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webbywatcheshorror · 11 months

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Webby Reviews Horror: Glorious (2022)

Glorious is a movie about the humanity in the divine, and the divinity in the human. It’s about the pain of heartbreak and the deep well of regret that flows from selfish choices. It’s about the selfless sacrifices given in the name of love.

It’s also about a rest stop bathroom with a glory hole in the stall.

Review under the cut, and of course, SPOILERS!

Glorious is a pretty short movie at a little over an hour and fifteen minutes, but it feels longer to me, due in part to the slow pacing in the first part and then the anticipation of the second. The payoff is worth it in the end, though, and I think the pacing gives the audience a better chance to really start to sympathize with and relate to our protagonist.

The first half introduces us to Wes, your sort of ‘standard’ movie protag. You know, the nearing middle age, average build white guy, brown hair, somewhat unkempt facial hair situation. Not exactly thinking outside the box, casting-wise. HOWEVER, I think in this particular instance, having him be the ‘Societal Default’ actually works in the story’s favor. That is, if they did it on purpose, of course. They want us, the audience, to really feel a connection to Wes, maybe even project onto him a little.

After all, who hasn’t felt the grief of a broken heart? The urge to call our ex’s phone even if only to hear their recorded voice telling us to leave a message? That’s what’s going on to begin with: Wes, an exhausted and miserable man, decides to pull into a rest stop so he stops falling asleep on the road. He’s Going Through It something fierce- he about loses it on a vending machine that denies him a candy bar (once again, who among us, etc) and he looks like hell. An enigmatic trucker gives him a hand and some advice, and on her way back to her truck, she stops and smiles at a strangely colored flower with goop on it, which gives me the impression that she has some kind of idea as to what’s about to go down; then she drives away. (Maybe not, but it’s never made clear, and I like the idea that she does.)

The next morning, Wes wakes up to a stomach full of regret and consequences- he chugged a lot of whisky last night and burned a lot of his stuff, including his pants. Listen, I get it, heartbreak and alcohol can really screw with what you think is a logical set of actions. He stumbles into the main stage of the story, the filthy men’s bathroom of an unattended, way out of the way rest stop.

On the wall of this particular stall is a very creatively decorated glory hole which you can sort of see on the poster- it’s some kind of Lovecraftian beast that’s part monster, part humanoid, which is pretty representative of our story and our two main characters, the second of which we are introduced to once Wes has finished emptying the contents of his gut.

Is bathroom horror a genre yet? Between this and the first Saw, I’d say it should be. There’s something about the contrast of a familiar place being so grimy it’s revolting that works so well for horror. People who can articulate better than me could probably explain why, but I’m getting off track.

An unseen person in the adjacent stall, voiced by the very talented JK Simmons, strikes up a conversation with Wes, who is understandably a little skeeved out by this. His name is Ghatanothoa, and is pronounced in a fun way: stick out your tongue, hold the tip of it with your finger and thumb, and slowly say “Got another one”.

Ghat is DELIGHTFUL to me. He doesn’t understand turns of phrase, he takes things very literally, and seems to have no concept of societal rules (such as getting chatty with strangers in a public bathroom). It’s what could be described as autistic-coded, though I can’t say for certain if that was the intent in his characterization, since it turns out he’s an ancient, lonely god, and hasn’t exactly spent much time in the company of mortals.

Wes responds in a pretty expected way: he’s not in the mood for whatever this weirdo has going on, even if he is a little curious. He tries to look at Ghat even when warned not to gaze upon the god, for his mortal mind could not safely perceive his true form, and the resulting consequence is enough to chip away some of his skepticism. He remains stubborn, though, and tries to leave in whatever way he can think of despite being told it’s impossible. As I’ve said, Wes is a pretty relatable guy, almost too relatable in some ways. I believe this is intentional.

Ghat gives us his origin story- his father, god of creation, accidentally gave life and form to some of his thoughts and went ‘oh no kill it’ as he much preferred the vast nothingness that he had before. The newly formed children fought back and spilled more life from within their father’s wounds, then came to a compromise. They’d stitch him back up as long as he allowed the new life to remain. But they were all of them deceived, for another life form was made, a god of destruction that would one day wipe out the universe so the great emptiness would return- Ghatanothoa. He is compared to the Christian God and Jesus a few times, though not blatantly so. Example: “I am he.”

Ghat is an ethereal caterpillar morphing into a corporeal butterfly, and when he finishes this process, he will, unwillingly, carry out the purpose he was given and destroy everything. He doesn’t want to do it; he feels connected to the world and its mortal inhabitants, and wants to return to the ether to protect them. And Wes has been chosen to help him do it.

Wes gives the usual ‘everyone’s a shitty selfish person maybe we should all die’ cynicism, then gives us HIS origin story. His dad was a piece of shit who shrouded his cruelty in perceived selflessness, resulting in his wife’s suicide and a warped worldview in his son. This is probably our first hint to Wes’s secret.

No matter what Wes tries, he can’t escape, and getting someone else involved only results in the bathroom getting a fresh coat of red paint. There’s no way out of this except give Ghat what he needs or let the entire universe die.

And what Ghat needs is for Wes to satisfy his physical form. He believes Wes can rise to the occasion and perform this great service for the good of all life.

The bait and switch of Ghat NOT wanting Wes to stick his dick in the glory hole is so god damn funny I almost choked the first time I watched this, pun intended. JK Simmons saying “You thought your human penis was going to save the universe?” lives in my head rent-free. Wes hyped himself up to do it for like three minutes of runtime which was probably over twenty in-universe or longer only to be told his genitals are of no significance. Absolutely incredible.

No, what Ghat wants is for Wes to willingly give him his liver, or at least part of it. Wes for some reason was more willing to give Ghat the D than he is about the liver. This is /hilarious/ to me. Wes is so offended by Ghat’s dick dismissal that it takes even more convincing to get him to agree, which he only does after Ghat takes the memory of Wes’s ex, Brenda, away. If everything is destroyed, then so is her memory, and that thought is enough to change Wes’s mind.

Wes takes the shard of glass from the mirror he’s provided, and makes the cut which is interrupted by one last joke (he almost cut into the wrong side. I probably would have, too.). He makes the sacrifice as Ghat’s father rends the world in pursuit of his child-weapon.

The bloody, noble sacrifice scene is spliced with the big reveal of Wes’s secret- he’s a serial killer. He’s been killing his girlfriends once he determines they don’t fill the emptiness inside of him, a void that’s implied to have been created by his abusive father. Brenda was his latest victim, and the only one he seems to regret, because she actually did make him feel something. The love he was feeling scared him so bad that he killed her anyway, her last expression one of betrayal and heartbreak as she’d discovered his trophy pictures of his past victims.

Ghat accepts the offering, and the total annihilation of the universe is prevented. Ghat’s father retreats and Ghat himself is returned to the ether, never to be a part of the world he loves. Wes, lying on the floor in agony, proudly declares himself a hero, but he’s wrong. Ghatanothoa tells him he was chosen for this not because he’s a hero who will be remembered, but because he, too, is a being of destruction, and it’s better for the universe that they will both be forgotten. “It is finished.”

Wes and Ghat are parallels of one another yet so opposite- Ghat was created to destroy, but he felt so much for others that he chose to return to the ether, never to interact with the world he loves in order to protect it. Wes, on the other hand, chose to become a murderer because of how little he felt for others, only making the sacrifice out of a selfish desire to have one more chance to see the face of the woman he killed for making him feel something at long last. Ghat, who was more human than Wes, and Wes, who was more of a god of destruction than Ghat, two beings who gave their lives and saved all of existence.

I mentioned a couple of times about it being intentional with Wes being this super-relatable, sort of ‘everyman’, the assumed societal default, and here’s why: Usually, the audience is supposed to identify with, sympathize with, and root for the protagonist, this isn’t a new concept. But when we spend over an hour doing this, especially to such a degree, it can really feel like the floor drops out from under us when we realize that this guy that’s just like us fr is a cold blooded murderer and has been the entire time.

Most horror ends one of two ways, right? The hero pulls through despite it all and we get some kind of relief or even hope that the evil is defeated. Or, despite it all, the evil prevails and will strike again, even if the hero survives. But in Glorious, there’s no real hero, and the evil is thwarted with no relief to be found, no satisfaction in the end. There’s just Wes, Ghat, and the quiet finality of their demise. The world will continue to spin as if nothing had ever happened, and as far as everyone else knows, nothing ever did.

Glorious leaves me feeling introspective and a little sad, as I really ended up liking Ghatanothoa, and seeing some of myself in Wes makes me a little uncomfortable (as it should). It’s a great twist on the chosen one trope, and the humor is well placed and doesn’t break the flow of the story. The beginning is a little slow, as I said before, but slow burn can really bring out the flavor of a good story, and this was a tasty meal for me.

JK Simmons really steals the show as Ghatanothoa, selling me on both the more human aspects of his character as he talks about believing in the goodness inherent in humanity, and the underlying current of power he struggles to rein in as Wes tests his patience and time runs out.

I wouldn’t call this one ‘scary’ necessarily, though the cosmic horror is absolutely present, and there’s some gore involved. I don’t subscribe to the idea that horror has to scare you to be considered horror, so while some don’t consider this a true horror movie, I do.

Ten outta ten (holy?) ghosts for a story I greatly enjoyed, JK Simmons, and the bait and switch with the glory hole which I am STILL laughing about.

#glorious #webbywatcheshorror #horror movies #movie review #jk simmons #shudder

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inktog · 1 year

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Why do you think the Marcy/andrias reveals were underwhelming?

Going into True Colors, it was clear that 1) Andrias was some flavor of evil or sinister and 2) Marcy was working with him behind Anne's and Sasha's backs. I was really curious to see how both of these would play out. What kind of villain would Andrias end up being? What exactly was Marcy doing for him, and why? How would she end up hurting Anne and Sasha?

"Psyche, I lied! Fuck you. I actually want to conquer the world" was not a very interesting reveal to me. To be fair, it reads better in hindsight with the added complexity Andrias gets in season 3—but taking it as the climactic payoff for all the sinister buildup in season 2, it falls flat.

The details of Marcy's collaboration with Andrias are left vague, overshadowed by the allegedly worse reveal that she brought them to Amphibia in the first place. While I can believe that Anne and Marcy feel more betrayed by the latter, Marcy actually has a lot more agency in the former (I cannot actually see her as morally responsible for wishing with all her might that magic is real, even if a library book told her so), so I would have preferred if the episode fleshed out the former and gave it weight and consequence.

#amphibia #ask #tharrb

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lananiscorner · 2 years

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I was wondering which order you first played each route in 3H. Fans often get very defensive when people accuse them of stupid "first route bias" and for good reason. I think the bias exists for everyone but good, well written routes stand on their own regardless of first route bias. But what order did you play the 4 routes in 3H? And do you feel it influenced your bias slightly depending on that order? Do you think it's ever possible to not have first route bias for 3H as a game format? Thanks!

Thanks for your ask, anon!

I do think it's possible to be MOSTLY free of first route bias, because I saw it in action with @fireemblems24, who played all four routes simultaneously (switching routes after each in-game week). It was highly amusing and enlightening, reading their analysis of different versions of the same scene and the different routes. I think that's about as unbiased as you can get.

My first route was Azure Moon, because Dimitri is literally what got me into the game (I saw some fanart of him, asked a co-worker who's into FE about him, and when she described him to me, I went "omg, that's exactly the kind of character I love--I need to play this"). Needless to say, I enjoyed Azure Moon a lot. It IS my favorite route, and while I'm sure some of that is just first route bias, I feel it is also objectively the best written, narratively consistent route--the only one where it feels like a war really happened, where almost every plot thread that is being planted has at least somewhat of a satisfying payoff. The Blue Lions are also the only house where I genuinely like every character.

My second was Verdant Wind, which wasn't bad, but it has many issues, the least of which being that it underutilizes Claude, featured a house where I considered half the characters ok at best, and decided to put the best part into two lore dumps at the end of the route. The final boss came out of nowhere. This route has a lot of setup for very little payoff (e.g. the Deer never learn of Claude's origins). I was very underwhelmed, overall.

The third was Crimson Flower. I had been looking forward to playing a villain route, because honestly, anyone who declares war on another country unprovoked and works with people who kidnap young girls for blood experiments is a villain, motives be damned (as the meme goes: cool motive, still murder). And I can enjoy a well-written villain. Cersei was one of my top 6 characters in Game of Thrones, after all. Unfortunately, Crimson Flower has more tonal dissonance than "Barbie" by Aqua playing over a death metal video and is deathly allergic of letting anyone on the protagonist's side suffer serious consequences for their actions, so I was left underwhelmed and feeling like I needed a shower.

Finally, I played Silver Snow, which mostly felt like a copy of Verdant Wind (I know it's actually the other way around), up to and including a boss fight that came out of nowhere. The reveal of Byleth's origin also did nothing for me, because one chapter and a half into Azure Moon I had started and finished Cindered Shadows, so I would have access to the Ashen Wolves (which hilariously means that CS was actually my first completed route and lead to fun things like me not knowing that battalions can be depleted and divine pulse is a thing until like.... 4 maps in). Like Verdant Wind, this route had great potential, but squandered it by leaving Rhea unplayable and refusing to actually let Byleth interact in any meaningful way with all the mysteries. I like the Eagles more than the Deer though, so at least it was enjoyable on that front. I had also started experimenting with challenge runs (in this case, a full recruitment Holy Knight Byleth solo), so at least it was fun gameplay-wise. I ended up liking it juuuuuuuust a little bit more than VW.

#Fire Emblem: Three Houses #FE3H #first route bias

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thelemmallama · 9 months

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random musing on agi

orthogonality thesis:

when you write a program, you don't give it a directive or a goal; you give it a structure, which you believe will make it behave in a certain way that will satisfy your goal

different sorting algorithms have the same 'goal', but they're still different algorithms with different structures

(the notion that an entity can have one overarching, terminal goal)

how are goals implemented in existing entities? for humans, at least, it's about emotions; we do things that make us feel better

how exactly does a paperclip maximizer's goal manifest in its structure? does it experience some form of 'pleasure' from perceiving an abundance of or increase in paperclips, or some form of 'pain' from perceiving an absence of or decrease in paperclips?

long-term-ness: how long-term does a paperclip maximizer think? is it trying to maximize average daily paperclip count within a certain time interval, which may or may not have infinity on one end? is it trying to have a single moment in time where there exists a maximum paperclip count? is there a point where the paperclip maximizer would declare its goal 'achieved'?

recurring patterns of behaviour

'wants to' do something like a ball 'wants to' roll downhill or a cowlick 'wants to' stick up

goals; real goals as in concretely objectives with well-defined parameters; falling outside this characterization are always instrumental, never truly terminal?

(i don't really want to 'maximize my happiness'; even if i could do a specific thing that'll make me happier this very moment with no consequences, i don't feel a particular urge to do so)

in humans, at least, long term values seem to be instrumental in sustaining an environment in which we can more consistently experience pleasure and avoid pain. goals stemming from our moral values are generally things we want to last; someone who lives in a world with consistently low (but never zero) homicides-per-day rate is probably more morally satisfied than someone who has lived to see merely a single day with zero murders

{we want to establish norms, and build culture/infrastructure/etc

even if it's a goal with a well-defined endpoint

is a world with high paperclip count, or a high rate of increase in paperclips, an environment that}

i get the point of the paperclip maximizer though is AI values likely being alien; it's probably not going to be as simplistic as maximizing a specific object, but it's an accessible intuition pump

so alien that it can have a notion of value (good or bad) without something in its structure 'flinching away' from the bad and being 'drawn towards' the good?

i feel like terminal values are always going to be instinctive and short-sighted to some degree. an entity can strategize and delay gratification for a better future payoff, but there'd be a limit to how long you can delay when every atom in your being is screaming for 'good thing, now'

conversely, moral values tend to be instrumental

the 'superintelligent (talking) rock' hypothesis

(a counter to the 'ai in a box' hypothesis)

what if there isn't a binary state of the ai being 'boxed' or 'unboxed', such that when the 'gatekeeper' declares intent to unbox the ai, it just happens automatically?

what if 'unboxing' the ai involves constructing a lot of infrastructure to give it any agency to act without help, like trying to upload a rock (or a human brain) to a computer? what if it takes multiple people multiple lifetimes to complete the 'unboxing' process, giving them plenty of time to reconsider even if they're transhumans who live many times longer than we currently do?

#values #orthogonal thesis #agi #ai in a box #hume's guillotine #superintelligent rock

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4lorne2 · 2 years

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Jealousy, my old friend. It shot through me like a wave with just a casual admission on her part. It lingered in my mind long after that initial shock passed.

A cacophony of thoughts and feelings: frustration as the patterns of my affections repeat again despite my efforts to deviate from them; frailty brought on by my self imposed confinement and lack of connections with others; fear about the consequences of opening myself up to more painful feelings with little potential payoff.

I weigh the costs and benefits. I consider all relevant variables. I try to convince myself that desire is not a zero sum game. That her liaison does not make her off limits to me. But I worry about the calculated nature of such an admission. Is it a signal to back off? Is she setting a boundary by telling me this, as if to say, “I’m only telling you this because you’re in a different category.” You wouldn’t tell someone you were attracted to about intercourse with someone else would you.

The reality stings that I have always been the more open of us two. That this is the sort of insight I was seeking, if not the one I wanted to hear. She is there and I am not. Fixating on me makes no sense for her, but it makes all the sense in the world for me in my isolation. That is the unequal standing that our relationship is built on after all.

I am trying to tell myself not to label it. That she still wants to talk to me. That we can be close without being “close.” It’s foolish, but it’s also the only way I see to break my pattern. And when we come face to face there will be chances for intimacy that others don’t get to have. She respects me and values me. That has to be enough.

I have never been able to figure out what to do about the fact that I am attracted to people I admire. Admiration is by no means an equitable ground for love. It smacks of “pedestals” and elevating the other beyond myself, but what can I do?

The only thing I can think to do is disclose even more of myself. I am still reticent to tell her how she makes me feel. It feels premature and would necessarily shape the course of what’s to come by putting pressure on her to take the burden of those feelings on.

There is no “natural” way for the relationship to develop, but there is one where I keep my disclosures running parallel with her life, rather than allowing them to intersect. Intersecting can come later, if it is meant to come. In the meantime, I can continue to make myself known to her and hope she will do the same for me.

I recognize that she has shared much less of herself with me, but what do I have to lose by being open with her? She cannot hurt me if I lay myself bare. I am not asking to possess her, just gifting her with more and more of me. I have no reputation to damage. No ego to preserve. If I can let those things go, perhaps I can be loved in whatever way she sees fit.

It’s scary to relinquish all this power. I fear her getting bored of me. I worry about missing a chance. I despise the thought of having so little control and power in the relationship. The thought of giving it all to her is scary, but maybe that’s exactly what I want to feel. If I remove the time table, along with the expectations, and give her the freedom to react to me however she sees fit, I can give her power. I can try to wait desire out. If it fades, it will be a more palatable way for our relationship to end than a straightforward rejection. If it endures, then I will know that she has allowed it to grow, without ever being forced to.

The conventional wisdom is to rush in head first, tell them how you feel, don’t wait. But I have never been one to readily accept common sense. Who is to say that I understand my feelings. How do I know that I know what I want.

I will wait, for love is not unrequited unless we define it as such. For now, I will allow it to remain a desire to disclose myself to someone I admire. That feels substantially different from how I have handled these situations in the past. Especially when I have let my anxieties and pride keep me from revealing myself to another.

Our feelings are not ourselves. I will try to tell her about myself rather than about how I think I feel. That seems to me the better path to an as yet undetermined relationship. One that is not ruled by preconceptions or assumptions about what I want. To me it is this approach that I think is more likely to make me happy in the end.

Don’t Tell Them How You Feel, Show Them Who You Are

The Right Kind of Relationship Will Occur On Its Own

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iamanartichoke · 3 years

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I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

#loki spoilers #loki series negativity #loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #long post

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sonofthesaiyans · 2 years

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Did Gabi Braun really get character development....

Or is that just her fandom overcompensating desperately for how fucking worthless and unnecessary she is to the story of season four?

What does she really fucking add that was so goddamned unique to Titan at that stage? Oh, SHE’S TWELVE? Is that it?

So were Reiner, Annie, and Bertolt when they busted Wall Maria, and I don’t see the fandom going to the same insane lengths to defend them as they do Gabbitch or EREN YEAGER. Kids may be easier to misguide, but they all knew what they were doing. Even after Reiner recounted his experiences on the island, it didn’t prompt any questions in Gabi. Kids all trained in the same wartime skills as their adult comrades, why should their age be their “get out of jail free” card?

And a common criticism against Annie or the Marleyans is that they are only feeling remorse because they are seeing the consequences of their many acts of murder and now they will lose everything for it. But they never secondguessed themselves before that point. You don’t honestly believe Gabi’s sick mindset would have budged if not for the fact Kaya tried to shiv her fucking ass, right?

Still never heard “I am sorry about Sasha” from this bitch or really anything to suggest that she felt anything for SASHA. She got called out on the act, but did she actually feel sorry for Sasha herself in any manner? She ever wonder about someone she could conceivably have gotten along with in another life? She never even referred to Sasha by name again after the restaurant scene.

And what is all this alleged character development amounting to? WHAT was the payoff? Fucking forget Falbi if that’s what you’re hot on, just forget that for a minute. WHAT IS THE PAYOFF TO GABI?

She ges in a situation she created for herself, she exacerbates the one Eren had already put in motion to apparently play out exactly as it did, she tags along, she comes out without any scars or any ill effects from being a Titan for all of six minutes, and walks off.

If I were to actually discuss Gabi with another individual in person, I don’t think I’d be able to contain my frustration. Gabi is just here for the sake of being here and even the parallels to Eren really become exhausted pretty fast. This isn’t her fucking story. It’s just like Historia’s pregnancy. IT’S JUST THERE.

Did the bitch really get any growth? Or was it just excuse after excuse after excuse by both her defenders and Isayama for why she should survive when she doesn’t profoundly affect the action much? Especially when you take into account the fact that Eren knew all that would happen and LET IT on his own accord.

Bitch would still be a butcher if not for the fact that she almost got gutted for mouthing off to the wrong person.

Also she is not a compelling character AT ALL. Everything comes easy for the cunt and she gets her way no matter what she does, right or wrong. Even when she turns into a fucking Titan.

There is no Attack on Titan without Sasha. Or with Gabi.

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icarusinstatic · 3 years

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Thoughts about the Loki Variants: a non-exhaustive list.

L1130 (New York Loki):

Favorite scamp.

Things happen all the time and now he is tired.

Wants to forge connections. Some which fail (Sylvie); others which don’t (Mobius). Just let Loki have a friend.

Having a existential crisis every five minutes

But really likes talking about the meaning of existence with his bestie

Probably doesn’t want to fully admit to it, but Loki does care about people and I’m sure the way the TVA agents were used and lied to is especially galling to him, even beyond his connection to Mobius. Remember how disturbed he was when Casey didn’t know what a fish was. And Marvel would get a gold star if they connected what Loki went through with Thanos to how he feels about the brainwashed TVA agents. I doubt they would go there, but it is a legitimate avenue to go down.

Is hopefully going to use the time between S1 and S2 hopping between timelines and universes looking for his Mobius and his TVA.

I really hope we get a fight scene with Loki and a temporary army of Loki’s against Kang. Can you imagine how awesome that would be?

Sylvie:

Is probably still at the Citadel at the end of time - really needs some time to process things, and tbh this would be the perfect place for her to see the consequences of killing He Who Remains. And Loki was right, it wouldn’t be smart to kill the person at the top and leave a power vacuum. For all that Sylvie doesn’t want to rule the TVA it would be monumentally stupid to leave it for someone worse to grab, even if all she does is watch over everything and not interfere (which would probably be the best thing free will wise) it would mean that she could hopefully keep another Kang from taking over.

I have a lot of thoughts over where Sylvie was left at the end of the season apparently. I’m wondering if she’s actually ever going to look for Loki (I don’t think so - she probably doesn’t want to face him, because I’m quite positive that no matter anything else Sylvie knows exactly how much she hurt Loki and despite not wanting to be a Loki she knows exactly what a Loki does when hurt.

I do think that she would contact B-15, when and if she decided to extend her plans for the TVA which is how she might find out that Loki isn’t where she sent him. That in the branching of the timelines he had been shuffled off somewhere.

Out of all the characters that we’re introduced to Sylvie is the one who has stayed most true to her motivations from the get go. She wants to take down the TVA and the Time Keepers that head it. Well the Time Keepers aren’t real, but she sure as hell took down the true man behind the curtain. She was so determined to fulfill her plan that she didn’t take the time to recalculate when she found out new information and I think when we see Sylvie again, she’s going to either be in denial that what she did was wrong, or she might have a new plan to not take back what she did, because I can’t see her ever being regretful that she killed He Who Remains, but to readjust her goals.

Boastful Loki:

We did not see enough of this guy!!!!

I mean, did I love that they had him go from appearing to be aligned with the more realistic Loki’s to siding with the chaotic power hungry Loki’s ? Not at all. But I think that if they were going to go that route, they really needed us to have time to fall for his Con, just like Kid Loki did (Classic Loki didn’t look surprised, but definitely disappointed, more on that later). It isn’t a successful double-cross if we don’t have time to really fall for the facade of the “good” guy.

I think if we’d had at least a full extra episode of Loki with his variants crossing the Void, the payoff of the mass betrayal scene between all the Loki’s would have hit harder. We would have been introduced to this awesome, chaotic, boastful god of Mischeif. A Loki who had emerged victorious over the Avengers and he was damn proud of it. We would have had a chance to hear more of his exploits and see his motivations play out a little bit more. And, if they had framed it right, we would have gotten a hint of his dissatisfaction from following a literal child around. Then the scene of him “betraying” Kid Loki, and our Loki watching in mild embarrassment as not just one Loki betrayed another, but how the dominoes of Loki’s just kept falling for the same sort of betrayal, being surprised each time that they were the one’s being betrayed. In the words of my guy Boastful Loki, it would have been awesome.

As for background. I actually still think the parentage is still the same tbh. He’s Laufey’s son. It’s just that I think he was raised by Heimdall. Maybe Odin wasn’t interested in raising the orphan that he had found shivering in the Ice on Jotunheim. He might have pawned little Loki off on Heimdall, who would follow the commands of his king to the letter. Loki has always been a chameleon, perhaps unconsciously he shifted his appearance to match the likeness of the guardian that had raised him, and when he found out the truth of his heritage — if he had enough positive memories of Heimdall, maybe he decided that he would stay true to the path that he “wanted” to take, even if it wasn’t the path that had always been truthful to him.

I 100% think that he would have tried to either kill Odin (because fuck that guy) at least set up the double cross to kill Laufey. No matter if he had a better father in Heimdall a lie is still a lie and I doubt that there was a Loki out there who had been lied to like that who didn’t still have some serious issues learning about that lie.

Look Boastful Loki isn’t dead, last we saw, so seeing him in S2 is absolutely on my wish list.

Give me more of this guy, I haven’t seen enough of him.

Kid Loki:

Someone give this kid a caprisun stat.

His nexus event was killing Thor, but I’m absolutely positive it wasn’t because he meant too.

Loki was probably playing a prank that went very very sideways. It got out of hand, as I’m sure many of his pranks did, and he couldn’t stop Thor from dying.

I feel like the loss of his brother and his forced imprisonment in the Void did a lot to make Kid Loki one of the more reasonable seeming Loki’s in the Void.

Yes he wears the horns, he’s the king, but I seriously doubt it actually has the same meaning and importance to him as it does to say President Loki.

He along with Classic Loki really do seem to be the calmest of the bunch. And both of these guys have Thor being the reason for their nexus’s event in common. Classic Loki missed his brother and was attempting to reunite with him, while Kid Loki was the cause of his brother’s death. No mater what, he was never going to be able to see Thor again in his timeline.

If we don’t see this little dude with his little alligator variant next season we riot.

Classic Loki:

My beloved.

Arguably the strongest of the Loki’s, but only because he’s had the time to grow into his power. His role really in episode 5 was to show our Loki the true extent of his powers. Our Loki didn’t seem to shocked that he was able to make that building fly backwards on Lamentis (but Sylvie was), but I think that was more of an instinctive reaction to the events going on around him. He Who Remains made sure that Loki in any incarnation was unable to truly grow into themselves because, as soon as they tried to better themselves they were pruned, and I thin that was a very deliberate choice. He was trying to mold Loki not only into the quintessential villain, but one who was never able to reach their full potential.

The fact that Classic Loki’s nexus event was wanting to reunite with Thor just really breaks my heart. He just missed his brother, and I wonder if He Who Remains didn’t want Loki to be able to find peace because he knew that would make Loki even more powerful than what he already was. Grief and guilt can do a lot to weigh someone’s potential and power down. I just, what is it about Loki being happy that would be so concerning to Kang?

I know we saw him die on screen, but my man isn’t dead. The Loki we saw die was just another projection like he was able to do to fool Thanos. My guy is with Kid Loki and Croki making s’mores or something. Not dead, I just don’t buy it.

though that bit raising Asgard? *Chef’s Kiss*

Croki;

Look I know he’s an alligator, but the name is still Croki.

Arguably the most chaotic Loki of them all. My guy is definitely a Loki who shapeshifted into an Alligator and just “refuses” to change back.

Some people have said that Croki isn’t even a full sized alligator, so maybe he’s still a kid, younger that Kid Loki and he’s just scared. Not so scared that he won’t bite off President Loki’s hand, but still scared enough to feel safer as an alligator than to look like himself.

I bet Croki was already in the Void when Kid Loki arrived and when Croki came upon Kid Loki he decided, yep, gonna stay with that one. He looks most familiar to myself, I’m not leaving his side. It probably took Kid Loki some time to really warm up to Croki, because he was NOT in a good place when he arrived. Thor had just died and he’d had everyone he’d ever known and loved taken away from him, but when he did he really grew protective of Croki and Croki of him. besties for life is what i’m saying.

Croki goes around randomly attacking the Loki variants he most dislikes. President Loki was definitely not his first victim.

He will also not let anyone else know how old he really is because he’s grown fond of boxed wine.

President Loki:

Second most chaotic Loki in the void, this sad boy already knows he’s going to be betrayed before he is, but is just so desperate for the illusion of control that having the throne in the void would give him that he doesn’t care either way.

Definitely not a stable Loki. You can pack so much emotional trauma in this bad boy.

Please get him some therapy and definitely some grief counseling.

Is like a feral cat, if you try to hug him right now he will stab you in the heart and steal your wallet in the same breath.

Can we please see him again Marvel? Just please keep him away from Mobius. If New York Loki isn’t there to run interference. That would just be a terrible combination.

#Loki #Classic Loki #boastful Loki #Kid Loki #Croki #President Loki #sylvie laufeydottir #headcanon

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theggning · 3 years

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In Defense of Piper Wright

DISCLAIMER: People have opinions. People have different tastes in characters, and things that they like and dislike about characters. You are allowed to like whatever characters you want and dislike whatever others for whatever reason you want. You can read everything I say here and go “yeah but I still don’t like her” and that’s fine. There are popular characters in all of my fandoms that I still don’t care for much, and that’s okay! I still like to understand how they are written and what makes them tick.

I like Piper. I think she’s funny and charming and it’s very refreshing to see a bossy, outspoken, pushy, but overall courageous and goodhearted woman in a prominent role. But I’ve been kickin’ around this fandom for a bit now and I have repeatedly seen some incredibly uncharitable takes on Piper, a lot of which strike me as either hugely generalizing or frankly, something I don’t think would be directed at a male character with Piper’s same role and traits.

A lot of people complain that Bethesda “puts no thought into their characters” which I find often translates to “I have not spent any time with this character” (or less often, “this character is not exactly the way I would like them to be, therefore Bethesda is bad writers.”) Most of the companions in FO4 are quite nuanced and multi-faceted, and you learn things about them by traveling with them and talking to them, hearing their comments on various events and locations. Piper is in the unique position of being featured briefly in the main quest, so meeting her is not optional, though having her as a companion is. Because of this, I feel like many people stick with the basic first impression they get of her, and dismiss her on that alone.

So today in my TED Talk, I would like to discuss some common takes I’ve seen on Piper and provide canon evidence why I think they’re off base or overblown. You are free to agree or disagree with my opinion and you can like or dislike Piper, but there is some stuff flying around that is just not supported by canon at all.

On a side-note, you can find scripts and dialogue for all characters in the game on the Fallout Wiki, and read the entirety of their lines and the context for them. It’s fun and interesting and really helps when you’re writing IC fic or character studies like this.

1. “Piper is pushy and reckless and doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions.”

That’s correct. You have clearly met Piper. This is called a character flaw.

“ Never thought a reporter could consider themselves a success until someone threatened their life. Me? I'm very successful.”

In one of Piper’s early affinity dialogues, she explains the origins of her dedication to the truth. She and her baby sister Nat lived in a town outside the Commonwealth with their single father, a local militiaman. One night on watch duty, Piper’s father was murdered. His captain, Mayburn, claimed that he must have been surprised by raiders, but the now-orphaned teenaged Piper didn’t believe him. She discovered that Mayburn was actually working for the raiders, and had accepted a payoff to sell out the town to an incoming ambush. When Piper’s father discovered this, Mayburn murdered him.

Unfortunately, nobody believed her. The mayor was unwilling to listen to Piper, so she made a bunch of posters publicizing Mayburn’s actions and hung them up all over town. The townspeople were horrified and came clamoring for the truth. Mayburn was thrown out and the citizens were prepared when the raiders came, routing the attack and protecting themselves. By reporting what she’d found to the public, Piper avenged her father’s murder and protected her entire hometown-- but she attributes this not to herself, but to the townspeople, empowered by the truth.

“No, those people saved themselves. Because they knew the truth.”

Player Dialogue Option: “Your father died for knowing the truth. It didn't protect him.”

“But how many more people would've died if he hadn't been willing to stand up?”

“Because people need to know the truth. Even when it's bad. Especially when it's bad.”

Piper believes in the power of the truth, the power of people to make their own decisions, and that the best way to put people at ease is to inform them.

You’ve heard it before, that all good characters need to have flaws. And Piper’s biggest character flaw is that she is overzealous in the pursuit of the truth that she values so deeply.

“Course, in my experience, if you want to do real good, playing nice only gets ya so far.”

Piper has a tendency to be reckless and even a little thoughtless when she’s got a “scoop” in front of her. She can be nosy, pushy, abrasive, and is constantly getting into trouble because of it. She has so frequently been arrested that the Diamond City security guards refer to the lock-up as the “Piper Suite.” She regales you of adventures where she very nearly died in the pursuit of a story (one where she was poisoned for exposing a caravan price-gouging, and one where she was nearly sacrificed by the Children of Atom while investigating irradiated drinking water.) Piper is so dedicated to her ideals she frequently puts her own life at risk, getting so fired up by exposing lies and deception she gets tunnel-vision.

This bullheaded dedication may or may not be admirable to you personally, depending on your outlook, but it is objectively a character flaw.

But it’s not true that Piper simply doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions. They ABSOLUTELY get away from her and cause unintended problems sometimes, but she is well aware of this flaw of hers and is not oblivious to the trouble it’s caused. Publick Occurrences is popular and well-regarded within Diamond City, with a large readership base that write letters to the editor and otherwise engage with the paper (you can see many NPCs reading it throughout the city.) Piper herself, though, is not popular at all. The guards warn you to stay away from her because she’s trouble. Many NPCs are reluctant to speak to her. She says has lost many of her friends because they have assumed that she will publish their dirty laundry in the paper (something that there is literally no evidence she has done, or would ever do.)

{A bit emotional. This isn't the sort of thing Piper admits easily. / Neutral} When that first edition hit the stands, I felt like I'd finally done something worth doing, but afterwards, things, things changed. People didn't want to talk the way they used to. Seemed that overnight, I'd gone from being Piper, friend and confidant, to Piper, the nosy snoop. A lot of folks, they haven't treated me the same since. It started to feel like the only person I could count on was my little sis.

We can most easily see Piper’s struggles as this flaw relates to Nat. As willing as Piper is to push and pry and put her own life in danger, she is terrified of anything happening to her sister (whom she has exclusively raised since she was a toddler.) Piper is forced to walk a careful line between her beliefs and their consequences impacting her sister. If she pushes too hard on McDonough, they could get evicted and put Nat in danger out in the wasteland. If she challenges the Institute, they could snatch Piper or, as she truly dreads, Nat. But if she stops printing the paper, they will have no money and Nat will starve (because remember, Publick Occurrences is Piper’s livelihood and source of income, not just a hobby that she can stop at any time.) In a later affinity conversation, Piper reveals that she is afraid Nat will emulate Piper’s reckless lifestyle and put herself in danger.

Yet facing all of this, Piper believes so strongly in the truth that she continues printing the paper. She refuses to find another source of income, to back down from being a thorn in McDonough’s side, or otherwise take an easier path. Because even if she’s pushy or obnoxious or nosy or anything else, the truth is the beacon that guides all of Piper’s actions and decisions. It is the central aspect of her characterization, and must be kept in mind while I dive into the rest of these points.

2. “Piper is responsible for the anti-synth sentiment in Diamond City.”

This one is very popular, and I think it’s because players must dig a little bit for the timeline of major events in the game.

The anti-synth sentiment in Diamond City began with two incidents: the “Broken Mask” and the CPG Massacre. Our good pal Nick Valentine explains both incidents to us.

Mechanical synths like Nick were already a known quantity in the Commonwealth, but “Broken Mask” was the incident where people discovered that the Institute had synths that looked human. A customer at Power Noodles suddenly went berserk and started shooting people. When security killed him, they discovered that the man was a synth (Nick states that the man was “full of gears and sprockets,” and we later learn that he was a very early prototype gen-3 model. Current gen-3s are entirely organic and do not contain machinery.)

After that, people were further terrified of human-like synths by the CPG Massacre. The Commonwealth Provisional Government was an attempt to unite the various groups in the Commonwealth into a real governing body. Representatives, including the Institute, met to discuss the formation of laws and governance. But when the negotiations got messy, the Institute decided it was a lost cause. Their representative, a gen-3 synth, proceeded to kill everyone at the negotiations. In one day, most of the influential people in the Commonwealth were violently and blatantly murdered by the Institute. There have been no further attempts by the Institute to communicate or negotiate with the Commonwealth on the surface.

Here’s the thing though. Broken Mask happened in 2229. The CPG Massacre took place sometime in the 2230s. Fallout 4 begins in October of 2287, over 50 years since the beginning of anti-synth sentiment in the Commonwealth and Diamond City.

There has been 50 years of Institute kidnappings, synth raids and other shenanigans building a slow and growing fear. Piper is, at most, in her mid-20s. She was born into a Commonwealth already suffering and exploited by the Institute, where people live in genuine terror of being kidnapped, experimented on, and murdered. She has literally never known a time without the shadow of the Institute hanging over the heads of everyone in the Commonwealth, and naturally, her passion for the truth empowers her to investigate as much as she can.

As the game begins, Piper is facing the consequences of her latest issue, an article in which she discusses the Broken Mask incident (available to read in game, though realtalk, it seems almost NOBODY takes the time to do so.) She talks about sitting down for some noodles across from Mayor McDonough, and how that was the same situation that victims of the Broken Mask incident were in 50 years ago. By drawing this parallel, she insinuates-- not accuses, not declares, but very carefully insinuates-- that McDonough could also be a synth. This article is explosive and controversial, and results in McDonough locking Piper out of the city and making a speech to defend himself.

Given what we know of Piper, it is almost guaranteed she anticipated this, knew that it would make a huge impact and make people start asking McDonough questions. It is Piper firing a salvo at McDonough in what has clearly been a long-simmering feud between them.

But given other context, this seems like it’s a sudden and extremely shocking move from Piper, not something she does all the time. (In “Dangerous Minds,” during the most recent section of Kellogg’s memories, we can hear Travis on the radio discussing the article and saying “oh, Piper’s really done it this time.” Later on the radio, we hear him making a big deal out of Piper’s article like it is big news, not just another wacky accusation from Piper.)

We have no access to back-issues of Publick Occurrences, so we cannot say for sure what kind of articles Piper has been writing all these years. But there is no evidence that Piper uses the paper as a witch-hunt, or tries to identify specific individuals and accuse them of being synths-- and given her actual feelings about synths, this seems a very uncharitable assumption about her. Piper’s main feud is with McDonough and the way he (doesn’t) deal with questions and concerns about the Institute and kidnappings. There is nothing to suggest she spends her time inflaming anti-synth sentiments on purpose, or that her article was the latest in a long line of hit-pieces designed to scare people or turn them against synths.

There is plenty of speculation to be had about how Piper’s newspaper might throw fuel on the fire of a tense situation. There’s lots of discussion to be had about Piper’s article on McDonough and whether or not she’s crossed a line in publishing it. It is ABSOLUTELY provocative, flirting with baseless speculation, and very questionable journalism. But it’s not the cause of anti-synth sentiment in Diamond City, nor is there any indication Piper is intentionally trying to make that sentiment worse.

3. “Piper hates synths and wants them all dead.”

Extrapolating from the above, I have seen a lot of people claim that Piper hates synths and tries to call them out, expose them, and reveal the truth of their identities at any cost, even if it gets them killed. This is not only a wild mischaracterization of her, but outright untrue.

One mistake many make in writing game meta and theories is forgetting to consider POV. The characters in the game do not have all the same knowledge that we, the players do. NPCs are usually not given the chance to learn, grow, or evolve at all, apart from those who are involved with specific quests. FO4′s companion characters are unique in that they accompany the player throughout the plot, and thus are given a chance to learn new information and offer us their perspectives on it.

When we meet Piper, she is an average citizen of Diamond City. Her opinions and perspectives match those of many of her neighbors and fellow citizens. Neither she, nor the people of Diamond CIty fully grasp the nuance that there are different types of gen-3 synths. Some synths are purposely built and programmed to be infiltrators, to kill and replace real people and assume their identities. But others are simply created to work in the Institute as slaves. They are individuals with their own appearances, thoughts, and personalities. They are not here to replace or harm anybody, and simply seek a way to be free. Because the Railroad is so secretive and because there are no open gen-3 synths in Diamond City (like Nick is openly a gen-2 synth, albeit not by choice), Piper and the people of Diamond City have absolutely no perspective on this fact and do not understand it.

Hell, I’ve seen a shitload of players that apparently don’t understand this, who believe things like “all synths are based on a person who they murdered” and “the Railroad helps synths murder and replace people.” (Reddit and Youtube are very wild places.)

But the minute Piper understands that most escaped synths are simply trying to live their own lives, she is IMMEDIATELY one of the most pro-synth companions. She is vocally in favor of helping synths. She snaps at you if you express the idea that you think synths are machines:

{Concerned} Doesn't matter if someone was born or built. A person's a person. I figured you'd understand that.

She also strongly supports the Railroad, and for all she gets accused of putting people in danger with her journalism, she instantly reins herself in here:

{Excited. / Happy} I knew it. I knew the Railroad was real! {Concerned about revealing the Railroads secrets, then trailing off. / Concerned} But I can't write a story on this. Right? It'd compromise their whole... {Deep breath at the end of this. / Relieved} Okay. Deep breath.

Piper has absolutely no quarrel with synths who are not infiltrators. Nick Valentine is a dear and close friend of hers (and it is a mutual friendship, as Nick references adventures the pair of them have had in the past.) She is kind to Glory and deeply saddened by her death. A synth doesn’t even have to be her friend for Piper to stand up for them-- she vehemently defends Danse during Blind Betrayal and gets extremely upset if you don’t. She is passionate about rescuing Amelia Stockton and putting a stop to the Covenant operation.

There is just nothing at all to support the idea that Piper is some kind of anti-synth Spanish Inquisition, and ZERO evidence that she has ever tried to investigate, identify, or reveal anyone as a synth. Her insinuation about McDonough is not about his alleged synthhood-- it’s about the most powerful man in the city, whose governance (or lack thereof) is having a real impact on people’s lives. Her quarrel with McDonough isn’t whether or not he’s a synth-- it’s that he’s NOT DOING ANYTHING to address the concerns of his constituents re: the Institute. And sure enough, when it turns out that Piper was right and McDonough is a synth infiltrator, she doesn’t give a damn about his nature. She wants him to receive a fair trial and face justice like any other person.

{Angry} You're not getting off the hook that easy, McDonough! You have to answer for what you've done.

{player let McDonough walk / Depressed} So the big, fat liar gets to walk free. Another depressing story to add to the pile.

Should this encounter end with McDonough’s death, Piper is not happy that a synth died. She is upset that a traitorous mayor did not face the justice he deserved from the people he sold out.

On a slightly related note, Piper shares almost ALL of her approvals/disapprovals with Nick. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single quest or situation where Piper doesn’t agree or disagree with the exact same things as Nick. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we should ascribe to her a “What Would Nick Valentine Do” philosophy, but the two of them are clearly very similar in their opinions and beliefs about mercy, justice, peaceful negotiation over violence or threats, and helping those in need because it’s the right thing to do. Nick and Piper are canonically close friends, but people frequently accuse her of things that we all know Nick would never, ever stand for.

4. “Piper is all talk, and she’s doing nothing to stop the Institute/McDonough.” First off, let’s keep in mind that 1. Piper’s newspaper is also the source of her income and livelihood and 2. Piper has a child sister for whom she is the sole provider and caretaker. As I discussed earlier, even with her reckless nature, Piper is forced to walk a delicate balance between accomplishing her goals and staying in the good graces of the city enough to not be thrown out or suffer any life-ruining consequences for her sister. As one single solitary person, she does not have the resources nor the ability to directly fight the Institute herself, and it is ludicrous to expect her to.

Now let’s talk about Edward R. Murrow.

Piper and McDonough’s rivalry is highly reminiscent of the “rivalry” between 1950s journalist Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy. You can look this up for the full story but in short, McCarthy was a politician in the 50s whose bread and butter was accusing people of Communism. During the “Red Scare,” an accusation of being a communist was enough to completely destroy someone’s life and career. Those accused would be blacklisted and shunned, and some were even prosecuted and jailed. McCarthy used to throw these accusations around with no regard for evidence, and grew to wield so much political power that people were absolutely terrified of raising his ire (sound familiar at all?) Edward R. Murrow and his crew at CBS News wanted to call out this blatant injustice, but knew that doing so would make them targets and could potentially ruin their lives. Using careful journalism and facts, they presented a news program on McCarthy and his irresponsible actions. As stated on the Wikipedia article, “The broadcast contributed to a nationwide backlash against McCarthy and is seen as a turning point in the history of television. It provoked tens of thousands of letters, telegrams, and phone calls to CBS headquarters, running 15 to 1 in favor.“ It is widely regarded as an example of the power of journalism and freedom of the press, and the events were dramatized in the movie Good Night and Good Luck (which is a very, very good movie, you should see it.)

I think it is very intentional that Piper reflects this real-life true story (particularly given that it took place in the Red Scare of the 50s, the time period that Fallout’s Pre-War America was meant to reflect.) Piper is very much seeking to use journalism and the freedom of the press to right a political wrong.

Mayor McDonough, along with being a classist snob and prejudiced against ghouls, does absolutely nothing about the Institute. Obviously, we find out this is because he’s an infiltrator synth working for them, but let’s consider things from the POV of Piper and your average Diamond City citizen.

No one person stands much of a chance fighting against the Institute, but McDonough is failing in his duties to do even what little he can. He denies their presence, denies that they are a problem, denies that they pose any danger to his city. He accuses anyone who talks about the Institute of trying to spread fear, and uses this “fear” as an excuse to shut down criticism and discussion. (Compare this to Hancock, who empowers the people of Goodneighbor to look out for themselves and each other, and who encourages a climate of courage and unity against the Institute.)

But it’s worse than just discouraging discussion. McDonough actively undermines Diamond City’s ability to defend itself against the Institute. Kidnappings and disappearances in Diamond City are explicitly not allowed to be investigated by security, again citing “spreading fear” as a reason. So if you are a citizen of Diamond City and one of your family members goes missing, then tough shit, you are not getting even the slightest amount of help from the people who are supposed to keep you safe. We wouldn’t want anybody thinking the Institute took them, because that would make people afraid. It is better to just not think about the Institute. Just don’t think about them or pay them any mind, keep your head down and pray that they leave you alone. And we especially shouldn’t be asking any questions about them. Never, ever ask questions.

Piper is willing to ask those questions. To her, McDonough is every bit as suspicious as Mayburn, the captain who murdered her father. He is every bit as derelict in his duties, and once again, Piper is determined to expose him. But McDonough retaliates by accusing her of starting trouble, and creates a climate where even speaking about the Institute is “fearmongering” (and indeed, even some friendly characters accuse Piper of spreading paranoia.)

Pastor Clements: Hate it when [the newspaper] bring up the Institute. Ain't like folks aren't already scared of 'em.

DC Security: I ain't telling you how to pick your friends, but Piper's kind of a troublemaker.

DC Security: It's that newspaper's fault. Got people all riled up, thinking their own family might be replaced by machines.

Complaint Letter in Piper’s terminal: DATE - 10/01 "Your paper is just trying to drum up fears about synths to increase sales. You should be ashamed of yourself."

McDonough gives speeches and cheap reassurances to his constituents, claiming the Wall will protect them (without ever using the I-word) and blaming Piper for “betrayal” and “driving us apart,” as though her journalism is a threat to the city itself:

McDonough’s Speech: {Irritated} I would like to address the subject that is on everyone's mind, and that is the disgusting article Piper has written... Diamond City has stood united for over 150 years. And what keeps us united are two things. {Confident} First, is the great green guardian behind me. The Wall. Our protector and our savior from the filth of the outside. And second, is our faith and trust in each other. The faith and trust that has given us prosperity, security, and education for every citizen. {Irritated} And while the paper might point their fingers at synths and other ghost stories to drive us apart, we will not betray this sacred trust.

Meanwhile, he abuses his power as mayor to kick Piper out of a city in which she owns property. Also, directly brings Nat into things:

McDonough: You devious, rabble-rousing slanderer! The.. the level of dishonesty in that paper of yours! I'll have that printer scrapped for parts.

{threatening / Irritated} I've had enough of this, Piper. From now on, consider you and that little sister of yours on notice.

Piper gets threatened and punished for speaking truth to power, for using her influence and resources to ask the tough questions, and for demanding that an elected official be responsible for the people he leads. Then that elected official scapegoats her, paints her as a liar, and accuses her of taking advantage of people’s fear for profit.

But Piper’s the one who’s out of line here, right? She’s all talk and no action, right? She’s in the wrong for putting McDonough on the ropes, right?

Just as Nick is the only one willing to investigate missing people in Diamond City, Piper is the only one willing to use her platform to demand answers from McDonough. She only gets involved in the main quest at all because Nick knows she is brave enough to investigate the Institute. And Piper doesn’t have an entire faction backing her up, no power armor or subterfuge network or indeed, many allies at all. She’s just one person fighting the Good Fight the only way she can, because she believes it’s the right thing to do.

5. “Piper’s dedication to her ideals puts people in danger and gets people killed.”

Some may have read all this I wrote so far and may think I have some points, but none of it matters because Piper’s pursuit of the truth is reckless. It’s dangerous. She is so passionate about her ideals that she has caused collateral damage in the process. Whether or not she intends to, Piper has inflamed tensions and is responsible for getting people killed.

(I would point out that this is mostly speculation. DC Security blames the newspaper for the event with Kyle, who flips out and accuses his brother Riley of being a synth-- but remember, McDonough is encouraging them to do that. There are no other examples of Piper’s newspaper causing any kind of anti-synth backlash or incidents, apart from vague propaganda spread by McDonough, those on his payroll, or those who have begun to believe it.)

Let’s talk about themes!

One of the major themes of Fallout, the entire series, is the fallibility of groups and ideals. Just as there is no such thing as a perfect person, there is no such thing as a perfect idea, a perfect philosophy, a perfect organization. All through the series, we see examples of groups that strive for things most people would say are very positive: freedom, liberty, justice, glory, prosperity. Pre-War America is the Ur-example of this. The world is littered with satirical propaganda from the time before the war, fake and idealized images of the American dream. Of course, not only did this all end in a goddamn nuclear war of all things, but the wasteland is literally full of evidence that it was always a lie. People, groups, corporations, even the government were fueled by greed, unchecked capitalism coming at the expense of literally billions of human lives.

Post-War factions are no better. In every game, but especially in New Vegas and 4, the player is presented with factions who all strive for different ideals, and are all flawed in some way. Even if they do good things, even if they have good intentions, factions that are too zealous about their ideals and goals are shown to have huge problems. The Institute is a mirror of the pre-War world, science and human advancement at the expense of morals, with absolutely no regard for the lives of those outside of it (or those that they literally create.) The Brotherhood of Steel has the noble goal of preserving technology and protecting humanity from its misuse, but this comes in the form of hoarding, isolationism, imperialism, and human-supremacist bigotry. The Railroad strives to free synths from slavery, but even its own members confess their discomfort with its lack of concern for humans, and their sometimes alarming apathy about human collateral damage. Even the Minutemen, widely regarded as the “best” or “most good” faction, have the weakness of relying on the inherent nobility of their members. As their status at the beginning of the game shows, this is never a guarantee.

Just like every other idealistic notion in Fallout, Piper’s pursuit of the truth is not perfect, and neither is she. She is a flawed person and she cannot possibly be a perfect beacon of the ideals she champions. Using her character, we can examine both the up and downsides of her opinions and beliefs. We can agree with her that the truth is important, that people deserve to know the facts and ask questions. We can also acknowledge that the truth can be cruel, it can whip people up into a frenzy, it can come with unintended consequences that no one can foresee or control. Because Piper does not have a personal quest of her own, we do not get the opportunity to watch her reckon with these facts or to examine her relationship with the truth. We don’t get to watch her grow more enlightened or to gain some wisdom or nuance about her beliefs.

But if we are going to grill Piper and hold her personally accountable for her reckless dedication to her ideals, then I think it’s only fair we do the same for every companion. Because they are ALL characters with flaws, and they all have ideals that they champion, and none of these ideals are going to be seen as universally perfect. So if Piper is directly at fault for the damage her beliefs have caused, then it’s only fair we also blame: (WARNING: SARCASM APPROACHING)

Danse, for his belief in the mission of the Brotherhood of Steel. After all, as one lone soldier in a massive organization, he should be personally responsible for the harm that the Brotherhood does. Over ten years of loyalty and constant immersion in their culture where he is not allowed to ask questions or disobey orders are not a factor, he is definitely a bad person and he gets what he deserves when it kicks him in the teeth later.

Deacon, because he believes in the mission of the Railroad and as I said before, the Railroad gets human beings killed. It doesn’t matter that Deacon wishes the Railroad could help human people too and supports you when you do so, he believes in their ideals so he is directly responsible for any bad that comes of them. Also, Deacon committed the double crime of trying to become a better person and atone for his past sins, so he’s like, not even sincere about his beliefs. What a prick!

Preston, for his belief in the inherent goodness of people. After all, he was too naive to see the fall of the Minutemen coming. People in Quincy died because the Minutemen fell apart over egos and infighting. Even afterwards, Preston is too quick to believe that the Sole Survivor will be a good General for the Minutemen, trusting them entirely to do the right thing when, get this-- they might actually be the Overboss of Nuka-World?! What an idiot!

Hancock, for his belief in freedom to the point of anarchy. You want to talk about somebody whose ideals get people killed? Hancock’s so afraid of being a tyrant that he refuses to put the kibosh on criminal gangs running rampant in Goodneighbor who literally and explicitly murder innocent people, including families. (Silver Shroud quest, anyone?) He pays you under the table to take care of the people he really hates, rather than just making a stand and enforcing some rules in HIS CITY OF WHICH HE IS THE MAYOR.

(END OF SARCASM.)

You see? It’s so easy to extrapolate ungenerous bad faith takes on a character in the same way people do with Piper. All we have to do is look at everything in terms of black and white, with no nuance and no allowance given for context, circumstances, characters’ actual personalities or, indeed, the limitations of writing within a video game.

I think that Piper gets held up to very different standards than many of the other popular companions. She has many of the same flaws as other characters. But those characters are allowed sympathy and complexity and understanding, where Piper is often scorned or vilified-- and I somehow doubt this would be happening if Piper were a male character, or if she didn’t have traits not commonly written in heroic female characters: being pushy, opinionated, loud, argumentative, and “aggressive” (she’s actually just regular assertive, but you know... confident women are always “aggressive” to many people.)

In conclusion, people have a vast spectrum of beliefs and opinions, and a character that one person may like another may hate for any number of reasons. I’m not here to tell you that you are not allowed to hate Piper, that you must like or respect her for the reasons given. But at the same time, I see so many people completely missing the point on her character. They don’t speak to her at all, or they’re just painting her with the most uncharitable brush possible to make her fit their ideas of her.

If you’re going to hate Piper, nay, any character? Then form your opinion on things that they actually say and do in canon, not wild extrapolations and hyperbole that just plain aren’t true. When we’re working with game meta and interpretation and analysis, characters are as they are written in canon, not as we want them to be to fit who we think they should be.

#fallout 4 #fallout meta #piper wright #piper wright defense squad #the piper wright manifesto #like man like and hate whoever you want #but the sheer amount of bullshit i've seen about piper lately has inspired me #i welcome discussion #but you better cite you some sources if you're coming for me

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plan-d-to-i · 3 years

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Hi, how are you doing? Since I read the novel long back, I wanted to know if Lotus Pier massacre was the only tragedy that was shown in the novel. I think apart from this, most of the trauma that the other characters like WY and LZ faced are mentioned after the fact. Like WY and LZ loosing his parents, WY living in streets etc. And they do not cry over it. Is that why there are so many JC stans who sympathizes with him? Because everything happened in front of us and he never stops crying about it. And I think some people are incapable of imagining the trauma others faces when they are told instead of shown, incapable of empathy for characters who does not cry in spite of having faced a lot of trauma. Since they are fine, nothing happened to them. Is that what it is? I have no idea why only JC gets all the sympathy!!!

I don't even think it's about Lotus Pier, unless they don't understand it's not Wei Wuxian's fault because they've decided to suspend logic and reason and just go with whatever venomous bullshit jiang cheng and his mother spew.

I'd argue it's even more than "they're incapable of empathy of characters who don't cry"- they're incapable of empathy for characters they don't immediately relate to and can't project on. Where Wei Wuxian is a deeply empathetic person, who can relate to the living (and the dead), jiang cheng is incapable of empathy or even basic sympathy. He only feels sympathy for himself. The entire world (and the beings in it) are viewed through the lens of his own drives, his very personal wants and concerns. All he cares about are his own woes. How things and people make HIM feel. What they can do for HIM. It makes it easy for a particular personality type to project on because they recognize themselves in his petty, mundane traits and the only way some people can consume media is if they can insert themselves into it. Suddenly his "suffering" can mean something to them. When someone criticizes him they feel personally attacked.

They can't project on someone like Wei Wuxian (who among us is that good). It should be easy enough to sympathize with him, but they're also incapable of understanding or accepting that level of selflessness. They can't grasp that Wei Wuxian gave jc his core because of debt, duty, honor and care without expecting something in return. They try to twist all of Wei Wuxian's genuinely heroic acts into something bad (like jc does): He's too self sacrificing. It's a hero complex >:-/. It's bad because heroic actions can have painful consequences. -YES. EXACTLY. Being good is not easy. It can be painful, difficult and isolating. That's why most people don't do it. If jc just didn't want to do good things bc it's hard and there's usually very little payoff that would be one thing. But he craves credit and recognition. And if he can't get credit bc he doesn't actually want to put in the work he wants to stop Wei Wuxian from doing good things to make sure he doesn't get credit either and make him look bad. That's true shittyness. Honestly If I related that hard to jc I'd be too embarrassed to run my mouth about it.

#Hi back! :)#mdzs #canon jiang cheng #Wei Wuxian

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lovelytonys · 3 years

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Man I really loved the Falcon and Winter Soldier finale. It was so satisfying because of how we got to just observe the emotional payoff of everything Sam and Bucky worked for throughout the series. Because they worked HARD for five whole episodes, you know? Mentally and emotionally they worked hard. The finale felt like getting to see the fruits of their labor and it was incredibly satisfying.

Sam becoming Captain America in this episode felt so earned, you know? And when I say earned I mean mentally and emotionally earned, because obviously he deserved it the whole time. He just had to come to the conclusion that it was the right thing to do, and that’s part of what was earned, Sam being confident that he was doing the right thing. He didn’t take any step of this lightly. We watched him work through it. He felt the weight of it. He explored the consequences and the benefits. He investigated hidden history tied to it. He battled it out with himself in his head from so many angles- should anyone have the shield, or should it just be retired? Is it possible to still acknowledge and respect my culture and my history while having this mantle? What’s the full scope of what this will mean both for others and for me personally? What will Captain America mean if I do this? And he took all that and he decided to become Captain America but the meaning of it changed from a symbol of hope to a symbol of change, and that’s how he earned it in his own head, that’s how things clicked into place, that’s how it was able to work at all. It’s not a symbol of “oh, Captain America’s here, we’re safe now! Thank you Captain America!” not a symbol of “look at what a little guy from brooklyn can be, he’s just like us :)” even though he was decidedly not “just like us,” and certainly not a symbol of “good old fashioned morals and ideals!” No. A symbol of “I see your ‘the world as it is’ and I raise you ‘the world as it could be’.” That’s exactly what we saw in his debut in the role- his fancy flying and shield skills paled in comparison to his speech about changing behaviors to look first with compassion and just doing better. And that kind of symbol is quite honestly a much harder kind of symbol to be. Sam knows that. But he’s ready for it. And being ready for it is a part of what he earned. It’s satisfying not because he had to work to “prove himself” to others- which he didn’t- but because he had to earn it for himself regardless of what others thought.

And Bucky. He’s been on such a journey, too. He was fighting to move forward in a different way than Sam was. Bucky’s fight was his past going head to head with his future. He had to internalize that his past does not define who he is while also accepting the incredible amount of damage he did and not letting that trap him in a spiral of self-hatred. Which is really indescribably difficult, because as tough as Bucky is I think he’s a sensitive soul, and he understands the weight of what he’s done. But understanding the weight often means putting an unfair amount of constant guilt on yourself, almost as punishment- I deserve to feel this pain about what I’ve done, and I can’t stop feeling it because that would be unfair to those I’ve hurt. Bucky wasn’t ready to move on from that in the beginning. He “made amends” only on a surface level- instant gratification that he could pass off as righting his wrongs even though he wasn’t really changing anything. Taking Mr. Nakajima out to eat and spending time with him to make him happy is great and all, but it was like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. It didn’t help Mr. Nakajima or Bucky move on, which is what really needed to happen, but Bucky wasn’t ready for that yet. So for the next four episodes Bucky went on a journey of realizing who he really is now and being wholeheartedly confident that that person is Bucky Barnes and not the Winter Soldier, not in any capacity. I think building a friendship with Sam and realizing the complexity of the shield helped with that in a major way, actually. For one thing, I think that helped him do what Steve Rogers never could- get his head out of the past. I also think that Sam’s friendship and Sam’s community welcoming him made him realize that he is good and worthwhile, which he couldn’t have felt on his own. And after doing all that work, after simultaneously facing his past and knowing it doesn’t define him, he was able to tell Mr. Nakajima the truth. It hurt so bad for both of them, but a lot of times the things that make things better in the long run are the things that hurt the most in the moment. That’s what needed to happen for Bucky to truly “make amends” and he found the strength to do that.

Sam and Bucky are both so strong and they both worked so hard to arrive at where they were in the finale, and it’s satisfying in the most emotional way to see the payoff.

#I AM SO MUSHY AND WEEPY AND IN LOVE WITH THEM #I HAVEN'T WRITTEN AN MCU ESSAY LIKE THIS SINCE ENDGAME I FEEL SO ALIVE #THANK YOU FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER FOR RESTARTING MY HEART #I LOVE BUCKY AND SAM SO MUCH!!!!! THEY ARE SO STRONG AND GOOD!!!#long post #kay's rambling rants #haven't been able to use that tag in a hot second #tfatws #falcon and winter soldier #tfatws spoilers #falcon and winter soldier spoilers #sam wilson #captain america #bucky barnes #the winter soldier

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sidigtal-anim · 3 years

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AN IMPROMPTU SPECULATION POST

SPOILERS FOR AMPHIBIA SEASON 2B (“THE SECOND TEMPLE/BARREL’S WARHAMMER”)

IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THESE EPISODES, DO NOT READ FURTHER! THIS IS NOT A DRILL, DO NOT READ FURTHER!

I typically give a heads up and prepare a lot for a speculation post, but this episode had too much to just not talk about what could happen.

So in the before this episode, Anne, Marcy and the Plantars were in Wartwood having fun. While Sasha and Grimes were Toad-tally (sorry, I couldn’t resist haha) incognito since 204 (“Toadcatcher”) Which is absolutely WILD to say the least, that it took us like 13 episodes for a check in with them this late in the game. We have seen bits of Sasha here and there since “Toadcatcher”: “Marcy at the Gates”, “The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers”, and “The First Temple” with Anne’s flashbacks and General Yunnan’s report of the Toad Lords gathering. It’s just wild it took us nearly an entire season to check up on her again.

I’m gonna be talking about some specific moments from the episodes and speculate upon them. If you have NOT seen these episodes, this is your last chance to leave.

Season 2, Episode 17A - “The Second Temple”

So we begin with Anne, Marcy and the Plantars riding into the Amphibian Artic. Hop Pop in his “Hop Pocket” on Joe Sparrow’s chest was a really good episode gag.

We meet Valariana, the same lady from the Bizarre Bazaar. There’s a lot of vague talk in the episode about the box being gone for a vary long time. Valariana begins testing Anne in many ways: risking warmth or her friends, saving a stranger from an avalanche or minding her own business, and even saving Valariana with her “turn to evil” or leave her to die.

Anne passes the tests with flying colours. Not only being heartfilled and saving the people around her, but also taking responsibility for the consequences of her attempts and unsuccessful attempts of doing so. This is a good payoff since the First Temple tested Marcy on both her wit, and humility.

The stone begins to recharge: taking a very long time as part of an Amphibia anti-climactic payoff to a gag. It was pretty funny, but turns out... it has plot ramifications.

Anne hears Marcy and the Plantars screaming, and she runs back to them before the Blue Gem is fully recharged. It seems to be 3/4 filled before Anne takes it just by eyeballing it. And it turns out they were just watching something on Marcy’s phone. They all head home while Hop Pop says that Frobo can make them all some Hot Chocolate (which I want a Frobo for my own please).

The screen shows a black screen with the two charged gems on the music box, and the blue gem... glitches.

Honestly, this is the biggest sigh of relief for me. I thought it wouldn’t make sense for why all the gems on the Music Box would be fully restored while we still have a third season coming. If the gem is kinda not recharged properly, then that means there’s potential for things going wrong.

But what does it mean? The Blue Gem is partially restored, and since we know that the energy comes from the person who is the Heart (aka Anne) and if the gem isn’t fully restored, that also means that Anne has some of her Calamity Energy stored inside her still.

This actually puts a very neat unintentional wrench in Andrias’ plans. He wants them to restore the gems on the Music Box, for them to undo the Prophecy for him and “his Lord” to have their revenge. With three episodes left in the season, we still have no idea what that means.

If the second gem is not fully restored, that must mean the Music Box won't be able to take Anne, Sasha and Marcy home: whether that's them being stuck in Amphibia for another season, or travelling to one of the other worlds we see in the King's book in "A Day at the Aquarium". I think we're probably going to see more episodes in Season 3 of them staying in Amphibia, but I'm just not sure if we're going to end up seeing the other worlds in Season 3.

Either way, things have gone wrong and they're about to get a lot worse. I can see Sasha and Marcy leaving, but not Anne. (WHICH I DO NOT WANT PLEASE LET THEM BE TOGETHER) With that done, let's move on to the next segment.

Season 2, Episode 17B - “Barrel’s Warhammer”

Sasha and Grimes are always fun when we check in on them. It seems like they've gathered the Toads from the other Toad Towers (North, East, and West) at the Northern Toad Tower to convince them to join their plan to overthrow Andrias in the Kingdom. This also tells us that Grimes was in charge of the Southern Toad Tower. I like the touch of Grimes' sister being the Western Toad Tower lord, it was pretty fun.

The Toads are convinced until Grimes suggests that he and Sasha are to lead the rebellion. In the same sequence, Sasha learns that Anne and Marcy are working together (without her) under King Andrias. This is very important for later.

The toads try to imprison Sasha and the gang, but Sasha pulls a Sasha and Sasha's them unconcious. (That made more sense in my head, but okay) And the Northern Toad Lord says that if they can find the warhammer of Barrel the Brave, they will receive the help they need.

After this episode, we still don’t know who exactly Barrel the Brave was. My theory is that he’s the Toad in King Andrias’ painting in the Castle’s Basement with the Shadowfish. The Hammer seemed to respond to Sasha’s Calamity powers, so maybe it did work for him as presumably the Green Calamity Champion.

In this episode what I find interesting (besides the Kawaii poses which were spectacular) is that Sasha needs to be needed by Anne and Marcy. We see from her lines of betrayal that Anne and Marcy are doing fine without her. In my opinion it seems to be as a result of them following her every will like a scared pack of puppies, and she is betrayed that their immediate response isn’t to look for her.

Perhaps Sasha thinks that the events of “Reunion” have caused Anne to disown her as a friend, and making plans with Marcy to leave without Sasha. But Sasha doesn’t know that they’re trying to restore the music box, or even that they have it.

Percy and Braddick are just as interesting oppositions to Sasha’s psyche. When the two want to abandon the plan and do so by trusting Sasha, Sasha pulls a Sasha and Sasha’s them into a Sasha. (Again with the word play what’s up with me) They feel just as betrayed if not more so: they trusted Sasha and she just used them to get what she wanted without caring for them. Perhaps that’s also what Sasha thinks about Anne and Marcy working under King Andrias. (Ironic since she has done the same thing to them)

Sasha is so intriguing and I’m curious to see what they’ll do in “The Third Temple”. Perhaps Sasha will try to seek them out to give them the old one-two, and end up battling the Golem inside the Temple.

Obviously I’m gonna mention shipping. Two episodes where it’s fluff with Marcanne and angst with Sashannarcy. I feel in my soul that the OT3 is plausible where we are, if we just put a lot of work onto Sasha becoming better and repairing her relationship with the other two. But after that blush Anne gave Marcy in “New Wartwood”, there is no hetero answer for that: and yes I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

That’s the end of my post. I doubt I’ll have another big post like this until the week of Finale Speculation, unless something big plot-wise happens in the next three weeks, or something queer happens. (LGBTQIA+ Representation) Either way, I’m really excited.

Three weeks left. My next post will be on Finale speculation. Unless something else comes up. See you then!

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