#i can only name one or two pieces of media that actually did this right

[rainswolfs]

what is it abt the trope of two people having the choice of saving the world vs. the choice of saving each other only, and they pick each other that makes me INSANE

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Clownfall: Endgame

I am calling it that in the full knowledge that batshit things may yet happen, but listen. Listen. We have a year left before the general election. I am hedging my bets and assuming all that comes in that year will be Tory manoeuvring ahead of that. Let's all hope for a nice quiet year in which everything can fall neatly under that banner, that won't ruin this naming convention.

Previous Reading

Important Terminology - Required Reading

What is a Whip?

How do Whips work?

Shadow Cabinet

Front Benchers, Back Benchers and the Cabinet

What do we need to call an early General Election?

The Adventures of Big Dog the Clown - Suggested Reading

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Elanor’s Guide to Liz Truss - Suggested Reading

Character-based prequel

The Premiership of Liz Truss

The Next Steps - Suggested Reading

The post-Truss contenders

Bye Matt

BoJo Resigns as MP

Alright, that's probably everything. Just nice to have it all in one place, innit? If you would like a nice soothing soundtrack to your reading, here's my recommendation. On with the show!

Clownfall: Endgame

Wednesday

So, let's start with charismatic and charming Home Secretary Suella Braverman! You may remember her from such hits as "Quitting before she could be fired after breaking the law only to be rehired by Sunak almost immediately and without consequence to appease the right wing nutjobs in the party", and "Claiming Pakistani men have a culture that makes them work in abuse rings to target vulnerable white English girls" (I should add that, if you are unfamiliar with Suella Braverman, regardless of what that quote implies, she is not, in fact, white); recently she made the news because she announced that being homeless is a "lifestyle choice". So true, Suella! They could give it up any time they wanted. They could, for example, get together and break in and steal your fucking house.

But in particular, here we're focussing on her recent stance towards the multiple huge pro-Palestine marches that have been taking place in London. So far she has indicated that she wants people who wave Palestinian flags to be arrested, so that's very measured and rational of her; but, last Wednesday (Nov 8th), she decided to write a lil opinion piece in the Times all about how mean and biased and liberal the police are. This is an absolutely fascinating assertion to I suspect literally anyone who has ever been involved with the police. But no! Quoth Suella, aggressive right-wing protesters are "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" are "largely ignored".

And, she claims, the march on Saturday isn’t simply a cry for help for Gaza, but an "assertion of primacy by certain groups - particularly Islamists - of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland".

Imagine how well all that went down.

Thursday

You are underestimating how that went down, because it emerges that Suella deVille did not, in fact, get any form of validated sign-off or permission from Number 10 before squirting her ill-informed liquid horseshit all over the front desk of the Times news room, and that, Tumblrs, you'll be surprised to learn, is actually quite an important and compulsory part of criticising the police when you are the Home Secretary. Like, there is a Ministerial Code about this. It is very clear. It is in Article 8.2, Tumblrs. Thou Shalt Have Permission From Number 10 Before Making Media Interventions.

“The content was not agreed with Number 10,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters, referring to the prime minister’s Downing Street office. The ministerial code is clear that any ministerial media interventions need approval from No 10.

-AlJazeera

And the Tories are furious! The bloodbath forms quickly and loudly and the hounds start baying! Clown noses are flying everywhere! The factions are drawn! Because even now, there are Tories too stupid to understand that whether you agree with someone or not they still have to follow the rules! Also the other parties realise they can offer some actual opposition here, given that Suella has essentially dragged a barrel into the middle of the House of Commons dressed in a fish costume, handed around a set of loaded rifles, and then crawled inside to wait. The result is that the calls for her resignation are both deafening and pleasingly cross-party.

"(This is a) dangerous attempt to undermine respect for police", says Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. "(It's) irresponsible," says London mayor Sadiq Khan. "The PM's weakness when it comes to standing up to Suella is the most shocking thing in all this," claims a senior Labour source.

They're wrong, of course. The most shocking thing is Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey realising he can actually appear in the paper if he plays this right and so surfaces to attempt some politics. "(Sunak) must finally act with integrity by sacking his out-of-control home secretary!" he declares, frightening many MPs who had forgotten he was even in the room with them.

Meanwhile, several Tories approach the BBC anonymously.

"The home secretary's awfulness is now a reflection on the prime minister. Keeping her in post is damaging him," says one. Another straight-up describes her as "unhinged". Another claims the comparison with Northern Ireland is "wholly offensive and ignorant", and really, all of this is permanently triggering that "Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point" reaction image.

Saturday

Hey, speaking of reaction images, look, Labour has a go:

Well. They tried.

BUT! Do you want to know the INTERESTING bit??!

Enter: Nadine Dorries! Mad shrieking pink harpy who spends her days maintaining a BoJo shrine in her bedroom! Always the most hinged of politicians, let's see what she has to say.

Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries claimed Ms Braverman was trying to get sacked to give her a platform of martyrdom in service of the right-wing. "The competition is on now for who is going to be the leader of the opposition," Ms Dorries told the BBC.

???!??!?

PERTINENT POLITICAL OBSERVATION FROM DORRIES?!?!?? The most shocking part of this whole affair. Remember that time she yelled at a journalist during an interview about Boris Johnson's latest scandal when he asked her how Johnson was feeling about the whole thing and inadvertently implied they were having an affair when No One Asked? God, wonders never cease. She's even acknowledging the Tories can't win the next GE, look. I'd say this is growth, except I am 100% positive she's just being catty about BlowJo being fired again.

Anyway, the real Saturday issue: it's Armistice Day, and there's a pro-Palestine march planned.

Now, to give context, Armistice Day has a creepy level of patriotic state-worship attached to it in the UK. Some time in October everyone on telly suddenly starts wearing a poppy, and if you don't you get hanged, drawn and quartered by (a) the British press, and then (b) a baying mob outside your living room. You most be performatively sad. You must perform reverence and hero worship and say things like "Never again" all while whole-heartedly supporting current wars. You must talk about "our brave boys", and share the works of dead poets from the trenches, and then completely fail to absorb any of their lessons. If anyone tries to wear the white poppy to distance themselves from the current political appropriation while still commemorating the millions of conscripted casualties, you accuse them of being "woke" and pissing on the worthy dead of WW1. It's a whole thing, and politicians love using it as an excuse to point fingers and mock each other for being insufficiently patriotic if they wear the wrong tie to the ceremonies, or choose to walk with actual veterans rather than a head of the current army, or any number of other things. And then on November the 12th they'll order a drone strike or something.

So, off the bat, you can see how a pro-Palestine rally on the same day was likely to be seen as provocative to some.

"Some" included Sunak! He didn’t (publicly at least) ask the police to ban the protest, but did call on organisers to call it off, claiming the choice of date was “provocative and disrespectful”, because as I say, a march calling for the ceasefire of a genocide is super disrespectful to every sad dead poet in a trench who dreamed of a ceasefire so they could live, or something.

But the inevitable therefore happens, which is that far-right activists agree that it's disrespectful, and so decide to violently target the march to show their respect for the idea of peace on Armistice Day, or something.

Here's the planned route by the organisers:

Note, though, that the Armistice ceremony happens at the Cenotaph - visibly nowhere near the march. These two events actually wouldn't have overlapped, if it weren't for far-right protestors deliberately linking them to stop them being disrespectfully linked, or something.

And that's exactly what happened. From the Guardian:

Perhaps the most striking incident, though, was when far-right protesters charged past police who sought to hold them back from the Cenotaph. In this video, a man shouts “this is fucking our country” in celebration. Whereas the pro-Palestine march had been excluded from the area as a precaution, the far right was not; by overwhelming the police, they supposedly sought to defend the site from an enemy that simply wasn’t there.

(that's quite a good article of the whole thing, actually, I recommend giving it a read.)

Crucially to the clown show, though, several politicians and others accused Suella deVille of emboldening the far-right, which... well, several of the far-right protestors straight up said was the case on the day, so hard to disagree, really.

Rumours of a reshuffle in Whitehall circumnavigate the land so fast the truth gets sucked into a tornado and is declared MIA.  Here's the thing! I've covered a few Cabinet reshuffles by now, Tumblrs, you know the drill. Reshuffles are always deniable until they actually happen – so if, say, a reshuffle was going to happen on Monday 13 November 2023, there’d be no need to publicise it in advance. That way, if things change and politics happen, you don't need to retract anything :)

Because, remember: reshuffles are always controversial.  Yes, some people get demoted, and those people will often kick off, and some people who don't deserve it get promoted, and lots of people kick off.  But the big thing is that a lot more people get overlooked for promotion.

His most ardent supporters would say that Rishi Sunak is a cautious man (if you'll allow me a moment to express my own view on the matter, Tumblrs, if you'll forgive this crumb of personal opinion amongst my otherwise impeccable journalling of greatest integrity, I once did a teambuilding task with my students where they had to build the best possible bridge out of uncooked spaghetti and pieces of marshmallow, and I personally would liken the structural integrity of his spine to the losing team's entry), and reshuffles will spread a lot of disappointment to Tory MPs who lose – or fail to gain – a cabinet position.

So, all in all... regardless of Suella's idiocy...

There's no guarantee of a reshuffle. Rumours are just that - whether they prove to be true or not remains to be seen.

Week Commencing Monday 13th November, 2023

New week, new challenges! And it's going to be a big week this week. On Wednesday (tomorrow, at time of writing), three big things are going to be announced, and these announcements will colour everything else this week:

One.  The Supreme Court decide whether the government will be allowed to enact their plan to send some migrants claiming asylum in the UK to Rwanda, a signature Braverman plan that human rights campaigners (including many in Rwanda) have been trying to block for ages.

It’s a massive deal anyway – a flagship government idea that’s been bogged down in the court, and we’ll finally have an answer one way or another.  For what it’s worth, the Tories aren’t confident about winning it, either.  The optimists among them reckon it’s a 50/50 chance, the pessimists reckon it’s 70/30 against, so it's iffy at best.

But here's the thing!

Plenty of Tories have always disliked Suella.  Others could handle the odd outburst she has, but can’t stomach the sheer number of them lately - the Lib Dem non-entity man was absolutely right that she is rapidly growing out of control and just does not know when to shut the entire fuck up.

Which means! If the Supreme Court allows the Rwanda plan, Braverman could become emboldened, like a far-right protest injuring police officers to defend the cenotaph from people who are nowhere near it and have no interest in it.  Do we want an emboldened Braverman?? Well; no, obviously. I also don't want dysentery, or rotten meat, or a serial killer in my neighbourhood. But it's a question even Tories are asking themselves, which is notable.

Plus, even if the court allows it, there will still be months of planning, and lawyers might still prevent the plans in the long run...  But psychologically, the issue is this: the government wants this win, but probably doesn’t benefit from Braverman feeling victorious.

Two.  We’ll get inflation figures.  The government promised to halve inflation, and it seems likely they’ve managed this.  Expect them to massively celebrate this, to distract from the promises they haven’t kept e.g. waiting lists in England, competent governance, etc.

Three.  Voting on a ceasefire in Israel seems likely for Wednesday.  It’s the SNP’s idea, and it won’t affect government policy (they won’t support a ceasefire – they claim it’ll empower Hamas).

But it’s a big deal for Labour, even more so than the Tories.  A Shadow minister has already resigned over the war.  A bunch of frontbenchers want a ceasefire, but that isn’t Keir Starmer’s policy, a man who is calling for the colours of the Israel flag to be shown at sports matches to show that "we stand in solidarity with Israel", because you can really count on Starmer to fuck up everything he touches.  So what do they do?  Abstain?  Claim they had a prior commitment??  We might see more resignations, basically.  Big day for Starmer.

So! With all that in mind...

Monday

8.43am

Oh look. Timestamps are back. I wonder if that suggests anything?

Suella Braverman is sacked as Home Secretary.

But! Sunak is accused of waiting too long! Which he demonstrably did!

He should have made the decision after the illegal article that she shouldn't have written and triggered a far-right rally on fucking Armistice Day.  Instead, remember that 'cautious' descriptor I talked about?? He waited until the tide had turned against her completely, and now looks like he (a) was too much of a useless wimp to fire her until he was sure people would still like him and pat his dick and tell him he's a Good PM, and (b) only fired her because he caved in to that appalling lefty liberal cabal that somehow these days includes the Metropolitan Police of all fucking people, and she'd have been able to stay otherwise.

Shout out to the best comment from Reddit:

u/nowonmai666: Doesn't she normally get sacked on a Friday so she can have the weekend off before being reappointed?

Anyway, that's the big risk now: Braverman’s supporters can claim she was only fired because Sunak caved in to the left.

8.56am

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns claims Sunak only sacked Braverman because he caved in to the left.

9.00am

Neil O'Brian, Pharmacy Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being a back-bencher with less power.

*sus*

9.09am

Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being more diplomatic, or something.

*sus*

9.42am

The Lib Dems decide to build on the success of their leader getting to be on telly for his one comment on Thursday and call for a general election.  Says Ed Davey: “It was the Prime Minister’s sheer cowardice that kept her in the job even for this long. We are witnessing a broken party and a broken government, both of which are breaking this country.”

Good job! They're having such a good few days.

Anyway remember the Tories don’t have to have a general election until December 2024, though, thanks to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011), which was passed by the coalition government of Tories and, um, Lib Dems.  In which Ed Davey served for three years.

Hmm.

9.43am 

James Cleverly (remember him?) returns to the Cabinet and is appointed Home Secretary. The party attempts to appear trendy by experimenting with emojis:

This appointment is probably because Tory strategists wanted him in a domestic role to help the party’s chances in the next election; as Surprising Political Pundit Nadine Dorries told us, of all fucking people, the race is now on to lead the opposition.

But hey, this is not likely to lead to any more changes -

10.03am

FORMER PRIME MINISTER, BREXIT-TRIGGERER AND PIG-FUCKER DAVID CAMERON BECOMES FOREIGN SECRETARY

!!!!!!!!!!!!

And look! Another emoji! They're so hip!

(Side note... the balls on this one are astounding, actually. The UK political system has been in chaos ever since Cameron, and he was the first domino. This is not a well-loved former hero that will be greeted warmly by the unwashed masses.)

Awkward though, since just last month Sunak claimed that we’d lived through “30 years of a political system that incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one.”  It would be a terrible shame if a journalist was to ask David Cameron whether he agreed with the Prime Minister on that, given that Cameron’s job is to support the Prime Minister now.

Especially since Cameron took to Twitter last month to explicitly criticise Sunak for breaking the Tory promise to deliver High Speed 2.

(Cameron tweeted this criticism last month.  Labour MP Angela Rayner however promptly retweets it now lol suck a dick Dave, but try a human one this time)

Also, fun fact, Cameron has just come out of a large-scale lobbying and corruption scandal. Given the state of Sunak, though, that's actually probably what got him the job.

BUT!!! Here's an even funner fact: the man is not an MP. He left politics after he accidentally triggered Brexit and then it came out he'd once face fucked a dead pig's head while it was held on the lap of another Tory; he's been living it up in the lucrative world of after-dinner speaking, as these people do.

So can you do that?? Can you hold a Cabinet position if no one at all has voted for you??

Yes, turns out.

Don't be alarmed by that, though:

But, convention holds that anyone who becomes a Cabinet member while not being an MP needs to be a Peer - that way, if they do bad and naughty things, they can't be held accountable by the House of Commons but they can be held accountable by the House of Lords. Only problem is, Hameron is not a lord...

10.13am

The reshuffle, bafflingly, continues. Jeremy Hunt will remain as chancellor.

For the first time since 2010, the top four positions in government – Prime Minister (Sunak), Chancellor of the Exchequer (Hunt), Home Secretary (Cleverly) and Foreign Secretary (Cameron) – are all held by men.

10.18am

Lots of people tweeting about the historic context of Cameron’s appointment.  Here’s my favourite:

10.48am

David Cameron is given a life peerage, so his proper name now is Lord Piggledick.

10.52am

Health secretary Will Quince quits.  He wasn’t planning to stand for re-election anyway though, so this one is probably not a shock. But it's important that no one else resi-

11.04am

Decarbonisation minister Jesse Norman resigns.

...

...

...

Time for a

✨Conspiracy Theory✨

Between Quince and Norman – as well as Neil O’Brien and Nick Gibb – we’re seeing several mid-ranking ministers resign, despite being generally regarded as fairly competent.

It’s possible they were fired in private, and they’re publicly resigning to save face.  But here’s another theory.

MPs aren’t allowed to seek commercial employment for six months after resigning from the government.

So hypothetically, if you were going to lose your seat in a general election, you’d want to have resigned six months earlier so you can still get a job.

If that’s what these guys are doing, it suggests we’re on track for a May 2024 election...?

11.05am

11.12am

Remember Cameron's financial scandal? Quick background here: David Cameron was specifically vice-chair of a £1bn China-UK investment fund.

So let’s see what throwback former leader Iain Duncan Smith thinks of Cameron’s return:

“I am astonished at this appointment. It seems to send a signal to China that we are pursuing business with them at all costs and any costs. Those who have been sanctioned now feel more abandoned than at any time. Those facing genocide and persecution will feel more abandoned than at any time.”

I cannot believe I am about to say this.

But.

I agree with Iain Duncan Smith *spits on floor*

11.50am

Former Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine is asked to sum up the return of Cameron, and says it’s the “clearest signal that the sort of right wing lurch that we’ve seen and the anti-European movement that we’ve seen has been put to bed, and that will get a message across to people”.

12.13pm

A Tory MP is worried that Cameron’s return will turn back the clock on Brexit and Johnson’s election.

“It is very alarming. I am predicting a softening on small boats, a softening on legal migration. I would not be surprised if the ban on conversion therapy returns.”

... Don’t threaten me with a good time.

Anyway, let’s see how the public actually sees Cameron compared with other PMs!

Yeah, not sure people will mind if Cameron’s not Boris Johnson.

12.43pm

ITV political editor Robert Peston walks past a minister of state.  The minister’s on the phone, but takes a moment to heatedly shout at Peston, “The PM just sacked me!”

I guess some days are easier than others as a journalist

12.47pm

Therese Coffey resigns as environment secretary!!!!

*choirs of heavenly angels sing*

You'll remember her of course, Tumblrs - she was one of the thugs manhandling people into the 'right' voting lobbies to force their vote on the day of Liz Truss' fracking law. Rumour has it she still has the Whip handle in her ass.

A lot of people seem to be resigning today! But don't be fooled. In almost every case, it’ll be because they were told to resign.  They’ve been sacked, but they resign to save face. A last mercy from their benevolent leader.

My guess: Tessie here is terrible at media skills, so – get rid of her before she hurts general election chances. This, too, is a pattern.

12.52pm

Rachel Maclean sacked as Housing Minister! Fun fact, numbers fans: it took Doctor Who 33 years to make it to eight Doctors, but since the 2019 election, the Tories managed eight Housing Ministers in just under 4 years

trololol

1.15pm

Jeremy Quin quits as Minister for the Cabinet Office.

1.37pm

Times Political Editor Steven Swinford reports that No 10 is struggling to find a new housing minister (owing to rumours the job is cursed). Several people have turned it down, including Jeremy Quin. It is incredible to me that they didn't line someone up before sacking the last guy.

Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove are apparently unhappy that Rachel Maclean was removed from the role. I for one do not care about the opinions of Kemi Badenoch or Michael Gove.

2.04pm

Health Secretary Steve Barclay becomes Environment Secretary.  This is effectively a demotion for him. It is our 5th Environment Secretary in four years. Chasing that Housing Minister record! It took 19 years for Doctor Who to have five Doctors

2.15pm

Richard Holden appointed new Conservative Party chairman.

A 2019-intake Tory MP, he led the charge against Sir Keir Starmer over Beergate, which did damage Starmer a bit (albeit not much, given that it turned out Starmer had complied with lockdown regs, and the accusation was nakedly to try and distract from Partygate).  So this appointment looks like more strategy to win the next election - someone not known enough to be hated, with what passes in the modern Tory party for a proven track record.

This could be a sign that the Tories intend to at least try to shore up the Red Wall votes? As unlikely as the Tories are to keep those seats.

That said, Holden’s seat disappears in a boundary change next election, sooooo … we'll see what they do there.

2.24pm

Victoria Atkins appointed Health Secretary, replacing Steve Barclay who’s moved to Environment Secretary. She's a relative unknown but also considered actually competent. Massive middle finger to Steve Barclay

2.37pm

Laura Trott (formerly in pensions) promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

2.42pm

Science minister George Freeman resigns.

3.18pm

YouGov conducts a snap poll: is the appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary a good decision or a bad decision?

Good decision: 24%

Bad decision: 38%

Don't know: 38%

So that's going well

3.24pm

Greg Hands is made a business minister after losing the Tory chairman role.

John Glen moves from chief secretary to the Treasury to become the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General.

3.39pm

With Cameron being a Lord now, he’ll be based in the House of Lords rather than the Commons.  The most recent Cabinet Minister to be based in the Lords was former Brexit minister Lord Frost, who did weigh in on the matter:

“[T]hough I was not running a whole Department too. I don’t think it works well to have a lead Cabinet Minister answering questions and defending their Department solely in the Lords. The Lords is not a fully party political environment - nor should it be - and voters are owed proper political scrutiny. In our system, that can only happen in the Commons.”

I cannot believe I am about to say this.

But.

I agree with Lord Frost *spits on floor*

The SNP had already called this out, with MP Stephen Flynn claiming, “The UK is not a serious country.”

4.21pm

Conservative MP Lee Rowley appointed the 16th housing minister in the past 13 years. Even counting David Tennant twice, that's more than all the Doctors Who we've ever had, and that took almost 60 years.

5.16pm

Sky News’s Tamara Cohen reports that Sunak sacked Braverman by phone this morning!  Downing Street says there won’t be any exchange of letters between them - this is almost unheard of. Politics runs on paper trails! Everything happens through formal letters! By phone!

It means we’re denied insight into their differences.  But Cohen reckons we’re likely to hear from Braverman on Wednesday, as the Supreme Court rules on the Rwanda scheme.

6.03pm

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, former Education Minister, submits no-confidence letter in Rishi Sunak.

It's almost like, in the absence of Dorries, she's decided that someone needs to step up and have a tantrum and that someone might as well be her. It is, actually, an extremely funny letter, as these letters go. Normally they're written with a sort of furious earnestness wrapped in formal language. I presume that Andrea Jenkyns MP, former Education Minister, was aiming for something similar, and the first paragraph manages it. But by the end you sort of start to wonder if this was supposed to be a letter she wrote with her therapist to get her feelings out:

My favourite line, when pulled in isolation, is "Yes Boris Johnson, the man who won the Conservative Party a massive majority, was unforgivable enough."

Yeah, Andrea babes. You're bang on there.

6.05pm

Esther McVey is appointed as Cabinet Office minister.  Not a full cabinet member, but she will attend cabinet meetings.

This is notable: unlike a lot of today’s appointments, she’s on the right of the party.  Her role will be to represent the government on TV and radio as much as possible, talking about gender/culture/British colonial history issues (i.e. she’s anti-woke and a screaming bigot).

In other words, with Braverman gone, McVey is an offering for the populist right of the party to try to appease them.

6.15pm

Sunak tweets about the new cabinet, claiming they’ll make “the right decisions for our great country, not the easy ones.”  So it looks like that’s the new slogan, and we're pressing on with austerity

6.27pm

Tim Loughton, a Tory MP on the “One Nation” wing (i.e the David Cameron side) responds to Andrea Jenkyns’s letter of no-confidence by tweeting:

“Where can we submit a letter of no confidence in the Pantomime Dame?”

(It’s Andrea he’s publicly referring to as a pantomime dame there. A lil joke from the Tories for you)

6.31pm

Paul Scully sacked as minister for London. Didn't know that one was a position.

9.43pm

Sunak says that only a two-state solution will allow a new future for Israel/Palestine.  This is, um, not what the Prime Minister of Israel wants.  Who knows whether the Prime Minister of Israel will survive this crisis anyway – but these are big words from Sunak.  Cameron’s influence? Maybe? Interesting either way

10.03pm

And then - PLOT TWIST!!!

According to ITV political editor Robert Peston, a senior government source reveals that Cameron was approached on TUESDAY. 

Which means plans were underway to get rid of Braverman not only before the far-right violence on Saturday, but before her anti-police article on Wednesday.  It seems she lost her job not because of what she said about police after all; but because she claimed homelessness was a lifestyle choice.

Well well.

11.05pm

And the day finishes with Andrea Leadsom back in government (as Under Secretary of State for Health and Social Care) which nobody saw coming!  Pretty demeaning to the other 300 Tory MPs who could have been given this.

The final response from numerous Tories: they are feeling jilted and insulted because David Cameron being brought back when he's NOT EVEN AN MP, RISHI suggests that they themselves are not good enough to be in government.

No one tell them

[emo-batboy]

Battinson Guest Starring on TV Shows

SO

For someone who holds the title of Richest Man in the World, Bruce doesn’t do a lot of traveling.

Which is to say he does a LOT of traveling, but he always tries to find a way out of it.

(Are there bat-related reasons for this? Are there people-related reasons for this? Are there anxiety-related reasons for this? Who knows?)

But partners and sponsors aren’t always going to tolerate his hermit-like tendencies. So once every month or so, Alfred wrangles Bruce into a private jet and sends him off to who knows where so he can represent the company.

Usually, it’s somewhere close on the East Coast, maybe it’s across the pond, even Asia isn’t off the table, but the rarest place to spot Bruce Wayne is actually the West Coast of the US.

One day, it is announced that Bruce Wayne will be spending two (count ‘em, 2) consecutive weeks in California with his kids for some grand business convention.

The West Coast media goes feral with the news, ESPECIALLY interviewers. And because Bruce kicks up such a fuss this time, Alfred has the gall to sign him up for FOUR TV appearances.

Here are these appearances :)

RuPaul’s Drag Race

Drag Queens, especially Drag Race all-stars, contribute to a wide variety of charities

So on a new episode, the queens are challenged to design and shoot a promotional ad for their own charity

And who better to act as a guest judge for this episode than the show’s largest benefactor, CEO of the Wayne Foundation, Bruce Wayne?!

Physically? He’s older than half of the contestants. But spiritually? He screams Baby Gay.

Fifteen minutes into the episode, Bruce is welcomed into the werkroom where he gives them pointers on their campaign. He’s in his cute little three-piece suit (Alfred’s idea) with the intention of looking put-together and knowledgeable. But that’s not the only outcome.

They all flirt with him. Everyone, single or taken. The confessionals are so thirsty.

“He’s lucky the cameras are on. Otherwise, I’d eat him up faster than a bachelorette party in a buffet line.”

“My celebrity crush is talking to me, and all I can focus on are his gorgeous eyes. How am I supposed to know what he's saying?”

Of course, they shoot their shot, but most of it is joking since they don't know he's bi yet.

“Are you single, honey?” Bruce blushes. “It’s complicated.” “Well, I’ll make it simple for you.”

We all know this man can't handle being flirted with. We saw how he froze when Selina did it. It’s like he mentally bluescreens when someone calls him a pet name.

Only THEN do they learn he's bi

One of the queens jokingly asks him, “Ever been with a man before?” thinking it would be a firm no, but Bruce says, “Actually, yes.” “Oh shit, really?” And to Bruce’s embarrassment, the whole room hears him.

The flirting is thus taken up a notch.

On the main stage, Bruce has a lot of great constructive criticism. He talks about how to find the right audience, the importance of a good slogan, and even goes on a little rant about logo design.

(You cannot convince me that Bruce hasn’t hyperfixated on the business of charity work before. Or the science of marketing. They’re his favorite business topics.)

After about three minutes of him complimenting one contestant for their Drag Library pitch, he stops himself mid-sentence and says, “Oh sorry, am I talking too much?” “No, please! Keep talking, sweetheart.” Bruce covers his face to hide his blush. “Why is everyone flirting with me?” “Baby, have you seen yourself?”

While the judges deliberate, RuPaul mentions Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent. Bruce nods along for a while then suddenly just blurts out, “Wait, does it spell ****?”

The judges pause then burst out laughing. “Oh no, we’ve traumatized him!" Bruce is blushing up a storm. “I just never thought about it like that!” “Sweet, innocent Bruce. We’re so sorry.”

It’s later revealed that Bruce offered to help some of the queens launch their charity projects through the Wayne Foundation.

It’s v cute 🥰

Nailed It!

I love Nicole Byer.

She is Mother.

In all seriousness, she’s so fucking funny and she’s personable enough to pull Bruce out of his shell a bit.

The theme for this episode is Found Family. Three pairs of family members compete together—a gay father and his adopted son, an aunt who adopted her niece, and a stepfather and stepdaughter.

Because Bruce Wayne famously adopted two children, he is invited to guest judge.

So Nicole opens the episode with a zinger, the contestants are introduced, and Bruce is welcomed onto the judge’s panel beside Nicole and Jacques.

(Yes, Bruce does speak French. Yes, Nicole makes a joke about it being hot.)

Nicole: “We were surprised you accepted our invitation, Mr. Wayne. You’re notorious for staying on the East Coast. What brought you to the Nailed It! Studio?” Bruce: “My children love this show. They always tell me I should be on it since I’m so bad at baking.” Nicole: “Really? Maybe we should do a celebrity season of Nailed It! and have you compete.” Bruce: “No, you should not.”

Nicole: “So, Bruce, I know you have a butler at home who bakes for you. But what’s the grossest thing you’ve eaten? Escargot? Bad caviar?” Bruce: “I drank olive oil straight from the bottle once.” Nicole: “…What?”

The problem for Bruce is he can’t say anything bad. It just feels mean :(

(And he would rather jump into oncoming traffic than gamble with a social interaction)

For the first challenge, the contestants make cake pops. But when Bruce tries the first one, there is a sickening crunch. Bruce’s eyes widen for a second and he slowly chews.

Nicole: “What was that? Bruce, are you okay?” Bruce, clearly struggling: “It’s…good.”

“Bruce, you can spit it out. It’s okay.” “I already swallowed it.” “Oh, you poor thing.” Bruce chokes for a second, and Nicole pats his back. “Please don’t die. We can’t afford it.”

For the big challenge, production has a surprise in store for Bruce.

Dick (9) and Jason (7) run onto the set and smother Bruce with a hug.

It’s adorable. Bruce no longer cares about paying attention, okay? His kids are here :D

The two boys read from cue cards to announce the second challenge: a three-tiered Gotcha Day cake. And as per tradition, the winner of the first challenge gets a leg-up.

This time, it’s a Helping Hands Button. When they hit the button, Dick and Jason will run over and help them for three minutes. (While being supervised, of course.)

As the contestants bake, Nicole says hello to Dick and Jason, who are clambering all over Bruce like a jungle gym. They both shake her hand and talk about how they love the show.

Nicole looks pointedly at the two empty chairs beside Bruce. “You know, we brought these chairs for you two to sit in.” Dick, on Bruce’s shoulders: “We’re fine, Ms. Byer!” Nicole: “Ms. Byer? Oh, you’re a cutie, aren’t you?”

Just ten minutes before the challenge is over, the Helping Hands button is pressed, and Dick and Jason are given stools so they can help the aunt and niece stack their cake tiers.

Two minutes in, the aunt instructs them to let go of the cake. But the moment Jason pulls his hands away, the cake topples over and covers him in frosting. Jason, whispering: “Oh f*ck.” Bruce: “Jason!” Jason: “I didn’t say that! Dick did!” Nicole: *cackling as Bruce buried his face in his hands*

Jason gets cleaned up, and Dick helps them stack what can still be salvaged.

When Wes brings out the trophy, he’s dressed as Batman. Dick and Jason gets a kick out of that.

Celebrity Family Feud

Bruce was invited to the show after his SNL skit went viral a few months ago

This episode, the teams are split up by cities they grew up in. Gotham v. Star City. Naturally, his team is playing for the Wayne Foundation.

It’s a pretty odd cast of people, most of them having moved to LA or Hollywood. Bruce is the only one to still live in Gotham.

They have fun, though, despite their limited common ground. The audience has a few good laughs.

(Some at Bruce's expense)

Harvey: You're a very wealthy man, Mr. Wayne. What do you really do in that tower all day? Bruce: I, uh…business? Harvey: …You business. Bruce: ……Wait-

All in good fun. Bruce just vibes in his little corner until he needs to answer a question. It's pretty chill.

For exactly half of the episode.

Then it happens.

Steve Harvey takes two people from each team up to the buzzer and says, “We asked 100 people: Name something your parents always told you as a kid.”

What the production failed to consider is how this particular question might be a sensitive topic for some contestants.

Bruce’s team gets the question, and Steve saunters up to Bruce, completely oblivious.

“Alright, Bruce Wayne!” Bruce nods awkwardly. “Hi, Steve.” “Bruce, what’s wrong? You’re looking a bit uncomfortable.” “…I don’t like this question, Steve.” “Why not?” Bruce just gives him a desperate look, and it clicks. “Oh! Oh my gosh!”

Let’s be real. Bruce is awkward enough, but Steve Harvey cannot save an awkward moment for his life either.

But he tries his best anyway and asks, “Are you okay with answering this question, or would you like to pass?” Bruce nods frantically. “I can answer. ‘I love you.’” “I love you too, Mr. Wayne.” “No, uh, my answer is ‘I love you.’” “Oh! That’s a good one.”

Thankfully, the audience erupts in laughter. That little interaction cuts the tension, and Bruce’s answer ends up on the board.

And by god, the memes

“I love you too, Mr. Wayne” is the new “Enjoy your meal.” “You too.”

The audio clip of “I don’t like this question, Steve” goes viral on TikTok

Someone gets a pic of Bruce and Steve looking at each other with palpable fear in their eyes, and it makes its rounds all over Twitter

10/10 never again

Running Wild with Bear Grylls

Now this is the most challenging. Not because it’s difficult, of course. But because Bruce has to look stupid enough to maintain his Brucie Wayne persona but smart enough to keep himself safe.

For this episode, Bear takes Bruce to the California desert.

“How much do you know about survival, Bruce?” Bear asks. Bruce nods carefully. “I did some survival training once with a friend from boarding school.” “Oh really, how did you do?” “Fine, I think.”

This is, of course, his way of saying I trained with a league of assassins for years, but Bear can’t know that! And that’s how most of the episode goes.

Thank god Bruce's fear of being caught is mistaken for being scared of the physical challenge because every time Bear points out how well he’s doing, he breaks into a sweat.

Bear: For a businessman, you’re surprisingly fit. Bruce, sweating bullets: Oh, this is all just for show.

Bear: Wow, you’re a natural. Are you sure you’ve never set up a zip-line before? Bruce, gripping his equipment so tight he gets rope burn: I think it’s just the survival instincts.

Of course, he pretends to be out of breath a few times. The Drama.

Bruce, pretending to slip and fall: Ouch! Who knew the outdoors were so dangerous? Bear, you are crazy. Bruce, internally: How much longer are we doing this?

Bruce being a vegetarian is actually a point of contention. You see, Bear always makes their celebrity guests do something crazy for food like skin a snake or eat a mouse. Scavenging for berries just doesn’t grab the audience’s attention.

But do you know what is vegetarian?

Bear: Now, in extreme cases of survival, it’s not rare for humans to resort to drinking their own pee. That’s what we’ll be doing in a moment. Are you up for it? Bruce, visibly repulsed: I’ve had Gotham tap water. I’ll be fine.

How on God’s Green Earth did Alfred convince him to do this?

To get to the extraction point, Bear takes Bruce down a cliffside.

Bear shows Bruce the meticulous process of properly belaying from the top of a cliff, and Bruce, who has done this over 100 times is like, “Wow that’s so dangerous :( Will we be okay?”

He really tries to ramp up his acting skills this time.

(Little does he know that’s not necessary.)

Bruce goes down first as Bear belays with a cameraman filming from the top. Halfway down, Bruce hears a scuffle, and the cameraman yells, “F*ck!”

Bruce looks up, arms already out for protection, and he sees a small disk falling towards him. It’s the lens cap. He catches it on instinct.

For a second, he thinks, “Shit, was that too skilled? That’s not enough to make people think I’m Batman, right? I just caught it in midair while dangling from a cliff. That’s totally not weird and suspicious. Normal people do that—“

Then Bear yells, “Bruce, drop it!” Bruce looks up at Bear, confused. “Why?” “There's a scorpion!” That’s when Bruce looks at the lens cap and sees a black scorpion perched on top with its tail ready to strike.

They don’t have those in Gotham.

Bruce jumps in his harness and flings the cap at the rocky cliffside. He hears a crunch, and the scorpion and cap tumble to the ground. Bruce frowns. Can a scorpion survive that drop?

“You just killed a scorpion, mate!” Bear cries. Bruce looks up in horror. “I killed it?!” “Hell yeah!” Bruce’s face falls. “No!”

Because oh. shit.

Bruce just killed something. The sad, orphaned vegetarian just killed a scorpion.

Bruce has a meltdown.

He didn’t mean to kill it!!!! Oh no, he just killed an innocent little creature. Yeah, he punches people for fun sometimes, and he definitely put a few violent criminals in the hospital, but he’s never committed MURDER!!

This poor little scorpion died due to his own negligence, and he feels so so so bad about it.

Bruce is a mess as he climbs the rest of the way down.

Bruce, cradling the scorpion’s body: I don’t know how to perform CPR on a scorpion! Bear: Bruce, you took its head clean off. Bruce: *sad noises*

Legit inconsolable. To him, it’s like he just murdered a puppy

Once they're out, Bear is trying to cheer him up. Bless him.

Bear: We’ve conquered the wild! Haven’t we, Bruce? Bruce, head between his legs, still mourning the scorpion: I’m never going outside again.

Yeah, no one’s going to think he’s Batman after that.

And that's all four of Bruce's TV appearances from the West Coast :) Dick and Jason never let him live any of it down. Alfred is almost sorry. (He is not sorry.)

Let me know your thoughts! What other TV shows do you think Battinson would appear on as a guest?

Okie dokie :D Love y'all! Have a good day <3

[mauesartetc]

Redesigning Helluva Beelzebub

Hoo boy, roll up the sleeves for this one.

The Original

In my review of Helluva Boss 108, I mentioned that Beelzebub's character design put me in mind of how some DeviantArt kid's fursona might look. And... Yeah I stand by that statement. The most likely reason I can figure Viv Medrano wanted her to be dog-like was to make a reference to her Die Young music video, which featured an anthro wolf singing a Kesha song (for context, Kesha herself voiced Beelzebub and co-wrote a song for this episode).

But for those who are unaware, Beelzebub's traditional depiction looks nothing like this.

Really the only visual similarities the Helluva version shares with the Infernal Dictionary version are the insect wings, six limbs, and the crown thingy over the head. (At least I think that's a crown-? Kinda hard to tell on both counts.)

Bee's eyes get somewhat more insectoid later in the episode, but that feels like a cop-out. Wow, her eyes and colors changed. Totally a bug demon, right?

They had the same problem in Hazbin Hotel with Katie Killjoy, who's allegedly supposed to be a praying mantis but barely resembles one, even after her transformation.

I understand the desire for fresh takes on old figures, and taking creative liberties so the new interpretation doesn't feel generic. But the changes should at least make sense. By now it's pretty clear Viv couldn't care less about representing Ars Goetia demons faithfully, as demonstrated with Paimon, Andrealphus, and now Beelzebub. You could slap completely different names on these characters and it wouldn't change a thing. I posted this meme a while back but it's never been more relevant:

On top of that, what reason could there possibly be for the design to be this damn complex? Why did she need so many markings on her face? Why did she need so many layers of hair? Why did she need flowing goo for her hair, tail, and body, each requiring dedicated effects animation?

When it comes to a hand-drawn production, less is more. Any superfluous details on a character just make unnecessary work for the animators.

Anyway, here's what Viv has to say about it.

Alright, I'll admit: The lava lamp bit is a little clever. Basically it works as a regular stomach does, but on demonic steroids. But it wouldn't look so much like Viv's making this up as she goes if we'd seen Bee's stomach performing its intended function in the episode. Let her chow down on a giant piece of food (maybe that cotton candy she's been handing out-?) and swallow it, and let Loona (and the audience) see it dissolving in her transparent belly. As a general rule, if it's not shown or explained in the work itself, it's not canon. Like I've said before, Viv: Elaborate on the nuances in the story you're telling, not on social media.

Also, "Her ears are designed after beehives"? Wh...Wha? Ma'am have you ever seen a beehive.

(Hell, even if you told me the ears were inspired by the generic cartoon beehive we're all familiar with, I wouldn't have guessed. There's a difference between being subtle and being vague.)

I can kinda see it in the overall shape, but that's a very specific design inspiration that wasn't clear at all in the design itself. Same with the "animal trainer" thing: I never would have picked up on that if Viv hadn't pointed it out. If a character design doesn't visually convey all the necessary information, it's not a successful design. Show, don't tell. There's a communication breakdown between what Viv's telling us and what Bee's design shows us.

(It's possible she actually meant "Her ears are designed after honeycombs", but even then, each compartment has a specific pentagonal shape that's not coming across at all here.)

I also find it interesting that Bee and Loona have almost the exact same body type. Of course Viv's pretty infamous for samebody syndrome, but it's actually unnerving how similar these two are.

Might this be a reference to Vortex's "type"? Is this foreshadowing a relationship with Loona? Am I overthinking this? Yeah, probably. Viv's demonstrated a clear preference for tall, skinny body types over the years, so it's safer to assume that's the explanation. It's all aesthetics. It ain't that deep. Occam's Razor and all that.

Finally, Bee how the hell does your shirt work.

The Concept

So at this point it seems most logical to lean into the "bee" thing for the redesign, and scrap all the canine elements. As for the blobby hair and tail... yeeeah let's nix those too. We're going for a streamlined version that's easier to animate. And because I ignored the ringmaster look for my redesign of Asmodeus, it only makes sense to do the same for Bee's animal trainer vibe (what little there is) for the sake of consistency. I know this version of Hell has a circus theme with its highest-ranking demons, but there's never been an in-universe explanation for why that is.

Let's look at actual bees, then. A quick peek at Google has informed me that certain insect species have smaller, "simple" eyes (also known as ocelli), in addition to their compound eyes. In bees, this manifests as a triangular grouping of three beady eyes on top of the head.

In her Helluva Boss episode, Bee's full demon form has three eyes, which could be a reference to this triangular arrangement, plus her regular form has two spots on her forehead in addition to the third eye. So it's possible Viv actually did research for something. Pleasantly surprised on that front.

Next, the body. I've noticed that some folks find Bee's skinny body type refreshing, as the sin of gluttony is too often personified with fatness. And that's fair. That's valid. But consider this:

Imagine any Vivziepop character saying that about a chubby person. Imagine the series sending the message that fat people can be sexy too, and that they have worth outside of their appearance, enough for at least one character to consider them girlfriend material. That they're valued and appreciated regardless of this culture's beauty standards (which we know nothing about since the worldbuilding is as thin and flimsy as tissue paper, but whatever). Imagine if this show finally had a fat female character who wasn't relegated to the background. Don't know about y'all, but that would be refreshing to me. And when you take into account all the fat-shaming of a character who isn't even fat, portraying a fat character as attractive would be a nice change of pace for this show.

Now let's talk about clothing. In the episode, Bee's clothes show off a lot of her body, with a cutout crop top and short shorts. We can take a similar approach for the redesign (something that still shows off her chest, belly, and limbs, in keeping with the extroverted "party girl" persona), but that perhaps includes more queenly elements.

The Redesign

Because this is a redesign, many elements were already in place, but I still had to figure out how this character would look as a bee. Here's where the preliminary sketches came in. Lots of trial and error in this process.

Wrestling with this character's face got a lot easier once I realized I could mold it into a pentagonal shape akin to a honeycomb compartment. It took a few tries, but at last, I had a final sketch.

All that was left to do was test out some color combinations.

I tried a few different approaches, but in the end, this is the version I felt worked best.

I used many of the colors from the original, but pushed the orange much harder since orange is the symbolic color of gluttony as a sin. And overall it gives Bee a nice honey-ish look rather than the generic black and yellow we already see on so many bees in cartoons. I thought the colored outlines on her clothing would add a soft, feminine touch, as well.

And just for kicks, here's a quick sketch of her giant form, inspired by the Infernal Dictionary drawing of Beelzebub.

Conclusion

The canon version of this character exists in the form she does for no reason than to stroke her creator's ego. "Hey guys, remember when I animated that Kesha fan video? Remember how cool that was? Wanna see me foist this unnecessarily-complex character design on other animators while I take a victory lap?" I wouldn't mind so much if Viv animated any of this herself, but she didn't. I could almost excuse this if she had no animation experience and didn't know how much work it requires, but she does. The self-aggrandizing entitlement is just off the charts. But a nonsensical design is leagues better than a stolen one, so... brownie points for that, I guess.

[oh-saints]

Hi I don’t know if you’ll get this but I have an idea for Rúben Dias, he starrs crushing on the female photographer for Man City and his teammates start teasing him, he doesn’t want to admit his feelings because he thinks the photographer is dating someone ( but she’s actually single and is just introverted)

aaaaahh this feels close to home bcs i'd gotten mistaken so many times by men due to my introvert nature /sigh

silent

rúben should really stop interpreting things out of hand on his own and start asking the right questions instead.

rúben dias x photographer!you

wc: 2.7k

note: here's is my comback piece! (is that even a valid word?) i actually had this idea in mind for a while and i love writing this bcs i can see he could make this kind of cute mistake! this actually hits closer to home, too, considering that i'm an intovert as well LOL but as usual, I happen to write at dawn so this is not beta-read yet.

happy new year too, everyone! i wish you'll have a blessed year ahead &lt;3

“cupcakes!”

you groaned inwardly, that must be jack grealish. only the 100-million man would call you with overly sweet pet names like that, and he did it so often no matter how many times you corrected him that you had a real name during the first month of your employment here. now entering your third month, you’ve long given up, but you’d renamed his contact to be jack greasy on your phone.

“come sit over with us!”

unlike your nickname, though, you hadn’t given up on his persistent request to sit amongst his set of friends because good lord could they be so boisterous their laughter sounded more like a boom in your ears sometimes. their energy simply went off the roof and your introvert self could never handle it well.

you’d have your time to photograph everyone in the bus later anyway, so you gave him a polite smile, without another word, and proceeded to sit down beside your fellow media team.

you could hear jack screaming protest “aw, come on, cupcakes!” as you took your seat. his friends were laughing on his face at your rejection.

if you have your way, though, you’d badly want to be assigned to the calmer tide of the bus. the likes of julian, kevin, bernardo were more suitable for your kind. but being the one responsible for the disposable camera and all of city’s short off-pitch videos, jack and his circus were more than a matchmade in heaven for a better result.

before you had more complaints to mull over, your colleagues turned to face you and started babbling about an upcoming short video the both of you would have to make. the plot, the script, down to deciding who’d be best to be asked for to star in the video.

“i think rúben dias would do just fine.”

being a newbie, you nodded along the names he mentioned because in all honesty, you didn’t exactly know who is who and which is which until now. two months splattered all over the men’s and the women’s team, as well as the academy, was pretty much a guarantee you’d missed out on someone.

but you always, no matter how busy you are, spared some time to browse on the player before you met them, in case it was someone you should be worried for, or someone you should be thankful of for their media-darling persona, or someone you should be working twice as hard because they didn’t know what to do. worse, someone you’d worked together before but you forgot.

for rúben dias, though… you didn’t know which one of the categories above fitted him best. you were rendered speechless at your search bar result. you could bet your entire month salary that he was someone you had yet the chance to create a content together because if he already did, you wouldn’t have that face of his wiped off your brain.

which was exactly why you should be worried.

you had never worked with someone that looks like adonis when he decides to ascend himself from olympus. or so you’d like to think rúben was what adonis would’ve looked like if greek mythology happens to be true.

sadly, nobody warned you that he was even more beautiful up close, as he strutted his way to your creator team, with a tousled hair he kept tussling against, as well as the bright smile and warm laugh he’d drop here as he went through pre-production brief. his voice was so melodic it soothed all the soreness to your eardrums—thanks to jack grealish—in one simple video production, and you mentally thought you could replay the edited video later whenever you needed to go to sleep, like an asmr or some sort, because it really felt like a blanket on a rainy day.

your heart ached at the sight because my goodness… he was simply too beautiful for your own good.

it shouldn’t be doing all that jumping and leaping and drumming, though, because those were the early signs of you getting biased.

and it could only mean one thing in every professional language possible: bad.

with your very generous pay check on the line, you couldn’t afford to fail. so that day, you made a promise to yourself to do what you had to do, and thankfully it was what your introvert self do best.

＊✿❀○❀✿＊＊✿❀○❀✿＊＊✿❀○❀✿＊

while you knew what to do, rúben—on the contrary—seemed lost.

no, the portugese was lost.

contrary to popular belief, footballers are actually smart. at least, if they are not book smart, they’re definitely street smart. rúben would like to think he’s got a bit of both worlds, so it could justify his own judgement of you.

his eyes were keen, as his job required him to do so, and he’s got an incredible sensing, enough to read a gigantic elephant in the room when there was one. the combination scanned your change in attitude on the day he first worked with you and the present time.

you were so friendly and eager to work with him, welcoming his extended hand as he introduced himself to you for the first time. he remembered your smile, blinding against the bleak manchester weather but instead of feeling cold, he only felt warmth and fuzzy all over his body.

but as the filming session went on, your smile was close to non-existent, just like the probability of the two of you running into each other again. he initially thought it was only because you got so many takes already and the job exhausted you, but he later realised you were avoiding him. as subtle as you could anyway.

at the beginning, he only thought you missed the way he waved at you. or the time when he thought you put his row of seat last for a mandatory picture in your disposable camera, for aesthetics’ sake.

the time when he offered you a ride home, though—that was the final confirmation. the weather had started snowing on some days, and you were certainly freezing by the look of your shivering shoulders and teetering teeth, so rúben offered you a ride home. but you turned down the offer, ever so politely like usual. yes, yes of course you had the rights but the most logical thing was to accept them instead of waiting for the next bus, no?

(oh, believe him, he knew she was waiting. he managed to parked far away from your sight but close enough to see that you did indeed wait for the next bus to arrive and take you to the nearest station. he knew, and he remembered that day because it was the only day he had to fight himself from running down the street just to give you another layer of coat.)

his first instinct was to think that he’d wronged you somehow during the filming. was he demanding? was he not up to your par of filming standard? was he not good enough for your cameras?

but james, your fellow co-worker, the one who worked together with you for this project, gave him an utterly confused look. “have you seen how the videos turned out? you were brilliant, rúben. and no, i don’t think i’ve heard any concerns from her about your ethics.”

so what did he still not do right that could’ve upset you?

rúben didn’t like where this was going because you’ve kept him intrigued. you kept him on his toes, bouncing lightly like a child full of curiosity. you kept him thirsty for more information about you and what makes you tick, lowkey in hope to bring out the smile rúben himself didn’t know he had missed seeing.

and if he discovered that he did indeed upset you somehow, and was somehow responsible for the disappearance of your shy smile, then he’d like to right them right away. he has to.

with that mentality, rúben took the chance to clock out earlier—which was like the seventh wonder of the world around etihad academy—in order to catch a glimpse of you on your off-work routine. he’d set himself resolved to only ask necessary questions, not more nor less, without any hidden agenda. no wishy washy, unlike his previous trials.

rúben did actually catch you for a split second. his beak was already opening, he’d only needed his voice box to produce the sound to the question in his mind, but the scene unravelled before him halted everything in him. every particle of his body, every molecule of his brain.

a black car swerved into the lane to the lobby, a pretty prestigious car at that, and the way your face lit up so brightly reminded him of the day you first worked together. it was a sight that rúben missed, it was a sight that rúben longed to see again.

he was so blinded by the ethereal view that he completely forgot his own plan, and watched as the black car swallowed his portion of small happiness of the day.

was that your boyfriend? if yes, then did you take rúben’s friendliness as a romantical advance to you? if yes, then was that the reason why you immediately put up a china wall between you two? if yes, then was he that protective or was he simply possessive?

rúben couldn’t deny his own infatuation of you. maybe it was why he was adamant to right things good between the two of you. but if you did in fact have a boyfriend, then he should find a way to reduce and silence this growing feeling—be it really infatuation or merely curiosity.

“does she have a boyfriend?”

but desperate times need desperate measures, and rúben saw ‘the black car incident’ was his sign to speed things up in order to find a concrete answer. even if it included asking jack grealish about you.

jack snorted, rather snobby. “how would i know, mate?”

“i thought you guys are close.”

“your definition of close is concerning,” jack replied as he shut his locker. “why don’t you ask her yourself? aren’t you the type to just charge at it first, think later?”

“i would’ve if she didn’t give me a cold shoulder.”

“have you tried?”

rúben was the one who didn’t hold back his snort this time. “of course i did.”

“then maybe you were asking the wrong question, mate.”

＊✿❀○❀✿＊＊✿❀○❀✿＊＊✿❀○❀✿＊

as much as rúben hated to confess that jack actually had a point, he had to give hands down. he might be asking the wrong question, he might be asking too much question, he might be asking the right question with the wrong approach.

bottom line, he’d concluded himself that he had to try until he succeeded. each time in different approach, different variables. logically speaking, it should take him somewhere for a clue. if it didn’t, it should at least tire you enough to have you spell the answer to his queries.

rúben had gathered enough information that you and your team had wrapped up filming for christmas and new year’s content, complete with kids involved and all. you were supposed to stay in the editing room, and working late on it because there was a teaser—which fell into your line of work under “short videos”—to be uploaded tomorrow evening.

he purposefully slowed his pace for anything that did not require physical activities and trainings, resulting in him also staying late to finish some of his homework—his affectionate nickname for video trainings he’d like to execute at home, in the comfort of his abode and plush suede pillows—so he could match your pace of work. he planned to catch you off guard the same way as ‘the black car’ incident.

at 8, you finally went out of your cave, precisely like his little rat had informed him before. so of course, you were startled to find rúben already standing against the railing in front of your office.

“rúben,” your voice got stuck in your throat but rúben thought it was a cute squeak. it was also a better response, rúben thought, too. you could’ve spat at him or shooed him away immediately. “what are you doing here?”

“i’m—” rúben thought about lying for a second, but he decided it’d contribute nothing to a start of a friendship. yes, friendship, because it was the bare minimum, no? “i’m waiting for you.”

your eyes widened, and that was when rúben noticed the golden specks on the orbs of your eyes. heartbreakingly stunning, solely because rúben only noticed this now.

you shifted the weight of your body from your right leg to your left one, and rúben found it endearing because he noticed that was an early sign an introvert—you, in this case—was starting to get nervous or uncomfortable. rúben hoped it was the former because that’d put you as cute as an awkward lone penguin.

“is there anything i can help you with?”

“yes, i’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

with his devastatingly beautiful look, his velvet voice and his intensely deep brown eyes, your heart palpitated so fast and so irregular that you were afraid rúben could see them falling and getting back into its designated place like a bungee jumper.

or maybe the rope snapped on its way down and never found its way up again, depending on the question about to be fired at you. at this point, your mind went funnily white, and you were ready to succumb into either pressure or temptation, depending on the question he’d fire you with.

“do you hate me?”

you seemed perplexed at his blatant question, but he’d take that reaction over anything else because it was something, especially compared to the invisible wall you’d put up since the first time you both had worked together.

“do you?” rúben pressed his voice gently, while he took a step closer to you. slowly but assertively.

the movement snapped you back to reality. you should not heed into pressure, but there was no use in lying because in reality, you really had no reason to hate him. if you had your chance, you would’ve done things the other way around.

“no, i don’t.”

another step closer. “but have you ever hated me?”

realising the 6-feet centre back was doing, you involuntarily moved backwards in the same amount of steps that he did, albeit the distance reached was certainly and significantly a huge gap you could never keep. “no, rúben—”

before you could finish your sentence, he obliterated every single space left in between the two of you and cornered you to the nearest wall. “then do you like me?”

you should be running, you should be fleeing, you should be screaming down the hill. you should be anywhere but here, trapped in between the long, strong and sturdy pair of his arms, the very same one he used to defend himself and the ball from the opponent. the very same one your eyes couldn’t lie but appreciate its masculinity.

rúben noticed the miniscule movement of your eyes, despite your tightened body language, and it brought a little smile on the corner of his lips. maybe he had indeed asked all the wrong question in all the previous times he’d had the chance.

“tell me,” rúben then pronounced your name in the way no one else could, so soft and velvet like a fine cashmere being caressed against your eardrums, that shivers ran down your entire body as if you were struck by a lightning. “please tell me that, at least.”

so paradoxic, you thought inwardly at the sensation. and you supposedly hated the way he confused you, but you didn’t this time—you didn’t even detest the way he seemed enjoying this whole thing, by the way he pulled of a subtle smirk that busted your knees slowly but surely—and it made you even more crazy because what the hell was this?

you tried to mask it off by looking him straight in the eyes. well, tried to, at least, because the moment your eyes were connected with the milkiest brown orbs that reminded you of a hot chocolate on a wintry day, you couldn’t help but look away. “what do you want me to say?”

rúben didn’t fight a full smile from blooming on his face, as the tip of his finger aligned your face gently to face his. he really likes the fact you gave him a fair fight to remain indifferent still, even when everything else of your body failed to be your auxiliary. “do you like me?”

“i do—”

“then would you like to have a dinner with me tonight?”

[thisismeracing]

CHARLES LECLERC MASTERLIST

✦ CHARLES LECLERC ▶ CL16

All my Charles posts here

▸ main masterlist | patreon guide ▸ taglist ▸ who I write for & guidelines ▸ subscribe to Patreon for exclusive content ▸ tip me on ko-fi

KEYS: s: smut f: fluff a: angst ✷: Patreon exclusive

― ✦ SOCIAL MEDIA AU

this is the last time I ever call you babe (a): It’s been a little over a year since Y/n and Charles Leclerc ended their relationship, and Y/n went radio silent from everywhere…until the Grand Prix day. They say revenge is a dish better served cold, right?

everything has changed (f): Y/n, a famous singer, drops a song that is more like a letter confessing her feelings, and some fans are convinced it’s about F1 golden boy Charles Leclerc.

his pretty girl (f) : Fans start to notice Charles around an influencer’s profile and it's easy to put two and two together to discover just how in love he is.

match winners (f): After mentioning in an interview that she roots for Charles Leclerc, Yn is surprised with a new follower who happens to show up at one of her tennis matches.

sunshine (f): In which Charles starts dating an earthy/spiritual girl who just loves nature and good energy.

my boyfriend Marc (f): In which Yn always refers to her secret boyfriend as Marc and fans take forever to put the pieces together and realize that many of the names she used were actually Charles Leclerc’s middle names.

his protector (f): Yn is a comedian, who happens to date the f1 driver Charles Leclerc and who loves to joke around about how horrendous Ferrari is, but beware: she is the only one who can laugh at her boyfriend’s disastrous races. No one pokes fun at Charles in front of her, especially not on live TV.

all because I liked a boy (a): Yn fell in love with Charles and secretly dated him for almost a year. She didn’t consider, however, how fans would react seeing they used to love and still stan Charles’ past relationship. What happens when their hidden love gets out in the open? ● part 2 here

just like in the movies (f): You’re shooting a new movie about racing cars, but you did not expect to get a racing heart from a certain driver. Or the one where they met at a racing track and fell in love.

king of manifesting (f): You’ve been secretly dating Charles for a while, but fans can’t believe it when the rumors start to go around. What do you mean a vroom-vroom Ferrari guy is dating their idol?

a real goal getter (f): When fans see Charles at one of your soccer matches, they start speculating what he is doing at a stadium he’s never been to, talking to a guy he never talked with (who happens to be your best friend). When they discover you’re together, they agree you’re the best player, but Charles is the goal scorer for landing someone as amazing as you. 

― ✦ BLURBS

you betrayed me (a)

Overprotective bf (f)

Timeless (f)

― ✦ REGULAR IMAGINES

honeymoon stunts (s): Charles and Yn just got married, and although they know too much about one another, there’s always something new to discover together, such as Charles’ new breeding kink.

the (un)lucky one (f): Charles and Yn have a history back from when he was at alfa romeo, Yn used to be his PR assistant, and they were close to best friends. Now, years later, they are still friends, but Yn is Carlos’ assistant now, and she can help but root for her new friend and boss. Meanwhile, Charles is having trouble with no longer having her undying support all the time. He’s been through an unlucky season on the speedway, will he be unlucky in love too? 

anything you want (s)✷: After getting hit by a wave of bad luck, Yn takes matters into her own hands to make her boyfriend feel a bit better about his situation. Sometimes all you need to feel brand new is a two-day vacation full of sex by the fire and words of affirmation.

love bites (a)✷: It is believed that during the Halloween season, cursed souls and entities come out to play. As it happens, some of them can come uninvited, but things get a lot easier for the dark side when people like Yn are challenged by her friends to go beyond the safety of the town and into the woods looking for a cursed church. One wouldn’t want to be near to witness humans discover history they’re not supposed to.

charlieverse (f): When Yn decided to go to a Halloween party with her best friend, Charles Leclerc, she did not consider that some of the fantasies would be so close to reality that they would terrify her. But one thing Yn had no idea about too, was Charles’ feelings for her. All Hallow’s Eve is not the most romantic scenario to confess your feelings, but it might be just the perfect one for them.

not quite love (a)✷: When you get romantically involved with your best friend you were not expecting a marriage proposal, but simply a commitment. You were sure that what you had wasn’t quite love, though it could be and maybe that’s what hurt the most. The fact that you had everything to be each other’s end game, but turned out to be strangers.

― ✦ HEADCANONS

♡ charles dating a korean girl

©thisismeracing do not copy, steal, or translate my work. do not repost on a different media platform.

[kaiyunsim]

HEART IN THE MARGINS — chapter 3 : tutor !

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written chapter (w.c : just over 750) - not proof read

You sigh, walking through the halls of the school, passing many rooms before arriving in the room you and Jake both agreed to meet up in. If it weren’t for Sunghoon, you wouldn’t even have to come in contact with the person you despised for so long. Despite the circumstances you still pushed through with a half smile, entering the library.

Jake sat at a table that is practically isolated, materials prepared and books out. He had his phone out, likely scrolling social media, passing time while awaiting his anonymous tutee’s arrival.

You pull out the seat in front of the young man, catching his attention before sitting down. He puts away his phone as you lay out your things.

“Are you here for me?” Jake asks, softly smiling which radiates a positive energy.

”Jake? right?” You ask, making sure you get the right person. After all, you never seen Jake in the flesh, just his name either below or above yours on the grading sheet.

“Yeah, and your name?”

”Y/n,” you reply, somewhat mumbling.

”Wait. You’re y/n? THE Y/N? Why would you need tutoring?” Jake asks, he was surprised. The person he would always compete with was actually asking help from him.

“I kinda failed the last test…” You reply as you scratch the back of your head. A wave of awkwardness and embarrassment crashes into you as you have to admit you need help.

Jake giggles to himself before calming down and starting his lesson with you.

“Wow, that's some blackmail that I'm going to use now” His accent catches your attention. You admit to yourself that it’s kind of cute.

You begin to regret telling him who knows that he’s going to do with that information,

“You better not,” You say, a tone of annoyance can be heard with it. You already didn't want

The more and more his lesson continues your start to notice some other things about him that aren't that bad. It slipped your mind of course as you were more focused on learning. His lessons are also really easy to understand. Like the material you have been studying for that took you a week to understand could be comprehended with a 2 hour session with Jake. He checks the time and it's been exactly two hours on the dot. His stuff was already packed and ready to go, you must not have noticed probably because you were too invested in the session.

“Well, that’s it for our first session i guess,” Jake says while getting up from his seat, dusting off his shirt in the process.

“First? There’s more? I thought there would only be one,” You responded, slightly surprised but not in a bad way. It’s not like you minded, after all he really helped you out with your work.

”We’re only 1/4th the way through the material…” Jake said with a slight smirk, “Besides, I'm sure you wanna check me out some more” Jake teases, smirking. He noticed you staring, especially when you should be looking at his notes.

You looked at him with an expression that showed your embarrassment. Despite his excellent teaching results and somewhat attractive looks, you wouldn’t want to be caught dead by anyone knowing that THE Jake Sim tutors you.

”Well, don’t expect me to come back for more,” You scoff, obviously annoyed. You pack your things and begin to stuff them into your bag. You quickly take out his payment for the service.

”C’mon y/n don’t be like that” He jokingly pouts which eventually turns into a sly smile. His posture had a teasing feel to it as his elbows remained on the table and head rested on his hands. “Who doesn’t want to be tutored by the one and only Jake Sim?”

”Jesus, can you not? Just leave me alone. I did your tutor shit, now I don’t have to do anything else.”

Jake gets up from his seat grabbing his things and slides a folded piece of paper towards you, “I’ll think about it, see ya later”

Before you even get to respond he leaves and you’re left there with your half packed belongings and that stupid piece of paper. You unfold it and it reads ‘my number xxx-xxx-xxxx, text me for your next session’

You notice there is another fold and you begin to unfold it, ‘you better come. your rep is on the line ;)’ You were so annoyed when you read that. You could imagine his mocking voice as if he was saying that to you right then and there. You could already tell he was going to have a lot to deal with.

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prev | masterlist | next

a/n : sorry for be ia for so long. life has been busy and motivation + inspiration has like been low but i think its starting to come back. also i decided to make the rest of the smau gn!reader because it’s easier to make.

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taglist : (OPEN !)

@onlyhyunjin @starchasing-cryptid @bubblztaro @kanattac @nootnootpinguuu @gnusihcom @kkurbys @wh0evenareu @ilovejungwonandhaechan

[tribow]

How does touhou Kanako show her spirit animals notable Snake traits? Suwako represents the frog. How do I look at her as the Snake as in aesthetic speaking?

Funnily enough, this is actually a common misconception with the canon. The snakes technically have nothing to do with Kanako, those belong to Suwako.

The snakes are called "Mishaguji". They're curse gods that Suwako tamed during her time as the only goddess of the Moriya Shrine. When Kanako took over, she still needed Suwako's assistance since she could not control the Mishaguji. If Kanako didn't ask for help, she would likely be constantly fighting the Mishaguji to prevent them from cursing the land and destroying harvest. Not an easy task. I'm sure Kanako would love to have all her followers believe she is controlling the Mishaguji, but the credit all goes to Suwako.

The Mishaguji are probably a lot weaker than they were in the past, but they're still around. Suwako still uses them in her spellcards. (Notably, Kanako has never used them.).

So you might be wondering, if Suwako is the powerful frog that tamed the snakes, why the heck is Kanako the "Snake"? Why is there so much art depicting Kanako with snakes?

Don't worry, you're not being pranked by fanon this time.

ZUN said in an interview that Kanako is based on two gods: Takeminakata and Yasakatome. These two gods are housed in the real life Grand Suwa Shrine.

Takeminakata is worshipped as a god of wind, water, war, and agriculture. This is very similar to Kanako. As for Yasakatome, her folklore is a bit all over the place so it's hard to pin her down. She's mostly associated with water. Kanako's first name; Yasaka, is derived from Yasakatome.

What's important is that both of these gods have been depicted as snakes in folklore. (sometimes specifically a water serpent). This is where Kanako's symbolism with snakes come from. When Takeminakata is depicted in other japanese media, it's a bit common to use snakes to symbolize him. (Dragons are also an association with him, but we're talking about snakes here).

Kanako and Suwako's backstory heavily resemble a specific piece of Takeminakata's folklore. He conquered the Suwa region by defeating the local gods of the area. The most famous battle was against Moreya, whose iron weapons were defeated by Takeminakata's wisteria vine. (wisteria is a plant. A flowering vine.)

Sound familiar?

Moreya still has his own shrine called the Moriya Shrine. Yup, that's right it's a real place and not something ZUN made up. However, if you look into it, Moreya isn't depicted as a frog. Where the heck did that come from?

Well, Takeminakata has another piece of folklore with a frog involved. He calmed the waves of the raging seas by defeating a frog god. This story commonly depicts him as a snake as well. (Snakes eat frogs in real life!) The frog in this story is sometimes interpreted as one of the local gods, which could be the Mishaguji or Moreya.

"The Mishaguji"??? Aren't they the snakes in Touhou? Well...yes! It's just that they're local gods just like Moreya was and...and....we're in too deep!

Folklore is commonly spread through word of mouth! It's a mythological game of telephone! The details can change based on who is telling the story! I haven't even told you the many other names Takeminataka goes by. If I went over all the nuance with the folklore and its connections to Touhou this would be a gargantuan post!

Ignoring that, what's important is that this is where Kanako's symbolism with snakes come from. Even if she doesn't control the snakes of the Moriya shrine, Kanako IS the snake that defeated the powerful frog and conquered its land.

[tennessoui]

democratic fic part two

(democratic fic masterlist) (5k)

Four days after meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi for the first time, Anakin has an unexpected and incredibly unfortunate break in his schedule. 

“Are you sure about pulling down the committee meeting?” He asks, verging on desperate. His eyes look through the tinny figure of his fellow senator and out through the transparisteel windows of his office. Coruscant moves around him, early morning settling gently into early afternoon. “It was supposed to be four hours.” “Yes,” Senator Amidala says very slowly. “And everything on the agenda can be discussed via written missive. We do not need to physically meet to discuss things that can wait until after the coming assembly—”

“But I think I’ve found a solution!” Anakin interrupts, no longer bordering desperation but rather falling directly into near-begging.

“A solution,” Senator Amidala repeats. “To…galactic slavery in the Outer Rim?”

Anakin’s eyebrows furrow and his lips purse. “Yes.”

“Oh, by all means then,” the tiny comm figure crosses her arms, tilting her head to look disbelievingly at Anakin. “Please, tell me.”

Fierfek.

“Kill…them.”

“Kill them,” Senator Amidala repeats. “Kill the slavers?”

“...yes,” Anakin says and then winces, knowing what’s to come.

Senator Amidala puts her hands on her hips as she tries to stare him down through the poor connection of the holo comm. “Alright,” Padmé decides. “What is going on, Anakin? You haven’t suggested such a policy since your first year on Coruscant when you actually started learning about how politics worked.”

Anakin scowls and looks away, jaw clenching and then unclenching. Most days, he still doesn’t think his younger self was wrong to advocate for the death of all slave owners, but Padmé is right: he knows better now than to say that. That’s how he and Padmé have managed to build and maintain their friendship over the years, even though their policies and values couldn’t look more starkly different on paper: Anakin swallows his words, and Padmé pretends she did not see him move as though to speak.

“Nothing is going on, Senator,” Anakin replies with a mutter, rubbing a hand over his eyes and then down his face. If she is calling him by his first name then it means that the official part of their business has concluded. Reaching up, he unpins his hair and tosses the ceremonial hair-piece to the side. It makes a heavy clunk as it lands on his desk. “I was simply looking forward to that meeting.”

“Banthashit,” Padmé surmises immediately. Anakin scowls. He hates when she— “Ani, ten years ago if someone told you that one of your four hour long meetings was cancelled, you’d be halfway down to the lower levels by now.”

“Maybe I’ve grown up,” Anakin replies and then winces again.

“If only the growing up had happened six months ago,” Padmé’s tone turns sharp. “Perhaps before the holonews were flooded with pictures of you pressing some podracer bunny up against an illegal pod we both know you’ve been flying for decades, hands stars know where—”

Anakin remembers exactly where his hands were, but he thinks probably that information is better kept between him, the stars, the woman he’d slept with that night, and all of the users of the Holonet who had thought to raise the brightness on those photos.

“You almost sound jealous,” Anakin’s mouth moves without his permission, and he can’t stop the wince that follows because karking stars, he shouldn’t have said that.

Padmé laughs, which is almost more offensive than anything else she could have said. “Of your image in the media? No, I wouldn’t say so, actually. Just tell me what is wrong, Anakin. You do not have to pretend to be so alone.”

Anakin feels his eyebrows furrow and a sneer grow at the edge of his mouth. Pretend? Rich, coming from Padmé Amidala, who grew up surrounded by people her age, other girls who adored her, a large family who loved her as well. Anakin did not have to pretend to be alone. He simply is and has been for more of his life than he hasn’t.

But…if Padmé is so insistent on being helpful, then…maybe she could help him solve his sudden and dire problem.

“There’s this boy,” Anakin tells her before he can think better of it.

Any malcontent seems to wash from her face at this confession, and her mouth falls open in surprise. “There’s a boy?” Her eyebrows fly down into a suspicious look. “How young is this boy?”

“Scandalously so,” Anakin admits, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Anakin—”

“I know, I do,” he cuts her off quickly. “But he is a visiting dignitary, the grandson of a Count who wants to get into politics—”

“Anakin, a boy saying he wants to get into politics does not mean you should take him into your bed—”

“That isn’t what’s happened, Padmé, come on. He just—he requested that I escort him around Coruscant for an afternoon, and I couldn’t say no, his grandfather and the Chancellor were right there, alright, I’m not a monster. But I am uninterested in pursuing the boy—the scandal that being seen alone with him would bring me….”

Padmé’s eyes narrow. “What does this have to do with our committee’s meeting.”

“I told him that I would comm him should I have free time to escort him, Padmé! I am honor-bound to see that vow to its conclusion.”

The tiny figure of his friend raises her eyebrows. “Genuinely, you are not,” she says, but her words do not soothe the part of him that insists he must follow through on his word—the part of him that knows he will be comming Kenobi within minutes of ending his call with Padmé.

“I am,” he insists, resting his hands on the desk in front of him. Perhaps not as gently or as naturally as he would like, he adds, “but if you were to escort me escorting him, there would be no scandal for the holonews to write about.”

Padmé blinks. “I’m sorry?” “Think about it,” Anakin says, tone edging back into desperation. “If you accompany me, he will assume we are together and any interest he may harbor for me outside his ambitions in the Senate will dwindle.” Without Anakin having to say anything one way or another, which is the best scenario Anakin’s thought of yet.

Though to be fair, he does not know if Kenobi has any interest in him in that way. After all, he had also flirted with Palpatine’s secretary. 

But, a tiny, self-satisfied voice points out in the back of his mind, he did not ask her to show him around Coruscant, did he?

He shakes his head quickly to dislodge the thought. What he has to be self-satisifed about, he doesn’t know. Kenobi’s appreciation of him, perhaps the boy’s infatuation with him,  will only cause him problems if he does not act to rid him of it.

“You won’t be in any meetings, will you?” he adds innocently, and when Padmé does not immediately scold him for the cheek, he knows he’s won.

After all, they have been good friends for years now, and she stepped up to guide and mentor him when he first arrived on Coruscant to be Senator of Tatooine. Their names are tied together on the holonews—any scandal that Senator Skywalker invites reflects badly on Senator Amidala.

“Alright,” she relents. “I will join you two.” The edge of her mouth curls up into a smile. “It will be an excellent jaunt down memory lane, won’t it, Ani? I have not had to act as your shield against suitors since we were in our twenties.”

“Yes, well. Who knew you would have to reprise the role?” 

“Certainly not me,” Padmé tells him archly. “After all, from what I’ve seen, you’ve been handling your suitors just fine.”

—--------

Kenobi is, of course, free. His comm message comes through perhaps half a minute after Anakin had sent him an inquiry as to his schedule for the rest of the day, given that Anakin’s own had opened up rather unexpectedly.

Yes, Kenobi types. I will be free at 1700. Perhaps we can meet at the North Entrance of the Senate Sector Gardens? I have always thought they looked beautiful from the outside.

Anakin wrinkles his nose and wonders if he can beg off because of allergies. The Senate Sector Gardens are, in Anakin’s mind, one of the most offensive displays of wealth and greed on Coruscant. They are open most of the calendar year, regardless of the manufactured temperature of the planet. This is because each of the plants grow inside a near invisible force field, one that carefully monitors the temperature and humidity and soil texture of its plant. It’s Coruscanti artifice at its most beautiful.

But, he remembers, a walk through the gardens has a set beginning and end point: a destination where he can separate from Kenobi, duty fulfilled and honor intact.

Of course, Anakin replies. I will meet you there at 1700.

Kenobi does not respond, and Anakin does not think anything of it until he sees him several hours later, waiting quite docilely with his hands behind his back as he appears to study the entry requirements of the gardens.

He must not have responded to Anakin’s comm because he must have thrown his own down and spent the next five hours getting ready.

Stars.

The curse is apt, at least, as upon his approach, he sees that the boy has placed strategic flecks of silver glitter on every one of his freckles, and the boy has many cascading down his shoulders and back, which is bare to Anakin’s eyes. A silver chain rests loosely against the dip of his lower back. There are freckles made into stars here, too, at the base of his spine, Anakin’s eyes tell his brain, as if this is necessary information to know.

Kenobi turns around, as if waiting for him to get closer. His smile is bright, a flash of white teeth framed by deep dimples. The neck of his tunic stretches almost up to his chin, but his shoulders are bare, the edges of his clavicles visible before the dark blue fabric stretches up his neck. 

He has woven silvery chunks of metal into the fall of his hair, and they hit the light each time he moves his head even slightly.

Anakin is quite upset to realize that his memory of the boy does not quite do him justice. His eyes are paler, his hair a crisper strawberry blonde. He’d somehow forgotten the beauty marks on his face, a faint one on his forehead and the other on his cheek. What a great disservice Anakin had done him by forgetting these marks.

“Hello, Senator,” Kenobi says, stepping forward and offering up his hand. Anakin would be a fool  to take it. He would be a fool to scorn him. He takes his hand and brushes a kiss over his knuckles, lips catching on the cool bands of metal that frame his knuckles. Rings, each with intricate patterns and bright jewels set into them. “You look lovely.” Anakin does not, of course, having worn the same dark clothes he wore to the Senate today.

“I think the dark tones suit you,” Kenobi adds, hand coming to rest on the large wine-red collar of Anakin’s outer tunic. “It makes you look powerful.”

“I thought you said I looked lovely,” Anakin replies, taking an unnecessary yet completely rational step closer to the boy. His hand is still extended between them, laying almost on his chest. It looks rather delicate—pale and willowy against the darkness of Anakin’s robes.

Obi-Wan has painted his eyelids a glittering silver, a color just a few shades lighter than his eyes. It’s…enthralling, especially when the boy looks up at him from beneath his pale eyelashes. “Do you not believe that something can be both lovely and powerful at the same time, Senator?” 

Anakin has the unignorable and quite worrying feeling that he is looking at one such thing now. The boy’s hand is still on his chest. There are very good reasons why this cannot continue, and Anakin is quite sure he recalls them all.

“Powerful things are not lovely,” he murmurs. “Not by their nature. But lovely things…” Kenobi cocks his head as Anakin trails off. A piece of his hair falls out of its delicate arrangement and rests against his cheek. Anakin watches his hand reach out and grasp the strand as if he was not in control of his body. He carefully tucks it behind Kenobi’s ear, only just realizing that the boy has draped his ear with a dangling, sparkling silver chain that wraps along the shell, threads through the lobe and hangs down almost to his shoulder. Kenobi shivers at the touch of his finger. The reaction makes Anakin’s mouth dry. “Lovely things are always powerful, one way or another.”

When their eyes meet once more, Kenobi’s seem to have darkened considerably. A faint flush has bloomed across his cheeks. 

“Anakin!” A voice cuts through the charged moment, and Anakin steps back from the boy automatically, as if he’s been caught red-handed. He hasn’t been caught at all.

Obi-Wan’s face shutters at the interruption, though his eyes remain fixed on Anakin’s face, like he expects Anakin to get rid of the intruder and return his attention to Obi-Wan alone.

Unfortunately for him, Anakin had invited this intruder.

“Padmé,” he says, turning from the boy completely to face her. He even holds out his arm for her to loop hers through, thinking that maybe such a gesture is overkill until he catches sight of Kenobi’s sour expression and the way his eyes are focussed with laser-like intensity on where Anakin’s arm is covered by Padmé’s hand. “You look wonderful.” Padmé had dressed in a soft pink outfit, like the sky just as dawn breaks. With a wide golden headband and her hair loosely braided, she did look wonderful.

And yet Anakin couldn’t stop thinking that she paled in comparison to Kenobi.

“Thank you,” Padmé replies gracefully, smiling up at him the same way she did when he was twenty and she twenty-five. It makes her look girlish and soft around the edges, and Anakin can barely stop himself from snorting. He knows her too well to fall for such an act after all these years.

But Obi-Wan Kenobi does not.

“Sorry,” the boy says, not sounding very sorry at all, “who are you?”

Padmé’s smile turns a hair more genuine as she turns to look at Kenobi. “My name is Padmé Amidala, young one. Ani said you were interested in learning more about Coruscanti politics? I am one of the senators of Naboo.”

Kenobi scowls. “I’m twenty-three,” he says, no sign of the temptress angel anywhere in his tone or face. He ignores the last part of Padmé’s question, running his hand over and behind his ear instead—perhaps subconsciously copying Anakin’s touch. 

“When you’re our age, young one, everyone thirty years and below looks young,” Padmé replies, waving her hand through the air with a slight smile.

“Your own failure to age with grace should hardly color the faces of all those younger than you, my lady,” Obi-Wan says rather scathingly. “Such a mindset is indicative of an underdeveloped and immature worldview, one I am surprised to hear come from a senator. I am twenty-three.”

His eyes land once more on Anakin’s arm, and his lips soften from a scowl into something more closely resembling a pout.

For a man who insists on being treated like a fully-fledged adult, he certainly knows how to look rather young and indubitably pathetic.

Anakin sighs inwardly and offers his other arm to Obi-Wan. The boy’s face lightens considerably as he accepts it, and Anakin feels suddenly infused with a strange sense of warmth, almost like he can feel the boy’s pleasure wrapping around his mind.

Maybe he can—after all, the boy was trained in the Force, up to a certain point at least. That sort of control and power isn’t so quickly forgotten, despite how many years it’s been since he received a proper education. After all, Anakin had had several lessons in the Force when he was a teenager, once it was clear that even though he was too old to be trained as a Jedi, his connection with the Force was not fading and in fact only growing more feral and out of control.

Instead of simply locking their arms together as Padmé had, the boy curls his hand to rest on top of the length of his arm, bare fingers touching his bare wrist.

The scamp, Anakin cannot help but think. He keeps his face resolutely straight forward as he leads them both into the gardens, ignoring whatever look Padmé is shooting him. 

What was he supposed to do? The little harlot was pouting up at him like he’d broken his heart and left him for dead simply because he’d given Padmé attentions he hadn’t given Kenobi. And Anakin isn’t a monster.

“Shall we?” He says, not giving Padmé time to speak or Obi-Wan time to protest.

“I hadn’t realized you would invite another,” Obi-Wan says finally, after several minutes of tense silence.

Anakin makes sure to shrug artlessly, carelessly. “I remembered you told the Chancellor that you were interested in immersing yourself in Coruscanti politics over this next season. He advised me to bring along another Senator so that you could begin to make connections.”

Obi-Wan falters for half a moment, head snapping to look at Anakin’s face. “He did?” he asks, sounding rather strange. Perhaps slightly disconcerted that the Chancellor had opinions and advice on his life.

Palpatine hadn’t said anything to that effect of course. All he’d said about the Count’s grandson after they’d left the office had been a short and rather mysterious: “Be careful with that one, my dear boy.”

Anakin hadn’t liked the idea—or rather, the reality—that even the Chancellor of the Force-damned Republic not only knew of Anakin’s…appetites, but also felt the need to warn him away from scandal.

“What did he say?” Kenobi insists, hand tightening on his wrist, like he’s considering jerking Anakin to a stand-stil. 

“Nothing of note,” Anakin reassures him. “Only that it may do me well to help you find your way.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes narrow, as if silently calling the words banthashit in his mind. He’d be right, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.

A moment later, his face smooths out, as if a change has overcome him. His eyes brighten and widen, and his grip softens significantly. “And would you, Senator?”

“Uh,” Anakin says, distracted by the appearance of a moue between the boy’s eyebrows. “Would I what?”

“Guide me,” Obi-Wan replies, finally pulling Anakin to a stop in the middle of the garden path. “You are in need of an aide, I checked the Senate accountant files myself. I know it wouldn’t pay much,” his nose wrinkles at the thought, and a part of Anakin has to stop himself from snorting. Most honest jobs would pay less than being a Count’s grandson. “But I would be such a hard worker. Diligent and passionate.”

“Uh,” Anakin says, unsure if the emphasis he’s hearing on certain words really exists or if his dirty mind is tricking him into all the ways Obi-Wan Kenobi could be a hard, diligent, passionate worker. 

“Do you have a resumé of past work experience?” Padmé asks with interest from Anakin’s other side. He almost startles, having forgotten she was there at all, despite her holding his arm. 

Obi-Wan’s face scowls as he remembers her presence as well. “I may,” he says shortly.

“I would be interested in taking a look,” Padmé says with all the grace of a queen. “At least I could perhaps offer some insight. At best, I myself am looking for another aide—”

“I thought all of your staff had to bear a resemblance to you in order to work in your office,” Obi-Wan lifts his nose in the air and turns away from both Anakin and Padmé. “I should sooner die than bear that burden.”

Anakin chokes slightly on thin air and then on the ghost of a chuckle when he realizes what Obi-Wan’s just said. Padmé lets out a vaguely offended noise, and Anakin pats her on the arm. “There, there,” he says in an undertone as he watches Obi-Wan stalk further up the path from them. The loose chain against his lower back swings with each step, and Anakin finds himself halfway to entranced just watching it move.

“He is incredibly….” Padmé trails off with a shake of her head.

“Beautiful, I know it,” Anakin agrees, running his eyes up to linger on the boy’s rather muscular back.

“I was going to say spoiled,” Padmé replies with an arch of her eyebrow. “Conceited, in fact. Catty, not to mention outright rude.”

“There, there,” Anakin repeats, patting her arm once more. “You know you’re beautiful as well. The opinions of a twenty-three year old hardly matter.”

Padmé arches one fine eyebrow, but before she can say in return, Obi-Wan is calling Anakin’s name from further onward.

Anakin goes, only realizing he has let go of Padmé when he arrives by Obi-Wan’s side unencumbered. “Yes?”

“Look,” Obi-Wan murmurs, eyes fixed on a fully-bloomed light blue rose, growing out of harsh, dry desert soil. “They say it is from Jakku.”

Anakin hums, looking between Obi-Wan and the rose. “Do you have—some sort of connection with Jakku?” “I’ve never visited a desert planet,” Obi-Wan tells him lightly, fingers hovering over the forcefield protecting the plant. “Tatooine is one though, yes?”

Anakin grunts his agreement.

“Do you believe something as beautiful as this could grow on Tatooine?”

“This isn’t even growing on Jakku,” Anakin points out rather dismissively. “Beautiful, fragile things do not last long on desert worlds.”

Obi-Wan does not reply for long moments, studying the rose. “Stewjon is a desert world,” he finally murmurs, allowing his hand to drop once more to its side. “I was shocked when I found out…I have no memories of the planet. The Jedi took me when I was quite young, you see. Just a babe. But when Dooku found me, he took me there.”

“I thought you said—”

“I requested that we leave before the ship even broke atmo,” Obi-Wan admits quietly. “I knew just from circling the planet that it was not my home. It could never be my home.” He looks once more at the rose before turning to study Anakin, expression unreadable. A moment later, his face breaks into a small smile. “I’m far too pale and fair for a desert planet, I would burn to a crisp within a week.”

“When I’ve visited Tatooine, I’ve worn light protective cloth and escaped without a single burn,” Padmé remarks, having silently come to stand beside Anakin’s side. “You do not have to renounce your home just because you feel as if you are ill-suited for it.”

Whatever vulnerable light that had been shining in Obi-Wan’s eyes shutter once more at the interruption. “I like to think that the planet is ill-suited for me, Senator, not the other way around.”

“Does Serenno suit you more?” Anakin asks curiously, allowing Obi-Wan to take his arm once more. 

Obi-Wan grins, a small, artificial thing. “Does it look as if it suits me, Senator?”

Anakin swallows rather uncomfortably. It does, of course. Obi-Wan Kenobi looks resplendent and wonderful and angelic and lovely. He knows better than to say this.

As a group, they move further into the gardens. After perhaps an hour, Obi-Wan stops frowning whenever Padmé speaks, settling into a chilly sort of acceptance rather than throwing out outright insults.

Over a particularly rough patch of cobblestoned path, Padmé trips, and Anakin moves to catch her automatically.

Whatever progress Obi-Wan and Padmé have made withers and dies the moment Obi-Wan turns from examining a hanging vine to see Anakin’s eyes wrapped securely around her waist, her hands braced on his chest.

Thirty minutes of what Anakin can only describe as bitching later, Padmé decides to take her leave. They’ve barely started through the section of the gardens dedicated to the Mid-Rim planets, but Padmé will not be convinced to stay.

“Ani, if he says one rude thing about Naboo’s greenery, we may come to blows,” she tells him in an undertone as Obi-Wan moves ahead of them, carefully examining each plaque beneath each plant—looking, no doubt, for the ones from Naboo, for no other reason than to release barbed and vitriolic comments.

“Padmé, come on, you know the risk of scandal should I—”

“It occurred to me several hours ago that you never said that you did not want to sleep with him,” Padmé interrupts, eyebrow raised. “Just that you were uninterested in pursuing him because of the scandal.”

Anakin flushes. “I am uninterested in sleeping with him.”

Now, both of Padmé’s eyebrows raise. “You would lie to me so blatantly after I just spent the last two hours putting my life on the line as a favor for you?”

“You’ve hardly put your life on the line—”

“Either tell him you will not fuck him or fuck him somewhere private. Where no holo cameras can find you,” Padmé says in a very no-nonsense tone.

“Pads—”

“And then after, refer him to my office,” she adds, looking down the path at the boy. “He’s quite—lethal. If you do not want him as your aide, I’ll take him as mine.”

Anakin blinks. “What?” he says. “He hates you.”

“Then be a dear and fuck it out of him,” Padmé replies archly. “He could be useful if all that hate was directed a different way.”

“I don’t want to fuck him,” Anakin protests far too loudly. His eyes dart to Obi-Wan, but the boy seems distracted by a venus fly-trap from Dereak.

Padmé looks pitying and unamused. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Ani. Please don’t tell me the details.”

Anakin scowls and opens his mouth to argue once more. Before he can, she turns and leaves in a tidal wave of soft pink. 

He hates it when she does that.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan says when Anakin comes to stand next to him. “Did your friend leave?” The brat.

Anakin purses his lips. “She had somewhere to be,” he lies.

“How unfortunate,” Obi-Wan lies in return, and Anakin’s lips twitch up into a slight smile before he schools his expression.

“We should hurry through the rest,” he says, “as it is almost dark.”

“Yes, of course,” Obi-Wan says, entirely docile once more like a loth-kitten allowing its fur to be smoothed flat now that the danger has left.

Anakin shakes his head. If the boy is serious about getting into politics, the first thing he should learn is how to be a better actor—or at least, how to better control his emotions.

“I was thinking,” Obi-Wan tells him thirty minutes later, twilight now fully taking over the Coruscanti upper levels. “This was quite fun and very educational.”

“Yes,” Anakin agrees, only slightly reluctantly, but he cannot pretend that he did not have fun. Obi-Wan’s company has been surprisingly pleasant, the boy surprisingly endearing. 

“Thank you for acting as my escort,” Obi-Wan adds, gently touching the back of Anakin’s hand.

“You’re welcome,” he replies rather roughly. The twilight throws fascinating shadows over the lines of Obi-Wan’s face. He shines in the pale light, like something truly ethereal.

“But this is not really Coruscant,” Obi-Wan says, blinking up at Anakin’s face. “It is too…artificial. It reminds me of the Jedi Temple gardens: carefully tended to and carefully curated. Incredibly fake.”

Anakin had thought the same thing when Obi-Wan first suggested the location. “I feel the same way,” he says, feeling as if he is walking into a trap.

“I would like to see the Lower Levels,” the boy says. It sounds like a demand, and it must to the boy as well, because he adds a nice little please at the end.

It doesn’t do much to soften the blow of the words. “The Lower Levels?”

Obi-Wan nods, looking quite serious. “We could get something to eat down there, you could show me what Coruscant is truly like! Please, Senator, this is the only home I have—I want to see it all now that I have returned!” “You can’t go down to the Lower Levels dressed like that,” Anakin shakes his head and rubs his free hand over his mouth as he looks at the boy. “Stars, you’d be torn to shreds.”

“You’d protect me,” Obi-Wan says confidently. Too confidently. Anakin resents the assumption the boy has made, similar to the one Padmé had made: that he wants this boy. That he will go out of his way for him.

“No,” he says, shaking Kenobi’s hands off him. “I will not, young one. The Senate meets for assembly tomorrow, and—”

“Please,” Obi-Wan interrupts, voice shaking. “I would like to see them, and you make me feel safe, Senator—” “And I said no, Kenobi,” Anakin snaps, and Obi-Wan recoils as if he has been slapped.

The rejection hangs in the air between them for several still moments before Obi-Wan throws back his shoulders and tosses his hair back. “Fine,” the boy sniffs, somehow looking cooly down his nose at him, despite their height difference.

He spins on his foot and stalks away from him. 

“Where are you going?” Anakin snaps, moving forward to keep up with the boy without consciously deciding to follow him. “It is late and dark—I must ensure you get back to your apartments—”

“I’m going down to the lower levels,” Obi-Wan declares, halting in his path to glare at Anakin. The garden lights have flickered on as the night fully descends. The golden lights of the floating orb fixtures dance across Obi-Wan’s face and make his eyes glow slightly as well. “Without you if I must.”

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin starts, but Obi-Wan turns his cheek away from him.

“Must I?” he demands, blue-gold eyes finding Anakin’s and fixing him in place. “Must I go alone, Senator?”

[itstimewehavesomesoliddick]

what do u think about the theories that israel actually knew about the attacks but pretended they don't, just so they can justify attacking with everything they have and killing as much civilians as possible? death to israel anyway xx

I don't think it was because

A) like most westernized nations Israel depends a lot on its image and the one it can project, while right now the damage to their image is too great and irreversible (their well maintained myth of IDF invincibility and being the best in the world was shattered into a thousand pieces, they're already talking about writing off the hostages as collateral damage (which is particularly hard to sell after previously exchanging over a thousand prisoners in exchange for a single captured IDF soldier), and it's also hard to sell a genocide when your foundation myth is based on one)

B) if they did they would have kept the attacks contained, just enough to have a justification but not enough to cause any actual hard damage (they wouldn't have let that many hostages get taken/soldiers killed/entire military bases captured), meanwhile right now Merkavas are burning, IDF helicopters are being shot down and bodybags are stacking up in the biggest Palestinian attack on Israel since 1948

C) they would have had a media campaign ready for it, while here we've seen a delayed and reduced response while they scrambled to put out articles, same with the international response, the prepared media campaign is always the tell

This whole thing also caught the US by surprise as they're talking about pausing aid to Ukraine in favor of Israel, which would be a death sentence for Ukraine despite all the billions they've already poured into it, since Israel, much like Ukraine, cannot sustain a war without US help (much like in 1973, where mothballed tanks, pallets of shells and F-4 parts had to be constantly shipped), this is also happening right after the US gutted Israeli shell warehouses for 300K shells to send to Ukraine, and it's unknown whether or not those have been replenished in the 6 months since

I know we like to pretend that the Mossad is omniscient and omnipresent, but it's possible that they'd gotten complacent while also being distracted with domestic matters (namely the civil strife caused by those judicial reforms) and ones abroad (like a certain war in Eastern Europe involving a certain military bloc)

Either they grew complacent and got surprised, or they grew too overconfident and bit off more than they could chew, either way they vastly, vastly underestimated the capabilities of Palestinian groups, and Netanyahu's talk of TOTALER KRIEG on Gaza is only digging them into a deeper hole that they'll have a lot of trouble climbing out of (if at all), as invading Gaza implicates Hezbollah, which would turn this war into a very different one as they're a far more capable, far more dangerous force, they're currently mobilizing in the North, UNIFIL troops are either returning to their bases or abandoning their positions, meanwhile two Egyptian armies are on high alert in case anything happens

Speaking of, it wouldn't be the first time Israel's overconfidence would come back to bite them, they were certain that the Egyptians were incapable of crossing the Suez canal in any meaningful capacity and guess what happened in 1973

Make no mistake though, this is a big one, this is one of those weeks where decades happen, history is being made as we speak, we'll see how it develops

Death to all Satans

[ladygwyndolin]

Sorry but I'm still not over how they tried to take lothric and lorians swag and give it to fucking radahn and miquella. Are you kidding me? Arguably the most iconic boss fight from DS3 with amazing lore, music, and fight. And for what, for a fanservice cash grab between two characters who never once interacted in the base game outside of miq saying he admired him. It's even worse considering if they wanted an actual homage fight to the twin princes they could have just used the actual twins: miquella and malenia (and it still would've tracked with the story and made sense). It's even worse because miquella and malenia are so obviously inspired by lothric and lorian, with the whole androgynous sickly cursed younger brother and the elder sibling who shares being cursed and is a disabled legendary warrior who protects them. They both even reference being the youngers blade. We all know how much fromsoftware likes using the same plots in previous games and reworking them for newer ones. But no let's get rid of malenia and erase her importance so the fanboys can fight prime radahn. I'm trying not to sound delusional but it really does just feel like this final boss was planned to be godwyn or malenia and then at the last minute switched out for radahn. At the very least the only thing I'm glad about it not being malenia is so their relationship didn't turn out to be incestuous. I would've killed george rr martin and miyazaki myself if they actually did that.

I am with you on every single point here you're 100% right. The twin princes are my favorite soulsborne fight and i literally named my cats after them, it's the absolute peak! And the miquella/radahn fight feels like an INSULT. Like a PARODY. It's infuriating! Malenia would have made sense and Godwyn would REALLY have made sense and resolved a ton of plot threads about the eclipse and stuff but noooooo we gotta appease the radahn fanboys. One of the worst decisions I've ever seen in a piece of media ever. I'm serious

[agentoffangirling]

so here's the thing, your post didn't describe fiction affecting reality but manipulation from others or even grooming

you should know this: all ships are valid. Your 13 year old self did nothing wrong. Being manipulated / groomed into saying "I was wrong for liking a ship" is extremely worrying. Grooming also doesn't have to be sexual, it is essentially someone with power taking advantage of a vulnerable person (you) by posing themselves as their protector/mentor/whatever

other red flags to look out for are things like being told you "deserved to be mistreated because you gave into sin" and being praised if you "have given up that sin and thus changed for the better" because this is the kind of manipulation tactic you find in religious cults.

Here are some sources on how to spot grooming and the difference between an adult who means well and a predator

https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/what-is-grooming

https://safekidsthrive.org/the-report/introduction/other-warning-signs/

https://www.splcenter.org/peril-guide-online-youth-radicalization

and here is a safety PSA to spot grooming in fandom communities

http://web.archive.org/web/20240815114926/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GTtAK2qWwAApG8c?format=png&name=4096x4096

If you are still friends with these kind of people, I suggest you take a long look at them and ask yourself if your relationship is healthy. Pro-tip: if they still control what you are/aren't allowed to like, if they tell you that you are a bad person because of your past/present fictional interests, then the relationship is unhealthy and these people can and will drop you the moment you don't act in the way they want you to

be safe

I made a quiz about my favorite ships. One of those was that proship. I had a comment one time that was like:

"totally agree with all of these except blank"

"oh why not?"

"well, they're brothers"

"not by blood, but okay"

And my day went on. Another time I went over to a friend's house (who is of the same age as me) to chat with her, and she didn't know anything about this media at all, so it was mostly just me gushing my love about it. She did however, know these two characters were siblings, and brought up concerns that it was weird to ship them. Again, I claimed it wasn't, we went on with our days

I started to realize that I was in the wrong when not only did I think about these two experiences, but I started watching more of the media itself, which clearly put them as brothers. That's not grooming, that's called growing from a kid bc kids often don't know what is right or wrong. They learn from it. It's natural to ship problematic things when you're younger bc you don't know it's problematic, and it's only through interacting with the media and other fans do you start learning. From what I've seen, most pro-shippers are never told no and are given content that reinforces their beliefs. They usually don't interact with the fandom or distance themselves from the piece until later. This makes them think that the ship is perfectly okay. Telling someone no is not grooming

Not all ships are valid if they reinforce toxic behaviors and/or mirror real-life problems. To be told that shipping siblings is bad is not grooming and I am astounded you actually think that. What the actual fuck

[labyrinthofsphinx]

Statistical Outliers

Working on my next little comic, so I figured I'd post a short drabble in the meantime.

Time is everything. It was everything when he was alive, and it’s been everything since he died. The only thing that’s changed is now he was the one that determined time. The citizenship of hell held only two real concepts of time, which is probably why there’s plenty of old badgers still holed up in their ways. First was, of course, the need to keep track on the way to doomsday. The yearly extermination was held on the same day, every year, so it became a timepiece as a consequence rather than by any actual effort. On the other hand, the second was very much an invention of his own.

TV had a way of warping time. When he was alive and doing something similar, people would work their days around the TV because it was only on for a certain amount of time, and there were only a few things worth watching. But, for that hour basis, it was the most drawing thing in the world. Things have changed obviously, now TV shows play all day. People still checked their clocks for the start of their favorite program. The internet and cellphones constantly show the time, even if as more of a background piece to the dramas that play out behind the screen. People are absorbed by media now. They couldn’t escape it entirely. Their time was his plaything and the more time they spent obsessing over his empire, the more control he had.

Of course, with Heaven’s little hunting safari out of the way, his became the only time relevant to the cesspool down here. And most of his own time was spent cultivating that: talks shows, game shows, news, commercials, streaming platforms, you name it.

Time may be something he stole from others, but perhaps only because he had so precious little of it himself.

So, time was important to him. And when someone or something wastes his time, well…

 He glanced across his screen, the blue light from the aquarium getting lost in the blue light of the devices. They glared off his face, itself a screen, and reflected off too bright to see much of anything. And Val wonders why this room is always so dark. He turned down the brightness again.

The leftmost screens were devoted to Val, his studio, and his workers. Not that he liked staring at those while shooting, mind you. There was only so much of that that anyone could watch and still be productive. Still, he noted, he really needed to get an electrician over there. You’d think spending all this time literally surrounded by devices, Val would’ve learned something about electrical outlet safety. But, he supposed Val wouldn’t bother. Just like he never had to worry about how he was going to get his films distributed, or edited, or formatted. He had Vox for that, after all.

Because Valentino’s problems were ultimately Vox’s problems.

Right next to Val’s studio on his surveillance was Velvette’s designer pad. He enjoyed watching her in the background of his day, barking orders and snapping people in line. You’d think she’d been the top of fashion when she was alive too, the way she acted. He had to remind himself that she wasn’t actually as old as him or Val sometimes. Other times though, well, her age showed. She played the game of likes and shares. She didn’t play the game of politics. Why in hell did he ask her to attend the overlord meeting again? She hadn’t even had the courtesy of explaining just what went wrong, only that the meeting was full of outdated morons, half of which should be wearing adult diapers. So, yeah, that hadn’t panned out well. And, no, he didn’t try to correct her either. She wouldn’t listen on a good day. And why should she? She was the one whose opinions mattered. Everyone else can shove it. Or, rather, Vox was in charge of making sure other people shoved it, or themselves, off a cliff.

Because Velvette’s problems were Vox’s problems too.

His own office and set were up there as well. It was a little redundant, sure, but he’s always insisted on the extra security. Or maybe it was his own obsession with having to have eyes on everything at all times. Hard to tell, really.

It all seemed so sterile compared to the messes that were Val and Vel’s setups. Even in the midst of a show, it was mostly just him, either plugged in and projecting or sitting behind a chair talking. Any other people in his space were either there for a short segment, or part of the backstage cronies he employs to keep things running smoothly. Sometimes he’d have one of the others up there as well, usually for promotional work: ‘Voxtec presents Valentino’s newest project’ or ‘Velvette’s new perfume line’. Something of that ilk. He wasn’t just the face of the Vees, he was the one advertising them, keeping time set to them.

But if it was a Voxtec product that didn’t involve them? Nope, wasn’t their problem.

Because Vox’s problems were Vox’s problems only.

So, he wasn’t at all surprised that his newest problem, the most recent waste of time, was shown to him sitting on his couch watching re-runs.

Part 1/ Part 2/ Part 3/ Part 4/ Part 5/ Part 6/ Part 7/ Part 8/ Part 9/ Part 10

[bluebudgie]

Behold! The long announced whiny pissbaby gamer rage essay that noone on the internet asked for.

Disclaimer up front: This is about Eff Eff Sixteen. If you're a fan of this game I advise you to just ignore this because I genuinely don't want to piss into your morning coffee with my negativity. I will rip this game several new assholes. You have been warned.

FAQ Q: Don't you have anything better to spend your time on than writing a ridiculously lengthy internet text post about a video game whose existence you are free to simply ignore? A: Yes, but this matter is personal. I'm writing this for the sake of carthasis. Closure. To be free of the rage that has possessed me for the past months. Q: Have you tried touching grass? A: I have sat in a field of grass for a prolonged amount of time prior to writing this. I am beyond the need of touching grass. Q: Do you expect anyone to actually read all this? A: No.

Spoilers ahead, obviously. Let's go.

------

Table of Contents

Introduction: Is this the worst game ever made? 1.1 It's personal 1.2 Pre-release & producer statements

The battle system

The narrative 3.1 Storytelling and morality 3.2 Pacing 3.3 Visuals 3.4 Characters 3.4.1 The game's biggest mistake 3.4.2 The state of women 3.5 Music

Credit where credit is due 4.1 It's personal again

Conclusion

------

1. Introduction: Is this the worst game ever made? What a strange way to start, you may think. Shouldn't this question rather be addressed in a conclusion at the end? I want to set the record straight from the start: No, it is not the worst game ever made. All things considered I don't even think it's the worst game of its series. And yet I have never in my life felt such unbridled hatred for a video game, or honestly, any piece of entertainment media I can currently think of. Why is that?

1.1 It's personal Usually I'm pretty good at doing the sensible thing people should do when they don't like something - ignore it. Why bother wasting your energy deliberately seeking out something that you know will make you angry?

Hear me out for a moment, I'll have to go on a tangent here.

I didn't actively get into the series until a year before FFXIII released - which at this point in time is 15 years ago now, but considering we've had only two more (singleplayer) mainline games since then, it's still a relatively late entry point. This is to say: I don't think I'm wearing the worst nostalgia goggles, but I do have a long history with the series nonetheless. These games have played a big role in my life for those past 15 years.

I used to roll my eyes at the "the series died after FFX" crowd. FFXII is one of the best in the series, sure FFXIII was a landslide miss for me, but... that's one game, right. Then FFXV's release drew closer. I did not like what I saw, for many reasons I won't detail now. What did I do? I blacklisted the game's name on all social media platforms, and didn't hear anything about it anymore. To this day I haven't actually seen much of it, though I do know the rough outline. And I know that while the game has a dedicated fanbase, it has also received its fair share of harsh criticism.

Why am I telling you all this?

1.2 Pre-release & producer statements

A few years ago, FFXVI was announced. And I have to be honest: I was negatively biased from the start. I hadn't been happy with SE's general direction for years and I wasn't particularly hopeful for this entry either. But - and I want to make this very clear - I was open to give this game a fair chance. The announcement trailer didn't really hook me but it looked alright, some visual and audio gripes aside. I was... cautiously curious. Not quite enough to call it optimistic, but I wanted to be hopeful.

You know what's excellent at crushing hopes? Game producer interviews that range from "that's a severely stupid opinion to have but you do you" aka (paraphrased) "our traditionally turn-based series can't be turn-based anymore because in order to get the production costs covered we have to appeal to the masses, and the masses are kids who love action and not outdated combat systems in which you have to navigate menus to act" (source); to downright offensive statements such as "we are creating a fantasy world based on reality and therefore black people can't exist in our european medieval setting" (source); and "I have gamer pride so I don't want to feature an easy difficulty setting in my game" (source - for clarity's sake there are accessibility options in the game in the form of equipment that helps simplify combat, however the statement itself is still really goddamn stupid).

And I know these statements have been called out by some - but it definitely didn't blow up as much as it should have considering the popularity of this franchise. It's an open secret why this is the case (if you're out of the loop: the game producer in question is an untouchable god with a really large cult fan following), and quite frankly I believe this is probably where the first seeds of my hatred were sown. Knowing that no matter what FFXVI was going to be it would have people defend it out of their blind commitment to the team behind the game's development, left a.... spiteful aftertaste in my mouth.

Ironically looking back now, and plain offensive statements aside, my biggest concern for the game itself was actually the combat system. I'm definitely part of the old-school "a main series FF game needs turn-based combat" crowd. Oh sweet summer child.

At this point I decided it would be better to go the FFXV route (which, by the way, had some similarly stupid dev comments at its release). All marketing made it clear that I was not the target audience for this game, so best to just ignore its existence.

That worked... alright...ish... until the demo's release. I guess you could say curiousity killed the cat. I decided to take a look at someone's playthrough... and that's where my initial "pissbaby gamer rage" draft that I ended up not posting came from. Go big or go home, if I wanted to be angry about this game in public I should at least be fair and wait for the full release. Not judge the game by its (admittedly generous in length) demo. Get the full receipts, see it for all that it is in its entirety. I think in a way I still didn't want to give up hope completely.

And that's where we are now, two months later I've watched a full playthrough of the game including all sidequests. It's been a wild ride to say the least.

2. The battle system

Let's get this out of the way before we finally get to the really meaty part: As mentioned earlier my primary concern before release was the combat system since it's so far removed from the older entries of the series. Ironically, of all things, this is probably the smallest issue I have with the game now.

I still don't think the combat is good, mind you - this is mostly a matter of personal taste but I'll never see how button mashing and a series of QTEs overlayed over 20 minutes of cinematic cutscene is supposed to be more impactful or fun than the oh-so-outdated turn based menu inputs. Then again, I didn't play the game myself and can therefore obviously not judge how good or bad it feels in the heat of battle. I say "button mashing", by the way, as what I've gathered from other people's reviews - who genuinely enjoyed the game - the combat is really watered down and repetitive in comparison to games with similar systems like the DMC series. While you do pick up new abilities over the course of the game it seems like once you've found one combination that works you can solve every single battle following those exact inputs. This is one of the two really big complaints about this game I've seen consistently in almost every review.

Speaking of combat, the game has the weirdest way to pull you out of the action and emotional moments by freezing mid cutscene, showing a "you won the battle - here's your loot" screen while blasting an epic choir rendition of the classic FF fanfare, before picking that same cutscene right back up. I don't know who thought this was a good idea, but it's honestly jarring. For an extremely cinematic game that supposedly wants to break with "outdated" traditions, implementing that very video game-y results screen is a strange choice.

You could say this last point is nitpicking, and if this game had no other issues I would probably not mention it at all, but as it is this little detail is indicative of a much, much larger issue.

3. The narrative

[The sound of cracking knuckles can be heard in the distance.] Let the slaughter begin.

Prior to release the game was marketed as a departure from the rest of the series - the setting was advertised as a darker, more mature, political intrigue for an adult audience. ('But the masses of kids that like action com-' Who? What are you talking about?) Because as we all know, no other FF game has ever been dark before (/sarcasm).

What we got was storytelling and character writing with about the maturity level of a twelve year old teenage boy in his edgelord phase making his first Game of Thrones fanfiction drafts. This game oozes of sexism, really stupid slavery allegories, the most dumbed down black and white morality with a matching set of one-dimensional black and white characters, godawful pacing and some of the worst NPC dialogues I've ever had to witness.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

3.1 Storytelling and morality

So this dark and mature political story... I'm still searching for it. I know GoT started this trend where writers will use "politics" as a buzz word to make their games look complex (FFXVI hasn't been the sole offender in the past years). Then they expose you to a few kingdom names, show you a map with territories, drop a few year dates with barely any significant relevance to anything over the course of the game, and pretend that's a deep political intrigue. I have news for you: It's not.

Alright, then... this dark and mature... oh. Oh you mean that's because there's a plethora of blood splatters and people say "fuck" and "cock" and "whore" and there's goofily censored sex on screen? Ah... oh. Alright, I see. If that's what you'd call that... sure.

But surely the people who are tattooed like cattle and used as slaves due to being born as magic users will have an interesting role in the story dealing with the very delicate topic of slaver- ...oh, uh... what do you mean the perfect king beloved by everyone is the good guy because unlike all the other people who held slaves, he treated his slaves nicely? And, before you ask.... No, this isn't some sort of commentary the game wants you to question. This guy is unironically, unambiguously portrayed as the perfect good guy. Brought up many, many times for how flawless he is.

And that... is where we're diving into one of this game's biggest and most glaring issues. The writing is so mindnumbingly black and white with not the slightest room for ambiguous or grey morality it's painful. Everything and everyone in this game is always either good with no failings - or so stupidly evil they may as well be a bad saturday morning cartoon villain.

Good characters are always good, and always act out of the pure kindness of their heart. When you think a good character fucked up and actually did something bad, it will later be revealed that either it wasn't them at all and it was all a scheme, or they were possessed by the big baddie and therefore not actually responsible for their actions. Can't possibly risk anyone appearing like a realistic person with character depth now, can we?

And don't worry, just in case you have an extremely bad case of media illiteracy with the slightest hint of doubt of anyone's alignment on the binary moral chart, the game will make sure to overexplain literally every tiny detail to you in the worst way possible. You see, the evil woman right at the start? The one who looks really evil and moves really evil and the first thing she does is being mean to the slaves and being dismissive of her own son? In case you didn't get yet that she's evil, there will be guards whispering about how evil she is when she leaves the scene. Also a scene later the good perfect king will point out how evil she is. And worry not, in case you forget in the few hours she's not on screen, characters will make sure to remind you how she has not a single redeeming quality and every breath she has ever taken has been filled with evil.

And this might sound like I'm exaggerating. But the game is like this with Every. Single. Thing. Sometimes I found myself genuinely wondering if the writers were actively trying to insult the player's intelligence with this condescending amount of overexplanation. Characters constantly comment on everything that is visibly happening on screen - for God's sake if you want to make a modern game that moves away from "outdated" mechanics then write it this way. If you show what is going on with detailed realistic graphics, you do not need characters monologuing a description of what they're seeing. You do not need to voice a character saying "I'm sad" when you can clearly see their facial expression. You do not need to make a character loudly ask himself with noone else present by his side "Is he hallucinating?" when showing another character's hallucinations. Old games did that because they had limited visual capabilities. If you sit on your high horse talking about moving the series forward while spitting into your old playerbase's faces, then do it right at the very least.

Once in a while you'll be exposed to some textbook philosophy theories, which in essence wouldn't be a bad idea at all if those philosophies were somehow smartly woven into the game's narrative… but instead you get characters quoting essentially the wikipedia summary of what that philosophy is about and call it a day.

I wish this was the only issue with the game's writing.

3.2 Pacing

This game's pacing is atrocious. Genuinely, utterly awful. And there`s mostly one thing to blame: Sidequests. If you've heard a single criticism for this game even from people who highly praise it, it's this.

The sidequests are absolutely horrendous filler content on so many levels. Gameplay wise they're usually "follow 10 meters of a linear corridor to defeat an enemy and then grab a carrot at the end" fetch quests. Visually they are not just a nose dive but an entire plane crash compared to the well animated main quests, consisting mostly of the same three reused conversation animations from FFXIV (I'm all for reusing assets if it helps developers save time, work smarter not harder, but this one is blatantly obvious in all the worst ways). And the writing.... oh boy.

NPCs go on and on and on and on having the most blandly written expository dialogue. I get that the writer's intention was to give the world a bit of context and make it feel more alive with random people telling you about their life stories and everyday hurdles, but they failed miserably at making this remotely engaging. They may as well have had people read the dictionary. And maybe this would have worked better as purely written textbox dialogue (if about half of the dialogue was cut, which would still leave more than enough padding around the actually relevant information) - but in a game with voice acting, making people audibly speak in ways noone would ever speak to another person, just doesn't work. It's stilted and unnatural, and really awkward to listen to.

Delivery aside, the stories told in these sidequests vary from "farmer's everyday life issues about growing their crops" to "random child ends oppression by convincing an angry mob of adults they shouldn't be stoning someone because that someone has been a valuable asset to their society (by reminding them they need to keep the streets clean) and suddenly every adult in range is free of bigoted feelings". And then everyone in the bus clapped, I guess. And again, I get the intention behind these stories but they're so clumsily written.

And yes, these are sidequests - you are free to ignore them. But they do make up a considerable chunk of the game. And, unfortuantely, a fair handful of the main quests follow this same fetch quest formula.

This game goes long, very long stretches without anything substential happening. And it's good to have downtime to breathe - the game's big main story moments pack a punch in terms of epic adrenaline filled battles. But this game honestly feels like 60 hours of filler fetch quests with the occasional relevant story sequence sprinkled in between.

3.3 Visuals

I'm not a film student so maybe it's not my place to comment on cinematography, but I felt like visually many of the cutscenes were also really... bland. Not necessarily bad looking (if you can see anything behind the millions of particle effects) but it definitely felt like less care was put into choosing narratively interesting image composition compared to a game like FFXII.

And then it also does this really annoying thing where it will constantly fade to black for absolutely no reason.

Character A: Oh that seems like an exciting story! Tell me all about it. Character B: Okay, so this is a long story... [screen fades to black] [screen fades from black to the exact same shot we had before the fade] Character B: So the story goes like this... (starts telling the story you thought was told off screen indicated by the black sreen)

This and similar instances happen fairly often and I just don't get why. It's nothing to hate the game for but it's just... really strange. Just like those really silly "In the meantime..." text overlays for scenes that are very clearly happening in the meantime. Seriously, we get it. You don't have to spell it out. But whatever, this is one of those things I'd look past if it weren't for the whole rest of this trainwreck.

3.4 Characters

Speaking of trainwrecks. [Takes a deep breath] I've avoided this topic for long enough now. This is where the last seams that hold the game together break and make it fall apart entirely. This is where the pile of shit that's been tossed across the room finally hits the fan.

If you're remotely familiar with any Final Fantasy title you know how important a solid cast is to those games. Your allies and party members you meet over the course of the game, their stories and views on the world's happenings... a charismatic villain. Well, how about we just simply didn't have any of that.

3.4.1 The game's biggest mistake

FFXVI's writers made the decision to focus the game's narrative around a single character, our playable protagonist. There is a small supporting cast of characters that you meet, and occasionally travels alongside you temporarily, but most of them have... not much to them. The game makes it clear: This story is about Clive, and him alone.

And... I don't think having a story focused on a single character is necessarily a bad decision per se, even if highly unusual for a series that was driven by party systems for decades, but... If you decide to do that, then your protagonist needs to have more personality than a soggy wet sponge. It's bad enough that pretty much noone in this game has any sort of depth to them, but if you sideline literally every character in favour of your protagonist's narrative then... at least give that protagonist a character?

This man's personality is nothing beyond helping people because it's the right thing to do. The attempted "he feels guilty for killing his brother" (which naturally he didn't actually do, because that would be too complex of a story) subplot gets dropped a few hours in and he's just... that guy who runs everyone's errands with no input of his own. And it doesn't make him unlikeable necessarily, it just makes him terribly boring.

What is really, really grating however is how every other character portrays him. Named characters and unnamed NPCs alike will throw pity parties for him over and over, going on about how he's so self-sacrificial, always doing everything for others while never expecting anything in return and never taking enough care of himself. It's exhausting. We get it. He's the perfect heroic nice guy, just like his (slave having) dad, the unfailable king. And unlike his evil witch of a mother. Who is so evil, by the way. At times I felt like Clive was some sort of dream fantasy guy self insert of the writers.

I'll say it plainly now: the lack of a well developped playable party is, in my opinion, the game's downfall. Clive alone can't carry the narrative because there isn't nearly enough depth to him, and everyone else has deliberately been stripped of any sort of meaningful screentime. Narrative aside I also feel like multiple playable characters would have done a lot for more variety in terms of gameplay. And before you raise your pitchforks - yes, there are few, very few characters that have their own little story moment. But boy... at what cost.

3.4.2 The state of women

! Rape & suicide mention trigger warning for this section !

So you know, Clive's sidekick? No, not the dog, the girl. Jill. The one who spends most of the game sick in bed, kidnapped, or otherwise missing, and whose single personality trait is being Clive's pure and innocent love interest. Surprisingly, she has her own 30 minutes of side story! A side story that essentially boils down to finding out she was held captive by a weird cult that had no relevance prior to this point and will have no relevance at all after this point. You get to beat up the cult's leader who is revealed to sexually assault underage girls.

Is that ever addressed again at any point? No.

But worry not. We still have a few more women in the bigger roles of the game. One of them, Benedikta, is an early game antagonist whose entire thing is seducing men, and most of the screentime she has is sex scenes. Once you defeat her in battle she flees, and a randomly passing by group of bandits is implied to attempt to rape her. This triggers a flashback of a past assault she was rescued from, and she goes mad. You fight her again, now in her powered up form, and kill her. Then she gets decapitated and her head is sent in a box to her lover to fuel his man rage. Don't worry, you'll get more sex scene flashbacks with her after her death.

But hey. We have another woman in a leading role. The supposedly main antagonist before the real big baddie (who is so boring of a villain i can't even get myself to say anything more about him) is revealed to have business with her. Clive's evil slave-mistreating mum. Her purpose in the story is breeding a flawless heir. What fuels this dignified ambition? Hell if I know. She's written in a hateable way for the sake of it. Likely to contrast Clive and his flawless dad. Absolutely zero depth to anything.

Guess her age here.

If you guessed "at least in her 50s" you are correct! Do I even have to say anything more about this.

The moment her perfect heir is killed, she loses it and slits her own throat. A very anticlimatic conclusion to her non-existent character arc.

Yes, there are a couple more secondary female characters who aren't necessarily walking misogyny targets, but they're pretty much irrelevant to the plot.

Here's a quote from my girlfriend, who is a woman, about the state of women in this game: "I have scarcely felt this alienated by the depiction of women in a video game."

! Trigger warning ends here !

So, uh... how do we move on from here... Let's head somewhere less offensive.

3.5 Music

Usually I'd give the soundtrack a lot more attention since I'm of the opinion that music is one of the most vital parts in a game and can absolutely make or break it - but quite frankly I don't have much to say about this one in detail. It's largely generic epic orchestra music with nothing much unique going for it. The regular battle theme is fairly memorable; and then there's that really aggravatingly annoying acoustic guitar ambient song that seems to play for about half of the game's time. Seriously I hate that one. It drove me nuts. In general I don't know if there's more than 10 songs in the OST because I don't think I heard more than that. Either that, or they all sounded the same.

What stuck out negatively to me especially (apart from that godsdamned acoustic guitar) was the overusage of over the top orchestral arrangements for the tiniest occasions, which was unfitting at best and really tiring at worst. I got used to it with time, but still a good soundtrack isn't just making every moment sound like it's as epic as the final boss, it's making varied music that fits the moment and sets the ambience.

Also not to ruin the OST for anyone who actually enjoys it, but the game's leitmotif sounds like Army of Lovers' Crucified. Noticed it during the demo and couldn't unhear it for the entirety of the game. You're welcome.

4. Credit where credit is due

As should be evident by now, I'm not finding much redeemable in this game. And yet - I would be lying if I said I didn't find myself liking some aspects of it.

Some of the armour designs are pretty neat. In general the character design as a whole feels coherent and mostly fits the setting, some questionable haircut choices aside.

There are chocobos. In different colours. They look nice. Not a big surprise, I suppose.

The voice acting is really good. I can't comment much on the English dub since I only watched the demo in English and then watched the full game with a streamer who played in German; but the German voice actors did an amazing job, and I've heard only good things about the English cast as well. Listening to a few comparisons I was surprised how deep English Joshua's voice is. He sounds like a teenage boy even after the last timeskip in German. That took me out a bit. I also realized I'm very partial to Dion's German voice acting. His final scene was extremely strong in that regard.

Speaking of Dion....

4.1 It's personal again

Alright. Listen. I hate this. I fucking hate this. For weeks I suffered through this game, nothing but this burning passionate hatred within me, ready to shred and tear every single aspect of it apart.

And then. So close to the end. In the final stretch. When I've almost made it through with nothing but rage and hatred by my side. This fucking stupid garbage game attacks my one goddamn weak point: The gay prince and his lover share a small "it isn't meant to be" moment. And I genuinely enjoyed the little gestures in that cutscene. It was a good cutscene.

And at this point I was unfortunately confronted with a hard to swallow pill: I had been kinda looking forward to every time Dion showed up on screen. I'll be honest I'm not sure I would have made it through the game without the driving force of "hey maybe he'll show up again". Over time he turned into my single point of fixation, and it's sad because ultimately he too is pretty much a wet sponge of a character, though maybe the least wet and spongy one. I think he does have some of the stronger scenes in the game (as well as the most visually appealing boss battle - whatever was going on with that bullet hell laser fight in space). He's also unfortunately a sad blond Final Fantasy prince and. Uh. Yeah. Ahem. Alas, he's kinda ugly. Subjectively. But he has an absolutely mighty hip swing when he walks. And a pretty cool spear. Good weapon choice.

In general, props to SE for including an unambiguously gay character in a decently written way. We all know this company is pretty behind in terms of diversity and representation, so seeing that was a pleasant surprise.

Anyway I really REALLY hate to admit it but I've been kinda held hostage by the game over this stupid prince. I'm hoping this is a temporary side effect (derogatory) from being exposed to the game for a prolonged amount of time and in a few weeks I won't care anymore. I hate it here.

5. Conclusion

When I finally finished watching the game after having spent 2 entire months with it I was mostly asking myself one question... What is worse in regards to an art medium? To hate it so intensely that you're willing to dive into every little aspect of it; or to feel complete indifference?

I can't tell you if I think FFXVI is the worst game in the series. It's the one I feel the most passionate hate for, that's for sure. But a game like FFXV seems so inherently unappealing I don't even care to look at it. Not because I think I'll dislike it any more, I just think it will bore me. (Irrelevant side note - I do plan to finally watch a playthrough of that one too in the future. Might as well commit now.)

There are aspects of FFXVI I do think are inexcusable in an objective way; delicate topics handled badly, developers that need an attitude check, and also... by god go meet a woman in real life, please.

For a game that was said to modernize and move the series forward, it makes terribly outdated choices in many regards. It somehow tries so hard to be a departure from the other games in the series, losing a lot of what makes a good Final Fantasy game, and simultaneously clings so hard to references that feel so empty when the core of these games has been trampled on. No amount of preludes and FF1 overworld theme rearrangements and corny "this will be your final fantasy" puns can bring the series' essence back that this game failed to capture. A sense of adventure, a compelling story with a meaningful cast of companions, a world to explore beyond grey corridors.

It should have been a spin-off, not a main title game. Obviously a different name wouldn't have changed the quality of the game, but I can't shake off the feeling that had it been called FFXIV: The Offline Singleplayer Experience (which quite frankly it feels like in many regards), I might have been a bit more lenient with my judgement.

Still...public reception of the game seems, surprisingly, fairly mixed. My fears of the game being hailed as the second coming of Christ didn't actually become true. At the very least the gameplay is oftentimes heavily criticized. And while I really have to wonder if all the people who praise the story and character writing have watched the same thing as I have, seeing the game actually receive some nuanced opinions from both people who like and dislike it alike is a refreshing twist I didn't expect. (Just in case this comes across wrong: I don't consider my opinions to be nuanced. I'm just a hater. But I'm right. Ha.)

Well... uh... After all this I don't quite know how to end this. I feel like I've said more than anyone should say about this game and somehow nothing of substance at all. Topical, I suppose. Oh well. Congrats (I guess) to this game for sparking something in me (negative) no other game has ever done before. For all it's worth, it strengthened my bond to some of the older entries I used to judge more harshly. I know better now.

-----

If you're the single person who made it this far, I think you deserve to have some pictures. Here's my favourite battle phase: (Something about those symmetrical orb patterns was very aesthetically pleasing. Better in motion though.)

And here's an exclusive look at parts of my initial draft and some discord liveblogging:

anyway peace out ✌️ go watch dions death scene in german

[littlemisssquiggles]

...So about the SIXTH episode of RWBY V9...

This is the episode where I think my general opinion will probably get me in trouble with a certain community within the FNDM. Already you can probably tell where I’m about to go with this knowing exactly what happened in today’s episode if you saw. But; since I’ve always did my best to remain honest in my remark posts, I’m just going to come right out and say what I have to say regarding this episode. Specifically a certain moment in it.

[SPOILERS AHEAD! NUFF SAID]

Something to be said about the Bees...

If you were expecting me to gush over the big Bumblebee confession and kiss that was dropped today then I’m going to have to disappoint some of you. I mean…I knew it was going to happen eventually given all the hints that were dropped this season and even prior to it even in the promotional material like the volume poster.

However; despite expecting it…I’m sorry ya'll but I didn't care for the major Bumblebee moment at all.

If anything, the moment left me rolling my eyes and feeling genuinely annoyed that the showrunners chose to dedicate a portion of the episode to this rather than anything else.

Outside of the setup, the visuals and the music (I really loved the little theme that was playing throughout the moment), if it were any other ship---a ship that was better developed, this moment would've had me over the moon. 

Being the hopeless romantic that I am with a shipping heart that’s bigger than I am tall, I should’ve loved this moment! I WANTED to love this moment because, not gonna lie, it got me a little bit during the build up bits. But only because it was such a ridiculously sweet, tender moment and as I said, the set up was fantastic.

It should be a crime to give me such a beautifully executed confession scene with all the fixings and waste it on a ship that I don’t care about.

The fact that this, compared to other shipping moments that came before, was wasted on the Bees---I just felt nothing for it.

And before anyone jumps down my throat and calls me names, let me just counter by saying this one thing:

My issue with Bumblebee as a romantic pairing has NEVER been the fact that it's LGBTQ (and I genuinely hate seeing this accusation used every time someone so much as criticize this ship).

Good writing is very, very important to me. It’s what I look for the most in every piece of media I consume from books to TV shows to movies, etc. In the case of stories with important character bonds and romantic subplots, the writing backing said relationships between characters is what matters foremost to this squiggle meister.

To put it bluntly, I could give two shits whether a character relationship is straight or queer. Just tell a goddamn good story because a good story will make any character or character connection---be it straight or LGBTQ---worth getting invested in.

This is my gripe with Yang and Blake’s so-called romantic journey. The development of these two leading ladies from strangers to friends to lovers has not been a good story or at least not a well-written one for me from the start.

There has been some noticeable bumps in the road to get us to the highlight of today’s episode where Yang and Blake profess their love for one another and then seal it with a kiss.

And while the more vocally passionate supporters of this ship would often like to disregard/flat out deny the humble beginnings of the Bees, I simply cannot because I pay too much attention to the writing in the story of RWBY.

My main gripe with the Bees has always been in its execution; the way the show chose to go about writing and portraying this pair. It never felt natural to me. It always felt forced because rather than actually backing the Bees with good writing, the writers felt that suddenly shoving them together after 5 seasons of focusing on another Blake ship and then shoehorning little nuggets of Bees into moments where the timing felt off was enough.

Spoilers. It wasn’t. Not everyone bought into the Bee romance. Myself included. 

This episode, sadly, only proved to further my point.

I was more invested in the other part of Episode 6---the part that focused on Jaune's story as the Rusted Knight.

I honestly was expecting this episode to be the one where Ruby finally has her breaking point. The way the CRWBY members were telling everyone to avoid spoilers prior to today’s episode over on Twitter, I felt like this was going to be the pinnacle episode where that happened.

But no. Turns out the highlight of episode 6 was the Bee kiss and…again, as I’ll reiterate, it did nothing for me.

The rest of the episode...

While the Bee shippers can have their fun gushing about the Bee moment and that alone, for me, I was more invested in the non-Bee related aspect of the episode.

The fact that Alyx's adventures in the Ever After were indeed true. The fact that Alyx wasn't entirely the “kind protagonist” as she was made out to be in her own story. The fact that she had a brother that she willingly sacrificed to the Tree as a means of returning home. The fact that the Tree is actually dangerous. The fact that the Curious Cat pulled a Kyube from Madoka Magica and is not the friendly ally we pegged it to be (Or at least that is what we're being led to believe)

All of these reveals interested me far more than the Bee kiss and I wanted more from that part of the episode.

Personally I'm still willing to put my fate in the Curious Cat. It did seem genuinely saddened after it parted ways with Ruby, Weiss and Jaune.

A part of me is still willing to believe that in the end, the Curious Cat will do something good for Ruby to get her and her friends home. I wish to hold out on that, mainly because I do like the Curious Cat as a character.

Another part I thought was interesting was the part in the beginning---the part where Jaune ended up on the beach and destroyed the strange clock-shaped fruit that he discovered on the strange tree.

While the episode didn’t say more about that part, it does make me wonder something most curious.

Did Jaune unknowingly mess up/turn back time in the Ever After by destroying the clock fruit?

I mean, it would explain how he was able to meet Alyx and her brother Luis in the past? Clearly Alyx's story took place in the past long before RWBYJ were born if her story was one they grew up with, right?

So interestingly enough…Jaune’s future is Alyx past? Because Jaune met Alyx and her brother in the past but Jaune is from the future after Alyx long completed her adventures in the Ever After and returned home?

I dunno bout ya’ll but I found that twist to be kind of cool. So basically Jaune lived on the Ever After for quite some time given his maturity. But again, Jaune is from the future but met a character from the past.

That makes me wonder something---the mysterious time fruit that Jaune found and destroyed---is there more of it? Could that be an alternative to helping RWBYJ return home safely to Remnant without needing to go to the Tree?

Because as we were made well aware of, the Tree is not quite a tree of life but more so a Tree of Death---another nice twist. However, there is one aspect of it that does remain to be true despite the Curious Cat’s trickery. It does seem like the Tree has the power to return non-Afterans to Remnant but through some kind of sacrifice.

It seems like in order to go back to Remnant, a sacrifice needs to be made?

If Alyx was required to possibly kill and offer her brother up to the Tree of Death to return home to Remant, what if...RWBYJ would have to do something similar?

Imagine if...in the end, Ruby is the one to remain back in the Ever After while her friends go home without her?

What if...Ruby is met with the same ultimatum from the Tree of Death as Alyx? Give up something precious to her in order to go home?

But unlike Alyx who was selfish in her final choice, what if...Ruby doesn't do this? Obviously Ruby would never give up her friends/loved ones the way Alyx did in her story.

What if...Ruby does the opposite of Alyx and sacrifices herself so that her friends may go home without her.

And unlike Alyx who was the lone survivor of the Ever After who wrote her own brother out of her story and her life essentially, what if…Weiss, Blake, Yang and Jaune all return to Remnant and are forced to carry on Ruby’s legacy because back home on Remnant, it would be as if Ruby never existed. Written out of the story.

This makes me think back to the last thing Cinder said to Ruby before leaving her to drop with Neo.

Cinder told Ruby that things would be better if she had never been born. So perhaps, this was a foreshadow to Ruby’s “death”.

Ruby’s existence will be erased, much like Luis.

Or..what if...and this is a big IF, there is another unknown twist to the story of Alyx.

What if…Alyx was never the author of “The Girl Who Fell Through the World”?

What if…the person who told Alyx’s story was in fact her brother Luis?

Hear me out on this one folks because I’m about to drop a big theory here.

What if…back on Remnant, Alyx always has a strained relationship with her brother from the jump and always secretly resented him in a way because as siblings, the two were constantly compared with Luis being the more favourable of the two children since he was the kinder of the two.

Imagine if...growing up Alyx suffered a childhood where she was always told be “more like her brother” and it was this resentment that Alyx brought with her into the Ever After.

What if...when Alyx tried to sacrifice Luis, the Tree of Death pulled a switcheroo, sending Luis back home instead while Alyx remained trapped in the Ever After forever.

It is said in the story that when Alyx returned to Remnant, she wasn't the same person anymore.

So what if... when Luis returned home to Remnant, he wasn’t Luis anymore. He had become Alyx, taking her place in the world while the real Alyx was written out of existence and replaced by Luis.

Or perhaps Luis remained as he was but he was left completely heartbroken by the events. Of losing his sister the way he did. Of leaving her behind the way he did. Perhaps Luis loved his sister dearly and being the kind person that he was depicted to be, Luis chose to carry on his sister’s legacy by writing a book about their adventures where she was the main hero---therefore, Alyx would forever be remembered as a good person because that’s how Luis---the brother she hated--- wanted her---the sister he loved---- to be remembered?

That’s my theory.

Luis became the true author of “The Girl Who Fell Through the World” while Alyx either was eaten by the Jabberwalker or became the Jabberwalker.

I feel the real Alyx was cursed to be forever trapped in the Ever After, becoming known as a monster amongst the inhabitants because that seems to be the type of person Alyx really was---

A monster who would give up her own loved ones to escape the imaginary fairytale world only to wind up becoming a prisoner of it.

That’s my hunch for now and my biggest takeway from this episode.

That being said, this is all I have to say on EP6.

~LMS (2023)

[hellaverse-critical-confessions]

So I promised a background/minor character design appreciation post...

(Part one because this will likely get long)

Starting with the imps, due to the order in which characters of different species are presented on the wiki

Ah, Pringles. Of course. What a guy. He is very shaped. (Especially the hair and collar. I happen to be a sucker for male characters with that kinda "cat fluff" hairstyle.) Love the weird little cuff on his tail, it's so unnecessary but it fits. Dapper boy. Gotta love him

(As far as I can recall he gets bitches in Ozzie's, which, like, good for him!)

There's this kiddo from Loo Loo Land. I like her shapes as well, very exaggerated. As depicted here she kind of reminds me of some concept art girlies from the Art of Encanto book.

Actually, I think I have an image...

...I'm not the only one who sees it, right?

(Anyway, it's still available for free to view online. Very interesting stuff.)

Ahh... this guy. Or gal, actually. Turns out this is Skye Henwood's impsona, as well as my favorite character in Western Energy. Me and my friend were deadass ready to adopt her on sight. So tiny!! So shaped!! Look at that ridiculously huge bowtie. The littol suit. I want a pocket-sized imp now. Would carry them everywhere in my purse. Speaking of...

That's exactly what she did! Another crewsona (Sam Miller), and this design is incredibly slay. The feathers. The tail. Big, flowy, swooping shapes. (Not a big fan of the hands, though.) Very majestic creature overall.

Moving on to a few background Wrathians from Harvest Moon. She's a cutie. Not much else to be said. I like her outfit with the little boots and gloves as well as her pigtails.

I think these two could be related.

She looks so silly, I love her. Her hat and horns are disproportionately huge and it's precious.

Her name is Square, and she has major resting bitch face energy. I appreciate her instantly. (Long sleeved shirt + short shorts is a good combo.)

This guy from the Ozzie's elevator scene (Aspen) looks like he'd have quite the story to tell over a couple drinks of hard liquor. Slutty, but in a tired way. (A certain saxophonist cat from another piece of online media also fits that description.)

HER!! I love her so much. Everything about her honestly. The colors!! The legs!! The underbite!! She has no official name, but I call her Pomegranate. Or Pom for short. Got some of my own lore for her and everything.

Haven't watched Queen Bee, so I didn't get to see Dennis in action, but from this still alone I conclude that he's pretty cute. (However dude could use to pull up his pants.) Didn't really deserve to get yelled at, anyhow. Justice for Dennis!

Though I do have an old Dennis character, and he's a dick, so maybe Blitzo was on to something.

I like the girlie on the right too. Women with :3 smiles automatically win me over. The ripped pants and loose tank top go well together, and the splotch of magenta on the waist isn't obnoxious.

Mamma Mia, an imp with not purely and overwhelmingly red skin? What a spectacle. She looks way more like a black character than Velvette. And due to her subdued skin tone, the pink looks nice on her. (Which can't be said for Millie in one of the pieces of summer merch. Who thought pink on her was a good idea?!) Cool hair texture as well, feels very poofy.

Some bite-sized imp clowns from The Circus; their names are Eenie, Meenie, and Miney. How charming! Though, as I recall, doesn't that old children's rhyme go on to have four-

...Oh.

I think this might be Barbie Wire. We were never told explicitly, and she isn't even mentioned in the episode itself, but she looks closest to that design.

(Though I just noticed her horn stripes are too thick. Nevermind, then. Seems like she didn't even get that brief cameo in Blitzo's nearly episode-long childhood flashback despite being his twin sister, which should suggest that they were pretty close.)

I like this chick, though.

And that's it for now! Let me know if you'd like to see a part two though I might just go ahead and make it anyway