#'it cheapens his death' i was not here for his death susan

[nyphren]

as someone who has no emotional attachment to cayde whatsoever (i was literally not here for it lol) ppl being bitchy about his fans being happy are really annoying ngl

if your big complaint about him coming back is "god his fans are SO annoying, they are already flooding the tags whaaa".... you are being just as insufferable tbh

[horatio-fig]

The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 1 - The Apostate.  

I never do these ‘My thoughts on’ posts coz I figured no one cares, but Don't knock it til you try it, I guess. Here are some thoughts I had watching it -  

An Alligator ruined that kids little party so I will be calling the covenants new planet ‘Space Florida’ until told otherwise.  

Did Din see they were in trouble and rush in to save them, or did he sit back and watch for a while as he tried to remember if this was part of the ceremony.  

When The Armorer first said the whole ‘bathe in the living waters’ thing and Din was like ‘but there’s no water?’ I thought it was Mandalorian Idiom like ‘when pigs fly’  

I low key hope there are no waters and Din has to realise the only think that makes him Mandalorian are the friends he made along the way or something like that.  

I love the Purrgil (I could do without everyone who recognises them from Rebels acting like they’re the only person who’s seen Rebels however) I just love Star Wars, so anything remotely related to the world of Star Wars and I'll lose my shit. If I see a Loth-cat, I hear the word caf, if they reuse a planet, I love it.  

They gentrified the pirate cove. The bastards.  

Of all the side quests Din has been offered ‘become a Thane of Nevarro, you can even purchase a house’ is my favourite.  

The episode paused to give us a truly batshit ‘let me drink in the school’ Monty Python sketch and I request they do this once an episode.  

I saw a lot of articles demanding to know what happened to Cara Dune but honestly, they all had the same energy as my Grandma asking ‘are you still friends with Susan from your year 9 English class?’ Like, we worked on a group project years ago and last I saw she was posting shitty all lives matter takes on Facebook.  

Considering the First Order is kind of supposed to be a look at this right wing resurgence. (The enemies where once nazis and now they're angsty little white boys who wanna be nazis) it could have been interesting to have Greef be like ‘hey you still friends with Cara?’ and Din go ‘she started saying stuff like ‘I don't always agree with the First Order but every now and then they say what we’re all thinking’ and now we don’t talk anymore”. But, I understand the importance of separating a character from an actor so it’s probably better they don't do that.  

I’m glad they didn’t bring back IG-11. I kind of don’t want them to cheapen his heart wrenching death scene, but this is Star Wars, when has death ever meant anything? Can't wait to have him back.  

90% sure Grogu was trying to eat the Anzellans  

If this season doesn't win an Emmy it’s because they cut out a scene where Din crawled on his hands and knees to get into that droidsmiths.  

I hope Din teaching Grogu how to fly becomes a Chekov's driving lesson and Grogu has to fly the ship to save the day. 

That dogfight with the pirates was pure Saturday morning cartoon and camp and it’s why I love Star Wars. 

I have never been sure if Mandalore was a planet or a planetary system so this episode did kinda clear some of that up. (And it’s always fun to see more Mandalorian places) 

Bo-Katan's hair is giving me Halloween Store Ginger Spice Wig realness and I’m sort of into it. I also love how all the other Star Wars ladies are infamous for constantly changing hairstyles and she just went ‘nah, this is the one’ 

Bo-Katan sitting/slouching/laying on her chair is me every day, sprawled on out the sofa trying to figure out why have back problems. Finally, the representation we need.  

Overall, solid first episode. It kind of felt like when you start up Skyrim again after not playing for a while and just spend the first hour or so just remembering where you got up to.  

I enjoyed the different in tone to this episode. The first episode of Season 1 showed a lone ranger type, mowing down enemies and having no time for people like Greef. In this episode he is much less bloodthirsty and we see him catching up with multiple friends throughout the episode. I understand the need to up the drama and stakes with every season, but it's also nice to see your character get to enjoy the benefits of their success and character development.  

I know some people are mad that the show had no planned ending and will keep going for as long as they want. People have been saying this will make the show ‘aimless’ but the Mandalorian has kind of always been an aimless wander through the galaxy, picking up friends and questing and I think this episode show cased that.  

Finally, I saw a review saying that the Mandalorian premiere fails to match the high bar set by Andor and it pales by comparison. That's like saying winter isn't as warm as summer. They’re different things, that do different jobs in the franchise. (Also, I remember when Andor premiered and there were plenty of revies saying it was no The Mandalorian) 

It’s too cakes! Two amazingly good cakes! Andor has a prison break episode and it's a gut punch of a saga that makes you feel the need to go for walk and appreciate your freedom after you watch it. The Mandalorian had a prison break episode and it was a fun romp of double crossing and cartoon violence. And we get to have both, and it’s great and I just love Star Wars in all shapes and sizes.  

I have more to say but I'm gonna leave it there, I might do one of these for the next episode, but we’ll see. All in all, it was a good solid The Mandalorian episode and I am a fan.  

[bewareofchris]

Help! My plot is stalled!

It’s alright, friends.  We’ve all been there, sitting at a desk or laying in our beds, staring at the screen wondering what in the holy beef jerky has gone wrong because our ability to write has just come to a screeching halt.

We’re uninspired.

We’re unmoved.

We’re incapable of figuring out what happens next.

It’s time like this that our instinct is to grab a machete and start cutting through extraneous characters like a boiled steak knife through Jell-O.  We’re throwing romantic curve balls and car crashes at our protagonist so quickly they don’t have time to recover from one before they’re being traumatized by another.

Sometimes, we think, now is the time to reveal that our beloved Protagonist is actually an alien from another planet who survives by consuming the souls of lap dogs and his insatiable thirst for Pekineses is causing him great distress because the human mate he has chosen for himself has three such delicious morsels.

BUT, never fear my friends.  Here are some ideas to help you get out of that hellish valley of despair and back on track.

Take a break.  Have a snack.  Stretch your limbs.  Go for a walk.  Call a friend who listens to things and explain to them how your story is stupid and you hate it and it won’t move.  You don’t need to let your friend talk at all. Just keep complaining about your story until suddenly you realize what went wrong.

Daydream about what your character would do if you were to suddenly abandon him/her with six kids under the age of 5 at a busy theme park.  Or what he/she would do if they suddenly found themselves trying to talk two very angry kingly types out of starting a civil war because they disagree on which side of their toast to spread butter on.  Put your character in the MOST ridiculous scenario you could possibly imagine.  Make them rationalize their way out of it.  Don’t make it easy.  Six kids under the age of 5 when you’ve never dealt with children is basically hell.  Let your character suffer, and fail, improve and finally win (or at least survive).

Fantasize about beating your characters with a metal pipe.  Imagine their pleas for mercy as they try in vain to remind you that they are fictional constructs and this is not their fault.

Once you’ve cleaned your system of these violent urges toward non-real people, sit back down.  Re-read what you’ve written, if it’s still as bad as you thought it was, here are some actual bits of advice:

Regardless of what Rafiki once said about moving on and forgetting the past, the problem that you are presently experiencing is mostly caused by something that went wrong in the recent events of your story.  Take another look at the latest choices that your main or side characters made and ask yourself if maybe them making A DIFFERENT CHOICE might put your story back to rights.

Take another look at your character and his/her story so far.  Is your character excelling in every facet of his/her life?  Have they faced any obstacles that amounted to more than a mild inconvenience?  Are they generally well-liked?  Respected?  Do they have noticeable faults?  Are these faults presented in a way that allows other people to be annoyed by them?  Have these faults gotten in the character’s way?  If your main character is Too Good and Such Winning or Basically Useless and Always Failing then your story is imbalanced and it can’t move forward because you’re not allowing the protagonist to experience growth and change.

Are there relationships?  Friendships?  Family?  Rivalrys? ROMANCE?  You need relationships of at least 2 different types in a story.  Preferably more.  And they can’t all be the same kind with different names.  And they need to also be developing with your characters.  So Protag makes an unpopular choice with his family but his BFF is loving it and his Romantic Interest thinks it could be good for him.  You have so much material right there!

DO. NOT. MURDER. ANYONE.  Dismemberment is okay if you really want to have to take the time out of your story to focus on the emotional and physical effects that a traumatic event inflicts on your protagonist.

DO NOT MAKE YOUR ROMANTIC INTERESTS HATE EACH OTHER OVER SOMETHING STUPID.  Please.  Please don’t do this.  It’s really just not worth it.  If you make them so angry at one another they’re screaming death threats and then the next day they’re like: I guess we love one another again you cheapen the impact.  If this is a story about overcoming things and growing as people and forgiveness then yes, break them up and get them back together but don’t do it just to have an exciting screaming sequence.  Or do.  I mean, you do you.

Instead of tearing your couple apart, have them get together.  Have them spend a weekend doing silly, childish, amazing things.  Let them smooch, and cuddle, and eat candy together.  Let them waste money they don’t staying overnight in a fancy hotel.

Visit a Significant Character from your Protag’s past because they are in need of comfort and guidance.  Allow them to reminisce about the good old days, and whine about how they don’t feel like they’ll ever be that happy again.  Let your Significant Character hit your Protag with a rolled up newspaper.  STOP BEING A NINNY, PROTAG.  STOP IT IMMEDIATELY.

Give your Protag an unexpected promotion.  You were just a kid that cleaned stables, but we noticed that you’ve got a real way about you that suggests you’re WIZARD MATERIAL.  Build that Protag up, let him feel pride and joy and love.

(And then make the person that promoted him have questionable morals.  Make him vaguely untrustworthy.  Watch your starry-eyed protag battle against a shady man of questionable intentions to see who wins in the end!  But not with the fate of the whole world.  Like the fate of a small village at most.)

Give your Protag the single worst day of his entire life that does not involve physical altercations and/or death.  Maybe he/she pulled a muscle having athletic sex that morning, was distracted by the pain in the shower,got soap in their eyes, limped to the car to find it was out of gas, went to a busy gas station, got coffee that was too cold to enjoy, was late to work, had more work than usual, the pain meds never started working, left his lunch at home, couldn’t buy anything because they ran out of time, had to listen to the Obnoxious Co-Worker next to them complaining about Obnoxious Co Workers Obviously Useless Significant Other for an hour and a half, left work late, forgot about plans to meet up with a friend, got ignored by friend at meet up, comes home and collapses in a pile of self-pity and physical pain and has Significant Other rub their aching pulled muscle and listen to their complaints.

You could do a car wreck, or you could just ruin your Protag’s entire life by having the transmission die in the middle of traffic.

The point I’m trying to get across here is that you have to have a journey that is balanced with ups and downs.  If you’re only going up, or you’re only going down, or you’re not going anywhere at all but straight forward on a 300 mile car trip across a flat surface with no trees, there’s no story there.

You could shoot someone, or you could have your Protagonist do something that injures their relationship with their Best Friend and Confidante.  Then your Protag protests their innocence to the point that it’s obvious they are being Stupid now.  Let them roll around in undeserved pity.  Let nobody else agree with them, and still they refuse to acknowledge they are stupid.  And then let them FINALLY, sort of, a little, admit they were wrong and instead of them offering a half-assed apology and moving on like it never happened, make them work to repair the damage they inflicted.  

Put your Protag in a position where they have to defend a friend/family member or romantic interest in a non-physical way.  Susan from Biology was telling Quentin and Theodore that Protag’s BFF eats his own snot.  And Protag is like OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO GO FIND SUSAN AND SCREAM A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER AT HER.  (or start vicious rumors about her behind her back, and take utterly glee at her humiliation, and then finally think: did I go to far?  I don’t think I went too far.)

DO. NOT. GET. SOMEONE. PREGNANT.  Do you knows what happens when someone’s pregnant?  They end up with a baby.  (Or a miscarriage.)  That pregnancy cannot be handwaved away.  If you’re not here to write about the amazing journey from sex to birth and lifetime of parenting that follows, you are not here to get someone knocked up for the drama.

Sure, let your Protag develop a desperate attraction to someone’s that not the Primary Love Interest but if the Primary Love Interest and Protag already have sexual and romantic tension building between them, maybe let the audience know that this is one of those things where you’re lonely and you want companionship and it’s not really that fair to Someone You Just Met and Now Want to Have Sex With.  Let Primary Love Interest struggle to be supportive.  or let Protag and Primarily Love Interest be mean-spirited little shits and mock the poor Someone You Just Met.

DO. NOT. MURDER. AN. ENTIRE. VILLAGE.  Did a spell go bad?  Did a curse escape?  Did your magical being accidentally create a sixteen foot tall metal horse with a thirst for squirrel hearts?  Remember that wholesale murdering of innocent side characters nobody cares about does effectively nothing for your story.  Don’t kill the entire village.  Let your character freak out because he/she misplaced a curse and ANYONE COULD HAVE IT.  Let them ransack the village developing a reputation as a mad man to find it.  Let him work furiously to develop a cure to the curse and refuse to rest until everyone’s been inoculated against said Curse, and then idk, he finds it on the floor under his work station.  Or, let him realize a curse is missing and he just kind of says nothing while he watches the village to see how effective it is.

SIDE QUESTS, so here me out.  This works best for longer stories and serial type works of fiction, but if your character has only one goal and never any other goals or distractions or purposes or interests you are seriously shooting yourself in the foot.  Don’t focus all your energy on Protag Loves Love Interest.  Protag also has Family Drama.  (Did you hear that Bobert is trying to buy a fucking boat?  A boat!  Why does he need a boat!  He can’t swim.  He’s going to die.  A boat.  A god damn boat.)  Protag has ambitions at work that are being undercut by Evil Boss.  (And anyway, Worst Boss Ever, he just comes over and drops this massive work load on my desk and he smiles at me because the Main Boss is coming tomorrow and my desk will be the only one covered in unfinished work.  What choice do I have?  I can’t quit, I need this promotion, so I stick to it.  I stay late, I work as hard as I can and...)

I know it’s not for everyone but Sex.  Unless your characters are Too Young to have a developed sexuality, that sexuality needs to be in your story.  I mean, if your entire story takes place and Grandma’s funeral, then you probably can skip this one.  But if your story takes place over any length of time, sex and sex-adjacent things need to be brought up.  They don’t need to be graphic.  They don’t need to be gross.  It can be a kiss, or the yearning for a kiss.  It can be a meaningful, flirtatious touch.  It can be the idea of a flirtatious touch.  There can be complaints of a need for flirtatious touches.  To each their own comfort level, but some sense of sexuality and how that is a Driving Urge in your character is also good.

Introduce a Rival.  Go ahead.  Let your uncontested King of Bowling protag meet a New Challenger.  Send them spiral with fear that they may not be top dog anymore.

Force your Protag and Antagonist to form a momentary truce.  Let them come to some understanding of the other that makes their future interactions more difficult.  

Strike your Protag with a Great Unfairness.  They didn’t get the promotion.  They couldn’t pay the bills.  They weren’t selected to be court jester.  They didn’t get to the store on time.  Someone else got to the top of the summit before them and now they’re basically trash to history.

Randomly have your supposed Antagonist turn out to Actually a Decent Guy that you’ve been blaming for all the wrongs in the world because it was convenient and really the actual antagonist can’t be defeated because he/she overpowers you somehow.  But with Actually a Decent Guy and his Surprisingly Nice Friends and you and your friends, you stand a chance.

Push your protagonist into a mud puddle.  Just for shits and giggles, make it so there’s not a dead body in there with him.  Or put one in if you want.  Nothing says ‘happy fun times at plot-stalled high’ like a decomposing corpse where one shouldn’t be.

Break your Protagonists heart, and let there be people that love them.  

Have fun, take your time, embrace the mundane and ridiculous aspects of life.  ALWAYS give your character flaws, and make them aware of them, and let them grow.  That’s the story.  All the other nonsense, the car wrecks and gunshots, and serial killers doesn’t matter in the end.  The reader is looking for Relationships That Matter and Characters that Grow.  Characters that stink of humanity, that reflect something about human beings the reader has met (or the reader themselves).  They want to connect, they want to love your character and they can’t do that if your character is Perfect.  Nobody’s perfect.  Stories stagnate when they can’t grow.  Let your story grow.  Let your characters grow.