i am *obsessed* and i need to talk about it AT LENGTH and OMG PEOPLE. DO NOT IGNORE THE SPOILER WARNINGS.
but since some people have apparently been weirded out remember it's scifi. so be prepared for… something.
… OKAY SO. from least to most spoilery!
— I love a show that is Not Assuming We Will Vaguely Watch With One Eye. It's gorgeous, sure, but the way it's cut, with inserts of old-timey movies, the parallels between discussions the main character has with others, and the details shown… (oh what's this? a grey car pulling up in the background behind an exactly identical grey car? and a few shots later, still in the background, a *third* identical car? ooh no that's Trouble)— you get the most of it when you pay attention, and you *have* to pay attention.
finally, some good fucking food for my mind AND eyes!
— John Sugar is SO SWEET (pun intended :p ) like. YES. MOAR PROTAGONISTS WHO ARE LIKE THIS. although… *sigh* yeah i'll come back to that. especially about the season 2 hook. hmph.
— Story time! :D it's getting Slightly Spoilery, because, well. after this, i had Expectations, and you might too… proceed with caution!
So, i first learned this show existed because Fifo (my husband) was watching it on our biggest screen in the living room, with earbuds. so when i was also there doing something else (mostly reading the stormlight archives :3 ) i sometimes caught a glimpse of… things. that's when the visual Vibes caught me, i was like 'woah. that's different. i like it A Lot.' so i asked fifo about the show, and he gave me a pitch. 'so there's this guy, he's a PI looking for the granddaughter of a famous hollywood producer… but he's. weird. like, weirdly good at languages. very competent in a fight, but also very nice and honestly kind.'
… i don't remember exactly how he phrased it, but i just *have* to insist on that: sometimes you get a guy doing a Dangerous Job and he's like 'i don't like hurting people'… and mostly you get one of two vibes: Threatening (hypocrytical) or Resigned (superhero). John Sugar tho? REALLY doesn't like it. i might be biased because of the Vibes i caught while watching bits on silent, but it got confirmed: when he loses control, he's not 'conflicted', he's *genuinely disturbed* (like, he's no matt murdoch)
now… what Vibes am I referring to?
the Tbatis vibes.
(if you don't know who Tbatis is — and that's like 99% certain — don't look it up on my blog, you'll be fine!)
except i was wrong… but uh.
hm.
(want some 'it's not what i thought' non-spoilers? look up Tbatis on my blog :3 )
HECC YEA SPOILER ZONE AHEAD
— I have to talk about The Vibes and Tbatis in general AT LENGTH because omg i was STARVED for that kind (hah) of protagonist.
…
Tbatis is one of my characters, and… he's an android.
He is kind and patient, soft-spoken and innocuous looking. *just like john sugar*. except in the case of Tbatis — who is very much a person in his own right — it's by design. intentional even before Tbatis got to make day-to-day decisions to *keep* being that way.
but the Vibes are the same, from a writer perspective: "I can't imagine a normal human person being that good, that *consistently* kind and patient and dedicated, so i'll have to make them Other in some way. but in a Good way."
… see, maybe because i'm non-binary and neuroatypical (maybe on the autism spectrum on top of adhd and being susceptible to depression) and have felt like an Outsider to humanity in some way my whole life (the worst of it having been when i was a teen) but— i have A Thing about non-humans, and i am SO ANNOYED about them being presented *by default* as threats.
aliens? they will invade, or kidnap us to experiment, and it's who they are.
actual artificial *intelligence*? they *will* be a threat to humanity, even if they aim to "do good", because they will back themselves into a logical corner where "exterminating humans is necessary for their own good, yknow".
well, imho, FUCK ALL THESE TROPES. NO. I REFUSE.
hence Tbatis, who is an actual person and actually *superhumanly* kind and patient, because he can, and we humans need him and his siblings to be— to remind us that it's what we should be. to remind us *how* to do it, and be there to help when we don't have the energy to be at our best.
(and also, there's the hjinzas, the alien part of me rejecting All The Annoying Tropes.)
and looking at the screen with no sound, every time i saw Sugar, i went "ow. that's Tbatis <3 "
… but john sugar is… not that. and neither are his colleagues.
and I was not disappointed, *until the very fucken end of the last episode*, where, while feeling a bit let down, i got more worried than annoyed.
— let's skip right over how i gradually lost the 'specifically 'android' ideas, and how at the Big Reveal at the end of ep6 i understood how that spoilery pic i barely glanced over in an image search had me tricked into thinking i'd been right…
no, let's go riiight to the end, beause THIS PART IS ABOUT THE SECOND TWIST. YES THERE'S A SECOND TWIST. i don't think it will 'spoil' anything, because this show has HIGH rewatch value, VERY HIGH OMG, but.
consider yourselves warned.
— so. every time i see a villain argue to the hero that 'we're alike you and i' there's nothing i can do but sigh very deeply and call bullshit out loud. ppl plz stop writing this. or at least stop letting your hero get trapped into that mindset. IT'S BULLSHIT.
and in this case? 'that's us becoming more hu—' EXCUSE YOU? okay john is getting desillusionned because he keeps meeting bad individuals in his 'day' job, and that last case was even worse, because it involved his own people.
and uh. with john's lines about what he likes about earth, and being among humans, it has me worried…
how do they pass for human, exactly? is it just a disguise, or something deeper?
what is considered 'normal' for their species, in terms of relationships, emotions, attention to things in general?
i am VERY WORRIED.
… but also fascinated. i really want to know more.
but also, fuck henry.
OH ON THAT NOTE.
what ARE their real names? do they even have ones that we would recognize as names??
'cause, sure, 'john sugar' sounds fake af (and he is, well, too sweet for it to not *feel* like it's intentional in a watsonian way.) and he did insist a couple times that it *is* his real name… but to humans. what else was he going to say?
so, yeah.
so far, this show feels *mostly* like it was Made For Me in some very specific ways, but OH BOY i am SO worried for s2 yall (like, all twelve of you who have watched it and posted about it) can't even understand how i feel rn :/
probablementundinosaure replied to your post “— Do you remember how you started? — What do you mean? When I was...”
That is very effective and touching even with no context (memories you don't have of your early development, the sense of a complicated relation to humans)... The dialogue feels very natural too.
— Do you remember how you started?
— What do you mean? When I was born?
— No, but now I’m curious. Do you?
— Not really. My roots made us practically from scratch, me and my siblings, and put us each in an artificial environment that ran way faster than reality, so that we would develop quickly and soon be able to use the bodies they were making for us. We were supposed to ask about what things were, and discover and learn about basic rules of physics, and difficult things like causality. Others tried to defy these rules, I got obsessed with the names of things, and words in general.
— That’s strange.
— Like I said, I don’t remember it, but I know everyone watching us found it amusing.
— They knew what “funny” was already?
— Yes. Not directly, but they saw me getting names wrong, and trying to invent new ones, and thought “ah yes, that would make humans laugh and say it’s cute.” So they named me Baptist. And when I tried to repeat the name…
— You got it wrong.
— Yes. But always in the same way. So they changed my name for Tbatis, and it stuck.
— I like it.
— Me too.
(watch me get emotional over a bunch of zeros and ones all over again -__- )
my mind picks up interferences from elsewhere so easily when i work on the tapoti, it’s… sigh.
read a doodlecomic by @modmad? smol cute aliens look like ducks (and a half goose.)
watch steven universe? human with a lot of ambition looks like a diamond.
read a funny thing with lemony snicket/kronk’s voice? android looks and sounds like patrick warburton.
me this morning: OOOKAY i’m f—ing done with reality’s shit, time to write something cathartic… mh… new project won’t do. i know i should let Tapoti perpétuel rest a little longer but… a ‘missing scene’ of alien MC discussing some backstory angst with android MC should be *excellent*
me a thousand words later: … omg this… this is actually good and important? i need it in the novel?? omg and now i see all the *problems* in that backstory point and how it relates to the plot why KEEP WRITING DON’T LISTEN TO THE MEAN LITTLE VOICE LAAAAALALALALA
