my toxic trait is instead of thinking 'this should have been practical effects' about everything on TV and film, I instead think 'there is a time and a place for both practical effects and CGI, and incorrectly applying the wrong solution to a problem can have equally negative effects on the final quality of the product regardless of whether CGI or practical effects were used, and sometimes the best solution is a hybrid one that utilizes the strengths of both, and sometimes CGI gets used because practical effects have safety implications for the actors'
sometimes CGI is a worker's rights issue. pinewood studios blew itself up filming no time to die. halyna hutchins and brandon lee are dead because of the weapons on set. john-rhys davies and virginia hey and bill skarsgård and buddy ebsen and jack haley and jim carrey are all people just off the top of my head who got sick (sometimes permanently) from the make-up they used. i found out whilst double checking my info on jim carrey that the make-up was so uncomfortable for him that they got a CIA consultant who trained operatives to withstand mistreatment in to help him deal with it, and like. yeah if we're bringing on board people who's job is to teach spies how to withstand torture, maybe this shouldn't be make-up!
i find it really interesting that some folks are taking this episode to mean eddie is reconnecting with religion and will be leaning more into catholicism moving forward, because that is quite literally the exact opposite of what i took away from it.
have to put this under a cut bc i got wordy, but tl;dr the religion dooming is unfounded and, in some instances, actively disrespectful.
i was raised catholic, had loved ones who believed that my faith (or lack thereof) was in direct correlation to my goodness. have had to reckon with what it means for those relationships that i don't believe. i spent a long time feeling really bitter and judgemental about catholicism because it was a tool of abuse, in a sense. so i resonate really deeply with what eddie went through in this episode. i have gone on an incredibly similar journey.
eddie doesn't believe in the supernatural; that has been a defining character trait of him for a long time. he has a strained relationship with religion; we know he stopped going to confession quite young, and we know from this ep ("i was forced to go to church and i hated it") that his parents pressured him into attending mass. he also says he's not going to do the same thing to chris—he understands that he needs to protect him from the experiences he had.
when abuela finds out eddie's gone back to church, she says "you're reconnecting with your faith, with your community." i think what folks who have never been religious don't understand is that it's not just a belief system; it's something that permeates your home, your family, your social circle. of course eddie is conflicted about not going to church, and then hesitant to share that he's tried it again; it's not just church he's grappling with, it's his relationship with every member of his family we know he's close to. and then when he does go to mass, and abuela starts to get excited, he checks her—tells her he went for her, but that he still doesn't feel "whatever you're supposed to feel" at church.
and what's abuela's reaction? to say "what is love if not a sign of god's presence?" and then when eddie asks "so when i was looking for him in church...?", she tells him: "niño, you were looking in the wrong place." abuela is making the distinction that a lot of folks raised in organized religion spend a lot of time trying to get to—your relationship to spirituality/your relationship to god does not have to be the same as your relationship to religion.
and then, immediately after that conversation (the literal next scene), we see a girl who's 'possessed' who, in fact, is only ill because her parents tortured her when they started to fear they/their religion was losing its grasp on her. eddie's clearly very upset by this, and we see he hasn't internalized what abuela said yet: when buck brings up the supernatural again, he blows up. "she put her faith into everything she was supposed to, and what does she get? tetanus. lockjaw. maybe thirty years of therapy." we're meant to understand that eddie feels a kinship with that girl, because he, too, feels like he's been slowly harmed his entire life by the weight of the church, and his family's/parents' expectations for his commitment to it.
when abuela passes, we see him put into practice what she meant when she said love is a sign of god's presence. he asks pepa to pray, not because he needs it, but because he knows she does, and that abuela would have appreciated it. what eddie gets from that is spiritual, not religious; while she's comforted by prayer, he's comforted by being present with pepa in that moment. the same thing happens when pepa takes eddie's hand at the día de los muertos parade; they're connecting with each other, in a very spiritual, very culturally-grounded moment.
and then we get to eddie's final voice-over. he says "maybe there are no spectres, no spirits. just us, celebrating, dancing, remembering—alive, together. and maybe... that's enough," as he and chris build their ofrenda. eddie is finding a way to be in community without the church, by connecting with his heritage and by surrounding himself with love.
the eddie we get at the beginning of the episode is an eddie who feels like he has to conform to a humorless, rigid, punitive church in order to have a connection with bobby and his family. he's burdened by catholic guilt, the nagging feeling instilled in him since birth that he's doing something wrong. the eddie we get at the end has come to understand that he was, like abuela said, looking in the wrong place for god. he's in a much healthier mindset, one that allows him to grow forward instead of being weighed down by the past.
now, who's to say how they use all this; it could easily never be brought up again (as is... often the case with this show). but, at the very least, it's certainly not an indicator that they're not doing buddie canon. if anything, i'd say it's a positive sign that we're seeing eddie confront the things—his parents' expectations, catholic guilt, his lost love—that have been barriers to successful relationships in the past.
and, gently, i think a lot of y'all could stand to do some introspection about how you view religious/spiritual people. there's a lot of chatter tonight that reeks of superiority. you are not better, or smarter, or more worldly because you're not catholic/christian/don't believe in god, just like catholics/christians/folks who believe in god aren't, either. it is possible to be catholic and open-minded, and/or queer, and/or a good person. i don't think 'more catholic' is the direction they're taking eddie in, but, even if it was, i think it's a bit disquieting that some of y'all seem to think that that would mean he's suddenly going to be a bible-thumping homophobe.
People don't actually grow out of their emo phases. People are forced out of their emo phases by employers who get a raging boner over controlling how their employees dress, cut their hair, whether they mod their bodies and so on
How many beautiful emo men would we have if not for the tyranny of the 9-5. How many strange goth women are trapped inside the performance of a clean girl aesthetic because she needs to be able to eat. How many people are wage slaves when they should be punks?
A lot of people are talking about what you are and aren't allowed to wear but I think that issue is secondary to what you are and aren't allowed to do to your body. Like "you have to wear a polo shirt and dress pants" fine as long as you're paying for the polo shirts and dress pants I now need to buy. Whatever. "You must have natural colored and clean cut hair, no facial piercings, no visible tattoos" now we have a fucking problem because I also have to have that hair face and body outside of the workplace. it's literally pervert shit I've met 24/7 doms less horny about controlling how their subs look.
just watched the new dan and phil video and my takeaway impression is mainly that they are so, so generous and forgiving towards their fans. they would be completely justified in clamming up and never saying jack shit to anyone and i think the thoughtfulness and kindness in saying “we know that even for many of the people who were shipping us more aggressively and violating our privacy were just very excited young people who didn’t know the impact they were having on us, and we don’t want anyone to feel bad, so take this as a clean slate” is utterly remarkable
also, the way dan talks about how phil lit up his life about halfway through is one of the most loving things i’ve ever seen. truly. i am so happy for the two of them—that they found each other in the first place, and that they now are at a point where they feel comfortable sharing this
what nonphannies don’t understand is that it isn’t about “knowing” it’s about dnp’s queer joy and comfort level. we’re not happy bc they told us, we’re happy bc they felt comfortable and joyful enough to tell us. “knowing” has a weird power connotation. If you “knew” all along you’re trying to establish power over information that you don’t have authority on, and it takes power away from the people (dnp) telling you the information.
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