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linkspooky · 4 months

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DOOMED SIBLINGS: THE TODOROKIS VS. THE FIRE NATION ROYAL FAMILY

I received an ask in my inbox about how Zuko doesn't owe Azula any forgiveness. Truthfully I wasn't even going to respond because this isn't an avatar blog, but then I watched this video.

Not only do I disagree with the basically everything in this video, but I am going to make the argument that both Zuko' and Azula's arcs are both incomplete with the way the show left the two of them in the final showdown.

In order to make my argument I'm going to compare Azula and Zuko's relationship in avatar to Shoto and Toya's relationship in My Hero Academia and use the latter as a more positive example.

Unnecessary Redemption Arcs

The common fandom opinion I want to argue against is this idea that Azula's ending is a perfect tragedy, and therefore doesn't need to be expanded upon. There's also a sentiment that redeeming Azula would somehow ruin the impact of this perfect tragedy.

I'm about to argue against both of these points.

Azula's arc doesn't work as a tragedy.

Because of this her arc is unsatisfying and unfinished.

I'm going to address the first bullet point but before that let me add another disclaimer. The reason why I think Azula's arc isn't an effectively written tragedy isn't because I like Azula.

Before we even get into the My Hero Academia comparison let me bring up something completely different. I do like Azula, but I like Terra Markov from Teen Titans a lot more and I would not change a thing about her tragic end.

AZULA'S ARC IS NOT A WELL-WRITTEN TRAGEDY

Terra in the comics is what a lot of people accuse Azula of being. She is stated in the text and by her creators to be an unfeeling sociopath. She was also never intended by her creators to be redeemed.

[About Terra] The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case. First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. T

Now let me clarify, both creators of New Teen Titans say some nasty things about Terra and don't recognize her sexual abuse, but here's the thing. You don't have to read a story 100% the way the author intended, sometimes the story says one thing and the text says something different.

I am going to use Judas Contract as an example of a story where the character from the start was never intended to be redeemed and why that's a positive in this case.

Terra is a teenage girl, the bastard daughter of the king of Markovia and a random American woman who presumably has had no stable home her entire life because she's working as a mercenary at fifteen. She teams up with a man that is in his mid fifties and even starts a sexual relationship with him (this is statutory rape she cannot consent) and Deathstroke uses her to infiltrate the Teen Titans and learn as much as possible.

Terra is sent to live with the team and spy on them for several months. The whole time she only ever engages with them in a fake spunky persona, and never shows her real cutthroat self. She leads Beast Boy on in a fake romance to make him trust her and secure her place on the team. The way you'd usually expect this arc to go is that Terra would grow fond of the team and be torn in her loyalties.

Yeah, that never happens.

Terra loathes the Titans. In fact she's developed a superiority complex about her meta human abilities and she doesn't understand why anyone would use their powers to help others. She despises the concept of superheroes in general, and because of that never bonds with any of the Titans. Her feelings never change from start to finish, because her creators intentionally wrote her as a character that can't be redeemed.

Terra is written to be a psychopath, but even with that intention in mind there are scene that shows a greater range of emotions. She has what could amount to a trauma flashback when Beast Boy too aggressively flirts with her and tries to kiss her and she reacts violently, trying to bury him under the earth.

Let's go ahead and interpret Terra as what is used as the fictional definition of a "sociopath" that is someone who feels no bonds with other people, someone with shallow emotions and someone devoid of guilt. Even if we interpret her that way, her story is still meant to be read as a tragedy.

Terra succeeds in her mission of infiltrating the Titans. Slade captures most of them, and the only remaining member Dick Grayson goes missing. Dick Grayson then unites with Slade's son Jericho, and the two of them team up in order to rescue the rest of their friends.

Even after all she's done the Titans try to make pleas to Terra during the final battle, which she not only rejects but responds to with violence. Which only confirms what I said above, Terra never grew to love them, she never regretted her actions, she only ever engaged with them with lies.

(Terra always lies, Terra always lies, Terra always lies).

Terra is declared by Raven to be devoid of emotions: "Her thinking is unlike ours. She feels no true love or hate. Her soul is corrupt. What she does is done without remorse."

Even after Raven declares this, however she still pleads with Terra to stop because she's going to hurt herself. Terra feels Slade betrayed her because he favored his son Jericho over her, so she decides to take both Slade and the Titans down. As the Titans fight her she begins to mentally fall apart ignoring their appeals to her and lashing out at everything around her. Eventually she makes one last attempt to everything around her, but the Titans escape and she only manages to bury herself.

At no point in the fight do the Titans give up on trying to reach her even as she's loudly screaming how much she hates them. Even after she's buried and it looks like she's dead, Gar and Donna both try desperately to dig her up on the slim hope she's still alive. When they find the body they even give her a funeral afterwards, even though they all think that Terra was beyond redemption.

Even the prose narration that accompanies her death is incredibly melancholy and bemoans her fate, at the same time as it calls her a outright sociopath.

There's no reasoning with her now. However slim, whatever sanity Tara Markov possessed is gone. Now there is only primal hatred! Hatred born, nurtured, and fanned. Hatred that festers and grows without care, without feeling, without plan. her pursed lips part and the sounds which echoes force are garbled and inhuman. Hot, boiling blood gushes wildly from the earth's open wounds, its skin fractures and cracks, and if a world could cry, it surely would. Her name is Tara Markov and she is little more than sxiteen years old, and due to the fault of no one but herself she is insane. No one taught her to hate, yet she hates without cause, without reason. No one taught her to destroy, yet she destroys with glee, with relish. Don't look for reasons which do not exist, plainly Tara Markov is what she is, and she has taken a great power and made it as corrupt as she. Hers was the power over the earth itself she could have brought life to deserts, hat to the frozen tundra, food to sraving millions. She could have damned raging rivers, and tunneled water to packed lands dry and dead. her powers were limited only by the mind which controlled them. A mind which sought not hope, not love, not life, but death.

If you go with the text that she is just a sociopath beyond redemption who hates and hates and hates for no reason, the narrative still mourns her because a sixteen year old with her whole life ahead of being consumed by hatred and then dying because of it is in fact sad.

If you read into the subtext then you can argue that the events of the story, contradicts what the narration is telling us. Terra is being sexually groomed and groomed as a child soldier by a man who is much older than her, even if she thinks he's a partner he clearly has all power in the relationship.

If you think about it that way then Terra is the ultimate bad victim. She doesn't cry and call for help as a victim of sexual abuse, instead she tries to claim power for herself, she manipulates, and she destroys any chance she had for a genuine relationship because she only sees all relationships as transactions she can gain or lose from.

Even if you only go with the first interpretation, the narrative still remains tragic because the Titans themselves did not want to give up on her, they did not want to watch this sixteen-year-old girl destroy herself. They never stop reaching out for her and it doesn't work, because there was no way out for Terra but death.

Here's the thing I don't think Terra's status as a sexual victim automatically means an ending where she dies is offensive. It reflects a reality that victims like Terra often go unseen because they don't present their victimhood in palatable ways, and by the time anyone notices it's far too late. Sometimes tragedies are meant to reflect a reality where many people do not get saved.

There's two reasons that Judas Contract works as a tragic story. Number one the creators planned Terra's ending right from the beginning. Which meant they never gave her any moment where she shows that she's redeemable. There's no genuine bond between her and the titans, no wrestling with the guilt of her actions, nothing.

Number two, Judas Contract is Terra's story from beginning to end. It begins with her betrayal of the Titans, and ends with her death. The death is also brought upon herself by her fatal flaw her hatred, which is what makes her the protagonist of a tragedy. Tragedies are stories where heroes are undone by their flaws. Terra also goes out on her own terms. She buries herself underneath her own rocks. Her death is a direct consequence of her inability to let go of her hatred. Terra's not fridged for anybody else's arc, she retains her agency until the exact moment of her death.

To simplify into bullet points, Judas Contract works because:

The creators thought out what they wanted to do with Terra.

Judas contract is Terra's story.

Now, getting to the part where we actually talk about Avatar, and I start complaining about that awful, awful video.

AZULA'S ARC IS NOT WELL THOUGHT OUT

I just went on a long tangent on how Terra, a character written to have no redeemable qualities can still be tragic. How the creators marked her as clearly doomed from the start, and how she brought about her end on herself, how there no redemption for Terra. How this girl had no real chance, and how regardless of the fact Terra is a lil baby sociopath her fall is still tragic because of how well structured the tragedy is surrounding her.

It's awful to kill off a sixteen year old victim of sexual abuse, but the ending just fits because Terra represents a certain type of bad, unsympathetic victim who doesn't get saved.

Azula's arc isn't as well structured. The ending does not fit. I'm going to start by refuting some points in the awful, awful video I did not like.

"Maybe it's okay if Azula's story ends where it does in the series we would separate how we would treat a real 14-year-old girl from a villain in a series, ad that's why any redemption arc isn't need i a story after all. A character needs of deserves a redemption arc when it becomes the most meaningful way to explore their character and place in the story, but a character deserving redemption usually comes before the story really needing it, and I don't think Azula's done anything to deserve it yet. They've got to exhibit some willingness and action to change..."

So the main reason I'm using Terra as my first example is because Terra is the kind of character that Hello Future Me is describing. Terra was written with the specific intention she'd never experience a change of heart, all of the friendships she makes with the Titans are fake, she very loudly experiences no remorse, or even self-reflection over what she is. Terra's pretty proudly a monster and she never experiences any kind of self-doubt or regret over what she's become.

I can disprove right away Hello Future Me's blanket statement (with no actual cited examples, just trust him guys) that Azula never did anything to hint she may deserve redemption. That suggests Azula is an entirely selfish character who uses, manipulates and thinks she's right and worst of all is comfortable being the way she is, and therefore incapable of doing the self-reflection necessary for change.

Azula does show the capacity to do selfless actions several times in the narrative, and even consider the feelings of others. There's the apology scene with Ty Lee and the way she interacts with her friends in general with the Beach where when she's not fighting in a war or trying to complete a mission for her father Azula 1) interacts with her friends in a normal way and 2) seems to express a desire to experience normal relationships not the hierarchical ones she's experienced all of her life.

However, that's not the example I'm going to use as her save the cat moment. I generally intend to interpret that as a sign that even though she treats Mai and Ty Lee as subordinates and that power she holds over them eventually leads to them leaving her, their friendship isn't just Azula abusing them and lording her authority over their heads 24/7.

No, Azula's save the cat moments all revolve around Zuko. Which is funny, because the entire fandom seems to regard Azula as Zuko's evil little sister who exists to do nothing but torment her.

The first and biggest is Azula deciding to bring Zuko home in Ba Sing Se, and telling a lie to her father that he was the one to slay the avatar.

Ozai: I am proud of you, Prince Zuko. I am proud because you and your sister conquered Ba Sing Se. I am proud because when your loyalty was tested by your treacherous uncle, you did the right thing and captured the traitor. And I am proudest of all of your most legendary accomplishment: you slayed the Avatar.

Zuko: [Shocked.] What did you hear? Ozai: Azula told me everything. She said she was amazed and impressed at your power and ferocity at the moment of truth. [Inspired partly by this post]

Now the show seems to regard this action as Azula being an evil temptress who is there to tempt Zuko back to her side with everything he thinks he ever wanted.

That's only if you regard it from Zuko's perspective.

Think for a moment from Azula's perspective. Number one, Azula is someone thoroughly indoctrinated into Fire Nation propaganda who measures her self-worth based on 1) military achievement and 2) her father's approval and assessment of her talents. In Azula's own logic (wrongheaded as it is) she's helping Zuko. She's bringing him back home with his place in the line of succession restored and his father's approval.

Azula doesn't benefit from this gesture at all, in fact if her father discovers the lie she has as much to lose as Zuko does.

Now Zuko insinuates that Azula only brought Zuko along and told her father that he was the one who killed the avatar so she could let him take the fall if the avatar turned out to be alive.

However, if you look at the actual order of events that doesn't make sense. Azula saw the avatar die, she didn't know about the spirit water, and therefore had no way of knowing Aang could come back. In fact, it's Zuko who 1) knew about the spirit water and 2) decides to keep the spirit water and the fact the avatar might have survived a secret that is throwing Azula under the bus. After all she has as much to lose as he did and instead of sharing that information with her he decides to keep it all to himself.

Now Azula does imply that if the avatar were to turn out to be alive all of Zuko's glory would dry up, but this is only after Zuko 1) throws accusations at her and 2) makes it's pretty clear he's lying to her putting her on the defensive.

This is also a scenario where Azula doesn't have much to gain by bringing Zuko back, if you look at it from her perspective. If Azula just lets Zuko rot in a ba sing se prison, then her claim to the throne is secure. With Zuko back he's restored in the line of succession. She also, when making the decision to invite Zuko to her side probably didn't need him for her plan to succeed.

There is a dramatic moment of Zuko choosing to side with Azula over Katara which turns the tide in Azula's favor, but Azula can't see into the future and therefore wouldn't be able to predict that happening. If you look at it from Azula's perspective she 1) successfully infiltrated the city, 2) already had the Dai Lee in her pocket. She likely already thought she had the city secure at this point so her decision to extend a hand out to Zuko is therefore likely motivated by selflessness instead of self-interest.

That's important because usually when Azula usually only gives her help to others if it also benefits her in some way. Azula might genuinely see her recruiting Mai and Ty Lee to her side as a member of the royal family extending her favor and giving them status and security in their positions but it has the underlying motivation of 1) she keeps them in a position to beneath her and therefore in her complete control.

Azula will interact with Mai and Ty Lee like friends on the surface, as long she maintains control over them, but if they do anything to something that displeases her she'll do anything to regain her control.

Mai: I thought you ran off and joined the circus. You said it was your calling. Ty Lee: Well, Azula called harder.

This is set up in Azula's very first interaction with Ty Lee. Azula greets her like an old friends, Ty Lee even seems happy to see her, but the second Ty Lee tries to say no to her Azula goes to extreme lengths to "persuade her". Azula's friendship with Mai and Ty Lee is an abusive friendship because there is a power differential and even if Azula feels genuine affection for them both it's clear they're not allowed to say no. Mai and Ty Lee are put into positions where it's in their best interest to please her, and live in fear of the consequences if they don't do just that.

Here's the thing, I'm not arguing that Azula didn't deserve any consequences for her actions. I'm arguing that the setup doesn't match her eventual ending. Azula is set up to have Mai and Ty Lee leave her from the very first scene that Azula interacts with Ty Lee. It's satisfying because the set up matches the pay off.

It's also tragic because it's Azula continuing the chain of abuse. The video isn't entirely wrong (which is why they came to the wrong conclusion frustrating).

Azula's fall is about how differenting parenting styles can a child. Ozai's affection is exchanged for being useful. Something Azula would go on to repeat with her friends, whereas Iroh's affection is something freely given with patience for imperfections and failures, something Zuko goes then on to repeat.

It's like... there it is it's so close. Here's the thing, Azula is set up for a tragic falling out with Mai and Ty Lee (and one she deserves) but the set up is different with Zuko. Azula's save the cat moment revolves around Zuko, and her genuine attempt to bring her brother home.

Yes, the first time Azula interacts with Zuko in season 2, she tries to take him home by force. However, by the ending of the season Azula's perspective on the matter has obviously changed because she begins by trying to bring him back as a prisoner, and by the end of the season invites him back as an equal.

There's no moment in Season 3 where Azula treats Zuko the way she does Mai and Ty Lee (unless Zuko provokes it first and puts her on the defensive) in fact most of her interactions are either them interacting normally (such as when Azula goes to find Zuko at their old beach house because she knows he'll be there and advises he leave instead of dwelling on their depressing memories) or Azula deliberately trying to look out for Zuko such as when she advises him not to go visiting with Uncle because it'll make others suspicious.

On the other hand, Zuko never at any point looks out for his sister the way Azula is demonstrated looking out for him. He doesn't say, try to tell her where he's going on the Day of Black Sun, or try to convince her the fire nation is wrong. There's a scene in the later part of Season 3 where Zuko is watching Azula fall to her death while sitting on a flying bison and not only sits there and does nothing about it, but sounds disappointed when she doesn't hit the ground and become an Azula Pancake.

That's pretty much the opposite of a save the cat moment. It's a "let the cat fall to their death" kind of moment.

Yes they were enemies at that point, but Zuko's the one who's supposed to learn that affection is something freely given with patience for imperfections and failures, something Zuko goes then on to repeat.

How exactly is he doing that in this scene?

The thing is... this setup doesn't have to be bad. Of course Zuko has trouble has trouble empathizing with Azula, he doesn't even think about sending a letter to Mai, Zuko's shown at this point to be like a healing abuse victim who's understandably focused on himself.

This in fact could be excellent set up with step 1) learning what genuine love and forgiveness is and 2) demonstrating those two things by applying it to others.

However, that's not where we got. We got Zuko watching his sister have a complete emotional breakdown, crying and screaming while chained to a grate and looking somewhat sad.

And once again to bring Terra into this, Terra is what Stay at Home and parts of fandom argue that Azula is. Terra screams at the top of her lungs how much she hates the Titans, how much she was always lying to them, and the Titans STILL try to reach Terra with words, try to de-escalate the conflict, when she's about to bring the rocks falling down on herself warn her she's going to hurt herself, and then when she's buried under rubble try to dig her out begging for her too still be alive.

Terra who's intentionally created by her writers to be as hatable as possible, is shown more compassion by the heroes in her ending than Zuko ever does to Azula. They also give Terra multiple opportunities to change until literally the very last minute, which Zuko doesn't do either.

What's set up is Azula has this save the cat moment with her brother, that Zuko is pretty much the only person she doesn't treat like a subordinate in the story (because she just like Zuko has a craving for familial love she tries to earn from her father). However, her ending with Zuko just taking her down doesn't fit that setup.

Azula's ending only fits if you consider her arc entirely from Zuko's perspective, which is the underlying issue. Azula's not the protagonist of her own tragedy, she's a plot object that's used to benefit Zuko's arc.

Azula's is written to have a downfall, the same way that Zuko loses everything at the ending of season 1 b/c of his inability to give up on the obsessive search for the avatar (and his father's love with it). Azula is written to be left by Mai and Ty Lee (this is the strongest point of writing when it comes to her since it comes from the beginning).

However, she's not written to be left completely alone and insane with the only empathy being shown is that her brother looks kinda sorta sad. That's only good if you view her as an object to further Zuko's arc, because isn't the ultimate culmination of Zuko beating his sister who has always been ahead of him at life? Azula needs to torn down completely without even some small glimpse of a hope of recovery so Zuko can be built up even moreor at least the writers of avatar seem to think so.

However, even Azula just existing for Zuko's growth and character development doesn't have to necessarily be a bad thing. This is where we get to MHA, which does the tragic siblings and the final Ag Ni Kai about 1000 times better with Shoto and Dabi.

THE GOOD

The comparisons between Shoto and Dabi to Zuko and Azula are made pretty often by the fandom. Shoto has a scar, Dabi has blue flames. Shoto has an arc about healing and learning what it means to be a hero, Dabi's arc is about self-destruction.

Dabi's not the center of his own story, he exists to foil Shoto and help Shoto reach the endpoint of his character development however that's not necessarily a bad thing. These are both two pairs of tragic siblings, the main difference is that MHA doesn't feel the need to tear down one sibling in order to build up the other. In fact, the final step to Shoto's arc is HELPING Dabi, not PUTTING HIM DOWN.

Not only that but the decision to help Dabi is a decision that Shoto makes on his own, and him going against the tide of a society that has already given up on Dabi and would much rather have Shoto shoot Dabi like a mad dog. Which makes the decision to do so even more powerful and emblematic of Shoto's growth.

Now you could say that Shoto and Zuko are too different to compare their arcs, Zuko has a redemption arc, and Shoto has what most people would probably term a healing arc. Shoto starts out the series as a hero.

However, this is what annoys me about the redemption arc debate. A redemption arc is really just a normal character arc. However, calling it redemption drags things like morality and forgiveness into the debate. if you take remove the discussion about moral philosophy both Zuko and Shoto have character arcs where they start the story defined entirely by their home situations and their father's abuse (hence why they have big obvious scars on their face), recover from their trauma, and go on to find an identity outside of their father and form healthy non-abusive connections with others.

In fact I'd see the theme of both arcs are the same, to literally find balance within themselves. Shoto is divided quite literally into right and left sides, fire and ice, and even seems to view himself as half of his father and half of his mother. Zuko is someone who's permanently marked and dishonored by the burn scar on his face. He suffers from an internal imbalance as well. Iroh says that Zuko is the descendant of both Roku and Sozin and therefore both pathways are open to him (but wouldn't that apply to Azula too). Zuko says to his father that the fire nation has destroyed the balance to the world and he's going to leave to assist the avatar in order to fix it.

Shoto's balance isn't just about fixing his internal trauma though, it's also about finding a balance between his family which has defined his entire life up until this point, and his desire to become his own hero not the hero his father groomed him into.

It's why the culmination of his arc is Shoto reaching out to save his family member Toya, because it's the ultimate balance in wanting to heal his family, and also the kind of hero he wants to be, someone who saves and brings peace to others instead of just violently putting down villains. He can bring peace to his family and become his own hero in one action.

However, let's go back to the beginning of Shoto's arc, because saving Toya as an endpoint to his arc is set up pretty early on.

Shoto's arc begins with Deku, a stranger breaking down Shoto's walls as an outsider in order to allow him to look past his own trauma and recall for the first time what he wanted outside of his resentment towards his father. This sets up the idea early on for Shoto that sometimes you need outside interference, help you didn't ask for, especially when you can't see outside of your own problems.

What Deku brings about ultimately is a change of perspective, Shoto's so hurt by the memory of his mother throwing boiling water in his face and everything that came after that he can't recall the memory of her telling him he could be who he wanted to be.

But, you want to be a hero right?

Shoto takes away two things from this arc, sometimes you need help even when you're not asking for it, and sometimes a change in respective is required in order to take the first step forward.

He goes to demonstrate these things multiple times, but here's two exaamples. The first Shoto demonstrates immediately after the tournament arc. When Iida is about to go down a dark path and commit a revenge killing on Stain. When, as a result of that IIDA is paralyzed and about to die in an alleyway, it's Shoto who both notices Midoriya and Iida are missing and shows up in the clutch. He's practicing the same thing that Deku taught him in the last arc: Giving help that's not asked for is what makes a true hero.

He even mentions the second idea, that a small change in perspective can be all it takes to save someone, and he wants to do for Iida hat Deku did for him. His words are the one who convinces Iida to stand back up again when he's paralyzed.

If you wanna stop this, then stand up. Because I've got one thing to say to you. Never forget who you want to become!

However Shoto's arc doesn't end here, because one of the major conflicts in MHA is that heroes don't pick and choose who to save and a true hero will give help even to those people who don't ask for it.

This is a point which further develops when Shoto's abusive father starts to show a change of heart at the end of the Pro Hero Arc. Shoto still holds his father accountable for what he did in the past, but he also acknowledges that if he had the capacity to change then so does Enji. This isn't about whether or not Enji is forgivable, this is an extension of what Shoto learned. Shoto originally believed he was controlled by the circumstances of his birth, that his fate was set in stone, but a change in perspective allows him to realize he can determine who he wants to be. So, Shoto is just applying what he's learned, Enji has the capacity to grow.

There's one final piece of setup that I want to cover before showing how these separate dies all culminate in saving Dabi. Shoto's not only someone who has to find balance between his family and his desire to be a hero.

The theme of balance is written into the quirk itself. Enji basically practiced eugenics to create Shoto as his masterpiece. He noticed a flaw in his own quirk where he could only make his flames so hot without overheating. So he arranged a quirk marriage with Rei who possessed an ice quirk to create a hybrid ice and fire quirk that he could use to cool himself off to prevent him from overheating.

Enji only ever cared about the fire half of Shoto's quirk. His ice quirk only exists for his flames to grow stronger. This is shown when Enji is trying to force Shoto to learn all of his signature moves, because he only cares about Shoto's flame quirk. Shoto was created to carry on his father's legacy, and surpass him with an even more powerful flame quirk. Part of his character development is him learning how to use his quirk in his own way.

This is a theme that continues in the class training arc where Enji is still repeating the behavior of trying to force Shoto to learn his signature moves instead of considering what he wants at all, because still Shoto only exists in Enji's mind to carry on his legacy.

This all culminates in Toya's decision to save his brother. The first is his action in choosing to identify with his brother. If Shoto believes in his own capacity to change, and even his father's, then why would he deny Toya that same chance to change?

The foiling between Shoto and Toya isn't supposed to reduce the two of them to "Shoto is the good one, and he's the bad one", but instead Shoto and Toya were both in a point where they were consumed by hatred and couldn't see any other path in life. Therefore if Shoto was able to change because someone gave him help when he didn't ask for it, then Toya not only has the capacity to change - but in order for Shoto to stick to his stated beliefs that the smallest of things can bring about a change in people he has to be the one to give his brother that chance to change.

It's not about whether Dabi is worthy or not, it's about the themes in Shoto's arc finally being paid off.

Shoto's identifying with Toya, and even parts where he tells Bakugo he'll make Toya sit down and make Toya tell him his favorite food indicate that from the beginning Shoto's intention was to find a way to stop Toya without killing him (which is what several of the adult heroes were encouraging him to do).

@stillness-in-green does a more succinct summary of this plan.

Just me?

Because, like, Shouto had a plan. He spent the time between the two war arcs specifically developing a brand-new combat technique that he planned to use to shut down Dabi's combat advantage without killing him. He convinced his dad not to change the plan like Endeavor was hesitantly sounding him out about[1]; he went out and talked and asked questions, and even if they weren't the right words every single time, he did his best and he did it with intention. If Dabi proves to be dead, it won't be because of anything Shouto did to him; it'll be because Dabi himself chose to stand back up, take a warp gate across the country, pick a fight with the guy who doesn't have the power set to shut him down without unduly hurting him, and trying to replicate an Ultimate Move specifically tailored for someone with a balanced power set Dabi doesn't have. And if Dabi lives, it's still going to be because Shouto booked it across the country and used that same technique to stop him again.

Shoto's decision to save Shoto is also a continuation of his decision to help save Iida from Stain. It's not enough for Shoto to experience a change of heart about his own life, he's got to take what he learned about people's capacity to change, and the importance of connections and then put that into practice and help others the way he was helped.

However, it also further develops the theme of giving help that's not ask for from Iida because Shoto's not saving a mostly heroic kid, he's saving Toya to help break a familial cycle of abuse (because murdering the abuse victim isn't how you end the cycle of abuse... actually).

Shoto's last lines to Dabi are also a refutation of this idea of destiny that he once thought he was ruled by. It's once again, Shoto teaching someone else the lesson he learned. Toya says a warped rail can never mingle with a straight and narrow one! In other words Shoto can never understand or get along with Dabi, because Dabi will forever be defined as the failure because of the circumstances of his brith, whereas Shoto will always be the success.

His final action is a decision to break the cycle they were born into: no, we're gonna mingle whether you like it or not.

Shoto's ultimate move Phosphor is not only a move he designed far in advance to take down Dabi non-lethally, it also is a rejection of his father's teaching method. Toya says he only ever taught me how to turn up the heat. Enji only valued both Shoto and Toya for their flame quirks. Developing his own quirk and breaking away from what his father wanted, specifically in order to save his brother. It's Shoto rejecting what his father created both of them for (a successor to his quirk) and finding his own path. By using that move to take down Dabi he's not only teaching Dabi their flame exists for more than just destruction, he's also by letting Dabi live giving Dabi a chance.

From a conversation with @class1akids

Dabi was the last push to unlock Shoto’s full power. Until then he was on the track of mastering flashfire like Endeavor planned for him (except for his own reasons) but realising the fighting Dabi with fire was gonna kill them both and also he’s simply no match fire only helped Shoto to fully take control of what his quirk is Like his quirk development goes parallel with how he faces each member of his family and finally meeting Toya is like the last piece of his puzzle to find his own full power and identity.

It's not just Shoto decides to save his brother because he's just that nice, his arc is literally incomplete without it. The act of creating phosphor a move specifically to save Dabi is both him unlocking the full power of his quirk (by balancing the fire and ice sides of his quirk) but also achieving balance between trying not to leave his family behind while at the same time becoming his own person and hero outside of his family circumstances.

Citing my conversation with class1akids again:

Toya is endangering everyone at Gunga. Endeavor has no means to stop him and when he tries to murder suicide Rei interrupts and his “hero way out” is taken. All he can do is watch helplessly as his family is about to burn to death with a bunch of strangers he tried to protect. But it would do Shoto dirty to use his heart technique to kill his family and the strangers so he comes in a clutch and I see that confrontation as the power trauma vs the power of healing in the family. With Shoto who is a true hero, they can put the fire out and save the family and strangertoo. Shoto become a balanced hero and bring relief and reassurance, Endeavor was completely helpless, and Toyas inner child got the attention he wanted, plus depending on how you read it, he may have become less suicidal.

Shoto also, and I want to point this out desires to stop his brother not to take him down but because he doesn't want him to hurt any more people. He's again finding a balance between two ideas 1) Shoto needs to stop his brother in order to stop him from creating more victims and 2) Shoto needs to find a way to stop him that's not just putting him down because Toya himself is a victim.

Shoto also, and I must point this out for the comparison between Zuko and Azula goes out of his way to engage Dabi in conversation, ask him why he didn't come home and what happened to him in the years after he died. This is especially poignant because unlike Zuko and Azula who grew up together, Shoto basically had no relationship with his brother (and the rest of his siblings really) before Toya died because Enji purposefully kept Shoto separate from all the "failures."

So yes, the act of saving Toya is more for the completion of Shoto's arc than any redemption arc for Toya but Toya's not just a plot object to move around for Shoto's arc, Toya has his own agency all throughout. In fact it's the fact that Toya resists being saved every step of the way that provides the challenge that Shoto needs to grow in order to be able to save him.

Toya's not just after revenge against his father that's the surface reason, Toya is also just blatantly suicidal. Toya's birth is marked as a failure, his death wasn't even acknowledged by his family and everything stayed the same in his absence, so he created Dabi while praying at his own shrine in order to mourn Toya. Dabi can't find any meaning in his life where he was born as a failure, so he'll use his death taking revenge against Endeavor for having been born in order to give his life meaning.

What makes Avatar look especially bad in its treatment of Azula in comparison to how MHA treats Dabi, is that Dabi is way, way less redeemable than Azula. For one Azula has clearly proven affection both her friends and her brother (and I don't think she even deserves Mai and Ty Lee's forgiveness they had every right to walk out on her and want nothing to do with her again.)

Dabi is probably the ugliest victim of the League of Villains. The rest of the league have far more moments in their bonds with each other. Toya is the outsider to the league even if there are some subtle hints to his affection (he tries to show up to save Twice, and also burns down Toga's family house to comfort her). The villains are mostly shown to be redeemable by their positive friendship with each other, and Dabi at several points denies the league's bond (he pulls a Terra and yells out loud at the top of his lungs none of the league matter to him). Unlike with Terra you can argue this is most likely Dabi trying to cover up his real feelings. However, the fact that he feels the need to hide his affection from the league shows he's purposefully distancing himself from any bonds whatsoever.

Unlike Azula who has gone out of her way to help her brother in one major way, and also shows hints in early season 3 of having that sibling bond with him Dabi just straight up wants to murk Toya. Azula also tries to murk Zuko, but that's only when Zuko leaves on the day of Black Sun (one without telling her, and two something that probably left her alone to deal with the consequences of lying to her father for his sake). Either way, Azula's behavior in early season 3 is setup for the fact that their sibling bond can be salvaged.

Dabi is way worse to Shoto in comparison. Dabi in the first part never saw Shoto as his own person, just a puppet of his father (puppets have no autonomy or personhood). His feelings towards Shoto only went so far as Shoto was someone who could kill in order to upset Enji. Dabi also doesn't particularly care for the rest of his family as well (only calling out Natsu's name when his brain is literally melting), they're either ways to hurt endeavor, or he wants to drag them in hell with him. Heck his last words after being saved is telling everyone to die and go to hell.

Dabi doesn't bother to make bonds with the league or have any lingering affection for his family because Dabi's determined to seslf destruct. He's given up on life the moment he saw that he died and nothing changed in that household, now all that's left is for him to create a meaningful death by dragging his family to hell with him.

Dabi is also even as a child made out to be an unpleasant victim. He attacks baby Shoto with his flames early on out of jealousy (even though he later admits that he was being unfair to Shoto). He makes the situation in the house worse by loudly screaming and demanding his father's attention. He screams at his mother and throws her complicity in Enji's abuse in her face.

This is in comparison to Shoto who in childhood flashbacks we are only ever seen either 1) crying, and 2) trying to comfort and protect his mother. Toya's even made out to be difficult to empathize with as a child - which like flew over half of the fandom's heads because he got accusations of somehow abusing his father and the rest of his family in that chapter at 10 years old. However, that in a way illustrates my point.

The fact that Dabi is so disliked by a certain portion of the fandom is because Horikoshi paints such an ugly portrait of Toya in the way he expresses his victimhood. It's done deliberately too, because number one Toya by resisting Shoto's attempts to save him and trying to self destruct instead retains agency as a character. He makes decisions even though they're bad self destructive ones, he's not just a prop. Number two, the fact that Toya is intentionally portrayed as such an ugly victim makes Shoto's decision to break the cycle of familial abuse by saving Toya and not leaving a single family member all the more poignant.

Toya is an uglier victim than Azula, actively trying to kill himself in a way that Azula isn't, and treats Shoto way worse than Azula ever treated Zuko and yet Azula isn't shown the sympathy or given the salvation that Toya is.

Because once again, the writers didn't think about the ending of Azula's arc or of Azula as her own character. Shoto defeating Toya is the culmination of his desire to break the cycle of abuse in his family. Zuko putting Azula down is just to make Zuko look better. It's in service of Zuko's character instead of both of their characters.

THE BAD

Avatar isn't setting up some gritty ending where the bad guys can't be stopped, they can only be killed. In fact it's pretty close in tone to MHA.

Season 3 especially is the season that really begins to hammer in on the themes that even the people on the enemy side are still human after all. The headband shows that Fire Nation children are indoctrinated into the war, but they are in the end still children. There's the story between Avatar Roku and Sozin, and once again Iroh saying that Zuko has both options becoming like Roku or becoming like Sozin available to him (but not Azula I guess). There's Zuko joining Team Avatar, even after he betrayed Katara in Ba Sing Se and should have burnt that bridge then and there. There's Zuko working to earn their trust again when no one on the team really owe it to him.

The main character of the show is a pacifist, who deliberately learns a way to stop Ozai without killing him before the final battle because he doesn't want to break the values taught to him by his culture.

If the entire theme of season 3 is redemption, healing and that the fire nation are not inherently evil then why does Zuko's sister and character foil end the last shot of the series screaming and crying with no one comforting or even attempting to sympathize with her. Why is this one character marked for tragedy in a show that is about redemption and healing and showing compassion to your enemies and very specifically not a tragedy.

Toya literally burns all of the flesh off of his body, and somehow he has a gentler ending than Azula, because at least Toya's arc ends with all the members of his family showing up to try to cool down his flames, and when he's on the ground burnt to a crisp his father finally apologizes to him. Toya is a skinless burnt chicken wing, my boy has no skin, and somehow he's better off than Azula.

I don't think the writers gave Azula such a cruel ending because they don't like her, but rather because they just didn't think about her ending outside of what it meant for Zuko. Which is why you get moments like Aang who is apparently a pacifist who doesn't want to kill the Firelord, watching his daughter fall to her death while sitting on a flying bison and doing absolutely nothing to save her. ALL LIFE IS PRECIOUS (except for Azula I guess).

It's not bad because a victim doesn't get saved, it's bad because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the story.

Not only is Zuko saving Azula a very natural conclusion to his arc, but there's far more setup for Zuko reaching out to his sister and saving her than there ever was for Toya and Shoto. Both Toya and Terra are screaming at the top of their lungs "I HATE EVERYONE, YOU SHOULD ALL JUST GO TO HELL." They're both making decisions and committing to their self destruction while Azula is a 14 year old girl having a mental breakdown.

Anyway, time to quote the bad bad video again.

"When does a villain deserve a redemption arc? When do we deserve a redemption arc? I know this is gonna hurt, but characters are not people. They are tools. They are represetations of people. They can be used to say other things. They can be symbolic representation of other ideas. Azula's story is not just about a fourteen year old defeated by her brother for the throne, Azula is Zuko's character foil, where she is ruthless and practical, Zuko is empathetic and emotional. Where Azula's a prodigy, Zuko has to work hard to earn eve a fraction of her power.

I specifically chose to cite MHA, because of how differently it decided to use Shoto and Toya's character foiling. Shoto recognizes himself in Toya, and how different their paths were in life. This is explicitly motivates him to save Toya. It's also the culmination of everything that Shoto has learned because Shoto is a hero who believes that actions speak louder than words. It's not enough for Shoto to resolve his own inner struggle, he also has to help Dabi with his because that's showing Shoto has grown rather than telling us.

I think that is where the major difference lies between Shoto and Zuko, we're told that Zuko has chosen the path of empathy and healing, that he's learned to give people love and patience like Iroh has but instead of showing that the culmination of his arc is having a fist fight with his sister in a denny's parkinglot.

Azula is Zuko's character foil, where she is ruthless and practical, Zuko is empathetic and emotional. Where Azula's a prodigy, Zuko has to work hard to earn eve a fraction of her power.

If Zuko is empathic and emotional and that is why he's gained friends while Azula is now alone after having lost her friends due to the way she treated them, then like... what a great opportunity for Zuko to SHOW that quality of empathy.

However, Zuko doesn't do anything that Shoto does in the final fight. He's not even here for Azula, Azula's just an obstacle for taking back the crown. He doesn't talk to Azula, engage her in any way, try to de-escalate and avoid the fight.

If you want to make the tragedy that Azula and Zuko have taken such different paths in life that that Zuko fighting with his sister is unavoidable you could um... at least show Zuko being sad over the prospect of fighting his sister or being reluctant in any way.

(Before you come in here with "Zuko doesn't owe Azula anything take" this isn't about whether or not Azula is a terrible sister to Zuko, this is about the story that avatar is attempting to tell. Shoto and Dabi's fight is tragic because Shoto doesn't want to fight Dabi, he wants Dabi to come home and for their family to be complete. Zuko never expresses anything like that so where does the tragedy come from?)

If it were 100% committed to a tragedy like Terra's death then I wouldn't mind. if it were 100% committed to a story of redemption like Shoto reaching out to Toya then I wouldn't mind. My issue arises from the fact they want to have their cake and eat it too.

They want to give this tragic end to Azula, and use it to illustrate how Zuko has grown as a character. However, you can't have both.

If Zuko's growth is about learning that his father's love based on achievement and 2) learning he needed to get lost in life in order to find himself then why doesn't any of Zuko's actions demonstrate this lesson Zuko has learned about love, and about how you can be your own person outside what your father expects from you.

If Zuko has grown as a character he should be able to show those actions. He does show his new understanding of love and friendship to Team Avatar, but as I said that's easy mode. That's Shoto's attempts to save Iida, it's a step in the right direction. It's also not really Zuko demonstrating a selfless love, because he's also at the same time trying to earn their trust and earn his way into the group.

It's also not Zuko breaking the cycle of abuse in their family in any way. Shoto is trying to break free from his role of his father's masterpiece, and at the same time helping Dabi break free from his view that he's the failure.

It's also such a natural ending for Zuko's arc, to take the lessons he learned from Iroh and give them to his sister who needs them so they can both break away from their father's parenting. As I said Zuko does solve the internal conflict within himself, but he doesn't really demonstrate that by helping someone else find their balance.

If you wanted the tragic end, then it would have to be about Zuko's failure to reach out to his sister, because he hasn't learned how to reach out to her. Or because he tries and is unable to. The writers don't seem to understand that though, they think the tragedy is about Azula bringing it all on herself, and not the inherent tragedy of a fourteen year old girl being unable to be saved.

The set up is right there too, because number one avatar is about balance. So, wouldn't the true ending be finding balance between the siblings, not having Zuko rise and Azula fall. Number two, Azula being alone and friendless because of her own actions is again a parallel to where Zuko was in early season 2 at his lowest point. Except Zuko can be the better person in this situation by reaching out to her.

Zuko doesn't break the golden child / scapegoat dynamic, he just flips it so now he's the success and Azula is the failure.

While Azula's fall comes from cruelty and rejection from friends and allies it is Zuko's humility and kindness and friendship that ultimately wins the day. Him sacrifcing herself for Katara and her bringing Azula down and then her healing him. Azula ending up imprisoned isn't something happening to a real person, it's a deliberative narrative choice by the author to say something about how people like this isolate themselves and end up alone. "

As I've stated above, I'm not saying Azula didn't deserve to take a fall. Her fall is actually set up from the first moment she met Ty lee. However, there's no set up for her fall being permanent.

Azula's given way more humanizing moments than characters like Terra or even Dabi. Which is why Azula being in an insane asylum for the rest of her life doesn't fit as an ending at all.

Azula is one link in the chain of abuse. Her father only gives out affection in regards to her usefulness. No matter what Azula is an asset first and a daughter second. Azula then repeats the cycle and treats her friends the same way. She has been shown through an improper model of parenting of using fear to dominate others with power and control and she replicates that in her other relationships.

Therefore, Ty lee and Mai leaving her is not only deserved, it's the perfect opportunity to pull the rug underneath Azula and to show her that her understanding of how relationships work is completely wrong.

This also mirrors Zuko's arc, because part of Zuko's arc is realizing just how wrong Ozai is for making both children earn his love, and that he doesn't need to measure his self-worth based upon his father's approval. He also learns about healthy expressions of trust and friendship from the gang.

Azula loses in part due to her own inability to form healthy relationships is losing people rapid fire, her brother leaves and joins the enemy side, Mai and Ty Lee betray her in favor of her brother, then her father in one action of leaving Azula behind and throws the title of Firelord to her after it's become completely meaningless reminds her of her place. Azula learns in about five episodes what Zuko had in 3.5 seasons to process that her father's love was always conditional and no matter what she did she would never truly "earn it."

People leaving Azula isn't exactly the problem, the problem is that Azula ends up alone permanently without being given the same chance that Zuko is. Terra, and Toya both get opportunities to turn back. They both refuse the hand that's reaching out to him. Mai and Ty Lee leaving is caused by Azula's own choices, but her ultimate end isn't. She's not even given the chance to turn away being saved like Terra and Toya do because Zuko doesn't even bother to try saving her. Her ending is not entirely brought about by her own choices, because the writers need her to take a fall to uplift Zuko.

Azula ending up imprisoned isn't something happening to a real person, it's a deliberative narrative choice by the author to say something about how people like this isolate themselves and end up alone.

I think once again it comes from the author's misunderstanding things because they don't want to look at the story from Azula's perspective, only Zuko's.

Stay at Home almost had it when he said the tragedy of Zuko and Azula was there to show how two different parenting styles affected these children.

The tragedy is that Zuko and Azula started in the same place, but Zuko had persistent guidance and someone who modeled for him a healthy kind of love. The difference is that Azula has never experienced any kind of healthy love or support on the level Zuko has, so she models all her relationships on the way her father treats her. It's not that Azula is offered some chance for change and rejects it, it's that Azula isn't even aware of the fact that there's another way because no one is there to show it to her.

Which is why I said once again, Zuko being the first one to show Azula the lessons he himself was shown by Iroh is such a natural place for his character to end.

Azula also even while completely alone and with no idea what healthy love is, knows that there is something wrong with her and is troubled by that fact in a way Dabi and Terra aren't.

Azula: I can sit here and complain about how our mom liked Zuko more than me. But I don't really care. My own mother... thoguht I was a monster... She was right of course, but it still hurt.

Then there's the famous mirror scene:

Ursa: I didn't want to miss my own daughter's coronation. Azula:Don't pretend to act proud. I know what you really think of me. You think I'm a monster. Ursa: think you're confused. All your life you used fear to control people, like your friends Mai and Ty Lee. Azula: Well what choice do I have?! Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way. Even you fear me. Ursa: No. I love you, Azula. I do.

Both of these scenes indicate that Azula thinks of herself as a monster and is deeply uncomfortable with the idea. Considering Ursa is a voice in Azula's head and not a ghost, it also shows on some level Azula knew what she did to Mai and Ty Lee was wrong and feels conflicted over it.

Once again she's much more in conflict with herself than Toya and Terror ever are, and who's someone who's constantly warring with himself? Who's someone who could help resolve her inner conflict... Zuko (too bad the way the show's written he never does).

Azula doesn't choose to self-destruct the way that Terra and Toya did. Azula's ending isn't brought about by her choice not to change, because she's never given the chance to change in the first place. Her tragic ending would make sense if it was entirely of her own choices, but Azula doesn't retain her agency in the end it's literally taken away from her. She loses control of her mind, and her ending is being chained to a grate screaming and then thrown into an asylum.

I'm not arguing against Azula's ending because she's my favorite character and I don't want bad things to happen to her. It's because her tragedy isn't about her it's about Zuko, and her ending actively takes agency away from her where at least Toya and Terra both retain their agency up until the end. It's not good writing because the tragedy doesn't fit in with the rest of the story which is about balance and healing - and it's also ableist as hell.

THE UGLY

Azula's ending is unfitting to the tone of the story she's in, makes her and Zuko's arcs feel incomplete, and also is ableist as hell.

Here's yet more evidence that Azula's tragic ending is poorly thought out. Azula's mental breakdown doesn't exist in service of her character, but Zuko's.

Azula's issues pop up out of nowhere after episode 15, and take place over the last 6 episode of the series. The idea of Azula having a mental breakdown isn't necessarily a bad concept, but it's executed poorly.

The first way it's executed poorly is just how rushed it is. There's basically no hints of any mental instability beforehand. Of course people can have mental breakdowns spontaenously like that in real life, but this is a story and stories require foreshadowing. Azula spontaneously developing mental issues doesn't feel like it's planned as a part of an arc. First off, because the writers don't seem too sure about what Azula's symptoms even are. Hallucination, paranoia, manic laughter, but apparently she's still able to bend lightning just fine. Secondly, the writer's intentions for giving Azula a mental breakdown are pretty transparent.

The writer's room needed to come up with a believable reason why Zuko would suddenly be able to fight on equal terms with Azula, so boom sudden mental illness. The intent was not to create a sympathetic portrayal of a young girl struggling with both paranoia and delusions. The intent was to nerf Azula because they couldn't think of any other way this plot could end, other than Zuko and Azula fighting in a denny's parkinglot.

As I said they use mental illness as a plot device to take Azula's agency and choices away from her. It's not done with the intention of humanizing her, and in fact except for one small scene with her talking to her mother in the mirror it's a pretty negative and unsympathetic portrayal of mental illness. Not because the writers hate mentally ill people, but because they needed Azula to have a mental breakdown in order for a plot point to happen. Which is why they didn't think of the potential implciations of such a writing choice at all.

Now, people are going to argue about me so I'll use one final example. Azula's ending may be controversial but it's universally agreed upon that the Game of Thrones Ending was bad, right?

Game of Thrones uses mental illness as the exact same plot device, to explain why Daenerys Targaryen turns from a hero to villain in the last few episodes with absolutely no foreshadowing. In fact, the all of the show director's interviews about that choice are just blatantly ableist.

Rant from @hamliet

This quote is (likely unintentionally) gaslighting, ableist, terrible logically, and downright offensive.

First, ableism: why, why, why are we conflating madness with evil? She was driven to madness so she killed a bunch of people and had to be put down? And you think this is a great message in the year of our Lord 2019? [...] Additionally, while good writing is to an extent subjective, there are general consensuses on what make good writing--and Game of Thrones hit all the general consensuses for bad writing, from bad pacing to confusing character assassination. Critics are like, pretty united on this front. No one thought Dany’s turn made sense, even the ones who expect Mad Queen in the books. Maybe if people love a character who is meant to be evil you're not writing them correctly... or maybe they aren't meant to be evil.

Daenerys and Azula are incredibly similiar characters. They're both dragon themed, alligned with the element of fire, they're both colonizers they both represent the warrior princess archetype.

I'd say Daenerys is more of a tragic heroine though, because while Danerys is essentially doing the same thing as Azula, waging war in a foreign land and a culture that's not hers, for the purpose of then bringing back soldiers to her home continent so she can wage war again - while she is definitely a war mongerer she has good intentions. Daenerys for all of her faults, genuinely wants to break the chains and help out people.

I think Azula definitely sees herself as the hero for winning the war for the fire nation's sake, but she's completely uncritical of her own culture and she doesn't really have the good intentions that Dany has. She does it more out of a sense of duty, and her belief of divine right, not because she wants to break people free.

Daenerys's problem is that she doesn't understand the culture she's invading and the complicated world she lives in and despite all good intentions, is as I described above, invading a foreign power so she can go back and wage a war to reclaim the throne. Even if Daenerys would then proceed to go on to be the bestest queen ever that wouldn't change the fact her methods to get to the throne were incredibly violent, and she's sort of failing to break free from the cycle that led the Targeryen rule to fail in the first place.

Azula's problem is she sees herself as the hero and is therefore uncritical of fire nation values. She doesn't have any nobler intentions either other than service to her country, she just like Zuko is just trying to fulfill her duties as daughter and believe her birthright puts her above others. (I mean Dany does too but digressing).

Azula's more of a tragic villain who plays the antagonist role in the story, Danerys is one of the three heroes. However, she's more of a tragic villain in the sense that she's first season zuko pre character development just way more competent.

However, while Daenerys is a much more heroic character than Azula, here's the thing. I still think she's going to die. She is foreshadowed pretty heavily to die, and fail for her quest for the throne, because her entire story is a deconstruction of the warrior princess and the liberator archetype.

However, the story that GRRM is building throughout his books with Dany as an incredibly flawed heroine is different from what we got in the show, which was Daenerys going crazy and starting to murder people. That's because Daenerys turn to darkness wasn't about her character at all, it was just making her into a plot device to move their bad idea for a plot forward. That's why the turn is so unnatural and makes little sense with her character, that's why it's so rushed.

That's also why it's ableist, because it's using mental illness as a plot device to make a character unsympathetic and monstrous and give the other characters a reason to put them down.

The same for Azula, outside of one scene where he's talking to her mother, Azula's mental illness manifests in her screaming, maniacally laughing, looking like the joker did her makeup, and her instability also makes her violent and dangerous to be around. (Ignoring the fact that most people who experience delusions in real life are harmless, and more likely to be the victims of violence).

Her sudden mental illness isn't even used to make her more sympathetic in say Zuko's eyes and make him realize she's a victim, no it's just there to nerf her so she can be violently put down. The way she's drawn, the way she acts, it's to paint her as monstrous as possible. Her last action is like sobbing and screaming while being drawn as ugly as possible. She's not even given a small hope for recovery, because it just ends there. That's a pretty great message to send people that experience delusions, not only will you not recover or be shown sympathy, you'll also get sent to a mental asylum for the rest of your life. The choice for both Azula and Dany is not to portray any kind of mental illness in a respectful way, but to make a plot point happen.

As I said I expect Dany to die in the books, but there's a difference between dying as a tragic hero succumbing to your flaws but still having your good intentions acknowledged and just turning into a villain for no reason and being put down like a rabid dog.

(This is a quote I stole from a Shigaraki post but): "Why does she need to be put down in the first place, she has trauma, not rabies."

The problem isn't bad thing happened to my favorite character, the problem with the ending is it doesn't take Dany's setup into consideration.

Stealing from @hamliet again:

The thing about tragedies is that you have to manage expectations and clearly show that your tragic hero is doomed from the very early on–ie you have to show them making steadily worse and worse decisions (see: Eren Jaeger in SnK), if not directly tell your audience at the very beginning that this is a tragic story (ie see Greek choruses and Shakespeare, the prequels from Star Wars because everyone knows Anakin is Vader–plus I’d argue Anakin’s arc only works because we know he comes back to the light in the end. Audiences don’t like reversing on set up/undoing structure. To make Dany a tragic villain is to go against the structure of her arc in both show and book. That’s why people don’t like it, even if the books makes it seem more believable.

Kate then goes onto describe a character that's much more comparable to Azula's. Honestly Arianne is closer to Azula than Daenerys is.

You know who is set up as a tragic heroine destined to descend and die because of her flaws in the books, whose arc has almost certainly been combined with Dany’s in some sense in the show? Arianne Martell. (and another character known as f!Aegon) In the books, Arianne is incredibly ambitious, and especially resents her brother and his quest for power. Like Margaery (another tragic character), Arianne seeks power and is intelligent and manipulative in her quest for it. But Margaery’s fatal mistake is that in seeking power and prestige, she’s become more a pawn than anything else for a villain (Cersei). She chose to play with lions, and she’ll be torn apart; that’s not surprising. Arianne, as her chapters hint, is going to almost certainly marry f!Aegon, playing with fire, and die burning for it. Arianne’s grasping for her own power is never portrayed as cruel or stupid like the main human villain (Cersei); on the contrary, we empathize with a girl who truly cares about her people, but resents her father’s preferential treatment towards her brother. That’s the difference between Arianne and Cersei: Arianne cares. She is not cruel. But her pride is still going to get her killed.

There's a lot of game of throne females you could compare Azula to because GOT is full of queens, but like. Azula may be a tragic villain firmly on the side of the antagonists but she's not Cerseie. She's not queen, she doesn't wield the power that Cersei wields. In fact one of Azula's downfalls is finding out she doesn't have as much power as she thought she had, and ultimately was just a tool of her fathers.

She's not Rhaenyra or Alicent, because yes she may be grabbing for power but her character isn't affected by misogyny. Because once again, the writers simply didn't think about misogyny except for a really surface level "girls can be just as strong as boys" way so we really have no idea how women are seen in the fire nation. The show doesn't really explore if being a woman makes things harder, or makes people treat her differently than Zuko because the writers just didn't consider Azula's perspcetive on that matter.

Azula is alike to Danaerys in several ways, but as I said I think her ultimate end comes from Azula understimating her own importance in her father's eyes, and quickly realizing when her father is her only family left she never had his love or loyalty in the first place.

But Margaery’s fatal mistake is that in seeking power and prestige, she’s become more a pawn than anything else for a villain (Cersei). She chose to play with lions, and she’ll be torn apart; that’s not surprising.

Azula's most famous quote is about how Long Feng isn't even a player, only to find out her father considered her a pawn from the beginning and be broken by the revelation.

The difference being of course that Avatar is not Game of Thrones and it won't even kill the evil fascist dictator so it doesn't make a lot of sense to hand Azula the ending that Arianne got. They have the same fatal flaw.

Anyway, I made this big post but I can explain why Azula's tragic ending down't work in one sentence.

AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER IS NOT A TRAGEDY.

Maybe the reason Azula should get redeemed is because THE SHOW IS ABOUT F&%CKING REDEMPTION.

#bnha meta #mha meta #atla meta #azula meta #azula #princess azula #dabi #toya todoroki #shoto todoroki #azula redemption

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months

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My McLuhan lecture on enshittification

IT'S THE LAST DAY for the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

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Last night, I gave the annual Marshall McLuhan lecture at the Transmediale festival in Berlin. The event was sold out and while there's a video that'll be posted soon, they couldn't get a streaming setup installed in the Canadian embassy, where the talk was held:

https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024

The talk went of fabulously, and was followed by commentary from Frederike Kaltheuner (Human Rights Watch) and a discussion moderated by Helen Starr. While you'll have to wait a bit for the video, I thought that I'd post my talk notes from last night for the impatient among you.

I want to thank the festival and the embassy staff for their hard work on an excellent event. And now, on to the talk!

Last year, I coined the term 'enshittification,' to describe the way that platforms decay. That obscene little word did big numbers, it really hit the zeitgeist. I mean, the American Dialect Society made it their Word of the Year for 2023 (which, I suppose, means that now I'm definitely getting a poop emoji on my tombstone).

So what's enshittification and why did it catch fire? It's my theory explaining how the internet was colonized by platforms, and why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, and why it matters – and what we can do about it.

We're all living through the enshittocene, a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit.

It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. It's even terrifying.

I think that the enshittification framework goes a long way to explaining it, moving us out of the mysterious realm of the 'great forces of history,' and into the material world of specific decisions made by named people – decisions we can reverse and people whose addresses and pitchfork sizes we can learn.

Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für Englisch Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle).

But in case you want to use enshittification in a more precise, technical way, let's examine how enshittification works.

It's a three stage process: First, platforms are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Let's do a case study. What could be better than Facebook?

Facebook is a company that was founded to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of Harvard undergrads, and it only got worse after that.

When Facebook started off, it was only open to US college and high-school kids with .edu and k-12.us addresses. But in 2006, it opened up to the general public. It told them: “Yes, I know you’re all using Myspace. But Myspace is owned by Rupert Murdoch, an evil, crapulent senescent Australian billionaire, who spies on you with every hour that God sends.

“Sign up with Facebook and we will never spy on you. Come and tell us who matters to you in this world, and we will compose a personal feed consisting solely of what those people post for consumption by those who choose to follow them.”

That was stage one. Facebook had a surplus — its investors’ cash — and it allocated that surplus to its end-users. Those end-users proceeded to lock themselves into FB. FB — like most tech businesses — has network effects on its side. A product or service enjoys network effects when it improves as more people sign up to use it. You joined FB because your friends were there, and then others signed up because you were there.

But FB didn’t just have high network effects, it had high switching costs. Switching costs are everything you have to give up when you leave a product or service. In Facebook’s case, it was all the friends there that you followed and who followed you. In theory, you could have all just left for somewhere else; in practice, you were hamstrung by the collective action problem.

It’s hard to get lots of people to do the same thing at the same time. You and your six friends here are going to struggle to agree on where to get drinks after tonight's lecture. How were you and your 200 Facebook friends ever gonna agree on when it was time to leave Facebook, and where to go?

So FB’s end-users engaged in a mutual hostage-taking that kept them glued to the platform. Then FB exploited that hostage situation, withdrawing the surplus from end-users and allocating it to two groups of business customers: advertisers, and publishers.

To the advertisers, FB said, 'Remember when we told those rubes we wouldn’t spy on them? We lied. We spy on them from asshole to appetite. We will sell you access to that surveillance data in the form of fine-grained ad-targeting, and we will devote substantial engineering resources to thwarting ad-fraud. Your ads are dirt cheap to serve, and we’ll spare no expense to make sure that when you pay for an ad, a real human sees it.'

To the publishers, FB said, 'Remember when we told those rubes we would only show them the things they asked to see? We lied!Upload short excerpts from your website, append a link, and we will nonconsensually cram it into the eyeballs of users who never asked to see it. We are offering you a free traffic funnel that will drive millions of users to your website to monetize as you please, and those users will become stuck to you when they subscribe to your feed.' And so advertisers and publishers became stuck to the platform, too, dependent on those users.

The users held each other hostage, and those hostages took the publishers and advertisers hostage, too, so that everyone was locked in.

Which meant it was time for the third stage of enshittification: withdrawing surplus from everyone and handing it to Facebook’s shareholders.

For the users, that meant dialing down the share of content from accounts you followed to a homeopathic dose, and filling the resulting void with ads and pay-to-boost content from publishers.

For advertisers, that meant jacking up prices and drawing down anti-fraud enforcement, so advertisers paid much more for ads that were far less likely to be seen by a person.

For publishers, this meant algorithmically suppressing the reach of their posts unless they included an ever-larger share of their articles in the excerpt, until anything less than fulltext was likely to be be disqualified from being sent to your subscribers, let alone included in algorithmic suggestion feeds.

And then FB started to punish publishers for including a link back to their own sites, so they were corralled into posting fulltext feeds with no links, meaning they became commodity suppliers to Facebook, entirely dependent on the company both for reach and for monetization, via the increasingly crooked advertising service.

When any of these groups squawked, FB just repeated the lesson that every tech executive learned in the Darth Vader MBA: 'I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.'

Facebook now enters the most dangerous phase of enshittification. It wants to withdraw all available surplus, and leave just enough residual value in the service to keep end users stuck to each other, and business customers stuck to end users, without leaving anything extra on the table, so that every extractable penny is drawn out and returned to its shareholders.

But that’s a very brittle equilibrium, because the difference between “I hate this service but I can’t bring myself to quit it,” and “Jesus Christ, why did I wait so long to quit? Get me the hell out of here!” is razor thin

All it takes is one Cambridge Analytica scandal, one whistleblower, one livestreamed mass-shooting, and users bolt for the exits, and then FB discovers that network effects are a double-edged sword.

If users can’t leave because everyone else is staying, when when everyone starts to leave, there’s no reason not to go, too.

That’s terminal enshittification, the phase when a platform becomes a pile of shit. This phase is usually accompanied by panic, which tech bros euphemistically call 'pivoting.'

Which is how we get pivots like, 'In the future, all internet users will be transformed into legless, sexless, low-polygon, heavily surveilled cartoon characters in a virtual world called "metaverse," that we ripped off from a 25-year-old satirical cyberpunk novel.'

That's the procession of enshittification. If enshittification were a disease, we'd call that enshittification's "natural history." But that doesn't tell you how the enshittification works, nor why everything is enshittifying right now, and without those details, we can't know what to do about it.

What led to the enshittocene? What is it about this moment that led to the Great Enshittening? Was it the end of the Zero Interest Rate Policy? Was it a change in leadership at the tech giants? Is Mercury in retrograde?

None of the above.

The period of free fed money certainly led to tech companies having a lot of surplus to toss around. But Facebook started enshittifying long before ZIRP ended, so did Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Some of the tech giants got new leaders. But Google's enshittification got worse when the founders came back to oversee the company's AI panic (excuse me, 'AI pivot').

And it can't be Mercury in retrograde, because I'm a cancer, and as everyone knows, cancers don't believe in astrology.

When a whole bunch of independent entities all change in the same way at once, that's a sign that the environment has changed, and that's what happened to tech.

Tech companies, like all companies, have conflicting imperatives. On the one hand, they want to make money. On the other hand, making money involves hiring and motivating competent staff, and making products that customers want to buy. The more value a company permits its employees and customers to carve off, the less value it can give to its shareholders.

The equilibrium in which companies produce things we like in honorable ways at a fair price is one in which charging more, worsening quality, and harming workers costs more than the company would make by playing dirty.

There are four forces that discipline companies, serving as constraints on their enshittificatory impulses.

First: competition. Companies that fear you will take your business elsewhere are cautious about worsening quality or raising prices.

Second: regulation. Companies that fear a regulator will fine them more than they expect to make from cheating, will cheat less.

These two forces affect all industries, but the next two are far more tech-specific.

Third: self-help. Computers are extremely flexible, and so are the digital products and services we make from them. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing-complete Von Neumann machine, a computer that can run every valid program.

That means that users can always avail themselves of programs that undo the anti-features that shift value from them to a company's shareholders. Think of a board-room table where someone says, 'I've calculated that making our ads 20% more invasive will net us 2% more revenue per user.'

In a digital world, someone else might well say 'Yes, but if we do that, 20% of our users will install ad-blockers, and our revenue from those users will drop to zero, forever.'

This means that digital companies are constrained by the fear that some enshittificatory maneuver will prompt their users to google, 'How do I disenshittify this?'

Fourth and finally: workers. Tech workers have very low union density, but that doesn't mean that tech workers don't have labor power. The historical "talent shortage" of the tech sector meant that workers enjoyed a lot of leverage over their bosses. Workers who disagreed with their bosses could quit and walk across the street and get another job – a better job.

They knew it, and their bosses knew it. Ironically, this made tech workers highly exploitable. Tech workers overwhelmingly saw themselves as founders in waiting, entrepreneurs who were temporarily drawing a salary, heroic figures of the tech mission.

That's why mottoes like Google's 'don't be evil' and Facebook's 'make the world more open and connected' mattered: they instilled a sense of mission in workers. It's what Fobazi Ettarh calls 'vocational awe, 'or Elon Musk calls being 'extremely hardcore.'

Tech workers had lots of bargaining power, but they didn't flex it when their bosses demanded that they sacrifice their health, their families, their sleep to meet arbitrary deadlines.

So long as their bosses transformed their workplaces into whimsical 'campuses,' with gyms, gourmet cafeterias, laundry service, massages and egg-freezing, workers could tell themselves that they were being pampered – rather than being made to work like government mules.

But for bosses, there's a downside to motivating your workers with appeals to a sense of mission, namely: your workers will feel a sense of mission. So when you ask them to enshittify the products they ruined their health to ship, workers will experience a sense of profound moral injury, respond with outrage, and threaten to quit.

Thus tech workers themselves were the final bulwark against enshittification,

The pre-enshittification era wasn't a time of better leadership. The executives weren't better. They were constrained. Their worst impulses were checked by competition, regulation, self-help and worker power.

So what happened?

One by one, each of these constraints was eroded until it dissolved, leaving the enshittificatory impulse unchecked, ushering in the enshittoscene.

It started with competition. From the Gilded Age until the Reagan years, the purpose of competition law was to promote competition. US antitrust law treated corporate power as dangerous and sought to blunt it. European antitrust laws were modeled on US ones, imported by the architects of the Marshall Plan.

But starting in the neoliberal era, competition authorities all over the world adopted a doctrine called 'consumer welfare,' which held that monopolies were evidence of quality. If everyone was shopping at the same store and buying the same product, that meant it was the best store, selling the best product – not that anyone was cheating.

And so all over the world, governments stopped enforcing their competition laws. They just ignored them as companies flouted them. Those companies merged with their major competitors, absorbed small companies before they could grow to be big threats. They held an orgy of consolidation that produced the most inbred industries imaginable, whole sectors grown so incestuous they developed Habsburg jaws, from eyeglasses to sea freight, glass bottles to payment processing, vitamin C to beer.

Most of our global economy is dominated by five or fewer global companies. If smaller companies refuse to sell themselves to these cartels, the giants have free rein to flout competition law further, with 'predatory pricing' that keeps an independent rival from gaining a foothold.

When Diapers.com refused Amazon's acquisition offer, Amazon lit $100m on fire, selling diapers way below cost for months, until diapers.com went bust, and Amazon bought them for pennies on the dollar, and shut them down.

Competition is a distant memory. As Tom Eastman says, the web has devolved into 'five giant websites filled with screenshots of text from the other four,' so these giant companies no longer fear losing our business.

Lily Tomlin used to do a character on the TV show Laugh In, an AT&T telephone operator who'd do commercials for the Bell system. Each one would end with her saying 'We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.'

Today's giants are not constrained by competition.

They don't care. They don't have to. They're Google.

That's the first constraint gone, and as it slipped away, the second constraint – regulation – was also doomed.

When an industry consists of hundreds of small- and medium-sized enterprises, it is a mob, a rabble. Hundreds of companies can't agree on what to tell Parliament or Congress or the Commission. They can't even agree on how to cater a meeting where they'd discuss the matter.

But when a sector dwindles to a bare handful of dominant firms, it ceases to be a rabble and it becomes a cartel.

Five companies, or four, or three, or two, or just one company finds it easy to converge on a single message for their regulators, and without "wasteful competition" eroding their profits, they have plenty of cash to spread around.

Like Facebook, handing former UK deputy PM Nick Clegg millions every year to sleaze around Europe, telling his former colleagues that Facebook is the only thing standing between 'European Cyberspace' and the Chinese Communist Party.

Tech's regulatory capture allows it to flout the rules that constrain less concentrated sectors. They can pretend that violating labor, consumer and privacy laws is fine, because they violate them with an app.

This is why competition matters: it's not just because competition makes companies work harder and share value with customers and workers, it's because competition keeps companies from becoming too big to fail, and too big to jail.

Now, there's plenty of things we don't want improved through competition, like privacy invasions. After the EU passed its landmark privacy law, the GDPR, there was a mass-extinction event for small EU ad-tech companies. These companies disappeared en masse, and that's fine.

They were even more invasive and reckless than US-based Big Tech companies. After all, they had less to lose. We don't want competition in commercial surveillance. We don't want to produce increasing efficiency in violating our human rights.

But: Google and Facebook – who pretend they are called Alphabet and Meta – have been unscathed by European privacy law. That's not because they don't violate the GDPR (they do!). It's because they pretend they are headquartered in Ireland, one of the EU's most notorious corporate crime-havens.

And Ireland competes with the EU other crime havens – Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus and sometimes the Netherlands – to see which country can offer the most hospitable environment for all sorts of crimes. Because the kind of company that can fly an Irish flag of convenience is mobile enough to change to a Maltese flag if the Irish start enforcing EU laws.

Which is how you get an Irish Data Protection Commission that processes fewer than 20 major cases per year, while Germany's data commissioner handles more than 500 major cases, even though Ireland is nominal home to the most privacy-invasive companies on the continent.

So Google and Facebook get to act as though they are immune to privacy law, because they violate the law with an app; just like Uber can violate labor law and claim it doesn't count because they do it with an app.

Uber's labor-pricing algorithm offers different drivers different payments for the same job, something Veena Dubal calls 'algorithmic wage discrimination.' If you're more selective about which jobs you'll take, Uber will pay you more for every ride.

But if you take those higher payouts and ditch whatever side-hustle let you cover your bills which being picky about your Uber drives, Uber will incrementally reduce the payment, toggling up and down as you grow more or less selective, playing you like a fish on a line until you eventually – inevitably – lose to the tireless pricing robot, and end up stuck with low wages and all your side-hustles gone.

Then there's Amazon, which violates consumer protection laws, but says it doesn't matter, because they do it with an app. Amazon makes $38b/year from its 'advertising' system. 'Advertising' in quotes because they're not selling ads, they're selling placements in search results.

The companies that spend the most on 'ads' go to the top, even if they're offering worse products at higher prices. If you click the first link in an Amazon search result, on average you will pay a 29% premium over the best price on the service. Click one of the first four items and you'll pay a 25% premium. On average you have to go seventeen items down to find the best deal on Amazon.

Any merchant that did this to you in a physical storefront would be fined into oblivion. But Amazon has captured its regulators, so it can violate your rights, and say, "it doesn't count, we did it with an app"

This is where that third constraint, self-help, would sure come in handy. If you don't want your privacy violated, you don't need to wait for the Irish privacy regulator to act, you can just install an ad-blocker.

More than half of all web users are blocking ads. But the web is an open platform, developed in the age when tech was hundreds of companies at each others' throats, unable to capture their regulators.

Today, the web is being devoured by apps, and apps are ripe for enshittification. Regulatory capture isn't just the ability to flout regulation, it's also the ability to co-opt regulation, to wield regulation against your adversaries.

Today's tech giants got big by exploiting self-help measures. When Facebook was telling Myspace users they needed to escape Rupert Murdoch’s evil crapulent Australian social media panopticon, it didn’t just say to those Myspacers, 'Screw your friends, come to Facebook and just hang out looking at the cool privacy policy until they get here'

It gave them a bot. You fed the bot your Myspace username and password, and it would login to Myspace and pretend to be you, and scrape everything waiting in your inbox, copying it to your FB inbox, and you could reply to it and it would autopilot your replies back to Myspace.

When Microsoft was choking off Apple's market oxygen by refusing to ship a functional version of Microsoft Office for the Mac – so that offices were throwing away their designers' Macs and giving them PCs with upgraded graphics cards and Windows versions of Photoshop and Illustrator – Steve Jobs didn't beg Bill Gates to update Mac Office.

He got his technologists to reverse-engineer Microsoft Office, and make a compatible suite, the iWork Suite, whose apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote could perfectly read and write Microsoft's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files.

When Google entered the market, it sent its crawler to every web server on Earth, where it presented itself as a web-user: 'Hi! Hello! Do you have any web pages? Thanks! How about some more? How about more?'

But every pirate wants to be an admiral. When Facebook, Apple and Google were doing this adversarial interoperability, that was progress. If you try to do it to them, that's piracy.

Try to make an alternative client for Facebook and they'll say you violated US laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and EU laws like Article 6 of the EUCD.

Try to make an Android program that can run iPhone apps and play back the data from Apple's media stores and they'd bomb you until the rubble bounced.

Try to scrape all of Google and they'll nuke you until you glowed.

Tech's regulatory capture is mind-boggling. Take that law I mentioned earlier, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA. Bill Clinton signed it in 1998, and the EU imported it as Article 6 of the EUCD in 2001

It is a blanket prohibition on removing any kind of encryption that restricts access to a copyrighted work – things like ripping DVDs or jailbreaking a phone – with penalties of a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense.

This law has been so broadened that it can be used to imprison creators for granting access to their own creations

Here's how that works: In 2008, Amazon bought Audible, an audiobook platform, in an anticompetitive acquisition. Today, Audible is a monopolist with more than 90% of the audiobook market. Audible requires that all creators on their platform sell with Amazon's "digital rights management," which locks it to Amazon's apps.

So say I write a book, then I read it into a mic, then I pay a director and an engineer thousands of dollars to turn that into an audiobook, and sell it to you on the monopoly platform, Audible, that controls more than 90% of the market.

If I later decide to leave Amazon and want to let you come with me to a rival platform, I am out of luck. If I supply you with a tool to remove Amazon's encryption from my audiobook, so you can play it in another app, I commit a felony, punishable by a 5-year sentence and a half-million-dollar fine, for a first offense.

That's a stiffer penalty than you would face if you simply pirated the audiobook from a torrent site. But it's also harsher than the punishment you'd get for shoplifting the audiobook on CD from a truck-stop. It's harsher than the sentence you'd get for hijacking the truck that delivered the CD.

So think of our ad-blockers again. 50% of web users are running ad-blockers. 0% of app users are running ad-blockers, because adding a blocker to an app requires that you first remove its encryption, and that's a felony (Jay Freeman calls this 'felony contempt of business-model').

So when someone in a board-room says, 'let's make our ads 20% more obnoxious and get a 2% revenue increase,' no one objects that this might prompt users to google, 'how do I block ads?' After all, the answer is, 'you can't.'

Indeed, it's more likely that someone in that board room will say, 'let's make our ads 100% more obnoxious and get a 10% revenue increase' (this is why every company wants you to install an app instead of using its website).

There's no reason that gig workers who are facing algorithmic wage discrimination couldn't install a counter-app that coordinated among all the Uber drivers to reject all jobs unless they reach a certain pay threshold.

No reason except felony contempt of business model, the threat that the toolsmiths who built that counter-app would go broke or land in prison, for violating DMCA 1201, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trademark, copyright, patent, contract, trade secrecy, nondisclosure and noncompete, or in other words: 'IP law.'

'IP' is just a euphemism for 'a law that lets me reach beyond the walls of my company and control the conduct of my critics, competitors and customers.' And 'app' is just a euphemism for 'a web-page wrapped enough IP to make it a felony to mod it to protect the labor, consumer and privacy rights of its user.'

We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.

But what about that fourth constraint: workers?

For decades, tech workers' high degrees of bargaining power and vocational awe put a ceiling on enshittification. Even after the tech sector shrank to a handful of giants. Even after they captured their regulators so they could violate our consumer, privacy and labor rights. Even after they created 'felony contempt of business model' and extinguished self-help for tech users. Tech was still constrained by their workers' sense of moral injury in the face of the imperative to enshittify.

Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

Then that dream shrank to: work for a giant for a few years, quit, do a fake startup, get acqui-hired by your old employer, as a complicated way of getting a bonus and a promotion.

Then the dream shrank further: work for a tech giant for your whole life, get free kombucha and massages on Wednesdays.

And now, the dream is over. All that’s left is: work for a tech giant until they fire your ass, like those 12,000 Googlers who got fired last year six months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years.

Workers are no longer a check on their bosses' worst impulses

Today, the response to 'I refuse to make this product worse' is, 'turn in your badge and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.'

I get that this is all a little depressing

OK, really depressing.

But hear me out! We've identified the disease. We've traced its natural history. We've identified its underlying mechanism. Now we can get to work on a cure.

There are four constraints that prevent enshittification: competition, regulation, self-help and labor.

To reverse enshittification and guard against its reemergence, we must restore and strengthen each of these.

On competition, it's actually looking pretty good. The EU, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and China are all doing more on competition than they have in two generations. They're blocking mergers, unwinding existing ones, taking action on predatory pricing and other sleazy tactics.

Remember, in the US and Europe, we already have the laws to do this – we just stopped enforcing them in the Helmut Kohl era.

I've been fighting these fights with the Electronic Frontier Foundation for 22 years now, and I've never seen a more hopeful moment for sound, informed tech policy.

Now, the enshittifiers aren't taking this laying down. The business press can't stop talking about how stupid and old-fashioned all this stuff is. They call people like me 'hipster antitrust,' and they hate any regulator who actually does their job.

Take Lina Khan, the brilliant head of the US Federal Trade Commission, who has done more in three years on antitrust than the combined efforts of all her predecessors over the past 40 years. Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has run more than 80 editorials trashing Khan, insisting that she's an ineffectual ideologue who can't get anything done.

Sure, Rupert, that's why you ran 80 editorials about her.

Because she can't get anything done.

Even Canada is stepping up on competition. Canada! Land of the evil billionaire! From Ted Rogers, who owns the country's telecoms; to Galen Weston, who owns the country's grocery stores; to the Irvings, who basically own the entire province of New Brunswick.

Even Canada is doing something about this. Last autumn, Trudeau's government promised to update Canada's creaking competition law to finally ban 'abuse of dominance.'

I mean, wow. I guess when Galen Weston decided to engage in a criminal conspiracy to fix the price of bread – the most Les Miz-ass crime imaginable – it finally got someone's attention, eh?

Competition has a long way to go, but all over the world, competition law is seeing a massive revitalization. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher put antitrust law in a coma in the 80s – but it's awake, it's back, and it's pissed.

What about regulation? How will we get tech companies to stop doing that one weird trick of adding 'with an app' to their crimes and escaping enforcement?

Well, here in the EU, they're starting to figure it out. This year, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act went into effect, and they let people who get screwed by tech companies go straight to the federal European courts, bypassing the toothless watchdogs in Europe's notorious corporate crime havens like Ireland.

In America, they might finally get a digital privacy law. You people have no idea how backwards US privacy law is. The last time the US Congress enacted a broadly applicable privacy law was in 1988.

The Video Privacy Protection Act makes it a crime for video-store clerks to leak your video-rental history. It was passed after a right-wing judge who was up for the Supreme Court had his rentals published in a DC newspaper. The rentals weren't even all that embarrassing!

Sure, that judge, Robert Bork, wasn't confirmed for the Supreme Court, but that was because he was a virulently racist loudmouth and a crook who served as Nixon's Solicitor General.

But Congress got the idea that their video records might be next, freaked out, and passed the VPPA.

That was the last time Americans got a big, national privacy law. Nineteen. Eighty. Eight.

It's been a minute.

And the thing is, there's a lot of people who are angry about stuff that has some nexus with America's piss-poor privacy landscape. Worried that Facebook turned Grampy into a Qanon? That Insta made your teen anorexic? That TikTok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama Bin Laden?

Or that cops are rolling up the identities of everyone at a Black Lives Matter protest or the Jan 6 riots by getting location data from Google?

Or that Red State Attorneys General are tracking teen girls to out-of-state abortion clinics?

Or that Black people are being discriminated against by online lending or hiring platforms?

Or that someone is making AI deepfake porn of you?

Having a federal privacy law with a private right of action – which means that individuals can sue companies that violate their privacy – would go a long way to rectifying all of these problems. There's a big coalition for that kind of privacy law.

What about self-help? That's a lot farther away, alas.

The EU's DMA will force tech companies to open up their walled gardens for interoperation. You'll be able to use Whatsapp to message people on iMessage, or quit Facebook and move to Mastodon, but still send messages to the people left behind.

But if you want to reverse-engineer one of those Big Tech products and mod it to work for you, not them, the EU's got nothing for you.

This is an area ripe for improvement, and I think the US might be the first ones to open this up.

It's certainly on-brand for the EU to be forcing tech companies to do things a certain way, while the US simply takes away tech companies' abilities to prevent others from changing how their stuff works.

My big hope here is that Stein's Law will take hold: 'Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop'

Letting companies decide how their customers must use their products is simply too tempting an invitation to mischief. HP has a whole building full of engineers thinking of new ways to lock your printer to its official ink cartridges, forcing you to spend $10,000/gallon on ink to print your boarding passes and shopping lists.

It's offensive. The only people who don't agree are the people running the monopolies in all the other industries, like the med-tech monopolists who are locking their insulin pumps to their glucose monitors, turning people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers.

Finally, there's labor. Here in Europe, there's much higher union density than in the US, which American tech barons are learning the hard way. There is nothing more satisfying in the daily news than the latest salvo by Nordic unions against that Tesla guy (Musk is the most Edison-ass Tesla guy imaginable).

But even in the USA, there's a massive surge in tech unions. Tech workers are realizing that they aren't founders in waiting. The days of free massages and facial piercings and getting to wear black tee shirts that say things your boss doesn't understand are coming to an end.

In Seattle, Amazon's tech workers walked out in sympathy with Amazon's warehouse workers, because they're all workers.

The only reason the tech workers aren't monitored by AI that notifies their managers if they visit the toilet during working hours is their rapidly dwindling bargaining power. The way things are going, Amazon programmers are going to be pissing in bottles next to their workstations (for a guy who built a penis-shaped rocket, Jeff Bezos really hates our kidneys).

We're seeing bold, muscular, global action on competition, regulation and labor, with self-help bringing up the rear. It's not a moment too soon, because the bad news is, enshittification is coming to every industry.

If it's got a networked computer in it, the people who made it can run the Darth Vader MBA playbook on it, changing the rules from moment to moment, violating your rights and then saying 'It's OK, we did it with an app.'

From Mercedes renting you your accelerator pedal by the month to Internet of Things dishwashers that lock you into proprietary dishsoap, enshittification is metastasizing into every corner of our lives.

Software doesn't eat the world, it enshittifies it

But there's a bright side to all this: if everyone is threatened by enshittification, then everyone has a stake in disenshittification.

Just as with privacy law in the US, the potential anti-enshittification coalition is massive, it's unstoppable.

The cynics among you might be skeptical that this will make a difference. After all, isn't "enshittification" the same as "capitalism"?

Well, no.

Look, I'm not going to cape for capitalism here. I'm hardly a true believer in markets as the most efficient allocators of resources and arbiters of policy – if there was ever any doubt, capitalism's total failure to grapple with the climate emergency surely erases it.

But the capitalism of 20 years ago made space for a wild and wooly internet, a space where people with disfavored views could find each other, offer mutual aid, and organize.

The capitalism of today has produced a global, digital ghost mall, filled with botshit, crapgadgets from companies with consonant-heavy brand-names, and cryptocurrency scams.

The internet isn't more important than the climate emergency, nor gender justice, racial justice, genocide, or inequality.

But the internet is the terrain we'll fight those fights on. Without a free, fair and open internet, the fight is lost before it's joined.

We can reverse the enshittification of the internet. We can halt the creeping enshittification of every digital device.

We can build a better, enshittification-resistant digital nervous system, one that is fit to coordinate the mass movements we will need to fight fascism, end genocide, and save our planet and our species.

Martin Luther King said 'It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.'

And it may be true that the law can't force corporate sociopaths to conceive of you as a human being entitled to dignity and fair treatment, and not just an ambulatory wallet, a supply of gut-bacteria for the immortal colony organism that is a limited liability corporation.

But it can make that exec fear you enough to treat you fairly and afford you dignity, even if he doesn't think you deserve it.

And I think that's pretty important.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel/a>

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image: Drahtlos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motherboard_Intel_386.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #transmediale #lectures #enshittification #big tech #berlin #mcluhan lecture #Youtube

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flwoie · 3 months

Text

LOVE IN DISGUISE — PARK SUNGHOON

SUMMARY Secrets are meant to be kept. Sunghoon never keeps secrets though, well except one—his friends being members of a super secret spy team. He finds out on the night he gets kidnapped and is rescued by them. That night, his friend offers him to be a part of the team to stop an organization, SPY-DER LILLIES, from destroying their campus and agency, I.R.I.S (International Resource for Intellectual Spies). And like the goofy goober he is, he joins for a jetpack and to impress his longtime friend and crush, the black cat agent, in order to win her heart before the spiders come crawling up his back.

TUNE IN TO WATCH THE SERIES OF SUNGHOON LEARNING HOW TO BE THE WORLD’S GREATEST SPY WITH HIS FRIENDS AND HIS JETPACK!

STARRING spy! sunghoon x spy! f! reader (WITH txt’s beomgyu, loossemble’s yeojin, lsfm’s kazuha, nwjns’ minji, kiof’s belle, xdh’s junhan)

GENRE smau + written, romcom, episodic, friends to lovers, college au, spy au, characters inspired by my friend group, heavily inspired by that one spy kickin’ it episode (s3, ep 21)

CONTAINS 15+, profanity, light violence, brainrot😭, spy terminology isn’t fully accurate, also 50% of the chapters in here are not even spy related, incorrect timestamps (pls ignore) (chapters will specify warnings)

STATUS airing (whenever i feel like it @ 5PM CST) | july 9, 2024 - …

SOUNDTRACK

TAGLIST IS OPEN ✧ SEND AN ASK OR COMMENT UNDER MAIN MASTERLIST

🗯️ GUYS IK IVE BEEN DIPPING SMAUS BUT TRUST ME, I WONT DIP THIS ONE….

📻 : “I.R.I.S. TEAM 5 REPORTING, OVER…!”

MISSION #001 — PILOT IN DISGUISE

↳ sunghoon joins his friends’ spy team

one : jetpack joyride [0.9k]

two : the haters be hating [0.3k + smau]

three : my tall american friend

four : cuz im a sigma…👻

five : theres many girls in the fish

six : chicken butt

seven : when there's a screen, ao3 must be seen

eight : im gonna touch u lil bro

MISSION #002 — PARTY IN DISGUISE

↳ the boys throws a boys-only party in the lair while you’re out of town

nine : back early [0.2k]

ten : w rizz amirite

eleven : fake gucci pants..

twelve : H H HELL NAH🤦‍♀️ [0.5k]

thirteen : like the roblox game?

fourteen : the hell is spoogle images [0.7k + smau]

MISSION #003 — ENEMY IN DISGUISE

↳ the team keeps tabs on an I.R.I.S spy-in-training, who’s possibly a part of the SPY-DER LILLIES

fifteen : and ur dumb

sixteen : hide ur ladies🤫🥱

seventeen : luh luh loserrr

eighteen : what an ugly pepperoni […]

ninteen : PAUSE…

twenty : btw calc is short for calculator […]

twenty one : diss me diss me now u gotta kiss me

MISSION #004 — GAMES IN DISGUISE

↳ when the team is sent on a mission to defeat a tech team of SPY-DER LILLIES, they get transported to the internet world

... to be added

MISSION #005 — WITNESS IN DISGUISE

↳ the team joins a witness protection program after witnessing a fight between two canadian spy organizations

… to be added

MISSION #006 — CRUSHES IN DISGUISE

↳ in order for sunghoon to pass his final spy assessment, he needs to get over his crush

... to be added

MISSION #007 — CAMP IN DISGUISE

↳ the team is recruited to be camp counsellors for I.R.I.S spies-in-training

... to be added

enhypen masterlist

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intheshadowsbehindyou · 1 year

Note

Hey I've been wanting to ask you for a while a request I've had. Can I have some headcanons of the mercenary's realizing their feelings for the 10th merc after they brutally bash in a enemy's skull in for trying to kill said merc. And then the 10th merc looks at them with extreme concern while checking up on them. Before turning around and killing another enemy that was about to kill them.

I would love to see the mercenary's reaction to being saved by their crush and having to deal with the horny panic of finding them attractive.

If you dont want to do this that's fine. Thanks again for making really good tf2 x reader content! I love it! Byebye have a good day/night.

The Mercs realizing they have feelings for Y/N after watching them brutally kill an enemy (NSFW)

WARNING: severe amounts of simping

Scout:

- Oh. Oh.. OH. OHH NOOO! OUR SCOUUTTT. HE’S BROKKEEENNN

- You look so dazzling with the blood on your clothes and the rockets whizzing past you. The explosions in the background creating a fine backdrop. Cue the cheesy romantic 40s music as you kill people in slow motion and Scout is in awe.

- You’re confused. He had been standing there even after you had successfully cleared the point. You wave your hand in front of his face and he doesn’t react.

- In his head he’s already having romantic fantasies of frolicking with you on the beach and bashing in people’s heads. The idea of you beating the shit out of him particularly makes him feel a certain way. He has no idea why. Oh god, is this normal? Wait.. Why is he already having thoughts of marrying you and growing old together?

- Immediately goes whining to Spy like a little pussy about you. He’s batshit scared of you but also has the most confusing boner. Good job. You sent him crying after his daddy. You hear a “SPYYYYYYYYYYYeeeEEEE!” as you leave the battlefield. Followed by a groan from said frenchman.

———————————————————————-

Soldier:

“NOW HANG ON PRIVATE THATS NOT EXACTLY— Oh.. Ah..” Soldier hisses through his teeth and puts his fist to his mouth, his helmet falls back a bit from the impact you made of kicking an enemy demoman’s sticky bomb back to him. You can see his expression is incredibly conflicted about this. With mild arousal. Holy shit. Somebody as batshit crazy as him. Who the hell kicks an active explosive?

- Because on one hand, you’re impractical yet affective at what you do. Just like him. But on the other hand that’s HIS THING. NOT YOURS! He’s one to act incredibly erratic on many occasions when strategy is in the back of his head awaiting the stupidly fast yet eons long conveyor belt.

- Becomes incredibly infatuated by you on the spot. Creating a sort of vague idea in his head on what you could be like. Cue very vivid fantasies of you and him strangling a sumo wrestler while naked, claiming france as an American owned country for some reason by sticking the flag into the tip of the Eiffel tower while naked, and having a fine American breakfast on the deck of your cottage.. (while naked.)

- “Is that a pistol in your pants or are you just happy to see me?” You ask him afterwards. “NEGATIVE. THAT’S A ROCKET. I ran out of room.” He lies. You believe him because that sounds like something he’d do.

———————————————————————-

Demoman:

- You destroy a sentry nest he was trying to demolish around a choke point. He’s both offended, and slightly attracted. You’ve destroyed his pride and humbled him. Normally Demoman is the only one who can take down a sentry nest unless Medic has full charge on somebody — among other things.

- He opens his mouth to protest but you silence him with an award winning smile that makes his heart flutter. As you run past him to head over to Medic and regain your strength, he’s scratching his stubble. Trying to comprehend the slurry of feelings. Demoman is an adult and he’s old enough to be fully aware that you can feel multiple emotions at once; that doesn’t make him any less disoriented though.

- “Ay.. finally somebody who’s on my level!” he calls after you. Promising he’ll outrank you next round. His competitive nature demands it. He’s trying so hard to ignore his boner right now. Assuming it to be just from adrenaline.

- Well, you’re tied. You’re both equal amounts on the next scoreboard. He stares at it on the intel computer terminals in disbelief. He immediately downs a shit load of his scrumpy. Holy shit. He has a massive crush on you now. Begins to wonder how drunk he can get before he forgets about this.

———————————————————————-

Engineer:

- You distract him so much he doesn’t even realize the jammed shell in his shotgun at first. You’ve made him lose like half of his life experience in a fraction of a second and he tries to take out the jammed shell and ends up burning himself. “God. DANGIT.”

- inwardly embarrassed and trying to make it seem like all was normal; he slaps the back of the gun so the shell falls out. Continues trying to defend the points… emphasis on tries. You’re his type AND you’re blood thirsty. He can’t help but feel slightly intrigued. The sparks of what would eventually be a crush once he starts talking to you more.

- He can’t bring himself to think filthy thoughts of someone he just met, he wasn’t raised like that. Occasionally the thought crosses his mind and he becomes a little angry with himself. Please stop being sexy in front of somebody who was raised in the bible belt. PLEASE! he would beg you if it didn’t sound so weird out of context.

- Fuck it. Christian shame doesn’t beat nature. He has to jerk off to the thought of you after battles in the shower. You’ve fucked him up.

—————————————————————————

Heavy:

- “Heavy, i’m fully charged. Focus on the soldiers in the front and tell me when to— Was zur Hölle?!” Medic complains, looking away from Heavy’s WAY too apparent hard on.

- Heavy would make a great ice sculpture right now. He’s both sweating and frozen in place as he watches you tear the enemy lines to shreds. He rarely feels this way for anybody at all. Heavy was certain his libido evened out as he got older but you just brought him back to square one. He felt like a horny teenager again.

- He wants to lick the blood off your neck so bad. It’s disgraceful. He feels like a disgusting sewage pipe and suddenly wishes the respawn machine didn’t exist so he could permanently die out here just to forget this even happened.

- Eventually waves his hand for Medic to pocket someone else. Goes over and helps you kick some ass. You indirectly both bond from this and successfully kickstart your connection.

———————————————————————-

Pyro:

- You’re the same as them in their point of view. A ‘misunderstood’ killer (Yeah, okay..) who wanted nothing more than peace of mind while they went about their daily business!

- The enjoy he sees in your eyes as you land a hit is marvelous. Every single swing of your melee felt like some sort of complex ballet. There was birds and neon colors following you wherever you went. You’ve now given them a weird fetish for adept mercenaries they had no idea they even had. They want to meet you RIGHT NOW.

- air blasts a poor demoman off a cliff you were fighting. “Hey. It’s alright. I got this.” You tell them. Pyro just tilts their head. You walk on to cap the cart and Pyro follows closely behind you. “What’s up?” You finally ask him, out of curiosity. Pyro just stares. You begin to recall horror stories that the other mercs told you of Pyro.

- They continue following you around as your own personal bodyguard. Engineer tells you that he does the same to him on occasion. To the extent of protecting his sentries. Apparently Pyro just follows people around like a dog because they have no idea how to communicate their interest.

—————————————————————————

Sniper:

- Watches you a day before a match doing target practice atop a bridge. The targets in question are in the ravine below. The way you so effortlessly hit each target, only missing a few — for some reason caught his attention. He lowered his scope from his eye and preferred the entertainment of you for a moment.

- You get angry after only missing two. Taking your long range and throwing it aggressively into the ravine. Sniper has no clue why you did this, considering you’re the first person in a while who hasn’t fucked up this course right off the bat. For some reason your aggression is getting him hot and bothered. Is this just a weird preference or a sexual thing? Holy shit, he has no idea.

- Sniper brings his legs together to hide his wood. “Eyes both open with a gun like that, mate. Instinctive to close an eye but I guarantee you, if ya just focus on nothing but the target then boom.” He says. Wondering if maybe he was just overthinking and his penis was being insane.

- “As if you shoot with anything else besides a fucking sniper rifle.” You talk back. “I do, actually.” He says, shrugging at your rage. He didn’t feel like sassing back right now. He was tired. “I could show ya if ya want.”

- He bites his lip, applying pressure to the point it’s red. It was both your bad attitude and shooting skills. He loved a partner who was needlessly edgy. This is seriously the type of guy to swoon over the most edgiest of individuals. Eat nails for breakfast and wear a biker vest for god’s sake while you’re at it.

———————————————————————

Medic:

- Uhm.. Medic’s a little weird.

- Not only is he aroused by you in general but the blood on your clothes and in your hair. The way you kill enemies in-and-itself is arousing him. Much like Engineer he tries to focus on his job to no avail. Ends up pocketing you all day and after the other Mercs ask him about it, he claims it’s because they’re all annoying and not doing their jobs correctly again.

- He sits at his desk at night trying to do paperwork. He can’t focus after what he’s seen today. He begins having incredibly fucked up fantasies of eating your organs. Or you climbing into his chest and sleeping in there. Better yet? sex with both your entrails hanging out! knife play! biting! Dear god he’s gross. God, just shut up.

- He puts a hand to his own heart, feeling his heartbeat. For a second he suspected he was getting possessed or something. But no, he’s just incredibly horny. “Archimedes.” Medic said breathlessly. “I do believe i’m moonstruck. Which is unacceptable..” He sort of laughs nervously.

- Coooo. Brrr.

- “Yes, I wholeheartedly agree.” His voice is hoarse. Medic picks up his bonesaw at the end of his table and looks at his own reflection in it. “Every time I love somebody it ends horribly. Best just get what I want and move on.” He says, darkly. What he doesn’t know is that this is the start of his relationship with you. Enticing you to have sex with him — with your consent — it brings you and him to an incredibly intimate level.

————————————————————-

Spy:

- MOTHERFUCKER AINT PLAYIN. he doesn’t waste time. He sees a fellow serial killer and he immediately goes in for the kill. (Pun intended.) But yeah this is Spy we’re talking about here. He’s a manwhore and I thought the canon already established that.

- “That was some fine work out there.” He tells you slowly. His hands behind his back. “Would you care to join me for a second?” He offers his hand. Which you take hesitantly. He takes you to his quarters and attempts to court you. Which works because he’s something straight out of a romance movie with his clever quips.

- “I have a feeling—“ He begins, slowly offering his hand and hovering it above your thigh, placing it down and rubbing you slowly when he didn’t sense any discomfort. “That we will enjoy each other’s company often, my pet.” He looks for your approval. Any sign of it.

- Dude is so fucking slick that you can’t resist him. He’s unbelievably experienced in romance and knows how to charm his way into your pants. It was like you were under a spell by a hypnotic snake. He ends up getting what he wants and doesn’t hold back. His knife is threatening your back and he’s atop you. “Shhh.”

- Sex happens. Aggressive sex. Right off the bat.

#team fortress 2 #tf2 #demoman x reader #heavy x reader #medic x reader #spy x reader #tf2 x reader #tf2 x you #pyro x reader #sniper x reader

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wisteriaiswriting · 2 months

Text

Mercs as Parents Headcanons

Words: 2379

Jeremy either takes after his mother and is the absolute top tier caretaker, or just like Spy and can’t do shit for you.

He doesn’t even realize how many skills he has picked up from his Ma growing up.

Will spoil you with everything he can get his hands on. (Tries his best to make sure you don’t grow up similarly to how he did.)

Every chance he gets he’ll bring you along to meet his Ma and brothers, so your Grandma and uncles, alongside any cousins that come along.

Really enjoys going on morning jogs with you, but if that isn’t your thing he’ll play some baseball with you.

***

If he was being honest, cooking wasn’t one of his favourite activities. But if and whenever you asked he never minded, actually excited to do this for you. Reminding him of his Ma, which led him to messaging her for recipes to use in the future, helping him for today's breakfast.

Looking many times at the pancake recipe sent over from her, they were basic buttermilk but there were plenty of toppings stashed away. He managed to get a decent pile finished before another merc entered the kitchen, not needing to turn to know who it was.

“THERE'S THE SMELL OF A CLASSIC AMERICAN BREAKFAST!”

“Yeah, yeah, there ya go pal.”

Reaching over to the plate to grab the top pancakes, ignoring the heat to throw them right at Soldier. Who caught them, cramming the first one into his mouth while tearing the other one apart to give to his raccoons. When it was finished the group of them rushed out, leaving Scout and you together again.

Within minutes the rest of the batter was cooked, the stack of pancakes were separated onto two plates. Sliding them across the table, meaning you had to grab both so they wouldn’t go sliding off. While he dug through the pantry, grabbing any types of syrups and toppings he could find.

Walking back over to you and letting everything drop onto the table, sitting down himself before reaching for the sugar.

“Eat up, don’t want any of ‘em going to waste. Ma would’a whooped any of us kids for wastin’ that!”

Guess you’re American now. Solly will not listen, and doesn’t really care what you say about it.

Keep him away from the kitchen, he cannot make the simplest of meals that are not MRE’s.

Just because he gave you the title of Sergeant doesn’t mean he’ll go easy on you in training, if anything he has you train harder.

Is very quick to get you ‘matching’ uniforms. (He claims it’s a Sergeant’s uniform but there’s really no difference.)

Will gladly get you your own raccoon. (Likely you’ll have to name it as he’ll give it the dumbest and most American name.)

***

The lot of you had just finished eatting dinner, allowing everyone to go off and do whatever they wanted. Which meant Soldier had gone somewhere doing something, either way at the moment you didn’t care what he was doing.

Until a loud, constant knocking started on your door, continuing ‘til you opened the door, finding the very man standing there all proud. In his, now scratched up and bleeding arms was a very unhappy raccoon. It was throwing itself around, screaming or whatever noise raccoons made.

Lieutenant Bites scampered around his feet, screeching back at the one in his arms before rushing into your room.

“SERGEANT, MEET THE NEWEST RECRUIT, UH… What's your name?”

His shouting quieted down for a few seconds to ask it, not that it’ll actually answer him. Only letting go when he noticed something in its mouth, holding it closer to find a finger. Confused until you shouted at him.

“SOLLY, IT BIT OFF YOUR FINGER!”

“OH!”

Not caring as the raccoon ran off into your room as well, rushing to grab the finger and bring him all the way to Medic.

No one is really sure who is caring for who at this point, and you don’t think the two of you know either.

They’re constantly dedicating and giving you drawings and plushies whenever you need them or even just when they feel like it.

Very often visits Engineer about anything and everything really, not that he ever minds the company. (Engineer feels like a very proud grandpa everytime Pyro comes by.)

It’s much easier and better if Pyro doesn’t cook, although they can make any easy to eat / make meals, so you won't ever starve.

If anyone ever tries to mess with you, they’ll have to go through Pyro first.

***

Pyro wanted to colour with someone, and with Engineer busy they wandered around to find you. Their first stop was your room, but with no luck finding you they walked around until they reached the living area. About to launch themselves over when they noticed how you were sitting, hunched over with your head dropped into your hands.

A few seconds passed before they moved again, rushing out of the room all the way back to their own. Grabbing one of their many plushies before returning, slowly approaching you. The familiar sight of Pyro didn’t phase you, nor did them sitting next to you.

What did surprise you was a plushie pushed into your arms.

The soft animal shouldn’t have brought you to tears but it did, wrapping your arms around it while holding it closer to you. Pyro had already placed their colouring book and supplies down, quickly wrapping their arms around you to pull you closer. You felt the cold material of their mask gently sit on your head as a faint, muffled hum could be heard.

He knows he isn’t the ‘parently’ type of man, it definitely didn’t help that everyone else said the same thing.

If you don’t like him drinking he’ll try to slow down, he really does and means well, but considering him and his body it’s quite hard to do.

Whether you ask him or not, at some point he’ll start going on about anything that comes to his mind, which can range from simple Scottish myths and legends to past situations he’s been in.

Is quite reluctant to let you meet his mother at all. (Even if she bullies him, she knows him well. Realizing how much he cares for you, so she cuts you some slack, not Demo though.)

He doesn’t care one bit about where you’re from or what language you speak, he will teach you some Scottish slang, and even some of the language itself.

***

You weren’t sure if the timing of your death was good or not, but either way it meant you didn’t have to walk all the way back to base. Able to have all your weapons and other accessories put away before any of the others returned, expecting Scout to come rushing through the door.

Finding out why when the door opened, seeing Demo slumped on his shoulder, arm thrown aross Scout. Eagerly chatting away while the younger merc barely spoke back, until he saw you.

“Y/N, back already?”

At your name Demo stood on his own, only for a few seconds though, collapsing onto you while using his empty hand to ruffle your hair.

“Y/N, laddie! Did I ever finish tellin’ ye about the…” Taking a quick drink of his scrumpy, “The selkie I ran into, a bit ago?”

Out of all the mercs he actually knows the most due to caring for his sisters.

There are times he will baby you, so you’ll need to let him know when it’s going too far so he backs off.

Most nights, if not all, are spent with him reading you books and reciting russian legends. (If you don’t understand Russian, he’ll spend time trying to translate them for you.)

If he ever finds out you aren’t eating properly he’ll spend hours cooking meals for you everyday if needed. (Proudly makes his mother’s recipes.)

He’s another person who keeps a close eye on your during battles, and tries to keep you near him and Medic.

***

The room was filled with the smell of cooked meat and vegetables, you sat at the dining table while Heavy stood in the kitchen. Soon a bowl was placed infront of you before he walked away again, it was a clear liquid with chopped up meat,

“That is Ukha, soup with fish.” Looking up at him, still waiting for the oven to finish. “This is Shashlik,” When it finally did finish he pulled the tray out, dumping the meat onto two plates. “Meat served on sticks.”

“They’re not on sticks though?”

Laughing at your words, placing the full plates on the table before opening a box next to him, pulling out said sticks.

“Here, sent all the way from Siberia.” Taking the plates to stab multiple bits of meat onto them, sliding the finished meal over to you when he was done. “As I work, eat, you need to grow stronger.”

Dell is probably the best parental figure out of the nine of them.

He gives you all the petnames he can think of. (Alongside Pyro, who has become your new sibling.)

Allows you two to sit and spend time in his workshop while he’s working, but gave you special permission to stay in there without him. (Which is a huge privilege only given to one other person.)

He puts anything of yours at the top of his priority list.

Tries to keep a close eye on you during any fights, if possible he keeps you close to him or his sentry.

Lil extra here - He has given you and Pyro kinda matching petnames. You’re ‘Sugar’ while Pyro is ‘Honey.’

***

Dell was busy working on his next project, which neither you or Pyro currently cared about. Both of you were focused on your drawing, spending nearly half an hour switching colours, even starting over once before finally finishing.

Clapping their hands after standing up, you added your final details as Pyro caught Dell’s attention.

“What’s up Honey?” Pointing back to you as you walked over, holding the paper behind your back. “Sugar?”

Swiftly placing it into his hands, unable to see much of his reaction has his goggles covered his eyes. Soon after he pulled them off, letting you both see his teary eyes.

“Aren’t you two sweet as pie…” All three of you knew how sweet you were, considering your petnames. “C’mere…”

Welcoming you both over into his embrace, carefully placing the drawing safely behind him on his desk.

Special dove privileges, you swear he might also be one with the amount of time he spends cooing over you.

He takes extra care during your surgeries, promising not to mess with anything he doesn’t need to.

Speaking of surgeries, if you ever feel like assisting him in any he will gladly welcome you. (The others are kinda scared though.)

You and Heavy are at the top of his priority list, on and off the battlefield.

He is a massive hypocrite, because if you dare mess one meal he will be on your ass about it.

***

While he was focused on some work, Archimedes had managed to slip out of the infirmary. Not realizing until hours later, when calling out didn’t reveal the bird he rushed around trying to find her.

Eventually he realized she must’ve left the room so he had to go searching, and luckily he didn’t need to search for long. Turning a corner and nearly running into you,

“Ah, Y/N, zere is a small problem…”

“Missing Archimedes?” Holding out your arms as you spoke, “Cause she came looking for me.”

He paused for a few seconds, taking in the sight.

“Aren’t you two just adorable!”

It is petnames galore! At first he might seem embarrassed but quickly embraces them. (Main ones are Roo, Joey, Chick and just adding lil onto them.)

He actually had good (adoptive) parents, so he knows how to do most things.

Doesn’t mean to, but he’s a slight helicopter parent. Keeps you in his scope and all around view.

Will give you a key and free access to his camper van.

***

This man is another massive hypocrite, he makes sure you’re getting enough sleep, eating well and staying healthy. (If you bother him back enough, he will do the same alongside you.)

It wasn’t new to not see Sniper having meals with the team, opting to spend that time in his camper. So he normally came by before it started, but today he was a bit behind. Walking into the room towards the counter, grabbing his plate before making his way back out.

Walking behind you, lightly patting your head.

“Come on, Roo.”

He didn’t wait for you, walking out as you scrambled to grab everything. Finding him standing at the main door to go outside, continuing when you reached him. The walk to his camper was quick but it was a comfortable silence.

Which was cut short when you both got comfortable inside, filling the air with laughter and conversation.

You should feel lucky that Scout isn’t aware of the relation between him and Spy, otherwise there would be a real one sided competition.

Please give him a break, he’s old and is nowhere near good at parental things.

Constantly leaving you all types of gifts in your room whenever you either mention wanting something, or he thinks you might enjoy it.

Gives you every petname he can think of (English and French), and at this point you think he might’ve forgotten your name.

He definitely tries to teach you french, praising you if you pick it up quickly while holding conversations.

***

“Qu'est-ce que j'ai dit sur le fait de surveiller ses arrières?”

"Qu'il faut toujours être sur ses gardes..."

Spy was cut off by the sound of the door opening, looking over to find Scout standing in the doorway. He was clearly unprepared to find Spy in here, willingly talking to you much less.

“What's uh, going on here?”

"Nous pouvons dire qui est le meilleur enfant."

It took you a minute to realize what he was saying, and with a smug look from him it clicked. Sending you into a full blown laughter, while Scout was confused.

“What’s wrong with you two?”

***

"What did I say about watching your back?"

"You always have to be on your guard..."

"We can tell who the best child is."

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neroushalvaus · 10 months

Text

Tumblr in the 60s – Part 2

Part 1 / Deleted Scenes

💁🏼‍♀️brigittebardots Follow

anyone want to get fake married so i can get the pill to slut around

💋 marrymetwiggy Follow

Just say you have painful monthlies, I heard it works if you have a nice doctor!

💫 treatmetendermaureen Follow

Remember you still should use the sheet whenever possible. Stay safe ♡

1087 notes

♒ let-the-sunshine-in Follow

i think there's something wrong with me, i'm just so sleepy all the time, it's not fair

👭 marvelettesofficial Follow

That's because you spend all your nights listening to radio luxembourg

♒ let-the-sunshine-in Follow

i heard nothing last night so i built an antenna out of poultry net, iron wire and bits of tin. i cut my fingers and our family chickens ran away

☁️ ankin-vaimo Follow

A small price to pay for some music.

♒ let-the-sunshine-in Follow

the antenna fell apart before the german guy stopped talking

34 notes

🗣 ilovejohnlennon-deactivated19660729

me: chilling

my brain: if you were shot and weren't sure whether you'd live or die should you call the cops to make sure your murderer gets caught or call the ambulance to increase your chance of survival

me: what

🗣 elviskneesofficial-deactivated19631119

There should be a number that'd reach both of those

🕺 elvisherselvis Follow

That number already exists. It's been used in my city for like a two decades.

🏆 petebest-or-bust Follow

🕺 elvisherselvis Follow

Fuck you I'm British.

🪛 patrickwhoghton Follow

Oh my G, this post from -62 sounds so prophetic now that they're trying to make the 911 thing catch on, where's that jagger meme

🖖 spock-in-tardis Follow

🕺 elvisherselvis Follow

This is literally not gift of prophecy. I told you back when this post was first made that this number has already existed in UK for years. It was obviously going to spread elsewhere, even US was bound to catch on at some point.

🏆 petebest-or-bust Follow

you are still here?? keeping an eye on this post??

💋 marrymetwiggy Follow

you're so grumpy @elvisherselvis maybe you should phone the emergency number and get a wahhh-mbulance

98,9 t. notes

📼 bisexualbarbaradane Follow

my date: Oh I listen to folk as well!

me: That's so cool! Who are your favourites?

my date: I'm sooo into Bob Dylan.

me:

my date: Is everything okay?

me, stuffing jelly babies into my purse: I have to go, like, right now, immediately, sorry

#it's okay if you liked dylan before he became the judas he is #but you can't call yourself a folk fan if you still support him #ugghh i hate him #electric guitar using lil bitch #sigh #jelly baby meme #bob dylan critical // #anti bob dylan // #bob dylan hate //

2 notes

🛸 premisendgame Follow

Cock and balls, I'm watching this previously banned american film where an american man is trying to fuck a soviet spy (played by famously very russian Greta Garbo) by offering her champagne and he is like "have you never had champagne?" and Greta is like "never 🥺 only goat's milk and a ration of vodka in the army" and the tv screen freezed and was like "ERROR!! CHAMPAGNE HAS BEEN SERVED IN SOVIET UNION SINCE 1936" I'm 😂😂😂

🪐 stalincredible Follow

You Americans will say anything to make Soviet stuff look silly

🛸 premisendgame Follow

Where do you think I am watching soviet tv from?? Or did I miss the memo where americans have the monopoly on joking about their own damn country??

322 notes

🥁 ringoforpresident Follow

"In future there will be telephones you can take with you anywhere" I can't even fucking listen to Radio Luxembourg without building a goddamn satellite, sending it to space, reciting spells and prayers, and sticking the radio out of the window at 2am EET. And even then it needs to be snowing for it to work because the radio wave fairies like snow or some shit

♒ let-the-sunshine-in Follow

preach

540 notes

#this probably won't be very popular because some of these are very niche but i had fun #is the radio luxembourg station being impossible to listen to an universal experience?#i feel like older people in finland have a permanent chip on their shoulder because listening to it was so hard #there is a possibility ninotchka is doing a little time travel here; i remember this corrected version was shown at some point #but it may have been later #anyway just enjoy the ride #tumblr in the 60s #1960s #dashboard simulator #fake dashboard #60s #unreality

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nevadancitizen · 4 months

Text

-> CH. 1: A SILENT DOG & STILL WATERS

synopsis: the soviet union has been producing robots for a long time based on a miracle compound: polymer. but that was invented in 1941. the current year is 2038, and, due to rising tensions in the arctic, americans aren't as kind to soviets as they once were. it's too bad you're a russki, and it's really too bad that you work in cybersecurity. and honestly, with the case fowler has put you on, you're at risk of losing your job. it doesn't help that you're stuck with lieutenant hank anderson and some new android apparently called connor.

word count: 2.6k

ships: Connor/Reader, Hank Anderson & Reader

notes: based on an au i literally had a dream about. it's basically d:bh with elements of atomic heart :P this ch. is half exposition and half hank being an alcoholic lolololol

HEAD OF FALSE SECURITY MASTERLIST

The Soviet Union had always been very good at spying on and stealing American technology. They did so with the atomic bomb, the B-29 superfortress, and the space shuttle – with no lack of effort on America’s side of trying to keep them secret.

But one thing set the USSR above the rest: polymer. A miracle compound that formed the backbone for every technological evolution that came after. It mimics a human neuron, including its ability to interpret input signals. With tinkering from top Soviet scientists (and a whole lot of luck), a gigantic neural network was established, the maximum computing power of which was orders of magnitude higher than the power of a conventional network.

With polymer, the Soviets reigned supreme as the only real international superpower. The other countries could play at being powerful, but the USSR was top dog – and she wasn’t keen on letting the others forget.

But that was in the past. And the past is boring. That was in 1941, and something you learn about in history class. Polymer is now regularly sold and traded and built upon and shared. After the Cold War ended, it was expanded outwards and is no longer a precious commodity. It was even needed to build a modern technology – androids. Ones that could pass the Turing test, unlike the TER-A1 Tereshkova (which was a human-looking robot, sure, but one that had an unsettling, unmoving mask for a face).

And androids are simply better than Soviet bots. They’re versatile and able to be mass-produced without specialization development. They’re not big and clunky like the chimpanzee-esque MA-9 Belyash and can still accomplish the same installation, plumbing, and welding work. They can do the same agricultural work an ARU-31/6 Rotorobot can do without the risk of accidentally endangering humans while in use.

Again, they’re simply better. In the current year of 2038, American androids just trump similar Soviet tech in every way.

But that doesn’t mean that the Soviets aren’t still trying. They’ve invaded the Arctic with intent to claim the land, heavy with NA-T256 Natasha bots and the claim that the “heavy-duty ground-based loader bots can squeeze up to five liters of blood from a human body in under twenty seconds,” as a deterrent to American forces.

And this action has made your workplace a hell away from home.

Even though you immigrated from Chelomey, Russia to Detroit, Michigan in 2027, before all this business went down, people still eyed you warily – like you secretly enjoyed living under communism and the ever-watching eye of the Kremlin. Like you were just itching to get your grubby little paws on American secrets so you could report them to Comrade Molotov and a beautiful girl back home called Katya. Yeah, right.

These small, under-the-breath and glance-of-the-eye accusations weren’t helped by your current occupation: as a screen jockey for the Head of Cybersecurity of the Detroit Police. They acted like you hadn’t worked just as hard as everyone else for your position – for your polymer glove and the privileges that came with it.

Polymer gloves have come a long way from their prototype in 1955. They’re a single fingerless glove – one glove, as a person doesn’t need two – with an adjustable wrist strap. In the middle of the palm is a small silver star that can retract to expose prehensile, tentacle-like wires that can interface with terminals and other technology.

But it doesn’t stop there – with a single gesture (holding your hand out and making an “L” shape) the glove can scan the surroundings of the user. Paired with an artificial polymer retina, the user can have information about the environment that they otherwise wouldn’t have.

And, of course, you’re outfitted with the top versions of both – on the precinct’s credit card, obviously.

But, again, you’re just a screen jockey. One of the best, but still just a worker bee that reports to a higher-up. There’s little to no interaction with the other departments, as cybersecurity is mostly isolated without any related crimes. Maybe cyberterrorism, but cases of that are few and far between.

And you thought that’s all you’d ever be until you heard Fowler’s bellowing voice call your last name.

When you pop your head up from behind your terminal, you see him standing halfway through the glass door to his office. You swallow and trot over, a nervous idea tickling the back of your mind. Is he mad? Did you do something wrong? Shit… did you accidentally leak something?

You push open Fowler’s door and slowly shut it behind you. He’s sitting behind his desk, stark against the blue-grey backdrop of the wall behind him. His constantly furrowed brow and permanent frown lighten a little when he sees you.

You fold your hands behind your back politely. “Yes, sir?”

Fowler gestures to the seat in front of his desk. “Go ahead and take a seat.”

Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. You definitely did something wrong.

You walk over and sit in the chair. It screeches with a horrible sound.

You lean back in the chair and cross your arms. “What is this about, sir?”

Fowler leans back in his chair and drags a hand down his face. Immediately, the worst things pop into your head. You fight the urge to worry your bottom lip.

“You have experience with androids, yes?” Fowler asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question – rather, a statement.

“Yes, sir.” You nod.

“And you have experience with Lieutenant Hank Anderson?”

Your eyebrows furrow a little, but you still nod. “Yes, sir.”

Fowler turns to his terminal. “How do you feel about him?”

You bite your bottom lip as you think, then let it slip from your teeth. “I don’t know what you want me to say. He’s my friend. He is still a valuable member of the force, even if he has presented a few problems in the past couple of years.”

Fowler laughs. “A few?”

“Ah…” You smile, but it’s a bit forced. “More than a few. A lot. More problems than solutions, if I’m being honest.”

“That’s just how it goes sometimes.” He shrugs and sighs. “Do you know about the new case he’s been assigned?”

“Yes, sir,” you say. “He won’t shut up about it.”

He hums and leans forward, resting his chin on folded hands. “Always one for discretion, that one.”

You duck your head, instead looking down at your lap. “Yeah. But I think he can do better – be the cop he was before.”

“An optimistic Soviet.” Fowler laughs lowly. “That’s a new one.”

You just clench your jaw and meet his eyes. “What is this about? If you’ve called me in just to poke fun at me and gossip about Hank, I’d like to go back to my desk. Uh, sir.”

“No, no.” He holds a hand up. “Tell me what you’ve heard about Hank’s case.”

You think for a second. “Deviant androids murdering their owners. It sounds like it would’ve been labeled self-defense if it was a human-on-human crime, but…” you shrug. “I’m not in Homicide. I’m in Cybersecurity.”

“Well, you’re getting some experience.” Fowler pulls a cord from his terminal, one you recognize as a port compatible with a polymer glove. “You’re on the case.”

“I’m on the case?!” You repeat in disbelief. “Sir, I – I don’t –”

He holds up a hand for the second time. “I don’t want to hear it. You’re the best screen jockey with the most field experience I can spare.”

He gestures with the cord still in his hand. “Now, c’mon. Jack in and download the files.”

You swallow your objections and outstretch your gloved left hand. The thin metal of the star retracts, and the prehensile wires extend towards the port, waving like blades of grass. The ends of all six find their homes in the port, still wiggling like black tapeworms.

Documents appear in the corner of your eye, one after another, like pop-up ads. You blink hard to dismiss them, then disconnect.

Fowler feeds the cord back into his terminal, then leans back in his chair.

He looks over at you. “What’s that one saying you Soviets say? Something about champagne.”

You look up at him, then down to your glove. The star retracts, then goes back to its original position, like it was winking at you. “He who doesn’t take risks won’t drink champagne.”

“Well, I hope you have a taste for harder liquor,” Fowler says. “Hank’s at having a drink somewhere nearby. Go find him.”

And Lord, did you know right where to find Hank.

On the door to Jimmy’s Bar is a firm warning, reading: NO ANDROIDS ALLOWED – OWNERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. You just hope that they don’t extend the same kindness to russkis.

When you open the door, everyone in the bar turns to look at you. You nod and, once they see who you are, turn back to their conversations or nursing their drinks.

You spot Hank at the bar with what looks like a Tennessee whiskey. You sidle up onto the barstool next to him, easing into the creaky seat. As you drape your rain-speckled coat on the back of the chair, you glance at the clock on the wall. It reads just before twenty past eleven.

“Bartender?” You call. Your thick accent immediately catches his attention, and so does the money you slide onto the bartop. “Vodka, please.”

The bartender, presumably Jimmy, picks up a bottle of Stolichnaya from the shelving behind him. “This good?”

You nod. “More than good.”

He pours vodka into a tumbler glass, then pushes it across the bar. You accept it readily, and the tiny sip you take gives your throat a nice burn on the way down.

“A Soviet and vodka,” Hank mumbles against the lip of his glass. “Like a moth to a flame.”

“It’s what my mother served with dinner,” you say. “I’m just glad Jimmy’s got enough sense not to keep us from his bar.”

Hank chuckles and raises his glass to that.

“Fowler’s gone beyond the pale.” You sip at your drink. “Have you heard?”

“Yup.” He sighs, setting his drink on the bartop harder than necessary. “Don’t know why a kid like you has business with an old timer like me.”

“Oh, believe me,” you say, your voice heavy with sarcasm. “It’s nice to visit, but it’s better to be home. I don’t know what he’s thinking. A Cybersecurity worker partnering up with someone in Homicide? Next, we’ll have androids doing our thinking and philosophy instead of our laundry and dishes.”

Hank snorts into his drink. “Hell, with all these runaways? They might as well be.”

“I mean, I can see his line of thinking.” You swirl the vodka in your glass, watching the way it catches and reflects the low light of the bar. “Cybersecurity, androids… makes sense, but me? A russki? With all that’s happening in the Arctic? If we don’t do well, my job is on the line.”

Hank sips his whiskey. “It really sounds like Fowler’s settin’ you up to fail.”

“Setting us both up to fail.” You correct and mirror him, sipping at your vodka.

The sound of the door opening and the rain outside cuts into your conversation. Nothing you’d usually take a glance at, but what puts you off is the sudden silence of the bar. Bars shouldn’t be silent – especially not Jimmy’s.

You look over your left shoulder and see a nice looking man that’s just walked through the door. He looks a bit dorky, sure, and a bit like a lost puppy dog, but that could look nice on certain guys. And the asymmetrical tuft of loose hair that’s escaped his hair gel looks –

There’s a blue triangle just above where his left breast pocket would be. On the other side of his blazer reads RK800 in even, white text. He’s an android, not a man. He meets your gaze and you inhale sharply.

Your eyes return to your drink, and so does Hank’s. This isn’t what you want to deal with right now – or ever, actually. It’s Jimmy’s establishment, so it’s Jimmy’s problem.

But still, as soon as the android saw you, he started making a beeline for you. His footsteps are quick, measured, and even.

“Excuse me,” he says, putting a hand on your shoulder. He addresses you by your title, and your gut clenches.

“No.” You try to wave him off. “No English. Sorry.”

“Officer, you passed each of your TestEaFL’s with flying colors,” he says, narrowing his eyes a little. “You can speak English perfectly fine.”

You cringe a little, but then a thought strikes you – how would this android have access to the scores of your Test of English as a Foreign Language? But before you can ask, he’s turned to Hank and started speaking.

“Oh, Lieutenant Anderson.” He moves so that he’s standing beside Hank. “Just the other person I was looking for.”

He glances between the two of you. “My name is Connor. I’m the android sent by CyberLife. Captain Fowler said that you were both having a drink nearby. I was lucky to find you at the fifth bar.”

You snort and your eyebrows shoot up. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that there was a hint of… something other than monotone indifference in his voice.

“What do you want?” Hank grinds out.

“You were assigned a case early this evening. A homicide, involving a CyberLife android.” Connor glances at you, like he’s reminding you that you were also assigned this case. “In accordance with procedure, the company has allocated a specialized model to assist investigators.”

“Well, I don’t need any assistance.” Hank jabs a thumb at you. “I’ve got all the unwanted assistance I need right here, and I don’t need any more. ‘Specially not from a plastic asshole like you. So just be a good lil’ robot and get the fuck outta here.”

“He’s right,” you chime. “And it doesn’t really look good to have androids investigating androids. What if you snap, too?”

“I will not.” Connor meets your eyes, and you can almost see the switch flick in that little android brain. Great, now it’s your turn to be grilled.

He circles so that he’s standing beside you and leans down a little, putting his hand on the bartop. You keep your eyes down, firmly on your drink.

“I’m sorry, Officer, Lieutenant, but I must insist,” he says. “My instructions stipulate that I have to accompany both of you.”

“You know where you can stick your instructions?” Hank chimes in with a throaty laugh.

You glance over at Connor, who looks thoroughly confused. You smile and bring the glass to your lips.

“No,” Connor says. “Where?”

Your throat seizes around the sip of vodka you were trying to take, causing you to cough it out as you try to suppress your laughter. You slam down the glass (effectively spilling most of it) and bring a hand to your chest, trying to ride it out as Hank pats your back.

“чёрт возьми!” You wheeze, your voice hoarse. Your chest burns. “Oh, fuck.”

You wipe your eyes as the burn dulls, still coughing slightly. Connor purses his lips before coming to a conclusion.

“You know what?” He offers. “I’ll buy you both one for the road.”

“You better,” you say. “You made me spill mine.”

“Bartender!” Connor calls, and slips money onto the bartop. “The same again, please.”

“See that, Jim?” Hank says. “Wonders of technology. Make it a double.”

Jimmy pours a healthy amount of Jack Daniels into Hank’s glass, and starts to pour Stolichnaya into yours. You cut him halfway with a raised hand and a “Someone’s gotta drive us home safe.”

You knock back your drink, then let out a low whistle at the nice burn. Hank follows soon after and sighs heavily.

He leans back and looks over at Connor. “Did you say homicide?”

#riptide writes 🌊#head of false security #dbh connor x reader #connor rk800 x reader #rk800 x reader #connor x reader #detroit become human #dbh connor #dbh rk800 #dbh x reader #detroit become human x reader #dbh connor x you #connor rk800 x you #rk800 x you #connor x you #dbh x you #detroit become human x you #connor rk800

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