#especially knowing that she and meta were war partners

[ask-prismaknight]

(I don't know to what degree you count the anime, but since I love Sword and Blade...) I wanted to ask what Prisma would think of Sword and Blade, given that Meta Knight took them in after the war, they're kinda like his adopted street children. They'd probably be delighted to hear that Meta Knight has a kind of sister and want to meet her. Found family my beloved...🙏

Any friend of their lord is a friend of theirs :)

Edit: Realizing I missed answering part of the ask DHSJDS but she likes them! They're very respectful and kind to her and she appreciates it.

#prisma knight #borbology #sword knight #blade knight #they respect her as much as they do meta #especially knowing that she and meta were war partners #they want to learn from her too

[the-sage-libriomancer]

i try not to overthink the worldbuilding in Scoob and Shag because it's a thin premise that can't withstand much scrutiny (especially stuff relating to Toone), but i did have some thoughts that don't blow up the story's logic, so.

-first of all, the concept of "cartoon characters = actors" is inherently fascinating. especially since a lot of the actors seem to be government workers as well, implying the government used their own staff along with professional actors (like Yoge). what was the criteria? did they just have to look human? did Toone write show premises around whatever "characters" they had available? maybe that would explain some illogical plots and clunky lines in saturday morning cartoons - the actors didn't have much acting experience, and for all we know the writers were entry-level accountants.

-ballyhoo is also fascinating. it's basically a living metaphor for how an audience can influence their media: a toon's ballyhoo is directly empowered by how much love the human population gives them, just like how enough love of a fictional character makes them popular enough to keep appearing in media. it increases their strength (bc they have influence over the world) and extends their lifespan (bc they don't "die" until people stop caring about them), and all the ballyhoos are named after tv/movie terms like Picture in Picture or Jump Cut, implying that using tv/movie screens as a medium influences what sort of abilities they can get.

-the fact that too much ballyhoo causes you to instinctively, uncontrollably break the fourth wall is super fun and super fascinating and (as Bugs demonstrates) super horrifying. too much energy from meta sources causes the confines of your narrative to break down, leaving you in a weird spot in-between your world and a world you can't see.

-i can't stop thinking about The Inspector's backstory. it's just so tragic. born an android, given a literal soulmate shortly after creation, constantly looked down upon for not having a ballyhoo, losing his soulmate to old age, then losing his home to a war caused by the very thing you were devalued for not having. Bugs said that a toon's ballyhoo can extend their lifespan (likely bc a character who's beloved by fans doesn't really die), so the fact that Penny got old and died means she wasn't popular enough with the humans, which makes sense - Inspector Gadget is the iconic one after all. he's the one who everyone loved and remembered, and it was completely useless to him because he didn't have ballyhoo. no wonder he never smiles.

-i just realized that the Inspector was forced to leave Penny's grave behind when he escaped Toone. he can never visit her again :(

-speaking of screen partners, i love thinking about how the dynamics in cartoon series translate into real life and vice versa. it's a chicken and egg question: did certain characters land roles together because they were friends, or did they become friends because they worked together as actors? were Spongebob and Patrick actually buddies? did Felix the Cat work with Mick back in the beginning days of sending broadcasts? what's Scooby's professional opinion on Scrappy-Doo?

-(i wonder if you could justify the short period in Scooby-Doo history where Shaggy and Scooby were the only members of the gang regularly appearing in shows as "the government needed a way to keep the dangerous terrorists busy so they literally Could Not let those two stop appearing in things" asjhshbjahsjahsja)

-i I love that all the commanders are cartoon characters who were so popular/beloved that they seeped into (usamerican) popular culture: Mickey Mouse, Homer Simpson, Bugs Bunny, etc. They were the most powerful because their cartoons became the powerhouses of their respective eras - you can't get more loved than them.

-i wonder if the Simpsons were basically an ageless family back on Toone because they're still popular even after 40+ years, halting their aging. actually, i bet a lot of toons stopped aging after ballyhoo became commonplace. if your lifespan was defined by how loved you were by a fickle human audience, how do you think that affected relationships? it must've been hard if you had a tangible, literally life-affecting gauge of how popular you are according to alien beings you've never met.

-i was thinking about why Kermit is included as an mc when he's a muppet and the other toons are strictly western animation characters. the doylist explanation is that the author hadn't decided to limit the media used (similar to how Mario and Goku appear in early episodes), but i have a watsonian theory. i think Kermit is from the old Muppet Babies saturday morning cartoon, all grown up. he might've been a child actor who stayed with the government even after aging out, possibly explaining why there aren't any other muppets: they left the business and probably didn't escape Toone as a result.

-relatedly: my headcanon is that traditional (i.e. not toon-led) animation IS possible in this universe, and any animated project not usamerican is created that way. so anime is to the toons as a cg character is to humans, and the Goku pic is the equivalent of...i dunno, a photo of Avatarized Jake Sully lol.

-the fact that anime characters apparently didn't exist on Toone is probably for the best. can you imagine how powerful characters like Sasuke and Bakugo would be lmao.

-lastly, i was thinking about the old gods (or whatever they are). i'm pretty sure they're beings who exist behind the fourth wall. when Dee is pulled into the purple one's domain, she at first sees it as a wide open area in space, but then she starts processing it as more of a glass cube, with one huge window screen, large tubes, and wires running through the floating spheres - not unlike being held inside a tv. the purple god even says that staying too long will cause her mind to "shatter under the weight of reality" which...i think discovering you're actually a fictional character in a webcomic would do that to you. so the gods "interfering" is them going against the story's narrative to give the characters a boost. (this might tie into who Bugs is talking to when he/she addresses the camera - it's not technically us, it's the gods behind the wall.)

i have other thoughts but uh. this post is probably long enough.

#scoob and shag #analysis #i just finished rereading the webcomic and i'm obsessed with it again #there's so much going on and so much still untold #the metaness of it all is so much fun to read! #i love not knowing which characters will show up #and how their cartoons will be molded into new backstories #every single one always hits me like a truck #sage speaketh #i hope it updates again. i miss it #edited for your convenience #<- just cleaned up some wording + formatting

[inhonoredglory]

i dont know if you partake in any of the doctor who comics at all - i certainly dont. i like keeping my sanity safe (its a mess of strange stories and paradoxes from what ive been able to tell. as are most comic series). but recently there was one that elaborated a bit on rose and the metacrisis’s life post journeys end, and its one of the few pieces of media we have for them. i didnt care enough to read the whole thing, the only interesting part to me was apparently they had a little girl named mia, and ive been thinking abt that dynamic nonstop since. cant decide how realistic it is for them, but on the otherside augh its so sweet. anyway, i just wanted to ask how you feel about rose and the metacrisis in general, and whatever that entails. curious abt ur thoughts on them!

- armin anon/lesbian anon/whatever you feel like calling me lol

OMGG my anon (of many names lol)! OK first off, I drafted some of this way back but forgot to add on and post, so in the words of our beloved Doctor,

🌹 But onto the DW comics and Meta-Crisis/Rose!!

I only recently started reading the comics, starting with the ones about Gabby Gonzalez by Nick Abadzis, and I have to admit:

They make me yearn pretty fucking hard to run away and travel with the Doctor. There's some killer art by Elena Casagrande that feels so much like the Doctor we know and love (that kindness, that earnest love.... god!! my heart and soul!!).

But I warn ye (any readers of this post), DO NOT TOUCH Volume 2 by Robbie Morrison. He takes Ten blatantly out of character, making him out to be an arrogant bastard who belittles his companion and is flippant in the face of suffering. (Morrison watched too much Eleven, methinks 🙈)

I haven't read the Rose/Meta-Crisis comic yet (part of the Empire of the Wolf series), but I did see the important panel from that series, showing Rose's daughter Mia:

I think the Meta-Crisis settling down to have a family with Rose is pretty in-character and very much what the Tenth Doctor would have wanted, as much as it hurt him.

Because Ten fundamentally felt unworthy of Rose.

💔 The Doctor's Trauma

Rose was strong and compassionate and amazing, and Ten had done so much, seen so much, experienced so much tragedy and guilt. He's a man wrecked by PTSD, depression, shame, and self-blame. He felt like it wasn't fair to her that she'd sacrifice her life to someone who would go on living and changing and becoming a different person, while she grew old and died in a world without a home and away from everyone she knew.

He didn't want her to become like him, homeless and without the love of friends and family, because to be him is to be alone. And he didn't want that for her. Because he wanted her to be happy, not just momentarily, but for the rest of her life.

Ten is a man who loathes taking life, and it weighs on him every time someone sacrifices who they are because they love him.

It's no surprise Ten's entire decision about the Meta-Crisis took place after Davros massively guilt-tripped him into thinking it was his fault that all those people died. (It wasn't.) But Davros played on Ten's depression and trauma, manipulating Ten into thinking he had done unforgivable things to the people he loved. (when in fact those people died because they were inspired to be selfless like him, or were killed someplace beyond the Doctor's reach)

I've actually been doing a lot of research on Ten's trauma (including invaluable insight from Judith Lewis Herman's famous book Trauma and Recovery). This journal article about Major Depressive Disorder speaks so deeply to Ten's character, especially post-Time War and post-Davros:

"Guilt promotes altruistic behavior via acting out reparative tendencies, whereas shame reduces altruism by means of increasing social and interpersonal distance."

This explains so much about Ten's choice to sacrifice his own happiness and ask Rose to take his Meta-Crisis as her life partner. He's pushing her away, isolating himself. He's rejecting the people he loves the most because he's in a very, very dark place.

🖤🤍💜 An Asexual (Meta) Reading

There's so many reasons that Ten felt he couldn't give Rose the life she wanted (his trauma, his values). There's one angle I've been sifting around in my head in the past couple years, and it's more of a headcanon than anything: For me, because of the way the Doctor's character has been established since 1963, the Doctor's own asexuality is an almost meta-conceptual reason why the Doctor in general can't have a "normative," family life.

He couldn't say "I love you"—not because he didn't love her. (He loved her more than he ever loved himself.) But also because he knew what saying those words would mean: the expectations, the responsibility, the behaviors he felt she deserved to have from him because those words carry so much weight in human culture. All those things he could not give her.

But the Meta-Crisis could. I personally headcanon that the Meta-Crisis is not asexual like the Doctor. (Just like John Smith may not have been asexual either.) The point of both John Smith and the Meta-Crisis is showing how much they differ from the Doctor—and I think sexuality is one of those differences. It's why it was so easy for John Smith to imagine a traditional life, why it was so easy for the Meta-Crisis to promise his entire world and his entire self to Rose on that beach.

🌹 The Meta-Crisis and Rose Tyler

Which brings me back to the Tentoo himself. He was born in battle and he can die, but what does that exactly mean for his life with Rose? It's fascinating because to imagine the Doctor feeling mortality and knowing he cannot cheat death anymore—that's a horrific, terrifying thing.

There are actually two Big Finish Audios that explore this traumatic realization for the Doctor, and what that does to him. (They're both one-shots from Jackie's POV and narration, and you can listen to them here: Part 1, Part 2).

It makes Tentoo lean into his Ninth-era darkness, a ruthlessness to villains driven by the fear that he cannot protect Rose because he is not indestructible. But luckily for him, there are people he loves around him (Jackie and Rose) who keep him from that darkness.

Additionally, the Big Finish stories lean into the fact that Tentoo and Rose aren't sitting idly by. Both of them work for Torchwood and are growing their own TARDIS to continue to defend the Earth.

They don't settle down into a domestic life, at least not right away, and I think that suits them both. We know how much Rose didn't want the life of eating chips and watching telly. But listen to what RTD's Doctor Who has always tried to say: How deeply important the everyday things are, how much the Doctor, for how amazing they are, craves for a life of simplicity and the stupid little things that define humanity.

Because here's the key: It wasn't the everyday things that bothered Rose. Like she told Mickey in "Parting of the Ways":

ROSE: But what do I do every day, mum? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it? MICKEY: It's what the rest of us do. ROSE: But I can't! MICKEY: Why, because you're better than us? ROSE: No, I didn't mean that. But it was. It was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away

Rose didn't hate the domestic, everyday life. She hated how life had no meaning.

She hated how people let things happen to them, without challenging anything or standing up for anything. She didn't want to travel as much as she wanted to live, to be something and do something with her life.

And that's the magic of Doctor Who, particularly RTD's era. Because you can be amazing and you can have meaning even without the Doctor, but the Doctor shows you how.

You stand up for what you believe is right and you choose to give meaning to what you do in life. You don't need to travel the stars to do that. You can make choices that give your life meaning right here and now. You can believe in something. You can find meaning in your place in the universe. You can give your enthusiasm and time to something that is important. Meaning and purpose comes from how we see the world, and that change in perspective is what Rose finds with the Doctor.

If Rose is with someone who can fill her life with meaning, who inspires her to see life as a beautiful adventure, then it really doesn't matter what she's doing with them. In The Impossible Planet, Rose was completely willing to settle down with Ten to "find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe." Why? Because she'd be with him.

ROSE: This lot said they'd give us a lift. DOCTOR: And then what? ROSE: I don't know. Find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe.

If I imagine Tentoo as a dad, I can't help but imagine him like Tennant himself. Kind, giving, selfless, and loving. I think Tentoo would be so afraid of letting someone hurt his child, because he hasn't had a family in so long, and he isn't the same man he was in those ancient days when, as a completely different man, he had a family.

He's a man still afraid of himself, still keenly aware of the inhuman things he's capable of. I think this fear would drive Rose and him closer together, like it did when he was Nine. But Tentoo is more self-aware now, more willing to grow and change and be different. Because he's the Doctor who was given a second chance, to live the life he thought he'd never have with the person he loves. He wants to be different to make this work.

I also think Tentoo would be the Doctor who passes on his title after he's gone. Not that I like to think about Tentoo dying one day, but let's be real: Where would his TARDIS go? As a half-human, I think Tentoo could imagine Mia taking on the role of Defender of the Earth when he and Rose have passed on. She would have been there to see it grow, and she would have been there when Tentoo and Rose first stepped out into the stars with this brand-new TARDIS. Because of his mortality, I think it would make Tentoo more open to sharing the secret, sacred things of his Gallifreyan people with the family he chose to start. He's not alone anymore, he has someone to share it with, someone who will pass it on after him and keep the world safe in his stead.

Which is all to say, I think it's a gift that Rose has the Meta-Crisis. Because when Ten regenerated and became, as he said, a completely different man, she was able to stay with the person she fell in love with and explore what that life was like, to have him with her for all of her life, and all of his.

#doctor who #doctor who meta #tenth doctor #tenth doctor meta #metacrisis doctor #metacrisis #tenrose #tentoo #tentoorose #ten x rose #rose tyler #doctor x rose #timepetals #tentoo x rose #asexual tenth doctor #asexual #bad wolf #dw meta #tenrose meta #*mine #*mymeta #lil anon #lesbian anon #armin anon

[shadow-lag]

(Click for better quality?)

Nismo!! She's a former GSA member with excellent archery skills and wacky horns :] I have a bunch of random stuff about her so perhaps that will be under the cut

-------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to the rambling about the kirby oc I made months ago! I have no clue how to write all this out to bullet point facts it is :D

Her horns are constantly growing and are made of a super powerful crystal, so she 'recycles' the trimmings by making it into arrow heads and gems for her armor, among other things. (Along she is old enough to have grown horns/wings (based on the kirby species evolution/growing up theory) she never did so these crystals are actually not natural :D maybe it was an accident with some ancient magic? Maybe it was something help? Who knows)

A large fraction of waddle dees worked in GSA camps and headquarters back in the day. Mostly doing cooking and cleaning, but also trained with spears for back-up. Nismo made crystal spear heads for her favorite waddle dees and would often talk with them despite them being mostly non-verbal. (and highly respected all of them for the work and dedication)

She moved to dreamland a while after Metaknight came across pop star. She ended up craving a new bow out of a large fallen branch from the fabled Yggy woods, which he had kindly offered to her after she helped protect his part of the forest during a big storm. [Assuming the trees bosses behave a lot like Whispy in the cartoon]

She befriended the greatly talked about bandana waddle dee (he's the talk of the town, spoken about highly amongst his fellow dees for his bravery and how he's such great representation for the dees as a whole) since she thought highly of the waddle dees working in the GSA, after hearing all the adventures this one had been on, she had to check him out for herself. They became quick friends and she made them a spear in whole. Using some leftover wood from yggy as the wooden base and a crystal spear head. (They were introduced through Meta, since her and Metaknight are old friends)

Even after the GSA disbanded, she kept her star symbol on her pauldron. Even though the war only really ended with kirby summoning the star rod, she wore it pridefully. They may have "lost" the war, but they put up the good fight. It was in honor of the fallen she would tell you.

She was Meta Knight's usual partner back in the gsa days . While Meta mastered close range weapons, like the sword, Nismo focused on the bow. Typically the enemy wouldn't even know she was there. She would pick off anyone who got too close to Meta from some shadowed high up place, like trees. (Probably where meta first got the habit of being someplace up high)

The reason Meta sucks at cooking is that he only really made the quick easy and pure energy meals (they sucked ass but were good for hungry soldiers in a pinch) Nismo enjoyed cooking (and especially baking) prior to the war and since she didn't typically get into hand to hand combat. She would be able to cook for everyone at camp sites. Meta got very spoiled on Nismo's cooking and never really learned how to cook for himself (nothing tasty anyways) Unfortunate for him, they lost each other in a brutal battle a little before the "end" of the war. Not to see each other again for several years when Nismo wounded up in dreamland. Sword and Blade were thrilled to see someone other than a waddle dee who can cook for them. Ofc they would still never admit (to Meta's face at least) that his cooking sucks.

Nismo is *barely* taller than MetaKnight without boots (he is deeply wounded by this fact /hj) [also I had this headcanon written down that meta knight is below average height for a puffball due to his growth being tampered with and stunted during his time with nightmare. which I'm not sure about anymore but is kinda interesting!]

Nismo likely either stopped by dreamland bc she heard a toddler had defeated nightmare. Or just needed fuel and dreamland was a passive planet to obtain that at. No in between.

Nismo isn't well known like Meta knight is, but she was still respected with her fellow gsa members and showed them equal levels of respect throughout her time there.

When asked her favorite color she will respond with hex codes of her very specific favorite colors, her favorite food is pomegranate, and she does not like bugs :)

(I THINK THAT'S ALL THANK YOU FOR READING!! Most of these are just copy paste from stuff I had written down in my discord. She's not the most thought out oc, but I did fixate on her and all things kirby for a pretty long time so ^^; if you have questions feel free to ask!!)

#LOOONG POST #no amount of oc detail writing could compare to how long they take me to draw tho lmao #kirby art #kirby fanart #kirby oc #oc art #shadow.png

[hmsannlett]

Hi, there! Anon, here! Oh, yes indeed I enjoyed the one-shots! And it’s helpful to know that ao3 allows guest comments. I might try that instead (and then *I* will post novella-length comments, too! Haha!) Re: bodies of dust illuminated – the balance was precarious, but I think you mastered it! Yes, Nerdy Hewlett is the best! More please? TBC…

Re: journey’s end in lover’s meeting – thank you for sharing/explaining about the reference to the Odyssey! It’s very sweet, and self-aware! And it seems to me like something he actually would have said in canon, had we gotten the closure we wanted, because even in their last scene he admitted (with his limited understanding of Anna’s intentions) “we were both swept up by our passions…” But ugh, that is the issue – he believes that everything she did was *solely* for Abraham. 😥 TBC...

Re: Hewlett forgiving Anna post S4. As far as Hew not being as jaded, I agree because of his non-aggression toward Abe, and helpfulness to Abigail. But I also think he treats them well because of his character. Is that also why you feel he isn’t as jaded at the end of the season? Or do you have other thoughts? I’m all ears (if you don’t mind sharing!) TBC...

And about your meta; I’ve read it more than once and I strongly relate to your beliefs (and, I think, all the bittersweet feelings!) They both put the good of the other first, without expecting reciprocation! That is the highest form of love. We as viewers need good examples of true love, and Annlett is one of the best! I look forward to reading more of any fics you plan to share, and I hope you are well! 😊 🤗

Hi! Yep! From what I've heard, AO3 guest comments work similarly to sending anon asks on here; you just have to provide your email, list a name for yourself if you want, and then write your comment.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the oneshots! And I'm glad you thought that line rang true to Hewlett's character. ❤︎

Re: Hewlett being less jaded, I was thinking of the scene with Hewlett and Abe after they dispatched the Queen's Ranger, when Hewlett tells Abe that he wants to buy himself an estate, and Abe thinks that Hewlett wants to share the estate with Anna. From what I remember of the scene, Hewlett is very subdued (resigned, even) when he tells Abe that the estate is not for Anna; it’s for himself, so that he can spend his days in peace and solitude. He doesn’t have the bitterness that he had when meeting with Anna in 3.08. It’s clear he’s still hurt, but his emotions aren’t flaring anymore—largely because he’s been so worn down by the war; all he wants is for the war to be over, regardless of who wins. The mechanics of how that happens are irrelevant to him.

As for his treatment of Abe and Abigail, yes, I agree that’s largely due to his character, especially with regard to Abigail. Although I'd also say that his ability to overlook Abe’s (latest) attempt to murder him and his willingness to partner with Abe to murder Simcoe point again to his world weariness and relaxing of the ideals he brought into the war. That scene does also show, though, that he’s capable of forgiveness, even of someone who’s repeatedly tried to murder him/betrayed his trust and confidence/broken agreements, which is significant. Of course, with Anna, his pain is much more personal, but, given the right circumstances (i.e., a long talk and ample self-reflection afterwards, and plenty of time to think everything over), I think he could come around to starting again.

I can’t speak to anything more specific than those examples because it’s been well over a year since I’ve watched Turn all the way through, but I hope those examples can help you work through the dilemma of finding an in-character reasoning for Hewlett to forgive Anna and try things again. His actor, Burn Gorman, also did some great interviews about Hewlett’s character arc. There were several of his on AMC’s Turn page, but some of the Turn cast interviews are gone now (the pages aren't available anymore), unfortunately. There still might be a couple of his interviews on there, though, if you have time to kill and feel like poking around their site. I can't remember if there were any interviews with him on YouTube where he discussed the end of Hewlett's character arc, but if there are, those would certainly still be available.

I’m glad you enjoyed the meta! I do have a oneshot I posted on AO3 a couple weeks ago, separate from the prompt fills: couldn’t utter my love if it counted. It’s a bit steamier than other Annlett fics I’ve written, although it’s nowhere near smut (I know my writing limits lol).

Take care, anon! ❤︎

#asks #anonymous

[ifandomus]

I feel like we as a fandom don’t talk enough about how the MCU erased Gabe Jones’ relationship with Peggy Carter (one of the first interracial relationships in comics!) in favor of a white man. Twice.

Thank you for the ask! (I'm sorry that it took so long)

Yes, we really don't

Now, this is very complicated. However, considering what MCU Peggy did and was a part of, I just can't ship them in the MCU.

I mean:

The way she treated Steve. This post explained it well, and @amarriageoftrueminds metas about it are always amazing. Gabe deserves better than someone who treats her romantic partner like that!

Hiring nazis and especially Zola. First of all, they are nazis. The second is what Zola specifically did. 1. Zola tortured one of Gabe's friends and teammates, and 2. even though Zola might not have tortured the other Howlies, they were still imprisoned and forced to do hard labor in a hydra base that Zola was in charge of (I'm also pretty sure that Gabe would have been one of the worst treated prisoners for obvious reasons). Hiring Zola was a betrayal of all the Howlies. Also, Gabe was the one who actually captured Zola. Bucky fell. Steve was a mess, and since Zola didn't seem to know that Bucky had fallen, he probably didn't see Steve after. So Gabe would have had to step in and take charge of the mission. (Let's all take a moment to appreciate Gabe Jones here)

In short, Gabe Jones deserves better!

So instead, maybe they could have had him in an interracial relationship with someone else? To make it canon, maybe they could have had Bucky and Sam talking about him? (I am still salty that Gabe wasn't brought up in tfatws. There is just no way that Gabe wouldn't have been an important historical figure. I mean, he was a Black war hero who served in an integrated unit in WW2! Isn't that huge?!)

That way, he is still in a canon interracial relationship without putting him in a relationship with someone who hired nazis.

Would this have been a perfect solution? No. But it's the best one that I can come up with because at least it would have kept the interracial relationship representation.

Also, (even though Agent Carter isn't canon), dr Jason Wilkes was better than Daniel Sousa in every way, and no one can convince me otherwise! He was actually my favorite male character, and he deserved so much better!

#mcu #ask #anti peggy carter #gabe jones #the howling commandos

[shihalyfie]

The difference between the Adventure group’s and the 02 group’s respective relationships with their Digimon

Kizuna very prominently depicts a difference between the older six Adventure group members (Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Koushirou, Mimi, Jou) and the younger six 02 group members (Takeru, Hikari, Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, Iori) in terms of how they interact with their partners, and part of it is because of the strange relationship between Kizuna and 02′s themes, but, in fact, there had always been a rather subtle difference between said dynamics even since all the way back in 02, just exacerbated by the 02 group being the only ones to be able to open Digital Gates via their D-3s and the fact that the circumstances of the plot were a bit engineered to make the 02 group a bit more functional during its duration.

The image of “every human-Digimon partner pair hanging together all of the time even through mundane daily life events” is certainly romantic, but, in fact, the older Adventure group is not portrayed as a group that necessarily longs for such an arrangement, and the 02 group doing so is something they specifically do because of their own personalities. This is something very tied to the distinction between the Adventure and 02 groups’ respective ways of life and internal dynamics, and what it says about each individual group’s preferences of independence vs. mutual support.

Once Adventure’s finale hit and the Adventure group had their first bout of “separation” from their partners, thus began the “two-and-a-half year break”, in which the Adventure group had to suddenly accept separation from their partners after (what had been to them) months of being together all of the time. It’s an understandable feeling of loss! You “took something for granted” when it’d been with you all of the time, you made an incredible, important friend and suddenly had to part. That said, there are some nuances to this that need to be taken into account here:

Takeru and Hikari (who turn out to later become involved with the 02 group and take on their mentality) are the two most confident about their parting on the note of “we’ll definitely meet again, don’t worry about it, it’ll be okay,” which is a pretty obvious meta hint at 02 airing one week later, but also does say a bit that they’re the ones most hung up on the possible reunion.

The two-and-a-half year break is characterized not so much by a permanent and unbroken separation as much as the lack of ability for Taichi and his friends to meet up with Agumon and the other partners on a regular, controlled basis. They weren’t completely cut off from contact -- Taichi receiving a message from Agumon in the above-linked drama CD, Koushirou keeping in contact with Gennai regularly, the entire events of Our War Game!, the Adventure mini dramas (yes, those are canon), the 15th anniversary drama CD, and the reunion depicted in 02 episode 27′s flashback. Moreover, the way Koushirou approaches the Digital Gates in the early episodes of 02, along with Two-and-a-Half Break itself, makes it clear that the gates still did open sporadically, it’s just that, since there was no real rhyme or reason to them opening, meetups with partners weren’t something that could be coordinated smoothly. Given that, it’s not that surprising that Taichi met up with Agumon without altogether too much fanfare in 02 episode 1 -- it certainly wasn’t something he could have done often, but the two had met up a handful of times during the last two and a half years, so it’s understandable that it doesn’t necessarily merit a massively dramatic reunion, especially when there’s a crisis going on at the exact moment.

Once the events of 02 kicked off, the Adventure kids started having some touching reunions with their respective partners now that the 02 kids’ D-3s could provide reliable standbys for going in and out of the Digital World, and, of course, it’s natural that they’d be a bit emotional after their contact had been so disjointed (even though, as with Taichi, it’s not actually nearly as dramatic as one might expect), but once that’s out of the way...

Practicality suggests that the Adventure kids’ Digimon partners would choose to spend most of their time in the Digital World for the duration of 02...but, in fact, even that considered, the older Adventure kids really don’t seem that bothered to not get to see their partners every day of their lives. Granted, they of course presumably don’t want to constantly bother their juniors all of the time to open the gate for them, but Sora demonstrates in 02 episode 12 that she will grab them and go in if it’s urgent, so there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t recruit the kids to open the gate for them if they wanted or needed it that badly. Moreover, the juniors being able to consistently open and close the gate means that constant communication and occasional meetups with their Digimon partners are more than possible -- recruiting one of their partners to do something on the other end isn't too hard anymore, given the events of 02 episode 32 or such -- and so, the “inconsistent, fleeting contact” that spanned the “two-and-a-half year break” is no longer a problem.

All things considered, if the older kids really wanted to create some kind of pipeline or arrangement so they could hang out with their partners on the daily like the 02 kids do, you’d think they (especially Koushirou) would try a little harder, but they don’t actually seem to treat it with much more urgency than having a really good friend who might be a bit of a slightly inconvenient bus ride away. The fact that they actually have reasonably consistent methods of access to see each other if they really want to is comfort in itself. Of course, when Christmas comes and the juniors arrange a situation for all of their seniors to see their partners again, it really is a Christmas gift, because of course there’s the joy of getting to see an incredibly treasured friend you don’t normally get to see in a while!...but even then, Taichi says that Agumon should at least stay for the holiday, with a completely casual tone that suggests he has absolutely no qualms or emotional hangups about the idea that Agumon’s going to have to return to the Digital World soon and they won’t have day-to-day contact anymore (it’ll just be nice if Agumon can stay for the rice cake soup).

In the end, this is actually...probably a pretty normal thing to expect. Digimon partners are “best friends” in ways that are a bit unusually beyond your average so-called “best friend”, in that they’re somewhat psychologically linked to their human partners and thus “get” them in ways an average human friend wouldn’t, but nevertheless, it’s not like everyone constantly wants to have their best friend with them every single moment of every single day; boundaries and independence are a thing, and even Miyako felt that it was appropriate to leave Poromon with Koushirou for the duration of her Kyoto trip in 02 episode 33. (In fact, if you squint carefully, there are times when even the 02 kids’ Digimon occasionally don’t accompany their partners; Patamon and Tailmon didn’t attend the soccer game in 02 episode 8.) Or, if you want to take this all the way back to Adventure, “needing space” from one’s own partner once in a while was lightly addressed when Tentomon deliberately recused himself from Koushirou having a heart-to-heart with his parents, because he understood Koushirou needed catharsis on his own terms (and we see Hawkmon and Tailmon even do the same for Miyako and Hikari in 02 episode 31). So when those best friends were placed in dubious places of contact and it became difficult to tell when they’d ever meet again, it was emotionally difficult in the same way being forcibly cut off from a treasured friend and not being allowed to see them regularly would hurt -- but once some degree of regular, guaranteed contact was established, and it was understood that they could meet up when they needed to, they could schedule that easily (and in fact there’s no evidence that the older Adventure group never made use of that during days in the year that weren’t depicted in 02 proper).

Not only that, the Digital World is also treated as having its own “will” and letting Chosen in as needed in 02 episode 22, thus implying that, even without the 02 kids’ D-3s as a fail-safe, it was getting more receptive to open gates in general; Koushirou had been keeping track of them and alerting other Chosen to whenever they opened naturally (including Mimi in 02 episode 14), allowing contact to continue on a more regular basis.

So why are the 02 kids and their Digimon so different? Since the incidents depicted in 02 didn’t impact the real world itself until late in the series, why didn’t they make an arrangement like their seniors where the kids would meet up with their partners in the Digital World after school, thus avoiding the trouble of having to hide them in school and pass them off as plushies everywhere? Well, the thing is, they almost had that kind of arrangement...and it lasted only one episode. It was made a prominent point in 02 episode 2 that even after meeting V-mon and barely getting to know him, Daisuke couldn’t get him out of his mind. Then, Miyako and Iori met their own partners, and when they all emerged, the 02 group’s partners themselves came out with them, with Tentomon and Piyomon being the ones to say that they’d rather stay behind for the time being. In other words, it wasn’t a question of practicality surrounding the territory war with the Kaiser -- the 02 group’s Digimon and humans themselves actually wanted to stick to each other this badly, even if it meant that the Digimon would be staying in in an unfamiliar world long-term (after all, the Digital World is still every Digimon’s natural home, so it’s possible that the older kids’ Digimon aren’t too enthused about the idea of staying in the real world for so long themselves).

In the end, the real reason the 02 group and their Digimon stick to each other so constantly through any and all situations has to do with their mentality. In the case of the Adventure group, while being trapped in another world gave them a sense of necessity in sticking together all of the time and thus created a bit of extra shock when sudden separation occurred, either way, said older group was a bit more independent-minded and was ultimately able to mentally adjust to returning to a status quo where they couldn’t expect to see their partners all of the time, and managed to build proper lives around that assumption. Even when their partners were regularly accessible, they were able to live their lives somewhat independently from each other (especially due to the difficulty of integrating Digimon into the real world at this stage), with the understanding that they still could meet each other whenever necessary for anything ranging from a dangerous incident to simply just wanting to get together and have a nice heart-to-heart. The 02 group, on the other hand, consisted of a group of slight misfits with some degree of socialization problems prior to the start of the series, who have mentalities based on “their relationship with others” moreso than independence; their group dynamic was based on a slight amount of dependence on mutual support rather than necessarily being able to sustain themselves on their own, and it thus follows that they and their like-minded partners would be a bit clingier as a result, because they’re more in need of that emotional support and company on a day-to-day basis.

Look at Daisuke, whose entire character has a lot to do with his need for validation and support from others; it’s very easy to imagine that prolonged separation from V-mon might outright cause them separation anxiety before long (remember Daisuke’s reaction to getting briefly separated from V-mon after only knowing him for less than a day in 02 episode 2!). Or Takeru and Hikari, who still are parsing a lot of really unresolved issues that weren’t actually properly addressed in Adventure (remember: they’re the ones who were only able to accept the idea of parting if they had certainty that they’d meet again, and Tailmon especially associates Hikari specifically with a life she couldn’t initially have). These kids dislike being separated from each other for too long, so it stands to reason that they’re going to dislike separation from their respective partners even less. 02 being a story about relationships means it’s a series about how people who have difficulty finding their answers by themselves find it through the support of others, and so, more latently, it’s only natural that it’ll extend to their partners, and that their partners, being somewhat like-minded, would reflect that by willingly choosing to leave the Digital World to cling to their partners, even in an unfamiliar world.

Of course, you could potentially chalk this up to sheer practicality, in that the 02 group had access to D-3s and were simply making use of their time together, or that the nature of the Digital World territory war eventually getting brought out into the real world guided their actions this way...but, in fact, Kizuna continues to double down on there being a distinct difference between these two.

Because Kizuna only gives us very “limited context” by showing us limited snippets of a few days instead of the whole eight months 02 spanned over, we’re forced to extract from only a very small “sample size” of interactions, but one thing the movie does make clear is that the Adventure and 02 groups are both roughly in the same boat in regards to what they can and can’t do regarding their partners and the Digital World. The “advantage” the 02 group had over their seniors in that they could easily open gates is no longer in play, because travel can happen at leisure even with the older group thanks to the smartphone terminals Koushirou’s made (the deluxe Blu-ray booklet confirms that it’s the smartphones doing it, so it’s not like Yamato’s referring to the ability to grab one of the 02 group members here). On top of that, Digimon have some degree of recognition in society, so it’s not too much of a big deal to have them in real life, and all of the Digimon partners are probably much more used to going back and forth and being familiar with both parts of society. And yet, despite that, there is a difference.

The main reason I so often urge people not to take the question of “who has partners present in the credits and who doesn’t” as a definitive statement of who’s lost their partners like Taichi, Yamato, and Sora have is that the opening does the same thing -- none of the Adventure group’s partners are depicted in the respective characters’ vicinity, even though we know at this point that none of them have full-on disappeared yet. Rather, when you think about it, it’s more that the point being made is that their partners aren’t with them all of the time -- just because the gates are easily opened by anyone in this cast now doesn’t mean that the Adventure characters decided to bring them home to live with them the way the 02 group did. Tentomon is not shown to be in the proximity of Koushirou in the movie’s initial scenes, nor in the opening, nor during his company negotiations, and it’s only during later events when he’s seen in the office. Palmon not being on the plane with Mimi may well mean that she’s not actually with her all of the time, mainly just working alongside her every so often, and Jou’s memorial short indicates that there’s a certain degree of partners acting independently now (especially now that they can operate in the real world without too much issue). Obviously, said Digimon partners are still hanging around and reasonably well-involved in their lives, but they’re not always next to them, and may be hanging around elsewhere in the real world or killing time in the Digital World -- but meanwhile, the number of times any of the 02 group is physically seen in the movie or To Sora without their partner totals at zero.

In the end, the distinction between the older Adventure group’s and the 02 group’s respective behavior may have been somewhat exacerbated by the gate-opening issue at first, but even when that was taken away, the 02 group’s tendency to cling to their partners and vice versa was just something endemic to themselves.

Again, since Kizuna gives us a very limited frame of reference, it’s not to say that the 02 group is always stuck to their partners for every breathing moment of their lives; remember, even all the way back in 02 episode 33, Miyako was willing to leave Poromon with Koushirou for the duration of her Kyoto trip, and the memorial shorts also depict V-mon hanging out with Gabumon in a setting that we assume doesn’t involve Daisuke in the vicinity, and photos of Takeru and Hikari without their partners are seen on Imura’s board, and there certainly must be instances of need for privacy or busy moments of adulthood that couldn’t be depicted in the limited range of the movie -- but the point is made, and there is a massive contrast between the Adventure group living independent lives, and the 02 group playing around and doing mundane things and actively involving their partners in their conversations and interactions in ways far beyond that of their seniors. And, by extension, the fact that the drama CD depicts them going out of their way to meet up with each other in a setting where their seniors aren’t doing anything of the sort; the 02 group’s mentality, shaped by the events of their series, involves treasuring their personal relationships and gaining emotional support from each other as a bigger priority over individual ambition, and it’s applying even to eight years later in Kizuna to the point where it takes very little to recreate the aura of yet another average 02 episode.

Fundamentally speaking, neither group is in the wrong, and the “difference in mentality” between the two groups is reflected all the way into the 02 epilogue, so this is not a narrative that praises or condemns people for aligning more with being independent-minded and ambitious and not necessarily needing company most of the time, versus being the kind who needs company and emotional support from others and excelling better at giving that kind of support in return. Kizuna’s narrative doesn’t cast the more ostensibly distant (less so “distant” and more “more capable of independent action”) relationship the Adventure group has with their partners in a particularly negative light. I’m sure many reading this post will probably identify more with one group or the other here in terms of their way of living life and maintaining relationships. However, it does cast the concept of “abandoning one’s partner” as the reason for partnership dissolution -- not physical abandonment, but rather, emotional abandonment.

The timing of the partnership dissolution is the key, because the movie puts a huge spotlight on it not happening to Koushirou and Takeru for the time being, which means we’re obligated to look at Taichi and Yamato to see why it’s happening to them and them specifically, and what they have in common. Well, one day prior, they’d dumped their partners on their siblings with very few words, and then, over dinner, had outright scoffed at the idea of bringing their partners to school with them. Again, it’s not the issue of bringing them or not when even Koushirou doesn’t seem to be hanging out with Tentomon all of the time, but rather that they have such a condescending and cold attitude about it, as if their partners are “in the way” of their adult lives. Taichi doesn’t necessarily have to have Agumon live with him as a roommate, but he’s portrayed as horribly lonely and yet hadn’t even let Agumon visit once because he was so willing to shut him out. In other words, Taichi and Yamato had taken their partners so much for granted that they were basically yanking them out once in a while whenever they needed them for Digimon battles, and then tossing them aside flippantly to get back to whatever their lives were, rather than working on maintaining their relationships or allowing for emotional support. For the early duration of the movie, their conversations are not quite there, and are a bit stilted. Partner or not, it’s a cold way to treat a friend who just really wants to be there to support you.

And when you look at Sora, or Menoa (who’s revealed in the novel to have also been emotionally drifting from Morphomon for the sake of her studies), their abandonment of their partners was hardly physical -- Piyomon was there to watch Sora’s flower arrangement work, it’s just that Sora was coldly turning her away and snapping at her for the sake of her work, and Menoa was most likely still living in the same house as Morphomon back when she was studying in Colorado, but nevertheless, she hadn’t been talking to her anymore. Meanwhile, on the other hand, while Koushirou doesn’t seem to be with Tentomon all of the time, he still has a proper heart-to-heart with him in a way that wouldn’t be completely out of place in Adventure, so you can see why he’s not nearly in trouble as Taichi, Yamato, and Sora are at the time of the movie.

So, the take-home is that it’s not necessarily a requirement to be with your partner every single breathing moment of the day like the 02 group is; of course, them being more on the clingy (for lack of a better way to put it) side means that being emotionally in-tune with them is just a fact of life, but Koushirou, Mimi, and Jou all seem to have figured out comfortable ways of interaction and boundaries with their own partners even despite occasional distance, and that’s why they’re not in danger of losing their partners at the time of the movie, despite all of them technically being adults and Jou being a year older. (Well, there’s also the secondary metaphorical meaning of a partner meaning one’s own personal dreams and aspirations and how that factors into Taichi, Yamato, Sora, and Menoa’s actions, but we’ll leave that as a separate topic for the time being.)

One interesting thing about the epilogue is that, because the meeting depicted takes place in the Digital World and we have a very limited amount of information, we don’t really have evidence that most of the adult Chosen actually live with their Digimon partners on a day-to-day basis -- the only thing concrete we have is a strong implication that Hawkmon lives at home with Miyako’s family, which is reasonably par for the course with Miyako and Hawkmon’s respective characterizations (and although it’s not shown, you can also imagine that the very clingy Wormmon would likely prefer living with “Ken-chan” and his family). Otherwise, the only other “home” scene we get to see is that of Takeru and his son, but their partners aren’t shown in the real world.

The Character Complete File does add some implications depending on how you want to read certain ones, and Armadimon’s lack of presence in Iori’s attorney scene could conversely mean that he’s more likely to be a presence in Iori’s home life than he is in his work (which is also reasonably consistent with their characters), but either way, the take-home is that the nature of each Digimon partner’s involvement in each adult’s day-to-day life is ambiguous. So you can really make any kind of extrapolation about whose partners are involved in their lives to what degree; it’s been 17 years since Kizuna, relationships and day-to-day life needs have changed, and things like “career partner” and “family member” (or both) don’t necessarily have to entail a Digimon partner constantly clinging to their head and witnessing every moment of their life, as long as the understanding is still there that everyone still has a clear amount of emotional involvement and connection in each other’s lives to some degree.

It’s also interesting to note that the epilogue actually picks a slightly unusual way of phrasing the Digimon partnership phenomenon spreading globally: “a Digimon partner exists for everyone in the world.” In terms of sheer technical meaning, it’s not altogether that different from “everyone has a Digimon partner,” but such oblique wording brings more to mind the idea that, even now, not everyone may have met their Digimon partner yet, or may be living separately from them between worlds, or, with retroactive Kizuna context, being in a bit of an existential crisis or loss of self and having your partner not currently manifested for the time being -- but that doesn’t preclude you from having a partner, as long as you’re capable of maintaining some kind of relationship with them.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

[hamliet]

RWBY and the Philosopher’s Stone

So, I finally watched RWBY after a friend name-dropped several characters and I was like wait... those names are alchemical. I was still pleasantly surprised to find out just how deeply rooted in alchemy the story is, from its characters to its plot structure. 

Background: alchemical structure is a type of story structure that focuses on inner transformation via outward obstacles. You can find it in literary traditions across the world, from Moxiang Tongxiu’s novels to A Song of Ice and Fire to Harry Potter to The Witcher to Trollhunters. Carl Jung incorporated it into his psychology. Daoism plays heavily into Chinese alchemy. The Wizard of Oz, one of RWBY’s main inspirations, is a blatant alchemy allegory. It’s everywhere, so it’s not surprising RWBY is drawing heavily on alchemy, but it is neat to see how blatant the references are. 

Thematically, the goal of alchemy is a metaphorical philosopher’s stone. The philosopher’s stone, in legend, is said to produce an elixir of eternal life, and to be able to transform “baser” metals into gold. 

In stories, when positive, as it usually is, this usually results in a character either overcoming death (see, Harry Potter) and/or transforming the world and others around him (Harry Potter saving his friends, etc.) But the journey from how they get from prima materia (raw material) to the philosopher’s stone? Now that’s the story. 

(When reversed, a metaphorical stone results in something that can destroy everything; see: the One Ring, also Salem, because Salem’s whole thing is that she cheapened the process of life and death, while alchemy states that death is a necessary part of achieving life.)

So, mostly I’m gonna talk about the symbolism I’ve seen so far and make some predictions for what’s likely to happen next in the story, and for the characters.

Each of the four main characters has a name that corresponds to one of the four phases of the Magnum Opus. “Blake Belladonna” refers to the nigredo, or black stage; “Weiss Schnee” to the albedo, or white stage; “Yang Xiao Long” to the citrinitas or yellow phase, and “Ruby Rose” to the final stage, rubedo, or red (Ruby’s name is quite literally taken from that stage). Naming them for these stages shows a dual purpose: while Ruby is the central character, she needs her team around her, and Team RWBY will save the world together. Team JNR is also a part of the stages, but I’ll get to what they represent later on. 

Jung associated each of the major stages with a major archetype. The major stages can be further broken up into a total of seven or twelve or even fourteen stages. Most commonly you’ll see George Ripley’s Twelve Gates referenced, and I believe that’s what RWBY is referencing as well since its allusions are pretty perfect. The "gates” or stages also sometimes overlap, especially when different characters might be at different stages. 

Nigredo: Seasons 1-3 

Alchemy begins by gathering the prima materia, or raw material. The characters assembling in season 1 is more of the gathering than the actual transformative process. But once we hit season 2, we dive straight into the process. 

Calcination occurs during the climax of season 2, during the fight on the train. Season 3 contains dissolution, or the washing of impurities through the exposure of certain secrets (like the fall maiden) as well as the literal dissolution of Beacon Academy, and separation (the end of the season, when Team RWBY is scattered). 

Narratively, Jung associated nigredo with the shadow, with someone’s dark night of the soul, their low point. In historical artistic depictions, often part of nigredo is dismemberment... which happens to Yang when she saves Blake from Adam. See, Splendor Solis: 

The goal of the shadow is that it should be integrated with, accepted, rather than denied. Facing the shadow is a necessary part of growth and ultimate transformation... and the point is, through facing the shadow, hope and light come.  

Peacock’s Tail: Seasons 4-5

Okay, I lied, there are sometimes five phases in alchemy. At the very end of nigredo, just before albedo, there is sometimes a flash of light, of rainbows and colors, that give hope. It’s not quite a phase, more of a moment, but it’s referred to as the peacock’s tail. While this is less plot-related, it does make sense that this is the point in the story where Team RJNR is formed. Why? Because look at their colors:

Ruby: red, black

Jaune: yellow, blue

Ren: green, purple

Nora: white, pink, orange

Between them we’ve pretty much got the full rainbow. 

We also have, in Blake’s arc, the introduction of Ilia Amitola, whose last name is the Souix word for “rainbow.” 

Albedo: Seasons 5-7

Albedo is associated with the anima or animus, or the part of ourselves that we are lacking (it’s generally gendered as the male within a female and the female within a male, but please understand he’s not talking literally and more in terms of traditional qualities ascribed as feminine or masculine that we may repress), which more than fits the fact that this stage begins while team RJNR is literally wandering around a continent called Anima. 

Conjunction is a term in which all the separated parts that can be salvaged from the Nigredo come together. Obviously the main incident for this is the fight at the end of volume 5, but I’d argue it overlaps a bit with volume 4 and even with separation.

The characters are only able to come together again once they’ve accepted aspects of their shadows. Yang deals with hers in Raven and Blake with the White Fang. Nora and Ren’s fight at their home village represents them dealing with their shadow as well, and also relates to conjunction because conjunction is the stage where the first chemical wedding comes into play. A chemical wedding is the joining of alchemical partners, and while I’ll probably discuss ships in another post (there’s a lot of set up alchemy-wise), I’ll just reference the obvious one here: 

The fountain image and a person shooting arrows is some pretty uncannily similar imagery to the fight at Nora and Ren’s home village. 

Next up in albedo is putrefication (focus on death and rotting). We see this with the encounter with the Apathy, who look like skeletons, cause death, etc. We’re also introduced to Maria Calaveras, aka the Grimm Reaper. (Her last name also means “skull” aka the white results of putrefication). 

Congelation requires a lot of water, and we see this in the focus on Atlas, wherein snow (water) is everywhere. The point of congelation is to separate the thin from the thick, the latter of which will of course become the Philosopher’s Stone. We see this through Team RWBY’s break with the Ace-Ops (aka the Aesops), whose simplistic morality and rule-following are not going to bring about character growth or eternal life. 

Citrinitas: Volume 7-?

Citrinitas focuses on the light, or fire. That immediately after congelation, a giant whale brimming with yellow appears in the white-colored Atlas is not a coincidence. Citrinitas is associated with the sage or the wise old man/woman, so Maria and Pietro fill this role. 

The first stage of citrinitas is cibation, which involves feeding with fresh material. I’d actually say that it seems quite possible cibation overlaps with congelation, in that there is a focus on food and on training with the Ace-Ops early in Volume 7. The next phases are sublimation and fermentation. I can see potential for sublimation in that it essentially is when solid becomes air (think of the setting of Atlas), but it’s too soon to say what this means for the plot. 

Fermentation, though... well, things will get worse before they get better. :’) 

Rubedo: 

Finally, Rubedo is associated with the fully individualized self. We can assume each of the main seven will come into their own, confident of whom they are. Oscar should, as well, and probably will have fully control over his body by the end (ie Oz will likely... find rest or whatever).

The stages of rubedo are exaltation (the creation of the stone after two contraries meet), multiplication (the stones’ properties increase), and projection (the stone’s abilities are projected over the entire world, aka presumably RWBY will save the world). 

The most common way to display multiplication is through, well, a lot of couplings. It’s why the main characters ending single seems extremely unlikely to me. Even if it seems a fairy tale ending, well.... *gestures to everything about RWBY being inspired by fairy tales* Fairy tales were also often alchemy based. But ships will get their own meta, because I actually don’t really ship much besides Renora and am for once not super invested in anything, but I can see the set-up for four or five ships.

I also want to highlight the other symbolic names that stood out to me: 

Ironwood. While I know Ironwood references the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (tin being one of seven metals associated with alchemy), his name also references a second metal: Iron. Tin and Iron are the two of the three basest metals in alchemy (the other is lead). Iron in particular is ruled by Mars, the god of war, meaning it is associated with violence. It’s not a coincidence that pretty much from the second Ironwood is introduced, the concept of war comes up, and his entire character has gone on to be the embodiment of the military and violence. 

Tai Xiao Long. His name literally means “sun,” and Ruby’s mother is defined by her silver eyes (silver being a color traditionally associated with the moon). Ruby is thus considered the child of the Solar King and Lunar Queen, two mythical alchemical figures who together create the “Philosophical Child,” or the personified philosopher’s stone.

Pietro Polendina: his name literally means “stone,” and Penny is his philosopher’s stone. Penny is arguably a reference to copper, another of the seven metals, as copper references compassion and love, which seems like Penny to me. 

Qrow and Raven Branwen: crows and ravens are symbolic of nigredo, or the black phase; death, decay, etc. However, within the story I think Qrow and Raven fulfill this role as the Jungian shadows of hunters as a whole and of Yang. 

Sun Wukong: obviously a reference to the sun. 

Emerald Sustrai: Emerald is a reference to the Emerald Tablet, which in alchemical lore is a tablet containing the secrets of alchemy, as written down by Hermes (in legend). Hermes is, of course, Mercury. Everything about alchemy stems from the Emerald Tablet, so Emerald should be important. In addition, green is the color of the prima materia, so it references Emerald’s arc in being shaped and molded by Cinder. 

Mercury Black: Mercury as the mythological god is the legendary founder of alchemy, so like, he’s important. Mercury is also the third most important metal in alchemy, after gold and silver. It is necessary to achieving the philosopher’s stone so, like Emerald, Mercury is probably important. Mercury is of particular note because mercurial characters are common in alchemical literature: they make stuff happen. Think of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, for example. Mercury transcends death symbolically (you can see the roots of this in Mercury’s backstory with his assassin father): it is difficult to pin down and can quickly shift from liquid to solid. Thus, in alchemy, mercury can shift between life and death. 

Mercury is also a noted servant of the white queen. I initially thought this a surface reference to Salem’s appearance, and it might be, but Salem is more associated with a black queen in the recurring chess motif, and I don’t see Mercury staying on her side (mercury isn’t fixed, after all; that’s its central tenet), so I kind of wonder if the “white queen” will be later revealed. Or maybe it just is a surface mention.

#rwby #rwby theory #rwby meta #rwby volume eight #rwby vol 8 #ruby rose #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #salem #tai xiao long #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #mercury black #emerald sustrai #qrow branwen #penny polendina #pietro polendina #alchemy #jung #raven branwen #james ironwood

[allhailthecoffeegods]

A lonely kitty in Gotham

Chapter 1

Tired... Marinette was extremely tired. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep but instead she sat staring at the wall of her office in her small apartment she had bought and was now living in because her parents kicked her out.

Why was she staring at the wall you may ask? Short answer, she had finally done it! She had finally tracked down Hawkmoth and Mayura after 3 years of fighting she now knew both of their identities (Gabriel Agreste and Natalie Sancoeur) and not only that but she had an entire file filled with proof. Now all that was left was to take back their miraculous and hand them over to the police (not before cursing them first... obviously).

Unfortunately it’s not going to be as easy as it sounds. You see Marinette or Nettie which she goes by now was alone, completely and utterly alone.

No Parents, no family and no friends.

Three years ago Nettie had all of the above she was happy, she had a best friend Alya and a group of many friends from her class, she had two loving but slightly distant parents who ran the most popular bakery in all of Paris possibly even France and her amazing grandmother Gina who traveled the world and told her all about the crazy things she did (some of which she promised not to tell her parents about because it may have been considered breaking the law but nothing reallllly bad).

But all of that soon changed over the first year Hawkmoth terrorised Paris with his akuma and was later joined by mayura with her sentimonsters. Slowly she lost everything including her partner in fighting crime Mr.Bug holder of the ladybug miraculous.

Nettie is in procession of not only the black cat miraculous but also forcefully became the last remaining guardian of 18 other mini gods that are bound to jewels (excluding the butterfly and peacock (not that she would ever give them up because they are basically her family now and she will do absolutely everything to protect them)). How?

Running late to class 3 years ago she saved a (very) old man (186 years old to be specific) from being hit by a car, and for some reason that was enough for him to “gift” her the black cat miraculous as he saw her true chaotic soul and aura (it didn’t matter that she was only 13 YEARS OLD!) he thought it was a brilliant idea to turn her into a child soldier fighting a war against two supervillains more than double her age.

After and introduction to the one and only God of Destruction, who by the way is OBSESSED with the stinkiest of cheeses, she became one of Paris’ main superheroes Kitty Noir alongside her partner Mr.Bug who she guessed to be around the same age as her at the time. It was easy to deduct that he was going to be more of a problem instead of a partner due to his obsessive and intense flirting and lack of skills other than some possible fencing training, all in all he didn’t have a clue how to fight. He was also apparently extremely reckless... like more reckless than her pouring 2 energy drinks into coffee before downing it and has died so many times in a fight she now also has a close relationship with tiki the God of Creation having had to end the fight herself (honestly why did the old guy pick him because it seems like he didn’t even do a similar ‘oh help save me’ situation like he had with her otherwise the old guy would already be dead!) Even though she wasn’t that much better to begin with she did have some hand to hand combat training curtesy of Gina and her ‘friends’ (let’s talk about those later). And she was now training in martial arts and going to the gym to build more muscle and become better without the enhanced supersuit just incase (she also sticks a domino mask on before transforming because she’s paranoid okay and if she is ever forced to detransform she doesn’t want anyone knowing her identity right of the bat to use against her, okay!)

Alongside that she was also extremely smart (like genius level) great with technology and quick to come up with some absolutely insane but brilliant plans. This all resulted in her taking on more of a leadership roll whilst fighting akumas. Mr.Bug only got worse as time went on and her civilian life went downhill, it took 8 months for the old man (previous guardian of the miraculous and temporary mentor for 2 of the months) to become compromised and pass the roll onto her. And the first thing she did was take the ladybug miraculous back and erase the holders (Adrien Agreste her former friend) memories of being Mr.Bug.

The only problem with that was the battle Miracle queen where master fu (the old guardian man) was compromised, and so were all 8 of her temporary heroes except Viperion, holder of the snake miraculous, who had started to tour around the world with his farther Jagged Stone) this ment there were two consequences of taking The ladybug back, the first being she was now alone against two superpowered terrorists but also that she had to switch transformations at the end of a battle to be able to purify the Akuma and cast the miraculous cure to fix everything and yes that did include... resurrection of people who died in the cross fire.

Anyways, back to how Nettie is alone. Only a few weeks after the first attack, an exchange student transferred to the the newly dumbed Akuma class *sigh*. At first she seemed nice and had and was telling the class of her interesting life, her mother was a Italian diplomat and she’s traveled the world.

But Nettie had a bad gut feeling about Lila Rossi which unfortunately was correct. On her third day in the class she started gushing over how kitty noir aka Nettie dearest (obviously unknown to everyone else) saved her from and Akuma attack and they became “best friends”, to say Nettie was left speechless and confused at the lie is an understatement.

Regrettably Nettie was unable to prove her story was a lie because how would she know said superhero didn’t save her without revealing her secret identity.

But the girl carried on creating more and more outlandish claims, such as how she saved Jagged Stones cat on a jet runway (like come on seriously what airport would allow a CHILD of even a cat to run out onto the tarmac). But pointing this out was apparently a mistake which Nettie soon discovered in the girls bathroom after class. Lila sauntered in with a sickly sweet smile that was soon dropped when Nettie refused to give into this girls bullshit.

Hence she was pinned against the wall and threatened, that if she didn’t go along with lie-la’s lies she would lose everything she loved before leaving so she wasn’t caught. Not believing her Nettie continued to point out inconsistencies and facts that contradict her story’s but no matter how much proof was presented to the class lie-la was able to turn it around (meta theory coming into her head: maybe she wasn’t affected because of the miraculous magic) and plant the idea that Nettie was a bully into all her friends heads which apparently all share one brain cell ( or so she thought until Adrien confirmed he knew they were lies to but he was taking the ‘high road’ because nobody was getting hurt, it’s definitely not like lilas ruining all there future careers by promising favours and opportunity’s that will never come and convincing them they no longer need to put in any effort for their futures *insert eye-roll* ).

So life continued and her friends started to turn on little Nettie the scattered brained, clumsy girl who bent over backwards to protect and make sure they were all happy. It hurt more than words could describe the day Alya her BEST FRIEND led the class to turn their backs on her and declare they no longer want to be friends with a jealous bully anymore.

Luckily Nettie wasn’t akumatised but she came very close to it. The only things keeping her going were her duty to Paris and her family.

But as a consequence to that good luck, bad luck hit like a truck. She didn’t know for a few weeks until a guy named Jason called her parents to inform them that her favourite person in the whole world her amazing grandmother Gina had passed away in a accident somewhere in the United States. And if that wasn’t bad enough Lila also managed to place a seed of doubt in her parents around the same time. Life fucking sucked. She wasn’t able to process and grieve due to Hawkfuck still being around so instead she threw herself into creating her own business (NeTi Designs) doing commissions, did I mention she’s a talented fashion designer... no, well now you know. As well as diving head first into a very thorough investigation on mothfucker in between fighting Akuma, helping in the bakery, plus training and patrolling the city of lights for two hours each night.

Atleast she didn’t have to make excuses to not hang out with her ex-friends anymore heh heh *cough*.

Eventually this resulted in her parents questioning her on her disappearances from her room after randomly checking in one night while she was out patrolling and the conversation sort of went like this.

“Marinette, where have you been?! I just checked your balcony and you weren’t up their. It’s 2am” Sabine exclaimed when she dropped back onto her bed moments after detransforming. “Mamma I swear I was up there and I fell asleep in the corner near my pillows behind the deck chair. I just woke up from the cold and I thought I herd movement and panicked because ‘oh my gosh!’ Is it an Akuma but it wasn’t it was you mamma” Nettie responded with dramatic waving of her hands and a fake smile.

Sabine was NOT impressed and most certainly knew it was a lie but it was 2am and she couldn’t deal with this right now so she glared at her daughter whilst leaving her room through the trapdoor.

This continued for two weeks with both her parents randomly checking in. Nettie had to eventually relocate her research into a small apartment a few streets away from the library (which she paid for with commission money that nobody but her knew about especially since her business was doing well and she didn’t put it past her class to try and destroy that if they ever found out) and say she was studying to not be caught doing deep background checks on all her suspects, making files for every Akuma and tracking the butterfly’s on a app she created that has multiple resources available to the public ranging from an alert for attacks that can be activated all the way to videos she made in her hero persona showing things such as meditation or basic self defence that should only be used if they’re unable to get to a safe area away from the Akuma or to buy time to then get away depending on the powers of said Akuma. (Could also be useful in regular crimes like attempts at mugging)

This lead to longer disappearances to the point all her stuff that had any value to her or was related to business and miraculous matters (so basically everything) she was practically living there already. Not that she realised since she got maybe 5-6 hours of sleep and week? She was so enclosed in her little world when her parents decided they had enough (after multiple accusations of her sleeping around with older men and doing drugs (all tests came back negative because her choice of drug was caffeine) which where definitely lilas doing) her parents yelled at her to get out and never come back... so she did the only thing she had to grab where her pillows and fairy lights and she was out of the door, the situation was dubbed a future Nettie problem because ya know suppressing your emotions so the world doesn’t end.

(Authors note: I have plans on making this a series. Hope you guys like it 🙃)

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #chaotic marinette #sleep deprived thoughts #timmari #tim drake #batfam #batman #red robin #red hood #bruce wayne #jason todd #dick grayson #damian wayne #mlb fandom #mlb x batman

[itsclydebitches]

Putting aside the FG controversy, I'm a little disappointed Qrow had more development with a character we had for one volume and is killed off, rather than any of his old teammates. Sure we get context clues from the characters but its hard to care about this "heavily-implied super important team" when that's all we get and the fandom has been making their own theories and headcanons for years.

Yeah, that's fair. Which, given Summer's death/disappearance/grimmification, obviously means development with either Tai or Raven. I'm well aware that this would bump up against the bloated cast issue, but there were absolutely avenues to get one or both of them at Qrow's side. Fans rightfully wonder what Tai is doing now that both his girls are back in dangerous situations, considering we have no in-world answer, only a meta one (Tai is not a character RT presumably wants to be focusing on, so he stays home). Raven was dropped from the story despite being a Maiden and seen visiting Tai. Though I maintain that RWBY really doesn't need more characters and additional plotlines to try and follow, the potential interactions with Qrow — and, as you say, some development of STRQ —as a result of weaving them back into the narrative could well have offset any problems with the cast size. What if Tai went with Yang? What if Raven followed the group? What if Qrow had actually separated from the team during the conflict in Volume 6 and had his own journey that connected back to the main plot? At the very least we might have gotten some more Summer stories in the Volume prior to her grimm reveal. The fact that the girls are surrounded by people who knew her — Qrow, Ozpin, presumably Ironwood — and all we get is a single conversation between Qrow and Ruby, Yang absent, feels like a missed opportunity, especially given Summer's sudden importance in the war. Delving some into her character — perhaps even getting a flashback — could do triple duty of setting up the grimm reveal, developing Qrow, and providing info on STRQ more broadly.

Thinking about the plot as we got it, I remain confused as to why Qrow's development is happening with Robyn. Clover I understood given his semblance, they were contrasts to one another, but overlooking that question of why they introduced him only to kill him off so fast, why was Robyn the character chosen to continue Qrow's development? They didn't have to end up in jail together. If Qrow was going to get character work with any random side character, I would have chosen Willow. Both of them are alcoholics, a conflict of Qrow's that RWBY didn't resolve so much as randomly drop. She's the mother of one of the group's members, specifically his niece's partner. Outside of her marriage, she's the rightful heir to the Schnee name, a company with its fingers in all of Remnant's pies. There's a lot there to play off of for both their development, even down to another 'opposites attract' contrast: grungy spy vs. high-society woman. Plus, we've known of her existence since at least Volume 5 (I can't recall if she's mentioned prior to Weiss' conversation with Yang. Maybe with Winter?). We don't even know if Robyn will be a part of the next arc, which would make Qrow 2 for 0 in picking up Atlas peeps who are quickly written out of the story.

I like that they've paired Qrow up with an adult and I agree that a member of STRQ would be great... but outside of that, Robyn feels like an awful choice. What do she and Qrow even bring to a relationship with one another? The closest to an interesting idea we got was pitting Robyn's truth semblance against Qrow's history of keeping secrets... but all we got was Robyn trying to compare it to his semblance, a comparison that fell flat imo. In the absence of STRQ and in light of the entire group ignoring Ozpin (does Qrow even know he's back? My OTP is dead), I liked Clover as a friend for Qrow (any potential shipping aside), so losing him for Robyn was a letdown.

#rwby #mymetas #rwby mymetas

[inkmyname]

The Ember Island Players: performing toxic masculinity and narrative complicity in propagating misogyny

Initially I wasn’t going to respond to concerns about Katara’s racist/misogynistic portrayal in the Ember Island Players with anything more than snarky tags, but apparently I can’t keep my mouth shut, so I’m posting my response as a standalone meta about how the writers’ insistence on creating drama for drama’s sake leads them to--in lieu of actual character development--fall back on lazy narrative shortcuts whereby a performance of toxic masculinity against a gendered heternormative background is used to create tension in a romantic relationship, presumably with the goal of keeping the audience invested.

The Ember Island Players is problematic for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the pervasive tone-deaf misogyny, including racialized misogyny, directed at Katara. There’s a lot of meta on this, so I’d like to focus on something different: Aang’s relationship with gender and romantic attachments.

Aang seems so uncharacteristically chagrined the whole episode: “I’m not a woman!” Based on his previous characterization up to this point:

The Fortuneteller. This is the same Aang who makes a necklace for Katara when she loses her mother’s. Observe how he responds to Sokka’s jibe about jewelry-making, which can be seen as a feminine pursuit: Sokka: Great, Aang. Maybe instead of saving the world, you can go into the jewelry-making business. Aang: I don’t see why I can’t do both. Femininity isn’t presented as being mutually exclusive with narrative pursuits like saving the world which have traditionally centered male protagonists (especially if we take the entire canon of anything every written in any genre that’s not specifically, say, something like shoujo or jounen which are directed and young girls and women, the narrative focus on male personalities is overwhelming).

The Warriors of Kyoshi. Oh, and this is the same Aang that dressed up in full Kyoshi gear, kabuki makeup and all, without complaint. Why would he? After all, she was him in a past life. (There’s a whole meta here about gender-critical analysis of kabuki productions where male actors typically assumed female roles and how Avatar both takes inspiration from this real-life kernel and subverts it in Rise of Kyoshi where Kyoshi’s signature look is not only an homage to her parental heritage but also a reimagining of who can inhabit what roles. Her legacy, though imperfect, is also notably feminist, taking face paint worn typically by men IRL and expanding it into war paint for women warriors.) (There’s also great headcanon-adjacent meta here about gender non-conformity and non-binary identities in Avatar. Avatar was not overtly explicit about its feminist or gender-progressive mindset outside of episodes like The Warriors of Kyoshi or The Waterbending Master, but it was still way ahead of its time. If anyone was to be presented or headcanoned in such a way, it would be the Avatar who’s lived a thousand lives, inhabiting a thousand skins and a thousand identities, including gender identities. There’s also cool crossover meta here about the Legend of Korra depicting a female Avatar in Korra with masculine tendencies and visible muscle vs Aang as a male Avatar with a gentler pacifistic spirit and gender nonconforming tendencies.)

The Cave of Two Lovers. Aang wears a freaking flower crown and is generally wholesome and adorable, even leading up to the “let’s kiss lest we die” scene with Katara. He’s not pushy or overly concerned with appearing masculine and it is in fact Katara who suggests the kiss and Aang makes a fool of himself. From the transcript: Katara [Shyly, blushing.] Well, what if we … kissed? Aang [Very surprised.] Us … kissing‌? Katara See? It was a crazy idea. Aang [Dreamily.] Us … kissing … Katara [Fake-jokingly.] Us kissing. What was I thinking? Can you imagine that‌? Aang [Fake-jokingly.] Yeah. [Awkwardly laughs.] I definitely wouldn’t want to kiss you! [Beat.] Katara [Insulted.] Oh, well! I didn’t realize it was such a horrible option. [Angrily.] Sorry I suggested it! Aang [Realizing his mistake.] No, no, I mean … if there was a choice between kissing you and dying … Katara [Disgusted.] Ugh! Aang [Desperately.] What? I’m saying is I would rather kiss you than die - that’s a compliment. Katara [Enraged.] Well, I’m not sure which I’d rather do! [Slams the torch into his hand and storms away.] Aang [Miserably.] What is wrong with me … Aang, sweetie, this is not what you say to a girl you want to kiss, but generally, this is Wholesome™ and narratively, this is Good™. Eventually, they do kiss and that’s perfectly acceptable because there’s a whole conversation beforehand with humorous romantic framing. There’s consent and communication and initiative by the female protagonist. So solid A on the sensitive writing.

General Air Nomad culture. We don’t get a lot of Air Nomad culture in the show (and what little we do get what presented in such a misguided way, especially the whole commitment to forgiveness/pacifism which was handled in such an amateur black-and-white way from a writing perspective in season 3). But I digress. I really, really don’t think that Air Nomads who were so concerned with the spiritual side of bending and general existence had stringent notions of gender and romantic relationships–at the very least, they had very different notions of these issues compared to, say, the Northern Water Tribe. Canonically, even though AN philosophy emphasized detachment, Air Nomads practiced free love. Same-gender romance was freely accepted unlike in the homophobic Earth Kingdom (which even Kyoshi, a bisexual woman, wasn’t able to change) and the militant Fire Nation (Sozin outlawed homosexuality after declaring world war, essentially). And though the temples were gender-segregated, it seems that the burden of raising children fell to the entire community instead of just the women. Both male and female Air Nomads are revered. In the case of the former, Guru Laghima who unlocked the power of flight through achieving complete detachment from the material world. And in the case of the latter, Avatar Yangchen, who has statues everywhere because she came to be revered as a deity not just among Air Nomads but in the physical world in general. Nowhere in Air Nomad philosophy is the concept of gender, romance, love, sexuality, relationships etc. etc. tainted with jealousy and possessiveness (especially towards women) or rigid binary heternormativity.

So this was Aang for the better part of the first half of the series. Not overly concerned with gender roles. Pretty much fumbling his way through his first crush like a lovesick puppy and it’s all very wholesome. Supposedly a classic product of Air Nomad upbringing.

Meanwhile, Aang in EIP:

Checks out Katara’s butt as she’s sitting down.

Gets mad at being portrayed by a woman.

Accuses Katara of being the racialized misogynistic version of herself depicted on stage ([sarcastically]“Yeah, that’s not you at all.”).

Nods in agreement when the misogynistic stage production of Katara presents her as the “Avatar’s girl.”

Unable to differentiate between fiction and reality and puts the onus on Katara to do the emotional labor to justify something she never said (”Katara, did you really mean what you said in there? On stage, when you said I was just like a … brother to you, and you didn’t have feelings for me.”)

Assumes they would just… fall into a relationship… just because he forcibly kissed her at the invasion and again pressures Katara to do the emotional labor to justify why their relationship is not how he wants it (“But it’s true, isn’t it? We kissed at the Invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.” / “Aang, I don’t know.” / “Why don’t you know?”)

Forces a non-consensual kiss on her even though “I just said I was confused!”

So, there’s so many things wrong with this, most of which are a laundry list of behaviors typical of toxic masculinity:

Ogling

Outdated misogynistic humor (what’s wrong with being a woman?)

Verbal abuse

Offloading emotional labor

Gaslighting

Pressuring a potential romantic partner

Lack of direct communication about romantic desires

Lack of sensitivity

Lack of active listening

Lack of emotional intelligence and empathy

Lack of consent and sexual assault

I could go on and on.

My question is Where and when did he learn these toxic behaviors? What happened to the wholesome boy making necklaces, wearing flower crowns, and generally being adorable in a kid with a first crush kind of way when it comes to romance?

Now, you can argue that EIP players Aang has been through a lot, including being shot by lightning and actually dying, and after the failed invasion, he’s stressed out with the weight of the world on his shoulders and maybe not expressing himself or his desires in the best way and taking out all of his frustrations on Katara.

Except… that is all just conjecture because the actual writing of the show doesn’t put in the hard work and make those connections. Instead, they fall back on misogynistic tropes and toxic heternormative romance tropes and a forced love triangle subtext and they just, to put it politely, fuck it up, two and a half seasons’ worth of work, gone, in the space of one episode. And even if it weren’t conjecture, it would still be wrong of Aang to act the way he did.

Let’s list Aang and Katara’s interaction in relation to each other in season 3:

The Headband. “Don’t worry about them. It’s just you and me right now,” Aang says as he pulls Katara into a dance. I have qualms about the writing of this episode: the creators wasted a golden opportunity to flesh out the Air Nomad genocide because they were too busy playing footloose in a cave, they wrote Katara–the same Katara would said fuck you to Pakku, freed enslaved earthbenders from a Fire Navy prison, and became a spirit goddess ecoterrorist to help a village in an enemy nation–as uncharacteristically shy just so Aang could sweep in and pull her into a dance. But like fine, whatever. It’s cute and really well-chreographed and there’s actually appropriate romantic framing here for once and at the end of the dance, look at Katara’s face–she’s happy! Positive Kataang interaction, and I don’t actually mind it. 7/10.

The Day of Black Sun Pt.1. He forces a kiss on her on the mouth, taking her completely by surprise. A chaste kiss on the cheek and a wistful pining last look and “Be safe” might have been acceptable, but given Katara’s shocked and uncomfortable body language, the kiss on the mouth was not. Worse yet, the show just… forgets… to follow up on it for several episodes and when it’s brought up again, it’s used as a sledgehammer to punish Katara for not magically being with Aang. 0/10.

The Painted Lady. Let’s look at the transcript: Katara [Using a disguised voice.] Well, hello Avatar. I wish I could talk, but I am very busy. Aang Yeah, me too. I hate that. [Looks at Katara’s face from behind the veil.] You know, you’re really pretty, for a spirit. I don’t meet too many spirits, but the ones I do meet, not very attractive. [Looks at Katara suspiciously. Tries to look under the hat.] Katara [Giggles nervously.] Thank you, but- Aang You seem familiar too. Katara A lot of people say that. Aang [Suspicious.] No, you really seem familiar. Katara Look, I really should get going. [Covers her face and runs, but Aang uses his airbending and blasts her hat up into the air, exposing her.] Aang Katara? Katara [Guiltily.] Hi, Aang. Aang [Shocked.] You’re the Painted Lady? [Pointing at Katara.] But how?Katara I wasn’t her at first, I was just trying to help the village. [Takes her hat off.] But since everyone thought that’s who I was anyway, I guess I just kinda became her. [Drops her hat on the ground.] Aang So you’ve been sneaking out at night? Wait, is Appa even sick?Katara He might be sick of the purple berries I’ve been feeding him, but other than that he’s fine! Aang I can’t believe you lied to everyone, so you could help these people. Katara I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have … Aang [Happily.] No, I think it’s great! You’re like a secret hero! Katara Well, if you wanna help, there’s one more thing I have to do. Aang gives her a curious look. Cut to the Fire Nation factory. Aang and Katara run along the river’s edge toward it. Aang looks at the polluted water. Aang You wanna destroy this factory? Katara Yes. Sokka was just kidding, but he was right. Getting rid of this factory is the only way to help these people permanently. He helps her blow up the Fire Nation smelting plant! Yes, he does call her pretty, but more importantly, this is one of the few times he acknowledges her faults (lying, deception, putting the mission at risk to help the enemy nation etc.) and still thinks she’s so fucking cool. He calls her a secret hero! There’s a lot of admiration and support here from Aang. He’s raising up Katara (instead of putting her down as in EIP) not because he sees her as a potential love interest but because he admires her and her compassion! This is great. Solid wholesome Kataang interaction. 10/10. But all good things must come to an end…

The Southern Raiders. I’m not going to spend too much time on this because there’s a million pieces of meta on this episode. He’s completely out of line asking Katara to be forgive her mother’s killer, the source of her greatest trauma as a victim of targeted ethnic cleansing. Given that he’s a victim of ethnic genocide himself, although he personally wasn’t there for it/didn’t actually witness it unlike Katara, he should have understood. He does say “You need to face this man,” which is good and supportive and he should have stopped there, because he continues on to say, “But when you do, please don’t choose revenge. Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him.” Stop. Stop stop stop. No one should tell a traumatized victim of ethnic cleansing how to deal with their trauma. By the end of the episode, Katara doesn’t kill him–but she crafts a third path as the conclusion to her hero’s journey and it is not the path of forgiveness that Aang preaches. Ironically, it is Zuko, who also confronts Ozai, the source of his greatest trauma, who never tells Katara what to do but follows her lead instead: even though he redirects lightning at Ozai and could have killed him, he doesn’t go through with it. He understands Katara and he understands that she needs to this. Kataang interaction rating: 0/10.

So that’s where we are with Aang and Katara in Ember Island Players. Some positive interactions that are appropriately romantically framed and some that are just wholesome and good… but all ruined by forced kissing and moralizing about Katara’s trauma instead of offering understanding. So that still doesn’t answer when Aang would have learned all of the toxic masculine/heternormative behaviors he displayed in The Ember Islands Players.

The only answer, I’m forced to conclude, is bad fucking writing, where the creators were not only tone-deaf in portraying Katara in a racist/misogynistic way or, you know, in writing solely for the male gaze because fuck half the audience, I guess, but they just wanted to create drama for drama’s sake. They completely disrespected their female lead and I would argue they disrespected Aang’s character too in making him a stereotypical self-insert Gary Stu who displays toxic masculine behavior without consequences because that’s what’s expected of a toxic heternormative romantic plot device.

And worse yet, they never follow up on this, just like with the kiss at the Invasion. In the last five minutes of the finale, Katara looks up at him with admiration for saving the world and then kisses him. This is not only a missed opportunity for character development for Aang, but also a big fuck you to the female audience because the message is clear: the guy gets the girl as a trophy for saving the world, and fuck input from the female half of the partnership because that’s just not important and is not worthy of screentime. But I guess screentime dedicated to displaying toxic masculine/heternormative behaviors without ever condemning such behavior as a follow-up is just fine! :)))

If the EIP was supposed to make an argument for Kataang, then it failed. but more important:

By the show’s own high standards, The Ember Island Players is a failed episode, full of bad writing and worse characterization. For a show that was so ahead of its time, this episode is a narrative black mark, a failure of progressive representation and a disservice to its main characters.

There’s some wholesome Sukka and Zuko/Toph interaction, but even that doesn’t manage to save this episode, especially given there’s no resolution to the central conflict: the relationship between Aang and Katara. The entire unnecessarily OOC and forced Kataang drama drags it down.

We know Aang is capable of lifting up Katara and being supportive of her, as he was in episodes prior. We could have had honest, supportive, and open dialogue between Aang and Katara that actually followed up on the Invasion kiss, with Aang clearly expressing what he wants, Katara expressing that maybe she didn’t want that right now, and Aang completely respecting that and them hugging at the end because their friendship/connection is much more profound than pre-teen romance. This is an instance where Aang could have chosen to center Katara’s feelings, for once, instead of his own out of selfless love. If this happened, I would have been okay with a Kataang ending. But that isn’t what we got, obviously.

Part of what appealed to me about Aang as a male protagonist in media aimed at young audiences is that he–at least initially–did not start out as a toxic self-insert Gary Stu lifted from every problematic heternormative romance film ever. In fact, given his playful trickster archetype, general kindness/gentleness, and his stance against violence (a typically masculine trait), he both subverted expectations of and expanded the boundaries of what a male protagonist in children’s media can look like. Unfortunately, the creators don’t go all the way with Aang. In fact, they took a step back with his portrayal in The Ember Island Players, where the creators not only rely on misogynistic tropes to create drama but also make him complicit in propagating said misogyny. And that’s just a damn shame because we could have had a wholesome Kataang storyline and a sensitive male protagonist who cares not about your outdated gender roles and respects his partner’s autonomy!

#atla #aang #katara #kataang #eip #meta #my meta #aang deserved better #katara deserved better #queer #heteronormativity #toxic masculinity #misogyny #feminist criticism #kataang critical #but only in the sense that the writers messed it up #nothing against kataang personally

[gffa]

hi!!! could you maybe recommend me some books/sources of information on how jedi order works?? wookieepedia is a little overwhelming to me lmao, and i kinda wanted to plan a fic about crèche master anakin, but that requires a lot of information about how raising younglings and clans work, more than i know at the moment!! thank you!

Hi!  I have a meta guide for everything we know about the Jedi in canon here: Taking a Closer Look at the Jedi Order in Star Wars Canon [Meta/Reference Guide] You’ll find the most in chapters 3 and 4, which is really only a handful of mentions about the creche (you can just ctrl+F for mentions, if you want)--the problem is that there really isn’t any book or source of information on how the Jedi Order works. This area of worldbuilding has really been done almost nothing with it, especially because there are two separate continuities, where you have Canon and you have Legends.  Legends probably has more details, but it’s always been non-canon to George Lucas’ Star Wars and so it really just kind of did its own thing (which often led to some amazing stories! Legends is a continuity that has a ton of value and meaning to people! but it also often contradicted what the Jedi were actually like because much of it was created pre-Attack of the Clones, so there weren’t even the three main movies out yet, much less The Clone Wars being out), which means you’re absolutely free to use it, but be wary of how it’s not always consistent. There’s not really even a source of information on what the Force feels like or how it works, aside from the interviews George Lucas has given on these things, which likely informs how canon attempts to treat these things, as they’ve said they’re trying to stay true to his themes now (for example--Legends often had “grey Force users” being stable, but canon now works according to George’s statements of how that’s not possible, the dark side corrupts, you have to actively resist it or you’ll fall to it), because not much worldbuilding has been done on this aspect of them. Instead, you have to piece together what we get in bits and bobs in the canon, which is what I’ve done with the above.  If you want, you can read stuff like the Jedi Apprentice books, but they’re pretty firmly not canon anymore (like they had an age limit of 13, which has been overwritten by canon, where Ahsoka was 14 when she became a Padawan, there was a youngling in Dooku: Jedi Lost who was 16 and indicated they’d have to wait another year, there was no indication of impending age limit, even in Legends there was a book that had a 17 year old initiate who would have to keep trying) and so, again, you’re pretty free to make up whatever you like about the way Jedi creches work. The few things we do know, as mentioned in the above link: - On arrival at the Temple, Initiates are sorted into clans to help them foster trust and kinship. [Dooku: Jedi Lost] - When a Jedi youngling becomes a Padawan, they seem to go from the creche to partnering with their Master, though, first there are conversations with the crechemaster and the Master at some point:    Obi-Wan said, “You know, I never had problems with that as a youngling. Being independent, I mean. I broke rules right and left. They even called me rebellious. Probably the Masters were surprised anyone was willing to take me on as an apprentice.”  In fact, Qui-Gon had been warned about this very thing. He’d long since assumed that the crèche masters’ concern was overcautious. [Master and Apprentice] - Yaddle spends at least some time in the creche, whether regularly or they have rotating ones, is anyone’s guess, but she was there when Qui-Gon was a youngling:       “Only yesterday, Dooku had chosen [Qui-Gon] as Padawan. He’d spent his last night in the younglings’ crèche laughing with his friends, imagining all the adventures he would have, and practicing with his lightsaber in the sparring room until Master Yaddle ordered him to bed.“  [Master and Apprentice] - They teach the younglings about the Force there:    “Qui-Gon whispered, “The dark side?” He knew it was a thing all beings carried within them, a part of himself he would learn to guard against—the crèche masters had taught him all that. But it still sounded a little like some kind of ghost or monster, a mysterious thing that would leap out from the shadows to get you when you weren’t looking.” [Master and Apprentice], which is a direct echo of George Lucas explaining the Force: “ Only way to overcome the dark side is through discipline. The dark side is pleasure, biological and temporary and easy to achieve. The light side is joy, everlasting and difficult to achieve.”  (George Lucas, Clone Wars writers meeting) - These bonds do seem to be significant, to at the very least some degree, as Obi-Wan thinks of his “creche-mate” even when he’s 17, indicating that possibly they’re often lifelong friends:       Obi-Wan’s crèche-mate Prie, for instance, had been partnered with a Master who was expert in two things [....] [Master and Apprentice] - The younglings in the creche seem to sleep near each other (I have a personal headcanon that they sleep in piles, all cuddled up with each other, because Space Psychics) because they seem to often gossip with each other night by candle droid:  In Dooku: Jedi Lost there is a gossip story passed around about a possibly expelled Padawan long ago, one that keeps getting passed around by Initiates telling stories by glow lanterns at night, which indicates that it’s considered juicy enough/surprising enough that it doesn’t seem to happen much/if at all. - We do see Yoda and Tera Sinube teaching classes of younglings as well, so they’re probably familiar to almost every youngling who passes through the creches.  Whether these classes are based on the younglings’ clans or if they’re randomized, we have no idea, though.  I’m assuming that at least some of them were based on clans, because we see Yoda teaching Bear Clan in Attack of the Clones, which also gives us an indication of the size of them--probably somewhere between four and eight.

We also see in Dooku: Jedi Lost that Dooku was part of the Hawk-Bat Clan, which often did things together, that Dooku spent time with Thranta Clan, while Tera Sinube spent more time with Heliost Clan. It’s probably reasonable to assume that the Jedi younglings from “The Gathering” are a clan as well, showing that they do things together fairly often:

Though, we see two other younglings there and Ganodi doesn’t seem to be part of the group, assuming that that’s Gungi, Byph, Petro, and Zatt with her.  But we do see Tera Sinube spending time with them here and again later, when they’re practicing with their lightsabers:

Though, again, we see more than just that one clan--unless the two other younglings are part of their clan and just weren’t on that specific trip to Ilum with the others?  Entirely possible there, too. But that’s it, that’s all we know.  Anything else isn’t canon/never really was and can be fun to use, but I often find it doesn’t really fit well with what we’re shown in The Clone Wars or with George’s themes for SW. I think it makes sense, though, that it works like a communal society, where there are crechemasters who look after the children in their little mini-family clans, helping shepherd them to their classes, who shoo the children to bed at night and take care of them, talk with them about the things they need to know, work to help ease the transition when they become apprentices, etc. (As a note:  If you’re reading Wookieepedia, even on the canon pages, they’ll reference The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force sometimes, but be wary, as that book is very firmly not canon.  Elements of it may be recanonized, but only what appears in books like Dooku: Jedi Lost, Master and Apprentice, Choose Your Destiny: Obi-Wan & Anakin, Age of the Republic: Obi-Wan Kenobi, etc. are actually canon.)

#Anonymous #jedi order #meta #long post

[omegatheunknown]

AEW ALL OUT 2021

In which, not to get ahead of myself here, AEW puts on one of the best major wrestling shows in several years*, following the simple yet effective principle of giving the people what they want and sending everyone home happy and hungry for more.

- The incredibly 'Nitro' ending of the go-home Dynamite, which ran a little long on the 'heels beat everyone up and strut around like assholes almost too in desperate need of comeuppance' bit, short of garbage raining into the ring, did actually increase the heat for both promoted matches. Again, not rocket science, but executed perfectly. Catharsis was on the card, and catharsis went over several times Sunday. - Again, it's time to move on from the Casino theme, shuffling the deck and drawing suits really only detracted from the Battle Royale and seemingly always throws the production crew a curve. If they haven't hammered it by now, it's not going to happen. - Bit unhappy about the PAC/Andrade situation, but still over the moon with Andrade's promo style and Chavito being unhelpful at best.

*Pre-Card

Best Friends and Jurassic Express v The Hardy Family Office and The Hybrid 2 (**) - Not usually much to say about a loaded-up multiteam boondoggle, particularly when the show has yet to begin, but there were some moments worth sitting up to take notice -- there's a lot of talent in the ring, even if Jack Evans/Angelico aren't going to be more than mid-level mooks, little matchups with guys like Luchasaurus and Chuck Taylor are opportunities for innovative/weird spots. - Really this match exists to show-off Jungle Boy, play his theme song twice, and work him in to the aforementioned spots. I don't rightly know what Jungle Jack's ceiling is, but it sort of feels like he's plateauing, at least this version of himself. - Dan Lambert thing is interesting in that it doesn't seem to easily lead to something obvious... I mean who are Scorp and Ethan Page feuding with by proxy here, the concept of contemporary professional wrestling? Orange Cassidy and Kenny Omega?

*Main Card

Miro (C) v Eddie Kingston for the TNT Championship (***1/2) - 'Redeem Deez Nuts' T-shirts now available -- and made immediately redundant now that Miro has graciously redeemed Eddie's nuts. - Imagine looking at Miro, listening to Miro talk, and not really being able to figure out this guy is money. Also imagine panicking when he took a little while to find his groove in AEW. 'The Redeemer' is both entertaining and terrifying, and this match delivered heavily on the promise of two big fellas smacking together repeatedly. - Not only does Eddie's arsenal of power moves target Miro's neck, he may also be quite difficult to put in the full reclined camel clutch. Or he'd quite literally snap in half. It didn't come to that. - Weird heel turn by Bryce's attention span and the overall weirdness of the finish is all that kept this from being an excellent match, otherwise this was a tremendous curtain jerker and started off a dangerously fun run of pure adrenaline.

Jon Moxley v Satoshi Kojima (****) - The stakes were nebulous, the build was abrupt, yet this was a fantastic match and tremendous showcase for an underappreciated great who has been more or less just toiling for a bunch of years as a NJPW Dad. Same deal for Nagata, and I assume Tenzan is the same, Taka Michinoku even -- let's see it. - I have to assume the Cozy Lariat might have put Mox down, but Kojima otherwise played the hits (Koji Cutter, Piledriver, Brainbustaaaa) in a big way and Moxley once again proved he's become a very well-rounded wrestler who can match the intensity of just about any former IWGP champion. - More to the point-- KAZE NI NARE -- out of nowhere, too. Or out of nowhere to those not paying attention to the whereabouts of Minoru Suzuki (Right, he's just over here to fight Daniel Garcia and not Mox?), which I guess is to my own peril. Wow, though. Surprise Number 1- a complete surprise, and a welcome one. Let's have it.

Dr Britt Baker, DMD (C) v Kris Statlander for the AEW Women's Championship (****) - I love Kris and her best friends but she didn't have a prayer of dethroning Britt. She got one promo, several weeks ago, and though she did make a meal of Hayter and Rebel, the chase has been abrupt and not given much discussion, other than Mark Henry and whomever else acknowledging what is extremely evident -- Statlander is stronger than she looks, and she looks really strong. They've got her doing Cesaro-level 'modify your grip while holding your opponent's entire weight' nonsense, and it's amazing and scary. - Even with the reign of the good doctor not being credibly threatened, this was an excellent match that demonstrated the continued growth of the competitors in the women's division, even as it underlined that their storylines remain undercooked and perfunctory: Orange Cassidy whipping off his shades to urge Stat to get up was a beautiful moment. Britt's Panama Sunrise, also, too sweet. Statlander eating shit on her 451 and her pendulum moonsault was properly brutal, as were Britt's curb stomps. Really great match between these two. - Again, if they had bothered to write anything into this story, such as Kris' alien physiology making her immune to the lockjaw or something... actually, maybe that's a terrible idea. it's an idea. Undefeated challenger is defeated, on to the next for Dr Britt. Statlander and OC should tag against some of the boys.

The Young Bucks (C) v The Lucha Bros for the AEW World Tag Team Championship(*****+) - Can't not mention the insane entrance lined up for Fenix and Penta. It was bewildering, it was enchanting, it was aggressive, it was hype. It also reminded everybody how very badly we all wanted the Lucha Bros to win. The crowd has been setting new peaks with their volume since Punk showed up, but things were absolutely thunderous and ecstatic at the end of this match. Absolutely valid response. I yelled on the couch. - Nick's facial hair was a bigger tell that it was time for the Bucks to lose than anything else about this build. There's literally nowhere to go from there -- they've done the hair, the bandanas, the kicks, the animal print, the dangly earrings -- peak visual heel for this time and place. - Sincerely thought this was going to be too much of a full sprint spot-fest (the PWG-esque circle of trading blows is not really 'my thing') but even so they kept finding gears, and ramping and ramping and adding blood and brutality along the way. Even a bit of levity, with the tacked up sneaker, followed by the sincerity of Penta throwing himself in harm's way to protect his brother. Immense match, I think you'd have to go back to the Bucks vs the Addiction and MCMGs Ladder War to find a more thrilling tag team gimmick match. - If there's a single flaw to be found it's in the production not really settling on wide angles for simultaneous action at the start of the match. They figured it out. - Rey Fenix is the best luchador in the world.

Women's Casino Battle Royale (**1/2) - If nothing else, this really shows off that they now have a surplus of women's wrestlers who deserve time to hang in the ring. Unsurprisingly, the match picked right up when Thunder Rosa and then Jamie Hayter got to the ring, with additional props to Tay Conti and Jade Cargill, who was dumped rather unceremoniously given her general booking... - Okay, there was something else. Welcome to the rechristened Ruby Soho, who I've not seen a lot of outside of her extremely limited showcase in WWE, but she has so many friends in the back and in the industry and that's never for nothing, not in wrestling, anyway. Intrigued to see where she fits, and if the women ever get more than a match per show. - Touched on this in the preamble but this was the roughest part of the night for the home viewer, just weird decisions on cutting away from various entrances to show... nothing in particular happening. Also while the commitment to not-kayfabing the countdown clock is... admirable? It makes the pacing hinky. - Almost everyone who got new gear for tonight was looking like the white ranger -- Nyla, Swole, Bunny, someone I'm missing. Except Anna Jay, whose stars and glitter gear looked great.

MJF v Chris Jericho for the fate of Jericho's in-ring career (***) - MJF's unauthorized homage to Y2J's entrance: good. Fozzy's guitarist going off tempo with the instrumental Judas: weak, and would've been sad if this were the end for Jericho. Especially as the build has felt... muted, somehow. - Props to the commentary for continuing to feed the red herring of 'in AEW,' as a caveat to stipulation, it did feel like... a remote possibility that MJF would win. - Credit to Aubrey for calling this one down the middle and not putting the fix in for her friend Jericho, and I guess the Dusty finish will give MJF plenty to gripe about. - MJF wrestles with a pure heel style, holds, chops, blocks, and Jericho is fifty years old, so the level of wrestling on exhibition in these matches is well beside the point. It was solid to good, and I was fighting burn out from the first half of the card's level of excitement.

CM Punk v Darby Allin (***1/2) - There are a couple benefits of Darby as a dance partner, and it's certainly better than having to watch Punk return against like, QT Marshall or Shawn Spears. Darby does make everyone look slow, but he can also be tossed around, and this raises his profile even in defeat, obviously. That said, the stakes here are... meta, at best, in that we want to see the man look good and justify the hype. It's a weird thing to root for. He certainly does look good. (Tights? Tights!) - It's fun to theorize about actually booking an angle where Punk is rusty and needs to regain his prowess, and maybe he'll stumble, but maybe the most we get out of that angle is hitting the GTS a little close to the ropes so Darby falls right out of the ring, in what was, for me, the spot that justified this whole match. - Sting's proud step-dad aura is still a hell of a thing, I really liked the end of the match kudos all around. - Match was good, hard to hang my emotions on. I wasn't watching WWE when Punk was in WWE. Definitely feeding off the excitement of others a bit here, and he sure can talk. I'd like to see him cultivate a stable, certainly.

Paul Wight v QT Marshall (n/r) - ...popcorn match? QT Marshall is like the anti-Daniel Garcia in that while his prominence and presence is just as inexplicable, I don't want it to continue, and he doesn't justify it in the process. - Match was two minutes longer than it needed to be.

Kenny Omega (c) v Christian Cage for the AEW World Championship (****1/2) - Crowd was both burnt out and more or less waiting for the post-match angle. Which I get. it's hard to cruise to the main event and having seen all the different things we've already seen on this card, even a singular performer like Kenny Omega and a legend with whom he (surprisingly? fittingly?) has superb chemistry with in Christian Cage were up against it to deliver something memorable. - Context dependent, I can definitely see rating this below their Rampage match, especially since... I mean Christian isn't winning the AEW title off Kenny at this or probably any other event. - But! It was really good! It was very good! They really do match-up well, and Kenny's v-trigger has rarely looked more devastating than when it knocks Christian flat. Christian got cut open in a novel and initially worrying way, and Kenny followed up a botched moonsault with a harder version of the same move off a rail, but it was a really great match and it deserved more energy than was available.

Post-Show - Calling back and inverting the end of Dynamite, The Elite strut about the ring, slightly less stoked than they were on Wednesday, but with the Bucks smiling through the pain, and Jungle Boy once again subjected to violence for his misguided heroism, Kenny 'not much a promo' Omega lays down a killer line about nobody being fit to challenge him who isn't unavailable, already tired or dead. - The Undertaker ADAM COLE, BAY BAY as Surprise #3 was a minor stroke of brilliance, and a fun swerve because while it's exciting to see him, his appearance at this point in the narrative does nothing to solve the problem of The Elite beating up Christian and Jungle Boy. Unless he's still sore about his unsolved murder, which he isn't. Storytime with Adam Cole is back and it's beautiful. Also Jungle Boy died for this. - Okay. But. Just. Okay. CM Punk and Bryan Danielson are All Elite. They will hopefully tag together. Bryan will head to NJPW, almost definitely. Minoru Suzuki just walked in and started slugging on Mox. The Forbidden Door is wide open. Will Kenny Omega one day return to Wrestle Kingdom? There are so many possibilities and they are all very exciting. This was a phenomenal show and it didn't have Hangman Page, Cody Rhodes, FTR, Santana and Ortiz, PAC, Andrade, Sammy Guevara, Team Taz, and the rest.

- Wrestling is good, actually. Imagine watching like five hours of wrestling and loving wrestling at the end of it.

*What competes- WK11, Dominion 2018, 2019, DoN 2019, 2021.. All-In, probably. Wrestlemania 30. A few Takeovers. Kris Wolf's retirement show...

#aew #aew all out #all out 2021 #cm punk #bryan danielson #kenny omega #christian cage #chris jericho #mjf #darby allin #the young bucks #penta el zero m #rey fenix #miro #eddie kingston #sting #jungle boy #kris statlander #dr britt baker dmd #orange cassidy #thunder rosa #ruby soho #adam cole #the elite #jon moxley #satoshi kojima #wrestling reviews

[gkingoffez]

2020 RvB Valentines Exchange uwu

@rvbgiftexchange

My partner was MentalMaterial but I think they’ve changed their name to @linklebard ?

Anyway, here’s ur Tuckington mutual pining bed sharing as requested. Enjoy!

Words: 1833

Pairing: Tuckington

~~~

Tucker was fucked. He had to be- fucked in the head or the heart or the mostly healed stab wound in his side from that fucker Felix. Something had to be wrong, despite the fortified walls of Armonia around him, the Chorus truce, the energy sword in his bag and especially the ex-Freelancer standing beside him in the confined corridor who he hadn’t expected to be there.

“I’m sorry, sirs!” squeaked the young woman in front of them, a civilian wearing a military lanyard, pulling at her frazzled hair with one hand and frantically scrolling on her data-pad with the other. “There must have been a glitch in the program- you should have been assigned your own private rooms. I’m so sorry, our equipment is so outdated and it does stuff like this sometimes-”

“Please stop apologising, it’s not your fault,” Wash insisted gently. “We understand that this was just a mistake, but we’re tired and just want to go to bed?”

“Are you sure there’s no more spare rooms on this floor? A secret penthouse with a jacuzzi maybe? I’ll take it if there is.” asked Tucker.

The woman shook her head, frowning and tapping away. “I’m sor- I mean, no, not here, in fact there’s nothing else on this floor. “This hotel was only converted into officer accommodation a few days ago, and Locus was confirmed to have stayed here while in the city,” she explained.

“There are empty rooms further along that way, but we haven’t had time to do the same level of security sweeps on them.”

The woman gestured at the plain black door behind her, completely identical to the myriad of other ones lining the narrow corridor.

“This room does have a queen bed, sirs. The easiest solution might be that you can share it for the night and one of you can move tomorrow? I know it’s not ideal, but it’s better than a possible security risk.”

“What?” spluttered Tucker. “Why aren’t there enough rooms? And What happened to all of us getting private-?”

“Thank you, that’ll do us fine for tonight,” interjected Wash loudly, glaring at him. “We don’t want to cause too much fuss this late in the evening, and definitely don’t want to stay somewhere that’s not secure. Don’t you agree, Captain Tucker.”

Tucker gaped, words escaping him under Wash’s gaze.

He was fucked. Because once the adrenaline had worn off discovering a manufactured civil war, transmitting that info globally, being betrayed and stabbed by Felix, confronting Hargrove and whatever else happened in the less than a week since he’d snuck off the New Republic base, Tucker suddenly had time and space for… thoughts.

Thoughts like how much he’d truly missed the man standing beside him.

Wash, who’d been a hardass in the canyon like he was being fucking paid for it, who’d kept them all fed and alive and together, and then he’d gone and done the heroic sacrifice play, like an idiot, and suddenly he was gone. It felt like all Tucker had thought about for the last several months was whether Wash was okay, whether he was in pain or alone or dead. At points he’d almost wished they’d swapped places, that he was taking the (in hindsight, non-existent) punishment from the Federal Army, and Wash was the one training the Lieutenants.

Then out of the blue, Wash was back. Wash was fine. Everyone was fine, and like a circle, the whirlwind of betrayal, civil war, stabbing yada-yada unfolded. Tucker had only just caught his breath again and was looking forward to actually relaxing for once, only to end up in this corridor, standing awkwardly in front of a room they’d both been assigned to.

Wash was staring pointedly at him with those stupid clear blue eyes that made Tucker’s heart jump, and it was clear something must have been wrong, because that wasn’t right. It was physical and mental exhaustion, not love. He wasn’t some hormonal teenager, he was a grown man who wanted to go to fucking bed and not have to deal with his fucking feelings.

“Yeah, whatever, let’s just go then,” Tucker said offhandedly, adjusting his sack over his shoulder and stomping into the room without another word.

It was small but glamourous compared to normal military quarters- the hiss of the sliding door muffled against thick looking carpet, one door presumably leading to a bathroom, a single kitchen cabinet with a sink and a lowboy with a television mounted to the wall above it.

The bed took up the bulk of the space in the far end of the room. Behind it hung thick mustard coloured curtains, although Tucker knew even without having to move them that they’d been covered barred with a bullet proof covering as part of the security sweep. What was the point of being a heroes of Chorus, after all, if a well-placed sniper could take them out through a hotel window?

“Home sweet home, I guess,” Tucker shrugged, ignoring his jumping heart as he unceremoniously dumped his stuff on the ground near the kitchen space.

“Thank you for stopping to help us. We’ll be fine.” Wash was saying as he backed into the room. “Good night.”

“Good night sirs!” the woman said, “And again, I’m so-!”

The door hissed shut, Wash’s hand on the button.

“What the fuck, dude,” cried Tucker, rounding on him. “You didn’t have to immediately say yes. I could have pawned Caboose onto someone else and taken his room or something.”

“Oh don’t bother Caboose, he’s probably already asleep and you’ll never wake him. It’s late. All we need is a bed and everything will be else sorted in the morning. One night in the same bed won’t kill us.”

Wash crossed the room and carefully deposited his own knapsack on the lowboy.

“Besides, I wanted us to stay together a little bit longer. To be safe, you know,” he added quietly, glancing Tucker’s way.

Now, of course, Tucker’s eyes had also joined the ‘fucked party’. Was it a trick of the LED lights, or was that a blush on Wash’s cheeks? There was no way to double check, as Wash quickly turned his back on him.

Tucker crossed his arms haughtily, huffing and shaking his head to reset it.“Whatever. I’ll take the right side.”

“Fine by me,” replied Wash, unzipping his bag and rustling around in it, still turned away. “I’m going to change in the bathroom. Oh, and Tucker?”

“Yes?”

“I swear to god if you sleep naked, I’m going to suffocate you with a pillow.”

“Not if I suffocate you first, asshole.”

Maybe ten minutes of bathroom time, brushing teeth and other general night activities later (Tucker was fully clothed in loose borrowed sweats), they were both lying in bed back to back in the queen bed.

“Well,” said Wash. “Good night.”

“Yeah, night.”

As soon as the light turned off, Tucker’s brain switched on like a fucking Christmas tree.

He was not in love with Wash. Love was for girls and people who hadn’t spent literal years on the shittiest military posting ever, then got knocked up, then spent years in the desert, then got dragged on a mission to kill the Freelancer Director, then crashed landed on a planet- well, anyone would get the point. Sure, he acted like a stud and a lady’s man, but truthfully, it had been a long, long time since he’d really loved anyone like that.

Wash had been a fucking Freelancer. Caboose and the Reds talked about him like he was the most capable, badass guy around (barring the time he’d apparently gone evil and shot Donut, of course). Not to mention, he was kinda hot. Sandy hair with streaks of grey, blue eyes, even the criss-cross of scars across his pale skin did things for Tucker. Like he was this put-together, experienced and handsome man next to Tucker’s immaturity and recklessness.

The sheets were feeling too tight and stuffy for his brain, and the slow pattern of Wash’s breathing next to him was not helping. He flipped over onto his back, pulling and rearranging them, staring up at the shadowed ceiling.

“Hey Wash, you asleep yet?” he asked quietly

There was a beat.

“If I was, how would you expect me to answer that?” came the annoyed reply

“I dunno. Snoring?”

Wash snorted. “Just go to sleep, Tucker.”

They were in the same bed. They were in the same bed. Wash was inches away, the kind of distance where Tucker could touch him and then easily brush it off as an accident of movement. Wash’s hand was right there, he’d only need to reach- but no. He couldn’t do that, it wasn’t right.

When Caboose first suggested putting the ex-Freelancer in Church’s empty armour, it hadn’t really mattered to Tucker that much. He was just a guy who’d been an asshole but switched sides in time to help them take out the Meta, may as help him not go back to jail after all. Months in the crash had changed that, and all that time of training and bickering and surviving together had made them friends. He’d bitched and bitched and then watchedWash sacrifice himself as a rockfall separated them had been devastating, throwing into perspective just how goddamn much he cared about all of them despite the fact that they were a bunch of Red and Blue idiots.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder or however the shit went. And Tucker had spent months wishing Wash was ok, wishing he was there, wishing a lot of things.

Maybe he had fallen in love with the man in that time. Maybe it wasn’t as fucked up as he was making it out to be, he’d always been pretty dramatic, after all. Dudes fell in love with dudes all the time, especially when they’d been through a lot together.

Oh for fuck’s sake, none of this matters! There’s no way in hell that he likes me too. Just go to sleep, idiot.

Tomorrow, Tucker could wake up and blame it all on stress, exhaustion and the computer system that had fucked up room assignments. For that moment, however, he felt himself drift off, eyelids heavy and breath evening out.

They had work to do tomorrow rebuilding Chorus and tracking down mercenaries, and the more sleep he got, the better.

The last thing he registered that night was the vibration and rustling sound of Wash twisting in place. However, he must have dreamed about the gentle, tender touch he felt on his face as he was just on the precipice of sleep.

That couldn’t be right.

~~~

A snapshot of the future- tangled limbs in a queen bed, dark on pale and scattered scars. A data-pad hanging limply in a man’s hand, the other gazing at him with an adoring expression. The first glances at the rapture in his lover’s face, and snorts.

“You’re fucked,” he says, jokingly.

“No, you fucked me,” replies Tucker. They laugh.

~~~

Ya’ll let me tell you about the absolute stress rollercoaster I’ve had these past few months. So first up, I completely forgot I’d signed up for this exchange, and was surprised when I got the message. Then I proceeded to have a family death, my birthday and the stress of having to search for a new place to live and start packing up my stuff, all while working my shitty full time job and being exhausted from it.

So to my exchange partner, I’m sorry for not reaching out at all, but my anxiety levels are pretty high these days. This was written pretty quickly, at the last minute and after not writing for probably a year, but I hope you enjoy.

I might have another editing run through it before posting elsewhere but it’s done somewhat on time so I’m happy (Valentine’s was actually yesterday for me and I have to leave for work in like five minutes.)

Anyway, happy love and bed sharing and mutual pining guys. Love ya.

#red vs blue #tuckington #bed sharing #red vs blue fanfiction #G writes #rvbgiftexchange

[oliviareviewsnasu]

Olivia Reads Fate/Stay Night ~Fate~ Route (Blind Readthrough) Part 1: Intro Sequence and Rin!

Before we begin with this readthrough I'd like to personally thank anyone and everyone who has come here to listen (or read I suppose) my maddened ramblings. You truly make it worth it. Now on to the readthrough. Intro Sequence By now this intro scene is engrained even into my mind and there’s not really much to say about it. As this is a blind review however here’s a basic summary of the events: Shirou, in a state of desperation, summons perhaps one of the most famous characters in the franchise to fend off an unknown attacker. The King of Knights stands before him and asks the iconic line: “I ask of you, are you my master?”. She then states that their fates (heh) are now entwined before the scene fades to white leading into the Rin prologue. On the more technical end; the music in the Realta Nua version is phenomenal. as is Ayako Kasumi’s performance as Saber even this early on in what would be a long career

What I think the anime (Unlimited Blade Works in particular) doesn’t quite convey is Shirou’s mystique and awe in the face of the King of Knights, nor his poetic heart. He’s clearly much much more intelligent and thoughtful than quite a few people give him credit for.

By all accounts this is true in a both a literal and meta-sense. 17 years later people are still discussing the franchise with nearly the same vigor as larger properties like One Piece or Dragon Ball. As for the literal, well, we all know Shirou’s dark fate. On the topic of darkness, I love how they portray Arturia. Awash in the light of the moon while Shirou is cowering in the dark. The contrast is beautiful and highlights just how important of a role she’d play in the would-be-hero’s future. What I find to be fascinating is how much imagery is loaded into these first few moments. That, coupled with Shirou’s prose, makes for a gorgeous introduction. My only issue with it is the whiplash bait-and-switch from Shirou’s perspective to Rin’s; especially with the knowledge that we’ll need to essentially re-read that part to begin with. It weakens some of the dramatic tension and choreography. Prologue: Day 1 (Part 1) And so the Rin prologue begins, in bed, with traumatic memories and regrets. So an ordinary morning for this reviewer. It’s also the first mention of the Holy Grail War that took place during the events of Fate/Zero. Rin’s final memories of her father do pull at my heart-strings however. Wanting to make someone laugh before you see them off is, in my opinion, a noble pursuit. Given what I know of Tokiomi from the events of Fate/Zero I can also agree that his character was perhaps one of the finer among the mages. At least compared to Kiritsugu “Sign a magical contract, can’t shoot, hire someone else to first for me” Emiya, Kirei “My religious views make my sadism and hedonism weird for me” Kotomine, and Lord El Melloi “Old Money, Old Magecraft” Archibald. Sound wise I’ve been listening to the flashback music for nearly ten minutes as I’ve been writing this up and I’m starting to see stars so we should probably move along- And so the Rin proloAnd so the Rin prologue begins, in bed, with traumatic memories and regrets. So an ordinary morning for this reviewer. It’s also the first mention of the Holy Grail War that took place during the events of Fate/Zero. Rin’s final memories of her father do pull at my heart-strings however. Wanting to make someone laugh before you see them off is, in my opinion, a noble pursuit. Given what I know of Tokiomi from the events of Fate/Zero I can also agree that his character was perhaps one of the finer among the mages. At least compared to Kiritsugu “Sign a magical contract, can’t shoot, hire someone else to first for me” Emiya, Kirei “My religious views make my sadism and hedonism weird for me” Kotomine, and Lord El Melloi “Old Money, Old Magecraft” Archibald. Sound wise I’ve been listening to the flashback music for nearly ten minutes as I’ve been writing this up and I’m starting to see stars so we should probably move along-gue begins, in bed, with traumatic memories and regrets. So an ordinary morning for this reviewer. It’s also the first mention of the Holy Grail War that took place during the events of Fate/Zero. Rin’s final memories of her father do pull at my heart-strings however. Wanting to make someone laugh before you see them off is, in my opinion, a noble pursuit. Given what I know of Tokiomi from the events of Fate/Zero I can also agree that his character was perhaps one of the finer among the mages. At least compared to Kiritsugu “Sign a magical contract, can’t shoot, hire someone else to first for me” Emiya, Kirei “My religious views make my sadism and hedonism weird for me” Kotomine, and Lord El Melloi “Old Money, Old Magecraft” Archibald. Sound wise I’ve been listening to the flashback music for nearly ten minutes as I’ve been writing this up and I’m starting to see stars so we should probably move along-

-Only for the lovely siren song of the world’s most annoying alarm clock to start ringing.

I agree with you there Rin, I feel like I’m being attacked as well. Terrible assault on the ears aside, we learn that Rin has been up late at night studying her Father’s will. A hobby that not even I would recommend. After struggling to get out of bed in time for class (Rin really is my spirit animal), she promptly complains about the coldness of her home. As someone who lives in Boston and has never heard of Central Air, this is painfully relatable. Have you had to sit on a toilet seat with ice in the bowl? I don’t recommend it. After the most uncomfortable scene of someone humble-bragging about their rich (literally in this case) background (likely because she can’t to anyone else), she explains that she is in fact a mage and what that entails. Persecution, isolation, and regular communion with forces beyond what most can comprehend. She also goes on to reference the 5 magics (familiar if you’ve played Melty Blood or read Tsukihime, something I’m sure to cover at some point).

What I find to be interesting here is that she fundamentally separates herself from the rest of humanity, treating herself as an outsider despite living what she’d consider ‘an ordinary life’. She shows longing and desire for the things that everyone else has access to and seems to disdain magic on it’s own. But to paraphrase Rin: “Let’s put off difficult discussions, they can wait till they’re old.” As Rin heads out she grabs a rather suspicious (and important) pendant that she managed to find after decoding Tokiomi’s will. It makes me wonder, did he lock up the Tohsaka family heirlooms in various vaults; hoping that someday his heir or maybe one of hers would be able to open them? Was he trolling his daughter? Or am I reading too much into this? Besides her finding the mystical cure-a-spear-to-the-heart jewel, Rin goes on to explain how Tohsaka family magic works. Essentially by slowly storing magic in jewels to draw upon at a later date. I’m reminded of Stormlight and its use of spheres, but that’s besides the point. There’s also a brief discussion of magic crests and how they’re essentially all the magical experiences of her predecessors engraved into her arm. Fun. Rin then goes on to finally leave her house after nearly thirty minutes of getting ready and shows a remarkable knowledge of German. Something that even I haven’t quite managed to master. There’s some brief world building with this area of Fuyuki being a blend of Eastern and Western architecture (as an architect myself this is fascinating to me) and draws a line of parallel between Rin and Shirou. Rin lives in a fancy Western-style mansion and longs for the future, while Shirou lives in the Eastern-style Emiya Residence and yearns for ideals that don’t quite exist anymore. As Rin hurries off to school, a sense of eeriness and unease washes over us, only for us to learn the most terrible and terrifying fact of all. She got up early and so her early morning panic was wasted. Oh and we also meet Ayako who is as exhaustingly energetic as usual. Somehow Rin’s clocks were all an hour fast. She suspects Tokiomi’s work, but I doubt the Tohsaka family Patriarch was one for pranks. Ayako drags Rin off the almost exorbitantly fancy Archery range and they begin to discuss their mutual search for a partner. Have I said that Rin is my spirit animal? I’m sure I must have by now.

This is the first glimpse we get at Rin’s competitive side. Ayako may have been the one to initiate the relationship, but any strong rivalry requires mutual input from both parties. A solid example of this can be seen in the relationship between Sanji and Zoro in One Piece. If I were less astute, I’d prop Ayako as up a potential antagonist later on during the route. As for the contest itself, it’s petty in the most realistic of ways. Attempting to get a boyfriend or girlfriend just to rub it in the face of your rival? I’ve definitely experienced that in my (admittedly brief) lifetime. Well we’ll have to find out another time as I’ve come to realize just how long this document is getting. Join me next week and we’ll continue along with the Rin prologue and hope we get to her summoning of Archer. This has been a fascinating look at the series I’ve adored for so long, just seeing the characters thoughts on the most simple of matters has been an eye-widening experience. This is Olivia Reviews and I can’t wait to see you next time.

#fate stay night #visual novel #blind reader #olivia reviews #part 1 #shirou emiya #rin tohsaka #nasuverse #the alarm clock won't stop ringing in my head several hours later

[aion-rsa]

Summer Movie Preview: From Black Widow to The Suicide Squad and Beyond

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The summer movie season has returned. Finally. Once something we all just took for granted, like handshakes and indoor dining, a summertime season stuffed with pricy Hollywood blockbusters and cinematic escapism suddenly feels like a long lost friend. But, rest assured, the summer movie season is genuinely and truly here. It’s maybe a little later than normal, yet it’s still in time for Memorial Day in the States.

This is of course happy news since many of the big screen events of this year have been 12 months or more in the offing. A Quiet Place Part II was supposed to open two Marches ago, and In the Heights is opening almost an exact year to the day from its original release. They’re here now, as is an impressive assortment of new films. There are genre fans’ long lost superhero spectacles, with Black Widow and The Suicide Squad leading the pack (and Shang-Chi closing out the season unusually late in time for Labor Day weekend), and there are also horror movies like The Conjuring 3 and M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, aforementioned musicals, family adventures in Jungle Cruise, psychedelic Arthurian legends via The Green Knight, and a few legitimately original projects like Stillwater and Reminiscence. Imagine that!

So sit back, put your feet in the pool, or up by the grill pit, and toast with us the summer movie’s resurrection.

A Quiet Place Part II

May 28 (June 3 in the UK)

Fourteen months after its original release date, the first movie delayed by the pandemic is finally coming to theaters for Memorial Day weekend. And despite what some critics say (even our own), most of us would argue it’s worth the wait. As a movie about a family enduring after a global crisis that has left their lives in tatters, and marred by personal tragedy, A Quiet Place Part II hits differently in 2021 than it would have a year ago. And it’s undeniably optimistic view of humanity feels like a warm balm now.

But beyond the meta context, writer-director John Krasinski (flying solo as screenwriter this time) has engineered a series of intelligent and highly suspenseful set pieces which puts Millicent Simmonds’ Regan front and center. Also buoyed by subtle and affecting work by Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy, here as a neighbor they knew a few years and a lifetime ago, this is one worth dipping your toe back into cinema for, especially if you liked the first movie.

Cruella

May 28

We’ll admit it, we had the same initial skepticism you’re probably feeling about a Cruella de Vil origin story set in punk rock’s 1970s London. But put your cynicism aside, Disney’s Cruella is a decadent blast and the rarest of things: a live-action Disney remake that both honors its source material and does something creative with it. Neither a soulless scene-by-scene remake of a better animated film, or a lazy Maleficent like re-imagining, Cruella more often than not rocks, thanks in large part to its lead performance by Emma Stone.

Also a producer on the picture, Stone takes on the role of Cruella de Vil like it’ll be on an awards reel and absolutely flaunts the character’s madness and devilish charm. She also finds an excellent sparring partner via Emma Thompson, young Cruella’s very own Miranda Priestly. Once these two start their verbal battle at the end of the first act, the movie is elevated into an electric period comedy (with plenty of heavy handed period music). It’s a pseudo-thriller for all ages, enjoying some very sharp elbows for a kids movie.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

June 4 (May 26 in the UK)

The latest big-screen adventure for real-life ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) sees the two drawn into the unusual case of the first ever U.S. murder trial where the defendant claimed he was innocent because he was possessed by a demon. This is the eighth movie in The Conjuring expanded universe—director Michael Chaves has already made a foray into this supernatural world with The Curse of La Llorona—and as with all the main Conjuring films, the hook is that it’s (very loosely) based on a true case that the Warrens were involved with.

Peter Safran and James Wan are back on board as producers, although with this being the first time Wan isn’t directing one of the main Ed and Lorraine investigations, we’re a little cautious about this return to the haunted museum.

In the Heights

June 11 (June 18 in the UK)

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Tony award winning musical is getting the proper big screen treatment in In the Heights. A full-fledged movie musical—as opposed to a taped series of performances, a la Disney+’s Hamilton—In the Heights is like a sweet summer drink (or Piragua) and love letter to the Latino community of New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood.

Read more

Movies

Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century

By David Crow

Movies

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and the Perils of Taking on a Real Life Murder

By Rosie Fletcher

Closer in spirit to the feel-good summertime joy of Grease than the narratively complex Hamilton, this is perfect multiplex escapism (which will also be on HBO Max if you’re so inclined). Directed by Crazy Rich Asians’ Jon M. Chu, In the Heights has a euphoric sense of movement and dance as it transfers Miranda’s hybrid blend of freestyle rap, salsa rhythm, and Caribbean musical cues to the actual city blocks the show was written about. On one of those corners lives Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner with big dreams. He’s about to have the summer of his life. You might too.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

June 16 (June 21 in the UK)

You know Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is a throwback when even its trailer brings back the “trailer voice.” But then the appeal of the 2017 B-action comedy, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, was its very throwback nature: a violent, raunchy R-rated buddy comedy that starred Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, who exchanged quips as much as bullets between some genuinely entertaining stunts.

Hopefully the sequel can also be as much lowbrow fun as it doubles down on the premise, with Reynolds’ Michael Bryce now guarding Samla Hayek’s Sonia, the wife of Jackson’s Darius. All three are on a road trip through Italy as they’re chased by Antonio Banderas in what is sure to be a series of bloody, explosive set pieces. Probably a few “motherf***ers” will be dropped too.

Luca

June 18

Pixar Studios’ hit rate is frankly incredible. With each new film seemingly comes a catchy song, an Oscar nomination, and a flood of tears from anyone with a heart—and there’s no reason to believe that its next offering will be any different. Luca is a coming-of-age tale set on the Italian Riviera about a pair of young lads who become best friends and have a terrific summer getting into adventures in the sun. The slight catch is that they’re both sea monsters.

Read more

Movies

How Luca Became the First Pixar Movie Made at Home

By Don Kaye

Movies

Pixar, Italian Style: Why Luca is Set in 1950s Italy

By Don Kaye

This is the feature directorial debut of Enrico Casarosa, who says the movie is a celebration of friendship with nods to the work of Federico Fellini and Hayao Miyazaki. The writers are Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones—Andrews is new to Pixar but has experience with coming-of-agers, having penned Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, while Jones co-wrote Soul. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the young boys (sea monsters)—13-year-old Luca and his older teenager friend Alberto—with Maya Rudolph as Luca’s sea monster mom. After a year of lockdown, this could be the summer movie we all need.

F9

June 25

You better start firing up the grill, because the Fast and Furious crew is finally ready to have another summer barbecue. And this time, it’s not only the folks whom Dom Toretto calls “mi familia” in attendance. The big new addition to F9 is 

John Cena as Jakob Toretto. As the long-lost little brother we didn’t know Vin Diesel’s Dom had, Jakob is revealed to be a superspy, assassin, and performance driver working for Dom’s arch-nemesis, Cypher (Charlize Theron). Everything the Family does together, Jakob does alone, as a one-man wrecking crew, and he’s coming in hot.

Fans will probably be happier, though, to see Sung Kang back as Han Seoul-Oh, the wheelman who was murdered in Fast & Furious 6, and then pretty much forgotten in The Fate of the Furious when his killer got invited to the cookout. It’s an injustice that brought veteran series director Justin Lin back to  the franchise to resurrect the dead. So it’s safe to assume he won’t be asking Cypher to bring the potato salad.

The Forever Purge

July 2 (July 16 in the UK)

We know what you’re thinking: Didn’t The Purge: Election Year end the Purge forever? That or “are they really still making these?” The answer to both questions is yes. Nevertheless, here we are with The Forever Purge, a movie which asks what happens if Purgers just, you know, committed extravagant holiday crime on the other 364 days of the year? You get what is hopefully the grand finale of this increasingly tired concept.

The Tomorrow War

July 2

Hear me out: What if it’s like The Terminator but in reverse? That had to be the pitch for this one, right? In The Tomorrow War, instead of evil cyborgs time traveling to the past to kill our future savior, soldiers from the future time travel to the past to enlist our current best warrior and take him to a world on the brink 30 years from now.

It’s a crazy premise, and the kind of high-concept popcorn that one imagines Chris Pratt excels at. Hence Pratt’s casting as Dan, one of the best soldiers of the early 21st century who’ll go into the future to stop an alien invasion. The supporting cast, which includes Oscar winner J.K. Simmons and Yvonne Strahovski, Betty Gilpin, and Sam Richardson, is also nothing to sneeze at.

Black Widow

July 9

The idea of making a Black Widow movie has been around since long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe first lifted into the sky on Tony Stark’s repulsors. The character has been onscreen for more than a decade now, and Marvel Studios has for too long danced around making a solo Widow, at least in part due to the machinations of Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter.

Read more

Movies

How Black Widow Could Build The MCU’s Future

By Kayti Burt

Movies

Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Dates: MCU Phase 4 Schedule, Cast, and Story Details

By Mike Cecchini and 1 other

But the standalone Black Widow adventure is here at last, and it now serves as a sort-of coda to the story of Natasha Romanoff, since we already know her tragic fate in Avengers: Endgame. Directed by Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome, Lore), the movie will spell out how Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) kept herself busy between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, primarily with a trip home to Russia to clear some of that red from her ledger.

There, she will reunite with figures from her dark past, including fellow Red Room alumnus Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Russian would-be superhero Alexei Shostakov, aka the Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), another survivor of the Black Widow program and a maternal figure to Natasha and Yelena.

It’s a chance to say goodbye to Nat and see Johansson as the beloved Avengers one more time. But this being Marvel, we suspect that the studio has a few tricks up its sleeve and in this movie about the future of Phase 4.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

July 16

In the annals of synergistic branding, Space Jam: A New Legacy might be one for the record books. A sequel to an older millennials’ 1990s touchstones—the thoroughly mediocre Michael Jordan meets Bugs Bunny movie, Space Jam—this sequel sees LeBron James now trapped in Looney Tunes world… but wait, there’s more! Instead of only charmingly interacting with WB’s classic stable of cartoon characters, King James will also be in the larger “WB universe” where the studio will resurrect from the dead every property they own the copyright to, from MGM’s classic 1939 The Wizard of Oz to, uh, the murderous rapists in A Clockwork Orange.

… yay for easter eggs?

Old

July 23

Though he might be accused of being a little bit hit-and-miss in the past, the release of a new M. Night Shyamalan movie should always be cause for celebration. Especially one with such a deeply creepy premise. Based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Old sees a family on vacation discover that the beach they are on causes them to age extremely rapidly and live out their entire lives in a day.

This is surely perfect fodder for Shyamalan, who does high-concept horror like no one else. The cast is absolute quality, featuring Gael García Bernal, Hereditary’s Alex Wolff, Jo Jo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie, Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps, Little Women’s Eliza Scanlen, and many more. The trailer is pleasingly disturbing too as children become teenagers, a young woman is suddenly full-term pregnant, and adults seem to be decaying in front of their own eyes. Harrowing in the best possible way.

Snake Eyes

July 23 (August 20 in the UK)

Snake Eyes will finally bring us the origin story of the G.I. Joe franchise’s most iconic and beloved member. Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) stars in the title role, with Warrior’s Andrew Koji as his nemesis—conflicted baddie (and similar fan fave) Storm Shadow. Expect a tale heavy on martial arts badassery, especially with The Raid’s Iko Uwais on board as the pair’s ninja master. Samara Weaving will play G.I. Joe staple Scarlett after her breakout a few years ago in Ready or Not, while Úrsula Corber�� has been cast as Cobra’s Baroness. Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Red) directs.

Jungle Cruise

July 30

Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra is best known for making slightly dodgy actioners starring Liam Neeson (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night) and half-decent horror movies (Orphan, The Shallows), so exactly which direction this family adventure based on a theme park ride will take remains to be seen.

Borrowing a page and premise from Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen (1951), Jungle Cruise stars the ever-charismatic Dwayne Johnson as a riverboat captain taking Emily Blunt’s scientist and her brother (Jack Whitehall) to visit the fabled Tree of Life in the early 20th century. Like the ride, the gang will have to watch out for wild animals along the way.

Unlike the ride, they’re competing with a German expedition team who are heading for the same goal. A solid supporting cast (Jesse Plemons, Édgar Ramírez, Paul Giamatti, Andy Nyman) and a script with rewrites by Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) might mean Disney has another hit on its hands. Either way, a lovely boat trip with The Rock should be diverting at worst.

The Green Knight

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

There have been several major Hollywood reimaginings of Arthurian legends in the 21st century. And every one of them has been thoroughly rotten for one reason or another. Luckily, David Lowery’s The Green Knight looks poised to break the trend with a trippy, but twistedly faithful, interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain, a chivalrous knight in King Arthur’s court who takes up the challenge of the mysterious Green Knight (The Witch’s Ralph Ineson under mountains of makeup): He’ll swing a blow and risk receiving a returning strike in a year’s time. Gawain attempts to cheat the devil by cutting his head clean off, yet when the Green Knight lifts his severed head from Camelot’s floors, things start to get weird. As clearly one of A24’s biggest visual fever dreams to date, this is one we’re highly anticipating.

Stillwater

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

The Oscar winning-writer director behind Spotlight, Tom McCarthy, returns to the big screen with a fictional story that feels awfully similar to real world events. In this film, Matt Damon plays Bill, a proud father who saw his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) go abroad to study in France. After she’s accused of murdering her roommate by local authorities, the deeply Southern and deeply Oklahoman father must travel to a foreign land to try and prove his daughter’s innocence.

It obviously has some parallels with the Amanda Knox story but it also looks like a potentially hard hitting original drama with a talented cast. Fingers crossed.

The Suicide Squad

August 6 (July 30 in the UK)

You might have seen a Suicide Squad movie in the past, but you’ve never seen James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. With a liberating R-rating and an old school vision from the Guardians of the Galaxy director—who likens this to 1960s war capers, such as The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare—this Suicide Squad is absolutely stacked with talented actors wallowing in DC weirdness. One of the key players in this is Polka-Dot Man, another is a walking, talking Great White Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone. The villain is a Godzilla-sized starfish from space!

Read more

Movies

Margot Robbie Wants Poison Ivy to Join Harley Quinn in the DCEU

By Kayti Burt

Movies

What to Expect from the Candyman Reimagining

By David Crow

So like it’s namesake, there’s probably a lot of characters who aren’t going to pull through this one. Even so, we can rest easy knowing that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn will be as winsome than ever, and the likes of Idris Elba and John Cena will add some dynamic gravitas to the eccentric DC Extended Universe.

Free Guy

August 13

Perhaps pitched as The Truman Show for the video game age, Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as an easygoing, happy-go-lucky “Guy” who discovers… he’s a video game NPC living inside the equivalent of a Grand Theft Auto video game. This might explain why the bank he works at keeps getting robbed all the time. But as a virtual sprite who’s developed sentiency, he just might be able to win over enough gamers to not shoot him, and make love not war.

It’s an amusing premise, and hopefully director Shawn Levy can bring to it the same level of charm he achieved with the very first Night at the Museum movie.

Respect

August 13 (September 10 in the UK)

Before her passing in 2018, Aretha Franklin gave her blessing to Jennifer Hudson to play the Queen of Soul. Now that musical biopic is here with Hudson hitting the same high notes of the legend who sang such standards as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and of course “Respect.”

The film comes with a lot of expectation and a lot of pedigree, with Forest Whitaker and Audra McDonald in the cast. Most of all though, it comes with that rich musical library, which will surely take center stage. And if movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have taught us anything, it’s that moviegoers love when you play the hits.

Reminiscence

August 20 (August 18 in the UK)

Lisa Joy is one of the most exciting voices on television today. One-half of the creative team behind Westworld, Joy steps into her own with her directorial debut (and as the solo writer) in Reminiscence, a science fiction film with a reliably knotty premise.

Hugh Jackman plays Nick Bannister, a man who lives in a dystopian future where the oceans have risen and the cities are crumbling. In a declining Miami, he sells a risky new technology that allows you to relive your past (and possibly change it, at least fancifully?). But when he discovers the lost love of his life (Rebecca Ferguson) is cropping up in other peoples’ memories, which seem to implicate her in a murder, well… things are bound to start getting weird. We don’t know a whole lot more, but we cannot wait to find out more.

Candyman

August 27

Announced back in 2018, this spiritual sequel to Bernard Rose’s 1992 original is one of the most exciting and anticipated movies on the calendar. Produced by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta, the film takes place in the present day and about a decade after Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects have been torn down. Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays an up-and-coming visual artist who moves to the now-gentrified area with his partner and is inspired by the legend of Candyman, an apparition with a hook for a hand, to create new work about the subject. But in doing so, he risks unleashing a dark history and a new wave of violence.

Tony Todd, the star of the original movie, will also reprise his role in a reboot that aims to inspire fear for only the right reasons.

The Beatles: Get Back

August 27

Director Peter Jackson thinks folks have a poisoned idea about the Beatles in their final days. Often portrayed as divided and antagonistic toward one another during the recordings of their last albums, particularly Let It Be (which was their penultimate studio recording and final release), Jackson insists this misconception is influenced by Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary named after the album.

So, after going through the reams of footage Lindsay-Hogg shot but didn’t use, Jackson has crafted this new documentary about the album’s recording which is intended to paint a fuller (and more feel-good) portrait of the band which changed the world. Plus, the music’s going to be great… 

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

September 3

The greatest fighter in Marvel history finally hits the big screen with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Simu Liu (Kim’s Convenience) takes on the title role of a character destined for a bright future in the MCU. Marvel fans might note that the “Ten Rings” of the title is the same organization that first appeared all the way back in Iron Man, and Tony Leung will finally bring their villainous leader, The Mandarin, to life. Awkwafina of The Farewell and Crazy Rich Asians fame also stars. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12), this should deliver martial arts action unlike anything we’ve seen so far in the MCU.

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