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lilsunshiny · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on The Last Of Us Part II

WRITING (creative process)

the game’s storyline is straight to the point, you can see from the trailer that it’s going to be a timeline about revenge. the whole game happens around joel’s death in the beginning and I guess that’s the whole reason why people are upset. but guess what? neil druckmann’s goal was to make you upset, angry and nostalgic. he accomplished his goal and that’s why you’re feeling the way you are.

you not liking the the way things went down does not mean the game’s writing is awful, it just means you were expecting something and got another. not liking something isn’t a crime and it’s totally ok as long as you respect the creators and don’t use your hate to put others down, it’s a valid opinion and that’s it.

what makes a story good is the writing and the thought put into it to make the player/reader/viewer feel a certain way, and the developers did an incredible job to do that. we feel frustrated, anxious and weird the entire gameplay and that’s exactly what they wanted from us, which means they won. I’ll talk more about my opinion on the storyline far ahead.

the graphic visuals of this game are RIDICULOUS, they’re perfect. every detail is insane to look at, they worked so hard to get it right and it was so worth it. every time I entered a new scenario I would just go into photo mode and appreciate the art because that’s what makes the game unforgettable and groundbreaking. the red lighting scenes were so perfectly made and so badass, the sky when ellie goes outside the farm with JJ is breathtaking just like every other view in the game. by far the most beautiful game I’ve ever had the honor to play.

STORYLINE (joel’s death)

the first game gave us a story about love and hope, making us guide joel into taking ellie to the fireflies looking for a cure based on ellie’s immunity. we spend the whole game thinking we’d get to the fireflies, make a cure and live happily ever after but that never happened in those terms. the gameplay made us slowly fall in love with joel and ellie as characters, joel for his tough personality that would fade under the influence of a little girl and ellie for her nativity and innocence as a young teenager who really wants to help other people by making a cure. that’s the whole situation of it, joel getting attached to ellie while she developed a paternal affection for him but in the end joel ends up doing an unforgivable thing, basically destroying the hope for a cure and ruining all hope for the world to heal from the outbreak, so he decides to lie to ellie blaming the fireflies for everything so he doesn’t lose her trust and love.

I do understand liking and loving joel as a character, myself included, because they made the game thinking about it and they knew the audience would develop a major caring for him and ellie as daughter and father, that’s how it was supposed to go and it worked it.

now let’s talk about joel’s death. I think we were all surprised to watch him die so early in the game but considering the game time and storyline, it would have never happened differently. his death was brutal, violent, merciless and inhuman, abby and her crew tortured him until he couldn’t take it anymore and he obviously suffered with ellie being held to the ground begging them to stop. I agree that it was a horrible death but we can’t just pretend joel was a sweet innocent hero because he wasn’t, the audience portrays him as a hero when he literally stopped the human race from being saved, killing the fireflies and acting out of pure selfishness. joel isn’t the angel some people paint him as, he’s not a good person and if ellie herself could never forgive him for what he did, who are we to do so? she said she would try but she never got the chance to and it took her years to even come to terms with it.

most importantly, it’s obvious that people forget these characters are human beings, not real people but they’re real in that universe and technically speaking, they run and feel the same way we would feel if we were in their shoes. they’re people, every character in the game is a person, with feelings, a background, a past, a personality and thoughts. they’re no different than us except for them living in a post apocalyptic world were morality and ethics aren’t taken into consideration since there is no law or living lifestyle.

for us to understand this storyline, we need to step away from our society’s view of morality and wrong or right, because that does not apply to them, everyone in the game has killed people and/or have done something morally questionable in their life since it’s the apocalypse and there is no wrong or right, there’s only how the characters feel about certain situations and how they act on them, which is basically what guides the entire game to happening the way it did: human feelings.

joel obviously changed after the first game, since he starts living in jackson and having to raise ellie as a daughter in a relatively normal town with other people, he’s not the same person as he was in part I, now he turned into a father and a friend, not a merciless mercenary who doesn’t care about others. we see that when he and tommy decide to help abby, a complete stranger who was about to die in the hands of infected, and maybe that’s what led people into hating abby with their heart. but ending this topic, joel’s death was bound to happen, you can’t just expect someone to destroy the world’s hope for a cure and leave with no people being angry at him and wanting revenge, that cure could’ve saved many people’s loved ones but he chose to save his loved one. if joel is indeed a terrible person or not, that’s up to you to decide, that’s more of an internal turmoil within yourself that is different for everyone depending on their experience from part I and how they view joel in the end. it’s kind of messed up if you think about it, would you let the only person you care about die for a not confirmed chance of a cure in a world that is already doomed? that’s a question for yourself.

joel’s death happened so you could see things from multiple perspectives, which is the whole fucking point of the game. there are multiple sides to every story, it’s the same world we live in except in different circumstances. your actions affect others, people have feelings and if you hurt them they might act a certain way, those characters are no different than us because they were based on genuine human thoughts and actions.

ELLIE (growth and development)

ellie is one of the most well written characters I’ve ever seen in my life. she’s the symbol of badass but fragile woman and that’s so amazing to me. as the game goes by we start seeing many sides of ellie, she slowly starts to turn into a completely different person after joel’s death and her urge for revenge. killing abby becomes her main priority the second she leaves jackson and that’s clear in the way she acts and treats others. I’ll have to play the game again to pay more attention to ellie and abby’s behavior throughout the timeline. ellie is the reflection of how the excessive amount of effort you put into a negative thought, the more it will bring you and your loved ones down. watching ellie during the story is such a nice experience, there are times where you love her to death, others you get annoyed with her or don’t agree with how she acts, and that’s exactly how the creators wanted you to feel. revenge takes ellie’s soul from the inside out, from her not being able to forgive herself for letting joel die to her going after abby for nothing but hate for herself in the end.

ellie’s journey is exciting to play and to witness as her relationship with other people (specially dina) starts to fade away and being consumed by hate and regret. we were manipulated into loving ellie since part I and I don’t think she’s a bad person, she lost everything in the hands of other people and went through a lot, losing joel was a deal breaker for her but she just didn’t realize soon enough that killing abby wasn’t going to make things better. ellie’s gameplay was meant to make you reflect on losing a loved one, grief, mourning and revenge, she’s not the lost kid from part I anymore, she’s a grown woman who just lost her dad and she doesn’t even know exactly why. the funny thing for me, which is what makes the story realistic, is that ellie didn’t fully forgive joel yet she still suffered from losing him and went after abby for revenge, when not even herself could forgive him, that’s pretty realistic in my opinion. it’s the human uncontrollable instinct of still missing someone you’re mad at and not being able to say goodbye.

for me, ellie is the perfect and most detailed reflection of revenge and what it can do to you. the game is much more than “revenge is bad don’t do it”, we all obviously know it’s bad but we still have an urge to fight back against it and make the person who hurt us suffer too because it’s not fair for us and it wasn’t fair for ellie until the very last moment.

ABBY (point of view and perspective)

by far the most controversial character of the game. I’ll star off saying I actually like abby and I think the people who hate her so deeply just didn’t understand how things go. hating abby is no different than hating ellie, they’re in the same situation for almost the entire game. abby lost her father in joel’s hands, she was still a teenager and seeing her own dad die for trying to save humanity isn’t easy, just like ellie watching joel being tortured and killed wasn’t easy. being fully honest ellie would’ve done the same thing abby did if joel was the doctor and we can’t deny that.

on the other hand, I do think the ellie and abby gameplays could’ve been distributed better, maybe switching from ellie to abby and back and forth so it wouldn’t get too tiring or confusing since we don’t know the exact timeline when we first play it. that’s the only slightly negative thing I have to say about the game.

I do think abby is a great character, they built her perfectly to make the audience hate her in the begging, painting her as a sadistic monster only to show her side of the story later on in the game and make you realize that you have been wrong all this time, making you see the bigger picture and understand that ellie isn’t the only person in the world, she isn’t loved by everyone, she’s just a girl in the world and so is abby. they both have fucked up pasts and they both lost a lot, and in terms of personality, they’re actually quite similar. we love ellie because we got to see her grow up and WE know that deep down she’s not a bad person, the first impression we had of abby was of her recklessly killing joel with a golf club when ellie was begging her to stop, since that we tend to think abby is a horrible person and that ellie is an angel, but it’s not like that at all. obviously ellie didn’t do anything wrong up to that moment to justify that happening to her, but ellie isn’t the best person in the world either.

the duality in this game was created on purpose and with a deeper meaning, ellie is ellie, abby is abby and the cycle of revenge goes on until both parts understand that it’s useless to keep going. abby let go before ellie could and let her and dina live because of lev, killing joel didn’t change abby to the better, lev changed her. tommy couldn’t change ellie, jesse couldn’t change ellie and not even dina could do it, ellie had to change and forgive herself alone. the point I’m trying to make is that abby is no better than ellie and ellie is no better than abby, they’re both emotionally drained women who are not wrong or right in the end of things.

DINA (support and reflection)

dina is the only character I will 100% defend because she’s flawless and did absolutely nothing wrong during the whole game. in my head she represents ellie’s good side, dina is the constant reminder that ellie hasn’t lost her humanity and hasn’t completely changed into someone else because of revenge, even when she has her downs (example: calling her a burden when dina says she’s pregnant). dina is the most forgiving and loyal character, she loves ellie more than anything and it shows. the sad part of it is that even with dina’s huge amount of love and affection, that doesn’t stop ellie from going in the wrong direction, which brings us to another life lesson: loving someone is a choice you make everyday and nobody can control your choices when you’re determined to do something.

ellie decided to go after abby, dina followed and supported her the whole way through, then she took that for granted and left dina and JJ behind to go after abby again (after abby let her and dina live) officially breaking dina’s heart. that was a choice, dina obviously cared so much about ellie, loved her so much but she couldn’t change ellie’s mind. but the point here is that dina is a reflection of ellie’s bright side, she keeps ellie sane until the very last moment, saving her life multiple times, going with her in a revenge journey, “you go, I go, end of story”, telling the wolves to fuck off and staying by ellie’s side, constantly putting her life at risk while being pregnant, she has loves ellie for such a long time even before getting with jesse (you can read ellie’s journal where she says cat told her dina is jealous of their relationship) and she probably took ellie back when she came back from santa barbara (a theory that I believe in because it makes sense).

dina is one of the few positive ends in the universe of the last of us, highly optimistic, funny, beautiful and an amazing support system for ellie. if it weren’t for dina, ellie would’ve become a monster.

LGBTQ+ REPRESENTATION (ellie x dina and lev)

it’s 2020 and people are still talking shit about the game just because of queer characters. that’s why I say people who hate the game are people who either didn’t capture the story or just didn’t even try to pay attention because of a closed mindset bigot sandwiches. representation is the best path to general acceptance, making people see different stories and realize that someone’s gender or sexuality does not influence on the quality of art.

ellie is a lesbian, that’s clear in the game when she says she’s “not into jessie’s type” (such a nice dialogue by the way), she talks about her ex girlfriend and clearly has had a crush on dina for the longest time (probably the reason why she broke up with cat).

dina is bisexual, in my opinion she always had a crush on ellie but maybe she lost motivation to to after her when she started to get close to cat and started talking to jessie because of that and it ended up working.

now dina and ellie’s relationship is probably the only thing that keeps us sane throughout the game, when we sit down to think “thank god ellie has dina, that means she’s not alone”, which is basically the whole concept of it, ellie not being alone because dina is there to hold her to the ground and stop her from becoming someone she doesn’t want to be.

lev being trans is something I can‘t have an opinion on, I have seen both sides: people saying it was a good approach and others saying it wasn’t an accurate representation. I’m not trans so my opinion isn’t valid and I can definitely see why many people think it was a bad reach but I also can see the other side, so I won’t comment on that.

the nice thing about representation in this game is that they brought it up as a normal thing, the only moment the focus is sexuality is when seth was being a dick and called dina the d-word, ellie got defensive but dina stopped her from getting into a fight. even then the main focus of that situation was how ellie dealt with joel saying she didn’t need his help. the point was never ellie’s sexuality, never, not even in a single moment, because it was never an issue. in a post apocalyptic society people don’t pay much attention to being homophobes (unless they’re in a fanatic religious cult or just assholes like seth).

the game approached the subject very bluntly but in a normal way, not making it that huge of a deal but it is a big deal for those who seek comfort and/or are dealing with their sexuality in a way. if a character they admire ends up being part of a minority group, they can relate to that and feel more comfortable in their own skin. we’re here, we’re real and we exist even in a fucked up infected world.

ENDING + THOUGHTS (moving on)

the last of us part II is a story about revenge, being completely different than part I which is a story about love and surviving. what happens in the second game are the consequences of the first, the choices joel made reflected upon himself, saving ellie costed everything; the cure, people’s lives and maybe a brighter future. people who are bashing the game for it’s storyline and how things went down need to understand that it’s not because we love joel that his actions didn’t matter to others. joel is a human being, so is abby and those who got harmed by joel’s choice to save ellie. joel killed abby’s dad, abby went after him for revenge, a predictable and reasonable thing to do if you just try to see it from her point of view, keep in mind that ellie would do the same exact thing.

if you can’t get yourself to see things from other people’s point of view, you missed the whole point of the game. the storyline isn’t summed up in “revenge is bad don’t do it kids”, it’s just based on the fact that death can never and will never bring you any sort of relief.

the game is the reflection of the cycle of revenge. abby going after joel for killing her dad, ellie going after abby and killing all of her friends in the process, abby finally breaks the cycle letting ellie and dina live but ellie couldn’t get over the guilt and went after abby again, yet she ended up letting her ago and officially breaking the chain for good.

the whole concept of the game is how seeking someone else’s suffering can lead to full destruction of someone’s character and values.

if ellie had killed abby she would’ve turned into the monster she was fighting against and she would lose literally everything she hadn’t already lost: her humanity. I don’t actually know the exact reason that compelled ellie to let abby go, maybe it was losing her fingers and realizing that she’ll never be able to play guitar again, which was her very last memory of joel and what he taught her. it could also be thinking of lev and how he’s the only thing abby has and vice versa, which is what she had with joel and what was taken from her, therefore she didn’t want to turn into the person who put someone through the same pain she was going through. technically if she killed abby she would have to kill lev to avoid him coming after her and continuing the cycle and doing that would kill ellie even more.

to make this shorter, abby moved on earlier than ellie. mostly because abby actually got her revenge killing joel but you gotta look through things before you put all the blame on her. ellie lost everyone in her life, her parents, riley, tess, sam and then joel, going after abby was a defense mechanism since she couldn’t have done anything to save those she lost before, but losing the one who took care and raised her was something she couldn’t bare, specially when she thought joel was the only person she had even though they weren’t in good terms and she and dina weren’t a thing yet.

ellie needed to revenge joel at all costs because that’s what she thought he would want, but in the end she realizes he would want her to move on and be happy, because that’s what he always tried to give her: the best shot in life that he couldn’t give sarah. ellie thought that by killing abby she would be able to let go, when in reality she would just feel more guilty for leaving lev alone like she was having no emotional relief concerning her PTSD. ellie got to that beach fully aware that killing abby wasn’t going to solve any of her problems, but a single memory of joel made her make the decision that she wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. their final fight was silent, in the middle of nowhere, they had absolutely nothing to say to each other because they were both fighting for nothing but excessive mental emptiness. they both knew that nothing would bring their loved ones back and they were ready to move on.

what the game wants to teach you is that nothing good comes from searching revenge and other’s suffering. ellie gets consumed by her own view of justice and ends up losing herself both inside and outside, when she comes to terms with the fact that killing abby won’t bring joel back from the dead, it’s already too late. she lost jessie, her friendship with tommy, her good memories with joel, her fingers which results in her not being able to play guitar anymore, the love of her life and her son.

in the last of us part one ellie says that her biggest fear is to end up alone, and the saddest part of all is that her actions led her to making that fear come true. the ending is ambiguous, it can mean something different to different people depending on what you choose to interpret things and how you view the characters. for some, ellie could just end up alone looking for a life purpose that doesn’t involve anyone from her past. to others, ellie returned to jackson and proved dina that she loved her and that now she’s ready to fully commit because she let go of her anger and is at peace with herself and her inner struggles. but that’s all up to you to decide what you want to believe in.

at the end of the day, this storyline is beautiful, heartbreaking, breathtaking and emotionally draining. it makes you think and open your mind to new perspectives, which is honestly one of the best things art is able to do, create a new universe for you to deep your thoughts in and take your own conclusions. the last of us didn’t have a bad or good ending, it had a realistic ending. just because they didn’t make this the way you wanted it doesn’t mean the writing is bad, it means you’re probably disappointed and that’s fine, but hating on it isn’t the way to make a point.

I can only thank everyone involved for creating this world and making me so invested in it, connecting me with these amazing characters and emotions that I never experienced playing a game before. there is nothing more to say except: endure and survive.

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johnmurphysreddit · 5 years ago

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Collected spoilers and predictions

And my steaming hot takes on them

Lexa comes back to tell Clarke it’s OK to move on.

8/10 on the likely scale. Could be the actress. Could be a tech handwavium.

Lexa downloaded into Russell along with Sheiheda and they’ll fight for control of the body

And then Jason will say something incredibly awkward about his Ultimate Bisexual lead.

Sheiheda is Cadogan

Scarred emo boy in a hood looked too young for that to me, but if Indra is about 50 and Sheiheda was an evil overlord when she was a girl and we’re 100 years post apocalypse when Cadogan looked about 40 in his anti-tech videos.... Eh, the timeline was broken this season anyway. Continuity has never been a hard limit, and maybe that “each season is a movie” thing was to tell us this season’s even more off than others.

Sheiheda is the Shepherd

TBH I don’t understand this theory. How’s an emo teen murder boy from Sangeda who was on earth 50 years after the bombs simultaneously supposed to have lead a bunch of culty space mercs?

Cadogan is the Shepherd. The level 12s of his cult found the wormhole on earth and that’s why the bunker was empty.

Intriguing.

Cadogan is the Shepherd and they put him in cryo when his “tech is bad” philosophy conflicted with their use of mind readers, invisi-helmets, and wormholes that they got from the aliens.

We’re 25% of the way into the season. If we were going to see aliens I hope we’d see them by now or be focused on building tension around the “ooohhh aliens!” issue. But yeah, I think they iced down the Shepherd when his philosophy was no longer useful but having him as a focal point was.

Orlando was Cadogan.

Unlikely. Jason loves his own mythology and Orlando was a one episode character who’s dead now.

Clarke and Bellamy will wormhole back to the destroyed earth and restore the soil with Monty’s algae

In what continuity are they the people most inclined or able to tend and restore the soil?

Bellamy will be an amnesiac cultist when they find him and he’ll try to kill Clarke

My eyes just rolled so hard I saw my own brain, so yeah, 9/10 chance it will happen.

The way wormholes work and the planets are shown positioned on the diagram Penance is running at normal time it just seems faster compared to Sanctum. Sanctum is incredibly slow and Bardo is unknown. Bellamy could be anywhere from a few years older than when he left to dead of old age.

I don’t think Jason knows or cares how wormholes work and we’ve seen pictures of Bob looking well scrubbed but more or less the same as when he left but in a new outfit.

Under the Sanctum is the slow one theory earth has had thousands or millions of years to recover and they can go back to a lush green planet.

Gotcha. And bumping this up to plausible.

No no no that’s wrong. Earth and Sanctum are on similar time scales because we know Josephine and Russell’s age and.....

You guys are in too deep. “Time is misbehaving but there’s no time travel” means to me that counting the timeline is useless but no one is going backwards.

Bardo is Earth but after recovery time has passed. Cadogan’s people won (sort of) and they did inherit the earth. They were chilling in some other bunker still while the Grounder-Arker apocalypses were rolling.

I think that violates Jason’s no time travel statement, but I’m here for the idea that there are still bunker people on earth who skipped the entire Grounder and power plant melt down phase.

Bardo is on Earth inside a bunker. Boom. No time travel.

This theory is from reddit thus the hostility in the phrasing.

Clarke and Bellamy use the portals to go back and stop the apocalypse.

That would make a spin off about the apocalypse really awkward. Also when have Clarke and Bellamy jointly ever deescalated a situation?

The timelines split.

I love infinite possibility stories but they don’t seem to be doing that.

“The last war. A war to end all wars” is their attempt to kill Clarke. Clarke is Athena.

That would be a loud scream in the direction of BSG and I wouldn’t put it past them.

Our heroes have been the bad guys all along.

I mean yeah. Does anyone not know by now that “bad” is a matter of perspective? If not the Sanctumites who would really like to go back to organic farming and only losing people occasionally instead of in bulk and by fire would like to have a chat with you. All that “my people” stuff was to establish that there are multiple sides to a conflict.

It’s going to come down to a battle of Heda!Russell and the Sanctum collective against the Shepherd and his cult.

I don’t care about any of that at all, so 9/10 likely.

Gabriel and the Primes knew more about Bardo and the Shepherd than they’ve let on

We kind of got hints of that from some of Russell’s final dialogue about “ok you deal with it” and TBH I still don’t trust Gabriel. 200 years of intellectual curiosity just isn’t a strong enough reason for me to buy that he’s super zen as they’re hopping through time and space.

They guy who kidnapped Gaia is Bellamy.

If Bellamy had an invisibility suit I can’t see him using it to grab Gaia. Doesn’t matter if he’s brainwashed or not. Gaia just wasn’t a major player last time Bellamy saw her. It was an opportunistic grab and it doesn’t matter who does one of those.

There are six planets. Sanctum, Skyring, Bardo, Nakara, Ethera, and one offline. The offline one is Earth.

Maybe? Where did these planet names come from.

There are six planets. Sanctum, Skyring, Bardo, Nakaro, Ethera, and one offline. The offline one is ALIE’s world. Or Ethera is ALIEs world. Either way, ALIEs world is back in play.

Sounds plausible.

The cult is similar to the church in book 4 of the book series.

I don’t think Jason has read the book series and if he did he’s not going to admit it. He may have had an intern give him notes on it so he can throw some kibble to people who have but I wouldn’t expect the similarities to run deep.

Elligus 3 sold crew space to Cadogan’s cult, so we’ve got a coming conflict between the Elligus 3 descendants and the Cadogan people

Plausible. The people on sanctum are, in part, Elligus 3 descendants so this is already set up.

(BTS gossip and spec)

NOPE. Not getting into it. But I will say that the excessive use of day rate actors and greenscreen may be keeping the budget per episode down but it isn’t enhancing my enjoyment of the season.

They’re all going to disperse at the end. No more “we’re the last of the human race.” The human race can’t be stopped because it’s not in one location.

That’s very BSG. Steal from the best.

Clarke will pull a lever and die at the end.

That would be very on brand of her.

(character) x (character) endgame.

Every decision from the writing room at this point needs to be framed as “what gets them on a list to generate long term viewer dollars and relevance in five years.” I don’t believe shipping is part of Jason’s calculation. Some people very strongly disagree. We shall see.

It’s all a dream / Clarke’s been dead since (point) / none of them ever left ALIEs world / they’ve all been in cryo in underground bunkers the whole time.

This could be done really well or really poorly depending on the specifics of how they handled it

That’s the end of my list but I know I missed a lot. Comment or send me asks with others. It looks like we’re in for a ride.

#the 100 #spoilers #speculation #tbh I have no idea which are spoilers and which are spec

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mollyencrypted · 6 years ago

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Alternate Deep Space Nine Masterpost

[Main list here. If you enjoy this, please consider checking out the rest of the project!]

Julian Bashir and the Law of Conservation of Skeeviness

Subcommander T'Rul

Everyone’s favourite excitable Cardassian scientists might get recurrer status [Okay, probably not, but it was a nice idea whilst it lasted]

More Klingons!

Unity

T'Rul in ‘Way of the Warrior��

Garak/Bashir??? (I originally wanted it but now I have reservations so...)

Tora Ziyal and Jake Sisko

Bashir/Leeta stays and I wish it didn't

Garak doesn't go on a date with Ziyal and she has friends her own age

Come to Quark's, Quark's is fun...

T'Rul in 'Broken Link' (she does stuff now!)

Jadzia Dax in 'Apocalypse Rising'

The Risa terrorist episode doesn't happen and also T'Rul is there

Bajoran!Garak

Ziyal in 'The Ascent' (okay, she doesn't appear in person but still)

If Kirk can go from Cadet on probation to Captain then Garak could absolutely go from Cadet to Commander (at least according to him) (ft. me snarking about the end of Star Trek XI)

Ziyal has reasons to stay on DS9 that don't involve waiting for Garak because that would be really weird and pathetic

T'Rul interacts with other Romulans for the first time in years and Ziyal gets rejected

Garak in 'Doctor Bashir, I Presume?' [ACCIDENTALLY DELETED; ARCHIVED ON WORDPRESS]

So is anything about 'Doctor Bashir, I Presume' different as a result of 'Into Darkness'?

Fuck Richard Bashir (ft general headcanons)

Boring episode is replaced with the duo formerly known as the Noh-Jay Consortium adapting to its newest member whilst the senior staff are confused about Odo's new girlfriend

The Romulan Star Empire signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion. T'Rul did no such thing

The further adventures of Jake and Ziyal: Terok Nor edition

Ziyal is alive and fine and still living on the station

...well, fine if you don't count some serious guilt issues

Julian's feelings for Jadzia became platonic a while ago and nothing has changed that at all (ft. Quark, Garak, and me complaining about Change of Heart)

What happened to Section 31?

Here's what happened to Section 31

Tora Ziyal in 'The Valiant' (also, the events of STXI actually make that crew even more fanatical) (ft. probable foreshadowing)

'Profit and Lace' is a completely different episode, and Ziyal has an orb experience

Here's a cute headcanon about Ziyal babysitting the O'Brien children

Further ethical quibbling re:Garak/Bashir but at least I'm not deliberately keeping them apart at a time when their continued association would make perfect narrative sense

Ziyal in 'Tears of the Prophets' (ft. Jadzia not being dead)

The Orb of the Emissary episodes are a little different but still mostly happen except Jadzia isn't dead so some of the framing is different and also the composite entity of Ezri Dax never existed

'Afterimage' can't be Ezri Dax's incorporation into the story arc because she's still Ezri Tigan and still on the Destiny so it's a Bashir episode instead and dear God do I wish I didn't have so many ethical hangups with that ship, and T'Rul is probably in a subplot doing something interesting

'Chrysalis' doesn't happen

'It's Only A Paper Moon' is pretty much the same but modified for the KXP's continuity

'Prodigal Daughter' can't happen and the episode that spawned it didn't really make sense anyway so the DS9 crew stayed well away from everything about that arc

'Field of Fire' can't happen because Vulcan was destroyed and Jadzia isn't dead

Just saving myself a little time so I can save myself reiterating that Ezri Dax doesn't exist except in those instances where it is actually relevant to the plot

Worf/Dax is actually healthy and stable in this timeline and Bashir/Dax is not a thing that exists

Damar's actions are addressed, and Garak and Ziyal are Angsty Lizard Siblings

But does Gowron still die without Ezri to give Worf that pep talk? (Contributed by my IRL buddy)

Life after ADS9

I said I'd think about whether or not to make Garashir canon for this 'verse and I kept my promise (spoiler alert: I have)

T'Rul and Worf (spans the entire latter half of the show so there was nowhere neat to fit this)

I think I fucked up but I got either some neat worldbuilding or the opportunity to name characters out of it so it's probably gonna work out fine

It was the latter so T'Rul gets a first name! Yay retcons!

Garak and T'Rul go for drinks and complain about Weird Federation Crap, and Elim and Tepara talk about the Oralian Way and the teachings of Surak

Have another cute Ziyal headcanon courtesy of Timelines!

#star trek ads9 #kelvin expansion #star trek ds9 #star trek kelvin timeline #garashir #jakeziyal #deep space teens #mine #au #headcanon

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luimnigh · 6 years ago

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A Review of: X-Men: Apocalypse

I can’t believe I literally missed the Apocalypse.

X-Men: Age of Apocalypse

Directed by: Bryan Singer (ugh)

Written by: Simon Kinberg, Bryan Singer, Michael Dougherty, and Dan Harris.

Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alexandra Shipp, Lucas Till, and of course Hugh Jackman.

Score: 5.5/10

Watch If You Like: Having seen all the X-men movies, okay-ish movies that are entertaining and you need to kill two and a half hours.

Content Warnings: Hard PG-13 Violence, Mass Destruction of Cities, use of Stuffed Into the Fridge, on-screen child death.

Spoiler, as always, under the cut.

Yeah, this one… this one ain’t great, but it ain’t awful either. Honestly, it feels like a mid-2000s superhero movie. A okay quality one at that. The problem is our standards for superhero movies have gone up.

But yeah, it’s flawed. Heavily so. But it’s still an entertaining two and half hours. I don’t regret watching it, I would watch it again if it came on the television and there was nothing else on, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it again. Everyone gives decent performances with the material they’re given. Fassbender and McAvoy are the usual standouts. Oscar Isaac is a compelling villain.

It’s just that the plot isn’t great, relies on a lot of worn-out tropes, has some badly-shot scenes and CGI failures, and the timeline of these movies is beyond messed up at this stage.

The Good:

This movie’s Nightcrawler, while getting less screentime, is much better than X2’s portrayal. He’s religious, but not religious self-harming, which was probably offensive to Catholics.

Everyone gives pretty good performances. Sophie Turner is good, guys, she just wasn’t given good material.

I like how it ties back to First Class more than Future Past did.

Peter’s plotline is pretty good.

There’s some fantastic scenes, like the opening and the Quicksilver scene.

The Bad:

Psylocke and Angel get absolutely screwed over by the movie. It says something when Last Stand did better with Angel than this movie did.

They fridge Magneto’s family. Again. Because they couldn’t give him any motivation beyond “I want to kill all humans again because I didn’t learn my lesson the last time”.

On this point, why the hell is Magneto living in Communist Poland? I’m sure it’s a lovely place if you ignore the whole, y’know, secret police and dictatorship. If you’re trying to lie low, maybe live in a place without a secret police? Said secret police who find out about him and come to arrest him in the movie? Hell, the last time he was in Poland, it was during the Holocaust. You’d think he’d might want to avoid the country.

Speaking of the Holocaust, the Auschwitz scene. Now, I’m not Jewish, nor were any of my ancestors affected during the Holocaust, so I don’t feel like I’m fit to debate on whether Magneto destroying the ruins of Auschwitz was cathartic or if it felt like he was erasing history that should be remembered. But I’m pretty sure having Apocalypse and his crew standing there in full costume was kinda tasteless.

While there’s a lot of good shots and imagery in this movie, there’s other parts where the CGI fails, or where things just look kinda fake. Going back to Magneto, when the secret police officer releases his hold on his bow, the arrow does not look like it would fly anywhere near Magneto’s wife and daughter.

The whole Alkali Lake plotline was pretty pointless, and served only to give us a Wolverine cameo. Seriously, it serves no purpose besides conveniently giving our heroes a jet and taking Jubilee out of the movie.

Speaking of Wolverine, that scene with Jean Grey is really fucking creepy because they seem to play up the whole romance thing. While Jean is a teenager. It gets worse when you remember who directed this.

There’s a lot of mood whiplash in this movie. It goes from serious to silly to serious in seconds. Like the Quicksilver scene, which in a vacuum looks awesome, but just beforehand the Professor was kidnapped and Havoc died, and directly afterwards they’re dealing with the emotional fallout of those events. Kind of undercuts the whole awesomeness of that scene.

On the topic of Quicksilver… I’m sorry, he’s too powerful. It feels like he should be winning this whole conflict because he’s faster than an explosion.

Why the hell isn’t Moira angry about the whole mindwipe thing? She should be angry about the mindwipe thing.

Magneto killed thousands of people and gets to walk away like nothing happened.

Apocalypse denuclearized the planet and leveled Cairo and no-one seems to be concerned for more than five minutes.

On this topic, Storm. Why did it take you so long to turn on Apocalypse? He leveled your home city right in front of you. You had friends there. They’re dead now.

Psylocke just walks away from the final fight. Awkwardly.

At this point, the timeline is just fucked. Charles, Moira and Eric should all be in their fifties but look like they’re in their thirties; Alex, Hank and Raven barely look older than thirty when they’re in their mid-forties; there is a twenty-year age difference between the Summers brothers; and why is everyone who’s being born earlier due to Days of Future Past’s timeline split in their teens when that was only ten years ago?

The dialogue is clunky at points.

The Ugly:

Bryan Singer has been the subject of multiple accusations of sexual assault of minors over the course two decades. There are at least seven victims. These accusations are finally getting traction after all this time, and I can understand why someone wouldn’t want to watch this movie as a result of his involvement.

No-one had a good time working on this movie. Bryan Singer was frequently missing (some scenes were directed by the cinematographer) and unpleasant when he was around, there was tension between him and Sophie Turner, Oscar Isaac’s costume was uncomfortable and not suited to the humid conditions, and Jennifer Lawrence described the experience as “all chaos, no fun”.

In conclusion… there’s some good stuff in here, but I don’t think I can fully recommend it. If it comes on TV, maybe check it out, but I wouldn’t really bother seeking it out.

#luimnigh reviews #x-men #x-men apocalypse #tw: rape

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