#i'm definitely a part of the problem

[vvivacious101]

What about Eddie? - An Introspective

I have been giving this a lot of thought especially because I didn’t expect Eddie to be as severely sidelined as he has been in the last three episodes of 9-1-1. A lot of people have picked up on this, rabid Eddie fans and general audiences alike and they have good reason to.

This isn’t the Eddie Diaz show but this is the Eddie Diaz season!

The show doesn’t owe us narrative consistency (as a fan of Supernatural, I still bear the scars of this injustice) but it doesn’t mean that being narratively inconsistent doesn’t impact your show. You can choose to run your show into the ground (which recent evidence might indicate is happening to 9-1-1) but people can still point out that you are running your show into the ground.

Eddie Diaz

Eddie Diaz is a riddle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a taco. He is also apparently 9-1-1’s least liked character which makes it weird how he consistently manages to trend on Tumblr every week 9-1-1 airs especially considering the fact that he is only in 2 and three-quarters of the last three episodes.

Which begs the question – why is everyone so obsessed with Eddie?

There is actually a good reason for that and I brought data to prove it.

So, far season 8 has had 16 episodes the breakdown of storylines between characters is as follows:

[Disclaimer: A primary storyline implies that the storyline was the main focus of the episode it was part of. The plot points in italics are more likely to impact storytelling in future episodes, these tend to pull more emotional focus and are not purely plot-focused ones.]

Athena (Primary Storylines in Red, Rest in Black)

Athena, Dennis Jenkins and shenanigans in a Boeing (E01-03)

Rookie Cop (E07)

Cart Cop (E08)

Athena helps Maddie catch a serial killer and helps her deal with the consequences (E09-10, 12)

Athena meets her mother-in-law (E11)

Athena & Buck team up to rescue the trapped members of the 118 (E14-15)

Athena deals with her grief over Bobby (E16)

Buck (Primary Storylines in Pink, Rest in Purple)

Buck and Capt Gerrard (E01-04)

Buck helps Bobby get to Athena (E02)

Billy Boils (E05)

Buck & Tommy break up (E06)

Buck dealing with his abandonment issues (E09)

Buck dealing with the fact that Eddie is gone (E11)

Buck helping Eddie parent Chris (E12-13)

Athena & Buck team up to rescue the trapped members of the 118 (E14-15)

Eddie (Primary Storylines in Green, Rest in Blue)

Eddie & Chris on the outs (E01)

Eddie helps a father-son duo reconcile (E04)

Eddie goes to church (E06)

Eddie decides to move back to El Paso (E08)

Eddie deals with Buck acting out because he has abandonment issues (E09)

Eddie’s absence haunts the narrative (E11)

Eddie reconnects with Chris while standing up to his parents & proving to Buck that he isn't being abandoned (E12-13)

Bobby (Primary Storylines in Red, Rest in Black)

Bobby at the set of Hotshots (E01)

Bobby comes to help Athena (E02-03)

Bobby helps Hen takedown Councilwomen Ortiz (E04)

Bobby & Brad Torrence (E08)

Bobby’s mother (E11)

Bobby steps up to save Hen, Chimney & Ravi while he sacrifices himself (E14-15)

Maddie (Primary Storylines in Red, Rest in Black)

Maddie saves a mother-daughter duo with severe bee allergy (E01)

Maddie helps catch a serial killer (E09-10)

Maddie deals with the aftermath of her throat being slashed (E12)

Maddie helps the 118 navigate the lab (E14)

Hen (Primary Storylines in Orange, Rest in Pink)

Hen & Karen fail to get their foster license reinstated (E01)

Hen takes down Councilwomen Ortiz (E04)

Halloween & Denny’s NDE (E05)

Nearly everyone forgets Hen’s birthday (E12)

Hen steps up to save Chimney (E15)

Chimney (Primary Storylines in Pink, Rest in Purple)

Chimney takes down a tiger (E04)

Maddie is pregnant (E06)

Chimney nearly dies (E14-15)

Chimney deals with his survivor’s guilt (E16)

So, I started rating the storylines, a primary storyline gets a score of 3, if two characters share the primary storyline they both get a score of 2.5 each. A secondary storyline gets a score of 2 and a tertiary storyline gets a score of 1. If two characters share a secondary storyline they both get a score of 1.5 each. Since this is an ensemble show, certain characters might have character beats that are important despite not being a part of plots A, B or C – it does happen especially in the contained mini-arcs, then they get a score of 0.5 each in episodes where there are clear plots A, B & C and 1 each in episodes where the primary arc is the emergency itself and there are no clear plots A, B & C.

I made two charts based on this calculation, firstly including all possible storylines irrespective of their impact on the season’s arc and a second one which negates any storyline that doesn’t have an overall bearing on the season’s arc. Most of Athena’s storylines are contained to her character and don’t impact the rest of the 118. Therefore despite being the character with the most primary storylines in season 8, the impact of those storylines doesn’t ripple down to other characters on the show and therefore tends to be less meaningful. Take the rookie cop storyline which was a brutal testament to police brutality but despite having a very depressing outlook the fact that it doesn’t impact any other main character means that for the most part, nobody will remember it as the season progresses.

If we remove everyone who isn't in the top three (for reference that is Athena, Buck & Eddie in that order) we get this:

If you only chart character beats that impact the arc of the season you get this graph.

Again, recharting with only the top three (which are Eddie, Athena & Buck in that order):

All this depicts that while Eddie isn’t the most important character on 9-1-1, in season 8 he has had an uncharacteristic impact on the season’s arc and that’s the reason why it feels so weird that we aren’t focusing on him any longer. I feel like anyone who is just a casual viewer of the show might also be left wondering about Eddie because so far he was the unmistakable emotional core of season 8 of 9-1-1 and all of a sudden it feels like we have been left hanging. We all went on a journey with Eddie and at the moment, it feels like the show has forgotten to address it and that's the reason it stands out – it’s because it's WEIRD. It's narratively inconsistent at least for season 8 of 9-1-1.

This is also the reason why despite Angela Bassett being number one on the call sheet and definitely the most prominent actor on the show (for good reason), Buck feels more like the main character of 9-1-1 because as audiences we care more about emotional arcs than purely plot based ones and Buck has been the emotional core of this show since it started. Again the fact is that besides Athena, he is the one with the most plot focus. Eddie is the outlier this season, I feel like if I was charting this for any other season he would be down there with the majority of the characters but this season deliberately chose to centre Eddie. So, for anyone wondering why it seems like anybody only seems to care about him is because the show told us to, and we can't keep ignoring it any longer.

[ruporas]

feast (ID in alt)

[vaguely-concerned]

I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today

[venomouslilith]

.

[eveningrainstorm]

Listen. Swansea is great; he's a well-written character and I like him a lot. But it's weird to me how much fan content I see about him that seems to make him out to be a lot nicer than he's actually shown to be in the game, and nowhere is this more obvious than in how people depict his relationship with Anya.

I've seen other people address the whole "If Anya had told Swansea what happened he'd have killed Jimmy" thing (she did. he didn't.) but there's a larger issue where people act like Swansea cared a lot more about Anya and was a lot closer with her than is actually the case in canon. And sure, the game leaves a lot of room for differing interpretations of things and imaginings of what could have happened offscreen, but I've seen so many people act like this idea of Swansea and Anya being close is something actually depicted in canon which. It very much is not.

Like okay. Let's talk about this. What does the game itself actually show us about Anya and Swansea's relationship?

Well, we don't see much of their dynamic before the crash aside from them just being coworkers with some level of familiarity with each other. They do stand together at the birthday party, and Anya playfully tells Curly that “Swansea really likes that cake. Don’t tell anyone,” to which Swansea only "hmph"s in response. From this we can gather that the two of them are friendly enough that Anya feels comfortable teasing him. Even so, she certainly isn't an exception to his characteristic harshness and brutal honesty — take an interaction later in the same scene, where a distressed Anya says she has no savings and asks if Pony Express can really fire them like this and Swansea, not cruelly but certainly bluntly, tells her that Pony Express going under has been a long time coming.

Of more importance, perhaps, is the game's first "2 months after the crash" segment, where we are first introduced to both of them — and where the game makes it quite apparent just how little Swansea respects Anya. The very first scene, in fact, features Swansea interrupting Anya and mocking her when she tries to explain why opening the cargo hold is a good idea. Later, when talking to Jimmy, Swansea calls Anya "our so-called nurse" and says that "it's in one ear and out the other" when talking about how she nearly got injured on the broken vent. And if you get the code scanner before talking to her Swansea will tell you to get her before opening the cargo hold but specifically with the justification that "even she couldn't make the situation worse with her presence." None of this is really uncharacteristic of Swansea, given he talks about Daisuke in much the same way, but it's not something that can just be swept under the rug — and yet, seemingly, everyone does. I hardly ever see anyone even mention Swansea insulting her here.

Of course, none of these scenes are where the idea that Swansea and Anya are particularly close comes from. No, that idea comes from a single scene: "3 months after", when Jimmy finds the two of them talking in the cockpit at night. We only see the end of this conversation, where Anya, apparently crying, is saying “No. I understand completely. If that’s how it has to be—”

The game never reveals exactly what the two of them were talking about; the two main theories I've seen are that Swansea was telling her that he was saving the cryopod for Daisuke or that she had told Swansea that Jimmy assaulted her and Swansea was saying she'd just have to put up with being around him for the time being. Personally, I think the latter is much more likely, but either way, the end result is the same: regardless of how much Swansea cares about Anya, her well-being is not his first priority.

We never see any follow-up on this conversation; if Anya and Swansea meet up behind Jimmy's back at any other point, we don't see it or hear it referenced. "4 months after" offers no interaction between the two of them at all, with Swansea busy dancing drunkenly while Anya, on the other side of the lounge, tells Jimmy about the extra medicine cabinet. "5 months after", Anya commits suicide in Medical while Swansea sits drunk and oblivious in front of Utility. The only reference to Anya and Swansea's conversation — and the closest we get to a confirmation of what it was about — comes after Daisuke's death, when Jimmy uses "telling Anya who knows what" as a sign of shady behavior from Swansea, and Swansea agrees that he did talk to Anya, "but it was her telling me all sorts of things instead, wasn't it?", the implication being that she told Swansea about Jimmy raping her.

This line is interesting. Swansea is referencing what Jimmy did to Anya here, and implicitly condemning him for it, and yet... well, Anya's already dead. Swansea isn't doing anything for her, really; he doesn't seem particularly emotional or angry about it, either. All it really is, when it comes down to it, is a spiteful jab at Jimmy — just Swansea, still angry over Daisuke's death, trying to get under Jimmy's skin.

We never see Swansea react to Anya's death. This isn't surprising; we aren't shown what happened when Daisuke got the door to Medical open, and afterwards Swansea is understandably preoccupied with Daisuke's fatal injuries. The first thing Swansea says about Anya after her death is the line about her telling him things. And, well... here's the problem.

That line? Is also the last thing Swansea says about Anya.

He never mentions her again. That one line, the one that doesn't even mention her death, the one that seems more about getting at Jimmy than mourning her — that's the last we hear of her from Swansea. And maybe he does care, maybe her death is just as much a catalyst for him trying to kill Jimmy as Daisuke's is. But he never says anything about her. He doesn't mention her in his death scene. Sure, that last portion of the game is largely filtered through Jimmy's mind, his disregard for Anya keeping her out of focus, but Swansea's death — a moment of sharp, simple clarity in which Swansea says all the things Jimmy doesn't want to hear — doesn't have that excuse. Swansea doesn't say a thing about her, because in the end, he's not focused on her either.

So that's what we have. They don't seem to be that close, before or after the crash, though they theoretically could be. Anya telling him specifically about what Jimmy did could be considered a notable show of trust, but then again she could have just wanted to tell someone and considered him her best option, and in any case if she was hoping for him to do anything about it, he didn't. And despite a large portion of the fandom believing it to be the case, there isn't actually anything indicating that he told Anya about the cryo pod — if anything, his assertion that it was Anya who told him things rather than the other way around is evidence against it. Technically, anything's possible — Swansea could have comforted Anya when she told him about Jimmy, he could have offered her the cryo pod, he could have grieved her just as much as Daisuke — but looking at what the game itself presents, the picture it paints is far different from the one typically seen in the fandom.

We don't know what's going on in Swansea's head. We don't know what happens in the time between the moments the game shows us. But what the game does show us is this: Swansea repeatedly is disrespectful and rude to or about Anya; Swansea doesn't do anything after she tells him what Jimmy did to her; Swansea doesn't have any real reaction to Anya's death. Does he care about her? Probably. I'd like to believe so. But she's not the one he decides to kill Jimmy over, she's not the one he has regrets for in his dying moments, she's not the one he's saving the cryo pod for.

Maybe Swansea cares about Anya, but she's not his first priority. And isn't that sort of the point? This is what the game has been showing us the whole time: Anya is no one's first priority, except her own.

[daily-whistlebreeze]

daily whistlebreeze until ki becomes PoV day 1553

the results of the prompts challenge are in (and have been for a while, but I have been distracted <3) and Stretchkit and Rustlekit are here to assist Whis with the planning.

as you have voted to have a full month of Whisses, I have decided that this will happen in July. I can't really do it earlier because I need to focus on my exams in June. I have already prepared the prompts and I will share them when July approaches (in the meantime I'll try to cobble a pretty image for it together)

[twentyonebucks]

hail to THE bucktommy truther guys it's coming home

[transingthoseformers]

Hi hello question for you: if TF characters got dropped into Subnautica just, randomly, who do you think is handling it best VS who do you think dies embarrassingly quickly (to themselves)?

Hmm now that's an interesting question, because I think most bots are a little more durable than humans and their main threats would be chance encounters with leviathans and environmental dangers (see: especially deep depths, actively hostile geology, the goddamn water)

Things would become exceedingly difficult if they can't get their hands on proper water capable altmodes, but if they CAN then I think they'd do better on 4546B than humans might.

We might have a beast wars situation on our hands where the bots have to be in their altmodes 90% of the time outside of base, because otherwise they're going to start running into issues with how long they're in saltwater and more intense depths than any of them are used to (*especially* if they're venturing off the continental shelf)

In my mind, the mecha who already have aquatic or semiaquatic altmodes are probably doing the best. Seaspray and High Tide have this shit covered, and they have it covered well. Mecha who were stationed on Earth or on earthlike exoplanets in general have an advantage over those who weren't.

I'm not sure which characters might die the quickest, but minibots and minicons would be at more risk with the local fauna, and it's going to be harder for mecha with little to no experience with oceans (or even water in general, considering how some depictions of Cybertron do not have water)

[psychomusic]

so. I've been reading some posts on the jedi order tag AND i won't talk about my opinion on "are jedi good or bad discourse" BUT i wanna point out some lore to everyone who's complaining about the jedi taking kids into their order: (in the EU) it wasn't always like this.

if you take swtor era (more than 3000 years before the prequels) there were many jedi who joined at an older age. like, for example there was a guy who broke his engagement to become one. most jedi remember their families because they were old enough when they decided to go.

THEN in darth bane's book trilogy (circa 1000 yesrs before the prequels) there is a passage where two sith lords are talking about taking bane, already an adult, to study at korriban. one doubted him because he was too old, ans the other told him he sounded like a jedi, and that ONE DAY jedi will have to accept only kids into their ranks if they really want to find "pure" people that can learn their lessons quicker.

one day!! so it wasn't always like that!! the ongoing wars with the sith, who corrupted and killed many of them, had pressured them into taking always younger people into their ranks.

also, consider a thing that this video explains super well: training to become a jedi is not like exercising, because there is a transformative lesson at the end of the training that changes everything. you can't just do as much as you can, but not finish.

the transformative lesson, as the video explains, is that through the force, everything is the same - from rocks and ships to life and death. at the end of the training you have to understand this fundamental truth.

yoda says "you have to unlearn what you have learned". during times where they were constantly killed off or corrupted by the dark side (and if you haven't learned this lesson you are more susceptible to this corrupting), younger people were taken in to actually finish their training (a training that was ultimately about being a good person AND that you could leave at any point if you weren't sold on that, too)

(remember that for the sith failure = death. like. that was the alternative for force sensitive kids. it's not like sith had any moral problem with taking kids away without consent. sith don't have moral problems: they believe that them being stronger in the force means they can do whatever they want as long as their strong enough to go and do it. there are MANY passages in many different star wars stories, even in different mediums, that say this out loud)

AND (this is more of a critical thought than just stating the lore) the fact that they started doing it out of necessity doesn't mean it's 100% good BUT you know. the whole set up of the prequels is that we're starting off the story in a period of crisis and decadence all around. most of the systems of the times were about to fall. OF COURSE they had problems. if they didn't, we wouldn't have the story to begin with.

that doesn't automatically mean jedi = bad and sith are better, tho. you wouldn't take the last, chaotic and decadent period to jugde something, would you? it's like deciding that the athenian democracy sucked because people at the times of Demosthenes failed at recognizing the new schemes in which the world was evolving into, and still believed that their city would be important as it had been in the previous century. They just didn't fucking expect the Macedons would conquer half the world known and more, and have the subsequent political power. Still, their experiences in the 5th century with democracy were very good, even better than ours on many fronts, if you contextualize a little. the jedi had flaws, and most importantly, they didn't fucking know the future and everything that ever happened, ever, so they made mistakes. that doesn't automatically make the system ill, or bad, or not-working. systems can have setbacks when the world changes. (just like athenian democracy had one when they lost the empire that was funding the democracy. they even had a tyranny for a while and then fixed the problems. that doesn't diminish retrospectively their democracy)

[plusultraetc]

Have you published this yet? 😭 i NEED IT

I have not, I'm so sorry 😭 I am a very slow writer and fake dating real feelings turned into a longer fic than I anticipated!! I do have a tag for it now where I post snippets, and here's some more of The Phone Call as an apology for how long this dang fic is taking (little language warning for anyone who needs it!):

[followfire]

Just had something happen to me which was very close to a situation I often have nightmares about, and I thought those nightmares were a bit over the top, like, you know, the way dreams tend to be...

Well turns out the dreams weren't exaggerating at all. In fact it's worse in real life. The nightmares were the game turned on easy mode. :)

[ramblesbiab]

sometimes I feel like a puppy when I'm waiting for plans with friends that are, realistically, already cancelled. Like I'll see so many signs that we're not actually gonna get in a call together, then just keep sitting there patiently watching the voice channel, fidgeting my little paws as I keep telling myself someone will join soon

[hanzajesthanza]

"the michael kandel translation of "the witcher" short story can't hurt you!!"

the michael kandel translation of "the witcher" short story:

[piningpercussionist]

transfem scott getting lots of support from ramona and kim in the early 2000's when shit's very taboo but they all 3 have a fire forged bond and lord if they aren't going to make sure they're all as happy as they can be because they've come this far and I dunno it just makes me happy all three of them

YES YES YES

It makes me very happy as well,,

Like I've said before. General Trans Scott enthusiast here- I love the idea of their little support network *violent coughing* I (we?) mean polycule *violent coughing* so fucking much.

Ramona I think has a bit of a more gentle hand with reassuring Scott with gender issues, but sometimes she just can't help herself from some pointed banter or teasing- how could you with someone so dense? (Said w affection)

And then Kim I think is more blunt. But like, in a good way mostly, you know? The kinda blunt that makes you snap to attention and go "Oh. Yeah that was silly of me." And if Ramona's started some sort of banter? Kim is SO piling on. Maybe sometimes she's a bit TOO blunt with it- but it's only because she's so firm in her support. She wants Scott to Get It Together- and be happier for it. So if some ribbing now and again is in order, then goddamnit she will do so! Anything to crack that shell.

And ohhh can you imagine how they would react to some transphobic bullshit?? Unholy terror would be driven into the offender before they walk off with an absurd amount of coins between them. I can feel it in my bones. Scott doesn't even have to lift a finger (if the transphobe is even noticed/processed at all, bc I honestly can see Scott just. Not realizing someone's being transphobic.) Kim giving someone a lashing with her tongue as distraction and then Ramona coming in with the hammer- BAM! Free Money! Paying literally with your life for your transphobia. A Better And Just World.

And of course (transfem Scott more specifically, here,) the way Scott would start to flourish under their support... cagey and maybe a little (perhaps a lot-) resistant to start- but Kim's blunt affirmations and no nonsense attitude for bullshit (which is what Scott insisting on "being cis" would be, c'mon now,) and Ramona's also low bullshit tolerance but less Stabby (bc I won't lie, that's probably how Kim's comments would feel,) assurances? Ough... My Heart... Be Still-

I would Kill for them, Your Honor-

(Ran out of tags so putting this in the body of the post- I am SO tired someone pls sound off if this isn't as coherent as I am hoping this is. I WAS trying to nap and get the extra sleep I desperately needed but the writing bug... it Bit Me.... only a little but enough to stop that process-)

[sillycicle]

must... make.... the sea beast oc.... must.... make.. httyd oc.... must make.... pirate

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Months ago, I left a comment saying that Disney LA remake stans are dumb and annoying and someone told me "it's not that deep". If the desecration of the art of animation is not that deep to you, then I don't know what to tell you.