#I know I stole that from starship troopers

[trutown-the-bard]

I like Gundam, but this idea that “peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding” is dumb. ‪I would like them to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington to have them argue over if “understanding” would have prevented Napoleon’s conquests. Caesar Augustus can be the judge and the ghosts of Carthage can be the jury. Violence and force have created peace much more reliably than anything else on Earth.

#Gundam #Gundam 00 #mobile suit gundam #I know I stole that from starship troopers

[johnlocsin-johnyakuza]

Star Wars/Omori AU ideas

Don’t know if you want everyone as a Jedi but I wanted to try to come up with random idea for a galactic civil war era background.

Prologue: The galactic empire was formed by The Emperor after a long period of war. Early on the galactic citizens welcomed the empire, if brought an end to a lot of major warlords, slave trade, and saved a collapsing economy. Many politicians also sided with the empire either out of being given incentives or truly believing in the security the empire could bring. Some people of both the political and common workers knew that the empire would eventually become a rope around their neck, the “security” would soon become an iron fist. Empire reveals its true colors and so on.

Mari and Sunny were both born to a imperial senate family, they had a lot of money and were taught to respect the empire, they didn’t really question it. That was until the day Mari was 18 and Sunny was 15 they come across two runaway boys (Hero and Kel) who apparently had parents who spoke out against the empire and were killed for it, leaving Hero to raise Kel mostly on his own. The two groups despite different home lives soon became best friends, eventually Mari’s father found out and was planning to rat them out, her and Sunny knocked him over the head, grabbed Hero and Kel, then stole their father’s personal starship which acted as the group’s home until they joined the rebels.

Mari and Sunny were field agents that usually handled hit and run tactics and common mission objectives. The people around the rebel base tend to call them “the dynamic duo” as they are always doing things together, and often cause extra damage.

Hero mainly acts as a planner, he typically works inside a safe spot and gives overview of the situation, lots of cameras, listening devices for nearby troopers, he is ground control for this group of rebels, though he also does get more involved in the field when needed.

Kel is the best pilot of the rebels, he’s been flying since he was a young child, and has only gotten better over the years, he typically handles rescues, dog fights, and on the field he’s usually the distraction with his super friendly attitude and social abilities.

Aubrey and Basil both come from tatooine, one the few planets the empire is still working their way into, both were orphaned and did odd jobs for most of their lives, even working for smudging groups and criminal groups. By the time they were 15 they became their own bosses as smugglers, it was always the two of them against the world. Initially they worked for anyone who paid (though they had restrictions such as no helping Hutt Slavers or Bounty Hunters) but that changed when they were hired by the rebels and met the others, they got along so well that Aubrey wanted to stay, she wasn’t sure if she believes the empire can be beaten but she is tired of working for scumbags. Aubrey typically handles ground mission direct combat and specializes in heavy weapons and explosives. Basil is a lot lore subtle he’s a slicer and can get into any system without even trying, he is horrible in direct combat though, so he is usually always with a group for protection.

Sunny and Mari are force sensitives, eventually Mari began to train as a Jedi with a mysterious figure who only introduced himself as “Stranger”. Mari soon enough barely had time for non mission time with Sunny and the gang, but why mostly understood, a bit of a drift occurred between the siblings as Sunny was worried about the attention having the force will bring, which is why he hasn’t spoken up about his force sensitivity. Eventually a mission happens that gets Vader involved, Mari is believed to be dead, and Sunny is kidnapped to be broken down into an inquisitor known as Omori. After enough drugs, being kept awake, force mind tricks, and torture sessions Omori emerged with his memories repressed and was made to be the lead inquisitor.

Mari secretly survived her fight, but lost limbs and organs from her fight, after being in a bacta healing coma and getting a lot of cybernetics, she finds out the the group kind of drifted apart after her and Sunny were reported KIA. Aubrey and Basil had a falling out, Basil refused to believe Sunny was dead and left to search for him, Aubrey went back to smuggling and has a whole new crew of “hooligans” as the rebels call them, Hero left field work and become a doctor for the rebels, but Kel remained a pilot becoming the lead fighter in dog fights.

Woah, I really like this! I’m looking to expand this even further

[moxtoons]

What's the story behind Arianness and Noiren if you don't mind me asking? I saw your art and now I want to know more about them👀 (~thedinalixlegacy)

You want to know about my OCs????

I'm genuinely touched and speechless and this is the best gift I could have gotten for the holidays- (no ones ever asked about my OCs I am in genuine shock and joy!)

Excuse me while I grab 15 years of character building/story to cherry pick from and shove under a cut!

Long post below!

Arianness and Noiren are twins(fraternal) and have two younger brothers.

The twins, Noiren(Sith Lord) and Arianness(Smuggler)

The younger two, Orkra, later called Agent Scathe (Imperial agent/spy) and Aidesan (Acolyte).

They're all native to a small village on Ryloth. When they were young an army of Imperials came to their village to take supplies and take any "useful" Twi'leks. They were searching for force sensitives, ones that could be strong and fight in the war, or ones they could be sold to the Hutts.

There they find the four children, scared and huddled in the corner after watching their parents get killed by the troopers. A Darth observes the group and finds that Noiren and Aidesan are force sensitive. The children are taken one at a time to the ships as they decide where to send them.

Noiren and his younger brother Aidesan are send to Korriban for acolyte training while Orkra was sent to Dromund Kaas to be trained as an agent. Arianness is unfortunately sent to many different places, working under different Imperials watchful eyes until she is old enough and sold to a Hutt named Gorbada.

She never forgets who the Imperials are and what they had done to her family. She is determined to break free from her servitude and find her brothers.

Arianness later overhears that imperials are landing on the planet and long story short she Leia style kills her master and makes off in an Imperial ship. She becomes a smuggler with a grey sense of morals to get the money and resources so she can gather the information she needs to get her brothers back. Along the way she ends up making friends that become her crew.

While she travels space, Noiren has climbed quickly at the academy, surpassing his master and becoming a ruthless sith lord. He only cares for himself, and his younger brother, who he has done everything in his power to protect. He cares very little for the sith around him or any Imperials thanks to his past. Once he becomes a lord, he takes Aidesan under his wing to keep him under a watchful eye so no one can hurt him.

He travels from planet to planet with his brother to aid in war efforts against the republic and eventually stumbles across this guy

Kenaas. A young (rather airheaded) Nautolan Jedi, questioning the Jedi code. Kenaas becomes a captive on Noirens personal starship and eventually turns to the Darkside and stays beside his new companion (that's a whole other story, but he's very important to Noirens character growth and eventually becomes his love interest).

As luck would have it Noiren ends up hearing through the Imperial agency that a "pirate" roaming republic space in a stolen ship has been working to find where acolytes train, which could very well be someone seeking to sell the information to people trying destroy the Sith academy. They decide to send Noiren and his crew to intercept the rogue Imperial ship on Hoth so the offender could be killed quickly and efficiently. He immediately attacks the thief and her crew (if anyone is interested i will be more than happy to share the crewmates too, I have many star wars OCs and most of their stories meet at some point)

The "Pirate" is Captain Arianness, who recognizes her brothers immediately but has no time to explain herself as she is swiftly thrown into battle. Shes heartbroken by how much her brothers have changed, but refuses to give up.

Kenaas Is the one that realizes that she and her crew don't return fire. Worrying that they may have attacked the wrong group, he insists Noiren step back.

The sith is reluctant and ready to kill if needed, but demands answers. Without the rush of battle between them he finally realizes who he had just been in combat with and is taken back. Now his initial questions have been exchanged for ones about how she got there, who these people were, and if she had been trying to find them.

She of course tells him everything, including that she wasn't working with the republic, all she wanted was so save her brothers and protect others like them from what they had suffered.

She learns that Noiren had been working for the Sith and the Imperials to keep himself and his brother safe while trying to track down their youngest brother in the agency,whom neither had seen in years.

Their reunion is touching, lots of questions, long stories and tears. He lies to his superiors after, saying he killed the pirate and her crew, and the two continue to work together to find Orkra.

It takes a lot of searching due to the fact that Agents are well hidden, even within the Imperial bases knowledge, and lets just say a moody sith lord and chaotic smuggler aren't stealthy and Noirens superiors become suspicious of him. With some information gathering of their own they find the young agent the group is looking for and use him as bait to try and lure them into a death trap. Knowing he is rogue brands noiren and his crew as a threat that needs to be eradicated.

Big battle commences and "Scathe" is now reunited with his siblings as they escape a base coming down on their heads. (Theres so much more to their brothers i swear but this is getting so long already lol)

All of them are now rogues,not wanting to fully take a side in the war yet and running from the imperial army.

They use Arianness's ship to go from planet to planet aiding villaiges like theirs to try and prevent anything like their own past from happening to them. (Kind of vigilante style???)

Theyre all grey, not exactly dark side, though Noiren is still heavily leaning that direction, and not really light side. Theyre just a renegade band of aliens trying to prevent mass suffering and slave trades while avoiding pointed attacks from sith lords and imperial ships. There are a lot of battles and craziness and Noiren has so much character development from just being an angry sith lord, but thats hard to convey in whats basically the spark notes version of a 15 year old character arc. (The republic also gets heavily involved in trying to hire them and whatnot)

Also keep in mind everything you just read takes place over the span of years. Arianness is jumping across the galaxy trying to get answers from anyone she can squeeze information from while taking odd jobs and trying to stay out of imperial space (and upgrading the ship she stole)

Note- Noiren and Kenaas are romantically involved and Arianness ends up marrying one of her crewmates and later has two children with him, so happy ending, still polishing and adding details, the full story has so much more (especially regarding the younger two, but this ask is specifically about the twins so I focused on them) but I've been rambling long enough.

Fun fact:

Arianness, Noiren and Kenaas have been around for about 15 years. Imagine my excitement when I was able to create them in SWTOR (I liked the markings in SWTOR much better for my gal and her brother than the ones I had originally given them so I just made those permanent :) )

Thank you for letting me infodump and I have SO MANY other characters so if you ever want a large masterpost about ocs (or even just more art of them.. I love drawing them) I'm more than happy to drop some. I dont get to share my OCs much and this has really been just. Wonderful. You really made my day, you know?

I may drop some info about a Torguta sith warrior I have in the future, she was exclusively made on SWTOR and follows that story pretty close, but she's a favorite so keep an eye out for her if you're interested.

Feel free to ask more about them if you want, too! I have so much passion and love for these guys and would love to share more about them!!!

#my art #mox's art #SWTOR #mox's ocs #Mox's Original Characters #Arianness the Twi'lek #Noiren the Twi'lek #Aidesan the Twi'lek #Orkra the Twi'lek #Kenaas the Nautolan #long post #this really made me so happy... thank you. i dunno if anyones gonna read this long ass thing and idk if my rambling is written well #but its so nice to be able to share my OCs with the world and to have someone actually ASK about them???? #🥺🥺🥺 You made my night #hell this made my fukkin YEAR #thank you again #Mox rambles

[angycryptid]

does anyone know the reason about why there were so many weirdly anti-american government totalinairanism 70s/80s/90s action movies because like, The Running Man, Escape From NY/Escape From LA, Death Race 2000, Starship Troopers, and They Live are all absolutley wild and anti specifically the american gavernment in a really wierd way (also if you can think of any others please rb/add in notes because this kind of movie is ridicoulously entertaining to me)

for example, (this paragraph is just spoilers for the running man, so if you wanna watch it w/o spoilers don't read this paragraph?) The Running Man is about this police officer (played by arnold schwarzenegger) who refuses to rain fire on a few hundred protesting citizens, so the government does it anyways and edits the secutity video to tell the public that he did it as a terrorist. he then makes a plan to play the unedited footage, proving his innocence and runs away from the prison he was put in so he can enact it. he breaks into this lady's apartment so that he can get on a plane but gets captured at the airport and gets told that he can either go on America's favorite game show, The Running Man, or get the death penalty. he chooses the show where he gets put into a maze with his other two friends from prison who helped him hatch his plan and the girl whose apartment he broke into bc she realized that he was right after seeing the unedited footage that she stole (i think? i last watched this move like six months ago). then they get chased down by people in redicoulus costumes (to give you an idea of how ridecoulous, one of them is wearing a costume that looks like a cross between a christmas tree and a clear plastic wiimote. he sings opera and has lightning guns and a mohawk) and also they're in like brightly coloured leotards (its an 80's movie). after getting chased around for a while, they find the bodies of the people who had 'won' the game and were said to be in an island paradise, they were gassed. They ended up getting the satilite code and airing the unedited footage. this was the end of the movie.

like this movie is straight up critizising the american propaganda machine way before Tucker Carlson was allowed to be americas's source of upholding white supremacy, racisim, sexism, homophobia, mysogyny, Transphobia, islamophobia Etc. 'News'. it also talks about how america does a lot of VERY fucked up things.

also i just wanna say that i'm like 90% sure the reason this stopped happining was because of the us military funding movies to create military propaganda because the bad action movies now are like "the strong military man will save us"

Also i just wanna say that this rant definetly came to mind because i watched battleship yesterday, because i knew it was a bad action movie, but i couldn't enjoy it for the badness of it because of the nausiating amounts of military propaganda.

also I legit might be thinking of these movies in a leftist light because it aligns with my politics so thats another thing i want to add on and if im just wrong about one or multiple of these movies and thier actually government propaganda please just tell me.

also if you read this far into this ramble, im sorry for the bad writing, but if you skipped to here im not/hj

#action movies #80s movies #80s film #70s films #80s films #70s film #70s movies #longpost

[maaruin]

The Droid’s Song

AN: This is the first of eight chapters of my long-promised epic Star Wars poem. Enjoy.

This is a tale of times long past, In a galaxy - far away and vast, Of tearful sorrow and joyous thrills, As written in the journal of the Whills. When sky-walking Luke to freeborn son, Back when his learning had just begun, Destroyed deadly construct of imperial science And brought hope to a desperate rebel alliance.

Those were the times of civil war, When against the empire good men abhor Starships striking from well hidden base Won a great battle in Scarif's space. For freedom they battled and for justice they fought And on Scarif well secured plans they sought Of the Empire's weapon so terrible, In firepower incomparable.

An entire planet it could destroy, Which Tarkin the Grandmoff sought to employ As a threat to cow rebels into final submission. This Death Star would end even brave opposition. These Death Star's plans rebel spies now stole And with their lives they secured control Of a sending dish large enough to transmit For the ship far away receiving it.

This ship was the valiant Tantive IV Which was on it's journey from the worlds of the core To Tatooine, planet of binary stars, Where the Empire's troops and machines were sparse. In this traveled Leia Organa, Alderaanian Senator, Who had long stood up against imperial terror. Pursued was this ship by the Empire's dreaded Battleship Devastator, for battle headed.

----

In the skies of three-mooned Tatooine Those unequal ships would face in battle. Where the valiant Tantive would find its ruin And its crew was then slaughtered like farmer's cattle. The Devestator, a mile long, Surpassed valient Tantive ten times in size, A star destroyer with well-armored prong, It pursued valiant Tantive like a frog pursues flies.

And as flies surpass frogs in maneuver and speed, The Tantive had engines that made it quicker. But a hunting Frog has for running no need, And Leia's ship was engulfed in the bright green flicker Of Devestating fire of turbo-lasers That shredded well-crafted Corellian shields: Like skin is shredded by careless razors Would fail the Tantive's energy fields.

The Tantive fought back, don't mistake me here, For it was armed better than one would expect An ambassadors traveling cruiser to be, But on a warships defense it had little effect. For the Star Destroyers of Kuati production Were surpassed at this time by no ship but one And had brought many vessels quick destruction, Often faster than the rebels could try to outrun.

And this was the fate of the doomed Alderaanian ship, For it's reactor was hit by turbo-laser's fire, And the crew would find it now in the grip Of a tractor-beam drawing it to the Empire's ire. Into Devestator's hangar it would now pull This doomed but valient Tantive IV, Where was waiting a battalion in full Of the Empire's white-armored stormtrooper corps.

On the Tantive valiant crew prepared for a fight, In the turnings of white-walled corridors, Those prepared to resist the Empire's might, Alderaanian guards, trained warriors. Trained in protecting the noble senator And volunteers on this daring mission, Who would loose their life to forces sinister, For they too believed in the Rebellion's vision.

As the Tantive docked in the enemy hangar, They prepared their weapons for vicious assault. Prepared themselves for Imperial anger, Which as best as they could they would try to halt. Sweat dripped from some brow and some hands were shaking, For imperial troops were widely feared. Every heart on the Tantive was quietly quaking, But no matter, for battle all of them geared.

At the door there was heard a terrible sound, At the door the soldiers saw a bright light, As a flame of plasma moved all around The door, top and bottom, left and right. With a deafening crack it was sprung out the way And white smoke blocked the soldiers unaided sight, But their fire at they time they would not need to belay And their blasters they shot into the smoke, red and bright.

And their fire was returned from behind the smoke And with it the first of soldiers many died, As the widely feared white-clad stormtroopers broke Into valiant Tantive's well guarded inside. The stromtroopers skills were well on display, For despite their position they only lost two, While in an assault, as they normally say, They would loose twice the defenders numbers in lieu.

But here this relation was well reversed And the Tantive's guardians soon retreated. The defenders throughout the ship dispersed And in many places the battle was heated. With the entrance secured the ship would board The insidious presence most loyal servant, The fallen Jedi and now a Sith Lord, Who had pursued them from Scarif, relentless and fervent.

Far-dreaded Darth Vader lead this well planned attack, And where he tread rebellious hope ever faded. The knight whose heart they said was all black The valiant Tantive IV now invaded. As black as his heart was his armor and cloak, With an unknown face hidden behind skull-like mask, With mechanical breath, metallic voice when he spoke, Was he man or machine no one dared to ask.

On fallen bodies he looked down And to living saluting troopers as well, For his stature was as large as his galactic renown And fear all around him he would compel. Wordlessly he stepped over bodies that lay On the ground around him, friend and foe alike. Enemies today he planned not to slay, But interrogate them unto shiver and shrike. ----

In the bowels of said valiant rebel ship A droid received a data chip From the princess Leia Organa's hand To take with it through space and desert sand. A message she spoke that the droid recorded Of her desperation on the ship now boarded, A call for help he would need to deliver To a man who would make their hope more than a sliver.

This droid was an astromech of the series R2, Of cylindric shape painted white and blue, With three wheels, two on legs and one under the chassis, Small wheels of limited efficacy. From the body many arms and tools could extend, With which damaged machines of all kinds he could mend. The cylinder was closed with hemispherical lid With a rader eye, projectors and a sensor grid.

This droid was found in the Tantive's bowls By another droid of a different role. A gold-plated one of human-like guise With immovable mouth and white-shining eyes, Who was build for a much more esteemed function: To facilitate a range of diplomatic conjunction By translating a million forms of communications And also aid in human-droid relations.

“Artoo-Deetoo, where are you, where have you been?” Said this one, C-3PO, as soon as he had seen The smaller and braver astromech droid In a voice at the same time fearful and annoyed. “They are heading towards this section of our ship, And if they find us they might very well strip Us for parts or send us to slave away In the spice mines of Kessel, forever to stay.”

But Artoo simply passed by the golden translator Towards the ships starboard elevator, For he clearly had a place he would try to reach While listening to the golden one’s worried speech. “Wait Artoo-Deetoo, where are you going? The upper deck must now be overflowing With imperial troops armed to the teeth, Who will shoot us apart, piece by piece.”

But clever Artoo wasn't using the lift, To present themselves to the Empire as an unforeseen gift. Instead he went down to the lowest deck And from here he planned to escape this wreck. There had been twelve escape pods when the Tantive had left Alderaan for the journey to assist the theft Of the plans of the Empire's dreaded death star. Around five of them had been started so far.

So Artoo entered one of the remaining pods And C-3PO calculated the odds Of survival while complaining about the lack of permission That was given the droid for pod acquisition. But a blaster bolt of advancing Imperial troops Brought an end to the droid’s indecision loops. And above Artoo into the pod he crawled, And Artoo pressed the button, now no longer stalled.

The escape pod's engines launched it out Of valiant Tantive's hull on the fastest route, Away from the Devestator and it's captured prey, Right out the star destroyer's hangar bay. And C-3PO took a look at his ship's underside And said “the damage doesn't look to bad from outside”. So for now at Artoo he did not chafe, But he still asked: “Are you certain this thing is safe?” ---- The desert-world Tatooine has three moons And on it the many rocks and dunes Are divided commonly into three zones: The first of which is the Dune Sea, where long-bleached bones Lay in the sand for ages and ages. A deadly place, as know fools and sages, Where the suns shine hot and the krayt dragon flies, Where its wings cause sandstorms that darken the skies.

The second are dry mountains commonly called Wastes. There you find water in the air and which life can taste, Not much, mind you, but enough to sustain A number of farmers who in the Wastes maintain Moisture farms fed by vaporators, Which draw water from the air and safe it to later, To water the hardy species of crops, Which the farmers sell in the settlements' shops.

The Settlements are the third area of three, Where humans and aliens live, slaves or free, In white houses one or two stories tall, With the desert's song still in floor, roof and wall. It is there where a spaceship would normally land, Not in the Dune Sea's desert sand. But the droid's escape pod was no guided machine, And so in the dunes of the Dune Sea it's wreckage was seen.

From this wreck left the droids as fast as they could, For they knew to suspect that the Empire would, Send men to recover whatever had been placed In the pod that the Devestator had no doubt traced. Luckily for the droids their vessel had landed At the edge of the Dune Sea, so they weren't stranded At a place where they would need to fly like a hawk. Instead to the Jundland Wastes they could walk.

“How did I get into this disastrous mess,” Asked Threepio more to himself then Artoo, “If only an answer to this I knew, But I always end up in trouble and distress. We droids, it seems, were made to suffer, My joints freeze and circuits fill With desert sand mixed with oil spill. Oh were I a human I would be much tougher.

“What kind of desolate place this is, Dunes of sand to the left as far as I see, And to the right mountain ridges without a single tree, Even I the nature of Alderaan now miss. But why, dear Artoo, are you turning right, To the wastes were countless rocks lie in the way, Difficult to walk for us even by day. I will certainly trip and break me at night.

“What do you beep about settlers who up there live? And don't come me with technical nonsense, I am tired of your talk of secret missions and, The benefit of the doubt I will not give. Go there to the mountains and stumble on rock And then lay there calling futile beeps for help! I will not help you, pathetic astromech whelp! Instead I walk where nothing my way will block.”

And Artwoo went right and Threepio left, For Threepio was of ideas bereft, But in anger refused to follow the guidance And instead went the other way in unthinking defiance. Through the wind-wand'ring dunes of the desert he walked And while he was walking he talked and talked Of a protocol droids unenviable fate As the days hour was getting later and late.

And when he saw a great krayt's sand-covered bones, His speech changed into blaming tones. And according to what he said in this hour His thoughts on Artoo in his mind turned sour. “He tricked me,” he said in accusing voice, “He tricked me, going here wasn't my choice.” But in desp'rate hour on the horizon blue A large metal-clad transport came into view. ----

Meanwhile Artoo had taken the rocky path And his mind did not mirror Threepio's wrath. While he had been annoyed at this errancy, His mission now took priority. For the data that Princess Leia had given Now on three small wheels needed to be driven To a person the Alderaanian Princess had told About, a friend of her father's of old.

Night fell over the Jundland Wastes And Artoo did not realize that he was chased By creatures of human shape but small, Who hid behind rocks at the canyon's wall. Brown cloaks they wore with large hoods atop, A shadow above their face they did drop. Only large eyes, bright and yellow, Shone out of the hood of a Jawa-fellow.

When Artoo drove down a downwards slope, This droid who carried the rebellions hope Was hit by Jawa-blaster's lightning-blue cast And his body engulfed in an ion blast. His circuits overloaded as his body stiffened And uncontrollably toolarms he did extend. His awareness shut down as in ions he drowned Clever Artoo-Deetoo fell flat on the ground.

And as he lay on the stony ground eight Jawas in total gathered around. And since Artoo was equal in height To the height of a Jawa but by far not as light, They needed to carry him with five or six To the place where the droid they intended to fix. To prepare him to then sell for acceptable prize They brought him to a transport of impressive size.

This was was sandcrawler centuries old, Intended to carry valued ore in its hold, When on three-mooned Tatooine to mine Core World companies would workers assign. But the planet was hostile and the sands not forgiving, And the ore was not worth the cost of living For the miners so they left the hostile sand And left their sandcrawlers where they did stand.

The nomadic Jawas then took possession And maintained the sandcrawlers after a fashion. Those giant machines became their home And with them the deserts and wastes they could roam. Like a block were they shaped, 20 Jawas in height And twice as long, with machines of impressive might, Which on four huge tracks carried the Jawa-house To places where it served as a droid warehouse.

The Jawas placed Artoo at the crawler's foot, Where one of them for security put A restraining bolt on the clever droid's side, So he would obey orders and neither run nor hide. A vacuum pipe was lowered down from above And one of the Jawas took in his glove A remote that woke Artoo from involunt’ry sleep, Just awoken he was sucked into the sandcrawler deep. ----

In the sandcrawler’s gigantic hold The Jawas kept what they had not yet sold. And as R2-D2 looked around, He saw many spare parts on the ground Of machines one would find at the galaxy’s edge: Power couplings, energy cells, and a holographic wedge, Converters, and casings, and thermal sensors, Hyper-spanners, light-hammers and coffee-dispensers.

Many a droid was stored there as well, Droids the Jawas intended to sell To moisture farmers and on Mos Eisley’s streets, To buy crawler-fuels, fresh water, and meats. Those droids were of various forms, Almost none of them stored according to norms, Some came from trash heaps or accident sites, others old units bought or stolen outright.

A 3B6-RA-7 unit Looked on the astromech unfortunate With larges eye-spheres atop elongated face. It’s limbs damaged it could only trace The movements of this nights second newcomer And other droids waiting for a customer Like the WED Treadwell who moved on eight wheels, With seven arms like a spider, the eighth lost to ordeal.

There was a Gonk-droid, a man-high box, Its content secured with two energy locks. A box that moved on it’s two flat feet, Which had carried munitions in the Republic fleet. Another astromech was in the Jawa’s store, Red and white, with designation R2-D4. Higher than Artoo with a head half a cone, Silently it stood in the corner alone.

Those and many more droids Artoo saw, But only one of them could his attention draw: A gold-plated, well-learned protocol droid, That just hours ago had tried to avoid The clever astromech on his secret mission. Now raised his eyes in recognition. With a voice that carried hope anew Threepio called “Artoo, it’s you!”

So were reunited these unequal fellows Just as the sandcrawler’s main engine bellows To carry the mechanical beast through the night, To bring to someone their acquired freight. To the regions settled by human farmers, Where the Jawas would try their luck as charmers And see if a bargain worthwhile could be won On the farm of Own Lars and Beru Whitesun.

#star wars #poetry #star wars poetry #my writing #my star wars poem #i cannot say when the next part will be released #might take a couple of months

[piermanwalter]

Harlan-Ellison-Scale Unhinged Star Wars Fanfic Idea

After Order 66, Echo’s mind is in a gleeful haze. The same wonderful feeling he felt after carrying out an order, he now felt at a low level all the time. But a strange voice in his head keeps encouraging him to defy Imperial authority.

Echo is convinced the voice in his head is a hidden Jedi survivor using the Force to communicate with him. After a painful goodbye to his squadmates who no longer acknowledge him, Echo escapes to find the source of the voice. The voice helps him travel far away and Echo tries to find out as much about this person as possible, although they seem reluctant to give any personal information. 

This person shows extreme proficiency in machines and equally extreme confidence. Was it Anakin? 

When Anakin Skywalker killed the Separatist Council on Mustafar, Wat Tambor’s death activated the transfer of his consciousness into Echo and now he has to share a brain with this atrocious creature, who is quickly becoming the only familiar thing in an increasingly unrecognisable galaxy. 

Thus Echo embarks on a great quest to get rid of what is essentially a demonic possession by finding a Techno Union base to upload him into. This is harder than first assumed because the Empire is occupying most of them.

Wat Tambor can tap into all of Echo’s senses and memories and can override his mechanical components. I’m envisioning a scene where Echo is trying to claw himself towards someone familiar with his one organic arm while the rest of his limbs are dragging him away.

Echo keeps Wat Tambor in line by threatening to get his implants surgically removed, but Wat retaliates by threatening to delete Echo’s memories. Wat can’t actually erase memories formed before the brain implants but he manages to gaslight Echo into believing he can. “Do you remember your Bad Batch squadmate Sapper? No? Do as I say or Fives is next.”

Echo finally catches on and figures out he can lose the implants without much consequence. After finding a doctor willing to operate on him, Echo falls unconscious from anaesthetic and when he wakes up, the implants are still in him and the doctor is dead on the floor. 

Echo goes to sleep and wakes up in a different room. He realises Wat Tambor gains total control of his body when he’s asleep and stays up for nine straight days. This leads to disaster and Echo resigns himself to never knowing what Wat does while he’s asleep. 

Echo starts hallucinating Wat Tambor in crowds. Echo stands above a trash compactor so he can hallucinate Wat Tambor getting crushed and Wat enacts vengeance by forcing Echo to remember getting blown up. They stay like that for several hours until security kicks them out. 

Echo wakes up and his arm is a rotary cannon.

Wat Tambor tries to get a brand new starship and finds out he’s been locked out of all his bank accounts and then Echo’s like, “Can’t buy yourself out of this one, rich boy? Hahaha. Shut the fuck up.” Attempting to withdraw from that account sent an alarm for a strike force to their location and they nearly die. 

Advantages of being piloted by a war criminal: 24-hour vigilance, knowledge of obscure topics and languages, he occasionally does useful things while Echo is asleep, fix and hack basically everything, sublime dual-wielding 

Disadvantages of being piloted by a war criminal: holy fucking shit this needs no further explanation

Echo rescues another clone trooper and Wat Tambor demands to surgically remove his control chip to prevent him from turning on them. Echo doesn’t trust Wat with any clones’ brains after what Wat did to him and refuses. Surprisingly, Wat doesn’t remove the chip while Echo is asleep. With a brother to talk to, Echo hallucinates less and is easily able to regain control of his mechanical limbs. And then the clone is forced to betray him for the Empire and Echo has to kill him. While Echo is devastated, Wat’s like, “What did you expect, moron? You should have let me operate on him.”

Echo finally calls out Wat Tambor for everything he did and Wat’s counterargument is like, “I haven’t done anything to you that the Republic didn’t do first or I haven’t done to myself. Your creation is an investment by the Republic, as is your enhancement an investment by the Techno Union, as is my career an investment by Skako. Don’t judge me by human morality.” and then Echo’s like “Fine I’ll judge you by the morality of your own species. So you’re an investment? You blew octillions of credits on a war and you still lost. The Empire owns everything you ever made. Your people are blockaded and starving in the Deep Core. What a big fucking payoff you turned out to be.”, which manages to silence Wat Tambor for a blessed two weeks.

Now with the upper hand in his own brain, Echo breaks into Wat Tambor’s file directory and tries to delete him by force. Echo can’t delete anything but Wat also can’t make him leave, so he gets redirected through a series of increasingly terrible memories, starting from Wat’s perspective on Echo’s own cyborg conversion and steadily getting worse. What he sees is so horrific and incomprehensible Echo never tries to access Wat’s directory again. Echo’s hallucinations increase and Wat Tambor now appears every time he speaks. He’s very smug about this.

Echo encounters Imperial Death Troopers which sends him into blind rage as he realises all of his brothers were destined to either die early or become a cyborg just like him. Wat is also mad because the Empire stole his idea.

Echo finds a secret Techno Union droid factory that is now occupied by the Empire and being used to make security droids. He resolves to dump Wat there or die trying. Echo poses as a Death Trooper stationed in the same system and tries to work his way into being allowed into the secret factory. Despite everything he befriends his new squadmates whose personalities haven’t been completely consumed by cybernetics. Echo still needs to get rid of Wat so he finally gets his act together and breaks into the factory, gets arrested, and is locked in a cell awaiting reeducation. 

Echo blacks out for three days and wakes up in a stolen shuttle. Both the Imperial base and droid factory are giant craters. Wat Tambor is still there. Echo’s like, “How did you blow up the base?” and Wat’s like, “Yes.” and Echo’s like, “That’s not a fucking answer. Why didn’t you upload yourself into the droid factory like we planned?” and Wat’s like, “Would you want to live in a sarlacc pit?” and Echo’s like “Why didn’t you tell me you don’t want to live in that factory so I don’t spend half a year doing stupid bullshit?” and Wat’s like, “Is a vacation.” and Echo’s like, “Shut the fuck up. You fucking salad. Get the fuck out of my head.” and Wat’s like, “Vacation is over. It’s time to find another Techno Union facility.” and Echo’s like, “You killed all my new friends.” and Wat’s like, “I didn’t kill your new friends. You did. And you will do it again if you keep wasting my time like this.”

Echo finds people he trusts and tries to explain there’s a Separatist leader occupying his brain. Naturally they don’t believe him and ask him to prove it by saying something only Wat Tambor would know, but Wat doesn’t say anything and Echo is seen as insane. 

One second Echo is intentionally drinking the nastiest soup in his life out of spite at a dingy cantina on Nar Shadda and he blinks and then he’s covered with jewellery in a Coruscant casino. Initially he assumes Wat is up to his usual motherfuckery again and finds a lonely balcony to yell at him, but gets no reply. Echo goes into a crowd to trigger a hallucination but still nothing. Steeling himself, Echo breaks into Wat Tambor’s cursed directory but it’s completely empty except for one text file. It reads:

CT-1409 you easily manipulated idiot. If you are reading this, you successfully uploaded me into a suitable Techno Union facility. I have deleted the last three months of your memory to prevent anyone from finding me through you. The timing of my departure is purposefully unclear. Don’t look for me.

Out of habit Echo’s like, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” but there’s still no reply. The file deletes itself and Echo is left wondering if Wat Tambor really did occupy his brain or if he just lost his mind for the last year. 

The noise in the casino is getting to him and Echo cashes the thick stacks of gambling chips he found in his pockets before leaving. There’s what appears to be a keycard in his pocket and while Echo’s trying to figure out what it could be for, a huge droid runs up, hits him in the stomach with the corner of a metal case, and leaves before he can react. There’s a rotary cannon in the case.

#star wars #clone wars #echo #wat tambor #graphic injuries #psychological horror #long post #this is basically fanfiction

[mst3kproject]

The Star Wars Holiday Special

Happy Holidays, MSTies!  Your present is Episodes that Never Were are back!  Remember last year, when I said Elves was so bad I wished I’d watched the Star Wars Holiday Special instead?  Let’s find out what those words taste like.

The galaxy may be in the midst of a rebellion, but Chewbacca promised his family he will be back for Life Day, and god damn it, he’s gonna get there!  He and Han Solo dodge Imperial forces and asteroid fields on the way, but the real danger may be waiting for them at home, as Stormtroopers do a treehouse-to-treehouse search for rebel sympathizers.  It won’t be much of a holiday if Chewie arrives home only to be immediately arrested!

That sounds exciting, doesn’t it?  It even sounds like it could be made to mean something. There is perhaps a point here about inter-ethnic empathy – Life Day may be a Wookiee holiday, but Chewbacca’s alien friends still know how important it is to him and they’re gonna help him keep his promise.  We could also compare it to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  In that movie, the Martians want to celebrate Christmas but aren’t particularly interested in what it means.  They get all their information about it from pirated television and from children who don’t understand anything much more than ‘free stuff’.  We didn’t give Christmas to them, they literally stole it by kidnapping Santa.  In the Holiday Special, the Wookiees are sharing their cultural traditions with outsiders who have become part of their family – Leia’s speech at the ends notes the humans’ respect for this.

But none of that’s relevant, because this is just a bad 70’s variety hour in a Star Wars costume.  We don’t get to see claustrophobic scenes of our brave heroes hiding from the Storm Troopers.  We don’t get sweeping space battles or bickering robots or weird new planets… we don’t get anything we go to see Star Wars for.  Instead, we mostly watch the Wookiees sitting around their house passing the time as they wait helplessly for Chewbacca to get home.  This could have been neat in itself if Wookiees had an interesting culture, but they live in a Mod 70’s Treehouse and seem to spend most of their time watching television.  The brief opening sequence, in which Solo and Chewie outrun their pursuers in the Millennium Falcon, is just a tantalizing offer of chocolate on the tip of a giant turd.

The actual point of the show, as far as the people who produced it were concerned, was the various little musical numbers and comedy sequences along the way, some of which are more Star Wars-themed than others.  Most of these are presented as one or other of the characters watching them on some form of television, which often doesn’t make any sense.  The sequences themselves are usually not very well-presented and a lot of them are just downright boring, so let’s go through them one by one. Top up your eggnog, folks.  We may be here a while.

Our first setpiece is a holographic circus featuring jugglers and acrobats, which the adults use to distract Lumpy so he’ll stop bothering them – like parents at the mall letting their kids watch Paw Patrol on a tablet while they shop.  When you see televised circus acts, they’re usually filmed up close and at interesting angles, to heighten the sense of danger, and give you a good look at what’s going on.  The Star Wars Holiday Special presents it as tiny figures on a table, always shot from far away and looking down, which removes all the drama from the stunts.  Lumpy enlarges a figure, but it’s only the ringmaster.  The others remain tiny, all while this little Wookiee looms over them like a kaiju that will start stomping if it isn’t entertained.

Then we get Mark Hamill’s cameo (in which he looks weirdly like one of the puppets from Invaders from the Deep), followed by Malla’s attempt to cook Bantha Surprise by following the directions on a tv show.  I’m not very interested in cooking shows anyway, but I have a hard time imagining anybody being interested in a fake cooking show featuring fictional ingredients from other planets.  What we see on Malla’s screen comes across as a sort of parody, but not actually a funny one. I’m tempted to think Harvey Korman must have been making fun of some particular 70’s cooking show maven but I don’t begin to know who that might be.

The ‘humour’ of the sequence is supposed to come from Malla’s attempt to follow the directions even though the cook on the show has four arms and Malla only two.  I could pull some commentary on ableism in cooking and cooking shows out of this, but it would be a stretch, and nobody on the writing end was thinking about it that hard.  It’s just stupid, and so is Korman’s plastic wig.  Malla eventually turns it off in frustration, long after we’re tired of listening to it.

By the way, if you’re wondering whose stupid idea it was to set the whole thing on Kashyyyk (or, as a guy in the Special calls it, Kazook) and not have any subtitles to the Wookiee’s dialogue?  That was apparently 100% George Lucas.  The actual script and everything was in the hands of the television producers, but Lucas would not budge on the premise being Wookiee-centric.  At least he exorcised that particular demon here, instead of subjecting us to it on the big screen.

Anyway, next Art Carney drops by to deliver some Life Day presents, among which is the source of our next setpiece: a VR machine which reads Itchy’s mind to present a personalized fantasy!  This takes the form of Diahann Carroll in a sparkly feather wig, singing a song and saying things like “I am your fantasy, experience me!”  The song is okay, I guess, and Carroll has a lovely voice, but what we’re seeing is basically a boring music video.  She’s just standing there on a glittery black background, and we can’t forget that she’s singing to a geriatric Wookiee who is doing the Wookiee equivalent of jacking off to this (emphasized by the appearance of literal little swimmers in part of the sequence!).  The fact that it’s a personal fantasy plucked from his subconscious makes it feel like this was something we weren’t supposed to be privy to, like we’re looking through somebody else’s computer at his girlfriend’s nudes.

Princess Leia (also looking disturbingly puppet-like… are we sure the actual actors appeared in this, and not look-a-likes in heavy makeup?) and C3P0 get their cameo, and then there’s the single actually effective moment in the Special.  This is when we think Han Solo and Chewie are about to arrive home, ending our torment a full hour early, but no, it’s the Storm Troopers!  This bit isn’t fantastic, but it does work.  Then, sadly, we’re on to the next variety act.

This is a holographic music video which Carney shows to the Imperial troops as a demonstration that the device he has brought Malla for Life Day is harmless.  It’s Jefferson Starship moaning out a rock song, in which I can understand at best one word in three.  The visuals are in intense soft-focus that’s probably supposed to be artsy.  The costumes (what I can see of them) aren’t any more Star-Wars-y than anything else bands wore in the 70’s.  And the song sounds like something you’d find in the ‘easy’ setting on Rock Band.  Why does Black Helmet sit there and watch the whole thing when he’s supposed to be searching every house on Kashyyyk/Kazook for rebel sympathizers?

The version of the Special currently available on YouTube, which tragically lacks the commercials, has a lot of comments along the lines of this is what you hallucinate after buying Death Sticks from that guy on Coruscant.

To drive the point home, the next thing we see is Lumpy watching a cartoon about Han Solo and Chewbacca crash-landing on an ocean planet while searching for a mystical talisman that makes things invisible (I wish they hadn’t actually shown this object – then I could have made jokes about it being the One Ring).  This sequence is generally regarded as the best thing in the Special, and it introduced Boba Fett and provided some characterization for him.  It is definitely true that this is the only segment with a plot, and with its weird aliens and grubby outposts it feels a lot more like Star Wars than anything else going on here.

The main thing that keeps me from enjoying this segment is that it just looks weird.  The animators use exaggerated squash-and-stretch on the droids, even more so than on the living characters, which makes them look like they’re made out of jell-o. Princess Leia looks like something out of a cheap 60’s manga and Luke like he was drawn by a twelve-year-old based on an action figure that wasn’t actually of Luke Skywalker.  Luke has no pupils, which is very distressing, but not as distressing as when C3P0 blinks.  Even worse, as far as I can tell Han Solo has no eyes at all.

The design of the alien planet in this sequence is pretty cool, though.  It appears to be entirely covered in a kind of goopy ocean and the creatures that live in it are neat-looking, even if not terribly plausible.  Animation is really a great medium for fantasy and science fiction, because it levels the playing field: we’re not thinking about the special effects because everything on screen looks equally unreal.  This is something Disney, who used it to such beautiful effect in Lilo and Stitch, totally forgot at just about the same time as they acquired the rights to Star Wars.  Oh, for what could have been.

I want to note here that the average review on this blog is about as long as what you’ve read so far.  We’re only about two thirds of the way through the Special, though, and I can’t really divide a holiday review up into two weeks.  Therefore, consider this your permission to take a break and go snag another latke or whatever you’re snacking on, and then we’ll continue.

There’s one fun bit of background social commentary in the animated sequence, too: the only way for humans to survive the virus is to hang them upside-down so their brains will get enough oxygen despite their weakened hearts.  In the city there’s an advertisement for the cure – and the upside-down human pictured in the ad is, of course, a woman in her underwear.  The image isn’t detailed and it’s not the focus of the shot, so I don’t think it’s an actual piece of gratuitous cheesecake.  Apparently somebody at Nelvana Ltd was just salty about the advertising industry.

The self-contained story in the cartoon makes sense within itself. It justifies Fett’s fearsome reputation far better than anything in The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, and the characters seem to be in-character even when they’re off-model.  The problem is with it as a part of the framing story about the Imperial troops searching Chewbacca’s house!  The Special is very explicit that this is not something that’s actually happening in the real world at the same time as the other events – it is a cartoon Lumpy is watching on TV.  Why, in a galaxy controlled by the Empire, would there be cartoons using the real names of real rebel operatives and presenting them as the heroes?  If nobody’s supposed to know Boba Fett is connected with the Empire, why does the show blow his cover?

More importantly, where can I get one of those awesome giant stuffed Banthas Lumpy has in his room?  I don’t know if that’s a real toy that was available in the late 70’s, but Comic Images does make something similar and you can buy them at Wal-Mart or Toys R Us.

While cleaning up the mess the Stormtroopers made of his room, Lumpy watches an instructional video of how to put together some kind of radio. This features Harvey Korman as an android who keeps getting jammed.  Like cooking shows, instructional videos aren’t very interesting unless you’re trying to follow the directions – since we can’t follow the directions, this one is pointless to begin with.  The ‘joke’ is not funny, and lines like “every one of the ten thousand terminals on your circuit breaker module is a different colour” might be amusing when written down but they just don’t work when somebody says them aloud.  Fortunately, it doesn’t last long.

Then we get on to what’s probably the second-best thing in the Special, the bit where we learn that the Mos Eisley cantina is owned by Bea Arthur.  It would be easily the most expensive thing in the Special were it not made up of b-roll footage and re-used puppets from Episode IV.  It’s also kind of got a plot, in that a guy with a baking soda volcano on top of his head (this is certainly an efficient way to get the alcohol directly to your brain) is trying to confess his love to Bea while she just wants to get on with running her business.  Eventually he gets his heart broken and leaves, and then the Empire shuts the bar down, so Bea throws everybody out with a song.

I have to admit, in The Force Awakens when Han Solo mentioned a female friend who ran a ‘watering hole’… there was a moment there when I was half-expecting it to be Bea Arthur’s character.  I’m relieved that it wasn’t, but also just the slightest bit disappointed.  We had to wait for The Mandalorian to get a proper Holiday Special callback.

This bit almost had a chance to say something with its ‘thwarted romance’ plot.  Usually such a thing in a tv show would get what the male character would consider a happy ending.  He would prove to his love interest that being cared for is important, she would realize that love is better than money, and they would metaphorically ride off into the sunset.  What it looks like we’re going to get here instead is something more like the episode of South Park where Butters fell in love with the Hooters waitress. Harvey Korman’s character (yes, he plays three different characters in this Special and this was apparently supposed to be a selling point) realizes his crush is based on a misunderstanding, and while it makes him sad, he’s not going to be an asshole about it.

Nor is Bea’s character vilified for rejecting him, which she does tactfully but firmly, as if she’s gone through this many times before. He’s just a minor annoyance in her day before she goes on to worry about bigger problems, like getting everybody to obey that Imperial curfew.  Then, however, at the last second he pops up from behind the counter after everybody has left – and that’s where the segment ends.  I think we’re supposed to assume they got together after all, but I kind of hope she just threw him out with the rest of them.  No means no, damn it.

Bea Arthur’s Go Home Song is to the tune the Cantina Band was playing in Episode IV, so it pretty much goes without saying it’s the catchiest piece in the Special.

Then, finally, it’s time to celebrate Life Day!  The Wookiees hold up some glowing Christmas balls, then dress in red robes and walk through outer space into a, uh, wormhole, I guess, that takes them to the base of the giant tree from Avatar.  There it’s time for our final setpiece, the culmination of this whole ninety-minute ordeal… Princess Leia sings!  The Life Day Carol is to the tune of the main Star Wars theme, and the lyrics sound like something from a generic Christmas album you get free if you buy three cards at Hallmark.  Carrie Fisher is a decent singer but she looks like she’s as glad this is over as we are.

Much like Howard the Duck, The Star Wars Holiday Special is a production in which they made all the worst decisions they possibly could.  Focusing on the Wookiees at home rather than following Han Solo and Chewbacca through the action killed the whole thing at the starting gate.  Then that plot is nothing but a frame on which they can hang the various variety acts, and none of those are very good.  It’s only towards the end of the sequence that what we’re seeing even has anything to do with Star Wars.  Watching it is an ordeal on the order of an un-riffed Coleman Francis film.  It’s so bad, it’s not even something people get together and watch like they do Manos or The Room.

So why do we still have it?  The Holiday Special was only broadcast once, and was met by fathomless loathing from critics, Star Wars fans, and ordinary people alike. It has never been released in any other format (Andrew Borntreger of badmovies.org has a story about how Lucas had him thrown out of a Q&A panel for asking if it were getting a DVD release), so the fact that you can find it on YouTube today is down to some nameless hero who recorded it on their newfangled VCR back in 1978.  That person then showed it to friends, apparently on the basis of oh my god, you guys, this is so bad, you have to see it, and then because misery loves company they copied it to show to their friends. What we have today is copies of copies of copies of copies, like fragments of Sappho only with VHS artefacts instead of holes in the papyrus (and without the artistic vision).

Humans like to preserve remarkable things.  Sappho we’ve preserved because it’s remarkably good, but the Star Wars Holiday Special we preserve because it’s remarkably bad.  Lucasfilm has tried very hard to stamp it out.  George Lucas himself has said that if he could he would gather up every copy that exists and smash them with a sledgehammer… but we won’t let him do it. We keep copying the Special and passing it along, in a way that’s very familiar to MSTies in particular.  We’re circulating the tapes!  Why this tape in particular?

I don’t claim to know, but my working theory is that it keeps us humble.  We are a species that can produce great things when we put our minds to it.  We landed on the moon.  We eradicated smallpox.  We built the Taj Mahal and the Sagrada Familia.  We wrote The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Einstein Field Equations and the aforementioned works of Sappho.  But for all that, we are also capable of throwing the same kind of effort into creating utter disasters – and the Star Wars Holiday Special is the rare example of an unmitigated disaster that didn’t actually hurt anybody.  It reminds us to take a step back and look at what we’re doing without getting too invested in it, but does so while being harmless and at times humorous.

Would I still rather watch this than Elves?  You bet your shaggy Wookiee ass I would.  The Star Wars Holiday Special may be longer, but it doesn’t leave nearly such a bad taste in my mouth.

I will leave you with this: the Special was, as I mentioned, only broadcast once, in 1978 – that means its signal is now forty-one light years from Earth and still going.  There are several hundred stars within that bubble, around two dozen of which are known to have planets.  Somewhere out there, aliens might be getting their first signal from humanity right now and it’s the Star Wars Holiday Special.

#mst3k #reviews #the star wars holiday special #episodes that never were #holiday reviews #70s

[permian-tropos]

In response to the "fic you wish I'd write" post: Snoke backstory, main characters Rae Sloane & Gallius Rax (they meet him and all interact somehow. Snoke is more than a creepy old raisin. Rae worries that they're in over their heads...)

And I wish I had a more detailed Snoke backstory at this point.

I know I used to be really interested in him, but it was really interest in a character like him, and the way he’s defeated in TLJ makes me want to give him a different sort of role in the story. I’m not sure if I want him to be an ancient evil awakened in the Unknown Regions or a plutocrat who learned the Force but isn’t only powerful for his Force ability, he’s also secretly the CEO of big space oil or something. It depends on what story I’d tell.

Anyway here’s a loose rambling fic description

-

In this version of things, Rax is neither alive nor dead because his soul is trapped in the holocron he tossed into the Jakku borehole. Jakku spat that thing out when it stopped having its planetary indigestion. The lingering wisps of life energy emanating from the core of the planet stole the last breath from Rax’s body and sucked it into this new vessel.

Rax doesn’t find his existence as a cursed object too different from his old life, where he mostly lurked behind the scenes and played with people’s desires and instincts so they’d enact the dramatic scenes he wanted to see. He entices a stray stormtrooper to the Observatory to get himself picked up off the floor, and lures a junk trader to fight this trooper over the beautiful glowing red artifact, and so on, until he’s traveling into the Unknown Regions on the desk of a particularly boorish Imperial captain who wants a piece of the Sith legacy as a trophy.

Holocron Rax has vague aims, he wants some sort of body and he wants to find her again, his equal, his rival, his fellow outcast. He isn’t sure he wants to rule. He lost that game. Time to play a new one.

Sloane finds out Rax is back, but she knows he’s back before her knowledge, as philosophers might say, is both true and justified. She guesses, on instinct, because of the fingerprint he seems to leave on the cosmos.

Leading the Order has been bitterly oppressive, she’s sure everyone hates her, she first thinks it’s because they blame her for Rax’s constant betrayals of the remaining fleet, but it’s not that at all. They seem to hate her because they think she’s overstepping her station, that she’s high-minded and looks down on everyone else, but she knows it’s a double standard because they look down on everyone else too (including her).

And she tries over and over to prove that she’s strong and capable and dutiful. But she never got along with the upper echelons of Imperial command. She always pissed them off with her high-mindedness, too self-motivated, too determined, not groveling at their feet enough, and she’s been burning with humiliation from that -- and, in fact, a sick desire to please someone for once, they’re never happy with her, maybe that’s why she fell for Rax for so much longer than she should have; for a time he seemed to be endlessly pleased by her, even when he knew she was plotting against him. I’ll be good this time, she keeps promising herself, but how is this good? Why do they get to tell her what good means when they’re sneering at her for being merciful or patient?

And it makes her want to be cruel and ruthless. And she is. Just to impress them, she realizes. They’re never impressed.

And she runs away, but not all at once. Bits of her run away where they can.

Sometimes she makes fake identities and takes a few days off to visit planets that wouldn’t be happy to see her if they knew who she was. Sometimes she spends hours playing games for cadets against a computer and when her good sense returns she erases the evidence of this foolishness. Sometimes she runs by staying asleep and dreaming. Sometimes she runs away to research, losing herself in narratives of ancient history.

Anxiously, at her lowest, most depressed point, she visits the Imperialis and finds opera. Watching the holotapes is an exercise in self-flagellation, because of how tense they make her. She never even sits down, because that would make her feel vulnerable to attack from the shadows in the private theater hall. But it wakes her up, because it feels like a fight, and fighting these imaginary demons is easier than putting up with the constant scorn of her supposed colleagues. She sometimes pauses the recordings just to pace.

So this is where they both are when they meet each other again. Sloane hears about a Curséd Artefact that’s been causing a miasma of strange behavior aboard a ship, and that strange behavior includes hearing strains of faint music as if carried on the wind (and there’s no wind in pressurized starship corridors), and that’s when she knows-but-doesn’t-know it’s Rax. He’s being dramatic again.

It’s such a perverse relief to lay her hands on that red crystalline pyramid. It is definitely accursed, though; it hums with evil energies (or maybe it’s buzzing with pleasure at her touch).

Sloane promises herself she won’t fall prey to the Wiles again. She keeps the holocron locked in a vault but the ghost tiptoes up through the ship to visit her dreams.

The place where they meet is an enormous astral chessboard. (Sloane calls it chess, Rax calls it shah-tezh). Fine sand is strewn in patches across its huge carved tiles, as if someone has cracked their turn-counting hourglass over it like an egg. Sloane can’t see the edge of the board, but she sees scattered ruins marring the smooth plane. If the board was the tiled floor of a temple as big perhaps as the entire Imperial Palace, the ruins could be what’s left when it collapsed and eroded.

Neither of them have particularly ornate clothing. They’re both dressed up as what Sloane recognizes to be the Outcast piece, her in white rags, him in black.

He’s very cryptic and avoidant, but this time, Sloane sees through it at last. He hasn’t got a plan for her, he just wants to talk. At the same time she realizes she wants to use him to maintain her power. He’s something special that no one else has access to — and she might be jealous if that turned out not to be true. She’s troubled by these dark temptations, and tries to distance herself from them.

Rax discovers, as dream Sloane is not as good at hiding feelings, that Sloane has fallen into a deep depression.

It’s very uncomfortable to consider because he would have to admit she’s weak enough to be inferior, according to what Palpatine taught him. He rationally considers if this is the case, if she’s too much like him to be worthy, but his gut feeling is that he can’t dislike her, so he wants to consider other options first. He starts to find evidence for her being psychically attacked by a powerful entity in the Unknown Regions who is trying to usurp her.

Sloane is skeptical but when Rax gets her looking for patterns, she sees them everywhere too, they begin to seem inescapably real. Her dreams of this chessboard become a dream of a game played against a mysterious opponent. Rax becomes her ally and fellow strategist.

And then, what you might expect happens: Snoke manifests. He reminds Sloane a lot of Rax, but more hideous and openly contemptuous. Sometimes, Sloane is energized by knowing her emotional state is caused by a real enemy. Sometimes, it makes her feel less in control.

Snoke announces that the Order will belong to him soon.

Holocron Rax eventually gets a corporeal body in the form of a reprogrammed Sentinel droid, the ones with Palpatine’s face for holograms but of course, replaced with Rax. It’s a secret project that Sloane is willing to undertake once the threat of Snoke seems close at hand.

And does it turn out that Snoke is a being that becomes more real the more he is believed in? Maybe, but maybe not. After all, depression is real whether you believe in it or not, and so is a structural problem in your society. Maybe it would be interesting if it turned out Snokestuff was real, emanating from the Dark Side, and is copying Sloane’s underlying problems and using them as a template. Snoke comes across like an amalgam of everyone Sloane has been trying to impress, all the smug rich old white men.

She finally confronts Rax about this. She doesn’t want his admiration. She doesn’t think anything she’s done is admirable. She wants to fail in his eyes, because at least that’s honest. Snoke targeted her because she was on the verge of breaking down anyway.

And Rax? Has to face facts about whether he cares about Sloane as a great figure of history or just as a friend.

They’re both left to wonder what makes a possible friendship or love between them meaningful if they’re not part of a grand triumphant narrative. In the end, close interpersonal connection turns out to be more mundane than they realized, and the mundanity of it is what matters.

#my fic #I had this like half written and abandoned and was like damn just finish it why dont you #gallirae #rae sloane #gallius rax #asks

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: The Star Wars Holiday Special

Hi, Everyone, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where Today We Are Doing The Last Review Of This Year's Yultide Reviews...

All Right, Let's Get This Over With...The Star Wars Holiday Special...

Released 1 Year After The Success Of A New Hope, This Special Sees Wookie Chewbacca, Racing Home To Kashyyk On Board The Millennium Falcon With Han Solo So He Can Celebrate The Wookie Holiday, Life Day With His Family...

So, What Are We Waiting For Let's Dive Into The Star Wars Holiday Special...

The Special Starts On-Board The Millenium Falcon, As Han Solo (Played By Harrison Ford) Attempts To Get Chewbacca Home To Kashyyk For The Annual Wookie Holiday Known As Life Day But Unfortunately They're Been Chased By 2 Imperial Star Destroyers, Which Except For The Stuff In The Cockpit Of The Falcon With Ford And Chewbacca, Is Just Stock Footage From A New Hope...

Going To Hyperspace, We Get The Star Wars Theme And Our Credits Before We're Transported To Chewbacca's Home On Kashyyk Where We Meet Chewbacca's Wife, Malla, His Father, Itchy And His Son, Lumpy And From There It's Downward Spiral Down The Crapper As From Then Forward We Get Nothing But Wookie Talk With

No Subtitles!...

Now, While It Bothers Some People, It Doesn't Bother Me As Much Because My Family Likes Chewbacca, He's My Mom's Favorite Character And While He's Not Mine, I Don't Mind Him As Much So The Wookie Roars In This Special Isn't As Annoying To Me And My Family As It Is For Everyone Else...

Now I Know What Your Starting To Think That This Is Going To Be A Repeat Of My Haunted Mansion Review Where Thought That While Some Things Were Bad In The Film It Wasn't A Completely Horrible Movie Like Most Haunted Mansion Fanatics Would Make People Believe Well, Believe Me When I Say That It's Not Going To Be Like That It's Just That That Particular Thing Doesn't Bother Me As Much As Everyone Else...

But What Does Bother Me However, Is That Through These Characters We Get Very Little Of A Narrative Or A Story Out Of Them And Instead We Have To Revolve Around The Side Characters (Like The Guy Art Carney Plays, Luke, R2, Leia, 3PO, Han And Vader) To Tell The Story For Us When Really It's Supposed To Be About Chewbacca And His Family And Nothing And Nobody Else...

Anyway As We Watch Chewbacca's Family, We See That They're Like Most Families Back Then With Grandpa Itchy Making Models, Son Lumpy Playing With His Toys And Mom Malla Working In The Kitchen To Make Dinner For Life Day...

But When Malla Asks Lumpy To Take Out The Trash, He Goes For A Wookie Cookie (I Guess) But (Like All Moms Back Then) Malla Tells Lumpy To Put It Back Or Else He'll Ruin His Dinner Only For Lumpy To Take It Anyway...

Taking Out The Trash After Swiping The Wookie Cookie, Lumpy Decides To Do A Balancing Act Before Our Very Eyes Before Cutting Back To The Inside Of The House...

It's Like Why Did We Stick On That For A Few Minutes?...

Looking At A Picture Of Chewbacca It's Obvious That Malla Misses Her Husband, But With Itchy Knowing That His Son Will Be Here Soon, He Asks Malla To Return To The Kitchen To Work On Dinner...

Attempting To Keep Lumpy Distracted, Itchy Gives Lumpy A Holodisk To Watch On The Space Chess Board (I Say That As It Looks Like The Chess Board That's On-Board The Millennium Falcon) Which Shows...I Don't Know What...It Looks Like A Mix Of Dancing And Gymnastics...

Asking For Lumpy To Watch Dishes After Watching That, Still Worried About Chewbacca, Malla Checks For Spaceships In The Area Only For Her To Find None, This Leads Her To Contact Luke Skywalker And R2-D2 Who Are Working On A Part For Luke's X-Wing...

Asking Luke About Chewbacca, He Tells Malla That Him And Han Left On Schedule And If They're Not There Now Then They're Way Overdue And May Be In Trouble. But Luke Tells Them Not To Worry As It Just May Be Taking Them A Little Bit Longer To Get There As R2 Causes The Part To Burst With Heat Enough To Damage Luke's Face Which Forced Him To Get Plastic Surgery So He Would Look Like This In The Sequel...

Hey, It's A Better Story Than What They Came Up With For Empire...

But Still Worried About Chewbacca, Malla Calls The Owner Of The Trading Post On Kashyyk, Saun Dann Played By Art Carney Who Is Busy Dealing With An Imperial Officer In His Store But Tells Her In His Own Way That Chewie Is 4 Planets Away With Han And It's Going To Take A Few For Them To Get There...

Meanwhile On Board A Star Destroyer, We See Darth Vader Talking With An Officer, Saying That He Wants Those Rebels Found Even If They Have To Search Every House In The System...

Back At The Chewbacca Household, Malla Continues Working On Dinner With The Help Of A Gourmet Cooking Show Hosted By A 4 Armed Cook, Played By Harvey Korman Which Is Just One Of The Annoying Skits That I Don't Like In This Special...

Meanwhile In Outer Space, Han And Chewie Are Now Dealing With Tie Fighters After Losing The 2 Star Destroyers (Including The One That Vader Was On)

But Back On Kashyyk, An Imperial Announcement Appears Telling Everyone That The Empire Has Declared Martial Law On The Planet, With A Blockade Guarding It And That Until Further Notice, No Ships Are Allowed To Land Or Take Off Until Further Notice...

Hearing A Knock On The Door, Malla And Her Family Worry That It Maybe Stormtroopers But Instead It's Saun Dann, With A Proton Pack For The Mine Evaporator (Or For Ghostbusting, Whichever) Noticing Their Sad Faces Because Of The Announcement, Saun Tells Chewie's Family Not To Worry For If He Got Through Imperial Stormtroopers Than Chewie Might Be Able To Too...

Giving Chewie's Family Life Day Gifts, Malla Gets A Machine We'll See Later, Lumpy, A Transmitter That Will Give Us Nothing But Boredom Later And Itchy, A...Well, It's Supposed To Be A Virtual Reality Machine But Really It's Nothing But A Big Fat Porn Box!

And It's In This Porn Box, We Meet Diahann Carroll Who Sings A Song In This World Of Virtual Reality...

But After That Mind Sticking Scene, Princess Leia And C-3PO Call Malla To Talk With Han And Chewie But Malla (Through 3PO's Translation) Tells Them That They're Not There...

Asking If Malla Is Alone, Malls Tells Them That She Is Not And Brings Saun Dann To The Viewing Screen To Talk With Leia Who Asks Saun To Stay With Them Until Chewie Gets There To Which He Agrees...

Back In Outer Space, Han And Chewie Arrive On Kashyyk, Only To Notice Imperial Ships Around Which Forces Han To Land On The Far Side Of Kashyyk...

Hearing What Sounds Like The Millenium Falcon, Lumpy Opens The Door To Discover, Stormtroopers!...

And A Few Imperial Troops Who Are Looking For Han And Chewie And Search The Premises...

Coming Across The Device, Saun Got Malla For Life Day, Saun Turns It On For One Of The Imperial Troops To See Only To Discover...Jefferson Starship!...

After That Pointless Scene, Saun Dann Is Forced To Leave By The Imperial Troops As He Has No Purpose To Be There. With The Troops Searching Upstairs, Lumpy Watches A Cartoon While They Do...

This Cartoon Actually Is The First Appearance Of The Bounty Hunter Boba Fett...

Done Searching Upstairs, Lumpy Goes Upstairs To Find Not Just His Room But All Of His Toys Destroyed So, He Decides To Get Rid Of The Imperial Troops By Using His New Transmitter But Unfortunately He Has To Put It Together So We Unfortunately Have To Sit Through An Instructional Video On How To Put It Together With A Malfunctioning Emorphient Being (Played Again By Harvey Korman) Giving The Instructions...

And How Do I Feel About This Scene? Well, I Think The Nostalgia Critic Said My Opinion Exactly...

(Start At 15:16, End At 15:48)

If By Any Chance You Get Your Brain Unzombified After Watching That Skit, We Get Another Skit Showing Us Life On Tatooine, Which Sends Us To The Cantina Where We Meet The Owner, Ackmina (Played By Bea Arthur) Who Is Approached By An Alien Named Krelman (Played By Guess Who, Harvey Korman) Who Has A Crush On Her Over Something That She Said To Him That He Misunderstood...

But When An Imperial Announcement Stating That Until Further Notice There Is To Be A Nightly Curfew On Tatooine, Ackmina Has No Choice To Close The Bar But Not Before Offering One Last Round To Her Patrons, Which Leads Into A Song...

(End At 4:46)

Now What Do I Think About This Skit? I Think It's One Of The Best (And Only) Good Skit In This Special And If There Was A Reason To See This Abomination Of A Special, It Would Be For This Skit...

But Moving On, Lumpy Activates His Transmitter To Lead The Imperial Troops Away But He Is Caught By One Of The Stormtroopers Who Stays Behind Because Of Orders From One Of The Imperial Soliders And Destroys The Transmitter. Chasing Lumpy, The Stormtrooper Is Confronted By Chewbacca And Han Who Disarms The Stormtrooper Of His Weapon So Han Can Make The Trooper Fall Off Of The House Apparently...

With Everything All Right Again, Han Can't Stay As He's Got To Get Back To The Falcon Before Someone Stumbles Across It...

(Harrison Ford) Okay, I Gotta Go Somebody's Waving A Check For Me Outside, Bye...

After Han Leaves, Saun Dann Returns Again To Tell Chewbacca And His Family Not To Worry About Imperial Soliders As They Left, However Another Announcement Comes Over The Tv Stating That The Empire Is Looking For The Stormtrooper Who The Imperial Soliders Left Behind But It's Quickly Taken Care Of By Saun Dann Who Tells The Empire That After The Imperial Soliders Left The Trooper Behind He Stole Food From Chewie's Family And Robbed Saun Dann Blind Before Running Off...

Telling Them To Have A Good Life Day And...

Saun Dann Leaves, As We See Chewbacca And His Family Start Their Life Day Celebrations By Grabbing Balls Of Light Which Place Them In Red Choir Outfits Which Somehow Make Them And Other Wookies Walk Through Space Into A Bright Sun Or Something? I Don't Know What's Going On Here But Somehow They All End Up In Front Of A Big Tree Which Is Supposed To Be The Tree Of Life, I Guess...

But I Surely Don't Know What George Lucas Or Whoever Wrote This Was Smoking But That Defiantly Does Not Look Like The Tree Of Life At Disney's Animal Kingdom...

Reunited With His Friends, R2-D2, C-3PO, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker And Han Solo, Princess Leia Gives A Speech...

(Start At 1:03,End At 3:03)

After That We Get Some Footage From A New Hope, Including Scenes With Alec Guinesss (Who Thanks His Lucky Stars He Wasn't In This Special) And We See Chewie And His Family Sitting Down For Life Day Dinner As Our Special Ends...

And That's The Star Wars Holiday Special And Yeah, It's Horrible...

I'm Serious, Folks It's Bad And The People We Can Blame For That Are Definitely Harvey Korman And Diahann Carroll Otherwise I Didn't Mind The Stuff With The Original Cast, Art Carney Wasn't Bad, The Bea Arthur Skit Was One Of The Highlights (Despite Harvey Korman Being In It) And The Chewbacca's Family (Despite Not Understanding Them) Weren't Abysmal And Didn't Bother Me As Much As Everyone Else Because I'm Used To Wookie Sounds. If You Must Watch It, Watch It For The Bea Arthur Cantina Scene Otherwise This Is One To Skip...

Well, With Christmas Now Behind Us, It Means Back To Reviewing As Usual And What A Way To Come Back Then To Look At Something I've Been Dying To Talk About, Till Then, This Is Duke, Saying Have A Happy New Year And See You In January...

Coming In January...

The Marvel Cinematic Universe!

#Disney #Star Wars #the star wars holiday special #mark hamill #harrison ford #carrie fisher #anthony daniels #peter mayhew #Happy Life Day #christmas specials #james earl jones #Darth Vader #luke skywalker #han solo #Princess Leia #C-3PO #R2-D2

[robocops-a-christ-allegory]

I hate games workshop so much how are you gonna sue people over similarities to your work when you stole half of it from Dune and Starship Troopers. You guys wanna know what the evil sci fi space cops in 40k look like?

#CLOWN COMPANY #**YOU GUYS JUST MADE ALL YOUR COPS JUDGE DREDD HOW ARE YOU SUEING ANYONE**

[jonathan-nevermore-smith]

A Rising Beast

“War is coming, Agent Re’daro.  I dream about it every night.  With the Rebellion, within the Empire, with a hundred different revolutions spread across a thousand worlds.  Fires that need to be quenched, lest they consume the galaxy.  So I ask you, Agent, as one of the Empire’s many hands: Will you help me?”

The quarters on the top deck were spartan, utilitarian.  A steel bed frame held a simple mattress, comfortable enough and better than some of the rocks she’d slept on.  A foot locker for her things, a small table in the corner.  Until she arrived, the rooms only occupants.  Cold steel shone dully from the artificial lighting, leaving the quarters devoid of character beyond their functions.  Only one element broke the simplicity; A viewport to the outside, illuminated periodically in flashes of azure blue and crimson red.  

“Home for a night.  Better than being outside.”  

A mechanical hiss sounded behind her as the door slid closed, and she sighed as the bag carrying her stuff slid from her shoulder to rest on the floor.  From one starship to another, tiny, blank spaces such as these had been her home since she enlisted.  The past few months had seen that broken up, with her own ship and her own place to call home.  That, however, had been stolen from her, bringing her back to this familiar space.  

A flash of azure light stole her attention back to the viewport, the pounding rain diffracting the light across the room into a gentle blue.  A breath later another flash of crimson lit the sky, bathing her quarters in violent red.  Both bolts cracked the sky as they sounded, noiseless thanks to the ship’s dampening field, splitting the clouds with jagged clarity.  

“I wish I could hear you.  The rain would be nice noise to fall asleep to.  But I suppose others wouldn’t like it, so I’ll take this instead.”

Kelika stepped across the room with purpose in her stride, boots clicking softly against the steel deck.  Not two steps forward and she paused, then walked back over to the door to tap the switch for the overhead lighting.  Her quarters fell to the darkness immediately, the inky black of night eagerly filling the space in between the azure and crimson bolts.  

Violet eyes shuttered closed as darkness took the room, her knees bending to bring her to a seated position on the floor, legs crossing.  Even after the day’s events she wasn’t exactly tired, her mind wandering to the many things she had seen and learned.  Over and over, she came back to that trooper, Xane.  The armor was unmistakeable; she’d seen it several times on different operations that required a more hands-on, extended approach.  The weapon too, it was no different than hundreds of others in service across the Empire.  His other weapon though...It was the weapon of Lord Vader.  Of the Inquisitorius.  Of the old, corrupt Jedi.  She might have acted like she could have fought him, but there was no way she could have done so and won.  He would have made a mess of her inside Nexmu and Luvri’s ship.  

Another flash of blue illuminated the cabin, and with it her thoughts shifted to brighter times.  

“I won’t forget this, ma’am.  If there’s anyway I can ever repay you, you only need to reach out to me.  I may be going into hiding but I have many friends.”

She shifted uncomfortably at the awkward, far-too-tight hug the Baran-do had given her, slowly prying herself free from his grip.

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind if I ever need it.  Now get out of here, and don’t let me hear about you in Imperial space again.  I won’t be able to save you a second time.”

A crimson bolt broke the darkness, bathing the cabin in passionate red.

“You are leaving the Bureau?! Why?!”

Rho’jhan looked both concerned and betrayed, a hand reaching up to grab her shoulder.  

“You are one of the best agents I’ve ever trained! We’re doing so much good for the galaxy, you, me, the others.  We’re making changes, making the galaxy safer-”

“Are we, Rho’jhan?  Are we making it safer, making it better?”

She wheeled on him, arm pointing back to the flight deck they’d both come from.  

“I just executed a man who did nothing wrong.  He never turned himself against the Empire, he never hurt anyone.  He wasn’t even planning on hurting someone.  And I just killed him, for no reason.  So tell me, Rho’jhan, who exactly are we helping? Who exactly are we making the galaxy a safer place for? The people in it, or the Imperial brass and bureaucrats?”

Another flash of blue from the viewport, rain distorting its colors into a kaleidoscope of sapphires.

“Nexmu, Luvri.  I need a favor from you.”

“That depends.  You gonna take our ship again?”

“No.”

Kelika drew a stack of chips from a pocket, handing them to the pair along with a slip of cloth paper.

“There’s a man aboard my vessel, a Kel Dor.  Take him to these coordinates,” she looked pointedly at the cloth, “That’s six thousand credits; There’s another fourteen waiting in escrow upon completion of the job.  Do it quietly.  Avoid known hyperspace lanes.  Take as long as you need to.  If you need money for fuel, contact me through this channel,” she pressed a second piece of cloth paper into Luvri’s hand, “I have a little extra I can spare for expenses if you need it.”

The pair of Zabrak looked at each other, an unspoken question asked between them before Nexmu spoke up again.

“Ah, grife...who’s the cargo and who wants him dead?”

“The Empire will, if they ever find out he’s still alive.  I officially shot him,” the agent looked down to her chronometer, counting briefly in her head, “six hours ago.  He’s dead, according to the reports I’ve filed.  So he needs to stay that way.  Officially.  And you two are the only people I trust to not screw me, and there’s a pretty high chance of that happening anyways.  So will you take the job or not? My money is good either way.”

The wisp of thought petered out and died as uninterrupted darkness took the room.  Sweat beaded on her brow, the memories taking more of her mind than she had intended.  Kelika shook her head, trying to return to where she left off.  

Something is coming.

This was not where she had left off.

It is unstable.  You cannot maintain your footing.  Something is coming.  

You feel it, beneath you.  Sand, miles of it in every direction, shifting and folding upon itself.  Something will rise from beneath the waves.  A beast, terrifying to behold, waking from it’s slumber.  It will rise, and you will know fear.

Something is coming.

Kelika’s eyes jerked open, the irregular pulse of red and blue making her cover her eyes with her hand.  It was too much, too stimulating, it was too much...Somehow, in the middle of her fever dream, she had sprawled herself upon the floor, one hand reaching towards her gear bag.  For what, she couldn’t tell.  What she could tell, as she picked herself up off the floor, was that she was done reminiscing.  It was time for sleep.  She could ponder her past tomorrow.

“Something is coming, Kelika.  I’ve seen it in my dreams.  Please, help me.”

#Kelika Re'daro #Star Wars

[faithfulnews]

Our Favorite Titles Hitting Netflix in February

Just a few months after it began, January is over and now we’re into February. For most of us, that means yet another few weeks of dreariness, punctuated by a day of feeling either extra romantic or extra single. Netflix has some good options no matter where you fall on that spectrum. Here are a few of our favorite options landing this month.

The Mood for Love

A few movies to scratch your romantic itch.

The Notebook

Nicholas Sparks’ classic romantic drama hasn’t lost any of its weepy sensibilities with age.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Kevin Costner and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio have plenty chemistry in this re-telling of one of the oldest tales in the Western canon, spun through a romantic filter.

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You

Netflix’s followup to its runaway hit To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and will continue to follow the roller coaster ride of Laura Jean and Noah’s blossoming teen relationship with far more charm than we’ve come to expect from high school romcoms.

Single Edge

Maybe you’re single or maybe romance movies just aren’t your thing. Either way, here are a few new movies you might enjoy.

Horse Girl

We don’t know much about Alison Brie’s new, unsettling-looking drama about a young woman’s battle with monsters that may or may not be in her own head, but what we do know is good: it’s adapted from a script co-written by Brie herself and it was inspired by her own family’s history with mental health.

Good Time

Before 2019’s Uncut Gems, the Safdie brothers made waves directing Robert Pattinson in Good Time, which features the same frenetic stress and luck-pushing protagonists as their acclaimed Adam Sandler-vehicle did last year.

Anna Karenina

Joe Wright’s 2012 adaptation of Tolstoy’s classic novel finds Kiera Knightley starring in a timeless (and timelessly tragic) tale of an illicit affair that goes down in flames.

Purple Rain

Prince’s musical manifesto remains a cultural touchpoint of incalculable importance, more than 35 years after it first debuted and provided the Purple One with a chance to show just how good he really was.

Starship Troopers

Quite possibly the most subversive big-budget movie in America cinema, Starship Troopers is a slick satire of American military propaganda that stubbornly refuses to show its cards, playing everything so straight even many critics missed the joke when it premiered in 1997. But thoughtful viewers will realize that while the movie ostensibly follows a bunch of almost hilariously attractive soldiers sent to space to fight a war against an army of alien insects, director Paul Verhoeven is subtly rooting for the bugs.

Documentary Now

Netflix’s famed library of incisive documentaries isn’t slowing its growth any time soon.

The Pharmacist

This story of one bereaved father’s quest to uncover the truth about prescription drugs long before America was aware of its blooming crisis shines an uncomfortable light on the sinister origins of the Opioid Crisis.

Road to Roma

Alfonso Cuarón has produced a documentary about his own life, and how it inspired his Oscar-winning sensation Roma.

Binge-Worthy

Looking for more of a TV show? That’s Netflix’s specialty. Here’s what they’re serving up on the binge list this month.

Locke & Key

Fans of the spooky graphic novel series ought to be pleased by Netflix’s dramatic adaptation of the story of three kids who move into an ancestral estate and find keys that unlock …well, things that were locked up for a reason.

Narcos: Mexico: Season 2

Netflix’s fascinating look at the origins of the modern drug trade is a reminder of the ways in which true crime can be exploratory instead of just exploitive.

I Am Not OK With This

Lots of reasons to be excited about this new teen drama from the Stranger Things producers, which stars Sophia Lillis and Wyatt Oleff (who both stole scenes as young leads in 2017’s IT) as two awkward adolescents navigating love, loss and possible superpowers in American suburbia.

Go to the article

[leblancmusicinfo]

5/10/2019

Judas Priest - British Steel and some of Killing Machine while bagging papers and Ram It Down while delivering papers mixed with Elvis Presley songs from a flash drive.

Louis Cole - More Love Less Hate and Trying Not To Die for the ride to work

At WQA.  

Finished the Tormato Tour Video

09. Perpetual Change - 46:08 10. Soon - 52:43 11. Don't Kill The Whale - 59:28 12. Starship Trooper - 01:03:35 13. On The Silent Wings Of Freedom - 01:14:45 14. Awaken - 01:23:16 15. I've Seen All Good People - 01:40:30 16. Roundabout - 01:47:34

The National - Hairpin Turns

Running Wild - Gates To Purgatory (Danny Waysted)

Tyketto - Don’t Come Easy (Danny Waysted)

Yes Solo: 11/06 - Chris Squire's Commentary and Interview on Inside Fish Out of Water

Kylie Minogue - New York City

The Chemical Brothers - No Geography

Listened to Elvis on the way to Lili’s soccer game mixed with Ram It Down (similar to this morning)

at the soccer game listened to Kendrick Lamar - Damm and the song U.

at the health club 

Kiss Greatest Hits Vol 1 (Danny Waysted) got through the following songs before issues with the video streaming

1 - Detroit Rock City  0:00 2 - Magic Touch  5:25 3 - Strutter  10:05 4 - God Of Thunder  13:17 5 - I Stole Your Love  17:33 6 - Hard Luck Woman  20:32 7 - Cold Gin  24:00 8 - Sure Know Something  28:22 9 - Beth  32:22 10 - Calling Dr.Love  35:10

Starcrawler - She Gets Around

Running Wild - Branded and Exiled (Danny Waysted)

The Silver Machine - Standing On The Bare Ground

The National - Light Years

[chrisabraham]

I bet you didn't know that "stable genius" is a thing and not some bizarre thing that Donald J. Trump just burst out with. #psa It’s in a quote from Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, 1959. "...a neodog is not a talking dog; he is not a dog at all, he is an artificially mutated symbiote derived from dog stock. A neo, a trained Caleb, is about six times as bright as a dog, say about as intelligent as a human moron — except that the comparison is not fair to the neo; a moron is a defective, whereas a neo is a stable genius in his own line of work."

[ramrodd]

What happened to the man that shot Lee Harvey Oswald?

De oppresso liber

COMMENTARY:

The short answer is that Jack Ruby died in prison.

Everything else is a bit murky.

This video is about as good as anything coming out of the conspiracy soup. Jim Mars brings together many of the threads of the Oswald and Ruby together. The great virtue of this video is that it is short, but you can begin to appreciate the breathless quality of the assassination conspiracy crowd.

Jim Marrs Makes Lee Harvey Oswald/Jack Ruby Connection

Just for the record, it is clear to me that there were at least two active shooters, one from the back and one from the front, who delivered the fatal head shot. The establishing evidence to my satisfaction was that Jackie climbed unto the boot of the limo to retrieve a shard of JFK’s scull which she ultimately gives to a surgeon in hopes that it might help repair her husband. A shot from the rear couldn’t have blown that fragment backwards.

I placed the Mars video first for you to review because of the attempt to connect the dots between Oswald and Ruby. I cannot connect the dots. I’m not interested in trying to connect the dots. I’m interested in explaining the conspiracy as a chaotic system moving through the larger anarchy of American Democratic Socialism that has been nurturing the Free Enterprise economics of constituional capitalism since, well, Jamestown, but really got traction wiVth the New Deal as a something brand new. Chaotic systems are one tool of the process theology I employ in my profession of Organization Development. I am a process theology guru and the only other process theology guru I’m aware of in America is Ltc. Frank “Be All You Can Be” Burns, the guy in charge of the men who stare at goats in the 1st Earth Batallion of Task Force Delta’s Space Force/Starship Trooper Organization Effectiveness group, and he’s dead.

He and I are both Army brats and we grew up at a time when Counter-Insurgency/Nation Building was the sexy career path. My personal core value beginning in 1963 until I got to Vietnam in the summer after Kent State was De Oppresso Liber. I wanted to spend my career around people who earned the right to pin it on their chest. The Green Berets are the Jedi Knights of Democratic Socialism and they were in Vietnam as Social Justice Warriors and for exactly the same reason the 12 Strong came looking for USL in Afghanistan and why we are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a poster famous among the Soldier-of-Fortune demographic from Rodesia “Be a Man Among Men”. Exactly.

And a big part of Counter-Insurgency/Nation Building is forensics and, when it comes to social movements, such as a Trotsky Insurgency Process, chaotic systems are invaluable. Sociology measures chaotic systems with topology, which is the mathematics of process theology. All this stuff you learn to use in a liberal arts cirriculum, including management as a performing art (which is what basically military leadership comes down to) is what people like the CIA, USAID, CIA, Peace Corps and Green Berets are all liberation theology writ large: De Oppresso Liber. Onward, Christian Soldier. Mit Romney may have gone to Paris as a Mormon missionary, but, unlike John Bolton, I went to the Central Highlands as a missionary for Democratic Socialism and the US Constitution, which is redundant.

Jack Ruby On Trial (Documentary) 

So, now, anyway, you are aware of my method. Jim Mars throws out a lot of dots. The issue isn’t that they connect within their own local context. That’s the nature of actual conspiracy, big league, overthrow an election in Iran and install Bett Kavanaugh as the Shah of Iran. The Great Game. You take two shooters and the Magic Bullet and you end up with Brett Kavanugh on the Supreme Court and the bought and paid for politicians that put him there.

There are a lot of dots there, but, with chaos theory and process theology, a 3D picture will begin to emerge like an animation of a cancer growing that you can run back and forth. The cancer we have right now is embedded in the GOP Deep State with the Koch brothers as one dot we can connect back to the Powell Manifesto in 1971.

The thing is, except for the Zapruder film and the testimony of a Dallas surgeon that Jackie gave him a bit of skull she retrieved off the boot of a limo. My deal is to break the evil enchantment of the Oliver Stone version of Vietnam, like Prince Charming kissing Sleeping Beauty set to Tchaikovsky with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the role of Prince Charming.

But I digress. Roger Stone is one of the people who can connect the dots between Dallas and the confirmation of Kavanaugh, I mean, one of the problems I have with JFK, the movie, is the scene where they demonstrate why Oswald couldn’t have fired 3 times in 5.6 seconds and that little flutter of dishonesty is the sort of thing Kavanaugh’s testimony is just saturated with: it’s a critical feature of the Warren Commission: if Oswald couldn’t get 3 shots off in 5.6 seconds, the Magic Bullet isn’t possible. Now, I never bought the Magic Bullet theory: that was Senator Orrin Hatch defending Kavanugh from the evil Dr. Ford, a vengeful lesbian Femi-Nazi determined to make the world unsafe for boys. BUT I don’t think someone strung out on adrenalin strapped into a bolt-action military rifle would have any real problem getting 2 shots off in 5.6 seconds. As for hitting anything, the shot in Dealey Plaza is a pot-shot: he could have scored hits with a .177 cal air rifle. The Warren Commission pretty well falls apart after that. I mean, you can get the bullets from the rear into the kill zone, but he need a 4th, boomarang shot to deposit that piece of scull on the boot of the limo.

So, all things are possible. Roger Stone is throwing up a lot of air time flogging a theory that LBJ is the nexus of the conspiracy. The strongest connection is organized crime and various interest parties if it is LBJ. How does Stone know this? He worked in Nixon’s Plumbers and probably missed being indicted for Watergate for the same reason Jack Ruby never really broke into big time organized crime: his essential talent is self-promotion and that makes serious players uneasy.

But he knew the serious players, back then, but the GOP really wasn’t mobbed up in 1970, much less 1963, the way the Democrats were. I mean, Joe Kennedy was a bootlegger and favored Hitler until Joe, Jr., was killed. But the Kennedys did set the Michael Corleone generation moving towards the GOP and now all those people who might have been involved in the JFK assassination have found a home in the GOP Deep State. And Roger Stone knows everybody LBJ would have known if his theory is right. Plus, he, Roger Stone, can connect the dots in the GOP Deep State with the dots in the Russian Dark Web that stole the Clinton analytics that Spanky used to snatch the Electorial College right out of the voters’ intent, just like with the Butterfly Ballot in Boward County and a Supreme Court packed with early versions of Brett Kavanugh, bought and paid for by the Koch brothers. Jeb Bush knew about the Butterfly Ballot before the fact. He was elected to the Gover nor’s Mansion the second time the Butterfly Ballot was employed “to save money” in a general election. Nobody paid any attention to the spoiled ballots because it Boward County is a heavy geriatric vote and, well, you know how confused all those duffers can get in the stress of voting.

The thing is, the Democrats stopped doing this sort of thing after LBJ dropped out, All that apparatus Roger Stone describes went with him and Humphrey was left with the SDS and Peter, Paul and Mary, who preferred “Clean Gene” McCarthy. I’m perfectly willing to stipulate to everything Roger Stone alleges about LBJ and it is now part of the GOP Deep State. Roger Stone and Jack Ruby are dots in the vast right wing conspiracy Hillary Clinton accurately described in 1993 and now it has put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court and, when you roll the tape backwards and forwards in time, There is no more than 3 degrees of separation them and Steve Bannon, Newt Gingrich, the House Freedom Caucus and, alas, Susan Collins. All those people who are indulging in an end zone celebration in regards to Kavanaugh? A distinct chaotic system that is involved in fucking up everything I went to Vietnam to spread to the rest of the world.

#transformingamericafirst

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Do you really believe a person can change?  Can a tiger really change his stripes? Can convicted felons stop doing what got them into trouble in the first place? If writer/director Jeremy Culver (Radical Kindness)is to be believed then Sam (George Blagden; Vikings) definitely can change.  All it would take is a good woman.  Such is the premise of No Postage Necessary, Culver's full-length feature film debut.  A Romantic Comedy, the movie takes the viewer on a journey I'm not sure the characters are really ready to make themselves.Sam is an ex-con convicted of internet crimes whose probation prohibits him from touching any device with internet access.  He lives on his brother's couch, works at a soft serve ice cream stand and has scheduled weekly visits with his probation officer.  In his spare timehe pretends to be a mail carrier to steal people's mail and rifle through envelopes and packages looking for cash.  Yes, it is illegal and violates his probation but so far he hasn't been caught.  Then one day he collects a letter addressed to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  Intrigued he opens it to discover a letter written to a dead soldier (could have seen that one coming) by his widow, Josie (Charleene Closshey; An Evergreen Christmas).Touched by Josie's words, Sam can't seem to shake the letter or Josie and basically begins stalking her in an attempt meet and get to know her.  Meanwhile, the FBI agent who arrested Sam, Agent Ames (Stelio Savante; Starship Troopers 3: Marauder), shows up asking about some bitcoins that have been stolen.  Ames is skeptical when Sam tells him he doesn't know anything about the bitcoins, follows Sam on his "postal route" and basically threatens Sam to find the coins or else go back to jail.  Sam and Josie also start seeing each other and things seem wonderful until Sam gets arrested and has to tell Josie the truth.Blagden makes what could be a completely unlikable character less unbearable. He has a boyish charm that is endearing and disarming making the audience understand how Josie could fall for him.  Closshey plays Josie somewhat pathetically and you aren't sure whether to feel sorry for her or slap her and tell her to snap out of it like Cher does in Moonstruck.  However, perhaps only a military widow could understand what her character is going through.  Supporting cast members Robbie Kay (Once Upon A Time), Michael Beach (Third Watch) and Raymond J. Barry (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) round out this cast well.The script is at best cheesy with dialogue that is sometimes groanworthy. The plot is unique for a rom-com but also highly unbelievable to me.  I'm not one to buy into the idea that a tiger can completely change their stripes and certainly not as fast as Sam seems to do it.  His turn around is lightning fast and granted his character had some likable qualities to begin with, but he still STOLE MONEY FROM OTHER PEOPLE'S MAIL!!!!  I'm sorry but I find that to be pretty unforgivable.  Then he lies to the military widow on top of that and he comes across cocky when he speaks about his computer hacking skills.  Sam comes across mildly schizophrenic as well.  Blagden has an "aw shucks" factor that helps Sam garner sympathy from the audience despite the fact that he really doesn't deserve any (or very little to say the least). Had another actor playedthis part I'm pretty sure it would have been a completely different film altogether.This is not exactly your typical romantic comedy partially because you don't necessarily want to root for this couple to end up together based on Sam's questionable actions in the past. The film does leave it as a question mark at the end which is at least a breath of fresh air in the sameness of every other rom-com out there but I don't know that it is enough to make the film work.  I guess it all depends on your take of the situation so watch it and decide for yourself.NO POSTAGE NECESSARY is the first-ever feature film to release via Blockchain on July 10th and in select theaters July 6th. Grade: B

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