Sam fumbled Gwen’s Bonzo reveal… but he’d been primed to do so

I suspect that there's going to be a LOT of conversation around Sam after this episode, and since this episode was so good that I couldn't think of a meme or shitpost, I decided I'd throw my hat into the ring and do some character analysis instead. CW: Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol episode 18, "Solo Work" under the cut.

Episode 18 finally gave us the Sam and Gwen interaction I (and I think a lot of others) have been so desperate to finally see, and boy oh boy do I have Thoughts… none of which are new per se, but Sam’s reaction to Gwen dropping the Bonzo Bomb seems to have reinforced  the way I’ve been reading (and projecting in fanfiction oops) Sam, his personality, and his motivations.

Out of everyone new we’ve been introduced to so far, Sam has by far gotten the most explicit development and conversation around his personality. Even before episode 1, folks who participated in the ARG got a preview of our favorite baby shrimp’s personality through access to the child database spreadsheet that was, presumably, used to document the results of the experiments run on children participating in The Magnus Institute’s “gifted and talented program.” From this spreadsheet, we can gather that Baby Sam is logical, empathetic, works towards the benefit of others (prosocial), and fair… but also a rule follower and highly willing to follow the lead of an authority figure, even if it is in conflict with his personal views. The picture this information paints is an interesting one, but when taken in a vacuum leaves us with an impression of Sam as someone who is kind but lacking in backbone.

This idea of Sam as “kind but lacking in backbone” is further reinforced in canon, as Alice of multiple occasions rags on him for being “noodly” and “ickle fawn” and a “baby shrimp,” all seeming to highlight that Sam has the sort of helplessness about him typically ascribed to sopping wet kittens and baby birds. And I think that if we view Sam’s outburst when Gwen brings up Bonzo through this lens alone, it’s going to seem WAY out of character for him and a downright cruel response.

Now while I do believe that Sam is empathetic and fair and, sometimes, a little helpless, I’ve been inclined to believe from early on that much of Sam’s affable self-deprecation is a way to cover or soften what can be, at times, a tendency to be hard-headed, temperamental, a little manipulative, and petty (and I’m totally not just saying that as a people-pleaser-and-gifted-kid-in-recovery who has been projecting hard on Sam since Day 1). And it’s this second batch of personality traits, the ones that make Sam so real and interesting to me, that I think set up the disaster of a conversation between Sam and Gwen.

We have definitely seen hints of Sam’s hard-headedness and manipulative leanings in previous episodes: it comes out most often around Alice, showing his stubbornness in the form of refusing to give up his lines of questioning and curiosity about what is happening in the cases and at the OIAR; and revealing his willingness to manipulate a situation the form of subtly redirecting Alice’s focus away from prying into his crush on Celia and during the mocha incident (I have, of course, already explored Sam’s manipulative tendencies in my totally comprehensive shitpost).

And we’ve even been shown at times before episode 18 where Sam can be petty, his buzzed insistence that Alice try and keep things “professional” at work after his date with Celia being at the top of the list. The case headers filed for “Putting Down Roots” and “Pet Project” also suggest to me Sam’s ability to be stubborn and petty: in both instances, Alice and Gwen suggest a different classification than the one that Sam ultimately files. In the case of Gwen in “Pet Project,” she’s dismissive of him when he tries to ask if she’s all right.

While there’s no way to know for sure, I interpret this interaction as part of the reason why Sam ultimately disregarded Gwen’s suggestion for how to file the case—she shut him down and shut him out, and the petty part of his heart couldn’t resist ignoring her recommendation out of spite. This scene also begins to lay the foundations for Sam and Gwen’s interactions in episode 18 and, I suspect, the rest of the season.

So with all of this in mind, let’s look at episode 18. When Gwen emerges from Lena’s office, Alice has just finished shutting Sam down, again. Throughout most of this season, Sam has been desperate for some validation that the cases they are listening to are real, that whatever happened to him at The Magnus Institute was real, and that him pursuing this line of questioning and wanting to find answers isn’t a waste of his time. Alice has, of course, been not-so-gently nudging him away from this line of thinking for most of the season, while Gwen has been icing him out about it up until this point. Just about the only one who has given his questioning any air has been Celia who is, conveniently, not there. Even after Alice has her very own supernatural experience that is reaffirmed in the case Sam receives, she strongly pushes back on his idea that they should investigate and pursue this further. He understands why she doesn’t want to learn more, but it’s clear that he’s still frustrated at the end of the conversation.

Enter Gwen. Here, for the first time, it seems like she’s opening up about what is going on at the OIAR, and Sam is immediately hooked, even dropping his softer and sympathetic side when Alice tries to redirect with one of her classic barbs.

After being shut down time and time again, Sam is so eager for confirmation that there is more to all of this than meets the eye. And then Gwen says the B-word, and Sam loses it.

Sam is laughing here, but honestly? I think he’s angry, and his reaction is one of complete disbelief that Gwen would set him up like this just to, in his mind, take the piss out of him. He thinks that, at best, Gwen is having a breakdown and he’s once again being shut out or, at worst, Gwen is making a joke at his expense. Now, he’s used to being the butt of a joke thanks to being friends with Alice, but despite that we’ve never heard him call her an asshole the way he does Gwen. Temperamental and petty, turning around his hurt and anger over being stonewalled again and again to lash out at Gwen with his joke.

And honestly, can you blame him? (I can’t.)

Of course this wasn’t the ideal reaction. I have been waiting for Sam and Gwen to have a serious heart-to-heart about what’s going on forever, and Sam pretty much blew that chance without even realizing it. And I would be surprised if we get an apology out of him anytime soon, not only because this interaction is likely to push Gwen away from wanting to even be around Sam, but also because he’s not going to believe that Gwen wasn’t making fun of him or that Gwen isn’t having a delusional breakdown until he sees Mr. Bonzo with his own two eyes.

I also think this conversation would have gone very differently had Celia been there instead of Alice. Sam’s slew of psychological testing suggests he’s willing to follow the leader, and in this case he doesn’t seem immune to Alice’s general dismissiveness of Gwen. He may have even been primed to lash out at Gwen in this moment because Alice is constantly ragging on her; chameleon-like, he’ll take on the shade of the strongest personality when he’s on uncertain or dangerous footing. It’s almost a guarantee that Celia would have taken Gwen seriously, not only because she’s likely from or connected to the TMA-verse of horrors, but also because it was Celia who received the first Mr. Bonzo case. And had Celia been there to temper the disbelief, Sam would have absolutely been ready to hear Gwen out in full. I honestly cannot wait for Celia to be back in office; she’s going to walk in to these new, rancid office vibes like Troy from Community walking into the whole room on fire while casually carrying the pizza.

So, what do I think this means for the rest of the season? Well, the title of this episode seems telling: Solo Work. Gwen and Sam’s respective desires for their experiences to be validated and their goals to be taken seriously paired with the seeming dismissiveness of those around them are going to push them along their separate paths, dangerously alone. And I suspect that it is only going to be Celia or, more likely, an encounter with Bonzo, that is going to put them back on the same path—if it happens at all. Good luck, babes!

Black flame fanboy

a meme specific to my interpretations

snake jaguar is cool he should be allowed to give rocky dangerbuff a makeover

No no guys you don't get it what makes ritsu and reigen's dynamic so funny is the fact that it's not equal in hatred. Ritsu blows reigen up with his mind and throws underhanded jabs at him. Reigen had met him like twice and defaults to treating him like a slightly younger mob. Ritsu hates this, reigen is increasingly bewildered as to why his infinite charm has no effect on this prickly thirteen year old. THE BULLYING IS ONE SIDED THAT'S WHY ITS FUNNY

The entire chat is gay, Akechi included

Let's lock our neural patterns together, leading to extreme risk of permanent brain damage and death ♡

The Warrior of Light was subsequently banned from the Leveilleur household.

You mentioned in a previous Astarion analysis post:

"But, I think, given his behavior, his casual flirtiness, his "You want to lose yourself in me," (another line I can squawk about endlessly in terms of character analysis)"

I am encouraging you to squawk. I think you've got a really good grasp of his character and I love your posts!

UPDATE***written during EA

@littlemisstrancy Sorry for the late reply! I fell down another rabbit hole of replaying haha.... Aww, thank you! I'm so glad, a good grade in Astarion is a Normal and Reasonable thing to want to achieve. But YES, I find his entire sex scene to be extremely interesting (going off of what Larian said that, paraphrased, nonsexual intimacy with some will mean more than sex with others, because of the nature of the relationship.)

What I find most interesting about Astarion's romance scenes is that the scene itself is remarkably much more syrupy than he, by nature, really is. We can point to, "darling," "my love," as evidence of his tendencies for the dramatics, yes, but given that these are petnames he'll throw out to a Tav he hates as much as a Tav he enjoys, the surface meaning and connotations of dramatic flirtations and even more dramatic pre-sex speeches.... shifts.

The way we filter these interactions shifts because we have to filter what is, at first glance, a typical romance scene, through the lens of the character giving the spiel. If Astarion associates dramatic seduction and slinky purring as simply the easiest way to get what he wants--or, perhaps, more than that, the expectation, the only way for this interaction to occur, because hollow dramatics/play-acting have been likely the only pseudo-""romance"" he's engaged in in the 200 years he's been with Cazador, that changes the meaning of everything, including the line: "You want to lose yourself in me." <- sure laddie, just keep objectifying and disconnecting yourself from the experience itself and repeat the habits of behavior that you've learned from 200 years of being someone else's toy and tool where you weren't even a willing participant in what was happening, merely a mandatory one. that'll be really great. no backfiring here whatsoever.

Okay, sorry, under the cut the rest of this goes because I went off on three different tangents to try and tie them all back together again. This is mostly my background reasoning for above. WHAT DOES THE REST HAVE TO DO WITH TAV. Honestly I'm not sure anymore I started talking and then I didn't stop talking.

It feels like so much of the overarching realities of their circumstances fall away for Tav, but it also haunts the entire interaction with Astarion. Shallow charm. Winning over people. A pretty face opening doors. I'd chalk it up to sexy-video-game-scene-writing if it were any other game, but the other romance scenes aren't nearly so grandstanding and are written I think intentionally to subvert that, so this is an Astarion Thing, and likely goes deeper than that first glance. As it stands, Astarion barely even knows who he is now that he's outside of Cazador's control. "Another thing that I've lost." -- His personhood has been nonexistent, and he's been a tool, and he's been, for lack of a better word, dehumanized to the fullest extent for an insurmountable amount of time. So of course the thing he learned best is that the easiest way to get what you want, or get what you need, is to be easily projected unto. He can't keep the facade up for very long, I don't think, but in that scene his "don't ask too many questions just look at how hot I am" mindset is fully on to me.

The thing is that his circumstances with Tav here are entirely different than the ones he's been in before, but just because the circumstances are different doesn't mean that the behavior will be different, or that habits formed out of severe distress/torture in his own words will be so easily let go of. My ULTIMATE POINT is that charm and flirtations are things Astarion clearly separates from himself and his actual beliefs, and he treats what we conceive as "charming" behavior fairly flippantly--once again, that "my love," means... not... a lot. we just met 2 weeks ago, pal. And I don't think he's interested in using it like that anymore, because he's not making a super great effort to be perceived as likeable. It comes out mostly in scenes where flirting and charisma are expected of the interaction and then they're pushed to their most exaggerated format, when he isn't actually typically like that in other conversations. Dramatic and foppish, yes, and enjoys ridiculousness in several formats, yes, but not nearly so egregiously saccharine, at all.

If he is starting to give a fuck about Tav, or even the group, that's something else to grapple with, and it's still at this point I think partly wrapped up in the idea that Tav makes for a "good ally." His scenes where he says: "we're more alike than I thought" "You're stronger than I gave you credit for," feel more genuine and honest to me in some ways than his sex scene speech. His fondness for Tav and his idea that strength/power/security can be found by sticking close to Tav can be true at the same time, in an interesting dance between his growing connection to them and his general ideas on people, power, and control.

So secondary: is Astarion a manipulator who's using this sex scene to control Tav emotionally and that's what he's got going on here? Eh... maybe yes and no? He wouldn't ask Tav if he wasn't interested--as seen by how he'll shut you down if he can't stand your guts. If he's using sex for that, it's up in the air, open to interpretation, depends on your HC, I can see both interpretations and I'm not going to claim one is more true than the other, since there's evidence for both "manipulating" and "not manipulating" and to me, the truth falls somewhere in the middle. I'm sure the thought has probably crossed his mind, but I don't actually think he's good enough at charm to follow through on that, which I will now elaborate on in INTRICATE detail....

Astarion isn't actually concerned about being likeable, or wanted within the group--or, rather, he may be concerned about it (because there's both safety and danger in a group setting), but he also isn't concerned about it enough to not advocate entirely for self-preservation and selfishness at generally every turn. He also isn't concerned about winning over the group enough to abdicate his firmest belief: that the tadpole is an advantage they should use, and a power he intends to keep.

And, if you relent to the group, he calls you spineless in the face of everyone else. So he's not afraid to insult you, Tav, either, certainly not to preserve some loose semblance image of ""charming,"" which he's already really bad at maintaining in general, because his brand of everything can just as easily piss people off as compel. Bad taste central.

Hell, his intro scene displays this best: He lures you in with a silly little lie that makes him sound weaker than he is ("You can kill it, can't you? Like you killed the others!") and then he strikes when your back is turned. Shallow charm is an accessible tool, he doesn't have the patience for long-lasting plots or extended slinky charm. Or if he does, and he's been manipulating all of us, he's not doing a great job, since half the party is making faces at him the whole time. Buuut....

During the mirror conversation, if you tell him vanity is a weakness:

(Text - Astarion: It's an indulgence, I'll grant you, but a weakness? A well-presented face can open a lot of doors.)

There is an awareness of beauty and charm that Astarion references often. He isn't really afraid to objectify himself for his own means, or being perceived as weaker than he is (except in certain circumstances). He knows these things are quite relevant, socially. Beautiful people are treated better. Beautiful people typically can get away with more. Actually I could probably approach this from a Class and Wealth related lens too, because his history as a magistrate probably also influences this mindset a lot, but that is. a THIRD separate essay.

He seeks to be strong enough to beat Cazador, at least partly through the same means that Cazador himself uses. The tadpoles give us absolute authority, in the end, and Astarion has zero qualms inflicting onto others what was inflicted onto him when we use them. But prior to the tadpole, what tools did Astarion have at his disposal? Very few, and most of them revolved around empty charm, quick-thinking, and trying to predict unpredictable moods and then enduring whatever came of those moods. That hollow charm falls under these kinds of tools, which gave him very short-term influence over at least the people he would lure back to Cazador. Likely the only form of control or power he had within all of that, and where he himself was without control as his entire being was under someone else's thumb. And those habits will likely persist for awhile, until he relearns who and what he wants to do and be outside of Cazador's purview. Which could mean anything, this is not to make him sound softer than he is or sweeter than he is. His vainglorious bitch syndrome is 4D chess of truth and not truth, empty cloying, vicious lashing out, and 10 degrees of identity issues wrapped up in all of that, so it's difficult to pin down just one thing as Real or Not Real, and I don't think even he knows what's Real and Not Real right now.

# mood 1 + mood 2 (basically)

It's true— she told me herself! 💞

(Blank template under the cut!)

"BREAKING NEWS: KID KILLER FOUND TO BE BE KAITOU KID'S ACCOMPLICE?? FIND OUT MORE HERE"

I could not... resist. And also I swear this meme was made for them???

I literally saw snoozeeroo's version and went "I HAVE GOT TO DO THIS TOO"

but Kidcon version. Because the idea of a Kidcon (movie) teamup going Wrong is hysterically funny.

LIKE JUST IMAGINE??? They literally enable each other for the craziest stuff, and them getting caught would be so funny

~

I usually draw digital, but I wanted to fill out another page in my sketchbook. And also I have a healing papercut, so Ibispaint isn't a good idea at the moment.

This bad boys can fit so much freaking trauma in it

i wanna post my skip to loafer art but i cant do it knowing ppl are gonna put it on tiktok and pinterest bc itd be like. bringing an invasive species ykwim

TIOS art!! :3

Og base: