#we're getting into potentially triggering territory

[megamagimugi]

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...Uh oh. Looks like he's a tad too late. Who would've thought?

This took me so long, man.

[markantonys]

handful of 3x07 thoughts! today was the one day a quarter i had to work in the office instead of from home, so i had to hurry out the door after finishing the episode without getting to jot anything down and thus i've probably forgotten a lot of details, plus i never have all that much to say about battle episodes or perrin storyline besides "nice, i liked it", so a good chunk of this post is spent looking ahead to potential downstream effects of changes.

full book spoilers!

first, quick notes on the episode itself:

i was SO thrilled to see bode and eldrin get an even bigger role this week. they're swiftly becoming two of my favorite minor characters and i really hope we can continue to see them in future seasons! although i'm going to have to keep mentally retconning and changing the age gap between them and mat haha mat's been Vaguely 20s the whole time and meanwhile the sisters' actresses were teeny little kids in s1, then preteens in s3, and will probably be like 16-18 by the time s4 gets filmed (if it does and if they appear in it, fingers crossed!)

following off of this, as a newly-minted bode & eldrin lover and a longtime galad hater, i am so delighted that they got to steal his beat of killing valda to avenge their mom. suck it, galad!

i need my cauthon sibling reunion in s4 so bad!!!!!! alanna is set up to take them somewhere, but not the white tower, so potentially they could peel off from perrin's story group and wind up joining mat's in s4. i pray to the light that it will be so!

i am astonished that maksim survived. all season i was like "i guess i can accept them spending what feels to me like a disproportionate amount of time on solo maksim-alanna scenes that only serve them (unlike their s1&2 scenes which also always served main characters like lan at the same time) since they are probably building up to maksim's death and showing why that pushes alanna over the edge" but no! now i'm left feeling like it was all a waste of time. but hey, maksim could still die in a future season and make the s3 stuff feel retroactively more useful; maybe they're just saving his death to happen right before the Rand Bonding to act as alanna's trigger. i hope for that route, because if alanna non-con bonds rand while maksim is still alive, i'm sure maksim would deeply disapprove of this decision and then we'd have to spend even more time on him and their relationship showing the fallout (when the primary focus of this story beat should be rand and how HE is affected; yes, theoretically it's interesting for alanna to have a surviving warder who reacts to the situation instead of it only being her and rand reacting, but i just don't think that's the best use of time what with how limited we are)

honestly i feel like that's my only criticism of the episode, that maksim has overstayed his welcome for me this season and that's now worsened by him surviving into s4 haha but otherwise i was happy with everything else in the episode!

i loved perrin and faile's scenes!!!! after seeing the trailers, i was surprised (and disappointed/hesitant) that their relationship seemed to be a faster burn than i'd expected, but it turns out that 2 brief kisses and some flirting are the extent of the romance for s3. so we're still in really early territory between them with a lot more room to grow and to deepen the relationship, which i like!

and i really really like that laila and perrin's grief & trauma from her death are being consistently addressed and respected within the budding new relationship, rather than being hastily swept under the rug as many shows would do. their little tiff over perrin being overprotective of faile because of his laila trauma and her pushing back was perfect and was exactly what i expected the long-term effects of the laila change to be. great character work! people talk a lot of shit about "perrin's fridged wife has been a completely useless change" which is kind of insane considering how much attention the show has paid to the long-term effects of this on perrin and how much care they've treated this angle of his emotional arc with. if you don't like the change, fine, but to say it's been pointless and hasn't affected anything is nonsense!

then the whole "stay behind me" "stop trying to protect-" "kill the ones i miss" exchange WOOOOOO one of the most romantic moments in the entire show to date!!!

speaking of romance (lmao) perrin and dain's dynamic continues to compel me. it's so tasty!!! very excited that it will continue next season!

the tuatha'an were used very well in this episode! it was really nice to have such a strong thematic link between this storyline and rand's, but this time with a kinder ending note by aram being warmly welcomed into a new community after being rejected by his old one like lewin was. the possibility for aram to return again is there if they want it since he'll be hanging around the two rivers, but his story was given closure and thus this can easily work as the last time we see him if they choose not to bring him back (i believe the actor has gotten a lot more well-known since the time of s1, and being able to schedule in in-demand actors for small occasional guest roles is very tricky, as we saw this season with the absence of tam)

perrin asking fain why (as ingtar advised him in s2) and ending the battle by choosing to stop fighting (as ila advised him in s1) was just so wonderful. we love full-circle moments! and perrin ending a battle by choosing to stop fighting and then agreeing to be taken captive because he'd given his word that he would, it's a beautiful illustration of who perrin is and what makes him stand out from some other more standard fantasy hero character types. perrin has always been one of the characters i'm least interested in, but the show and particularly this episode has made his character gel for me and made me feel like i Get what he's all about more effectively than the books ever did. as i like to say, in the books he's my least favorite EF5 but in the show he's my fifth favorite EF5. i was really impressed by this episode showing the culmination of some very consistent and cohesive character work across all 3 seasons!

and this is exactly why s1 and s2 are so important. s3 couldn't have soared if the prior seasons hadn't built its wings. big character moments in s3 wouldn't have hit nearly so hard if we hadn't had all the smaller "boring" character moments that built up to them in previous seasons. put some respect on s1 and 2's names!!

and finally, loial. i was distraught!!!!! i'm not much of a crier, but i was sobbing! this was probably the hardest i've ever cried while watching wotshow (though the 2x06 ending sequence and 2x08 hopper's death+hornblowing scene are close seconds) and it was only 9am and i had to immediately wipe my tears and change into work clothes and head out the door djkfjghj i was being so brave about it!

but i 100% understand why they made this choice and i think it's a good one. loial is a fan-favorite whose death will hit viewers (and his fellow characters) very hard, but he also is not plot-essential and so can be removed from the story early without it affecting anything long-term. so that's a lethal combination that makes him the perfect candidate for a show death (and we do have to be a LOT more merciless with deaths in the show because a glut of characters is a much bigger problem for TV than it is for books, as rafe mentioned in the after-episode chat). but he will be dearly, dearly missed!!!!!

(sidenote: the whole fakeout death discourse is driving me insane! "this show loves fakeout deaths, loial's obviously not actually dead" "loial's obviously not actually dead and that pisses me off because once again the show is being cheap with a fakeout death" guys. guys. if you have an ounce of media literacy, it's usually pretty obvious which deaths are real and which are "fake", and loial's death is clearly real because so much fanfare was given to it. the lengthy scene, the slow motion, the emotional music, the other characters grieving him, his book left behind, his voiceover at the end of the episode: yeah, he's gone. they would not be Doing This Much if he wasn't. especially because the show's so-called ~fakeout deaths~ have pretty much always been just "other characters think they're dead but the audience knows they aren't" or "a character went down with no fanfare during an action scene and viewers wrongly assumed they were dead despite this not being shown and then accused the show of pulling cheap tricks when they turned out to not be dead after the show never tried to make us think they were dead" or "a character is gravely injured but then gets healed within minutes because it's well-established this is a world where magic can instantly heal anyone back from the brink of death as long as a magic-user is nearby". an ACTUAL fakeout death would be moiraine going out with grand fanfare and being mourned by the other characters for many books before it's revealed she's actually alive, or mat and aviendha being straight-up unambiguously dead but then coming back to life because rand unraveled time to undo their deaths (and just watch, if/when the show does these things, readers are still going to complain about The Show Doing Too Many Fakeout Deaths lmao as if RJ wasn't the king of fakeout deaths!). all this being said, i do agree that the amount of times alanna got skewered this season only to survive stretches credibility djfkgjh i wouldn't call those fakeout deaths though, just plot armor.)

okay, now moving on to musings on how the future of the story might be affected by some of the changes we saw in 3x07!

fain has escaped. this is not a change haha but book!fain does so little of true value after the two rivers arc that i'd been expecting him to die. so him living is a surprise to me because i'm not sure what they might do with him in the future! i saw people point out that since there's an absolute fuckton of random darkfriends throughout the books, fain could be a good way to sub in for a lot of those story beats where necessary by being Our Main (Non-Channeling) Darkfriend. curious to see if he will remain a Perrin Antagonist or if he will branch out to torment mat (again) and/or rand like he does in the books. i would think that rand receiving the shadar logoth wound first in this version means there's no need for him to ever cross paths with fain, but you never know.

and what about lord luc? is he going to emerge as a major antagonist in s4, or will he turn out to be an s3-only character that was dropped in as an easter egg for readers but whose long-term role will be cut or given to someone else? if the former, they did not set up ANYTHING for him, he probably had about 2 lines the whole time and 95% of viewers will have no memory of him by s4. but maybe they had a little bit more planned for him in s3 and it just didn't fit, so they decided, why not, we'll have him here in the background for the hell of it and dive into him properly next season. i expect that tigraine's backstory might come out next season since it was teased this season but there won't be time to get into it fully, so next season would be a good time to enlarge luc's role if they do indeed plan to do so.

perrin is now dain's captive (sexy). this feels like a similar type of change as combining "perrin killed a whitecloak to avenge hopper" + "dain thinks perrin killed his dad but he didn't really" = "perrin killed dain's dad to avenge hopper". now we have "perrin offered to give himself up to the whitecloaks after the two rivers battle but didn't actually do it" + "perrin gives himself up to the whitecloaks for a trial much later on" = "perrin gives himself up to the whitecloaks for a trial after the two rivers battle". just a very smart choice of beat combination, and it gives perrin something to do during his TFOH absence!

i can think of a couple scenarios here for perrin's story path:

in s4, his captivity is a partial-season storyline, and in the back half of the season he joins up with rand and participates in dumai's wells in 4x08. in s5, he sets out on a mission on rand's behalf and faile gets kidnapped (and/or perrin and mat both go to fight the seanchan campaign with their armies, and faile gets kidnapped by the seanchan while mat winds up having to kidnap tuon for whatever reason).

in s4, perrin's captivity is a full-season storyline. dumai's wells isn't until 5x08 and perrin does something else for the earlier chunk of s5 (perhaps a time to get masema out of the way?). faile's kidnapping is s6.

i've seen a few people speculate that this upcoming storyline will be faile rescuing kidnapped perrin as a full replacement for perrin rescuing kidnapped faile, but i'd say that faile being surprise-kidnapped is different enough from perrin voluntarily giving himself up that they could remain two different storylines (time permitting). after all, i don't think that faile really CAN rescue perrin from the current situation; i would tentatively argue that since he voluntarily put himself in this situation as a way to own up to his responsibility for bornhald's death, the only way he can get out of said situation is something diplomatic like being tried and found innocent, or dain forgiving him and letting him go. faile jailbreaking perrin, while fun to see, wouldn't make thematic sense as the resolution (and perrin might refuse to be rescued anyway Because Honor).

quick note that s4 feels like a good time to bring in the wolf dream; if perrin will be spending some time locked up and unable to get up to much in the real world, that makes it the perfect time to start exploring the wolf dream while he's asleep in his (maybe metaphorical, maybe literal) jail cell.

going back to the trial idea, could we see perrin's captivity storyline move into caemlyn and cross paths with morgase and/or galad? in a scenario where dumai's wells isn't until s5, then i would hazard a guess that the caemlyn battle would be the s4 finale instead, and if perrin was already there for his trial, then he can be involved in that and be connected with rand in time for s5 (though, again, i'd be hard-pressed to think of what perrin could do for the first 3 blocks of s5, since i really feel that dumai's wells has to be block 4 of whatever season it appears in. maybe wolf dream stuff could slot in here if there isn't time for it in s4.)

another possibility is that perrin gets caught up in a surprise seanchan attack sometime in s4, the way morgase did while she was in whitecloak captivity in the books. then he would have a reason to seek out rand in s5 (in time for dumai's wells): delivering the news that the seanchan have returned.

circling back to galad and morgase. valda's death has big implications here! firstly, it makes it more likely than ever that morgase will be killed for real by rahvin (which i and many of us had already long thought the show would do). it also, maybe, takes some of the weight and teeth out of galad's whitecloak storyline, if he can't be positioned as being as big and radical of a reformer since he doesn't have valda to bounce off of as an example of the worst of the organization, particularly since dain seems sooooooomewhat primed to begin rethinking some whitecloak stuff through his interactions with perrin next season. if valda is dead and dain begins taking on the Conflicted Whitecloak role (which is still a big if at this point), what's left for galad to do over there? i don't know and i don't care because i hate galad dfjkghj

and on that wholesome note, i will end the post here!

[andrewminyardslawyer]

The Golden Raven predictions/theories/a few wishful thinking

Last time I got all of them correct so we'll see how this goes! Sorry for the length, there was a lot more detail and explanations this time around lmao I've posted some of these separately and will probably add more after my reread 🤷‍♂️

- Andrew and Neil go with Kevin to Cali. To keep up the childhood friend pretence, and Kevin can't go alone. Andrew talks to Jean about Bee, that she is trustworthy. Nothing extreme but like "talk to Bee" and nothing else but Jean understands (I actually doubt this is going to happen but I think if anyone's going to convince Jean it's okay to talk to her it would be Andrew based off of Jean's thoughts from TSC). I want Wymack there but I don't think he will be with practice already started for the year and the new foxes there. A potential Kevin and Renee combo because Jean needs support and Kevin can't go alone but Andrew and Neil need to stay with the team. Either way Kevin will have someone with him, he won't be able to travel alone

- Kevin and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Talks to Jeremy more about the nest and we get more information on what Riko did to Kevin

- I hope the interview is not live or recorded, it needs to be an article and I want it to be done by Renee's mom even though I have no idea what kind of reporter she is. She would be the kindest option but I don't think we're in for a kind interview. I don't think it'll be completely disastrous though. Kevin knows what he's doing, he's going all the way to Cali specifically to support Jean, the interview is to control the rumors, I don't think it will crash and burn. The Kevin Jean conversation before/after however...

- We know Jeremy's dad is (most likely) military and military often become cops when they come back. Jeremy hides from the cops (valid. ACAB)...

- someone on the team tries joking around with Jean and does something to trigger a panic attack, like splashing him with water or something

- Jean and the Coaches post

- Jean and Shane become friends. Shane is a little chaotic (he's a goalie, comes with the territory) and gets Jean to start changing how he thinks about things, he can relax a little and have fun. My reason why I think it's Shane post

- Jean baby please seriously talk to Bee

- Jean crying. Please I need him to let it out!!!

- interesting to me that Jeremy's parents make him stay at the house during the week but he's free on the weekends and during the summer. Wondering if he was missing classes and he has to stay there so they make sure he goes

- mysterious potentially dead sibling is his stepfather's biologically?

- Thanksgiving break. Cat and Laila go to one of their families, leaving Jean and Jeremy alone at the house. Jeremy is required to attend Thanksgiving dinner and Jean is invited so he's not alone and Jeremy's step dad/grandfather wants to "get to know the new teammate"

- Annalise using the term investment for Jean seems like....a Choice. Pair that with Jeremy's meticulous tracking of money and his family restricting how much he gets, it seems like Jeremy has been irresponsible with money in the past

- Jeremy family event obligation. It was mentioned that if "If the Con-gressman needed a picture-perfect family for photo ops, the Knox family was duty-bound to dress up and smile bright for an exhausting number of cameras" (congressman is his step grandfather)

- "but there's bound to be a jerk or two once you pass four kids." Once you PASS for kids. Jeremy has more than Bryson, Annalise, and one mysterious probably dead other sibling. Potentially none dead and just cut contact? Maybe took sides with Jeremy's bio dad

- Jean's parents contact him some how but honestly I think if that's going to happen it will be in the third book. I feel like that part of the story won't really start rolling until then, like publicly.

- a scene with Jeremy talking to his therapist

- I feel like Jeremy's mom didn't marry his stepfather until recentlyish. Like the thing that "tore their family apart" was their parents divorcing after whatever went down Jeremy's freshman year. Or maybe they were divorced before that but still on speaking terms and the Event changed that.

- we find out what Jeremy's stepdad actually does. We know his step grandfather is a congressman but no information about his stepdad

- more of a personal wish but I don't want Jean to drink alcohol, like ever. I want him to learn how to work through things without it, I want him to avoid it because he doesn't want to become dependent on it, doesn't want to risk it

- Jean is average at pottery at first and that frustrates him that he isn't perfect at it immediately but it helps him learn that it's ok to not be good at everything or that slow progress is more sustainable

- depending on the timeline, Jean birthday. One of the team asks him when it is and they make a thing out of it on the day. Or no one knows but the coaches have it marked and one wishes him happy birthday during practice and the team, mainly the main trio/floozies, are like why didn't you tell us ☹️ and get him a few small things

- more Elodie conversations. The trio finds out

- find out what happen with Zane and Grayson but it's because Zane gets in touch with Jean after Grayson dies and they have some sort of discussion about it. Maybe Zane goes public and talks about it before committing suicide

- i've seen a million theories about Jeremy's backstory but none really bring his father into it and I think we need to focus on that a little bit more. Jeremy says he doesn't like people calling him by his last name, Knox, which must be his biological fathers last name because his stepdad's name is Wilshire. And he says ' "I've never been to Europe. Dad's been stationed there a couple times, but.." He shrugged and didn't bother to elaborate.' My immediate thought was military but with his mom remarrying a man whose father is a congressman makes me think Jeremy's dad might be more in that type of work than military because how else would she be in the same sphere as a congressman's son. Maybe high level military. Anyway! Jeremy doesn't want to use his father's last name either so something definitely happened with him as well. Whether it's two different things or all the same as the "scandal" Jeremy's first year. I don't really have a set theory about it but I do think he is involved in some way

[waitmyturtles]

I am here to complain a bit about Jack & Joker (and apologies, because I'm going to make an inevitable comparison to Kidnap at the end of this post), so this post might be triggering for you (consider yourself warned, some of y'all don't read TWs!) But if you wanna hear some constructive criticism about director Tee Bundit's intriguing storytelling choices for this show, then come with me....

... because there's a lot about this show thematically that would usually sit right with me, namely its heavy focus on family.

Thanks to @veemark, we got a deep-dive into the wedding symbolism of last week's Lunar New Year celebration. I can feel that! Joke is clearly deeply touched to finally be a part of a family -- which is ever more meaningful, considering his brutal rejection by his own blood father in this week's episode.

And there are so, so many more family (and wedding) themes (in non-chronological order):

1) Tattoo's mom taking in both Tattoo and Hoy 2) Boss rejecting his own son, Arun, and adopting Jack (to then use Jack for his own financial gain) 3) The community that Ah Mah has built around her, from taking Joke in, to the little girls she hosts 4) Jack losing his parents and being raised by Ah Mah 5) Arun finding new family with Tattoo 6) Understanding how family ties runs the criminal underground of Bangkok 7) All of the ring symbolism, from Jack getting his parents' ring back, to rings being used as power symbols for the aforementioned criminal underground -- a theme I LOVE, actually, because strength in numbers in society always means more power for those individuals, including for couples that get married (INCLUDING FOR COUPLES THAT WILL BE ABLE TO LEGALLY WED IN JANUARY IN THAILAND AND WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR SPOUSAL PRIVILEGES, EEEE!)

So many family themes going on in this show. I love it! I love the indication that when Jack and Joke first met years ago, that there could have been a frisson of potential family between them, two guys meeting at a bar and connecting.

AND, I ALSO love the themes of family fucking each other over. Because families aren't perfect! Not by a long shot. Families can truly suck towards each other. Boss to Arun. Save (FUCKING SAVE, YOU DICK) to Jack. Joke's dad to Joke, all of his life. If we're talking potential family from back in the past, then of course -- Joke fucking over Jack, the issue that started this series.

What's not working for me in this series, though, is that somewhere along this trajectory, director Tee Bundit got too caught up in liberally sprinkling these otherwise excellent themes throughout the show (really, much to my joy, because I otherwise love these themes) without offering emotional build or context to our two main characters. There are other connectivity issues to this show, but this is my main gripe.

Now, I've had an up-and-down relaysh with Tee Bundit's work. I hated TharnType, I HATED Step By Step, I ADORED Lovely Writer, I LOVED I Feel You Linger In The Air. We're teetering on Step By Step-territory here in Jack & Joker by the way that Tee seems to be gunshy about giving romance -- which needs to be the cornerstone of an ostensible romance BL -- time to breathe and develop.

We have jumped from an inferred wedding banquet last week, to tired spousey-spousey dinners this week, with hubs ripping off his tie and apologizing to his househubs about not finishing his plate.

Not to say I need to see the boing! I don't need boing to contextualize romance. What I need to contextualize romance is to see these two falling in love, before their marriage got tired and problematic!

Like. I was watching these dinner scenes, and I'm... trying to parse what's happening at the table. Jack is getting screwed time and time again by poverty. It's brutal. Is Tee saying here that love is an impossibility in the context of poverty?

(I don't know that Jack says that about love, per se, in his monologue to Rose while they're with the village children, but he does talk about the inability of impoverished people to truly dream, so maybe that's the correlation?)

And then, because Jack must make his choice to serve Boss and earn money for his grandmother's treatment -- he has to let go of Joke. But.... they were never together anyway! Right?! (See @lurkingshan here for the wise comment on noble idiocy.)

I'm not bought into the closeness that I'm supposed to assume from Jack and Joke -- because we haven't been taken there yet. I haven't seen that closeness develop. I've seen Joke make it up to Jack for Joke's previous transgressions. But I haven't seen Jack respond to that emotionally, bodily, with heart, as a narrative would otherwise convey romance successfully in a script.

Unless this is an allegory meant to convey that poverty prevents people from falling in love. Is that the message? Because... dang, wtf. That's a hell of a message.

It's a brutal message, if that's the message, commenting on the assumed strength of the criminally powerful of Bangkok to squeeze out every last dream of those who are in lifelong debt to crime lords.

It's a very Tee Bundit message, honestly, as well. I can see him driving this show right towards this message that hopelessness is absolutely a reality for the thousands of impoverished Thais who will die in debt.

But this is a YinWar show -- and, unless we are going to be MASSIVELY SURPRISED, which I don't think we are, the car's gotta drive towards romance at some point. These guys aren't even together, and we're headed towards divorce court. We've missed some significant emotional beats along the way, and my eyebrows are furrowed as to how Tee Bundit will three-point-turn his way out of this traffic jam.

(What's my inevitable comparison to Kidnap? Kidnap is the other crime-y show of this autumn season, and its narrative has jumped all over the place. It's SO MESSY. AND, arguably, Min's and Q's romance has been driving at 90 mph since the start of the show. We've had MORE romance than plot, the opposite issue of J&J. But Min showed his true colors by 4/4 of episode 1. We knew the road we were driving on with our two mains! And there arguably hasn't been jumping of the romance narrative, although we got a pretty fast break-up in last week's episode. Kidnap is messy AF, but its intentions are clear. I'm not getting that clarity -- as cheesy as it's been in Kidnap -- in J&J.)

[theaudreyhaus]

FixTF2: What Happened, Why Did Valve Step In, And What Comes Next?

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with neither Valve nor the people who run the FixTF2 petition. Do not treat anything I say here as any official announcement of any future plans for the movement. All my thoughts and opinions are mine and mine alone.

As of the making of this post, the save.tf has officially closed down to new signatures, racking up a generous 343,711 total signatures. I've made my thoughts on FixTF2 clear in the past, where I said that I didn't have much hope that Valve would actually do something, but to my surprise, Valve seemed to have finally stepped in and done something about the bot issue plaguing the game for 5 straight years beyond the usual half-assed band-aid fix. In light of Valve surprising me, I want to talk about what's happened, some speculation as to why Valve is potentially doing this, and what I think comes next from all of this.

So, let's clear some stuff up: Is Casual really bot-free?

From what I've seen and heard, yes!

Starting around June 25th, multiple sources reported a massive drop in the active player count for Team Fortress 2 from Steam Charts, being around 15,000-16,000 users vanishing overnight. Many people suspect this to be a large-scale ban wave Valve enacted, and there is a large amount of evidence to support this. (More info from this video by shounic here) Since then, up until the day this post is being written (July 1st 2024), people have reported that Casual servers across all regions have been fairly bot-free, with only the occasional one popping up, a far cry from a month ago, where servers were flooded with them no matter where you went. I myself even hopped on a few games and to my surprise, there were no bots to be found whatsoever. Its honestly been super refreshing to see the game be this clean, as now its actually fun to play once again. I haven't touched the game in months, but since the bots have been kicked out for a little bit, it feels good to play once more. If you haven't played the game for a while cause of the bots, now's your chance to hop in and enjoy the game. Its actually fun to play now that the bots have been squashed. On top of that, (as of the time this post is being written), Valve appears to still be actively curbing cheaters and bots from the game, even setting up a dedicated Steam support page for anyone who gets a game ban here.

So, why's Valve doing any of this?

This is where I'm going to step into speculation territory, as Valve being Valve means there's barely any information they will share with the public, but I'll do my best to come up with some logical explanations. I would say that Valve doing a ban wave has both a short-term goal and a long-term goal. The short-term goal was Valve was always intending to do a ban wave, it just took a while to do. What I think happened was Valve took a while to collect a database of known bot accounts and (presumably) their hosters, and from there, once Valve felt they were comfortable with the amount they had collected, they pulled the trigger and proceeded to wipe them out. They obviously couldn't just outright say "Hey, we're gonna do a wipe of the bots soon" because that would have given the hosters plenty of time to set up proactive measures to make Valve's job harder. The only evidence I really have for this is the dropoff of players on Steam Charts, which shows around 15k-16k players mysteriously disappeared from the game, which seems to point to Valve issuing a game ban toward said accounts/deleting them entirely. Alternatively, Valve could have banned a limited amount of accounts, much lower than the 15-16k shown by Steam Charts, but it sent a scare to hosters who deactivated their bots and took them off the game once they knew Valve was watching them, but this explanation I don't have much evidence to prove beyond scattered Discord screenshots of supposed hosters telling people to change their bot configurations due to Valve clamping down on them. The long-term goal of this, though far-fetched and lacking evidence to support, could have to do with Deadlock, their next game, as a proactive measure to prevent these same malicious actors from flooding the game on Day 1, something many people have pointed out and what's happened to CS2 not even a year into its launch.

(UPDATE: Ok I might as well address this cause it did come up while I was writing the post, but a Team Fortress 2 DLC for an upcoming Funko Pop game called Funko Fusion was announced, and people have said that the only reason why Valve squashed the bots was because Valve wanted the game to look good in time for the crossover.

Now I am by no means a fan of Funko Pop, I think they look a bit ugly and there's a myriad of other things people take issue with, but that's all outside the scope of this post. I personally don't care that this is happening to begin with, as Funko Pops are something I routinely forget about, so as far as the DLC existing, I don't care that much. That being said, if it is true that Valve only squashed bots due to this collab happening to begin with, then that is pretty sad and disappointing to see, with how Valve wasn't motivated to fix the issue until a different company came knocking and asked them to do something cause they didn't want the DLC to look bad. But since there's no confirmation this is the case, Valve does have some level of plausible deniability here, and ultimately, something good did come from this, at a (to me, cause I couldn't give a shit about Funko) nonexistant cost so I won't complain)

So now time to return to the last part of the question in the title: What comes next?

Well for one thing, the war has not been won yet.

A big mistake with SaveTF2 was once Valve tweeted that they apparently "heard" us and were working to improve things, people largely declared victory and chose to stop there. Yet things didn't substantially improve since then, only cascading into a far worse situation. This time around, we cannot give up as quickly as last time. We are on the cusp of victory, but we need to keep the pressure on Valve. Keep holding them accountable for the bot issue. Put pressure on them to get rid of the bots for good. Don't let them off the hook and give them a slap on the wrist for only repelling the bots for a little bit, because believe me, as soon as Valve stops doing anything and slinks back into the shadows, the bots will return, and they will be far worse than anything we've seen thus far. It happened two years ago, it will happen again if we just declare victory now and go home. What Valve is doing is a great change of pace and they do deserve some praise for what they're doing, but we must make sure they stay committed to fixing the issue at hand. The best time for Valve to fix the issue was 5 years ago. The second best time is here and now. For now, hop on a few games and enjoy the (relatively) clean servers. We've earned a small break after our victory, but once you're done, make sure to grab your best bot-stomping boots, because our job is far from over.

[iliketopgun]

"You're ok.... we're ok."

A/N: In which, Jake gets himself in shit for Hayley.

Warnings: Inaccuracies (you can only Google so much without fear of the FBI kicking your door down), this is potentially triggering so proceed with caution, OC use, not beta read we die like Goose, this is so angsty, Javy is so tired of Hayley and Jake not admitting that they like each other.

Safe under the cut

Gif belongs to @xoxochb

No one expected Jake Seresin to willingly allow himself to be shot down. Especially not for Hayley Isabella Prescott. But here he was parachuting into enemy territory for the girl he would probably never see again. Jake could hear Hayley's panicked words before he ejected. The nylon canopy of fabric pools on the snowy ground around Jake as he unhooks the carabiners and shoves the fabric off of him. Jake looks at the snowy terrain and tries to remember where he was. Iran. Jake looks at the snowy mountains and trees and realizes he's fucked. He was in enemy territory with no communication with anyone. Jake knew there was a base in Iraq which was to be the east, so Jake goes in the opposite direction of the midday sun towards the east, towards safety. Over the next however many hours, Jake went through hell and back, after hitting a barrier that he couldn't move, Jake set up camp on a cliff side, Jake had found a creek and was risking dysentery or some other disease from unpurified water but he did not care. Jake hoped that help would arrive soon.

On the aircraft carrier, Hayley had landed but had to be sedated once she was forcefully removed from the cockpit because she kept trying to go towards the flight deck, ranting about Jake. Simply because Javy couldn't take it anymore, he went to the squadron's commanding officer to ask for search and rescue to be enacted, he needed Hayley back to normal and he needed Jake back. The commanding officer agreed because it looked bad if he had one aviator MIA, presumed KIA, and another unable to fly, even though the commanding officer cared for the two. Javy sat with Hayley and rubbed her hand while she was sedated. Javy had promised Jake that he'd take care of Hayley if something happened to Jake.

The sound of helicopter blades churning and whirring woke Jake from his restless sleep. Jake pokes his head out from the side of the cave and sees the familiar silhouette of a Seahawk. Jake rushes to become visible. Jake looked like hell despite it being only 24 hours since he ejected. The search and rescue crew throw down a rope ladder and Jake climbs up. Jake had his helmet on already. The helicopter crew yank him in the second it was safe to do so. The metal doors are shut and the helicopter moved back to base. Jake was finally safe.

When the helicopter landed, Javy had persuaded the medic on duty to let Hayley out of her medical induced coma so she could see Jake. "Have they found Jake yet?" Hayley asks the second she was able to form a sentence, her voice raspy from the lack of use and the fact she had been screaming her head off just hours before. Javy simply pulls Hayley to her feet and walks with her to the flight deck where the helicopter crew were climbing out, Jake jumps down from the helicopter and without realizing it, Hayley was running as fast as she could. Hayley throws herself into Jake's arms and buries her head in her best friend's neck. "You're ok." Hayley cries into his neck, her tears falling against the sturdy fabric of Jake's flight suit while Jake tangles his fingers in Hayley's hair. "Yeah, I'm ok." Jake croaks out with his throat full of tears. Jake and Hayley stand on that flight deck until Javy has to pry them apart so another plane could land. Jake is ushered to the med bay so he could be given a check up. Javy makes Hayley go to the mess hall and eat something, physically making her eat.

When Jake is given the all clear by the medic, he rushes to find Javy. Looking everywhere from the stern to the bow, from the aft to the starboard. Finally Jake finds Javy at a table with Hayley who looks like she crawled out of hell. Jake maneuvers around other military personnel to get to Hayley. "Hayls, you have to eat." Javy pleads with Hayley. "No, leave me alone, Javy, you're not my mom." Hayley snaps angrily while stabbing the applesauce in front of her with a plastic spoon. "Hayls, you have to eat." Jake says sitting while sitting beside her on the metal bench causing her head to snap towards the voice at Mach 11. "You're ok!" Hayley gasps once again, Jake wraps his arms around her

Tag list: @theglenaissance @eternalsams @senawashere @callsigns-haze

[sarucane]

Why did Ed headbutt Stede?

This one is fairly straightforward in the show but also fun to rant about so here goes!

I think the short version of this answer is "because Ed had no other way to communicate FUCK OFF at that moment." Ed can't talk, doesn't seem able to move, and is very unclear on exactly what's going on and what he's doing (even a while later he has a deeply revealing conversation with a confused rabbit--he's definitely not all there in this moment). Still, Stede's wrong when he suggests it was an accident: Ed owns the action later when he yells "I'm glad it hurt, that's the point of head butts!"

That being said, it's worth taking in the context for a sec, because Ed does love Stede and there is a theoretical potential for this to go to a very dark place. Balancing the violence of the pirate world with portraying healthy relationships is quite a challenge for these writers, as it'd be easy to tip over from healthy to very unhealthy.

In the same episode, Mary gets stabbed in the back quite deeply (it's knocking on bones) and it barely bleeds, let alone hurts once it's out. Ed and Stede have both been run through with swords but since "the important bits" didn't get hit, they needed no recovery time. Hell, Ed got shot in the arm and hit in the face with a cannonball in S2E2 and he's fine by halfway through E3. A headbutt is nothing on this show, it's like a kid elbowing another kid on the bus.

Ed head butts Stede because he's angry and in emotional pain, he's a pirate and pirates (not to mention many humans) express emotions through violence, and Ed can't break a chair or smash something--so the headbutt is the only available option.

And in terms of walking that line between health and unhealthy/violent relationship: the headbutt not only does not take place while Ed and Stede are in a relationship, it is itself a way of Ed saying "WE ARE NOT IN A RELATIONSHIP 'CAUSE YOU DUMPED ME FUCK OFF." When Ed is in possession of his faculties, he is still using violence to externalize emotions, but Stede is emphatically not a target of that violence.

Ed doesn't even look at Stede from the moment the anger starts rising, and he turns his back on Stede and moves to another part of the room entirely to smash shit. Not the most mature response, but consistent with Ed's character and history while also pointedly sidestepping that dangerous territory.

And Ed's anger fueling the headbutt is completely justified.

Stede and Ed are often in different emotional places within their relationship, but they're rarely as far apart as at the beginning of episode 3. Stede is acting (in fairness understandably given the near death thing) absolutely no differently than he would if they were, at that moment, in a romantic relationship (which fits with his whole "I didn't dump him, we're on a break" schtick). But Stede quite brutally broke Ed's heart, triggering a crisis that led to Ed being so convinced he's "not loveable" that he despaired of living at all.

Stede says "I thought I lost you," and the only appropriate response to that is "YOU DID," and that needs to be made clear to Stede, because there's a difference between "being on different pages in a relationship" and "being on different pages about a relationship existing." Ed is hurt, badly, and Stede's total lack of acknowledgement of that is absolutely infuriating. Like Ed says, hurt is the point of head butts: Ed was hurting and Stede wasn't, and that distance in experiences demanded a response, so Ed seized on the only one available to him.

[captivemuses]

SHIPPING INFO. Answer the following for your muse(s) so people know how shipping works on your blog.

What’s your OTP for your Muse(s)?

I have very obvious favorites when it comes to some ships with some of my muses and I'm not afraid to hide that with how often things come out of my queue (i.e. Renheng, Jingheng, Zhongchi, Sampard, most of my moots have been following me long enough to know my big big ships that I love with my whole heart). Basically anything that comes out of my queue is an OTP for me (as long as I can find stuff to actually put in the queue based off what I see on my dashboard or in tags I go through).

What are you willing to RP when it comes to shipping?

There's not really a lot that I'm not willing to write (some of your typical things like non con and minor/adult are no goes for me) but when in doubt just ask me and I can give you a straight answer. I know I have some muses on the list with various potentially dark and/or triggering topics in their backstory and I'm not afraid to reference those things in threads when it comes up. But unless it's say going against my characters sexuality where I really cannot see them having a relationship or a really dark and uncomfortable topic I'm more than likely open to at least exploring stuff in RP's. When in doubt fr just ask me.

How large does the age gap have to be to make it uncomfortable?

As long as you're not trying to get me to ship an adult with a child I'm probably okay with it. Like I RP Zhongchi where there's a several thousand year age gap so unless it's going into illegal territory where a muse would get in trouble legally for the relationship nothing's off the table for ages..

Are you selective when shipping?

I mean I can be for some instances because certain muses of mine aren't the easiest to ship with for varying reasons (i.e Childe, Wriothesley, or Dan Heng) and they may involve more discussion and plotting and buildup than others could depending on the potential ship I'm being presented with. I like to think I have a pretty good handle on my muses knowing what they would and wouldn't be into for a potential partner and that can determine how selective or not I am when it comes to a potential ship. But like I've said in previous answers above, when in doubt ask me.

The only exceptions that would get an immediate no would be if someone approached me to write a ship on here that I have listed in my rules as being exclusive with another mun (granted there's not many in that category but there still are a few) or if I've hit my personal limit for how many muns I'll write a particular ship with (one example is Zhongchi, I already have three Zhongli's that I love with my whole heart and so does Childe so unless we're coming up with a specific AU to do my answer would unfortunately be no).

How far do steamy moments have to go before they’re considered NSFW?

My personal rule of thumb has always been whenever hands are going below the belt and not intending on stopping is when I'd add a 'n/sfw' tag to an IC post or ask just to be safe. But I also don't typically write explicit stuff on Tumblr anymore I save that for private stuff on Discord. .

Who are other muses you ship your muse with?

Like I said above, an easy way to tell what ships I like is go look through my queue tag to see what's been spit out because that's where you'll see a lot of ship art or musings posts be reblogged. There are some ships that I now have and love that were not initially on my radar when I first picked up the muse and now love (special shout out to @frozenambiguity for our Chaeya and their chemistry that had them making out already within a week of meeting and taking Claudia and me both by surprise).so sometimes ships sneak up on me just from talking to other muns.

Does one have to ask to ship with you?

Yes. Mainly just to be sure that it's a ship I'm able and willing to do (I've said once in a previous post if you approach me to ship your Jing Yuan with my Yanqing you will immediately get told no because that's a never ever never ever one) and to make sure I'm not at my personal limit for iterations or it's not an exclusive ship or not trying to make my muse be with someone of a sex or gender that they're not romantically or sexually attracted to. I have some very homosexual boys here on this blog that I just personally do not see ever being attracted to a lady, or if they did it'd be a very character specific sort of exception because they just clicked. .

How often do you like to ship?

I'm a self admitted ship whore because it gives me a copious amount of serotonin to write my muses being in love and being happy (or going through hurt so they can get back to the happy, shoutout to @suffearable for our Jingheng two IRL month angst loool) so as long as muses are down and other muns are down I'm happy to do the thing to give me more enjoyment during the day.

Are you multiship?

Yes. Aside from my few exclusive ships (Chaeya, Dancae, Renheng) any muse is fair game for a ship.

Are you ship obsessed or ship more-or-less?

I mean I love my ships as much as the next RP'er and general fandom content consumer but I don't think it's an obsession to say it dominates my thoughts 24/7, no.

What is your favorite ship in your current fandom?

If I have to pick one and only one so I don't go on paragraph tangents about numerous ones, Renheng gets a special shoutout because it's had a chokehold on me for several months now and I regret nothing about it.

Finally, how does one ship with you?

You absolutely have to be forward and just straight up ask me if I'm down to write x ship with you or explore it to see if muses click. Anyone who's known me long enough knows that I'm quite shy to start (we love very negative past experiences with friends giving us trauma wheeee) but once I start talking to someone enough it's hard to get me to shut up, but I'm also a bit nervous at times starting new things because again past experiences with so called friends left me with lasting anxiety about being a bother to my RP friends and ship partners and it loves to kick me down bad rabbit holes every now and then even to this day.

So you have to be prepared for that with me, me sometimes needing reassurances that my brain is just being mean. But also I need need good and open communication from my RP/ship partners because I've had several instances in the past couple years where a lack of it caused friendships to split in very unpleasant ways and gave me the anxiety I still unfortunately occasionally deal with. I cannot stress how important communication is for writing with me just so there can never be misunderstandings or feelings being left unsaid because someone else didn't speak up with me. I promise I'm a potato and do not bite.

Tagged by: @delusionaid ty!!

Tagging: @reflective-muses @protectivemuses @gildedsplendors @galactia @whorunthewcrld and anyone who would have made Wriothesley proud having tea today

[brunnismemorybank]

It wouldn't help if they were friends first; if anything, it would remind us of what we were missing. One of season 7's glaring issues is that it never fully deals with the hash made of relationships between beloved characters. It's hard to care about how the Scoobies develop new relationships while pre-existing, integral romances and friendships just sit there and rot.

By the end of season 6, Xander has tried to kill Spike (and not for the any of the really bad things Spike has done-- just for having sex with Xander's ex), and also slut-shamed Buffy and Anya to a point that raised my eyebrows even in the 2000s; Anya has tried to manipulate Willow and Dawn into helping her kill Xander; Giles has run off to England to avoid having to little-w watch young people making run-of-the-mill mistakes; Willow has given everyone in the gang magic amnesia and then tried to destroy the world; and Spike (or at least his soulless half) has tried to rape Buffy. (At least the pileup of misdeeds leads to a funny scene in "Beneath You," where a hapless civilian asks if anyone in the gang hasn't had sex with anyone else.)

Come season 7, and the only one who's done jack to atone is Spike, but the writers muddy the clarity of repentance with their overlong mystery about Spike's trigger. Similarly, Giles' stupid First-fakeout subplot interferes keeps us from watching him meaningfully reconnect with Buffy. Xander's apologized for dumping Anya, but not for, y'know, trying to kill the rebound guy. Anya eventually comes to regret returning to D'Hoffryn, but not before trying, again, to kill Buffy. (There's also her bizarre, audience-alienating speech about how Buffy is "luckier" than non-Slayers. Is that one of the 5,000 worst things Anya's ever done? Probably not! Does it look like a relationship I want to see in the back half of the final season? NO). Considering that she uses magic for such frivolous concerns as producing a pretty flower, Willow's reluctance to (supposedly) endanger everyone by using magic to fight the First comes across as self-centered and disingenuous. Her reconciliation with Buffy doesn't ring true to me, which is a shame, when you think about how many of the show's heartwarming moments have relied on their friendship.

Willow and Xander have some solid moments, although they mostly don't cover any "deep" territory. (For example, they don't follow up on Willow learning about his big lie from season 2.) The only other relationship on the show that ends season 6 as anything short of a catastrophe is Buffy's relationship with Dawn. Say what you will about "Grave," Buffy's big declaration to Dawn-- "I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you"-- hits. We're now poised to go from making an exceptional girl fight, as Buffy's been doing all along, to letting an ordinary girl choose her own battles, and I love that.

Unfortunately, that disappears after a couple of episodes. The Potentials get too much specialness to carry the message of independence for ordinary girls. (Look! They already have enough instincts and strength to handle a vampire when they're locked in with one! Who cares that we've never seen the slightest implication that Buffy herself had any exceptional awareness or athleticism before being called?) As for emotional bonds, Buffy barely knows their names, and her name and calling are pretty much the only things they know about her. I'm not even getting into the part where their age range doesn't make sense, or where they're supposed to be "protected" by a woman who got shot in her own yard a few months ago, or where sending them all to the same place, any place, is a stupid-ass plan and Giles should've elected to ignore it.

Considering the poor shape of longtime relationships-- platonic, familial, romantic, whatever-- that we've had years to invest in, it's hard to imagine entanglements with newcomers keeping most viewers' interest. It is, however, easy to imagine scenarios where I find her even less interesting. As it happens, Kennedy shows up, flirts with Willow, demonstrates decent tactical skills and horrible taste in leaders, and participates in the series' most underwhelming sex scene. Meh. It certainly wouldn't have been better if she'd replaced Xander as Willow's best friend after the yellow crayon speech, or Buffy as Willow's ultimate gal pal after Buffy lent her her strength to heal.

I think the funniest criticism of Willow/Kennedy I've read on here is that the show should have followed the example of Willow/Tara and "let them be friends first". Because, okay, I know large parts of the fandom love ignoring subtext to an extent even a 90s TV censor would find remiss, but I'm sorry: that's just a bizarre way to interpret Season 4.

Tara meets Willow for the first time in Hush. She doesn't know anything about her other than the fact she's a fellow witch, but she manages to get hold of Willow's dorm address and they meet up later that episode and cast a spell together. At the end of the episode -- sandwiched between a scene featuring Buffy and her future boyfriend Riley and a scene featuring Giles and his "orgasm friend" Olivia -- Tara and Willow have their first ever conversation, in which they talk about magic and witchcraft and Tara tells Willow how "special" she is.

For the rest of the season, Willow and Tara continue to get together in secret and do magic together after dark. In A New Man, juxtaposed with Giles and Ethan meeting up and reminiscing about being "a couple of sorcerers" -- "the night is still our time" --and Ethan appearing to (but technically not) drunkenly tell Giles he's "really very attractive", we get our first look at Tara's dorm room. Willow apologizes for calling Tara so late, but says she's happy the other witch wanted to "get together" and promises her that they'll "start out slow". ("Start out slow doing what?" Tara asks after a few seconds. Well, quite.)

In The I In Team Tara invites Willow to come around to her dorm room again: "if you're not doing something [tonight], you could come over and we could ... do something". The next morning, in Goodbye Iowa, Willow tells Tara that she had "so much fun last night" but worries that Tara might think she "just come[s] over for the spells and everything". (As Tara surmises, Willow has in fact come over to do another spell; Tara doesn't mind though because she's been thinking about their last spell together "all day".) In Who Are You? Willow apologizes for not introducing Tara to any of her friends but explains that she likes having something that's "just mine" (and "I am, you know," Tara assures her. "Yours.") Later that episode Faith-as-Buffy meets Tara and immediately deduces that "Willow's not driving stick anymore".

And, yeah, not to belabor the point anymore than I already have, but we know what being a "witch" is a metaphor for this season, right? We know what it means when two "witches" are "doing spells together", right? The show is not subtle about this. At all! How can you watch this season and think "oh, I'm so glad Willow and Tara were friends before they started having any sort of sexual relationship"? That isn't the dynamic at play here at all.

[libraford]

Hmm...

I see a lot of ai art claiming to be from 'lost films' and I can see where that could trigger some unreality anxiety. And it does fool people because it's usually not said that its ai art and human memories are messy- you can fool yourself into thinking that you've seen this film. (As we've seen through goncharov memes.)

Which is kind of what I'm thinking about when I think there should be accountability for ai artists even if the source is done ethically. Between the untagged ai art passing itself off as real movie stills or real events and the guy in my art scene that straight just sells ai art as 'digital paintings' to intentionally pass it off as not AI-created- I feel like we're getting into potentially dangerous territory.

[the-lincyclopedia]

Consent vs. permission

I'm in a relatively new romantic relationship, and it's the first time that's happened for me in quite a while. One of the things that I'm realizing happens in new relationships is that you remember your expectations that were established in previous relationships; sometimes things go the same way and you travel in established paths, and other times things go very differently, and maybe you realize that your previous expectations and patterns were messed up.

To explain what's going so well this time, I think it's useful to distinguish between consent and permission. I know there are ways to use those words so that they're synonyms, but I'm finding it helpful to define getting consent as seeking agreement about whether you can do something that genuinely affects the other person/your relationship, whereas getting permission is seeking agreement about whether you can do something that doesn't affect the other person/your relationship.

Obviously consent is important for physical stuff (including but not limited to sex!), but consent is also good to check for in other situations, like using pet names with each other, talking about potentially triggering topics, etc. If it's about the relationship or how you treat the other person, when in doubt, ask! It is so much better to find out the other person's boundaries than to cross them without realizing it.

At the same time, there's stuff you shouldn't need to ask about, namely stuff in the permission category. One of my previous partners was pretty jealous and controlling, and I keep catching myself almost asking my current significant other whether it's okay if I go to an event or talk to an ex or express affection with my friends or wear certain clothes. That's none of his business, actually! He doesn't get veto power over every area of my life (or even most areas) just because we're dating. Luckily, in this relationship, he very much doesn't want veto power.

Obviously there are nuances to all of this. If I decide to do so many other things that I have no time or energy to devote to my relationship, if I go to a superspreader event and then spend time in person with my significant other when that's not where his COVID boundaries are, if the affection I express with someone else verges into sexual territory and my relationship involves an agreement to be monogamous, those are things my significant other would definitely have grounds to object to!

But in general, I need to seek consent for how I treat my significant other. I don't need to seek permission for how I live the rest of my life. And I'm finding that to be a really helpful mental distinction to draw as I re-learn how to have a relationship.

[jadedepitaph]

I feel that this is getting into "having kids is fundamentally wrong because they will experience pain" territory, which is somewhere I know I struggle to see eye-to-eye with, so I'm not gonna dig too deep there, but I definitely disagree with the sentiment. Life isn't strictly good or bad. It just is. Life is full of possibility. A possibility to be bad, but also a possibility to be good. I've had some rough times, but I've also had some amazing experiences in my time alive that I feel make my life worth having lived, so I've never had any feelings of resentment towards my parents for having me. I don't know if your experiences are different, I can only speak from my own perspective, but from what I've seen of life, I don't think pain makes life unworthy of existing.

What your responses tell me about your views on it is that you believe the chance of their being pain and suffering is too big of a risk to take, so it's better to just not have it at all. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, by the way. I'm only going off of what I'm reading and thinking of your text) This denotes a fear of possibility - very similar to anxiety - as being a major component of the Frenzied Flame's belief system. You worry that the next lord will be just as bad, if not worse, so it's better if there is no lord and no Lands Between to begin with. It's the only guarantee.

Like I said this reminds me a lot of a crippling anxiety mindset, continuing to imagine ways that things can go wrong to the point that you can't bring yourself to do anything at all (believe me, *I've been there*) And similarly to this mindset, nothing is ever truly achieved by it. Nothing bad, but nothing really good. Things either stay as they are or degrade as they are ignored/neglected, as unfortunately for us time isn't very patient.

[TW: I mention suicide below, so if that's a sensitive topic you don't have to read it]

To me, the Frenzied Flame ending is most comparable to committing suicide. You decide that the strain of the world and the pain that sometimes comes with life is too much for you to bear, and you take a lack of existence as a way to run away. You're so scared that the next lord won't be any better, so you decide that it's best for no one to be lord at all. And while you're at it, you get rid of everything else as well.

The issue that I have with suicide is that it doesn't actually solve anything. Someone who kills themself isn't fixing their problems, they're giving up and running away from the burdens and hardships of life. But unfortunately, those burdens don't disappear with us. They still exist, but without us others are forced to take up our burdens in our place. We're never as alone as we think we are, and our actions, even our lack of action, affect those around us.

[ok potentially triggering part is done, sorry about that]

The Frenzied Flame doesn't destroy anything, nor does it promise that nothing will exist after it's done. As long as something exists, even as primordial sludge, there is possibility. For new life, or maybe for something else entirely. And besides, Glintstone Sorcery, Stars like Astel and the Elden Beast, the Alabaster Lords, and even the outer gods are undeniable proof that life beyond the world of Elden Ring exists, and we don't destroy any of it with the Frenzied Flame, nor do we have any guarantee that it's possible for the flame to reach those things. We are not alone, and therefore our burdens, which have gone unfixed and unsolved, will simply move onto others. The gods that started all of these issues will just move on to their next playthings, make all the same mistakes that they made the first time most likely, and the choice to burn a whole world will ultimately change and fix nothing.

The things that plague TLB are much bigger than they seem, and even burning the entire world to the ground doesn't really change much because it isn't *truly* all encompassing. It's all encompassing within a certain scale, but there's more beyond that scale that has the same problems, because those problems permeate all of existence. As long as there is existence, there is possibility. That's how anything came to be in the first place. So until you can find something that can somehow destroy all of existence, (which even the flame can't do. It only factory resets the world, it doesn't actually make anything cease to be it just changes it back) you will never truly end all pain. It'll just exist elsewhere, without you.

The best we can do is just take a shot in the dark. It's scary, leaving things we care about to unknown outcomes, but if we never try, we'll never succeed. It's a chance we have to take if we ever want things to actually improve for anyone else. That's what it means to be alive, and if you don't want that then at this point I don't know what to say to you. There's nothing I can really say to convince you, this is just what I believe.

I think that people who think The Frenzied Flame is crazy, wacky, evil or whatever are the sort that think Lord Gwyn was a swell guy with only good and reasonable ideas. Surely things going on forever and ever and ever is worth it and feasible to have go well.

[summerofsnowflakes]

Forget the World

Daveed x Reader 

Work count: 1.7K

TW: This story is centred around anxiety and includes a graphic panic attack. Please don’t read this if you feel it may trigger you. 

A/n: So this is very personal and the reason I took so long with it is because it was quite difficult to encapsulate and write about anxiety. I know everyone’s anxiety manifests differently but this is a small glimpse into mine. I hope you guys enjoy it. 

It had been four months since the last time you and Daveed had seen each other, he was currently in Vancouver filming the next installment of Snowpiercer. You both hated these long periods without seeing one another, but it came with the territory of being in a relationship with a famous dude. You had been together for a few years now but you had known each other for so many more years. You had met in college and It was your typical friends to lovers story, but it took you both time to recognize you were meant to be together. You had been in the background for all of his important moments and he had been there for yours too, It was inevitable that you would end up together but it always happened that you were in right person at the wrong time.  So, after all theses years it would be an understatement to say that the two of you had perfected the long distance thing. You were both able to read each other's feelings by a simple text, you knew when to pull back and when to hold on tighter; most importantly, you had learnt how to avoid the unnecessary fights.  With that being said, going months and months without seeing one another and not being able to touch each other was incredibly hard. There was only so much comfort that you can gain from a text or a longing facial expression frozen in place because of poor internet connection. Out of the two of you, you certainly struggled more with this. You were a person who needed a random hug, a chaste forehead kiss or a silent hand squeeze, especially when you were having a bad mental health day. 

Another thing you had learnt after a few years of on and off long distance was the importance of having something to look forward to. This was the main reason that you used the majority of your holiday to spend time flying back and forth to wherever your Daveed was at that point in the year. You knew when he was filming it was almost impossible for him fly home and it was a sacrifice you were wiling to make, because at the end of the day it wasn't really a sacrifice. That is why you were in Vancouver in mid-November, one of the rainiest months of the year. However, as you laid on the plushy hotel bed on your front with just a thin white sheet covering your lower half, staring at the man you loved, who you was all smiles after reacquainting yourselves with each other's bodies, the miserable weather felt well worth it. A small shiver ran down your spine as Daveed traced soft patterns along your skin. 

 The remnants of heavy breathing continued as you laid silently trying to not to let your anxiety of the evening ahead take control of you and the look on your face told Daveed where you were without need to say it out loud. "Penny for your thoughts beautiful." He murmured and placed a soft kiss to bare your shoulder. You only shook your head at him, not trusting your voice to hold out right now. You didn’t want to burst the bubble of perfection that had been created moments ago and you certainly didn't want to tell him that you wanted to cancel the plans for tonight. When the cast had found out you were visiting they had set out a bar crawl around the city, it had been planned for weeks now and you didn't want to ruin things because of your anxiety. You had met the cast so many times before, so there was no real reason for this to be happening. If anything that made you feel worse because you were comfortable around them. You felt the panic rising in your stomach as these thoughts flew round and round in your head. It was dizzying. 

 With your mind racing a mile a minute, you had almost forgotten that Daveed was still by your side. He had been watching your face contort in fear and panic as you struggled with your own thoughts and he felt helpless to the situation. He knew a panic attack was potentially on the cards right now and he wanted to do everything he could to prevent it or help you through it. Unfortunately, as you had both found out in the past that is not how mental health works. Sometimes he just had to stand back and let you ride out the storm alone. He bought his hand up to your cheek and caressed it slowly and he loved that you nestled your face into his hand and he smiled softly at you. 

 The switched flipped so quickly, just as Daveed thought he had been helping was the moment that you shot out of bed and locked yourself in the bathroom. You were trying to shield him from the messiness of a panic attack, never considering he had wanted to help you through the mine field of your anxiety. You didn't think of that in the moment, no your brain wasn't rational enough to consider that, but who is when they feel like their hold body is giving up on them. You felt like you needed to run as far away as possible to protect you from yourself. With the door locked you sank to floor and gasped loudly, repeatedly, desperately trying to get some air into your lungs. Your body shook intensely and your vision became dark and blurred as you felt your access to oxygen disintegrate before you. You tried terribly hard to bring yourself back to planet Earth, but it felt like this was never going to end. 

 It felt like an eternity of rapid heart beats, intense sweating and overwhelming trembling before you felt yourself begin to finally calm down. You had lifted your knees up to your chest and bought your head in between your knees.  It had been a technique your dad had taught you when you began experiencing these attacks as a child and it was one of the few things that made you feel grounded and close to him. With the first part of your panic attack subsiding, the nausea and the chest pains made their presence known too and you attempted to ride the wave out as best as you could. You always experienced your attacks in two parts, it signaled that the end was in sight but not without it's own set of troubles. You moved yourself to the toilet bowl as you felt like you were on a ship, rocking back and forth. You were almost certain you were going to be sick, but it never came. You finally felt the whole ordeal subside and you took a big breath in and slowly let it out, just because you finally could. Daveed re-entered your mind and you didn't need to check to know that he had been sat outside and listened to the whole thing. Whenever you experienced this in his presence he always stayed close by but didn't ever invade the space you needed. You knew it was silly but you felt shame creep up your neck, upset by how bad this one had been and you wished for the ground to swallow you up whole. 

 Daveed had sat himself on the floor on the other side of the door, listening to you as you sobbed and gasped for breath. In that moment he understood what torture really felt like, if he wasn't helpless before he certainly was now. He racked his brain of ways to calm you down but he was so worried that by talking to you and interrupting your panic it would make it worse. He didn't want to make this worse for you. The only thing he could do, the same as you was wait it out. He was so relieved when he heard the lock click and he stood himself up. 

 You couldn't meet his eyes as you came face to face with one another. "What a way to say hello, huh?" You mumbled quietly and he let out an amused breath. He should have known something like that was coming, you often used humour to hide behind. You shuffled out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Your eyes were glued to the floor. 

"Can I give you a hug?" Daveed asked tentatively, to which you nodded. Daveed wrapped his arms around you, and you turned yourself into his body, resting your head on his bare chest as he held onto your shoulders tightly.

 Only seconds into the hug you let out a quiet giggle as the whole situation dawned on you, he looked down at you puzzled by your quick change of demeanour. Your laughter didn't die down and Daveed found himself understanding even though he was still clueless, your laughter became infectious and he laughed into your hair as you laughed into his chest. It was a nice moment of relief.

"Sorry. It's just we're both still naked and that just really got to me…" You said as you calmed down. "I don't know why, just it all seemed so ridiculous when I realised you were butt naked." When he didn't reply to you, you felt the need to fill the silent air, worried about what he thought of you. "So, what time do we need to be ready for?" you asked tentatively. 

"9:15pm tomorrow, as long as you feel up to it." Daveed replied. You lifted your head up to look at him for the first time. "Don't give me that look Y/n. I wasn't about to make you endure anything more tonight. I text the group, it's already done." 

"But I don't want them to think I am being rude." You murmured, the panic bubbling back up. 

"Hey." He replied and put his hand under your chin to lift you head so you had to look at him. "Forget the world, it can wait until tomorrow." You smiled timidly at the man that you loved more than anything in the world and for the first time since you had arrived in Vancouver you felt like you could breath. "Now will you let me cuddle you until you feel better please?" He asked.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

On Hawks' Injuries

Alright, let's get this out of the way.

"His back... It's... gone!"

I may like to act like an intellectual, but no amount of analysing the color of the curtains changes the fact that I'm a married, mother of two, in her mid-twenties fixated on a fictional character from a series aimed at teenagers about superhero high school. The innuendo from Dark Shadow, the implications of what this means for Hawks on a personal and professional level - that shit stings and I might actually cry when this dumpster fire ends up in the anime in a few years.

We won't know about the extent of his injuries until he's been examined by a doctor, but considering how quickly his wings went up (this all happens in seconds which means those flames are extremely hot)...

...We're looking easily at huge patches of third degree burns with first and second scattered across his body. The area most affected is in the center of his back which does not have a lot of soft tissue to insulate before you're getting to very important nerves and organs, and the scar tissue that will likely form in the muscles and skin after healing may leave his movement heavily restricted.

Depending on how gruesome Horikoshi wants to be, Hawks not only will never get his wings back, but he could be looking at significant permanent disability for the rest of his life. This isn't even taking into consideration the acute complications he may face on the road to recovery including fighting off bacterial infections, fluid loss, and his immediate increased risk of hypothermia. Left improperly treated, someone with this level of burn injury faces an agonizing death (though, a quick one after passing out without treatment), and proper treatment would likely require huge amounts of pain medication to make the long road to recovery even bearable. This doesn't even take into account any additional injury he may have sustained when he hit his head after Dark Shadow dropped them off the balcony.

Remembering for a minute that this is a battle Shonen we're talking about, this is an absolute worst case scenario, and this post goes over how it likely won't end up this bad in the narrative, but that doesn't minimize the sheer brutality of the beating he just took. The fact that he only passed out after hitting his head is pretty miraculous in and of itself, but I'll force myself to suspend my amazement a little bit given the nature of the source material.

Let's assume at the very least his wings aren't coming back, and he'll need at least a week with good medical attention and healing quirks to just be able to get out of bed again. What then?

It should always be obvious when I predict the future that it's all speculation because I'm not actually clairvoyant, but you know disclaimer or whatever.

We have some nasty red flags staring us down in regards to where this fight is going right now. Shigaraki is awake. Dabi's words after Tokoyami escapes with Hawks insinuates there's an alternate plan than the MLA had, Gigantomachia is moving, and the tides are quickly turning for the heroes without even all of that. This fight looks like it's about to go south real fast.

If the heroes lose with significant losses - with any amount of death or injury - and with the added knowledge they at least partially relied on young, inexperienced kids to help bolster their numbers in the hopes to end this quickly, by the time Hawks wakes up he'll not only be staring down his own personal loss in the wake but the weight of the guilt of what he'll perceive as his own failure will crush him. I also sincerely believe that worst detail at the end of it will be him knowing he personally killed a good man for nothing to even come of it in the end.

Remembering also that the Hero Public Safety Commission is the one who tasked him with this mission in secret and the fact, again, that they pulled children into this failed fight - I do not believe they will take responsibility. This doesn't even take into account the fact he'll be useless as a hero and that they don't even know the extent of his knowledge of their inner workings which makes him a dangerous potential leak.

What's more, news of Hawks' betrayal of the MLA will spread through the ranks and file into the public consciousness. On every single side Hawks will be the scapegoat while he is fighting for his life from a hospital bed. He'll be in more danger without the fierce protection of trusted friends than he was while deep in enemy territory. If he doesn't have a tribe he can trust to keep him safe, maybe even going as far as to clandestinely steal him away where he can't be found, attempts on his life are not out of the question.

Hawks will have a choice to make - rise up and make some real god-damned change while we're already up to our necks or roll over and let the world come crashing down around him as he sinks into despair. He can either settle for being a symbol of failure or he can take the chance to rebirth himself.

Could Hawks' wings ever come back?

This injury is insinuated to be permanently damaging. Whatever mechanism grafted Hawks' wings to his back and allowed him to control them is implied to be damaged beyond recovery, if not completely gone.

However, given Eri's mere existence it's absolutely possible to rewind that injury. Before the battle began it was insinuated Eri will end up using her power again, perhaps even out of necessity. It's an absolutely broken quirk, to be sure; but running with the idea that at some point her power will be offered to Hawks to let him have his wings back - perhaps it's even her idea - I posit two scenarios:

Hawks accepts and he's given a second chance to be whatever he wants to be. His freedom completely restored to him physically and figuratively, he begins life anew with a zeal and solemn appreciation for life and the people in it because the opportunity to make a full return like this is a one in a million chance he's lucky to have.

Hawks turns her down, at least uncomfortable with the idea of using a child's quirk for his own benefit given his own history, even if she offers it freely with no additional obligation to herself. He takes a moral stand in the moment to say, "It's not your job to fix my mistakes and shortcomings" and lives as an example of accountability and living with the hard choices you've made in life and learning how to be happy despite the loss.

I would personally be happy with either if Horikoshi intends to take either route. It's more than possible neither will happen, but with the Eri angle, I hope the possibility is at least touched upon. Maybe it's a one-shot thing and he chooses to let her restore someone like Mirio instead. Maybe it'll get completely broken and bring back every hero - Hawks, Mirio, Mirko, etc. - perhaps even triggered by her own determination to help in any way she can. We'll have to see. The story can take any number of directions after this, and it's not so much where we're going that has me antsy as much as the wait it'll take to get there.

[deniseerr-blog]

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[clefairymoon]

Hi Saphir anon again, loved your well-thought answer but speaking of the dynamic between him and Demande how do you feel about them as a “ship” perse? I know you said in your response that you always wanted Saphir and Petz to have their happy ending but I always got the vibe that Demande/Saphir were meant to be shipped, and various supplemental Japan only materials well as certain choice DIC edits leads me to believe more and more that this is the case.

I’m not sure where you stand on the whole problematic shipping discourse so I apologize if this offends if you happen to be an “anti,” but did you personally ever get that vibe? As far as I’m aware they’re considered the most popular shipping option for Demande back in the Eastern fandom, second only to Usagi.

Hey Nonny! Welcome back!

I see we've opened up The Discourse[tm] here lmao so I should probably start with talking about that. I don't discuss it much or often on my blog, because I think there's a significant lack of nuance and genuine conversation going on, and as one youtuber put it "I'm a tax-paying adult woman". I don't really have time or interest in the drama.

So what I will say is this: I think there are some valid points on both sides, and it's a worthwhile conversation to have with nuance and good-faith. I personally preferred the squick-and-trigger days of old, honestly. Fiction often covers ground that is fraught, complex, difficult, and upsetting; the most responsible thing to do is be upfront with potentially triggering or squicking content, and let readers make informed decisions.

(We're going to table the conversation about minors/underage internet users for the time being, because that's not what this ask is about. I'm just legally obligated to note here that I'm aware that's a hot talking point, before I get dog-piled over it.)

(Also Nonny I'm gonna drop my full answer under a read more, to protect people who might be triggered by this content. So, here's the official trigger warning for ships that involve themes of incest.)

All of that to say, I never perceived Saphir and Demande with any kind of shipping lens! I have very strongly delineated lines between people who perceive one another as siblings, and people who might eventually develop romance. In the 90s anime (which is my strongest Sailor Moon touchstone,) they are presented as brothers; and so to me they are. I think a lot of the kinds of indicators we look for in ships are things that often happen in other dynamics, and certainly if you started with the manga (which I don't remember clearly how this arc played out in it,) or if you had a translation that didn't present these characters strongly as brothers, there's probably content there that reads as a ship.

Personally, shipping characters who view each other as siblings (regardless of shared DNA,) is squick territory for me. I'm not triggered by people shipping fictional siblings, though I understand why many are; but I am not comfortable with it and don't really get the appeal myself.

Saphir's actions with regard to Demande do read as incredibly fraternal to me. I have a brother, whom I've begged to not make blatantly poor decisions. If the lives of my brother and I were fictionalized, and I could reasonably have pulled off some kind of grand and exaggerated means to save him from himself, I absolutely would have! He's my brother, and I love him. Similarly, particularly when we were kids, my little brother could get through to me when others could not.

Additionally, I've never felt a desire to ship Demande with anyone. I don't take issue with toxic relationships (I dislike the term "problematic" because it's entirely too vague,) but Demande is a character I am happy to see dead and off-screened frankly. As someone who grew up presenting and socialized as a woman, I've met too many men like Demande irl to want to assign any kind of romance to him.

So TL;DR is that I don't really have any meaningful thoughts on this as a ship? I'm not offended to be asked, and I can loosely and intellectually understand how that ship developed? But I'm incapable of personally understanding any readings of siblings as ships. (This includes step-siblings, adopted siblings, half-siblings, and people who choose to assign sibling relationships between themselves and other people.)