erika111111

[erika111111]

Wait... Hayden Panettiere as Kairi... Meaghan Martin as Namine... Ariel Winter as young Kairi... what is going on here??

[erika111111]

Damn, being an Emma Mountebank fan sucks. Say you like her and then you're flamed in the comments...

[erika111111]

I totally get the "don't tag the character/ship/etc you dislike in your post" etiquette. Because people following these tags are obviously typically fans (unless they're obsessed haters who we don't care for). And the fans are just here to see positive content of a thing they like. They don't wanna see the negativity and people hating on it and whatnot. But I think, currently, there are several things wrong with this etiquette that Tumblr should band together to help all parties involved.

The (reasonable and not hateful) people tagging these things they dislike are just looking for fellow likeminded people who agree with them about their opinion. If you're not allowed to tag it, it's extremely difficult for anyone to see your post. ESPECIALLY because I keep seeing people say things like "you're not allowed to tag the fanbase name either." Like seriously, who is supposed to find these posts then? You're really silencing an entire opinion and I don't think that's fair.

So I think there should be a specific tag to address these opinions. Like "[character] hate" or "anti [ship]." SOMETHING to make it clear. That way the fans won't have to worry and the non-fans can still express their opinions; everyone's happy. Fans can just block the now known hate/anti tags and the non-fans don't have to tag the common tag that the fans look at to enjoy but still be able to voice their opinion and tag the fanbase name because the hate/anti tags will be blocked by the fans anyway.

I know I'm just one person and this post likely won't reach very many people, if any at all, but it feels like every day there's some new fan vs. non-fan to tag or not to tag discourse and it's so tiresome. There should be some agreed upon way to go about these things so everyone is treated fairly and everyone can be happy.

[erika111111]

Okay, storytime...

I watched the Fallout TV show back when it came out. And I... had very mixed feelings about a lot of things. I've never played the games, mind you, so I went in basically blind. My main takeaway was one of my new favorite OTPs, Lucy x Maximus (VaultKnight). And I think I'm in the minority here, as most people ship Lucy with Cooper or just straight-up hate VaultKnight, but Lucy and Maximus really did something to my heart.

When Lucy smiles up at the brave knight soaring through the air, thinking he defeated the enemy, when in reality he just got thrown across the sky in defeat, I thought it was so cute and funny and immediately started "shipping" them. I just thought each of the main characters would have their own path and rarely ever interact with each other, so expecting Lucy and Maximus to actually have a romance was just a silly thought in the back of my head. But then it actually happened! (And this is far from the first time me shipping some random seemingly impossible ship actually came true; I guess I'm lucky in at least this regard.)

I do agree with the main criticism of the ship, that's it's totally rushed. It basically starts halfway through an already extremely short season. But something being rushed doesn't necessarily make it bad. The criticism that it's forced and they have no chemistry is total bull to me, though. They're literally so cute together and seem truly in love. And it makes sense, Lucy was quite literally raised to have a relationship right out of the gate.

Also, me being in an interracial relationship myself, I loveeee to see it portrayed in media. And I love that Lucy is a little perverted! Again, she was kind of raised up that way and she doesn't really view it as being "dirty" or anything, but to the viewers, it catches us off guard how casually she is about everything. And I loved that Maximus was more timid and uncomfortable with the topic at first. It's usually the other way around in media, so it's nice to see a shy guy and a flirty gal for a change.

I have mixed feelings about the show in general, but my favorite part was absolutely VaultKnight. I wanna come back for season two solely to see how their relationship progresses. I hope they wind up endgame, but I do have bad luck when it comes to the ships I'm passionate about always falling through in the end. But here's hoping. I love them!

[erika111111]

Nah, who made the Beyoncé/Dua Lipa edit with the Don't Move bar from Until Dawn? 😭😭😭

[erika111111]

thinking about how the world would be better if more people understood the differences between 'the author failed to tell the story they wanted to tell' and 'the author told the story they wanted to tell, but they told it badly' and 'the author told the story they wanted to, and they told it well, but it wasn't the story I wanted to read'

[erika111111]

Can I just say... Hannah and Beth curly hair supremacy? Beth totally straightens hers and Hannah does a bit too but her hair is still noticeably wavy.

[erika111111]

Until Dawn characters' full names headcanons

Joshua Robert Washington - Taken from his father, Bob. I assume Bob is short for Robert anyway, lol.

Hannah Melinda Washington - Taken from her mother, Melinda. Also, she got to be named after her mother instead of Beth because she's older (by a few minutes, but still, lol).

Elizabeth Antonella Washington - Taken from her actress, Antonella Lentini. While I do believe Beth is probably her full first name because other characters' full first names appear in the game, I like to headcanon her as Elizabeth anyway. I don't think it's fair that she's the only one without a nickname, lol.

Christopher Noah Hartley - Taken from his actor, Noah Fleiss. Christopher Noah Hartley is suchhhh a cool name. Rolls off the tongue so nicely.

Emily Sakura Davis - Taken from her actress, Nichole Sakura. Emily is such a Nichole for me, I found it important to emphasize her Japanese heritage because for some reason they didn't make her last name Japanese. Also, Nichole Sakura changed her last name back from Bloom to Sakura for the same reason so I think it's fitting.

Jessica Summer Riley - Taken from the 2010 beta version of her character. At least I think Summer was supposed to be Jess, but it is hard to tell exactly... Regardless, Jess is such a summer.

Michael Scott Munroe - Taken from the 2010 beta version of his character. Again, I'm not 100% sure if Scott is supposed to be Mike, but they have a similar design and role in the story so I'd say so.

I don't have the others yet. I couldn't think of ones that sounded good enough to me. But yeah, here's these.

Also, I did want to put Asian heritage into the Washington family's names as well (stop whitewashing the Washingtons!!!), but I also couldn't think of anything good enough. So take these for now please.

[erika111111]

Seriously, what did people want Mike to do when Handigo gets a hold of Josh? He's in a body of water, he has no weapons, he's half the thing's size, he's already seen this thing tear people apart. Did you really want him to fist fight her? He would've been killed instantly and Josh still would've died/been taken anyway.

I think people use it as an excuse to not like Mike and claim he's not heroic, but... for starters, there's already plentyyyy of other reasons not to like Mike (I love him, btw, but criticism of him as a person is still valid). And secondly, Mike literally chased after his girlfriend in the middle of the night during a snowstorm in a tank top after she got abducted by God knows who. Not to mention he'll kill himself in a fire just to make sure the wendigos don't get out and kill the rest of his friends. He's pretty damn heroic, if you ask me.

But he's not stupid. These are things he could reasonably pull off and actually save people with. Do you expect him to slowly wade through water and plant a fist in Handigo's back? People need to get real. If Mike had a gun or a flare or something, I think he would've tried to help Josh. But he quite literally had nothing to defend himself or Josh with. His explanation in his police interview was completely reasonable and accurate--there was no use in the both of them dying.

Note: There is the fact that no matter what, Handigo can never kill Mike. Intentional? I'm not sure. But even if she'll never actually kill Mike because she still loves him or whatever, Mike had literally no way of knowing that. In some cases, he doesn't even know that she's Hannah at all.

Sorry for the rant, I just see people complain about this a lot and try to write it differently in fan fictions and stuff, and I just don't get it...

[erika111111]

The fact that people think Emily had no right to be mad about Mike almost shooting her is completely insane to me. Yes, I understand that serial killers and monsters are a whole 'nother avenue of trauma, but would you not be angry or traumatized by someone you used to love and trust nearly shooting you in your face? I think she does have the right to vent to the police interviewers about that.

[erika111111]

The Quary and queer-baiting

It's a pretty known issue within The Quarry fanbase that this game basically set us up with two gay couples for them to just... not happen. In fact, it's almost as if the game rubs it in the players' faces that they don't, won't, and can't happen, besides the first half of the game setting them up rather clearly. It feels like the writers completely abandoned the idea halfway through, or for some reason just wanted to draw players in with the concept of queer relationships/characters just to rip it away in the end.

Disclaimer: This topic has been in my rough drafts for like, nearly two years at this point. I updated and added some stuff, but forgive me if I missed any crucial details.

So in the beginning, a lot of people wind up shipping both Ryan x Dylan (Rylan) and Emma x Abigail (Blygbank). Let's start with Blygbank since it's the shorter of the two.

So we do establish that Emma had a boyfriend, but the keyword is "had." To be fair, Jacob and Kaitlyn talk about it for the entire first section and that's the whole reason this game even happens, since Jacob wants another shot with Emma. So this straight couple is obviously very prominent. But, throughout the entire game, from multiple characters (Emma herself, Kaitlyn, Dylan, Ryan), it's repeatedly stated that Emma wants to move on from Jacob. Then we're introduced to Abigail, who's first scene is of her drawing a sketch of Emma. It's established that Emma and Abi are good friends. Maybe Emma and Abi will start a relationship? But, then we're introduced to Abi's crush on Nick. So I guess that idea just got blown out of the water...

To be fair, Emma's lack of interest in Jacob and Abi sketching Emma all happens very quickly within the first chapter. Perhaps it's the players' fault for jumping to that conclusion so quickly... but still.

What's more disappointing is that Abi and Nick are basically useless after chapter 6. There is actually yet another opportunity to develop some Blygbank relationship, but once again, it goes nowhere. Nick is bit and infected and starts acting absolutely horrible toward Abi, which very noticeably turns Abi off from him. Then Nick disappears for the rest of the game. But given Abi survives, she'll have another opportunity to have some alone time with Emma. Yet nothing of actual importance is discussed here. Not Emma kissing Nick. Not how Nick treated Abi. Not where Abi and Emma's relationship stands. Not where Emma and Jacob's relationship stands. We do get a moment where Emma reveals some of her true colors and she says that she needs Abi and she's been great to her, but once again, this goes nowhere. I guess we could see this as romantic, but Abi kind of seems just tired of and annoyed with Emma at this point and doesn't comment much about any of it. Basically there's just no conclusion. We have literally no idea where their relationship stands, romantically or otherwise. It's a huge missed opportunity.

While you can't get both of these scenes in the same playthrough, they do also push the Blygbank agenda. If you can get the "Nobody's Fool" route where Emma and Jacob reunite and Jacob tells her the truth, Emma will be completely and entirely done with Jacob. No more joking, no more mixed signals, she's just done. Which is kind of where the entire game was leading to from the beginning anyway, but this route gives it to us loud and clear. This accompanied with Abi and Nick going south again leaves us with a Blygbank option, but obviously, we get none of it. I know there's not much time left in the game by the time any of these scenes happen; maybe this is something else that could've been developed if we got any post-credits scenes, police interviews, I don't know. Again, maybe I'm reaching way too far with this one, but I think there's pretty good reason to ship Blygbank and assume maybe that's the direction they planned on going in. But I digress...

Onto part two, we have Rylan. And... Ryka? I have no idea what the ship name for Ryan x Kaitlyn is and I don't know if shippers for this couple even exist, so I'll just call them Ryka. And they're not a queer couple, but it's necessary to talk about the two at the same time.

I'll be honest, during my first several playthoughs/watchthroughs of The Quarry, I had no idea Kaitlyn was interested in Ryan. They do not do a good job of establishing that at all, and you can very easily miss every single opportunity for it to be brought up until chapter freaking nine. So honestly, Kaitlyn is pretty much a non-factor here. Dylan's crush on Ryan is very vocal and obvious, and the two are paired up very often throughout the game. Even if Kaitlyn's crush on Ryan was more well-known, Dylan is still the more obvious one between the two because, again, Dylan and Ryan are always paired up together.

Ryan is rather... uninterested in everything and everyone. But between everyone, he seems closest to Dylan. Of course, this can depend on how you play as both characters. You can make them argue A LOT, and Ryan won't always say the "I'm a bit closer to Dylan, I guess" line, but regardless, there's some scenes with them being close that will always happen. The most prominent scene between them is when they're walking to the radio hut and Dylan actually opens up to Ryan about who he is and what he likes to do. Ryan will have unwavering, non-negotiable interest in Dylan as a person here. Sure, they CAN kiss at the firepit, but Ryan can also choose to kiss Kaitlyn. They can joke around about the Bizarre Yet Bonafide podcast name, or they can't. They can agree over the gun, or they can argue instead. Ryan can cheer Dylan on or rush him. They can grab the phones and go or Dylan can annoy Ryan so much, he'll yell at him. Point being, there's a lot of options you can take with their relationship. You can make them close or you can make them bicker. Regardless, Dylan will remain interested. And regardless, they will have this intimate moment together on the way to the radio hut. Point being again, it's veryyyy obvious this a queer relationship in the making. Justice Smith is even a queer actor, and Miles Robbins is a very vocal supporter of the LGBTQ+ community.

Then Laura comes and fucks the whole thing up. And I love Laura, mind you, but for some reason the writers decided to take this whole ship and spin it on its head when Laura arrives.

Before we get into the Laura segment, let me point a few more things out. I personally thought that Ryan was maybe oblivious to Dylan and Kaitlyn's feelings, didn't really know which one he liked more, or most prominently, maybe he was asexual. When Emma tells him to kiss either Dylan or Kaitlyn, he asks if he can kiss both. I thought that was kind of an odd thing to say unless he either liked both or just didn't care. Also, he can ask Laura, "You're doing all of this for a boy?" He really seems like he doesn't understand this kind of love or investment in another person romantically. Upon discovering that line, I pretty much accepted Ryan as asexual.

But then he's not asexual. And he's not oblivious to Dylan and Kaitlyn's feelings. And he's not interested in either of them. According to Justice Smith himself, when Laura asks Ryan who he likes more and he answers with "Maybe neither," it means that Ryan has a crush on Laura. And I truly don't get this, for several reasons. For starters, yes, Laura is doing all of this for a boy--her boyfriend, Max. She literally has a boyfriend already. And Ryan already had a thing going with Dylan. So why, seven whole chapters through this entire game, giving us LauraMax and Rylan, do they suddenly pair together Lyan? It's just a creative decision I will never understand. Maybe if Laura and Max had broken up, but still. She's not reintroduced until chapter 7 so we've already had six chapters of Rylan still. Maybe they could have made it more obvious from the beginning that Ryan wasn't interested in Dylan or Kaitlyn, but they just didn't do that. They particularly paired Ryan and Dylan up all the time and made them close. So, I call queer-baiting.

Of course, Lyan never goes anywhere. The only ending you can get that involves any kind of romance is actually Laura and Max reuniting. Laura and Ryan's romance happens in basically two seconds and there's barely any romance to even speak of. Laura does flirt with him a lot, but I believe that's due to the werewolf curse, as she stops that kind of behavior after her curse is lifted. They do seem to be close friends by then, she just doesn't flirt anymore or make weird comments. And really neither does Ryan. Sure, you don't always get the "maybe neither" line and you can choose less flirty options sometimes, but then they have a whole ass The Lovers card. So it's extremely obvious what the developers were going for. I just don't understand why suddenly go for this couple eight chapters through after already establishing a gay couple with Ryan himself and Dylan.

The only other thing we get on this matter is Dylan and Kaitlyn discussing Ryan's relationship with Laura on their way to the scrapyard. The most positive outcome for Rylan here is when Dylan says he and Ryan got close and Kaitlyn tells him "There's always next year." So it does give a bit of hope to this ship, leaving it open-ended despite the sudden occurrence of Lyan. Of course, you might not always get these lines, and Dylan and Kaitlyn can both agree "screw Ryan" and move on. So... I don't fucking know. It's like they purposefully set players up to support this clearly laid out queer ship of Rylan to then make it all insanely confusing and open-ended and piss people off. I think they really fumbled the bag with this one, and it's why I have a hard time shipping Ryan with literally anyone. It's all just a confusing mess.

I'd definitely say that the whole Supermassive Games chain of video games definitely got less queer-baity and more queer accepting over time. Just a few months later, The Devil in Me is released and they give us a Lesbian ship with Jamie and Erin. Also, with the Until Dawn remake, they cranked up the Jemily and Climbing Class. Not by much, mind you, but regardless, they acknowledged the popularity of these queer couples in the fanbase and added some crumbs for the players. It makes me wonder if they'll ever delve on Blygbank or Rylan in the future. I'm doubting The Quarry will ever get a remaster/remake with added content like Until Dawn, but who knows, I guess. As I said, both ships are pretty much left open-ended. But for now, I think The Quarry has a serious problem with queer-baiting, or maybe they just had no idea how to handle writing queer characters. I really don't know.

Lastly, none of this was supposed to be negative or attacking any single one of the ships mentioned in this post. I don't know how anything I said could be interpreted that way, but you never know. This post was just supposed to be informative. I hear a lot of people criticizing the queer-baiting within this game, as they should, and I decided to make an informative post covering all of the points and how I believe they screwed up the opportunities to put in these queer couples and somewhat alienate their queer audience.

[erika111111]

Due to an eternal Until Dawn obsession, I was watching the Ghostbusters Halloween special and couldn't help but see Mike, Chris, and Matt.

[erika111111]

Another great example of misogyny is Emily being called a cheater but Mike (who was the touchy one) has rarely ever been called a cheater

[erika111111]

What mental illness does Josh really have?

On my first several play-throughs/watch-throughs, I thought that he was schizophrenic. But eventually I found the psychiatric report during Sam's section and it gives some interesting information.

So Josh is given antidepressants (Phenelzine during his treatment with Dr. Hill). Antidepressants can actually be used for schizophrenia in some cases, but what's interesting is the withdrawal side effects. Chris states "he's definitely off his meds" and "he's sick." So it's pretty obvious he hasn't been taking his medication lately. So let's take a look at some of the withdrawal side effects.

Hallucinations - I think this is the most prominent one, and also a strong indicator for him being schizophrenic. But the withdrawal side effects from his antidepressants also give him hallucinations as well. I don't think I really need to explain this one much, the entire sequence where he sees Hannah and Beth and also the Dr. Hill sequences are obviously hallucinations.

Paranoia - This is pretty similar to the above and I think they both go hand in hand.

Aggressiveness - I think the best example of this would be when he punches Ashley, as they make a specific point out of it. "You punched Ashley, you piece of shit!" "I got... so mad!" It was literally like Josh couldn't control himself.

Slurred speech - A lot of people point out that Josh talks very slowly and slurred sometimes. Now, we never see what he sounds/talks like before he's off his meds, so it potentially could have been the same, but I think it's worth pointing out regardless.

Ataxia - A common symptom of ataxia is a lack of coordination and unbalanced movement. Josh walks with a limp; a lot of people notice this during the Psycho/Sam chase scene.

So this is all very interesting and something to take into consideration. The fanbase seems to accept Josh being schizophrenic as a fact, including me for a while, but this could prove otherwise. Of course, there's no definitive proof either way. He could be schizophrenic given the wrong medication. He could be depressed and suffering from horrible withdrawals. It's never stated specifically, but again, I think it's worth pointing out that a lot of the withdrawal symptoms are what Josh is going through in the game.

Honestly, I think both schizophrenia and medication withdrawals are important to portray in media, so I'm happy either way. I have several family members with schizophrenia and was even the caretaker for one of them at one point. It disgusts me that there's such a stigma around schizophrenia and people view anyone with this condition as a monster. So I like that, if Josh is schizophrenic, he can be portrayed in a sympathetic light. On the other hand, I've personally dealt with antidepressant withdrawals. Despite being on meds that were supposed to help my depression, I was still so insanely depressed and I just stopped taking them because I felt like they weren't helping me enough anyway. I don't think these feelings and actions are portrayed enough in media at all, so I'd like some representation of that as well.

I feel like I'll get some negative pushback for this post, but in no way is this supposed to be negative. It's literally just supposed to be informative and also, for me, it's a win-win because I have a personal connection to both options. And I'm sick and tired of ableism and it's nice to see some good representation either way.

[erika111111]

[erika111111]

I finally found it! This is the post I mentioned why I love the new remake trophy "I know what you did last year" so much! 🤣

Guys I just described Until Dawn to my father and he called it "wendigo knows what you did last summer"

I have no idea what to say to this

[erika111111]

Liking Ashley on the Until Dawn subreddit is like walking into a church and loudly declaring "hail Satan" with the way people act there 💀