Myster Joshua
@mysterjoshua
Loremonger, breaker of bread, owner of one numb thumb (leads to typos and apologies). Dark Souls 2 enjoyer Hunter: The Parenting fan Average Miniature Painter Darkwood I have unrelated and unhinged historical anecdotes for the asking. He/Him PMs🚫
Here is another dog who is in good health, large, and sometimes even a good boy.
It is a grand example of what cosmic horror can do to a character: Make himself very reasonable to the audience because he knows The Lore(tm), but renders him incapable of living a normal life in the world. Great writing of how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a lot is fucking lethal.
But to the people who live and work with him, it's intolerable. He has wild mood swings, keeps his secrets more locked up than his drug stash, and lashes out when people question him. And as the audience, we think "yea I've read Eternal Hearts. The Tzimisce are HORRIFYING." So we cut D some slack.
The man has BROAD almost Meta knowledge of some deep World of Darkness secrets. Salout, the Massasa Wars, Antideluvians, maybe the K'llasshaa. It's like Big D has a pile of splat books from White Wolf and lives his life with a reasonable amount of paranoia for knowing how comically boned the WoD is.
The more I think on it, the more I love Big D. I can't think of many other fictional characters who, to the audience who knows, seems perfectly correct in most of his decisions and actions... But to the characters who exist diagetically around him, he is an intolerable, monstrous, selfish man.
28) But it ends in one last twist and we get SOME kinda resolution, but as much as I wanted to jump up and clap hands with glee, it felt hollow. D and Kitten were gouged out like a melon, over and over again, because they had nobody to turn to except to make a deal with literal devils.
26) But Big D is also willing to give it all up, even being a Hunter. Hell he almost joins the Roman Catholic Church by the end just to get ANY help to save Marckus. For all his failings as a father and a leader, it is heartbreaking hearing all the fire go out of his voice, bowing to people he hates
25) Because Big D is a paranoid totalitarian who doesn't play well with others. Hell, for all the kids he claims to have, only two of them are still hanging around. This episode was a harrowing display of all the ways Big D has failed to build community, and all the people ready to exploit that.
22) Getting long, and wanted to put my own thoughts instead of just recapping. This episode was ROUGH to watch. Big D, Companion, all of them forced to debase and humiliate themselves to greater and greater degrees... It was fucking awful to behold. We love these lads, why must they suffer!?
20) Door calls Blaire a "Worm Freak" which is bad for every reason. Freak Legion is the moniker of Pentex's Formori, Francis "Customer Service" Fuchs had a worm eating him inside and out... And the Wyrm is the name of the entropy entity worshipped by the WORST people in the World of Darkness.
19) Everyone expects this to become a Cockthorpe Stand-Off between a deranged grocery distribution mercenary and a stoic flat-topped miner... Then Door busts out the big reveal Blaire couldn't have seen coming. No lie, that quiet conversation over comes had me TERRIFIED for what happens next.
18) Door has been cool as a cucumber until now, engaging in a little architectural banter with the Sister Blacklaw, but when Blaire offers them help in exchange for custody of Boy... Well... Door doesn't have much of a fight or flight response. He just has fight.
17) But all of this takes a TURN. Door and Boy recognize Blaire from the O'Tolley's they burned to the ground in epiaode 5.3. She was the last one leaving before they walked in and Francis "Customer Service" Fuchs tried to put worms under their skin. Door has... Suspicions.
16) Saw it with Marckus in episode 4.1, where D HOWLS for daring to challenge him and Marckus just... Walks away. Big D would rather fight an Antideluvian 1v1 than be anywhere other than the top of a hierarchy. It speaks to how much he loves Marckus that NOW, when it's too late, he cedes authority.
14) With Occam and even Remold backing Big D up, Big D cannot stop from lashing out, throwing tantrums, and DEMANDING assistance from the Coalition. It makes me wonder: How many times has he done this in the past, but then flocked off to New Zealand or Virginia when someone needed his help?
13) Now absolutely most of the people at this table are FUCKING villains, vile extortionists, and literally working for the devil. But this might also also a criticism of D and how he has gone about his whole operation: If Big D wasnt such a loud-mouthed schnook, wouldn't he have better friends?
12) Everyone is putting D and Co. over a barrel, and D and Companion go along with it because, time and again, Companion reaffirms that he will do ANYTHING to help Marckus. By the third contract, they are broken and despondent but maybe, MAYBE it will get them Marckus back.
10) Next up is Blaire, working for Grandad's Foodstuff Ltd who wants the D crew to sign over their lives, property, first born and next born sons, likenesses, collectable merch, EVERYTHING to the corporation. And this is where shit gets wilder...
8) From here things get progressively more and more deranged: the most Swedish man since the muppet Chef wants Black Shuck and to run medical experiments on Marckus. Big D agrees, reasoning they'd have an easier time rescuing Marckus from Sweden than from the Garou nation.