the game wasn't always respectful about it back when it was the late 2010's but fate's leonardo da vinci is completely inarguably a transgender woman and very happy as one. she was a fixture of the story back when the first one and a half arcs were going on, but in hindsight we didn't actually get to spend all that much time with her before she's succeeded by gran cavallo. and gran cavallo... we never call her that. the young girl version of da vinci is never anything other than da vinci to us, even though she herself worries about her ability to live up to that name sometimes. but still her profile points out that her true name is gran cavallo.
gran cavallo was an ambitious project of the living da vinci. a giant bronze statue of a horse, initially planned to be the first ever horse statue to stand on its hind legs, a feat of engineering not actually achieved until centuries later. it was never completed because of various political and armed conflicts. but in the late 20th century, people tried again to make gran cavallo happen based on the surviving drawings of it. there are various casts of this horse statue in existence now.
so gran cavallo here represents unfulfilled wishes passed on to the future. rider da vinci's materials and writing constantly emphasise the hope for the future, the chance to go on another journey and keep growing. she's a young schoolgirl, eagerly learning about the many wonders of the world.
this young da vinci was born after the planet was already bleached, she has missed her chance to ever see the "real" earth... nor did fate's leonardo da vinci get the opportunity to be a woman while she was still a living human. but the older da vinci made the younger da vinci with hopes of doing what she couldn't do herself, and in the 20th century the horse was made, and in the 21st century da vinci gets to be a girl while growing up too
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You must be a fairly good person if the guilt and shame of what you did to your loved ones still haunt you 400 years later.
I don’t know if I’ve just been exposed to awful people all my life and that’s why my standards are a bit messed up, but what I think usually happens is that people repress their guilt, and after a while they expect forgiveness — and they’re willing to give it to themselves because time alone makes them feel entitled to it. I’m not sure if this is a correct moral assessment, but I hold grudges forever, so I’m presumably the worst person to evaluate this.
If enough time has passed and you’ve accepted responsibility, you’ll probably try to move on with your life, and that mistake won’t define everything you do afterward — especially when it comes to a choice you made simply to get yourself out of misery. It will probably stay in the back of your mind, but generally what happens with truly selfish people is that they immediately justify themselves and refuse to take any kind of responsibility, even when they aren’t facing starvation or any real threat.
Jinu’s sense of self is completely twisted by his guilt and shame, and he’s painfully aware of what he did. He doesn’t justify himself at all. When he lies about what happened, it’s because he’s facing a hunter who is threatening to send him back to hell (in their first meeting). After that, he becomes emotionally involved, but even when Rumi offers him a justification — saying he was just trying to help his family — he rejects it and insists it’s more complicated. In the end, he admits the truth and uses it to prove to both himself and Rumi that he’s a monster.
I’m not saying any of this is healthy. What I’m saying is that Jinu is unequipped to help himself in any meaningful way. He’s being tortured by a powerful, mind-controlling deity, and all he wants is for the pain to stop. I said before that the only redemption he can access is sacrifice, because the redemption he needs is with himself first and foremost — and I don’t think he’d ever be able to enjoy his time away from Gwi-ma knowing that his little sister died of hunger.
I hope he comes back at some point in the story, because after you’ve given everything, you also deserve to heal. It’s important that people who made terrible mistakes heal, just as much as it is that people affected by generational trauma heal.
I actually have no words right now I am speechless BUT I currently need to find the brain responsable for this specific moment on the script and make out with it asap.
Let’s talk about it cause I am IN TEARS and I’ll explain why at the end of this post.
first of all THANK YOU for the most iconic fucking moment in the entire show.
HONESTLY BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK???? They left me GAGGED. Absolutely speechless, mouth open catching flies and all, because of the brilliant full circle moment they gave my man right. here.
HIS REDEMPTION
You’d think, of all the words to misspell he’d never misspell that one????
of course he did that on purpose, it’s THEIR THING and Jack would have gotten it IMMEDIATELY.
“is it spelled with an S?” I need to bow down to them. Because this man right here outplayed the smart, outplayed those who looked down on him, outplayed everyone in their stupid, condescending game.
[side note and im 100% sure Jack here is trying hard to figure out whether to facepalm or kiss the fuck out of his boyfriend (of course he does the later)]
But the perfect bow, the tastiest cherry on top to this perfect scene is War’s adorable fucking sorry.
DO YOU ALL GET IT???
It’s an immaculate culmination for Joke’s english arc because English is one of the fucking foundations for Joke’s insecurities.
The dumb thief that bested every single person in the room by embracing his blatant ignorance and disregard for the language and thus, embracing who he really is, someone he is proud of being.
HEY SEATTLE! I'm appearing at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival TOMORROW (May 31) with the folks from NPR's On The Media!
I'm about to take a two-ish week sabbatical so I can (once again!) rewrite the Trump chapter of my Enshittification book (October 2025), and so that I can get my (thankfully very treatable) cancer irradiated:
While I'm away, here are some things I'd like to call your attention to. First, some good news: the Washington Post Tech Guild just won a historic union vote with a giant majority, despite the vicious union-hating owner of the Post, a Mr Jeffrey Preston Bezos:
Even more good news: the GOP have ratfucked themselves, doing the work that our Democratic Party leaders can't or won't do. In overruling the parliamentarian in a bid to arrogate to themselves the power to kill California emission standards, Republican Senators have opened the door for Democrats to seize 10 hours of debate time for every single change Trump makes to federal regulations. These debates take precedence over all Senate business. They can even go back in time and demand 10 hours of floor debate on every agency action for the past 60 days. Basically, that means that Senate Dems can tie up the Senate until the 2026 mid-terms and beyond:
Will they? I mean, it's the kind of tactic Mitch McConnell would have leapt at without even bothering to fully raise the lid of his sarcophagus. Chuck Schmuer? I dunno. Maybe if we gave him a ping-pong paddle with some stylish sans serif text invoking each debate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KADW3ZRZLVI
That's some good news I'm going to take with me into my coming break. I've really cleared my calendar for this time off, finishing up my CBC podcast "Understood: Who Broke the Internet?" just in the nick of time:
The series prompted Harrison Mooney to do a long, fantastic interview with me for The Tyee, which sets out the series' thesis and call to action very well:
If you're as pissed off about enshittification as I am and you happen to live in NYC, there's a support group for you! This week, I heard from a reader who's organized a monthly open mic "Evening on Enshittification," where attendees present and learn about different kinds of enshittification, from AI to dating and beyond:
https://partiful.com/e/Li1DGg7x5ohmCOf2hAkj
And if you're on the other coast, you can catch me TOMORROW in Seattle at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, where I'll be onstage with the folks from NPR's On The Media:
Londoners, you can catch me at the How To Academy on July 1, where I'll be doing a Canada Day book event with the amazing Riley Quinn, showrunner for Trashfuture:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
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Is it just me or is there much less fiction coming across my Tumblr dash right now (or altogether?) I still see a fair amount of short whump prompt-type things, which is great, but what I really want are some ongoing OC stories I can get invested in! Something romantic, whumpy, dramatic, angsty, or (even better) all of the above? 🙏
I know people are SO busy right now, but I know I'm not the only one who actually tends to do MORE reading this time of year! (Or maybe I'm just procrastinating on other stuff, but oh well!😄)
And of course, I may have just missed some great stuff, too!
So I'll tell you what: Please interact and send a link if you've posted something recently you'd like me to check out and I PROMISE to give it a look and reblog it! 🥰
ETA: If you want me to read something, PLEASE specify what it is or I'll never find it, lol.
