#i cant deal with this show | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mutfruit-salad · 21 days

Text

Long post ahead. My full thoughts on the fallout series. TW for references to Sexual Assault, racism, antisemitism. It's not particularly in depth here- but I do reference specific acts of violence done in the show.

I've had people insinuate I'm only mad because I'm a New Vegas fan, because I think they retconned the lore. I'm not upset at the fallout show for its dubious lore additions and reworks. I think they're quite bad in places, but they're by far the least of the show's problems.

This isn't a case of a New Vegas fan mad they messed with my game in a way I didn't like.

Please refer to literally any of my posts pointing out the racism and antisemitism in the show. They brand a black man in episode 1. They named the enclave scientist after a real life holocaust survivor and then spent most of the show lobbing around his decapitated head like a volleyball.

But I'd like to consider other elements of the show. View it as a whole.

Consider the inherent misogyny of having a female main character whose entire character arc is just her getting abused for 8 episodes. How the trajectory of her character revolves around not giving up on the humanity of the man who waterboarded her and sold her to organ harvesters. A female main character who is raped in the first episode and watches her entire community get brutalized and who comes out of it completely unphased- still as plucky as ever- just worried about her dad.

Consider the horror of having a black woman be the one to drop the bombs. Consider the horror of her leading a council of elites who have infiltrated and taken over the US government. Consider the ways this group is presented and shown, the ways every fault of the US government in the series is offloaded onto a shadowy group of elites.

Consider how the capitalist critique of the show only goes so far as saying there's a secret organization of bad people who must be purged. The antisemitism and conspiratorial nonsense inherent to that premise.

Consider the rampant classism with the show's depiction of Wastelanders as either animalistic monsters or too stupid to live.

Consider the ways the show punishes nearly every act of kindness- the ways the world rewards might-makes-right authoritarians.

Consider the way the NCR collapsed offscreen because a disgruntled husband was mad his wife left him, and how after it collapsed the army immediately became raiders and the survivors became blood drinking cultists. Don't give me "it's just shady sands that collapsed" because the NCR was a developed nation. If one of their cities blew up, they would send aid. They would assist.

Consider the way the show constantly uses sex crimes as comedy and horror- the incest jokes and the "chicken fucker" bit, and the Vault 4 monster impregnation and the main character's rape in the first episode.

Consider the ableism of the treatment of ghouls, how every ghoul is now a ticking time bomb, how Lucy helps free a small dementia-riddled old ghoul woman from a medical torture facility and then is immediately punished with the woman trying to inexplicably murder her. Thaddeus openly talks about ghoul exterminationism and it's never a joke or a bit- he just says it and nobody reacts or says anything.

Consider the way the Vault 33 town councillors use real world progressive talking points about restorative justice and prison abolition and multiculturalism- meanwhile Norm advocates for the death penalty and a closed society. How Norm is shown as good and righteous and the vault dwellers range from deluded to damningly stupid- how the mere concept of restorative justice is made a farce because the NCR raiders are screaming about eating organs and murdering people 24/7.

Consider the way they removed the Boneyard, and the Followers of the Apocalypse by extension. In New Vegas we heard about the Followers operating a university in LA. It's gone now. Not destroyed by bombs- but written out of existence because the Boneyard never existed, and Shady Sands is in its place. Consider what that says about this world- that the group most dedicated to peace and rebuilding has been surgically excised from the narrative- destroyed more wholly than even the NCR- written out of existence entirely.

This is the single most reactionary fallout story that has been produced. By a fucking country mile.

Whatever lore critiques there are should be secondary. The storytelling is reactionary in ways I straight up have not seen from other Bethesda entries in the series. It is cruel to a fault, and depicts a world that is incapable of healing or growing- where the best you can do is hold onto that small spark of goodness while every bit of the society around you tries to murder it out of you. This isn't a story about rebuilding, or about postwar politics, or about society- it's about dueling warlords and might makes right attitudes and grimdark views of the nature of humanity. It's fallout in aesthetics alone- and it's perhaps the most hateful thing I've seen come out of this series outside of the actual neonazis in the fanbase.

Whatever hope there is in Moldaver's final moments looking out over the glittering ruins of LA is undercut by the knowledge of what came before. What was destroyed. And it's undercut by the Brotherhood's totalitarian control. It's not hopeful, it's the bare minimum of survival. It's all the progress of the postwar world, 200 years of humanity and history, reduced to just barely getting the lights back on.

In the intro to fallout 1, "War Never Changes" is used as thematic glue. It ties together two concepts- past wars- and present capitalism and militarism.

Ron Perlman describes the Roman Empire, the Spanish conquests of the Americas, and the Nazi regime- and then he says "war never changes" and uses it to connect those past atrocities to the modern world of the setting- to the war that ended everything. The phrase existed to link the resource wars and their ensuing fallout to all the crimes of empire prior. War never changes wasn't a hard and fast rule of human nature- it was a specific condemnation of America.

Lonesome Road even ends with the phrase refuted. War Never Changes. But men do, through the roads they walk. There is hope. That's what this series has always been about. The Master died at the end of fallout 1 and said "leave while you still have hope."

In this show, the black woman Vault Tec exec who ends the world says the phrase. It's stripped of all meaning. Just a generic throwback because it's a famous phrase in the series' history. It's not a condemnation of America, it's a celebratory thing. Vault Tec toasting to the end of the world.

What a thing to see this series become. What a thing to see celebrated.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout show #this has gotten more feedback then I was expecting #and i'm glad this is resonating with some folks #turned off reblogs cuz i cant actually deal with the response this has been getting at this point 👍

944 notes · View notes

carnivalcarriondiscarded · 8 months

Text

finally colored that Eddie scribble <3 rough day p.2!

#am i happy with this? no! but im tired of messing with it so this is what we get #i mean its not Bad but. sigh #i gotta get better at coloring stuff its my Art Weakness #no matter how much i try i cannot understand color theory #my brain simply says No <3 #i have perfect color vision and yet. and fucking yet. cant use it for shit! yeehaw!#scribble garnish #welcome home #welcome home puppet show #eddie dear #i hope he enjoys that ice cold soda - sold exclusively at howdys for a stellar deal only one hundred percen- *gunshot*#i would like everyone to know that i unironically initially wrong 'seld' instead of 'sold'#and genuinely didnt know why there was a little red squiggle friend underneath it for a solid minute #the brain is rotting <3 i go outside and the ravens start divebombing <3 #i am living up to my url of 'carrion'#dead meat walkin babeyyyyyy #i think the chronic migraines are actually frying my neurons!!! yee! haw!

941 notes · View notes

jemmo · 3 months

Text

Making sense of love for love's sake: the game

Despite all the things i absolutely adore about how the plot unravels and expands in love by love's sake, upon first watch, there's some things i couldn't piece together, which @lurkingshan echoes in their post:

'The way the author was messing with Myungha and forcing cruel choices on him really does not track with a desire to help him find happiness.'

And to preface, this is not something i fully get yet either. I think i'll need a good month and a sizeable reading list of relevant resources to understand just what/who this author/sunbae is and what his role is and how he is associated with myungha. But as always with the best shows for meta (aka bad buddy), as a plot unfolds, you can always find a better understanding by looking backwards and re-contextualising what you've already seen. so i watched ep 1, specifically the scene between myungha and his sunbae at the bar. And i will talk about how everything said in this scene has a whole new meaning now we know the full story, but for now i wanna focus on that question that they keep coming back to; "Then... will you change it for him?".

When you watch the show for the first time, your brain follows the simplest, most obvious version of the story you're being told, one where myungha has been pulled into the world of his sunbae's novel that's being turned into a game and given the opportunity to fix the thing he didn't like about it; making yeowoon happy, and thus you just think the rules of the game are imposed by the author, and so when these cruel choices first come up, you see them as the difficult roadblocks that are nevertheless necessary to any kind of game, forcing the player to make an impossible choice so that the game can continue in a certain direction and its only after that you learn whether it was the right choice or not, or there is no right choice, it simply changes the game you are playing.

And when its revealed what this game actually is, at first i tried to interpret these cruel choices, namely the choice between yeonwoon and myungha's grandma, and at best i could come up with the concept of this being a choice between staying stuck to the past aka choosing his grandma, even though he knows that choice doesn't mean she's safe bc he knows the future where he loses here, its an inevitability, but thats the small happiness he knew before it was taken away and thus that happiness is known and safe, theres no risk, versus choosing to pursue a new happiness, a love of yeowoon and thus himself, which he doesn't know, he hasn't experienced yet, and could be risky. Its a happiness that isn't guaranteed like his grandma, but its a happiness that looks to the future and has hope in it that he can find a new happiness to pursue despite what has happened in his past.

And that fits nice, okayish. But then i watched ep 1 and heard that question "Then... will you change it for him?" And watching through the rest of the eps, we come back to this scene at the bar and each time we get a new run up to the author asking this question, either new dialogue is added or we hear a different piece of the conversation entirely. It starts at the beginning of ep 1 as:

"Because Cha Yeowoon is the only one who's miserable." "It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that" "The fact that some people are destined to live that kind of life is what's vile."

Then a bit later in ep 1 we go back and its expanded.

"It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that" "The fact that some people are destined to live that kind of life is what's vile." "Why? Do you think you'd write it differently?" "Yes, definately. Someone like Cha Yeowoon, or someone like me with an awful life, can also be happy."

And then all the way on in ep 6, we get this new dialogue.

"I don't like talking about destiny." "Why?" "Because it means everything is predestined." "Then do you not believe in fate?" "Fate and destiny are the same. My grandma likes to say that. She said life is like a written book, and how you'll live and die are written in it. (...)I don't like things like this. Even if fate is already destined, I think it can still be changed. Otherwise, there's no point in trying." "Really? Then Myungha..."

And while we don't hear the author ask the same question, I feel like him getting cut off like that insinuates that the conversation leads to that same ending point. All that is to say, every time we hear this question being asked, its like we learn more and more about what this whole thing is, what the game is, what myungha is saying he will do by agreeing to do what the author asks. And every time, we see myungha being more defiant against the idea of yeowoon being resigned to his miserable ending. He starts off thinking that kind of life is destined, and while it's miserable, its not something he can fight. Then he says he'd want to write the story differently, bc yeowoon, or even him, could be happy. He challenges the idea that yeowoon, and thus himself, is fated to be miserable, and opens up the possibility for happiness for them both, but doesn't yet have the means or resolve to do it, its like he knows its possible on a fundamental level, but doesn't see it as something he can actually achieve. But then we circle back to the idea of destiny and books, both of which came up in the previous quote, and seems incredibly pertinent seen as this whole thing is about a novel this author has written. Myungha talks about how he hates the idea that life is a book where everything written is predestined to happen, from the moment you live to the moment you die. He says "Even if fate is already destined, I think it can still be changed. Otherwise, there's no point in trying." That vile way of life he described before that he said was destined, he is now saying it can be changed, and that possibility is now something he's holding onto, its what he sees hope in so that he can keep trying, bc now he finally is trying, he has the resolve, he's trying to realise this thing, this impossibility of rewriting the life he thought was destined through the way he loves yeowoon.

And coming back to those cruel choices, given this fresh context, it made me think. bc this isn't actually a game that myungha has been put into where the rules are dictated by an author completely separate from him. He said himself, he'd rewrite it, he'd change things for yeowoon. And when you start to think of it less as him fighting against a rigid, removed system and more like him being a character in a story he is trying to rewrite himself, that has both the author and his own limitations, or just his own if you're in the school of thought that the author is some figment or part of myungha himself or his conciousness, then you can start to see where these cruel choices might come from. They could be myungha, the author making edits to this new story, imposing his own doubts and limitations on himself. When he says he has to pick between Yeowoon and his grandma, what if that's the new author myungha seeing this story unfold and thinking no this isn't right, he can't have it all, i'm not deserving of this much happiness.

And what makes me like this idea even more is that when we get that second choice between ending after 14 days or getting 100 days back at the cost of resetting Yeowoon's affection to 0, that whole conversation happens in what I think the bar actually is which is this frozen moment in time where myungha is in the water with this extension of a voice in his head that is talking through these things. That conversation in itself needs its own post, but when you look at it both as a decision to break up or not or a decision to hold onto life or not, you can see how the author is just this soundboard relaying the decisions myungha is going through in his head. The author's voice is his own, weighing up his decisions. And if he is the author here, it only reinforces that the person making the rules of this game is him. You can even extend it further to the idea of the debuffs, where he puts in place this thing that makes it so he causes harm to yeowoon when he's around, and its only by garnering affection that he can prevent it. He gives himself a reason from the get go to stay away from yeowoon and reason it as him doing it for yeowoon's safety, when in fact the only way to make yeowoon safe is to increase his affection, which he can only do by being near him. Its a system that at first gives myungha a reason to stay away aka not like himself, but ultimately says the only way you're going to make yeowoon like you, or the only way you can like yourself, is if you accept risk. And that in itself screams to me of a myungha writing in these game systems that are trying to encourage his own-self love while falling at the hurdle of his own lack of self-worth.

The idea is still messy in my head even for me, but i just really like the idea that myungha could be trying to fix this thing both as a character and game master, and that both these versions of him have these flaws that manifest in their different ways to cause the events we see. It kinda is the definition of being your own worst enemy, the idea that in order to work towards loving yourself, the biggest obstacle you have to encounter is yourself, bc we are the ones holding ourselves back, making all these rules that make it harder to like ourselves and pursue our own happiness. The voices in our head telling us that we aren't good enough and aren't deserving are our own, and while the things that happen to us can inform what they say, we're the one's reinforcing those words. And what this show teaches us is that, if we're the one holding that pen all along, we can choose to change what those words are. If we make the rules, you don't have to create a game with concrete ultimatums, you can create a game where rules don't control you. Instead, you make the decisions, and you can make the ones that make you happy.

#wow look at me writing actual kinda thought out meta #also something something about how the pen being in his pocket wasnt a pen given to him by the author its a pen that was his the whole time #look even if this isnt the right interpretation as intended by the author i just kinda adore this headcanon ive come up with and i cant wai #to rewatch the show again through this lens and see if it holds up #i just adore the idea of this whole thing being this manifestation of a flawed doubtful person trying to navigate through their own messy #nonsensical thoughts to find their own happiness #bc yes thats what triggered me thinking of this whole thing. me seeing that post and thinking yeah that doesnt make sense7 #but then again when you tell yourself things an put your own mental blocks in the way they dont make sense either but you still have to fin #the ways to work around them in order to find happiness #like those things dont go away we just find the loopholes or the ways to overcome them that mean we can be happy #the game is your own mind - deal with your own existential crisis as you wish #anyway this is only part 1 in what i hope will be a very extensive meta analysis of this show - stay tuned #love for love's sake

195 notes · View notes

bottombaron · 6 months

Text

honest to god guys you have no idea how fucking hilarious "that's his boss!" is

Paul Simms created, wrote, and produced NewsRadio, a (actually really great) sitcom in the 90s that only lasted a handful of seasons.

the most noteworthy thing about NewsRadio was that the big will-they-or-wont-they relationship of the show completely subverted the trope by having them 'hook up' immediately after the pilot and then had to deal with the relationship throughout the show with that sexual/romantic tension already fullfilled.

but that isn't the funniest part.

the two characters in this relationship were the newly appointed manager of the radio station and the long-suffering employee that he took the promotion from despite her being more qualified.

he was literally her boss.

#wwdits #what we do in the shadows #nandermo #and the whole show LEANED INTO the power imbalance of it i kid you not #the episode where they hook up? titled 'inappropriate'#he being the boss and her the employee was literally the whole deal with them #you cant make this shit up #my meta #wwdits meta

245 notes · View notes

loud-whistling-yes · 1 month

Text

assorted (mostly martlet) doodles and another ref sheet :D

#undertale yellow #dude tagging this is gonna be a fucking nightmare #martlet #starlo #martlet uty #martlet undertale yellow #starlo uty #starlo undertale yellow #not gonna tag clover cause they show up for one (1) shitty doodle LMAO #anyways yea uh testing out a diff way to draw martlet's eyes #cause tho i think the ones i usually draw look cuter she cant really do expressions :')#ill see what i can do #hopefully i can keep my og style but like. if the new project needs her to emote uh. deal ig #whoop #my art

68 notes · View notes

thegunslingerletmedrop · 1 month

Text

#911 abc #bucktommy #evan buckley #tommy kinard #kinkley #tevan #911*#911edit #did not have 911 as the show to make me bust out the editing skills again #rusty af #i cant deal with these new tumblr dimensions #i miss the old 500px days #glmdedit #911 edits

53 notes · View notes

kingjasnah · 9 months

Text

oh my god is dalinar gonna die before having to deal with the whole gay son thing

#he certainly wouldnt deal with the whole bi son thing. the other son. the kholins are so funny #i cannot even imagine renarin having a coming out scene i think hes just gonna show up to the cookout rlain in tow but like.#as someone who firmly believes dalinar will not make it the next 9 days..........he might be spared reacting horribly to his kid coming out #i know everyone is like what if hes super supportive but if he cant get behind adolin's willful murder and golden boots #ren doesnt stand a chance

202 notes · View notes

around-your-throat · 6 months

Note

p2 silly little biting blood and gore sketch please :)

i'm trying to repent so no gore but you can have a little blood as a treat ^_^

#everyone is liveblogging the show rn but i cant be bothered to deal with calculating the scheduling time zone so whatevs -_- going ta sleep #i claim no responsibility if you notice any resemblance to any photoshoot featuring ***** ******** of english rock band *** ******* ******#my art #rpf

90 notes · View notes

gunsatthaphan · 9 months

Text

"let's take it slow."

#hidden agenda #hidden agenda ep6 #joongdunk #jokezo #joke x zo #joong archen #dunk natachai #gmmtv #thai bl #bl drama #LITERALLY that scene had me running in circles #I just.----#the softness 😩#Im a weak bitch bc I simply cannot deal with joong's charisma I just cant #hes so........🧎🏻‍♀️🧎🏻‍♀️🧎🏻‍♀️#good god.#this show is giving me what only friends wont #which is softness and romance kjdhgf

309 notes · View notes

chronicowboy · 2 months

Text

i didn't think it could get worse than "i can't remember her voice anymore" but the choice to have shannon return and read her letter After That Specifically took me the FUCK out

#sami rambles #911 spoilers #i had tears ROLLING down my face #fuck.#this show man. the way they deal with the diaz boys is done with so much fucking care i cant 😭😭😭#christopher diaz #shannon diaz

43 notes · View notes

butterscotch-brigade · 11 months

Text

the hatred for judo (the bluey character) is so funny to me. shes a 6-7 year old girl who was kind of mean in her first ever appearance but she gets better and apologizes at the end and is forgiven. and yet u have so many ppl outside of the show who HATE her so so much. even tho she reappears in future episodes and shows character growth ppl still hate her for the Horrible Crime of *checks notes* Being A Bossy Impatient Child for all of five minutes

#vanilla talks #bluey #look if u cant handle the fact that child characters can be mean sometimes then maybe u shouldnt be watching a childrens show. idk #same deal w ppl who hate muffin like.#shes 3-4 years old. what do u expect #especially if ur an ADULT hating on these characters like. i am side eyeing u very suspiciously #how do u interact w 'mean kids' irl. if u even interact w kids at all

169 notes · View notes

starjunkyard · 4 months

Text

Good god ep18 s6. House dealing (god-awfully .Full disclosure. The episode opens with house drinking himself half to death with zero regard for himself to the point of unintentionally breaking into his neighbours house and passing out there) with wilson getting back together with his ex-wife while the patient of the episode grapples with his possibly reciprocated love for the woman he loves but cannot Have because she's engaged to be wed with his friend.......... Thirteen egging the patient on to tell her how he really feels but he genuinely Cant Bring Himself To because "my friend's a great guy . He's rich, smart, and he'll treat her well. Me-- I'd do everything I could for her. But it wouldn't be much. And she... she deserves the best." And the episode ends with house resignedly throwing away the sealed envelope that held all the dirt he hired lucas to get on wilson's ex wife to try and break them upOhhhhhhhh oh. OHHHHHHHHHHHHH Ouhhhhhhh. Ouhhhhh the acknowledgement that house would do everything & anything & more for wilson Give .all of himself To Wilson and it still wouldn't be enough because house is House. Because even at his best-- house would still be house and because of that house would never be able to give wilson what he wants What he Needs. Wilson doesn't. Need the misanthropic bastard he's been in love with for 20 years who bites and spits at any threat or sign of emotional intimacy or vulnerability. What wilson. Needs is a woman . A wife and two kids and a white picket fence because that's all wilson is

Its the foundation of his entire self that would bring everything else down with it if it were to crumble. The face that wilson has spent his entire Life honing and sculpting and perfecting to present as the Perfect Hardworking American Man and Son. The perfect husband and treasured son with his own big shiny department and a stainless-white doctor's coat and the Exact Man a woman would Need

What is wilson. who is he What is left of him if he is not needed by a woman; not needed nor wanted any longer by the world he's lived his entire life by to please. What is James Wilson if not what everyone else expects him to be

House is the antithesis to all of that. A man rough and abrasive as sandpaper who makes wilson selfish makes him emotional and stupid. Who encourages wilson to lash out and fight and get angry and stand up for himself and be the exact opposite of what he's worked his entire life to be. Instead of accepting and taking wilson's painstakingly pedantically constructed facade at face value House fucking. Crashes through the walls with a bulldozer. Snatches the mask right off of wilson's face and dangles it over his head goading wilson to go ahead; try and get it back

Wilson is so deathly terrified at the idea of breaking out of the norms he himself has walled himself into-- he can't Bear to think of any other future for himself that is anything other than wholly and completely unnoticeable average monotonous unextraordinary

and House is the exact opposite of unnoticeable average monotonous unextraordinary. House is the apple of Eden that rests on the other side of wilson's pristine-white picket fence. The object of Wilson's every true desire that simultaneously threatens to doom and tear down everything wilson regards protects worships as the one untouchable unquestionable unchangeable truth of his life

House loses before it even starts. No one can compete with that; not even house. By nature, house can never be what wilson needs. What wilson truly desires or wants or needs is another subject entirely, something im genuinely not sure wilson could even grapple with, let alone come to terms with canonically. I fully believe wilson and house are the loves of each other's lives but house will never be what wilson "needs" or "wants" no matter what he does or changes about himself. They love each other more than anything and they want each other and they cant live without each other but House-- intrensically, by nature-- cannot be what Wilson wants.

#Looks around #What was that you guys #Did you guys hear that...#Its not this serious it realy genuinly isnt except It Is. It genuinely is to me #Tch........ Baka normies like you.... U would never get the shit that im on 😏🤏... (<- Insane)#SOMEONE SEDATE ME #Theyre so. I cant believe what they put in this show dawg i feel crazy #Explicitly implying that hilson are in love and soulmates numerous times acknowledged by actors producers and the show itself #It makes my head hurt like how do i even deal with thuis #Im so tiredgoodnight. I hate this show #Fuck thsi worl d #johan being crazy about yaoi md #house md #hilson #gregory house #james wilson #character analysis #relationship analysis

63 notes · View notes