#that will provided in the ep so i had to keep changing it........

[ccircusclwn]

(PT 4 of my teen designs!!)

Uh. so.... Norm! Uhhh nothing to say about him1!!1 (exploding internally)

iii dont think u get it norm is my fucking boy i love him w my entire being

soo norm in his teeny outfit (the teeny head is so fucking small i apologize) n a specific scene from s2e7 that stuck w me for the entirety of the season... god normal oak you will always be traumatised huh

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

End of Empathy (time for violence)

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[thebenjiblackwoodexpress]

Devil's Snare Part.6

Aemond Targaryen x Reader

Description: Aemond comforts his new wife when she is rebuffed by the other ladies of the court for her low birth. When the succession to the Lord of the Tides is put to question, an insult from Lucerys Velaryon to his wife prompts Aemond's anger.

Previous part

Writer's note: basically Aemond and Y/N getting accustomed to married life but this part follows ep 1x08 Lord of the Tides. Starting to get into the plot of S1 now.

Crediting @cinderkaliningrad who is a gem and let me use their idea that Aemond would allow those he trusted to be on his left side.

Warnings: female reader, sexual innuendo, angst but also fluff, hurt/comfort, fainting (I would too if I saw Vaemond's head like that) swearing, bit of violence.

Aemond had not thought it possible to experience such happiness as he had in the weeks following his marriage to Y/N. He had never imagined that such unconditional love would be directed towards him, having been largely ignored by his family and feared by members of the court all his life. The slightest touch from Y/N was enough to set his skin alight and he burned for her alone. He was grateful his little wife did not seem to mind the fervour of his affectations, still sometimes feeling like that lonely boy from his youth who'd craved the love of his family to no avail. It filled him with pride to see Y/N wear the dresses he had made for her in varying shades of blue, for her to wear the sapphire necklace he'd had commissioned against the elegant curve of her neck, as if she were carrying a part of him with her. He could never forget her thoughtfulness to match her wedding dress to the sapphire which replaced his eye, which he supposed spoke to a degree of possessiveness in him, but in his mind he belonged to Y/N as much as she did to him. Indeed, it was still the eyepatch she had mended on their initial meeting he continued to favour for it had been her delicate hands that had graced it with her touch, and it was almost as if he could feel her tender caress against his cheek and carry her complete acceptance of him along with him as he wore it. 

It filled his heart with joy to see the evidence of her presence in their shared chambers. Though it had been strange for Y/N at first to consider the chambers she had spent months cleaning as her own, and he'd had to stop her several times as he'd caught her tidying and arranging items on his desk as if she were still his handmaiden. With time she had begun to make her own mark on the chambers, a hairbrush here and a ribbon there. He had expressed to her his wish for her to see his chambers as her own and to make any changes she would like. And it pleased him to mark subtle changes and improvements such as the vanity table now positioned close to his desk, holding an assortment of her belongings, to know she had taken him on his word. If it were not for the news that his half sister and her spawn would be arriving to King's Landing in mere days to settle the question of the succession of Driftmark he should be entirely content.

Y/N could scarcely believe that the man she'd been so wary of upon their first meeting could be such a gentle and loving husband. She blushed to think of how affectionate Aemond was with her, always touching her in some way. A hand on her thigh under the table as they broke their fast with Helaena each morning, an arm wrapped around her waist as they walked in the gardens of the Red Keep, reaching for her leg to drape it across his body each night and pull her as close to him as possible as they slept. Aemond seemed to crave her touch as if it were the very air he breathed and she thought that it provided him a degree of comfort that had always been denied him, each caress an assurance that she loved him as he loved her, that they were two souls intertwined as one.

He had been determined from the first that she should see his chambers as their chambers going forward and that he wished for her to make any changes she liked, whatever the cost. It had been a challenge at first to adapt to the drastic change of her status upon their marriage and to feel comfortable considering Aemond's chambers as her own. But she noticed the ghost of a smile lighting Aemond's features each time he saw one of her belongings on a side table or on his desk. It was only when he explained what it meant to him, that she were truly his, that she began to accede to his wishes and make her small mark upon their shared space. It had been Helaena who had convinced her of her need for a vanity table to house all of the gifts Aemond insisted on bringing her. Feeling that it was too great an expense and encroachment on Aemond's space, she had prevaricated on the subject for a time.

But before long it became essential she should have her own space as every surface in their shared chambers became littered with trinkets Aemond thought she might like. She noted his proclivity for gifting her dresses and jewels in shades of blue to match his sapphire, all of which she wore with pride, knowing the private significance the colour held for him. She had been nervous as carpenters had moved the vanity to their chambers and positioned it close by Aemond's desk, concerned it took up a greater space than she'd been anticipating. But Aemond had smiled at her so brightly upon seeing it, she was glad she had risked it.

Despite the blissful beginnings of their marriage, Y/N could not shake the sadness she felt at the continued judgement she felt from her fellow courtiers. She had tried to speak with the other ladies and befriend them if she could but had been met with only cold politeness, icy looks, and murmurs they either did not think she could hear or did not care to hide. She was aware Aemond could not spend every moment with her and she had to make her own way, but she began to worry that in time even he might regret their union and be ashamed of his choice, since she had failed to forge a place for herself at court. She felt almost like a shadow, relegated to the peripheries of courtly life, as she succumbed to her own dark thoughts. Before Y/N could stop them, tears started cascading down her face and she quickly shifted to the edge of the bed, trying to muffle her sniffles with her arms so as not to wake her husband. She did not wish to bother him with her concerns.

Aemond blinked awake confusedly, trying to ascertain what had woken him. His fingers grasped at air as he sought out Y/N, the sound of muffled cries snapping him out of his dazed state as he turned to find her curled up at the very edge of the bed, crying into her arms. His chest restricted at the sound, heart falling at the thought of his wife being so upset and trying to conceal it from him. Shifting closer to her he wrapped an arm around her waist and turned her to face him, gently pulling her towards his chest. Y/N's fingers automatically curled against his heart. "What is it, my love?"

Y/N sniffled but, he was glad to see, did not reject the comfort he offered as she placed her face in the crook of his neck.

"I did not mean to wake you." He had to tilt his head down to hear her as her voice was muffled against his skin, and he tried not to pay attention to the way her soft lips grazed his collarbone.

Aemond shushed her gently. "I would not have you rebuke yourself. I wish you to always feel safe coming to your husband with your concerns."

Y/N let out a shuddering breath.

"The other courtiers don't accept me. I fear they never will."

Aemond felt anger course through him, if some bastardly courtier had insulted his lady he would have their tongue.

"Tell me who has caused your tears, my sweet girl. I'll have their head."

Y/N placed a delicate kiss to his shoulder.

"I would not have that on my conscience Aemond. Though I appreciate the sentiment. I cannot find a place for myself with the other ladies of the court. They are as polite as they need to be but keep me at a distance and I know how they speak of me when they think I cannot hear. It makes me feel very alone."

Aemond tightened his arms around her. He had known what it was to be lonely since childhood, felt the gaping hole festering within him until he met Y/N, and he hated that she should ever have felt that way. Kissing the crown of her head, he rubbed his hand up and down her spine. "You are not alone, nuha prumia. It does not matter what they think, you are my princess. Spend your time with me instead."

Pulling her away from his chest so he could see her face he kissed her tear stained cheeks. "I always want you close to me. Have I not told you as much? Come with me to the training yard tomorrow."

He peppered her face with kisses, planting them against her eyelids as they fluttered closed, her nose, the corner of the mouth, his kisses growing more haphazard as Y/N let out a giggle. Smiling at her, Aemond brushed the hair that stuck to her face back. "That's my girl. Pay them no mind. You are worth more than the lot of them combined."

Y/N smiled at him with a watery smile "I think your mother and the other nobles might have something to say about you shirking your duties to be with me. I cannot always be joined to you at your hip."

Aemond smirked, grasping her hip and pulling her closer, causing her to gasp "I beg to differ. Indeed I forbid you to part from my side."

Y/N laughed in response to his antics and Aemond delighted in having elicited the sweet sound from her.

"I love you, Aemond."

His gaze softened and he brought a hand up to stroke her cheek. "And I love you."

Y/N snuggled back into his chest and eventually her breathing slowed so Aemond was sure she had fallen back to sleep. Stroking her hair, he considered what he could do to make the other courtiers more accepting of his wife so she should not feel so lonely when he was not by her side. Perhaps he could discuss it with his mother, she might be better placed to select some ladies as his wife's companions. He had long since grown accustomed to the stares and whispers of the nobles as he passed them. The one-eyed Prince they called him. And he could care less for their opinions, but it was clear that Y/N did and anything that mattered to her mattered to him.

Only a few days later Y/N was stunned when several ladies of the court introduced themselves to her, one taking her arm to guide her over to their party. She was not used to such friendliness and was more than a little suspicious, but she enjoyed conversing with the ladies and thought them sincere in their offer of friendship. Y/N could not but assume that Aemond had had some hand in this new development given his inquisitive line of questioning about her day later that evening. Although she felt a small degree of embarrassment at needing his assistance even to forge friendships at court, she was gladdened at the prospect of company and was grateful for his attentiveness to her needs.

Aemond was relieved to see his wife's mood improve day by day, and that she had taken to the cohort of ladies his mother had singled out as potential companions for her. He enjoyed hearing her speak animatedly of her day each evening, as it seemed to him that she was beginning to feel more comfortable with her elevated position. He could nor bear it if marrying him had cost her her happiness. The corner of his lip quirked up at the sounds of children giggling as he turned the corner to his sister's chambers, hoping to find his wife in the knowledge that she spent so much of her time with Helaena and her children. He wished to distract himself from his half sister's impending arrival the next day, knowing he would have to face the tormentors of his childhood oncemore.

The Prince's heart leapt at the sight that met him as he entered Helaena's chambers. Y/N's face was flushed with laughter as she carried Jahaerys on her back, bearing him where he pointed, his twin Jahaera in a fit of laughter at them both all the while. His smile broadened as he watched his wife interact with his little niece and nephew. A passing image of Y/N holding their own child swept across his mind. He had not thought of fatherhood before, but he felt his heart swell at the prospect of having a little Y/N running around. He knew he would love them fiercely. When Jahaerys yanked on strands of Y/N's hair as if they were reigns on a horse and he saw her wince minutely, he stepped in to rescue his wife. Plucking his nephew off Y/N's back he placed him gently down by his sister before ruffling his silver hair. "Daor, play gently little nephew."

Y/N turned to him at feeling the weight removed from her back, her own smile broadening at the sight of him. "Husband."

Aemond had not yet tired of hearing his beloved address him as her husband, indeed he did not think he ever would.

"Wife."

Helaena's voice broke through his reverie as he found himself lost gazing at his beautiful wife.

"Oh good, you're here Aemond. Let me show you my new pet."

He had to tear his eye from Y/N's face to allow Helaena to pull him towards whatever new creature she'd adopted.

Aemond was sparring with Ser Criston when he spotted the unmistakable brown hair and distinctly non Targaryen features of his nephews Jacaerys and Lucerys from across the training yard. He threw himself into the duel with increased ferocity as they approached to watch, eager to show them he would not be such an easy target now he was grown, all the while mindful of his Lady wife amongst the circle of spectators. As Cole's mace shattered the wood of his shield he carelessly tossed it aside, swinging at him and looking for any openings in the Knight's stance. Turning to clash his sword against Cole's mace, he wrenched it from his grip and had his sword pointed at his throat in seconds to the cheers of the onlookers and, he noted with a satisfied smirk, the wary expressions of his nephews.

"Well done, my Prince. You'll be winning tourneys in no time."

"I don't give a shit about Tourneys." Aemond made sure to keep his eye trained on his nephews as he spoke.

"Have you come to train nephews?" A fight would be little challenge, but he could not resist taunting them with his own proficiency in his swordsmanship. A true Targaryen prince should have mastery of the sword.

Not a moment later a horn sounded, announcing the arrival of the Sea Snake's brother and his entourage. Sheathing his sword, Aemond went to Y/N's side, wrapping an arm around her waist as she stood on tiptoe to press a tender kiss against his cheek. "Well done, husband." He smiled affectionately at her before returning his gaze to Vaemond Valeryon, his mouth upturned though his eye held no mirth as the lord levelled Lucerys with a piercing glare. It would serve the bastard right to lose his inheritance. He was glad that Y/N had not seemed to notice the tension that crackled off him, not wishing her to be privy to the darker turnings of his mind when it came to this particular side of his House.

Y/N stood by Helaena and her husband as Lord Vaemond made his petition for his right to Driftmark. She was surprised by the brazenness of his allusions to the parentage of Princess Rhaenyra's children, but admittedly their features were clearly not those of Targaryens like her husband. She discreetly studied Rhaenyra's sons, unable to stop herself from taking an immediate dislike to them despite never having spoken a word to either. She did not think she could ever forgive them their treatment of Aemond. As Rhaenyra took Vaemond's place to make her own petition, heads snapped up at the sight of the heavy doors of the throne room opening, followed by a knight announcing the King's presence. Y/N had only met the King once and it had been an unpleasant experience, which left her shrinking into Aemond's side presently. He had tried to introduce her to his father but the King's illness seemed to have addled his mind and he alternated between rebuking Aemond for the match or forgetting who she was entirely. Y/N did not think it right that he should be so judgemental of Aemond's choices when he had scarcely acknowledged him his whole life, instead favouring his nephew's begotten out of wedlock. She did not like to judge Rhaenyra, but she hated the double standard. King Viserys stumbled with great difficulty towards the throne, mounting the steps only with the aid of his brother Prince Daemon, who struck Y/N as an intimidating figure.

She felt Aemond tense beside her as the King called on the Princess Rhaenys to express Lord Corly's wishes, ultimately asserting the validity of Lucery's claim to the Driftwood throne. Y/N subtly brushed her arm against Aemond's in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. He had spoken little of his nephews since their visit to King's Landing had been announced, but she felt his discontent in his silence nonetheless. She supposed that to Aemond Lucerys losing his inheritance of Driftmark might in some way make up for the loss of her husband's eye, and she could understand his dissapointment now. She hadn't counted on Lord Vaemond taking such a belligerent stand against the King himself, jumping as his voice boomed across the throne room.

"They are bastards!"

Her eyes flitted up to the face of the King, who looked positively murderous.

"I will have your tongue for that."

She regretted looking back to Vaemond to garner his reaction as Prince Daemon unsheathed his sword with lightning rapidity and cleaved Vaemond's head off, leaving the ghastly sight of a tongue lolling out of an empty neck socket.

"He can keep his tongue."

She shrieked and turned her face into her husband's chest as he moved to shield her and Helaena from the gorey scene. Y/N had never seen such violence before and felt physically sick as she recalled the squelching sounds that had followed Vaemond's beheading, squeezing her eyes tightly shut in an attempt to fend off the nausea. Her actions were to no avail as her stomach churned and she began to feel light headed, swaying slightly where she stood.

Aemond, like everyone else who'd witnessed Daemon's act of brutality, was shocked by the escalation to violence. And yet he could not help admiring his uncle for his daring and loyalty to his Lady wife. He must know surely that his nephew's were in fact bastards and Vaemond had only spoken the truth. He did regret that his own wife and sister had witnessed the spectacle. Not anticipating Daemon's actions, he had not turned quickly enough to block their view. His brows furrowed in concern as he looked down at Y/N to find her looking positively green as she swayed on her feet. Checking that his sister was well, he took a firm hold of his wife's elbows and led her quickly from the throne room. Directing her to a bench just outside the chamber so she could sit, he knelt before her and caught her torso as she fell forward onto him. Aemond held her head against his shoulder as she breathed deeply trying to ward off her nausea.

"I apologise, I'm acting silly."

Aemond would not hear of it. Y/N, like his sister, was a gentle soul and he would never have wished her to see such violence. He stroked her hair, relieved to see colour returning to her cheeks as she continued to sit and breathe deeply.

"It is I who should be apologising on behalf of my House. You should never have seen such brutality. Daemon is a rogue with no care for the sensibilities of ladies."

Y/N laughed softly but it concerned him how weak the sound was.

"Do you know before I met you I overheard some handmaidens gossiping about how you wore your eyepatch so as not to upset the ladies of the court. I thought it very chivalrous of you at the time. Is that true?"

Aemond's heart was warmed to know that his beloved had thought of him so positively even before they had met and he had fallen for her. She was of course correct, he did not wish to disturb any of the ladies of the court with his wound but was grateful to have found the one lady who would not shrink from him.

"That may have been so at one time and it gladdens my heart to know you think your husband chivalrous. But I fear I must disappoint you, my love."

Y/N's brows furrowed in confusion as she looked at him quizically. Thankfully her breathing had somewhat returned to normal and she seemed to be feeling much better, no longer slumped against him but sitting up straight. He leaned forward to brush his lips against hers.

"There is only one lady I think of now."

Y/N was nervous as she chatted idly with Helaena, her eyes continuously flitting from her husband as he stood by Aegon to the other end of the table where Lucerys Velaryon was seated. It was a cause of anxiety for her that they should be seated directly opposite one another. She only hoped this evening's dinner would not descend into violence with tensions brimming to the surface. As the King was carried in by several knights, Y/N went to take her seat by Helaena to the right of Aemond, and was surprised when he gently directed her to the seat on his left instead. Y/N had quickly realised that Aemond preferred her to remain on his right side with his good eye so he could see her, always switching sides with her as they'd walked through the gardens of the Keep. She thought it sweet that he always wished to have her in his eyeline, but it saddened her that this was necessary.

Aemond seemed so capable that it was easy to forget his sight impairment, and she couldn't help the animosity that rose up in her towards Lucerys Velaryon as the perpetrator of the act which had cost her husband his eye, even if he was but a child at the time. As such, it seemed strange indeed to Y/N that Aemond should specifically want her to sit on his left side. She could feel the tension radiating off him, his jaw clenched slightly, so she did not question it for the moment.

She cast a glance towards the other end of the table when she heard her name whispered quietly along with the words "wife" and "handmaiden." Heat rose to her cheeks and out of the corner of her eye she saw Aemond stiffen as he turned the full force of his stare on his nephews. He must must have heard their mutterings and she could not help feeling embarassed and dejected, as if she were an outsider intruding on a family affair. Aemond placed his hand palm upwards on the table, holding it out to her in invitation. As she placed hers in his she noticed he did not avert his gaze from Lucerys though he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. The sound of a chair scraping silenced the whispers as the King rose to address his family. Y/N's mouth fell open briefly as he pulled his mask from his face, revealing the gnarled cheeks and hollow of his eye socket, though she quickly schooled her features so as not to cause offense. She watched Aemond's face carefully as his father spoke, his expression softening as King Viserys pleaded for an end to the fractious infighting that plagued the two halves of his family. Y/N felt the tension easing in her shoulders as Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra toasted to one another. Perhaps this evening would go smoothly after all.

This hope was short lived however as not a moment later Jacaerys was on his feet, eyes blazing in Aegon's direction, for what reason she knew not. Aemond released her hand a moment later and was also on his feet, staring pointedly at Jacaerys. The animosity was palpable between them, as if Aemond was daring him to have the courage of his conviction. The young Prince looked fearful of Aemond and, clearing his throat gave an awkward speech before sitting down. Y/N reclaimed Aemond's hand and he reluctantly sat back down as well. The intimidating and cold front Aemond was fronting was not a side of her husband Y/N was used to seeing, though she had been all too aware how willing he was to protect those he loved. She found his quiet defence of his brother admirable.

"Come, let us have some music." Minstrels immediately started playing at the Hand of the King's command. She startled as a hand appeared in front of her, her eyes tracing the path of the owner's arm to be met with the face of Prince Jacaerys. Y/N had little experience dancing, but the Prince looked sincere and she did not wish to offend him by rejecting his offer. Aemond's fist clenched against the table but he nodded tersely as she glanced at him, so she accepted the Prince's hand and allowed him to lead her to the centre of the room. As they danced she felt Aemond's gaze boring into her back and hoped he would not be too put out with her.

Aemond did not try to hide the scowl on his face as he watched Y/N dance with his nephew, his knuckles turning white as his anger and jealousy contended for dominance. His ire was reserved solely for his insolent nephews who he'd heard whispering about his wife under their breaths and though Jace seemed to be behaving amicably enough with Y/N, he was suspicious of his intentions in asking her to dance. At the same time a possessiveness rose up in Aemond, though he knew it was childish. Y/N was his love, his person and he misliked seeing Jace touch her, his mind swimming as they interlocked arms and brushed their fingertips together.

He made a concerted effort to relax his posture and unfurl his fist as their dance came to an end, not wishing Y/N to think him angry with her. It irritated Aemond to no end to see Jace offer his hand to his sister Helaena next, prompting Y/N to weave around the Prince and make her way back to him from the other end of the table. He felt a sense of disquiet at her having to pass by Luke, though he knew it was inconceivable that he would harm her. His continued distrust of the boy who'd maimed him had prompted him to have Y/N sit on his left side, feeling a sense of comfort and safety in having the person he most trusted on his vulnerable side where he could not see. His feeling of unease was not groundless however as Luke pointedly held his cup out to her.

"I have need of a refill."

Y/N stopped in her tracks and Aemond watched with fury as a look of confusion passed across her features. He saw plainly what Luke was playing at, observing the petulant boy's barely repressed smirk. When she didn't reply Luke twisted to face her, feigning surprise. "Apologies my lady, I mistook you for one of the servants."

Aemond slammed his own goblet down on the table hard enough for it to shake the dishes and silence the hum of conversation.

"A final tribute to my nephews. Jace, Luke, Joffrey. Each of them handsome, brave..."

Aemond looked directly at Luke, wishing to convey the full weight of his insult and for him to know exactly who it was directed at.

"And strong."

Aemond felt Y/N brush her hand against his as she returned to his side, though he could not see her.

"I dare you to say that again."

Aemond was amused by the Strong pup's gall as he advanced on him, coming to meet him halfway.

"Why? Do you not think yourself strong?"

He had to admire his nephew's bravery as his fist connected with Aemond's Jaw, though it did not carry enough force to have the intended affect. Aemond did not spill a drop of wine. Hearing his wife gasp in alarm he shot her a cocky grin to let her know he was unharmed before shoving Jace to the ground. It did not serve him to fight his nephew, Jace was no match for him. The dinner descended into chaos as Luke rose to aid his brother and was roughly slammed into the table by Aegon.

His mother's voice broke through the cacophony of shouts and scraping chairs.

"Aemond, why do you say such things?"

He pulled his arm from her grip, irritated that it was him being reprimanded once again when it was his nephew's who had insulted his wife. His retaliation was surely to be expected. "I am only expressing how proud I am of my family, mother. It appears my nephews are not so proud of theirs." His tone was laced with venom as he glared at Lucerys. It was not enough for him to take his eye. That he could have forgiven. But he had to revel in his lack of punishment and embarass his gentle wife too. This was a transgression he could not ignore.

As Jace made to rush at him again Daemon stepped in between them and Aemond struggled to decide whether he would stand his ground. The soft feel of Y/N's hand against his as she interlocked their fingers decided it. He stormed from the room, Y/N in tow.

Y/N did not dare to say anything as she stumbled to keep up with Aemond's long strides. He released her hand only when they reached their chambers, stalking away from her to lean against his desk. She worried he might be angry with her but she could not bear to see him so distressed, his head downcast so that his silver hair formed a blanket around his face, his knuckles gripping the edge of his desk so tightly they turned white from the strain. Tentatively approaching him she came to stand between his legs and moved his hair away from his face. Her fears were dispelled as he only grasped her hips and pulled her closer towards him, hands splaying across her waist. "I will make no apology for defending my wife."

Y/N brushed her knuckles against his cheek and Aemond immediately brought his hand up to hold hers in place.

"I would not ask it of you. Indeed, I am glad to have such a protective husband. Though I am sorry that Jacaerys hurt you."

She trailed her fingertips across his jaw lightly, not wishing to press upon a bruise which must surely be forming. Though she could confess inwardly to a degree of girlish embarrassment that after the initial moment of shock and concern at seeing Jacaerys punch her husband, she'd found it attractive how little it had affected Aemond.

Seeming to realise she would not reprimand him for his comportment, Aemond smiled beatifically at her.

"I am unharmed, my love. I have to admire my nephew's spirit, but despite his parentage he has not the strength to match it."

Y/N quirked an eyebrow up at him. "Have I not told you to reign in your arrogance before, husband?"

Aemond's eye lit up with mischief at her light scolding, and he brought a hand to the small of her back to press her closer still. "Tell me again."

Y/N brought her hands to his chest to steady herself as she leant fully against him, heat pooling in her stomach at the way Aemond was looking at her. Noting how his gaze fell to her lips she gladly titled her head to bring their lips together.

Valyrian Translations: Nuha prumia-My heart

Daor- No

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[juniorfor2]

Something that’s becoming more and more uncomfortable as people keep comparing Milly and Emma, is the way that the writers seem to almost be encouraging people to make such comparisons in order to cover their own bad writing.

It’s already odd enough how so many people’s preference for Milly often relies on MattMilly shippers, some transphobia, or a lack of understanding about the bad writing that takes over Rhaenyra’s arc post episode 7, but the writers constantly setting up Milly’s Rhaenyra in the Harrenhall - when Emma should and could do so - is just off.

Cause contrary to so many fans opinions, Emma’s Rhaenyra isn’t suffering because of bad acting. It’s due to bad writing, and the loss of an arc as season 1 and 2 continued.

Rhaenyra in episodes 1-5 had a very clear arc:

Lose her mother and fear childbirth - struggle with marriage proposals as she deals with a lack of support from her father - Daemon appears: reignites Rhaenyra’s fire and shows her there’s nothing to be afraid of - Rhaenyra is confident in the life she has to make for herself.

This made for a pretty consistent character, which was why people liked Milly so much. However, once the casting changed, so did the writing - and there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason for it. While the arc at first seems clear and set up to parallel her first arc, it randomly gets dropped by the end of the 8th episode:

Rhaenyra gets beaten down by Alicent’s court and accusations - her father, due to both political and health-related weakness, provides no true support for her position and children - Daemon appears: once again reignites Rhaenyra’s fire and gives her support - Rhaenyra pushes back against the greens in ep 7-8 - |doesn’t happen/gets dropped: Feeding Vaemond’s corpse to Syrax/Rhaenyra’s true Black Council quotes and her determination to take the crown|

Rhaenyra in episode 6-7 was almost perfectly consistent with episodes 1-5. Her act to defend her children and her Valyrian proposal to Daemon was in fact very Episode 3-4 coded. But afterwards, in episode 8 and after, Rhaenyra becomes inconsistent. She forgives Alicent, she’s peaceful and therefore isn’t supposed to have flaws, and doesn’t seem to have any real desires. Someone else seems to be writing Rhaenyra’s character.

Rather than properly understand the bad writing though, fans simply decided to compare their favorite actor/actress. And for some reason, unintentionally or not, the writers seem to encourage this to some degree.

Instead of simply correcting Rhaenyra’s character writing with Emma, they instead cut the amount of screen time they are given, changed almost nothing about their character, and introduced Milly for what simply seems like fan service.

If Milly had simply come in to represent younger Rhaenyra, that would have been fine. But instead, they’re now using her to represent her younger and older self (seen with older Rhaenyra’s dress). Instead of giving Emma and Matt screen time together to build chemistry and build the connection between the two characters, they’ve decided to almost go back to the beginning of season 1. Because they probably know that Milly was preferred, but don’t seem to really bother knowing why (or at least don’t want to change Rhaenyra’s character now, but do want to bring in views). Despite the fact that Milly’s Rhaenyra doesn’t truly affect the war/plot, she’s given just about the exact same amount of screen time as Emma in episode 4.

I don’t think this decision was really intentional, but it’s not great writing and it’s very unfair to Emma when they are now supposed to be representing the protagonist. I love Milly and her acting for Rhaenyra, but if she’s no longer truly affecting the plot, then she shouldn’t have the same amount of time as Emma’s Rhaenyra (especially considering the episode crunch).

[absolutebl]

Began Beginning - Myanmar's first BL 

Not So Quick Pitch (or is it a pitch?)

Cause I got a lot of thoughts

8 eps 25 min ea YouTube

Began Beginning feels very much like a first timers BL. Which it pretty much is. There’s a lot of explaining and info dumping and information that we really don’t need about the characters (or the family) especially in the first couple of episodes.

Here's your hlepful breakdown:

Mani = main boy workaholic, probably gay, acts ace 

Hlyan = cute flirty bestie, smoker, closeted gay (for good reason) in love with Mani (becomes main character about 3/4 way through) 

Walar = openly gay visitor recovering from a breakup who enters their codependent dynamic and things happen as a result

Thae = Mani & Hlyan’s other bestie, trans 

I was tempted to say this reminded me of early Vietnamese BL, but in actuality what it reminded me of most was the stuff we got from way back in the early 2000's out of Hong Kong, or more recently from the Philippines (I'm thinking about something like The Boy Foretold by the Stars).

There is a grungy sticky authenticity to these works, of which Began Beginning is now a part. They have their own tarnished charm. For all their hiccups in storytelling and absurdities, there is an almost documentary feel to them, partly as a result of the inferior quality of production and filming (which is entirely economic). But that itself also somehow adds to the appeal.

This kind of BL is entirely the opposite of something out of Korea or GMMTV. And if you like that BL best, you aren't gonna like this product. But as much as KBL wins top ranks from me pretty consistently these days, sometimes I enjoy this kind of BL too.

The range itself keeps the genre vibrant and healthy.

So what is Began Beginning about?

Childhood best friends must come to terms with their own identities and true feelings for each other when a new boy comes to town, putting them into conflict with their families and ultimately, each other.

For the first half of this show there’s a lot of sitting across from each other and talking about life choices over yummy food and then going to tourist spots (mildly boring and not particularly important to the plot). 

It changed tone about 2/3 in to be way more of a coming out family drama about forced marriages and homophobia.

And then at the very end it changed again, becoming a full on soap opera with kidnapping, crazy characterization shifts, and rescue missions.

All in all? It was a wild raw creature to consume as a binge. No kisses since this is Myanmar, but a very romantic end, so I think maybe actually worth your time? I'm certainly glad I watched it.

Recommended with lots of reservations but great respect. I’m going with a 7/10.

There is a particularly important part at the end when Hlyan talks about asking Thae to dress him as a girl to see if he was third gender because he had these feels for another boy. And how unpleasant that made him feel. I thought it was hugely impactful as a window into the boxes same sex loves in modern society forces upon us. No matter what options our culture provides for us, if the boxes are limited we feel limited too. Also, drawing a distinction between gender identity and sexual identity. Lovely bit of storytelling.

(see comments, turns out this is not the first one)

(source)

[autismprotocol]

TMAGP Theory Board (Episode 8-9)

Hi guys sorry about the missed week of theory crafting my schoolwork has been extra demanding and I haven't been able to get around to updating the board until now so here's the updated board

Episode 8 especially was insane so I'm gonna break the episode breakdown into two sections.

What Happened in Episode 8: Running On Empty

New Norris Statement! it's been a while since we heard from our buddy and he did not disappoint. though there's not much to say story-wise this was just a cool incident report I loved the way they described the Lonely as a constantly hungry entity. I also noticed that the pattern of Norris's statements having to do with lost love continues to be true. it's much more subtle than his previous two incidents but the statement giver does mention losing his wife because of divorce. which I believe still follows the pattern I've theorized is taking place. 

Something up with Alice. She seems more depressed and serious than she usually is in this episode. (through episode 9 I think I know why but I'll get to that later. I don't believe she is completely in the dark like some of the newer employees and after hearing about Gwen's promotion she is getting suspicious. we have yet to know if Alice knows what's happening. but her behavior in this episode might give us a hint about how naive she actually is.

Colin is Absent. After his freakout in EP 7, Colin is MIA. according to Lena, he's on a mental health break but I would not be surprised if that is a lie.

Gerry and Gertrude are Alive!! Probably the most exciting development in this episode was meeting an alive Gerry Keay and Gertrude Robison. Sam is on the hunt for info about the Magnus Institute after the emails Jon has been sending him and he and Celia end up meeting Gerry who in this universe is considerably more happy and lives with Gertrude. I'm interested to know what role Gertrude plays in this universe is she at all connected to the Institute? I definitely think something is up with her because of the way she tries to deflect Sam's question to Gerry.

Celia Lore. after the meeting with Gerry leads to a dead end for Sam, Celia asks him to help her with her mystery. "I'm trying to look into... Weird physics stuff: time travel, other dimensions, teleportation" More proof for this Celia being from from Archives. why else would she be looking into other dimensions specifically if she wasn't trying to figure out what happened at the Panopticon. (Remember as far as we know Celia before the change in Archives was just a normal person she had no connection to the entities or the Institute.) when Sam asks, she says it's for her friend's podcast but I think she's lying. or not telling the full truth.

Georgie Barker Perhaps? speaking of the friend. our last reveal of the episode is Georgie in protocol. I don't think she is from Archives because Georgie appears after Jons's sacrifice in MAG 200. 

And thats it for episode 8 so im gonna move on to Episode 9

What happened in Episode 9: Rolling With It

Sam is back to filling out onboarding paperwork but the questions on it are strange. asking about past traumas, how many dead things you've seen recently, and the infamous question why? similar types of questions that appear in TMA job interviews.

A Magnus Statement!?! After Celia tells Sam she can't find anything at the Magnus Institute Sam considers cutting his losses and letting it go. But then Chester without any prompting begins reading a Magnus statement incident to Sam. I still believe Chester is Jon and he acts as a mentor to Sam trying to keep him safe by providing him with bits of the answers he's looking for. (this way Sam won't be in danger of looking for answers elsewhere and maybe he won't be targeted by this unknown force that had killed RedCanary and driven Colin to extreme paranoia.) the statement reveals that the institute collected and stored artifacts much like the Institute in Archives. 

What's the deal with the Institute? the statement Chester shares this episode is pretty standard Magnus stuff, magic fear dice is just another Thursday for TMAG enjoyers. but what I found most interesting was the pre-statement info. What does this viability survey mean? viable for what? I and my roommate have a kind of joke theory that the Institute in this universe is a hub for training and creating new avatars but now I'm starting to think this might actually be the case. I think they are looking for people who have the potential to become avatars as subjects. for the agents, they might be employing avatars to work for the institute and the catalyst has to be finding an avatar that can complete the ritual and bring the Change. The unknown statement giver in this episode can't be a subject because they are already claimed by a power from the dice (still unsure what power it is ) they have low potential to become an agent because based on the end of the statement they now want nothing to do with the dice stepping away from their identity as a fear avatar and then dying. and for some reason, the institute must see some potential that this individual can serve as a catalyst for the ritual. I'm hopeful we'll get another avatar statement and maybe we can revisit this Viability survey again 

Gwen's First assignment. Gwen gets her first Liason assignment and it has brought up a major player from the protocol ARG. Mr Bonzo is this weird mascot character that showed up multiple times in the ARG that was launched back in the fall of 2023. Gwen is tasked with delivering an envelope with a name and address to Nigel Dickerson someone who according to Gwen is known for Mr. Bonzo. Basically, I have no idea where this is going but I definitely think it must be important. 

Poor Alice. Alice meets with Teddy to catch up. Nothing story significant happens here but we do learn that maybe Alice still harbors some romantic feelings towards Sam.

The Ruins. After her conversation with Teddy Alice is approached by Sam with a request. He wants to go to the old Magnus Institute ruins and wants Alice to come with him. This is definitely a bad idea but she agrees and that's where we leave off

and thats it for now. The story is getting so good and I'm already attached to all the characters so im terrified to see what Sam and alice dig up at the ruins (Sam clearly didn't heed the warning of the RedCanary)

[ataraxiasflame]

HotD Aemond/Helaena Prediction:

This is only a prediction based on what we’ve seen so far in the series and the S2 trailer. As much as I hope this prediction isn’t true, after the first 4 episodes of this season, this feels more and more likely.

Since the show has gone the route of Aemond v Aegon, and Rook’s Rest has seemingly set Aemond up as Prince Regent, I fear that Aegon’s incapacitation will now bring on the ‘Maleor the Missing’ plot line.

In the Ep 5 promo trailers, we see both the small council discussion of Aegon’s heirs, as well as a scene with Aemond and the voice-over narrating that ‘duty is sacrifice’.

Personally, I think the show deliberately erased Maelor for this purpose: Aemond now has the ‘duty’ to provide a (Green) Targaryen heir since Aegon is no longer capable (by his hand).

I expect this scene from the S2 trailer is Helaena and Aemond. Since we can assume that Aemond will now become Prince Regent, the ring makes sense, and the man in this scene has long hair so that really only leaves Daemon/Aemond.

It also calls back to Young Aemond declaring his willingness to perform his duty to keep their Valyrian blood pure.

But my concern is, will this be consensual? I don’t trust that this show will make it consensual for Helaena at all, but my expectations with Aemond now (given the route they have gone with him this season) is that he has been coveting all his brother has, thinking himself the better suited brother in all ways, and now he will have his wife/Queen too (making this a non-con scene).

His actions at Rook’s Rest have portrayed him as vengeful and it would make sense that he will take Aegon’s dagger, his crown, his throne and his Queen as his own personal war prize.

And even though the Aemond and Helaena actors claimed that their scenes were merely “subtle”, the HotD actors were incredibly misleading in the S2 press tour, so I do not trust that this was necessarily accurate. And it makes me think that all those tiny hints in S1 were deliberate all along. If this turns out to be true, I believe they always had the intention to go this route with Aemond.

Personally, I hate it. I haven’t been a fan of the changes to the TG characters but a non-con scene between the Green siblings is extreme. But this seems very much on brand for that the show has done to them. I will especially take issue with it if they make this a non-consensual scene. But I wouldn’t expect less from this show anymore.

[velvet-vox]

(This post is wrong as all hell. Please, only read the notes and reblogs of this mess.)

The Confession Discourse.

(Imagine lacking so much time and will that you take almost two months to answer one single rebuttal)

This post is simultaneously a follow up to my previous confession on @md-confessions and a response to @oldmanjenkins985 's confession on that same ask blog.

Originally, I wanted this whole argument to be a @md-confessions blog's exclusive thing, but I was too slow, and the confession box was closed, so now, after delaying it for weeks, I've finally decided to make my response to the whole thing, while also keeping some unsaid stuff for myself for when I'll eventually finish writing my giant critique of Doll, who at this point I'm not sure if I want to publish before episode 8 or not. You can find the links to all of the confessions that I'm talking about right above, in the coloured words.

I think that the best way to start this response is by going through @oldmanjenkins985 's confession and rebutting each and every point with my opinion, then I'll start speaking more generally on the whole subject matter while providing the reasons that drove me to make that original confession.

Read and Rebuttal.

"So, basically the way you talk about rewriting the story is that you just want an almost completely different story than the one we got. Getting rid of the school elements? Say goodbye to episode 3 and 4. 2 can still happen but there's some stuff that needs to be cut and stuff to fill those gaps."

Alright, so, to be perfectly clear, I wasn't saying that I wanted an entirely different story than the one we got. Originally, while making that confession, I was under the assumption that it was always Liam's intention to eventually escalate the story to "end of the universe" proportions, and that the reason why he decided to rush so much of the plot was to get to that aforementioned conflict with the Absolute Solver. Therefore, my suggestion was that, since Vickers seemed more interested in the apocalyptic aspects of his story and didn't have the time or resources to flesh out anything else, he should have sacrificed the whole school setting earlier on (since, despite how much I like it, it was kind of useless after the pilot, where it set up Uzi's character and flaws. It was semi useful in ep 2 and 3 to also set up Doll's character, but I'm currently advocating her erasure, so those instances don't matter to our argument) and just went straight to the things that he actually wanted to tell.

However, as I've learned more about the production history of this show, I no longer believe that to be the case; the Absolute Solver was always a planned thing, but not in the way it is currently iterated; I'm sure Liam rewrote the entire plot so many times, that, whatever he had in mind at the beginning, it's so wildly different from the final product that it might as well be a completely different show.

The school elements were probably very relevant to the first few drafts, but in the final take, they are completely disregardable, and I know that because the show itself quickly disregards a lot of those elements in episode 4, so this isn't even an idea I came up with in my spare time, Murder Drones itself instilled this notion in my head to begin with.

"but 3 and 4 not happening AT ALL like they do, that would have serious ripple effects."

Duh, that's what happens when you change a part of your story, it usually changes your whole story, even if in minor ways.

My main goal here was to make the story of Murder Drones simpler so that it better sticks to the eight 20 minutes long episodes.

In his current form, the story of Murder Drones is too big to be fleshed out in an eight-episode season, we aren't even sure if there'll be a season 2, and even if there was, season 1 is so crammed already that episodes 6, 7, and most likely 8 feel like the ending of a second season to me; that's just how crazy the pacing is.

"And episode 5/6 would probably go down differently as well since Doll wouldn't be there to steal the keybug."

Have you ever wondered why Doll didn't steal the keybug back in episode 4 when Uzi found it in that abandoned warehouse? Neither N nor V were there to help Uzi in case Doll decided to do the same thing that she did to Cyn in episode 6; Doll didn't even need to go straight into the Cabin Fever's labs (even if that's exactly what she ended up doing in ep 6), she could have just simply disappeared into the woods; the main gang doesn't know where her hideout is, therefore, she could have just stalled with the keybug until she figured out a trap or a setup (the one thing she has been consistently excelling at) to get rid of the trio (at least temporarily) and enter Cabin Fever labs to find what she was looking for.

So, why doesn't she do it? Well, it's simple: it's because she doesn't know what the keybug does at this point of the story.

Doll only learns about the secrets hiding down in the elevator shaft off camera through Tessa, who then engages her to steal the keybug from Uzi in episode 5.

Therefore, excluding the fact that yes, episode 2 through 6 would play out differently, Doll, in regards to her choice to steal the bug, it's only a tool for Cyn; and while this wouldn't feel like it if the show was better paced, due to the fact that our protagonists immediately teleport to the labs, and the way her arc plays out in the next two episodes, she also feels like a tool for the plot as well.

Again, all of this would have been perfectly fine with better pacing or more spotlight on Doll as a character, but that wasn't the case, so moving on:

"And Doll just being a plot device and not a character? Don't even get me started on that."

She is a character and a plot device, a lot of fictional characters are simultaneously plot devices, especially protagonists and antagonists, the trick stems in the writer's ability of masking the second component and, ideally, even the first.

Storytelling is all about manipulation; how capable you are to make the audience buy the events being told even if they are completely fake.

Some characters achieve this narrative illusion almost perfectly, while others like Doll are harder to pass by if their writing doesn't hold up.

You can fault me for my excessive scrutiny, but I'm going to explain how I got to this point at the end of the rebuttal.

"She's one of the most tragic and well written characters of the show and I LOVE her.

If it was just for that, I love her as well, but I don't find her to be one of the most well written characters in the show, far from it; I actually consider her to be a hot writing mess, though that doesn't stop me from thinking about her basically every single day.

Do I find her to be one of the most tragic characters in the show? Objectively speaking, no. A lot of other characters had it worse than her, Alice and Beau are technically more tragic characters than Doll, as they never had any other choice at every single turn. V had it worse, N had it worse, Cyn had it worse, Tessa had it worse, heck, you can easily make the argument that J of all people had it worse than Doll. By comparison, if you lack the emotional intelligence to understand that, just because one person's trauma is worse than someone else's it doesn't mean that the other person's trauma doesn't matter, as all life scarring experiences affect us in an indiscernible way, that invalidates certain statements such as "well that person clearly had it worse than you, yet you became a sh####er person than them, so your trauma doesn't matter because you could have just simply overcame it like that one person did, but you didn't because you were always a jerk", Doll just looks like a giant a#####e.

Is her tragedy the one that affected me the most? (Looks back at the several months of emotional damage preceding and succeeding her death) Yes.

I feel like that's partially due to how much I personally relate to Doll, but even if I am fully willing to admit that V's entire life story is technically far more sad than Doll's, I just have way more traits in common with Doll, plus it also helps the fact that Doll (to me) is the most down to earth character in the entire cast. Her serious demeanor may alienate her from the show's tone, but it helps her to be more likable to me, as she, more than any other character, feels like a real world person that reacts accordingly to all of the nonsense and murder happening around her. We don't get enough of the human characters for me to feel like: "Yeah, this guy is definitely me if I was in Murder Drones, I would do the same things and react in the same way to all the horrors happening around me". I like Uzi's and Tessa's quirkiness, and I could be considered a weird-boy even if I never was ostracized in school or emotionally neglected by my parents, but I don't personally relate to their antics and their comedic reactions to the horror moments pale in comparison to Doll's genuine reactions to pretty much anything. Also, while all Murder Drones fans can claim to share some traits with N and V, none of them can really say that they personally relate to being a disposable slave; therefore points to Doll being the most grounded Murder Drones character.

So yeah, Doll is a very tragic antagonist, but I am a Wakfu fan, thus I know the secret ingredients behind a truly magnificent sympathetic villain, and I can say that Doll lacks a lot of the pieces that make someone like Nox such a heart breaking rollercoaster of emotions. Of course, I wouldn't expect you to know what I'm talking about since Wakfu is a pretty obscure franchise, I'm only mentioning it for propaganda reasons, but nonetheless, I'm pretty confident in saying that I know what differentiates a good sympathetic villain from a truly great one; Doll has a lot of pieces of the latter but she ends up falling into the former due to various reasons, most noticeable reason of all being that she never feels like the protagonist of her own story, just a side character that refused to remain as such.

Loving her doesn't stop me from thinking about her critically. Soon we are going to discuss what her place in the narrative is and why it doesn't work in the way it was intended to.

"Her flaws especially."

I would really like to open up a tangent here, but I feel like that's a discussion for another day; so sure, you love her flaws, go on.

"She's very much a mirror to Uzi. Both had their parents (or parent in Uzi's case) get killed by disassembly drones, both are infected with the Solver, and both want to figure out what the hell it is and how to fix themselves. The difference between the two, is that Doll SAW V rip her parents apart while laughing."

There are way more differences than that, but I'm sure you already knew that, sorry for being incapable to pick up on sarcasm.

"Uzi was likely only a baby when Nori died, and even if she wasn't she didn't personally see her die."

I have nothing to say here, but I thought that it would be better to separate this sentence from the next one, just to narrow down the focus.

"That was what let her get over her grudge, because she had a grudge against a concept, while Doll had a grudge against a person."

This sentence doesn't make any sense to me. People can absolutely have a grudge against a concept, and Doll's hatred for the Disassembly Drones being targeted rather than vague like Uzi's hatred is (even if Uzi doesn't hate the Disassembly Drones, though I'm not sure what that scene with Uzi in episode 2 "The humans sent you without a communication relay and reformatted your memories to soup. Covering their tracks means that they are past negotiating. Not like they tried negotiating with my mum" was supposed to mean. Uzi in general is such a strange character to me, weird-girl my a##, Uzi stans, your daughter is straight up an enigma) it's not what allowed one to get over their grudge compared to the other.

One example of this is Bradford Buzzard from the DuckTales remake: he was traumatised as a kid by her strict grandma, who forced him to go on dangerous adventures with her, so when he grew up started hating the entire concept of adventures, and sought for a way to eliminate all unpredictable elements from the world and his life. This is only one example but you get the idea.

To be fair, you did mention the fact that you were tired when you started writing this, so I'm pretty sure that you weren't reflecting carefully when you wrote this part, plus once a confession is sent you can't correct it anymore, as such, I believe you would have probably changed this sentence if you taught about it a little longer. Therefore, I'll just let this one slide.

"Doll continuously decides to work by herself as a result, unable to overcome her hatred for V (very understandably mind you)."

Absolutely, screw all those people who said that Doll was being unreasonable by not joining sides with Uzi, 90% of all normal human beings wouldn't want to stay anywhere close to their parents murderer, especially Doll, who for some reason is the most realistic member of the cast, even if she isn't human. Plus, if you believe the theory that Doll's parents were killed during the pilot (there are some plot holes in the timeline of events for both this theory and the "child Doll saw her parents die" theory, but that's something for another day), then it's technically Uzi the one who created her rival, which would contradict the "Doll is completely consumed by revenge" allegations, as Doll weirdly enough sympathizes with Uzi and *insert here a giant analysis of Lizzie's line in Episode 3 "Dude, no one is gonna notice she is missing. Just do your thing, and I'll let in V" and how many questions it raises* despite her knowing that she was the one to let in her parents killer.

But ok, this is completely unrelated, let's move on.

"This ultimately ends up getting her killed because she alone could not take on the Solver, a threat we time and time again have seen to only be stoppable when people work together against it. When Uzi and N work together in ep 2, Doll protecting Lizzy in the same episode, in ep 4 when N helps Uzi regain control, in ep 7 when Nori and N fight back against possessed Uzi. Then think about all the times it succeeded. In ep 5 at the Gala it had Tessa alone, in ep 7 it had N and Uzi on the ropes when they were alone, in ep 4 when Uzi was on a rampage and V was trying to kill her rather than help her."

Uh uhm.

"Doll's death doesn't ruin her character, it IS her character (might be overexaggerating there but I really liked that sentence). Tragedy and bad choices stemming from reasonable thinking. A result of her going alone, trusting nobody."

I don't know what to say here.

At first I was like "Ehhhhhhhhh, you are kinda right but not in a positive way" but then I realised that there are a lot of right and wrong things in this paragraph, and in order to pick them apart I would have to go through a massive side tangent that would take focus away from the rest of the confession, as such, I'm just going to leave this as it is and maybe I will address it in a future post.

"Also, we don't even know that she's dead! Yes, it's likely she is, but Cyn only swallowed her core. It's possible it gets thrown up in ep 8 and she gets to continue living."

We'll see, but if I was the one who killed Doll in such a dramatic and gruesome way I wouldn't have her revived right away in the following episode, where there are already a lot of ongoing plot lines that need to be tied up; nor would I do this if I want for the stakes to remain high.

Sorry for bumming down your optimism, but I really struggle to see how Doll could possibly bounce back up when she was just brutally executed in the most anticlimactic way possible.

"Don't judge her before the season is done."

I will judge Doll based on what's already present in the episodes because I have very valid reasons to believe that her arc was being made up as the story went on; planner and pantsie are two different terms used to identify the writing style of a writer, the former is for writers who spend time planning out the various aspects of their stories before releasing them, the latter is for writers who make up their story as they go along; both writing styles have their advantages and disadvantages, and writers can actually adoperate both simultaneously if they need to, and that's what Liam Vickers did: he planned out a lot of aspects of his series (at least in the final rewrite), like the Tessa reveal and the Solver mystery, and made up other aspects as the episodes went along, like Doll's entire storyline.

Getting the obvious differences in characterisation between Pilot and series Doll out of the way, have you ever wondered why we get the reveal that Doll's parents have died both in episode 2 and 3? It would have been a lot better if it was just revealed to us in The Promening, after all Liam's writing is hardly ever on the nose when it comes to this type of stuff, why repeat to the audience information that they already know?

That scene with Lizzy and Doll in episode 2 is in general one of the most forced scenes in the show; it serves his purpose of setting up Doll and Lizzie's characters alright, but it doesn't make a lot of sense if you start peeling away at its layers for a while.

I can and will judge Doll as she is right now if her story was being made up as the show went along, I've seen good pantsie writing in my life, and I can usually tell at which point the writer lost sight of his original idea and it's starting to fall apart.

"If you like the series how it is, Doll and the school elements are VITAL. Irreplacable. And if you really don't like how the series went, as it seems you do considering you think it'd be better if the entire thing was rewritted, make a fanfiction"

I like how the series is, but I really like how Murder Drones could have been.

Ideally, in a perfect universe, we would get two 20 episodes long seasons that set up all of the things that have happened in these 8 episodes and also give us plenty of time to flesh out all of the cast, the world, and look at side stories that reinforce the main themes of the series or give us some breathing room between the big events.

Of course, we don't live in that perfect universe; we only have 8 episodes to tell a story, thus, we need to be very thoughtful of what we put inside the plot because we don't have a lot of time to flesh everything out.

Probably, for the story that Liam wanted to tell, 16 or 12 episodes would have been enough, even if it still seems a little bit scuffed, but again, we don't have those, and he should have paid more attention to that fact.

We'll circle back at this in just a moment.

"Whew, that was...a lot. I think you can tell I really like this show. Again, I apologize if I come off as rude or pompous or whatever."

No problems. You sounded genuine.

"I'm just very passionate about the show. I don't think it doesn't have flaws, it is rushed and Liam isn't one for super fine worldbuilding details, but ultimately those barely affect it for me. They dock like, half a point combined for me."

And if that's the case, good for you. I'm happy that you can still enjoy the show the way it is because I've become pretty miserable as a result of picking apart all of its flaws and wishing for them to not exist.

The real Reasons.

Now that I have taken apart all of the individual pieces of the confession, it's finally time for me to provide you with some answers.

The main reason why I wrote that original confession was because of this Other confession, that basically pointed out the fact that confessions as a whole started s#####g ass, and it got me into questioning if I could write something better.

I had a couple of ideas I wanted to discuss, and threw a couple of them into that original text, hoping that it would live up to my standards. @oldmanjenkins985 read it, disagreed with what it had to say, and that's how we've got to this point.

As I have stated in the first part of my rebuttal, I used to believe that Liam Vickers was so interested in his end of the universe storyline that he wanted to go for it at any cost, even if that meant skipping important character work and rushing through most of the plot points he had in mind.

With that assumption, I thought that all the other ideas, like Doll, Alice, Beau and the sentinels, were just things that Liam came up with as production progressed and thought they were too cool to disregard, so he kept them. He kept them even if he didn't have the time to flesh them out or the courage to simplify his story so that we, the audience, wouldn't feel robbed.

I really love Doll.

I can't stress this enough, I love Doll way more than I love Murder Drones.

But exactly because I love her so much, I need to keep her at harm's length; she's not a real person, she's a fictional character, and as such, she can and should be eliminated from the story if the final product would benefit from it.

I'm someone who's willing to make the necessary sacrifices for the sake of art, even if it means eliminating good ideas that can't be done justice in their execution, and I believe Doll to be the biggest example of this due to her own niche role in the narrative and how said niche exists only because of her.

Let me explain: Doll is the main side antagonist of the first season of the show.

Let me repeat that: Doll is the main, SIDE antagonist, of the first season of Murder Drones.

You don't just "make" a side antagonist and drop it into the story because he's important, no, you have to consciously make room for their existence because they are not as necessary to the story as the protagonists, the supporting characters, or the main antagonist. The niche that Doll fills in the story is one that innately benefits her and her only, so she needs extra character work to make sure that she feels connected and important to everything else going on.

Alice and Beau are roadblocks, you could say that they had a lot of untapped potential, but the show never teased us with said potential in the way that it teased us with Doll's, so they don't feel like wasted characters because that's all they were ever meant to be.

I would cut Lizzie and Alice out of the story to give Doll more development, but I wouldn't cut Doll out of the story to give Lizzie and Alice more development.

Two out of three fulfill their roles decently and extra screen time isn't mandatory, the third one has a role that exists only to benefit them and as such they should be given the necessary screen time to make their presence not feel like a burden.

Another thing that I've noticed while writing "The insane, untapped potential of Rebecca from Murder Drones" (which I encourage everyone reading this to check out, as I consider it to be my masterpiece), is that Doll doesn't really tie all that well into any of the themes of abuse present in the show; sure, there's her relationship with Lizzy, but you can interpret that in a miriad of ways, some of which being more healthy than the others, and a lot of them even positioning Doll as the abuser and Lizzy as the still guilty yet repented victim.

Side antagonists or just general side characters whose stories are focused on exist to expand the themes or the world of the setting, and they need to be included into the narrative only if you have the time to focus on them, otherwise they need to remain on the concept board.

My obsession with Doll isn't a temporary fluke, it's going to carry on for the rest of my life.

But guess what? I've been hyper obsessed with a lot of things in my life, Murder Drones being one of them; when the dust will be settled, the only thing that will matter is the quality of the actual show, and in his current state that future isn't looking so bright.

I've seen a lot of Murder Drones creators losing a lot of interest for the show after episode 7, and I myself have lost my suspension of disbelief after having lots of time to internalise it.

I'm not sure if anyone reading this has noticed it yet, but ever since episode 7, the world of Murder Drones has become ten times smaller. We've erased Tessa, the school setting, JCJenson and Doll from the equation; many people now believe that the planet is going to be destroyed and only the most relevant characters will survive its collapse, thus eliminating the entire worker drones society from the plot; all human life is most likely dead and the planet Earth was revealed to have been destroyed back in episode 6; it really feels like with every passing installment the Murder Drones universe just keeps getting smaller as the stakes get higher, and I don't think that's a good thing, it actively harms the potential and creativity of Murder Drones as a series, and it makes it harder for the fear of the unknown to have any sort of impact when the universe is so claustrophobic that it's far easier to assume that all of the undiscovered mysteries are just the angles of the room.

If I had to compare Murder Drones to any other series, I would say that the Epic Mickey franchise is the best way to describe how I feel about it.

Both series are a collection of pretty cool concepts and have a lot of angsty and edgy material as a part of their world building, and both of them execute some of their individual ideas perfectly while the overall product misses the mark of a masterpiece.

And while Epic Mickey is held back by the poor gameplay of both installments and the poor writing of the second one, Murder Drones is held back by a lack of focus and restraint from his creator.

People often point to the founders of Glitch when they try to justify the rushed pacing of the story, but in my opinion, if the higher ups of Glitch were truly responsible for their show's shortcomings, at this point at least one of the members of the crew should have made us aware, and this reasoning still doesn't take away the blame from Liam, as he still has mostly unchecked creative freedom.

Remember that video on Liam's official YouTube channel titled "So I've been given too much creative power and made a show"?

Well, you know what the saying says.

"With great power comes great responsibility"

And this is true even for art.

[philosophicalmisuse]

Victor from From and Autistic Coding in media

Just finished season 1 and a couple eps into season 2, enjoying it lots so far! Only spoilers for season 1 I think, maybe mild for season 2

Just seen a couple of people discuss Victor and Autism and neurodivergence in general and wanted to add my two cents

I reckon he's autistic-coded (and I think the distinction between is autistic and is autistic coded is important) -

- trouble socialising (esp with other adults, but having an easier time with kids - socialising well with people below and above ur peer group is fairly common)

- restricted interests (the peaches being the one thing he liked to eat jumped out to me - thought it was so sweet how donna made sure that he had some and that she was rationing them for him specifically, both so others wouldn't have them and so that he could have them regularly for as long as possible and genuinely took seriously how important it was and attempted to hold back other supplies in case they ran out to provide an alternative but was aware it likely wouldn't work - she looked at why he liked the peaches and accommodated his needs not just in terms of well this will keep him happy but in a caring way for him as a person, such a little thing but damn made me like donna so much)

- the visual language of how he's presented - wearing his (casual flannel) shirt buttoned all the way up to the neck and pants cuffed, just like how he did as a kid, holding onto an object from his childhood, posture that is overly "correct", slightly shambley walk, 'evasive' body language that avoids eye contact etc - ! important to specify here that I'm not saying all autistic people dress or move like this, I for one hate things touching my neck so you wouldn't catch me dead in a button up all the way to my neck, but this visual language/costuming/physicality is super common for male autistic-coded characters as a visual shorthand to express restrive patterns of behaviour/outsider from social norms of dress, so it jumped out at me right away. Two other examples that spring to mind are young Sheldon and elementary Sherlock Holmes

- the language/tonality he uses - often repetitive to express the rules while not always explaining why (example being when jade takes his violin and ransacks his room, he doesn't explain why jade shouldn't go into his room or how it made him feel, he visually shows distress and repeats the rule that jade violated, even when jade explains his pov - victor responds in his face to the comment I thought you were dead, seemingly understanding that that's reasonable, but it's not relevant to the rule as he isn't dead so he repeats the rule) - he's often fairly monotone/expressionless as well - I don't know how to explain this but some of his inflections/patterns of speech are very familiar to me in terms of how I and other autistic people I've met talk. There's something about how and where the voice goes up and down in a sentence that I can't really explain

- disliking change (eg. peaches)

And I'm sure there's more but these are the main ones I remember

NOW!!! onto my broader points

I have seen some people online argue that:

he's not autistic he's just traumatised

This is rational and I get it! He's presumably been alone since a very young age so not 'socialised', he's had to learn the rules of this place and stick to them or die and so on. The behaviours of cPTSD and asd have a large amount of overlap.

However, my first point would be that a traumatised autistic person (which is most autistic people tbh) look/act different from traumatised non-autistic people. Most autistic people that you meet are traumatised, and there's a lot of traumatised people who aren't autistic. Having cPTSD and having a trigger to a specific sound, for example, is different from having SPD and getting tired/stressed/having a meltdown from most sounds being too loud and your nervous system being unable to distinguish between a relevant loud noise and an irrelevant loud noise and giving you all noises at the same level and stimulating your nervous system to react to them the same, for example. In cPTSD your nervous system is likely also inflating lots of noises, because lots of noises were relevant to your survival in a traumatic environment - but in SPD (something many ASD people have and some argue may be a major facet of the disorder that has, until recently, been unhelpfully diminished in diagnostic resources) this would happen whether or not you were traumatised.

The collection of traits in the DSM is descriptive of a way of processing the world around you - and when people argue that Victor is autistic, they're saying that he is behaving in a way that appears to be characteristic of a certain combination of traits. Additionally, he was old enough to experience some socialisation, and had enough resources to experiment with other ways of dressing - there presumably have been other people that have come to the village over the years, as well. What I see in the character is a very traumatised autistic adult using patterns of behaviour that are explicitly autistic in order to survive in a terrible situation, HOWEVER I would argue that it doesn't matter very much

Regardless of whether he is or is not autistic (he's a fictional character and we can never have enough info to really know unless the characters or creators of the show explicitly say it, ofc) what is relevant in my opinion is that he is CODED to be autistic.

The way the character is presented is similar to a lot of tropes in media about how autistic characters are presented. Whether you think that the character in and of himself is or is not autistic, I think it's fair to say that the way he is characterised is similar to a lot of other male autisic-coded characters in media

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

It's important both in terms of how we analyse/interpret the specific media, and how this can impact social understanding of autism more broadly

First of all, it may tell us something about how Autism is portrayed in media. An autistic character in another piece of media who has not experienced the same levels of insane trauma in a horror setting is thought to behave similarly to a character who has experienced these things.

Secondly, it tells us about how the other characters in the world relate to Victor. Why do they instantly see him as being weird, when initially the only thing he does is simply have a conversation with a new resident? He's instantly seen as a threat by the dad, explicitly seen as weird by everyone else, where the young girl who murdered someone is seen as someone safe, and positive for taking care of the child and distracting them from the horrible new situation they find themselves in.

Honestly, he's initially presented as a sexual threat to both children - I've seen some ppl online refer to him as 'paedophilic'. Why is this?

I would argue it's because autistic traits, down to the way autistic people move and speak, are seen as inherently threatening and other. I don't even blame the people who do read him as predatory, as it's so common in media to be presented with people who look/behave like Victor ending up being creepy and weird. Autistic people are infantilised, seen engaging with children, and the audience is told they're weird - even the dad was so strongly hostile to Victor harmlessly talking to his child BEFORE he took him into the forest (something that I completely agree any parent would be reasonable for responding to extremely hostily). It was clear this was something Victor was used too as well.

This is a common trope. A weird, socially inept older person forms an unlikely friendship with an open-minded child - who is often discouraged from being friendly with this person, as they are viewed as sinister and a threat from adults in their life. This is used as a double-bluff - the real threat to the child is actually the young woman who the adults are fine with spending time with their child, as they view her as fundamentally non-threatening.

This enabled me, as a viewer, early on, to discount the information that was alluding to Victor being a threat - but its also a really frustrating trope, because it relies on the fact that audiences do see autistic patterns of behaviour/speech/movement as fundamentally other/threatening. Even if you subvert this trope by making the threat come from somewhere else, and tell the audience that really they're bad/foolish/wrong for thinking Victor was a threat, you're still using the same tropes that make real autistic people be viewed with suspicion simply for existing in the world. Victor is still portrayed as creepy, and still has to earn the protagonists trust in a way other characters don't. He, and other autistic coded characters, still start off in a deficit, at a negative, where other characters start off with a neutral or positive. This really does impact real life people as well!

Another trope that is used that is relevant is the 'weird' character having a special amount of knowledge about the problem at hand that other characters discount because of their weirdness (knowledge often initially only shared with an open-minded child character). This is so frustrating! I even remember this coming up in The Dressmaker, when the intellectually disabled character (I think? It was one of those very generalist disabled character presentations, to my knowledge) witnessed the crime but no-one thought to ask them who did it till the end, and initially presumed he had done it or something (I still enjoyed the movie tho). Its bizarre to me that none's asking Victor what he knows - he even expresses early on to the kid that noone listens to him or cares, from memory. I find this so frustrating, and is again really common - and is also a part of the othering of autistic coded characters - they're 'not of this world', but are part of both and none at the same time.

While this is something that many autistic people feel and experience, it's partially because we're ostracised from our peers because we're so 'weird', so it's really frustrating to see this replicated time and time again in fantasy, horror and thriller genres especially - it sort of reenforces a social standard that's causing the problem. Rather than create understanding and support the elimination of notions of 'weirdness', even if the character is important and initially creepy but not a threat, they're still not of this world. It's still reasonable to see them as weird, because they are weird. The characters are rational for responding to the autistic coded character as if there's something off, because there is - even if they're ultimately on the same side.

This also has real-world impacts. People discount likely threats in favour of fear of unfamiliar behaviour. For example, the whole predatory thing - autistic people are more likely to be victims of predatory behaviour, not perpetrators of it (for example, autistic women are 3x more likely to have been sexually assaulted than non-autistic women). However, there's these stereotypes in media where an autistic character is so weird that they're viewed as threatening - and, in some crime genre tropes, for example, the threat is confirmed. Even though most predators are stand up members of the community (compensating for their misdeeds via good acts) and people are surprised that they were perpetrators of horrific crimes - crime is often so horribly mundane - the media focuses on portrayals of mentally ill loners, utilising coding that is similar and sometimes the same as the coding of autistic characters. Not saying that no autistic person comments a crime of course, they demonstrably do, but utilising a media shorthand for violent/predatory criminals that is also used for autistic characters - as it is much more conforting for audiences to feel as if they would be able to tell from someone's weird behaviour if they're likely to be a threat - can have some really troubling real world consequences. Also not saying that no autistic coded character can possibly be portrayed as a villain - I really enjoyed Zac's plotline in Bones for example, especially the relationship that the two characters had - but it's the focus on these 'weird, socially inept' villians, over the far more common absolutely totally 'normal' person/family member/ local upstanding citizen that makes people disproportionately fear/stigmatise autistic ways of being

Then, other shows play off of this coding to 'subvert' it, reenforcing the connection along the way

All this being said, I really like Victor, I loved his relationship with Donna, and I'm really enjoying the show more broadly. However, I could defs see a lot of the narrative of s1 coming because of the shows use of autistic coded behaviours for Victor

I found it interesting that some fan theories have actually centred Victor's neurodivergence, and suggested that other characters are also neurodivergent and that might be why some of them are here/chosen - I find that interesting, especially because of the use of 'psychosis' in the show being a conduit for seemingly real voices of people who have passed away there

It will be interesting to see where they take it, and I'm excited to see what else happens in season 2 and even more excited for season 3 - but yeah, Victor is defs autistic coded, and some of those tropes do have negative knock-on consequences. Defs something that will impact my enjoyment of the show, depending on where they take it! It could be awesome and exciting and could be devastating or eye rolling etc but still excited to watch

[bizarrequazar]

Collected Information about the Bangkok Concerts

This is a post collecting information and sources about the concerts held by the Zhang Sanjian scam gang on May 10th and 11th. I will keep this updated as more information comes out. Please let me know if you have any questions, corrections, or additions.

[Masterpost of my informational posts about the situation]

Lead-Up

The earliest account to promote the concert was a planted fan trying to collect information from other fans in group chats, not an “official account”. This was on April 10th, only a month prior to the day the concert would be held. Accounts officially associated with the scam would not start promotions until April 20th.

Someone who contacted the venue on April 20th was told that the hall had been booked for 05-11 but that the venue could not disclose who it was for.

On April 22nd, the Instagram made a post announcing the ticket sales using a promotional photo from 2021 that had been made for the concert the real Zhang Zhehan had been planning prior to 813. This post did not include a link for purchasing; including links to purchases increases the chance of Instagram checking an account for fraud activity.

The production company for the concert is partnered with CAPA.

Seat prices went up to 16,000 baht ($465 USD / 3200 RMB) and went on sale on April 22nd. As a comparative, the BTS member Suga held a concert with VIP tickets pricing at 6200 baht.

Within hours, scam believers were saying that tickets had sold out, but on the actual purchasing site they were instead listed as not available (ie. reserved for sale by scalpers). On May 3rd, these reserved tickets that had not been sold were made available again with less than half sold.

On April 23rd, it was announced via the Instagram that an additional concert would be held on 05-10 due to “popularity”. (As I write this, I realize that it’s odd for them to book 05-10 rather than 05-12 since it means those first comers who bought tickets for 05-11 would not get to be the first ones to see “him”.) Tickets for this became available the following day and “sold out” within ten minutes only to become available again; it’s likely this was just a glitch. 

On April 24th, a promotional video was posted for the concert using only footage from 2021 (same context as mentioned above).

Some tickets had been available as a “tour package” through a company that had a history of scamming customers. On April 26th, the tour package’s name was changed then deleted from the company’s website. On April 30th, the Taobao shop selling these packages was closed without refunds and over 400 people who had made purchases had their information leaked. Some people who purchased these packages were later left stranded at the airport for hours when they arrived.

On May 5th, the Weibo Supertopic used by scam believers, which had been filled with people reselling tickets and encouraging others to fake information for travel visas, was deleted. The following day, “official” accounts directed users to a new Supertopic that was created less than 15 minutes after the previous one disappeared despite it taking 1-3 days for Supertopics to be approved. This new Supertopic was made private on May 9th then deleted as well on May 10th.

On May 6th, photos were posted to the Instagram of “Zhang Zhehan” in what appeared to be Thailand. The following day several photos and a video were spread of “chance encounters”, originating from accounts that did not belong to fans.

The scam gang requested that people who had bought VIP tickets provide their home addresses so they could be sent tshirts and light sticks, four days prior to the first concert date. Have fun getting doxxed, I guess.

On May 8th, a new song was released to streaming sites by the scam gang despite it being only two days before the first concert. As a comparative, for his mini-concert to promote his Another Me EP in October 2020, Zhang Zhehan released only two of the three songs for streaming prior to the concert, leaving the third song 不说 to be debuted at the concert before releasing for streaming.

On May 9th, several photos and a video were posted by paparazzi of the venue being set up. It was noted that workers present in these photos were fully dressed despite there being a heatwave with outside temperatures climbing to over 40°C; it’s uncommon for AC to be on during set up, though not impossible.

On the same day, a figure fully covered in sweats and a hoodie was filmed entering the venue for rehearsals. Again: heatwave. 

May 10th

The venue looked less than half full less than ten minutes before the set start time.

A collection of some photos that look obviously off: [1] [2] [3] [4] 

Chinese CPFs keeping track of things concluded that three different impersonators were likely used, with one possibly being a woman. There were visible differences in the nose, jawline, eyebrows, Adam’s apple, butt, and stature. Furthering this, people watching reported that the costume changes were remarkably fast and there were no breaks over the course of 20 song performances (3 hours).

It’s quite likely that the cameras used for the screens inside the venue were using deepfake tech to correct for these mistakes. Yes this can be done live. It was noticed that the screens seemed to noticably lag more than is standard (example, comparison to another concert) and occassionally jumped.

Some of the audience members visible in photos look quite unexcited to be there. It’s possible that people were hired to fill empty seats, especially given that so many were left unsold that they decreased the number of seats physically present in the venue. A number of people looked to be in quite a hurry to leave afterwards. There is hearsay that some of them may have been students who were paid to attend. [translated chatlog between Chinese fans]

About an hour and a half after the concert started, the bought hashtag #Primordial Theater# suddenly appeared on the general Weibo hotsearch, reaching #14 before completely disappearing ten minutes later. Coincidentally, the Weibo administration account made a post shortly afterwards warning about celebrity impersonation fraud.

Around this time, all photos of the concert posted by Ranyi, one of the “official” accounts, were removed by Weibo and the account was later banned for violating community rules. Similar photos and a video were also removed from Xie Yihua’s Weibo accounts.

A whaler who made a post that she shook hands with him at the concert forgot to change her VPN to Thailand, with it instead saying she was in Japan. 🤡

There are rumors that some whalers who attended said it was fake and closed their accounts, I haven’t seen direct evidence of this yet. Also a rumor that one went to the police. Some whalers were reportedly afraid to speak out about what they had seen at the concert because they had given the scam their personal information.

May 11th

There was significantly less posted footage and discussion of this day. Many people who had attended gave excuses such as phones being too low on battery to film, only having blurry photos, wanted to capture the moment with their own eyes, etc.

Additional photos that look distinctly off: [1] [2] [a whole collection] (Here’s an example of full-face prosthetic makeup btw) 

Videos show that barely anyone in the audience appeared to be singing along to some songs, including Surround.

Comment about the vocals from a trained musician: “The voice doesn't feel open, it feels like it's covered with a layer of veil. Generally speaking, the voice is not clean, and secondly, the breath is not stable, and the voice is obvious. Trembling, as well as out-of-tune and treble, the treble sounds very laborious, and the out-of-tune is also sandwiched between the two notes, and the way of vocalization is not right, it is all in the throat, singing like this is easy to hurt the throat and make it hoarse.” (mtl) 

[Video comparing the singing to Zhang Zhehan’s]

A video and group photo showing Xiao Yu were passed around, with him being visibly too short in relation to “Zhang Zhehan” in the photo.

Again, many of the photos posted by Xie Yihua were removed by Weibo.

VVIP ticket holders (on both days) were able to take photos with Zhang Sanjian afterwards:  -  Reports from them say that Zhang Sanjian was quite touchy-feely and eager with hugs (😰). If you look at old photos and video of the real Zhang Zhehan, he was always very polite and often kept his hands clasped when taking photos with unfamiliar people.  -  The attendees were assigned a number so the photos could be sent to them afterwards. Standard practice for celebrity photo ops is that the photos are printed there; being sent later allows time for editing to be done.  -  It took two weeks for people to be sent their photos. Despite this, some of the editing is... not very good.

Followups

Yahoo! Taiwan published an article talking about the concert, referring to Zhang Zhehan as an “artist who insulted China”.

[Written notes] from a Twitter space discussion about the concert. Main points not previously covered here:

It was learned by Chinese CPFs that any Chinese person who wants to hold a concert outside of China needs to get written permission to do so. There is no evidence that the scam gang did this, and it’s doubtful that someone in Zhang Zhehan’s situation would do so.

If you watch the videos of Zhang Sanjian talking at the concert, it looks very performative, not a real emotional response like what you can see in videos of the real Zhang Zhehan at his past concerts. Especially at a concert after 813 and not seeing his fans for two years, wouldn’t you expect him to get quite emotional?

Likewise, there are enunciation differences and dialectic differences in how Zhang Sanjian spoke.

If the point of the concerts was to make money, they would have started promotions much earlier, it doesn’t make commercial sense to announce it at such short notice. The intent of the concert was to get attention.

Another intent seems to be to try to divide CP fans, similar to how last year they succeeded in dividing haizhe and whalers.

Following the concerts, there was a significant uptick in fans of other celebs harrassing those saying the concerts were fake—especially in c-ent fan culture, fans of other celebs can and will happily take advantage of the scam to eliminate their bias’s competition even if they are aware that it’s a scam.

This post was last edited 2023-05-24.

[hinaypod]

A Hi Nay Podcast Year - 2023

At the beginning of 2023, I got a planner that said it'll be a "Great" Year. I had to cover it up - because the last time I had a planner claiming the year would be great... it was 2020. So I covered it with one of our stickers, making it read "It'll Be A Hi Nay Podcast Year". And it was!

Here were some Highlights for what was an absolutely jam-packed HI NAY YEAR!

The Hi Nay Fundraiser

Though we didn't get to our full goal, we did get to our initial goal to keep the show going! We also got absolutely unbelievable support that we still don't know if we deserve, but we're grateful for nonetheless. Because of this fundraiser, we were able to provide honoraria to our performers and editors, as well as get to work on Act 3 of Hi Nay, which has grown much bigger than anticipated. Special thanks to Jesse Goodsell and Malaya, our top donors!

We also wanna thank our amazing P atreon supporters, who ensure we keep this show going until its planned ending!

Interviews

We were able to chat with so many amazing people this year! Here's some of the shows that had Motzie on to chat about Hi Nay, horror, Filipino stories, and podcasting.

Radio Drama Revival

IndieAF Special: International Women’s Day

Ep. 387 - Motzie Dapul — Spooked!

The Skull Sessions - Hi Nay (Hello From The Hallowoods)

Conventions!

Because of the wonderful people over at the Canadian Podcast Awards, we were able to briefly table at TORONTO COMICON and FAN EXPO, and were able to have our very first live show at Fan Expo, all without paying a dime! Huge shoutout to the Canadian Podcast Awards for giving us indies the opportunity to do something so amazing!

The Podcast Awards!

We got nominated in two categories: Fiction and Best Asian Hosted, and it was amazing! Fiction was tough since there were so many amazing titles, but in Best Asian Hosted we were just happy to lose to one of our favourite people in the audio/video medium - Sapphire Sandalo.

How is this list not done yet OH RIGHT

The Rusty Quill Network!

It was truly life-changing to join RQ, given that the Magnus Archives is the reason Hi Nay exists, though we like to think our story has formed its own unique identity beyond our inspiration. Still, we're genuinely grateful and excited to do more with RQ and the other absolutely amazing shows in the network in 2024! Even before this, Motzie got to interview the Rusty Quill folks for Storytelling Podcast Week and befriended the wonderful Helen Gould. And most recently, the fantastic Alasdair Stuart agreed to voice one of our most beloved new characters - Detective Dooley - for our Pride Episode. Alasdair is a gem, and we're happy and grateful to have him on.

There's so much more to cover and we can't put it all in one post, but we'd like to reiterate:

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT! We truly want Hi Nay to grow as a podcast without losing what makes it special, and it's all thanks to you listeners that we're able to do that.

-

Before we go, we'd like to mention the following:

CareForGaza is a non-profit charity in aid of helping the needy families of Palestine. If you're able to help them and their cause, it would make a huge difference! Gaza eSims is a campaign to help people in Gaza to get connected to family as well as facilitate important communication for medical aid, etc. Since Tumblr hides posts with l inks, you can google them and find more information.

And as always - thank you, we love you, and Manigong Bagong Taon. Happy 2024 everyone.

[room-surprise]

Delicious in Dungeon Anime Season 1, Episode 2 Review

Spoilers for season 1, episode 2 below the cut! There may also be mild manga spoilers so proceed with caution.

This episode was great! I think it was a big improvement on the first. Honestly no real complaints... I do kind of wish both Marcille and Chilchuck could have had stand-alone episodes dedicated to their character development, to allow for a deeper focus, but I understand why they didn't do it, and the pacing was still excellent. I do still sometimes feel like the show is in fast-forward at times, because with 3 meals in one episode, it feels like the characters finish eating, and we jump cut to them saying that they're hungry again, without anything to help really impress upon viewers that time has passed. Makes it feel a bit like we're reading a collection of short 4-panel gag comics instead of a continuing story… which, early Dungeon Meshi DOES have that as part of it's format, but it changes with time, as we get into longer individual stories.

During the Basilisk/Doni and FIonil section, I really do miss some of the dry humor from the manga. ("Hurry, he's getting cold!" "Move him closer to the fire!") The hilarity of slowly preparing a meal while someone is dying of poison has unfortunately been lost, which makes Doni and Fionil much less memorable characters…. But it benefits the other 2 stories in the ep to have more time so I think it was the right choice to make. It also gives people something to go back and read the manga for, since it's a little different! If you're reading this and you're an anime only, consider reading the manga while you watch the anime! I promise it's worth it. I'm excited about next week because I think they'll devote the entire episode to Laios and the living armors, which is me and my spouse's favorite early DM storyline, and the part where we both said "Oh, I LOVE this manga..." and got really invested. It's 2 chapters in the manga so it could be an entire episode…. which also would make sense, if that's why they needed to crunch 3 chapters into episode 2. Just like the first episode, animation was fantastic, and as usual the weakest points are when characters are just walking or talking and not doing much. Everything more dynamic is just bouncy and adorable and full of life. Very rarely is anything animated in a dull or flat way. They're doing their best to use "move a drawing around" or "zoom on a drawing" for comic effect and I think it's working well so far. There's some great animal animation in this episode, the bat flying around and the basilisk chasing Marcille in particular. Translation was better this time around, no dumb modern or game references in the dub ("newbs" "as if" etc.) … But there are differences between the subtitles and the dub script that change how easy it is to understand what's happening. When Senshi tells Chilchuck to cut up the giant bat, the subtitles make it hard to understand what he's telling him to do, and the dub makes it a lot clearer. In the subs when Senshi calls Chilchuck a half-foot child, the subtitles say "I'm not a child" and the dub says "I hate it when people call me 'kid'"… The latter is more interesting for keeping the mystery going for things that happen later in the story. If the show continues like this, I think the English dub may be the more satisfying way to watch it (even though the Japanese performances are great), mostly because the subs are very literal and sometimes miss things that the English dub somehow manages to include. And for some reason Netflix isn't including translation of Japanese signs on-screen during the subtitles, but they DO provide them when you watch the English dub. A lot of Dungeon Meshi's humor is sometimes in those background signs so completely missing out on them sucks. Anyway those are my thoughts for this episode! See you next week Meshiheads.

[ansbobcar]

EP 8. Business as usual

WORD COUNT. 1371

Link to overview

_ _ _ _ _

“Welcome back, Ms. Ontarin!”

She waved at some of the employees with gratitude, she was allowed to continue working within the Bureau until their blood supply recovered. “It doesn’t help that we usually rely on you to make them,” her nurse muttered under her breath with apologetic look. “It’s bad management on our part.”

It can’t be helped. To put to waste the efforts of all the personnel, as she was thrown back and forth between the shores in her dreams, was not worth it. She can’t overthink it. ‘Quite the idiotic curse compared to my mother.’

008 handed over the general outline of what had been covered by Orter which was quite a fair amount. Including a stack of notes about the content covered and outcomes. Comprehensively succinct. The schedule also significantly changed in preparation for the next few months. “Actually, what is Orter doing right now, 008?”

“There was a missing report about this one potion business a few days ago.” Flipping through the notes, written boldly was ‘DO NOT FOLLOW ME TO INVESTIGATE.’ 

“That’s why he asked if he wanted me to lead him out,” she mumbled remembering their footsteps outside. He was doing it alone by the lack of any staff loitering at the typical rendezvous. “There’s no point in keeping them from performing their duties elsewhere,” readjusting his glasses before he looked back at her. Her robe’s colour was still something he couldn’t get used to, as its bright yet heavy hue encompassed her. She smiles  “Do well then, Orter Madl.”

“I will.”

It’ll run smoothly.

_ _ _

It’s unassuming. A shop located on the outskirts of a town outside the capital, as he entered with the bell chiming like any other shop. Although the owner’s face seems delighted by his visit it shifts with a simple paper. A search permit. There’s no fight as a result and the two go behind the shop to check on the working conditions... that is, if there wasn’t a sudden break into a sprint from the man.

“The audacity to do so is incredible,” holding onto his wand with a calm expression. Not even a double-liner magic user would have the guts to mess with him as he tugged onto his shoe. Tumbling down the spiralling stairs, the owner’s feet were bound with compressed sand to prevent the inner workings of his business from being covered up. Unlocking the door revealed another race, dwarves, haggard yet snappy in their craftsmanship. “Didn’t we illegalise dwarf slavery?” Eyes scrutinised the owner who scrambled down to his knees in tears was the seemingly clear-skinned fellow with slightly wrinkled eyes. “Please! I beg of you! It was against my will!” Pathetically claiming their innocence in such a situation. He wanted to scoff. The rule wasn’t even new.

“Even if it was against your will, housing and enabling such a practice violates both their rights and our laws.” But more importantly: “Who convinced you to do this? Clearly you aren’t capable of this feat.” In spite of his burning questions, it was more important to shut down the business and escort both suspects and the dwarves. Utilising teleportation magic at a distance with multiple targets isn’t his specialty but he was still rather adept at it, slight hysteria erupted from the overworked mass at their sudden change in position.

After handing over part of the matter to the Magical Creatures Administration, they began to conduct questionings on everyone involved. To summarise: only the owner knew of their existence, the staff who worked and maintained the shop had never managed to even step foot beyond the initial storage room, and the dwarves had been held there for the length of the business forging weaponry. The causation was a different answer. Even amidst possible interrogation methods and torture, he, now identified as Osfor Slagturn, was reluctant in providing any. “Surely you can at least tell us who it is.”

Slagturn muttered in a clammy manner, “then he’ll kill me if I say it…”

“If you ‘say’,” he repeated to himself. “How about this, let’s play hangman,” taking out a notepad and a feather. “If I fail to name the culprit, you’ll receive the hefty fine instead of the lifetime prison sentence.” That’s not how these deals work?! “I didn’t make this law for your information.” With no other choice, Slagturn folded and picked up the writing instrument.

‘_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _’

Two words. Vowels came first then. There was no ‘a’, an ‘i’, two ‘e’s, and two ‘o’s.

‘I _ _ o _ e _ _    _ e _ o’

No ‘u’ was present. The rest were consonants. There was an ‘n’ in this wasn’t there? Deducing the culprit or rather mastermind behind the whole ordeal with more ease.

“It’s Innocent Zero, isn’t it?”

His eyes seemed to only confirm them.

“Thank you for your cooperation, we’ll be holding you in the mean time,” leaving the room.

Why is Innocent Zero investing in weapons? Are they planning on a war soon? This is of great concern. An audience will be needed with the director and Wahlberg soon.

When he walked back, he was greeted by 008 again. No sign of the blonde vice-head. “Where’s Rinka?”

“Mr. Gehenna asked for her when the break started.”

_ _ _

The tea was still warm as the man before her uttered those words. His expression and posture were inviting, if she were still 17 they would’ve betrayed her expectations in a heartbeat. A constant in the mundanely fickle life she had. If she were indebt to him, she still wouldn’t do such a thing though as it was right now.

“You’re being irrational.”

“The same applies to you, Rinka,” he countered. “That’s the third time you’ve… nearly killed yourself,” unable to talk about it freely even with a light tone.

“What does that have to do with me being in love with Orter?” Clearly fed up of his tactics. After all, why stick to it if it isn’t working? She has no reason to agree to his whims, of all people, even if it’s a ruse they made up. The thought of inconveniencing the Desert Cane more than she already had, made her snuff out any doubts and reasons to state it. None of the other Divine Visionaries were good candidates for keeping such a secret without divine intervention after all.

“Whether you both made a deal, which I hope you haven’t, or your relationship is truly genuine,” he began, sullying his gloves hand with dripping honey. “You will be in a precarious position. You know what Orter is like. I doubt he’d favour his heart over his duty when the time comes.” Her eyes averted away from his implicating gaze and back towards her teacup.

“Or maybe they’re the same?”

What a way to ruin her appetite.

“What do you have against Orter to begin with?” She watched as he picked up some slice of bread with his messed glove. “It’s not like he needs my position to get more power like the others who tried.” The two were already on odd terms when they met. She presumed it might have to do with the fact he wasted 2 years in his new programme as a promising candidate to enter the Magic Police and became a Divine Visionary instead. But Kaldo doesn’t care about wasting resources like the others. So it was perplexing. 

‘She didn’t remember it. That’s good,’ unable to disassociate her from being drenched in scalding tea amidst laughs. Her hands curled into fists, restraining themselves from a violent outlash with her magic. Whether it came from estranged faces or unknowns, she kept quiet and with sincerity, did a tight lipped smile.

“You can’t…”

The door opened unexpectedly, revealing Orter. “It took longer than expected to find your office,” refraining from scratching his head. The oldest closed his mouth without another word uttered. “Were you guys still talking?”

“You killed the pace.”

“Apologies for disrupting you then, feel free to schedule another time,” he added, dragging out the blonde who seemed just as confused as he was. She waved before shutting the door though. 

_ _ _ _ _

Uhm. What do you think Kaldo was actually tryna say? You'll never get this answered for a while.

[thevibraniumveterans]

STAR WARS — The Acolyte

EP 4 - Day

MAIN THOUGHTS:

Very curious title, I wonder what that means in the context of this episode… would that mean that the next episode’s title would be “Night”? I mean, I’m speculating. I wouldn’t know, but would also not be surprised if that turns out to be the case.

Seeing Mae spooked was unexpected.

I love that this episode had its moments of brevity.

This episode also had some pretty deep insights into how the Jedi (as people) thought, but also how the Jedi (as a whole) operated.

Spoilers in my notes below.

- Dawn on the mountainsides of Khofar, a planet last seen in Ep2. Clouds hang low, and Kelnacca heads home. He is wearing his robes. On the walls of his abode are symbols of pseudo-yin/yang imagery. Kelnacca takes what looks like his food off the stove, and the camera zooms in on a dotted outline of two yin/yang circles, one big and one small.

- One classic Powerpoint transition later, we open on Coruscant during the day. Jecki and several other padawans are practicing their forms using training sticks while their teacher provides pointed advice. Osha stands in the doorway, silent. Jecki greets Osha, who says she’s leaving. Jecki is surprised. Long story short, Osha thanks Jecki for aiding Osha in finding and apprehending her sister Mae, whom she long thought dead but was and is still alive. Jecki says she was just doing her duty. Osha doesn’t want to find Mae (as she’s already done that), so passes the responsibility on to the Jedi, as in Osha’s own words, “I’m not a Jedi.” She can’t deal with having to apprehend her own sister, as Mae may view it as further betrayal. Osha wants to leave and not cause further “trouble” for Master Sol.

- On Khofar. Mae and Qimir unpack, but Mae stands up to walk away, something Qimir warns against. He tells her that Osha being alive “doesn’t change anything”; Mae being Mae, she pointedly ignores the comment, bemoans the lack of sunlight left (“three hours”, she says), and says to get going before it gets too late to kill Kelnacca.

- TITLE CARD!!

- In the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the Masters gather around a holoprojector, analyzing a recording of Mae’s attack movements. All, except Sol, do not know who she is. Sol notes that not even Mae knows who trained her, just that she has training, and must be stopped. Vernestra reminds the gathered Masters of how dangerous Mae is, pointing out how she targeted Kelnacca, Torbin, Indara, and Sol. “The four Jedi stationed on her home planet when she was a child,” says Vernestra. “How odd.” Does she notice the irony? Of going somewhere they should never have stepped foot, and removed a child from her sister and community? Vernestra thinks that a rogue Jedi has trained Mae, saying “even a hologram can tell” her that. Other Masters raise concerns, but she knows that raising this concern to the Council would lead to the Council informing the Senate, and that’s something nobody wants. Supposedly this is the first seeds of what will be, in decades to come, an entanglement of the Jedi with politics; hence why Vernestra wants to keep this off the books, so to say. She wants Kelnacca taken back to Coruscant and Mae intercepted. Hopefully before Kelnacca is accosted. Vernestra and Sol speak in the corridor; he insists to be the one to bring Mae in, but Vernestra knows that’s not gonna happen without a price.

- On Khofar. Qimir and Mae trek along a path. They speak; Mae brings up her sister Osha and Master Sol in the same breath, and Mae stares at him.

- Back at the Temple, Sol meets up with Osha as he requests her to join him on his mission to intercept Mae. Osha declines this offer, but Sol insists otherwise. He tells her how he knew Mae still had something of a soft spot for Osha. “There is still good in her,” Sol tells Osha. “The part of her that loves you.” (This was also evident last half-scene when Mae had asked Qimir about Osha.) Osha knows she still loves her sister, but states the cold truth that Mae is a murderer. (Which in some sense is true.) Sol is optimistic and says, “But she is still your family.” Osha finally agrees, oddly stating “I am not wearing that civilian robe.”

- …Which is EXACTLY the thing she ends up wearing the immediate scene later. (This trope is hilarious.) Yord briefs the room aboard the transport ship, and refers to Osha as a “civilian”; she snarks back and says it’s “very comprehensive”. Jecki wants to laugh, but doesn’t. On Khofar, Jecki asks for directions, and is told not much of Kelnacca’s solitude. The group of Jedi, including Sol, Jecki, Yord, including Osha, come to a precipice overlooking the dense forest. Sol says he knows Kelnacca is within said forest. Regardless, they begin to trek in the direction of the forest. Osha tells Yord of her concern that she might not be of much help, but Yord says, “Mae has always been your wound. Maybe Sol brought you here to face her, but maybe he brought you here to face yourself.” (Which on a meta level is hilarious because Amanda Stenberg does play Osha AND Mae.)

- Elsewhere on Khofar, Mae and Qimir run into the dense forest, reaching a seemingly dead end that isn’t a dead end. Without Mae and Qimir knowing, the Jedi group also trek deeper into the woods. Osha finds the group surrounded by flying, multi-segmented, arthropod creatures (I don’t know what they’re called — the subtitles say this is an umbramoth); Sol deals with creature and warns the group to keep moving.

- Still on Khofar, it’s sunset. Qimir and Mae keep running; he seems overexcited. Mae says killing Kelnacca is “not a test” but the “final lesson” that she has to “teach herself.” But if she has four Jedi to kill, two of which she has disposed of, that means that she has two more to kill, with one literally finding his way to her. Mae is befuddled by the impossibility and ironic juxtaposition of killing an Jedi, unarmed, and the Jedi not being able to kill her unarmed.

- The group of Jedi continue to trek forward, when they hear Mae screaming for help. Qimir, somewhere nearby, hears it too. Might this be part of Mae’s plan? To appear in need of help and vulnerable and when people least expect it, to aim and swing? Turns out that was half right; she’s lured a trap, and inadvertently trapped Qimir. However; what she tells him next, I did not expect in the slightest (although it makes half sense): “After running through that forest for an extremely long time, I realized something. I don’t need to do this anymore. I don’t need to kill a Jedi without a weapon. I don’t need to keep this deal. You were wrong. Osha being alive changes everything. My loyalty is to Osha. Not your Master.” Mae states that she will surrender to Kelnacca and turn herself in. Qimir warns her against this, saying the Jedi would imprison her, but Mae has a plan for that. (Is this part of her plan? To appear harmless? Does she really want to up and surrender, and not fight for her Master? If this is true, then the Acolyte is in fact NOT Mae but her Master, who serves somebody else. If this is the case then Mae is a red herring, a plot device to lead us astray into thinking she’s the acolyte when in fact she is not who we think she is.)

- Somewhere nearby, the group of Jedi remain on the search. Osha tells Sol she’s ready to face Mae, but similar to what Yord told her earlier, Sol tells Osha, “You’re not going to face her, you’re going to face your past. Both of us will.” (Meaning, Osha will face the sister she thought she lost but knows now is alive, and Sol will face again the young woman he couldn’t save but hopes to save now.)

- Mae keeps running, and eventually finds Kelnacca’s abode. She falls, only to look up and see a tracker, who tells the group of Jedi, who are now hot on her heels. Here’s the thing. They don’t know Mae’s plan to surrender herself. Whether she is actually going to surrender herself, we don’t know now, but will know soon. She runs into his abode, only to discover he has been murdered, a smoldering slash across his chest. Mae starts panicking, knowing that her Master is planetside and that she has failed. The Jedi come to a stop outside Kelnacca’s home, and call Mae by name, knowing she is inside. She however, is afraid, not knowing where her Master is but knowing he could be very close by. Sol turns around, and a dark figure floats menacingly behind Osha, who has a “he’s right behind me isn’t he” moment. The other Jedi turn around, and so does Osha. The helmeted, black-clad figure comes face to face with Osha, who is frozen in fear, and ignites his blood-red saber. The Jedi ignite their lightsabers too, and shout for Osha to run. The figure uses the Force to shove Osha aside, and to blast the approaching Jedi back in a cloud of dust.

[rinbylin]

lzj ep 21

yeah i enjoyed the first quarter quite a bit but at the same time i've been quite aware it's not objectively tip-top. so indeed the weaknesses have reared its head in the recent few episodes where the story has transitioned into a different kind from its initial fake marriage premise which was not difficult to pull off if you understand the simple mechanisms of it.. otoh i just don't think they dealt with the transition very well, albeit the show still being watchable. then again, its faults are totally not unique to itself. they're extremely common romance drama storytelling problems. so if not for the fondness it had managed to earn earlier on, i would not have even bothered with this post

a thing from this episode that i like(!!) though: as 'better let the truth out and have cxz suffer NOW!!' lobbyist, i admit i failed to consider the other even more delicious possibility which is DENYING HIM THE CATHARSIS OF HONESTY. make him suffer in a whole other dimension yeahhhhh babyyyy. our girl lmt pretty much telling cxz she wants him to keep suffering from not being able to tell her the truth...I SUPPORT YOU QUEEN <3 剪不清理还乱 is a great direction to head into even though atp idk if writers are competent enough to see it through

then there was lmt literally acknowledging what i had on my mind for these couple of episodes: cxz doesn't actually love her - he only knew and love her as lmt the (amnesiac) wife. but as audience we also know the writers are trying to counter that by (1) showing us how ~sincere~ cxz's feelings for lmt are, citing that she has shown him the bliss of a simple life etc etc; (2) having him repeatedly state that lu wen (aka lmt) is his only worthy opponent so to say he and lmt (the real her, not the wife lmt) are intellectual matches. but the most fatal problem is that we have NOT! GOTTEN! TO SEE/UNDERSTAND! WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN THEM AS COMPETING RIVALS!! so far it's merely cxz's side of the story, saying that he has a special feeling for "lu wen". but in what way? how? we know almost next to nothing about what went on between them as rivals - except lmt almost killed him a few years ago. (AND!! lmt hasn't seem to echo his feelings about their special relationship of rivalry??) so it makes point (2) quite an unconvincing case yet. which in turns make their post-amnesia and aka the "real" relationship quite frail.

another fatal issue is that it feels like, to me, that there's no love left in lmt for cxz at this point (the bathtub scene was what drove home the interpretation for me)... there's very minimal portrayal of any struggle, conflicting feelings in her. i think this is one of the way its earlier writing issues manifest as well: it's always quite clear why lmt is so important to cxz beyond their niceties as a married couple. but it's far less defined what cxz meant to lmt as a person. what value does cxz provide to her at a deeper intellectual and emotional level? when she was amnesiac wife lmt, she liked him for being a gentle, understanding guy - which turned out to be a mere persona of huaiyang wang. she stuck with him because he was her husband, but it turned out their marriage is just a ruse. so what is left? it's no wonder she seems to have little affection for him left yet that completely defeats the purpose of a romance drama... and i just don't feel the same joy i felt in earlier episodes whenever they're together at home..

i've come to feel the story would work a lot better if it wasn't a romcom (comedy as in a broad sense) and not tied to an obligation of HE. i don't even want them to end up together romantically. i just want them to get entangled and emotionally torment each other lol (oops sorry what's new of me). and so when the writers made cxz say that whole speech to his mother about how he truly loves lmt and how she has changed his life...and that he doesn't want just a "相见如宾" (ie. cordial) marriage. i felt almost betrayed because bitch (@ the writer / cxz) you owe it precisely to 相见如宾 that i even adored the show in the first place!!! it is thanks to 相见如宾 that your relationship even took off in the first place! in what way do you think its current state is different from it? this is a fake marriage story how dare you say that. :[ ...but again what's new. i've seen these problems from dramas a million times over by now.

one of the reasons why the earlier episodes worked - within the parameters of the fake marriage + identity porn tropes - is that it managed to have the reactions of both leads bounce off each other consistently. what i mean by that is...like in the earliest arc, despite cxz being the mastermind behind the bogus life lmt was living in, lmt was still able to display agency by reacting accordingly to the circumstances around her. she duly suspected cxz and was consequently driving the story - then cxz had to react accordingly and twist around more of the truth. there's a pretty nice push-and-pull between them - which is actually sorely missing ever since a few episodes ago when cxz was moping around coming up with solutions to keep lmt by his side. at that point, lmt totally takes a backseat in the narrative. and now that lmt has regained her memories, cxz is the one who is passively reacting to the occurrences in their relationship (though he's still taking the charge in the politicking plotting stuff). this is also what i meant about the writers dealing with the transition poorly.

these are pretty much the broad strokes of the main problems i'm identifying from the writing especially after ep 21... besides a few of the other pesky things like cxz's mum and yun'er's characters being completely flat stereotypes and are so extra annoying that they're fuelling the problems in the writing of the lead's relationship. (i have lost count the number of times i rolled my eyes when cxz's mum is onscreen... i think a mum character who appears loving but completely insensitive to her son is so interesting and they actually have a fucked up mother/son relationship but it looks like the writers are incapable of actually realising it so.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[xf-cases-solved]

S1E20: Darkness Falls

Case: You know it's gonna be a good time when our heroes have to take off their government office clothes and put on some survival gear. Similar to Ice—which we all know is a top tier episode—Darkness Falls sees Mulder and Scully on the hunt to discover what happened to a team of loggers that disappeared in Olympic National Forest up in Washington. (Spoiler alert: Bad things happened to the loggers.) After the discovery of one of the loggers inside of a gigantic bug cocoon—and after the ominous testimony and environmentalist rant of a random eco-terrorist raiding their base for food—our dynamic duo and their episode sidekick NPCs conclude that there's a serious pest control problem happening out there in the forest, and the only thing that will keep them safe is staying in the light. Good thing they aren't stranded, and that Mulder didn't give away all their extra fuel, and that they definitely have more than just one single lightbulb and a sputtering generator to get them through the night. Oh, wait. 😬

Mulder has weird sexual tension with an eco-terrorist; Scully has the Coat of All Time™️ (in my notes, I literally just have the word COAT written down and then underlined); a forest service marshal has had it up to here with these dumb treehuggers; and CGI is once again used liberally, this time to create fluorescent green bugs that suck you dry (and not in a fun way). Let's go on a nice trip to the forest! 

Does someone die in the cold open: Yes

Does Mulder present a slideshow: Yeah boi!

Does the evidence survive the investigation: Nah, the government is destroying that shit posthaste.

Whodunit: Old bugs

Convictions: None necessary

Did they solve it: Yes! Using Ice rules here. The evidence was technically destroyed, but they were able to solve the case before that happened. Also, that quarantine facility doesn't look like a fun time and I feel bad for them, so I'll toss 'em a bone.

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Giant, ugly, multicolored 90s raincoats on tiny people. Provide decades of delight to people all over the world by wearing a giant, ugly, multicolored 90s raincoat on your tiny, tiny frame. You look adorable. You are also so tiny. Why did you buy your raincoat at Big and Tall??

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 10 (streak restarted. it's fucking ping pong up in here)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, It's Me" Phone Calls: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 5

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 6

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 8

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably Intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 10

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 2 (she examines a dead body, but there's like, not rly a lot left to do an autopsy on even if she had the space to do it)

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 2

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 10 

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2

Total Number of Nosebleeds: 4

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 2 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 1 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 3

Total Number of Times Someone Says "The Truth is Out There": 1

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 2

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 1

Total Number of Lone Gunmen Sightings: 1

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: 0 :(

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 7½ (i wrote it down in my notes lmfao)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 5 (nah man, i love Darkness Falls)