#and when i asked for examples of Jesse CHOOSING to do things wrong outside of se3

[lttleghost]

literally the people in the BrBa fandom who like think its super important to focus somewhat on the bad things Jesse's done instead of just acknowledging those things tend to have misunderstandings on either how selling drugs increase harm (which while there's other complexities to parts of the drug trade, simply making and providing drugs alone does not increase the harm those drugs cause) or they have misremembered some of his actual actions as being more in his control than they actually were, and with some people it really feels like it comes from the stigma against addicts even if they think they're not falling into that

and like again this lack of understanding around everything relating to drugs and addiction especially, even from people that mean well, is the whole reason it's more important to focus on the good in Jesse and how he's the victim rather than acting like there's no one acknowledges his flaws and the bad things he's done, cause a huge fucking swath of people outside our little tumblr circles do and act like every single bad thing in his life as entirely his responsibility without aknowledging any way that the world worked against him or the abuse he faced and see him as less of a person because he's an addict

and like I do think if Jesse wasn't the type of person that sees his own flaws and ultimately tries to do his best to change and learn even in the terrible situation he's in that doesn't want that change to happen, and instead needed people to like... constantly tell him to be better, then yeah it'd definitely be much more important to focus on those flaws and the bad things he did... but that's not the case, even the one thing he plans to do that was awful AND fully his choice (trying to sell drugs to the rehab group) was something he snapped himself out of when he was able to concretely see a consequence he hadn't considered before, this doesn't negate that trying to sell drugs to the rehab group was wrong, but it does add complexity to how we judge that action playing into Jesse as a whole

like you can't just sit there and act like ur so smart for aknowledging a character written like a real person is complex without thinking about the greater social commentary you're getting across when you insist we can't simply aknowledge the bad things a character does and have to still really judge them on those things or say calling them a "good person" erases the bad they've done and not consider if what you're saying is like... useful on a wider scale in combating the stigmatization of characters like Jesse (especially surrounding drug selling/making/using drugs) or if you're just refering to "woobification" bullshit that isn't particularly prevalent in the wider world

[cinnonym]

take the day off, get a massage (cause we've got this one all under control)

Written for Day 8 - Winter Solstice of 12 Days of Supercorp @supercorpbb

Read on AO3

***

9:15 am

“Golly, am I looking forward to this day.” Kara yawns and huddles closer against the curve of Lena’s back. Her breath tickles Lena’s neck, warm and comfortable. Lena hums.

“Four.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s the fourth time you’ve said this,” Lena murmurs. “Not that I mind.” She can feel sleep tugging at her eyelids once more and relishes in the thought that she won’t have to fight it. That she can succumb to the weight guiltlessly.

Kara doesn’t reply. She’s probably drifted off again already and will wake in half an hour with the same sentence on her lips once more. Lena smiles a bit about the predictability of it all, before a yawn overcomes her and drags her down with it.

***

9:51 am

“Golly,” Kara says, sleep still blurring her words. “I love this, I really do. What a good idea.”

Lena makes an affirmative sound, somewhere between a sigh and a purr. She hasn’t felt this relaxed in months, maybe even years. The warmth of Kara’s arm around her waist, the cold of Kara’s nose against her neck, what more can a woman ask for?

“I am starting to become a bit hungry though,” comes Kara’s voice from behind, and Lena has to suppress a chuckle as she rolls around to face her girlfriend.

“Of course you are.”

“Hey!” Kara’s eyes were still closed, but they open now, blinking slowly several times until all traces of tiredness have given way to a semi-offended glare. “It’s – “ she pauses and squints at the clock “ – more than two hours after my usual breakfast time. Of course my stomach is demanding attention.”

Lena lets out a laugh. “Demanding, huh? And that although you so dislike to be ordered around.”

Kara’s on her suddenly, pinning her down so quickly that Lena strongly suspects the involvement of superspeed.

“Damn right,” she says in a low voice, letting her gaze wander over Lena menacingly. Unfortunately, the effect is somewhat undermined by Kara’s stomach releasing a protesting grumble just then. Kara blushes, and just like that she rolls off of Lena again.

“Boss said no,” she murmurs, shrugging helplessly.

Lena grins. “Good thing we’ve got all day.”

“Golly, am I looking forward to that.”

***

11:38 am

The phone rings just when Lena is beginning to contemplate a nap. The sun still hasn’t peeked through the clouds once, and so it continues to be exactly the kind of dreary that you could wish for on a day like this. The kind of dreary that practically invites you to sleep.

But the phone is ringing, and that means Lena has to make a decision. She groans as she lifts her head from Kara’s chest to look at her.

“Reject or ignore?”

Kara shrugs. Her fingers are drawing lazy circles on Lena’s back, and she looks about as sleepy as Lena’s felt just a minutes ago.

“Maybe I’ll look who it is and choose then,” Lena decides, reaching for the vibrating device. It’s Jess, and apparently it’s not the first time she’s tried to get through to Lena. They have somehow managed to miss three calls, and if that isn’t proof of a dedicated sex life, then Lena doesn’t know. She chuckles quietly.

“It’s Jess,” she tells Kara, “for the third time.”

“What does she want?”

“I wouldn’t know.” The call stops. A small flutter of worry stirs in Lena’s stomach, even though she doesn’t want to feel it. Doesn’t want to leave the comfortable bubble Kara and she have created for themselves today.

Kara seems to sense where her thoughts are going, because she takes the phone from Lena and puts it on the nightstand again.

“No work,” she says sternly, “no outside world, and no leaving the bed unless it’s for food or bathroom breaks. Those are the rules.”

Lena bites her lip. She swallows the ‘What if’s’ that lie on the tip of her tongue. She banishes the thought of work to the remotest corner of her mind and kisses Kara on her collarbone instead.

“You’re right,” she murmurs, “they’ll get by without me for one day.”

***

2:01 pm

It turns out that Kara is much less relaxed when it’s her phone that’s ringing. Or maybe it’s the amount of calls she gets. But with every time her ringtone sounds out, she gets quieter and quieter, until at one point, she grabs her phone exasperatedly, turns it off, and tosses it into the armchair at the opposite corner of the room.

“One day!” She exclaims. “One day, the darkest day of the year, and a Sunday at that! You’d think the criminals would stay at home voluntarily, snuggle up to their girlfriend maybe, enjoy a good 32 hours in bed, and just take. One. Day. Off. It’s not that hard, or is it?”

“It’s not,” Lena concurs, finishing one braid in Kara’s long and unfairly soft hair and starting another.

“I work the year round, every day. And night, mind you. Weekends, holidays, always. And I do it gladly. I do it selflessly. I do it with a smile on my face, even. But one day off. One day. Is that really too much to ask for?”

“It’s not.” Lena pauses her braiding to put a soothing hand on Kara’s head. “You’re just doing such a good job the rest of the time, people have forgotten how to take care of themselves without you.”

Kara leans into the touch with a sigh and a grateful smile. “Is it wrong that I kind of like how much they depend on me, even though it annoys me today?”

“Of course not.” Lena lightly scratches her nails over Kara’s scalp, drinking up the contented sighs that fall form Kara’s lips. “I think everybody wants to be needed. It gives us purpose. It gives us strength.” She leans down to press a gentle kiss to Kara’s forehead before she takes up her braiding again. “It’s one of the greatest paradoxes of humankind that this strength doesn’t suffice to sustain you. That you need breaks from being useful, lest your strength depletes.”

Kara nods, momentarily upsetting the row of braids Lena has already finished.

“I love you,” she says.

Lena smiles. “I love you too.”

***

3:45 pm

“I think my butt fell asleep.”

“I call your butt and raise you two legs.” Lena groans. “How do teenagers do this?”

“Do what?” Kara asks, giggling a little at the exaggerated noises Lena is making.

“Do this.” Lena gestures at the two of them, sprawled out on the mattress. “Lie in bed all day, barely moving, except to change the video game or whatever they occupy their brains with all day.”

Kara laughs, loud and hearty. “Rao, Lena, sometimes you are so odd.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Not all teenagers spend all their time in bed, dummy,” Kara says, and it’s only her fond tone that saves her from the pillow Lena almost hurdles at her. “I, for example, was a very active teenager.”

“You hardly count,” Lena retorts, sticking out her tongue when Kara narrows her eyes at her. “Because you’re always active.”

Kara wrinkles her nose, but Lena’s point holds. She huffs.

“What about you then, what did you do as a teenager?”

“I,“ Lena says dignifiedly, “didn’t experience an adolescence.”

“Lena, your adolescence was less than ten years ago.”

Lena sighs dramatically and rolls over, facing her girlfriend with a regretful stare.

“Tell that to my back pain…”

***

4:09 pm

“Isn’t it sad,” Kara muses, kneading Lena’s trapezius muscle with blissfully strong hands, “how it’s already getting dark again?”

Lena moans softly when Kara hits a particularly tense spot. “Is it?”

“Yeah.”

They are silent for a while, Kara moving slowly and methodically up and down Lena’s back, Lena shimmying in and out of consciousness. No phone has rung in over two hours, nobody has disturbed them in their self-imposed solitude, no rule has been broken so far. They are doing exactly what they’ve planned for the day, and it is nothing.

“What a good day,” Lena murmurs, “What a good idea.”

Kara gives her ass a squeeze, and Lena, well on her way to another nap, almost jumps.

“The hell?” She exclaims, which immediately earns her another slap. “What?”

Kara’s voice is a melange of amusement and indignation. “You forgot the golly!”

***

6:37 pm

They start speaking at the same time.

“It’s almost Christmas,” Kara says, and Lena murmurs “How am I already tired?” and then they look at each other and laugh.

“What did you say?” Simultaneously. “You first.”

Lena recovers faster, so she pokes Kara, who’s still laughing, between the ribs.

“Tick, your turn, please speak now.” She presents Kara her fist as a mic, which only results in another burst of laughter. Then Kara’s hand closes around hers, pulling her closer.

“Hello hello, can you hear me?”

Lena giggles. She feels carefree in a way she hasn’t felt in possibly all her life. “Loud and clearly. Please repeat your question.”

“Yes hello,” Kara says, pompous in a way that is exactly like on real TV interviews. “I didn’t so much ask a question as rather observing a fact. That fact being of course the upcoming holiday, namely Christmas.”

At this point they have to drop the act, because Lena is laughing so hard that the mic is shaking and “the connection seems to be bad, hello hello?” And Kara grins at Lena like she did when Lena first fell in love with her, wide and open and with her heart in her hands, ready to give it to anyone she thought worth fighting for. Even a Luthor. Even Lena.

“I’m looking forward to Christmas,” Lena says, but what she means is that she’s never liked the holidays much, until Kara came around and made them worthwhile.

And somehow Kara understands.

“Yes,” she says, “me too.”

***

8:52 pm

“There’ll be much work to catch up on tomorrow,” Lena sighs, playing with the thought of looking at her phone and deciding against it. “But that are tomorrow’s problems.”

Kara hums. She’s floating half an inch above the bed because she finds the mattress is too warm after bearing her body all day.

“I’m still looking forward to that somehow.”

Lena chuckles. “Yes, me too. Isn’t that weird? I thoroughly enjoyed today, but I couldn’t do it again tomorrow.”

“It’s about the – “ Kara forms the chef’s kiss gesture minus the kiss “ – purpose.” She turns on her side to look at Lena. “Or so a wise woman once told me.”

“Sounds very wise indeed. Did she also say something about the reason why I’m tired even though we did nothing all day?”

“Nope.” Kara pops the p, then lets herself fall back on the bed. “But here’s my theory: inaction is like negative action. And at the end of the day, it’s the absolute value that counts, minus or plus doesn’t matter. So if you’ve balanced action and inaction, you won’t be that tired, because they cancel each other. But if you have an overload of either action or inaction…”

“… you’ll feel about as exhausted as I do right now,” Lena finishes, her eyes already closed. “Seems reasonable. It’s compatible with my strength theory, I like that.” She yawns, and feels blindly for Kara’s hand. “Either way, all in favour of an early night, raise your hand.” She lifts their entwined hands off the mattress. “Whooo.”

Kara breathes out a laugh. “Also, if we go to bed now, then tomorrow will come faster.”

“Scientifically incorrect,” Lena murmurs, “but golly.”

“What?”

Lena snuggles into Kara’s embrace until all she can smell is Kara, and all she can feel is also Kara. She yawns again.

“Golly am I looking forward to tomorrow.”

[hopevalley]

Season 8, Episode 1: Open Season

Work was busier than expected on Monday, but the deep dive into the first episode of S8 begins now!

Scene 1: Narration, Elizabeth and Nathan, Lucas

The awkwardness between Elizabeth and Nathan was...palpable at first lol.The best part about the non-narrated part of the scene is twofold: Nathan interacting with Jack is a well-needed and very nice touch, and of course it’s always nice to see that Nathan is patient concerning Elizabeth’s situation and reassures her that she can let him know when she’s ready to go to dinner with him.

My problem with the whole thing is that...if she hasn’t spoken up about wanting that dinner date yet, and she’s not saying yes she’d like to get dinner with you now, it’s like...any sane person would assume at this point in the story that Elizabeth isn’t interested in Nathan. Worse, Nathan isn’t the kind of man who wouldn’t take a hint. I’m pretty sure this is why the opening scene felt just a little bit off. I think they ought to have let Elizabeth be a little more enthusiastic about the idea while still failing to commit to it. 

To be fair to the writers, I can’t imagine it was easy for them to figure out how to open this season after such a long time gap. They let a whole winter elapse between last season and this one. How do you explain literally no major development with the love triangle in that amount of time? Especially after the way the last season ended?

Random consideration: the camera focuses on Elizabeth’s face a lot and makes her wedding ring clearly visible.

Boom, the flashback with Lucas. I think having him leave out of jealousy was a better idea than having his mother fall ill (we’ve certainly seen that enough at this point), and maybe we should also consider the fact that while Lucas was gone, Nathan didn’t really jump on the opportunity to woo Elizabeth himself.

I wonder if we’ll get an explanation for that or not. What makes Lucas so sure that after 4+ months, Elizabeth hasn’t started courting Nathan? Maybe he kept in touch with someone in town? Or he just knows Elizabeth well enough to know she wouldn’t feel quite ready to commit in that time frame anyway?

I did really like Lucas’s opening scene with Elizabeth. Honestly, he was quite likable, here: admitting he was wrong, admitting his shortcomings, apologizing. All good things. “I’m ashamed I let my jealousy get the best of me... The worst of me.” That’s such a good line.

It didn’t feel equal in enthusiasm to the Nathan scene, but I’ll have more thoughts on that later. I do believe it was on purpose.

--

Scene 2: Clara and Jesse’s Fight, The Café

I like the concept of some marital discord for Clara and Jesse. Marriage is easier said than done and like any serious relationship, it’s a lot of consistent maintenance. It starts out pretty well, with Jesse sleeping in the other bedroom. At this point I fully expected to find out Clara kicks in her sleep or she snores a lot or something that’s funny to hear about but really difficult to actually deal with in real life. Color me disappointed later, but I’ll get to it.

--

Scene 3: The Mercantile, Ned, Florence, Carson

This just set up things with Faith’s situation so there’s not much to say, but as always I do love Florence. I hope she gets some good scenes this season. And I love Ned so I hope the same for him.

Henry coming in to mail a letter was interesting, though. I’m not sure it’ll mean anything in particular later, but...it’s possible.  Then again, maybe he’s just here to set our expectations regarding Faith’s return (of course it’s a long trip from Chicago) or Carson’s worry (a bit unreasonable unless he expected to hear from her at a specific stop).

--

Scene 4: Nathan, Dylan

Dylan is such an incredible scumbag. The spurs were a nice touch. He says things almost fondly (“She’s growing up... My little girl.”) and then wants nothing to actually do with Allie. 

The guy’s actually a pretty good actor. The way he segues into being glad for Allie’s sake that Nathan wasn’t the one killed. If the next words out of his mouth weren’t a demand for go-away money you’d almost feel those words were genuine!

--

Scene 5: Lee and Rosemary’s Return + Faith’s Return + Dylan Part Two

Lots of energy in this scene, both good and bad. I always appreciate what Lee and Rosemary bring to the show. I genuinely just don’t care that much about Faith. I’m ready to ship her with Cowboy Brett Brewer. He gets a name, which makes me wonder if he’s gonna show up again. :3

Lol at Carson’s jelly face:

I MEAN...

Not a fan of Faith’s outfit...but to be fair we’ve never really seen Faith outside of uniform. That just doesn’t strike me as something she would wear to travel in...?

Dylan approaching Jack and Jack speaking to him was so hilarious to me. “A puppy!” It’s extra funny after he looked afraid of Rosemary. Nathan intervening was undoubtedly for the best, but I can’t imagine why he would have approached Elizabeth or Jack. He doesn’t know who they are, or their connection to Nathan. Maybe too convenient. Might have been better to have him approach someone else entirely--like Opal.

--

Scene 6: Nathan and Allie

It’s great Nathan’s officializing the adoption but he had literal years to do this and only chooses now, when there’s a threat? Legally Dylan doesn’t have a leg to stand on even in that day and age (he did the abandoning in the first place + Nathan is a lawman)... It kind of ruined the cute moment for me, and I think it will come back in a bad way later.

I don’t mind Nathan’s inability to confide in Elizabeth in this situation. At this point, she doesn’t need to know, and the situation is just weird enough that he probably doesn’t think he needs to dump his own problems on her.

--

Scene 7: Carson and Faith

I’m the jerk who just chanted “BREAK UP BREAK UP BREAK UP” during this scene in my head. I just...don’t care about Faith and Carson.

--

Scene 8: Bill and The Gals

I hate that they keep retconning Bill’s ability to cook well with every passing season. In season 2 and 3 he was more than satisfactory. In S4 he made dinner for Dottie and it was really nice. Now he’s godawful and doesn’t taste his own shit before letting other people try it? Come on.

This is the kind of stuff the writing team needs to cut out of the story. It’s not funny. 

Worse, outspoken Fiona lying to Bill? I just don’t see it. At least Molly told him the truth...but I still am just SO tired of seeing this shit. It makes me think new writers only watched the last couple of seasons instead of all of them.

Also, if Bill is literally running the cafe most of the time, if he was bad at cooking, then...the place would have shut down ages ago. What they should lean into if they wanna do a cooking joke is that Bill isn’t good at creating recipes from scratch. Maybe he doesn’t have a strong sense of taste (my husband has this issue so it’s the first thing that comes to mind) so he’s likely to over-do things like spice or sugar or salt on accident. There’s also a lot of room for jokes about his “taste” in things that can come of it (women, clothes, et cetera).

--

Scene 9: Lee’s Pants

Good scene, 10/10, wouldn’t change a thing. I hope this pants thing becomes a running gag. This is the good kind of humor I want in my life. And I like that Jesse wants to emulate Lee. It’s wholesome. 

--

Scene 10: Rosemary and Clara

The ribbon as a tissue was funny, but it was just SLIGHTLY too over the top for me.

--

Scene 11: Faith and Carson Again...............

“Were you jealous of that cowboy?” I think he should be. The cowboy is better. I don’t give a damn about these characters. And I genuinely hate that the strumming is Carson’s Thing Now. At the very least we should get some Carson and Bill doing a duet together which would be cool.

It just felt like it was shilling Paul and had nothing to do with the characters.

--

Scene 12: Mmm Money

This is arguably the most interesting scene in the episode. Lucas nodded at Nathan. Nathan went to Lucas for money. Lucas didn’t need to get the scoop to find out why Nathan needed it to loan it to him. Elizabeth is officially the least interesting part of the love triangle.

They treat her like she’s such a prize to be won, but I’m starting to worry that she’s become the new Lorigail on the show.

Anyway this scene had some gay vibes and I liked them.

--

Scene 13: Rosemary and Elizabeth Catch Up

YES. GOOD SCENE. It starts off fun and it gets serious, and the transition feels really natural. “Did he have reason to be [jealous]?” I’m genuinely glad this is in the episode. It needed to be. I hope Rosemary continues to ask the hard questions.

Elizabeth needs to face either dating one of them, or dating neither of them so that everybody can get on with their lives. If you’re not that enthusiastic about either of them I’d say...maybe don’t date either of them idk.

--

Scene 14: Nathan and Bill Talk

"If he sees you with me, then...” The problem with this scene is uh...twofold, let’s say.

Issue 1: ThEN HE WILL WHAT, NATHAN? WHAT HAS HE EVER DONE BEFORE THAT WAS SO BAD if he’s not a hard criminal? Maybe an example would be useful here...?

Issue 2: The old Bill Avery would have heard “if he SEES YOU with ME” and mentally been like, “all right so it’s only bad if he SEES ME” and spied on Nathan.

Nathan wanting Bill to stay behind in case Dylan doubles back isn’t a terrible idea, but it almost comes across more like...the writers just want Nathan alone.

--

Scene 15: Oil

I like the discussion and that Hickam gets to do something. I feel like Henry is low-key advising against shooting the well, and that Lucas and Hickam will end up doing it and causing an issue. It’s just setting up for the future and it’s nice to see those kinds of scenes in the series again!

--

Scene 16: Jesse and Lee

I’d like this scene more if I felt it gave us ANY insight into the problem Jesse and Clara are having. It mostly comes across like Jesse gets home and does nothing at all until bedtime and Clara is lonely. Could have been a better scene. It’s mostly just repetitive right now.

--

Scene 17: Nathan Cancels the Date

“Tomorrow’s Saturday.” Nathan’s like uhhhhh. This actually works really well to do what it’s supposed to do. By that I mean, he seems “off” so Elizabeth realizes he’s a bit stressed and leaving town = mountie business = dangerous.

I kind of wish Rosemary and Elizabeth would talk more about this, but maybe that’s coming in an episode soon...?

--

Scene 18: The Barbershop

Just a cute nice scene that shows a good friendship between Fiona, Clara, and Faith. I like this stuff. Keep it coming, Hallmark!

--

(Skipping Scene 19 because it’s just Nathan riding around...)

--

Scene 20: Lee and Rosemary Scheme

I really enjoyed this little bit where they decide to buy something for Clara and Jesse and we don’t get to see what it is. Super wholesome and very fun!

--

Scene 21: Nathan gets Ambushed

This scene was absolutely wild. Probably one of the best scenes like this that they’ve ever done. Dylan taking Nathan’s hat, “Take care of my little girl” after he takes the money and Nathan’s gun. It was super good.

Also, not too fake that Nathan was on the ground that long. If you got roped off of your horse you’d have the wind knocked out of you super hard lmao.

--

Scene 22: Bill & The Girls

Clara and Fiona are so cute. Bill playing the “Dad” figure to them both is really nice and it’s good for him. “I’m a lawman. I get to sneak.” What a Bill response. 

--

(Skipping Scene 23 since it’s just Nathan finding his horse.)

--

Scene 24: Lucas visits with Elizabeth

Lucas and Elizabeth are flirting via a nursery rhyme. I...don’t like that LOL. But Lucas’s “Helen Bouchard taught me to read and after that I was on my own.” She really sounds unloving. This was a pretty decent scene, though.

Also, Grand Isle Louisiana had a major hurricane in 1909 and 1915.

They also seem to have been hit by more mild hurricanes in 1916 and 1917, but the 1915 one was a Cat4, so...the most notable.

--

Scene 25: Rosemary and Lee in the Dress Shop

This tries to solve the issue of Clara and Jesse’s marital problems, but it doesn’t actually do that. “Let Jesse read when he gets home.” “I’ll talk to Jesse.” Meh.

--

Scene 26: Barbershop

“Why do this when you’re so good with women’s hair?” I fully expected Fiona to say, “That’s where all the hot gossip is, of course.” I do like  her gumption, though!

--

Scene 27: Nathan Finds Dylan

“I had to let you ambush me, so I had grounds to put you away.” COLD BUT EFFECTIVE. I appreciate this.

Imagine getting to be this smug. I wish it were me.

Anyway, long-term thoughts on this are mostly that...there is just no reasonable way Dylan’s story is over yet. It’s too juicy of a storyline to let go this easily. Allie is going to find out what Nathan did and she’s going to struggle to come to terms with it, especially after her grandfather really did try to turn his life around. Why couldn’t it be the same for her father? Why couldn’t she get lucky like that?

I hope it feels satisfying, whatever they choose to do. Otherwise this was just wrapped up too neatly/too quickly.

--

Scene 28: Nathan Returns

Very good scene. Nathan’s in a good mood and he does my favorite trope of all time when one person in the relationship has a child: “Why don’t we all go?” You already all know each other, so why not? It’s wholesome and good, and it shows he doesn’t care how he gets to spend time with Elizabeth, as long as he does.

Also, it takes a lot of the pressure off of her for the duration of the date and at its conclusion. This was a cute and good scene, one of the better they’ve had, I think.

--

Scene 29: Jesse and Lee Talk

This was a nice attempt at a talk, but it really comes off like Jesse has stopped loving Clara for no reason. That his romantic interest in her is what is causing the failure in their relationship.

The problem is: WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS CAUSING IT. NOBODY EVER SAID. 

I agree that love isn’t “just” a feeling or “just” an emotion. It’s ALSO a choice. Marriage is a commitment you choose to continue every day. That is all good.

“Choose love. Then you feel it.” is probably some of the worst dialogue they’ve put in the show, though. Yuck. It left a bad taste in my mouth. It feels like it’s shaming people who legitimately fall out of love or who are in bad relationships. “If only you chose to work harder.”

I don’t think that was their intention at all, but it really soured the scene. I would have MUCH rather have had Lee get Jesse to talk about what’s wrong and then offer him pointers on how he could do better. Maybe he’s stressed out and losing himself in books, or he wishes Clara would sit and read with him because that’s something he always wanted. Or maybe Clara would be down for reading time if he read to her while she did her sewing.

There’s so much they could have done here to really send this home, but it didn’t work very well. At the very least Lee could have said, instead of ‘choose love’: CHOOSE COMMUNICATION. Make sure she knows you still feel that way about her.

The biggest thing is like, Lee could also be very encouraging in saying like, the honeymoon phase doesn’t last forever but just because things settle down doesn’t mean the love is less.

THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD STUFF THEY COULD HAVE WRITTEN FOR THIS but they chose “Choose love. Then you feel it.” WTF. That’s awful advice.

--

Scene 30: Jesse and Clara

Him bringing her flowers was a nice touch, and her getting him the book was also nice. The tandem bike was SO unexpected to me and I loved it. It’s just goofy enough that it works. The best part is that they know it’s not going to fix anything, but it’s still a fun and nice thing to do, and that’s wonderful for Rosemary and Lee. They both like to make the people they care about happy.

--

Scene 31: Mama Bouchard

MILF ALERT.

Elizabeth is just so shook at all of this she doesn’t say a damn thing for so long it made my palms feel sweaty.

“Someone ought to take an interest in your writing, don’t you think?” I rewatched the episode to understand the tone, and it’s a little hoity-toity/uppity, but she actually doesn’t sound condescending. It’s good for an editor to meet the author, after all, and meet to talk about their writing/book. This has always been custom, even in the early 1900s. Authors didn’t usually get their work published by an editor they’d never met (though of course, you will find some exceptions). 

From the little we saw, Helen seems fine. The preview for the next episode tells us she’s UH, AN EDITOR DOING HER JOB, so I’m not looking forward to the editor being the bad guy, but I guess I’ll have to deal with that when it arrives. (To be clear, Elizabeth has never proved to the audience that she’s a Good Writer, let alone a Great Writer. She’s also not experienced which means her work probably NEEDS SOME WORK.)

Anyway, Elizabeth is immediately rude as HELL. Nobody can make an excuse for this. Helen isn’t THAT big of a deal. There are other publishers. Your father is filthy rich. If she changes her mind about your book you can pub to someone via your father if you have to. Like...Helen wouldn’t have taken you on if she didn’t see any potential in you. 

Even if it was a big deal, Elizabeth has NEVER been a flake. EVER. 

This is a classic case of a writer forcing the character to go out of character in order to bend to what the plot dictates. 

If I were Nathan, I’d drop Elizabeth like a brick.

How to fix this scene? I’ll honestly have to think about that for a while. This was the first hint of truly bad writing this season. The bit with Lee and “choose love” was careless writing, but this scene with Nathan is just Bad.

The thing is, I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. I know they put this in there so that it looks like she’ll choose Lucas because she never even goes out with Nathan, and then BOOM. I know it’s meant to be this big thing about how she’s scared to feel anything for Nathan because Lucas is the safer option and also a good man (so why would she fall for the more frightening option?).

But this was not the right way to do this type of scene. I hope to God in the next episode someone says something about it. Allie could tell her it was rude and it hurt Nathan’s feelings/you shouldn’t have said yes if you didn’t want to. It’d be fully in character for her. Rosemary could also say something similar. If they do, I might be able to forgive this...but if it’s not called attention to by the other characters, then it’s a massive failure as a scene to me.

--

Did I miss anything? Do you want my thoughts on something in particular? Shoot me a message HERE and I’ll do my best to answer! 

[bushybeardedbear]

So I've been considering writing and posting this little issue I've had with something. Sorry to anyone following me who doesn't care about MLB. And sorry to anyone who doesn't want discourse on their dash. I will tag accordingly...

So, all that said...

The Native American Miracle Box

Is it just me or is it a little problematic?

So, on the surface it's great to see it. It's using Native American symbolism and mythology. It's establishing that other cultures communed with and harnessed the Kwami. (Though, one could argue the Miraculous in general actually enslave these god-like beings but that's a whole other can of worms I don't want to open...) Jess being a Native American hero, wielding the Miraculous of Freedom. Its all superficially really encouraging, inclusive and nice.

But, this is a big but.

There's a huge period of Native American history where one would assume access to Super Heroes might have been a little useful.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the historical events, because I'm not. I'm not going to pretend I speak on behalf of or in replacement of anyone anyone else, because I don't. If anything, my ancestors may well have been complicit in the acts I'm referring to. So if I'm wrong, call me out on it. If I'm misrepresenting anything, do the same. I'd much prefer other more relevant voices than my own be talking about this and to be listened to. I'm only saying this because to my knowledge, nobody else seems to be talking about this.

This isn't an easy topic, but America is founded upon genocidal colonialism. There's no two ways about it. Indigenous populations were murdered on a vast scale. The effects and marginalisation that resulted are still a part of people's everyday struggle. I'm fully aware that something like a cartoon talking about genocide and the lasting effects it has might be a little outside its remit, but there seems to be something inadequate about the way Miraculous Ladybug simply removes the Native American Miraculous from the equation and in a completely dismissive way.

So, based on what little information is out there, we are to believe that at some point in human history, some Native American people became aware of, communed with and created tools to harness the Kwami. In the centuries that followed, nothing was done with them. And then in around about the 16th century, these ancient powerful artifacts were just for no given reason or cause scattered around the world somehow. Then, it wasn't until the American war of independence that one of these artifacts were first used. By a white man.

Tell me its not just me that sees this as somewhat problematic?

Imagine if this was for example a hypothetical Jewish Miracle Box. Arranged in a box shaped like the Star of David and with Miraculous forged by Moses to free his enslaved people. And somehow, let's say around the 1920s, the box and its contents just conveniently go missing just before a major historical event involving Jewish people.

Wouldn't that be rightly seen as a bit messed up?

Even writing that hypothetical makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

So, isn't the Native American Miracle Box a very close parallel to the scenario I just laid out? Disappearing just before the colonisation of America happened? Or am I being somehow unfair and over-analytical? Please, if I'm talking nonsense, tell me so.

So, to my mind it feels a little like these new Miraculous have the trappings and essentially superficial decoration of Native American Culture. The most recent hero to weild them, also Native American. On the one hand that should obviously be applauded. But in the context of the Canon ignoring or marginalising the struggles of Native Americans and essentially using the peoples and cultures as decoration, isn't that a kind of clueless cultural appropriation? A kind of Colonialist attitude to the various Native American cultures as a kind of way to score points for appearing superficially inclusive?

Did Thomas Astruc or any of the Miraculous staff ask any indigenous peoples or groups for input before including this, for instance. I don't think for a moment it was actively malicious. Just, honestly a little thoughtless.

Though I suppose it's easy enough to argue that the integration of these super heroic power items into world history is in general not a great idea. Is this actually part of a larger trend of lazy world building written from the point of view of someone far removed from the historical horrors he's pushing his magic toys into?

It's one thing to argue maybe Sun Wukong, Robin Hood, the Pied Piper or other apocryphal and legendary figures held the Miraculous. Legends don't have a real world impact beyond the imaginations they spark, their place in the cultural zeitgeist. But when real world history is an issue, maybe you should have made an active choice to make your entire setting into its own historical reality based in mythology?

A similar issue to the historical problems of the Native American Miracle Box popped up in earlier episodes. Whilst not explicitly stated, it was strongly implied that during WW2, Master Fu guarded the Chinese Miracle Box from The Axis Forces. Preventing them from falling, he says, into the wrong hands.

So, why would Fu at no point consider that choosing heroes at this critical point in world history might not have been wise? Was it somehow morally wrong to intervene in defeating an ideology that threatened millions of people? Could any of the Miraculous in the hands of the Allied Nations have been considered the wrong hands given the enemy they were facing?

The issues are only compounded when you consider the Miraculous have existed in one form or another through all of human history. Yet its only now that they factor. We have to consider that either the Miraculous are always conveniently not available when certain conflicts happen or that they were indeed used but changed nothing meaningful.

If you're going to say these ancient relics have existed and been used for centuries, why not go the extra mile and examine how they've changed history? If you don't want to ever deal with the real world history, then perhaps only have the items show up in the modern day? It's the Half and Half response of "they only matter when it's easy to say they matter" that invites discussion of odd choices in the writing.

Maybe my willing suspension of disbelief for MLB is just shattered after season 3 was so... Unsatisfying?

Whatever the case, I'm just wanting to vent, put my thoughts out there and say that maybe attempting to insert new mythology into the existing world history and YET not having any impact on world history seems like its poorly thought out and best and deeply insensitive at worst.

[frazzledsoul]

So since @austennerdita2533 answered here how she ranked the Gilmore seasons along with the revival as well as her top five worst/best episodes I thought I’d rank mine

Seasons rank

5

1

4

3

2

Revival

7

(most cavernous gap in teevee history)

6

The revival is very flawed, of course: thematically it undercuts the entire mission of the series, and many characters do things that make absolutely zero sense. That ending is designed to make almost everyone unhappy. And of course, there are many awkward and flat-out terrible moments. But I think out of the four episodes there is a lot of good to be found in each episode and there’s no one plotline that is excruciating agony to sit through (like the Lorelai/Christopher thread of S7) and no long stretch of the characters hurting each other as much as is humanly possible (aka the long nightmare of S6). I also like that Luke and Lorelai are basically together for the entire length of it and although there are problems between them, they are by no means insurmountable. So it’s somewhere between the first five seasons and the mostly horrible last two.

Worst Five Episodes 

(this got wordy, guys, look under the cut)

5. Take These Deviled Eggs. Lorelai’s behavior is so flat-out terrible at that baby shower that I made it one more week (which was the classic They Don’t Shoot Gilmores Do They!) and then quit watching for over a year. I just didn’t like her anymore and the show’s attempts to make her the victim over the Sherry/Christopher situation were making it one thousand times worse. First of all, you don’t fuck someone else’s boyfriend and then go to their baby shower if you have any decency as a human being or enough self-preservation to realize that this woman is full justified in kicking the ever loving crap out of you. If I were Sherry, the first thing I would have done is to punch Lorelai in the face (OK, I would have dumped Christopher right away and then punched both him and Lorelai in the face immediately. But that’s neither here nor there). Sherry tries to connect with Lorelai, to share a moment of how she felt isolated and alone in her pregnancy and thinks Lorelai can understand because she may have felt the same way and Lorelai’s response is to . . . go into her bathroom and DESTROY HER PROPERTY. Then she emotes all over her teenage daughter (who she is setting a terrible example for which will echo long into her daughter’s adulthood) and then both she and Rory go and trash Jess’s car for no reason.

I’m sorry, Lorelai, but you lost. You interfered in someone else’s relationship and you ended up alone as a result. You got what you deserved. Sherry may have been rubbing her pregnancy in Lorelai’s face or she may have been clueless, but you know what? I’m on her side. She was the innocent party in all of this as well as her child, but Lorelai can’t see outside her own narcissism. And of course Rory never does learn that it is wrong to get involved with someone who’s already in a relationship, because Lorelai made it clear that the other person doesn’t matter. 

4. I Can’t Get Started. It’s obvious from the previous post that I think the Christopher/Lorelai situation at the end of season 2 is massively wrong and upsetting, but I just want to lay it out for a minute. First of all, it’s fucked-up to take someone else’s boyfriend as your date to a wedding (it could be innocent in context, but it’s definitely leaning towards stuff that could cause trouble). Lorelai knows that Christopher and Sherry have not broken up, that they are still living together by the time she fucks him. She does it anyway, gushes to Sookie afterwards about how cute it is that she’s doing Christopher (never mind the stupid girlfriend you’re screwing over, TEE HEE HEE) and then has a conversation with Christopher about the state of his relationship. This is cheating, plain and simple, and we’re supposed to think this is romantic. IT’S SO MESSED UP.

Lorelai parades Christopher around as her date to Sookie’s wedding. She gushes to EVERYONE SHE KNOWS about their newfound relationship. She lets Rory get excited about it. She lets her PARENTS get excited about it. The entire time she knows that Christopher has not broken up with his girlfriend yet. I actually think this is worse than the sex! Even if it weren’t wrong, it’s A HORRIBLE IDEA. We get proof of this when Lorelai goes to find Christopher before the wedding starts and she tells him she understands if he can’t break up with Sherry. Lorelai knew the whole time that this was going on that Christopher was with another woman, and he could always change his mind and decide to stay with her.

Christopher is primarily responsible for this situation, because he was the one in the relationship and he decided to cheat. However, Lorelai enabled him 100% of the way and placed herself in a situation where she allowed Rory and her parents to get hurt as well as herself. I have zero sympathy for her in all of this. I hate that the show made me watch her acting so cruelly and wanted me to root her on. It still disgusts me that this is one of the show’s highest-rated episodes on IMDB.

I might have forgiven all of this if the show had Lorelai acknowledge that she had made a mistake and had sat Rory down and explained to her that this is why it’s a bad idea to sleep with other people’s boyfriends. As we all know, it didn’t happen that way.

(Oh, and yes, this situation kind of ruins the rest of S2 for me, unfortunately. It’s why it’s at the bottom of my rankings).

3. A Vineyard Valentine. I think everyone knows why this episode is horrible. . Luke is a massively uncharacteristic douche throughout all of it. I think forcing Luke to double-date with Rory’s boyfriends brings out the worst in him because he is so protective of her, but this was absolutely overkill. Worst of all, he makes a promise to Lorelai that he’s committed to their engagement, he breaks it, and he doesn’t even know because Lorelai doesn’t tell him. The whole thing is horrible.

OTOH, I do appreciate the revelation that Logan taught Rory to cook.

2. The Big Stink. You really could plop any one of the early S7 episodes here where we have to endure Christopher “courting” Lorelai, Lorelai isolating herself from the town, and having to endure Rory hang around with her lame friends because Logan isn’t around, but I picked this one because I think it’s the only episode where Lorelai is flat-out nasty about Luke and makes statements to the effect of how much she prefers Christopher to him. It flat out hurts. On top of all of that, Luke is in one scene and since he’s our sole connection to the town at this point in the season, Stars Hollow isn’t, either. We end with that scene of Lorelai, Christopher, and Rory in the car and it’s implied to us that Lorelai’s Stars Hollow life is inferior to her happy new existence with Christopher.

S7 features this kind of plotline a lot, but it also has Luke being an adorable dad to balance it out. We didn’t get any of that here.

1. Partings. Look, I don’t care that ASP wrote this long beautiful monologue for Lorelai. I don’t care that she has admitted that she wrote this travesty of an episode as an attempt to whore for awards attention (this is why she does not deserve “make-up” awards for this show. Not after what she did to get them). it’s false, untrue drama, and it’s unfair. Lorelai gave up after her conversation with Anna about April. She avoided Luke for days and refused to speak to him. He was wandering all over Stars Hollow, worried and concerned about her. Lorelai is confused and vulnerable, and she has the world’s most unprofessional therapy session with a therapist that doesn’t know her or any context to what Lorelai tells her, and is advised to give up on her problems if she doesn’t get what she wants. Lorelai then decides to go in for the kill and decides that the best way to resolve her relationship dilemma is to scream at him in the middle of the street and act like an absolute lunatic demanding that they get married now or else in order for him to prove that he really loves her. When Luke does not go along with this insane plan, Lorelai decides to punish him by sleeping with Christopher. She knew he couldn’t forgive her for that. 

ASP said afterwards that all of this was the best course of action for everyone involved so that Lorelai could “do other things” (aka Christopher). It’s bullshit. ASP’s contract negotiations didn’t go her way, and she decided to punish the show for not going along with what she wanted. She also was punishing the shippers for not going along with her narrative and refusing to hate Luke as much as she did.

I bring this up like this because what Lorelai asked for was impossible. Luke could not abandon everything at that moment and elope. It was a horrible idea that would not have solved her problems. Like it or not, Luke had an obligation to consider April’s welfare by this point, and he could not choose Lorelai over his child. The fact that she asked him to and we’re supposed to resent him for saying no is ridiculous. Lorelai of all people should have understood this, but she didn’t. We’re supposed to hate Luke for being a responsible parent who keeps his cool when his fiance is acting like a crazy person. This is BAD WRITING. And it doesn’t work. I refuse to judge him.

You know what would have worked? If Lorelai and Luke had sat down and had a reasonable discussion about how to balance their responsibilities like adults. But ASP had to provoke this situation in order to sell her favorite.

(You may notice a few episodes missing here. I don’t include French Twist because I haven’t seen it. I’ve only seen the Luke/Lane/Zach scenes. I also have not seen Unto The Breach, but I refuse to watch that because it hurts to know that Luke and Lorelai’s make so much progress and then take so many steps backwards and Lorelai is once again interpreting their breakup as Luke not loving her enough to go through with the elopment - their problems were so much more complicated than that! I also hate I Get A Sidekick Out Of You because the entire episode is meant to sell Christopher as this dreamy romantic alternative and we actually have to endure Lorelai taking him on a date to a wedding of someone who is close to Luke but I don’t think it’s fair to include that as one of the worst since I fast-forwarded through most of it).

Best Five Episodes

5. Forgiveness and Stuff. I love this episode so much! We get Luke being the unassuming romantic hero by driving Lorelai to the hospital. There’s emotional Gilmore family bonding that actually doesn’t! The Santa burger! The Blue Baseball Cap Of Love! And lots of bonding and longing looks on the L/L front. I really wish they would have gotten together here. It was the perfect moment for it.

4. Hay Bale Maze. If this episode didn’t exist, I would not have supported Luke and Lorelai getting back together and I would have walked away forever after season six. It’s the episode that ASP never would or could have written, and it was absolutely essential to reconciling me with the show. Those Hay Bale Maze apologies lay the groundwork for everything else that happened in Luke and Lorelai’s future, and it could not have existed without them. In addition to that, I think it’s a really sweet Stars Hollow-centered episode and we see Rory and Logan at their absolute best and it’s clear how well they really worked as a couple.

3. Last Year’s Fights This Year’s Tights. This episode is perfect: lots of townie shenanigans, Luke being a romantic hero and sweeping Lorelai off her feet, and Luke fully reconciling with Jess. That dance around the courtyard: the stuff of dreams, y’all!

2. Written In the Stars. I basically swoon during this entire episode, because Luke is so chvalrous and unexpectedly open and devoted and you can see how utterly smitten and delighted Lorelai is with this new side of him.

1. Raincoats and Recipes. I think this is the pinnacle of the show’s achievement: Lorelai realizes her dream, Luke and Lorelai finally stop dancing around each other and go for it, and Rory falls off her pedastal as Lorelai realizes that guiding her daughter to adulthood is going to be more difficult than she thought. I love that the Christopher/Sherry stuff I went into such detail earlier in this post is at last denounced and Lorelai has to deal with the implications of the example that she set forth and that she doesn’t allow Rory to use it as an excuse.

I think if Lorelai had applied the same attitude towards Rory when learning of similar behavior in the revival Rory could have avoided melting down the way that she did later. Maybe that wasn’t possible after Lorelai had screwed up again, but it’s yet another thing that could have been explained that wasn’t.

(I just want to state after all of this bloviating that I don’t hate Lorelai: she did some really, really fucked up things and not all of the wrong that she did was acknowledged. The plotline of villainizing the “other woman” in a love triangle when she becomes pregnant was actually very popular on TV in 2002 when those earlier episodes aired: however, on this show Lorelai WAS the other woman, and the show tried too hard to make us hate the one truly innocent person in that situation. Obviously, it didn’t work for me).

[tinkdw]

hi tink ^_^ was wondering if you think both endgame human!cas and endgame angel!cas are both valid interpretations? im genuinely interested as I can't see the whole human!cas being a thing, and I'm open to learn more if you think that's what is actually going to happen. idk his experience as a human was miserable, i feel like maybe im missing something?? :0 u dont have to answer this if u dont want, as it may cause wank. ty

Hi!

Here’s my “overall” Cas meta from a while ago, nothing’s changed and a few other meta writers added to it so it’s a good view I think as to the whole concept:

https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/165781313412/why-do-you-think-cas-should-becomechoose-to-be

It’s a really crappy topic for divisiveness, in my experience the people who have, relatively, as much as possible, objectively analysed the author intent in the show have come to a pretty solid conclusion within the meta community that Human!Cas appears to be endgame based not on his experience as a human but the outcome, his overall arc since season 4 and the Chekhovs gun style flamingly blatant reminders throughout the show such as the repeated asking him if he wouldn’t rather be human, his choosing to be an Angel to go into battle powerful enough to save the people he loves and putting what he wants to one side and his clearly not wanting to be a soldier anymore.

It’s kind of like saying endgame Dean is for him to be emancipated and being able to openly watch Oprah and Disney etc even though on the surface he says he doesn’t like that stuff. Because the pretty obvious sublimation is there.

With Cas the sublimation isn’t quite as clear but it’s really all there. Yes he suffered as a human but he literally came out of it and said he missed it, while previous to being human he was curious and wanted to try human things (eg kissing meg) and afterwards we’ve seen him actively choosing to act more human, smiting less and fist fighting instead, acting more human, I mean the big one for me was when Dean asked him “and you’re okay with that?!” When he told him he got grace back to be able to fight and he just totally brushed it off saying he needed it to fight:

https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/171244776157/kanayaks-tinkdw-cas-i-got-my-grace-back-i

He later takes more grace which he had been previously rejecting but only to save Dean and then took his own grace back when again it’s needed for a fight whilst telling us the quote that the craziest thing a man can do is die.

He’s literally saying he’s killing himself / his wants for the greater good.

He needs grace for the fight and to be a good useful soldier and to save his family but does he want it?

Want v Need.

One of the biggest themes of the show.

Cas needs his grace to be useful when times are hard but is that what he wants?

In my opinion the show has repeatedly emphasised that it isn’t. I also think it’s clear he doesn’t want to be a soldier anymore and these things go hand in hand.

Others may use canon to say they think it is. Both interpretations are totally valid as long as they are based on canon and actually analysing the canon in a consistent manner.

The issue I have is certain people cherry picking and projecting their stories into it and claiming it’s an overall Cas’ arc since inception meta. That’s just not how meta writing works.

You can absolutely write that stuff but you can’t claim it’s objective and fully inclusive of canon and logical when it is just picking parts that fit your own desire for the character. Like, I didn’t want Lucifer to be centre stage in s13 but I didn’t just ignore it when it was.

Cherry picking things ie the one time Cas said “I just wanna be an Angel” when he was depressed, distraught at Dean’s death and wanted to stop feeling things as proof it’s what he really wants isn’t what I’d call meta writing of the whole story. That’s like saying Sam really wants to be a hunter and tag along beside his brother in the impala on the road for the rest of his life because he was a depressed, vengeful mess after Jess’ death and said ok let’s go. Is it really what Sam wants for himself and the rest of his life though? No way! That’s been clear too.

Even worse when some people claim to be bullied or triggered by other view points. Someone even screenshotted a few sentences I wrote that if you took away the top and bottom sentence looked like I was making no sense and anti Cas (me anti Cas. Lmao) but in the context obviously made sense and decided to create a wank storm about it because they didn’t like human cas meta and wanted to make me look bad. People need to grow up. This isn’t a meta discussion about interpretation it’s being a dick and being unable to contemplate another interpretation.

It makes a discussion totally impossible which moots the entire point of blogging on tumblr in the first place.

Absolutely all interpretations are valid, it’s just a case of how you pitch your interpretation. If you want to state your interpretation of a character absolutely go for it! I used to be all up for Angel!Cas meta until a few utter assholes decided to be personal and ridiculous about it. Now I don’t touch it with a barge pole. Same as M*gstiel.

But that doesn’t invalidate anyone’s good, thought out, canon analysing endgame Angel!Cas meta.

For example my own interpretation of the siren episode is different to many other meta writers, we can discuss it and have polite and great conversations without getting triggered / defensive because we aim to discuss author intent, our own interpretations and do so in a civil manner. There’s one meta writer in particular I’ve had altercations with in the past over some differences of opinion on speculative things and ways of writing meta but who I get on well with, admire and like talking to because we are adults and literally get over it.

There’s also a few people who unfortunately though I agree meta wise about things on the show have been so nasty irl to myself and others that I’ve cut them off completely.

Interpretations are interpretations until they are canon, I’m lucky that most of mine have become so or are clearly on their way but I can also be wrong ie I thought Asmodeus would be more important to character exposition than he was, life moves on. I also didn’t realise quite what it would mean that he would be a Bucklemming own concept and not really used by anyone else, I thought perhaps he’d be used by others by the wasn’t, now I have that knowledge in my pocket meta on anything that sets up for Bucklemming use is kinda meh don’t bother analysing it much it’s probably not hugely important to the overall story being told by the showrunner, ie Nick.

All interpretations are valid is very true. Eg. I can interpret Cas’ story as a metaphor for a queer kid (and in particular trans) coming from a conservative family and emancipating themselves and someone else can interpret it as an immigrants story.

If the show starts changing this then I will change my meta, because my meta is an analysis of what the show is doing, not what I want. For example I never wanted Dean to be queer representation, I was totally heteronormative and would have been totally cool with him ending up alone or with a woman, it’s the show that made me want something different for him through consistent and repeated canon blatant hints at something else. Same as Cas, I was totally ready in season 4 to just like him as a cool character and for him to bog off back to Heaven after being useful but he was captivating as an ally and it grew from there. For ages I would totally have put to one side the hints at a romantic part of his story and loved for him to become the third brother, it’s the show that made me see more between him and Dean, I never would have imagined that myself, I was a boring heterormative adult more interested in the individual characters’ stories than shipping, I thought shipping was just maritime transferral of goods before I was like wtf and googled Destiel after 10x05 cos I’d finally found a name for what I’d been seeing evolve for 6 years.

Sam goes for Cas’ own individual arc and what he wants. I never had a clue what I wanted from him until the show told me what I should want by repeating something clearly over 10 years. If they suddenly change any part of the story then they change it (and I’ll be annoyed they changed something so entrenched but I’m not going to bitch @ tptb for it or whatever, it’s their choice, they’re the creator and once it’s changed I’ll meta that) but so far it’s been the same, clear story to me for 10 years.

An interpretation is an interpretation but it’s when you start, as I do and some others do, saying you believe this one is the authors intention that you have to be more careful about backing it up with canon and logic and not getting #triggered when someone disagrees.

If you’re going to pitch it as what you believe the author intent is then you have to leave your personal projections at the door and work solely based on the canon, the production, what the author may have said outside of canon etc. It has nothing to do with your own wants for the character or show.

It also means when someone has valid canon supported arguments to the contrary you can have a really interesting discussion and I love that.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

rabbit & like a bat family, for the ask meme, whichever questions you feel comfortable answering

(Questions)

Like a Bat-Family

(Elementary; Martha & Kitty & Joan & Sherlock; part of Rolling Remix)

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

I received my copy of ���Like Family” for remixing and groused and whined and cursed its author, because like hell did I see a way into it. The obvious thing would have been to flip the pov to Kitty, but “Like Family” might already have been a pov-flip from whatever came before it and I didn’t want to risk just flipping it back again.

I finally decided on a slumber-party-like variation of the mutual nail-painting, probably featuring Martha. Then once I had Martha and Kitty in the same mental premise, I realized they had probably built some kind of relationship during their mutual time in the brownstone, and thus that Martha should be added to the list of people cheated of a proper good-bye with her. (And not just cheated of a good-bye, but of the entire history of their relationship!) So this became a reunion/closure story for not only Joan-and-Kitty, but also Martha-and-Kitty.

I set it during New Year’s at the brownstone mostly out of cussedness. I’d already remixed a story for the exchange, which meant I knew there was a cluster of NYE stories at the beginning of the chain. I thought it’d be hilarious to re-introduce the New Year’s theme at the tail end of the chain, too, in the hopes that it would mess up some of the guessers.

2: What scene did you first put down?

A scene that no longer exists: Joan on the roof New Year’s morning, ostensibly cleaning up after the party but mostly staring at the river, and being surprised by Kitty’s entrance. The energy was never quite right, somehow, and the whole story stalled there until I switched povs and began over with Martha. However, the scene still indirectly exists in the current version of the story, and the original image of Kitty appearing from nowhere like Batman was the genesis of the Bat-Family motif.

The only part of that now-deleted scene that I was really sad to lose was the color scheme:

[Joan stood at the roof edge, looking out at] the desaturated, wintry grays of the city, contemplating the rough slate of the East River and how it reflected back the platinum sky above.

Happily, I was able to salvage the bones of that description for Nostoi:

Beyond that streak of white, there was nothing but grey all around us: sky and rain and sea-water; iron and silver and slate.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

Joan and Sherlock argued silently with each other, a flurry of mulish mouths, jutted jaws, and raised eyebrows.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

“Alfred,” she whispered, and all three of them cracked up into giggles.

5: What part was hardest to write?

Ugh, gah, cramming in the backstory and off-screen bits. Backstory and flashbacks are always a struggle to incorporate smoothly without overexplaining or messing up the narrative flow, and this story was written so quickly, with so little opportunity for editing… Meh.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

My first and only story from the pov of a trans character? More unusually, I didn’t have the time to ask someone who is trans to look it over – that’s usually something that I take care to do when writing a marginalized identity outside of my own experience. But once again, the turn around time was so fast… I hope I did no harm, and I own it if I did.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

I was going to bring back Joan’s accordion from the first two stories, which – when joined with Kitty’s clarinet and Sherlock’s violin – would be the foundations of a Klezmer band. (Martha would be on drums, because.) When I later saw that someone in the exchange had written a Band AU I kicked myself so hard that I hadn’t done it.

Rabbit

(TSCC; Jesse Flores; 5+1)

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

The Terminator franchise centers itself so strongly on Southern California and the Connors, I craved to know what that franchise looks like if you don’t presuppose John Connor as the center of the universe. Further, I am fascinated with the way the timelines fold back on themselves in that franchise, the way Judgement Day is forever shifting, the way futures keep reaching back to rewrite the past-to-be based on whatever has been going on in the current timeline.

A 5+1 seemed a convenient way to explore what successive futures might look like when one is half a world away from the causes, experiencing only the after-effects; it also allowed me to build an argument that John Connor may not always be the single most important person in the future. That is, that there might be futures where other people become more strategically significant.

I also had the very misguided idea that a 5+1 would be a short, simple, and easy structure, and would get me out of having to build and plot a full-blown story. Ha fucking hah.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

There are a ton of narrative lines I love, mostly in the final section. But have this one out of the fifth section:

Jesse stared at the farmboy, her gaze flicking to where the dolphins should have been on his chest. Jesus Fucking Christ. A whole crew of nubs. They were running a deathtrap.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

“You are not a god, Derek. You made choices, I made choices, John Connor made choices. We all made choices. Hell, there’s a twelve-year-old Jesse out there somewhere, making choices. Whether to swim at the leisure centre or swim at the beach. For all you know, the war hinges on the choice she made today.”

Tied with:

“What do you want me to say, that it could have been anyone? That the only reason Skynet went after you—the only reason your family died—is because Goodnow tells a good story and Skynet fell for it?”

Because I have opinions about the Terminator franchise, and how everyone is running around making choices based on stories they were told. Skynet, the Connors, everyone from the future who gets their hands on a time machine, everyone they meet in the past: everyone has heard a story, and now they’re all making choices, and the entire future history of the world is gonna hinge on those choices. Talk about a universe that runs on fucking hearsay and gossip.

But mostly my favorite line is this:

“I’m Jesse!” she screamed at it, to make herself breathe. “I’m Jesse fucking Flores!”

Because Jesse fucking Flores. :-D

5: What part was hardest to write?

All the Australia bits. :-P

@lastwingedthing put in a good chunk of work on this story, correcting language and helping me with geographically appropriate choices for stuff. (That olive tree in the first section began life as a prickly pear, which is invasive in Australia – I wanted an invasive plant for thematic reasons – but it’s invasive in a different part of Australia.) However, the challenge with writing something that will later be Ozpicked (or Britpicked, or whatever) is that it’s not enough to eschew Americanisms in your draft, you have to put in geographically specific stuff, too, otherwise you’ll end up with a bland and non-specific story. And while a generous Ozpicker can and will help with that, you can’t expect them to do the bulk of that work for you.

For an example of what I’m talking about, consider my own The Case of the Six Marmalades against @scfrankles’ The Case of the Deceased Marmalade Thief: they’re nicely matched in terms of fandom, genre, and topic, and I consider Frankles a peer in terms of our respective skill. But notice that Frankles’ use of idiom in her dialog is much, much richer than my own (in part because she really is just that good with voices), but also in part because she’s English, and has a much larger mental catalog of appropriate idiom to select from. In contrast, I’m forever rejecting language as “too American” and then finding I have nothing interesting to replace it with. Consequently, my dialog has a linguistic blandness to it that hers doesn’t. This is the kind of thing I see a lot with American vs. British authors in British fandoms: the British authors have a vibrancy to them that American authors seldom manage to attain.

And this isn’t to run myself down, or to suggest that Six Marmalades is a failure of a story. (It’s not.) It’s simply an illustration of how it is with stories written by outsiders: even if they manage to eschew errors and stereotypes, they often end up with a generic, non-specific blandness that’s difficult to overcome. *shrug emoji* Either you never write outside your own specific cultural context, or you accept that you won’t manage the vibrancy that your story deserves. Choose your poison.

Anyway, back to Rabbit: I had to come up with Australia-specific stuff to put in, but I was starting from near zero. I watched all the Australian post-apoc films I could stomach; I played Australian talk and comedy shows in the background while I did chores; I listened to a series of Australian podcasts for English-language-learners during my commutes; I spent a fuckton of time browsing anAustralian slang dictionary (where I learned more usage via the crowdsourced definitions than in the nominal terms being defined)… Just, trying to pick up idioms and usage and rhythms and words, both to reduce the load on my very generous Ozpicker, but also trying to make sure that when she was done removing my Americanisms, my language didn’t end up blandly generic nowhere. (If nothing else, I could give her possibly-wrong Australian slang that she could correct to something more appropriate, yeah? And she did a bit of that: “yobbos” became “sad bastards,” for example.) So the language was a fair amount of up front work, even with her polishing and fine-tuning it for me.

And getting the Australian bits right was more than just language, of course; there was the usual ton of googling random shit. Who runs public swimming pools, the history and composition of the Australian submarine service, what plants are invasive, imports/exports from Perth… Again, she corrected and fine-tuned a bunch of stuff (and sometimes pointed out issues that I hadn’t thought to question), but there was still a chunk of work involved in giving her something that could be corrected and fine-tuned.

I wanted to set Rabbit in Australia, a place that is distinct from America, and that ultimately was the hardest part of writing the story.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

At the time, it was my only fic set in Australia, my only go at action/suspense, my only 5+1, my only “heroine against the world, framedaround a strong central metaphor, ending when the showdown begins in earnest” kind of story structure. I’ve since repeated all of those things, because I wrote this a long time ago, and I’m as repetitive as fuck.

As to what makes it still unique among my stories…

Um…

It’s the only one with submarines in?

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

I grew up in a Navy town, outside a nuclear submarine base, and one of the members in my origfic writing group served on a submarine, back in the day. So all the submarine stuff is strongly influenced by my hometown, the kids whose parents were in the Navy, my own dad who worked for the Navy, my schoolmates who went into the Navy themselves, the submariner who I dated when I was faaaaar too young for him (and the shit my dad pulled to scare him off), the tours I’ve taken on out-of-service submarines, the time I’ve spent fucking around in boats while sharing the same waters as submarines, plus all the time I’ve spent editing my friend’s submarine novels based on his own service.

None of which is actually the same as actually serving on a submarine myself, of course, but there are a number of submarine details that were inspired by spending a chunk of my life submarine-adjacent.

(Navy showers! My father enforced Navy showers on us when we were kids. Although not the same way that they’re enforced in the actual Navy, because that would have been child abuse. But you know. You run across random shit in your life, and it eventually ends up in a fic.)

[thetenthdoctorscompanion]

🌲🌷 for Sadie, Kat, and Christine if you don't mind (though honestly you could answer all of these and I'd read them all) Also good luck in your writing and happy new year! Thanks for being a bright spot on my year hope to hear more from you in the 2020s!! ....(and if Sadie and Stiles were to make a surprise comeback in the 2020s I don't think anybody would complain😬 ok I'm done bye! And thank you)

asdfgh omg thank you??? this was lovely. okay okay okay. this is long, sorry everyone!

🌲What is the kindest thing your OC has ever done for someone? What is the kindest thing someone has ever done for them? On the flip side, what is the worst thing your OC has ever done to another person?

🌷What does your OC hate about themselves? What lies about themselves do they believe? On the flip side, what does your OC love about themselves?

🌲What is the kindest thing your OC has ever done for someone? What is the kindest thing someone has ever done for them? On the flip side, what is the worst thing your OC has ever done to another person?

SADIE

Sadie is definitely the kind of person that thrives on random acts of kindness. I guess the “kindest” thing that she’s done would be going shopping for Derek and his pack so they wouldn’t have to suffer living in hiding. I really liked the chapter where she bought dinner for Derek and they hung out in the bus car in lieu of a real “Wolf Moon” celebration with his family.

I think to Sadie, the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for her would be Lydia letting her cry about her dad. The first few weeks she spent in Beacon Hills, she was incredibly sad and alone. Having Lydia reach out to her, even if it was a little bit coerced by their parents, really saved her.

I would say holding a gun on Scott is definitely a contender for worst thing Sadie’s ever done. Though shooting Peter is definitely the most vindictive thing she’s done. We just don’t blame her cause he’s Peter lol.

KAT

Kat doesn’t necessarily consider herself kind. She does consider herself good. So as far as kindness, it probably involves the support she offers to the younger girls at the gym. Inviting them into her office to swap stories of trauma and therapy, and counseling them in times of need. She saved a lot of girls that way even before she became a hunter.

The kindest person Kat ever met was Jessica. Jess was filled with a million random acts of kindness when Kat was recovering from her assault, and their parents didn’t know what to do. Everything from finishing Kat’s essays when she didn’t have the energy to making her an anxiety shoebox full of balloons and bubble wrap and candy. Kat still has it under her bed.

You’d think Kat’s worst transgression would be born out of her anger. She beats and berates Sam repeatedly because of her grudge. She’s beaten and berated quite a few men and monsters more than they deserved. But really, the worst thing Kat has ever done was leave her mother to go on the road. There was no discussion, no keeping in touch the first few months. She just left, because she couldn’t stand being home. She still hates herself for it sometimes, despite how far she’s come. 

CHRISTINE

Hmm, besides taking in an abused child with superpowers and hiding her in her house for several days while teaching them about love, life, and waffles? Probably taking Dustin under her wing. But for the most part, I think Christine’s insistence on protecting Eleven kind of takes the cake.

Dustin is definitely the person that has been kindest to Christine. He’s undoubtedly the kindest person Christine knows. I imagine a time where Christine was sullen about losing her mom, maybe on the anniversary of her death, or when she moved up to high school from the middle school. And Dustin is supposed to be somewhere with the rest of the party. Instead, he takes a movie and a bunch of comics to Christine’s house so he can sit on the floor and distract her all day.

I think the worst thing Christine has done is probably telling/heavily insinuating to the cops that Nancy slept with Steve. Not just because it made things explode in Nancy’s home life, but because it’s one of two times she really goes out of her way to hurt Nancy. The other, of course, being all the things she said outside the movie theater. But telling the police wasn’t done in the heat of the moment. She actively made the decision to throw Nancy under the bus.

🌷What does your OC hate about themselves? What lies about themselves do they believe? On the flip side, what does your OC love about themselves?

SADIE

Sadie is definitely the type that believes that she’s not enough. She hates that she can’t save everyone all the time. She hates that she can’t make everyone all the time. She hates that everyone can’t believe she’s perfect. She’s the kind of person where every time she has a bad thought, she internalizes it and believes she’s a bad person.

Obviously the best example of this is the situation with Kate in Season 2. Kate told Sadie that she’d be just like her. That she’d hurt innocent people to save those she loved, and that if she didn’t, she was a coward. So Sadie believes it two-fold. She believes she isn’t enough to protect people, or to deserve affection. And she believes she’s a coward for not doing what it takes.

Sadie knows her talents. She knows that she’s creative, and passionate, and an extremely determined and stubborn person. I think her empathy is the thing that sets her apart from a lot of my other characters. She doesn’t just choose to put herself in other people’s shoes. She’s compelled to - both the heroes and the villains.

KAT

I think what frustrates Kat most about herself is her emotional immaturity. She’s not immature in the way that people can be childish, but she has a really hard time understanding emotions. She struggles with her own rage and sadness, and sometimes gets surprised by her own feelings that she hasn’t noticed. A lot of the time, she settles on anger just cause it’s easier for her. She’s been through enough therapy to see herself doing it, but it’s also hard for her to stop. I don’t think she’d say she hates it though.

I think Kat does sometimes believe the lie that she’s broken. There are moments that crop up throughout the story where her walls fall down, and you see that she’s not as strong as she pretends to be. Some days she feels like she will never be able to recover or heal from all the wrongs she’s done and all the things that have been done to her. She feels empty, and dirty, and like she will never be enough.

At the same time, Kat is one of my more secure OCs. She’s been to therapy to deal with all of that self-hatred and blame that she carries. She loves her own determination. She loves her own strength. She loves her own strong moral compass, and the way she sees right and wrong. She knows she’s not perfect, but at the end of the day, she knows that she’s done a lot of good, and she’s a damn strong woman who surprises those who dare to underestimate her.

CHRISTINE

Much like Sadie, Christine is an anxious mess sometimes. She hates that she doesn’t know how to stand up for herself. Not because she’s bullied or anything. She just feels like she doesn’t know how to stand out. It’s easy to express opinions behind closed doors, but she’s easily overwhelmed by crowds and authority figures, which makes her feel like a wimp.

Christine is also very self-pitying. She believes that she’s the “lesser” of her friend group, especially next to Nancy. Her grades aren’t as good. Her house isn’t as nice. She doesn’t get the same amount of attention or compliments. She definitely believes that she’s the B-rate Nancy, the fallback option. Obviously, the situation with Steve didn’t help that at all.

I do think Christine loves her own intelligence. She knows she’s smart, and likes when people ask her for help. She likes feeling knowledgable - about school or movies or comics. It gives her great satisfaction to be able to answer a lot of questions. It’s one of the reasons she lets herself be used by Steve in physics. He doesn’t have to do any work, and she gets to show off that she can do a lot of work and is very capable.

[infiniteconedrill]

Far Cry 5 review and other ramblings

My experience with the Far Cry series has always been a bit spotty, with nothing to blame but my tendency to get easily distracted.  When I fist purchased my PS3 in the spring of 2009, I bought all kinds of games in order to catch myself up.  I had just finished college, and had been intentionally starving myself of the gaming experience in favor of focusing only on my studies with absolutely no other distractions.  I know myself well, ya see, and I knew that if I allowed my brain to wander into game land, I would be fucked in terms of getting that important homework done on time.   During the buying spree I found myself in once I graduated, I stumbled upon Far Cry 2 which I had read great things about.  I tucked the game aside with the plan to dive into the experience once I was done playing the other games I was more interested in, like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and Metal Gear 4.  FC 2 always beckoned me, though, and I couldn’t wait to dive into its world.  

Fast forward to 2012, and several Dead Spaces later.  My video games were accumulating, and several titles I had meant to get to were still collecting dust in their still-sealed states, among them, FC 2.  I still looked longingly at it, but began thinking to myself “Hmm, the game is now 4 years old, and the graphics are going to look rough.  I’ve probably missed out on any charm it once had, and I’ve only got myself to blame.  Ahh, fuck it, I’ll get to it eventually.  Maybe.”  It made more sense to me to start playing FC 3 since that was the newest latest, and I had just been given the game for free to test out and review for the Amazon Vine program.  “I’ll make time”, I lied.  

Skip ahead yet again to early 2016, with both FC 2 and FC 3, sealed and snuggled deep inside a box behind my TV, untouched and nearly forgotten about.  Amazon Vine once again offered me the latest Unisoft release, Far Cry Primal.  Wondering if it would just become another one of my untraversed gaming terrains, I reminded myself that if I order FCP, I will HAVE to play it as the Vine program requires reviewers to submit their opinion of the game rather than making it optional.  This is exactly the kind of forced motivation I needed to get shit done.  Besides that, I was still beckoned at this point, forcefully tapped on the shoulder to hurry up and play this series that I had been blowing off for literally 7 years up to this point.  I received the game after a few days, and made the first step in actually removing the seal from a FC game disc -- a momentous feat upon itself.  I wondered if FCP would be much different than all of the numbered FC’s -- after all, FCP had invented its own tribal, prehistoric language and apparently (by what I had read) created a world that existed outside the bad guy/villain framework of the rest of the games in the series.  I fired up the PS4, and the intro began, thus beginning my adventures into the FC world.  

Once I began playing FCP, I couldn’t put the controller down.  I mean, I was really impressed.  What I loved about the game is how the developers inherently knew what gamers want to experience.  The game was great about giving you reality where you want to experience reality, then giving you an over-the-top, bombastic experience at precisely the right time.  Designing games this big isn’t easy, and when you can balance all of the elements in a way that makes gamers want to keep coming back for more, you’re doing something pretty special.  FCP didn’t do anything groundbreaking -- it was more or less a sandbox game with all of the typical open-world tropes -- but the little touches and peripheral details are what developers have to do to make the game stand out as unique.  For example, I was extremely impressed with the language created in this game, and how the characters all communicated with each other.  Not a lick of any discernible language is spoken in this game, and that’s a risk in itself.  The risk paid off. It made the story easy to get lost in, and I couldn’t help but feel I hadn’t had this type of gaming frame before.  By the time I ended the main storyline, I kept playing, hungry for more.  Unfortunately, Ubisoft never released any DLC for this game, so I placed it on its shelf and went about to other games in my library.  

So FC 2 and 3 still sat on my shelf during this time, and I knew FC 4 existed, though I was determined to not think about it as I didn’t want THREE unplayed FC games taking space in my library.  Enter FC 5.  The game gets announced, and for once, I am determined to order the game, and not only have the game on day one, but actually play the fucking thing, too.  I order the Gold Edition as I see that FC 3 will be getting a remaster, and the buyer will have access to all of the DLC as well.  I’m going all-in this time, goddammit.  Release day comes, and I download the goods.  I have read nothing at all about the game’s story, and have no frame of reference about the plot or characters.  I am ready as I’ll ever be...let’s do this shit.  

The first element that strikes me is the landscape, and its similarities to FCP.  The terrain is gorgeous and well-detailed, flush with animal life and vegetation.  I’ve never been to Montana (where the game is set), but I would imagine it looks and sounds just like it’s portrayed in this game, with eagles squawking loudly and rivers flowing freely.  Based on the surroundings alone, this is a game that’s easy to get lost in.  

The story is an interesting one, and I would guess that Americans in particular will be able to feel something sharp about its meaning and import.  The idea of a brainwashed cult is appealing, and the four bosses you must best in this game are all well-fleshed out.  Essentially, the plot of the main storyline revolves around some religious kooks who mindlessly follow the Father (Joseph Seed) while getting hopped up on a drug called Bliss in order to be more sheeplike in their mindless worship of a deity who gives them answers to questions they would rather not think about.  Sound familiar?  In the context of a pure video gaming framework, this can be as boring as you want it to be, but for those who choose to apply this type of tale to our current surroundings, the plot of the story has the ability to take on a hell of a lot of meaning.  

Once this groundwork has been established, the meat of the game is your standard fetch-quest type business.  An NPC will ask you to get something for them, you’ll go and get it, and they’ll like you a whole lot -- nothing new there.  An aspect of the game I really enjoyed that usually irks the shit out of me is the ability to acquire “guns for hire”.  Basically, you can recruit nine different characters to fight alongside you, and you can direct them to attack specific enemies.  The nine characters are all different in their abilities, and they even offers dozen of verbal asides to keep you entertained as you traipse through the underbrush.  My favorites were Jess Black (“nice pussy!”), and Peaches, the unstoppable cougar with frightening stealth skills.  What’s fun about multiple guns for hire is that they react to each other and comment to particular skill sets, giving the game a more immersive feel.  

The variety of guns is solid as hell.  You get all the typical selections, from sniper rifles and shotguns, to strange alien death vacuums.  The ammo is plentiful, and it’s easy to fill up as there dozens of NPCs who wander the landscape ready to trade with you.  The fast travel feature is great as well, giving you the option to go to any part of the map that you have already cleared out or liberated.  

The fighting in FC 5 is an absolute blast.  It’s intuitive and flawless, and I haven’t experienced a single technical hiccup or delay anywhere.  The AI is average -- in fact, most times the enemy will see you way before you see them.  The human enemies you face are more or less just braindead thugs yelling out shit like “I’m gonna kill you!”, but occasionally they’ll say something funny or unique.  The body animations as you shoot people is really cool giving the game more depth and realism.  For instance, if you shoot someone in the back whilst they’re running away, their back will arc and their arms will flail upward, making you feel satisfied that the scumbag making your life difficult won’t be getting back up.  

The voice acting is solid, and is sparse enough to not pull you out of the experience.  My favorite characterizations are Jess Black (as I mentioned before), Jacob Seed, and Joseph Seed.  There’s some real depth to these characters, giving a lot of life through their real-life voice actors.  

The menu is well-laid out and intuitive -- not once did I feel lumbered with trying to navigate an overly-complicated system.  

Of course, the game isn’t perfect, and there are a few things that could stand to get cleaned up.  One thing that frustrated me about the game is how chaotic the battles can get.  I enjoy organized chaos, don’t get me wrong, but FC 5 could stand to separate different functions by laying out the design a little differently.  Something that frustrated me is when 10 enemies would be coming at me at once, I’d have both of my guns for hire in place, and then my teammates wouldn’t do anything.  They’d sometimes seem to just freeze in place without fighting back, and this would be in totally open areas with no obstructions to their targets.  Also, when you kill an enemy, you can loot them, but you can also swap your weapons out with theirs.  Fair enough, but it can be cumbersome to try and position yourself in the right spot as to only loot and not swap.  When you’re in the heat of the battle, and you just want to loot and not swap, it can be rather annoying trying to do one action but getting another.  I can see a lot of players enjoying this type of unpredictability, but it rather bothered me.  

Another piece of the game that frustrated me was the inconsistency of the map tracking system.  There’s a side quest in the game where you have to go and destroy all of the shrines in Faith’s region, and if you get the proper map, you can see where they all are.  I was going through this mission, and about halfway through it, the map stopped showing me where they were.  Was there a reason for this?  I dunno.  I’m not sure if this was a glitch, but it was a head-scratcher for the tracking system to stop working mid-way though the lengthy quest.  

I did tend to feel myself getting pulled out of the experience somewhat by the meatheaded-ness (I declare this a word) of some of the quests.  There’s a quest where you literally have to run around collecting bull testicles.  I’m as immature as the next white male, but seriously?  There’s another quest where an inbred redneck requests that you kill four antlered animals and bring the roadkill back for him to BBQ.  No thanks.  There’s also a lot of boneheaded swearing in the game that seems superfluous rather than colorful.  I love to swear, but when every other word is “fuck”, it just gets boring rather than amusing or interesting.  “Fuck” in and of itself isn’t offensive or hardcore, it’s just juvenile and dopey if it’s not used creatively.  Then again, when one of the characters declared his son was “dumber than a box of shit”, I literally laughed out loud, so chances are I don’t know what I’m talking about.  I guess what I’m saying is give the swearing some context, motherfuckers.  

There are also some problems with Ubisoft’s updates.  I downloaded the 1.06 update, and as soon as I did, my Gold Edition DLC vanished.  I had a few weapons that were DLC exclusive, that I paid real money for, and they ended up just disappearing with the update.  Not cool, especially when you’re just about to take on Joseph Seed at the end of the main storyline.  

Despite these relatively minor drawbacks, the game as a whole is a blast to play.  What I love most about FC 5 at the end of the day is how fun it is.  That sounds simple, but redefining a fun video game in this day and age takes skill and thought.  “Fun” can be a balancing act, and a lot of developers get lost and what’s too real.  To give you an example, one very simple aspect of FC 5 I love the most is that you can sprint across the landscape without losing stamina.  One thing that has always bugged me about video games is a stamina meter, always tracking your level of energy.  It’s a fucking video game, it doesn’t have to be THAT real!  Yes, give me realism with the trees and cars and sky and water and facial animations -- that’s what we want.  But a stamina meter?  Fuck off!  This is what the developers of FC 5 understand the most, and that’s what makes this game so damn playable.  

But what of the ending?  When the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but think that a lot of players will have a real problem with the way it concludes, and I’m sure the game developers knew this.  Personally, I was extremely impressed with the way the game leaves us.  It was absolutely not what I was expecting, and actually made me think about its message long after I turned off my console.  How often does that happen in video games?  I think Americans in particular will have a problem with the ending given that there is very little, if any, resolution.  What will bother a lot of Americans, I’m guessing, is the way the game taunts the flag-waving, gun-toting, bible-thumping culture that is more prevalent than ever in the US.  The end of the game essentially tells us that no matter how much we resist, no matter the level of our intellectualism, and no matter the strength of our character as individuals, we will always be outnumbered by the braindead sheep, dooming ourselves for failure.  Now that’s a message worth chewing on.  As an atheist, this is the spin I give the game, and I’m sure a religious person will spin it another way.  The way I see it, the FC 5 writing team make a ballsy move in regard to the ending, and I applaud them for the decisions they make.  In all great art, it comes down to choice and interpretation, and if all people approve of the artistic gesture, then the message has failed.  Some people will hate this ending, and that’s nothing but a good thing.  Joseph Seed also bears more than just a passing resemblance to David Koresh as well, and I encourage anyone who’s never heard this name to Google him right now.  When you put games in the right framework, those emotional connections follow, ya see.  

So what has FC 5 and FCP done for me in terms of finally lighting a fire under my ass and inspiring me to play my FC 2 disc that I’ve had for nine years?  Well, I just purchased FC 4, and I’m about to download the classic edition of FC 3, included with my Gold Edition Season Pass.  I have removed FC 2 from its box, and placed it on my TV stand where I can no longer ignore it.  This will be the summer of Far Cry for me, and I can no longer put off its brilliance.  I guess nine is my lucky number.  

Final Score:  9/10

[hellyes-tommccamus]

Mutant X [TV] (2001-2004)

S01E06 “The Meaning of Death”

[spoilers]

Sci-fi/action Tom McCamus plays a main role in season 1

This is a really interesting episode about contagious disease, immortality, allegiances and betrayals.

In this episode we get to properly visit the New Mutant Underground, which from the establishing shots seems to be connected to the underground train network. Brennan goes there to see Rick (Christopher Davis) who introduces him to a married couple who are staying there. Todd (Kevin Jubinville) has super speed while Jerri (Gina Sorell) has x-ray vision. Jerri does the oh-so-overused checking Brennan out with her x-ray vision. X-ray vision = naked people, right? I really don’t know where this trope originated, but it is completely wrong. X-ray vision would give her a good view of his bones, but she’d see straight through his skin as well as his clothes. And don’t get me started on the dangers of x-rays. Such a power would be undoubtedly lethal to the holder, as well as anyone who spent too much time around them.

But the unfeasible invasion of privacy is cut short by Rick having a seizure and his wind power goes out of control. This is an interesting concept: what happens when a New Mutant gets ill, and how do powers interact with long term health conditions?

Back at Sanctuary, Adam is treating Rick in the lab. He is still unconscious but nevertheless wearing the Lab Underwear. Adam tells Emma that Rick’s powers are completely out of control. Emma worries that it might be a contagious disease.

Despite Renfield losing neither his life or Mason’s favour last episode, there is a new second in command at the GSA. Charles Marlowe (Anthony Lemke) reports to Mason about New Mutants with powers of ice and suggestion wreaking havoc with out of control powers. We learn a couple of new things about Mason. He isn’t interested in ichthyology (which is indeed the study of fish). Also not so interested in the lives of normal humans, seeing deaths as a way to clamp down on New Mutants. Or is it an example of his irrepressible positive thinking?

Adam has by now deduced that the illness is contagious and using powers accelerates its spread. He has identified it as cladosporium, which he correctly defines as a common airborne spore. But cladosporium is a genus, of which there are about 40 species. It’s hard to believe that a whole genus could suddenly be causing such devastating effects. I’d have suggested choosing the rarest one and blaming that, but OK I can accept that maybe having to say multiple five syllable words might not work for TV. Adam says it is harmless to most humans (correct) but causes uncontrolled mutation in individuals with a genetic aberration, which less than 1% of New Mutants possess. Now I’m not going to harp on again about “uncontrolled mutation” being used as a phrase to describe powers going awry rather than diseases like cancer. I’m more interested by his use of the term “genetic aberration”. It sounds more of a term Mason would use to describe New Mutants, not Adam. Perhaps it is the remains of existing aberration which was why those individuals were “treated” at Genomex, or a mistake by design? Or maybe some big screw up Adam found years later. Anyway, lets have some math. Adam says this aberration is in less that 1% of New Mutants, so for argument’s sake I’m calling that 0.5%. We already know there are at least 3 victims, so that means there are at least 600 New Mutants. The disease is highly infectious once it takes hold on one who is susceptible, then passing from New Mutant to New Mutant. At no point does Adam say that this is a theory, he speaks with certainty. He has seen this happen. I imagine under laboratory conditions, otherwise it would have wiped out huge sections of the New Mutant population. Adam doesn’t know how to cure it, so it clearly wasn’t cured before.

At the safe-house, Brennan is in the uncomfortable position of being in quarantine with the married couple. Brennan repeats what Adam said about using powers triggering the disease after exposure. Todd seems to go a bit strange for a moment, while it seems Jerri is one of those irritating hypochondriacs.

Shalimar and Adam go to visit a New Mutant who has been having trouble with her powers lately. Shalimar is wearing a very sci-fi silver PVC suit, which they refer to as a hazmat suit. She presses a button and a completely invisible helmet shimmers into existence around her head. Adam jokes about it being a fashion statement. Hey, at least this show knows how to poke fun at itself!

Alice, the sick New Mutant, is lying in her apartment, and she says it’s too late. Everything is smouldering already. Marlowe shows up at that moment (seriously, do they have the same informant who tells them things out of devilment?) Adam says there is nothing he can do, but then doesn’t move and asks her what he can do. Not the smartest thing to do. But at least he and Shalimar get out of there. Marlowe goes over to her. Outside, it appears to be some kind of industrial unit. Strange place to send New Mutants to live. Alice literally explodes into flames. I’m not entirely sure why there is an explosion here. Presumably she is a pyrokinetic, so I could understand her bursting into flames, but did someone leave the gas on? But more interestingly, Marlowe is a bit dirty but not burnt or missing any body parts. And I like how Adam instantly jumps in to protect Shalimar from the explosion, even though she’s a super powered New Mutant and he’s a normal human. Shows how much he cares for her.

It’s quite rare for Adam and Mason to have a scene together, but when they do it’s always interesting. There is such a held back animosity between them while they keep up the facade of civility. Adam reminds Mason that if all New Mutants are wiped out, he will lose his reason for living. Which from what we have seen, is tragically, likely true. Marlowe tries to discourage Mason, but he agrees to work with Adam.

Adam now somehow has information that the disease is going to spread to the majority of New Mutants in 20 hours. Although this is not explained, I guess he just quickly ran an infectious disease simulator? I guess it’s intended to show that there is an extreme urgency in dealing with this contagion. Emma is wearing one of those hazmat suits. Sexist? Maybe. But it’s a cool outfit and now it’s the future why is our fashion not more like that and not just plain awful?

At the safe-house, Todd is getting cabin fever. Brennan is trying to read a book but Jerri keeps using her x-ray vision to see through his clothes. Meanwhile, Emma tries to calm down Rick by projecting images of him floating in the clouds. I’m not sure if this was properly thought through or if it was intended to look like he’s ascending to heaven?

The disease has already claimed many victims and Adam is taking care of them alongside the medical team at Genomex in a very colourful and technologically advanced medical lab. I’m a bit disappointed this disease passes from New Mutant to New Mutant after initial infection, as this prevents me from using my formula to extrapolate the total number of New Mutants.

Marlowe comes to talk/taunt him while creepily touching an unconscious patient’s head and face. Adam knew Marlowe before and tells Shalimar that he has changed. They talk about his invulnerability and how it may be affecting him psychologically, which is interesting. Any power, no matter how impressive or useful, is going to have a psychological effect.

Marlowe grabs hold of a dying patient, fighting off the medical staff who try to help, to talk to her. Adam confronts him and tries to get him to leave. He does, but the patient is already dead. Adam despairs. He doesn’t know what to do.

Back at Sanctuary, Emma is struggling to keep Rick stable. She unwisely switches off the holographic chamber he is being kept inside and his out of control powers slam her against the wall, knocking off the invisible helmet of her hazmat suit. Send those back for a refund and go back to the old style, eh? Jesse phases through the wall to help her, and now both of them have been exposed to the disease.

Todd tries to escape from the safe house. Brennan uses his street skills to his advantage to pick pocket his wallet. His wife sees a picture inside it of him with another woman. What a strange relationship they must have if she has never seen him take his wallet out! But no wonder he wasn’t really bothered by his wife checking out Brennan.

Back at Genomex we see Adam doing some science! And not good science either. He pipettes some clear liquid into an almost full test tube with some suspicious neon green stuff floating on the top. He’s holding the test tube right at the bottom and when he turns round to talk to Shalimar it’s overflowing. Yes, bubbling and overflowing test tubes might look nice and sciencey, but if that happens in real life you’re wasting specimen/reagents and causing contamination. We see another scientist with a digital pipette. Those deliver much more precise amounts of liquid. Adam passes the other scientist a completely full beaker of neon green liquid - more poor science. Overfilling beakers leads to spillages, and guess what, more contamination. Not exactly filling me with confidence for disease control here.

Adam goes to deal with Marlowe, who shamelessly admits that he’s asking questions to those on the edge of death. Adam gives him another telling off and demands to know why he’s behaving like this. Marlowe tells him how his wife and child were killed in a car crash while he survived because of his power. Even though he caused the crash himself, he blames Adam for giving him those powers.

Emma and Jesse talk. Emma says she feels fine but she looks anxious. Then she, seemingly involuntarily makes Jesse think he is being strangled by a snake, then collapses. Yep, she’s got the disease. Jesse tries to pick her up but he goes intangible and drops her. He’s got it too. Well, they were warned about exposure.

Marlowe goes to see Mason, mostly to complain about Adam. It’s interesting that while Mason usually does the pacing around, this time he stays still and Marlowe wanders around agitated, messing with things in Mason’s office. We learn a few things about the past, which Marlowe must have been involved in as he knows all about them. Adam and Mason had a partnership 20 years ago (which fully supports my theory that they were best friends in the 80s). Mason is oddly supportive of Adam and says he wouldn’t mind being invulnerable himself. Marlowe says he should have got Adam to give him the power, and he says that wasn’t what Genomex was about back then. So what was it about? I’m thinking he means they only manipulated the DNA of foetuses and not adults back then. There is a lot of vagueness in this show, which allows for imagination and debate.

Adam and the Genomex medical crew are having a nightmare with the patients exposed to the disease, who are rapidly dying. Interesting to note that there is no sign of powers going out of control at Genomex. I’m going to go out on a limb and say they were probably more prepared in that aspect and fitted them with sub dermal governors to avoid any injury or damage to the lab.

Marlowe is waiting for Adam, mostly to taunt him again. Adam says something that is very true, that scientists work for years to cure diseases. While the race against time to cure a deadly disease is a popular storyline, the most realistic ending is “most people died, some survived because their immune systems somehow fought it.” Marlowe once again tells Adam he blames him for his family’s deaths, and Adam tells him he wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t manipulated his DNA. This is the first time we actually hear a reason for the genetic manipulation which is completely understandable. Genetic manipulation to cure disease is an incredible scientific breakthrough. So perhaps that is the answer to what Genomex was about 20 years ago. Curing diseases in sick children. A noble cause for sure. I think it’s important to note that genetic manipulation doesn’t actually automatically trigger mutant powers in the real world, but we never hear about the Children of Genomex who were cured but didn’t end up with powers. Which makes me think there was some other experiment being carried out at the same time, which Adam claims no knowledge of.

Marlowe tells Adam that he’s supposed to kill him after he finds the cure. I think that’s Marlowe’s anger talking as Mason only told him that they were going to claim the cure for themselves (and as Adam is using their labs and human resources in a collaborative sense, I wouldn’t even call that stealing) and also, why tell him before he’s found the cure? Well that’s how you end up being kicked in the head by a scientist who’s a secret martial artist.

Adam sees Marlowe regrow a tooth he knocked out and hypothesizes that his cellular regeneration holds the key to the cure. Cellular regeneration is both completely scientific and fascinating. While the average human’s ability to regenerate is nowhere near Marlowe’s capabilities, it is still remarkable.

It’s an interesting idea, but honestly, I can’t see how using the power of regeneration can stop uncontrolled mutation. I’d have put my money on some kind of chemotherapy.

Adam says he needs to extract the particular DNA strand (ugh) that causes the regeneration. But he doesn’t have the tools to do that. Really, Chief Geneticist? Really? Pretty sure you’ve been doing that for over 20 years. Anyway, Adam wants to bring him back to his own lab.

Meanwhile Shalimar has been to collect Emma and Jesse, who now join the rest of the infected patients in the Genomex lab.

I have to laugh at Adam’s plan. Isolating the “DNA strand” then converting it to binary and transmitting it to all New Mutants via the Genomex satellite (why do they have this?) Sending code by microwave, OK maybe, but it would only be useful to someone with a receiver who would then be able to read the code. Difficult to believe it would have a biological effect. Microwaves generally cause mutation and cell damage, which isn’t really what we want more of here. And how exactly is he going to target only affected New Mutants? If we’re to believe that it will affect genetic code, it’s gonna affect normal humans too. And really, do we want more deaths or New Mutants?

Extracting the DNA strand consists of scanning Marlowe with the lab scanning device. And quite shockingly, Marlowe is not wearing the Lab Underwear, calling into question their use at all. Maybe he (quite understandably) refused. And maybe that’s why it looks like it hurt.

Adam does some pseudo scientific waffling about comparing the cladosporium sequence to the binary code and keeping the bacterial level under ten (what?)

Marlowe smashes a glass and it pleased with being able to bleed. It seems Adam completely extracted his New Mutant power (something which proved fatal to Shalimar’s boyfriend a few episodes ago).

At the safe house, Brennan makes a hilarious discovery that both Todd and Jerri are cheating on each other with GS Agents.

Mason isn’t happy that Adam has left to develop the cure and threatens to start removing life support from patients if he doesn’t return. He does, and Mason tries to stop Marlowe from uploading the cure, presumably he wants to keep it and use it selectively or as a bargaining chip. But Marlowe has a gun. Mason tells his guy with a gun to shoot Marlowe, and Marlowe allows this to happen. Because death is what he wanted.

Adam’s plan may not have held up scientifically, but it does work. He’s still understandably quite upset about the New Mutants who died. But in the treatment of disease, there are always going to be those who die in the process of finding a cure.