If we're asking about games on your list of favourites, as someone who adored Paradise Killer, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! I always enjoy your analysis.

so first of all the aesthetics of paradise killer are really good. usually games that were written in english but read like translations from japanese irritated me, but here i think it is very much leaned into and embraced as an aesthetic and set of cultural signifiers in its own right, which i really enjoy. the character designs are outlandish and charming. but what i really like about it is like, the way the core premise works

in most detective games, there is a correct answer, and not getting it is a failure state. you can't end a case in ace attorney with your innocent client being convicted, you can't get the wrong guy in the frogware sherlock holmes games. and this invariably, even if the game is critical in other aspects, tends to come around to a fundamental faith in the legal system and authority, right--something that's kind of baked into the detective genre at a fundamental level.

paradise killer upends that by simply saying "you are the detective. get the facts you need, make a compelling argument, and if the authorities above you believe you then you get to distribute justice as you see fit." you arrive on the island you're investigating and you're immediately told "hey, this member of a disenfranchised underclass did it, we've already arrested him, here's the evidence." and absolutely nothing stops you from taking that evidence and walking into the trial room and presenting it and saying "yep, he did it!" and beating the game! it's not a 'bad ending', you don't get a big popup saying 'you're wrong', the powers that be just accept the convenient narrative you've been given to present and everything moves on.

i like this from both, like, an ideological perspective, and also from an interpersonal stakes perspective. in most detective games, you can't miss a crucial piece of evidence, either because the game will not proceed until you pick it up or because you'll be forced to restart the 'trial' or 'deduction' segment when you game over because you're missing it. in paradise killer, whatever argument you put forward, if enough evidence supports it--even if you know for a fact it's wrong!--leads to the person you're accusing being executed. so the stakes are much higher, right, because instead of a game over screen and trying again, getting it wrong means that's just... how the game ends, with an innocent person being executed.

and more importantly i think it does a fantastic job--better imo even than something like disco elysium--at deconstructing the fantasy of justice. a constant theme of the game and something that the protagonist repeats often is "there is a difference between facts and the truth". you can withhold evidence at trial because it implicates your friends, or misrepresent it to implicate that bitch you hate. nothing in the system exists to stop you getting wrong, in fact your superiors encourage you to make the easy completely stritched up conviction and move on with your life.

and at the end, even if you get it right, if you catch all the criminals--all the time you spend investigating this island shows that, like, the society you're part of is fucking evil! you're all deranged immortals making constant human sacrifices to your evil gods! and you don't change that by solving the case, the whole thing just packs up and moves on. you don't get any comfortable resolution to that or to your role in it. you can play lady love dies as a diehard true believer or as a dissident rebel but either way she's ultimately just another cog in a machine, dispensing an alien and uncaring justice that is only attached to any real morality or truth by your decision to do so. a genuinely incredible game.

plus i like how whenever you open it a voice says 'paradise killer' so you know you're playing paradise killer

Osha's backstory episode of The Acolyte fits perfectly with a headcanon I've had forever about Force-sensitive children in the galaxy--that some children feel called to the Jedi and some do not, and that the Jedi look out for this. We see that destiny exists in the Star Wars universe, the Force calls to people to walk certain paths, but that it's still up to them to decide, you still have to make your own choices. (See: Everything about Anakin Skywalker and how the Jedi never brought that up around him, it was always about personal choice and agency. Yes, he was the Chosen One, but he had to choose his path.) From the moment we first meet her, child Osha didn't want to be a witch, she wanted to see more of the galaxy beyond Brendok, she was immediately entranced by the Jedi when they showed up during the ceremony, like a magnet pulling her to them, that she was drawing the Jedi Order symbol long before they ever got there. It wasn't just a sudden way to get out of there, she was feeling this pull towards them long before she ever even met a Jedi. She's the one who first slips out to meet Sol during the ceremony despite being told to hide, she's the one who goes over to talk to Kelnacca before the test, she's the one who fights against her entire family to say she wants this. She's the one who wants this even before she knows there will be other children like her with the Jedi. We don't see the Jedi giving Mae that same nudge, because the Jedi path wasn't meant for her, she didn't want it, and I love that both here and in The Phantom Menace, the Jedi make sure that this is what the child wants, too, that both prequels and High Republic Jedi are shown to take such care, that it's done with the parents' permission, but also getting a sense of what the Force is or isn't calling this person to do and whether they accept it. But Sol gently pushes Osha, not to tell them what they want to hear, but to tell the truth, do you want this? Do you feel like this is right for you? Just as Qui-Gon made sure Anakin knew being a Jedi was a hard choice, the Jedi want you to be sure, want you to feel called to this, because the Force exists, a mysterious destiny exists in this galaxy. It's still your choice, you have to have agency over your choices, it's not just, "What does the Force want?" but instead Sol asking, "What do you want, Osha?" The narrative is careful to point out Sol telling her about his own testing, that he knew he was different from his family, that he was scared at first, but it was clearly his choice. "But you must have the courage to say what you want." The Force called her here, the Force is something that exists within Star Wars and has a will of its own, and some people are not called to this particular path, I don't think Mae was ever meant to be a Jedi, she never wanted it, she never felt that pull. But Osha, like so many other Force-sensitive children tapping into this giant mystical energy field that has a destiny for you if you want it, they are pulled to it and the Jedi take such care with that. Some are meant to walk the Jedi path and some are not, that's something only each individual can figure out for themselves, and the Jedi do their best to honor both the Force's calling and the person's own choices. And if a child resists and pulls away, they let them go, it wasn't right, it wasn't meant for them. But when a young Force-sensitive is practically vibrating in place with how badly they clearly feel this is meant for them, that's something that exists as a thing that really does happen with the Force.

Journal entry on the official website. [source]

"Introducing The Veilguard Welcome back to Thedas"

--

"Hey everyone, It’s been too long since we last spoke! We’re happy to bring back our community blog series, where we can chat with you about our next adventure - Dragon Age: The Veilguard. If you’re joining us just now, earlier this week we released a blog detailing how we renamed the game to better represent what makes it special - it’s about you and your companions – not your enemies – that are at the heart of this new experience. Check that out alongside our Official Reveal Trailer which premiered at the Xbox Showcase on June 9th, where you first meet your seven companions. We’re also excited to open the official BioWare Discord server. You can expect news drops, giveaways, activities, and more planned between now and launch. This is our new dedicated home where we look forward to bringing this one-of-a-kind community together with a space to engage more frequently and celebrate your favorite stories and characters from Dragon Age: The Veilguard and others in the franchise. But that’s not all. We know what you value the most is seeing the game as it is, exactly how you’ll play it. So, we’re happy to provide you with a look from the opening moments of the game. Grab some snacks as we have 15+ minutes to explore Dragon Age: The Veilguard together."

--

"Are you the hero Thedas needs? This video from the first moments of the game is just the tip of the iceberg, and there’s so much more to discover on this epic journey. You’ll explore Thedas, uniting a cast of (yes, romanceable!) companions as you fight against ancient elven gods. In this crafted character-driven RPG, you’ll visit meticulously crafted biomes and beautiful regions, some that you’ve only heard whispers about in Dragon Age lore, including Rivain, Weisshaupt, Arlathan, Minrathous, and the Deep Roads - to name a few. We’ll have a lot more coming this summer as we fully detail what’s in store. You’ll begin by diving into the Character Creator. You’ll choose your class, lineage, gender, overall appearance and more. Choosing which faction Rook is part of will unlock different narrative, dialogue, and gameplay interactions. Combat is another area that has a lot of depth to it - both in how you choose to defeat your enemies and its progression throughout the game. The game will support various skill levels, but at its core, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has fluid moment-to-moment combat where you can choose between three classes - Warrior, Mage, or Rogue – each having their own advanced specializations. There's also a layer of tactical depth for those who want to dig in, which we really didn't get to cover in the video. Our new customizable ability wheel will help you turn the tide of battle at any time. It will allow you to pause the action, issue commands to your followers, use abilities, and unleash devastating combos. As you become more powerful, you can start to see the potential in how much fun (and hectic) things can get. We're also giving the option to use some of your abilities via a shortcut. Giving you these different kinds of options is something we thought a lot about and wanted to provide so you can find the playstyle that best fits you. Alright, that’s it for now as we’ll dive deeper into this and all things Dragon Age: The Veilguard through the Fall." Before we go, if you haven’t seen this yet, we wanted to provide an overview of what we have upcoming. As we’ve said earlier, we plan to continue revealing more about Dragon Age: The Veilguard and answer your burning questions. However, there’ll be some things we have to keep close to the chest as we get closer to launch. Remember to join the custom console giveaway before entries close on June 16th*, and set a reminder for our Developer Discord Q&A on June 14th at 10am PT. Submit your questions in the #ask-bioware channel on the server! Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in Fall 2024.  That’s all for now, talk soon! -- The Dragon Age Community Team *Sponsor: Trufan Inc. NO PURCHASE NEC. 18+ Ends June 17, 2024. For full details see  https://go.ea.com/DATVGiveaway"

honestly though dragon age 2 was the exact perfect game to follow dragon age origins and it's almost entirely because of the things that most hardc0re gamerz hated most: the inability to change or divert what happens

you go from a game where you are a special rainbow star who the plot and world seems to rotate around to a game where you are just a person who ends up a significant figure mostly by chance. in origins you are one of the only survivors of a mass betrayal by the king's right hand man, and you have it drilled into you again and again that your choices matter. not only do they matter but they are the fulcrum the worldstate moves around. not a fan of the werewolves? kill them all off and let the guy who cursed them in the first place off scot free. think golems would be a sick way to really fuck up an archdemon? revive that ancient tech at the cost of who knows how many lower-class and casteless dwarf lives. you are the one who determines if the archdemon dies or gets reborn as a supernatural infant boy. it is all on you.

in dragon age 2 almost nothing is on you. the other characters have goals and motivations and you might be able to slightly affect them, but some things happen regardless. fenris always kills hadriana. anders always blows up the chantry. isabela always has already stolen the qunari artifact and merrill is not capable of being persuaded not to fuck with the eluvian. sure, you can affect their fates. do you sell fenris back into slavery? do you kill merrill's entire clan to protect her reputation or let her take the brunt of it to spare them? does anders live or die? bethany? carver? but the actions the characters take mostly happen regardless of hawke's input. the worldstate does not morph to fit what you want it to be anymore because the characters have too much weight in the people they already are.

and the wider plot reflects this, too. the qunari are unwilling to negotiate a peace, especially once they deem kirkwall too far gone to be worth saving. meredith is set in her ways and cannot be convinced out of her mindset. you cannot save leandra. anders, again, always blows up the chantry. hawke is involved in many of these events but they are far from being the fulcrum the world spins around. they are just a person, like most other people, caught up in the conflicts of forces so much more powerful and more ingrained into society than they are, that the best they can do is to ride the waves. to leap forward as the world changes around them, as flemeth fortells early in the game. the big reveal varric hesitates to tell cassandra for so long is that hawke was just a person, caught up in a million conflicts that they tried to stop but could not because the world was already too set against them. a fish struggling upstream for its whole life, and if you buy the depiction of hawke in inquisition, one who sort of resented the role they ended up playing in what became of the wider world.

it's perfect. it's beautiful. I know the narrative these days is that it's so constrained because of the short dev cycle, and while I do think that if the dev cycle had been longer there would have been more polish and shine, I think this theme was always intended because it's such a perfect foil to origins. origins says show me how important you are, the world your warden wants to create. da2 says that the world already exists, and the best you can do is try to keep things from getting worse, and make a tiny impact for the better in the lives of the people around you. the mages you help escape kirkwall while they can, the people you manage to save from slavers. maybe you can't change the world, maybe it's too set against you. but you can change something. some little things.

it slaps.

Something that I hate that ppl do when it comes to hating on Chalastor is saying “Alastor is aroace and Charlie is in a relationship with Vaggie! You’re being disrespectful to both of them!” Even when you explain that’s it’s merely a harmless AU, they still get soooo upset.

Which first off, Alastor is actually ace, not aroace, Amir literally said that himself, and second, just cuz Charlie is with Vaggie doesn’t mean other people are going to ship them, cuz Charlie is bisexual! And thirdly, being ace or aro or both is a spectrum. It’s a wide range of things, not everyone is going to be repulsed. Yeah canon show Alastor maybe repulsed by sex and romance but that’s what AUs are for! They are there for others to expand and change things as they see fit.

Like I think Chaggie is a cute canon ship, but I find Charlie and Alastor and even RadioRose far more appealing and adorable, and especially when it comes to the fanart. Like the fanart! Every piece of Chalastor and RadioRose fanart I have seen is just *chef kiss* ✨perfection✨ seriously your art of Chalastor has got to be my favorite fanart I’ve seen of them, everything is just so beautiful 😭🥹 also I’m a huge sucker for Dad!Alastor

Before I dig into this response any further I'd like to thank you for the high praise of my art, but I'd also like to point out that I don't exactly appreciate the negative tone you're bringing into my inbox here and would like to kindly remind you that my asks are not a confession booth for fandom salt... ^^"

I understand that it can be really frustrating to deal with that kind of stuff, but I feel like a lot of this belongs more in dms than in an ask box that gets responded to publicly...

Fuck knows I have my own not-so-nice opinions about some things certain people in fandoms do, especially considering the nigh constant harrassment some ships are under by other sub-groups of the fanbase, but I vent that shit privately with friends where it won't kick any beehives into a tizzy along the way... It also imo just reflects on the rest of the ship community a bit better to not make big public stinks over some faceless douchebags on the internet with too much time to waste ^^".

(Yes this is an open invitation to just dm me with fandom salt like this if you need to unload some, I'll happily indulge you there! But I really would prefer keeping fandom salt out of my asks and in turn out of my public posts lmao)

Ultimately I'm a strong believer of ship and let ship and I am also of the opinion that if you need to put down another ship to enjoy your own you're not doing the shipping thing right.

Indulging in romantic and/or sexual fantasies about fictional characters is meant to be fun! We're all just sitting in our own little corner making our dolls kiss after all.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people in this modern era of fandom spaces keep forgetting that. For many, shipping is a competition for bragging rights (i.e. canonicity), a form of activism or for yet again others it can be an excuse to mask bully urges and habits as exerting moral superiority (hence the constant, hypocrisy-filled barbs at people not "respecting" their canon sexualities)

Depending on which one you're dealing with, you may get genuine confusion at your shipping preferences since they approach shipping with a completely different mindset (i.e. shipping for canoncity and/or aesthetics over the narrative potential and/or writing quality) or people intentionally trying to bait you into a defensive response.

Sometimes you can argue someone out of their frustration about your lack of "respect" for canon by explaining that what you do doesn't affect canon in the slightest, nor do you even want or need it to - maybe even giving your reasons for shipping something! But that only works on people that are already receptive to your arguments, so you have to know who and what you're up against and if they're even worth wasting that sort of time and energy on.

I can assure you that 90% of the time the easiest option is to just block antis without giving them the grace of a response. It's usually the quickest way to get out of those types of situations lol (ignore them if they start claiming that they "won" and consider you weak or cowardly for blocking them - they just want to guilt you into unblocking so they have more free reign to keep harrassing you)

I have so many thoughts about the new Arcane teaser trailer.

But one, Jinx becoming a revolutionary symbol was something I did not expect. Taking a step back, it makes sense. She’s the one who shot the missile and took out most of council (crossing my fingers that Mel is ok). She has attacked and successfully robbed Piltover before at the day of progress. At the end of the day, Jinx gets shit done. It’s no wonder why she is being herald as this hero even though she is the least stable person in this show.

I don’t think Jinx is going to be the one pushing this narrative. She doesn’t seem like the type of person who cares about what happened to Zaun anymore. She just wants to get back at Piltover for destroying her family time and time again. But the new teaser also has something interesting to show

Sevika got a new arm and it looks very jinx inspired. I could be completely wrong but I think Sevika and Jinx will end up teaming up. Maybe they’ll even have a heart to heart over Silco death. At the end of the day, Sevika wants Zaun to free from the boot of Piltover. Who better to get behind than the person who wants to see Piltover burned to the ground. I won’t be surprised if Sevika rally’s up Jinx an army.

And this also brings into question where does Ekko fit in to this. I don’t think he’ll like jinx’s methods but she brings results. He’s definitely not going to stand with Vi Piltover’s newest enforcer. Maybe Ekko keeping doing his own thing, and protecting the people he can. I see him trying to reach out Jinx again. I doubt he’ll get through to her.

Jinx becoming Zaun’s unlikely hero is going to interesting to see. God, I can’t wait for season two. November is too far away.

I've been doing a lot of DoorDash delivery driving on the side after work too keep myself afloat. I wouldn't call it lucrative but it's certainly kept me from drowning as badly as I was before.

Unfortunately that hasn't left me a lot of time to draw or write. That said, it has left me with a lot of idle time with just me, my thoughts, and my music, so my ideas have had a lot of time to percolate, and a lot of that has been spent on that Niobe fic.

There's a dog now! Things shift and change constantly as I plot, but I am going to make a pointed effort to keep the dog in as long as it's feasible.

It's interesting how the needs of the narrative cause seemingly unrelated details to manifest. For plot & magical reasons it was a good idea to have a Friendly Creature of some kind constantly by Lester's side. The most reasonable option was a service dog. Which means, of course, that there needs to be a reason for Lester to have one. After mulling it over, I'm thinking the dog is a seizure alert dog.

I've mentioned before that Niobe's going at Lester's memories from multiple angles. She's already combining magic and psychology, she's not above messing with his brain directly. I'm thinking maybe something gets damaged in the process, and now Lester's got epilepsy caused by a TBI. It actually fits really nicely into the story, because Niobe's cover story for any of Lester's fuzzy and inconsistent memories is that he recently survived a brain tumor. That's been part of the plan for a while. Including an ACTUAL brain injury would just sell her lie more.

There's no guarantee that ANY of these details are making it into the final story; It's a lot of extra stuff to add on top of what is already a very complicated mish-mash of ideas. But I'm already researching to see if it's something I can portray accurately and in an inoffensive (or even empowering) way.

Anyway, i should figure out what to name the dog.

This is the start to a wholly unasked-for sequel to wait for the season that I’ve been poking at for some time. It’s definitely even weirder than that already-kind-of-weird fic, so maybe give it a miss if you’re looking for the standard fare. Steve isn’t even mentioned in this snippet. I'll post something more normal soon, I promise.

From the living end of memory, the past seems inevitable.

You had to go through that terrible thing so that you could become the type of person who would survive that later, more terrible thing that most likely occurred in a thematically resonant way—and with a little determined creativity, the thematic resonances start popping up all over the place. 

So then you arrive on the other side of the terrible thing, the second terrible thing, with your memories all worn smooth like rocks that have been jostling around in a pocket for years. They fit together now, no inconvenient angles or edges anymore. It’s all one continuous shape, the shape of how things happened, and you tell yourself that there was no other way for your story to go.

It was always going to happen this way. 

It was always going to be the concrete; the buzzing overhead lights; the placid, thoughtful voice saying “Let’s see if we can get it to wear some clothes, why don’t we?”

Embarrassingly enough, that’s the first thing Eddie remembers from his new life. He’s seen clips of the grainy footage from the months before that, but when he tries to remember lurching around and sinking his teeth into some disgusting raw slab of meat, it’s like a black hole. His mind doesn’t even want to get near the edges. He feels irrationally like if he thinks too hard about it, his mind will decide that actually, sentience isn’t such a hot shit idea after all, and he’ll tip right back down and down and down. 

———

Wayne’s old now, and it makes Eddie uncomfortable in a way he doesn’t really want to look at too hard. 

Wayne had never been young, exactly; Eddie doesn’t remember a whole lot from back when he first went to stay with Wayne, just a lot of promises that it was temporary, promises that stopped coming after a while. But what he does remember looks a hell of a lot like Wayne when Eddie was nineteen or twenty: wrinkles, bald spot always hidden under some ballcap or other, grumbling I’m an old man but Eddie never truly believing it because somehow, over the years, he’d got to believing that Wayne would always be there. Fucking stupid! So so fucking stupid from Eddie, who on paper looks like someone who should know better. 

Now Wayne’s actually old. Now he moves so slow, Eddie gets impatient just watching him through the lit-up window, doing the washing-up and puttering around the kitchen with stooped shoulders.

It’s easier on him if I don’t, thinks Eddie, but he already knows he’s lying as he thinks it. Or rather, he’s lying in a very specific way: it’s easier for Eddie if he pretends Wayne is dead, but probably not so much the other way around. 

That makes him a pretty terrible person, he guesses, but then again—not exactly a person anymore. He doesn’t know how much that matters. 

It would hurt him, thinks Eddie, tentatively, and that might actually be a little bit true. It’s just not as true as the other truth: that Eddie wants to keep Wayne locked in the box marked BEFORE because it’s too difficult to even think about explaining. That if Wayne’s back in his life, Eddie has to reckon with him as someone who will just continue to get older every single day until one day Wayne is as old as he will ever be.

It’s easier if he doesn’t. Doesn’t he deserve an easier life? Didn’t he go through purgatory? Hasn’t he paid and paid and paid? He should get whatever he wants, he should rip through the skin of the Earth to sink his teeth into the candy flesh, chew it up—

So yeah, he’s a monster in more ways than one. 

——��

There’s BEFORE and there’s AFTER, but really that’s just a narrative device. Really there are a lot of before-afters. 

There was before-after Eddie woke up; that’s the big one, maybe. Then there’s before-after Eddie is Eddie again and could think in words like a human. Like a person. Then there’s before-after it becomes scorchingly, irreversibly clear that Eddie is neither human nor person. 

And of course, there’s the before-after Eddie finds himself outside in government-issued sweatpants and a plain blue t-shirt, looking up at the gibbous moon for the first time in his new not-quite-life, and feels absolutely nothing about it.

It hits him later, kind of. He doesn’t even try to get somewhere safe (for whom?) to bunk that first night, just curls up in the nearest Greyhound terminal and felt sorry for himself, performatively. It seems like the thing to do. Woe is Eddie, friendless nightmare beast, freakier than anyone’d ever guessed he could be, and not in a fun way. 

He hadn’t even—

Back before, like before he’d even died in the first place, he probably would’ve taken it harder. Hah. Harder. 

But it hadn’t even occurred to him to reach into his own stringless scrubs and make baby Jesus cry, not for a long time. When it had, he’d felt oddly proud, as if that was proof that he's not some mindless beast at his core. That's probably not quite right, though. He thinks about it some more and decides it doesn't mean anything after all.

And then when dawn hits the Greyhound terminal, he belatedly realizes that shit, maybe he should’ve been thinking more about what vampires can and can’t do, traditionally, and he’s a little worried about burning to a crisp but it’s already too late, so he just rolls under the bench with the last of his consciousness and hopes like hell he looks too dangerous to mess with. 

Somehow he’s okay; somehow the cops aren’t even called. This is by way of being an inference, given that once the sun is out for real, Eddie is for all intents and purposes no longer a participant in goings-on. But he wakes up in the orange light of the sunset and everything seems to be the way he left it, maybe a handful more Burger King wrappers and fresher eau de urine gathering in the corners. The slim roll of go-away-please cash is still in his white cotton briefs. He’s not in a drunk tank and nobody’s prodding him. Nobody’s even around. Cautiously, he wonders if it’s another freaky power they just never thought to check for. 

He doesn’t feel much like testing it, and also it’s actually really fucking uncomfortable to be crammed underneath a bench like he is, so he crawls out and starts trying to pull together some kind of life.

———

“Eddie,” the scientist says, while he’s still staring up at the night sky for the first time in almost a decade. 

Eddie doesn’t know her name, but they all know his. They all call him Eddie, not Mr. Munson. Not that he wants to be Mr. Munson—he thinks if one of them actually said Mis-ter Mun-son he would shrivel up immediately, slough his skin and slip down the nearest drain.

“What,” says Eddie. “I’m just saying, I dunno how the economy works nowadays, but I’m guessing fifty bucks isn’t gonna get me too far.”

The scientist pushes gold-framed glasses up her nose. “You understand that we did not have to do this at all, right?” She doesn’t sound—she’s not being cruel. She’s just telling him so he understands. “You do not legally exist.”

That’s all she says, but Eddie knows what she means. He also knows that this money’s coming with strings, and he wants to get the absolute most he can out of this while he still has something they want. 

“Okay, but—”

The scientist rolls her fucking eyes and reaches into her own fucking pleated slacks and pulls out her own fucking wallet, counting out two twenties and a ten. She probably gets paid real good. There’s a picture of a kid in the wallet, maybe five or six years old; it looks like a school photo with that weird cloudy blue-grey background. The kid looks happy. He’s grinning. His name is probably Chris or Lionel or Jacob. He’s probably in some kind of youth T-ball league where he mostly sits in the outfield and eats grass. He’ll probably get into a good college someday, maybe on a baseball scholarship after he gets really good at T-ball after all, then baseball, and then he hits the winning home run for his high school varsity team. It will be a whole different millennium and he will never, ever know that the Psych 101 class he’s skipping to dry-hump his Chemistry-major girlfriend was paid for by the three and a half years his mommy spent administering heavy-duty sedatives to Eddie so they could run their little tests without Eddie getting bitey.

“Thanks,” says Eddie, because he’s got manners. He’s still got manners.

“We’ll see you in a month,” the scientist says.

This is going to be a controversial post, but I find it very “interesting” how people are taking Ed’s storyline this season and projecting it onto Izzy. ED was the one who was suicidal. ED was the one who believed he was unlovable and unloved, and that he had to be something he didn’t want to be just to be a little bit accepted. ED was actively trying to die and get people to kill him because he was too scared to do it himself. ED was the one who was working through years of trauma to find a way to be happy with himself and learn that he is capable of being loved for who he is.

And yeah, Izzy has some of that as well. Though genuinely, that could be said for most of the characters. But it’s SO STRANGE how many people I see saying “Oh well I guess the message of the story is that if you’re suicidal then you should die.”

Like, please, learn some media literacy. Ed and his arc are RIGHT THERE. I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality where we all watched a different show. Why are you unable to relate to Ed? I’ve literally seen people say “Oh well I just don’t care about Ed.” Truly, why are you only able to relate to that storyline when it’s through the perspective of a white man?

I’m not trying to be antagonistic, but this is really bothering me.

Fun fact: In the original pitch for Stranger Things, El had a little brother.

After being rejected by almost 20 studios for the Montauk pilot, the Duffers were finally green-lit by Netflix. It was at this time that they began casting and then writing the first season officially, which included reworking a lot of that first episode.

This led to the removal of the brother reference, and with it, removing any sort of arc El could have had about her apparent brother.

But the thing about this moment, is that it might not have been scrapped entirely...

Going into the final season, no one can explain why or how El recognized Will back in 1x02. And while there are plenty of things on the show that are left unexplained, with a small portion likely left that way with the intention to uncover it later, what sets this moment apart from the rest is that there are very few possibilities here.

Because for starters, the story presents El's ability to see people in the void in s1 as requiring either a picture of that person for reference, or having met that person before.

But when El see's this picture of Will, she's never met him before. Or maybe she has, but we wouldn't know because they never showed us. They could have just not done this scene at all, given that it's clearly a copy/paste/edit of something scrapped from the pitch. Or they could have even still included it, but explained it.

One explanation could be that the lab had shown El a picture of Will before, similar to what they did with the Russian agent they wanted to spy on. But then that begs to question, why would the lab show El a picture of Will? Why would they want to see what he was doing? That alone is incriminating in and of itself, implying that Will is more connected to the lab than we realize.

The only other, and frankly most likely explanation, would be that El stumbled across Will at some point on her journey between escaping the lab and Will going missing. This is actually something that happens in The Other Side comic, which explores all the things Will may have experienced during his time in the Upside Down.

Though it’s worth noting the comics aren’t technically canon, and I highly doubt they would outright spoil everything in relation to Will’s time there, years before it was intended to be revealed. But still, let's humor this for a moment given that I do think Will's time in the UD is going to be very relevant in s5, which means it's highly likely they will finally address how exactly El saw him.

Basically, in the comic, Will see’s El walking through the woods, almost apparition like, glowing as she passes by, while also sporting the Benny’s burgers shirt. This means they would have crossed passed within a short span of time, between when El escaped Benny’s when the agents arrived, but before she was found by the boys.

Though it’s worth noting that we’re seeing this all from Will’s perspective. This means from the UD, Will was capable of seeing El on the other side, despite them being on different sides. And not only that, but she also looks back at him.

What confuses me about this, is that it doesn’t make sense for El to be in the woods, only to randomly decide to pop in to the void for a moment. She was trying to escape the lab and everything that came with it. I doubt she had any desire to lurk back there for some reason, not until someone encouraged her to. Not to mention, it would make no sense for her to go there and see Will if she wasn't even looking for him in the first place. And so this would mean Will and El could see each other, with Will being in the UD, and El being on the other side.

While it does seem pretty far off, given that you would think Will and El wouldn't be able to see each other from different sides, it is true in the story that El not only recognizes Will, but knows that he is in danger. She mentions that he is hiding specifically.

Which means she has likely seen him within the last 24 hours regardless.

This, in combination with Will being able to respond to El in the void at the end of the season in Castle Byers, when no one else outside of Terry and flayed-Billy have been able to, seems to imply that there is indeed something special about Will that makes him capable of communicating with El from the UD. Not only that, but El also seems to have an ability to be in this constant knowing state of how Will is doing, without even checking again to confirm. She's just certain of it. And she seems terrified about it.

Going forward, El never uses a picture of Will to find him. She never did. And more often than not, they don’t show us what she see’s either, not until the very end. And that’s the moment they reveal that he was able to communicate with her.

Again, there was really no reason to have El recognize Will. If anything it complicates things. But the fact that they chose to introduce this concept, with a scene from the original pitch that was related to El’s younger brother, with her pointing at his name cryptically, startling Benny, only to revamp it and have El not say anything at all while pointing at the picture of Will, startling Mike… It just really makes you stop and think.

Which brings me to the other aspect of this that might have people doubting, which is that El’s brother was originally younger than her.

We know Will is not younger than El, so how could this apply to him?

Well, it might be helpful to consider that in the original script, El was actually 10 years old, while the boys were always 12. Meaning that for some reason, they decided to age her up to the age of the boys, aka the same age as Will…

Ever since @erikiara80 shared this brother discovery with me, I have been sort of reeling. It then led to other little discoveries of changes they made between Montauk and Stranger Things.

It’s important to understand that the Montauk bible and the original script precedes what we ended up with in the final product, with it finally changing and evolving months, maybe even a year since that original vision. Even casting occurred before writing started for the first season. We know this because casting announcements were made in June and August of 2015, with writing not starting until August going into early 2016, simultaneously while they were filming.

And believe it or not, what I've discovered is that a lot of the changes they made between their original plans and what we see in the final product, have to do with not only Willel, but also Byler.

If you've read the original script for Montauk, you'll know that Mike's crush on Jennifer Hayes was focused on right from the jump, along with the birthmark on his face being focused on, which was the main cause of the bullying he experienced.

This has actually been talked about recently, and some of the claims people make do fit with what I am genuinely starting to consider here, which is that the initial plan for what makes Mike an outcast shifted.

I think when they completed casting, and started actually deep diving into what they wanted this world to look like, both from a short-term and long-term standpoint, they were presented with some pretty interesting discoveries, arguably already hiding in their initial plans without realizing it.

And this is where it sort of becomes a 'chicken or the egg' situation. Because which one came first? Byler or Willel?

I can't say for certain, because obviously this is all just speculation. But in the case that Willel came first, I think Byler would come very naturally after that.

The Duffers themselves are twins. Then they hire Noah, who is a twin. Then they're thinking and planning for El's past and how her family all fits into this, and they're thinking... wait a damn minute... We could totally Star Wars this bitch!

And then when they think it couldn't get any better, they uncover another layer that they hadn't planned or really considered in their initial plans.

While Will was always going to have sexual identity issues according to the Montauk bible, meaning that the writing process for him likely involved sitting down imagining scenarios that encapsulated this arc for Will from the beginning, they were simultaneously now finding very interesting aspects of Mike's character that made it hard not to at least consider the possiblity that Mike is not exactly straight.

Just think about it. The Byers and Wheelers are basically polar opposites on the spectrum of what a family looks like. While Will's discovery and acceptance of his queerness is interesting to explore because he comes from a low-income, single-mom household, all while having been bullied for years based on his perceived queerness, he also has a mother and brother constantly reinforcing that they will accept him no matter what. They've been sort of hitting us over the head with it for years, and so it wouldn't be very satisfying for his entire arc to merely lead up to something we've known all along. It's pretty much a given at this point.

On the other side of the spectrum, Mike comes from a more upper-middle class family at the end of a cul-de-sac, more aligned with what a nuclear family looks like. Mike's family is also presented as being more conservative, and while Karen does give that very queer-coded speech to Mike in s1 (I'm convinced they only wrote this after deciding to explore queer-coding more heavily with Mike), it also comes with comments from Ted and even still Karen that hint that they are probably not as open-minded and accepting as Will's family is to him. Which means Mike's arc would be a lot more about acceptance around him from his loved ones who we have been led to believe might not be as accepting of his queerness in contrast to Will.

And so as they're putting this story together, and they're being presented with something very interesting. Two similar experiences that play out in different ways because of the characters circumstances.

Will goes missing, and his twin sister with a buzzcut pops up and has the ability to help them find Will.

This leads to several moments where El is being compared to as not only a boy, but Will as well.

Now suddenly, their initial plans to have Mike's arc be about having a girl be interested in him and to hopefully have his first kiss and feel like less of a loser, starts to look a lot like what the experience a queer kid in his position might encounter growing up in the environment that he did.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, just hear the Duffer's themselves hinting at what they initially planned for Mike and the fact that it changed.

The changes don't stop there.

Believe it or not, 'It was a seven', did not exist in the initial pitch. When the boys went outside bickering over Nancy, they leave right after that.

Another thing that changed from the first script, was Scott Clarke's introduction:

And so you might be thinking, who cares? What does that have to do with anything?

Well, it's interesting because the line we end up with on the show is arguably one of the most on the nose Twelvegate proofs to date. Mind you, this is from the first episode:

Why chuck the original version, which was arguably more interesting and fascinating in terms of it hinting at the mysteriousness surrounding this story, only to replace it with him listing off tips about their upcoming test?

Well, I think it's the irony of it all. Here Mr. Clarke is practically telling us where to look to figure stuff out for ourselves what is going on, with all the kids filing out and ignoring him...

I relate to Scott a litttle too much in this shot here, any time I try to drop Willel evidence.

And the changes go on, as they obviously would.

Things like Terry Ives not even being El's mom, but actually a man who more so aligns with the characterization of Murray.

And one very interesting one I almost overlooked was in Hopper's introduction, where instead of a kids drawing done by who we assume to be Sarah, we actually see a picture on the wall of him and his wife and daughter... Interesting that they decided to switch it something that is a lot less definitive in presenting what Hopper's past looked like...

If you've made it this far, congratulations.

If you still think I'm out of my mind, just remember that El was going to have a brother in the original script, but they scrapped the scene and gave a near identical one to introduce her connection to Will instead 😘

re: that whole tag ramble i did on the tristamp gifset i reblogged last night—i wandered over to ao3 and almost immediately found one of my favorite vash characterizations i’ve ever seen

​(it’s a oneshot just read it it’s so good)

In my defense-

if i had a nickel for every time there was a cosmere storyline concerning a scholar with self-esteem issues working tirelessly with a woman who would never collaborate with them under different circumstances, who brings a different but complimentary perspective and specialty to the table, to solve something that neither can crack on their own, bridging the seemingly insurmountable division between themselves, their ideals, and the forces they align themselves with, recording their work simultaneously in the same book where their contributions can be picked out by glancing at the handwriting, a process that excites the scholar, shoring up their faith in themself as they make new breakthroughs and find themself falling traitorously in love with this beautiful, intelligent, competent woman, only to lose her, cradling her corpse in their arms, knowing they'll have nothing to remember her by but the pattern of her handwriting, having been changed so fundamentally in their understanding of themself and their world by having known, loved, and lost her that they're able to take the steps necessary to accept incredible magic power and protect the people who they never formally ruled but have been involved in the stewardship of (a duty they were separated from when being made to work on their science project), i'd have one nickel because apparently it wasn't meant to be romantic the second time but dude holy fuck the parallels

okay I NEED to write a post that’s not just me taking the piss out of my mind palace and I need to write it like RIGHT NOW because I WANT to admit that there are things I’ve said that I think could be better or more accurate. there ARE bits and pieces I’ve neglected . and there are things that I haven’t articulated yet that I want other people to KNOW ABOUT!!!!

like with things other than himself masato’s poker face kind of sucks. with his older brother he’s way more open about how he feels, but he’s still not saying some critical SOMETHING. masato and tashiro, sometimes, occasionally, (frequently) just talk very easily. their dynamic is like astonishingly….. nuanced? like some days it’s taaaaashiiiiiiiiroooooo-kuuuuunnn and other days it’s

and some days, in my mind, masato is sitting very quiet and still watching tashiro do nothing in particular, and he’s torn between wanting to run away and stay right where he is until he stops breathing, or at least until his heart stops beating so damn hard.

and I definitely haven’t highlighted enough how legitimately functional and . well. “normal” . masato is externally despite his nights being plagued by dreams. or how so much of his angst is because, despite everything, he’s still just as young at heart as his friends are. in the space of his family, he’s still just a kid. he’s not unflappable he gets flustered and caught off guard he’s silly and expressive but he’s hard as hell to read sometimes. he lurks around corners. he’ll oscillate wildly between reflective and flippant. he’s PETTY.

he’s someone younger brother, and he’d rather be at his death bed than admit whatever fundamental something it is that he’s avoiding so hard.

like it’s. meaningful, that’s something I haven’t really gotten to. it’s meaningful that masato is always a few steps away from death, or half a dozen steps past it. he can even wear a detectives hat—it might be the only way he would ever, EVER open up. like. I’m going to loosely quote sunnnfish’s textbook but You can do things to a dead body that you can’t do to a living one.

but I also think that if I went back and altered the. dirtbrain hanzashiro canon, I guess. I’d make it easier to remember that masato isn’t 100% steeped in miseries. because I definitely think that I make it sound like that. like I should say that I don’t revel in his misery. not because it’s true necessarily but because I put so much of myself in front of and also into him that it reflects badly on me if I don’t. but anyway he still has his fun his distractions work it’s just that he’s plagued by dreams. the river is the metaphor for his burdens. that’s the bottom line. so it’s not that he’s being plagued by feeling nervous AND the river. they’re the same. the river is a prominent image in his mind, as it is in mine, but when he thinks of it he’s not thinking of it as the physical manifestation of his burdens, he’s not tying them to the river. they’re distinct in his mind, because he refuses self reflection.

also I’d play into the crime scene thing more. I like masato I want him to have fun and I think he deserves to wear a detective’s hat and dance around dgs holmes style. even if he does still have that massive puncture wound in his chest. even if he is still bleeding all over. like masato’s a weirdo but he’s not in isolation, is what I mean. not practically. he isolates HIMSELF but that’s because he’s ashamed of his vulnerability, not because of any external rejection. he has fun, still, but when he grows quiet, when his eyes open, when his expression is, ironically, even harder than usual to read, he’s being burdened by himself. but otherwise it is out of sight out of mind and hanzawa masato does so enjoy being silly and weird.

the thing, though, is that tashiro, from his outside perspective, DOES think of the river as it’s own entity. how could he not. he hasn’t been filled in yet on the things masato’s been putting up with in that freaky head of his, so he thinks of a river washing hanzawa senpai up like any regular corpse and it’s.. scary! if he could, masato would dance around his own corpse, investigating the lividity and wound in his chest with detached enough vigor, but tashiro isn’t like that. tashiro CAN’T be like that. tashiro had been surrounded by red lighting, flickering, buzzing, and saw the body in the water, and decided that he was here to do something, and he went and pulled him out and bandaged him up. which is a scene I’ve been struggling to write. and obviously “decided” is a bit misleading, because there was nothing else to do. like what sort of demon would tashiro have to be to see someone floating down a river in a scary environment like this and just LEAVE them there?

it’s like as far as chronology goes tashiro’s interactions with the river are complicated. because in MY chronology like as in the order they were written by me. in my capacity as writer. tashiro’s in reality first, only seeing trace unrealisms following masato around (the lanterns in the hallway, the blue hour, etc.) but in THEIR chronology. tashiro, who’s unacquainted with dreams mostly, suddenly is viscerally aware that he’s in one, and there’s a river in it. and while I haven’t gotten to saying so explicitly yet, like with a lot of things, the closest tashiro gets to being in the river is a dangled foot over the side of the pavement, skimming it. not taking a proper step into that world, but getting a feel for it. and then he takes hold of masato’s wrist, then hand, and pulls him out of the murk. bandages him up. mapping intimacy, hands brushing against masato’s ribcage.

and it’s obvious for me to say, I live in my brain and all of these details click together in ways that are mostly going unnoticed, this is before any realizations are fulfilled on tashiro’s part. he’s doing this because he found hanzawa senpai basically Dead in a river and he could help. he’s doing this because he’s himself. he’s doing this because he has no idea why else he would be here.

it’s just like. dirtbrain’s hanzawa to tashiro is a struggle between my capacity as a writer and my understanding that I could tell the story I want to tell so much better in a visual medium that I don’t have access to. so basically while I work out my own shortcomings everyone join hands with me so we can send harusono sensei psychic pleas for news on hanzawa to tashiro. or at least the over 10000 words on hanzawa masato. etc.

@anderwhohn said: 6) one muse discovers the other has placed themselves in a dangerous, under cover situation and steps in to help but gives them a severe look when no one is watching to indicate their disapproval. / from Nihlus, with Wren being undercover?

an old meme    /    PROBABLY ACCEPTING ↷

She keeps in-character, merely giving Nihlus a raise of a brow at the way he looks at her, clearly not a fan of her approach. She can handle herself. There’s a chance Wren is projecting, but she can’t help but feel like Nihlus keeps thinking of her as his mentee, and only his mentee.  She respects him,  as a Spectre and as her mentor, but while she is under his mentorship and thus technically below him in that particular chain of command, she’s also the commanding officer of the Normandy and he’s a part of her team, flipping the power dynamic. They’re both in charge.

She’s not gone behind his back on any purpose at all. The situation had simply called for her to make a decision on her own; without a team, without access to communications, but with a unique opportunity to dig deeper into Binary Helix... She’s stashed most of her gear in a hotel room, gone shopping, and is now passing herself as a socialite wife of a businessman, attending a party on her fake-spouse’s behalf.

Stacking a few appetisers on a plate, she subtly glances around to make sure no one is actively paying attention to them, before saying,    ❝ I wasn’t aware you were invited. ❞

And she is happy to see him. It’s been a few days; she’s been trying to figure out a way to contact the ship to help her team track her down.

For the event, she wasn’t able to risk bringing a weapon, so she’s completely unarmed. Still, she has her omnitool (the perks of it being an implant rather than a wearable band), and as long as she doesn’t cause a scene, no one should realise she’s not supposed to be here. No one here, sans Nihlus, knows her in person, so the subtle cloaking filter combined with her attire should make anyone unable to recognise her as Commander Shepard, as well.

this is super on brand for me but today I’m experiencing debilitating frustration @ being misunderstood on the internet like some kind of loser 😩