#bc credence ??????

[lotuslate]

at any point in a day, in the middle of a week, at any moment,,, these parts are ALWAYS always in my head

wwx your little moments of unhinged and brutal rationality make me go insane and are, in my opinion, peak moments of the entire book

[thencomethecherryblossoms]

Just watched a video essay on credence by Penelope Douglas and fuck me it sounds so much worse than what I’d imagined 😀

[labyrynth]

I normally just leave opinions as 'if we disagree we disagree' but I found your post comparing the golden core transfer and consent in remarkably bad taste. I don't care how passionate you are about this fictional book comparing the real fucking trauma rape victims have gone through the shit we have experienced to fictional xianxia surgery is so so disrespectful rape victims are more important then a fucking fictional consent argument. Thanks.

i had to go back and search for what the fuck you’re talking about, bc initially i thought you were talking about this post and i was like ??? and then i realized you probably meant the initial tags on this other post (which…there’s a reason it wasn’t in the actual post, which was a salt/rant post to begin with.)

sorry you found my off the cuff rant in response to some of the abhorrent things people have said about consent while trying to argue that wwx was 100% in the right (see the aforementioned posts), and my comparison of a horrific violation of consent, agency, and bodily autonomy to *checks notes* a different but also horrific violation of consent, agency, and bodily autonomy to be in poor taste but like. not actually.

bc i personally find it to be in poor taste when a fictional character lies to someone whose agency and bodily autonomy was violated and was traumatized by the experience in order to get them to “agree” to another violation of agency and bodily autonomy (but it’s fictional, so whatever.)

but i find it in even poorer taste for real life people to claim that actually that character did nothing wrong; consent was given and there was no violation. or if there was a violation, it’s his own fault, and he should have known better.

bc it’s true that fictional xianxia surgery doesn’t exist, but consent, agency, and bodily autonomy DO, and if real people have used their real world judgement to conclude that THIS situation was consensual—especially if they bend over backwards, unironically using the same arguments used to discredit survivors of rape to argue as such—that’s a red flag.

[thedreadvampy]

another day another 2 hour despair sesh on the phone with my mum about Palestine

[volchitsa-of-winterfell]

I think nearly all of lewis' aloof persona is carefully constructed, as is his over the top style in the paddock. He's extremely good at distracting ppl or showing only what he wants to. He mimics vulnerability but he's hiding the stuff he's really vulnerable about. All the woowoo spiritual "ohhhhh he's so GENUINE" stuff is also a front (see how kate wagner talked about him).

ooooh bold take and as a fellow mimicker of vulnerability to hide the stuff i'm really vulnerable about, i'm into it!! i understand from your tone that you don't mean this as a particularly good thing but i personally am here for interesting/compelling characters in the vroom vroom soap opera and don't care too much if they're Good People ™ or not lol. (and thank you for the reminder that I still haven't gotten around to reading that Kate Wagner article!)

[lord-squiggletits]

Actually the funniest example of Megatron apologism (neutral) I've seen is when people call it biased and rigged for Optimus to be the judge for Megatron's trial, but have nothing to say about the fact that Optimus let Megatron on the Lost Light AS CO-CAPTAIN which is ALSO incredibly rigged and biased and no one wanted it and Optimus barely had the authority to even do that.

It just seems like a case where people will always take the angle/interpretation that favors Megatron as a victim of Autobot eeeevillll, so they harp on how unfair it was for Megatron to be put on trial, but completely skirt over exactly how and why Megatron even got to serve parole/not rot in prison in the first place. I guess because it would disrupt the ever-present fan wank about how actually Megatron is being victimized for being put on trial and those Autobots are "just as bad" (lmao).

[fitia]

Once exams are over and I have the freedom to replay AA and share with everyone my headcanon that Edgeworth actively sought out MVK instead of him being adopted when he was 9 and it makes their relationship so much more fun and interesting to think about >>>>>>>

[definitelynotshouting]

i am looking at your comparisons of watchers to a bunch of prey animals and wondering: what eats watchers? they're clearly also hyperspecialized, like those skimmer birds with a ridiculous feeding strategy, so they're clearly a case of evolution speccing them into an absurd "life does whatever it can get away with" kind of ridiculous build, but the prey animal comparisons IN PARTICULAR have me thinking a bunch of things eat them

They absolutely are hyperspecialized, and i do think there once was something that ate Watchers pretty regularly-- although im still working on what exactly that was. i have a few ideas im churning over right now that i want to percolate on before i fully commit. What i do know, however, is that they're pretty much fully extinct now-- whatever they were, the Watchers figured out how to change themselves enough to avoid them, and more or less starved them out. One or two may still linger... but they're incredibly rare. And of course, Players themselves are both prey and threat to Watchers-- enough Players in a group could easily kill them bc of how fragile their code is, so its necessary to stay hidden, secret, and safe at all times.

As a sidenote, evolution in this universe is a bit different than how we might understand it. I think evolution in hunger au has something to do with manipulating your deep code, your source code-- the intrinsic stuff thats buried far below the code that dictates what you look like. The general impression i have right now is that Watchers learned how to change some of that deep code (at a great expense, this is NOT easy) to avoid their predators, and this unlocked their ability to See using the Greater Code-- but this isnt set in stone just yet, so take that with a grain of salt until i can get all this stuff finalized LOL

[beeapocalypse]

hey what do you mean pocketcat had daans soul

[zvaigzdelasas]

Asking for consistent rubrics is one of those demands that seems simple & insufficient but is ultimately undigestible for imperialism - that's also exactly why "whataboutism" as a canard is so effective

[daincrediblegg]

How did you come up with Lady Terror?

OH THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION!!! Well. The short answer is that I watched The Terror again after a few years and needed to jump that grumpy old irish man immediately because he's so sad and outcast and pathetic, so I did what I usually do, which is wedge myself as hard as possible into the canon, slap a cool nickname onto it, and that was that.

But as many of you know, I'm not into short answers. So here we go.

Honestly, the process of developing Lady Terror has been a really interesting one. As I've explained before she was initially meant to be part of a more sci-fi centric AU based loosely off of 1899 in which she is a physical manifestation of the ship, but the way she developed from there is entirely due to three factors, 1) my friend's staunch encouragement (some of whom are still around, some of whom have deactivated, alas), 2) the Gothic Literature, film theory (which was very philosophically heavy), and the women gender and sexuality classes I was taking last year and 3) my staunch love for Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre reemerging in my consciousness at the time. These elements combined really gave me a sense of purpose when thinking about the relationship dynamics that I wanted to put forward with Francis and Lady Terror because I can absolutely never in my life just throw my self-inserts in all willy nilly because I am of the firm and staunch belief, which has been reinforced by my studies of all genres, that romance has the capability to be as radical and philosophical as any other, and where Crozier is concerned, I think he has so much potential as a romantic figure to break a lot of the common conventions that proliferate the genre, and put together with a figure like Lady Terror, it just makes my brain go brrrrr in a way that a lot of pairings with him just... don't.

Because the focus of their relationship is on the complexities, horror and fear of love. These are two people who have been ostracized in different ways but recognize in each other that ostracization, but beyond that, their capability that continues to be stifled by a social order that is designed to keep them in their place. I've talked a lot about how Francis is probably my favorite to do think work on because he's both a colonized subject but he's also a colonizer and that's his big struggle throughout the series (mirrored, perhaps, only by Hickey), but Lady Terror mirrors him in a unique way in that she is a privilaged colonized subject, and the unique experience that that entails connects them in a way that he doesn't share with a lot of characters, and one that I think is fascinating to explore.

Because like god. What if you were all that but also truly loved? Not to be confused with devotion, adoration, admiration, or with simply being seen. What if you were loved with those things, but also then for your mind, your humor, your ability to reject and rebel against that social order, and still be loved in a way that was barred to you because the social order that you were born into is designed to continue to reject you on every level? What if then you found it in a place that wants you dead? What do you do with that love? Knowing and fearing that you will be rejected again or, even more horrifying, that it could be ripped away from you at any moment because, again, this place wants you dead. You could not be more equally as lucky and as damned. But then also you wonder if this small and sacred thing can do anything at all? does it have the capacity to change things? Does the reinforcement that the union brings matter at all to anyone else? And how do you cope with that? All questions that I'm hoping to pose with them. I don't have strict answers for all of those questions, of course, but perhaps some hints in certain directions. But I hope to put them through their paces in this way.

... but also. Fundamentally, at the end of the day, I did come up with Lady Terror because I want to fuck that old man so bad it makes me look stupid. But also I'm a lit major and if I don't get freaky with it I'll die. Just how it goes with me, I guess.

[welcometogrouchland]

What if I proposed the analysis that Belos actually has very little internal moral compass and that his veneer of righteousness has always been implied by the writers to be complete fabricated bullshit even before watching and dreaming basically confirms it.

[starbuck]

SO, as my fellow BrBaBCS friends may remember, it’s been my theory ever since I started rewatching BrBa that the timing of the DEA going after Tuco RIGHT after he started selling Walt’s supermeth was too coincidental to be true… that it would make sense if Gus was somehow involved considering he was about to secretly launch his own meth business and did NOT want competition from the cartel and ESPECIALLY not a Salamanca.

Eventually though, this theory seemed to be proven false by my being reminded that the DEA found Tuco’s bloody fingerprint on No Doze’s body, giving them a perfectly legitimate excuse to go after Tuco without any outside involvement necessary. That’s what I *thought*… But then this morning I realized that I had overlooked one crucial detail: HOW did the DEA find No Doze and Gonzo’s bodies so quickly in the first place?

They were tucked away in a junkyard SO secluded that a man could be murdered in broad daylight with no one taking notice, but I’m supposed to believe that some random person found Gonzo RIGHT after he died and reported this not just to the police, but to the DEA? A likely story… Instead, let me tell you another story…

Tuco had already been selling Walt’s meth for at least a week prior to the junkyard sale… A new, super-potent strain of meth goes on the market in the ABQ territory and OBVIOUSLY Gus is gonna take notice and be displeased. So what does he do? Well, first he’s gotta figure out where Tuco is getting it from. He has someone (probably Mike) follow Tuco to the junkyard sale and watch the whole thing with binoculars from a distance. He watches Tuco murder No Doze and dispose of his body. Interesting. They’ll put a pin in that. In the meantime, they’ve gotta figure out who these guys Tuco got the blue meth from are.

Canonically, Walt and Jesse are both spied on in the days following the junkyard sale and both assume the culprit to be Tuco, however, I went back and checked and was validated by the fact that, as expected, the car that pulls away from Walt’s house in 2x01 is NOT the same car that Tuco drove to the junkyard. Additionally, Tuco seems surprised to learn Walt’s real name and that he has a family in the following episode, things which shouldn’t have surprised him if he had already been spying on Walt’s home. No, I think a better explanation for all of that was that it was Gus’ guys scoping out the competition (but also happy to let Walt and Jesse THINK it was Tuco because anything to make that relationship more fraught than it already was is to their benefit).

And so that all brings us to the question of who tipped off the DEA… Just as Gus had guys watching Walt and Jesse, someone also must have tailed Gonzo back to the junkyard, watched him die, and, with Tuco now entirely defenseless, decided that this was the moment to strike. They left an anonymous tip with the DEA and then let the law do the rest of the work for them. The way things ultimately went down for Tuco was obviously unplanned… I’m sure the original plan was just to have him imprisoned again, but I can’t imagine that Gus was too unhappy about Tuco’s death, even if he didn’t exactly orchestrate it himself.

This is all heavy conjecture, obviously, but I think it makes sense and I like how this reading lets it mirror Tuco’s going to prison in BCS where, on the face of it, it’s Tuco’s own inability to control his temper fucking him over, but, in truth, he’s also being set up by outside forces he has no knowledge of. Really adds to the tragedy of it all, in my opinion.

[feline-evil]

Thinking about how Kaz looks in the rescue mission and how different that appearance is from how he subsequently looks through the rest of the game; his eyes are green and without visible cataracts, his eyebrows less bushy, his face just a little less aged, i even think when we see him through the rest of the game his stubble on his upper lip looks almost greying whereas in this mission he's just very very blonde as he always is. He doesn't look like nine years have passed. And like, you could go 'oh yeah they just reused his model/ his models face from GZ's for this so as not to have to make two different Kaz models for TPP when this ones only going to be visible in one mission, and to free up resources and time with a simple shortcut' but knowing this game and how detailed it is at times i just. Feel like it's more deliberate than that, thematically.

Because like, we know Venom's perception isn't always 100% accurate, he's suffering from a myriad of visual anomalous experiences due to, WELL. THE SHRAPNEL STICKING OUT OF HIS HEAD. Sources are telling me having shrapnel (and human teeth) embedded inside your body isn't good for you. :( Alas. But anyways yes, we see that he hallucinates, we see that his vision can be impacted and his view of the world distorted, it's a fairly common theme in this game; so what i think when i see that scene is that this isn't exactly what Kaz looks like in this moment, this is what he looks like to Venom though. Seen through the eyes of an unreliable narrator who's had the image of his comrade and friend in his head through the mission briefing, through the entire helicopter ride over, as he's searched for intel and infiltrated to seek him out; this is Kaz as Venom expects to see him, injured, tortured and roughed up yes but still his face is that face he last saw nine years ago for the most part. He hasn't seen him since, maybe photographs but i doubt Diamond Dogs were taking many glamour shots during those nine years, and especially not of him in rough shape or without the armour of his glasses; he can fill in blanks in those years through the intel he's given, change the image in his head a little- but outside of that it's just. The man he knew that he see's. And it's not until reuniting with him and seeing him again that he can find the image in his minds eye correcting itself to how Kaz actually is now.

I need to educate myself more on supplementary info on this game that exists outside of just playing it, because i know i could just be wrong or misinformed, but. This is how it reads to me right now in my own personal interpretation- that Venom see's the face he has been hoping to see, the one he's so relieved to see, through rose tinted glasses of hazy memory; until he finally gets to reconnect with him, and see him for how he really is after those nine long, terrible years.

[thedreadvampy]

callout posts will truly be like:

and the post they're talking about will be like

and then they'll be like "what do you mean I'm overstating harm?"

[dsrtrose]

eliza  has  100000%  seen  the  st  denis  vampire,  and  is  in  total  denial  of  it.  do  not  ask  her  about  it  or  she’ll  just  walk  tf  away.