What a gawd-awful year in Streaming "entertainment"

I'll bet nothing this year could possibly be worse than Wheel of Time.

 

Boba Fett said, "I'll take that bet."

 

Halo said, "I'll raise you Master Chief's constantly bare booty, free swinging dong, and inability to wear his signature helmet."

 

Cowboy Bebop said, "I've got a live action version of Radical Edward, and don't understand what made our source material any good."

 

Foundation said, "Source material?  What's that?  I literally do not understand the term." 

 

Hawkeye said, "I'm not even about Hawkeye."

 

Master's of the Universe: Revelation said, "You call that sucking? Let me show you how to REALLY suck."

 

Obi-Wan Kenobi said, "Hold my beer."

 

Then She Hulk said, "hold my box wine."

 

Then Rings of power said, "hold MY mead."

 

Then Willow said, "y'all are amateurs, all y'all can step back and hold MY mysterious potion that sent the evil queen Bavmorda to the realm of eternal darkness."

 

And then Witcher: Blood Origin came out and is legitimately worse than every one of them.

 

And that's not even counting the ones I didn't bother to watch because I had no interest in them like Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel.

 

If this is the quality of streaming shows these days, I see no reason to pay for ANY of the streaming services out there. I'll keep my money. I'm done spending it on this trash.

 

This has been one of the absolute worst years in entertainment of all forms in my entire 43 years of life. It may actually be THE worst year. There has been nothing but garbage. Even the stuff that was kind of okay, was only kind of okay by comparison to the rest, rather than actually being good in itself. I think the only legitimately good pieces of media that came out of Hollywood this year were Top Gun, and maybe Bullet Train and Violent Night. The entertainment industry as a whole needs a severe wake up call. 

 

Japanese and Korean stuff was great though. And a few Indie video games.

Jennifer Lawrence being absolutely stupid made me think...

 So, recently, Jennifer Lawrence claimed that she was the first woman ever to lead an action movie.  Uhuh.  Right.  Let's see.  Just off the top of my head you've got Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Mila Jovovich, Gina Davis, Uma Thurman, Michelle Rodriguez, Pamela Anderson, Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Hallie Berry, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Cynthia Rothrock, What's her name from Red Sonja.  Like, dozens of women who led dozens of action movies, and many of them before Jennifer Lawrence was even born, much less acted in Hunger Games.

But this isn't the stupidity I wanted to talk about.  In the video, she said something that really, really rubbed me the wrong way.  Something so utterly and completely stupid and wrong that I just had to scream out into the void on the internet about it.  She said something like "girls can identify with both male and female heroes, but boys can only identify with male heroes."  This one line right here is even more stupid than her claim to be the first female action star ever.

Allow me to give you an example from my own life to illustrate the utter stupidity of that statement.

My all time favorite video game is Final Fantasy 6.  It came out in 1994.  I was 15 in 1994.  I played the hell out of that game.  Over, and over, and over again.  And many times more over the almost 30 years since.  This is a game that is split into two parts.  Each part is led by a different protagonist.  Both of these protagonists are women.  These two characters are also my favorite characters in the game.  My two favorite video game characters from my all time favorite video game are women.  15 year old me didn't care.  15 year old me saw an outcast trying to find her place in the world and said, holy crap, it's like this character is me.  15 year old me saw a lone woman standing up to evil in order to save the world even though she thinks she's the only one left alive who can do it, and that all hope is lost, and said, holy crap, I want to be as strong and awesome as her.  I want to stand up to the darkness in my life and fight for what is right even if I know I will probably lose.  It's not about which jiggly bits a person has.  It's about what's in their character.  What's in their personality.  When they're pushed to the brink, what will they do?

Here's another example.  My all time second favorite videogame(s) are the Xenosaga Trilogy.  This trilogy is also led by a female protagonist in Shion.  Over the course of the story she is beaten down again, and again, and again by the horrors of her past, and the reality of the not too distant extinction of the human race being HER fault.  Yet, she still finds the strength to stand back up again.  To continue on.  To fight, even though she knows she will probably die.  To turn her back on the peace that she so desperately wants just so that she can do the right thing, and save what's left to save of humanity.  She falls countless times along the way.  She even joins the villains at one point in the story because she is so desperate for just one person to love and accept her for who she is.  But with the help of her friends she is able to realize why she should continue fighting, and why she should lay down her life if need be, because the needs of the many outweigh her own selfish desires.  That is a hugely complex and extremely relatable character that is probably my single favorite video game protagonist of all time.  Does it matter to me that she's a woman instead of a man?  Are you freaking kidding me?  What does that even have to do with anything.  She is an amazing character that if I could find even a shred of her strength of character in myself, I would count myself lucky.

So, yeah.  I just thought that was both extremely stupid, and, frankly, pretty insulting of her to say.  Again.  It is not which jiggly bits a person has that makes them an interesting, relatable character to aspire toward.  It's who they are inside.  What they do when the world pushes them down.  How they react when they are the only thing standing between evil, and everyone else.  If they will step toward death to save those they care about from it.

I am just sick to death of this narrative of sexism and misogyny that American media keeps beating me over the head with.  I'm sick of being told I'm the scum of the earth because man bad for not liking female character.  It's not that they're female that makes me dislike them.  It's that they're shit characters that make me dislike them.  Show me a character even half as strong and relatable as Shion in Xenosaga and we'll talk.  Until then, take your idiotic narrative and shove it up your ass, Jennifer.  

The Mass Effect 3 ending choice isn't really a choice when you think about it.

 Okay, so, for Mass Effect 3 you've got 4 choices for the ending.  Destroy.  Control.  Synthesis.  Reject.

The Rejection Ending is stupid, because all civilization will be wiped out, and all advanced sentient life destroyed.  What have you been fighting for through three games if not to stop that from happening.  One VERY IMPORTANT thing to note when choosing this ending, however, is that when you choose to reject all of the Star Child's options, HE SPEAKS WITH HARBINGER'S VOICE.

Which leads me to the Synthesis Ending.  This is the ending that the Star Child pushes the hardest.  This is the ending that HE wants you to choose.  HE, as in the kid WHO SPEAKS WITH HARBINGER'S VOICE.  This is the choice that HARBINGER wants you to choose.  Whatever Harbinger wants, I pretty much want the opposite.  This is a bad choice, because it is the choice that your bitterest enemy wants you to choose, which brings up questions over whether it will really be what he says it is, or if it will just be another way of indoctrinating and enslaving all life in the galaxy.

So we've got two choices left.  But Control isn't looking all that great either.  Rewind five minutes and see how that went for the Illusive Man.  You're going to control the Reapers by taking the place of the Star Child, are you?  And there's no way that you're not going to be indoctrinated and start the cycles all over again once you've been overwritten like you've seen so many others throughout the trilogy?  Yeah, no thanks.  Didn't work out too well for the Illusive Man, and there's no guarantee that you're not going to end up a Reaper puppet just the same.

Destroy is really the only choice here.  It's the only choice that removes the threat forever.  It's the only choice where you can be sure that you have actually won, and the Reapers will never return to enslave and destroy ever again.  Yes, the cost is high, but can you afford NOT to pay it?  Peace with the Reapers is not possible.  They are pure evil that cannot ever be reasoned with.  They must be removed from the equation completely, so Destroy is the only path that makes sense.  This is probably why the Happy Ending Mod defaults to this ending, because the guy who made it understood everything I just said.