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marvelandponder · 1 year

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one amazing thing about the Owl House finale is that it finally contextualized for me one of the central metaphors of the show. Spoilers for the series finale Watching and Dreaming ahead.

we good? no one spoiling themselves? beauty

for a long time now, I thought we had a pretty standard coming-of-age metaphor dichotomized by the show's central antagonists. you've got your protestant witch hunter Belos who introduces a maturity and ugliness to Luz's narrative; he clearly represents a particular, restricting form of adulthood, and just when Belos becomes his most threatening, boom, enter the Collector, Luz's dangerously naïve inner child to ruin all her development on the Boiling Isles. Seems simple enough

what I didn't anticipate was just how specific and personal their roles in the story actually are to Luz once you have the full context from the series finale

look again

this story - this whole series - is about the grief that a neurodivergent kid experienced at a young age, introducing the cruelty of loss and adulthood before she was ready to handle it. and, how to reclaim a more whole understanding of herself as she rebuilds her life with people who get her

Belos is designed to infect the titan carcass like a disease. a cancer. it's super goddamn significant that the titan is King's dad (King, who became Luz's younger brother). they set up Belos not just to be another fascist kids' cartoon villain (although yeah, he do be doing some of that), but to specifically become a force that oppressed the weirdness from the one place that understood Luz. the Iles. the dad. And by the end of the story, Belos's goopy body-horror isn't just for show, he's just like the cancer or other terminal disease that took Luz's dad from her

he's the thing Luz hasn't processed in season 1 that comes in at the end like a warning. he's the threat that forces Luz to grapple with her own humanity, feeling somehow (often completely unjustifiably) harmful to those around her, through the grief she doesn't want to be a burden or the weirdness (neurodivergence) others don't understand. he's the force that says there is something wrong with you, Luz, give in to your grief, this is what you can't face. this is the lie you've been telling to those closest to you: that you're okay

then you have the Collector. (notable that he's a collector, and we see Luz's mom and dad had quite the collection of nerdy memorabilia)

the Collector is the child too young to understand death. Too young to understand consequences, or why their playmates don't feel like playing anymore with someone so weird and maybe a bit too involved in their own world. The Collector is Luz's inner child, that kid we see right before the "worst week ever" — the one who didn't and couldn't understand what was about to happen even as it was going down. unapologetically weird, a bit destructive and short-sighted, but wholly colourful, wholly themselves. that's why the Collector wants to live out Luz's adventures, but without all the depth. just the fun escapist fantasy

but don't think I forgot the internal conflict! :D

because Camila's role also gets an added depth too: Camila was framed at the outset of the series as someone who loved Luz, but wanted her to fit inside a box that she just didn't. later, Luz completely misconstrued her mom's breakdown when she learned that Luz chose to run away. as many people have pointed out by now, Luz misremembers the actual dialogue that Camila says: Camila only wanted her daughter safe, not to lose her. Luz meanwhile felt like she had to choose to destroy this part of herself, or give up her connection with her mom altogether

but we know now Camila actually deeply relates to Luz. she may not understand Luz's fascination with horrific things like on the boiling isles (very akin to a kid getting more grim hobbies in the wake of a death, like Luz's taxidermy), but she loves Luz for who she is. all of her. she never wanted Luz to change

Luz was the one framing the central conflict of the show as go back to her mom or stay in the boiling isles. Luz was the one who felt like she had to punish herself by rejecting the one place where she felt like herself. once Camila realizes what's been going on, and how deeply connected it is to the loss of Luz's dad, she knows Luz is trying to make a "very bad choice for herself." And she won't let that happen (what a great mom!!)

But Luz does have one real choice ahead of her

because of the inner child who once again has to confront death (this time, Luz's own), Luz is able to connect with a father figure, the titan, the one place she feels understood. in the form of a power-up that makes her into a fantasy witch straight out of the Good Witch Azura, the one place she got joy after that huge loss, the titan gives her the strength to face the cancer—a force draining everything good in her life from her and making her question she deserves it in the first place—but only if she can choose herself

and that means choosing happiness, choosing found family, choosing love and friendship and self-discovery in the place she feels most at home! every bond she's forged, everything she's worked for, it all comes down to choosing to face grief and move on in life with weirdos who stick together.

hoot hoot, that's some good metaphor

#the owl house #toh spoilers #luz noceda #eda clawthorne #king clawthorne #the collector #emperor belos #camila noceda #i may update the post with images at some point but I figured that's more likely to unintentionally spoil others #watching and dreaming

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trisshawkeye · 7 months

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I can't now find where I mentioned it earlier but I wanted to expand on a thought about Black Sails as a tragedy. It's not so much about individual characters reaching particular endings. Rather, I think the central tragedy is that there is this fight - this war against the world, against civilization itself, which is the driver for everything Flint does and arguably the entire plot - that then doesn't take place. The story goes right up to the brink of this conflict, and by the end it's not just Flint raging alone against the world with whatever pirates can be persuaded to follow him, but it's Madi and the slave revolt and an entire people driven by what has been done to them and to their ancestors, it's something so much bigger than the individuals involved, with potentially world-changing consequences, history-changing consequences, an entire overturning of the colonising powers in the Americas.

And therein lies the tragedy, because we know the history, and we know that this story isn't just a Treasure Island prequel, it's interwoven with historical individuals as well and places itself in that context, and invites us to imagine what could have been while at the same time haunted by the spectre of how history actually plays out. The tragedy is that the war never happened. We know from the beginning that the war against civilization could never have been won in this story, but it still invites the imagining - what if, what if?

And so the audience is forced into the position of Silver, who is confronted with this vision of the future so ardently pursued and believed in by Madi and Flint, and cannot imagine it playing out. Silver, because he never believed in this fight to begin with and only knows that he will lose the ones he loves to it; us, because no matter how much we may believe in the cause, we know that they don't win, that there never was a slave uprising and pirate revolt that overturned the entire New World. Silver cannot bring that future about. All he can do is end the story.

Black Sails asks us to imagine, what if the treasure was not just a chest of gold, but an entire possible future that was killed and buried in the ground on a lost and forgotten island?

#black sails #this is not as coherent as i'd like but whatever

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lgbtlunaverse · 8 months

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It seems the dash has been talking about the Lan Xichen - Nie Huaisang post-canon dynamics and it's gotten me thinking about how discussion around post-canon Lan Xichen's absolutely horrendous mental state often center around the question of "who is Lan Xichen angry at and who does he feel guilty about" which, at its worst, seperates into 2 camps where according to one side he feels guilty about not protecting jgy and hates the Nies and, on the other side he has completely flipped on jgy and despises him now while being filled with regret towards both nmj and nhs.

And I dislike both of these takes not just because it often feels like people projecting their own Blorbo opinions onto Lan Xichen which is never a fun time but also because that central question is flawed to begin with. It treats anger and guilt like opposing emotions that can't coexist or, if they do, have to compete until one wins and cancels the other out.

And that's not how that... works.

To be clear, the reason why Lan Xichen is so supremely fucked up at the end of the story is that he believes on some level he fucked over everyone in this situation. And, even more importantly, that even with hindsight he can't actually think of what he should have done instead. Every attempt to do better by one seems to involve fucking over the others even more because these people were in conflict with each other and choosing one would mean standing against another

And none of this would actually stop him from feeling angry at any of them. It's not "who is he angry at and who does he feel guilty about" it's: "he is angry at everyone and feels an immediate and bone deep guilt for daring to think badly of them."

Speaking from personal experience here, but feeling like you're not allowed to be angry at someone because you wronged them really doesn't stop the feeling, it just maks you feel like shit for feeling it. And this is all worsened by the fact that what he's in seclusion for is, at the end of the day, a moral question of what he, Lan Xichen, did wrong and every single emotion serves as further proof of the ways he's failed them.

Is he angry at Jin Guangyao, for killing his oldest friend, using Lan xichen's trust in him to do it, and then lying to him about it and countless other things for a decade when Lan Xichen thought of him as the person he trusted the most in the entire world? Yeah. That's a thing people get angry about! Except Jin Guangyao also saved his life and protected and helped him more times than he can count and never ever hurt him and can Lan Xichen say the same? No. He had to clean A-Yao's blood off Shouyue, he has to be haunted by the fact that if he just hadn't listened to Huaisang- hadn't been just like everyone else, in the end, and believed a lie about Jin Guangyao just to think the worst of him- then Jin Guangyao might still be alive.

Is he angry at Huaisang? For orchestrating the death of his best friend? For making him do it? For knowing what the real cause behind Nie Mingjue's death was and never telling him until he found out in the absolute worst way? Absolutely. But didn't Huaisang hide it from him for a reason? Wasn't it his clan's techniques and his personal faith in Jin Guangyao that cost Huaisang his brother? How dare he demand that Huaisang let him in on the secret of his brother's murderer when Lan Xichen is here wondering about how he should have protected that murderer better!

And I do even think he's angry at Nie Mingjue, sometimes I think it's pretty normal to be angry at your friend for kicking your other friend down the stairs and threatening to kill him, even when you know his mind is being poisoned. And years later the last thing he ever saw of Nie Mingjue was Nie Mingjue's thoughtless corpse coming to kill him before Jin Guangyao pushed him away and then proceeded to graphocally snap Jin Guangyao's neck in front of him. And if what he wants to do is protect Jin Guangyao, shouldn't he be mad at Mingjue? Didn't this whole mess start because Jin Guangyao was afraid Nie Mingjue was going to kill him?

Except holy shit, can you imagine? Lan Xichen feels like he personally has Nie Mingjue's blood on his hands. Your oldest friend is killed in front of you and you happily believe it's an accident for 11 years and now you think you have the right to be mad at him? You watched him get worse as he was being poisoned and attributed it to his illness and not to the techniques stolen from your library with the token you give his murderer. Does he think Nie Mingjue knew who he was in that moment and wanted to kill him? That he blamed Lan Xichen for his death? (For the record, I don't. I don't agree with most of what Lan Xichen thinks about himself, but I've been in a self-blame spiral and I know how it feels)

But what was he supposed to do then? Choose Mingjue's side and let A-Yao die? That's also unacceptable. But so is letting Jin Guangyao get away with it. Every single outcome is unacceptable. And really, if Jin Guangyao felt like he had to kill Nie Mingjue to save himself, when it was Lan Xichen who was supposed to keep the peace between them, isn't that another mark of his failure? That he couldn't protect Jin Guangyao well enough that he felt he had to do something so horrible?

But that's not an answer! He's supposed to know what he should have done different, and all he can come up with is "what you were already doing, but without failing this time" He can't pick a side because that means betrayal, but he's already tried not picking a side and it ended like this! There is no right answer, which can only leave him with the idea that he was simply doomed to hurt the people he loved from the start. No wonder the guy looks like shit when we see him post-canon. They put him in a real life trolley problem and gave him the lever as a souvenir.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #lan xichen #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #personally i LOVE high stakes ethical dilemma tragedies where there's not a clear right or wrong #and i can enjoy them without picking a side because it's fiction to me and i can admire the complex web of love hurt and betrayal from afar #but this is lan xichen's actual life. he HAS to have an answer to this question in a way I don't #but there isn't one

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pluckyredhead · 1 month

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“I have larger thoughts about how DC has kind of written themselves into a hole with Jason and now he's stuck in this limbo that's unsatisfying to everyone which is why so many Jason fans are mad all the time, but that's for another ask.”

🤓 Do tell…

Okay, let's see if I can do this in less than a thousand words!

So Jason, at his core, represents a challenge to Bruce's ideology, right? Bruce's #1 rule is No Killing, and Jason's basic idea is: "That doesn't work. Some villains are bad enough that they have to be killed for the greater good." (There's something very funny about Jason, famously undead, thinking killing stops ANYONE in the DCU, but we'll leave that aside for now.) This is a really interesting ethical quandary to throw Bruce's way, and by having it voiced by his beloved son, his greatest failure, his second most profound tragedy, it becomes a deeply thorny emotional problem as well as an ethical problem. That's all great.

The problem is, DC can't allow Jason to be right, for two reasons:

Batman must always be right and must always win.

...I mean, come on. They can't actually publish a story advocating for a traumatized 19-year-old with assault weapons to be the arbiter of who lives and who dies, that's nonsense. I love Jason but really.

The problem with that is, Jason is a major recurring character.

UTRH works great in a vacuum. But if Jason is showing up in a comic every month, or even just a few times a year, this central conflict has to be addressed, and the options for doing that are limited:

Bruce and Jason fight and Jason wins. DC will never let this happen. (And what would "Jason wins" even look like, honestly? He's not going to kill Bruce.)

Bruce and Jason fight and Bruce wins. They've done this a bunch (sometimes with Dick in place of Bruce), but Jason fans don't want to see him repeatedly getting his ass kicked while being lectured, and frankly it doesn't make Bruce look great either.

Bruce allows Jason to kill people. This can't happen either; it would be wildly out of character for Bruce, not to mention literally everyone in the Batfamily. They are all canonically pretty opposed to murder.

Jason continues to operate however he wants, but outside of Bruce's reach/jurisdiction. As wretched as RHATO was, I actually think it was a smart decision to keep most of the action outside of Gotham, because then we can pretend Bruce doesn't know what Jason's up to, just like we pretend Clark couldn't super-hear everything in Gotham and save Bruce's ass every single night without breaking a sweat. The problem here is that it means Jason is unavailable for the kinds of casual team-ups and crossovers that fans of all stripes crave - plus, every time he comes back to Gotham, he and Bruce have to relitigate their entire relationship AGAIN.

Jason compromises and agrees to follow Bruce's rules in order to have a relationship with the Batfamily. This is basically where DC has landed, and I understand why they did, because it's the option that allows them to publish the most comics with Jason in them, which they want to do because he is an immensely popular character who makes them money. However, it leaves him in this awkward position where instead of being a tragic villain/badass antihero, he's just...the sassiest member of the family, while simultaneously always being available to be treated like shit because he's Bad. He gets punished without even the fun of doing the crime anymore.

So what's the solution? I don't know. Theoretically, DC could try to do what Marvel does with the Punisher. People always get mad when I say Jason is DC's Punisher, but he kills pretty much indiscriminately in UTRH and RHATO, for pretty much the same reasons. ("Dudebros think it looks cool.") And Marvel heroes inexplicably let Frank just kill however many people he wants unless they're appearing in a Punisher comic, at which point they go "Frank, you naughty boy, I shall stop you!" and then Frank kicks their ass and makes them look like an idiot. DC is never going to let Jason do that to Bruce, plus it would put a real damper on the Wayne family Thanksgiving dinner.

Alternately, they could make him a Nightwing villain. Dick has spent 40 years fighting inconclusively with Deathstroke; he's much better suited to go endless rounds with Jason without either of them Always Triumphantly Winning than Bruce is. I don't personally want this option because I just don't care that much about Dick, but it could be really interesting, though it would limit Jason to fewer appearances and primarily in Dick's book. (Jason would have made a superb Red Robin villain 15 years ago for similar reasons.)

My vote, I think, would be for a really good (god, if only), really thoughtful Jason series where he has reason to seriously reevaluate his philosophy towards crime - something that reshapes him into a character who can still challenge Bruce's entrenched ideas without being so diametrically opposed to them as to make him a villain. He needs to be close enough to Bruce's rules to appear in crossovers, but far enough and specific enough that he's not just Meaner Nightwing. Jason is a passionate character; DC needs to find a new way to let his passion work for him, because right now he doesn't have anything driving him, and it's satisfying no one.

(900 words, BOOM!)

#jason todd #red hood #meta

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0daylighthours0 · 6 months

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A Deep Dive into Milkvan and Byler's Development: If Milkvan Was Endgame All Along, Why Was it Written Like This???

SO. I've been rewatching st with my mother, who's never seen it before. And she was a fan of milkvan throughout seasons 1 and 2. Viewing those seasons again I could see why, they're cute. However, come season 3 and INSTANT distaste. And, listen, my mother is not the consciously shipping gal. She simply routes for main character pairings as writers intend, doesn't read between the lines, doesn't nothing. And she does NOT know my own opinions on the pairing. In other words, completely unbiased, uninternet drama influenced eyes. We've now reached season 3 and, after getting through a chunk of it, I asked her,

"so what do you think of Mike and El?"

and she expressed to me that they seem to be, quote:

"not very good together."

She said El's character doesn't suit the way she's acting now (in the first few episodes, concerning Mike), that Mike is more likeable and interesting when he's away from her. She doesn't like the way they ditched the party, and when it comes to their 'making out' the scenes are seen by her from Hopper's perspective (in other words, distasteful). She claimed that they'd be much better characters as friends.

And ya know what, she's right. And I mean like - duh, that's what we've been saying all this time, I'm not stating anything new here. But guys, wouldn't it be strange if the central couple of the show, pivotal that it is liked by audiences and is rooted for by them as they are THE pair, would be so dislikable like this? So uninteresting, so cliche.

I mean, okay, let's do a little mental experiment I like to do to test if I'm not just acting delulu. Let's play a game. In this game, milkvan ARE meant to be endgame. They are in love, they were all along, and they're here to draw in viewers and appease all El stans. Now, seasons 1 and 2 their relationship is honestly fine. Surface level, yeah, people will watch and appreciate them. They perfectly blend in with all the other neat pairings of the seasons, and have their own unique character traits to stand out as a main couple.

Just pretending our mate Will doesn't exist, we now get into season 3. Now, writers have nothing to lose here. If you've finished season 2, you probably like milkvan already. The issue is that they're already together now, so what's the conflict going to be? The arc? And every central couple needs that conflict to stay juicy.

Just take a look:

Jancy: quarrels, struggle to understand one another

Jopper: not yet together, one sided? will they won't they

Lumax: ...

Lumax? Lumax. Huh, guess they were simply together. Some loveable bickering, maintained a friendly dynamic while clearly in closer proximity. Well then, writers can do the same for milkvan right? Well, yes easily. But one might argue that since they are supposed to be THE pairing they need more going on between them than that. So what'll it be? Well, it seems that writers thought,

"hey, why not break them up?"

ok so.. that's a bit risky. I mean you want people to like this ship, if you break them up then that threats: 1. there being a disliking to one or both characters, 2. coming off generic if done incorrectly, 3. the break up might make no sense considering how in love they came off as just a season ago. But hey.. it could work, if done right. Some kind of misunderstanding, similar to Jancy. Maybe an argument leading to a sudden parting. I mean, yeah, Yeah! I can see that. Perhaps Mike is being too overprotective whilst El's trying to sacrifice herself for something, so she NEEDS to separate herself from him attempting to hurt him less. Or, I dunno, something akin. What's crucial is that us, AS THE AUDIENCE, still know them to be deeply in love. I mean, we have to still want them to be together. And we've seen couple trouble before. Just take a look at Lumax season 4 - did you or did you not want the best for both of them as a pair? You most likely did. See, it's doable. So did people like milkvan season 3 the same way, even after a separation plot? No.

Okay well, there are obviously those who'll always love milkvan no matter but, see, season 3 tainted it. "We need to write them like this cause it's more realistic to teenager behavior" my ars. You can make it messy without making it icky. Not only did it sour their unique dynamic, it flabbergastingly stomped on Mike as a character.

Honestly, I feel Mike has always been a mild struggle to write. Season 1 his motivations were 'find Will' (who still doesn't exist in our mind game yet shh) and 'protect El'. This worked well for him. Afterwards though, El and Will became more separate plots to him. But as a main character it remained integral that he be closely linked to them somehow. This sets him apart from Lucas and Dustin, who can easily be given any arc any season as their plots have the flexibility of a side quest nature. Since what Mike does is meant to matter more - with there probably being a better way of phrasing that but you know what I mean - it's harder knowing what he'll do when El and Will (who we'll GET to sh.) are their own separate people. And Mike is just a boy, he doesn't have super powers and he isn't a cop, which leaves there even less for him to do which is of significance. Season 2 writers decided upon having him support Will's arc, making himself of enough relevance by being able to take credit for some Will development in the story, and the plots that surrounded that, and then Mike was thrown a little bone by being the one to come up with the idea of burning those vines in the finale.

Truthfully, you don't really remember Mike's deeds much when reminiscing the series. It isn't like Dustin who's bond with Dart sticks to everyone, or Nancy and Jonathan responsible for kicking out Hawkins Lab. This is due to them, again, being able to traverse all sorts of adventures without limits. But my guy Mike can't do dat. Sadly, this kind of leads to him coming of as a little.. well... insignificant. And I know I know, the Mike truthers are gonna come at my throat. And hey! I love him too. I only want the best for my boy.

This makes season 3 a unique case cause it seems that, for the plot they decided they wanted, writers actually had to almost entirely change his character. I mean mate s2 Mike and s3 Mike are two different peoples, don't even. And I don't believe that the Duffers had their story and character turnouts completely drawn out from the very start at all. If I was to guess, I'd assume they have vague ideas of little plots they plan to include in future, but there is definitely a lot that has come unpredicted or changed throughout st's runtime. And one of those phenomenons are Michael Wheeler. So they decided to make this guy a di-

So they decided to make him more douchy, more movie typical teenage guy. It's not as if he wholly sucked, he didn't, but he didn't really do much. Whined about his girlfriend, separated the party. I mean what even was his arc? (UnLESS–)

You see, if milkvan is written to be loved, then season 3 was strike one. All of its charm was stripped away. It seems they had some cute scenes after their reconciliation, but it's not enough. It's just sort of

"oh, ok, so they're happy with eachother now. yayy."

and Stranger Things should want to be anything but boring. Sure they often enjoy indulging in tropes, but they always do something different with them. Something standoutish. And from this point on milkvan just got dull. Either writers ran out of ideas or lost interest, honestly (still with our mind game of telling ourselves they're meant to be).

But it's okay. Look, so season 3 was a bit rocky, maybe lost a couple of fans for the guys, but it is salvageable. Easily, easily. Looks like we want a plot of Mike struggling to tell El he loves her. Great! Much to work with.

So let's get into it. Season 4! Choices were... made. And, okay, now we can't go any further without bringing in our boy Will.

Mike is intrinsically tied to Will and El and has been from the start. Maybe Will was more of an accident. Maybe s1 Will was just a plot device for Mike, then s2 Will was a plot device again and Mike needed to be there as the main boy character. Come season 3 and it seems their relationship still matters. Will was sidelined - hard - so most of Mike's moments revolved around El. But as his bond with Mike is the only that's been properly built up, that's the only friend we'll get him interacting with in a way that matters. So the Mike and Will tie continues!

But that does not have to be the case for season 4. Now the writers have a chance.

They made Will gay.

Ok so.. ok so yeah that's fine. Yeah! I mean they didn't have to do that, might put them in hot water with the bylers since milkvan is their golden beauty but.. you know what no no that's okay. He's been hinted at being queer since episode 1, why not make it canon! Cool that works. Explore that, especially since we now have Vecna who can easily target Will for this. Give him a boyfriend! Or a guy crush. He's at a new school now? That's cool. Maybe we can explore some new male character Will's taken interest in. Hey maybe he meets someone who interests him which rises to surface his whole sexuality plot and-

he's in love with Mike.

Ok. No. No. What are you doing? What do you mean?? You didn't have to do that. Strike- strike EFING TWO mates! Strike. 👏 efing. 👏 2!

This was part 1. I am tired and gots to get my ars in bed. But ohohoh, do not worry. I am just getting started.

#anti milkvan #anti mileven #byler #byeler #stranger things #mike wheeler #will byers #byler is real #byler is endgame #byler analysis #byler nation #byler proof #byler is canon #byler endgame #byler tumblr #stranger things 4

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doublel27 · 4 months

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We Are: Queer Found Family and Romance

Or the meta I didn’t intend to write.

It’s taken 9 eps (of me admittedly watching We Are through gifs and clips on Twitter, because I have yet to pay for iQIYI and I am bad at grey watching) but I think I have figured out the central conflict/plot of We Are and why the mostly linear narrative of Phum and Peem with the in media res relationships of our other three pairings made this impossible to fully tease out until we got all the pieces.

The through line that connects all of these stories about how incredibly hard it can be to be part of a queer friend group when the lines of friendship and romance blur, especially when there’s a real aspect of found family to that group.

Two things really cemented it for me this week: Tan telling the gang (and therefore the audience) the full scope of his background with Fang, as well as the beginning of Phuwin’s IG live where he talks about why he likes Kluen as a character is that he’s very direct with people he likes and isn’t blurring the lines between friends and possibly fucking up the friendship.

Because that’s the central problem that all four main couples of the show grapple with in different ways. I’m gonna get into all of that under the cut.

I’m going to start with Tan and Fang because aou contains multitudes and is my beloved while going for Fang could have always messed up his relationship with Phum, we find out in episode 9 that Tan met Fang first. Unsurprisingly, it’s not a great first meeting between what are seemingly two known fighters of what appear to be rival high schools. But then Tan finds Phum and Fang being jumped by a group from his own high school and saves them and eventually becomes friends with them sometime two years+ before the start of our story. Within this time, Tan falls so far in love with Fang, who can both out bitch and out fight, him that Tan goes full simp instead and cuts out the fighting(love that for him).

And mixing his reveal to his friends of how he met Fang and how Fang eventually consumed his waking thoughts to the point he would wish to order Fang as a pizza topping (my love for Tan is immeasurable).

But take us back to episode 2 (which is now on YouTube for US watchers for how long I don’t know) and Tan has clearly not seen Fang in awhile. He asks Phum to invite Fang out where Tan will happen to be. At the time, it was taken as Tan and Phum are university friends and Tan and been obsessed with Fang ever since and needs Phum to make the connections. But the clues that Tan and Fang were also close were already laid down. Their exchange goes:

Tan: Hey. It’s been awhile. Right?

Fang: I thought you were dead.

Tan: Come on. I haven’t seen you in ages either. (That’s the English translation, but the flow of the conversation connotes that Fang hasn’t sought him out either)

At which point Phum makes the face he always makes when Tan is in Fang hyperfocus mode of looking away and sighing. And Fang pointedly asks why Phum invited him out and what is going on.

Which is a weird exchange when you think Tan is Phum’s friend who is obsessed with Fang. It is a less weird exchange between friends that have been avoiding each other for an unspecified amount of time. And we can assume Tan started avoiding Fang because he was madly in love with him and didn’t know how to handle it and didn’t tell Fang why he was avoiding him.

In the episode 9 speech to his friends, Tan outlines that he didn’t think Fang would ever reciprocate his feelings (that it was impossible) and didn’t want to fuck with the friendship (at which point Pun sends a longing look to Chain but we’ll get back to that later) with Fang and Phum and he buried it. Until he couldn’t live with it any longer and decided to do something about it.

Which with the limited information we have, his feelings were already fucking with his friendship. He already didn’t know how to approach Fang because of his feelings at the start of the show, so is it better to not try and hope the romantic feeling dies while avoiding your friend or shoot your shot and maybe get a boyfriend out of it or maybe continue to fuck up your friendship. Tan chooses to roll the dice and it’s clear from the moment they leave the bar in episode two that Fang likes him back.

They both watch each other when they think the other isn’t looking. Fang is the one who sends Phum and Peem home together and sets himself up with a taxi ride with Tan. It’s particularly interesting to me after episode 9, this exchange, because Fang looks at a passed out Peem, mouths Peem? And proceeds to ask Phum if this is the guy that hit him while Tan snickers and Peem looks like the saddest wet cat. It’s only after the affirmative from Phum that Fang is essentially like “well, you can take him home Phum. Take home your drunk friend who hit you and I will go home with Tan.” Which our besotted Tan jumps at.

And considering the parallel between Tan and Fang meeting and Tan immediately sassing him and Fang throwing a punch leading to a fight, and Phum ruining Peem’s painting which led to mutual sassing and a kick to the nuts and a fight…I don’t know if Fang is a mastermind and connected the dots because these brothers need someone who will occasionally not be afraid talk back if need be and sees the potential for Phum to care as much about Peem as Fang does for Tan. Or if he just wants time alone with Tan and doesn’t see it. Look, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fang is secretly a long game mastermind.

Once they’re alone, Tan and Fang steal glances and flirt in the way that Tan makes very loud attempts at flirting and

Additionally, Fang is reserved like Phum, and seemingly as isolated as his only friends seem to be Phum’s friends. We don’t know if he is just not paying attention to other members of the architecture faculty or knows stuff about Kluen he won’t share. As previous parts of this narrative are folded in later episodes, we may find out. What we do know is he’s either ever only appeared alone or in connection to Tan and Phum and Phum’s friends. Even with the flashbacks, Tan points out that the head of the Fang, head of cheer club, approaches him alone and later it’s just Fang and Phum when Tan finds the group of guys jumping them. We know he and Phum adopt Toey who is bullied in high school. It makes sense why he’s potentially reserved about pushing things with Tan if Tan becomes his first real high school+ friend that he has outside of his brother.

Which is why by the time we get to episode 5, Fang says yes before Tan finishes talking. He’s been waiting but also wasn’t willing to be the first to put himself out there. And considering how much Fang and Phum seem to live in their heads and not in the world with everyone else, I can see why he needed Tan to be the one to commit to it first, especially with Fang’s later comments about not understanding why hanging out with him is a preference of Tan’s. I do hope we cross his “don’t tell tan how gone I am on him” bridge later in the narrative. Cause I think Tan knows, but also it’s nice to hear.

Let’s go back to another long-suffering pair where only one half really knew why they were suffering, and the other got a nasty shock, QToey.

I know the guys are all team if Toey loves Q and Q loves Toey then why is Q so hesitant? And I get it, but let’s talk about the double shock Q suffered and the potential layers of risk Q is facing.

It’s not just that Q is cautious with his heart. That is a factual truth. It’s why he ghosted Milk Frappe Boy, because while he fell in love with Milk Frappe Boy I think there was a deep worry, and a self esteem issue that the reality of Q, instead of Pencil Senior, would not be enough for Milk Frappe boy. So Q bolted and then deeply regretted said bolting enough say so to both Toey, not knowing the truth, and to Peem.

But the fact that he learned that Toey was indeed Milk Frappe boy at the same time he learned all of his best friends, his family for all intents and purposes, also knew and no one told him. And the way the confrontation is staged between Q and Toey, it is Q against Toey and everyone else is behind Toey.

And that, friends, that’s the real third rail for Q.

It’s one thing to know that he loved Milk Frappe Boy and that he loves Toey. And that is scary enough. The fandom loves to joke about how Toey is everyone’s little brother and they’ve all adopted him: and that is a correct assessment. But that means if Q fucks it up with Toey, he stands a chance in his mind of everyone else choosing Toey over him.

That fear doesn’t even feel that unfounded when everyone calmed Toey down mostly before Peem, Q’s true bestest friend, came out to be with him. Like Peem caught Toey before going after Q. The next episode nearly every character but Q (aside from Fai who is at all connected to this group) shows up to plan how to support Toey in getting Q.

And while I know my brain cell-less brain trust fully believe they’re helping Q, no one actually seems to ask what Q wants. Aside from Peem trying to get him to come to some that first night on the curb, no one ever asks. And that night all Q wants is to sleep in a pile with his four best friends, because that’s his family. Losing them is even scarier than losing Toey. In essence he’s lost Milk Frappe Boy once. He could do it again. But if they chose Toey…IDK.

We don’t know anything about their families really, aside from Peem’s lovely aunt and the fact that Phum doesn’t get along with his dad. And I get why when the focus is really on these large groups of found families (that are becoming one large found family) that the audience is really in love with. The bonds between the friends are just as much a part of the romance as the actual romances. Because the friendship is where the complications come from.

And while I can’t speak to mlm spaces, as I have never identified as a man, within queer wlw and non-binary spaces there are jokes about dating yourself out of friend groups. There are people you used to know who you don’t anymore because you dated someone in the friend group and were too new and got bounced. Or you date and the way it ends make everyone choose one side. Or, a person in the friend group has a crush on another person in said group, that is an open secret but when the person who was crushed upon gets a new relationship people get mad at them for not dating the person in the friend group who liked them all along because didn’t everyone know. (None of these are from personal experience I assure you 🙃)

And it doesn’t always happen like that. Sometimes the people figure out a friendship or a queer platonic solution when they’re not attracted to each other anymore. Sometimes they orbit around the friend group like two comets on opposite trajectories, occasionally crossing in awkward moments. Sometimes everyone gets past the weird. Sometimes no one does.

But that’s the risk that we’re playing in this show. I can choose the romance, but if it doesn’t work out, I am gambling this safe zone.

Which is gonna bring me to our last two pieces of this: one has had the most development and one the least but both are struggling.

I’m gonna start with Chain and Pun who are the most unhinged, gay yearning codependent besties that exist in the middle of the week and give Potae and Payos on Only Boo a real run for their money. (Both have lips touching earlobes and I don’t have a platonic answer for either) The thing is, I think both Chain and Pun are very aware of the mutual feelings. They both have moments where you know they’re aware but neither will do anything about it. And they are in the case of the story, the most embedded in one single friend group, and have the potential to explode their core group of five if things go sideways.

Now, they’re also the pair that has been effectively dating this entire time without actually dating. The ear biting and the blowing on things in the other’s mouth and the…I don’t have platonic explanations for their behavior okay? I don’t. Not naming it keeps it from being real though. It’s a collective hallucination or the biggest game of chicken.

Eventually, though, one of them is going to cross the line in a way that can’t be erased or the line redrawn. And it’s gonna have to be big because their friends watched them gaze longingly into each other's eyes for 20+ seconds and thought it was normal. Because this is how they are.

And that brings us to not quite friends not quite lovers and not quite enemies, Phum and Peem. The risk is, as discussed in many other metas, mostly on Phum’s side here and it’s why he spent the episode so hesitant. Yes he started off particularly entitled and rude. His and Peem’s relationship started as a fight (but so did Tan and Fang) and Phum feels incredibly comfortable with Peem. He’s definitely neurodivergent coded my Phum, which doesn’t make his assholery okay, but it explains his hesitancy to try new things and his struggle with making friends and expressing his feelings.

He’s got friends but he doesn’t feel particularly deeply connected to them. Yes, Beer makes time for him and actively seeks him out to give advice. He and Fang have a level of sibling codependency that hints at neglect and Fang protecting Phum at all costs. We see Tan approach Phum most of the time and while some of that is angling to get to Fang, Tan does genuinely care. But Tan is also incredibly loud which seems to be a lot for our neurospicy Phum, and Tan also has his large found family with Peem. Same with Toey, who Phum and Fang adopted long ago, and clearly Phum adores him, but he’s also the little brother of the art faculty.

And Peem is a very loving and giving soul and he makes time and space for Phum even though he’s annoying and high handed and gets Phum out of his ruts and comfort zones. And Phum clearly wants Peem to choose him, because Phum has already chosen even if he hasn’t said “I like you and want to date you.” He’s said other very direct things about how safe he feels with Peem and how connected he feels to other people by hanging out with Peem. And Peem is this safe space for him to go out and connect with the world without it being overwhelming and he even feels more connected to his own friends.

And that’s the danger that Kluen represents and what Phum struggles with. He wants Peem to choose him, but he also doesn’t want to force Peem to make a choice and not choose him, and then lose out on the experiences he’s building with Peem as well as a break in some of the connections he has with the people closest to him as Fang and Toey find love within Peem’s group. And so again, the question comes around, is it better to stay in this limbo where no one says anything and maybe Peem dates Kluen but I get to keep him as a friend, or do I roll the dice like Tan and maybe win.

I think it’s been a hard thread to pull because without the context of Tan & Fang meeting first, and Phum and Peem mending their relationship to become something akin to friends who kiss sometimes and don’t talk about it, and the lingering feelings of betrayal for Q by his friends (where they learned about his largest secret/mystery and NO ONE TOLD HIM) which are later revelations in the course of the show, they feel like different types of love stories without the mess of friendship blurring the lines. The story feels linear, because we start in a school year with the meeting of Phum and Peem, the connections between the other characters are older than this year, leaving some of their stories in media res.

And it’s an interesting core struggle taking a risk when the line between who you’re friends with, who you depend on, and who you’re attracted to blurs and the potential for rifts in your safety net are everywhere. It’s not the first show with this as a central tangle nor is it specific to queer television. But the reality of the deep ties that can exist within queer friendships and how they form deep supportive communities makes the stakes higher. And that’s why the friendships are developed nearly as much if not more than some of the romances. That’s where a lot of the risk lies for these characters.

Anyway, that’s nearly 3K of thoughts I didn’t know I had in me about We Are until today. But here we are.

#we are the series #we are series #we are #phumpeem #qtoey #tanfang #chainpun #thai bl #thai ql #gmmtv #gmmtv 2024 #we are meta #we are the series meta #queer media meta #doublel27 talks #doublel27 meta #I know I rambled here #sorry if it’s not coherent

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leafofkudzu · 3 months

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Hi hello my computer exploded earlier this week so apologies for the cursed and late announcement post, but prepare yourselves! The first Saturday of a new month is tomorrow, which means it's time for another...

[VS] Art Party

July 6th, 2024 Captain's Cut, Stormbluff Isle Bloodtide Coast

Round 1 (EU): 9pm-12am CEST (3pm EDT) Round 2 (NA): 7pm-10pm EDT (1am CEST)

For those who aren’t familiar with art parties, they’re a concept carried over from Final Fantasy XIV - in-game get-togethers for artists/writers/creatives of all types to hang out, chat, and create together! Get your favorite character/look together, head to the location, find someone that catches your eye, and create! Afterwards, everyone posts their creations in a shared tag (ours is #VSArtParty) so others can see, interact, and share! Tl;dr: the ‘goal’ of an art party isn’t to be drawn, but to draw others, and share with the community!

Time and /squadjoin information is under the cut, but will also be posted again via reblogs as the squads go up on the day of the party!

Location Information:

It's another, proper beach episode! While I don't have the technical capacity at the moment to get a map screenshot of the location, it's essentially the southwest edge of Stormbluff Isle, the nearest waypoint being Stormbluff Waypoint! Here's a picture from the wiki of the entire island for reference:

Time & Squad Details:

As we always do, we’ll be having two parties - one on EU servers and one on NA ones - with an hour break in between. People tend to arrive early and/or jump between accounts as soon as the break comes up, so don’t be surprised to see tags and announcements going up ahead of schedule!

The first party will be on EU servers and begin at 9pm Central European Summer Time (aka 3pm Eastern Daylight Time or 5 hours before in-game reset). This time due to work conflicts I will NOT be the one starting the squad, but will instead be joining about an hour or so in! So, please welcome our first 'guest' [VS] tag, @vampiricsheep! Please /squadjoin or whisper Vegetarian Maneater for an invite in my absence, it'll treat you well and with my blessing. ♥

The second party will be on NA servers and begin at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time (aka 1am Central European Summer Time or an hour before in-game reset). I’ll be back to hosting this one and be on my main account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Kirslyn for an invite.

Closing Words

I said it at the top of the post but here I am saying it again - I am so sorry for the delay. The intention was to get this out on Mon/Tues at the latest due to me being busy with Dawntrail, but both my SSDs thought it was time to fry themselves and I've been scrambling to rebuild everything from scratch ever since. I've more or less got things back to a usable state now though, so I look forward to seeing everyone (and their shiny new anet-sanctioned beach outfits?) tomorrow! Thank you for always coming out to these and making them fun, they're one of the highlights of my time in game! ♥♥♥

#i thought only my C: drive had died but then when i replaced it i realized the D: one was dead too #so like i have my personal files safe because they were on external drives #but all my programs and games and stuff that were on the 2 internal drives are kaput :c #anyway sorry for the delay! but we're back on track now #gw2 #guild wars 2 #vsartparty #obnoxious tourist simulator #📢🎨

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creativesplat · 1 month

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A doodle of Link and Mipha defeating a Lynel from @only-by-the-stars wonderful fic Song of a Champion!

So this battle was beautifully fluid and the description of the two working perfectly in sync was just breathtaking. I decided to try and illustrate the scene, and I really enjoyed it, (it gave me an awesome excuse to read the scene very carefully and with an eye to the visual which I only really do if I'm going to draw it, and its always so fun to do)!

I couldn't get this image of Link parrying to open a space for Mipha to attack out of my brain because of the fluidity with which they both fought together just felt like that probably happened. I don't know about you, but I just saw them fighting as though they were in a dance, even though Mipha is so firm on her lack of ability and Link's superior skill, I bet he was entranced by her too!

Link's outfit is the stripped back version of the Soldier's Armour Set from BoTW, as though he took off the particularly intense or cumbersome pieces before coming to meet with Mipha, which I thought might be a good nod both his desire for familiarity with Mipha and to Mipha's concern for his safety and frustration with perceived arrogance. He's not even properly equipped and yet he says he can and will fight this Lynel alone.

on Mipha's end, I decided to go for a yellow glow, to not only pin her as the most key character in this scene - she is the central protagonist after all - but also to show that she is actually 100 years in the future, and this is her sinking back into the past, in her memory.

In the beautiful way only-by-the-stars creates a story, I fell into this memory description as well, and I love the conflict and emotion in this, so yeah, just a little note on the writing, but honest to goodness, give this a read!

Other composition ideas:

the original idea was to have something a little more like this:

with a more fluid attack from Mipha and I think overall this would have served the scene better now that I've finished 😅, but I also wanted the impression that it was Mipha's memory, you're seeing this through her eyes, so having her facing away from you connects you more I think, it feels more like she's witnessing it if its from her perspective.

so this, from Mipha's perspective, whilst a little less easy to understand visually, would have given the whole thing the fluidity I wanted the piece to have originally.

Anyway that's my two pence, and I hope you go and read Star's fic!

#breath of the wild #miphlink #creativesplat draws #mipha #legend of zelda #link #botw #mipha mod #Song of a Champion #SoaC #sorry for the ramble #I just loved working on this piece so wanted to chat about it!#also Stars might not finish the fic #if you do decide to read it please don't pressure them about it its so awesome and epic to read and even if it doesn't get finished it is #phenomenal and fresh and new and I love it #anyway enough of my rambling!#loz

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magistralucis · 10 months

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Conflict in Literature + Necron Books

(Read more for titles and notes, watch out for spoilers)

Man vs. Nature - Devourer This is not the only necron vs. tyranid lit, but I thought the cover illustrated the conflict best. Out of all the horribad things in WH40K, the tyranids tend to be presented as the closest faction to a natural disaster; certainly in Devourer they do not logically justify their presence, nor can they be reasoned with, not by the Blood Angels or Anrakyr or the Tomb World he's trying to wake. Not mindless, but an amoral happenstance, like nature itself.

Man vs. Society - The Lords of Borsis Necron court intrigue played straight, with a sprinkle of delusion on the side. Since this story revolves entirely around the schemings and plottings of necron(tyr) society, with changes in dynastic hierarchy as the final objective, it fits best here.

Man vs. Technology - Indomitus This is an awkward placement, since Indomitus was not, well... a compelling story, with most of its tropes not being explored beyond their first introduction. But it is the most bare-bones way of describing this book's premise. Humans battling a robotic malignancy, albeit with a Bolivian Army Ending, which doesn't conclude the plot in either direction 😞

Man vs. Man - The Twice-Dead King: Ruin Ruin is an exceptionally deep novel, and fits every conflict listed here. It was the hardest one to place, because it's not so much choosing the one that goes best, rather crossing off every other conflict not central to the story. Both gods and the absence-of-gods are a problem in Ruin, as well as nature and technology, but they're not at the heart of Oltyx's problem. Society could be a big one, since Oltyx is an exile - but he’s not trying to antagonize his society throughout Ruin, he's trying to work with it, or at least save it from doom. Self and reality both count, but fit better with other stories in the Nate Crowley corpus. So man vs. man it is. His most important clashes are all with individuals ('man') - Djoseras, Unnas, Hemiun, arguably Yenekh in reserve - and by the end, his crownworld is overrun by the Imperium, who will become the antagonists for the second part of his tale. Man vs. 'Man', with a capital M.

Man vs. Self - The Twice-Dead King: Reign Again, this could have gone elsewhere. In man vs. reality, perhaps, or the god-related ones. But the self is where the conflict of Reign truly lies, since Oltyx's greatest obstacle is himself, and it is his inability to accept that which brings his dynasty close to destruction. Thank goodness he got over that one.

Man vs. Reality - Severed The emotional and philosophical core of this novella relies on it. Zahndrekh's inability to see the world as it is brings about the whole plot, and is at the centre of all of Obyron's musings. Interestingly, reality does not win at the end, at least not what necrons envision reality to be: a place of cold hard facts, with no room for emotion. Zahndrekh would rather dream the impossible dream, which might be the healthier way to deal with their situation.

Man vs. God - The Infinite and the Divine 🚨 𝔻𝕆 ℕ𝕆𝕋 𝔹𝔼 𝔻𝔼ℂ𝔼𝕀𝕍𝔼𝔻 🚨

Man vs. No God - Crusade: Pariah Nexus Not a novel, not 100% about necrons, not even out yet as of now (Dec 2023). This is an inherently problematic conflict for WH40K, because gods are very real and very present in that universe... here I'm only thinking about the necron perspective, and the civil war unfolding in their lore. They banded together in a shared purpose eons ago, destroying the Old Ones who oppressed them, and sundering the star gods who subjected them to biotransference. Now they are as antigod as they could be, and they did not retain their bonds, they have once again turned on each other. So it goes.

Man vs. Author - Codex: Necrons (10th Ed.) (Collector's Ed.) James Workshop knows what they did. 😑

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rottenshotgungames · 7 months

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Alright, let’s start with discourse, shall we?

Gatekeeping Combat

Three days ago, the Gorgon Bones blog made this post about fighters in TTRPGs (particularly the OSR): https://gorgonbones.blogspot.com/2024/02/choosing-fighter-means-choosing-violence.html?m=1

I recommend reading the post, it’s fun (and the comments are hilarious). But, for those who don’t have the time or attention span (trust me, I’m lacking in spoons right now too), this is a relatively short joke that suggests protecting the Fighter class’ niche by making it the only class able to participate in combat. This, on its face, seems like an inherently silly idea—because it is—but people have been interacting with it as a serious suggestion. This comedic concept has spawned a legitimately interesting design discussion. So, let’s engage with it as a thought experiment. How would one make this function in a fun and reasonable way? The simple answer is that you have to start with conflict.

Conflict in RPGs, particularly in Dragon Game derivatives (such as the OSR), is often violent in nature. This presents the first hurdle: How do we centralize combat to 1 class when it’s a major source of conflict, conflict that people inherently want to engage in? As I see it, there are two approaches:

Decentralize Combat.

Redefine “Engaging in Combat.”

Decentralizing combat is kinda just what it says on the tin; make combat a less important source of conflict and means of resolving it. The two biggest examples of this—to me—are Investigative Horror Games and Stealth Games, both of which rely on central conceits that CAN involve violence but don’t necessarily rely upon it. A non-OSR example would be John Harper’s Blades in The Dark, in which combat is resolved the exact same way as every other conflict: through a series of dice rolls that result in ticking and unticking a clock (with possible complications).

Redefining what it means to “engage” requires a bit more definition than the prior approach. “Redefining” can be subcategorized into two somewhat disparate techniques: Redefining goals and redefining interactions.

In any TTRPG combat, the party tends to have a list of goals that exist in a hierarchy of priority. For example, in a traditional D&D or Lancer combat the hierarchy of party goals might look like this:

The Contest (express martial superiority, wipe out the opposition, or otherwise win the combat)

The End State (survive the combat and prevent as much harm to yourself or other party members as possible)

The Barrier (achieve the exploration or narrative goal that’s being hindered or prevented by the combat)

“Redefining” these goals is more accurately described as a re-ordering of their hierarchy based upon whether you are or aren’t the Fighter, usually through gameplay incentives. An incredible example exists in the form of Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk 2020, in which the Solo role (through virtue of acting first and being generally able to specialize heavily into combat) can almost singlehandedly decide the outcome of any fight in which they are present. If there is one Solo on the field, their side is probably going to receive a swift victory; your job, as the non-Solo, is simply to not die and accomplish what you actually came here to do. If there are two Solos on opposing sides of the combat, their goals change to winning their private fight; your job, as the non-Solo, is to survive the surrounding combat until the Solo is free again (or to run if they lose). In almost every combat, the Solo will prioritize the Contest while the rest of the party will prioritize either the End State or the Barrier, something aided by Cyberpunk’s lethality and its nature as a heist game.

“Redefining combat interaction” is . . . actually found everywhere. This is your basic class differentiation taken to a greater extreme than you may find in most tactical RPGs. For example, let’s look at the Combat relevant difference between the Thief/Rogue/Mercenary and the Fighter in a majority of games that use such classes:

The Fighter - Deals a lot of damage with consistently accurate attacks (sometimes also makes multiple attacks on their turn). Has high health.

The Thief - Deals a lot of damage with one really powerful attack made from stealth, sneaky (sometimes good at dodging). Has low health.

The differentiation is there, but it’s not really significant (for the purposes of this thought experiment). Both classes focus on damage output, but one makes multiple attacks and one makes a strong attack that requires setup. Let’s try to take this difference and expand it (with a little help from our dear friend Tolkien), particularly by focusing on what makes the Thief unique in comparison to the Fighter:

The Fighter - Deals a lot of damage with consistently accurate attacks (sometimes also makes multiple attacks on their turn). Has high health.

The Thief - Subverts direct combat through the use of trickery and cunning, plays support for the Fighter (sometimes good at dodging). Has low health.

“Subversion,” in this context, simply means fighting dirty. The Thief shouldn’t be engaging in a head-on fight, they’re a Thief. Their interaction with hostile entities should always be tinged by deceit, their goal should always be to throw their enemy off balance, to create openings for others and themselves to use. If your Thief isn’t constantly throwing pocket sand and disarming opponents and knocking chandeliers on top of them and pulling cloaks over their eyes and poisoning them and . . . are they really living out the Thief fantasy? By strengthening the Thief’s core identity, leaning fully into the trickster aspect, we have redefined how both classes interact with Combat in such a way that has made direct, head-on-head violence the apparent specialty of the Fighter.

Conclusion

As much as the original Gorgon Bones blog post is a joke, Jenx does point out a real issue that’s plagued class-based games for a while: a weak niche makes a weak class. Not necessarily mechanically weak (although that can also happen, looking at you CP2020 Cop), but weak in the sense of fundamental design. Strong niches, even if every class has the ability to participate in combat, are born of purposefully and carefully built interactions with the conflicts presented by a game’s rules and environment. If combat is too great of a focus, everyone is going to want to be able to play the guy who’s good at combat; if winning combat is the sole goal of any given encounter, everyone’s going to play the guy that’s good at winning combats; if every class gets good tools for dealing damage . . . well, I don’t really have to spell that one out, do I?

If you’re designing a tactical, class based game: don’t make the Fighter the only class able to engage in combats. It’s lazy, it’s silly, and it won’t be fun for very long. You may notice that, while the two games mentioned here have classes that EXCEL at direct combat, neither of them fully limit it. Instead, the proper lesson of this thought experiment is a far more common one in our field: keep in mind the incentives you’re building into both your game and your classes, and be aware of how all these moving parts interact with and affect each other. After all, the Solo wouldn’t be nearly as good if Cyberpunk wasn’t so lethal, and the Cutter would be far more ubiquitous if Blades in The Dark had a dedicated combat chapter.

Self Promo

Hey! Thanks for reading. Sorry to leave ya with Baby’s First Game Design Lesson, but I hope ya enjoyed the journey there. If you’d like to see my recent attempt at a class based fantasy game, you can click here to check out Hollow Halls. Otherwise, I hope y’all have a great night and a great day!

#ttrpg community #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #tabletop #i actually really like fighters #i am the one who hits

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toriangeli · 2 months

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Thoughts about Lesmand next season

I maintain that one of the most important relationships of s3 is going to be Lestat/Armand, not because of shipping, but because it's very central to TVL and the series as a whole. Their complicated feelings about each other are fascinating. And they're complicating them even further.

One clear change made is that Lestat now blames Armand for Nicki's death. For those who haven't read the books, Lestat never blamed Armand for Nicki's suicide. This is because one of book!Lestat's most infuriating flaws is that he forgives immediately. This isn't because he's a sweetheart or virtuous or any of that shit, it's because he doesn't like feeling negatively. It's a trait that gets him into a lot of trouble.

But on a television show, something visual and far more concrete than the contents of a book, I can see how this attitude could lead an audience to believe Lestat didn't really care about Nicki. I think that's a good enough reason to make the change already. But there's another important reason to change this.

People talk about how much Lestat's characterization changes between the first two books, but seldom do we get into how vastly Armand changes. Not as a result of character development--as a result of Anne Rice not quite knowing who he is. He was the villain of the first two books, and she expected him to remain a villain until she wrote QOTD and realized he isn't evil.

But by the time she'd figured that out about him, TVL was already out there, and the conflicted nature of Lesmand was very much one-sided. Lestat thought they were besties, while Armand had basically no redeeming characteristics. In this light, Marius' abandonment of Armand is more understandable than it is later on, because as of the writing of TVL, Armand really was meant to be beyond hope.

So at the start, Lestat and Armand really just had a hero-villain relationship. Straight-up. With mutual pining. Some of the major beats of their dynamic, like Armand's sincere belief that Lestat led him on, or Lestat's strange trust in a very unstable Armand, came out of nowhere. It seemed like some of Lestat's attitude towards him was only there to make the betrayals even crueler. Lestat was a total martyr. Hell, at one point (in Memnoch I think) he even asked how Armand could still love him "after everything I've done to you." Lestat didn't do shit to Armand.

Conversely, it can also feel like their later closeness comes out of nowhere. A lot of grudges are let go during QOTD in the face of bigger problems, and the Lesmand conflict is one of them. But what did they do to earn the closeness they have as of Memnoch? What bonded them so much that Armand was the only one who could safely approach a coma'd Lestat?

The show has the opportunity to make these beats feel earned. It has the opportunity to make the conflict something they both contribute to, rather than just Armand. Just like with Lestat, they are drawing characterization of Armand from later books where Anne had his personality down more solidly. They've ironed out some of the big conflicting things, like him spell-gifting Louis into turning Madeleine when turning people is later established to be utterly against his moral code.

More than anything, I hope to see what made them so important to each other right away. I want to see Lestat's pity and mercy as he realizes how very unwell Armand is, and how that is the reason he lashes out. I do think it should still fall apart because Armand bites the hand that feeds him. I do still want the unhinged gremlin we saw in 2.05. But I think if the audience is going to empathize with him--something Rolin has said is important to them--Lestat shouldn't be quite so much of a saint. I think there should be a crumb of a reason Armand thinks Lestat led him on, albeit a small enough one that it's still not a conclusion a rational person would come to. Like the blood-sharing and casual (for Lestat) sex in Armand's little story. Ideally even smaller. I'd like there to be some trigger. Otherwise, the audience will wonder if they missed something (as I did).

I'll probably ramble more as thoughts come up, but that's it for now.

#iwtv #amc iwtv #interview with the vampire #iwtv spoilers #iwtv amc #armand #lestat de lioncourt #the vampire chronicles #tvc #tvc book spoilers #book spoilers #lesmand #armandstat

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varpusvaras · 5 months

Text

Bail got the news in the middle of his breakfast.

Onaconda was the one to call him, looking so uncharacteristically concerned that Bail knew immadiately that something big had happened.

"Castle Serenno was attacked a few hours ago", Onaconda told him. "They have reported Count Dooku dead."

Bail wasn't sure what to think. He didn't agree with many of the Count's political views, but he was well aware that the man was still widely respected even in circles that disagreed with him even more than Bail did. An assassination would've been bad enough, in the times of rising tensions they were living now, but for someone to go as far as to destroy the entire Castle?

It seemed like someone truly wanted the Count gone, and wanted to be sure.

"Is there any information on the attackers?" Bail asked, already opening up the news as he spoke.

"No", Onaconda said. "No one has claimed the attack. There were sightings of some ships, of course, since the attack was so large, but they have not been linked to any Republic world so far."

So it seemed. Bail glanced at the news he had found.

"This is alarming", he said.

"You don't need to tell me that", Onaconda said. "If the culprit is not found soon, there will be even worse times ahead when people start to blame each other. I'm not sure if the current situation can handle something like that."

Bail sighed. This was not how he had wanted to start his day.

---

"The Jedi want to investigate the attack, I heard", Mon said. "The Count was a former Master, after all. They probably feel like this was personal, in some way, even if the Count was not part of the Order at the time of the attack."

"I heard as well", Bail nodded. "Though the Chancellor hasn't brought it up. He is still looking into other options for investigation."

Mon frowned slightly.

"Odd", she said. It was, Bail had to agree. Usually, Chancellor Palpatine was more than ready to trust the Jedi in situations like this, but now, he had not even had a meeting with them regarding the matter.

It was odd, certainly.

Mon glanced around a bit, and leaned closer.

"Has the Chancellor...seemed somewhat strange otherwise, as well, after the attack?" She asked, quietly.

"He is probably just nervous", Bail said. "The Count was a central figure in the anti-Republic movement, after all. It is rather easy to see this as an aggression from the Senate's side. The Chancellor wants to avoid any armed conflicts."

Mon hummed.

"You're probably right", she said. "Something about all of this just...strikes me as weird."

"I know", Bail said. "I'll try and propose a meeting with the Jedi for the Chancellor. We need to solve this issue quickly, before more arise from it."

He did agree with her. Something about all of this was indeed weird. Bail just didn't know what it was, exactly.

---

"The Chancellor declined the meeting?" Breha frowned. "Does he think that the Jedi wouldn't be impartial enough?"

"Most likely, though I don't think that there is a group that is impartial enough for both sides", Bail said. "The only solution would be to get into an agreement with worlds that have taken part in the movement. The Chancellor has just been rather avoidant with it all."

Breha was quiet for a moment.

"That is quite...worrisome", she said. "Do you think that he could know something more?"

It was a thought Bail had not wanted to voice himself.

"I'm not sure", he said. "But it's a...possibility. Everything is, at this point. I am just worried about the fact that nothing is happening. This could all get out of hand, quickly."

"There has not been any signs of true aggression before this", Breha pointed out. "It would take time for them to respond. We still have time. The Chancellor might be pressured into taking action, and doesn't want to rush it."

"Of course he doesn't", Bail said. "We still need to do something, before anything worse happens."

---

Bail hadn't expected at all what happened next.

He was more than sure that nobody had.

The information came flooding in everywhere all at once. Palpatine was long gone by the time people were sent to apprehend him on his apartment on Coruscant.

By the time they had tracked his ship outside the Core, there was nothing left than depris.

The records recovered from Palpatine's ship showed more of the same ships that had taken out Count Dooku.

This time, though, they all knew who the ships belonged to.

"A clone army?" Padmé shook her head. "I can't believe it."

Neither could Bail. A whole army, designed to go against the armies of the Separatist movement, and in the end, betray everyone without having any say in it, and turn the Republic into a tyrannical Empire?

It sounded impossible.

But it wasn't.

Bail had not felt this lost in a while.

---

The Jedi sent a message to the Senate after arriving to Kamino.

The City where the cloning facilities had been were completely empty. Everything had been taken. There was not a single clone left.

The Kaminoans, who had been there, had said that the clones had risen up, taken the city for themselves, and then fled, and no one had any idea where they were.

"I cannot fault them", Breha said. "If they found out that they were made for an awful purpose like this...I cannot fault them for doing what they did."

Neither could Bail.

"I just wished we knew where they were", he said. "Though I can understand if they want to stay hidden. I hope that they will find whatever they need to survive."

"So do I", Breha said. "If they ever want to come back...then Alderaan is open to them. They didn't ask for any of this, so we must do whatever we can to repay them."

Bail couldn't agree more.

---

The clones didn't come back. Sometimes there was a sighting of them, but they managed to disappear before anyone could get too close.

It seemed like they were getting by, at least.

Jango Fett had disappeared as well. Many were getting rather frustrated over the fact that they were not able to apprehend him and bring him in for questioning.

Bail couldn't fault the man for not coming forward either. From what he had understood from the infromation, Fett was a father now. That was most likely his main concern right now.

---

Bail frowned at his datapad. It had been a long day already, and the vote was getting near, and he needed to get his speech ready, and it just didn't sound like he wanted to-

A hand pressed gently at the side of his face.

"What is it?" A voice asked him. It was a man's voice. Soft, with an accent different from Bail's, one that he thought endearing.

The hand moved up, and fingers ran softly over Bail's brow, smoothing the skin. Mostly because Bail couldn't frown anymore, not when-

Bail woke up in the early hours of the morning in his apartment on Coruscant.

He stared at the wall, still reeling from how real the dream had felt and trying to figure out what had woken him, when-

-when everything came back to him in one single supernova, so fast that his mind couldn't keep up with everything. The war, the Empire, Leia in his arms, the Rebellion, the flash before everything disappeared, Breha growing older before his eyes, the voice from his dream-

No. Not from his dream. From his memory. Golden eyes, steady hands, cold body in Bail's arms-

Bail stumbled out of his bed and threw up. He then sat on the floor of his bedroom, his eyes closed, reliving his whole life over and over again, until finally, everything seemed to find their own place on the timeline, and the burning inside his head lessened.

He got a droid to clean up the vomit. He then got up on his shaking legs and went to the bathroom to clean himself up.

Then he cried. He wasn't exactly sure what he was crying about- about all the suffering, all the death, about Leia, about Fox.

He decided it didn't really matter. He was already crying.

He had managed to somewhat dry his tears when his commlink started to ring. He sat down on the bed as he answered the call, and managed not to cry again as Breha wept.

---

The message arrived a day later.

We are here. You know where to find us now. Come, if you remember.

Bail was moving before he could even properly register it.

"I want my ship ready, now!"

He had already packed essentials and draped his cape over his shoulders when his thoughts finally caught up with him.

What if he doesn't remember you?

What if he is not there?

Bail pushed the thoughts away. He had the time to think over the journey.

He called Breha before they made the jump to hyperspace.

"He is not dead", Breha said, in a way that left no room for any arguments. "He will be there."

Yes. Fox's death had happened the same way two times already- there was no reason for the universe to suddenly change the course. Bail had to just believe so. He had to.

They had lost him already before.

Bail was not going to lose him this time.

He breathed deep as the coordinates were set, and the ship made the jump.

Now, he could just wait.

---

The wait had been excruciating.

It was impossible not to go through all of his memories during the journey. It had hurt, sometimes, but Bail wasn't going to let him forget again. No, he needed to remember everything.

His hands were shaking when they jumped out of hyperspace, the planet the coordinates were set on looming beneath them. It was rather easy to find the settlement based on them.

Bail's heart was in his throat as they started to land.

"There are a lot of people", Sateen said. "I know they won't do anything, but-"

"I will go", Bail said. "Just me. I-"

"I know, I know", Sateen said. He then smiled. "I'm sure he remembers. They wouldn't have sent the message if they didn't, right?"

Sateen was correct. Bail nodded, and tried to level his breathing.

He tried his best not to run out of the ship, but his steps were still quick.

There was a large crowd outside. Bail had by now learned to tell the clones apart from each other for the most part, even without the armors, but still. Bail couldn't see him-

There was someone who he did recognise straight away, standing in front of the crowd.

Commander Cody had all the regality and authority of a man who had seen years of war, and Bail knew that he remembered as well.

Bail stepped closer to him. Fox was his younger brother, and his batchmate, or at least had been before. If anyone knew, he would.

"Commander Cody." Bail nodded his head in greeting.

"Senator Organa", Cody greeted back, without hesitation. Yes, he certainly knew.

Bail's heart felt like a engine hammer falling. He needed to know, now.

"We got the message." Somehow he managed to say it without his voice trembling. "Can you tell me where-"

There was movement in the crowd. Bail glanced over, and-

There he was.

Fox looked staight at him, and Bail knew that Fox knew him.

His body was moving already, his legs picking up speed. Then Fox was there, within his reach, and Bail caught him in his arms as their combined momentum sent them straying from the straight-forward course. Fox's upper body was half way over his shoulder, as he gripped onto Bail just as tightly as Bail did onto him, his legs tangling off the ground. It didn't matter. Bail would've held him like this forever, if he needed to.

He did put Fox down eventually, just so he could look at him better.

He looked just like Bail remembered. There was less light streaks in his hair than before, and there were a couple of scars missing that Bail knew he had gotten early on into the war, but otherwise, he was just like before.

Fox looked at him, his hand coming to rest on the side of Bail's face as Bail traced the shape of his jaw.

"Hey", Fox said, his voice almost a whisper, like he didn't trust himself to speak any louder. Bail understood. There was something lodged in his own throat, something that was sure to come spilling out if Bail talked too loud.

"Hello", Bail said. "Hello, my love."

Fox smiled. There were tears gathering into the corner of his eye, and Bail lifted his hand to wipe them away.

They stayed there for a moment longer, before the world expanded back to include others as well. Fox breathed in, and stepped back a little. Bail didn't want to let go yet, and it didn't seem like Fox did, either, because he dropped his hand down, in order to grab onto Bail's arm.

"We need to talk", Fox said. He sounded more serious now, but not in a way that made Bail feel like he was going to tell him something the didn't want to hear. No, this was just something else important. "And...I need to introduce someone to you."

He sounded a bit hesitant, his eyes seaching Bail's, like he was looking for confirmation of some sorts.

Bail smiled.

"Of course", he said. Fox seemed to relax, and he smiled back a bit, before taking Bail's hand, and leading him towards one of the many buildings.

---

"I know it's a lot to ask", Fox said, not looking at Bail directly as he spoke. "I know you- we talked about a girl, and I know that you had one, I heard the news back when-"

"Fox", Bail said, as gently as he could. Fox snapped his mouth shut, and his arms tightened ever so slighty around the small body he was holding against him. "It doesn't matter. I was already a father to a brilliant daughter once. No one is ever going to replace her in my heart, the same way no one could ever replace you. That doesn't mean I won't ever love another child just as much. They are different people, just like you are different from all of your brothers."

Fox finally looked up at him, his eyes full of careful hope.

Bail put his hand on his arm.

"Can I see him?" He asked. Fox nodded, and slowly opened his arms more, letting Bail closer.

The baby had a round, soft face, and a light layer of dark hair on his tiny head, not yet long enough to curl. In the dim lighting of the nursery, his eyes were the same exact shade as Fox's.

The baby looked up at Bail, and Bail loved him already.

"He's perfect", he said, and leaned down to press a kiss to the bright smile on Fox's face.

---

They sat together in Bail's sleeping quarters on the ship.

"Have you thought of a name, yet?" Bail asked. "I know that naming is an important thing for you all."

There had been a lot going on before they left, so Bail had refrained from asking about it before now. Fox had been busy packing up and saying goodbye to all his brothers, and Bail had taken the time to talk more with Commander Cody, as well as met up with many of the members of the Guard. He had been happy to see Thorn again, as well.

Fox looked at the baby on Bail's arms. It was a familiar feeling, to hold such a tiny body, a feeling that Bail had missed greatly after Leia had grown bigger.

"If you want to have a say, we can talk about it more", Fox said. "But I've been calling him Even. It's not a Mando'a name or word, but one of the trainers back on Kamino once told me that it meant a gift. I...after all of what happened, and how we are here now, it just felt right."

"It does", Bail said. "A gift, for all of us."

Even sniffed in his sleep, and turned slightly more towards Bail. Bail smiled.

---

Bail held back a little when they got out of the ship. He stood there at the bottom of the bridge with Even and watched as Fox took Breha in his arms and spun her around, her laughter ringing out like the most beautiful song in the entire Galaxy. He waited patiently as they talked to each other in low voices, and smiled softly as Breha kissed every inch of Fox's face, like she was making up for all the time they had lost.

Then her eyes moved from Fox to Bail, and from Bail to Even. Bail smiled at the look in her eyes as she and Fox made their way to them.

Breha first reached up to press a kiss on Bail's cheek as well.

"A succesful trip, dear?" She asked.

"Very much so", Bail answered. "Enjoyable as well, at least on the way back."

He let himself smirk ever so slightly, making Fox flush and Breha to tap him on his arm.

"Have some manners", she said, and then peered down the little face. "Hello, little love."

Even blinked at her, excitedly searching her face. In the late afternoon sun of Alderaan, a few specks of gold shined through in his dark eyes.

"Here", Bail said, and turned his body properly towards her. She didn't waste a single moment to take Even into her arms. Motherhood had always looked right on her, and it still did.

Bail looked at her, at Even, and at Fox. Perhaps this wasn't the same family he had been given before, but it was still his, and they were all home.

Truly, a gift, for them all.

(Based on my Cody Day fic Like Suns rise and Stars fall)

#happy may the fourth!#have more of my cody day fic!#this time just with less cody and more bail/breha/fox for all my feelings #and yours who I have managed to rope into this lovely mess with me #sw #tcw #Bail Organa #Breha Organa #Commander Fox #bail/breha/fox #Star Writing #my writing #my fics #ficlets

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1tbls · 9 months

Text

some rambling thoughts on shivers (red bolding mine throughout):

so shivers says this to harry after he has a dance-induced seizure in the church, right:

YOU - But who am *I*? Why are you talking to me?

SHIVERS - YOU ARE AN OFFICER OF THE CITIZENS MILITIA. *AGENTES IN REBUS*, WHEN YOU WEAR YOUR COAT, YOU WEAR MY SOUL.

SHIVERS - YOU MOVE THROUGH MY STREETS FREELY IN MOTOR CARRIAGES AND ON FOOT. YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE HIDDEN PLACES. YOU ALSO CIRCULATE AMONG THOSE WHO ARE HIDDEN.

here's wikipedia on "agentes in rebus":

"The agentes in rebus were the late Roman imperial and Byzantine courier service and general agents of the central government from the 4th to the 7th centuries."

"Being outside the control of the provincial governors, some agentes ... were appointed as inspectors ... for which they gained a reputation as a secret police force. As their routine assignments brought them into contact with matters of great concern to the court, and as they reported back to the court on everything they saw or heard on their varied missions, the agentes can be seen to have had an intelligence function ... This role, as well as their extraordinary power, made them feared: the 4th-century philosopher Libanius accused them of gross misconduct, terrorizing and extorting the provincials, "sheep-dogs who had joined the wolf pack". Nevertheless, the vast majority operated quite openly, and the claims of the agentes operating as a modern-day secret police are certainly exaggerated."

hey shivers. why are you invoking the RCM as your secret police, via a term not just associated with collection of information, but with corruption and manipulation of power.

and, if you fuck up the dance check and call kim a slur, she says:

"SHIVERS - BY THE WAY, APOLOGIZE TO YOUR PARTNER AT ONCE. UNITY AMONG THE RANKS IS PARAMOUNT."

which sticks out to me, because earlier we have this encyclopedia check with noid:

NOID - "A life is true if it's free from fear and internal division among oneself. And others -- mankind has seeds of greatness in it. A germinal will come, a return to trueness. It will be hard core."

YOU - "How would you go about *returning* to this true life?"

NOID - "Beats and bright lights to shatter falsehoods. Nerve impulses for the collective body. We are very much alike in basic structure. A hard enough beat would awaken everyone to a truer calling -- in unity!"

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Rejection of the right-left axis, emphasis on *unity*, appreciation of some primordial mode of being -- what does that remind you of?

YOU - "Sort of like fascism then?"

now, i don't think either noid or shivers are outright fascist :p but i do think the purpose of this encyclopedia line is to highlight how those criteria are flawed and damaging, how they are red flags, whatever the intention.

some comparisons:

1. return to trueness. le retour. the return of... what? in both cases, truly quite vague except for the idea of some dramatic upheaval of the current order, the idea of "returning" to some idealized past state or event.

2. nerve impulses. shivers. "appeal to nature" type fallacy, appeal to a baser instinct... invocation of physical reactions as metaphor for political reactionism, perhaps?

3. unity. on the surface, shivers telling harry to make things right with kim is touching, certainly. but specifically "unity among the ranks" is an interesting framing 🤨 as though the crucial thing is that their forces are not divided for what's to come, regardless of kim's feelings, regardless of harry's potential racism.

likewise, noid's call for unity addresses... nothing at all. simply that everyone would be awoken from their petty, false divisions into unity. neither this nor his criticisms of left vs. right acknowledge that the division is not equal, that one side in most social power conflicts is invested in stripping the rights of the other... because that is simply not on the radar when the priority is unity above all else. in its way, unity is authoritarian where it does not abide difference or dissent in the interest of the of the stasis/power of the institution.

this is all to say. hey. let's talk about the inherent nationalist nature of la revacholiere, my problematic wife ♥️

#de tag #disco elysium #i feel like i could make this more coherent / essay-like but i just cant be bothered #im certain there's other shivers lines like this that had me like <__< girl........#racism ment /

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