#so it feels like a disservice to just use one sidestep

[sidesteppostinghours]

*whispering softly* it all comes back to you, you little shit

small analysis about why i think this is a really good song for fhr under the cut

—

Is it really a complex or just lacking context/Why would someone go so far to be a walking lie?

this just. sums up step as a character. such a massive chunk of their story is exploring the identities they take up(puppet, step, and vsona) and the reasons why they use each one. why did step decide to be so many different people at once? is it safety? comfort? simply not knowing how to be anything else? the vagueness leaves it open for interpretation. a lot of the song is like this, which is why i find its really good for a wide variety of peoples steps.

Yeah, that don't sound like me/I don't think I'm that guy (enter beginner's guide)

technically not an analysis, but i have a really strong image of step singing all three lines (counting the one in the bracket as a line) with their three identities singing one line each if that makes sense.

Please, excuse our current appearance/I realize that it's quite a mess

this line can be taken as two things. either its step talking about themeselves– most likely post-heartbreak– and how theyre clearly not the hero they used to be. or the line can be about the rangers. the second interpretation makes more sense with the next lines:

And our deepest apologies for all of the noise/We're understaffed and we're over-stressed

i think with the previous lines being an interpretation of step, this dives more into their gripes with their villainy (eg, some steps are overworked, some steps are unsure of their own goals, some of them arent sure if they want to be a villain) and how the it affects their mental state ("the noise" in this case could refer to the stress and doubts, or if you want to get literal, it could be steps endless amounts of brain passengers).

with the rangers interpretation, though, i imagine it being one of them literally describing the state of the rangers at the moment. most likely ortega showing step the hq after the argent incident? in this case it could become a lot more sinister, since theres a lot of room for step to take advantage of the information ortega just handed them.

That I would lose (needed a change of pace)/Oh, I would lose/Between my left and right, one day I'd have to choose (gone without a chance)

honestly? this whole section is the kind of thing id imagine is running through steps mind 24/7. lots of missed opportunities, cutting back and forth, regrets everywhere you turn. and step still has to make a choice now to be better or worse than who they were the day before.

He found the man before him had died

looking in the mirror. finding a dead man. need i say more.

[restlesshush]

I know people love the “Cas can hear longing” thing, but the thing is the textual basis for it is actually pretty shaky, and it also just definitely doesn’t serve the purpose re Cas and Dean’s relationship more broadly that people want it to.

Okay so, re the textual basis: literally the only reason this concept exists is because buckleming needed a justification for Cas running into Claire again in 10x10, and her actively praying was too implausible, so they come up with “uhhh okay – her sort of wanting to counts” instead. Obviously that’s not in itself a reason to discard a piece of lore, because it is still in the show (though buckleming do have a tendency towards dropping garbage nonsensical lore, so…), but – more importantly – because of the function it was meant to serve, in context it’s a bit of a leap to take it as Cas hearing longing in general. Specifically, Cas follows up the ‘longing’ mention with asking Claire “perhaps you wanted to tell me something?”, to which she eventually concedes she does. The exchange is kind of clumsily worded – because it’s a buckleming episode –, but it seems like the mechanic is that Cas can tell if someone is perhaps ‘longing’ to pray to him, which is not at all the same as implying he could perceive longing in a romantic or other emotional sense.

Which is good, because if that were true, the implications re destiel are not ones that we want. Basically, if Dean is longing for Cas and Cas can perceive that, he’s not acting on it, so the options are that either this isn’t actually something he can perceive, or there’s nothing there to perceive. We know Cas is in love with Dean the entire time, and we know that he knows this by the 12x12 love confession at the very latest (but presumably much earlier) so even if the 15x18 confession didn’t make explicit that Cas doesn’t think Dean’s in love with him, we’ve got a very significant amount of time where Cas would in theory want to act on Dean’s ‘longing’ if he knew about it, except he not only isn’t, but also seems kind of afraid (“…I love all of you”) of making it too obvious that he’s in love with Dean in the first place. If he can perceive longing, he isn’t perceiving any from Dean directed towards him (which was a crucial part of the mechanic, as laid out “angels are able to find those who pray to them”) which isn’t really what we want to be implying.

And I mean fortunately, I don’t think the text really implies this at all, but I do feel this is worth flagging because people often seem to lean kind of heavily on the longing mechanic / Cas’s angelic senses in general for justifying Cas having an access to / understanding of Dean’s feelings that really isn’t supported by the show. Right up until the end, Cas really doesn’t seem confident at all of his place in Dean’s life, even beyond the question of Dean being in love with him or not, because – as I think is pretty widely acknowledged – the most compelling evidence for Dean being in love with / caring about Cas is how he responds when Cas is dead, which obviously Cas doesn’t see. Cas’s (very significant) insecurities re his and Dean’s relationship often go largely neglected, and using lore explanations to sidestep them is generally just quite lazy, and kind of does Cas a disservice. This isn’t to take away from people’s headcanons or anything, but I think it is worth pointing out that despite it very frequently being treated as fact, Cas hearing/feeling longing in a romantic/emotional sense is just a headcanon, and not really as useful a one as people seem to think.

[dgcatanisiri]

I think I wouldn't be so... "*ugh* Solas" in the overall scheme of things if I didn't feel like his portrayal is part of the narrative problem in Inquisition - that game centers so much of the TWIST of revealing that he is actually the big villainous figure of Inquisition, to the point that the epilogue DLC of Trespasser ended up feeling more like the missing third act BECAUSE it gave us a chance to respond to this reveal.

It meant that the main antagonist we deal with for the whole game ended up being a red herring - when the game itself barely ended up doing very little with that character as a result. Corypheus, despite his own potential for narrative focus, ended up being played more like just a cypher, there just to keep our attention, rather than explore him as the antagonist, because he's got to be the distraction from the wolf in our midst.

And that not just damages the potential of Corypheus as a villain, it also does the lore he carried with him a disservice, on top of the honestly compelling story he had - a man, driven and corrupted in his search for power, now compelled to take the seat of godhood because he has seen it to be empty, that he sees the world in need of that guiding divine hand, and, if there isn't one, he will take that. It's particularly engaging with the idea of the Inquisitor being able to stand as his opposite, at that final battle, and declare "I don't believe in gods!"

It tied in with the supposed themes that were supposed to be explored in Inquisition, of belief and faith, and the examination of the questions of religion... The themes that honestly failed to fully pull together in Inquisition, and do the overall game a disservice as a result. So this storyline that I honestly had a great deal of interest in seeing explored is the narrative sacrificial lamb in order to reveal the shocking swerve of Solas, the enemy in our midst.

Like I can see how Solas is interesting, but the way that Inquisition was put together, I found the red herring more compelling than the ACTUAL reveal, and so as a result, he doesn't hold my attention. He stands in for a number of decisions I disliked in Inquisition, and so he's been the absolute least interesting thing of the franchise to me as a result - At the least, I would have rather had storylines wrapped up BEFORE moving on to him, rather than have him functionally hijack the writing to and sidestep all those ideas to go "but now, here's this other thing to focus on!"

[ellieellieoxenfree]

9, 26, 34

9. Thoughts on cliffhangers.

cliffhangers go in the box on the high shelf that not everyone can access. they need to be used sparingly, and they need to be used responsibly. they are VERY easy to make into a cheap gimmick that either a) relies entirely on the shock value or b) wears out its welcome immediately, but can be effective in the right hands.

i generally don't try to go TOO crazy with cliffhangers in my writing, mostly bc i'm slow as hell and nothing would irritate me more as a reader than to get a cliffhanger and then be sitting on my hands for six months waiting for a dipshit author to get around to writing the resolution. but i'm not opposed to them as a light sprinkling in one's writing. i just don't trust a lot of people to handle them well, and i usually include myself in that equation.

26. What would you describe as OOC?

like 95% of fic i have read lmao. that's mean as hell but i'm very very picky about what i like to read. i tend to get really salty about pet names -- i promise you most of the characters you write calling each other 'baby' Would Not Say That. i also think that people tend to let characterization go out the window when they write porn, and they let their own personal kinks speak first and characters speak a distant second.

dialogue is a big one. i think there's a way to deliberately stylize your writing so that it takes on a theatrical/outsized bent, and so it sidesteps the criticism of not sounding how people actually talk, which is one of my favorite things to both write and read. i love the heightened artificiality of certain exchanges -- a writer who can master that may not necessarily be hewing 100% to canon, but is playing with the characters and twisting them around in a way that is so incredibly satisfying to read.

on the other hand, there are a lot of instances that do the same thing -- writing Not How People Actually Talk -- but it's much more amateurish/clumsy. it doesn't flow or have a natural cadence that suggests the author is secure in their own voice. everyone can write, technically, in the sense that anyone is capable of opening up a notes app or google docs and putting words down, but not everyone knows their own voice. the dialogue becomes very utilitarian and often doesn't shift for different characters' personalities. things like vocabulary, including profanity or the lack thereof, sentence structure/length (eg, does the person ramble, or are they more succinct and to the point?), direct vs indirect communication styles, all contribute massively to a character's personality, and it really takes me out of a story when everyone uses the same interchangeable author-insert drone of a voice in their dialogue.

also, since i am a very trauma-heavy writer, people who ignore canonical traumas tend to irritate the ever-loving shit out of me. a character in a past fandom was shot, and many writers chose to ignore the entirety of their recovery or take any consideration into how this would affect their lives going forward. i understand not wanting to make that a central focus of the story -- writing it's hard work! -- but to just completely erase a major part of the narrative is SUCH a peeve of mine. if a character is broken, then for fuck's sake actually factor it in!! just because canon brushed it off doesn't mean that realistically, this wouldn't have consequences for the person, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or all three. i love fluff, but i love broken characters more, and when i get the fluffy happy stories, i want weight to them. i want them to feel earned. and i KNOW that's probably unfair of me to people who just want to fuck around in the sandbox for a few hours, but it's such a disservice when i see my faves who are 95% trauma and 5% person be reduced to cheerful giddy stereotypes with no depth whatsoever.

34. Do you write to improve? Or is that not a concern for you?

i definitely do worry a lot about stagnating in my writing or doubling down on bad habits that hold me back. (i am horrible with telling rather than showing, for example, and my sentence structure tends to give me more gray hairs than i already have because it's so goddamn static.) i try to let go of some of that when i'm writing fic because it's a hobby and writing anything and finishing it generally is such a fucking win for me. with how shit-ass garbage for real the publishing world is, i've really lost so much of the drive to go pro, and the thing i feel like has the best chance of ever getting written wouldn't be fiction anyway -- that's a whole different ballgame.

but i do think about trying to sharpen my skills when i set out to write a new piece, yes. i always put a lot of thought, and often way too much thought, into how i want a story to turn out and what i'm trying to achieve with it. i have one i'm working on right now where i'm trying to ensure my parallels actually line up in a way that's going to be emotionally resonant. yeah, it's just a dumb hobby where i move little fictional dudes around and make them be sadder than what canon allowed them to be, but it's also a deeply rewarding and cathartic dumb little hobby. writing can be a purge of your own feelings -- which sometimes works, if you don't overpower a character with your own inner narrative, but sometimes definitely comes off as Oh, You're Going Through It, Huh? -- and a way to foster connection/understanding with people who are struggling to feel seen or understood. and telling stories does engage a certain part of the brain that likes to gnaw on new challenges and figure out ways to stretch itself and inhabit all these different characters who aren't necessarily a 1:1 projection of myself. i like to play around with voice or perspective and not get tied down to one way of telling stories (although i'm not egotistical enough to say i'm even close to succeeding at this; i'm honestly very pedestrian and uncreative when it comes down to the finished product). i'm always looking for a way to take the big, beautiful ideas in my head and actually turn them into stories that live up to the original idealized image i had. do i get there? almost never. but the fight continues.

[bengiyo]

180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us Ep 8 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

We left on a very dramatic note. Here's hoping that this is a show I can recommend to the folks who waited.

Ah, Wang is gone. I can see how this will inspire flashbacks to Siam's last night.

Confirmation that Mol loved Siam. I feel like I'm always going to struggle with her. She should be scared for her son, but I don't think Inthawut is to blame for most of her troubles.

Interesting that the few times we see Mol and In share the frame is when it's about fearing for Wang's death, particularly as it mirrors Siam's.

Holy shit the scorn on her face when she said In disgusts her was palpable. I physically recoiled.

It's interesting how this show doesn't often rely on A/B shots, but they come up the most with Mol, because she's so often in opposition to others.

Mam is playing Mol's frantic behaviors perfectly. She and Pond are playing this breakdown together perfectly. I just want to be clear here that none of my frustrations with Mol should be taken as negative criticism of Mam Kathaleeya. She is absolutely incredible, and is delivering one of the most memorable performances I've had from Thailand in a while.

The way Wang looks back at his mom is so incredible. This is the moment I think Wang grows up a little bit and recognizes that you start taking care of your parents a little bit.

Ah, I see In is back in his self-imposed cage. Welcome back, architectural bars.

Seeing Wang talk about understanding his dad on the night he died scares me a bit, because my family often says I remind them of an ancestor who succumbed to his own demons and died.

Ah, but the way Wang always intentionally sidesteps these bars gets me every time.

Wang. Poor Wang. He's so right that sitting around and waiting still leads to death. I have sat back like In, making excuses for why I won't open myself up to others and it's all just fear and shame. It hurts to stay lonely for so long.

Omg Wang crosses the window line. We can't turn back now. In is definitely going to strike and push Wang away. There's not enough bravery in him, I don't think.

These two are also now in opposition, and the editing has to reflect that.

When In raised his crutch to strike Wang, I think I have to accept that there is definitely no triumphant end to this story. He can't face Wang's reality. He can't accept his passion. He can only demand he smother it. This hurts, because I've been here in other ways, too.

I will always appreciate Wang for saying the quiet part aloud. In has done a disservice to the people he loves by pushing them away and refusing to face them.

It's so sad seeing someone say I love you and also goodbye simulataneously.

It's the next morning and everyone is back to the doublespeak. I hate it here.

Oh no. This is the first time Wang has intentionally moved to place the bars between him and In. It's over. He's leaving In to his cage.

Oh gay boys and their moms. It's a very specific bond.

Yes, Wang, you've got time on your side.

Mm, I do like giving the globe to In. Wang has resolved his matters around his dad and no longer needs to carry it. In, however, has not.

Oh, Inthawut, please give him this hug.

I need a translated version of this song to implode over later.

This is a melancholy ending, but I don't hate it.

I do appreciate the final messages to the viewer.

Final Verdict: 9, Recommend for Queer Cinema Fans. I know a lot of folks are going to be disappointed in this ending, but I can appreciate that the characterizations held true for the entire duration. It is a melancholy message to receive from this show, but I can accept queer cinema asking us to consider our place in things even as they don't work out the way we hoped. I will continue to think about this show for many years, and I will hopefully post more thoughts in the future.

For now, I will say that it is probably good to ache after this show. This show doesn't kill any gays during the runtime, but it does ask us what do with the pain and grief many of us have carried.

[graphicabyss]

I watched The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and I liked it more that I expected, although frankly I didn't expect much. Overall, I love the setting, the cinematography and the character development. The director and the writers did an excellent job. But it also sent me down an emotional roller-coaster and that's the thing I really need to talk about.

I know there are countless rants about TFATWS, Endgame, queerbaiting and poor MCU narratives but I've never really been hanging out in the fandom until recently so for me it's my first one and I need to get it off my chest. It's gonna be long.

It was interesting to see where the show's gonna take things but start to end there was an elephant in the room. It doesn't sit well with me the way they completely sidestepped the Steve Rogers issue. Like, "we didn't make this mess, so we're not gonna go there". And it's just wrong. You can't just avoid the subject altogether and pass it on for future writers to handle. Also, you see Bucky so sad and lonely it breaks your heart. And this inevitably made me think about Endgame and Cap's storyline. I didn't feel like writing it all down after Endgame but now all these thoughts and feelings came up again and I need to get it off my chest. If they ended it all at Endgame, and I thought they did, it would have been fine, sort of. We'd forgive some loose ends. But they didn't end it there and that makes them fully responsible for this mess. I mean, I didn't hate Cap's ending. After all, it could have been worse. Steve could get together with Sharon like in the comics and they probably considered it at some point but the reactions were so bad they backed down and dragged Peggy along. Still, the ending just felt forced, no matter how you look at it. The thing is, if I knew about it after the first movie, I'd rejoice. But at this point, after everything that went down after, it just doesn't feel right.  I love Peggy and I can't deny the dance scene made me flutter a little but now I wish this was Steve's way to keep his promise before going back. In the end, Peggy would be fine without him. She had a good life, she made a career and a family. We know that thanks to Agent Carter. And we got many cues that Steve and Peggy's relationship, as important as it was, was over. Her saying goodbye to him by destroying the serum, him carrying her casket... Yet, Endgame effectively undermined that basically erasing all of these events from existence and making Peggy just a prize for Captain America.  On the other hand, Bucky needed Steve the most. And the show made it clear how bruised and broken he was. Bucky and Steve's relationship was the closest of any relationship in the MCU. At that point it was clear Bucky was everything to him, the only one who could truly understand him. Steve lost him many times and every time he fought to bring him back, no matter how impossible it seemed. When Bucky was captured Steve went into an enemy base alone on a suicidal mission and saved him and everyone else. That's basically how he became Captain America. Then Bucky got killed in the war and it devastated him. Bucky returned as Winter Soldier and there was hardly any Bucky left in him but Steve nearly let himself be killed because he needed to save him and he trusted that James would not hurt him. When Bucky finally got to his senses, there was an ultimate war going on and in the Snap James fell to dust in front of Steve's eyes. It took 5 years to get him back. And as soon as Steve succeeded, he left him, along with the rest of his traumatized friends and the world in deep chaos, to be with Peggy in 1940's, thus throwing 12 years of his life away. It just didn't feel right. That does a disservice to both Steve and Peggy's storylines. But it's not just about Peggy or Bucky. Steve going back and living his life to return to that park as an old man has opened a rift with a host of questions. I tried to get to the bottom of it but it got me nowhere.  According to Russo, when Steve went back he created an alternate reality. He also retired as Captain America. First off, I think he just made that up after to cover up the mess. If that was the case, Cap would return to the designated spot and not be sitting on a bench like he was waiting there all along. But, like, even if it was alternate reality, it could not be that different, right? He wouldn't just live in Peggy's basement, would he? He knew about the things to come like, you know, the HYDRA thing, and being the man that he was, he couldn't just sit and do nothing. Especially when Peggy was one of the founders of the SHIELD. Captain America or not, Steve would do everything to make this world a

better place. Also, if Steve went back after he crashed that plane, that means there's another Steve still locked in ice, which Russo confirmed. Even more importantly, in Steve's timeline Bucky is still with Hydra being tortured. There's no way he could leave him there. So much for the 'quiet life'. Then there are the writers of Endgame who claim that Peggy's two children are fathered by Steve. Really? That directly contradicts the earlier version that the father is a soldier Steve saved, which is shown in Agent Carter. Seriously, guys, if you're gonna make up random bullshit at least get your stories straight first.   Fans love to make all sorts of theories to try and patch up the holes but the truth is, MCU is not just one mastermind's creation and the comics weren't either. It's bound to be a mess because it's created by dozens of writers and directors and each phase gets increasingly messier because it has to fit in with the 547 previously released movies and shows. I get that and I applaud the effort of Endgame but they really can't expect us to get involved with the characters only to see them being treated as an afterthought. And the thing is, I thought that it might be just me but after a quick survey of the fandom I realized that a lot of people feel the same way. If you look at the comment section of nearly any relevant video, you're gonna get top comments saying all these things. If Marvel listened just once maybe things would make more sense. And all these thoughts aren't necessarily what I wanted to see, but what would be right for the characters. And while I do love Stucky, I'm a reasonable shipper and I really didn't expect them to be canon gay or anything, I just wished they had at least spent some time together not fighting, just healing and catching up on their lives. Honestly, I don't always like the way people ship m/m characters in every show but this time it was really more than justified. The whole storyline going through Winter Soldier and Civil War was just massive queerbaiting. It was undeniably a love story, romantic or not. "Why do you ship male characters?" some people ask. Idk, maybe if the writers put half the effort into developing m/f relationships as they do m/m ones and not just randomly throw them together I might care about them. And MCU was terrible with romance. That traumatic kiss Steve had with Sharon Carter? In the comics, Steve did love Sharon but who cares? In MCU they met, like, twice. Mostly after Peggy's funeral. Peak romance. If they had to pick a new love interest they could go with Natasha. They cared about each other, they bonded in TWS and they were both dealing with some difficult issues. But they became just good friends, which I loved. Instead, Natasha got together with Banner? And then there's Wanda and Vision, which seemed like the most random of pairings with no buildup whatsoever. The wonderful world of heteronormativity where a witch/robot couple comes before a gay one. And the thing is, I only recently learned that there's some legit leverage to portray Bucky as gay. Bucky is based on two characters from the comics. Bucky Barnes was Steve's teen sidekick, kinda like Robin, so this origin was too weird for MCU. Instead, the writers used the origin story from a character named Arnie. It was a boy Steve grew up with, a boy who protected him from bullies, and a boy who kept inviting Steve to these double dates. A boy who was gay. Which wasn't explicitly stated but was pretty obvious. And this was in 1984. So making Bucky gay would be neither woke nor against 'canon'. It would be way overdue.  So with TFTWS it was nice to see Bucky recover and bond with Sam but to me the whole ending also felt a bit excessively positive and this time the queerbaiting felt even more intentional, almost as if the writers wanted to distract the discontent fans with a new shiny ship so they forgot all the things they were mad about. Like, of course I want Bucky to be happy but also I hate the way the show's pushing the idea that he just needs to get over losing Steve and move

on with his life already because surely all his problems come from his inability to trust people and not trying hard enough, and not from being brainwashed and tortured for 70 years and then losing the only person who loved and cherished him.

[quietlysomethingalso]

I’ve seen a number of times now that people have a problem with the perceived stupidity of the head surgeon, Abby’s father, for mishandling the situation at the Firefly hospital. With the implication being that by being a terrible doctor, he is responsible for all the events that happened at the hospital and afterward.

Apparently some people have read the game’s lore to mean that Ellie’s death was completely unnecessary for developing a cure. My understanding is that this is people taking the fact that it was stated that blood cultures taken from Ellie produce Cordyceps growth as evidence that no deadly surgery was actually necessary. This reading of events doesn’t really make any sense to me, considering one would imagine blood cultures from any infected person would produce Coryceps growth, and it isn’t stated or implied anywhere that the mutated growth in Ellie’s brain is reproducible by any means without extracting it. It’s quite explicitly the opposite after all, it is the mutation in the brain that is necessary to develop a cure which is why the surgery is necessary.

It’s a pretty straightforward point as far as I’m concerned, but what really bothers me is, what is the value of this line of reasoning? Surely it is clear that this is not an intended reading of the lore, right? Even if you don’t understand why Ellie’s surgery is necessary from a medical standpoint, taking issue with the game’s fictional science is engaging with the story only on the most superficial, CinemaSins-nitpick level. No character ever expresses that there was any issue with Jerry’s practice of medicine, no aspect of the game ever implies that the doctors’ understanding of the situation might not be accurate, and the science the game gives is only there for the sake of verisimilitude and immersion, not because it is essential to fundamentally understanding the situation. Accepting the hypothetical that is presented, Ellie’s surgery was necessary for a cure to be produced. So, what is this criticism about the character of Dr. Anderson actually getting at?

If you are willing to accept the story’s premises, then within the context of the game’s lore, there is nothing wrong with Jerry’s medicine. This issue is just with the way the lore is presented, which leaves open a thematically inconsequential plothole (and again, we’ll just concede that this is actually a lore mistake for the sake of argument, though I feel this is a pretty obvious misreading of the lore).

But what if you don’t accept the story’s premises? The necessity of Ellie’s surgery for the development of a cure is the crux of the ethical quandary at the end of the first Last of Us game. So if you believe the lore is actually intended to imply that the surgery wasn’t necessary, then what this point is actually getting at is that there was no ethical quandary in the first place. In other words, to me, placing the blame on Jerry is really a way of absolving Joel of responsibility for his choice by removing the consequences of that choice. If a cure was possible without killing Ellie, then Joel is no longer making a choice between Ellie and a cure at all, he is simply saving her from catastrophically ignorant child murderers. It’s farcical; it’s framing virtually every character as a fool and Joel as the only sane man. I just can’t understand either game in the context of that interpretation. The interesting question here is supposed to be the ethics of the Fireflies’ decision to go through with Ellie’s surgery, and the ethics of Joel’s decision to stop it. If you remove the significance of that question, then you are basically sidestepping a major part of the story’s depth in order to not be challenged by it. This is really how it reads to me every time I see people nitpicking the logistics of the situation presented at the end of TLOU1, when the hypothetical being put forward is as clear as it is. Thematically, the important thing is the priorities and the decisions of the characters, and, disappointingly, that’s something I think not everyone is really interested in engaging with.

This is really more of a question about TLOU1 than TLOU2, and I find it really telling that I didn’t see this being much of an issue for anyone until the second game, when the head surgeon was transformed into a named character with a personality rather than a background character. The fact is that it is much easier to shift responsibility onto a character you are already willing to dislike than to grapple with whether you agree with the decisions of characters that you already care about. I think this really gets at the fact that people are often unwilling to step away from their attachment to a character and confront both sides of an issue, or look at the bigger picture of what a story is trying to say. It really does a disservice to the story in my opinion, and I feel like I see a lot of this kind of criticism, which just feels to me like it’s being made in bad faith.

Anyway, the point about “malpractice”, or whatever you want to call it, is really not a major one, just some thoughts I felt like putting out there regarding some of the discourse I’ve seen around the game. I think it’s important to consider what point you are actually trying to put across with a critique, and weigh that when you are drawing conclusions.

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  The Dark Curse

Chapter 137:  Pretty Words From a Pretty Face

He wanted to hunt. He wanted to kill and destroy. He wanted to feel bones break in his hands, watch blood gush, see life leave the eyes so nothing was left but a pitiful empty body. He wanted to watch someone else feel pain. If he did, it might just distract him from his own. To watch someone else's hopes and dreams fade from existence might make him forget what it felt like when all of his own vanished without a trace.

But he knew, truly and deeply, that wasn't going to make his hurt or his rage go away. It was like an open wound. Or at least it was now. Until this moment he hadn't even really known it had never been healed, not until his mother came along and tore it open again, revealing the infection festering just beneath his skin.

He wanted to be anywhere else in the world right now rather than where he was. He wanted to be in another realm. He wanted to hold his son tight in his arms, he wanted to kiss his face and tell him that he was precious and loved and important. In that moment, he would have given anything for that fantasy to be true. He would have given anything for any of his fantasies to be true! A dream of a mother and father who loved him, who thought his spinning was a miracle, who worked hard so he could go to school to make something of himself. Two parents who praised the home he'd built for himself, who helped him start his business, and visited every other night for dinner. Two parents who cheered for him when he took a wife at the well, who held their grandchildren with smiling faces, who helped him raise his children. In this fantasy, there was no war that ever separated them, no family friend who lusted after his wife, and his wife loved him so much she'd never be tempted any way. There was no magic in that fantasy, and that was what reminded him that it wasn't real, that it never would be real, that the people he came from were rotten and evil and cunning enough to make him sick.

He wanted to rage. He wanted to tear his castle apart brick by brick and forget tonight had ever happened. He wanted to pretend as though his emotions hadn't gotten the best of him, that his mother had not once again utterly destroyed his life. But he already had enough of a mess to clean up.

It took everything he had in him to sit down at his spinning wheel and pour everything into his thread. Never once had he used magic to spin, to enhance his own abilities, but he did now. He worked the machine so hard it would have broken if he'd not pushed magic into it so that it could handle the load. His hands moved unnaturally fast, he felt heat coming off his own fingers, from between his joints. His eyes darted back and forth from hand to wheel to mother-of-all to spindle so quickly it would have given any human a headache. There was a warm fuzzy feeling just behind his eyes, one that made his brain feel like mush when he realized he was going through the actions but wasn't really seeing.

The wheel always calmed him. It always helped him to forget. Spinning wheels didn't lie, they couldn't cheat, they couldn't deal, or make promises. They didn't disappear, they wanted more than they should, they always worked reliably, the same way, every time. Every time. Every damn time! When his parents were gone, the wheel had always been there for him. He could trust spinning wheels, more than he could trust his magic, more than he could trust himself, more than he could trust his parents, more than he could trust-

Belle.

The world came back into focus and the motion of the wheel stopped when he felt someone come into his territory. His magic flared, but it was nothing like what it was when the Blue Fairy entered. Two people, two very weak signatures. Belle carrying the baby. She'd found her way home just as he'd assumed she would in the woods, though sitting here now, head feeling a little bit clearer than it had then, he wouldn't have blamed her or pursued her if she hadn't returned. He was fooling himself, thinking that she might actually enjoy being here; there was not a person in the world who had enjoyed his company since he was born. Perhaps some people were just meant to be alone all their lives, to always lose and never win. Maybe he was one of them. Afterall, wasn't that what this Curse he was working on going to lead to? A boy would lead him to his son, and then that boy would be his undoing. There was no such thing as a happy ending for a creature like him.

"Leave," he commanded the moment Belle stepped into the room. He didn't look at her, but he could feel the anger pulsing off of her. She was still carrying the baby. The baby was still crying it was as if nothing had changed from the clearing except for where the sun was in the sky. It had taken her a while to get home, the sun would be up soon enough. And he wanted to be by himself. But when had the help ever listened to what he wanted, especially this help.

"You have to take him back!" she ordered, striding over to his wheel and staring him dead in the eye. Ah, yes...very angry. Her tone was so forceful and her stance so set he wondered for a moment if he had done her a disservice in removing her from her father's court. She certainly had the attitude wives needed when dealing with their husbands, not to mention Queens needed in dealing with their Kings and courts. She might have changed the world if it wasn't for him.

"Now!" she demanded when he didn't do anything but stare back at her.

"I don't have to do anything!" he argued, throwing his voice for her own sake. If he let himself argue with her tonight, truly argue with his true self, then someone might get hurt. The persona of the Dark One wasn't just an assistance to him, it was the only thing standing between the pain he felt and Belle. So, with his mask firmly in place, he grit his teeth and tried to pretend he was fine as he'd claimed he was with her. "And you've caused enough damage tonight. Leave!"

He sidestepped her. There was a wheel in his tower and one in his room. He'd work elsewhere until dawn.

"Well, you can't just leave him here!" she called after him. "Are you going to raise him?! Am I?!"

"Let him be."

"I will not let him be!" she screamed with such force his boots finally stuck to the floor. She was getting dangerously close to seeing what he was protecting her from.

"And it's because of that remarkable inability you possess, you foolish, selfish girl, that the entire plan failed!" hollered back, striding across the room. This was usually were his victims backed down. They cowered, dropped their gaze, took a step away. But the way she stood her ground and held her head up high, meeting his eyes the entire way egged him on. "I'd have never sent that child or any child to live with her. She's a demon and nothing, and he was the bait. If it weren't for you, he'd be at home with his parents right now, and I'd have my answers. But now, since I can't get what I want, it seems fitting you should get what you want either, even if it means that he doesn't get what he wants. Misery for everyone!"

He wanted to see tears, he wanted to watch her give up, to accept the guilt that he knew, deep down, wasn't really hers. If anything, she'd helped to keep the child safe, acting bravely in the manner than he'd expected the Apprentice to act. But if he didn't place the blame on her shoulders, then that meant the fault was his own, that his seven-year-old self had taken over a Dark One that was over a hundred years old and he wasn't prepared to face that. Nor was he prepared to face the determination on her face. In spite of his accusations, she held strong. She didn't waver in her resolution, just examined his face as though she was searching for something.

It was something she wouldn't find. He turned on his heel to go again, hoping she would do the same and-

"Is that what you think?" she called out before he could leave. "That you'll never get your answers?" Before he could leave…he was the bloody Dark One, she didn't control him, if he wanted to go, he only had to think the thought and he'd be gone! Why was he letting her draw this out? "I don't believe that. I know that things we long for most often reveal themselves in the least likely of ways when we least expect it, and you…you will get your answers. I believe that. You can do anything when you set your mind to it; I've seen it, Rumpelstiltskin."

"Well then, you have seen too much and not enough at the same time," he spat over his shoulder. Pretty words from a pretty face. She didn't mean it. She was just telling him what he wanted to hear all so that he'd do what she wanted him to. Not tonight. "Leave! Return to the dungeon, and leave me in peace before I have you flogged for your actions."

Before he could wince at the very idea he'd created in his own head, he allowed himself to disappear from her sight.

[whipplefilter]

Fic about the life of a Carsverse Subaru test car?

So, for context! My friend recently started working for Subaru R&D and he found out that manufacturers crush their prototype cars–probably so like, state secrets don’t get out or whatever. But anyway. THE HORROR. DDDDD: This fic is slightly modified from that premise. It seemed like a good day to explore some potential Sally backstory. 

Content warning for somewhat discomfiting discussion about at what point a car becomes a car–like, an actual living machine–and not an appliance.

They’re not alive, Sally reminds herself. Not really.

She watches another car go through the crusher. It comes out with its grille still distinctive, though the engine bay is only half as tall as it used to be and everything from the hood up is gone and flattened.

But it’s not a car, she reminds herself. It’s a prototype.

This is no different than sending the bodies of wrecked cars through, after their ghosts have gone and all that’s left is wire and metal, rubber and glass. A car is more than its parts and these prototypes are just parts.

“I mean, they’re basically toasters,” says Jayden, whom she’s shadowing. Jayden is the most junior of the corporate lawyers at Subaru R&D, and therefore it falls to him to entertain the most junior of Eckel & Barnes’s new recruits–that is, Sally. She passed the California bar eight months ago. Top of her class at Loyola. She’s a Porsche, he’s an Audi. And he is interested.

“I wouldn’t waste your tears on ‘em, sweetie,” says Jayden. He gives her nearest tire an encouraging nudge.

“I’m not crying,” says Sally.

They watch another prototype drive flat out towards a test wall. From one end of the building to the other, it’s probably a couple hundred feet. He’s easily going 45, maybe 50 before he plows into the wall without ever once lifting.

His front explodes piñata-like, fascia catching air as it unclips and fenders bowing out. It looks nasty, but it’s supposed to be like that, Jayden’s already explained to her. It’s dispersal of force. It’s supposed to save more critical components. Body panels can be replaced, after all; but subframes are harder. Still, things don’t go right. There’s a hiss, a billow of steam as the radiator takes the hit. Sally can see the coolant running out, writhing towards them like a glistening snake.

Jayden sidesteps it neatly as he goes to inspect the crash. Sally stays put.

Jayden whistles. “Oh man, yeah. Not good. Like, the entire engine’s pushed through to like… we’re talking past the front diff. That wouldn’t fly at all–major opening for a lawsuit. Sally, come over here. This is the kinda stuff we need to look for! HQ’s gonna have a cow when they read my brief. Ha!”

Sally blinks rapidly. She can’t get the sound of screeching tires and shattering glass out of her mind. She stares at the prototype until her eyes glaze into soft focus.

There wasn’t any shattered glass. There hadn’t been any screeching tires, because he’d never touched his brakes. Not this time, and not this car. The sound comes back to her anyway.

She can feel a lump at the back of her throat, pricking at her tongue. It feels as sick and green as the snake of coolant still coming for her.

“Look,” Jayden says suddenly. “I mean–it’s not– It’s not really a crash, you know? It’s a crash test. This is a prototype. They do this kind of thing so when the new models go into production they can be as safe as possible no matter what life throws at them. They dump tons of money into these prototypes so 2005’s hottest new… sports utility sedans or whatever the heck these things’re supposed to be–so Billy and Jane Outback can live nice long lives even if they launch into a few walls. This is saving lives. And as lawyers, we’re making sure that saves their asses.”

Sally watches the next prototype line up, dark eyes vacant, lips slightly parted. The prototype blinks. Sally looks away. She just–

It’s breathing. Blinking. Its engine’s rumbling. It beeps as its doors lock and its headlights flick on–it’s not dark, it’s just an autonomous reaction, a piece of a system that’s wired but not quite programmed–and it’s not alive she knows it’s not but it just feels so, so–

That time the prototype does brake, too late and too brief–it plows into the wall just like the one before it, but askance. Its right side catches more of the damage, crumpling sideways. From Sally’s vantage point it almost looks like he might’ve been okay, though of course Sally knows better. His A-post is bent, and Sally knows that means there’s a lot more wrong–a lot more that doesn’t get fixed easy.

He blinks slowly.

Doing 90 in the cul de sac. He’s a 911, showing off for the kids. He’s fearless until he isn’t, until he realizes he’s made a mistake, and then all Sally remembers is tires screeching. Glass. Then nothing. She remembers being locked in the garage with her cousins for a long, long time.

By the time they’re let out, everything is cleaned up and quiet. That tree had always been a stump, and don’t worry about the branches waving from the Dumpster. Don’t worry about the glitter to the pavement when the light hits it just right.

“They don’t feel pain,” Jayden assures her. “Was a little weird, though. We’re not doing braking tests ‘til next Thursday. Huh.”

Sally already knows they don’t feel pain. They’re not alive. They’re not yet cars. She’s reminded herself a thousand times. She’s still not sure if it matters.

She wants to ask the prototype if he’s okay. He’s just sitting in the rubble, blinking. Mission accomplished.

She’s afraid he’ll answer.

“When does a car become a car?” Sally asks. “Like, is there a set point where we start being–you know–us? What if right before–”

Jayden snorts. “Man, you know I can’t answer that. I’m not a scientist. We’re lawyers. If we start asking questions like that, we’re probably doing the client a disservice.”

Another prototype lines up at the end of the test trip.

It’s just a machine. Basically a toaster.

But what if, in an instant, she’s not? What if–

Screeching brakes, the moment you’ve realized your mistake.

Or what if she would’ve come alive tomorrow? Or next Wednesday? The moment she puts out, drives through that wall, that’s all gone. All those maybes–they don’t matter. They hiss up like radiator pressure, and vanish.

“Sally,” says Jayden, suddenly sharp. Like he’s decided he lies his job more than he likes the idea of going out with her. “We’re looking at the big picture here. We’re talking thousands, tens of thousands of lives banking on these tests, and these noble, mindless little machines. We’re not looking at that one in a million outlier of a chance that–”

“I know, I know,” Sally interrupts. “We’re not focused on the one in a millions.”

Jayden relaxes. “Good. If you can focus on that, you’re gonna last a long time in this business.”

–

The next morning, Sally follows the signs for I-40.

[head-and-heart]

I'm trying to get over my Echo issues, but once in a while it hits me how weird this all is? Like in this last ep with Madi saying Clarke told her all of them had kept her alive and E was all "she did the same for us". Okay, but you are not one of the people C was been talking about when she told Madi that. You weren't keeping her alive. You were trying to manipulate Roan into taking her out. If I'm going to buy she's changed, I need to see it, not just pretend she's always been one of them.

Yeah, I’m having some issues with it as well.

I was prepared to be really interested in Echo this season but right now she’s just so … flat? I don’t hate her, but I don’t particularly like her either. I’m just … so apathetic every time she is on my screen. 

And I don’t want to feel that way about her. Like, Tasya is a regular right now so I want to see it. But even Emori feels like she has more of a character arc this season.

What my concern is is that they are going to essentially make Echo into nothing more than a love interest/prop for Bellamy this season. That would not only be a disservice to Echo but to Tasya as well. 

I know Tasya has said that Echo’s arc this season will be about her wondering if her friends love her as much as she loves them and kinda finding her place in the world in that regard. I haven’t seen any kind of hint of that happening with any of the space squad beside Bellamy. In that sense, B.echo’s relationship makes more sense, but if she’s only concerned about how her relationship with Bellamy will fare on the ground then - for the fourth season in a row now - Echo’s story will entirely revolve around her relationship to a man. (In Season 2/3 it was Bellamy; in Season 4 it was Roan.) 

We are five episodes into Season 5 now - over a third of the way through the entire season - and I still have no idea what Echo’s relationship is like with any of the other members of the space squad. She’s just … there. Even with Emori I have a pretty good grasp of where she fits in the group. But Echo is still just one big question mark to me.

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe Echo isn’t quite sure where she fits in this family yet, either, and it was easy enough to ignore that on the Ark but now that she’s on the ground she can’t run away from her insecurities about her place in the world anymore.

If that’s what her story ends up being about (her discovering her place in the context of their little space family now that they are on the Ground) then I’m all-willing to get on-board. But if they don’t start kicking the pieces of that into place soon it’s going to be frustrating. And, until they do, all the weird throwaway lines from her like that one about Clarke in the rover are never going to stop feeling out of place to me.

Honestly, I don’t have many complaints about this season compared to the previous two but all the confusion surrounding Echo is a massive thorn in my side that I feel could have been easily sidestepped on so many occasions. I’m holding onto hope that they’ll reconcile that arc and come up with something I don’t hate (seasons of The 100 tend to be better once you have the whole picture anyway) but in the meantime I’m not going to be quiet about my misgivings about it.

[trevorrain]

Recap

This is going to be a long text post. There is no TLDR.

About a week ago I expressed a few words of gratitude towards a follower. Thanking them for their time and for the content on their blog as well. They asked how the job was going and I couldn’t help but kind of laugh to myself when asked that. 

The last post I made on the goings on of myself was over a year ago from now, I believe. Not really thinking that people might be interested since nobody is really asking unless prompted.

Warning: Below I talk about dementia and other not so very happy things. I just need to get this off my chest. Don’t keep reading if you have a sensitivity to these things. Lord knows I understand.

I just feel the need to kind of ‘recap’ what happened in greater detail. Even so, there’s much being left unsaid. I’ll make a follow up post where I talk about the most recent goings on in my life.

But this night is one where I’m lost in melancholy, and I’ve been meaning to talk about the few things that have been occupying my mind as of late. 

But first, I want to clarify what had happened to me two years ago.

I was living with my parents. Helping to take care of them in a way. Having been born over a decade away from my nearest sibling in age. It was soon after moving to St. George Utah that my mother was diagnosed with Dementia that would turn into full blown Alzheimer syndrome. I was with her in the room during the diagnosis. For reasons that would take too long to explain, she wanted me to be there instead of my father, and I remember her holding my hand so very tight. She didn’t tell me where we were going and why.

It would be years still before she deteriorated to the point where she needed professional help. I knew I was inadequate to take care of her and pushed to have her admitted into a nursing home, or have skilled staff come to our home on a regular basis to give her the care she needed. Father’s insurance was not the best for helping long term. She had been admitted into a nursing facility temporarily while I worked on getting the neccisary papers to get medicaid approval.

Mother was a high fall risk. Rarely slept and would wander without caution. She sustained injuries as there was inadequate staff at the facility to watch her 24/7. She was in the hospital from those injuries when I was told she was approved the medicaid was approved. Just in time for her to be admitted into hospice. Due to the broken bones and bruising along with the rapid progression of her condition, she was not expected to last long. 

The time period is fuzzy to me. It was either a week or two weeks before we were told her last day was fast approaching. Father and I stayed up most of the night, waiting and listening. Among the details I’m skimming over is the sound of her breathing. I remember that the most, but I imagine it would be very unpleasant to read about. It’s my fear of causing pain by my story that keeps me from telling it in detail. Even if I want to.

Father and I decided to get a few minutes of sleep. I woke up to dad tapping me on the shoulder. Mom waited until we were both asleep before passing away. 

I had to stop typing for a few minutes after writing that.

The funeral was held that weekend. There was plenty of time to prepare. I returned home with my father, and we tried to figure things out from there. Tried alone, anyway. Father didn’t talk about his emotions, and we were different types of people. We weren’t close. Despite my hangups and so much that was never resolved between us, I still loved him.

He wasn’t eating much, so I tried to cook his favorite meals more often. He didn’t get out often, so I did most of the shopping. Doing what I could with a part time job. But understand that they both married when they were 21. They had been married for over 40 years.

One day I noticed he wasn’t feeling well. When trying to talk to him, he would respond with confusion, as if he didn’t understand what I was saying. He was acting strange. Due to the daily pain from extensive nerve damage from his working days, he would sleep in an easy chair rather than the bed. This night he chose the bed. I checked up on him the day after and found he hadn’t moved, and wasn’t responding to my questioning. I found things like the remote control he uses being put in the fridge and a few other abnormal signs of behavior.

I called the home healthcare people that were checking on him. They recommended I call an ambulance. I did.

He spent three days in the hospital and ended up recovering, but the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. They only found he was low on potassium, and recovered not long after they gave him the needed IV fluids. Discharged within 3 days. 

A week, maybe two later, it happened again. A neighbor helped me get him into the car so I could drive him to the hospital this time. They ran almost every test they could think of on my father. He spent 7 days in the hospital this time before some recovery took place, and he only remembered the last 3 days of it. Again, it was low potassium. They couldn’t find the cause. 

Should be noted that a psychologist saw my father while I was away, and he was convinced my father also had dementia of some kind that was overshadowed mother’s more advanced condition.  I mentioned before my father never spoke about his feelings, not being one to believe in emotional health. Any question of his health when it came to mental or emotional was a lost cause.

And really, it was that kind of behavior I grew up with. But talking to my siblings, it’s possible that the parents that I grew up with were very different from those that raised my sisters and my brother. I’m... still processing this.

He was exhibiting late stage dementia. He never recovered fully from that last hospital visit. 

The health home that took my mother in for hospice agreed to look after my father for a few weeks, and I was happy to hear this at the time. They could monitor his health much closer and with a more skilled eye than I had.

But my father's antiquated behavior towards women made the female staff uncomfortable, they didn’t feel safe around him, and I was called to pick him up within 24 hours. 

Suddenly the care of a man three times my age was put upon me. I had taken the task in stride before now. I felt... oddly... older after my mother had past. Like I was stepping into a more adult role and I wanted to do well at it. I mentioned that getting my father in that facility was my way of figuring out how to better take care of him, I felt more in control. Then I get that call asking me to take him back. I was furious.

But I took him back. He wasn’t taking care of himself very well, so I doubled up on the groceries and the cooking. Trying to get him to eat with the little appetite he had. Setting up doctors appointments. He was complaining about his stomach hurting. Taking him to these appointments lead to him feeling very sick. He ended up cancelling one that I set up. I made him promise to go to the next one.

The day of the appointment is when he died. I found him sitting on the couch, pale. I knew something was wrong. I called an ambulance.

It’s harder for me to talk about dad passing more than it is with mom. I was closer to my mother, but the way my father passed, with the emotional burdens, the things the family found out in his medical records. It brings this whirlwind of emotion out, making this hard to write. Especially for how tired I am right now. Where I had weeks to say goodbye to mom, I lost my father to a heart attack in the middle of an Emergency room surrounded by doctors and technicians, being asked if they should keep doing chest compression, calling my sister because I couldn’t make a decision like that on my own.

It was made for me after they found he had bled out internally. Almost completely. There was no saving him.

I didn’t leave the hospital until after the mortuary sent someone for the body. After they did, I went home. It felt so empty. It would feel that way for weeks.

I don’t get many chances to talk about this. I haven’t had many. I had, for the longest time, resolved not to say anything until someone asked me. Nobody would ask. And I understand why. It’s a unique grief. People have said they couldn’t imagine how I feel, can’t imagine how it would make them feel. I suppose there’d be very little reason to ask my feelings because it’s a safe assumption that ‘bad’ would cover it. People feel like there’s little they could do, so often they don’t try. In the end, it’s unfair of me to judge others on my made up personal parameters like that.

I’ve talked with people that had completely forgotten about this aspect of my life. Makes me wonder if I’m doing any disservice to their memory by trying to sidestep something that effected me so much. That feels so real even years after. I don’t know. I’m starting to question why I’m even typing this up right now. Possibly a moment in grief.

Part of it is my fault. I’ve made it part of my life to try and be selfless. To bring some sort of happiness or contentment to people I meet. Friends, strangers, acquaintance, I care for the well being of. For me to go out of my way to find a friend or person to talk to feels almost aggressive. Like backing someone up in a corner and saying ‘Hey! I have a sad story, this will make you feel uncomfortable, but you can’t move due to me taking advantage of this unspoken obligation, taking hostage of your time!’ I don’t want to force people to commiserate with me.

But it doesn’t mean that I don’t want, or even actually need, this commiseration. Much of the fault lies with me keeping this bottled up for so long anyway.

I’m going to queue this post up for tomorrow. I need to get some sleep. I’ve got work tomorrow. I’ll try to draft an update of how I’m doing now then. Maybe help shake some of the cobwebs out of my head.  Goodnight for some, good morning for others.

Peace.

[detachableteacher]

It's both summer and birthday, nice.

"What's a good summer outfit?" I ask during lunch at Ryu's place.

"Can't be that hard, can it?" Yu asks back. "What are you thinking of wearing?"

"Something simple, something breezey, maybe-"

"No shirt at all?"

"Are you serious with that?" I glare at Yu for giving that suggestion.

"Yusei is right, though." Ryu answers as he joins us with iced tea. "Why should you feel embarrassed about being shirtless in public?"

"Because I'm shirtless? in public?" My face is still in its miffed state.

"Why not?"

"I don't think I have the looks for that."

"Nonsense," Yu responds. "You definitely look like someone who's hiding something good under that tank top of yours, and if you're confident enough to wear a tank top outside of work..."

"I'm not getting you."

"You're just a few steps away from going shirtless in public, even if it's for a beach."

"Really now? It's like I'm showing more of myself than I want to."

"You'll be fine. How about this, lift up that tank-"

"What?!"

"There's no one else here, Jun, just your two fellow teachers — Akashi says he'll come, though — and I'm a childhood pal, there's nothing to worry about."

"Fine, if you also join me in this, this birthday party at the beach was your big idea after all."

"Plural, all the other teachers planned for this." Ryu adds, with Yu turning to him. "What? It's not a surprise party."

Yu turns back at me. "Show us what you have first."

"Here goes nothing." I nervously hold onto the bottom hem of my tank top, and slowly but surely lift it up to the point where my stomach is in full view. Given the lack of change in their reaction, I may not be lacking in this department.

"The ladies would go crazy for that, man!" Ryu grins. "You definitely don't need to worry about what shirt to wear."

"Or if you forgot to get a spare on your way to the beach." The two chuckle at what Yu says. "You know what? I just thought of something. Put your head on the table.

I shrug and take my head off, placing it on the table to face where my body will be standing. "Should I go all out?"

"It's like you know what's up. Go for it."

I go back to the spot, and with trepidation on my face take off my tank top, the lack of anything on my neck making things slightly easier. "I look like a mannequin."

"They'll be looking at your body long enough not to realize it doesn't have a head on." Ryu snickers. "You pretty much have the perfect body, Jun, all it needs now is a head."

"Yeah, if you can go around town carrying your head like it's a basketball, going to a beach without a shirt is a piece of cake."

I walk to my head and put it back on. "There, does it look any better?"

"It's definitely complete." Ryu answers. "I do notice how your face doesn't seem to match your body. Shouldn't be too much of a problem."

"Okay, I've done my part, now you two."

The two are more than willing, with Yu showing off first. Safe to say that neither of them are any more or less notable than I am.

"We'd look great together as a group like this." Yu comments. "If you're with us, you don't have to worry about grabbing too much attention."

"Hey guys, what's-" Akashi barges in to us three about to get dressed again. "Jun's birthday party isn't until Saturday, right?"

"Just in time!" Yu exclaims. "Come on, take it off."

"What now?!"

We couldn't help but laugh.

-----

Fully clothed again, we snack on some fries while we wait for Ryu to come back.

"So we're heading to this beach?" I ask.

"It's the closest one with lodging we can stay in." Yu answers, circling the spot on a printed map. "It's the only one; they developed the beach itself."

"Who's coming, by the way?"

"There's you, me, him, Ryu, uh, did Sayori confirm?"

"She did. So did Midori." Akashi answers.

"I think that's everyone, the others said no."

"Who's going to bring the food?" I ask while I get some food for me.

"Ryu will, as usual. If that won't cut it we'll buy at this KFC here."

"Faaaaan-cy. By the way, my car's not big enough for all of us, not counting strapping you on the roof.

"I'll deal with that myself." Ryu comes back with more grub. "The vehicle I bought is about to arrive tomorrow

"What kind of vehicle?"

"A van, should be enough to fit every person and cargo inside."

"Cargo. We're not going to bring a lot, right? Just the food, and whatever games you'd bring."

"Everything will fit, and you'll even have some leg room in the van."

"When it comes to Jun leg room is pretty wide, so ya gotta be precise." Akashi says. "What are you going to wear to the beach, Jun?"

"What you came into should probably answer that, or not." I rub the side of my neck. "I guess I'll be wearing beach shorts, just beach shorts."

"Yeah, the beach is the perfect place to show that physique without getting arrested. You'd do yourself a disservice by hiding that in your usual tank top."

"Forget about the shirt," Yu joins back in. "Do you even have shorts?"

"They're all indoor, I'll probably buy a new pair tomorrow, anything can work."

-----

The next day after work, I head straight to the nearest clothes store in the middle of town.

"Good evening!" A salesperson greets me.

"Do you have any blue beach shorts?" I ask.

"They're over here, sir." She points at a rack of shorts. I thank her and head to the rack to start scanning. I find a few candidates and bring them to the fitting room.

The fitting room's mirror is a full-length mirror tacked onto the wall. I stare at my reflection for a while readying myself to try on some shorts. After some pondering, the only way to assess which shorts will fit me best is to wear them without a shirt. I take my shirt off, and as it sometimes happens, my head gets snagged off my neck, and I flail around a bit until I grab my head, pull my arms off, and then take my head out of my shirt.

Only then do I remember that I forgot to lock the door, because by the time my shirt's off and my head in my hands, the door opens and a lady screams at the sight of me, almost causing me to let go of my head.

"I'm so sorry!" I hold my head up to my neck, then immediately reattach it. "It's my fault, I forgot to lock the door."

The woman, who's about my age, looks at me from top to bottom, and with her being shorter than I am it's rather noticable that she has no idea where to look at. "Wow, is that really your body? I think I saw you holding your he-"

"This is also my head, miss." I point at my head. "I won't have any other head I can steal, right?"

"Yes?" She gives me a confused look, then averts her gaze before returning to me. "Could you, do, that... thing again?"

"This?" I take my head off again, holding it just beside my chest. "Or do you want me to do it like this?" I hold it beside my neck.

"You really look like two different people that way." She comments, and silence follows. "Um, I'll just wait for you to be done." She sidesteps out of sight.

I finally lock the door, staring at my bare torso reflected by the mirror, then my own face. I guess they have a point about that. I have three shorts, all blue, all reaching above the knee, differing only in design. The assessing doesn't and shouldn't take long, and decide on getting the one with a gradient from sky blue to light blue; it doesn't end on white at the very least.

With my final decision in hand, I leave the fitting room, and the woman from a while ago bows at me in apology. "I'm sorry about what happened, sir."

"It's fine, I wasn't paying attention myself."

"I must say, I wouldn't have known what you have under that sweater."

"Uh, thanks?"

She giggles a bit before giving a final bow and duck to the fitting room.

I shrug it off and finalize my purchase.

-----

"Hey, Jun," Yu drops by my place. "Do you still have that omelette pan?"

"Yeah, it's collecting dust in my kitchen, I'll just grab it."

"Got anything for the party?"

"Shorts. Just the shorts."

"Now we're talking. Lemme see them."

I show him the shorts, fresh off the bag.

"Of course they're blue." He chuckles. "When it comes to you it's always green and blue."

"Says the guy with the same shirt for work." I hand him the pan. "Do you even have anything for the party yourself?"

"Already have."

"Glad to know I'm not alone in this."

"You're already good enough on your own, I promise. Well, I gotta go back and make dinner, see you tomorrow."

-----

After Saturday classes, the invited folks immediately go to Ryu's place to get things ready, and I find out what Ryu's new ride is: a Delica.

"So that's what drive to the beach?" I struggle to carry the gifts I get from those who aren't joining us

"That's the one." Ryu proudly answers. "More than enough for us."

"Family road trip much?"

"If it works, it works." He shrugs. "And it will also be used for business purposes. Today is for leisure, though, so let's get moving, guys."

Taking my birthday boy spot at the passenger seat, we are on our way to the beach. About half an hour later, we arrive at the beach resort, a nice slice of coast filled with people and a good number of establishments.

"After we find our spots, let's get our gear ready." Ryu heads the hunt for a spot and finds us a nice covered table just by the entrance of a bazaar-looking marketplace.

Fully settled in, Yu jumps in with the opening remarks: "Let's see what Jun's gonna be wearing, you can't just go on like that in here, you know."

"That's what we're waiting for, right?" Sayori asks in wide-eyed anticipation.

"Fine, if that's what you want, I'll change. Don't get too excited." I leave off to the nearest changing room, get changed and come back in my new shorts, showing my shirtless body in its full glory. "Here it is."

"Nice shorts!" Akashi exclaims.

"Looking good!" Ryu adds.

"Hey, let's not forget the most surprising thing of it all," Midori interjects. "You've been hiding that under a sweater for so long?"

"What do you mean?" I awkwardly rub the back of my neck.

"You, excuse me, you have a great body!"

"Don't even bother with having your head on, the girls will be too busy staring to notice."

"Stop it, will you?" I approach the gang's table after the impromptu exhibition. "Do you guys really think I'm that hot?"

"Yes." A unanimous decision.

"Really? I just don't think I have the right type."

"You do, just take our word for it." Sayori says, not exactly reassuringly.

"Enough of this chit-chat," Akashi cries out, "Let's get wet!"

We rush to the changing rooms, and after I wait by the doors, everyone's ready. Then we head to the shore, though along the way I feel my head getting yanked by someone.

"Midori?!"

"I'll show you what I mean." I can already see that she's diverting from the group to a row of beach chairs.

"Okay, how are you going to explain carrying a head around?" I ask as she lays me down on a chair. She covers me with a towel.

Meanwhile, my stands along with the rest of the gang, and in less than a minute I notice a couple of girls taking a good look at my torso, one of them's even holding a phone. Then a quick shift up to my neck surprises them. I fully face them and give them a slight wave.

"You're getting some attention now, huh?" Yu elbows me a bit. I awkwardly rub the back of my neck. "They're about to talk about the headless hottie they saw, I'm sure about that."

"Did you bring the volleyball?" Ryu asks Yu.

"Here." With the volleyball in hand, we walk to a volleyball court.

The first game is between us boys as Sayori goes away to find Midori. A quick drawing of lots (Ryu always has those ready) pits me and Ryu against Yu and Akashi. It's not exactly professional stuff, but quite a number of people are watching, thanks to the spectacle of a headless beach bod playing volleyball with his pals.

Not a pause in the game goes by without someone wanting to take a picture either of me or with me. I can't tell them anything and I don't want to reject their requests so the photoshoots keep coming, solicited or not.

With a game finished, the two girls finally return, with Midori carrying my head. With that the attention just stays on me, probably astonished at seeing me reattach my head. I expected that being back in one piece would stop the looks, I guessed wrong. At least no one is approaching me for photoshoots.

With the girls in line, we have Yu and Ryu match up against them first as a bit of boys versus girls before a 3-on-3 where Sayori joins the two against the rest. The people still staying are definitely only watching for the game.

After all that gaming we watch the sun set for a bit before rushing back to our table for some dinner. On the way to the beach we bought a bucket from a KFC.

"Did this come with any drinks?" I ask in the middle of laying down the items.

"This." Ryu pulls out a large bottle of soda. "It's probably not enough for us, there must be a convenience store here for us to get a second bottle."

"We can look for it if you want." I say.

"I'll join ya." Akashi volunteers.

After a short walk, we lay our eyes on a convenience store, and enter it without any issues whatsoever; the AC isn't set to frigid.

I buy another of the bottle of soda and a bag of chips while Akashi has already bought some gashapon tokens. I pay out at the counter, trying to act like I'm used to buying at a convenience store without a shirt on.

Once we leave, I ask Akashi, "Of all the places to do that,"

"They only sell these things in select branches, especially this," He pulls out a CD.

"That's some dedication."

After all that we return, the others already having their meals, so we quickly join in, and after all the food, each one of them gives their birthday gift to me. All in all the day went well, and I don't feel as bad about others seeing my body.

We all change back to clothes more appropriate in a city and head back home. I open all my gifts after crashing into my apartment and call it a day.

-----

The next school day after classes, a student approaches me as I walk by the field, phone in hand, "Sensei, is this you?"

Indeed it's a picture of me at the beach, "Yeah, that's me."

Other students crowd around her and without fail all go "Ooooooh!"

"I didn't know sensei has such great-"

"Don't say it out loud!"

-END

[oncethrown]

2x12 You Are Not Your Own Review

Whole Episode Review

So much great stuff. So many problems. So much promise that Shadowhunters is determined to be better than the books.

So much evidence that they might not understand what the initial problems in the book were.

I’m not one of those people who reacts to characters like they are real people, or about the writers “treating a character like that” as though the plot actually happened to a real person. Doing something terrible to a character, or having a character do something awful is not “disrespecting” them— if you deal with the consequences of those plot points and use them to make a plot move forward, instead of just dropping them and running along to the next thing. If a plot point is just a thing that happens, then yeah, it’s a disservice to the character, but you can do really terrible shit to a character if you build it into something interesting plotwise and create character growth from it.

I’m not sure I trust Shadowhunters to accomplish that right now.

Shadowhunters entire premise is based on there being a whole magic world, where Shadowhunters are at the top, and downworlders are underneath them. There are laws in place that are supposed to guarantee some freedom and equality, and everyone knows they are bullshit, but the Shadowhunters don’t care. There’s a villain who embodies the worst of Shadowhunter supremacy ideals… but the Shadowhunters hate him because he killed a bunch of Shadowhunters, not because he threatens the downworld.

The narrative they are trying to push, is that their lead characters, Clary, Jace, Isabelle and Alec, are aware of and against the unfair treatment and oppression of the downworld and in favor of a fairer and more inclusive world. Especially Clary, who as a character from outside the world doesn’t have their ingrained prejudices.

But the writers are failing to a degree that almost seems intentional in the first two episodes.

The Problems:

1. Please Pay No Mind To The Pile Of Dead Downworlders Behind the Curtain

Valentine murdered downworlders en mass inside an Institute and the only time a Shadowhunter has mentioned it is Alec telling Jace that it isn’t his fault. Imogen was brought in to interrogate and torture Valentine— to get the mortal cup back. There has been no nod whatsoever to the Clave attempting to reach out to the downworld. Acknowledge the massacre, assure the leaders of the downworld that they didn’t know the mortal sword had the power to slaughter downworlders. When they bring up that Clary deactivated the sword? It’s done with annoyance that stupid Clary broke the Truth Magic.

Even Luke and Maia’s scene, where Maia is upset that most of the pack got rolled off the Institute floor and probably onto a truck to be dropped into the Hudson for all anyone seems to give a damn, gives Luke the less than compelling emotional reaction of “Meh, more wolves where those losers came from, my nosy gay partner is annoying me right now.”

The show did something catastrophic to a population that it explicitly uses to represent oppressed people, and sidestepped dealing with it further than wringing a Malec moment out of it. There is no emotional impact to dozens (hundred? We don’t know) of dead downworlders.

Everyone of the main Shadowhunter characters (except Jace) is in or has been in a significant romantic relationship with a downworlder, and none of them seem to be thinking about the impact of this massacre in any larger way either.

2. Business as Usual, Side of Evil

Shadowhunters encourage torture. Mundanes call that a war crime, but it’s whatever! Imogen tortures Valentine for information about the Mortal Cup. Imogen wants him dead because he won’t give up the mortal cup. The Clave wants him alive because he might give up the mortal cup if they just keep torturing him.

And then Clary McWhiteSavior handwaves all the torture and dark shit going on in the basement of the building she lives in, because Imogen lost her family… in a warrior culture, where people die all the time and most people lost a lot of family 15 years ago. When Imogen tells Alec that the Clave won’t let her kill Valentine, but she’s going to do it anyway… Alec is concerned… but concerned like a Republican senator, where he’s shocked and dismayed… but isn’t going to do shit about it (other than guard the door until it turns out that maybe it is his body-swapped boyfriend after all).

I get that Valentine is essentially the Shadow world equivalent of a White Supremacist. If he were burning crosses in Mississippi instead of… being menacing on a boat carousel?(seriously, Shadowhunters, figure out your damn aesthetic) I wouldn’t really give a damn about him getting a little bit mysteriously dead during a security tape fritz. (Except of course I would, because those sorts of “mechanical failures” only ever function to excuse the deaths of non-white people, and let killer cops back out on the street. That’s the actual pattern.)

But the Law is the Law. Shadowhunters are supposed to be dispensers of cold justice in strict accordance with ancient tradition. Having Imogen go rogue like that, and DRAG ALEC, ONE OF THE OFFICIAL GOOD GUYS along with her, and at no point have the plot acknowledge that she went off the rails is ludicrous. Even Casserole Clam managed to fit that part in. In the books Imogen breaks the Law to torture Jace, and the narrative kills her for it. It’s not okay for Shadowhunters to just walk away from that point, especially after tying a main character up in the mess.

3. Must Be This White or Male Not To Be An Addict

Season 1 Izzy was the youngest forensic pathologist in New York, a formidable fighter, a loving sister, a good friend, and a total badass. Season 2 Izzy is a frail drug addict who has yet to deliver a line to a man who isn’t playing savior or trying to bone her, or both! She is also the only non-white Shadowhunter from Clary’s stupid pre-credit intro monologue and she’s completely lost control of her sexual and romantic agency (Technically I know Alec has to be Latino… but Matthew Daddario isn’t so I think the point still stands).

Izzy and Meliorn had a relationship lacking the romangst that characterizes everyone else’s smooching time, but that seemed perfectly healthy and functional. Izzy even got to save him from the evil Clave imprisoning him with no evidence in a place that would kill him (remember when that became important in the story? Neither do I, must have gotten cut for more time for Jace and Clary to say sibling words over and over again in case we didn’t hear them the first time) but now she’s drug denning with Raphael until he turns her out in the street to save her life, and then she’s being saved by the mysterious blonde english boy who takes her home to save her life, and she doesn’t think it’s fair for Alec to not like Sebastian just because Alec wishes that he had been the one to save her life. Even Simon, who I have basically no qualms with, gets a scene where he gets to give her information about addiction and be respectful of what she might be needing in recovery, and has family experience and doesn’t judge her.

And it might have seemed sweet if Isabelle’s story line hadn’t stripped her of everything that was cool about her in season 1.  

Gag. Choke. Barf.

4. I Feel Like You Want Me To Think Boy-Touching is Gross

Remember all the hand holding and closeness and casual intimacy between Magnus and Alec in 2A?

No. Cause it wasn’t there.

Other than the greeting kiss in 2x11, every time Alec has touched Magnus like they are two people who are in love and are having and enjoying sex with each other,  it was actually Valentine, and the camera focused on Valentine being super weirded out by it. When it was Magnus touching Alec in Valentine’s body the disgust made sense in the context… but with everything else going on in that plot there’s still a yuck factor to the touch that makes the fact that the only time Alec and Magnus are together, in their own bodies, there is too much hurt and distance for them to touch each other.

5. And Like… I Don’t Want Homophobia in Fiction But…

What is going on culturally with Alec Lightwood The Only Gay Shadowhunter? No one mentions it, no one brings it up. And it would be a really good thing to explore in the current cultural moment. Homophobia (and racism) can be present without being overt. It can affect people’s lives and careers, even with everyone putting on an accepting face.

It could be something that forces Alec to think a little bit more about the wisdom of the Clave, and maybe make him think a little bit about how he was raised to think about downworlders. It would move him out of the dominant culture of his world into a weird gray space where he could learn. Because they gave him the impetus for that in Aldertrees “I loved a werewolf as though she was a person but it turns out she was just a downworlder” speech.

If Jenji Kohan suddenly took over as show runner, it might even be interesting to see Alec learn how not to be a White Gay ManTM, like the assholes joining facist movements because they think their sexuality gives them an excuse to hate Muslims, or the rotten toenail fungus suing the Alamo for hosting an all women screening of Wonder Woman because he can’t handle not being welcome in a space for women when he could go see the fucking moving anywhere else in Texas. (What an asshat).

6. And Since I Brought Up Disrespect

Again, doing bad things to characters isn’t disrespect.

But patterns in the writing for certain characters is.

1. Why is Izzy a pathetic damsel now, repeating the same experience, and the same fucking lines over and over again?

2. Why do Clary and Simon get greeting make outs and Alec and Magnus don’t? Why have we seen Clary and Jace dive into passionate full body kisses with a wide enough lens to see their bodies pressed together and not gotten the same for Magnus and Alec? Why have we gotten a cutesy morning after scene for Clary and Simon, and not gotten anything similar for Magnus and Alec, even in an episode where their fist time having sex was a B plot?

3. Why is Izzy always being put in the position where sex is being exchanged for something? (She goes off to have sex with Meliorn when they all need a backway into the hotel Dumort. Her attempts to get a bite from Raphael are all highly sexualized. Aldertree offered Izzy Yinfen in exchange for “dinner”.

4. Why is it that in the two sex scenes we’ve seen with people fully or mostly nude (Jace and the Seelie girl and Izzy and Meliorn) the woman is so much more sexualized than the man? And why have we only seen this much skin in these casual sexual relationships and not in the main romantic pairings?

5. Why has Clary  never listened to anyone, and never had to experience any real consequences for her actions (with the exception of getting thrown into a rape cage at Iris’s after trying to bring her mother back from the dead). Why does she keep saying she cares about downworlders (and always downworlders of color) and then fucking them over and forgetting about them? She tased Luke, for fuck’s sake, and went on her merry way like a fucking sociopath. 

While Watching Thoughts

Azazel is a good small arc villain. Sinister and handsome and powerful.

Kat Mcnammara is actually good at this cutes-y romcom shit. It comes across much more genuine than everything else she’s asked to do…but somehow it makes me hate Clary more. I like my female leads smart enough to realize that maybe Simon being a Daylighter is super rare, and maybe could mean trouble and maybe there’s a reason for Simon to be jumpy (Vote 1 of this reaction post for Maia as main character)

UUUUGGGGHHHH remember season 1 Izzy, who occasionally  did something other than make doe eyes at men who were actively harming her while she credited them with saving her life?

I would like to see Clary, Jace and Isabelle’s willingness to bring Sebastian onboard obviously tied to him being a Shadowhunter. It would make a lot of the anti-downworld stuff coming up pop more and give Clary’s character something to actually work with going forward-- “He’s a shadowhunter, I’m a shadowhunter, we are part of the shadowhunter club, my mom is dead and my father is evil and jace isn’t my brother, so shadowhunters are my FAMILY”

Valentine trying to do magic is great, Harry’s changed physicality doing Valentine is great. I wish the next day makeup made more sense.

I can’t tell if it’s sweet or needy that Alec marches directly to Magnus’s apartment after that phone call, especially since there was a huge fucking massacre and then they made him summon a greater demon that nearly killed them all?

Umm… okay with the matrix shot.

It’s…not awesome that the most affectionate touch we’ve seen Magnus and Alec have is when it’s being used to freak out Valentine.

Goddamnit Clary. Could you listen for just one fucking time? If only so I don’t have to hear you whine about it when the consequences fuck you over.

Interesting that Valentine thinks to call Dorothea.

I hope they make this Imogene the Sadist thing go somewhere

Please let this be the end of this fucking druggie storyline

Simon is sweet. He would have been a much better main character than Clary. Imagine, instead of this love-struck white girl— witty Jewish boy who deeply cares about people actually like… fucking notices the problems in the Shadow world society. Actually cares. Actually brings it up to the people around him other than just when he needs their help for stuff. (Remembers that Luke is basically his Dad)

This scene makes me wish that Valentine wasn’t the most boring fucking villain. I had no idea Alan was a good actor cause his character is such a mildly menacing blank space. His face when Alec shoves him away. His Magnus voice.

This is not the worst way to introduce the Herondale thing… but I don’t  want this Imogene/Clary scene.

Oh hey- Simon caring about someone again. Caring about the guy who has threatened him multiple times because Isabelle humanized him. Hmmm…. What an interesting trait in a main character brought into a repressive society against their will. Hmmm.

I like Alec trusting Jace with what just happened to him.

I don’t think Magnus actually calls Alec Alexander this often.

Haha. Valentine faking magic.

I hate gratuitous torture scenes. I gave up on Supernatural after the Samandriel thing. This had better be fucking moving toward a point. About the Clave being Nazis.

Please let this episode be the last I need to hear about the incest plot

Whoa. Raphael. This is the only time I’ve ever liked Raphael a little bit.

Oh good. Isabelle being a junkie is a plot point again.

Simon! So Stupid! Don’t wave it at everyone!

Luke knows he’s everyone’s dad.

Again. Make this Imogen thing do something.

Alec… isn’t really going to allow this to happen is he? Not just because it might be Magnus… but because he’s supposed to respect the rules. And like… there should be too much doubt in his mind to go this far. Especially with the weird phone call and visit earlier.

Ooohhoooo This is much better reveal of Jace’s parentage than the books. Buuuuttttt…. Imogen believes the Magnus/Valentine switch with way less evidence than Magnus gave Alec. Not great.

I wonder if this Herondale reveal reads as total left field bullshit if you haven’t read the books? 

Magic has to be harder than that.

Good point Alec. You are now here with the untrained shadowhunter and the random dude who according to his own story, just went rogue. There are real shadowhunters at the institute, where are they.

Ooohhh, Alan got that magnus-move down really well. It’s too bad he has to go back to being a frowny face with a overwrought backstory.

I feel bad for Kat that she got cast to be a cute red head and now that they have real money to work with they can afford people as talented as Alisha and Will. She can’t keep up.

Magnus must be a better fighter than that. What the hell was that?

Like… are they going to talk about the fact that Magnus’s first thought at every point has been protecting people… and Alec is a Shadowhunter… who was just going to guard the door while his boss tortured a prisoner? That’s some dark shit. And it sort of carves Alec down to just another Shadowhunter… another in a long line of the monsters who have hunted Magnus and his friends for centuries. How could Magnus have thought he would be different? Is it naive for him to really have believed that it was possible to love a Shadowhunter?

Alberto could have chemistry with a ketchup stain

Oh good. More incest. I was so very worried we might go four fucking seconds without it.

Is Jace just… hanging out and petting a sword?

So… did Imogen storm into Magnus’s and demand jewelry, probably without apologizing him for the torture and unlawful imprisonment? (Of course she did. Did Alec Say anything?)

We aren’t going to deal with the irony in her statement about what’s good and right… when she was all tortury and rogue murdery? We’re gonna let that go? Okay then. 

[ggdeku]

Breath of the Wild final impressions

As I watched the credits roll on Breath of the Wild I was conflicted. The game had been a ton of fun, a fresh new take on the series while also being a great open-world game in its own right. But despite enjoying my time with it, I ultimately felt very dissapointed.

Breath of the Wild is not a bad game, far from it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t get what I wanted. In their quest to mix up the “Zelda formula” and bring a new structure to the series, the developers left too much behind. Resulting in a good, but ultimately unfulfilling game.

Ask any fan of the series what their favorite entry is and you’ll get a different answer every time. The draw and appeal of Zelda is so varied that fans often disagree as to what elements are most valuable to them. One of the biggest draws for me has been the design of the dungeons themselves. It’s not just about the individual puzzles in each room, but the way these puzzle rooms are connected to make the dungeon a puzzle itself. Zelda dungeons are at their best when they require the player to understand the architecture and mechanics of the space and make it fun to unravel both the individual puzzles and the overall dungeon itself.

For a deeper examination of the way Nintendo designs these structures, I highly recommend watching Mark Brown’s Boss Keys youtube series. Brown talks about each game in the series and analyzes the way dungeons are designed. This series was very influential for me and helped solidify my thoughts on this topic. I recommend the Majora’s Mask video as it perfectly explains why I love that game.

With BotW, Nintendo very clearly targeted the strengths and design values of the very first entry in the series. An open space where the player has agency to make their own decisions about where to go and what to do. With no predetermined narrative-based path, you can do what you want, when you want.  However, in achieving this goal, the pacing and tight design of the Zelda series is mostly pushed aside in favor of player freedom.

Without a strong narrative path, the developers used the shrines as an incentive for players to explore. The 120 shrines mostly use the game mechanics and player abilities very well, but were also responsible for 120 moments of stinging disappointment. Every time I finished one, I felt unsatisfied because it was just one puzzle unconnected to a greater scheme of interlocking rooms or challenges. While completing shrines I often thought about how much more I would have enjoyed the puzzle if it had been connected to the last 20 shrines I finished.

There are several combat challenge shrines, but they aren’t the most interesting or rewarding things to complete. Even the simple change of reducing the overall amount of shrines to make each one the equivalent of two puzzles and a combat room would have done wonders to the game. That change would make discovery and completion of the shrines more meaningful.

The overall quality of the shrines made the feeling even worse because with individual puzzles that strong, a solid, interconnected design would have probably lead to some of the best dungeons in the series.

The aesthetics of the shrines are all the same. The same music and visuals 120 times. I think that does a disservice to the variety of puzzles they feature, in addition to being boring after the first 20. Even simple themes like forest, ice, fire, wind, fortress, etc. would be a great way to mix up the visuals of these challenges.

Shrines at the beginning of the game look identical to shrines you will find many hours into your adventure.

And then there are the Divine Beasts. They are the closest thing this game has to a traditional Zelda dungeon, because they are much larger than shrines, feature a short series of puzzles and end with a boss.

They share very little with the established "dungeon” forumla, but one aspect they do share with their predecessors is an important one, encouraging an understanding of the structure’s architecture. Each beast requires you to understand and manipulate the movement of the structure in order to activate five switches and fight a boss.The moving and twisting beats are impressive, but the actual goals within them leave a lot to be desired.

Not only are they much shorter than the dungeons of previous Zelda games,  they all have the same objective of activating a few switches. Repeated objectives and simple physics puzzles get boring fast. After you complete one beast you have seen everything they can do.

None of the beasts provide the same feeling as a good Zelda dungeon, unraveling and fighting your way through a tightly wound knot of individual and interconnected puzzles rooms and gaining an understanding of the continuous layout of a piece of architecture. They are far too simple in their individual and overall puzzle design and feature very little combat, other than the bosses. Much like the shrines, the Divine Beasts are not bad, but they are a weak attempt at making sure something resembling a Zelda tradition remained in the game.

The beasts also have the same problem as the shrines in terms of aesthetics. They are all located in beautiful, distinct locations in the world, but the beasts themselves share the same theming (which isn’t very different from the shrines).

As someone who greatly values the traditional Zelda dungeon, this disappointment with BotW’s alternatives hit me hard. No one makes games like Zelda. No one makes Zelda-like dungeons. After waiting six years for the next 3D game in the series it sucks to be disappointed in this way.

It’s not just the dungeons, but the progression in complexity that I miss. The way the dungeon design builds from the Great Deku tree to the Spirit Temple in Ocarina of Time, or from Woodfall to Stone Tower Temple in Majora’s Mask is amazing. That hasn't been a part of Zelda in many years.

This was also one of my biggest problem with A Link Between Worlds. That game had traditional Zelda dungeons, but because the player could tackle them mostly out of order they all felt as if they were each designed to be the first dungeon. The game lost any sense of progression in complexity with dungeons that would be lucky if they lasted more than a couple minutes.

However, this game’s best moments are not the attempts to translate the dungeon format to a new structure. BotW’s strength is the open-world and sense of discovery. These were strongest for me in the first half of the game, when the majority of the world was a still a mystery.

Discovering shrines in the first half of the game was exciting, and solving the tiny Korok seed puzzles hidden throughout the world provided a unique distraction. The Korok seeds are so plentiful (900!) that you can always find enough to increase your inventory, but I felt that their implementation did more to help the developers fill up their massive world rather than create a good mechanic for the player. It’s just another meaningless collectible.

While exploration is incentivized by shrines and Korok seeds, the best discoveries were villages and towns. BotW has the best towns in any Zelda game hands down. They all have a unique atmosphere, great music, and are occupied by memorable NPCs that seem to run on a Majora’s Mask-like schedule. Discovering and entering Hateno Village at dawn was one of my all-time favorite video game moments.

Once I had explored the world, found all the villages, and unlocked each section of the map, I realized that the only thing left to find were shrines and seeds. With Korok seeds cast aside as meaningless collectibles, looking for shrines quickly stopped being interesting as I knew the only thing I could find would only instill the same sense of longing for “real dungeons” that I had experienced dozens of times before. 

Thankfully, many of the sidequests to find the shrines were some of the best moments of the game, taking the unique and interesting puzzles and bringing them onto the actual world map. But aside from those quests I did not find much fun in exploring the world. I wanted to avoid combat most of the time because I didn't want any of my weapons to break and the standard enemies often had worse gear than what I was carrying. Exploring for exploration’s sake does not interest me. I’ve never really been the kind of player that messes around in the open world games without a purpose.

The lack of enemy diversity throughout the world was very surprising. BotW has  a strangely small variety of enemies. Zelda’s famous cast of monsters is mostly absent this time around as Link is left to fight standard and large sized Bokoblins and Lizalfos for most of the game. Fighting the same enemies over and over again started to bore me near the end of my playtime and I found it strange Nintendo left out so many different types monsters such as Like-Likes, Darknuts, Stalfos, Leevers, etc. It really doesn’t help the copy and pasted feel of many enemy encounters when the combat barely changes in hour one compared to hour 100.

I did like that they addressed the common complaint of combat difficulty. The enemies here actually put up a fight and provide for some tough encounters that require quick thinking and good reflexes. However, they also included two mechanics that trivialize the combat: Flurry Rush and parries.

Once I discovered how easy it is to abuse and activate the time slowing effects of Flurry Rush and parrying, the enemies were no longer a threat. The window to activate the Flurry Rush is so large that I often found myself triggering it when I wanted to back flip or sidestep for movement purposes. 

The combat itself felt a little stiff as well. The way Link stops moving when he swings his sword felt abrupt and his canned combos felt too automated. When you attack, Link will perform a simple combo string. In past games, the direction and type of attack could vary depending on your input. Link’s moves would actually be based on player input. I missed the choice of horizontal and vertical slashes, a sword thrust, and a crouch stab from behind a shield, among other moves.

The runes were cool, but I did not use them very often during combat. The combat sandbox in general felt a little underwhelming, mostly because Stasis, Magnesis, and Cryonis are the only unique abilities Link gets. 

The addition of infinite bombs seems like a carry over from ALBW’s item system, but don’t add much to the game. Infinite bombs are incredibly easy to abuse and are often more effective than arrows. I still think Wind Waker and the N64 games have the best combat sandboxes as they have a wide array of items and abilities without any overpowered dodges or parrying.

Because of the lack of unique items and abilities, the sense of progression is stunted. Link doesn’t gain access to new areas with the acquisition of tools that allows him to interact with the world and enemies in a different way. You get your rune abilities at the beginning and that is it. You are stuck making water platforms and moving metal objects for the rest of the game. I’ve always felt Zelda was better off closer to the Metroidvania style of design than an open world style, and BotW only reaffirms that opinion. BotW loses the moments of realization that your newly acquired abilities/items/information can be used in an earlier area to access something new, or recontextualize something you thought you had a handle on.

Link’s various armor sets also exemplify the grindy nature of this open world by  requiring you to farm items to upgrade equipment. This is probably the most standard open world aspect of the game and one that is just not worth engaging in.

I also wanted to touch on the story and characters, which is another element that I feel is important to the series (even if many disagree). Because of the open design, the story was pushed out of the players way for the most part. Unfortunately this led to a bunch of underdeveloped characters I never cared about. The hints into each Champion’s history and relationships with other characters was intriguing, but we never got anything more than simple archetypes. It would have been great to see longer story quests build up to the divine beasts.

One of the biggest story fumbles were the memories. While some were interesting they often added so little and often felt pointless. They gave us scraps of characterization for Zelda and that’s it. As for timeline stuff, the game is so vague that it doesn’t really matter (and I’m a Zelda timeline lover).

There are no memorable characters. We get interactions between the various champions and Zelda in flashbacks, but learn almost nothing about them, their personal histories, or see them grow or change in any meaningful way.

Games like Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask have you meet characters that have arcs, relationships, and goals. Players watch the characters grow and change. They inform the plot while growing along with the overall narrative. You see each character receive closure to their own storylines alongside the main narrative.

There is no plot in BotW. You wake up and are told to kill Ganon. If you defeat the Divine Beats you get to see more of Link’s lost memory, but all of that happened in the past, and you know that the four primary characters are already dead. Their fate is known before the player is even introduced to them.

There is no sense of urgency or danger. In Majora’s Mask you can see how Skull Kid’s meddling and the threat of the falling moon have negatively impacted every single one of the residents of Termina. The Deku Swamp’s water has been poisoned, the Gorons are frozen over, the sea temperature has risen and Lulu’s eggs Zora eggs have been stolen by pirates, the Ikana researcher has been turned into a zombie and the land has been cursed to keep the undead from dying completely. In Breath of the Wild, none of the people are in any danger. No one is scared of the obvious and inevitable return of Ganon. After the calamity life went on, the fall of an entire civilization didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the existing citizenry of Hyrule.

For a series that receives such massive amounts of praise, I don’t think Nintendo can keep on barely scraping by in the story and lore department. Nintendo should put more time and effort into a stronger focus on the narrative for this series. It’s a shame when the peak of storytelling in your franchise was over a decade ago (even though Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker were great).

I enjoyed my time with BotW immensely in the first 20 to 30 hours, but once I had a consistent understanding of the world and mechanics, I started to pick apart all the little things that I didn’t like, and it really hurt my enjoyment of the game.

What makes it hard for me is reading other Zelda fans’ impressions stating this is the best game in the series and that they hope Zelda never goes back to the way it was before. This series can and has done more. It has provided interesting worlds, memorable characters, unique and inventive puzzles and challenges that have stayed with me for years. When I think of BotW I just remember all of the things I didn’t like. I just think about how I can’t see myself ever returning to this game in the same way I do to almost every other game in the series.

It makes me sad because the traditional, more linear Zelda formula, despite some bad design decisions in the later games, still provides a valuable experience and is responsible for more than a handful of my favorite video games of all time.

DLC UPDATE:  I really liked the Champion’s Ballad DLC  just because of the shrine and Divine Beast. The new shrines were some of the best in the game, and the new divine beast was by far the best. The boss at the end was a unique challenge and is one of my favorite moments in BotW, it felt like an important event in a way that almost nothing else did in the base game.

[albertcaldwellne]

11 Ways to Get Back on Track

Falling off the fitness bandwagon happens to the best of us. Because, well, life happens. You move, change jobs, go through a breakup, have a kid, have a second kid, get a dog, need to care for a family member… Anything and everything can make the most dedicated exerciser stop working out.

If this is you, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, get back into it as soon as you can. “The longer you take a break, the harder it is to come back,” says Sara Haley, a pre- and post-natal exercise specialist. “It’s like working out for first time again.”

Here are 11 expert ways to make your exercise comeback.

1. FORCE YOURSELF

Time for some real talk. At first, you may just have to make yourself exercise, Haley says. Consider writing down why you are exercising as well as the alternatives if you don’t. “If you don’t work out, you’re not just maybe going to gain weight and not fit into your clothes, you are going to start setting yourself up for disease and aging poorly and all sort of other things; it’s not just aesthetics and vanity,” Haley says. But if you exercise, you’ll live longer, be there for your loved ones, feel better and more. Seeing that in black and white can help you stick to it, and after a week, you’ll start to feel better and want to keep working out, Haley adds.

2. START SMALL

Remember that something is better than nothing. You don’t need to do an hour right off the bat. “Fifteen minutes is great,” Haley says. “Then add five minutes each day you work out, and before you know it, you’re doing 30–60 minutes.” Push it during those initial 15–20 minutes, and you will see results.

It’s also less overwhelming to start small. “If you try to do an hour, you may feel really out of shape and not have fun,” says Pete McCall, an ACE-certified personal trainer and host of the All About Fitness podcast. “But a great 20-minute workout is a realistic expectation, and afterward you’ll feel like, ‘I can do this!’” That sense of accomplishment will keep you coming back for more — and for longer when you have time.

READ MORE > STUDY SHOWS BODY IMAGE CAN IMPROVE IN ONE WORKOUT

3. FIND THE TIME

“I have no time” may be the most-used excuse for not exercising. In some instances, you may just have to shift your schedule. Say you used to exercise after work but now have to get home to your baby and partner. See if you can fit in a workout in the morning or even during your lunch break, McCall suggests.

Also look where you are spending your time, Haley says. “In this day and age, you have plenty of time to be on Facebook and Instagram. How much more rewarding and self-fulfilling would it be to use that time to work out?” she says. You may want to reconsider your post-workout routine, too. “Shorten your getting-ready routine,” Haley says. “So maybe you don’t blow out your hair — but you are fitter and healthier for it.”

4. EASE IN

Don’t start where you left off weeks or months ago. “That is a recipe for injury,” McCall says. Instead, use less weight for strength training and go at a slower pace for cardio. “Exercise is stress on the body. And if you had a major life change, that’s also a major stressor,” McCall says. “Your body needs time to adapt to this new physical stress.”

5. CONSIDER YOUR SEASON OF LIFE

Another reason to not start off where you left off: That’s living in the past. Haley says to consider your current lifestyle and situation. “Maybe you did a 5K daily when you were 20 and had no responsibilities other than yourself,” she says. “But now you might have an aging parent, a new baby, a new puppy or a new job that you have to focus more time on. Just because you did something in the past doesn’t mean you have to do it now or that it’s a good thing for you now. Look at your lifestyle and goals right now.”

6. DO IT FOR YOUR KIDS

Parents can feel guilty or selfish for taking the time to work out — time that could be spent with their little ones. But trust Haley and McCall, who not only work with clients who have children but are parents, too. “Exercise helps your mood, increases energy levels and has so many benefits that if you don’t work out, you’re doing a disservice to your kids,” McCall says. “If your kid cries the last few minutes of your workout, it’s OK. They’re resilient. It isn’t going to damage them.”

Adds Haley, “If you are not healthy and taking care of yourself, it’s impossible to take best care of somebody else. You have to be fulfilled or you will end up in resentment and that will be far worse than guilt.”

If you really struggle to find alone time, consider joining a local stroller workout group or set up your home gym so your children can be nearby. McCall set up a swing in his garage when his oldest was a baby, and Haley often puts toys around her mat so her kids can play while she exercises.

7. HAVE A PACKUP PLAN

No matter how hard you try, sometimes your schedule gets thrown off and your plans to hit yoga or do a few laps at the gym fall apart. Time for a Plan B — and streaming sites, DVDs and YouTube are great ones. You can find reputable trainers with quick, efficient workouts, many of which don’t even require equipment. Have your go-tos bookmarked or downloaded, and you are ready to go when Plan A is messed up.

8. SIDESTEP SORENESS

It’s inevitable that you will feel sore as you start to work out again. Don’t let feeling too sore keep you from exercising. Again, ease back in. Also remember to warm up and cool down. If you feel sore the next day, try foam rolling, gentle yoga or taking a walk. Some movement will help you feel better.

9. MAKE YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE

The benefits of having a workout partner are well known. If you’re not sure how to find someone to keep you accountable so you stick to your new fitness plan, consider joining a challenge. Often these challenges have a Facebook page, a hashtag to use to find others on social media or forums where you can support others in your shoes and seek support from them. Plus, once you accomplish one challenge, you may want to keep doing more, which will help you make fitness a part of your lifestyle.

10. BE REALISTIC

Face it: Going from zero to 100 overnight isn’t going to happen. If you set a lofty goal and don’t hit it, you may get down on yourself and ask ‘Why even bother?’ Rather than telling yourself that you will work out every day the first week back, set a smaller, more realistic goal. Maybe that’s exercising twice during the week and once on the weekend. Then when you hit that goal, you’ll feel better and it’ll be easier to commit to exercise on the long term, McCall says.

11. TAKE IT DAY BY DAY

Often Haley will see people get three or four days into a new exercise plan, then something happens and they miss a day or two — and they think, ‘Screw it’ and give up. “Don’t beat yourself up if things don’t go as planned,” she says. “If you forgot to brush your teeth one day, you wouldn’t decide to skip brushing them the next day. Get back into it as soon as you can.”

Do what you can each day, says McCall, adding, “Give yourself a pat on the back on the days you are able to work out, and if you can’t, shrug it off and work out the next day.”

The post 11 Ways to Get Back on Track appeared first on Under Armour.

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[joshuabradleyn]

11 Ways to Get Back on Track

Falling off the fitness bandwagon happens to the best of us. Because, well, life happens. You move, change jobs, go through a breakup, have a kid, have a second kid, get a dog, need to care for a family member… Anything and everything can make the most dedicated exerciser stop working out.

If this is you, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, get back into it as soon as you can. “The longer you take a break, the harder it is to come back,” says Sara Haley, a pre- and post-natal exercise specialist. “It’s like working out for first time again.”

Here are 11 expert ways to make your exercise comeback.

1. FORCE YOURSELF

Time for some real talk. At first, you may just have to make yourself exercise, Haley says. Consider writing down why you are exercising as well as the alternatives if you don’t. “If you don’t work out, you’re not just maybe going to gain weight and not fit into your clothes, you are going to start setting yourself up for disease and aging poorly and all sort of other things; it’s not just aesthetics and vanity,” Haley says. But if you exercise, you’ll live longer, be there for your loved ones, feel better and more. Seeing that in black and white can help you stick to it, and after a week, you’ll start to feel better and want to keep working out, Haley adds.

2. START SMALL

Remember that something is better than nothing. You don’t need to do an hour right off the bat. “Fifteen minutes is great,” Haley says. “Then add five minutes each day you work out, and before you know it, you’re doing 30–60 minutes.” Push it during those initial 15–20 minutes, and you will see results.

It’s also less overwhelming to start small. “If you try to do an hour, you may feel really out of shape and not have fun,” says Pete McCall, an ACE-certified personal trainer and host of the All About Fitness podcast. “But a great 20-minute workout is a realistic expectation, and afterward you’ll feel like, ‘I can do this!’” That sense of accomplishment will keep you coming back for more — and for longer when you have time.

READ MORE > STUDY SHOWS BODY IMAGE CAN IMPROVE IN ONE WORKOUT

3. FIND THE TIME

“I have no time” may be the most-used excuse for not exercising. In some instances, you may just have to shift your schedule. Say you used to exercise after work but now have to get home to your baby and partner. See if you can fit in a workout in the morning or even during your lunch break, McCall suggests.

Also look where you are spending your time, Haley says. “In this day and age, you have plenty of time to be on Facebook and Instagram. How much more rewarding and self-fulfilling would it be to use that time to work out?” she says. You may want to reconsider your post-workout routine, too. “Shorten your getting-ready routine,” Haley says. “So maybe you don’t blow out your hair — but you are fitter and healthier for it.”

4. EASE IN

Don’t start where you left off weeks or months ago. “That is a recipe for injury,” McCall says. Instead, use less weight for strength training and go at a slower pace for cardio. “Exercise is stress on the body. And if you had a major life change, that’s also a major stressor,” McCall says. “Your body needs time to adapt to this new physical stress.”

5. CONSIDER YOUR SEASON OF LIFE

Another reason to not start off where you left off: That’s living in the past. Haley says to consider your current lifestyle and situation. “Maybe you did a 5K daily when you were 20 and had no responsibilities other than yourself,” she says. “But now you might have an aging parent, a new baby, a new puppy or a new job that you have to focus more time on. Just because you did something in the past doesn’t mean you have to do it now or that it’s a good thing for you now. Look at your lifestyle and goals right now.”

6. DO IT FOR YOUR KIDS

Parents can feel guilty or selfish for taking the time to work out — time that could be spent with their little ones. But trust Haley and McCall, who not only work with clients who have children but are parents, too. “Exercise helps your mood, increases energy levels and has so many benefits that if you don’t work out, you’re doing a disservice to your kids,” McCall says. “If your kid cries the last few minutes of your workout, it’s OK. They’re resilient. It isn’t going to damage them.”

Adds Haley, “If you are not healthy and taking care of yourself, it’s impossible to take best care of somebody else. You have to be fulfilled or you will end up in resentment and that will be far worse than guilt.”

If you really struggle to find alone time, consider joining a local stroller workout group or set up your home gym so your children can be nearby. McCall set up a swing in his garage when his oldest was a baby, and Haley often puts toys around her mat so her kids can play while she exercises.

7. HAVE A PACKUP PLAN

No matter how hard you try, sometimes your schedule gets thrown off and your plans to hit yoga or do a few laps at the gym fall apart. Time for a Plan B — and streaming sites, DVDs and YouTube are great ones. You can find reputable trainers with quick, efficient workouts, many of which don’t even require equipment. Have your go-tos bookmarked or downloaded, and you are ready to go when Plan A is messed up.

8. SIDESTEP SORENESS

It’s inevitable that you will feel sore as you start to work out again. Don’t let feeling too sore keep you from exercising. Again, ease back in. Also remember to warm up and cool down. If you feel sore the next day, try foam rolling, gentle yoga or taking a walk. Some movement will help you feel better.

9. MAKE YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE

The benefits of having a workout partner are well known. If you’re not sure how to find someone to keep you accountable so you stick to your new fitness plan, consider joining a challenge. Often these challenges have a Facebook page, a hashtag to use to find others on social media or forums where you can support others in your shoes and seek support from them. Plus, once you accomplish one challenge, you may want to keep doing more, which will help you make fitness a part of your lifestyle.

10. BE REALISTIC

Face it: Going from zero to 100 overnight isn’t going to happen. If you set a lofty goal and don’t hit it, you may get down on yourself and ask ‘Why even bother?’ Rather than telling yourself that you will work out every day the first week back, set a smaller, more realistic goal. Maybe that’s exercising twice during the week and once on the weekend. Then when you hit that goal, you’ll feel better and it’ll be easier to commit to exercise on the long term, McCall says.

11. TAKE IT DAY BY DAY

Often Haley will see people get three or four days into a new exercise plan, then something happens and they miss a day or two — and they think, ‘Screw it’ and give up. “Don’t beat yourself up if things don’t go as planned,” she says. “If you forgot to brush your teeth one day, you wouldn’t decide to skip brushing them the next day. Get back into it as soon as you can.”

Do what you can each day, says McCall, adding, “Give yourself a pat on the back on the days you are able to work out, and if you can’t, shrug it off and work out the next day.”

The post 11 Ways to Get Back on Track appeared first on Under Armour.

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