#if you thought i was done with the sw quote posts . think again

[currentlyonstandbi]

#I AM FINE . SO TOTALLY FINE AND OKAY #if you thought i was done with the sw quote posts . think again #the gambit series was karen miller taking up a steel chair and pummelling me with it #it is just a non-stop emotional roller-coaster of 'hey what if we reminded you that at his heart anakin was a passionate and caring person?' #'what if we just constantly bombarded you with the fact anakin empathises with the suffering of others because he knows and lived suffering' #'what if we reminded you that he never moved on from the trauma inflicted by the cruelty of a childhood spent in slavery!!' #and that is on top of him and obi wan being so two halves of a whole the entire time that it's almost overwhelming #anyway . normal again #star wars #sw tcw #star wars the clone wars #clone wars gambit #anakin skywalker

[ladyvader23]

20 questions for fic writers

I was tagged by the lovely @fanfictasia and @the-real-azalea-scroggs and this seems fun, so here we go!

1. How many works do you have on A03?

24, though I have some on ff.net that aren't posted on AO3 from the very early days

2. What's your total A03 word count?

850,878 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly Star Wars, though I've dabbled in FFXIV recently.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Missing and Presumed Dead

Darth Vader Goes to Therapy

Just One Wish

Darth Vader Goes to School

Unexpected Truths (just like the title, I did not expect this one to be in the top 5 and I have questions)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I used to. I read and love every single comment I get, please don't get me wrong, comments absolutely FUEL me, but responding?? I have so much anxiety, it used to take me HOURS to respond to them all. Eventually it got to be so much on my emotional health that I decided it would be better to channel that into writing more for people to enjoy, so...that's what I do now. Again, comments fuel me, and I love you all, and I read every single comment and even have a lil' scrapbook of comments that I go back to whenever I'm feeling down about my writing, so I hope this doesn't give off the wrong impression...

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Easily Fracture. If you've read it, there's no explanation needed here. If you haven't...let's just say someone gets turned into a rug, among many other horrible things...

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uh...most of my fics have a happy ending of some sort. Some you just have to wade through more angst and whump to get to the happy ending than others. I think Missing and Presumed Dead had an ending I thought was perfect for it, as did Darth Vader Goes to Therapy. Both were happy endings AND endings that I thought were perfect for the story that was told.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I write for Star Wars. Yeah, I've gotten hate XD. Thankfully, it's rare. Usually people get upset with my interpretations because "iTs NoT cAnOn!" I really just don't care, so I just laugh and move on. Like if you wanted canon, why are you reading fanfic?? Probably the craziest though was when someone went on one of the biggest Tumblr blogs in the SW fandom and used my Darth Vader Goes to Therapy fic to support their argument that the Jedi were evil or whatever (idk, I wasn't part of the argument) and beyond the fact that it's wild to go into a fandom canon-based argument with super out of context quotes from a fanfiction to support your argument, but to do it with a fic that I 100% wrote as a COMEDY is just. Wow. I was suddenly flooded with so much hate from a bunch of people who had never read my fic, thought it was a seriously written piece of literature, and assumed I agreed with everything the person said and I didn't even know until I went to the post and had to defend myself...every once in a while someone will not see that defense and will message me more hate. Like it's a crack fic. Granted, I DID do research on real therapy practices because I didn't want to make a joke out of therapy, but everything else was 100% a joke. I'm really glad people love it (so do I!) and resonate with it, but it's not canon. I don't think the person intended for me to get so much hate, so I definitely don't blame them, but it was a lot.

9. Do you write smut?

Um. Ahem. I may or may not have a private stash from like. Deleted scenes in fics that had romance in them back when I wrote those. That I will. Definitely. Never publish. Don't worry about it. >>

10. Do you write crossovers?

Yes! Though I've only done a few. I think the only one on AO3 was the crossover with The Last of Us, done before the TV adaption.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Sort of. There was that scare a few years ago when everyone thought a random website had stolen everyone's fics, but it turned out it wasn't that exactly. AO3 isn't available everywhere, so there are sites that are just set up to mirror whatever is on AO3 so that people can read fics on that site, and it happened to be one of those sites. Oh boy, though, did they get a lot of hate mail before it got clarified. Then there was that time I had someone write a fanfic that they said they wrote with a similar concept to my ff.net story Second Chances, but then one of their friends was like "this is a rip off" so they asked me to read it before they posted it to make sure they hadn't ripped it off. Except...it was almost 90% word for word....so uh. I didn't give my blessing and I don't think it ever got posted lol.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I've had fics translated into Russian, Chinese, Korean and French. My most common requests for translation are Russian and Chinese. I've never actively tried to get something translated, it's just whoever asks me for permission.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! (I'm keeping Aza's answer for this part since it's true) There's the memorable Great April Flood, which was basically a dozen of Star Wars writers gathering together to do a massive round robin with tumblr asks prompt fills (those three sentence fics, if anyone remembers) in order to flood our side of tumblr on April Fools in 2020.

I also did an Inuyasha fanfic with my cousin when I was a teenager, and I didn't technically co-write it, but I did heavily work with a specific character for my Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden series with my best friend in high school as well.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I mean, I'm pretty open to whatever. I think I've written Luke with like....5 or 6 different people depending on the story?? But if I had to choose, I guess I'm pretty consistently Percybeth, so I guess them???

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The Assassins Blade. Like it was a great story....but omg. I got so much harassment about the most random things, sometimes on every. single. chapter. it just wore me down and I just don't write romance-centric fics anymore, which is sad because I DO like writing romance.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Finding the comedy in even the darkest moment. Taking a horrific situation and really just letting the characters feel the emotions of the moment, letting them bask in the consequences of either their actions or the actions of others.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Well, anyone who has ever edited my stuff will probably say "too many redundant sentences" and you know what? They're right. Fluff-centric scenes are difficult, as well. I also will disappear for months on end when I'm just. In a weird funk. Which I still kind of am in at the moment, but I'm actively trying to break through it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't really have an opinion on this one.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

First one I wrote for: Final Fantasy X, but my mom wouldn't let me publish because it was the days of the internet when all parents thought their child was going to be kidnapped if they did anything other than look at the internet. It was bad though, so I'm not sad I didn't publish.

First one I published: Inuyasha. I published behind my mom's back, and got in trouble when she found out, but then she looked at everyone's comments and figured out that I was not, in fact, overly in danger of being kidnapped, so she let it go.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Darth Vader Goes to Therapy. I will never be that funny ever again. I achieved my peak comedy with that fic. But a very close second is Missing and Presumed Dead, and sometimes, depending on the day, that one is my favorite and DVGTT is a close second.

This was fun! Tagging @sunshinechildskywalker @25centsoda and @zoryany but definitely don't feel like you have to!

#fanfic #writing game #ask me #my writing

[david-talks-sw]

Firstly, I want to say I think your posts are insightful and enlightening (and save me from headaches too.)

My question for you is this: sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy in this fandom, and wondering if sometimes you do as well? It seems that a majority of Star Wars fans, save for those few of us here on Tumblr, have notions about the Jedi that for one, don't feel right with me, but also that don't seem very accurate to what we're seeing in Lucas' original works.

I know it's a matter of perspective, but it often feels like I'm some strange outlier for how I see Star Wars compared to several others. It sometimes makes me feel like my interpretations are wrong/invalid. Do these thoughts and feelings ever come up for you?

Hi there!

First off thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoy my posts :D !

Regarding whether I get this weird feeling of being an outlier in the Star Wars fandom… yeah, all the time.

Which is why I'm very grateful for this pro-Jedi community on Tumblr. Makes it less lonely, and you get to enjoy more meta, fanfic & art made by people who have a view of Star Wars similar to your own.

The flip side of this...

(minor rant incoming)

... is that it's also so goddamn irritating for me to watch any Star Wars YouTuber videos, for instance. I mean, I already went on my thoughts about 'em here, but it's really triggering to me when these guys who call themselves experts and publicly hold George Lucas as this messianic figure, just casually throw out sentences such as: "the Prequel Jedi, who were corrupt and dogmatic and emotionless and ignored Anakin's cries for help".

Like, it's frustrating because they either:

haven't read a single Lucas quote in their life...

or don’t give a shit about what Lucas said, which is totally cool, but then don’t sit there and say you’re a “Lucas purist”, whatever that means.

I always try to make this clear: if that interpretation makes the Prequels better for you, I am happy for you. I used to see them like that, I get the appeal. Go to town.

But don’t tell your viewers your headcanon = what the artist intended, cuz that’s just spreading misinformation and bastardizing the story.

What really irks me is that I sometimes notice how some SW writers who grew up with "Luke being this chosen one who represents what an ideal Jedi is like" really try to prop him up and preserve what made him special to them... by putting down the PT Jedi and framing them as "dogmatic & dispassionate & wrong".

When - if you're from my generation - chances are, there's really no need to do that, because you'll have grown up with BOTH trilogies. So these narratives are only really done to satisfy people who grew up on the OT.

And, like (on a really childish primal level), this line of thought usually gets me thinking "why do you get to keep your childhood hero unblemished, but I gotta accept that mine are gonna be framed as "corrupt" for as long as the PT is touched upon?"

And I get wanting to "challenge the notion that the Jedi are paragons of virtue", I really do... but we've been challenging it since 2008, now.

How about we start challenging the idea that the "Jedi were evil", now? That they weren't "no better than the Sith"?

How about a scene in the Dark Times where a prisoner berates a jailed Quinlan Vos or Cal Kestis about them being warmongers and Quin/Cal just goes on a Doctor Who-worthy tirade about how "We were framed! We were trying to help! Innocent people were getting enslaved and slaughtered, the walls were closing in and we still did our best and fought for you guys! Cuz what else were we gonna do, let everyone die?"

How about a scene where Trace and Rafa meet Luminara again, and have all this pent-up anger against her, but Lumi sacrifices herself and lets herself be captured by the Grand Inquisitor so they can run?

So... yeah. I do get these feelings.

But hey... as you point out in this ask, there's a strong pro-Jedi community here. And I am very grateful for it.

Just as there's these moments where this franchise which I really love disappoints me, there's moments where it makes me dream, and there's this group of people here who write magnificent meta and thoughtful posts and draw amazing fan-art which makes it all the more enjoyable.

Point is, I try to focus on the positives ^^'

#going through the asks today! #QnA

[oswlld]

2022: A Summary

Post your most popular and/or favorite edit/gifset from each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

tagged by (1) @hoe-biwan (2) @casualavocados (3) @dramaism (4) @i-got-the-feels & (5) @talays-portkey 💛💛  WOW thank you all for thinking of me, happy to oblige (also gonna plug the one i did last year for edits i made in 2021; idek why i formatted the post that way maybe dont look at it fjslkd just go look at everyone elses)

January most popular — bad buddy ep10 quote set: itll always be the most memorable quote set, since it was the first live ep that i caught after binging it favorite(s) — 1) bad buddy + giovanni’s bedroom: i remember seeing a photoshoot set with this format and knew i wanted to replicate it (prior to this i usually am insp by quotes first, worry about formats/layouts later); 2) bad buddy + hadestown “promises”: because im so predictable and still think about them when i hear the song

February most popular — bad buddy + kaveh akbar quote: the fact that the most popular edit ended up being the valentines day post is so satisfying favorite(s) — bad buddy + pride & prejudice: i actually thought that this was going to be the most popular and it was a close race (eight notes apart lol)

March most popular — bad buddy random screencap #19: a requested screencap that is most beloved by all, what else is there to say favorite(s) — 1) semantic error ep2 set: of all the episodic sets i made for the show, i really liked how this came together thematically; 2) the good place + eleanor quote: i can only count in one hand edits that i’ve thought about making for YEARS before actually making it, but this is prob up on top of the rest, in terms of execution

April most popular — doctor who + the girl who died quote: i think my defining trait in my dw edits is flipping quotes between the two and even though it’s not a new concept to do them, im never not thinking about them and what other moments to edit with favorite(s) — bad buddy + jane eyre: don’t get me wrong, the clara edit is also a fave, but this is tied for best because look at them 😭

May most popular — star wars + leia/padme parallel: not my first sw edit, but the first one ive done while a show was airing; also would like to shout out to the screencap galleries out there for both the sw series and movies, the real mvps favorite(s) — moon knight + head/heart/hands: i have an inside joke with myself with this edit and the tags give it way a bit lol

June most popular — star wars + anakin/darth progression: ofc this is the edit with the most notes overall. hellsite pls never change lol favorite(s) — 1) doctor who + weeping angels: not sure what it about me and making my edits as complicated as possible because it becomes a whole mental marathon, with just me and my phone but im proud of this one; 2) vice versa + series trailer: ive repeated this sentiment in other posts so i wont go into it again here, but this edit will also be so special for me

July most popular — star wars + princess leia: hi, miss you space mom favorite(s) — vice versa ep3 + caitlyn siehl: i think of all the episodic edits, there’s only a fair few that doesn’t carry the flipped/mirrored text effect; all this to say that i am very happy how this one turned out, out of all the versions of the effects (PLUS this quote still makes me teary eyed in hindsight, ugh baby boi i KNOW what youre capable of I KNOW)

August most popular — taylor swift + midnights announcement: i knew that i wanted to make something ts related after having made a few for red tv, so this came together pretty quickly favorite(s) — sense8 + birthday!: i love that a few tags from other ppl pointed out a lack of Will… it’s, uh, intentional lmao

September most popular — the little mermaid + D23 teaser: i still get chills favorite(s) — vice versa ep11 part one: look, i dont miss making these edits each week because, again, the mental marathon i put myself through lol but ep11 [1/4] is now imprinted on my soul and i could not do the ep justice in ONE post (i also made myself cry making the last edit but thats not why its my fav lol)

October most popular — doctor who + regen redux parallel: 50th anniv ep, my beloved favorite(s) — 1) bad buddy + mastermind lyrics: absolutely not my original idea lol but one that i reallllly wanted to make once it consumed my waking hours; 2) vice versa ep12 quote set: its a real color to me

November most popular AND favorite — andor + maarva quote: WHAT A SHOW! WHAT A QUOTE! WHAT A CHARACTER!! I MISS IT TERRIBLY

December most popular — doctor who + google search: it seriously warms my heart that the most popular edit ended being my birthday post and with my most beloved, my url namesake, my queen favorite(s) — reset + best 2022 series: i mean, the clara edit is also def a faaav fav, but i’m so attached to this show and worked so hard to make this for sam lmao (not sure what it is about the two-row sets that are really intimidating to me but thats a whole other matter) very few ppl know how long ive been dyinggg to make this all year, so i was so happy to see that someone requested it. im gonna look at it a little longer before i post this... *sigh*

--

i think everyone has been tagged at this point, but feel free to make one yourself if you have not been tagged yet and tag me

#this is jessi #tagged #tag meme #if anyone wants to try it yourself #i got myself into a 100 day challenge at the top of last year #making one or two edits a day until you've reached a limit #well it only worked for me because it was solely driven by creativity overload #made it to maybe.... upper 80s low 90s?? #didnt make it to 100 but i was close #its not for everyone but its a practice i honed in art school #all this to say that it was important for me to go thru that challenge #i need to experience all that to make all the edits i produced from april onwards #i dont think i will be making as much as i did in 2022 this year #but i hope to be tagged again next year and laugh at these tags

[therealvinelle]

Vinelle (and muffin since I know they'll see this too~!), I don't know if you guys have made a post ranking the Twilight books and why (including Bree and L&D if applicable) but I'd love to hear your opinions! (also if you could rank the Twi movies from least worst to most worst and why that'd be awesome too! 030 hi key love your rants on the movies and would love to hear y'alls thoughts more on them)-Sw

You’ve caught us out, anon.

And thanks to you, we spent last night watching Breaking Dawn Part 2 so we could rank it. @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin hadn’t seen it at all, while I half-remembered it from years ago. A terrible time was had because that movie was unwatchably bad.

Since this ask was sent jointly, our answer was co-written.

So, without further ado, movies first:

1. Twilight

This is a bad movie, but it’s recognizably a movie. The scenes are connected, there are things it did well, and we could tell you what the plot is. The awkwardness, for instance, is very well done. The weaknesses are glaring, the main one being that the film never sells us on the characters of Bella and Edward, nor on their relationship, relying instead on the audience knowing they’re in love because- well, they’re in love.

Diving deeper into Edward and Bella, there’s an understandable explanation for this. Edward of the books is terrifying, and I don’t think there’s a translation to screen that could have kept the romantic atmosphere surrounding him that we see from Bella’s point of view.

Bella can listen to Edward eating Biology and how he explains that it means how much he loves her and not blink. An actual audience hearing that dialogue will have second thoughts.

Right out of the gate, Twilight has a very difficult task: Salvage Edward Cullen while still producing a somewhat recognizable character who will take the same actions (or near the same actions) that Edward Cullen did in the book.

In the effort to make Edward palatable but save some of his original character he loses his more terrifying lines (as well as his hilarious ego) but becomes weird, awkward, and vaguely creepy. Edward Cullen of the films is that weird, friendless guy in your high school who you feel kind of bad for but don’t want to eat lunch with.

Bella faces a similar transformation. Bella’s insecurity is completely removed (or else the screenwriters somehow failed to notice it). As a result, we get this strange antisocial girl who is too cool for school because she’s a stuck up bitch.

Between Edward, this creepy guy who sits next to her in Biology, and Bella, this girl who enters school too good for everyone else, we see no reason why they would ever be interested in one another.

In an attempt to make these characters likeable they made them both unlikeable and boring. The film series as a whole never recovers from this (indeed, the quest to make Edward look good keeps leading to stranger and stranger places). 

It also forgets to explain why the Cullens live among humans, they’re attending high school… because. It’s a movie that explained to us all those terrible 2010 era memes and “still a better love story than Twilight”. And frankly, those memes were great, better than the movie. Case in point.

Everything is weirdly blue, which is atmospheric but also makes everything and everyone washed out. Everyone is super pale, so you have Mike looking just as vampire-y as Edward. However, it’s recognizably a movie. It introduces the characters, recognizes that the audience needs to be informed of things that are important to the plot, and most scenes are in some way connected to the plot. This is more than can be said for the other films, which is why it lands the top slot.

2. Eclipse

Eclipse earns its second place by process of elimination. The remaining three were worse. Eclipse also features Edward being cuckolded mercilessly, which is hilarious. Oh, and Victoria playing Riley, that was another beautiful scene.

Apart from that it’s just a deeply boring, borderline unwatchable movie.

Special shoutouts go to:

The opening scene of Riley getting turned, a ridiculous and poorly executed scene that served no purpose for the movie whatsoever.

Rosalie dropping her backstory without any context, Bella walks up to her and Rosalie launches into this horrific story for no particular reason. Both her and Jasper’s backstories could have been cut, as they served no purpose to the story and felt really thrown in there.

The many, many redundant scenes. The Victoria chase that ends with the Cullens and Quileutes squabbling could have been cut entirely. So too could the Seattle subplot with the newborns and Bree.

It’s a movie that isn’t about anything in particular, so it throws subplot spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It dutifully regurgitates the Jacob/Bella/Edward love triangle while also trying to convey that Bella’s about to lose her mortality, while also trying to introduce suspense and excitement with the newborns. It fails to execute either of these, and it also fails to tie them together.

3. New Moon

The movie that wanted to skip itself.

This movie had two jobs, show that Bella is depressed when Edward leaves and convince the audience of Bella and Jacob’s strong friendship. And apart the rotating shots and the occasional Stewart voiceover, the former becomes one of those “just stay with us on this one, guys” failures, and the second is failed on every level. Jake and Bella are much closer at the beginning of this movie than they were in canon, and a montage of Bella hanging out with her buddy is just that, it’s a montage of Bella hanging out with her buddy. It speaks volumes that Stewart’s voiceover has to remind us she’s depressed and Jacob is helping her heal, because there’s no indicator on screen that this is happening.

This, in turn, makes Bella/Jake as weak and unconvincing as Bella/Edward was in the previous movie. We just have to take on faith that these people are important to each other because that’s what we’re told.

There’s also the wolves, who are completely butchered. In the books, there’s this great mystery with bears in the woods, there’s Bella wondering why Laurent ran off, there’s build-up, then when we find out what’s actually been happening it’s a satisfying explanation, all the pieces come together really nicely. This is not the case in the movie. Meeting the pack is just weird in this context, because we never wondered who they were. Bella is randomly invited to breakfast, we meet Emily with the scarred face who won’t ever have a line again, and that’s it, these characters don’t become important to the movie in any way. It’s a pointless scene that could have been cut, much like so many other scenes in these movies.

Apart from that, the Volturi scene from the books is butchered so I hardly recognize it, and Alice, Carlisle, and Edward’s characters are assassinated to an impressive degree considering they were barely in the movie.

It was hard to watch.

It lands third place because somehow, Breaking Dawn was worse.

4. Breaking Dawn Part Two

I’ll just list the positives: the intro was very pretty and promised a better movie. It was also long, which we appreciated because it took away from the movie’s runtime. (This is not at all an exaggeration, a lot of the time watching all five movies was spent looking at the remaining runtime and groaning.) The Tommy Wiseau sex scene in the sex cabin was uncomfortable, but the fact that it would have fit perfectly in The Room made it funny. The Romanians were genuinely, unironically, great, because of all of Carlisle’s trashy friends, these were the only ones the movie didn’t try to convince us weren’t trashy.

This movie ranks above Breaking Dawn Part One because of the things listed above.

Apart from that, something all of these movies, but especially the last four, suffer from is that they don’t have plots so much as they have a check list of things to put in the movie before they can call it a wrap. This movie is the worst offender of that, and it’s made worse by the film’s expectation that the people are fans who already know what’s happening, and therefore don’t need anything explained. I’ll explain what we mean by that.

We get Bella waking up a vampire, and absolutely nothing is explained. If you don’t know what happened in the last movie then fuck you. Bella then goes hunting, we get the hiker, we get the mountain lion, she goes back to meet Renesmée, finds out Jake imprinted on her daughter, we get the sex cabin, the handwrestling with Emmett. The Charlie problem is introduced (poorly), only to be solved a scene later with emotional payoff that had absolutely no buildup. All of these things, and the rest of the movie as well for that matter, feels like we’re just crossing items off a list.

Since the audience is expected to already know the story, the story only bothers to explain about half of what’s happening, if half. Who’s the lady living with Charlie? If you don’t know, don’t worry because it’s not important anyway. When did Kate and Garrett fall in love? If you don’t care, that's understandable, because they’ve barely interacted in the movie. Who are the Amazonian women? Do they have names? Don’t worry about it. Did Alistair actually leave, if so did that have an impact? Well, Bella stared at a window for a few seconds.

Every so often the characters will start quoting the books, and it’ll be completely out of place because these movies veered off course long ago. Carlisle references his great friendship with Aro, a friendship that was only briefly mentioned at the beginning of the second movie. Aro randomly starts talking about how scary human technology is.

All of these scenes feel like Marcus is telling the story, he’s just listing events waiting for the story to be over, and forgets a lot of pertinent details because he doesn’t care enough to remember them. There’s no effort to tie these scenes together, no effort to build up to anything.

There’s also one significant failure, and this is a failure shared by all five films, but it affects the plot (I use the term “plot” loosely) of this movie which is why it gets a special shoutout here. Vampires in these movies look human. The fact that Bella has to ask Edward is Gianna the secretary is human says it all, because in the books you know instantly, there’s not even a question. This makes the Charlie subplot ridiculous, because Bella looks and acts the same as ever. She had a trashy makeover, maybe, but she’s still Bella. Watching her get human acting classes after we watched her act perfectly human is just silly. Now, we’re all for suspension of belief, but this movie just pencil drew a moustache on her and the audience is supposed to go “My god, Bella, I didn’t recognize you!”

We then get to the atrocious fight scene, which was somehow worse than I remembered. It was also oddly long for a giant fake out. This scene took significant run time and it turns out to have 0 effect on the plot. And when we get back to the real world, the tonal shift is extreme. You can’t go from Jane being choked, dragged across the snow and face eaten by a wolf to her standing around chilling. We could have skipped it entirely, just had Alice touch Aro’s hand, and he goes “Ah, I see, cheerio.”

The end credits were pretty funny, “here are these random characters with bit parts in previous movies, isn’t this nostalgic?”. Nice try, movie. The fact this came after an extended clip show of the great romance of Edward and Bella, through blurry montage images that failed to be convincing in their original films let alone this one, just made it even more hilarious. Hope you didn’t completely ruin the director’s career, though honestly you should a bit.

5. Breaking Dawn Part One

As you can probably tell by the above entries, the fact that this is the worst one is really saying something. All the movies were hard to watch, but this one required pure strength of will to power through.

The big issue is that Breaking Dawn shouldn’t have been split in the first place. However, it was, and that meant that we got a movie that was almost entirely filler. (Followed, somehow, by a movie that was also largely filler.)

We get everybody preparing for the wedding. What do Mike and Jessica think of Bella and Edward getting married? What’s that, you don’t care? Well, now you know anyway. We get the full wedding, as in the whole fucking thing, including the afterparty. We get Bella and Edward traveling to their island, and there’s filler in the filler where they go clubbing in Rio. We then get every minute detail of the wedding night followed by every minute detail of the honeymoon.

There’s fanservice, and then there’s this. This was live action fanfiction.

NOTHING that in any way is relevant to the story happens, the closest we get is Irina looking stoned. Too bad the Denali’ refusal to help out in Eclipse was cut from the last movie, in fact I’m not sure they were mentioned at all previously in these movies (I think maybe Edward had a one-line reference in Twilight?) so this means nothing to people who haven’t read the books.

We then get to the pregnancy arc, which could have been Rosemary’s Baby but is instead as outrageously boring as the first half of the movie was. The director must have realized as much, because he gives us Jacob’s alpha plot that should have been cut from the movie (yes, I know it was in the books, but the thing about adaptations is that things have to go. For the record, I think Meyer should have cut it too). That subplot was straight out of an anime, by the way. Jacob claiming his ancestral rights as alpha while listing off his titles and the soaring music, was… every shounen anime, ever. Complete with the shitty voice acting.

It was a soul-crushingly boring movie.

-

Something that screws over the last four movies is that they were made to feed the fangirls, and generate revenue because the producers knew the fans were coming to watch the books they liked come to life, so they just had to throw scenes from the books and into the movies and let the magic happen. This is a terrible way to adapt something.

Special shoutout too to having to watch Taylor Lautner run around shirtless in four out of five movies. That was very uncomfortable and none of us needed that in our lives, Lautner included.

Super special shoutout to the fact that we disagree with nearly all the casting.

And this isn’t the post for that, but all of the characters were butchered. Some more than others, and some more insidiously than others. It’s the big things, like Carlisle’s character being turned on its head since he thinks all vampires are damned, exactly the opposite of what he thinks in the books, and the little things, like Jasper and Bella being buddies who bicker fondly in New Moon. 

Then the books:

1. Midnight Sun

HANDS DOWN. This is easily our favorite thing to come out of the entire Twilight franchise.

Edward is every kind of crazy at the same time, all the time, and it makes every single sentence packed with delirious entertainment. Reading this book is having a stroke, a psychotic episode, and watching five different true crime shows all at once. We adore every letter of it. (That’s no exaggeration, we even laughed about Edward capitalizing “Son” when Carlisle refers to him as “son” in conversation.)

The book was more than we’d dared to hope for, one of those rare books that makes you go “This was written just for me.”

2. Twilight

The one that started it all.

Vampires are wonderfully creepy. Things like Bella staring at Carlisle acting like the mundane town doctor shortly after learning just how old he is, Alice explaining how vampires kill all, and the uncanny valley perfection of the Cullens all add to the otherness of these vampires, and the general atmosphere of the book.

The love story is convincing. Edward seen through the eyes of Bella is wonderful, the red flags are there but if it weren’t for the books that followed we wouldn’t have decried the ship the way we do.

3. Eclipse

Breaking Dawn is the more interesting book, but Eclipse has less things we outright don’t like. We get to know all the characters better, Edward and Bella are their usual beautiful selves, and it’s overall peak Twilight.

4. Breaking Dawn

Would have ranked much higher, we like what it did. Without it we wouldn’t be in this fandom now, as it brought so much amazing content. The baby plot is fine by us, Carlisle’s friends are great, the Volturi confrontation is a beautiful, if bleak culmination of preventable events. There’s a lot of great stuff in this book.

Unfortunately, and there’s just no diplomatic way to put this, so I’ll just come out with it: there’s too much Jacob.

He no longer had a reason to be in the story, given the way Eclipse ended he had every reason not to be in it. In spite of that we get an entire third of the book from his point of view, and then damned if he’s not shoehorned into the last third as well. He added absolutely nothing to the story, he was just there taking up space and being possessive of a toddler. His POV section was tough to get through, and his presence in book three was just painful. He should have been cut.

5. New Moon

This was the book we had to power through. There are some very good things in it, most notably the Volturi scene, but the Muffin and I enjoy Twilight for the vampires, and that makes Laurent and Hallucination!Edward the highlights of the part of the book where Edward is gone.

There’s also the fact that Jacob isn’t a very compelling character. He has to carry the book now that the Cullens aren’t doing it, and he simply isn’t up for it.

-

Yes, we’re aware that these books are ranked according to how much Jacob is in them. We don’t even hate him, not at all, it’s just that he’s boring.

(That being said, the books at their worst are better than the movies at their best. Jacob narrating his perfect playdate with Renesmée would still be preferable to… I’m trying to think of a good scene from the movies. Hm, nevermind.)

As for The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and Life and Death, only I have read Bree Tanner and I don’t remember it well enough to give a proper assessment. I was bored with the OCs, though, bored to tears, throughout that book I was itching for Victoria and the Cullens. We have not read Life and Death, but we’re offended by its existence so it ranks bottom.

#books vs. movies #twilight movies #twilight books #the twilight saga #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #twilight #movie review #twilight review #i'm using all the tags tonight #the carnivorous muffin #thecarnivorousmuffinmeta #Anonymous #ask #long post

[intermundia]

Mr. Will, I saw that post about the burden of wanting to talk about SW all the time and now I’m curious…please will you tell me your favorite bit of obscure Star Wars lore that someone who hasn’t delved extensively into extra-canonical materials probably doesn’t know?!? 💜

Obscure lore, yes! I would love to talk about that! While reading the Star Wars Archives (1977-1983), I found this page of notes from a story meeting on 11/28/77 in the section 'Bring back Ben' and right before the invention of the role to be filled by Yoda—"Some of the force came from 'Tales of Power', Carlos Castaneda."

And I was like—who the fuck is Carlos Castaneda? Because you hear all the time about all the mythology research Lucas did, all the time with Campbell, etc., but I'd never seen this name anywhere else. So I looked him up. He's a California "anthropologist," a contemporary of Lucas, and oddly fascinating:

Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that purport to describe training in shamanism that he received under the tutelage of a supposed Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named don Juan Matus. Doubts about the veracity of Castaneda's work existed from their original publication. There is belief among many that Castenda's books are works of fiction, and that it is unlikely that don Juan Matus existed. (Wikipedia)

His first person anthropology about time spent with a Mexican shaman reads like fiction, because it is fiction. An excellent survey of his sources is found here:

Lama Govinda's Fringe Tibetan Buddhism

Brinton's Paper On 'Nagualism'

Frank Waters Book of the Hopi

California Indian Anthropology Texts - especially those known to have been reviewed by CC

Wasson's works on Mushrooms

Eliade's works on Shamanism

Furst's works and lectures on Shamanism

Harner's works and lectures on Shamanism

Myerhoff's works on Shamanism and her contacts with Ramon Medina

UCLA Professor Garfinkel

Wittgenstein

So, we have this very California early-mid 70's New Age philosophy cocktail that was being presented as anthropology (I wish it were still so easy to fraud your way into a degree lmao). George Lucas was on UCLA campus as a graduate student making films at approximately the same time Castaneda was faking his way to this anthropology Ph.D., so when I say they are contemporaries, I mean I'm pretty sure they literally could have been walking around campus at the same time.

ANYWAY, so what if the Force is based on some fringe fake-Mexican-shamanism? So what? Well, first and foremost, Castaneda's books were very popular, and he uses the term "Sorcerer" very frequently, so when Ben Kenobi is called that in a New Hope, hip audiences in the 70's might have been clued in about what to expect. The idea of superhuman abilities rooted in flowing energy, the interplay of teacher and apprentice, and the sorcerer as a warrior (sounds pretty Jedi yeah?) —

A Man of Knowledge Was a Warrior: “The existence of a man of knowledge was an unceasing struggle, and the idea that he was a warrior, leading a warrior’s life, provided one with the means for achieving emotional stability. The idea of a man at war encompassed four concepts: (1) a man of knowledge had to have respect; (2) he had to have fear; (3) he had to be wide-awake; (4) he had to be self-confident. Hence, to be a warrior was a form of self-discipline which emphasized individual accomplishment; yet it was a stand in which personal interests were reduced to a minimum, as in most instances personal interest was incompatible with the rigor needed to perform any predetermined, obligatory act” (TDJ, 157).

Like................. it's even got the aspect of reducing personal interests and attachment to gain the rigor of discipline necessary to do what must be done as a sorcerer. But beyond the idea of a Jedi as a sorcerer/warrior, it's the metaphysics that kill me. Let's look further at this famous Yoda quote:

"My ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is." — Listen, "ally" is a term from Castaneda, though he uses it about psychadelic drugs. Audiences in the early 80s would probably know that, too.

“An ally will make you see and understand things about which no human being could possibly enlighten you… It is neither a guardian nor a spirit. It is an aid… a power capable of carrying a man beyond the boundaries of himself. This is how an ally can reveal matters no human being could” (The Teachings of Don Juan 24-25).

“The manipulation of an ally had two aspects: (1) an ally was a vehicle; (2) an ally was a helper. An ally was a vehicle in the sense that it served to transport a sorcerer into the realm of non ordinary reality… To be a helper meant that an ally, after serving a sorcerer as a vehicle, was again usable as an aid or a guide to assist him in achieving whatever goal he had in mind in going to the realm of nonordinary reality” (TDJ 164-65).

"Life creates it and makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we…not this crude matter." — The division of the Force into flowing animate and inanimate energy is in Castaneda, as is the concept of luminosity.

“Don Juan said that the energetic fact which was the cornerstone of the cognition of the shamans of ancient Mexico was that every nuance of the cosmos is an expression of energy. From their plateau of seeing energy directly, those shamans arrived at the energetic fact that the entire cosmos is composed of twin forces which are opposite and complementary to each other at the same time. They called those two forces animate energy and inanimate energy. They saw that inaninmate energy has no awareness. Awareness, for shamans, is a vibrating condition of animate energy.” (TDJ, xv)

“To perceive energy directly allowed the sorcery of don Juan’s lineage to see human beings as conglomerates of energy fields that have the appearance of luminous balls… the entire cosmos is made of luminous filaments that extend themselves infinitely” (TDJ, xvi-xvii).

I could go on and on and discuss all of Castaneda's writings on detachment and the warrior's life and the awareness of death, but I think that would be a whole other thing. Honestly this subject is too much for a tumblr post. I just thought it was interesting. People always give Lucas both grief and credit for bastardizing philosophical traditions himself, but I would say it's more fair to say that he was more working off of a cheat sheet done by others in California in the 70s. There must have been something in the water lmao

#george lucas #California Groupthink in the 70s #birth of New Age bullshit #and Lucas is right in that group of people #so if you want more context #for where the Force came from #it's not just buddhism #it's also indigenous american beliefs that are put into the blender #not saying this is a good thing let me be clear #but it is a thing #it is lore #i guess #anyway hope that was interesting lmao #sw #long post

[themattress]

Using this video as a segue into this post, which ignores the dregs of the Fandom Menace who were never going to like this movie and just distills the five main points made by critics.

1. It threw away what The Last Jedi established. 2. It's too chock-full of stuff and with too rushed a pace.  3. It has no deep themes and nothing insightful to say. 4. It lacks imagination and is all rehashing and nostalgia-bait fanservice. 5. It's a disappointing ending to both a trilogy and a nine-film saga.

1. This criticism seems to recur the most, since critics didn’t just like TLJ and Rian Johnson’s vision for the franchise, they loved it; they were blown away by it. So naturally it cuts deep when they see TROS set back a lot of what TLJ established (Rey actually does come from a noteworthy lineage, actually does have to undergo true Jedi training, and even ends up becoming a Skywalker. Finn is back to hanging out with Rey rather than Rose, and Rose herself has a minor role. Poe is prone to being reckless and hot-tempered again. Luke isn’t a grumpy old man anymore. Kylo Ren, after reforging his old mask, is redeemed while a decrepit old wielder of the Dark Side is the Big Bad. Hux doesn’t get much of a role and is killed off midway through. The Force-sensitive children like that “broom boy” don’t factor into anything. The story takes a familiar path rather than subverting audience expectations.) Honest Trailers even joked that the film was the long-awaited sequel to The Force Awakens rather than to The Last Jedi. And I can understand this critique, it’s a valid one to make. 

But I’d also have to argue that not only is J.J Abrams entitled to bring the story back in line with his old ideas from his time making TFA since Disney and Lucasfilm specifically reached out to him to direct TROS (and c’mon, Rian Johnson threw out TFA’s establishment first, if it’s wrong of J.J then it was wrong of Rian too), and that a film that exactly followed TLJ’s establishment like Colin Trevorrow’s unproduced Duel of the Fates would feel too bleak and wrong for the franchise, but that the movie doesn’t ignore TLJ as much as it’s made out. The events of TLJ still happened exactly as we saw them, they are still acknowledged, and they are even built upon in interesting ways. I loved seeing Luke no longer a grumpy old man because that’s what TLJ’s climax set up with him: he learned the error of his ways and re-embraced his status as a Jedi and as a legend. The galaxy coming to the Resistance’s aid in the final battle is the perfect pay-off to them not doing so in the Battle of Crait and shows how Luke’s last stand really did inspire hope once more. I loved the three-way power struggle in the First Order between Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Hux and (representing Palpatine’s interests) Pryde. I thought Palpatine being behind Snoke made perfect sense. I’m glad Rose was still present at all. I though Kylo Ren’s redemption was handled very well. And I loved Rey becoming a Skywalker in the end, that just felt like such a right conclusion to me.

2. There’s an easy explanation as to why it’s chock-full with stuff - Kathleen Kennedy didn’t require Rian Johnson to adapt any of it in TLJ even though much of it was conceived by J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan when making TFA. J.J literally needed to fit two movies’ worth of content into this one movie because TLJ spent too much time wheel-spinning and navel-gazing (and keep in mind that I like TLJ; but I’m not going to pretend like it didn’t screw the pooch on multiple fronts). As for the pace, I definitely agree when it comes to the first act and whoever thought it was a good idea to excise so much of what was filmed for it needs to be slapped upside-down the head. But things start to improve after the big Pasaana canyon race, and once they get off Pasaana altogether the pace settles down into the usual SW film groove. I think critics were so burned by that first half-hour that it colored their impression of the rest of the film, even when looking at it objectively the rest of the film does have a lot more breathing room and calmer, introspective moments between the big action set pieces. 

3. I see this a lot from critics and am all...?????? I’m sorry, did we watch the same movie!? “They win by making you think you’re alone, but there’s more of us”. “Your mother’s gone. But what she stood for, what she fought for.... that’s not gone.”  “We had each other. That’s how we won.” “Your spirit...your heart...some things are stronger than blood”. These themes are every bit as spelled out as the themes from TLJ that critics praised so much...but then, critics thought that one of TLJ’s themes was the villain’s justification of his own atrocities (”Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to”) so maybe them missing all of these themes isn’t so surprising. 

4. First off, the “lacking imagination” criticism will always astound me when The Force Awakens is one of the most critically praised films in the series and it literally ripped off the entire plot structure of A New Hope. None of the “member berries” in this film came close to that level of rehashing. Secondly, Star Wars has been all about nostalgia and pleasing crowds (”fanservice”) since its inception, and recycling various set-ups and tropes and sequences has been a thing for a long time (to quote George Lucas: “It’s like poetry, they rhyme.”) And lastly, this is the finale to the Skywalker Saga, so of fucking course it’ll be full of nostalgia and fanservice and sequences reminiscent of all the previous films! It’s a celebration as well as a send-off! Avengers: Endgame is a critical darling, and it literally traveled back in time to several of the past movies that led up to it! So what’s the problem here? I, for one, thought it was very cleverly and seamlessly done for the most part, and being done in the framework of a dumb, goofy blockbuster (which was all Star Wars was originally meant to be; it was never meant to be taken as seriously as it unfortunately has).

5. The main reasoning behind this criticism is that TROS fully exposes and embodies Disney and Lucasfilm’s lack of planning when it came to the Sequel Trilogy, which is so disheartening that it makes this finale a disappointing one to both the trilogy and the whole saga. First of all, every finale has been considered disappointing in their times: ROTJ was possibly even more loathed by fans and critics (while still enjoyed by general audiences) than TROS, and while ROTS got middling reviews from critics, it was still considered to be flat-out bad just like its predecessors by fans - being the least bad of them wasn’t high praise (even the general audience enjoyment seemed more tepid compared to ROTJ and TROS). On all fronts, the perception of the movies only improved with age, so that will likely be the same case here.

More importantly, anyone who did their homework or even some simple critical thinking not only could have realized that there was no plan for the Sequel Trilogy from the days of TLJ, but from the days of TFA. From the moment that movie rehashed the plot of A New Hope and relied heavily on Mystery Boxes to hook viewers, I knew there was no solid plan for this trilogy and that they were making it up as they went along. When you’re aware of this fact well in advance, I think that you end up being more impressed by TROS for being able to wrap the trilogy and saga up in the tight, definitively close-ended way that it did. I know that I certainly was. Much of this had to do with J.J Abram’s idea to bring back Palpatine. People whine that he was brought in with no foreshadowing at the last minute and that he was nowhere near the Sequel Trilogy beforehand and that him being here makes ROTJ pointless, and yet not only was Palpatine everywhere near the whole saga from the very beginning (which, as J.J has said, would make it bizarre for it to end without him), but ROTJ was already made pointless by TFA by its decision to reverse all the heroes’ victories and bring back the Empire. If Palpatine, the Emperor, the very creator of the Empire, did not find a way to return from his defeat in ROTJ and was thus not behind the Empire’s resurrection, how fucking cheap would that be? Some random other decrepit, all-powerful Dark Side wielder just came along and brought it back to the point of reversing all the heroes’ victories? And then he gets supplanted by Han and Leia’s son, which would make the Sequel Trilogy and whole saga’s Final Boss the guy who humiliatingly got his ass handed to him in both previous films’ climaxes? IMHO, the Sequel Trilogy really would suck if that was what it amounted to! That would be a true “disappointing ending to both a trilogy and a nine-film saga.” When it comes to the film series (the Skywalker Saga), the only valid excuse for not ending the conflict with the Empire in ROTJ is if the Emperor wasn’t truly vanquished in it. Period.

It ain’t J.J’s fault that he was actually looking at the bigger picture while critics were not.

Bonus: another video plug, because this guy is a Star Wars fan that truly deserves it.

#Star Wars #The Rise of Skywalker #Opinion #Analysis #Defense #This has been a PSA

[freshthoughts2020]

NIKE AND THE ILLUSION OF PARTNERSHIP

NIKE AND THE ILLUSION OF PARTNERSHIP

Recently Kawhi Leonard filed a lawsuit  against Nike over his “Klaw “ logo. For those unaware, Kawhi Leonard is a basketball player that currently plays for the Toronto Raptors. 

According to Sports Illustrated, Leonard alleged that NIKE filed a copyright registration without the permission of Leonard. 

Leonard was adamant about the logo used by Nike was an original creation of his and was conceptualized way back during his college days.

      He insisted that he only allowed NIKE to use his logo on products on a permissive basis. NIKE was to acknowledge they had no ownership of the logo just limited uses that required Leonard’s permission. 

       This is where Kawhi went wrong. Kawhi is learning what previous collaborators learned the hard way. NIKE is always gonna look out for NIKE first.

       It’s like when Kanye was frustrated doing his “partnership” with NIKE because he wasn’t receiving royalties for his shoes & his collaborations was limited to a pair of sneakers every two years. 

        When NIKE was finished with Kanye they took his colorways applied them to other shoes with no afterthought about Kanye.

Same with Sean Wotherspoon, who is the owner of ROUND TWO, a vintage store with flagships in Virginia, Miami, NY, and LA. 

After, they were released, soon after Sean started teasing samples of what to come next.

First peek at the second wave! Still early on the sample process, and there’s a lot that’s going to change! I’m thinking add some color to the sole, make that air bubble infrared, gotta change the sock liner to yellow, maybe a new color insole?!, fix the denim on the tabs, and do a gradient from light to dark blue instead of all light blue?!? What new patches should I include with this pair?! I couldn’t be happier holding these babies in my hand, can’t wait to see the final sample! So much more dope Nike shit to talk about, can’t wait to tell everyone! 🌊🌊🌊🌊 @nikesportswear @nike

- Sean Wotherspoon

He thought that next was going to come but Nike went “NOPE”. No official explanation given, just the end of a partnership.

However, he did have this to say.

"I’ve been done working with [Nike], at least on another SW collab, for a while. Still lots of good friends there. I help when asked, but being able to spread my wings again is the best feeling ever," 

Well, its best to interpret that as NIKE gave him the boot and instead of being salty about it he took the bigger road to ensure no bridges were burnt. 

People were concerned with the partnership when he posted a picture of him in a pair of YEEZY DESERT RAT 500’s.

Who knows what his contract entailed but if Nike let a pair of yeezys stopped them from capitalizing more on the hype from those Sean Wotherspoon sneakers, shame on them.

Moving along, I would like to offer up this quote from Parent-Athlete and master wordsmith, Lavar Ball.

“NO NO CHECK THIS OUT NIKE GAVE THEM… THEY CAN’T TAKE THEY BRAND WITH THEM..”

“IF LEBRON AND KOBE LEAVE NIKE THEY WON’T LET THEM TAKE THE DESIGN”

“THATS THE BRAND NIKE MADE FOR THEM”

Lavar, didn’t tell a single lie. Recently Kobe launched one of his post-retirement ventures, Mamba Sports Academy. The sports academy offers a variety of training programs to Youth and Adults and isn’t limited to Basketball. Its all about embracing the “Mamba Mentality” Kobe possessed on the court. Its the mentality credited for getting Kobe 5 NBA Championships and many other accolades.

This new venture is all built off Kobe likeness and image. People will literally sign up for this camp because Kobe is attached to it. So It was kinda odd, when I saw the new merchandise for the Mamba Sports Academy. 

On Eastbay, the items aren’t even listed with Kobe name on them. The first word you see is Nike. It’s clear the sponsorship is with Nike so obviously you will see their name but one word doesn’t feature “Kobe” or at the very least “MAMBA”. 

That was a clear sign to me that when it come to these partnerships, NIKE will be prioritized first and if you’re not willing to do that they will easily find someone that will.

Hopefully, Kawhi recovers his Intellectual Property and doesn’t make the same mistake with New Balance. Hopefully there will be clauses in his contract to ensure the proper uses with his logo and that He’ll never have to battle a Corporate Giant again and just focus on his Legacy.

Visit gettothecorner.com

#air jordan v #air jordan #nike #nike air #menswear #kawhi leonard #kanye west #sean wotherspoon #life logs #nike and the illusion of partnership

[misscrawfords]

The Rise of Skywalker: Part One

I have lots of thoughts and feelings about TROS. Most of them negative. For three days I’ve been alternating between raging and crying. Finally, I’ve felt able to start writing.

This is a negative review. If you loved the film then this might not be the post for you. I am very sensitive to what happened after TLJ. And I want to reassure anyone reading that I would never turn criticism for a film (which is absolutely a valid response to seeing something that you disliked and are trying to understand) into personal attacks against the actors or creators involved or, worse still, fans who liked it. If you liked TROS, can’t bear to hear any criticism of it, and still choose to read my posts about it, then that is on you. (I really shouldn’t have to say this but this is a hellsite.)

This post contains spoilers for TROS... and Jumanji 2. Go figure.

Things I liked:

·       C-3PO and everything he did. This droid is the character I identify with most in the entire SW series (which probably says some uncomfortable things about me but this is not the time!) and he had such a big and important role and his quips were genuinely great and funny and I loved everything he did. Apart from – but more on that later.

·       Ben Solo. Uh, other people have talked about his little shrug and his “ow” and his smile – oh god, his smile. Ben Solo is amazing. It’s a shame that – but more on that later.

·       I didn’t hate Rey Palpatine. I mean, I literally wrote this story when I was 13 when I made Hermione Voldemort’s daughter as a way of explaining her inner darkness and had her team up with Harry (with whom she had a telepathic bond) to destroy him. (You can read the story here if you really want to.) So it would be pretty hypocritical of me to hate this plotline. I enjoyed seeing angry, feral Rey on screen, I enjoyed seeing a female hero confronting her capacity for destruction and darkness. I was okay with the idea of a final face-off between a Palpatine and a Skywalker and how this is a way of bringing final balance to the Force. This was pretty interesting and I’d be up for this. I much prefer Rey Nobody but as a concept I’m not actually against it. Unfortunately the execution – but more on that later.

·       I really enjoyed more of Finn and Poe. I love both of them as characters. I mean I can’t think of a single bit of dialogue that was meaningful between them or what they accomplished in particular for they had some fun moments.

·       Finn and Jannah’s conversation about being ex-stormtroopers was a lovely scene, a moment of much-needed quiet and reflection and bonding in a film that was far too hectic and crowded. Shame it went nowhere.

·       Reylo kiss? I mean, that was cool.

·       Unironically, I loved Hux. He was snarky and his revelation of being the spy because he just hated Kylo that much got the biggest reaction in the cinema of the entire showing. Admittedly it was derisive laughter as we all realised what a clusterfuck of bad writing this film was, but still. It crossed over into so-bad-it’s-good territory. Hux gave me considerable pleasure in a film that otherwise made me very angry.

·       My favourite scene in the film was when Rey and Kylo fought on Pasaana over the transport ship with Chewie (apparently) on and Rey blows it up. The cinematography was amazing, it was a visual representation of both balance and building on the lightsaber breaking scene in TLJ while upping the stakes considerably and Rey’s reaction of visceral horror when she realised what she had done was truly shocking and unexpected. To have Chewie killed off so suddenly like this for no reason except that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the stakes are high and this is a desperate war with casualties – genius. A perfect way to make Rey and Ben even more similar – both having killed father figures – and have Rey confront her dark side as she wrestles with what she has done and the consequences of having a non-unified relationship with Ben while also being in a position to truly empathise with him – this was exactly the content I had signed up for. But it was the moment that it was revealed that Chewie was still alive that I realised what I’d only suspected before then: that this film was terrible and I would not be able to trust any emotion it was inviting me to feel.

Fundamentally, I think that this film is incredibly poorly written and emotionally dishonest. It is telling that I saw Jumanji 2 earlier in the day and out of the two films, the only point at which I cried was when Milo decided to stay in Jumanji as a horse. Why did I cry? Because Milo and Grandpa’s relationship had been gradually built up over the course of a film that was not afraid of quiet moments and building a narrative of a relationship that revealed what it needed over the course of several meaningful scenes. It allowed Milo’s decision to stay to be both a tragic loss but also a happy ending for him. Truly bittersweet and in a way that everyone can relate to. The loss of a dear friend to illness is a horrible but human thing to contemplate. To be able to set this friend free through a metaphor of a beautiful death and afterlife is genuinely moving and hopeful. Unfortunately TROS did not manage to give me any such emotions or elicit a single tear.

At least not till afterwards. I’ve subsequently cried a lot, some of it over the tragedy of Ben and Rey in a film that promised hope, but mainly for myself and the other (mainly) young female fans who have poured all their knowledge and intelligence into analysis of TFA and TLJ and who seemed to understand the story that was being told and who had been promised more of this story in the interviews and trailers released prior to this film – and who are now feeling like absolute garbage as this film throws out its own mythology for an incoherent, self-serving mess that in many ways defies analysis. The only thing I feel really capable of analysing is how much it doesn’t work, as opposed to what the film is trying to do. Where is the symbolism? Where is the metaphor? Where is the hero’s journey? Where is the heroine’s journey? Where is nuance? Where is everything that was set up in both TFA and TLJ? IDK, I can’t see it. It’s a kick in the teeth.

So, no matter how many individual things I was able to enjoy at the time when watching TROS, they end up being meaningless because the entire film was so bad. I can’t feel pleasure thinking about the good bits because they were mired in context (or lack of it). I can’t feel genuine sorrow about the fate of Rey and Ben because the execution of that fate was so poorly done. I don’t even mind that Ben died. It was always an option and the story of redemption followed by death is a very common story, a very Christian story. Though the death of Christ to save us from our sins, is crucially followed by resurrection. I mean, literally everyone can and does die. That doesn’t make you special. If you’re going for a Christ metaphor, you kind of need resurrection too. But I’m not sure that was exactly what they were going for with it; it was a mess and the execution made little internal consistency.

It may be that if I watched the film again, my problems would be lessened and I would see new things in them and they would make sense. I’ve read some twitter threads of people who are making connections and finding explanations on a second or third viewing. But the problem is that I shouldn’t need to see a film more than once to fundamentally understand it. I don’t mean picking up on new and interesting features and subtext which a good film, like a good book, rewards you with on multiple viewings. TLJ does that. But you should be able to follow what the ultimate meaning of a film is when you see it first.

If that is the case, then the ultimate meaning of TROS is that the good are good, the bad are bad, change is rewarded with death, a character who was once alone ends up alone again, plot coherency is sacrificed for whatever explosion or cool backwards-reference is needed at the time, death is not the end except when it is, there is no cosistency and consequently no emotional impact. And apparently it is a happy and hopeful ending? The tonal disconnect with the story being told and the way it was shot and the music being played and the clear intention of the people making the film is utterly jarring.

To famously quote Macbeth:

It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

This post is already too long so I will go into my criticisms in more detail in a further post. Stay tuned!

Read Part Two here.

#tros #tros spoilers #star wars #the rise of skywalker #anti-tros

[migleefulmoments]

"Hahaha. A friend pointed this out. W online shops too!" What does this even mean?! I don't know anyone in 2020 who doesn't online shop besides my 80 year old grandparents because they refuse to learn how to use a computer 😂 I don't get how Will, a 30 something year old man, online shopping is worthy enough for Abby to comment on it. I'm sure Chris does it too. And Darren.

On Nov 5, Darren wrote this post and the cc fandom lost their shit.    

They decided that organizing 10 costumes for multiple events in two different states for two different people was not worthy of acknowledgment- especially since they wore several purchased costumes. They spent the next 30-ish days mocking her “online shopping skills” like the petty idiots they are and now they bring it up two months later. 

Anonymous asked: this is funny, C posted a photo of beard, D posted photos with the beard. Almost like they were sitting next to each other and saying “ok ok I will say this”

ajw720 answered: The only difference, C controls his SM and the bearding, D does not, but they knew the Halloween post was coming when C posted his belated b-day wishes (not that he acknowledged they were late).  

It really is, if you can remove the very human, tragic element, like a script for a really bad D Movie.  C posts “Happy Birthday, Babe!” a day after the man’s actual b-day and “D” praises his fake bride for MAKING TEN costumes.  Sure praise her if she actually designed them and sat with her sewing machine.  No, she went online and ordered things (I doubt she even went to a store).   And 3 couple costumes were cheap frankly.  The only thought was how narcissistic she could be in their execution (as @flowersintheattic254pointed out even the Mario costume had  a reason, it was a reminder of Japan and the fake encagement by referring to the ad that paid for their trip there).

And seriously how are people not questioning that she spent the entirety of her month picking TEN costumes?  Who has time for this?  I know, i know, a person whose only role in life is to play fake plus one.

I am just so tired by D in particular being utterly dragged down by the useless dead weight by his side and his team’s sole ambition to promote her and make her sound like a decent person.  

If they wanted to praise her, maybe they should have forced her to participate in the zero waste initiative instead of sitting drinking by the pool or have her volunteer to help young girls who have been kicked out of their homes, or have been raped.  Or pick any cause and truly volunteer her time to promote it.  If she is not going to actually get a job and pursue a career, please force her to do something that is actually of value and contribute something good to the world. But to praise her for picking TEN costumes?  

Praise that comes from a man who this year alone won three awards, is starring in a show he created and wrote the music for, has his first big movie premiere this week, is exec producer and star of a huge show on N/etflix, just announced his starring role with 2 A++ lists actors next spring on Broadway, celebrated the 5th anniversary of the festival he created, volunteered his time for the zero waste initiative, performed at several charity events, and was just yesterday name limited series actor of the decade.  Where is the praise for him from his “bride”?  He at least deserves it.

How do they not see how ridiculous it is for someone with D’s accomplishments in 2019 alone praise a person for purchasing TEN costumes for Halloween?  And stans, how do you accept that this is right or normal.  You really know nothing about him and have such little respect for him as a person if you continue to accept the character his idiotic team has created on his behalf.  It is so far from the person he is and that he generally holds himself out to be when given the opportunity.  

This isn’t about being a “gay fetishist” or “hating woman” this is about wanting for D to be fairly and accurately represented and no longer forced to participate in this stupid, life sucking game to promote a person that contributes absolutely nothing to the world.  If you want to have a strong female role model, there are so many, i’ve talked about a few in the past few days (thus far Nancy, Lea, and Phoebe) and will continue to do so, but please stop worshiping a person whose sole reason you are speaking about her is her connection to D, even if you refuse to accept it is fake.  

klainecentric Finished reading the funniest ig story of the day, the qween being praised for sitting in front of either a sewing machine or computer...bravo your majesty qween....your my hero well done.👏👏. And all I can think of is how irrelevant the statement D made about being an emotional horder, being a very private person and finally D saying he's lazy when it comes to social media, I'm internally screaming in frustration because yeah we know D wouldn't have written a post praising that lazy good for nothing waste of space but he's coming across as a lier and it's extremely damaging to his character as a person. I absolutely hate lying and every time another "private" moment is posted to the world is another small piece that's chipped away from what D has originally stated about privacy. PBB, nobody cares about your cheap arse highly flammable costumes you buy online, did you forget about your piano baby adult strip club. I'm sure there are still plenty of people out there you can hire to rub and flaunt their flanges all over the beer taps, why don't you keep busy on that instead. If you want to make costumes, I'm sure you can sew some mighty fine titty tassels together. It'll be cheap nasty, sound familiar.

souly So, let me get this straight. We should all praise a person for going online, looking up different costumes in online stores, putting those in their shopping basket and hitting “buy”? Because I do that at least once a week with other stuff. Do I get praised for that now? Pretty please? I’m doing good work there and buy a lot of stuff, therefore I must be the best person ever!

notes-from-nowhere You’re my Queen. Please, love me.

souly

(I think I got it right. I’m getting the hang of what said person is doing. Wheee! ;))

notes-from-nowhere You nailed it 🤣

ajw720 Yesterday I got a delivery of car food. And instead of his usual seafood mix up greats, I got him shrimp flavor. I’m awesome!!!!!

souly Oh, hey! I think we should all take pictures of whatever we bought online during the week or month and make individual posts on all of our social media accounts about it. Because, you know…

cassie1022 I picked up stuff I ordered online at Target and PetSmart. Does that count? Should I receive accolades because my cat will have fresh litter to do her business on?

souly Only if you post the pictures to prove it! ;)

ajw720 As soon as I get home. Pictures forthcoming. Shrimp cat treats and I also got a burgundy blanket for my new comforter!!! Life goals!!!!!!!!!!!

souly Okay, so, let’s see… What did I buy online during the past month that can be shared as pictures? Some things are gifts, so I obviously can’t post anything about those yet. But I think these here are safe.

Let’s start with one of my fav new shirts. (Excuse the grainy quality. I had to quickly edit it for privacy reasons. :p And yes, that’s a butterfly mirror.)

The rest are behind the cut to save your dash from drowning in too many pictures. ;)

cheekyface72 You’re my queen from now on…

ajw720 I think emmy/sag/gg/CC winner DC should write a post @soulypraising your awesome, amazing, unparalleled online shopping skills!  You earned that praise.  That cat toy is particularly spectacular.

*********************

Just A Taste of M’s Amazing Online Shopping Skills that are worthy of such Praise

ajw720

Super Mario with inflatable Dragon $54.66 (x)

Princess Peach $78.99 (x)

chrisdarebashfulsmiles. i can’t

flowersintheattic254. When you add the fact that the wedding was sponsored so heavily, and her history of outfits I think it shows Mi@rren is something that’s always been done very much ‘on the cheap’.

From work vacays (honeymoon included), RC ‘glue gun’ looks, thrift shoes and subsidized weddings.

It’s BUDGET BEARDING!!!

leka-1998. It’s not worth more than this, that’s for sure.

notes-from-nowhere  We are so ungrateful. She worked hard to find the gloves.

I bet she had to click on another link to find them. She deserves another accolade.

ajw720 @flowersintheattic254 Budget Bearding!  I LOVE It! (and something tells me D’s SW costume in particular was far cheaper than either of these).

souly That Snow White dress can be found for about $25 in a ton of online shops. I stumbled upon it even before Halloween way too many times. 😂

@notes-from-nowhere The plush question mark block can be found in a couple online stores like this one. She simply glued it onto some gloves - or asked L to do it with that glue gun of hers.

flowersintheattic254 Well funnily enough I think we may have confirmation that 🚽🚽 glued on the puppies so I guess YES to the question mark block too!!!

cassie1022 They can’t even glue things properly. Why am I not surprised?

leka-1998

SW

So, so amazing. Bow to the kween and her not so helpful helper.

************************************

There are lots more...I figured enough of your brain cells died reading the ones I posted.  On Nov 30 she is STiLL bringing it up”

Anonymous asked:

Whenever I see miarren gifset they always use the same quote underneath (the rolling the windows down quote) and at first I rolled my eyes and thought uh not that quote again, and I can't believe it took me this long to realise it's because there is literally no other quote that can be construed as loving. You can hardly put down "she's a big girl" whenever you make a set of gifs with M beaming and D looking like someone murdered the dog he's allergic to.

ajw720: And I love the Emmy quote as it was an absolute reference to his character who was a psychopath. Pretty telling if you ask me. But that reference is over their heads.

And pretty much the only one. Guess saying he’s a ball and chain kind of guy isn’t romantic. They can’t even take pooping exes as he clearly steered the conversation away from her. Lovely lady of many moons? Nah she sounds like a stranger. Saying nothing changes after marriage? Sounds boring. It’s a struggle. But hey she’s an excellent online shopper that he done got hitched to!!!

[spacedragonsxx]

TROS REVIEW (spoilers)

Well...it was better than TLJ and there’s some pros and cons, so I’ll list them below👇👇

Things I didn’t like :

* FORCE ABILITIES

- I already hated force-FaceTiming, now you can apparently teleport objects through force connections??? Ummm yeah no.

-FORCE HEALING HAS ALWAYS BEEN CANON, BUT NOT TO THAT EXTENT WHAT THE KRIFF. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they wouldn’t have done the whole IMPALING KYLO AND THEN HEALING IT COMPLETELY thing😒. Also, it ruins other movies because there are so many instances where this could have been used. And you can say that it’s a new force ability that was discovered by Rey and Kylo (or perhaps Luke? And he taught it to both of them like when Ben was young and when Rey was training) but if that’s the case then, HOW DOES BABY YODA, WHO HAS NO TRAINING OR EVEN CONCEPT OF WHAT THE FORCE IS BC HES A BABY, KNOW HOW TO DO IT!? ok so let’s say that you have to be EXTREMELY powerful in the force to do it. So, we can say Baby Yoda is a clone of Yoda and Rey is the emperor’s granddaughter, ok so they’re really powerful and they can do it. But, why can Kylo (assuming that’s what he did to bring Rey back since both cases are channeling force energy into another being) do it? What makes him anymore powerful than Luke or Anakin? Why couldn’t they do it? Or why couldn’t Yoda do it in the Clone Wars (if Baby Yoda is his clone and obv. Yoda would be strong enough for an ability like this)? Idk the whole thing is very confusing...

- FORCE GHOSTS CANNOT INTERACT WITH THE PHYSICAL WORLD!!!! Whyyyyy would they make any indication otherwise because, once again, it ruins other movies. If force ghosts can hold objects and use the force, then why not help in battles? Is there like a force ghost code that says you can’t help your friends after death so that you don’t interfere with anything involving the way or the force or “destinies”? This just opens more questions and plot holes...why not just keep force ghosts how they were (guides/advisors that were at peace)? Instead, Luke can apparently hold his lightsaber and use the force to pick up his X-Wing. Isn’t he one with the force now? Isn’t he just a part of the flow of the force? imo, he shouldn’t be able to interact/interfere with anything in the physical world besides speaking and appearing to others.

* PLOT HOLES (there were lots of wait how did they do that, why is he here wasn’t he just-, can they do that...Moments. Also the concept of time in this movie is really bad...felt like GoT season 8 with the way they just seemed to be here and then somewhere else within 5 minutes with no real concept of time<<<but then again JJ did have a lot to cram in with this movie due to TLJ not really taking the plot ANYWHERE).

* FAKE DEATHS (too many. That’s all I’m gonna say😂).

* LACK OF LUKE IMPACT

- THIS IS HIS LEGACY. He was hardly in the Sequels and had little impact in them overall. I feel like at the end, he should have had something to do with the Emperor’s death ( my thought would be to have his force ghosts appear behind Rey and help her push back the force lightning since apparently force ghosts can do that now and that way he could have a larger role as a hero in the story and be directly involved in fulfilling his fathers final goal).

* Space Jumping

- I don’t think you should be able to exit hyperspace in the middle of the atmosphere of another planet. Also, doing it that quickly doesn’t make sense as well (once again concept of time/plot holes^^^).

Anyways....negativity is over!! 👇

Things I liked :

* The concept of the plot

-I actually liked what they tried to do with the plot, however it was just very jumpy and forced in your face sometimes (more of an explanation for this point with the points bellow). But I feel like TLJ left this movie with a lot to pick up from soooo...once again, I’m cutting it some slack.

* Sith lore

-OK SO THE THRONE ROOM (which is actually original concept art for the Emperor’s throne) AND SITH HOLOCRON/RELIC THINGS AND THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF THE DARKSIDE WAS VERY COOL.

- It gave more of an idea that the sith were a cult sort of thing it felt very tied to the history of the dark side/sith culture and I liked that a lot.

-gave a more in depth look at palps power👇 and his role in the sequels which ties it to the other trilogies as well.

* Rey/Kylo dynamic

- Not specifically Reylo (though I’ve never had a strong opinion about the ship, and I’m fine with them getting together bc I never really cared about that part) but the concept of: Ben👉🏼born out of light (Leia) but falls to darkness VS. Rey👉🏼 Born out of darkness (Palpatine) but raised in the light. Both are tempted to swing the other way around ( Kylo temped by his parents, Rey, and the force itself to go back to the light and Rey tempted by her grandfather, her need for a legacy/purpose, and Kylo to go towards the Darkness). However, in the end, Darth Vader’s grandson and Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter (two of the most powerful Sith in history) must unite to destroy the ultimate evil and the darkness once and for all. Plus Ben’s sacrifice for Rey is really the only thing that made that kiss acceptable to me (other wise it would have been forced for fan service imo).

* Palpatine

- I think his broken body hanging from the crane was extremely terrifying (which is a good thing because you’re supposed to FEAR the emperor) and I loved the whole concept of him repairing himself with the life energy of Rey and Ben. His voice even sounded more demonic before he healed himself and I thought that was cool.

-Him being Rey’s grandfather explains A LOT about her abilities and fixes some of the parts of the movie that I didn’t like while watching.

-making him be the one to create Snoke (via cloning as we saw) was good because it shows how Snoke was just a tool he used to orchestrate this entire thing (in a way it fixed the crap pulled by killing him off in TLJ).

* Lightsaber Battles

- Let’s be real, I may not like the Force face timing or teleportation of objects via force connection....BUT that battle where Kylo figures out Rey’s location by breaking the stand Vader’s mask was on was pretty clever and the fight itself was well done.

- THE BATTLE ON THE DEATH STAR WAS VERY COOL (minus the “killing” Kylo part 😒). I liked the pure rage they both had while fighting and the jumping over the waves

* Other small parts I liked :)

-c3po (he was pretty much the comedy in this movie)

-Lando (he wasn’t in it much but they handled his character VERY WELL).

-prequel references (first time the sequels reference the prequels via quotes, lore, voices)

-voices cameos (along with what I said above^, it was REALLY cool to hear TWO animated characters make an appearance: Ahsoka and Kanan. <<<really ties it in to the rest of the franchise and makes everything more connected)

-Leia/Luke flashback (LEIA TRAINED AS A JEDI AND HER LIGHTSABER WAS SO PRETTY JSIDJDJFKFNFKGK). Side note: I was also fine with Leia’s death (she pushed all of the light-sided energy she had into Kylo, which resulted in her death but Ben’s rebirth 🥺).

-Final Scene on Tatooine (as Maul said in Rebels: “It ends where it all began. A desert planet with twin suns) ...ok but why bury the lightsabers :(

So was it the perfect ending to the Skywalker saga? No. But it did the best it could with what it had to work with. Overall, I’m happy I think and I’m just going to leave it at that. Feel free put your own opinions (I’m open to any and love to discuss SW so😂). Also there were a ton of Easter eggs that I plan on making a separate post about (I’ll probably have to watch again before that to see if I missed any)!

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #tros spoilers #the rise of skywalker spoilers #tros #sw sequels #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #finn #poe dameron #leia organa #luke skywalker #han solo #sw #rose tico #jannah #lando calrissian

[clairen45]

What do you think of the porgs and their meaning for IX? I saw the cover of star wars insider 2019 special edition with Rey on it and a Porg at the corner. At first I thought this whole Porg stuff is all just for fun but then I read Leia - princess of Alderran and there is a passage (19, I believe) where Holdo speaks about breeding and to resolve a problem between parents and child . . . What do you think could this all mean?

Dear anon, this answer was a long time coming. Thank you so much for bringing up Porgs again, because, you got it all right! Porgs matter! They matter so much, not just like your Ewok novelty. People thinking they were just an excuse to sell cheap toys are utterly confused and missed the whole point.

The reason why Porgs were created in TLJ, after all, probably stems from a very practical reason. Skellig Michael Island, in Ireland, where the scenes for Ahch-To were shot both for the end of TFA and for TLJ, is a famous puffin sanctuary. It is also a place with a heavy spiritual past, which also, besides its gorgeous scenery, might have been why they chose it. But they still had to make do with the massive population of puffins. At the end of TFA we are vaguely aware of birds coming and going. But the little time spent on Ahch-To on TFA meant that we didn’t get enough scenes there to really pay attention on what these birds were. No CGI. No particular intent there. For TLJ they knew they were going to spend more time on the island. Get more shots. And so more probable that the birds would get more obtrusive within the action. So, what to do? This is what Jake Lunt Davies, the creature concept designer of the Porgs had to say:

Rian [Johnson – the director] had gone to shoot this sequence on Skellig Michael, which is the real island location that stands in for Ahch-To, and that island is covered in puffins. It’s a wildlife preserve and everywhere you look there are hundreds of birds dotted around the landscape.

From what I gathered, Rian, in a positive spin on this, was looking at how can he work with this. You can’t remove them. You physically can’t get rid of them. And digitally removing them is an issue and a lot of work, so let’s just roll with it, play with it. And so I think he thought, “Well, that’s great, let’s have our own indigenous species.”… The puffins were sort of a big influence on everything, really.

RJ put a spin on theme… He knew he was going to make them part of the whole thing. I personally don’t think this was a machiavellian scam to jam down obniouxly cute creatures down out throats. I don’t. I think that right off the bat RJ decided that he was going to use the porgs as a specific vehicle for a very important message… breeding… the power of love and love creating new life… mating and babies…. And lo, how he hammered that point throughout the movie: in Luke’s first lesson to Rey about the nature of the Force, with mama porg protecting her eggs. And with the porgs nesting on the MF.

Now, I did a specific giant meta about birds and mating throughout SW: Bird is the Word- Avian Metaphor and Mating in Star Wars. This is an excerpt from my meta that might sum up what the “bird experience” means to me:

TLJ was meant as Sex Ed class for Rey and Kylo. I should not have to develop the many many sexual symbols on Ahch-To, the caves, wetness, and the glorious nakedness of Kylo, or the smut hut. Remember, I am talking about birds. And what do the birds mean? Birds represent life, mating, nesting. And of course they are much more appealing symbols of reproduction than bunnies, let’s say, because birds are ascensional symbols. They do represent the pressures of biology and reproduction, but their graceful flight gives spiritual value to the deed. Birds are the link between the earth and the sky, the body and the soul, mortals and immortals, humans and gods. Think about Leda and the Swan, or Aphrodite’s dove, and all these cutesy birdies that usually flutter around our favorite Disney princesses, especially when they sing about love or falling in love. Think about Bambi and the spectacle of love-crazed birds. Twitterpatted alright!

Go check out the meta really because it is astounding how much the bird motif is “pregnant” (lol) in the movies and in the ST in particular. The EU brought even more substance with that cute parallel between this Forces of Destiny episode on porgs (Porgs problems) and the Lion King… Further read on this one in this post: More on Porgs …

That:being said, once the tale was told, of course Disney and LF jumped on the bandwagon of selling porgs as the cute novelty toy! Of course they would. It is only fair. But I don’t think for one minute that they were imagined and designed that way. PORGS ARE MEANINGFUL!!!!!

Now, dear anon, you bring up something from Leia Princess of Alderaan which is indeed super important. It does come from chapter 19, p.243 for the hardcover edition. Leia is then falling for her first love, Kier. And as the princess struggles between her feelings and her moral duty, and wonders whether she is entitled to happiness in such dire times,  this is what Amilyn Holdo tells her:

If the young of the species don’t have motivations to leave the care of their parents, they’ll never lead an independent existence, which means they’ll never reproduce. The species would soon die out. Ergo, the last stage of life before adulthood always involve conflict between parents and offspring.

There are many key points for the ST there. “Motivations” is a word that should ring a bell… What are Kylo’s motivations, for one? But also remember that scene in TFA when Rey is trying to fix the “motivator” on the MF, a scene that comes right afterward Kylo’s asking about “What girl?”

And remember how the scene is cut in a way that the characters almost seem to reach out to each other, like a first try at teh Force bond device we get so beautifully done in TLJ.

You also have the paramount importance of leaving the parents to gain independence. That is Rey at the beginning of TFA. She is unable to let go of her parents. She is thus maintained in perpetual childhood and childishness, which are emphasized at the beginning of the movie by the concept for her hair (same style as the one she had as a child), the toys in her At-AT, theme music, and facial expressions when on her own (eating or playing with the helmet).

And then tyou have conflict with the parents. And that’s obviously Kylo.

So, yep, this is all about breeding and need to reproduce. BTW, on Kylo’s Spotify playlist, THIS: Breed by Nirvana. Coincidence? Of course not.

Further in Claudia Gray’s book, on p.245, to be more specific, Holdo adds:

Happiness is our moral imperative. (…)

Great evil can only be fought by the strong. People need spiritual fuel as much as they need food, water, and air. Happiness, love, joy, hope -these are the emotions that give us the strength to do what we need to do.

Interesting cluster of words. Holdo is all about vital force, the reproductive and restorative spark. Just like her famous quote in TLJ: “We are the spark, that’ll light the fire, that will restore the Republic.“  Restorative, reproductive, constructive. Just like Rose’s quote about saving what you love. Which is, very significantly, twisted and misinterpreted by Poe (and rage-fueled fanboys): “We are the spark, that will light the fire that’ll burn the First Order down”, which is destructive.

Also, it is in this book that we find a quote that was -revealingly- removed from TLJ : “the most dangerous substance known to exist (IS…) a pair of pretty dark eyes”. This Jane Austen quote was uttered in TLJ by none other than Luke Skywalker yours truly to Rey after her hand scene with Kylo:

“You opened yourself to Dark Side for a pair of pretty eyes!“

So, in the end what? You can guess where this is all going. Your intuition was correct. Of course it means that there will be a resolution of conflict between Kylo and his parents (even symbolically, because, yes, I know that Han is dead!!!). And of course there will be babies or the suggestion of babies (pregnant belly?) or some lovemaking (or suggestion of love making) at some point or as the endgame. There is no other way to read or interpret all the ST material and the EU canon material. After all this book you very kindly brought to attention yet again is aptly headed “JOURNEY TO STAR WARS THE LAST JEDI”. It is a companion book. It is meant that way. It has to reflect what the main themes are from the movie….

Hope that covered your question. Thanks again for reaching out!

#reylo fandom #reylo #star wars fandom #leia princess of alderaan #leia and amilyn #amilyn holdo #porgs #porgs in the last jedi #star wars symbolism #babies in star wars #star wars episode ix #love in star wars

[rosylipsandcheeks]

Compassion and Suffering: The Redemption of Rodion Raskolnikov

I am a huge fan of the character of Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. I’ve been thinking about my favourite literary human disasters and their fates. Dostoyevsky’s Rodion Raskolnikov is high up in my ranking of protagonists so broken, so misguided, and so lost. Both Star Wars and Crime & Punishment carry a message that “It’s not too late [to make amends and choose the path of good]” and “No one’s ever really gone”. Thus this fan of both compiled the post below :)

A cursory knowledge of the plot and themes of the novel and its context is really handy, I encourage you to click through these if you never heard about C&P before (I provide a morsel of that under the cut):

Read a quick synopsis here 

Wikipedia 

Here’s an extra bonus, a fragment describing Raskolnikov’s appearance:

An expression of the profoundest disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man’s refined face. He was, by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim, well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair.

tell me I’m not the only one casting Adam Driver in this role!

DISCLAIMER: I’m NOT claiming there’s a direct parallel between Rodion and Kylo Ren, nor Rodion/Sonia and Rey/Kylo Ren. These are very different stories: C&P is a realist novel while SW is a modern monomyth. Rey and Kylo Ren are equal protagonists (it’s her story) - the R/S dynamic IS a product of its era (19th c. tsarist Orthodox Russia). I’m a literature major and I believe in exploring the richness and thematic similarity across history, geography, and media.

I didn’t give much commentary - my main aim was to put some interesting quotes to the light. I’m open to discussion with merit. Pointless anti-ism and anti-intellectual arguments will not be addressed.  A long read-more, enjoy!

To quote this summary,

A former student, Raskolnikov lives in poverty and chaos and is eventually driven to murdering an aged woman (a pawnbroker) and her sister. He believes he has devised the perfect crime, as no one will regret the loss of his victims. It is a crime novel without a mystery, as from the very outset of the novel Dostoyevsky draws the reader into the interior of Raskolnikov’s mental life; the reader knows “who did it” (i.e., the crime) and sees his reasoning and can explain his actions.

The narrative’s feverish, compelling tone follows the twists and turns of Raskolnikov’s emotions and elaborates his struggle with his conscience and his mounting sense of horror as he wanders the city’s hot, crowded streets, and the novel’s status as a masterpiece is chiefly a result of its narrative intensity and moving depiction of the recovery of a diseased spirit.

The story is set in the 1860s, in the bowels of Saint Petersburg, tsarist Russia, bathed in the creed of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Dostoyevsky’s novel remains one of the most vital texts and literary achievements in European culture.

I have gathered several fragments of Rodion’s scenes with Sonia; I think the way they discuss morality, sin, and forgiveness could be an interesting reading for those interested in the theme of redemption in culture.

Rodion’s deed has been tormenting him increasingly.

‘Of course you’re right, Sonia,’ he said softly at last. He was suddenly changed. His tone of assumed arrogance and helpless defiance was gone. Even his voice was suddenly weak. ‘I told you yesterday that I was not coming to ask forgiveness and almost the first thing I’ve said is to ask forgiveness…. (...) I was asking forgiveness, Sonia….’

He tried to smile, but there was something helpless and incomplete in his pale smile. He bowed his head and hid his face in his hands. And suddenly a strange, surprising sensation of a sort of bitter hatred for Sonia passed through his heart. As it were wondering and frightened of this sensation, he raised his head and looked intently at her; but he met her uneasy and painfully anxious eyes fixed on him; there was love in them; his hatred vanished like a phantom. It was not the real feeling; he had taken the one feeling for the other. It only meant that that minute had come.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Sonia, dreadfully frightened.

He could not utter a word. This was not at all, not at all the way he had intended to ‘tell’ and he did not understand what was happening to him now. She went up to him, softly, sat down on the bed beside him and waited, not taking her eyes off him. Her heart throbbed and sank. It was unendurable; he turned his deadly pale face to her. His lips worked, helplessly struggling to utter something. A pang of terror passed through Sonia’s heart.

‘What’s the matter?’ she repeated, drawing a little away from him.

‘Nothing, Sonia, don’t be frightened…. It’s nonsense. It really is nonsense, if you think of it,’ he muttered, like a man in delirium. ‘Why have I come to torture you?’ he added suddenly, looking at her. ‘Why, really? I keep asking myself that question, Sonia….’

He had perhaps been asking himself that question a quarter of an hour before, but now he spoke helplessly, hardly knowing what he said and feeling a continual tremor all over.

‘Oh, how you are suffering!’ she muttered in distress, looking intently at him.

Her terror infected him. The same fear showed itself on his face. In the same way he stared at her and almost with the same childish smile.

‘Have you guessed?’ he whispered at last.

‘Good God!’ broke in an awful wail from her bosom.

She sank helplessly on the bed with her face in the pillows, but a moment later she got up, moved quickly to him, seized both his hands and, gripping them tight in her thin fingers, began looking into his face again with the same intent stare. In this last desperate look she tried to look into him and catch some last hope. But there was no hope; there was no doubt remaining; it was all true! Later on, indeed, when she recalled that moment, she thought it strange and wondered why she had seen at once that there was no doubt. She could not have said, for instance, that she had foreseen something of the sort—and yet now, as soon as he told her, she suddenly fancied that she had really foreseen this very thing.

‘Stop, Sonia, enough! don’t torture me,’ he begged her miserably.

It was not at all, not at all like this he had thought of telling her, but this is how it happened.

She jumped up, seeming not to know what she was doing, and, wringing her hands, walked into the middle of the room; but quickly went back and sat down again beside him, her shoulder almost touching his. All of a sudden she started as though she had been stabbed, uttered a cry and fell on her knees before him, she did not know why.

‘What have you done—what have you done to yourself?’ she said in despair, and, jumping up, she flung herself on his neck, threw her arms round him, and held him tightly.

Raskolnikov drew back and looked at her with a mournful smile.

‘You are a strange girl, Sonia—you kiss me and hug me when I tell you about that…. You don’t think what you are doing.’

‘There is no one—no one in the whole world now so unhappy as you!’ she cried in a frenzy, not hearing what he said, and she suddenly broke into violent hysterical weeping.

A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart and softened it at once. He did not struggle against it. Two tears started into his eyes and hung on his eyelashes.

‘Then you won’t leave me, Sonia?’ he said, looking at her almost with hope.

‘No, no, never, nowhere!’ cried Sonia. ‘I will follow you, I will follow you everywhere. Oh, my God! Oh, how miserable I am! … Why, why didn’t I know you before! Why didn’t you come before? Oh, dear!’

‘Here I have come.’

‘Yes, now! What’s to be done now? … Together, together!’ she repeated as it were unconsciously, and she hugged him again. ‘I’ll follow you to Siberia!’

He recoiled at this, and the same hostile, almost haughty smile came to his lips. ‘Perhaps I don’t want to go to Siberia yet, Sonia,’ he said.

Sonia looked at him quickly.

Again after her first passionate, agonising sympathy for the unhappy man the terrible idea of the murder overwhelmed her. In his changed tone she seemed to hear the murderer speaking.

‘And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her know?’ he cried a minute later in despair, looking with infinite anguish at her. ‘Here you expect an explanation from me, Sonia; you are sitting and waiting for it, I see that. But what can I tell you? You won’t understand and will only suffer misery … on my account! Well, you are crying and embracing me again. Why do you do it? Because I couldn’t bear my burden and have come to throw it on another: you suffer too, and I shall feel better! And can you love such a mean wretch?’

‘But aren’t you suffering, too?’ cried Sonia.

Again a wave of the same feeling surged into his heart, and again for an instant softened it.

‘Sonia, I have a bad heart, take note of that. It may explain a great deal. I have come because I am bad. There are men who wouldn’t have come. But I am a coward and… a mean wretch. But … never mind! That’s not the point. I must speak now, but I don’t know how to begin.’ 

He paused and sank into thought.

‘Ah, we are so different,’ he cried again, ‘we are not alike. And why, why did I come? I shall never forgive myself that.’

‘No, no, it was a good thing you came,’ cried Sonia. ‘It’s better I should know, far better!’

(...)Do you understand now?’

‘N-no,’ Sonia whispered naïvely and timidly. ‘Only speak, speak, I shall understand, I shall understand in myself!’ she kept begging him.

‘Oh hush, hush,’ cried Sonia, clasping her hands. ‘You turned away from God and God has smitten you, has given you over to the devil!’

‘Then Sonia, when I used to lie there in the dark and all this became clear to me, was it a temptation of the devil, eh?’

‘Hush, don’t laugh, blasphemer! You don’t understand, you don’t understand! Oh God! He won’t understand!’

‘Hush, Sonia! I am not laughing. I know myself that it was the devil leading me. Hush, Sonia, hush!’ he repeated with gloomy insistence. ‘I know it all, I have thought it all over and over and whispered it all over to myself, lying there in the dark…. I’ve argued it all over with myself, every point of it, and I know it all, all! And how sick, how sick I was then of going over it all! I have kept wanting to forget it and make a new beginning, Sonia, and leave off thinking.

‘Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I want to prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has shown me since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am just such a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I’ve come to you now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have come to you? Listen: when I went then to the old woman’s I only went to try…. You may be sure of that!’

‘And you murdered her!’

‘But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went! Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself once for all, for ever…. But it was the devil that killed that old woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!’ he cried in a sudden spasm of agony, ‘let me be!’

He leaned his elbows on his knees and squeezed his head in his hands as in a vise.

‘What suffering!’ A wail of anguish broke from Sonia.

‘Well, what am I to do now?’ he asked, suddenly raising his head and looking at her with a face hideously distorted by despair.

‘What are you to do?’ she cried, jumping up, and her eyes that had been full of tears suddenly began to shine. ‘Stand up!’ (She seized him by the shoulder, he got up, looking at her almost bewildered.) ‘Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will send you life again. Will you go, will you go?’ she asked him, trembling all over, snatching his two hands, squeezing them tight in hers and gazing at him with eyes full of fire.

He was amazed at her sudden ecstasy.

‘You mean Siberia, Sonia? I must give myself up?’ he asked gloomily. ‘Suffer and expiate your sin by it, that’s what you must do.’

‘No! I am not going to them, Sonia!’

‘But how will you go on living? What will you live for?’ cried Sonia, ‘how is it possible now? Why, how can you talk to your mother? (Oh, what will become of them now?) But what am I saying? You have abandoned your mother and your sister already. He has abandoned them already! Oh, God!’ she cried, ‘why, he knows it all himself. How, how can he live by himself! What will become of you now?’

‘Don’t be a child, Sonia,’ he said softly. ‘What wrong have I done them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That’s only a phantom…. They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them. And what should I say to them—that I murdered her, but did not dare to take the money and hid it under a stone?’ he added with a bitter smile. ‘Why, they would laugh at me, and would call me a fool for not getting it. A coward and a fool! They wouldn’t understand and they don’t deserve to understand. Why should I go to them? I won’t. Don’t be a child, Sonia….’ ‘It will be too much for you to bear, too much!’ she repeated, holding out her hands in despairing supplication.

‘Perhaps I’ve been unfair to myself,’ he observed gloomily, pondering, ‘perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I’ve been in too great a hurry to condemn myself. I’ll make another fight for it.’

A haughty smile appeared on his lips.

‘What a burden to bear! And your whole life, your whole life!’

‘I shall get used to it,’ he said grimly and thoughtfully.

‘Listen,’ he began a minute later, ‘stop crying, it’s time to talk of the facts: I’ve come to tell you that the police are after me, on my track….’

‘Ah!’ Sonia cried in terror.

They sat side by side, both mournful and dejected, as though they had been cast up by the tempest alone on some deserted shore. He looked at Sonia and felt how great was her love for him, and strange to say he felt it suddenly burdensome and painful to be so loved. Yes, it was a strange and awful sensation! On his way to see Sonia he had felt that all his hopes rested on her; he expected to be rid of at least part of his suffering, and now, when all her heart turned towards him, he suddenly felt that he was immeasurably unhappier than before.

‘Sonia,’ he said, ‘you’d better not come and see me when I am in prison.’

(all quotes above from Part V, Chapter IV)

Raskolnikov decides to turn himself in, he visits Sonya though leaves her without a goodbye, goes to the market square and prostrates himself on the ground as she told him to, almost confessing his deed out loud. People think he’s drunk. At the station it turns out that the man who suspected him shot himself, Raskolnikov is relieved, but:

He went out; he reeled, he was overtaken with giddiness and did not know what he was doing. He began going down the stairs, supporting himself with his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a porter pushed past him on his way upstairs to the police office, that a dog in the lower storey kept up a shrill barking and that a woman flung a rolling-pin at it and shouted. He went down and out into the yard. There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and horror- stricken. She looked wildly at him. He stood still before her. There was a look of poignant agony, of despair, in her face. She clasped her hands. His lips worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a minute, grinned and went back to the police office. (Part VI, Chapter VIII)

EPILOGUE

Rodion confesses and is convicted to 8 years of penal servitude in Siberia after many people supplied evidence of him helping them and being a good but troubled man. His mother dies, his sister marries the man she wanted, Sonia follows him there.

His clothes were warm and suited to his manner of life. He did not even feel the fetters. Was he ashamed of his shaven head and parti-coloured coat? Before whom? Before Sonia? Sonia was afraid of him, how could he be ashamed before her? 

And yet he was ashamed even before Sonia, whom he tortured because of it with his contemptuous rough manner. But it was not his shaven head and his fetters he was ashamed of: his pride had been stung to the quick. It was wounded pride that made him ill. Oh, how happy he would have been if he could have blamed himself! He could have borne anything then, even shame and disgrace. But he judged himself severely, and his exasperated conscience found no particularly terrible fault in his past, except a simple blunder which might happen to anyone. He was ashamed just because he, Raskolnikov, had so hopelessly, stupidly come to grief through some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself and submit to ‘the idiocy’ of a sentence, if he were anyhow to be at peace.

Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in the future a continual sacrifice leading to nothing—that was all that lay before him. And what comfort was it to him that at the end of eight years he would only be thirty-two and able to begin a new life! What had he to live for? What had he to look forward to? Why should he strive? To live in order to exist? Why, he had been ready a thousand times before to give up existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for a fancy. Mere existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he had thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to others.

And if only fate would have sent him repentance— burning repentance that would have torn his heart and robbed him of sleep, that repentance, the awful agony of which brings visions of hanging or drowning! Oh, he would have been glad of it! Tears and agonies would at least have been life. But he did not repent of his crime.

Sonia works in the town, befriends the prisoners and their families, becomes a liaison between them. She’s adored while Rodion is disliked and people don’t understand why she’s there for him.

Here’s the very ending of the novel and the moment of Rodion’s change of heart.

On reaching the prison he learnt from the convicts that Sofya Semyonovna was lying ill at home and was unable to go out.

He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her; he soon learnt that her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her, Sonia sent him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much better, that she had a slight cold and that she would soon, very soon come and see him at his work. His heart throbbed painfully as he read it.

Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morning, at six o’clock, he went off to work on the river bank, where they used to pound alabaster and where there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were only three of them sent. One of the convicts went with the guard to the fortress to fetch a tool; the other began getting the wood ready and laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on to the river bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed and began gazing at the wide deserted river. From the high bank a broad landscape opened before him, the sound of singing floated faintly audible from the other bank. In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he could just see, like black specks, the nomads’ tents. There there was freedom, there other men were living, utterly unlike those here; there time itself seemed to stand still, as though the age of Abraham and his flocks had not passed. Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts passed into daydreams, into contemplation; he thought of nothing, but a vague restlessness excited and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia beside him; she had come up noiselessly and sat down at his side. It was still quite early; the morning chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous and the green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and paler. She gave him a joyful smile of welcome, but held out her hand with her usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out her hand to him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though afraid he would repel it. He always took her hand as though with repugnance, always seemed vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent throughout her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went away deeply grieved. But now their hands did not part. He stole a rapid glance at her and dropped his eyes on the ground without speaking. They were alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for the time.

How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed to seize him and fling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms round her knees. For the first instant she was terribly frightened and she turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the same moment she understood, and a light of infinite happiness came into her eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond everything and that at last the moment had come….

They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.

They resolved to wait and be patient. They had another seven years to wait, and what terrible suffering and what infinite happiness before them! But he had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his being, while she—she only lived in his life.

On the evening of the same day, when the barracks were locked, Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed and thought of her. He had even fancied that day that all the convicts who had been his enemies looked at him differently; he had even entered into talk with them and they answered him in a friendly way. He remembered that now, and thought it was bound to be so. Wasn’t everything now bound to be changed?

He thought of her. He remembered how continually he had tormented her and wounded her heart. He remembered her pale and thin little face. But these recollections scarcely troubled him now; he knew with what infinite love he would now repay all her sufferings.

And what were all, all the agonies of the past! Everything, even his crime, his sentence and imprisonment, seemed to him now in the first rush of feeling an external, strange fact with which he had no concern. But he could not think for long together of anything that evening, and he could not have analysed anything consciously; he was simply feeling. Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind.

Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically. The book belonged to Sonia; it was the one from which she had read the raising of Lazarus to him. At first he was afraid that she would worry him about religion, would talk about the gospel and pester him with books. But to his great surprise she had not once approached the subject and had not even offered him the Testament. He had asked her for it himself not long before his illness and she brought him the book without a word. Till now he had not opened it. He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind: ‘Can her convictions not be mine now? Her feelings, her aspirations at least….’

She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at night she was taken ill again. But she was so happy—and so unexpectedly happy—that she was almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, only seven years! At the beginning of their happiness at some moments they were both ready to look on those seven years as though they were seven days. He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering.

But that is the beginning of a new story—the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

If you made it this far, I hope you got something out of it! Read the book, it will leave you with the best literary fever :) 

#kylo ren meta #ben solo meta #reylo meta #kylo ren #crime and punishment #star wars #books

[winteriron-trash]

Ok, so that fanfic questions ask meme? You wanna do ALL OF THEM?!

YES, LET’S DO IT, HERE WE GO, PREPARE YOURSELF I’m copy and pasting answers I’ve already done just so I don’t have to retype them and there’s a break because god this got long. I might link this on my About Me post, cause holy shit I spent time on this

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Actual fandom? Probably DC. That’s when I started reading fanfiction and really poked my head around online communities dedicated to media and all.

2. What is your latest fandom?

I don’t know, probably Marvel? Maybe Riverdale, but I was a fan of the comics before so

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

If I’m assuming this question is about the actual fandom and not the source material and the people in the fandom and its community as a whole? Probably the Percy Jackson fandom. Not really into it anymore so I don’t know the state of it now, but it was a pretty wholesome and positive community. Any community that calls it’s creator “Uncle Rick” has gotta be pretty dope.

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

Oh lord save my soul for admitting I like this, but definitely Five Nights at Freddy’s. The indie gaming, creepypasta, underground subculture as a whole is something I regret getting into. Don’t get me wrong, I usually love the source material, but the fandom is just so bad. You probably know what I’m talking about, the fangirls who insist they’re insane and are in love with Slenderman or something.

But specifically on FNaF, lord, I don’t even know what the fandom is anymore. It’s a meme, a fetish, and a hellspace all at once. And I’m not gonna fucking lie, I’ve been in this hellhole long before any of that. Like, I can’t even try to escape it, I’m in it for the long haul. I was just someone who joined for the lore and now we’re here with fucking casual bongos and trash gang and fuck I didn’t ask for this. I can’t escape. I know so fucking much about the franchise it hurts my fucking soul. I remember when the FNaF 2 trailer came out and we were all micro-analyzing London Bridge Is Falling Down. I remember when Springtrap didn’t have a name and we called that fucking Spring Bonnie or Golden Bonnie. I survived that era and I have PTSD from it, trust me. I remember when we were naive enough to think FNaF 3 was the last game. I know what channels were born and what channels died because of that series. I know it all.

I’m sorry, I got off topic. BUT I DON’T GET TO FUCKING RANT ABOUT IT ENOUGH, FUCKING FUCKSHIT

Oh, and a lot of bandoms I was in too. I went through an alt phase where I’d only listen to shit like BVB, BMTH, MCR, PTV, SWS, and so on. Once again, that sort of fandom was the same as the indie/creepypasta in being ‘different’ and ‘insane’ and all that and I was no different. I was a weird fucking kid when I was like 13. I regret all of it.

5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?

Marvel, DC, and a couple Riverdale. 

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Not in many fandoms but

Marvel - WinterIronDC - SuperbatStar Trek Voyager - Captain Janeway/Seven of NinePercy Jackson - Solangelo

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

Marvel - Stucky, Stuckony, Romanogers, Clintasha, any incest ones, (save me for admitting this) SpideypoolDC - Any batboys shipped together, Bruce/Talia

And I don’t really have NOTPs for my other fandoms? Marvel and DC are really the only two things I’m invested in the fandom of. I guess you could count Wincest as well for Supernatural.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

What even is my latest fandom? Um, we’ll just say Marvel because I’m really not into joining fandoms much anymore. Honestly, I was a big DC fan who felt the need to hate Marvel because no shit. Eventually, I just got sick of the absolute shit movies DC had and I decided I had nothing to lose by just watching Iron Man. When I watched it I realized “wow, superhero movies can actually be good???” and I just binged the entire MCU in one month and was ready to see the next movie in theatres and I think I’ve seen every single MCU movie in theatres since Civil War? Definitely since Homecoming. I gave up on DC movies. The new Aquaman looks like shit, I’m so fucking pissed they redid Mera’s look when she looked perfectly fucking fine before and now she’s oversexualized and it’s gross. I’m excited for the new DC Batwoman TV show because I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO SEE A LIVE ACTION BATWOMAN SINCE THE DAWN OF FUCKING TIME

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Probably the Tony Stark Defense Squad. As a collective whole, I think the Defense Squad is one of the sweetest, nicest corners of the fandom. We’re incredibly kind to each other, write great meta and fic, and it’s just a great community. Of course, there are assholes, but you know.

I might get flamed for saying this, but also the HYDRA Trash Party corner of the fandom is actually really nice? Like, they understand consent and abuse aftermath and all the real shit better than the rest of the fandom, not gonna lie. Like, for as dark as the fic is you’d expect the people to be fucking nasties, but I have never met a rude HTP enthusiast. Or even one who’s unaware of how consent and whump work. They’re all very aware and kind. It’s bizarre, considering the source material. They get an awful rep though.

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Literally any fandom I’m in besides Marvel and DC. I think I wrote like 2 Riverdale fics. Getting into reading fanfic and getting into writing fanfic are two entirely different ballparks. I don’t really read that much fanfic anyway, especially not anymore. I read Marvel and DC, but even then. I think it’s hard because sometimes you can’t switch off the whole ‘reading like a writer’ thing. That’s why I enjoy classic literature. I’m a slut for some good ass prose and symbolism.

11. Who is your current OTP?

WinterIron, of ducking course.

12. Who is your current OT3?

I’m not really a fan of OT3s, to be honest, I find I’m personally pretty weak with writing poly relationships and I don’t really enjoy reading them because one character is usually focused on a lot more than the other two. But if I had to pick, I would say T’Challa/M’Baku/Bucky only because I am solely responsible for the creation of that abomination and you have no idea how much people begged me for a series after the first one, it astounded me.

13. Any NoTPs?

As before listed, Stucky, Stuckony, Spideypool, Clintasha, Romanogers

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

IronWidow is my top BroTP, but I also like WinterWidow as a BroTP. Stucky is good as a BroTP too, as well as Tony & Rhodey.

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Literally any ship I have. Yall I’ve been here since WinterIron was obscure. But to name a specific one I’m just gonna go with Pietro/Tony. I don’t know, I just had an idea I was writing for them and I was thinking about how much missed out potential there was between them. And with Pietro as a whole, but you know. Marvel has to kill off the only good Maximoff they had.

Oh, Natasha/Pepper too, but they aren’t as obscure, I guess.

16. Are their any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Stucky, clearly.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Stony, and no. They fell apart for me, at least MCU-wise.

18. What ship have you written the most about?

By now, WinterIron, I believe. I recently passed my count of fics for Superbat.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Pepperony, probably. I think it’s actually a cute and sweet ship and I like their in-canon moments, but I just can’t get behind reading fanfic of them? It never works out for me, I don’t really get it. It sucks because I do enjoy seeing their cute moments.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

I’ll do a different answer I thought of besides the first time I answered this. But Thruce was a big shocker for me. I didn’t even think about it during Ragnorak but then I saw an incorrect quote for it and I was like? Oh? This? This is a good, pure ship right here. The funny thing is, I actually wrote a fic with them as a side ship long before they hit it big so like, I was shocked when they came out of nowhere. But hey, I’m fucking here for it. I’ll probably never write it, but I’m here for it. 

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Goodnight, My Angel. It was a Superbat fic and really sad, but I still love it.

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Probably... You Deserve Love And You’ll Get It. No, I won’t link it because I hate it that much. I’m not even gonna talk about it.  It’s my most popular fic too why

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Super dorky, but The (Un)Wanted Kiss. It’s my first finished chapter fic, and the first chaptered fic I did on Tumblr and it just brings me a lot of nostalgia. It reminds me of where I was as a writer when I started it and it was an entire fic spawned from people wanting more of a simple 500-word prompt and that just blows my mind. It reminds me of the power of fans and how much love and support I got from it. It really kicked me off as a “serious fanfic writer” I think.

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

All You Are Is All I Need. That is a hot fucking mess. Probably The Red Halo too.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

*sigh* You Deserve Love And You’ll Get It

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

I bullshit my way through them. My most recent fics have actually followed a trend of being named after songs.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Summaries. I always make them so fucking corny, I hate it.

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

One Foot In Front Of The Other, probably. Just because I want more fem!WinterIron fanart. I can’t say what scene because spoilers but.... yeah, anything from that would be great, really.

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

Sort of. I make some of my friends like Pizza read over my shit before I post it, but that’s not often, only when I think I need it. I don’t just because I write a lot and I’d feel bad for constantly annoying someone with making them read everything I write. I hate inconveniencing people.

30. What inspires you to write?

The better question is what doesn’t. I never stop thinking like a writer. My brain forgot how to turn off that feature.

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

Ummmm, I can’t think of an exact thing? I get so many beyond sweet comments and messages, it’s hard to pin down one comment. I think if I had to pick, I once got a message from someone on Tumblr who was old enough to be my mother complimenting me and telling me I didn’t write like a teenager and I think that was really sweet.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And honestly, any genre. I listen to everything. Everything. But specifically, Emilie Autumn has inspired a lot ideas/fics I’ve written.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All of the above.

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

Around 23k, I think?

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

Yes, and whatever I get prompted for, really.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

For fanfiction, I guess romance? I mean, that’s really all my fanfiction is. Otherwise, I’ll write quite literally any genre I feel like. I go wherever an idea takes me. I’m character based, not genre or plot based.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

Third. I fucking despise 1st person. I just do. That’s an entire rant we ain’t here for today.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

Usually canon characters. I only use an OC when I absolutely have to, to make the plot do the plot stuff.

39. What is you greatest strength as a writer?

Nothing. My writing sucks. All of it is shit.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Everything. I screech the most about pacing and sentence structures though.

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

Most of these are actually on my to-read list but whatever.

Winter's End by ali_aliska Winter is Coming (aka Fifty First Avengers Dates) by 27dragons, tisfan My Love is Vengeance by seikaitsukimizu The caged Hawk by asamandra Fertile Ground by 27dragons, tisfan

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

27dragons tisfanChiaki_Hamano arianapeterson19 thepartyresponsible

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

Not really? I’m not knocking any of the other ‘big names’ in the Marvel fandom, but I don’t really draw inspiration from other fanfic writers. Not for plot, and definitely not for writing style. I get inspiration from fanart I see sometimes, but it’s never one main artist who I stalk to be inspired, just whatever I happen across online.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

WinterIron, duh. I will not rest until WinterIron is the biggest ship in the Marvel fandom.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

I’ve mentioned this fic before and honestly, it hasn’t been topped yet, but  In the Company of Monsters by Chiaki_Hamano. It’s not even a Marvel fic, and it’s not even a ship I like, but god, I fucking adore it. I’d love to write something like it, but with WinterIron if I had the time, I think the entire world and setting would fit WinterIron beautifully.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Well, that all depends on what they’re looking for in my fanfiction. If they’re looking for WinterIron, I’d probably tell them to start with The (Un)Wanted Kiss just because that’s one of my most loved fics and I think I did really well with it. But if they just want a general fic, A Great Connection is one I’m really proud of and I still get gushing feedback about.

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

For just writing fanfic, Ao3. Tumblr can be a pain in the ass, and I don’t even use ff.net.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

Yes. But only if 1, I really, really loved it or 2, I don’t think the fic has enough attention. It also helps if the writer responds to comments. I don’t see the significance of saying “I loved this!” if the fic has dozens of other comments saying the same thing. As a writer, I know what comments writers prefer. Longer ones, deep comments pointing out what things they liked, and so on. However if I write a comment that long, I like to get a response because you know, I love seeing the writer talking about the elements of the story I liked. 

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

Not really, to be perfectly honest. Yes, I love and cherish every kudos and note I get, and the sweet comments make me want to die of joy. But I write for me. Even when I take prompts, in the end, I write because it makes me happy. Yes, I love the validation. But even without it, I would still write. I do not write fanfiction for you, I share fanfiction with you. There’s a difference. Writing makes me happy. If I only cared about the validation, I wouldn’t have a folder reserved of fics I’ll never post but I wrote just because I wanted to. I write to write. The moment I start writing for validation, I might as well stop writing, because it’s not worth it.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

Ummmm I think I was just curious? I was new to internet culture, I saw fanart of Superbat and I discovered Ao3 and was like “wow, this stuff exists??? Words for free????? About my favourite characters being happy and dating each other??????????” and it was a downward spiral. I was like, 11 when I read my first fanfiction. I was obsessed with Superbat fanart, and I thought, what would it hurt to try actually reading it? Like, that was so taboo to me. And now we’re here. Tadaaaaaah

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Oh, a chance to ramble. Yay. I’m gonna rant because I’m a rant-y person.

I think something that annoys me about fanfiction is not necessarily a probably within fanfiction, but rather the outward view of it. Fanfic has an awful rep within the real world. The one-time fanfiction really took centre stage was when Fifty Shades came out, which only hurt the platform by furthering the stereotype that it’s all porn made for horny freaks who just want to get off.

I should not be ashamed to say I write fanfiction. I should not feel childish saying it to myself. No one should. At least half of my ‘fans’ are nearly a decade or more older than me. It’s clearly not something that’s immature or silly. Of course, it can be, but any hobby can be dumbed down to a kiddy version.

But fanfiction at its core is ignored for what it really is. When adults talk about fanfiction they belittle it and only see a tiny subsection of it, ignoring what it’s supposed to be about. It’s about creating transformative works for media you’re passionate about.

Fanfiction gets a worse rep than other transformative works such as fanart or whatever. Writing as a whole does. Fanfic is painted as this utter trash.

I’ve read fanfiction that made me cry, laugh, feel shit. I’ve read fanfiction that tackled heavy topics. Even on a sexual standpoint, I’ve read fanfiction that was willing to write erotica that published authors wouldn’t fucking touch. Both in a kink sense, but also in terms of how the relationship functions. I’ve read shitty fanfictions, sure. But I’ve read fanfictions that were better than 90% of the published books I’ve read. Even fanfics I didn’t like.

To put fanfiction into perspective, the average YA novel (the age group fanfiction is generally but not always aimed at) is 70k words. I’ve read fanfiction that blows that word count out of the water. And it takes fucking skill to write something that long. It’s not just writing a bunch of porn or cute scenes, that takes serious world building and character arcs.

Fanfiction kills so many tropes that are common in YA and literature in general. I read a YA after reading nothing but fanfiction for a long time and I was fucking appalled? It was a popular YA too. I won’t name what one because you could literally imagine anyone and it’d probably fit. The characters were flat, the romance was outright manipulative and toxic, the plot was dull, even the writing itself was bland. This was the type of book years ago I would’ve loved. But compared to most (of course, not all. Shit exists, but I think in fanfiction, we’re able to better filter out the shit) fanfictions, it was fucking trash.

When I started reading fanfiction, I assumed it’d lower my standards. The first time I picked up an actual novel I was relieved, excited to not have to deal with the problems that are in unpublished writings. But I quickly realized it was the complete opposite. Fanfiction threw my expectations through the roof. I expect fiction to include representation, fresh plots, interesting characters, thrilling romances, and decent fucking sex scenes if they’re there. But it just wasn’t there. It all fell flat. As someone seriously into the writing and reading community I hear so often that it’s hard for plots to be original and you shouldn’t judge on originality, but then I read fanfiction written by fucking teenagers that’s fucking mind-blowing with plot twists and original ideas, and I have to wonder is it really that hard? It’s clearly doable, you just have to take away the fanfiction part.

I have YA novels sitting on my sheld I know I’ll never read and enjoy because fanfiction just made my expectations too high. Which is good in a sense because I pray some of these amazing writers, when they get older will go on to write mind-blowing original novels and I hope that this generation of writers will put out great literature in ten to fifteen years, but for now I’m just… underwhelmed. I think it’s why I read a lot of classic literature too. Shit was better back then.

And yet despite all that, fanfiction is still made to look like shit in the modern media. It sucks so badly for fanfiction writers not to look like serious writers. I could publish one book, have it get the amount of attention my biggest fanfic got and be considered a serious author. My biggest fanfiction currently has 40k notes on Tumblr. Imagine if that were a published short story. It’d be a fucking hit. And there are others that make my numbers look small. And yet it’s brushed aside as unimpactful.

I think a lot of that stems from the fact that fanfic writers do generally start out younger. I’m 16. Others either are or were my age. But age does not equate to skill in writing. Sure, that is a factor, but it is not the entire story. I know a 14 yr old who writes some of the best prose I have ever seen. And even if younger fic writers aren’t on level yet, fanfiction is what’s helping them grow as a writer. But because we’re teenagers, we’re turned away just because of that. Even more specifically because we’re teenage girls (for the most part, I’m not saying other genders and/or age groups aren’t writing/reading fanfic) and we all know how society feels about them. It’s just a fucking shame that fanfiction can’t be respected for the legitimate form of writing it is because of the stigma. I’ve seen fanfic writers say they aren’t real writers because of the stigma, it’s awful. We feel the need to tear ourselves down for an admirable hobby. I can’t say my favourite book is a fanfiction I read, when I has every right to be a valid answer.

We’ll cut this ramble off here because wow I really went on didn’t I.

[forceprojecdin]

Mortis Explained (In Star Wars Rebels & The Clone Wars)

SPOILERS about Rebels season 4 ahead.  “Ezra, it’s art, everything has a meaning.” -Sabine Wren. Rebels season 4, ‘Wolves & A Door.’  Before I begin, keep this quote in mind. Nothing done in these episodes is an accident. Every detail is utterly and completely intentional. They just told you so. This post will be an ever expanding explanation of all things Mortis, as seen in Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars. Hopefully, this might aid some people in a fuller understanding. The Clone Wars ‘Mortis Trilogy’ (season 3) was essentially George Lucas explaining in greater detail, what The Force is to him, and now by extension, his Padawan Dave Filoni. I even see a lot of this in The Last Jedi (but that’s another blog!) As Joseph Campbell writes: “It will always be one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find, together with a challengingly persistent suggestion of more remaining to be experienced than will ever be known or told... It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.” The Mortis stuff (even the Yoda arc. TCW season 6 etc ) is the attempt to further express these inexhaustible energies. Before I go further, we need to understand the true purpose of all this stuff through the lens of Joseph Campbell. and we need to see through it translucently. As Campbell noted, “The problem of the theologian is to keep the symbols translucent, so that it may not block out the light it is supposed to convey.” What needs to be cleared from the lens is the view that Mortis could be anything other than what spirituality has always been in mythology through the ages: an attempt for the hero to return and show us that all is One. That all physical life in space and time is actually literally one with the spirit realm. This is what Campbell was on about and by extension (as it is more that well documented), this is what George Lucas was intentionally on about, in directly translating Campbell’s ideas to screen. The truth is that SW conveys spiritual ideas of the world – the ones that all the spiritual teachers have spoken of through time - SW does not make up its own spirituality. So to understand Mortis, one must understand Campbell’s view on spirituality in myth, more than Star Wars. Finally we need to understand what Campbell was telling us about the symbols. Their importance is not in the literal meaning, but in how they seem to magically transport us to the other world. They have always been used to this great effect in Star Wars. I.e. It is not so important to literally understand who The Father, Son and Daughter are in Mortis episodes, as it is to feel the “tone” that they bring through a common “Trinity” archetype, like The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, or Thought, Word & Action, or Body, Mind and soul, etc. Now, let's get started! The Two Kingdoms Are Actually One Let’s start with this George Lucas quote and then compare it to one of Campbell’s: “The role of the artist is to find the common threads that make all people one.“ In contemplating this quote, we begin to see that Lucas was making his intent very apparent. Yes, this is totally in line with everything Campbell was saying in his work. The mission could not be more clear! Compare to Campbell: “And here is a great key to the understanding of myth and symbol – the two kingdoms are actually one… and the exploration of that dimension, either willingly or unwillingly, is the whole sense of the deed of the hero.” Simply watch the Mortis stuff with that quote in mind - the two kingdoms (i.e Heaven and Earth) are actually one - and you will begin to notice your awareness of its metaphors telling you something. As the character of The Father said, “What happens here (on Mortis) will happen in your universe.” This may seem like something mysterious and bewildering, but it is in fact something that is actually quite utterly clear; he two kingdoms are actually one. This is why in The Clone Wars season 3 Blu Ray special features, director Dave Filoni said that he would not explain” Mortis - because it would rob the viewer of their ability to understand the metaphors. That is the purpose of this blog post, to uncover the language of the symbols. Which Star Wars did not make up, it is using, and always has used, the tried tested and true one. We finally see more of a conclusion to the “Mortis Trilogy” episodes, in Star Wars Rebels season 4, titled ‘Wolves And A Door’ and ‘A World Between Worlds.’ And wow what a conclusion! Everything that has been given so much more clarity. As I had been speculating, it is fully apparent now that Ezra Bridger’s last name was chosen to symbolize that he was to be a “bridger” between the Two Worlds. In the latter episode, Ezra comes to “understand” the Mortis mural on Lothol’s Jedi Temple, and thereby is able to walk through to the spirit realm. Interesting to note that religious art in cultures all over the world has always been thought of as a “window” as such, by the devout. In the Easter Orthodix Christian tradition, their painting are literally thought of as “Icons”  that mysteriously actually transport one to the oether realm (like this famous Holy Trinity Icon by Russian Iconographer Andre Rublev). Here is a screenshot of the mural. Anyhow, once there, Ezra walks along pathways encountering many circle shapes, which turn out to be actual windows through time (more on that later), but here is my instagram post and screenshot of the circles.  They are essentially a symbol for wholeness of the universe, and even the cyclical nature of time. Noted concept artist and Star Wars commentator Paul Bateman shared this Taost view on the circle symbol, on a post of mine on facebook. Paul commented, “It's all in the Tao - or Enso if you prefer. Microcosm to macrocosm, from the atoms to the spiral arms... it's all circles my friend from the womb to the tomb. The nothing and the all.�� The microsom of the macrocosm is inside us all. Oh, it should be noted that Ezra Bridger was also walking across bridges to get to the circles. “Bridger.” Bridging the Two Worlds.  The Great Deed Of The Supreme Hero After a careful re-reading of the The Hero With A Thousand Faces, I noticed Campbell was saying (repeatedly to make a point) that the hero’s great deed is essentially that he/she discovers that everything in life and the universe is one, that there is literally no separation between oneself, the cosmos and the spirit realm. He wrote, “The great deed of the supreme hero is to come to the knowledge of this unity in multiplicity and then to make it known.”   Anyhow, Campbell adds the modern psychoanalytical side: that unconscious is also where we find the symbols and that other realm. Therefor, the Mortis trilogy starts with Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka fall asleep into the dream world, the unconsciousness. In the Jungian psychoanalytical view, we enter this other world symbolically through dreams.  Once there, there our three heroes find they are one with dark and light (Son and Daughter) and even other ‘dead’ beings like Qui-Gon Jinn, who says “I am here because you are here.” This statement could actually not be any more unambiguous; when all is one, you are connected to everyone everywhere, whether “dead“ or alive, simply because you exist. Again, the physical, spirit and unconscious realms are literally one.  Anakin even sees a vision of himself as the future Vader. Even time is one, meaning time all happens at once. More will be said later on the nature of time in a universe where there actually is no such thing as time. For now, let’s quote Campbell, “What is understood is that time and eternity are two aspects of the same experience-whole, two planes of the nondual ineffable.”    In Rebels episode ‘Dume’ (s.4 ep. 11) the Wolf tells Ezra his name is “Dume.” This could also not be more clear, in this sprit realm that Exra has been transported to, Kanan (Caleb Dume) and the wolf are one and the same, and the oneness of Kanan, the wolf and the entire universe is already and always inside us. Here is another Campbell quote to clarify even more: “And so it is that the cosmic symbols are presented in a spirit of thought bewildering sublime paradox. The kingdom of God is within, yet without.” That bewildering sublime paradox, of The Force being both within you, yet also everywhere outside you, is Mortis, as Mortis itself is both within our heroes and without them. It is an apt metaphor of the microcosm and the macrocosm. I can’t think of two better words than bewildering and sublime to encapsulate Mortis!  We Are The Light And The Dark George Lucas’ explained this stuff to The Clone Wars writing team, available as an easter egg special feature in the saga Blu Ray set: “We have a selfish side and a selfless side, when those two are kept in balance, we can do a lot of good.” I paraphrased a little, but I’ll watch this feature again sometime soon to get the exact wording. That’s the scene where Anakin tames the Son (Dark) and Daughter (Light). It’s that simple. Even the Dark and Light sides are one. The obvious lesson here from Lucas (and all the mystics through time) is that if we repress our dark side, and pretend it is not there, it will grow uncontrollably and take us over, to a point of imbalance.  Campbell explains the wholeness of these sides with the Taoist view: ‘Yang, the light, active, masculine principle, and Yin, the dark, passive, and feminine, in their interaction underlie and constitute the whole world of forms… They proceed from and together make manifest Tao.” By acknowledging the existence of our dark sides, we can understand and see clearly what we do not want to chose. We can begin to chose more selfless actions, and thereby live more fully in the light. The Eternal Moment Finally, a heavy idea and concept idea finally explained more fully in the recent Star Wars Rebels‘Mortis episodes, is the idea of time and space and how it relates to the galaxy and the ‘Cosmic Force’ in Star Wars. Today’s New Spirituality has admirably attempted to expand it’s understanding alongside science, with a concept that is sometimes called The Eternal Moment, where everything is happening all at once. Where even time and space are one! Walking around that circle, as the Wolves do in the Rebels episode ‘A World Between Worlds,’ would be the ultimate symbol for that, as there really is no begging point nor end to time. I’m no scientist, but the basic understanding of modern science is that there is no such thing as time, and I understand that basic premise. Some teachers and gurus in modern spirituality, also call it a “Divine Dichotomy.” If time is happening all at once, one would assume the future is written, so how could one have free will? The simple answer can be found in the idea of multiple parallel universes. We experience our differing chosen fates on different planes of existence, simultaneously. You might be saying “rubbish”, that’s okay, just follow me a little further here. The important thing here in mythology is not whether this is true or not, the important thing is that the symbols and metaphors of myth evolve and continue to attempt to express the insights of it’s time. I commend Star Wars creators for continuing to follow George Lucas’ intentions in doing this! The Daughter expressed this to Anakin on Mortis, “I am the beginning, the middle, and the end.” So basically, in the Rebels season 4 episode ‘A World Between Worlds’, Ezra peers through one of the circles (a window through time and space) to save Ahsoka from being killed by Vader on Malacor in the Rebels season 2 finale. This is also insight into “The victory for all time” that Yoda spoke of in the very last episode of The Clone Wars - the victory of all time is to exist all the time! But I digress. The knowledge that Ezra gains here is that he needs to learn from Kanan’s final act, to also selflessly let go of his attachments - and further, to accept the will and intentions of others. Ahsoka explains this to him, as she herself choses to return (travelling through time) back to her “decent” into the temple on Malacor. Finally, this now further clarifies why The Father made Anakin forget his vision of his future as Vader on Mortis in The Clone Wars season 3 episode. Anakin sees but one of his possible futures, but he needs to forget if, if he is to have true free will, when the moment comes for him to chose. Interesting that they have The Father touch Anakin’s Third Eye as he makes Anakin forget, using Hindu symbolism. Oh! By the way, this is also why when Anakin, Ahsoka nd Obi-Wan wake up from their Mortis “sleep”, it only registered as an instant in time. Just another Eternal Moment! Your Focus Determines Your Reality (Even In The Other Dimensions) Other concepts in modern spirituality heavily focus on thought as manifestation of reality. This is something I am convinced that George Lucas was studying heavily between his two trilogies (see my final note in this blog for recommendations of who to start checking out). Qui-Gon Jinn’s quote from The Phantom Menace defines what I have come to believe was Lucas’ key artistic statement regarding spirituality in the Prequels, “Your focus determines your reality.” This is essentially what Anakin did, he focused on Padme’s death, and that focus made that his reality. He killed her. He created this fate through thought. Dave Filoni further explained how this works even faster in the Cosmic Force. He explained: “You have to be careful when you’re moving through these big powerful dimensions and what you’re wishing for. Everything he [Ezra] wishes for, out loud, is a dangerous thing to do. If you watch and listen when Ezra talks and he makes certain statements, there’ll be a thunder clap, and that thunder is representative of something else listening.” The time between what you think and what is created is instantaneous, like thunder. Thought is creation. Or as more commonly heard in the Western religion, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh." Through this lens we even begin to understand other quotes from the Mortis Trilogy. When Qui-Gon responds to Obi-Wan, “I am here because you are here”,  we see that it's because the two worlds are actually one, and everyone is always already connected to everyone else - even through the oness of space and time. It just takes a willingness to be aware of that. Or it takes  being a Jedi who’s awareness is more honed, while also on a specially connected nd Force strong place like Mortis or Lothol.  The Mortis Mural As a Fine Art college grad and someone who apprenticed with an Eastern Orthodox “Iconographer” for many years, I was struck by how on point the Mortis mural on Lothol was. It reminded me most of this famous Eastern Russian Orthodox "Icon" by Rublev. Especially with use of hand gestures and the way the Daughter turns and bows her head to the central figure. This bog is getting long, so for brevity I’ll just say that the basic concept of “Icons” are that they are actual windows to heaven. Not painting but actual doors. So the Mortis mural pays homage to these iconic “Trinity” paintings, and uses the symbolism most appropriately. The Two Worlds Are Actually One.  I love that they keep telegraphing what they are doing by using key words that clearly and utterly indicate what language they are doing. Another moment like this, is when the Trandoshan worker say’s, “Lord Hydan, we have discovered more symbols. Symbols. Another word Campbell repeats to ne end. Sabine even say’s that the mural is a “language,” and calls the Father, Son and Daughter, “Archetypes”. It’s a language of “archetypes” and “symbols”. That’s Campbell. That’s the power of Myth, That much should be totally and completely clear by now! The Message Continues In Rebels, &The Sequel Trilogy So, even though the answers were there all along in symbol and metaphoric language, we now have more clarity on the Lothol Wolves, the Owl and Ahsoka. Ahsoka basically expresses that the Owl is another manifestion of The Daughter in who once helped her to survive. The Wolf is clarified as a manifestation in The Force of the “will” of Caleb “Kanan” Dume. Now that we know time is a circle, happening all at once, we see why Caleb Dume appeared to our characters even before Kanan had died! The Eternal Moment. This is great mind blowing stuff! Star Wars is so concisely expressing some of the heaviest concepts of spirituality and the universe. We see that dialogue has been obviously happening between Dave Filoni and the creators of the Sequel Trilogy. There are endless ties to cite that show this, like the Ying / Yan mural on Mortis to the one in the cave pool on Ahch-To, but I’ll stop there or this blog will go on forever. Dave Filoni is obviously Lucas’ Padawan with this stuff, for now I’ll just start with something Filoni said in the Rebels Recon episode on the season 4 episode ‘Jedi Night.’  "I could just see his (Kanan's) eyes, that's a moment where he could see here (Hera). In this moment, because he's in this point where he's this kind of energy, where he's about to die, where he's more one with everything than he's ever been, he'd have this moment of clarity, where things like physical sight just doesn't matter." Again, actual literal oneness between the physical and spiritual realm.  The title of Rebel episode ‘A World Between Worlds‘ is literally a riff on what Joseph Campbell repeatedly said is the great “deed” done by every hero in mythology, they return from their hero’s journey to show that “the two kingdoms are actually one.” Ezra has now returned from his bridge just in time for the series finale! We will see him return, like all heroes, to bring the treasure of “One final lesson” - to make his community one and whole again. The circle is now complete. 

Photo: Anakin was “chosen” to be whole with himself, everyone else, and the entire universe, by balancing his light and dark sides. As is Ezra. As we all are too. *  *  * Here are  few of my related blogs on this theme: A blog on a spiritual phrase used often in The Clone Wars - “Who You Really Are.”  This is an essay on Ahsoka’s fate in the Rebels season 2 episode finale. A blog about Luke Skywalker’s Buddha and Jesus-like hero’s journey in The Last Jedi. * All Joseph Campbell quotes are taken from his classic book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces.  If you truly enjoy this stuff, please check out Joseph Campbell as a starting point for these concepts in traditional world religions and mythologies.. If you are intrigued by how modern spiritual teachers speak of this stuff, please check out the writings of Neale Donald Walsch, Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer to name but a few. Try some of the great poets like Kahlil Gibran, or even a great speaker like Alan Watts. They are all saying the same thing.  But remember, these new teachers are only expanding on the core messages of the mystics through the ages, in all mythologies and spiritualties!

#mortis #star wars rebels #the clone wars #dave filoni #george lucas #the force #spirituality #joseph campbell #the heros journey #the hero with a thousand faces #myth #mythology #lucasfilm

[lindwurmkai]

I've gone and done it again―saw a link to a TLJ-critical article on Twitter and decided to click on it although I should really know better by now.

Anyway, this one wasn't as bad as the others although it was also kind of … bewildering (link), but I want to ignore that for now to quote just this one bit from its conclusion:

But with the release of Solo imminent, it’s already clear how The Conversation about these movies winds up effectively replacing discussion of the work itself. If, as seems likely, we’re going to be inundated with Star Wars at regular intervals for the rest of our natural lives now that it’s been separated from its original creator and handed over to the dream factory for mass production, there has to be room for opinion rather than pronouncement, discussion rather than debate.

And holy shit, yeah. That's been my whole problem from the start, that people would simply make pronouncements ("Rose was badly written"/"Canto Bight was unnecessary"/"Finn didn't get any character development"/"Poe was ooc") instead of like … discussing these things. I keep offering my own thoughts like "Here's what I think, but I'm open to other perspectives. Anybody wanna talk?" AND THEN NO ONE RESPONDS. Maybe the people with strong anti-TLJ opinions have simply blocked my sw tag, idk―might explain why no one noticed me talking about Chirrut and Baze either, lmao.

There's this whole thing going on here that's been scaring the shit out of me for some time now, where you're either 100% for a thing or 100% against it, and depending on the topic, either camp will then be branded as evil. I keep yelling my more nuanced opinions into the void and it's almost as if no one knows how to deal with that anymore. Did I not realise I was supposed to pick a side? Ha. You're fucking terrifying.

What is this, a fandom or a cult?

In case any of my friends have been wondering why I disappeared from a certain Discord server, well, this is one of the reasons. At first I was just worried everyone thought I was "stupid" for not seeing the movie's flaws, which was bad enough. I have a lot of internalised ableism about losing cognitive abilities and seeing that attitude constantly repeated was draining. But by now I'm straight-up scared of the cult-like thinking.

I even fell for some of it myself when it happened to align with my opinion, but that's a topic for another day.

The only reasonable discussion I've had with someone who hated TLJ so far was one where they mostly provided evidence that the director was kind of a shitty (or at least very misguided) person. Which is why I've been watching interviews trying to judge how serious he was about some of the things he said (like … e.g. basically "authority is awesome"), which has been surprisingly difficult, but I'll make a post about that once I've reached some kind of conclusion. In the meantime, I'm still trying to discuss what's actually portrayed on-screen and it sucks that no one seems interested in joining a nuanced discussion. (I repeat: it's hardly my new favourite and I sure as hell agree it has flaws.)

Look, if I can talk to someone who hated Rogue One without it dissolving into a screaming match, then I don't see why this should be so hard?

Rogue One has real flaws, too, and I respect those who can't deal with that and decide it's impossible to like. I would equally respect everyone's opinions about TLJ if they were presented as opinions rather than Obvious Facts. I would love to have an actual, friendly discussion about why you think characters X or Y were badly written etc., because … get this … I don't condemn people for disagreeing with me on pop culture. I just get kinda scared of them when they act like cult members all of a sudden, is what I'm saying.

#soapboxing #that article was uhh … odd #but my point stands #i came out to have a good time etc #i think mostly i just want to geek out about these characters the same way i've done with c & b #but i am denied the opportunity and that makes me sad