#We do get into themes of autonomy and control and some of the things the clones realistically dealt with

[corellianhounds]

Thanks for The tag buddy!

(And soon I will answer it, 'cause I need to organize my ideas :)

But, The Clone Action Movie Pitch actually got me.

I'm all ears 👀

YESSSS I’m so happy, I was hoping somebody asked about this one! This idea came to me two weeks ago and I’m STOKED (And also I am defo ready to see what you have cooking 👏)

So basically the thought started with the beginning to a familiar action movie setup of a group of guys having to reunite after over a decade because somebody has been coming after the members of their former squad and killing them off one by one, and now they have to get back together for one last job to find out why and put a stop to it. Despite the fact I started writing this with the express purpose of using all sorts of action movie tropes for the formula, there’s still new and fun twists on how they happen because we’ve set it within the world of Star Wars. It’s a good old fashioned action movie, babyyyyy!

It’s also all original characters, which I know may not be some people’s thing, but it means that this is unconstrained by most of canon, in terms of timeline consistency or connections to other properties’ stories. I have plenty of canonical Star Wars elements, but I wanted this to be a case of “Hey do you like Star Wars and don’t want to do any homework to understand what’s happening? Do you like action movies? Come on in!”

—

Taking place ~16 years after the end of the Clone Wars, the story opens with fifteen-year-old Rio and his father living simply in a city on an Outer Rim planet. Most people didn’t know what the clones looked like beyond their armor, and that— along with its owners— was phased out a long time ago. Rio doesn’t know much about his father’s past beyond his own life, but it doesn’t come up in conversation much and Rio doesn’t know of a life any different than the one they’ve always had.

There’s some suspicious activity and murmurings around town, us following Rio through what a normal day should be for him, but as the day draws to a close things start to get more suspicious. His dad, normally a genial and easygoing guy, is strangely quiet and serious, and there’s a moment Rio catches him having some furtive conversation over a comm in the hall; when his dad realizes he’s there he snaps at him to go back to bed.

When Rio’s noticeably caught off guard by his dad’s tone, his dad visibly softens and his shoulders slump, and he goes to him, gently pulling him in to press his forehead to his son’s as he apologizes, asking him more civilly to go upstairs. Rio reluctantly does as he’s told; though his dad outwardly seems much more like his calm self, there’s still something tense about him.

The next day it’s clear there is something going on, the kid seeing people closing up shops, arguments happening in the square, a squad of stormtroopers questioning and harassing people. Rio’s nearly caught up in trouble with the troopers himself before his dad appears out of nowhere and intervenes, making quick work of them before telling him to stay calm and follow his lead, the two of them swiftly making a beeline for their home.

His dad tells him to pack a bag of necessities only, says they’re leaving and they won’t be coming back. Rio, understandably alarmed, desperately follows his dad around the house asking questions, asking what’s going on in town as his dad yanks cords from electrical panels in the walls and burns the databanks on his machines, and the kid’s alarm only heightens as he sees his dad pull burner comms, armor and gear, tools and equipment and weapons he’s never even seen before from hidden compartments all around the house.

His dad hated guns.

When Rio finally stops him and demands to know what’s going on, refusing to budge another inch until he has answers, his father sighs, visibly pained by the anger and distrust on his son’s face.

He takes Rio by the shoulders, gentle despite all that’s happened. “Do you trust me?”

Rio looks doubtful. “… Is the person you are still my father?”

“Yes,” his dad says without a moment of hesitation. “Yes, Rio.”

Rio wavers for a moment, but right now all he sees are the earnest, honest eyes of his dad, and he realizes… Yes. He does trust him.

“… Okay,” Rio says, and he starts to help pack up his father’s gear.

—

The kid doesn’t ask any more questions as they head out of town on foot, not even when gunfire starts up several blocks behind them and people start panicking in the streets. They’re at the edge of town when they hear the first explosion and Rio sees his dad’s resolve harden to determination. An old friend of theirs takes them by speeder outside of town; Rio still doesn’t ask questions when his dad leads him to a ship that’s been hidden and well-maintained for over a decade, and the two of them swiftly escape off-planet.

They wait in a remote location for other ships and transports to arrive. Rio sees a number beings exit the ramps; there’s a Pantoran woman in a trench coat with a satchel over one shoulder. A mountain of a man in a motley assortment of layers follows her, wearing a visor and partial face mask, accompanied by a droid. Another pilot lands and immediately hops out from the cockpit, sliding down the ladder as a second man follows. The first looks like a stunt racer, dressed in speederbike leathers and boots. The second man looks like a regular lineman, though with a rifle slung across his back and a mask covering his features. The pilot unbuckles the strap of his helmet as he joins them, and something about it looks familiar to Rio.

A real, honest-to-gods Mandalorian appears from behind Rio and his dad from the outcropping they’d met at, either having been there the whole time or somehow managing to creep up on them without notice.

The group convenes in a loose circle, and his father removes his hood.

“Lark,” he says, nodding to the woman. “Gentlemen,” he says to the men. “It’s been a while.”

They all look at each other, noticeably glancing at the kid before he puts a hand on his shoulder and says “Rio. My son.”

Slowly, one by one, all of them remove their helmets and masks, and Rio can’t help but look around the circle in astonishment.

Each man there, every one among them for no discernible reason why or how, shares his father’s face.

WIP Ask Game

[valtsv]

can you pitch tsv to me fandom propaganda style… like sell it to me. hook me in. what is it about

the silt verses is a folk horror/political satire/weird fiction podcast set in an alternate ambiguously modern-day reality that asks the question "what if gods (and their saints, and angels, and miracles) were real? what if they formed the core infrastructure of the society you lived in? what if they were sustained by human belief and sacrifice? what if this was just the accepted Way Things Are?" and then introduces you to a cast of characters for whom this is their normal daily routine, and shakes them up through a series of intersecting arcs and plotlines. it deals with a lot of compelling themes - including identity and personhood, how institutions of power are formed and maintained and the potential for abuses of that power even by the most well-intentioned who wield it, action vs. rhetoric and the power of words; whose story is worth telling and whose is erased or adulterated by those privileged enough to write the version that becomes the widely accepted canon, and how struggles for control of something as conceptual as narrative can become very real and legitimate fights for the right to have one's autonomy and personhood recognised, human connection and why it's both so valuable and so destructive, etc. - but the central question it unceasingly begs is "why do we continue to live like this? why do we accept that this is all there is? what will it take for us to care about what's happening all around us, every day, right before our very eyes? what will you do when you realise you've spent your whole life drowning, and every option for relief comes at a cost? how long can you keep telling yourself that you're not really drowning before the water closes in over your head and swallows you like all those before you?"

tsv takes a magnifying glass to the horrifying exploitation and cruelty that so much of our own society runs on, and literalises it, leading to what is often rather heavy-handed satire bordering on the parodic - but it does so with such grace and unflinching, grounded honesty, without preaching to its audience but without letting them off the hook, either. it recognises that we are all both complicit in and victims of our own collective slow grind towards annihilation, and it asks us "isn't this absurd? isn't this horrifying? is this really all there is? is there nothing we can do in the face of this seemingly insurmountable, inescapable self-defeating routine-turned-ritual? why should we, or shouldn't we, care? why should we, or shouldn't we, try to make a difference?" and it's brave enough to admit that it doesn't have all the answers. but it still tries. because the silt verses is, fundamentally, a story about hope - real hope; the difficult, unglorious, unrelentingly in need of maintenance kind that is, nevertheless, still worth every effort to inspire it. the silt verses is a story about why we get up in the morning and try again, even though it might never be enough.

it's also a very character-driven story, and the character writing is truly second to none. every character is a person, in all their infinite messy, human complexity. every character has the capacity for abject cruelty and incredible kindness; to be a significant influence on their reality and to be utterly meaningless in the wider context of things; every character has the potential to be both the hand that pulls someone to their feet in their hour of need, and the boot that grinds them further into the dirt, and every character is both of these things, at some point or another, to someone. every character is both the martyr and the one holding the knife. no character is a saint - not even the actual, literal saints. and while this isn't necessarily something that should be used as a selling point, the way this podcast handles the diversity of identity is fantastic, and never used tokenistically, or as a character's sole defining trait (though not all aspects of identity get equal consideration; the creator has acknowledged that he didn't tackle race as a topic much beyond examining the developmental factors of broad strokes "us vs. them" nationalistic identities, and the arbitrary nature of patriotic loyalty to one's nation when it runs on the same oppressive systems as that which is painted the aggressor, and some fans have pointed out that while diversity of gender and one's lived experiences according to one's gender identity gets plenty of focus, some things are left to implication and inference in a way that doesn't necessarily strengthen the story's themes).

anyway. not sure this is the "fandom propaganda style" pitch you asked for, but listen to the silt verses. it's a brilliant work of fiction and to my mind deserves to be considered a landmark piece of art (even if that does mean that some of my more fandombrained takes would likely come to be seen as unflattering misconstrusions of the source material that betray my personal deficiencies. well whatever it was fun i had fun.)

[aropodcastfuck]

Upon further reflection since the post-eyepocalypse lore drop in tmagp I kinda don’t like the narrative we’re given of most avatars being people used to authority and who liked having power, it feels like it kinda invalidated a lot of the themes in tma around control and autonomy and choice

Like yes lots of avatars were bad people who did bad things for their own gain or pleasure, Jonah, Peter, Jude, Jared hopworth, Daisy, etc who held authority over others and abused it

But so much of the show is about the loss of control experienced in becoming something else, being taken over by the entities and while there is still autonomy and choice involved in that so many of the avatars we knew were not actively malicious or cruel, most of them were terrified of what they were becoming or were pushed into their becoming by circumstance, Micheal, Oliver, Melanie, Martin, Jane, even Jon to some extent

So much of the show was about being stuck in a system which perpetuates evil and how you function within that, when no matter what you do that evil persists and the struggle to maintain autonomy when faced against powers which go so far above your own ability or powerlessness

It just feels like it cheapens the wealth of engagement with those themes and concepts by summing it up as most avatars were authoritarian or were inherently drawn to power and while I don’t mind the idea of a world where power seeking is villanized and the new world functions fundamentally differently as a result of that, I just don’t want the original narratives focus on choice and systematic issues which lead people to immoral choices and all the nuance it contains to be brushed away

And maybe that’s just a result of us getting the lore from Melanie and her perspective from her experience with avatars and her own choice to commit so completely to not becoming a part of that fear machine so that’s how she sees it which I can understand but idk just been thinking about it a lot and hope that if anyone out there has only listened to tmagp they don’t assume that it’s as simple as that

[beescake]

i am in love with your sollux i think

sollux love party :]

if you’re interested heres some of my personal fondness thoughts on him.. big warning for the mega long read ahead aye

as we alr know sollux's rejection of participation somewhat mirrors dave's rejection of heroism, but even without getting cooked to completion i still find sollux's character v compelling beyond the fourth wall

as someone who doesnt get a pinch of that Protagonist Sparkle to begin with, he can openly say he wants to leave anytime…. and unlike dave, he actually Can leave the scene anytime. but he can never be truly Free from the story via permanent character death like the other trolls.

his irrelevancy is indeed relevant - he’s there so u can point him out.

while his image is intended to be a relic of past internet subculture, his role is not only about hehehaha being a Chad or a 2000s cyberforum 2²chan haxxor ragequit gamebro.

his continued existence also happens to add a Bit to the overarching themes of homestuck! a Bit that gives him longer-lasting thematic relevance compared to the trolls who could’ve had more character potential but didnt get to survive beyond the main story.

the Bit in question:

his defiance contributes to the illusion of agency (treating characters = people with autonomy). he’s “aware” of it, and that recognition is worth noting enough to forcibly keep him alive as both reward and punishment.

considering how his personality & classpect is designed its definitely a very haha thing for hussie to do LOL. he’s made to be op asf so he's resigned to doing dirty work, gradually deteriorating along the way but never truly dying. as fans have mentioned before, him openly rejecting involvement after a while of grim tolerance is like if the sim u were controlling suddenly stopped, looked up and gave u the finger while u were step six into the walkthrough for Every Possible Sim Death Animation.

but since he’s just a sim… the more he hates it, the more you keep him around. if ur sim started complaining abt your whimsical household storyline you’d definitely keep that little fuck.

but yeah i like that sollux is just idling. the significance of his presence being that one dude who's always reliably Somewhere, root core Unchanged, no individual ambitions (possibly due to fear of consequence?), and design-wise: a staple representative product of his time.

compared to dirk's character, who has aged phenomenally well into the present (themes of control + AR + artificial intelligence, clearer exploration around navigating relationships/sexuality, infinite possibilities of self-splinterhood and trait inheritance), sollux's potential is really... contained. bitter. defeatist. limiting and frustrating in the way old tech is.

the world continues moving on to shinier, brighter, more advanced automated things - minimalist and metaverse or whatever but sollux is still here 🧍‍♂️ going woohoo redblue 3d. (tho personally i imagine his vibe similar to what the kids call cassette futurism on pinterest mixed w more grimy grunge insectoid influences eheh)

conceptually-speaking,

at the foundation of it all, the rapid pace of modern development was built off the understanding of ppl like sollux in the past, who were There actively at work while the dough was still beginning to rise

thats one of the cool things abt the idea of trolls preceding humans! the idea that trolls like sollux excelled back when lots of basic shit still needed to be discovered, building structures like networks and codes from scratch, and humans will eventually inherit and reinvent that knowledge in ways that become so optimized it makes the old manual effort seem archaic, slow, and labour-intensive.

but despite information/resources/shortcuts being more accessible now, much of the new highly-anticipated stuff released on trend still end up unfinished, inefficient, or expiring quickly due to cutting corners under severe capitalistic pressures

meanwhile, some of the old stuff frm past generations of thorough, exploratory and perfectionistic development still remains working, complete, and ever so sturdy.

those things continue to exist, just outside our periphery with either:

zero purpose left for modern needs (outdated/obsolete)

or

far too important to replace or destroy, bcs of its surprisingly essential and circumstantial usefulness in one niche specific area.

which are honestly? both points that sum up sollux pree well.

dramatic ending sorry. anw are u still on the fence or are u Sick abt him like me </3

[mummyemmatojames]

30. A New Morning Rule: Waiting for Mummy

Hello, dear community! Emma here, your Mummy-in-training, with a small but sweet update on our MDLB and FLR journey. After my niece’s visit and sticking firm with our rules, I’ve been thinking about ways to refine our dynamic even more. This week, I reintroduced a rule from James’s toddler grounding that I’d loved—he now has to wait for me to get him up in the morning. It’s been such a delightful addition, and I’m excited to share how it’s going!

Why This Rule?

During the toddler grounding a few weeks ago, one of the rules was that James had to ask my permission to get up in the morning, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed that little ritual until recently. Lately, with his early 8:30 PM bedtime (routine starting at 7:30), he’s been waking up bright and early—sometimes as early as 6:00 AM—because he’s getting so much sleep. That’s great for him, but it’s been waking me up too. I’d hear him shuffling around, starting his day, or even coming to nudge me awake, and while I love his energy, I’m not always ready to jump out of bed that soon.

So, I decided to bring back the rule: he has to stay in bed and wait for me to come get him up. It fits his 10-year-old headspace perfectly—he’s still my little boy, relying on Mummy to start his day—and it gives me a bit more control over our morning rhythm. Plus, I remembered how much I loved going in to greet him during the grounding, and I wanted that back in our routine.

How It’s Going

I introduced the rule a few days ago, sitting James down after breakfast and explaining it. “Since you’re going to bed so early, sweetheart, Mummy’s going to come get you up in the morning from now on,” I said. “You stay in bed until I come in—no getting up on your own, okay?” He nodded, a little unsure at first—I think he likes his morning freedom—but he didn’t argue, especially after the grounding taught him I mean business with new rules.

The first morning was adorable. I woke up around 7:30, made myself a cup of tea, and then padded into his room. There he was, curled up under his train-themed covers, awake but waiting patiently like a good little boy. I smiled and said, “Good morning, my sweet boy! Mummy’s here to get you up!” His face lit up—he was so happy to see me, kicking off the blankets and reaching out for a hug as soon as I said he could get up. It was like he’d been holding his excitement in, waiting for that moment, and it melted my heart.

Since then, it’s become a little ritual I look forward to every day. I go in between 7:30 and 8:00, depending on when I’m up, and greet him with a big smile and some baby talk—“Did my little boy sleep well? Time to start the day with Mummy!” He’s always so eager to see me, grinning and stretching as I pull back the covers and help him out of bed. The first going I try and do is nurse him so we are instantly connected.  It’s such a sweet way to kick things off, and it sets a gentle, loving tone for the rest of our morning.

How It Fits Our Dynamic

This rule feels like a natural extension of our dynamic—it reinforces my role as Mummy, guiding him through every part of his day, even the start. With his early bedtime keeping him well-rested, it makes sense to balance it with a little more structure in the morning. It also gives me a chance to ease into the day on my terms, rather than being jolted awake by his footsteps or knocks. And for James, I think it’s helping him settle deeper into his little space—he’s so happy to see me when I come in, like he’s been waiting for that permission to begin, and it’s a reminder that Mummy’s in charge.

He hasn’t complained about it yet, which surprises me a bit—I thought he might grumble about losing his morning autonomy. But so far, he seems to enjoy the routine. Yesterday, he even giggled when I tickled his feet to “wake him up” (though he was already awake), and this morning, he whispered, “I like when you come get me, Mummy,” as we headed to the kitchen. I think the consistency and attention are sinking in for him, just like they did during the grounding.

A Small But Meaningful Change

It’s only been a few days, but I’m already loving this new rule. Greeting my little boy each morning feels so special—like I’m setting the stage for a day full of care and connection. It’s a small tweak, but it’s making our dynamic feel even more complete. I’m also glad it’s solving the practical issue of him waking me too early—now I get my quiet moment with tea, and he gets a little extra time to rest or just lie there waiting for me, which seems to suit him.

What Do You Think?

I’d love to hear from the community—have you tried a rule like this, making your partner wait for you in the morning? How did it change your mornings, and did they settle into it like James seems to be? For those with early bedtimes, how do you handle the early wake-ups? And if you’ve got other little morning rituals that tie into your dynamic, I’d love some inspiration—I’m on a roll with these sweet additions!

Thank you for being here as we keep building this beautiful life together. I love going in to greet my little boy each day—it’s such a perfect start.

With all my love, Emma (aka Mummy) 💕

[kestrel-of-herran]

my severance season three predictions

some of these are going to be so controversial yet so brave

season setting: we'll likely be spending at least 50% of the season, if not more, in lumon's white hallways, because the set is one of the most recognizable aspects of the show and the aesthetic has been praised as unique. we'll likely see more departments and more of lumon's inner workings, particularly in regards to what their endgame plan with severance is. the supporting cast will likely expand again.

season focus: since season one was about childhood (pushing the limits of rebellion while still fearing punishment) and season two about adolescence (outright rebellion no matter the consequences, self-definition through difference), then season three might be about entering adulthood, the kind of college mindset period where the innies start not only to question but define their world, when they gain more agency to participate in the power system (hello spirit of kier in helly), or try to dismantle it and carve out a space for the kind of life they want to have. it's also a period of disillusionment with some aspects of the teenage period, understanding your parents (outies) better, but also of acceptance of the inner child. relationships are now also a matter of effort, but that makes them more "lived in" because they are a constant choice.

markhellyna pregnancy: you knew this one was coming. who gets to control the body and what the consequences of this attempted control are is a big theme in the dystopian genre, and the show in particular has tackled childbirth from season one both practically and metaphorically (devon's pregancy, birthing cabin, children of kier, siring a new world order). foreshadowing for this has also not been subtle ("mark has moved on and has a daughter now"), and insignificant lines are scarce on this show. ben has said that the fade to red for the ending credits of the finale is an indication that we’re going to another place now. with red, you think of heart, and love. things are changing. it’s a different tone. to me that sounds like the show is about to be even more love-driven than it already is, as mark and helly's biggest goal is to retain their autonomy and find a way to live in the way they want to instead of die when lumon is exposed. the concept of two innies having a baby and wanting to keep it introduces so many discussions about agency, consent, and the consequences of blocking a part of yourself from your memories, which are central themes on the show.

mark scout's development: this guy has barely moved a single square since the beginning of the series, and his time to shine is nigh. we left him with the goal of getting gemma back in his life, but the narrative will never let him go back to the start with no consequences to his action of severing, if it's to remain a good one. since dan has said that he’s having these flashes between his innie and outie life, he’s not fully reintegrated, but he’s getting these glimpses, and that makes him different from any other severed person on the show and questioned if this [is] something that will fade once they have stopped doing the procedure, or will he continue to see these flashes from his other life?, my theory is that the marks will continue to experience reality glitching, and mark scout will begin to glitch on the severed floor, and meet helly and become acquainted with mark s' limited world and point of view before he even has a chance to interact with gemma again. ben: he’s missing the fact that he’s created this other part of himself that he doesn’t want to accept. i don’t think outie mark understands that this is part of him, this is who he is. he wants to deny that. mark scout needs to accept mark s as a person and a real part of who he is in order to develop and get closer to reintegrating fully, which i understand as the character endgame of the show. and this comes with meeting helly and experiencing mark s' feelings for her first-hand, so by the time he interacts with gemma his emotions are extremely complicated and he has personal reasons to fight for the innies' right to existence.

hellyna's development: since helly and helena are already "naturally" reintegrating, based on their similar desires and objectives through season two (hatred of entrapment, love for mark), i think this process will continue, with both of them unlocking more memories and communicating with each other positively. britt has been asked many times if helena is going to blow the whistle on lumon, and she always deflects the question, so it's clearly too close to home. when asked about what she hopes to explore for helena in the future, britt responded, for someone to have inside of her a really strong rebellion, how does that affect the company for the greater good? on a personal level, how does the wilder, fiercer, and freer part of this woman — which she has lost touch with — affect her moving forward? what does she have to learn from that? how can she grow and expand? whether or not jame offers helly to take over helena's body (and keeping mark s alive in the process might force her to agree to a deal with him), we'll be seeing both of her continue on the path of remembering who she is.

gemma's development: now here's where i'm going to serve something spicier than the devongemma agenda. gemma can't continue to be a clear-cut victim of lumon if she's to acquire a bigger place in the story's arc, because as things stand, we know too little about her as a person besides her plot-device role of "missing wife used for experiments" (both plot points pushing the story for mark and lumon more than for her) to make her feel real, and she hasn't displayed any negative characteristics that would make her character well-rounded. we know mark can be kind and an asshole, helly can be funny and cruel, but what do we know about gemma's personality? what do we know about how she got to the place in the story we met her in, what her goals in the future outside of her relation to mark are? having a few defined characteristics is alright for a side character (see lorne: loves goats, a little weird, side character done), but if she's going to enter the story with a screentime comparable to milchick's for instance (who is now both a follower of lumon and disrespected by the company), she needs to be well-rounded, e.g. internally controversial, as all people are. she can be a victim of lumon's programme and someone who volunteered to join the cult (*cough* chikhai bardo card) because she wanted to escape the cycle of pain the fertility treatment pushed her in. cults want to attract educated people, people who think of themselves as intelligent and resilient, because these are the kinds of people who further the goals of the cult the most. it would be entirely misogynistic if gemma's arc doesn't progress past "mark's wife with fertility issues who needs to be saved from the evil corporation", if she's not shown to have agency in joining the programme and remains a passive victim the story happens to rather than a character driving the narrative through her actions and choices, and if the consequence of severing and her feelings towards her own innies aren't explored as a major part of her arc.

[matamorose]

The decision in TP to drop any interaction between Audrey and Coop was a bad one. I think that their dynamic is a great way to refract a lot of the themes of the show, and it has a lot to do with TP’s multiple ways of viewing “good people.” (Something I’ve been stewing about for a while— hopefully soon I can articulate some of those thoughts)

Anyway,

Audrey is a great character, and it makes perfect sense for her to be intrigued by/attracted to a kind, handsome older man. She’s also badly neglected, and models the ways of gaining power + autonomy + attention that she sees in front of her, something that puts her in danger and is in no way a good thing. I get that all the characters’ ages/the timelines are fucked so there’s some ambiguous wiggle room, but she’s a kid. A very smart and resourceful one who wants to be the mysterious and competent adult that others see as a person, but still.

She wants Coop something fierce, and gets herself into intense peril pursuing that. She's tenacious and smart and badly damaged, and a teenage girl who's ignored + allowed to do whatever she wants, which is a very potent combination.

And Coop is textually attracted to her: I think that that’s very important to understanding a lot of his character, and ignoring it does a disservice to a lot of what the show is saying. MLMT does a lot of heavy lifting to explain and explore a history of childhood sexual misuse + hypersexuality with him, but even in just the show canon I think it’s very apparent and easy to understand that he’s grappling with his attitudes and attraction towards women, and especially with his own past and traumas.

The scene where Audrey surprises him naked in bed had the potential to be the fulcrum moment in their relationship, imo. Cooper is visibly wrestling with his attraction to her— something he knows and expresses aloud would be very wrong to act on— and Audrey is in an extremely fragile state, for all that she was trying to be assertive and take control in a relationship with an older man (a cop, even).

When Cooper lets her down gently and says that what she needs is a friend, that’s a very powerful moment. This is the “adult men sexually abuse young girls” show, but their relationship in particular has been set up to be interesting and alluring— I don’t think that people are nuts for picking up on the very intentional tension. It’s there, you’re supposed to see it.

So when Cooper says that she needs a friend, he makes the right choice, something that he doesn’t have a great track record of doing.

It’s a really powerful thing, that surrounded by all of these men who choose wrongly, and do wrong intentionally, Cooper is maybe the only adult man in Audrey’s life who makes the choice to respect and protect her, and that’s profoundly compelling. Like, I get it if someone wants to take that in another direction.

(There’s a more specific point to be made about Audrey’s father very nearly sexually assaulting her, and another, older man who is into her consciously deciding not to act on that, but I’ll toss it around and try to express it later)

You can debate it all day— which can be interesting and enriching— but for him to enter into a relationship with her would have been a clear, gross abuse of his power, and followed the pattern set by all of the other monstrous men in the show.

TP makes its stance on adult men sleeping with teenage girls crystal clear, there’s no way that they would have had their main character— morally iffy though he can be sometimes— go to bed with the teenage peer of a murder victim and then be like “awesome!” Cooper would be a very different man if he acted on it.

Which, I think is one of those moments where you as the viewer are supposed to look past the aesthetics and how pretty both adult actors are, the same way we all need to look past the quality of the coffee to understand what happened to Laura: a federal agent in his 30s who picks up a rural, neglected teenage lover in the wake of a grisly sex crime + said teenager’s father is a major player in the crime ring that allowed that to happen, is not a good man. That is a real-life horror that follows the framework of the show, and I think that part of the original intention was to leave that avenue open for later in the series, but more on that later.

All that being said, he absolutely thinks about it. He’s very tempted. That’s something that I feel like a lot of people don’t want to admit, but he’s explicitly attracted to her. It’s a testament to his character, and an interesting mirror to his ultimate failure of courage, that he, mister "Give Yourself a Present," was able to recognize a desire as harmful and squash it.

He’s less interesting if you just wave your hand and say “oh, he never even thought about it!” He did. He totally thought about it, he considered it, and wrestled with it, and ultimately came out on top. That’s infinitely more interesting— and IMO fits in better with the backstory established for him— than the idea that he’s just too morally pure and untouchable.

Even so, he elects not to do something that will harm her, and chooses to be her friend instead, something that she badly needs. That scene easily could have transitioned them from a very unequal “will-she-won’t-he” to a friendship that would benefit both of them, and give the characters some more room to flex + explore the facets of their similarities/their links to Laura and what they share with her.

Cooper sees Audrey, instead of blindly buying into her adolescent facade, or just looking past her. Even many of the angles their scenes are shot with reinforce that. He doesn’t ignore her.

I think that all of that goes into making their relationship extremely compelling, and, in my opinion, totally dropping that relationship after a point was just shitty writing. The whole weight of his choice to be her friend and to do right by her + her choice to accept that disappears when the show just truncates that entire plot line and dynamic. She needed that friend, needed and accepted what he was willing to offer her! Not to get shuffled off to the side and into a somewhat baffling plot line

(And if the show had gone on longer, or gone a different direction, I think that that would have been the avenue they chose to hammer in to viewers that as sexy as it sounded to a teenager, this is a bad thing, and that Coop was letting hangovers from past trauma/abuse get the better of him— something that is also very thematically appropriate. In a S3 that never was, I think it’s likely that possessed Coop/his doppelgänger/whatever direction they would have gone in the 90s would have attacked or initiated a relationship with her. TPTR alludes to this, I think, with Mr. C’s fathering Richard.)

I understand that there were tensions on set, and actors/execs had very strong opinions, but I do think that the “okay ew that’s over now” way that the show chops off a major undercurrent is badly done, and that the show is poorer for it.

Anyway, that relationship is one that really bugs me in how it developed in the show. Let me be clear that this is absolutely not an anti-ship post: do as thou wilt, have fun whatever I’m not here to pick a fight, and I really don’t care what other people ship. What strangers want to do with two fictional characters isn’t really my business.

But I don’t think that people are making something out of nothing, there, even if I have a much different stance on it. I think I’ve made my opinion of that relationship as romantic pretty clear at this point, but I have eyes and understand when you’re supposed to pick up on tension between characters.

I think that many people try far too hard to pretend that something very explicitly onscreen isn’t there, because they don’t want to wrestle with the thornier parts of it. (For a show that centers around a child being raped and murdered by her father, a great many watchers get surprisingly precious about unpleasant or even gray subjects, it seems to me.)

But I think it’s a shame that one of the most interesting relationships in the show got cut off so severely, and it’s really interesting to think of how they might have followed through on the punch, had there been fewer disasters surrounding the series.

I went on a little longer than I meant to about the idea of the pair of them as a romantic item, and that’s not the major point of this. Really, it’s that I think both characters lost out on that could have developed into something really compelling, because the bones were there. The setup was very strong, and the scene I talked about above absolutely could have transitioned those two into something, anything, more narratively satisfying and interesting than what we got.

I really like both of them, and I think that there’s a tendency to swing wildly one way or the other with Audrey. She’s much more nuanced than I think a lot of people give her credit for (which in fairness is something that afflicts basically all of the teenage characters, not to mention dear Dale), and there’s a place to think about her in-between outright fetishism a la coquette blogs, and pretending like she has no agency or desire/that her neglect has no impact on what she wants and how badly she’s willing to fight to get it.

She’s a major character in the show for a while, and I don’t like it that A) her character gets sidelined so abruptly B) many people in fandom go out of their way to minimize her role in the story. She’s not even one of my big favorites, I just think that she gets a raw deal.

My favorite thing about the show is the deep and knotted relationships, and I think that there was a warm-up swing and a really big miss with this one.

[eldragon-x]

An aromantic reading of Deltarune and Kris Dreemurr

Pretty much what it says on the tin, just my interpretation of how the game and characters, especially chapter 2 and Kris, interact with romance, and how it coincides with the overall themes.

I've been meaning to write an essay like this for months and am trying to finally get it out less than a week before the next chapters of Deltarune come out.

Because of the time pressure, this isn't as throughout as I would've liked it to be and doesn't include screenshots, but I thought it's better to get my rough idea out than not at all, and I was afraid this might become even more daunting to write if I wait and the new chapters have even more material for this topic.

Warning for discussion of abuse and incest in relation to Snowgrave Route and speculation around Ralsei's relation to Asriel.

So, choice, autonomy, freedom, and lack thereof are some of the major themes in Deltarune that are reflected in the characters in various ways. I'm going to focus on the party members we had so far (Kris, Susie, Ralsei, and Noelle) specifically for the sake of this topic.

Kris lacks autonomy due to quite literally being controlled by the player via the soul. The exact how or why are unclear, but we do know that we are capable of acting against Kris' will and there have so far been three occassions of Kris removing the soul from their body in order to act without the players influence or knowledge.

Ralsei lacks autonomy because he is dedicated to a script. His entire purpose revolves around bringing the Deltarune prophecy to fruition, he insists Susie fight on his and Kris' side for it, he brushes it off when Susie points out how strange the Spamton Neo fight was, and he's shocked when things don't go how they're "supposed to" during the Snowgrave route.

On top of that, he's - for lack of a better word - a huge doormat, towards Kris/the player especially. Suggesting Kris should try to be merciful on their journey, but clearly only keeping it a suggestion. Offering that Kris can hit him if they want in response to them attacking his dummy?? Just generally being willing to put aside his morals and wellbeing for the player to a concerning degree.

Noelle lacks autonomy because she lacks the courage to stand up for herself and considers herself weak and helpless. She says Kris and Rudy are the only people she's able to say no to, her percieved powerlessness against Queen potentially reflects Noelle's concerning relationship with her mother, and through the Cyber City she relies on Kris to guide her and show her how the dark world works which is taken to an extreme in Snowgrave.

Susie on the contrary, is a character I would say represents freedom and choice in a way. She shuts down the player's choices and goes against the script on several occassions which makes her a strong foil to Ralsei. She first rejects her role of a hero of legend and instead joins Lancer, she's kinda weirded out by Ralsei's speech about how Darkners find fulfillment by assisting Lightners, she causes herself and Ralsei to be able to act, and she drags Ralsei along with her on the split path, questioning why everything should be up to Kris, the protagonist.

-

With that established, I now want to talk about Kris' relationships with these characters, especially in chapter 2.

Noelle and Kris are established to be childhood friends who drifted apart at some point.

It's significant that one of the important steps in the Snowgrave Route involves Noelle being unsure if they can even still call each other friends, saying they're "something else", and have Noelle think there's no good interpretation of that.

The Snowgrave Route is the Noelle Romance Route where you, essentially, force these two into the "childhood friends to lovers" trope.

People have already pointed out how Kris' and Noelle's dynamic in Snowgrave is framed like an abusive marriage. Noelle's main weapon here is a ring obtained through implying she and Kris are in a romantic relationship. Noelle relies on Kris to get "stronger" which only causes her to become more hesitant to speak up and afraid of losing control again afterwards. This is also so far the most blatant instance of characters noticing the player's presence in some way with Noelle talking about how Kris has been acting odd recently and they're unrecognizeable to her.

And, I might read too much into this, but I feel like there's something to be said about how the Kris + Noelle section of this route ends with Berdly - Noelle's closest friend who genuinely tries to look out for her when he notices she's in a bad situation - being frozen by Noelle. Friends are always second best when there is romance.

-

I wouldn't exactly call the normal route of chapter 2 the Ralsei Romance Route but it is the only route where Acid Tunnel of Love happens and I consider it sort of an equivalent to Snowgrave Kriselle when it comes to the romance aspect.

We don't exactly know how Kris feels about Ralsei, but they don't seem very fond of him, while Ralsei is almost desperate to please Kris and/or the player using Kris as a vessel, and is implied to have a crush on them/us.

And, I'm going to be blunt, having a character who is supposed to remind us of Kris' brother be implied to crush on Kris is a weird choice.

I've seen people say that these elements don't co-exist. That Acid Tunnel of Love doesn't actually have romantic undertones because Ralsei is supposed to resemble Asriel, or that Ralsei doesn't actually resemble Asriel because Acid Tunnel of Love has romantic undertones. But I just don't think that's true and it would feel insincere to me to try to "solve" this problem.

To be clear, I personally don't think Ralsei is Asriel or even has any familial relation to the Dreemurrs. What really matters to me here is that these elements are there and we currently lack the full context and maybe we just have to sit with the uncertainty and discomfort of it.

More precisely, we have to sit in the discomfort of it alongside Kris themselves, who rather cruelly has to sit through this ride, hearing Ralsei say that it's nice that they're themselves, and potentially comply with the players choice to hug Ralsei even though we know they don't like hugs, because we think it's cute.

-

Kris' relationship with Susie is very important. They seem to be closer to each other than anyone else really which is kind of wild when you remember they were still on bad terms a day ago.

I've mentioned how Susie represents the freedom of choice the most out of the main cast in my eyes, ironically partially because she takes away choices from Kris. But, seeing from a meta perspective that she's really taking away choices from the player, I believe she can become a gateway to agency for Kris, seeing how much she genuinely cares for them and how Kris themselves seems to trust her.

The ending of chapter 2 stands out to me in the context of romance in Deltarune and what it means for Kris and Susie. Specifically, when she asks who Kris would take to the upcoming town festival: Noelle or Ralsei. The two people who Kris is forced to have a "romance route" with depending on which route you play.

If you choose either of them, Kris will say it in a confused way and Susie insists that she meant nothing weird by it. If you don't respond, Kris stares at Susie "like a weirdo" and she insists she was just joking.

But if you pick Susie, there is no indicator that this is something Kris wouldn't say nor brings them discomfort. Susie complains that they're dodging the question and of course she'd be there if they went.

-

In conclusion, chapter 2 puts Kris in romantic situations which are clearly forced one way or another. Romance is "inevitable" and all characters involved lack autonomy in some way.

Susie is a character who has a lot of freedom comparatively, is never forced into a romantic situation with Kris, and Kris seems to be the most comfortable around her.

None of this inherently makes Kris aromantic of course, but it stands out how the narrative of chapter 2 seems to force romance upon them, partially through the player's hand, and frames it as something uncomfortable. And I would be surprised if this doesn't become a pattern in future chapters.

-

Some things I don't know where else to bring up:

I don't really know where to fit Berdly in the big themes of autonomy and freedom, but I want to note that he also looks up to Susie and I think him "crushing" on Noelle, realizing he actually just admired her as a friend, and then "crushing" on Susie as soon as he gains respect for her is extremely closeted aro teenager behaviour.

I'm not sure what this all means for Suselle specifically, so far the game has played them rather straight, but I defenetly think their relationship is gonna go through a lot and be further developed throughout the game.

[sonobeunitsarecool]

Thoughts on "Life"

Thoughts on life, and, well, the new Milgram song! It's quite lengthy, and possibly poorly formatted, so bear with me. Spoilers, most assuredly, for both Life and Melting Temperature, so I'll keep it under the cut.

To clarify what Yuno's "crime" is, during a moment where Yuno was thinking about the matter of her foetus on a staircase fairly high up, she fell back (due to a dizziness) and hit a lower platform. This resulted in a brief hospitalisation, and due to the physical trauma of the event the foetus within Yuno at the time was lost. What is very, very important in terms of Yuno's character, and the discussion around her, is that this was not voluntary. She fell due to having, as referred to in the English subtitles of Life, "freaked out" (about becoming a mother), but is just "feared" in Japanese. In the Voice Drama, she notes that she thought about it and felt dizzy. This is more likely to do with a combination of mental and emotional stress, and possible lack of sufficient nutrition for both herself and the growing, living organism within her; whatever the cause, she lost consciousness, and fell. She could have been more careful, true, but that's the same with any accident (because this was an accident), and it's unlikely that she would have even considered looking into official pregnancy care by this point. Losing the foetus was not within her direct control. At the start of Milgram, and presumably for some amount of time afterwards, she only remembered getting dizzy and falling, later able to recall her brief hospitalisation and returning back to school, but it was the fact that she only remember falling that initially made her think this was some kind of afterlife (being in Milgram means being told you're a killer, the only thing that fits is losing her child, if the child is dead the chance she died from the fall since she can't remember anything else is high). Even after remembering everything, she still had no control over the fall and losing the child. This is really important. Much of Yuno's character, in terms of what we hear from her in her Voice Dramas, is heavily linked to the themes of personal choice, autonomy in one's own life, and if not acceptance then some kind of unjudging neutrality towards the actions of others you aren't involved in. Typically, a voluntary abortion is a decision that has a lot of deliberate choice involved, something that the difficulty in obtaining one plays a part in. If Yuno had an abortion, there would have been a lot of deliberation in advance, and she would have come to terms with not carrying the child to term. Should that have been the case, I don't think she would have "qualified" for Milgram. Instead, she had an accident in the middle of a moment of considering the matter, and had that choice brutally ripped out of her hands. The entirety of Life shows that she regrets the death of her foetus (and does it really matter when it wasn't yet born? Not to Yuno, and that's what matters: to her, it was a life she had a part in).

Would she have chosen to have kept the child? Maybe. Evidence points to "probably, in an ideal world", what with her regrets and her adamant stance on being fully responsible for her own actions (the likelihood of actually carrying the child to term is lower; it is not medically advisable for an 18-year-old girl to birth a child in terms of both the mother's and the child's health). But that doesn't matter. Yuno's opinion doesn't matter. This huge, life-changing decision was not hers to make, but fate's. And to her, that would be... heart-breaking. A fear out of the worst nightmares a brain can conjure up, to have the autonomy of choice stolen out of your hands because of an *accident*. And that is what the discussion of her character should be around, because her "sin" is simply... she could have done better in hindsight. Tragedy is what Milgram is all about. Did she make choices that led to having a child to carry? Yes. She has told us exactly what those choices were and why she chose them; she will not say sorry for that nor has Es asked her to. But did she have a choice in losing the child? Not at all. And that, ultimately, is what her character is about, choices made without apology and the lack of choice to forgive or not forgive.

[utilitycaster]

Could you expand on the tags of "this reminds me of a C3 take i actually liked"? Out of curiosity, I'm surprised you could find some actually good takes and i'd love to hear em!

Hey anon, yes!

It's here (sorry, it's a Twitter link) and someone else sent it to me, but it was about how because Bells Hells had themes of autonomy, it feels somewhat egregious that we didn’t see more of the Weave Mind. And the thing is - I largely agree!

I think that a theme of autonomy is a complicated one because it’s easily the strongest thematic throughline for Bells Hells; but even then it doesn’t quite stick the landing, and in a number of cases it feels like the party goes in on Autonomy for Me and Not for Thee (which is part of the problem). I also agree that we should have seen more of the Weave Mind prior to the fight with the Mighty Nein, and that’s once again either a poor DM-ing choice or a poor player choice (or both); elaborated on below.

Fearne, Dorian, FCG, and Chetney are all actually fantastic examples of a struggle with autonomy. Dorian runs away from home because his upbringing was too stifling and his arc is very much about finding out who he is, only for those responsibilities to still crash down upon him in part because the stifling aspect of his childhood was also one of safety and protection. That is, fundamentally, the thing about autonomy; you can have the freedom to act which grants freedom to hurt and be hurt; or you can be safe and blameless. FCG is fairly apparent; they were programmed to be a specific way, and their arc is developing a sense of personhood and individuality when they are no longer just a helper of others but a person of their own. Chetney’s arc, while brief, is actually a deeply thorny and complex one: being a werewolf represents a loss of control, and yet a new degree of freedom; his arc is about reclaiming the former while maintaining the latter. He could choose to be cured; but that removes a part of him. And Fearne is in many ways like Dorian: she has a safe and loved childhood but one where she doesn’t have to really grow up and take responsibility and think about what to do, and she struggles with how the freedom to choose includes the possibility of making bad choices, as she says after shardgate. She also, as @kerosene-in-a-blender recently pointed out, is perhaps the character most consistently concerned with the freedom of others, something which I think much of the party did not prioritize.

Imogen is complicated, as she often is, because her powers represent a loss of autonomy for her but also means that she especially struggles with autonomy in others, ie, in the privacy of their minds they might think awful things that do not reflect their actions. That never really gets resolved, frustratingly; it fades into the background without much comment. I also feel that she, too, like Chetney, decides to embrace her powers…but she is so indecisive otherwise, and without the same exploration that Fearne has of why she’s indecisive that it ultimately feels incomplete. It feels like she gets halfway there, but unlike the top 4 doesn’t actually satisfyingly achieve a full arc (though again the fact that she never gets time out of intense focus is a big part of this). Ashton I would put in a similar place. Their main loss of autonomy is actually quite early on in their life, at the hands of the Hishari and their parents; everything else, while undeniably an unpleasant and difficult life, is actually one in which they have a decent amount of choice! Ashton finds friends, takes on jobs, and develops quite a cohesive identity. He ignores multiple warnings and chooses the shard, and while I do not agree with the ideologies his reclamation of self takes, he is very much a person choosing their own destiny. The part that frustrates me is mostly just that the outcome of shardgate and realizing the choices they made were very harmful in that moment was so immensely promising and didn’t feel explored later on; I also think they talked a good game of speaking for the weak and didn’t actually do shit to platform the weak or give them any voice or even really talk to them at all - the way to learn more about the Weave Mind really would have been to spend more time in Kreviris talking to its people. Ashton spoke for the child he once was; not for the people who really needed to be given a voice now. Which is still honestly a pretty nuanced idea, that sometimes people who reclaim their autonomy do not lend a hand to others to do the same and instead become obsessed with the injustices of the past and not acting on modern ones; but I feel that was also left incomplete.

The undercutting, as it often is, is Laudna, who showed immense promise with Delilah’s takeover early on but ultimately just…didn’t fight back nor succumb to a degree where anything could be said either way. And this is also mostly a DM-ing problem, ie, Delilah should have been much more of an issue so that Laudna actually had something to push against (or give into), but as a result we really get nothing from her, thematically, for something in which she could have easily been the star of the show; she ends up being a shadow of Ashton's focuses on bygone loss of autonomy to the exclusion and even detriment of people in the world concurrently.

I’d add that Orym and Vax both are issues here too, in that they both, in their narratives, choose to sacrifice some degree of autonomy (rather than having it taken from them) and then C3’s finale really is just like “oh don’t worry about it, I didn’t take that seriously/permanently” when that could have been a fantastic bittersweet cap on the theme, had it been well-explored; that to cede autonomy with your autonomy is, ultimately, a powerful but permanent sacrifice.

I think the Weave Mind ends up being a casualty not just of the rushed nature/too much time spent on aimless discussion and not enough on character, but also Bells Hells just…not really talking to people around them. I think that was also exacerbated by the fact that, because Bells Hells were, as said in the live show, the Complicated Chosen instead of people who worked their way to becoming heroes through deed, they sort of forgot that the average person in Kreviris who opposed the Weave Mind had great reason to mistrust them, given that all other Exandrians on Ruidus were collaborators with the Weave Mind (and that’s before we even get Imogen being Liliana’s daughter). So they didn’t put in the effort to win them over, since everyone else was like "oh, well, you're the protagonists and the chosen ones so I guess you should do this," and the Ruidians, lacking that baseline, did not do the same. I think that too kind of speaks to the flaws in autonomy as a theme: Bells Hells to some extent, and their fans to a much, much, much greater one, consistently resented the autonomy of anyone who wasn’t Bells Hells. And obviously, the fandom also had a still-ongoing problem of denying the autonomy of characters in the story, both heroic and villainous, in an effort to maintain moral purity (ie, the "it can't be their fault because they WEREN'T IN CONTROL), which means any analysis of this theme and the way the narrative does not quite make it to the ending with it due to most actions being nonconsequential until it becomes convenient again for the narrative (ie, live shows and presumably Matt taking a break and feeling a little better) is one that is difficult to have without cutting through swathes of bad fanon.

Re: the weave mind specifically, there’s also post in the main tag I don’t really disagree with: it pitches Vox Machina’s role in the campaign remaining the same, Bells Hells fighting through the Weave Mind and Predathos, and the Mighty Nein meanwhile dealing with Ludinus. I actually like this - obviously you’d have to scale some fights differently, but it means Bells Hells would be entirely focused on the outcomes of Ludinus’s actions on Ruidus rather than the man himself while also having a much more weighty and lethal pair of fights, which would help with the inconsequential-feeling issue. I disagreed with both the idea that Ludinus was inherently the Nein’s villain and that the Nein and the Weave Mind felt forced (no more so than Bells Hells and the Weave Mind would have, given, again, the lack of exploration of the Weave Mind generally), and really, if you do make that argument that Ludinus is the Nein’s villain, then at that point the idea that this is remotely Bells Hells’ campaign is destroyed, but ultimately, I have my Mighty Nein campaign (which does handle themes of autonomy incredibly well on its own); everything else is gravy. Like, if, in the end, we’re going for spectacle and culmination of a decade-long plot and my faves are showing up as guest stars rather than the main event, I just want to see them beat a tyrant’s ass and look cool doing it; it works whether it’s the evil imperial hivemind or the evil imperial mastermind, you know?

[magnuspanoptes]

shaking your hand so hard at eliasjon dadson

re this post

REAL. their canonical relationship already lends itself very easily to that interpretation. elias functions as the gothic villain threatening jon and he achieves this through entrapment within his seat of power (the institute) where he restricts and controls both jon's access to knowledge and movement. this is all standard patriarchal dominance, i.e. the power he wields over jon is that of a husband-father (1:1 match with harker and the count in the opening of dracula)

and even outside those genre trappings, over the course of s1 elias establishes himself as a reliable authority figure jon can trust and seek out for advise, then during s3 elias is the only one who understands what is happening to him. because he made him. he's his creator. god the father. which is also canonically a mark of violation - "i did this to you that leaves you isolated from everyone else and with only me to turn to", a theme that is carried over in s4 when elias is Not there and jon's developing powers continue to be the source of alienation between him and his friends and once again when he's outed to his colleagues it's elias he turns to - "i thought maybe if he was more like me than we realise"—"he might have some advise?" (148)

and then there's dialogue like this alll over the podcast.

mag 80 - "librarian" // mag 101 - "another twist" // mag 158 - "panopticon"

he exhibits a clear sense of paternalism towards jon which is condescending obviously (because on some level he absolutely considers jon his object of possession. and he's violating jon's bodily autonomy. you can talk a lot about how jon chose to do a lot of things, i do, but the whole you are a chronicle of terror i'm going to have you marked by 14 different fears is also that. and i feel it's dishonest to handwave what he did to jon) but also affectionate because that's his boy! he's very transparently proud of jon's progress whenever he gets airtime during s3 and s4 and yes you can chalk that up to vanity about nearing his two centuries' long goal but i dunno you don't talk like this for no apparent reason -> he went from MY institute in 158 to in this world WE have made and the time of OUR victory is here <- guy who's always going on about using and watching and discarding people. he primarily wanted his ritual but what he saw in jon was someone who was remarkably similar to him and he spends a not insignificant amount of time trying to turn jon into a mirror image of him (92. that's what this place is jon) and well, at the end of the day the podcast was never all that preoccupied with their relationship, even before s5. but i'll always have this

[weirdero]

Something something about how Severances repeatedly highlights the theme of corporate women having no authority over themselves and this is powerfully shown throughout the series by their clothing. At this company these women at their absolute best and highest capabilities are nothing more than performative test dolls dressed in cute little outfits.

Their bodily autonomy is pushed to its absolute limits, a constant assault. In Helly’s case that fuck ass camping trip I will never get over and her outies video message all the way back in season one. Both reduced her to nothing but a tool. A cheap trick, a vessel for someone else’s choices. In Helena’s head Helly at her brightest, at her absolute best, and most useful, is just a tool.

In Gemma’s case. oh my god. Oh my god. Her innies are subjected to a suffering so sick and twisted that the only measure of endurance is how long they can comply and submit.

They are pushing this woman to her fucking limit trying to like break this woman down. and I mean she has broken down before. This woman has attempted to break someone’s bones, and we get to see her hit a man straight on the head with a chair. I can just imagine how awful those first months were. She’s probably spent days crying, screaming, biting, fighting for her life just to then wake up the next day, presented with a new little outfit. Her spirit can’t break it won’t because her love for Mark won’t allow her that. But she’s definitely has gotten close. Doesn’t matter anyways since Lumon won’t allow her that either. Has to finish what was started even though she doesn’t understand what she’s a part of she has to stay

Just like in the dentist’s office when she has to open her mouth. There are no breaks.

Or like when she writes Christmas letters, she has to finish them all with her left hand, even though she’s clearly right handed. It doesn’t matter how long it takes her to finish them anyways since every day is Christmas anyways.

She has to get on that plane. She has to go to a workout class (or some other athletic activity I’m assuming rn). She has to wake up every morning and put on her outfit of the day, the only thing giving her a small hint of what kind of day she’ll have. She has to wear those clothes.

Helly has to wear Helena’s fucking clothes.

Not like any of it matters anyways this pain they are subjected to this torture isn’t meant for them it has nothing to do with them. It’s all for kier.

It’s exploitative, it’s controlling, it’s assault, it’s evil, and it’s real. Helly and her emotions are real. Gemma and her innies are real. Abuse of power and exploitation (especially towards women) in the workplace is real.

Anyways. LOVE THIS SHOW! AND LOVE HELLY AND GEMMA. Stop pitting women against each otherrr FREEDOM FOR BOTH MY GIRLS!!!!. Also this TikTok is what inspired this rant I saw it and was like OHHHH SHIT.

[nyaagolor]

What are your thoughts on Apollo Justice (the character)?

OH BOY. OHHHHHH BOY. I have a fever and some free time lfg.

So honestly, I think part of the reason I love Apollo so much is because he runs parallel to Phoenix but also counter to him at the same time. I always saw Simon and Athena as the successors-- in terms of ideology and job and all that other stuff-- to the Phoenix-Edgeworth dynamic and status rather than Apollo and Klavier. Athena and Simon, to me, feel like extensions of the arcs of Phoenix and Edgeworth + the vibes of the original trilogy. Apollo and Klavier ( who I will not talk about bc we will be here all day)? They're the antithesis.

Apollo Justice The Game directly foils the original trilogy in so many ways, but I think even on a more base thematic level it runs counter to a lot of the ideas that we take for granted about the original trilogy, and because Apollo sits at the center of this, the things I love about the game are encapsulated in why I like him. There are a ton of themes in the ace attorney trilogy-- support networks, faith, trust, the truth-- and Apollo is defined by their limits, their failures, and their absence. He is let down, kicked around, defined by abandonment and betrayal and distrust. Apollo is defined by everything that Phoenix is not, and bc of how the timeline goes we don't really get any retribution for that, just a steady march forward, and I think that gives me a lot to think about with his character

Phoenix's arc right from Turnabout Sisters is about the building of a support network, and the ways that developing this support is integral for when things go wrong. We contrast Phoenix with Godot, Maya with Dahlia, and see how people left to stew in their resentment can chase vengeance to dark places (wow I wonder who also does this after the death of a dear friend leading to a crusade of misplaced revenge that almost leads someone they care about being killed.). With Apollo we get to stand on the precipice of resolution, but the important part is we don't get it. Apollo's life falls off the rails, and he's the one left to pick up the pieces.

We see through him how our trust can be betrayed by people of good and bad intentions, and the lingering consequences that has on one's ability to not only trust the people around them but themselves. And yeah!! That's why I adore him so much-- he's tested not by the possibility of failure like Phoenix often is, but climbing up from the reality of it. It's less "how do we make our way out of this mess before it goes nuclear" and more "things are already destroyed-- where do we go from here?". It has more of an element of recovery than prevention to me, and I think that's a fascinating avenue to explore in stories like these. Apollo pushes the envelope of the themes of the narrative and the characters-- he is the epitome of what it looks like when things fall apart, and it gives him and the trilogy characters something to reconcile

A lot of people have complained that Apollo barely feels like the protagonist in his own game, but that's honestly a huge part of the reason why I love him so much. He's defined by the spaces between, the limits and failures of things we had up to this point taken to be true, and left with a pretty limited degree of autonomy through it all. He's pushed around and puppeteered by people who mean well and those who don't, and I feel like a major theme of AA4 that I love but don't often see talked about is "what does it mean to have autonomy-- and by extension, control? What does it mean to take it back? What does it mean to lose it, and what does it mean when you'd do anything to keep it." Most of what I said is only partially resolved bc AA4 is... a game. A technically finished game. but!! Because it eviscerates our expectations of the franchise so thoroughly AND leaves open so many avenues, it makes Apollo and the rest of his crew some of my favorite characters because there's so much you can think about and do with them!!

also he's like. An insect to me. <3

[desperateknot]

Queequeg's lack of autonomy: features or bugs?

You know, I wanted this to be a proper analysis, but the stressed, sleep-deprived, busy self can only do a semi-ramble, semi analysis.

So I said how Queequeg's lack of autonomy and individuality is not a bug, but a feature.

Just so we are on the same page, I will prove how Queequeg is very obviously lacking in autonomy:

Queequeg: Must be nice. Queequeg: Knowing what you want. Knowing what you desire.

Canto V's dungeon: Floor 2

No… You devoured the crew whole. You painted over their wills, just like the Whales— no! Just like the Pallid Whale! Molding them and shaping them to fit your wants and needs.

Canto V's dungeon: Floor 3

Queequeg: Too late to think. About what is right and what is wrong. To think for myself. Too late.

Canto V's dungeon: Floor 3

The whole dungeon, she was obeying Ahab's orders, getting dragged around and around. Utterly lacking in agency is her main characteristic in her Pequod time, but there is a case to say it wasn't so during her Middle-arc. After all, she did say:

Queequeg: So I killed. And killed. And killed. Not because of orders. Killed with my own hands. Because I wanted to. Because I wanted respect as Big Sister.

I don't doubt her words. However, tribalistic as the Middle is, I think we can speculate on how much of Queequeg's actions stemmed from her own desire, and how much was her complying to its culture without even knowing it.

Either way, even if you disagree that Middle Queequeg was lacking in agency, it's hard to argue that she wasn't in her Pequod times, so we can assume that is a major trait of hers.

Let's go back to The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen for a sec. I will assume that you are convinced that one of Limbus Queequeg's inspiration is The Little Mermaid. If you are confused with that statement, please read:

The Little Mermaid wants to seek an immortal soul by getting the prince to marry her. I think it is a misconception that she did all (abandoning her family, enduring pain with every of her steps, sacrificing her voice) for love. No, she wants more than that: she wants an immortal soul. There could be a religious reading here, but it is neither relevant to my point nor am I qualify to state it, so I'll leave it. However, one could see how the arrangement of a woman having to win the love of a man and devoting her entire self to him to attain her spiritual fulfillment is very unfair, misogynistic, even. (Unfortunately, I can't explore that theme in Limbus Queequeg's story because sexism apparently doesn't exist in the City and also there are no prominent men in her story either?)

Here, I can go on about traditional heroines and how they are mostly quite lacking in agency too, but I haven't done researches for that. And more, importantly, this trope was intentionally subverted in The Little Mermaid. Hans Christian Andersen is much smarter than me, because he wrote it.

The Little Mermaid isn't just a damsel waiting for someone to save her. Her two displays of her agency are 1. finding the Sea Witch to get a pair of legs and 2. not killing the prince. She has a goal (attaining an immortal soul) and a principle (her love for the prince?) that she holds steadfast. Unfortunately, the one thing that she has been after, the prince's love, is not something that she can control. She can try to seduce him, sure, but his affection is his own. And, without it, she can't get an immortal soul...

But that isn't true, is it? The Mermaid didn't just die and turn into sea foam, fated to never get her immortal soul. She became a daughter of Air. And, with enough good deeds, can gain her own soul. Fortunately for her, this time, the task of getting her soul depends much, much more on herself.

This writing choice is quite intentionally, I believe. I wanted to read more about it, I really do, but the link they cited on Wikipedia led to an Internet Archive article that has been downed (RIP). Anyways, the gist of it is Andersen took inspiration for The Little Mermaid from Undine, in which a water spirit indeed got her immortal soul by marrying a human knight. Anyways, this is what Andersen allegedly wrote to a friend about it.

I have not, like de la Motte Fouqué in Undine, allowed the mermaid's acquiring of an immortal soul to depend upon an alien creature, upon the love of a human being. I'm sure that's wrong! It would depend rather much on chance, wouldn't it? I won't accept that sort of thing in this world. I have permitted my mermaid to follow a more natural, more divine path.

The point, I think, is that the Mermaid doesn't really need the prince's love to gain an immortal soul. That is something she can obtain herself, what she deserves after so much sacrifices, the rewards for her virtues. After the Mermaid was at the mercy of the prince for half of the story, she was given a chance to do good by herself. The opportunity of attaining an immortal soul returned to her.

I just argued above that Queequeg doesn't have autonomy, maybe even from her time in the Middle, but I lied (again). Queequeg also has two acts of agencies her own 1. running away from the Middle and 2:

Queequeg: Dante. Something I wish. Queequeg: I want… Ishmael to… Queequeg: … find her way.

Canto V's Dungeon: Floor 2, and

Woah, those two acts perfectly match the Mermaid's too, wonder how did that happened.

That was Queequeg's only wish, and that was just a bit after she said she was jealous of the Abnormalities for having wishes too :D

Queequeg also got her immortal soul, but...

This is when I think the story falls flat, if you hyperfocus on her. And you...shouldn't have. She is an NPC, who is dead. Only weird nerds like me would analyse the story in her perspective. This is not really a criticism for Canto V or PM's writings (although I do have a problem with it sometimes). I think they did the best they could to flesh out and gave Queequeg a proper ending with the little screen time she got (unlike that one other dead NPC from another franchise that I used to hyperfocus on).

However, what did The Little Mermaid have to do to get her immortal souls? She has to do 300 years worth of good deeds. Even though we didn't get to see it, we can assume that she struggled and grew even more to attain her goal.

What did Queequeg do to get her immortal soul? Um...uh...

Queequeg didn't really grow in the quest. When reunited with Ishmael, "her broken heart" got "unearthed". She nurtured a wish for herself: for Ishmael to find her own path. But, ultimately, she was still...following Ahab's orders. We still have to fight her twice (and thrice if you count her EGO phase).

Queequeg had character developments during her time on Pequod (mostly with the influence of Ishmael). She learned to look forward and to have hope. That got rolled back.

So, essentially, Queequeg got rewarded for...nothing?

Her story has ended. She couldn't do anything to actually gain her immortal soul, her atonement anymore. She is still quite lacking in autonomy. And I think that is a real shame, a bug, even.

That is one of the reasons why I made that swap Ishqueg AU.

______________________________________________________________

I know characters lacking in agencies are often seen as bad written, and a lot of times, they are. However, there is a certain charms to characters who have been deliberately written to have next to 0 agency. This actually reminds me of Iwakura Michihiro from Genshin Impact, an actually pretty prominent NPC in Inazuma's lore, whose only 2 acts of agencies in the lore were 1. leaving home to live in the woods (this one is debatable because he was abused and perhaps driven from home would be a more correct term) and 2. naming his sword. Anything else he did were instructions from his bully/mentor/friend/crush/saviour. And also Carter Scherbius, another NPC from Genshin Impact, who was terminally ill and then turned into goop in an effort to save him and later reincarnated for an experiment.

There is something quite heartbreaking and even beautiful about seeing a characters being dragged and beaten by the narrative. It's relatable. Real people, we, don't usually have control of our lives most of the times. We are dragged around and the beaten by forces we can't understand. We are usually helpless against our fate.

And, what kinds of people who would usually feel helpless against the sheer incomprehensibleness and the cruelty of our vast world? Sailors.

[icyrambles]

y'know i love idw1. it is by far my favourite continuity purely because it has the balls to actually do some weird fucked up shit with those robots but one of my forever gripes with the series was how they handled the combiners.

also spoilers for idw1 (not massive but enough that i should warn ya if you haven't read through the series)

not in the sense that i hate combiners or combination but mostly just because i think it's weird that they never tackle the horror of being a combiner. it's never really touched on that most of the combiners were forced together and that combining has a permanent effect on a cybertronian's mind.

sure you've got prowl but idw is written so that the reader is meant to hate prowl, or at the very least dislike him, so you're automatically geared to not give a fuck if he's suffering a little bit. and his relationship with the constructicons is never really given the screentime it probably should've gotten so we never get to hear their opinions on being forcibly fused with an autobot's mind. (clearly they don't seem to mind it at the very least but i have a hard time believing that they just magically were okay with suddenly being part of a gestalt)

first aid literally shows up on cybertron with five other guys that he's only vaguely familiar with and starscream just decides that they're "good enough" and forces them into a gestalt. and then we literally never get to see if first aid gave a fuck about this whole situation. hell one of his gestalt members, rook, literally gets killed in lost light and first aid just, doesn't care, and neither do any of his gestalt mates. they're just like, "eh, moving on"

fucking hell, sunstreaker, ironhide, mirage, and motherfucking optimus prime get put into a gestalt with prowl and the most they have to say is "wow prowl you're really fucked up" and that's it. do they just all have to deal with the consequences of being a combiner. optimus never seems to bring it up ever again and neither does sunstreaker, even when they're in the same place together.

the combaticons seem to be rather fucked up about the whole thing, but that's not because being in a combiner team fucked them up, it's more because they combined with a fucking corpse and sharing a mind with a brain dead swindle seriously sucked ass.

like think about the effect of combination for a quick second.

a mech is forced to share everything about themself, from memories, to thoughts and emotions with another group of mecha (up to five depending on the combiner) and they just, don't get a fucking choice in it. idw talks a lot about bodily autonomy, what with the themes of functionalism and cold constructed mechs but they don't seem to apply the same emotion to the combiners. they're just a plot tool to be throw around when the writers needed a big bad to face or a defender against some type of higher force

combiners are only scary because they're big and angry and difficult to control but the real fear should be focused on the existential horror of having a character whose mind is forcibly fused together with another group of people

[vixxdaemon]

Would you like to share your thoughts with the public about O’saAbella? Like anything, whether that would be the reason why you started shipping them, au's, scenarios that are running in your head 24/7 ect.

I was hoping for this day to come…

Alright so, it all started when I saw this happen in the confessional cutscene, when you tell O’saa you have a crush on someone from the train. First person he mentions is Abella :

Like, this is undoubtedly meant to be Abella, no doubt. So certainely he must at least perceive her as attractive for him to think of her literally above anyone else. (He does mention Karin instead of you play as Abella but like. Most likely cause it’s just that, you already are Abella so he would not ask you if you are into Abella lol.)

THEN FUNNILY ENOUGH the way I started to ship O’saa and Abella together was by wondering if they were any fics with…Ah, Abella tending to O’saa, if you catch my drift. Take care of him. In bed. Dominating him, gonna say things as they are. (There weren’t any at the time.)

So it lead me to think of them more and actually realize that their dynamic would be entertaining to see and how they would actually make a cute couple. I started to look for more things between them in game, and besides the Party Talks that are pretty fucking funny, I had figured out something.

In the Tunnel 1, exactly where you can recruit O’saa, the only way to get him in your party is having him ask you if you know anything of the tunnels you are in, you HAVE to reply to him in the affirmative.

(Source is on wiki gg, but feel free to go check that out of yourself, you will see that he won’t suggest to join you if you tell him you don’t understand what is happening in the tunnels.)

So, guess who amongst literally everyone in the Contestants that is well versed in machines and more importantly, tunnels ?

That’s right, Abella. The Mechanic.

What I am suggesting right here is that it’s highly likely that «canonically» (as in the intended storyline that happens during Termina), Abella is the person finding O’saa and helping him out. Not only because she knows how the tunnels works, but also she is most definitely one of the few characters that would be willing to take in a wounded person with her and help them get back to their feet in the cast.

Now there isn’t even this evidence we have in canon, but there is also the fact that their personalities are opposites, and even more than that, some of their themes too, all the while having actually quite important points in common. Let me explain.

Abella has grown up a caregiver, having helped her parents take care of her younger siblings since she is a child. She has an actually quite peppy personality beyond that frown on her portrait, she enjoys romance books and literature. She expresses sadness or disgust at death, if not straight up distress when she sees people actively suffering (the people hanging at the ceiling yelling at the shopping district of Prehevil). Abella suffers for others, as she Moonscorches literally while she is trying to find pieces for the train, doing a thing she always did : helping other people.

O’saa has grown up most of his life away from his family, and since really young has adopted a «fend for yourself and only yourself» kind of mentality. He does not care for the homeless, if not immediately mocking them, he is completely unphased at violence and the suffering of others, he even threatens to hurt YOU if you come too close to him for his liking. O’saa suffers for himself, as we can see his Moonscorch reveals his struggle with wishing for his autonomy and escaping the control of higher powers.

That being said, the points in common they have is that they are both very very dependant and self reliant, both very much the kind of character to take matters into their own hands and get their own hands dirty to get what they want. And if they want something, they WILL get it by all means necessary (see Abella’s Ending B of her learning astrophysics and building a whole ass spaceship to get in contact with the Moon, while O’saa’s Ending B is him BECOMING the higher power, aka a cult leader, to not be controlled anymore and instead BE the one in control, which in my opinion is tragic in its own right but I won’t elaborate on O’saa on his own here.)

All that being said, as a couple I would imagine that most of it would happen outside of Prehevil, in a canon divergent ending of Termina.

Abella, knowing O’saa is erudite about magic and the surnatural, would ask to stay in contact with him because she feels the need to know more about what happened during the festival. O’saa would accept, happy to have an occasion to have his ego being stroked while he teaches someone else about what he knows.

The pair would travel the world to learn new things, spend a lot of time together, and Abella would even teach O’saa a thing or two about mechanics as a trade off for him teaching her about the occult.

Eventually both would have feelings about eachother…On Abella’s side it feels natural for it to happen, as they do spend a lot of time with eachother and enjoy eachother’s companies and hobbies. On O’saa’s side though…needless to say he is having an existential crisis because he did not even know having simple, romantic feelings for someone was even possible for him. I think sexual feelings he views as not shameful, because it’s what his body would need and not his feelings, but there he is having a proof that he’s not as dead inside as he tried to be for years.

Abella is aware of this, as O’saa grows visibly more hesitant and dare I even say coy with showing affection to her that goes a bit too uncomfortably close to the line between simple friendship and romantic attentions. She decides to let him figure it out by himself, but that does not mean she doesn’t enjoy seeing him very subtly avoid her gaze when their eyes meet.

I also have. A whole thing with me and associating them with Gro-Goroth and Sylvian imagery. This bit is not a theory or trying to prove anything being canon, but it’s more about symbolism and narratives that I like to associate with them cause I do like some religious imagery. I can most definitely get into detail about it, but the post is already too long as it is by itself LOL

Hopefully this will feed your curiosity.