#Meta

[marzipanandminutiae]

pertinent to that "people will ship anything without a woman" post, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Crimson Peak M/M shipping is just weird to me

I mean, hey, the plot bunnies want what they want! I'm not thefanfic police!

but like

you watched a movie where the protagonist (a woman) has to uncover the murders committed by the villains (one of whom is a woman) against the ghosts in their house (all women) in large part because they got fucked up due to abuse by their parents (the only one we see onscreen is a woman) after being warned not to trust them by her mother (obviously a woman)

and your takeaway was "hehe these pretty men who interact onscreen for like five seconds total are definitely banging"

(or, frequently, "I will take this pretty man entirely out of his context and make him bang another pretty man from a completely different piece of media")

like it's just SUCH a woman-centered movie that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when people remove women from the equation entirely

[banrions]

#and THIS is why she reacts the way she does#when she finds out peeta was captured by the capitol#she loses it on Haymitch because how??#she can basically read his kind how could he have tricked her???#ultimate betrayal and it cost her everything#← is how she feels in that moment (via @shinynewmemories)

Re reading the original hunger games is so funny bcus katniss can literally read haymitch's mind like what. I'm dying of thirst but haymitch hasn't sent me water, that must mean that there's some nearby!! And one kiss is one pot of broth!! Like she even acknowledges that it's strange when she's like oh to peeta this would just be a pot of broth. Haymitch will give her one look and katniss knows immediately what he means and she's right every time

Meanwhile peeta is like your dress really suits you and you look nice :) and katniss is like he's trying to kill me

[edsrosetattoo]

This is the best idea in the history of film.

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

i am so delighted with Andor 2.10 "Make It Stop". It's like for the first time, this became the show I always wanted it to be for an entire episode. it's so good it has everything, the gorgeous clean visuals, the beautifully efficient dialogue, a return to a show-don't-tell approach to storytelling, spy shenanigans without hand-holding and overexplanation, genuinely brutal and morally reprehensible acts that are necessary but evil, actions that look like they make sense for an operative who has been in the trenches and actually knows what they are doing. And we finally get the two things that should have always been at the core of this premise:

the tragedy is in character consistency. You set a character up to be a certain way, you show how they got there, you make us sympathetic to why they are like that. Then you put them in a situation where we don't want them to react the way we know they are going to. And then they do anyway. And it's a win! It's a win for the cause! But also we're so heartbroken for them!! It's so tragic! It's hopeful and sad and it feels so weighty and inevitable, this is what I wanted this show to feel like!

The greatest proof of love in a story where the spies and the zealots are the sympathetic protagonists should be this. It should be "I will choose the Rebellion over you, because I know that's what you would have wanted, and I will regret that choice for the rest of my life but I'll know that you would have never forgiven me if I had chosen you instead"

And the thing is, this should have been Cassian and Draven. This is exactly the dynamic that was implied between Cassian and Draven in the retconned canon - this is how you do the "abduct a child for their safety" storyline!!! Luthen (and, between the lines of the Fest backstory, Draven) grab a feral, hypercompetent child out of the jaws of Imperial crackdowns knowing they're saving their life but in full awareness that the life they are giving this child will not be a good one. And they are both the kind of man who would look that fact in the eye and who would come to love that child and put them through it anyway. For The Cause. This is the story I always wanted to see and honestly, right now I'm not even mad we're getting it with different characters, I'm just sad there wasn't more of it. But this was perfect.

[jyndor2]

I'm sorry, I do not want to be condescending or disrespectful to people who were more casual fans of rogue one, but it does not escape my notice that the initial response to this show before it aired was mostly "who asked for this???" so for those people, people who did not care a lick about cassian before the show, yeah of course they did not come in with expectations about who he is or the things he has to be and do in order to fit with a film that they don't really care much about.

for many of us who HAVE cared, who WERE ride or die for a cassian show from the moment it was announced, this has been an exercise in frustration and frankly even hurt. so when I say what I am about to say, it isn't because I think we are the only people whose opinions matter. but I am tired of being told since s1 aired that I just don't get what tony gilroy is trying to do, or that I am just a petty shipper, or that I lack media literacy which LMFAO. and I am also aware that my love of this character and the film has absolutely colored my feelings about the show - which I think is probably a better watch for people who did not come into the show knowing or caring about cassian andor as a character.

I understand what gilroy was trying to do. I think he was very successful with s1 even if I didn't like the choices he made for cassian's backstory. but s2 is a different story, and I think the show failed to deliver on what was setup by the first season but more importantly by the film. rogue one is about love - same as andor. the different kinds of love that exist between people, that people have for their communities and for all living beings. the idea of a revolution, to rogue one/andor, is beyond just hating the oppressor - but loving the oppressed, and having a clear understanding of what is to be done to build a brighter future.

this is why the relationship between jyn and cassian in rogue one is the HEART of the film. full stop. whatever the end result (which is of course what matters the most) this was a central part of the story very early on in development of the film, and it also is present in so many of the supplemental works - including in official art, in comics, and of course the novelization.

basically at one point in development, the character who ends up cassian andor is an isb spy who is in a relationship with rebel soldier jyn erso, and only when he sees what happens at jedha (probably jedha, may have been called something else at that point but i don't remember, this is all off the top of my head) does he become a true rebel. at another point, the film ends with jyn and cassian escaping scarif, and then there is a wedding, presumably theirs in the future. of course this ends up getting scrapped because lucasfilm lets the writers kill off everyone at the end, but that doesn't mean that jyn and cassian do not have a romantic element to their relationship.

jyn and cassian are loosely named after the original legends characters who get the death star plans - jan ors and kyle katarn, who are romantically involved.

multiple people involved in the film have said there is probably a kiss that was filmed in the elevator. diego luna was always VERY clear even through andor s1 press that jyn erso was at the very least extremely important to cassian (and back in the day he even said they'd be together and selling fridges lmfao), was his mirror and someone that he felt a serious connection with. diego and felicity clearly played their dynamic as romantic, even if nothing ever happened between their characters because they did not have the time.

the novelization by alexander freed is FULL of clear romantic subtext and outright text especially from cassian's pov. absolutely none of this makes it canon that they WOULD have gotten together had they lived, but it does show an intention that existed for almost as long as the characters did in development - that jyn and cassian's story is a love story, and that it is a love story that ends before it can really begin. that is the tragedy of rogue one - these are people who finally find their home (all of them, not just jyn and cassian, in the cause) and they have to die to save that home. and also it is their home because they WOULD die for it - for the rebellion.

though rebelcaptain has one of the most intimate scenes i have ever seen in star wars (the elevator scene) it is not physically intimate. so to many people that means it's not romantic. which is a shame because it's such a beautiful moment of emotional vulnerability, where these two people finally have a quiet place to just be together, to let all their walls down and belong, but since people are fucking idiots now they think cassian is wishing jyn was ANYONE else lmfao

but that doesn't change the reality of how beloved rebelcaptain is. rebelcaptain immediately inspired so much from the fans - for a mf ship to get as much love as it does to this day is a real testament to how much it is loved by fans. over 5k fanfics on ao3 for a niche non-explicitly canon mf ship is wild. it's the 7th most written about ship on ao3 for all of star wars media. again, for a ship in ONE movie.

of course, a prequel was never going to make jyn and cassian's relationship canon before they even meet. still it is a core part of rogue one and as such I would expect it to haunt the narrative of andor, which it does to some extent, especially in the first season but also in the second. this is not my issue with the show at all because again i understand where they are going with it.

my frustrations with the show are not about cassian having a committed relationship with someone else either. arguably that could have done a lot to move his character to the man who we see in rogue one - and to me it didn't all that well imo because the show doesn't treat cassian andor as if he is an established character with established motivations that we have known for almost TEN years.

my problem is that the show spends more time and energy building up a wonderful ensemble and doing pretty great plot for THEM than it does building cassian into the man we see in rogue one. it wastes too much time in s2 doing a whole lot of nothing, actual nothing, when it needs to be GIVING us what we need. not just what we want. meaning, if you are going to make the case that cassian is talking out of his ass on eadu, you better make that case well - or it won't fucking work.

SHOW us your work, gilroy. don't just tell the audience that cassian is suddenly a great leader, we need to SEE IT. i believe he is but the show does not give any real evidence for it.

it's storytelling 101 - show, don't tell. and considering this is CASSIAN'S backstory, it's a cardinal sin for so much of the development of cassian's core motivations in rogue one to be afterthoughts told to us offhandedly.

an egregious example of this is his relationship with bix.

in a single film, we see more evidence as to why cassian and jyn are so well suited to one another - be it as partners in the rebellion, as friends and/or as potential lovers - than we see of cassian and bix in the entire show. i do not say this to disrespect bixcass shippers, you do you boo, but because honestly I believe this is part of a fundamental problem with andor.

because I actually think the intention of the show is to make that point to us - that bix and cassian are NOT well suited to one another, that they may each be someone that the other WANTS to love, but they are not who they NEED. but I don't think the show gives this the time and attention it deserves.

we are told that bix and cassian are exes in s1, and we see that they broke up because of various incompatibilities - cassian running off and being inconsistent, cassian prioritizing his own needs and wants over bix's, cassian not being open to emotional vulnerability, bix wanting a normal life with a normal guy, etc. no matter how clear it was to me that they had unresolved emotions between them, it was also clear that one of them was always going to hold the other back.

s1 has the room to breathe but also isn't trying to overcome these issues. that is why their friendship, their dynamic, in s1 works on multiple levels - even if I do not ship them - because the show isn't trying to push aside their issues in s1. the first season sets up multiple paths: one that is two first loves who romantically reconnect after a period of personal growth, and one that is two first loves who find that they are better off as friends because their incompatibilities would not be sustainable under the weight of building a revolution. both of which, in order to line up properly with rogue one, would have to end in great tragedy of some sort. not necessarily fridging, but a separation or complete severing of ties because their GOALS ARE NOT THE SAME. not necessarily their goals for the rebellion, although the show does make that clear, but their PERSONAL goals.

it seems as though the show understands this too. the problem comes down to s2 not having the time to explore some very important foundational parts of this supposedly central relationship - or the interest in doing so either.

we do not see them reconnect, which is whack. so not only do we not see how their first teen romance worked (we are just told about cassian sneaking into bix's room lmao) but we also do not see how they fall back in love. because I'm sorry, love is a choice. love is an active thing we must work for. it is not easy, especially in conflict. we see how not easy it is between them once they have already committed to each other, but we do not see WHY they made the choice to rebuild their relationship with one another again, or HOW.

yes, cassian saves bix at the end of s1. okay? bix is deeply traumatized, and we never really see her deal with it. no, the girlboss 2015 era bad bitch coruscant blowout does not count. we also do not see cassian deal with literally any of his traumas either, but we don't see him deal with much.

it seems as though they get back together because they feel like they SHOULD - okay, well then show us WHY. this is supposed to be the heart of the show, right? well show me why that heart beats.

because what I see is cassian and bix fighting, being unwilling to let the other make choices for themselves (bix especially but cassian is guilty of this too) and bix basically reverting to a version of herself we never see in s1, which is a docile, tea-making housewife. cool cool but WHY?? where has it ever been established that bix caleen wants to be a homemaker? that CASSIAN wants that in a partner??

in fact, in the first fucking episode of s1, cassian EXPLICITLY mocks timm for picking a woman who is unruly and rebellious. that moment establishes that cassian understands bix will never be passive, it is not in her nature, and that he doesn't WANT her to be. he thinks timm is a bad match for her because of timm's own preferences for a partner being kind of incompatible with who cassian understands bix to be.

and yet - am I supposed to believe that bix's traumas have changed that core part of her? that a woman who chooses the rebellion is content with not doing ANYTHING? with tea making???

not only is this strike three for tony gilroy passifying a rebellious woman in some way for another character's story (jyn erso, cinta kaz and now bix caleen) it is also totally hard for me to buy because it's not even EXPLORED.

WHY does bix spend her time doing very little (except of course all the stuff she does earlier on offscreen apparently)??? WHY is the rebellion not utilizing her very important skillset (comms and mechanics) when the same revolutions that gilroy has clearly studied so much for this story would have made her very, very useful?

as I said earlier, I think the show makes a decent case for why they ultimately are incompatible. in the end, it comes down to a lack of trust that the other will do the right thing. bix leaves cassian (when she is pregnant; clearly the baby is meant to be cassian's) to go back to the place where she was sexually assaulted for Reasons because she is "choosing the rebellion" but what she is really choosing is to raise a child that cassian would probably want to know about without him even being aware of their existence.

what she is choosing is to not distract cassian from ~his destiny~ which lmao okay sure whatever but GIRLFRIEND you should not have to make that choice. you should trust that he is committed to this ideal you believe so strongly in that you are willing to leave everything behind for good.

because the truth is that yes, bix says that she'll find him someday, and yes, cassian thinks he'd like to find her someday too, but the truth is that this is a betrayal. this is a partner not only forcing the hand of someone they love for an ideal they both supposedly believe in, but also taking away the choice of the partner to have any say in whether or not he has a relationship with a baby that he helped create lmfao. of course a woman has no obligation to involve the genetic father in a baby's life but it's clear that we are supposed to think this is an act of love on bix's part, but... i'm sorry, bix seems to understand (like cassian) that there really is no likely future for their relationship. so if anything, it is selfish. okay. cool, then why is the final scene shot in a way that makes it look sweet and hopeful??? lmfao it looks insane because it IS an insane thing for a person to do.

and am I supposed to believe that cassian and bix would be having unprotected sex during a war???? with their traumas of losing their parents young????? sorry its always been a no for me with rebelcaptain and its a no period.

cassian, who has had his choices taken from him all his life, has this choice taken too - and fuck no I do not get with that, especially not when bix was not forced to do any of this. she CHOSE to leave cassian at his most vulnerable, after witnessing a genocide, something he himself is a survivor of, in order to keep him in the rebellion? girl bye

cassian is overprotective of her to a fault, and it gets them into fights. after her girlboss moment does she even do anything for the rebellion besides "choose" the rebellion for cassian? i literally do not remember a second of her doing anything besides pouring tea and yapping.

so we do not see her recover from her traumas, but we are to assume that she's better now because she tortured her torturer. okay cool, that COULD have been an interesting way to show the audience that revenge does not heal, and certainly not using the pain and suffering of oppressed children to do so will not heal. this could have played into cassian telling jyn to leave krennic at the end of the film, juxtaposing the way he led bix to harming herself further with the way that he asked jyn to spend their last moments together, free from the taint of an easy kill when he knew it was likely krennic wasn't gonna make it.

nope instead we get absolutely nothing. bix suddenly seems okay! great, cool but how did she go from drug addled and struggling with ptsd to beautiful sexy housewife who just so happens to never do anything with any of her skills again from that point?

and that does not serve cassian's story at all. it doesn't even serve her own.

one thing the show does well for her is how it handle's bix's assault. but again, this is how tony gilroy radicalizes bix, as if being tortured by the audio of oppressed murdered children is not enough. there's another avenue for her radicalization: in the first episode, timm mentions a wobani job. meaning bix and timm are working with the prisons (aka labor camps aka concentration camps) for her business. okay well imagine what it would be like to realize that you've been directly profiting off of a system that your friend/lover was enslaved by???

bix as an undocumented woman of course IS of course at risk, and it isn't wrong to show us what that means. the show does make a point of exposing how at risk marginalized women are - from kerri possibly being at the brothel to the way the imperials speak about the dhani women to bix's assault, it's a part of the story and i have no problem with it.

but the purpose was to radicalize her. and what is the purpose in radicalizing bix? to force cassian into serving the rebellion.

even though by then, cassian should be BEYOND committed.

and it's not even something he gets to confront, not really. while it seems to me that they both know their relationship is done for good, while the show seems to recognize that bix was out of pocket for that, why then the image of bix with baby??? why make it seem like she did something good for cassian?

i know, i know. legacy. but i'm sorry that's a legacy that cassian has no ties to but blood. and that's just genetics. not relation, not choice, not family. not necessarily.

it would have made far more sense to show a scene of what cassian was running TO - maybe to jyn, which would have made sense given the shot of saw, but also maybe to bodhi and galen, maybe to anything but what who left him behind and what he was always supposed to LEAVE behind in order for the show to stick the landing.

[nyxelestia]

I 1000% agree with the spirit of the post, but want to clarify some semantics for either OP and/or other readers on the site: Denotationally, both sexism and misogyny are about the systemic treatment of people on the basis of sex and/or gender. Connotationally, sexism is the broader umbrella that only implies a systemic mistreatment, ignorance, prejudice, or bias, with no inherent indication of intent. Conversely, misogyny is specifically those things built or directed to enable violence or exploitation. I don't think Dr. Robby is misogynistic *at all*. I don't think he is "a sexist" in that I don't believe he is someone who consciously believes in any of the myths about gender that create systemic inequalities. However, he is still someone raised on and heavily influenced by sexism, even if most of it is subconscious. The distinction goes back to intent. He is someone open to always learning; once Dr. McKay points out that he prioritized the well-being of a single boy over a literal list of girls, he realized he was wrong and owned up to that. When his biases are pointed out to him, he makes the effort to change his mind and his behavior. (And he's not the only one; Dr. McKay herself did the same when her own subconscious fatphobia was pointed out to her.) I think that open-mindedness is a crucial part of understanding these characters and the show itself, and is an underrated part of the show. Even those with the best of intentions will not be free from bias, because we were all raised with those prejudices and biases in our environment, and even if we have some issues on which we are very well education and for which we are vigilant, there will be other issues which we just are not as educated and vigilant about. Everyone has their blind spots. The thing this show does so well is to show that being a good doctor and good person isn't about not having blind spots, but in being willing to acknowledge those blind spots, own up to one's mistakes, and learn more to do better in the future.

The realism of Robby being a little bit of an unintentional misogynist is so, so important to me. Like he is a good boss and a great teacher, he is friends with women and works with women and teaches women and respects women greatly. And yet—it’s Langdon, and then Whitaker, who Robby adopts as his mentees. It’s David, not the girls on the kill list, who Robby prioritizes care for. It’s the dad accused of grooming his daughter who Robby refuses to report, while informing the authorities about the mother drugging him without a second thought. He reams Langdon out for berating Santos, but doesn’t check in on Santos until Langdon refuses to let it go and Robby becomes suspicious of there being an actual problem.

And obviously we are seeing Robby on the worst day of life, and maybe even calling him a “little bit of a misogynist” is a bit too much because he’s not, really. But he does have ingrained biases and he does seem to only be able to fully see himself in and completely empathize with other men. And that is just. So true of even the nicest, kindest, most wonderful and feminist men I know.

[dalishious]

This is an excerpt from my work-in-progress large meta examination on thet qunari from DAO through to DATV. But since that is taking a long time, I thought it might be worth it to post this piece alone now, since it works on its own as well.

-----

The Qunari Design

In Dragon Age: Origins (DAO) the qunari all had the same brown metallic skin. This is because the developers only bothered to make one skin tint for the use of Sten, the qunari companion. They gave this skin tint to every other qunari NPC as well. This is also why there is only the one hairstyle that Sten uses for qunari, with the few NPCs either being bald or using his same hair. Essentially, Sten was the blueprint for all qunari, originally.

No qunari have horns in DAO like they do in the rest of the franchise. According to developer David Gaider, the qunari were always meant to have horns, but did not in DAO because it would have meant Sten couldn’t wear a helmet. This led to the lore decision that some qunari are born hornless as a rare genetic quirk, to account for the later change in design.

Dragon Age II (DA2) saw a drastic change in how the qunari look. Unlike the elves, humans, and dwarves in DA2, the qunari do not use head morphs allowing for individual designs; they have standardized creature models. (The only exception in the base game is the Arishok, who has his own special model.) The qunari moved from having Sten’s brown skin to grey metallic skin, their eye sclera was changed to black, and they were given the horns the developers originally wanted.

It is a well-known fact that DA2 was under immense development restrictions that led to all kinds of cut corners. However, it is worth pointing out the negative impact of choosing an entire race’s design functionality as one of those cut corners. The qunari in DA2 are, for the most part, treated like nothing but unthinking monsters for Hawke to squish, no different than giant spiders or darkspawn. Making them all look the same adds to this effect; they are stripped of any sense of personable traits.

A medium between DAO and DA2 was reached in Dragon Age: Inquisition (DAI), through introducing the player’s ability to make a qunari protagonist. DAI allows the player to choose between few brownish and a few greyish skin colours for their qunari character. The black sclera was changed to white again, as the qunari use the same eye texture and colouring functionality as all the other races. The character creation works just the same for qunari as it does for any other race, allowing for individual appearances left to the player’s imagination. However, as far as NPCs go, there are no qunari in the base game of DAI, making Iron Bull as a companion the only qunari presence until the Trespasser DLC. This does not leave much room to judge the appearance of other qunari characters.

DATV is just like DAI in its character creation capabilities, with the one expansion being the player can make their character have black sclera like in DA2 if they so choose. For all DATV’s faults with the qunari, at least we can say that the character creation is great. Taash and their mother Shathann also have lovely, unique designs. Where things become uncomfortable with the qunari designs… is in the Reavers.

It is established lore from the previous franchise installments that Reavers gain their special powers through drinking draconic blood, though these Antaam Reavers have been altered by Ghilan’nain. My personal assumption is that blighted dragon blood was used. Regardless of how these Reavers came to be, they are unprecedented, horrific monsters, and it is only ever qunari that we see subjected to this kind of disfigurement. This really doubles down on turning them into standardised monsters like in DA2.

Going through all these qunari design changes can make a player’s head spin. But I believe it is an important, visual example of an overarching theme with the qunari: the developers have never really cemented what they want them to be. The writing throughout the years suggests the same.

-----

Stay tuned for the full piece sometime in the future, where I will get into the writing!

[probablybadrpgideas]

Making your game more engaging, deep and exciting by leaving and having another, better GM take over.

[freadomrises]

THIS. I've always wondered about the implications of a Pinocchio

Gravity isn’t even being affected by extra dimensions. This comic is so fake. 

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

Thinking about Cassian in the hangar, deferential and respectful, standing a solid 2-3 metres away from Jyn who was just belittled and dismissed and is expecting him to heap on. And saying, fuck what my bosses all agreed on. "I believe you." And how much weight that has, because he was a good soldier who followed orders even when they meant getting innocent blood on his own hands. And yet faced with this choice that seems comparatively reasonable, that seems like an order that would be a relief compared to most of his previous ones - an order that is protecting the existing rebels, that was presented as preventing needless bloodshed, all at the small cost of telling one young woman who isn't even part of their group "sorry, you clearly believe this very strongly and it clearly took you a lot to bring this to us, but we are choosing not to believe you" - he says, no. He decides that believing this one woman is worth going rogue for just as much as every justified, terrible act before that would have been worth going rogue to prevent.

Thinking about how much that meant to me when I saw it at age 20, in ways I couldn't even explain until a few months later, when for the first time in my lifetime, believing women became a thing people talked about.

Thinking about a man getting the job to make a prequel for this movie years down the line, and setting out to make the show progressive and political. Thinking about that man not seeing a problem in taking Cassian's deliberately, desperately blind following of rules until this exact point away from the story. Thinking about how this likely wasn't a malicious choice. How, to the show writers, this scene was just a bunch of people talking in a hangar, this was just the lead-up to a cooler more interesting action sequence. Thinking about how clearly, something about the way Cassian was so deferential for most of the movie, deferential in the same way towards his powerful male commanding officer and towards this woman he didn't know but chose to believe and follow into hell, rankled with these writers. Not enough so they'd criticise it outright, maybe not even enough that they noticed it bothered them. But enough to change it.

Thinking about that.

[probablybadrpgideas]

Roll to blink.

Real time.

Start suffering vision penalties if you forget.

[inafieldofstarflowers]

Obviously the first chapter of The Foxhole Court lays the groundwork/provides background for a lot of parts of the series (Exy, the Foxes, who Andrew is, hints at Neil’s past, etc.), but I think one of the most important (& honestly masterful) things Nora does in it is establish the relationship between Neil, Exy, and Kevin.

When we meet Neil, he’s literally on the bleachers in pain from watching the Exy court be turned back into a soccer field, because that’s basically a crime to him. While yes, this is a funny comment because it’s so deeply dramatic, the following explanation that it’s the one thing Neil has never been able to let go of through all of the identities he’s held makes it clear that Exy is something more to Neil than just a game; rather, it’s a symbol of his lost childhood, of the way things might have been if he and his mother hadn’t run. Still, Neil is torn about the idea of pursuing Exy, because his love for it is warring with his mom’s instructions not to play again in order to remain safe and under the radar.

Enter David Wymack with a contract—or, really, Kevin Day with a contract.

Even Wymack says that Kevin is the one signing Neil. Kevin, who Neil met once as a child, when they played a game of Exy together. Kevin, who has spent the years Neil has been on the run building his skills to become a star Exy player. Kevin, who has a career it is obvious Neil has followed closely.

At this point, Neil reaches two important conclusions:

He would be in danger of losing everything if Kevin remembered him, but he doesn’t seem to

The offer of a contract doesn’t matter, because Neil Josten isn’t real—no matter “how much he liked being Neil Josten”

And this is where (in my opinion) things get very interesting: as Neil thinks about the offer to play for the Foxes—& therefore with Kevin—he thinks that he doesn’t want to give up Exy because “It was the only thing that made him feel real,” and then follows this up with the thought that “[His] past was locked in Kevin’s memories. It was proof he existed, same as this game they both played. Kevin was proof Neil was real.”

Since Kevin was first mentioned, it has been in relation to his Exy career—his partnership with Riko, the broken hand that halted his career briefly, signing to the Foxes, the speculation about Andrew’s impact on that choice—because that is the thing about him that matters to Neil—or, perhaps more accurately, it’s the only thing Neil really knows about him. Neil’s concerns about Kevin remembering him are so loud that they can make it easy to overlook the fact that Kevin and Neil aren’t reunited childhood friends, they’re just people who essentially had a really fucked up playdate once.

The thing is, that day is the one with the biggest what-ifs for Neil, and as a result, Kevin is wrapped up in those what-ifs: for Neil, it’s become a question of if I had stayed, would I have reached stardom like Kevin has? Exy and Kevin, while not fully interchangeable, are certainly inextricably linked in Neil’s mind, and they are also both tied up in Neil’s dreams and regrets.

Why does this matter? Two main reasons: first, having this background shows us why Kevin is so important to Neil: no matter how much Neil doesn’t want to be Nathaniel anymore, Nathaniel was the one who was real. The only things at the start of the series that give Neil Josten that same feeling are playing Exy and Kevin Day.

Second, we are immediately shown that Neil’s perception of Kevin is not entirely trustworthy, because its foundation is one traumatic childhood event followed by a years-long parasocial relationship. And, while Neil certainly gets to know Kevin better as the series goes on and they actually start spending time together, there are many moments where Neil views Kevin through a lens that is too close to being “Kevin=star Exy player,” which results in him misinterpreting Kevin’s meaning (ie after Kevin learns who he is and Neil thinks he’s just concerned about their season even though Kevin’s telling him to run) or simply brushing over other parts of his personality (ie when he buys into the “Kevin only cares about Exy” idea some of the others have said). By making us aware of this early, Nora is preparing us to examine what Neil’s saying for bias by showing that he isn’t an entirely reliable narrator, and it’s done so well in just a few pages.

[angstandhappiness]

HEH, NICE

Did this quick doodle a few days ago, used it as value practice! :D

[juvinadelgreko]

The Lynch Family was a Cult.

The Lynch family was a single family cult. Niall Lynch was the cult leader. His children are cult survivors. Buckle up, because I’m about to pick this bitch apart like a pomegranate.

TW for discussion of Ronan’s canon suicide attempt, mentions of human trafficking, and child abuse.

This realization hit me the other day and I’ve been chewing on it since. Recently, I discovered the work of cult and extreme group scholar Daniella Mestyanek Young (on TikTok & Instagram as KnittingCultLady - I highly recommend her). She has made a wealth of videos discussing the cult of MAGA in the US and the mechanisms of manipulation and coercion used by cults and extreme groups. She has a list of criteria she uses to define a cult:

Charismatic Leadership & accompanying Skinny White Woman

Worldview shift that brings you under the Sacred Assumption

The Transcendent Mission

Self-sacrifice of members

Limited access to the outside world

Distinguishable vernacular

Us vs Them mentality

Exploits members' labor

High entrance/exit costs

Ends justify the means mentality

It's easier to see these traits in the cults we know of throughout history - Children of God (in which Young grew up), Jonestown, Branch Davidians, etc.

But she points out in one of her videos that cults aren't all large groups. They can be single family, or even one on one. Many abusive relationships fit the bill of one on one cults. Looking back on my life, I'm pretty sure I've been in relationships that would fit that bill.

Anyway: the Lynch family, as they're written in TRC & especially TD3, is a single family cult. Here's how they fit the criteria. 1. charismatic leadership & accompanying skinny white woman

According to Young, cults always form around charismatic chosen-one types. an ever present accessory is the skinny white or otherwise conventionally attractive, docile, and subservient woman.

niall’s charisma and good looks are discussed ad nauseam, how he could charm anyone into anything, how he passed his good looks on to his sons, etc. a charming, handsome rogue.

the skinny white woman is clearly present in aurora—pretty, docile, agreeable, aurora. that he dreamt up to replace his combative, unyielding first wife. he literally custom built himself a housewife. enough said.

2. worldview shift that brings you under the scared assumption

in typical cult leader fashion, niall builds a myth around himself: that when he was born, he broke the mold—so forcefully that it registered on the richter scale! he’s special.

he’s been telling his sons this story forever. hell, he ever has the newspaper clipping from his birthday confirming that there was an earthquake in northern ireland that day. from day one, they’re told this story about how their father is literally so special and powerful that the earth shook when he was born. how could anyone not line up behind that?

more importantly—as soon as his children become aware of their family’s dreaming abilities, they are told to keep them secret. this secrecy implies that they are separate from the rest of the world, hence: “you are made of dreams and this world is not for you.”

3. the transcendent mission

niall lynch is constantly leaving and returning with trinkets galore. he inserts himself, his wife, and his sons into old irish folktales to teach them lessons. he paints them as grand, fantastic heroes. when declan does this in cdth, ronan immediately shuts up and pays attention to him (“are you going to be quiet?”)

niall is a master at what i call the Divorced Dad Gambit ™️: every time you fuck up with your family, pull a rabbit out of your hat to make them forget about it. the bmw, declan’s moth, hell—the entire barns property!

the ability to pull things out of his dreams literally makes niall a god. and by never explaining the mechanics of that ability to his sons, he maintains his position on pedestal above them.

4. self-sacrifice of members

exhibit a: declan lynch’s entire life.

exhibit b: ronan suffering under the weight of an ability he didn’t understand because niall insisted he keep it a secret.

5. limited access to the outside world

exhibit c: the barns.

we’re told straight up in tdt that niall lynch only gave his sons three things: obscure irish music lessons, trust funds, and the ability to box.

the lynch brothers were not watching clifford the big red dog on saturday mornings. they were listening to niall yap. they were not playing tee-ball. they were being taught to box. ronan was never allowed to have sleepovers (for obvious reasons, but the point stands). all of their literary intake is filtered through their parents. even alice in wonderland is a selection of niall’s. which, by the way, definitely wasn’t an accidental selection. he wanted ronan to see himself as an intrepid traveler in his own dreams—not as their commander. niall is the only one who’s allowed to know how to command dreams.

again, they’re told ad nauseam to keep their father’s work and their dreaming a secret. they can’t share their true lives with anyone. this is why declan dates a series of nondescript ashleys. why ronan can only be friends with gansey, someone who also has their toes dipped in magic. even then, when his dreaming almost kills him, ronan would rather allow gansey to believe he’s attempted suicide (and hospitalize him as a result) than broach the pact of secrecy he made with his father, even after his father is dead. if that doesn’t scream cult to you…i don’t know what does. ronan is literally less afraid of the psych ward than he is of dishonoring his DEAD cult leader. like. i shouldn’t have to provide further evidence than that.

(semantics aside, that was a suicide attempt. ronan practically says it to gansey outright when they fight the night horror together at monmouth. he quotes seneca to gansey: “the sword is a never a killer, but a tool in the killer’s hand.” translation: i wasn’t entirely sure i wanted to live anymore. those impulses took root in my subconscious which in response created monsters designed to kill me).

6. distinguishable vernacular

i’ve pointed to this already, but most of niall’s communication with his sons existed in folktales and stories, metaphors and riddles. it’s not so much the words themselves, but how they’re delivered. see again, niall “breaking the mold so hard the ground shook” when he was born. niall as an earthquake. metaphors.

i think this quote ties up this point and the last one really well:

7. us vs them mentality

by isolating his sons from the outside world and instilling in them a sense of grandiosity, niall naturally sets them up for “us vs them.”

there’s declan, who’s been through so much shady shit with niall that he’s suspicious of everything with a pulse and is terrified to let ronan out of his or gansey’s sight for too long for the entirety of trc. declan, who recognizes bryde for what he is and tells ronan “not to chase” bryde.

there’s ronan the misanthrope, who despises school and most of his peers because he can’t relate to them. see: “fuck washington!” and “ANARCHY” and “litigation is a farce.”

(i also think some of this rooted in the fact that ronan is, like me, a neurodivergent person with way too much intelligence, emotion, and creativity for the conventional school system to handle, but this isn’t that essay).

that’s without mentioning the ecoterrorism bender. i think ronan’s unconscious manifestation of society-hating-tear-it-all-down-rah-rah bryde is actually one of the most compelling cases for ronan being a cult survivor because:

1. cult survivor ronan, without a proper understanding of what happened to him, is naturally going to look for another leader when the previous one dies.

2. the us vs them/transcendent mission/ends justify the means mentality is absolutely present in bryde as it was in niall. see again: “you are made of dreams and this world is not for you.”

8. exploits member’s labor

i mean. do we even need to go over this. niall used declan for pretty much his entire life as his assistant for all of his dealings in the fairy market. things no child should’ve been exposed to to begin with, but declan was never compensated in any way. niall always knew he could be murdered or otherwise disappeared for crossing the wrong person, but he didn’t care because he knew declan would clean up the mess.

he didn’t care about advertising his own son, the greywaren, as an object for sale—because he knew that even if he didn’t give ronan up, whatever the consequences of that were, declan would handle them. he made declan executor of his will, his brothers’ only keepers in the event of niall’s death. he forced declan to do the uncomfortable parental labor of protecting and raising his brothers after he went off and got himself whacked because he falsely advertised one of them for sale.

and, hello. offering a person for sale is trafficking, whether niall intended it to be or not. he either a) didn’t see ronan as human (which is supported by the fact that he was prepared to kill him and only declan’s humanity stopped him) or b) was fine with trafficking his son. either way, exploitation and dehumanization. he intended to sell ronan’s labor as the greywaren and pocket it for himself. and even if he never intended to give ronan up: he always expected declan to clean up the resulting mess.

9. high entrance/exit costs

i mean. look at ronan, matthew, and declan’s lives. look at their choices. they’re pretty screwed. look at mor. she was flawed, sure, but she recognized what she’d be giving up if she stayed with niall. she didn’t want to be his skinny white woman. she didn’t want to give up her autonomy to stay in his inner circle, so she left (honestly, you could probably make the argument for mor as her own kind of cult leader but again, essay for another time). the entrance costs were too high.

declan, ronan, and matthew were freed from niall, but at a ridiculously high exit cost. they can’t go home. they’re being hunted. they can’t live authentic lives. declan’s cooking at least 10 stress ulcers in his gut. ronan attempted suicide. matthew has an identity crisis. none of them have any clue how to form healthy relationships. they all nearly die numerous times. the list goes on.

10. ends justify the means mentality

there isn’t much to say here that i haven’t already said, except:

niall (and mor) was so allured by power that he dreamt a magical entity into being without consideration of the consequences. he then became so afraid of this creature’s power that he’s willing to kill it, to kill his own son, in his bed while he’s asleep. the fact that declan loving ronan stopped niall from killing him doesn’t necessarily mean niall gave a shit how declan felt. it means he knew declan being angry with him would be inconvenient. it also didn’t stop him from trying to get rid of ronan—niall couldn’t kill ronan, so the next best option became selling him.

it makes perfect sense: keep ronan dumb enough that he can’t use his power against you, fawn over him relentlessly so he never has a reason to hate you, and when the time comes, make a pretty penny selling him to the highest bidder. except you can’t get rid of him that way, because declan will hate you, so instead, you’ll scam the buyer and let him send a hit man to kill you, removing you from all culpability in the situation. which brings me to:

bonus round: the cult leader’s precipitation of their own apocalypse.

Young also frequently notes in her work that cult leaders often precipitate their own apocalypses (see: jonestown, branch davidians). they spend all this time building up to something, there has to be a grand finale! a transcendence! the end times!

and here’s my piece de resistance: i think niall wanted to be killed. he realized he’d backed himself into a corner with ronan and declan and the only way out was to die and dump all the consequences of his schemes on his sons. so what did he do? he tried to sell ronan, realized it wouldn’t work, so he scammed greenmantle knowing greenmantle would off him and move on to declan and ronan next.

it removes niall from all responsibility. his dreams will all fall asleep. declan will pick up the rest of the pieces. ronan will hopefully crash out. problem solved, neat little bow on top.

so what happens when the cult leader dies? a few things. the cult typically fractures, with some members gathering around a new leader. but it’s never the same.

case in point: when niall died, the lynch family cult fractured. aurora fell asleep. the barns was locked up. ronan had a mental breakdown. declan stepped up and tried to lead, but it didn’t matter because the cult was fractured. ronan wouldn’t get behind him because declan wanted to be a parent, and the only parent ronan wanted was niall.

it makes sense that it fractured along the lines of the brothers. they all had very different experiences. declan was outright abused and reacted accordingly—stepping up and attempting to clean up the mess. internalizing everything and accepting that he’s going to have to be bad cop, do the hard emotional labor.

ronan was manipulated—abuse trojan-horsed in fawning over the favorite son. it’s all he’s ever known. of course he’s going to look for someone else to please, to garner attention from. gansey. adam. bryde. fortunately for ronan, gansey and adam actually care about him, and adam actually respects him enough to hold him accountable for his own life. bryde is, as i said, a direct manifestation of the hole left in ronan’s emotional stability with both gansey and adam whisked away to the ivy league.

matthew is…matthew. because he was dreamt to be the perfect little brother, he’s never had a chance to be anything else. when he gets that chance…it’s a lot. of course he experiences some anger at his brothers for not telling the truth sooner.

in greywaren, ronan completes some of the cult survivor healing arc. he finds his own inner strength independent of another person or entity (“he had never once decided for himself” and then he does). he finds purpose and friendship and community with other dreamers. he begins to mend fences with his brothers.

but the last piece? the last piece is ronan accepting the fact that niall abused and exploited him and never, ever gave a damn about him. this would be very hard for ronan to accept, understandably. it would upend everything he thought he knew about himself and his childhood. but it’s a vital step, and i’ll always be a little disappointed we didn’t get to see it in greywaren.

it’s an inevitable confrontation, with mor and the new fenian lurking around the barns (ew) and declan sitting on a bag of memories. no one in this family has communication skills so there’s door slamming and silent treatments aplenty. it’s ugly but they get through it because they have to.

TLDR: the lynch family was a cult. niall lynch was their cult leader. declan, ronan, and matthew are all cult survivors who have a lot of healing to do. like a lot.

[snigepippi]

Having read the books twice and just seen the series once, I'm more and more sure that the reason Murderbot don't like Gurathin, is that they are too similar. At least on their negative traits.

Paranoia, a bit awkward with all the hippies, deeper hate to Coporation Rim than the others, hacking as a hobby, fiercely loyal. And now with visuals Gurathin dress similarly to what we know Murderbot usually chooses. Soft hood, trousers and dark colours.

When we meet people who are like ourselves, we either bond or get deeply annoyed.