought out narrative, and often no longer feel its worth my time to continue to watch or read their story.

Truly I'm fine with a narrative or character that an author purposefully makes and understands is dark/disturbing/monstrous/satirical/misleading or unreliable

... but please, please just give me anything other than an author sincerely (i.e. delusionally) presenting or believing something or someone is virtuous and good when everything in their body of work indicates they are really just awful...

(Being you know a typical reasonable person I posess the ability to analyze and separate the content/actions/words of fictional characters from the opinions and values of the author... and I can appreciate dark stories or character without feeling like it says something bad about my own morals and without requiring the author to justify their choices by either incorporating some sort of moral lesson or explicitly condemning/critiquing something within their work itself... e.g. I am still unapologetically a huge fan of hannibal (series) and hannigram- awesome dark show/dark pairing...)

or on the other end of this same scale (and another pet peeve of mine) when it's not the author or story with a disconnect but rather fans who are interpreting a character in a manner distinctly unlike how the story actually presents them.

Being totally in denial about the flaws/mistakes/darker aspects of a character, badly misinterpreting the author's story, rejecting or outright ignoring all the obvious canon evidence that their favorite character made a mistake/was in the wrong/or is much darker than they are willing to admit, or harassing fans whose interpretation/opinion does not match their own heavily biased one...

(Guys just accept/embrace a character's flaws or even their villainous aspects and enjoy whatever story or character you want to...you can like a fictional character without having to deliberately/inaccurately interpret them as always in the right or perfectly virtuous... you don't have to have/fabricate moral justifications to support you liking a character ... they are fictional characters ... you are free to like/appreciate/critique/dislike/or otherwise engage with characters... but they don't exist and their actions aren't real ...you don't need to purposefully bury your head in the sand or go to other extremes to defend someone/something that doesn't exist)

Here's the thing I keep trying to articulate and possibly failing: I don't actually mind characters who are terrible people. I have enjoyed many. What I mind is characters who are terrible people while the narrative keeps trying to say that they are wonderful, often contradicting what the narrative shows us, with no self awareness

[theredhairedmonkey]

So, because this post continues to ruffle feathers (to the point that I'm called a troll for posting it lol), I'm going to do the generous thing and address the actual counterpoints head-on, interpreting them in the most charitable, steel-manned way possible.

Here are the arguments raised against my post above:

The scene plays as if Callum is panicking and grasping at straws. His uneven breathing and voice acting convey desperation, not intentional deception. Providing false information in that state would be extremely difficult.

Callum has no way of knowing if Finnegrin is bluffing about threatening Rayla. With her life potentially on the line, knowingly providing false ingredients would be an immense gamble for Callum. The stakes are too high.

While some viewers may not recall the spell details, Callum himself would surely remember the actual ingredients used recently by Viren and Harrow. So for Callum himself, giving incorrect ingredients purposefully would not come naturally.

Callum is portrayed as an honest character. He volunteers a lot of information to Finnegrin that he did not need to. Lying outright about the ingredients would be out of character and not his instinctual reaction.

There are simpler ways Callum could have resisted, like refusing to help at all or pretending not to remember the spell. Intentionally giving incorrect ingredients is convoluted and risky.

If caught lying, it could cost Callum his or Rayla's life. The potential consequences outweigh any small chance of misleading Finnegrin.

If Callum lied, this is actually worse than had he said nothing at all, because now multiple(?) innocent people could be killed by Finnegrin as he tries to find the spell components.

Now here are my responses to each of the above:

Callum appearing desperate doesn't preclude intentional deception. He can still make a quick, panicked decision to give some false information while under duress. His voice acting can portray desperation because it's genuine, but such desperation can also mask any unnaturalness that may otherwise come from him lying. Being desperate isn't mutually exclusive from being deceptive.

While Callum doesn't know for sure if Finnegrin is bluffing, he may judge it's worth the risk to try some deception rather than call his bluff. He has to think quickly under pressure. Maybe it was the right call or not, but the attempt wasn't to find a solution, but to buy them time. Every second that Finnegrin is focused on gathering the ingredients and not on his friends is one more second for him (and them) to find a way out.

Callum has perfect recall of every specific ingredient, and dark magic requires extreme precision. In the heat of the moment, he may strategically give some false pieces, relying on Finnegrin's lack of knowledge. Callum may be a bad liar (as Amaya pointed out), but his genuine desperation masks any obvious tells.

Alternatively, Callum may not have known the precise details (as for some Sky spells he has to look through his book to perform), but in which case, why not (1) say the details are in his book, or (2) admit he doesn't know the spell (which would have been the truth in this case)? The fact that he lists out the (not totally correct) ingredients anyway actually further supports the claim that he was being intentionally deceptive.

While Callum is portrayed as honest, he has shown a willingness to be strategically deceptive at times for the greater good, like lying to Luanne in TTM. He may calculate that a small deception is ethical to prevent a greater and immediate harm.

Simply refusing to help or claiming lack of memory have their own risks. Providing plausible but false ingredients allows Callum to appear cooperative on the surface.

The potential consequences of lying are a calculated risk Callum would be willing to take versus handing over true spell knowledge that he knows to be very dangerous. It's debatable which choice has higher stakes, but the choice that Callum makes give them the most time to find a means to escape and/or defeat Finnegrin.

As stated here, Callum isn't morally culpable for the actions of others. Just as Ezran isn't responsible for Viren destroying Lux Aurea, or Tiadrin responsible for Viren almost turning the Dragon Egg into a weapon, Callum isn't responsible for a pirate who kills for a living going out and continuing to kill some unidentified person.

However, all of this I would argue are a distraction from the main point. If Callum--with his photographic memory--didn't give Finn details that lined up with what Viren laid out, chances are that's on purpose, especially in a show with writers that pay very close attention to detail. Sure his plan is risky and not well thought out, but that's because Callum hasn't really thought out anything beyond just buying some time. His plan, had Finn agreed, would have meant they were safe until they got to shore. Plenty of time to figure out an escape or a coup.

But all of the above should be pretty obvious. And even if not, we're still back to the same issues pre-s5: you either see Callum as morally dubious or not, and 5x08 doesn't clarify that at all. We're back to square one.

Callum gave Finnegrin the wrong ingredients

This realization suddenly hit me out of nowhere, and now I'm kicking myself for not realizing this sooner:

When Callum describes the archdragon-killing spell to Finnegrin, the ingredients he lists out are subtly but significantly different from what Viren had said.

Here's are the ingredients that Callum mentions:

A dying breath

A unicorn horn

Blood filled with hatred

But here is the spell that Viren described:

A dying breath

A unicorn horn

Blood filled with hatred of one who loved the victim

And this clearly isn't a small thing, not only poetically (hate and love in the same act), but also logistically. There are plenty of people, Viren included, who hated Avizandum for a variety of reasons, but he needed Harrow's help to complete the spell. The fact that the ingredient needs not just any blood filled with hatred, but the blood of one who loved the person with the dying breath, provides that reason, so it's not a small thing.

So in other words, Callum basically gave Finnegrin a faulty spell. With this missing piece, there was no way Finn was going to be able to replicate the spell and kill the Domino Profundis.

And given Callum's photographic memory, attention to detail, and his level of studiousness, it's highly unlikely he did this on accident. He knew what the right spell was, he just didn't tell Finnegrin what it was.

Which is an insane gambit on his part. Even when trying to protect Rayla, he still wouldn't give Finn what he wanted!

[leastdatablebracket]

ROUND 1.5, MATCH 14

Joseph Christiansen

So many reasons. He's already married, he's a jerk to his wife, he's already slept with at least one of the other romance options. That romance option goes to you before a date with Jospeh and damn near begs you not to be stupid and go with him. The worst part? You put up with all this and he leaves you to "work things out with his wife". She deserves so much better than him! One of the writers even said he's a sociopath. 

Married and a youth minister.

Cheater, cringe man, father of creepy children, possibly evil cultist, left a guy feeling used which said guy also became friends with Joseph's wife who appears to be an alcoholic likely as a coping mechanism since she's married to Joseph

He cheats on his wife, has done so before, lies to you by claiming that he's going to leave his wife when he clearly never intends to (and, in one ending, will even cheerfully suggest that you two continue having an affair in an extremely sleazy way), and judging by the fact that the other guy we know he cheated on his wife with, Robert, hates Joseph and is now very close friends with his wife, it seems clear to me that this whole "purposefully mislead someone into sleeping with you and then later drop the bomb that it was an affair" thing is repeat behavior with him. Also, I just find much of his behavior to be very manipulative and controlling; there are many situations where it seems to me that he's actively trying to paint others in a negative light while still coming off as saintly himself, such as an early scene where he subtly implies his wife is a shitty mom because she *checks notes* let their toddler out of her sight... during a neighborhood barbecue in a fenced-in yard surrounded by trusted adults and other kids. Also notice how in this scene he pushes *her* to go look for their son, rather than just looking himself, all while keeping up his "long-suffering husband" act. (and in other scenes can be found letting his other young children wander off into the woods with sharp implements and visibly not caring, but whatever). He does this with Robert, too -- the other guy he had an affair with. Almost everything he says about or to Robert is a subtle jab about his personality or his alcoholism. Classy, Joseph. Meanwhile, the fact that you can't actually end up with him in the end (because he was never going to leave his wife for you) started some of the most volatile discourse in the fandom and had people calling the devs homophobic and claiming they were spreading a message about "gay men needing to stay in loveless abusive marriages to women" (just ignore the fact that there are several other divorced gay dads in this game who all have great relationships with their kids and are not demonized in the slightest). HOWEVER, if you see people claiming he's a cultist or demon or something, that's untrue and was just going to be a non-canon spooky alternate ending that ended up getting cut. So I empathize with him a little bit for getting literally demonized by some fans for that cut alt ending. But he loses all those points by cheating on his wife multiple times and showing clear intent to continue doing so.

He's still married when you start dating him. He's also got like 5 kids that are some "children of the corn" kinda shit, and all their names have "Christ" in them

You don't even get to date him he's still married to his wife who he doesn't get along with. Tragic really

Jakob

I like the whole "kind of an ass, but ultimately cares about people" character trope, so I latched onto Jakob early in my first playthrough and decided to marry him. Only problem? He gets no character development, ever, and constantly crosses the line from being kind of an ass to being genuinely horrid, at least to people who aren't Corrin. Then I actually married him and found out he doesn't even get over himself after that, he stays exactly the same and turns into a really bad father as well. Sorry, but no. That killed any interest I had in the character.

[stillness-in-green]

On Chapter Posts (and What Comes After)

Just a heads-up to everyone that, at least for the time being, I’m putting the chapter posts on moratorium.  I’ve been far more critical than not for months on end, and while I do get some satisfaction out of the venting, it’s just gotten more mentally demanding than it’s worth.  Compliments are easy and fun to write!  I always end up feeling like I have to do more writing to support negativity, however, providing enough explanation to support my complaints, and often going even further to anticipate and preemptively counter responses.

That big slab of nitpicking sits at the top of my to-do list week-in and week-out, a responsibility to keep on top of lest I fall behind, pushing answering asks and working on other projects behind it, and with the chapters of late having become incredibly demotivating, not getting them done means I get nothing done.  It certainly doesn’t help that Horikoshi’s writing has become so dependent on fake-outs, asspulls, retcons, and purposefully misleading cliffhangers, all of which make it unrewarding in the extreme to put effort and thought into meaningful analysis on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

I apologize to anyone who was really enjoying them—I’ve had a number of people tell me they love my meticulous breakdowns, and I’m forever grateful that my anal-retentiveness has found some like minds!  That said, please don’t fear that I’m out of the BNHA analysis game entirely!  I’d just rather focus my attention on larger-scale material, subjects that require analyzing the work as a whole, rather than the week-to-week grind.

First up will be clearing out my ask backlog—not, I think, a terribly burdensome prospect this time—as well as give the Mina fan the answer I promised them months ago to their last reply in our series of lengthy exchanges about Chapter 383.

Afterwards, my current and wishlist projects include:

Below the jump, I've compiled a list of my projects, meta and fanfic alike.  Feel free to skim through if you’re interested in what the chapter posts have been keeping me away from!

Meta Projects:

An absolutely massive documentation of heteromorphobia in the main series and Vigilantes that I’ve been erratically working on since March of last year—41 pages and I’m still only at the beginning of the war arc!  I’ve been trying to decide if I want to just start posting this in arc-length breakdowns or finish the whole thing first for optimal organization and presentation, though I suppose I could do the former on tumblr and the latter on AO3. Anyone have a preference?    

The much-delayed essay laying out the evidence for the possession plot with AFO and Shigaraki not being the originally intended endgame for those characters, at least not in the form it wound up taking.  Currently six pages, this one is still mostly bullet points; it also hasn’t been updated to reflect some of the more recent wild inconsistencies.  I’d like to give the series time to wrap up whatever it’s going to do with AFO before I publish this one, in case of eleventh hour reveals, but there’s certainly a lot of draft work I could be doing in the meantime.    

Some follow-up/companion pieces to my MVA In Memoriam series.  I’d like to go back to the PLF Spotting posts, which were intended to run through the anime’s treatment of the PLF in the war arc, and I’ve also been compiling points for a schadenfreude-y post on the dazzling variety of ways the anime’s butchering of MVA has complicated its own future as an adaptation.  This would cover things like the anime having to hastily jam in the CRC scene as a flashback because, whoops, it turns out heteromorphobia is going to play a major role in the climax, or the whole-hog deletion of Curious talking about quirk counseling, given that Horikoshi would later directly depict how said counseling exacerbated the psychological abuse Toga was already facing from her parents.    

An essay I promised an anon last year about my perception of the MLA’s ideology.  I’m salty about what the lazy, rushed writing in the final arc has reduced my favorite villain group in the manga to, however, so at this point, I want to do two things with this piece.  First, analyze why the MLA's current portrayal is so problematic*—what they say doesn’t even match up with who they are and how they act now, much less in their MVA portrayal!  Second, discuss how I write them, extrapolating from the non-caricatured aspects of their portrayal with the intent of offering a version of the MLA who are still extremist, cultish villains but who are allowed to have some proper nuance, and an ideology that’s actually consistent with their history, their tactics, and their MVA-era characterization.    

A number of shorter fancies and trifles that I’ve thought about and taken a few notes on, but have never gotten around to fully drafting:      o A post on how heroes and villains respectively engage with dramatic unmaskings.      o A post on directionality of movement in visual media, highlighting some particularly interesting examples in BNHA to discuss what those examples indicate about the characters’ mentalities and the narrative’s silent, implicit judgement thereof.      o A post on how frustrating it’s been to see all of Toga’s powers and abilities get retroactively leashed to—and limited by—her girly love-love emotions.      o A post on the chronic underestimation of Shigaraki Tomura and the woes it consistently leads to.      o A post or two analyzing the final beats of each chapter in the War Arcs with the aim of critiquing the way the series undermines the threat presented by the villains during said arcs.

   

Fanfic Projects:

On the fanfic side, it’s been frustrating me for months now that I haven’t written a substantial piece of non-prompt-driven fanfic for BNHA since January of last year, and even that's being generous with the word "substantial." Before that, I'd have to go all the way back to 2020 to find a non-prompt-based fic with a distinct beginning/middle/end. Suffice to say I’ve got lots of projects on that front!

While the rest of these are all BNHA fic, I do have a Gundam IBO fic I'm, like, two-thirds finished with the final chapter of that I badly want to finally, finally finish. It's basically down to an awkward conversation or two and a pair of wedding vows I've consigned myself to writing by virtue of drawing attention to them in the preceding chapters, RIP.    

The perpetually languishing Obon fic, in which Re-Destro has a lot of feelings he is taking care not to examine too closely about his ancestors. Six thousand words and not even halfway finished.    

The self-indulgent ShigRD mermaid fic, which has a number of cheerleaders in my friend circle and also my id.    

Finish the MLA May AUs.    

I'd like to circle back and write something for those last three days of Spinaraki Week Level 3 I never got to.    

Brainstorming two distinct massive fix-it fic AUs I would at least like to draft some solid outlines for, even as it's unlikely I'll ever have the patience to write all the scenes about the kids they'd require.      o "Forward Different" (the current name on the OneNote tab) would start from the first war arc, being faithful to the canon up to that point, but with major and minor changes that ripple outward to take the story farther and farther from canon the longer it progresses.  (In that story: the MLA not folding like a bad hand in the raids, a Lady Nagant who's true to her professed hatred of empty platitudes, OFA being less of a perfectly good pushover, etc.)      o "Backward Different" would also start from the first war arc, but things would drastically diverge almost immediately because of a number of strategically placed changes to prior events and character motivations; these would be wildcards to be uncovered or deduced as the story progresses.  (In that story: Aoyama was revealed as the traitor all the way back at the training camp, cast members who actually matter turn out to be MLA, OFA is less of a perfectly good pushover, etc.)      

I also have a number of deeply backburnery ideas, still more in the category of "idea" than project, that I could to move to more active project status.      o The one where my might-as-well-call-them-my-MLA-fancharacter has to team up with Toga post-Jakku and travel across a rapidly unraveling Japan in order to meet back up safely with their allies.      o The one where I use an OC detective to examine the official response to the Shimura massacre, and how it got squashed.      o The Kotarou Lives AU, in which Kotarou survives said massacre. Look, gang, I just really want to write about AFO gleefully and aggressively coming on to Shimura Nana's deliciously bitter, traumatized, handsome, ignorant son. I also really like my idea for a lead-in/stinger on this one.      o The one where Geten busts himself and his allies out of prison, be it the canon-verse story with his now-confirmed cell neighbor Mr. Compress or the teenaged AU where he gets thrown in the same high-security juvie Mustard is in.

And that's about all I can dig up out of my notes at the moment. Let me know if there's anything you guys are particularly interested in, though priority is likely to go to shorter or more fully developed projects. Thanks for reading!

(* In the academic sense, not the moral one.)

[cannibal-pentecost]

To be fair to Eva, the only time she genuinely crashes out at the SDU is when they kill Kamyuhn via the super genocide missiles; in Box of Calamity, she is killed and still forgives the SDU once she realizes they're all kids (teenagers) who were purposefully mislead and lied to.

Like, Eva is not much older than the SDU, but by being a teen mom and child soldier from an even younger age, she's more mature than them and sees herself as a maternal figure rather than a peer to them.

(Which does make the Eva route more eyebrow raising than even the Nozomi/Eva mommy vampire cannibalism stuff, that at least brings it up.)

Eva can't blame the SDU for what they do, even when it's awful to her and others, because they're just kids to her; the only thing that makes her hate them, truly hate them, is when they kill her daughter.

If there's one thing that disappointed me about Hundred Line is that there aren't nearly enough routes and endings where Eva murders all of us (like, there's only one, I think 💀). Or seriously pops off at us. Or genuinely, rightfully resents us. Like, after everything we did to her in all the routes across the board, if she broke free of her brainwashing, chose to play the long game and pretend to still be brainwashed before she stabs us all in the back when we least expected it, I would have literally handed her a trophy. You wanna kill us? It's Ok if you wanna kill us, we absolutely deserve it.

[no-droids]

Why is the Girl Here?

Part 1 of 2 of The Locked Door Series

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi/fem!Reader

Word Count: 12.8K

Summary: The Clone Wars have launched the galaxy into darkness, and hundreds of Jedi have fallen. With nowhere else to turn, the Order seeks to ally with powerful Force users from the Unknown Regions.  Just a three-cycle trip from Ilum, the planet s’Ziscari is home to the largest army of Force sensitives known to the galaxy, three times the size of the Jedi Order and with no current allegiance to the Republic.  There, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his newly ordained Jedi Knight are to negotiate an alliance with the s’Ziscari government on behalf of the Order and the Republic.  As the separatist army grows ever stronger, the fate of trillions rests in their hands…

Warnings: THIS WILL BE A FUCK OR DIE-ESQUE FIC.  Smut will come in the second part.

***

“Why is it,” you ask, the heels of your leather boots clicking in perfect synchronization with the cloaked figure to your left, “that the greatest negotiator in the Jedi Order wields a blue saber, and not a green one?”

While you're unable to see his gentle smile from underneath your dark cowl, you sense a general wave of amusement reverberate through the Force from his direction.  The energy somehow feels like the equivalent of a lift inside the cavity in your chest; transparent, tinted a soft blue in color, comfortable, calm, and familiar.

“Perhaps we should trade,” comes that crisp and precise Coruscanti accent you've ached to hear for the past two years.  “No matter how much you lamented its color as a youngling, you know I have always been rather fond of yours.”

It’s true, you think.  The color green never really… agreed with you, and much less what it represents to the Jedi, but your Master always said he found the pastel hue of the saber currently clipped to your belt to be unique and appealing.  Green—any shade of it, really—is the color of the Jedi Consulars.  The peacekeepers, the diplomats, the healers and seers.  Their—your—inner nature and connection to the Force speaks to concord and harmony, and though you’ve come to accept your place amongst the pacifists and mediators in the Order after years of training and meditation, you still remember what a shock it was to discover the color of your kyber crystal as a youngling.

You always thought you’d have a blue saber.  The mark of the Guardians—the second of the three branches of Jedi.  Their skills are focused in battle, and any saber towards the far end of the color spectrum typically leads to specializing in lightsaber combat and warfare tactics.  That’s what you always thought your soul spoke to most—the warriors of the Order.  The soldiers and the members of the Jedi Core, the battle tacticians, the security of the Republic and law enforcers.  You were always a bit of a brash and emotional child compared to your peers, a bit of a handful as a youngling, and you were certain your saber would be some shade of blue because of that.  At that age, a yellow saber was maybe a possibility.  Though you didn’t really have the amount of friends a sociable, service-oriented Sentinel would have, you still felt that if you didn’t have a blue saber, then yellow was far more likely than green.  Yet, you still remember blinking down at your tiny, open palm deep in a cave on Ilum, stunned, a pale mint kyber crystal held precariously in it and nearly vibrating with how loudly it was calling to you through the Force.

“Did the Council do that on purpose, you think?”  You ask, the both of you taking a sharp right down another unfamiliar marble hallway with no spoken direction.  “Pair their most combative Consular with their most mild-mannered Guardian all those years ago, hoping we’d make a good team?”

“You know as well as I do that I chose you for a Padawan myself, young one,” your Master hums.  “And that… we have always been.”

It’s been two years since you last saw him.  Two years, since you passed your trials and graduated from his tutelage.  Knighthood has been good to you with the exception of your former Master’s extended absence, a consequence of your newfound independence as a bonafide member of the Order.  Though the circumstances surrounding your much anticipated reunion with him certainly aren’t ideal, you’re glad nonetheless that you’re face-to-face again—or, currently, shoulder-to-shoulder.

You hide the ghost of a smile under your hood and maintain a steady, calm signature in the Force, keeping in stride with him and speaking in hushed tones.  “Things must really be desperate if they’re putting us back together again.”

“I do not wish to alarm you,” he drawls, sarcastic in cadence but a hint of affection weaving through his voice all the same, “but we are in the middle of a war.”

“Fair,” you acknowledge with a tilt of your head, though being on a planet so far removed from the chaos currently wreaking havoc on the rest of the galaxy allows you the privilege of pretending for the moment.  “A threat to the very fabric of the Republic is the only reason the Council would sanction the two of us reuniting.”

Though you say it jokingly, there’s something hidden in it.  An unspoken apprehension you’re attempting to mask with the high spirits of seeing him again.  The stakes of the forthcoming interplanetary negotiation are absolutely staggering, and though it remains unsaid, you understand that just as well as he does.  Scared isn’t the right word, and neither is worried, but—

“I sense a mild trepidation in you, young one,” your Master murmurs, and yes, that’s it.  A mild trepidation.

“I am…”  You close your eyes and attempt to find the right words.  “I am… considering the long-term consequences should this endeavor fail,” you eventually settle on, allowing your feet to lead you left as you keep your pace with him.  “While I consider it a great honor to lead this negotiation on behalf of the Galactic Republic, I’m concerned the Council’s faith in me is… ill-placed.”

Your Master turns his head just marginally in your direction, and though you both can't technically see each other, you know the face he's making under the hood of his robe: his eyebrow is raised, his chin is tilted, and there's the faintest hint of an amused grin threatening to morph the slightly sassy expression to one of genuine humor.  “You distrust the Council’s judgement?”

“Failure and any potential repercussions will be mine alone to bear,” you clarify.  “It’s not the Council I lack faith in, but rather my own skills as a mediator.”

At this, the Jedi does chuckle.  “And I'm to assume I'm just the tauntaun next door in this scenario?”

The apprehension clears, almost immediately, and you can’t help but grin gently in return.  He always did have that effect on you.  “Better be,” you toss out, sensing the large congregation of lifeforms gradually burn brighter in the Force as you both continue your quiet approach.  “This is my negotiation, after all; the Council’s instructions were clear.”

“Very well,” he agrees.  “And, since this is your negotiation, I’m sure you’re more than aware of s’Ziscari etiquette and tradition?  Wouldn’t want to offend them by accident.”

“Of course,” you nod.  “But a… a quick refresher certainly wouldn’t hurt.”

Your Master just tsks quietly, but launches into a brief explanation for you all the same.  “It is the Council’s understanding that Queen s’Zerthia is absent from the Palace at the moment.  In lieu of an audience with her, Ambassador Zyther is the only other member of her Royal Majesty’s court who happens to be fluent in Basic, so be sure to address only him when you speak, and to speak slowly and clearly, as it’s crucial they understand our intentions are purely diplomatic in nature.  Do not forget the s’Ziscari are a Force sensitive race; they’ll be able to spot deception the second you think to speak it aloud.  Not that I anticipate the need to mislead them for any reason, of course, but please.  Be mindful.”

Instead of answering him, you direct an affirmative through the Force, and your Master continues.

“They are known to take offense to extended eye contact and they’re not fond of humor or small-talk either, so skip directly to the point: the Jedi are here on behalf of the Republic to garner the support of their planet during these times of war and great unease.  Intel tells us they have amassed an army of Force sensitives three times the size of the Order.  While we’re hoping for a pledge of at least a thousand soldiers to fight in the Clone Wars, we are more than willing to compromise and accept any assistance they’d be gracious enough to provide nonetheless.”

“In exchange for what?”  You ask, the throne room doors now in sight.  You were formally debriefed on mission details during the three day trip to s’Ziscari, but the answer to that specific question was kept purposefully vague, even for the likes of the Council.  Presently, you still have no idea what exactly you’re meant to be bargaining with, not for.

“In exchange for the continued security of having a peaceful and harmonious neighbor with which to share the galaxy,” he replies breezily, the both of you coming to a halt directly in front of two large wooden doors.  “Now.  Are you quite ready?”

“Hang on,” you say, turning to face him, and he carefully ducks his head and removes his hood with two hands as his body rotates to mirror yours.  “You’re telling me that we’re walking into the most important negotiation in the entire galaxy without actually having anything substantial to offer on our behalf?”

Slowly, the dark cowl is lifted from your head as well, and your eyes lock with a pair of calm cerulean blues staring back at you as he gently soothes the fabric down by your collar.  He looks older—ever since the Clone Wars started, Jedi Master General Obi-Wan Kenobi has aged significantly.  Gone are the long, flowing locks he sported for most of your youth—the short hair with a clean part is more refined, the beard fuller and more mature.  More… attractive than you remember him being, even though you always remembered him being… achingly attractive.

Instead of answering your question, however, he simply moves both hands to rest over the curve of your shoulders, lowering his head and lifting his eyebrows at you in a look of genuine sincerity that makes your heart thump painfully in your chest.

“I am so very proud of you, my former Padawan,” he tells you quietly, and you feel yourself nearly swell with warmth.  You’re strong enough in the Force to subdue the sentiment before it bleeds into your signature, but you can’t help the way your face flushes slightly and a girlish little smile pulls tight at your cheeks.  “You’ve grown into a fine Knight and an exemplar for the Order.  No matter the outcome of this mission, nor of this war, please know I’ve been truly blessed by the Maker to have been given the privilege of training you all these years.”

Master Kenobi tilts his head forward just slightly, allowing his Force signature to brush delicately against yours for just a moment, the soft periwinkles and lavenders of his energy swirling gently through your pastel seafoams and teals.

And then he clears his throat, straightens his spine, and claps his hands tight to your upper arms.

“Come now, Jedi,” he winks, turning his head to the double doors and breaking into a brilliant grin, the skin around his eyes crinkling with age but the sparkle in them still lovely and youthful and bright.  “The fate of the galaxy awaits.”

***

Master Obi-Wan Kenobi remembers very clearly the day he chose you as a Padawan.

You were a fiery little thing.  The Sentinels who raised younglings at the Academy would often speak about you at length to the Council, each of them reporting back with the same issues and concerns.  Too emotional, too chaotic, too rebellious for the likes of the Jedi.  You threw tantrums, you had outbursts, and to him, you were very likely the worst possible candidate for a negotiator to take on as an apprentice, if only because by all accounts it appeared that you were nigh impossible to negotiate with.

But then you caught his eye one day when Master Yoda was in the process of introducing him to your class.  You should’ve been paying attention to the wisdom being shared by the oldest Consular in the Order (and, admittedly, so should he) but instead, you were gazing quietly at a dove that made its nest on the transparisteel dome arching across the ceiling.  Obi-Wan remembers feeling your energy cautiously reach out towards it, gentler than anything he could’ve expected from a child of your age and reputation, and the moment stuck with him.

The younglings were each allowed one possession at the Academy, and when it came time for him to choose a Padawan, he swiped yours, if only to see what you’d do.  A stuffed rancor you’d endearingly named Cory—rather hideous looking thing, if you asked him—and he was told you were fiercely protective over it.

Obi-Wan remembers carefully setting the stuffed animal down next to him in one of the old storage rooms in the isolated training area, locking the door manually and then taking a quick second to cloak his Force signature.  You had three options, he figured, if you were able to find its location.  Use the Force to unlock the door, use the brand new saber clipped to your belt to create your own door, or leave without your stuffed rancor.  Based off your reputation as an emotionally volatile little youngling, he was assuming he’d have to replace the frame and wall paneling altogether, but regardless, Obi-Wan figured that if you had the nerve to break into the locked room to retrieve your missing possession, he would train you, and if you didn’t, then he’d find someone else.

He waited patiently, meditating for a few hours on your signature from across the Academy.  He went through the subsequent stages with you.  A bright flare of panic, probably from noticing its absence from your quarters.  Sharp sparks of frustration for the next few minutes, likely in response to nobody knowing where it went.  He was expecting some sort of distraught next as you began making your way through the Academy to search for it yourself, some sort of upset, but then you surprised him for the second time.

All at once… Quiet.  Serenity.  Your signature carefully sweeping out in all directions as you walked through the halls, calmly attempting to locate your missing possession.

Obi-Wan pondered this as you approached, and what it might mean.  Were you just an excellent student when you felt the stakes were high enough?  Were you capable of listening to instructions despite what he’d heard about you in passing?  Were you simply just strong in the Force?  Or was there perhaps more to you than what others had told him?

Soon, he could hear your footsteps come to a halt in front of the locked door.  He waited silently; hidden in the darkness, hidden in the Force, barely breathing while he listened for either the sound of a lightsaber turning on or a lock clicking.  He knew you’d find some way to breach the entrance somehow; he knew you wouldn’t just give up and leave.

Except, then all he heard was a quiet little rap of knuckles against metal.

“Master Kenobi?”  A small voice called through the door, and Obi-Wan froze.

To your credit, he wasn’t focusing on hiding himself the way he should’ve been.  Had you been roughly ten years older, he might’ve taken the time to concentrate a bit harder on it, but truthfully, that’s not what surprised him the most.

You didn’t break in at all.

Instead, you… knocked.

“Master Kenobi?”  You tried again after a moment, your knuckles tapping quietly on the door once more.

“Em…”  He eventually cleared his throat.  “Yes?”

“I think you may have accidentally taken something of mine on accident,” you carefully said after a moment, the overly cautious intent not to offend or intrude suddenly striking him as an invaluable trait in a potential negotiator.  “May I please have him back please?”

You were quite a handful at times, Obi-Wan thinks, but it’s been so long.  So long since he’s had to correct you in any way.  As the years passed, you aged from an emotional Padawan to a refined Knight, a hot-tempered adolescent to a disciplined and capable young Jedi.

Now he looks on as you greet the s’Ziscari Ambassador to the Republic, your head bowed in respect and your eyes focused somewhere near the man’s chest.  It appears the two of you have an audience for your audience—members of the Royal Court are sitting perched in a tiered viewing gallery, speaking quietly amongst themselves as you introduce Obi-Wan and state your purpose to the room.

Your voice rings out sharp and clear, and throughout the entire negotiation, not once does he feel compelled to assist you in any way.  You do everything right—you make fair points without stepping on any toes, you never allow the Ambassador’s booming voice intimidate you or sway your collected composure.

Obi-Wan meant what he said.  He’s proud of you.

Though… though at one point throughout the mediation, something about this starts to not… feel right.

It’s the Royal Court, he realizes.  They’ve stopped talking, they’re… paying attention.  It doesn’t make sense—none of them speak Basic, they must just be reading the energies in the room.  Nothing spectacular has happened—no outburst, nothing to draw their attention any more than when you both first made your entrance.  The Ambassador’s voice continues to echo throughout the vast ceilings and contrast with the pleasant and tranquil alto of your steady responses, but then Obi-Wan suddenly goes rigid and spins around— 

The Royal Count immediately stands in unison as the Ambassador abruptly cuts off, and a familiar signature reveals itself in the Force.

***

The Queen.

The Queen is here.

You keep your head down and follow the intricate laced bodice of her gown as she makes her entrance into the grand throne room, gliding right between you and your Master before climbing the stairs and collapsing down onto the throne with a sigh.  The Council was misinformed concerning her whereabouts, apparently.

The Court finds a seat not long after she does, and you clench your jaw at the unfortunate twist of events.  Her presence means that whatever progress you’ve made with the Ambassador is now, for all intents and purposes, moot.

There’s also just something… odd about her and her energy, you think, something you can’t quite place.  The second she turns her head and looks in your eyes is the second you forget all about avoiding eye contact with her, but if she’s offended by your sudden lack of etiquette, she displays no signs of it.  In fact, you’d almost argue she looks intrigued.

“Your Majesty,” you greet.  “I was just—”

“I got the gist,” she waves a manicured hand at you.  “What was your name again, little girl?”

You tell her, and put a hard emphasis on your full title.  She may be a monarch, but you are a General in the Clone Wars and a Knight of the Republic, and an attempt by the opposing party at intimidation by flippant degradation will not be tolerated.

“Pleasure,” she nods.  “May I ask what your people are willing to offer in exchange for the military assistance you’re seeking?”

You swallow thickly, your stomach sinking.  “Truly, your Majesty, I… I cannot provide you with a specific answer to that at this time.  However, we would gladly be willing to—”

“Perhaps you can answer me this, then, little Knight, since I never was able to obtain anything satisfactory from your High Council,” the Queen interrupts, studying her jeweled manicure and sounding bored with the conversation she just initiated, and you feel your Master stiffen behind you.  “If we s’Ziscari are so incredibly important to the Jedi, as you previously insisted to the Ambassador multiple times, then why in Maker’s name does the Council reject invitations to partake in our people’s most sacred of ceremonies year after year?”

You’re… you’re at a complete loss for words.  The Sentinels have dedicated ambassadors to travel the territories specifically for these reasons, to keep political relations agreeable between outer-rim planets and the Jedi.  There would be no discernible reason as to why the Council would reject attendance to an annual s’Ziscari cultural celebration, especially if their standing military was even half as powerful in the Force as rumors would imply.

Obviously you’re not privy to any of this information, so you subtly reach out to Master Kenobi’s Force signature with a tiny flicker of uncertainty, silently questioning your next move.  However, before you can barely even mentally gauge the calm, sky blue of his aura, your Master’s outer-shields slam into place and even so much as shove against your open question in warning.

“It was—” You trip over your sentence, heart thumping in your chest with panic at his unprecedented response to you, “—It was never our intention to cause any offense, I’m certain—”

“And yet great offense was caused nonetheless,” the Queen returns.  “However.  As it just so happens, you’ve arrived on my planet the day the Sh’inzith Ritual is to commence.  Because of that, I am more than willing to allow the Order to remedy their grave lapse in judgement tonight, in exchange for…”  She tilts her chin at you, considering.  “Ten thousand soldiers to fight in your little war.  What say you, Jedi?”

No, this is wrong.  This is all wrong—an addition of ten thousand trained Force sensitives would put an immediate end to the Clone Wars.  Full stop.  Instead of being tempted by the bait, however, you’re just becoming increasingly wary of it.

Regardless of how on edge you are, you keep an unbothered composure and continue stunting any major change to your signature.  “You cannot expect me to agree to a deal before knowing the finer points of its terms, my Queen.”

“Of course not,” she agrees diplomatically.  “My terms are simple, really.  All you have to do is—”

“If you will pardon the interruption,” Master Kenobi’s voice suddenly rings out from behind you for the first time in what feels like ages, and he takes a few steps forward until he’s standing directly adjacent to you.  “Apologies to the Court, but my companion and I have grown very weary from a long tr—”

“No apologies necessary, Master Kenobi,” the Queen grins, her eyes flicking away from yours.  “Thought I saw you back there.  Shall I elaborate?  I’ll make it quick, so you don’t fall asleep.”

There’s a tense, pregnant silence that fills the throne room as everybody waits for his response, and you’re left wondering how your Master knows this woman.  

He breaks eye contact with the monarch first and stares down at the floor while he considers his answer, before finally settling on a quiet, “Leave us.”

The Queen nods exactly once and everyone in the gallery rises and slowly files out.  You take a moment to glance around at the handful of guards surrounding the throne room, waiting for their perfect statuesque posture to falter.  Only, they remain completely motionless.

You turn back to the Queen, watching you thoughtfully from her elevated throne, and then to your Master, who’s… still looking down at the floor.

It takes you a bit longer than it should, even then.

Obi-Wan says your name in a tight, urging tone, not even bothering to turn his head to address you.  “Please.”

What?

You?  He wants you to leave?  But… the Council said… they said that this is your negotiation.  Clearly they failed to provide you with some very crucial piece of information, so now he’s dismissing you because of it?  Openly?  In front of the other party?

“But… But I was supposed to—”

“Padawan,” he all but snaps at you.  “Please.”

You stand there, holding yourself as still as possible, absolutely stunned.  Your Master has never spoken to you this way.  You’ve never heard him speak to anyone this way.

The Queen just smiles down at you saccharinely from her throne, clearly enjoying your blatant discomfort and embarrassment.

This is humiliating.

You’d never say it out loud.  But as you quietly leave the throne room, two guards on either side accompanying you to your chambers, you practically shove the words at him through the Force, trying your absolute hardest not to let the hurt through.  Though in hindsight, you may have emphasized the last part a bit too harshly.

Of course.  Master.

***

Obi-Wan realizes the grievousness of his mistake the second it comes out of his mouth.  He doesn’t need the extended moment of silence as you work to process the unintentional insult.  He doesn’t need the way your Force signature suddenly seems incredibly small, like it shrank in on itself in mortification.  He most definitely does not need the spiteful remark reverberating around his brain as your footsteps fade into nothingness, the thought so sharp and directed that he’d likely have trouble blocking it out.

“Strange,” the Queen drawls out in his direction, breaking him from the whirlwind of his thoughts.  “Do you really still view her as a Padawan?  But she’s such a pretty girl.  And she was doing so well.”

“I will not speak of this with you,” Obi-Wan replies candidly, abandoning all pleasantries now that they’re alone.

“Oh, but you will,” s’Zerthia tuts, somehow sounding disapproving and gleeful in equal parts.  “If you want your army, that is.”

“Must you be so cruel, Your Majesty?”  Obi-Wan sighs, lowering his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose.  Maker, he’s getting a headache.  “Are the Uncharted Regions truly that dull?”

“Come now, old friend,” she grins, tilting her head at him as she relaxes back in her throne.  “You’ve known of my nature since we were introduced at the Senate all those decades ago.  There is a reason you’re still with the peace-loving wizard monks and I am now the reigning monarch over twenty thousand square parsecs of territories.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan acknowledges.  “And now we are grown.  Though it appears someone has yet to remind you.”

“Contrary to what you may believe, General Kenobi, this is not about me,” the Queen sighs.  “My people do not look kindly upon the Jedi.  The Ritual is a celebration of our connection with the Force, and denying an invitation, to them, is akin to denying their existence as a Force sensitive people.  I can give you your army at any time, of course—I am Queen.  But I fear that will not be enough.  The s’Ziscari will not willingly fight for you until you pay your due respects to our culture.”

“Queen s’Zerthia,” he exhales, clearly exasperated, “I cannot call myself Jedi and partake in such… proclivities.  The Council will never agree to such measures.  There must be some other way.”

“There isn’t, old friend,” she huffs shortly, her signature beginning to spark with impatience.  “Make your choice.”

“I am not having sex in an arena, s’Zerthia,” he hisses.

“Then the Republic shall fall.”

“You’ll let trillions die—”

“Do not speak to me as if you are not the only person who can change that, Jedi!”  The Queen suddenly barks, her voice echoing throughout the empty throne room and booming with frustration.  “I cannot make them fight!  They love their Queen, but I am thirty-nine years old, for star’s sake!  These traditions have lasted for millennia!  Would you abandon the ways of your religion simply because your leader ordered it so?”

“That is exactly what you’re demanding of me,” he returns sharply.

“Yes,” s’Zerthia acknowledges.  “But you are but one martyr, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Not an army.”

Obi-Wan sighs.  “I’ve… s’Zerthia, I’ve never…  It’s forbidden.  And now you’re asking me to break my oath in front of an audience… with someone I don’t know?”  He keeps his voice as steady as possible, but he knows it’s useless.  The Queen of the s’Ziscari will see the wavering in his Force signature.  The underlying pulse of fear at the center.

It’s her turn to sigh.  “The Sh’inzith is about celebrating our connection with the Force… consensually.  I… may be able to speak to some of my people about the possibility of you participating in private, due to the,” she clears her throat, “delicate nature of the situation, as well as your particular upbringing.  However.  You will have to project during the… closing ceremonies, if only to prove your direct involvement.  This is the best I can do.  Do we have an agreement?”

Obi-Wan drops his gaze.  “I… I don’t know.  I must confer with the Council first.  But… but with their permission…”  He chooses to leave his sentence unfinished, still so unbelievably uncomfortable with the terms of this nightmare to agree to them aloud.

“Understood,” she nods.  “Then I shall arrange to send someone to your chambers at midnight unless you notify my staff otherwise.  Which would you prefer—a man or a woman?”

He stays silent, his stomach churning in discomfort.  He doesn’t think he’s ever even considered the question before.  He truly doesn’t know how to answer it.

Intuitively, the Queen moves on.  “No matter.  What of the girl, then?  A man would do well for her, I’m assuming?”

He lifts his head, furrowing his eyebrows.  “The girl?  What girl?”

“The girl,” s’Zerthia repeats blankly.  “All Jedi present will need to participate, of course.”

“No,” Obi-Wan says immediately, taking a few steps forward.  “No, that wasn’t the deal.  The girl has been a Knight for barely two years, she’s never even heard of the Ritual.  She has no part in this.”

“And yet she was meant to lead this negotiation, was she not?”  She tsks in disappointment, each staccato click of her tongue echoing throughout the vast ceilings and rafters of the room.  “Is that how you Jedi treat your women?  Throw her headfirst into a mediator’s position with none of the details she needs to be successful, dismiss and humiliate her when she inevitably fails, and subsequently refuse any involvement in a potential solution on her behalf because she ‘has no part in this’?  Perhaps I should be offended that the Jedi thought so little of the s’Ziscari as to assign someone of her standing to lead this negotiation, but as of right now, considering the mere fact that my palace is still intact, I’m actually starting to believe your little Padawan may just be the best of you.”

Obi-Wan says absolutely nothing in response, his heart panging in his chest in shame hearing it put into words that way.  He’s never been one to question the decision-making of the Council, but assigning you to this mission had admittedly been something he himself couldn’t quite puzzle out.  Obi-Wan understands the need to further develop your diplomatic skills, but the terms of this specific negotiation were just far too complex and far too crucial to the survival of the Republic to gamble on one of the youngest Knights in the Order.  By all accounts, you shouldn’t be here, but the Council was very specific in their instructions.  You were to lead negotiations, and Obi-Wan was to act as reinforcement should anything happen to go awry.

The Queen quietly studies the Jedi Master all the while, tilting her head thoughtfully.  “None of this makes any sense, does it?”

Again, Obi-Wan maintains his silence with a furrowed brow and a far-off look on his face.

“What’s so different about this one?”  She asks him, sincere curiosity appearing to overtake her in the moment.  “This girl, specifically, out of everyone—why would they choose her for this negotiation?  There’d be no discernible reason, unless they wanted her to—”

She cuts herself off abruptly as Obi-Wan quickly flicks his gaze over to her.  When she’s silent for too long, he has to prompt her.  “Unless they wanted her to what?”

“Ah,” she whispers at once, her expression immediately clearing in understanding.  “Clever.  Diabolical, manipulative, and entirely unexpected from a group of glorified cultists with brightly colored laser swords.  But oh, so clever.”

Obi-Wan is starting to become very frustrated with this conversation.

“You know,” the Queen continues, back to studying her manicure, “I used to lament my lack of free will as a member of royalty by marriage.  My husband, Maker rest his soul, could never yearn for what he did not know, but as the daughter of a Senator, I was born as low as you.  I was a Miss once,” she laughs airily, as if the thought of her holding that title is absolutely ridiculous now.  “I knew the difference between a life of freedom and that of a puppet.  But.  At least my superiors revoked my autonomy to my face.  Your Council sees fit to pull strings from behind a curtain.”

“You think the Council wanted this?”  He can’t keep the intense skepticism from lacing his tone, despite his best efforts.

The Queen suddenly looks up from her jeweled fingernails and pins him with a hard stare.  “Will you bed a stranger even with the direct permission of your betters?”  She shoots at him, quite unexpectedly and shameless in her phrasing.

Obi-Wan nearly jerks back, the abrupt change in subject and rather personal question startling him.  “I—”

“Would you have asked your Padawan to accompany you here if you’d been put in charge of negotiations instead?”

“I’m not sure I—”

“Do you think it simply a coincidence the two of you were scheduled to arrive on my planet exactly ten hours before a festivity that only happens once every five hundred and some-odd cycles begins?”

“I can assure you I was not privy the t—”

“Why is the girl here?”

He… he doesn’t understand.  It’s like she’s trying to have four conversations with him at once.  He’s getting whiplash.  “s’Zerthia.”

“Obi-Wan.  Come now, don’t be daft.”  She goes back to picking at her fingernails, clearly done with her interrogation for the time being.  “She’s here because she is a thousand times more prepared to participate in the Sh’inzith than you are, of course.”

Obi-Wan blinks.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means the Council knew full well what the terms of this negotiation would be,” the Queen shrugs.  “Though you may not be too familiar with Jedi-s’Ziscari interplanetary relations, I can assure you we have openly voiced our offense to their denial of our invitations multiple times.  We still send them, of course, as is tradition.  We have for a few centuries at least.  A formal alliance would obviously require some act of rectification on the Council’s behalf, so therefore the only logical assumption to be made is that the girl was chosen for this mission specifically with that in mind.  She likely didn’t take an oath of celibacy or something of t—”

“All Jedi take oaths of celibacy,” Obi-Wan interjects with a startlingly unfamiliar edge to his voice, clearly warning her not to continue on in this direction.

”Oh, apologies; I misspoke,” she clarifies.  “She probably didn’t take an oath of celibacy seriously, or something of the sort.”

“Mind yourself, s’Zerthia,” he warns her.  “I care not of your position nor our history, you will not speak of my protégé that way—”

“Oh, she’s your protégé now?”  She grins, amusement flashing in her eyes.  “I see.  Because we both have been referring to her as your Padawan up until the moment someone other than you decided to insult her, so I wasn’t sure.  Forgive me.”

Obi-Wan flushes and opens his mouth once, twice.  He is quite honestly speechless at how his… long-time acquaintance is so truly gifted at creating sentences that somehow manage to turn themselves into icy daggers in midair, so instead, he takes a different approach.  “E-Even… even if you were slightly correct with that… a-absolutely baseless accusation, it makes no sense,” he reasons desperately, still trying to find some way out of all this.  “Breaking an oath of celibacy in her youth does not at all mean she’d be any more likely to lie with a s’Ziscari to complete a diplomatic mis—”

“No,” the Queen agrees, “it means she’d be more likely to lie with a Jedi.”

Obi-Wan stops dead.

She laughs, a soft tinkle of a sound, taking in the underlying shock of his demeanor.  “By all their faults, the Council is not stupid.”  She almost sounds… impressed.  “Think, Obi-Wan.  Pair the Greatest Negotiator in the Order with his newly ordained Knight?  The one young enough to not have the strict pillars of your cult of a religion so hopelessly cemented into her mindset?  The one who so very clearly considers you to be far more than a mentor to her?  The Council knew you’d be incredibly reluctant to bed anyone, let alone a stranger from the Uncharted Regions, but they also knew of our history as friends—if anyone in the Order was in a position to make the deal with me, it was you, so if anyone in the Order was in a position to therefore… persuade you to follow through with the conditions of said deal, it was her.  To gain ten thousand more Force sensitives and win a galactic war, all your Council had to do was shove two of their most agreeable Generals into bed with one another.  Beautifully executed, Machiavellian at its core.  Stars.  I knew politics suited the Jedi, but this is just…”

Obi-Wan feels his chest sinking deeper and deeper by the second as she kisses her fingers animatedly.

“…Masterful,” s’Zerthia finishes, turning to smile widely at him, positively delighted in her demeanor.  “I do say, I may have met my match in your superiors, Obi-Wan.  Perhaps they shall make better allies than I’d originally assumed.  If nothing else, this little display of cunning and manipulation gives me faith that perhaps the Republic isn’t so completely doomed after all.”

“Do you truly think they’d be so cruel?”  He finds himself asking quietly after a moment.

“These are times of war, old friend,” she tilts her head with as much solemn comfort in her voice as she can reasonably provide.  “They knew the terms, and they knew you wouldn’t agree if you knew them in advance.  This was the only way.  And honestly, should a… well, let’s face it, a rather attractive coupling be all that stands between the galaxy and total destruction, I’d say that may just be a fair price to pay.  My only lament thus far is your rather timid demeanor.  You two would’ve made for a crowd favorite.”

The Queen’s assertion startles him so much that Obi-Wan outright defaults back to skeptical pragmatism instead of entertaining elaborate and incredibly far-fetched conspiracy theories.  “Yes, yes, s’Zerthia, but—but this whole entire scheme hinges on the completely incorrect assumption that she and I would actually be willing… willing to…”  He can’t even finish the sentence.

“How old are you, Obi-Wan?”  She raises a perfectly arched eyebrow at him, thoroughly unimpressed with his sudden lack of articulation.  “We are of similar age, correct?  Are you outright incapable of saying the word ‘fuck’?”

“Quit being foul,” he snaps.  “It suits your personality, not your tongue.”

“So quick-witted in conversation for someone so incredibly dim-witted in practice,” she muses, as if this entire thing is incredibly entertaining to her.  “Do you really not see the way she looks at you?”

“She respects me,” Obi-Wan declares meaningfully.  “She’s loyal.  She thinks much higher of me than I deserve.  She’d stand alone in the face of an army if it pleased me and she’d stand tall—”

“That’s not the only position she’d assume to please you,” the Queen mutters under her breath, pausing to give him a sweet little smile as Obi-Wan burns a hole through her with his glare.  “The only variable remaining is your willingness to please her.  After all, the offer to lie with a s’Ziscari instead will always be up for the both of your considerations, as is the ability to walk away entirely at any time of course.  I’m assuming the Council was relying on the fact that you’d pitch an absolute fit after being informed her involvement was required—which, naturally, you did.  And then they gambled on the answer to a question you’ve yet to ask yourself.”  She leans forward and tilts her head at him, lacing her manicured fingers together.  “Perhaps it’s not a matter of how willing you are to sleep with your Padawan to save the galaxy from complete and total annihilation, Master Kenobi, but simply a matter of whether or not the clueless little thing will want it bad enough to be able to convince you to do it.  This—this is a real negotiation for her now.”

“s’Zerthia—” Obi-Wan sputters, “—I—She—I’ve traversed her consciousness more than anyone in the entire galaxy, and not once has she ever even hinted at the possibility that she—”

“And can you blame her?  My, the scandal it would cause!”  The Queen presses the back of her hand to her forehead and collapses dramatically back into her throne.  “A Jedi Knight secretly harboring feelings for her Master?  In my good temple?  Shame!  Shame!  Sha—!”

“You think you know more of my successor than I?”  Obi-Wan interrupts sharply, somehow more irritated now at the insinuation than he’d been the entire conversation.  “The youngling I raised?  The one I handpicked to take my place in the Order, you think you know more of her heart than I?”

“Yes.”  s’Zerthia answers him simply, straightening up on her throne and abandoning all theatrics.  “Because you did not see her face when you called her Padawan.  I did.  And I also happen to know far better than most that hiding the truth from nosy Force sensitive authoritarians is most easily accomplished by controlling one’s energy signature.  Jedi, s’Ziscari, it matters not the culture—you lot spend far too much effort reading into the Force than simply looking someone in their eyes to learn the truth.  Look her in the eyes next time, Master Kenobi.  Then you will understand.”

***

You’re furious.

The Jedi are not meant to feel fury.  But you are a Jedi, and by the Maker, do you feel it.

“Padawan?”  You hiss, pacing the length of your bedchamber with clenched fists, trying to control the volume of your voice so desperately that the words come out shaky and slurred.  “Padawan?  Is that what he thinks of me?  That I’m still a youngling?!”

You haven’t been this upset since you were a small child.  And the thought stops you dead in your tracks.

You are a General.  You are a Consular.  You are a Knight.

Regardless of what he may believe.

So you climb up onto your unnecessarily large bed, crawling the incredibly soft fur blanket of an animal you’ve never seen before to sit yourself in the very center of the mattress, crossing your legs.  Though it takes you longer than it has in years, you’re finally able to relax your breathing and clear your mind, slipping into a deep meditative state.

You don’t know how long you stay in that position, nor do you really care to. But when your Force signature feels the slightest brush of your Master’s, likely just looking for your location within the palace, you’re a bit too late in slamming your mental barriers up in response.  You know he still senses the reciprocal shove he gave you earlier, the shocking feeling of being practically hurled out of someone’s mind with unprecedented ferocity.  But he also knows where you are now.

So, like you’re a youngling at the Academy again, you just pretend to meditate.  Like an actual child, you close your eyes and focus on just sitting still.  You shouldn’t be responding this way, you tell yourself.  Restraining your emotional response has been hammered into you for decades—keeping calm when you’re upset is your default, it’s how you’ve lived your entire adult life.  Why can you not seem to accomplish it now?

What… what is this?  This toxic, absolutely dreadful emotion?  It's hard placing them sometimes when you were taught from infancy to just will them away instead of processing them.  It’s not fury, not anymore.  It isn’t sadness, either.  You’ve been sad—you’ve been sad for two years straight, and it feels nothing like this.

You’re throwing a tantrum, you realize.  That’s what this must be.  You’re reverting back to your childhood, back to when you felt discounted and disapproved of by nearly everyone around you.  You haven’t felt this way in years, not since you met Master Kenobi.  This is hurt.  Just pure, irrational, emotional pain, and it’s manifesting itself in truly ugly ways.

You can feel his signature glow just marginally brighter in the Force as your Master steadily approaches.  You take slow breaths, trying to rearrange yourself into something at least mildly composed and tranquil, but it feels almost impossible.  So instead, you just try to ignore the past few hours and think back on all the things your Master used to tell you when you were like this, this raging turmoil of emotions overtaking you and causing you to lash out.  

You are a Consular, child, he’d say, and if you focus, you can practically hear the musical cadence of his calm, comforting voice.  A peacekeeper.  A dove.  When faced with a locked door, what must you always do?

Master Kenobi’s knuckles rap on the entrance to your quarters quietly, and you blink your eyes open, taking another deep breath before replying.  “It’s open.”

The door opens and he takes a few steps inside the room, stopping immediately when he lifts his head up and sees you sitting on your bed.

You both stare at each other in silence for way too long, and you’re not… really sure why.  You’re obviously just waiting for him to say something, take the lead in this conversation since he was clearly a better fit to take the lead on this mission, but he just looks at you.  For an eternity, he looks at you.  Completely blank.

He suddenly jerks his spine straight and breaks eye contact with you, coughing and flicking bright blue eyes around the space as if he’s just noticing it.  “Ah, I… Apologies, this is the wrong room.  I thought… my quarters are—I must confer with the Council.  Please, excuse me.”

And then he turns around and leaves.

You blink a few times, wide-eyed and completely bewildered as the door slides shut behind his billowing cloak.

He… he knocked on the door to his own quarters?  And then… and then he waited for you to call him in?

What in Maker’s name is going on?

***

“This is unbelievable,” Obi-Wan sighs, and the hologram of Master Windu rubs his blue flickering temples in slow circles, looking equally as exasperated as Obi-Wan sounds.  “Did you know the Ritual was to take place tonight?”

“The Council had no idea,” the fellow Guardian murmurs, and something pulls tight in Obi-Wan’s chest, remembering the Queen’s assertion that the s’Ziscari continue to send invitations to the Council every year.  Perhaps… perhaps there was some sort of an oversight, he thinks, due to the Clone Wars taking precedence for the Order.  “Intel told us she’d be off-planet for at least another week.”

Well now, that doesn’t make much sense, not if the Ritual is to begin soon.  None of what Master Windu has said throughout the conversation has made any sense at all regarding the situation.  Obi-Wan… Obi-Wan thought he’d feel better after speaking to another member of the Council, not more uncertain.

“What does Master Yoda think of all this?”  He eventually tries, but the holographic projection of Master Windu sighs and tilts his head regretfully, his upper body flickering and waving with intermittent static.

“Master Yoda is currently dispatched to Rugosa to convince King Katuunko to allow the Republic to build a base in Toydarian territory,” he replies solemnly, and Obi-Wan… needs to meditate.  Yes.  Meditation sounds like a phenomenal idea.  “Are you certain there is no more room for negotiating?”

“An ultimatum was given,” Obi-Wan says shortly.  “These are the terms.”

Master Windu takes quite a while before responding, but when he does, he speaks calmly and with purpose, addressing him with a formal opinion.  “Then the Council will leave this matter up to the discretions of you and your former Padawan, Master Kenobi.  This mission designation has hereby been elevated to the highest level of classified and your subsequent choices need not be reported, nor will they affect either of your places in the Order.  May the Force guide you and be with you both through these uncertain times.”

The transmission is cut and Obi-Wan feels his insides twist.  

He collapses onto his bed and groans quietly, burying his face in his hands and finding it easier to just conceal his Force signature altogether than attempt to mask the anxiety and crushing pressure he feels threatening to overwhelm him.

This is not good.  This is, in fact, very much a disaster.  This is a mess.  This is far worse than anything he could’ve possibly imagined when he was first assigned to this mission.  

Obi-Wan slowly rakes all ten of his fingers down the sides of his beard, lifting his chin and then letting them drag all the way down his throat, and the quiet scratchy sound it makes mixes in with another longer, even more exhausted groan.

Maker.  First things first, he needs to apologize to you and explain the situation.  Neither one of those things will be easy to accomplish, but in the grand scheme, they’ll be far simpler than anything else facing him.

He… he takes a second to think about you, about the awful way he unintentionally disrespected you earlier.  Stars—he handled this terribly.  He was caught off guard and he owes you an explanation, but he’s at a complete loss as to how to go about it.

And why… Why must you have been sitting on your bed?  Staring up at him silently, waiting for him atop the very place he’s just been given permission to… to…

Obi-Wan shakes his head and clamps his eyes shut, rubbing them with a bit too much vigor to be from tiredness and stress alone.  He should meditate.  He should meditate, let his mind break free of the nerves and sudden change of events, but he doesn’t have time to even begin unscrambling the chaos of his thoughts.  It’s getting late, and he has an obligation to tell you about the situation as soon as possible, to give you as much time as he can to process the decision facing you before the clock runs out.

He’s dreading this.  He’s absolutely dreading it, but it needs to be done.

***

After your Master leaves, less than a half hour passes before you hear another knock on the door.

By then, you’re just sitting there.  Sitting there, empty.  This is good, really.  Truly, this is a good thing.  A flat emotional state is what you should always strive for, but… nothing about it feels like peace, really.  No, this just feels… grey.  Desaturated.  Dull.

“It’s open,” you call once again, and Master Kenobi quietly enters your chambers.  This time you don’t look at him, though.  You don’t really… feel the need to, especially from the way his signature is still just barely presenting itself to you, still so guarded and cautious around you when he’s never been this way before.

Your Master comes to a stop right in front of the edge of the mattress, and stands there for a few moments in silence.  You just blink down at the mattress and wait, undisturbed, until you hear him heave a long, heavy sigh, before spinning around and unceremoniously sinking down to the floor at the foot of the bed.

Something about it breaks through your blank, almost dissociative state.  Your eyebrows narrow just slightly where your gaze is pinned to the fur covering the mattress, hearing him sigh heavily once more out of your line of sight, but it’s enough to urge you to crawl forward until you can see him sitting on the floor at the foot of the mattress, bent over on himself, his head buried in his hands.  You’ve never seen your Master look so… vulnerable before.  So small—not in all the years you’ve known each other.  His energy is so concealed that you’re just barely able to sense anything besides the mere presence of his signature, but he’s clearly distraught with just as much emotion you were struggling with earlier, and suddenly…

Suddenly a calmness sweeps through you.  A gentle sort of kindness fills your soul, slowly flooding your energy with color once again at the sight of someone who’s usually so composed struggling so openly in front of you.

Carefully, you lower yourself down until you’re seated on the floor next to him, your back pressed up against the side of the mattress as he continues to hide his face from you.  You stay there, not touching him, not saying anything, but just radiating a steady tranquility through the room from the very center of your being, anchoring him through his storm until it clears.

The sun goes down through the window before either of you speak.  Your Master eventually drops his hands from his face and takes a deep breath, choosing to break the silence first.

“Before I begin,” he finally says, his shoulders still uncharacteristically tight and full of tension, even though his voice is soft.  “I must… I must sincerely apologize to you.  This type of subject matter makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable and I took that out on you, and it was absolutely unacceptable behavior on my behalf.  Unfortunately, I can offer you no explanation that wouldn't count as an excuse for something that was completely inexcusable.”

“I understand,” you reassure him, just as quietly, but then quickly correct yourself.  “Well, no—I don’t.  I don’t understand, but.  Judging from your demeanor, I can only assume things have become… a bit more complicated.”

Your Master takes another full, deep inhale.  “Yes, that’s…” he empties his lungs of air with a huff, amused but in a way that’s not really amused.  “That’s certainly one way of putting it.”

“Do you…”  You blink at the floor, still keeping your voice and energy as gentle as possible.  “Just—before… before you begin… Do you truly think of me as your Padawan still?”

“No,” he answers firmly.  Immediately, and with less hesitation than anything he’s said so far.  “I do not.”

You nod, the finality in his tone leading you to believe that’s the end of his sentence, but then he eventually lowers his voice and continues.

“But sometimes, I…”  Your Master sounds conflicted, like he’s not sure he should be saying this aloud.  He still hasn’t looked at you.  “I find myself… wishing you were.  That we could go back to those days, the days before the war.  Before fighting armies, and leading them… and now recruiting them.  The happiest and most fulfilling days of my life were spent with you by my side, young one.  I am not telling you this in an attempt to justify or defend my actions in any way, I am telling you this simply because I don’t want an egregious misunderstanding of this magnitude to continue to fester between us when it can be addressed right here and now.  In the face of incredible discomfort, I selfishly reverted the terms of our relationship back to what they were two years ago—not because I subconsciously think of you as my Padawan still or that I somehow haven’t recognized your unprecedented list of accomplishments as a Knight—but because you, the former title, and the nature of the relationship it entails were the only things familiar to me when everything else around was so incredibly and uncomfortably foreign.  I humbly beg your forgiveness for ever allowing you to spend a single second of your time thinking differently, never mind hours of it.”

You blink, startled by the sudden articulation and sincerity of the apology.  “I—it’s… it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Master Kenobi softly counters, “but your forgiveness is greatly appreciated, no matter how undeserved.”

You smile at him.  It’s one of those gentle, sad smiles—the kind of smile that would feel fake if it wasn’t for the comfort you’re trying to provide with it.  Carefully, you place a hand on the bend of his knee.  “Do you have a place you’d like to start, or would it be easier for you if I asked specific questions?”

He looks at you.  Finally.  For the first time, his clear blue eyes rise to meet yours and he looks… grateful.  “Ask.  Please.  That would be so much better.”

“A ritual begins tonight,” you say after a moment, studying his handsome facial features for some kind of confirmation of the information you’ve managed to piece together, but then your Master abruptly breaks eye contact with you and lowers his gaze once more.  “Yet the Sentinels historically choose not to partake.  Why?”

“Because… the Ritual… contains proceedings that stand in direct opposition to the values and teachings of the Jedi,” he explains to the floor.  “It goes against the core pillars of our religion to even spectate.  The Uncharted Regions are… different.  They follow neither the laws nor the customs of the Republic.  It was decided long ago to politely decline their invitations, though we offered many times to meet during another time of the year.  The Council had no idea the Queen would take this much offense.”

You have to ask.  It’s important for you to know, but his rather vague explanation serves to peak your trepidation just as much as it does your curiosity.  “…What is…”  Maker, you’ve gone unbelievably quiet.  “What is the Ritual, Master?”

Obi-Wan goes just as quiet, looking down at his hands as they fiddle idly in his lap.  “Ah.  Yes.  That.  Well, the—th-the Ritual is, uh.  Uh—”

You blink softly at him and his abrupt loss of articulation, trying to rearrange your expression to be encouraging without appearing too eager.

He suddenly cuts himself off and looks up at you, pinning you with an ocean-deep blue gaze once more.  “It’s a celebration of fertility.”

You blink once more at him, this time quite stupidly.

“People are encouraged to be intimate with each other.  Openly.  Shameless displays of fornication between two consenting adults are commonplace in almost every conceivable forum, said to permanently connect the s’Ziscari to one another through the Force—which is why they usually project throughout the act.  In fact, they even have a gathering here at the palace capital, an ‘opening ceremony’ of sorts where people… perform.  It’s debauchery disguised as a holiday.”

You… for some reason, the fact that he stares so intently at you while he says it makes your reaction marginally subtler.  He gives away no emotion as he takes in how your mouth has formed a soft O shape, how a solemn understanding seems to flood through you.  Of course he’d have incredible trouble with something like this.  And somehow it’s only then that you fully forgive him for his previous mishaps and mistakes on this mission.  You understand now, you get it.

“Ah.  Okay.  And… and in exchange for the s’Ziscari’s assistance in the Clone Wars, they want us to… what, exactly?”  Maker, why is your throat so dry?

“They’ve presented the ultimatum of either walking away from the deal entirely or partaking from the privacy of these chambers,” he answers.  “Together.”

Okay, so your reaction is a bit more pronounced this time.

Your eyes widen for a fraction of a second, all the breath in your lungs whooshing out at once.  Maker, it’s like he punched you in the chest.  Muscle memory alone allows you to almost completely muffle the burst of shock that radiates through the Force, but your face is still a dead giveaway.

Is this… is this a trial?  Are you hallucinating?  Perhaps a vision, if it wasn’t so beyond ludicrous or had any basis in reality whatsoever.  How many vaguely similar scenarios have you imagined throughout the duration of Obi-Wan’s tutelage?  And yet never has one been so incredibly creative.  Or elaborate.

And then, the thought suddenly hits you.

Oh.  Oh, no, this is dangerous.

It’s one thing to harbor a dark, hidden crush on your Master for years, something you refuse to even let yourself think about most of the time.  It’s one thing to learn how to bury your needs deep down and refuse to let them see the light of day, to learn how to build a mental fortress around a dirty, terrible secret from your youth and guard it with a saber and matching ferocity.  This is the way of the Jedi.

It’s another thing entirely to have it offered to you on a silver platter.  To be given just a sample of Darkness, knowing you’ll never have anything close to it ever again.

***

Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’s studied your face this closely in his entire life.

It feels almost… unnatural, how meticulously he’s trying to read your expressions.  Outwardly, you don’t appear to be anything more than surprised, really.  Not horrified at the idea, just… stunned.

“What did you tell them?”  You eventually ask him.

“That I’d need to discuss it with the Council first,” Obi-Wan answers carefully, “and then that I’d need to discuss it with you.  And I’d make a decision by midnight, when the Ritual is to begin.”

And—there.  He sees it.  Your Force signature continues to radiate a gentle calmness outwards, unwavering and unbothered in its beautiful gradient of pale greens and chartreuses and golds, brilliantly contrasting with the cool blues and periwinkles of Obi-Wan’s own signature, but there’s a flash of… something in your eyes, and he sees it for maybe a split second before it’s gone completely.

What did he say?  What did he say?  He tries quickly to remember.  That he’d need to discuss it with the Council first, and then that he’d need to… 

Obi-Wan sighs, instantly realizing his mistake.  He both openly admitted and proved to valuing the opinion of the Council over yours.  He valued the collective opinion of a group of Jedi tens of thousands of light years away who put you in the middle of this ghastly situation more than your opinion.  You.  The only other person directly involved with this absolute shipwreck of a negotiation, even though you never asked to be.  The person whose opinion on such a delicate situation should’ve mattered the most.

Stars, s’Zerthia was right.  Has he always been this blind?

“Though… though now I realize that was incredibly dismissive of me.”  Obi-Wan’s head drops and his hand comes up to cover and rub at his eyes, feeling halfway stuck between amused at his endless list of mistakes and miserable at how they’ve affected you.  “I’ve done absolutely nothing right on this mission so far, young one.  And you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.  The Queen of the s’Ziscari said you’re likely the best the Order has to offer and I’m very quickly beginning to see her point.”

You jerk back comically.  “She said that?”

He peeks an eye open at you through his fingers, watching you look at him like he’s grown two heads.  “…Yes?”

“And not as an insult to the rest of the Jedi?”

Obi-Wan drags his hand down his beard, trying to hold the corners of his mouth down, but it does nothing to stop the small smile that begins to peek through.  So he doesn’t try to hide it.  He just smiles at you, exasperated but so incredibly fond, shaking his head meaningfully.  You sit there and stare at him with your mouth hanging open, completely discombobulated, and Obi-Wan actually begins to chuckle quietly to himself, marveling at how your reaction to the praise practically doubles its sentiment.

You’re the only one who’s been able to make him truly laugh in the past two years.  You did it despite his wild discomfort concerning the unfortunate situation the two of you have found yourselves in.  You did it despite the foreign territory, the foreign government, the foreign planet, the foreign customs, and the foreign subject matter.  And you did it all entirely unprompted, despite everything he’s done to wrong you.

“The lady in the big chair?  The one with the fingernails?”  You lift your hand up and wiggle your fingers, both looking and sounding like a droid in need of a hard reboot.  “The fingernail lady, she said this?”

“Why is that so surprising to you?”  Obi-Wan asks with a gentle grin, leaning back to rest his shoulder blades against the bed, his muscles considerably less tense than they were even just two minutes ago.

“Because I don’t—?  People don’t—??”  You wave your hands around uselessly.  “I’m not used to… that.”

“To what?”  He prompts, still not removing his attention from your face.

“High praise?  I mean—I spent years being told that I was quite possibly the worst of the Jedi,”  you laugh awkwardly, and then you change the subject too quickly, like you’re attempting to fill the silence before it can be read into too much.  “Not to mention she looked positively delighted when I was dismissed.”

There it is again, he thinks, your eyes once more betraying your signature, tone, and countenance.  He only allows himself a beat to silently vow to himself to consciously voice his recognition of your dedication and achievements more often.  It’s just… with the right ratio of patience and prompting, he always thought you were such a brilliant student.  Obi-Wan is unable to recall the exact moment as a teacher he began to recognize any positive trait you exhibited in his presence as simply part of your hidden, untapped given character instead of a very purposeful mindset you had to actively work to embody.  Perhaps the true reason he’s so skeptical about s’Zerthia’s assertion that you care more for him than you let on is because he cannot possibly fathom why.  Not when it feels like he’s spent years by your side and is only somehow only just now seeing you.

“Ah, yes, well,” Obi-Wan says, easily glossing over his quiet moment of contemplation without arousing any suspicion, “the Queen is arguably obsessed with seeing how much torture a person can endure without actually having any physical pain inflicted upon them.  She gets bored, see.  Not many visitors to the Uncharted Regions.  She likes to play games with her guests whenever they do arrive.”

You quirk a brow at him.  “Then shouldn’t she have revelled in my suffering instead of defending me because of it?”

“I’d say she’s entirely capable of doing both, especially considering just how torturous it was for me to sit there and be reminded of all the many different ways this has been so terribly unfair to you,” he admits softly.  “She paid you the compliment as a direct commendation for enduring such mistreatment and still leaving the walls of her palace standing.”

Your expression goes blank again, and Maker, this is more difficult than he thought it’d be.  It’s a legitimate challenge to gauge your emotional state when you’ve so clearly mastered your control over your energy signature, to a degree of which Obi-Wan was almost entirely unaware before today.

“You’re sure this is the only way?”  You eventually ask.  “We either do this together or we go back empty-handed?  That’s it?  No other options?”

Obi-Wan takes exactly zero seconds to consider the implication behind his answer before confirming your assertion with a solemn nod.  “No other options.  I’m sorry, young one.”

Later, he’ll reason he refused to present the Queen’s first suggestion to you because he couldn’t agree to the terms, even if you could.  It would be of no use for you to share your bed with a s’Ziscari when he was incapable or unwilling to do the same.  Yes, that makes… logical sense, he supposes.  Right now he just has far too many things on his mind to contemplate it, and the sudden reminder of the situation he’s in causes his heart to start beating faster in his chest.

“Okay.  Well…” You look uncertain, your eyebrows furrowing slightly even as your energy continues to glow soft and undisturbed from the center of your being.  “Well, what are—what are your… concerns?  Is there anything I could do to make this easier for you?”

Because Obi-Wan has absolutely no clue how to answer that question, he just keeps quiet.  He supposes it shouldn’t be so surprising that the Uncharted Regions feature so much… uncharted territory.  He truly doesn’t know how to go about this; upon explanation of the situation, he had hoped you’d supply a firm no so that the burden of choice was taken away from him.  He doesn’t want to offend you, but at the same time, the more you’re not directly protesting against the idea, the faster his heart begins to pound in terror at the realization that… breaking a sacred vow he’s honored his entire life is quickly becoming a very likely probability.

And also… why?  Why are you able to be so… calm about this?  Why are you not panicking and struggling with this decision the same way he is?  When s’Zerthia first suggested you’ve already broken your oath of celibacy, Obi-Wan didn’t want to believe it, yet here you are—asking him if there’s anything you can do to make this easier for him when both of you should be having a crisis about this hypothetical.  Are virgins typically so considerate?  Is he just being over-dramatic about this?  Is this just a manifestation of the serene hue of your saber reaffirming itself?  Is this just your cool head prevailing when the one person you’ve spent years looking to for guidance is clearly on the verge of spiraling?

Why?  Why aren’t you protesting more?

“Are we actually going to do this?”  You ask after a moment, and Obi-Wan unintentionally cringes.  Good Maker above, he truly doesn’t mean to.  It has almost nothing to do with you—in fact, he can only assume you're genuinely trying your best to adapt to the unfortunate twist of events, and you’re actually managing to be somewhat successful where Obi-Wan is just hopelessly, miserably failing.  You must be just trying to maintain some sort of base foundation for his turbulent mental state, but—but then he sees another flash of emotion in your eyes at the way he flinches away from the question.

He opens his mouth to respond—to apologize, or… stars, something, but then you supply a quick reassurance instead.  “I won’t—I won’t take offense, if you need me to, you know,” you shrug, very much avoiding his gaze and your voice suddenly sounding incredibly small.  “I don’t know.  Not make any sounds?  Or hide my face?  Or… something?”

“You’re…”  Obi-Wan’s mind, previously struggling with far too many chaotic, rapid-fire thoughts, suddenly can’t seem to conjure a single one of them.  “You’re… serious?”

“It’s not a big deal—” you quickly tell him, “—either way, we don’t have to make it a big deal.  I mean, I wouldn’t want it to be… It doesn’t have to be… terrible for you, or anything.”

Maker, is that what you think?  That this isn’t a ‘big deal’?  He stares at you, the word you used resonating with him.  Terrible.  On one hand, of course it’s terrible—the whole thing is terrible, it’s something out of an ancient Jedi parable he was told as a youngling, about the sins of passion leading to the Dark Side.  On the other hand, he knows you can’t possibly mean it like that, and… you’re somehow managing to interpret this conflict all wrong.  Asking him if he needs you to hide your face?

He eventually shakes his head just slightly.  “I… No.  No, young one, I will not…” he clears his throat, “I will not… require such a thing.”

Though neither of you say anything for quite a long time after that, the loud knock on the door still feels like it’s interrupting a crucial moment.

You quickly call that it’s open, and Obi-Wan turns his head to see the door swing forward and two s’Ziscari in thin black robes, standing in the hallway.  A man and a woman.

His heart suddenly thunders against his ribcage and he scrambles to remember the hour.  It can’t be midnight yet, no, he needs more time—

The male s’Ziscari says something in his native tongue, and the woman calmly translates to Basic.  “Her Majesty the Queen formally requests your presence in the great hall for dinner and the start of the festivities.”

“Respectfully,” you nod at the guard while Obi-Wan struggles to regain himself, “if it pleases her Majesty, Master Kenobi and I would prefer to eat in our quarters tonight, as we are still discussing the nature of our potential involvement in the festivities.”

The woman repeats back your polite and much appreciated response to the guard, and he looks between you two, before clearing his throat and saying something that sounds remarkably similar to his first sentence.  The translator turns back to you both.  “Her Majesty formally and… firmly requests your presence in the great hall for dinner and the start of the festivities.”

When you don’t respond, Obi-Wan suddenly realizes you’re waiting for him to speak.

“Very well,” he eventually sighs, reminding himself that you both are still guests on this planet.  “We shall be there momentarily.”

Regardless of the language barrier, the guard appears to understand the sentiment of his response through the Force, not needing a translation.  He says something and then turns to leave as the woman walks into the room, revealing a black bundle of fabric from behind her back to drape along one of the side tables.  “Zashir is currently placing your ceremonial robes in your quarters, General Kenobi.  If there will be nothing else?”

Maker, his what?  Obi-Wan’s pulse stutters.  “I’m sure that—that won’t be necessary, my lady—”

“It will be,” she nods shortly.  “If there will be nothing else.”

And then she spins around and walks out without bothering to wait for an answer.  You blink at the closed door as Obi-Wan drops his head and pinches the bridge of his nose once more, so far beyond stressed concerning how tragically the events of this cursed mission are unfolding that he almost wants to laugh.

“Something tells me the s’Ziscari don’t like the Jedi too much,” you offer after a moment of silence.

“Nonsense,” he counters, lifting his head and sighing helplessly, apparently reverting to sarcasm when everything else he knows is all but ripped away from him.  “Wherever could you have gathered that?”

Obi-Wan eventually moves to struggle up to his feet—struggle, being the key word, if only to maintain some essence of behavioral uniformity throughout these past  few hours—when he suddenly feels your hand on his elbow.

He glances down at you, your soft features and gentle eyes blinking up at him in his half-standing position next to you.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” you remind him quietly.  “Either way.  Not a big deal.”

It’s strange.  He knows your primary intent is to put his mind at ease, but everything you’ve been saying just seems… too disconnected.  Good people are dying as you speak—civilians, children, innocents, you both know this, and yet… 

Perhaps… perhaps Obi-Wan is simply just too emotional right now, too chaotic.  He’s certainly not being fair to you.  He realizes he’s responding negatively no matter how you’re attempting to go about reassuring him, and though he recognizes it, it’s more difficult than it’s ever been to reign in his mental state.

He clears his throat.  “The Queen has assured us that we are free to decline her offer and walk away at any time.  Her only stipulation is that we’ll have until midnight to… i-initiate the…”

Stars.  Initiate the what?  Is this a self-destruct sequence?  It may as well be, Obi-Wan thinks, but you nod your understanding and rise to your feet nonetheless, far more gracefully than he does.

“Well,” you sigh, walking over to the side table and pulling the black robe off of it, turning to face him and balling the silky fabric in your hands awkwardly.  “Uh.  I guess.  Fate of the galaxy awaits, and all.”

And then he sees you wince, your subtle call-back to the beginning of this mission landing flat and clearly not contrasting well with your previous assertion to him that this is no big deal, but… for some reason the mistake and subsequent display of self-consciousness makes Obi-Wan relax just marginally.  Even if you’re not necessarily panicking, at least you’re still clearly nervous, and that fact alone is more reassuring than anything anyone has said to him since this disaster first started.

“Yes,” he murmurs with a companionable, albeit hesitant smile, patting your shoulder just once before moving to leave.  “The… the fate of the galaxy.”

Stars.  He’s… well.

Fucked, isn’t he?

[undercoverxs]

mik09to oh man, i swear, it's like you hopped out of my brain and brought out all the stuff ive been rambling and mulling over to my friend for the past week! it's so cool to see folks with similar thoughts and observations like this, from the imeeji thing to the potential of there being more than just one alter in his system! :D

mik09to also no worries at all, sorry for the confusion! you got the orekoto thing completely correct - my bad for not clarifying!

mik09to would love to know when you think his eyes feel fake, since im super curious on other takes on it 👁 im chewing on the possibility of a third too, since im conflicted between "its just mikoto and orekoto and im overthinking the duality motif" vs "the duality motif is a red herring and meant to make you think theres only 2"; lots of thoughts on this, but im definitely rambling enough as is. sorry for blowing up your notifs!

(( no I’m so happy to be indulged!! I’ve been able to talk with friends about it too, but I feel that it’s s o nice to find people outside the bubble with these thoughts!!

And man y e ah, the duality thing seems....... I don’t know how to take it. From my understandings, it seems way more common to have far more than two in a system. But from a writer’s perspective, especially with such limited screentime, I couldn’t blame them for keeping it minimal, especially if they’re trying to be true to life in other aspects. So the duality aesthetics, calling the next song “Double,” like... are you trying to mislead us or really just doing two......... Or, could... Mikoto and Orekoto be trying to get our attention off the third..?

I have.......... way too many thoughts on the possibilities with this song. I’ll go under readmore to feel a little cleaner

So, my idea of three first came from reading the song as though everyone in the system has a section to themselves. Operating on that, I wanted to separate them by music style--

First comes the heavy metal style, and we watch the murder. Keeping in mind the voice drama, and going with the idea that “Mikoto” is the murderer, this calls the desire to link this style of music to him.

But then we get this music, and we get the pleas to look at him more closely, and just... this doesn’t really match the vibe Orekoto gave off, yknow? But, maybe it’s just an act, by him or mikoto. But-- who exactly would this act be for? And how? With every other prisoner, even if they try to put on airs, it feels more like it’s because they themselves buy into those airs, at least a little. It still reflects something genuine in them. With the nature of extractions, it doesn’t seem like it should be possible, for the songs themselves to purposefully look es/the audience in the eye and say “No, no, that isn’t true.”

I've thought about the possibility that this is still Mikoto, though-- and rather than pleading to reconsider that he’s a killer, the possibility came up that he could be.. unaware that he’s part of a system? And begging “It must be a mistake, take a good look at me”, could instead be denial to that fact? Maybe, it’s on the table for me.

Bu t back to the three person theory-- uhhh I’ll refer to this one as ‘Aokoto’ :>

So. Whoever this is, we don’t get to see their eyes the first time this scene comes up, besides the first time they open them. Hard to read from that. But sort of plays into the added theory at the end of this post--

The second time it goes back to this motif-- my girlfriend jus t pointed this out like last night I love her It follows the mirror scene, and there’s...

One-- who’s in the mirror

Two-- who’s head bows

Three...?

The one in the mirror changed expressions far too quickly, and the one closer to us isn’t making that expression; if it were his reflection, his thumb should be reflected too..?

We come back to blue, and he falls back-- This look of horror feels genuine. Again, maybe it could be Mikoto, simply unaware and being confronted with his DID-- Or could be Aokoto, being confronted with everything.

As the water goes red, if we assume it’s blood/representation of the murder, then.... Well, if Mikoto killed someone, and Orekoto was cleaning up the mess, then they both would be pretty well aware, right? So what’s this expression for?

We cut to him in the bath, washing off the blood. An air around him that reads more like Orekoto to me, but I digress-- We go back to blue.

And here.

These eyes feel fake.

I don’t know what exactly it is about it-- his eyes, expression, movement, but here, all I can read as genuine about him is desperation, to sweep it all under the rug, to convince. Maybe it’s Aokoto trying to convince himself. Maybe it’s Mikoto or Orekoto trying to convince you.

Personally, I feel like it’s Mikoto now, but that’s just personal vibes. I think Mikoto puts on the act, loosely mimicking Aokoto’s sweeter presence

then drops it, issuing a sort of warning,

and Orekoto comes in at the very end, telling us that we’re done now.

.

.

.

Maybe. I don’t know. I wish I knew a single thing about tarot cuz that might help.

But, my friends and I have been toying with the idea that Aokoto may have split off right after the murder-- An alter that’s meant to carry no stress at all, giving the body a few moments to just relax... Maybe? but that part’s not based on anything besides. there’s probably a lot of stress wrapped up in this boy.

-- Ah, I’m also leaning toward the idea that it was Aokoto who spoke for the first part of their interrogation with Es-- There could have been an act there too of course, but at times he just sounded... too genuinely confused, scared? It makes one wonder.

[turniparts]

I think people who actually believe this only do because "dess/carol knight is TOO OBVIOUS!!! Toby Fox doesn't do obvious plot twists!!!1!!1!" But they have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Toby writes. He's not someone who will make a character who, by all means, CANNOT be the knight actually be the knight just because it would make an unpredictable twist. Most casual players don't even know much about Dess, and Carol is still a valid candidate as well. It's not "obvious", it's good writing and foreshadowing. It'll still be a reveal because there are 2 main candidates.

Also, if people wanna say Toby doesn't do obvious "plot twists", may I point you to the old man, who most players will recognize as Gerson immediately. It's still a plot twist because you're not entirely sure what's going on, and Susie sure as hell doesn't know what's going on. It's more of a twist/reveal for the characters, not us.

Even in undertale, yeah, us naming the first fallen child rather than Frisk is a plot twist. But it's one that, upon learning this, makes complete sense, and is foreshadowed throughout the entire game. Why do none of the characters call us our name the whole time? Why does the death screen voice sound like nobody we've heard yet, and why are they the only one to say our name? How would there be a coffin with our name on it already made before we even meet Asgore?

TLDR: No, Dess/carol knight being "obvious" does not make it unlikely to be true. Even if it's not one of them(which I HIGHLY doubt will be the case), Rudy knight would uproot his entire character and make it seem like he was faking being ill and causing distress to his daughter for no reason. Only bad writers purposefully mislead people like that for shock value, and Toby Fox is not a bad writer.

...wait is rudy knight an actual theory? i thought it was just a joke...