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rintezukas · 1 year ago

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ok so i beat it and now i get to go off on a masturbatory rant about it

pikmin 4 main story final boss spoilers

it was bad it was bad it was so fucking bad to the point where i actually doubt i was ever engaging with it properly. im going to split this up into three sections not because im under any delusion anyone who bothers to read this is going to care particularly if its organized but so i can like. keep myself from going too hard on any one aspect and forget the others The Story

SUBSECTION LOUIE ok so the postgame sets louie up as this like... fucked up amoral force, barely present as a character or reachable by character interaction other than violence, he says maybe like 30 words total across like 15 text boxes. its like hes in a fucking fugue state and they never provide literally ANY explanation for his behavior even after you beat him. maybe the fucking. side story has something about this but i doubt it because olimar was surprised louie was there too so probably he didnt factor into that. louie just goes around kidnapping people and like... trying to turn them into fucking aliens or something. this is literally fine, dont get me wrong, i think this is an interesting way for a character to be, but given that louie is an established character who didnt behave like a fucking. bizarre evil caveman in the two previous games he showed up in (in 3 he did bad shit but it was like. just normal selfish guy bad shit and had clear motivations behind it) it comes off as like... fucked. this guy is supposed to be a lazy and childish food genius forced into treasure hunting work and instead hes like if a tornado could be an asshole. this is literally not what i set out to talk about anyway SUBSECTION THE DOG

despite legitimately falling in love with oatchis character design and behavior and shit i actually hate the presence of dogs in the story of pikmin, or more specifically like the needless wrench they throw into the series, but thats mostly something that goes in implications. why it's relevant to bring this up at all is that it pissed me off extra hard that the big culmination of the pikmin 4 storyline is a big inexplicable dog. its more or less stated to not be from the planet (or it would have been born with pikmin traits - see implications) but also it has a human artifact around its neck and has clearly been here for long enough to get old and grey and scraggly. i think its design is... on this weird line between cute and ugly that i think i could have fallen in love with it too if not for its presence in my life being one defined by misery. you are probably wondering why ive lapsed back into implications, and that's because i have absolutely fucking nothing to say about the dog's presence in the story, because it has none and i think that's bad, i think it's bad for the final boss of the game to be a guy with no clear motivations riding an animal with no clear origin or presence in the world.

or, like, at least its bad for pikmin? this could be more interesting in a different kind of game but for a long-awaited returning franchise having an endboss built almost completely out of the New with a little side detail that sort of character-assassinates the Old is like. its sure as fuck a bold choice and not one i feel worked out.

The Gameplay

The gameplay of Pikmin 4's final boss is, i feel, difficult to talk about without first explaining the circumstances under which i came to it.

Cavern for a King is, for the first 95% of it, honestly one of my favorite parts of Pikmin as a franchise. Not the favorite! Not my favorite. But it's up there. You start off at kind of the height of your power - i maintain that making you gradually restore the pikmin cap to 100 over the course of the game was fucking insane but by the endgame when youre working with a serviceable cap of 60-80 and you finally get to 100 it feels like an actual power boost and not an "i should have had this from the beginning because pikmin is about swarms" thing. having 100 feels like a big deal, and as you progress through the opening segments of this 20 floor boss rush it makes a lot of otherwise scary shit feel like a breeze.

eventually you hit your first hurdle, and attrition begins to take hold. if you're smart, you start making increasingly cowardly decisions. if you are instead stupid like i am, you also start doing that, but fuck up, and by the middle section youre having to come up with new behaviors on the fly to clear totally new bosses with fewer pikmin than youve had in a long, long time. you keep waiting for reinforcements youve been trained by previous caves to expect that never come. i am kind of a lameass, and my first impulse when encountering difficulties is to chalk it up to bad design unless i really tell myself not to fucking do that. i didnt even feel that here though! going through floors 1-17 of Cavern for a King was exhilarating and fun. i think i had to engage the baby-mode turn back time thing like twice, which was fine, whatever. on floor 18, which has you fight an extra-large emperor bulblax in terrain that it can stomp to turn into water, i was out of blue pikmin and made the decision to go back up and get more pikmin, and i realized that i was kind of approaching it as a marathon when it could have been a series of much less grueling sprints. you get to go back to floors youve reached previously, to be clear, unlike in pikmin 2, but i was enjoying the challenge and felt sad to leave it. i cleared floor 18 easily with only a few losses, was met with an eerie, pleasant rest stop at floor 19 - no new pikmin, but plenty of candypop buds to redistribute my population to face whatever boss was coming up next, and continued to floor 20, where

PHASE 1

i came face to face with a big stupid dog that was the easiest fight in the entire game, except that its health was noticeably pretty high. i had time to remark, like, what, did they want to draw THIS out? or i guess it probably has phases but this is taking a long fucking time for the warmup.

PHASE 2

oh okay i guess they gave it ice powers, for some reason? it shoots balls that you have to avoid or you get rolled up and potentially separated from your pikmin. annoying because i had already spent a lot of time on the first fight. PHASE 3

now it shoots spinning electricity spike balls that sort of spin and make you jump over the lines of electricity they draw on the ground. if you have any yellow pikmin, you can kill the balls, but it took an embarassingly long time for me to intuit that and also it takes a long fucking time for them to kill them such that the dog will probably jump on and eat them and they quickly build up so the arena basically becomes unusable until you manage to knock the dog over by navigating through the fucked up awful laser mess and managing to hit the dog's tail with enough pikmin at once, which clears all of them and makes the dog vulnerable so you can do like 2% of its life in damage before the cycle begins again. this is where that old thought pattern that this might be bad game design and not my fault creeps in, but the embarrassment from earlier tamps that down. i am almost certainly approaching this wrong.

PHASE 4

similar shit but with fire and shockwave patterns to jump over instead of spinning electricity balls. honestly pretty manageable, and since this was the third element of the traditional pikmin trio - water-electricity-fire - i was riding high on the notion that i was about to be done with this, at least. nonetheless, my train of thought at this point is about vicious, horrible shit that i hope the devs suffer for putting me through this, etc etc. this is about how i react to any circumstance i don't like if it goes on for long enough and i am not proud of that. i strike the final blow and make a noise like a snake dying.

PHASE 5

The dog turns green, starts flying and begins to fire particles that coat the floor in a sort of purple-red smoke that instantly kills any pikmin that touches it at all, including while they're on the dog, and including white pikmin because this isn't poison it's some other shit that you couldn't have accounted for no matter what. All of its attacks are now this - move wrong, and you lose most or all of your squad instantly. Navigate between these randomly placed AOEs, place 15 weight on the dog's tail, and deal as much damage as you can while it's vulnerable before the cycle continues. Later on in this fight, the dog will begin using a "fear scream", which scatters your pikmin randomly. They will run into the AOEs and die, so make sure this attack never hits you even once too. If you throw your pikmin wrong while trying to hit the tail, they will likely land in an AOE and die. Do this more times than you know numbers for, as far as you fucking know. You will not be counting because you will be focused on doing the other shit.

i would like to echo back to the earlier thing about this being a series of sprints rather than a marathon, because that point holds true to this fight as well. as i discovered after giving up and resolving to do better in the previous phases in case having more pikmin on this one would make it doable, you can go back up and get more pikmin, and it will stay on this phase, and it doesn't matter at all because all of its attacks can completely deplete your squad or at least leave you with like 10 pikmin, and sometimes a purple pikmin isn't among those ten so you can't win anymore and have to press the rewind. i pressed the rewind a lot because i didnt care about any kind of self-imposed challenge for this thing anymore. if there was a menu option to make it die i would have pressed it.

after this phase it dies, and then you win the game. pikmin 4 is very, very good, because despite the bad experience i had i actually still think it's my favorite entry in the franchise. The Implications

so like are dogs from the fucking planet or not? whats up with moss? why was there pointedly so much shit implying theyre from the planet if they arent? are dogs just a constant of the pikmin universe, and pikmin on pikmin planet have learned to parasitize them? if they arent from here, what the fuck was the big dog doing there? what was moss doing there? why did they unambiguously say "pikmin parasitize organisms to create leaders" (hi jasper - if you somehow read this far, they directly say that and youre smart as fuck for figuring it out having not played 4 yet) and then not put bulbmin in the game? why were they so wishy washy on something as simple as "what planet are dogs from", and why, despite that, did they place so much emphasis on the question in the story?

I dont think the final boss of pikmin 4 is very good at all!

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dgcatanisiri · 3 years ago

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Tried to make a brief summary of the issues of Mass Effect Andromeda’s handling of queer men and how it relates to why we’re (broad use here) upset with the Legendary Edition failing to provide better representation than the originals, and it kinda turned in to what amounts to an open letter for BioWare.

So, what the heck, here it is.

A little personal background. I spent my high school life completely in the closet. After graduating, I had a new computer and the opportunity to play a new game. The game chosen was BioWare’s Jade Empire. Still a fairly recent release, and I was a big fan of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, also by BioWare. So, being a young gay man, still uncomfortable and uncertain of who I was, I was very excited when I got to play this game that would allow me to play a gay romance, a romance that featured two men. I burned through two playthroughs of the game within less than a week, enjoying that rush of acknowledgement that yes, gay guys could be the hero. It was a massive affirmation for me at the time, something that said that my sexuality was not going to prevent me from being the hero, which legitimately was a message that I felt like most media was giving me to that point, because gay men barely appeared in anything other than guest roles for an episode or two on a TV show, but certainly not in video games. That game, that experience... I’ve said for years that it had cemented me as a BioWare fan for life.

If I say that now, it is a statement with a few caveats.

The history of the failure of Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 to provide any male/male romances is well documented. I was excited, very eager to romance Kaidan Alenko in Mass Effect 3. But even then, I noticed that there were things that were lacking in the romance. It was noticeable, for instance, that the basic dialogue between male Shepard and female Shepard was unchanged, if either was starting a new romance with Kaidan. The thing that always felt... WRONG about that was that if I’d had the option to begin a romance with him in the first game, I would have. Yet there’s not even a bit of dialogue that even references that inability, no comment of “I didn’t think you were available,” or anything of the sort, nothing to say that, say, Shepard was interested in Kaidan at the time, but didn’t believe he’d be receptive, didn’t want to damage their friendship, something of the sort. There was even a cut in the romance scene, where female Shepard will sit in Kaidan’s lap before being lifted up and carried to the bed, but with male Shepard and Kaidan, just fades to black. And then in the Citadel DLC, while all the other pairings walked in to the casino arm in arm, male Shepard and Kaidan are leaving plenty of room between them. There’s also the absence of any cuddling as they return to the Normandy.

To say nothing of the lack of Steve Cortez during the story segments of Citadel – he is not part of the big team entrance to the apartment, just spontaneously appears in the lounge room. He doesn’t participate in the briefings, and he is not a casino date, despite being part of the assembled team. Cortez also suffers from the fact that his romance spends so much time on how he needs to move on from the death of his husband, Shepard can come across as predatory towards him, trying to push him out of his grief and his pants. Due to the lateness of his arrival in the story, in game three, as opposed to game one or two, there is significantly less time to establish him as a person – beyond his past as a pilot and the death of his husband, we gain almost no concept of his personality or personal history.

I bring all of this up to help set the stage of what was expected when Mass Effect Andromeda was nearing release. Mass Effect had been full of problems of representation of queer men specifically (not that they were perfect on the count of female/female relationships either, because there’s plenty to talk about there, but as I’m not a lesbian or bisexual woman, I don’t feel comfortable talking about their experiences for them). While there were flaws, Dragon Age, what is often considered Mass Effect’s sister franchise, HAD managed to provide male/male romances in every iteration of that franchise.

In fact, considering that Dragon Age’s most recent installment, Dragon Age Inquisition, had been put out with a lot of fanfare about the first gay male companion, who was considered rather popular in the fandom, and the game itself receiving the Game of the Year award that year, indicating that, if there was any risk in the business sense of providing representation of queer men, it was negligible at most in the bottom line of that game, the attitude of a lot of gay men in the lead up to Andromeda’s release was some variation of “okay, Mass Effect has been flawed, but BioWare’s learned from their past mistakes, and they’re coming off the heels of a hugely successful game that had a gay character whose gayness was front and center in his storyline... We can expect that things will be fine, and we don’t have to worry.” That was the dominant attitude I found in a lot of my queer-oriented spaces.

But we started getting uncomfortable as the developers remained cagey about romance options in Andromeda – there were Twitter responses to “we’re concerned about Mass Effect’s history of gay representation, we would like to know about the options” that came out as “we checked and yep! They’re there!” These responses came across as flippant and even tone-deaf – the reason that the question was being asked was because of prior failures to be included, and not simply a desire to get all the details before launch.

As the trailers started coming out, the questions continued from the fans, and the response from the developers... continued to be uncomfortable. When asked directly for a listing of romances prior to release, the response was that the developers wanted players to learn as they played, that “the fun is in experiencing it!” This was a specific response when it was learned that the romance options could be flirted with regardless of orientation, but they would shut it down. Despite the fact that the trailers DID include content from certain romances – specifically, the male Ryder/Cora and male Ryder/Peebee romances.

This was uncomfortable for a lot of queer players like myself because it spoke to a lack of consideration of what it is like to be queer. In many places, it is a serious question of safety to even put yourself out there to find a partner, to flirt with someone openly unless you are already certain that there is a chance for a positive response. There are places where a queer person flirting with the wrong person can get them harassed, assaulted, even killed for doing so. Even in the safety of a virtual construct of video games, these are honed instincts that queer people have developed. And no matter how many times we would say this to the developers, no one seemed to understand. Likewise, the fact that the trailers felt free to show off heterosexual romances, but not queer ones felt... questionable.

Then, finally, firm details started coming out, and... There were problems. Early data-mining said that there was an even split of romances between orientations. But there was a bit of discomfort around the reveal that the gay characters, Suvi and Gil, were limited to the ship, rather than being companions who would accompany Ryder on missions. There is a history of companions being given more involved storylines and involvement than secondary characters. It also didn’t help the disappointment from queer people who’d been eager for Cora or Liam as romances, who were firmly established as straight (Cora herself had a popular lesbian following).

That discomfort increased when it came out further that, ACTUALLY, Jaal would not be available for Male Ryder. This caused a lot of upset. Now it was a case where there was NO M/M squadmate romance option. This on top of the group of fans who were uncomfortable with the idea that, in a sci-fi series, gay men couldn’t romance an alien, while this had become a staple of the series, considering Liara, the character from a species described as equivalent to Star Trek green-skinned Orion girls, had been available for straight men and lesbian/bi women from ME1, and straight women got in on the act with Garrus and Thane in ME2, on top of straight men also getting Tali.

This got worse when the achievement listing for the game was released and there was an achievement for “romancing three different characters.” Meaning that it was absolutely impossible for a gay man to play the game and get this achievement without playing a sexuality other than his own.

This is why I led with my experience with Jade Empire, why it was so affirming to me. Because to hear all this, ten years later, to see what had been so affirming to me a decade prior be functionally dismissed, be shown to take a secondary position at best... It hurt.

And the game proper did not help that feeling at all.

So first we meet Gil Brodie. Engineer of the Tempest. One of the first things we learn about him is that he has a close friendship with a woman named Jill. And then he immediately tells us that one) she is a fertility specialist, and two) she “says [he’s] part of the problem” because he won’t have kids the natural way. This is immediately setting off red flags to me – I can think of plenty of my friendships where we give one another grief for various things, but I would never think of introducing any of them to someone else with that fact. So my reflexive thought in this situation is “what kind of a friend is this really?”

And then, as the game goes on... This is the only thing that Gil’s conversations involve, the prospect of having kids. We do not learn much more about him, just have him talking about considering the idea. The lock-in for his romance requires Ryder to meet Jill, who Gil again says that she will talk his ear off about his “civic duty” to reproduce, a fact that makes those earlier red flags wave higher and more furiously, because who DOES that to a total stranger? And this is passed off as being “charming.” This leads to the culmination of the romance, where Gil says that Jill has decided she wants to get pregnant and she wants Gil to be the dad.

There’s... A LOT going on here, so let me work through this. First, one of the few things Gil says as a bit of establishing his character is that he is impulsive, that he joined the Andromeda Initiative, the journey from the Milky Way galaxy to the Andromeda galaxy without really thinking through what it would mean, that it was a one-way journey with no way to back out once he’d gotten there. So this is already saying to me that this is not a person who really SHOULD be a parent, at least at this point in his life.

We also get a couple of emails from him in-game that paint him as putting in thirty-six hour workdays into the engines on the Tempest, that he cares about and puts a lot of time into those engines. So when I think about him as a father, I see him having to give up something he’s deeply passionate about to do it, because the Tempest is certainly no place to raise a child – they can’t exactly put a playpen in the cargo hold, for example.

This would be one of the first things that I would think of as a discussion element, but... it’s not there. All that we get is a couple of casual comments about how Gil should know that bringing a child into the world is a big thing, something that shouldn’t be done lightly. But this is framed as Ryder questioning Gil’s fitness to be a parent at all, rather than questioning if he’s thinking this through and having considered this enough to be ready to take on this responsibility, or if it’s even something that he even wants.

Because that’s the other big thing here – this is not Gil’s idea. This is not something that he makes clear is his desire. No, it’s Jill who has decided that she wants to get pregnant and use Gil’s sperm. For all that he matters in this whole thing, he might as well be a turkey baster. He’s basically an accessory in his own story, because he goes in to this with all the passion of a math equation: “The Andromeda Initiative is a colonization effort. Therefore, the idea is to have babies. Therefore, I should find some way to reproduce.” This isn’t him having a passion or desire to have kids, just it being “something you do.”

This is, genuinely, a failure to understand the character who was being written. Gil’s writing reeks of having been written by someone who does not know what they are talking about. There is an element to the gay experience that is not innate but learned. When we realize that having children is not a thing that will just happen, that if we want this to happen, it will require a lot of additional steps, there are many who will simply say “this isn’t for me, this is more work than I’m willing to put in to for this.”

Now, Gil could have been someone who had decided it was worth it, but that butts up against the idea of him being impulsive, that he doesn’t think things through. There is no time given to focusing on the reason he decides this is the right choice for him, to the point that many players felt that this was not Gil’s decision but something that Jill was pushing, that she expected him to jump on her command. Because we have so little of Gil, as a character and an individual, but plenty of him talking up her, this “friendship” feels toxic to many.

Just about everyone I have ever spoken with about Gil is deeply uncomfortable that literally, the only way that he will not have a child at this point is if a romanced Ryder stops him – if I am playing a game where I don’t romance him, I actively just stop interacting with him at a certain point so that this never comes up, because this does not come across as happy. It comes across as forcing a gay man into a heteronormative experience to satisfy some traditional idea of “man and woman, raising kids.”

And, as the cherry on top, if you do tell Gil that you’re not comfortable having kids – a very real thing, whether gay or straight – then, unlike other romances, Gil and Ryder do not share a kiss at the finale of the game. And, during the last conversations on Meridian, the only thing Gil even brings up is Jill being pregnant, whether or not it’s his child.

This is what “representation of gay men” amounted to in Mass Effect Andromeda. A homophobic story that was about a gay experience written by someone who is not a part of this community and does not know or understand the experience personally, going through the motions of development when really, all that is cared about is the end result. To say that most of the gay men I know who have played this game find this homophobic is to undersell the point.

It doesn’t help that, of all the Tempest romances, Gil also clocks in with the least amount of romance exclusive material – a few flirts, the romance lock in and scene, and being able to stop Gil from having kids. Other than that, his friendship and his romance are virtually identical.

Speaking of, the romance scene consists of a make out session that fades to black, before coming back in with Ryder and Gil, shot from about shoulders up, briefly wrapping up their conversation that preceded the fade to black. This is noteworthy when the heterosexual romances between Ryder and their human love interests, as well as Peebee and Jaal, the former having a similar body model to naked human women, just blue, and Jaal, who is naked at other points in the game, have much more involved romance scenes – Cora’s in specific received special attention.

All of this, individually, may have just been reflective of time crunch and other external pressures – we all understand the realities of game development, that for all the ambitions that go in, when the deadlines are nearing, something has to give. But taken collectively... The kindest question is to ask why all of the “give” happened in regards to the gay man?

The end result with Gil honestly feels like he was written in response to the bad faith arguments that had come up in the period after the name for the game was revealed and it was made clear that the game would follow a colonization effort. There were a contingent of people who said that “there shouldn’t be gay people coming along, a colonization effort needs to reproduce.” This is a bad faith argument from homophobes, trying to justify why they don’t want gay people in “their” games. In answering their question, the question they only “ask” in order to explain why they don’t want to have gay people in the game without saying that, it comes across as catering the gay content for a heterosexual audience. It should go without saying that this is a bad position to take.

So, that’s Gil. What about Reyes? Well, Reyes himself is bound to a single planet, which, again, points to a minimizing of how much content he will even get, since his content can only be accessed on this single planet. Likewise, Reyes, as a character, is someone who falls in to several old, tired tropes with regards to bisexual men – he is a shady, untrustworthy character, in this instance literally a criminal, meant to be evocative of the “dashing rogue” archetype. This is a characterization that has often been BioWare’s go-to with regards to bisexual men, because we see this archetype drawn on in Jade Empire’s Sky, Dragon Age Origins’ Zevran, Dragon Age 2’s Anders, and even elements exist in Dragon Age Inquisition’s Dorian (even if he is a gay man). It’s a well that BioWare has frequently tapped when it comes to a romance option for queer men, to the point that it starts to feel like BioWare in general believes that this IS what queer men are.

There’s also the questionable portrayal of Reyes that leads to a description of the trope “the depraved bisexual,” an explicitly bisexual character who uses sex and sexuality as a manipulative tool, that they treat others as simply there to be their toys. Over in Dragon Age Inquisition, one of the romance options was specifically NOT made bisexual in order to avoid this trope, but Reyes himself seems to be a candidate for that trope all the same.

All this, and, again, the romance options for gay men were unequal to those for everyone else. This prompted the campaign #MakeJaalBi – Jaal was, notably, the character initially assumed to be the bisexual male companion, and on release, his romance was heterosexual exclusive. But datamining revealed that there was code for him to be romanced by male Ryder. Indeed, on release, it was noteworthy that Jaal could not even be flirted with by male Ryder. Liam had a distinct turndown for male Ryder, a couple of them, depending on when Ryder flirts with him. Jaal had no such turndown.

And this worked. BioWare released the patch for Andromeda that gave Jaal a bisexual romance. However, this was the only change that Mass Effect Andromeda received in regards to the issues of the romances before support for the game ended. While it was seen as an improvement, it was also questioned why this was the only change, when... Well, I spent the better part of two pages outlining the problems of Gil’s portrayal.

(I feel I would be remiss to not mention there was also a character, Hainley Abrams, who would, upon interacting with her, proceed to deadname herself to Ryder, as if that is the only way to establish that a transgender person is trans. This was also changed in a patch after the trans community complained, and, in conjunction with the above, led more than a few people to wonder if the Andromeda script had been looked over by any queer sensitivity readers, given the earlier issues with Gil. This does go out of the scope of everything else in this discussion, but it is worth mentioning.)

When Mac Walters says players will talk about how Shepard is each of theirs, that every individual player approaches Shepard as being “their” Shepard, he isn’t wrong. He says the characters, and the relationships we have with the characters is the heart and soul of the series, he isn’t wrong. And yet... When I play the trilogy, my heart and soul are being torn apart, because I do not get to see myself in the trilogy. I am not there in this story, at least for two thirds of the way. And in that third that I am there, I feel like I am cared about less than my counterparts who are heterosexual.

The idea that “making” characters available for same sex romance changes them is like saying that there is some inherent difference in a person because of their sexualities. While it’s true that the experiences of queer people does offer different perspectives on matters, it does not fundamentally alter the person, the individual that we are. It does not change our heart and soul. Restoring the bisexuality of characters like Jack, Jacob, Ashley, Thane, or Tali is not changing who they are. Making Kaidan bisexual in ME3 did not change who he was, and restoring a romance between him and male Shepard in ME1 would not change him either.

Every game has some cut content surrounding queer content specifically, and a great deal of that content is specifically for gay players like myself. I said at the beginning that I once thought of myself as a BioWare fan for life, but that now comes with caveats. The caveats are pretty simple – while the games produced by BioWare once felt affirming, now they feel like they’re only grudgingly allowing me to be there. That if I must be there, I should just take the scraps I’m given and be content with that, rather than being treated as an equal.

I like to think that this is not the message that the people at BioWare wish to impart to their players. I like to believe BioWare’s statements of wanting to be an inclusive and welcoming environment for their players, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, orientation, whatever identity and label one chooses. But based on the experience of the last four games, of the Legendary Edition perpetuating the homophobia of over a decade ago... I have a hard time believing that.

BioWare games once made me feel like I was equal to the straight heroes across my media. Unfortunately, I don’t feel that way about their games anymore. Not when, after having the opportunity to restore the bisexuality of Kaidan – of multiple characters, really – in the Legendary Edition, I am still being told that offering representation for people like me is something that only comes grudgingly.

And if that’s what I see now... What does it say about what the future of the franchise will offer? If every game in this series involves fighting for content that, in particular, heterosexual players will see offered as the rule, what motivates me to want to continue to be invested and involved in this franchise?

#bioware critical #dg rants #another angry queer rant #make mass effect inclusive #make mele inclusive #makemeleinclusive

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himbo-buckley · 5 years ago

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INTIMACY, SEX AND BUDDIE (BETTER KNOWN AS I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SHOW, SOME OF WHICH ARE RELATED TO THE BEFORE MENTIONED TOPICS) - Part 3

Well, hello there (again)!

 I got to say, this was both my favourite and least favourite part to write because by now all my theories are (hopefully) explained enough that I can just ramble about the characters and connections and ya’ll will forgive me if I stray away from what’s actually happening in this episode. Which I will do. A lot actually.

On the other hand side I have so many thoughts about what’s happening and this is gonna be long af as I started writing on part three at the same time as I wrote part 1 and 2 and I barely found things to cut, which means we are clocking in at a casual 7700 words. So maybe get that drink now, cause it’ll be a ride!

Also the links to part one and part two

And look, by now you probably know the drill but I’m just gonna give you my preface again:

This meta was supposed to be a lot shorter and only talk about how both Buck and Eddie use sex to distract their respective partners from whatever topic they actually wanted to talk about but since I decided to rewatch the show to make sure I don’t miss any such scenes, it has exploded a bit and taken on more topics

I should also mention that I am a Buddie shipper and while I tried, you will find several references and arguments for the ship in this Meta, not all of which necessarily call for a romantic pairing but just: These two are deeply connected and you cannot look at one without discussing the other and they are each other’s strongest emotional connection.

I should also preface this by saying that the whole of the 118 has some obvious intimacy / commitment issues except Bobby (which is sort of surprising) but *John Mulaney voice* we don’t have time to unpack all of that!

On another note I cuss a little in this Meta because my parents let me listen to TicTacToe as a small child and after that it never stuck that cussing is wrong so, uhm, parental supervision is advised or something

This Meta will so far have FOUR parts now. The original plan was to do three, one for each Season and is organised by episode so you could technically follow along, but due to personal reasons, also known as *feelings*, Season 3 has already exploded disproportionately and for readability reasons I have split it in two (this is part three, the cut will happen after Christmas, it works storyline-wise)

And now, for our next instalment of I read too much into things: Season 3A (also called: „Eddie Diaz, stop being such a boy scout (Wait, no, not like that!)“)

Episode 3.01:

911 as a show has a fairly interesting way of storytelling where it sometimes feels a little like they cut together snapshots of lives in regards to certain topics. And because of that you only ever see a small part of the lives of the characters. That being said: I hate hate hate how 5 months passed between the Season 2 final and the first episode of Season 3 and aside from a few offhand remarks we get virtually nothing. Also it’s very unrealistic that Bobby and Athena didn’t have any parties for 5 months, like nope, I don’t believe you show!

That being said, I appreciate how much time it took Buck to heal because it’s realistic! And also most importantly gets Oliver Stark a chance to truly shine!

I wanna take this chance real quick, to thank the producers and writer both for writing Evan Buckley the way they write him and for casting Oliver Stark to play him because omg, it works so well! Look, Oliver Stark is attractive. He is buff and handsome, but he is not perfect. He is Tinder-buff, not MCU-I haven’t seen a drop of water in a month-buff, he’s the kind of fit that will fill the whole screen one minute and make you say „Wait, I thought he was wider than this!“ the next (you know how everyone always talks about the hips to shoulder ration of Chris Evans? Yeah, the opposite of that) . And he has a really pretty face but his nose is a little too cocked and he has scars and there’s the „adorable facemark“ and he seems so damn dorky which is exactly why Evan „Buck“ Buckley works, why he is hot. And he gets to be emotional and sensitive and caring on top of that and yeah, I don’t know if I wanna be him or date him anymore either. Like he singlehandedly made me rethink my view on dating, just because I am hoping for someone like him.

Anyways, that’s probably something none of you wanted to read about in a META so we’ll get to the juicy stuff now, alright?

One thing that I realised as I watched season 3 for the third time just now is how often it repeats itself. It feels a bit stagnant at times, the way the characters make two steps forward and one step back all the time, most notably in Bobby.

I wanna talk about Bobby for once because you can not look at Buck in Season 3 without looking at Bobby as well. These two characters are connected the same way Buck is connected to Eddie. Most things Buck does character wise in Season 3 are caused by Bobby’s actions, in the same way most of Eddie’s are caused by Buck.

And the thing that 3.01 tells us from the get go? Bobby thinks of Buck as somewhat of a son (which we knew already) and Bobby sees himself in Buck, which is why he does what he probably hoped someone would have done for him the 10 or something years ago when he hurt is back and holds him back. There is also the fact that he tries to teach Buck to have a life outside the firehouse, though that is something he probably should at some point in the near future actually voice to Buck, because Buck on his own can not draw these conclusions from Bobby’s actions. Buck on his own thinks it’s about him not being good enough and so he works himself to the bone to try and proof otherwise. (Someone please just finally tell him what a good boy he is? Yeah?)

As for the scene during the party, you could actually see how much Buck had to force himself to be that open and that vulnerable with Bobby (and not just because he is *literally* having an embolism) and that hurts because to this day Buck has not realised that Bobby will always be there to catch him. Buck still thinks he needs to proof himself to Bobby because of his firing in Season 1. And would you believe I actually cried a little typing these words?

And now I’m gonna talk about my agenda, also known as Buddie real quick, and point you toward the fact that while we have seen Eddie be vulnerable with Buck and Buck be vulnerable with everyone else we have not seen Buck be audibly vulnerable with Eddie and I do not think this is a coincident at all.

Look, Eddie is a guarded guy, right? He has a hard time being vulnerable, a hard time asking for help, a hard time giving up control. But he does all these things with Buck and he does them willingly and with barely an outside push, which is different to say with Bobby. Eddie let’s himself fall with Buck and by doing so raises Buck’s self worth and gives him the feeling of being in control Buck craves so much (while Eddie sort of despises it because he feels like he always has to be the one in control), but it also means that Buck is afraid to let himself fall with Eddie because it might mean Eddie won’t trust him again. Buck generally is a very emotional guy and he doesn’t seem afraid to voice his weaknesses, in fact he is probably too aware of them and too willing to let others poke at them, except with Eddie. With Eddie Buck always tries for strong, because he knows Eddie needs him to be and because he thinks, if he’s not, Eddie will see what everyone else saw and leave him. On Eddie’s side I do think by now he is more than willing to catch Buck and still let himself be caught in return. At least at this point.

(also, if we do ever get Buddie I could see a reverse of the Shannon-Eddie situation happening where Eddie is the one being open and Buck has a hard time being emotionally vulnerable, afraid it’ll scare Eddie off and he’ll leave like everyone else.)

But then, one could also point out that Eddie probably knows all the things going on with Buck anyways because I truly think they know each other inside out and are two feathers of the same bird and same recognises same and all that - it’s just that Buck is someone who needs to actually voice his feelings to deal with them, so unless he voices his vulnerabilities to Eddie, for him, the other guy doesn’t know them. (Except Eddie does know.) (and man, I wish the rest of the 911 would finally figure out that with Buck you always - always - have to say things! You can’t just imply. You can’t think your actions speak loud enough. You need to actually use your words and do so in a way that leaves no doubt because that boy thinks so little of himself and he will make himself doubt every nice thing that ever happens to him.)

Now, moving back to what’s actually happening in the episode and why all of this is important:

We have the very important talk in the Station were text points out some of the things I just said and Eddie realises that he needs to do better, so he pulls a Buck and steamrolls him. (also do we truly believe that Carla was out of the country? Do we? Do we not think Eddie spent the whole ride over coaching his son on lying to his best friend because Eddie is just like that?)

Also I love how before this Maddie is talking to Josh and she says something along the lines of wether she should push Buck or coddle him and it cuts to Eddie trying the first.

On Eddie’s side of this meta we somewhat learn where Eddie’s issues stem from and it’s of course Daddy issues because this show loves them very much. (Seriously, out of 5 firefighters 3 have confirmed absent fathers causing issues and one has it heavily implied. Tim Minear, do you wanna talk?)

Also, Ramon Diaz probably threw in a „real men don’t cry“ with his macho speech about just brushing shit off and thereby emotionally crippling his child further, because he seems cliche like that.

Sidenote: The Buck and Christopher relationship is so beautiful and important and „Some cool outfits, too.“ is one of my favourite lines, though I do have to say - as someone who works professionally with kids - that this is what really shows how much Eddie truly thinks of Buck and how much he trusts him because it’s safe to assume that Buck has never been alone with Christopher or any child for longer and has never had to take care of one by himself and yet Eddie just trusts him to take care of his son for what is probably a 24h shift. Truly magnificent. An unparalleled relationship. So meaningful.

Episode 3.02:

No actual relevance but I do wanna point out that the thing about the mom being the love of boat guys life but her son being her’s? Yeah, that’s Eddie (and Buck).

Also, Buck’s just a natural at being a dad (not because of the fun stuff but the stuff when he knew exactly how to distract Christopher when those bodies floated by) and at some point I need Eddie to point this out to him and I need him to voice his jealousy about it, because Eddie? Not a natural dad.

(I actually think that is something that is true about a lot of things for these two. I mean yes, Buck is a hard worker but I think only in areas he is already naturally gifted (remember that whole thing with the Seals? “You just have to be badass, which I am?”) and he generally doesn’t try if things don’t come naturally because Buck hates failure because Buck already feels like a failure. Meanwhile Eddie seems like the kind of guy who has this huge capacity for learning, so even if something doesn’t come naturally to him (like fatherhood) he has the determination and willingness to try and try again until he finally gets it right and is perfect because Eddie, too, hates failure.) (And now I wanna see more about their childhoods because I could actually see Buck be somewhat of a gifted child in his youth who never learned how to actually apply himself and because of that has always been told he had so much wasted potential while Eddie was either an overarchiver or a slacker, I’m sorry I don’t make the rules. Or maybe I am projecting.)

Episode 3.03:

I read somewhere on tumblr that Ryan Guzman and his wife thought Eddie and Lena would be a thing and where actually on board and I was like? No?

I mean I do love the way she takes one look at him and decides he needs his ego checked (and also Eddie is like: ui, me like-y! (maybe because he misses another person that used to be an asshole to him right off the bat?)).

Also love all the references to Eddie being in the army („The 118 is huffing it“-scene comes to mind). Again, kudos to Ryan Guzman for always acting with all his body, because you can always feel the army training in his posture like the way he usually stands just a little bit straighter than everyone else (well, at least that’s what it looks like to me, someone who has not been in the Army and knows only like two people that got drafted and no one who went willingly, because my country generally doesn’t do that these days ).

As for what is happening in the episode, I think it’s a reference to Shannon that Eddie dealt with that couple that, despite loving each other a lot and getting along fairly well, decided to get divorced. Which is what 911 should have done with Shannon. (Me being salty about Shannon? It’s more likely than you think.)

I also think it’s a nice parallel the way both Lena and Buck are so desperate to search for their missing loved one with no regard for their own safety and I’m assuming Eddie saw Buck in Lena’s actions as well, which is why he trusts her so fast. (Because Eddie just like Buck is looking for connection and intimacy but Eddie is even worse at creating it than Buck, so he just tries to recreate the one working bond he truly has.) (Something actually proven in text by Eddie: becoming a firefighter because he misses the army.)

And I know everyone and their mother has already pointed out how Eddie was not worried about Chris at all because his son was with Buck and he knows Buck would never let anything bad happen to his son ever.

Which is why *that* scene is even more heartbreaking, because Eddie has so much trust in his Buck and kudos to Ryan Guzman because man, the way you see Eddie steel himself for what Buck is saying? The way you can feel him pulling himself together because Buck needs him to hear this. (Look, the scene is about a father learning from the person he trusts most in the world that his son might be dead and they could have easily forshadowed Eddie’s fighting ark by having him react negatively and violently here but instead he stays calm because it’s Buck and Buck for once needs him to be the one in control - also, on a less ship-y note because Eddie’s world is falling apart right there and he needs to keep in control because if he doesn’t, he will probably never be again.)

Which brings us to that scene in the loft, and listen, I know I said at the end of part 2 Eddie barely had any character development in the two seasons since we met him, but uhm, this scene? Proves he had some development, because right then right there he is so fucking vulnerable with Buck. It is of course part of him being a protector because just like with Shannon in 2.04 he realises that this is was Buck needs him to be right now, so vulnerable it is.

I do think however that it’s beautiful how Eddie apparently took the time during a fucking natural disaster to figure out that Evan Buckley needs him to use his actual words, so use his actual words he does.

And I do wanna point out that this is something he never had with Shannon, Eddie was never able to figure out what is wife of what? 7-8 years needed of him but he does know what his best friends needs. And wether that is just Buddie or just plain old character development, remains to be seen.

(Though we should mention that it wasn’t a permanent thing, Eddie does fail Buck a few times in Season 3 (but he also doesn’t a few other times) but we’ll get to that when we get to that!)

Also, honourable mention to Maddie Buckley-Kendall for getting that phone call and probably nearly dying of a heart attack and then having to race to the VA thinking the worst and probably imagining her very selfless brother either being already gone by the time she gets there or close to dead - only to probably arrive there and see Christopher in a bed with Eddie sitting next to him and Buck sitting vigil a few feet away because he doesn’t think he deserves to be with the Diaz’s anymore but he also can’t bear to part from them!

And another mention to the poor stranger who probably never got their phone back.

Also a teeny bit mad they forgot to give Oliver scars on his legs.

Episode 3.04

First of all I gotta say Eddie is such a boy scout goody two shoes with his whole „Well, it’s mandated!“ (also he’s been probably hanging out with Buck a buncha times in whatever many weeks passed since the Tsunami and therefore knew how hard his best friend worked on this and he’s gonna be supportive, kay?)

That being said, remember when I talked about two steps forward, one step back? Yeah, that.

As for the lawsuit, look, we could argue all day on wether it was justified or not, but I personally do think Buck had a basis. But he was also acting rash and hadn’t thought all the implications through and should have used his words instead, but quick reminder: Buck has severe abandonment issues and he has problems with emotional intimacy - so the whole talking about it? Not that easy.

Also, imagine working for months to come back to work, the one thing you think you’re good at and thinking you have everyone’s support only to find out the person you love like a father has betrayed you, probably with the knowledge of everyone else. Yeah, you’d lash out too!

Even though, I have to point out it’s not his normal MO (which is why we see him regret it almost immediately in the next episode).

As for Eddie in this episode, he has not one, not two, not three, but four whole conversations about feelings! You go buddy-boy. Embrace that character development! Don’t take a step back! … or, nevermind, we all know what happens next.

That being said I think it’s interesting that while Chimney clearly confides in him, Eddie does not confide in him in return but rather talks to female!Buck. I mean, talking about his struggles with his son and his family worked with him and Buck so why not with him and Lena (cause Lena isn’t Buck).

I do think Eddie and Chimney are close, but Eddie just doesn’t feel the same connection to him as he feels to Buck.

As for Eddie being so beautifully open and vulnerable with his son and saying like the exact opposite of what he had been taught: Eddie loves his son. He loves his son more than anything in the world. And if Eddie can’t let himself be vulnerable with him, who can he be vulnerable with? Especially when it helps Christopher.

(Also, Eddie by now recognises what is wrong with him, he just doesn’t think he can change it but he can prevent it from happening to his child.)

Episode 3.05:

This episode has a lot of shit happening and I have a lot of thoughts, most of which are relevant to the episode. But we’re gonna start slow, ease you in:

Boy do I love overprotective Dad!Eddie! How long do you think did it took Carla and Christopher to convince Eddie to let Chris sleep over at his friends? A month?

In other news Buck is just the picture of regret during the deposition and yeah, he should be. The whole thing is harsh. Never sue your friends, no matter how justified, if you want them to stay your friends! But it’s so obvious Buck didn’t know it was gonna go down this way because he did not think this through at all.

First off: Remember how in part 2 I said Buck and Eddie’s storylines were connected and how earlier I said Buck was the catalyst for Eddie like Bobby was for Buck?

Yeah, that’s the episode for all of this.

It’s not as obvious as in Season 2 because usually it happens over two episodes but it’s no coincident that after last episode Bobby triggered that shift in Buck, Eddie is now suddenly careering out of control as well - it’s because Buck is his catalyst, his *trigger*.

Please watch 3.04 and 3.05 back to back and tell me Eddie doesn’t make a 180 between those episodes. He goes from worried about his son to punching people in parking lots. What changed? Well, he could no longer talk to Buck. And Buck is his anker and his catalyst, the one person he doesn’t have to be in control with (which he really could use considering what he is going through with Christopher). And when you take that away he spirals. (Also there is the deposition where his best friend betrays him by talking about his dead for less than a year - wife, a topic Eddie has been avoiding in regards to his feelings since … well, the day it happened, probably.)

And I’m not saying the whole street fighting thing wouldn’t have happened if Eddie wasn’t such a boy scout and said, screw the chain of command and just called Buck to bail him out, but that’s what I’m implieing.

Also the scene between Eddie and Lena, I mean, I’ve already talked about it somewhere else but I do wanna point you to the way it is phrased: Eddie „wasn’t allowed“ to call Buck. Meaning he wanted to. But you know: Boy Scout.

Now, let’s talk about the grocery store fight because I have so many thoughts!

And what I love about these two episodes, as well as the next one, is that they show both the connection Buddie has as well as the contrasts between them:

One of the biggest differences in Buddie is how they deal with fear and obstacles and it is visible throughout all their lives and specifically these three episodes.

Evan Buckley is a force of nature, he is a fighter, he sets a goal and he reaches this goal with a single minded focus, steamrolling through everything in his way until he reaches said goal. Just look at the lawsuit and remember how his original plan was to get everyone to sign a letter of support for him.

When something frightens him, Buck doesn’t run away he runs right into it, tries to destroy it or be destroyed. He fights. And if that doesn’t work, he finds a way around the problem, but always going head to head with the thing because Evan Buckley is very determined and very self destructive.

Just look at the way he held onto Abby for nearly a year after she had left: Instead of dealing with his feelings of abandonment and the fact that the woman he loved left him, that boy dug his heel in and fought tooth and nail to keep what little he had left of her, of them. Refused to acknowledge being left for months. And when he finally leaves he literally compares himself to a ghost, because you know, he is just an empty shell at this point.

It’s also why he falls so hard for Ali because he is just desperately looking for something to cling to and so he transfers all those un-dealt feelings onto her and then he get’s hurt and his problems become bigger and different and Ali can’t deal - not surprising considering they had barely a foundation. They just went from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds and that just never works out, unless you’re in a very expensive sports car.

I also truly think at times Buck hides behind the loud mouthed, dumb adrenaline junkie persona he got going on as it keeps people from looking deeper, because Buck is very scared they won‘t find anything deeper - or worse, decide they don’t like what they see (and hey, he even got that confirmed by Ali leaving! and Abby! AND MOST IMPORTANTLY MADDIE!).

(Which, to push an agenda real quick, is why I ship Buddie so hard? Because they do have a foundation, they have been emotionally intimate with each other, they’ve seen the worst of each other and still went: I’m gonna have your back. And they have pulled a lot of shit on each other in the two years since meeting! Like, I’m sorry 911, I love you, but please never try and tell me they will have a deeper connection with anyone but each other because it’ll be a damn lie and you know it! If you don’t wanna do Buddie, let those boys get emotionally healthy and THEN give them an endgame but don’t try and replace Buddie with Loveinterests. I’m serious. I might stop watching!)

Eddie meanwhile is much more open with his feelings in the sense that he is less open in general so it’s far more noticeable when something is bothering him *because* he is subtle about it. Because Buck is so loud and so open and all about what you see is what you get, you don‘t assume he is hiding anything because you already see everything, right? (Always hide the real shit in plain sight, you guys, that‘s where no one remembers to look!) But Eddie, Eddie keeps his cards close. Sure he is funny and nice but he is also fucking reserved! And when something bothers him he draws into himself even more and that’s something that shows, that people will take notice of.

Eddies reaction to bad things (also known as *feelings*, because that boy is fucking repressed) happening is running away. And I am not saying he is a coward, I am saying he probably thinks he is and I am saying he runs away from his problems - that’s what 3.15 was about for Eddie: embracing his family (his vulnerabilities) and from what I‘ve seen in the last few days floating around in spoiler *now* Eddie has to learn to face his problems and not run away.

Which will be hard because Eddie deflects a lot.

It‘s funny (in a way that is not funny) that Buck, the fighter, is like the least aggressive guy around while Eddie, Mr quiet and reserved, who is all about running away from his problems, is so physically aggressive - except it is not and makes a lot of sense.

Season 3 truly shows how they deal with problems and I love it, I love them and this show so much!

Because Buck deals with the bombing by working tirelessly to come back to work, he deals with losing Christopher by nearly killing himself trying to find him and he deals with his fear of being replaced by filing the lawsuit to get his job back - which is also why I have to agree with Eddie: Buck truly has a one track mind. He sees the problem and nothing else. That makes him an amazing firefighter but an exhausting guy to be around because he does not give up.

I think in canon we only ever see Buck give up twice, maybe three times once with Abby and once with Christopher, both times he nearly killed himself first. (And one could argue that neither of these times he actually gave up, he was just out of options and time.) Tbh the only actual time he gave up was with Ali and that was probably his one track mind just not having any capacity to deal with a girlfriend on top of everything.

Eddie meanwhile deals with his wife dying and his best friend nearly dying twice and his son being traumatised and his best friend not being allowed back to work and his best friend filing that lawsuit by ... not dealing with it. He just moves on. Runs away from his feelings and his pain by fighting. He can’t deal with - can’t fight - his actual feelings so he fights something else. He lashes out. Becomes feral. That’s literally the gist of this episodes voiceover!

So tbh as much as I like that they resolved that lawsuit within one episode I am a bit bummed that we hardly saw anything of the 118 and especially Eddie without Buck there (specifically during his fighting time) mainly because I think we would have seen Hen and Chimney with Cap and Eddie maybe with Lena but generally keeping his distance, hiding away from them. (I don’t think Eddie just brushing past Buck in 3.06 was just about Buck.)

I truly meant what I said about 2.01 and Eddie taking one look at Buck being an asshole and deciding this one is gonna be his friend. Because while Hen and Chimney have been nice and friendly with him from the get go, they never give him shit the same way they give each other or Cap or Buck, and Eddie needs that. He needs someone who isn’t afraid to call him out and push back, both to get Eddie out of his own head and to make him feel comfortable enough to do the same. Which is why he bonded so fast with Buck and Lena (also, would he have bonded with her like that if Buck had been there? Probably not. Eddie is like the definition of „I only have the emotional capacity to care about three people at a time and two of them are my son“), because both held him accountable for his shit, which no one else on the show does, specifically not Hen and Chimney who treat Eddie as the guy who is good at most things so they just overlook the shitty stuff. And Cap does the same, because Eddie has a lot on his plate and Cap understands his issues better than anyone else’s.

Ya‘ll just need to watch the supermarket scene! It‘s all there!

Buck is in the store trying to create a moment so he can talk to all of them (meaning he is pushing, leaning into the problem until it gives), tries to make the problem go away by apologising (remember what I said about trying another way? Working hard didn’t work. Accepting his predicament didn‘t work. The lawsuit didn’t work. So now he tries talking it out - which he should have done to begin with, but hey, I’m not his therapist (sadly)) (It’s too bad it only worked to a certain level as we saw in the next episode but oh well, that’s actually realistic.)

Meanwhile Eddie has none of it because Eddie is currently running away from his problems so he can’t have his problem stand in front of him buying cat laxatives. So Eddie goes feral, and makes it all about Buck and his mistakes and then throws Christopher under the bus because that man is fighting for his life and he has nothing left to loose!!! I truly love this scene so much, you guys. It’s so revealing about these characters.

(I also shouldn’t have to point out that most of the stuff Eddie said to Buck was about Shannon, right? He was saying the things he was feeling about Shannon and he was throwing them at Buck because Buck was the one who brought it up, but also … look, it’s just ship-y from here all right?)

As for what I said about Hen, Bobby and Chimney in regards to Eddie? I know Chimney made some remarks but come on! Had it been any of them or Buck who yelled at someone like that they would have all interrupted and tried to diffuse the situation. But because it’s Eddie they sort of let it happen. (Also tbh because it’s Eddie and Buck and everyone is a little mad at Buck but they are something different to each other.)

Also, not to push my agenda, can we just talk about how comfortable Eddie has to be with the 118 but especially Buck, how much he has to care, to scream at him like that? Because he is reserved and he always tries to let go of his feelings and he hides so much. And I know part of it is that Eddie is coiled too tight already and about to burst but it’s also about Buck and the fact that Eddie expected better from him because Eddie has such a high opinion of him. Like sure he gives him shit sometimes but I think it’s because Eddie always expects the most of Buck (and Buck rarely lets him down). (And now I did go all ship-y)

Just compare this with his relationship with Shannon: with Shannon Eddie always is the one to make decisions, in part because he believes that’s what a man should do but also in part because he doesn’t trust her - and that was even before she left. Eddie trusts no one but himself for the most part but he does trust Buck, because to Eddie Buck can hardly do wrong. Which is why the whole law suit probably hit him so hard cause he expects everyone to let him down all the time but Evan Buckley? The guy he trust with his son more than anyone else? That guy? He expected better off! And that my friends is beautiful.

As for the voiceover it does poise one very central question for Eddie’s character: If he gives up control, will he be able to regain it? Because that is Eddie’s biggest fear and why he always holds everything so tight: he thinks if he lets the floodgates open once, he’ll never be able to close them.

In other news: Ryan took his shirt off.

Episode 3.06:

Before I write another 2400 words about our boys, I wanna remind you of that scene of Bobby, Chimney and Eddie wearing sun glasses, with Hen wearing her normal glasses, standing round, looking like an album cover! *plays „Clique“ by Kanye West, Jay-Z, Big Sean*

Do you think Athena and Hen talked about Bobby and how he would / does handle Buck? They did, didn’t they?

Also love how Hen and Chimney are super welcoming because one, they know what it’s like to be the odd one out and two, they love Buck and actually see his point of view. I believe. Now if only someone would remember to tell him.

Like, come on, they probably sit in the ambulance gossiping all the time!

I really love that we saw some bonding between Buck and Hen and Buck and Chimney in this episode because as much as I love Buddie we do not see enough of those combos (we don’t see enough of Buddie either).

Also the whole two steps forward, one step back? That is Bobby in this episode.

Now, we have to talk about the apology scene because this is Buck, expressing himself, being vulnerable. I love this episode a lot especially in regards to this Meta because here we see all the things I explained for the last episode: Buck is expressing, trying his best to make the problem go away while Eddie avoids it.

Also, you know, there is the whole illegal fighting thing that is visible on Eddie and look, if you did something like that would you willingly spent time with the one person who will call you out on it or will you avoid him like the plague? Especially if the last time you saw him you were screaming bloody murder at him in the middle of a grocery store! And the next time you see him he calls you out for your bruising. Yeah, guys, that’s just realistic.

Also bit of a reach, but the reason this is part of my discussion of 3.06 and not 3.05, which is Eddie’s relationship to Buck. Remember how 3.03 ended? That beautiful moment that made Oliver Stark cry on Instagram live? Remember how Eddie said „It’s his turn to save you now.“? Yeah, what happened to that?

Okay, Eddie is not an expressive guy. He is bad with feelings. He hates having them. And here comes Evan „Buck“ Buckley and he is just the polar opposite. Sure, he’d rather not talk about his feelings either but he has a lot of them and he *likes* having all of them and he wallows in them and that is probably a lot for a guy like Eddie to deal with. Especially when I do think Eddie understands somewhat where Buck came from and he probably feels guilty af about making Buck feel like he was being replaced. About not seeing the pain Buck was in. About not being there for him - which is why he lashes out, because guilt can make the healthiest people do horrible shit and Eddie is far from any definition of healthy at that point.

But I do have to say I am reaching with this and if I ever meet Tim Minear I will have him explain the fight scene and the apology scene to me word for word because it has to be deeper, right?

It can’t just be Eddie lashing out, and saying exactly the things he knows will hurt Buck because he is mad mad mad? Yeah, I know, whatever.

(Because even if that is the case? This is still the scene where a guy uses his best friend as a substitute to get his anger for his dead wife out in a somewhat healthy manner.)

Which is why I love both these scenes immensely, because it shows exactly how differently Eddie and Buck deal with things, because Eddie avoids them or gets mad and screams at them while Buck, actually does something fairly healthy and try to talk it out - but like only as his last option. He tries anything but talking before that, except with Eddie because they are connected and he finally *finally* lets himself be emotionally vulnerable with Eddie.

Which is also why the apology scene is so important to me, despite thinking while a bit rash, Buck wasn’t exactly wrong in his actions. I would have hated if they just brushed the grocery store over or made it about Eddie and the issues he had at the time. Instead they gave us this beautiful scene where Buck finally - FINALLY - gets to explain himself to someone, especially Eddie, the guy who he hurt the most because Buck is his anchor, and Eddie actually listens and then he gets it and he is like, oh, I wasn’t wrong! He really deserves all my trust!

So you know, that’s just beautiful, wether it’s platonic or romantic.

Episode 3.07: no relevance

Episode 3.08:

I wanna say something right of the bat that is probably controversial as hell:

Eddie did not want to share with Bobby. Eddie likes Bobby, he trusts Bobby, but he wasn’t really feeling like sharing with Bobby.

The reason Eddie talked with Bobby about all of this? Well, first of all it was bound to happen, sometimes things need to be said and then it doesn’t really matter who you’re talking to.

Also Eddie? Boy Scout. Army man. Chain of Command. If your superior officer tells you to share - you share! There. I said it. (This is not a Bobby Nash - stan account)

Also: „A friend of mine told me I needed an outlet - think I found it.“ - no, you didn’t Buddy boy, it’s why I’m currently 10.000 words into an episode by episode analysis of your character! (can you tell I am slowly going off the rails with this?)

But I do love how we finally got to see sassy!Eddie again. I missed you, babe!

As for the kitchen scene and the look, yes, I know, Maddie was looking at them like that because she just called them out about gossiping and they turned around and gossiped, buuuut … ya’ll also realise that Chimney was apparently *not* aware that anything was wrong with Eddie when Eddie had been acting weird way longer then Hen. He nearly punched Buck in a grocery store, he comes in with new bruises like 3 times a week but sure mate, he is all normal! (Or you know, Buck is just hyperfocused on Eddie)

One thing that freaks me out every time I watch this episode is how completely fucking nonchalant Eddie seems by the fact that he nearly fucking killed a guy. To quote Lena Bosko, professional plot pusher: „What the hell, Eddie?“

And then of course 3.15 happened and we saw Eddie shoot multiple people, so he probably learned how to compartmentalise and I guess I need to remember this is a TV show and no one actually died. But wow, I really need this addressed more because I have such mixed feelings about this.

And with regards to this I wanna say something even more controversial: Eddie got off easy. Yes, the guy willingly went into that ring but Eddie nearly killed him and all Bobby wanted to talk about was why Eddie was fighting? Again: What the hell?

Another thing this episode firmly proofs is that Lena is really just a poor substitute for Buck because Eddie doesn’t actually know anything about her, he just uses her as a sounding board because, well, Buck wasn’t there and he was lonely?

As for the actual conversation happening, yes, there we have it, in plain sight, Eddie needs to be in control because he thinks this is what Christopher needs him to be and as I’ve said before Eddie will always do anything for Christopher, even if he hurts himself in the process.

Also, remember when Lena told him he needed to show and tell his son how he felt so Christopher knows it’s okay to feel that way as well? Clearly didn’t stick of he would not feel this intense need to be in control. Which is realistic, you don’t just unlearn behaviour you had for like 30 years just because someone gives you some good advice once! (Man, my life could be so different!)

I’m also not a fan of Bobby’s „She died.“ because while yes, it wasn’t her fault that she left this time, grief isn’t rational. And even without the looming divorce Eddie has every right to be upset and to be angry at the world, and yes, even his dead wife. She’s dead. It doesn’t hurt her anymore. (Although that would be one feeling he should probably keep from Christopher.)

Not to mention Eddie feels guilty as hell. His anger? Mostly at himself. The sentence “I broke his mother”? Broke me as well.

But I also understand Eddie because while he may be grieving, his son is clearly traumatised by the whole situation, as seen in 3.04, and Eddie is trying his best and look, his outlet wasn’t the healthiest but um, at least he realised he needed one? He addressed that? That’s growth (sorta).

Amount of shirtless!Eddie scenes: 2, which feels a bit like overkill for one episode (pace yourself, Tim, this isn’t Game of Thrones)

Episode 3.09:

Frank! My main man Frank! Ui, I love him! When Tim calls me to come consult for Season 4 because clearly by now I am an expert on his characters and the way they should act, I will tell him to bring Frank back. I miss Frank. I hope he’s doing okay. He deserves the world. Also really wanna meet Rosemary.

And hey, as someone who has worked in the mental health sector and probably will again come October (if I manage to finish my degree by then, urgh, Corona, you are destroying my thesis!), I love that scene on the sofa so much! All of them openly sharing that they have been in therapy and talking about their therapists and just, uh, that scene makes me all tingly!

Before we get into all the emotional things I’m just gonna add the scene on the sofa to my list of scene I don’t fully understand. Like, what emotion exactly was Eddie supposed to be conveying because to me he sounds angry. And why should Eddie be angry about Buck sleeping with his therapist? What reason could he have?

Okay, yeah, maybe it’s a little exasperation and annoyance because apparently Evan Buckley is just coasting through life and doesn’t even take therapy seriously. Idk. I haven’t read the script.

But it does lead us to Buck giving Eddie shit, because, as I’ve said before, that’s what Buck does.

As for the therapy scene, yay, there is a mention of the nearly dead guy! Who is not dead. Yay!

I do love Eddie’s reasons for going to therapy and really trying, even though he is not clicking with Frank. He is such a good dad! (Also I’ve been debating for like 20 minutes whether Eddie would be more comfortable sharing with a woman or with a man and for some reason (his connection with Buck vs his relationship with Shannon) I think he’d be more comfortable with a man. Idk. I could be wrong. - Also Eddie is probably always uncomfortable talking about his feelings, so there is that!) His reasoning shows also yet again what I said about both Buck and Eddie before: they are protectors. They will make themselves vulnerable to help someone else. It’s a thing.

Also I pulled out my pocket edition of ICD-10 to check and while we don’t have enough information to give a full diagnosis, it’s safe to say that he is supposed to be going through a depressive episode. Because yes, sometimes depressed people aren’t sad, sometimes they are fucking angry.

Now, as for the Evan Buckley of it all and that scene: I read another Meta by someone clearly much better at this than me that stated Eddie uses Sarcasm as a way to deflect, which is exactly what is happening here because Eddie is not as fine with everything that happened as he pretends to be. I think he has just come to the sudden and horrible conclusion that his tipping point has been Buck no longer being in his life and so he decided it was easier to just move on then deal with his feelings (which is what got you into this mess in the first place, Edmundo, so please rethink,) if that means Buck back in his life.

I also think Eddie deflects here because he realises how much what he did and what he said actually hurt Buck in return and Eddie doesn’t fully know how to deal with that. And look, if they actually start discussing their issues then Eddie will have to admit his guilt and Eddie will have to say he’s sorry and right then he is still too pissed to do so, so he decides to move on.

Ah, the wonderful clash of Eddie thinking actions speak louder than words but Buck needing to hear the actual words.

Sidenote: I sent the kitchen scene to my roommate, stopped before they played the video game and asked her what she thinks happened next. And to quote „Love me <3 <3 <3. Please fuck me“ - because yes, she did take one look at them and decide the one with the puppy dog eyes was a bottom. That’s also a quote.

Episode 3.10:

Eddie really is trying so hard to be a good dad, isn’t he?

I also love the little head shake Eddie gives after Chris ask Buck about spending Christmas with him, because he clearly has already talked about the whole thing with Buck. And I’m not gonna talk about the framing. Other’s have done that before and I don’t actually know that much about it in first place.

Also it is cute as all hell that Chris asked Buck in the first place and also heartbreaking.

Other than that this episode doesn’t have that much of a relevance for this meta, because if I have to start discussing Buck’s other issues as well this will never be done.

Before I let you go, I wanna say something real quick:

In the past few days there have been several posts about content creators and liking vs commenting / reblogging on my dash and I just wanna say this is true for meta writers as well! Look, I love everyone who likes this because validation, but I’m not actually writing this meta for myself, I’m writing this because I have thoughts and I wanna share them with the rest of the class and have the class discuss it with me!

So please, reblog this and comment under or in the tags or come to my ask or my messages, even if it’s only to tell me that my punctuation is shit!

Anyways, @angelcamael and @greyhello here’s part 3!

#buck meta #eddie meta #buddie meta #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buck #buddie #911 meta #911 #911 fox #textpost #mine #meta #season 3 #my meta

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fizzingwizard · 4 years ago

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Alright, so, Digimon Adventure 2020 Episode 12: Castle in the Sky Laputa!

I mean, I, Guardromon...

... Bicentennialmon?

well, any of the three works :P

Right off the bat, I’ll say this ep gets a ‘meh’ from me, BUT I did love its aesthetic. I’m a big fan of robot stories, especially the Asimov variety. Scrap heap robots are my absolute favs. And I did like the Ghibli vibe going on too. The episode was pretty, and the robot characters were cool... it just wasn’t very fun. At the very least, I was expecting team Taichi/Koushirou/Mimi to be a bit more fun than Yamato/Sora/Jou, but I guess this ain’t 1999 anymore ;)

^The most amusing bit was finding out Koushirou’s laptop can fold like this... which, okay, shouldn’t surprise me, it just looks frigging weird...

me: DO YOU KNOW HOW TO USE A KEYBOARD???

koushirou: hush old lady, your first laptop was grayscale only and had Windows 3.1 installed.

Actual content relevant to the episode below...!

We had a promising start when last week’s episode ended on a cliffhanger... or a cliffdropper, I guess, because Mimi’s not hanging onto anything. She’s fallen down and landed on Palmon. Digimon can sure take a beating.

Palmon reaches to see if she can hoist them back up, but...

... it’s too high! Oh well, no choice but to travel on foot. Good thing Mimi landed on Palmon!

Meanwhile, above, Taichi and Koushirou turn to his computer for help. Unfortunately they have some technical difficulties.

Koushirou: Noooo, not the swirling of doom!! My immortal nemesis...

Even Taichi understands that buffering spells death. He’s a 21st century kid, so he’s a little more savvy about computers than 99 Taichi, whose trusty recourse in these situations was "treat the machine like a Bop-It.”

Mimi discovers they are in a Digimon scrap heap. ;_; Good heavens. Apparently robot Digimon are unlike organic (??) Digimon same as robots are different from humans, so the way they die is not quite the same either.

Mimi feels sorry for these trashed creatures. She’s no cold-hearted corporate goon who looks at these guys and just sees dollars. She notices the heart!

She also just wiped that rusty Guardromon’s helmet with her bare hand...

Mimi: Where’s Sora-san when I need a towel!!

Andromon makes his 2020 debut! And he’s just as much the pawn of evil as ever!

Boxing Cactus Go-go-go!!

Togemon gets her prickly hiney owned, but the Guardromon suddenly reanimates and protects her instead. His big strategy is “drop something heavy on Andromon and run away.” It’s super effective.

Who wants to translate the digicode, because I’m not gonna. Ten bucks says it’s something like “target human child exterminate” yadda yadda

When Koushirou’s computer fails, we must rely on our physical skills. Their big plan is “climb down the bottomless pit after Mimi.” There are a few things wrong with this picture:

1) Even if they know how deep the hole is, IT’S STILL QUITE A FALL. Make one wrong move and you’ll be useless to Mimi T_T And these idiots make plenty of wrong moves.

2) If there were handholds like these, why couldn’t Palmon have just grabbed them with her vines and carried Mimi up? Instead she was like, “Nah, can’t reach the top, let’s walk in a random direction and hope things work out!”

3) The Guardromon is taking Mimi to an elevator. Meaning there is a working elevator, meaning there is a way down that would significantly decrease their chances of DYING on the way. Koushirou’s computer can’t figure that out? Also I was expecting some hijinks there... like, they finally make it down only for Mimi to say “Why didn’t you just take the elevator like I did? Boys are weird.”

In his defense, Koushirou’s method of descent is worlds better than Taichi’s.

Hate to say I told you so...

Guardromon takes Mimi to some suspicious water which she uses to nurse Palmon... with a towel

Guardromon presents Sheeta Mimi with a flower to convey that he likes killing pretty delicate things :) run Mimi

The Laputa vibe... it is vibing.

We cut away to Yamato/Sora/Jou for thirty seconds just to point how much Better they’re doing than Taichi’s group. They’ve even realized how that basket was, who needs to put in all that work when we can all fit comfortably on a log! Sora and Yamato flirt. Jou’s going to be sick.

Taichi and Koushirou encounter some broken Solarmon who are being controlled by Soundbirdmon, so I guess it’s official now that we can’t believe any Digimon is truly evil if Soundbirdmon is around. Koushirou goes to help Mimi while Taichi stays behind to fend off these gears. Uh, is it just me or does this team seem very quick to split up.

I like the way Guardrmon cradles Mimi so all we can see is her shocked expression.

Guardromon tries his tried and true method of shooting down something heavy to crush Andromon...

... but Andromon’s like “hah! Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!” and knocks it away. Not very effective...

Guardromon’s guarded his last mon... he starts to go... offline I guess...

In sweeps Kabuterimon to the rescue. In 99 Adventure, he’d have something witty to say, or at least a pun. 2020 Kabuterimon mostly likes to make weird noises. I understand why Agumon and Gabumon’s VA’s were calling him a “weirder uncle than ever” at Digifes...

Obligatory Best Boy cap

Hell Approacheth

Wow!!! Taichi finally got knocked off Greymon! He must have forgot to put on his suction cup shoes today!

So this entire episode, I was wondering what was to stop MetalGreymon from happening and stealing the show from Lillymon. I expected “Agumon just evolved recently and doesn’t have the juice to do it again so soon!” or some such. Nothing more than that. But, nah, we don’t even get that... MetalGreymon happens and he just... can’t... beat Andromon? For some reason? I’m going with “Because he’s Andromon.” Afterward, this very heavy structure falls down and MetalGreymon has lift it a la Atlas to keep Taichi from getting squished, so he can’t continue to beat on Andromon.

... Of course, Togemon gets stuck holding this thing up too... so there’s that...

The reason, of course, is so Guardromon can make one last action surge, grabbing Andromon’s leg, which works, randomly. At least for a moment.

Mimi spends most of this episode being Shocked.

Guardromon takes one final, grainy look at Mimi as he prepares for sweet death. The digicode says “Sheeta.” (kidding like I’d bother to translate it lol)

Andromon RUDELY stomps on his head. Like HELLO Andromon can you not see the dude is having a moment here? Show some respect!

Mimi sheds a Single Emo Tear

Which causes “Your sorrow made me evolve!” Lillymon. She immediately flies out to attack Andromon, leaving MetalGreymon alone holding the heavy metal structure, which promptly crushes him and our heroes. Game Over!

just kidding, the structure just vanishes I guess :/ It’s not very clear...

High kick attack!

It’s not very effective...

Lillymon does seem to have an ability that MetalGreymon doesn’t which cinches her victory over Andromon... her rain of petals interfere with his ability to lock on to a target. Too much organic matter everywhere I guess.

Lillymon covers Andromon in plants rendering him immobile...

... *cough*

Poor Mimi’s had a hard day of watching robots die.

Her affinity for marking graves returns as she leaves the flower Guardromon gave her on his corpse(?).

Taichi looks only sadly as Koushirou explains that Andromon and Guardromon were totes besties, until Soundbirdmon started mindcontrolling everyone. Gee that seems like something that could have been an interesting plot point had it been mentioned y’know earlier.

In sum... yeah, this ep just isn’t fun. There’s no friend moments, no getting to know each other, everything takes a backseat to this robot-protect-girl storyline. I really did like Guardromon, but the episode takes itself way too seriously in my opinion.

That aside... I was happy that Mimi’s episode didn’t involve stinky ugly Digimon falling in love and stalking her so she can passionately reject them. I can live without both of those things.

Mimi having the ability to project feelings onto supposedly nonfeeling things is a very Mimi-like character trait for her and one that I really truly love. It’ll definitely come in handy in the digital world where all is never how it seems. On the other hand, though, it’s not like it’s a trait we didn’t have already... it just belonged mainly to Hikari :P So... yeah.

Next week we’re going to get Garudamon, in a way that looks like it will pale compared to our first meeting with Garudamon in 99 Adventure, BUT that’s okay... because we’ve got plenty of time for the Big Important things to happen, both on a plot level and on a character development level. I am a little wtf??? about everyone getting not one but two evolutions within the same adventure - assuming the kids are going to go home at some point and finally put Tokyo out of its misery. I’d expected this show would be more like 02 with the kids jumping in and out, but tbh I’m not gonna be sad if they just stay in the digital world indefinitely. Also, it’s not like Taichi didn’t get both an evolution and a jogress the first time he came to the digital plane, so obviously things are just working differently in this show!

But as it’ll be a Sora episode, I just hope it’s an improvement on the last Sora episode. There’s plenty of potential following the mini tiff between her and Yamato last week, so i hope we see some follow up to that. Maybe a couple Sorato moments. We didn’t get anything for Taishiro this week :( But since it looks like probably next week the groups are still separated, perhaps the week after we’ll get MegaKabuterimon and see more interaction between Taichi and Koushirou then. *shrug* A girl can dream!

Anyway this ep gets 5.5/10 from me!

#digimon adventure 2020 #digimon adventure reboot #digimon psi #psi spoilers #fizz watches digimon 2020 #digimon

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aronasnack · 5 years ago

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circles ⎮ aròn piper fiction

summary: flying back to madrid leaves ur heart feeling heavy bc you know you were bound to reconnect with ur past.

characters: arón piper x bella alvarez (o/c)

author's note: this is the start to a series! ps sorry for the terrible spanish, i'm using google translator BAHAHHA :') in this storyline, aron is 23 when he starts filming elite. :)

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

pt. 1 ⎮ pt. 2 ⎮ pt. 3 out now!

word count: 1,489.

This can't be happening. You knew you were bound to meet him when you returned to Madrid, but you never imagined in a million years that you'd run into him in the club the both of you used to party frequently together, and needless to say, on the very first night back to your hometown. You had been trying to suppress the thoughts of him ever since you entered the club. Despite the club looking completely different as compared to when you were last here, the atmosphere it had with the blasting of hip-hop and r&b music, the high that you were feeling, the view of hips swaying, strangers making out with strangers, and everyone else dancing their night away, it was all too familiar. Four years ago, you were here, dancing your night away with the love of your life, hoping that the night would never end as you swayed your hips against his, loving every moment you spent with him. Crazy how four years went by, and everything's changed, here you were trying to run away from the very guy you once thought was the love of your life. You could still hear him calling and running after you, but you just weren't ready to face him. After so many years, you never expected to meet him in such a manner, you were expecting to bump to him in the streets, or in a mall, where you could just look away and walk off. However, it seemed like someone was playing a joke on you, forcing you to have a conversation with someone you've been trying so hard to forget over the past four years. You quickly run to the dance floor that was packed full of people, squeezing your way through the swarm of drunkards that were dancing like there was no tomorrow. You couldn't hear him anymore with the loud music that was almost ear-deafening, and you thought that you were safe enough for him not to find you, so you turned around to make your way to your friends.

"Bella, where have you been? you've been gone for almost an hour." Miguel rushes to examine you, worried that something might have happened. "I was resting in the loo, and... well, i bumped into him." you replied cautiously as you knew they had been trying to resist mentioning him the entire night. You had noticed how your friends stopped talking as soon as they were about to mention him, but changed the topic because they were trying to be considerate of your feelings. " you met arón! ...oh, so did you guys talk?" your friends questioned, after all, they were friends with him. All of you, together with his group of friends, used to hangout frequently together. You knew some of them were still close friends with him, but the fact they were your close friends first, before meeting Arón, is the very reason why they are still here after the breakup. You shooked your head and sighed, "i'm not here to deal with whatever i left in the past. it's unnecessary." the group stays silent because you clearly weren't in the mood, and then Miguel says, " alright now you freaks, we're here to party, so let's cheers to Bella being back!!" All of us smile and laugh, realising that he was right, and we cheers our glasses together, yelling, "WELCOME BACK BELLA!!!!!"

The night continued until it was 4 in the morning, and damn, half of your group were drop dead wasted, and you were barely sober when you guys all made your way out of the club. They were going to send the drunk ones home first, and they forced you to go home first since you had a long flight and a very long night as well, so there you were alone outside the club, in your coat, waiting for your cab home. Lighting your cigarette, you take a puff, and felt the heaviness that was weighing your heart down lifted. You had been smoking for the past four years, as a coping mechanism to deal with all the sudden changes in your life over the few years. You smiled to yourself as you had enjoyed the company of your friends that you hadn't met all this while, and that smile dropped when you see someone suddenly yanking your cigarette away, dropping it on the floor, standing in front of you. "We need to talk."

You look up to see Arón staring down at you, and it sent shivers down your spine, because those hazel orbs that you were looking at used to be your major weakness. "i have nothing to say to you," before you look away to turn around and walk away from him. However, with a sudden grab on your left wrist and a strong pull, you were struggling to keep up with a fuming Arón taking you to an alley near the club. "what the hell do you want from me?" you yelled at Arón as he finally stops pulling you into the alley. You touch and look at your wrist, only to see how red it is, and you knew it was definitely going to turn into a bruise. Seething with anger, you looked up, ready to curse and swear at Arón, and you stopped when your eyes meets his equally fiery eyes that softens when he asks you, "so you smoke now?" Seriously, did this guy just drag you here just for this. "i don't have the energy for this. my ride is coming." you turn to walk away once again, and again, he grabs your arm to pull you back to face him. "when did you come back?" he asks you another question. You knew he wasn't going to let you leave until you answered his questions, so you replied him stoically, "yes. and this morning." you tilt your head up to take a look at him and you swear, you saw his eyes glistening, and for that split second, he seemed sad. "it's nice meeting you again. you look.." arón's eyes wander from your body to your face and smirks, "beautiful." Hearing his compliment didn't leave you feeling surprised or happy, instead you were rather indifferent, replying "i wish i could say the same. just a word of advice, lock the door next time. my ride's here so goodnight arón." before turning away to catch your cab. As you walked away, Arón continues to stare at you until you got into your cab, and he whispers, "i miss you."

You laid back in the cab, groaning at the encounter you just had with your ex. Saying you were uncomfortable was an understatement. The night was great, but running into your ex with a girl on him and furthermore, having to be alone with him in a desolate alley was the last thing you could have ever imagined how your night would have panned out. As your thoughts started to wander around the thought of that awkward encounter, you found yourself daydreaming about how good he looked in that blue striped shirt, with his luscious curls that you once loved twirling so much. "señora, hemos llegado," your driver informs you that you've arrived at your apartment, snapping you out of the thoughts you were having of Arón. fortunately. You returned home, quickly washing up and got into bed because you were exhausted from all the travelling and partying, and you knock out at the drop of a dime.

the next few days, you stay home to unpack your luggages and arrange the furnitures to make your apartment more homely and cozy. it was nice having some time off to recuperate because you've been working consecutively for multiple productions back in the States, and you had barely any breather. thus, the time you had before starting the new netflix production was a great chance for you to relax and focus on your well-being. however, rest was over. it was finally the day for you to meet the cast of the new netflix production as you were heading down to the studio to do the first reading of the scripts with them. you had already met the crew prior to moving to madrid, as they flew out to LA to discuss on the script and some technical parts with you. you were ready for a new chapter in your life, to direct a series that was in your native language. it was exciting for you. you made your way down to the studio with a ferrari f430, that you had bought a few days ago so that you didn't have to constantly rely on cabs as a mode of transportation. you arrive at the studio shortly after, smiling, ready to welcome the cast into the family. "chicas y chicos, meet the directors whom you'll be working with closely." your smile falls, oh god, this can't be happening.

pt. 3 out now!

#aron piper #aron piper imagine #aron piper x reader #aron piper ff #aron #ander munoz #ander #aron piper imagines #fanfiction #elite cast #elite #elite netflix

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militant-holy-knight · 5 years ago

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Castlevania Season 3 Review: Ellis is Gonna Ellis I Suppose.

Warning: Massive spoilers ahead because I don’t give a shit anymore so scroll down really fast if don’t want to get spoiled

Being a Castlevania fan is pure suffering, man. Not only is the video game franchise being put on ice by Konami at the time of writing, but your only form of enjoyment is a hit-or-miss Netflix Original written by a guy who admits never playing the games. I tried to enjoy the first season despite it being only four episodes long, and same thing with the second one which was longer but had a plethora of issues. Now it’s the third season, which took a year-long break to be made, and I am absolutely sorry to say it’s the absolute lowest point of the show: not only repeating the issues from the previous season, but amplifying them and failing to do anything interesting with anything new that is given. I will elaborate why I think so in this review.

So after Season 2, Dracula has been destroyed, our heroes have split up with Trevor and Sypha going their own way while Alucard has stayed behind in his father’s castle overlooking the Belmont Hold. Carmilla and Isaac have survived and are preparing to build an whole new army, the former to establish a new empire and the latter to get his revenge on her for betraying Dracula.

Even though the stakes are lower than the possible extinction of the human race which was the (possible) outcome from Season 2 which never actually came into fruition, you’d imagine they would do something inciting with this new status quo... But you’d be wrong. This season as a whole felt like padding in all conceivable manners. Not only was the pacing atrocious (which I will get into a minute), but really, nearly all of the events that occurred could have been omitted and the storyline as a whole wouldn’t have been affected somehow.

The pacing was the worst problem in Season 2 since you had the protagonists locked down inside a hold to do research on how to kill Dracula and endless exposition among the bad guys that some defenders call “vampire politics’ which ultimately went nowhere. The pacing in Season 3 is even worse since not only is it longer (10 episodes this time), you have more storylines now but each of them move at completely sluggish pace with a disproportional large amount of exposition and comparatively few action.

The Castlevania games were level-based games which had you visiting several distinct locations whether if it was inside or outside the castle. An adaptation series of Castlevania would make more sense if it was episodic in nature, perhaps even with monster of the week formula. It would have been better off for it, but the show is attempting channel Game of Thrones with an over-aching arc with sprawling individual storylines whose episodes are build up for an epic confrontation at the end, but it fails in that regard.

Trevor and Sypha’s storyline was absolutely pointless - they have no idea of the larger threat brewing with two demonic armies about to clash against each other, but they are stuck doing what basically amounts to a sidequest, investigating a evil cult operating in a small town which takes a needless long time to conclude. They completely fail in saving the townsfolk from being sacrificed and end up discovering that one of the characters that has been helping them is actually a monster all along. This only serves to make their effort completely pointless and leave the pair absolutely bitter and angry.

Not that there is any urgency in stopping Carmilla or Isaac since they come nowhere near close to trading blows to one another. In fact, Carmilla doesn’t come anywhere close to achieving her goal of raising an army of demons with Hector (who has been enslaved by her for this purpose) and it’s actually one of her lieutenants Lenore that solves this problem at the end. On the other hand, Isaac gets the closest thing to an highlight in this season by experiencing something of an character development since he is questioned by several characters that maybe humans aren’t so bad as a whole. The problem is that his development becomes inconclusive since he doesn’t learn to be anymore different than he used to.

Alucard gets sidelined like you wouldn’t believe. He spends the entire season in his castle now with two new characters, Japanese twin hunters that seek to be training so they can free their people from the vampires... Aaaaand they try to fuckin kill him, which comes out from nowhere specially after an extremely uncomfortable threesome between him and the twins. And just in case you thought the previous season was depressing enough with Alucard breaking down in tears completely alone in his castle, this one ends not only with Alucard still alone, crying, but now emulating his dad by leaving the impaled corpses of the twins in the castle’s entrance to scare off any trespassers which is the closing shot of this season.

But for me, the biggest letdown has to be Hector. He was one of my favorite characters from the games, having starred his own entry Curse of Darkness for the PS2 where he actually turns on Dracula on behalf of humanity and pursues Isaac for murdering his wife. Here, he does absolutely fuck all during the entire season except being bossed around by Carmilla’s sisters. The guy had such cool powers of summoning Innocent Devils and wielding all types of weapons (including a lightsaber) is reduced to a whimpering slave, whom I have absolutely no hope of seeing in his absolute glory. The worst part is that it was very predictable - the moment I saw Lenore saying that both her and Hector should flee together, I knew she was gonna screw him in some way. The irony is that unlike the other storylines which pull some kind of mean twist in the last second, here you already can tell what is going to happen next.

The new characters frankly do nothing for the story. The aforementioned Carmilla’s sisters are pure window-dressing and only Lenore gets the shit done by herself might I add completely independent from the others and specially Carmilla herself (who does nothing). A video game character actually does get featured - Comte of Saint-Germain, who is some kind of magician in search of his loved one who got lost in another dimension. Another step down from his video counterpart who is a time guardian that preserves the cosmic balance (though it seems they were channeling the historical figure rather than the character that happens to share the same name given their ignorance for the source material).

There are of course those typical Warren Ellis moments like three mentions of bestiality (and one goatfucking as usual) and anti-Christian commentary, though it seems to be sending some kind of mixed messages this time: in one hand Sypha comment that while she hates God, she at least admires Jesus because of his sacrifice which can be considered one of nicest things that atheists can comment about Christianity... And then the next episode features an demon that used to be a Greek philosopher who lived during post-Constantinian Roman Empire and was persecuted by Christians because of his intellect. Oh dear. With that said, it’s rather odd this guy became a demon so maybe he had it coming?

Overall, this season is a lot more weaker and lacking than Season 2, which at least had the climax in Episode 7 which some people were willing to forgive the dullness from that season. But Season 3′s climax is completely unfocused, interlaced with unnecessary and uncomfortable sex scenes and doesn’t even feature classical music from the games, which was the saving grace from the last time.

So did it have any upsides? I guess so if you look hard enough like Isaac’s schizophrenic “should I hate all humans or not” dillema which goes unresolved. Hardly anything that elevates the season or make it redeemable in some way. To be perfectly frank with you, I don’t know if I have any interest in keeping with this show. It blew away any good will Season 1 and 2 did, it barely moved the plot forward (and that if it has an overaching plot at all), the protagonists being disconnected to the main threat at large and quite frankly, none of the antagonists are as interesting as Dracula, I just don’t care what happens next. Specially if the pacing and exposition remain in place. In theory, if the series was restructured to be episodic instead of trying to be Game of Thrones, my interest in the show would have been renewed but it’s too little too late.

I guess in retrospect I should be grateful that Season 1 was so short had I knew later ones would be so tedious. There is so very little to do with Castlevania: Dracula’s Curse when you already got rid of the main villain and you don’t move the plot forward. If they want to regain my interest, do a Leon Belmont season that is episodic or heck anything else, but I don’t see them doing this because they have to give closure to this story arc, which already grew past it’s welcome and wasted everyone’s time with a season that amounted to nothing more than filler. Well, my patience has been worn thin.

#Castlevania #reviews

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lostberryqueen · 5 years ago

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OITNB Season 7 (Warning: Contains Spoilers)

So, there were a lot of strong parts of season 7. I cried more than I think I did with any other season. The writers were able to make pretty much every character someone the audience cares deeply about--and that’s oitnb at its strongest. However, when I got to the end of the season, and the final orange image showed, I personally, was very pissed off.

Alex and Piper have pretty much been a done deal since season 5. While it is understandable to scare viewers throughout the middle of the season, the last episode was designed to make viewers think Piper and Alex were going to split, right until the ending where they give you a 2 second scene telling you this is not the case. I think the viewer is supposed to feel overjoyed that Alex and Piper ended up together. Obviously Alex and Piper ending up together is a good thing, and there were some really strong moments this season where they learned how to overcome the difficulties in their relationship--but a 2 second scene of them together is all we get?? I mean, we were basically unofficially-officially promised an epilogue where we would see them living together and happy. Even if the writers didn’t want to do that--couldn’t they at least have given us a 5 or 4 or even 3 minute scene with them a the end? Piper and Alex are the biggest romantic arc on the show, Piper is the main character, we’re never going to see these characters again, and all they give us for an ending is a 2 second scene?

Larry fucking Bloom got a super long scene where he got to tell Piper who he thought she was. It was like closure for Larry was more important than closure for (arguably) the most important relationship on the show. If there’s time for Larry (and an incredibly unrealistic Luschek redemption) why isn’t there more time for the two leading ladies?

Now, on to what Orange, did well. Definitely Taystee, Cindy, and Suzanne’s plotlines. I mean, I was sobbing so hard after Pennsatucky died--but I realized it wasn’t for her (at least--mostly not for her), it was for what Taystee was going through. I felt really bad for being relieved that Tiffany died and not Taystee--because I do actually like and care about both characters. Those scenes where it seemed like Taystee was going to kill herself were so intense--and the fact that she didn’t is really empowering. That was the kind of plot twist that worked. And Taystee telling Cindy’s daughter the truth as revenge was a good plotline as well, because Cindy’s daughter needed to know the truth. Even though it wrecked things at first, I think it was a really important step in healing.

The immigration court scenes were super powerful. The pigeon was the perfect metaphor for racism--doves and pigeons are the same thing, it’s just that pigeons have more colorful feathers and a lot of people treat them like shit.

Orange didn’t shy away from shit and pain and controversial topics. Where Orange is usually strong it was strongest this season, and where Orange is usually weak, it was fairly weak this season.

Here’s how I would rate it:

Deep plotlines other than Alex and Piper: 10/10

The Cry Meter: 11/10

Doesn’t Have Too Much Larry: 3/10

Doesn’t Focus Unnecessarily on Male Redemption Instead of Focusing on More Important Female Character Arcs: 5/10

Alex and Piper flashback scenes: 1/10

Alex Vause flashback scenes: 8/10 (I’m a little conflicted about this rating because I did feel like the flashbacks showed her relationship struggles in a way that revealed new information about her character--she actually did try to help “fix” her girlfriend Sylvie, but her motivation for fixing her was probably mostly control. Alex substitutes control for intimacy. I also really liked knowing that Alex and Sylvie were sort of on a break when Alex met Piper, so she wasn’t entirely cheating on her. It also shows how Piper was different from her other girlfriends. She loved Piper, wanted to be with her--and it was about more than just control, or “fixing” someone. It’s like Alex said herself: “Piper was different.” The reason why I am conflicted about this rating though is because I feel like the show never really gave us enough of Alex’s backstory, and so to focus on scenes where some of them almost overlap with scenes we’ve already seen--it really just felt like they could have added something new as well.)

Amount of Piper screen time: 10/10 (I suspect a lot of people will disagree with this rating. Piper is my favorite character, and she’s also the main character. While I do really like hearing other storylines, I really hated how previous seasons reduced her time so much that she was barely present.)

Alex and Piper relationship development: 10/10 (This entire season every time Alex or Piper were with another person (romantically or sexually) it was just so so wrong. I’m not someone against polyamory or anything, but with Alex and Piper, seeing them with other people just showed me even more how much they are just completely meant to be together. They’re not meant to be with someone else. They’re twin flames--not soul mates. They’re not part of the same soul family, they are two halves of one soul.

Alex and Piper concluding scene: 3/10 (It needed to be longer!!)

Some closing thoughts:

I’m pretty conflicted about the Red plotline. On the one hand, it showed vividly the devastating effect that solitary confinement has on the mind. It gave a backstory to all of those older women in Florida--because it makes the viewer think about how all of them were vibrant and sharp one day, and now they have faded. On the other hand, Red is a powerful middle-aged female character that was just stripped of her power--stripped of her mind and thrown away. Her storyline was super emotional, but I can’t help but wish they had given it to Frieda instead, and allowed Red and Nicky to have a happier ending to their story.

I also have conflicting feelings about the Tiffany and Morello storylines. Both of these characters are neurodivergent, and both of them had empowering storylines that ended in tragedy. I think it would have been better if Tiffany had seemed dead but had not actually been dead--Taystee and her could have then had a deep conversation afterwards, and it would have had a similar effect on Taystee’s storyline. Morello’s storyline was about a mentally challenged woman who overcame her obsession and found love. The plot twist that she had been stalking Christopher was very powerful--I just wish they hadn’t added anything to her backstory this season. The baby dying and her reaction to the baby dying was realistic--but I do wish they had found a pathway to better health for her. The flashback scenes, in my opinion were farfetched. Morello being responsible for the death of those two people? It just didn’t feel realistic to me.

I want to feel more positively about the Alex and Piper scenes--because it was a truly powerful relationship that the show let us watch. I just can’t help but feel that for the entire series, actually, the show has been using them to lead the viewers on. We never get enough of them. They always cut us off before we get what we want out of it. While that is a good strategy for getting people to continue watching the show, it is completely unnecessary to do in the last season of the show!

The only comforting thought I can come up with is that maybe they will make a movie about Alex and Piper sometime. Then Piper can write her memoir, and we can learn what career Alex got.

If all else fails, there’s always fanfiction.

#oitnb #oitnb7 #oitnb season 7 #orange is the new black #alex vause #piper chapman #nicky nichols #red #taystee #tiffany doggett

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dramaclover · 5 years ago

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Ending & Thoughts: Brutally Young

This was a drama I’ve been looking forward to watch since it was announced. It had a uniquely fresh cast. An awesome sounding storyline and intriguing drama title. The Chinese title roughly translates into “Confession of Murder: 18 Years Later”. I wish the English title was similar to it.

Okay acting wise, it’s pretty good. Mostly solid actors in this drama. One thing I’m confused about was the amount of praised that went towards Shaun Tams portrayal of Sam. Sam was a character that always stayed calm and smart. So Shaun didn’t really show his emotions. It didn’t involve a lot of acting skills? His voice was monotone the whole time. His facial expressions weren’t that impressive. I honestly think his acting here is no different from when he was in “The Stunt”. His character there was also just calm. But I think why people think he was great is cause of the character he protrayed. Sam ultimately became the underdog you wanted to root for. He had a strong sense of justice despite what happened 18 years ago. He was severely loyal, one of the biggest reason he never turned himself in is cause he didn’t want to drag the others with him. And you just felt bad for his character, he’s just as much as a victim. And we saw how he spiraled out of control cause of his guilt. The character is what made the audience sympathize him and looked beyond Shauns acting. I’ve always said acting doesn’t matter, what matters is what character you get. If Michael Tse never gotten the role of “Laughing gor” he’d still be acting in supporting roles. Hugo Wong was casted as the charming Caesar in “Airport Strikers” and guess what? Everyone forgot about what a douchebag he is in real life from cheating with a married woman to impregnating a fan. And so this also falls under the category of “likeable character with mediocre acting”. I mean Shaun Tam wasn’t bad, but he’s not Best Actor material that everyone says he is. I still think he was very wooden, he was only good towards the end when he was going crazy with guilt.

Mandy Wong was highly praised by the staff, so I was waiting to see the powerful acting they were raving about. I didn’t see it. I kept watching every episode to see it, but I never did. When she lost her Mom and was upset about her Dad... I didn’t feel her pain. Like I felt bad but not enough that it effected me. And her character went from super confident to strong to just being blind to everything else. Was it cause of her love for Sam? Was it cause losing her Mom effected the way she thinks? I don’t know but I was very disappointed that her character didn’t do more, she just took a backseat during the rest of the last episodes.

I was shocked that Elvina Kong had such a small role. It wasn’t even a special character and she got killed off so quickly. Vivien Yeo, Griselda Yeung we’re pretty useless characters. They were literally there for the sake of mandatory love interests. As much as I loved Viviens portrayal of Ah Seen as a deaf woman, her character was a bore. Sometimes her story with Joel’s Ah Yat didn’t mesh well with the drama. In fact I’m still wondering when Ah Yat even fell for her. I thought I missed an episode. Ah Seen always had a crush on him but for Ah Yat it came out of nowhere. I wish they had just taken out the romance factors and just stuck with bromance instead.

The bromance was what made me continue to watch. It was so fun to see the friends meet up again. Especially when Chui Siu shows up. The mini flashbacks to when they were all at high school hanging out together, shooting basketballs, and eating out it shows what a tight knit group of friends they were. They were so tight that they were willing to bury the body together as to not let any one of their friends get in trouble. And it shows even though they haven’t seen each other in 18 years, they were able to pick up where they left off. It just sucks how haunted they are from the incident years ago. I wonder if that night, they had all just sat down and talked to each other about what just happened... what would change? If Ah Yat had said “No I did not murder him, when I got here he was already dead”. What would’ve happened? Would they believe Ah Yat and call the cops? Would they be afraid of each other since that means between the 7 of them one was a murderer that was willing to pin it on someone else? Ah Yat, was such an amazing character. He took the blame all these years, when he didn’t even know who actually did it. He just thought one of the 7 did it but was too scared to admit to it, so he helped him. The friendship dynamic was interesting and I had wished that all 7 had gotten back together before the killing started. It would’ve been horror movie-esque if one by one they died. Unfortunately the first friend was killed off before the 5 could successfully gather together. While the second friend was murdered before meeting the final friend Daan Taat. So technically it was the 4 of them that remained in touched and trying to solve the mystery form 18 years ago. The 4 of them would cover for each other not just cause they’re scared of getting exposed but because they genuinely don’t want to see one another go to jail. I was especially touched by how Ah Yat was willing to go through lengths for his friends. 100% loyalty even though his character got the tragic ending.

The first 2 weeks were soooo gripping. They would show partial flashbacks of what happened that night. And on the side they’re trying to figure out why their friends are getting murdered. Absolutely what a thriller should be. But. But then they revealed the killer. Which I thought was too early, so I thought there would be a plot twist (there wasn’t any). I thought maybe Sam had a split personality disorder and was actually the murder. But that wasn’t it. It turned out to be a random schoolmate he invited to the bbq out of awkwardness. I got goosebumps when they suddenly remembered how there was an 8th person there that night. They were so caught up with the moment they completely forgot about him. After it was revealed he was the killer, the thriller factor was no longer there. It then shifted focus on to Sams murder and how he’s slowly going to the dark side. Which wasn’t that interesting to watch as we saw Mandys character getting more and more dumb. I really thought there would be more to the story from 18 years ago. Like maybe the person they buried wasn’t actually dead yet. Or it was actually an accidental death or something. But nope, there wasn’t any twists the mystery just got solved early. I also wished they had shown more flashbacks of the night. Like 7 different flashbacks to show the perspective of the 7 boys. It would’ve been thrilling to watch.

I knew from the beginning Ah Yat would die. He had all the characteristics in the making of someone who has to die in the end. Number 1, he’s in the triad. He’s never gonna make it out alive. Even if you quit and go into hiding, they will find you. You could never really “retire” from that life. Number 2, he’s that obligatory best friend of the lead that is fearlessly loyal. And number 3, he got his girlfriend preggo. In TVB world that means you’re public enemy number 1 and must die. I just didn’t calculate he would die from stopping Ah Yat from stabbing someone else. What good would that do? He still has to go to jail for stabbing you to death. Stabbing him or stabbing you it’s still murder. And if you think he’ll have “less regret” cause you’re the one that dies, is just wrong thinking. If anything it makes him even more regretful. He killed his best friend. You can’t even say “it’s cause of Ah Yats death he turned himself in” cause he didn’t. He got surrounded by cops and then got locked up. The end. He couldn’t spin his story. He had to tell the truth. So he didn’t “redeem” himself. They should’ve showed Ah Yat helping Sam get away and then succumb to his injuries. Let Sam go into hiding and have him think it through before coming out and surrendering instead. That would’ve been more impactful and redeeming.

I wonder if TVB ever decided to go down an alternative dark route. And when I say that, I mean Sam murders his girlfriend and her Dad because they now know the secret. His 3 friends arrive to see what he has done. What happens? The 4 of them buries the bodies, to defend his friend. That would’ve been full circle. First time, they did it cause they thought it happened. This time, they do it even after knowing what really happened. A testament of friendship and what they are willing to do for each other. But yeah. That ending would’ve been super controversial and might give some viewers nightmare. It would definitely be too dark but would’ve been such a compelling ending.

It actually ends with Sam going to jail for manslaughter, illegal disposal of body and forgery of documents. Even though he should be in jail for at least 40+ years he gets out after 25 years. Which is honestly realistic cause barely any criminals serve the full years they are given. When he gets out we learned his ex girlfriend resigned from her work and her father died. His friend Ah Fu was working at his Sushi restaurant but has retired and gotten married. Daan Taat passed away a year later after he went to jail. After Chiu Sui served his time in jail he moved to Thailand where he settled down and had a family. It ends with a wholesome alternate ending of what would’ve happened if back then they had called the cops instead. And in it they stayed friends all these years while also being alive and well instead of being overwhelmed with guilt. I love the statement Sam said which was “admitting to your mistakes lasts only a second, but having a guilty conscience lasts a lifetime”.

The 7 boys were so innocent. It was supposed to be a fun night out until Song Si came out of nowhere and started belittling them. Which lead to a fight and them splitting up in the woods. Seeing his dead body caused them to be so confused of what to do. Instead of figuring out what happened they just buried him. And the weight of the guilt followed them to the point they stopped being friends all these years. All this happened cause they didn’t want one of their friends to go to jail for murder. When the truth is none of them murdered Song Si. So it ended up with them being a victim too. In a way I’m glad TVB went down the route of a happy non-twisted ending instead. The 7 of them made a mistake back then and cause of that they suffered. At least the 3 still alive was able to serve their time and come back out to start over.

It’s not a drama filled with plot twists or backstabbing. But a human drama and the mistakes, the guilt, and the punishment that carries on you. The beginning was great, the ending episodes fell flat but it was still a great watch. And so far, this is the only good TVB drama this year. I wish this drama got more recognition it deserves.

#TVB #TVB drama #Brutally Young #HKdrama

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migleefulmoments · 5 years ago

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This is not about being a “hater”. This is about helping you understand that Crisscolfer is based on faulty logic and lies. It’s about caring about the truth.

Abby wrote what I call a “masterpost” of the most recent proof she has that cc is still together. It’s the information she’s using right now to reassure herself that she’s right. The problem is that the conclusions she draws for why each social media post was made are illogical and erroneous conclusions. They aren’t logical, methodical, reasonable conclusion...period.

Social media posts can be misleading and people certainly do make posts that portray a certain storyline. But it isn’t reasonable to conclude that Darren or Chris are using Instagram to tell their deepest darkest secrets to complete strangers. Neither man divulges much about their personal life on social media. In fact, the cc fandom mentions that often. Chris has a quote they love to repeat about not living on social media and Darren has said many times that he takes a lot of photos but he doesn’t post it online because he’s too busy living the moment.

Let’s look at the post and analyze why Abby’s conclusions are wrong (my comments are italicized in parenthesis).

Anonymous asked: why do you think they're still going strong? all evidence points to an amicable split a couple years ago

@ajw720 answered: not at all nonnie, not at all. First, have you read ATOM? I beg of you to read it if you have not. (I am reading it and it isn’t at all about Darren and Chris. It’s a story about children who are ostracized for being magical. It’s an allegory for being gay or being different in ways that society doesn’t accept. The children are sent to conversion therapy. It’s irrational and unreasonable to conclude it is a cc bible. The facts are: It’s a children’s book series, Chris isn’t interested in sharing his personal life at all with fans let alone, his deepest darkest secrets. Chris didn’t write an “It gets better” book for LGBTQ children only to use it to out Darren. Gay men don’t out other gay men by writing children's books. Chris has never said -or even hinted- it is an autobiography, he’s never suggested it is a love story based on his life. He started the series when he was 8 or 9 which included the character Froggy. Chris has several messages he likes to tell in his stories and he isn’t subtle in his lessons. He isn’t a subtle writer, yet Abby claims that at least 5 or 6 characters in TLOS are Darren and just as many are Chris. Instead of reading the book and hearing Chris’s message, she uses it for confirmation bias in a variety of characters and storylines. She finds the parts that FIT her PRECONCEIVED idea of the cc storyline. It’s a fantasy-not realty.

Second, have you seen the excessive use of the PA since october 25? i believe a pic and/or video has been posted of him about 23 times in just about 4 weeks. That is up from 0 in the 5 months that preceded it. w is only required to be held out as the fake bf if cc is on. (This theory is predicated on the theory that Will is important to “cc is real”. This is another erroneous assumption that Abby concluded long ago as a way to explain why Will is around Chris so often. WIll is around because he is Chris’s boyfriend. Chris has said so with both his words and actions. Using Will’s presence on Chris’s social media as proof that cc is going strong- that Will is “mac and cheese” to the fandom is illogical-for one, out gay men do not have beards. There is no reason that Will showing up in Chris’s posts would prove cc is still together. That is another erroneous conclusion Abby reached long ago when she needed to explain away why Chris is posting pics of Will. The fact is that Will is always in Chris’s Halloween pics, their annual Disney trip, and Will’s birthday post. This year Chris also happened to post some other events they attended together so that he posted 10 pics of Will in the last 2 months.. Coming to the conclusion that Chris posting more pics of Will is proof of anything related to cc is like arguing that 1+1=322. Will being on Chris’s Instagram has nothing to do with Darren. The “23 videos and photos” include posts made by fans, friends and other people. It’s preposterous to claim that fan pics of Will or a friend posting his pic are because of the cc storyline).

Did you watch the recent interview c did? first it is brilliant so you should watch it. and then he said this;

It is unfortunate that for some people you want to apply that phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” to the mental side of things too. But sometimes what doesn’t kill you, makes you suicidal. And it is really up to you “am i going to let this kill me or am i going to let this motivate me.” and sometimes when I hear people say this, i want to throw things at them, so I am going to say this very tongue and cheek, sometimes it really is a a choice, not a choice, sometimes I don’t think your point of view or interpretation of things you are going through can be a choice. Sometimes things are just so tragic that you just have to feel what you are feeling so it can work itself out.

(There is nothing in that quote that suggests he’s speaking about the last 5-6 years of his life or Darren Criss or a secret love or TPTB forcing Darren in the closet. He said that “sometimes the shit of life gets you down and how you respond matters”. He could be speaking about a lot of things that are very difficult for young adults. Claiming he said anything else is an irrational conclusion based on confirmation bias. She hears him speak about Darren because that is the storyline she already believes is true but Chris isn’t saying anything that suggests he’s speaking about Darren).

C made sure to have an alibi the night of the fraud in NOLA. (Why would he need an alibi? The logical conclusion to why he posted about going to a friend’s show on Darren’s wedding night is they aren’t close friends and his post had nothing to do with Darren at all. But I’ll play along for a minute and imagine cc is real: If the love of his life was marrying someone they both “despise”, Chris would have been devastated, not out enjoying a night of entertainment-and walking a red carpet/photo op. He barely does that ever- he certainly isn’t going to do it on his worst day. He was with Will and he didn’t post the pic himself. If he was pushing a narrative then he would have posted the pic. It’s very unfair to claim that things that other people post are messages he is sending-it’s putting words into his mouth. Chris had no reason to prove he wasn’t in NOLA, he clearly wasn’t in the wedding photos. Claiming he went out to a show with his long-term boyfriend to prove he wasn’t with Darren at his wedding is a silly argument.)

They walked around NYC dressed like twins on October 1, 2019. And the hickey. (Concluding that two people who were wearing jeans, glasses and dark shirts are “dressed alike” is wrong enough but concluding that similarities in their lives prove they are a couple is preposterous. We all know that wasn’t a hickey for so many reasons from the shape to the fact it was gone in photos taken later that day to Darren wouldn’t walk around on a press day with a huge hickey on his neck. You can see from photos taken that day, they hardly looked like twins. There is nothing rationale about looking for similarities in their lives to prove they are in a secret relationship. They are nothing more than coincidences. Claiming it is a hickey after she was told by so many people that it wasn’t- including ccer is a great example of how Abby doubles down on lies if it suits her needs. She isn’t interested in the truth- only proving she’s right.)

C’s SM. He just recently posted his second pic of him in a tinhat, the 1st right after the encage. You know, the day he wore the shirt that says “everything you know is a lie.” He really has had some blatant posts. also, sometimes reflection is a really interesting thing. (Again, unreasonable conclusions are made: Chris’s “second tinhat” photo was a pic of him getting his hair highlighted with foils-a very common technique for highlighting hair. He posted it to garner publicity for his book tour. It’s irrational to conclude that he was sending a secret message to a small group of fans to reassure them that he supports “tinhats” when Chris has actually said several times that he isn’t in a relationship with Darren and has expressed anger over fans’ comments about them as a couple. He also wrote a book that included the main character with Chris’s initials expressing his anger with fans shipping him with his costar. The first photo was not a support of Crisscolfer tinhatting but a reference to Chris’s own belief in aliens- he’s holding an alien stuffed toy and wearing a shirt that has aliens on it.)

halloween when they set up the perfect SM riot. They started with the release of pics with CC in the background, proving to the haters that they in fact our friends and then 2 weeks later, AF posted a pic that included C and PBB but no D. (Here we have an example of how Abby’s conclusions are based on several erroneous assumptions leading up to one big faulty conclusion. The tops of Chris and Darren’s heads were photographed at a busy, crowded party proving they were speaking and nothing more. Abby’s claim that they purposefully caused the riot assumes 1. that they planned the photograph, 2. they distributed the photograph or knew the right people would see it and get their message, 3.that either Chris or Darren- or both- are very interested and motivated to make sure that complete strangers know intimate details of their personal lives and that they both want to spread this information via very impersonal and public social media. Claiming that Ashley posted a pic of Mia to prove “cc is real” is another unreasonable conclusion. Let’s address the assumptions: 1. There is no way they could tell the tops of their heads were in the camera frame. Even in an uncrowded room, it would be difficult but with several people between them and the camera, it just isn’t possible to know that the tops of their heads were within the frame. 2. They had no way of ensuring fans would get the message. They couldn’t be sure that fans would stalk the party photos and find the tops of their heads in the background. If they wanted a photo of them talking seen by fans, they had several avenues of making that happen- they both have PR teams and their own social media accounts, and Darren’s team was there. 3. The theory that they intentionally caused a “cc riot” by doing nothing more than standing and chatting at a party isn’t logical. There is no reason for them to even want to share something like “Darren is closeted” or “Chris and Darren are in a relationship” with complete strangers and they would have no control of the messaging. Smart celebs don’t release info about themselves using a method that takes all control away from themselves. It’s the same reason that I know Darren would never stand on a car and scream “I’m gay” to a bunch of strangers-it’s not smart. Claiming they intentionally wanted the world to know they were together at the party and therefore “still going strong” means they purposefully put a deeply personal part of their private lives into the world in a way that gives something valuable to the cc fandom-reassurance- but gives Chris and Darren nothing in return. They lose control of their personal info-something important to both men- but they get nothing back. Neither Chris nor Darren share much information about their private lives and they certainly don’t do it on social media. When they do share personal stories, it is during interviews. Rationalizing that Ashley posted a photo of Mia to prove cc is real is another erroneous assumption. Nothing about that photo proves Chris and Darren are in a relationship-it proves that Ashley felt that photo was a good one to post for reasons she didn’t indicate but there is nothing to suggest she posted it on behalf of Chris to shade Mia)

they are absolutely still going strong and I would say pay attention to the details, but at this point, you don’t even really need to look that close, it is incredibly blatant. (The confirmation bias in the cc fandom is all-encompassing. Abby simply cannot be wrong and she analyzes everything to find the “cc still going strong” storyline. She doesn’t look at the situation and learn from it, she twists reality to FIT HER storyline. “Pay attention to the details” is a euphemism for “twist the truth to make it cc positive”. It’s deeply disrespectful to both Chris and Darren to refuse to HEAR what either man is saying-or SEE how they are living- and instead, spend all of your time and effort rewriting their life stories. Basing your conclusions on faulty logic leads to misdirections-it’s how you find yourself believing untrue stories for a decade and counting. The question isn’t whether Chris and Darren’s private lives are different from how they present them- it is their prerogative to keep their personal lives private from the public. The question is why can’t you respect that their personal lives are theirs and only theirs and that fans have no right to debunk their truths? Why can’t you understand that going on their social media and posting about Crisscolfer is the most disrespectful and cruel thing you can do. Believing you know the truth about a stranger’s life because you are “paying attention” while simultaneously ignoring everything that proves you are wrong is hurtful to Chris and Darren but it’s more hurtful to you. You are teaching yourself how to draw illogical conclusions and to make erroneous assumptions.You are literally grooming yourself to believe lies and it cannot be contained to the cc fandom, it is something that will sneak into the other parts of your life until you have no ability to make assessments and draw accurate conclusions about important things in your life.You will never understand when you are being conned because you’ve spent some -or all -of the last 10 years methodically teaching yourself how to disregard the truth, ignore facts, and draw illogical conclusions.

I don’t know if Christian Bale actually said this, I can’t find it on his feed, but the sentiment is still 100% accurate-other celebs have expressed the same feeling

#crisscolfer

#crisscolfer tag take back

#cc #ccer #cc fandom #crisscolfer #darren criss #Chris colfer #debunking CC lies #debunking cc nonsense #faulty logic #erroneous assumptions #convincing herself that cc is still going strong #still going strong #lies lies lies lies

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shadowsong26fic · 5 years ago

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Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, woohoo!

(And also kind of a NaNo roundup post because that was last month, after all…)

NaNo:

Sooooo I didn’t finish, lol. Not that I was…super expecting to, exactly, but I was hopeful! I think I just missed too many days in a row and lost all my momentum.

In terms of my goals, I was hoping to write:

1. 20-25k on Precipice 2. 20-25k on our faces like a mirror 3. 10-20k on Other Projects. 4. 50-70k total

In terms of what I actually accomplished:

1. 9,241 on Precipice (Sooooooo....about half of what I’d hoped, a little less. But I still got a fair amount done/prepped for upcoming chapters, plus a couple chapters actually posted, even while doing other stuff, so...go me!) 2. 9,043 on our faces like a mirror (Again, a bit less than half of what I’d hoped for, but I got enough done for the story/etc. to take a real Shape in my head. ...ish. See the specific OFLAM stuff later on in the post...) 3. 10,601 on Other Projects (Hey, I actually met this goal! ...barely, but still! Mostly thanks to the Nikita/Rebels crossover, lol...) 4. 28,885 total

Original Fiction:

I got a decent chunk of a big backstory piece for Lux done (in the form of a “then” and “now” set of scenes/vignettes for the five Archangels)--that being said, I’m not sure I actually like what I have there, lol. I know more or less what I need to cover, but the details are fiddly. Also not sure whether I should refer to Lux by her current name, for consistency’s sake, or use a different name (either Lightbringer or just Lucifer) since she does technically reshape her name after being released when the main Apocalypse storyline kicks off…also debating whether Lux should be/present as female way back when--angels don’t really do gender the way humans do in this ‘verse, but the closest human term for Lux would be genderfluid, sooooo IDK. Also also, for the ‘Now’ part…ehhh, I’m not sure I should have this be the first thing I post involving Trixie…but I’ll keep poking at it and see what comes out.

(I’d also planned to work on the big Kesshare character study saturation for The Farglass Cycle this month, and maybe go back to my untitled first-contact story, but neither of those happened, lol.)

Precipice:

We’re in the home stretch! Kinda. So to speak. Probably three to four more chapters in Arc Seven, which I’m hoping-fingers-crossed I’ll finish by the end of the calendar year??? (But given how much other stuff I hope to work on (see Other Fanfic Projects for more details…)

At that point--and I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably put it in an A/N in the next chapter or so, but following the end of Milestones, I’m planning to break off into a second/sequel fic, working title Protectors. This is at least in part because length (over 200k wtf I was anticipating 50-75k, maybe 100k, for these seven arcs @.@), but also was sort of planned even without the Length issue, due to some thematic/structure shifts following a six-year timeskip. Which, if you do the math, you can probably figure out where that’ll land us and why I might be structuring it this way…

Anyway, I’ve increasingly realized that there’s some stuff I should probably set up that I’ll need for later arcs in Part 2 involving some Rebels characters, more with the Last Batch, plus a Sith Apprentice who needs to turn up and die (although the gap between Infernalis and the next apprentice I actually care about/have a name and some kind of Plot for is only about four years in my mental timeline, so maybe there isn’t an active Apprentice in that period*…hmmmmm…), some background about the Hands, etc. But I feel like it’s all a little too disjointed for an entire additional arc. So, Arc 7.5, tentatively titled Preludes, is also going to be a thing XD I don’t think I’ll have a fixed schedule for that vs. the main storyline--and, honestly, it’ll probably work more like a collection of one-shots taking place during the timeskip than a proper Arc, but a little more Relevant than stuff that goes in Bonus Content, if that makes sense? It’ll probably be posted alongside at least arcs 8 and 9. Which, incidentally, take place more or less back-to-back and cover a fairly short period of time, but there is A Lot of plot/setup that goes into them. Like. If I tried to do it all as one arc, it’d be at least twice as long as any of the other arcs I’ve done, possibly including Arc Four--certainly over twenty chapters, I think--plus there’s a good (and by good I mean Horrible) place where I can split the arcs, so…we’ll see how that goes.

(…still not sure what to do with Maul, lol. He may just be Sir Darth Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic, or he might turn up in arc 10/11/13, which are the sort of vaguest of the next seven arcs which make up Protectors, in terms of how much I have planned out…)

(*On a semi-related note, I’ve been asked about Inquisitors a couple times in comments lately, and…well, I’ll probably mention this when I reply to the commenter in question, but I figured I’d set it out here as well, in case anyone else was wondering the same thing but doesn’t read other peoples’ comments. Like I’m pretty sure I mentioned at the start, when I plotted out** the bulk of this fic, I hadn’t seen Rebels yet. I’ve since decided to integrate a few characters/plot points (Kallus and Zeb will feature prominently in a subplot in arcs 13 and 14, for example), but, as a rule, characters and plot points from Rebels haven’t been taken into account unless I Really Like Them and/or they’re a good way to fill in a plot hole in a later arc, as with Kallus and Zeb. So, for example, when I include Thrawn, I’m writing more towards Legends!Thrawn in terms of personality, though the two have blended a bit in my head and I do reference specific events in Disney!Thrawn’s personal timeline; and b) more relevantly, I hadn’t made any plans to include Inquisitors, and that…hasn’t really changed. So, I might have them in Preludes, but they almost certainly won’t show up on-page/be super-relevant in the main arcs of the fic, sorry :/ )

(**Loooool I say “Plotted Out” like I’m the kind of author with a Master Plan or at least an outline. But I did have a general idea of the Major Plot Points going in, such as when Rex and Ahsoka would turn up, Luke’s storyline with Lavinia, how many Apprentices I would need to make them work, etc., and I’ve had parts of Arcs 8, 9, and 14 written for like at least two years now, so I know more or less where I’m going--though they’ll be edited once I have more of the connective tissue in place, in case I’ve accidentally Jossed myself…or I change my mind, which is becoming A Possibility with a major event set to happen in Arc 14, so…we’ll see.)

Aaaaaanyway. Exciting times ahead, I hope!

Other Fanfic:

This month, I finally posted another AU outline, woohoo! …I mean, it was a super-niche Nikita/Rebels crossover with a handful of OCs thrown in but who’s counting XD (I do actually intend to finish Let’s Go Steal a Crossover and update the Ventress one at some point but…yeah).

I also put out a Kallus one-shot that I think turned out really well. May do more of those at some point, who knows…

I made some significant progress on our faces like a mirror, as mentioned above! But now I’m waffling a little bit over structure. Basically, the fic covers Bo-Katan’s backstory from the time Satine becomes Duchess, through the Civil War, and eventually leads to Bo’s eventual break with her sister to join Death Watch. It comes in two pretty distinct halves--what I call the Fugitive arc in my notes, which covers the Civil War, and the Breakdown arc, which is everything after her return to Sundari.

So, my original plan was--prologue covering at least part of the final Epic Screaming Match that leads to Bo’s departure; jump back to the Fugitive Arc; and then follow through until we catch up to the prologue, with a coda/epilogue with her and Pre Viszla. The problem is, there’s…really not a lot to connect the two halves??

I’ve got a couple options on what to do about this, but I’m not sure which would be best.

Option One: Keep the structure as-is and just let it be episodic.

Option Two: Keep the structure as-is and find some way to connect the two halves (i.e., a recurring antagonist; I do have an idea of who this could be, but the problem is, it takes away a good chunk of the focus from Bo and Satine’s relationship for the Breakdown Arc…which I don’t really want to do.)

Option Three: Remove the framing device and focus on the Breakdown Arc, and include the Fugitive Arc as flashbacks, since the Breakdown Arc can’t really stand on its own. (The main issue I have with this one is that, if I want to actually write out future chunks of Bo’s life later--meaning, her time with Death Watch, and getting her from TCW to Rebels--I won’t have these flashbacks and I don’t want to change the structure too radically for any eventual sequels? Also, I’m not sure how I feel about a flashback structure for this fic in general…)

Option Four: Remove the framing device and focus on the Fugitive Arc, ending the story with Bo’s return to Sundari. (Two issues with this one--I really do want to go into the Breakdown Arc; that’s where my interest in this story started. Also, due to the constraints of setting and so on, Bo interacts with…like…two canon characters over the course of the Fugitive Arc? And while I don’t really have a problem writing a story that’s essentially a Backstory Epic for a tertiary character, populated by about 90% OCs, I’m not sure anyone actually wants to read that, except as the lead-in to the Breakdown Arc??? But maybe I’m overthinking…)

…so, yeah. Any thoughts/opinions on which option would be Best? (I may make a separate post asking the same question later, but figured I’d lay it all out here, too!)

Also, I’m working on a Secret Santa project, and probably not going to use OFLAM for SWBB, which means I need to come up with and write a different plotline of some kind, so back to the drawing board on that one…

Also also, I do genuinely plan to get Distaff off hiatus At Some Point, especially since I’ve gotten some new comments/responses lately…but given how much else I have on my plate, writing-wise, that probably won’t happen until next year, alas.

Anyway, the long and short of it is--lots of writing planned for this month! Now let’s see how much I actually get done XD

What about the rest of you? What’ve y’all been up to/what do you have planned for next month?

#coming attractions #miscellania #shadowsong writes star wars #shadowsong writes original fic #shadowsong writes crossovers #shadowsong writes self-indulgent bs #feedback greatly appreciated #our faces like a mirror #precipice verse #nano2019

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cannoli-reader · 5 years ago

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in your opinion what were sandersons worst mishandlings in the last 3 books?

There were different issues with Sanderson’s writing. Some of which are personal dislikes of mine, others have to do with his style or talents being unsuited to the series, and some are just flat out things he did wrong. I’ll go into considerable detail under the cut.

Poor match of writing style and skills to the series

Sanderson lays everything out there, and he uses dialogue to convey information to the reader, in the same way that movies and TV shows do. Wheel of Time is about secrets and knowledge, and people knowing different things, so they act in conflict, because their perceptions are different. This is undermined by a story where everyone is telling each other everything, even their innermost thoughts. Especially when those thoughts don’t make sense for the characters to say out loud based on what we have seen of them for the last eleven books.

From what I understand, Sanderson’s strength as a genre author is in his world-building, and his clever use of magic systems. These are not strengths needed for this project, in which the world-building was done already, and most of the ins and outs of the One Power and other preternatural phenomena were already established. Even when Sanderson tried to carve out a space to use his skills, it backfired, with the inflation of the role of Androl, and things like his limit-breaking gateway Talent. That’s not how Talents work. It seems like a derivation of the one Kinswoman who could shield far above what her strength seemed to warrant, but that was due to centuries of practice. There is no reason why Androl can suddenly make gateways much larger than other people using even more of the Power, which is established as the limiting factor on gateway size.

Inadequate comprehension of the ideas and ethos of Wheel of Time

Sanderson was writing fan service. To a certain extent, that was conscious and deliberate, an act of love to his fellow fans, and the series. And not to get all snobby here, but he generally wrote to gratify the lowest common denominator of fans. His focus was on feats of arms and channeling and leadership, but he was not so much interested in the characteristics and qualities that informed and were informed by, those things.

When Sanderson divided the story into three books, he showed by his choices that he prioritized events and spectacles over themes and coherence. A major theme was that everyone was all in it together, that while they might be separated by distance, they were all being woven into the same Pattern and their actions were intertwined. Sanderson, instead, decided that since Rand & Mat & Perrin did not occupy the same real estate for the beginning of the story, there’s no need for them to be in the same books.

Poor command of the worldbuilding and details

This really destroyed my immersion. Sometimes Sanderson made up all new things to serve a purpose in his story, that didn’t seem anything like what was normal for WoT, like new characters who appeared with names that did not fit their supposed country of origin, and who turned out to be Wheel of Time fans & webmasters he met at conventions and such. Which is fine for the few dozen fans who met him and recognize each others’ cameo, and less fine for the millions of other readers, while Jordan’s impressive stable of bit players, extras and supporting cast members fell into neglect.

There would be mistakes like an Aielman refering to his homeland as the Waste, or the sudden drop in IQ of the whole White Ajah, going from highly trained masters of logic and philosophers, to stoned freshman having their minds blown by half-assed syllogisms. Or the head of the Yellow Ajah suddenly reinventing the mentality of the Ajah in a way that directly contradicts everything we’ve been shown about the Yellows. Or the Warder bonds suddenly not working the same way, to the degree that a bonded couple can surprise one another by walking in on them unexpectedly or wonder how the other is feeling when they are in the same building.

Sanderson’s idea of servicing Siuan’s background was randomly sticking the word fish on the end of nouns in her dialogue, whether it made sense or not. The Aiel suddenly started talking like fantasy barbarians, with their stilted, simple diction and preoccupation with combat skills and honor. The Aiel are good with weapons, but they have other interests. When the situation does not call for military skills or combat, they don’t obsess over weapons or fighting. They talk about the opposite sex, they gamble, drink, joke, play pranks, read, pay attention to the social dynamics of other cultures. Aviendha is barely recognizable as the same person, and that’s before you realize that Sanderson gave her an extended conversation to learn something that she already knew eight books before.

If he wants us to care about an Asha’man suffering belated manifestations of the taint, maybe use one of the Asha’man Jordan created and we’ve come to know up until now, instead of some new guy Sanderson just made up with a weird name like “Naeff” that just contribtues to the all-round immersion-breaking.

The biggest mistake: Breaking up the books

This is related in some ways to the above issues. Part of it has to do with the ways that Sanderson failed to grasp aspects of the series and part with Sanderson’s writing style. Robert Jordan, for all that he had a reputation for excessive descriptive detail, was also very economical with his words. He conveyed a lot with his descriptions. Sanderson needed many more words to say the same things. The story planned out for the portion of the series Sanderson wrote was intended to be in a single book, though Jordan acknowledged it was likely to be significantly larger than the others.

That means something, because for all the serialized nature of the latter half of the series, there is still a thematic unity to those books. That means that Jordan’s plan was for the events in Arad Domon, with Mat and the Band, with Perrin and the Whitecloaks, Egwene in the Tower and the lead-up to Merrilor and Tarmon Gaidon, were all supposed to be part of the same story, not just the same general story as the farmboys fleeing Trolloc raids or travels among the Aiel, but all connected together to express the same idea.

In my opinion, the best way to break up that final book, if Sanderson could not keep it contained in one physical medium, would be in a serialized fashion, one book under two or three separate volumes, with the pace of the story encompassing the whole thing, instead of having three separate beginnings, escalations of conflicts, climaxes and endings. If it had to be broken into three separate novels in structure as well as format, then the division should have been by time, rather than characters.

Throughout Jordan’s books, the point is reiterated that the whole story is all of a piece, that the main characters are part of the same Pattern, and their seperate efforts all contribute to the overall struggle. Ultimately, Rand’s mission of unifying humanity to fight the Shadow was not getting them to all take orders from the same source, but to get them all agreed and committed to the same goal. From the time they first split up for extended arcs, with Loial saying “here or there, it is all the same fight” to Moiraine’s appearance at Merrilor, that has been a consistent notion. And when you treat Rand’s and Nynaeve’s and Egwene’s stories as having so little to do with Mat’s or Perrin’s or Elayne’s, that they don’t even go under the same book cover, you are totally undermining that.

And if you really must separate the major character arcs into different books, the order in which Sanderson released them was absolutely wrong. He gave the two biggest conflicts the first book, to either score a quick win to get the readers on board with the new writing, or in fan service, giving fans the stories they were most impatient to see.

So Rand, the critical figure, whose indispensibility was key to Jordan’s vision of the series, hits his nadir halfway through the first book of the trilogy, which is 1/6th of the way through the overall finale. He reaches his apotheosis, and resolves his major personal struggle with two thirds of the finale left to go! Rand finds his heart again, Egwene wins her fight for the Tower, and achieves full power, with a dramatic set piece battle and then we go to Mat and Elayne comically bickering about cannons and taking out a handful of Darkfriends and a single Shadowspawn before plunging abruptly into the rescue of Moiraine. Perrin engages in a legalistic conflict with Galad over ridiculous minutiae, given that they are now in the penultimate book in the series and the world is visibly falling apart around them. That battle had less danger and lower stakes than the much maligned Faile-Malden storyline, but it was supposed to be Perrin’s penultimate leadership crisis? All the attempts to keep the stakes high in Towers of Midnight are completely undermined by the knowledge that the struggles Rand is going through at the same time will have a happy ending. Where is the drama in finding out after the fact that Perrin was buffering Rand from Tel’Aran’Rhiod on Dragonmount? How are we supposed to be concerned about Perrin’s efforts when we already know the exact outcome? Knowing that Dragonmount has not happened during the early events of ToM does not change the way we see the conflicts playing out concurrently with Rand’s descent into darkness, because we know the happy resolution is coming. We know Tam is going to survive his adventures with Perrin and be in a position to tell Rand, with no discernable dissembling, that Perrin is going to have everything in hand, and Morgase’s secret identity issue will be happily resolved.

Even the book titles are stupid. “The Gathering Storm”? Setting aside how incredibly trite that title is, what the heck has been going on all this time before that book? And the storm is only gathering now? Is Rand’s happy-ending-apotheosis still part of the gathering of the storm, or the beginning of the storm? What about the White Tower being unified & better than ever? Does that mean Mat inventing cannons and Perrin arguing with, and then rescuing Whitecloaks are “the storm”? The storm has been gathering for the length of the series. “Towers of Midnight” means nothing, and people still argue about what it means, since it refers to a location on the other side of the world from the events in the books. By contrast, the title Jordan selected, “A Memory of Light” could be both symbolic of the whole, with the Shadow so strong that Light is just a memory, and a specific reference to Rand’s finding himself. Except that was the climax of a storm gathering.

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pkmn-fangamer · 5 years ago

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Pokémon Uranium Review

Intro:

Enjoy the region of Tandor, with over 150 new original species of Pokémon, complex characters, and many secrets to discover. Become Champion, complete the Pokédex, and beat the many challenge modes available; it’s time to prove your worth as a trainer! Pokémon Uranium, at its core, is a homage to the original Pokémon games, which have been in the hearts of many of us since childhood. Coupled with a serious storyline and slightly harder gameplay, this fangame is aimed towards a slightly older audience: one that often remembers Pokémon with nostalgia.

How to Play:

Go to Pokemon Uranium’s Reddit here, which gives several download options and further instructions.

Story:

-Light spoilers below-

The story of this game is unique and interesting. For the most part it is strongest at the beginning and the end of the game, though it’s not particularly weak in the middle. There is a cut scene at the beginning of the game in which your mother is working as a scientist at a nuclear power plant, where she disappears during an accidental nuclear meltdown. Your dad, Ranger Kellyn, originally from the Almia region, is struck with grief, and becomes obsessed with his work as a ranger. You, the main character, are forced to live with your elderly Aunt, and later become a Pokemon trainer and assistant to the local professor to financially relieve her.

If you find the above summary of your first fifteen minutes of game play intriguing, you’ll probably enjoy the plot of Pokemon Uranium immensely. I certainly did- the game’s story mostly took itself seriously, getting dark in a few places without getting too edgy.

The biggest difference between main series games’ plot and Uranium is the lack of your average evil team. The enemy in this game is both physical and philosophical. I’ll only get into it partially, so I don’t spoil it too badly. The main enemy are Nuclear-type Pokemon, and whoever/whatever is causing the meltdowns of nuclear plants across the region. But these plants were obviously created by humans, and in turn Nuclear-type Pokemon are also in way man-made. Nuclear Pokemon may be the obvious enemy in this game, but the human perspective is also lightly explored, and for this I was glad.

This is also the first fan game I’ve played through in a while with genuinely interesting characters. Your rival is a bratty child at first but matures and develops as a person by the end, for example. Additionally, your absentee father may seem distant and uninvolved in your life at first, but eventually you grow closer to him too, as you battle Nuclear Pokemon alongside each other. Many of the gym leaders are also interesting past their gimmick, and are encountered not just in their gyms, but are also present in another part of the game that you’ll just have to find out for yourself.

Score: 9/10

Pokemon:

The Pokedex of this game contains exactly 200 Pokemon, about 150 of which are original Fakemon, the rest being Pokemon selected from various regions. At first, I was puzzled as to why some real Pokemon were included, but then I later realized that many of these Pokemon were either given new evolutions or mega evolutions, which in the main series are sorely needed. The best example of this is Dunsparce’s new evolution, Dunseraph, making it a strong Dragon/Flying type Pokemon. However, a there are a few main series Pokemon that are included without any improvements being made to them, so their appearance does confuse me a bit, though I’m not totally against their presence.

The Fakemon in this game are overall likeable. The starters are all well designed, and in my opinion are some of the best Pokemon in the game. They are unique because they’re only two stage Pokemon, with all main series starters being 3 stage Pokemon. I picked Orchynx, which is a Grass/Steel cat Pokemon, and there was never a point where I regretted my choice. The rest of the Fakemon are pretty good- there are some designs I’m not the biggest fan of, but this can be said about many official Pokemon too. The Fakemon range widely in abilities, types, and movepools- which brings me to my next topic.

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest gimmicks of the game is the new Nuclear-type. Nuclear Pokemon are weak against every type except themselves, but their new Nuclear-type moves are super-effective against every type but Nuclear and Steel-types, and doubly so against Pokemon with more than one type. This makes these Pokemon super interesting to use- the strongest of their types can be the ultimate glass cannon in battle if used correctly.

There are both Nuclear versions of main-series Pokemon and some original Nuclear Pokemon present in the game. The former are much more numerous than the latter, and I wish there were a few more original Nuclear types, but I understand coming up with new Pokemon for a new type must be time consuming and difficult.

Score: 9/10

Gameplay:

The gameplay of Uranium is great overall. While the game is contained in a single region, there is an East and West segment that makes it almost seem like there are two different regions in the game. The West half that you begin on is land-based, and the East half is water-based, on an archipelago of islands. The wealth of different cities, areas of interest, and routes are sure to give the player more than enough to take in and explore.

For those of you curious, I would put the difficulty of Uranium at a bit above the average main series game. It’s not horrifically hard, and not much grinding is necessary until towards the end of the game. A balanced team will help you get far, and I’d say it’s rather important to have a Steel-type, Nuclear-type, or both on your team to help you get through battles with Nuclear Pokemon. However, if you’re looking to bump up the difficulty level in playing, having neither of those types will definitely help challenge you.

HMs are present in this game, but there are items that you can receive later to replace them. It is nice that these items become available later in the game, but I wonder why HMs exist at all in the game if the creators were willing to replace the HMs with items. I would have preferred receiving these items rather than HMs from the get-go, but it is pleasant at least that you don’t need HMs eventually. My biggest gripe about HMs is how late you receive HM Fly in the game- not until winning your 8th badge. Luckily, there are various methods of transportation available, like subway and boat, but paying for these services and coordinating which methods work in what town is a little tedious.

In general, the gameplay of Uranium is very polished. There are so many tiny features that make this game more playable than even main series game, still without making the game too easy. One such feature is the Pokepod, your main technological device. In it, there is a Jukebox used to listen to any in-game track, your region map, and a phone to call the regional professor, and store numbers of trainers looking for rematches. A Pokeball is present next to trainers who want rematches, and best of all, your opponent’s rematch team has levels that are scaled to be equivalent to yours. This makes grinding much easier and more enjoyable.

Score: 8.5/10

Art/Music:

The overworld art resembles Gen 4 graphics in a way that is creative and original- I can barely find a tile that was imported directly from Gen 4, aside from some overworld character sprites. The landscapes are varied and nice to look at, many of them being based on the country Brazil. My favorite city is Venesi City, which is a beautiful port city based on Venice, Italy.

The in-battle art and animation are fantastic as well, based on Gen 5, with your Pokemon and your opponent’s actually moving around a bit. There are also many moves with great animations. However, there is also a fair number of moves lacking any animation. This bothered me a little, but perhaps it could have been a glitch? Either way, the battle scene is very polished- almost every new area has new background art accurate to whatever time of day it currently is. With how much time is spent battling in this game, I appreciate the effort put in to make it look as nice as it does.

The music in Uranium is about a 50/50 split of well-composed original OSTs and re-orchestrated versions of tracks from other generations. Since these re-orchestrations are well made and contribute well to the game’s atmosphere, I don’t mind the lack of original music in these spots. I especially enjoyed that the diving theme was a slower, more beautiful version of the in-game surf music.

There is one more important thing of note before I move on, and that is the ability to choose a well-designed, non-binary player character. Gamefreak should really pay attention and implement that feature (but I know they won’t). Fantastic job on inclusivity in this area, and I especially loved the proper usage of pronouns depending on which appearance you choose.

Score: 9.5/10

Misc:

If you play Pokemon fan games, or have even heard of them at all, then you probably know at least a little bit about the incredible rise and forced decline of Pokemon Uranium. I urge you to read about what really happened here, according to one of the creators, @oripoke. I don’t have much more to say about this topic without getting heated about it, so I suggest checking out the provided link here if you’re at all interested.

Because of the cease-and-desist order from Nintendo, the community for this game is a little more hidden than it would be for a famous fan game. However, you can find an extremely helpful wiki here, and the main discord here.

Overall:

I’ll begin my conclusion by saying that this is the third time I’ve attempted to finish Pokemon Uranium, and boy am I upset that I didn’t stick to following through with this gem of a game earlier. Uranium truly does have just about everything fans could want- a game with a slightly deeper storyline than main series games, with nearly all new Pokemon (and even some old ones, if you prefer), a new region to explore, and even a new type to spice things up.

I would gladly recommend this game to Pokemon fans new and old. This is a polished, pretty product, and you won’t find many other fan games as complete and polished as this one. There are almost no glitches- the only one that I experienced was the music cutting out occasionally, but the game can easily be saved and rebooted to fix this.

Usually I have more to say in this ending section, but I think that’s all for my final thoughts. This game really is just a work of art, and because of its interesting plot and gameplay, I can see myself picking Uranium up and playing it through again in a few years, possibly even more than once.

Final Score: 9/10

#pokemon #fakemon #pokemon uranium #review #pokemon review #uraniumreview #uraniumcommentary

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dumdeeedum · 6 years ago

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Some Queliot Queries & Exploration, hah! Shaddap.

So I really want to dive into some shit with this fandom because I really don’t understand, I really and truly don’t. And bear with me because this is going to get long but ideally it would open up a discussion and the dialogue can be a learning opportunity for me if someone comes correct or for others if someone takes something away from all of this: Why shouldn’t the writers have to deal with the fact that season 4′s decision to allude to Eliot and Quentin as a couple is a ret-con? Why shouldn’t they have to deal with the fact that for all intents and purposes Quentin’s bisexuality and Eliot and Quentin’s relationship has never been explicit (there’s allusions to it in season 1- maybe, season 3- barely, and now season 4)? Why shouldn’t they have to deal with the fact that the audience was never told that Eliot and Quentin were explicitly a couple in Fillory until season 4 and even then they can’t erase the fact that Quentin married a woman after having something with Eliot and that they then chose to ignore the entire episode until halfway into season 4? Why shouldn’t the writers have to deal with their poor decisions and poor writing in a meaningful way? Why is fandom trying to erase these things? I’m not being facetious or an asshole here, I’m truly curious.

And I really want to preface all of this with a critique of something I’ve been seeing a lot on here and that’s that fandom and Eliot are somehow erasing Quenin’s bisexuality. They’re not, the writers are.

The thing is, television is a mostly visual medium, you have freedoms that come with that but also limitations. There’s the freedom to show and not have to tell so as to not have to go into long descriptions and “show don’t tell” has really become a fundamental rule in visual media because it’s really hard to pull off the kind of exposition literary media can get away with in visual media. This has been true since visual media was limited to the stage and has only become more true as technology has caught up with the more fantastical things creators want show now. So it becomes imperative, given this show don’t tell rule, to find another way to express certain things you’d simply be able to cover in a book by describing somebody’s thought process or having a character narrate their story.

You can have a narrator in visual media but you really have to be careful with how much you use them and for what otherwise you’ve made bad visual media, especially when you’ve already set things up another way. Case in point, the show Veronica Mars started the show with Veronica narrating and normalized it so that it was never grating, never too much, and was generally never used when it was better to show instead of tell.The Magicians, on the other hand, has used narration very sparingly and it’s never become an aspect of the show that gives us those same glimpses into Quentin’s mind, especially since he no longer seems to be the sole focal point of the show.

So when it comes to representation on visual media it simply isn’t enough to imply or allude and then never bring it up again. Or, in our case, to overtly display certain aspect of someone’s sexuality while explicitly ignoring the other aspects with the expectation that the audience go with it when the creators call the character “bisexual.” This is especially true on a week-to-week television show where not everyone’s been watching from the beginning or has that long a memory that they can remember every aspect of what came before, or hasn’t or can’t rewatch the series several times on Netflix or some other streaming service to refresh. It just doesn’t work that way on television, that’s not how you do visual media representation.

And when we have so little visibility for certain groups and when part of representation means normalizing those groups in the mainstream so that in the future their presence or their expressions of sexuality aren’t taboo, you have to do that by showing those people and by showing those expressions of their sexuality, and not just the “palatable” ones or in a “palatable” way where you can just say it and not offend anyone by showing it. And usually it’s best to show them in a good light so as to off-set the amount of bad that’s out there that was outside of their control because of systemic oppression. It’s best to have a good balance of good and bad from the very beginning and that’s something that White, het-cis people have been able to enjoy for much of the time visual media has been around. We can argue about representations of women in media, especially White cis-het women, but that’s another topic for another day and they’ve still enjoyed more of a balance than anyone else besides White, cis-het men. It’s the same reason why we can’t simply have “queer-coded” villains or the “kill your gays” tropes be so rampant, it isn’t offsetting the tons of negative that already exists for the lgbtqa community in media.

That being said:

Narratively speaking, when Eliot rejected Quentin I strongly believe that at least in this the writers were doing right by them given the ret-con and I’d like to see it explored more. Season 4 episode 5 was a good start but only a start. Now do I think that Eliot should have implied that he wouldn’t choose Quentin? Fuck no, he absolutely should apologize for that and explain where that came from because it’s clearly the result of a defense mechanism, but that’s really it. I still think the decision for Eliot to reject Quentin was the right one if only to give Quentin the chance to think about what he wants within the confines of this shitshow of a “love” story they tried to ret-con and then staple and glue together as though we’d forget everything that ever happened before season 4 episode 5 and rewrite season 3 episode 5 in our heads. If you’re saying it’s OK to erase all of that for the sake of your ship you’re asking for a bad story, which kind of sucks and I kind of feel you, but it kind of sucks. I mean, their straight relationships haven’t been the most amazingly written either but they actually happened in a meaningfully explicit way. We were given a narrative where even after Quentin kisses Eliot for the first time in Fillory (a year after they got there) and presumably has a relationship with him in Fillory after that, which, really, we didn’t know for sure because they’ve never said it, it could just have been a drunken fuck for them up until that point, Quentin marries and goes on to have a life with a woman until she dies or leaves (I was never clear on which it was). The relationship with Eliot after that is only alluded to in season 4 and still hasn’t been explicitly shown, no kisses, nothing, not outside of Eliot’s mind. And for some people that may be enough to call Quentin canonically bisexual and to call Eliot and Quentin a canonical couple that will be together in the future and while I agree he probably is and that they might, I don’t think it’s a good example of queer representation in visual media, especially when season 3′s episode was never meant to be taken that way.

Now we can always assume that it was a consensually poly-amorous relationship between Eliot and Quentin when Arielle came along but then why was Quentin the only one who had someone? Is the assumption here also that Eliot is OK being a sister wife or some shit? Why didn’t Eliot have another boyfriend to split his time with since Quentin had a wife that needed attention? They’ve established that homosexuality isn’t bad in Fillory so why not give him someone if the poly thing was what was meant to be inferred here? I’m not saying it definitively can’t be the case but I’m working with what we have and raising questions because we’ve been given very little information otherwise and I’m not sure I buy that Eliot would be OK with sharing Quentin because up until now (outside of his marriage with Fen) Eliot has not been shown to be poly-amorous and has even shown that he gets jealous if his significant other looks at someone else. And I know that when it’s discussed in a relationship it’s different and jealousy isn’t an issue but we don’t have any information on the subject as it pertains to them. Earlier in the series Eliot said that being with women is not his preference, so no, Eliot is not bisexual even if he’s had to fuck Fen; he fucked Fen because he had to and it’s a problematic as fuck storyline that effectively worked to pad anything Eliot might have had with a man with a woman. So I’m also not sure it’s too realistic an idea to have him in bed fucking Arielle with Quentin if he’s in a consensually poly-amorous relationship with them. Maybe once in a while like, as he said, one would have Thai food, but if anything we’ll give him a 1 or 2 on the Kinsey scale? (for lack of a better way to put it) So why not given him someone for him while Quentin has someone for Quentin? At the very least we’d get a non-toxic homosexual relationship for Eliot too, right?

And no, I don’t consider anything to do with the season 1′s threesome to be rooted in anything but what we’ve been told over and over that it was: the result of a lot of alcohol and emotion magic. Otherwise you have something else to deal with and that’s that Quentin is a fucking untrustworthy asshole for cheating on Alice whom he claims to have loved and that Margo and Eliot are shit friends for going with it. It could be the case but they’ve made it a point to tell us it was a result of all 3 of them being compromised and even Margo refuses to allow people to blame her for it because of that compromise.

That being said, I can understand why a gay man like Eliot would be hesitant at the idea of jumping into a monogamous relationship with a man like Quentin without giving Quentin pause to really think about it. Remember, Quentin wanting to be with Eliot happened right after he got his memories of Fillory back so it was a pretty rash, emotionally-charged decision on his part. And we already know Quentin gravitates toward escapism because of his psychological issues. Why would Eliot jump into a relationship with a man whom, from Eliot’s perspective and, more importantly, from the viewer’s perspective, has been chasing a woman since season 1 and even in Fillory decided to marry a woman when Eliot was explicitly shown to be an option? And literally the first woman he met there. Outside of Eliot, Quentin has sought out and has had relationships with exclusively female partners except for season 1 and except for Fillory which was another time and place and which was never explicitly shown to us and is only alluded to in season 4, that’s bad representation and something that requires further examination within the story!

From Eliot’s perspective it absolutely makes sense that he’d wonder if Quentin would truly be happy with him given other options, especially given the enduring presence of a woman Quentin has been chasing since season 1. We don’t know if Alice would be OK with sharing Quentin either, it’s never been explored because most of anything to do with Eliot and Quentin as a romantic couple has simply been ignored! The writers were the ones who shit the bed by giving Quentin exclusively female partners (even in Fillory) that would make Eliot wonder if he and his penis were enough. If we had some more clear and explicit depictions of Quentin’s bisexuality, especially in Fillory, Eliot wouldn’t have to worry about this shit as much. But even in Fillory Quentin chose Arielle until she was no longer an option and the writers chose to do that, the writers decided to show us one kiss between Eliot and Quentin before giving Quentin a rando wife, making her fuck off to who knows where but subsequently never showing Eliot and Quentin in a romantically intimate setting again. Some bisexual representation!

Eliot and Quentin as a pairing only comes back up literally a season later, 13 episodes later! Something has to be done about this ret-con and pretending it wasn’t a ret-con is never good writing, not the way they’re doing it! Because even after Quentin confesses his feelings during season 3x5, which we only actually find out he did in 4x5, it’s never brought up again even by depression Quentin the very episode after 3x5! The whole situation was ret-conned for season 4!

Moving forward either there has to be some mutually agreed upon, explicitly stated, explicitly shown, poly-amorous relationship set-up where they could both be fulfilled by both having someone else if they so choose to or Eliot has to have Quentin’s assurance that Quentin sees him and that he is now Quentin’s first and only choice. And both of these options have to be a show don’t tell situation! It’s actually what I hope happens in episode 12, especially since they’re once again making Quentin and Alice kiss each other and showing us yet another expression of heterosexual love while stringing us along with the idea of a homosexual one that really hasn’t happened yet.

And perhaps some people might find that to be feeding into stereotypes about bisexual people that leave a bad taste but realistically speaking exclusivity is a conversation every romantic relationship has to have and mistrust will occur if the person you’re with has only had partners of the opposite sex, has only expressed interest in people of the opposite sex, and is still hung up on someone of the opposite sex they used to date and whom is still a romantic possibility for them. That’s just how it is unless you’re one of those miraculous people who don’t experience jealousy or insecurity or have had those conversations with your partner. In this scenario it wouldn’t be that Eliot doesn’t trust bisexual people, it’d be that Eliot doesn’t know who Quentin really wants and he doesn’t think Quentin truly, deep down, would want him if he took the time to think about it. That’s fair given the givens!

And the poly thing is certainly an option but feels like a more radical move, given what we know of these characters, than having Eliot and Quentin in a monogamous relationship and given how little they’ve given us of that prospect I’m not even sure what they’ll decide to do moving forward. Maybe they’ll decide it’s more palatable to include a woman in any capacity seeing as media is still really about padding anything to do with homosexual male love scenes with heterosexual love scenes or naked women, that could also be the case and then we’d have to decide how we feel about that. We know they did that with Fillory because Arielle was pulled out of someone’s ass because it could just have been Eliot with Quentin but it wasn’t. But as of now we don’t even know if the poly thing was ever really a thing with them to begin with, we just don’t, it’s just conjecture and I’m just exploring of the possibility, they could have gotten together after Arielle dipped. I’m not saying any of this to shit on the Eliot and Quentin pairing at all, or to shit on Quentin’s bisexuality, per say, I like the idea of them and I think it should happen and I like the idea of a bisexual Quentin. But I do think these are the consequences of the way the writers have chosen to navigate these things and now they have to deal with those consequences because otherwise this pairing is silly and unrealistic moving forward outside of Fillory, and if they don’t want to pursue it then that could explain why. So why haven’t they been dealing with this by showing us a more explicitly bisexual Quentin or at the very least a more explicitly interested in Eliot Quentin outside of his confession to Eliot in 4x5? And I’m not saying he has to jump on the first dick he sees but even having a conversation with his best childhood friend about his feelings, regardless of what he thinks Eliot’s are, would be a really great jumping off point to show us that Quentin’s feelings for Eliot are trustworthy and real and not just alluded to or the result of an emotional compromise. At this point people are expecting this confession and really want it to happen for a reason.

I’d just really like to see the writers make a decision about this and stick with it because this specific type of will they, won’t they shit is why they can’t be trusted and why it’s so easy to wonder whether they’re queerbaiting. If they can explore Julia and Penny23, Kady and Penny, Margo and Josh, and even Alice and Quentin’s relationships during this monster arc without it taking away from the life or death severity of the situations they’re in then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be exploring Quentin and Eliot’s even if it’s just Quentin being introspective but showing us that introspection in some way. We’ve gotten Eliot’s but we really haven’t gotten Quentin’s and I think that’s what we’re all waiting for or should be waiting for and it’s imperative that it happens to build the trust in the writers the viewers need to become emotionally attached to the idea that a pairing will actually happen on screen and that the viewers aren’t just being fucked with for views. It isn’t fair to expect the blind faith from viewers towards the writers and show-runners that too many people in this fandom are demanding!

We shouldn’t have to go on a fucking deep-dive, clue-finding mission to break down every single fucking interaction to look for a relationship the writers are supposedly explicitly trying to build because that’s not how they’ve built any other relationship. They’ve jumped right into every straight pairing but somehow this one is the one they have to draw out to an almost unrealistic degree and add 50,000 layers of nuance to? The one with the most history and proof that it worked based on what the writers themselves have told us? Alice and Quentin were fucking within a season, Kady and Penny within a season, Margo and Josh within a season for some godforsaken reason, Julia and Penny23 are macking and seeing each other naked within a season but we can’t even get Quentin to be introspective about being in love with Eliot for one episode? We have to settle for allusions to their pairing and a couple of blink and you miss them kisses, one of which wasn’t even between the two men themselves? I’m not saying that the Eliot and Quentin pairing won’t happen but it absolutely hasn’t yet and I’m not here to pretend it has. Alice and Quentin were “in love” within a season, why can’t we explore Eliot and Quentin’s love in a meaningful way after a canonical 50+ years? Why has it been OK so far that the writers aren’t exploring Quentin’s part of this relationship at all if it’s their intention to pursue it? And why should we trust them and take it as faith that this pairing isn’t something they thought of doing but have long since thrown out?

Is it bad writing? Is it not gonna happen? What is it because I’m confused as fuck and nothing that’s been happening recently has helped because the writers have opted to waste a shitload of time in a 13 episode season rather than explore what they ought to be exploring in that limited amount of time.

I say all that to ask this: Can we just hold the writers and show-runners accountable to their shitty decisions already? That’s really what I want because I don’t think underrepresented communities should have to settle or take the scraps thrown at them in 2019 and that feels like what a lot of people are saying ought to be done. No, they absolutely should not be happy with the bullshit they’ve been given. The community didn’t come together with pitchforks and torches to storm their writer’s room and demand Eliot and Quentin be a couple, the writers and show-runners decided to move in that direction.

If people shipped them then there’s already parts of the fandom for that and people would have made due with fic as they always have done. So why the fuck is jerking the community around like this acceptable?

I sincerely hope that there are consequences from the community if the writers and show-runners go back on this, I really do, because it was the writers’ and show-runners’ fuckup and they don’t deserve to be rewarded for bad behavior. Make them work for the good graces of the communities they’re courting and stop allowing them to do this to these already marginalized communities!

It’s well past time that they show us Quentin’s bisexuality and feelings for Eliot in a meaningful way or drop it altogether and never pick it up again and accept that they’re pieces of shit for doing this and should be cancelled, although as far as I’m concerned the damage has already done and there’s no going back without them admitting they’re garbage.

#the magicians #queliot #eliot waugh #quentin coldwater #otp #queerbaiting #lgbtqa #representation #representation matters #social #media #tl;dr #television

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alexdanversfbi · 6 years ago

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Supergirl, Sanvers Fandom and LGBTQ - in response to Twitter Posts.

I’m making a post to try & clarify some things since I made a post, & subsequent issues that have arisen from it. Forewarning, this is going to be quite lengthy but I hope you will read it carefully and fully.

Firstly, I’m a transgender man. I’m in my early 50’s. I’m happily married.

My wife (who now ID’s as bi, but for a long time until my transition, was lesbian, as I had lived as well), quite honestly have been involved in the LGBT community & push for representation and law changes longer than many Sanvers fans have been alive.

I say this to make the point, not to say it makes us better at it, or everyone needs to listen only to us - but that to say we’ve seen no representation, to poor & patchy representation, to representation starting to improve.

Both in laws of the land & on screen.

We’ve faced homophobia & seen transphobia up front and personal since childhood. My in-laws were a staunch allies for lgbt people. My mother in law was a beard to a friend of hers, as they went to underground parties simply so he could date another man. Sadly, my own family were less supportive, & while I wasn’t kicked out of my home, I didn’t get unconditional love & support either. While my father is now dead, I’m still facing it today with a mother who is terrible at acknowledging transgender me.

It all has a long way to go - and it might seem glacial to some, but in the decades we’ve seen it going on, there is far more good than there ever was. It’s still mixed in with the bad though. But more on that later.

I got into the SG fandom late.

Really late!

As late as about 3 months ago, because as a surprise for my wife, I bought her tickets for Ultimates specifically to see Flo as an early wedding anniversary present (it’s in May). She had watched the show (although had stopped before the end of S3 after the debacle of Sanvers and the ridiculous storylines being assigned to Alex). I hadn’t even done that.

However, she still talked about it, but because of what happened with Sanvers had said it wasn’t worth me watching it (she had watched it separately from me for a number of different reasons), because of how bad it was.

So I didn’t bother. Why watch something that was going to destroy any good it gave.

My wife though did say how there were (up until the shitstorm of S3) parallels to Maggie’s (& to Alex’s) stories to another program we did watch on UK TV Bad Girls, and Nikki Wade with Helen Stewart. Nikki was kicked out of the family home for being gay at 16. Was an out lesbian. Helen had only been with men, met Nikki, questioned her relationships - and eventually, unlike SG, they gave them the happy ending.

She also remarked how Flo had left for good reasons because of the way Maggie was written beyond the arc of girlfriend to Alex.

Remember, I wasn’t around the fandom, and to be honest, although my wife is a fan of Sanvers & Flo - she wasn’t really around social media either, particularly at the time Flo left. She hadn’t followed any Sanvers fans at that point.

So neither of us had seen the Flo hate. We’ve heard about it - but since neither of us were active at that time, we simply haven’t seen it.

It does not mean for one split second we condone stuff like that, any more than we condone hate sent to any actor or actress, regardless of the circumstances.

So I’m nipping in the bud any accusations of Flo hate from me now. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

We did see some Flo hate on Instagram as S2 of The punisher started and my wife went in on occasion to defend her.

I could do it - but I have crippling anxiety. Even writing this is because of the support of my wife.

It does mean I find it hard - extremely hard - to go in unannounced to people I don’t know to say anything.

My wife does though stand up if she sees anything. It’s just her online time is often restricted.

Back to SG now - we weren’t watching, even though Nicole Maines was cast, but because I was late to watching SG, it really wasn’t something I was aware of.

I will add, my main social media presence until the last couple of months was Facebook or Instagram. So it did pass me by.

Both of us actually, as my wife - due to disability - isn’t always the most active either. She had heard of it, but we often have other stuff in real life going on (hospital & doctor appointments etc), and that was one of those times, so it was there, but not up front & centre for us.

Now this might not seem like a big deal to some or a good enough reason to watch, but to me this is my Maggie moment when I did realise what was going on fully.

As a Transgender man, to see a transgender superhero finally being cast - that was great news.

What wasn’t so great - it was via SG. A program that had shown demonstratively poor judgement & queer baiting since the loss of Flo.

Were we worried that Nicole’s character would get the same treatment?

Absolutely we were.

However, coupled with having bought my wife tickets for Ultimates to meet Flo, I decided to watch SG, since it meant I had an idea about who we’d be meeting.

Then Nicole was added as a guest and that was it. Tough as it might be, we had two reasons to watch.

My wife warned me what was to come. How Sanvers broke up. How poor the writing became (not just Sanvers, but Alex, Mon-El and far more than I can get into here). Despite being warned, I loved the start. I loved (& still love Sanvers). I get why it became so important for a lot of viewers.

I hate how it was dealt with on screen at the end.

Utterly despise it in fact.

But remember, I only came into this recently, so I have no history of how it played out in real time on social media.

I’d become a huge Chyler fan (but I enjoyed her as Lexie) as I loved Alex, the wife is still a huge Flo fan.

Sanvers even had me drawing again for the 1st time in 15 years (see my pinned Tweet as it’s a Sanvers kiss).

But Ultimates was booked.

Then Nicole came along.

So we both grit our teeth and started watching the rest of S3, and what had already been shown of S4 (to show you how late this was, it was already to episode 13 of S4 when we started it).

Season 3 and the first 10 or 11 episodes of S4 are ….. at best badly written. Poor storylines, plot holes you could drive a bus through … but despite all this, we took what we could because the Nia storyline was being handled fairly well.

Now we could argue why settle for something so poor? Why not push for better representation.

I cannot stress enough (and honestly, the whole thing I was trying to put in a 240 character Tweet that has resulted in all this), that for us the show had now put in representation & produced something we’d not seen until now.

The show has moved on, and goodness me, if you truly think I expect people to move on, then it isn’t the case. I was merely trying to explain, that even previously staunch Sanvers fans might well now watch for completely different reasons.

It doesn’t mean there are other staunch Sanvers fans who should move on. You are just as valid in what you want.

It doesn’t even mean the fight for Sanvers as endgame should stop, and people of differing views can still want that to happen.

It was definitely not to bash Maggie (or Flo), particularly as it was Flo who was the reason we are attending Ultimates.

For me the reason I now watch is because of Nia and Alex.

My wife because of Nia.

As difficult as it is to palate for a lot of you (understandably), there are also going to be those who’ll watch the new LI because it’s another area of representation in having a gay black woman on screen.

We’ve (wife & myself) been around long enough to know what poor & good representation looks like. Heck, good representation is nigh on impossible to find - I can say Helen & Nikki were one of the lucky ones. In the 20 years since that’s happened, I’m struggling to find many others. They are out there, but when it’s only a dozen or so at best, it’s tough.

As my wife remarked the other week; when Jes MacCallan wears a t-shirt at Clexacon that lists wlw and it’s barely enough to be on the front of said t-shirt - that shows how poor it’s been. And then most didn’t have a happily ever after. Sure it’s not a comprehensive list, but it does help prove how poor it’s been.

But also remember as poor as that has been, there are some (like trans or gay men or black women) who’ve had even less. They deserve more, & sometimes that starting point is horribly bad.

We’ve also been around long enough to know it isn’t black & white. It isn’t linear.

Just like coming out, you constantly have to do it. That sometimes means taking what is the worst outcome, but using it to steadily push for the better ones. It sometimes means you might have to take that step backwards to move forwards.

It can also feel unsavoury to do that.

A prime example I can think of here in the UK is we remember when people first started touting same sex marriage - and at that point, they were in process of changing the law on same sex adoption.

For those not aware of the UK law that was - it allowed single gay people to adopt, but not couples .... so stupidly a gay person could adopt if single, and then become involved with someone else, but if you were in a committed relationship no go - anyway, from that law the discussion to get marriage in place started. Gay men were openly likened to those opposing the law change to peodophiles, as sadly still happens to gay men today.

That change in adoption law was a big step forward in getting the laws on marriage here changed.

Then came civil partnership. So many people were angry it wasn’t enough and many said it was in fact a step back. Yet, for us it was a huge step forward. I kept trying to explain then, you often have to take the least favourable option to keep pushing for the best outcome. That marriage could happen, but don’t dismiss what was occurring simply because it wasn’t good enough for you.

It is an exhausting situation, to constantly push for better representation. This is a process. Occasionally that process will force steps back - but as long as the overall push is bigger than that, it will carry on.

For me, I do think that Alex is slowly getting a better deal as a character and I’ve enjoyed the latter part of her story arc in S4.

Does it mean it’s as good as it was or could be?

No, it doesn’t. But it also doesn’t mean - and this is my opinion, and believe it or not I’m okay if people watching don’t agree - pretty much all of S3 (honestly that is a clusterfuck of epic proportions) and the first half of S4 are about as bad as it can be.

Nicole has also had good representation though. There is a lot that resonates for me. A lot I wish I could’ve seen as a child growing up, not in my early 50’s.

Think about that.

I’m finally seeing good representation in my 50’s for the first time.

Albeit in a program that has far from stellar representation for a long time.

This isn’t the 2nd, or 3rd or however many times it has gone on for lesbian couples on TV.

That for me is a huge deal. Huge!

Like a black gay woman is going to be huge for some others.

However, it also means if the LI for Alex gets storylines that Flo deserved I won’t be pissed.

You can bet I will be. As will my wife.

We’ll undoubtedly rip apart the producers for it at home, as we’ve done so many times. Just because people haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been said.

I guess what I’m trying to say in all this rambling is I truly have no quarrel with people wanting to stay solely as Sanvers fans. I just want to be allowed to go beyond that (and I would love nothing more than Sanvers endgame), even if that seems counterintuitive to some of you.

I’ve never posted anything with ulterior motives to attack any group of fans. It might have appeared that way for some - but truly I simply posted something on my timeline as a general observation. It was not directed at anyone per se.

I’ve realised that it’s been construed as such, but those who do know me also know I will never disparage others intentionally. If it comes across as such, it was - believe it not - unintentionally done. If you don’t want to believe that, I can’t change that, but I do ask you don’t keep saying stuff about it to me.

I’ve not seen much beyond interacting with some mutuals on Twitter.

It appears there is a far greater history going on than I could have ever imagined between some people.

So for now - I’m going to post my usual things but to try to avoid posting directly to followers except family & friends away from the fandom.

To make it absolutely clear I never intend or intended to get pulled into a war of words with anyone.

I just want to enjoy Sanvers - and for me personally, go beyond that.

It’s just I’ve seen so much progress for the LGBT community, even if it could be faster.

I saw lesbian activists disrupting the BBC news in protest to the government of the time and Clause 28.

I saw the news report of the bomb that went off in a gay Soho nightclub.

I watched friends become stigmatised for being gay men at the start of the AIDS crisis.

I saw people fighting HIV & later AIDS & some dying as a result.

I’ve seen this and far more. I’ve actively campaigned on issues ranging from animal rights to LGBT rights, when the T wasn’t even part of the acronym, to nuclear disarmament and far more.

I’ve seen more positives finally coming about in the last 18 years than anything that’s gone before it.

We’ll face steps backwards. Some will be greater than others, but make no mistake, the strides forward are bigger.

Activism for better representation isn’t just something to hinge on one TV storyline or show - it can just be about that of course - but life is messy. It takes steps in many different directions for many different people.

If people were offended, then I am saying sorry.

It has though been difficult to become embroiled in something that is far further reaching than I had any idea about.

One of the perils of being so new to the fandom I guess.

And now I’m off to cuddle one of our cats.

#supergirl #lgbtq #sanvers #maggie sawyer #alex danvers

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