#Rebels critical

[animazi]

I’ve been rewatching rebels recently, and do forgive me for being a bit critical, I am very aware that a lot of this comes from my own comparative lack of interest in the uh. Rebels. As opposed to the tcw ladderinos who are there

but the way the show pivots from haha funny silly adventures to malachor is honestly ridiculously quick and for me at least felt really out of left field. + I honestly don’t like ahsokas arc that much? In theory I’m down for it, but in practise I was left wondering where the meat of it was. Seeing ahsoka (and rex) begin to put together that vader is anakin before the big reveal would have been really interesting, and would have made her arc and her general presence + the impact and suspense for malachor so much better. I know why they didn’t do this - ahsoka isn’t the main character - but I think in that case don’t introduce vader as your looming big bad for the early seasons; maybe at most have him make some camos and a few fight scenes, but he is kinda irrelevant to the Rebels? He’s not their former master turned Sith Lord, kanan pretty clearly doesn’t feel more anger towards him than he did to the clones, aside from as a representative of the empire, vader doesn’t have the same meaning to them, and it just doesn’t quite click.

(edit: I do know that what maul says in tcw siege of mandalore + general force bs is enough for ahsoka to put two and two together and get vader , but I still think there is a lot of emotional stuff there (esp with rex involved!) that really feels like it should have been explored better. (+ I am a believer that unless something is specifically set up as a sequel you should be able to watch/read it without having seen the connected works) - I don’t think it’s inconceivable that ahsoka figures anakin is vader without a lot of effort, but showing her putting the pieces together and either rejecting or becoming more sure of her conclusion would have made malachor not only hit harder, and her arc feel less like a hanger on from tcw)

anyway. Please don’t shoot me I still think rebels is mostly really good (I don’t like the world between worlds stuff, but that’s personal, and I didn’t like mortis either) and this lil rant thing was mostly prompted by me getting really bored in ep20 and then checking how many were left and being genuinely shocked ghat it was twilight of the apprentice already. This is all obviously just my own thoughts.

[bibwak]

redid a piece I never finished in 2019, original below the cut

I gave up on the original pretty quickly because I discovered that casein is even more of a nightmare for portraits than gouache. I didn't save the original reference, unfortunately, so I had to cobble together several images of people during twilight to get a grasp of the lighting.

[lavellaned]

A lot of the pro-veilguard arguments I see include a very specific way of viewing what “dark fantasy” is which misses the entire point as to why there are criticisms about the overall tone of the game.

Dark fantasy is not just “how much murder rape bigotry and overall suffering can we put in a story for the sake of doing so”.

It’s about having events and themes based off of the darker parts of reality and then, as the player, being able to do something about it. The general appeal is the catharsis. It’s about seeing these stories reflected through an interactive story in a meaningful, respectful, purposeful way.

Is dragon age the poster child for handling its complicated, real-life-inspired politics well? No. But veilguard was somehow worse. The bar was in hell and it still tripped flat on its face.

Veilguard’s lackadaisical, chronically ironic “well THAT just happened”, neutered writing and theme is not a good argument as to why this is a good dragon age game, and you can’t blame the dark fantasy genre for it.

[undead-knick-knack]

[thenationofzaun]

Arcane Season 2 was so fucking funny for having these two songs for Jinx. "Tear this place apart" "Rebel heart" "In chaos I reign" "Destruction is art" "Don't you want to tell lies" "Blood and gore" "Paint the town blue" "Pure mayhem that is who I am" "Come join me on the dark side"

Meanwhile actual Jinx: *playing with bugs at home*

[theclownghoul]

The way timebomb would have ate as rivals to reluctant allies/friends (with potential undertones) in S2 while heading a chaotic revolution of Zaun will never not haunt me.

[crowwowo]

my bbg light of my life gem of my eye(s) Fjord Stone

[thatrandomartistjavi]

I think a weak point of Ever After High as a show and the reason why I think the fandom sucks at handling the Royal-Rebel conflict is that

EAH put way too much emphasis on the Royals. ESPECIALLY in the specials.

Like yeah you had Raven, and sometimes you would get stuff focused on Cerise or Cedar but for the most part, most of the character stuff happens with Royals. We have Apple, Briar, Ashlynn, Blondie, the Charmings, Lizzie. So much of the focus is on the people who are at the top(aka rich). Even the only Rebel that gets significant attention is rich as well being the daughter of the Evil QUEEN and the Good KING

I see people in the fandom constantly not be sympathetic towards the Pied Piper and paint them as the only person in the wrong when I see no one talk about how the Mayor of Hamelin is the reason why the children were taken. The People of Hamelin have to be fearful of the day hundreds and hundreds of rats invade their village. They have to sit there and watch as the person who helped them with their infestation have to take their children because THEIR MAYOR is destined to not pay them the amount that they owed them.

And the Pipers seemingly don’t like their destinies. The original Piper probably only took the kids until the Mayor paid them as a lesson to not pay the amount that you promised. Oh but because the Pied Piper isn’t a Royal(rich) that means he was the only one in the wrong.

In universe, Sparrow gets put in General Villainy even tho the character of Robin Hood is famously known to aid the poor and in need. Oh no but because he robs from the rich then he HAS to be a villain!!! It’s not like Robin Hood is supposed to be a hero of the people and not the 1%!!!

The tyrannical Queen of Hearts and the abusive Duchess are allowed to stay tyrannical and abusive because not only is it their “destiny”, they have power and money. In the meta of the show, a harmless trickster is much more worthy of being treated as an awful villain more than a murder happy Queen.

The curriculum is mainly centered around Royalty and even classes that should be for everyone like Muse-ic class is implied to need pressure to even let Rebels take it even tho a Rebel is literally teaching it. Pied Piper wouldn’t be able to teach his OWN DAUGHTER Muse-ic all because they aren’t Royals

And this reflects in the fandom too. People only care about how sad the Royal’s destinies are and rarely ever concentrate on the Rebels that aren’t Raven Queen. On the rare occasion, you’ll get a little bit of Cerise. Anyone else? Absolutely irrelevant

And it sucks cause I generally think that exploring the feelings of the Rebels about the system that hurts them the most. But no. We just get the 100th episode about Apple and her possee

[iftheresaproblem-whatever]

STAR WARS REBELS + LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA CROSSOVER

I love both of these shows and this scene works perfectly for the boys. 😄

Big thank you to my good friend and collab partner @hayesflint for providing the sprites for me to edit. 💜

@thehonorableones

[baejax-the-great]

Veilguard does the important work of reminding us that people's religiousity is generally rooted entirely in rationalism, logic, and goodwill toward everyone in the world and not just specific ingroups.

When the Elvhen pantheon, who in many ways take after the Greek pantheon from our world, are revealed to be flawed individuals, something that the Dalish are already aware of because their myths convey some of those flaws all these years later, logically, the Dalish then abandon their gods instantly and without any sort of emotional response and turn toward the rational goal of killing those gods.

After all, during the Trojan war when Apollo felt slighted and decided to send a plague to wipe out the Achaeans (and their dogs for some reason), didn't the Trojans all look at each other and go, "Actually, that was a kind of fucked up thing for Apollo to do. And scary. There's nothing to stop him from using that ability against us. Maybe we should just go kill Apollo"?

No? They didn't do that? Because that would be absurd and entirely out of keeping with how people understand and express faith throughout all of history?

Weird. Well, I'm sure there's an example out there somewhere that jives with Veilguard's quality writing.

[bibwak]

I need him and Astrid to bicker so much that everyone assumes they're divorced

[ruvi-muffin]

It is So Important to me that essek has a religious upbringing devoid of meaningful love and connection (except his bother), gets recruited into a cult; and Indirectly, bc of this, he meets the queerest group of ppl he's ever met and feels friendship for the first time in his life, propelling him to change trajectory so drastically he's now on the run, has presumably no contact w his famly (except, again maybe his brother) and has to live a secret life Again, but at least this time he has a family that loves him.

It's just so important ;; the most character of all time, truly a man of the people (🏳️‍🌈!!)

[bikananjarrus]

the way that, if you took away her armor and the two or three lines referencing it, you would literally never know that sabine was a mandalorian in the ahsoka show. filoni completely stripped her of her culture (and personality) and never gave her a meaningful scene talking about the destruction of mandalore or her family. all in favor of giving her a bad and poorly executed padawan storyline, because apparently a character can’t be interesting unless they’re a jedi

[star-dust-wars]

We have to talk about one of those most chilling deaths in all of Star Wars (other than that one clone who got cut in half)

This is Sumar from Rebels. Sumar was a part of the Lothal Rebellion. (He's also voiced by Liam O'Brien for those who love Critical Role like me ❤️)

He worked in an Imperial factory and purposely sabotaged many of their equipment, so it would all practically self-destruct if any of it ever reached full power.

When Thrawn suspected him, he MADE Sumar test his own equipment that he manufactured. Thrawn made him test the equipment to its breaking point. It was about to explode, and Sumar wanted to stop, claiming that something was wrong, but Thrawn insisted that the demonstration wasn't over.

Sumar was killed by his own creation in such a brutal scene for a KIDS show! And Ezra, who had known Sumar since he was a kid, was forced to watch it happen, or else his cover would've been blown.

[copalcetic]

Every time I think about it, I’m struck by the parallel beats in Kallus’s and Crosshair’s redemption arcs.

Spent a season chasing the heroes.

Forced to work together with the heroes after being abandoned by the Empire, then refused to leave with the heroes even though that meant being stuck on a deserted rock with no way off and no Imperial rescue incoming.

Risked everything to get a message out to the heroes once captured after defecting, only to have that message ironically be what doomed the heroes.

Retired to an isolated, idyllic planet for a happily ever after.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s Star Wars. It’s like poetry. It rhymes.

But my favorite part is despite all of that, if they ever met, they’d probably hate each other.

Kallus: After all that, you just . . . left? You didn’t stay to join the fight? Crosshair: Nope. Kallus: Your guilt for your past actions didn’t make you feel compelled to spend years giving your all for the cause? Crosshair: Nope. Kallus: You weren’t driven by a need for absolution? Crosshair: I shot Hemlock. It was very absolving.

[short-wooloo]

In retrospect, one of the biggest storytelling mistakes SW made was when Rebels had there be a big contingent of mandalorians (and eventually all of them) fighting against the empire

Like, that makes no sense, mandalorians have always been chummy with the sith for one, they hate Jedi, and they love fighting killin and conquering, they believe in a code of "the strong deserve to rule because they're strong, the weak deserve to be conquered because they're weak" (hence why they get along so well with the sith), they should have seen the empire brutally oppressing worlds, the persecution of the Jedi, and Vader murdering everything in his path and fucking tripped over themselves trying to bend the knee and pledge loyalty to Palpatine

But no, now every fucking mandalorian is an honorable rebel who respects and fights for the freedom of all (THAT'S THE JEDI GODAMNIT!! YOU'RE STEALING THE JEDI'S TRAITS AND GIVING THEM TO MANDOS!!)

Not only that, but we've diminished the uniqueness of characters like Sabine, she was an honorable rebel who fought for everyone's freedom, it made her stand out from the rest of the mandalorians, she was a cultural rebel because of those qualities