#I have many things to talk about w/ my disaster gays in a separate post

[midoristeashop]

Mending my sins and finally catching up with lights of Avalon!!!1!! @alkalinefrog

I swear kai your characterization of everyone is so perfect and charming UGH it’s like falling in love with them all over again

Huge special shoutout to @bignostalgias for being the bulk of the inspo for their designs! Hic, jack, jame, and em designs are next <3

[teruthecreator]

if you're comfortable, could you say what specifically you hated about the finale? i never got into amnesty but i liked balance so i would like to know how disappointed i should be ://

okay i’m gonna explain this in-detail exactly Once bc i’m trying rlly hard to just forget about the whole epilogue and keep it moving like that shit never happened, so for anyone else who is asking me why i don’t like the finale (and im not saying you’re wrong for asking, anon, it just seems that when you vocally do not like a thing there are hundreds of people who come out of the woodworks to ask you why and i think thats kinda Huh, Weird of everyone but like whatever) i’m gonna lay it all out here on the table and you can take this as you will. 

i’m not gonna be getting into fistfights with people abt this so if you disagree please don’t try and banter with me. i am running on

also, CRITICISM OF ART DOES NOT MEAN CRITICISM OF THE ARTIST. I AM NOT CRITICIZING THE MCELROYS AS HUMAN BEINGS, BUT RATHER THEIR ARTISTIC DECISIONS IN TAZ: AMNESTY. MORE PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS A SEPARATION BETWEEN ART AND ARTIST, AND ONCE YOU (AS AN ARTIST) POST A PIECE, IT BECOMES SUBJECT TO CRITICISM. I AM NOT BRINGING GRIFFIN, JUSTIN, TRAVIS, OR CLINT’S CHARACTERS INTO QUESTION; I AM SIMPLY GIVING A CRITICISM ON THE SHOW THEY’VE CREATED AS A WORK OF ART. 

oh, this goes without saying, but i will anyway: SPOILERS FOR AMNESTY (IN GENERAL, BUT ALSO FOR EPISODE 36) 

i’m gonna start off by saying, i don’t think the whole episode was a total disaster. there are two things mainly that have ruined the whole experience for me, but for the most part i thought the like first 2 hours of this episode were a lot of fun! the fight scene was a little bogged down in the rolls imo, but it didn’t deter me too much from the overarching boss battle. the intro was a sick concept, i enjoyed the callback bits spliced in w newly scripted bits from mentioned past encounters, that was all well and good. i loved beacon in the episode, and god do i wish he stayed for the whole thing. 

my problem mainly sits with the epilogue, which is why i think the whole episode turns sour in my mind. because the epilogue is supposed to be what satiates your desire to know more, right? not to reference balance too much (bc these are two completely different stories w different premises, and for people to so readily compare them is kinda wack. that being said, they are two stories made by the same people that use an epilogue to wrap up the loose ends, so im gonna make this one comparison), but the epilogue told us, the listener, all the things we wanted to know about after the day of story of song. we got to know what they did, a little bit of their interpersonal relationships, and we even got a big group scene with the killarey wedding! 

this epilogue, though, feels like it left so much still on the table. one of those things i will swing back to later because it is the largest part of my argument, but after all of this time we still don’t know why everyone at the lodge got exiled! no one talks about it! we don’t know how dani ended up there, or jake, or barclay, or moira, or anyone! they don’t reference the banishments at all, which i think is a huge shortcoming figuring that is the core premise as to why these characters exist in our pc’s world in the first place. 

i also feel like the concept of the worlds being divided for a long time is kind of a dumb way to go about framing what they do After The Fact. like, they could have had those scenes happen without the looming concept of them being divided, especially when their big reunion scene is like 2 minutes long and basically does nothing. what would have been a cooler premise is if billy connected the worlds, and the worlds worked together in rebuilding themselves. we still could’ve had the same bits happen (for the most part), but i just think that whole separation bit kinda alienated the pc’s (especially thacker). 

but everything up to aubrey’s epilogue bit is fine. i have some problems, but it’s fine. where i started to completely abandon the work itself though is duck’s bit, and i’m gonna get into it by saying this: I know Justin Mcelroy is not legally required to make all of his characters gay, but this whole scene was just a big reminder to me that this show is done by 4 straight white men

and yeah, my big problem with this scene is the fact that justin had to make Duck/Minerva a thing. because it adds nothing to the story while also being a very skeevy concept in-general, and it reduces minerva’s character down to the Hero’s Girlfriend trope and it’s so comphet and she doesn’t deserve it. 

my first grievance with this: It adds nothing to the story. 

had justin not even mentioned the relationship part of their interaction before the scene actually took place, this scene would be like every other scene involving duck and minerva prior to this. duck says honey once, and even that could’ve been played off as duck just being affectionate to his friends (which is a thing, i call several of my friends “my love” irl and it isn’t a big deal). minerva doesn’t even use pet names, she calls duck by his full name, which is exactly how she addressed him in every other scene! duck’s speech is a genuine heart-puller, but it was completely soured by the fact that justin had to premise this entire scene by saying duck and minerva are a thing. 

my second grievance: it’s a skeevy-as-all-hell concept. 

this whole premise is nasty seven ways from sunday, and it is my biggest problem with duck’s bit as a whole. for starters, and i think more people need to mention this, minerva meets duck on the night of his 18th birthday. which means duck has literally just stopped being legally considered a minor before minerva appears before him. and honestly, i would still consider duck a minor in this case because he has literally just turned 18!!! his brain has not developed past one of a 17-year-old on the exact date of his birthday, and i argue it will not until he is at least in his twenties. keep in mind, your brain does not stop developing until you are about 25. so while in the legal sense, duck is an adult, in both the mental and emotional sense at that exact moment, duck is still a minor. AND he’s still in high school, as referenced in his response to her call to duty: “i got class tomorrow”. and minerva is old enough to have become the minister of defense for her homeworld, go through an entire war, and have several other chosen ones (including leo tarkesian, who is at least 20 years older than duck) before meeting duck. so that makes her much, much older than duck when she meets him. and i don’t care if they had barely any interaction after that first moment (though they did, as justin legit talks about when he introduces minerva as a concept to the show), that still establishes their initial interaction at a massive age difference. which, regardless of anything, makes their eventual relationship so genuinely messed up. 

sure, you can argue that when you get older age doesn’t make that much of a difference, and i would agree. my mother is 53 and her husband is 63, that’s ten years. but my mother and step mother did not meet at 8 and 18, they met at 50 and 60. the initial interaction makes all the difference between “older people meeting and having a relationship” and “a very messed up situation”. 

also, in this same argument, taking the mentor-student relationship and turning it into a romantic relationship IS SO MESSED UP!!!! GENUINELY AND HONESTLY MESSED UP!!! i feel like i don’t need to explain this because there have been so many examples already as to why this is a relationship you Should Not turn romantic, but i will anyway because it frustrates me so much that justin completely glosses over this!!! the power dynamic of a mentor-student relationship, in whatever way it is portrayed, displays a power balance that is heavily leaning to one side. there is not an equal distribution of power amongst the two because one person is teaching the other. the one person is weak to the others wills and whims because of lack of experience. think of your high school teacher or college professor; if you started a relationship with them, people would raise so many questions because you are not at equals to the teacher/professor. even if they treat you different, and even if they no longer teach you, it all has to do with the initial interaction. and minerva was still duck’s mentor up until either episode 34 or 35, when she handed off the title of Herald of the Astral Mind to duck. that means for nearly all of their interactions, there was a mentor-student dynamic. to have that turn into a romantic relationship is so sketchy and weird and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

my third grievance: it reduces minerva’s character down to a girlfriend trope, and it’s comphet as hell 

my friend tin (@taako–waititi) phrased this so well in the big group chat im in w her, so imma just quote her on this and then go into the comphet stuff: 

“i was dming max about it and they also mentioned, quote, ‘her story was never about romance. it reduced her down to ‘competent woman becomes endgame girlfriend’ trope’ and they are so right it makes me fucking pissed. regardless of any ‘mutual respect’ and ‘emotional intimacy’ kind of thing going on that some people are arguing for, it’s something that didn’t need to happen because minerva’s character becomes that. my thing is mutual respect and emotional intimacy between two people can. exist. without it being. romantic. like. friendship is. also valid. i personally don’t think that mutual respect and emotional intimacy are two buttons that you press to make the machine churn out a romance” 

not only does it reduce minerva’s character to tropes, but it also is extremely comphet for a woman who is so heavily wlw-coded or lesbian-coded and it just angers me. you could argue that she could be bi, but if we look at canon for just its face-value, the only romantic interaction she ever has is with a man, which basically makes her straight. this isn’t like aubrey’s situation, where travis clearly states she is a bi woman who is just in a relationship with another woman in amnesty. griffin doesn’t state anything about minerva’s sexuality and then she’s paired off with a man right at the end. and you could argue that she isn’t wlw or lesbian-coded, but i am not the only one who is wlw and thinks this, so i feel like i have more of a ground to stand on in this opinion. and this just feels so, like, textbook compulsory heteronormativity it made me feel physically sick when i heard this bit in the podcast. 

so that’s my first big issue with the finale, fully explained. my second issue with the epilogue is that ned’s death continues to be disappointing and his character arc is never completed, which just tanks the whole show for me. 

i’ve talked about this several times since ep 28 about how ned’s death was stupid and did nothing for his character arc, but i’m gonna reiterate my main points for the people who find this post without knowing my whole blog:

1. ned’s main interpersonal conflicts are just brought to the surface and never fully delved into before his sudden death. ned doesn’t ever get to explain his history with boyd and why he had to steal shade tree to mama or barclay or really anyone besides vaguely to aubrey. 

2. every character is just immediately expected to feel sad about ned’s death, despite the tension that still remains right up until the very end. aubrey shouldn’t have even known that the shapeshifter framed ned because that’s all explained once she goes to sylvain, but i think travis just assumed she did because he heard the interaction between ned, mama, and barclay. so she should’ve had Way more conflicting feelings about the whole thing, but ned’s death is just angst-bait so that doesn’t happen.

3. ned’s death doesn’t make roll sense because clint rolled a mixed success and mixed successes, by definition, are supposed to be less severe moves than a failed roll (which gives the gm the ability to make a hard move). there isn’t really anything harder to do to a character than kill them, but even if you wanted to argue that if clint failed the roll the hard move would’ve been ned failing and letting dani get shot, it still doesn’t change the fact that clint rolled a mixed success when slamming into the pizza hut sign at full velocity and came out of that alive (severely injured, naturally, but still alive). 

so, yeah, there’s that. and then theres the fact that griffin doesn’t ever give us any other scenes involving ned directly. ned only becomes a reference from 28 on, which is so disappointing given ned’s importance to the other two pcs. and i understand that the mcelroys have a lot of trauma related to death, but griffin shouldn’t have killed ned off then if he did not want to talk about death in graphic detail. we all have trauma. we all want to avoid topics. but to kill ned off and then never talk about his death in great relation to the others is a genuine disservice to ned’s character. 

the day episode 28 aired was the same day i buried my grandmother. i would have loved if death wasn’t brought up, but i don’t control the podcast. the mcelroys do; they had the ability to avoid this topic in a more servicing way to the characters and they didn’t. that isn’t to say they are bad people for not doing it, but it makes the finale even more disappointing because it means we never get the full rounding out of ned’s character arc. he becomes this like brief reference that is, once again, angst-bait or emotional fuel and i feel like he didn’t deserve that. he deserved a genuine reference, a genuine moment. even a dream sequence i would have appreciated!!! 

griffin had sylvain directly point at ned in aubrey’s flashback in ep 35, and then did nothing about what that could have implicated in the finale. it sours the entire episode in a major way and disappointed me immensely. there should have been more done with that topic and there wasn’t and i will never forget how deeply it hurt me and turned me away from canon as a whole. not to be ned kin on main, but ned was the backbone of this show and the exact moment he left was the exact moment the whole thing went downhill. it turned less into a story about growth and adversary and amnesty and more into a waiting game for when this very loose end was going to get wrapped up. 

i wanted to enjoy this episode. i tried so hard, y’all. but just the thought of ned loomed over me the entire time and i was waiting for a more proper completion to his arc, and it never happened. and coupled with that very bad and skeevy duck/minerva bit i was just so frustrated and hurt last night. 

so, yeah, that’s my whole spiel. you are free to disagree with me, but keep that opinion to yourself because i’m not getting into it with anyone. i will just block you; it’s better for us both, anyway. 

[survivormagictreehouse]

Episode #8 “CAN YOU SAY MESS” -Cindi

https://youtu.be/kJt8-zZe8Ck

-this is fucked up i have to confess tribal is in 4 mins.. theres a bunch of stuff about this vote why do people know zch is in a 5 person alliance .. . .. . .. . . . . . why is cindi voting out zach why do i have individual immunity lmao i want zach on the jury ://////////

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNbHN000ka8

-alright ladies we made it to the merge. finally back together with Gavin loml. also it seems that Jess, Zach and Keegan missed me as well based on how the whole touchy subjects thing went for me so thats cute. ALSO TIMMY Z IS HERE AND WE ONLY HAVE TO CALL HIM TIMMY BECAUSE THE OTHER ONE IS GONE!!! side bar: timmy and i are bestie pals and im so excited to finally be on a tribe together umm thats pretty much all i've got for now. also there are only 5 OG Annie's left in this game and 3 of them are working with me for the moment so I think I am in a pretty decent spot. apparently the OG Annies called me and Jess threats so they can go honestly. but half of them are already gone now i think so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-this tribal is about to be really messy and im really tired of cindi's bullshit about refusing to change her vote

-MERGE BABY!!!! WOOOOOO~!!!  So, This tribe seems cool!I;m mainly excited i made merge. My allies are currently Keegan, Jess and I think Gavin. I want to ally with the people I haven't played with yet. sorry this is short

-So I feel like I was totally on the bottom after the Jay vote. I feel like I can’t turn to my old allies (although I have) and like. In touchy subjects when I was voted most likely to be voted out next I had like one person come to me and be like “oh that’s so not true. I don’t see you as next” but like. I wasn’t even surprised that I got it. I am kinda relying on allying with new people but you can’t force people to ally without you. Everytime I have tried to ally with people I have already played with it fails. So now that narrows it down to Collin, Cindi, and maybe Rachael. But I need To get close to them first. Collin also knows how I played in Tashirojima. He has brought it up to me 2 separate times now, so I’m scared he might think I’m going to play like that again and try and target me or something. Idk. I’m just a big ball of scared.

-So 5 people of got immunity. I got like 9th. I'm real upset about it. I know it doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Anyway. I;m like 90% sure I;m going home but I'll try my best to ya know. not. I really hope I can work with collin although I don't really have an alliance. so lets see how this goes.

https://youtu.be/wLA8Pt4bXlQ

https://youtu.be/r-8Y2n2NGJo

-Welcome to Merge O' Clock! We finally made the merge, although unless I'm dumb (which is entirely possible) we haven't yet made the jury. The post says a final 3 with 9 jury members, and there is 13 of us left. Interesting. But anyways, I made the merge and I'm super happy about that. It's very exciting to win the previous season and actually be in the running to win this season. Like I feel like I've played a pretty good game so far and I have enough alliances and strong bonds to make it far. Unless I get targeted for that reason. In terms of trust rankings, lemme do that real quick: Most Trusted JESS ZACH GAVIN RACHAEL TIMMY BIRCH CINDI CHIPS BODHI ALI = RUTHIE = COLLIN I've currently got my Canadian Alliance with JESS and BIRCH, as well as an alliance with GAVIN, ZACH and RACHAEL. There's also the alliance with TIMMY, GAVIN, JESS and ZACH thought I don't know if that one will stick around much. I'm trying hard to build a relationship with CINDI, who is amazing. If I can get all these things aligned, we can vote out RUTHIE, ALI, CINDI, CHIPS, COLLIN and BODHI before there's really anything to worry about. But the game is never that easy. My biggest goal right now is to make sure I win immunity for this first vote. The first merge vote can be super telling where everyone is standing and I need to make sure that the target doesn't somehow fall on me. I have to stay safe for at least this vote. 

-Guess who’s immune at the merge tribal council! THIS GUY! And also COLLIN, JESS, GAVIN and BODHI. Surprise twist where five people win immunity, which is crazy. I’m mostly just vibing right now and seeing where people’s heads are at. Been having some nice conversation with ALI, COLLIN and CINDI. Will I work with them ever? I’m not sure. I’m very happy that JESS and GAVIN are safe. I trust them a lot and hope we can work together moving forward. I just need to make sure I keep my head low enough to avoid a target but high enough that people know this is my game to win. 

-So if everything I have been told so far is true, this is going to be a very messy vote. Initially it was BIRCH and CHIPS whose names were on the line but as the day progressed it became between ZACH and BIRCH. And honestly there is merit in voting for either of them. ZACH is a very good player with a metric crap tonne of connections but I've also been loyal to him since the start of the game. BIRCH could be a super loyal ally moving forward but I've also betrayed them at a previous point in the game. Currently, it seems like BIRCH, CHIPS, RUTHIE, GAVIN are for sure voting for ZACH. Currently, it seems like ZACH, RACHAEL, CINDI, COLLIN are for sure voting for BIRCH. But also as I was typing this out, BODHI created an alliance chat with COLLIN, GAVIN, JESS and myself. I'm not even sure if it's an alliance or if BODHI just wanted to make a joke about the Illuminati. Mom? Come pick me up I don't want to be here anymore. 

-okay so its merge time... and i've been doing bad at confessing because i've been going through it but its time to reassess and get back into GEAR. so timmy died last tribal, he was kinda being bananas and targetting rachael in a really flawed way (bodhi would've probably been the move). i like rachael even though i'm about to come after her friendgroup full force, and it just wasn't the time. also... timmy is the only person i've played with multiple times who has outplaced me each time so KJFDSA... was biased to end that. only other risk of that on this tribe is bodhi, but might be sending him packing sooner rather than later. anyway so merge and first things FIRST. I FINALLY. FINALLY. get put on a tribe with JESS. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY FOR MY SPIDERMAN POINTING AT SPIDERMA QUEEN. i'm telling her too much (me telling j-names too much who is shocked), but we are gonna mob boss it as two tribe figureheads and keep it PUSHING. Otherwise I love gavin… I used my connection with sarah g to him for clout because im shameless but I love him and he seems relatively disconnected on the tribe… he looks like kori who would catfish games so im like looks around but he gives good energy hope he likes me. chips is a SWEETHEART and was also on the bottom so looking to scoop him up. Okay so birch. Birch is lovely, birch played in my first tumblr survivor season. Birch has SO much personality… in chats of 2+ people, but in our PMs a better name for them is the SAHARAH. Love your lack of energy, go give us NOTHING. But what can you do. I ALSO might need them in even tho if I get one more ‘Nice!’ from them as a response I will perform walking from the cast. Keegan hasn’t messaged me yet…taps foot. Will not be messaging a MAN first not on my watch. Zach is sweet but he is a CHILD AND I DON’T TRUST CHILDREN IN games. I also just booby trapped him in the idol hunt so… looks around. I also have one key and I need ONE MORE TO get into this mystical last book which im ON A MISSION TO DO. In other news collin leaked the 6 person alliance so looks around… that man has such  white gay who wins games energy and im not having it. Ideal Bootlist: Zach > Keegan > Bodhi > Collin > Cindi > Birch > Timmy > Rachael > Chips > Jess (F3: Me/Ruthie/Chips)

-okay so im deflated again. first off, the conglomerate of friends has got to go its so frustrating, the mesopotamia/svalbard gathering is really really disaster. they make their friend group so obvious and yet there is nothing we can do. the zach/collin/rachael/bodhi/cindi (?) svalbard/mesopotamia, PLUS people who voted with zach like keegan/timmy. its just so ANNOYING, can people WISE UP. i love jess, and im so so excited to work together but she also can be so slippery and wishywashy so its a real.. looks around, we need to wake cindi up. in other news... this tribe is really okay with letting collin win. he is misting EVERYONE and everyone is just sitting there and letting it happen. he has such white gay who just wins this game and everyone is gonna just LET HIM. final man i wanna complain about is keegan. LISTEN SIR, you will not catch me messaging a man first, so if you are upset about us having not spoken... then message me. then speak to me. dont tell people we havent spoken when i've made JUST AS MUCH EFFORT AS YOU. its not my fault you are so unbelievably dry in pms. grrrr i just HATE men and i have to deal with SO MANY on this tribe.

-okay so. we are maybe voting out the child i truly do not know. jess, gavin and cindi never dissed. open to working with me, not relying exclusively on pregame connections, literal legends. chips and birch are literally making it so hard to save them, they both have the biggest mouths i've EVER seen and the subtlety of a reversing truck. they have SUCH big mouths and are making the odds of a zach idol play INCREDIBLY high. also zach can go making majority alliances without me, its shenanigans like this that get you merge boot Sir.

-so im sitting on call with cindi as we plot the end of the zach. this is so sad i feel bad for him even tho this is definitely a good move for me AHHhhh.

-I'm crossing my fingers that I somehow pulled out a win for this creative comp (I doubt it because it looks like a toddler drew my tree house) because I have been very anti social! I've been talking to people in PM's a bit but the chat is just too many people and going too fast for me, LOL.   I just hope our little group of four will stick together.  I haven't talked to them as much since we merged but I guess it is good that we are all mingling and trying to maybe find some cracks? I've talked to Chips, Jess and some of the others from the merged tribe a good bit. 

Tea time!  So Chips wants to get Collin, Cindi, Rachael, Zach or Bodhi out because they are in some kind of alliance for some games they were in? I don't know I didn't know they were all so well connected lol. Alsooo Jess and I have a two person alliance consisting of ourselves that we are referring to as the Jills heh heh.  I guess right now I'm closest to Jess?  I am going to tell her whatever I hear name wise and feel she will do the same to me and I'm hoping that we can like, feed each other information and go to the end while also working with other people if that makes sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOgNIykteiM&feature=youtu.be

This round is a split between Zach and birch for who is going home this week. My treehouse got 6th so I sadly missed the immunity mark This week could possibly come down to just 1 vote. That’s why Zach and I traded powers so we can know who voted with who so we can make sure we understand who is voting where for next round. 

so I mad it to the merge! Good stuff! Anyway, the immunity challenge had a twist where multiple people are immune. And i am not. Thats what I get for taking a picture of a tree with 🦕! After results I hear no one saying a name and I don't like that because I don't want whatever random alliance that has already formed dictating... so I decide I'm going to spread Zach. I think he stands a good shot of success because he is well of not only in meta-gaming with relationships but also controlled the premerge. Sooooo I started saying him. Anyway, I am hoping people are actually voting with him them I will feel comfortable to make an alliance. Cindi is part of or immediately under the core group that has taken it upon themselves to say names. I heard from her they originally wanted to do my name because "easy" and not as well liked on the tribe. They were between me and Birch but Cindi said no thanks to me. Anyway, they have been spreading Birch and I have been spreading Zach and now I know it is between the two. If Zach has a power and takes control this round I am still happy I planted the seed and he should not be long for the game. Also, if they do not follow through in voting Birch and vote me instead I will feel better about my self for doing something because I feel loke I've really let down the hosts with how inactive I have been with the move. Hope bringing the drama redeems me just a little.

SO WHAT IS NOT THE TEA. LEAKING ASS LEAKERS IS NOT THE TEA. I'm in a giant alliance with Svalbard/Mesopotamia people and I'm like that is chill or whatever. But Gavin somehow knows about this alliance but doesn't know that I'm in it? So, like, uhhh don't like that. Don't want to fucking be associated with a majority alliance. Plus I don't want Chips being on the bottom. I love Chips. But love the way that Birch decided it was me voting them out? Also that they decided to just, like, give a name of everyone voting with them to Zach, who we're voting out. CAN YOU SAY MESS.

AHHHH! okay so this round has been absolutely CHAOTIC. from the stress of meeting so many new people, and trying to secure my place in this game going forward, to spending HOURS building a treehouse in the sims and being one of the five people to win immunity because of the twist i picked a few rounds ago (thanks for EXPOSING ME BY THE WAY). but going into the round, i honestly had my sights set on zach. he was by far the most connected and well-rounded player in the merge in my opinion, and something needed to be done about it. so, with that i (along with jess) had our work cut out for us. this move needed to happen NOW, or it might just never happen. together, we went around and planted seeds, spread information, and made sure that people realized zach not only had alliances with them, but everyone else in the game as well. i felt like i had made pretty strong connections with ali, cindi, and ruthie, and those were definitely three people we would need to make this move happen. so, we got to work spreading zach's name (with birch somehow exposing everyone but me basically). the hardest part for me was lying to rachael because i love her so much, but she was one of the people that were too close to zach. i knew i needed him to go, so she would be closer to me... but with that comes regaining and rebuilding the trust lost by lying to her as well, so once again, i have my work cut out for me in a totally different way--it will take time, but i think she will realize that she does need me, i just need to prove it to her.

https://youtu.be/KoXLMf5QhxI

https://youtu.be/8g2eyHMOZbI

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Click HERE to watch the Round 8 (merge) Cast Assessment!

[10moonymhrivertam]

An essay I wrote that Sherlock people might like

Being asked to use one of my readings to complicate another has been a trial for me. With these readings, I’ve had no great breakthrough like I did with the last set. I must consider, though, that John Duffy’s “Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices” has struck a chord to do with my non-academic real life at the moment, if only because I believe Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss to have been unethical in their writing of BBC’s Sherlock. Duffy says a writer must ask themselves: “What kind of writer do I wish to be? What are my obligations to my readers? What effects will my words have upon others, upon my community?” I answer that, whatever they wished, they were deceitful writers; they did not fulfill their obligations to their viewers; and while the community that was created from fans coming together over their writing was a positive effect of said writing, their latest (possibly last) impact on said community was profoundly negative.

If one looks solely at the contents of the Sherlock, it doesn’t appear deceitful. Up until series 4, it told a cohesive story that many people enjoyed! It was when you examine the relationship Gatiss and Moffat made with the show’s viewers, including outside interviews or commentary. Many fans were growing confused by series three, except a small segment of their fandom that was reading the show through a queer lens - that the writers’ endgame was for John Watson and Sherlock Holmes to become explicitly romantically involved. We were told this wasn’t the case several times, but found it difficult to believe because of quotes like - “[W]e do our best to surprise you with a combination of lies and deceit. So we’re never going to tell you what we’re going to do.” (IGN, Jan 2014). The deceit comes from telling us “Johnlock” (a name for the couple, like “Brangelina”) will never happen, but explicitly saying that “Romantic entanglement would complete [Sherlock] as a human being!” (The Lying Detective, BBC Sherlock) but having the big series finale be about a secret sibling rather than about completing Sherlock as a human being and giving him a romantic partner. In a show that strives to separate man from legend, the less deceitful choice would have been to explicitly pair him with anyone - Molly Hooper, John Watson, Irene Adler, Greg Lestrade - it wouldn’t have mattered who, so long as they had given him an explicit “romantic entanglement”.

Gatiss and Moffat had a pretty playful rapport with their fans - everyone spent two years together waiting for series 2. The conclusion of series 2 spawned idea after idea after idea - there was a popular idea that Sherlock had jumped off to land in a laundry truck, or that somehow Moriarty’s corpse had been disguised as Sherlock and was what had fallen off the building. We were shocked and delighted to see both of these ideas pop up in the first episode of season 3, and that was when we began to wonder if the writers were aware of our social media presence, and therefore aware of what we believed their obligations were. We believed that their obligations, as a gay man and a man who has several queer characters in his writing history (Jack Harkness, Madam Vastra, Jenny), who said that they were “correcting everyone else” (premiumhollywood.com) were to “make television history” (This one comes from Amanda Abbington at a San Diego Comic Con) and make Holmes fandom history by explicitly pairing John and Sherlock together. They have teased endlessly at the idea (Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson, and Angelo assume they are in a relationship within a day of meeting the other; others don’t go that far but allude that our main characters do have feelings for each other - in A Scandal In Belgravia, Irene Adler remarks, after John has punched Sherlock, that “Somebody loves you. If I had to punch that face I’d avoid your nose and teeth, too.”) and therefore teased with our expectations. They have never given it to us, and I and many other fans are worried they’ve left the show in a place they cannot pick back up from. Moriarty is gone. Mary is gone. Eurus is neutralized. Who else left is there to fight? And if there is not someone to fight, someone against whom they can prove their cleverness and humanity, where do they go? If they did manage to fix the disaster of series 4 and gave us what we believe they are obligated to give us in series 5, what will there be to fight against and develop their character?

Sometimes I’m not sure what I did with myself before I started watching Sherlock. I suppose I must have talked to people interested in Doctor Who or Harry Potter, but I did not roleplay or publish my writing as often as I have for Sherlock. The community I have discovered is fiercely intelligent, and beautifully, unabashedly queer. It’s a very open community, filled with every letter under the queer umbrella. Sherlock brought together these young, intelligent queer people; both who were already intense fans of Arthur Conan Doyle’s version of Sherlock, and those who only had a background cultural awareness. It was a beautiful community, and I cannot deny that in creating it, the writers did a good thing. But they must have had an awareness that their community was not just the straight, the cisgendered, the white. They must have known some of their most passionate fans were transgender or gay or depressed or otherwise mentally ill. And while I know it sounds very dramatic as a reaction, it happened. People were so invested that when this show confused them, failed them (perhaps deliberately, even, with the intention to jerk our chains before they give us what would make sense next series (but that’s a whole different conspiracy theory)), suicide hotlines had to be passed around online. People removed themselves from the community, at a loss or feeling at fault for spreading false hope. If they were aware of our internet presence, then they knew what we had riding on this series, and they willfully wrote something that confused even the cisgendered, the white, and the ‘my life doesn’t revolve around Sherlock’ fan. That devastated the queer and mentally ill who thought they would finally get to see themselves represented positively, but instead got a bisexual villain after the gay one they had already killed off. They made only their villains or side characters explicitly queer. They negatively impacted their queer fans, and turned us into ‘nutters’ (“So he was a conspiracy nutter - er, theorist?” “You’re only a nutter if you’re wrong” (The Hounds of Baskerville)).

By Duffy’s definition of ethics, the philosophical questions he adapted to writing? Moffat and Gatiss have proved themselves to be unethical writers in the extreme, with the dissonance between interviews and writing on the show, not meeting their obligation of fixing what everyone else has done wrong, and hurting the community they created just before disappearing for at least another two years. Even if they give us what we’ve been expecting come series 5, there are people whose trust they’ve damaged too much to be willing to return. They’ll stare, bewildered, from the sidelines, wondering what the hell was the issue with giving them this two years ago, why they had to be gaslit first.

Cornet, Roth. "Benedict Cumberbatch and Steven Moffat on Sherlock's Big Return for Season 3." IGN. IGN, 20 Jan. 2014. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.

Moffat, Steven, and Mark Gatiss. "The Lying Detective." Sherlock. BBC. 8 Jan. 2017. Television.

Posted by Will Harris (10/23/2010 @ 4:02 pm). "A Chat with Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (“Sherlock”)." A Chat with Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (“Sherlock”). N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.

[sleepymarmot]

Twilight Mirage liveblog 3/5 (episodes 28-54)

28-35 

I'm very excited for a series of solo episodes!

Don't know how I feel about the new Grand Magnificent tbh… This concept feels more conventional than the original one, and I'm worried the aspects of his character I found interesting won't be in focus anymore.

I had my problems with the previous system and how it flattened down emotions into inaccurate categories, but so far I'm not excited about the switch… Blades in the Dark's mechanics were kinda hard for me to follow by ear, and being unable to keep track of the gameplay by myself is unpleasant; and the new classes sound really dull compared to the ones in The Veil. 

Iota's speech is strange… It sounds more like a simple copy-paste of real-life colonialism than the invasion described previously in the story. “They will ask you to give them a name like ours, they will ask to touch your bone” etc sounds nothing like Independence and its followers' modus operandi was, and, judging by the future tense, hasn't actually happened with the present time settlers yet – so where did that come from, in-universe? In fact, shouldn't her people have a relatively positive outlook on non-hostile outsiders, since they brought on the planet's golden age? Hopefully the following episodes will elaborate on this, because I've made peace with needing lore or plot points explained to me several times, but I need more clarity on big ideological question like this. 

Gig is such a Chaotic Good!!

Buying sex is legal, normal & common in the utopia and Signet is a regular customer?! Fucking seriously?! I couldn't even focus on the episode for the next half hour and eventually turned it off because my thoughts kept returning to this and I kept seething with anger. Way to ruin the episode after I was so moved and intrigued by the intro…

They've been pretty careful with past spoilers this season, here's I think the first example: talking at length about the Hitchcocks, plural. Sure, it was only an episode three spoiler, but it was such a good reveal! 

So, who actually printed out the ancient Quire people? Was it a political move from one of the sides? 

No Austin you definitely have not mentioned Earth building a giant Dyson spehere around themselves!!! What the fuck :D

Everyone got a nice inconsequential vignette and Fourteen's scene had actual high stakes…

I really, really don't get what Seneschal looks like

After half a season of two separate parties and seven solo episodes it's so nice to hear everyone together!

Signet's look is absolutely not the kind of thing I imagined her wearing…

Please tell me someone has made an animatic about Even's hair tendril high-fiving Gig's eye

36-45 

It's always cute when the first words after the intro are in that specific tone of voice that makes it obvious that at least 5-10 minutes before were spent in a lively conversation about some nonsense that finally was put to an end no more than two seconds ago (and then they talk about nonsense for ten more minutes lol) 

I love this show's dedication to describing everyone's outfits in extreme detail at every opportunity 

50k+ years later it's Art and Jack's turn to be the half of the party who walks right through the door and charm their way in lol. I hope they don't get shot or buy a bunch of torch units or something

I really like “finding a way to help a teenage community fit in the world” and “reconnecting a family and acquiring infrastructure for travel between planets” as the first projects; it really does convince you that these people have set out to make the world a better place (even if a lot of the time is actually spent pulling heists or fighting mechanical tigers).

Okay, the scavenger faction leader is literally a vulture, I get it.

What I don't get is why we are supposed to dislike that faction. There was some general “eh, they suck” said OOC during setup but we haven't actually seen them do anything bad! Show, don't tell! They need to, like, raid Big Garage and try to steal Gumption's arm if you want me to see them as an enemy.

Remember that nonsense I wrote about T. Rex in my C/w notes post? I can't believe they're doing basically the same joke on the actual show!

But how about… not capture or kill… but befriend the Axiom and/or release it into the wild… I know, I know, they can't travel far enough to move it to a safe distance from humans. But it just offends me on principle that after all that talk of diversity etc, when the characters actually meet a truly alien, unique species, they only consider the options of killing or capturing and exploiting them, and nobody even tries to ask “hey, shouldn't these creatures have rights, even if we are forced to disregard them in self-defence for the moment?” You know who I need to appear on screen ASAP? Bounty. Ask it everything! Does it remember being an Axiom? What did it feel like? What does it think about its transformation and new role? 

I thought Grand's special gun was just Even's gun?

Did Janine just call Belgard Signet's “robot wife”? Hell yeah

Me for an hour straight, not having read the description: Blease Do Not Kill My Alien Child I guess that's at least postponed now though… The situation did immediately get mildly creepy again, which makes me concerned. Is this just a different reason to kill a different Axiom – to Free Innocents from a Lotus Eater Machine? I'm getting serious September flashbacks. Honestly, between this, the other team's arc which felt like a crossover about the Chime in Marielda, and everyone getting a personal mech, this half of the season is starting to feel like Counter/weight 2, which is sad because at the beginning the atmosphere was much more original. Also I miss Primary and Satellite's correspondence, it was such a good framing device and a touching relationship at the same time!

Polyphony's powers and way of thinking are more similar to Quire than anything else

I feel very relieved and vindicated by the direction this story took!

Hell yeah finally more about the Waking Cadent!! I've been waiting for that for how many episodes now? Now that we've seen her in person I hate her actually Amend that, I hate both Cadents. A plague on both their houses!

46-54

Good on you Even, what's even the point of a military background if you don't pull rank on some jerks

Am I glad to hear from the Rapid Evening again! Bold of Austin to assume we could forget who Primary and Satellite were Okay, I first had this question a ton of episodes ago, but now it is relevant again: does Grey know the contents of the previous Satellite's final message? She knows about its existence because the numbers match up (yeah I went back and checked), but does she know that Crystal Palace either made a colossal miscalculation about Independence's route or lied on purpose for some reason?

Wait, characters still have beliefs? I don't remember this coming up since the game change

I completely forgot about Tender's cyborg legs and also misheard “I have a fake leg” as “thick leg” and was like “Uh good for you but how's that gonna help?!”

Once again, Team Exploration goes ahead and leaves Team Heist without resources lol. What do you mean they're using our ship for an orbital drop? What do you mean they've taken all axiom scanners? :D Seriously though, it's a shame that the sessions were played in this order because in-universe I see no reason why they wouldn't say “Hey before you go after Acre Seven, let's fly over Terncage and do a scan real quick” (the range on the scanners is far enough for that, right?)

I don't get how Ache works. For Quire, it made what it wishes it could be, but for everyone else it just made evil clones vaguely themed after their regrets?

TENDER IS A GAY DISASTER I haven't heard such a spectacular meltdown since Calhoun probably, holy shit

TENDER IS A DISASTER SQUARED she starts talking to a woman and just doesn't stop! This is a great episode

I like how Gig immediately says no to the devil's bargain

Oh Signet disregarding the digital Blooming, you clearly haven't seen/read (the future version of) Solaris :D

Oh no, it's the Smiling God! Came to visit another podcast that used to have a personification of capitalism as a big boss evil god

A crit at the last possible moment, after a long string of 1s… Ali's dice see through the fourth wall!

I… didn't fully understand the reveal of how it was all connected

Okay, so the Dark Day could have been prevented by keeping the gun dealer priest alive and allowing him to arm the NEH so that it could take over Twilight Mirage and wouldn't need to activate plan B i.e. come here and block signal from the Crystal Palace? Correct? It makes sense now, but Our Profit seems to be from such a far future that I just can't imagine how this plan was created and put in place

O….k… I actually expected Grand to leave the team and go off on his own (or become an NPC) as a consequence of the holiday special if he was the sacrificed character instead of the Chthonic. But now that's kind of strange to hear after all that talk of redemption and second chances?

You get a status! And you get a status! Everyone gets a status!

Wow having a near death experience out of the blue is so relaxing for Fourteen! :D NEVER MIND HOLY CRAP I'm glad that at least Fourteen kept their signature move from The Veil. I was wondering what it would be like, and honestly expected it to be just thrown out

Excuse me, “Omega in Mass Effect 2” and “cool place run by trustworthy people” are literally opposite concepts, have we even played the same game

Grand: Who likes Fourteen Fifteen? Tender, not even letting him finish: ME!!! 

Welp, my first guess about the Waking Cadent's identity was correct

Holy crap! I never realized Independence was in that one flashback episode of Counter/weight