#and he’s just a product of that incredibly toxic culture

[sophism]

idk what else more there is to say but I just know we’re gonna be looking back at Liam Payne’s story as one of the biggest tragedies of 2010s pop culture

[lesmurples]

So Spotify Wrapped reminded me that I saw the San Francisco production of A Strange Loop this year, and listening to the soundtrack now I’m reminded just how damn good that show was. I really hope there’s another staging of it sometime, or the release of a video recording if one exists. (Or even a decent bootleg, I’ll take anything 😭)

The staging was beautiful, just an excellent example of what you can do with minimalism and lighting. And the ensemble cast was phenomenal - they sound amazing together in every production I’ve heard, and the concept of each of the cast being “thoughts” who trade parts around would potentially be a hard sell in another production, but here it feels seamless. I’m really impressed that it was able to take such a nerdy, high-concept and pretentious story structure and make it feel so accessible. Excellent writing and acting all around. “Entertainment as undercover art” indeed. The Usher we saw (Malachi McCaskill) was also exceptional and gave an incredible performance.

I think A Strange Loop is a great example of how much you can do by increasing specificity in artistic representations of identity. Creators seem to often be pressured to make identity-focused stories as broadly appealing as possible, making it so that their (for example) queer characters are everymen who just happen to be queer. And of course that usually means your “everyman” has to be a white cis able-bodied guy who is overall readable as “straight” unless you happen to know his orientation. And if he isn’t that, he’s as close to it as we can possibly get him.

By making a “Big Black and Queer-ass American Broadway show” about a fat gay black man trying to make it on the NYC theater scene, I think you actually create so many more opportunities in which an audience can relate to the protagonist’s experience. You don’t have to be a fat gay black man to relate with feelings of inadequacy, or struggling to make it in your professional field, or feeling too ugly to have a good sex life, or having a complicated relationship with your parents. Even if you don’t fully fall into the category of “fat gay black man,” it’s likely that you might identify with at least part of that experience, and you can exercise your imagination and empathy to engage with the rest. In comparison, I think a lot of us struggle to relate to a bland, filed down “everyman” character, despite the fact that he’s meant to be more “broadly appealing.”

A Strange Loop is unapologetically about blackness, and specifically the experience of a queer black person who sometimes struggles to relate with wider black culture. I am as white as wonder bread, and I was prepared to not directly relate with aspects of this musical, but I knew I’d still probably be able to enjoy it because, yaknow, it’s not actually that hard to understand media about experiences that don’t match your own. 🤷

But I found myself relating to the story way more than I expected. The details don’t fully align, but I too have had to navigate the world as a fat queer person unable to feel true “pride” about myself. I too have a strained relationship with conservative parents who are “loving” but deeply toxic and painful to speak with. I too feel the weight of capitalism crushing down on me, wanting to find “success” in this hellhole of a world but knowing I’d have to compromise my values in order to do so. I am not very similar to Usher on the face of it, but because his story focuses so much on the multiple specific experiences he has in this world, it’s actually way easier for me to find common ground with him than if there was just nothing there.

And while I can’t relate directly with Usher’s experience of blackness, I’ve heard enough stories and listened to enough black creators that I can at least follow his story and comprehend its connotations. If I didn’t come into the show having some background knowledge, then perhaps I would be inspired to learn more based on the representation I’d been made aware of, especially because of the ways in which I could relate and was invited to empathize. I hope we see more successful productions like this, where the specificity and messiness of intersectional, marginalized identity is allowed to exist as it is, because odds are that more people will be willing to engage with it than you’d think.

Anyway, really good show. It’s super fucking funny, and poignant, and deeply sad and vulnerable. I hope anyone reading this gets a chance to see it in some form if they haven’t already.

Also MVP award to Tarra Conner Jones in the SF production, she was SO GOOD. Absolutely everyone was phenomenal - shout-out to John-Andrew Morrison too, his performance of “Periodically” makes me fucking cry. The SF and Broadway and Off-Broadway casts are all amazing. God I love this show.

Edit: OH SHIT I found a clip of the cast I saw! They really were fantastic.

[leportraitducadavre]

I don't know if you've written about it already, and if so you can just redirect me if you'd like, but there's obviously a lot of gay undertones to Naruto and Sasuke's relationship, and all the suggestive illustrations. How much of it do you think was consciously intentional by Kishimoto?

I'm sorry but what "clear undertones" are you referring to? Why does the friendship between two males have to be represented in a particular (usually Westernized) way so that it's not confused with romantic interest? It's prototyping homosexual romantic relationships so that they are labeled within a standard that the reader identifies them with.

It's perfectly fine to ship SNS if that's the desire of those who consume the manga, but to justify that choice on the premise that "Kishimoto planned it because there are clear indications of what I consider a homosexual romantic relationship to be" is dangerous (encapsulating homosexual relationships inside one specific dynamic diminishes the relevance of romantic LGTB+ bonds that do not develop on the same premise), and fetishizes same-gender relationships.

Kishimoto wrote similarly premised relationships throughout the manga, highlighting the relevance of having a "rivalry" between two people within shinobi culture, in that sense, Sasuke and Naruto are no different from other characters.

At the same time, this idea of a "romance clearly planned by the author" usually also hides the shipper's ideology that romantic love is intrinsically superior to any other kind, nullifying the relevance of other bonds that do not fall into this category. Sasuke is constantly relying on his love for his family to carry on throughout the manga, yet that bond is diminished by many SNS fans in order to give more relevance to his bond with Naruto. His friendship with the main character is also of incredible importance, yet somehow Sasuke considering Naruto his best friend isn't as relevant as him seeing him as a romantic partner, as that kind of bond is, to them, superior.

There is a huge market for queer products to enjoy within Japanese media and that is a much better place to explore such dynamics, as they are specifically designed to address such a demand. Seeking queer representation within products aimed at a largely cis-male, heteronormative audience encapsulates LGBT+ relationships under toxic and/or heteronormative codes and behaviors by stripping them of their self-identity and fetishizing their interactions in the process (here).

Furthermore, I've seen people questioning Kishimoto's own sexuality because "he's clearly a closeted gay as he wrote SNS" which destroys their whole stance as "LGTB+ supporters" because not only did they decide to publicly question the sexuality and "out" an author based on his fictional work, but also decided to lock same-gender relationships into a single dynamism, where the idea of "romance" is encapsulated in a largely antagonistic relationship with obsessive undertones. We call that "toxic" when it's a heterosexual relationship, so why wouldn't it be for a homosexual couple?

What exactly is different about that dynamic that allows an LGBT+ couple to explore the kind of bond that we consider toxic and unbalanced within a heterosexual relationship? Usually, many of these issues fall back on an internalized misogyny where, because women are usually inferior both physically and mentally to men, they cannot develop this kind of union in the same way that men can. The relationship remains equally toxic and dangerous for both parties, but because they now don't find a concrete visualization of this imbalance (because, again, they perceive women as inherently inferior to men), they do not regard it in this way.

As I've said, shipping SNS it's alright, I personally can't see any romantic dynamic to get behind in the manga (which is, again, a personal preference of mine as I don't think Kishimoto cared much for those types of bonds), finding queer subtext in media is a common practice and was born out of the need for representation of a minority within a highly repressive society; but to see it as the only valid reading of a product and justify the lack of canonization of the couple under the premise of "social homophobia" within a community that the shipper usually does not know anything about (such as Japan) is a dangerous and senseless practice. Even more so considering the well-known and mainstream Japanese Yaoi market that exists and could use more support.

I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude to you in any manner, but your ask allowed me to explore a difficult and important topic that I tried to address very carefully because I think that people got completely desensitized with and, in their attempt to become a "supporter", they fetishized LGTB+ relationships.

[namtanlovesfilm]

I'm not interested in OhmNanon either, I watched their series "Bad Buddy". Twitter/X went crazy. Chinese fans, to be precise. Something keeps showing up on the main page. They even sent cars to GMMTV to explain why they were separated. He writes such nonsense. They say that OhmNanon wants to be together. I didn't observe them much. But it was obvious that something was wrong.

​This is not normal behavior. They think that because they spent money on them, they have to get an explanation. They care about "ship", not them. Crossing boundaries is very bad. And I feel sorry for them.

Many fans treat their idols as toys. Without emotions. In their opinion, if they are actors, they are not people. Just their toys to play with and command. But they are humans. They do bad things, mistakes. They did something without thinking. Because they are people. Not angelic creatures. At the same time, they are idealized and treated as toys.

I have a full video on bl fanservice that tackles this exact topic, and yeah exactly, thai actors have become products. I'll share this real life encounter that really shook me bc I think it shows perfectly what you're saying: most of my classmates here in bangkok are gmmtv fans & bl fans. I told one of them that off was my favorite actor & she said word for word: "I think off is okay. but I don't like how much tay & gun always sideline him & do more fanservice than him & gun. it feels like gun doesn't care for him." apart from this statement being factually untrue, this girl basically told me the reason she doesn't like off is bc he doesn't get enough fanservice with his ship so he doesn't sell her the bl dream she wants to get. she did not understand that I talked about off individually, even though I am indeed an offgun fan, bc I love off OUTSIDE of offgun as well. she didn't even stop to think for a moment that off is my favorite actor bc he has the best personality ever, is incredibly talented, is beyond absolutely gorgeous & so fun to follow and stan... in that moment, she saw off as a product who was not performing what she wanted from him bc tay & gun ARE close friends and cuddly even though they're not a ship. and for me that really cemented the mindset that many toxic bl fans have. these are real people, with real life relationships & struggles, yet they want them to be only ONE THING: a bl ship that gives them what they want 24/7. there are many choices that off makes that I do not approve of, notably I feel like he doesn't push hard enough to get roles for his caliber that would put him at his most advantageous. and that's okay. as fucking OBSESSED with off as I have been for FOUR YEARS, I accept all of him & his choices & his failures & his mistakes. many people don't understand that. they don't want to stan a real life person, but a robot that they wish to own & control. it's sick honestly... and thai actors do not owe their fans an explanation for anything, especially for their fallouts & fights. maybe if fans opened their eyes they'd realize that likely the reason why long time best friends like ohmnanon barely interact anymore is bc of the fanservice culture that their bl ship has put them through 🤷‍♀️

xxx

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

talking abt that line is so important to understanding why ed considers jack fun. bc things like turtle vs crab and whippies and yardies and coconut war are not inherently toxic activities (i mean animal cruelty is bad irl, don’t make wild animals fight to the death for your amusement. but in fictional pirate tv show it’s fine). these things become toxic when someone (or multiple someones) are uncomfortable with these activities for whatever reason and are unable to opt out without social consequences.

like, goading your friend to jump off a tall height even when they’re visibly afraid of heights is incredibly normal behavior. i’ve been the friend scared of heights who jumps off a cliff into the ocean bc my friends are telling me to do it. thing is, some people’s fear of heights or concern about injury might be severe enough to prevent them from being able to follow through on the goading, and the toxicity comes in when people can’t back out without social consequences. jack’s “what kind of pirates are these?” comments shows that he’s not going to be understanding and compassionate if roach chickens out. the swede’s genuine pain about getting whipped in the fingers is immediately mocked and he has to laugh it off if he wants to keep up with the rest of the crowd, instead getting any sympathy and then everyone trying to make sure whippies is a little bit safer and people aren’t standing so close to whoever has the whip. and when stede leaves before the coconut war, the best way to handle that sort of situation in a friend group is to find something else to do that everyone can have fun with, maybe even have the coconut war anyway and then afterwards make an effort to figure out a fun activity for everyone. but jack, as a product of toxic piracy culture, is not going to value including everyone and respecting people’s comfort when doing so is a sign of weakness, plus also he is very deliberately trying to create an environment where stede isn’t having fun and he feels like he’s not included.

also there’s a very fine line between friendly ribbing and bullying, and it really varies on a case-by-case basis. some people can laugh off getting hit with a whip, and some people can handle getting teased better than others. sometimes it depends on who’s saying the joke, too—getting teased for being an effeminate gay man by another effeminate gay man is a bit different than a drunk douchebag you just met making a similar joke (and some ppl might not be comfortable getting teased like that no matter who’s telling the joke, and that’s ok too!). friendships are abt figuring out where that line is so you don’t make your friends feel miserable when you think you guys are joking around. and jack straddles that line expertly in 1.08 so that what looks like friendly ribbing to ed and the rest of the crew (“not like one of these store bought pirates”) is actually very direct jabs at stede. which, again, he’s doing very much on purpose

i think maybe a lot of the discourse around jack stems from a belief that a person can’t willingly spend time with someone like jack without either being a victim or an enabler

[xtruss]

Eating One Wild Fish Same as Month of Drinking Tainted Water: Study

— By Daniel Lawler | January 17, 2023

Locally caught fish in rivers and lakes could be a major source of exposure to "forever chemicals" PFAS, New Research Has Warned.

Eating one freshwater fish caught in a river or lake in the United States is the equivalent of drinking a month's worth of water contaminated with toxic "forever chemicals", new research said on Tuesday.

The invisible chemicals called PFAS were first developed in the 1940s to resist water and heat, and are now used in items such as non-stick pans, textiles, fire suppression foams and food packaging.

But the indestructibility of PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, means the pollutants have built up over time in the air, soil, lakes, rivers, food, drinking water and even our bodies.

There have been growing calls for stricter regulation for PFAS, which have been linked to a range of serious health issues including liver damage, high cholesterol, reduced immune responses and several kinds of cancer.

To find out PFAS contamination in locally caught fish, a team of researchers analyzed more than 500 samples from rivers and lakes across the United States between 2013 and 2015.

The median level of PFAS in the fish was 9,500 nanogrammes per kilogram, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Research.

Nearly three quarters of the detected "forever chemicals" was PFOS, one of the most common and hazardous of the thousands of PFAS.

Eating just one freshwater fish equalled drinking water with PFOS at 48 parts per trillion for a month, the researchers calculated.

Last year the US Environmental Protection Agency lowered the level of PFOS in drinking water it considers safe to 0.02 parts per trillion.

The total PFAS level in the freshwater fish was 278 times higher than what has been found in commercially sold fish, the study said.

Non-stick pans are among the products that use PFAS, which have been linked to a range of serious health issues.

'Greatest Chemical Threat'

David Andrews, a senior scientist at the non-profit Environmental Working Group which led research, told AFP he grew up catching and eating fish.

"I can no longer look at a fish without thinking about PFAS contamination," said Andrews, one of the study's authors.

The findings were "particularly concerning due to the impact on disadvantaged communities that consume fish as a source protein or for social or cultural reasons," he added.

"This research makes me incredibly angry because companies that made and used PFAS contaminated the globe and have not been held responsible."

Patrick Byrne, an environmental pollution researcher at the UK's Liverpool John Moores University not involved in the research, said PFAS are "probably the greatest chemical threat the human race is facing in the 21st century".

"This study is important because it provides the first evidence for widespread transfer of PFAS directly from fish to humans," he told AFP.

Andrews called for much more stringent regulation to bring an end to all non-essential uses of PFAS.

The study comes after Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden submitted a proposal to ban PFAS to the EU's European Chemicals Agency on Friday.

The proposal, "one of the broadest in the EU's history," comes after the five countries found that PFAS were not adequately controlled, and bloc-wide regulation was needed, the agency said in a statement.

PFAS: You Can't Smell, See or Taste These Chemicals, But They Are Everywhere—And They're Highly Toxic To Humans

Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS) The per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of chemicals used to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. Fluoropolymer coatings can be in a variety of products.

— By Patrick Byrne, The Conversation | January 5, 2023

PFAS are persistent and spread through the atmosphere via hydrological processes. Credit: Chatchawal Phumkaew/Shutterstock

Humans perceive risk based largely on what we can see, smell and taste. Those senses serve us well when there are perceptible dangers to our health and the environment.

We can see and smell raw sewage and as such it is widely perceived as a risk to human and environmental health. The increasing concern of scientists about the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in sewage has confirmed its actual risk. The Environment Agency also reports that pollution from sewage discharge is a leading cause of poor river quality in England.

But there are serious chemical threats, called perflouroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), that we cannot perceive because they are colourless and odourless. Now present in our drinking water and natural ecosystems, high level exposure to these toxic chemicals can elicit a range of negative health effects in humans and wildlife. These include an increased risk of certain cancers, kidney disease, cholesterol, reproductive and developmental disruption and a decreased vaccine response.

Humans cannot see, smell or taste PFAS in our water. Yet they are a serious global threat. The actual risk of PFAS is high, but in my experience as a scientist working on environmental pollution, many people are unaware of them.

What are PFAS?

First developed in the 1940s, PFAS are a large group of more than 4,000 synthetic chemicals. Commonly known as "forever chemicals", their properties make them water and oil repellent and highly resistant to chemical and thermal breakdown.

They are therefore ingredients in various everyday products and as such are all around us. Non-stick frying pans, waterproof rain jackets, flame retardant sofas and carpets, food packaging, makeup and countless other items all contain these chemicals.

But PFAS can persist in the environment for hundreds or thousands of years. Research estimates that it takes more than 1,000 years on average for the chemical concentration of some PFAS to reduce by 50% in soil.

PFAS Exposure

Due to their persistence, PFAS have steadily accumulated in drinking water sources and oceans worldwide. This can happen as contaminated water leaks away from landfills into groundwater. PFAS in household items can also be washed into rivers and oceans through sewage systems.

In 2019, at least one PFAS was detected in 60% of the public groundwater wells and 20% of the private groundwater wells used as drinking water sources in the eastern U.S.. And in England, the Environment Agency analysed 470 freshwater sites between 2014 and 2019 and found PFAS contamination in 97% of them.

The freshwater contaminants then accumulate in plants and animals, where they can be transferred to humans via ingestion.

In the city of Charleston in South Carolina, scientists recorded concentrations of 11 PFAS in six species of fish. Levels of the most abundant chemical recorded in each species—perfluorooctane sulfonate—exceeded wildlife protective guidelines in 83% of whole fish examined. The consumption of wild fish therefore represents a serious health concern for the local population.

Here to Stay

Most people in the world are likely to have been exposed to PFAS. In 2012, more than 97% of Americans were estimated to have detectable levels of PFAS in their blood for example.

But, unlike most other chemical pollutants, PFAS are able to cycle continuously in hydrological processes and spread throughout the atmosphere. Scientists have, for example, recorded concentrations of PFAS in rainwater almost everywhere on Earth. This means that contamination may be largely irreversible.

Distributed by the water cycle, PFAS have been allowed to contaminate remote corners of the planet and negatively impact its wildlife. In Antarctica, accumulations of one type of PFAS—perfluorobutanoic acid—in snow increased more than 200-fold between 1957 and 2015.

Researchers have also found high concentrations of PFAS in Arctic algae. Algae are an important food source for zooplankton, with their contamination feeding upwards through the food chain to fish and shrimp, then seals, and finally to apex predators such as polar bears. A study of East Greenland polar bears revealed that PFAS contamination can disrupt a polar bear's hormone system, which may negatively impact reproduction.

For many people, current PFAS exposure levels are unlikely to be high enough to warrant serious concern. But exposure in some occupations, including firefighting and chemical manufacturing and processing, are likely to be much higher. As will the risk for people whose drinking water or food sources have been contaminated.

Science, and even Hollywood, has warned us of the global chemical threat posed by PFAS. Yet many of us do not perceive them to be a threat.

This may be due to the fact that PFAS are an "invisible" threat and not as obvious as sewage or plastic pollution. But these toxic chemicals have accumulated in many of our water sources and are now interfering with natural ecosystems. Governments, scientists and the media must improve their communication of the risks associated with PFAS.

Scientists Say PFAS Contamination Should Be Presumed at Over 57,000 US Sites

— B y Green Science Policy Institute

Map of presumptive contamination sites identified using presumptive contamination model. Credit: Environmental Science & Technology Letters (2022).

Tens of thousands of locations across the United States may be contaminated by PFAS (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances), according to a study published today in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

According to the research team, PFAS contamination should be presumed at certain industrial facilities, sites related to PFAS-containing waste, and locations where fluorinated firefighting foams have been used. The authors integrated high-quality, publicly available data into a single map of 57,412 locations, with sites in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

"PFAS contamination at these locations is very likely," said Dr. Alissa Cordner, senior author on the paper and co-director of the PFAS Project Lab. "We know that PFAS testing is very sporadic, and there are many data gaps in identifying known sites of PFAS contamination. That's why the 'presumptive contamination' model is a useful tool in the absence of existing high-quality data," Cordner said.

PFAS are a major concern for public health. The chemicals have been measured in countless drinking water systems, in the bodies of humans and wildlife around the globe, and even in rainwater at levels that are higher than the EPA says are safe for human consumption.

"Not only do we all have PFAS in our bodies, but we also know that PFAS affects almost every organ system. It is essential that we understand where PFAS are in our communities so that we can prevent exposures," said Dr. Linda Birnbaum, co-author on the paper and scientist emeritus and former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program.

"While it sounds scary that there are over 57,000 presumptive contamination sites, this is almost certainly a large underestimation," said Dr. Phil Brown, director of Northeastern University's Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute and co-author on the paper. "The scope of PFAS contamination is immense, and communities impacted by this contamination deserve swift regulatory action that stops ongoing and future uses of PFAS while cleaning up already existing contamination," Brown said.

To check their presumptive contamination model against known contamination sites, the authors validated over 500 known contamination sites from the PFAS Project Lab's Contamination Site Tracker against the likely contamination sites they identified. They found that 72% of known contamination sites were either included in the map of presumptive contamination sites or captured by the overall conceptual model, even if those sites couldn't be mapped at the national scale.

"PFAS testing is expensive and resource intensive. We have developed a standardized methodology that can help identify and prioritize locations for monitoring, regulation, and remediation," said Dr. Kimberly Garrett, post-doctoral researcher at Northeastern University and co-author on the paper.

Identifying presumptive contamination sites enables governments, industries, and communities to rapidly and systematically identify potential PFAS exposure sources. "It's past time to 'turn off the tap' with new PFAS use and emissions," said Sharyle Patton, co-author on the study and program director at Commonweal.

[loren91]

This blog is kinda new and I haven’t done a post like this before, but as someone who works with film, I have a lot of thoughts, and I’d like to go on a little filmmaking rant regarding Young Royals, or more precisely, the critique of Wilhelm’s character.

The past few years there’s been a trend in films to have the main protagonist be strong, flawless and morally perfect from start to finish. I’ve never really understood this, because that way you are actively blocking any opportunity for good character development. If you want a character to be interesting or undergo some kind of journey of growth, they have to start out in a somewhat bad place. As a viewer, I honestly find it a bit insulting too, because a filmmaker who doesn’t dare to take risks or write nuanced characters are essentially saying “I don’t trust my audience”, and that’s how you end up with boring films.

Now in regards to Young Royals and Wilhelm, I keep seeing critiques popping up across platforms, like “Wilhelm is selfish”/“he’s a bad person”/“he’s toxic”, even to the point of saying that the whole show is toxic. And in a sense, yeah, Wilhelm is kind of a bad person, and you can give all kinds of explanations for it. He’s a teen and a product of the environment he was brought up in. Considering the fact that both Wilhelm and August have grown up in the same kind of toxic upper class-elite culture, I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t at least a little bit of a douchebag (There’s a reason why they gave him an anxiety disorder, to make him more relatable and worthy of our sympathy) There’s a lot of expectations on him, from his family and his peers. And he’s terrified of the consequences if he were to break those expectations, that’s why he’s so complicit. But most importantly, his flaws are there for narrative reasons. 

If you want to figure out if a piece of work is morally questionable or not, you have to look beyond just one character. The million dollar question here is, are the characters rewarded despite bad behaviour?

Let me set an example here with 1984’s Ghostbusters (an odd one I know, but hear me out!) The romantic subplot between Peter and Dana is incredibly poorly written. When Dana shows up at their office, asking for help, Peter doesn't take her seriously and only attempts to flirt. He also stalks her and tries to pressure her into dating him, and despite her saying no several times over, he doesn't back off. Then at the end, when Peter and his team have saved the city from the big evil ghost, he thinks he deserves Dana as a reward. He kisses her (without checking for consent) and the film tries to frame this as romantic. Peter is rewarded despite his bad behaviour. I don’t care about anyone's nostalgia for this film, it’s gross af.

Now, let’s compare this to YR. Wilhelm is constantly going back and forth on his relationship with Simon. He keeps pushing him away, only to pull him in moments later when he’s too weak to resist his feelings any longer. Simon has a lot of patience with Wilhelm because he understands that he’s in a complicated situation. Also, red flags are difficult to see when you’ve got those rose tinted glasses on..

However, all of this is there really only to build up for one scene, the break up behind Simon’s house in ep 6. Wilhelm has hurt Simon several times over at this point, and he’s exhausted. But Wilhelm tries to ask for his reward anyway. 

“I’m really sorry, this was the only way. But, this doesn’t have to change what we’ve got. We’re still us.”

But Simon calls him out for it.

“You expect everything to be on your terms. You need to figure out what you want… You need to do it on your own, I don’t want to be anyone’s secret.”

Effectively telling Wilhelm that his days of avoiding responsibility and taking people for granted are over. Simon won’t stand for it anymore. Wilhelm is being punished for his bad behaviour.

Wilhelm is the main protagonist of the story, meaning we see the story progress mainly from his perspective. It’s really important to remember though, that just because a character is the protagonist doesn’t mean that they’re the hero. Wilhelm is certainly not a hero, but it’s still his journey of growth and self discovery, that’s what makes the story interesting.

We get to see just how much these boys love each other and how happy they are together, but their situation is too complicated and they are terrified, which leads to Wilhelm making some questionable choices. The script however makes sure that the characters pay for their less than ideal actions, and not just with Wilhelm. 

-When Simon attacks August because he refuses to pay, Rosh makes sure to call him out. 

-When Sara finds out he’s been seeing their dad behind her back and lying to her about it for months, she calls him out for it. 

-When August kisses Sara in the stables, Felice breaks up with him.

-When Wilhelm finds out August recorded the video, he disowns him.

And so on.

All of this stuff is really crucial for their development as characters. Learning through their mistakes. That’s why the last hug and love confession outside the church is so damn important, it’s concrete evidence of Wilhelm’s character development. He’s far from done, but that’s why we’re getting season 2! It’s most likely gonna be a rather bumpy ride, but the boy just needs more time. Who knows, maybe he’ll end up being the hero of the story eventually.

YR is so well done and I could go on for hours about this kind of stuff, but that will have to do for now, bye 😅

[for-a-longlongtime]

I tried to verbalize it this morning in a discord chat and really failed, so @joeloverture @iamasaddie @yourcoolauntie thank you for doing a great job at writing down some things about it.

It’s not about “surely Pedro is used to people thinking he’s attractive” - it’s about RESPECT from the toxic cesspool that’s Hollywood and how the media approaches him (and went completely overboard with that ‘daddy’ bullshit), about constant stereotyping of Latino men - not to mention how fuckin underrepresented they are on tv and esp at award shows. If Chelsea would’ve said this about his Oberyn performance back in the day, sure - it’d still be grossly reductive, but that role is heavily built on sexuality and sensuality. But that absolutely isn’t the case for Joel/The Last of Us.

I’d like to say more on this, but I already have a killer headache so I’m just gonna let it be. But extra props for @yourcoolauntie’s last addition. I am fucking sick of white folks and white culture and capitalism/power from white supremacy being front and center in almost every tv production, movie and award show. No, I don’t think that Pedro ‘needs’ an award for his outstanding work - he deserves it though - but I think ALL OF US (not even fans, but simply people who watch tv) need it instead of the bullshit things this industry says about ~diversity~.

edit: just for the record, I'm white. It's incredibly important that white people speak out about/against these things, because it cannot and most definitely SHOULD NOT be up to Latino/black/asian/native american folks or people of color in general to address these things. I don't have an issue with Handler personally, but she should've been more mindful.

here’s the thing i AM gonna talk about it and i AM gonna be pissed about it. historically but especially in a year that’s meant to be ‘diverse’, latinos (among other POCs) were left behind this awards season. tonight, the emmys have four latino nominees. pedro is an important part of that conversation — with the year he’s had, and the background he comes from.

sure, every actor in the categories he’s nominated in deserves their dues and acknowledgement. that’s why they ARE nominated. but seeing pedro being, YET AGAIN, be reduced to a tactless horniness joke instead of the performances he’s capable of giving, is so goddamn upsetting.

pedro’s career and talent has been consistently overlooked until now, and the fact that his efforts can be neglected to boost a white man for the hundredth fucking time is just… exhausting. at the end of the day, he’s a caricature to hollywood’s biggest decision makers. they joke about him, don’t take him seriously, ask him the dumbest interview questions even thinkable, and can’t even reward him for his work.

no, 2023 wasn’t the year everyone was horny for pedro pascal — it was the year he blew audiences away with his performance, kindness, and passion. the critics might not be looking, but we are, and that matters infinitely more.

[weclassybouquetfun]

ELVIS may not receive a hunk of "Burning Love" at the box office but it won't be the fault of Baz Luhrmann's energetic directing style or Austin Butler's pitch- perfect performance.

Now I can finally know him as an actor instead of just referring to him as Vanessa Hudgen's ex.

At 2 hours and 39 minutes, it's unbelievable that this film has very little substance but it is crammed with style. If the production design wasn't amazing or costumes weren't so exquisite

Including repros courtesy of Miu Miu and Prada

and the music so feet-tapping, head-noddingly good that long runtime could have been an issue because my problem with Luhrmann's work is that it is too chock full. For someone who has a great legacy the reality is Luhrmann has only directed six feature films and it's like every time he gets a film he's afraid he'll never get to do another one so editing be damned. He's going to throw in the kitchen sink, the fridge, the washer. There's no throwing out the baby with the bath water. No -that's going in the film, too. His films (and even the short-lived Netflix series THE GET DOWN) can be too dizzying.

You don't need to have a working knowledge of Elvis Presley to enjoy his film. It's nice if you do (people on either side of me and my friend were big Elvis fans and they lapped this film up. They shed tears. They expressed regret at not getting able to see him perform). I don't think the film alone could have garnered that reaction if it wasn't for Butler's extraordinary performance. He was incredible. It's no wonder that when he found out Butler was going up for the role his former costar Denzel Washington contacted Luhrmann - of his own accord and without Butler's knowledge - and praised Butler.

Those who hate Elvis won't be swayed by this film. If anything they will hate that it glosses over every criticism that has loomed over his legacy (that he was a racist/culture vulture and an ephebophile). People expecting there to be something salacious made of his relationship with Priscilla Presley won't get that as Priscilla worked closely with Luhrmann on the film and in regards to their relationship, at worst he's portrayed as an absent husband and philanderer.

*Butler with Riley Keough, Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley.

*Elvis' granddaughter actress Riley Keough on Butler's.

This film is solely focused on the symbiotic relationship between Elvis and the Colonel (Tom Hanks) and the bigger issue of artists who are taken advantage of due to ignorance and stars and dollar signs clouding their vision.

Being about Elvis music is a gigantic part of the film. Austin Butler sang as younger Elvis but as he got older they blended Butler's vocals with Presley's (much like what was done in BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY with Rami Malek, Marc Martel and Freddie Mercury's vocals).

Knowing Luhrmann and how he's not afraid of being  anachronistic, I was curious as to how the film would use the songs from the soundtrack. The soundtrack a mix of covers and songs inspired by Elvis' hits was used sparingly as to not completely disrupt the film - Kacey Musgraves' "Can't Help Falling In Love" plays softly underneath a scene, Jack White's blistering guitar riff from his cover of Elvis' "Power of My Love" punctuates another, Doja Cat's "Vegas" is blended with Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog". The end credits features Eminem and Cee-Lo Green's "The King and I" and Måneskin's cover of Elvis' "If I Can Dream".

*You're not imagining things - yes, Kodi Smit-McPhee, the human stick insect - supplies a song for the soundtrack as his character Jimmie Rodgers Snow.

Other songs used that is not in the soundtrack includes a Britney Spears/ Backstreet Boys mash-up of "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" and "Toxic" which surprisingly works in the midst of a montage.

[rainbowsky]

Hey rainbowsky, idk if you could answer this for me or maybe somebody else but why is there a bad connotation with being called idol? I see this mostly in China compared Korea or Japan but idols in China will try very hard to distance themselves from the word idol and see it as bad, I just wanted to know your thoughts on this. From what I’ve seen idols in Korea and Japan don’t care. Again as far as I’ve seen.

Hi Anon!

Idols tend to be looked down upon everywhere, not just in China.

Yes, it's true that they're massively popular and admired by millions of adoring fans, but only within a narrow group of very young girls. From a mainstream perspective the majority of people would have no clue who these 'massively popular' idols are because they aren't part of daily life in the media they consume.

As entertainers they're usually not taken seriously in the industry when compared with serious actors who went to acting school and perform in serious works, or when compared to other popular figures such as top athletes, musicians, comedians, etc.. They are seen as manufactured marketing products, not serious entertainers.

And this isn't just an 'Asian idol' thing - this is a reality across the globe. Look at how top 40 pop stars are viewed in society vs how well-known actors, comedians, TV hosts, athletes, politicians and other public figures are viewed.

Justin Beiber - as popular and as talented as he is - will never be taken as seriously as film stars like Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman or Michelle Yeoh, or even TV actors like Bob Odenkirk or Peter Dinklage.

There are good reasons to not want to be seen as an idol in the entertainment business or by the public at large:

Idols are broadly viewed as being popular because of their looks and because of the fashion/fad they represent, not because of any special talent, experience or ability.

Idols are viewed as having won some sort of a lottery rather than as having worked hard to earn their notoriety.

Idols will tend to be cast in projects where acting ability isn't a huge factor - projects intended to highlight the idol's looks and appeal to the type of young women who follow idols. The point is to get as much traffic, attention and revenue as possible rather than to create an enduring cinematic masterpiece. Serious opportunities aren't typically given to them.

There is a real shelf life to idols. They tend to be a flash in the pan - people whose careers only last as long as their style is in vogue and as long as their looks are in peak form. They often fly high and fall hard, never to be heard of again. Whereas other popular figures have a longer trajectory to their careers, and often their work spans decades.

Idol fan culture means there is a lot of BS associated with being an idol that most other popular figures don't have to deal with nearly as much - in part because the fan base is so young and less mature, less able to see the seriousness of (or care about the consequences of) their behavior. Stalker fans, toxic fan activity, shipping with everyone they interact with, trying to hack into their private info, installing tracking devices on their cars, harassing family members, wasteful and outrageous consumer behavior, vote-manipulation, fan wars - all of which has serious negative impacts on stars. Especially in China, where stars are held directly accountable for the behavior of their fans.

Idols face bigger career risks than other public figures do. Being seen to be in a relationship, for example, can kill an idol's career moreso than that of a serious actor or musician. They have to maintain a much more 'perfect' image than other public figures do. They come under an incredible amount of scrutiny for people who aren't considered 'serious' entertainers.

Idols are usually very tightly managed and don't tend to have as much control over their careers as other popular figures do, especially if they come out of 'idol search' competition shows. Their contracts are notoriously exploitative and restrictive, and cover every aspect of their public and private lives. Often most of the money they earn goes to their management company.

Idols are restricted not just by their management companies, but also by their fans. Often they are victims of their own success, because their fan bases often have a lot of influence over what they are able to do. For example, DD lost solo fans when he took on The Untamed as a project, because many of them didn't want him appearing in a BL project. GG's popularity means he's had to reel in his often friendly, affectionate behavior around costars because his fans ship him or go to war over it.

There are likely a lot of idols who are perfectly happy in a career as an idol, but most seem to see it as a stepping stone to more serious opportunities. They use the attention they have to get roles that will enable them to transition into a longer, more stable career.

It's true that these extremes are even bigger in China, especially lately, due to the way the government and media have been framing fan culture as corrupting, immoral, wasteful, disruptive, misleading and a massively negative influence on youth.

They've enacted policies that attempt to intentionally place idols at a disadvantage in the entertainment industry there (limitations on which roles idols can play, for example, and limitations on the number of dramas featuring idols that can be made, limitations on behavior and dress in the media that appear to directly target idol fashion/culture, etc.).

The more someone is seen as a 'traffic star' in China, the more restrictions and scrutiny they are put under.

GG and DD both came out of idol groups, and are seen by many as being famous only because of (and only good for) their looks. They have a lot of hard work ahead of them to prove themselves, and to be taken seriously and given more serious opportunities. They appear to be handling that quite well and making great progress, but they still have a ways to go before they'll be accepted broadly as serious public figures with respectable careers that will stand the test of time.

[rigginsstreet]

People who view Billy's character in such a negative one-dimensional way come across as so sheltered to me. He really reminds me of my dad in a lot of ways, and when we watched S2 and 3 together we revisited convos about what it was like for my dad to grow up with a father like Neil, a mother who let him down, step-siblings he had toxic relationships with, and what it was like to have to let go of the ways he learned to survive it all. People really undestimate just how hard it is to break the cycle of violence when you're all on your own. If you're young and by yourself, with very little money or access to resources about abuse, then you just have to blindly stumble into the life lessons you need.

At the same time people also undestimate how capable of change people can be when they actually have a chance. Once my dad was out of his father's house during his 20s he had room to breathe and actually grow up. He put all his anger and fear into learning a trade instead of taking it out on others, put effort into learning about the people and cultures he was taught to be racist against, and eventually found a career working with young people so he could be the supportive figure he needed when he was their age.

Lots of folks who grow up to be good people were like Billy or like my dad when they were younger. Billy's story gets cut short before we get to see that though. It's still important to know that even if a victim of abuse is an asshole and a product of their shitty environment that doesn't mean they aren't worthy of help. You don't have to like them but that doesn't make them irredeemable. If people's support abuse victims is conditional on their moral purity then they are not the allies they think they are.

(also love the idea of Billy working with young people in his future one of my fave personal headcanons)

billy antis to me fall into the camp of either 1. being incredibly sheltered and having no idea what the fuck theyre talking about or 2. they say billy reminds them of whatever abuser they personally had in their life, so automatically theyre unable to separate that bias and generally its fuck whoever talks positively about billy (ive seen a FEW people able to see reason but....) 

and like thats a whole separate issue coming from the riverdale fandom and preferring the parents over the kids, all the damn time i had to hear people coming into mine or my friends inboxes/posts trauma dumping because x parent remind them of their parent etc etc and like girl... what does that got to do with me. like sorry you went through that but whats that got to do with me.

people need to learn how to separate fiction from reality. thats the first problem that needs to be addressed

but like if yall WANT to make it this deep and talk about the real world and shit, its so counterproductive to talk about abusive victims who are literal children and deciding theyre beyond redemption. its also very convenient how people pick and choose when someones a child. if you did x thing at age 17 youre a child but if you do z thing youre an adult. make it make sense. 

i feel like these people just... dont exist in reality? like i have to imagine theyre only interactions with other people are their echo chambers online because SURELY you cannot be interacting with real life human beings day to day in the real world and coming to these conclusions. people are incredibly nuanced. everyones got skeletons in their closet. everyones got things in their past they are not proud of. its what theyve made of themselves since their darkest moments that matters. its what people choose to do with themselves once they identify their problems and issues that matters. billy LITERALLY GAVE UP HIS LIFE. and its not enough for people. which is... insane to me. and heinously cruel minded. especially paired with how they go on to treat REAL PEOPLE for understanding his character. “i hate this character because theyre mean and bigoted so to show this i will go on and be mean and bigoted to other people”. like yall need some windex for your mirrors cuz clearly somethings not getting through when you look into it every day.

my brother and i had a notoriously toxic relationship when we lived together. we’re still not particularly close probably because of that (also theres a 7 year age difference so that was never gonna help) but like literally last time we were together a week or two ago to put up the christmas tree we were getting along, he even volunteered for all things to put our initial ornaments next to each other on the tree. we snuck upstairs before dinner to hang out in my room and smoke lmfao like... amazing what distance can do for a relationship i have full faith that all billy and max needed was for billy to move out and get away from neil and they would be maybe not besties but surely a hell of a lot closer than they could be under current circumstances.

people just dont want to put in the brainpower to think long term. they dont want to face the facts of billys situation because then they would have to realize how fucking shitty they are to people like him. and no one wants to do that. no one wants to realize theyve been the villain this whole time lmao

i had another thought but i lost it which is probably for the best cuz this response is already long as hell. 

[ceasarslegion]

Im expanding on this a bit more because i wrote this post on 2 hours of sleep and a 1 hour nap and I slept like a rock last night so i can articulate my thoughts a bit better

Noir hasn't been a widely expanded-upon genre for multiple generations now, and neo-noir is enjoyed by a select few who frequent arthouses and tend to enjoy your average grindhouse flick, so I get that the average joe in the 2020s isn't all that familiar with it. But I also don't think it's too much to ask to expect a game that is clearly a modern noir story to tell a noir narrative, and it's similarly not too much to ask its players to become at least superficially familiar with the base concepts of that genre.

Noir was a product of the post-WWII economic boom, and its main theme can be boiled down to the phrase "all that glitters is not gold." You had this seemingly prosperous America, but only prosperous to the "right" type of person. And even among that type of person, social expectations brought out the worst of them. Alcoholism was rampant, domestic violence was on the rise, racism and sexism and homophobia were deadly, mental health was in a crisis, and they were told to suck it up. Especially among the veterans they had called "heroes" only to abandon them to die the moment they needed help. America was gold-plated in its raw wealth, but chip it away and you get this rotting self-cannibalizing corpse that can only sustain itself for so long. PTSD and toxic masculinity created a deadly combination for most who suffered it, but noir was the genre that grabbed all this by the throat and forced its viewers to see it for what it was: a great big pile of shit that they'd convinced themselves was a victory just because they helped kicked the nazis out of europe.

That's why noir is so cynical in nature. It didn't use metaphors for societal issues because everyone at the time was hiding those issues behind metaphors to avoid acknowledging their existence. That's why the harsh and brutal depictions of racism, domestic violence, sexism, police brutality, and everything else it criticizes aren't glorifying it just because it depicts a society that did. You gotta step into the shoes of the social culture of the american 1940s for a second and ask yourself if today's modes of storytelling are actually the most effective for it or not before you come at a game like L.A. Noire for recreating it.

And I'm not saying you can't be uncomfortable with its heavy themes, but that discomfort was... very much the point in the noir genre. And I'm sorry this sounds harsh but your personal discomfort is not a measure of something's artistic merit, especially when the discomfort was the point. "The protagonist is so flawed and problematic and he think he's the good guy" yeah, that was the point. "The racial segregation and systemic racism is incredibly brutal and violent and you just uphold it" that was the point. "But the slurs-" that was the point. That was always the point of noir, you just might not see it under the censorship standards of the 1940s.

Personally, I think L.A. Noire does a fantastic job of reviving the noir genre in an interactive medium with the freedom of visuals and depiction that an M-rating gives it. My main criticisms of it are within the gameplay, but the things I see people maily complain about just... don't hold any salt when you consider that that's how the noir style functions. It's brutal and uncomfortable for a reason, that's just not a valid criticism. A story about a very flawed WWII veteran trying to be a good man and protect people as a police detective only to slowly realize that his efforts only contribute to a system of more violence and disparity is a... pretty run of the mill noir story. That's what I expect of it.

I cant look through the la noire tag anymore because my film degreed ass gets way too annoyed at all the people who seem to think a game with "noire" in the title functioning like the old noir genre did is emblematic of bad writing or problematic storytelling

There are definitely some gameplay mechanics that couldve been more ironed out, but "i dont like how this heavily genred game adheres to the long-established storytelling modes of that genre because i personally find it uncomfortable" isnt the critique you think it is

[blazehedgehog]

Do you have any studios or developers you refuse to purchase games from?

Voidpoint, for their handling of Ion Fury. It looks like an extremely good build engine shooter, but a mapper hid some bigoted humor in a level and Voidpoint dug in their heels and stood up "against SJW censorship." Big red flags. They don't deserve my business.

I struggle to care about anything Gearbox has been doing, exclusively because of Randy Pitchford. He's an incredibly suspicious dude -- there's claims he stole money from Aliens: Colonial Marines to bankroll Borderlands 2, there's the whole bizarre "magic trick on a flash drive" gaffe, the fact he "rescued" the Duke Nukem franchise and has left it to rot with increasingly worse ports and remasters of Duke Nukem 3D (and only Duke Nukem 3D)... Randy announced he was leaving Gearbox just a few days ago to pursue a movie production career, but also, the more Gearbox does with the "humor" in Borderlands, the more I groan at how much it sucks. Randy Pitchford or not, I don't want to buy or play anything from Gearbox, at least for a while.

THQ Nordic hosted an AMA on 8chan, a website known for hosting illegal pornography and being the heart of Qanon. They tried to make a series of weak apologies, but not a single one of them came off as sincere, because they were all full of misdirection and excuses about how they "didn't know" what 8chan was. I don't believe them for a second. People all the way up the Nordic ladder seemed to be in on it. Unsurprisingly, right after that disaster, they announced a suite of long-requested, fan-favorite remasters for games like Battle for Bikini Bottom and Destroy All Humans. It was blatantly transparent they were trying to smooth things over and hope people forget about the 8chan thing. I certainly won't.

I'm also going to start avoiding anything associated with Tommy Tallarico. He always came off as kind of a goober on Electric Playground, but it sounds increasingly like he's a toxic weirdo and a diva. It's harder to cite this one because it sounds like Tallarico is trying to get out in front of it and keep it quiet, but there are rumblings from people who met him that he's a loudmouthed jerk. He's been known to crack a lot of "snowflake sjw needs a safe space?" type jokes, and he followed a lot of the right wing brainworm types on twitter. He's also spearheading the whole "Earthworm Jim 4" project, which involves "getting all the original developers back together" -- including the ones who have willingly outed themselves as angry bigots. Despite claims that the bad eggs aren't really involved, their work is still being co-promoted. Tallarico is ignorant at best, and actively toxic at worst. Art cannot be separated from artist as long as money is involved.

There's probably more, but those are the four strongest examples I can think of right now. I'd maybe put Ubisoft in there, but mostly that's because I'm very bored with Ubisoft's output and have been for a long time, irregardless of what's wrong with their company culture.

Similar thing happened with Blizzard. I've never played World of Warcraft, I haven't played Diablo III for more than an hour, I stopped caring about Overwatch, etc. It was almost convenient when they started to self-destruct because of their company culture, because it really wasn't very hard at all to stop caring about their games.

[felassan]

Check out this video interview with Mark Darrah, ‘On Anthem’s Launch, Dev Advice, And Leaving BioWare’. It’s interesting and pretty substantial. He talks about a bunch of different things, including his YouTube channel, things BioWare could’ve done differently, crunch, whether he’ll write a book about his gamedev experiences, gamedev pitfalls, Anthem’s troubled development, the development of projects he worked on including DA2, cancelled projects (and what happened to them) including Jade Empire 2 / ‘Jade Modern’ / Revolver and Mass Effect: Corsair, the reasons why he left BioWare and Dragon Age 4.

I recc giving the whole thing a watch, but if you’re not able to, here are the Dragon Age 4-related quotes and other especially interesting-to-me portions transcribed for ur convenience! (under a cut due to length):

Mark: "There is a tendency for projects that are small to think they're amazing, because it's so much easier. Like when I ran Sonic [Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood] - it was a 20 person team - it's just so much easier to make things go smoothly than when you have a 200 person team. So I think that we've made progress, but as Dragon Age pivots into production and that team gets bigger and bigger, it will be interesting to see if that's true or if it's just the blindness of being a small team. Like when Inquisition was in the throes of shipping, both Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem would love to talk about how they were 'doing things right!' and then they fell in totally different holes, but still fell in a bunch of holes after Inquisition shipped. So I do think that there is a hubris that comes from a project in early development where you feel like this time you've figured it out."

---    Mark: “As Dragon Age [4] was moving towards production, I could see that like, the team, I've been told by people that they've never met a team that more wants to be in production than Dragon Age team. But what ended up happening was, in order for the team to really explore the space properly, we had to sort've train them to be in pre-production. But that meant that that team no longer really wanted to be in production, they wanted to be in pre-production. And so, looking at what was going to be required to pivot that team into production, it wasn't a challenge that I thought I was up to any longer. I think that team, once they get into the mindset, is capable of moving entire mountains, and will move entire mountains, but they need someone that can lead them through that."

Interviewer: “Yeah, from the outside it's striking that you and Casey Hudson left at the same time. It sort’ve definitely implies a ‘fuck this’ moment for the two of you. If it was just you saying ‘I can’t do it’ then it’s understandable.”

Mark: “Yeah, no, I mean, it’s hilarious, because, we definitely were not coordinated. That was, as near as I can determine, there was nothing that triggered us on the same moment other than maybe just a sort’ve mounting, just, like, this friction, being at the, I would say, the GM and EP, the point at which the [something?] friction and the project friction meet, and you’re just sort of grinding there. But I don’t think there was a massive injection of anything late last year that triggered that. Not that I can point to. For me, yeah, I do think it was, weirdly, a coincidence. Casey and I have stayed in touch, we didn’t leave to go form a studio together or anything.”

---

Interviewer: “Are you being torn apart a little bit internally about that pressure of, ‘I know if I just made a video that said, The Secrets of Dragon Age - not even Dragon Age 4, whatever the hell that thing’s called at this point - but just, The Secrets of Dragon Age: Origins’, like, you know that  audience surely would show up. I imagine there’s that community that’s screaming at you, like, ‘Tell us something we don’t know about Dragon Age, tell us about the future!!’, versus, trying to play it a little more straight and actually offer gamedev advice.”

Mark: “Yeah, for sure, absolutely, like, looking at, there is an entire segment of YouTube which is ‘Dragon Age fans talking about Dragon theories and watching the trailers and picking them apart’ and I could do that, and that would be, I feel like that would almost destructive to everybody, because I could deflate all the theories, some of which are completely completely wrong, some of which are amazingly right. But I think, like, I don’t think the community actually wants that. They might sort’ve think they do, but I think if I just sort’ve pulled away the curtain, I think it’d be like, ‘Ohh.. but now what are we gonna talk about? :(’ Like I don’t think that anybody wants that honestly. It would be great for my metrics but I don’t think anyone really wants that.”

Interviewer: “And not to offer you advice, but like I think there’s somewhere in the middle. Like when they have the next teaser trailer for the next Dragon Age project, you could do a reaction video to that and it would be your most viewed thing by a mile, and you wouldn’t be stepping on anybody’s toes.”

Mark: “Yeah, I have thought about that exact thing. Cause we’ve now moved, I think, beyond the horizon of anything that comes out of Dragon Age at this point, like if they’re at EA Play, and I don’t know if they’re at EA Play or not, then whatever that is will be something that I didn’t have anything to do with, so we’re reaching the point where I can now, I feel like, start to provide, yeah, reaction videos from the perspective of, an incredibly well-informed outsider.”

---

Interviewer: “And you must know, even though you’re not inside the studio, like, just have an appreciation how much that [MELE’s good success and good reception] can do for the studio’s morale. I’d imagine it’s just night and day.”

Mark: “Oh, absolutely, like. Andromeda and Anthem being the last two things before the remaster, that is a cloud that hangs above the studio for sure.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, I mean I remember visiting for Dragon Age: Inquisition, it must have been, and it was still, like, the Mass Effect 3 ending, I feel like, even visiting the studio for two days, you could feel that like, funk, of just like ‘ugh, good Christ, we’ve gotten the crap kicked out of us’.”

Mark: “Yeah, I mean. The Mass endings is an interesting one for me. Because, it’s not the choices I would have made to end the game, but those are the choices that were made. I wonder... I don’t like ultimatums, and I feel like with Mass 3, the team kind’ve gave into an ultimatum. The community was so angry that we then released new better endings to ‘fix it’, and it’s not that that’s a bad piece of content, that’s a good piece of content, but I just worry that, the internet today, seems almost like... a reaction to the Mass 3 endings. Almost like, the internet learned that if you just yell loud enough you get what you want. And I don’t think that’s real, because it’s Mass Effect, it’s not Star Wars.”

Interviewer: “But I mean, if it wasn’t the ending of Mass Effect 3, it would have been something else in that era of Voices On The Internet Being So loud that it causes a big company to pivot and be like ‘Okay, we’ll try and make you a little bit happier, please just relax everybody’.”

Mark: “Yeah, totally. So I mean, I don’t think Mass Effect bears the brunt of the blame of toxic fan culture. But certainly it’s one of the very first examples of that culture managing to make something happen.”

---

Mark: “Now I do feel that maybe I overlearned that lesson, because, something that I did a lot on Anthem was talk about how, you know, ‘this is not a BioWare-style game, this is not gonna have the storytelling that you’re used to’. And I think maybe I overstressed that. I do think that at the end of the day where we are with Anthem today, if you were a BioWare fan that liked all our other games, and you play Anthem with an eye to playing it as a storytelling game, it’s certainly not our best, but it’s not bad.”

Interviewer: “So Anthem marketing and messaging was hurt because you were overlearning the lessons from Sonic, that’s the takeaway?”

Mark: “I do think so. I do think that like, I don’t think it was from the marketing perspective, but I do think that both Casey and I overstressed [that]. We didn’t want people to get mad at us for making a game that wasn’t a very good storytelling game, so we wanted to get ahead of that message and say like, ‘it’s not a very strong storytelling game, it’s a game about all this other stuff’, but, at the end of the day, it is a storytelling game, it’s still in there. And those are the people that stayed away. And if those people hadn't stayed away, I’m not saying the game would have suddenly done [awesome], but it would’ve softened the narrative a little bit, I think.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m sure you understand this better than anybody, but that’s such a loaded term to say ‘This is a BioWare-style game’, and obviously there’s that era of EA where they were trying to say that every project within EA was a ‘BioWare-style’ game and so, it’s interesting to hear you kind’ve, hemming and hawwing about how much to lean into, ‘no no, this one is 100% BioWare, this one is 73% BioWare’ - it’s such a murky thing.”

Mark: “It absolutely is, I mean, and I even said these things. Like we made MDK2, well, we made it, so I mean is that a ‘BioWare-style’ game? Is Baldur’s Gate a ‘BioWare-style’ game? But if it is, then how is Mass Effect a ‘BioWare-style’ game, and certainly I don’t think anyone would argue that Mass Effect is not a ‘BioWare-style’ game. So that term has to evolve as the studio continues. But I think for whatever reason, for a variety of reasons, I guess, with Anthem we were worried that maybe we’d pushed it a bit too far. And then I guess we did.”

Interviewer: “Did you enjoy any part of working on Anthem, or was it just a matter of putting out so many fires that it was just nothing but stress til the end?”

Mark: “It was stressful for me. I mean. I have a weird - the last ten years of my career at BioWare seemed to involve a lot of helping people land their planes. And that’s what Anthem was for me, I wasn't there from the beginning. I was helping to land it. I think there’s a satisfaction that comes with landing a game, with finishing a product, and I felt that with Anthem as well, and there were a lot of talented people on that project that I’d never worked with before, and that was great. It was great to, y’know, figure out these people that had only ever worked on a Mass Effect, that I’d never worked with before, their skills and abilities. I really like understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a person and building around that. I didn’t really have an opportunity on Anthem to do that because y’know, we were just trying to get the plane on the ground, but I think, having learned about what those people could do, that’s very gratifying because it lets you imagine what you could do with them in the future.” 

Interviewer: “Yeah, if things aligned magically, but for you you realized it never was gonna align, and it was always just right on the horizon of being able to cobble this amazing talent together and focus it down.”

Mark: “Yeah, I mean - I think that I, the mistake that I made on Anthem, I think the biggest mistake, was I’m used to getting a team that pushes back on me in a certain way. So as I’m sort’ve pushing the stick down to get the plane to hit the runway, I’m used to pushing it sort’ve too far, because I know that the team is gonna push it back and then we’re gonna end up where it should be. And I think that given the state of the team on Anthem when I came on, and given the differences in personalities of the leaders there, versus the ones that I’d been working with for ten years, that’s not what happened. I think if anything, I pushed it down, and then they grabbed it and pulled it even further, because they were desperate for help in decision-making, and I was providing decisions. And they were grabbing onto that, and so I thought we were on this glide slope [motions], I was aiming at this glide slope expecting that we were gonna be like [this], but instead we were like [this], and so we, yeah, we landed that pretty rough. But, I mean, it was my call, I’m the one that said we shouldn’t push to move this, not because I thought it was perfect, but because the only path I could see to making it way better was moving it a lot. And when you’re in the last eight, nine weeks of a project, I could only see like, if we were gonna move it, we [would] have to move it like a year. And that’s - in a public corporation that’s a hard argument to make.”

---

Mark: “One of the most expensive things a project can do is slip. Because, your team, when you do that your team is at its maximum size, so if you got 200 people working on a project and you move a month, well that’s 200 staff months, you just got a bunch more expensive just by moving a month. Whereas actually adding more people, well if you only got a month left, to add 200 staff months to a project, you gotta add 200 people, that’s a lotta people. Moving the date is one of the most expensive, and you can reach a point where it’s like, look, it’s not worth it, if we move the date it’s gonna cost more to continue this project than it’s gonna make, so we’re not gonna. But rarely is that the case, you’ve already spent the money you’ve spent, so the only cost that matters is the cost going forward.”

Interviewer: “So, do you regret not pushing for Anthem to be delayed a year or was it good just to get something on the ground so that we could start building to take it off again with a living game?”

Mark: “Yeah, honestly, I don’t regret it, the [team/game?] was tired and it didn’t have another year in it, and I think a lot of the things that are super obvious now, some of them we knew, some of them we knew, like the balance, we had done one, clean balance pass, by having QA come in and hotseat their way through the game over Christmas break. Like literally playing the game 24 hours a day. We’d done basically that once. So we knew that, we knew that. But a lot of the other things kind’ve only came out once it was out in peoples’ hands. I think the path that I wasn’t capable of seeing at the time that could’ve maybe resulted in a better game would’ve been to put it into beta, like a real beta, in the state that it was in, and run it like that and then release it a year later. But I don’t know if there was the will to do that frankly. There might be now... I think Anthem taught EA a lot of lessons.”

Mark: “[on Cyberpunk] I think many of the same things happened there [as with Anthem]. They had a team that was tired and it wasn’t ready but they couldn’t see the path to getting it more ready. If the team is too tired, just taking another two months just isn’t gonna get you what you think it’s gonna get you.” [source]

[downthetubes]

Italian actress Monica Vitti, known as the ‘Queen of Italian Cinema’, has died, aged 90, from Alzheimer's.

She’s best known for her work with Michelangelo Antonioni, Luis Buñuel and Ettore Scola, including L’Avventura and La Notte.

“I'll refrain from waxing lyrical on Monica Vitti's career but I'd just like to highlight her phenomenal performance in Dino Risi's ‘Noi Donne diamonds fatte così’(1971),” noted film critic Rachael Nesbit, “in which she plays 12 different roles across the 12 segments. An utter joy to watch her transform from role to role.” (https://twitter.com/rachael_nisbet/status/1488959380884234242?s=21)

Her death announced on Twitter by former Italian culture minister Walter Veltroni broke the news of Vitti’s death with a tweet. He said he had been asked to do so by Roberto Russo, Vitti’s husband, and expressed his “pain, affection and regret”. (https://twitter.com/veltroniwalter/status/1488832020029575168?s=21)

In 1966, she took the lead role in the Joseph Losey-directed adaptation of Modesty Blaise.

A film which had previously been announced as a Hammer Film production by Michael Carreras, after Curse of the Mummy's Tomb. What a shame it took the route it did, resulting in her fantastic work, in films such as Antonioni's ‘L'Avventura’ being overlooked by some in tributes.

“Vitti was incredible in Antonioni's ‘Red Desert’,” (“ll Deserto Rosso”) notes Slate film critic Dana Stevens, “a film about a woman watching her world being slowly destroyed by the pollution from toxic petrochemical plant her husband manages - a 1964 movie that, looking back, was already about the anxiety of climate change.” (https://twitter.com/thehighsign/status/1488879814501187585?s=21)

"I played at being someone else in movies and live theatre,” she once said, “and at being myself in life's most intense, fascinating game - the game of love."

Monica Vitti

3 November 1931, Rome, Italy- 2 February 2022, Rome, Italy

WEB LINKS

• La repubblica - https://www.repubblica.it/spettacoli/cinema/2022/02/02/news/monica_vitti-249574730/

• The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/feb/02/monica-vitti-queen-of-italian-cinema-dies-aged-90

• Remembering Monica Vitti https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7682-monica-vitti-from-alienated-beauty-to-madcap-comedienne