#But he's also a parallel to Rex in a lot of ways. He fails where Rex succeeds bc of it.

[anyoldfandom]

I am actually. I am so emotional over the Salazar parents and I need to share this to tumblr too.

A lot of stories where the MC is adopted I feel. Either dismiss the biological parents and the impact they have on the kid's life, or makes them evil and abusive, framing the loss of the bio parents as a good thing, or at least something we shouldn't think about just look at this new family.

But Genrex doesn't do that. From the start, Rex wanted to find out more about his parents - it's one of his primary character motivations, next to helping people. He loves them, even though he doesn't know them.

And the more he finds out about them, the more he realizes they loved him. Rylander is consumed by guilt but as Rex's first connection to his pre-Event life, the first thing he does is hug him. And when he tells Rex about his parents, the two things Rex knows is that 1) they were scientists, and 2) that when he was in danger, they were desperate enough to use their secret, experimental technology to save him. Technology built from their desire to help the world, to save countless lives and end countless suffering.

And then. When he finds out that they were dead, he doesn't stop caring. It'd be so easy, too, to tie it up there - his parents were good people, he got his answer about them, the end. But they don't. He doesn't. Because the show is saying once again that they are his parents. He still calls them mom and dad, even as the show makes it clear Holiday and Six adopted Rex as their son. Even as the show even parallels Six and One with Rex and Six (and I will talk about that more later if I don't forget, trust me), to really drive home how much they're family. Rex even says he considers the two of them family, and later that he considers Noah, Claire and Annie family.

He has new family, the show tells us, but his old family still matters to him. He's upset that he never has the chance to meet his parents, that everything he hears about them, about his time with them, is secondhand knowledge. It tells us clearly that not only does Rex still love them, but that he still wants to know them. And everything we find out about them reinforces the love that they had for each other.

We see Abuela and the family in Mexico, who connect him to his birth family and tell him that he was so loved back then, and still is now. We see their office in Abysus through Rex's eyes. The picture of him and his dad on his desk. The drawing Rex drew, proudly pinned to the wall.

We see it in the familiarity of the drawing. That that robot, that build, was what Rex created when he was lost and scared and alone - that it was made to keep him safe. That it first appeared in his mind in a place he felt safe.

The show says, tenderly and softly, that the love is still there. That the fact these people died was nothing but a tragedy, that their love is a big part of what made Rex who he is today - that every molecule in his body is filled with their final gift to him. That every time he cures someone, every time he uses a build, every time he makes a machine - we see the love that they had for him.

And the way he quietly absorbs his father's face. The way he freezes and whispers "Mamá?" when he finds out Zag-Rs has their mother's voice. The fact that she even has her voice as a testament to Caesar's love, too - that it was meant to bring comfort and safety. The way Rex yells at Caesar when he finds out they have a family property, a connection to their past, the way he fights to protect it.

And, none of this takes away still from Six and Holiday being Rex's family too. None of this removes the work either set of parents did for him, the love either set has - the show says that it was unfair that the Salazar parents were lost. That Six and Holiday are not replacements, that they still love him as parents but play different roles in his life. They can not, and have no desire to, replace the Salazars. But Rex needs parents, he needs protectors, and so they will do what they can for him - at first out of necessity, to keep this kid they barely know safe, but then out of love. They aren't replacing what was lost, but are doing their best to do what Rex's bio parents would do. And they do mess up in it - they mess up in ways Rex's bio parents might not have. Six is clearly bad with showing affection, affection we saw the Salazars give Rex so easily, and Holiday is overworked and stressed constantly, sometimes breaking under the pressure and snapping at Rex and Six, things we never saw the Salazars do.

It's just. It's about how sometimes things will not be the same. They will be different. That doesn't mean the people you lost aren't still with you.

#This is also. Why I dislike the 'Rex was secretly made for the nanite experiments the accident was a lie' theory so much #Bc it assigns malice where the show says over and over again there was only love. #That this was only ever a tragedy of good people whose good intentions were manipulated and twisted. #And I think giving them something shitty to have done in the past especially goes against the message of the show's perspective on adoption #The family we choose is not always stronger than the family we are born to. Sometimes they are equal in different ways. #Rex's bio parents are gone but not replaced. They have also shaped who he is #Six and Holiday are just picking up where they left off. Because they have to. #Also I don't like the theory that Rex's parents are EVOs somewhere bc I think it diminishes the impact of the tragedy too. #I get. Wanting them to have a happy ending. But I think it's important to realize that this is the closest they can have to a happy ending. #Some things cannot be replaced. Or fixed. Sometimes life takes what we love and what loves us. And that is okay. #It is okay to be upset at that and it is okay to never fully move on. #'What about Caesar?' I have. Another post's worth of thoughts about him. #But I think he's also a character who is defined more by Rex by their relation and defined by the story by his guilt #I think he is the closest thing Rex has to a shitty bio family member and he is shitty in plenty of ways #But he's also a parallel to Rex in a lot of ways. He fails where Rex succeeds bc of it. #generator rex #genrex #Anyways. Sorry for the big post.

[angeltrapz]

oosdkk dude im sorry ur mood dropped too.. i hope u feel better soon <3 but like i wld love 2 hear more abt ur thoughts on Art in general bc Boy Is He Interesting, and also a lil more abt Daniel coming out as nonbinary to his dad (whether he knows Eric is trans or not at that moment skjdfhdskf)! + if ur feelin it just more abt Mallick in general ESP cuz we agree that Brit doesn't make it thru V

djhfjdks thank u sm <3

okay Art first. I genuinely wonder abt him so much, something in specific I think abt is that aside frm Amanda (+ Eric, obviously, but talkin abt disciples) Art is one of the only trap victims EVER 2 be tested twice and it’s like... what’s that abt? Why? as u’ve said b4 it rly depends on how you personally view his character: whether he’s a disciple or not. fr me, both options are equally plausible, n honestly I don’t rly confine myself to either; it sorta depends on what I’m feeling/writing. if we’re talking abt art being a disciple, then the Spinecutter not going off (one of my BIGGEST questions) makes total sense, as Hoffman’s side of the trap was never set up to work either, + Jigsaw disciples have a history (aside from Lawrence) of appearing as victims in other tests/traps. if he were not just another pawn and was in fact a disciple himself, then the Spinecutter was never meant to go off - it was there just to make Eric think it COULD go off/make it look convincing to outsiders. which brings me to ANOTHER question: what does Art know abt Eric? does he know anything? what does he think of Eric?

(lil side note: if Art is a disciple, then I kinda wonder if it’s a lil bit of a Hoffman + Lawrence situation where Hoffman didn’t know abt Art either? just bc he looks so shocked when he sees Art’s face fully fr the first time... that could’ve just been acting on Hoffman’s part but IDK. food fr thought)

personally, I feel like Art probably does know a lil bit abt Eric - at the very least, he’d know tht Eric had been previously tested + failed by John’s rules, but then I feel that he wld also know Eric didn’t rly have a chance in his second test. that is why Art trying so fucking hard to keep Eric alive is interesting 2 me: what is his motivation 2 do that? like he’s been told Eric’s basically just there to get Rigg to participate, he doesn’t have any personal obligation or anything like that. sure, the aim is to keep Eric alive + see if Rigg can pass his “test,” but nobody said anything about grabbing a man you barely know around his ankles to keep him frm hanging himself w a noose made of chains. nobody said anything abt speaking to him so softly, not even raising your voice beyond saying “hey,” and asking him do you understand? when you tell him to keep still and prevent him frm killing his counterpart (which, if Art is a disciple, he knows it won’t, but he still speaks to Eric so softly, so compassionately, doesn’t he?)

nobody said anything abt grabbing him around the waist and steadying him again after being punched by said man. but Art does that. he stabilizes Eric’s feet on the ice as best he can and he keeps his hips straight and he basically says “look, we’re all stuck here, you need to keep it together ‘til that clock counts down if you want us to live, but I’m giving you a choice,” and he presses the gun w the single bullet into Eric’s hands and tells him it’s up to him. nobody said Art had to care but he does, I think, and it’s just like. he really didn’t have to keep Eric alive over the course of Rigg’s test. he didn’t. but he did and I just,, where does it come from? why does he care? this is even going beyond the fact that we’ve talked abt them being together after their test in a scenario where they both survive - I just think that Art at his core is a very stubborn but very compassionate person, whether he wants 2 be or not. like he HAS to know that kind of involvement cld prove to be extremely detrimental but he cares. I feel like that says a lot abt him (even if he does call Eric an asshole a couple times while doing it,,).

plus I also just. I think his reason for being tested (as it seems to be in most cases) is extremely flimsy. he was doing his job. he’s a LAWYER. often times it has nothing 2 do w personal feelings; they’re there to do their job and sometimes, unfortunately, that is defending possibly reprehensible people (in cases like Rex’s & Ivan’s). + John was already upset w him regarding their argument abt the urban renewal group so like it just feels So Very Petty, y’know?? even in the scenario where he IS a disciple, testing him twice seems entirely like John having a personal vendetta against him. Amanda is the only other person to be tested twice aside from Eric, so like. what. is that abt Mr. Kramer.

like I’ve said b4 in dms one could argue that Art is grey morally, bc we never rly see anything of him outside of flashbacks + acting as a test controller in IV, esp given that he... rly doesn’t seem too bothered abt it all? which is fair. but I also feel like the concern he shows towards Eric is smth to be considered as well.

-

+ YESS NONBINARY DANIEL I know I’ve mentioned it b4 but for reference, I read Daniel as masc nonbinary (he/they)! so I feel like Daniel wld b pretty comfortable w his identity, he’s never rly had a reason not to be (it’s rly anyone’s guess here tho bc we never see Eric + Daniel + Kate... as a family unit, for obvious reasons), so I feel like he’s vry chill abt it? and in the scenario where Eric survives n is dating Adam, I feel like Daniel wld talk 2 him abt it first (Adam is an adult they quickly come to trust + he’s vocal abt being trans himself so there’s that added layer of understanding - other than his mom maybe Adam might b the first person they come out 2). they’re just kinda like “so I wanna tell my dad I’m nonbinary but like I’ve literally never thought abt coming out what do I do” and Adam’s just like. Aha. bc he knows Eric is Also Trans so like, he doesn’t tell Daniel that bc it’s not his info to share, but he’s definitely like “oh it’ll totally be fine. trust me you have no reason to worry” so Daniel’s just like Okay. I Got This

+ I know I mentioned this in dms but Daniel wld absolutely wear those floral ripped hem skirts over jeans, so I feel like on one of his visits to his dad’s, he just. wears that combined w a completely random niche graphic tee he bought when shopping w Adam (I adore this hc n I am Holding Onto It) n is just like. not super open abt it bc he doesn’t know what to expect? he just kinda waits fr Eric to comment on it but when he doesn’t, Daniel gets nervous n is like “do I look okay?” and Eric’s rly chill abt it, like “yeah! it looks vry cool, vry alternative.” n like Daniel is relieved, of course, but also he’s just like God Pls Say Something so he just comes out w it like “okay this is not working. I’m nonbinary.”

and he’s COMPLETELY SHOCKED when Eric is just like “oh why didn’t u say so? do u have a different name u wanna go by? is Daniel still okay?” bc he wasn’t sure how much Eric knew, so he’s just like “uh no Daniel is still good, he/they pronouns though” and Eric’s just like alright cool but internally Daniel’s just like ??????

n THAT is when Eric asks him 2 come sit out on th front steps w him n is just like. “I don’t think I ever told u this but I’m trans. I transitioned during training in my early 20s” n Daniel is nodding while internally he’s like Adam I’m gonna throttle u. he worked himself up fr NOTHING. he just kinda laughs abt it and Eric is like “are u good?” ‘cause he’s a lil worried but then Daniel just smiles and is like “yeah I’m fine! just realizing I had nothing 2 be worried abt” and it’s a rly good moment fr them. they sit out there together talking abt their experiences for quite a while n at some point Adam steps outside 2 find them deep in conversation + he just smiles n goes back inside bc he cares abt them both so much and seeing them talk like that makes him so 💞💞 (Eric is SO PROUD u can see it on his face)

-

ohhh gosh Mallick,,, I spend a lot of time thinking abt him actually. he’s just one of those characters I feel vry connected to (me 🤝 Mallick: Ambiguous Disorder 💕) n one I got surprisingly attached to? hello (he IS one of my f/os)

I feel like Mallick is a very lonely person at his core. the way he sort of clings to Brit (w out the whole like. adrenaline of being in very very real danger w ppl trying to kill u SEVERAL TIMES) somewhat confirms this fr me. this is someone who has no reason to look out fr him, no reason to keep protecting him when their fellow captives hit him over th head w a club or attempt to push him into a bathtub to ELECTROCUTE him, but she keeps doing it and he’s just. in awe of it a little bit? ‘cause she could just let Charles knock him tf out or let Luba push him in but she fights for him, some1 she has no obligation to n met fr the first time literally when they woke up.

the moment they share b4 they stick their arms into the saws to activate the 10 Pints of Sacrifice is so very vulnerable and maybe even a little tender. yes he calls her a monster, yes she calls him one back, neither of them deny it. it’s an admission and an acceptance. they’re monsters, sure, fine, okay. but they are monsters and they are in this together. Brit tells Mallick it’s okay when he says he can’t do this alone. she says okay, okay, it’s okay, we’ll go together. and they help each other secure their tourniquets and they stick their hands in together bc it’s the two of them, literally hand in hand, fighting for their lives n for each other n they’re in so so much pain but they are doing it TOGETHER. I lose it thinking abt it!!! they even have a head bonk moment!!! I very much feel like it has some cinematic parallels to Adam & Lawrence’s moment in SAW 2004!!!!

+ as u mentioned, we both share the thought that Brit likely died since she wasn’t present at Bobby’s meetings, and. I want to touch on how fucking despondent and lost Mallick looks when we see him again in 3D. lights on but no one’s home. I feel like for Mallick, losing Brit was losing the first chance at a real connection he’s had in god knows how long - and for him, that’s just very shattering. he’s been thru hell, he’s watched three people die right in front of him, he sawed his ARM IN HALF, n the person he went through all of that with didn’t make it. but he did. and I feel like for Mallick that’s just like... he doesn’t understand it. but he feels even lonelier than he ever has b4 because the One Person who was there w him thru it all, the one person who could ever possibly understand what happened that night, is gone.

the Mallick we see in V would NEVER sit down n willingly listen to Bobby Dagen’s bullshit abt loving yr scars n taking pride in the fact u survived. he wld hate that man with a passion n I am very much sure of this. the fact that he’s sitting in that chair looking numb and glassy-eyed and silent? Mallick is trying to find some1 to connect to, find a place where maybe he belongs. trying to fill that hole that losing Brit made. why else wld he be sitting there, listening to someone he would ordinarily tell to shove his self-love bullshit up his ass? he’s lost. he’s just trying to keep his head above water and find a way to shore even though everything in him is fighting not to. he’s adrift without her.

+ ALTERNATIVELY, bc the reality of that is just. crushing n maybe not where I needed 2 go, in the scenario where Brit survived + just doesn’t want to put up w Bobby’s bullshit, I imagine them to actually move in together after a lil bit of time getting 2 know each other better w out the pressure of “oh god we’re gonna die.” she kinda helps him build up a sense of self-worth bc GOD it’s practically non-existent n thinking abt possible reasons why makes me sad. she’s definitely just like “no, you do deserve to be cared for and you deserve help when you need it, you deserve good things n to be happy.” she just kinds shuts it down while still making sure to talk 2 him abt WHY he feels that way (she’s not dismissing, but she’s trying to nip it in th bud) n Mallick is just like. huh. bc no one’s really done that fr him before. but it rly does end up helping in the long run, even if it is a very slow pace toward actually getting 2 a place where he recognizes his own worth + realizes he deserves all the things he wants Brit 2 have too. they’re there for each other thru thick n thin and if they made it thru their game, they can make it thru anything.

#saw #art #daniel #eric #adam #mallick #brit #thank u so much I rly appreciated this #n it helped me get my mind off things a little #I'm rly glad my ask helped u too!!! mutual support hours #long post #thoughts separated by dashes bc I had Way More than I thought I did oops #asks

[clonewarsreturns]

Season 7 episode 2: A distant Echo!!

Oh my god y’all this could be a new number one.

Spoilers!!

Where to freaking begin.

The new transition style with the recaps is just amazing

Rex clearly is so focused on his son and it hurts.

Anakins FaceTime and the little gestures he made to Rex to remind him killed me

Rex awkwardly standing guard hOLY

Obi wan smiling and waving like “hi good Rex!!” So cute

Padme holding her TUMMY

HER BEING TEAM REX

REX KNOWING ABOUT PADME

Oh god his failed attempt of lies

We not even five minutes in and I’m crying.

WRECKER HOLDING MY FAVORITE FREAKING DROID IN THE UNIVERSE OUR LORD AND SAVIOR GONK

AND HOW HE CAREFULLY PLACED IT DOWN INSTEAD OF THROWING IT

I CRIED

Y’all know my thoughts on the entire “don’t run out there” sequence so skipping ahead

Look. I’m not gonna lie hunter was pretty attractive with how badass he was.

Anakin being a mess. “We’re gonna have a SLIGHT communication problem”

The bad batch is just so cool you guys like their plans are so clever!

Tech speaking the language is cute.

Aight YALL everything about the ridge scene.

Crosshairs making it super hard to like him lol I try but MAN I wanted to punch him. I did like how he realllly got under Rex’s skin with the “You left him behind” comment. You can HEAR the despair in Rex’s voice. 

Rex beating the shit out of him like hell yes. Wrecker stresses me out with the neck grab though like dude gonna accidentally break someone. And then:

“YOU’RE GONNA BE A LOT SMALLER WHEN IM THROUGH WITH YOU”

____that made me feel something and im not afraid to say it LOL REX YOU HECKIN BADASS GOING CHEST TO CHEST WITH SOMEONE TWICE YOUR SIZE AND STARRING THEM DOWN MY LORD

I do appreciate how-soft? anakin is when it comes to rex this episode. Honestly it’s probably because it’s the first time Rex has ever had a stake in something they did. Rex is not himself and it’s made even more evident in the way DBB says “I KNOW it.” never have we heard Rex beg, he sounded similar to Fives in his last scene! I really like anakin listening to Rex and having a fatherly presence cause literally everyone has just been like “Rex u dumb yo friend dead get over it” but anakin knows more than anyone how it feels to know someone you love is in danger and there’s nothing you can do.

ALSO I LOVE WHEN CHARACTER’S HAVE WEAKNESSES AND WRECKER BEING SCARED OF HEIGHTS IS SO INTERESTING!!!! The other night I literally was thinking of weaknesses for each of the batchers (Hunter-prone to sensory overload, has sound dampeners in his helmet, Tech-can’t seperate data from emotion, Crosshairs deaf with implants, and lacks most senses like touch and taste.) 

These new droids are so funny looking I love it

SCOOTER TAMBOR IS BACK LOL I FREAKING LOVE HIS WEIRD WHEELS

Tech losing the signal again and Rex panicking a bit like “???????” 

Crosshairs is still dope, dang it.

This is the first time I think we’ve heard the term prisoner of war in clone wars and that’s so interesting. Up until this point that wasn’t really an idea for the republic or seperatists, Echo is the first to be given that value in the eyes of the enemy.

Rex straight up that LET ME IIIIIN MEME

Anakin telling tech to get the door open for Rex made me soft. 

Alright. The moment. I held my breath the entire time right up to the hatch opening. So chilling. Echos’ eyes glitching and the ice particles on his skin-

Rex had such a similar expression to the Fives scene and it hurt. sad parallel. 

Echo repeating his lines from the Citadel hurt even more, he’s been stuck in a loop.

Echo’s hopeful voice when he asked rex if he came back for him and Rex defeatedly agreeing. He technically did but not the way he thought. just a couple years late

“You’re coming home.” I cried real tears. The music, this felt like fucking Saving Private Ryan up here. A CARTOON MADE ME HAVE THE SAME EMOTION AS ONE OF THE MOST HIGHLY ACCLAIMED WAR MOVIES OF ALL TIME! PERFECTION. CLONE WARS IS PERFECTION.

This seriously is up there as one of if not my favorite episodes of the series because it was so Rex centric and really just highlighted he and anakin’s relationship. I feel like we never got to see this before since with Ahsoka around, Rex tended to be attached to her on missions while Anakin would be attached to Obi wan. It’s a fantastic change of pace and I’m overjoyed.

I really hope this arc ends with Echo joining the Bad Batch cause I just don’t fucking trust Kamino in the slightest after Fives and Tup. 

I feel like the wait for the next episode won’t hurt as bad since now we have a mini movie worth of episodes to watch :D Those are my thoughts. More will come as I think more. All and All fantastic.

#tcw spoilers #star wars the clone wars #captain rex #Clone Wars #the Bad batch #Echo

[fly-pow-bye]

What’s Airing On Cartoon Network? (April 2021)

The Futon Critic actually has April’s Cartoon Network schedule, and I decided, even if I didn’t really do it for February and March, I might as well do one for this month. Details after the break!

Apple & Onion

April 12th:

Walking on the Ceiling - Apple and Onion need to get down from being stuck on the ceiling of a bridge. (7:30 PM)

Keep It Fresh - Apple and Onion need to refrigerate a sandwich before it expires. (7:45 PM)

April 13th:

Panamanian Night Monkey - Apple and Onion must become zebras to see their favorite monkey at the zoo. (7:30 PM)

Za - To help Pizza's Diner, Apple and Onion give it a complete makeover. (7:45 PM)

April 14th:

Broccoli - Apple and Onion must get Hoagie to finish replacing their building's roof so that they can get on with their lives. (7:30 PM)

Cousin's Day - Apple and Onion have to sell a lot of Cousin's Day mugs before Patty gets back from vacation. (7:45 PM)

April 15th:

Nothing Can Stop Us - Apple and Onion have to get Hot Dog his toupée before an important audition. (7:30 PM)

Good Job - Apple and Onion need to get the building tenants to appreciate Falafel more. (7:45 PM)

April 16th:

One Hit Wonder - Apple and Onion have to keep a couple together so they can sing their new love song at the couple's wedding. (7:30 PM)

A Matter of Pride - Apple and Onion quit their demeaning jobs at the Dollar Store as a matter of pride. (7:45 PM)

Ben 10 (2016)

These are all hour-long specials, aired a day between each other. These are also the very last we’ll see of Ben 10 (2016). A lot of people lumped this reboot in with Teen Titans Go and PPG 2016.

April 9th:

Ben 10,010 - In a future where an adult Gwen Tennyson is president and the world is being taken over by the alien horde known as the Xerge, a disillusioned Ben 10000 is called out of retirement to recruit his 10-year old version from the past, only together can the battle-worn adult and the impulsive child save a future under siege. (10:00 AM, hour long!)

April 10th:

Ben Gen 10 - When Ben meets a young Generator Rex on the run from a hostile Providence, he must work through a series of misunderstandings, and defeat the dark wizard Hex in order to save the world from a malfunctioning Omnitrix infecting the world's human population with alien DNA. (10:00 AM, hour long!)

April 11th:

Alien X-Tinction - When the Tennysons are attacked by a villainous, dimension-hopping Omni-alien known only as Alien X, they soon meet a parallel universe version of Max who opens the door to hosting multiple Bens and Gwens, forming an alien hero army to combat this threat. (10:00 AM, hour long!)

Elliott From Earth

April 1st:

Chaotic Clumping - Elliott and Mo accidentally take a teleporter together, and find themselves closer than they've ever been before. Will they decide to mutually part ways? (9:00 AM)

Regurgitated Reminiscence - Elliott and Mo go to great lengths to retrieve Frankie's old coffee machine. (9:15 AM)

April 2nd:

Parallel Paradox - Elliott finds himself having to be in two places at once. (9:00 AM)

April 5th:

Problematic Prophecies - Elliott and Mo make a new friend, Nara, who has a very special ability. (9:00 AM)

April 6th:

Temporal Tedium - It's Fizzness Time! What does that even mean? Elliott and Mo make it their thing to find out as they meet Preston, a slow, yet hilarious prankster with a penchant for jewelry. (9:00 AM)

April 7th:

Companion Confusion - After a failed experiment in trying to find true love, Mo has to save Elliott from being sucked off the Centrium into outer space. (9:00 AM)

April 8th:

Melancholic Megalomaniac - Elliott and Mo try to cheer up Lord Kallous, with the help of someone from his past. (9:00 AM)

April 9th:

Diminishing Discourse Pt 1 - Elliott and Frankie decide to tell Mo about what really happened to the dinosaurs. (9:00 AM)

Teen Titans Go!

April 3rd:

Feed Me - The Titans release a small marshmallow ducky that the Easter Bunny had locked up, not knowing the danger they have unleashed. (9 AM)

April 17th:

The Mug - Robin dreams of receiving a #1 Dad mug so Raven magically turns them into a sitcom family. (9 AM)

April 24th:

Hafo Safo - The Titans travel to the hipster neighborhood of Silver Lake, California to help solve a mystery. (9 AM)

Total Dramarama

April 3rd:

Gumbearable - After accidentally swallowing a piece of gum Owen has to protect his friends by jumping into gum volcano. (9:30 AM)

April 17th:

Whack Mirror - Chef warns Beth and Cody making goofy faces into a mirror will cause them to get stuck that way. It turns out he was right, just not in the way any of them ever imagined. (9:30 AM)

April 24th:

Broken Back Kotter - Izzy nominates Chef for the Daycare Professional of the Year award and will do whatever it takes to see him win. As it turns out, it takes a lot. (9:30 AM)

Victor and Valentino

April 17th:

Tez Breaks Bread - When Tez returns to town and invites Chata and the boys to a dinner party, she insists they attend so Victor and Valentino set out to expose him as the evil magician he truly is. (10:30 AM)

April 24th:

Baby Pepito - When a mysterious "baby" appears on Chata's doorstep, Victor and Valentino are convinced it's not what it seems. (10:30 AM)

#apple & onion #ben 10 2016 #ben 10 #total dramarama #victor and valentino #elliott from earth #teen titans go #fpb news #cartoon network

[battlekidx2]

Star Wars the Clone Wars (2008) Thoughts and Review

With season 7 of the clone wars fast approaching I decided to give the series a second shot. The first time I started watching star wars the clone wars I dropped it. I am so glad I gave it a second chance. I watched it chronologically this time around which made a significant difference in the experience. The first time I watched it the show felt incredibly disjointed with characters who had died much earlier suddenly getting introduction episodes and the timeline was all over the place with closing episodes for arcs happening before opening ones. I couldn’t understand why so many people liked this show that was so all over the place, but now that it’s been a few years and there are many lists on how to watch it chronologically returning for the show seemed like a must. This is a truly great cartoon with amazing writing, animation, and characters. It’s a deeply tragic tale where the heroes don’t win every battle. You know the outcome and yet you can’t help but be enthralled by everything that happens. The show becomes steeped in grey the longer it moves along and decidedly doesn’t deal with the absolutes of black and white, light and dark. This show managed to blow me away even though I came in having heard all the praises that were thrown its way. I highly recommend that anyone who hasn’t watched this show go out and start right now.

Animation:

There was a rather large jump in animation quality in season 4. That’s not to say the animation before wasn’t impressive just that it became even better. The character animation is where it was most noticeable. I wasn’t a big fan of Count Dooku or Chancellor Palpatine’s character models at the start, but after the animation bump they were much better. From the clothes, to the hair, to the facial expressions. The character models for everyone were much better. The hair moved now! All jokes aside the clone wars seems to have an endless well of finances for the animation. There were so many different planets and character models utilized throughout the show’s run that there’s no other way they could pull it off. (It was rather famously financed by George Lucas) Considering the last season was released in 2013 I can easily say the animation still looks better than a lot of shows today. I had heard that the animation was good, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how good.

Standout Arcs:

Landing at point rain - This is the episode that really hooked me and made me think this show was something special. There were losses and the plan didn’t go the way our characters wanted. Obi Wan was struck out of the sky and put out of commission because of his injuries. The large scale battles and 3 separate storylines following the 3 generals were all juggles very well and, while not the morally nuanced storytelling that the Clone Wars became known for, it was still a well made war episode that showed the grueling nature of it and what was the start of what was to come. 

Padawan Lost arc - This arc made me realize how much I loved Ahsoka. Not saying I didn’t like her before just that I hadn’t realized how much I had grown to love her character. These episodes did a good job of showing Ahsoka’s growth and how capable she was without her lightsaber, master, or army. The intercutting of the discovery of the other taken padawans that were never searched for with the council telling Anakin not to look for Ahsoka, but to trust in the force shows the disconnect that the Jedi council was beginning to have even with its own order. It shows that their rules against connection was, in a way, pushing them away from the light. This was the beginnings of showing how the order has lost its way. I found myself worrying over Ahsoka and her well being. I wanted her to succeed and come out the other side with the other “prey”. Which was an excellent juxtaposition to the council. Ahsoka lets her attachments help her protect the other prisoners and they get to escape because they act as a unit disproving the council’s decisions on connections. It’s fascinating that an arc that seemed at first to be disconnected to the main theme of the series became intertwined with it. I really like how the clone wars can turn your expectations on its head.

The Umbara Arc - What can I say about this arc that hasn’t already been said. Wow, just wow. This arc is incredible and showcases everything that makes the clone wars great. The animation in this four episode arc is phenomenal and some of the best 3D animation I’ve seen put on TV. The clone wars excels at showing large scale fights and this is no different. It was a marvel to look at. There were so many dark themes that were within this arc. The clones having to come to grips with the corruption of their leader and their own ability to choose despite how horrible the choices they are left with are. The revelation that they were shooting on their own troops in “Carnage on Krell” was harrowing and my shock mirrored that of the clone troopers themselves. The betrayal and hurt that all the troopers were feeling was clear as day and the realization at what they had to do to Krell, a leader they were programmed to trust, not only foreshadowed order 66 but also showed that casualties of war aren’t just people but also beliefs and worldview. The growth that the clones, especially Rex and Fives, underwent was amazing. These two became some of my favorite star wars characters with this arc. Fives with his staunch beliefs that he and all clones should stick to what they believe to be right and Rex with his realization that his loyalty and programming were misplaced, that everything that he believed and fought for may have been a lie and corrupt all along. We’ve seen the senate treating the clones like objects and products, but to see the reality of it on the battlefield was a different experience entirely. When they took Umbara it didn’t feel like a victory for the clones or to me. It felt hollow and saddening. We know how this all ends and having the clones humanized in such a way makes everything that happens later all the more hard hitting. This arc was truly great and it alone makes watching the clone wars worth it.

I also really like how it was a reversal of order 66 with the jedi general betraying his clones. It showed that clones banding together can take down even a prepared jedi, alibi an overconfident one. The conflicting emotions that the clones go through when disobeying their orders opens nuance to order 66 and their possible refusal to carry it out. The struggle of going against their programming is at the focus of this arc. The eventual retcon of this struggle by having the control chips in their brain is simultaneously something I don’t like and something I think makes sense. I don’t like it because it removes the implications and possibility to disobey the order on the clone’s end, but it also would be poor planning on Palpatine’s part to let everything hinge on the clones obeying their programming and not question it. The chips also lead to some of my favorite episodes with fives discovering order 66. This doesn’t effect my love of this arc I just wanted to voice my opinion on this point.

Darth Maul Ascendant arc and the Lawless - This arc was phenomenal. I don’t know what to say. I loved just about everything about this arc. From Darth Maul and his revenge against Obi Wan to the fall of Mandalore by its own hands. This arc was beautifully tragic. Nothing went right in this arc for anyone. Obi Wan couldn’t save Satine, Bo Katan couldn’t save Mandalore, Maul couldn’t save his brother or himself. The most popular shot from the episode “The Lawless”:

Perfectly encapsulates how futile and (once again) tragic this episode is. Obi Wan is just a silhouette against the backdrop of explosions and fighting. He’s so insignificant and small. He can’t win. He can’t save Mandalore. No matter how hard he tried. He’s just one person in the middle of this mandalorian civil war. This entire arc is filled with shots and scenes that are like this one, beautiful to look at and yet portraying immense tragedy. And I think this juxtaposition was intentional. You can’t take your eyes away despite all the horrible things happening before you. I think these episodes were some of the best animated content I have ever consumed. There are quite a few clone wars arcs that make me feel this way, but I think this is my favorite or at the very least contains my favorite episode in “The Lawless”. It is easily something I will never forget.

Ahsoka on Trial - This arc is masterful in how it juxtaposes Ahsoka and Anakin’s journey’s. Both have to deal with their disillusionment with the jedi order and the perceived lack of trust the order places in them. With the ending shot (shown below) of Anakin and Ahsoka foreshadowing through lighting the path their choices will bring them down. Ahsoka has a lit up sky behind her while Anakin has the looming, dark jedi temple behind him. Ahsoka continues down the stairs into the light having turned her back on the growing darkness within the jedi order and tentatively towards a path we cannot see but has at least some brightness and hope. While Anakin is stuck going back to an order he doesn’t have faith in feeling like he has failed his task in protecting Ahsoka. This arc is what the show felt like it was culminating towards with Ahsoka. We knew something was going to happen that would take her out of Anakin’s life before the events of Revenge of the Sith, but the way this played out was better than I could have imagined. I couldn’t help getting emotional over Anakin and Ahsoka parting ways and knowing how Anakin’s story plays out just added to my sadness over it all. There is also a very interesting parallel between Ahsoka and Ventress. They are both force wielders that were betrayed by the order that they followed and seeing their interactions after all this time was fascinating. I also couldn’t truly argue with Barriss when she voiced her reason for attacking the jedi temple. We’ve seen through all our main characters the shortcomings of the jedi and the corruption within the senate that the jedi work with. What Anakin says in Revenge of the Sith “From my point of view the jedi are evil” suddenly makes so much more sense after watching this series and especially this arc. This managed to add so much to the prequel trilogy, at least in my opinion.

Fives and Order 66 - I can’t believe the show decided to show someone actually discovering the truth behind order 66. I was rooting for fives throughout this entire arc and was shocked and sad to see he died so close to getting out the truth (despite knowing that he wouldn’t succeed). I had grown very attached to fives with all the episodes he was a part of and liked how his sense of duty was to doing what was right and saving as many lives as he could showing how despite the clones being programmed they all had different interpretations of their programming. This arc showed how capable the chancellor was at covering his tracks. He had a hand in every event that transpired during this series and yet has everyone fooled in one way or another. No one really knows the truth about him. After the episode “Orders” I had to pause the show, sit back, and let what had just happened sink in (like with many other episodes). How could this show tell storylines that I knew were doomed to end only one way and yet still completely emotionally invest me? And I think that question is just a testament to how good this series really is and how good this arc is. 

I will say that easily the weakest episodes to me were the ones focusing on the droids such as R2D2 and C3PO. I like them as support characters, but their spotlight episodes were a slog to get through and I probably won’t rewatch any of them. The good news is that these are far and few between, but there is an arc with them in season 5 that I’m not too fond of especially since the rest of season 5 was phenomenal. There were also a few senate based episodes I struggled through, but most of them I was interested by because of how you could see the corruption and how the senate themselves had begun to see the war as a chance to profit and saw the clone troopers as disposable, easily renewable weapons. It was at times fascinating.

Characters:

Ahsoka - I love Ahsoka Tano. I’ve heard that she wasn’t well received upon her introduction. I’m not entirely sure why because I didn’t have a problem with her in the clone wars movie. She wasn’t my favorite, but she had a lot of room to grow and I wanted to see what they would do with her. The very premise of Anakin having a padawan is fascinating to me because while we know what she isn’t around for revenge of the sith we don’t know why. Is she killed? Does something drastic happen that removes her from the story? Does she stay a jedi or fall to the sith? These were all possibilities and thoughts that I had when I started watching the clone wars. I made sure to stay away from spoilers because I like it when I get to watch something unfold. Ahsoka’s arc is fantastic. We get to see her transform into an idealistic, overconfident youngling to a calm and confident jedi. She, like Obi Wan and Anakin, goes through trials and sees her faith is the Jedi order shaken. The disillusionment and what paths it takes them all on is really interesting. Unlike Obi Wan who still wields and believes is the light side or Anakin who wields and falls to the dark Ahsoka becomes something in the middle, not light or dark. They all portray the different paths that their disillusionment can take. Ahsoka’s decision to become something in the middle echoes the sentiment that you should not deal in absolutes, which is a message within the series. Ahsoka’s decision to leave the Jedi order and forge her own path is what I feel the story was always culminating towards with her. This is why I’m excited for Ahsoka vs Darth Maul in season 7. They are both former apprentices that were betrayed by the order that they had sworn their loyalty towards, but while Maul focuses on vengeance and continues down the path of the dark side, Ahsoka focuses on the future and taking her own path separate from the light or dark. They are perfect opposites to one another in how they dealt with their similar situations. Ahsoka is the perfect example of the idea that the power doesn’t matter, it’s what you do with it. She chooses to still do what she knows is right despite not wielding the dark side. I’m really happy that she survived the series and the empire’s reign. I can’t wait to see what they do next with her.

Obi Wan Kenobi - I really liked what they did with him in this series. We got to see how his emotions did clash with his rigid adherence to the jedi code. His most telling moments were in his greatest failures. Even in the darkest times he didn’t lose hope. He continued to believe that a better future was possible in spite of all of his loss. And I think that is admirable. Because we are so often given characters that are either overly idealistic or overly pessimistic and I can understand both of these archetypes, but Obi Wan has seen the worst of people and lost so much and yet he still maintains hope and I think that is powerful. It may also be because I am a huge fan of Obi Wan. But his hope also has its downsides even within the show because it extended to his belief in the jedi order and their code. It prevented him from being with the one he loved and creates a divide between him and Anakin where they can’t really see eye to eye. The dynamic between him and Anakin is amazing and made my rewatch of Revenge of the Sith and their battle within the film so much more heartbreaking. Obi Wan is a character that has to do something and help where he can, much like Anakin, but where Anakin is brash and reckless Obi wan is calm and diplomatic. They are set up as amazing foils to one another. I just love how much this show fleshed out Obi Wan’s character and showed more to him than the movies got to. This show did a fantastic job with Obi Wan and made his transformation from who he is in the prequels to who he is in the original trilogy make much more sense. (I highly recommend SUPER FRAME’s review of this show. I really agree with his thoughts on Obi Wan in this show)

Anakin - Anakin is a character that unlike Obi Wan I wasn’t the biggest fan of coming into this series. I didn’t hate him, but I much preferred his Darth Vader counterpart. This series changes this and I now like Anakin much more and find his fall to the dark side to be just as fascinating as his life as Darth Vader. We get to see that he really does want to save everyone and how his attachment and possessiveness lead to him doing horrible things even from the very beginning to protect those he cares about. His protectiveness becomes closer and closer to possessiveness as the series progresses. This is most noticeable after Ahsoka leaves the order and Padme decides to work with Clovis. Anakin is controlling and demands/orders her to not work with Clovis. He tries to take away her choice in the matter. This is eerily close to who he is in revenge of the sith even if it is just for a moment before it gets shoved back down. All of these moments (once again) make his turn in Revenge of the Sith very believable because it’s clear that he can be capable of the things he does in that film and onwards. He was always teetering on the edge and he just needed a push to start his descent. The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker actually became a tragedy.

This entire show seems to be a story of disillusionment, of loss, of tragedy. What starts out to seem like a tale of triumph and valor is revealed to be a facade for the bleak reality that is war. Even the “good guys” have lost their way. Time and time again we see the council and senate make decisions that aren’t what would be considered the right thing to do. The senate looks at clones like products. Disposable, reorderable weapons to wage a war that they themselves are safe from as long as they stay on Coruscant. The Jedi order has lost their way. They are no longer peacekeepers, but weapons and warriors that perpetuate war by siding with the republic. They can’t help planets like Mandalore because they side with the republic, planets that tear themselves apart and are their own worst enemy. They are supposed to help the people and the further into the war they get the less people they can protect and the more people that die. The clone wars is known to be a tragic tale where neither side wins and both were manipulated. This show perfectly captures the tragedy. I couldn’t help, but understand Barriss’ scorning remarks about the Jedi Order by the end of the series while still sympathizing with Anakin, Ahsoka, and Obi Wan’s desperate attempts to do what is right in spite of their terrible circumstances.

There is too much about the show that I want to talk about and this could probably continue for much longer, but I can’t endlessly add to this if I want to get it out before season 7 airs. There were some fantastic arcs like the mortis arc that I didn’t talk about and that’s because I wasn’t sure where to start with them. I would like to maybe later come back once I find the words and talk about them. I found this show got better with almost every season with season 5 being the best, especially since almost every episode was in the correct order. There were many highs within the series and it managed to expand a lot on the Star wars world, characters, and mythos. I liked how they brought Maul back and what they did with Ventress. Maul was something that easily could have gone wrong and Ventress is a character they easily could have just written off or killed. These are two risks that I felt paid off and there were many more. It took risks and managed to effectively comment on the justification and morality of war. It has arcs I find to be some of the best I’ve seen in animation and left me awestruck. I cannot wait for the 7th season. I’m so glad this show is getting the opportunity it deserves to end properly and tie up its loose ends. I will watch the episodes as they drop and I hope everyone who reads this will as well.

(I apologize if some of this seems jumbled. I think I may have a concussion so writing this was a bit more difficult that it should have been) 

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #swtcw #swcw #mortis arc #darth maul return and ascension #madalore #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #anakin #obi wan #ahsoka #padme #this show is amazing #ventress #i love this show #I'm really excited for season 7

[postedbygaslight]

No One’s Ever Really Gone: The Synergy of Narrative and Poetic Structures in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

IMPORTANT: The following essay will draw upon existing work for a lot of its content and conclusions. I do not claim credit for the work cited to others below, though my interpretations and commentary are included throughout. Most of the content I’m referring to can be found in links included below, and the primary sources are @ohtze‘s “Kill the King and Take His Crown,” and @ashesforfoxes‘ “The Descent.”

You can also find a lot of really insightful work on this stuff by listening to related podcasts, like recent episodes of SW Connection, Metamashina and Scavenger’s Hoard. Literary theory isn’t new stuff, and any analysis will necessarily stand on the shoulders of giants. However, I hadn’t seen any analysis on the synergy and interplay of the various tropes and archetypes discussed.

TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR: The summary of the constituent parts of these tropes and archetypes is based on the work of others, in both written and commentary form. My contribution is the assignment of the various elements to the heroic, character, and narrative structures, and a guess as to how those elements will play out on screen. Some of the guesses are close to or identical to those suggested by Ohtze, because I think she’s right, but I’ve added editorial commentary and my own spin on it. The summary of the literary structures is intended as crib notes for anyone unfamiliar with these terms or other works.

So, if you’re ready, join me below the cut. [I’ve tried about seven times to add the cut so it’ll show on mobile, and it won’t for me, so idk]

I wrote this meta about six weeks ago, and have put off posting it here for a number of reasons. But, having looked it over, I feel fairly sanguine about it. I’ll probably add pictures/gifs later, but for now, I’m not going to bother. Strap in, though. This is a hell of a ride.

My lit theory engines have been running non-stop since The Last Jedi was released, because I could see there was a highly developed structure underpinning everything. I just couldn’t put my finger on it, and, while some tropes and archetypes I’ve encountered as applied by analyses in the fandom fit in certain areas, others didn’t match up. But now I think I see what’s being done, and, well, goddamn.

What we’re seeing here is the synergy of the entire saga being brought together. J.J. Abrams himself said Episode IX is intended to do just that. The question is: how do you accomplish that? Through the evolution of the saga, different through lines have been adopted and integrated. First, there was the mythic, then, the tragic, followed by the poetic, and, finally, the gothic. Now that there are four distinct and synergized elements guiding four distinct elements of the saga’s conclusion, finding one pure parallel is nigh impossible, and for good reason: this is more ambitious than anything a major production has really tried.

As my professional training is in the law, it wouldn’t do to structure this as I would a creative work of fiction. So, in deference to the legal tradition, here’s a summary of conclusions:

Star Wars operates first and foremost as a Hero’s Journey, or, more specifically, three separate journeys: The Hero’s Journey of Luke Skywalker, the Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, and the Heroine’s Journey of Rey of Jakku. These three journeys are distinct and operate within an overall poetic structure that binds the saga together. Each trilogy represents a poetic stanza, and the three trilogies are arranged overall as a palistrophe (wherein the tragedy of the first stanza is unwound and reversed by the third).

[In earlier versions of this essay, I incorrectly identified the poetic device being used here as palindrome. Credit to a Facebook user to calling me on my bullshit and not letting me talk my way around it. The device I intended to identify is a chiasmus, and more specifically, a palistrophe, in which chiastic structure is used to address broad elements, rather than exact mirrors. A palindrome is far too constrained a device for it to be the appropriate device, and I ought to have known it. A good example of a palistrophe is the Biblical story of the Flood, in which the first act details the coming of the Flood, the middle act deals with the consequences of the Flood, and the third act unwinds and reverses the first and presents the elements as mirrors, thus arriving at different thematic conclusions.]

The Original Trilogy features monomythic character archetypes and narrative, needing nothing else. The Prequel Trilogy features tragic character archetypes and narrative, utilizing a failed Hero’s Journey as its mythic foundation. The Sequel Trilogy features the same tragic character archetypes as the Prequel Trilogy, but inverts the roles and elements as befitting the palistrophic poetic arc, and, as the gender roles are reversed, employs a Heroine’s Journey to counteract the tragic conclusions of the Prequel Trilogy. Because neither the monomythic nor the tragic narratives are applicable to a non-tragic Heroine’s Journey, the Sequel Trilogy adopts a gothic romantic narrative to carry the poetic and heroic arcs to the Heroine’s Journey’s conclusion.

In the applications of these various tropes, the Sequel Trilogy uses the base narrative of the gothic romance, but those elements that do not comport with the tragic character archetypes are overridden by the archetypal dicta. Similarly, because the Heroine of the Sequel Trilogy does not have a tragic flaw, when the conclusions reached by the tragic archetypes or the gothic narrative would conflict with the requirements of the Heroine’s Journey, those conclusions must be controlled by the Heroine’s Journey.

Here follows the more specific discussion. Let’s follow the bouncing ball:

The Original Trilogy was powered by a simple Hero’s Journey: Luke Skywalker’s. The classic Campbellian monomyth is applied in almost perfect step-by-step progression. Taken on its own, this is all that’s needed. George Lucas took the pulp elements of space opera and placed his Hero on his journey through it.

But then Lucas decided to make the prequels, and he wanted to use the same mythical structure, but the archetypes of the monomyth didn’t work. Why? Because Anakin Skywalker is not a classic heroic figure. He is a tragic hero; that is, the Hero of the monomyth, but with a fatal flaw that prevents him from completing his journey. To do this kind of story, Lucas elected to draw from Sophocles himself and took the base archetypes from Oedipus Rex (the greatest of all Greek tragedies), applied them to the Star Wars universe through the Hero’s Journey, and we saw that play out exactly as one would expect it.

In Ohtze’s excellent meta, “Kill the King, and Take His Crown,” she details the application of the Usurper/Holy Mother trope as established by Greek tragic tradition (and supplemented by Freudian analysis), and I’ll be discussing that here. The trope, by my reckoning, applies mostly to the characters moving within other structures, but applies very broadly to the Prequel Trilogy by dint of being a straight transfer of both tragic character archetype and narrative.

By using the Usurper as the male archetype, Lucas fundamentally changed the way Darth Vader’s entire arc is to be interpreted. Instead of a messianic crusader, Vader is redrawn as a Dog of War, corrupted in the absence of his female counterpart, taken from him as a result of his own tragic fall. This also reframes Luke’s own Hero’s Journey, as his arc takes shape through the Oedipus archetypal structure, and transforms him into an avatar of his dead mother; i.e., the only figure through whom the Usurper can be redeemed. However, Vader’s crimes were too great, and his Queen (Holy Mother) was dead. Redemption had to be followed by death, and Luke’s Hero’s Journey ends, as all must, with the Hero assuming the legacy left by his father, gaining mastery over two worlds (here the Light and Dark Sides of the Force).

When confronting how to approach the Sequel Trilogy, the first thing I assume they established was using the three films to reverse the tragedy of Anakin’s fall. So, in some ways, they found themselves hemmed in by what had come before, but also had some serious decisions to make concerning a final element: by subverting the tragic trope, it makes the narrative of the tragedy inapplicable, and it must be supplanted by something else. Also, because the poetic device used to reverse prior stanzas is palistrophe, all major elements and roles needed to be reversed. That leads to a few conclusions that explain a LOT.

In reversing Anakin’s fall, the same tragic archetypes must be used for the new characters. However, because of the palistrophe, the production’s hand was forced in a few areas.

First, the heroic role had to be the female counterpart to the Usurper, taking the tragic figure out of the Hero’s role. This is key. If the tragic figure is not the capital-h Hero, the tragedy can be avoided if the Hero/Heroine’s Journey overrides the tragic conclusions. Second, by reversing the roles, that put the Sequel Trilogy into a Heroine’s Journey, with the Holy Mother archetype as the Heroine.

Ashes+For+Foxes’ excellent analysis of Valerie Frankel’s work on the Heroine’s Journey, and its application to The Force Awakens informs this next section a great deal. The most pertinent meta is “The Descent,” linked above.

The Heroine’s Journey differs fundamentally from the Hero’s Journey in that the Heroine is much more attuned to the Shadow than a Hero, gaining mastery over the darkness through understanding instead of conflict. Another important distinction is the Heroine’s Journey’s interest in family, and the transition from childhood to womanhood to motherhood. Where the Hero’s Journey is more anodyne and chaste, the Heroine’s Journey is explicitly a journey of sexual awakening, with one of the elements including marriage to the Animus (often portrayed as Prince Charming, et al), and eventual consummation and sexual union with him. The Animus is a true counterpart, representing the yin to her yang, completing the whole, and this relationship is essential in the Heroine’s Journey.

There are many examples of conflation of elements in the Heroine’s Journey, and here, as in Beauty and the Beast, Kylo Ren is both an agent of the Shadow, and the Heroine’s Animus. Because the Heroine must confront and overcome the Shadow, and also wed the Animus, the major conflict of her Journey becomes freeing her lover from the Shadow’s influence.

Fairy tale offers a lot of rich territory to mine, but it’s short on substance. This is where narrative structure comes into play. You have the poetic goal, the tragic character archetypes, and the Heroine’s Journey running through it. But what structure will the story adopt?

This is the point where my analysis of the synergies of these elements hit a snag, even though it was staring me right in the damn face: the story is being told as a Byronic gothic romance. The first response to this might be: why? Because Star Wars uses what works. And the Byronic tradition is perhaps the most effective and emotionally resonant model that employs a capital-h Heroine with a tragic lover who must be freed from the darkness.

[The ladies at SW Connection did a great video on comparisons between the Reylo arc and Jane Eyre that is very well done. I’m quite familiar with Jane Eyre and its other gothic kin, but somehow missed the parallel for all the talk of Pride and Prejudice.]

I’m far from the first person to notice the parallels between the Sequel Trilogy and the female driven stories of the gothic era. The most often cited has been Pride and Prejudice, and some story elements do indeed fit, but the fit is awkward. Rey and Kylo’s relationship mirrors the intensity and tension of Darcy and Elizabeth, but one must remember that P&P is satirical, not strictly romance. Instead, one must look to actual gothic romance, and the most prominent and applicable is Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre’s story is eerily similar to the Reylo arc. The only things that truly don’t fit are those things filled in by the use of the tragic archetypes (the Usurper and Holy Mother archetypes override gothic character motivations), and the Heroine’s Journey (which is and will always be supreme in this kind of story). Jane and Rochester fit the class and gender roles of Reylo; their attraction is similar, and they also share an unexplained and occasionally supernatural connection (the Force Bond scenes seem to draw a lot from the implications of a supernatural gothic romance). The Byronic tradition also typically includes a bungled proposal that is always refused by the heroine, and the eventual reunification of the lovers after time spent apart takes its toll on them both. The Byronic heroine loves her counterpart, and does so even though everyone else thinks he isn’t worth it, and he, for his part, is irascible and cruel to everyone but the heroine. The Byronic male character suffers for his moral failings, and is brought low, makes a life change and corrects his awful behavior, and is redeemed through the love of the heroine (again, through implied supernatural means, though the nature of that intervention varies dramatically from story to story). The lovers then get their happily ever after.

Gothic romances very often end in tragedy (see Wuthering Heights), but only when there is no true capital-h Heroine to drive the narrative. When there is no true heroic figure, tragic flaws will rule the day in stories heavily tilted toward tragic ends. But in this iteration of Star Wars, we have a Heroine, whose mythic archetype and narrative role are tied up in the redemption of her lover, and since she’s on a Heroine’s Journey, and doesn’t have a tragic flaw herself, the rules of the game dictate she has to triumph.

Perhaps, at this point, a demonstration is appropriate:

In The Force Awakens, Rey and Kylo’s first encounter is, to say the least, confrontational and unfriendly. This dynamic does not improve throughout the film, though he does soften toward her to some measurable degree. In The Last Jedi, as the elements of their supernatural connection become apparent, their dialogue becomes more comfortable, less acrimonious; they connect on a spiritual level, and achieve a unique understanding of each other. But Kylo is an absolute shit to everyone other than Rey, sometimes violently so. He, however, is also devoted to her in a very obvious way by the climactic moments of The Last Jedi, and proposes his version of marriage to Rey, but the terms of this union are unacceptable to her, and she has to leave him.

This sounds a lot like Jane Eyre. But the parallels don’t line up like they should. The reason they don’t is we’re not in 1830s England, and the supernatural elements aren’t abstractions or allegory. Rey and Kylo are, like their tragic archetypes, playing in the realm of the Gods, replete with actual magic and cryptic prophecy. Rochester isn’t a murderer and war criminal like Kylo is. But the Usurper archetype is, and the mythic setting dictates a more visceral level of antagonism than verbally abusing servants and violating the norms of polite aristocratic society.

Like Jane, Rey is an orphan, and discarded multiple times, left to fend for herself in the face of constant abandonment. But Jane, though strong, is always subservient to the authority figures that surround her, having no other real choice. Rey is not bound by those constraints, but if that’s so, then, shouldn’t the Holy Mother archetype dictate her motivations? Well, she is driven by a desire for belonging and family, and she fiercely protects those she holds dear, but she is in no way attended by the pomp and circumstance of the queen in the tragic trope. So, the Heroine’s Journey rules the day, setting her on the path to her magical weapon, call to adventure, and confrontation with the Shadow, etc.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN

I’ll tell you. Jesus.

With this formula, it becomes possible to game out what will happen in Episode IX with a startling degree of specificity. Remember, this is my interpretation, applying the formula I’ve detailed above and supplementing my own personal conjecture and assumptions as necessary. So, again acknowledging that some of these basic predictions have been made before, here goes:

WARNING: Basically lit theory informed fanfic from this point.

Rey and Kylo will remain severed in their bond for the first part of the movie. They must be made to feel the sting of loneliness and recognize the incompletion only cured by the other’s presence in their lives.

Rey will find solace in her new family for awhile, but will not be able to replace the feeling of belonging and completion she feels with Kylo. This longing will act as a real source of conflict and represent a constant struggle to stave off the Shadow (the Dark Side).

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren will try to convince himself that he only used Rey to help him usurp Snoke’s throne, if only as an attempt to shield himself from the reality that he has been abandoned by his Queen, and will continue to seek her, but probably use the excuse of pursuing the Resistance as justification.

The Knights of Ren will appear as Kylo’s personal honor guard and act as military commanders as well, another poke in the eye to General Hux. I think this primarily because J.J. Abrams stated after directing TFA that he’s love to do a Knights of Ren movie, and here’s his chance. The Knights will represent Kylo’s stated ideal to begin a new order of Force users, one that has its basis in the Dark Side. If this is the case, I foresee Rey tangling with at least one of them in the front half of the movie (she’ll probably kill the Knight, having no other choice, and giving the other Knights a vengeance incentive to track her down and kill her).

Leia’s death will cause a real shift in the status quo for both Rey and Kylo, as the shock of her passing will leave them both vulnerable. I assume this will cause the Force to join them, and they will have a reckoning about their parting and an acknowledgment/reinforcement of the feelings they have for each other (though it’s likely this will still remain implicit for the time being). Unless they go for the gold and have them initiate physical contact through the Force again, only this time without Uncle Luke outside the door (the tragic trope suggests physical contact here due to the loss of the Usurper’s birth mother, but that could be toned down or delayed for dramatic effect). It’s also entirely possible that this could actually be an in-person meeting, but I doubt that for plot reasons.

[I also think that there’ll be a number of Force Bond scenes, because there’s a real need to have these two share serious screen time in Episode IX.]

Rey’s connection with Kylo will be revealed to the Resistance. Not sure how this will happen exactly, but its effect will be to cause separation and distrust between Rey and her adopted family.

The consequences of the revelation of the Force Bond to the Resistance will cause the rebels to make a fatal mistake. The First Order will move to finish the Resistance, and this time it’ll be for good.

About this time, Kylo is going to find himself in the midst of some extreme conflict. The pull to the Light will be stronger than ever, and I anticipate he will call once more to Vader for guidance. Typically, Sith cannot be Force Ghosts, but Anakin was redeemed, so his spirit endures. I anticipate it will be a riven, tortured existence, and we’ll get some spectacular visual effect that shifts his ghost from blue to red, with the red one maimed, burned, and scarred. This experience will shake him to his foundations.

For her part, I wrestled with whether Rey would also receive supernatural guidance from Luke’s Force Ghost, but I’ve come down on the side of that not being the case. Rey is past the point in the Heroine’s Journey where she’s looking to father figures for guidance. Rey’s reconciliation with the mother figure will probably have to come through some form of interaction with something left behind by Leia, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Maz Kanata reprise her quest giver role in a more motherly capacity, with a symbolic or literal passing of the torch, so to speak.

Having made his decision (“I know what I have to do” part 3?), Kylo will attempt to sabotage the First Order’s assault from the inside. This attempt will not go as planned (Kylo’s not much of a planner), and Hux’s long-anticipated coup will spring into action. I also think that Hux will have, by this point, convinced at least some of the Knights that Kylo murdered Snoke, and to join his insurrection.

Having learned of his betrayal, the Knights of Ren will turn on Kylo, each of them having been trained to seek power over all else. I expect some of them will go with the assault force (which was at least partially successfully fucked up by Kylo’s attempt at sabotage— something that the Resistance will know was his doing), while the rest lie in wait to ambush Kylo as he goes to either escape or re-establish control.

During his fight with the Knights, Kylo will be badly wounded (or perhaps will have been wounded by Hux just prior; this is a guy who keeps a knife in his sleeve), but will manage to escape. Having made his way as far as he can on his own, he’ll either consciously or unconsciously call out to Rey through the Force.

Rey will hear his call and will go to him, and I expect that will be over the objection of her friends, and may result in Rey threatening violence against one of them (Finn, probably) if they try to stop her (still on the fence about this).

Finding him wounded, Rey and Kylo’s reunion will be cut short by the remaining Knights of Ren. Rey will fight them and hold her own for awhile, but will soon be overpowered, and an injured Kylo will join the fight and save her life. Together they’ll finish off the remaining Knights, thus bringing an early end to the new order.

Meanwhile, Hux and the First Order, having been more debilitated by Kylo’s betrayal than it first appeared, are losing to a resurgent Resistance fleet. Hux’s brief tenure as Supreme Leader will end in ignominy, his death coming in as humiliating a fashion as befits the smallness of his character.

The defeat of the First Order will be attended by Something Very Bad (I haven’t a clue as to what that could be, but suffice it to say I anticipate it would be some kind of kamikaze self-destruct protocol that’ll threaten both the Resistance fleet and a massive number of civilians).

Rey and Kylo, able to see this Something Very Bad happening from their vantage, will risk everything to save everyone else, and do something with the Force, working together, that will blow our minds. Like stop a Star Destroyer from falling on a city, or something equally as impossible. I expect this will involve them coming together physically (probably holding hands), to juxtapose them being separated at the end of TFA and TLJ.

The Resistance will be saved, and the First Order decimated beyond reckoning. Those who witnessed it know they were saved by the Force, and the only two people capable of wielding it in such a way.

But.

Kylo Ren will die. Having sustained serious wounds, and having had to expend a titanic effort using the Force, Kylo will collapse into Rey’s arms in a La Pieta motif. This will probably be shot either like the Luke/Vader scene or the Anakin scene with his dying mother in Attack of the Clones. It’s going to be rough.

“Hey! Hold on! You said happily ever after, you motherfucker!”

I sure did. Remember, we’re on a Heroine’s Journey. Kylo Ren is not a capital-h Heroic figure. He is a tragic figure given the opportunity for redemption through penitence and selfless sacrifice. And what is the last stage of the Heroine’s Journey before the final triumph?

Mastery Over Life and Death.

Where the Hero’s Journey can often involve the resurrection of the Hero himself, the Heroine’s Journey ends with her saving her lover from death, often resurrecting him through magical means. The Force is nothing if not the space fantasy version of magic, and the desire for this kind of power is exactly what caused Anakin to fall. But Anakin’s desire to achieve mastery over life and death was inextricably tied to his tragic flaw, meaning that the very act of seeking it would lead to the tragedy he sought to prevent. The Heroine, however, never seeks this power explicitly. It is made available to her when she is in greatest need, and is realized through the love she has for her counterpart. Because the Heroine’s final triumph requires her lover to be alive (so she can finally achieve motherhood in her own right), this step is essential. Don’t think you’ve ever seen this before? Think Beauty and the Beast and Tangled.

So.

Ben Solo will be reborn. Having passed through death and been reborn through the grace of his lover, Ben Solo will have achieved an earned redemption, and a chance at a new life.

What then? It really depends on the circumstances of the Something Very Bad being averted, and how public Kylo/Ben’s betrayal of the First Order is. But, once loose ends are resolved:

A time jump. A few years, I think. The Jedi Temple at Ahch-To. Rey and Ben teaching a new generation of Jedi. And, yes, babies. Probably twins. Sunset, Force theme swells, circle wipe to a star field, the end.

Okay, so that was way longer than I expected. Thanks for staying with me on that one. Of course, all of the above could be spectacularly wrong, but I’m bringing all of my instincts and education in lit theory to bear here, and incorporating the best ideas I’ve encountered in the fandom, and this feels right.

I’m sure at least some of you would agree.

Tagging @raven-maiden because she encouraged me to actually get off my digital ass and post this.

#reylo #reylo meta #star wars meta #reverse anidala

[frederator-studios]

Meet Ryan North, Writer on Bravest Warriors

And lots of other stuff too: you probably know Ryan from his writing on the Adventure Time and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comic book series. He’s also the mind behind the iconic Dinosaur Comics, in which clip art T-Rex, Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus philosophize on the tri-weekly. He may be the biggest comics star out there who doesn’t draw!? Regardless, I’d like to see a challenger face off against him; he is, apparently, very tall. I caught up with Ryan just as he was in the midst of ECCC 2018:

When did you know you wanted to be a writer, or did it just kind of happen?

There was no "sit straight up in bed at midnight, suddenly wide awake, and whisper 'I want to be a writer'" moment, if that's what you're wondering!  But it's always been something I enjoyed. I went to school for computer science (and have a masters in computational linguistics) but when I graduated I had the choice to a) get a real job, or b) be a writer, and all I had to do to become a writer was fail to get a real job. And it turns out it's really easy to not get a job!

Having studied computer science, you created tech for webcomic authors - how did those projects come about? What other ways have your programming skillz intersected with your creative career?

That's true! The thought process was basically, "There is a service that does not exist, so I guess I'll have to write it.” There were a couple: RSSPECT for rss feed generation (remember RSS? I MISS IT), and Project Wonderful for advertising that doesn't suck. That continues on to this very day!  And of course when it came to writing Squirrel Girl for Marvel, I made her a computer science student too, so there's the intersection.

So if you don’t draw, what motivated you to get into comics - were you just that big a fan?

I was more of a fan in abstract, really - I couldn't get comics growing up, and this was before the internet. But then when I got a job as an undergrad, I took my first paycheque and walked into a comic shoppe and just started buying things at random, and loved them all, so it was nice that my theoretical interest in comics was actually real. I started Dinosaur Comics - my fixed art webcomic - in my last year of undergrad.

Did you discover the dinosaur artwork for Dinosaur Comics - or did they find you?

Some would argue, quite convincingly, that they are a universal constant, and can never be either created or destroyed.

What do you consider your finest accomplishment?

I would like to go to two places: Antarctica and space. I sell plush T-Rexes from Dinosaur Comics at topatoco.com/qwantz, and some AMAZING READERS brought him to both the South Pole, and the edge of space. It is a weird feeling to be jealous of a fictional character you created, but it's a good one. And I'm gonna take all the credit for T-Rex's accomplishments here, even though I had nothing to do with them.

What can you tell us about your writing process? What would you recommend to young writers trying to get disciplined/motivated?

Figure out where and how you work. You have to be honest with yourself. For example, I know that I work best in the morning, and I rarely do good work after 5pm. So I get up at 7am and I write until it's 5pm, and then I stop. I also know that I work best alone, so I don't go to coffee shops or hang out with friends to write. If I'm working, I'm alone. Knowing this lets me set up the circumstances that help me get work done. It's more fun to hang out with friends, but at least this way when I do it I know it's hanging out, so I don't try to work during it, and I can enjoy it for what it is instead of feeling guilty about not working.

Does it work pretty smoothly, writing comics like Squirrel Girl and Adventure Time and having them illustrated by other (super talented) folks?

I've been really lucky, I think, in always collaborating with amazing people.  Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline were my partners on Adventure Time, and we just clicked as a team and we're still great friends, years after the book ended.  We even made our own comic together: The Midas Flesh, published by Boom! BOX - it's about King Midas in space. And with Squirrel Girl it's the same - Erica (Henderson) and I get along great and my favourite thing is getting back art from her - or any artist - because you get to see your words and scenes transformed into pictures that are even better than you imagined.  

What are your thoughts about writing branching narratives / "make your own story" books - are they the Future? What are the biggest challenges, and what have you been most proud of in that area?

I mean, I like them! I like how they capture a lot of the semantics of gaming in a different medium. The challenge is keeping track of state: in a game you can pick up a sword or not pick up a sword, and that's easy: just set a variable. In a book you need to have a choice to pick up that sword, and then every option after that choice has to be duplicated, or else you lose track of whether they picked up the sword or not. There are ways to get around this but most of them involve cheating in some way (ie: just asking the reader if they have the sword, to which they will always say, "Oh yes absolutely, I just love swords especially now that I know they're useful.” So it's always something to keep in mind.

I guess the most impressive thing we had happen was the Kickstarter for To Be or Not To Be: my chooseable-path version of Hamlet.  We raised over $580,000 (for a book!), which was the most-funded publishing project on Kickstarter at the time. That was a crazy book.

How did you come to write for Bravest Warriors?

I was already a fan of the show (having come in after the first season) so it was a matter of saying yes when I was asked if I was interested!  I WAS.

What are your favorite things about Beth, Danny, Wallow and Chris?

For me it's the teamwork: these are people who mess up - and save - the universe on the regular. Also, I love competent characters, and Beth is clearly the most competent character of the bunch. BETH4EVER.

What's your favorite thing about Bravest Warriors in general?

The series is set both in the future AND in space, which are my favourite time periods / general locales to be in. It opens things up to basically any kind of story you can imagine, which is terrific. No idea is too out-there for the Bravest Warriors, which is super fun for a writer, and hopefully super-fun to watch too!  In my first episode (RoboChris) I got to invent an evil robot Chris, and everyone said "Okay, awesome, let's absolutely go with that”.

If you had to describe your writing style in a few words, how would you?

Enthusiastic! And also maybe a little teeny eensie bit wordy.

What are your favorite cartoons, and the biggest inspirations of your work?

I grew up on The Real Ghostbusters, and I loved that that show wasn't afraid to tackle big ideas in what was supposed to be just a tie-in show for a goofy movie (SORRY BUT GHOSTBUSTERS IS GOOFY). It's a lesson I try to take with me: you don't need to talk down to kids, teens, anyone: they're smart, and they'll pick up what you're laying down. Plus that show had Slimer, which I will argue RIGHT NOW is the original Catbug. The longer I get into answering this question the more parallels I see!

Would you ever want to make your own cartoon?

OBVIOUSLY, THAT WOULD BE AMAZING.

(Slimer. Anyone want to draw him and Catbug as best pals?!)

Which 5 books / comics / movies / seasons of TV would you have on a desert island - a desert island with a functional entertainment center?

1. Babylon 5 (all 5 seasons, though we all know you only really need seasons 1-4 and then the “Sleeping in Light” finale in Season 5)

2. A complete print-out of Wikipedia, bound as a book in order to satisfy the requirements of this question.

3. Star Trek TNG (all 7 seasons, thank you)

4. A complete run of Action Comics (because that's gotta keep me busy for a while)

and let's say for the last one...

5... the Bravest Warriors comics by my good friend Joey Comeau (THEY ARE AWESOME AND SO IS HE).

Are you living the dream? Cause it kinda seems like you're living the dream?

I'm 2m tall and I've got my own dog and I've only gotten trapped in a hole once!  THAT IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF LIVING THE DREAM.

Thanks for the interview Ryan! Best of luck in all current and future projects. We look forward to seeing more of the work you do and the holes you get yourself out of.

- Cooper

#The Frederator Interview #Ryan North #Frederator #writers on tumblr #comics #dinosaur comics #adventure time #bravest warriors #squirrel girl #marvel #webcomic #computer science #cartoon hangover #frederator studios #canadian artists #Canadian animation

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #TW35: Escape to L.A.

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-tw35-escape-to-l-a/

Timestamp #TW35: Escape to L.A.

Torchwood: Escape to L.A. (1 episode, s04e04, 2011)

Assassins and espionage try to cover for a lack of story.

Despite Gwen’s warnings, Esther decides to visit her sister Sarah. The house is boarded up and the door is guarded by a series of locks, but Sarah is at home. Sarah warns Esther that people are looking for her, warning her away from major metropolitan areas like Boston and New York City. Sarah rejects Esther’s comfort and concern about Sarah’s children. Esther promises to return as soon as she can.

When Esther returns to her car, she calls Child Protective Services to help the kids. Esther leaves, unaware of the car following her on orders from their mysterious antagonists.

The Torchwood team travels to Los Angeles, California. Jack gazes upon the Pacific Ocean, musing that he hasn’t seen it for about seventy years. They’re looking for PhiCorp, and despite Gwen’s desire to stay on the sand in the sun, Jack decides to look for a temporary headquarters elsewhere.

Rex finds a flyer for Dead is Dead and calls Vera. The campaign is being spearheaded by Ellis Hartley Monroe on the premise that those who should have died are to be treated as if they are dead, merely waiting for their “pause” in mortality to end. In contrast, Doctor Juarez and the medical panel are looking at an abandoned hospital as an overflow for ICU patients.

Jack secures a hideout and Gwen phones Rhys to check in while Rex wonders if Jack’s goal is to turn everyone he meets gay. Jack quips that it is the plan. The team starts to settle in, tracing the threads on Oswald, Jilly, and PhiCorp.

Elsewhere, Jilly and Oswald continue their public relations campaign. Oswald is enjoying the perks of fancy hotels, but while she remains professional, Jilly can’t stand Oswald’s history. She also brings news that Oswald’s appearance that day has been cancelled in lieu of Ellis Hartley Monroe. Oswald is in danger of being kicked to the curb and into the hands of the waiting mob.

Rex decides to find his father, who is now a thief stealing PhiCorp drugs. The reunion is testy, but in the end Rex ends up with another box of pills.

Later, Esther briefs the team on PhiCorp’s secure server and her plan to exchange it for an empty duplicate. Access is restricted to the biometrics of Nicholas Frumkin. To secure his biodata, Jack and Gwen go undercover Mission: Impossible-style as an annoying American couple.

The new hospital under Vera Juarez’s management is failing miserably. There are no protocols, no electricity, and people just being deposited without permission. Regardless, Monroe stages a Dead is Dead rally outside, which is where Oswald was going to hold a public event. Oswald decides to enter the hospital, drawing media attention as he boldly states that he’s not scared of the people inside. He reinvents himself as the spokesman and advocate — perhaps, even a messiah — for them. Monroe departs in anger, being poisoned on the way by the antagonists.

One of those agents, posing as Torchwood, ambushes Frumkin in a parking garage. The agent secures the biometrics by force, including mutilating him for his eye scan and handprint. Frumkin lives through the torture courtesy of the Miracle.

Gwen goes undercover as Yvonne Pallister, International Sales Representative at PhiCorp. She’s backed up by Esther, posing as Lorraine in Human Resources, and Jack as a delivery worker. The team stages a fire to evacuate the building and uses the biometrics to enter the server room.

As the operation kicks off, Esther discovers that Sarah has been detained for psychological evaluation and her kids are in the system. Rex realizes that someone may have follower Esther during her ill-advised trip and berates her while she works. While Esther balances Rex and Gwen, Gwen is attacked by the bad agent. Jack tries to assist but is knocked out as well. Rex rushes to the rescue, having to climb the stairs all the way with his chest wound, while the assassin monologues to Jack.

The assassin says that the reason Jack is mortal is because of something that happened many years ago. Apparently, Jack caused all this, and the moment has come as they have found “specific geography”. Just as he is about to reveal his employers, Rex comes in guns-a-blazing. The assassin collapses against the wall as Rex demands thanks for saving their lives.

Monroe awakens inside a car that is in a compactor. The poison should have killed her but she was saved by the Miracle. The triangle pattern appears on the car’s screen and a voice apologizes for what is about to happen. They liked her style and acknowledge that they could have been friends, but her methods were exposing their plan. As the voice promises that the “families” will rise, the car is compacted. Monroe’s shattered remains still live in the metal prison.

Back at their base, the Torchwood team discovers the plans for the overflow camps. Unfortunately, Rhys has already schedule Gwen’s father for one of the camps. Rhys is too late to stop the transfer.

Gwen’s father now belongs to PhiCorp.

Torchwood stumbled here with a mediocre story with quite a bit of padding. Getting the team to Los Angeles to pursue PhiCorp was good, as was the spy story to access and swap out the secure server. Adding the assassin to the plot was a great foil and served well to push the antagonists into the spotlight alongside the Oswald Danes story.

It was good to see that Jilly has some semblance of a soul, merely tolerating Oswald to serve her employers. It was also good to see the concentration camp narrative threads continued, as well as seeing Oswald chasing the spotlight to remain relevant.

The points where the story lost pacing were with the family tangents for Esther and Rex. The Esther tangent was tolerable, even though it could have been easily skipped over in exchange for a shorter way for the assassin to track the team, but the Rex tangent was pointless. The parallel between Gwen’s and Esther’s phone usage was important to note, but I think it would have been more powerful if the phone was how Esther was traced instead of by burning precious minutes talking through a barricaded door.

It feels like a lot of missed opportunities were swaddled in unnecessary drama, and the pacing established in the first three episodes was sacrificed in the process.

Rating: 2/5 – “Mm? What’s that, my boy?”

UP NEXT – Torchwood: The Categories of Life

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

#Timestamps Project #Torchwood #Torchwood: Miracle Day

[caveartfair]

What’s behind the Roaring Market for Dinosaur Fossils

Unidentified dinosaur specimen from Wyoming. Courtesy of Aguttes, Paris.

On Friday, the prized paleontological specimen of Chicago’s Field Museum, a 40.5-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton affectionately named Sue, will be reintroduced to the public in a new installation and with a few more of its bones in place. But 21 years ago, Sue was having a very different debut—at Sotheby’s auction house in New York.

The auction was enabled by a set of exceptional circumstances set in motion in August 1990 in South Dakota. Sue’s fossilized bones were excavated from a cliff in the town of Faith, brought to a commercial fossil dealer’s facility in Hill City, and, following a raid by government agents, stowed away in a furnace room at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City. A judge had ruled that the commercial fossil dealer, Peter L. Larson, failed to secure the proper permissions to excavate Sue, whose remains had been found within the boundaries of a Native American reservation.

Following the the skeleton’s seizure and a series of legal challenges, ownership of Sue was awarded to the Sioux man whose land the fossil had been found on; with the government’s approval, he consigned the fossil to Sotheby’s. This all occurred in parallel with the release of Michael Crichton’s best-selling science fiction novel Jurassic Park (1990), its blockbuster cinematic adaptation by Steven Spielberg in 1993, and a sequel in May 1997—all featuring a swaggering T. rex as their reptilian lead. By the time Sue stomped onto the auction block, the global dinosaur craze had reached fever pitch.

Sue is widely considered the world’s largest and best preserved T. rex skeleton, and when the specimen went under the hammer in Sotheby’s single-lot sale on Saturday, October 4, 1997, it quickly eclipsed the presale estimate of at least $1 million. After nine minutes of bidding, Sue sold for a whopping $8.3 million—still the auction record for a dinosaur fossil. The Field Museum was only able to afford to bid at that level because it had struck deals with a set of public and private supporters, including Disney and McDonald’s, who got to make life-size casts of the fossil as part of their agreements with the museum (Disney put theirs on display at Disney World, while McDonald’s sent their two casts on a world tour). But the Sue sale also marked the beginning of a resurgence for the dinosaur fossil market.

Sue, the world's most complete tyrannosaurus rex. Photo by Martin Baumgaertner. © 2018 Field Museum.

“What happened after the Jurassic Park movies was that every wealthy person in the world apparently decided that they had to have a dinosaur in their living room,” said Hans Sues, the curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. But, he added, “fossil trading has always been a very widespread and fairly intense activity.”

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, fossils of prehistoric creatures were essential features of any serious collector’s Wunderkammer. “If you rewind the clock 100 years, dinosaur bones were almost at the top of the pile” for collectors, said James Hyslop, the head of Christie’s department of scientific instruments, globes, and natural history in London. “They were fetching hundreds of pounds, and when museums were acquiring them, they were costing the same as Old Masters.”

Though collectors’ appetites for art have outpaced their interest in fossils for much of the past century, dinosaur bones have recently clawed their way back.

“The Sue sale was the driving force,” said Eric Mickeler, a French fossil specialist. In June, he helped organize the sale of a nearly 30-foot-long skeleton of an unidentified theropod dinosaur from the late Jurassic period for French auction house Aguttes. Staged in a temporary pavilion erected beneath the Eiffel Tower, the sale was something of a throwback to the Sue auction, with a single spectacular lot up for grabs. The mysterious carnivore’s nearly complete skeleton surpassed its high estimate of €1.8 million ($2 million) to sell for €2 million ($2.3 million), an impressive result to be sure, though a far cry from Sue’s $8.3 million. Hyslop said this may simply be due in part to the T. rex’s popularity among dinosaurs.

“As with an artist, there is certainly a branding factor,” Hyslop said. “There’s an enormous difference in price and in interest between a T. rex tooth and an Allosaurus tooth, and it’s essentially because of the brand name of the T. rex.”

While the Aguttes sale seemed to confirm a persistent appetite for dinosaur fossils among collectors, another French auction house didn’t fare so well recently. On November 21st, Artcurial offered two large dinosaur skeletons—a 55-percent complete Allosaurus estimated at €600,000–800,000 ($682,000–909,000) and a 90-percent complete Camptosaurus estimated at €500,000–700,000 ($568,000–795,000)—in its natural history auction, its first test of the dinosaur fossil market. Both failed to sell.

Unidentified dinosaur specimen from Wyoming. Courtesy of Aguttes, Paris.

Still, with dinosaur fever showing no signs of relenting, and celebrity collectors like Leonardo DiCaprio expressing interest in acquiring fossils, the market seems destined to keep gaining momentum. And while Sotheby’s last offered dinosaur fossils in 2014, Christie’s now routinely offers them in its science and natural history sales; last month’s online sale “Sculpted by Nature” included T. rex teeth and a Thescelosaurus foot, while a sale in London in July included a Triceratops vertebra, a Triceratops humerus, and two Triceratops horns, the larger of which sold for £35,000 ($46,300).

“Among art collectors, there’s a sense that the dinosaur fossil market is undervalued, especially when you look at the relative value of art and fossils 100 years ago and today,” said Hyslop, noting the rapid increase in auction prices for art over the past century, while fossil prices have mostly lagged behind. “It’s a masterpiece market not so different from the market for art: A good Picasso makes significantly more than a bad Picasso, and the same is true of fossils.”

Mickeler painted a more specific portrait of the typical dinosaur fossil collector. “They are businessmen between 40 and 60 years old,” he said, “and quite often lovers of modern art.”

And, as with modern art, an expanding market means that provenance is increasingly important, as illustrated by the government seizure of Sue and Nicolas Cage’s misadventures with a stolen Mongolian Tyrannosaurus skull. Cage bought it at auction (DiCaprio was reportedly the underbidder), but then had to hand it over to the Department of Homeland Security; dinosaur fossils coming to market are subject to many national and international laws.

“Provenance is hugely important, and it’s alas something that wasn’t of huge concern 40 or 50 years ago,” said Hyslop.

The major auction houses now closely scrutinize fossils’ excavation documentation, export and import licenses, and more.

The foot of a dinosaur, Montana. Courtesy of © Christie's Images Limited 2018.

The tooth of a tyrannosaurus rex, South Dakota. Courtesy of © Christie's Images Limited 2018.

“We avoid [provenance problems] by systematically asking for the legal file of the dinosaur,” said Mickeler. “In this file must be the title deeds of the land, the excavation authorizations, the paid mineral right, the quarry map, the bones map, the export papers showing the customs taxes paid. You thereby verify that all its constituent bones come from the same excavation site, so it is not a ‘fake.’”

Airtight paperwork is all the more important because of how international the fossil market has become, and how inconsistent laws and their enforcement can be from one country to the next.

“A lot of the fossils that come on the market are from countries like China, Argentina, and Brazil that have very desirable types of fossils, including dinosaurs, and even though these countries have regulations on paper, somehow stuff always gets out,” Sues said. “You go to any major mineral show and there are dinosaur skeletons, or woolly mammoths, or woolly rhinoceroses—beautiful skeletons that get out of these countries. So obviously, the law and the enforcement of the law are quite different.”

The market’s appetite for dinosaur fossils can make enforcement difficult, though Sues noted that Germany, France, and increasingly the U.S. are very rigorous in tracking and policing specimens’ movements. The recent uptick in the dinosaur market has also made it harder for natural history museums and other scientific institutions to acquire important specimens, both at dig sites—where commercial fossil dealers can offer property owners much larger sums in order to dig up their land—and at auction.

“Natural history museums, unlike art museums, generally don’t have acquisitions funds,” said Sues. “So unless they find some person who’s willing to buy [a fossil] on behalf of the museum and then donate it to the museum—and there are very few people who’ll do that—you really are priced out of that market.”

So what are the odds of another fossil like Sue coming to market, and will museums be able to compete for it?

“It will depend entirely on the condition of it, Sue really is a spectacular specimen,” said Hyslop. But, he added, “there’s really good material that’s still available to collect.”

For Sues, it will depend on how creative natural history museums are willing to get. “Crowd-funding probably wouldn’t generate enough money for that purpose, but I think a partnership with a potent commercial sponsor is definitely something that one can look at,” he said. “Commercial collecting will always be here, and we just have to figure out ways that paleontologists and commercial collectors can collaborate to make sure that particularly exceptional specimens end up ultimately in a publicly accessible repository.”

from Artsy News

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[thetrumpdebacle]

LONDON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson blamed Russia on Tuesday for failing to rein in poison gas attacks on Syrian civilians amid a spike in reported chemical strikes against the final rebel-held pockets of the country.

Doctors inside Syria have reported four such attacks since the start of the year, including two on Monday. Medical staff said dozens of civilians have been treated for symptoms of exposure to chlorine, including many women and young children. 

While the Syrian government’s use of nerve agents in densely populated opposition areas has drawn international censure and prompted President Trump to order missile strikes against a Syrian military base in April, chlorine attacks have continued unabated throughout the six-year war, according to monitoring groups.

Speaking in Paris, Tillerson blamed Russia for the apparent use of chlorine gas Monday in the besieged Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta.

“Whoever conducted the attacks, Russia ultimately bears responsibility,” Tillerson said of Monday’s attack in eastern Ghouta and other suspected gas attacks since the Russian military began backing government forces in Syria in 2015.

Rescue workers said pro-government forces fired nine shells at dawn carrying suspected chlorine gas on a densely populated residential area in the Damascus suburb. Medical staff in the enclave said they had treated four women, seven children and 10 men with breathing difficulties and other symptoms consistent with exposure to the chemical weapon. Photos from the area circulated by local activists showed at least two infants breathing with the help of respirators as anxious parents watched.

Hours later, pro-government media said that rebel forces responded by shelling the Old City of Damascus, killing nine civilians, including a 3-year old child.

Separately, doctors from the Syrian American Medical Society, a nonprofit supporting hospitals across opposition-held parts of Syria, reported another attack on the northern province of Idlib. “Four people were treated in our hospital in Idlib with symptoms indicating exposure to chlorine,” said Mohamed Katoub, a Turkey-based spokesman for the organization. 

Violence has intensified in Idlib as the Syrian government presses an offensive against al-Qaeda-linked rebels there.

“When you hear the bombs, you brace yourself and wait. It is hard to describe the horrors we have seen coming through our doors this week,” said a doctor in Idlib city, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of concern for the security of relatives living in government-held areas. “There was a little girl whose brain had fallen onto her pink T-shirt. And now we have the chemical victims, again. No one wants to stop this.”

[The Syrian war is far from over. But the endgame is already playing out.]

Tillerson said Russia’s failure to rid Syria of chemical weapons violates a 2013 disarmament agreement it made with the United States. “There is simply no denying that Russia, by shielding its Syrian ally, has breached its commitments to the United States,” he said.

Russia is a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, providing both financial and military support, and has used its U.N. Security Council veto to block efforts to subject most alleged chemical assaults to U.N.-backed investigations.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the allegations that Russia was obstructing the investigations into chemical attacks “dirty and mendacious,” according to Russian news agency Interfax.

“This is a blatant and, by any standard, outrageous example of the American side’s manipulating facts and ignoring what we’ve been saying for several years,” Ryabkov told Interfax. Russia proposed Tuesday that the Security Council create a new inquiry to establish blame for chemical attacks in Syria, a move condemned by the United States as an attempt to distract from previous U.N. findings that Assad’s military had carried out the April sarin attack.

“When Russia doesn’t like the facts, they try and distract the conversation. That’s because the facts come back over and over again to the truth Russia wants to hide — that the Assad regime continues to use chemical weapons against its own people,” said Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Tillerson was speaking at a meeting of 29 countries trying to identify, shame and punish those who use chemical weapons. He said their initiative puts perpetrators “on notice.”

“You will face a day of reckoning for your crimes against humanity, and your victims will see justice done,” he said. “The choice is yours. The people of East Ghouta are watching, and the rest of the world is watching as well.”

The United Nations has accused Assad’s government of using the deadly nerve agent sarin in a daybreak assault on the northern town of Khan Sheikhoun in April. That attack killed at least 83 people and flooded surrounding hospitals with hundreds more casualties. 

The Syrian American Medical Society has recorded 194 chemical attacks across Syria since 2012, most involving chlorine-like substances.

“The same dozen or so towns, hotbeds of opposition and militant activity, are struck over and over again,” said Tobias Schneider, an independent security analyst tracking the use of chemical weapons in Syria. “The Assad regime persists in its use of chlorine simply because it is a cheap and expedient way of conducting population warfare. While the United States last year chose to finally enforce its red line against the much more lethal nerve agent sarin, no such ultimatum has been issued against choking agents.”

Syria has denied using chemical weapons against the country’s shrinking opposition-held enclaves. With substantial support from its Russian and Iranian allies, the Syrian government has isolated rebel forces in a handful of pockets in the north and south of the country.

[Who is attacking Russia’s bases in Syria? A new mystery emerges in the war.]

Tillerson’s comments Tuesday reflect the growing difficulty faced by the United States in influencing the course of Syria’s war. 

“Moscow has dug down in a position that basically means they deny everything, even vetoing U.N. investigations that contradict that line. There’s not a lot of room for productive engagement left, and the Americans seem to have lost all faith in Moscow’s intention to stand by its word on any deals reached,” said Aron Lund, a fellow at the New York-based Century Foundation. 

The Syrian government was supposed to have surrendered its stocks to international inspectors in 2013, following a sarin attack in eastern Ghouta that is thought to have killed more than one thousand people. Investigators and Western diplomats have long suspected that stockpiles were secretly withheld or that new batches were produced. 

Under the terms of a deal brokered by the United States and Russia, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a global watchdog, has conducted routine inspections of Syrian military research sites since 2013. But those missions have often been hampered by Syrian government restrictions on where and when the teams can travel.

“This issue doesn’t get a lot of attention compared to the chemical attacks themselves, but it seems to me that people involved with these issues view them as even more important,” said Lund. “To most countries in the neighborhood, it’s more important to make sure Syria doesn’t go back to producing nerve gas in bulk again. Many are convinced that Assad kept a small stockpile, but nothing like what Syria had before 2013.”

The United States has urged Russia to force Assad to join U.N.-sponsored peace negotiations scheduled to resume later this week in Vienna. Moscow has worked with Iran and Turkey to conduct parallel peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, and the Russian city of Sochi as the civil war stretches into its seventh calendar year.

Tillerson dismissed Moscow’s authority to be further involved in attempts to bring peace to Syria, saying “Russia’s failure to resolve the chemical weapons issue in Syria calls into question its relevance to the resolution of the overall crisis.”

He said Russia must stop vetoing or at least abstain from future Security Council votes on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Shortly before Tillerson spoke, Haley also criticized Russia regarding the attacks. She singled out Russia’s November veto of a resolution to renew the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), a technical group charged with investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

“When Russia killed the JIM, they sent a dangerous message to the world — one that not only said chemical weapons use is acceptable but also that those who use chemical weapons don’t need to be identified or held accountable,” she said in a statement. “If these reports are true, this attack in Syria should weigh heavily on their conscience.”

Tillerson’s remarks underscored his growing role as the chief critic of Russia within the administration. Though Russian President Vladi­mir Putin awarded Tillerson an Order of Friendship medal for his work on an oil deal when he headed ExxonMobil, Tillerson has frequently berated Moscow for its support of separatists in Ukraine and its meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and now in Syria.

Last week, Tillerson said the United States would stay engaged in Syria, militarily and diplomatically, for an indefinite period to counter the threat posed by Iran.

Morello reported from Washington.

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United Nations accuses Syrian government of April sarin attack

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