#a princess who refuses to kill her prince even tho it directly leads to more suffering

[sunburstsandmoonshadows]

Very very interested in how Elody's place among the "destroy everything" princess brigade will end up shaking out, because one of the clear ideas we had gotten from Gerard and the flashbacks is that she is a woman governed by her duty to her people.

Like. She went to war with the giants, despite the hardship of it, despite how her husband hid away. She could have turned her back on her subjects and decided this was no place for princes and princesses. But she didn't; she fought for them.

Which is a heavy contrast to the princess brigade's murder plan, because it really is very selfish. I mean, it's understandable how they got to this point! From their perspective life is nothing but suffering and imposed happiness that doesn't last, which is a hard concept to grapple with, but they are still planning a suicide mission to end everything. It's easy to see it as selfish of them to take their pain as a reason to try and give everyone their idea of freedom by essentially killing them all.

These few princesses have agreed that the happiness the fairies force upon them is not worth the pain. The rest of the Neverafter may not have, and yet the princesses are making it happen with force.

But Elody is suggested by past deeds to be someone who cares primarily with others, so why go for a risky plan that ends in their deaths after trying to protect them from death via the giants? Is the idea of a free world, shaky as it is, too good to pass up.

I wonder how much the death of Gerard and the value the princesses place on princes factors into this. It feels like the princesses would have definitely pointed to Gerard and said, "he's meant to pacify you, to make an easy story. He's a tool, and the people of your kingdom are too. We've killed many of our princes, because they are simply tools for the fairies."

Then, the destruction plan will become one to free not only Elody from her place as a character with a certain ending, but the others as tools. After all, Elody is used to making choices for a kingdom, what's a whole world?

But now Gerard, the man who was a tool that was left to die, killed by one of the fairies who would have used him to make the tale work, is back, and awake, and growing and changing, and telling her that he believes that their past of suffering can be built into something better.

And that's a very different line of thought than the princesses' have ended up with. Completely the opposite, really.

So there's probably a good reason she excused herself after their talk for time alone.

[shima-draws]

FINALLY NEW OC TIME BABEY

The boy is Emrys, a prince from the Mirrorplane who is on the run from his own kingdom! The girl is Lacie, an orphan who was raised by a guild that rescued her from a somewhat abusive/manipulative friendship as a child!

More (incredibly long) info about these kiddos under the cut~

Emrys (or Em for short)

Age: 23

Hair color: Golden orange

Eye color: Red

Element: Lightning

Emrys is from the Mirrorplane, the parallel world to ATS. His kingdom is caught in a huge power struggle between all the other kingdoms, and Emrys’ mother, a queen who only seeks power from others, is leading them straight into ruin. Emrys is destined to receive the Crest of the Crowned, which is basically a huge emblem of power, as soon as he’s officially crowned as the king. Except that the queen plans to utilize the emblem’s power to start a grand war, which. Is not good!! The night Emrys finds this out, he plans to escape the kingdom along with his childhood best friend Lixin, a regular human who’s basically being used as a pawn to be married off to Emrys’ younger sister in order to create powerful elemental children. Yikes! Emrys is also engaged to a princess from another kingdom, but it’s an arranged marriage, and he doesn’t have feelings for her (so there’s another good reason for him to leave). Lixin is caught during his escape, and Emrys leaps to his rescue, but in the scuffle things get tense and he accidentally kills the guards sent after them. Hands stained with blood, Emrys stumbles into a portal leading to the other side of the Mirrorplane.

Emrys decides that he might as well stay there since he doesn’t know how to get home and he probably shouldn’t go home--he’ll be safer here, and this way his mother can’t use him to start a war. This goes alright for a couple months as he adapts to a world that isn’t constantly fighting with each other, until he realizes that his mother somehow sent people to come look for him and capture him so he can be dragged back home. He also hears word that Lixin is in this world as well. Emrys goes on the run, never sticking around one place for long, and tries to search for Lixin along the way. This is when he meets Lacie!

Personality traits

• Has a hard time trusting people in general. Refuses to get close to people in fear of them getting hurt. Because he's on the run and is a target he tries to keep to himself. A very lone wolf type. Doesn't want other people to get dragged into his problems so he tries to handle everything alone

• Very quiet, observant, INCREDIBLY intelligent--gets really absorbed in books when given the chance. One of the few times his facade falls and he gets Soft and passionate is when he's immersed in reading/studying. Loves absorbing knowledge from this world since it’s different from the Mirrorplane

• Makes scathing remarks often. Doesn't get riled up even when people tempt him. Is able to keep a very cool head most of the time. When he does get angry he gets STUBBORN. Refuses to let people try to talk to him or calm him down. Brushes people off and ignores attempts at support

• You know that he trusts you when he teases you or pokes fun at you

• Very wary. Always keeps an eye out for an escape route

• Careful around people. Knows his strength so he tries not to hurt others

• Deep down tho he's utterly selfless, unbelievably loyal to the people he cares about, and is a truly kind and generous person. He would sacrifice anything, even himself, to keep his friends safe, and beats himself up constantly if one of them gets hurt.  Once he learns to open himself up to others he becomes Tender and is able to express himself easier. He's truly a gentle person at heart

• Is awful at romance because he has no experience (even being engaged) and gets flustered easily when it comes to anything with romantic intent. This is like the one thing he has zero confidence in. Lacie usually has to take charge in this department because he’s too hesitant and nervous to figure anything out himself, so he tends to follow her lead, which sometimes leads to disaster but they figure things out one step at a time!

• Was attracted to Lacie immediately but didn’t want to get close to her bc he knew she’d get hurt because of him. WELP

•  Develops a huge guilt complex after Lacie loses her arm

Elemental abilities

Lightning elemental: Uses a thin sword/rapier to fight. Is VERY fast and agile. Usually starts by hitting pressure points and jolting them with electricity to numb the nerves. Doesn’t really like using his lightning directly so he tries to stick to the rapier as often as possible

He’s not a huge fan of fighting so he’d rather avoid conflict if necessary (especially after he killed someone on accident before). However he should not be underestimated in battle--he’s been trained how to fight from a young age so he knows what he’s doing. He uses a lot of tactics and smarts to get himself out of sticky situations

Lacie

Age: 21

Hair color: Gray/silver

Eye color: Brown

Element: Metal

Lacie’s parents died when she was very young, so she was sent to an orphanage shortly after. Her parents were bandits, labeled as outlaws, so a lot of the kids teased her and ostracized her. This caused her to hold a grudge against both them and her parents, even though they’d only resorted to thievery to provide for her and themselves. There was, however, one person who reached out to her there--an older girl named Gwendolyn. Gwen was very standoffish and didn’t care what the other children thought of her. She was the first person to treat Lacie normally, so Lacie grew attached to her. However, Gwen used Lacie and treated her as a tool to do what she wanted, but Lacie, too terrified of losing the only ‘friend’ she had, never spoke up about it. Gwen did care about Lacie, and there was a genuine friendship there, but that was overshadowed of her tendency to manipulate Lacie.

Gwen eventually hatched a plan to escape the orphanage and strike out on their own. Lacie agreed and together they snuck out in the middle of the night. (Sounds familiar? Wow, parallels!) The next day, Gwen tried to steal from a person in town, which ended up being a member of the guild nearby. Gwen managed to get to Lacie before getting caught and shoved the stolen items onto her, making her a target. Lacie realized how awful this was and finally gathered the courage to yell at Gwen. The guild member caught up, saw their interaction, and took Gwen in for questioning. He escorted Lacie to the guild, where she was pretty much adopted by the members.

Lacie grew up with the guild and learned compassion and how to forgive her parents. As an adult she’s a very kind, friendly and confident person. She is still burdened by her past but she tries not to let it get to her. 

Personality traits

• Not the most polite person since she doesn't really have a filter

• VERY curious. Somewhat naive. Asks a lot of bugging questions if she doesn't know something

• Hot-headed and stubborn. Gets riled up easily, but can control herself when she's angry. Argues a lot but isn't fond of it

• In reality, a very kind person who cares for her friends and would do anything to protect her family. Spirited and determined

• Can be kind of silly, especially when she's trying to cheer others up. Emrys finds her amusing and calls her a dork

• A leader type character...one that can take charge of the situation when everybody else is losing their heads

• Willing to step out of her comfort zone and dive into new adventures without hesitation. She lives for the thrill. Is spontaneous and willing to take risks/chances. Drags Emrys into her fun a lot bc he’s so sheltered as a prince lmao

• Self confident on the outside, insecure in reality (a lot of this comes from the emotional abuse she went through as a kid). But not enough that it's crushing--just enough to make her second guess things sometimes, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Emrys because he's a rubix cube of emotions and she's always afraid of overstepping her boundaries--this is only when she finds out more about him tho. She doesn't mind being an ass to him when they first met because he’s kind of a jerk so her first instinct is to lash out at him

• Isn't necessarily a rule breaker until it's brought up, and then she gets excited about doing daring things. Is almost too enthusiastic about it sometimes

Elemental abilities

Metal elemental: Uses throwing knives infused with magic to fight. Being a metal elemental, she’s able to control their trajectory and can toss them around and have them zip right back to her like boomerangs. She mostly uses these to unbalance enemies and strike them hard enough that they get too dizzy to stand. After she loses her arm, she also utilizes the metal it’s made out of to temporarily transform it into usable weapons.

She’s fine with fighting and is hasty enough to throw herself into battle without thinking, but is fine with peace talks most of the time. 

AND NOW onto how these two cuties meet ;)

If it weren’t obvious by now Emrys is a loner and therefore hates guilds and being associated with them. So naturally, after running into Lacie, he treats her with a lot of attitude and snark, which she retaliates against. After Lacie helps him chase off a couple thugs that he stole stolen goods back from (not the people actually chasing him), she somehow coerces him into the guild for a couple days, and he’s unsettled yet warmed by the friendly atmosphere. Emrys eventually admits he has to stick around town for a while to make some money, so Lacie offers to help him out by going out on official guild missions. Emrys is like I don’t need or want your help and she’s like alright fine then try making money on your own, guild missions pay WAY better and you can’t do one without an official member escort. So he’s like. Jesus fine okay I’ll go on the damn mission with you LOL

They go on a couple missions together and start getting close. Emrys is like oh no this is not what I want so he panics and tries to leave town, but Lacie catches up to him and yells him for leaving without saying anything. Unfortunately during this whole mess the trackers sent to follow Emrys find out where he’s hiding. He and Lacie go out on one last goodbye mission together and they get ambushed. They’re horribly outnumbered and even when Emrys resorts to actually fighting his hardest, Lacie gets terribly injured. Emrys manages to fight off the attackers, getting his hair cut off shorter in the process (which is why it’s shorter and in a cute little half bun in the second pic), but Lacie’s losing so much blood at this point--so he stumbles into the closest building in the closest town and GUESS WHO’S IT IS.

YEAH. IT’S THE ROBO FAM!! (Take note that this is like, 2-3 years after they return from the Mirrorplane themselves, so they’re around 25 at this point.)

Elias and Gifre are enjoying a nice evening prosthetic check date when Emrys stumbles into the mechanic shop, covered in Lacie’s blood, and begs for help before passing out. Both of them go OH SHIT and immediately leap to the rescue. As Elias, Gi-bot, Ava and Ignis (who were called in) work on patching up Lacie’s wounds, Elias realizes that her arm is too far gone to be saved. And this is kind of a sad moment for him since you know. He also lost his arm. So he can relate. Ava’s like you’ll just have to make her the best goddamn prosthetic in the world then and he’s like alright yeah, so they have to remove Lacie’s left arm and it’s. Not pretty.

Emrys wakes up several hours later to find that Gifre treated his wounds. When he asks where Lacie is and Gifre shows him, he immediately breaks down, because she got hurt SO badly because of him and this is why he didn’t want to get close to her in the first place. He laments over dragging her into his mess, and Gifre gives him a nice long Pep Talk, coming from a similar situation with dragging Elias into his personal issues with Python’s Blood. It helps a little, but Gifre can tell Em’s gonna be blaming himself for this for a WHILE (hence the guilt complex comment).

As Lacie recovers and gets used to her new prosthetic (and keeps smacking Emrys whenever he looks guilty about it), the two of them become closer despite Emrys’ attempts not to--but Lacie is stubborn and refuses to let him distance himself. They also get really close and bond a lot with the robo fam, having bunked with them for a while. The main part of the story is just these domesticity moments with the robo fam and their two new dysfunctional houseguests LOL

Eventually Emrys does find Lixin and decides to return to the Mirrorplane to sort things out with his mother, and that brings up a whole bunch of crazy drama, but the robo fam and Lacie come with him (and by that point he’s gone Full Tender and leans on them a lot for support so it’s NICE and CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT), so things get sorted out one way or another. There is a point where he and Lacie have a huge fight because Lacie...finds out something about the Mirrorplane that she does not like, and it nearly shatters her entire relationship with Em, so that’s a big oof. But they get it all sorted out and it’s fine. The reason why their fight hurts even worse is because at this point they’re full on in love with each other but are both too awful at romance to actually say anything. They’re stupid and they can’t communicate and I love them

Yes they end up together because *points at self* I’m a hopeless romantic loser. Lacie becomes a princess of the Mirrorplane which is WEIRD as hell to her but she gets used to it. Also they actually don’t stay there, Emrys hands the kingdom over to his younger sister, who’s always been better at handling royal affairs, and comes back to the regular verse with Lacie to live with her there. They get a house in Spinel Town near the robo fam and LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END

[polis-fandom]

The Last Jedi thoughts

It’s been a week and I’m still on the fence with this movie. Everytime I think I’m getting over the disappointment and starting to enjoy what was good there, I come across some review that’s like “THIS IS THE GREATEST STAR WARS MOVIE EVERRRR!!! ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING!” and it flares up again. I feel like I’m in the Gombrowicz’s tale, “how is it breathtaking, when it’s not breathtaking?! how is it beautiful, when it’s not beautiful? how is Rian Johnson a great director, when he’s the worst one since George Lucas?”. I need to get away from any discourse about this movie, or I’ll end up hating it. And it doesn’t deserve my hatred, because it’s not really a bad movie.

Bitter Me: *whispers* Luke Skywalker.

Me:

So I’ll just put my feelings here and move on. Under the cut, ‘cause lots of spoilers and overhelming bitterness, tho nothing new, others said all that already, so ignore as you wish.

“Star Wars: A New Hope” was the first movie I watched in cinema. No, I mean the remastered version from 1997, I’m not that old. But, yeah, Star Wars were the movies of my childhood, and are still among my favourite stories ever. After surviving the rocky Prequel Trilogy during my teenage years, I was excited to be brought back to the universe, and while The Force Awakens was redundant as far as the storyline goes, it won me over with the visuals. I made a conscious decision not to get attached to any of the new characters, because I felt there wasn’t enough to know about them. Besides, in the past Luke Skywalker didn’t became my favourite character until the second movie, so I figured I had the time to fall in love with them until I saw more.

Nice Me: Look at this one, he’s played by your favourite actor.

Bitter Me: That one is garbage.

Bitter Me: I’ll just wait to see the whole story. Maybe others will do something extra.

Nice Me: Like what? Blow up the Starkiller Base? Risk their life to save friends? Talk to Darth Vader’s helmet?

Bitter Me: Lose a limb.

(Btw, did you notice the advancement of the medical treatment in Last Jedi? The guy gets slashed through the back and wakes up mere days later just fine, other barely gets a scar…

Bitter Me: at least they are consistent with that.)

So, going in to see the Last Jedi, I had open mind, no expectations for the story, because Star Wars - aka the series that always makes it to the top of the lists of biggest plot twists ever - and I knew nothing besides what was shown in the trailer. And yet, I made one mistake. I saw someone’s tweet about how it’s the best Star Wars movie since the Empire…

Bitter Me: …and then I spent first hour trying to understand, where did this guy saw that greatness, because it just wasn’t there.

I’ve got the biggest gripes with the editing, cinematography, and directing in general. You see, this series, however bad the movies were, they at least were visually stunning. They had certain style and flow - despite all the action, there were always slower scenes, a bit more nostalgic, giving you time to soak up the visuals and feel the emotion. Johnson fails at that repeatedly. The edit at the beging is very rushed, the scenes chopped, and set-up of some could’ve been better. Even Ahch-too, which was amazingly shot in previous film, here becomes a more of clustered and claustrophobic set.

Nice Me: But there are some magnificient shots. The admiral Holdo launching into hyperspace - absolutely beautiful. The pretorian guards fight - one of the best lightsabers fights. The Crait scenes with crystals and everything.  

Bitter Me: which just angers me more, because if he’s capable of pulling of shots like that, why the whole movie isn’t equally beautiful???

Nice Me: But the Leia in vacuum scene starts beautiful too. I’m ecstatic that we finally have an undisputed proof that Leia is not only force sensitive, but she actually mastered the use of it. It would have been really interesting to see more of her in the next movie, might she have become a teacher Rey needs...

Nice Me:…but then the latter half of that scene is shot in such a way, it comes of as silly and utterly dumb. The guy is just bad at showing visions.

Nice Me: Breath. Just breath.

Bitter Me: …that one was horribly edited.

Nice Me: But the scene at dark place at AhchToo was impressive…

Bitter Me: …as a trick shot with no substance that leads to nowhere. He could have used some of that creative visuals for the Force Skype scenes, they were edited in such bland manner…

Nice Me: …you’re complaining about that because it reminded you of Alina and Darkling having identical force bond in Grisha, down to the shirtless scene…

Bitter Me:… as bad as that was, Bardugo at least gave a good explanation of how it was possible.

Nice Me: Snoke did it.

Bitter Me: I recognize the narrative need to create such connection between them, I just think it could have been done in a more artistic way visually.

Bitter Me: Rian is praised for the daring and innovative writing of this movie. And yet the main plot can be summed as: they are evacuating the rebel resistance base, escape - but not far, cause they can’t enter hyperspace, so they sneak into evil ship and try to turn off tracking beam, and then seek hidding on a nearby planet. Yep, I’ve never seen a star wars movie with a plot like that.

Bitter Me: So what’s so daring here? destroying all the symbols of the star wars franchise? Making Luke grumpy and acting against his very core?

Bitter Me: Look, I’m not so much against making Luke a space hobo hermit, who no longer wants to train Jedi, it‘s possible to have such turn after you tried and failed. But I have everything against Luke trying to murder Ben, because he’s too powerful and tempted to the dark side. Luke did everything he could to save his father, who was far deeper on the Dark side. Luke was himself tempted by it, and resisted it. Luke would have done everything to save Ben, but he would not draw a lightsaber on him…

Nice Me: But he says it was a flitting feeling, just a moment of weakness, he regrets deeply…

Bitter Me: What exactly young Ben Solo had done to lead Luke to even consider such an act? We are only told the dark side was rising in him, and that’s sounds vague as hell.

Look, The Star Wars at it’s core were a story about hope - that there’s good even in a bad person, about redemption, and unwavering familial love. Luke was the embodiment of that, and that scene goes directly against it.

If he so insist on having such a drastic turn for Luke, he should’ve made us understand, how did it happen. We should’ve seen more of young Ben Solo, and their dynamic prior to the break. It would serve both their characters and story overall better than this cheap shot for the shock value, so we, like Rey, would cry: You have created Kylo Ren???

But, honestly, if Rian is oh-so-clever and daring writer, he could’ve come up with a better, more complex backstory for Luke and Ben’s breakdown.

Bitter Me: and besides Luke’s arc here? The big lesson he learns? „the real great master let’s his students grow beyond him.” That’s such a simple one, so obvious, it’s dumb and annoying, not worthy to be Luke’s final arc. He was wiser than that. Luke was never about being great and powerful, he rejected offers to became such through dark side, he left his jedi training because his friends were more important to him. Why would he be afraid of his student becoming more powerful than him?

Nice Me: But Luke is great. Like when he says „what do you expect me to do? show up and wave my lightsaber, and they will all run off scared?”, he might be mocking the heroic ways and everyone’s expectations, but if you look back, he achieved his biggest win in the Original Trilogy by tossing asside the lightsaber and refusing to fight.

Bitter Me: …and then he goes and does excatly, what he mocked: shows up, wave the lightsaber and scare off the pesky First Order.

Nice Me: And it was EPIC! And the shoulder brush! hilarious!

Bitter Me: yeah, yeah. Btw, was that their first meeting since Luke tried to murder Ben? so he just like that, shows up, mocks Kylo’s powerlessness, fights him and then promises to forceghost hunt him for eternity?

Nice Me: What do you want him to do?

Bitter Me: …I don’t know, APOLOGIZE for trying to murder him?

Nice Me: fine, but this is still about redemption and love and hope. Rose says: That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love. It’s a great quote.

Bitter Me: Then who is saving Kylo? whose there left to love him? Rey, walking off on him, closing door on him? Leia, giving up on him, saying we need to kill him? What mother would say something like that? Leia would say something like that? The princess who was always compassionate, and hugging everyone around? Who spent all the previous film insisting on bringing Ben back?

Nice Me: She says it in a tone that suggests she’s not believing it herself. like she’s trying to convince herself, because others expect that of her, because he’s a threat to them all. And Luke counters it immedietly.

Bitter Me: …It’s still there.

Nice Me: …and there’s still third movie. The story is in progress.

Nice Me: At least Snoke is dead. That was GREAT. He always felt like this unnecessary ouside evil force, that people can conveniently blame for all the bad things done, just kill him and everythings gonna be bright and shiny again. By removing him so early, they made way and time to explore more complex evil inside us, err, characters, or harder to spot like the riches benefiting from the ongoing war. That’s a nice storytelling turn.

Nice Me: And Rey as a random nobody is a joy for my heart, because I’m a bit done with Chosen One trope, where hero’s been destinated for heroics on the qualms of being born a prince or noble or someone powerful. I’ve had hard times connecting with such characters, because I myself never felt born special.

(Bitter Me: Then how did you end up liking Luke, the very icon of Chosen One trope?

Nice Me: Loss of the limb.)

Bitter Me: okay, but that was only told to us, just like Rey’s vision of Kylo’s future. Told, not shown. I mean, given how bad Rian is at visions, it would be cringey, but still it’s a movie, use the visuals to convey the information. Not everything needs to be telegraphed, did we really need that guy liking the rocks on Crait to know it’s salt? Who cares it’s salt? That was distracting.

Nice Me: …that was to bring the attention to the footprint…

Bitter Me: …the big zoom on it did that just fine. The joke was unnecesary.

Bitter Me: Actually half the jokes were unnecessary. The humour was crude, often misplaced and under cutting the drama of the scenes. They say it was needed to balance out the dark themes this movie deals with, but in my opinion the previous movies dealt with the same dark drama, and yet used humour in a less forced nor cynical way. Some say it felt more like a Marvel movie, and true, that’s how it felt.

Nice Me:…but you loved Thor Ragnarok - for it’s humour exactly.

Bitter Me: one, Thor used humour with better placement and sense of purpose, didn’t try to undercut the emotional impact of the scenes with it. Two, it was a Marvel movie - you expect such humour, because that’s their style. Going to the Star Wars you expect Star Wars - great visuals, action scenes, emotions, feelings, not disgusting alien cow. It’s anti-climatic.

Besides, why are we so ashemed of pure emotions and drama, that we need to undercut it with gags and jokes? why there must be a wink, „yeah, we did this serious scene, but we’re not sure we got it good enough, people might mock us for it, better mock ourselves first.” For gods sake, dare to be honest. If it’s serious, heroic, epic, let it be such!

Nice Me: The latter half of the movie was great, tho. Rey using force in non-combat way to move rocks and save friends, nice way to turn joke around into something beautiful. All of them coming together on Millenium Falcon board. Luke’s death with the suns setting, making nice parallel to the sunset at Tatooine long ago at the begining of his journey. That last scene about the power of storytelling, I cried a little, it was so moving…

Bitter Me: … the storytelling about what? Self-righteous jedi deciding who is worthy of forgivness or chance for redemption, and who to finish off while they’re still a kid and asleep? About mothers giving up on their sons? About destroying everything that once was sacred, stripping it of the value? It’s all clever writting, but without understanding the soul of the Star Wars, without keeping it’s core sacred, it came of shallow.

Nice Me: shhh, calm down. It’s just a movie.

Bitter Me: How did we come to the Star Wars being just a movie? just a story? quite ironic, in the context of that ending scene.

Magic is gone.

Nice Me: Come on, Let’s watch it again, maybe you’ll like it better. There’s a cute orange murderball...

Bitter Me: …and my fave actor gets trashed around. Fine, let’s watch it again.