ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--
But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.
And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.
That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.
Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.
And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"
So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.
Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.
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4 Easy Steps to make Harol more... Harol
Step 1) Make him look less neat. For example, have his hair look less poofy. Seriously, he looks like he just stepped out of a hair salon!!
Step 2) Make him nerdier. Glasses would do, for the sake of the experiment. He's supposed to be a scientist, let him look like one!!
Step 3) Give him SOME mark of violence. He's just been through a war, at the very least give him a scar! He's a murderous, blood thirsty menace on the inside, let some of his appearance reflect that!!
Step 4) Make him look stressed. The manhwa Harol looks relaxed as hell and it freaks me out. This is a guy who should be extremely suspicious of Cale. No way he'd look like a freaking professional butler ready to recieve a guest in a mansion.
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I don’t think the Rat Grinders are irredeemable or whatever but I DO think a lot of people are putting the onus on Brennan specifically to redeem them or “write them a redemption arc”, like yes it is a show and there has to be character narratives especially for foils to your PCs, but ttrpgs are fundamentally a /collaborative/ storytelling medium, the thing about DnD is that the players have to invest in the NPCs, they have to give them the time and space to redeem themselves through interacting with them, the reason we see characters like Aelwyn and Ragh get a redemption arc & change and develop is because the Bad Kids went out of their way to talk to them (In Aelwyn’s case Adaine had to commit to redeeming her sister on multiple occaisions). Lets not forget there have been other teen villains, like Penelope, Dayne and Biz who the Bad Kids just straight up killed in combat, who didn’t get redeemed. Do I think it’s fully possible that the Rat Grinders can experience redemption/forgiveness and it would be narratively satisfying? Absolutely! But, imo, a lot of the narrative thrust behind wether a character gets redemption is in the hands of the players, and it would be a little bit unsatisfying if being freed from their rage crystals immediately gave them all full personality transplants (like removing all of Kipperlily’s anger and ambition for example)
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***Loki Season 2 E1 and E5 Spoilers***
Some empirical evidence for the "who" Loki was Time Slipping to...
Episode 1 Loki is kicked through the time door and he Time Slips the following number of times to:
Casey: 1
Mobius: 6
B-15: 3 (she is with Mobius every time)
OB: 2
Self: 1 (Sylvie is there too in the future where Loki prunes himself)
Also note Loki Time Slips away from Mobius 2 more times, but we don't know where he goes because the camera stays on Mobius (mural room and elevator). These away slips occur as they are trying to figure out what Time Slipping is.
Episode 5 The Loom overloads and Loki is left alone at the TVA, then he Time Slips to:
Self: 1
Casey: 1
McDonalds: 1 but we don't see Sylvie
Mobius: 4 (One of these is the very first Time Slip after OB tells Loki he slips because of the "why" or Loki's "purpose")
B-15: 1
OB: 1
Also, 1 almost time slip at McDonalds away from Sylvie before the bar scene.
1 last time slip back to the whole gang after the spaghetti scene.
Posting this as confirmation bias probably. I'm rooting for that old man.
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do you have any iterator ocs of your own?
yes! maybe too many
assuming i haven't forgotten anyone, i have 11 iterator ocs, plus a joke(?) one which could make it 12. they showed up one day and decided to never leave my brain
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