#and that's where the idea that Ted should've Done More comes from

[toxicroyjamie]

I think the biggest mistake they made writing was was letting Ted have a happy ending in Kansas, not knowing he is complicit in Jamie's suffering. 

People don't want to hear this, but there was literally nothing else Ted could have or should have done to stop Jamie from being abused. At the end of the day, Jamie is an adult with free will (like. Within the narrative, obviously Jamie the character doesn't have free will), and you can't force an adult to leave a situation they're not ready to leave.

Actually, the BEST thing you can do for an adult who's being abused is to consistently be present and supportive + offer them a safe space where they can go when they're ready to leave the situation, and that was exactly what Ted did in bringing Jamie back to Richmond. Being able to get away from James and Manchester probably saved Jamie's life and there's definitely something to be said for Ted's role in that

In my opinion, Ted's biggest shortcomings with Jamie were situations where he was trying to intervene and wound up giving dumb ass advice that he was not qualified to give as he is neither a professional nor a survivor of abuse. The savior complex was not helpful

[blookitty]

Flashback Weekend Chicago 2024

I didn't think I was going to go to this convention for many months. After plans fell through to go to the North Carolina one, I didn't want to plan going to another any time soon. Especially not on the weekend of my first wedding anniversary. But an idea came to me late one night after rewatching SeaQuest for the umpteenth time that I just couldn't stop thinking about. Cue me scrambling for the last month or so to cobble together my cosplay, get tickets, and convince hubby to go with me.

More convention details below...

Not pictured is two other bloody dolphins. I had a mini dolphin mounted on my shoulder with magnets, hence the bloody shoulder and neck wound. Ted got a picture of it on his phone, so maybe he'll post it in a story later? Who knows with him? The other was a medium sized one I carried around and offered to people who wanted a picture with me to hold and pose with. The medium one was originally for the photo op, but figured Ted's hands would cover it up if he held it. Hence I got huge Darwin last minute.

In regards to actually talking to him at his table, I introduced him to my husband, who is a sheriff's deputy in our home state of Indiana. Ted predictably adored him immediately. Even more so when my husband gave him a patch from his office. Ted's eyes lit up just like they had whenever I had given him bourbon in the past. He stared at it for a good 10 seconds or more. That first time at his table, between that interaction and getting my Tim action figure signed (where he signed my name wrong, but I get that it was loud in there), we had to come back around because he was getting a long line. Being near the entrance to the vendor floor, he really had to keep the line moving or else he'd get in trouble for causing a blockage.

Second time around, we asked him for specific places to go and see on our anniversary trip up into Michigan at the end of August. He suggested blueberry picking in Saugatuck as we had told him we were planning on stopping in Holland.

Unfortunately, I flubbed the second aim of my con visit, which was to show him my tattoo (shown below) in person.

He was getting a long line again after talking to him about Michigan, so I should've just left and circled back around. But no, I'm a dummy and took my swing. I crouched and asked if I could briefly show him my tattoo away from his table because I knew I'd probably cry when I showed him. He unfortunately said he couldn't because of legal reasons, then was about to suggest I take a picture of it, but I cut him off because I had already done that before and gotten nothing from him. So instead of getting up and coming back later, I insisted I just show him now when he was clearly feeling rushed.

I panicked and just lifted my sleeve and quickly explained how the first three letters spelled his name. He simply said "Wow, that is so special! Thank you for showing me." then shook both my and my husband's hand and turned to the next person in line.

I don't blame Ted at all. He was probably panicking and I was panicking and we both reacted badly in the moment. For the rest of the day, I stressed about redoing it and apologizing for being brash, but I just couldn't find the right time to do so. I got the photo op at the end of the day (where he remembered my name upon seeing me, so that was nice) and had planned to ask for a hug right after it, but unfortunately I panicked again and let my dumb ass get rushed by staff again. We were leaving the photo op area before I remembered and I cursed inwardly at myself.

Funny enough, husband and I had a reservation for our anniversary dinner at a local steakhouse near the hotel. Near the end of our meal, husband said "No fucking way" out of nowhere, told me not to look, but Ted was at a table three tables down from us. I pulled out my phone and pointed the camera behind me, and sure enough, he was standing up near a table nearby. (I got a picture, but I'm keeping it private for my and his sake)

Not wanting to be creepy fans, we decided to just leave him alone. But the universe wasn't done with us yet...

As we paid and headed out the front doors, who do we find but not just Ted, but all 3 Raimi brothers! Well, technically 2 because as soon as we walked through the doors and processed what was in front of us, we saw that Ted was staring out into the street in front of him, completely oblivious. Husband tapped him on the shoulder, but he didn't notice at all and just said aloud "We're lookin for a Kia, right?" and just walks out into the street. We just blink and say "Uh, bye Ted" and the others laughed.

Husband says "Ah, there's Ivan and Sam." I guess we were dressed classy enough because Ivan asked "How do we know you two?" We ended up talking to Sam, Ivan, and (I assume) his wife Terry(?) for about a minute. Didn't last too long and we didn't want to bother them as they were clearly waiting on a ride from a Kia and had had a long day. I saw who I assume was their sister come and hug them good-bye, so we bowed out and just processed what the Hell had just happened.

I promise you that will never ever happen again so long as we live.

I won't get into what all happened after that as it involves me having too much alcohol, but nothing else of note really happened.

We'll see if Ted posts the patch or the mini Darwin in his story, but if he doesn't, oh well. That man has a lot going on in his brain.

[aquaburst3]

Not sure how popular this is as a hot take. I still believe that Vil being human doesn't make any sense.

In canon, Vil has an intimidating allure about him that ironically pushes others away from him. That’s great and all. But, every single character in the canon is inhumanly beautiful minus Grim and Ortho, so why would Vil be the only one to have this issue and have a wholeass complex about it? That makes no sense! Wouldn't all other characters struggle with that if that's the case? I get that he can be a bit…much, and even people in the fandom commented about that, but that doesn’t seem like it would be enough to cause all that in universe.

Typecasting is very much a thing. Plenty of actors in Hollywood and elsewhere have struggled with that very thing. Him being typecasted as a villain is realistic. It seems like something that would happen, especially since Vil comes off as rather intense and I can't see him pulling off an everyday hero type of role like Neige. (I see Vil shining in more antihero/complex villain roles like Cardan from Folk of Air, Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter or the Darkling from Shadow & Bone. Or even beautiful princely types like Legolas from Lord of the Rings.)

However, I think the extent of how it is painted is hard to buy if he's just human. In the game, it seems like people automatically turn their noses up at him and even bully him thanks to his looks and him being casted as a villain. That seems like an over the top reaction for just being an actor playing villain roles.

Yes, a similar thing happened to the actor who played Joffrey from Game of Thrones where people thought he was an asshole in real life when he really wasn't. Here's the thing. I think he's more of an outlier than the rule, because he's not conventionally attractive. Don't get it twisted. I'm NOT saying that he's ugly. But he's not a total knockout either. Pretty Privilege is very much a thing. There are load of scientific studies done proving that people tend to like you more, think you are automatically a good person and give you the benefit of the doubt if you are hot. (x) That's why criminals like Ted Bundy were able to get away with their crimes for so long, because they were considered handsome and people gave them the benefit of a doubt. So if that actor looked more like Ben Barnes or Henry Cavill, I doubt that would've happened in the first place, because people would think the best of him thanks to his looks. That same logic applies to Vil. If the game was more realistic, people would be thinking the best of him, because he's hot.

Plus, we learn in Vil’s Birthday Bloom Card and the Tapis Rouge Event that Vil has no idea who his mother is and has no interest in ever finding her. Usually in fantasy stories characters with that same backstory as Vil are either long lost royalty or a half supernatural creature of some kind, and the latter makes the most sense with Vil. You think something would pop off with that information, but it doesn’t. It’s fucking bizarre. 

I also think this is partly an issue of Yana leaning too much on the original source material without considering the ramifications of such a choice. It's implied that the reason why others are so frightened of the queen, despite her being just human, is because she's a witch. She applied that same logic to Vil. That's not the case in the TWST universe. People being so frightened and intimidated by him based on that makes no sense, because in canon at least one tenth of the population are mages and it's seen as normal. Applying that same logic as the Evil Queen to Vil doesn't work. It's a different universe, different rules. (I'm NOT accusing Yana of plagiarism. It's a Disney game, and that's part of the appeal. However, her overreliance on references and callbacks to the original work are an issue that pops up time and time again.)

He should've been a half fae. If that was the case, then that could all be explained away by supernatural reasons out of his control. His fae allure could've been what made people instinctively afraid of him. It would also make the information about him not knowing his mother have a narrative payoff instead of something tossed in there for no reason. Plus, he has all of the hallmarks of a fae personality wise. He’s rather harsh, domineering, stern, can be quite impulsive at times, has a cruel temper and is overly just very…intense, for the negative. On the positive side, he’s fair, just, kind to those dear and genuinely wants to help others in his own ways.

While I think there are a lot of other issues with the writing in Book 5 like how it mainly focused on "Wah, I'm always typecasted as a villain :(" instead of his more relatable problems like his creative envy over Neige and constant need of validation, never having the characters call out Vil for his fucked up actions like the whole cake thing, Neige being just a piece of cardboard for Vil to sneer at and all of the pacing, making him a half fae would've been a start. Same with making him and Neige stepbrothers. Eh, whatever. Fixing that up in my own rewrite and that's what matters.

[reliquiaen]

@indiacater said: I totally feel you on the story. It really felt that they couldn’t balance between the world the already established and the Sci fi elements they added. That includes the direction they took in the burning shores dlc. What issues did you have with the game story?

Hope this pings you! I'm still musing my way through my thoughts on everything, so please excuse this for being a bit all over the place. Below cut for spoilers (on the assumption that there are people like me who avoided spoilers until it came to pc).

Part of it is probably that HZD was such a tightly wound story from start to finish that unravelled the more you explored. The world-building, the history of the world, Aloy's personal journey, Elisabet's journey, the way the different tribes viewed things; all of those things were so excellently tied together through the central narrative. I think, for me, the story of HZD is one of the best in gaming. Everything links to everything else. And it left us with two or three threads that needed resolution in a sequel: what was Sylens' plan with HADES, how can GAIA be reinstalled, and where did the signal come from that woke HADES and the other subfunctions.

Ultimately, I think, the biggest problem I have with the story in HFW is that all of these answers are resolved in the first hour or so. All the problems are brought to an end in the first act, at the very least. Nothing felt as carefully crafted or purposeful in this game. And we will never know all the things HADES told Sylens because he never tells us anything unless we already know it, so any information that Sylens has going forward can just be handwaved as 'HADES told him before he died' which I dislike. (It reminds me of how I felt when Eragon killed the Ra'Zac in the first 50 pages of the final book. All that build up and for what? A fizzle.)

The prologue/tutorial section has us exploring a facility for a new company which could be easily explained as Aloy trying to find clues about GAIA as she says in the game, but right away there's a little too much development given to this company for them to be a throw away tutorial area. Equally, there's much less of us discovering things through gameplay alongside Aloy; when Varl asks what happened to the ship, Aloy just tells us that it exploded, we see none of the clues or data points that led her to this conclusion so it's not a reward for us. Which, sure, is probably intended to mislead us into believing that there's nothing too important about Far Zenith and this is only a tutorial right, so why am I being so nitpicky about it. But from the moment when we learn in the tutorial that this Far Zenith company launched a ship of billionaires into space to avoid the plague I was thinking 'please don't let them come back, that would ruin so much of the message in the first game'. And in the back of my mind I was thinking that they would almost certainly be alive still, and the villains in this game and, maybe it's personal preference, but I just really hated that idea. It seemed so trite, so much like the writers didn't know where to take the story. (And I can tell you what they should've done instead of arrogant space people, it's very simple: a tribe that isn't afraid of Old Ones tech fiddled with something they shouldn't have and it launched some kind of failsafe code - probably developed by Ted - that disrupted GAIA's functions. Then it's more a problem of how to educate the tribes on how to deal with Old Ones tech. But that's too obvious I guess, even if Sylens' character did set it up perfectly.)

They did double down on this with Ted Faro, too, which I hated. Especially since it all happened off-screen. The idea that some people figured out immortality (and we never do get any information on how the Zeniths achieved immortality, I feel like that's something Sylens would have immediately looked for) and that Ted Faro was still alive (somehow) but in the Came Back Wrong kind of way... Just annoyed me. Just let everyone from the past be dead, that was the whole point of the first game. I also didn't really like how Ted Faro was handled in this game. In HZD he had a bit more nuance, the whole point of his company was that he wanted to save lives by automating certain dangerous things (namely, conflict) and yes you can make the argument that he's just a glorified arms dealer, but FAS developed the Focus too and presumably a bunch of other quality of life technologies. And even with his pretty stupid decision to purge APOLLO, there's logic there. Aloy says he did it to hide his poor decisions, but he says his reasons for it in HZD: that their civilisation made big mistakes and destroyed the world so instead of giving future civilisations the tools to make those same mistakes, let them have a fresh start. Purging APOLLO was still a bad decision, because of all the other stuff it got rid of, but I can see where he was coming from. But in this he was sort of... reduced... all the way down to a comically evil Saturday morning cartoon villain. Of course he has a secret bunker with a big statue of himself and a harem and a personal doctor developing immortality treatment for him. Duh. He's a Bad Guy™.

The bait-and-switch villain arc of Tilda made no sense, either. It was never going to make sense for any of the Zeniths to survive because they'd never be able to live comfortably in the civilisations on earth, they were always going to have to die. So her whole 'yeah I'm on your side now' never felt genuine. From the second she saved Aloy in that cauldron, I was thinking 'okay she's the final boss now' and, to be clear, I'm not against stories being predictable based on contextual clues. I prefer it, in fact, the issue I have is that these particular clues were heavy handed and the addition of the Zeniths made no sense. It felt a lot like the writers felt they'd written themselves into a corner and needed a way out, or they couldn't figure out how to set up a third game and wanted a way to up the ante even further. Which is another writing device that annoys me, personally, it always makes me think of Dragonball Z and how every villain has to pose a greater threat than the last one, somehow. But in Horizon's case, HADES threatened all of existence, so how do you up the threat further from that? Well you need to keep threatening all of existence, so what could possibly do that?

It just made the story far more complicated than it needed to be and, I feel, undermined the world-building they did with all thesse different cultures. I can't stop thinking that a better challenge to finding GAIA, and a threat against her success, would've been a very simple one: that a tribe plugged in some Old Ones tech and launched GAIA then decided she was a goddess worth worshipping and refused to give her up to Aloy. A conflict against a tribe protecting their deity while the world crumbles around us is STILL a threat to all life on earth while not involving space idiots.

That said, it is mostly the over-arching story that I have issues with. Aloy's character arc was really good; she needed to learn to rely on others when her whole life the only person she's been able to rely on is herself. Great next plot for her. And I think the set up from the end of this game (and, to some extent, the dlc) about her needing to understand emotion and feel something for people as individuals is GREAT also and if we don't get that I'm going to be mad. Because the set up is RIGHT THERE, Elisabet had to teach GAIA to have empathy and care about life and now GAIA has to teach Aloy that life isn't something you just save, you have to participate in it also. What a fantastic cycle! Give me this!

I really liked Erend's story, too, it moved him through to a new point in his character development without changing his personality or putting him in a position where no further growth is required. I enjoyed Alva's character, it's always nice to see characters who are challenged on a fundamental level. I hope we get more of the Quen in future. My favourite new character was Kotallo. I have no notes for that man, he's flawless. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him in a third game more than almost anything else. I don't have a problem with Beta, but I do have questions, namely: where did they get Elisabet's DNA? Tilda would've been an interesting answer, but only if explored properly. Or theft again, Far Zenith has a habit of that. I suspect this will never be addressed again. I also wanted to know how come GAIA only ever made a single clone of Elisabet. Why is Aloy the only one? How come she didn't get every functioning cradle to create a clone just in case?

Zo was a fine addition, but I have problems with her story with Varl, specifically. And it again ties back into my problems with Zenith. I like Zo, I like that we got one representative from each culture so that Aloy (and the player) could learn more about each culture in a controlled way without it feeling too contrived. And I really liked that Varl got a girlfriend, he's great, and it's so fun seeing them together because they're fundamentally quite different but they have a few areas of commonality and I do so love when relationships are built on stuff like that. My problem is that Varl was killed in the way he was; I understand that there have to be stakes, we need to see the Zeniths as a threat. But at that point, we already knew that. So his sacrifice served no narrative purpose, it was almost a shock-value thing. It was 'oh we have to kill at least one main character and the only characters the players are likely to care about other than Aloy are Varl and Erend so one of them has to go'. But Erend is our connection to the Oseram, so we can't get rid of him, bye, Varl. Which isn't to say his death is meaningless, I suppose, and it was in character for him to do what he did, it just felt wrong timing-wise. If someone was going to be killed by the Zeniths it should've happened earlier. But then Zo probably couldn't be pregnant and I never know how I feel about convenient pregnancy arcs. Time will probably tell, with this one, but my immediate gut reaction is vague annoyance.

Also, HEPHAESTUS is free again. Jesus, put that guy in a jar already. So, again, it feels like Varl's death was meaningless in that way. And, sure, yeah, sometimes you die for nothing. But there's a right way to do it and a wrong way. When Jorge dies in Halo Reach, he dies thinking he's stopped an invasion and you watch him do it assuming that this is the biggest hurdle dealt with, now it's a ground force game. But then the rest of the fleet arrives and it's like. Oh. Jorge died and for what? But Jorge didn't know that. Carter says Jorge died thinking he'd saved Reach, if only they were all so lucky. Varl dies and he doesn't have any reason to believe they'll defeat the Zeniths, he hasn't fulfilled any particular purpose, he didn't die for a reason. If he'd died and Aloy had escaped with GAIA and HEPHAESTUS but the Zeniths had gotten Beta back (or vice versa), then I would've been okay with it. But he just dies. No heroics, no resolution to his arc, no final impact for Aloy. He's just dead now. And Aloy doesn't even get to mourn him. The burial thing with Zo is nice, and on par with what we got for Rost in HZD, I suppose, but at least Rost died for something. Varl just dies. I cannot get over that.

I did really enjoy all of the new cultures we met, though. The Utaru and Tenakth were more of the same expected stuff, but the Quen were really cool, I like them a lot as a concept. Partly because right from the start I've been wondering what would happen if a tribe wasn't afraid of Old Ones tech and instead tried to utilise it. The Quen show us what that is and they are such a cool culture. A little glance into a perversion of our modern culture, the way misrepresentation of information and PR stuff can shape the view of someone but on a truly extreme level. They're fun, I like the Quen, I want more of them. I never enjoy when a quest objective says 'kill' though. I would love if the game allowed me to override machiens to solve problems, or stealth past a bunch of enemies, I wanted to avoid killing the Quen because they did warn Aloy not to interfere, she had no problem with them. But I guess then dialogue would have to be able to vary too much idk.

And then, finally, the whole thing with Nemesis at the end. It comes back to the Dragonball Z thing where every threat has to be greater than the last. Nemesis doesn't want to just destroy life, it wants to destroy earth. But why? I don't understand. The set up for that was that I hates the Zeniths, but the Zeniths are all dead, so why would it have beef with earth? I can think of a few things that will happen with Nemesis but I'm not sure I like any of them. It'll be that Nemesis doesn't hate the Zeniths, actually, it hates freedom and life and choice and stuff like that so it's going to become some Galactus style villain that just wants to consume planets because now life anywhere is banned. And you just know there won't be some kind of creative solution where actually Nemesis is handled with the power of friendship and is given space on earth to change. It'll be a Classic Villain, evil for the sake of having a villain, with practically no nuance and no room for development. Which sucks, because coming up with a story where Nemesis learns to value its existence would be a cool parallel with Beta - both born from the arrogance and disdain of the rich elite Zeniths and both having to find meaning in the existence given them. But it would also be a cool way to give Aloy's personal journey a bit more oomph. Instead of having her solve problems through violence and killing, this time she has to overcome it some other way. That'd be fun. I won't hold my breath, though.

I have some other thoughts going on as well: not sure how I feel about Elisabet and Aloy both being queer, I hope that's not some kind of 'it's in the DNA' thing going on. Not sure how I feel about the "choices" we get to make in the game; Drakka or Yarra, does Regalla live or die, do you kiss Seyka or not. Well, which choice is canon? There is only going to be one correct answer for each going into the third game, we know that because regardless of whether you played the Frozen Wilds dlc, Gildun is there and Aloy speaks like you definitely met him previously. It doesn't matter if you did Petra's side quest in the HZD base game, you still talk like you're besties. I hope they get rid of these choices altogether in the third game, they don't feel meaningful in any way.

So overall, I like the characters and world-building, but the addition of the Zeniths made the overarching story feel... not great. Personally, I feel they do a disservice to the rest of the post-apocalypse earth civilisations we had going on. I wanted more of that to be focused on but instead we got... them.

Well I finished Horizon Forbidden West (dlc included) today. The quality of life improvements were very good, I have absolutely abused the bottomless storage space. Not sure how I feel about the story though. I have... issues with it.