#it was awful and clumsy and badly-written and horrible and i never want to see it again

[pasiphile]

hey out of curiosity for Doctor Who (which I used to live but stopped watching because I lost hope for it), what happened that fucked it up this time? I don't care about spoilers, I'm just curious about how Moffatt keeps ruining good things

Okay, so, I’m gonna try to sum it all up, but if at any poit you think wait what this makes no fucking sense, that might just be the episode rather than me not explaining coherently. 

So:

(cw: suicide, derealisation, dissociation. Seriously.)

Ep starts with the Doctor receiving an email with title “Extremis”. The screen then goes briefly static, opening theme starts playing like usual, and we’re up at the first scene, which is: a bunch of cardinals and the Pope, coming to the Doctor for help, because they don’t know who else to turn to. Apparently there’s an ancient text in the Vatican that used to have a translation, but the translation got lost after the sect who took care of the text committed mass suicide. Now, the text has been retranslated, but the translation’s gone lost again and everyone working on it has, again, committed suicide. So can the Doctor please come help? And why did they come to the Doctor? Apparently he got recommended by Pope Benedict the Ninth, who the Doctor describes as “a lovely girl” and “what a night”.

(Main offences: continuing the trend of the Doctor as basically Jack Harkness shagging his way through the universe; and using the fucking Vatican as the generic help-demanding damsels in distress. You know, I get already a bit miffed when they start using the Pentagon or the American President or Downing Street and portray them as fucking likeable and a bit helpless, but the fucking Vatican as the heroes?)

Next scene: Bill is taking a date home. A bit of haha-clueless-foster-mum as she tells off Bill for bringing a date home, then relaxes when she sees it’s a girl ‘cause obviously it’s not a date, then. Anyway, foster-mum (I think it’s her? No explanation whatsoever here) leaves and the girls go drink tea together. Bill’s date’s a bit nervous because “she’s not used to all this,” and Bill gives a lovely little speech about how “this isn’t anything yet if you don’t want it to be” and generally being full of reassurance and kindness and loveliness, well done Bill. She ends with “this is nothing to feel guilty about” - at which point the Tardis lands in another room in her house and the Pope comes storming in, talking in Italian. Bill’s date freaks out, runs to the other room, finds a bunch of cardinals in Bill’s bedroom and runs away in a panic. Bill, annoyed, tells the cardinals “they’re all going to hell”.

(Now, see, this would have worked for me if it was a thing they followed up on, like Bill being aggressively gay at the Pope and the Doctor choosing her side or something. But the way it’s played, it’s a gratuitous throwaway joke about religion and lesbian guilt, which, fuck no.)

The Doctor, Nardole (new sorta companion? idek how to explain him) and Bill go to the Vatican, where they’re keeping the text. The entrance to the hall of texts is a portrait of Pope Benedict IX, who turns out to be young and conventionally pretty and feminine. Doctor makes another flirty remark about her.

(THE DOCTOR IS NOT JACK FUCKING HARKNESS CHRIST FUCK)

 As they head to the secret room, they pass a strange glowy portal that briefly appears, then disappears. One of the cardinals stays behind to examine it, and as everyone moves on we can just see a creepy red-robed hand reaching through the portal for the cardinal - who is never mentioned again, nor does anyone feel like checking up on him. Anyway, they go to the cage where they keep the text, where they find a panicked priest - the last surviving translator, holding a gun. He panics and runs off, leaving behind his laptop, where they find he sent the translation of the text to CERN. CERN wrote back an email saying “Pray for us”.

(they use the fact that hard scientists revert to religion as a sign of how bad things are, but it’s just - stupid and heavy-handed and simplistic. Booh.)

Bill, Nardole and the Doctor discuss the text, the Doctor tries to send them away after the man with the gun. Bill says something along the lines of “we don’t even know if he’s still alive” - at which point we hear a bang, and the Doctor’s sensors give a “no life signals detected” warning for the guy. And there’s a line like “guess we know now”.

(suicide as a throwaway joke)

The Doctor convinces Nardole and Bill to go off exploring while he looks at the text. There’s a cringe-inducing moment where Nardole, the bumbling assistant, gives this meant-to-be-authoritative speech to Bill about how she needs to stay behind him for her safety. Bill is impressed and obeys, saying “Are you secretly a badass?” all admiring.

(Cringe. Ugh. There was something incredibly patronising about that speech.)

They find the portal, go through and find a round room full of glowy lights, with a circle of pillars in the middle and portals all along the wall. They head through a portal and end up in CERN, where they bump into a man in a white coat drinking from a bottle, who seems cheerful in a desperate way. He invites them along and they end up in the dining room, where a bunch of other scientists are all sitting looking scared, and a timer counts down from five minutes. Bill looks under the tables, where bombs are strapped. She gets into a discussion with one of the scientists, who tells her they’re killing themselves to save the world, that this isn’t the real world, and when she doesn’t believe him, he asks her to say a random number. Each time Bill says a number, Nardole says exactly the same number at the same time, and after the first few tries the rest join in, each time giving all the same numbers. The scientist calls it a shadow test. With only a few seconds left on the timer, Nardole drags Bill away. They run off, and the scientists get blown up.

They end up in the round room with all the portals again, where Nardole says the pillars remind him of projectors. He realises what the shadow test is for, saying it’s possible the people at CERN where right and that they are just a projection - but he doesn’t understand, because he checked the coordinates on the Tardis and they were real. Unless...  Then Nardole, with an expression of pure fear, muttering please let me be wrong, walks slowly to the pillars/projectors. As soon as he puts his hands beyond the projectors, he starts falling apart in pixels, screaming in terror I’m not real, Bill! I’m not real!

(do I... do I even need to explain how disturbing this is?)

Bill, in a panic, goes to find the Doctor. The Doctor has started to read the text but got interrupted by scary monsters in cardinal robes, who tell him when he yells this isn’t a game,  “this *is* a game”. But the Doctor escapes, with the text. Bill follows his traces through a portal which leads to the Pentagon, and the Oval Office, where the Doctor is waiting and someonelse  eis sitting with his back to us, slumped in a chair. “Is that the president?” “Was the president.” There’s a gun next to him.

(I lack the words, tbh)

The Doctor then finally explains. The text talks about how an Evil Monster wants to conquer the world, so it creates an exact holographic simulation copy of the real world to practice in, full of simulation-versions of real people. But the simulation is so good that the simulated people start developing independent intelligence. The people at CERN and at the Pentagon were simulations; their suicide wasn’t desperation but an act of resistance, preventing the Evil Monster from learning from them. The shadow test is mentioned in the text too; computers aren’t good with random numbers, so one test to see if you’re a simulation or not is to write down what you think are random numbers, then see if someone else got the exact same numbers. Bill, scared, says she gave the same numbers as the others too. The Doctor says I know, and Bill, terrified, dissolves into pixels. The monsters then come back in (they’re properly scary, btw, look like decomposing corpses) and tell the Doctor that he can’t do anything, that they’re keeping him alive to learn from his suffering. The Doctor almost gives up, then remembers something River once said (real goodness is goodness when there’s no hope, no reward and no witness) and he - somehow - sends an email with the entire recording of everything that happened since they went to the Vatican to the real Doctor (he was wearing his sonic sunglasses the whole time because he’s blind - long story, but they recorded what happened). 

Screen goes to static, and we’re back at the very first scene, with the Doctor receiving the Extremis email and looking at it. He calls Bill, asks her if she’s on a date - she’s not - and then encourages her to call up the girl from the date, even though Bill says she’s way out of her league, because Something big and evil is coming and we’re going to be very busy soon. Roll credits; writer: Steven Moffat.

There’s also a sideplot with Missy being executed, only the Doctor backs out of the execution at the last moment and instead locks her up in a vault for thousand years which he vows to protect. Missy begs for her life and calls the Doctor her friend, and at the end of the episode the Doctor leans in to the vault and asks for her help. Horribly out of character, in short.

So. Plotwise? Bollocks. Really. Nothing makes sense. A simulation complex enough to mimic the entire history of the Earth can’t do random numbers? (it’s the same trick he used in a Christmas Special, btw, where it was a Dream Test - originality is not Moffat’s strong point). Some people have to kill themselves, while others just dissolve? How does a simulation send an email to a real person? etc etc.

Then there’s the implications. The whole thing is steeped in derealisation, suicide is fucking everywhere and actually treated as a solution, the Vatican and the Pope are cuddly allies and religion is everywhere. I didn’t see the end of the credits but I do fucking hope they put in the usual helpline-thing the BBC adds after showing triggering content.

We’re right back at the worst of Moffat’s last few seasons. For five episodes we’ve had villains who turned out to be not actually evil but simply the victim of severe misunderstanding; we’ve had curiosity and wanting to help as the Doctor’s main motivation; we’ve had explicit pacifism; we’ve had enemies that basically come down to “capitalism”, “racism” and “the patriarchy” (no, really, I swear). 

And now, it’s another generic Big Evil Monster, it’s throwaway gay jokes with no follow up, and it’s arguably the most fucked-up underlying message I’ve ever seen in a Doctor Who episode. I mean, I thought the billion-years-of-repeated-torture was an unbeatable high in making me feel disgusted and uncomfortable, but I’ve never been as grossed out as I was during this episode.

[pennyisalesbian]

Barnaben Headcanons

Ben first saw Barnaby during their second year. It was his laugh that caught his attention – how it was loud and big, how it made Professor Flitwick smile even as he shushed the class. It was infectious, and even over the clamor of the great hall, Ben still sometimes heard that laugh drifting from the Slytherin table.

Barnaby first noticed Ben during their third year. He’d undoubtedly passed him in hallways or shared a class with him, of course, but he’d had never had any reason to really notice him, until the day they came face to face. 

It was because of Merula, naturally. She stuck out her foot to trip Ben, which was a trick he really should have been wiser to, but he’d been distracted. He skinned his knees on the floor, his books spilling everywhere, and he scrambled to pick them up while Merula and Ismelda laughed.

“Aw, poor clumsy mudblood,” Merula sneered. “Do you need help picking those up?” 

He didn’t answer, of course; he blinked back stinging tears and hurried to gather everything before they decided to do something worse.

And then someone set the last of his books into his hands, and Ben looked up to meet Barnaby’s eyes.

He ran down the hall a split second later, and he just barely overheard Barnaby’s protests of “But you said he needed help! I was helping!”

After that, nothing changes much for Ben; Barnaby is still his loud self, still in the background during meals and shared classes. The only difference now is that Barnaby is also there when Merula casts a stinging hex on him, or whispers slurs just loud enough for him to hear, or does any of the hundred tiny things that Ben is starting to get used to.

But things change for Barnaby. He starts to see Ben, sitting by himself at the end of the Gryffindor table, in the back of their shared classes, tucked into the shadows whenever Merula passes by—and whenever Barnaby passes by. Nothing changes, exactly. But Ben isn’t invisible anymore.

They officially meet after Barnaby joins their friend group, finally ditching Merula. Ben introduces himself, trying to act as though he doesn’t know him, hasn’t heard his laugh so often he has it memorized. To Barnaby, it’s as though he doesn’t remember all the times Barnaby has stood by while Merula bullies him, so he takes the fresh start, and he introduces himself as a stranger too.

Their friendship is rocky at first. They have few common interests, so there’s no reason for them to spend time together. Occasionally they happen to be in the same place at the same time, and they say hello when they pass each other in the hallways, but it never goes past that.

Until Barnaby nearly trips over a panicking Ben in the hall between classes.

He has never seen anything like this before, and he’s terrified. Ben shakes and shudders, barely breathing and whimpering fragmented pleas that Barnaby can’t make sense of. He doesn’t know what to do, or how to help, but he sits next to Ben anyway. He talks quietly and softly to reassure him, he holds his hands towards Ben without touching him to make sure he knows that he is here, and he waits until he knows that Ben is okay.

Eventually, Ben’s breathing slows. He’s still shaking badly, and he slumps against Barnaby in exhaustion. Barnaby waits longer still, talking gently all the while, until Ben starts to explain.

“It just happens sometimes; I’ll get too worried and it’ll all build up, and then it comes out like this. I already told Madam Pomfrey, and there’s nothing she can do about it except administer one of those draughts of peace to stop an attack once it’s started. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. I try not to rely on that.”

Ben shows Barnaby the artefact room where he hides whenever the panic attacks happen. They skip their next class, Ben dozing against Barnaby’s shoulder while he hums softly.

After that, their interests suddenly start to align. Barnaby asks Ben to tutor him in charms, and Ben requests some extra help in care of magical creatures. Ben walks beside Barnaby whenever he gets the chance – because he’s not going to pass up on that level of protection from Merula’s threats – and Barnaby checks in on him as often as possible, making sure he’s doing all right and finding an excuse to give him a break if he isn’t.

Whenever Ben isn’t doing all right, Barnaby sits with him in the artefact room. They talk, or they sit in silence, or whatever will help Ben most until things are okay again.

Barnaby does his best to catch Ben before he slips too far into his anxiety, but sometimes he can’t get there fast enough. Sometimes there isn’t anything he can do, like when someone drops a jar in potions class and the shattering sound immediately sends Ben into a panic attack, and all that’s left is to get him somewhere quiet as quickly as possible and wait it out.

He waits, as long as he has to, every time. Sometimes it’s a few minutes, and he’s all right afterwards. Sometimes they skip classes for the rest of the day while an exhausted Ben sleeps curled up next to Barnaby, tear tracks still staining his cheeks.

Barnaby doesn’t know how to describe the feelings inside of him when he looks at Ben. They are too big, too complex to name, so he doesn’t. He tucks them away inside of himself to study more, and he runs his fingers through Ben’s hair while he sleeps.

Ben is the first to notice how difficult reading is for Barnaby. Barnaby is not stupid, of that Ben is convinced, and so he doesn’t accept Barnaby’s “I’m too dumb to read” excuses. He enlists Rowan’s help with research, and together they present Barnaby with the possibility that he could be dyslexic.

It’s not a diagnosis, of course. They’d need a doctor for that, and since wizards don’t seem to know anything about dyslexia, it’s pretty much out of the question. But Barnaby, who had never before considered that his trouble with reading could be anything other than innate stupidity, is overjoyed all the same.

(It’s a good excuse to have Ben read to him.)

Ben works up the nerve to talk to Professor McGonagall about it, and she agrees to talk to Dumbledore and Snape about making some changes in Barnaby’s schoolwork assignments and requirements – including more verbal reports and hands-on study with less written essays, while he continues to practice his reading with Ben.

It’s a good start, Ben thinks, and Barnaby rewards him with a crushing hug that drives all the breath from his lungs. When Barnaby steps back, he’s beaming, face flushed with excitement, green eyes sparkling in the sunlight, and he laughs that big, full laugh.

And for some reason, Ben still can’t get any air into his lungs.

They’re not aware of the exact moment they go from being friends to inseparable, but it’s somewhere between Christmas and Easter during their fourth year. At the end of the year, they plan which classes they’ll be taking in the fall, marking out which they’ll be sharing and when their free study periods are to work together in the library.

At the same time, they start talking about their future plans, because O.W.L.s are next year, which means they need to start thinking about it. Barnaby knows he wants to do something with creatures, and Ben agrees of course. A magizoologist, maybe. Charlie wants to work with dragons, Ben tells Barnaby, but Barnaby shakes his head. He likes all of the animals. He can’t pick just one.

Then it’s Ben’s turn, and he freezes up. He’s never thought about the future before, and he doesn’t know what to say. He’s good at charms, okay at arithmancy and history, and not absolutely horrible at care of magical creatures, although that’s mostly thanks to Barnaby. But where does that leave him? Even though it’s been four years since he learned what he was, Ben is still overwhelmed by the wizarding world. There is so much he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t even know what his skills mean.

“It’s okay,” Barnaby promises. “We’ll figure it out.”

That’s how he says it. We. Barnaby and Ben, together. And Ben sits there in the middle of the library, trying to process, trying to unravel the tangle of thoughts and emotions inside of him. Barnaby works on, completely unaware, humming softly to himself, and something shifts inside of Ben.

He blurts it out, all in one breath. “Barnaby-I-think-I’m-in-love-with-you.”

Silence follows, and he rushes to fill it. Maybe not in love, he corrects, in like? He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, he just knows that Barnaby is his best friends, his favorite person in the world, and he makes him feel safe and wanted and what he wants more than any job is just what he’d said, we’ll figure it out, Barnaby and Ben together to work out whatever went wrong.

The words keep tumbling out – he loves his smile, and the time he spends on his hair, and the way he slings an arm over Ben’s shoulder or taps his hand or touches his knee for emphasis in his regular conversations, the way his eyes unfocus when he’s listening to Ben read and Ben can see that he’s completely lost himself in the words, and his laugh, god, he loves his laugh –

 – and Barnaby listens, watches, until the words run out and Ben stops, shaking slightly, waiting for his reaction.

“You like me,” Barnaby clarifies. Ben nods, breathless. Barnaby feels a hundred things run through him all at once, and he doesn’t quite know what to say.

But then he does, because even after this, nothing has really changed. Ben is still the same Ben, and Barnaby still feels the same way towards him as he had an hour earlier. Now, he just knows it for sure.

“Ben,” Barnaby says, and there’s so many other things he should say first – that he likes him too; he loves his sense of humor, his stubborn loyalty, how even when he’s completely terrified he still puts himself on the line for his friends; he loves his freckles and his reading voice and the way he cuddles against the nearest person whenever he gets drowsy, but doesn’t seem to remember it again after he wakes; how he wishes he could take away everything that has ever hurt him and protect him from the panic attacks that won’t leave him alone – he should say all those things first. But he’s waited too long, and he says this instead.  

“Ben, can I kiss you?”

[nebulous-frog]

I Got You

Summary: Soulmates AU where you get injured when you meet your soulmate for the first time, indicated by a mark from the age of 10, red meaning serious damage, yellow being moderate, green being simple (surgery required, broken bones, sprains or bruises)

Word Count: 1734

Pairing: Phan

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: Only a few swears

Author’s Note: I’ve now written another soulmates AU with the same marks system, which you can find here

Link to AO3 Fics Masterlist

Phil was an odd case. As a small child, he was always so adventurous and caring, but also extremely clumsy and different from the rest of the kids at his school. So it came of no surprise when he was odd with his soulmate marks, too. On his tenth birthday, he woke up and dashed over to a mirror to find them. Most people only had one or two, and they marked where and how badly he would get injured when he first met his soulmate. Green was for anything from light bruising to sprained ankles, yellow was for the simple cases of broken bones, and red was for anything requiring corrective surgery, which could include badly broken bones. Phil was so excited to see his finally and looked in his mirror to find that he had green splotches all over his arms and chest, even some on his back. All in all, there were seven distinct marks, ranging in sizes from the size of a golfball to a softball. 

 For years afterward, he had to suffer through the teasing and taunting of others who had only one mark. They said that his seven marks proved his clumsiness and thus made him an outcast. It didn't make sense to him, as, to him, it just confirmed that he definitely, 100% (he might even say 700%) had a soulmate out there, somewhere, waiting for him to trip up some stairs and into their life. 

    ~14 years later~

    All Phil wanted was to buy his groceries. He figured that wasn't too much to ask for, just a quick stop at his local supermarket for some bread and maybe (okay probably) some marshmallows that he didn't really need, but he was apparently wrong. His trip resulted in a plethora of irritating and unexpected accidents. It began when he was halfway to the store and the uncharacteristically beautiful day became a downpour of rain, huge droplets pummeling the umbrella-less Phil, and got worse from there. He ran the remainder of the way to the store, lungs burning, and slipped and fell hard on his ass after taking two steps inside. He carefully got up as people continued streaming in through the doors and limped over to the bread aisle, hunched over to minimize the back pain he was experiencing. Finally, as soon as he picked up a loaf of bread, a smooth voice asked from behind him "Are you okay?" and scared the ever-loving shit out of him, causing him to drop the loaf of bread, flail his arms into someone's face, AND fall over into the shelves, which promptly broke and deposited all the bread on those shelves on top of poor Phil's head. 

 "Oh my god!" the smooth voice exclaimed. 

 "Ow," Phil groaned. 

 "I am so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that oh now look what I've done," the voice above Phil was babbling, but he wasn't paying any attention. He had given up and opted to lie on the floor in a pile of bread, soaking wet and feeling sorry for himself. 

 I guess this is my life now. Lying on a probably disgusting floor in a supermarket after attempting to get bread and absolutely humiliating myself. Oh well, he thought. 

 "Sir?" The voice was back, interrupting his pity-party. 

 Phil looked up to see the most attractive man he had ever seen in his entire life. He was wearing a uniform from the store and had straight brown hair that Phil thought was probably softer than a cloud and his eyes, though clouded with worry, sparkled in the dull artificial lighting just enough for Phil to see flecks of gold and black amidst the chocolate brown. 

 "Sir?" the voice, now known to Phil as Ridiculously Hot Guy, asked again. 

 Phil snapped to his senses. "Oh, h-hi." Wow, Phil, how articulate of you. 

 "Are you alright?"

 "Um. I think so?" 

 "Can you stand?"

Phil sat up then looked around himself at all the bread. He carefully began to stand, feeling mostly just sore from falling on his butt twice now and the flailing from earlier. He looked at Ridiculously Hot Guy again, who was eyeing him with concern, only to notice that his nose was bleeding. 

 "Oh, um," Phil looked for a name tag, "Dan. I think your nose is bleeding?" 

 Dan's eyes widened and his hand flew up to his nose, wincing at the contact, and pulled it back to see a spot of red. He sighed. "That explains a lot. I guess you broke my nose when you fell over."

 "Oh my god I am so sorry, is there anything I can do to help you?" 

 Dan snorted, then looked pain at the action. "You fell over because of me and you're asking if I need help?" 

 "I hit you in the face, it's the least I can do!" 

 "I'm fine, really," Dan tried to insist.

 Phil sternly put his hand on Dan's shoulder and started to direct him down the aisle. "Where's the first aid center here? There is a first aid center, right?" 

 Sighing in defeat, Dan nodded. "Yeah, it's over here." He led the way to the corner of the store. 

 "Louise? We had a bit of an accident in the bread aisle, could you help?" Dan called to the blond nurse. 

 "Oh my god, you look horrible!" Louise exclaimed. She rushed over to them and ushered Dan, who appeared to be more seriously injured, into the chair. "What happened?" 

 Phil cringed at the thought of reliving the horrific incident of his clumsiness. "Well-"

 "I scared him and he accidentally hit me in the face and then he fell over and knocked the entire aisle of bread on top of himself," Dan explained with a slightly amused smile. Apparently he was not as embarrassed by the event as Phil, unsurprisingly. 

 Phil blushed a deep red. "I am really sorry about that, by the way," he said, watching as Louise inspected Dan's nose. 

 "Oh my god, Dan!" she squealed. 

 "Not exactly the best thing to yell when looking at someone's face, Louise! What is it?" Dan asked, slightly panicked. 

 "Your mark!"

 "What?"

 "Your soulmate mark, the yellow one on your nose!"

 "Yes, thank you for reminding me that the mark I've had for years is yellow and on my n- oh my god. Oh my god!" Dan stared at Phil with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. 

 "I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something..." Phil said, thoroughly confused. 

 Louise jumped excitedly. "Dan just broke his nose where his yellow soulmate mark is!" 

 "Oh... oh! Oh my god! Wait!" Phil looked at his arm, where his clearest of many green splotches had appeared at the age of ten. Sure enough, a purplish bruise was beginning to grow over it. "We're soulmates!" 

 Dan was sitting on the medical chair, staring at Phil in awe. "I- we- uh- hi," he stuttered. He was caught completely off guard by this turn of events; after all, who meets their soulmate by scaring the crap out of them at a grocery store?

 Phil giggled and stuck his hand out. "Hi. I'm Phil Lester. It's nice to finally meet you." 

 "Dan Howell. It's nice to meet you, too." Dan had ducked his head down to try to hide his blush but failed miserably. Phil giggled again as they shook hands. 

 The moment ended as Louise, unable to contain herself any longer, began to gush, "You guys are so cute! I can't believe I just witnessed you meeting your soulmate, Dan! That's amazing! Wait until I tell everyone, they're going to be so excited for you!" 

 Dan and Phil blocked her out as she continued to spout random nonsense about how happy she was. They were in shock, more than anything else. 

 "I can't believe that I just needed some bread and then this happened. Oh my god, I'm all wet, too, I probably look like a drowned rat! What a great first impression, I came in the store like a madman, soaking wet, fell over, hit you in the face, and fell over again. Of course that's how I'd meet my soulmate," Phil began babbling. He couldn't help it; he was just so nervous and terrible in awkward situations and Dan was so attractive, which helped absolutely nothing. 

 Dan stood up from his chair quickly and hugged Phil. "I think you look amazing and I don't care that you hit me in the face and broke my nose because we finally got to meet each other. It was sort of my fault anyways, so don't worry about it. I'm fine." 

 Louise seemed to snap back to attention after Dan mentioned his broken nose again. "Your nose! I haven't done anything yet, oh that must hurt. Let me help you," she said, herding Dan back into his chair. 

 Phil reluctantly let Dan be pulled away from him and sat down in an extra chair. Once Louise was done putting a splint on Dan's nose (Phil giggled at how silly it looked), she quickly checked Phil for injuries, but he was only bruised. She recommended that Dan talk to his manager and take the rest of the day off, allegedly to recover a bit from his broken nose but really to just spend time with Phil. They walked out of the store and hurried through the rain to Phil's house, spending hours just getting to know each other. By the end of the night, they were cuddled up close on the couch, carefully avoiding any bruises or other injuries on each other.

 "Can you imagine telling people how we met?" whispered Dan. "It seems so fitting, from what I know about you and my own life, that we met because of you being clumsy."

 Phil gently smacked Dan. "Hey, it was you that scared me so much! Besides, you tripped while we ran to my house, so I'm not the only clumsy one here."

 "But I didn't break your nose when I tripped." 

 "Oh, rub it in, why don't you," Phil grumbled, "So rude." 

 "Wait. Didn't you go to the store to get bread?" 

 "... yes..." 

 "You never actually got bread did you. After all that, you still don't have any bread," Dan teased. 

 Phil groaned. "Oh well. I didn't get any bread, but I got you, so I guess it wasn't a horrible day in the end." 

[swtorramblings]

On Vaylin

I am re-posting this, my rough draft of a post that I wrote to my main blog when I found that my annoyance with certain game events aggravated me so badly I needed a place to publicly vent. I tried to move it here and broke the whole thing, so lost some of the edits and other information (I’m still learning the ropes). I still want to have it up, but I am also not putting in the tags it used to have. I am trying to be more positive, now, though I will have one more negative, but somewhat calmer, post on the subject in the near future, because even after a month and a half it still gets to me.

I am going on a rant about the SWTOR expansion, Knights of the Eternal Throne. I don’t think anyone is likely to see this that, 1. Cares about SWTOR, 2. Cares about my opinion of SWTOR, 3. Doesn’t already know the plot of KOTET. If I’m wrong, note that there are spoilers ahead.

Too long, didn’t read: Vaylin’s fate is for crap, a badly told mess even if the basic plot of “man and woman enter, only man can leave” wasn’t already a problem.

Note: I’m not really looking for debate. I’m just venting. But, if you must, keep it civil. My ire is meant for Bioware and for the people who have approached disagreements on this subject rudely.

Now, my therapy will begin.

I will be up front about my core bias: I have seen enough stories where a man and a woman fulfill similar roles in the story, have similar experiences, and, in this case, commit similar crimes (of type if not of scale), but the man survives and the woman doesn’t. I was never, ever going to like this plotline. Give us the choice to save both, give us the choice of which one can be saved (Bioware loves that), or don’t let us save either. All would be better, though I prefer the first two.

I fully understand that she was written without those little moments of remorse that he was. I do understand what Bioware was going for. It’s not difficult to see, it was unsubtle. It was also hamfisted and obnoxious. So don’t tell me how obvious it was that she was too far gone and like that: I’m well aware. I just don’t find it to be a good story, especially with so much of how it was handled. They chose to make her that way, they did not have to, and even in making that choice they could have done better.

Finally, I recognize this is a game. It is also, however, a story, and how we tell and share stories is important to me, and this one was awful. Bioware tried to tell a tale of tragedy and familial abuse and mental illness and brainwashing, in an action game with a trinary response, and the lack of nuance didn’t do them any favors. If they couldn’t tell the story with care and sensitivity, they shouldn’t have told it at all.

Vaylin irredeemable. Why? Because mummy and brother can’t find any good in her with their Detect Good spell? Please. Because daddy says she is like a wild animal? Please squared. They should get no say whatsoever.

I swear, whether or not Vaylin ultimately must die I wanted the option to tell them all off. When they say something like that, I want to say, <point to Senya> “You feared her and abandoned her.” <point to Arcann> “You neglected her and killed her brother. Out of everyone living outside of my head, you two are the most responsible for what she has become. Neither of you have any say in how we are going to handle this. And we’re going to do what we can to save her. Period. And if you want any more reason than she’s your family, or the horrible things you both allowed to happen to her, or your own empathy, Valkorian is telling me she has to die, and I refuse to do what that monster says. Are we clear?”

Oh, and that bit where you get the option to tell her that Valkorian wants you to kill her? To try to talk her down? That’s the Light option, Bioware. You’re irredeemable is the neutral option. How hard is that to figure out?

Because she’s a threat to your troops? No. The moment you tell them that Valkorian wants her dead, they should be changing their blasters to stun settings. Well, if those exist in TOR, if they haven’t been invented yet, someone should get on that (and if they do every single light side character should carry one, even if they are clumsy and random, for situations like this). But your troops know what he is, and should be willing to help you out here.

Because she killed a lot of people, including your buddy (speaking of hamfisted story telling)? Arcann killed HK-55 (but, you know, droid, and anti-droid bigotry is certainly a thing in Star Wars, even with otherwise light-side types) and almost certainly many times as many people. I do hope you don’t have him with you if your reason to kill her is because of her crimes (and if you executed him for his, congratulations, you are more consistent with your actions than the game company known for its awesome stories. I say, without irony, good job).

Because she’s killed your buddy and you want revenge? Point. I have no rebuttal, but then, I don’t really have a problem you being able to choose to kill her, here (aside from my “Bioware created an awful and poorly told story of familial abuse where you have to/get to kill the victims” thing), my problem is that you have to kill her but you can save Arcann.

Because she slaughtered her troops with her force powers when they annoyed her or just to show off? Again, hope you haven’t saved Arcann after halving his own forces. Just because she does it herself doesn’t mean he’s less heinous, and magical force powers healed him.

Because she’s too broken to live? That’s really the crux of what Bioware was going for: her mind was crippled by Valkorian and can never be gotten back to what it was. Her sanity can never be restored so we have to kill her because of the combination of her powers and her madness. Well, even if I fully accepted this, I want to be allowed to show sympathy within the game. Yeah, I can pretend that’s what the Outlander is really doing, but some things I’d like explicitly stated, and this is one of those. Just say you’re sorry you have to do this before stabbing or shooting her. I wouldn’t like it, as I said, but it’s a small step up, anyway. And they couldn’t give us that option.

Mock her like a villain? You can. Ask her to surrender? You can. Show sympathy and offer help? No, not really. Not use the command phrase, or even show a shred of sorrow or even embarrassment over its use? Nope, and you’re going to expose it to the galaxy, her shame, her lack of control, the awfulness of her parents! I can’t imagine why she hates you so much, especially with her awful family around you, but you did that to her

This is an abuse victim. Further, she had directed attempts to break her mind, body, and spirit to make her into something else. These things happened. The fact that you walk up to her, close enough to touch, with what sounds like whimpering and fear being the only sounds she’s making, and stab or shoot her is disgusting. If she’s supposed to be just Pure Evil, at least let her be ranting at the end. If she’s supposed to be Irredeemably Broken, pretty much the same. That bit of whimpering both makes her seem like someone not really all that dangerous and someone that I want to save. She made the same noises when you most recently defeat her, while she’s on her hands and knees before you, too. Shame you couldn’t have acted before she bubbled up, hero. Perhaps irrational, but there it is.

Because she doesn’t ask? Because she doesn’t want to be saved? Uhm, and? Bioware tried very hard to present her as completely gone, and why. She doesn’t get to choose whether the people around her are going to at least try to help her. Does that take away her agency as a character? Maybe, but I’d argue that her agency was already taken away by her father (and, by extension, the writers) a long time ago. In fact, note in Chapter 9: “Choice. I could get used to that.” At that point, after death, she has agency. Shame she couldn’t have gained some before that, like, by the Outlander trying to save her.

I actually think she was borderline suicidal. She fought beyond what was reasonable when already defeated, there at the end. When, after you continued her abuse by using her command phrase, she retreated and tortured herself, she shouts out not that she doesn’t want to die, but that she doesn’t want to die “in this place”. Scant evidence, since “not like this” is something people that don’t seem otherwise to want to die sometimes say. But, combined with what she has been through and her constant control by others (I’m looking at you, Outlander), it seems at least plausible. I don’t think it’s what the writers were going for, but I can’t unthink it, and it makes “she didn’t ask to be saved” take on a very different, and much worse, meaning.

Because she’s too dangerous? Maybe. There are some signs of it. She’s certainly been defeated often enough, but, yeah, her power is unlocked! Oh, wait, you beat her again. But, now she has that bubble thing, maybe it’s just going to keep going, burning her out and blowing up your base, if she’s not killed. Maybe her rage would drive her troops forward, even if she was unconscious or, say, in carbonite. It would be nice to have one of those explicitly stated before killing her, because at that point the decision to do that rather than try to take her alive makes more sense.

You had to kill the suicidal woman because she was going to kill everyone around you and it was the only way to stop her? Fine. Show some remorse that it came to that, lightsider. Show some empathy. Really all I want given the choice has already been made by the writers that she must die.

Honestly, there’s an episode of Justice League Unlimited where Batman sits down with Ace while she is dying and just stays with her. A moment like that would have been so much better for the nice characters. Instead, “You’re irredeemable!” stab/shot in the gut.

Maybe you just don’t have a non-lethal weapon. Maybe you should get one, we have them on Earth and can’t even break the speed of light or form light into a solid cutting tool.

Because it’s too risky to try to save her, long term? If you wanted the easy way, you’d have used the Emperor’s power every time he offered it, but you didn’t do that, even to save Lana, did you? But, then, accepting his advice and help is probably a bad idea. What did he tell you to do with his daughter and other family members, again?

Because she was always evil? Many of the things I’ve griped about are open to interpretation, this one included. There were moments when she could be interpreted to have a vicious streak as a little girl. She smiled when the guards died (I still believe that the guards should be hurt, not dead, because Senya should have talked about this instead of the crippled guard if Vaylin killed her sparring partners, but I digress). I interpret that as her happiness in showing off her power, and the moment after that as her guilt realizing what had happened. But, sure, the Dark Side could be interpreted as there, even then.

But that bubbly little girl, bouncing up and down with excitement while her big brothers spar? She’s evil? No. Just no. I fear I have no cogent argument to give on this subject, but I don’t accept it, anyway. They can’t all be gems. My entire diatribe is about how the Outlander should have been portrayed as more emotional, if the player so chooses, and I’m not immune myself.

Conclusion: I’m not happy that you are forced to kill an abuse victim, a mentally disturbed woman who, yes, has committed heinous crimes. This isn’t the right venue for such a story, if any venue is. I am doubly disgusted by the way it was approached, with the hero of the story mocking her and taking advantage of her weakness forced on her by the villain for tactical reasons. You don’t use the command phrase to capture her, or even really to save people nearby: it was always your plan to reveal the results of her abuse to the galaxy. I don’t like that you don’t appear to try to help her until after she’s dead, and are unable to choose to show any kind of remorse for what you must do. They took a story that would have annoyed me and made it into something really grotesque. Good job, Bioware.

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