Valar Morghulis

Ok… Game of Thrones. Like just about everyone else on the internet I have a lot of thoughts about how this epic series arrived at it’s conclusion. A lot of thoughts, to help myself organize these thoughts I’m going to write three different posts over the next couple of weeks. Today we’ll just talk about the series finale that aired this past Sunday. Next I’ll address the elephant in the room that is Season 8 as a whole, and then finally reflect on the show in it’s entirety and what made is some of the best television I’ve ever seen, despite a totally botched ending.

In case your reading comprehension is somewhat lacking, there are going to be loads of spoilers in these posts so if you have not seen Game of Thrones but might watch it later don’t spoil it for yourself and just stop reading now. You have been warned.

Seriously, you have been warned

I don’t think the finale was as bad as many people are making it out to be. I actually find myself in a similar boat as I did when How I Met Your Mother finally came to an end, except Game of Thrones was a better overall show with a worse ending. I think I’m fine with the broad strokes of the ending but the journey to get there was such a dumpster fire that I feel like it kind of undermines the whole ending. No payoffs feel justified in the slightest.

So let’s just go point by point as things come up throughout the episode. First off, Jon Snow wanders through King’s Landing stunned by all the destruction until he and Ser Davos come upon Grey Worm and some Unsullied murdering Lannister troops that have already surrendered. It seems really messed up, but Grey Worm and the Unsullied already sacked a city that had surrendered just last episode so is Jon really that shocked by it all? Who cares, he protests the executions and Grey Worm basically threatens to kill Jon if he interferes. There is apparently a large rift between these two characters that feels entirely artificial but again, it’s whatever. Jon leaves in a huff with the intention of speaking with Dany about maybe not committing more war crimes now that the war is over and she won. This didn’t really make much sense to me because part of Jon’s whole character is that he stands up for what is right even if it puts him in a whole lot of trouble, but I guess he’s got other stuff to do so he just takes off looking conflicted and confused.

While all this is happening Tyrion goes looking through the Red Keep to see if Jamie and Cersei escaped. He finds their dead bodies and we get one of the only legitimately good scenes of the whole episode. Even with the dumpster fire he’s presented with, Peter Dinklage manages to give a compelling performance.

Jon gets to the Red Keep, is all ready to give Dany a stern talking to when she appear with this real neat looking shot.

Credit where credit is due, this looks really cool.

I guess Jon got all scared because rather than talk to Dany about the whole “maybe we shouldn’t kill everyone anymore” thing he just stands there while she delivers possibly the stupidest speech in all of Game of Thrones. I’m not trying to bash on Emilia Clarke, she brought some great energy to it, but the whole speech was basically her spelling out how super evil she was now just in case you were too dim-witted to have figured that out yet. Tyrion again enters frame, Dany accuses him of treason and he basically goes, “yeah I did it, but at least it wasn’t genocide” Dany then commands the Unsullied to imprison him. Why? I don’t know, Dany historically hasn’t really done the whole imprisonment thing, rather she prefers to let her dragon burn her enemies alive, but I guess we need Tyrion to give a speech later so he gets to live.

Jon looks really confused and conflicted and that’s pretty much been his whole character this final season so whatever. Arya shows up for no particular reason and tells Jon, “Yo Dany is real evil you need to do something about that.” Nevermind the fact that Arya is a trained assassin that can basically shapeshift into whatever person she wants to, she obviously needs Jon to kill Dany because she’s too freaking lazy to do it herself or something.

Jon then goes to talk to Tyrion who gives him the same kind of, “Dany is evil and she’s going to kill you at some point.” thing that Arya did only he adds the caveat that Dany will also kill both her sisters. Jon continues to look confused and conflicted.

Jon heads over to the throne room where Dany is touching, but not sitting on the iron throne. She’s all like, “are you ready to get down with your aunt yet?” but Jon’s pissed about her slaughtering children. The real shocker here is that it took two other people pointing out how messed up that is for Jon to realize it or care enough to actually address it. Dany tells him all about how she knows right from wrong because of course she does and when Jon asks what if other people think you’re wrong and she just says screw them I call the shots. Jon stabs Dany as they make out which should tell all women out there to never kiss boys because they’ll murder you, and sadly that’s more true that we’d all care to admit.

Drogon shows up and is pissed because mommy is dead, rather than kill Jon though he makes a political statement and melts the throne itself and then just flys off with Dany’s body. I guess Dragon’s are smart enough to understand concepts like how power corrupts even the most noble of spirits or something. I don’t know, I think they just did it to have a cool shot of the throne melting honestly.

We time skip several weeks ahead to a bunch of random lords and ladies meeting to negotiate for Jon Snow’s life or something, I don’t know it’s dumb. Tyrion is brought out because even though earlier in the episode Grey Worm was more than happy to execute anyone Tyrion gets a pass. Good lord Grey Worm really is like the stupidest character in the whole show. Grey Worm yells at Tyrion about not talking and then lets me give a speech for like 5 whole minutes because why not?

Samwell also gives a speech about implementing democracy into their feudal society and is laughed down because why would a group of like 15 people who control the world turn it over to the masses?

They all decide instead that Bran, the all knowing and totally emotion-less cripple will be king of the 6 kingdoms, because apparently the North just gets to peace out because wish fulfillment or something stupid. (ok maybe this finale is as bad as people say) Seriously though, there are at least two other kingdoms represented here that have wanted independence that don’t even bother to ask for it because I guess they’re not important enough. Bran names Tyrion his hand because again why not grant wish fulfillment to Tyrion if were doing it for Sansa? The only other take-away is how kind puberty was to Robyn Arryn.

Breastmilk man…

They then decide that Jon won’t be executed but rather sent North to serve with the Night’s Watch which exists for some reason still.

Grey Worm and the Unsullied/Dothraki (seriously why are they still alive?) decide to peace out, probably because they realized how screwed they got with the whole Jon Snow situation.

Tyrion preps for a small council meeting, Samwell is now grand maester, Ser Davos is master of ships and probably the only character ending I liked. Brianne is now Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and show up to the meeting after engaging in some serious historical revision about Jaime. Ser Bronn is now Lord of Highgarden and master of coin, because a sell sword who became a Lord is exactly who should be managing the kingdoms finances. I get wanting to put him and Tyrion back together, but couldn’t you just make him master of war or something that actually made sense? Of course not because we want to have him make a joke about using the crown’s money to rebuild brothels. Just please make it stop. Bran shows up for a whole 10 seconds to ask if anyone has seen Drogon since he peaced out and that’s a legit concern because he’s basically a wandering weapon of mass destruction and you want to at least try and keep tabs on that. Otherwise were not shown in any respect to how Bran will rule the kingdoms. He probably just stares at people awkwardly until they leave and ask Tyrion to solve problems.

Arya goes sailing because she’s apparently too cool for everyone now.

Jon arrives at the wall and then immediately leaves to go live north of the wall with the free folk because again, wish fulfillment. He pets Ghost this time though so that’s a small win.

Then it’s over. The only real silver-lining to how bad the ending was is that I’m not deeply upset that the show is over now, I’m kind of relieved that they can’t butcher these beloved characters anymore then they already have. I’ll get more into all the character assassination that took place throughout season 8 next time. Later.

My First Foray Into Mormon Twitter

It’s been a busy semester, but know summer is upon us and I have all the time in the world to be productive, unwind or whatever I feel like doing. In this case that means repeatedly going down the Mormon Twitter rabbit hole.

Folks, it’s a weird place down there. I’m not going to try and explain all of it because I think it wouldn’t be possible to cover the whole thing in a blog. That’s much more of a topic for a book… or several. Also I’m not equipped right now to write that book, maybe someone else is though and they really should, because I guarantee it’d be a fascinating read. It’s such a weird place, theres like an alt-right section of Mormon twitter, a far left section, influencers who are trying to parlay their faith into a career and endless memes, it’s so bizarre and fascinating.

Again, not going to try and deconstruct all that, rather I wanted to take a specific look at one take I saw whilst roaming the wilds of Mormon twitter.

I’m not trying to bash the guy, but I see this take not just from him but from people all over the church and it’s always bothered me a little bit. I’ve cleaned up his grammar a bit for the sake of readability, but haven’t changed any of the words written.

I want to break this up into two parts, first that bit towards the end where he mentions how uncontroversial it is to be evangelical, catholic, agnostic, or atheist, but it is controversial to be a member of The Church.

First off, no. That’s not true. Depending on where you live, and who you speak with and a whole bunch of other factors it’s totally possible that it is controversial to be Evangelical, Catholic, Agnostic, or Atheist. If someone was a devout evangelical and lived in an ultra secular and liberal neighborhood here in the states you don’t think they would get bashed at all? What about someone very open and vocal about their atheism at BYU? Do you think in some Evangelical or Baptist circles Catholics get bashed on?

That’s just taking into account the religions the tweet brought up, I’m sure some of you are like me and noticed that there was no mention of eastern religions like Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. How about being Muslim? You don’t have to look far these days to figure out that being Muslim is pretty controversial in a lot of circles. How about those of the Jewish faith? Jehovah’s witnesses? Scientology?

The list goes on and on, whatever faith a person might have you can pretty much guarantee that somewhere there’s a group of people who will ridicule them for their belief, and thanks to the internet it’s super easy for those that hate you to let you know that they hate you and just how much they hate you. Isn’t it wonderful?

Seriously though, insinuating at any level that faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only controversial one is either dangerously naive, downright stupid, or deliberately misleading thinking. Any of which is deeply concerning for someone with any amount of public influence. This was a thread of tweets so you can’t hide behind the limited number of characters thing. You had the space to put many different religions into your tweets and you opted to only mention a couple sects of Christianity, the denial of the existence of God, and those who just don’t know for sure.

Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system allow me to move onto the bigger point of these tweets. The point Thekwakue is trying to get across (at least what I read) is that people shouldn’t give up hope and faith when they face discrimination as Latter-Day Saints, that because of the mocking, ridicule, bashing, and other various forms of discrimination they face they can know that their faith is real and their religion true. The world fears this truth and that is why they seek to tear it down.

This point makes way more sense if you honestly believe members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are the only people facing religious discrimination. We’re not though, so this doesn’t make any sense. Should everyone who is ridiculed for their belief take it as a sign that they are on the right path? If you apply this logic to the extreme then members of groups like ISIS can take heart in the fact the rest of the world hates them, because they must really be on the right path. Same for a group like the Westboro Baptist Church. Opposition doesn’t prove true faith.

This narrative that because members of the Church are ridiculed that The Church must be true is one that is very common in the LDS faith. I’ve never been a big fan of it. I’ve always felt that it was horribly divorced from a greater context of world religion. Every faith is mocked, every belief is mocked, that doesn’t make any of them any more valid or true necessarily. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are not special in this regard. It sounds like I’m just bashing really hard on my own religion, but I think it’s important to be able to be critical of those within your own “group” so to speak, otherwise the discourse will inevitably become an echo chamber and you’ll be left with a bunch of morons patting each other on the back. No one wants that.

Honorable Enforcement

With the creation of the @honorcodestories Instagram account, there has been a ton of talk around the honor code office of Brigham Young University (BYU). In the last 72 hours or so the account has surged from 80 followers to over 12,000 (15,000 at the time of posting) and the owner of the account has been interviewed by a number of news channels and is preparing to give interviews for newspapers including at least 2 out of state papers. Suffice to say it’s quickly grown into quite the topic of discussion here in Provo and may become a talking point to even larger audiences as the week continues. I obviously want to get my two cents in because I’m just an opinionated punk who can’t help himself. It’s also something that I feel very strongly about.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about the ins and outs of the honor code. You can read it for yourself here if you’re curious. All I’ll say is that most of it is already in line with teachings and practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and with the vast majority of students at BYU being members so most of that stuff shouldn’t be all that controversial. I don’t have a real problem with the honor code itself, if it were up to me I’d tweak a few things but nothing major. My beef is with how the honor code is enforced and the office that does that enforcing. So let’s remember that going forward. Honor code? weird but OK. Honor code office? Terrible and in desperate need of change.

Let’s also get something clear, one of the central ideas, in fact, the central idea of The Church is that Jesus Christ suffered in Gethsemane and died on Calvary so he could atone for the sins of humanity. This means that we can all repent of sin and be forgiven. Forgiveness and mercy are what’s emphasized in Church teaching. It should follow then that an institution like BYU and its enforcement of their honor code should emphasize forgiveness and mercy, but forgiveness and mercy are not what is emphasized by the honor code office. The honor code office is one that seeks to mete out punishment and what they view as justice at every opportunity. It is not a place where merciful solutions are sought out. This massive difference in approach is at the core with my problem with the honor code office. Nothing about what I’m reading feels like they have any love for the students they’re supposed to be helping.

I should also mention that I have no personal history with the honor code office. I’ve never been asked to come in. No punishment has been given to me or anything like that. I’ve been somewhat aware of the absurdities of the honor code office, but never in a direct way. It was just this week where I started to learn more about the specifics and these stories are what’s really got my stomach turning.

One thing about the honor code office that honestly just boggles my mind are the stories of students who have done things before they attended BYU (and therefore before they signed the honor code) that would be considered against the honor code and the punishments handed out for such actions. We all get why this is backwards right? How it’s totally unfair to punish someone for doing something BEFORE they agreed not to do it? Right? So we can all agree that’s messed up.

Another frightening practice I see in these stories that very much bothers me is how honor code office will call mental health clinics and demand confidential information about students who have used their services.

That is beyond a yikes from me. It’s disgusting.

It’s just a horrible thing to try and violate the confidentiality of a patient and their therapist. For some students, their therapist may be the only person they feel like they can trust with this sensitive information regarding deeply personal and potentially traumatic events in their lives and the expectation of confidentiality is one of the things that can help these students feel comfortable enough to talk about their traumas and begin to work through them and heal. I can’t imagine how much of a setback it could be for someone working through trauma to not only find out your therapist gave away your secret but you now have the added stress that you may be kicked out of university for trusting a therapist. Not OK.

Then there’s the difference in enforcement by the honor code office between women and men. A horrific theme that emerges is of women who get assaulted by their boyfriends or guys they’re on a date with. They (The women) then report themselves to the honor code office and are punished whilst the men get off Scot-free or perhaps a slap on the wrist. It’s totally unacceptable under any circumstance. Even if you think the honor code is totally backwards you would agree that the insanity should be applied evenly to all who agree to it no? If there is was even a single instance where this has happened in a place like a corporation or other professional environment heads would roll for something so terrible.

I don’t want to just sit here and complain about all the things I think are awful about the honor code office. I want to try and offer the bare bones of what a solution would be for them. It’s really rather simple. You need a dramatic culture shift within the honor code office. Remember earlier when I pointed out that The Church preaches forgiveness and mercy through Jesus Christ and his Atonement? The honor code office needs to reflect those teachings, not strive against it.

Students who make honest mistakes should not worry about whether they’ve jeopardized their entire academic career because things got a little hot and heavy with their girlfriend/boyfriend or they let peer pressure get the better of them and had a few drinks. When students feel this way their instinct is going to be to hide from their actions, and this develops a culture of secrecy that can only lead to worse problems.

Students who break the honor code rules should not be immune to consequences for their actions, and I would never suggest that, but those consequences should be structured in a way that reminds these students that even though they’ve fallen down that their school is there to help them back up, not kick them while they’re down. Shaming those who are trying to do good has no place at the Lord’s university. People in need of help should be directed to their church leaders who love and care for them, and if those leaders aren’t able to show that love for them we need to find the leaders that will. The Savior taught with an unending love for all of mankind, sinners and saints alike. If BYU really is his university the people who watch over the students need to go forth with that same love.

I love so many things about BYU, but reading these stories just makes my heart ache and my stomach turn. I hope things get better at the honor code office, I hope they change into an institution that people praise for love and understanding. That’s not up to me though. I’m just one student that believes things can and should be better. Later

Image sourced from BYU, I claim no ownership over it.

Hot Takes: Esports Edition

It’s april fool’s so nothing I say is going to be taken seriously so why not go over some thoughts I have about various Esports because it’s not like anyone cares especially today.

Cinderhulk Jarvan is actually like the stupidest build in the world. The entire point of picking Jarvan is using his strong early game ganks to create and subsequently snowball a lead into enough map control to capture Baron and push towards a victory. Nothing kills your effort to snowball a game like building 0 damage and trying to smack your wet noodle of a champion around. For the love of all that is good, play into Jarvan’s strengths and build Warrior.

I really liked the GOATS meta of competitive Overwatch. I know some people don’t like seeing the same 6 heroes over and over again, but GOATS required a lot of critical thinking from the people that played it in order to properly manage your ult economy and be aware of exactly what your opponents were capable of. It rewarded the smartest of players rather than those who were just skilled mechanically. As an added plus it curved the excessive use of Mercy in competitive and that’s just lovely.

Sidenote, Mercy’s resurrection mechanic is just bad competitive design. It allows teams to make enormous mistakes and have a hero come by and erase the fact that you screwed everything up. I think it’s not too bad now that it has such a long cooldown and Mercy ult doesn’t give another free rez but I’d still prefer it just gone from any competitive version of the game. Thematically it’s pretty dope though.

On the other hand I’m generally OK with resurrection mechanics in League of Legends, except Zilean. Zilean ult needs like twice the cooldown it has, at least from level 16 onwards.

Hungrybox might just be one of the greatest smash players to ever pick up a controller, but Puff is still the most horrendously boring to watch character in the game. I’d rather watch 100 wobbles than a single puff versus a campy fox match. I respect Hungrybox’s skill a lot, but good lord make it stop.

Fortnite could’ve been the biggest esport ever but Epic squandered it with game changes that knee-capped the competitive players in order to keep very casual players from feeling like they sucked too much.

This isn’t really that much of a hot take at this point, but league of legends champions hit their power spikes way way too early. I remember the good ole days where there were actual late game champions that didn’t become strong until they got 4 items or so and you needed to actually work with your team to enable them. Now everyone is crazy strong after 2 items and some champs just become useless later so no one even bothers to pick them. I get Riot’s desire to keep game times a little shorter, but this desire has made a lot of their champions useless and left to collect dust on a figurative shelf

A North American team will never win the League of Legends world championship. Ever. Also since I’m using Faker in the picture I should have a hot take about him. Faker is the weak link of the current SKT T1 line-up, and while part of that is due to how the team plays he’s still not doing his best and it’s showing.

Later!

Open Close Open Close

I’m sure every single one of us has had this experience where we close an app on our phone like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc only to reopen it 5 minutes later. For a really long time, I attributed this, at least for myself, with the fact that I tend to zone out and really think about what I’m doing a lot of the time. Naturally if one spends half their time daydreaming then stupid things like closing Reddit and immediately reopening Reddit wouldn’t be that much of a suprise.

I want to try and get a real idea of how much I do it though, so for the next week, I’m going to keep a running tally of all the times I close an app and then reopen it within 5 minutes. Part of me is terrified to put a definitive number on it because I know it’s going to be way higher than I originally thought, but you gotta identify just how bad a problem is before you can work to solve it right? Speaking of the problems since I’m tracking one aspect of my social media habits I figured I would also track (roughly) my total social media use over the week. For the sake of clarity, that means I’ll be tracking time spent on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit. This number is going to be depressing. I have to sate my curiosity though. I just gotta know!

I’ll let you all know a week from now how that turns out, or maybe I’ll be so disgusted with myself I’ll quit the internet all together, who knows? Later!

2019 Oscars

So the Oscars are tonight. Huh. I won’t lie, I really don’t care about this years Oscars. When the nominations were first announced I was disappointed with them, mostly the nominations for best picture. The Oscars moved a few years back to allow up to 10 movies to be nominated for best picture, this year they chose only to nominate 8.

Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther, Green Book, Roma, The Favorite, Blackkklansman, Vice, and A Star is Born. We all know I feel Black Panther is overrated so it’s placement here is entirly because of its cultural impact and not on it actually being a quality film which is fine I guess, but films like Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice have no real place in this category, They’re above average (Ok Vice is actually just average) movies for sure, but to say that they should be considered the best movie of the year while First Reformed, Eighth Grade, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, First Man, Creed II, Isle of Dogs and A Quiet Place are ignored is just tragic. It’s the worst-kept secret that money and campaigning determines most if not all of who wins the actual awards, but to not even nominate some of these while nominating others is just plain stupid.

Take a look at Vice, it tried to emulate the style of The Big Short, but playing a biopic about Dick Cheney so fast and loose just doesn’t work at like all. It’s nominated liberal Hollywood elites watched it and thought to themselves, “Yes I also think Dick Cheney was a bad guy who abused power, therefore this movie is good!” It’s so stupid. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t-a fan of Dick, but that doesn’t make an average movie really good all of the sudden.

Oh well, what can I do about it? Not watch probably. I’ll still make some predictions though.

Actor in a leading role: Christian Bale will win for Vice, I know I just bashed the movie a lot, but Bale’s performance is so good it elevated what is otherwise a bad movie to average. It’s exceptional.

Actor in a Supporting Role: Mahershala Ali will win for Green Book and they’ll be 100 articles more written about the historical inaccuracies of Green Book.

Actress in a Leading Role: Glenn Close, The Wife. End of story.

Animated Feature Film: Incredibles 2 will probably win because Disney/Pixar always win, but Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse is miles bedtter.

Directing: This is a toss-up for me, I’m tempted to say Alfonso Cuaron for Roma, but I also really want to say Spike Lee for Blackkklansman. I’ll stick with my initial gut and go with Alfonso.

Original Song: I’M OFF THE DEEP END, WATCH AS I DIVE IN… Shallow’s got this locked up as far as I’m concerned even though I think there are better songs in A Star is Born than it.

Best Picture: I’m gonna go for Roma on this one, I know Netflix really really wanted to win a big Oscar like this and so they probably campaigned super hard and as I said before, money really wins these things.

Adapted Screenplay: Blackkklansman, they gotta give Spike Lee something.

Original Screenplay: First Reformed is actually nominated for this so I’m really tempted to go with it, but something like Green Book will probably win.

No one cares about the rest of them so I won’t make predictions. Someone let me know how I do because I’m not watching. Later.

Provo’s Most Eligible Ep. 3: Charmless and Inconsistent

One rebranding later, and Utah valley’s most awkward show is ready to get back to business. On the surface this should have been the most exciting episode yet, one contestant abandoned the show without notice, the show’s first kiss, and even zombies! In reality though I think this is easily the worst episode yet released.

The huge charm of reality shows is the reality part. We all know that most of what’s on these shows aren’t real, but in the moment of it all, it feels real. Provo’s Most Eligible doesn’t feel real in any way, shape, or form. Every moment feels wholely manufactured, and a huge part of this is the way they’ve edited this episode. The initial group date initially tries to convince us that the contestants are legitimately scared of the antics of their zombie-themed escape room, it’s over the top but on its own it’s fine. It’s believable that some people could be easily startled, but when you show them freaking flossing in the very next shot it makes it impossible to suspend one’s disbelief. All I was able to focus on was how fake everything felt. Soap operas are more believable than this BS.

I get why the show is doing this though. People initially responded to all the cringy/relatable things contestants did and they focused on showing as much of that as possible. By focusing so much of their time trying to find all the cringy moments though we’ve been left with little to no time to actually connect with contestants or learn about them. Seriously every time I write about this show I have to go look up what these peoples names are. It’s embarassing to still have to do that after 3 episodes.

Combine this bad editing/direction ruining immersion with the horrifically blatant and shameless shilling for sponsors. Seriously, in the escape room date it begins with them walking in and then the camera pans up to show the name of the place and it holds that shot way too long. Then we actually get a speech from an employee of the escape room basically telling us why their escape room is so great. It’s just an ad, it had nothing to do with the show. This is repeated for the solo date when they go slack-lining and then out to dinner to Zaos Asian Cafe, all three of these activities have extended shots on signage or logos of the apparent sponsors. You want to know a better and more organic way to include a sponsor plug, have your host welcome the contestants to the place of business, have the contestants give meaningful reviews of their time there. I hope none of these people making the show are interested in marketing or advertising, because they suck at it.

The pinnacle of these terrible decisions by the creators has to be the fact that they had a contestant suddenly stop coming to the events and no joke there isn’t any closure on that. They have Colin talk about how disappointed and worried he is for 2 minutes and then they just never come back to it. Any reality show worth its salt would dump 15-20 minutes on that, it’s an inherently dramatic moment. Is she in danger? Does she hate Colin now? Was there a family emergency? Did one of the girls threaten her? What happened to Meghan?

We should have Colin talk about how concerned he is, then cut to a couple of contestants that want to throw shade at her, a couple more that are worried about her and at least one who is totally indifferent. From there actually make use of the host as he is constantly trying to get in contact with her, Colin placing a single phone call isn’t nearly enough. People need to investigate this and we as the audience need to see them investigate! SHOW DON’T TELL! After some investigation, they decide as a group to reluctantly continue, then after the closing credits, we cut back to Colin or Remington and they tell us what happened to Meghan after the fact.

For those unaware apparently she got engaged between episodes, which is like the most Provo thing ever, but the fact that I had to have a friend tell me that is beyond stupid. Shame on you show, I shouldn’t have to go do research just to find out why a girl just up and left your show.

Let’s actually talk about the episode and what happened though, I could ramble about the terrible production decisions forever, but people want hot takes about the contestants. After the “Definitely not a rose ceremony” that barely even made an effort to change anything (If I was Warner Bros I’d still copyright strike that ish) were left with Wholesome Kate, Old Maid McKenna, Kissless Elena, Diversity Hire Annalee, and Saliva-Swapping Annali. I’m pretty sure those names give a clear indication who I like and who I couldn’t care less about. If I had to guess I would say that Annali and McKenna are the two front-runners to win Colin’s heart. I’m still rooting for Kate though, even though she’s too kind-hearted for reality TV. Annalee reeks of “influencer” culture which part of me simply despises, and I’m still unconvinced that Elena isn’t entirely carried by her accent.

I’m being pretty mean right now, but hot takes are gonna get a little mean and the show gives me so little to actually like anymore I’m stuck just being a hater. What can you do? I committed myself to write about this show so I have to keep watching, but I acknowledge that I’m doing it pretty reluctantly now. I’ll do my best to keep an open mind and if the show gets its crap together I’ll get back on the hype train. Later

Endings

Let’s just get to it. Lindsay and I broke up. She broke up with me, I know that’s something people want to know. I told her I was going to write this blog post as well. Writing is my main way of processing these feelings and I just need to start going through those feelings.

What does that mean for me? Honest to goodness I don’t know. All I know right now is that there is a weight attached to my whole body that just won’t let up. I know that I’m angry. There’s always anger that comes with things like this. Never at her though, I couldn’t be angry at her. She explained why she wanted to break up well and had very good reasons. I won’t go into it because that’s entirely personal and between the two of us. Not something you put on a blog post.

It’ll take some time but I do believe we’ll remain friends. Some of you will say that this is a terrible idea, and you may well be right. It may lead to a lot more pain for both of us, but our friendship is valuable enough to warrant an attempt. We’re not going to try and pretend like we can just swap over to being friends again. They’ll be a lengthy period of time where we don’t talk to each other so that we both and process and move on.

It’s going to a lonely period of time, I won’t lie. I have wonderful friends in my life and I’ll be sure to spend quality time with them, but anyone who has been in a serious break-up knows that there holes left that no other person can fill. There are wounds that can only be healed by time.

I won’t lie, I didn’t see this coming. I’m devastated and I’m heart-broken. I’ll be alright though, eventually. I don’t think there’s much more I can say right now. It’s all so fresh. Later.

Where I’ve Been

You wanna hear a really obvious statement? Life gets really busy sometimes.

My life has been super busy lately, let me get you up to speed.

As of right now, I work two part-time jobs, one as an early morning custodian at BYU, (4am-8am baby! Sleep is for the weak!) and the other as a Deli Clerk at Day’s Market, a local grocery store. (SCHLICE SCHLICE) On top of that, I’m taking a couple of classes at BYU still. Only like 6 credit hours though so not totally insane, just partially. Also I’ve started writing pitches in an attempt to get a few freelance writing jobs, figured I should actually try and make money at this at some point right? With all that the few spare moments I have left over I try to make sure that I’m spending enough time with my wonderful and lovely girlfriend Lindsay.

This leaves just no time to do much of anything, let alone sit down and try to write blog posts that aren’t absolute trash. Now should be the time where I present some sort of remedy for this problem, but frankly, I don’t have much of a solution worked out. The best I’ve come up with so far is to get back on a regular sleeping schedule, but anyone who knows me knows that me and sleep have just never worked out. We’re like Ross and Rachel, one of is always pining for the other but it’s just not gonna work out. Maybe it will one day, I haven’t finished Friends yet so I really don’t know. I’m just trying to use the references now that I actually know them. (I wonder what the equivalent of “WE WERE ON A BREAK” would be in this analogy? it was only a nap? I don’t know, probably stretching it too far)

There is something I can promise for sure though. If and when I do manage to find some time that isn’t dedicated to something else I’ll be sitting in my chair, slapping away at my keyboard to try and write blogs. Just be aware that because of time restrictions I won’t have time to research anything so I’m just gonna have to write about what I already know really well. So lots of movie and League of Legends ramblings are coming your way! (YAY everyone loves league of legends!) Later!

Provos Most Eligable?

Well, life got busy for me for a little while there and that pushed back my write-up for the second episode of the surprise online hit “The Bachelor of Provo” so far that the show isn’t even called The Bachelor of Provo anymore.

For those unaware (I can’t fathom how you wouldn’t know about the renaming but still want to read this blog post) shortly after the second episode of The Bachelor of Provo a few news outlets had started picking up on the buzz around the show and once they started publishing interviews with the creators and articles about the show surprise, surprise the big bad guys of Warner Bros came down with copyright allegations and they came down hard. So hard that they forced the show to rename itself and drop the rose ceremony from the show entirely, alongside some other less monumental changes.

I won’t lie, part of me wants to get into the nitty-gritty of exactly why the show got copyright striked and how totally in the right Warner Bros was to do it (legally at least) but that’s probably a whole other write-up on its own. So let’s just stay focused on my thoughts and feelings of episode two of Provo’s Most Eligible?

Right at the start, we have another skit about Provo dating and just… no. We’re all painfully aware of what this show is about and if we’re sitting down to watch episode two we don’t need to be reminded or sold on it again. We want to watch cringy Provo people be hilariously awkward around each other so we can all feel better about the awkward, cringy stuff we do in our day to day lives. No skits required.

Moving past that though we get the intro sequence and then cut directly to… Colin walking onto a stage and doing some of the most amazing, and definitely awkward white guy dancing ever caught on camera. I’m a really bad dancer, but that was just rough to watch.

After (AFTER) Colin’s routine? It’s explained to us that the group date portion of the show will be a talent show! Oh cool right? Wrong. Rather then having a diverse set of acts to showcase the uniqueness of each contestant we get just an enormous hot mess. Props to Annalee though for at least trying to be unique with tap-rapping. Would’ve been like way cooler if you did both at the same time, but separate is fine too I suppose.

I know I said I wouldn’t mention copyright stuff, but can we not all acknowledge the hilarity of this show consistently using that garbage copyright free music only to get struck down with copyright strikes anyway? Just hilarious.

Anyways, after the talent show we’re treated to our first solo date with Colin and Megan! Megan is the one… ahhh…. hold on. *Googles furiously* Megan the surgical technology major! I’m sure she has other definining personality traits but good lord can we not tell from the show, at least we get this scene with the blanket depicted below and it’s gotta be the most provo thing I’ve ever seen on a screen. Just spectacular for all the wrong reasons.

Cred @Provosmosteligable

From there were back to them all hanging out and trying to chat with Colin and we finally get some juicy drama. It starts with Abby taking Colin aside and basically asking him why he’s even bothering with these other girls because their connection is so strong.

Big plays for big ballers ya know?

The drama continues to flow as it’s revealed (By Abby I think, pot stirrer much?) that Lucy, in between filming episode one and two got a boyfriend. Seriously people, if you’ve never been to Provo this is actually the kind of stuff that happens on a regular basis. Colin and Lucy handle it like mature adults though and Lucy departs the show that night. Whatever shall we do without another blonde, average height, person from… was it Hawaii? Yeah, Hawaii. That’s the one. Jeez Colin has a type and it’s showing.

There’s a couple more things that happen like Kate showing Colin more magic, and even though it’s totally obvious that the show is super fake bordering on scripted the two of them have a fun energy together. Like two dweebs just dorking out together.

Oh yeah, there’s also this tiny little thing of Annali trying to snag a SMOOCH from Colin. Dang, I’m upset that I’ve already used the bold strategy meme in this write-up because that was a extra big play for a truly enormous baller. Props to going for it Annali, and extra props for asking for consent first, it’s 2019 people, consent isn’t hard. Simple verbal confirmations are easy enough right? I mean he shot her down so that’s unfortunate for Annali, but I’ve still gotta give her points for trying right?

After the smooch rejection tragedy (or a blessing depending on your POV) we get to the rose ceremony (last one apparently!) and honest to goodness who even cares at this point. Both Annalee and Annali move onto the next round which means there is still hope in my heart that they’ll have a duel to the death to absorb each other’s powers highlander style. The adorkable Kate got a rose and so did everyone’s favourite girl with an accent Elena, everyone else doesn’t matter anymore as far as I’m concerned.

New episode of Provo’s Most Eligable comes out this weekend and now that I’ve got a somewhat normal schedule I should be able to get the write-up on it out in a more timely manner. So like a week, week and a half from now I guess? Till then, Later!