#okay i think i'm gonna start putting details i want ppl to notice in the tags

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

The Winged Servant - 5

cws: multiple whumpers mentioned (only one doing actual whumping here), winged whumpee, electrocution by shock collar, royal whumper, mentions of restricting food, accidental self-harm, let me know if I missed anything!

masterlist

“Honestly, I feel like just letting you skip dinner would be a better fitting punishment.” I did my best to keep my wings from shaking while Prince Ryan tightened the collar by one notch. “You were late giving her food, so your food is restricted. Natural consequences and all that. But you know how she is about corporal punishment. And since she’s the one you messed up in front of, she gets to decide.”

He fiddled with the remote, presumably changing the settings so that it would hurt more. I would not shake. I needed to be able to stay composed.

“You’re getting three shocks. One for each minute you were late. Does that seem fair?”

“I will accept whatever punishment you see as fit, Your Highness.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I know you will.”

The first shock wasn’t bad. I arched my back and gasped a little, but it was almost the same as the shocks that woke me up every morning.

The second shock would be worse. That was how it worked—the shock was a bit stronger every time. The worst part wasn’t the actual shock, though. No, the worst part was waiting for the next one and not being sure when it would come. I closed my eyes so that I couldn’t stare at the remote, waiting for the shock to hit. I took a slow breath, and-

Fuck.

A strangled noise escaped my throat, and I bit down on my fist to keep any more sound from getting out. I bit until I tasted blood, trying not to sway, before I finally dropped my hand back to my side. “Sorry, I- My apologies. Your Highness.”

“You’re good. You can make noise if you’d like.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Mm. You wanna sit down for the third one? Your legs already look pretty shaky, and the last one is always the worst."

Had they always been this bad? Before I’d been properly trained, I’d had to sit through ten, getting worse at every level, and here I was with shaky legs at the second level.

“I need an answer, Onyx. It’s not like I electrocuted you enough to kill your vocal chords.”

“My apologies, Your Highness. I’ll- yeah, I’ll sit down. Thank you for offering.”

Her Majesty liked it when I was graceful. Prince Ryan wasn’t as particular, which was good, because I wasn’t sure how much gracefulness I had left in me as I collapsed to my knees. Tears pricked at the edges of my eyes, and I took a slow breath. Crying wouldn’t help me right now. Crying would probably make everything worse, because I’d already been told not to. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe-

Fuck fuck fuck that fucking hurts fuck.

It took a moment for my eyes to focus on Prince Ryan’s face in front of me. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d kept my eyes closed or if the shock had been bad enough to mess with my eyesight, but it didn’t really matter.

“Breathe,” Prince Ryan told me, pulling the collar off. “You’ve done this before. You’re okay.” I nodded, trying to stay focused, and he tilted my chin up, making sure there wasn’t any damage that would last. “You did such a good job.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” My voice was slightly raspy. Had I screamed during the last shock? I didn’t remember screaming, but that didn’t mean much.

“It’s been awhile since you’ve had this particular punishment, hasn’t it?” Prince Ryan wondered, but he didn’t look like he really wanted a response. “A year at least. I suppose whatever tolerance you’d had for the higher levels has left.” His fingers ghosted over where I’d bit into my hand, but didn’t quite make contact. “I’m not going to clean that. It’s small. It’ll be fine as long as you don’t pick at the scab, but please don’t do that again.”

“Do what, Your Highness?”

“Bite yourself. You didn’t mean to, did you?”

“No, Your Highness. My apologies.”

“You’re fine for today, but I can’t have you hurting yourself while I’m trying to punish you for specific things, alright? It’ll mess with your conditioning. If you get back into that habit I'm going to start muzzling you for punishments again. No one wants that.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” I did not want that. I would take whatever the royal family gave me during punishments, of course, because good servants did not have wants, but the texture of the bit in the muzzle always made me feel weird.

“Good. Okay. Tell me what you did wrong.”

“My sincerest apologies, Your Highness. I shouldn’t have been late taking Her Majesty's breakfast to her. It won’t happen again. Thank you for punishing me so that I remember not to repeat my mistakes.”

“Good boy,” he murmured, running fingers through my hair, and I let myself lean into his touch. That was always the phrase that meant we were done. I had done well enough. I wouldn’t be punished any more.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Do you need a second? You’ve got about twelve minutes until Jayden needs your help serving dinner, and as long as you’re there on time, I don’t care if you take a break for now.”

“I, um.” I blinked hard. “Servants exist to please the crown, Your Highness. I don’t need-”

“I’m offering a break to you, Onyx. If you’d rather make sure dinner is all prepared, you can do that, but I won’t object if you’d like a few minutes to recover. We’re going to be… leaving for a bit tonight, and I don’t want you all pitiful and anxious like you were earlier. Okay?”

Prince Cardan was the only one who ever tried to trick me into things, but this felt like a trap. Prince Ryan looked serious, and like he wasn’t making fun of me, and wouldn’t it be rude to refuse a gift offered to me? “Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Make sure to turn the light off when you leave the room.”

I didn’t cry when he left, because I was down to probably eleven minutes and that almost certainly wasn’t enough time to cry. It’d have to be enough time to pull myself together, though. If I could do it in the three minutes I had before the punishment, I could do it in the eleven minutes after.

Breathe in, breathe out. I could do this, I knew how. Crying served no purpose and I didn’t need to do it.

Nine minutes left, I estimated.

Nine would have to do.

~

taglist: @kaleidoscope-of-thoughts @toyybox @rainydaywhump

[prapaiwife]

Another Breakdown on episode 8 love in the air prapai and sky that no one asked for lol💨☁️

With love in the air almost just about 2 years later and my countless rewatches 😙 I want to talk about prapai and sky story arc in more detail from my pov!

Episode 8 (the first meeting) so with their first meeting I'm not going to lie it wasn't the most romantic BUT the first time they laid eyes on each other you can already sense this attraction of both ends from them. Prapai obviously as we know being the quote on quote "playboy" he slept around. And when we rewatching I don't know if he was intending to take someone from the race track that night or not but it seemed like he made up his mind when he had made eye contact with sky. And seemingly seeing the situation he was in with being caught by the guards he swooped in and took his chance.

Speaking of them making eye contact, that scene alone is so enticing! Cause not just the music and the sudden abrupt pause of it when they lock eyes!! When watching you hear a sharp knife sound when prapai notices sky first and he's surrounded by this bright red in the back. Red is a clear sign of danger and / or desire it's very exciting and draws you into what prapai is going to do next. But also this obvious sense of confidence that prapai has in this moment he's sure of himself.

Then the purple and blue that looms over sky and then both them! (Heavily when they get into the bedroom scenes) It's kinda an ultraviolet and indigo hue. As I said again, it's so intriguing. It's passionate and intense these two when they clash intimately. Watching them talk, you have a sense of mystery cause you don't know what's gonna happen.

And this insight into the way it's shot they make prapai look like this big bad wolf. And sky looks very much so innocent and somewhat lost for words. I mean he probably is thinking of how handsome this man is, this man who just saved him. And having a sliver of hope that this guy is actually not like his ex. Because as we know sky being there already brings up a lot of unwanted feelings because he knows of this place because of his ex. And so he is surrounded as he says with a bunch of a holes because they were associated with his ex.

Also while we're here the way prapai proposed the choice for sky to leave with him or just leave the race track on his own. Cause It's at least clear to me that prapai wasn't forcing sky he gave him a choice! Prapai wouldn't have even stopped sky if he wanted to leave he would've let him go.

(Also they've shown us how pai treats the ppl he sleeps with and he's actually very kind to them he's very gentle and overall a really decent guy)

Sky chose to sleep with prapai to pay back the favor. He made that conscious decision, and you don't have to like it, of course, but he did. And it was very much a necessity as he says himself but we can also see how very much sky was in charge of it all. Cause Sky most likely was very much attracted to pai, but after pai started talking, he proved Sky's point of what he thought. Maybe prapai wasn't, and that's an asshole. Also sky is very emotionally and mentally broken he thinks so low of himself he self- loathes a lot and so he feels that he put himself in this position and sadly he believes it's all that he's good for.

When sky leaves his place we see him have this regretful look and he says it everyone he runs into is a asshole prapai is a asshole very badly of prapai which is understandable so when you know that he now

And it's telling cause prapai tells him as we know in ep 13 he wished he would have met him sooner. After hearing sky bare his heart out about everything he had went through. And sky says it's okay cause they did eventually. Especially when you know the circumstances of how they met and as know it wasn't the ideal meeting. It made Sky's first impression of prapai not look so good in the beginning. But for sky saying we did meet and he wouldn't have changed anything about how it happened. Because if he did he probably wouldn't be where he is now.

So when they go for the second round, they show sky's face, and you can see him here, forcing himself and his clear detachment from it all although he chooses to go again. After praipai initiates, he's disappointed at himself. He's mad that he's lying here in his bed that he's put himself in this position again. While prapai obviously doesn't know anything about Sky atp, when Sky Leaves, he can't even get him to tell him name! because again, for pai, this is just what he does he has one night stands.

And then the scene when sky gets the sunflowers I know sky said he didn't want it and even felt bad that he was about to even trash them but as we know he couldn't and ended up just giving them to the lady at the front desk of his apartment complex lol. But this gesture obviously really touched sky's heart even if he didn't want to actually feel anything about it he did. But immediately he did what he would usually told himself to not get his hopes up basically cause he's the last person prapai would ever actually go for. Sky doesn't want to admit it but he really liked the flowers he chuckled at prapai cheesy yet charming line of "the sunflowers facing the sky I can't be the Sun for you but whenever you see sunflowers remember that this winds watching over the sky" it's the first time someone has shown him a affectionate gesture. His fear of his trauma makes him not want to get close he talks himself out of even entertaining pai cuz a part of him does want to but he's not going to lie himself to do so. It's his obvious clear internal struggle that we see throughout their story sky arc open up his heart but to afraid to let potentially all of that hurt and pain in again.

That's all for now I wanna do this for the rest of their arc in the next coming weeks so I'll see when after love sea ends cause I'll be in my withdrawals lol

[surpriserose]

When you're not procrastinating on writing I'd love ur thoughts on the games!

okay i reached like 600 words written so

WHERE TO EVEN START???? this is gonna be long spoilers i guess but like the more relevant warning is for lots of bad shit. also mentions of car crashes, child death, rape, torture, police violence, gun violence, antisemitism, holocaust mentions, fascism, and drowning. not in too much detail but im not kidding when i say this is gonna get heavy.

Like generally david cage/quantum dream (his company) is racist specifically anti blank and anti indigenous, sexist, ableist like... just everything. I'm going to try not to speak over anyone here but its bad. Inside and out of the games. The company has an awful workplace environment that's been documented and it was one of those like... frat bro atmospheres. Which should tell you a lot about the differences between the games cage claims to make and the games he actually does. I'll get back to that with detroit become human, dbh.

omikron's not worth mentioning besides it being the first game and it being bad but having david bowie make the music for it???? that's some flash gordon and queen shit there

okay so after omikron was indigo prophecy/Fahrenheit. the different names are because there are different versions for north america and europe, with the european version having...sigh... interactive sex scenes. Thank fucking god those were removed. anyways, the story of indigo prophecy is that you play as multiple characters, the first being lucas cain whos not even a funny pathetic little meow meow he just sucks. The game starts and cain has been possessed in order to kill some random guy in a bathroom, he freaks out cleans up the scene and runs away. The other two characters are Carla valenti and tyler miles, the cops pursuing him. youll notice lots of cop characters in every game like all of them are varying degrees of copaganda. the game goes off the rails as lucas goes to see a magic blind woman who can tell him what happened too him, see lucas got possessed by some kind of nahua (but they're called aztecs) shaman? who yes...at some point turns into a panther :| and basically they want to take over the world using the indigo child, whos super special or something but she only gets introduced like thirty mintues away from the ending. also theres sentient ai who want to take over the world. also lucas has dragonball z powers.

Its a huge mess and its also really fucking racist. Like aside from the representation of the nahua you have a white va doing a racist chinese accent and wise old man shtick at one point, but its okay because that character...puts on the accent for customers? like cage thinks he did something really clever there but also carla does the same accent in a different scene so. carla also falls in love with lucas after meeting him like once and then they sleep together. cool. Tyler is also black and like...god... its so bad, hes just a collection of stereotypes and im like 95 percent sure hes voiced by a white guy. Also theres a spooky scary insane prisoners bit where you can get killed by scary CRaZy prisoners. so....yeah. Remember this when cage makes dbh a game like literally co ops civil rights era and blm terms and imagery and makes it about robots. Its the same guy who pulled this. but its okay since he says dbh isnt political...somehow.

so thats indigo prophecy but surely he got better right? Ehhhhhh critically yes, as much as i hate it critics loved both indigo prophecy and his next game, heavy rain. critical opinion has turned around after a few years, and i think they only got good reviews because theyre kind of considered groundbreaking in terms of cinematic games. or they used to be but then ppl realized how fuckin stupid and awful heavy rain was.

most people will tell you its biggest flaw goes like this, its a game that allows you to see the thoughts of the four player characters and it LIES to you. see the plot of heavy rain is ethan mars is a terrible dad. He lost one of his sons years before the plot trying to save him from getting run over and a few years later his other son gets taken by the origami killer. whos known for leaving origami dogs at the scene and taking children and then using the rain to well drown them. ethan is suspected of being the killer because he blacks out and then wakes up with origami in his hands. this was cut out of the game but the reason is in the car crash he ended up...forming a psychic link with the real killer but half of its still in the game as some kind of shitty red herring. But one of the player characters IS THE ORIGAMI KILLER, scott shelby, who never thinks about all the murders hes done even as he's investigating the murders. just literally going to all the parents of the kids hes killed like some kind of trauma tourist. also he kills someone while youre playing him and the game just... doesnt show it to you so. Like i guess he's trying to hide evidence but it would be nice if the player was allowed to KNOW that. The other characters are norman jayden, an fbi agent who just idk hes fine. if heavy rain came out a few years later he would be a tumblr sexyman thats pretty much all you need to know about him. oh he meets the only black character in the game i guess, a violent car thief called mad jack. yeah.

anyways the fourth person is madison paige. i hate her but its not her fault. she's probably the most sexist video game character in existence? like idk why people write think pieces about lara croft and bayonetta when madison is right there. see madison is a war reporter....i think...she doesn't rly seem like it. but shes introduced as having insomnia, which the game tells you by having you play a dream sequence where she walks around in her underwear, takes a shower, and then people break into her apartment and she wakes up just as they throw her on the bed :\ and that's just the start of awful scenes. she meets ethan and they have a okay its optional but its really super intended romance subplot while she heals him for no reason. Ethan's getting injured because the killer is basically putting him through saw:heavy rain trying to find out if hes a good dad or not, and if he succeeds he'll get his kids location. so madison starts investigating. idk she sucks and in her investigation she gets to go through two more attempted rape scenes because that's how david cage writes women. and yes... one of them starts off with her having to be sexy bait to get information out of a guy who later tries to assault and kill her. she just brushes all of this off tho. keep this in mind its another pattern. heavy rain sucks i think thats it

okay so cage moved on to beyond:two souls and he got elliot page and willem dafoe for some goddamn reason idk why people work with him. Elliot page had an awful time and i think sued the company. see he did mocap and acting for the main character jodie and they made textures for his breasts even though you never see them in game, which he did not consent to and there was no reason to make a fully nude model of his body. remember the work place issues i was talking about earlier? yeah.

anyways the story of beyond is jodie has special ghost powers because spoilers her twin died in the womb. its told non chronologically but for no reason except that cage doesnt know how to transition between scenes. seriously people just go places and then mention why theyre there every time. dafoe plays her father figure slash the guy studying her ghost powers because he wants to reach the ghost world and get his wife and daughter back. idk jodie is basically eleven from stranger things but this came out before that so cage didnt copy anyone....but stranger things did it way better.

basically jodie just does things for no reason until she has to save the world because dafoes character opened a ghost portal. one of those things is an attempted rape scene because jodie is a woman in a david cage game :\ at least theres some acknowledgement of trauma later but still, its not even a MAJOR scene it just HAPPENS. the other things she does inbetween being a carrie rip off are become a white savior and a cia agent. ill start with the first one

okay after running away from ah fuck it ties in with the cia thing give me a sec. okay jodie becomes a psychic cia agent because idk the government makes her she doesn't want to. she meets ryan another cia agent and her superior who is nothing but a jackass to her from day one and also hes a romance "option." quotation marks are there because even if you choose the other romance option you still have to go on a date with ryan and he kisses jodie during the climax no matter how many times she tells him to fuck off. yay. anyways jodie commits war crimes in africa, i want to say in an unnamed country featuring jodie bonding with a child soldier. and then is very surprised she committed war crimes because uh oh the cia tricked her oopsies and its rly unexpected that the cia would be involved in a regime change /s. anyways she jumps out of a plane and then is wanted for treason for being mad about doing war crimes with ryan, the guy whos okay with war crimes.

so that's where she's at when she meets oh my god i thought i just forgot it but they just dont have last names omg. okay she meets jay and his family, who are dine and GOD im sorry but this is the plot theyre haunted by a spirit they summoned to defend themselves from colonization. but it just kills indiscriminately. Jodie fixes it for them tho dont worry like im not kidding about the white savior part she just fixes everything with her ghost powers. jay is the other romance option. idk hes just there hes also kind of an ass at first but he has reason to be honestly jodie shows up out of nowhere and wont stop asking about their problems even when they tell her to stop. its... really bad. jays grandmother also dies in the process of fixing everything and they go and bury her in a sacred space and theyre just like hey jodie come on in which feels....really bad. like this is where im sure im over stepping but yeah. came out in 2013 btw.

also jodie goes back to work with ryan to stop the not chinese/north koreans from building a ghost portal because david cage made up a fictional asian country for the cia to fuck with. like its pretty blatant propaganda, like god, especially considering theres a scene where ryan is tortured and its just like guys do you not know how much america has condoned torture? hopefully that makes sense

there also another scary mental patient scene because cage is awful, its not as egregious as indigo prophecy but its another pattern in his work. I think...that's about it? beyond was also where critics started to turn around on cage FINALLY.

so this brings us to dbh where people decided they loved david cage and he was really smart again. now keep in mind when you read this, dbh came out in 2018.

okay dbh has 3 player characters. Kara, Conner, and Markus. Dbh takes place, obviously, in near future detroit and pretty much every major character is white except markus, amanda, and luther who...ill get to. The general story is...god...androids have been invented and its caused tension in america with androids....taking jobs from humans and causing the unemployment rate to skyrocket. At the same time androids are becoming deviant and therefore sentient...a lot of times killing their owners. Keep in mind...this game came out in 2018...its totally not political....but also the androids are literally kept in the back of the bus and markus' plot involves fighting for android freedom in a scene where you can literally chose the slogans for the movement, one of the options being LITERALLY I HAVE A DREAM and one of the logos you can choose being the black power fist. So its not political...but also its about race, using mostly white robots as a metaphor. you see the problem here? david cage is white but hes also literally from france if it wasn't obvious.

okay so markus starts out as basically this rich old painter guys caretaker and its a pretty amicable relationship, the guys even a father figure to markus as he literally calls him dad if he dies. anyways markus gets god...shot by the police for a crime he didnt commit and hes left for dead in a junkyard. I...its so bad i hate typing this out. anyways markus is basically android jesus and MLK or malcolm x, which ill get to. he literally comes back to life and goes to a safe haven for androids call jericho and basically takes over. The general idea of markus' plotline is as the leader and representative of the basically fuckin android civil rights movement is you have to choose between violence and pacifism. Hence the MLK or Malcolm X thing, its not accurate but that's kind of how they and the civil rights movement in general has been flattened and whitewashed by pop culture. Violence btw is associated with property damage which is literally not violent you don't even really hurt anyone. Although the game does force some...god... scenes where "bad apples" kill cops and i just like the problem is so glaring right? this is literally how right wingers and fascists view the blm movement like how come fans of dbh dont see this?? god im done talking about markus

so kara is the woman android so she gets to do basically nothing that affects the greater plot and take after a child instead. oh god im having flashbacks to karas story ill get to them. okay the main theme of karas story is human and android connections, but also the kid was an android the whole time and the game just lies to you again kara knew the whole time actually. so after rescuing alice, the kid, from her shitty not actually dad the two go on the run trying to get to canada. because canada doesnt allow androids so they can blend in. at one point the two of them go to this spooky resident evil mansion to get karas tracking chip removed but the guy tries to sell her for parts because hes basically sid from toy story. i only mention this because in this scene its possible for kara to gain an ally in luther, sid from toy story's android. luther is like fuckin 8 feet tall he's huge and hes black and before hes an ally that's used as an intimidating aspect of the scene. but really hes just the gentle giant trope and thats...kind of it. hes not even a romance option which kinds of sucks because it would really fit with cage's storylines? but luther is black and kara is white so its just not presented as an option. markus gets a romance option in north, a white android though, which feels really colorist. i could be speaking over people so im gonna stop there but yeah.

karas story gets worse though because they god...literally go to meet a black woman named rose who runs...an android underground railroad to canada. I am not kidding. Rose even mentions shes doing this because of the slavery parallels BUT ITS NOT POLITICAL THOUGH AND AHHHHHHH its just really really tone deaf and awful

okay heres where kara story kind of splits into things some players may or may not see. but if you fuck up enough late in the game kara, luther, and alice can get sent to...god...an android concentration camp because the government is really scared of deviancy and markus' movement pretty much no matter what you do. It is awful. what makes it worse is the androids also have specific clothing that includes a blue armband and a triangle symbol on the chest. so even if players dont see this specific scene which i can't really explain it but its so much worse than im getting into here i promise this shit is shit in your face the ENTIRE game. Cage just takes all these really traumatic historical events real people are STILL feeling the effects of and just slaps them all together and has the gall to pretend its not political at ALL. which leaves the question, is this supposed to be just pure entertainment? with all these awful things strewn about with no thought behind them besides...they would be fun? because if its not political than what do you want people to get out of it?

okay almost 3000 words in and im getting to the reason im writing this. connor my arch nemisis. He is, no question, the reason this game has had the staying power and fandom it has. because connor is a skinny white guy in a suit who you can reasonably pair with another attractive guy. he is the bane of my existence.

connor is a cop android, specifically built to investigate deviancy. hes a cop he gets a buddy cop story where he bonds with the guy who like 90 percent sure lost his son to androids. His name is hank, and yes since people wont stop mentioning it, he is mocapped and voiced by the same guy who does mr krabs. okay connors thing is at what point is an android a human, because he is constantly getting pulled becoming a deviant or following his program. it sucks its copaganda and connor sucks and i hate him i am trying so hard to remember what he even does besides look pretty i guess. this is where cages problem with getting from point a to point b are really apparent connor and hank just go places where crimes committed by androids happened and try to solve them. theres so much to talk about in like all of them but im gonna focus on the tracy case. because yes ive held off so far but cage did include sex androids.

okay so basically the story is these two sex worker androids became sentient and also theyre gay so they killed a customer to run away together. god. yes they fight you in heels and underwear. yes you are given the option to shoot them. yes they are the same model of android (tracies) so its really uncomfortable and playing into the lesbian doppelganger idea. yes if you shoot them later when you are trying to solve a puzzle you use one of their severed heads to talk to the other one. yes these are the only gay characters in dbh. i hate it. sure you dont HAVE to do the last one, but its an option and in a game with options you have to analyze ALL of them. which oh my god i will get to because one of the endings is literally so so so so so gross.

okay first step to talking about the ending. Connor investigates the guy who created the androids, kamski. he was taught by amanda, one of the other black characters and basically shes in connors head to get him to follow his programming and just be a cop and deal with god the android civil rights movement since its caused by deviancy. its really insidious people have written about the rise in the inclusion of black cops, gay cops, etc in copaganda and while amanda is not a cop she basically has the same role.

kamski is just shittier elon musk i dont care about him. but there is an ending where i have to care about him. see if you meet all the requirements when markus and connor meet and face off, connor will join the movement and as markus is speaking connor will shoot and kill him. and then its revealed deviancy is an outside force, created by kamski, a rich white guy. NOW THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS ARE SO BAD. i hate to type this out but see, fascists believe that jewish people are ultimately behind black lives matter. See the idea that george soros is funding protestors. its baseless obviously and racist and antisemitic but thats literally this ending in a nutshell. a rich white guy behind the movement all along. most players wont get this ending but its still a part of the game its still something that needs to be analyzed.

this is all mostly from memory btw besides a few names i had to remember, so ive probably missed half the awful stuff in these games. these games are awful dont play them. the reason i know so much about them is because ive watched playthroughs and honestly? david cage lives rent free in my mind, im brave enough to admit it.

so when i see the dbh fandom running around its just like...what are you people doing? these games are awful and even if they werent racist, sexist, antisemitic MESSES they would still be awful. but david cage has become this kind of george lucas figure, people dont say no to him and after dbh hes a critical darling again, even with all of this shit. I'm not the only one whos written about it if i can find some articles i might make another post so you can read something thats a lot less rambling. this shit is in your face its not hidden its not subtext its text ALL of it and people have been pointing this out for years.

but people ignore it because connor is hot and hes white and you can ship him with people also hes just a nice sweet cop awww /s. like basically the conclusion is you can get a fanbase for literally anything if you include a hot white guy in a suit. not a particularly new take but yeah. neither is the take that david cage is a piece of shit. sorry this got so long like i have ranted about this SO much obviously and also...english major

[notesofarichlycolorednight]

You clearly hate pretty much every aspect about this show--which is totally in your right--but then why are you still watching it? Even more so, why are you taking the time to post about it? If I stop watching a show I'm not gonna spend hours of my time watching and writing about it, I'm just gonna find another show I find better. Like what is the point of mocking it amidst fans when they're just trying to enjoy something they only get once every two years? How is that gratifying?

this might come as a shock to you, but i actually really love sherlock. i mean it’s definitely more complicated than just that. there are a lot hard-to-put-into-words emotions that i associated with sherlock.

though the writing of the first two seasons wasn’t the greatest, they were much better than the writing for the 3rd and 4th seasons. which is one of my issues. the writing has gotten worse. they’ve moved away from “the monster-of-the-week” format–like spn–and are also tanking pretty hard, like spn had. they’ve made the mistake of trying to make things too dark, too edgy, too extra and the plot and writing suffers for it.

like, i don’t mind if they want to move away from “monster-of-the-week,” but you don’t have to make the show darker, or whatever, to keep viewers interested. i get enough of it in my real life. and, usually, i go to fictional shows and books to get away from that.

anyway, sherlock is a very important part of my life. it’s hard to explain why, and even though i’ve come to severely dislike the writing, i still watch it because of the fact that it is an important part of my life. it’s become a safety blanket of sorts. i binge watched all two season when i first got to college. and i binge watched all three seasons + the special when i started my senior year of college. because it’s something i know, something safe for me. so even though i know that i’m probably not going to enjoy the new eps, i still watch it bc of how important it is to me. to be honest, i’m still excited to see what the writer’s have come up with (even though it’s not at all satisfying anymore).

but who ever said emotions had to make sense? or be mutually exclusive?

now, whether believe me or not, that doesn’t mean that i can’t offer up constructive criticism of it. if you love something, that doesn’t mean you can’t point out issues and problems it has. those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. in fact, it should be, that if you love something so much, you should make it your duty to point out these problems. to make it better and more enjoyable for everyone who watches it.

and, as i’ve said a few time before, my liveblogging is very informal, it’s supposed to be sarcastic and “whiny”–for the lack of a better word. essentially, i’m riffing it. so, yeah, it’s gonna be impolite and may come off as rude. but, when the time comes, i will explain in detail, with full sentences and civility why i think what i think.

honestly, i hadn’t been planning on completely liveblogging it. i made a singular post, thought that was going to be it, and then as the episode continued, i was just not having it. so i decided to share. bc i think i’m hilarious. partly it’s due to the fact that steven moffat wrote tld. i honestly don’t think his writing is great, putting it mildly. (now, i didn’t enjoy t6t, but it was better than tld, that’s for sure.) and the more the episode continued, the more problems i had with it.

as for your question about why i would even spend my time (see also (as some might say): waste my time) liveblogging about it–bc we’ve already been over why i continue it…mostly–i find it fun?

in a different post, responding to a different person here on tumblr, i told them that part of my liveblogging consists of a hybrid of cinemasins and mystery science theater 3000. so i find it fun to make sarcastic remarks, point out tiny mistakes that no one else may notice or just not care about, etc.

the other big part of it, is that i’m tired of being silent about the criticisms i have (not the sarcastic remarks) about the shows i watch.

part of my liveblogs consist of legitimate criticisms aimed at the show and writers. and, i’ve said this before, i’ll say it again, they could be worded better, i admit that. but i don’t have the time or energy to write out essays for every single criticism i come across (unless of course, i am asked to, or am prompted to).

sherlock is a huge fucking show. it’s so popular around the world, and millions of people watch and get others to watch the show. which is why it’s important to point out the problems it has, because people can and will take shows’ words as gospel.

if someone in a show does something and they aren’t reprimanded for it, a lot more people than you’d think, will take it as a sign that they, too, can do that thing without consequences.

when it comes to throwing around the word psychopath or sociopath, demonizing autistic people, or idealizing a–frankly–abusive relationship that’s not okay. and people need to be told this, because the show ain’t doing it.

media, in general, relies way too heavily on stereotypes and stigma and misinformation disguised as caring or want or romance (to name a few). this becomes a huge problem when people who watch the show start applying these stereotypes and stigma to the people they meet, or seeing these behaviors and thinking they’re okay.

this can also lead to prejudice, discrimination, and racism toward these groups (mainly minority groups–poc, lgbtqia+ members, disabled people, mentally ill people, autistic people, and so on), as well as not being aware they’re in an abusive, toxic relationship or that they’re being the abuser and are causing the toxicity of the relationship.

if we don’t point out the flaws and problems, media isn’t going to learn or grow, and it will only continue to strengthen the divide between “us” and “them,” and strengthen the stigma that follows a lot of mentally ill individuals, disable individuals, and autistic individuals. (i list these twice, bc this last episode had a lot of issues with, specially, autistic individuals. which i will go into more detail about in a diff post, bc a diff anon has already brought this up.)

i wouldn’t call my riff posts mocking, but i can create a tag that ppl can blacklist. i will not, however, use the tag when i’m making a genuine criticism. people need to be more aware and educated.