did olivers quote mean no buddie romance this season then if bucks not gonna focus on romantic dating the rest of the season or is it because buddie when they get together probably won't even really date before just becoming canon.
Hey Nonnie
It all really rather depends on your definition of ‘heading back into the dating world’ because you can read that in multiple ways - it can be read as buck not dating in any capacity at all (which doesn’t technically mean no buddie romance if it goes this way - it could still happen if they got together in the last episode of the season - them kissing and arranging to go on a date would fill this reading), it can be read as buddie not really dating when they get together like you said because they’ve kind of already done that, but it could also be read a different way.
Oliver is really careful and intentional with the language he uses in interviews - you can nearly always look back at answers he’s given when you have full context and see how he spun his answers so it told you what was going to happen but he never actually outright said it. Look at the answers he gave (I’ve put a couple of them below) at the start of s8 in reference to bucks relationship with tommy - he kept talking about baggage and uncomfortable truths an about hurdles in the relationship without ever actually stating those hurdles and he spoke about if you put the work in to get over those issues or if you walk away. It doesn’t reveal much of anything whilst also revealing a whole lot - you could even read into some of these answers that he knew about buck hooking up with Tommy and it leading to the scoff and the completion of it all - using the term baggage and saying uncomfortable truths applies as much to the later hook up as it did to the break up in confessions.
He did the same thing with his answers leading up to the Lucy kiss - and he’s done it a multitude of other times as well.
So with all that in mind - the phrasing here in this new answer is slightly odd - not massively but just a little - in the same way those answers were - saying [he won’t be]‘heading back into the dating world’ is much more akin to the concept of intentionally going out somewhere looking for a date/relationship/love with someone you haven’t met yet or with someone you’ve only just met. It reads more as the dating we just saw in this episode- going out to a place to meet people or meeting people you’ve met on an app etc - that is the world of dating.
Going for a romantic night out with your partner - who you’ve known for nearly a decade at this point isn’t really heading out into the dating world in my opinion. Staying at home and cooking a romantic meal or spending an evening playing video games or watching a film together etc is also a form of dating but it’s dating that doesn’t require the couple to head out into the world, so perhaps he gave that answer using that wording because it doesn’t include this kind of dating and means he isn’t lying about bucks dating life through the rest of season 9!
Also Oliver finishes his answer by talking about focusing on friends and his family for the rest of the season and for me that is a key part of why he used the wording he did in the first sentence!
Of course I could be miles of track here and Oliver is meaning something completely different I haven’t thought of, but I’ve spent enough time reading Oliver’s interviews and then rereading them after the season to get a fairly decent read on what he’s saying! I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what meaning was being applied to his answer!!
I think upstead fans were more worried about Gwen’s interview comments post/pre episode not about the episode itself. She just said some pretty inflammatory stuff (likely to just get clicks) so that got people riled up
Ahhh.... I read those articles. But here is the thing. After 9x09, Gwen said in one of her interviews that there will be plenty more Upstead in the remainder of the season. And we basically got nothing (and I'm still bitter about that). She said during the S10 premiere interviews that the tension between Hailey and Voight will continue. But it seems like Voight and Hailey have moved past that whole situation. She said Voight will continue to deal with Anna's death throughout the season. Still nothing. She said last season that Kevin is getting a love interest finally, and we all know how that ended.
At this point, I wouldn't believe anything said in interviews until it actually happens on the show. And from what I read, Gwen never said that Upstead is over. She said that Hailey will have to deal with the situation now that her distraction is over. That could mean a lot of things. Maybe she realizes she wants a fresh start after the traumatic few years she has had. Maybe she decides to be patient and wait till Jay gets home to make a decision about their future. We won't know until it actually happens.
I still think Upstead will be fine. This next half of the season will be even tough for Hailey, but I think she will get through it. And if you ever start to lose hope, rewatch the ending 10x03 scene with Hailey and Jay. I don't think that scene would have been written that way if it was the actual end.
alright i’ve been sitting on this for FAR too long. let’s get s t a r t e d
Danny Homan: Yeah, so uh. The Calypso Twins have managed to create a cult called the Children of the Vault and in doing so they’ve kind of done something that people thought was impossible on Pandora. They unified the Bandit clans, y’know, You saw in Borderlands 2 the bandit clans were just a disparate group of maniacs who were mostly just killing each other if they weren’t being killed by you or by Hyperion. But the Calypso Twins have done the impossible and they’ve unified the bandits in pursuit of the Vault and they’ve kind of organized them and made them kind of like follow their every beck and call. It’s kind of a strange phenomenon that we’ve never really seen in the Borderlands universe and, uh, as you maybe saw with the video there’s a lot of new fun to be had with a cult of bandits. They don’t always kind of obey, right?
Tell us something we don’t know, right? Mostly just wanna talk about “they’ve unified the bandits in pursuit of the Vault”. Despite the fact we know there’s more than 1 Vault in bl3, he says ‘The’ Vault. I have talked about this before, but I’ll go over it quickly here. I think the Twins have knowledge about a Vault they really want- something called the “Great Vault”. I think it’s the red Vault we see in their stained glass portraits, the Vault we see on their black and white mural. I think they’ve basically formed a religion, not just around themselves, but this Vault as well. Probably by promising these bandits that the Vault will bring them back towards a more stable existence with a supply of food/money/guns. I imagine Tyreen has some bullshit excuse for not bringing them directly to the big boy, probably like ‘we need to harness the power of the other Vaults first before we can face that one’.
I personally thought that maybe the cult was formed after the twins had already opened the red Vault, but that wouldn’t make sense of them leading the cultists to it. Unless the Great Vault is not the red Vault we see in their art. Also possible...
Moving on
Danny Homan: I mean, Handsome Jack is amazing, y’know, what can you say? And I think the answer is that you don’t try to mimic something that got past success, you try to create something different and new and just as a writer, the Calypso Twins are a hell of a lot of fun. I mean, you have this sibling dynamic, which I don’t know if you have any brothers or sisters but like for those of us that do, you understand that kind of crazy close relationship that’s like, quasi-competitive, quasi-cooperative and, throughout the course of the game they just, their relationship and how it kind of changes and warps is I think just really exciting and really entertaining.
So, one of the main reasons I think Ty and Troy are gonna end up trying to kill each other. Besides the fact they’re also villains.
Idk, even in some of the trailer shots Troy doesn’t seem happy around Tyreen. (He might just have resting bitch anxiety face tho lmao.) Despite that, you can see that when they shake forearms when Lily lost her powers, Troy pulls away from her grip pretty roughly. And I know we all want them to have a strong sibling dynamic, especially with how the Hammerlock sibs are, but bottom line is that these guys are the villains. They’re competing against Handsome Jack in the eyes of the players- the guy who killed Bloodwing and Roland and made Tiny Tina cry. They’re gonna have to do some pretty despicable things, and betraying someone who trusted you like a sibling does would definitely do it for me. No forgiveness there.
I do think it’s interesting that he mentions competitiveness and being cooperative. From what we know rn I can see the whole cooperative thing being that Troy is the brains behind the whole operation while Tyreen is the muscle. Tyreen keeps Troy alive and Troy helps her run the cult. I have no idea what the competitiveness is but I’m really hoping it’s going to relate to being streamers with views and shit. “Hey, Ty, 13 bandits sacrificed themselves for me in the past hour alone.” [Ty looks up, covered in blood] “Oh, that’s cute. I’m at 48, nerd, get on my level.” “You killing them doesn’t count.” “... Nobody will know the difference, shut up.”
Danny Homan: Yeah, I mean. Again, you know it kind of all goes back to the fact that they don’t quite look like bandits, there’s something kind of strange going on there. I don’t want to spoil too much of it but no, when you head to Pandora there’s...the greatest underused resources are the bandits themselves, right? They’re an army that were prisoners that were left by the corporations, they’ve kind of become the worst versions of themselves, and the Calypso Twins are smart, they’re savvy, right? They saw this opportunity to maybe galvanize the bandits into a cult and create an army of their own, and the Livescreams, and Let’s Flays, and these kinds of things; they’re a way of amping up their followers and kind of creating this cult machine that kind of attracts more and more followers. It increases their strength.
holy shit okay there’s a lot here and y’all know what I’m about to say: “Holy fuck I hope this is hinting they’re related to Atlas somehow”
okay now that we’ve gotten that out of the way:
“They don’t quite look like bandits” With their coats and Troy’s super high-tech implants, yeah, they certainly look like corporate assholes sent to ‘masquerade’ as bandit leaders. I could see them ending up being Maliwan and/or getting ganked by Maliwan halfway through then Katagawa ends up being the big ol baddie, especially with his VA’s tweet. (But I’m still not letting the Atlas thing die. Not yet :3c)
They could also simply be from a richer family name, I guess? We know Typhon got a shitload of money from Atlas to give them the Vault key/Vault location, so it's possible they’re doing all this to continue/rekindle the family tradition of Vault hunting and then decided to be super efficient about it.
Related to that is the line “When you head to Pandora” which makes me think the Calypsos are off-worlders who came to Pandora specifically because they knew they’d be able to start their cult there. A planet where there have been 2 Vaults already opened? You’re saying there’s a Vault Key already on world? All the people there are crazed after their corporations left them to die? AND they were worshipping the Firehawk/Sirens for a while? This sounds like the perfect place!
Danny Homan: Sure. I mean, part of it is in the name, the Children of the Vault right? There’s this belief that the Vaults are inherently theirs. They own the Vaults, maybe that it’s their birthright for example. A lot of it really goes back to the fact that the bandits were mistreated, they were left by Dahl Corporation, and they’ve kind of been left ot their own devices on Pandora just to survive the best they can and so the Calypso Twins come along and they recognize that thing: people need a purpose, even if it’s a terrible, maniacal, murder-soaked purpose, people need something to believe in and they need people to believe in them and that’s kind of what the Calypsos have provided. They’ve kind of gone “oh bandits, everyone calls you animals, everyone calls you trash... but we see there’s something, there’s something in you, there’s something we can elevate your murder to. Murder in our name.”
hoooo this is a doozy
So the idea that the cultists are the true owners of the Vaults. I mean, it makes sense. The owner of Dahl didn’t come down and excavate and find all this shit by himself, the workers did. They’re the real owners of these Vaults. They were the ones who put in the work, not whatever big man stepped over them and took the rewards.
What I don’t understand is ‘it’s their birthright’ in reference to the bandits. I guess we could go metaphorical and say ‘birthright’ as in their new life as a bandit, but... that feels weird. I think this stuff is actually a reference to the twins just as much as its a reference to the Pandoran bandits. (coughAtlascough) I mean, if the twins have some sort of connections to the Vaults like everyone and their mother is theorizing (be it corporation, their ancestor being Typhon, them being Vault monsters/aliens/demons/whatever), then it makes sense that Vaults would be their ‘birthright’. Like, logically. “My dad/grandfather/whatever found the first Vault ever so, technically, they’re mine by blood!” “I’ve been looking for these Vaults for longer than you’ve been alive, human, they’re mine!” “I was created to find/open/help fight the monster inside these Vaults, so they’re mine!” etc etc.
The whole “people need a purpose, people need something to believe in, they need people to believe in them” uh, yeah, I think that’s about the twins just as much as it is about the bandits. I’m wondering if they’re telling the bandits they’re going to help save the universe by following the cult. By telling them, yeah, murder in our name, we’re gods, this is what the universe needs. This is going to bring justice to you for what the corporations did. etc
Danny Homan: Pandora is one of a kind. It’s this place where insanity seems to be kind of the de facto personality trait that someone needs to survive. Whether you’re a hero or a villain. When you take that aspect of Pandora, how do you bring it to the other planets in the borderlands, right? I think for me that comes down to the fact that the borderlands have kind of been this staging ground for different corporations, it’s like the wild west. It’s a gold rush kind of area. Every place you go has its kind of own different brand of insanity. Madness and insanity and this fact that this is kind of a dark galaxy, right? It’s a place where the governments have fallen, and corporations have kind of taken their place. They’re basically arms dealers with some new-yous and some other technology kind of thrown in so wherever you go in the Borderlands universe there’s that kind of unifying factor of: humanity hasn’t done so great, and there’s only a few people that are what you would call [decent].
Not really much I have to say here, although I do think it’s interesting he mentions New-Us considering they’re not canon and it’s been stated several times that they aren’t by both word of god and by some 'non-canon' posters in TPS. I wonder what that’s supposed to mean. God, I hope they don’t decide to make them canon this game. That would destroy literally all tension story-wise.
Danny Homan: Promethea is rad. It’s the home of Atlas Corporation, it was the site of some of the first Eridian discoveries, so Atlas Corporation discovered Eridian ruins and that was kind of what sparked the borderlands kind of wild west trip to Pandora. There’s just some fun stuff, we’ve never experienced this kind of city in the Borderlands franchise, we had an opportunity in Borderlands 2 but the city is rad, there’s so much fun humour with service bots that you might have seen from the videos. Playing in the city gives you that other side: you have Pandora, you have the wild west, and then you have “what’s insane about a city?” Pretty much everything.
Ah Promethea. Mostly stuff here we already know, tho I have a few questions.
First, lemme copy and paste something I posted in the dev questions and answers for the bl discord server: is that Eridium growing out of the ground on Promethea and if so does that confirm the Vault there was already opened? And if that is true then does that mean that Gortys was wrong when she said she was created as Atlas's last ditch attempt to open a Vault, or was the Vault on Promethea not opened by Atlas (she references Hyperion opening the 1st Pandoran Vault so we know she was in production still after "those Hyperion guys" open a Vault so it's not like her info is out of date regarding Promethea)? If that's so, did Typhon open it even though he said he sold the key/location to Atlas? Also why is nobody mining Promethea's purple rocks when Pandora was clearly very lucrative for Hyperion? Was Atlas keeping the Eridium secret on Promethea so they could do tests and shit like Hyperion did on Pandora a few years later? Tell me your secrets!!! And if the Vault did open on Promethea, why is there no Eridium scar??)
yeah, lots of questions for Promethea. And one more: are the swamp lands we see in the trailers apart of that planet? I was under the assumption they are because of the way Promethea is described in BL1, plus the outskirts of the city definitely have that swampy feel, but we don’t actually see any of that. Tho Typhon does say: “... Quazmarian Quarry and I fell through some brittle rock” so maybe the other bits of Promethea are more rocky than I originally believed. I do think we’re going to visit that area. I mean, that’s where the Vault supposedly is, according to ya boy Typhon, so...
u can see from orbit a significant portion of it definitely does have city lights around. though we can’t actually see which parts are land and which are water, so who’s to say for sure. And, to be fair, the lights seem to be changing/wavering so I would even so far to say that it’s some sort of shield (to keep the rocks in orbit from smashing into cities constantly and/or prevent Maliwan attacks)... but that’s just a guess.
Danny Homan: The siege moustache, yeah. Funny side story: part of the reason he has a moustache is because of me. I was going through a very strange social experiment and I was just curious how my co-workers would react if I grew a moustache, and it was a very fascinating week of people - when you grow a moustache people just come up to you and insult you, which is kind of a fascinating thing. When we were thinking about Promethea and Rhys, he’s besieged by Maliwan Corporation and he’s kind of been pushed back into one little area. We thought: “okay, well what is he gonna do to kind of rally his troops and make them believe him?” And it’s a siege moustache.
well at least he’s not the Calypso twins, rallying people and making them believe in their leader because of murder so he’s got that going for him. Excited to see just how many more people insult Rhys over the course of the game. I am fucking ecstatic to see what Fiona is going to say.
Danny Homan: Yeah, Handsome Jack is dead.
god bless Danny Homan
seriously, I hope they don’t bring back AI Jack as a way to subvert this. I really really hope they don’t. Let the character RIP. Bringing him back is only going to beat a dead gift horse in the mouth. or whatever
Danny Homan: I don’t want to spoil anything at this moment, you might learn a little more at E3. Man, Tales is such an amazing game, I don’t know, I just love it. Telltale did such an incredible job and all of those characters are just fascinating. Whether its Rhys or Vaughan or Fiona, and yeah, who knows.
I’m hoping it’s Vaughn. I love Vaughn. But confirmation that Fiona is okay and alive and everything would be great, too. Only a few more days, y’all. We can do it
Danny Homan: You know, you’ve gotta write for the person who’s never played the game before and doesn’t know what Pandora is, doesn’t know what a Claptrap is, right? We write for - we had to kind of straddle that line between people who have played every game in the franchise and people who are just experiencing it for the first time. What you quickly learn is that insanity is kind of the rule of law. Claptrap at the beginning of the first missions says, you blow something up and he goes, “Relax, on Pandora it’s really super weird if something's not exploding!” And that’s how we onboard players. Because when you hear that line and you go “okay, that’s a weird thing. Explosions are just par for the course on Pandora.”
this does make me a little worried that the storyline won’t be as in-depth as we’re all hoping it is. I mean i know I get a little crazy with the theories bc i live my life in the wiki, but people new to the series would be like “whu?? huh????”
and i mean, not that i’m saying you shouldn’t play the game if you don’t have at least a little bit of lore knowledge, but I’m really hoping BL3 will fill in the huge gaps we need and if they have to cut things because they won’t make sense to newcomers of the series, that’ll make me sad. i’m talking stuff like revisiting things from TPS, the Destroyer from BL1, etc, etc. I hope they at least have some cutscenes explaining previous events like the beginning of bl2. Although it’d be a lot more difficult cuz the story in bl1 is pretty fuckin simple lol and now they have to summarize 4 games for someone who’s never played them before. ouch.
Danny Homan: You work on - we have quite a few writers and we kind of work on all of the missions together. We kind of have missions that we start with, and characters that we shepherd, but it’s a pretty highly collaborative environment. We have a writers room, we punch up stuff, we play our missions. I’ve always loved Ellie, I just think Ellie is one of the most amazing characters and it’s been such a pleasure to be able to write for her. I’m a southerner at heart, so I’ve been able to sneak in a few: “squish squish Jellyfish” and “in a while crocodile” kind of stuff...
I’m happy Ellie is apparently having a bigger impact in this game than the previous one. Most of her side quests are great and tbh unlike most npcs I don’t get quite as annoyed when I’m going my 50th playthrough and have to do the Ellie stuff. I’m glad she was the one to inherit the Catch-A-Ride stations and not Janey. It seems right
>Would you say that there’s a favourite character [of yours] of the new ones that you have?
Danny Homan: Well, we haven’t met all of them yet so it’s kind of hard to weigh in on that.
>That’s fair.
Danny Homan: I’m excited about the new characters. Borderlands is awesome because there’s so many characters from this franchise and they’re all really rad and fun to work with. As a writer, being able to create new characters is good.
Confirmed we’re going to be seeing more characters than the twins, Lorelei, and Nope girl. And you can bet your ass I’m trusting NONE of them until the game is over lmao
>Are we going to see the final unknown Siren in this story?
Danny Homan: *sighs* You’re gonna have to wait and find out, man.
>Are new Sirens created when old ones die?
Danny Homan: These are all great questions. You might find out some of that in this game. Who knows?
>Can existing people become Sirens?
Danny Homan: Um, that’s an interesting question. I mean, there’s a lot of ways that someone can become a Siren. It’s not a de facto X-Men kind of thing. There’s some different conditions that kind of arise. Yeah, Sirens are unique and I feel like we like to keep it a little amorphous. What we like the most is when fans kind of create their own myths and stories about how this kind of stuff happens. As a writer we try not to definitively say one thing because there’s a lot possible.
Okaaay so there’s a lot here.
To start, when Danny is like “iunno man, wait and see” I wanna say that’s almost a guaranteed ‘yes’. I mean, like, if it were the case that it wasn’t going to happen, he could’ve just been like “no, sorry, that doesn’t happen”.
(proof, the next interaction is:
>Are we going to see Scooper in this story?
Danny Homan: I don’t think so.
Additionally:
>How many tea parties with Tina do we get in Borderlands 3?
Danny Homan: *laughs* You’re going to have to wait and see.
>There’s a lot of wait and sees going on.
Danny Homan: We don’t want to spoil anything!)
So theorizing for the 1st 2 questions?
Final Unknown Siren: we know Steele, Amara, Tyreen, Lilith, Maya, and Angel. Steele died 12 years ago, meaning the ‘final unknown siren’ has to be at most 12. Angel’s dead, too, but the other Siren would be 7, so I don’t think we’ll be meeting her. She’s most likely the mystery mask girl we see in the MoM, and we all have our theories regarding her.
are New Sirens created when Old Sirens die? Well... we kinda already knew that in general, but I get what the interviewer is actually trying to ask. Are Sirens we know going to die in this game? I’m gonna say yeah. I think either Lorelei or Nope girl (Little Blue) are going to get Siren powers one way or another. I wouldn’t be surprised if Maya/Lilith don’t make it through this one. I want to say Lilith will die, since she’s been in almost all the games, but Maya is apparently training some little girl, so she is in the path of d a n g e r. Maybe they’ll both die. Who knows!
As for the “can existing people become Sirens”. I’m gonna say yeah. I think Danny leaves his answer supre vague for a reason. We know Tyreen has the ability to steal Siren powers, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she (or Troy) has the power to gift stolen powers. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the red Vault we see the twins at in their art gave them their ‘Siren’ powers. Maybe a corporation finally found a way to create artificial Sirens (Atlas, I wouldn’t be surprised w/ Troy’s red tattoos and Maliwan has an entire area called ‘Archives’ with a Vault symbol on the door and what look like Siren tattoos sprawled across a building. We also gotta consider Hyperion’s eridium testing... not that they could ever do it, but maybe another corporation could have built off that?)
In the comics it's shown Lilith gets her tattoos after an older Siren dies in front of her, but maybe Sirens are chosen when they are born and they get their tattoos later in life when their powers are unlocked (by another Siren dying/losing their powers/whatever). We do see a pic of Angel on Jack’s desk without tattoos, so that is plausible, tho people have also mentioned he could’ve photoshopped her tattoos out so nobody would question him.
Anyway. Yeah, there’s probably a lot of ways a person can become a Siren.
>How much time has passed between BL2 and BL3 narratively?
Danny Homan: Roughly the time since BL2 launched, so it’s been about seven years.
>So just chronologically accurate to the development time.
Danny Homan: Yeah, absolutely.
Shoutout to that one person with the Odyssey theory about how the time between bl2 and bl3 would be 7 years to match development time. right on the mark, my man. People who quote Randy saying it’s about 5 years: claptrap confirms it’s 7 years during his Clapslist board quest activation.
>Is there one Vault Hunter in particular that’s returning that you’re excited for people to see - now that we’re kind of talking about how we can’t talk about a lot of the new ones, is there a returning one you’re particularly excited about?
Danny Homan: For Borderlands 2 I played as Maya and we saw her on the ship. She was always my favorite, I love Sirens in general. She’s a great character.
Not much to say here, Maya looks fantastic in bl3 tho. God she looks badass as fuck. Hope she takes over if/when Lilith dies lmao
>Speaking of the ship, it’s interesting that we’re getting this homebase dynamic that’s a spaceship. Are there any pop culture properties that you kind of borrowed from when designing that? I got Firefly-esque vibes when I was watching the presentation.
Danny Homan: Yeah, there’s similar kinds of franchises that kind of quasi-sci-fi-west. What I love about Sanctuary [3] is that it is a spaceship but it’s got band-aids on it, you know? It’s a Borderlands spaceship so it’s got broken parts of the ship and it’s kind of got its own charm. It feels very lived-in. So as you walk around you see stairs that have been broken, you see an exhaust pipe that someone has put tin foil over, right? It’s very kitbash put together.
More reasons I’m of the theory that Sanctuary-III has been in operation for longer than BL3. Unfortunately, probably not the case, but I want to believe! We do see those screenshots in the trailer of the ship being infested by rat-like aliens, so I’m sure there will be a quest or two to clean those out. My question is if that happens before we get the ship (we must clean out the ship in order for Ellie to work it and get it in orbit) or it happens while we’re already in-flight and the rats got in through a shuttle ship/fast travel/whatever. Or, alternatively, the infested one we see is a totally different ship and we’re going in for parts/some reason. Like a ship AI or something. that’d be cool. I wonder if Sanc-III has a ship AI... I miss Felicity...
>How much work went into designing the ship’s atmosphere? It feels like a lot of the NPCs had things to say. Is there a lot of writing that goes into that as well?
Danny Homan: Yeah, we’ve got a lot of NPCs on board. Our goal as writers is to make it feel like a living breathing place, right? So we spend so much time traveling around the ship being like “what would I want to comment on? That exhaust pipe is leading to nowhere. Let’s comment on that.”
I would not be surprised if we end up collecting NPCs from every planet we visit. We already see Promethea Citizens on board during the Sanc-III demo (which let to me questioning the timeline of that demo, I stand by my theory that it happens after we go to Promethea and after we visit the Monastery planet- that’s why Tannis has the dino corpse (Promethea) and Maya is on-board (Monastery). But, then again, maybe the swamp planet isn’t Promethea. Kinda think it is though. We’ll find out and I’ll update things accordingly.)
>Any one specific narrative beat that you can talk about that you’re really excited for fans to experience in Borderlands 3?
Danny Homan: I really like the moment where we first meet the Calypso Twins face-to-hologram. Tyreen says “you’re my most loyal follower you just don’t know it yet” and there’s a lot kind of packed into that line. The Calypso Twins have this kind of strange arrogance where they presume you’re just going to be another one of their followers. There’s some interesting ways that kind of plays out.
asefdrtadfs there’s so much here holy shit. Homan confirming “You’re my most loyal follower, Vault thief, you just don’t know it yet” is super important. I 100% believe the twins know exactly what they’re doing and have an inside man and are letting all this play out. I would also not be surprised if they have a way to see the future ala mystery masked girl’s siren power, but I may be reading into things too much there lol
I also think it's interesting he says “we first meet the Calypso Twins face-to-Hologram”. I wonder what that says for my “the room after Shiv is somewhere we’re going to get info on the sun smashers stealing the key from the RC” theory. Might mean the twins are doing a broadcast on TV to all their cultists, or maybe Mouthpiece is broadcasting. Wouldn’t even be surprised if they’re livestreaming their murder of the HBC people (we find all those corpses, after all). Could explain why Ty says “did you come all this way just to see me? didn’t know you were such a super-fan. well, too bad, you missed the show!”
>Is that going to crop up in the narrative - them trying to kind of pull the player over?
Danny Homan: That and also just that kind of sense that entertainers always kind of feel like everyone should be watching them. Everyone should be paying attention to them.
>That’s an interesting beat.
Danny Homan: Part of the fun of the Calypso Twins is that they are entertainers, right? They’re entertaining you and they’re entertaining the bandits. That’s why the cult exists. They’re kind of - they’re doing terrible things in the name of their cult.
I love this so much. It would be super interesting if we end up teaming up with them at some point to beat a badder enemy (Maliwan, Vault Monsters, Seraphs, Eridians) whatever it may be. Would be really cool if the Watcher pushes for us to join up with them (ALL the Vault Hunters we can get). I wonder if they’ll have quests like Jack (when he asks us to kill ourselves) but instead they ask us to do weird shit on camera for their ECHOnet channel. I’m sure Gearbox will find a way to make it all appear morally gray in the end anyway lol
Actually, where IS the Watcher..? I hope she doesn’t die in Commander Lilith... Maybe she went back to the Eridian homeworld. Oh that’d be interesting. she comes back later on in the game to lead us there/deliver news or smth...
Everything Ryan says is so considered and interesting I’m obsessed with him!
His language is so loaded - and gives so many clues about is arc! Machismo and not talking about feelings - ties back to hero complex and his relationship with his father - but also his mother - especially his mother - because she was actually a big part of creating that culture in the diaz house - because Ramon was ‘never there’
Him saying Eddie has spent the last few seasons trying to re-navigate and take new directions but whilst still being the old version of himself - so loud and informative. The play on the Shannon of it all - and the repeating mistakes in new ways. The not allowing himself to actually move on and let go of his ghosts.
That’s also loaded in the other direction as well - this idea that it’s not just him still stuck as this old version of himself - it’s not just him that’s not allowing himself to move on - that the people who represent his past are still holding onto the old him as well - his parents - it’s a statement about how they view him - and ties into the theme of Eddie begins - the idea his parents think they know best and want to dictate how he lives his life - the insistence he should come home or that they should take Chris. Something that’s been brought back into focus with Chris leaving to stay with them. It’s the idea that Eddie us work to do about getting them to recognise and accept the person he is and wants to be - and not to keep treating him as they always have done.
reworking his idealisations of the past brought up with his learnings of the present - and the earlier reference to the 118 and the firefam teaching him stuff. This especially implies what he’s learnt about love - and that what he sees of that with the firefam is vastly different to his experiences of it back in Texas - and with Shannon as well. The Shannon part of it Particularly - it all speaks to Eddie having been wearing rose tinted glasses and putting his relationship with Shannon up onto a sort of pedastal.
Implement is an interesting word choice as well in connection with this. It indicates slow change rather than drastic change - the idea of growth and of not rushing to be fixed and healed.
Idealisation is a direct play on the catholic faith - it’s a play on idolism and
Learnings of the present is also a choice - present can be taken to read all of Eddie’s time in LA - but it infers especially the more recent past - so season 7. Why would Eddie be prepared to implement learnings of the present now at this point. It’s not just the loss of Chris from LA and his home. It’s a big part of it yes, but Season 7 is when so many things converge. It’s the glasses being removed when it comes to Shannon - the break through that’s been brewing. It’s also being confronted with religion and its long lasting impact on who he is. I’ve always found it to be particularly interesting that they chose to have Eddie start dating a diy-er who was a former almost nun. The idea of faith being something under construction (yes the construction on sunset metaphor never goes away) and something you build for yourself rather than how Catholicism is a prefabricated and built by others faith. The juxtaposition of the church - something with the weight of history attached to it and an inability to move with the times and change - and the concept of diy faith being something you construct and build to suit you - the updating of something so that it fits with where you are at now. Marisol is a lesson in choosing to not stick with the status quo if it doesn’t fit, and instead building what you want your life to look like from the foundations that pre-existing faith has given you. It gives rise to the idea that eddies present learning is in part that he can construct a life that fits him and he doesn’t have to mould himself to what someone else prescribed. That he can take the bits of his faith that he does like and build those into something that suits him.
But it’s also Buck - Buck making his own break through and figuring out this big part of himself and choosing to embrace it in season 7 is a part of giving Eddie the confidence to do that for himself. It’s not just about the buddie of it all. The very deliberate decision by the writers to have Eddie be the one Buck is the most concerned about coming out to - the one he intentionally tells in a 1-1 situation and have that be much of the focus of bucks arc in the immediate aftermath of his bi awakening is as much about Buck as it is about Eddie. Buck coming out to Eddie allows the spiral he’s in about his catholic guilt to take on a different direction and ultimately spiral out much further into something that blows up his life. It’s Eddie’s subconscious - his repressed inner self beginning to break free.
This quote also backs this up - the implication being that his relationships have all failed because they were built on a version of religion and spirituality that doesn’t fit with who Eddie is at his core. Referencing that Latino culture is built on Catholicism and that isn’t the actual bedrock of Latino culture is interesting. He also references the Mayans when talking about this and pre colonialisation mesoamerica. (This shows that Ryan is well read and thinks deeply on his heritage). That in combination is interesting as a concept for Eddie. The idea that who he is at his core is actually different to the person he has ended up becoming - implying that the true Eddie is hidden beneath a history that has been imposed on him - in the same way that the culture and faith of the mayans was buried and repressed when the Spanish invaded and conquered Mexico and much of South America.
Using the word ‘wrongly’ infers that Eddie is going to choose to reveal and embrace that repressed version of himself - the version of himself that is his truest form. I already made a post about the Mayan aspect of Ryan’s interview, but I will point it out here as well. The Mayan culture embraced homosexuality, it was an accepted way of life and largely viewed in favourable light and it was in fact a major part of many religious ceremonies and in the healing of people by shamans. So along with everything else I’ve said above, that’s hinting pretty heavily at Eddie’s arc leading to him embracing his queer identity.
I noticed in Gwens upstead interview she said Hailey doesn't know "when" Jay would be coming home not if he would. Gives me hope.
My hope/dream would be that the end of the season voight gets injured or dies, Jay comes back and takes over the unit next season after getting some leadership experience in Bolivia. Maybe Hailey gets injured and ends up taking on platts role/shadowing her since Hailey became a cop because of her, and we can also get patrol back on the show
Ohhhh...Voight leaving and Jay taking his position would be the dream.
I find it funny that Gwen said, "She doesn’t know when he’s coming back." I mean yes, there isn't a set return date for Jay, but Gwen was the one that wrote the "8 months" tidbit in 10x03. Why is Gwen forgetting that and pretending that Jay's return is unlikely?
But you're absolutely right. Gwen did say "when" not "if". Which should mean there will be an eventual Upstead reunion. But then again, Gwen is known for saying things in interviews and never following through with it.
At this point, we fans have to be patient. There have been a lot of tiny details that point toward an Upstead happy ending. So that gives me hope. I don't think the journey will be pretty, but my gut tells me it will be worth it.
Following a digital humanities workshop at the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities Summer School, I used a series of software applications to analyse the transcripts of my interviews with GIS practitioners. I used freely available software such as AntTag and Gephi to create visualisations of the objects and actions that my participants spoke about during semi-structured interviews.
This process involved first, importing my interview transcripts into the TagAnt app, which attached tags to each individual word according to its type (e.g. adjective, noun, verb). I then used an advanced txt file editor to make it readable by microsoft Excel. In Excel, I built a spreadsheet that allowed me to filter out word types, sort them by frequency of use, link them to a specific participant, and export a table for Gephi to visualise.
The result was two visualisations, each visualised either the actions (verbs) or objects (nouns) referred to by each participant (each representing a particular skillset or specific area of expertise), but also tied them to other participants who shared a relationship with that word.
If you haven’t heard the interview yet, you can listen to it on soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/rae-gil/ei-podcast
Milo’s personal interview connects at many points to themes and articles of scholarship in our course as well as around indigenous parenting in Canada and pragmatic ideas for what Hunt and Holmes (2015) term “everyday decolonization” (p. 154) in many different relationships.
Milo’s account pointed to issues expressed in Clifford (2001) when zie discussed the struggles and possibilities of connecting to culture and stories while not living on your ancestral territory. Milo pointed out that this is a struggle zie can in some ways share with hir children in spite of the fact that zie is non-indigenous hirself. They both have to find ways of centering and connecting stories that often reference connections to ancestral lands while not living on, and often never having been to, those territories. As Clifford notes and Milo echoes, there is a constant struggle mirrored by many indigenous and non-indigenous people alike to resist “sacrificing attachments to a place, or places—the grounding that helps one feel at home in a world of complex interdependences.” (p. 470). Connections to land need not be an essentializing box that individuals are thrust into, rather these connections can be harnessed as a source of power and inspiration for those living in many different territories that are not those of their ancestors stories.
Milo’s example stands in stark contrast to the phenomenon of white parenting of indigenous children through forced relocation and rehoming of native kids en masse commonly known as the 60’s Scoop, discussed in Spencer (2017) among others. The attitude and language of the scoop has been the dominant narrative for transracial parenting in Canada, one which focuses on assimilation of native children through their parenting by non-indigenous parents. Milo’s account provides a different take on the opportunities of mixed-race families, one where, rather than the children losing sight of their indigenous heritage through connection with their white parents, white parents are instead integrated through interaction with indigenous languages, knowings, and stories by way of their children.
The intersections of queerness, community, and indigeneity that Milo addresses issues that are likewise rising to the fore in contemporary discourse. An example of this can be found in Hunt and Holmes’ (2015) talk about the struggles of trans/genderqueer settlers negotiating life and allyship on the stolen lands that make up Vancouver and Victoria British Columbia. Their call to adopt a “decolonial queer politic [that] is not only anti-normative, but actively engages with anti-colonial, critical race and Indigenous theories and geopolitical issues such as imperialism, colonialism, globalization, migration, neoliberalism, and nationalism” (p. 156) closely mirrors Milo’s active attempts to grapple with the myriad larger forces that impact hir family in an active way. As the authors note, this process “[unfolds] in daily acts of embodying and living Indigeneity, honoring longstanding relationships with the land and with one another.” (p. 157) This struggle is, as both the title of their piece and this blog implies, a daily and ongoing struggle, a negotiation which Milo points out isn’t something one needs to have fully figured out before embarking on the important challenge of raising a kid.
An article from Discorder by Kat Kott (2017) explores the experiences of a few two-spirit/queer indigenous people living in Vancouver, who describe their experiences. “The heteronormativity of colonization has affected Indigenous communities. ‘There’s racism and homophobia within Indigenous communities,’ June says. Despite the traditional reverence for two spirit people, Lacie explains, ‘We aren’t necessarily revered in the way people think we are.’”
This sentiment connects keenly with the critiques offered by Smith (2005) that colonial impositions of gender roles and homophobic ideas and laws that are legacies of the colonial settler state which have widespread and lingering impacts in indigenous communities to this day. In our in-class discussions on Smith’s article, the issue of sexism and homophobia as a singularly colonial legacy was contested as essentialist and reductive by some of my classmates. Nevertheless, the utility of situating colonial narratives of gender as having deeply impacted indigenous communities’ perception of gender and sexuality is clear from both Smith’s article’s discussion of the importance of sovereignty rhetoric in these contexts, and the lived experiences of the two-spirit individuals interviewed in this piece. Activism on this issue must allow for the complex interplay of oppressions to be fully expressed and acknowledged in order to allow for true change to surface. And the best criticism and activism must come from those speaking their truth from inside these experiences of intersectional oppression.
Milo’s family serves as a wonderful example of the ways individuals are negotiating “the edges, the traversed and guarded frontiers of a dynamic native life” (Clifford, p. 471) and in the process redefining their relationships to history, land and each other.
Bibliography
Clifford, J. (2001). Indigenous articulations. The Contemporary Pacific, 13(2), 467-490.
Hunt, S., & Holmes, C. (2015). Everyday Decolonization: Living a Decolonizing Queer Politics.
Journal of Lesbian Studies, 19(2), 154-172.
Smith, A. (2005). Native American feminism, sovereignty, and social change. Feminist Studies, 31(1), 116-132.
Spencer, D. C. (2017). Extraction and pulverization: a narrative analysis of Canada scoop survivors. Settler Colonial Studies, 7(1), 57-71.
Unsettling Colonial Gender Boundaries | Discorder Magazine | CiTR. Citr.ca. Retrieved 15 June 2017, from http://www.citr.ca/discorder/june-2017/unsettling-colonial-gender-boundaries/
Milo has granted consent for the distribution of this podcast.
Mini Interview Analysis - Niall and Louis Act Out Fan Fiction with Greg James
Mini Interview Analysis - Niall and Louis Act Out Fan Fiction with Greg James
I'm talking about the "One Direction Act Out Fan Fiction with Greg James #1DGregJamesFanFic" interview. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yqb4NUw6Rk)
I watched this and since I made some notes while watching it I thought I could post them because it kind of turned more into a mini analysis...
Jesus. Fucking. Christ. In the FIRST minute is so much gay stuff showing... Louis' shirt from the gay beach, Louis' smirk at the beginning [What the hell is this even?! :D], Louis' "Thank you" [You couldn't have said that more gay, could you, Lou? :D],...
Also when Greg James mentions "fanfiction" and that they're gonna talk about that - Do you see how oddly comfortable Louis is? That's not the way he is when he HAS to deny Larry (in the Much Musiv interview they mentioned fanfics before too) and then Niall coughs when Greg says he read fanfics about them [Yes, I feel you, Niall. There are fanfics about you and Greg. Ahu. I wouldn't feel comfortable too, especially when there are still the band ships and OT5. I feel you, Niall!].
When Greg says "I'm not gonna expose those people's fanfictions." - Louis' reaction is quite interesting because he's trying not to grin - that's why he pinches his nose slightly like that (even though it's a really short moment) and he keeps on genuinely smirking.
When they laugh about the "weird stuff" that Greg read - Louis' laugh sounds really staged to be honest, Niall genuinely laughs because hell yeah, he read some weird stuff too, I bet that.
Then it all turns into a kind of "dirty" direction there with a implied Greg/Niall/Louis threesome about which we all think about in this moment (If you're not thinking about that - you're either lucky or prude.) and they laugh about it.
And Niall then... WHAT IS AIR!!!?!!! OMFG!! :D
Niall (looks at Louis while talking): You're walking through a forest in Narnia [EXCUSE ME PLEASE?!! :D Yeah, okay. Just tell us again that Louis' gay, yeah. Just keep shipping Larry, Niall. ;)] with your dog which actually got the head of a sheep. [Which drugs do you take, Niall, and which fanfics do you read please?!! OMG!! :D]
Louis reads the first fanfic out loud and Niall giggles and stuff. So far so great. Niall reads the second fanfic out loud and has his problems, Louis helps him a little bit, they do short remarks. Also interesting that they joke about looking forward to see Greg shirtless and about the "hot". Doesn't make them look straight, does it? Niall's Irish and that's basically the main reason why he's so comfortable with being touchy, making slightly gay jokes and other stuff.
When they get back all dressed up Niall seems to be oddly comfortable with wearing a dress kind of and Louis is actually just himself and ignores it since he wanted to be a actor when he was younger. They start to act the fanfic out and Louis in the end asks who Babara is and seemingly knows what a cliffhanger is and doesn't like them and they continue to talk about the next tour until the end.
This all just makes me think about how "princessy" Harry is and that Louis doesn't want to be THE cliqué gay guy and I honestly think that if he likes crossdressing he doesn't like the girly clothes on himself. Just saying...
