#performance meta

[ortofosforico]

Louis went from dating the classics theater kid, barely enduring operas and comedies and tragedies, to dating the unhinged avantgarde theater kid that would make him sit through shit like "The revisitation of Hansel and Gretel from the pov of the breadcrumbs starting a class war against the gingerbread house from a futuristic perspective and ending in a bloodbath as all characters die due to the mold infesting the house as a metaphor of our society."

And HIS FACE-

[lenaellsi]

“Crowley is still an angel deep down” “Crowley is more of an angel than any of the archangels” “Crowley was only cast out because he needed to play his part in Armageddon, he's not a real demon” “Aziraphale wants to rebuild Heaven to be more like Crowley because he’s what an angel should be” no. Stop it. This is exactly where Aziraphale went wrong.

Crowley is 100% a demon. He's not actually a bit of an angel, and he's not cosmically better than any of the other demons we see in the series. He's much less vicious than most of them, yeah, but he's also much less vicious than most of the angels, because how “nice” a celestial being is has nothing to do with which side they're technically on. Crowley's kindness comes from him doing his best to help people despite the hurt he's suffered himself, not any sort of inherent residual or earned holiness. He was cast out just like the rest of the demons, and that's an important part of his history that shouldn't be minimized, excused, or, critically, 'corrected.'

Being angelic is not a positive or negative trait in the Good Omens universe. It's a species descriptor. Saying that Crowley is still an angel deep down because he helps people is an in-character thing for Aziraphale to think, certainly--Job and the final fifteen showed that in the worst possible way--but it's not something Crowley would ever react well to, and it's the main source of conflict in the entire "appoint you to be an angel" fiasco.

We know that Aziraphale thinks Crowley's fall was an injustice, but why? Well, because Crowley is actually Good, which means his fall was a mistake, or a test, or a regrettable error in judgment, or…something. Ineffable. Etc. The point is, he’s special, much better than those other demons, and if they can fix him and make him an angel again, everything will be fine! (So once Job's trials are over, everything will be restored to him? Praise be!) Aziraphale has to believe that Crowley's better traits come from traces of the angel he used to know and not the demon he's known for 6,000 years, because that’s how he can rationalize his incorrect view of Heaven as The Source Of Truth And Light And Good with his complicated feelings about Crowley's fall.

But Crowley's fall was not an injustice because he's actually a Good Person who didn't deserve it. Crowley's fall was an injustice because the entire system of dividing people into Good (obedient) and Bad (rebellious) is bullshit. Crowley is not an unfortunate exception to God's benevolence, he is a particularly sympathetic example of God's cruelty.

And really, Crowley doesn't behave at all like an angel, especially when he's at his best. All of the things that he's done that we as the audience consider Good are things that Heaven has directly opposed. (See: saving the goats and children in defiance of God in S2E2, convincing Aziraphale to give money to Elspeth despite Heaven's views on the "virtues of poverty" in S2E3, speaking out against the flood and the crucifixion in S1E3, tempting Aziraphale to enjoy earthly pleasures because he thinks they'll make him happy, stopping Armageddon.)

Heaven as an institution has never been about helping humanity. And that's not an issue of leadership, as Aziraphale seems to think--it's by design. Aziraphale's first official act as an angel toward humanity was to literally throw them to the lions. Giving them the sword wasn't him acting like an angel, it was just him being himself. Heaven doesn't care about humans. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to win the war against Hell, with humans as chess pieces at best and collateral damage at worst.

Yes, it's easier to think that there are forces that are supposed to be fundamentally good. It's easier to think that Aziraphale is going to show those mean archangels and the Metatron what’s coming to them and reform Heaven into what it "should" be, and that God is actually super chill and watching all of this while shipping ineffable husbands and cheering for them the whole way. And of course it's easier to take Crowley, who Aziraphale (and the audience) adores, and say that he deserves to be on the Good team much more than all those angels and demons that we don’t like. But that's not how it works. People are more complicated than that, even celestial beings.

Crowley is a demon, and the tragedy of his character is not that he's secretly a good guy who is being forced to be evil; the tragedy is that he's lived his whole life stuck between two institutional forces that are both equally hostile to the love he feels for the universe and the beings in it. There are no good and bad guys. There are no "right people." Every angel, demon, and human is capable of hurting or helping others based on their choices. That is, in fact, the entire fucking point.

[granny-griffin]

All Might rose in a time of fear, when people needed to believe that things would turn out alright in order to move forward, and so he became a symbol of peace—his strength was a comfort to everyone. Because of him, society was able to come out of a state of chaos and stabilize.

But Midoriya was born in the era of complacency that followed. If he became the same symbol of peace that All Might was, then society would stagnate. Another strong OFA user would just reassure society that the heroes have everything handled, that they don’t need to intervene, and that they didn’t have enough power to help even if they wanted to.

That’s why his loss of OFA (a terrible thing in itself!!) is going to work out for the ultimate good of everyone. It actually frees Midoriya to wield the power he was born with—the ability to inspire other people to act. I don’t think it’s an accident that he was quirkless in his rising chapter. When people see Midoriya running to save, even without any power, they loose any excuse for complacency they had. They feel compelled to do the same.

That power—the connection of hearts that formed OFA in the first place—is greater than any quirk. It’s what makes Midoriya the greatest hero.

[justanotherhh]

smthin about blitzø's romantic relationships defined by him as bodyguard, with fizz, with verosika, and with stolas. something about that being a part of his core, either as a negative (it's all about putting his body in front of theirs because he's the "less important" factor and it's the only real thing he feels has to offer alongside sex) or as a positive (he likes protecting others, he likes being of use, it's a good way of communicating how much he cares and he's good at it)

but yeah, that forming part of the foundations of those relationships from his side

[kingthunder]

obsessed with that first meeting with astarion, especially how he reacts when you tell him what the tadpoles do

that hysterical bray of laughter followed by his face twisting in grief before he can compose it. of course OF COURSE it'll turn him into a monster. this is what he gets for daring to have hope for five whole minutes. typical.

and then the immediate pivot and grasp. what if we can learn to CONTROL THEM. please i just got my life back i can't give it up yet please I'll do anything not to go back there

[mrghostrat]

raarrraaaaar i'm real excited for the next chapter of bnf with more ace talk 😭 i share all the ace and intimate scenes with another ace friend for sensitivity, and even they're a bit 🤯 over the way crowley's described some things about himself, so i can't wait to see how y'all find it (allosexuals and especially all the folks commenting '......huh i might be ace'), and if there's anything you can take from it!

[fictionadventurer]

I'm fascinated by the ways in which the things a creator is good at making don't necessarily line up with the kind of art that they respect or even enjoy.

This has haunted me ever since I saw a Youtube video about the downfall of The Band Perry, a country band that I had liked until their music got weird and they kind of fell off the face of the earth. Well, it turns out that they tried to reinvent their image and their style of music several times before the band finally fell apart. When they started, they had this weird Southern Gothic homeschooler style that really worked for them and was reasonably popular, but then they tried to switch to a cooler type of pop music--a style they supposedly admired and enjoyed--and it just did not work at all. They failed because they chased what they wanted to make instead of sticking with the style that they were good at.

It's a tension that's present in all creative work. At one point does "going outside the box" go too far? Can one be happy making good work even if it's not the kind of stuff they like or admire? Are the techniques and styles that are most appealing to us appealing because they're things that we can't create ourselves? As in, our minds don't work that way, so seeing these things from other creators is exciting, but the fact that our minds don't work that way is exactly why we can't imitate those things. Where's the line between creative integrity--pushing yourself to make better things--and pride--wanting to make something more prestigious and impressive instead of humbly making the type of art you're best suited to make? Can one even clearly see what they're best at making, and appreciate the good that's there rather than chasing after styles and techniques that seem better? There are no solid answers, which is why I'm going to be endlessly thinking about this.

[waitmyturtles]

I LOVE 4 MINUTES.

I love it! GAAAAAHHH, I love it. While Be On Cloud’s KinnPorsche was so BL-referential, I just love this juicy Dr. Sammon-mystery genre that takes us out of trope-land. Queer murder mysteries, my beloved.

I have no theories, per se, about where I think this show is going, but I am going to jot down some observations for my own posterity and memory. After reading some theories on Twitter (including one that Dr. Sammon herself retweeted), I went back and fast-forwarded through all the episodes so far, so here are my notes (and these VERY WELL may have been repeated in the tag, so I apologize if I’m just pooping what we’re already assuming here).

1) This Twitter account noted that Tonkla saw his cat in episode 1, after what-we-assume-to-be present-day boing with Korn. Tonkla sees this AFTER Korn rushed off after getting off the phone. After this week’s episode, we seem to be informed that said cat had died in the past.

We also know that Tonkla has a habit of lighting up after sex and during times of duress.

There might be more than just tobacco in those cigarettes he’s lighting up, I’m not sure, but we also know he hits the shabu, pipe-wise.

Besides Great being in what I assume to be, and what I call, a fever-state, or better phrased, a cardiac episode, I am assuming that Tonkla is transcending his own lines of reality through drug use.

1a) [(A quick aside: I just wanna say that I will be VERY. CURIOUS. as to how Tonkla’s drug use is positioned alongside his predilections for unprotected sex, and if I think there will be public health commentary in this. Drug use is, of course, generally not recommended by medical professionals, and at the same time, it’s a culturally important element of many facets of queer culture that many physicians who work with LGBTQ+ patients are trained to be aware of; for example, using poppers to ease the process of preparing for intercourse. I don’t know if the show means to indicate that Tonkla, vis à vis being on PrEP and meth at the same time, is an automatically unsafe person…but he also might be a murderer… so yeah, I will be curious about this underlying public health messaging.)]

1b) (Speaking of public health, yo, we needed those Durex bottles in episode 4, YOWCH.) (😬) (ANYWAY.)

2) So, speaking of Great and Tonkla living in their own realities, I also want to posit that Tyme has created his own sense of delirium by literally not sleeping.

Homeboy is on his shifts, he’s working out, he’s solving mysteries, he’s kicking literal ass, he’s investigating and courting Great, he’s following Korn. He’s doing a lot! We haven’t caught him sleeping yet, again, literally.

I wonder if this may be Dr. Sammon commenting on the culture of insanely long shifts for doctors, which impacts their mental and physical well-being. We’ve also separately learned that Tyme is driven by revenge, and by a need to support his grandma and save Nan. But how can he do all of that, if he’s physically depriving himself of the ability to rest? I don’t know if this is going to go anywhere, but I do notice the camera work, whenever Tyme is scrubbing out of a shift, re-centering from a tilt, which makes me wonder about what these shots are telling us about his mental state (and we saw comparable camera work when Tonkla thought he saw Dome).

(I’m also not forgetting that the show shows him stabbed at the very start of the series, and I’m constantly wondering about that.)

3) Finally, I want to offer that Korn, Great, and Tyme are not out. At least for Great and Tyme, does that contribute to a delirium mindset (and maybe even Korn, too) by way of the stress of holding in secrets? (Please note that this linked article is from 2004 and does not have fully updated terminology.)

I don’t know if this theory holds for Great, because a popular theory for him at the start of the series was that he may not have realized he was gay until he met Tyme. I don’t know that I saw that in my very-fast rewatch except for his surprised looks during the stitches moment in the hospital. Great’s comfort with Tyme in the car after the claw machines makes me think he knew more about his sexuality, and his physical separation from his family at the dinner table in episode 1 also makes me wonder if he realized his preferences were always going to separate him from his nuclear family. I’m not sure, but I’m chewing on this.

4) So, where I’m gonna go entering into episode 5 is that there isn’t a centered or accurate “present day” for anyone….mayyyybe except for Korn, who is certainly living his own fever dream of being stuck in a reeeeeeally bad job, but maybe isn’t being subjected to mental delirious psychoses (just, you know, the general stress of hating your work thoroughly). But I could be wrong there, too, because we know that Korn is driven by greed, filial piety, and a desire to take over the family business. So maybe that’s creating a delirium of his own, one that takes him away from his boyfriend for weeks at a time.

4a) (By the way, isn’t it interesting that we are not seeing NC scenes with Korn and Fasai? I know, I know, Be On Cloud does queer/BL content, but. I think it’d be interesting if the show ran the gamut of intimacy. Just a thought.)

Anyway! This show is so good, it’s making me babble. I absolutely love it, and it is the comeback that Bible Wichapas deserves.

[yea-baiyi]

i just posted but i feel INSANE hua cheng’s entire appearance in the ghost groom arc is just symbolism.

when xie lian is alone (having sent everyone away, in danger but perfectly capable of fighting his way out), hua cheng steps in front of xie lian, offers his hand, and guides xie lian through the woods to where he needs to be. monsters cower before him, magical barriers don’t stop him, he steps on the skulls of enemies and crushes them so thoroughly that xie lian behind him feels like he is walking on flat ground. he doesn’t just swoop in without asking — he offers his hand, and waits, and xie lian willingly reaches out and lets himself be guided. and his grip is featherlight, even as he steers xie lian through danger and darkness. his blood rain warns away all who would dare harm them, but xie lian doesn’t get hit by a drop. and hua cheng does this all in his true form, not in disguise, because he’s not playing a character or trying to achieve anything, this is just him. despite not being confident enough to face xie lian directly, hua cheng has already shown him exactly who he is.

(now excuse me while i gnaw through an entire wall because how was this not glaringly obvious to me all along)

[nym-wibbly]

Were they actually planning to write Castiel out of the story at this point?

The whole Supernatural season 6 'Cas-going-darkside via a road paved with good intentions' arc aggressively signposts a permanent swansong, like he was either meant to die and stay dead or... I dunno. Stay darkside and appear once a season from now on as guest antagonist to twist the knife in the Winchester feels?

And then he's absent for most of the following season and comes back at a really odd point in the season for a recurring character to... recur... after that exit in 7x02. And with the oddest handwave about where he's been. Then he's around for keeps 'til the end of the run. It's... odd!

I watched Supernatural knowing for sure that Misha Collins stuck around 'til the end (and little else), so I've had this cognitive dissonance thing going on ever since Cas/not-Cas exploded with black ooze in S7. Help?

Tell me a thing that you know and I don't, please, old hands of the SPN fandom? What went on there?

UPDATE: Thanks to @searchingcassiopeia I now know that this was an unforced error/own goal. And that I'm not going bonkers because this was indeed written as a swansong.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

legit I feel like one of Travis's unique strengths as a performer within the CritRole cast is how he approaches the emotional, weighty, set-piece moments with an incredible patience and restraint and how unafraid he is of leaving things unsaid and of allowing a long pause. it often feels that he is very comfortable taking these narrative beats at a deliberately slow pace that leaves a silence for a moment to breathe or gain gravity. he is often perfectly content to take his time through a narrative beat and move at a measured rhythm.

he does this in monologues, solo scenes with the GM, in conversations with other player characters. I think this articulate patience and careful restraint Travis has gets lost in his reputation as someone impulsive and loud. his apparent comfort with silence and slow pacing feels uncommon in actual play at large even, and it's a truly skilled and admirable feature of his style.

[quidfree]

very understated beat that i liked amongst all the other brilliant choices in iwtv s2e5 (which for me is foremost a loudaniel self-actualisation via mutual recognition plot, and then a loumand failmarriage plot) is that amongst daniel’s general resistance to armand’s gentleman death manipulation (his first “rest” going ignored, “i like my life man”, “i have a thing in the city” etc) and armand’s overall intense frustration and disdain for daniel given that he caught louis’ eye, they have these weird little moments where they themselves do have a bit of a rapport despite circumstances? or like- accidental wavelength sharing?

my favorite example is that when armand is frustratedly mocking daniel by listing his mundane flaws (while daniel argues/nervously babbles back, certified platinum yapper) and starts going in on his other interviews, daniel’s non-self-deprecating line is that “he’s good at getting people to open up” (paraphrased). this is the genuine skill he assigns himself. skip forward some dialogue, and what does armand do? sit them down and ask daniel: “would you like to know my first memory?” two lines later, he stops himself, gives a terse “hm” and stops that conversational pivot dead. there’s a lot to read in the volunteering and cut off, but EYE find it interesting that daniel molloy just Gets The Girls Talking, and i think armand stopping where he does is both a character thing (his relationship to his trauma does not allow him to cathartically spill to random mortals) and i think a frustrated realisation that he’s slipped up and literally let the wannabe journalist kid get him monologuing.

there’s echoes of it in the dubai scene when louis is asleep and armand starts volunteering conversation to daniel, both as a ploy and sort of sincerely? and daniel of course just throws back “i’m listening” at him, but he is, in fact, listening. they’re always kind of operating on a level of lie and honesty lol.

it’s like how armand asking daniel if he finds him boring is part performative and part genuine inner angst bleeding through, and daniel retorting no is obviously because he will say anything for the doe-eyed freak not to murder him but also (as he himself immediately points out), armand can literally read his mind and see for himself that’s true. it’s just a well written show like that!!!

[chatdae]

okay GENUINELY what does "We call everything on the ice 'love'" mean??

I am not certain what Yuuri means... maybe that all of the collaboration, competition, and sharing of ideas that takes place in skating is all a form of showing love? Enough to make me shake and cry and fall over, but i'd still love to hear if people have other interpretations

[secriden]

love sea episode 2 rewatch thoughts:

in hindsight, this opening should've clued us in that this episode was going to be horny as fuck.

ok so if episode 1 was about establishing mahasamut, i think the purpose of episode 2 is really to give us a much more nuanced introduction to tongrak. what's fascinating is that the show chooses to impart this insight to us through a rather unusual medium: sex (and, specifically, tongrak's attitude about sex).

we open with kinky kinky beach sex and it tells us that tongrak is impulsive, hedonistic, and tends to give into the emotions of the moment (something that, as the series develops, he does with increasingly self-sabotaging results; eg. when he lashes out at mahasamut after the 1st run in with prin or when he runs off to appease jak when he gets fearful in episode 9).

it also tells us that tongrak is very comfortable with his physical wants and needs. sure, mahasamut kinda flusters him because he awakens desires that are more intense than he's is used to, but tongrak's still grounded enough in his sense of self that he can roll with it pretty quickly and becomes an active, willing, even enthusiastic participant. (it's not going to be his physical desire that drives a wedge between them; its going to be the emotional connection that ends up being terrifying to tongrak.)

this episode also lays a ton of groundwork to set up why and how intensely mahasamut and tongrak are drawn to each other.

a lot of it, early on, is purely physical.

mahasamut and tongrak clock that they're compatible in their (D/s) kink immediately and they embrace this with gleeful abandonment. other people have made this point a lot more clearly than i could ever hope to (see @williamrikers excellent analysis of mutrak's kink dynamic), so i won't belabour the point, but i would like to point out how thoroughly the show wants the audience to know that these two are a perfect match physically and sexually (specifically with their particular kinks) and that they are incredibly comfortable with that.

(an aside: one thing i adore about peat's portrayal of tongrak's submissiveness in the beach scene is the way he starts out being the initiator in the kiss - in the gif above, it's tongrak that grabs mahasamut and yanks him into the kiss at first - but once its clear that mahasamut is on board, tongrak is almost constantly angled up, head tipped back, responding to mahasamut's cues but making no attempt to direct whats happening. there's so much surrender in the pliant way peat holds himself as they kiss and the way he goes from pulling mahasamut into the kiss to just clinging to his torso as he lets mahasamut take control. even when he reaches for mahasamut's dick, the second mahasamut pins him down and gives him an instruction, tongrak makes no attempt to redirect and just goes with what mahasamut wants. there's just such great detail in this portrayal of surrender.)

but what makes this encounter different (from the many, many other ones they've both had) is going to be how neither of them were able to keep this connection as purely physical for very long. (this is what episode 3 is for, though, so lets put a pin in that thought.)

back to insights into tongrak's character: we also get an escalation/confirmation about how tongrak views sex (and relationships) as purely transactional. tongrak's entire backstory is grounded in the idea that 'everybody has a price' because that's what his parents showed him. to tongrak, every human interaction is about finding the right things to give (usually money in his case) to get what he wants and this has allowed him to rationalise that feelings and emotions (both his own/the other person's) don't matter.

tongrak firmly believes that as long as he's offering something of sufficient (monetary) value, he's perfectly within rights to demand what he wants without consulting mahasamut's feelings, wants, or thoughts about the matter. in fact, he thinks of mahasamut as kind of an object for his sexual gratification and/or convenience. this is why he feels no remorse about kicking mahasamut out after they have sex even though mahasamut clearly wants to cuddle/come down from the physical high together. the next morning, it never pings to him that he should be guilty about how he treated mahasamut.

(look at his face. he's such an entitled diva. i love him so much.)

not only is this attitude - in reality - a very inaccurate way to view human beings (because as a species we are creatures very much led by our emotions), but it is the source of tongrak's own dissatisfaction and unhappiness. he never acknowledges any of his own emotional needs and so cannot manage or address them in a meaningful or healthy way.

so to summarise tongrak understands and is comfortable with his physical desires but does not know how to even acknowledge his emotional ones whilst impulsively being led by them in the heat of the moment: already we can see that this is a recipe for disaster and tells an unspoken story of pain and trauma.

(i also want to mention how well mahasamut continues to respond to tongrak's specific brand of caustic entitlement. he doesn't bother making a big deal about tongrak throwing money at him, but he also never names a price for his 'services' either. he blatantly refers to tongrak as his "owner" but also makes it clear that it's not tongrak's money that's keeping him around, but rather mahasamut's own desire for tongrak. it's like he'll act in tongrak's play but he won't quite stick to the script either. its so, so effective because he doesn't trigger tongrak's fight or flight response but he's still undermining and proving tongrak's assumptions wrong at every turn. this is what allows mahasamut to worm his way behind tongrak's walls whilst simultaneously chipping away at them.)

one last little bit of (this time non-sex-adjacent) insight into tongrak: he has a great capacity for compassion. (which will, eventually, turn into love.)

mahasamut, at this point, is mostly just an incredible lay to tongrak. but already he shows care and concern for mahasamut that's separate from what he can offer tongrak. he's concerned at a (relatively minor) hint that mahasamut has been mistreated in the past and then again concerned that mahasamut will suffer the repercussions of any hit to his reputation. [note: this is informed by a backstory regarding homophobia on the island that's from Khom/Connor's story in Love Sand, but even without that insight we can see tongrak's concern is for mahasamut.] (again, this is something the show is setting up to callback to later when tongrak gets offended on mahasamut's behalf when he thinks the waiter made fun of mahasamut.)

these little glimpses give us such a contrasting perspective on tongrak compared to episode 1, where he was mostly just a rich, entitled, and fairly unlikable character. we're being shown that what we've seen so far is really a mask as tongrak's true character slowly starts bleeding through as he has more interactions with mahasamut.

and then the episode closes on heartbreak: You're aware aren't you? Love is just a figment of our imagination.

tongrak's expression right before he says this is filled with resignation and disappointment. he hates that he has to say it but he feels its his duty to burst mahasamut's bubble. he genuinely believes this and so to him he's just doing mahasamut a favour by telling him a Truth about life. for us, this is the final crack in the mask and we see just how lost and fragile and hurt tongrak truly is.

(and the way peat sells this part - the cold almost clinical look in his eyes when he says the line. the tiny pout of his lips like tongrak can't help but feel sad about it, even though he accepts it as reality. the cold, flat tone peat uses to deliver the line when tongrak's usually quite expressive and uses lots of inflections and intonations in his speech. ugh <3)

but this is also really important because this is why we, the audience, start to care about tongrak. mame takes us on this journey, sets us up to wonder why tongrak's the main character when he starts out kinda of awful and then shifts the ground out from under us by showing us his soft, wounded underbelly. we can't help but want him to be loved, now, and this is why we become invested in 'tongrak mahasamut'.

[brawlmetaknight]

small detail i love about mk's boss battle in katfl is how whenever he's sidestepping, he'll only have one visible eye. this seems like it could be a reference to his sprite and movements in super star.

[tvckerwash]

you know, an interpretation of ct that I don't see that I personally really love is that she's a fuck up. like yes she's cool and she has some good fight scenes, but a huge part of her character is that she makes mistakes. the mistakes that she makes are ones that on their own aren't the end of the world, but she keeps making these little mistakes, and they eventually add up until she's out of room to make any more.

a really good example of this phenomenon in action is the actions she took leading up to her final confrontation with carolina and tex.

strike one, she thought she saw something in the water, but when asked by the leader what it was, she brushed it off as nothing when even if it had been nothing, it would've been smart to tell him what she thought she saw.

strike two, she didn't sense or notice florida's presence when the leader did, and she looks at the leader twice, once as she pulled out her magnums, and again after she did a scan of the room, almost like she was looking at him for guidance before he finds florida and takes him out with one good axe throw.

strike three, she couldn't convince the leader to leave when they had the chance to get away, and her cheap tricks were not enough to hold off either tex or carolina in a fight. they were only good for incapacitating her opponents enough for her to get away, which doesn't work when she has no escape.

ct is not tex, or carolina, or south. she is not a one woman army who can get herself out of trouble when she's stuck in tough situations. she needs people who can watch her back, she need a team who can cover her when she does mess up, and the leader and his team were not those people. she couldn't bring herself to trust them, and they couldn't bring themselves to trust her, and that cost all of them their lives.