#the origins of dark ish jon
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My boyfriend has decided to start watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from episode one to see how it evolves. So in case you were wondering if he and I are similar-minded folk...
Last Lee Tonight
(wherein Lee gets slightly personal)
Season One, Episode Eight
(original air date: 6/24/2014)
Major topics covered: Monarchies, Dr. Oz
Trigger warning: brief discussion of Kevin Spacey/sexual assault; medical issues
"Let's deal with the elephant in the room tonight. I'm sorry that Game of Thrones is not on anymore."
Y'all. It has happened. We have reached the first episode where the only clip of the show on the LWT YouTube is the main topic.
This marks an exciting new era of these recaps... for now. Next week the videos seem to be a bit more scattershot again. Whatever, progress towards the future is being made!
Another major milestone is hit in this episode, as it is the first time that John wears something I would categorize as daring. Let's get "Lee's outfit review and thirst corner" out of the way - pink and purple checkered shirt with dark navy (almost black) coat and matte slate gray tie. I'm giving this a 9/10 because I feel like a shiny slate gray tie would have given it that extra 'oomph', but it is still an excellent look.
We start tonight with me really noticing the Ferris wheel in the corner of the screen for the first time. It's a bold ass Ferris wheel. Was that there before??
Jesus that's a neon Ferris wheel.
This episode starts similarly to modern LWTs, except John says "Quick roundup of the week" instead of "quick recap of the week" to kick us off. I did not realize how ingrained some of his speech patterns and word choices are in my head until this specific phrasing. It's one thing to see something completely different from what you're used to, like in past episodes of the show; this is a tweak I feel like few people would notice, and yet it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.
We start in Iraq, wherein Baghdad has fallen to ISIS. John makes a joke about Kevin Spacey's sex dungeon being the former scariest place in the world that got a huge laugh - three years before Anthony Rapp came forward with his story. His behavior was such an open secret, it's so gross.
The opening segment bounces from Iraq to Thailand, where a coup just occurred and the new regime has started a "happiness campaign". This is the kind of story John loves, absolutely ridiculous on its face with a very real undercurrent of torment because of its origins.
Finally in our early stories, Antarctic tourism! That phrase makes me vaguely ill. John is on top of creating the anti-tourism trailer for them:
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Interesting to look at this short bit in comparison to a much larger exploration of a similar topic years later, Mt. Everest expeditions. Obviously that was a full episode segment as compared to the 3-ish minutes Antarctic tourism gets here, but it's a good illustration of just how much more in-depth John is allowed to go on these kinds of niche topics as the years wear on.
John then speaks about the King of Spain abdicating the throne. ("Who needs decapitations or poisonings when you have a 76-year-old man peacefully resigning?") This gives John the opportunity to mock monarchy, his favorite sport, and to mention the LA Kings, something I did not expect. This transitions into speaking about the general idea of monarchy, how just about every European royal is related to the English crown, and Middle Eastern royalty. He ties it back to the Thailand section as well, to discuss the Crown Prince of Thailand, who is, according to the news, "a buffoon".
Next is "And Now This", which discusses "Political Figures Telling You What They Are Not". Fucking Michele Bachmann shows up again, as does professional dingo Tom Wheeler. Christ I hate Michele Bachmann.
With that, about halfway into the episode (13 minutes), we now get to our main story. Truly, this is the basic structure of a modern LWT!
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The main story is about Dr. Oz, someone who time has made much, MUCH more odious. It's not like Dr. Oz wasn't a complete shithead at the time of this episode - his pitching for huckster diet solutions and miracle pills towards vulnerable people is disgusting. I have so much loathing for people who do this. A huge part of why my health problems are so bad is because, around the time this episode aired, I, and people around me I trusted, were influenced by guys like him, guys selling folksy cure-alls or "conventional wisdom". In my case, this influence caused me to not seek medical treatment for obvious, glaring, red-flag stomach issues for nearly two years, at which point I was actively dying. (I wish that the key for me to go see a doctor had been this episode, but it was not.)
But Dr. Oz got so much worse as time went on. I'm glad that, aside from one joke early on about Dr. Oz's (relative) attractiveness, John puts Dr. Oz's feet to the fire the entire segment. And not just him!
I remember learning about how the FDA is not allowed to regulate vitamins and supplements and being absolutely flabbergasted. Everyone knows that there's hundreds of deaths connected to tainted or irresponsible dietary supplements, and John firmly roasts senators Orrin Hatch and Tom Harkin for taking huge amounts of campaign contributions from the supplement industry and them subsequently killing attempts to regulate said industry. I appreciate the work put in here.
I love how silly the pandering demonstration is. Puts such a massive smile on my face. I would be remiss to not remind you that John Oliver fucking loves t-shirt cannons, and his obvious delight and power trip at holding and using one makes me beam every single time I see this.
Other notes:
Lee, you already did the suit review: Yeah sure I did. But consider the way that John says "regulatory zeal" at 9:52 in the Dr. Oz clip while snapping his fingers and barely restraining his anger.
"Check This Shit Out with Some Guy Named Mehmet" is an amazing title for a show.
I can't believe I can't find the GIF of John getting nailed with a t-shirt cannon from The Daily Show. I think Wyatt shot him with it. I'm glad I remember literally everything about this except where to find the GIF itself.
Sorry about getting a bit personal in this one. I know I don't talk much about my personal life, aside from being like "damn I'm at work all the time", but rest assured I am much better now and in good health. I have chronic illness so I'll never be 100%, but I am leagues away from where I was when my untreated illness was at its worst. <3
#john oliver#last week tonight#last week tonight with john oliver#last lee tonight#i definitely don't want to tag anything else from this episode lol
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May 15 – Dracula 2023
I saw the count crawl down the wall like a lizard again. I never thought the word “skitter” would come to mind for a movement a human(-ish) body could make, but here we are. He moved sideways and to the left, disappearing into a hole or mirror down below. I couldn’t get a good angle to see where it was. I might’ve been able to manage something with my phone camera, but… well, that’s no longer an option.
I knew he’d left the castle at this point, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity for explore beyond what I had already. I didn’t have a flashlight anymore, as it hadn’t occurred to me to take a backup to my phone’s flashlight on a business trip, so I had to resort to grabbing one of the lanterns in sconces around the castle hallway walls. I tried all the doors again. The locks are relatively new, practically the only thing of recent make in the whole place. I even tried the front door, where I could unbolt it and unhook the chains pretty easily, but it was also locked. Naturally, there’s no key around. He must have it either on his person or in this room; with the size of that door, probably the latter. I’ll have to keep an eye out for when his room is unlocked.
I went through all the halls and stairs I had access to, trying everything much more thoroughly this time. A couple of small rooms were open, but there was mostly old, moth-eaten and dusty furniture. Apparently he doesn’t keep all his possessions in as good of order as he does the items in my room. Eventually, I came to a door at the top of a stair that actually gave under some decent pushing. It wasn’t locked, just resting on the floor and jammed in the frame because the hinges had come slightly loose. It took getting low and pushing with my shoulder, but I managed to get it open enough to let me through.
It revealed a whole new wing of the castle, farther to the right than the areas I knew and a floor down, facing southwest by the view. There was a cliff on both sides, sheer down as far as I could see in the dark. We seemed to be up on an outcropping, akin to a peninsula set in the area, where enemies couldn’t penetrate on three sides. Out to the west was a huge valley, and great peaks rose above that, mountain ash and thorn clinging stubbornly to their sides, their roots digging in as far up as they could manage in any crevice they could find.
This place seemed like it might have been very comfortable once, and some of the finishes made me wonder if the ladies of the castle had once resided here. The moonlight was enormously bright through the diamond panes of glass in the window, and maybe that contributed to softening the image of the place, making the shadows seem less harsh and the damage from time less extensive. The lantern accomplished little in the bright moonlight, but the warm, flickering light in the glass was a comfort in the pervasive loneliness. Even this empty place felt better than anywhere the Count had been, though.
It helped calm my nerves, and I found a measure of calm here. I’m currently sitting at a little oak table, where perhaps some renaissance lady might have penned a love letter in some distant time, typing away my own thoughts on a laptop in a format originally meant for my own loved ones to read.
If only just surrounding yourself with technology could banish the power of old centuries...
(A/N: I didn’t mean to write it this way, but there are subtle differences in the character if Jon here than in the book that aren’t attributable to a modern setting. He’s a little more accepting of his circumstances; this Jon isn’t as surprised/despairing that the front door key isn’t handy. Of course it wouldn’t be. I suppose to me it follows naturally with the realization that he’s a prisoner dealing with crazy bullshit.
Or maybe it is attributable to a more modern setting – we do have more tools to help us process wild circumstances. We’ve been in one long crazy circumstance since 2016… maybe even 2008, after all. This Jon’s been through Brexit as a law student.
More changes were relevant to this than I expected. Jon was REALLY feeling that destroyed phone. Plus there’s just some stuff I added because I liked it or wanted to take a different approach.
Sorry for posting this so late in the day - I got home after driving five hours today. Trying to do this during Gen Con is gonna be uh... interesting. I'll check out what August is going to look like and probably queue some of those, since it'll take multiple all-day drives to get to Indianapolis. -__-)
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Another interesting Star Wars history essay I saw on Reddit (yep, I'm serious)
[Star Wars Expanded Universe] A Tale of Two Clone Wars, or: The Original Star Wars "Canon" Crisis
Posted originally by the Reddit user "DocWhoFan16" on May 13th, 2022.
[Link to the original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/up16zw/star_wars_expanded_universe_a_tale_of_two_clone/]
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I love Star Wars and I always have. I decidedly don't love talking about Star Wars on the Internet, mostly because I find it a chore to keep straight which parts I'm allowed to love and which parts I'm supposed to hate. It's no way to enjoy something, of course, but such is the nature of "being a fan" in the 21st century.
Nevertheless, the sad thing is that I can't seem to help but do it anyway, which is why I'm making this post (having threatened to do several times in various "Hobby Scuffle" threads) in which I have written five and a half thousand words about decade-old Star Wars fan drama that many people may have forgotten about, if they even knew it existed in the first place.
But maybe you will enjoy reading about it.
A Long Time Ago...
This is a story about the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I anticipate that most of the folks reading this will know what that was: the great mass of novels, comics, games, cartoons and more which took place in the fictional world of Star Wars, revealing "what happened next" for the protagonists of the movies, exploring its ancient history (a dark time in which the Jedi are hunted by the resurgent Sith Empire) and far(ish) future (a dark time in which the Jedi are hunted by the resurgent Sith Empire), and explaining how the extra with the ice cream machine who appears on screen for about three seconds in The Empire Strike Back was actually a Rebel sympathiser and the ice cream machine was actually a computer memory core containing sensitive information which he was trying to hide before the Empire could completely take over Cloud City.
When George Lucas sold Lucasfilm and Star Wars with it to the Walt Disney Company, the Expanded Universe found itself in limbo for a couple of years until Disney confirmed that, other than the six movies and the computer-animated Clone Wars TV series (in other words, the things in which George Lucas himself had taken an active and direct hand in creating, writing, producing and directing), all Star Wars stories produced prior to its acquisition would be rebranded as "Legends" and would not form part of the larger fictional story of Star Wars going forward.
My recollection is that most fans were more disappointed than angry. Of course, some people absolutely were angry, some of them were very, very, very angry, and many of those angry folks are still angry today, but I imagine most people had realised that this was an inevitable outcome from the moment the sale and acquisition was announced.
The Expanded Universe was now "non-canon".
However, I think the picture is a little more complex than that. I'm going to try to explain why.
Star Wars and "canon"
Oh, good grief. What a can of worms. This is a really easy topic to get bogged down in and it's almost certainly going to happen here, but I think it's pretty important to the overall story, so I'll wade through it.
My understanding has always been that "canon" in Star Wars prior to the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney vaguely operated on a kind of tiered system. At the highest level, you had "G" canon, which was anything George Lucas himself had taken an active and direct hand in creating, writing, producing and directing. This encompassed the movies, obviously, but also flippant off-the-cuff remarks ex cathedra pronouncements such as Obi-Wan's home planet being called "Stewjon", which Lucas "revealed" in an incredibly obvious dad joke when he was asked during an interview with Jon Stewart at a convention in 2010 (for the record, this is still "canon" — we shall see if it comes up in the Disney Plus series soon enough).
The lower levels of "canon" encompassed essentially everything that was licensed; in other words, everything Star Wars that George Lucas had no input on. This material was counted as "canon" to the extent that it did not contradict anything at the George Lucas level and, in some cases, some of it could even be "promoted" to that level if Lucas himself included it in one of his own productions.
The most famous examples of this phenomenon have been much-trumpeted over the years but were ultimately pretty minor things: "Coruscant" as the name of the galactic capital planet was first used in a Star Wars story by Timothy Zahn (who has always complained that nobody in the movies pronounces it correctly) in the first "true" EU novel, Heir to the Empire, and may have originated in the West End Games role-playing supplements he was provided with and instructed to use as background material for his books; the Jedi characters Quinlan Vos and Aayla Secura, who originated in the Dark Horse Star Wars comic series, made it into the prequel trilogy seemingly just because George Lucas liked how they looked.
However, I think when you take a closer look, it becomes pretty clear that this entire multi-level system was more of a Lucasfilm creation than it was a Lucas creation. Lucas's own views on the Expanded Universe and whether it was "canon" are much less complex, and I think his most succinct comment on the topic (which I believe he first used in 1998 or 1999 when he was promoting The Phantom Menace) is that he regarded the novels and comics and everything else as a "parallel universe". He claimed he had never even read any of the Star Wars novels and that he didn't really count them as "real" Star Wars, because he didn't make them: "real" Star Wars was his movies; everything else was licensing.
Indeed, one of the stock funny factoids is that Lucas apparently didn't particularly care for even some of the most popular elements of the EU. Perhaps the most notorious example is the character Mara Jade, a former Imperial agent and long-time fan favourite created by Timothy Zahn for Heir to the Empire, who subsequently becomes a romantic interest for Luke Skywalker and eventually marries him and has a son, Ben, with him. According to J.W. Rinzler, Lucas "loathed" Mara and objected to the idea that Luke would ever get married and have a family, because it didn't match his view that Luke would become a kind of ascetic monk who practised a strict life of celibacy after Return of the Jedi (something which Mark Hamill, during the press tour for The Last Jedi, also claimed Lucas told him while they were making the original trilogy).
Nevertheless, the impression I have always taken away, as someone who has enjoyed experienced varying degrees of participation in the Star Wars fandom in general and the EU fandom in particular for close to 25 misspent years at this point, is that it became a widely accepted "fact" of the hardest core of the Star Wars fandom that the EU was "canon" and on an equal footing to the movies.
If I may speculate, I think there are two really key reasons as to why this perception became so widespread:
First, for many years, the EU was in the rather unique position of being the only new Star Wars material that was being produced at all and, because Lucas didn't really express his opinion on the subject of whether the EU was "canon" or not until it was pretty firmly-established, so nobody had any reason to believe it wasn't "canon" (and in the absence of widespread Internet access, any remarks Lucas made may well not have reached as many ears as they would today in any event).
Second, I think that most people were fairly cognisant that, whatever his true level of substantive involvement, George Lucas ultimately had to sign off on all of this stuff, giving it his approval (if not his endorsement) in the same way he would approve any other piece of Star Wars tie-in merchandise, and this may have created an (inaccurate?) impression that Lucas considered all of it to be just as "canon" as the fans did, and just as "canon" as what he was creating himself.
I will say, though, I did think sometimes that most fans understood, at least on some level, that the idea the EU was "canon" was a sort of legal fiction, that Lucas would have the final say and that there was likely some distance between what Lucas probably thought and what many Star Wars fans probably thought. Still, as long as nothing Lucas himself was creating contradicted too much of what EU writers produced, or at least could be easily reconciled to and harmonised with it, the illusion was maintained. However, that position would soon become untenable.
The Clone Wars, Version 1
Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones came out in 2002 and the Clone Wars storyline, first mentioned in a single line of dialogue all the way back in Star Wars in 1977, officially began. Between 2002 and 2005, the story of the Clone Wars unfolded in a new multimedia mini-saga which took in the entire EU.
Star Wars returned to the small screen for the first time since 1986 with Star Wars: Clone Wars, a brilliantly kinetic and dynamic "microseries" from Genndy Tartakovsky which introduced a new Dark Side rival for Anakin named Asajj Ventress and debuted a new villain who would be appearing in the forthcoming Episode III, the Jedi-killing droid General Grievous. The ongoing Dark Horse Star Wars comic, initially conceived as a kind of anthology book featuring the new Jedi characters introduced in Episode I, was retitled Star Wars: Republic and spent the next three years telling stories from the Clone Wars.
Del Rey, which had assumed the Star Wars publishing licence in 1999, began a bespoke line of Clone Wars novels which really ran the gamut from pastiches of Apocalypse Now (Matt Stover's Shatterpoint, in which Mace Windu plays the Captain Willard role) and M*A*S*H (Michael Reaves and Steven Perry's MedStar duology, in which Jedi padawan Barriss Offee joins a field hospital on a remote but strategically important planet) to more conventional Star Wars adventures (e.g. Stephen Barnes's The Cestus Deception, which teamed Obi-Wan with popular background movie Jedi Kit Fisto, or Sean Stewart's Yoda: Dark Rendezvous). Of particular note was a computer game tie-in book called Republic Commando by a writer named Karen Traviss.
This will be important later.
I don't even know where to start with all the games that came out, but suffice it to say I don't think there was ever a more productive period for Star Wars games than this one, and a fair few of them (Bounty Hunter, Jedi Starfighter, The Clone Wars, The New Droid Army, Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns, even the campaign mode for Battlefront II) were Clone Wars tie-ins.
Quality varied across the board, as you may expect. And although Lucasfilm did creditable job of keeping things fairly consistent, at least to the extent that the stories in each medium weren't stepping all over each other too obtrusively, the whole line ended up in the awkward position of having three "official" lead-ins to Episode III which didn't really fit together. The comic miniseries Obsession, the novel Labyrinth of Evil and the final season of Star Wars: Clone Wars each managed to place Obi-Wan and Anakin at three separate remote corners of the galaxy simultaneously as the attack on Coruscant which opens the movie begins, and all end with them racing to join the battle from three completely different locations! Similarly, the novel and the cartoon showed two different versions of General Grievous kidnapping Chancellor Palpatine and the cartoon and the comic showed General Grievous suffering two completely different critical injuries (Mace Windu drops a STAP on him in the comic and uses the Force to crush his organs in the cartoon) which caused his cough in the movie!
However, that was splitting hairs. At the time, between the books and comics and games and the cartoon and everything else, it really felt like the EU was telling the entire story of the Clone Wars from start to finish, with Episodes II and III as the bookends.
The story of the Clone Wars, it seemed, was complete.
"Seemed" being the operative word.
The Clone Wars, Version 2
George Lucas's next Star Wars project after Revenge of the Sith was supposed to be a live-action television series called Star Wars: Underworld, which fell through when it became clear that producing as many episodes as Lucas wanted at the level of quality he envisaged was impractical on a television budget. Thus it seemed that, just as it had been between 1991 and 1999, the EU was going to be the primary source of new Star Wars stories for the foreseeable future (although unfortunately, I think this is generally regarded as a period of mixed fortunes of the Expanded Universe; that's certainly my own recollection of the time).
However, once it became clear that the production of the live-action series had hit that roadblock, Lucas shifted his focus and work commenced on a new animated feature, which would be released theatrically and serve as the pilot for a new Star Wars animated television series, which would have a whole new multimedia mini-saga around it in books, comics and games, which would tell the complete story of a decisive era of Star Wars history.
It would be called Star Wars: The Clone Wars and it was going to tell the story of... er... the Clone Wars.
As I recall, the immediate reactions to the announcement and the first trailers were somewhat mixed. I have quite distinct memories, for instance, of people complaining that it looked "childish". When the movie came out and featured Anakin going on an adventure to rescue the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt's cute little baby son Rotta, over whom the murderous crime boss lovingly coos and to whom he refers as his "punky muffin", this initial impression was not exactly shifted. Likewise, I also recall a lot of particularly pronounced ill-feeling among Star Wars fans towards a new main character the show was going to introduce, a young female Jedi learner named Ahsoka Tano, who would end up being accused of being too perfect, too powerful and, you guessed it, a Mary Sue.
However, bubbling beneath all of this fairly predictable surface-level criticism was a certain element of suspicion: the EU already did the Clone Wars, and pretty comprehensively too! You say you're going to do it again; are you going to... replace the original one? Somewhat surprisingly, Lucasfilm actually gave assurances that this would not be the case. Supervising director and executive producer Dave Filoni, whom George Lucas had been hand-picked to oversee the new series, and other folks at Lucasfilm insisted that they wanted to take the existing EU continuity seriously, to supplement rather than supplant the existing "canon" of the Clone Wars and to respect what had gone before.
However, it was made abundantly clear that this was George Lucas's series, and his word was going to be final.
When the series began, it's true that there were a few small things which were inconsistent here and there: for example, the Jedi master Eeth Koth appears in an early story arc, contradicting a comment from an Attack of the Clones reference book which said he died on the Battle of Geonosis; but that was only a reference book, not an actual story, so that was an acceptable discrepancy and one which was easy to ignore without much fuss.
I know there were still plenty of folks who dismissed it as a disposable product for children (as opposed to the many mature, sophisticated dismemberments scenes Troy Denning was writing in Star Wars novels at the time, I suppose), but I'd say The Clone Wars found an audience who appreciated it pretty quickly. Maybe it had a somewhat shaky start, but it was and is a good show: it was able to thread the needle of tackling complex themes and plots while staying simple and straightforward; it had strong characterisation and great performances from its three lead voice actors (Matt Lanter as Anakin, James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan and Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka); it managed to add some depth to one-note characters like Asajj Ventress and did a great job of characterising the clone troopers as distinct individuals in spite of their identical DNA; and it has to be said that there were few cartoons on television that looked better at the time, because Lucas was apparently putting his own money into it to ensure that its animation would be top-notch.
Is it perfect? Of course not. Does it still have its flaws? Absolutely? Is it still kinda distracting that we're asked to accept Anakin as a basically good person here when he's already ethnically cleansed a whole village of indigenous people in the previous movie? Well... For me, it kinda is. But it still evens out as a really good and very fun wee series. And most importantly for some fans, it felt like it was siloed off in its own little corner of the EU, to be safely ignored if you preferred, not intruding on anything else and not threatening the integrity of the "canon" of the original Clone Wars.
Then, on 15 July 2009, they published The Art of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The Drama Awakens
There's probably few Star Wars novelists more controversial than Karen Traviss. I'm not a fan of her work or her take on Star Wars and must confess I never have been, but that's a whole other thing by itself and not what I'm here to talk about, I'm decidedly not a "hater" and I will do my best to be even-handed. What you need to know is that one of the things Traviss had become very well-known for was her seeming fascination with (some might say fixation upon) the Mandalorians. After writing the first Republic Commando novel, Traviss took it upon herself to develop the history, culture, customs, society and language of the Mandalorians. I'm not sure if "Space Gurkhas" would be the most accurate way to sum it up, but that's where my mind tends to go. Again, not something I'm especially interested in (Boba Fett was always infinitely more compelling to me before we knew what was under the helmet) but loads of people love it and that's cool.
When The Art of Star Wars: The Clone Wars came out, it included some information regarding a trilogy of episodes which would be part of the then-forthcoming second season: "The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation" and "Duchess of Mandalore". It explained that Mandalorian society had once been warlike in the past, but by the time of The Clone Wars had embraced a pacifist philosophy and rejected their bellicose history, with the only holdouts against these values being the mysterious terrorist gang known as Death Watch (itself an adaptation of an older EU idea from the W. Haden Blackman Clone Wars tie-in comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons) who sought to overthrow the benevolent rule of Duchess Satine and return Mandalore to the old ways. The Mandalorians themselves resided in futurustic cities amidst the barren, blasted wastelands of their home planet.
All of this, to one extent or another, directly and irreconcilably contradicted much of what Traviss had created in relation to the Mandalorians. As you might expect, Traviss was extremely unhappy. In fact, she was so unhappy that she quit Star Wars completely and left, never to return, claiming that she felt she and her work had been disrespected and disregarded by Lucasfilm and that she no longer wished to work under such conditions. (While it is understandable that she would be upset, as many have noted over the years, this was and still is regarded as a bit rich, because another thing Traviss had a bit of a reputation for was claiming that she didn't read anyone else's Star Wars novels, but would still take characters from them and use them as she pleased. More to the point, many other Star Wars EU authors - Tim Zahn, Steven Perry and Kathy Tyers among them, off the top of my head - had been pretty clear that they understood they were playing in someone else's garden and recognised that, from Lucas's perspective, their work wasn't really "canon" in the first place.)
But if Traviss was unhappy, EU fans generally (and fans of Traviss's work in particular) were probably even unhappier. Their worst fears had been realised. Lucasfilm had reassured them that the "canon" status of the EU would be respected and, bluntly, it hadn't been. One of my most distinct memories of this entire drama was the front page of Wookieepedia rather bitterly putting up a George Lucas quote on its front page, in which he denounced making changes to other people's work. Overnight, Dave Filoni became a kind of hate figure for fans, accused of being "smug" or "arrogant" or denounced for "butchering the canon" of Star Wars, for trampling over the work of other (and, implicitly, "better") creators, for being a "prequel apologist" (back when that was a mark against you), for "ripping off Karen Traviss" and then "forcing her out of Star Wars", and probably some other invective that I've forgotten.
As it transpired, though, this was only the beginning.
Begun the Clone Wars Wars Have!
It's kind of fascinating to look back at how that event seemed to open the floodgates, because in the remaining seasons of The Clone Wars, the position of the Expanded Universe was made absolutely clear: the idea that it was ever "canon" was and always had been at the sufferance of George Lucas, and if George Lucas wanted to change it, George Lucas was going to change it.
You see, according to comments from Filoni himself in later years, a lot of the stuff around the Mandalorians which had so incensed Traviss and a lot of hardcore EU fans, apparently came directly from George Lucas. Lucas, he has explained, began to become increasingly involved with the creation and development of the series storylines from the second season onwards, contributing ideas and sometimes even full outlines for episodes or multi-part story arcs. The Mandalore trilogy in season two was, from what I understand, one of the first times he did this.
They were small changes, in some ways, but nevertheless, they had a pretty fundamental impact on the integrity (for want of a better word) of the Expanded Universe, because they were changes which couldn't be reconciled to the existing EU. Here are some examples:
The planet Ryloth had always been characterised in the EU by its status as a "tidally-locked" world where one half was a scorched desert always facing its sun, the other half was a frozen desert always facing away from its sun, and the native Twi'leks inhabited a narrow twilight band around the middle; when Ryloth appeared in The Clone Wars, it seemed to be a fairly generic world of rolling plains and hilly grasslands (and all the Twi'leks were French).
The Dugs (Sebulba from The Phantom Menace is one) were the natives of the planet Malastare, and the established position in the EU was that they had been subjugated and enslaved by the colonising Gran (the three-eyed goat-faced dudes; you'd know them if you saw them) species. When the Zillo Beast story arc appeared in The Clone Wars (another major example of a direct Lucas contribution; he was keen to do an homage to classic kaiju movies), it took place on Malastare... where the Dugs govern themselves and there is not a Gran in sight.
Darth Maul, a character that George Lucas had killed off in the most definitive manner possible precisely because he knew people would want him to come back from the dead and he didn't want that... came back from the dead, apparently at Lucas's own suggestion! Not only that, but he came with a hitherto unseen evil secret brother and a whole new backstory, which tied into...
The planet Dathomir was one of the better-defined worlds of the EU: a matriarchal society of Force-sensitive barbarian witches who rode on the backs of tame rancors; the sinister Nightsisters as witches who had mastered the dark side of the Force. In The Clone Wars, some of the basic elements of this are retained, but they are reimagined so as to form the basis of the new origin story of Darth Maul (now portrayed as a "Nightbrother"), as well as that of...
Asajj Ventress, now portrayed as a native of Dathomir and daughter of the Nightsister leader, replacing the origin developed by John Ostrander in Star Wars: Republic which placed her as the daughter of murdered freedom fighters on a remote planet who was trained in the Force by a stranded Jedi and turned to the dark side and conquered her homeworld after he was killed by her political enemies.
One of the most significant changes involved the character Barriss Offee, one of the background Jedi introduced in Attack of the Clones. Usually appearing alongside her master, Luminara Undili, Barriss had generally been portrayed as roughly the same age as Anakin, featured as a main character in the aforementioned MedStar novels and was generally agreed to have fought alongside her master throughout the war and died during Order 66. In The Clone Wars, Barriss is reimagined as a younger character, closer in age to Ahsoka than Anakin, and in the final arc of the initial broadcast run in 2013, she falls to the dark side, betrays the Jedi Order and frames Ahsoka for a terrorist attack that she perpetrated herself.
Quinlan Vos, a Jedi master who walked the line between light and dark, was one of the most popular characters of the Expanded Universe, the main character of Dark Horse's Star Wars: Republic whose stories chronicled his struggle with the dark side as he infiltrated Count Dooku's inner circle, allowed himself to be guided down ever darker paths in the name of maintaining his cover and his ultimate rejection of the darkness out of love for his family and friends. He makes a guest appearance in The Clone Wars, and he's honestly kind of a surfer dude, not really feeling much like the same character he'd been in the comics at all. (This is one that I remember people being particularly frustrated with.)
Character deaths: the two most significant which occur to me are the Jedi masters Even Piell and Adi Gallia. The former is killed in the Clone Wars episode "Citadel Rescue" from 2011, when he is mauled by a nexu during a prison break... but he'd already been killed by clone troopers during Orer 66 in the novel Jedi Twilight in 2008. The latter is killed by Darth Maul's evil secret brother Savage Oppress in the Clone Wars episode "Revival" from 2012... but she'd already been killed seven years earlier by General Grievous in the Dark Horse comic Obsession from 2005!
Examples of smaller —but still significant— changes to characters include the portrayals of: Aurra Sing, an Episode I background character who had become a major villain in the Dark Horse comics as a former Jedi padawan who fell to the dark side and became a prolific Jedi-killer, portrayed in the series as Boba Fett's mentor as a bounty hunter with no indication that she has the Force; Dengar, who had been a rival of Han Solo and became a bounty hunter after a near-fatal accident in a speeder bike race against him in the existing EU, is now portrayed as having been a bounty hunter since the Clone Wars, potato sack on his head and all; and like Dengar, Greedo (seriously!), who previously in the EU had been a rookie bounty hunter with a grudge against Han Solo when he appears in Star Wars, is also established here to have been active as a bounty hunter since the Clone Wars.
And most offensively of all, now General Grievous had always had a cough the entire time!
For better or worse, the cat was out of the bag. The new Clone Wars wasn't just overwriting parts of the original Clone Wars, but entirely different parts of the Expanded Universe altogether. Filoni, to be fair, did try for a few years to make the case that it all fit together in some way, that the new Clone Wars was looking at the old Clone Wars "from a different point of view" (this is Star Wars, after all). I think it's always been pretty clear that Filoni is a fan of the EU and all of the references he made then and continues to make in his Star Wars work today reflect his appreciation for it; the many, many, many claims that he actually hated it and his fans seem completely without foundation to me. However, as the position became less and less tenable, he would eventually give an interview to Star Wars Insider in 2012 in which he came right out and said that the Clone Wars animated series and the EU "don't live in the same universe". And it was clear which one was "supposed" to "count".
Here's a clue: it's the one that George Lucas was helping to make. The creator of Star Wars was actively creating new Star Wars "canon", and this time, it seemed to the EU's longtime fans that these new additions had little to no regard for the existing "canon" at all.
Conclusion
By far the most tangible and shocking outcome of this drama was the exit under a pretty dark cloud from the Star Wars universe of Karen Traviss. I've said I didn't like her work at all, but the fact remains that many, many fans loved and valued what she contributed to Star Wars and still do to this day. In the years since Disney purchased Lucasfilm, we have seen creators walk away from or find themselves "forced out" of Star Wars for one reason or another, whether that's Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Colin Trevorrow, Chuck Wendig and others, but I don't think any departure was quite as divisive within the Star Wars fandom as was that of Karen Traviss. Karen Traviss wasn't fired over creative differences, because she wanted to take her work in one direction and Lucasfilm wanted it to go in another; Karen Traviss quit because she felt that she and her work had been disrespected by someone else's work (that "someone else" ultimately being George Lucas) and she made abundantly clear that this was why she had made the decision to exit.
But the more significant outcome was much quieter. I don't think fans had fully appreciated that it had happened at the time and (perhaps due in no small part to some of the misconceptions which I think still exist around George Lucas's own views on "canon" in Star Wars which I mentioned above) to a large extent, I'm not sure that many of them really appreciate it even today. The Clone Wars blew the Star Wars EU wide open in a very fundamental and irreversible way. For the first time, here was George Lucas himself helping to create something which said (or, at least, was perceived to say), in a very direct definitive manner, in a way that couldn't really be reconciled or ignored like it always had in the past, that all the comics and games and novels that you liked "didn't count" as "real" Star Wars, because that's what this was meant to be. Whenever people say that "Disney made the EU non-canon", it is only reasonable to acknowledge that George Lucas kind of did that first.
Of course, attempts were still made. I understand that the Fate of the Jedi novel series (which I have to emphasise I never read and never have read) gamely tried to incorporate some of the new Force mythology from The Clone Wars (specifically the Son, Daughter and Father characters; mysterious personifications of the Dark Side, Light Side and Balance of the Force respectively) into its storyline regarding the Space Cthulhu Force creature Abeloth, but I feel that it was a bit of a lost cause by that point. If Lucasfilm's decision to introduce the Legends branding was the end, then The Clone Wars, whether we realised it at the time or not, was the beginning of the end.
My own opinion on the matter is that Disney didn't "invalidate" the Expanded Universe; they just didn't validate it.
Final Thoughts
I think there are two great ironies that came of all of this.
The first is that a lot of Traviss's contributions to the portrayal of the Mandalorians were actually kept in the long term and, to varying degrees, remain part of Star Wars today. A lot of the stuff you see in The Mandalorian (a series co-created and co-produced by none other than Dave Filoni) seems to owe at least as much to some of the language and concepts that Traviss introduced as it did to the developments in relation to the Mandalorians which occurred throughout the Clone Wars cartoon.
And the second is that Dave Filoni, once one of the great hate figures of the Star Wars fandom, is today regarded as one of its heroes, the protector of "George's legacy", the "only man who really understands George's vision", the Chosen One who will "save" the series he was once accused, incessantly and often virulently, in the kind of terms that you have to literally be Rian Johnson to have thrown at you today, of "selfishly" and "arrogantly" trying to destroy. Let me be absolutely clear, I think Filoni is a talented writer and artist and I'm always keen to see what he does next in Star Wars, but forgive me if I find all the hero-worship a bit two-faced, because I remember very clearly when the shoe was on the other foot.
Perhaps the decision that The Clone Wars, alone of the EU, would be "canon" after Lucas sold to Disney was a blessing in disguise. It didn't matter if it had contradicted and overridden "canon" any more, because now everything it had supplanted was "non-canon" in a much more definitive way than it had arguably been before. You could go back to it and enjoy it for what it was rather than hating it for what it wasn't, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who did so recognised its accomplishments on its own merits because it deserved recognition, not because it was or wasn't arbitrarily "canon".
Or, perhaps, the people who rejected it the first time around, who would fill message boards with so much invective about how "the canon" was being vandalised with every new secret evil Darth Maul sibling or inconsistency with this or that comic or novel, had all left with Karen Traviss.
Whatever the case may be, that's the Clone Wars. Both of them.
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A selection of enriching comments from the original post:
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"UnsealedMTG" said:
I'm going to ramble a bunch but I want to put upfront the funniest "HobbyDrama" part of this, and what I first heard about the conflict, having checked mostly out of the Star Wars fandom at the time: Karen Traviss referred to the people who opposed her work as "Talifans", comparing them to the Taliban because liking the Jedi too much made them like oppressive theocrats; her own faction went by "Fandalorians".
Awesome post! I remember a lot of this, though I was mostly checked out of Star Wars for much of the Clone Wars era, bopping in to read some of the newer Timothy Zahn books and to watch the totally sweet Tartarovsky cartoon. (I've since seen the 2nd Clone Wars cartoon, and yeah, it's pretty great overall if uneven for sure. Shout out to Dee Bradley Baker for his awesome voice work as all the clones, balancing their sameness with their individuality.)
I agree with your takes and just want to add some notes/thoughts.
The official Lucasfilm canon system for the EU was a little more complicated than even addressed in this post, and some of that kind of relates to this dispute. Any stuff from a lower level was kind of "true unless contradicted by a higher level", at least officially.
As mentioned, the top level was G Canon, meaning "George Lucas". It referred to specifically the 6 live-action films (before the Disney buy-out), the radio dramas, the film scripts, and comments by George Lucas.
The 2nd level was T Canon, meaning "Television". That included only the CGI Clone Wars series. So, CGI Clone Wars notably was not quite officially the top level. But it trumped books.
The 3rd level was C Canon — this was your core EU stuff.
The 4th level was S Canon, for "Secondary canon". This was basically old or weird stuff that wasn't really consciously integrated into the EU, either because the EU's idea hadn't been developed yet or because it was games-related. Examples are the Star Wars Holiday Special or the MMO Star Wars Galaxies.
Finally, there was N "Canon", which was non-canon material like the comedy issues of Star Wars Tales or the Star Wars Infinities comics, which were like the Star Wars version of Marvel's What If? (I genuinely love those even if they have dumb stuff, like the one set at the end of Return of the Jedi, where Vader survives but turns Light-Side and shows up in his Vader armour... coloured white now). Sometimes, when people are like "Look at this absurd thing that was canon in the EU!", they are talking about N Canon stuff that was never intended as canon and it bugs me. Wookiepedia encouraged this — multiple times I've encountered people saying it was canon in the EU that the droid that blows his motivator up in the original Star Wars was really Skippy the Jedi Droid, who went on to protect people on Tatooine as a ghost. That comes from an 8-page joke comic by Peter David from Star Wars Tales. It is a pretty good parody of the EU's tendency to turn every minor character into a secret Jedi, but it is a parody and it is not quite fair to the EU to treat it as real.
"Nevertheless, the impression I have always taken away, as someone who has enjoyed experienced varying degrees of participation in the Star Wars fandom in general and the EU fandom in particular for close to 25 misspent years at this point, is that it became a widely accepted "fact" of the hardest core of the Star Wars fandom that the EU was "canon" and on an equal footing to the movies.
If I may speculate, I think there are two really key reasons as to why this perception became so widespread [...]"
I have a slightly different memory/perception. I always got the sense that people understood that the movies trumped the EU. And the EU stayed well clear of the Prequel era before the Prequels came out because they knew Lucas might want to eventually fill that in.
What I think was more controversial was the TV show trumping the other EU items since, even if there was some involvement from Lucas in the show, it still wasn't a movie so it seemed weird to give it the status close to or equal to a movie. It seems less weird now that the new canon has been built around the TV show, but at the time, it was all "not the movies" and it felt weird that some "not the movies" stuff could trump another.
I also have a couple of other thoughts about the why of canon expectations for the EU:
This is hard to imagine today given, on the one hand, what a cluster the EU became, and on the other hand, how used to integrated multimedia franchises we are now. But in fact, the EU was galaxies ahead of other licensed media in terms of coherence. Before Heir to the Empire, I don't know of any prominent franchise that even tried to get its licensed material to agree with each other. So when you read a Star Trek novel in the 90s, you just understood that anything not directly from a show wasn't "real" and wouldn't be referred to in a book by a different author. The fact that Star Wars made the effort was really ahead of its time, and once you saw that Mara Jade was going to be in books not only by Timothy Zahn but Kevin J. Anderson as well (not that she's all that recognizable between those two), the idea that there was a canon followed naturally.
There were plenty of reference works published that referred to all this EU canon. I remember a pre-Prequels Star Wars dictionary with a proto-version of the elaborate canon hierarchy. Anything from the movies was marked with the Rebel Alliance symbol, meaning movie material. Anything from the EU was marked with the similar but distinct New Republic symbol. Stuff like that created the idea of a two-tier system that, again, the 2nd Clone Wars cartoon seemed to upset by barging in at a second tier above the other EU stuff.
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"DocWhoFan16" (the original poster) replied to "UnsealedMTG":
"The fact that Star Wars made the effort was really ahead of its time, and once you saw that Mara Jade was going to be not only in the books written by Timothy Zahn but also in the ones written by Kevin J. Anderson (not that she's all that recognizable between those two), the idea that there was a canon followed naturally."
I think the tricky thing here is that there was a bit of a dispute right at the start of the EU when they decided that, even though the novels seemed to be the "official" continuation of Star Wars after the movies, the comic Dark Empire was going to "count" as well.
The thing is that Tom Veitch had been pitching Dark Empire since around 1986 or 1987 (to Marvel, originally, since they were still publishing Star Wars comics at the time) and it was imagined as the "what happened next" story to follow the movies.
When Bantam Spectra announced they'd be starting a series of novels, one of the options they considered was asking Veitch to write a novelisation of his comic, which he was up for doing. But then they opted to go with Zahn's story instead, because Zahn had a growing reputation in science-fiction and was under contract to them already.
Zahn developed the story for the Thrawn Trilogy completely independently of Veitch developing Dark Empire, and it's my understanding that when he was asked, he flat-out refused to include any Dark Empire references in his book, largely because he didn't like the story of Dark Empire. Essentially, the Thrawn Trilogy and Dark Empire were "supposed" to be two alternatives rather than stories that both "happened" within each other's fiction. Zahn gave Han and Leia a twin son and daughter in the Thrawn Trilogy; Veitch gave them one son in Dark Empire. It was never "planned" for them to have three kids: they had two in the novels and one in the comics.
The "problem" (such as it was) arose when Kevin J. Anderson wrote the Jedi Academy trilogy and, later on, Darksaber, because Anderson and Veitch had compared notes and found they shared a similar idea of Star Wars and Anderson ended up including references to Veitch's comics in his novels, effectively making them part of the "canon" of the EU when their position had previously been a bit murkier. So (just for example), whereas the novels had been moving forward with the assumption that Han and Leia had these two kids, now they had a third one to account for!
(Indeed, an RPG supplement eventually "revealed" that the assassination of Grand Admiral Thrawn by the Noghri was somehow orchestrated by the cloned Emperor from Dark Empire, which I suspect is probably the kind of thing Zahn pointedly wanted to avoid)
That's my understanding of it, anyway, though of course I may have the wrong of it.
"There were plenty of reference works published that referred to all this EU canon. I remember a pre-Prequels Star Wars dictionary with a proto-version of the elaborate canon hierarchy."
Sure, that may also illustrate an earlier, non-drama-causing example of this phenomenon: I remember devouring The Essential Guide to Characters as a child... and being confused about why none of the stuff from the old Marvel comics (which Dark Horse had reprinted and I'd read in that format) was in it!
I will say, I think that getting online circa 2002 and having rude people tell me I was wrong to think the Marvel comics "counted" was probably what started me down the path to not really caring about "canon" that much, LOL. :p
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"UnsealedMTG" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
I believe that's all generally correct. In my mind, there were some textual changes to Dark Empire to sort of make it fit with the new idea that it was later than the Thrawn Trilogy, but that might have been my mind inserting that because I already "knew" the "official" timeline which put Dark Empire well after Thrawn.
It was definitely messy from the beginning, but what was kind of novel and helped create the concept of a true multimedia franchise was that they made the effort at all. That created a kind of expectation —certainly not always met— of consistency in stuff like the timeline for Star Wars that wasn't common in other media.
I remember Marvel editor Jordan D. White, who edited the new Marvel Star Wars comics for some time, talking about the sort of culture shift from other comics fans —who are used to the sort of general handwaving of Marvel's shifting timeline that defies any real one-to-one timeline (this is how Peter Parker can simultaneously be in his early 30s but have comics with him 17 in the 1960s still be canon, or how the war during which Tony Stark was kidnapped can keep moving forward in time without a full reboot)— to Star Wars fans who want, like, a month-by-month timeline.
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"thrashinbatman" replied to "UnsealedMTG":
It is. Dark Empire was originally supposed to take place before or around the same time as the Thrawn Trilogy, but since Zahn refused to acknowledge them, they were set about a year later. Kevin J. Anderson's acknowledgement of Dark Empire in the Jedi Academy books creates a really silly scenario where, off-page, the New Republic loses Coruscant, is forced back into more of a Rebellion situation, then takes Coruscant back and reestablishes the status quo from the Thrawn Trilogy. It's really dumb, but actually is one of the few major incongruities in the EU outside of the massive ones created by Lucas and Dave Filoni that were discussed in the original post.
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"Raxtenko" said:
"literally be Rian Johnson to have thrown at you today"
Ha, maybe that's why Filoni and Rian Johnson seem to get along: commiseration over bad fan reactions.
I'll admit that I internally rolled when I saw the EU tag. I'm sick to death over all the anger and drama. But this is a very fair and neutral write-up. Good job.
I remember reading Zahn's trilogy some 20+ years ago and absolutely loving it. In the void after Episode VI, it was a great sequel trilogy and I gobbled them up. I remember how disappointed I felt when the Prequel Trilogy came out, and the slow disappointment I felt when the differences between it and Zahn's works popped up. I think I realized then that Lucas didn't really consider the EU to be canon in his universe.
I still kept reading the novels, but probably something inside me broke and I didn't really enjoy them anymore, coupled with some very silly DBZ-level power jumps. I left it behind when I saw Starkiller pull that Star Destroyer out of orbit.
I was still on my hiatus when the Karen Traviss thing happened. I only watched the Sequel Trilogy because my wife loves Star Wars. After that, we watched The Clone Wars at her suggestion. It spun off into Rebels and the live-action stuff after. I'm firmly back now in the fold for better or worse, but I believe with all my heart that there has never been a better time to be a Star Wars fan.
And looking back on it, I'll always have the good memories of Rogue Squadron, Kyle Katarn, Zahn and everything else that I enjoyed from the EU. Those memories won't go away and they can't be taken from me. A small petty part of me will always take some glee that the parts I loathed aren't "canon" anymore, though. It really doesn't matter to me, but some fans will twist themselves into pretzels if things they like don't have the vaunted canon status, so they can suffer and be miserable instead of focusing on the positives.
And I'll also always have Hera and Kanan (best Star Wars couple; fight me, Rebels haters), and The Mandalorian and The High Republic are looking pretty good too.
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"mdp300" replied to "Raxtenko":
Dude, you sound a lot like me. I was a huge fan in the late 90s, then kind of drifted away for a while, and got back into it with the CGI Clone Wars series. I was fine with Disney starting things over because a lot of the EU was bad. And anyway, I still have my old Rogue Squadron books in the closet.
I think a lot of weird contradictions about the Jedi come from the fact that, up until The Phantom Menace in 1999, we knew very little about the Jedi other than the fact they were cool. So writers had a lot of different interpretations of them, a lot of which ended up being wrong.
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "mdp300":
"I think a lot of weird contradictions about the Jedi come from the fact that, up until The Phantom Menace in 1999, we knew very little about the Jedi other than the fact they were cool. So writers had a lot of different interpretations of them, a lot of which ended up being wrong."
I think the most significant one was the not-unreasonable assumption that Jedi could marry and have children and that, if you were a Jedi, chances were your parents were Jedi as well. And if you only have the Original Trilogy to go on, you'd be hard-pressed to say you had the wrong end of the stick. Who's the main Jedi of the Original Trilogy? Luke Skywalker. And why is Luke Skywalker a Jedi? Because his father was a Jedi. He says it in Episode VI: "The Force is strong in my family".
So you have a book like Children of the Jedi, which has at the centre of its premise the idea of an old Imperial battle station which existed for the purpose of tracking down and kidnapping the children of Jedi knights (collateral to this was the widely-held supposition among EU writers that the Empire had been around for much longer than would turn out to be the case and had been running the show for a while before they decided to wipe out the Jedi, rather than the Jedi purge being the start of the Empire). Or the character Corran Horn, whose backstory is that his grandfather was a Jedi knight during the Republic.
The Prequels upended that assumption, although I'd argue not to the same degree as Clone Wars Version 2 did, because they had recourse to a mostly neat workaround that characters like Corran Horn's dad had just been breaking the rules!
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"thrashinbatman" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
Yeah, you mention that Lucas hated Mara Jade and the concept of Luke being married, but I don't think he always held that opinion. He was actually fairly involved in the EU in the 90s. I don't think he really read the novels, but at least he skimmed the comics and most story ideas went through him. He at the very least approved Veitch's idea to bring Palpatine back (some accounts go as far as saying he proposed the idea, but that could just be a misunderstanding), and his suggestion to the crew writing The New Jedi Order that they should "get creative" was what led to the Yuuzhan Vong. Near as I can tell, it seems that The New Jedi Order was the last EU project he was really involved in prior to the CGI Clone Wars show (and the lack of any oversight really shows with EU storylines after The New Jedi Order in my opinion).
All of that is to say that, if Lucas really didn't like the idea of Jedi having families and Luke being married, he had plenty of opportunities to nip that in the bud. He had no issue putting rules for the authors in place (no major Original Trilogy characters could die, no one could be more powerful in the Force than Luke or Palpatine, no stories could be set during the Clone Wars era) and totally could have instituted a "Luke cannot have b****es" rule, but he chose not to, as well as he didn't institute such a rule for any of the other Jedi characters: he sat by as Corran Horn(y) spent half of I, Jedi ogling the female characters and every author created a competing OC for Luke to be with.
Another thing Lucas seems to be notorious for is changing his story. Lord knows his take on how many movies were supposed to exist changed from interview to interview. I fully believe he only began to feel that way about Luke and Mara after he came up with the celibacy rules in Attack of the Clones. There's no way he could have felt that way about the Jedi in the 90s because, again, he had plenty of opportunity to establish it much sooner.
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"AdmiralScavenger" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
George Lucas answered questions for the writers of Tales of the Jedi and he never mentioned Jedi could not marry or have children. Nomi Sunrider is a Jedi knight who was married to another Jedi and whose daughter became a Jedi. Even The Phantom Menace doesn't say you can't be married, that didn't happen until Attack of the Clones. Even the Return of the Jedi novelization has Anakin, after Luke removed his helmet, think about his wife for a moment. Anakin's backstory always was that he was married.
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"cricri3007" replied to "Raxtenko":
"I still kept reading the novels, but probably something inside me broke and I didn't really enjoy them anymore, coupled with some very silly DBZ-level power jumps. I left it behind when I saw Starkiller pull that Star Destroyer out of orbit."
Okay, to be fair to Starkiller: if I remember right, the Star Destroyer was actually already damaged and crashing, he "just" made it crash faster so it wouldn't crush the entire city.
Still ludicrously powerful, of course, but at least more believable, if only slightly.
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"ToaArcan" said:
One of the funniest things about this whole saga, in my view, is that the first half of the Battle of Coruscant is still a tangled unknown.
Whereas the EU had multiple contradictory stories about what exactly went down when Grievous launched his attack on the Galactic Capital and made off with the Chancellor, the new canon has... very little. It just uses the broad-stroke attempts to marry the contradictory material together from Legends.
For all that most of the EU has been superseded by new material, the Gordian knot that is the EU's take on the Battle of Coruscant continues to linger on, being confusing.
It's somewhat understandable, though. With the exception of Season 7 of the actual Clone Wars TV show, Disney has been somewhat reluctant to revisit the Prequel era — Disney Star Wars is basically all Original Trilogy and things that look like the Original Trilogy. The Sequel era also got basically dropped off a cliff after The Rise of Skywalker stumbled into cinemas and we went right back to Original Trilogy fanservice. And with them only having so many episodes, I can see why Dave Filoni and Co. didn't cover Coruscant.
Maybe they just couldn't think of a way to convincingly show Lucas's laughably incompetent version of Grievous achieving something as audacious as kidnapping Palpatine.
(Honestly, Grievous is the funniest thing about this whole mess to me: Lucas gave Genndy Tartarovsky, the people at Dark Horse, and whoever was doing the books at the time, nothing but a character design and a vague idea of what he did, and they all decided that General Grievous was the coolest f***ing thing ever; then, Lucas came in two years later and said "Actually, he's the galaxy's biggest loser and all he does is cough and run away", and the fandom have been pissed about it ever since)
"Is it still kinda distracting that we're asked to accept Anakin as a basically good person here when he's already ethnically cleansed a whole village of indigenous people in the previous movie?"
I think I said in the previous Star Wars write-up we had that this is one of those things where the way the Tuskens are framed in older Star Wars material is extremely wonky — Everything the movies showed us gave them all the nuance that a 1st Edition D&D book would give to Orcs. All we know about them from the films is "They ride in single file to hide their numbers, they've been known to murder Jawas for little established reason, they shoot Podracers and kill the pilots for kicks, and they kidnapped a random civilian woman, crippled her husband when he tried to rescue her, and then slowly tortured her to death over the course of weeks because she was... standing right there?"
Tuskens, as portrayed by the movies, are cartoonishly evil. But since then, the "Wait, these are people" thought process has become more common, and that just makes what happened in Episode II even worse. Like, it was already bad, but now it feels more real.
I do think that the decision by the new shows of the Disney era to opt for a "These are victims of colonialism, actually" approach was probably a bit of a dodgy move, though. Nothing says "victim of colonialism" quite like torturing a random woman to death, especially when Shmi Skywalker was only on Tatooine in the first place because she'd been brought from off-world as a slave.
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"Terthelt" replied to "ToaArcan":
I do want to push back a tiny bit on Grievous being a complete loser in the 2nd Clone Wars show. There are actually quite a few episodes where he's depicted as being an unstoppable, menacing general, like the arc in which he wages genocide on the Nightsisters, who aren't exactly pushovers. It's just that he's only able to be the biggest fish in the pond when he isn't fighting any Jedi, and the minute any lightsabres kick on in his direction, he immediately starts to coward out and go for cheap backstabs.
The point is: it totally would've been possible to depict him staging a competent and cool assault on Coruscant, as long as Filoni and crew devised a way to keep every single Jedi on the planet away from Palpatine's office.
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "Terthelt":
I guess it's hard to get out of the shadow of that very first appearance in the last episode of the 2nd (?) season of Tartarovsky's Star Wars: Clone Wars, where you have Grievous taking on four or five Jedi at once and winning until reinforcements show up and chase him off.
A tough act to follow!
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"radwolf76" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
"[...] where you have Grievous taking on four or five Jedi at once and winning [...]"
And one of those Jedi is essentially Scooby-Doo's Shaggy except with a lightsabre. Admittedly, the story was animated before the full extent of Shaggy's Power was widely understood, so he's kind of a pushover.
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"Lastjedibestjedi" replied to "ToaArcan":
I think the original Tuskens were heavily based on Bedouin tribes.
They were the original inhabitants, didn't especially like Jawas, were very tribal (no central or single group) and would steal your shit with no problem if you were in their territory.
It wasn't until the Prequel Trilogy that they were also slavers and torturers (and I believe it was implied they were rapists as well).
It was a heavy about-face.
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"OmegaPunchers" said:
So… after this and the previous EU write-up, I'm wondering: what exactly made the stuff written by Karen Traviss so divisive?
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"SkyeAuroline" replied to "OmegaPunchers":
Karen Traviss seriously does not understand the media that she writes for. Her Halo books constantly sidetrack into her railing against the parts of the Halo universe she doesn't like, and she stripped down a ton of characterization that was well-liked in favour of a creator's mouthpieces or pointless filler. On top of that, she was constantly f***ing up all the tech and political/social background of the setting. I'm less familiar with her Star Wars work (and only passingly familiar with her Gears of War work, on account of every fan I've encountered saying to stay away from it at all costs); but it's the same sort of phenomenon where she pushed the things she was interested in as the objectively best/correct parts of the setting, belittled anyone who didn't fit into that and warped existing lore to fit what she was pushing.
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"fnOcean" replied to "OmegaPunchers":
In addition to what the other commenter said about her pushing her interests and warping existing lore to fit that, her Mandalorian culture is... pretty racist and sexist. I re-found a post on Tumblr [currently preserved here: https://www.tumbex.com/notallthosewho-wanderarelost.tumblr/post/682272039920435200/] that talks about the issues with her series (and why the clones being Mandalorian doesn't make sense), but the TL;DR is: Traviss wrote Mandalorians as thinking every non-Mandalorian is soulless and needs to assimilate into their culture and forget their own, women are expected to get married at 16, women can't fight unless the men are all gone, and so on; portraying a society like this wouldn't be bad per se, but she also seems to think those are all positive things for a culture to be, and any changing that is bad.
On the non-writing side of things, I can't double-check this because I don't have Twitter, but her likes are apparently full of transphobia, COVID denial, and white supremacy, which definitely illuminates a lot about how she wrote the Mandalorians.
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"RadioactiveOwl95" replied to "fnOcean":
Despite having never read her stuff, everything I heard about her takes on the Mandalorians always gave me a bad vibe of fetishistic militarism that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Can't say her other views are too surprising in that light.
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "RadioactiveOwl95":
"a bad vibe of fetishistic militarism"
You could make the case that the EU in general could sometimes be a bit... Well, let's look at it this way: at one time, the EU seriously countenanced the idea that Palpatine only created the Empire and set up an oppressive military regime which exerted its authority through terror because he wanted to make the galaxy strong enough to fight the Yuuzhan Vong, and there are many fans who embrace this idea even today.
I mean, leaving aside the fact that this kind of suggests the heroes from the movies were in the wrong for resisting the Empire in the first place, it's a bit like saying Adolf Hitler "only" set up Nazi Germany because he wanted to make Western Europe strong enough to fight the Soviet Union, isn't it?
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"iknownuffink" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
The way I remember it being talked about was that people like Thrawn were explicitly trying to make the galaxy orderly, unified and, most of all strong, enough to withstand their impending invasion. But Ol' Sheev Palpatine was still fully on the "It's all about me, and being cacklingly evil for funsies" train. He wasn't truly worried about the Vong, because he was arrogant and considered himself superior. Though it did provide another explanation for why there was always a new Secret Super-Weapon of the Week that Palpatine had his wrinkly hands in.
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"Inevitable_Citron" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
Oh man, the Yuuzhan Vong. That was a trip and a half.
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"wendigo72" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
I mean... Han Solo in the books of The New Jedi Order calls out that the “The Empire was good because of the Vong” idea was incredibly stupid.
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"ThunderDaniel" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
Oh man, I'm not even a Star Wars fan, but every time I hear nerds justify Palpatine's actions as being done to unite the galaxy against a future threat outside the Star Wars galaxy... Well, I kinda laugh knowing that they take it unironically. It feels like a revisionist cop-out that is so hard to believe in if you understood at all who the Emperor is in all the movies.
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "Inevitable_Citron":
My understanding is the Yuuzhan Vong were the backup plan, because the original idea was that the extra-galactic invaders would be the Sith coming back to take some more revenge; George Lucas shot that down in the planning stages when ideas were sent to him for approval, arguing that it would be impossible for a Sith society to survive long enough to travel between galaxies because the Sith are inherently treacherous and any society they created would inevitably collapse when they destroyed each other and themselves.
Not an unreasonable position to take, though it is a little surprising, in light of this, that Tales of the Jedi, Knights of the Old Republic, Legacy, the MMO The Old Republic and Lost Tribe of the Sith were all allowed out when they all portray (mostly) functioning Sith societies!
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "wendigo72":
Sure, but it doesn't stop Star Wars fans from taking the idea at face value, does it?
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "ThunderDaniel":
Same deal with Grand Admiral Thrawn, to be honest, though at least Thrawn doesn't have the whole "obviously evil space wizard" thing going on. Even so, I sometimes feel like cheering on Grand Admiral Thrawn is a bit like cheering on Claus von Stauffenberg or Erwin Rommel, you know what I mean?
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"GoneRampant1" replied to "OmegaPunchers":
Her Mandalorian books involved a lot of... How do I put this nicely...? Wanking of the Mandalorians and shunning the Jedi by painting them in an unflattering light. Traviss wore her biases on her sleeves and would warp canon in order to have her mouthpieces talk about how the Mandos could totally beat the Jedi in the battleground of ideas using superior Facts And Logic.
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"moorlu" replied to "GoneRampant1":
The Legacy of the Force series really showed her single-mindedness regarding the Mandalorians. They cycled between authors for every book, and while the other two would leave Mandalore behind, you could rest assured that the next Traviss book would take us straight back there to show us how flawed the Jedi were and how the Mandalorians were the only hope to save the galaxy from Darth Caedus. It got tiresome fast.
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"ReverendDS" replied to "OmegaPunchers":
To preface this, I'm a huge Star Wars nerd and have been my entire life. I've read every book multiple times (seriously, every few years I re-read the entire Star Wars chronology), I've played every game, I've watched every episode of everything. And I've been doing this for nearly 40 years. And I'm a huge Republic Commando fan and won't try to hide my bias in this regard.
The first part of the drama is that Karen Traviss, in everything she writes — in any IP she writes for, sticks to a very "things like morality aren't black and white, they are muddled and gray and shifting" approach and constantly calls out things that are objectively evil — even when the intentions are pure or for the good of all.
Unfortunately, most audiences don't have the emotional maturity to deal with things like nuance or to be able to approach a fictional work and pick up more than the most obvious and subtle-as-a-brick-through-a-window of themes.
Karen Traviss used the extremely egalitarian society of the Mandalorians to train the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic, and then further used that society to point out the inherent wrongness of the Republic and the Jedi of that time.
None of her characters are "good" people, and she doesn't shirk from showing that and the consequences of it. But they try to do right by their code, which can put them at odds with the trite "good vs evil" that is so prevalent.
She called out a lot of the hypocrisy of the Jedi, often with the blunt hammer of having Jedi characters being the ones to face the decisions and make the choices.
Due to the audience's aforementioned lack of emotional maturity, she was labeled a "Jedi hater", despite the fact that two of her characters, as Jedi, are some of the best examples of the Jedi philosophy out of any other characters that exist in universe.
She does have pieces of her books that could be interpreted as problematic, but to be honest, I've never particularly cared if there are themes and situations in a fictional universe that would be problematic in the real world — my experiences growing up have shown that way f***ing worse happens in the real world on a daily basis.
People call out the early-twenties Jedi woman sleeping with and being impregnated by the chronologically ten-year-old clone, like it's some kind of endorsement of pedophilia, instead of reading what was actually on the page and realizing that the ten-year-old clone was being treated like a full fledged adult by the military and Jedi. You can't have it both ways, and Karen Traviss used that situation (and the surrounding context) to highlight the fact that despite being literal brainwashed child soldiers, the clones that made up the GAR were also adult men and had their own passions and desires, and how utterly insanely evil it was to treat them like wind-up soldiers.
Yes, her books are often set in extremely popular IPs, and she uses her books to point a huge mirror at the universe she's writing in.
The second major problem is that Karen Traviss engaged with the public and happened to be a woman. A lot of the Karen Traviss hate at the time was coming from the same folks (and type of folks) that jumped into GamerGate with both feet.
I'm not saying that all criticism of her and her work stems from this, but most of the criticism you'll ever see about her does, present-day Twitter stuff excluded as I've not kept up with her on that front. It's very similar to some of the more prevalent hate of the Sequels. Sure, there's some legitimate criticism in there, but a lot of it is covered up in a weird misogynistic wrapping.
And the third part is, much like a lot of the Twilight hate, the vast majority of the online critique comes from people who haven't even bothered engaging with the media in question. They are primarily regurgitating the criticism of others but haven't actually read it themselves.
Hell, even on Star Wars subreddits or even people I know in offline life; and I acknowledge that it's purely anecdotal, but from the people I've talked to about it, when they lay into the Traviss hate, they haven't actually read anything she's ever written. At best, they've read a couple of snippets that include a hundred words or so, used by some Tumblr post to "prove" something while ignoring the wider point.
So yeah, is she the best author in the world? No. Did she do more to flesh out the characters and drama of the Clone Wars in a mature and nuanced way? F*** yeah, she did. Is she outspoken about her contributions to the universes that she criticises when she writes for them? Yeah.
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"superfam" said:
"Likewise, I also recall a lot of particularly pronounced ill-feeling among Star Wars fans towards a new main character the show was going to introduce, a young female Jedi learner named Ahsoka Tano, who would end up being accused of being too perfect, too powerful and, you guessed it, a Mary Sue."
Ahh, Star Wars fans and misogyny, a tale as old as time.
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"VortixTM" replied to "superfam":
This is ironic, considering that, in the Original Trilogy, while barely 2 women exist in the galaxy, one of them is a badass princess who ends up mostly rescuing herself despite the heroes, and the other was the freaking leader of the Rebel Alliance.
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"Mike_Ropenis" replied to "superfam":
I was a huge Star Wars fan because of the Original Trilogy and the EU novels, and lukewarm on the Prequels. After Disney, I'm not a huge fan of the Sequel Trilogy, but I think Rogue One was awesome and casting is the only thing they got right in the Sequel Trilogy (Driver, Ridley, Isaac, Boyega, Gleeson... Amazing cast).
I piss off a lot of people whenever I say this on Reddit, but Luke Skywalker is basically a male Mary-Sue — he literally blows up a Death Star the first time he flies a starfighter in a vacuum — like... Ok, he flew T-16 on Tatooine so he's able to navigate the Death Star trench the first time he flies an X-Wing in space? LOL. And Anakin pulls the same shit in The Phantom Menace! A ten-year-old who pod-raced on Tatooine is suddenly an expert pilot against an army of droids.
Like... The whole series is a bunch of overpowered plot-armoured main characters. Either you love all or you hate all, but picking and choosing which are unrealistic and which aren't is embarrassing and often comes from a sexist place.
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"diluvian_" replied to "Mike_Ropenis":
Capable, powerful, or gifted characters do not constitute a Mary-Sue.
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"Mike_Ropenis" replied to "diluvian_":
I mean, I essentially agree — either all those characters are, or none of them are. I just think it's funny that some loud fans think only the female characters are.
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"ToaArcan" replied to "Mike_Ropenis":
It's a term that's lost all meaning, it basically just means "Female character that I dislike" now.
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"Dayraven3" replied to "ToaArcan":
Seems to me that when the emphasis was on the character being an author-identification figure, it got applied quite freely to either gender. The shift to meaning ‘too perfect’ was accompanied by the term becoming strongly sexist.
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"UnsealedMTG" replied to the 1st reply of "Mike_Ropenis":
What are you talking about? How could the character of Luke Skywalker possibly be some sort of power fantasy self-insert in a series created by George Lucas? That's absurd!
(More seriously, I think this is a great illustration of how the concept of a "Mary-Sue" makes sense in fanfiction, where it originated: the idea that a story is being warped around a self-insert OC that solves all the problems and Kirk and Spock both fall in love with — to the point where it seems pointless for anyone other than the author. In original fiction —where the main character is the main character—, there is no similar objection. But if George Lucas were to write Star Wars as a fanfic for a serious space fighter pilot show, Luke would be the Maryest of all possible Sues.)
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"Dayraven3" replied to "UnsealedMTG":
I guess it's generally more of a glaring issue in fanfiction, but I'd say it's still quite possible in original fiction to have a blatant author identification figure who's pointless for anyone else.
Or, to put it another way, I’ve read some of Robert A. Heinlein's later novels.
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"Smoketrail" replied to the 1st reply of "Mike_Ropenis":
"I piss off a lot of people whenever I say this on Reddit, but Luke Skywalker is basically a male Mary-Sue [...]"
If you really want to upset hardcore Star Wars fans, say that about Thrawn.
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"balinbalan" replied to "Smoketrail":
Thrawn's abilities are almost magical and I'm surprised the old EU didn't make him force-sensitive, since virtually anybody with any competency ended up becoming a Jedi.
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"blisteredfingers" replied to the 1st reply of "Mike_Ropenis":
"Either you love all or you hate all, but picking and choosing which are unrealistic and which aren't is embarrassing and often comes from a sexist place."
This is exactly what we're seeing now with the Obi-Wan TV series and Moses Ingram, who plays Reva: people are saying her doing jumps and flips is "too unrealistic"; meanwhile, she's hunting down f***ing Obi-Wan, who's having PTSD flashbacks of his own jumpy & flippy fight with Anakin from Revenge of the Sith.
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"AndrewTheSouless" replied to "superfam":
Ok, but to be fair, she did kinda suck at the beginning, like "you go back to the early seasons and think '¿Oh shit, was I just blinded by nostalgia'" kind of bad.
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"DisserviceToVanilla" replied to "AndrewTheSouless":
Also, to be frank, I didn't watch the show, but my friend did and we would watch the "behind the scenes" videos put online with showrunners and others talking whenever they were especially ridiculous. The only one I really remember is one where the guy thought Ahsoka cutting a square instead of a circle in a wall with her lightsabre to break in somewhere was the height of intellectuality, and I'd swear he'd had an edible before that interview...
So, I think that's where early Ashoka was coming from, LMAO.
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"ToaArcan" replied to "AndrewTheSouless":
I kinda like that she started out a little bratty and impulsive, and matured rapidly over the course of the first couple of seasons. Her development is one of the high points of the show.
I do find it extremely funny that the same people that were calling her the worst character ever back when the show started are now among the stans. Like... I saw very few people complaining about how much Season 7 focused on her.
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"mdp300" replied to "ToaArcan":
I hated Ahsoka at first. Not because she was a girl, but because she was this plucky teenager that seemed like she was only there to appeal to tweens, and I was watching the show as a Very Serious Adult (I was like... 23 and an edgy moron).
By the end of the series, Ahsoka was one of my favourite characters in the whole franchise.
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"Silas13013" replied to "superfam":
They ended up being completely right though, at least for Season 1. I only recently got into Star Wars and watched The Clone Wars all the way through, and it was only at the insistence of my friend that I got past Season 1. Ahsoka is an arrogant brat who is good at everything without trying and a constant source of irritation for everyone around her, including the audience.
The creators took this criticism to heart and completely reconstructed Ahsoka's character in Seasons 2 and 3. She learns patience, composure and respect. She experiences loss due to her own actions which get characters killed, and grows from it. She becomes confident, not arrogant, and eventually a teacher herself, and in my opinion, goes from being the worst character in the show to the best.
Someone else compared her to Anakin and Luke and I feel the comparison is really only relevant to Anakin. People weren't upset that Ahsoka was a Mary-Sue, they were upset that she was an annoying Mary-Sue. Same reason baby Anakin is hated: he's an irritating child. Luke is at least likeable and we want him to succeed. Young Anakin could splat against the wall for all I cared about him.
(Note this is only for people who watched the show. People who made up their minds before seeing it are butts.)
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"FonzyLumpkins" replied to "superfam":
Saying the hate for Ashoka in the initial Clone Wars movie is sexism for a terribly written and annoying character is disingenuous. People loved her when she was actually written well. She was really annoying at first impressions, and it wasn't until later works that she actually had a personality where she became awesome.
The hate for Anakin having the personality of cardboard in Episode II, was that sexism as well?
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"Stanakin__Skywalker" replied to "FonzyLumpkins":
The biggest problem with Ahsoka is, and always has been, that she was way too important a character to retroactively insert into the saga. It makes zero sense that Anakin would have a padawan, who is never even alluded to in the movies and did not appear in any of the dozens of Clone Wars stories that existed at the time. She could not reasonably exist in the established Star Wars universe. That is why EU fans hated her so much, not because they were all bigots.
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"InSearchOfGoodPun" replied to "Stanakin__Skywalker":
Well, it's still happening with The Mandalorian, right? She seems like kind of an important person to have sat out all of the events of the Original Trilogy and never be mentioned here (there is probably some dumb excuse they'll make for this, but it's beside the point). This is the problem with trying to create so much content that orbits a "main" storyline (all nine movies) but cannot actually directly interact with the main storyline. The whole project often feels like Gilbert & Sullivan Are Dead!, except it's not a joke.
Edit: there is a ridiculous title mistake above, but I will leave it for humour value.
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"TiffanyKorta" replied to "InSearchOfGoodPun":
The whole project often feels like Gilbert & Sullivan Are Dead!, except it's not a joke.
I think you mean Tag & Bink Are Dead! (though you're probably thinking of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern).
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"Quintaton_16" replied to "Stanakin__Skywalker":
There's only one movie that could even allude to it, which is Revenge of the Sith, and the fact that she's not mentioned there only establishes that she probably isn't his padawan anymore by that time. Something The Clone Wars in no way contradicts.
Also, saying that you can't introduce a new, dynamic, interesting character because her appearance would contradict some tie-in comic is, in my opinion, a much better argument for nuking the idea of canon than it is for hamstringing your own ability to tell a story.
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"jaimeoak" said:
Thanks for sharing this wonderful insight into the war of the Clone Wars and the fickle nature of Star Wars canon :D
I came into star wars fairly recently, and after watching the 6 main films which were out at the time, my next watch was the 2008 Clone Wars series. It is honestly one of my favourite shows and I love its mix of character & political stories. (Although I suppose I do also prefer the Prequels over the Original Trilogy. Scandalous, I know!)
In all fandoms with "official" novelisations/comics, I've always presumed that the stories are officially commissioned but non-canon fanfiction which is just there to serve as extra content for fans to consume — I'm always surprised when they do turn out to be canon.
The Star Wars EU seems so grand it's hard to tell where to start, but I look forward to eventually making my way through it and experiencing the stories involved — With the passion people have for it, there must be some great stuff!
Thanks again for the write-up, it's a really interesting piece of fandom history!
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"page0rz" replied to "jaimeoak":
The Star Wars EU has 3 (well, 4, maybe 5?) pretty distinct eras to go through: the original Del Rey books, which are just classic space adventures starring Han Solo & Chewie or Lando and have basically nothing to do with the Star Wars canon; then, the Bantam Spectra era starting in the 90s, which is what most older fans think of as the EU, and then the Del Rey era when they picked up in the 2000s, which is The New Jedi Order and the Clone Wars
The most important distinction is that, during the Bantam Spectra era, Star Wars was just a book license. Any author was free to make a pitch to the publisher for basically their own OC that could take place at any time (except the Clone Wars) and involve any characters, with no real mandate to collaborate with other authors or their canon. Most tried to anyway because they thought it would be cool, but it's still haphazard. Someone would write a book that takes place 5 years after Return of the Jedi, then someone else would write something set 12 years later, then another person would start inserting stuff in-between or go off in a totally new direction. It got weird and messy all the time, but there's still some worthwhile pulp in there.
When the license changed hands again, Lucasarts took up a role that predicts modern EUs. Instead of having authors pitch ideas, they had editors create a long-term narrative, then hired individual authors to write books around each major beat.
Honestly, if you want to dive into the non-Clone-Wars stuff, I think it works best to look at the Bantam Spectra run as a loose introduction series, then the later series (particularly The New Jedi Order) as a crossover event. That's how the publishers went about it, as The New Jedi Order really did pull from all corners to create something "big", digging out some real deep cuts while trying to use everything from before in some way. The overarching narrative also helps them avoid the "Super-Weapon of the Month" problem that the other books had because everyone wanted to use their own personal toys and OC villains.
I think a lot of people will tell you to just stop after The New Jedi Order, to avoid that Han Solo Syndrome, but that's obviously up to you.
I picked up a trunk (literally) of Star Wars novels once and had a lot of time on my hands.
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"ToaArcan" replied to ""page0rz:
What's the "Han Solo Syndrome", exactly?
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"page0rz" replied to "ToaArcan":
Han Solo was originally meant to die, but producers didn't like losing one of their stars, so he finishes his character arc and then just awkwardly hangs around without much to do. This is an unfortunate fate for many Star Wars characters, as The New Jedi Order was supposed to be an end to the original generation, handing things off to the kids, and Luke especially had this growth and change over a dozen books, leading up to a very satisfying final act, while Han and Leia effectively fly off into the sunset together.
But because the license holders wanted more books and they thought the only way to sell them was by putting the original trio on the covers, they all had to keep hanging around in every new series "just because", cheapening their arcs and drawing attention away from the new characters.
The same thing happened when they eventually made the Sequel movies. Harrison Ford only agreed to come back at all if they would finally kill Han off like they were supposed to do in the first place.
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"iknownuffink" replied to "page0rz:
"Han Solo was originally meant to die, but producers didn't like losing one of their stars [...]"
If I remember correctly, Lucas is also on record saying he wanted a more positive/happy ending for the Original Trilogy, and killing Han would have been counter to that and made it more bittersweet (which Harrison Ford and possibly the director were pitching).
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#star wars#star wars expanded universe#star wars eu#sw eu#sw legends#star wars legends#essay#transcription#fandom discourse#fandom history#fandom culture#star wars history#star wars fandom#star wars discourse#clone wars#the clone wars#tcw#star wars the clone wars#star wars tcw#sw tcw#star wars clone wars
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So I’ve been listening to Will Wood lately and started to associate his song from the Self-ish album to tma. So here are some loosely connected things that i found (spoiler warning btw)
Self fells like Jon at the end of s2 all defeated and stuff giving a sad song as he sits on the floor in Georgis apartment. Here are some lyrics that express that:
“We'll write history books from memories“ - trying to figure out what the hell is happening from the statements that people give
“Well, they always ask you not to leave“ - Elias forcing very nicely asking his employees not to leave
“No, I won't come back and be the same“ - Jon and everyone being change about the things they experienced
2012 is about Jon in s3 being scared about becoming an avatar for the eye, as in scared that he’ll lose himself.
“I was an existential criminal, so innocently cynical
Ignorant as fuck but a proud individual
Originally meant to live a God-damned miracle
Mighta’ve been metaphysical, but I think it was medical” - basically s1 Jon
“Never finding a theory” - Jon not understanding how the statements fit together in a coherent way
“Did you lose yourself?” - Jon is afraid that he is in fact losing himself
I dont really have anything on Cotard's solution so we’ll move on
Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity is the theme song of the not!them. I could go to every lyric and say how they related but that would mean that id have to copy paste the whole songs. Still, here are some examples:
“Levitating off the ground“ - the first ep, the guy floating a few cm of the ground
“Is another man wearing your face!“ - do i really need to say anything at this
“Somebody to replace yourself“ - the not!them association with the stranger
“Ready in your head and fed upon your memoirs” - again the not!them fit perfectly here
The Song With Five Name is my favorite. I imagine every entity coming together and making fun of Jon
“You can break a shovel when you break new ground
You dig dirt up when you dig deep down” -this lyric is about Jon in s2 and 3 breaking every connection he has with other people while trying to uncover the truth
“Don't you forget
That all you project
Is just to protect you from
The void within the form“ - again this is about Jon trying to protect himself from the truth with skepticism in s1
“And we'll have nothing left for us to lie to
No matter what we seek you'll never find truth” -t he entities telling Jon that he’s to dumb for trying to find the truth
Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In! this is kinda like self in the sense that it’s a Jon solo but this one takes place in the peak of his paranoia in s2. The whole vibe of the song is jon frantically doing anything in his power to figure out what is happening.
“It just seems unlikely that it's me who was to blame” - i know i said that this song would fit in s2 but this line specifically remind me of the s3 climax when i think?? it was Sarah Baldwin that used Gertrude and Leitner skin to make Jon think that the end of the world was his fault
“This is not enough, this is not enough to prove it yet
No, I need to hit the bottom Gotta get to the bottom of this” - pretty self explanatory, Jon trying to find the bottom of things
“"Don't look down! You'll fall and break your back!"
But that just reminds me how
There's more to be found beneath the black” - the “Dont look back” is Elias telling Jon to stop doing stupid thing but he doesn’t listen
“Gotta get to the bottom of this
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
Gotta get to the bottom of this
If it kills me” - the last bit of the son makes me think of when Jon got an axe and broke that table. The last chorus fits perfectly with that bit, it has that frantic energy and desperation that Jon is having while he understands how massively he fucked up
Dr. Sunshine Is Dead is just a song for the dark, point blank, so i will not go into it
ish is self part 2. Theres not much to say here, it again plays into Jons fear of losing himself
“And if I change my self can I still stay me?
Or did I just change my mind?
No it doesn't matter who I am”
Now if you read all of that first i must thank you for putting up with me for that long, you may be thinking that there is no connection and that im grasping for straws or that because the message of the album is about the fear of losing yourself it would obviously share that theme with tma since that is like a main plot point in the podcast and not everything that shares a theme is connected.
And you know what, you’re right. Im not writing this because i think that i found definite proof that the album and tma are connected, I dont even thonk that the connections I found are that good. First of all, I wrote this because it was fun and it gave me a chance to talk about two of my favorite thing and because I find it really cool how the human mind can find connections between thing that arent related at all and this is an example of that.
So, thats all i got. If your a tma fan go give this album a listen because its good and who know maybe youll also think that it fids with the podcasts vibe and if you’re a will wood fan go listen to tma because i said so.
Goodbye now, thanks again for reading and have a nice day :]
ps. Honorable mention of ok ultra from the normal album for kinda feeling like how i imagine taking and reading a statement feels like
#tma#the magnus archives#jonathan sims#will wood#self-ish album#associating my favorite things#spoilers#i love will wood#and jon#platonically of course#sorry for rambling#and for the bad grammer#english is dumb#this has been in my drafts for a while#bad grammer#tma elias#elias bouchard#how do i tag properly#uhhhhhhhh#jurgen leitner#gertrude robinson#sleep deprived ramblings#character talk
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What do you think of the line 'dawn stole into her garden like a thief'? At that time Littlefinger also encroaches the spot where Sansa is building her snowcastle.
I think there is enough space between that line and his actual appearance to seperate him from it.
Dawn stole into her garden like a thief. The grey of the sky grew lighter still, and the trees and shrubs turned a dark green beneath their stoles of snow. A few servants came out and watched her for a time, but she paid them no mind and they soon went back inside where it was warmer. Sansa saw Lady Lysa gazing down from her balcony, wrapped up in a blue velvet robe trimmed with fox fur, but when she looked again her aunt was gone. Maester Colemon popped out of the rookery and peered down for a while, skinny and shivering but curious.
Her bridges kept falling down. There was a covered bridge between the armory and the main keep, and another that went from the fourth floor of the bell tower to the second floor of the rookery, but no matter how carefully she shaped them, they would not hold together. The third time one collapsed on her, she cursed aloud and sat back in helpless frustration.
“Pack the snow around a stick, Sansa.” (ASOS, Sanse VII)
In the paragraph, her solitude in rebuilding is emphasized. Dawn sneaks in like a thief, and it transforms the sky and the light and what is hiding under the snow, but Sansa herself is juxtaposed with the people outside her creative bubble. They are there, but they leave again or don't bother her. It's just Sansa and the snow and Winterfell.
It's only when she hits a roadblock in the construction of bridges (could be a metaphor for a political issue?) that Petyr pops up after a previous separation. He helps her build bridges (alliances) and the glass gardens (food and winter roses).
So I think the dawn line is more connected to the dream of spring that has its beginning in when she returns home and reunites with Jon and they begin the process of taking back their home and uniting the North against outside threats.
Littlefinger's later entry (no matter how long he may have been watching) suggests a "reunion" with him for political reasons that brings alliances and food into the North and triggers a re-examination of his role as Bael-ish to her Winter Rose. Bael stole the original Stark maiden after tricking her father (it's a murky story at best), but if he fancies himself that guy, he may be in for an unpleasant surprise.
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Ranking Dall-e Mini interpretations of the Fears from TMA based on whether I’d listen to music albums with those images on the cover.
I entered all of the Fears’ titles into Dall-e Mini to see what it comes up, and because of the format of those titles, a lot of those seemed to result in album covers. So instead of ranking the results based on accuracy or something, I’ll rank them based on whether I’d listen to the bands who made those albums.
Most of them veer towards metal, which isn’t really my jam, so they’ll have to try hard. Let’s go!
The Buried:
Aside from the one with the tree and the one with the skull, these don’t grab my attention at all. Maybe the middle low as well? Wouldn’t pay money to get these albums, probably wouldn’t check them out if I had other music available, but do they look like they could be a hit with people that like the genre, so I’ll be generous: 3/10
The Corruption:
While I’m still unsure about it, these feel more like I could like them, especially the ones in the middle and lower middle. Might try these, but no guarantee. 5/10
The Dark
These are badly lit screenshots from some tv show or movie, not music album covers. I guess it could work as covers for the soundtrack of that movie/show? That could be cool if it was something I was a fan of, but I don’t think I would be, those screenshots don’t entice me. 0/10
The End
Ok, now this is what I’m talking about! Still not sure if I’d like the genre (looks like death metal to me), but aside from the lower left and lower middle, all of these look absolutely magnificent! I especially like those creatures! I’d want to have these albums in my home even if I only listen to them once so that I can recommend it to friends who like the genre more. 9/10
The Desolation
These look generic, but might be cool? I’m not really interested. 3/10
The Extinction
Surreal and trippy. Kind of gives off the vibe of environmental themes but still feels chill? These look like my kind of thing. 11/10
The Eye
I like stuff with an eye-theme, and so does this band apparently. I have no idea what the genre is, but I’d probably check these out. That lich-thing in the lower middle looks awesome, so that gets bonus points. 7/10
The Flesh
No thanks. 0/10
The Hunt
Big genre shift! This band seems to like deer a lot. Deer are nice. Good thing I’m not ranking based on whether the images are actually scary, because this very much ain’t. Pretty pastoral. Folk music perhaps? I’d check it out. 8/10
The Lonely
Oh, spooky and mysterious, I like it! Would most certainly check these out, especially the ones in the lower row and the top left. Whether I like it would probably depend on how sad the lyrics are, if they’re too depressing I’d probably stop listening. But otherwise it looks like my taste in music. 10/10
The Slaughter
Ok, I should have guessed that there’s at least one existing band called “The Slaughter”, that’s on TMA for not giving that fear more titles. This doesn’t make me want to listen to whatever it is, but I feel bad about the lackluster prompt, so it gets pity points. 2/10
The Spiral
So either this band’s album cover artist isn’t very original with their ideas or these are cover art options for the same album. I’ll assume it’s the latter. Makes me think of hypnotic, ASMR-ish music? I might check it out, but from my experience with that kinda stuff, I don’t have much hope. 5/10
The Stranger
These images put the term “paranormal noir jazz” in my head, and if that is indeed the genre of the music, I would absolutely listen to it. 10/10
The Vast
Space music? Sci-fi tunes? Yeah, that’s relevant to my interests, but these album covers look a bit bland for those themes. Probably art options for the same album. 8/10
Again, probably art options for the same album. Doesn’t really tell me anything about the genre, but I do like spiders, so I might check it out? 6/10
Bonus: Jon
That looks like something I’d check out, but I’m not wild about it. 8/10
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Syskid sideblog!
This sideblog is for any of the system kids of @the-cabin-complex who want to interact online separately from our system blog.
We add IDs for our own posts, try to avoid posts with eyestraining/inaccessible text, and add on IDs when we can, but we don't often have the spoons when we're active. This blog is fairly image-heavy, so we thought we'd mention that first
Interaction is welcome as long as it’s non-NSFW and doesn’t bring in unrelated topics of discourse that our kids don’t need to be stressing about (politics, queerphobia, system origins, identity labels, fandom, and probably others)
Below this are some intros!
Name: Seraph 🌸 Pronouns: she/her 🌸 Age: slides from 4-9 🌸 Nicknames: none, but okay with them 🌸 Likes: Studio ghibli movies, her family, pink things, Magic Knight Rayearth 🌸 Dislikes: arguing, people making fun of her (takes things seriously/literally) 🌸 Other info: Jake is her older brother, and she has her own sideblog as well: @soft-pink-stars-n-hearts
Name: Jake 🦕 Pronouns: he/him 🦖 Age: slides from 10-13 🦕 Nicknames: Jakey, okay with other nicknames 🦖 Likes: Minecraft, space, animals, playing outdoors, documentaries, early 2000s pop music 🦕 Dislikes: arguing, doing nothing 🦖 Other info: Seraph is his younger sister
Name: Alice 🤎 Pronouns: she/her 🤎 Age: tween? 🤎 Nicknames: none, not okay with them 🤎 Likes: blanket forts, muted colors, old fashioned stories and music, fairies 🤎 Dislikes: lots of modern things, confusing/hectic situations 🤎 Other info: Alice is a little skittish
Name: Ro-Ro 🫐 Pronouns: he/him 🫐 Age: 5 🫐 Nicknames: Birdie, okay with other nicknames 🫐 Likes: natural science, learning, 70s music, his brothers 🫐 Dislikes: fighting, people calling him names/teasing him without being clear they’re not serious (takes things literally) 🫐 Other info: Ro-Ro is a part time AAC user
Name: Enoch 👾 Pronouns: he/it/they 👾 Age: somewhere between 4-11 👾 Nicknames: none, but okay with them 👾 Likes: rocks, dark places 👾 Dislikes: breaking rules 👾 Other info: Enoch is nonhuman and a shapeshifter
Name: Mira 🪞 Pronouns: she/her 🪞 Age: 13 🪞 Nicknames: none, but okay with them 🪞 Likes: exploring with her twin brother, talking with people 🪞 Dislikes: not being able to come and go as she likes🪞Other info: Mira and her brother Watcher have a sideblog: @watcher-and-2d-mira
Name: Jay (general nickname), Joanie (girl), or Jojo (boy) 🦈 Pronouns: she/her (Joanie), he/him (Jojo) 🦈 Age: slides from 5-9 🦈 Nicknames: Jay (works regardless of gender atm) 🦈 Likes: space, sea life, sharks, documentaries 🦈 Dislikes: horror things 🦈 Other info: Jay is a part time AAC and mobility aid user, and shares a subsystem with Matthew and Jon
Name: Matthew 🎻 Pronouns: he/him 🎻 Age: 7-ish 🎻 Nicknames: none 🎻 Likes: unsure 🎻 Dislikes: unsure 🎻 Other info: Matthew shares a subsystem with Jay and Jon
Name: Bastion Charles (just goes by Bastion) 🦌 Pronouns: he/him 🦌 Age: 9 🦌 Nickname: Bas 🦌 Likes: books, learning, quiet activities 🦌 Dislikes: super modern stuff 🦌 Other info: Bastion lives with an angel and a demon in-system who take care of him and teach him. He's not an introject, but he formed as a little English boy from the 1890s, inspired by books like The Secret Garden
#child alter#syskid#system little#agere#agere blog#<- tagging since there’ll probably be some overlap with this blog and sfw agere/related communities#seraph's tag#jake's tag#alice's tag#ro-ro's tag#enoch's tag#mira's tag#jay's tag#matthew's tag#bastion's tag
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Serial Adoption is Hereditary: The Series.
(Yes another series. Look, I have a very short attention span- I feel like most of y'all can relate- and I like to switch between various projects so I don't get too bored and drop them. Ya know?)
~
I’ve been using this as a tag for a couple of posts I’ve made about Damian inheriting Bruce’s habit of adopting people, but I actually came up with the concept for this series a few years ago.
I was pretty annoyed when instead of giving Damian an actual team of his own, DC just gave him the Teen Titans. They didn’t even try introducing new characters. They pretty much just copy/pasted Dick’s team (I know he has the makings of his own team now). Which unfortunately seems to be a theme with Damian and pretty much every Robin after Dick because DC writers don’t really seem to know what the word “creativity” means.
But anyway, I saw a post a million years ago (idk who it was by, sorry) about Damian finding and helping other kids who’s parents are criminals and helping them out cause he knows what it’s like to be in that situation- yada, yada. And thus the idea of a series where Damian collects various villain kids was born. (Disney's Descendants may have had some influence as well but I will neither confirm nor deny such claims)
I haven’t quite decided what to call them as a team yet (I’m stuck between The Renegades and The Rogues) as the whole point of the series is that Damian is just kinda collecting these kids as he find them with no real intentions of creating his own team or even training them how to fight. He just knows they need a safe space, he provides that, and then shit happens. But I do eventually want them to have their own name because team names are cool.
But I digress; Here is the team roster (might add some characters later but this seems to be the main few that I tend to settle on):
~
Damian Wayne/al Ghul: 17yrs, Villain affiliation- Thalia al Ghul/Ra's al Ghul
Colin Crain: 19yrs, Villain affiliation- Scarecrow (Jonathan Crain) *He’s not canon but he is loosely based off Colin Wilkes*
Lucy Quinnzel: 18yrs, Villain affiliation- Joker/Harley Quinn
Zoe Lawton: 13yrs, Villain affiliation- Deadshot (Floyd Lawton)
Lena Luthor: 17/18yrs, Villain affiliation- Lex Luthor
Hippolyta Milton: 16yrs, Villain affiliation- Ares (God of War)/Circe
Jon Kent: 20yrs, Villain affiliation- Jor-El *this series is actually where Dark-ish Jon was born! What a angry/tired boi. He is my son and I love him.*
Secret OC Kid That I Love But Might Be Hated For: -1yrs, Villain affiliation- Poison Ivy *kinda* ;)
~
There are actually a fair few villain kids in DC.
I’m sure Rose Wilson will pop up at times but I wasn’t feeling the vibes with her for the team.
The idea is to write a Oneshot series about how each of the kids came to be taken in by Damian and then just let shenanigans ensue.
I’ll be posting bio/backstory stuff on here and then further expanding upon things over on Ao3, like I'll be doing with The Demon Head Damian Wayne series.
So, yeah! What do we think?
#damian has aggressive mom friend energy and I will not be told otherwise#zoe is baby#i have been brainstorming this fic for FUCKING YEARS!#i'm so excited to be posting about it#damian wayne#jon kent#dark ish jon#the origins of dark ish jon#lucy quinzel#zoe lawton#lena luthor#hippolyta milton#oc's and shit#usually not a fan of OCs but these ones decided to exist without my consent#batfam#batfamily#Serial Adoption is Hereditary#to clarify: not a fan of making OCs not that I have a problem with them existing#i just prefer woking with canon characters#long post
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[ID: A fake youtube thumbnail depicting Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives, season three, posing as the Lo-Fi Girl, titled "10 Hours Cow Sounds To Stop The End Of The World To", in red and blue-ish tones.
The background takes the same composition as the original image: A desk by a window; but the window here is entirely dark and red-eyed figures gloom there in silence, looking at Jon. On his desk are various fear cameos: flowers from Mr. Spider's book, a screwdriver for the worms, spiders hanging about, ghost and eye motifs. The desk lamp is eye-shaped, and over it is a tiny stuffed cow.
Two cats accompany Jon here: the first one is playing on the desk, paw raised as Jon is recording, seeming about to hit the tape recorder or Jon's hand. The second one, laying face to the window, is idle. Amid its striped fur, eyes open to watch Jon.
The piece is overall dark, shadows prominent: Jon's own, on the back oh his chair, is deep - and inside it read gleaming eyes have opened, too. Looking down at his work, Jon bears his multiple scars with a focused frown, seemingly unaware of the multiple worrying details in his direct surroundings. Even his headphones bear the glowing mark of the Eye.
Signed: Meaningless Mikhaïl. End ID]
Hello, I just learnt what "layer type" and "overlay" mean, also I only listened to two and a half hours of cow sounds before I felt they were coming for me and got terrified.
Click for better quality, I beg you.
Inspired by this post by @ashes-in-a-jar
#mikhail draws#the magnus archives#the magnus arcats#tma#the magnus pod#tmart#tma fanart#jon sims#jonathan sims fanart#the archivist#the admiral#digital art#the admiral tma#good cows#jon sims fanart#the magnus archives fanart#crack treated seriously
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✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩
All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes.
ATLA
a shame you don’t know by Haicrescendo
[“Listen, if you’re gonna kidnap me, it won’t work. We don’t have ransom money and I’ll be so annoying that you’ll be begging my Dad to take me back.”
There’s a huff in the darkness.
“Who would kidnap you, anyway?”
That irritated, cranky voice is familiar. Very familiar.
“Zuko?”]
Or: Sometimes Zuko comes in through the window.
Star Wars: Original Triology
How To Reinvent The Stormtrooper Armor To Make Your Surrogate Father Proud And Shut The Naysayers Up For Fun And Profit by Jackdaw_Kraai
This is an AU of loosingletters' The Background Noise Of Defiance verse
Instead of Luke inadvertently revealing to his anonymous holonet friend that his last name is Skywalker, thus revealing himself as the son of said holonet friend (yes, Darth Vader has a Space Twitter), he keeps mum and instead takes on Vader's job offer, becoming the new Head Engineer aboard the Executor, alias, the Lady. While he's thrilled to be there, thriving on getting to improve the lackluster hardware that gets shunted onto the rank-and-file of the Empire and building up a rapport with the mysterious Sith Lord who is fast becoming the father figure he never had, not everyone aboard is as happy about the young engineer shaking up the previously well-cemented hierarchy of the Lady.
But ask Luke and Vader if they care. All Piett knows is that this is gonna be one hell of a headache and way above his paygrade. At least he gets to see his boss be put in his place by a teenage engineer and Lord Vader himself.
Sleepover Dad by kittandchips
AU where Vader raises a teen Luke on Coruscant. After a young celebrity is kidnapped, Vader worries Luke may be next. Meanwhile, a shooting contest causes a friendship crisis for Luke, and this is going to take Skywalker levels of parenting to resolve.
The Magnus Archives
Consign Me Not To Darkness by ZaliaChimera
Martin can see the way that Jon's hands shake, and the dark bruises around his eyes. He notices the jitters and the skipped meals and the way that Jon is first in the Archives in the morning, and last out at night, assuming he ever leaves.
It can't go on. And Martin thinks that he might have a solution.
Clone Wars
Why Not's and How To's by Trixree
Two months after the Guard officially moves to Coruscant, the lawyer shows up.
_
In which Obi-Wan Kenobi never returns to the Jedi order after the war on Melidaa/Dann and instead finds another way to follow the Force's will. Namely, by fighting sentient-rights abuses all over the galaxy and emancipating the Grand Army of the Republic, one clone trooper at a time.
And I'll Follow the Light in You by AlamoGirl80
In a universe where the clone armies were created by the Sith and the Galactic Imperial Army, Commander Cody leads his brothers to freedom, creating a new clone society as he takes on the mantle of Manda'lor. Spread between Concordia and Kamino, the Vode begin to carve a niche for themselves in the Galaxy, living with the guilt of being responsible for the destruction they wrought under the Empire, hoping to become more than the weapons they were created to be. Cody and his squad stumble across the one thing they'd never expected to see again: a Jedi...
#classes started back up again this week#so idk how much fic i'll be reading now#hopefully the next round up won't be too late but no promises#my posts#sw recs#tma recs#atla recs#fic recs#weekly fic round up
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I feel bad for all the nice J*nsa shippers who like their ship for whatever reasons (tropes, pretty art, aesthetic appeal, whatever) and know it's not canon but get associated with the misogynistic Dany hating crowd who act like Jon being attracted to Ygritte is J*nsa foreshadowing because red hair (I guess Jon should fuck Edmure Tully too? Omg give me Dark!Jon getting revenge on Catelyn by seducing her brother!) Tell me something. I'm new to the fandom but was J*nsa popular before the show? And I've heard something about the OG J*nsa shippers being alienated by the new shippers who insisted it had to be canon and acted like the series is called, "A song of J*nsa #danysux." I don't find that hard to believe because I know people who are now ashamed of calling themselves J*nsa shippers. Like, at this point, it's not only rival shippers who hate it. Even Gendrya/Braime/Jon stans/etc have started disliking that ship. You know your fandom is a problem when people who have nothing to do with Jnsa have a problem with it.
me: reads this ask
me: iwastheregandalf.gif which I can't find now but
okay anon buckle up because I am sadly well-equipped to answer this ask but before I do lemme tell you dark jon seducing edmure to take revenge on cat is LITERALLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD but *clears throat* ALL RIGHT THEN.
disclaimer: as anon says I have no issue with like the shippers mentioned by anon in the beginning and ngl I agree, I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING STAKES in the j*nsa vs j*nerys war and the only het jon ship I gaf about is jon/ygritte and we all know where that ended up I just... have been here since 2011/adwd was over and all the fic around was just for the books under secret lj communities and asoiaf qualified for yuletide and I have... seen... things.... and I actually have like uh had... beef... with some people in there and I know things bc ppl who hated those others told me stuff so anyway *sigh* buckle up anon I'mma tell you the story of jon shipwars through the years
in order, the old gods help me here, under the cut bc this is long as fuck
when I got into fandom also given what numbers were on ao3 one ship was popular and it was sansan. no like sansan was lit. the only asoiaf ship on ao3 with more than 200 fics. jb had twenty when i checked first. jc had like around 100-ish because of the show but sansan dwarfed anything. I posted the first jon/ygritte fic on the ao3 tag and the fourth throbb fic and like the others were all reposts from lj kinkmemes. nothing was popular before the show except for sansan when it comes to huge numbers bc grrm doesn't like fic and it was all hush hush until the show made it impossible to control and that ship was the one with a huge enough fanbase it actually had numbers, so like... j*nsa wasn't popular in the way nothing else was popular until it got screentime on the show
now, that stated, j*nsa had a... fair amount of fic for a rareship which was mostly book-based and from og shippers that were there from before the show and liked it for what it was but literally none of them thought it was gonna be canon, like it wasn't huge or anything but it had a small but dedicated fanbase who did their own thing and thought it was fun/liked the idea but that was it
that fandom had their own niche of hcs that they cultivated and shit except that like... at the end of S5/beginning of S6 there was a surge in shipping for... well obvious reasons bc it was obv sansa was getting to the wall and that would have been all nice and good but a) it was the time puritanical shipping was starting to take root and the 'shipping sansa with sandor or tyrion is hella problematic' rhetoric had started to circle coming from sans*ery shippers mostly but I'mma not open that fucking can of worms here, b) while the ending of S5 had more of a theon/sansa spike, the j*nsa stuff started getting big
now here we have to mention my villain origin story ie: j*nsa fandom had this one stan whose name I won't make because honestly it's been years and if she's still around I don't want her to remember I exist who was a bnf, wrote for... the website that created the whole larry/carol thing etc who was really fixed on this thing that j*nsa was actually canon and started writing extremely popular meta about it. now you're gonna ask how do you know, I know because this person once wrote a meta named 'why robb stark is a dick' and I told her that it was really fucking bad meta and she took it so badly she kept on trash talking me on her blog/her podcast (I was apparently the insane robb stark fangirl l m a o good lord) and like that was when some sane ppl who argued with her informed me in pvt that she was basically harping on the CANON thing when they'd have been okay with like... it being crackshipping and that she was basically cultivating a hoarde of followers who were harping on them/the ogs and basically ostracizing them;
I would like to add that this person - before her tumblr got 'accidentally deleted' and remade it therefore deleted most receipts for, er, her so-called meta which included stuff like ned and cat raised sansa as a sexual object and only wanted to sell her like cattle - had at some point started a round robin fic thing where... some of the characters mocked openly said stuff that some of the og fans had said specifically targeting them and people in that side basically went harassing anyone who didn't agree with that specific notion
now never mind that this person basically coined an entire term to describe ppl who liked white guys and excused all their wrongdoings out of my conversation re robb basically lying about everything I said as if I didn't have the receipts and tried to sell shirts with it and it didn't work and like then she got kicked out of her own website because she was telling her commenters disagreeing pretty shitty insults (considering I was called psychotic for disagreeing with her that time I don't doubt it) I think at some point she stepped back from fandom bc idk wtf she's up to these days and I don't want to, but basically at that point the dam was broken and there was a bunch of puritanical shippers harping on anyone who didn't agree with j*nsa is canon endgame stuff
this also includes an incident when those ppl were like... passing themselves as throbb shippers and ended up trying to tell t*hramsay shippers off the theon tag based on moral reasons and I ended up arguing with all of them (and they were all from that crowd) which in turn landed me in contact with other og j*nsa shippers who were like detached from that fandom bc those same people harassed them away as well ssooooo fun
anyway when S6 happened everyone was high on it and whatnot but I wasn't gonna begrudge them that I mean... you shipped it for years, canon is delivering you, good for you, but then j*nerys happened
god j*nerys happened
aaand basically...... I mean personally I was there like are y'all seriously arguing about the best incest jon ship out there but like basically the j*nsa endgame side was like AH JON IS PLAYING DANY SEE IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, the j*nerys obv got defensive af and both sides were sort of alternatively shitting on jon/ygritte anyway and depicting any other romantic rship jon could have as abusive™ and during S8 it just got worse and like I tried to stay out of it but basically from what I'm seeing now idk how the j*neryses are doing but on the j*nsa one it's ah jon's gonna play dany anyway and she's going to go insane like in the show so SHOW TRUTHING EVERY OTHER WAY and like again denying that sandor exists or that tyrion exists and like I barely touch my corner (sansan) but I ended up arguing with j*nsa/th*nsa people on twitter who were antis and is2g it was white-hair inducing and I know for sure the sansa/tyrion shippers were harassed to hell and back throughout so FUN
and even if the show didn't go there now since everyone there banked on the jnsa endgame thing and admitting you're wrong is like... not a thing, they still haven't let go of it and attach to that ship any shred of evidence which honestly is grasping at straws half of the time (like... the sansa/alysanne parallels like guys please no) and which is why every other ship is starting to get fed up, attaching canon proof of stuff from other ships onto theirs see that batb argument and jb is platonic but jonsa is not nvm taking all the sansan stuff and throwing it on j*nsa but then denying that sansan has canon evidence (like guys I had to read sansa touching his shoulder when saying gregor wasn't a true knight wasn't meaningful and we were seeing things please) and blah blah blah
this also goes hand in hand with the fixation on like... villanizing dany at all costs and like is2g I have zero investment in dany or her storyline I don't even remember it and I don't particularly care abt her either way and sure af I'm not for j*nerys endgame but like.... some stuff I read is completely excessive esp when fixing on how she's a completely mad tyrant who's gonna have to be put down and like... guys no
(also there's some srs stannis hate in that corner which I honestly don't get why they even care abt stannis but I had to read stuff like ppl don't recognize that dany and stannis are the real villains in this saga and like........ idek)
I think most of the og shippers are gone or don't ship it openly bc they don't want to be attached to the drama but like I also think they're pissing off everyone else bc like... I mean a bunch of them also were down with sansa being paired with other ppl as long as it meant a good ending for her except those ppl were... like everyone but the ppl she has actual contact with in canon which meant that at some point sansa/gendry was a thing and like.... you can imagine why arya/gendry shippers & arya stans were fed up, and there's also this tendency to behave like sansa is the center of the entire saga which like these books is named a song of jon snow basically can we pls make peace with it and personally I've had it with both j*nsa and j*nerys people since they started with that dumbass JON/YGRITTE WAS AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP rhetoric but I'm also fed up with the total ignoring that sandor exists/depicting us as delusional and honestly I also was by proxy fed up from the harassing of the sansa/tyrion shippers soooooooooooo
there were also instances of 'well theon is an acceptable choice other than jon bc he can't threaten her' which... i mean we all know what that meant and I'm not even commenting it bc it's one AM and I have no force to but I don't have to explain why it's not a progressive take now do I
there were also metas about how cousin incest being legal in half of the world means that jondany is a worse incest and j*nsa doesn't count as such and I was basically there like guys please just fucking own up to it but honestly I chose to forgot where I read that and I couldn't find the link if I tried
tldr: no one wants to admit that it's not gonna be endgame which considering the amount of fic they have on ao3 is imvho useless bc they have more content than like.. anything I ship that's not jb or that's actually like canon *cries in joncon/rhaegar but I mean renly/loras is canon and has less fic than them* so idk what's the problem with enjoying that instead of insisting it's gonna be canon when not even the show validated it while show truthing anyway when the only show truthing that can be truthed is the small council made of minorities and possibly jon eventually fucking off with the wildlings but not like that but like most people who thought it wasn't gonna be endgame had left/were made to leave by the time S7 rolled by and at this point since wow isn't out yet everyone is fandom-grasping at straws to find stuff to discourse on and we're here beating dead horses *shrug*
so that's... how it is but I would again like to point out that I don't judge ppl on their shipping, I don't particularly care about this entire feud bc I only ship jon with ppl he's not related to in whichever way and I try to stay out of this mess bc I don't really care to argue with ppl who have already decided to bend canon to whatever they want and will have to realize that it's not what grrm wrote at some point but like I have a very good memory and the above rant is as objective as possible also bc again I don't literally have a stake in that race I just think romantic/endgame j*nsa is not a thing and that ppl should stay in their lane and not harping on other ppl who ship whatever in general but especially when their ship is the most popular thing in fandom in the first place /two cents
#1#2#3#4#5#anonymous#ask post#anti-jonsa#anti jonsa#anti-jonerys#anti jonerys#both of them for equality
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Dominic Roth *supporting character
Voice Claim:(Patrick Warburton) https://youtu.be/NOqY7Qb1B7E?t=395
Partner(s): Single.
Parents: Rudolf and Jutta Rothschild
Kids: None.
Age: 42 (2021)
Birthday: 11th of November
Height: 187cm (5.1ft)
Body type: Muscular
Eye color: Light green/gray-ish
About:
~ Competitive, Experimental, Daring, Stubborn, Cynical, Aggressive, Dominating, Charmless, Disobedient, Morbid, Impulsive, Scheming Argumentative, Perverse, Dishonest, Intolerant, Outspoken, Sarcastic, Disrespectful, Secretive, Aimless, Blunt, Careless, Deceitful, Insensitive, Manipulative, and Selfish.
~ Bouncer/doorman at a local nightclub.
~ Sexuality: Sex is sex.
~ Shoulder length black hair he mostly wears up to show of his undercut.
~ Dresses a bit slobby, cause he doesn’t really care.
~ Hates authority.
~ Not an easy person to be around.
~ Is a part of the wealthy Jewish family ‘Rothschild’, originally from Frankfurt.
~ No contact to family, they wrote him off years ago.
~ Lives with a bunch of roommates, but isn’t really close to any of them.
~ Fuck this!
~ 10/10 horrible friendship material.
~ Slob - refuses to clean after himself!
~ Barely showers.
~ Fuck that!
~ Doesn’t think before he speaks.
~ What is sleep?
~ Drugs, coffee, energy drinks and alcohol keeps him going.
~ Fuck you!
~ Doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself.
~ Horrible listener, it’s best for yourself simply not to strike a conversation with him.
~ Chain smoker.
~ Face full of metal (piercings)
~ Highly offensive.
~ Prefers people calling him Dom, as he believes it establishes his dominance.
~ Smells like: Stale sweat and beer stains.
~ Loves drugs, sex, alcohol, weed, fighting, violence, anything that will give him an adrenaline rush, escaping the cops, loud music, tagging shit, disobeying the law, pissing from rooftops and pizza.
~ His style is whatever!
~ Swears A LOT.
Dom’s tag
Dom’s house/home
Dom’s moodboard
Handwriting/ask answer pic:
One Gif to describe him:
One song to describe him: F**k Everything (Jon Lajoie)
Personal Playlist: (Warning: Mostly Dark Techno)
1. Chris Masc - DirtyFucker
2. Dok & Martin - Feeling Of Glory (T78 Remix)
3. Oliver Immer, DunkleMaterie & Kryptonit - Klingt nicht sehr brutal (Original Mix)
4. Matt Mus - Thorn (Original Mix)
5. 80 DOPPEL D - AK47 (Original Mix)
6. Volodia Rizak - Back To Back (Felix Wehden Remix)
7. Sebastian Schwarz - Plattenkribbeln (Chris Masc Remix)
8. Dope Amine - Bone Cutter (Orignial Mix)
9. Alfred Heinrichs - Do You Know What I Am Saying (Original Mix)
10. Marsi - Beast Mode (Original Mix)[BassAudienz Rec.]
11. Felix Reichelt - Prime (Oliver Immer Darkness Remix)
12. Klanglos - Scheinwelt (Original Mix)
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You know what? I'm gonna make my own neighbor Tord, AKA Todd (Wow so original I know. Well I'm just naming MY Todd "Todd" cause A: that's the most common name for the Tord neighbor, and B: That's the cannon name- He's canonically named "Todd")
SO MEEEEEEP MEEEP I'M RAMMING INTO YOUR TUMBLR DASH WITH MY OWN TODD-
So, I have to design him but I thought up of some design aspects and personality and such in the shower
So, My Todd's design would have some inspiration from @/binbunbaka and maybe @/noodle-eggs and @/the-masked-artist05 's Todd's, not heavily to the point it looks like I stole but some inspiration/aspects from their Todd's,
A rough idea for his design, and by rough idea is that it's the first draft version and I did not draw it, is he has a muscular-ish build, not nearly as buff as Mark, but much more muscle than Eduardo and Jon has, he'd have a red T-shirt maybe a button-up one (I just want his sleeves short because I want to SLIGHTLY go off of what the canon Todd was gonna be like, and in his Easter egg it looked like he had a t-shirt) and black pants, or dark grey, I'm thinking leggings, he'd have boots, maybe the ones you see on jungle adventurers, or knee-high ones BASED on those boots plus black fingerless gloves cause it fits the personality I gave him and because I said so. As for his hair, I kinda want it to be the same shade of hair Bin's or Noodle's Todd's hair is, he'd have his hair in a ponytail (Not the same hair style as Bin's Todd but I may or may not have yoinked the ponytail from the style from their Todd-) as for the rest of his hair I'm really unsure- But I'm thinking maybe hair-horns in the front like Tord's or hair-horns in the front like Tord's but this time pointing downwards to kinda mimic a demons horns as well, to counter Tord's upward ones, because according to a quick trip to google references demon horns CAN point downwards and Tord's hair horns do kinda look like a devils horns (At least in legacy and how some fanartists draw him) I can also see him with facial hair, kind of like future-Edd's but slightly longer so it hangs off his chin slightly, maybe also (Fake) tattoos (small hard to notice ones or ones hidden unless he undresses if I go that route though)
As to establish my Todd's personality he's not just a sweet kind soul (Don't get me wrong I love it when fan Todds are really sweet and kind, hell one of my favorite fan-Todd's that where not mine is like that *cough cough* Bin's Todd *cough* , but I myself just wanna go a different route on this) He's a bit more of a man of chaos, he is sweet (Ish) But he's much more of a sour patch kid (haha candy reference)- His personality roughly summed up into traits would be, smug mofo, chaos-causer, adventurous, and sweet (when he wants to be...)
For his relationship to the other neighbors:
.With Jon he'd see him as like a "Little sprog" (My Todd's Australian, because I don't want him to be full ass British and I thought it kinda fit my own Todd) and want to protect him, they have like a BROTP relationship kinda and Todd's a bit rough when it comes to hanging out but he tries to be a bit gentler when it comes to Jon
.He and Mark's relationship is currently TBA/TBD
.As for my Todd's and Eduardo's relationship, oh you thought Edu would be bullying Todd? Try the other way around Lamo, they have a weird-ish relationship, they don't want to punch each other in the face really but sometimes Eduardo would try and punch him or Jon and it ends up with Eduardo getting roundhouse kicked in the face or somth-
NOW FOR RANDOM TRIVA NOBODY ASKED FOR-
.He's not a people person (I'm not self-projecting you are-), he sees them as annoying bugs, he can tolerate and sometimes like living with and interacting with other people but only in small groups (2-6 more people to be specific) and he even has a flyswatter to swat people away
.He can't figure out a goddamn computer for the life of him- Stick him in a computer room and all you'll get is him standing there like :P, heck you'd get that dumb :P face if you stuck him in front of a TOY COMPUTER FOR FUGGIN T O D D L E R S
.He loves adventuring and exploring and a bit of a nature freak, and hates being coped up in the same place for too long, so he walks around the blocks a lot due to his love of fresh air, his equivalent to Tord leaving/reason leave would be to explore jungles or do "Naked and Afraid" (He actually HAS survived like Tarzan minus being raised by monkeys once in a jungle for a week) and he'd come back in "The End" but my Todd would return BEFORE Tord's robot rampage
.Instead of being a chatterbox like you think he'd be, my Todd counters (classic) Tord's rare talking/quietness by beinG LOUD AF the mofo's like a fugging foghorn, he even snores like one, he talks a bit more than Tord did as well, not to the point of chatterbox but he talks more, you could seriously be 8 whole ass rooms away and hear him talking- The man has NO inside voice, he's constantly left behind by the others at library's and other places that require you to be quiet-
.He despises anime, he finds it "cringy"
.He has never gone near any drugs or cigarettes or alcohol or anything, he really does not want that shit in his system, he's happy with his body and would rather stay healthy-
.He's gotten really strong from adventures he could accidently literally squish you by accident in a hug- (Could be worse- Could be MARK hugging you- Than you'd be atoms)
.He's more of a machete wielder than a gun wielder
.He likes roughhousing
.He once wrestled both an alligator and crocodile. at once. and somehow won-
-
Hoped you had fun reading about me making my own Todd- I'll probably do more of this guy in the future I like him
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Reviewing time for MAG183!
- I’m not sure I can manage to put it into words quite right but: sounds-wise, this episode’s domain didn’t feel mind-blowingly new, it wasn’t something that felt “Oh! I’ve never heard something like this before!”? But the echoes, grinding and scratching were timed so well, giving so much strength and gravitas to the conversations, that it perfectly scratched an itch. I could hear that there was something close to Jon and Martin, that it was big, and mostly deserted, that it stood eerily in the overall wasteland, that they were two people alone against a whole world, a whole machine with gears and a mechanism ready to crush anyone?
- I LIVE for artist!Martin giving his commentary and overall throwing shade at the Fears’ taking of artistic licence liberties:
(MAG183) MARTIN: Oh, bugger off!
ARCHIVIST: Everything all right?
MARTIN: Oh, no, what e–, what e–, what even is that? It, it’s like Escher ate a bad cathedral and threw up everywhere.
He had shown interest in the Stranger’s carousel upon learning that the statements had been a poem, but shots fired for that tower, uh.
- Jon and Martin were so cute starting the episode! Their quick banter was adorable!
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: It’s a building. A tower. … In a sense.
MARTIN: Oh yeah? A–and what sense might that be?
ARCHIVIST: [FAINTLY OMINOUS] … The Tarot sense.
MARTIN: [SPLUTTERS WITH LAUGHTER] Really?
ARCHIVIST: Wha–? No? Sorry, it… felt like a good line…!
MARTIN: No, no, it was, I just… I dunno, I… [FOND EXHALE] You did the look, and…! It’s fine, sorry.
Martin being IN LOVE and appreciating Jon’s cuteness! The return of Jon showing that he’s an occult/horror nerd! We had seen in season 2 that he was generally very knowledgeable about anything related to the supernatural, and in season 4 that he was into Neil Lagorio’s movies, I’m happy to get another trace of it!
(MAG076) MELANIE: So I came here to dig a bit deeper.
ARCHIVIST: Really? Our… our library is extensive, but it’s hardly focused on the Second World War.
MELANIE: No, but the most detailed description of the crash that I could find came from the report of a man called William W. Hay. And later in life William Hay…
ARCHIVIST: Became a noted occultist, whose memoirs and researches were only ever published in a heavily edited form. And we have unexpurgated copies.
MELANIE: Exactly.
(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Statement ends. Hm. Neil Lagorio… You ever see any of his work?
DAISY: No. Not really into films.
ARCHIVIST: Oh, they were… Well, let’s just say that it’s not a complete shock there was something unnatural to them. Didn’t know we had copies in the Institute, though; let alone original cuts. [CHUCKLE] Records indicate they [PAPER RUSTLING] ended up in… Artefact Storage.
DAISY: Probably best that they stay there.
ARCHIVIST: … Yeah. Yes, of course.
But SOB x2 since:
* Tower-in-the-tarot-sense meaning ominous stuff… and change. (While Jon knew they would soon come face to face with the choice to take the route through Martin’s domain.)
* Crying over the fact that we’ve seen and learned quite a few outside-of-the-job aspects of Jon this season, comparatively to the previous ones? He’s cute! He’s making jokes! He mentioned his student days a bit in MAG165, and visiting Upton House as a kid in MAG180! And this is happening when the world has been forked over and Jon&Martin certainly won’t survive together past MAG200, which means they have at most seventeen episodes together remaining. Martin, and we alongside him, are seeing so many different, more casual aspects of Jon, and it’s at the end of things…
- I really like how information bounced around in this episode? It felt even more dynamic than usual, quickly shifting depending on some reaction, or going from an association to another:
(MAG183) MARTIN: What, what’s the deal, though? Parts of it almost look like–
ARCHIVIST: The Institute.
MARTIN: Yeah…!
ARCHIVIST: Yes. [INHALE] It makes sense, after all it was… built on the ruins of what Robert Smirke constructed…!
MARTIN: Smirke? … What, no! But, but, surely he’s–
ARCHIVIST: Dead, yeah, I mean, yes. [CHUCKLING] Very much so! This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him, and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering…!
Ohohoh about Martin feeling like the tower looked a bit like the Institute, and Jon drawing similarities through Smirke – the Institute being built on the ruins of a Smirke building, and the current domain being dedicated to people like him. The Institute is coming closer and weighing on their minds, isn’t it? I really like that Martin immediately worried about Smirke potentially being alive-ish, since:
(MAG138) MARTIN: “The Eye has marked me for something, of this I have no doubt. My… humble hope is that it may be a swift death, an accidental effect of your own researches, which I once again implore you to abandon. It is likely too late for me, but I will not…” [PAPER RUSTLE] Uh… [INHALE] The, hum… The letter ends there. Uh… Ap–apparently Robert Smirke was found collapsed in his study that evening, dead of, uh… [FLIPPING THROUGH PAPERS] Apoplexy. Mm. I–I don’t know how the letter reached the Archives, I mean… Well, I can guess, but…
… he had read Smirke’s last words before he died. (But Martin has seen enough by now to know that there is always a risk for people to not have actually died; on that front, we’re safe, Jon confirmed! Loving Jon’s chuckle: ah yeah, no, Smirke, “very much so” dead from Jonah.)
(Also loved the “[those] who tried to categorise the world with themselves at the centre” shade: yep! That’s West-Eurocentrism and Smirke’s little gang for you!)
- About the way the world works now since the Change, I’m curious about Jon’s wording as “the architecture of [the world’s] suffering”, since it’s echoing the title of Smirke’s statement, “The Architecture of Fear”: my understanding is that right now, the world is mostly running on a loop of people’s fears => feeding and shaping the landscape => which hurts people by turning those realised fears against them => squeezing the fear out of them => feeding the landscape, etc.
What is quite curious is the status of Smirke’s taxonomy in the current world. Jon went off on a rant about how Smirke and people who attempted to classify had been wrong all along because it was meant to fail… while he himself has persistently been using the very same classifications during this very season:
(MAG166) ARCHIVIST: Look, we can talk about it later, we’re– coming to a… “domain of The Buried”, and [STATIC RISES] I would really rather… […] God, I hate The Buried. [DEEP BREATHS] … End recording.
(MAG172) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] “Knowing”, “seeing”… i–it’s not the same thing as… understanding. Every time I try to know what The Web’s plan is, if it can even be called a plan, I see… a hundred thousand events and causes and links, an impossibly intricate pattern of consequences and subtle nudges, but I–I can’t…! … I can’t hold them all in my head at the same time. There’s no way to see the “whole”, the, the point of it all. I can see all the details, but it doesn’t… provide… context or… intention. I suppose The Web doesn’t work in knowledge, not in the same way.
(MAG173) MARTIN: That’s the avatar for this place?
ARCHIVIST: Callum Brodie, thirteen years old. He guides the children through their fears of The Dark.
(MAG174) ARCHIVIST: I’m not entirely sure what you were expecting, it’s The Vast. The clue is in the name!
MARTIN: Yes, all right…!
(MAG176) MARTIN: … Besides, I thought The Hunt was meant to make you go faster.
ARCHIVIST: Depends on the type of pursuit. [INHALE] Besides, the chase isn’t… really the point of this particular place.
(MAG177) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Bad therapists. Let’s just say it’s the fear of bad therapists, filtered through The Spiral.
BASIRA: That’s… a lot more nuance than I’ve gotten used to since everything went wrong.
ARCHIVIST: Yes, well. The Spiral is nothing if not insidious. […] You just heard what The Spiral does to people, you can’t… trust her.
“constructed the architecture of [the world’s] suffering” kind of implies that they did manage something, even if it doomed the world? Is it specifically about Jonah using the division into 14 in his incantation? We’ve seen that that one had limitations, since The Extinction also got there anyway… But at the same time, true that at this point, we would still force-apply Smirke’s labels to anything anyway.
- Loved Jon sounding awfully pedantic and (fake-)poetic at the same time:
(MAG183) MARTIN: [SIGH] Bit of a mouthful.
ARCHIVIST: Would you prefer I described it as a… “cascading recursion of shifting arrogance and hubristic dead-ends”?
[STATIC RISES]
[THE DOOR CREAKS OPEN]
[CONSTANT HIGH-PITCHED FREQUENCY]
HELEN: I would.
[FOOTSTEPS]
[THE DOOR SHUTS]
[STATIC FADES]
MARTIN: [SIGH] Hello, Helen.
AND HELEN HAVING THE BEST ENTRANCES. It also cleared up something for me (unless I had already realised it and forgot about it since then): the high-pitched sound we hear when she’s around is the mark of Helen and Michael, not of the corridors – if the door is open or characters are inside of the hallways, we’ll hear some of the usual crackling static, but we heard it rise when Helen arrived and fade when the door shut behind her (and same thing with her departure, it was briefly heard when she opened the door).
- Shots fired, MARTIN PLEASE:
(MAG183) MARTIN: [SIGH] Hello, Helen. Might have guessed you’d be into weird architecture. Very much your area of expertise, no?
HELEN: Hmm, depends! Would you describe “petulant poet” as your area of expertise? I am weird architecture.
And Helen went equally incisive on that one, but also UUUUUH WAS IT A SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO PETER’S COMMENT ABOUT MARTIN…
(MAG158) MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over.
[KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND]
PETER: Martin, this is not the time for petulance; there are bigger things at stake, here.
This was the only time someone referred to Martin as (acting) petulant… I mean, Helen not missing one second of MAG158 wouldn’t be surprising (she did tell Jon at the end of MAG157 that she would be enjoying the show), but ;; Little chilling when remembering Elias-Peter-Martin in the Panopticon and Martin refusing to kill Jonah there…
- I was right to suspect that Helen might have been unable to know where Jon&Martin were over their stay at Upton House, and that she wouldn’t be pleased about it!
(MAG183) HELEN: Anyway, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you, but you both just vanished.
ARCHIVIST: Aaah… Right, I see…!
HELEN: I was so looking forward to catching up after that whole Basira and Daisy thing, but then, pfft! You both disappear. I’d be very keen to know how you managed that little trick.
MARTIN: Why, it caught us by surprise too, I mean, we, we actually ended–
ARCHIVIST: [FIRMLY] We found somewhere to rest. That’s all.
MARTIN: … Oh, yeah. Ah, yes, hm.
HELEN: Fine. Be like that. I can appreciate the particular pleasure of a kept secret.
ARCHIVIST: I’m sure you can.
* Salesa’s zone seems to be protected as long as you don’t physically find it? I wonder how Annabelle managed to find it, still, since Jon only become aware of that blind spot when they arrived nearby; how did she become aware of it in the first place? Did it feel like a hole in the world’s web?
* Awww for Jon keeping the secret and conveying to Martin that they should keep quiet about it ;w;
* AHAHAHHAHA for Jon’s “aaah”, which was absolutely a mischievous grandpa sound. Jon ready to cause trouble, with a smug smile on his face.
- … I love how Helen could observe that the dynamic of the exchange was slipping out of her control (Jon&Martin knew something that she didn’t, didn’t feel threatened by her, and Jon was amused to keep it out of her reach) and immediately tried to go for the throat again:
(MAG183) HELEN: Anyway. Such a shame about Basira and Daisy. I was really rooting for them to make up.
MARTIN: [SPLUTTERS] Since when? What happened to– I mean, how did you put it… a, “a quick shot to the back of her head, and then back in time for tea”, or whatever?
Martin: Forgive and forget? NO, RESENT AND REMEMBER AHAHAHAHAH.
Direct reference to the fact that Helen indeed ~offered her door to Basira~ to quickly get to Daisy and execute her:
(MAG177) HELEN: I can offer a shortcut. Take you right to that murder machine you call a partner.
MARTIN: Basira… Jon can’t go through Helen’s doors, we, we couldn’t come with you.
HELEN: Basira is a strong, independent woman. She doesn’t need you two holding her hand. Anyway, it’ll be dead quick. Two minutes, door-to-door, quick shot to the back of Daisy’s head, and we’ll be home before you know it!
Laughing that Martin added the tea mention (Martin, you single-track minded tea-aficionado), but I’m glad that he remembered it full well to throw it in her face; it wasn’t even a personal attack towards Martin, it was something Helen tried to do to Basira, I’m glad that Martin is still absolutely offended about it ;w;
- I felt like Jon and Helen had two definitions of “what we want”: Helen potentially talking about quick, short-term wants (even if they turn out to be self-destructive), while Jon was more about well-thought decisions and choices?
(MAG183) HELEN: [EXASPERATED SIGH] Oh, give over. I was obviously just prodding her, trying to make a point. She didn’t want to kill her.
ARCHIVIST: What we want doesn’t matter much these days.
HELEN: Oh, [RASPBERRY NOISE], nonsense. What we want is the only thing that matters these days. And Basira wanted to join Daisy.
ARCHIVIST: She made her choice.
HELEN: With your assistance.
ARCHIVIST: It was still her choice.
HELEN: [SIGH] What a waste.
ARCHIVIST: No. [INHALE] It wasn’t.
There have been a lot of discussions about “choices” and “wants” throughout the series (with big moments in MAG092, MAG117 and MAG147), so it felt a bit nice that Jon seems to have reached a point where he could draw a line between both? Jon, Martin and Basira didn’t want this world, don’t want the way it operates and what it inflicts on them; it doesn’t mean they can’t weigh options and make specific decisions – Basira, to honour her promise to Daisy and kill the monster she had become; Jon, to not smite for revenge (and Martin, to face his own domain).
I LOVE HOW JON WAS FIRM ABOUT BASIRA’S CHOICE MATTERING ;w; It once again reminds me of Martin’s line to Simon: “I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.” (MAG151); the little things, the individual existences and choices, their own stories, still having value in the expanse of the universe…
- Martin! It’s a delight to see him so firm, having faith in Basira although he’s been so worried for her:
(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: Martin, this is what she needs.
MARTIN: No, no! I–it’s…!
BASIRA: It’ll…
MARTIN: It’s completely– […] … We’re not doing this.
BASIRA: [SOFTLY] Martin. Please.
[SILENCE]
MARTIN: … [SIGH] You’d better look after yourself.
BASIRA: I will.
(MAG180) ARCHIVIST: How are you doing? About…
MARTIN: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I’m… I don’t know. I’m–I’m not sure how to feel; just… pressing on, you know?
ARCHIVIST: I do.
[SILENCE]
MARTIN: Do you think she’ll be okay without us?
ARCHIVIST: Oh, she’s made it this far.
MARTIN: … Yeah. I just worry.
(MAG183) MARTIN: Basira is… She’s going to be okay.
And then pointing out that he was involved in the discussion too and that he wanted to know what the other two knew already and not be kept out of the loop:
(MAG183) HELEN: Oh. Is she? Do you want me to tell you what she’s been up to while you were “resting”? Where she is right now?
ARCHIVIST: You don’t need to. I already know.
MARTIN: I don’t.
[STATIC RISES]
ARCHIVIST: She’s currently moving through, uh… “The Void.” [STATIC FADES] Hungry shadows drifting in the dark. She’s been there a long time now, struggling to find the path.
MARTIN: But she will?
ARCHIVIST: I think so.
HELEN: Yeah, she does always seem to manage, doesn’t she? It’s impressive. Although a little bit… tempting at times.
I’m not absoooolutely sure about Basira’s status: is “the void” a space between domains, or is it a Dark domain that Basira is having trouble finding the exit of, since unlike Jon, she can’t just “know” the paths? I suspect the latter but I’m not 100% certain. If it’s indeed The Dark, that’s a close to home one for her, since she had a few brushes with it over the course of the show – the Section 31 expedition to save Callum Brodie, leading to Rayner’s death and Basira’s decision to quit the police, her research to find out more about the People’s Church of the Divine Host (as shown in season 3) and her overall worry about them, which allowed Elias to convince her that they would attempt another ritual in Ny-Ålesund, leading to her discovering what “Rayner” was and travelling there with Jon, finding Manuela and the Dark Sun mid-season 4…
;ww; for Jon having faith in Basira, too… And the fact that once again, Basira has it a bit rougher than Jon&Martin (Jon had already told Martin that it had been a difficult journey for her, before they reunited). Helen does have a point that Basira seems to manage to find her way out in general: she had successfully escaped The Unknowing on her own, she had survived The Flesh’s attack on the Institute, she had pursued Daisy in the apocalypse… Basira has already gone through Helen’s corridors (offscreen at the end of MAG143, to return to the Institute), I’m YIKES about Helen implying that it would be “tempting” to grab her. (… But at the same time, why hasn’t she done it already, if she is capable of doing it? It might be a bit more complicated than that?)
- … I love Martin, I love that he was RIGHT to point out that Helen had just waltzed in to try and steer chaos:
(MAG183) MARTIN: Look, Helen, what do you even want? Okay, you keep turning up like a bad penny and, honestly, it, it seems like it’s… it’s just to be a dick!
HELEN: Gasp! I am trying to be friends, Martin. Forever is a long time. And I occasionally like to have some company that isn’t… screaming.
MARTIN: … What do you even think friendship is?
HELEN: I dunno, do I? The only personhood I have is from someone I ate.
It feels like Helen has REALLY tried hard to make up for the weeks(?) she couldn’t find Jon and Martin? She went extra-hard on them: first with Basira, then implying to Jon that he had manipulated her into killing Daisy, then pointing out that Basira was not safe at the moment and still at risk of falling prey to other Fears (including herself), then trying to mock Martin about his domain, trying to guilt-trip Jon for not having told him about it yet, and when she finally managed to get Martin shocked and upset… job done, byebye.
Is it that she’s trying to get Jon so riled up he ends her? “Helen” used to like Jon and to turn to him (MAG101: “Helen liked you so… there’s a lot to consider. But I will help you leave.” / MAG115: “Before, talking to you made Helen feel better.”), before she was absolutely Down With Doors And Murders (MAG146: “We do what we need to do when it comes to feeding, don’t we? … Don’t we, Archivist?”), is it a remnant of that? Or is it really just an attempt at confusing Jon and Martin further, feeding from them Spiral-style?
- More about Martin’s domain later, but the reveal was BRUTAL, and yet not coming out of nowhere; we knew he had one, we knew he had almost been trapped in the Lonely house in MAG170 and the question was whether or not it had been (/was still) his domain once Martin got freed from it, but there was also the question of how Martin was able to walk in the apocalypse unharmed (was it due to Jon’s proximity, Martin’s connection to The Eye as an assistant, etc.), and Basira’s own status after Daisy’s death… so, yay! Answers and clarifications, and as usual, nothing feeling like a plot-twist, just things that make sense, and that we already had most of the information about!
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Martin…
MARTIN: Are there people, Jon?
ARCHIVIST: What?
MARTIN: Are there people in my domain?
ARCHIVIST: Not many.
[SILENCE]
MARTIN: Do you need to do your… your thing? Make a statement about whatever’s going on in there? … I could use a moment to think.
ARCHIVIST: Sure thing. Yeah, I–I’ll… [INHALE] Yeah. [EXHALE]
[BAG JOSTLING]
[DEPARTING FOOTSTEPS]
Sobbing a bit about Martin’s priorities (“Are there people, Jon?”) and Martin asking for a quick me-time. It wasn’t ice-cold, Martin turned it into something useful for both of them (expecting that Jon would have to give his statement anyway), but aouch, he sounded absolutely shattered inside while blank on the surface…
- Yes, yes, yes, reminder that Smirke’s categorisation is arbitrary and just like the Doctor’s theory, sometimes just doesn’t work, because it’s trying to force-apply rules and a classification over something that resists it (and because the classification is not perfect from the start), but hey, that’s most theories and classifications out there anyway, so: Escher reference, the functioning of the Tower reminding me of the Great Twisting, and the reasonings sometimes reminding me of Gabriel’s work (MAG126), plus Helen popping by – it was Spiral stuff, right?
Well! I felt like it looks like Spiral, but the Doctor’s fears by themselves:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: “But it is not the fall that terrifies him, not the pain of the impacts, but the fact that none of them should be there. That it doesn’t make sense, and it must make sense, there must be a system, there must be, because if there isn’t– [THE BODY LANDS WETLY] He lands with a heavy smack onto rough limestone, and lies still, his body twisted and broken. He knows it will knit itself back together, slowly, painfully, as it always has before. But the thought of starting over, of composing yet another theory, fills him with a deep dread.”
… are more something I would identify as Eye (fear of a truth) and Hunt (fear of having to return to the start, to have to elaborate a new theory from scratch, again and again, of being trapped forever)?
It was really reminiscent of Smirke thinking back over his life, his hubris and the pride of being the one who would have found the answer, to the point where he would reject reality if it didn’t match his taxonomy (refusing to, well… do what you do with a theory: change, or evolve and perfect it when its flaws are pointed out):
(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any ‘secret book’ can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of a sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channelled. Harnessed. So yes. Hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals. […] Would you have me separate The Corruption between insects, dirt and disease? To, to divide the fungal bloom from the maggot? No. No, I… stand by my work. And thus, we must conclude that the only explanation is a new Power, created from what was once others, yet also distinct. And if such change is possible, how then can any “true balance” be achieved through immutable, unchanging stone…?”
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: “If they are feeling very confident, they may lean down and stretch a curious tongue beyond their chipped teeth and rotten gums, desperate to add another sense to their observances – more evidence to support their declaration of what the world must be. […] They must simply study and learn, if they are to escape the labyrinth. They will be the first to escape. The one who sits in the central chamber cannot remember his name. But he knows that people called him “doctor”. He made sure of that; to ignore it would have been the greatest disrespect, and he will not be disrespected. […] He knows, for a fact, that this is the central chamber because he is the one sat here. […] They’ll all remember him forever, the first to escape the Monument. His name will be hallowed with the greats: Doctor, uh… Doctor…”
Same old pride, Leitner knew that well too (MAG080: “But I think, in my heart, I dreamed of my work becoming known. That ‘The Library of Jurgen Leitner’ would stand as a symbol of courage and protection. Hubris.”) and Gerry didn’t have many nice things to say about it (MAG111: “Flamsteed, Smirke, Leitner. Idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasn’t worth knowing.”). Loved how the statements came for Smirke’s life and was absolutely ruthless about it – but maayyybe a bit too ruthless, even? Jon didn’t express much sympathy for “fools like Smirke” either, and this is a rare case in season 5 where I find that the statement was a bit lacking in empathy for… people who were technically victims. I mean! Insufferable pedantic academics sure are a type, they’re really not having the worst life out there, but it makes me feel a bit weird, with season 5’s overall tone, that the episode had that vibe of “serves them well, they’re insufferable” about people who were technically still trapped in a domain and suffering from it?
… I still laughed a lot about the Doctor vs. Professor rivalry and how they solved their argument:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: “The doctor that lies on the floor has recovered, just enough to laugh.
‘You’re still working on mineral theory? How painfully outdated.’
A flash of genuine fear crosses the face of the professor at this dismissal, before he picks up his chunk of granite, and begins to smash the doctor’s head in, yet again.”
[SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PEER REVIEW]
Academia unleashed.
(- OKAY, I HAVE TO CONFESS that when the character could only remember his title as “Doctor”, with Smirke having been mentioned earlier, my mind just jumped to Doctor Fanshawe… ;; He had left a strong impression on me, okay.)
- ;w; Over the fact that Martin got his me-time and that it was enough: he was clearly tense, but he came back with direct questions and knew what he wanted cleared up…
(MAG183) MARTIN: Finished?
ARCHIVIST: Yes.
MARTIN: Good. … I need you to explain something to me.
ARCHIVIST: All right.
- I can’t believe that Martin Global Heartthrob Blackwood made The Eye FALL FOR HIM too:
(MAG183) MARTIN: How do I have a domain? That doesn’t make any sense.
ARCHIVIST: It’s like I said. [INHALE] Everything here is either watcher, or watched.
MARTIN: [SIGH] Subject or object, yes, I know, we’ve been over this.
ARCHIVIST: Well, you’re a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements, The Eye is… fond of you. You’re not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which means…
Jane, Peter, Simon, Elias, Salesa, Annabelle, now Beholding – do you have any limit, Martin.
!! I’m excited over the fact that Martin’s entanglement with Beholding stuff was acknowledged! Comparatively, Melanie had read 2 statements (MAG086, MAG106) and Basira 1 (MAG112). Meanwhile, Martin had read 12; plus, although Tim, Melanie, Martin and Basira had taken (… or tried to take) one live statement each in MAG100, Martin had also taken 3 additional full statements:
MAG084, Adrian Weiss (Corruption)
MAG088, Enrique MacMillan (Buried)
MAG090, Ross Davenport (Flesh)
MAG095, Luca Moretti (Slaughter)
MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss (Dark)
MAG100 (live), Lynne Hammond (Desolation)
MAG104 (live), Tim Stoker (Stranger)
MAG108, Adonis Biros (Lonely)
MAG110, Alexia Crawley (Web)
MAG134, Adelard Dekker (Extinction)
MAG138, Robert Smirke (Eye)
MAG142 (live), Jess Tyrell (Buried, Eye)
MAG144, Gary Boylan (Extinction)
MAG149, Judith O’Neill (Extinction)
MAG151 (live), Simon Fairchild (Vast)
MAG156, Adelard Dekker (Extinction)
With Simon highlighting that Beholding had compelled him through Martin:
(MAG151) SIMON: Hm! No wonder I’m so sympathetic to The Lonely. You know: this really is a place for self-discovery, isn’t it? [CHUCKLE] “Statement ends”, I suppose!
MARTIN: Uh… I’m sorry?
SIMON: Oh! Nothing, just my own hubris. I should have known. When I came here, I said to myself: “Simon,” I said, “you’re going to answer this young man’s questions, but you’re not going to give The Watcher a statement. You’re better than that.” But it’s a hard one to resist, isn’t it? You get in the flow of talking about yourself, and it all just… tumbles out.
MARTIN: Mm, does seem like it.
Elias might have been eyeing him as back-up Archivist, too (although since then, we’ve learned of his bet with Peter which would have already been running at the time – it might have been that Elias mostly wanted to ensure that Martin wouldn’t die during the Unknowing because he’d be needing him afterwards):
(MAG116) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] What about Martin?
MARTIN: What about me?
ARCHIVIST: He should stay behind.
MARTIN: What?!
ELIAS: Really.
MARTIN: Why?
ARCHIVIST: Too many people might attract attention.
MARTIN: No, no, I can help, I’ve been reading the statements!
ELIAS: … Quite right, er, probably best he does stay behind.
BASIRA: What, so you have a backup if Jon doesn’t make it?
ELIAS: I’m sure that won’t be necessary.
Martin did a lot of research, read these statements aloud, took live statements, was hinted as a potential replacement; tape recorders have spawned around him like they do with Jon, even outside of statements, and Martin had been exceptionally kind towards them on multiple occasions; there had been that little moment of Martin somehow knowing that Jon was alive back in season 3 (MAG088: “It’s the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jon’s still alive. Not sure why, but I’m sure of that. But Sasha, I…”), shortly before we had learned about Jon’s own Knowing powers developing; we don’t know why and whether that was Beholding or The Web or something else, but Martin had been able to know how to get Jon out of the Coffin in season 4:
(MAG134) PETER: What does puzzle me, though, and I mean that genuinely, is… why you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin, while Jon was in there. [PAUSE] It’s a question, Martin, it’s– it’s not an accusation.
MARTIN: I don’t know. And I just… felt like it might help. He’s always recording, I thought… it–it might help him… find his way out.
PETER: Interesting. Were you compelled?
MARTIN: [SULLEN] … I don’t know. … M–maybe? I–I, I definitely wanted to do it…
PETER: But?
MARTIN: I’m… I’m not sure where the idea came from.
PETER: You should watch out for that. Could be something dangerous.
MARTIN: Sure.
… And Peter’s whole plan relied on the fact that Martin was initially touched by Beholding:
(MAG134) PETER: [BREATHES] I’m still working out some of the kinks. But I believe I have a plan. However, it requires this place, and it requires someone touched by The Beholding. Elias was, perhaps unsurprisingly, unwilling to help.
(MAG158) PETER: It’s quite simple, really…! I want to use the powers of this place to learn about The Extinction: what it’s doing, where it’s manifesting. Then we can stop it.
MARTIN: And you need me for this?
PETER: Correct! Without a connection to The Eye, any attempt to use it would likely end… very messily indeed! But thankfully, it just so happens that you hold such a connection.
MARTIN: So that’s it… Both “lonely” and “watching”.
PETER: You must admit you’re the perfect candidate.
MARTIN: I suppose I am.
Beholding baby!! Now coming in an additional Lonely flavour.
- Mmmmmmmm… The way Jon put it, it seems that Beholding is consciously rewarding its servant and:
* It could be Jon trying to make sense of something else, that he doesn’t understand? Gertrude didn’t think that the Fears were able to “think” at all (MAG145: “Sometimes, I think They understand us as… little as we understand Them. We don’t think like They do.” “I’m not actually convinced they “think” at all.”); reward&affection could be primitive enough feelings for a blob of terrors to work out (Martin fed Beholding as an assistant by reading statements => Beholding grants him things in the hope of getting fed even more?), but I don’t know, I can’t help but wonder if this is just Jon humanising the Fears a bit too much? It’s curious that Beholding got “fond” of Martin precisely when Jon himself fell in love with him – could Jon’s feelings have influenced Martin’s position in the apocalypse, could Jon be having a bit more power over the landscape than he realises?
* … If Beholding is rewarding its servants, that doesn’t bode well for Elias. WELL, no, I mean: it might mean that Elias is having a Great Time as a Beholding acolyte, which means it doesn’t bode well for my desire to see Elias get absolutely wrecked and wrong about being the “king of a ruined world”. I want him to have miscalculated, damnit! x’D
- I’m having so many feelings over Martin himself being unsure of what he wants, whether it’s better to know or to remain ignorant…
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: It’s like I said. [INHALE] Everything here is either watcher, or watched.
MARTIN: [SIGH] Subject or object, yes, I know, we’ve been over this.
ARCHIVIST: Well, you’re a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements, The Eye is… fond of you. You’re not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which means…
MARTIN: [QUIETLY] That one of them belongs to me. But that’s… Ho–how can I be a “Watcher”? I, I didn’t even know it existed!
ARCHIVIST: But you’ve suspected for a while now, haven’t you?
MARTIN: Maybe? But that’s not “watching”!
ARCHIVIST: Do you want me to tell you about it?
MARTIN: No. … Yes. N–no, no, I don’t know, I don’t know. [SIGH]
Is it a remnant of his discussions with Tim in season 3? He’s basically gone the reverse of Tim about it:
(MAG098) MARTIN: Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine.
TIM: He’s an idiot. Look, we didn’t know what that door was, and it still trapped us. Ignorance isn’t going to save anyone.
MARTIN: No, I mean, you’re right, I guess.
Martin has seen enough to know now that ignorance doesn’t protect anyone, but also that knowledge can be used as a weapon – that the horrors are just made to hurt. I feel like, in his situation, noping out of Jon’s statements was one of his only ways to assert his boundaries (which had been denied from him — and from others — for a long time)? But here, the situation is different; it’s about Martin’s own involvement, he knew the knowledge would hurt anyway… but it’s also his load to bear? To at least face what is happening, since he’s benefitting from it, since he’s been made complicit (without ever wanting to)? It still goes perfectly with the exploration of exploitative and oppressive systems: Martin, unknowingly and unwillingly inflicting hurt, still being in a better situation than others… while not being directly responsible for it, not wanting to benefit from it. It really makes me want to see Jon&Martin find a way to reverse or improve things, to get people out of the domains or giving them the keys to escape them, and I don’t know if I can even hope something about this ;; (On the Jon&Martin front, things are so good; but it still feels so unfair for… everyone else.)
- Martin having a domain and being classified as a “watcher” finally explains why he hadn’t been impacted by the apocalypse since the Change! He had been able to get out of the domains’ grasp even when he wasn’t around Jon (he had fallen behind at the end of MAG163, he wandered around in the Web’s theatre, he left Jon alone for most of the statements), and there was still the question of… how he was still surviving without eating, and at the same time wasn’t (at least as far as we knew) trapped in a domain:
(MAG161) MARTIN: [MIRTHLESS HUFF] What about food?
ARCHIVIST: What about it? When’s the last time you thought to eat, o–or even felt hungry?
MARTIN: [FAINT] What…? Wha… Uh… I don’t know.
ARCHIVIST: No. Whatever is sustaining us now doesn’t need us to eat.
MARTIN: That… that can’t be possible–
ARCHIVIST: It’s a new world, Martin, the natural laws are whatever they want them to be. And I suspect they don’t much care to keep humanity fed and watered.
I was wondering if it was Jon’s influence, or Martin being “trapped” in Jon’s domain, and Jon had also alluded to the possibility that they were themselves trapped in their quest towards the Panopticon:
(MAG169) ARCHIVIST: “Free” doesn’t really exist in this place.
MARTIN: Apart from us.
ARCHIVIST: I suppose. I–in a sense, though… [CHUCKLING] how much of that is because we are trapped in our own quest to–
MARTIN: Okay, let’s, let’s not dive into another… ontological debate right now, not here.
ARCHIVIST: Fair enough.
And Jon had even specifically told Martin that he had a domain, shortly before Martin got almost imprisoned in the Lonely house:
(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: We all have a domain here, Martin. The place that feeds us.
MARTIN: Oh. [PAUSE] Where’s yours?
ARCHIVIST: [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE] I mean, we’re… traveling towards it.
MARTIN: Oh! Right, obviously. [CHUCKLING] Duh. Hum… What about me?
ARCHIVIST: … Would you… like me to… ?
MARTIN: No, no. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.
ARCHIVIST: … Okay!
(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: I, I didn’t want to… look too ha–, I–I–I promised I wouldn’t… know you, and, and with the fog in all–all the rooms, I’ll, I just, I lost y–, I… I–I’m sorry.
MARTIN: It’s okay.
ARCHIVIST: … No, I… I tried to use the… to know where you were, but… it was… You–you were faint. It was so strange, i–it took me so long just to find you…!
[RUSTLING OF CLOTHES]
MARTIN: Jon, it’s… okay. I promise it’s okay. This place tried, it really did, and honestly I… I wanted to believe it. But I didn’t.
ARCHIVIST: This… “place”, i–it… [STATIC] My god…! […] I, I just… I wanted to make sure that you knew what this place was.
MARTIN: It’s The Lonely, Jon. It’s me.
ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Not anymore.
MARTIN: Hm! No. [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] No…! Not anymore.
And alright, that finally answers it: the Lonely house wasn’t his domain, wasn’t meant to be (but he was susceptible to it, got almost trapped in it as a “watched” although he eventually managed to reject and break free from it). His own domain was elsewhere, and Martin himself was amongst the “watchers” all along; Martin is living a bit like Helen in this apocalypse, having a fixed domain, but able to navigate elsewhere.
Aouch for Martin, since he had been encouraging Jon to smite domains’ rulers as soon as he discovered that Jon could do it; it was already murky territory for Jon himself (if the “avatars” and “monsters” just deserve to die, what about Jon?), it was awful with Callum (Martin himself drew the line at smiting a kid)… but now, we know it was directly including him, too, and that he had been fed through people’s pain all along. No wonder Helen had encouraged the smiting so hard, if she already knew they were kind of neighbours…
… Double-aouch for Jon, because he had offered twice the option for Martin to stay elsewhere, permanently:
(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: M–Martin, if you… did; i–if you wanted to forget… a–all of it, stay here and just… escape. I… I would understand.
MARTIN: … N–no…! It’s comforting here, leaving all those… painful memories behind, but… It’s not a good comfort, it’s… I–it’s the kind that makes you fade, makes you… dim and… distant.
(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I… It would have been nice to stay.
MARTIN: [WISTFULLY] Yeah… I’d almost forgotten what it was like, you know? A bit of peace, eh!
ARCHIVIST: I mean, you could have…
MARTIN: No, don’t say it, Jon. You know I never would. I–I can’t just “forget” about all the people out here! Besides, I’d rather be trapped in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with you than spend one more moment in paradise with her.
And Jon probably didn’t know what Martin’s domain was exactly, back then, since we heard the knowing static kick in when he described the domain in this episode? But he probably knew, already, that Martin having a domain didn’t mean that he belonged to it as a victim, but as a ruler, and that it would hurt Martin so much. (“No one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! … Even me.”, indeed ;;)
- I AM HAVING SO MANY FEELINGS OVER THE DESCRIPTION OF MARTIN’S DOMAIN…
(MAG183) [STATIC RISES]
ARCHIVIST: It’s a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely. Inhabited by a few lost souls whose fear is not of their isolation or their agonies, but that no-one… will ever know of them. That they shall suffer in silence, and be mourned by nobody. That’s why you can’t really see it. It’s why even if we do travel through it, you won’t be able to see… any of the people trapped there.
… It reminds me so much of what Martin probably experienced in his own flat, when Prentiss besieged him for two weeks and Martin was unable to contact anyone, and nobody came to check on him? Did Martin’s domain grow from his own old fears…?
It also reminds me a bit of Naomi’s brush with The Lonely:
(MAG013) NAOMI: The fog seemed to follow me as went and seemed to swirl around with a strange, deliberate motion. You’ll probably think me an idiot, but it felt almost malicious. I don’t know what it wanted, but somehow I was sure it wanted something. There was no presence to it, though, it wasn’t as though another person was there, it was… It made me feel utterly forsaken.
Overall, the description is extremely… typical from what we’ve seen of The Lonely: there was Naomi’s misadventure, Ethan disappeared and nobody even claimed his backpack (MAG048), Yetunde Uthman had “disappeared a year ago. And nobody noticed” (MAG150)…
(But from that description alone, it doesn’t sound very Beholding, despite what Jon said? I’m curious about the Eye aspect of it…)
- Can’t believe that Martin canonically turns out to be the Lonely Eyes love(hate)child, gdi. It really was a custody battle in MAG158.
- Extra-sad that Jon warned Martin that there was meaning in the fact that Martin didn’t know anything about his domain, and wouldn’t even be able to see people in there… It’s just so cruel, both for them, and for Martin, to learn that he’s been unknowingly contributing to their misery (because they fed him and he didn’t even know about them)?
Pretty sure that Martin will stay with Jon to hear that statement, at the very least ;; (Or could he ask for something more? We’ve seen Jon extracting Breekon’s statement in MAG128, I wonder if he could put something into someone’s head like Elias had done, allowing Martin to give that statement himself…)
- I’m wondering about Jon’s own domain, too, now! He said they were heading towards it, so it’s either the Panopticon, the Institute or the Archives, or a mix of those… or something close to it, on their way to it. If Martin’s domain is a mix of Lonely&Eye, is Jon’s pure Eye? A mix of the 14/15? A Web&Eye mix, given Jon’s own personal fears?
I know that Jonny (lovingly) called out the obsessive classification in this episode through Jon, who went off on a rant about the “neat little boxes”, but he’s still using the Smirke classification this season:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: It’s a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely.
(AND IN THIS VERY EPISODE… Jon…)
- On the one hand: feeling directly called out by Jon’s rant about how the divisions between avatars/monsters/humans/victims wasn’t and isn’t working, that reality escapes that division because it’s much more complicated than this:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: [HEATED] Avatar isn’t a thing, Martin, it’s not–! It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now, there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and… [SIGH] Well. I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.
(It felt especially relevant with Callum Brodie: could we really tell that he was an “avatar” when he was still a freshly wounded kid, even if a tormentor himself?)
On the other hand, well, that was still a useful distinction to have to identify servants, and mostly, I’m not extremely convinced by Jon arguing that there is now a Clear BinaryTM in the new world, between the “watchers” and the “watched”, since:
1°) Helen herself explained the dichotomy to Martin (MAG166: “And so, there are now exactly two roles available in this new world of ours: the watcher, and the watched. Subject, and object. Those who are feared, and those who are afraid.”). Given that she mostly tries to confuse them… that’s a red flag.
2°) Despite Jon defending that binary, we’ve run into plenty of examples of things… not fitting into that new classification. He himself acknowledged that Basira’s status wasn’t established yet; we’ve seen Salesa, protected by his camera from the chaos; Jon has been unable to know about Georgie and Melanie, only hypothesising that they might in what-used-to-be-London; Martin, a watcher, could still have fallen prey to another domain… That’s already a lot of special cases around that “clear dividing line”…
3°) Somethingsomethingsomething about how it’s in Beholding’s best interest that Jon believes in a clear, unchangeable, dividing line which serves Beholding’s own interests. If things feel fixed and unchangeable, then there is no point trying to fight against it or find a loophole, right?
Given that a Watcher can get trapped in another domain… does that mean that it could be the case for Jon, too? We got a threat of it in MAG172, when Jon began to give the statement of the following act – if Martin hadn’t interrupted him, would Jon have ever been able to stop?
- Confirmation that Daisy had “trapped” Basira in her Hunt! I was suspecting it since Jon’s first wording:
(MAG164) MARTIN: Is Basira alive?
ARCHIVIST: [INHALE]
MARTIN: Is she… in… o–one of these places?
[STATIC RISES]
ARCHIVIST: She’s alive. Out there, not… trapped in a–a hellscape, but… moving. [STATIC DECREASES] Hunting. She’s… she’s looking for Daisy. She’s a few steps behind.
(MAG183) MARTIN: … What about Daisy? Or Basira?
ARCHIVIST: Daisy carved through the domains of others. Basira… well… In a very real way she was a sufferer in Daisy’s domain. Maybe the only one. Hunting, following, hurting. Now Daisy’s dead, she’s… free. Sort of. She’s inherited something of Daisy’s ability to move through the other domains. For now, she’ll… feed off what she sees in them. As to whether the Eye ultimately gives her a domain of her own… I don’t know yet.
* And now, Basira seems to have a peculiar status… Is it because she killed Daisy? Is it because she killed the ruler of her domain? Jon explained that a ruler’s death didn’t change much for the domain itself, but maybe it operates differently if a victim kills a ruler (… they become the new ruler?)
* Another reminder that Jon cannot see the future.
* Big Eyeball didn’t immediately give Basira a domain, but Martin got one. I see that favouritism, uh. (Joke, it does make sense given how Martin recorded a lot of statements and had worked at the Institute for years and years.)
- I love how Jon managed to explain why he hadn’t told Martin everything, and how Martin… indeed agreed that Jon had been mostly trying to respect his wishes about not knowing ;; It’s true that Martin had been adamant about not hearing much of the horror:
(MAG163) MARTIN: J–Jon, enough! Enough! [STATIC FADES] … Please don’t tell me these things.
ARCHIVIST: I… I’m sorry, I– There’s just so much! There’s so much, Martin, and I know all of it, I can see all of it, and I– It’s filling me up, I need to let it out!
MARTIN: I’m sorry, but tough. Okay? Tha–that’s not what I’m here for.
[VOICE IN THE DISTANCE: “No… No!”]
MARTIN: I can’t be that for you, I–I just can’t.
(MAG167) MARTIN: Oh! Right, obviously. [CHUCKLING] Duh. Hum… What about me?
ARCHIVIST: … Would you… like me to… ?
MARTIN: No, no. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.
ARCHIVIST: … Okay!
(MAG183) MARTIN: You didn’t tell her any of that.
ARCHIVIST: I didn’t think the metaphysics of her place in the fear ecosystem was something she’d be particularly interested in at that moment.
MARTIN: Fair. But you seem very reluctant to tell anyone any of this stuff.
ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I did try, right at the start, but y–you didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so I didn’t push it. It’s hard, I have so much knowledge but… how do I decide what people want me to share, and what they never want to know?.
MARTIN: I guess that makes sense.
But Martin seems to acknowledge that indeed, Jon had been trying his best about it…
(And now, I wonder if there is still other stuff that Jon hadn’t told Martin, in the same vein…)
- First choice for Martin:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I was going to bring it up at the crossroads. Inside. I only just realised we would be going this way.
[…] MARTIN: I guess that makes sense. … So what did you mean about the crossroads? When you were talking to Helen.
ARCHIVIST: It’s a maze in there, something between a, a Rubik’s Cube and a Magic Eye picture. I can find us the way through easily enough but… well. For us, there are two ways out. Two paths to London.
MARTIN: What are the choices?
ARCHIVIST: One would be a long, winding route, we’d see a lot of horrors, but remain… personally untouched.
MARTIN: And the other is my domain.
ARCHIVIST: Eventually. It’s a shorter path, with faces we know along the way. Including Helen.
MARTIN: I thought Helen was her domain, wi–with all the doors and that?
ARCHIVIST: She is, but she has a… position within this pseudo-landscape, like any other.
MARTIN: O–okay. [INHALE] So, so, I mean, I suppose we’ve got to do that one, right?
ARCHIVIST: We don’t have to, w–we–we could just–
MARTIN: What, what? We could, we could dodge around it? Take the path of denial? I guess, but… what is it you keep harping on about? “The journey will be the journey”? [SIGH] I mean… It’s pretty obvious that this one is my journey.
! Glad that Martin didn’t hesitate and immediately understood what it was about – that it mattered to do it that way, that Martin had to face it, that this is how this world works. No hesitation about it. He got a demonstration with Basira, but still, he was quick to accept it.
I’m expecting a few episodes before Martin’s domain, so… with the overall rhythm of the season, they might reach the Institute by MAG189? And Hill Top Road during Act III?
- Since Jon mentioned that the path Martin ended up choosing had:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Eventually. It’s a shorter path, with faces we know along the way. Including Helen.
I wonder about those “faces we know”, since we’re running super-low on ~avatars~. Different options:
* Institute staff. Rosiiiie?
* Melanie&Georgie. A bit unlikely, given that Jon had trouble knowing what was the deal with them, I feel?
* Since Helen will be there, people who gave live statements to Jon and were trapped in his nightmare zoo. I’m mostly thinking about this one, especially since Jon’s “No one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! … Even me.”… (And if it’s about an internal and metaphorical journey, I feel like having to face people that Jon hurt, first unaware (he didn’t know about the nightmare zoo when he signed to become the Head Archivist), then partially unwilling but still doing it (he felt guilty about it but still hid it, still chose self-preservation instead of warning the others about it), would have its place…)
- In the same fashion, who is trapped in Martin’s domain? Unrelated people? Live statement-givers? (;; I’m thinking of Jess, who had the misfortune of being compelled by Jon and of giving a statement to Martin…)
… Given that it’s confirmed to be a “journey” for Martin too, I can’t help but squint at Jon’s wording, because. “Faces we know”. The only thing we know of Martin’s father is the fact that he looks like Martin… (MAG118: “The thing is, though, Martin: if you ever do want to know exactly what your father looked like… all you have to do is look in a mirror~ The resemblance is quite uncanny. The face of the man she hates, who destroyed her life, watching over her, feeding her, cleaning her, looking down on her with such pity–”)
- I’ll be having Annabelle’s words stuck in my head (ha) for a long time but:
(MAG181) ANNABELLE: Don’t worry, Martin. We’ll meet again. Hopefully when you’re feeling a little bit more… open-minded…!
MARTIN: I wouldn’t count on it.
ANNABELLE: I would.
MARTIN: [SIGH]
… Was it a reference to Martin learning about his own domain and about how the world operates, his place in it? I think that Martin might be even more resolved to turn the world back at whatever cost, now that he knows that he is himself sustained by fear…
(LISTEN, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY HOW WEB!MARTIN CAN STILL WI–)
- !! Footage of Martin saying “I love you” for the first time ;w; I love how it was the thing he was certain about, both a slight decompressing joke and a true statement, a reminder that he has faith in Jon, that he has something to cling to?
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: If you’re sure.
MARTIN: … I’m sure I love you.
[FOOTSTEPS]
ARCHIVIST: I love you too. [FABRIC RUSTLES] Let’s go.
(He had mentioned that he was “in love” in MAG170, I’m happy to hear him telling Jon, too!) And the fabric RUSTLED, SO LONG AND SO HARD, AND AT LEAST TWICE!! I love how the tension from right before and after the statement had faded by the end of the episode ;w; Rollercoaster of little emotions…
MAG184’s makes me think of something Leitner had said (more lore about the Fearpocalypse?), and of Vast and Corruption… with very different vibes. If Corruption, and keeping in mind that Jon has announced that they will be encountering “faces [they] know along the way”, it cooould contain Jordan Kennedy, the exterminator from Pest Control…? Especially given that both Jon and Martin had met him (Jon took his live statement, and Martin pleaded offscreen for him to get them the jar of Prentiss’s ashes to comfort Jon).
(Yessss, I am absolutely aware of the irony of still using Smirke’s categorisation after another episode in which we were told again that it is bollocks, but if Jon himself still occasionally labels the domain as one of the 15, so can I ♥)
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An Avatar No More (Let All the Broken Pieces Shine, Chapter Three)
Info: The Magnus Archives, D&D AU. JonMartin, more ships to be added. Rated T. Post-Canon. Jon is amab nb and uses they/them, Martin is a trans guy.
CWs: Character death (mentioned), character injury (mentioned), body transformations, birds, sacrifice (sort of, I mean, everyone lives)
Summary: Jon is a warlock who thinks they're a druid, and they're finally meeting their patron. Well, their original patron, not the nasty Watcher that tricked them into ending the world, that guy's a jerk and we have no truck with him.
Avatar powers or no, Jon will yell at eldritch beings to protect Martin because they need their tea-making poet alive and well, dammit.
——————————————————-
First Chapter
Previous Chapter
Jon wakes to a world that looks as if it’s had all the color leached out, all blacks and whites and grays. Martin’s arms are still around them, holding them, but not as tightly as they dimly recall from before.
Martin seems to be asleep, his expression pained and his breathing shallow. He is vibrant despite the lack of color, standing out from his surroundings, almost verging into sepia rather than mere monochrome. Jon, too, seems almost as vibrant though perhaps not quite as much so.
There is a nip of cold in the air, and that by-now familiar feeling of being watched.
Jon slowly disentangles themself from Martin’s grasp, doing their best not to wake the sleeping man. They can see, and that is odd--didn’t Martin stab them in the eye? Eyes? They can barely remember, everything after stepping into the Panopticon is a blur except the conversation with Martin, as though the words were somehow burned into their memory while all other sensations faded during the trip to wherever they are now.
They take a moment, blink slowly, press their hands gently to their eyes. And yes, they have eyes, and there’s no blood on their face, and now that they look there’s no scars on their hands, either. No burn marks on the right hand, no worm scars on either one. Their skin is whole and unblemished.
This bothers them more than, perhaps, it ought.
They sit up and look around to take a greater survey of their surroundings. Jon and Martin are on the balcony of a large fortress set on the edge of a cliff in whatever this strange realm is. The sky above is an inky black, devoid of sun or moon or stars, and the landscape beyond the balcony is bleak: jagged mountains behind and a flat plain dotted with twisted spires below.
It occurs to them that it might be reasonable to assume they're in Hell.
“That’s… disconcerting,” Jon says aloud, as much because they are used to narrating their life as to hear the sound of their own voice. They stand, slowly, checking to see if there is a room attached to the balcony. Usually balconies are attached to chambers, though with Hell, it’s possible that this will be another level of torment: impractical architecture.
The balcony turns out to be just an extension of a room with no doors or outer wall. The room is shrouded in darkness, but it looks... big… ish? With maybe a table and some chairs and some sort of dias beyond that?
Jon leans down to place a hand on Martin’s cheek briefly before they begin to move into the room. “Rather spacious if… empty accommodations for a Hellscape.” Again they're speaking partly for their own benefit, but the darkness of the room is deep enough to hide someone who might respond if they speak.
And then there is indeed a voice, coming from the shadows around the dais: “This is not Hell. That place is rather more… torturous for mortals to exist in.” The voice seems… vaguely female, but with a strange, almost croaking sort of undertone.
“Ah, there you are.” Jon starts looking around for the source of the voice. “That’s good to know, that we are not dead. I take it you are who we have to thank for that? Since this is your domain.”
As Jon moves into the room, the shadows seem to shift and a form appears sitting on a large chair on the dais, pretty much a cowled cloak. It would be spooky if Jon weren’t becoming inured to these things.
“Oh, no, you are quite dead,” the voice replies from the depths of the cloak. “He is not, yet, but he will be soon enough.”
Jon looks back toward Martin, who looks to be in more pain and maybe a little less vibrant than he was. “Stop that!” they shout. They move back to Martin and kneel down, running their hands over the taller man’s hair, trying to soothe him. “Save him!”
Martin relaxes at the touch, but only slightly. He still looks pained, troubled.
The voice from the cloak says, “I have done nothing to him. He chose to follow you through the gates of death, and so… he is dying.” There is an odd level of unconcern in her voice. Not malice, per se, and not indifference, but rather what one might expect from an avatar of the End, regarding someone dying.
“And you can’t do anything?!” The indifference in the voice angers Jon. How dare this cloaked wannabe Grim Reaper just ignore their plight? And though they might not admit it, they have become used to getting their way in most things, to having power to shape the world as they wish. “This is your world; insulate him from the ravages of its effects!”
“Why should I?” The voice is more curious than malicious. “I have no hold nor tie to him; where once he belonged to Araushnee, in this form he belongs more to Oghma, or perhaps Sune, and I have little truck with either.”
“Because he is important to me!” Jon hisses, still keeping contact with Martin. “And you clearly have some attachment to me or I wouldn’t be here. Is that not enough, or are you so detached from all compassion as to not understand the intricacies of companionship?”
The figure moves out onto the balcony and Jon can see it now, cowled and hooded, with a glimmer of light from within the hood: eyes, maybe. “I understand compassion. And I understand companionship. And I understand that the latter has rarely led to much but tragedy, when pursued too fervently.”
The woman(?) looks down at the two of them. “He will not fade from your view. He will become part of this place, and if you are so concerned I will take him into my employ. You will be able to see him still, between the work I have for you to do.”
Of course. Some new eldritch horror expects Jon to work for them without even knowing what they're getting into. Lovely.
Jon stands, placing themself between the cowled figure and Martin. “No. You will save him and ensure that he lives. He didn’t sacrifice himself just to be controlled by another one of you.” They are shaking with both fear and rage. “You want my help, fine. Another Eldritch power wants my hands for its machinations…” They laugh. “What else is new? But he deserves better. Name a price for his survival and freedom, and I will pay it.”
The eyes under the hood seem to narrow. “There is a way to save him, to give him life enough to survive here and to survive the journey you are yet to take. But it would require…” A pause, a deep, heavy sigh. “I had thought to give you more time as something you would still recognize as… yourself.”
The woman gestures, and a mirror appears, so that Jon can see just exactly what she means.
The mirror allows them to see colors, but only in the mirror itself. Jon still wears the clothing they'd been wearing in the Panopticon (and much longer before that), and they look… themself, they're short and slim, their skin dark, but their eyes have become shining gold. Their long black hair shimmers now, and their ears are… pointed? Yes, elongated and pointed, and they realize their form is even slimmer than they remember, now that they look closely.
They appear to be, for all the world, an elf.
Jon puts a hand to their ears to see if it is real. How had they missed that, while trying to be sure they were whole and alive? “What? What… happened to me? You turned me into an elf? Like Tolkien? Why?”
“Tolkien…?” There’s a pause, as if the woman is accessing information; it reminds Jon, oddly, of themself. “Ah. No. I have done nothing, really; this is what you were before you went to that world. You have become something like what I once was, Tel-quessir. I believe in the common parlance the term is ‘sun elf’ or ‘high elf.’” Galadriel more than Legolas, then.
Jon tries to make sense of what the woman is saying as they take stock in the mirror but they can’t understand more than rudimentary levels. They truly had come to rely on Knowing as a crutch. “Went to that world? What you once were?” More questions than answers, and little is more irritating to them. They return their attention to the cloaked figure. “And this has what to do with saving Martin?” That is what’s important right now, after all.
The woman’s words become suddenly clipped. “You were mine. From birth, you sought out new stories, new experiences, new memories, as many as you could find, to bring them back here when you died. A spark, a soul sent into the dark, to try to expand my reach to the other worlds. And, I admit, to try to bring balance to a world so overrun with evil; an attempt at a ray of good to balance that out.” A pause. “I suppose it succeeded, mostly, if only by spreading that evil out into the realms. But the powers there, they tried to… claim you. The Spider, the Watcher…”
There is a rustling under the cloak, a sound of many wings. The voice rises, angry. “And then the Watcher stole you from me, to carry out its perverse warping of your world! It would not do, but you already had the means to combat what the Watcher tried to make you, Archivist. And so, here you are. And yet, you do not even know who you truly are.”
There is more rustling of wings beneath the cloak. The woman is clearly angry.
“Wait… you’re saying I’m from here… originally? Not human?” Jon touches their ear again, a nervous gesture. “And I was your agent… meant to be your eyes and ears until Jonah Magnus…” They have to stop, the anger that rises in them is so great, “did what he did.”
Jon’s tone turns insistent, and they wish they could still compel answers. “Then tell me. What am I? What are you? Feathers, a cloak, pinpoints of light that could be eyes. Do you have a name?”
“You are not from here,” the woman says, and her voice has become… melancholy. “We were from a place of light and beauty, once. It is my fault that you came here, but you never complained, before. And you were never meant… that ritual was never meant to happen. I never meant you to experience… any of what the Watcher made you do. But at least now the pain of all those you encountered is catalogued, and perhaps in time, they can be cleansed of the pain and know peace.”
Another deep sigh. “As for what I am…” The rustling intensifies, and then suddenly the cloak explodes into shadow. Beneath is not a woman at all--beneath is a massive collection of ravens. They fly around Jon, all flapping wings and eyes, and one in particular--the one with the eyes they've been seeing under the hood--seems to hover in the air in front of them. It speaks in a voice that booms off the nearby mountains:
“I AM THE RAVEN QUEEN.”
Jon stumbles back a bit, and narrowly manages to avoid falling on top of Martin. They haven't been this terrified since… what, since before the Change? Since well before the Change. But terrified they are. “A-an-and I’m… I’m… o-one of your… servants… and extension of you… one-one-one of… of… those?” They gesture at the ravens flying about them.
The ravens settle all around the balcony, and the one that has been speaking stays where it is, as if to give them space. “No. I told you--what you are now is what you were one, long ago, before… before my failed attempt to become a goddess and stop the conflict between Corellon and Araushnee failed.”
She sighs, and her voice is full of ancient, terrible sadness. “You came to me and offered your help to stop that conflict. You gave much of your life and essence to try to fuel the ritual, along with many others. Like them, you believed in our cause. The gods were warring, and it had to be stopped, or the Tel-Quessir were doomed to split apart forever. We would save the Tel-Quessir from the doom we foresaw. I would travel to Arvandor, gain the attention of the gods, and stop the war.” A long sigh. “I was a fool, and it was all of you who paid the price.”
Jon is starting to put the pieces together. “So… in order to save Martin, what do I have to do? Give up this… essence again? Return the restoration you bestowed on me? Become something else? Something that can still be your hand, but different?”
The raven cocks its head in almost a nod. “This is what you were, before my failed ritual. This is what I purified you into becoming again so you could go to the place where last you lived. I had wanted to give you time as this again, a lifetime of reward for your service, but…” The raven looks to Martin. “You have brought your reward back with you, I see. You always did prize love above so much else.”
“In order to save his life, I must siphon off yours. Return him to what he is, and perhaps allow him to be more, something closer to what he was long, long ago. And return you… to what you were. Shadar-kai. Shadow fey.” A pause. “It is not pleasant. The color will leech from you, even in the living world. The shadows will cling to you. In the living world you may look young and fresh, but here you will see your true state: cursed, aged, withered.”
The raven gives a long, deep sigh. “You may say that you will endure all of that and more to save your lover, but you will lose many of the emotions that now drive you. You will be bitter and grim. Others will see you as cold and pitiless. Most of my people who go out into the world care little for their physical bodies; they know they will return here, and be reborn. Some embrace physical pleasures, others test their limits, and some strive for glory in their lives.”
“You… never did much of any of that. You were usually content to watch, to listen, to study, and to bring me back what you found. You played tricks, sometimes.” Is the raven… amused? Yes, by the glitter in its eye, it is. “You have always retained your sense of humor, regardless of everything else.” The amusement fades. “But you may lose your love for him. Even if you do not--even if it is the one thing you cling to--he may lose his love for you, on finding you so horribly changed.”
Jon looks over their shoulder at Martin for a moment and then back to the raven before them. “Done. It may be as you say, but he’ll be alive. And that’s what’s important.” They sigh. “He has to survive. He’s given up too much to not survive. Do it.”
The ravens all flock back into the form they’d been in before and the shadows warp around it like a hood and cowl once more. The Raven Queen nods--or seems to--and sighs. “Very well.” She reaches out with one “hand” to Jon and the other “hand” to Martin’s sleeping form
A bright white light begins to flow out of Jon and into Martin. Jon doesn’t feel lessened so much as different, as though the shadows here seep in to replace the light that flows out. They can see the color fade from their form in the mirror. Their skin becomes a pallid grey, their eyes become wholly black--no pupil, no sclera, something far more befitting the avatar they became. And they do, indeed, twist and wither and age, though they feel no less strong and vital.
And Martin… wakes up.
Next Chapter
#the magnus archives#tma#jon sims#jonathan sims#jon the archivist#martin blackwood#jonmartin#jmart#fanfic#my fanfic#tma spoilers#otp: one way or another together#tma d&d au#let all the broken pieces shine#just one more leeeeft
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Boss Hog “Action Box” released 30-ish years ago (mid-1991). Double 7″ EP on Amphetamine Reptile Records. Punk blues Boss Hog is Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s Jon Spencer (guitar, vocals) and Cristina Martinez (vocals) along with Jens Jurgensen (bass), Charlie Ondras (drums) and Kurt Wolf (guitar) on this recording. Guest starring on “Black Throat” is Bob Bert (Sonic Youth, Jon Spencer & the Hit Makers), Jim Thirlwell (Foetus) and DJ Cream O’Wheat. It’s such a wild track, originally the theme from a movie made by the Dark Brothers. Also on the EP is “Big Fish,” “Bunny Fly” and “Not Guilty.” The story on the name of the EP is awesome -- this from the most excellent Pop-Catastrophe website: Charlie Ondras: “Ever since Cristina, Jon and I met Billy Idol at Jones Beach a couple of years ago, the phrase, ‘More, more, more’ really got into my mind.” Cristina: “We got to go to a Billy Idol photo shoot,” she continues, “and he kept going into the bathroom with his assistant. I wasn’t really paying attention, got bored after he started grabbing his crotch, and left. But I heard the next day that he’s infamous for going to do coke in the bathroom. And then we heard this story…” Jon: “…that he was in the toilet stall getting a blow job and he was yelling, ‘More, more, more!'” Jon concludes with a flourish.” Charlie: “So after that I started referring to Billy Idol as ‘the action man,'” smirks Charlie. “And ‘action’ was one of the many catch phrases I popularized amongst me and my friends. We were on this tour in Germany, and on the first rest stop we were in, they had these condom machines, and there was this condom package which they sell, two pretty bad condoms, actually……and this mysterious creme in a tube,” Charlie continues enthusiastically, “packaged inside this box with this firework display and wild type on it and it was called the ‘Action Box.'” Cristina: “We tried to duplicate the cover,” explains Cristina, “and we were initially going to put in two condoms and a little tube of lubricant – stay hard creme – but it was way too expensive. It didn’t work. We wimped out.”
#boss hog#jon spencer#jon spencer blues explosion#cristina martinez#punk blues#alternative rock#ep#vinyl#amphetamine reptile records
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