#I honestly don’t think it’s fair to base his personality on the war arc

[blockgamepirate]

Technoblade’s purpose in the political narrative of the Dream SMP

I can’t sleep so I decided to finally write the post I’ve been struggling with for literal months, except way more casual because I can’t be bothered anymore and also I’m sleep deprived.

So the thing is: to me the DSMP storyline has always been primarily political, probably because I was introduced to it through Wilbur who was definitely going for political, and also because I’m just generally interested in political narratives right now. Obviously I appreciate the character work and the personal relationship stuff, that’s what makes it more interesting than just dry allegory, but when it comes down to it, this story is about politics to me. So that’s the angle I’m going to approach it from.

Also not to spoil the conclusions here, but I’m an anarchist, that’s my lens.

(Obviously all of this is about rp from here on out unless otherwise specified)

Basically the situation as Techno joins the server is this: L'Manburg exists as an autonomous nation and is de facto independent although not officially recognised by the Dream SMP. The self-appointed president Wilbur Soot decides to hold an election and rig it in order to consolidate his power over the nation he founded and he gets his VP Tommyinnit to join in on the plan. Their scheme fails and they end up voted out instead. The new president, Schlatt, immediately establishes himself as an authoritarian figure and exiles Wilbur and Tommy.

A couple of points on what the election arc demonstrates:

1: the appearance of democracy can be used for distinctly undemocratic purposes.

2: even if the elections aren’t rigged, the electoral system could be massively flawed and end up favouring a party that in fact didn’t have the popular vote

3: even if the winning government (the coalition in this case) has the majority vote, that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll actually act according to the popular will.

4: the supporters of the losing parties basically just have to let the majority overrule their wishes, espcially since apparently L’Manburg doesn’t have an established role for an opposition, yikes. That’s actually a MAJOR oversight in the system but I’m not gonna go into that too much.

5: frankly as an anarchist I am just deeply cynical towards representative democracy, and just because you have a token appearance of choice and consent doesn’t mean that it isn’t a hierarchical and authoritarian system. And to be fair, from my point of view this applies even to so-called liberal democracies and progressive parties. Full disclosure: even if L'Manburg was the ideal example of a representative democracy (which it very much isn’t) I would still be opposed to it because I fundamentally do not believe in top down systems, even electoral ones.

6: despite all these flaws, all the characters seem to implicitly accept the electoral system as legitimate. There’s criticism against the actions of individual characters acting within the system, such as Quackity calling out Wilbur for trying to rig the election, but nobody is questioning the system itself.

So at this point I’m sitting there, watching all this go down, and thinking “man, this would be so much more bearable if there was an anarchist point of view being represented in the story.”

And hey, look who IMMEDIATELY SHOWS UP.

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, early installation Technoblade is not the best representation of anarchism. I was mostly rooting for him out of sheer contrarianism initially. I didn’t really even care if it would be another Killmonger/Magneto/Zaheer situation because I’m used to reading against the authorial intent when it comes to these things. Sometimes any representation is better than no representation, even with political ideologies. That’s not to say that him just straight up spouting this hobbesian notion of a “dog-eat-dog world” didn’t grate on me, obviously it did.

That kind of worldview of humanity needing authority in order to prevent chaos and conflict is literally antithetical to anarchism and is the favourite talking point of authoritarians, the least anarchist people there are. It’s literally what people use to argue AGAINST anarchism. I think it’s mostly because cc!Techno obviously wasn’t particularly educated on anarchist thought and was just basically having fun roleplaying with his friends at this point. Which is frustrating but fair enough I guess.

Cynical ideas about human nature are pretty deeply rooted in the mainstream, unfortunately, most people just consider it common sense. And like I said, it’s a huge talking point in the propaganda against anarchism.

(… even though in fact these arguments were originally used against proponents of representative democracy. Hobbes himself was very much a monarchist, the idea of letting normal people vote for their representatives would have been terrifying to him. Like surely the world would descent into a free-for-all war, all against all. Imagine letting commoners have OPINIONS, the horror.)

So yeah, that stuff was pretty ehhhhh. It was basically what I’d expected though: cc!Techno isn’t an anarchist and we just don’t get accurate representation from non-anarchists, ever. What I dared to hope was that Techno’s character would at least stay consistent about his opposition to ALL governments. I was pretty sure that he would, even though it seemed like the majority of the fandom at the time was convinced that he would switch over to Schlatt’s side or something. It would have been a really shitty twist, I would have ragequit immediately. I mean what would have been the entire point of his character then? He might as well have been a random mercenary. Why even have his character be an anarchist if you were just going to make him work for a government?

(ftr this is kinda my biggest problem with the Hypixel Skyblock revolution event lol, honestly I think that was a worse depiction of anarchism than early DSMP Technoblade. I mean the speech was good, but… still became a government official, tho. booooooooo, cringe)

And yes, I was rooting against L'Manburg, obviously, and I would have even if it had meant having to deal with another badly written anarchist villain character. I never understood why people saw L'Manburg as the good guys, they were nationalist and exclusionary and their whole existence was based on trying to scam people for money.

I mean they were definitely funny, they were great entertainers. I have no problems with people rooting for them because they’re fun to watch; I did that for a bit too. But people were starting to get really into the story and talk about Wilbur and Tommy, the corrupt politicians, and the country that literally excluded people based on nationality as the heroes, unironically, which was wild to me. And when Wilbur started his “villain arc” well: people called it a villain arc, as if he hadn’t been pretty much a bad guy from the beginning, constantly just out for money and power and taking advantage of the people around him and then pretending to be the victim when challenged. I mean yes he got worse, but I wouldn’t call it a villain arc, more like just a mental breakdown arc.

More importantly, to me L'Manburg represented so many things I hate about the status quo in real life, and seeing the fandom mostly unquestioningly accept it as good just pissed me off. Still pisses me off tbh. I mean, to be diplomatic I could say that I understand the emotional attachment and the way L'Manburg was built up mirrors a lot of how real nations are built and how they create a sense of patriotism out of symbols and a sense of honour and loyalty, and it’s actually really fascinating how it even works in a Minecraft roleplay. Says something about the human mind I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

Anyway, I just wanted to see literally any kind of opposition to power, even if it had to come from a character that was unquestionably a villain, which I fully assumed Techno would be. Because political narratives so often just leave us out, or at best barely mention us. And even from a narrative point of view, adding an anarchist perspective to a political story just objectively broadens its scope and actually challenges people who are used to only arguing along the lines of conservative or liberal, welfare state or privatization, nationalism or multiculturalism, etc. Even if the original work dealt with it poorly, at least it would give me the excuse to rant about it on Tumblr, which is kinda why I revived my old Minecraft sideblog for this. (That and pig!Techno fanart.)

Also how can you have a story so fundamentally about power without its counterpoint: the rejection of power?

(Yes, Dream SMP as a whole is definitely a narrative about power, it’s a huge theme for Wilbur, Quackity, Dream, Eret and the Badlanders at least, as well as obviously the anarchist characters from the opposite direction.)

So yeah, the build up to November 16th for me was mainly about the anticipation for what Techno would do, how would Techno’s character respond to the seemingly inevitable formation of a new government. THAT was the point of interest for me, that was what I was the most invested in. Would we get an actual anarchist opposition as a new side to the conflict or would they just awkwardly drop that whole angle? Or even have him team up with Schlatt like a complete sellout? There was so much potential but I worried they might just waste it.

And I was right to worry since apparently in the original script Techno wasn’t supposed to do anything, he was just there to help fight Schlatt and witness the explosion along with everyone else.

And WOW that would have been so incredibly boring

Not even just from the political perspective, just talking about the narrative in general terms here: imagine November 16th without Techno’s plot points. Not only would it have been boring for Techno’s character but it would have been equally boring for basically everybody but Wilbur and Philza. An anticlimactic fight followed by a big explosion that pretty much everybody had seen coming already. Yes, the button room scene is dramatic and heartbreaking… for Wilbur and Phil. But nobody else was there to see it. For everybody else, it was just a big explosion. It would have been such a huge disservice to anyone watching the other POVs.

Techno’s intervention gave everyone an ACTUAL climactic fight, it allowed characters other than Wil and Phil to witness some actual drama happening and to participate in it, rather than just waiting around for the explosion, while also foreshadowing the explosion. Even better, it provoked SO MUCH discussion in the fandom AND gave a perfect hook for future conflicts to arise. Wilbur’s end was tragic but it was, at the time, final. L'Manburg would have still suffered a catastrophe but it would have been left with just the same exact antagonist as before: Dream.

And at this point Dream’s core goals had barely changed, just his approach was now different. Yes, that makes a difference for the plot, but it doesn’t really change much in terms of ideological conflict. Especially since there really isn’t that big of an ideological difference between Dream and Tommy, because arguably neither of them are particularly big on ideology in the first place, they just have conflicting goals and use different tactics to achieve those goals (well, the tactics aren’t always even that different *cough Spirit cough*).

Techno’s conflict with Tubbo and especially Quackity (and honestly most of the other characters in general) brings in so much more depth to the story, just by introducing another angle, not to even mention how much it brings to focus questions about power and violence. These are themes that exist in other characters’s storylines too but nowhere in the same way or as central as with Techno.

I’m getting kind of ahead of myself here, though.

The real twist of November 16th was the fact that Techno WASN’T a straight up villain, actually. It was a twist to me anyway, because with all my cynicism I just didn’t see it coming, I didn’t expect him to actually start making reasonable criticisms. I didn’t expect him to drop the hobbesian arguments entirely and start making points that actually sounded like anarchism.

I have to assume that cc!Techno must have seen some of the criticisms of his character and been inspired to adjust because the difference is pretty notable.

(Sidenote: I’m just forever kinda sad that Techno’s “I may seem like the villain here” monologue was cut from the video and most people never heard it.)

And I felt SO validated by the way, because it works so well in the story! Everyone is mostly content with the restoration of a status quo of some sort, Schlatt is gone, this is supposed to be the good ending, and then Techno calls them all out and turns the narrative around completely: This was just a coup d'état. This was just the previous political leadership retaking power by force. Why is everyone celebrating the same exact system that lead to Schlatt’s authoritarian rule in the first place?

What he does there is force the audience to question the narrative they’ve been presented so far, that they’ve accepted without a thought. It might not convince them, but they can’t just ignore it either.

Whatever you wanna say about the discourse around Techno on that day, in the ideological narrative THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART. Not who betrayed who or when is political violence justified, that’s about personal relationships and morality and it’s mostly all more relevant to the aftermath than the event itself. In my opinion, the REAL point in the moment is that the characters and the audience were comfortable with the ending only to be presented with a completely new perspective on the events.

It also recontextualises the finale, including Wilbur’s actions! It’s a much more ambiguous end to the Pogtopia vs Manburg arc and to Wilbur’s original run as the head writer. Wilbur’s “even with Tubbo in charge I don’t think [that ‘special place’] can exist again” is vague enough to be dismissed as just part of his paranoia and internal conflict, but with Techno, there’s a concrete question: what if Tubbo, given the same powers as Schlatt, will turn out to be just a new Schlatt? And suddenly you have to wonder what Wilbur meant by his words too. And was all this foreshadowing something about L’Manburg’s future?

Okay I’ve only made it to November 16th and there’s so much more DSMP to talk about but the post is getting too long and I’m starting to lose my energy. Will I ever make a part two? No idea. But I’ll try.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not the spokesperson of anarchism, other anarchists might disagree with my reading

#technoblade #bladeblr #dream smp #dreamsmp #dsmp #l'manburg critical #c!wilbur soot critical #for courtesy tags #anarchy pog

[tytodreams]

i was listening to A More Civilized Age, and their discussion surrounding Mace Windu and his behavior during the Boba Fett arc is honestly SO interesing

i’m very conflicted because part of me is like, yeah.....they’re right -- Jango’s death and its affect on Boba meant nothing to Mace. he did what he had to do, he came to terms with any guilt over it, and he moved on. and because of the way the jedi operate, he just expects Boba to do the same.

he thinks it’s Boba’s job to understand the situation, come to terms with it, and move on. and that Mace himself doesn’t need to be involved with that process whatsoever

of course, another part of me is like, no, Mace is way more compassionate than that. different writers portray him differently, and i prefer the ones that view him as a perhaps detached, but very caring person

still, the general idea that the jedi order’s greatest flaw/one of their greatest flaws during the prequels era is that they have such an absolute, unshakable confidence in their own wisdom and methods of conduct that they’ve forgotten how the ‘common’ people feel and operate is such a good take 

Mace tells Boba that ‘he’s going to have to forgive him’ ( Mace ) and genuinely believes that he gave the boy a compassionate piece of advice because that’s just how removed the jedi ( or at least the jedi knights/higher-ups/ones who aren’t involved in humanitary aid ) have become from regular people 

part of me isn’t fully on board with this idea because of how i feel it doesn’t properly represent the actual teachings of the eastern religions and philosophies that the jedi teachings are clearly based off of. and that a fair number of ‘issues’ with the jedi order are undoubtedly just white american writers misinterpreting certain thoughts and practices of these real-world religions

but, i do think that one interesting angle that could be taken is that these misinterpretations aren’t just doylist, but also watsonian

by that, i mean -- the teachings of the jedi order used to be more in-line with actual religions they’re based off of ( taoism, buddhism, the shintō religion, hinduism, etc. have all been cited ), but in-universe, over time, the order’s close involvement with the republic and its government caused them to stray from the real meaning of their philosophies, and they became warped into something else -- basically into the weird, poorly-defined code we see in the prequels and the clone wars

the jedi aren’t what they used to be, and that’s sort of always been the point. i don’t want to give lucas and filoni or any of the other writers here any credit, because i don’t really think this aspect is part of what they viewed as the prequels era jedi’s ‘failings’. but i do think it’s something interesting to point out

i’m not familiar with any of the real-world religions that jedi teachings are based off of, so i could be very wrong in my assumptions ( and i sincerely apologize if i am ), but considering what little i do know, this sort of apathy that the jedi unknowingly display towards non-jedi under the genuine belief that they’re helping them, isn’t a result of the jedi teachings itself, but of the way that the jedi have come to misinterpret their own teachings over the years as they take on the role of police force/militant samurai over the role of monks and peacekeepers  

obviously, this is somewhat ignoring legends canon where the jedi were apparently constantly at war all the time if wookiepedia is anything to go by, but i prefer the thought of the jedi order having once been more focused on humanitarian aid than on policing, and that with their allegiance to the republic came a ( slow, but significant ) shift in priorities within the order

#mace windu #mace windu critical #jedi critical #i guess? #star wars #star wars prequels #star wars the clone wars #the clone wars #swtcw #tcw #† talk #long post #i wonder if there was a rift between the jedi knights #and the jedi members of the agricorps + medicorps #during the prequels #because even though there are fewer knights #they appear to be far more respected within the order itself #and are the only ones we see on the council #yet their job is to police people #whereas the agricorps + medicorps actually provide food/medicine/other supplies #they may not be as powerful or talented in the force #but the average republic citizen probably liked/respected them a lot more #than the actual jedi knights #which would be an interesting dichotomy

[pumpkinpaix]

Almost every Popular Jiang Cheng ship is a case of Pair the Spares 🍵 (jc/nhs, jc/lxc, etc)

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

alas, despite my intense post-canon xicheng (friendship?) agenda (which you can read about in this post here!), I do think this is often true. i will admit i feel this particularly wrt sangcheng because i just don’t think their relationship is compelling in canon, not even between the lines. it takes A Lot of work to convince me that jc and nhs would be a good or interesting romantic couple, because i just don’t see them connecting deeply outside of their gusu schooldays. their friendship feels largely superficial to me, even during that period, resulting mostly from proximity and chance. it’s not that I think they don’t get along or that they couldn’t have become better friends later! but with the canon trajectory, i don’t buy it. i’d honestly be really happy to read modern aus with them becoming really good friends over time. or just like, with them as established friends! I like that a lot. romantically, though, I don’t think they’re a good fit either.

i think they have very different personalities, and incompatible priorities for a relationship like that. honestly, the one thing in canon that really gets me out regarding sangcheng is the fact that nie huaisang was willing to gamble with the juniors’ lives during the yi city arc. he deliberately lured a group of inexperienced teenagers into a very dangerous situation that could have easily resulted in their collective deaths -- as wei wuxian said, if they all died, that would’ve just been pinned on jin guangyao as well. regardless of whether or not wangxian were able to keep them safe, it’s still a net win for nie huaisang’s revenge plot. that group of juniors included jin ling, and i think that would be deeply unforgivable to jiang cheng. i don’t think they couldn’t have an interesting and friendly relationship as adults post-canon, but I think this is absolutely a line in the sand. nie huaisang treated jin ling as expendable, when jin ling is quite literally the only immediate surviving family member left to jiang cheng, and I do not think that’s an obstacle they can overcome. canonically, I mean.

in terms of personality, I think jiang cheng is much more concerned with propriety and respectability than nie huaisang is, and I think there would probably also be some level of disdain and bitterness within jiang cheng towards nie huaisang’s behavior regarding everything that happens in the present day arc. whether or not it’s justified is another question, but I think it’s easy to see where jiang cheng might find huaisang’s actions pretty out of pocket in proportion to what he suffered. jiang cheng lost nearly everything: most of his sect, his sister, his parents, his brother, ascended before adulthood, fought on the front lines of a vicious, 2.5-year war, and at the end of it all, was left holding a nephew he wasn’t even slightly prepared to raise in the midst of his overwhelming grief. and what did he do? he put his sect back together, he raised his goddamn nephew, and he hunted down demonic cultivators. did he do the best job? probably not, but he did try.

we know huaisang’s father died due to wen ruohan’s actions, but we know pretty much nothing about his mother. is she still alive? maybe. idk. but in terms of casualties of sunshot like, nie huaisang was Not the leader -- for all we know, nie mingjue sent him far away from the front lines because he was a weak cultivator to protect him -- the nie sect remains quite strong post-sunshot, is never ravaged by the wens (mdzs canon okay, don’t fight me on that one), and huaisang HAD a brother longer than jiang cheng even had his childhood. and nie huaisang’s reaction to losing his brother was a complex, fucky revenge plot that put innumerable people in danger and was very much unconcerned about whether or not huaisang was about to inflict the very same pain that prompted his revenge quest on others. imagine if jin ling had actually died. imagine the other juniors’ brothers and family’s devastation if they had died. nie huaisang behaved very cruelly in reaction to his grief, and I think jiang cheng would find that enormously selfish in some ways. like, bro, you still had a sect. you didn’t have to shoulder the responsibility of leadership as a teenager. you were not tortured by the wens. what in the everliving fuck is wrong with you that you thought this was the best course of action in response to losing your brother?

is this a fair judgment to make on huaisang? not really, but it’s the one that I personally feel like jiang cheng would make once he were filled in on some of the details. after all, jiang cheng has never really been known for being particularly fair with his opinions lol. all of that is also not to say that i hate huaisang! I think he’s a really interesting character, and one that’s a Lot of fun. i just don’t think he and jiang cheng are particularly suited to one another.

regarding what nie huaisang thinks of jiang cheng, i admit i don’t think nie huaisang thinks much about jiang cheng at all.

i have also been returning to my aro jiang cheng interpretations, mostly based on like, his list of qualities for a perfect wife, which reads like a laundry list of “qualities people have told me an ideal wife should have and also some qualities i see in my sister” as opposed to anything based in personal taste. jiang cheng is repeatedly shown to not particularly value the opinions or company of women other than his sister (lotus pod extra lol poor jiang cheng really has Zero game), and spends a lot of his time thinking about status and political alliances (see: how he talks about mianmian) as opposed to attraction. and i think that’s also quite an interesting angle on him -- after all, all of his important relationships are shown to be familial/platonic in nature.

anyways, this just became an impromptu meta on like, the nature of jiang cheng’s character, i guess, but one final thought (knife) that I have and have been itching to write into dialogue for like a year -- at some point, post-canon, when jiang cheng’s marriage prospects are really just like. basically nonexistent and he himself finds he’s not even particularly bothered by it, I want him to have a realization when he thinks back on his list just like oh, I see. I never wanted a wife. I just wanted my sister back. I wanted my family.

:’D

(ko-fi)

🍵 ((un)popular) opinions meme

#Anonymous #asks and replies #long post #jiang cheng #mdzs #mdzs meta #mymeta #mine #nie huaisang #opinions meme #ask meme

[crispyjenkins]

fic with ahsoka as Obi-Wans Padawan? Maybe some angsty jangobi? (Used to be together but broke up and now they pine from afar™️)

(i’m devastated that i don’t get to write ahsoka much, especially as obi’s padawan, so that an anon would come into my inbox.... and request jangobi on top of it..... seriously, though, thank you! can’t say i wasn’t inspired by @autumnchild22’s Kenobi Tano AU, but this doesn’t share almost anything with their take of events (ノ*´◡`) i’m flattered y’all thought i could do something of theirs justice lmao

i have written entirely too much backstory for this one, i think my brainstorming ended up longer than the actual fic so like. rip. 

support artists and writers by reblogging, message me for more info if this confuses you!)

  It surprises everyone except Obi-Wan that not only does Jango join the clones on the front lines, but he does so as the ARC troopers’ medic. That the son of the Mand’alor murdered by the Jedi would allow his kid to be apprenticed by a lifetime Council member is already hard enough for the galaxy at large to swallow; believing that the man who had at once been the most feared bounty hunter in the Outer Rim wouldn’t even ask for a command position? Impossible.

  Obi-Wan knows better. Just as Obi-Wan had picked up Soresu because he could not protect his master on Naboo, Jango had learned to put people back together because he could not save his buir on Korda 6. 

  Besides, Obi-Wan thinks Mace is a wonderful match for little Boba, even though he’s joining the Jedi older than even Anakin had been. Knowing Mace was among the Jedi to liberate the spice freighter Jango had been sold to, and that he had continued to check in on Jango for years after he got his armor back, Obi-Wan actually finds it rather silly that others on the Council had thought Jango would trust Boba to anyone else. 

  Which does leave Obi-Wan in quite the predicament, when less than a year after Anakin's knighting, Mace sends him a new padawan in the middle of a campaign. 

  Ahsoka smiles with all canines, and calls Anakin Skyguy, and has to be tricked into wearing more armor because, according to Cody, she is "not to take the General's lack of self-preservation as the status quo, nor as the basis for field safety." Which, rude, Obi-Wan wears plenty of armor when the situation calls for it; he simply doesn't find many situations where plasteel has kept his men or the Jedi from dying horribly.

  Letting Ahsoka gallivant around a battlefield in a tube-top without even a cloak, however, is out of the question, and Obi-Wan thinks Waxer does a brilliant job in sizing down the armor to fit their collective padawan over the next few months. Force, had Anakin really been younger than she when he first started taking him on missions?

  "Master?"

  Obi-Wan blinks, and smiles down at Ahsoka standing next to him, his apprentice looking quite dashing in the orange paint of the 212th. "Sorry, my dear, what were you saying?"

  She shrugs, eyeing him suspiciously. "'Was just asking if we would be working with the ARC troopers on Kiros; Captain Fordo said he would show me how to use a blaster rifle next time they were on the Negotiator."

  The Kaminoans intended for a few ARC troopers to be sent with each battalion, but it had quickly become clear that Jango had not trained them that way. Instead, he had raised and created a strike team so efficient, it would have been a waste to separate them; Obi-Wan knows Jango had hand-picked them from cadets, had searched for a spark in them that the Kaminoans hadn't already snuffed out completely. Jango had been like that once, too.

  "I would be surprised if we didn't," Obi-Wan decides on, turning back to observe the 212th loading into the Negotiator, and he would be, because the ARCs are often deployed with Obi-Wan’s men, have been since the Battle of Kamino. "But I have not heard anything from Master Shaak Ti, nor Captain Fordo as of yet."

  Ahsoka scrunches up her face into a pout, an amusing show of her age that she usually does not allow. "We'll probably get halfway through the mission and they'll just show up."

  Obi-Wan chuckles. “Hm, yes, probably,” he agrees, starting to make his way down to the hangar to join his men with Ahsoka trotting along behind, “but perhaps I can convince Captain Fordo not to surprise us too badly this time.”

-

  When the ARC troopers finally storm the Kadavo Processing Facility with Anakin and the Jedi on their heels, the warden Agruss is already dead.

  The sudden swell of Jedi presence is nearly blinding after a month of helplessness, but Obi-Wan can't tap out, not yet. Rex, satisfied and vindictive and relieved, sways dangerously and automatically reaches out to Obi-Wan to steady himself. 

  That Rex trusts him enough to not even think about rank before asking for help warms Obi-Wan in ways he doesn't yet have the words for — he wraps Rex's arm around his shoulders and takes half his weight happily.

  "Thank you," Obi-Wan finds himself murmuring as he helps Rex towards the doors, and only smiles at the captain's bemused expression. 

  "Whatever for, General?" he asks, even as he looks back over their shoulders across the room, to Agruss impaled to his chair with the electrostaff still sparking. Then he returns Obi-Wan’s smile, shaking his head. "That's not very Jedi-like of you, sir."

  "I'm afraid I haven't felt much a Jedi since Kiros, my dear." Which is perhaps too honest to allow himself before he's had a proper meal and a full night's rest, but if there is anyone who will understand, it is the man that lived it with him. "We could wait up here for Anakin to find us, but it will likely be a while before they can spare him to start looking; do you think you can keep your feet long enough for us to reach the ground floor?"

  Rex snorts and gives a vague wave of his free hand towards the elevators. "Well, I'm certainly not going to wait up here like some damsel, sir, and General Skywalker would kill me if I let you wander around on your own."

  "Well!" Obi-Wan laughs, for the first time in weeks, and hitches Rex up to get a better grip on his waist. "In that case, we really should not keep him waiting."

  They somehow time it perfectly for what the 187th and the 501st to have just finished rounding up the slavers in the courtyard when he and Rex hobble out of a side door of the warden's tower. Lieutenant Law oversees the Togrutas' move to Mace’s flagship Solace, and Obi-Wan easily picks him and Boba out from the crowd, standing at the base of the loading ramp and speaking with the Kiros colony's governor. Anakin is nowhere to be seen, but Obi-Wan doesn't get the chance to keep looking before Kix spots them from his place by the medical frigate; a shout passes over the nearby clones like a wave, until Kix and an ARC trooper break away to (gently) manhandle both him and Rex to the frigate. 

  The 187th's medic, Oro, is already on board seeing to the Togrutas too injured to wait for triage on the Solace, snapping a distracted salute that Obi-Wan quickly waves off as he helps heft Rex onto a hoverbed. He fully intends to duck back out and check in with Mace, though things seem well in hand without him, but the ARC with Kix takes off his helmet and glares, until Obi-Wan meekly shuffles to the next hoverbed over.

  He could never refuse Jango, after all. 

  "You repainted your armor," he says conversationally, as Jango pulls a scanner from the bandoleer around his chest and has Obi-Wan roll up his right sleeve. 

  "'Lost the last set to a sarlacc before our deployment to Kiros," Jango snorts, Concord Dawn accent stronger than any of his clones. "Though it looks like your mission had its fair share of excitement." Running the scanner over the electrical burns on Obi-Wan’s arm, Jango raises an eyebrow at the dried blood on the shoulder of his tunics; Obi-Wan honestly doesn't remember if it's his or not.

  And he can only smile at Jango, because even with a decade and a war between them, the corner of Jango's mouth still twitches when he's stressed. "Well, it certainly wasn't boring, my dear," Obi-Wan says, opening the neck of his tunic enough for Jango to stick him with a hypospray that hopefully won't make him too high. "And I can't say I'm looking forward to what is surely going to be a long dip in the bacta tank."

  He gets a laugh for that, and can't think of the last time they had done more than make eye contact from opposite sides of a ship. Perhaps it had been Kamino, when Taun We had first sent for the Jedi to meet the army created for them. 

  Obi-Wan had rather thought Jango dead until then, when he had disappeared from the galaxy abruptly as if he had never lived in it at all. For a time, Obi-Wan believed he had just gotten cold feet, that finally meeting Anakin made it all a little too personal too quickly, but then even Mace could not get a hold of him and no one had seen a Mandalorian bounty hunter in months.

  Their... conversation, Jango's stilted explanations of his absence and of how little he actually knew about the purpose for the clones he helped create, left far too much unsaid, but then Obi-Wan had been sent to Geonosis and, well. It's been nearly two years now, and Obi-Wan isn't sure if he's even seen Jango without his helmet since then. 

  His eyes flick over Obi-Wan’s face, the left side of his lips twitching as if knowing exactly what Obi-Wan is thinking — and he might not put it past him. 

  "Where are Anakin and Ahsoka?" Obi-Wan hears himself ask, when the silence grows heavy with those unsaid words. And he really would like to check in with his padawan, he can't imagine her last month has been a picnic either.

  Jango sticks him with another stim before answering, "Mace sent Skywalker to make sure no slave is missed, and no slaver isn't arrested. As for your new foundling..." That little smile comes back, as Jango nods out the back of the frigate to where someone is cutting a line through the clones guarding their new prisoners. 

  "Oh dear," Obi-Wan mumbles, barely having time to brace himself before Ahsoka is launching herself at him, and all he can think is how relieved he is to see her out of her slave disguise. Jango steps cleanly out of the way to let Ahsoka smother herself in Obi-Wan’s chest, though it doesn’t stop him from starting to prep bacta patches to tide him over until they can get to the Negotiator’s medbay.

  “Hello, little one,” Obi-Wan murmurs, carefully loosening the tight net of his shields for the first time since Zygerria and letting Ahsoka’s presence flood his mind. 

  “It’s good to see you, Master ‘Nobi,” she says into his tunics, and her voice does not waver at all.

  He manages a chuckle, though it does not hold nearly as well as Ahsoka’s, as he feels himself finally relax. Anakin, of course, senses the both of them immediately and prods at their minds, but neither Obi-Wan nor his padawan acknowledge him. “I take it the Queen is dead?”

  Ahsoka sighs and pulls back enough to nod. “Count Dooku was there, Skyguy barely got us all out.”

  “That was a week ago,” Jango adds, not looking up from the datapad he’s logging Obi-Wan’s injuries into. “Even with the Queen giving us the location of the Processing Facility, we had to wait for the 187th to catch up.”

  Running his palm from the top of her head down her hind lek, Ahsoka melts back against him with a Togruta churr he rarely has the pleasure of hearing from her. “Hm, and I imagine Boba was thrilled to work with the ARC troopers.”

  Jango snorts, because they both know Boba is thirteen and his rebellious stage where he wants nothing to do with his father for fear of losing his independence. “Originally, the 104th was the closest battalion, but were held up in their own campaign. ‘Honestly didn’t think we could keep Skywalker from rushing in anyways.”

  And Obi-Wan has to wince at that, because no matter what he does, he can’t seem to find a way to teach Anakin about attachment in words he understands; truthfully, Obi-Wan wouldn’t have had him knighted until he had at least attempted to master that part of his mind, but, well, the War had different opinions.

  “I’m actually just surprised he didn’t try to fight Dooku,” Ahsoka admits, finally releasing Obi-Wan only to hop up on the hoverbed next to him. Jango immediately pulls Obi-Wan’s bare arm back to himself to start slapping the bacta patches over the worst of his burns. “Master Windu had a talk with him, though, I think it was good for him.”

  “I’d like to see that!” Jango barks, only half sarcastically: he knows better than most, the sorts of things Mace Windu can talk someone out of, and if it worked for one ex-slave, why shouldn’t it work on another?

  Ah, perhaps that shared history should not have slipped Obi-Wan’s mind, not here with thousands of freed slaves needing aid for injuries Jango is intimately familiar with.

  “And are you alright?” he asks before he can talk himself out of it, as Jango is cutting his sleeve further back. His brow ticks back up, clearly bewildered by what Obi-Wan could be referring to, but it’s Ahsoka that leans around Obi-Wan to sniff triumphantly up at Jango.

  “I told you he still likes you,” she says, and Jango’s hand freezes on Obi-Wan’s wrist.

  Obi-Wan sighs. “Ahsoka.”

  But instead of denying that he might have actually had such a conversation with Obi-Wan’s padawan, Jango coughs on a laugh. “So you did, edee. To be fair, I did not think that was the issue.”

  Ahsoka rolls her eyes, leaning back into Obi-Wan’s side as he automatically raises his arm to accommodate her. “He thinks he lost his chance, Master ‘Nobi,” she tells him. “Even Cody thinks he’s full of banthashit.”

  Where Obi-Wan feels a little shell-shocked by the turn in conversation, Jango simply keeps that tiny smile — even if it looks bittersweet and self-deprecating now. “Your foundling has spent the last week talking me in circles about this, I almost think she’s as stubborn as you.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, I think,” Obi-Wan returns, sarcasm an automatic, subconscious response. 

  “I wouldn’t need to talk you in circles if you two just talked to each other.”

  Shaking his head in bemusement, Obi-Wan gently fixes Ahsoka’s slika beads to lay properly around her montrals. “I’m afraid there’s quite a lot of history there, little one; most of which I’m sure Jango did not actually share with you.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “No, he refuses to tell me anything except that you met on a mission. And that he saved your ass from Jabba the Hutt.”

  Obi-Wan snaps his eyes to Jango, who looks absolutely anywhere but at him. “Is that how you remember it going, my dear?”

  “Could we do this later?”

  “Because if I recall correctly, and I do, this is not the first time you’ve lost your armor to a sarlacc.”

  Jango looks to the ceiling for patience. 

-

Mando'a: buir — “parent”, gender neutral  Mand’alor — “Sole ruler”, contended ruler of Mandalore. edee — “teeth”, “jaws”, used here as an affectionate name for Ahsoka. because she teeth.

#thinking about opening the ask box again but keeping anon off #i miss y’all ꒰๑·̥﹏·̥๑꒱ #WHY DO I KEEP WRITING 3000 WORD PROMPT FILLS #well i mean it’s cause i don’t want it to seem slapdash or not thought out and i always have so much plot #but it’d still be nice to not put my chaptered fics on the backburner ‘cause i can’t multitask between them T0T #prompt fill #crispy writes #jangobi #jango fett #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #captain rex #prequel trilogy #au #force sensitive boba #alternate events at and post galidraan #medic jango #clone oc #oro is mine (ノ*´▽`) #real talk tho #i’m super fucked up about everything happening with achievement hunter right now #it’s been a rough couple of days #i hope you’re all safe and healthy and taking care of each other #believe victims not abusers #hashtag crispy stop tagging so much

[curedigiqueen]

This year I spontaneously watched Appmon nearly 2 times, and I have thoughts about it. And what better way to acknowledge it than on its 5th Anniversary. (Or 4th anniversary of Our Singularity). I'm planning on at least covering my thoughts on the main 5 kids this month, in an order based 100% on who I want to talk about first.

It's Astra.

I think Astra is generally the least liked Appmon character, or perhaps more accurately, is the character I see the most disdain for. And, honestly, I can understand where it comes from. But he’s my favorite Appmon character actually. In a cast with a non-conventional protagonist, a blackbelt idol, and a hacker, Astra’s “Apptube” is well, just kind of there. Like a more modern version of Eri’s idol career. His personality is clearly meant to be representative of the target audience, the group whose number one career aspiration is Youtuber. So, he’s kind of cringy and kind of annoying, especially to an adult audience. I get it. But Astra’s a character I found to have a lot of stuff going on.

I admittedly tend to have a soft spot for the babies of any team, especially if they are assertive enough to keep up with their seniors. And Astra does fit the bill. He’s generally seen to be on equal footing with the others, and his rather aggressive way of talking to the other doesn’t exactly make you think baby of the team. He doesn’t use honorifics, and in general Astra’s referred to in the same terms as Haru and Rei. (As near as I can tell, anyway with my nonexistent Japanese skills, correct me if I’m wrong). The fact he’s in elementary school is a bit more incidental than anything.

We learn the most about Astra’s family and upbringing compared to the other characters, and it is central to his arc. We get a lot of information straightforwardly in the show. He had a lot of pressure on him as the heir to the school, and felt pressured to act the part of the perfect heir. Throughout the show we see him struggle with the pressure of being the heir. As a child he was extremely dedicated to following his father's footsteps. He didn’t seem to see himself as anything other than the heir to his father's school. He seemed set apart from other children, seemingly due to the closed-off way he acted. This dedication to being a good heir was to the detriment of his happiness. Until Musimon came into his life allowing him to loosen up and seek his own happiness. Classic stuff. But Astra is a little more at war with himself than may be obvious by his “annoying” attitude.

While we first learn about Astra suppressing his own eccentricities, in his debut episodes, it’s not until later that we learn about his mother, and learn that this side of his personality didn’t come out of nowhere. His mother is very similar to him, which gives us the question of why he ever became so disciplined in the first place if his behavior isn't out of place in his family, and his mother is a strong advocate for him doing his own thing. In fact, Astra seemed initially a bit embarrassed by his mother when he introduced her to the other Appdrivers. Of course this is almost certainly because his mother calling his friend “pretty” and gushing about her husband and how they met is embarrassing, and even if Astra himself acts just as obnoxious. But even so, he's clearly less respectful towards her. The reasons behind why Astra calls his mother by her first name are unclear, though it doesn't seem to stem from a lack of love for his mother.

But regardless, it helps build the idea that more likely, he was trying to win the approval of people outside his immediate family. After all, as shown in episode 7, it was the assumption that Astra would inherit the school by others that prompted Astra’s response to his father. Even if Astra’s father does have a desire for Astra to inherit his position, he also understands that it's first and foremost Astra’s life to live. Astra however does have a lot of respect for his father and seems to value his opinion immensely, he recognizes that not inheriting the school would be disappointing to his father and does not want to disappoint him. So while I think there is something to be said for Astra’s behavior relating to a desire to impress his father, I don’t personally think it's the origin in its entirety.

Astra over the course of the series is very independent and marches to his own beat, Astra, like Eri, had made the first step to change prior to his introduction, but that doesn’t mean he was already completely different from the boy who acted stiff to prove himself to others. Astra’s second episode deals with him succumbing to peer pressure in his new activity, and his final episode is about not succumbing to his uncle's expectations, the old expectations that kept him down for so long. (But it's also a bit about fulfilling Hinarin’s expectations, expectations he agreed to).

Despite Apptubing being the career choice where Astra does as he pleases, his final episode isn’t about him Apptubing because he wants to but as a way to help someone else. Particularly his cousin. While it isn’t explicitly clear if Astra knows it’s his cousin the fact of the matter is that he’s helping his family through his Apptubing, even if it is something he picked up for himself. (A reasoning perhaps parallels Eri’s reasons for being an idol, wanting to bring smiles to her mom, despite it clearly being something she herself enjoys). His care for his family is exactly the reason he continues to train to be the heir, but that doesn’t mean even if he doesn’t uphold expectations that he can’t be a help to his family.

Astra’s arc deals with expectations vs. a desire to help. Astra in large part is assertive about not having to help other people out and doing his own thing, recognizing he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. But his actions consistently betray his care for others. I think this is most evident in the way Astra acted as if he wasn’t going to help Eri out with her elections, but did so anyway, even if he antagonized her a bit in the process, but ended up being the proudest of her accomplishments. Not to mention the way he continues to train as the heir, albeit on his own terms. Over the course of the series, he becomes more open with his care towards others, culminating in the jailbreak episode, but he’s always been shown to care. He’s finding that balance between living his own life and helping others.

It’s clear that Astra doesn’t hate being heir at least. He’s extremely determined to do both. And personally, I think it’s very possible that he sees Apptubing as a hobby. He after all proposed the half-hour limit himself. Even at the beginning with his most abrasive. He dutifully kept it to a relatively small impact on his life. For all that it’s brought up as an important element in his life, and he is shown breaking his own rule on occasion without consequence. One of the longest times we see him Apptubing is when he’s helping Eri out. Of course on the flip side of that, we have episode 8 where he breaks the rule because his videos aren't doing as well as he likes, but that's definitely tying back to his desire for people's approval. While he is for lack of a better word, tempted into giving up training to be an iemoto to dedicate himself to Apptubing, it isn’t something he seems to seriously consider at all.

The biggest thing Musimon gave him was not the courage to be an Apptuber, but the courage to be himself. Indulging in Apptubing for fun is merely a small part of that. Astra is still the good heir, but he is no longer letting that define his entire life, sometimes forgoing certain parts of training. But that doesn’t mean that tea ceremony is a bad part of his life. There’s also a certain balance in his personality between the abrasive “annoying” boy at the start of the series and the passive boy prior to the show's beginning. I don’t feel that the polite Astra is completely disingenuous. Astra is capable of acting calm and grounded, and this side of himself becomes more apparent as the series goes on, particularly with Eri who, in contrast to him, throws herself into her idol career with more and more genuine passion. When he supports Eri with his videos but asks her to take a break, which tracks with what we know about his fathers working habits. It’s his final focus episode where he is shown to be acting, more in someone else's interest, and even shown to be a bit embarrassed by it. In contrast to an Astra who even in episode 19, was not taking much seriously. I think it’s only fair to say Astra did genuinely inherit some of his father's more grounded and dutiful nature.

And while earlier I did say Astra’s age feels incidental, I don’t think that is to say it has no bearing on his role in the story. It's part of the reason Eri is so dismissive of him at first, Sure, the other’s treat him as equal, and are in no way particularly protective of him, nor do they expect him to be any less capable than him. But this isn’t to say Astra’s relative youthfulness isn’t apparent when with the others at least in the beginning. Astra is definitely on the more immature side of things, he after all is the one who started the rivalry with Eri because his ego was bruised (not that Eri's initial dismissal of him was helping matters any). As I said earlier, Astra mellowed as the show progressed and I think it’s a fair assumption to say he’d continue to do so. Not that he’ll lose his energy, but that he’ll be able to act with more maturity and consideration for others. The most common complaint about him I’ve heard is “annoying”, which is understandable. But that’s not accidental, even in-universe (hah), others seem to find him to be a bit much at first at the beginning of the series. His “annoying” personality is him testing the waters beyond the role of dutiful heir he’s always played. He’s annoying because he’s an 11-year-old boy who does not always know how to act in ways appropriate to his situation. He’s the kid of the group. I do understand if that still makes watching irritating. Watching should be fun after all, but it’s more of a matter of opinion than an objective flaw.

Unlike Gatchmon, Offmon, and Dokamon whose personalities seem to clash a bit with their buddies, Musimon and Astra are consistently on the same page, after episode 8. This is exemplified in episode 29, where Musimon runs away for fun rather than because he wants something from Astra, and Astra is the only partner who seems to have not been worried, recognizing what Musimon was doing. Of course, their fight in episode 8 was about Astra not being true to himself, thus naturally conflicting with the one who is on the same page as his true self. Musimon shares Astra’s high energy but caring nature. I’m not an expert on the Japanese language by any means, but there is something notable about the fact Musimon uses “Boku” to Astra’s usual “Ore”. Musimon and Astra are without a doubt very similar, the only difference in their demeanors being Musimon is perhaps a bit less confrontational. If Musimon being Astra’s buddy says anything about Astra, it’s probably that Astra is by his nature not quite as aggressive as he seems. Which for someone who clearly used to takes people's opinions of him to heart, seems about right.

Astra’s arc is all about expectations, expectations as an Apptuber, and as the heir. Astra living up to, or disregarding expectations based on what he believes is best. Living the life he wants to live.

Some final observations from me in regards to Astra, is that he’s paired with Fakemon for God Grade. While it’s probably in part just how things worked out logistically, it also makes a bit of sense as a foil. Fakemon is constantly being disingenuous, while a huge part of Astra’s arc is being true to himself, while also fulfilling other people's expectations of him. Also of note, Entermon is described as a Digimon who exists wherever you can find culture something that is particularly relevant to Astra.

While being biracial is not directly important to the story, it’s not incidental and clearly is thematically related to him being trapped between the traditional and the modern Japan. While in story Astra’s story is simply about outside expectations of inheritance, It’s possible to read Astra prior to the series as trying to overcompensate for his foreign mother in the eyes of the people at his father’s school. This is something I find notable considering that Appmon’s assistant producer, Akari Yanagawa, went on to become the producer of 2019’s Star Twinkle Precure, a season of Precure notable for the franchise's 2nd biracial cure, whose personal arc more obviously alluded to racism than Astra's, though still very indirectly.

#appmon #torajiro asuka #asuka torajiro #musimon #digimon

[remythologise]

Hello! I found your blog via you amazingly summarizing all that's going on with the spn drama. Due to my schedules, rl stuff, some of the arcs that didn't vibe with me, my availability to find a place to watch...the rollercoaster I was used to with this fandom was more me binging it in a weekend to going months to over a year without watching it. I still haven't watched the last season(but with a fandom this big it's pretty impossible not be spoiled so I more or less know what happened) BUT oh great one I ask of thee for more information if you have it...other than being busy and whatnot, I'm not really one to keep up with the actors as well. So could you also maybe do a summary of all the stans? I'im seeing terms I haven't seen before. Who is Kelios(sp?)? Hellions?? probably messed it up but like...I guess what are the name of each legion? Who do they have alliance towards? What was their desires? Que paso?!?!?!?

Hi there! 'Some of the arcs that didn't vibe with me' me emotionally quitting Supernatural in Season 7 after they killed Castiel 😂 Anyway I totally get it, I went through the same culture shock mid-last year when I got back into SPN and tried to find where fandom was at! There's really a LOT of lore and content after 15 years though so I'll just do the broad brushstrokes based on my impressions and personal stereotypes PLEASE remember this is oversimplifying groups and individuals to tendencies and I'm very biased! Also important that there are sub-factions within sub-factions - again, I'm simplifying here!

I've also linked to the 'Super-wiki' in terms of some definitions because the Super-wiki has pages for them where the Fandom-wiki does not. Great introduction actually - only in the Supernatural fandom. There are two Supernatural wikis. One, through curation and twitter activity, supports BiBro/Wincest factions and does not support Destiel users. One is more neutral or Destiel-friendly (I don't know that the Fandom wiki has a personality/social media presence per se). You cannot make this up. There is a factional war... within use of fandom wikis.

Destiel faction

People who primarily ship Dean/Cas, love Castiel and (often, although not always) Jack, and the 'found family' of Supernatural as well as the brothers, and like the post s3 seasons too. Hated 15.19 and 15.20 for killing Dean and ignoring the other characters/narrative arc of the show. Nicknamed 'Destihellers' by the Wincest faction as a derogatory term, 'reclaimed' and shortened as 'Hellers', a nickname they use affectionately to describe each other. See more info on nicknames here.

Sometimes also ship ‘Cockles’ (the ship between Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles) although generally speaking they're more respectful of the wives of the actors than J2 shippers, who are notoriously responsible for... a vast series of insane-fan misdemeanours. Historically most were also good at keeping RPF to themselves and not harassing celebrities with it directly, although recently, particularly with younger twitter fans, that has not been the case.

Sub-factions:

The ‘Desticule’ or ‘Destiel tumblr’ - general grouping of Destiel-shipping tumblr users around 20-30 years old, usually LGBT+, most who came back to the show post-15.18 after leaving it for various reasons including getting sick of the queerbaiting. Funniest bitches alive etc. and responsible for the best text posts you’ve ever seen. Can also start stupid discourse and in-group drama when they’re bored.

'POLOL' - People of Lots of Letters, a discord group (of tumblr and twitter users) that ran on the assumption Andrew Dabb was playing a hugely intricate game of 3D chess to do with gnostic symbolism among other things, and would make Destiel canon. Have since had their own factional sub-wars and fallen apart a bit. Some of their meta was and is good and interesting! Some of it was wildly off the mark. Now generally insist that Dabb/the writers were all pushing for Destiel canon and the network is entirely to blame.

Twitter fans (TikTok edition) - younger fans around 18 and younger who (FOR REASONS BEYOND ME) started watching the show around 2018-2020. Definition of 'stans'. Tend to be very loud and aggressive on twitter when Events Happen, which like. I do get, because they've grown up in a completely different media environment and this kind of Dinosaur Politicking around LGBT+ issues is beyond them. Fancam central. Anyway stream #CASTIEL for clear skin!

Twitter fans (AO3 edition) - older fans around 30+ who kept going with the show but either don't have a large tumblr presence or just prefer twitter. A lot of fic writers, GISH-ers, and BNFs in this group. Some of them are very cool and reasonable in their opinions, some of them act like the younger stans. Some of them too accepting of what happened wrt 15.19-20 in my opinion, because, in contrast to the younger twitter stans, they grew up expecting Destiel to NEVER be canon or respected. 'Can't believe we got this far' etc.

Multiship faction

Multishippers or shippers of things not as large as the two main behemoths . Sub-factions based on shipping, e.g. Megstiel and Sastiel. I don't think these groups are very large though, and seem to have very little influence in the Discourse.

Wincest faction

LARGE overlap with the 'BiBro' faction and their opinions, which I'll get to. Ship Sam and Dean romantically. Often pretend to be BiBros on places like twitter and reddit in order for outside groups to take their opinions more seriously. 'Wincesties' etc. are derogatory nicknames given by the Destiel faction.

Sub-factions:

Multiship fans - ship Sam and Dean but respect Castiel/the 'found family'. Politically overlap with the faction of multishippers, I think. I don't have a lot of insight on this group of people honestly, but I know they exist.

Bronlies - the typical BiBro and 'Wincest' shippers most people think of, twitter user 'Kelios' is one of the would-be ringleaders of this faction - typically tend to be older white midwestern women. Historically have been pretty nasty on twitter (leading to Robert Berens, writer who made Destiel canon, occasionally subtweeting Kelios). Also tend to ship 'J2' - and take it very seriously as a legitimate thing that is really real. This is called 'tinhatting'.

BiBro faction

People who think the show should JUST be about the brothers, love Supernatural s1-3 and everything after it should have been just like Supernatural s1-3. Hate Castiel, Jack, and the 'found family'. Largely loved 15.20. Go to literally any comments section on any Supernatural article and You Will Find Them complaining about how the show should just be about the Brothers. Tend to be older, straighter, and more conservative/Republican (and male) fans. (I am aware that the definition of 'BiBro' used to refer to people who just liked the brothers but there's no definitional difference now in the discourse.) The Wincest and BiBro faction are generally much more wealthy than the Destiel faction (they being younger and more diverse/queer/left-leaning in general) and would be the biggest revenue generators at conventions etc.

Sub-factions:

Reddit bros - literally anyone who visits r/supernatural. Well, that's not fair - there are people who post reasonable opinions on there, but it's pretty rare and they get downvoted a lot. Like to talk about 'toxic Destiel fans' 'ruining the show' and how Dean is a straight man who is straight and could never possibly be gay. Might even think the confession was platonic despite all evidence to the contrary. I'm Not Homophobic I Have Gay Friends, But No Gays on MY Show!

Old Guard - group of older fans who overlap strongly with the Wincest faction, but might not necessarily ship Wincest.

GA faction

'General Audience' - These are the group of audience members that aren't 'online' so to speak; most watch the show on TV as a Casual Viewing Experience (are therefore also sometimes referred to as 'casuals'. Mostly their opinions tend towards BiBros, but they have a vast range of baffling views thanks to being Not Online and usually Not caring about Supernatural that much or thinking that deeply about it.

Sub-factions:

People who simply watch Supernatural on TV and then don't think about it very much after that.

I said they weren't 'online' but that's not entirely true; I'd probably classify people on Supernatural Facebook Groups as GA, along with friends of friends who post statuses about how 15.20 was a neat finale that wrapped up the series.

Conclusion

Supernatural is famously the show that appeals to both Republicans and Democrats, literally All Orientations, so there's a WIDE range of factions. However, most warring online boils down to Destiel vs. Wincest/BiBro - the war that started in Season 4 and has simply never ended. In terms of the 'actors' and their stans, in general, Wincest/BiBro fans love Jared, like Jensen, and dislike Misha. Destiel fans love Misha, like Jensen, and dislike Jared. Of course as with everything, there are variations and this is just a generalisation. But that's the summary of it, from my perspective!

This didn't even get into Sam girls, Dean girls and Cas girls. God. Anyway.

Hope that answered your question, anon!

#for some reason read more does not work on my blog main page now? you'll have to click the permalink #season 17 time for a theme change tumblr has broken this one too much sigh #ask #anonymous #this might be the most controversial thing I've ever posted or I might escape with nobody noticing it. Only Two Outcomes #didn't mention any other factional ringleaders because well #I value my life etc. #unironically who will fund me writing the PhD on supernatural fandom etc. etc. #the graphs. the statistics. the sociological insights #kira for ts #supernatural spoilers #spn spoilers

[bedlamsbard]

Putting aside aesthetics and characterization (inasmuch as I can), I have been trying to logic out why Mando Ahsoka feels so different from Rebels Ahsoka (to me, personally; I know many other people feel fine about it), especially in terms of having a character who’s known in Rebels for her “I am no Jedi” line going to a character who is specifically introduced as “The Jedi” in The Mandalorian.  (And who is identified as “Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Knight” on merch -- merch is merch, it’s essentially meaningless, but it’s still a choice that was made somewhere along the line.)

“Shroud of Darkness,” Rebels 2.17

“Twilight of the Apprentice,” Rebels 2.21

This is strictly Doylist and not Watsonian; I don’t care what went on in the character’s life in between Rebels and Mando; I’m trying to guess what was happening in the writers room.

I was noodling through this on Twitter, in case it looks familiar.

My first thought was Dave taking a cut scene from Rebels as canon going into Mando, something he shared on Twitter back in the lead-up to S4.  Looking at this again I’m not sure this was a cut scene or a scene that he wrote that never made it into the actual script. (Certainly I can’t see how it would have fit into the episode.)

Here Bendu specifically identifies Ahsoka as “former Jedi Knight.”  This is also obviously not canon, because Twitter posts aren’t canon, Dave.  (Though that doesn’t mean that he might have taken it as part of his working backstory for the character anyway.)

I was then thinking about TCW and the unused TCW arcs as they existed in 2016 when this aired (with the rough guess that Rebels S2 was probably written in 2014).  There are three Ahsoka arcs that were written and existed in 2016 in some form (”scripts and some artwork” is what Pablo Hidalgo says, and some pre-viz and recordings from the original Walkabout arc that were shown at a couple Celebrations), but which hadn’t made it into S6 (which came out in 2014): Ahsoka’s Walkabout (in its original form with Nix Okami instead of the Martez sisters), the Siege of Mandalore, and an arc which would have taken place between those two, “Return to the Jedi.”  We know about these because of a panel from Star Wars Celebration Europe in 2016 called Ahsoka’s Untold Tales -- I was actually at this panel, but I haven’t thought about it in a while.  Here’s the SW.com liveblog of it; here’s the video.

I remember hearing somewhere that the TCW team had nine seasons or so written, but can’t find the source for that number now.  When S7 was made, there were obviously a lot of compromises made that we’ll never really know about, minus a tell-all memoir or documentary, which probably isn’t coming any time soon.  Knowing that this Return to the Jedi arc existed, I wondered if at one point Dave had tried to get all three Ahsoka arcs into S7 before having to give one up for the Bad Batch arc (especially as we now know there’s going to be a Bad Batch TV show); it’s also entirely possible that at one point in the production process there was the possibility of a full 22 episode season floated, which would have made three Ahsoka arcs in one season less unbalanced.

I went to go look up what the Return to the Jedi arc actually was, since 2016 was a long time ago and I haven’t really thought about this panel since.  My guess is that it had been intended for one Ahsoka arc per remaining season (7, 8, 9).  Pablo Hidalgo says that after the Walkabout arc, Ahsoka would have stayed on Coruscant as “an under-city vigilante of some degree, helping people who can’t help themselves,” and Dave points out that he talked about this with George Lucas, as well.  The Return of the Jedi arc would have involved Ahsoka finding out about a nefarious plot targeting Yoda and working with the Jedi to figure out what’s what with that -- this revealed that below the Jedi Temple was an ancient Sith shrine. (Some details of this were revealed at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in 2015.)

Ahsoka would have been protecting the holocron vault from Darth Sidious, putting her lightsaber blade through the door while Palps shoots Force lightning up the blade.

“The whole purpose of that particular arc would have been to bring Ahsoka back. She’s not a Jedi, she doesn’t change her decision, but she gets involved in Jedi business again.”

The next Ahsoka arc and the final arc of the series would have been the Siege of Mandalore arc, which “reunites Ahsoka with the clone troopers, with Anakin.”  My guess is that the end of the Return to the Jedi arc would have involved Ahsoka making the decision to go to Mandalore because the Jedi themselves couldn’t get involved in that conflict at the time (especially the emphasis in the panel that Pablo and Dave put on Ahsoka as being “a responsible person” who couldn’t ignore that the war was still going on, and because Ahsoka knew Satine).  (It would be interesting to know when if this arc would have fallen before or after the Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir comics, which are based off another unmade TCW arc.)  This would probably have put as much as a season between this arc and the final arc -- given TCW’s funky timeline that doesn’t mean much, but in terms of audience expectation it helps.

(also, damn, the context of the beginning of Siege of Mandalore in the original concept vs. how it actually happens in S7 is very different -- like, on the surface identical but the emotions involved are totally different.)

Before going into the next part of the panel (post-war), Pablo Hidalgo adds “We consider it to have happened and that’s how we inform the writing in Rebels, because that’s the history that these characters carry in their heads.”

So going into Rebels, the writing team was working with the background that Ahsoka had not only left the Jedi Order once, in “The Wrong Jedi,” but had reinforced her decision not to go back to the Jedi by not returning to the Order during the Return to the Jedi arc.  That explains why in Rebels she’s so adamant about not being a Jedi or being in the Order; it’s a decision that she has made not once, but twice.

Fast forward four years to 2020, where we have the Siege of Mandalore arc in S7.

It’s heavily implied that Ahsoka was planning to go back to the Order after the end of the war, and in fact Yoda treats her as such.

Now, there’s no way to know if this exchange was in the original Siege of Mandalore scripts short of those being released at some point (which is possible but seems unlikely when the character is still in play), but because of the way S7 plays out there is no way to put the Return to the Jedi arc back into the story, which means all the emotional context and Ahsoka doubling down on not returning to the Order is thrown out of the window.  That’s a fair chunk of backstory to take into the Rebels writers room.

(It should also be noted that presumably E.K. Johnston wrote the Ahsoka novel with the assumption that that arc was still part of Ahsoka’s working canon, though she may not have seen scripts for it; I feel like I read somewhere that she had seen scripts for the original version of the Siege of Mandalore, which changed quite a lot between original concept and the eventual 2020 version, as is evident from the novel vs the show.)

Going into The Mandalorian, then, Dave Filoni is not only working without a writers room (as Mando has only had two writers, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau), but working with an entirely different continuity than what the Rebels writers room was working with.

Trying to backtrack when various scripts were written is an exercise in futility to some extent; I usually guess anywhere from a year to two years out from when the shows air.  (I seem to remember that around this time in 2016 it came out that Katee Sackhoff was doing something for Disney, which ended up being the recording for Bo-Katan in Rebels S4, which wouldn’t air for another year, but don’t quote me on these dates.)  Dave ends the panel by saying that “After the season 2 finale for Rebels I was very adamant that that was it for Ahsoka...in Rebels...but after this reaction it might just be possible...it might be possible to see her again. She might have something to do. Maybe.”  (For those trying to run dates in their heads: the con was in July 2016, the season 2 finale aired in March 2016, WBW aired in February 2018.)  My guess is that they hadn’t recorded for that part of S4 yet (and S4 is so weirdly paced that I have questions about how it was made), but that the initial scripts for S4 had already been written at this point.

Looking back at the Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 TCW panel where Ashley Eckstein talks about getting the news about TCW S7 from Dee Bradley Baker (rather than from Dave Filoni, and hoo boy is this uncomfortable to watch knowing that the script for “The Jedi” had almost certainly been written and Dave may have already made the decision not to talk to Ashley about it), there’s still not like...a clear way to tell when that happened.  Except that Dee talks about “wine tasting with the Rebels,” which likely puts it back when Rebels S4 was either still actively airing (2017-2018) or before it had wrapped filming (2017).  (I actually vaguely remember seeing pictures from this wine tasting but I can’t remember whose twitter it was on and going to look feels creepy.)  Probably the scripts weren’t fully revised at that point but they may have been -- still, this was certainly after S2 and could potentially be before S4 had been fully finalized.  We got the TCW renewal announcement in 2019, but the animation wasn’t fully completed yet so didn’t get more than that teaser trailer.  This is only important insofar as it involves which set of backstory was being used for WBW Ahsoka, an episode that Dave Filoni wrote and co-directed.  (Honestly? I think Mando Ahsoka matches okay with WBW Ahsoka but is a little off Rebels S2 Ahsoka, but that’s off my memory of WBW, an episode I refuse to rewatch.)  Certainly with the epilogue he knew he was setting up for something else.

ETA: I FORGOT AN IMPORTANT PART OF THIS TIMELINE AND THAT’S THE RISE OF SKYWALKER because I try not to think about TROS, frankly, but as we may remember Ahsoka is included in the “be with me” scene in the final confrontation.  This always struck me as weird given the “I am no Jedi” thing from Rebels, but she’s the most well-known female Force-user so I had just mentally written it off as easy shorthand and JJ Abrams being lazy about it. HOWEVER, presumably JJ talked to Dave about which prequel era Jedi to include (there’s a note in one of the previous SWC liveblogs about Rian Johnson being in the Rebels writers room at some point).  TROS came out in December 2019, I can’t recall exactly when they did the voiceovers for that scene (if anyone has ever mentioned it), but it was probably fairly late in the process since I believe that there were still edits being made up until fairly soon before the premiere.  (I have a completely different theory that the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special from this year was written off an earlier version of TROS.)  If Dave had already moved towards making Ahsoka more inclined towards the Jedi, with a full-on return to calling herself one regardless of the existence of the Order (as Mando implies), then her inclusion here makes a LOT more sense than it did a year ago.

Anyway this is all very conspiracy theorist, but it does explain something that was puzzling me: Rebels S2 Ahsoka and Mando Ahsoka (as well as TCW S7 Ahsoka and potentially Rebels S4 Ahsoka) were written off slightly different backstories which differed in one very key thing: how committed Ahsoka was to no longer being a Jedi.

Now, this sort of thing happens all the time in anything with an ongoing continuity; obviously TCW makes major changes to how viewers might read or write Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader in RotS or the OT.  I was just trying to narrow it down in this particular case because until I started thinking about it I had assumed that it was all being written off the same assumed backstory. And many people read Ahsoka differently in Mando than I did or found her perfectly in character, this was for me to track references down about something that was bothering me in hopes of an explanation that would satisfy me.

#bedlam watches the mandalorian #bedlam watches tcw #bedlam watches rebels #mando the jedi #btw this is the same sort of thing I do for academic work this stuff is just easier because I remember it better #and can google it which I usually can't for scholarship

[orhelponefaintingrobin]

I’ve been thinking a lot about Hazel Rainart

(RWBY spoilers, read at your own risk)

Yesterday’s episode was a pretty intense one for a lot of reasons, but strangely, despite the excitement at seeing Emerald finally making the jump (or at least starting to) into her redemption arc, it’s Hazel that I can’t stop thinking about. Specifically, just that one line.

“No more Gretchens, boy”

I find that line fascinating, and I’ve been spending most of the day trying to work out why. And the reason, or at least part of it, is the core tragedy of Hazel as a character. Which is to say, he’s kind of right?

Because, while the way he’s funnelled that into a drive for revenge (albeit no doubt pushed a little that way by Salem) is clearly off-base, I don’t think he’s entirely wrong to be angry at the Academies, or Ozpin. Like, this is a system where children, actual children, sign up to be trained to fight against foes that will very likely, someday, kill them.  Even leaving Salem aside (I’ll get back to that), that is a very, very questionable thing to be doing. Most students are 17 when they start one of the Academies. Ruby was only 15. I don’t honestly think Hazel is wrong when he suggested back in V5 that children, even older teenagers, should never have been put in the position to make that decision.

And, like, there are fairly obvious comparisons to the real world to be made here; I’m English, and over here the minimum age for enlistment in the military is 16. Now, at the risk of sounding a little political, I think that’s despicable. No one that age should be allowed to make the decision to potentially die for their country (however false I feel that idea is to begin with). They’re children. And, while I’m obviously fine suspending that a bit to engage with a story, it’s clear now that the way that the Academies allow the trainee Huntsmen and Huntresses to put their lives on the line at such a young age is not really fair. Yes, Gretchen did make her choice, but that should never have been a choice she was able to make.

And, like, I think this volume especially, but honestly the show for a long time, hasn’t exactly disagreed with this. Like, CRWBY didn’t show us Neon and Flynt suited up in military uniforms getting ready to go over the top of the trenches to fight on the frontlines because they think that it’s totally reasonable that kids are being used as soldiers. And that’s ignoring Ren’s talk back at the start of the volume, that they weren’t ready to be put in that position. I think, ever since we’ve learned that Salem can’t be destroyed, and that Ozma kept training students even in that knowledge, we’ve been on a bit of a collision course with the idea that doing so wasn’t entirely right. Ozma, and everyone who’s ever run these Academies, has allowed children to sign up, society telling them they’re heroes, fighting for justice and to protect people, knowing that they’re more likely to end up as glorified mercenaries who’ll eventually get picked off by a monster they can’t handle, for decades.

And the thing is, we’ve already met Gretchen. The bright eyed, optimistic young woman, who signed up to be a hero, who wanted to keep people safe so hard that she didn’t care what happened to her, who ended up dead because she was put in the position of fighting a fight she couldn’t win.

Gretchen is Pyhrra.                      

That’s why Hazel is so tragic. In a way, we know how he feels. It’s the way Jaune feels, the way Ren and Nora feel; Pyhrra was part of their family. Think about how Jaune reacted to learning about everything, both from Ozpin at the beginning of V5 and when they learned the truth from Jinn. He isn’t someone who’s shown a lot of sympathy towards Ozpin’s fight. But, when he found his anger, he had his team, and RWBY, to lean on, and he’s let that ground him. He’s fighting, despite what Jinn said, because he wants to make sure no one else has to die. Jaune had his friends. Hazel had Salem.

So, his anger grew, became a desire for revenge, and blinded him to everything else, and the only person who listened to him was Salem, who likely encouraged that, promised that she’d give him that opportunity. Hazel’s motivation is basically an eye for an eye. He just wants to punish Ozpin for what he did. But, even if he did kill Oscar, what happens then? Nothing changes, the Academies will still run, and Ozma will just reincarnate again. This show is so often about breaking cycles, about the new generation making better decisions than the old. When we meet him, Hazel can’t see that. He can’t see a path to stop what happened happening again. He just wants to punish Oz. Salem doesn’t persuade people by convincing them what she wants to do is right, she convinces them that her plan is to do whatever they want to do. Cinder wants control (which she was deprived of), Watts wants to prove he’s superior (and stick it to Ironwood and the world that shunned him), and Hazel wants revenge.

But then he meets Oscar, and (in my reading), as we’ve seen them interact this volume, he’s realised that Oscar isn’t Ozpin. He knows Ozpin is in there somewhere, but he’s never thought they were one and the same. And, I think, as this has happened, Hazel has realised that, in line with this theme of breaking cycles, in Oscar there’s a chance for change, that I think he’s realised Salem will never give.

So, we come to ‘Witch’, and Hazel makes his choice. And what is his demand to Oscar?

“No more Gretchens, boy.”

However Oscar interpreted that (which seems to have been ‘sacrifice yourself’ because Oscar is, to be fair, also a child and also doesn’t deserve to be forced to make those choices), I think Hazel’s meaning is fairly clear; he’s giving Oscar a chance to escape, to survive, and in return, as he takes his role as Ozpin’s replacement, he’ll expect Oscar to change things, presumably by scrapping the Academies, at least as they are now. To make sure no one else’s sister dies for Ozma’s war.

The tragedy of Hazel Rainart is that he’s right to be angry at the Academies, even at Ozpin, but that the only outlet for that he could find is revenge, through Salem. But now he’s realised that there’s another option, that the right thing isn’t just retribution, but to make sure no one else has to make the sacrifice Gretchen did. And, whether Hazel survives this fight or not (I’m leaning towards no), I think this line is going to have a big impact on Oscar’s arc going forward.  

#RWBY Meta #RWBY spoilers #RWBY Vol8 spoilers #Hazel Rainart #RWBY

[dappercritter]

She-Ra for the ask meme! (Maybe a bad time with the final season so close, you can save this until after if you like.)

(Based on this meme.)

Well, did I save this for later or what?

The first character I first fell in love with: Entrapta. Aside from her colour scheme—I do love a good purple girl, to say the least—I adore her for her enthusiastic, inquisitive, compassionate, and rather eccentric personality. Not to mention her design is an absolute joy to watch in action; from the goggles to the prehensile hair, is creative and adorable. She steals every scene she’s in with her loveably manic energy. The fact that she’s a scientist, who specializes in advanced technology no less, makes her an important character in a magic-driven fantasy setting—her design helps her stand out among the more traditional looking princesses, too! The fact that she’s some of the most effectively authentic examples of autistic representation in children’s fiction only enhances her likeability, in addition to the most interesting and sympathetic examples of morally grey characters that I’ve seen. Her wonderful chemistry with the rest of the Horde adds both to her charm, and really helped lighten things up on the villain’s side for the first 2-3 seasons, and her relationship with Hordak… Well, I’ll get to that shortly! 😉

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Madame Razz. I figured Razz was going to be a fun mentor character, but I could have never suspected she’d be the best mentor I and Adora could ask for! I’m not familiar with her original counterpart, but whatever they had to work with, I applaud the crew for taking the silliest looking character in the original line-up and turning her into this charming little old lady whose equal parts Yoda and Ghibli grandma. (Or at least that’s how I describe her.) Her design gets special mention, too, for just how dang cute she is! The big glasses, the raggedy dress, big fluffy hair with moths flying around, and her witch broom all come together so well. Out of all Adora’s mentors, she’s the best— having no ulterior motives, agendas, or any manipulative or toxic behaviour laced into her teaching style, offers the best life advice she can to someone who clearly needs it out of kindness. And because she bears a certain resemblance to someone she once knew in a similar position.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: Catra. Shocking right? Look, I know that she had an awful time growing up in the Fright Zone and by the end of the show she became more well-rounded and likeable. Any grief I have with her is pretty much over done with. Problem is though… it is pretty hard to forget everything she did. Now, I know it’s all in the past and a lot of people haven’t forgotten what she did either, and that some of it has to do with the ugliness of the Catradora vs. Entrapdak dynamic discourse and I don’t want to go into that. I really don’t. But put as simply as possible, she was a toxic friend, especially in regards to Adora (the Season 1 and 2/3 finales in particular) and Entrapta (who she betrayed, left to die after lying about her to her lover/best friend, and the offering the bare minimum of an apology), and escalated a war just to get back at Adora. After she tried to destroy REALITY to get back at her. I’m glad she changed but it still feels like too little too late.

The character I love that everyone else hates: Swift Wind. Sure, he’s a talking horse with a design that can wander a good ways into the uncanny valley, and who tries too hard too hard to be funny, but in spite of that I think he’s got a good heart behind that strange face of his. He does his best to be a good friend to Adora, supporting her both as herself and when she’s She-Ra, as well as doing his best to support Adora’s other friends as well (see “Boy’s Night Out”). Chiefly by trying to make light of Adora’s duties as She-Ra by trying help her find the fun and excitement in it. Of course, he doesn’t just try to keep the energy up, he shows genuine concern for Adora and all her friends, not hesitating to rush to their protection or point out when a situation seems especially dire. (see “Beast Island” and “Failsafe”). But I think my favourite example is from “Hero” where he casually reveals that he regularly checks in on Madame Razz because, as he says, “You gotta check up on old ladies alone in the woods.” What a horse!

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: Glimmer. I used to love her personality and her design. A peppy rebel who lived for adventure and a good friend to Adora and Bow. Even if she had her flaws like her impulsiveness and her stubbornness, she was still pretty likeable. But then she called her mom a coward for acting as a strategist and looking after Bright Moon, which ended up convincing her to sacrifice herself to close the rift at the end of S3. Alright, fair enough, some things can’t be avoided. Then she took over as queen, and I can understand there was A LOT of factors that were in play—namely grief and Double Trouble deliberately playing on her strained friendship with Adora and Bow as part of one of Catra’s plots—but boy howdy, did she start showing a pretty unsavory side what with her increasingly ruthless demeanor, trusting Adora’s abuser (hi Shadow Weaver, be with you in minute) over her, choosing to leave Entrapta in very real peril on Beast Island, and willingly using a weapon she knew could destroy all of Etheria to win a war. Perhaps I wouldn’t have minded as much if season 5 didn’t rush through her apologies and redemption so quickly, but the fact remains that Glimmer’s character took an awfully dark turn that’s not quite going to be so easily forgotten.

The character I would totally smooch: In a dark future where Entrapta never found love with Hordak, for one terrible reason or another, I would totally give her a smooch. I’ve said it before and say it again: Mad scientist princess is best princess! The character I’d want to be like: Bow. In some capacity I’m already like him, namely being super emotional and doing his damnedest to be a good friend even when things are tough, as well as being the voice of reason and a tinkerer (what? Tinkering with artsy stuff counts!). But I’d like to follow his example of being more level-headed, softer, optimistic, but also more assertive as opposed to my impulsive, harsher, cynical, and reserved current self.

The character I’d slap: Shadow Weaver. Need I explain? No, and anyway I can’t slap her anyways because she pulled the most manipulative heroic sacrifice I’ve ever seen. Dammit it, Shadow Weaver! (I really wanted to say Horde Prime but I feel like he wasn’t developed quite enough to be as hateable as he could be. Not to say that he isn’t an absolute piece of trash who deserved what he had coming already, but we didn’t get to spend three whole seasons getting to know the depths of his manipulative depravity while simultaneously weaseling his way into a twisted version of a redemption arc, unlike someone else I just talked about.)

A pairing that I love: Entrapdak. In case, it wasn’t already obvious. To summarize, in spite of all the drama that surrounds them and their actions, they honestly have the sweetest, most affectionate, and quite possibly the most healthy and engaging pair of the entire show (next to Spinnerella and Netossa, of course). Shoot, if it weren’t for these two and my hopes to see them reunite again, I would have left the fandom entirely at this point! (No seriously, I’m getting tired, folks.)

A pairing that I despise: Hordak X Horde Prime, but I think that’s the point, since most people use it to explore toxic relationships from a distance. Anyways, I really do not want to talk about abusive alien selfcest.

#spop #she-ra and the princesses of power #entrapta #spop entrapta #hordak #spop hordak #spop madame razz #madame razz #spop catra #catra #spop swift wind #swift wind #spop glimmer #glimmer #spop bow #bow #spop shadow weaver #shadow weaver #spop horde prime #horde prime #critter asks #critter questions #critter answers #ramblings of the critter #afriendlyirin

[thatsinterestingveryinteresting]

essay/analyzing/theory time folks

 probably taking this a bit seriously but i find theorizing and doing these types of things fun, so here we go.

also i know it really isn’t that deep but let a girl hope.

here’s the thing. i absolutely adore the idea of traitor tommy: the angst, plot, shock, excitement, everything. i know techno and wilbur were already deemed the traitors but i think tommy might have a chance? also techno didn’t really betray them, but that’s for another day. but, since i have nothing else to do right now, here are my theories on why/how traitor tommy could/might possibly happen

btw spoilers i guess as of nov. 22 streams

Few things that can completely overturn the traitor tommy thing

i know the traitor tommy thing might never happen, solely for the reason that tommy is considered as the protagonist, or main character, at least from the viewers’ perspective.

tubbo. tubbo is the only person tommy truly trusts. tommy won’t betray tubbo under any circumstance and can become very a little  worried when tubbo’s harmed/in danger/killed. tommy was willing to blow up l’manburg after tubbo was killed, despite his obvious distaste of the notion. tommy’s loyalty literally may never shift.

tubbo also has melohi, another disc of tommy’s. tommy gave it for trust in the fact that he will never betray tubbo, so that might be true.

also, i’m spewing out ideas as i go along, and then again, anything can happen here on out.

anyways, here are the theories/reasons.

Tommy still wants his discs back.

now, a few things to go over

as far as we know, skeppy/dream have the last (?) of tommy’s discs . Now the thing is, there are only a few things that can occur so tommy can get his discs back:

it’s just that easy and tommy can ask - that’s not happening

he never gets his disc back - this could drive the next story arc but kind of unlikely? the disc war initiated pretty much a lot of things i think

duel - that won’t go well

war - very possible

spy - information for dream? badlands (for some reason, though unlikely)?

traitor/betrayal for the next war

Now all those listed above, can or cannot happen based on how the next few weeks will go, however, we are focusing on traitor tommy.

tommy could make a deal with Dream for the discs, depending on how desperate tommy is. tommy’s discs are the last thing he needs before he can be at peace. it’s the most important thing to him and was what basically started everything. betraying l’manburg could be one of the most interesting and best things he can do so he can get his discs once and for all. 

apparently, the disc is planned to be burned soon on a stream, so in an act of desperation or impulse, deals could be made for the disc.

Chaos (by extension of the discs)

in return for saving the disc, war could be declared upon l’manburg because... well... chaos. dream strives for chaos and tommy’s betrayal will invoke that in the best way. if tommy ever is that desperate, he’s putting his reputation, trust, and allies on the line. He’ll be alone but have his discs, so will that truly put him at peace?

he’s losing the trust of tubbo, his best friend, unless tommy and tubbo decide to betray together

after all, whatever tubbo does, tommy is likely to follow.

Power

“Tommy, when I said you’re never gonna be president, you’ve got to understand, that wasn’t-, that wasn’t a challenge. That’s true. You’re never gonna be president, Tommy.”

Spiting Wilbur could be a possible reason for betrayal, but then again wilbur is dead and that will put him against tubbo, in which tommy’s loyalty is too strong for that. unless he had a change in ideals for some reason.

the thing is, tommy gave up the title of president just for his discs , so that brings up the question, what will he do after he gets the discs? 

if the discs were something so important, would tommy want to get back to the title he was offered before giving it away for those discs?

i honestly don’t know, but before the war, power was a very strong reason for why tommy could have been the traitor, as well as protecting l’manburg.

the concept of power seems to be fairly important to tommy. wilbur only gave tommy presidency just to take it away to a degree, to break his heart, which wilbur would know how to do since they’ve been through pretty much everything together (plus they’re canonically brothers).

even further, techno said it himself.

when tommy and wilbur were exiled, the first thing they realized was that they didn’t have any power over the country they built. wilbur realized this, hence why he spiraled into madness. tommy, however, he was nailed in on the fact that they could have won, that they had to take back l’manburg because schlatt was tyrannical.

techno was right, schlatt won fair and square, yet pogtopia still did a coup and became what they believed they were fighting against. tyranny. government.

schlatt

just a reminder, tommy’s idol used to be schlatt. as far as i know, quackity is planning on resurrecting schlatt to be able to rule l’manburg, meaning overthrowing tubbo.

so, that begs the question, did tommy’s previous adoration of schlatt ever change?

i mean, he did kinda hesitate to put an arrow between his eyes when wilbur told him to, and that was before wilbur said to wait. maybe a stretch

Corrupt Tubbo

 tubbo hasn’t done anything except rebuild l’manburg, but imagine this. he used to be a part of schlatt’s cabinet. he has no real experience as a president and like, he’s young. but anyways, tubbo wouldn’t know much about running a country, so the only place he can get some type of information of this would be from working with schlatt and implement it in his administration. lowkey down for that

under the circumstance in which tubbo becomes a corrupt president, tommy would be conflicted towards tubbo being his best friend and tubbo being the tyrannical leader that every. single. president. had become.

 wilbur was a good president but limited the members of l’manburg, built walls, etc. schlatt was, well, schlatt. he was a bit mean to his citizens and cabinet, was a literal dictator, exiled one of the parties, and was just... evil vibes. the only ”good” thing is that he was elected properly.

anyways, realizing how similar tubbo’s administration could be to schlatt, tommy could, again, betray l’manburg/tubbo in order to bring him back to his senses or on the more evil side, overthrow him?

Just out of spite

maybe he gets tired of being called a child. making a deal of some sort and betraying the nation could do that in some weird way. even though ghostbur doesn’t remember it that much, his presence can be enough to remind tommy that he is always seen as the immature child of the group despite his desperate retorts explaining that he’s not.

by betraying l’manburg, he might think that people will think of him differently? as someone who went to the “dark side” in a desperate attempt to be seen or listened to like technoblade. he won’t be called a child if the strongest person on the SMP is behind him.

i mean, tommy has matured, compared to him during the revolution. he seems to think more about what he should do, he tries to be a leader, taking weaknesses, strengths, circumstances, etc. into consideration for example, as he does in MCC.

i can understand how frustrating it is to be called a child and too much stress can just make someone snap. he makes the deal and he’s not going to be called a child anymore.

it’s unlikely but it’s a fun little mini-reason

tubbo

if tubbo becomes a traitor, tommy most likely will follow. that’s it.

chaotic good

tommyinnit is “chaotic good” according to wilbur.

however, wilbur’s reasoning for this seems to be a bit interesting. 

While Tommy may seem lawful on the surface (due to his keen understanding of the codes and conventions that he must follow) he still flips his values radically based on tiny non-emotional changes in his environment. 

again, tommy’s values can change the minute something changes in his environment. for example, tubbo being murdered by techno.

the second tubbo got killed, tommy was willing to blow l’manburg to smithereens

so you don’t know what could happen since tommy’s ideals can change within a second

despite everything, i’m only holding on to hope when it comes to some sort of tommy/tubbo corruption arc. it’s possible, but not 100%. honestly, any kind of betrayal i’m down for but it’ll take a bit to regroup and recollect.

im genuinely just a sucker for a main character turned bad guy kinda deal. reminds me of the end of “murders” by miracle musical. like, after the main character did everything they needed to, they’re alone. they defeated the bad guy, they thought they saved the city/town/community, but just pan out. look at the destruction around the main character. as a viewer, you were only encapsulated in the main character’s perspective because they’re the main character, but look around. see that everyone despises them. they don’t see them as the protagonist the viewer thought they were. 

#traitor tommyinnit #traitor tommy #dream smp theory #dream smp #l'manburg #sleepy boys inc #sbi #sleepy bois inc #pogtopia #dream smp war #wilbur soot #tubbo #jschlatt #dream smp spoilers

[salty-ironstrange-shipper]

I got this thought caught up in my head earlier and now I must unleash my thoughts on you.

Basically, I had this question: why does Tony fight in his suits himself?

As of Iron Man 3, it’s clear he doesn’t need to. He’s shown controlling suits from afar and more than 20 suits are controlled autonomously by Jarvis in the final battle. At any point after that, he’s only needlessly putting himself at risk whenever he goes into battle himself.

So, two explanations:

Easy explanation - the suite are hackable and he needs to control them personally. I’m not too sure about this one since we see in Iron Man 2 that even when someone actually has an Iron Man suit in their possession, if they’re not Tony Stark, they just can’t make it work. They can only add onto the War Machine suit, they’re never able to produce another one. In the same movie, Vanko is able to control the WM suit from afar, but he’s a genius on Tony or near-Tony levels and had access to information about the arc reactor from his own father and about the WM suit from Hammer. And even then, Tony regains control of it with relative ease. In AoU, Ultron gains control of the rescue bots, but those are non-combatant suits that never pose much of a threat on their own. Ultron needs to make an army of his own bots to fight them. No one is ever able to completely gain control of Tony’s suits. So while this is a logical concern, it doesn’t have a lot of evidence within the context of the movies, and no one ever brings it up.

Meta explanation - the second explanation, and the one I personally think is true, is that Tony’s guilt drives him to put himself in the line of fire to make up for his crimes.

This one tracks all the way to Iron Man. I want to call attention to the scene after Tony’s confrontation with Obadiah at the party. 

At this point in the movie, Tony has seen the direct consequences of his own carelessness, naivety, greed, and selfishness. And it completely shakes who he is. As soon as he gets home, what’s his first priority? Recovery, rest, getting back to his old life? No. The very first thing he doesn’t, before even getting looked over by a doctor after spending months in a cave with only one person to trust, being manipulated and both psychologically and physically tortured, is to announce that S.I. will stop producing weapons. He does not take the easy route, he does not try to shift blame to the people who were selling the weapons under the table, he does not ignore it, he does not even try to do this quietly. 

But getting back to this scene (because it’s a really good scene, guys). Tony has just learned that despite his efforts, Obadiah, who he considered a trusted friend and ally, is scheming to remove him from his position in his own company and was the one selling weapons. And there’s another detail that’s easy to miss, but the town that the terrorists took control of with his weapons? It’s Gulmira. The same place Ho Yinsen - the man who saved his life and inspired him to keep fighting in the cave - was from. 

And Tony hates himself.

When Tony sees his reflection, he can’t help but destroy it. He has truly seen the person he was, and the image isn’t pretty. 

And this is the moment that he really becomes Iron Man. Because what does he do now that going the slow way and discontinuing weapons hasn’t worked?

He puts himself in the line of fire to personally get rid of his weapons. 

If you want to argue that the risk to him is not high here, I’ll remind you that the suit has never been tested for combat at this point (and in fact, the repulsors weren’t even originally meant to be weapons at all but were for flight) and they have Tony’s weapons, possibly the only thing at this time and point to stand a fair chance against what we know the suit can do. And, when flying home, he’s almost killed by U.S. planes who don’t recognize him and deem him hostile. This is where Tony starts being a hero.

And it is not the last time. The montage at the beginning of Iron Man 2 tells us that in the six months following the first movie, Tony has continued retrieving his weapons and personally fighting terrorists. He’s also doing it himself, partially for practical reasons - he emphatically does not trust the U.S. government with his weapons after seeing the truth of war in his first movie - but also because he feels he needs to. Even a slow death from palladium poisoning isn’t enough to put him out of commission. 

In The Avengers, he personally gets into the rotors to fix them, which ends up throwing him around a very dangerous set of what is essentially giant spinning metal blades that he has to wait for Steve to fix, and in the climax, he takes the nuke through the portal to the Chitauri. He never hesitates to make the sacrifice, but he also doesn’t try to slow down to come up with an option that is safer for himself. He doesn’t try to launch or throw the nuke through the portal (which is safer for him, but has a lower chance of working) but personally carries it through. He does not expect to survive this and nearly doesn’t.

Come Iron Man 3, his fighting has started to cause him real, severe psychological issues, including vivid nightmares and anxiety attacks that are triggered by mentions of the New York attack. But he doesn’t stop, even though this is the movie where we see that Tony has suits that he can control from a distance, which would allow him to protect people without harming himself. But Tony can’t do that. The option isn’t even brought up as a possibility. Because Tony does not feel like he has been redeemed. He never does, not really. Tony cannot take himself out of the line of fire because he put other, innocent people in the line of fire before Iron Man and he considers this his penance. And I honestly don’t consider his viewpoint to be wrong because he did cause innocent deaths, and just because it happened without his knowledge does not mean the responsibility is not his. (this is a common problem with us Tony stans; we get so caught up in countering antis that we lose sight of the fact that Tony is a flawed person, he’s meant to be, and he did do terrible things and needs to make up for them, although where we think the line to that redemption is and where Tony thinks it is are drastically different)

Tony’s guilt and need to fix things is only intensified in Age of Ultron. I’ve argued in the past that Ultron was not his fault, but rather a combination of Wanda and the Mind Stone (which does seem to have some sort of consciousness of its own), but Tony clearly does not see it that way. He considers Ultron and the people killed by him to be his personal responsibility, and not one he shares with anyone or anything else. His guilt here leads to his strong support for regulation and the Accords in Civil War - Tony no longer considered even himself to be the best judge for his redemption, even though he is his own harshest critic. 

Come Infinity War, Tony would chase after Stephen and Peter on the Q-ship and suggest the plan to fight Thanos on his own turf when it���s just the three of time. Some people have questioned this, but I think it’s pretty clear why - turning around and leading Thanos back to Earth will mean more civilian deaths, and that is something Tony refuses to accept. Casualties are unacceptable to him no matter that they’ll have more help if they turn back and recruit the other Earth-based heroes.

In Infinity War, Tony would rather have died than have Stephen sacrifice the Time Stone for him (Tony himself obviously not knowing what this would lead to). Look at his face when he tries to tell Stephen to stop-

He is literally coughing up blood as he tells him to stop, but he’s too weak from the stab wound in his stomach to even move.

It’s only in Endgame that Tony allows himself to be redeemed. Now, when he has a family he loves dearly, he still chooses to put himself on the line because if he sees something wrong - especially something he links to himself - he has to try to stop it. And he does. His contributions (creating the new gauntlet, fixing time travel, figuring out a new way to get the Tesseract, and ultimately destroying Thanos’s army) are vital to the Avengers saving the universe. Tony’s redemption may have been complete years ago for many of us (myself included), but this is the moment it ends for him. He helps bring half the universe back, saves the entire universe by destroying Thanos and his army (who would have destroyed the entire thing because the guy only has one plan, it just goes up in degrees), and then he dies lives happily with his family content in the knowledge that he really has made it up to the world. He is Iron Man.

#incorrect-ironstrange #tony stark #tony stark meta #iron man #iron man meta #iron man 1 #iron man 2 #iron man 3 #the avengers #avengers 1 #avengers #age of ultron #ca:cw #captain america: civil war #mcu #mcu meta #meta #analysis #character analysis

[booksbookssomemoviesandbooks]

Book Recs

Hello! so for my first post, I'll recommend some books, so y'all can have a closer look at some fandoms I'll post about! enjoy!!

1.  

Harry Potter By J.K. Rowling is definitely an interesting, well-written series! there are 7 books however, and the books get bigger as the series progresses. It's sometimes difficult to know the exact order, so I'll list it below:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Although the movies are great, they don't include all the amazing details, as with all movies. A short summary:

Harry Potter, a young boy who’s being constantly abused by his uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia, gets a peculiar letter from the magical school of Hogwarts, where he spends most of his time, becoming his home.

Quotes:

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." ― Albus Dumbledore

“You’re just as sane as I am" - Luna Lovegood

“Mischief managed" - Fred and George Weasley

It is Important to know that j*r is a huge transphobe, along with other things, and is currently being erased by the fandom itself.

2.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, along with the other series by Rick Riordan, is a definite must-read. With each book, you can really notice the character developments and a lot more! There is loads of representation in this one, with lgbtqia+ characters, black characters, Muslim characters and more. It's very action-packed and addicting, sucking you into the magnificent world of Half-Bloods and Demigods within the first page. The first series consists of 5 books, in the following order:

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters

Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse

Percy Jackson and the Battle of The Labyrinth

Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian

THE MOVIES ARE TRASH SO I DEFINITELY DO NOT RECOMMEND WATCHING THEM BEFORE READING THE BOOKS!!! There were many changes and the movies aren't nearly as good as the books. A short summary:

Percy Jackson, a 12 year-old who lives with his mother, Sally, and step-father, Gabe, attends the private boarding school Yancy Academy. While on a school trip, his teacher, Mrs. Dodds, turns into a fury and attacks him. This, in turn, triggers a series of other problems and adventures.

Quotes:

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.” - Percy Jackson

“With great power, comes great need to nap. Wake me up later." - Nico Di Angelo

“Even strength has to bow down to wisdom sometimes." - Annabeth Chase

3.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is one of my most recommended series! With everything it deals with, from the Capitol to the districts to the champions, the books are amazing! 

Order:

The Hunger Games

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

Starring the movies is the amazing Jennifer Lawrence, but with all books, the movies have slight differences, although I definitely recommend watching them when you're done with the books.

A Short Summary:

In what was once North America, the Capitol of Panem maintains its hold on its 12 districts by forcing them each to select a boy and a girl, called Tributes, to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games. Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains. District 12 Tribute Katniss Everdeen has little to rely on, other than her hunting skills and sharp instincts, in an arena where she must weigh survival against love.

(FILM SYNOPSIS)

Quotes:

"May the odds be ever in your favor." - Effie Trinket

"Fire is catching, and if we burn, you burn with us!" - Katniss Everdeen

“Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.” - President Snow

4.

Divergent is another book with a huge fandom, and rightfully so. This book is amazing, and you honestly can't live without having read it!

Order:

Divergent

Insurgent

Allegiant 

Surprisingly, I haven't watched the movies yet, but I hear that they aren’t that bad, so you should give them a go!

Summary:

In a world run by fictional classes known as factions, children who reach the age of 16 begin to choose which factions they wish to call home for the rest of their lives. Each faction comes with its own ups and downs, so it's definitely a hard choice, especially for someone as unique as Beatrice.

Quotes:

“Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it“ - Four

“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.” - Dauntless Motto

"We are not the same. But we are, somehow, one." - Tris

5. 

You might have heard of this series, and it's really addictive, trust me! The Mortal Instruments is one of the most astonishing books I've ever read, and it's most definitely my go-to when recommending a book series!

Order:

City of Bones

City of Ashes

City of Glass

City of Fallen Angels

City of Lost Souls

City of Heavenly Fire

Again, (I know this is rather disappointing) I haven't watched the movies, but do check them out!

Summary:

Clary Fray's search for her missing mother leads her into an alternate New York called Downworld, filled with mysterious faeries, hard-partying warlocks, not-what-they-seem vampires, an army of werewolves, and the demons who want to destroy it all.

via: https://shadowhunters.com/shadowhunters-novels/the-mortal-instruments/#:~:text=Clary%20Fray's%20search%20for%20her,want%20to%20destroy%20it%20all.

Quotes:

“Heroes aren't always the ones who win. They're the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes.” - Clary Fairchild

“If I cannot move Heaven, I will raise Hell.” - Sebastion Morgenstern

“The descent into Hell is easy.” - Motto of the Nephilim

6.

Gay. What more needs to be said?

SADLY, there isn't a movie yet, but I think they're working on one, or sure though

Summary:

Set in a world in which a female Democrat from Texas wins the presidency in 2016, Red, White & Royal Blue chronicles the illicit romance between the president's son, Georgetown senior Alex Claremont-Diaz (Dad is a Mexican-American senator), and Prince Henry of Wales, his childhood nemesis.

Via: https://www.wsj.com/articles/red-white-royal-blue-book-summer-beach-read-11565285001#:~:text=Set%20in%20a%20world%20in,of%20Wales%2C%20his%20childhood%20nemesis.

Also, classic enemies-friends-lovers arc and honestly it's amazing

Quotes:

“As your mother, I can appreciate that maybe this isn’t your fault, but as the president, all I want is to have the CIA fake your death and ride the dead-kid sympathy into a second term.” - Ellen Claremont 

" 'that’s because you can’t hear all the menacing gobbling.' 'Yes, famously the most sinister of all animal sounds, the gobble.' " - Harry and Alex

"History, huh? Bet we could make some." - Alex

7.

I’m sure you've heard at least a little bit about this book. While not nearly as famous as ones mentioned above, it's still just as good, of not better. I'd say this book is one of my favorites, to be honest. It speaks about a lot of topics people usually find disturbing, and it makes me so happy that it's there, it's written, it's amazing. PTSD, coming out issues, abusive relationships and more, this book is truly awesome.

TRIGGER WARNING 

Summary:

A young boy named Charlie usually dissociates, and pushes other people away. He’s afraid of beginning high school, until he meets two other students who show him how bizarre and amazing the world is.

Quotes:

“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite” - Charlie

“We accept the love we think we deserve” - Mr. Anderson

“You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love" - Sam

8. 

This book is honestly pro-feminist and I think that's much more than enough

Summary:

Kaur explores the true impact of sexual abuse and harassment, as well as the difficulties of immigrating, being a female, and depression.

It's also a poem

TRIGGER WARNING

Quotes:

“what is stronger

than the human heart

which shatters over and over

and still lives”

“you do not just wake up and become the butterfly 

- growth is a process”

“on the last day of love

my heart cracked inside my body"

9.

This book isn't very well-known, which really sucks because I really love how it speaks about the consequences of WWII from the German point of view. And about the Germans who did not believe in Hitler's ways. It's also based on a real story, and it's so cool

Summary: 

A nurse working in a nursing home meets a peculiar old lady who decides to tell her her story when she meets the nurse's younger son, Karl, who reminded her of her brother. Lizzie (the old lady) speaks about life in Dresden before the war, and even after it. She also tells them the story about the strange, magnificent elephant in her garden.

Quotes:

“That was the only way of keeping our hopes alive, by looking beyond all we were seeing around us, and the shadow of disaster that hung over us.” - 

“I think I have always had a strong sense of justice, of fair play, of what is right and what is wrong.” - 

“Our home should be an oasis of peace and harmony for us in a troubled world.” - Lizzie (Quoting Papi)

10.

This book is pro-blm and it's ahead of its time (by like 2 years but still). 

Summary:

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. via: https://socialjusticebooks.org/the-hate-u-give/#:~:text=Sixteen%2Dyear%2Dold%20Starr%20Carter,hands%20of%20a%20police%20officer.

Quotes:

“Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.” - Lisa

“Daddy once told me there’s a rage passed down to every black man from his ancestors, born the moment they couldn’t stop the slave masters from hurting their families. Daddy also said there’s nothing more dangerous than when that rage is activated.” - Starr

“Everybody wants to talk about how Khalil died,” I say. “But this isn’t about how Khalil died. It’s about the fact that he lived. His life mattered. Khalil lived!” I look at the cops again. “You hear me? Khalil lived!” - Starr

#movies #books #bookblr #book recommendations #book recs #hp #harry potter #harry potter and the sorcerer's stone #the lightning thief #percy jackson #pjo #the hunger games #katniss everdeen #divergent #tris #the mortal instruments #clary fray #rwarb #henry #alex #the perks of being a wallflower #charlie #the sun and her flowers #rupi kaur #the elephant in the garden #michael morpurgo #the hate u give #starr

[smylealong]

FANNDDOMMMMM ANSWER WHENEVER i know yure busy ♡

C, J, Z!!!

Thanks for the ask, @elciaisshrinking. Oh it’s okay. I am not doing anything earth-shattering, lol.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will (be nice): Kataang. Unequivocally. Always. And forever. Kataang.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr I think you know the answer to this, lol. The Untamed. Saw it on Netflix several times but kept passing it over, because the length was intimidating and the outline that Netflix gave was not appealing to me. But then, I saw it on Tumblr. All over on Tumblr. I think the first post about it that caught my attention was the “Jin Ling’s uncle” post. That cracked me up, even though I knew nothing about the story. Then I realized the show has some really pretty people. But I was still ambivalent. Then I saw a gif of Xiao Zhan smiling. I swear I haven’t seen a prettier smile. I guess that was when I decided, I am going to give it a go. First episode did not catch my interest and second one left me confused. But @terribleteej​, @avauntus​ and @arlothia​ would not let me drop it. I am deeply thankful that they did not let me drop it, for had I tapped out then, I would have missed something truly special and spectacular. I highly recommend this piece of art to everyone. Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged)

Ramble? Okay then, I shall ramble about Avatar and the utterly toxic relationship of Kataang.

ATLA has some of the best female characters to ever grace the screen. Be it the girls from the Gaang, i.e. Katara, Toph and Suki, or the villains in Azula, Mai and Ty Lee. Each of those characters are complex, strong and yet vulnerable and so very human. In the show, they each have their own arcs, independent of the boys in their lives and have their own strengths and failings. Katara, the female lead, goes from a spirited girl from South Pole who is struggling with her bending to arguably the most powerful waterbender of her generation. She has her own mind and is not afraid to speak it, even when she is wrong. She has enough darkness inside her to come on the verge of killing Yon Rha, and yet, has enough light within her to stop in time. She is a strong enough healer to bring Aang back from death after Azula kills him. She has it in her to forgive Zuko, the person she has projected all her anger and hatred for the Fire Nation and the one she (to some extent, rightly so) holds responsible for almost losing Aang and consequently the war. She had no idea about Zuko’s complicated history or the reason he chose to do what he did in the Crystal Catacombs. To her, it was a betrayal, and she reacts accordingly. She also beats the crazed Azula, fair and square. And she does all of that when she was fourteen!

And then? What happens after that? She becomes the trophy wife of Aang. She diminishes in the background to the point that when Legend of Korra rolls around, we don’t even see a statue of hers in the Republic City. There are gigantic statues of Aang, Zuko, Toph and Sokka. Where are Katara and Suki? They too contributed to the end of the war. During the war, Aang forces two kisses on her, both of which take her by surprise and she is visibly upset by it. (Let’s not even get into the pre-teen kissing there). And yet, Aang assumes that since he has “laid a claim” on the “maiden”, she belongs to him. When she tries to tell him that she hasn’t given them a thought, because they are in the middle of a war, Aang throws a hissy fit. He says that he is angry enough that if his chakra wasn’t blocked, he would go into the Avatar state. He knows Katara doesn’t like seeing him in the Avatar state and yet, he uses that to blackmail her into accepting his advances. Over the course of their travels, Katara forms a deep bond with Zuko, based on mutual trust and respect. They work well together and compliment each other well. The makers show us a healthy relationship and wonderful dynamic between two people and then, at the end, she chooses to go with Aang. Who is twelve. Who hasn’t even hit puberty. And they go on to live happily every after, having three babies and just be the lovey dovey couple? I haven’t read the comics, from the little that I have seen, I just see Aang continuing the same cycle of toxicity and Katara just becoming more and more diminished. That annoys the stuffing out of me.

To be honest, the more I think about it, the more I realize that Aang was a kind of self-insert by Bryke. Through him, they were going for some sort of wish fulfillment. Because, honestly, I have been a 14 year old. And, shallow as it sounds, no 14 year old girl will choose a bald 12 year old guy over a 16 year old boy who is, frankly way more attractive. Especially when she shares a good bond with the 16yo. Phew, that was a long rant. I don’t know how much of that stream of consciousness made sense, but yeah. That’s my take. I also have issues with the frankly wonky math of the show, but that’s a post for another time.

Questions asked from here

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

#conspicuous media consumption

[senpai-no-lie]

Blue Lions Route

So I finished the Blue Lions Route! 

Why I chose Blue Lions: Okay, so when the first trailer was dropped, I thought Edelgard would be my favorite. I liked her character design and I just thought she was really pretty, but Dimitri was on my radar because lol they named a FE character after my chinchilla, nice. I ended up picking Dimitri, because what I knew about his character arc appealed to my sensibilities and I thought he was the nicest during the House introductions, talking about his classmates.

Who Was My Dancer: Felix. I thought he looked cute in the outfit, had the potential for magic anyway as well as swords, and had the avoidance to not be nuked by enemies with his pitiful defense/resistance. He made a great dancer! From my understanding, it might’ve been a bit of a waste, because of gambits, but I didn’t really understand them or use them much in this playthrough

What Paired Endings Did I Get:  

Petra & Linhardt 

 Ralpheal & Ignatz 

 Dorothea & Manuela 

Dedue & Flayn (this one really surprised me) 

 Annette & Mercedea

 Shamir & Catherine 

 Lysithea & Cyril

 Lorenz & Leonie (a bit miffed about this one, but it’s what I get for choosing to go for Seteth with Ingrid instead of with Leonie)

 Ingrid & Seteth 

 Ferdinand & Marianne 

 Felix & Sylvain 

 Ashe & Caspar

Who Did Byleth Marry: Dimitri... not so much because I ship them as characters as I just liked Dimitri the best. Don’t @ me 

Which Dimitri Do I prefer?: Pre-timeskip! I wasn’t a super fan of either character design at first, but I just do not enjoy how self-loathing and mean Dimitri was for a good chunk of the timeskip. I feel like the fandom calling that “feral Dimitri” is a bit of a misnomer. When he returns to being is usual self, it was a welcome change

General Thoughts: I liked the route! It was a good-enough personal arc for Dimitri to keep me engaged, despite some of the mechanics getting in the way of the story. I wish Dedue had been more important to the post-timeskip portion. Mostly, though, I was surprised how short the route was; I’m used to 28ish chapters, so I’m a bit nervous to see how long Crimson Flowers is if that’s the shortest route. I liked all my house characters and had a good time. 

The Blue Lions Characters: 

Dimitri: I think he’s probably the most well-developed, consistently done character in the entire game. I love his character, his supports, and his empathy. There have been a lot of other people who’ve done a great job analyzing his character, so I won’t bother, but A+ boi

Dedue: I like Dedue and his role as Dimitri’s retainer, but he’s not particularly appealing to me. In general, I don’t like the gap moe that comes with strong, silent types that have a feminine side. I think he was a bit of an improvement from Benny (who I liked but didn’t pay much attention to), and I was so grateful to make him not a Fortress Knight (War Master or whatever Dedue did a lot of good punching) because that is probably my least favorite unit type.

Felix: I had a good idea I’d like Felix, because I tend to like tsunderes regardless of gender, but from how the fandom memes about him, I was surprised by the depths of my fondness. He often gets labelled as an asshole, but I would be more generous and say he’s merely got an abrasive side, like a sponge. He had some good, cute moments in his supports and I think his presence added to the story of Azure Moon. I also like that he’s like the only character that has different endings if you recruit him to a different route.  

Sylvain: I know he can be a bit of a controversial character because of his playboy ways, but I like him! I like horse-mounted units and units that can use magic, so he was gonna be a winner for me. I also understand why some people don’t like him and find him to be sexist, but he didn’t particularly read that way to me. To be fair, I find Sylvain’s backstory to be relatable because I myself have a similar situation, of sorts, with my older brother, so I’m just inclined to be more lenient about his more negative traits. I think it hurts Sylvain’s likability that some (or maybe all) of his supports aren’t pre-timeskip locked to demonstrate he really does change his ways, but I think his supports are good and that he’s never irredeemably awful to anyone. 

Ingrid: Another hot take: Ingrid is probably my favorite BL girl lol. I think she’s cute, she’s got some gap moe to her with being so stern but also a food-loving goober and super excitable about knight stuff. My friend said she never was able to get Ingrid to be usable, but my Ingrid rocked. I feel like she had the most connections to the story of BL of the girls, and I wish they had used her more. 

Ashe: It’s a toss-up whether he’s my second fav or Felix is, but I love Ashe. I’m pretty pro archer characters (sans Bernadetta), but Ashe is also just so sweet and caring, despite some of the things he’s been through. I think he’s very cute and a great unit. I might end up marrying him to Byleth if I playthrough BL again (which I will to get DLC supports)

Annette: I like her, but I don’t think she really stands out. I feel sorry that she has to deal with Gilbert, but honestly you could erase Annette from the main story and it wouldn’t change a thing, sadly. I think she’s cute and quirky and I like her spunk, but there’s really not too much to say about her.

Mercedes: I love Mercedes, but similarly to Annette, she doesn’t add as much to the storyline as I’d like, outside of the thing with the Death Knight, which is almost a footnote tbh. I like her character design and her supports and she’s an all-around great unit and character. 

Gilbert: Ugh, I spent a lot of my time complaining about what a whiner he is. As I mentioned, not a fan of Fortress Knights, and Gilbert not only had a base speed of 2 but would regularly miss with an 70-80% hit rate. As a character, I thought he had some good supports, but in general I hate that Dedue took a backseat to him, and that Gilbert is a horrible father. I view as Gilbert a good model for Dimitri, in that Dimitri should not follow Gilbert’s example in how to express and process grief and guilt. Another reason I dislike Gilbert is that I got locked out of his support chain with Catherine, and that’s just annoying

Technically, since I’ve recruited every character except Claude, Edelgard, and Hubert (and I guess the DLC, but now I’ve unlocked them) and almost every associated support, I could write out my thoughts on them, but I’ll save that for the appropriate routes. 

Assorted Bulleted Thoughts: 

Hubert: Man, he just popped up as a cartoonish villain to defeat all the time, and I digged it haha. It became tradition to have Ingrid fly in and to kill him in one hit without taking any damage. It was great. I felt bad that Edelgard had Not A Word to say about Hubert’s death. 

Edelgard: She was built-up so much as the person that had to be defeated to end the war, but there was a lot of dicking around (and all the time we had to go back to homebase for long periods of time) that Edelgard didn’t really get the time to flesh her out as an antagonist or make me, the player, feel particularly motivated to defeat her. Especially when you learn she apparently had nothing to do with the Tragedy of Duscur, and Dimitri is pretty lukewarm about having to kill his stepsister, once he clears his head. Though, that final animated cutscene was top tier

Rhea: I think there should have been one chapter either before or after fighting Edelgard where you rescue Rhea, because as it is, the way her return is handled is incredibly sloppy and emotionally dead. Not even a scene where Flayn and Seteth greet her. Lame

Marianne: She was my favorite and first recruited unit. Love her. That’s all 

I wish all the Blue Lions had been able to reach A-support with each other, especially Sylvain. I think there woul’ve been a lot he could have gained as a character especially. 

It is dumb as hell male Byleth can’t S-support Dimitri, or any of the male Blue Lions, for that matter. If you could add one male student from GD and BL to be bi, I would’ve picked Dimitri or Ashe from BL. Everyone in GD is pretty hetero, so I will arbitrarily choose Ignatz 

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem 3h #fe 3h #fire emblem azure moon #my opinions about fire emblem

[tesb]

i've only seen the last jedi, but i do follow thanks to tumblr

okay, so you get the gist!

spoiler alert: i’ll explain what happened in star wars: the rise of skywalker below the cut.

i’ll try and summarize as much as i can and explain a little. there’s many people who condemn the entire film but honestly, i could have swallowed most of it, save for one stupid storyline. but yeah, i’ll get into it. i’ll be skipping a lot of stuff but i apologize if this ends up being pretty long anyway. to be fair, the movie itself is quite long and they were able to fit a lot of dumb things into it.

also: check out jenny nicholson’s youtube video on the movie!

so, in the opening crawls in star wars films, we usually find out what our heroes and main characters have been up to since the last film. they set the scene: nothing major happens in these opening crawls, but major events are left for the films themselves. well, not in this one! in TROS, the opening crawl reveals that emperor palpatine is back, and we’re supposed to just… accept that without any questions. to me, it seems like star wars’ biggest villain coming back would be a bigger event than a couple lines in the opening crawl and deserves more explanation, but i digress.

cut to kylo ren who gets a sith wayfinder, killing a bunch of people in the progress as per usual, and goes to palpatine’s hidey hole on this uncharted planet. palpatine tells him that snoke was his puppet all along and reveals a massive fleet of star destroyers, which is also left unexplained. palpatine orders kylo ren to kill rey (which later leads him to multiple battles with rey throughout the film.)

at the resistance base, they discover that palpatine is on this planet and they need a sith wayfinder to get there. so here starts a goddamn loooooooong mission of them trying to get this wayfinder (they really could have cut this part of the movie down, especially because the whole thing was so convoluted already.) the person who last had the wayfinder conveniently happens to be an assassin who killed rey’s parents and she keeps having visions of them.

at one point on this mission to find the wayfinder, they’re in a very open area on a desert planet and kylo ren and the knights of ren show up in this massive ship. chewbacca gets captured and is in the ship when rey tries to rescue him by using the force, but accidentally blasts the whole thing with lightning. so they all think chewbacca is dead and they leave. but he isn’t dead, because there just so happened to be another massive ship there that they somehow didn’t see, and rey blasted that one instead, and chewbacca was captured in the other. this makes the entire thing feel cheap and their mourning even more hollow.

eventually rey does sense that chewbacca is alive. on their mission to rescue chewbacca, rey confronts kylo ren once again. kylo ren taunts rey about her parents. he eventually reveals that she is the granddaughter of emperor palpatine and that her parents were nobodies because they “chose” to be, and asks her to join him once again. rey being palpatine’s granddaughter makes less sense than her being, say, rey kenobi.

on the same mission, it’s revealed that general hux has been working as a spy for the resistance, and that his only motivation for doing so was preventing kylo ren from winning. winning what, i don’t know. he saves poe, finn and chewbacca and tries to cover up his tracks but dies later anyway. his whole storyline seemed pretty pointless, which is a shame, because he started out as a pretty interesting character in the force awakens. by the rise of skywalker, he was reduced to a caricature of his former self.

we’re introduced to two new characters at two different points in the film, zorii bliss from poe’s past, and jannah, and ex-stormtrooper just like finn, who, as it happens, becomes quite close to finn. i didn’t dislike either of them whatsoever but i strongly feel like these characters were brought in just to reiterate that finn and poe are very much Not Gay (because, let’s face it, the people at disney are cowards.) the LGBT “rep” we do get is a lesbian couple kissing in the background in one of the final scenes in the movie, in a shot that lasts for approx. 0.2 seconds and that has already been cut from the film in some countries.

on a similar note, rose tico was also completely pushed to the sidelines in this film when she had a huge role in the previous one. they don’t even have a proper explanation for it, which sucks, because kelly marie tran was absolutely fantastic in the role. poe’s and finn’s roles were also reduced quite a lot, and i genuinely failed to see any character development from them and there was a great lack of good, character-building emotional moments across the board.

when rey finally gets to the wayfinder (that is on a destroyed death star) kylo ren confronts her for a third time in the same film and he destroys the wayfinder. when kylo ren and rey are fighting, leia organa reaches out to kylo ren through the force while she is dying, and in this moment, rey gets the upper hand and strikes him. but when she senses leia’s death she suddenly feels remorse for him (????? WHY) and immediately saves him by healing him using the force. the tone shift in the scene is jarring.

in rey leaves and kylo ren suddenly sees his dead father – who he killed – and after speaking to han solo, his nonexistent redemption arc begins and he “becomes ben solo again”. i say nonexistent because it literally came out of nowhere. we seldom saw him doubt the dark side and we only saw him turn away from rey when she tried to turn him to the light, time and time again. in the last jedi, their final shot together was rey literally closing a door on him, i.e. symbolizing her finally giving up on trying to turn him to the good side. but since the rise of skywalker tried to undo everything the last jedi did, of course that didn’t matter anymore.

rey uses kylo ren’s ship to go on the same planet luke had resided on in the force awakens and the last jedi because she’s so shook by her parentage (meanwhile i was shook by the awfulness of this plot while sitting in the cinema audience.) luke’s force ghost shows up to tell rey that she needs to face palpatine and so, here begins the worst final “battle” in star wars history, probably.

the resistance fleet follow rey to the planet where palpatine is. rey finds palpatine, and palpatine encourages rey to kill him so that “his spirit can transfer into her.” this whole scene is extremely awkward because palpatine tells rey his entire plan, narrating all the details. it’s very much “you have to do this so i can do this and this” and it feels like the plot needs him to do this so that the audience understands what’s going on, and it’s so painfully bad. suddenly, kylo ren shows up to help rey. and suddenly, palpatine’s plan changes and he uses rey’s and kylo ren’s force bond to “revitalize” himself. and he’s still explaining every bit of the process.

palpatine starts blasting the resistance fleet with his lighting, yeets kylo ren to a hole in the ground (some kind of chasm? i don’t know) and rey collapses. she suddenly hears the voices of a bunch of jedi ghosts in her head, encouraging her, and gets up and manages to kill not only palpatine but herself as well. kylo ren suddenly reappears and brings rey back to life with force healing. in an extremely awkward and forced moment, they embrace each other and kiss, effectively making reylo canon, all for fan service. he does drop dead, but the scene prior to him dying sends an awful precedent for future watchers of the film. i’m all for letting people ship who they want to ship as long as they’re aware it can be extremely problematic and toxic, but it’s a whole different story when a well-known franchise makes said ship canon.

kylo ren has abused rey mentally and assaulted her physically. he is a mass murderer, a war criminal, and literally killed his own goddamn parent. he has done things that are absolutely unforgivable. in the last scene of the film, someone asks rey who she is, and she decides to say “rey skywalker”; there’s a message in TROS that indicates where you come from doesn’t dictate whether you’re “bad” or “good” – see: rey being a palpatine but being a good character. if kylo ren had represented the opposite of rey to the end, i.e. how he came from a good background but still decided to turn to the dark side, the message the film was trying to send wouldn’t have been so undermined.

the last film also makes rey’s entire purpose in the sequel trilogy tied to kylo ren, and it genuinely angers me – they just couldn’t leave her storyline be, could they? her purpose all along was, yes, to kill palpatine, but also to get kylo ren to turn away from the dark side, to help him, to “cure him”. we’re supposed to believe that all along she wanted to “take ben’s hand” and that she was in love with her abuser.

my biggest problem is with this film’s influence and what they decided to do. the fact that they made a romantic scene between the abuser and his abuse victim makes my skin crawl. i could have accepted everything else, but not this. it’s my one big problem with the movie that i cannot, for the life of me, overlook. little kids are going to see this movie. they’re going to see kylo ren murdering, manipulating, abusing people for two and a half movies straight. and they’re going to watch him be redeemed like a second-rate darth vader. but at least darth vader lost everything when he turned to the dark side, reiterating that the dark side is genuinely Very Bad. at least darth vader died without getting a reward like rey was used as kylo ren’s reward for his “redemption arc.” i wish this film hadn’t used rey like it did, but it happened; at moments, she was reduced to a prop in kylo ren’s story instead of her continually being an individual in her own story.

there’s probably a better version of this film somewhere because it feels like a million ideas smashed into one big mess and i sometimes felt like i was watching a fan-film rather than a real star wars movie. the makers of this film being disney, they were trying to please everyone, and that was the biggest mistake they could have possibly made. they didn’t have a solid plan for the sequel trilogy, and it shows. painfully well.

#i truly hate this film #can you tell. #i bet you can't #anonymous #answered #star wars: the rise of skywalker #anti tros #anti reylo #anti kylo ren