#uh... is this meta?

[daincrediblegg]

Because I was re-watching silence of the lambs earlier, and the scene came where Clarice was being stared at by all male police officers whom were not receptive to what she said, regardless of the fact she was there to do a job, let alone fbi, in addition to information purposefully being kept from her, despite being tasked to help in solving the case, I was of course reminded of what u said abt Lady T. and how the men on board the ship were not at all keen on having her with them, if not frightened of her presence due to superstition, save for Blanky and Francis being some of the few that treat her with the respect she deserves yknow.

With that being said it did make me curious as to whether or not she would b included in the meetings Sir John has with his team (Francis, Jfj, Blanky, etc) not to mention how her presence would b perceived by those at the table as it is very much something that was unprecedented at the time.

oh man it's REALLY funny you mention that movie in particular- I just watched that again recently for this Gothic Novels Seminar that I took just this past semester( and I'd be remiss to say that it didn't heavily influence a lot of the thought-work I did initially for her- among other things). And actually I did a whole essay on gothic couplings (romantic and not so much- and the lines blurred between them)- and argued why it's one of the few literary genres that affords women agency when it's written with a strictly romantic lens in mind (sorry my dear EAP, on whom I gave the lecture of my fucking life, but you don't win at this actually).

Anyway I digress- the shortest answer I can give without getting too terribly long-winded about telling all without actually writing the damn thing - is yes, she's included, but BARELY, and not given much thought despite her earned (and it was EARNED, but also HAD to be given) position. And actually, from the start it's one of the things that draws Francis and LT to each other- because actually (and this would be part of a larger essay on Crozier, had I less brain fog and more time), I see a lot of Clarice in Francis. In a very similar way, the way the anti-Irish sentiment towards him in particular manifests in the way a lot of characters treat him, is very similar to those very scenes in which Clarice is surrounded by men who dismiss and discredit her. Francis has to face a lot of the same stuff- even though we only really know with the benefit of hindsight that he was actually 100% right about what their strategy should have been, but regardless. He's dismissed by Sir John as speculative and alarmist (and a drunkard- which is another byproduct of Irish oppression under imperial rule) when he actually does have better credentials for arctic AND antarctic survival. James dismisses him as melodramatic. Hickey (as well as a good laundry list of others) don't even fully take his orders as seriously- and it could very well likely be because of this, reinforced by the dismissive attitude that his other two commanders took. And at least where my line of thought with Lady Terror is concerned... seeing someone else go through the same thing... tends to light a fire under people. Make them want to support each other in spite of potential consequences. And there are really only two other people on these ships that I feel would be able to understand that it's just the same imperialistic mindset projected onto another arbitrarily and unjustly perceived by said imperialistic mindset as lesser. One of them by direct understanding, and the other because he's a wise old goat who has seen this happen to people he adores before and understands.

[captain-krow-drozdov]

Danny Is An Alternate Version Of Ra's Al Ghul And Flash Already Called Dibs On Adopting Him

Danny In All His Sleep Deprived Slightly Scuffed Up From A Fight Glory Is On His Way To Clockworks Tower To Hopefully Get A Nap And Maybe Some Homework Done When A Natural Portal Opens Up In Front Of Him And Proceeds To Unceremoniously Drop Him In The DC Verse Just Outside Of Central City Before Promptly Closing Leaving A Tired Danny Behind In A Run Down Abandoned Parking Lot.

It's Times Like This When Danny Regrets Putting Off Learning How To Make His Own Portals, Cause Now He Is Very Much Stuck For The Foreseeable Future And He Has No Idea Where Or When He Is. Luckily For Him However Central City Isn't Too Far Away, Unlucky For Him However Is That Once In The City He Realizes This Isn't His Dimension. He's Pretty Sure He'd Remember Something Called The Justice League.

So What Do You Do When Supernatural Bullshit Fails You? You Fall Back On Your Mad Scientist Roots And You Make A Portal Gun. So That's Exactly What Danny Plans To Do.

Unfortunately Staying Alive And Building Questionably Safe Portal Technology Requires Money And Supplies, So He Ends Up Wandering From City To City Doing Odd Jobs/Fixing Up Busted Tech For Cash Or Unwanted Electronics For His "Operation: Get Home" Needs. This Obviously Ends In A Few Superhero Encounter Shenanigans.

Though He Always Ends Up Back Near Central City, Both On The Off Chance The Natural Portal Will Open Up Again And Because Out Of All The Superheroes That Apparently Exist In This Universe The Speedsters Are His Favorite (Red Robin Is Solidly His Second Favorite Ever Since The Gotham Vigilante Gave Him A Large Coffee Filled With Enough Caffeine To Kill A Man).

Unbeknownst To Danny However Is That Every Hero/Vigilante He Has Encountered Has Come To At Least One Of The Following Conclusions; 1. Run Away Meta Who Is In Desperate Need Of A Good Meal/Adoption Bait. 2. Possibly Red Robin/Tim Drake Clone 3. A Good Kid But Could Possibly Be A Future Rouge If Left Unsupervised. 4. Did Bats Get A New Kid And Why Is He Here?

All Flash Knows Is That He Saw The Kid First And Therefore Has Dibs. Suck It Bruce.

Fast-forward A Few Months And Danny Gets Hurt During A Rogue Attack While Trying To Help Some Civilians Get To Safety (Old Hero Habits Die Hard (Ha Die Hard) And All That Jazz) And He Nopes Out Once Everyone Is Safe And When The Paramedics Are Busy With Other People Unaware He Left A Blood Sample Behind.

One DNA Test Brought To You By Paranoid Bat Concerns Of A Possible Red Robin Clone Later And They Find Out That Dannys DNA Matches One Ra's Al Ghul.

They Now Think Danny Is An Escaped Ra's Al Ghul Clone.

Memes For The Vibes:

[laser-tripwires]

what is your read on the scene in the pilot where eliot and nate are playing pool? do you think eliot was being genuinely empathetic or just making small talk? was eliot genuinely hurt by nate?

neither, and both. he wasn't making small talk, he wasn't genuinely hurt, but it's more complicated than that. that scene exists for a wide number of reasons, and very few of those reasons actually have anything to do with eliot. nate is the protagonist, and that scene is arguably the most important character exposition we get on him in the entirety of the nigerian job - BUT there's still a lot you can read about eliot and the team dynamics as a whole, as well as foreshadowing for the wider show.

the scene actually opens not with the pool game, but with hardison pulling nate over to tell him he got dubenich's financials. i call this out because - in the original pilot script? this got cut off from the pool scene by a dubenich interlude which didn't make it into the final show.

now, that's probably information management - much, much easier to focus on nate and eliot's convo if we're not thinking about what dubenich is doing, and the exposition from the dubenich mini-scene wasn't very important. but there's another reason, too -

nate smiles and claps a hand on hardison's shoulder before heading back over to the pool game. it's a fatherly moment! a lot of the nigerian job is dedicated to setting up nate's relationships with the trio (the fact that parker gets mentorship instead of fatherliness in this ep is kinda long goodbye job foreshadowing, even if likely unintentional), and this reiterates that he's gonna be a father to hardison. it's placement just before this conversation with eliot is also telling us that this relationship with the team is going to be the thing that heals nate, which eliot all but says aloud a minute or so later (i'll get there).

right, so the next beat of the scene is eliot offering nate a beer and nate refusing. which is... interesting, given as nate was practically drinking himself to death at the beginning of this episode and will spend the rest of the season doing just that. he clearly has an issue with alcohol and that's clearly being set up to be a large part of his arc. so refusing a drink is significant, and we cut from a wide shot (featuring some truly adorable parker lockpicking, parker picks locks like other people knit) into eliot and nate's game because like eliot, we're curious about this.

nate takes his pool shot - eliot looks to nate, to the beer bottle, and back to nate. he's not paying attention to the pool game because eliot is very smart and has just picked up on the thing i pointed out to all of you a second ago - that refusal of the beer is weird and significant. nate's doing better - which eliot says.

nate almost looks up at eliot but takes his shot instead, and eliot continues. nate mutters a "yeah," without looking at eliot. which eliot again notices, and points out that it bothers nate.

eliot's turned around and sat on the pool table now. his focus isn't on the game anymore, it's on nate. it's really hard to critique this scene from eliot's perspective because the whole point of the scene is to get us as the audience inside nate's head, and eliot's needling is the vehicle through which we do that - he's asking the questions and making the assumptions that we as the audience are doing here. nate's a prickly bastard.

nate does, however, admit that it bothers him. with another of those despondant yeahs. he moves away from the pool and towards eliot, but still isn't looking eliot in the eye. "I mean, this isn't supposed to feel-"

"Good?"

camera change on eliot's line there so we get a better look at eliot's face, and nate's finally looking at him. "good" is likely not the descriptor that nate would have stammered out if his sentence had been allowed to continue, but eliot's a blunt person and more importantly eliot's not wrong. he then smiles, which catches nate off-guard, and after a beat eliot continues.

"It's not hard to figure out. Dubenich screwed ya. He cheated by stealing from that other company and your good guy brain sees him as the bad guy. Your conscience is clear."

midway through that speech, we cut to nate's reaction so we're watching him instead of eliot. he's stony. everything eliot's saying is correct, and most of it is explaining subtext that the audience should already have picked up on. but, y'know. nate is a prickly bastard.

(side note on the script again - the change from "ripped you off" to "screwed ya" is a great example of the kind of edits that get made on the fly after you cast actors with certain affects. not relevant here but i think it's cool - WISH we had the scripts for the rest of the show, because the amount to which this one is useful for analysis and insight cannot be overstated.)

now's when it gets interesting. without a change in facial expression, nate asks eliot if he wants to take his shot - he's not quite interrupting, but he's also clearly trying to cut the conversation short. there's two possible meanings to that line - one, nate's meaning, of shut the fuck up and keep playing. two, the subtextual meaning and what eliot takes it as, which is; get to the point.

eliot takes another swig of beer, nods, and we cut to a close up of him as he pauses and reconsiders the tack of the conversation. i very very much read this as eliot trying to figure nate out here - he had a hypothesis about the state of things, and nate's response let him know he was on the right tack. it's worth remembering that (despite what people tend to percieve him as) eliot is an extremely emotionally intelligent character, and that's being established here as well as everything else.

so he starts out another speech, looking nate in the eye - it's the most intimate moment of the conversation so far, and that's important. "Listen, I'm sorry about your kid."

to me, it's abundantly clear that eliot could have kept talking from there, made whatever point he was about to. but he leaves the space open for nate to respond. small talk is the wrong word for this, and eliot's not exactly feeling out an emotional connection; but he is clearly and deliberately giving nate the opportunity to open up and respond, both out of genuine empathy and (as we already saw) a desire to unpick a little more of what makes nate tick. that's part of eliot's job, after all. he is being a nice person here.

and nate... well, nate's expression doesn't change. the sensible and expected thing to do here would be to say, y'know, thanks, and then move on with the game. but, as i've already said, nathan ford is a prickly bastard. worth pulling up the script again here:

because yeah, he shuts down. we're two thirds of the way through the pilot episode and once again this is serving as exposition for the viewer - nate is in a lot of emotional pain, and he doesn't exactly do touchy-feely feelings. he'd much rather hide at the bottom of a bottle than sort out his issues. anger, and grief, and anger.

now, eliot says that "everybody knows." he half whispers that line, which i think is a really great touch - it's a lot more tender in tone than the response could have been, and i don't think nate picks up on that. my reservations on them as people aside, christian kane and timothy hutton's acting throughout this scene is superb. it's hard to explain, but eliot's affect changes for the next line - "Guy like you goes off the street, a lot of people notice." he's still almost whispering, but he's trying to tug the conversation a little bit towards levity. the emphasis on "a lot" is almost jokey - people smarter than me have pointed out that eliot in early season one has a soft sarcastic vibe that isn't present for a lot of the rest of the show. it's a continuation of what we saw earlier in the episode in the hospital scene.

but once that's said, he halts, and we see his eyes soften a little - he stops quite meeting nate in the eye.

it's a soft little moment of comprehension. eliot has lost a lot of people close to him, and has witnessed the deaths of many innocent children. he absolutely does know what nate is feeling. arguably, bereavement destroyed eliot's life infinitely more than it did nate's. so we get a genuine flash of empathy here. he's thought about this, after hearing of it, maybe before even taking the job for dubenich. "And it was a bad story, too."

we cut back to nate for a second there. he's lost - trapped in a hospital in los angeles rather than a penthouse in chicago. as a first time viewer, though, we don't quite know what he's thinking.

so eliot asks. "How'd they justify that, huh? The insurance company, just... not paying for his treatment?"

and the thing is, coming from someone who's watched seven seasons of eliot being unfailingly protective of every child and vulnerable party who's crossed his path... i genuinely think eliot meant that. yeah, not as an actual question, but as comiseration and sympathy for what he can tell is an awful situation.

but this is nate's show. and we're in nate's head. so we follow nate, across three years of anger and pain and into that hospital room. we see for the first time where nate's standing here, the depths of that sorrow in the moments before it manifested.

worth noting that it's not the full scene - nate running in to grab sam's body was filmed with the pilot but cut back to be saved for the finale, which was a damn good choice. but even what we see here is enough to fully ground us in nate's backstory - we've been watching him dance around in chaos for most of an episode, clearly greiving his son, and now we see the cause of all that hurt. once again, this exchange makes much more sense from the perspective of the writers trying to establish and expand on crucial emotional beats.

when we flash back to nate and eliot, the camera angle has changed. noteable, because we were on a solid back-and-forth talking shot for a minute or so there, and this fully segments the scene instead of plopping us back where we just were.

we've just experienced first-hand the spiral that nate's thoughts have gone down. he answers eliot, still lost in thought - "They claimed it was experimental."

from eliot's perspective, that's a response to his question and an accepting of his empathy. from our perspective, it's an anguished statement of pondering, the re-rotation of a thought that's been trapped in nate's head for three fucking years. they claimed. he is, as we will see in the david episodes, so, so, so angry.

eliot smirks, then drinks. we cut back to his face and the original camera angles. his is where the pilot rewrite between scripting and shooting is the most obvious - in the original script, nate picks up the beer, and that's what prompts eliot's next line.

in the filmed episode, we stick instead on nate's face and let eliot continue. the emotional beat is identical, but it places a greater emphasis on nate's pain and eliot's powers of perception. it's an unimportant script edit, but an interesting one.

what happens next... "Should have kept one of those Monets you found, hm? You fence that -" and it's only at this point nate actually interjects.

i don't think eliot here is deliberately being insensitive nor do i think he's directly trying to just raise nate's spirits. you gotta remember that we as the viewers in nate's head for this scene, not eliot's, and from eliot's perspective the tone has just gotten less gut-wrenching, not more - but eliot's also, as i previously noted, an extremely emotionally intelligent person. it's why i've gone through the whole scene instead of jumping directly to this bit you asked me about, because i really do think the full context is needed to understand.

so, nate interrupts. "Eliot, you and I are not friends."

this is again where context is so important. it's not that he cares about what eliot's actually saying (though i could write a very different essay about how that line of eliot's is lampshading a pretty obvious plothole) but that he's just had to forcibly pull himself back to the present day and he thinks eliot's being annoying and would like him to shut up now, please. not all that different from him asking eliot to take his shot earlier, really, though i think eliot picks up on the curtness.

nate raises his eyebrows. it's a nice attempted reversal of power dynamics - yes he has just interrupted and been rude, but he also immediately attempts to swing the conversation's psycoanalysis onto eliot and why are you talking to me about this i don't know you. of course, we as the viewer can tell nate's in deflective mode, but we'd expect eliot to take it at face value -

which. he doesn't. we get this super interesting little "oh... right." face, and i think it's less eliot realising he's struck a nerve (though it also is that) as it is eliot properly clicking in to what nate's thinking here. i stress again that eliot really is a tremendously emotionally intelligent character, definitely moreso than nate is, and that's reflected in this scene. both of them bounce off one another here a little bit differently to how you'd expect them to just looking at archetypes, and it's this kind of thing that makes the leverage pilot so good.

because eliot picks up on the messaging nate's putting down, the prickly i'm-not-having-an-emotional-conversation-with-a-criminal-i-just-met facade, but he also kinda sees right through it. "...Right. 'Cause you have so many of them."

and it's again this softly sarcastic vibe that's pretty unique to early season one eliot, but it really works here in reestablishing that A) eliot's more observant than nate is giving him credit for, B) he's not going to let nate get away with being tacitly kind of a dick, C) he's really not easily rattled and D) eliot is as much of a chaos gremlin as the rest of the team. this is not the affect of a man actually hurt by what nate said.

all in all, good stuff. but now for the reason i dug the script out to begin with - the ending. it's a well-known piece of trivia that they shot the pilot without a defined ending for the next nate/sophie beat only for aldis to improv the world's best "oooooooh," but what's really fun is if you know that this is because the nate/sophie beat here was actually a late addition. in the script, eliot and nate's conversation finishes like this:

and end scene. eliot still gets the final word, so as to speak, but nate gets a lot more quiet reflection and a much more overt point that nate and eliot are at least peers if not friends right now. but here, instead, sophie presumably starts walking towards nate off-camera and eliot steps back - "Incoming."

and then we're on to nate and sophie, and the scene continues with a new focus as nate is left reeling.

but i really, really like the ending we get because it's that same establishment of peership, of eliot calling out nate's crap, but also of the fact that the power dynamics here aren't as they'd first seem. nate's greiving too much. eliot understands but isn't gonna let it get to him or impact the team. this... is all crucial as far as character establishment is concerned.

this answer got long. i think that this scene is just so, so important for establishing both nate and eliot's characters - and i think people miss an infinite amount of nuance when they take the surface-level reading that eliot said something which annoyed nate and nate was mean. that's very much not what happened, but it also kinda is, and it's what makes this so fun to pick apart. eliot and nate have a fascinating relationship, and it's one that's all too often overlooked. here's john rogers's take on it:

and... yeah!!! you can see all that really clearly in this scene. they respect one another, but that doesn't mean they have to like one another, at least not yet. it's good stuff.

[sapphorror]

The Narrator's perspective only gets more horrifying the longer you think about it. Like, imagine being an Echo of yourself—one of many, all made to serve a very particular purpose and knowingly living on borrowed time, if 'living' is even the right word for your current state of pseudo-existence.

You've inherited the mission of a dead man—it's literally the only thing left that you can do before fading, so you sure as hell better believe in it; the alternative would be unbearable. Only you keep failing. With every loop that you don't remember, your lack of agency in this situation becomes starker—you can influence small things, sure, but it becomes increasingly clear that you have no real power, no matter how personally invested you are in the events unfolding in front of you. You are, after all, only an Echo. You've forfeited the right to meaningfully engage with the world.

Worse—every loop you're made aware of is another time you've failed, with unimaginable consequences, though you had no control over these previous iterations of yourself and can't even learn from their mistakes. Everyone around you is operating on a shared perception of reality that you are not part of, will never be part of. After a few repetitions, you are, ironically, the least informed person in the room. All you have left to go on is an evidently outdated script. At the same time, everyone else is experiencing a contiguous version of you, comprised of parts that are, in some sense, also you, while at the same time existing at a complete remove from your current perception of self. Whatever you don't know you did—that's you now. You are, after all, only an Echo. You've forfeited the right to define your own identity, never mind know what it is.

Even worse—this has trapped you within a stagnant hell of your own creation. Nothing you say or do really matters in terms of your own self (the rest of the world is a separate issue entirely). Anything you've come to believe—say, for totally hypothetical example, that you were wrong actually and your envisioned paradise is really a hell beyond any you had the capacity to envision—has about as much permanence as a drawing in the sand. 'You' will continue, exactly as you were, no matter how much you might like to change your behavior. Every possible future has already been set in stone. You are, after all, only an Echo. You've forfeited the right to say anything you haven't already said.

For some reason, no part of any of this has made you feel more comfortable and at peace with the general concept of finality.

The really, truly absolute worst part, though?

There is no one for you to blame but yourself. And that's exactly what turns your story into such a tragedy.

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[lightbluetown]

part of me feels like this doesn't just mean "i should have told him i was in love with him". i think it also means, or it should also mean, that he should have told ed that things were happening too fast, that he was scared, that he was happy when ed kissed him but it made him panic, that he felt inadequate, that he couldn't fully understand ed's or his own feelings, that chauncey messed with his head, that he felt like he had to go back to his family because it was the one thing he could try to fix but he couldn't turn ed back into the "beautiful" blackbeard

[ephemeralinstance]

Why is Rook so uncurious?

I've seen people complain that Veilguard changes Solas' motivations. And that's sort of true, but really it doesn't so much change them as just try really hard not to look at them. All of the things we were shown in previous games about the ongoing and serious harm done by the Veil still remain completely true, it's just that Rook is never allowed to ask or think about any of this stuff. Which is frustrating because it significantly weakens Rook's character: they end up coming off as determinedly ignorant and uncurious.

Take the information we're given about why taking down the Veil is bad - which seems entirely limited to Varric's claim that it would 'drown the world in demons.' Rook is constantly parroting this line, treating Varric as the ultimate authority on the matter. But this claim makes very little sense, because it surely cannot be the case that Solas wants to create a world filled with nothing but demons. From Inquisition we know he's greatly distressed every time a spirit becomes a demon, so that can't possibly be the outcome that he's expecting.

Of course, Solas could be wrong; he's certainly been wrong about many things before and he's not thinking very clearly. But even so, why on earth would we take Varric's word over Solas' here? Solas is an ancient and knowledgeable mage, the only person around who lived before the Veil, and he literally made the Veil. Whereas Varric is not a mage, has never studied magic or spirits, and is canonically frightened of the Fade and spirits: in the Lighthouse he mentions several times that he finds this 'Fade shit' weird. How could he possibly be in a position to know better than Solas about what would happen if the Veil came down?

Maybe I as a player can just accept that because Varric is The Narrator he must be right about all this. But Rook doesn't know that Varric is The Narrator. So it just feels like Rook is either incredibly ignorant or so devoted to Varric that their ability to think for themself has completely shut down. It's such an odd, anti-intellectual, anti-expert framing: don't do research or talk to anyone who has knowledge on the matter, just accept unquestioningly what your friend says.

Equally frustrating is the absence of any critical thinking about Solas' reasons for doing what he's doing. The only thing Varric and Harding tell Rook about this is that Solas is doing it because the ancient world was beautiful, but what does that mean? And is it really plausible that Solas is doing all this just because of aesthetics?

Rook hears Solas say 'The Veil is a wound on the world,' and never once thinks to ask - what did he mean by that? A wound is something that causes harm, that causes pain. What is the Veil harming? What pain is it responsible for? (From previous games we know the answer, of course. It's harming spirits, mages, and perhaps elves. But Rook never bothers to ask Solas, or to ask anyone else, or even to try to think about for themself about it.).

There's a moment right at the very end, where Solas is finally permitted to mention that he's doing this partly for the spirits. But in a perfect encapsulation of their whole dynamic, Rook immediately interrupts him. Doesn't even let him finish his sentence. Rook is so completely confident that they know best for the spirits and that this person who literally was once a spirit couldn't possibly have any insight into the matter.

At the beginning of the game Varric comments that he chose the name 'Rook' because Rook tends to think in straight lines. Which struck me as odd at the time, because 'thinks in straight lines' sounds like Varric is saying Rook isn't very smart. I thought I must have misinterpreted it, because why on earth would you choose to impose as a requirement on all players that their pc must lack critical thinking? But looking back I can see that's kinda exactly what they did, which - maybe they thought it would be more relatable? Still, if you're going to impose a fixed personality on the main character of a game, it's baffling to me that you would pick 'absence of critical thinking' as one of their main features.

[thomas-jefferson-miku-binder]

hey, remember when Viktor was arguing with Jayce while trying to disarm Jinx's explosive device, and he got riled up with Jayce's ignorance regarding his and the undercity's conditions and messes up, causing the bomb's countdown to start and– and Viktor hesitates for a moment. it's incredibly subtle, it didn't even come to me on my first watches, but he... does. he takes his time cutting the wire, which I can't tell if it's meant to be read as caution or- something else, because after it he turns to Jayce, affirming "there is always a choice", implying he just made one

[qaey]

it’s crazy how practically every time the bad kids split up it’s gorgug and fabian just kinda having a nice time with whoever they’re with and they go ‘i hope everyone else is doing as well as we are 🥰’ and it cuts to the other group and it’s just flames and screaming

[sy-on-boy]

Real talk: the fact that Anya expects to read Demetrius’ mind but sees nothing is kind of sad because Demetrius saw his 6yo brother approach and congratulate him, and had zero thoughts in his brain. But that doesn’t mean Demetrius doesn’t care about him. When Damian stutters, Demetrius initiates conversation by talking about Damian’s grades, showing that he indeed pays attention.

Demetrius seems almost resentful by Damian’s insistence to impress Donovan, giving out a snarky, passive aggressive, teen appropriate response: “How would I know? It’s not as if I’m in regular contact with him.” This is like the passive aggressive version of whatever is going on with Melinda. Damian is a relatively innocent 6yo kid seeking his father’s approval, but both his mother and his brother appear to be seriously affected (in a bad way) by Donovan, and they avoid talking about Donovan even as Damian repeatedly mentions him. Demetrius doesn’t understand Damian’s desire for their father’s approval. He also doesn’t understand his father, hinting at some sort of disconnect between them.

What also saddens me a bit is how Demetrius barely acknowledged Damian’s friends talking to him. Like, they’re six year old kids trying to make a good impression. Still, Demetrius didn’t completely ignore them, just gave a meaningless “oh” and decided to stop thinking about people. It’s very much giving “stressed (and depressed) to the point of apathy”. When facing the innocence (ignorance?) and optimism of 6yo kids, Demetrius doesn’t understand. (And maybe he doesn’t understand friendship, which is what Damian has?)

I mentioned before that characters Anya met are probably “good” characters on the side of Forgers or at least are sympathetic to readers. Because if Anya met a “bad” character and read their mind, she would be too OP and the plot could be quickly solved. It’s like how we all thought Melinda was suspicious when she met Yor, but then Anya met Melinda and read her mind to reveal that she cares about Damian (even if it’s in a twisted way). Demetrius is interesting because he subverts what I said above by thinking very little, so Anya cannot really read him. But so far, I think his portrayal is that of a typical middle schooler with middle school angst, and he cares about Damian even if he has zero thoughts on his brain (and doesn’t like the way Damian craves fatherly approval). He is still a child and presumably a victim of his father’s parenting.

The framing is also interesting. Damian telling his friends to go on without him while he waits for Demetrius. The panel of Demetrius towering over a stuttering Damian. Demetrius going away, showing a panel of him as a small figure in an otherwise blank background. That panel when Anya thinks Damian’s relatives are weird has her looking at Damian while he’s some distance away from her (and the rest of his friends). The brothers feel disconnected. Damian is both eager and nervous to talk to Demetrius. Demetrius is nonchalant and apathetic, but not impolite or outwardly wholly dismissive.

Given Damian’s wacky family situation, I’m glad he has friends at Eden. Ewen and Emile of course are steadfast and loyal companions, always eager to back up their beloved boss man. Anya can read his mind and she knows about his insecurities (and also his weird family).

Becky is also good as a friend because she doesn’t care about sucking up to Damian, she often calls him out, but she also supports Damian when he deserves it. A sweet scene here is Damian saying he’s a Desmond so he’s expected to get a star, and Becky adding “it’s still a great achievement. Congrats!”. Becky is validating his success and telling Damian it’s okay to be proud and happy for himself. Even though she’s usually judgemental towards Damian, she’s still kind to him because that’s who she is as a character.

In the end, Damian still wants his father’s attention. He had no idea Demetrius wasn’t that close to their father… I would assume Demetrius spent most of his time at Eden and this is Damian’s first year at Eden, so he actually gets to interact with his brother instead of hearing things about him?

So far, Demetrius seems like a very jaded character in contrast to Damian who feels like a beam of sunshine now. He’s the heir so he’s got more troubles. But it’s nice that he’s finally debuted and no longer in mystery. Can’t wait to see what Endo has in store for him :)

[ladyloveandjustice]

tbh, Marcille does infantilize Falin and deny her agency at times-- it's something that definitely intentional in how their relationship is written, It's a flaw and (imo) a way that Marcille also holds herself back from acknowledging her feelings for Falin, which I think she has a hard time acting on because of her own web of issues.

Most importantly, I think the reason she's subconsciously afraid to act on her feelings and the reason she infantilizes her are one and the same, tied to her biggest hang up: Falin's going to die long before Marcille does, and Marcille cannot accept her own feelings because she's terrified of that. She also does the "oh you're just a kid who doesn't know better" thing for the same reason. To constantly remind herself that Falin has a shorter lifespan so she can keep herself from thinking of Falin a certain way, to remind herself that a romantic relationship would bring pain. To keep them on unequal levels. To try to dismiss the feelings she has as meaningless because look how "young" Falin is, look how short her life is.

Marcille is obsessed with control and deathly afraid of abandonment. So yeah, she's controlling in her relationship with Falin. And significantly, Falin is not the only person she infantilizes and tries to control. She does the same for ALL her friends and loved ones of other races. She often talks to them like they're kids, decides for them that their short lifespans are sad and they would be happier living a long time like her, that they need to be saved by her that's why she should be in control--because she doesn't want to lose them. Because she wants them by her side forever.

That's obviously something she needs to overcome for Marcille x Falin to actually work and uh, significantly, she does overcome that!! Laios and the others help her accept that death is outside of her control and she can't decide for them what's best. And then she let's go and says she'll accept it if Falin doesn't make it back. She now understands that short lives don't make the others lesser, that she has no control, that she has to accepts the terror of death and fear of loss. Now she can accept and love them as they are, as equals to her.

And in the unoffically-translated post canon material, she also lets Falin give her answer to Shuro (despite CLEARLY being outraged at Shuro and terrified she'd say yes), and accepts that she wants to go travel and get to know who she is without her brother or Marcille, because she's never really done anything for herself. And I think that's really, really good for Falin! That's necessary for her! She's spent her life in the shadow of both of them, and it's time to take some Falin time.

And Marcille lets her. She learns to let go. But that doesn't mean Falin doesn't love Marcille. She specifically says she wants to come back to Laios and Marcille. And I think when she does, the obstacles will be gone. Marcille now understands Falin as not a child, but someone whose potential death she can accept. Nothing is in the way of her feelings. And Falin, now more independent, still thinks of Marcille as home and wants to be with her. That's the journey they take and when they'll truly be able to have a complete relationship and express their love.

[isan0rt]

Big reason Kabumisu makes me want to chew drywall in fact; Kabru who is like PATHOLOGICALLY INCAPABLE of not trying to people please by giving people what he thinks they want out of him encountering someone who is literally unable to have or express any desire other than the same single-minded goal Kabru has, and now all of a sudden Kabru has to actually express his own desires and interact authentically with another person whose desires he literally cannot use because they don't exist.

And then what he wants is to fucking manhandle that twink in like every panel.

[laser-tripwires]

while we're appreciating catholic symbology this fine evening...

someone needs to give the leverage writers room a raise because there's a particular thing they do with saints, like, three times and it's imo emotionally devastating even if you aren't catholic. firstly and obviously, they tell us that saint nicolas..

...is the patron saint of theives.

which, fine, cute, nice thing to anchor a random episode around. but it's not the only time leverage does this, even though the other two are a bit subtler.

if you've watched the dvd commentaries, you'll know that saint bridget...

...is the patron saint of wanderers.

which they say in the commentaries is very much to symbolise where nate is at this point in the show - very much "not sure yet" about a lot of things, but i think sophie's use of it in the order 23 job also ties the meaning to her in a lot of ways, and it's obviously prescient when you look at both nate and sophie's arcs in the latter half of the season.

now, the last of these three, which did make me tear up a little upon first learning of it, is the fact that saint lawrence...

...the italian/spanish form of which, "san lorenzo", of course appears in a lot of place names in southern europe for obvious reasons...

...is the patron saint of restaraunt owners, cooks, and chefs.

leverage is a really good show, dammit.

[scribz-ag24]

I've recently seen again a post talking about the Sableye and Dusknoir's relationship so i'd like to put my two cents in the discussion, for I love screaming into the void about PMD. (this isnt meant to discourage any other interpretations btw this is just my take on theirs and Dusknoir's relationship, bc I think they're very fun characters and I am very glad the game actually gives these minions a bit of relevance in se5).

Tbh I don't buy that Dusknoir treats the Sableye nicely, at least not out of kindness. I don't think he's a tyrant or inexplicably mean, of course, and I think his minions ADORE him, but i also believe that doesn't mean he's nice to them, sth that i consider meaningful for their character arcs.

Throughout the entire game he's exclusively giving them orders, in se5 he concocts a plan that involves thrashing them MULTIPLE times (he's lucky Grovyle isn't one to try and kill enemies in battle ig), and the cherry on top is that the first time we see him being fully genuine he does this:

(yes, he is in turmoil in here, but there's not a single thing implying that 1. this is an unusual response towards the sablye, 2. dusknoir feels bad for it at some point or is surprised at himself, 3. this has any impact in the sableye at all. You can argue these reactions happen off screen and we don't see them, they don't happen bc they have pressing matters to attend to or they happen after they return to life, and that's perfectly valid, but i'm sticking with what the game shows us, here.)

I must say, though, the fact that the Sableye, despite having been almost mindless pokémon up to now, STAND UP TO AND ATTACK Primal Dialga for their boss and even try to look after him despite him ordering them to check on Grovyle and Celebi first is SO important to me. they are goons to the bone and they love that scheming ghost so much.

My own view is that Dusknoir is generally polite to them (you wouldn't randomly break your own revolver or weapon without any reason, would you?), but is quicker to get mean with them than with people he doesn't know or he is seeking to manipulate. He doesn't care about their behaviour as long as they get the job done, which is why I think the anime thing of the Sableye climbing onto his shoulder isn't that remarkable, rather it's a very cute moment, one that is showing how they've been working together for long and how their size difference affects their interactions, but it is not necessarily conveying an affectionate bond (this is a bit random, but it reminds me of Disney's Jafar with Iago lmao. throw your pet sableye at your enemies so they mock them and then return to your shoulder). Additionally, Dusknoir letting the Sableye onto his shoulder is probably as close as we are gonna get to a villain turning around in his chair while petting a cat in PMD lol.

[this isn't meant to be a one-to-one comparison, it's just a detail i find cute and shows that this gesture can have multiple interpretations, with none being the only right one]

Leaving that aside, I hesitate to claim Dusknoir trusts his Sableye as allies, as Grovyle makes a point in the main story of how the Sableye (your Sableye, he says, as if objectifying them; not friends, but tools, weapons at Dusknoir's disposal) are lacking compared to the way hero/partner/grovyle support one another (power of friendship and hidden information babyyyy). The Sableye are used to Dusknoir's way of doing things, though, I'm sure. They know what happens when he's displeased, after all.

I think, most of all, the Sableye are meant to look disposable: they are 6 identical pokémon that almost act like a hivemind, and we are not supposed to think at all about how we may hurt them in battle any more than we do with the angry Manectric pack or random dungeon pokémon. This, I believe, is why the game has them stand up against Dialga and gives them unique dialogue at the end of se5. They're meant to show their inner shine, just as Dusknoir managed to do. They suddenly gain an individuality they had never shown while they were working to maintain the dark future.

Where they abandoned Dusknoir in the Old Ruins, now Grovyle has motivated them to look for their dignity and fight for a better world, and that starts with protecting their leader from Primal Dialga's rampage, and supporting his new objective and allies in their quest to save the future. In their own small way, they've also grown as characters throughout SE5.

I believe that, overall, Dusknoir saw the Sableye as tools, but thanks to their growth and clear care for him, there's a possibility he might start to see them (and by extension other pokémon) in a more genuine, less pragmatic / objectifying way in the future. Now that Dusknoir has the chance to live a fulfilling life, he may learn to care for others without surrounding himself by so many walls. If anything, I think their future is quite bright. Not that the Sableye would mind if he still thrashed them around, though lol, they're clearly not bothered much by it (special episode 0 had a great depiction of the sableye imo, you can check that romhack if you haven't yet).

In conclusion, look at these little guys who adore their can-get-mean-but-is-mostly-polite boss and probably have a body count but now are good, they're so cute:

[vaguely-concerned]

To the ‘themes I am picking up on in Veilguard’ list, let's go ahead and add what I have a sneaking suspicion will actually turn out to be The theme:

— the world has changed and can never be as it was again.

— I have been changed and can never be who I was again.

— in this simple unavoidable truth there is endless grief and endless hope.

And I… may be getting a bit emotional about it haha. Let me show my work a bit: 

if da:o is a game about people who are already dead or half ghosts in some form (through societal forces, psychologically, functionally, literally, in body, through the joining etc.) coming together anyway to save the world from being swallowed by total nihilism and despair (symbolized by the blight) through the power of love and friendship and also this sword/potential heroic sacrifice that I found, da2 is a game about people who have lost their homes and been set adrift finding and building new homes in each other (while completely failing to save the world. also through the power of love and friendship. as well as years of petty bickering <3 we must imagine kirkwall if not happy then worth having been because the love was there the love was there and that's the only sanctifying force we can ever have in this doomed world and city of ours), and da:i is a game about old stabilizing-but-unjust comfortable lies vs. disruptive but potentially liberating uncomfortable truths, and the power of friendship to help us distinguish the one from the other and navigate through them...

folks… I'm starting to think that veilguard might be a game specifically about moving towards recovery and acceptance after trauma — about how even in this flawed, severed, scarred state, what is here right now is worth loving and worth caring for. even in an imperfect and impermanent world and self, there is worth and joy. and of course the first real tragedy — and threat — of Solas is that he just cannot find it in himself to accept this and move on, to let go of what was, the regret won’t let him go or he won’t let go of it. which means that even though on the surface it’s Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain (and the will to subjugate and violate they represent) who are the main villains, the real antagonistic force in this story beneath that is the Dread Wolf’s despair. A despair Rook must make an answer to by the end of the game, one way or another, compassionately or with righteous fury, triumphant or pyrrhic.

The world will change again and again and so will you — BUT the crucial element is that so will everyone else who exists along with you, you are fundamentally not alone in this existential truth. all we’ll ever have is each other and my god that is plenty, my god that is enough!!! Which is the second thing Solas just can’t accept, he keeps himself separate and completely alone out of an awful mix of fear and pride and feeling himself unworthy of anything else. Rook and the player want to save the world of Thedas because it’s where everyone we love lives, Solas wants to go back to the past because that’s the only neighbourhood where he can still visit those he loved — and the person he himself was, before. A very sympathetic and human instinct/trap to fall into when touched by trauma, I think, if only it wasn’t backed by godlike power, a fundamentally oppositional personality, and a catastrophic lack of therapy to make it literally everyone else’s problem too lol. It’s varric and solas’ banter about the man on the island and where meaning in a life comes from all over again, writ large and with detail work — and the added idea of ‘what if there are also other islands out there, though. With other people on them that you could find if you reach for each other’. Rook with the best of intentions has to make choices to which there are no perfect outcomes and live with what happens — and not cut themselves off from everyone else around them even when there is regret or shame. You get back up every day and you make a life with other people doing the same and you do your best, and that’s the only victory this world will give you. In the end, that is more than enough, that is essential. And I um. I love that. So much. It’s why some of the writing clumsiness on top can’t hurt me because this thematic spine is so solid and so beautiful to me. It’s DA2 all over again that way for me personally — I forgive this story for what it isn’t and couldn’t be, and I love it with my whole stupid open heart for what it actually is. Thank you for coming to my TED-talk and goodbye etc.      

(For my fellow TLT heads out there — you know what this story is reminding me of most of all, actually? It has some big Nona the Ninth vibes down there in the deep. It’s about… the horror and unspeakable beauty that can only be found in liminality, and the role of love in making that basic fact of existence bearable. And also even more unbearable at the same time. I'm so sorry.)

[revvethasmythh]

it's so funny to me that caleb and veth really did just trade off the job of intensely pining for the other at like the halfway point of the campaign. like, imo, nott in the early days did not behave in any real romantic or even romance-adjacent ways toward him--I imagine it would be very hard to even think in that way when you hate what you look like so much, have such low self-esteem, and are actively lying about your entire past, including a secret husband. caleb, on the other hand, is kind of diving directly back into the sort of relationship he had with astrid and eadwulf. very close, very intimate, we-huddled-for-warmth-together-and-oops-it-led-to-something-else sort of thing. he is the one who expresses that he's fine with it if people think he and nott are romantically together when they're talking to keg. nott is the one who pushes back on that. he calls her his life partner. unknowingly, he compares his feelings for nott to nott's feelings for yeza. his behavior only really starts to change after he finds out about veth's husband because suddenly all of that other stuff is rendered inappropriate in retrospect. but even then he compliments her to yeza over dinner in the most awkward of ways, he admits to being jealous, he calls yeza "a lucky man" to have her, he stares at veth and yeza closed bedroom door for far too long, he creates an entire arcane tower with room for her family just so she'll stay with him. in general, his behavior is not, um, totally and completely platonic about it, you know?

like, veth's feelings for caleb are canonical and therefore indisputable in their existence, but caleb in the early days was not that dissimilar to how veth was acting near the end of the campaign. it really paints a picture of "right person, wrong time" in the way things just didn't line up for them. or, as veth would say: "in another world, maybe"