#franchise corruption

[edwardos]

[loreetperso]

I have watched a video about How Star Trek: Picard ruins Star Trek. I don't necessarily agree it ruins the entire franchise, but mostly because you can always ignore it. Retcon happens all the time and its not like the Star Trek timeline have always been carefully constructed.

I mean they use to stumble upon godlike entity all of the time in the freaking days, even in TNG. And they just... mostly gotten away without explanation, and nobody really question it. Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. Angela Collier is right about the show being bad, and I agree with her through most of the video. Except... I mostly enjoyed ST: Picard. I never really though the show was good, but I enjoyed it. I had some frustrations with it too, but I was not as annoyed by them as Angella was. Part of it probably comes from the fact I hadn't watch TNG at the time. I'm halfway through it now, for reference. But I think part of it is my standards are a bit low... Space shows aren't exactly common, they are a thing I love in itself, so I was blinded by the shinnies. Also the kind of action seen it Picard is probably something I'm too confortable with? What I mean is this show is a shiny shell void of anything that made Star Trek interesting in the first place. It's dumb fun, but maybe this doesn't have to be Star Trek. Maybe it really shouldn't be.

I won't just paraphrase the video, it's a bit long but it's a good video. The point is, it's a bad show, but I enjoyed it and I didn't question it. And it wouldn't be too bad for a new franchise, but Star Trek has a legacy. A legacy build on bad first season leading to eventual very good shows, a legacy of though provoking stories, of politic statements, about a bright hopeful future... This is not what Picard is and it bothers me that it didn't bothered me watching it. It bothers me because it is a bastardization of a show that was special, and the new live Star Trek shows are loosing that specificity. Even Star Trek Strange New Worlds in some extent. The animated shows are doing much better. Anyway, all this to say what? ST Picard is not doing arm, not really to the canon of Star Trek, but to Star Trek as a franchise and to Star Trek as a narrative. You can always ignore part of a canon, but when the new stuff being produce is changing the narrative, you can't keep using its name in any meaningful way. At some point, Star Trek become just about whatever the new show-runner/producer want it to be about. It's just another settings, void of meaning.

And I don't want that. But it's difficult to recognize it's bad while I'm feeling entertain, even if I do recognize the show is bad. Certainly lacking a frame of reference made it harder to see what was lost. So people starting watching Star Trek with new Trek... probably won't see what is lost until they watch a bunch of old Trek. And it sucks, because it feels like homework, and we shouldn't have to do homework to watch a show. But I think we should very much care about a franchise legacy, even if we are not familiar with it. We should try to understand how things are changed. Because the producers don't care about it, so if we don't then... we'll just end up with a bunch of shiny empty shells.

[mythalism]

hmmm. thinking about how veilguard seems to subscribe more to the more traditional "video game as personal power fulfillment fantasy of heroism" than any other dragon age game, except perhaps origins, though origins does it more artfully.

[bethrnoora]

your obsession leads you around by the neck

[remusfinglupin]

No because the Beast is the real villain of the Descendants franchise. You’re telling me he not only brought all of the dead villains back to life after they’d already been defeated, repeatedly putting all of Auradon at risk, but he also exiled them to an island to live in poverty, along with their innocent children? And he never thought that this might be inhumane, not to mention dangerous and a generally bad idea?? What’s he on????

[a-dotrivenitupontop]

found family doesn’t have to mean ‘we can’t fuck each other’ or ‘were a group of friends with a mum friend’ sometimes it means john was missing a son so he used everyone but especially amanda to fill that gap and amanda was missing a father so she used john to fill that gap and hoffman was missing a sister so he used amanda to fill that gap and lawrence was missing a lover so he used hoffman to fill that hole and logan just liked talking to billy

[tawneybel]

Note: Clearing out drafts again. Had a bunch of bullet points about what was going to happen, but I completely forgot where I was going with this lol so they’re essentially nonsense.

Imagine the Riddler steering Ed towards you.

Nygma was so absorbed in thought, he didn’t notice you slip into the morgue after Lee left. The door clicked shut at the same time he opened the mortuary locker.

Your headphones were donned, but not on. So you were vaguely aware of Nygma talking to himself.

Is he playing mortician again?

Technically you were supposed to admonish him if that was the case. Your new superiors had warned you of his antics.

“When Dr. Thompkins walked in the room, how did it feel?” You were mentally going over your schedule. The question didn’t register until you caught, “She didn’t. You got away with it.”

Okay, I need to tell him to knock it off. As a coroner, dark humor didn’t bother you. It was just that Nygma was getting too haughty about-

“THAT IS ABSOLUTELY THE POINT!”

That jolted you.

You’d crept behind him and jumped a bit at the exclamation. Which caught his attention. He gaped at you and you gaped at the occupant of the mortuary locker. Kristen Kringle. No wonder Nygma sounded so off.

His odd monologue forgotten, you threw your arms around him. Ed was baffled.

“Oh Ed, I’m so sorry!”

When did this happen? you wanted to ask aloud. But it wasn’t the time for queries. Later, though, you would wonder whether Ed fought the compulsion to pose a riddle.

“I bet you can still feel the rush, can’t you?” the Riddler asked Ed. “You know who can help you get that same rush?”

Ed, the “good” Ed, knew the other didn’t want to hurt you. At least not the same way Miss Kringle was hurt.

“Dougherty,” whispered the woman embracing him now. Ed forgot for a moment that you were new. That you hadn’t seen Kristen Kringle suffer like he had. His head reeled. You didn't seem like you’d be openly jealous of a partner’s ex. In fact, Ed would bet anything you were far more compassionate than him. That you were the type to give up a lover just to see them happy.

(The name had just slipped out. A boyfriend was the likeliest culprit. You didn’t think anything of it when Tom Dougherty had… transferred? Really, you were out of the loop at Gotham PD.)

Not that Nygma planned on giving you up. He wasn’t the type. His other self was really giving him quite the identify crisis, but he was sure he could slide into the role of ______’s boyfriend with ease.

“You can still feel the rush, can’t you?” The Riddler flittered closer and closer to Ed. Your hug had loosened, but your grip on him was growing stronger and stronger. “Coming so close to getting caught. Knowing what you and ______ would be forced to do if Lee had seen the body.”

“______?” muttered the forensic scientist.

“Yes?”

You finally released him. Feeling you through his suit wasn’t enough. Next time he’d need to feel your skin on his. Even just holding hands. But the Riddler knew there’d be plenty of time to lock yourselves together soon.

[depravedsafehaven]

[daydreaming-ace]

You ever think about how Joronia's corruption started? Sure, the mirror was there, but what influenced her?

... I think it was the image of her best friend, her advisor and confidant. After all, who else should she trust to guide her towards her best self?

---

Imagine your best friend, who you've spent centuries with, gets you a mirror because of your self-esteem issues. As he's giving it to you, he explains that the mirror is meant to show you how he sees you: an absolutely beautiful person, flaws and all.

And then he leaves you alone with the mirror.

As you're staring at yourself, it warps to look like your best friend but... Wrong. Your best friend is a klutz, a coward, but this man looks too refined for either of those things.

And then he starts talking.

He's judging you, telling you what you should be wearing. Telling you how to style your hair, your make-up, everything to emphasize your best features.

You follow his directions, of course. Your best friend surely knows what's best.

And you're right– he is right.

You're beautiful.

Your best friend—your normal, clumsy and nervous, best friend—agrees! He's always said you looked beautiful, but you feel more confident in him this time.

So you trust the reflection of your best friend more, wanting to make yourself even more beautiful. No, not just beautiful, absolutely divine!

So, with a grin, he does.

.

.

.

Time flashes by, and your reflection changes. You're further from your mortal self, turning yourself into a goddess.

Your best friends begin to blur together, but that's alright. They both think you're beautiful, they want you to become your best self.

You're not there yet, you need more resources.

Looking between the clouds, you know how to get it.

[reel-fear]

Reminder Mike is literally so rich and successful he owned/owns[?] a Bendy themed custom car. His franchise also has merchandise in Hot Topic and fucking Walmart alongside huge companies like Hasbro and such. Nobody made him delete his Twitter, he made a shitty comment towards someone who just wanted to see more poc in Bendy, then people rightfully told him off. Then he got so upset he deleted his account, because despite how upset it seems to make him when people rip him apart for the stupid shit he says he also can't keep his mouth shut.

Nobody MADE Mike tweet that shit, nobody was holding a gun to his head to be active on social media again. In fact it would probably be better if he wasn't so active so he could focus on actually making the damn games. All of that was his choice, it just so happens it was a poor one he eventually regretted and took back. He's not a victim, he's an asshole quite frankly. He put himself in that position, acted all tough and rude. Like he didn't care what the fans had to say and talked down to them like they were idiots, then the fans bit back and suddenly he couldn't take it. He could dish it but he couldn't take a Fraction of it? That's on him 100%.

That's that on that <3

[freevoidman]

okay but @/dmbakura's tags on their reblog of the "men can kill 10000 people and be a babygirl but a woman is slightly mean and people want her to die" post are SO FUCKING TRUE.

Netflix!Mary being criticized primarily for swearing a lot and being mean is SO FUCKING TELLING because yes, she does swear a lot, but she's JUST as much of a bitch in DMC3 as she is in the show!!! She's supposed to be a bitch character that's her whole appeal!!!!!

Meanwhile, almost NO ONE talks about her hatred towards demons and how the show recontextualizes that into her slaughtering innocent refugees! Like guys, THAT'S a big criticism to levy especially since S1 has Mary somewhat miss the totality of the concept: she can accept there are refugees but still thinks demons are too dangerous, that's why she backstabs Dante. We currently don't know what a second season will do to address that or if she's going to fully get the memo!!! Those are all realistic and genuine criticisms to bring up!

But, no, bring up her swearing a lot instead. Or just blindly call her a cop (which she isn't??? it's clear that she's a member of a spec-ops military group??? but yeah cop is easier to say i fuckin guess) and not directly address the imperialist and militarist concepts being brought up in her character and why you think it's a bad idea.

[mayoiayasep]

happy birthday kei miyama my wish for you is that you are allowed to be an actual antagonist

[lord-squiggletits]

One of my least favorite parts of how JRO wrote Optimus is that he wanted so badly to continue his dark and gritty world building making the Autobots problematic, but evidently couldn't reconcile this with Optimus being a Heroic Paragon, so instead he leaned way too hard into "oh Prowl was the one who did this and it was behind Optimus' back" which if anything I think makes Optimus look worse, not better. Because then it's like, okay I know Optimus trusted Prowl a lot as his friend but you CANNOT TELL ME that over the course of 4 million years, Optimus as the leader of the Autobot army who literally would have access to 99.9% of all the records they produce, would never notice or question where some of these odd/inconsistent details were pointing. It just seems really inconsistent with how a real military would actually function, especially regarding Optimus' character, who is incredibly thorough and responsible and wouldn't neglect to keep up with all the details of his army.

Hell, Optimus knows who the Wreckers are and had them on call for tricky operations when he needed them (Stormbringer) so he's literally not at all ignorant of/averse to the use of special wartime units composed of dubious individuals. He's the fucking commander of an entire army, of course he knows that War Is Hell (TM) and no one's hands are clean. That's not even getting into all the stuff he got up to in phase 2/3, I mean everything from the annexation of Earth to OP breaking humans out of prison against Council orders shows that Optimus is no stranger to immoral and/or unlawful means.

It also leads to a lot of annoying fanon where people write Optimus (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not) as like some sort of ignorant fool who's unaware of the machinations of his own army or has some sort of naiveté of "b-but we can't use bad tactics against the enemy! I would never condone the use of morally gray means in war!" No, IDW Optimus knows perfectly well all of the bullshit he's enacted/condoned for the sake of trying to win the war. Some stuff is definitely out of character for him and was only machinated because of Prowl, but I think this fandom REALLY underestimates Optimus' personal agency/responsibility as the commander of a whole ass army and ESPECIALLY underestimates Optimus' capacity to condone morally gray Bullshit Of War while still being a good person individually as well as, comparatively, the lesser evil compared to Megatron/the Decepticons.

Anyways what I'm saying is JRO may be a good writer but he's really hesitant to make Optimus morally gray and does some asspulls sometimes to justify most of the bad things the Autobots did as "Optimus just didn't know," and since the majority of the IDW1 fandom only reads JRO's stuff they go running with this premise of ignorant/uninformed Optimus when there's evidence elsewhere in canon to show that Optimus is, in fact, very highly aware of the bullshit he's allowed "for the greater good" and the only stuff he was "unaware of" was the stuff he would literally never agree to the ethics of, like bombing innocent neutrals disguised as Decepticons to get them to join the Autobots.

[kicksnscribs]

fucking hate when a new FNAF game drops bc im am no where near interested in participating in the fandom and yet i am always reminded that I am willing to seek out and consume any and everything that involves one specific character for hours the second that i see any hint of them on the screen...

[cinerins]

Watched my friend play Doom: The Dark Ages, which in turn made me want to replay all of 2016 (always a treat) but as soon as I touched Eternal, I immediately remembered why I never think about the modern Doom canon beyond 2016...

Maybe it's just personal taste, but even with all the wild new worldbuilding and general air of "What the hell happened?" (intrigued) Doom 2016 still felt like it had a consistent, relatively grounded direction and prominently anti-capitalist theme connecting it to the original era without getting too crazy in the power fantasy.

This might just largely be due to the way they cannibalized Doom 3's convoluted story into an action-packed abridged version, but still...

I don't hate the concept (and they did give it a vaguely "poetic" although shallow end in the TAG DLCs) but I can't say I was ever a fan of the whole "divine origin" direction Eternal took for the characters. To me, 2016 presented this idea of becoming something greater in spite of the circumstances, instead of being born special.

Samuel Hayden in his initial appearance was obsessed with being better, being more—his Codex entry quotes him explaining his new giant body with "You never know when we may need a hero." which actually perfectly explains his apparent obsession with the mythical "Slayer" and his betrayal at the end of the game. To me, it gave the impression that he was a classic rich man with a literal god complex, who wanted to make himself into the hero the Slayer was forced to become. Back before Eternal, it actually left me excited for a sequel where we essentially tear this False Savior Hayden would presumably present himself as from his self-made throne.

VEGA started off as inhuman and extraordinary as an AI, but was ultimately a tool made to serve, no matter his apparent potential. So when they added that brief little choice of Doomguy backing him up on a chip before his destruction, I was looking forward to what they might do with him in the future... and the conclusion that this AI was actually God who betrayed True God and became even more of a perfect and detached entity than before was, uh, not exactly what I had hoped for. One would think with the overall themes presented in 2016, the goal would have been for something so detached yet shackled, to become grounded and free. But Oh Well.

And then there's the Doom Slayer. Last time you checked, this was just some unfortunate space marine who would defy all odds and become the physical embodiment of the indomitable human spirit. He would go on to fight demons in hell forever, so others wouldn't have to and because he had nothing left to lose. Suddenly waking up chained to a rock with bizarre new implications that somewhere along the way he became a sort of legendary warrior beast thanks to interdimensional space templars sure was wild, but it worked because he couldn't care less. The UAC was up to some demon summoning bullshit again and there was some self-important CEO harping on about how the death and suffering of millions was "necessary" and so Doomguy was pissed.

The bits and pieces of this "lost past" as a legend among the Night Sentinels wasn't as important at the time, but it did leave me curious and open-minded to what exactly it would entail and how exactly that random marine ended up as the Great Slayer, sealed in a sarcophagus. However, a point of contrast I had hoped to see emphasized between him and Hayden would've been that he didn't care about any of that and even if he was hailed as some kind of demigod, he was still just an absurdly determined and justifiably angry human guy. He was fighting demons and walked through hell not because he wanted to be a hero or for some huge legacy, but because someone had to.

While Eternal (and eventually The Dark Ages) would go on to expand on some of that mysterious "legacy," it really wasn't the direction I had hoped for and just left me with more questions and somewhat disappointing answers...

That said, it's doing things to my brain and... No... Don't go there... I shan't write a Doom 2016+ Canon Divergence AU Fic...! Not now!! ...aaaaAAAAAARRFGHHG!!!!!!!!! (opens document)

[digitalcarcrash]

i think that you can(and should) enjoy hoffman as a character and also acknowledge that he is an inherently horrible person who has done very bad things. those two things can coexist btw