Stuff. Also Nonsense.

bukowskionice:

• i’m great at having sex
• i’m shit at being in a relationship

What does it mean if I’m the other way around?

our-souls-ignite:

shop5:

a tag at the very end where Coulson hands Nick Fury a ‘classified’ folder and says “Sir, he’s back” and Nick Fury will say “Who?” He’ll open the folder to reveal a blurry photo of a someone who is clearly Bucky and you’ll hear Coulson say “Code name Winter Soldier”

I would scream.

I would continue to scream until I ran out of air and died.

Then I would have them bring me back to life just in time to see the next movie.

Well, Joe Johnston DID say he wants to do a Winter Soldier movie. And Joss DID say Avengers is from Cap’s perspective. It’s not outside the realm of possibility.

I actually wrote this as a comment to a post on /r/masseffect, but I was quite pleased with how it came out, and felt like submitting it to tumblr so that more people might see it. Sorry for the length.

I’ll preface this by saying I completely understand why people are upset with the ending. Taken at face value, it’s full of plot holes and makes very little sense, flying in the face of established design principles while doing so. On top of that, it is not at all what was promised by BioWare in the years leading up to its release. The fact that it exists as such at the end of a game that is otherwise brilliantly written and designed just makes it seem that much worse.

While I was playing through the ending myself, it didn’t really bother me at first. I was disoriented and caught up in the suspense of it all (an effect they were clearly going for, regardless of narrative intent), so I didn’t really notice all the glaring plot holes. All the stuff with Anderson in the citadel made just enough sense to me that I just kind of went along with it. I played through the sequence with TIM (something I felt was thematically far superior to a “shoot the glowy bits” boss fight) and fell down on the little glowy platform, proceeding to talk with the starchild and choose the synthesis option (space magic aside, it was an option I hadn’t even considered, and created a situation that I found really interesting on a conceptual level). The cinematic happened, I got caught up in the beauty of the score, and just sort of subconsciously pushed aside my wtf feelings regarding Joker and the Normandy (which admittedly makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but I was so happy to see everyone okay on that weird jungle planet that it didn’t even occur to me how damn ridiculous it was).

I then went online, and saw the multitude of posts about how people were upset. They made a lot of sense, and I understood the frustration. I personally hadn’t been following the news from BioWare and whatnot, so I wasn’t necessarily expecting anything in particular. I’m a generally docile person, and I still had a phenomenal time playing the other 95% of the game, so it didn’t really bother me too much.

Then I learned about Indoctrination Theory. The evidence was compelling, and I definitely felt twinges of “…is Shep being indoctrinated right now?” as I was playing those final sequences. The specific ways in which much of the ending makes no sense really do lend credence to the theory, not to mention a bunch of references throughout the rest of the game that line up with how all of that plays out (for the best video I’ve seen so far on the subject, check [1] this out.

As it stands, I’m quite satisfied with ME3, including the ending. Whether or not the indoctrination theory was intentional on the part of BioWare, I think it leaves us with a story that ends with a fascinating look at the illusion of choice (a la BioShock) that makes a really intriguing point about humanity’s ultimately ill-fated place in the struggle against insurmountable odds. It comes out on the vaguely-positive existential side of “Hey, at least we really tried,” which is something that I actually do find kind of inspiring. No matter how much of a chance we DIDN’T have, we gave it our all and made it pretty damn far. We may not have beat the Reapers, but along the way my Shep managed to cure the genophage, liberate the geth, fall in love, and go down swinging. No one can tell me those choices didn’t “matter” simply because they might not have saved everyone in the end. They mattered at the time as powerful symbolic gestures, and I (as the player) really had to think about how I wanted them resolved. They still matter to me just as much as when I made them.

Whether or not BioWare gives us ending DLC (either incorporating indoctrination theory or not), the overall narrative experience I had playing Mass Effect 3 was an incredibly powerful one that brought me to tears, made me laugh, and presented one of the best-realized sci-fi universes I’ve ever seen. The ending might have been depressing or unexpected, but it made me think, especially after considering the implications of Indoctrination Theory.

Mass Effect 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, partially because of the ending. If that makes me gullible or an idiot, I don’t care. I will freely admit that I am a BioWare fan, and it may be coloring how willing I am to accept Indoctrination Theory. Personally, I can’t wait til we hear things one way or the other, and this subreddit can stop being 70% “hey guys look I made a meme about colors” and go back to being a positive place for people who enjoyed the game to celebrate that enjoyment together. Might be a long way off, but it’ll be nice if we can ever get there again.

TL;DR - I believe in Indoctrination Theory and that makes me like the endings. I know, fuck me.

Sorry that was so long, hope some of you read it anyway. Really came from the heart.