#and twisting of interpretations to fit a preconceived idea of what was happening

[fragmentedblade]

Stupid criticism about Jing.liu's quest again over on twitter

[whatwouldteslado]

It has layers: An analysis of Shrek's commentary on race, femininity and the power of white beauty

(I know I said I wouldn’t submit this essay. And look, you don’t need to read it. But it’s a serious essay and something I am very passionate about. I hope you’re not mad. It’s just important to me.)

Subversions of classic fairy tales are commonplace staples in the world of fiction. Whether that includes grimdark retellings, parody or adult-oriented interpretations of the morals, twisting these well-known and classic stories for a piece of fiction is an easy way to deliver a subversive experience because the visual framework and shorthand are already present in the audience’s lexicon.

These fairy tale parodies/retellings typically take a story oriented toward young girls, and either for the sake of comedy or in efforts to capitalize on an older male audience, inject levels of violence (ex: Revolting Rhymes by Ronald Dahl, Fables comics) or sexual themes and interpretations - often sexualizing female characters in the original stories (ex: Red Hot Riding Hood cartoon May 8, 1943) into the fairy tales.

Shrek is a very obvious subversion of fairy tale stories, honing in specifically on the tropes of the Walt Disney versions of classic fairytale stories for its parodic forumla; but rather than rooting the subversion in inducing a raunchier/more violent take on these stories, the subversion is actually one rooted in a feminist rejection of Western beauty standards and a commentary on race in America. 

Fiona and White Beauty

Fiona is a character who is presented to the audience with all of the necessary visual and storytelling cues necessary for us to inform our interpretation of her as a typical beautiful princess: she is a thin, traditionally beautiful damsel in distress.

This interpretation comes with it our built-in ideas of what a beautiful princess should be (dainty, kind, loving, etc.) but it is subverted with the duality of Fiona’s visual form, and the visible efforts we see Fiona take to fit into our preconceived ideas of fairy tale princesshood.

During the day, Fiona has a more socially-acceptable form (smaller-framed, white) and she takes efforts to wear an air of demurity and exaggerated femininity, as is expected of her by the society she lives in. She hides interests and skills not typically valued in women of her environment (kung fu, etc.), feigns helplessness and formality for her savior, and she demands the outcome that she was raised to believe she should want — a fairy tale ending with a prince — and code-switches into princesshood to get that.

 But during the night, Fiona transforms into an ogre - and while the face-value interpretation of this as visual shorthand for not having the features deemed beautiful by Western beauty standards (i.e.: thinness, whiteness, femininity, etc.) is definitely present, it would be remiss of the viewer to not observe the parallels the ogre experience echoes of the experience of people of color in America. 

Our peek into Shrek’s day-to-day life at the beginning of the film strengthens the metaphor - Shrek is, at his core, a man who is assumed violent by the public at large due to his physical appearance, with these assumptions impacting his treatment by nearly every character in the world he resides in. These assumptions and the microaggressions he faces inform his decision to live in seclusion in an under-funded area of the woods with little-to-no attention from those in power, where he is assumed dangerous and mocked or dismissed by the majority community — an experience that many men of color would say are echoed in their own day-to-day lives.

Shrek is also coded as undesirable because of his ogreness, and the in-story-public and audience is encouraged to find the idea of him finding love with a white human princess to be a ridiculous notion. 

Similarly, Fiona’s nightly transformation into an ogre comes with its own list of assumptions on behalf of the audience — that it makes her less desirable and less likely to find love. 

So, paired with what we know about Shrek’s ogreness and the way it impacts his experience, Fiona’s transformation into an ogre isn’t just an aesthetic message for the viewer - it can be interpreted as a racially-coded one. 

Sometimes the beholder is just too damn white: Beauty and the moral of Shrek

It often happens that fairy tales and other stories oriented to younger children or younger girls cannot decide if beauty is important or not. 

We have the Ugly Duckling, where the namesake protagonist goes its entire life feeling ugly and like it doesn’t belong until it turns out the duck was hot all along and just had not yet hit puberty. We also have stories like Beauty and the Beast where aesthetic beauty that complies with Western standards of beauty is simultaneously supposed to be treated as unimportant to Belle (in lieu of the Beast’s other traits) and treated as a reward for the Beast, for once he finds love. In both of these stories, characters the audience is supposed to sympathize with end up acquiring the beauty they seek. 

Shrek is a film that does not give beauty out as a reward. In the movie, Fiona stays an ogress. It is treated as a plot twist, and in first viewings, the audience might wonder what still needs to be done for her to get the ending she wants. But then something happens: Even while the public at large mocks Fiona, and treats her as ugly, Shrek says she is beautiful anyways.

And while Shrek’s idealization of Fiona as a beautiful person does not match the masses’ interpretation of her appearance as ugly, the film does not frame it as incorrect. Instead, the film frames the masses as wrong. 

A socially-acceptable standard of beauty is rejected by the film’s core message, rather than the prize for the female protagonist. 

Fiona is beautiful. 

Not because she is eventually going to turn back into a thin, white princess.

Not because she has a heart of gold, and that’s more important than beauty.

She is beautiful because she simply is. 

Fiona is big, and she is different, and damn it, she is green. But she is beautiful, and the movie Shrek says that if the public can’t see that, fuck the public.

The interpretation of Fiona’s ogreness as allegory for being a person of color strengthens this message. Ogreness is beautiful, just as black is beautiful, and brown is beautiful, and fat is beautiful. 

We are encouraged as a society to reject these features, and Shrek encourages us to reject that rejection.

Conclusion

While many subversions of fairy tales find themselves taking a classic story aimed toward young girls and parodizing it for the sake of an older audience, Shrek delivers a comedic and subversive experience while still maintaining feminist themes and a surprisingly nuanced take on the way those different than the governing group can find themselves ostracized and assumed to be dangerous. 

Shrek is not a story for edgy teenage boys.

Shrek is a story for anyone who has felt like they could not find acceptance because of who they are.

Shrek is a story for the All Stars.

I have to say I hadn’t thought of this idea before. The stereotypes and treatment of ogres in the film definitely parallel people of color within life and alternatively people that differ from what is seen as the norm in varying degrees. Seeing the connection now it’s hard not to see ogres as a metaphor for people of color. I’m not sure what that means entirely for Fiona as her transformation into an ogre could be at least a couple different things from what I first thought. It could be symbolic of people with mixed features, people of color that use certain beauty methods to replicate the standard white beauty, or something entirely different. 

I hadn’t really considered to examine the movie before, mostly because of its effect on my daily life, but this is interesting. 

Also, I am not mad whatsoever. Even if I have seen more of Shrek than one human should, it doesn’t make it or the ideas that can be taken from or about it less important and valuable. Additionally, I can tell you care about it and that in of itself gives it more value.

[ngame989]

(1/2) I've had a thought. It has to do with people's lack of interpretation of the episode Booth Buddies, and the failure of people who don't want Starco to happen to understand why Star and Marco can't go back to being platonic. And I think it in large part had to do with the leak of the kiss. When that image leaked, people from all sides backflipped into knee-jerk reactions. So much so that when the episode actually aired, nobody focused on it.

(2/2) Everyone was just waiting for that kiss, to either praise it or rant about it. Everyone had already chosen their reactions before we even saw the whole context, leaving only a handful of us to actually listen to what the characters where saying and deducing through their words and context clues what was actually going on: That Star and Marco have realized that their relationship has forever changed and that they can’t go back. I dunno, what do you think?

I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this because of how ridiculously relevant your exact phrasing of the message is to my experience of the episode. I’ll get to my actual thoughts in a moment (tl;dr: BIG MOOD), but first; 

Story time.

The Friday before the episode’s release (3 AM officially for me, but the rip from a particular cable company’s on-demand was available usually by 12:30-1 AM) was an incredibly busy day for me, which was fine since it let me keep my mind off the anxiety gnawing at me and my eyes off the internet, avoiding all leaks. News of the leaks existing came via Discord, but I carefully avoided all contents or reactions to them… until a close friend of mine came to me. 

He had been spoiled by the thumbnail of the kiss on YouTube’s sidebar while watching totally unrelated things - of course this shocked him, so he grabbed just the transcript (not any other images) to sate his curiosity. He’s as gud a Starco boi as they come, but has a heavily cynical streak and trends towards seeing the worst in some things in the show. He didn’t spoil me, but I could tell that the leak was eating him alive - not in the expected “something big happened” way, but in that it was actually horribly depressing him, so I relented and asked for a bit more information so I could understand the situation more. His initial take was that Marco kissed Star, and her words after (”you’re my squire, I have a boyfriend” etc) were her legitimately turning him down and that this was “closure” to Starco, or at the very least a very negative sign of things to come. I didn’t (and still don’t) pass judgment on him having that reaction - it had been a rough season on us, to say the least, and everyone has their moments of weakness - but I simply couldn’t believe that was what was actually happening.

With that, I grabbed the leaks myself and dug into it a bit more to figure some things out. I did, miraculously, manage to glean the general idea just from the transcript (it was a panicked reaction by Star, not a rejection) and talked it over with him and it… at least did a good enough job to hold him (and me) over until the cable rip. Still one of the most stressful 5 hour blocks of my life though.

Cue the first release of the episode itself, on a fairly low res rip from cable. I knew what was coming,so I was trying to focus entirely on the why/how and not the what. Even knowing the words that were about to be spoken, I still wasn’t prepared for that entire scene once “What’s Different” kicked in, and I was crying a full minute before the kiss even happened. He hadn’t been watching the rip with me, but was in voice chat, and apparently my reactions were enough to get him out of that funk so hooray for that.

End story time.

The point in me saying all of this is that I have always attributed my understanding of the episode (as easily as it came to me, anyway) to the fact that I tuned my perceptions specifically towards sorting out the context of the kiss, without being affected by the shock of it in the moment. Maybe watching the episode leakless would’ve been a better experience, idk, but it ended up working out well enough for me.

The point about everyone latching on to their preconceived knee-jerk reactions is true, but it’s a (particularly explosive) microcosm of how people have always viewed this show, on all sides. It’s human nature to have knee-jerk reactions, but it’s an all-too-common tendency to stick with that even when the facts dispute it rather than re-evaluating your feelings when presented with new information. I wasn’t here myself, but I’ve seen old reactions from stuff as early as Sleepover where people refused to believe or accept what happened at the end - OK, sure, maybe a handful of people had a cable outage in the last 20 seconds of the ep and legitimately missed the moment proving Star was crushing on Marco, but in 95% of cases it was clear as day that people were twisting what they saw to fit their own ideas. 

This happened again going into Season 3, when fans had been twiddling their thumbs throughout the spring and early summer with endless art and fics of Star crushing hard on Marco, and then Battle for Mewni highlighting that even more, only for the SDCC clip a few days later to throw a wrench in the works. Clearly that itself lacked a ton of context, and I don’t hide the fact that I myself was on the “it’s a flashback” train for a while. After the Calarts thing and the episode title leaks confirming its legitimacy, I accepted that something Tomstar was coming, but I was still kinda hung up on my preconception there and didn’t “get” what the point of it was for quite a while. Even with my failings there, I can say with confidence that most of the Starco fans were way worse about it, and still don’t see the point of any of it even to this day - same underlying failing of twisting what actually happens to fit the knee-jerk feeling.

And Tomstar fans in Season 3 repeated this pattern by completely ignoring the fact that Star wasn’t really in love with Tom at all, or that she was still growing closer to Marco, and their views of her actions were warped to fit their narrative of “Star chose to date Tom and he is changing to improve himself, so therefore Tomstar is getting better” without considering the underlying arc of where Star’s heart truly lies.

Even now, even among people who do claim to “get” the message of Booth Buddies, there’s another deeper underlying presumption many people have that the show is just a soap opera now. OK, sure, this season has lacked a lot of the lightheartedness of the past (specifically within Star and Marco’s relationship). I can even say that, with some exceptions, I had less fun watching Season 3 than Seasons 1 or 2 because of this, and it’s a sucky feeling I want to go away - I’m sympathetic to the plights of Starco fans, I truly am, BUT that doesn’t change the fact that my primary goal is to understand the messages the show is trying to convey, and the execution therein, when analyzing it. This extrapolation of the presence of (completely justified, and directly addressed as an unwanted thing in-universe) awkwardness and tension between Star and Marco for the last 1.5 seasons leads fans to assume there will just be more of the same for the sole intent of stringing the fandom along, and that’s a nearly superstitious level of false pattern recognition.

The Booth Buddies leak, then, was the perfect storm of this bullshit. An incredibly controversial (both in and out of universe) action, not only lacking context, but presented to the fandom in most cases by other fans with their OWN preconceived notions via YouTube video titles and whatnot, and with an entire season’s worth of anxieties fueling those reactions. The fallout still would’ve been bad without the leaks, but this particular combination of issues was a Weapon of Mass Obstruction launched at the fandom’s collective desire or ability to figure it out.

[ellaoconnellbiddlecombe]

ALL the User tests

1. 12/03/19

For our first play test, our only instruction was for the user to draw around the card. The first card said “Create a chair for me to destroy”

Our first user found the activity “boring” and didn’t feel as though she could actually express her self much because she was given an actual object to draw.. I found this insightful because I had assumed that having an object to be given to draw would be too restraining and therefor the artist would be less expressive. She also commented that she didn’t even like the image that she drew which was definitely a red flag!! we want to create an activity for the user to feel like they have actually created something that they can be proud of and not dislike what they are creating. This user also didn’t even look at the character component, and was confused as to why it was actually there and what was the use for it, finding it very irrelevant. This was interesting as I was unsure if this had happened because there was actually no point to the character or that having the character and the objective on the same card took away priority from each other.

A positive note though from the test is that she did feel as though she had created something that she wouldn’t have normally done and that it would push her to go out of her creative comfort zone. Maybe look into more different styles of drawing rather that character?

For our next test we need to look at the purpose of the character, if it is worth having it there and if so what are we going to change about it. Personally I like the idea of having the character, I think it gives the activity more flare and maybe even possibly more direction. But I think we could seperate objective from the character, so we have 2 cards for the user to look at.

2. 13/03/19

For our second play test we still had it as an individual task. But this time we made the decision to seperate the cards like I said in the last user test.

Before the test we told the user that they had to incorporate both cards and actually draw the character into their picture. I think having this clear instruction really helped the test and made it clear that there was purpose for the character and that it was worth having in the activity. This time the character was picked at random, so there was no correlation to the objective and the character at this point. I think mixing it up like this worked well as it made it fun and actually added a bit of humour to it. I was really happy to see that the user was smiling whilst drawing their picture. This made it evident that he was actually enjoying what he was creating. This was further backed up by him wanting to keep his drawing after the activity was finished. This also gave us piece of mind on how he was being able to express him self how he wanted. He commented on how he didnt feel restricted but just rather aided to come up with an idea rather than being forced into it. When comparing this user test and the last I think it was the fact that character card and the objective card were seperate giving that complete randomness element to the activity. And this is exactly what we were trying to achieve !!

One of our users in this test got a character that looked quite wacky and out of place but he commented that he liked that aspect and that it made him think more about what he could push out of the box in the drawing because the character had inspired him to do so, rather than if he had gotten just a standard character like a cat or gnome. I think this is an important thing to look into and back on because this is where we are trying to go with the activity. Pushing the creative boundaries whilst aiding someones indecision.

3. 13/03/19

So all together test three didn’t actually go as well planned as we could have hoped for, especially after the second test.

We decided to add a group element and a wild card element to the activity and try out having a whole group pick two cards  each and each do it individually but all at the same time. I don’t know if it was this aspect or we managed to pick the awkwardest group of the class out (which may have actually had a impact on our results from the test because they didn’t give much feedback to go off either but oh well…). Any way the group each took a wild card aswell which consisted of time limits,  re-pick a car, “your character died”, don’t lift your pen from the page, and so on.. the problem with this was that some either just didn’t look at the wild card and register that you had to do something with it and some ignored the objective card once they had the wild card. This may have been a result of poor explaining or that the wild card just didn’t work.

But yes still I am still not 100% that we had the best feedback to go off afterwards but what I had taken was that this would be an activity that was more individual. They may have gotten more in to it on their own because maybe they felt a pressure from their friends comparing their drawings.

4. 14/03/19

Okay SO we tried the test above again! We wanted to try the whole group thing again because we thought we could have gotten better feedback. But we did change somethings up. First of all we gave the whole group one set of cards rather than individual ones so they would all be drawing the same thing but in their own way. We thought this would be a good idea to try it as a proper group activity. We didnt think of it as a competition too much until the users actually began to look at each others drawings and judge their peer’s and their own drawings

I thought that seeing this was a red flag 🚩 we don’t want them to compare their drawings because that could have a negative impact to how they view their own ability and may put them off drawing again or other people seeing their drawings.

An interesting point in this user test was they commented on the wording of the car which was in the sentence ‘Create a creature to slay’. They said that Slay made them instantly think of a dragon which is interesting because this may have made them less expressive because of what they already associated with the word which I will look at further down the line because I think this is an important aspect when creating the scene/objective cards. I think that we shouldn’t have suggestive words that may push one to think of a certain thing but rather an open word where there is no preconceived notion attached to it.

Considering in the group element, there was less distraction from each other during the activity but I think that this is because we put a 2 minute time constraint on the activity therefore there was more pressure to think of something and execute it. Although at the end they did compare each others drawings and it looked as if some felt less happy about their drawings because it wasn’t as good as another’s in the group. BUT another element to this group activity was it created CHALLENGE, which was a aesthetic that we have previous looked at. But looking at it now I think that is not our intent anymore. It’s good that we looked at it and assessed if it fits with what we are trying to achieve within discovery and expression but I think putting pressure on the user will result in less expression therefore less creativity. Thus ending in a not so enjoyable experience.

For the next user test I think that; - we should go back to individual use. It definitely worked better. - No time limit - Try the wild card again but change them up and make them more relevant? Our best test thus far has been test 2 so maybe we can try recreate this but change some small things up.

4. 15/03/19

This was our last user test to get the foundations of our project up to scratch and get an understanding as to where we were standing with our project.

In this user test we let the user pick a card from each pile then said they needed to incorporate all three cards in their drawing. And specially the character needs to be drawn on the page, not exactly so can be their own interpretation of the character.

The fist impression we got from our tester was “This is cool!” When we were explaining the guidelines! This was awesome to hear because having this positive reaction towards our project this far on only further tells us that this is what we should go ahead with! Ding ding!!

In the test we also had two people doing it separately but sitting side by side. WE found that they, again like in the previous tests, kinda judged how each other was doing it, and how they interpreted the characters and the words. This was interesting to watch because it displayed more evidence that this activity is definitely for individual use and not a group task. Because each user was heavily influenced by the person beside them. ~ although side not, influence isn’t always bad, especially when being indecisive because they have the ability to help each other out. But the aim our project is to develop expression through discovery. This meaning ones one path of discovery to find their own expression, not a view or way that another see’s or does by, which is an important aspect.

With the wild card aspect, I was a little unsure if it would work in the final project but my assumption about it being a fun twist that can add humour to the activity was proved right as he actually enjoyed that aspect a lot. The only problem is the wild card feature is a ‘side twist’ not a main objective so we need to make sure that is clear in the guidelines. SO all up the wild card create more for the user to go off without feeling pressured to create a certain thing. For instance “your character will die” the user can interpret this how they please, they can chose how the character has, will, or is dying in the scene. ( a bit of a gruesome example but you get the gist).

Oh, aswell in this the character that the user picked was one of Zed’s wacky drawing characters. The response to this element was that he really liked that it was so out of the ordinary. Their was more chance to create something, even unrealistic in his drawing which he really enjoyed because he wouldn’t normally create an image like that.

All up the response was positive! And I think we have cracked the code thus far with the project!

[uniquesmalltreasures]

About the fake!sim-troopers (Red vs Blue S15E8 spoilers)

Let’s start with disclaimers: I’m shit when it comes to conspiracy theories. Half of the time I’m onto something, the other half I’m just bullshitting and hyping other people with my paranoia. So I have a 50% success rate.

That said, I am quite torn about the new Blues and Reds. Because I could like them so easily and trust them so easily and… And I was one of the suckers who loved and trusted Felix. So yeah, now I’m way more wary of new characters who “just want to help”. And with the season so keen on all these plot-twists, I am not trusting anything.

Now I want to focus on those supposed sim-troopers and what we learned about them.

They’re good, military good – they have strategies and equipment (or are good enough with technology to build something up themselves) and they’re working together like a nicely oiled machine. That’s why I call this bullshit. We had seen how the training and selection processes for PF sim-troopers looked like back in S14, they wouldn’t have picked people like that, no way in hell.

All in all, we know that those guys, sim-troopers for PF or not, they are impersonating the Reds and Blues. They wanted others to think they were the originals acting on behalf of Chorus, they are still trying to impersonate them with their personalities, speech patterns, and overall behavior.

Hell, Kai knew something about this was off (S15E2) – she insisted that someone has to set the story straight – and I don’t think she just meant the Blues and Reds (it’s almost painful to write it in that order) being fakes, but also how UNSC was involved with the story in the first place. Sure, she just goes off and rants about conspiracy theories so Dylan just shrugs her off as crazy, but God, does she make a point. The whole thing feels like a staged thing, more and more. Dr. Grey (in S15E14) could easily see that the Blues and Reds were fakes and that they have their own hidden agenda in the whole conflict.  

Which brings me to another thing, which seems to be a theme for this season, for throwing hints in conversations you pay attention to for the wrong reasons – this time focusing on what Dylan told Kimball: People are quick to jump to conclusions. They see something or hear something and fit it into a preconceived emotional box (…) It’s up to people like me to find the buried truth and expose the real facts.

The only way to interpret that is to think about how the fakes are operating – especially after meeting the real Reds and Blues. They act like they’re all long lost brothers to themselves, trying to win their compassion and trust. Another group of sim-troopers screwed by Project Freelancer? Of course, the others would feel sympathetic towards them. But we already see Tucker having problems with this whole situation, picking up some clues and calling it weird.

First of all, we have the Blues and Reds attacking Dylan and Jax just like that – (ignoring for a second the fact they “apologized about this later”). Why? Why didn’t Dylan try to figure that out? And actually, doesn’t Dylan have all files and intel and recordings connected to PF? If there is no trace of an alternative set of sim-troopers, how can anyone believe what they’re saying it’s true? (And she does have the information, according to what she told Carlos in S15E3). The fact that the former Agents went MIA since the Blues and Reds are operating is worth investigating. It pisses me off that we don’t have numbers.

We have new sim-troopers and no idea how many Agents are missing, so we can’t compare the numbers. Sure, we can assume the missing Agents are the new Blues and Reds and in their ploy they’re just saying that all Agents are in trouble with UNSC, but it still doesn’t answer why the fakes were attacking the UNSC bases (and later Dylan) – I doubt that if they were really sim-troopers screwed by PF, they have any good feelings for PF and their Agents, not to mention the Director, so why are they trying to warn the real Reds and Blues and their Freelancers?

(Isn’t it curious that Temple had removed his helmet like it’s no big deal? Dylan mentioned that the helmet Temple left could be traced back to PF, so yeah, it was no coincidence it was left there at the site of the assault.)

Did Dylan’s talk with Packard really result in peace for Chorus? Like seriously, the Peace talks are over?  Or Did the fakes just lied to make the Reds and Blues get off them? What is their new strategy Temple was about to reveal?

And the fakes? They got so many of the shit wrong. Like the weapons, they’re using, or how they behave – I’m looking at you, Surge and the way you follow the command of a dirty Blue – and where the hell is the fake!Girf? Is he dead? (for example: if there had been simulations for them could he somehow wound up dead instead of Church and that made the Blues and Reds mad?) Like on the surface it’s all okay – Bucky acts like Tucker and almost copies his catchphrase but it’s kind of cringy and made me wince.

Also… The whole RvB story, the whole idea for PF goes back to two things: AIs and Church.

We have a message, which had been bounced by relay beacons, all over the galaxy, only to be picked up by Chorus. So we can assume that was the aim: to attract Kimball's attention because there was almost 100% probability of her passing the message to the Reds and Blues.

The message they received came in one way or another through Santa, who would know if there was something fishy about it – I am 100% sure about it. Kimball would ask a thousand questions before deciding this is a message that needs to be passed along. She admitted she can’t trace it’s origin and so did the fakes, but they added that they think Church is being held as a prisoner by the UNSC? How is that possible? Wouldn’t Wash know how many AI’s were made, thanks to the perfect memory of Epsilon? The memory of every torture Alpha had to endure so they could create a new AI? We still don’t know if the message came from Church – Alpha or Epsilon, or if it’s even a pre-recorded message from the past.  

Like Spencer said: Intention is no matter, only consequence is true form.  

Let’s get back to the Prologue (S15E1): we have the Blues and Reds attacking UNSC supply depot, being cruel and thoughtful and quite efficient. We have the toys – which makes us make a connection with Caboose – and then we see a Sarge’s and Tucker’s doubles-  Which immediately shifts our attention from the dialogue, which is quite important in my opinion. We get a set of rules from one soldier to another (their commanding officer to a rookie perhaps?):

Rule no.1: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. (translation: Don’t do shit or else expect shit to be done to you)

Rule no.2: Every other person (…) is literal garbage. Don’t talk to them, don’t listen to them, don’t become cute friends with them.

Rule no.3: Keep your radio on, at all times.

I watched the recent episode with that set of rules in the back of my head, which made all of Temple’s speech more suspicious. All this plot with fighting UNSC and drawing out the real Reds and Blues? They paint it as a logical story: but it’s not. If the fakes knew about PF, why didn’t they just move on after it ended? Why didn’t they come forward after the article Dylan wrote about taking down the Director? Why didn’t they try to contact the other earlier? Why are they almost exact replicas of each other (minus Grif and Kai)? It’s easy to see that the Blues and Reds want our gang to trust them – so they tell a good story, fight alongside each other and take shelter together. It breaks rule no. 2 and plays into rule no. 1 almost immediately. We’ll see if they will have any sort of contact with Wash and Carolina under that water.  

And where the hell are the counterparts to Grif, Kai and Doc? Hell, where is Doc?! 

Taking all that into account there are 2 possible outcomes:

1. They’re telling the truth. Yeah, those are really sim-troopers, created to resemble the real Reds and Blues, but instead of being a band of idiots and jerks, they were trained like Agents, so if the time came, they would be able to take them down. If the real Reds and Blues were able to fight Tex and Wyoming and win against them PF had to see their potential. PF wanted better soldiers, capable ones, so they created the Blues and Reds. So basically this is what happened after season 5 and after our Reds and Blues were relocated to new outposts, etc. But after PF crashed, the Blues and Reds found new purpose and now they just want to fight against UNSC, who targeted them. But if this is true, they will ultimately betray the Reds and Blues – because they were the reason they got selected as sim-troopers and got into this mess in the first place. So they will get rid of them for revenge.

2. They’re the missing freelancers, trying to impersonate the Reds and Blues, because that proves to be quite efficient and successful and in the process they’ll get rid of them and take they place, taking their fame along. Or they just want to take revenge on everyone: Hargrove and the Project and the sim-troopers as well.

Neither of these scenarios is nice. But because it seems almost obvious that we’re having another betrayal arc in the making, I have the feeling that I’ll still be wrong.