#I do not like george lucas so it works well

[swanlakex]

As a irl hairstylist, I can’t get the idea of doing Hayden Christensen’s hair/makeup on set. So here you go. 😁😁😁

Being Hayden Christensen’s film stylist was a job you never thought you’d land.

The industry is so unforgiving to less-experienced, younger hairstylists. Most companies hire a crew of 3-4 ladies, and never look for more until the eldest retires. (Like the Supreme Court) It’s a long cycle, and you were ready to spend years climbing the ladder to do what you loved.

Then your first gig was practically your dream job.

Working as a stylist on George Lucas’ set of Revenge of The Sith, you had your hands full. There were dozens of wigs, hours of SFX makeup, and plenty of styles to do. But you were ecstatic. And better yet, the actors adored you. You were a breath of fresh air from the typical grouchy, 50 year old stylists that complained about their swollen feet and the “new generation”. Not you- you were funny, patient, and talkative. Making friends was definitely the best part of your job.

Natalie was so sweet, and she always talked to you about the latest book she had been nose-deep in. They were interesting, even despite being non-fiction. Plus, she had no problem being your Guinea pig for new styles and ideas you conjured up. She would sit in your chair forever, if she had the time of course. She’s a busy girl!

Ewan opened up to you when you started playing your own music in the wardrobe. Of course, you played oldies for him specifically, but he was surprised that “kids still have taste these days”. Ewan was hilarious too, and a great listener. He would ask about your day, and actually care about the answer. He’d ask questions and tease you for hitting a curb on your way to the set that day. When you finally got him out of the chair, he’d fist bump you before whipping around and marching out the room.

Hayden, however, was a bit of a different story. He wasn’t very talkative, in fact, he seemed a little shy; a strict contrast to his character. Of course, he was very polite, but he kept to himself really. You didn’t mind this, it was always comfortable silence. Plus, his peace really came in handy on those chaotic days. You didn’t really think twice about it until you called Hayden in for wardrobe, and Ewan turned to him, smiled, and poked him. “Oh, come on..” You heard Hayden say back to Ewan with a grin on his face as he headed towards you. What was that about? Weird.

You started with makeup first. It was the scene where Anakin had turned to the dark side, and his face was full-on Sith Lord. It was going to take a bit longer than it usually would. He sits in the chair, and you clip his hair back. “You excited to turn me evil today?” He says with a smile.

You turn around, mixing the foundation onto your hand. “It’s the very reason I woke up today.”

He lets out an airy chuckle, repositioning in his seat to a more relaxed demeanor.

As you pat the base layer on his face, you ask “Have you seen the contacts you’re wearing yet?”

“No I have not..” He says, opening his eyes.

You turn to the table and pick them up, opening the lid and showing him.

“Oh, that’s awesome. I’m gonna look like a lizard.”

You chuckle. “I hope you have experience with contacts, because I do not. So if you need help, we’re a little screwed.”

He waves your concern away. “Nah, it’s all good. I can put ‘em in.”

You continue his base, and as you finish, he speaks again. “Y’know, I never asked.. How long have you been doing this?”

Your eyebrows furrow at the unexpected question. But hey, you’re not complaining. Having a gorgeous man in your chair asking you questions is never a problem to you. “Well, I’ve been doing hair since.. I was a junior in high school.”

His face makes a puzzled look.

“Grade 11.” You explain, knowing he’s Canadian, so he’s probably not familiar with American grades.

“Ahh..” he says. “That’s a long time.”

“Not as long as everybody else around here..”

“But you’re still better than ‘em.” He whispers, not wanting to offend the other artists.

Your eyes widen in shock. You smile. “Why thank you, Mr. Christensen..” you say in a funny, teasing voice.

“Please,” he scoffs. “I’m not forty.”

“I’m aware.” You joke as you bend closer to him with eyeliner in your hand. “Alright, for this you have to stay very still. No sudden movements, ‘Kay?”

He just nods and stares straight ahead. “I won’t even breathe.”

You giggle and shake your head. “Might need you to breathe, Hayden.”

He whispers a small “Okay.” And stays still as you draw small cracks around his eyes. A quarter of the way through, you notice he’s been staring at you this whole time. You keep going, but he never looks away.

“Y’know..” you say softly with a smile on your face “most people close their eyes for this part..”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He closes his eyes.

A minute later, he opens one again.

You stand up from the two of you laughing, grabbing a Q-tip to clean up the edges. “You’re funny today.” You state.

“Am I not funny every day?” He interrogates.

You shrug. “Sorry. Extra funnier today.”

He gives a “Hmph.” And nods.

You finish his makeup, smiling like an idiot the whole time. Now you just have to install the extensions, have him put in the contacts, then he’s done.

“Wig time.” You sing, plucking the hair extensions from the mannequin labeled SKYWALKER.

“Do you want me to close my eyes for this one too?”

You chuckle, and shake your head no.

“Good, cause I like lookin’ at you.”

WHAT THE FUUUUUCKKKKK?? Your stomach was suddenly swarmed with butterflies. No way he’s hitting on you. No way. Either way, you could not fumble this. Act cool.

Hayden’s face was flushed, he was obviously freaking out that he said that too.

“Yeah? Well I’m quite flattered,” you respond. “..Mr. Christensen.” You tease, breaking the awkward air. He chuckles and shakes his head. You clip in his extensions, teasing and roughing them up. “In fact, there’s a get-together Natalie and I are going to later tonight. Plenty of music and people. I’d love if you came.” He looks up to you.

“Just you and Natalie? No Ewan?” You ask.

“Nah, he’s too old.” He jokes. Suddenly, you hear a shout from outside the door.

“I heard that, you little twat!” Ewan cries from the muffled door. Hayden whips around. “What- How long have you been listening??”

You hear a faint trail of giggles travel down the hall. You laugh so hard you have to put your curling iron down. Hayden sighs. Once you recover, you answer.

“I’d love to go. Can you send me the address?”

“Really? Yeah, of course.” You hand him your phone and he types in his number as you finish his hair up. He hands it back to you.

“Thanks. Alright, you can put your contacts in now. The bathroom is right there if you need a sink.” You instruct him as you hand over the contacts. He smiles, nods, and walks into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he comes out.

“Woah!” You call out. “You look..terrifying..”

He smiles darkly, and it’s kinda hot.

“Ah, don’t tell me I’ve changed your mind then.”

You shake your head. “Not in the slightest.”

He grins, hands you back the case, and thanks you as he struts out the door. “Hope to see you there!” He calls out.

“See ya!” As soon as he leaves you watch him walk onto set from a crack in the door. He strides over to Ewan and bends over to whisper something. Ewan’s face lights up and he throws a hand up for a high-five.

20 minutes later, you get a buzz from your phone.

846 York Ave.

Can’t wait. ;)

-Your favorite Sith Lord

[marvelstars]

Anakin and Slavers

"His undoing is that he loveth too much"

George Lucas

One thing that I always liked about George´s work in relation to Anakin and slavery is how out of the left field he and Dave Filoni wrote Anakin´s relationship to the people who owned or saw him as a property at one point or another and yet it makes total sense for his character.

For example kid Anakin has no doubt that Slavery is horrible and at 9 he is actually working towards developing technology to help free his Mom, friends and himself from it. He hates with capital H the fact those people have control over the life and death of other people but at the same time he has great compassion and kindness which his mother helped nurture. This along with the fact that Watto was the only adult male figure who was around during his early chilldhood, this complicated his feelings towards slavers in a very tragic way.

Anakin feared Watto´s violence and didn´t for a moment doubt he would have been willing to sell off his mother or him if the customer got to a big enough price but at the same time he listens to his advice when he travels to the dune sea to do his work with the jawas and his pov is almost as important as his Mom´s, in the novelization of TPM Anakin remembers not to talk to strangers or to get close to Tuskens Raiders camps thanks to Watto´s advice.

So in Anakin´s mind, Watto is someone he fears but also someone he takes advice from, respects to a point, sometimes gets sassy to and actually listens to almost as a father figure BUT at the same time he has no doubt he would activate the killing chip if he tried to escape.

Pain/abuse/fear mixed with care/advice(sounds familiar?) Anakin knows slavery is awful but he can´t help but see Watto as a person because of who Anakin is, Annie is a kind and understanding person and to point may justify Watto as a "Man of bussines" and "Not as bad a other masters" "It could be worse" but he definitely doesn´t trust him in the same way he does his mother, she is blood, she is family. He and Mom are a team.They shared their secrets.

The first time Anakin saw Watto again after being freed, he was a Jedi with training, almost a knight and the first thing he does to the guy who beat him and his Mom some years ago is to ask him if he can help with the ship parts Watto is working on because he noticed Watto is struggling and his bussines is falling down compared to how it was when Anakin was a kid. When Watto noticed who Anakin was he didn´t reject him and accepted his congratulations but keep himself appart, hoping to learn about his mother whereabouts.

When Watto told Anakin he sold Shmi, Anakin doesn´t have a reaction, he takes Watto´s justification of "I am sorry Ani but bussines are bussines and anyway the person who bought her freed her and married her" Anakin doubts it´s as good a picture as Watto is talking about but he takes his justification and leaves.

When he meets Owen, Beru and Cliegg he sees they are indeed nice people and the reason for his mothers suffering is something completely different that they were not able to stop so he doesn´t blame them for her fate. When Anakin lost his mother it was only natural for him to seek a family, someone he could share how he really felt and his secrets, he could not be part of the Lars family but Padme was willing to love him so she became his new confirmed family, right along with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka but while he had to show himself different to them, he didn´t had to do that with Padme, just like he did with his mother.

In the clone wars Anakin shows again this complex view of slavers with Queen Miraj Scintel, the cartoon goes out of it´s way to show she looked at him as pretty property and he didn´t let her forget that and actually it was strongly suggested he may have been raped by her at some point to keep safe Obi-Wan, Rex, Ahsoka as well as the people they wanted to save while he got enough soldiers to stage their rescue. Anakin had a plan the whole time just as he did as a kid so he keep his cool even when he saw another slave choose suicide over keep being under the control of Scintel. Yet in the end when the Queen was killed by Count Dooku Anakin felt sorry for her, he could not help it.

So this mix of rejection/anger/hate/disgust towards slavers mixed with pity/understanding which is something that was part of what made Anakin a good person gets used agaisn´t him in his relationship with Palpatine.

He first shows himself as the father figure Anakin thought he could find in Qui-Gon before he died a better father figure than Watto had been, a father figure that didn´t reject this title like ObiWan did, Palpatine did this to get his trust as a young child and later young adult and then he showed himself as the real sith master he actually was, Palpatine knew that Anakin wasn´t a stranger to be treated as property by people who showed themselves as good advicers or somehow not as bad as others despite their actions. So Anakin´s initial compassion, kindness and understanding for people that abused him is played agaisn´t him to make him fall to the darkside and chain himself again to another worse master who didn´t just seek to use his skills and body but who wanted his soul as well.

And the same reasons why Anakin justified Watto at first when he was a young kid also applied to Palpatine, he may be a sith but he ran the Republic better than those corrupt politicians, he isn´t a perfect Emperor but in Padme´s absence he is better than the alternatives. He isn´t as bad as a master and anyway I deserve this because I fell to the darkside and nobody can come back from that, if he abuses me I got this coming because I choose this and he still teaches me the ways of the force, he rescued me from Mustafar when Obi-Wan left me to die and he didn´t have to, he is all I have left.

So once Anakin´s voice died down Vader was left with many reasons to say to Palpatine "What´s your bidding my master?" because in his mind master isn´t a word that contradicts father and Palpatine became his father in all but name, this makes George´s words about Anakin fatal flaw being the fact he loved too much make complete sense and it´s a tragedy.

[mortuarywriting]

Falling into Place

Ao3 Link - [First] - [Next Chapter ->]

All things considered this isn't what you were expecting to wake up to when you went to bed. One minute you're on your phone, trying to pass out, and the next? You're here. You've had some interesting greetings in your life, but dropping about six feet and having twelve guns leveled at your face? That takes the cake

Warnings:

Reader Insert, Plus-Size Reader, The Author Regrets Everything, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Isekai, canon divergence Look we're gonna dig into the implications of omegasverse changing bits and pieces of history as well as addressing whatever the FUCK is happening as CoD's history. Idk man Godzilla is canon and nobody bats an eye at that fact and you think I'm gonna be normal about that? No

You could be having a worse day, you think, as you stare at the interrogation table you're cuffed to. They could've shot you the second you fell the six feet from the sky into a random army base. That's a very real thing that could've happened.

But no, you just had a dozen guns pointed at you in one moment and a slew of questions you didn't have satisfying answers for.

No, you had no idea how you got there. You'd been in bed tooling around on your phone and then you were falling.

They asked who you worked for, and were not impressed by your mundane answer. You didn't work for some pmc or intelligence organization. You asked them to their faces if they thought you could pass a PT test if you tried. Not that they answered or appreciated your point, mind.

It was only after you gave them whatever identifying information you had that things got… spicy.

"I would love to tell you what this designation of yours is if you tell me what you mean. Is it like a classification of civilian versus enlisted? Is it physical? Is it your horoscope? I don't know what I don't know," you explain again for the Nth time. You didn't wanna play twenty questions but here you fuckin were, captive audience and all.

The man asking you questions had lost his charming good cop look. He was getting more and more annoyed on this one, "your designation," a demand, not a question and sure as shit not an answer.

"Again, would love to tell you! I don't know what you mean! Feels like some kinda Star Wars thing," you grumble the last bit to yourself but the man cocks his head.

His eyes narrow, "what are… Star Wars, you said?"

You blink owlishly, "beg pardon?"

"Star War. Clarify."

It's your turn for your brow to furrow, and furrow it does, "Star Wars? As in the multi-billion dollar franchise created by George Lucas and eventually sold to Disney," your tone is questioning, just shy of asking if the guy lived under a rock but his expression didn't let up and the last thing you needed was bad cop, so you continued, "the story of what happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? The political space series of movies versus Star Trek's more scientific and discovery based longstanding TV show? Nine major movies and the Clone Wars before Disney sunk their talons in. Like yeah we got more shows and movies that expanded the universe but they also cut out decades of book contributions in their acquisition and that kinda sucked. But yeah, that Star Wars?"

"Nine movies," his tone is disbelieving, and now it's your turn for your eyebrows to raise, "can you name them?"

You nod, "well yeah. Do you want them in episode order or release?"

His brows furrow, "did they not release in order?"

"In a sense? Three trilogies, 4-5-6 back in the late 70s early 80s, then 1-2-3 in the late 90s early 00s, and 7-8-9 through the teens. So order, yes, just… not a cohesive one."

"Release, then," he leaned back and crossed his arms, a position you'd love to mimic if you weren't cuffed to the table for… an indeterminate period of time now, actually.

"A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi-"

"Woah now, empire? What's a jeddy?"

You give him a blank look, trying very hard to mask your disbelief as you look between him and the mirror behind him. You look at your reflection, take a deep breath, and- "sir would it be easier for you to maybe check the internet?"

He seemed to bristle, nose flaring and looking at you expectantly.

You just… kinda sat there. You tapped your fingers together on the desk and kept the eye contact he was intent on. It took a good minute and him getting progressively pissier before you simply ask, "would you like the other movies now?"

You didn't expect an explosion of movement from the man. He downright snarled and slammed his hands on the table as he burst to his feet, the sudden change sending his chair screeching back before falling with a clatter. You leaned as far back as your cuffed hands would allow, eyes wide and a panic rising.

Both of you turned to look at the door when it slammed open with a barked, "Williams!" 

The man who opened it reared back a bit, "Christ, layin' it on a bit thick," he groused, his tone sounding more like someone chastising a teenager for using too much Axe body spray. He smoothed his posture back into something casual as he fanned the air dismissively with a hand, "cap wants you to take a walk."

Your interrogator- Williams, apparently- stares at the man in the door, the two locking eyes before the one in the door straightens from his purposely relaxed posture. You watch the both of them, noting the shoulders tensing as the two just. Staring at each other? Eventually the guy who'd been grilling you looked away and stormed out, the man in the doorway letting him slip out easily enough before turning a charming look back to you.

He took a minute to fan the door a few times to get newer, blissfully cool air in before he entered the room, "sorry 'bout him. He really did a number in here," the new guy tsked before closing the door quietly behind himself.

Your brow furrowed even as you slowly relaxed a bit, had this Williams guy like… farted or something? A nice quirk of ventilation keeping you from smelling something abhorrent? Either way you simply shrug as he walks in and tips the chair back up, sitting and giving another reassuring smile, "how you doing, love?"

You opened and closed your mouth a few times before simply settling on, "I'm a bit… whelmed? This has been," you give as vague a rolling gesture as you can without your cuffs rattling too badly, "a lot? And I have no idea what just set him off either?"

It's the man before you's turn to quirk a brow, "no idea?"

"If I knew the answers to his questions I'd've given 'em by now. I don't, though, and then he just started staring? And hell I just thought it was some kinda macho 'I can stare the truth out of you,'" you pitched your voice lower and pushed your shoulders out for a second to mimic the douchebag behavior before settling, "so I kept eye contact because I'm so out of my depth I have no reason to lie at all and now…" you trail off, gesturing around the room, "all that."

The man nods slowly, "alright love, could you tell me about the last five years?"

Your brows furrow, "oh fuck, 2019 was five years ago wasn't it. God, time is an illusion. Anyway, you want what I was doing leading up to and through the pandemic?"

You think he might've startled for a second but he simply moved to scratch his chin, "mhmm. Just your thoughts on the last five years is all."

So… you ramble. Because he was nice and not prodding or asking weird questions. You talk to him about your job before the pandemic, how people thought covid was just a flu until the death tolls kept climbing, how tons of governments dropped the ball on a local or country-wide level and how that kicked back onto your life, and then the absolute crapshoot of the last election cycle, the shitty 'oh no this is the new normal everything is fine' behavior that has lead to surges and cycles of a fucking plague and so on. He simply nodded, gave some sympathetic hums and winces appropriately at your experiences.

"And did you go back and watch Star Wars through that? Or other things Disney owned?"

And, well, that was a weird way to phrase it but you shrugged, "the mouse is just shy of a monopoly and not one that anybody can take that down so… yeah, I guess? They kept putting shows out and expanding their Star Wars universe so that's been kinda neat to watch but not just them, no. Couple other games and stuff like that to keep me busy, too," you kinda handwave and shut up because panic rambling to MILITARY PERSONNEL is probably not your smartest move in hindsight. Especially when you don't know his name. A+, self.

You tap your fingers against the metal table as he looks at you, "and you said covid has a long term effect of ruining people's senses of smell and taste?"

You nod slowly, "yeah, dude? It's one of the biggest warning signs for most people? Like if everything starts tasting like it was made by a middle class white mom who keeps shoving random letters in her kids names you should swab? That kinda shit?"

What rock has this guy been living under? You were pretty sure the military were supposed to be way more familiar with this shit all things considered, but you've been wrong before.

It was his turn to give you a bit of a wide eyed look before he poorly covers a laugh, "alright, that's fair. I need to go talk with my captain," he hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the window, which didn't surprise you that there had been people back there. He offers a reassuring smile as he stands, humming idly as he pushes the chair back in. He pauses mid-step, "you mentioned that there were cards…?"

You find yourself nodding slowly, "yeah it was important and you couldn't fly or go to certain places if you didn't have one for a while. Should still have a picture of mine buried on my phone," you really didn't wanna get another first-round of covid shots, you REALLY didn't wanna repeat the 24 hours of suck for no reason.

"Cool, thanks," he flashes another charming grin before he slides out of the room.

You lean back in your chair, what an odd guy. Nice though.

-------

"Right," Gaz says as he opens the door to Price and Ghost, "either our mystery guest is off her nut or she's legitimately from somewhere and somewhen else."

Ghost and Price look at each other before turning back to Gaz, this… complicated matters.

Well, it's not like you hadn't given them information to identify yourself. They'd dig up who you were one way or another.

-------

You stare blankly as the nice man from before gives you a sympathetic look, "what do you mean I'm dead?"

Behind him is a guy you're not sure if he's just fuckoff huge or if he's just moderately huge and it's forced perspective.

You don't think it's forced perspective.

You are absolutely trying not to panic spiral.

You are absolutely doing a horrible job at that.

"Well," he opens the file before him and there's a news article, proudly proclaiming "Locals Die in Horrible Freak Accident" like that's not some form of you that was looking like some smear on the pavement, "there's this. Fingerprints match up. Can check for dental if you're really curious."

"Were there even any teeth left after that," you mumble as you take and read the offered article. Seven people were involved, the pictures used are mostly flattering. Hell, you almost don't mind what pic they used for an alternate you but… "that's certainly not the pic I would've wanted. Maybe this me had different tastes?"

You take the time to actually read through the article. It's not helping because for as much as you stare at the page you're not absorbing any information. Some form of detachment, if this was really you? You'd died. A different you but a you nonetheless. You died and you're reading how it happened. There was a lot to unpack in all this and you just needed to put the suitcase away for now. You'd much rather throw it away at this rate.

You were rapidly coming to the understanding that you and Toto were not in Kansas anymore, and there wasn't a convenient yellow brick road to get yourself back home. No easy way to get the hell out of Dodge either. Was it Dodge or the O.K. Corral that was in Kansas? No the O.K. Corral wasn't in Kansas- Dodge was though, that's right. 

This analogy was getting away from you and some part of you figured this was just your brain trying to protect yourself but… wait, wasn't this a metaphor? There wasn't 'like' or 'as' or goddammit not again.

You recognize some names here and there but largely everyone involved were perfect strangers. The article doesn't cover if it would've been slow or quick. You hope for the smear that it was quick. Smears like that don't happen slowly, right? Well, not unless it's like a dramatic slide down a window, but not usually across pavement like that.

Still not sure how you feel about all of it. Bit morbid being confronted with your mortality like that.

Certainly answered a lot of questions about your theoretical passing you never thought about. Like if the obituary for you in what you know to be your own home and world is just as… really kinda just mediocre as this. Have you really done nothing of note for an obituary? Damn.

You kept pouring over the article, each pass bringing new words into focus that help connect the picture a little bit, but… Something repeated in the article made you pause, "two alphas, four betas, and an omega?" 

There was no decent way to ask about that. Any questions invoked from here would border into dangerous territory better kept between yourself and a private browser history. You knew what you were about but there was no fucking way.

"Their designations," the nice man whose name you still hadn't caught explains, "mostly explaining their secondary gender."

You look at him owlishly. You pray to whatever God might be listening that you wake up shortly. Or that the earth below your feet opens up and swallows you. Whichever comes first, the mortification will snipe you otherwise.

"Please tell me this is an elaborate joke at my expense," you are very quiet as you are trying to get really cool with a lot of things really quickly.

"Negative," the big fucker in the back practically growled and you knew that voice would do things to you if you weren't half stepped out of your own body. 

You missed whatever his followup was but your brow furrowed when you checked the date on the article, "I've been dead for months? That…" you let the paper fall from your hands. Everything about this is wild at best and very overwhelming at worst. 

A lot of this qualified as worst.

You look up at the two, missing the odd look they shot at each other as you try to pull yourself back together, "so now what? You've got a not-a-smear of me that fell from the sky onto a secure military base, and where I'm from we didn't have," you paused to gesture between the paper and the two soldiers, "dynamics was it? That was just a fanfiction special."

"Fanfiction."

The way he said it was so carefully neutral you paused, "oh my god without Star Trek to popularize fanfiction and the fan community, how has fandom evolved? Is fanfiction a thing- well, yes, it does fanfics have been a thing since Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy and even before- well, the question is more if it's still popularized? Are there still the wattpad fics of- I am getting so off track. What exactly is the next step?"

You look from the nice man to the big fucker and back, neither saying anything but looking at you with careful blankness.

You felt like you were being weighed and measured in their eyes.

You hoped to anyone listening that you weren't found wanting at least. Not when you're in the shit situation it looks like you ever so increasingly fell into.

"Considering I'm. Not smear. And very much not from here? Are blanks a thing? Or is that what a beta is I'm," you trail off, brow furrowing, "fuzzy. On the whole thing. The flavor of understanding, dynamics, and population skew tended to be dependant on the author's level of horny."

The did get a bit of a snort from the pretty one before you, the one in the back tilting his head just so as the pretty one spurred you on, "okay please don't take this the wrong way, you have given me nothing to go on but A/B/O and-" a finger was raised in question to that, you quickly explaining, "the fanfic shorthand for the universe without being a mouthful. Anyway- I've seen population numbers being roughly the same across the board, I've seen alphas and omegas at roughly 1% of the population of society on either end, I've seen alphas at about 5% and omegas at 1%- those ones are usually the most horny I swear.

"And it's all over the board, no consistency- sometimes it's betas are infertile, sometimes they're the straightman to the comedy that's an alpha and omega trying to woo each other without being too horny to function. Sometimes it's a sliding scale where being beta just means you're more the more middle-ground regulated hormonally with alphas and omegas being the opposing ends of a spectrum. Can you please say something and give me a fucking break because my panic rambles are probably like. Some kinda prejudiced. I'm still not over the 'I'm supposed to be a smear on the ground we don't even have dental images of to confirm who it is anymore' nugget you dropped on me. I think I'm doing well for this"

You would rather not tell them that as soon as you're out of this box of a room you were gonna be curled up in a ball and unabashedly weeping. That was none of their business.

The pretty one gave you what you're sure was supposed to be a reassuring smile but the quiet stretched just a bit too long. You looked from one to the other before leaning forward, "is this supposed to be soothing in some way? Because it's just a bit of an extended awkward silence and that's uh-"

It was the big one in the back's turn to give an amused snort, the pretty one looking bashful, "right, sorry, we uh-"

You jerk a bit, "wait, was that supposed to be some scent thing," you really didn't wanna say pheromones and potentially dig yourself into a deeper, more awkward hole based on Horny Pseudoscience.

Pretty rubbed the back of his neck, "something like that. You really couldn't smell anything?"

You know the exact Face you're making. It's very much your 'I have told you this and I'm getting tired of having to repeat it' face. You can tell he clocks it but for the record, because to your mortification this has to be recorded, you simply give a succinct, "no, I haven't smelled anything. Not from you, not from him," you jerk your head towards the big fucker, "and not from douchebag from be- Williams! His name was Williams. Nothing. Really had no clue why you were fanning the door when you came in."

You sigh, rubbing the heels of your palms into your eyes, "okay. Assuming I'm not about to be put into past tense a second time. Do we have any idea what popped me out here?"

The sentences are stilted, you know you're getting more rattled the longer you're here but sue you alright it's been the worst six hours of your life here.

They just continue to look at you, pretty keeping a polite almost customer service look as big one just stares unceasingly.

"Right. Okay. Am I going to be reintegrated to society or is this," you gesture around the little room as much as you can, "looking like my home for the foreseeable future."

No change in what you can see of either's expression, and you just sag. Deep breath in, deep breath out, "cool. Alright. Well. I know nothing of how biology is altered here, I'm not sure how that has impacted changes throughout history, and frankly I don't know what your pop culture has done. I'm assuming math and written languages are largely the same but in all fairness I don't know what I don't know."

You just stare quietly at the table for a bit longer before looking back at the two of them, "is there anything else you need because I can feel the freakout creeping up and while I know there's no real privacy, uh…"

The pretty one looked back to the big one, at some point you're sure you'll get some sort of names but for now? Now you watch the big one nod, the pretty one give you a polite smile and some vaguely polite bullshit your brain is swiftly going too far out to hear.

You only hope that whoever is behind the mirror is polite enough to look away as you put your head down on the table and give yourself the opportunity to, just this once, cry. As a treat.

[Next Chapter -> ]

[dotthings]

Congrats to the fans of the wee woo show. I don’t go here but it makes me happy to witness how this arc for Evan Buckley got to bloom and I’m happy because I hope this reflects another shift in the TV industry.

For some media commentary context for you: ABC network is owned by Disney. Fox network was owned by Rupert Murdoch. So I can see how the network change for 911 can easily be a factor on how this got greenlit, after years of creator Tim Minear’s intention to work in hints, on the off chance he could take it there. (I don’t go here, but I did my reading). Oliver Stark who plays Buck also revealed he's been for it and couldn't say anything, until he was sure they could do it, until it aired and was out there. (*steeples fingers*)

For further context, Bob Iger—with George Lucas’ vocal support—just fended off a right wing coup on the Disney board from the kinds of people (like Peltz) who complain “why do we need so many female leads” “why do we need movies with all Black leads.” While it doesn’t mean Disney is no longer an evil megacorp, I’m pointing out that its CEO defended inclusive Disney brand content to the shareholders and the board, as well as dismantling the idea that it can’t be entertainment while being diverse.

The ripple of this goes outside of the wee woo show fandom. I’m seeing the joy on my dash from people who don’t watch the show or don’t watch it regularly, as well as from people who have been watching a long time and noticed things and realized there was a progression and it was there all along, and I know how much this must mean to a lot of people. With the world being how it is, with what people are facing inside the US from the far right, in their real lives.

It’s very hopeful in general for inclusion levels on a major network TV show, owned by a big evil megacorp. Representation matters.

Also I'm aware the wee woo show already had a queer couple, plus it's already an intersectional inclusive series, that’s great.

There shouldn't be limits placed on inclusion though. “But you already have X” shouldn't be weaponized to tell people to shut up. There is no “enough” or “too much” when it comes to inclusion. While I'm not for undermining the inclusion that's there, I've seen that weaponization used with a series that hasn't been great on inclusion, and I've seen that weaponization used for 911, which is. It's a sus argument.

Indirect and unintentional as it is, also bi Buck shut down every concern troll, every gaslight, every denial, every rationale I've ever seen people deploy against bi Dean. Everything from people who don’t understand what bi actual means—“but he likes girls so he can’t be bi”—to “but he wasn’t declared bi from the start of the show so he can’t”—yes he can and the wee woo show just did. On one of the original big three networks. Or people who say it would "ruin the character." Really? “But he’s an action hero”—so what? Evan Buckley is a hero, Dean is a hero, both badass action heroes. “People who see this as canon are delusional”—Evan Buckley went O RLY? Not so delusional now, is it.

Evan Buckley avenged bi Dean.

It’s self-evident. It’s right there. Different show, different network, but the concepts are familiar, the situation has a certain familiarity. This turn of events on an ABC show didn't just make bi Dean fans valid. bi Dean fans were always valid, the bi Dean reading was always valid. But I appreciate how much what happened on the wee woo show bonked people with a truth stick, about self discovery, character arcing, queer readings, queer coding, and the validity of merely noticing things.

[heyclickadee]

If there’s any argument for Tech dying or needing to be dead that I’m tired of—and I’m tired of all of them—it’s the idea that he must have died because he fell a long way. (Obligatory disclaimer that I’m still arguing that Tech is alive and was never actually killed off in the first place, and that that wasn’t dropped but just hasn’t played out yet before moving on):

Now, if Star Wars were a documentary? Sure. I’d buy it to some degree. I’d think that whoever was responsible for the documentary was remiss in not sending out a search party, since real life people have survived falls from upwards of 30,000 feet before, but on balance I’d think that he was likely, though not certainly, dead.

But Star Wars isn’t a documentary. It’s fiction, and genre fiction at that—a caricature of reality which abides by its own internal rules, shifting from story to story, and where both injury and likelihood of death alike are determined by narrative need rather than real world fatality. Short falls kill main characters in fiction all the time. Not always, there’s a degree of plot armor in many cases, but when they do, we see (or “see,” if it’s a written work) the immediate result. Perhaps not as graphically as it would appear in real life, perhaps with some artistic license and discretion depending on who’s watching, but we see it all the same.

Long falls, however, almost never kill any named characters in genre fiction. Not unless we immediately see the body afterwards. Even George Lucas—who, bless his heart, has some good ideas and some understanding of storytelling but has never thought a single implication all the way through and isn’t actually a very good writer—knew that. That’s why he cut Maul in half before throwing him into a pit. And that still wasn’t enough to keep him dead when Lucas changed his mind a decade or so later.

The utility of a long fall where you cut away before impact is that anything can happen in the gap the audience doesn’t get to see. In fact, the higher the fall, the more time the character falling has to do something about it. And what could they do? Well, the story of the bad batch, if we start from where it began in season seven of TCW, actually presents us with a number of different options for a character who found themselves in that position, including:

1. Use their collection of animal calls to summon some giant flying reptiles and ride them to safety (On the Wings of Keeradaks, Tech’s idea)

2. Just use the force to jump to safety and hope someone lies about them falling to their deaths dying (Aftermath, Caleb, can we talk about how “Where’s X?” and “X didn’t make it,” combo happens in exactly two places in the script for the whole show and one is Hunter lying to Cross about Caleb and the other is Hunter talking to Omega about Tech?)

3. Fall a long way in something that’s going to roll around and take most of the impact for them (Reunion, Tech’s idea again)

4. Just don’t die. Or I guess hit a bunch of things on the way down and hope their special armor protects them (War Mantle, Hunter, who doesn’t even break a rib, listen it would actually be flat out stupid for Tech to die in a fall in a situation that’s directly parallel (the terrain, Omega screaming at everyone to go back) to the one we watched Hunter walk away from. We watched it happen once; why should we believe it this time? The only difference is that we didn’t follow Tech all the way down.)

5. Hope the box they’re falling in has emergency thrusters to slow them down (Spoils of War, Omega’s idea, Tech was impressed and I’m sure remembers it, I mean seriously are we actually thinking Tarkin’s secret gondola doesn’t have some kind of safety back up in case it malfunctions with him inside? *Maybe* it doesn’t, but it very well might.)

6. Hope there’s water at the bottom after they fall through the mists (The Crossing, Omega and Tech. Funny how at least some of these involve Tech. Funny how there’s mists like in Plan 99.)

7. Have someone catch them on the way down before they hit the ground, which may be lava (Hunter catching Omega, Retrieval. You can almost count Phee catching Hunter and Hunter catching Phee in Entombed, I just don’t because they don’t fall first)

8. Grab onto something on the way down into the void (CX-2, Extraction)

9. Fall into water again (Also CX-2, Extraction)

This isn’t about actual survivability, by the way. The characters involved in most of these would have likely died if it happened in the real world, especially the ones with a water landing, but Star Wars doesn’t care about that. It will blow people up and light them on fire and decide they’re fine. Physical reality and how any of these would actually go (badly, they would go badly) is irrelevant.

The point here is about establishing audience expectations. We’ve got a situation in which a character whose body neither we nor his family ever see supposedly dying via a method the story itself—not even the conventional rules of the genre, the specific story being told—sets up as survivable. Never mind that “no body, no death” is a genre convention, never mind that “Faster” goes out of its way to set up that Tech works in milliseconds and that if anyone can find a way out of it, he can.

People watching are handed a set of survived long falls which set up the expectation that this fall could have been survivable, too, even if they’re not picking up on it. It’s just enough for people to go, hmmm, that’s weird, and not fully accept it. Which makes it more likely for people to accept that he survived instead if he should come back.

tl;dr: This is the implausible survival franchise. It’s a feature, not a bug, and any arguments about gravity or what would kill someone for real don’t matter.

[chaos0pikachu]

Two Flavors of Japanese (BL) Cinema

Recently I came across a post that proposited that Japanese cinema hadn't changed since the 1950's and came in, essentially, two types. 

Let's discuss that. 

I can’t go into the history of all Japanese cinema in a singular blog post like that’s just not possible, there’s literal books and classes you can take on this subject, and I will be linking further reading down at the bottom of the post so you can do just that. 

This fact alone, should already disprove the point that Japanese cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950’s. Other than the fact that like, Japan isn’t a static society that is forever unchanging because human beings do not work like that. 

Which is why I’m writing this essay at all. 

I love cinema, I love storytelling and filmmaking. And, frankly, I may not be an expert but I am annoying. I own that. 

Japanese cinema has held influence over many directors, writers, animators, and so forth. 

Just watch this playlist of Sailor Moon references across various cartoons. Or how Satoshi Kon influenced the work of Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan. Or how James Cameron and the Wachowskis were both influenced by Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 Ghost in the Shell. And then there’s Akira Kurosawa who’s been cited as a major influence for directors like: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese and a slew of others.

I want folks to know there’s a slew of amazing films from Japan and that distilling the industry - the blood, sweat and tears of its creators - to a strict dichotomy of this or that, either/or is disrespectful at best and xenophobic at worst. 

It’s also just a shame because, like, guys there’s so many great films from Japan! There’s also probably a lot of great live action shows from Japan but I’m not super knowledgeable about them - I mainly watch anime so that’s not a great metric in terms of Japanese television - so I’m just talking about films in this post. 

Ok so main points I’m gonna address: 

Japanese Cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s 

Japanese film style falls under an extreme dichotomy of cinematic/sweeping (described as “atmospheric”) or cartoonish/slapstick (described as “live action manga”)

Baby does any of this have to do with BL? (no, but it IS more gay than you think)

With these four films: The Hidden Fortress (1958), Lady Snowblood (1973), Gohatto (1999), and Kubi (2023). 

I picked these four because they’re all “period pieces” taking place feudal Japan - or with the aesthetics of feudal Japan, The Hidden Fortress nor Lady Snowblood aren’t based on actual historical events, like Gohatto and Kubi are, however loosely, but take place in an amorphous 15th to 18th century Japan - and I think they strongly show the development of this singular genre in Japanese cinema. 

Plus the latter two films, Gohatto and Kubi, are gay as fuck and I know my people. 

[you can also read this post on this blog post which includes additional links as tumblr has a limit and for easier readability as this is a long post]

The Hidden Fortress 

Released in 1958, directed by Akira Kurosawa it’s probably the most well-known film on the list. It’s a film that exists within the “Golden Age” of Japanese cinema alongside films like Kurosawa’s own Seven Samurai (1954), Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) and Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953). 

It was also the era where, after the American Occupation post-WWII a boom of movie distribution took place with new film studios such as: Toho (y’all know them from any Godzilla movie ever made), Toei (if you know One Piece you know Toei but they’ve done a ton of films both animated and live action) and others. 

The story is straight forward, two peasants, Matashichi and Tahei who bicker their asses off like an old married couple the entire film, happen upon a Very Hot Man with the Only Thighs Out (Toshiro Mifune was a BABE) named Rokurota and his companion a icy young woman named Yuki. 

Matashichi and Tahei have just escaped like, a ton of ~circumstances that include failing to become samurai, being broke as fuck, getting captured and forced into servitude - don’t worry that lasted like 6 hours tops - and then find gold hidden in a stick on a mountain. 

Turns out Rokurota has all the stick gold they could want! So they team up neither realizing Rokurota and Yuki are actually part of a clan that’s been recently wiped out and they’re on the run from a rival clan who has wiped theirs out. Yuki is the princess of said clan and it’s only survivor, while Rokurota is her samurai general and retainer. 

Tahei and Matashichi, living in ignorance of these facts, try to steal the gold away from them because they live that hustle life until the end when all is revealed and Yuki grants them both with a gold piece to share (this is a really big piece of stick gold). 

There’s other things that happen, like a fight scene between Rokurota and rival clan member, Yuki owning every single scene she in - I fucking love her - but that’s the gist. 

The story is, again, pretty uncomplicated, it balances the comedy of Tahei & Matashichi with the stoicism of Rokurota and Yuki well, and all the acting is strong. In terms of its film style, by modern day standards it’s not especially “cinematic” Kurosawa doesn’t favor fanetic camera movements, his camera is often very still and the movement he employs is often in individual character ticks, and/or background set pieces. This film has a lot of great set pieces. 

Kurosawa didn’t employ camera techniques like panning, he doesn’t really do extreme close ups, there's no swooping shots or fancy tricks, I’d say a majority of the camera shots in The Hidden Fortress are a combination of mid, and wide, with a few mid-close ups. One thing to notice is Kurosawa’s use of scene cuts; instead of a cut he used pan sweeps to change scenes. If you’ve ever watched a Star Wars film you know exactly what I mean. 

The Hidden Fortress, first and foremost, is an action adventure film. It has more in common tonally with Top Gun Maverick or Star Wars A New Hope, in that it's straight forward, sincere, and grand in scale, grounded by a very honest set of characters who are strongly motivated. 

I feel like in modern day discussions we association “action/adventure” films in a sorta of negative way; this is probably due, in part, to the oversaturation of the high budget blockbusters of the last ten years - oh MCU, how you’ve fallen - that are overly bombastic, overly complicated, overly connected, and the root of what audiences connect with - the characters - tends to be lost. 

Scott Lang's motivations in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are to protect his teenager daughter and the family he's built, which are simple, strong, and relatable character motivations. However, they got lost in the conventions of the plot, the frantic energy of the film, the simple amount going on around Scott that his motivations become less a central focus and thus he becomes small within his own film. We, the audience, become distant and it grows more difficult to connect with what's happening. This can still work on some level, the Fast and Furious franchise isn't successful because it's sophisticated, but the Fast-chise has embraced it's cheesier conventions and spectacle, while blockbusters like the MCU's output, simple juggle to much all at once. It also helps that while the cast keeps growing in the Fast and Furious films, there's still less than ten characters you have to actually know and care about. To fully understand and connect with the characters of The Marvels, you have to watch Ms. Marvel and WandaVision on Disney+ and the task becomes more akin to homework than simply the enjoyment of watching a movie. 

The epic scale grows so large it feels daunting, rather than exhilarating. 

I think this is why a film like Winter Soldier, more so than most MCU films of the last decade, has continued to be a fan favorite of the universe and of blockbuster lovers whether you are a fan of the MCU or not. At its root, Winter Soldier is character driven, with deeply motivated characters,  which is what makes the action and adventure aspects stick. 

The Hidden Fortress is similarly character driven with a simple and straightforward story that is about honor, loyalty, a princess, a loyal samurai/knight, rebuilding a decimated clan, and two “normal” characters to keep everything grounded and relatable. Which in turn, helps make it timeless. While the filmmaking itself isn't grandiose as what modern audiences may be used to, Kurosawa knows how to direct a scene and more than that, direct his actors. Mifune is commanding as always, but for me, it's really actress Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki that steals the movie. 

Lady Snowblood

Released in 1973 and based on a manga of the same name by Kazou Koike and Kazuo Kaminura, directed by Toshiya Fujita, Lady Snowblood and its sequel Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance are considered cult classics. Lady Snowblood, famously, is Quentin Tarantino’s inspiration for his Kill Bill saga (like, a freaking lot). 

Lady Snowblood is a part of the era of “new wave” and “pink films” that were emerging in Japan and elsewhere. Stateside I think a close equivalent to both the style and content of Lady Snowblood and other films like it are exploitation films. In fact while watching Lady Snowblood I couldn’t help but get exploitation film vibes just off the aesthetics and thematics of the film itself. 

To break down Lady Snowblood’s plot it goes like this: Yuki is tasked with getting revenge on four people who had a hand in her father, and older brother’s murder, and her mother’s rape (which is seen on screen so warning for y’all this is def a Does the Dog Die movie). 

Yuki’s mother kills one of her rapists, but is imprisoned before she can kill the others and while in prison she purposely gets pregnant so her child can carry on her revenge after she dies. Yuki is born, and raised by one of the fellow inmates and a priest who trains her in martial arts. She’s raised as a “demon”, whose only purpose is revenge for her mother, father, and brother. And boy does she get revenge the film is violent and graphic (even if by modern day standards the blood looks fake as fuck the emotions are there). 

Like The Hidden Fortress this film is very character driven, with a highly motivated protagonist but it’s also revels far more in it's violence and the spectacle of that violence. Yuki, in comparison to her earlier counterpart Princess Yuki, is the driver of the action in the story. She's an active participant in the plot, and the story centers around her. Princess Yuki is commendable, she's compassionate, and she makes decisions, but the story is more about what she represents - a fallen princess - than what she does. She's symbolic, the embodiment of a leader, a samurai spirit of nobility who becomes a leader worth following. Yuki, on the other hand, needs no protection from others, she's a much more direct and active part of the story since the story is hers - and her mothers - she's more elegant than regal, and there's nothing necessarily 'noble' about her.  She's not seeking to rebuild her clan as a leader, her motivations are singularly about her revenge quest to fulfill her mother's dying wish. 

In some ways, they're very similar - Yuki also feels compassion for another woman who's been used by the men around her as Princess Yuki does - and in others they are very different and speak to the changing expectations and idealizations of women from the 1950s to 1970s. 

Lady Snowblood is also way more violent than any Kurosawa film I’ve watched including The Hidden Fortress. While there is action in The Hidden Fortress, it’s all employed with specific purpose. Which is one of Kurosawa’s strengths as a director. It’s calculated and singular. Yes blood spurts up in Yojimbo but it's limited; quick and efficient, with more in common with John Wick or Collateral than the more fantastical and aesthetic Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez fare. 

Lady Snowblood revels in the aesthetic violence, there’s no “purpose” for Yuki to cut an already dead person in half, she does it out of pure frustration and for the glory of showing the audience that internal rage. Of a body hanging, dripping blood and gore onto the clean floor as the curtain draws to a close. 

The film also features on screen rape, sex, and nudity which The Hidden Fortress does not. There’s an implication that characters in the film would assault Princess Yuki if they could, but nothing ever goes beyond brief implication (still gross tho guys come on). Whilst in Lady Snowblood, the rape is brutal, the violence is brutal, and the emotions are far more intense because of it all. 

The allowance - for lack of a better term - of this kind of material showcases a cultural shift overall in the terms of visual storytelling filmmaking began experimenting with in telling, and in what audiences were responding too. Lady Snowblood was a beloved success for its overall low budget. In comparison to the two, The Hidden Fortress is filmed better, with more technique and focus, Lady Snowblood almost seems rustic in comparison, but it's a sort of rustic that speaks to experimentation. 

Low angles from a characters pov staring high above her, extreme zooms on Yuki's burning eyes, the oversaturated colors of red-orange blood or green walls or white clothes, the starless pitch black sky as powdery snow falls. The images are arresting even if at times they're choppy, and while the film opts for non-linear chapter breaks to create a story flow in comparison to Kurosawa's iconic screen swipes and straight forward narrative, yet, both work. 

Gohatto

Behold, the promised gay cinema I promised. 

Gohatto is a 1999 film directed by Nagisa Oshima based on the short story, Shinsengumi Keppuroku by Ryotaro Shiba. 

Gohatto is a pretty late entry in the new wave/pink films of its heyday but those films were Oshima’s bread and butter. Often dubbed as one of Japan’s cinema outlaws for his anti-establishment films, one of his films, Night and Fog in Japan (1960) was pulled from theaters all together. Most people in the west will probably know him even tangentially for his queer film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence starring David Bowie and Beat Takeshi or for this absolutely banger quote from the New York Times article, A Japanese Film Master Returns to his Cinema: 

(If you’re a BTS fan, the composer Suga and RM like, Ryuichi Sakamoto, both starred and composed the main theme of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Forbidden Colors, he plays the guy in love with David Bowie’s character)

Gohatto combines the setting of a Kurosawa film, with the more experimental storytelling of Lady Snowblood, whilst imbuing the film with more surrealistic elements and more complexity. And making it gay like - for real for real. 

Gohatto goes like this: it’s the late 18th century in Japan, everything politically is on shaky ground, and the shinsengumi are looking for newbies to join ranks. Welp, they find two promising newbies and wouldn’t ya know it one newbie, Kano, is like, hella pretty. He’s got bangs. 

He’s so pretty in fact that all these other dudes in the shinsengumi crew wanna smash, I mean down bad like the Taylor Swift song or whatever I don’t listen to Taylor Swift. 

This is all treated with a lackadaisical normality; there’s teasing about “I never considered sleeping with a man before, but damn that Kano kinda…” but there’s never a moment of “omg they’re GAY?”

Beat Takeshi’s - who’s also in this film, he’s been in a lot fo queer films I'm noticing - character Vice-Commander Hijikata Toshizo often asks other characters not if they’re attracted to Kano - the implication being that they are - but rather if they are in love with Kano. Because lust is fleeting, but love is dangerous to your duty. 

Kano also might be a spy, or a murderer, it’s all very ambiguous and the ending isn’t a “happy” one. This isn’t a film about a love story of any sort, it has more in common with erotic thrillers than the action adventure of The Hidden Fortress, or the rape revenge fantasy of Lady Snowblood. Where as the former films have definitive endings, Gohatto ends ambiguously. 

What actually happened? And why did it happen? What did it all mean, in the end? The film offers no strict answers to these questions, asking instead, that its audience to come to their own conclusions. It’s also much more historical than the previous two films, taking real life historical figures like: Hijikata Toshizo, Okita Soji, and Kondo Isami and asking the question, “hm, what if they all maybe fell in love with this super pretty man before being overthrown and what does that mean metaphorically?” 

The Hidden Fortress doesn’t ask its audience to interrogate society in any meaningful way and that’s not a knock against it, it’s just an observation. Lady Snowblood specifically presents the plight of women, and a slight take on classism within the system, through the lens of violence and destruction. Gohatto is much more metaphorical, it’s not providing the audience with a direct message like the former two films, but presenting it’s thematics in a much more abstract way. The Hidden Fortress is an action adventure, with heroes who achieve their goals and overcome their obstacles. Lady Snowblood is a rape revenge with an understandable protagonist who succeeds in her bloody revenge. Gohatto has no heroes, and offers no straightforward catharsis at the end of its story story. 

Its film style is also far more atmospheric compared to the epic scale and straightforwardness of The Hidden Fortress, or the lower budget charming violence of Lady Snowblood. 

There’s lots of mood lighting, overhead shots of characters dimly lit, camera cuts to rain after two characters have sex, extreme close ups of one character observing Kano’s eyes and lips. It’s not a black and white film like The Hidden Fortress, but it’s not nearly as saturated in color and brightness as Lady Snowblood. 

Lady Snowblood drips with color, and light, even at night there always almost seems to be a spotlight on Yuki with an empty starless sky in the background. Gohatto is much more grounded in realism than high visual aesthetics, opting to create more of a lingering dreamlike trance or fog to the cinematography when the story’s final act begins to unfold. 

Yet, one thing Gohatto has in common with both The Hidden Fortress and Lady Snowblood is its violence; operating somewhere between the two. Like The Hidden Fortress the violence is quick, purposely, and specific, and like Lady Snowblood blood spurts, gushes, and heads are displayed proudly and grotesquely.

Kubi

Kubi is a 2023 film directed by Takeshi Kitano aka Beat Takeshi - this is the third time his name has been dropped in relation to a queer film in this post go Beat Takeshi - based on a novel of the same name that Kitano also wrote. 

Kubi is like Beat Takeshi’s sengoku period slash RPF fanfic come to gruesome bloody (literal, not British) life. A period piece epic; Kubi is both about samurai warlords and a historical event known as the honno-ji incident, which took place in 1582. It features various historical figures like Oba Nobunage - if you’ve watched some anime or played some JRPGs you’ve probably at least heard of this name before - and other prominent historical figures of the time. 

The basic gist of the movie is Oba Nobunage is both really good at his job, so he’s super powerful politically, but he’s also a grade-a asshole whom all the other important samurai lords fucking hate. However, they also all fucking hate each other and all want to take Nobunage’s place and get all that sweet, sweet power for themselves. The honno-ji incident involved one of these guys doing a coup for reasons still unknown today and then pretty much almost immediately dying swiftly after leaving another samurai lord to take over. 

Kubi takes these historical events, and is like “okay but what if we added some gay innuendo and gay sex to this drama?” with more beheadings than a French revolution. 

Out of all the films on this list Kubi is, admittedly, the one I enjoyed the least, however, it’s an interesting retrospective on the growth of both the Japanese film industry and this specific genre in and of itself. 

Kubi’s film style is very modern, it’s beautiful, it’s sleek, it’s expensive looking. And yet there’s specific scenes that feel like callbacks to the Kurosawa era, like the black and white flashback between Nobunage and his fellow samurai lords. One of Kurosawa’s top films was Kitano’s Hana-Bi (1997), and Kitano has worked with Kurosawa’s daughter on costume design on four other films as well, so these references feel not only purposely because of general influence but also referential in a way. 

In terms of story and tone, Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress is sincere and straightforward, Lady Snowblood is experimental and fearless, Gohatto is introspective and suspenseful, whilst Kubi is unrelenting and even feels mocking at times. There is no break in Kubi's violence, there's almost no tenderness or softness, characters are selfish, and self-centered. The selfish, but joyful peasants in The Hidden Fortress don't exist here, and are replaced with a peasant character who murders his own friend and then rejoices over being relived of his family once he discovers they were murdered too. At times, Kubi feels like a subversion of the more glamourous depictions of the samurai in film. Which feels as though following similar footsteps established in Gohatto which also explored, subtextually, the faults within the samurai media persona. 

At times the film feels almost like a dark comedy, it doesn’t glamorize these samurai warlords, nor their clans, nor their ideals in the way The Hidden Fortress does, nor does it interrogate them in the way Gahotto does. Instead the story at hand is presented with a brutal realism, objective if a bit mocking with a side order of gay sex. Which isn’t presented in a mocking way so much as just an everyday aspect of life. 

When Mitsuhide and Murashige are caught by spies sleeping together there’s no shock or awe about it, just a calm report and the bigger issue is Mitsuhide hiding a fugitive more so than him sleeping with a man.

Similarly, when Nobunage is literally fucking one of his vassals in front of Mitsuhide, it’s not to disgust the other man, but rather a powerplay of sorts to make the latter jealous - at one point Nobunage promises if Mitsuhide accomplishes a mission for him, he’ll sleep with him - and it seemingly works to some degree. There’s subtext throughout the film that Mitsuhide might be, if not in love with Nobunage, want him in an obsessive way all the same (including being down to bone). 

Like with Gohatto the queerness is inherent, just a part of the culture. It’s not “romance” by any means, but it is simply a part of life and the culture itself. 

In terms of characters, Kubi's characters couldn't be more different from the characters in the previous mentioned films. The Hidden Fortress characters like Princess Yuki and Rokurota are easy to like, honorable, quiet, steadfast; while Matashichi and Tahei are less outright likable they offer a grounding and relatable to the big presence that are the former two. In Lady Snowblood, Yuki is quiet, calculating and menacing in her own right, truly embodying the idea of cold vengeance which makes her intriguing. In Gohatto Kano is elusive, which adds to his sensual allure, Okita is playful yet clearly hiding a more sinister air about him, and you just feel bad for Tashiro who’s pushy but seemingly sincere in his affections for Kano. 

Kubi has no by-the-by “likable” characters, every character is out for themselves in some way shape or form. So much so that the brief tenderness between Mitsuhide and Murashige is like a balm to a burn. Though I did absolutely enjoy the scene-chewing of Ryo Kase who played Nobunage. While Nobunage isn't a "likable" character by any means, he was so fun and engaging to watch he became a highlight of the film. 

Stylistically, this is a very modern epic film; it’s the type of film in terms of scale I imagine Kurosawa could have made if he had access to the same technology, but also wouldn’t because there’s no stillness or sincerity to it. The violence is also more in line with Lady Snowblood, but with a budget. Heads are lopped off with ease and at times with glee, dead bodies, headless bodies with crabs crawling out of the necks, a literal pile of heads for trophies it’s all here. It’s beautifully and dynamically filmed, it has a similar scale of a Lord of the Rings, or a Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms. 

Big set pieces, big costumes, big landscapes, big battles, and bigger body counts. It also has the largest cast of any film on the list - kinda neat that Kitano and Asano Tadanobu were both in Kubi and Gohatto together - and the best costumes of the bunch. 

It also, in my opinion, has the most complicated plot of all the films because of the heavy political intrigue - though this, admittedly, could be because of the culture gap as I’m not overly familiar with Japanese history. 

Okay so like, where does all this leave us in terms of those original bullet points? 

The Original Bullet Points

Japanese Cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s 

If there's one thing - well okay many things cause I'm greedy but overall - I hope I've been able to outline here with these four films is that obviously Japanese cinema has changed since the 1950s. And thoroughly at that. Not just in terms of style, but in terms of character presentation, tone, stories technology, experimentation, and a growing reflection of the shifting and developing culture. 

It’s not simply that all four of these films are different stories, but that all four of these films are addressing different aspects of their modern culture via these period pieces, as well as, viewing this time period in ways that reflect the filmmakers own experiences and how they feel or felt about the world. 

Kurosawa was born in 1910 to Kitano’s 1947, Fujita and Oshima’s 1932. Kurosawa’s father was a member of an actual samurai family, his worldview would be thoroughly different from someone like Oshima, or Kitano, or Fujita’s. Some overlap, sure, but also still thoroughly different. 

And I feel that you can see that in their films; Kurosawa’s samurai films are almost referential at times, not always, but his work with Toshiro Mifune often leans that way; in The Hidden Fortress Mifune’s Rokurota is deeply loyal to his lord, the Princess Yuki, to the point that he won’t shed tears over his own sister being executed in her place. He spares the life of a rival because he respects him even though they stand on opposing sides. 

The samurai in Gohatto and Kubi aren’t nearly so idealized nor idolized, there’s very little “honor” in Kubi and even less loyalty. Whilst in Gohatto there’s a deep and subtle interrogation of the strict and oppressive bylaws of the shinsengumi. In one such scene, Kano is having drinks with a man who is interested in him, Yuzawa, who’s passionately talking about how the shensengumi uphold oppressive ideals including classism. 

[And then he jumps Kano’s bones I guess politics got the dude going lmao]

The Hidden Fortress’ Princess Yuki is at first, masculine - in story she was raised as a man rather than a princess - from the way she walks to the way she talks. She’s fierce, and upstanding, while also being compassionate to other members of her clan; even saving a young woman who’s a member of her clan that had been sold. There’s a regal quality to Princess Yuki. 

In comparison, Yuki in Lady Snowblood is elegant, and feminine, before striking out violently. Princess Yuki never has an “action scene” and in fact for a chunk of the film has to pose as a deaf woman to hide her identity. While not a passive participant in the plot, nor does she directly drive the action herself. While Yuki, well the entire movie is driven by her actions and the actions of her mother. The story is first and foremost, hers. 

Meanwhile women just like, they don’t exist in Gohatto or Kubi they’re like, in the ether~~~ they’re drifting, keeping out - or kept out? - of the drama. 

Given the vast differences in both style, tone, story and execution, how can you say wholeheartedly that Japanese cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s? 

Japanese film style falls under an extreme dichotomy of cinematic/sweeping (described as “atmospheric”) or cartoonish/slapstick (described as “live action manga”)

I’m just…not gonna get into the overall history of Japan's adaptation of manga into live action films cause it would derail this conclusion and I ain’t got the time for that. I would like to note, Lady Snowblood is a live action film based on a manga of the same name - and it is not slapstick. It doesn’t even have comedic elements, it is a violent rape revenge story; I don’t think there’s a single moment where I chuckled. The Hidden Fortress is far lighter in tone, while Gohatto has more in common with Lady Snowblood - deeply and sincerely serious - and Kubi goes for a darker sort of comedy. 

This is just incorrect information. Personally I’m of the mind that “cinematic/sweeping is too broad a spectrum to even quantify as a film genre they are descriptors. 

That said, I don’t think Lady Snowblood is cinematic or sweeping. Gohatto is the only one on the list that’s even close to “atmospheric” though all four films have atmosphere - because atmosphere is a film technique it’s not a genre of film - The Hidden Fortress and Kubi are the only two I could qualify as “cinematic/sweeping” because they’re going for a larger bombastic scale. Though I feel folks watching The Hidden Fortress in the modern day might not find it cinematic because of how static and slow the film can be at times - the first act is long and drags quite a bit. 

To place such a strict dichotomy on an entire industry of filmmaking is simply bad film critique at best and xenophobic at worst given the context here. I’ve only talked about four films in one singular genre, I didn’t mention the countless other new wave films, or the birth of the kaiju genre with Godzilla, the expansion into horror and grindhouse - where does a film like Tag (2015) fit into such a strict dichotomy? -  nor the long, long history of animated works from various insanely highly influential and/or successful directors like Satoshi Kon, Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno, Rintaro, Mamoru Hosoda, Mamoru Oshii, Isao Takahata, I mean the list goes on and on. 

If you expand your horizons you’ll find so many amazing films that do not flatly sit in this one or the other imposed categorization. Think about what queer cinema you may be missing out on by adhering to this imposed binary. 

Baby does any of this have to do with BL? (no, but it IS more gay than you think)

So, in the end, what does this have to do with BL? I would say it has both little and a lot to do with BL/GL which are genres all their own in Japan and other neighboring countries; as such their subject to the same waves, exploration and expansion as the four aforementioned films. 

It’s easy, if intellectually dishonest and academically lazy, to look at The Novelist and What Did You Eat Yesterday and say “BL only comes in two shapes and sizes”. 

There’s chocolate or vanilla and that’s it. When in reality there’s lots of ice cream flavors available, even if chocolate and vanilla are the best sellers it doesn’t mean strawberry or mint chocolate chip don’t exist. 

Where does animated BL fall into this western imposed binary? How does capitalism affect the output of what gets made for the screen and how? How does the political climate affect what’s being financed? Are BL and GL works that are being made somehow unaffected, existing in a stasis state, by the works across the film industry? Even from other queer works of film? What are we, as outsiders, not considering when we engage with this media? 

If we’re only looking at BL/GL for “queer representation” what films and/or television are we missing out on from these countries? What BL/GL are we missing by only engaging with what's put in front of us, and not diving deeper into learning more, expanding our individual knowledge, and experiencing stories that might take some work towards seeing? Stories that might be outside of our direct comfort zones because they don't fall into those strict if seemingly comforting boxes. What exploration into queer identity are we denying or ignoring the existence of because of these imposed binaries? 

I know some folks who are more well versed in BL history that would and do consider Gohatto and Kubi BL or BL adjacent, but I also know most western, especially American, audiences would consider neither of these films BL. 

So where does that leave them?

Further Reading: 

Cinematic History: Defining Moments in Japanese Cinema, 1926-1953

A Brief But Essential Introduction to Japanese Cinema

Filmmaking from Japan: The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema

Nagisa Oshima: Banishing Green

JAPANESE SOFTCORE: THE LAST OF TOKYO'S PINK EIGA THEATERS

The Last Samurai: A Conversation with Takeshi Kitano

The Evolution of the Japanese Anime Industry

Check out other related posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI | Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes? | Trends in BL (Sorta): Genre Trends

[longtallglasses]

“I’m gay,” he blurts out suddenly, because if this is how his life is going and he’s gonna die in the next 12 hours he at least needs to let Mike know that.

“What?!” Mike whips around so hard he almost loses all balance and falls to the ground. He catches himself thankfully right before he does.

“I’m gay,” Will says again when Mike is in front of him. Mike’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open just a bit. Will doesn’t feel any emotion to his confession at all, it’s not news to him obviously, but whenever he imagined finally telling this to Mike he thought it would feel so dramatic. That it would feel like he was ripping open a part of himself, but given everything it feels like he’s just letting Mike know what his star sign is.

Mike however looks like he’s gonna have an aneurysm. He’s short circuited. He’s dumbfounded. Will is honestly a little surprised this is so shocking to him like did he never even consider-

“Uh-.. uh I know.” Mike stumbles on his words like bambi.

Wait what?

“What do you mean you know?”

“Uh, that I know… I know you’re- you’re gay.” Mike stammers out like he’s never said the word in his life.

“Did Lucas tell you?” Will accuses. He doesn’t want to think about the state that Lucas must be in but if he told Mike anything…

“No! Wait, Lucas knows?”

“Yeah, I told him. How do you know?”

“Well, I..” Mike struggles, “I just assumed… No! Not that I assumed, I just inferred.” Mike rubs a hand over his face, “Well, you know, I figured it out, kind of… like I just realized you didn’t really like girls, which is okay! I mean I get it girls are whatever… but then you know how obsessed you were with George Michael… well I just put two and two together and-”

“Ok, Ok,” Will stops him there, “how long have you known then?”

“I don’t know.. Um, like since last year?”

Will lets out an internal sigh of relief. Ok, he can work with that. He would’ve thought it was earlier given when Mike had started to stand farther and farther away from him, this trip excluded for obvious reasons.

“And you’re cool with it?” I mean he has to be at least pretty cool with it if he’s with him here right now.

“Of course! Of course I’m cool with it, I lo- I- I, you’re- you’re perfect.” Mike settles on and Will sees the look of strained cringe Mike just can’t disguise, and he can’t help but laugh at how utterly ridiculous and pathetic his best friend is.

Mike chuckles at himself too. Sheepishly running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, you know what I mean..”

Will forces himself to not laugh in his face any longer, at least they can still do this. He might be dying soon and a ghost of a witch might be after them and their friends, but this can still feel nice.

“Yeah I do, it’s okay. You’re perfect too.” He still blushes as he says it even if it's supposed to be half a joke. The huge megawatt smile that blooms across Mike’s face after he says it is pretty worth it though.

Mike tries to tamper it down by looking away and clearing his throat, but he’s not too successful, so Will helps him out.

“Let’s, uh, let’s get this stuff up,” he says to break the moment, and Mike is happy to spring to action to not talk about this anymore.

from my blair witch project wip mostly spoiler free lol things are getting spooky but you gotta come out to your crush before you die...

[gffa]

I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot lately.  The question he’s replying to is about His Dark Materials, where someone wondered if mothers gave birth to their children’s daemons at the same time they birthed the child, and his response was, “It’s a metaphor.  Don’t force it to do the work of a fact.” And I think this is a huge source of disconnect in Star Wars fandom as well, that for example George Lucas has been extremely clear on why Anakin Skywalker fell to the dark side, which was because he was greedy, possessive, afraid, and refused to accept that life changes and he couldn’t hold onto people, that he refused to do so.  It’s a theme in a fairy tale. Is it true that, in our complex and profound real world, that childhood trauma of being a slave would affect things on a far deeper level than is written into the story?  Yes, of course!  But Anakin Skywalker is written to a theme, not to a fact.  Star Wars is not about real world facts, it’s about themes in a fictional story.  Listen, George Lucas fuckin’ loved his themes, okay.  LOVED them, possibly more than the characters themselves! We absolutely can have fun speculating about what Anakin’s childhood trauma added onto his story, but ultimately it’s not actually a part of the theme and not part of the narrative as it is.  Characters in the story cannot react as if Anakin’s specific childhood trauma is an element in his choices because it’s not part of the narrative, it doesn’t exist to them, because Anakin Skywalker is a theme in a fairy tale, not a fact. I think that’s where a lot of disconnect is coming from when we talk about “whose fault is it that Anakin Skywalker fell!?” or “how could this have been prevented!?” or “why don’t you have more sympathy for the former slave!?” because, while my heart aches for Anakin, it’s not the reason he fell, and trying to make it so is like trying to ask what happens when a mother gives birth to a child in a world of daemons--it’s not the point of the inclusion of that plot element, treating the characters as if it were is trying to make it do the work of a fact, rather than what it is. Such work has its place in fandom, especially in the transformative part of fandom, but it’s not part of the narrative itself and I think recognizing that disconnect might help clarify why there’s so much frustration in why some fans may never see eye to eye.

[fantastic-nonsense]

honestly I think if you complain about Star Wars focusing too much on the Skywalkers because "the galaxy is bigger than one family" and "not everything has to be connected" you have fundamentally missed the point George Lucas was trying to make with the original movies.

Star Wars is VERY deliberately an optimistic, cyclical, and myth-based family drama structured around a single family's story, and that purposefully generational story is the story George Lucas saw as the core point and purpose of Star Wars:

“It’s the missing link,” Lucas says. “Once it’s there, it’s a complete work, and I’m proud of that. I do see it, tonality-wise, as two trilogies. But they do, together, form one epic of fathers and sons.” [x] The first three movies had all kinds of issues. [Disney] looked at the stories and they said we want to make something for the fans. So I said all I want to do is tell the story of what happened. You know, it started here and it went there. It's all about generations and it's about, you know, the issues of fathers and sons and grandfathers; it's a family soap opera. I mean, ultimately. We call it a space opera, but people don't realize it's actually a soap opera. And it's all about family problems — it's not about spaceships. [x]

He also wrote Star Wars for the express purpose of attempting to teach people that everything is interconnected and everything we do has an impact that resonates beyond our own lives:

Paul Duncan: "It takes a lot of people to build the ark." George Lucas: "Yeah. And it needs to be done through reason, love, and compassion, not through force. The films are trying to stress the idea that everything is interconnected. I like to make movies that are complex, but it's not obvious to people unless they start digging into it. Most people don't realize it and can't grasp the whole entity because they're focusing on four or five pieces out of 200, and often they don't want to hear about the other pieces because it requires additional thought and ideas outsides of the films. There are cycles and cycles in the story and the characters throughout all six episodes. There are cycles of the same thing being repeated over and over with different groups of people, and the outcomes change because the characters have grown or changed over the story. The repitition shows the characters' development. [x]

GEORGE LUCAS: At some point you do have to become an independent person. And it’s about learning to let go of your — your needs, so to speak, and — and think of the needs of others. BILL MOYERS: So “Star Wars” is — yes, it’s about cosmic, galactic, epic struggles, but it’s at heart about a family. The large myth set in a local family. GEORGE LUCAS: Well, in most — most myths center around characters and — and a hero, and it’s — it’s about how you — how you conduct yourself as you go through the hero’s journey, which everyone goes through. It’s especially relevant when you go through this transition phase. Most societies it’s when you’re 13 or 14. In our society it’s sort of 18 to 22, somewhere in there, that you must let go of your past and must, you know, embrace your future and — and in your own self, by yourself, figure out what it is — what — what path you’re going to go down........... .......BILL MOYERS: And what do stories do for us in that sense? What do myths... GEORGE LUCAS: They try to show us our place. Myths help you to have your own hero’s journey, find your individuality, find your place in the world, but hopefully remind you that you’re part of a whole, and that you must also be part of the community, and — and think of the welfare of the community above the welfare of yourself. [x]

Lucas structured this tale in two ways: through Anakin's deconstructed hero's journey (in the form of a Greek tragedy) and Luke's straightforward hero's journey (culminating with Anakin's redemption) and showing us how this one family's multi-generational story had a huge impact that went beyond their own lives and echoed throughout the galaxy. That was the point!

While there are plenty of other stories not centered on the Skywalkers that can and should be told within the universe, ultimately people need to keep in mind that Lucas was not shy about his intentions in making the movies: he WANTED to write a straightforward retelling of "old stories," and he wanted to do it through the lens of a personal family narrative.

All of the Star Wars material that focuses on non-Skywalkers (which has ALWAYS been around, Rogue One and TLJ and The Mandalorian and Andor and etc etc etc were NOT the first ones to do that) is great, but it's a bonus! An add-on to the core story and point of the franchise! It's not that they're unimportant, because they're not, but at some point it should stop surprising people when the Skywalkers and/or the events of the original six movies get referenced or utilized.

It just bothers me when I hear these complaints because like...if you don't like the Skywalkers, why do you even watch Star Wars? None of those other stories would exist without them! Please just go enjoy another sci-fi franchise and stop complaining that the main characters of Star Wars are being focused on or are popping up in places it makes total sense for them to be!

[morganbritton132]

would steve ever insist that eddie comes to basketball games with him just so they have an excuse to get those good seats right at the court that famous people and celebrities usually get?

Eddie is not Steve’s go-to person if he wants basketball tickets.

He goes to Lucas because every doctor knows a doctor that knows someone with season tickets they never use. And also, Steve kinda wants to go to the game with someone who, you know, will actually enjoy being there.

Eddie’s undying hatred of all things sports is, well…undying.

But Steve’s been a Pacers’ fan since the first time his dad shoved a basketball in his hands and taught him how to shoot. He has watched them lose in the playoffs every year that they make it to it, but he’s convinced. 2014 was going to be different.

He just can’t get tickets. He spent all day trying to buy them online and failed, and all the resale tickets are for seats that suck or way over his paygrade. Him and Eddie pay for their own hobbies out of their separate bank accounts, and Steve can’t afford the absolutely ridiculous price that’s being asked so…

“Please?” Steve asked, big puppy eyes and adorable little pout. He knew what he was doing and so did Eddie. “Pretty please? I never ask you for anything, Ed…Okay, fine, except for all the stuff I ask you for, but this is different. It’s a small price to pay to see my team win.”

“Your team that has literally never won in the history of all time?”

“How many championships does Leg-less the loser elf have?” Steve asked.

“…It’s Legolas,” Eddie said. “And he was a part of the fellowship that kinda saved the world.”

“So was I,” Steve pointed out. “And I deserve this.”

Steve didn’t ask for courtside seats. He didn’t ask to be sat among the rich and famous. Hell, he didn’t even ask Eddie to go with him. He just wanted to see if Eddie had a connection that could get him a ticket for a seat that wasn’t in the nosebleeds.

Steve doesn’t really believe that the tickets Eddie showed him are real until they are sitting in their seats – their seats that are courtside and five feet away from Paul George warming up. Steve is so excited to be there that he pretty much misses Eddie shaking someone’s hand right in front of him until he’s nudged in the shoulder, “Babe, you know, Sandy, right?”

“Yeah, totally,” Steve says absently, sparing a glance in the direction Eddie was gesturing before looking back out at the court. It takes him a second for his brain to register who he was just looking at and then, “Holy shit, you’re Sandra Bullock.”

She is just as beautiful and as nice as Steve has always thought she was, and she’s amused by him which makes Steve blush. She holds out her hand to him, “And you are…”

“I’m…” Steve trails off, only picking back up his train of thought when Eddie laughs loudly beside him. “Steve. I’m Steve. Uh, Harrington. Eddie’s – I’m – we’re together, by law.”

“We’re married,” Eddie grinned, throwing his arm over Steve’s shoulder, and wiggling his wedding ring at her. “Still working on how to tell people, obviously.”

She congratulates them and talks to them a bit about the game (bring Steve out of his starstruck stupor), and even buys them champagne as a late little wedding gift. It’s a blast.

Eddie spends half the game flinching every time the ball bounces a little too close or a player nearly ends up in their lap, but Steve is loving all of it. The other half of the time, Eddie is having Steve explain what’s going on and who the players are, or he’s talking to the guy next to him.

It’s some square jawed model type that Steve doesn’t recognize and also, doesn’t like. He’s a little too friendly with his husband, especially when he curled a piece of Eddie’s hair around his finger. When the two of them end up on the kiss cam together, Eddie doesn’t even get a chance to register it before Steve pulls him nearly out of the camera frame and kisses him.

Later, fans will make jokes about the pictures of that night because it’s very clear that Steve and Eddie switched seats.

[grumfield]

Since you’ve read like…all the books why do you think that Anakin is such a polarizing character? Beyond the oblivious. I feel like there’s strongly opposing viewpoints which feels wild. But you’re pretty impartial when necessary and also well read in this world so I’m curious what you think!

wow I love it when y'all give me asks that let me flex a bit more of my top-down muscles like this. super fun, thank you!

I think it, first of all, this is a very "fandom" conversation. Popular cultural conversation is generally no more than "Vader was sympathetic but bad, Jedi cool." so these more intense debates kind of predicate on the idea of peoples' personal investment in the charactesr beyond the movies. Even though the movies do provide context--and have a very overt George Lucas messaging of "Jedi wrong, love is what saves"--the average person doesn't really think more on it or try to reconcile beyond what the movie itself shows. So TLDR this is sort of presuming the people having this discussion have delved into other works.

I think it comes down to how much and what media beyond the movies people engage and prefer with because there are so many prequels projects, all of them written by different people with different perspectives (at least in legends...i'll get to the disney POV soon), which is the beauty of multimedia works.

Legends projects in general tend to be more critical of the Jedi, majorly, I think, because George Lucas had control. Lucas was, obviously, critical of the Jedi, and his projects reflect that. Most of them are takedowns, and don't really show the Jedi in a particularly favorable light.

Disney, on the other hand, definitely skews more in favor of the Jedi. I don't think this is actually a Disney perspective, I think that this is a popular perspective that was ingratiated into their framework. IMO many people think of the Disney era as against the Jedi, but to me it's definitely "pro" in the sense that they are effortlessly cool + flashy, there's very little bureaucracy, and the characters at fault are not at fault for systemic reasons, but rather personal failure (which I feel like is seen in the Acolyte).

In Disney narratives, Jedi structures are not the issue, flawed people are. Whereas in Lucas narratives, flawed people are not the issue, Jedi structures are.

For example, I've noticed a lot of Legends books portray Anakin's relationship with Padmé as the thing that saved him, which is a very Lucas perspective to hold, since his entire thesis of Star Wars is that love is what redeems. In opposition, though, a lot of Disney books pose their relationship as what caused his downfall, because if he'd never been in a relationship with her he wouldn't have fallen because she wasn't there. Similarly I think that Jedi Quest is a very unsympathetic look at Obi-Wan that holds him responsible for Anakin's downfall, whereas Deborah Chow's Obi-Wan show is more sympathetic and frames him as generally without fault to what happened. Different strokes for different folks.

Given that Anakin is space JesusJudasSatan, makes him the ideological battleground for these perspectives, which creates a character whose various story plots and circumstances, depending on the writer/creator, is at least always a little bit in contradiction even if his actions are the same. Because he simultaneously is so many different types of things at once, and I think it just comes down to which works they're exposed to/are most drawn to.

But, building off of that: I think the main culprit, in broad strokes, comes down to which piece of media a person views as their canon: Lucas's movies, or Filoni's Clone Wars. Which, IMO, ultimately follow two completely different characters both named Anakin Skywalker, but this post is getting too long so I'll get salty about that some other time.

[darth-jess]

You say you're pro Jedi, yet you're ALSO saying that Jedi are "corrupt from the war", "they refuse to change their ways", and "they're arrogant", which is VERY typical arguments from a certain crowd that are against the Jedi. You're no different from that crowd. Just say you like Anakin and go. I'm so tired of seeing the same arguments from THAT crowd that you are using also. If you say that about my people who have embraced their culture and practiced Buddhism for many years now, I won't forgive you. We've already been made fun of by many ignorant Westerners now.

Hi Anon!

(Their question refers to my 3 post series: It's Okay to Love the Jedi and Anakin at the Same Time)

My question is: why is it so hard to believe that all of these things are true? The Jedi are corrupt from the war. The Jedi have become arrogant. They do refuse to change their ways. And I am still pro Jedi, because I love them.

First, though.

I think it's very important to clarify:

The Jedi religion is not the same thing as Buddhism.

Yes, they're very similar in many aspects. Obviously, George Lucas was deeply inspired by Buddhism while creating the Jedi, and their ideology is heavily based on Buddhist beliefs and teachings. However, you cannot claim that my criticism of the Jedi is in any way a criticism of Buddhism, because the (very few) aspects of the Jedi belief system I actually do criticize are not aspects of Buddhism at all. The vast majority of what I criticize about the Jedi is not a criticism of their philosophy though, it is a criticism of their actions– actions that George Lucas specifically chose for narrative purpose, to create a system on the brink of collapse.

I have great respect for the Jedi philosophy and Buddhism in general. Buddhism is actually a religion of my personal ancestors– my grandmother is Japanese and was raised with Buddhism and Shintoism. So Buddhism is a part of my cultural heritage and I grew up learning a lot about it from my grandmother.

Re: "Corrupt from War."

When I discuss the Jedi being corrupt, I realized it's important to clarify which definition of corrupt I am using. So from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

The Jedi do not (to my knowledge) engage in dishonest or illegal behavior, and they are not bribed or induced to engage in wrongful behavior. So the definition I refer to is definition C: a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct.

The Jedi are meant to be peacekeepers. They literally call themselves that. The fact that war breaks out at all means the Jedi have finally failed. On top of that, many Jedi became Generals in the war that they could not prevent.

Ahsoka Tano beautifully sums up this problem:

"As a Jedi, we were trained to be keepers of the peace, not soldiers. But all I've been since I was a Padawan is a soldier."

The Jedi, in an effort to protect the Republic, depart from their original purpose as peacekeepers, and in doing so they have corrupted themselves.

This is exactly why Sidious' plan works so well.

Order 66 is not the revenge of the Sith, it's just the end of it.

The whole revenge of the Sith is the Clone Wars themselves.

The Jedi are forced to become something they're not, forced into situations that put their own morals to the test. And don't get me wrong, they still often come out with the moral high ground (<– haha).

Re: "They Refuse to Change Their Ways."

They do refuse to change their ways, and there's nothing inherently wrong with this! The Jedi philosophy has literally worked for thousands of years, and it's beautiful.

However, in regard to Anakin, I do believe the most compassionate response to his situation would have been to make some more exceptions for him once they decided he could become a Jedi.

Re: "Just say you like Anakin and go."

I don't just like Anakin, I LOVE Anakin– the literal main character of Star Wars. He's my favorite! But Jedi religion has helped me get through a lot of shit in my life (I've got chronic anxiety, depression, and deal with some trauma) and I love talking about it and analyzing it as a religion as well as the role of the Jedi in the Star Wars movies and other media.

Re: "They're arrogant."

"Too sure of themselves they are; a flaw more and more common in Jedi. Even the older more experienced ones." –Yoda, Attack of the Clones

Yoda literally admits the Jedi have become more and more arrogant. He does it in his usual, sweet, kind-of-joking manner, as a way to show Obi-Wan he might be falling into the trap of arrogance, but Yoda isn't making something up just to teach Obi-Wan a lesson. Many Jedi have become far more arrogant, and Yoda has noticed it.

And look.

The Jedi do have every right to be a little arrogant. They kept peace for 1000 years, the Sith have been dead for 1000 years (or so they believe). They are at the height of their power, and the Republic is (seemingly) thriving.

Re: "Being made fun of by ignorant Westerners"

Going to be honest, that's really messed up and I'm sorry you've gone through this! As someone who tries to embody the Jedi teachings myself, this is very upsetting to me regardless of whether you're describing people making fun of your Buddhist or Jedi groups.

People all over the world could benefit from Jedi wisdom. If we were all a bit more like Jedi and tried to be more compassionate and understanding of each other even when we disagree, the world would certainly be a better place.

And finally…

I'll once again state how much it saddens me that we cannot be seen to be critical of the things we love, lest we be branded a "hater." I understand there are real haters out there who use these arguments, but honestly, if they are using these specific arguments, they aren't wrong, and they're good arguments because they're actual facts of the story that help drive the plot.

However, these facts aren't supposed to make anyone hate the Jedi. They're supposed to show you the tragedy of the Jedi, how these beautiful, compassionate people had their own nature used against them by the Sith to basically destroy themselves– or at least put them in the perfect place for annihilation.

Had the Jedi been perfect, Sidious never would have been able to get the upper hand on them. He wouldn't have been able to hide from them so well, or even start the Clone Wars.

The Jedi literally have to be flawed for the story of Star Wars to happen. George Lucas designed it that way.

If anyone has any follow up questions send me an ask!

[marvelstars]

Anakin & Trauma

So there´s this talk around saying that being part of the Jedi Order was akin to taking therapy and that it was Anakin the one who didn´t respond well to therapy and I honestly don´t know where to begin because this is honestly false and is victim blaming.

The Jedi Order´s Philosophy on it´s own isn´t a therapy, not even real world buddhism from which George Lucas took some narrative clues is a therapy, it is a way of life, yes, a philosophy under which it´s members WILLINGLY become a part of it but this isn´t a therapy.

They don´t address trauma, they don´t address anxiety, they don´t address suicidal ideation, etc.

In fact, while Lucas took some narrative clues from real world buddhism, we can´t truly say in good faith the Jedi Order works like real world buddhism, beggining with the fact that they take away choice from their members, they are brought too young into the fold to make a real decision over if they want to become part of their order or not, they take away their parents and cut all connections forever, that doesn´t happen in buddhism, they are openly an armed part of the state even if their functions are diplomacy, buddhism isn´t part of any state , I could go on but I guess the idea is clear.

So blaming Anakin for not "responding well to therapy" isn´t just false, it´s victim blaming, it´s willingly ignoring the context of the story.

In the story the roots of Anakin´s trauma came from slavery and the forced separation from his mother, both situations that never were addressed by the Jedi Order or by Obi-Wan in Anakin´s training, they were openly suppresed while sending Anakin the message that he was the problem for caring and fearing for his mother´s life, his mother who was left alone with a bomb inside her body in a planet ran by the mafia, this isn´t therapy, this is gaslighting.

Wether the Jedi Council or Obi-Wan were aware of it, they willingly made Anakin doubt his own reality and made him take the blame for not taking well his separation from his mother and I don´t know you but if someone, anyone, told me I had to leave my mother behind as a slave with a bomb inside her body because their physophy said so and I was their chosen one so I have to obey them I would have punched them in the face and left to free my mom, chosen one prophecy and Jedi be damned but Anakin was a child, he didn´t have the emotional and verbal skills to even express how wrong all of this was and how much harm they were doing to him.

The signals were clear from the beggining, Obi-Wan noticed that Anakin didn´t have any friends in the Order, that he mostly expend his time with droids and it was the same even when he became an adult and a respected general, can you imagine the level of isolation Anakin had to felt living inside the Jedi Order, that he no longer could relate to the people around him because they saw him as a stranger and he saw them as strangers as well?, that he had to expend his time with droids? when he used to have many friends and acquitances and people who cared about him in his planet of origin despite the horrible reality that he was a slave?, do you believe it talks well about the Order the fact Anakin had better emotional balance and support network living as a slave on Tatooine but with friends and family than living as a member of the Jedi Order?

The Jedi Order were not a supporting network for Anakin, they could not be because their way of life and philosophy openly harmed Anakin, keep him from addressing his trauma, keep him from having comunication with his mother, keep him from learning to manage his emotions without suppresing them and openly shunned him for his past as a slave in current disney canon so don´t tell me this is how a supporting network works or that Anakin was at fault for all of this.

The only person close and interested enough in Anakin to notice the dissaster happening to Anakin´s mental state was freaking Sheev Palpatine, he inmediately noticed Anakin was going to grow up bitter and resentful of the Jedi Order given how they keep him separated from his mother, he noticed he needed a friend who didn´t talk about the Jedi code every five minutes, he noticed he needed a father figure because he never had a father and Obi-Wan actively refused to be one given his beliefs and phylosophy, too bad for Anakin that Palpatine was also a sith lord who planned on destroying his very sense of self and person so he could use his power, he saw all of this happening and let it happen because it helped his cause and he could be the cool parent who lets Anakin talk about his issues without jedi philosophy as he used to do on Tatooine with his Mom and his friends while also adding some psycological issues of self worth to Anakin´s trauma under the image of him caring for Anakin´s well being. Don´t get me started on the Jedi Order allowing this for the sake of keeping a good political relationship with the Chancellor, what´s a kid well being in comparision to a good relationship with the Senate after all but this is a rant for another day.

While Obi-Wan´s love and company could and did help to weather the worst of this, the fact Obi-Wan seemed to care first because of his promise to Qui-Gon, the fact that he didn´t care for Anakin for himself when all people need to be cared for themselves at least in their early years to grow up emotionally stable, need to be loved for themselves, not just for who they are to an institution or as a symbol like the chosen one, which the Jedi Council shunned and put in doubt from the beggining anyway, even if Obi-Wan himself tried to believe in that because his master cared for that stuff, by doing this Obi-Wan subconciously send Anakin the message he was only worth to the Order and to him because he was the chosen one, if he wasn´t then he would have been left a slave on Tatooine just like his mother was, which isn´t that far from reality, Qui-Gon only got interested in Anakin for his force sensitivity, not his kindness and generosity helping strangers when he didn´t have much himself and was a slave.

This truly makes me mad because doing this to a kid isn´t just cruel, it´s abuse be it blind on the Jedi Order´s part or willing abuse on Palpatine´s part, an injustice, a never addressed injustice and even the narrative tries not to tackle this in all i´ts intensity but this is why Lucas said that Anakin was a victim and sure the Jedi were also victims of Palpatine and Anakin by proxy during Order 66 but I think fandom needs to address more in good faith that Anakin himself was their victim first if not the entire Jedi Order (and Palpatine of course) of the adults who were in charge and supposely cared for him and truly didn´t, not in the way that truly matters.

So it is any surprise Anakin wanted to leave the Order to raise his child with Padmé? because honestly I believe that in his situation that was the healthiest decision he could make without completely cutting his ties to what he loved and respected of being a Jedi, so it´s tragic he didn´t get that opportunity because the other adult in his life decided he wanted him as his weapon and manipulated him by isolating him from all his loved ones into becoming exactly that.

[david-talks-sw]

Ever wonder how much the Prequels aligned with the original backstory George Lucas thought up in the 70s? Let's take a look!

"Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew."

"But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match."

"So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic was rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside. Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic..."

"He had slowly manipulated things; in fact, it was he who let the bureaucracy run amok and therefore had blackmailed the Senate into doing things because he was the only one who really had any power over the bureaucracy."

"It was so large there was no way to get things done, but he knew the right people; the key people in the bureaucracy were working for him and were paid by the companies."

"He promised to unite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic."

"Anakin Skywalker starting hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official."

"Luke’s father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home, and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong...

... and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor."

"The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke’s mother suspects that something has happened to her husband."

"There was a rebellion in terms of the Senate against the Emperor...

... they tried to oust him legally and have him impeached."

"The Jedi Knights were alerted immediately and they rallied to the Senate’s side."

"But there was a plot afoot and when the Jedi finally rallied and tried to restore order, they were betrayed and eventually killed by Darth Vader."

"They trusted him and they didn't realize he was the murderer who was decimating their ranks."

"The Emperor had some strong forces rally behind him, as well, in terms of the army and the Imperial forces that he'd been building up secretly.

"The Jedi were so outnumbered...

...that they fled, and were tracked down."

"Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace."

"[Ben] goes back to Vader’s wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi."

"Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him."

"Vader is all beat up [...] his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor’s troops fish him out."

"Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding."

"Ben says, 'I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe'."

"And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow."

I changed the order of some of it and had to use some deleted scenes but, all in all, I'd say what we got was pretty similar to what was originally thought out.

Obviously, most of it is shown in Episode III.

And it tracks, seeing as at Celebration III, George detailed that:

only 20% of his 7-page backstory was used for TPM (to lay the political groundwork, show how Palpatine rose to power and establish how Anakin joined the Jedi),

then 20% for AOTC (to show how Palpatine became a glorified dictator and how Anakin lost his mother and married Padmé),

and the remaining 60% is what was shown in ROTS (showing how the Republic becomes the Empire, how Palpatine becomes the Emperor and how Anakin became Vader).

Also I will point out that the bulk of the backstory material we’ve been shown is mainly oriented towards the political intrigue... Anakin's subplot is a close second. The Jedi aren't mentioned THAT much beyond trying to save the Senate and getting wiped out.

Sources:

Preface of Star Wars novelization, 1976

Story conferences with Carol Titleman, 1977 (transcribed in The Making of Star Wars, 2007)

Story conference, 1981 (transcribed in The Making of Return of the Jedi, 2013)

[sahsalart]

Star Wars: Pa’loa Skywalker

It has just occurred to me that I never posted any of the character reference sheets for any of my Star Wars OCs! I intend to do a complete rewrite of the sequel trilogy in novels/comics. Since Disney proves time and time again how much unoriginal and stupid bullshit they create for the franchise. With that said, I am taking inspiration and pulling from Legends and The Expanded Universe lore as well mixing in my own original work to, hopefully, do justice to the original story that George Lucas created. I’m still working on the storyline for each novels which will be followed accordingly as Episode 7, Episode 8, and Episode 9 as well as scouting to hire an actual author to write the novels! I wish to pour my blood, sweat, and tears into recreating the sequels for a franchise that I hold dear to my heart so I unfortunately will not write the entire novel series myself. I consider myself more of an artist than an author so help will be needed :)

We’ll start off with the main star of the show, Pa’loa Skywalker. She is the only child of Jedi Master and Galactic Hero, Luke Skywalker, and fellow Jedi Master, Saasa Raassiks. A half-Human, half-Togruta hybrid. Born three years after the Battle of Endor in 7 ABY on her mother’s home planet of Zullu, Pa’loa’s birth was one of celebration and joy as it meant a new start to not only the newly freed Galaxy, but a new hope for the rebirth of the Jedi. In the early stages of her life, Pa’loa’s parents discovered that their daughter had natural Force-sensitive abilities that matched the likes of her familial heritage thus she was trained from then on in order to control those gifts. Pa’loa was educated by her father, Luke, on her paternal grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, legacy as a renowned Jedi Knight in the Old Republic and his eventual fall to the Dark Side as the heinous Darth Vader in order to not repeat history. When Pa’loa hit an older age to begin formal Jedi training, Luke choose to take on his own daughter as his Padawan Apprentice with her Mother occasionally stepping in as well. Pa’loa is the firstborn and eldest of the Skywalker grandchildren, having 3 younger cousins by her Aunt Leia and Uncle Han.

Due to her mixed-species ancestry, Pa’loa does not resemble your “typical looking” Human or Togruta. The most notable traits are her soft-pink colored skin, lighter pink facial markings, and Montrals and Lekku that she inherited from her Togruta mother. Dissimilar to Togrutas, she has visible human-like ears that function as her main source of hearing, and only having body hair in the form of eyebrows and eyelashes. Her Montrals and Lekku function a little differently from full Togrutas, such as they remain the same shape and markings from birth and do not grow as the individual ages, the same goes for her facial markings. Likewise, she can use her Montrals for passive echolocation to detect objects but in order to do so her ears must be covered or else it cannot function. She is able to subtly move her Montrals to convey messages and express emotions.

[cellarspider]

Qunlat 2/12: Canon, and its various disagreements

⭅ Previous =⦾ Index ⦾= Next ⭆

Before I can dig into the actual sound and structure of Qunlat, I have to first dig into the structure of Dragon Age itself, because… well, the sound and structure of Qunlat changes depending on when it was set down. Whatever version you like is totally up to you–I’ll be trying to document all of them, but also begin explaining how to curate the language to your desires. 

I want to preface this: anybody who prefers what goes on here is totally valid. But I am going to get into some analysis of why, from a conlang hobbyist’s perspective, a fair chunk of later Qunlat doesn’t feel like the same language we’ve previously been presented, and why certain sources should be treated as less authoritative than others.

And I will begin with a comparison: Star Wars. No, no, come back, I promise this won’t hurt!

During the reign of George Lucas, Star Wars continuity and fandom explicitly drew distinctions between levels and eras of canon: The movies were the prime source that could ignore all others. Tie-ins could expand the setting, but due to less centralized direction, they could vary wildly in depiction of everything, including “facts” of the setting. How does the Force work? Are microbes involved? Any cosmic beings or liminal spaces? Do any of them seem suspiciously influenced by Dave Filoni’s wolf obsession? Even the movies don’t always agree!

Fans and official lorekeepers also recognized the difference between when something was made, or which publisher was involved: Tie-ins from the early years were less likely to be compatible with those from later times, and different production houses had their own internal continuities. Did Han Solo fight alongside a giant carnivorous rabbit in a red onesie? Well, he didn’t mention that when interviewed by a monk from a religious order where the enlightened masters become mecha-spiders! Did an omnipotent, insane entity once kill Princess Leia by turning her heart into a diamond? Maybe we could find out, if someone decompiled the memory banks of her assassin droid double who was sent to marry and shoot a three-eyed fake heir to Palpatine’s throne! Did a trans-dimensional scaly jello cube once run a faith healing scam? It’s been banished from the continuity of most tie-ins since then, but it was published under the official Star Wars license! I haven’t made up even one of these!

Equally, fans might also freely decide to ignore earlier or later aspects of canon, because they had their own sandbox they liked to play in. Even parts of generally beloved stories may be generally ignored (hello, Luuke). And all that was common long before you even get to the Disney takeover, when much of the creative direction changed. 

Dragon Age, as a fifteen year old franchise (ow, my bones) that has attempted to be aggressively multimedia and has not maintained a single, unified creative team, is prone to these same eccentricities and inconsistencies. Sometimes things happen for no serious reason whatsoever. Remember when baby Superman landed in Ferelden? I remember that. Doctor Seuss is a dwarven Paragon, by the way.

These are meant to be jokes in the games, sure, but the rules around magic and lyrium change with every game, and on the subject of languages, we also don't have a consistent writing system for the Common Tongue.

Throughout the series, early material conflicts with later, tie-ins conflict with games, individual games may be internally inconsistent, and a sole truth fundamentally does not exist for the canon. 

This is particularly true for ancillary material, which Qunlat can be counted as. It’s a constructed language that isn’t from the main setting. Even when lead writers have been involved in its depiction, the results have sometimes been completely incompatible with the rest of its appearances. 

I am attempting to document this language in a comprehensible fashion. You can see how this might cause problems.

So I am going to try and draw some distinctions. This should be particularly useful for anyone trying to reconstruct things from the wiki’s dictionary and phrasebook, which does cite sources, and includes everything, regardless of linguistic and stylistic incompatibility.

Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II have a relatively high level of internal consistency in their spoken Qunlat. Things Sten says seem mutually intelligible with what we hear from the Arishok. There are exceptions–a couple rogue words in DAO and Warden’s Keep that indicate some level of uncertainty about the overall shape of the language, and Mark of the Assassin has a few eccentricities, but is largely in line with the two. A large portion of our dialog in DA2 and its DLC has never had a translation provided, but the sound of the language remains consistent. Mary Kirby (formerly of BioWare) was Sten’s writer for DAO, so we can guess that she was the primary source for these games.

Grammar-wise, more complexity might exist in some of the Arishok’s untranslated lines, but my best attempts to analyze them indicate they may be on shaky ground, detail-wise. Words slide around each other in strange ways, though they all sound like the same language.

The one major exception to that unity: DA2’s Qunari armor and weapons. These include some extremely strange additions that are not reflected in the spoken language. New sounds and letters enter the language that were never there before. I’d hazard a guess that either a different writer got involved with naming these, and/or the documentation available was not well-organized or transmitted. When finally defined for certain in World of Thedas Vol. 2 some years later, many of the equipment terms have mistaken etymologies.

Dragon Age: Inquisition continues that trend. There’s more words that have spurious etymologies. Some words have inconsistent spellings. Some sentences accidentally a word. The wiki’s does not help matters, with some statements from the Iron Bull taken as definitions when it doesn’t seem like they’re supposed to be.

During this period, Mary Kirby and Trick Weekes started answering questions about the language on twitter. For our Qunari-focused purposes, Kirby started out the series as Sten’s writer, and Weekes was Iron Bull’s writer, and so we may see differences in authorship between the two. Kirby answers most of the questions about vocabulary, and the answers mostly fall in line with previous Qunlat.

The same goes for Tresspasser. While its new Qunlat vocabulary is unfortunately minimal, the contents largely have the same linguistic feel as the rest of the language, grammar is consistent, and new words make etymological sense. A convert practices their conjugation tables, much to my delight. The language does strain against the relatively limited grammar it contains, though, with Viddasala’s lines in particular feeling like they’re missing connective tissue.

Secondary material far less consistent. Web series and comics like Redemption, Those Who Speak, and the currently-releasing Vows and Vengeance podcast* all are produced with less direct oversight or restrictions of medium and resource availability, tend to be highly divergent in general, and that definitely includes their Qunlat. Tie-in books like Tevinter Nights are only slightly more consistent, but are still of variable quality.

And then there is The World of Thedas.

That's not great.

While the two volumes of WoT scratch the itch for Delicious Lore, Volume 2’s unique additions to Qunlat are contain some glaring incompatibilities with the rest of the series. Volume 1 has a bit of in-universe disclaimer near the start of it, that all sources are biased and imperfect. Volume 2 includes errata from the previous book, including a walking back of ideas like “The Antaam stages duels to the death for promotions”, replaced with “actually the Orlesians made that up during the Exalted Marches to scare their kids”. So, we can see that real-world creative decisions were changed between the two books. That’s understandable.

Unfortunately for our purposes, Volume 2 also includes the largest corpus of grammatically complex Qunlat sentences in the entire series, and they appear to be deliberately sloppy.

I now have to introduce you to my nemesis, Philliam, a Bard!.

This poxy little creature is a character credited in The World of Thedas, Volume 2 as transcribing and “loosely translating” phrases spoken by Qunari soldiers at rest. These sentences are of variable quality, featuring misspellings of pre-existing words, absolutely bizarre sentence structure, and words that previous Qunlat simply can’t support. It’s like reading English and then suddenly you appear to have stumbled into a rogue word in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh.

I focus (saltily) on this for two reasons: First, Philliam, a Bard! is treated explicitly as an unreliable source. I have seen some folks reference his vocabulary in other contexts before, and it shows up in several dictionaries, including taking cues from his pronunciation guide. Do not trust anything found exclusively in his excerpts to fit with the rest of the language: he is intended to be a foreigner who may not fully understand the language, and may, in fact, just be making shit up.

Second, and I may be reaching a little here: as a constructed language hobbyist, I know how things go sometimes. You’ve come up with some sentences you want to translate into your conlang, but you realize you’re lacking vocabulary for it, or worse, you don’t have enough grammatical complexity to even structure the concepts you want to convey. …But you’re really tired, or only have a few minutes to poke at it, so you just fling down some new words and grammar that conceivably look like a translation, though you’re not quite sure how. This is especially common for new conlangers.

These sentences feel like that kind of thing was going on there. I’ll get into the details of why much later, but for now: If something you like in Qunlat contradicts Philliam, a Bard!, don’t feel wedded to stuff from him. He is, both in and out of continuity, an unreliable source.

But if you like Philliam, a Bard!? Go for it! My grumbling is entirely immaterial, DAI and WoT2 add in a bunch of vocabulary that people may want to draw from. Hopefully this post has provided some pointers on how to tailor Qunlat to your own interests. For those who may be interested in further tweaking Qunlat, I’ll give advice later, when we dig into some changes I personally made while trying to expand the language.

The one piece of advice I’ll give now: Beware the wiki’s dictionary. It’s a heroic work to source as many words as they did, but I’ve noticed some typos in their Qunlat (ex. Aqaam written as “Aquaam”), some definitions include irrelevant and misleading information (maraas-lok is the name of a strong alcohol that literally means “no(thing)-thought(s)”, and does not seem to be a verb for “drink”. Bull is just drunk and trying to get you to drink.), some words are fully unsourced, some are missing (placenames especially), and the citations are not comprehensive and do not necessarily list the first time a word appears in canon.

So I have made my own dictionary. It’s mostly based off of theirs, and retains the wiki’s definitions for those who want those. But it also features an accounting of which words show up in which sources, as well as my own notes, which include further definitions based off of verifiable context, etymologies of compound words, corrections for wiki or canon errors, and my suffering through the works of Philliam, a Bard!. I’ve gone through all of DAO and DA2’s subtitles, and World of Thedas Volumes 1 and 2 to verify the vocabulary they include, and at some point I will probably do the same for DAI and Trespasser. Tie-ins are lower down the list, for the reasons I explained above.  

Qunlat’s phonaesthetics will be covered this time, as this is what drew me in first, and laying them out will help readers create names or new words that sound Qunlat.

⭅ Previous =⦾ Index ⦾= Next ⭆

Footnotes

* I haven’t been following Vows and Vengeance, but the only Qunlat in the transcripts is all stuff we’ve heard before, the rest is simply glossed over as stage directions of people chanting or yelling a “FOREIGN TONGUE”. Someone in the YouTube comments identified Taash's chanting as the prayer we hear Sten recite in Origins, so that's almost all of it accounted for. I may listen and see if I can make any sense of the rest of it later, but I have a questionable ear for transcribing languages, so if it's new content, my results may not be 100% accurate.