#this one wasn't for continuity lmao

[a2zillustration]

(It's ok Yurgir will respawn in Avernus)

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[rogueddie]

So Noah is openly being a zionist online... AGAIN. I'm seeing a lot of people wanting to leave the fandom- which I support, if you can drop this then you should. But if you're like me and it's not that simple, here are a couple rough tips that might help;

Pro-tip; instead of paying for Netflix and helping support genocide and the zionists in the cast/crew, cancel your subscription and send that money to charities that are bringing aid and resources into Gaza!

Pro-tip 2; buy fan content and nothing liscenced! Fan works are often better quality than the show- from drawings, to writing, to pins... it's worth the money and you aren't sending money to people openly supporting genocide and the murder of children!

Pro-tip 3; if you are going to continue taking part in fandom, like myself, do not do so in silence. Palestinians are being murdered and we can't pretend that it isn't happening simply because we have hyperfixations that we can't get rid of.

Pro-tip 4; join boycotts! Not only the monetary boycott of Netflix and Stranger Things, but- at least- the three main boycotts; McDonalds, Disney+ and Starbucks! There are many others, from Puma to Barclays to Booking.com to Pizza Hut to Burger King... None of these things are necessities and you can easily go without! Other options are probably cheaper and better quality too! It's a win-win!

Pro-tip 5; Go to protests if you can! Make your voice heard not only online but in person too! We have strength in numbers and we cannot lose the momentum we've barely started to build! Take direct action!

P.S. biggest fuck you to Noah Schnapp but also; Ross Duffer, Shawn Levy and Brett Gelman can suck the shit right out my ass <3

[paimonial-rage]

Please note that I'm not speaking for all writers when I say this, but if you're thinking of commenting on a fic you really liked, please do not put, "Part 2?????????????" or any of the derivatives.

You'll never know it if you're not a writer, but it takes a lot of work to finish something as little as 3,000 words. Majority of the longer fics I've posted on here took a minimum of eight months to finish. So to put in all that work only for people to ask me to put in more work is exhausting to read.

I write primarily for myself. I choose to share it because I think others may enjoy it too. Being consistently asked for a part 2 on oneshot fics makes me feel like I'm a fast food server, like it's my job to take your orders and serve the public. My writing, to you, is not an art to appreciate, but a commodity to fill your stomach.

If you're going to leave a comment on anyone's fic, say that you liked it. If you're feeling wordy, tell the author the things you enjoyed about it or what it made you think or feel. Trust me, that is far more flattering than demanding a sequel without anything else. And for my works, if asking for a sequel is the only thing you have to say, I'd really rather you just say nothing at all.

[brittlebutch]

the thing is, you’re absolutely right! because what neurotypical people sometimes don’t understand is the massive difference between the average level of social interaction that they themselves vs other people get outside of organized or scheduled events like work or school, and also don’t understand the massive difference between what failure looks like, and how those two things overlap. i’m told that among the average neurotypical person, they’ll make a point to talk to people in their lives or hang out with friends or go on dates or chat with other people in public spaces, al to have casual interactions, multiple times a day, multiple days a week. meaning, if they have a failed social interaction, it’s buffered by the many successful interactions they’ll go on to have. failure most likely won’t mean complete isolation, because they have multiple avenues of interaction to fall back on. and, moreover, a failure in a social interaction when you have (on average) fewer than most means that now rather than that person going “oh that was a weird interaction, i talk to them a lot and it’s not usually like that, maybe it was an off day” they go “huh i don’t know that person very well maybe they’re just like that?”, which means that the odds are way different on whether relationships stay good after mistakes.

social skills are not actually as inherent as neurotypical people like to think. it’s just that when you’re always in practice, always getting back on the proverbial horse, the advice “just get back out there!” does actually work very well. but if you’re not able to do that for any variety of reasons, you can’t play the game the same way. my advice is not “try harder”, it’s “lower your expectations for yourself on what a good interaction and a moment of connection might be”. just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions. remind yourself that you’re working with fewer resources and a much more limited data pool. a lot of the advice being given is coming from someone who assumes they understand what the math looks like for you, because it’s very difficult to imagine that other side. so instead of trying to overlay a system made for someone who has resources that you just don’t have, you need to figure out what a functional system of interaction looks like for you, and adapt the advice given to fit your situation. my advice, bearing that in mind, is that finding communities and groups can look like a lot of different things, and getting your social needs met can come from a lot of sources, and ideally should! you would understand best what your situation is, and there’s no shame in changing tact to accommodate for your own needs and boundaries.

forgot to answer this for a bit lol BUT yeah, the post was a little bit more about the Conceptual argument than it was about me specifically, so I'm definitely already with you re: 'finding out what your Individual social goals are and working based off of those instead having high expectations based off of other people's metric' stuff. You definitely have a huge point with the "social buffer disparity" between NT people and ND people, where failures are both less demoralizing internally and less impactful externally when you're able to have a greater average of interactions generally also

but I really appreciated the "just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions" aspect of this message. I do definitely have a recurring problem of like, labeling Myself as an Uncanny Valley Person and automatically assuming that every interaction I'm involved in must be some level of uncomfortable for the other person -- it actually was kind of a revolution moment reading this and realizing that OH it does make sense that if I can unintentionally make people uncomfortable, it's statistically just as likely that I can unintentionally lift people's spirits in one way or another! So thank you very much for that!!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also it's something (better) like, the exercise of deliberately [art imitates life imitates art] holding up Billions to My IRL Things Perspective and going like whaaat would i want for winston. first answer is you want any character to not have been within the scope of the show in the first place, and to exit it since they are. and you kind of get that in the accidental reward in banishing winston, since like in the end it's just that the show doesn't care about him existing at that point But like it's winston sitting there quietly as everyone leaves & turns out the lights & Then he can leave too; others have peaced out & nobody remembers he exists so Now he can go off & do whatever.

but like in true form i think they definitely accidentally baked in another divine reward for winston in that, like, the way he's kept around as fodder for these fun little [pov: enjoy abusing this guy] asides with him, where it Just So Happens that he's autistic as something they're unaware of but is completely relevant to the expectation we understand him to be inferior(tm), it Just So Happens that he's also ""bad"" at not ""causing"" abuse to be turned on him. he's ""bad"" at staying in line. like well yes Yes that's what i want for him. just like In Real Life it's like yeah Ideally i'd want people to be able to extricate themselves from where they're trapped in power structures & i'd want them to have the perspective about it of understanding they're not Inferior / i.e. they are as much a person as anyone else and they're not corrupting everything good / i.e. it wasn't them Bringing It Upon Themselves and it's not them being Destructive by toppling a jenga tower of a hierarchy that happened to be pressing down on them. and winston is the kind of [the ruinerrrrrr] who is Turned On exactly because he keeps acting like someone who's on the verge of breaking out of the [being in line] someone demands of him as autist, employee, whatever other supposed manifestations of [inferior]

like in the 5 second stretches in which winston's allowed to speak before retaliation, it's because he's like "matter of factly" delivering whatever Information that's useful for another plotline. then he Brings It Upon Himself by making people aware that he's Also existing in his own right as a person rather than what they think serves their own deal / what they want from him at all times, perhaps by expressing his personality (didn't appeal to them! so it was Wrong) or not b/c of anything in particular said or done at present, just b/c people have a constant / accumulating contempt for him so their being in the same room as him & able to see & hear him is already dangerous. the [we're just seeing Any Abusive Dynamic in action] continuing apace.

and it's like, well, right there. he's written as acting like someone who doesn't blame himself for how he's treated, which billions frames as being Rude & Mean, and so too does everyone's abusers lmfao like and that these are his moments that are written to be Bringing It Upon Himself. and it's like hell yeah he doesn't blame himself. hell yeah that his self-esteem can manifest as anger at all. hell yeah that he keeps expressing himself with personality & confidence & doesn't even disguise his having been hurt, & it's this [his ass is Not grey rocking] that billions frames as both him "causing" his abuse & making that abuse "successful" lol, wrow just like real life!! and when like speaking of real life yeah it's not "bad" that people Do engage in strategies to mitigate & survive, including things like blaming themselves or being too "boring" to be anything but a non dialogued background character b/c that's all that goes unpunished, it's bad b/c it's done to them at all, not [ohh they're doing it to themselvesss] and like i'm asking myself like Ideally. what do i want Ideally. and i'd want winston to know that it's being Done To Him & i'd want him to find as much room for his personhood & autonomy as possible. and that's basically how he's written anyways, and billions hates that like You See this is why he deserves it this is why he's doing it to himself. and i'm like my god if that's not Inspiration for like "so what if people don't find you Personally Likable" and not preemptively holding back all personality or anything that'd draw attention as if you exist as a person in your own right & not something that only either gets in the way of or serves their wants of a Real person (someone with more power) like hell yeah you have him out here doing it =']

another fun addendum is like, billions isn't getting into it much b/c it doesn't seem to care much about "what if some people were peers & seem to have a genuine, recipcrocal relationship?" but that it just so happened to be like "oh tuk as the next closest loser who deserves it might be nice to winston" while it's framing winston as the "worse" Loser as being....unconditionally supportive of tuk. while the one downside of billions Also giving bentuk as much as it is is that it also inevitably has that shadow of "but ben is Superior to tuk" and like that it's correct that everyone encourages tuk to Stop Bringing It Upon Himself and start being less of a loser; it's wrong for winston to be like hey let's go have a foursome. like yeah probably don't make a list of the women you work with you'd be dtf but it's not like i'm convinced "ah billions and it's strong anti misogyny stance like" roflmao and billions is Not reflecting on "the downsides of unconditional support?" there when winston was beaten up for criticising taylor earlier like we WILL take his ideas while looting his [beaten unconscious] body there but he WAS wrong to express them as though he's BETTER than taylor!!! mafee's beautiful show of loyalty in kicking his ass even when he might agree with the argument and then benefit when it's adopted by taylor anyways! so it's as usual actually purely based on hierarchy & who gets to be in charge of people. it's correct for ben to be in charge of tuk, unless he has to step aside for that bizarre dead-end subplot about how it's tuk's fault if he's treated badly, b/c it's really his own Failure to have Confidence to know he has good ideas [raising our voice to deliver this message over the sound of breaking desks and chairs and computer monitors over winston because he had the confidence to act like he deserved to talk to someone and because he knows his ideas efforts & results are good & valuable around there] like. and isn't it sooo fucked up to talk about who you're dtf in the episode that has it be neutral if your boss is dtf & lets you know but is nice about it (and you're already Correctly tending to their ego, which you're responsible for!) like hey no possible problem! it's not even so much of a problem for a boss man to have the sex they're entitled to & be rude about their leveraging their power in that acquisition that it Stays a problem into the next season. ew, winston is Known (Inferred) Dtf??? we'll use it to exploit His vulnerability, exacerbate it, & punish him further for good measure in another episode that just revels in abuse & violation with a sexual aspect once again, but like, hey tuk don't do that, winston's such a Bad Influence for being like, shrug, kneejerk intervening with the Good Friendship where the One In Charge leaps in & Tells tuk the Correct thing to do. obviously there's also the tragedy that billions will Never let winston push back against Real Winners like rian or taylor in A Way That Matters (actually gets in their way at all) lol like. one thing that would have really been fun, winston should've literal kneejerk started physically fighting wags in either pertinent scene in 7x03 for real 110%. i wouldn't be like Gasp Violence Is Never The Answer if he just hit someone to hit them b/c fuck you. or broke anything on his way out etc etc. billions would Never let him. which is the other side of the same coin of [why he should get to]

tl;dr how great that winston's being "out of line" means he's basically always noticeably flouting & rebelling against the [He Deserves Abuse] agenda lol. that IS what i want. his being "beyond hope" like ohhh he's sooo stupid he doesn't realize how much he has the bad tastes & wrong interests & annoying personality He Will Always Be This Way like hell yeah!!! billions like oh no winston's personhood will never stay tamped down & locked away such that some godawful person tolerates keeping him in their inventory :( ohhh the ABA will never work :( that's right!!!!!!!!!! although they're not sad about it because it's about relishing the promise there will always be True Inferiors you can enjoy abusing with your righteous power over, but like well you wrote him escaping anyways even while dragging other "better" characters into standing around to serve axe's need for more than 1.8 employees and [crickets, reverberating cough, sneaker scuff] like. another ""wrong"" thing for winston to do, another thing for him to not "deserve," which is itself godawful actually lol like lord what it "rewards" its Good, Deserving characters with, no thanks. meanwhile winston's punishment is that he's autistic and """bad""" at being abused like lmfao good for him, fantastic for him, just what i want

[thecherrygod]

/

[ya-gurl-emily]

The awesome thing about college is that being there is miserable, and not being there is worse.

Nifty!

[isayoldbean]

i've been up past 3am the past two nights in a row and so i was determined to go to bed early tonight and then right as i was about to log off ff14 i remembered i hadn't done my weeklies and tomorrow is reset... biting and hatred and killing and maiming

[rainagaintomorrow]

Naw, see this is what I'm talking about! Y'all really are shady as hell on Tumblr but wanna act so friendly in the discords. That's what's funny to me, personally!

I actually don't feel called out or criticised take my trauma to therapy like an adult unlike other people here. I was minding my black business until I saw y'all had said something absolutely out of pocket and I thought "oh I think not on this delightful Monday". Sounds like you specifically are feeling a little defensive though nonomyre.

I just think it's wild, y'know really wild, that you've determined that a character who's never spoken is abusive...? Cause you fully said people vilifying Vincent as a takes that missed (or in my words, wack ass takes) but like... Alexis being vilified isn't a weird take to you? But people making Cutie an abuser IS? that's just wild like make it make sense? The cognitive dissonance is really strong, huh? Like Vincent gets to be complex? Cutie, who for all intents and purposes abused someone's trust and crossed their boundaries, gets to be complex? But Alexis doesn't????

"I'll admit some projection" SOME? Some sweetheart? We've never heard this character talk outside of imperium (not canon) and really the most anyone's talked about Alexis had been Sam. You know.... The ex? Don't get me wrong I love Sam Collins like I love long walks on the beach and rechargable vibrators (which is to say A LOT) but... You're only gonna hear one side of the story of an admittedly very messy break up? Okayyyy....

Like... If Lovely said "no" to being turned, and then lovely was dead, gone, do not pass go do not collect $200, y'all are saying you honestly wouldn't have had something to say about it? That Vincent should have let them die? Interesting.

Y'all are saying if you had the opportunity to save someone you cared for deeply, someone whose life was in jeopardy and you could fix it right then and they said no, that you'd let them die? Because that's a really fucking hard decision to make, to decide whether you should or shouldn't save someone. I mean maybe y'all are really staunch supporters of DNRs in which case I'm glad you're very passionate about medical law, but Alexis wasn't a medical professional.

God, we barely know anything about her and your "facts" are as much projection as my thoughts of her being nuanced!

It's not like Kody's limp dick busted ass, which is someone consciously choosing to take advantage of someone else because they can and they have power. We don't know for sure WHAT the situation even WAS! Because all we heard was from Sam! Who is very deep in it and obviously is not objective, and that's fine because his life was altered forever. He's got like... All the skin in the game. And his feelings are absolutely valid because it isn't what he wanted and not only did he feel betrayed but like he didn't get the chance to try. I hear that.

But bro... The bare minimum evidence does not suggest to me that Alexis is a horrible person who was trying to control Sam. I didn't write Alexis, sure, so I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty fucking good at reading between the lines as any critical examination of literature requires. I'm also pretty fucking good at reading people and figuring out the difference between someone's memory and subjective experience versus what actually happened. I've been trained, I'm literally being trained again, it's a clinical skill I have to use every day.

If you want Alexis to be an abuser and a bad person Just Because, that's cool because it obviously means something to you. But saying that's a fact and not actually your own conjecture based on the content, the way you read it, your experiences, and your own projection.... That's the part I take issue with. You're shutting down other people's interpretations by saying they're not right but you are which... Is interesting. You get to be the expert and ultimate decider on Alexis? Interesting.

I guess we really must be listening to different YouTube videos.

Anyway the whole thing is very telling about how y'all act direct vs indirect. Like you can say you're not subtweeting but... ion know about that one chief. Block me, it's fine. Block my bestie who literally didn't do anything, but you've been actin real shady towards as well, okay. But you're not gonna talk shit, say you're not talking shit, and act like you're sitting here innocently with these honestly weak ass takes. You put it in the tag, you brought it to the world and unfortunately for you I witnessed you dishing shit on Al Gore's unholy internet, but now you can't take the criticism back?

Your victim identification is showing, and it's telling, that's all I have to say on that. 🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️😬😬

[liebelesbe]

I wish I lived/had grown up somewhere colder, I feel like ice skating could've been my thing but we didn't have anywhere to learn that here :(

[gottagobuycheese]

it may have taken over six hours BUT! GOT THE LAUNDRY OUT OF THE MACHINE AND FOLDED IT!!!

[subconsciousmysteries]

I wrote in one of my poems @ my (5) ex "what were you other than a walking bag of money" because every time my brokeness makes me anxious, I long for him back despite knowing what an abusive POS he is. mostly because he is rich, not because he is his vampire self... but who is he without his money... his money was literally his identity. that was the whole tragedy I felt around him. I wanted to rescue him from identifying with his money and show him a real life. sadly I couldn't.

it's not that he didn't have a real human identity (he did and he diminished it), but that money is the one and only thing he valued about himself... so money became him. really shows you that you become what you value.

my ex was all emo about how women only like his money and stability and secretly long to fuck the "chatas" (this is apparently a spanish word for funny broke obviously 7 dudes who smoke weed and sag their pants and bully the nerds). but what do you expect people to like you for, when money is the one and only thing you give away in abundance? these "chata" dudes are giving everything away in abundance to the people around them, to the point they are so broke and have nothing left to give. meanwhile you, all your energy is consumed in the pursuit of money so that you can have infinite supply to buy people, all because you don't want to put real energy out there. you give away your money to women as a poor substitute for giving your heart energy. of course that's what you're gonna be remembered for. you're the rich stable dude. you're the big money man. we are remembered for what we give out in abundance. and the secrets we keep die with us.

these are some of the many life lessons i learned from the ordeal of knowing my ex.

[thotsfortherapy]

bruh I had a social for my club and my housemate ruined the vibes so bad like. The way I feel like I need to send out a mass apology for their behaviour now :////

[the-mehlwurm]

PLEASE RECOMMEND ME MOVIES (OR SERIES, I DONT REALLY CARE) BECAUSE I WILL HAVE THE APARTMENT TO MYSELF FOR 2 DAYS SO I CAN WATCH ANYTHING I WANT IN THE LIVING ROOM. ILL BE ABLE TO WATCH TV, GET THIS, ON AN ACTUAL TV! BUT I DONT KNOW WHAT TO WATCH.

[ghostsinthecellar]

ew, pregnancy dream

[unproduciblesmackdown]

would have too much to say that inevitably repeatedly breaking things up into tweets wouldn't be a pain but already going back like, lets check out andor episode one again in full true connoisseur mode and i'm not pressed if i make it into a proper in order rewatch, also when the bonus for me is that i'm always more likely to better keep track of names or faces or pick up on something that was supposed to be like a straightforward plot moment or whatever else, right, though i didn't have any especial problem with that. anyways i'm just already like oh this entire first sequence fucks, and i didn't really go into this that skeptically but do remember like yeah first time around it was like with this intro premise alone like ah i see this fucks then

like first of all an initial shot choice that is stylish, which tells us that there will be stylishness. fun that the couple evil [police procedural] characters are great at being pathetic zero charisma soaking creepy & wet disgusting in their own special ways, but cassian is getting rained on all the time he's cutting the plumbing line he swam here soaking wet literal treatment

things feeling figuratively and literally grounded (walking, only seeing that walkway, streetview, no soaring establishing shot to show This Isn't Your Ordinary City (scifi edition)) like, also still clear enough it's scifi but really with the Magical Realism type of approach, which i do imagine i enjoy more

the scoring is so good. BANGER of a track used when walking into the bar, also used later when dropped into the introduction of his beach getaway new life scene, brief as it is. the sexy edm style track, and it Is also like "well i mean. sure then" getting so far into this scene before it's evident like oh you're not actually here to have sex. pretty flirtatious w/this proprieter but it's like, maybe discreetly acting natural, maybe just acting naturally for real and it's just like that, we've all been there re Blend In, Follow Their Lead as a rule for operating anywhere ever, presumably relevant here, the Everyone's Wary nature of the whole series....tbt talking about jyn like yeah idk maybe her brand of wariness that's not charismaticly intense enough nor closed offedly intense enough is like, itself confusing or whatever but absolute "what's not to get or like" sense from me, and naturally cassian cropping up like it's your wary kindred spirit

anyways then having fun in there. looking at the required sexy hologram dancer like hmm they're a little space androgynous. a little space gnc af. the guys who are just immediately pissed off b/c the supposed new customer is getting preference. the delay after the proprieter lady is like Behave to them and cassian looks at her, then them. his immediate brooking no nonsense w/the two as soon as they're all hostile mode at him about all of it, at least in terms of like, not playing it utterly neutral. the It's Political times of him asking about a woman from kenari, proprieter lady going for both a) how about this other planet of origin and [names an inferred similar feature] as well as this kind of establishes already that [from kenari] can be space racially profiled, since cassian doesn't have to explicitly confirm that's where he's from too, and her inferring this is a Preference that can be catered to around physical features, and certainly once cassian's Wanted about this, the urgency around maarva & co asking who they've ever told that cassian's from kenari is sure like ah, space borders, space immigration, space [indeed the racial profiling when the soaking is he creepy or wet pathetic heinous cop pulls up an Image], the repeated like space colonialism and space indigeneity and space resource extraction that gets to come up more with [i've been in this fight since i was six years old] flashbacks....it's great like, the magical realism aspect where it's like [yeah Real Life but slight au] feeling immediately relevantly recognizable and as viscerally dramatic as you'd want, like, everyone's daily lives involving this inherent lack of safety that can turn into the stress of imminent danger on a dime. also the eventual b) asking if he's a Boyfriend or Husband like, space gender, magical realism style where it's like of course the space misogyny power disparity they'd be on the lookout for, might be vulnerable to a partner who is a space man. oh and then also the shift when he says it's his sister he's looking for, from more guarded to sympathetic when it's like, the context then isn't the woman's vulnerability being heightened if this is someone here out of like, a possessive angle, and rather that he's now not only presumably sympathetic to her as well, but potentially some of that vulnerability being extrapolated to him as well. which is not inaccurate

obsessed w/the Long Shot where cassian's getting held up by the two company sentry guys and it's him close up center frame slightly from above and just tearing it up acting while we only hear the other two for a good while until they wander in out of focus, that at first we also can't see and thus can't immediately Know they're talking to him....as well as again establishing like, yeah this is a prequel where we know our protagonist won't die no matter how [people are definitely dying] the situations are, yeah we know he's cool action guy even, but he's not operating in a story here where it's all about his protracted solo epic action sequences, he wants to avoid those, other people want to avoid those, everyone's better off operating more stealth mode if they can help it, but also that it doesn't matter to him that We know he's not gonna die, he doesn't know it, and Everyone knowing those stakes and reacting to the stress rather than being like stoic too epic to be at all fazed badasses. d luna crushing it, everyone's great but yeah sure acting as hell huh

also this time around i was just so much more noticeably affected by like oh i feel bad for this guy who's realizing his buddy who also sucks is dead and now that he's in over his head majorly life and death....everyone acting in every part is just going ham like bevy of these varied performances in varied roles and nobody dropping the ball in the least. while it's obvious too that like, feels bad for the panicky source in rogue one intro as well but cassian can't give much away then b/c he's not the protagonist and it's all very mysterious at this point. and that in addition to upping the surprise, it's presumably nonzero meant to be a kindness from him to take the time to comfort the guy before then blowing him away. whereas here the guy sees it coming and like, really brought this upon yourselves and you made this potentially life or death for cassian from the start, as he was aware, but this time it's like yeah cassian wasn't expecting that to turn into [bad luck, that headbutt killed you. and/or also the fall] and is Not so mysterious to us so can be clearly surprised and less than thrilled about things as well....but feels apropos that also w/ this intro of these two rando sentry guys from the bar who the proprietor was like yeah they're not really cops but they annoyingly like to act like it, it can be a bit more genuinely pathetic vs the Pathetic(tm) quality of the like imperial space feds characters. like oh i do feel bad for this guy and all the time he has here to plead for his life :( but doesn't feel like it's meant to be some [dun dunnn?] moment re cassian b/c it's like, tells us the stakes, tells us he's not fucking around and Will shoot someone but we've also been told he's not like here to be, or feel, badass invincible, is not unaffected by fear of death nor of having killed someone / death in general, but also Will be blowing you away if need be, also speaking to like, he's run calculations before abt like, whaddaya gonna do, what are the risks and which are you willing to take, and obviously has fought before and if he's ever killed someone before it wouldn't be surprising, some like "my god i've never done that before / now i'm out for blood, never look back" factor does not seem to be relevant. but fr was fun to be surprised by like oh i feel bad for this guy this time around lol noticeably much more than affected me the first time around. true [oops in over your head] vibes but which also then speak to like, yeah probably would've stopped pretending to be cops, just feels like yeah he's more distant from [uh oh, attention from Empire cops now] figures so it's like, ah, you bring it upon yourself but. i'm not quite sure what got me this time around lol, again i guess just more ability to focus on details and thee moment b/c i'm not like, needing to intently devote my attention to potentially following names and faces and plotlines b/c it's the opening scene here and don't get lost before things even happen. maybe it's having subtitles on where i'm all the more sure of the dialogue and him talking about "we'll go in together" has me like "there but for your fucking around, no need for this, i remember the vaguely friendly acknowledgment before your egos were bruised and you got hostile about it and escalated it to This" maybe it's even him offering a story and phrasing it like "we played too hard in hitting" when i have this like, vulnerable association lol like if anyone's upset / distressed enough And there's the immediate proximity / presence of something meant to be like, purely fun, where even talking about Playing may be enough to be like oh no lol, even when that's not really what happened. again, the acting from everyone, maybe it's just focusing all the more on that, wherein truly epic seeming distressed and miserable, maybe it also helps that we also get shots of more diego luna acting which is also to the effect of: pretty distressed and miserable, soaking wet. i dunno but i'm like hell yeah being all the more caught up in whatever.

also that this was like, oh a seeming potential thread establishment? and of course "whoops killed two guys" is indeed an established thread, the [looking for his sister] remaining latent as the setup to that inciting event and otherwise like, just something he does, characterization and [backstory thread] relevant, but only that. and yet, the way that opening scenes are generally meant to do, this whole sequence conveying plenty about how things are going to be, establishing overall contexts, thee vibe, that the soundtrack fucks, that nobody's messing around here in the least like. just as these first minutes didn't have to go so hard, so neither will the rest of the series have had to. i also didn't have to say all this or post at all but i get hype and when i have anything to say i really do. no concision. oh shit and we end with like the directional reverse of the first opening stylish shot but w/cassian in frame as well yeahh boyyee