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teatin · 1 year

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hiii! hope you're well.

this might be random but i just wanted to ask if you've played re4 remake yet? and if you have i would love to hear your thoughts on it? (i guess more specifically about aeon bc i am a Big Simp for them LOL but ofc i would love to hear any and all thoughts you have)

also i absolutely love your fanfics on ao3, you're so talented and your writing is so good aaaaaaa i've been rereading them over and over lmaoooo

anywayyyy thank u for ur time and i hope you have a lovely day ❤️

Hi there! So sorry I let this sit in my inbox for so long 😭

First of all: Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm so glad that you enjoyed my Aeon fics on AO3 and I hope I can continue to contribute even more fics to the fandom.

Now to the important stuff: Honestly? I really like what they did with Aeon in RE4R. My main criticism of their relationship in the OG game is that the devs didn't seem to know how to write a conversation between them that would last longer than 5 seconds, so all of their interactions in OG RE4 essentially boiled down to Ada smoke bombing Leon the moment the conversation started to get even slightly confrontational.

That's one thing I hoped they would improve on in the Remake and they did.

The original boat scene had no dialogue, but Remake's boat scene contained what is probably the closest thing we've had to a heart-to-heart between them. In the original, Ada swerved and crashed the boat against the rocks the moment she sensed Leon might have something to say, but here, she actively gives him an opening to speak his mind, and they actually get a chance to talk things out a little, even if the moment didn't last nearly as long as it should. I can appreciate that.

I also like the way they changed their final confrontation over the Plagas sample in a way that fits better with the narrative established in RE2R. In the original, Ada holds Leon at gun point, forcing him to hand over the sample, and even though we knew she would never hurt him, in the Remake timeline that scene wouldn't work as well considering 1) Leon had already challenged her to shoot him and she couldn't, another standoff like that wouldn't make any sense from a thematic or character standpoint, and 2) Remake Leon is clearly shown to be extremely vocal about his disillusionment and distrust of Ada, having her pull a gun on him after all that would've essentially undone any development they might've had throughout the game.

But it's not just Ada who changed. Leon pretty much let her have the sample without even bothering to put up a fight, and this is done without having a gun pointed at his head. This is also a continuation of the narrative established in RE2R: He probably remembers the last time he tried to fight her over a virus sample and how it led to catastrophic consequences. It also shows (in a very subtle way) that despite everything he said, he trusts Ada to not let the sample fall into the wrong hands. You can't tell me that if he had even a sliver of doubt, he wouldn't have at least tried to reason with her to get it back, instead he just kinda lets her have it.

I do think they could've done more with their relationship (I understand why Leon choking Ada while under the influence of the Plagas was removed, but I will forever be bitter about them axing a significant scene that involved Ada and giving it to LUIS of all people), but unlike a lot of people, I never went into the game expecting things to be sunshine and rainbows between them so the angsty direction of their relationship did not surprise me at all. If anything I could see shades of their Damnation era relationship in RE4R so I'm actually pretty pleased all things considered.

Also, them casually Facetiming each other this time around is just so funny to me somehow. It added a bit of lightheartedness in an otherwise quite heavy game (Aeon-wise).

RE4 era has always been a rough patch for Aeon. That has never changed. They bonded in such a short time in Raccoon City and that budding connection was immediately crushed by Ada's deception, and then she "died" before Leon could even process any of it (and he continued to not process any of it in the 6 years that followed, if the opening cinematic is anything to go by). That's a LOT of unresolved trauma and conflicted emotions. But they do care deeply, underneath it all, and we know that they will eventually get to a place where they can be comfortable with each other as they are. They haven't gotten there yet, but they will. And that's okay.

#leon x ada #resident evil #aeon

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lovecolibri · 2 years

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SaL anon here my friend and, well, I for one am happy I watched the LS finale after the OG finale, at least the evening ended on a good note. So at the risk of really getting salty, let's talk about these two shows (when your up for it, I'd get it if your still didappointed). So I'll just say it, it's painfully obvious that Tim switched over to LS, not just because of how 911 OG has suffered but because I actually feel that the LS season as a whole was far better than OG's. No it's not perfect

there's still way too much Owen in relation to the other mains, but let's compare. The OG season intro was the blackout, not nearly as entertaining as it looked because we had to have copaganda. The LS season intro was the ice storm which not only distributed time across all the mains but had some beautiful, emotional moments plus set up future episodes. Most of the calls on OG were just there, like they didn't connect to anything really (probably because they were supposed to be showcasing L but since so much of her time was cut they come off as pointless. On LS I felt like most of the calls either tied in with the plot or into a particular characters storyline, even if they were silly ones (Lou the Lizard was pure joy). While LS has a few "meh" episodes or storylines none were so divisive and made the audience incandescently mad as the crap OG pulled the season, particularly in relation to Buck. The introduction of a questionable guest storyline in LS ended up being an actual delight that wasn't pushed down the audiences throat (meaning Wyatt being Judd's son). Meanwhile on OG we have the whole L debacle, for which the storyline (meaning setting her up as a LI) got cut when it was hated so she was just there taking up screen time. In fact LS in general wasted incredibly little time on guest stars while in OG, well you know. Finally, since this is getting long, there's the finale. LS ended with an emergency that fed into storylines and wrapped them up with a truly happy ending, including the Tarlos engagement which had been but up all season. OG ended with nonsense/gross calls that went nowhere, barely wrapping up Eddie's storyline which is probably the only thing that kept most people watching all season, and a breakup that sooo much time was wasted to build toward when they literally could have had that storyline anywhere in the season because TayKay was the same!! I know we've compared kr's version of 911 to CAM running RNM over and over again but the biggest similarity is one of the reasons this season is so bad, so much of it was just done for shock value, and usually lead nowhere. The L kiss was the biggest example, it didn't contribute anything to Buck's breakup. The whole Jonah torture scene was the same, as was the creepy rapist cult. The big 5b set pieces I guess were supposed go be dramatic, but they fell flat. Buck and Chim's fallout just got resolved ***oh no Tumblr ate the post!*** SaL anon here bestie and I think I ended up with 7 parts (though I might have mislabeled some) and definitely got yelled at by tumblr for posting too many asks in 1 hour (my cue i really was rambling at that point) so the last one might have indeed gotten eaten. Pretty sure I ended with the oft repeated sincere wish both kr and L be gone next season for all our sanity. But I'm happy to see your feeling the salt too, can't wait to hear your thoughts!!

Oh bestie, where do we start? I would like to point out for the record that I never thought we would get Buddie roommates, gay Eddie reveal, or explicate Buddie hints in this episode, so I’m not disappointed about speculation that didn’t come true. I know a lot of people can get their hopes up on speculation (I’m guilty sometime myself!) and then get disappointed when it doesn’t happen, but my disappointment is pretty much tied up in what a waste of time most of this episode felt like. Like, it was fine I guess for a filler episode, but a) the finale shouldn’t be a filler episode, and b) the finale that includes a missed opportunity wedding moment shouldn’t cram that moment into the last 3 minutes of a filler episode, in a montage split with everyone out doing different things! (Also Toni apparently officiated? But we hear NOTHING about that after her missing their wedding because she was not originally on board with her daughter marrying a woman?! How was that not bigger news?!)

Anyway, my disappointment is about other things but first, for sparking joy, lets talk about LS! I have my gripes with the show which will probably come up later, but (sorry LS and LS fans) I’m not as invested in LS so I’m happier to just see where it goes and enjoy the good moments we get. Because overall it WAS a good season! I was ready to roll my eyes at the whole Wyatt storyline, but the moment he was introduced and was such a sweet young man and his appearance was handled so well, I was on board. And what a fun little arc it turned out to be! We got some really heartfelt moments for the Ryder family this season!

As always, I want more/longer/in depth storylines and absolutely more balanced screentime in general in every episode for characters like Marjan, Nancy, Mateo, Paul, Carlos, and Grace, but this season definitely worked at giving them all moments to shine, and shine they did! They also really leaned into the “126 hangs” and showing the younger crew constantly in each other’s pockets which was really nice to see. I also didn’t totally hate Tommy’s storylines this season. They hinted at her starting to date and it felt like a huge HARD PASS, but they bumped it out a few weeks and the pacing felt right and when it came it was a disaster but in a gentle, human way and really set her up to be ready to move on. I know the Julius thing is divisive, but I saw it coming so I was already braced for impact and it honestly could have been worse so 🤷🏻‍♀️ We all know the whole Owen situation is what it is, but I didn’t like, hate him every second. I actually really enjoyed a lot of his scenes and the ones I didn’t were more just me rolling my eyes and then ignoring them or forgetting about them immediately, it didn’t totally kill my joy in the season, more like a minor annoyance I’ve (mostly) learned to live with as long as I don’t think about it too much and get riled up.

And Tarlos!! I had some different expectations for them, but honestly after struggling with the OG all season it was really nice to see them being so domestic and soft most of the time, and the angst we did get was always pushing the characters towards growth, both for themselves and for their relationship. The engagement was so well earned! I also love that we got to see TK go from someone was so nervous to tell his dad about proposing because he knew his dad wouldn’t agree and proposing in place he normally wouldn’t go (literally out of his comfort zone) only to get rejected and told he was being cheated on, to someone who proposed at 3:18 in the morning after waking the love of his life up because he literally could not wait another minute to tell Carlos he wanted to leave everything to his husband. No fear of rejection, no popping the question to try and salvage things when there was distance and trouble between him and his partner, no big build up to try and make everything perfect, just a quiet, personal proposal made entirely from an overflowing of love, safety, security, and JOY about the future. LOVE this for them. (Also Lou the Lizard WAS pure joy and probably traumatized Carlos for life 🤣)

But overall it was a really strong season with a lot of delightful moments and I very much enjoyed myself and enjoyed watching each episode, even if I had almost no idea what was coming up after OG came back and my brain was busy with that mess. I will absolutely be watching this whole season again which I don’t think I can say about OG for the first time ever as I’m not one to skip scenes or episodes ever when re-watching things.

Anyway this bit already got long and the rest is…salt gremlin-y so it’s going under a cut. Also I have been working on this for ages after a very brain melting day at work so it’s barely edited and probably a mess and is definitely entirely too long. Enjoy!

Okay, I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt very “meh” about the calls this season. And I don’t know if it’s because usually they tied into what the mains were going through that episode, but most of the mains didn’t have a lot going on so we were missing that connection, or what, but they were pretty lackluster overall for me this season, especially in 5b. 5a at least had the hostage situation, the hospital call and that adorable wlw oil spill call to name a few.

The most egregious of course was the finale. The truck call gave us a reminder of Dosed but the truck going off the cliff ultimately amounted to nothing! They could have had the man get stuck in a tree while the people hounded him from below as the callback to 2x06 for all the effect that call ended up having. It felt more like something dramatic they could put in the trailer to hype the episode without actually having any baring on anything. The hair salon call could have gone at any point this season, or not at all! I’m still confused on how you’d get maggots from hair if they were getting it directly from the funeral home. It’s not like they were digging up bodies that were decomposing or anything! They use cadaver skin as a temporary covering before permanent grafts so like, WHY did we have to witness that?! And the amnesia couple, while very sweet, and actually having something to do with “starting over” and what love and partnership mean, also felt like WAY too much because of all the other calls! And they easily could have worked in a different way for Buck and Maddie to have that discussion, it didn’t need to be tied up in a call that needed set up, rescue, 2 scenes at the hospital, and a whole montage about their life story, in the finale that should have been focused on our mains. Then again, what else is new this season.

Honestly, 5x17 should have focused more on Eddie and the set up for the Jonah storyline and ended on the “Hen getting taken” cliffhanger (like seasons 2, 3, and 4 all ended on cliffhangers leading into the big story for the finale), and let the finale deal with the rescue and subsequent fallout. Because Buck brought up something very interesting that, not to brag, I totally called which was the LAFD raising questions about who talked to the press before the LAFD even had a chance to really start their investigation and determine what if anything needed to be public knowledge while the investigation was on-going. I have another ask or two about the breakup so I’ll go into my feelings about that more there and how it ties into this issue, but they could have made a little more of it to fill out the finale and lead to Buck’s arc next season, instead of random filler calls. But you’re absolutely right that this breakup could have happened at any point because it’s literally their first argument all over again, and she is exactly the same as she’s always been.

At least we got to see Maddie for the most part make her big decision on screen though I would have killed for a conversation with her and Sue about coming back. But I’m trying not to be salty about how little we saw of Maddie after Boston because I know they were likely working around JLH’s requested schedule, which she deserves. I just think there were a scene or two that they used her for that they maybe didn’t need to so she COULD be used in places where it made more sense. For example, her showing up to the hospital after Karen did and seeing her with Chim and when he asks where Jee is she says with Uncle Buck which then cuts to Buck watching Jee and seeing the news and leaving the message for tay kay.

Most of my disappointment comes from, as I mentioned, Henren’s big moment being a wordless montage in the middle of cuts to people doing other things, and the show teasing May and Eddie making big decisions, only for them to not actually SHOW US them making those decisions! *screams into pillow* Eddie and his arc carried 5b on it’s back, and has consistently been brought up on SM as one of the only things keeping people interested in 5b. So for him to barely have any time all episode, for them to not bring up what happened with his dad last week, or make a big deal about him being back on the team or talking to anyone about going back on the team, and for him to be relegated to the back of the group shot with his “replacement” (that was never needed) in front of him, really felt like a slap in the face. (At least we got Oliver Buck making heart eyes and smiling at having his partner back, I guess?)

The truck scene was…also a slap in the face making Chim be the one to stick up for the person who insulted him behind his back and was besties with Jonah, and it was a slap in the face to Buck saying he should be the one to lose his family if he steps out of line because they would rather have her, which is LITERALLY everything Buck is sensitive about made into a “joke” to keep shoving this character down our throats. The “families” montage at the end during the ceremony not only gave us NOTHING on the Buckely-Diaz family front (disappointed but not surprised), but also gave us Eddie sitting between Chim and some rando, and Buck next to L, and sitting at least 2 people away from Eddie, IF Ravi or L were next to Chim which I don’t think we even know for sure.

I wasn’t expecting any conversation about Buck and Chim’s relationship because, like the will, KR flat out said she thought those things were resolved and didn’t need to be brought up again. HOWEVER, as we have seen time and time again like with lots of people asking about Eddie’s recovery/PTSD, and Buck Begins, sometimes they do take dropped threads and bring them back up again so we might get some Chim/Buck fallout, especially if Buck is going to be going through it next season. So I don’t want to hear it that people who complained were wrong because some of these things DID come back up. They could, but only if Tim decides they’re important because KR doesn’t think they are 🤷🏻‍♀️

You’re soooo right about this being reminiscent of CAM and RNM with things being done for shock value and then never brought up again, and big things happening off screen that we’re told about later that we SHOULD be seeing. And god can you imagine if they HADN’T cut the L stuff after the backlash about the kiss?! They wanted to have them “poking” at each other all goddamn season while Buck was still with his gf, only for that to not have anything to do with the breakup?! Seriously they not only greenlight this whole thing, but wrote, and FILMED it and NO ONE along the way thought to say “maybe let’s not?” until they got the overwhelming backlash?! I mean, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

This is far too long already and I desperately need to shut up but I am manifesting SO HARD that they decide to cut their losses and get rid of L over the hiatus in a single throwaway line like they did with Ali (no shade, she doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with L, I’m so sorry!) and then we never see or hear from her again. My cynical side says they cut as much as they did to keep ratings for this season but also to not give the GA anything MORE to hate about her so they could start fresh in season 6 when most of them have forgotten all about the kiss that amounted to nothing and just remember seeing her face and that she was “around”. So I’m bracing for that, BUT I am…absolutely being a petty ass bench about nearly every single specific thing AK teased about this season after 5x11 being cut. No sweet bonding moments with Chim, Bobby, Eddie, or Buck, no teaming up with Bobby to tease Buck, no rock, paper, scissors with her and Buck on a call, no “poking” with Buck, no talking about her family with the team, no big build up leading to something “big” in the finale, not even really anything about her story being left “open” to return next season because she HAD no story! She was just *there* at the end, which people have already talked about being super confusing because she was Eddie’s replacement so how is she there still if he’s back?

Anyway, on the bright side, we did get some really good, sweet, and heartfelt moments which I’m looking forward to sharing gifs of, and this season we at least got a LOT of phenomenal Eddie content in 5b (and they will hopefully keep that up), we got some surprising yet utterly delightful new friendships (or frenemies) with Eddie at dispatch (and Maddie in Boston), we got Hen and Chim besties, some VERY loud Buddie/Buckley-Diaz family stuff, Buck finally setting himself free from the red-headed leach sucking the light and life out of him (now he just needs to lose the loft, but on his OWN terms, not hers), and Ravi, as always, bringing a sparkle to every scene he's in. If ANYONE deserves to be named as part of the 118 family it’s him. That man has put in the WORK. And by WORK, I mean he has suffered as only family can make you suffer.

Cheers, bestie! Here's to a nice hiatus of songs and Buck/Eddie/Buddie feels and soon Malex feels as well!

#my sweet nonnie friends #sleeping at last anon #911 #911 spoilers #911 lone star #lone star spoilers #tagging the usual suspects for the blacklists #anti taylor kelly #anti bucktaylor #anti lucy donato #anti bucklucy

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chanstopher · 1 year

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To be fair the fanwars weren’t as toxic compared to twitter 😂 they were quite mild and it’s just the usual ‘why I like my group better/why x is better than z’ though I think the JB stan cried one time bc BTS were growing really big and their numbers were dwindling 🤔 same tho! I was stuck in my own lil bubble most times 😭 I’d get updates from my friends since they weren’t into anime that much. JB the og purple user 😂 I forgot about that amg I always associate him with if I was ur boyfriend i’dneverletugoo!

waaah yeah their telepathy game was so fun 🥺 I think what really made me like kpop was the variety/team dynamics bc often times my friends would recommend me songs and not funny moments compilations 😂 that’s how I got into skz (finding skz god edi.) and svt (gose bungee jump and best friends) too

//also oms will give you more chris and cheol prints next time we meet 😂 I got a better printer so I can print things in merch quality now

— chia 🐏✨

ah that’s fair u can really only be so mean face to face without consequences lol so they had to be tame compared to the bloodbath that twt was in the bts vs exo days dhxhsj personally the jb contribution to my life has always been that interview clip where he goes “i like that laugh hehehe” and i don’t think he’s done anything for me since lmao

i definitely agree that the variety side of kpop is a huge reason to love it. i remember clinging to the random 1d clips of them being stupid and wanting more and finding that kpop is half just pure chaos and humor definitely made it more appealing especially with skz and svt and just how much content they put out of the just being together doing stupid stuff lmao

#drm.ask #anon #chia oh man i can’t wait to see u again someday 🥹#and to get prints too would be like i’m gunil and ur galadriel 🤭#ilu 💞💕💖💓

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therealvinelle · 3 years

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Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.

Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.

Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.

As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)

Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.

Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.

Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.

Alright, without further ado:

When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.

She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.

The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.

Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.

Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.

*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.

**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway

***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast

Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.

With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.

Where she doesn’t speak the language.

Faen.

Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.

*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.

School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.

To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.

She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.

So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.

People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.

She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.

Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.

She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.

He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.

He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.

“Hello”, he says.

Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!

"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?

He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says “Bella Swan”.

She gulps.

"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.

He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.

He says something else.

Bella didn’t catch it.

She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.

She should tell him.

It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.

But...

He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.

So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".

He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.

Class ends.

The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?

Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.

She hopes Charlie has an insurance.

An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!

He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.

He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."

He frowns.

That must have been the wrong answer, then.

His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?

*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.

He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.

"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.

The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.

That’s a shame. And weird.

"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.

"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.

The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.

She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,

The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.

*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.

Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?

She’s discharged.

We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.

The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.

Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.

He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!

He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.

(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)

He’s so amazing.

She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.

In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.

He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.

He is silent.

Did she say anything wrong?

(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)

A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.

He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.

Bella is in shock.

She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.

Is she dating a god?

She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.

The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?

He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.

Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.

Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.

She doesn’t get much out of the story.

The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.

The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.

Until her birthday comes around.

She gets a papercut.

Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.

Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.

"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?

"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.

Whachasay?

Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.

...

Vampire?!

Bella’s missed something here.

Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.

“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.

And Carlisle.

Who is a vampire.

Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.

Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.

Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.

"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.

Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.

Jaha.

Jahahaha jaa ha.

That’s… a lot.

She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.

One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.

That works out.

He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.

They can still be together.

But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.

It’s time to finally be honest with him.

So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.

She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.

And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.

Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.

Where did he go?

A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.

She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.

Oh, god.

Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.

She made a mockery of him.

He has every right to leave.

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

Bella sinks into a depression.

The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.

The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.

The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.

She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.

Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.

So she saves Edward.

After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.

She wishes she knew the context.

At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.

He asks her a question.

"Yes," she says.

Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.

But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.

The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.

Not good.

The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.

This is getting terrifying.

The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.

"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.

Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.

*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying “excuse me?”

Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.

When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.

"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.

He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.

Well fuck.

"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.

After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.

A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?

People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.

So she nods.

He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.

When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?

Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.

Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.

Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.

#troquantary #norwegian things #bella swan #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #evighetens kyss #evighetens kyss meta #evighetens kyss renessanse

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cardentist · 3 years

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I haven’t been in the star trek fandom for very long (I’ve only just started binging the series in the last couple months), so it’s been pretty surprising to find out just how negative the perception of the reboot movies are.

this isn’t coming from the perspective of someone who grew up with the series, so it hit different for me than it might for people with a different relationship to TOS, but I thought it was genuinely clever and Respectful with how it was handled.

To quote leonard nimoy: “Well the alternative timeline gives them license to escape from canon concerns. I can’t see people saying ‘they shouldn’t do that because…’ or ‘that doesn’t tie in to such and such’ because it is a different time and place. Am I right about that?” [Link]

the entire Premise is that the original series happened as it was presented in TOS, but an event late in Spock’s life caused the creation of a parallel universe in which everyone’s lives were significantly altered through two key changes to the timeline. this gives them the freedom to Both revel in fanservice And explore different facets of the characters and their relationships.

the destruction of vulcan Vastly impacts the characters and the plot moving forward, and its a detail that a lot of people take issue with. but the emotional impact of sarek admitting Directly to spock that there is value in his humanity, that his feelings Aren’t wrong, that sarek married amanda because he Loved her cannot be understated. you can read all of these things into sarek as he was in the original series, but he Never had an open conversation about these things with spock. this creates a Believable and Rewarding change in their relationship, where we get to see a different facet of them Because of the changes made. and that’s exactly the appeal. showing us pieces of these characters that we never got in TOS that are nevertheless undeniably Them.

everyone is Different yes, but they’re also fundamentally the same people at their core and that matters.

kirk’s personality obviously takes the biggest change, with him experiencing trauma at a young age, losing his father, and having an implied abusive father figure after that point. he has a harsher personality in reaction to harsher conditions, he’s spikier and harder to love. but he’s also still fundamentally a Good person whose willing to risk everything to help people. he still has what made kirk prime a good captain and a good friend.

I’m not gonna say that it’s the most nuanced story in the world, but it explores a version of kirk that was born from even Less fortunate circumstances than kirk prime, exploring a kirk brimming with potential who learned to bite back after he was kicked down. exploring those themes of trauma and loss, of insecurity and growth, and coming to the conclusion that Fundamentally He Is Capable Of Good isn’t a Bad thing. you don’t have to like it, but his growth into a better person is The Point. they deepened his flaws (all of which were present in a less exaggerated form in TOS) To Show That Growth.

and then of course there’s his relationship with spock.

people are totally justified in not liking that they had a rough start to their relationship, I usually don’t like to see that kind of thing in reboots or hollywood adaptations either, but the way people talk about it is just unfair.

Yes kirk and spock and bones have a very strong relationship in TOS, they also already know each other by the time the show starts. to look at them having to learn to get to know and trust each other when they first meet and say that it’s Bad because they were already full on ride or die for each other in the og series is silly. TOS kirk and spock had to meet and fall in love with each other too, it didn’t just happen over night kings.

secondly, the entire point of the first movie is that Even With reality itself being altered to pull them apart they are fundamentally compatible people that are Bound to each other. they meet each other on bad terms because of circumstances outside of their control, and yet they’re still pulled into each other’s orbit and find the other slotting into place next to them as if they always belonged. one of the first things that spock prime says in the movie is “I am and always will be your friend,” spock and jim are Meant for each other and the movie goes out of its way to explain that. which is what makes it so Weird to see people complaining about how they don’t like each other.

it’s a Different relationship, but it’s absolutely no less steeped in yearning or queer subtext.

speaking of queer subtext ! some people are Very unhappy with spock’s relationship with uhura.

first thing I wanna say is that making the argument that they’re doing anything that the original series hasn’t done is just, completely untrue. kirk has fallen in love with more girls in the og series than he knew what to do with, leonard nimoy was a heartthrob in his time (and he deserves it, awooga) and spock reflects that ! Spock usually turns the women who come onto him down (or when he doesn’t it’s because a plant has literally altered his mind), but there are exceptions to even that. all of three of the main boys have plenty of romance subplots, it happens. if that takes the possibility of them being queer off the table for you (which it shouldn’t, m-spec people exist) then I’m sorry to say that TOS is not exempt.

now, I can understand why Specifically This Relationship could rub people the wrong way or being disappointed that they didn’t outright depict kirk and spock as having a relationship (if not in the first movie then in the following ones after they’ve gotten to know each other), but even in that context the way I’ve seen people talk about it comes off as insensitive.

no, the relationship did not come out of nowhere. they considered having spock and uhura date each other in the original show (and you can see signs of this in the earlier episodes, where uhura very obviously flirts with him and they spend time together in their down time) before they decided against it, and spock was originally going to kiss uhura until shatner insisted that he wanted to do it (because it was the first interracial kiss on tv). [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3]

nichelle nichols was asked about this exact thing (spock and uhura’s relationship in the movie), you can read the interview in full here [Link] but I’d like to highlight this paragraph in particular:

“Now, go back to my participation in Star Trek as Uhura and Leonard (Nimoy) as Spock. There was always a connection between Uhura and Spock. It was the early 60’s, so you couldn’t do what you can do now, but if you will remember, Uhura related to Spock. When she saw the captain lost in space out there in her mirror, it was Spock who consoled her when she went screaming out of her room. When Spock needed an expert to help save the ship, you remember that Uhura put something together and related back to him the famous words, “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m afraid.” And Uhura was the only one who could do a spoof on Spock. Remember the song (in “Charlie X”)? Those were the hints, as far as I’m concerned.”

the film makers looked at the fact there were Hints for uhura and spock, that they were Interested in exploring an interracial couple for the first time (both before and immediately after interracial couples won the right to legally get married) but Couldn’t because of the circumstances of the times and decided to Make that depiction. you don’t have to Like their relationship just because of that fact, but it’s Incredibly reductive to play down it’s significance as just a No Homo cop out. explicitly queer relationships are not the only progressive or culturally important relationships in fiction.

moreover, if you can’t imagine polyamory in the communist utopian future that’s on you.

moreover, this perception that this was a soulless cash grab is just, unfounded.

leonard nimoy returned to the role as spock for the first time in 16 years (since 1991) and this was Entirely because of the respect they had for nimoy, spock as a character, and the franchise as a whole.

Lets look at some quotes from nimoy in interviews regarding the film:

Leonard Nimoy: When I first read the script (...) I immediately contacted J.J. and said “I think it is terrific…I think you guys have done a wonderful job. There is still work to be done, but it is very clear that you and your writers know what you are doing and you know how to do this movie and know what it should be about….and I am very interested.” Then as time went by we worked things out with Paramount, but the most important things were J.J. and the script. (...) I am very pleased about that and I am very comfortable with where this is going. I think the writers have done a terrific job. They have a real sense of the characters and the heart of Star Trek and what it is really all about.

(...)

TrekMovie.com: Now in the case of the new movie you have been retired from acting for years. What was it about this one that made you want to act again and go through the make up again? What was it that made you say ‘I really want to do this?’

Leonard Nimoy: You are right, this is a special situation. First it is Star Trek and so I have to pay attention. I owe that to Star Trek. Second place is that it is J.J. Abrams who I think very highly of, he is a very talented guy. Then came the script and it was very clear that I could make a contribution here. The Spock character that I am playing, the original Spock character, is essential and important to the script. So on the basis of those three elements it was easy to make the decision. So those three things: Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, and an interesting Spock role.

[Link]

Praising the cast playing younger versions of characters from the original 1960s TV series, he [Leonard Nimoy] said: “Let me take the opportunity to say this. Everybody at this table [the cast] are very, very talented and intelligent people.”

“They found their own way to bring that talent and intelligence to this movie, and I think it shows. (...) When Karl Urban introduced himself as Leonard McCoy and shook hands with Chris Pine, I burst into tears. That performance of his is so moving, so touching and so powerful as Doctor McCoy, that I think D. Kelley would be smiling, and maybe in tears as well.”

“The makers of this film reawakened the passion in me that I had when we made the original film and series. I was put back in touch with what I cared about and liked about Star Trek, and why I enjoyed being involved with Star Trek. So, it was an easy way to come on home.”

“[In this Star Trek] they said things and showed me things, and demonstrated the sensibility that I felt very comfortable with, and I think that shows in the movie. I like it.”

[Link 1, Link 2]

again, you don’t have to like it just because leonard nimoy did, you don’t have to Agree. but the idea that nobody working on the film Cared is provably false. near everyone working on the project was already a fan of the series or were excited to be involved and did their homework. it’s genuinely a Miracle just how much of a labor of love this was, and in my opinion you can feel that through the movie itself. I’d highly recommend looking into interviews and behind the scenes details about the movies. they had a respect not just for the source material, but for leonard nimoy as a person.

there’s definitely more I Could say about this, but it’s 4 am now so I’m gonna shelve it jklfdsa

that said! it’s Fine to not like the movie, not everything is going to be suited to everyone’s taste, but the specific criticisms I’ve seen feel very off base

#star trek #kirk #spock #uhura #nichelle nichols #leonard nimoy #star trek aos #aos #star trek tos #tos #meta #long post #hello followers I write essays about star trek now

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felassan · 3 years

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Highlights and insights from the MELE launch cast & crew reunion panel

[rewatch link] [highlights & insights from the N7 Day 2020 reunion]

In case a text format is better for anyone (in terms of accessibility for example). Cut for length.

Some paraphrasing.

If anyone’s interested in just the line-reading session, it starts at timestamp ~1:04:45.

In addition to the cast and crew from the N7 Day reunion, at this reunion also in attendance were:

Mac Walters (Project Director for MELE, Lead Writer of the og MET)

Melanie Faulknor (Lead Producer for MELE)

Crystal McCord (Producer for MELE)

Fred Tatasciore (Saren)

Seth Green (Joker)

Kimberly Brooks (Ash)

Ash Sroka (Tali)

This was the biggest reunion / meetup of the cast so far, and some of the cast and crew were meeting for the first time here.

It’s been so long since the og MET that PW & KW are getting to watch their kids experience playing it for the first time

JHale doesn’t play but since MELE she’s been sneaking around Twitch jumping into peoples’ MELE livestreams to lurk, watch and comment a bit

What drew Seth to the character of Joker? The whole concept of the game. He likes games and MET’s mechanics (different trees of adventure, stacking reputation, choices carrying between games) at the time were the most sophisticated that he’d ever heard pitched. He thought this was new and exciting and wanted to be a part of it. For the character they cast him based on his personality traits (i.e. he sounds quite similar to Joker personality-wise)

Would Seth ever want to play Joker again if the opportunity presented itself? Sure, he loves the character, and if the writers ever had more things to explore/expand with Joker he’d be down for it.

Seth said that it’s a different kind of fan that approach him about this project. The fans have spent many many hours in an intimate exchange with “him” that he hasn’t been a part of, but they experienced it nonetheless. “I’ve hugged a lot of strangers, you know what I’m saying? It’s great, you get an interaction with fans that you never get as a performer in any other experience”

Seth has been a space guy since he was little, it inspires him

With the state of the world the way it is now [covid, masks etc], does Ash think Tali’s story will be more impactful now than it was before? Ash hopes so, and that anything they do here will have a positive impact on a bigger level. Ultimately that’s why most of them do what they do, they want to reach people in deep ways. She hopes Tali is an inspiration in courage, bravery, standing up for what’s right and thinking about the greater good

The [MELE I think] dev team had a last team meeting with Greg Zeschuk, one of the founders of BioWare, who they had invited to it. He was regaling them with stories of the inception of Mass Effect. “You would imagine this sort of well-laid out, drawing boards everywhere... [but] it was basically just a napkin sketch in a Greek taverna with him and Casey going ‘We wanna do a space opera’, and then it took off”

The process of creating lore through development is very organic. A lot of it comes from character and story development. It builds up over the course of the game’s development. They did the codex entries at the end, the idea being that if they saved them for as late as they could, then they could pull from the story, characters and meaningful moments, and build them from there

PW wrote a bunch of the codex entries, elevator banter & lots of little bits of lore. They describe their time on the og MET as being a “baby writer”. They originally came in after Mac had back surgery and a junior writer was needed to fill in. “It was really fun, it was us sitting in a room together going ‘What do you think a hanar or a krogan thinks about this or that’?” For a first project for them this was an amazing experience - the world building itself creatively with all these awesome people

They tried to add multiplayer in every game but only got it to work in ME3

They had a lot of plots laid out in ME1 that they called “global plots”. These were outside the core critical path and would take players from planet to planet, and were sprawling stories. They pulled out a lot of really interesting concepts and ideas from these that did make it into the game, but all of the global plots ended up getting cut due to time. Mac still has old diagrams and spreadsheets which detailed how all of these would have come together

Q. If you all had to take a long-distance road-trip with two squadmates, who would you take and why? PW: “Jack and Mordin. Mordin because the drive would never lack for things to talk about at length quickly, Jack because you know you wouldn’t pay for the room. You wouldn’t know how you’d get the room, but you wouldn’t be paying for it.” Courtenay: “I’d take Mordin because there’d be singing, and FemShep just to have this thing - happen. In the room that I get for free.” JHale at this point fistpumped while saying “Yeess” [then I think what she said was “steaming hot”]

Seeing as asari are long-lived, how open is Ali to one day reprising her role as Liara? “She’s a character very close to my heart, it was such a great opportunity. In some games that we work on the character has already been created or voiced by someone else, but this was really a group effort. When I first went into the booth, the only thing I’d seen of her was a sort of like, rendering, and we slowly kind of came to her voice and presence. I would love to bring Liara back any time... hey, she can live a really long time guys. :D”

Caroline and people who do what she does (Creative Performance Director) are so critical to the quality of games. Caroline: “This group of people are extraordinary. We were lucky to have such an extraordinary cast. Every [recording] session was new and challenging. It was a labor of love. I’m tearing up right now thinking about it. I’m remembering my last session with Jen, she was the last session, just sobbing and sobbing”. When JHale was trying to say the lines of Shepard’s goodbye with Garrus, a line hit her like a tonne of bricks and she was in tears and was like “Shepard does not cry”. “It took me a second, I got it out and took another run at it, it was in there but stuffed down as it should have been, and I finished the line [and there was silence in the booth when usually Caroline would have been talking to give direction or instruction] Did we lose her? Did Skype crash?” and it transpired that what had happened was that Caroline was in floods of tears

ME was the first time Keythe had ever come across branching dialogue. “Normally when we work on a script and it’s from page 1 to 100. In this it was get to page 5, then go back to page 2 and play it a little differently. The skill and the fun and joy of it was to be able to go back and play a scene in a different way, with different writing, with different outcomes. This was not only a challenge but a real treat. So to all the writers who dreamed up how this build-your-own-adventure plays out, you have my undying respect. It was a real pleasure”

VEDA is a proprietary system that BW use to record the dialogue, which is the closest way of having it feel like having people in the booth together (it’s all digital and VAs get to hear the line someone else has done in that scene). Caroline really pushed for this because of the amount of time etc that was wasted due to lack of this sort of thing on ME1. William: “It was a god send for me, thank you, getting to hear a cue from Jen or Mark.” Ali: “Us being able to bounce off each other helps make it more real. This for me was the most real acting experience on a game I had ever had - the writing being so good, Caroline helping us through, being able to hear each other.” JHale was always early coming in to record relative to the others so only got to use VEDA a few times - a bit of Liara content and the scene with Anderson towards the end. “Those two times, oh my god it was amazing”. VEDA being a thing also helps from a scheduling standpoint

Seth and Tricia Helfer (EDI) only got to be in the booth actually together 1 time, to record/shoot a piece of promotional video. “We actually got to record a scene together and we were like ‘oh my god this is the best thing ever’. It was great, even though I had to stand on a stool. She’s the best”

Seth: “As an actor, the kind of opportunity to do this kind of material in games just didn’t exist.” Fred: “Oh, never! I had never had a villain part that was complicated like that. In a game? Never before, it was really interesting”

Raphael always goes back to the fact that ME brought more women into gaming than any other game before it. “The writing and the complexity of the relationships gave us so much ballast”. “This set this apart from running, shooting, gunning, looting”

JHale: “What I noticed in the times before when I got to be around fans, there was a huge hunger among women in the gaming world for something they could really jump into. They were starving for something which fed them what they deserved and needed”

Mac: “[praising Caroline] Caroline would often come to us as writers and challenge us and say, as an example, ‘Do we really need another male character to do this? Why are we writing another male character for this?’ She pushed that very early and to the betterment of everything we created”

PW: “Karin and Cookie and all of the editors across the trilogy, [were critical in] making sure that Shepard sounded consistent - [especially since] we had a large writing team, writers came and went, Mac is the only one with a significant writing contribution on each of the games”

PW: “[on game dev] It’s a process of getting hundreds of people pointed in the same direction, all believing that this is something worth doing”

Ash: “Having all the different possibilities and avenues, going back to play them all out in the different ways [really helped to round the character of Tali out and make her feel like a natural person]”.

VAs only get paid for the original recording sessions, not again (as in they don’t any royalties or anything from something like the remaster)

In MELE, they left all the original credits at the end of each game in

Fred: “It’s creating in five dimensions [because of all the outcomes and relationships etc]”. Seth: “The cool thing is that the audience feels that. They’re immediately struck by how dense, thought-out, prepared and planned the entire universe is”

How was it for the new MELE devs coming onto this? Crystal: “I knew it [the series and fans’ love for it] was big, but I didn’t know it was BIG! Working on MELE there was this infectious excitement. Being part of it was so exciting.” Melanie: “I came on at ME3, I had a 3 or 4 year honeymoon period with BioWare. Coming onto MELE, I’m getting really emotional. One of my first meetings originally was going into a cinematic review for an epic Tali scene in ME3”. Crystal: “On MELE, we had an hour or 2 every day where the team came together to play the game. In those reviews, a lot of the devs who worked on the original would tell all these stories. It was really fun to hear all the inside stories on ME’s creation and be a part of that”

DC: “Should this unit get vaccinated?” Ash: “Of course”

How do they think ME will be viewed in the next 10-20 years, what do they think its legacy will be? A piece of history, ground-breaking. It broke down some barriers and opened doors for people. It’s a powerful, powerful community. It’ll continue to age quite well and be enjoyed by a new generation, it’s original and evergreen and there’s a lot in it that people go back to. There’s a lot of universal things in it (personal experiences, like there will always be love, people fighting to belong, trying to make sense of their pasts etc)

JHale and Alix did the “I love you Shepard, now go save the world again” Shep-Sam exchange and both got teary. It was then Seth’s turn to line-read: “Jesus Christ, now that I’m good and choked up, fucking mess”. Ali was also actually crying from it

Seth: “It can’t be overstated, this community is so large and global, it is one of the most powerful fandoms that I’ve ever been greeted with. Thank you”. Ash: “It’s the most amazing group of fans ever. We’re all so grateful”

Some funny anecdotes/stories:

PW didn’t realize that Alix could do different accents. They remember a time when they were listening in the booth and an Alliance soldier was complaining about the gear had been given. They said “Wow that’s really good, who is that?” and the VO producer said “That’s Alix, Patrick”, “because she wasn’t doing her [normal British accent but was doing a Californian accent instead]. Alix roasted me later for not recognizing her voice and never let me heard the end of it”

Alix: “[on Sam’s toothbrush] Caroline’s like, ‘So then she pulls her toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘What? Sorry? A toothbrush?’ and obviously it’s funny now as everyone knows that Sam’s thing is her toothbrush. Caroline’s like ‘Yeah, you’ve gotta like, flirt, over the toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘Who wrote this - a frickin toothbrush, are you kidding me? Really guys?’ ANYWAY. I was wrong and it worked. :D”

Fred: “I remember a 12 year old kid coming up to me and being like [flat tone] ‘Oh yeah. I killed you’.”

Keythe: “The other assasin I play is Kellogg in Fallout 4. People come up to me like ‘Omg. I love you so much. And then I fucking KILLED you!’”

Courtenay once went out to dinner in NZ with a few prominent people from the Game of Thrones cast. “Everyone around was making a big deal out of it like ‘Omg, it’s so-and-so from GoT’. I was feeling a bit like ‘Hi, I’m here, just nobody’. And I looked around in the restaurant and there's one guy in the corner and he’s got an N7 shirt on and he’s just looking at me like [knowing look, does a peace sign]. And I’m like ‘I got one! I love you guys!’”

PW: “I have a question for the cast members, because I don’t know if JHale has done this to all of you or if she just does it to the devs. Show of hands if Jen has ever made you do push-ups.” JHale: “It’s just you guys”

Karin: “One of my favorite editing files that I ever had was a ME file. It was before Seth was coming in for a session. I opened it up and it was just 20, 25 lines with the word ‘Shit’, over and over again, and I was like, ‘This file is perfect, I don’t need to do anything to it, have fun!’”

Seth: “Didn’t we do a track that’s like 60 seconds of laughing? Escalating laughing? I don’t know about other actors but for me getting into a laughing fit is kind of like trying to get into a crying fit, it takes the same level of commitment, you start to follow a path until like you’re hysterically uncontrollably laughing. I remember looking through the glass, and I’m deep in it at this point, and I make eye contact, and I can see from the other side of the booth and they’re like [making ‘okay you can stop’ now gestures] - ‘Like that’s plenty, we got it’ and I was like ‘okay, okay [dying]’”

JHale: “The craziest thing Mark and I had to deal with was how many times we had to say ‘I should go’”. Mark: “We also, Caroline and I tended to use that as short hand when I needed to go to the bathroom”

The panel host: “The first time I interviewed Ali was a decade ago. She did the ‘I’ll flay you alive with my mind’ line halfway through, it was my first interview and I literally fell out of my seat [from being star-struck]”

Ash line-read Tali’s drunk omni-tattoo scene and in response DC said “I totally get why people wanna romanticize all these characters :D”. Karin: “We’ve had more than one person come up to us and show us actual tattoos that looked like that”

[source]

#bioware #mass effect #video games #covid mention #long post #longpost #garrus vakarian #best boy #feels #lul

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iamanartichoke · 3 years

Note

I completely agree with your post about Tom. People’s entitlement over their favourite celebrities goes to far. And tbh I really hate when fans act like they know for sure how he feels and what he’s thinking based on very ambiguous “evidence”. This is usually done so people can align Tom’s views with their own which requires most of the time someone else to be villanised. What I mean is that fans have no actual proof that the writers, producers and director of Loki are bad people and that Tom is unhappy with the directions the show took. There is usually nothing to be inferred about who these people are beyond their merits as professionals. But fans present their assumptions as facts anyway and that has evolved into actual harassment of the production team. All the while piggybacking on this idea that Tom thinks exactly what like them. And I am saying this as someone who hated TR and thinks Loki was deliberately made weaker/less important so Thor could shine more. And someone who hates pretty much all of Mike Waldron’s previous work on Rick and Morty. But is still feels very presumptuous to act like these people deliberate compromised the their own work because they hate Loki and his fans. And that they are filled with every prejudice know to man. And it’s also very demeaning to victimise Tom in the process. Of course some of the people involved suck but most of the time these assumptions have no basis whatsoever. And there is also an over-identification going on between some fans and Tom which isn’t healthy for anybody.

Sorry it took me several days to get to this, anon. It took me a minute to get my thoughts in order. But in a nutshell, yeah, I agree with a lot of the things you pointed out here - especially with fans acting like they know for a fact what he's thinking or feeling.

Under the cut for length and a bit of wank and disagreement w/ the "Marvel hates Loki" discourse so please skip if you don't want to see it.

A lot of the Loki series wank is rooted in whether or not Tom actually likes the series and significantly contributed to it, or if he's just saying what he has to say for publicity and his ideas and contributions were largely ignored. None of us will ever know for sure, bc none of us are Tom and none of us were directly involved in the series, so it's moot speculation, really. But it seems to basically come down to people trying to reconcile their feelings about the show with their feelings about Tom.

I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with believing that Tom's hands were tied to an extent and/or he just says things that he has to for promotion, but I also don't think that it should be treated as fact and then used as, like, ammunition against other people working on the show. I personally have not seen anyone I know or am friendly with taking their complaints to the level of harassment of actual people irl (that seems to be more of a twitter thing, as far as I can tell, and imo comes from an entirely different place than just hating the show [I think there's an inherent meanness in people whose instincts are to harass and bully bc they want to actively make others feel like shit]) but I do see it posted as fact, time and time again, that the showrunners had a personal vendetta against Loki and were intent on making the series as bad as possible, and that Tom was helpless to do anything about it.

Which I get, in a way, bc I personally believe that the Russos had, if not a vendetta, an active dislike of Loki and a vested interest in getting him "out of the way" in a manner that would make him look pathetic in IW - but, I certainly can't say that's the case for sure, and I also think it's a little different bc Tom's contractual obligations for his film appearances were likely very different than what he (and/or his people) negotiated for the show.

That's neither here nor there but my point is, I can understand where the theories come from but I just don't think that's the case here, and seeing it so often makes me feel kinda uncomfortable (for a lot of reasons but also) bc, imo, it undermines Tom's autonomy for fans to act as if he's little more than a puppet on a string, just saying whatever he has to say to please the powers that be. Like, yes, there are legally binding contracts that probably limit how candid he can be, and we all know that he sugarcoats things and never says anything bad about anyone, which can make him seem like a bit of an "unreliable narrator" when he gushes about the show -

- but, he's also a big name celeb (I mean, the studio has always banked on his name being attached to the project bc he's the one who would draw in the most viewers). He's got clout (is that the right word?) to back him up - they wanted him, specifically, to play Loki in this series. Without Tom, there's no show. So why would they want to alienate him, silence him, or dismiss him when he comes to the table and says "here are my ideas"?

My point is, it's unfair and, yes, demeaning to act as if Tom is this voiceless, powerless victim who has no choice but to act in a series he hated that was purposefully trying to destroy his character, and then to turn around and mindlessly sing its praises while promoting it.

I think that the truth is somewhere in the middle - Tom's creative control was likely limited bc he wasn't the director and wasn't the showrunner or head writer, and no one person is ever completely in control when it comes to the end result that we, the audience, end up seeing on the screen anyway. He may not have been entirely happy with every writing or directing choice that was made. But it's also very unlikely that he had no say at all or that any input he had was dismissed (or 95% of it, as it were); again, the series is banking on his name being the draw and he has the advantage of being an authority on Loki while also being intelligent and eloquent enough to convey his perspective on the character. I think that the real issue is that Tom's current perspective and/or interpretation of Loki no longer aligns with his interpretation of OG Loki from 2011-13. Which is, admittedly, a very hard pill to swallow.

Anyway, this may have veered off in another direction and idek if you wanted this answered or to have a conversation or maybe you were just venting - but, here we are.

To make it less about Loki specifically and more about Tom in general, though, yeah, ultimately I just wish his fans wouldn't feel so entitled toward him and his opinions, or his career choices, or his love life, or his clothes. I was browsing one of the Tom ask blogs (or maybe it was a Zawe one, I don't remember now) the other day and I find it really creepy, for lack of a better word, at how invested people are in Tom's, like, day-to-day whereabouts. Someone saw him at a restaurant in NYC - I wonder if he's still there today? Where's he staying? Is he there as a tourist or for work reasons? Who could he be meeting with in New York? A producer? Another play? Will he host SNL? Is Zawe still with him or did she go back to London? etc etc like, it really goes back to my original point in my original post which is, basically, who caaaaaaaares, why are you investing so much of your day trying to figure out what Tom is doing with his?

Now I'm just venting, but yeah ... shit's weird.

#asks #a nonny mouse #charlotte replies #tom hiddleston is my favorite unicorn #disclaimer - i know a lot of my mutuals feel this way about tom and my disagreement with those takes is not meant as a personal attack #but again if my opinions hurt your feelings or make you feel like you can't trust me #please just unfollow so i don't have to keep feeling the need to apologize all over the place #for shit i post on my own blog #long post

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cateringisalie · 3 years

Text

My list of bearable Binal Bantasy VII tags is thinning...

But seriously. Being skeptical of Tifa’s narration of past events is not without merit. By the time the Lifestream scene rolls around she has been through three comas and some grevious injuries. The Lifestream scene is as revelatory for her as it is for Cloud.

The new assertion she was in any way actually friends with Cloud is not only in conflict with the OG’s portrayal but counter to Cloud’s development, her development, the growth of their relationship as adults and why (in general) people have them stay together post game.

Its unnecessary, frustrating and further damaging Tifa’s character who is spinning off further from who she was.

That Tifa and Cloud were not actually childhood friends does not mean they do not have a relationship in FFVII. It does not mean they cannot be together. Tifa “falling in love” with Cloud at the water-tower does not for a second make their later relationship any more meaningful.

All this new ship information does is make the relationship have longer longevity than previously assumed. As if whichever relationship has lasted longer is betterer and stronger. As if this should automatically undercut any other relationship Cloud or Tifa can possibly experience.

(in fact - and darkly cynically - this feels a lot more like enforcing that Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith operate in near exactly the same way. The pairs fall in love in record time (two years prior to the Nibelheim incident both times as far as I’m ware), the boys go missing and the girls never move on with their lives. I get the boys have gone missing without a shred of explanation or closure, but now for both of them people are willing to wipe out a quarter of their lives waiting. Teenagers are resilient you know? They will be inconsolable if this happened but they would bounce back a lot faster and cleaner than they would expect. The approval of the never moving on this is purely to keep the shipping uncomplicated. There can only be one pairing for Tifa, there can only be one pairing for Aerith. And if you think otherwise you’re wrong in canon. And who wants to write or read about a non-canon ship? Unless its yaoi/yuri in any case. I am so tired)

Childhood friends incidentally is not, however much some insist, a common trope of the series - unless you stretch it a fair amount and it encompasses a trivial number of the pairings. And none of the big ones (you know; Squall/Rinoa or Tidus/Yuna).

Could Tifa do with more backstory? Of course. Did Tifa’s mother deserve a name? Absolutely! But not like this. Not when Cloud helping round up cats in Remake is now tied to finding Tifa’s cat in a new authored backstory. This speaks again to the constant magpie-ing of existing imagery and moments from older parts of FFVII to feed the present. The retconning in of importance by changing the meaning of otherwise unimportant moments.

Tifa is not and never was under any obligation to like Cloud as a child. She did not bully him, but neither should she expected to involve him in anything she did. I understand the book has muddied this gloriously, but for what effect?

I mean, I know where the desperation to make Cloud and Tifa childhood friends stems from. I know why you want Cloud to have fallen in love with Tifa at like age 5 or something and for Tifa to fall in love with him at 13. And I rail against it all the time that its not necessary. Being first does not mean better.

Maybe I am old, cynical and exhausted, but I kind of like watching Cloud and Tifa grow closer in FFVII. I like watching Cloud and Aeris grow closer in FFVII. I like to experience these things where I can... experience them? I don’t like reading books which assert things in blunt statements that clarify exactly what the writer intended. I certainly don’t have the patience to wait for a later book to clarify what happened on-screen when I have drawn my own conclusions based on my preferences. Especially as this is all contributing to that continued sense that the OG is a smelly, badly designed embarrassment we would rather tiday away for the crime of being graphically inferior (never mind it was championed on its looks on release) and “goofy” (and apparently unable to run the gamut of emotions I remember from serious to comedy, to silly, to tragic, to pessimistic and quietly optimistic and moving).

I’m coming back to this point to stress it - I want to see the relationship growth. Remake gave me that for Aerith and Cloud even if the details aren’t to my taste. First meeting is awkward because hey, random stranger/Cloud is tired. Cloud gets involved and spends more time with Aerith. And the high-five thing is used as a clumsy/awkward/eh but clear metaphor for how their relationship develops over the course of their time together.

To the point that yes, it makes sense for Cloud to want to rescue her. Less sense for Elmyra and Tifa to be “Well they might not vivisect her” and then delay for two full chapters, but the whole thing flows.

And here’s where I get accused of being a fake fan: I don’t like how Cloud and Tifa’s relationship develops in Remake. Flirting. Tifa being mildly fazed by Cloud claiming its been five years. Scared when he almost kills Johnny. Maybe hurt depending on your resolution scene (hey podcast people! No Gold Saucer multiple dates because too expensive? How are there branched resolution scenes in Remake then?). But there isn’t growth. They seem to fit into each other’s lives without worry, bit of flirting, strange super-intense moments jammed into inappropriate sequences (the train roll, climbing the plate, Cloud remembering the promise unprompted, Tifa not actually engaged with Avalanche’s plans). There’s no sense anything has changed between them, the missed five years has done anything to them.

And I’m sure some would take this as proof of correctness. But... somehow Remake is better for realism despite a lot of new clumsy, but this relationship is not dinged for being implausible? No way does that five year gap not seriously impact any prior relationship to say nothing of developing from scratch.

See this was a neat thing about the OG; while Tifa seemed to have an edge over Aerith by knowing Cloud longer, he was in effect meeting them at the same point in his life and more or less starting from scratch with both. Both ships are valid, and even if Cloud is with Tifa come the end, it doesn’t mean he can’t have romantic feelings about both women.

Oh, but Nojima has changed his mind/always intended it this way. And? I can change my mind about liking what he’s written - and my patience and tolerance of Nojima has waned massively since 1997. To the point where his involvement invokes a pained groan from me.

Plus the hilarious attitude that this is from the same people who insisted “the OG will always be there, stop moaning about Remake”. Well guess what? I don’t like Remake and I don’t really want it around. The OG is better.

Yes, Tifa is under-served and sure, it could be clearer about shipping (but the apparent hostility to ambiguity and personal interpretation is deeply distressing. These things can mean something to you and don’t have to mean the same thing to everyone. Interpreting the romancs - again - not a competition).

BUT

I will take the OG version of Tifa where she believed in the cause, where she had friends (again, yes, the relationship between Tifa and the rest of Avalanche is not well depicted, but it was better than actively curtailing it), where she ran a bar THAT ACTUALLY OPENED AND SERVED CUSTOMERS, where she hated Shinra, where she didn’t know how to treat Cloud because she had only really talked to him once in her life and DESPITE THAT that they great closer and spent their last night before THE END OF THE WORLD together over the Remake.

Where Tifa is wary of Cloud for about 5 seconds, twice and then defaults to constant flirting. Where Cloud is near smothering Tifa every second they’re together and she doesn’t tell him to fuck off once. Where she’s allied with Avalanche but hates their methods (and the pacifists are in a shop around the corner and she is not with them because...?). Where she has some absurd contrived plot about medical bills and buying Seventh Heaven for Barret and Marlene.

Which would lead to a whole other rant titled “Marle is the Worst” but this has dragged on quite long enough.

But seriously; if you argue that we can’t hate Remake because OG is always there, then you have to stop applying Remake back to OG and using it as proof. Which is exactly why many people bemoaned the Remake at all. OG is one thing, Remake is another. I don’t care for the latter.

And I know if anyone does read all this it will be about the meanie Cleriths who diminish Tifa for no good reason. And yes, they are indeed acting in bad faith. But what makes you think for a second evidence will convince these people?

In particular, the argument has raged so long and always will because if people do not like a ship they will not accept it as canon (if they care about this as a factor) NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. Literally. Look at Loki if you want the most recent example of this.

Canon is to many “what I want” and often does not tally with the general interpretation. And you know, if being “canon” or guessing right early wasn’t triumphed as such a vital thing, we might not get these really terrible and pointless arguments.

Canon is a prize but here’s the big secret: fandom - in general - does not care. FFVII is an excellent case example given Sefikura overwhelms the other ships (and I think AZGSC is close?). And that’s not canon. That’s not even in the ballpark of the Cloud/Tifa vs Cloud/Aerith arena (even give that the former is roughly twice the size of the latter, you already won, so please stop?). Canon is only important if you think its important - and you get some more official art of sequences you can gif. And maybe you get kissing/implied sex/marriage/kids, but most of all you get a smug sense of superiority. And the last is why I have no patience with this.

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swordgayist · 3 years

Text

book 3 ty lee and zuko

consider an alternate universe where, instead of maiko, zuko and ty lee develop a strong friendship while mai and azula’s close friendship (that might be peppered with some lesbianism) slowly degrades over time. allow me to elaborate.

zuko and ty lee start bonding on the journey back to the fire nation because ty lee is the only one among the people surrounding zuko who doesn’t bully and/or abuse him regularly, and vice versa.

TY LEE: aren’t you cold? what are you doing out here?

ZUKO: i’ve got a lot on my mind. it’s been so long, over three years since i was home. i wonder what’s changed. i wonder how i’ve changed

TY LEE: hm.

TY LEE: we all missed you.

(just getting the ball rolling here)

they talk more when they get to the fire nation, and the usual topic is azula, and how she treats them. they bond over the mean shit she’d do to them when they were kids because that’s easier to laugh at. it’d probably get a little more real sometimes too.

but the thing is, when it gets real, ty lee’s relationship with azula doesn’t sound a lot like zuko’s relationship with azula.

see with zuko, he isn’t actively afraid of her or subordinate to her. he is just competitive with her and she wins, and she also manipulates him a lot.

when it comes to ty lee and azula, everything is subtle. both ty lee and azula know that there is a power dynamic, but neither of them say anything about it. azula clearly hurts ty lee regularly, but they both brush it off afterwards. azula’s abuse of ty lee is just normalized, ty lee doesn’t say anything and the power dynamic continues.

the more zuko hears about it the more it sounds like how his father treats him rather than how azula treats him.

meanwhile on the mai and azula side of things, mai’s character is going to be done much much differently. because i hate how she’s written on the show so i will change her until i like her who’s gonna stop me

basically, instead of this extremely disjointed idea that mai ...... likes to do villainy things ? but still somehow she only does them because she’s scared of azula ?? we’re gonna scrap that. mai loves doing cruel shit to other people.

we’re scrapping everything about her backstory too. her parents are just two ordinary fire nation politicians who love hearing about people who are lesser than them suffering (not just people from other nations, but people who are less privileged than them etc).

we’re also scrapping the part of her character where she complains all the time because it doesn’t add anything to her story and it’s annoying.

that classism aspect of mai’s character (”you know what’ll make you feel better? ordering some servants around!” for example) is gonna be expanded upon a lot. coming from a rich, politician family, mai is extremely blasé about other people’s suffering and believes very strongly that she just matters more than them and that bothering herself with them is below her. she sees how her parents interact with their servants and how they laugh about what happens in the earth kingdom colonies and the water tribes and she picks up the cruelty they display.

because of that, her and azula get along well. usually when azula is mean to zuko or ty lee, mai just kinda laughs about it on the side. when she’s helping azula she relishes the distress she causes the people she attacks. she always sees it as fun and games. it provides a stark contrast between mai and ty lee as azula’s friends where mai joins azula out of apathy and love for cruelty, while ty lee joins azula out of fear.

(once again this is already kinda there on the show but then they just ??? ignore it and say that mai followed her out of fear too ??? which makes no sense ??)

then in the beach episode, the conflicts go a little like this:

zuko and ty lee are annoyed at mai for being so cruel and apathetic, mai and ty lee are annoyed at zuko for having all these emotional outbursts, and zuko is annoyed at ty lee for being so at ease and complacent in her maltreatment, while mai is just kinda slut shaming her. azula, like in the og beach episode, is too busy dealing with her own problems to be annoyed by other people.

we finally get a better extended version of this interaction between zuko and ty lee at the end of the beach:

TY LEE: what’re you doing?

ZUKO: what does it look like i’m doing?

TY LEE: but..... it’s a painting of your family.

ZUKO: do you think i care?!

TY LEE: i think you do.

ZUKO: you don’t know me. so why don’t you just mind your own business!

TY LEE: *sighs* i know you.

ZUKO: no you don’t! you’re stuck in your little ty lee world where everything’s great all the time!

ZUKO: ‘i’m so pretty, look at me, i can walk on my hands! whoo!’

ZUKO: circus freak.

zuko is annoyed that ty lee is so reluctant to stand up for herself and instead pretends everything is okay (this really comes out when after everything between them ty lee helps azula flirt), while ty lee is annoyed that zuko sees complaining about it and being angry all the time as “doing something about it”.

meanwhile the beach episode is the first time mai has actually been presented with the idea that ty lee (and also zuko) is not happy with how she’s treated. ty lee tries to hide it as much as possible out of fear for azula, but mai still kind of picks it up. and mai is also developing a little thing for ty lee (also peppered with some gayism).

but anyways, at the end of the beach and in later episodes zuko and ty lee repair their friendship. zuko finally starts to understand some things, and ty lee contributes to that a lot. zuko’s already realizing that he’s not happy, even as crown prince and as a hero to the fire nation. he’s starting to realize that the way his father treats him isn’t okay or loving in any way. finally in nightmares and daydreams he realizes that sitting quiet while injustice is planned right in front of him isn’t who he is. and because of his argument with ty lee in the beach, he realizes that he can’t just know it, he needs to do something about it.

and on the day of black sun he leaves the fire nation ayeeee

but that means he leaves ty lee alone. he was kind of a safe place for her while she was around azula, and by leaving he kind of took that safety away from her. he of course didn’t take her along to protect her, but yeah.

so in the boiling rock, ty lee sneaks away from azula and mai to talk to zuko. she gets mad that he left her behind, and when zuko tells her he did it to protect her, she’s conflicted on whether she would prefer to commit treason and be an enemy to the fire nation or just stay in the fire nation and let it all happen like she always has.

but she sees zuko, she sees how much healthier and more energetic he looks after confronting his abuser and leaving the fire nation (she finds it ironic that he looks happier and healthier as a fugitive in ratty prison clothes than he ever did as a prince in royal robes). and she can’t help but feel like maybe she could too.

and because of this, at the end of the boiling rock, while mai and azula are trying to stop zuko, sokka, suki and company, ty lee comes up to the landing platform and starts taking out all the guards before they can cut the cable holding the gondola up.

PRISON GUARD: what are you doing?!

TY LEE: saving my best friend.

(yknow instead of ‘saving the jerk who dumped me’)

zuko pleads that they should go back and save ty lee, but sokka remorsefully tells him that they can’t because if they don’t take this way out, they might not be able to escape at all. so all zuko can do is pray. rip.

so azula confronts ty lee. azula is confused and angry that ty lee betrayed her because she was sure she had ty lee under her thumb. but ty lee drops *the line*:

TY LEE: i love zuko more than i fear you.

and so azula gets ready to attack ty lee and ty lee gets ready as well.

and this is where mai starts to realize that it was indeed *not* all fun and games.

mai picked up cruelty but with azula ...... it was built into her. she was taught it, it was all she knew. and in this moment she was actually going to kill ty lee. so in that moment mai had to make a decision. because it wasn’t just ty lee who was in danger, it was her, if she were to let ty lee die ty lee’s blood would be on her hands, because she will have let azula kill someone she loves. she needs to save herself from going too deep and becoming like azula (keep in mind this is *her* mindset, not necessarily reality).

so she steps in, and she uses her knives to pin azula to the wall.

now, azula isn’t just angry and confused, she’s broken. because she knew ty lee followed her out of fear, but she thought mai actually saw her as a friend. yet even mai betrayed her, reinforcing the idea that trust is for fools because in the end, no one loved her enough not to betray her. and now with ty lee’s betrayal, it seems like no one fears her enough not to either.

the guards come before mai and ty lee can get away, and they are put in prison.

after the day of sozin’s comet, zuko orders for them to be released, and ty lee finally reunites with her best friend again.

meanwhile, after a lot of introspection and conversations with ty lee, mai starts to see some of the errors in her ways. she doesn’t know exactly how to make up for it, but her first step is to humbly approach suki and ask if she can join the kyoshi warriors.

(also perhaps while they’re in prison mai confesses to ty lee, and ty lee tells her that she could never fall in love with the person mai was before they were thrown into prison, and that if mai changed her ways ty lee might be ready later in the future.)

after having spent a lot of time with the kyoshi warriors and better learning how to empathize with other people, mai is able to help zuko and the gaang with azula’s healing process.

+ty lee starts to see how mai’s changed and they start talking and whoo pansexualism (officially headcanoning ty lee as a pansexual)

and so on and so forth, this is the basic gist of it this is terribly written but whatever

#ty luko #i mean not really theyre friends #maizula #mailee #atla book 3 #ty lee #zuko #mai #azula #azula recovery #atla #atla book 3 au #the beach #the boiling rock

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warriorswand · 3 years

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One, I completely with your post about Cassian and having a love interest in the series. And two, how cool would it be if the force some how have him “visions” of Jyn throughout the series, like when he sleeps he sometimes just gets these flashes of this women. I know it’s probably not gonna happen but I want Felecitg to be in the series in some manner 😅

Yes!!!!! A fellow like-minded individual, I am here for you!!!!!

Firstly, to your point, I would LOVE the exploration of Cassian and Jyn’s connection somehow, they’ve lived dramatically parallel lives and think it would be incredible to maybe see how many times they ALMOST found each other, almost collided, almost met but didn’t quite because it wasn’t yet as the force willed it to be. I somewhat doubt they go that route but damn if they do I will actually NEVER shut up about it.

I’ve definitely been thinking about what the series will look like and other characters to be included in it. I saw something somewhere saying they introduce Cassian’s sister which I’m actually interested in seeing! I think that would be really compelling and advance his character and flesh out his background far better than a previous love interest would. Having a sister he survives childhood/losing their parents/joining the rebellion with and then the series follows the loss/death of this sister which would only serve to further drive him towards isolation and being fully encompassed by his role as spy/assassin in the 5ish years between when the series will happen and when Rogue One happens!

That familial relationship would also satisfy a lot of the plot lines that, to me, really speak to classic Star Wars themes about struggling between choosing a cause greater than ones self and choosing your loved ones and the force and how it connects people and things without those plot lines having to be romantic love based (which, once again, gets back to traditional Star Wars themes). It would be hard for me to watch a lot of romance heavy plot because it reallly sits in opposition to the priorities I think Cassian would have being a rebel in such a huge war but I’d love if we could see some more of that classic family and the struggles of family in war dynamic Star Wars is so known for (I mean hello great plot/drama in the og trilogy!).

It’d be super cool too if they maybe showed how he comes to find K2 and/or some other droids he has close to him and their interactions because connections/friendships to droids seem much more up Cassian’s alley than those friendships with organic life forms (probably because of spy/trust issue things).

Now back to the point of your ask, YES, I really really am just hoping they don’t take the low hanging fruit of bland romance, I truthfully feel like the whole force-bond thing is Cassian and Jyn to a T, and that she absolutely is the first person he falls in love with and vice versa for her. To me, that fits his character, his arc, and who we know him to be.

Obviously, before anyone yells at me, the mans not a virgin or anything, he’s probably had one night stands (maybe under aliases only)/done some sketchy “sleeping with this person undercover because it solidifies my identity” relations but I really feel like that’s the extent of it! We see so many characters in Star Wars who, due to their lives and the war and dedication to fighting against the Empire, that they don’t end up fostering romantic relationships (Obi Wan, Luke, etc.) and that would make EXCEPTIONAL sense in Cassian (DAVITS DRAVEN PROBS PARTIALLY RAISES HIM I MEAN COME ON PEOPLE!!!!!). And, further, those “sleeping with someone undercover things” would contribute to him feeling like he isn’t a good man, what with always living as different people and a lot of them probably unsavory individuals so he can network with criminals/imperials alike!

All things considered, I’m still a little nervous about the series but if I don’t like it for whatever reason I’ll just go back to the version of canon I’ve had since Rogue One came out, after all, my ability to choose my canon is VERY developed considering I live in the world where Jyn and Cassian survived Scarif and led long lives loving each other as #spiesinLOVE fighting for the rebellion and we simply don’t know about it because Davits Draven would NEVER expose his operatives to that level of scrutiny ;)

P.S. I love Felicity too, oh how I would just DIE if she showed up lol

#SORRY THIS RAMBLES #I could talk about the Rogue One characters forever #Andor has the potential to be INCREDIBLE and I really hope it is #my thoughts #ask me #my words

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ollyarchive · 3 years

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Olly Alexander: ‘I want to make the community proud. I don’t know if I've always got it right’

David Levesley

As Ritchie Tozer in Russell T Davies’ devastating 1980s-set drama It's A Sin, Olly Alexander told a story from a tragically formative decade in gay history. As himself and as frontman of synthpop trio Years & Years, he contributes to a new narrative. But, as he reveals here, the insecurities and anxieties written into minority identities are not just a personal challenge: they can shape stories told by, for and about all his peers

It is the afternoon before It’s A Sin is broadcast to the nation and its star, 30-year-old musician and actor Olly Alexander, is buying a cat cushion. “It’s for a friend!” he says, mortified to be caught in the act of buying a plush feline.

Where once being the star of a primetime Channel 4 drama might mean greenrooms, watch parties and a celebratory afters, this is January 2021, so a flame-haired Alexander is sitting in his kitchen, drinking a smoothie the exact same lilac as his top.

“I’ve had a lot of restless energy,” he says, having binge-watched The Real Housewives Of New York City in between doing lots of squats and “watching homoerotic YouTube workout videos”. It’s not quite the normal build-up to a game-changing drama, but is there a better way to remember peacetime than watching a show filled with period pieces such as “friends drink indoors” or “strangers have guiltless sex at a house party”? It’s A Sin is both a masterpiece and a reminder that someday we will, once again, be able to be eaten out by hot men. “You’re so welcome,” Alexander says, laughing. “If I can bring anything to the British public, it’s a lesson in anal hygiene.”

Anal hygiene are two words we have probably never published together in GQ, but, more importantly, are probably not the subject of many – if any! – scenes in a piece of media not uploaded to OnlyFans. They are, however, the subject of a crucial scene in the first episode of It’s A Sin, in which Alexander’s character – an 18-year-old fledgling queer from the Isle Of Wight called Ritchie Tozer – gets rimmed by his campus crush, Ash Mukherjee (Nathaniel Curtis). No gay men watching came out of that scene not feeling seen and, like all the other sex scenes in It’s A Sin, it feels deeply realistic and fantastically homosexual.

“I can tell you I’ll never forget being practically butt-naked with my arse in the air in front of colleagues,” says Alexander, laughing. But by that point, he says, he had done so many sex scenes that it felt somewhat rote. “‘Ritchie’s got a dirty bum! Stick that arse in the air and look disappointed!’” What was interesting, he says, was the dynamic of trying to produce the most authentically gay experiences possible on camera.

‘WE UNDERSTOOD THESE CHARACTERS WITH A KIND OF SHORTHAND THAT GAY PEOPLE UNDERSTAND’

They were working with Ita O’Brien – a movement director and arguably the OG intimacy coordinator – but, for her sins, not a gay man. So while everyone would have an input in how a sex scene would be best shot, “There came a point when they would say, ‘Please tell us, because we’re not gay men.’” So then the writer, the performers, the director and O’Brien’s team would come to a consensus on how to make a threesome look like three men shagging, yet also make it look the best it could on camera and make sure “you never touch each other’s genitals, basically”.

Alexander says O’Brien’s input was a “lifesaver” for him on set. Although by the end he felt comfortable, he was at first intimidated by just how exposing this would be. “I had a bit of a hysterical breakdown. I was really worried I couldn’t do it. I just didn’t feel safe.” This was interesting to hear from Alexander, the proudly queer frontman of the band Years & Years, who “spent four years on the road performing and finding this character that I do feel sexy in”. It was then that O’Brien and the team asked him to bring whatever made him feel comfortable on stage into the room before the cameras rolled. “So I would sing before the takes, be a little bit of Olly on stage,” he says, laughing. “That was my way of tricking my brain and thinking it was a character. Which, of course, it was.”

Before he was Olly Alexander, consummate gamine artiste, Olly Alexander Thornton was a singled-out kid at a primary school in Gloucestershire (where his mother ran a music festival). He was, like many other gay kids growing up, bullied and harassed for being something “other”, which everyone is able to see long before you can define it yourself. “I remember being in primary school and I had long hair and people would call me a girl,” he says, and the wound still feels raw when he recounts it.

“I knew that was bad for boys. I didn’t like the things that other boys liked: I just wanted to play with the girls and watch Disney movies. Which obviously straight boys do as well,” he mentions, always making sure to provide caveats to include all facets of the human experience. Although the bullying began to subside by secondary school in Monmouthshire, he still stood out: he had big curly hair – “I was trying to hide my ears” – and would wear make-up or a choker sometimes on nonuniform days. “I think I was trying to figure out who I was,” he says. “Imagine getting to discover your own sexuality without any preconceived ideas! I mean, maybe that’s impossible. But it would be nice, right? Why should people bullying you be your first brush with your own sexuality?”

Like Ritchie Tozer, Alexander moved to London at 18 to pursue acting, but he also had designs on becoming a musician. “Because when you’re writing a song, you’re the director, the star, the producer, the writer. I wanted all of that! I needed that to be able to express myself,” he proclaims with faux hysteria. For years he found success as an actor in a diverse selection of roles: he appeared in Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void, costarred with seemingly every other white British actor in The Riot Club and also in God Help The Girl, a musical film written by Belle And Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch. “Then Years & Years just got to a place where it was going to take over and needed my full time,” Alexander says. So his focus moved to the music.

‘IMAGINE DISCOVERING YOUR SEXUALITY WITHOUT ANY PRECONCEIVED IDEAS!’

It was on their third single, “Real” – released in 2014 – that Alexander first felt his art and his sexuality really intermingle. “It was the first time I put in a male pronoun – I say ‘Do it, boy’ – and it’s quite subtle, but it was a big deal for me at the time.” This was when Years & Years were trying to get signed to a major label, so doing something so consciously queer felt like a risk (the band went on to sign with Polydor later that year).

While pop music has long had an element of queerness about it – you need only look at the artists featured in It’s A Sin to see how gay 1980s pop was – Alexander has long been frank that sexuality and success are not always seen as natural bedfellows. At a Stonewall event in 2018 he recounted being told during his media training, “Maybe it’s better not to say anything about your sexuality at all.” In the same year, he told NME there had been progress, but that “I just know there are people who are hiding their sexuality, so it’s still not gone completely”.

Alexander doubled down on it with the music video – featuring his Bright Star costar Ben Whishaw – where he “purposefully made it gay. There’s a cruising element to the very beginning. It’s slightly ambiguous, though, because back then I wasn’t quite ready to launch into being the gay crusader I think I am now.” In 2015 the band won the BBC’s Sound Of 2015 poll, releasing their first album, Communion, the same year. It became 2015’s fastest-selling debut album from a UK-signed band.

‘I JUST WATCHED LIAM PAYNE TAKE HIS TOP OFF, BUT NOW I’M NOT ALLOWED TO?’

But despite the success, and the realisation that audiences were either supportive of – or simply unfazed by – the queerness of Years & Years’ music, there is always an anxiety for Alexander about just how accepting people are willing to be. “I’ll tell you for real,” says Alexander, “I go out on stage – even if it’s for our own audience – and I’m like, ‘What if some of them don’t like me? What if some of them have an issue with me today?’ I always feel like I’m going to try a bit harder next time, try to do a bit more.”

While the character of “Olly Alexander, Years & Years frontman” is one that bespangles its performer with confidence, being queer in the music industry isn’t always an easy thing to navigate. He remembers seeing a tweet from someone who said Alexander’s sexuality was a ruse to try to attract the pink pound – a term for the spending power of gay men – “And it had an impact on me, because I’ve consciously tried to [be openly gay] in a lot of circumstances where I wouldn’t normally. And then for someone...” He tries to think of how to put it and comes up short. “It can chip away at you.”

He wouldn’t change a thing about his success, he says, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when it isn’t hard to be out and proud while also getting your foot in the door. “When we’re playing a pop music festival, I’m looking at the other acts in the lineup and there aren’t that many gay people on them,” he says. “You see how quickly your show isn’t family friendly any more because I want to take my top off and I’m like, ‘Well, I just watched Jason Derulo and Liam Payne take their tops off and have all these women in underwear, but now I’m not allowed?’ What do you do with that?”

It’s A Sin marks a return to acting but, also, a chance to refresh Alexander’s musical batteries too. Following Years & Years’ second album – 2018’s Palo Santo – the third album was proving hard to pin down. “I’ve been trying to make this album for about 18 months at this point, stopping and starting, listening to all the songs and... it’s just not feeling relevant any more.” Alexander had always loved Russell T Davies’ work, so when he heard Davies was making a new TV show he “had to be in it. I would just jump at the chance to work with him. And that was before I read the script.” Years & Years had just finished touring Palo Santo and, to Alexander, it felt like the stars had aligned.

While the anxiety of performing queer sex scenes might have been particularly exposing for a gay man like Alexander, there were huge benefits for him being in a cast and crew that were predominantly LGBTQ+. “It was a revelation. I’ve never been on a set with so many queer people. I’ve never even worked with a gay director, so it was a completely new experience.” Plus, being asked to play part of a group of gay best friends, portrayed predominantly by gay actors, meant the chemistry came very quickly: “We understood these characters [with a] kind of shorthand that gay people understand.”

An inclusive, comfortable environment was beneficial for more than just sex scenes and simulating a decade of friendship. It’s A Sin also required its cast to grapple with the issue of HIV and aids, not just as a part of the furniture – as we do in the 21st century, with our knowledge of viral loads, sleeping with undetectable partners and new medications such as Prep – but really putting a forgotten part of British queer history under the lens, who it affected and how it changed the LGBTQ+ community irrevocably. “It’s an issue that is deeply surrounded by stigma and there’s a lot of trauma there and a lot of fear,” Alexander explains. “I know, personally, it was an area that I was scared to really engage with.”

He mentions that just before filming he made friends with an older gay couple at his gym and in talking about the show with them he was offered a rare opportunity to hear about personal experiences of the aids crisis. “It can be so difficult as a gay person to feel like you have intergenerational support,” says Alexander. “Elders are so important in our community. You can get so much from the people who have gone through so much before and fought that fight.”

For Alexander and the cast, It’s A Sin was a rare opportunity: a chance to be brought together with a whole group of men and women who were there at the time and who were willing to share their experiences with them. “I feel so lucky that I got to engage with that and keep learning. I was just scratching the surface and there are so many stories you can tell from this period. It’s impacted us all the way until now and it will in the future.”

Starring in It’s A Sin has also changed what Years & Years’ third album is going to sound like. After the initial writer’s block, Alexander says, he focused instead on the music of the show (Bronski Beat, Kelly Marie, the titular song by Pet Shop Boys) “and it really took my mind back to the club” – especially in the midst of a pandemic, when the queer nightlife venues that are the backbone of our community are so desperately missed.

“All the music I wanted to listen to in lockdown was high energy. It was dance floor. It was club music.” This was the music that had played such a huge role in his early life in London, had inspired the first Years & Years album and a genre that owes a great debt to the LGBTQ+ community. “I think at their heart, lots of these songs are about joy despite crushing pain. I just thought, ‘God, imagine hearing “I Feel Love” on the dance floor for the first time.’ What a transcendent experience that would be.”

‘ELDERS ARE SO IMPORTANT IN OUR COMMUNITY. YOU CAN GET SO MUCH FROM THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE FOUGHT THAT FIGHT’

And so Alexander went into the studio – as soon as it was safe to do so – and created a bunch of new songs. Is it easy to find collaborators behind the scenes who get it when he says, “I want it to feel like Britney meets Rihanna meets Hot Chip via New Order”?

“It can be a challenge to find someone that really understands,” admits Alexander. He recalled being sent round the songwriters and producers in Los Angeles that all artists are sent round at a certain point, “And some of those people are amazing – some amazing queer people as well – but predominantly... You know, they’re straight, so it can be quite challenging.”

Feeling safe with his collaborators hasn’t been an easy journey, but now he’s in a good place for it. He also pointed out that it’s not just queers who can understand his vision: his bandmates are straight, he points out – “I really believe in working with straight people! Some of my best friends are straight!” – and his frequent collaborator, the producer Mark Ralph, “is a real ally to us gays”, who was always willing to vibe along to Paris Hilton singles with him.

A new sound – a queerer sound – isn’t just a risk in a world where Alexander’s performances are held to double standards and the linchpins of queer culture can still be seen as synonymous with perversion. The impossible standards queer work is held to don’t just come from the straight world: gay men can be terrible recipients of work designed for them too.

Russell T Davies has dealt with it his entire career: “There’s the problem of lack of representation, but there’s the problem that when you are represented, it’s just not seen,” he explained when I spoke to him recently. “You just learn to cope. I worry about it. I probably worry about it more than I say here, but at the end of the day it’s never stopped me writing the next thing.” But he gets it because he, too, is a gay man who consumes art and he sees the same biases coming out when he watches other queer-centric work.

Yet he was amazed that artists younger than him are still dealing with the same crises: “It’s what comes with being a minority. It’s what comes of oppression and you kind of expect this to pass. But then you talk to young people like Olly, who’s a different generation from me, and you find them thinking the same things,” Davies said. “I was lucky to have my training during an age when you’d be lucky to get one review in the Times. Now you live in a world of reviewers.”

When I ask Alexander if he worries how gay men will respond to a gay artist’s work, it is no easier for him to respond than it was for Davies. “Oh, God, you’re making my heart race now,” he says, breathless. “I should be careful, because I don’t want to demonise anybody. But I tried to really unpack this myself and... I’ll just sort of say it.” It is clear that this is intense for him: his eyes are looking watery as he tries to phrase it delicately.

“I have this – I think irrational – anxiety about gay men tearing me down. And I tried to interrogate that within myself and I think it’s complicated, because a lot of it has to do with internalised phobias and shame, about how I see myself versus how other people see me.” He begins to cry. “What I do know is that I want them to not hate me. And I want to make the community proud. It’s been at the heart of pretty much every decision I’ve ever made. And I don’t know if I’ve always got it right.”

‘I HAVE THIS – I THINK IRRATIONAL – ANXIETY ABOUT GAY MEN TEARING ME DOWN’

It’s tough being an actor asked to shed light and humanity on a complex phase in British LGBTQ+ history; it’s just as tough to be a gay man trying to make pop music that speaks to the queer experience. But Alexander is doing both and, what’s more, he’s being unapologetically queer in the public eye. There aren’t many LGBTQ+ people in the position Alexander is in and it must be exhausting, I suggest, to be expected to speak for the needs and fears of an entire spectrum of sexual and gender identities. After all, he’s just one man who wants to be proud of who he is. “Sometimes, when I feel the most anxious, I have a voice in my head that goes, ‘Oh, Olly, why on earth did you put yourself in this position? You really are not the strong person people think you are.’” But, he says, he is learning he can’t speak for everyone, even if people expect it of him.

Instead, he’s focusing on being proud of what he’s done – the visibility, the audacity, the bravery – rather than the critique of his anxieties or Twitter trolls. “I’m always thinking about me as a teenager and how I’m creating the person I wanted to be in the world. I’m actually doing it! Holy fuck!”

#olly alexander #years & years #yearsandyears #years and years #gq #interviews #fashion #magazines #acting #its a sin #boys #articles #queer #lgbtq #lgbtq+#issues #aids #hiv #music

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sisoyyoalgunproblema · 4 years

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Okay, so I’ve never written fanfic for Skam, not skam españa not the OG Skam, it’s just been something I’ve never actually done, there’s a lot of really great fanfiction out there already about the Skam Univers and I never thought I had anything to contribute, but I decided to do it for Eva’s appreciation week because she’s probably my favourite character and I really needed to think about how she dealt with quarantine.

Know that English is not my first language, but I think I’ve managed just fine.

Eva was mindlessly watching Física o Química on TV as she scrolled through insta. Nora had finally admitted that she’d never watched the show and they’d decided to introduce her to El Zurbarán as a way to get through quarantine, so her best friends’ faces were watching the show, concentrated on her computer screen.

Eva smiled to herself, those girls were the only reason she hadn’t lost her mind yet. She wasn’t stupid, she knew Cris didn’t like watching TV, Amira didn’t think the show was all that good and Nora hadn’t been particularly interested on watching a TV show from the late 2000 about Spanish teens who had very questionable tastes on fashion, only Viri had been sincerely interested on rewatching it. But the show gave Eva a very comfortable feeling, a feeling that reassured her that everything was gonna be okay, she’d watched the show a few times so she knew what was about to happen and she needed to be certain of something at the moment, it didn’t matter what that was.

The fact that those four amazing girls had decided to watch the show with her, that she could see Viri’s concentrated frown as she pretended to eat pop-corn, just to make her feel better. The fact that they were there for her even if they couldn’t actually be there physically made her feel so grateful and loved she didn’t really know how to handle it.

But tonight not even Paula and Gorka fighting could get her mind off the fact that her mom wasn’t there, that her mom was working at the hospital, that she’d been working there non stop for weeks, in the first line of fire. One of the nurses who worked with her had died from COVID that same day and Eva couldn’t stop her mind from wondering if her mom was gonna be the next, she wasn’t young like before, she was quickly approaching her 60s and the virus was unpredictable and got scarier the older you got. Her mom kept reassuring her that she’d be alright, she followed protocol and was feeling just fine, even if a little bit tired, but Eva couldn’t help but follow her around like a lost puppy whenever she had a day off, making sure she didn’t cough, that her temperature was low, that she was still healthy, that she wouldn’t leave her.

She asked her mom questions she hadn’t before, about her childhood, about her grandparents, about her high school years, she drank that information like it was water on the desert, determined to be with her mom, to learn about her, to share memories together so that, in case something happened, she wouldn’t be forgotten, so that she’d had more things to remember her by. She learned that her mom hadn’t really had a tight group of friends until collage, that she was extremely proud of Eva for fighting for her friendships, for letting them grow around her and become a part of herself, she learned that her mom saw more of what was going on than she let on and that she’d wished Eva had wanted to bring her problems to her so that, even if she couldn’t help her daughter, she could at least share her pain.

Eva told her things too, she told her about her fight with Inés and about Jorge and about Cristian, she asked her mom if someone could really get over their first love, if the longing ever stopped or if she was condemned to feel the butterflies in her stomach every time Jorge smiled at her, even when she wasn’t sure that he still felt them too, or that they’d make sense together after a year and a half apart. Her mom didn’t really speak, she just held her daughter and thanked the universe because, even if the pandemic was scary, even tough she was terrified of crossing the hospital’s doors every day, even if she was scared of bringing the virus home to Eva, even if she knew getting it herself was a very real possibility and that death was part of the illness, that whole situation had brought her daughter closer to her in a way she didn’t expect, and for that she was grateful.

It was a very stupid think what made Eva cry, Inés had posted an Instagram story of her mom in the kitchen, laughing about some cooking mishaps. The jealousy ate her alive and then came the guilt. It was not Inés’ fault that her mom could work from home, that she didn’t have to worry about her health. But it was unfair and that unfairness broke her.

It had not been the first time she’d cried during quarantine, but it was the first time she’d done it in front of other people, it was not like Eva was someone who tried to hide her feelings, she resembled an open book way more than she did a stone, but she’d tried to put on a strong face for her mom, to keep strong, but she was alone in the house and it was unfair and it hurt, and the love those girls had for her felt like the safest place in the world, so she let herself go.

As always, Nora was the first one to realize Eva had tears streaming down her face, the girl had tried to cry quietly, but Nora and Eva had something resembling a sixth sense when it came to each other, they were more in tune to one another than the other girls, Eva could sense when Nora was sad and vice versa. So that the words of warning came out of the american girl didn’t surprise anyone, nor did the fact that all four girls paused their TVs and focused on their friend immediately after.

“Eva, are you okay?” Viri’s words only made her cry harder.

“You know, whatever it is, that you can tell us.” Amira’s hand itched to grab Eva’s and she almost cursed from frustration.

“Is it Jorge?” They all laughed at Cris, she was very well intentioned, but maybe she wasn’t the most perceptive one out of all of them. “I don’t know why you laugh, the last time she cried was because of him.”

“That was over a year ago, Cris!” Amira said, eyes filled with laughter.

“My point still stands.”

“It’s your mom, right?” Eva looked at Viri through their computer screens and nodded. Viri understood better than any of the other girls, her mom was mopping floors at some hospital at the moment. “They’ll be alright, you know? I’m sure of it.”

“I’m just grateful that I have you girls, I don’t know what I’d do without you. My mind would take me to some very scary places and I don’t want that.”

“We’ll be here, whatever happens.” Nora reassured her, big blue sympathetic eyes looking at her through the screen.

“But I’m sure nothing will.” Viri’s strength and determination made Eva smile. God, she really had the best friends in the world.

“I’m just scared. People are dying and my mom is right there, in the middle of it all, I know that even if she gets the virus it’s probably gonna be something like a really bad flu, but I can’t keep from wondering what if it isn’t? What if it’s worse? What if I loose her?”

“You wont.” They all promised, even if none of them could really know it, they wanted it to be true so bad that Eva believed it and smiled drying the tears with her sweater.

“And if something bad happens, you’ll always have us. Forever.” Nora reassured her.

“I love you girls. I wish I could hug you.”

“I hate quarantine.”

“God, you should see Dani, he has practically built a gym on our living room, I barely have any space to study.”

“You never do anyway.”

“I would if I had space.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

Viri, Nora and Eva watched Amira and Cris bickering while they laughed at the whole situation. Nora winked at Eva and she blew her a kiss.

“I really do love you, you know?” Eva said, for some reason, that day it felt very important for them to know.

“Yes we do.”

“We love you, too. When all of this is over we’ll celebrate. My rooftop is gonna be the heart of the summer.”

“Yeah, because Mallorca...”

“Don’t remind me, Nora, please.”

“What are we gonna do with the money?”

Eva mainly listened to their friends talk, the TV show forgotten on the background, she was emotionally exhausted, but her friends had a very strange way of making her feel everything was gonna be alright, and she felt lucky to have them by her side as she went through the most terrifying months of her life. She loved them, as simple as that.

#skam españa #skam spain #skamesp

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tslasvegas · 3 years

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Episode 5 - “The clowns are in full force this season” - Jaiden

The clowns are in full force this season. First of all that tribal council was a load of fucking shit lmfao, I could not believe the sob stories Nik and Joey were pulling out to try and stay another day in this fucking org... it is final 17 it's not that serious. I will say that I immediately regretted the decision to vote for Joey but now I'm realizing how beneficial it might've been after all, like.. now people don't see that Joey and I are as closely aligned as we are and it definitely shows Kailyn that not only can I be loyal, but also that I had an accurate read on the events of this tribe. Interestingly enough, Kailyn did NOT believe me when I told her we didn't have the votes to keep Nik without drawing rocks. As soon as the tie came in I acted all mad and said "I'm not drawing rocks for this, I'm flipping". ...and Kailyn still had the nerve to ask "wait did you flip?" after it was all said and done! The funny thing is, Ben also assumed Kailyn flipped and immediately DMed me saying "So I assume Kailyn flipped go figure" or something to that extent. LOVES IT! Maybe no one thinks I'm a flip-flopper after all. Rachael being on this tribe already bugs me because I think she's going to get along with just about everybody and we should've taken a shot at her when we had a chance. It's become evident that I need to start playing the chips game a lot more than I have been because those little buggers are going to become more and more important as time goes along. I think Rachael is fucking full of it when she says there was nothing on Exile for her. She either has an idol and is lying about it, or she's got some sort of advantage to help her out and I'm not here for it. I did eventually come clean to Rachael about the whole DeNara vote thing, where I whipped around and pretended to be voting for Ben afterwards, but I don't think it has a strong impact on our relationship. She gives me such an uneasy vibe and I don't want her around much longer... I kind of hate this tribe I got swapped onto because everybody here feels like legitimate threats to win this game except I guess myself right now. And Xavier. He doesn't really provide much to the game yet, but I bet he will surprise us all along the way. Agenda for this round... make sure we win immunity. But if we don't.. sorry Rachael, you're going to just have to see your buddy Nik a lot sooner than you would've liked. Ciao!

Survived another Tribal!

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Super sad to see Nik voted out but also insanely glad to see Joey survived. It would be heartbreaking to see him voted out first after the swap. Livingston and I are sharing all the chips we have and when we spin the wheel we’re transferring chips so if we land on a bankrupt spot we don’t lose the 28 chips we have so far. If we win this next immunity challenge, we may have enough chips to purchase the super idol that’s on sale for 48 chips. (If we both bid two chips on the challenge and then spin the wheel and get some chips.) otherwise, if someone purchases it before we do, we may end up buying some other useful items. Now it’s a selfie scavenger hunt which I hate, but that’s alright. Gonna give it my all and hope to take home the win.

I just had a moment of clarity. The other tribe are full of OG Palazzo. If they stick together, we're screwed. We should win this next one, see how their vote goes, and change our plans accordingly.

So my lazy ass hasent done any of these yet. So let me catch y’all up. So when my original trive first went to tribal I kinda thought I was fucked cus like I barely talked to ppl. Nik and Rachel were my closest allies (Rachael being my final 2). So quickly they told me denara wanted my ass out. Fucking mistake. So I got my sheep in order and went to work. I pulled some bs outta my ass and was like yo we got a swap coming up and denara is too fucking social she’s gonna flip on your asses. The more I said it the more it made sense to me lol. That fucking tribal was AIDSSS. I’m literally sitting there thinking I was getting booted, but my fucming savior Jaiden came up clutch. We sent that bitch packing. So me and Rachael have had a strat this game to send each other our coins before spinning the wheel to avoid going bankrupt. Since I’m a fucking gambling addict I’m always betting on the comps and spinning that wheel till I’m stacked on coins. So we hit a swap and I actually started talking to people. John is pretty chill and Xavier is kinda weird ngl. When it came time to vote nobody wanted to bring anything up to me. I had to hear from kaitlyn that nik was sadly the vote. So I quickly went to work. I felt the least connected to Joey so I went after his bitch ass. Originally, I didn’t wanna stick with my tribe but like they kinda forced us into that by keeping us in the dark. Everytime I’d ask Xavier his thoughts he’d just say some weird ass response and avoid my question lol. So like I kinda expected a tie vote and tbh I wanted rocks. We get to tribal it was a tie, and I’m fucking trying my best to get Xavier to flip cus he just seems like the dumbest person there. He’s like we can take nik out now then Joey next. LIKE FUCK NO. He wanted to create an all noobies alliance with idek. But I agreed cus fuck it. So sadly nik went home cus jaiden flipped :/ BUT me and Rachael got all his chips!! Now I’m fucking vibing with 10, and Rachael had got 8. Tbh we wanna save up for an idol, but with the shop at 20% and another 4-4 vote looming, I’d be down to snag an extra vote. I gotta peep all these new prices tho. I do hope we win this comp cus I’m obviously betting and I’m too lazy to fucking deal with another tribal. Well anyways peace out see y’all later.

My plan continues to just be working on relationships and hopefully winning the challenges. Either way, I've participated one of the most on the team so I'm hoping if we do lose, I won't become the target. I know I have a strong relationship with Kevin, which is 1/4 of the tribe. I'm also working on my relationships with Keegan, Pat, and Livingston. I kind of hope the other team targets Rachael, just because I wasn't a huge fan the last time I had to deal with her. I also want John and Xavier to survive because I know I have solid relationships with them. We're at day 14 and I've already put so much work to evolve my game, I want to go from worst to first - I want to do all the things I couldn't do when I was 16. But I have to keep thinking three steps ahead. So if we lose, my target is Mo. Nobody from OG Pink has been voted out yet - but because they have majority on this tribe there really isn't much I can do yet, but Mo hasn't contributed to the challenge. They're also very awkward, so I think I'd be able to swing it. If I keep working on my relationships, working hard in challenges and showing myself as a good ally - I have a chance to make it deep in this game. For now - let's hope we win the challenge so I can relax a little bit more. Day 15 is the farthest I've ever made it so if we do end up winning I've completed my third goal. (The first two being going a tribal without getting a vote, and leading a blindside.) My other four goals - getting an advantage, making merge, winning individual immunity, and winning this game. Get your checklist out, cause I'm coming.

Keegs and I have 28 chips between us then Okay so I told Keegan this, and I could be wrong, but I feel as if the numbers in the vault seem fairly good and that leads me to believe that nothing has been bought yet. If anyone else gotten in there, they are likely saving up for the Super Idol. Keegan and I will be saving up for it but if it ends up being gone, we'll at least have enough chips to pick up some other stuff. Keegan to me: "Also, I just thought of something. Since it’s possible to go Bankrupt from the wheel, would it be a good idea for us to give most/all chips to each other before we spin the wheel? That way if we do land on a bad spot, we’re only losing like 1 chip instead of the 10-20?" This gonna be our wheel strat moving forward

...five seconds later

Jake came to me wanting to work together. Of course, there is no real way to turn such things down so I let Keegs know and then I told him I would be down for that. I am not tryna do some Final 2 or whatever. For now it is just a "I have your back if you have mine" type thing. Jake also went to Keegan so Jake better not fuck up and be overly messy because I have enjoyed my convos w him LMAO - Okay so update on that: he has pitched a 3 of me, him and Keegan. This is good for us so we are going with it but my loyalties are to Keegan before Jake and I think Keegan feels the same way. We are being hesitant just in case Jake has also pitched similar things to other people. If we go to tribal, ideally we keep Jake safe but if he's being like this with everyone then maybe he's the one to go. I like Jake so I would really make rather it be the former.

So nervous about this challenge! We went all in! I even danced Blackpink. My gosh we have to win this.

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38 points in SSH is a terrible score, I’m upset at my poor performance, but now that I just acquired the Legacy Advantage, it makes my game so much more interesting to say the least. I have 11 chips, I could’ve bought an idol, but given my luck, I’d rather not risk all my chips and lose them on a bankrupt.

this is so lame, im not super worried about getting voted out but still i just like the serene environment that comes with immunity, the chaos is fun too but like ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh im tired

Well... we lost the challenge. And I am not surprised in the slightest. This was a very very poor showing from this tribe. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind voting out Jeff right now. He really flopped the challenge. But it seems like the OG Palazzo group is wanting to stick together and vote out one of Jake, Mo or Kevin. Ideally, Kevin would be the one to go. I’ve barely talked with him, and with his recent win in Travellers survivor, he’s certainly capable of playing a strong game. That’s someone I’d like out sooner rather than later. Andrew has suggested Jake. Which I definitely don’t want. Jake, Livingston and myself have a sort of three person thing going on. As long as Jake is casting his net over the entire tribe, I want to continue working with him. Mo is in a weird spot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At the end of the day though, I don’t really care who it is, as long as it ain’t me.

SO HAPPY TO HAVE FINALLY WON! Steph and I have enough chips either for an IDOL or two of other advantages. I would rather have two others, because there is an idol nullifier out there. And two advantages are better than one. I am going to be watching the tribal of Bellagio. I want to see if the OG Bellagio are a solid 5.

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Ahhhh first time going to tribal. I’m really nervous. Not bec I think I’m in danger but more for long term... what to do?

girl... im so sick and tired of the people in this game keeping around inactive players because they know them from other games. SERIOUSLY, listen ma'am if my good friend is inactive, I know when someones dead weight. I get rid of them. They'll understand, and if they don't then thats a manipulative dumbass because who gets mad for being eliminated by a friend when they were inactive. it was originally gonna be me but ive been fucking pushing for kevin to go cus he doesnt do shit. DeNara give me strength.

Mo at one point was throwing my name out, which is awful. Apparently he’s not anymore. I think he’s voting for Kevin? Let’s hope so. I don’t want to be out of this game yet.

Currently holding that Legacy Advantage gives me much more access to information

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m00nslippers · 5 years

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Titans S2E2: Rose, a review, I guess.

Here, have another bullet-pointed, kinda-review. Spoilers ahead!

This episode has awesome stuff, but it’s kind of choppy. We flash pretty quickly from scene to scene between pretty much all the Titans. We get Dick with the kiddos at the tower, Kori and Donna going after Shimmer, Hank and Dawn at their ranch in Wyoming. And then there’s the occasional jump to Rose or Dr. Light. It didn’t jump so much that it was confusing but it gave me the feeling that as soon as I was really into what was happening the scene moved on to something else and that left me disappointed. Luckily everyone seems to be coming together by the end of the episode so hopefully this won’t be an issue going forward.

Dick is getting super into the Big-Bro/Dad/Mentor thing and it’s kind of hilarious. After spending all last season trying to get rid of as much responsibility as possible he’s gone all-in on the mentorship thing to the point that it’s funny to me. He’s over here being super serious with his “Even your eyes can be taken from you!” sensei-thing, and having them read Sun Tzu, and making them food that is apparently terrible. No wonder he goes to that coffee shop all the time, his food is inedible I guess. Like, he’s trying so hard it’s a little manic, but endearing.

Dick is actually pretty great with Jason. Sending Jason with Dick was probably the best thing Bruce could have done because it’s clear that Dick is starting to get Jason where Bruce seemingly didn’t. Jason is complaining about being stuck in Cali and wants to go home to Gotham and Dick’s like, “Me and Bruce don’t think you’re ready, you were joyriding in the batmobile and the thing with the motorcycle and using the batcomputer inappropriately (seems like a porn reference), yada yada,” And Jason seems a bit dejected and upset. And you can see Dick looking at him, seeing how disheartened he is and he seems to get an idea and is like, “and besides, I could really use your help around here, you’re more skilled than the others, they don’t have your experience, everyone looks up to you, etc.” And like, yeah the first part is true, but it’s clear by the others reaction that they really don’t like Jason much or look up to him, Dick is just trying to cheer him up. Jason wants praise and recognition so bad. Even when he’s obviously being manipulated he just wants to believe it so much. That leads me to think this Bruce has been doing typical Bruce-things and maybe not giving Jason much positive reinforcement, which is probably contributing to Jason acting out.

I like Jason but it’s clear the Titans don’t. Last episode we saw bits of Donna and Hank and Dawn not exactly giving Jason a warm reception even though he really didn’t do anything to deserve it. And now in this one Gar and Rachel are icing him out a bit (referring to how he basically adopted Gar and Rachel, Dick says, “but I didn’t help Jason,” and Rachel rolls her eyes and says, “can anyone help Jason?”). Dick said they look up to Jay but that doesn’t seem like the case, I felt like he was just handling Jason. Do they defer to him when it comes to vigilante things, well yeah, maybe, but that’s not quite the same thing. I’m really hoping this isn’t the comics all over again, where everyone was said to pretty much universally dislike him outside of Donna and Eddie (after Jason’s character was rebooted). I know I’m a Jay-fan so I might be biased but aside from being a little cocky and mischievous there’s nothing we’ve seen him do to anyone that really warrants this kind of dislike, IMO. I’m hoping over the course of the season he proves himself to Gar and Rachel at least and they get along better. I want everyone to like Jason but even if they didn’t I would be fine with it if they at least disliked him for good reasons, and right now I haven’t seen anything to suggest their reasons are anything but shallow.

Kori and Donna interacting are a treasure. Kori and Donna clearly bonded over being badass chick who like to beat people up and have the same sassy sense of humor. They are constantly bickering but you get the impression they are loving every second of their verbal repartee. They are so hilarious. It’s interesting to see Kori interact with someone who is an ‘adult’ and isn’t Dick. I feel like with Donna more of that zest that Kori has in the comics but didn’t really last season, comes out. Before she was so focused on her mission she didn’t have time for herself and now she does and it’s great seeing her do Earth-things and finding them fun or interesting and enjoying herself. Kori loving Disco and Donna liking Madonna is so damn appropriate.

Roy foreshadowing!!! Donna’s contact that sent her after Shimmer is shown to be Roy Harper from her phone call. I have to wonder what version of Roy we are getting here. OG Roy-fans and Titans purists are probably going to hate me for this but hear me out...I want it to be the new version of Roy, in terms of personality and looks. Goofy genius-dumbass hillbilly with a heart of gold Roy. Look, I just feel like the other version of his character overlaps way too much with characters we already have, especially Donna. Say what you will about New 52 Roy, but he’s got character and personality, he stands out in a way I feel the other Roy didn’t, especially alongside Wally and Dick, who had very similar personalities, I feel. I’ll be happy with either version because it’s Roy but I think it would be interesting to see the New 52 alongside these characters, with his trucker hat and gadgets. Or maybe they could do a fusion, at least have his aesthetic. Everyone in this show kind of has a sameness that could be shaken up. We could use some comic relief, honestly. I hope we actually do see him this season though and it isn’t just foreshadowing something for next season.

The stuff with Hawk and Dawn was...fine. Basically after getting that ranch, Hank getting clean and presumably getting his surgery and retiring from heroing like they always dreamed/planned it all went up in smoke. I guess it was probably inevitable, to be honest. But there was this whole thing where Hank caught Dawn going out as Dove behind his back after they’d decided to stop and they were having a big important fight about it--and then it’s all rendered moot when Dr. Light destroys their whole life and they have to go to Cali and meet up with Dick. It just kind of seems like too easy of a way for the writers to resolve the situation. I hope this isn’t the end of Hank and Dawn’s argument because it was a really big deal. Hank was giving Dawn a break-up ultimatum if it’s never brought up again I’m going to be annoyed.

Rose has potential. I felt like the actress’s acting was a little stiff but that might have just been the choppiness of the scenes she was in, the sections were too small to get a real feel for her. I like her looks, she’s awesome in the action scenes and she has her powers/healing factor and all her comic abilities which is great. I feel like her writing is good though, and I’m interested to see is she’s actually on her own like she seems or if she’s a mole for her dad (I kind of feel like she’s a mole...). I hope we see JayRose though. I think him being interested in her is just a given, he called her a badass from seeing her fight. Whether she will have any interest in him back is more of a question, but I’m hopeful.

I wanted more Deathstroke. Not gonna lie, I wanted more Deathstroke. We saw a scene at the end where Jason found the connection between Rose and Slade, but that’s it. I have a feeling he’ll be in the next episode though.

Seriously, Ian Glenn is an awesome Batman. We got another great conversation between Bruce and Dick and I loved it so much, you guys. Give Ian Glenn a chance, people. I’m telling you the writing for Bruce is on point and the acting is great. He feels a lot like the DCAU-version to me, the one voiced by Kevin Conroy. I actually really like his voice in particular because it’s sort of deep like Conroy’s is, and he manages to put a lot of buried emotion into more or less flatly spoken words. The writing and the acting absolutely has that Bruce-thing where gives you answers in the most concise but cryptic way possible, acts all dramatic and he’ll seem unhelpful and kind of like a jerk and then he’ll say something profound and meaningful to let Dick know he actually does care about him a lot and it’s like...yeah, that’s the Bruce I’ve wanted, guys. he’s an asshole without really meaning to be but his intentions are good. It’s just so nice to have Titans!Bruce when comics!Bruce is such a nightmare right now...I really hope people who don’t like or doubt him will give Ian Glenn’s Bruce another chance, because I love him so much already. Yeah, his looks aren’t quite right but I’m getting used to it. The core of Bruce is there and that’s what’s really important.

And those were my main thoughts watching this episode. I loved it and it left me wanting more. It had some issues but nothing deal-breaking.

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historyman101 · 4 years

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Time to leave the nest.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that, regardless of how you view Eureka 7: AO or Hi-Evolution, the community is not what it once was. I’m not going to make this a diatribe about what’s wrong with Hi-Evo (since my friends and I dissected it quite thoroughly in the podcast) or AO or even PFOR, but I will say that the lackluster reception of Hi-Evo has doused a lot of the passion this community once had, or at least it played a role.

As I’ve said in the podcast and elsewhere, I’ve been a part of the Eureka 7 fan community really ever since it first aired in the US in 2006. I’m what you would call an OG. I’ve been here since the very beginning, and I’ve seen so much happen to this beloved IP and this community, not all of it good.

When I joined the tumblr scene in 2012 when AO was airing, there was still a high level of enthusiasm and energy in the community. Even if AO wasn’t well-received by many, we still had the motivation to do some great things. The passion people had was really inspiring, and it was a major factor in me continuing my historical fanfiction series. Knowing people still cared about what I wrote kept me going. I’ve said this a million times, but to all those people who followed me and kept up with my historical series, thank you so very much. I wouldn’t have finished it without you.

As I was writing my historical series, other people made great contributions as well. Artists on tumblr made fanart that is still well-loved to this day. Users made and shared remixes of classic E7 songs. We organized weekly chats and Secret Santa events each Christmas. Some of us even tried to make a visual novel based on Eureka 7. To me, that is nothing short of remarkable.

As time went on, interest died down. It’s only natural that people would fall away from it. By the time 2017 rolled around, I was well aware that enthusiasm was waning and, as I’ve said before, were it not for Hi-Evolution being announced, I would have quietly made my exit from the community upon completion of my fanfiction series. That’s not to say I was bitter about it, either; I figured it was the best course of action since I made it clear in past anonymous asks that I wasn’t going to add more to the fandom once it was done.

When Hi-Evolution was announced, I was initially excited. The community went through a brief resurgence as hopes ran high. There was a genuine belief that this would be the franchise’s saving grace. I thought this was a chance to rekindle interest and learn from past mistakes.

Boy, was I wrong.

All the hopes I had were shattered at Otakon, and while I can only speak from my own perspective, it seems like Hi-Evo 2 as well as the delay of Hi-Evo 3 killed any remaining interest in the fandom. Instead, it’s left a splintered community, one where people no longer have the enthusiasm to write fanfics, make fanart, or even do special collaborative projects like the visual novel.

Many of the friends I made in the community tell me point blank that they are either fed up with the franchise entirely or are done after Hi-Evolution 3. If people are saying that, then I genuinely fear we are facing the death of a once-proud, tightly-knit community. And that makes me beyond sad.

I know I come off as abrasive and some people sling the word “hater” at me for my opinions, but people who know me will tell you that I’m only speaking from a place of love for Eureka 7. For all the problems I have with Hi-Evolution and the franchise writ large, I don’t want to live in a world where this anime doesn’t exist. It made me into an anime fan. I have made some of my closest friends through this, some of whom I still keep in contact with to this day.

I believe the bonds we make are stronger than whatever Bones throws our way, but I can’t help feeling saddened that the thing which united us is now turning us against each other. If the sometimes vitriolic asks I’ve received and the horror stories we shared in the podcast are any indication, the fandom is split, possibly beyond repair. We’ve reached the stage where you can’t have a conflicting opinion and be treated with respect anymore; instead, you’re viewed as the enemy. A hater. A troll whose views should be discounted.

If you voice anything other than a positive opinion about anything E7-related, be it AO, the manga, the games, or Hi-Evolution, you’re shut down and cast out. It’s not enough to just like E7; now, we all have to be comfortable and build a hugbox. That’s not the message E7 originally imparted.

Eureka 7 is a show about accepting reality in all its ugliness. Anyone who has watched the anime knows it can be very uncomfortable at times. Some moments are hard to sit through, but that’s the whole point. Renton had to learn the hard way that the life he dreamed of was just that: a dream. The people he looked up to weren’t the idealized heroes he thought they were. The world is ugly, and he had to accept that. I think we need to take the same approach when looking at this franchise.

It’s okay to dislike Hi-Evolution, AO, or anything else that’s come after the original. Fuck, the original isn’t perfect by any stretch. What anime is? What’s not okay is to disrespect others for a differing opinion or (in my case) harassing them. I hardly think that’s the message Eureka 7 wanted to leave its viewers.

What makes me sad is that it was never like this before. Even in the AO days, people were willing to let it all go. We still had fun together because we thought that the bonds we made were more important than a show that didn’t turn out well. But something changed between then and now. I don’t even know what, but the community and how it dealt with differing views changed. And I don’t like what it’s become.

Now, our community is all but dead. Not just on Tumblr, but everywhere I go, the story is the same. When Hi-Evo was announced, the Subreddit was abuzz with activity and excitement. Now, it’s practically a ghost town. The Discord server, which I left some time ago, has gone the way of disco according to all my friends. I think it’s because many of us are just bitter about what’s happened or are fed up. I’m not surprised people have gotten bored with Eureka 7; I have too.

To be perfectly honest, I wish Hi-Evo was never made. It would have been better if our fandom just slowly faded away from inactivity instead of splitting into ever smaller, squabbling camps. At least then it would have ended on a positive, happy note. Now, based on everything I’ve seen, heard, and read, it’s ending on a note of bitterness. It’s doubly sad, because Eureka 7 is optimism: the anime.

So where am I going with all of this? I don’t know. Honestly, I just wanted to vent because I needed to get this off my chest. It’s been a drain to watch something I loved and cherished for so long slowly fall to pieces and the friends I once had in this fandom turn against each other.

Eureka 7 has been such a touchstone in my life for so long that to see it crumble away like this is heartbreaking. Revisiting this franchise’s fall from grace just leaves me depressed. It’s like a blood-sucking vampire, and I can’t fucking take it anymore.

That’s why this is my last post about Eureka 7.

As much as you guys think it’s interesting, I can’t keep doing this. I don’t have the patience to wait until 2021 for the final film, and I don’t suspect many others do, either. I don’t care if it will be all hand-drawn; I’m sick and tired of even talking about it. It’s like I’m beating up a disabled person; nothing I say is going to change what we’ve already gotten or alter the reality of where the fanbase is now. It’s really sad, but I just need to move on from this.

Almost 15 years have passed since I first watched Eureka 7. Back then, I was just a lonely 16 year old kid trying to find out where to go in life. I will be 30 in January, I have a full-time job, my life is much more hectic now than it ever was, and it’s turned out better than I ever dreamed. Eureka 7 Hi-Evolution didn’t turn out too well, but there will be more disappointments to come, no question. Life is full of them. Why focus on them forever?

I don’t think that harping on the past is productive. Time only moves forward and it waits for no one. I have limited time on this earth, and I don’t want to spend it kicking this turd around forever. Life is too short to waste it on small things like an anime franchise that didn’t end well. I want to start the new decade fresh, and that means letting go of the things that have weighed me down.

I’m going to grab my future with my own hands. Because I learned from Eureka 7 a seminal lesson that’s guided me through life:

Don’t beg for things. Do it yourself, or else you won’t get anything.

#eureka seven #eureka 7 #eureka 7 hi-evolution #e7hievo #anime #favorite anime #favorite character #e7 #i can't keep doing this #I need to move on

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