Bjorn

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Posts posted by Bjorn

  1. Posted

    1 minute ago, Splintersoup said:

    Amazing episode. I didn't catch the last words Coop said when he got his second piece of pie. Anybody know?

     

    According to the subtitles it was Friend (specifically, it was shown as something like [Mouth Full] Friend.)

     

    I audibly gasped when he said Damn Good.  Because it's the most Cooper like his voice has sounded (to me in the moment, which might be wishful thinking). 

     

    So much about that final pie scene felt like it was bursting with Coop now being just under the surface. 

  3. Posted

    Okay, so thinking about this thread in general, as much as it saddens me to see the way people were communicating with one another in here, in many ways it also strangely represents exactly why I'm enjoying season 3 so much.  Everyone is watching the same thing, and yet the range of emotional reactions don't feel like they could be greater than they are. 

     

    Because of my own background and experiences, I've having incredible personal and powerful responses to this show, and it's difficult for me to see it other than the way I am because of that.  But I appreciate that people like @anderbubble and @Mangela Lansbury and @Gailbraithe and etc. and on are coming to it with experiences and frameworks that are different than mine and appreciating, or seeing, or interpreting things in ways that are different to me.

     

    Almost every week these threads have posts about how this was the best or worst episode.  That it's been made gold or ruined by Frost or Lynch.  That this scene meant this or that.  It's kind of magical really.  But please y'all, remember to show some kindness and respect for one another and their reactions to what they're seeing. 

  4. Posted

    22 hours ago, Gailbraithe said:

    Like I said, I don't want to be in this argument.  My background is in criminology, and the people making this argument's background is in feminism or something...

     

    I'm not going to get into this argument, but I'm replying to this just to give you something to think about.  My partner has many years of experience in criminal justice, both in formal education and work, although she ultimately left the field.  She doesn't agree with you.  A background in criminal justice does not dictate a particular way to view rape, or to view this scene.  Your background informing your view is fine, but you presented this as a kind of special knowledge dictate that set you apart from everyone else, and that's simply not true.

  5. Posted

    So thanks to the current Humble Bundle I finally started playing this.  And I had forgot how much I love this dumbass series. 

     

    I was originally put off by the lack of a significant timer in Normal mode, and what sounded like poor time balance in Nightmare.  Plus the PC version was reported to have some technical problems early on. 

     

    But it turns out that I don't actually care about the timer all that much?  At least not for a first playthrough.  It's just fucking joyful to ducktape a couple of things together and then wade through a bunch of zombies.  And the first boss fight was wonderfully absurd in the best way, fucking car combat with a biker gang. 

     

    Sometimes dumb goofy things are good, and it's nice to remember that.

  6. Posted

    I've never actually got around to watching Cloverfield, but I loved 10 Cloverfield Lane.  This essay on it was something I found really useful for going deeper on just how well it handles an abuse narrative through each of its acts.  It's the rare movie that is so much smarter than one would ever expect from it on the surface. 

     

    (It's also reinforces my belief that JJ Abrams is at his best when he's producing and supporting others rather than in the driver seat himself).

  7. Posted

    6 hours ago, Cleinhun said:

    I heard it this way too, it was kind of taking me out of the scene.

     

    But Scooby Doo exists within the Twin Peaks Expanded Universe:

     

     

    Also, Mystery Incorporated is easily the best version of Scooby Doo that has ever existed, and if you have any fondness for the gang, it's well worth watching.  And Lillard did voice Shaggy in the show, so it's his second time being in a tv show that features the Red Room. 

     

  9. Posted

    @syntheticgerbil  That was long, but actually pretty cathartic and good to read, because it captures so many of the things that I've thought about this game and wanted to write, but just hadn't had time to sit down and do it.  I'm not sure I'm ever going to finish the Quiet mission.  The last thing I did was the True Ending, and it was just so deflating. 

     

    @Zeusthecat  MGSV is probably going to be the strangest disconnect I've ever had with a game, where mechanically I was having as much fun with it as anything I've played in years, but the garbage baggage of the story and characters just slowly eroded and chipped away at any positive feelings I have about the game.

  11. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Gamebeast23456 said:

     

    Yeah, I mean, the whole scene is Chad doing something they've expressly told him not to do multiple times, and then acting like they're in the wrong when they tell him to leave. I think it's normal for humans to get tired of people acting cartoonishly mean, especially in the workplace. 

     

    A minor thing I like about that scene is the believable assholishness of Chad, who tries to argue, "but you guys have donuts and coffee in here!"  Which ignores the point that donuts and coffee are a group thing, and usually (always?) done when multiple people are working on the same case, in that room.  Whereas Chad just selfishly wants the room for himself.  It's just exactly the kind of way that someone would see and argue that situation. 

  12. Posted

    7 hours ago, Urthman said:

     

    And was anyone else put off by Hawk being so petty as to not bother getting the door for Deputy Chad?

     

    I absolutely loved that scene.  Chad is a selfish, corrupt asshole who so far hasn't been shown to have a drop of propriety or empathy in him.  Chad expects doors to be opened for him, but wouldn't ever stoop to open one for another.

     

    (Yes, I know, I'm basing a bigger picture of him off a lot of conjecture, but whatevs)

  16. Posted

    Oh, wow, I had misread something and also kinda missed some stuff with this patch.  Fuck this game, will probably uninstall the next time I need to start Origin for anything.

     

    I was wrong in the previous post, each of the new variant weapons also goes from I-X.  And every kit now goes up to XX (yes, they actually just doubled the number of ranks for character kits with some bonus stats above Rank X).  Plus apparently there are new mods that you can only get with MF?  Fuck if I know, this update is kind of confusing. 

     

    The end result though is adding at least 1800 card drops to the drop table in one fell swoop.  You could play daily for weeks, and not be likely to see something you like get leveled up much.  This is thousands of hours of play to even have a chance at seeing high level UR weapons or characters. 

     

    I tolerated the random, F2P monetization of ME3 because the game was so fucking good, and got such incredible support.  But this, this is fucking garbage.  Tripling the weapon drops with reskins of the weapons.  Bloating the fuck out of the pool so god knows when or if you might actually get something new.  This is like the most mercenary fucking F2P bullshit pay wall on a goddamned full price AAA game that is getting a fraction of support that the previous entry got.

  17. Posted

    Nice to see that they're doing more with Mission Funds. 

     

    Watched a video the Batarian tonight.  He's at least got a heavy melee, but looks like no lockon, so no hatesurfing or head popping :(  But at least it can detonate combos. 

     

    Apparently there are also new variants of all (or at least most?) weapons that become available once you've maxed a weapon.  (Edited to add, this is totes wrong, they all go up to X) They're just one card (they match the stats of an X weapon) and have unique features, like explosive ammo or auto healing on fire.  Nice idea, but feels like they just wanted to extend the grind more by making each weapon have a variant, rather than adding in something like a weapon augment or something. 

     

    Taking a look at the BSN, it looks like the dataminers have found multiple new characters in the files.  A couple of those have wet dream levels of power combos (the Batarian with Annihilation is nutso because of melee combo detonation). 

  18. Posted

    I don't think I'd seen this brought up here.  I've been reading The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, and ran across this exchange last night (which may be imaginary or not, its hard to tell what's real BOB and what's Laura's imaginings of BOB). 

     

    img_20170707_010003_1024.thumb.jpg.137bc52deda84001107bff95bccf2aef.jpg

     

    It's a direct echo of the conversation in the diner where BadCoop says the Need/Want line to Darya and Ray.  A neat callback to the Secret Diary, and arguably points to these mental and written exchanges with BOB being entirely real rather than partly imagined. 

  19. Posted

    9 hours ago, SecretAsianMan said:

    Today is my daughter's first birthday.  I've been a dad for a year now.  Still hard to believe.

     

    Hoozah!

  20. Posted

    5 hours ago, seamus2389 said:

     

    These two articles dig into why it ended the way it did and the problems with the shows Gothic background short changing the characters

     

    Thanks for those links, they're good pieces and ones I hadn't run across when looking for articles about PD last week. 

     

    This show really needed a longer 3rd season, or even a fourth season, to let some of the characters and arcs have more breathing room to explored. 

  21. Posted

    Just when I think I'm done, they pull me back in.   (provided that hate surfing and ballistic blades also both make a come back I'll at least give it a shot).

     

     

     

    Although a few days ago Kotaku claimed that any SP DLC had been scrapped, which led a lot of people to think that MP wouldn't be seeing new races since those were likely to be contingent on the Quarian ark DLC being finished. 

     

    Edited to add:

    If they manage to fuckup hatesurfing or don't have it at all imma be so fucking mad.

     

     

  22. Posted

    3 hours ago, Digger said:

    It seems weird that you seem to believe Laura is almost blameless, and Bobby and others are "off loading."  I don't see what in the text backs that up.  I can not a remember any time on the show where anyone had anything bad to say about Laura.  They all loved her and wanted to help her.  Donna has one moment of resentment, but I can't remember any other character that blamed their problems on her.  I don't see why we can't take Bobby at his word when it is obviously a moment of catharsis, we have moments with his dad where he reveals (and Briggs believes) he is a sensitive and loving person, and in the current day he is a police officer who breaks down at the sight of Laura's picture.  He was never my favorite character I find it strange I am defending him.  

     

    I think you misread (or I didn't write clearly enough) part of what I intended.

     

    Quote

    But Laura is a character, because of her own fear and self-loathing, who tends to assign herself responsibility for things around her (even to blaming herself for her own abuse, something common with abuse victims) while other characters, in a very human way, try to offload the responsibility their actions. 

     

    This wasn't intended to say that a whole bunch of characters blame Laura for their own failings/inequities/etc.  It was that many other characters do try to blame others for things that are their own responsibility.  Much of the soap opera elements of the show involve people in relationships where various amounts of blame and responsibility are being shifted around.  This is a very common human thing to do, to very minor to very major ways.  It's also a very common component to abusive relationships, of which Twin Peaks has a few.  I was pointing out the dichotomy between the bulk of characters who try to blame others for their problems, and Laura who tends to blame herself. 

     

    And I do think that there is an element of the fandom that wants to paint her in a worse light than I see her.  I've never described her as blameless.  I do think that she's someone who has suffered the worst trauma of any other character in the show.  That doesn't leave her blameless, but it gives me a lot more empathy for her than for Bobby or many of the other characters.  Her desire for escape from her vulnerability puts her in a position of people using that desire to get what they want out of her.  In her own narrative, in her own head, she's in control.  She's deciding to do the things that she does.  Child abuse victims often desire a sense of control more than anything else.  For some, that need for control can go as extreme as them casting themselves as the seducer of their adult rapist.  Because the narrative that they caused their own abuse is easier to handle than to say that something was done to them and they couldn't stop it.  Imaginary power is better than real helplessness. 

     

    To me, that's groundwork to understand the way I see how some fans react to her.  Because what I see out of fans is the Lolita tendency to want to assign a level of agency to a child that is exculpatory to the adults around that child.  You see this shit over and over and over in rape cases where a 12, or 13, or 14 year old is said to have seduced a 40 year old.  Laura is, at the most, 11 when BOB starts visiting her (I think the diary starts on her 12th bday).  She's 13 when she tries pot and is making out naked with 20-somethings.  She's 15 when she gets introduced to cocaine and the local sex work scene.  Bobby is an age peer, and it's understandable that he's also in over his head.  But when Laura is otherwise beginning to move in a world of criminals, drug dealers and pimps, she's still very much a child in desperate search of control and escape.  She's perfectly primed for predators like Leo, the Renaults and the Hornes to take advantage of her.  I think the adults are far more culpable for their ill deeds than someone like Laura is. 

  23. Posted

    18 minutes ago, Arianna said:

    Yeah, agreed that people definitely try to offload too much onto Laura herself and demonize her. I haven't read the Secret Diary (have downloaded the audiobook, will get to it when I am done Secret History) so I didn't know about that elaboration on their background. Within just the show-canon though that moment with Jacoby felt really honest and like Bobby was accessing real pain.

     

    Is there any consensus as to what degree of canonicity the things in the series/fwwm/secret diary/secret history have when they contradict eachother? The most glaring (recently) has got to be the M.T. Wentz potential retcon in Secret History...

     

    I think part of the beauty of Twin Peaks is the very humanity of the characters that allows for them to be contradictory and truthful and self-deceiving in very honestly presented ways.  Bobby can totally believe and feel pain that he feels manipulated into selling drugs because of Laura.  But the truth of his emotion doesn't mean that this isn't where he would have ended up anyways, or that his actions aren't also still self serving and he's offloading responsibility for his own decisions and actions onto his girlfriend.  Or that Laura could feel manipulated into having developed a drug habit because of her boyfriend introducing her to them, even while she's also responsible for her own decisions.  Humans are contradictory messes when it comes to contemplating the roles and responsibilities of their own actions and others in regards to their lives.

     

    But Laura is a character, because of her own fear and self-loathing, who tends to assign herself responsibility for things around her (even to blaming herself for her own abuse, something common with abuse victims) while other characters, in a very human way, try to offload the responsibility their actions.  Which might also be some fans want to do the same. 

  24. Posted

    4 minutes ago, LostInTheMovies said:

     

    The diary also essentially says that Laura raped Harold, which I think is a step too far for the character, honestly -- in every other situation she may behave badly or take advantage of people but she doesn't quite go as far as BOB would want. I suspect that the incident is more the result of different mores/perceptions in 1990 (in terms of female-on-male assault or a psychological condition trapping one in a situation to which they don't actively consent) and wonder if Jennifer Lynch would prefer to write it differently today if she had the chance.

     

    I'm not that far in the diary yet, about halfway through it.

     

    I have a lot of thoughts about the diary and its exploration of shame, abuse, rebellion, fear and how those guide and shape people.  But they aren't things I'm particularly interested in getting into in a public forum.  From what I've read so far, I think Jennifer captured some themes and experiences that I've never seen tackled in quite this way (which may be more a reflection of my general reading choices than anything).  The venn diagram of natural teen sexuality and rebellion and then behavior influenced by trauma/abuse is something that is very messy and personal, but rarely explored in a believable way for as common as it is in our society.

  25. Posted

    19 hours ago, Digger said:

    I believe you are incorrect on a few points.  James says he was selling drugs to get Laura her fix, and to keep her.  In FWWM Laura sees the men drugging the drink and says, "Chug-a-lug, Donna."  Corruption isn't forcing people to make bad decisions, it is encouraging them to do them on their own.  The only characters on the show that are true evil are the ones from the black lodge.  Ben Horne, Leo, Josie, they hurt others, but it is not all they do.  Laura was struggling with her own corruption, and in the end, it seems, rejected that corruption, but it doesn't erase what she did.  

     

    3 hours ago, Arianna said:

    Just to add to this, in his therapy session with Jacoby, Bobby explicitly states that Laura made him sell drugs so she could have them.

     

    I went back and rewatched the scene from FWWM.  It is quite believable that Laura could see the beer being drugged, the angle is right.

     

    The Bobby stuff just isn't that cut and dried to me, it's very messy and both of them are using one another.  Bobby was already partying with Leo and involved in drugs to some degree before Laura.  He introduces Laura to Leo and that whole crowd (Secret Diary). He gives her cocaine for the first time (Secret Diary).  He was already multiple steps down that path, and there's not a lot of evidence he would have deviated from it with or without Laura.  Laura is manipulating him at times, sure.  But he's also feeding her drugs and manipulating her that way and getting things he wants.  Laura is a teenager who *thinks* she's a master manipulator, it's part of the internal framework she's built to view herself.  But that doesn't make the framework true to the outside world.  She's wrong.  She's a teenager.  Overestimating their ability is what they do. 

     

    I'm not arguing that Laura's an angel, but I do think people want to offload other people's sins and bad actions onto her in ways that aren't particularly fair to the character.