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the-lincyclopedia · 4 years ago

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* adapted from @librajiminn on twitter

A fun game to celebrate 2020 ending! The rules are simple: recommend your favorite OMGCP fics so everyone can enjoy them, while trying to fill in enough slots to get a bingo!

This is going to get long, so I’ll put it under a cut. Also, I’m too orderly to try to shoehorn my favorite fics into these particular prompts, so I’m just going to go right to left, top to bottom, taking the prompts literally, until it’s bedtime.

1. first fic you bookmarked: “Here Comes the Sun” by @doggernaut, 19k, G, no warnings, Zimbits

For the past month, the man with the baby and the sad blue eyes has been stopping in for a cup of coffee an hour before closing. He always sits in an overstuffed chair in the corner and drinks his coffee while his baby sleeps next to him in the stroller. Sometimes he pulls a book out from the diaper bag he carries with him; other times he just stares straight ahead as if in a daze. He never asks for a refill, always respectfully gathers his things and leaves ten minutes before the shop officially closes. Eric desperately wants to ask him what his story is.

My notes: I read Check Please over the course of two days in June of 2019. On the second day, right after catching up, I looked at @peppermintfeminist‘s AO3 bookmarks and found a fic by @doggernaut. Then I read just about everything @doggernaut had ever posted. It was glorious. This fic in particular is so cute.

2. most recent fic you bookmarked: “Flight Check” by @edgarallanrose, 15k, E, no warnings (though there is a creepy/handsy guy at a club to watch out for), primarily Zimbits with most of the other popular pairings in the background

Flight attendant Eric “Bitty” Bittle has been working his way up at Samwell Airlines for the past four years, and his new promotion has provided him the opportunity to work with a brand-new crew. Unfortunately for Bitty, that crew includes an incredibly handsome but equally grumpy pilot, Captain Jack Zimmermann, who seems to want nothing to do with Bitty. Even worse, Jack refuses to eat any of Bitty's baked goods. Will Bitty be able to win the captain over? Or is there another reason Jack has been avoiding Bitty?

My notes: There are a lot of great things about this fic--Jack’s character arc, Lardo’s dialogue, that scene in Seattle--but the reason I bookmarked it is the scene where Bitty’s basically slut-shaming himself and Jack gently but firmly tells Bitty not to do that and that it was the creep’s fault.

3. a fic that made you cry actual tears: “a little bit more” by @ivecarvedawoodenheart, 14k, T, no warnings, Holsom

“I just wanted,” he says, “a perfect day. With you. Because it’s our last day together and our last day being here as undergrads and we’re kissing the ice tonight, and the weather’s supposed to be beautiful, and you’re moving tomorrow and Holtzy I just — I don’t want to be missing you already.” Holster wipes his eyes before he even realizes he’s crying. Behind him, Ransom sighs. “One more day where everything’s the same,” he says, feeling around blindly for Rans’ fingers. He feels Rans nod as he laces their fingers together. “Yeah. Yeah, Rans. I’d like that a lot.” __________________________

Holsom after graduation and throughout the subsequent six months after Holster signs to an expansion team in Oregon, and realizes his feelings for Ransom too late. Holster's POV :) kinda angsty, but there's a happy ending :)

Inspired by shitty-check-please-aus: "Holster moves to Oregon while Ransom stays on the east coast. The time difference makes it difficult to talk and one day they wake up and realize they aren’t best bros anymore."

My notes: I almost never cry at fics. I searched “tears” in my fandom email account and only a handful of my fic comments came up, but Syd is a literal master of Holsom angst, always.

4. longest fic you’ve read: “Like Real People Do” by @xiaq, 153k, M, No Warnings, Kent Parson x OC

Parson gestures with his spoon toward Hawke. “So am I allowed to ask about the service dog or is that not PC?”

“My medical history is more of a 3rd date conversation," Eli says.

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Because. No one sticks around afterward and I like to live in glorious denial for a short period beforehand.”

It comes out more self-deprecating than he intended.

Parson looks…thoughtful. “Well, does this count as one or two?

“Pardon?”

“This. Ice cream. I mean, technically it’s a second location, but still the same night. So is this one date or two?”

“One,” Eli says firmly. “If it’s happening within the same three-hour period.”

“You’re the expert,” Parson says, which, he’s really, really, not, but ok.

“So still two dates to go then?” Parson continues.

“I—what?”

“We’ve got a roadie coming up but then we’re home for almost two weeks. When does your semester start?”

“You want to do this again?” Eli asks.

Parson stops idly twirling his spoon.

“You don’t?”

He does, Eli realizes. He really does. Because apparently he actually likes Kent fucking Parson.

My notes: Okay, this fic has my whole entire heart. I’ve read it multiple times in its entirety, and it’s almost twice as long as the full-length novel I’m querying. Eli is one of my favorite OCs I’ve ever seen in a fic (probably tied with Damian Navarro and Ari Paxton, both brainchildren of @fozmeadows). Anyway, this is probably going to be the next thing @themeaningoflifeischeese and I read out loud to each other.

5. a fic you almost didn’t read: “when all else fails (i’ll still be right here)” by @whoacanada, 6k, T, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings (and I don’t remember if I think there’s stuff to warn for, sorry), Zimbits

The National Hockey League is resurrecting the Quebec City Nordiques, and the expansion draft hits the Falconers much harder than expected.

My notes: Given that this was for @omgcpheartbreakfest, I was worried this would be all angst--all hurt and no comfort. Which made me sad, because I love @whoacanada‘s writing but I wasn’t up for reading unresolved angst. But @doggernaut reblogged the fic, so I asked if the ending was sad, and it’s NOT! There is quite a bit of angst but the ending isn’t sad.

6. a fic that convinced you on a ship you didn’t ship before: “it drops with the gravity of rain” by @geniusorinsanity, 16k, T, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings (attempted sexual assault by an OC), Nurseydex

It happens like this:

“I don’t--this is a bad idea,” Dex says, his lips still tingling, his hands shaking on Nursey’s hips where he’s shoved him away. “This is a really bad idea, Nurse. I can’t--We can’t do this.”

And there’s hurt in Nursey’s eyes and his bottom lip is swollen from Dex’s teeth, but he says, “Okay.” And then, “It’s chill, Dex. Just friends, then.”

It happens like this:

“Actually,” Nursey says, talking more to his granola than to them, “I kind of have a date.”

It happens like this:

When Nursey calls, Dex almost doesn’t pick up the phone.

My notes: So I was really confused and a little disturbed when I first found out people shipped Nursey and Dex. Like, Dex just wasn’t someone I trusted. But then I was moving out of the house I’d been living in, and I needed stuff to listen to as I packed and cleaned, and @khashanakalashtar‘s podfics came in clutch. I gave this one a try even though I didn’t like Dex, and @geniusorinsanity blew. My. Mind.

7. a fic from an unusual POV: “Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy” by @porcupine-girl, 8k, G, no warnings, Zimbits

Jesse Snowden knows all the best restaurants and gourmet food shops in Providence, so when Jack Zimmermann starts bringing in incredible baked goods, he's eager to find out where the new bakery is. When he meets the man behind the pies, he decides that there's no way Jack could really appreciate this guy's talent the way he does, even if they are friends. He starts hiring Jack's chef on the side, in the hopes that maybe once Bitty's done with college he'll come work for Jesse.

Good thing there is absolutely no way whatsoever that Jesse could possibly be misinterpreting this situation.

My notes: Oh my gosh this is so funny. The secondhand embarrassment factor is huge, but like, the hilarity.

8. a comfort fic: “Don’t Need to Compromise” by @khashanakalashtar, 11k, E, no warnings, PB&J

“Hey,” said Kent, unknowingly setting off a chain of events that would change his entire life, “you said that like you know from experience. Have you done this before?”

Jack and Bitty have not done polyamory before, but they do know Ransom and Holster’s polycule, which contains March.

And March?

March is trans.

My notes: I’m in love with @khashanakalashtar‘s entire Directionverse series (and honestly a lot of their other writing), but “Don’t Need to Compromise,” which is the second fic in the series, just makes my heart swell especially much. The gender feels are so good, and all the characters are so good to each other, and when I listen to this on walks I have to actively try not to arm-flap.

9. a fic you wish could be a movie: “Ice Crew Please!” by @petals42, 61k, T, no warnings, Zimbits

Jack Zimmermann was drafted first by the Providence Falconers when he was eighteen years old. He is good at hockey. Very good. His team won the Cup his second year and now, in his third year, they are looking good. Jack should be on top of the world. And some days, he manages to convince himself he is.

He’s not, of course.

Enter the Ice Crew.

AKA: The Ice Crew AU

My notes: This fic has its tender moments, but what I love most about it is the sheer goofiness. Ransom and Holster and Shitty are HILARIOUS in this one. I’d love to see their shenanigans in movie form.

10. a WIP you read as it was updated: “Something Borrowed” by @fozmeadows, 48k, M, no warnings, Kent x OC

All things considered, Ari did his best to prepare himself for the advent of Kent Parson, Potentially Difficult Housemate and New Star Liney. The problem was that his best was an idiot.

My notes: So technically I didn’t start reading this until the first 19 chapters were posted. But there was still plenty of anticipation for the final few chapters. And like, @fozmeadows (as mentioned above) makes EXCELLENT OCs. And I love how their fics consistently convey that having bad things happen to you does not mark the end of your story.

Okay, it’s bedtime, so have 10 excellent fics. I got bingo twice, because I went straight across on the top two rows.

#mine #omgcp #omgcheckplease #check please #fic recs

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sepublic · 4 years ago

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Starkiller Base was unnecessary

Re-watching The Force Awakens, and… It’s occurred to me that, even more than I initially thought, Starkiller Base is a genuinely useless, pointless part of the plot that’s just shoehorned in for the sake of arbitrarily raising the stakes, in a blind attempt to redo the Original Trilogy while one-upping it at the same time; Taking pot shots at the original Death Star’s ‘absurdity’ to try to make Starkiller Base’s destruction feel more ‘involved’ and ‘sensible’ with having an inside job to sabotage and blow up key components, yadda-yadda; Almost feels like the writers are punching down at the Original Trilogy in a vain attempt to look more clever and ‘self-aware’, without considering how reckless power-scaling doesn’t work (Which we see once more and somehow even worse in The Rise of Skywalker).

The thing about why the Death Star works is like… It’s relevant. It has build-up. We’re introduced to it from the start, the entire story revolves around destroying it; R2-D2 is important because he has plans to the Death Star, Vader is seen chasing Leia because she had those plans. It all comes around to and circles back to the Death Star, we have a sense of what it is from the start, there’s build-up. You NEED the planet-killing machine for the climax of A New Hope, because the only reason to go there is because, surprise- The Death Star IS there, it just arrived right besides Yavin IV!

But Starkiller Base… When you watch the movie, it just pops in out of nowhere, amidst the pre-established plot threads. Without any prior context or build-up, we’re just suddenly treated to a shot of this huge, mechanized planet, and then Hux almost casually drops that the ‘superweapon’ is ready, and then suddenly it’s firing and blows up the Hosnian System. The Death Star is justifiable because it’s the first of its kind, Starkiller Base is the third. In canon and Legends, there’s a lot of side-material going into the sheer enormity and horror of the Death Star, the amount of manpower it takes to construct such a thing, its formation is treated with gravitas; And yet something WAY bigger and more advanced comes out of nowhere, from a group even less powerful than the Empire?!

Again, you need the Death Star, it’s why the rebels are being chased, it’s why Leia was captured, it’s why R2-D2 meets Luke and then Obi-Wan, bringing up the Rebel journey; It’s why Luke’s aunt and uncle die, it’s why there’s no Alderaan and instead the Death Star itself to capture the protagonists when they arrive there. But Starkiller Base is pointless- The plot is about BB-8 because he has the map to Luke Skywalker, it’s about finding Luke through BB-8. Starkiller Base is just so casually dropped for something that should be so much bigger than the Death Star in the narrative… And likewise, we don’t need it for anything.

Is it to prove to Finn that the First Order is dangerous, that he can’t just ignore its destruction? The thing is, he already has Rey’s capture to motivate his participation. Starkiller Base could not fire, but Finn would still help the Resistance infiltrate, because Rey would still be captured. It’s not needed for Poe and the Resistance to arrive on Takodana, because they came for BB-8 after getting that message, the Hosnian Cataclysm totally unrelated. You could argue it gives the Resistance an excuse to fight back against the First Order in the film’s climax… But that does not justify creating another superweapon, much less one as implausible and redundant as Starkiller Base.

Like, maybe the writers wanted to REALLY return to the status quo, so having the New Republic be devastated was a requirement… But was it really? Just have the New Republic continue to be ineffectual, it’s even a plot-point in side material that its military is embarrassingly small; So just say the Resistance IS the full extent of that military! You still get an underdog situation. And again, if you really want to forcibly cut off any support for the Resistance… You don’t need a giant superweapon to one-up the Death Star. Just have the First Order demonstrate its traditional military power, by having a fleet invade the New Republic’s capital, unexpected, able to waltz in because everyone is so incompetently lax about these rising fascists; And with recent real-life events, it only makes more disturbing sense.

Instead of getting a pointless superweapon, have a bunch of Star Destroyers attack Hosnian Prime and take it over, show a montage of destruction and civilian death, etc. This still establishes the danger of the First Order and how it’s quickly decapitated the New Republic and left it in shambles, setting the stage for the underdog conflict; But you don’t have to rely on something as absurdly over-the-top as Starkiller Base, which has no build-up to its unprecedented firepower besides “Oh yeah this exists” and then watching it fire and finding out firsthand.

The death of trillions with the Hosnian System is senseless violence both in-universe and from a narrative, writing perspective… And again, this arguably establishes the First Order as a threat better, because they don’t need to rely on a superweapon; And even after The Force Awakens ends, the audience still knows that they have access to an entire fleet… Whereas with Starkiller Base, that threat is lost by the end of the film and thus made redundant. The scene could become even more disturbing if we straight-up see some civilians on Hosnian Prime welcome the First Order, adding additional world building that helps explain why the First Order was able to develop, how it got support- And again, being topical to what happens today. It connects with canon lore about the First Order’s supporters in other worlds (such as Coruscant), and could even be a callback to liberty dying with thunderous applause in Revenge of the Sith! We could still have the people on Takodana react in horror, through the Holonet’s broadcasting of the coup.

Of course, this is Star Wars- And what’s more iconic than thrilling space battles and trench runs? Sometimes you want sci-fi fun and stuff for the sake of it, nothing wrong with that, that’s always important too… But again, you don’t need a giant super-laser to have that. Just make up something else; Like Starkiller Base is the planet that the First Order has taken over. Perhaps they intend to launch a bunch of new Star Destroyers, or are about to finish production of a whole new batch, which would make things even worse. Instead of destroying a superweapon, you could have the Resistance crippling the factories that finish these Star Destroyers- There’s your trench run! Have them blow up a power plant that’s running the factories, instead of a thermal oscillator. There’s still a victory at the end, and while the threat is far from over, time has been bought- And it makes the First Order’s immediate retaliation in the next film more sensible, adds to the idea that every second, every bit of progress helps, you gotta take what you need… Even an extra day to prepare and evacuate is a miracle that furthers the underdog motif.

Plus, with a batch of Star Destroyers that need to be stopped- There’s still the need to rescue Rey. The Resistance still needs to cause damage at the First Order’s base, and Finn is still needed to infiltrate and lower the shields, while taking advantage of this operation for himself and Rey. Most importantly, you don’t get a contrived superweapon that only adds to the bland, carbon-copy standard of the Sequel Trilogy; And perhaps best of all, we don’t have to see Ilum retroactively bastardized and destroyed, with Starkiller Base’s identity revealed AFTER we see it get blown up… The legacy of the Jedi and its history is not further destroyed with the loss of this sacred planet of kyber crystals.

And that’s better, because this trilogy about passing the torch, seems as insistent as Kyle Ron, the villain, on interpreting this theme as utterly wiping out all traces of the past, and leaving nothing for the next generation to work with. Which, I’m not surprised at a corporation thoughtlessly razing and salting the earth in selfish disregard for those who will need and use it afterwards, but still. And while a star that burns brighter than most thanks to its heart of Kyber IS a neat concept that could be worked with, especially with what Chirrut Imwe says, in addition to the motifs of flames of rebirth and the Phoenix… It’s not something that justifies the further eradication of Jedi history and effort on a level that even the Empire didn’t go, just to arbitrarily raise stakes with yet another uninspired superweapon.

Like, the Duel of the Fates script and its concept of a device that blocks off all inter-galactic communication is MUCH more interesting, clever, and innovative than the Death Star Lite, and it hits closer to home in this age of internet and mass communication; In contrast to the Death Star, which fit more in its time as a criticism of the stockpiling and development of nukes, and how that tapped into the public’s fear at the time of nuclear Armageddon. And a device blocking off intergalactic communication provides good reason for why the Resistance doesn’t have the full might of the New Republic behind them, because they can’t even communicate to collaborate, and it adds to that idea of people made to feel ‘alone’ or whatever and thus isolated, so they can’t band together and rise up. That adds to Rey feeling alone, and makes Poe and Zorii’s discussion at the end of the trilogy that much more meaningful… Not that the Sequel Trilogy was planned to consider the latter, of course.

(Actually, I wonder if it’s possible to cut Starkiller Base’s superweapon scenes from the film. Like a cut where any references to its superweapon, and the scene where it fires, is cut out; I think the film might still work that way.)

#star wars #the force awakens #sequel trilogy #starkiller base #ilum #meta

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meldelen · 4 years ago

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The Witcher comics - Some kind of review

Just finished the fourth volume of the newest Witcher comics and I thought I’d share some personal impressions. Of course, these being just my humble opinion from my inexperience, in general, in the comics world.

The Witcher: House of Glass (Volume I)

Nothing special, unfortunately. It’s merely one standalone adventure of Geralt of Rivia that at most could resemble a side-quest among the thousands you find in the games. The original idea - a widowed hunter stalked by the vengeful ghost of his murdered wife - isn’t bad per se, but doesn't seem particularly well written to me. I'm sure there are much better fanfics in the community.

Still, the illustrations are worse. I’m not an expert in comics but I know a bit about art and they look honestly ugly to me. The characters appear unfriendly, disproportionate... with their heads too large and their arms too narrow or long. Even the level of detail changes randomly: for example, there’s a female character, the succubus, who in her first appearance is seen with horns and wings and then is no longer seen like this anymore, appearing as a human woman.

There are many filler scenes that son’t contribute anything to the story but mere dialogue, in addition to two moments of Geralt fucking someone because of course, it is what Geralt always does, to make some woman (even if she’s a succubus) end up falling between his legs.

Otherwise, a marketable product, quite forgettable. Only for die-hard fans of The Witcher who don't mind spending some bucks to add something else to their collection. But I couldn't say I recommend it.

The Witcher: Fox Children (Volume 2)

Although essentially my review does not change much from that of the first volume, House of Glass, I give one more star to Fox Children for a very simple reason: the story is better, and it is because it’s Sapkowski's original story.

Those who have read Season of Storms, the prequel to The Witcher saga and the latest book published by the Polish author, will have realized that this story is copy-pasted from the book, with very few and insignificant modifications. However, nowhere is it mentioned that the story is originally written by Sapko - despite being recognized as the author of The Witcher - and therefore the story is good compared to the previous volume.

So it's really not true that Paul Tobin wrote this comic, because even the text is almost copy-pasted from Season of Storms. As for the drawing, it’s still as unfriendly and bland as in the first volume. Fortunately in the third volume they have already changed illustrators.

I would only recommend this comic to The Witcher fans who enjoy the story of the fox and the kidnapped girl on the boat crossing the Pontar swamp that you already know from the book. Otherwise, a fairly dispensable and irrelevant product. The cover, yes, is very beautiful.

The Witcher: Curse of Crows (Volume 3)

This third volume from The Witcher series is slightly better than the previous ones, for many reasons. In the first place, the drawing, without being extraordinary, improves considerably compared with House of Glass and Fox Children, thereby benefiting from the change of illustrator - that while still being a bit flat, expressionless and simple.

Second, the story greatly benefits from the appearance of Ciri and Yennefer. What's more, I would say that the protagonist of the story is Ciri, more than Geralt. Fans of games and books are left wanting to see more joint adventures of the two witchers, particularly on the Path, making contracts. And this is precisely what this comic brings you: Ciri and Geralt are commissioned to kill a striga in Novigrad. During this mission, they join Yennefer. We already have the complete family.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't add much quality. It seems that the author is dedicated to improvising page by page, with quite strange twists in which the characters change direction, make abrupt and unexpected decisions, abandon missions or contracts without finishing to get into other troubles. Shows lack of cohesion between the events that are happening. It looks like anything written had been drawn first and added to those images later.

The number of times Ciri takes a bath during the comic is ridiculous, it doesn't add anything to the story and it only exists with the excuse that you can see her naked, something the games never did. The number of times Yennefer bathes, as well, with the same reasons. As for Geralt, you only get to see him a couple of times bathing and well, you get to see his buttocks in one scene, but comparatively he cleans himself little - or is interested in cleaning little - compared to his adventure companions.

In the end, the story of the striga - which in the end is not even a striga - is diluted in a lot of filler scenes, without relevance, which are only to fill pages. It is a little cheeky what the author takes advantage of the original work of Sapko - as he did in the previous volume! - because a good part of the comic is based on repeating the story of the striga that he disenchanted, Princess Adda, daughter of King Foltest.

3 stars for a comic that is more sympathetic than the previous ones for a better drawing, for Ciri and Yennefer, and because it’s entertaining to see Ciri punching the men of the taverns who dare to disturb her - something she does on several occasions - . But in the end, it is neither an extraordinary illustration nor the story goes beyond the level of bad fanfic.

It is a shame that these comics are limited to being a side marketing product. With a good writer and a better illustrator they would have a much better potential. Still, I can't say I regret reading them - but I won't be running for volume 4 either.

The Witcher: Of Flesh And Flame (Volume 4)

By far the best of the four volumes that have been published so far from The Witcher saga in comic format. The previous three, unfortunately, are quite forgettable... neither the drawing - which was clearly ugly in the first volume and quite forgettable in the following two - nor the story - boring, flat and cliche, which perpetuates many sexist clichés that the original lore sometimes suffers from - motivated me to keep reading this series.

And suddenly it turns out that I see some panels of this number four and I decide, for the last time, to give it a try. And I was right! This new issue is written and illustrated by two new artists - two women - and although gender should not determine, the fact is that it does. Not only the drawing for the first time is good - beautiful, engaging, and immersive - but also the story is engaging and logical, diverse and interesting.

Most of the action takes place in Ofir, a southern kingdom to which Geralt is accidentally transported along with his friend Jaskier, the bard. Jaskier's introduction as a minor character - or rather, co-star, because he plays an essential role in the story - is a total success, and the reason why I decided to read the issue. But for the first time the character of the bard is totally useful and decisive for the plot, giving a dignity to the character who exercises a relevant function using his natural abilities - singing, poetry, oratory and his skills as a spy and conspirator - to boost the plot. The sexist and problematic elements of the lore are absent in this issue, which the two artists handle skillfully and with good taste without giving up the sensual and erotic overtones that are typical of The Witcher's universe. Finally, the story is entertaining and well spun, it has a correct development and a coherent ending, without appearing forced or a mere concatenation of situations copied from books and games, as it happens with the three previous numbers.

In short, highly recommended for all fans of The Witcher and definitely a boost for comic series. I would recommend Dark Horse not to get rid of these two authors and artists, because it was definitely what the saga needed, a refreshing and balanced new take, that treats the characters correctly without falling for clichés.

The only reason I don't give it all five stars is that some fight scene - one or two, no more - seems forced and shoehorn into you to watch Geralt cope. And the use of a couple of flashbacks of video games that, although interesting, do not contribute to the plot either. Otherwise perfect. A total success. If you continue with this team, sign me up.

#the witcher #comics #house of glass #fox children #the curse of the crows #of flesh and flame #dark horse comics #norma editorial #characters #geralt of rivia #yennefer of vengerberg #ciri #jaskier #reviews #my reviews

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legobiwan · 5 years ago

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Just got home from The Rise of Skywalker. No pithy intro, I’m just going to jump right in and it’s going to be a LONG rant here so buckle up, my friends, and be sure to read below the cut. SPOILERS AHOY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Okay, so yes, the first third of the movie went at a blistering, nearly nonsensical pace. JJ really had to cram a whole watermelon’s worth of exposition into a...well, you know, there was a lot to take in. This movie had to do so much telling instead of showing because it was such a departure (and middle finger to TLJ) from what came before.

The thing was, the first third was also the most interesting part of the movie. I actually wish the whole trilogy had started with all of the Sith nonsense. (Actually, I wish they had started with Kylo absolutely wrecking shit like he did and then the Palpatine scene. People would have made all the wrong assumptions and it would have been glorious to unravel it over three films.) There is a strong history of Sith artifacts in both Nu-Canon and Legends, and it wouldn’t have been out of place, considering what we know now, to have made Rey, Poe, and Finn’s quest for these artifacts the start of the new trilogy, and then told the rest of the story in a non-linear timeline. Probably too experimental for a Star Wars reboot, but it would have grabbed attention and everyone like creepy Sith shit.

Frankly, I would have dropped zombie-robot Palpatine at the very start of the trilogy, as well. It’s bonkers but I don’t hate the Rey Palpatine thing and they could have spent the rest fo the movies explaining this weird-ass lineage and how it relates to Kylo, Snoke, etc. and then have built back to the final confrontaion on Exegol.

Leia. Trained. Rey. I so so so so so wished we had been able to get more of this. This, in my mind, is what it should have been all along. I liked TLJ (okay, so shoot me) but Master Leia is a whole other level of awesome. If I had to rewrite Luke and Leia’s roles, it would have went something like this:

Luke was searching for Sith artifacts. Luke was becoming disillusioned by what he was learning of the Jedi through “The Sacred Texts.” WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE? Hmmmm, I wonder....

Could you imagine Luke started to go a little Dooku in this respect, and so instead of fucking off the Ach-To because he had a feeling that was more “gravy than of grave” about Ben Solo’s dark sidedness, he fucked off to Ach-To - or even better - gave up training in order to keep himself from going down a darker path.

And so instead, Leia is getting involved with training (and probably also governing at the same time because she would be an overachiever like that.)

Enter Ben Solo, who is Force sensitive, strong, being trained by his mother and occasionally his uncle, who is not totally plugged into the light side at the moment, which can rub off on Ben. Meanwhile, Han is maybe not the best father (he wants to be, he tries, but it all comes out wrong. I’ve been watching a lot of Psych lately, so I’m thinking of a dynamic similar to Henry and Shawn, but a little more dramatic.)

Of course, Palpatine is seeing all of this behind the scenes, he’s fostering ill will and discontent through the scattered remains of the Empire, sending Snoke clones out to be almost pseudo-religious/cult figures in the wake of the economic and social devastation left by the Empire’s fall and the floundering new government. Extremism, in pockets, rises. Extremism which preys on discontent, which preys of the desire for family, for belonging.

Enter again Ben Solo, who has been pitted against the other strongest trainee, Rey (insert whatever last name you want. She knows it’s not her real name, she knows she was an orphan on Jakku, but she was brought by Luke to be trained). Ben is pissed how she and Leia bond, has been talking to his uncle, and perhaps encountered a Snoke clone on the way.

Rey, on the other hand, is no one but wants to be someone, and that manifests in weird ways during her training. Perhaps she leaves at some point, perhaps not. But the seeds of her being Palpatine’s bloodline are laid within her. She wants to seek that belonging Ben has.

Okay, but getting away from my personal rewrites of the sequels, Star Wars is about family and lineage, both blood and found. There was so much potential to play on this throughout the trilogy with the Skywalkers, with Rey’s relation to Palps that if they had just planned the damn thing, it could have been brilliant.

Moving ...(for now)

I felt so bad for Oscar Isaac. I felt like I watched his soul slowly depart his body over almost 3 hours. That man was not a happy camper and it came out in his performance.

Power levels. Here’s the thing, guys. Magic needs to have consequences. Sure, you can cast a spell, but what does that take��from you? You can use the Force, but to what degree? How much? Even Anakin exhausted himself at some points, and he was (allegedly, according to one Qui-gon Jinn), the Chosen One. It’s the first law of thermodynamics - energy can neither be created nor destroyed - and the Force is literally the energy of every life thing in the galaxy. You take the energy, use it towards something else, it has to drain from somewhere. This is what bugged the hell out of me with Rey’s Force Healing abilities (an ability that doesn’t thrill me to begin with as it’s so easy to overuse). Kylo keels from resurrecting the dead (and yeah, he was pretty beat up already), but Rey barely seems to breathe a beat harder. Once you start ignoring the consequences for magic, you end up like a shitty video game, and one of the criticisms I’ve leveled at the movie is that it feels like a montage of Battlefront and I can’t say that’s totally off point.

JEDI HUNTERS. Ochi. I will bet my right liver we’re going to hear something about this on The Mandalorian.

So I know a lot of people wanted to see Rey Kenobi, but there was one piece of glaring evidence in the film why that would never be. (Aside from Kylo just announcing it to Rey.) She has a lightsaber, but she still ends up using a blaster. So uncivilized.

Speaking of The Mandalorian - Stormtroopers with Mando jetpacks. Hmmm.....

I loved techno-Sheev hooked up to all the equipment just floating. That was creepy as hell and played with the whole cloning and extension of life that was such a large part of the Darth Plagueis novel (which I still consider to be canon, higher powers be damned). Also, Palpy’s glowup with the wardrobe was hilarious.

Dark!Rey was hot. There, I said it.

Let’s talk about romance. Or the lack thereof. Or the shoehorned thereof.

Poor Rose got shafted in this film with no explanation. I didn’t buy that whole thing in TLJ, but god damn anyway. (Finn also got shafted, for different reasons, which I will talk about later.)

If they were going to romance, just let it have been Finn and Poe, Finn and Rey, or fuck it, even a trio.

I mean, I could have bought Reylo if it had been presented better. (With context. Adam Driver is an amazing actor, another thing I’ll talk about later.)

The Reylo kiss though - my theater laughed. No joke.

Of course, this was the same theater that thought Lando was trying to mack on Jannah at the end, so who knows what we were all thinking in there. (On that note, Lando was hilarious because no matter what, he was just having a grand ‘ol time in the movie. I like to think he got a medical spice card in his retirement years and was just enjoying anything that came his way, be it Wookiees, Jedi, starships, wars, whatever.)

While the Reylo kiss didn’t hit the mark the space lesbian background kiss got cheers, so there was some hope for my fellow theater-goers.

Did anyone pick up on Threepio saying the Senate made the bill that would render him incapable of translating the Sith language? No doubt that was a Palpatine move from TCW era.

What is up with these movies and desert/jungle planets? Ugh. Thank everyone for Kijimi, at least that was interesting.

New characters I loved: Babu Frik and DO.

Finn’s Force sensitivity. Yes, I totally buy it. I wanted more. I wanted more fucking context of a Stormtrooper who would have known nothing of the Jedi getting these feelings and then bailing from the First Order (or, if I were writing the movies, bailing from the remnants of the Empire/Snokes weird military cults.) Totally underutilized character development.

We. Were. Robbed. of Good!Ben. Adam Driver is so phenomenal. Form the little we saw of redeemed Ben, he is the perfect mix of his parents, from the “Ow” to the eyebrow wagging, the swagger, the smirks...I LOVED good!Ben. I wanted so much more good!Ben. What a transformation.

Speaking of which - the scene between Kylo/Ben and Han was terrific. I wish we had had more context for why everything went south, but it was so good and the type of family dynamic we really needed more of.

The Knights of Ren looked awesome in this film? They needed to be like the Black Order of Star Wars, and they were getting to it, but not quite there. Gods, they could have been the enforcers of Snoke’s cults (Palpy’s puppet cults) that could terrorize far more than a normal, brainwashed Stormtrooper, who was only useful as cannon fodder (I mean, if we look at the history of the clone army to the Stormtroopers, it would be terribly fitting.)

That ship tug-of-war was DUMB. (See my rant about magic and consequences). But, if Rey was going to shoot lightening Palpy-style and blow up a ship, Chewie should have died. I’m sorry, that’s terrible, I love him, but there needed to be consequences for actions and throughout the film, there were either no consequences or random consequences that were a narrative convenience rather than developed into the plot/characterization/worldbuilding.

Here’s the thing with the ST - there is so much potential. There are some awesome ideas. But they wanted to play if safe with JJ by rebooting the OT, Rian was too far out for them, there was no cohesive storytelling, and so we get these little glimpses into what could have been amidst a shitstorm of trailers for Battlefront 17.

we could have had it allll....

Final rating: 4/10

#the rise of skywalker #the rise of skywalker spoilers #tros spoilers #tros #hello there #rants from the lego compound #and what an appropriate tag it is #rey #kylo ren #finn #poe dameron #sheev palpatine #leia organa #luke skywalker #han solo #bunch of other characters i'm not tagging right now

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years ago

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Psycho Analysis: Emperor Palpatine

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

There are villains. There are memes about villains. There are villains who are memes. And then, high above all of them, sitting on a lofty throne all his own, is Emperor Sheev Palpatine, a character so insanely incredible that it’s frankly quite baffling that even George Lucas at his worst still couldn’t make him awful… No, that was good old J.J. Abrams. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Palpatine is pretty much the archetype for the evil emperor in modern fiction, a mysterious evil sorcerer in dark robes who commands the main villain from afar and contains power beyond anything thought possible. But what’s interesting to note is that Palpatine really has three distinct eras to him: the original trilogy, where he was basically an outside context last minute threat who only had a presence in the third act of Return of the Jedi; the prequel trilogy, which is his best showing and where the Sheev we’ve all come to known and love really got to spread his wings and fly; and finally, the sequel era, the worst showing of Palpatine hands down, where he is randomly slapped into a film with no foreshadowing or buildup to pander to nostalgia.

So let’s take a look at our old pal Sheevy and see what makes him one of the greatest villains of all time, and one of the worst.

Motivation/Goals: Palpatine is motivated by one thing, and one thing only:

He spends the entire prequel trilogy building this up, working behind the scenes and manipulating both sides of the Clone Wars to his advantage so he can be given more and more political power. This works out beautifully for him, allowing him to dispose of his pawns like Dooku, take over the senate, seize absolute power, amass an army of clones, and of course execute Order 66. But most importantly, he is able to manipulate the frustrated and hurting Anakin to his side, mostly because the Jedi are a bunch of bumbling, archaic morons who put so much restrictions and belittle him so much that this creepy, predatory man is able to feed into his insecurities and send him tumbling to the Dark Side.

In the original trilogy, Palpatine is pretty content with letting Vader handle the affairs of the Empire, at least until Luke shows up and the Rebels become a substantial threat. Once the time comes, he has Luke and Vader get together and puts them up against each other, thinking the outcome is either that he gets a new apprentice/keeps his old one in check, or corrupts Luke somehow into killing his father and joining him as the new Sith. He didn’t count on Vader turning, but ah well.

The thing is that throughout these six films he remains remarkably consistent in his goals. He wants power, and if he can’t keep that power he’s going to make sure as many people suffer on his way down as possible. He’s almost cartoonishly evil in the best way possible!

And then came the sequels.

His motivations in the sequels are, quite frankly, impossible to discern, because they seem to change every scene. If he’s behind Snoke and the First Order, it’s easy to guess that he probably wanted Rey dead, right? Because that’s sure the vibe Snoke gave in The Last Jedi. But no, after it seeming like he wants her dead for most of The Rise of Skywalker, as soon as she shows up his plan is suddenly for her to kill him so he can transfer into his body. And then he changes that a short time later to “I am going to suck the life out of Rey and Ben so this shitty clone body can be great.” It’s like they’re cramming three or four different Palpatine plots into the twenty-five minutes of screentime Palpatine has in this film, and there is just absolutely no thematic cohesion anywhere. It’s just a mess.

Performance: If there is one thing that is always consistent with Palpatine, it is that Ian McDiarmid is absolutely fantastic as him. This man is able to take the most cliché, generic evil overlord archetype imaginable and transform every single line of dialogue he spouts into a meme, and even when he’s the absolute worst version of this character possible and strapped to a giant Sith dialysis machine on some Sith planet where he makes Snoke clones and verbally berates Adam Driver, he still finds time to be hilariously awesome.

Final Fate: Palpatine seriously underestimated Anakin, and ended up chucked down into the Death Star, where he died. He certainly didn’t have a poorly-explained clone backup of himself anywhere that would rise up decades later to completely override any victories the heroes ever had by ensuring that the entire lineage of the Skywalkers was destroyed and then usurped by his own spawn.

Best Scene: In a scene that justifies the entire existence of the prequels, shows off McDiarmid’s acting chops as he pulls off some actual subtlety as Palpatine, delivers some great background lore, and helps make Revenge of the Sith as awesome as it is… well, have you heard of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

youtube

Best Quote: Look, I could put just about anything he says in Revenge of the Sith here. I could put just about anything he says here. This man is an absolute meme machine who spits out only the finest quotable soundbites you will ever here. But look, I’m tired of not singling out great lines, so let me give you the one I quote the most. It’s one of his greatest quotes, and yet it is unbelievably simple. Two words and a ridiculously hammy inflection is all this man needs to be a meme:

Final Thoughts & Score: Sheev Palpatine is a man of extremes. Every aspect of him is so large that when he does something, he does it with the full force of his entire character. Revenge of the Sith will eternally be his best showing in the entire franchise, because he just spends the entirety of his screentime being the most insanely impressive scheming, manipulative bastard imaginable while somehow managing to cram in time for a sick spin through the air or a monologue about his former master at the space opera house. He manages to singlehandedly redeem the prequels if only by existing in them, and he helps elevates Revenge of the Sith into being the only one of those films that is generally accepted as being legitimately awesome. And while he is absent for much of the original trilogy, seeing as he wasn’t exactly conceived of right off the bat, he manages to make the most of his appearance in Return of the Jedi by being just as delightfully malevolent as ever, goading Luke and Vader into a duel and shooting lightning from his fingertips.

There are few villains who are just this completely basic and cliché that could ever hope to be great, but thanks to McDiarmid’s portrayal, he has gone on to be one of the single most iconic villains of all time, and one of the most iconic characters of all time. The guy is practically a living meme, from his name to his actions in the prequels, and he has certainly inspired many an evil overlord after him. For a character so seemingly unoriginal, it can be hard to believe he probably deserves an 11/10, but he most definitely does. He’s just become a staple of the franchise, to the point where some people feel it just ain’t Star Wars without him…

...Including, unfortunately, J.J. Abrams and a few other writers. Palpatine managed to be shoehorned into the prequels by being a surprise twist villain for The Rise of Skywalker (and as we’ve all seen from their recent animated movies, out-of-nowhere twist villains are great!), and it is without a doubt the most stupid and embarrassing showing one could possibly imagine for a character of this caliber. His motivations seem to change every time he opens his mouth, a lot of his dialogue is just uninspired, and while he does get a somewhat striking design here it’s hampered by the fact that his entire existence and role are really unexplained in the film and he feels like he was slapped in for the sake of being there.

There’s also the fact that his mere existence and the fact he ends up being responsible for Ben Solo’s death means he completely overrides the entire franchise, comes out on top with his granddaughter usurping the Skywalker name, and succeeds entirely at wiping out the Skywalker lineage. This entire nine film series was just buildup to Palpatine ultimately winning, and just when things couldn’t get worse, Disney decided to take away the one thing that made this Palpatine hilarious – the idea that, with his hideous scarred face, he was able to bang a woman and conceive a child – and completely toss it out the window by saying this Palpatine was actually a clone. Not in the movie, of course, because that would make way too much sense, no; it was confirmed on Twitter.

I think it goes without saying Clone Palpatine gets a 1/10. And this is through no fault of McDiarmid; he’s still genuinely great in the role, even if the role is stupid, his character’s actions are stupid, and just everything about the character’s existence is stupid. He’s certainly not phoning it in at all, and ignoring everything else about the film Clone Palpatine is at least somewhat amusing on his own. There’s also the fact that this Palpatine most definitely has an incredibly striking design and looks really cool, despite the unbelievable lameness of what he actually is:

But how he is utilized within the franchise and what he ultimately accomplishes and represents is too much for me to actually forgive in the context of Psycho Analysis. When the most redemptive thing I can say about Clone Palpatine is that his actor is at least trying and his design is cool despite the awful writing and story relevance, that is not the sign of a great character. That is the sign of a great actor desperately trying to salvage a trainwreck.

But it’s like I said earlier; Palpatine is a man of extremes. If he’s gonna be a great villain, then by god is he going to be one of the greatest villains of all time. And if he’s going to be a crappy villain? Well then he’s gonna sit among the worst ever. I kind of respect that about good ol’ Sheev; he just can’t do anything in half measures. I guess as a Sith he really does deal in absolutes, be it absolutely amazing or absolutely awful.

UPDATE: I stand by all my criticisms of Sheev Clonepatine, but dammit, there’s just too many hilarious memes, and I can’t really hate Ian McDiarmid’s performance. Yes, I’ve come around quick, but I guess it is true: when Palpatine succeeds, he succeeds epically and hilariously, and when he fails, he fails epically and hilariously. His role in the story and the stupidity of him being here at all is a 1/10 for sure, but I think he’s just hilarious enough to edge into the “So bad it’s good” category of 3/10 alongside his bouncing baby boy Snoke.

Just remember: No matter what Disney tries to tell you, Palpatine fucks.

#Psycho Analysis #Emperor Palpatine #Sheev Palpatine #ian mcdiarmid #Star Wars #Revenge of the Sith #The Rise of Skywalker #Return of the Jedi

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pentanguine · 4 years ago

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22) What is your sexual and romantic orientations? Are they affected by your gender?

Ah, the million dollar question.

Honestly, short answer, I have no idea. And maybe I’ll never have any idea! Maybe my sexuality and/or my understanding of it will shift every few years as I learn new words and ways of being, or as I have different life experiences. Maybe I’ll never settle down and “figure it out,” because there is no a priori sexuality living inside me like the solution to a puzzle, there’s just complex human feelings overlapping clumsily with a rigid society. Sexuality is totally made up, not because the feelings aren’t real but because the way we taxonomize those feelings is so particular to time and place, and I’m particularly bad at fitting into the structure of the time and place where I live! I’m attracted to people of many different genders, to different extents and in different ways across time, but mostly I seem to be into women, and I am not a woman or a man. This experience is well-nigh impossible to shoehorn into the schematic of modern Western sexual orientation.

I’ve had so many epiphanies about sexuality, and at the time, each one felt like a lightbulb going off and something finally settling inside me. But all of those experiences have shifted over time, and they’ll probably keep on shifting. First I thought I was bi, and then I realized that the thought of being a woman with a boyfriend made me feel bleak, so I jettisoned the idea of a boyfriend and called myself gay; then I realized that I was still attracted to men even if I didn’t want to date them and I read a lot of think-pieces on sexual fluidity; then I realized I was genderqueer and leaned way too hard into being a lesbian to justify my attraction to women (because if I wasn’t a lesbian, it would be Bad!); and then last year I decided I felt much more comfortable calling myself bi and just giving my sexuality the space to sprawl out and make itself at home, even if I do have a preference.

And my actual sexuality changes, too! The more I stop pressuring myself to be a neat little lesbian who was Born This Way, the more comfortable I feel acknowledging that my formative experiences with attraction in middle school involved guys, and not girls. It’s not just that I was oblivious (although I was also that), I was just into guys more often and more strongly, which is the same way I feel about women now. And yeah, it is really, really weird to have your sexuality do a 180 like that! It’s not like it happened overnight, but it does lead to this feeling of disjointedness with my past self, like I jumped through some kind of parallel universe portal and emerged in an alternate sexuality timeline. In retrospect, I guess the best way to describe what I was was a girlfag: I thought of myself as a girl, even if I wasn’t one, but I wanted other boys to think I was a boy, and I liked guys who were pretty and effeminate and possibly gay, because if they were gay that made them “better” to be attracted to. The first narrative for this is that I’m a straight girl who fetishizes gay men; the second narrative for this is that I’m a lesbian who has crushes on feminine, unattainable boys as a proxy for girls; the third narrative is that I’m trans and gay and so duh, I like queer guys.

[A Tangent]

Also, you know what, it’s very important to me to not be a lesbian. Because I’m not. We can’t all be lesbians! And that’s ok!

I am not a man and I am mostly attracted to women and I have a very complicated relationship with my infrequent attraction to men, but that does not inherently mean that I am a lesbian struggling with comp het. Maybe I really am a bi person with a preference. Maybe I really am a genderqueer person with no affiliation or alignment or whatever the fuck to womanhood. Maybe my interest in men is so complicated by my own transmasculine gender that I can’t really access it. Maybe my experiences don’t need to be twisted to fit a Good and Proper Lesbian Narrative wherein I realize that Men Are Bad and Women Are Good and I’m not really attracted to the Bad People, and I’m absolutely willing to reduce myself to being Basically A Good Person so that the Good and Loving Light of Lesbianism will shine down upon me.

Look, lesbians are great. Lesbian is a word with so much political power, so much potential for self-definition and self-realization, and so much more fluidity than people give it credit for. It’s a beautiful word and sometimes I wish I were a lesbian. But I’m not, because I choose not to be. I will be mistaken for a lesbian for the rest of my life. The specifics of my queerness will never be legible to other people, because people will see me at my most visibly queer and think “she is a lesbian,” and they will see me with my hypothetical girlfriend and think “those women are lesbians.” And so while lesbian is a word that could fit me under its umbrella if I so chose, I don’t so choose, because it’s not the most accurate or fulfilling word for my queerness, and I will be lesbian until proven otherwise for the rest of my life. And so, when given the chance amongst friends and fellow queers, I want to prove otherwise.

I’m also ace, which I see as the queer umbrella that covers all of my sexuality and gender under its scope. My feelings on how, exactly, I’m a-spec have shifted wildly between “gray-asexual,” “demisexual?,” and “totally ace” over the years, often multiple times within the same freaking week. Trying to pin down what sexual attraction even is when it’s something you rarely or never experience, and when it’s also something that you approach through a totally different lens than most people, is an exercise in futility. Words like “hot” or “turned on” or just “sex” don’t even make sense to me; I know broadly what other people mean when they say them, but when I try to find corollaries in my own experiences, I either come up empty-handed or with something that’s like a distorted reflection seen through fog.

I’m not aromantic, but the older I get the less I feel like romantic attraction applies to me, so at this point I’d consider myself sort of philosophically aromantic. I know I’m not actually aro, but the kind of attraction that I feel, while very normative (fluttering hearts; swooping stomachs; improbable daydreams; a desire to impress), also has nothing whatsoever to do with emotions or relationships. My body finds other people cute, and my brain tends to agree, but those feelings don’t lead to desire. They don’t go anywhere. Appreciating the experience of being attracted to someone almost never leads me to want anything from that attraction. I don’t know what that is (maybe it’s shyness or insecurity, or maybe it is some kind of queerness), but I do know that I don’t want to push through it and force myself to go through those rituals just because other people tell me I should want to.

I guess a lot of the disconnect for me comes from calling that type of physical attraction romantic, when for me it has nothing whatsoever to do with sweeping romantic emotions or intimate relationships. I’d be tempted to call the attraction aesthetic, except I think that’s what I feel for forests and my friend Jonesy’s fashion choices (visual appreciation with no real attraction), and I doubt it’s alterous attraction because the symptoms seem so commonplace and archetypical. So I assume I do feel what most people, bafflingly, call romantic attraction, and the romance part is just a miss for me because I’m delightfully perverse or something. I just don’t understand why “person I find attractive” and “person I want to be intimate partners with” and “person I want to have sex with” and “person I want to cohabit with” all has to be the same person. The whole narrative of romance just doesn’t make sense to me.

Good god, this got long.

To finally end up at the second part of the question: My genderqueerness is very closely intertwined with my sexuality, to the point where I wish we still had words like “invert” that combined the two and saw them as mutually constitutive rather than at constant odds with one another. Basically, I see myself as being fundamentally bi, but gay both ways: I’m similar-to-although-not-the-same-as women when I’m attracted to a woman, and similar-to-although-not-the-same-as men when I’m attracted to a man. (When I have a crush on a nonbinary person, I’m just really t4t.) At the moment, attraction to women is the most salient aspect of my sexuality, which is often fraught, because I’m a lot more adamant about Not Being a Woman than I am about not being a man. But I’m still gay for women, and I think I come from a long lineage of people with similar experiences (Vernon Lee, Radclyffe Hall, Leslie Feinberg, Rae Spoon, etc). Speaking of Rae Spoon, I think it’s very easy to assume that you’re not into men when you spend so much time being/trying not to be jealous of them. But I’ve learned that it’s possible for something to be both. Maybe when I love men hypothetically but find it difficult to translate into reality, that’s not because “ew, men bad,” that’s because “DANGER, gender bad.” Maybe (radically! shockingly!) I am actually bisexual and I have crushes on people of various different genders, and none of that negates my attraction to anyone else.

So in summary, I guess I’m just queer, with a side of bi (*gestures expansively*) and ace (*shrugs blankly*).

#i left asexuality out of the last part because i feel like i have a whole other post in me about the intersection of ace and gender shit #gqid asks #i'm sorry this is really very long #i've got to stop hitting the really meaty questions on sundays #when i can spend multiple self-indulgent hours just stewing over them #there's so much more ace stuff that i want to talk about but i don't know that i have all my thoughts in order #and some of the ace stuff would be tangential and also kind of tmi #my friends are recapping to me a livestream of a party in this homophobic horse game and i am so baffled and delighted #add it to the list of things that happened in november 2020

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phosphorescent-naidheachd · 5 years ago

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I saw TROS earlier today and, well, it was definitely a Star Wars sequel movie, for better and for worse. I can see why some people on my dash hated this movie and why some of them loved it. I can also see why some of them threw their hands into the air over it and shrugged. (FYI, I’m in the third category.) More scattered and spoiler-laden thoughts below the cut:

--“Never underestimate a droid.” This line would have been so much more meaningful if the spy had turned out to be a First Order droid rather than Hux. A droid that had broken free of its programming, just like Finn (and later Jannah and the other unnamed former stormtroopers). But as always, the Droid Revolution that we deserve is probably never going to be a thing, at least not onscreen where it counts.

--Just like TFA, the copy-and-pasting from the Original Trilogy was painfully obvious, but what was forgivable in the first film of a new trilogy is less so in said trilogy’s concluding film.

--Trần Loan/Rose deserved more screentime and prominence. And did we really have to turn Poe into a former spice runner? Really? *sighs heavily*

--Zorii Bliss felt sort of shoehorned in? I didn’t hate her, but it felt like TPTB only introduced her to give Poe another person to flirt with. And I say this as someone who was not expecting PoeFinn or any other LGBTQIAP+ relationship between named characters to be made canon in this movie at all. Hopefully fans will give her more depth in fic!

--Jannah was really interesting and I would have loved to see more of her. Once again, hopefully fans will take her character and deepen/explore it in fic.

--LANDO!

--Finn was all but explicitly confirmed as Force sensitive, and it’s What He Deserves.

--I mean, Finn also deserved his own storyline and a stronger conclusion to his character arc in this film, especially considering he was promoted as one of the leads of the sequel trilogy. But while I’m irked that he was relegated to a side character, I can’t say I didn’t see this coming, especially after TLJ.

--Likewise, I knew Reyl0 was going to be a thing after TLJ. I found their relationship less grating than Anida1a in the prequels, but it still didn’t do much of anything for me in this film. Do I understand from an objective POV why some people enjoy it so much? Yep. It’s the grand, tortured, Byronic Romance™, where it isn’t really about whether the characters have anything in common or even like each other, it’s about their near-mystical connection and their inability (and lack of true desire) to be rid of it; it’s about the lengths to which they will go for each other/themselves; it’s about the powerful man who is emotionally vulnerable and eager to serve his True Love at the expense of all else. It’s also the whole enemies-to-lovers trope, and so on. I understand the appeal of this mashup intellectually, it’s just not my cup of tea here. YMMV and all that, and that’s as it should be.

--Palpatine back from death is as ridiculous here as it was in the old EU, but I can roll with it. I think the movie made the right decision not to explain all the nitty-gritty details of how he cheated death or manipulated the whole Snoke deal... ultimately, it doesn’t really matter, y’know? Ditto to Rey Palpatine lol.

--Leia’s death felt pretty narratively cheap to me, but I understand that there was only so much TPTB could do with the footage they already had of Carrie Fisher in costume. Still, poor Leia. She drew a deeply shitty hand in life, didn’t she?

--That said, it was nice to see Leia training as a Jedi in flashbacks, however briefly. (Is it just me, or did her saber hilt vaguely resemble Obi-Wan’s?) Does it make a lot less sense that she would then send Ben away to Luke if she’s had Jedi training? Yes. Can I created headcanons to explain this? Also yes. And do I really care about this particular inconsistency when there are far worse ones out there and this one makes dudebro sections of the fandom spitting mad? NOPE.

--I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not inherently against the redemption of Kylo/Ben. But, as I had suspected/feared, they “redeemed” him at the narrative expense of other characters I personally find more interesting... and they still didn’t manage to make said redemption feel narratively earned to me. Is there undoubtedly ancillary material in SW books and comics that give more background behind Kylo/Ben’s turn to the Dark Side and eventual turn back to the Light? Yes. Do I want to read it? Not really, no. Also, unless something happens onscreen in the SW universe, it doesn’t really count as true canon. So it’s disappointing that the movie shoved other characters and plots to the side to make room for Kylo/Ben’s redemption arc and then didn’t even do a good job with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

--Also, of course TPTB had Kylo/Ben die saving someone rather than narratively deal with what it means to work towards redemption after having done lots of terrible things, and having to recover from having been manipulated/groomed by Sidious. Not surprised in the slightest.

--I would have preferred a Stormtrooper Rebellion storyline, but I’m not going to blast TROS or the sequel trilogy for being what it is rather than what I wanted it to be. I will, however, blast it for its sloppy execution of its existing storylines. Which leads to my next point...

--Even though TROS was long, it still felt rushed and, like the first two movies in this trilogy, it felt largely disconnected from the other sequel trilogy films. The Star Wars Story Group really should have planned this trilogy out better. If TPTB were going to go with two different directors/writers, they should have made sure said directors/writers were on the same page rather than seemingly fighting each other’s visions of what the overarching story should be at every step.

--I’m willing to handwave a lot of stuff that happens in TROS, mainly because I’m long past expecting coherence from this franchise... or pretty much any major franchise, tbh. (For instance: Thousands of people show up to aid the Resistance when Lando calls them but not when Leia did in TLJ? OK. Force Ghost Luke shows up to catch Rey’s lightsaber but not to help her against Palpatine? Sure.) These issues don’t really make or break the series for me, so I can work with them with a minimum of grumbling. Which isn’t quite the same thing as letting TPTB off the hook for their laziness and inconsistencies.

--Honestly, I hate to say it, but it would have made for a stronger story if Chewie had died aboard the ship when Rey and Kylo/Ben were fighting over it; that would have driven home the consequences of Rey’s lack of control and lessened the artificiality of the stakes in this movie. But I get that this is ultimately a family film, so it’s more of a minor quibble than anything else.

--It’s kind of weird that Rey’s hair is back in the three buns again for the entirety of TROS after she wore her hair differently for almost all of TLJ. But that’s a fairly minor quibble too, and one of the sort I can easily create a headcanon to explain. Actually, come to think of it, I wonder if they didn’t do this at least partially to be able to recycle some of the unused TFA clips with Leia and Rey?

--Frankly, I’m not sure why Rey suddenly cared so much about what Luke thought, considering A. he was a huge jerk to her for most of TLJ, and B. she seemed to have broken with following his advice towards the end of TLJ. And since she didn’t have a great relationship with Luke, it seems weird that she’d take his last name. Shouldn’t she have gone with Organa or even Solo, if she’s naming herself after a mentor? But whatever, I get that it’s about the symbolism more than the character or logic. And I can create headcanons to explain all of this.

--It’s a little weird that there wasn’t any more resolution to Kylo/Ben’s storyline and Rey’s feelings about it after his death. But with Leia dead, I guess there isn’t anyone left who’d especially care if Kylo/Ben turned back to the Light aside from Rey herself. Still, there should have been something more. Especially since Ben didn’t show up as a Force Ghost alongside Luke and Leia on Tatooine.

--While I’m at it, I wish we could have had a minute’s conversation with Rey telling Finn about her heritage, if only because I think he would have understood. But I wish we could have learned more about Finn’s heritage (which didn’t need to be a known SW lineage, btw) too, so...

--For that matter, I wish we could have had Finn get a chance to tell Rey about his being Force Sensitive, which might have made her feel slightly less alone. I wish we could have seen Finn figure out what being Force Sensitive meant to him. And so on.

--Not sure where people are getting the idea that Lando & Jannah were flirting, because I didn’t read their interaction that way at all.

--General Poe and General Finn were great, but also sort of felt unearned after the events of TLJ.

--The abilities that come from being part of a Dyad are overpowered and a little silly, but hey, they’re also following a long-established SW tradition of overpowered silliness, so... *shrugs*

--Confused as to why Rey suddenly killed Kylo/Ben when she did?? I mean, if it was because she was angry Leia had just died, wouldn’t that be acting from the Dark Side and shouldn’t that have, idk, narrative consequences for her?

--I don’t see why some people loved or hated Rey’s ending so much. It’s pretty open, IMO, just like the endings for all of the surviving characters. Who says Rey is going to stay on Tatooine or be alone there, after all? For all we know, she just stopped there for a few days to bury the lightsabers, grieve for Kylo/Ben, and meditate. For all we know, Finn or one of her other friends from the Resistance is going to drop in any moment now. Heck, for all we know, one of her friends is hanging out inside the Falcon where we can’t see them, giving her a little space. (Was her friendship with Finn and Poe depicted pretty shallowly in this movie? Yeah. But so was her relationship with Kylo/Ben tbh, even with the Dyad Force bond thingamajig.) Rey has a whole world of choices available to her. Does it suck that we didn’t get to see that onscreen? Yeah. Does it mean she’s doomed to be eternally lonely as a hermit on a desert planet? Not in the slightest.

--Someone really needs to tell the writers of these big franchises that using ring structure is pointless if there isn’t meaning behind it. There’s nothing inherently significant about repeating events or revisiting locations.

--Overall, I felt pretty meh about TROS. I didn’t love it or hate it. As with any movie in a series, there’s good stuff to be mined from it, and bad stuff to be handwaved away or given headcanon explanations. But mostly, I just can’t dredge up the energy to care very much. And I’m not in the mood for TROS fix-it fanfiction so much as I am TROS crack fics.

--I haven’t talked about everything that worked or didn’t work for me in TROS here, but if you have any questions, I’m always happy to answer them to the best of my abilities!

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willow-salix · 5 years ago

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I'm too dumb to live sometimes. I wrote this about two months ago and only realised now that I neglected to post it, even though I thought I had. Duh!

Soooo, someone has to teach the witch how to fly... Selene is out of her comfort zone, she's not confident and she's over dramatic. Poor John. Part of the series on Ao3.

"Brains just informed me that Selene's car is ready for a test ride and that means someone has to teach her how to actually fly the thing."

"Teaching a Witch to fly, can't be that hard," Scott joked.

John snorted. "You do remember how we met, right?"

"Ah, yeah, good point."

John nodded. "So, who's volunteering? And make sure she doesn't find out, I don't want her panicking and stressing herself out over it, you know what she was like when you were overseeing her gravity training."

"So you're just going to spring it on her?"

"That's the plan."

"You're a braver man than I am, bro."

"Or just stupid," Gordon helpfully added. From where he sat in one of Three's launch chairs he had been invisible to John.

John closed his eyes briefly, oh, this wasn't good. Gordon was usually firmly on Selene's side in almost everything, not always because he agreed with her but because he feared and loved her in equal parts, that and he always found it hilariously funny to watch her exploding at people.

"Gordon, you cannot tell her about this, she thinks she's got plenty of time before it's ready."

"Fine, but let me just say one thing?"

John sighed, ready to promise anything to ensure his silence. "Sure."

"Not it."

Scott, realising that his second youngest brother might actually be the smartest of them all followed his lead. "Not it!"

"Scott, really?"

Scott grinned. "You're the stupid one, not me. Besides, she's your fiancée, you do it."

"Do you think Parker…"

"He and Penelope are attending the opening of that new underwater hotel for the week."

"Virgil?"

"Busy with Two's bimonthly tune up, only leaving for emergencies."

"Kayo?"

"Can you actually imagine Kayo having the patience to teach anyone anything?"

Crap, he was right. That only left…"Alan?"

"Would break if she yelled at him and he'd let her get away with not even trying. Nope, this one is all on you."

Shit. He might be a little inexperienced when it came to relationships but even he knew the two golden rules, never agree that her butt looked big in those jeans even if it appeared she has a beach ball stuffed down her pants and never, ever, teach her to drive. He just hoped he wasn't suddenly single by the end of the lesson.

"I guess I'm on my way, ask Grandma to take over monitoring duty will you?"

***

Selene grabbed her phone when it pinged up a message, surprised but very pleased to read it. John, as always, was a man of few words 'I'm outside'.

She snatched up her jacket as she ran out the door, clattering down the stairs. It had been a long week filled with back to back appointments for her and she was more than ready for a break. She'd been about to call Virgil and request a pickup but it seemed her man had other ideas. Honestly, much as she loved his family, the thought of having a night, just the two of them in her peaceful little apartment seemed like heaven.

She swung open the front door and abruptly stopped. There was her car, her cute little car with its sleek shape and shiny black paint job and her spaceman behind the wheel. That meant…oh crap.

The door opened and he unfolded his long frame from the driver's seat, stepping out of the car.

"Is Brains finished with her, is she done?"

"Hello to you too."

She pulled him in for a quick kiss. "Hello gorgeous man."

"That's more like it.. Now, are you ready to take her for a spin?"

Her eyes widened as she stuck her head inside, checking out the modifications. Where she had previously had nothing more complicated than heater dials and a radio she now had something that looked like it had been ripped out of the Enterprise and shoehorned into her dashboard.

She wasn't a bad driver, just a simple one, and one that was used to roads and signposts, not sky and 'turn left at the third cloud'. She could get lost going to the bathroom, she wasn't good at picking out landmarks. That was why she often drove to her witchy venues and flew the last mile for appearances sake.

How had she ever allowed herself to be talked into this? She glanced over her shoulder at John who was none too subtly checking out her behind where she was bent over. Oh yeah, that was why. She had the sexist Space Hunk who happened to live, part time anyway, on a secret island that could only be reached by air or sea, and she was not that good a swimmer.

"Erm…"

Her face was a picture. She might go out of her way to project an image of being confident and fully in control of everything, but now he knew different. She was sensitive, loving, kind, and strong, but also dramatic with an overly active imagination and a tendency to go with worse case scenario.

He'd also realised that, as much as she tried to deny it, she too suffered from the occasional crisis of confidence and often believed that she would do something wrong. She'd confided in him late one night, while lying close together in his bunk on Five, that an ex boyfriend had managed, over the course of their year long relationship, to convince her that she was pretty much useless at everything she did so there wasn't any point in trying. Much as she was helping him to see that he was more than good enough, he was doing the same for her.

"You can do this."

She pulled a face, clearly not believing him at all.

"Can you at least get us somewhere far enough away that I won't endanger human lives?"

"There's the confident woman I know and love."

She stuck her tongue out at him and climbed into the back, refusing to give him the chance to argue.

Rolling his eyes he got back behind the wheel. Clearly this was going to be a long day.

***

"It's really simple, Brains made sure to keep it as familiar as possible for you."

Selene had managed to work herself up into a nice panic on the drive out of London, imagining all the horrible ways in which she could potentially kill them both and now she couldn't even begin to think straight. His calm tone,which usually made her feel better, was now sounding patronising and annoyed to her ears and it was pissing her off.

"Nice to know that everyone thinks I'm a complete idiot who couldn't handle anything too mentally taxing."

"No one thinks that, you specifically said that you wanted the flying equivalent of a go cart. Would you have wanted anything as complicated as one of our crafts?"

"Of course not, contrary to popular belief I do not have a death wish."

He wisely ignored that and continued his instructions.

"The pedals work exactly the same as they did before, just stop and go and steer with the wheel."

He leant closer from his seat in the back and pointed to the first of a new row of buttons. "The blue one is drive, the green one is fly, that will realign the wheels and lift her off the ground to a height of around two meters. Only when flight is engaged will the steering wheel allow you to pull up on it to go higher and push down to go lower."

"Does it still turn left and right?" her tone was sickeningly sweet but ever so slightly dangerous. John was a wise man and yet again chose to adopt the mantra of 'if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all'.

"The yellow button engages the autopilot and the course is set by inputting the location into that GPS there." He pointed to the upgraded screen that had replaced her old navigation system. "The moment you press that one the autopilot will take over and all you have to do is keep an eye on the sky and make sure you don't run into anything."

"What does the red one do?"

"That one is multipurpose, it's your stop and land button. If you're landing press it while losing height and the sensors built into the undercarriage will take over, levelling you out and realigning the wheels ready to drive and bringing you to the ground safely. If you want to land and keep driving press the blue button after the red, if you want to stop press the red a second time. That will shut off the engine once you come to a stop."

"OK…"

"That didn't sound convincing, sweetheart."

"No, no I think I've got it. Emphasis on the word, think."

"Want to try just starting her up and cruising on the ground for a few minutes and then we can try the skies?"

Selene visually mapped out the interior again, trying to remember everything he'd said.

"OK."

"You can do this, it's really simple."

"Yeah, so you keep telling me, because that's about all I can handle."

He frowned, where had that come from?

"Of course it's not, you are anything but simple."

"So I'm complicated and difficult?"

"No! You're wonderful and unique." How had it turned into this? She was taking everything he said wrong. "Just give this a try."

She took a deep breath and mentally smacked herself for being such an cow. She wasn't mad at him, although she would have appreciated a little warning before he threw her in the deep end and expected her to swim, she was just so scared of fucking up. They were all so competent, so confident and experienced, in comparison she was, a nothing. Boringly normal family, average childhood and an affinity with nature, not machine. She'd never been one to take to technology easily, machines and how they worked pretty much baffled her on a daily basis. She was an intuitive person, one that interacted with the energies of the earth, and that didn't work with machinery. It had no life force, no energy of its own, no soul.

If she was honest with herself she knew that with very little effort she could easily become a burden and a problem to them all. Only she could manage to find the love of her life by needing rescue. The last thing she wanted to do was become a target for them or to get in the way with her inexperience and lack of skills.

Compared to the other females on the team she was next to useless. Penelope was a brave, beautiful, skilled, connected woman that could handle anything. Kayo was a highly trained, arse kicking machine that had the brains as well as beauty. She flew her craft with the kind of skill that Selene couldn't even begin to imagine let alone pull off. Grandma Tracy might lack culinary skills but she made up for it in a million other ways, strength oozing from her pores. Whereas she was a little too curvy to be fashionable, had no real talents that she could speak of and had never been to university. She was nothing special.

And the boys? They were all high flying, high impact, overly intelligent prodigies and she was a nothing. She didn't deserve any of the help, support and acceptance that they had given her. One day John was going to wake up and realise exactly what he was missing out on. Realise that he had settled for average when he deserved amazing.

He was looking at her so strangely, like he couldn't understand her or her actions, and she couldn't blame him. He'd made the effort to drive her car, pick her up and was trying to help her and she was being a raging bitch.

"I got this shit." She pressed her thumb against the key lock and the car engine rumbled into life.

***

"I really don't got this."

The car's front grill was lodged in the mud and she was ready to give up five minutes into the lesson. How could you get up and down mixed up? Somehow she had managed it.

She'd been driving along the grassy ground of the hillside he'd parked them on and had managed to remember that green was fly only by association of green being the colour of Two and that thing flew. OK, so maybe simple was better for her.

She'd yelped when the cars wheels had shifted and rotated on their axis, just as FAB 1's did, pointing to the ground and each becoming their own little jet engine.

The car had lifted off the ground by a few meters as promised and John had calmly reminded her that now the wheel would work for the up and down not just the left and right and to go higher she had to go up.

That's all well and good, but her version of up was apparently slightly different to his. He meant she should take hold of the wheel and pull it towards her which would lift the wheel up. She in a classic comedy move of not being able to open a door, mistook pull, for push.

She pushed up when she should have pulled down. The result, a less than spectacular nose dive into the ground.

"It's OK, it's fine, you can fix this. Just put her in reverse and she should have enough pull to yank herself out, she's not that deep."

She moved the car into reverse and eased her foot down on the pedal but the car didn't move.

"No, you have to put her in drive mode first."

"You should have said that!"

"Sorry, I thought it was obvious."

"Well it wasn't."

"So I see."

She tossed a glare over her shoulder at him, her hand hovering over the control panel.

"Blue button."

"I knew that!"

"Did you though?"

Honestly she hadn't, she'd been about to hit the yellow. Why hadn't the genius that was Brains thought to label the fucking things?

She pushed the blue button and felt the wheels shift back down.

"OK…reverse." She pushed the gear stick back into reverse and eased her foot slowly down on the pedal. The wheels gripped a little but then span out, sending up a stream of mud and grass behind them.

"Shit!"

"It's OK, lets try to override it. Put her in fly again, green button-"

"I got it, I got it, green like two that flew."

He gave her a look that said he was seriously debating her sanity at that moment. Honestly she was surprised she hadn't seen that look more often.

"Green button, wait until the wheels are up, then shove the steering wheel up as far as it will go and boot it."

"Shove and boot, those are highly technical terms…"

She did as she was told, pulling at the steering wheel, which didn't move.

"It won't pull until the wheels are fully up, just give it a moment, don't be so impatient."

She gritted her teeth and let the wheel go, waiting until the wheels fully lifted, noticing then that a small light above the green button blinked on. Well that would have been handy to know too, why didn't this thing come with a manual?

"Alright, now hard pull and foot down, Sel."

She followed his instructions, yanking the steering wheel hard as she slammed her foot down on the pedal. The car's butt took a dive but it's nose shot up, as did the car, launching itself into the air.

She screamed and he barely resisted the urge to do the same when she panicked and let go of the wheel, which retracted, dropping them sharply.

"Hold the wheel, Selene!"

She grabbed it and held it in place.

"OK, there's no need to yell at me!"

Had he yelled? He never yelled. How did she do that? How did she always manage to make him lose control?

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout. Just level out a bit. Follow the Altitude Indicator."

"The what now?"

He sighed.

"You see that thing on the dash?" he pointed to what looked like half a snow globe with a line across the middle and a cross lower down. He waited until she nodded. "That cross is us, so you need to correct her until the cross is in the middle, lined up on the horizon line."

"Again, that would have been handy to know before we took off."

"It's standard in every craft, I assumed you knew what it was."

"Then just keep assuming and assume that I'm dumb and spell shit out like you're teaching the ABC."

He rolled his eyes at her dramatics. "You aren't dumb."

"Dude, did you just roll your eyes at me?"

"No?"

"Don't answer a question with a question, that does not make it better!"

He wisely shut up and simply pointed to the horizon line.

She gave the steering wheel an experimental pull and saw the cross move. When she went left it went left, the same with right, which was so blindingly obvious but she still felt like she had to test it. Following the cross she managed to level it out.

"Good. That's great, but you might want to take us just a tiny bit higher…" the top of a rather large fir tree scraped their undercarriage.

"How the hell am I supposed to know how high to go or when I reach it? What's my limits? I need limits dammit!"

"It's the new gauge next to your upgraded speedometer. You see the numbers there?" She did, they were high, scarily high. "That's in feet, 5 thousand each line. Commercial planes and our crafts aim for between 35 thousand and 40 thousand feet. Anything about 50 is in the red line there and too high. You need to go between 10 and 15, higher if you're going long distance, maybe around 20."

"That's…that's seriously high. Very very scarily high." according to the new needle they weren't even registering as having left the earth and it already felt too high for her. She'd never be able to do this on her own.

"You've been higher."

"Not when I'm not in your tin can or with someone else driving. On a broom we barely clear the treetops, it's too cold, too windy and too exposed."

"Well you're about to go higher now, because if you don't pull up we'll hit that Tor up ahead."

The mass of rocks, piled high, had come out of nowhere and she jumped, yanking on the wheel, just managing to miss crashing into them like a bowling ball into pins.

"I can't do this. I can't do this…" she chanted under her breath, knuckles white in the wheel. She needed to get down. She pushed forward on the wheel, dropping their nose sharply and punched at the red button. Red meant stop. Stop was good. Stop was needed.

The wheels came down and thankfully the sensors took over as she smacked at the button again. They hit the ground with a teeth jarring bump as she had forgotten, or never been told, to slow down.

As soon as the engine died she threw open the door and hauled her shaking self out of the car.

John followed straight after, catching up with her.

"Selene what's wrong? This isn't like you."

"Yes, it is! This is totally like me. I freak out over unfamiliar things, things that I can't control and don't understand."

"What's not to understand, it's simple-"

"No. It's not simple. Not to me anyway. Maybe to you because you all grew up like this. But I didn't, I'm different, I'm not part of your Tracy life where you have to pull out a plane to go to the shop! I am not a part of this!"

"Of course you're part of our life."

She closed her eyes, praying for patience. It was freezing cold out on the moors of Yorkshire, the wind howling across the hillside to whip the hair back from her face and she huddled into her coat, arms wrapped around herself, for comfort as much as warmth.

"I didn't mean it like that." She knew that she was a part of his life, or all their lives.

"Then what did you mean, I don't understand?"

"Of course you don't. Because you can't imagine what it's like to not know all of this stuff. If you've never flown before, never had anyone show you all that you need to know, never had someone actually instruct you on it, you don't know. It's not an automated download to your brain. It might come naturally to all of you, but let's just face facts here, I'll never be like that. I'll never be one to hop into a craft and instinctively know what to do or how to even start the thing. I'll never be good enough."

"Never be good enough?" Her last words stuck out to him more than anything else she said.

"You really do focus on the most insignificant parts, don't you?"

He felt like he should be insulted by that. To him, her feeling like she wasn't good enough was the most important thing. Thankfully he wasn't one to react to a negative situation without assessing everything first. He mentally rewound her words and realised that she was right. He had just expected her to know what to do. He was used to working and interacting with people that operated their kind of machines on a daily basis, they were all trained in each others crafts, at least the basics enough to get them out of trouble. He had forgotten to tell her what most of the instruments were because they were second nature to them. A five minute run down of any new modifications Brains made to any of their crafts and they were good to go. Learn by doing, that was the Tracy way. Sometimes he forgot that she wasn't a Tracy, she hadn't been brought up the way they had been. She was different.

He didn't know what to do or how to handle this situation. He could clearly see that she was struggling, likely on the verge of a full meltdown. She was always so good at comforting and helping others but didn't seem to be able to be kind to herself.

He couldn't leave her like that, he had to do something. He knew that whenever she didn't know what to do she deployed her secret weapon, a healing hug.

He approached her like one would a scared dog, avoiding the teeth, and enfolded her in his arms.

"I love you."

She remained stiff in his arms for a few moments but then sagged into him, her arms going around his middle.

"I love you too, but you're annoying."

"I know. So are you."

She didn't dignify that with an answer, just let him hold her for a few minutes.

"Selly, talk to me. Why would you think you aren't good enough?"

She sighed, nuzzling her cold nose into his neck, feeling him shiver in response.

"I don't know. You're just all so perfect at everything."

He snorted at that, they were far from perfect, especially Gordon who managed to find the widest range of ways to screw up.

"Go on."

"I just…i just don't get how I'm your type of person. We have zero in common, I don't fit into your world, I'm not a super spy or an awesome astronaut, I have no skills to offer the team at all. I'm the definition of dead weight."

"We don't see you that way, you're one of us now. You don't need to be like everyone else, we have enough spies and rocket flyers, your skills are so much more important."

"Yeah right."

"Yes, right." He gave her a small squeeze for emphasis. "I like that we don't have the same interests, the same hobbies and job, it means we have something different to talk about. And as for not being my type, well I've been with my type and it didn't work out, as I'm sure you have."

She had to agree with that, sticking to your own kind often left a lot to be desired.

"But then, if a beautiful, loving, highly skilled woman isn't my type, then I don't know what is. I might not have been looking for you, but I think you fit me perfectly."

"And I might not have been looking for a gorgeous, intelligent and highly skilled spaceman, but I think you fit me too."

"Often what we want and what we actually need are two different things, but I know I'll always want and need you."

"So you don't think I'm stupid for not getting this whole flying thing?"

He shook his head. "Not at all, it's not your fault if you don't already know how to do it. We just need to start with the basics and this time I'll make sure I explain everything I'm doing and you need to make sure you ask about anything you aren't sure of."

"I can do that."

"Let's try this again, shall we? But this time we'll do it a little different."

***

"I can't believe I'm actually doing it!"

Selene was perched on his lap, both of them sharing the driver's seat. It was unconventional but was working well.

He'd been great at explaining everything once he realised that she knew next to nothing about any of it. He'd gone through every instrument on the panel, explaining its use and when to use it, including the silver button that would cloak the car should she ever be followed or need to be invisible, something she insisted on calling Ghost-mode. The black button was there to activate a protective shield around the car should she ever need it. Brains had also resprayed the car with anti-scratch, extra tough paint that would stop most damage aimed her way.

He'd then started the car and talked her through everything as he did it, so she could see it in action, making sure that she understood. They were both controlling their moods and had managed not to snap at each other again.

He'd taken the car up and down twice, slowing down his actions so she could register them, then he'd made her try, covering her hands with his for support and reassurance. She'd talked her way through everything, and he found that he only had to correct her once before they were safely up above the tree line.

Now that he was right there with her and able to take over in the event of an emergency, she had relaxed and felt confident enough to climb higher, reaching the desired altitude and begun to cruise.

Once she was comfortable with that he had encouraged her to have a little fun, moving this way and that, feeling the air currents and working with them rather than fighting against them.

He'd then instructed her on landing, which she managed to do the second time as smoothly as if she'd been flying all her life.

Next he taught her how to program a route and engage the autopilot once they were high enough. That had been easier for her and she had relaxed back against his chest, keeping an eye open for any potential obstacles or dangers though there was nothing of note.

They'd picked a route that was less than three hundred miles, something that took a matter of minutes with her upgraded engine, and had looped them in a big circle to come back to their original spot. Once again she landed perfectly, having gotten the hang of the controls now. It really was quite easy once she had gotten over her fear of the unknown and had it explained to her in a way that made sense.

Their last lesson was to use the GPS to get them back to her apartment, which she followed easily now she was on the ground again. He had vacated the driver's seat and sat in the back for the return journey, content to simply watch her and ponder over her words.

He didn't understand how she could possibly think she was stupid. She was a fast learner and had gotten into the swing of things quickly once she had felt supported and everything had been explained to her. She was very much like him in the fact that she liked to know everything about it before she even started, knowledge made her feel more comfortable. He could kick himself for not having noticed that about her before and not realising that it really was all new to her.

They pulled up outside her building and she slid into her designated space, hitting the red button to shut down the engine.

"You did amazingly well."

She turned to smile at her love. "Well, it turns out that I had a good teacher."

He climbed out of the car and took her hand when she joined him.

"Quiet night in?"

He nodded. "Sounds perfect, then tomorrow we'll head to the island, I think you can handle that with the GPS and autopilot, don't you?"

She took a deep breath but then nodded her agreement. "As long as I have you, I can handle anything."

***

The palm trees didn't need to fold back for her dinky car, and it was kinda scary waiting for the cliff face to open enough to let her in, making her think that it wouldn't register her cars signature and open in time, leaving her driving into solid rock, but she needn't have worried. Brains, as always, had thought of everything.

John directed her to a spot off to the left of Two's hanger. Someone, likely Virgil, had painted on the wall in big purple letters the words "Thunderbird Witch".

"I told you you're one of us."

And that was when she burst into tears.

#Had to edit 4 times to beat the 250 paragraph limit #Never teach your partner to drive #Poor John #Selene is out of her comfort zone here #Thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds are go #fan fic stuff #fan fiction #fan fic update #john tracy

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thundersolstice · 5 years ago

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I loved your headcannons for season 2 character development, how do you think kit and Kat's conflict would have planned out?

Thanks, anon! I am delighted for this excuse opportunity to continue analyzing and speculating about the thundercats and where they stand when the second season would have concluded.

Jeez I really rambled the whiskers out of this one I’m sorry haha.

Going by the interview, Kit and Kat didn’t get much more mention beyond what was already seeded in canon, but I absolutely love what I heard. Wilykit growing into a peaceful and (still!) unconditionally supportive woman makes her the perfect confidant, advisor, and partner for Lion-O. (Bonus: Kit has a tail and eked out a living in the slums, so making her queen can only mean good things for the kingdom at large. I personally like to think of this as ~The Marriage of King and Kingdom~ because the political implications of change achieved are glorious.) I also like the part where her beauty is The Last Straw that boots Lion-O into finally moving on from the betrayal and pain visited on him by Cheetara and Pumyra; nothing like ten+ years and a jaw-dropping bombshell to inspire another attempt at love lol. That seriously just makes me so happy like you have no idea, that Lion-O marries the most beautiful–inside and out!–cat available and they live happily ever after. It’s perfect.

But I’ve already written that meta. *clears throat* So the twins! Let’s start with a quick review of the canon material we know:

+ At some point, Wilykit and Wilykat split off from Lion-O’s company and go their separate ways: Kit to the elephant village, and Kat doubling down on his hunt for Eldara (as seeded in S01E12). Kat is also specifically said to end up in Dog City again. It’s unclear if the twins’ split from Lion-O/each other happens before, during, or after the first timeskip. It’s also implied (enough to make it a safe assumption) that the twins were not wholly stationary in their private pursuits and periodically met up with Lion-O and/or one another.

+ At the start of the second season (post first timeskip), Wilykit and Wilykat are teenagers. They could be in their early teens, but the way Norton talked, I have the distinct impression they’re in their mid-to-late teens, and have not spent most of that time in Lion-O’s company. Also pertinent is that Norton’s memory of the specifics was fuzzy, so that needs to be taken into interpretation. (My tentative assumption, therefore, is that the twins are maybe fifteen when the second season opens, and only see Lion-O when their paths cross; that is, they and Lion-O do not or very rarely actively seek one another out during the timeskip–but I do not pretend my interpretation perfectly aligns with canon without some kind of confirmation by Word of God.)

+ Wilykit’s natural power growth is heavily based in music: she’s described as “like the bard” character. I can’t quote it from memory, but I came away with the impression that she could use her music to control others (which would be a natural step up from putting them into a trance with her flupe); she would also have headphones. Wilykat’s natural power growth included his using all the pockets on his outfit more–pulling out and utilizing tricks/trick-like items, and the like. And that he would change the basis of a fight for better or worse (such as with sneezing powder or the like; I can’t quote the specific items Norton mentioned specifically), and nobody could really predict him.

+ Re growing up–without her brother around to egg her on, Wilykit becomes more peaceful. And without his sister to steady him, Wilykat becomes more wild. Where she finds a new home in the elephant village and continues to adopt the elephant ideals, he ends up back in Dog City and gets caught up with Tookit &c again. Wilykit eventually grows into a peaceful queen figure; Wilykat eventually grows into a “king of thieves” figure. Wilykit, as an adult, is described as beautiful; Wilykat, as an adult, is described as “like a slick villain.”

+ Wilykit is specifically stated to conclude the second season as Lion-O’s queen. Wilykat is specifically stated to believe in Lion-O’s Code (the 2011 Code of Thundera) despite being the/like a king of thieves.

+ The twins do eventually find Eldara, which is (something like?) another dimension and where the soul stone is located. They find their family in Eldara as some kind of (resting place?) before they move on to thundercat heaven. This part of their journey is therefore concluded happily (or bittersweet if they’ll never see their family again). The part about the twins’ family being dead conflicts with an earlier statement by the crew saying they’re alive, more speculating about that below.

Regarding individual character growth as interpreted by fandom–something I’ve noticed fans do to grown versions of the twins is to firmly limit their adult characterizations by where they were as eight-year-olds. I can appreciate why–it’s easier and faster to keep the basics provided by canon and build on just that than it is to analyze and hunt down any hints for the intended character growth and then develop the characters from there–and I’m certainly guilty of doing that sort of thing (especially when I was more interested in pushing what I wanted to be canon rather than analyzing and building on the actual canon material; and I really think that right there sums it up for most fans. Not saying it’s a bad thing to do; this is fandom, not law…As long as everyone is clear on what is and is not canon)–but that isn’t logical character progression, and I’m going to go ahead and spell out why:

On the purely external side, it makes very little sense for, say, Kit to become a cleric or Kat to become an officer in Lion-O’s army because:(a) TCats 2011 is a reboot, not a spinoff; not giving the kids their own unique paths would be blowing off an integral part of the classic series canon; and(b) the twins are part of the principal cast, main characters in their own right behind Lion-O–just like Panthro/Tygra/Cheetara/etc. They’re thundercats (nee thunderkittens). All of the main cast have their own storylines, and while their character development may not be as integral to the overarching plot like Lion-O’s is, they are still independent and complete arcs. Shoehorning the twins into a single path, or paths that are not unique to their personal stories, would be like denying them their legacy. They aren’t The Hero (that’s Lion-O), but they aren’t side characters (eg, Viragor, Hattanzo, etc), either.

On the purely mental/emotional side, those interpretations don’t even make sense outside the context of mental illness or bizarre time-freeze-drama (such as what the classic series Lion-O kicked off the 80s series with. What 2011 Lion-O suffers per the second timeskip is also worth pointing out, although the jump from twenty-something to thirty-something is substantially less severe than the jump from prepubescent to physiological-brain-development-complete).Who grows up to be the same person they were at the age of eight? The twins-as-kittens are absolutely and vastly more mature and capable than your average modern eight-year-old, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to finish growing (and significantly at that). If they do retain any traits from their prepubescent years, most often those traits will have taken root from a completely different place (ie: they’d adopt a mature adult’s concept in place of a young child’s concept, and the similarities to what they believed as kids is therefore coincidental or irrelevant).

I’m just trying to underscore the logic of the twins’ canon arcs as described in the interview here. Basically, I love the plans for the twins and where they both would have ended up as characters. As for my interpretations of their long-term external goal of locating Eldara(/their family)–

Norton didn’t talk a whole lot about that, either, sadly, but we do know the basics: the twins do eventually find Eldara: it’s something like another dimension, and also the location of the final power stone. They find their family there in something like a pit stop prior to the in-universe version of Heaven. The suggestion that the twins’ family all being dead conflicts with an earlier statement by the crew saying the twins’ mother and siblings are alive. I’m inclined to put more weight behind the latter assertion because it was made years before the interview with Norton took place, and Norton himself made it clear he couldn’t recall all the exact details. So my thought is either (a) the twins’ mother/siblings die or in some other way “move on” into Eldara at some point after having survived the fall of Thundera; or (b) the crew was invoking their right of misdirection as they so often did (lol) and the twins’ mother/siblings did not survive the fall of Thundera or have already been dead by some other means. I do not recall if the twins’ dad was part of the conclusion to the Eldara conflict, or if they only saw their mother and siblings.

The rest is pure speculation: I think Kit and Kat would always maintain a relationship as siblings, but that their separate duties and interests would mean they do not meet very often, or at least do not live in the same general area of Third Earth. I think Kat would continue to adventure his way around Third Earth (swashbuckling style!) and would happily never settle down and start a family or the like. I think the twins have never had a super close relationship with any of the other thundercats (essentially, they’re casual teammates, not BFFs), and that this trend did not change with the second season except for the part where Kit and Lion-O start fighting more closely together. I think Wilykit would bear Lion-O at least one set of boy-girl twins because Kit was a twin and all her siblings were twins, and I think Kat would make a mischievous and super cool uncle much admired by his niece and nephew (of which their parents may or may not be especially wary). I love love love the contrast inherent in the troublemaking King of Thieves being the twin sibling of the steadfast Queen of New Thundera, and I think it very possible the crew would have portrayed this fun contrast as an ongoing dynamic.

Apologies for grammar/typos/unnecessary repeating of unnecessary information/etc. I’ll clean up this post later.

#thundercats #thundercats 2011 #Wilykit #Wilykat #meta #asks #thundermeta #lionoxwilykit #discussion of my interpretation is always welcome btw #I refuse to acknowledge myself as the only fan still inclined to dissect this cartoon lol #maybe I should put this one under a cut?#is it El Darra or Eldara or #I can't remember

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jedimaesteryoda · 5 years ago

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Rise of Skywalker Review

WARNING MASSIVE SPOILERS

Rise of Skywalker is by far one of the worst Star Wars films ever made, and easily the worst of the sequel trilogy. The entire plot was a mess, it was unfocused, rushed, uneven and had too much plot convenience in the way of things like a dagger that manages to have a replica of the remains of the second Death Star for some reason. It also seemed more devoted to fan service than telling a good, coherent story.

To be fair, Johnson was given charge of the middle film of the trilogy which clashed with Abrams’s vision. He also had killed off Snoke, so he couldn’t serve as the main villain in the next film,and dealt with Rey’s parentage so Abrams wasn’t left with a lot. Of course, Johnson largely didn’t retcon anything from the previous film, while Abrams did with ROS, which was a mistake. It felt like he was trying to undo Johnson’s changes in this film.

The way Rey’s identity is revealed is poorly handled. Kylo tells her in the middle of the film that she is Palpatine’s granddaughter. Imagine if in Empire Strikes Back, instead of Vader telling Luke that he was his father at the end, it was Yoda who told him that in the second act. It would have had nowhere near as big an impact. It shouldn’t have been Kylo, but Palpatine himself who told her about her heritage. Also, Rey turning out to be a nobody with no magic bloodline as Rian Johnson intended, which is one of his few ideas I agreed with, actually would have been a better story and character choice. It at least promotes the idea that anyone can be a Jedi, that the Force chooses who is worthy without any attention to bloodlines. Also, how did Palpatine not keep track of his own family? This is the most powerful man in the galaxy we’re talking about.

The main villain of the Rise of Skywalker turns out to be the main villain of the previous two trilogies: Palpatine. Admittedly, Palpatine is one of my top two favorite characters in Star Wars, and it was always great to see Ian McDiarmid play him on-screen. He was the main highlight in the prequels; I could look at each scene he’s in, and write an essay or at least a few paragraphs about just that one scene. However, his character seemed out of place in this one.

For starters, there was the way Abrams handled him in this film. Instead of not mentioning him, and just saving his reveal for the third act after some building up, and maximizing surprise and shock for the audience, Abrams just reintroduces him in the opening. It doesn’t have the same effect. They just shoehorned him into this film without him even being mentioned in the first two. At least in the original trilogy, by the time we see him in person in Return of the Jedi, Palpatine had previously been mentioned in the first film, A New Hope, and later introduced via Holonet in Empire Strikes Back, which provided plenty of build up towards his appearance in the third film. He played a key role in the story as he was the dark side counterpart to Yoda, founder of the tyrannical Empire, the one who turned Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, and was seeking to do the same to Luke. He was the personification of temptation towards the dark side and the Empire, the devil himself, who along with Vader was the trial Luke needed to face in his final step towards becoming a Jedi. In the prequel trilogy, Palpatine was the main villain in plain sight all along who was masquerading as the friendly Supreme Chancellor while he was Darth Sidious in the background pulling strings, and slowly turning the Old Republic into the Empire. In the sequel trilogy, he is introduced at the eleventh hour just to give Kylo and Rey something to unite against.

In my opinion, he should have stayed dead. It seemed more fitting in that despite being the most successful Sith lord in history, having gone where no Sith has gone before by conquering the Galactic Republic and wiping out the Jedi Order, Palpatine still succumbed to the tradition of the Rule of Two, and like his predecessors was killed by his apprentice. The man who destroyed countless lives and betrayed so many people in his rise to power as well as after from the Separatists and senators to his apprentices, himself met his end by betrayal. By making him alive, Abrams also made Vader’s sacrifice in Return of the Jedi less meaningful. Vader originally found himself in choosing between the light (Windu) and the dark (Palpatine), chose the latter largely to save someone he cared about, his wife, and nearly wiped out the Jedi Order. He found himself in the same situation again, choosing between the light represented by Luke and the dark, again represented by Palpatine, and he chooses the former this time for the same reason: to save someone he cared about, his son. In the end, he turns again and in his last act destroys the Sith line, killing the last of the Sith lords, and ending Palpatine’s reign of terror for good and all. He thus fulfills his role as the Chosen One … only, whoops, turns out Palpatine survived, and the Chosen One didn’t actually do shit. I know Legends brought him back too in Dark Empire, but even that decision was met with some controversy within the community. It made little narrative sense to bring him back, and it was years before the prequels with Lucas doing the Chosen One angle for Anakin. I know some argue that Anakin brought balance to the Force briefly by killing Palpatine, but if Palpatine was the reason for the imbalance, then Rise of Skywalker means he was never truly dead, and that Vader didn’t truly correct the imbalance.

Palpatine also was most effective by being subtle and nuanced with an undercurrent of menace, which clearly wasn’t present in this film. He didn’t feel as threatening as he did in Episodes VI and III. Even Sir Ian’s performance seemed largely more subdued in contrast to the confident, megalomaniacal character we all knew and loved. He wasn’t even fun in this one.

He also managed to disable an entire fleet just using Force lightning? I’m sorry, but that really pushes it as I know Palpatine is powerful, but even he never struck me as that powerful nor should he be. As George R.R. Martin said “I think if you put too much magic in your fantasy it overwhelms the plot, and it starts to make the plot nonsensical. If you do have a sorceress or a wizard who can speak a word and wipe out an army, why would you even assemble an army?” The use of the Force is supposed to be used in small, limited ways in battles a la Luke using the Force to accurately fire proton torpedoes into the exhaust port of the Death Star. Otherwise, if a Force user can take out an entire army or in this case, fleet, in a single blast, why didn’t any Jedi do that during the Clone Wars?

I wouldn’t have opposed seeing Palpatine in Rise of Skywalker, but as a Force vision akin to Luke’s experience in the cave in Dagobah. I felt that while the prequel trilogy was about Anakin and Palpatine’s backstories with the former’s journey to the dark side and the latter’s rise to power, the sequel trilogy should have been about their posthumous legacies through the Skywalker family and Empire/First Order respectively. Lucas didn’t envision bringing Palpatine back simply because he knew when a character had effectively fulfilled their role in a story.

There are plenty of plot points or scenes that also don’t go anywhere or make sense.

The Sith-class Star Destroyers being all armed with planet-destroying superlasers also made no sense. Watch Rogue One, and you see how the Death Star’s superlaser focus lens dwarfed all the Imperial Star Destroyers and Rebel capital ships, and yet they somehow managed to shrink it down to 1/1000th of its original size and still be as effective? In the original trilogy, the logic behind the superlaser being found only on a Death Star was simply because a laser powerful enough to destroy an entire planet had such huge power requirements and required so large a configuration that only a space station the size of a small moon could accommodate it. Palpatine also commissioned the building of at most, two, since one was threatening enough to send a message to the galaxy, and having an entire fleet of them also had more risks, ie the the risk of one being used against him. All it’d take is one to be hijacked, and be used to blow up the planet Palpatine is on. Then there is the context of the superlaser being used. Alderaan being blown up was treated as a big deal simply because it was. It was this universe’s equivalent of the first atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. It was something so terrible and devastating, that it was originally thought to be unfathomable. Leia also was helpless as she witnessed her home planet being obliterated in an instant, which made it that much more devastating. In this film, Kijimi is just blown up without any emotion or impact at all.

Also, there is the side trip of having to get C-3PO translate Sith language. Why have C-3PO be able to translate a language if he is forbidden from translating it? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just not have that language in his programming at all? What legitimate reason is there for Sith even being a forbidden language? It’s not like black speech from LOTR, which was discouraged simply because it drew the Eye of Sauron.

C-3PO also made the conscious decision to have his memory wiped away, stating if he didn’t then everything they fought for would be lost. He made this personal sacrifice to save the Resistance and the galaxy just to have R2-D2 later restore his memory in another scene. That just takes away the impact of his decision, as throughout the journey sacrifices are made along the way, and a sacrifice needs to be permanent in order for it to be meaningful. Imagine if after Obi-wan was killed in A New Hope, he resurrected in the original trilogy.

General Hux is also revealed to be the First Order spy, and allows the group to escape, only to be found out right after and immediately killed. It doesn’t go into more detail regarding his defection, and he is killed off just like that as if he were a random side character rather than a major supporting character for two films.

In another scene, Rey destroys a transport that supposedly carried Chewie by accidentally hitting it with Force lightning. Rey, of course, takes it very hard, believing she accidentally killed Chewie, only for it to be revealed shortly, that Chewie is alive as he had been on another transport that we never saw. What was the point of all that? Rey didn’t learn any lessons, and it didn’t contribute at all to the plot. The whole thing felt completely unnecessary.

We also never got to hear what Finn wanted to tell Rey, or Poe wanted to tell Finn.

As far as lightsaber dueling goes, there were two lightsaber duels in the middle, and there was no point to them as opposed to Ben buying Luke time in A New Hope, Anakin sealing his fate as Palpatine apprentice in the beginning of Revenge of the Sith or a final duel at the end between light and dark like in all the other films.

However, there were a few moments I liked. I liked Kylo’s scene with his father Han. I like how it was left ambiguous as Han clearly couldn’t be a Force ghost given he wasn’t Force-sensitive, and we don’t know if it was all in Kylo’s head. Rey giving Kylo a lightsaber in the final fight to help, and maybe, Kylo sacrificing himself to heal Rey.

It was good to see Lando, although we barely got to see him. He managed to get all the fleet together by convincing them to fight in the end, so he does play a role, but I think the Resistance should have more help due to Luke’s sacrifice in the previous film. Luke appeared, because he knew the galaxy needed Luke Skywalker, and the kids talking about him facing Kylo showed how he was inspiring the galaxy to resist the First Order. That proved to be another thing Abrams retconned.

Finally, there is Rey choosing the surname of “Skywalker,” honoring the people she wanted to be and mentored her. Was it necessary? I mean Luke didn’t exactly decide to use the surname “Kenobi” in Return of the Jedi, although to be fair, his father did save his life in the end. Rey deciding to use her surname “Palpatine” would be her owning her identity, and showing that while she acknowledges her dark lineage, like Luke did with his, she doesn’t let her predecessor’s legacy define her.

Long story short, Abrams and Disney really bungled the handling of the franchise. Each film felt like it’s own thing being separate from the other two rather than being part of an overarching vision. There was more focus on fan service than storytelling, and ROS didn’t leave me feeling satisfied.

Also, Korriban will always be the Sith homeworld.

#starwars #rise of skywalker #rey #kylo ren #palpatine #empire #c-3po #episode ix #theforce #first order #the resistance

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thewritermuses · 10 months ago

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Hidden Figures

Unedited Thoughts - This is part of my unedited thoughts series. Based on true events - this never bodes well. We meet Katherine as a child and we immediately know that she is gifted. The way that the community rally around her and her parents is fantastic. There is a great film making moment setup here when her teacher asks her to solve the complex problem on the board she takes the chalk that is handed to her and solves it. This is referenced in a later scene when she is at a department of defence briefing and the exact same thing happens and she blows them all out of the water with her brilliance. The first scene that we meet three ladies when they are grown up is great. Their car is broken down on the way to work at Langley and a white cop stops. We know there is going to be trouble and from this one scene we learn the state of play - race relations and the sexism that the three leads will face. We also get to meet the three ladies forceful nature and the different ways it manifests itself as they get this police officer to escort them to work. Truly great script writing. The use of the African American ladies as 'computers' feels demeaning at first. But there is a lot going on here. First, computers isn't necessarily the derogatory term that it sounds like. Second these are relatively good positions for such talented ladies. Also looking back now at the term it has a powerful ring to it. You were so good at math you are called a computer. The polish engineer who is working on the re-entry vehicle is a great counter point to Mary who is encouraged to become an engineer by him. He makes the point about escaping Nazi Germany and launching people into space - if he can do that what can she do? Then our heroine, Katherine, is placed in the Space Team headed by Al Harrison, Kevin Costner. She spends much of her time trying to fight against the ridiculous restrictions placed on her. One of the mathematicians redacts all of his reports so that it is almost impossible for Katherine to check his work - but she finds a way. The racist oppression is something else - They don't want her drinking out of their coffee percolator so get a crappy one installed - etc etc. By far the worst is that there is no bathroom for Katherine in this section of Langley so she has to treck across the base to the west side to the coloured bathroom. While this is powerful the first time - and frustrating the second. The third time is just ridiculous. Her boss blows up at her the last time that this happens - And she lets loose back. He had no idea that there were no bathrooms and about how she was been treated. After storms out of the room he paces over to the coffee cart and dumbfoundedly pulls the 'coloured' label off the percolator. This was a powerful scene and the tension in the room was palpable. Yet the very next scene destroys it all. Harrison is taking a sledge hammer to the 'coloured' bathroom sign in the Western section - which is the bathroom that Katherine has been travelling to this entire time. The signs he should have been removing were the 'white's only' in his building. I cannot believe that this got missed as it feels like a mistake - but it's there so I have to rate the film on it. The undertone of sexism in the black community feels a bit shoehorned in for me. At the church picnic right at the start both Mary's partner and Katherine's would-be husband make a big deal over what women can and can't do. Then nothing really at all. You can't try to force further 'ism' discussion and then leave it dead. There are some truly terrible lines in this film. "We all pee the same colour" is up there. There are some fantastic moments as well. Dorothy's character has been trying to negotiate a supervisor position for herself and when the IBM arrived - protect her girls jobs. She does both by teaching herself fortran. This culminates in a great scene of her leading the entire group over to the new computer room. When Jim finally proposes to Katherine the reaction of her and the kids is actually really touching - "Why are you crying? He hasn't asked you yet." To which Katherine responds - "He will." Turns to Jim "Won't you?!?". It has a realness about it that is just fantastic. Then after Katherine has saved them all - many many times - they fire her - because the IBM is much faster. Then, just as they are about to launch Harrison recognises that the numbers are off. He confers with Stafford - Katherine's co-worker - who agrees. The big flop for me here is that neither of them recognise that they need her to check the numbers. The call for her comes from Glen - the man they are about to launch. This is fine as they set him up from the moment he comes on screen as been progressive - he ignores the rules when they arrive at Langley to meet the African American ladies. So it makes sense for him to request this - especially after her display at the Department of Defence briefing. It's just sad that it isn't Harrison or Stafford who make the call. Katherine's checking the figures is another brilliant scene as she calculates the landing zone and the telecast of the launch is happening on the TV in front of her. Overall a fun movie but just a bit too Disney. Some nice scenes but also some poor ones. Read the full article

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hellyeahheroes · 6 years ago

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The Post-Mortem for the New Age of Heroes

At the beginning of this year, I had prepared my totally original idea for April Fools 2019. I wanted to film myself in Jim Sterling cosplay performing a Jimquisition parody. Instead, I managed to somehow break my only shitty mic and gave youtubing a pause for time being. So you will have to enjoy what was supposed to be a recording in written text in form. At the end of the text I will do a face reveal, I owe you that.

It has become undeniable by now that the New Age of Heroes was a financial failure. Out of eight new titles that have launched only two are still going. And out of these two, one is already dead, like a guy slapped by Kenshiro of cancellations. And from its fall we can see an image of failures and poorly thought decisions at the editorial level.

Spinning out of incredibly popular, both among fans and critics alike, Dark Nights: Metal, New Age of Heroes was originally named the Dark Matter. It was supposed to form a thematic trilogy with Metal and it’s own prelude. Dark Days lead to Dark Nights, which gives birth to Dark Matter. Simple and catchy, an okay marketing strategy. However, the name was hastily changed at the last minute to a much more generic New Age of Heroes. And to my knowledge, we never really got an answer as to why, leaving us only with speculations. My theory, and this is only a theory, of course, is that someone at the higher level either felt that Dark Matter was not grandiose enough or that the audiences are just too stupid to get it.

The imprint was supposed to first launch at September 2017 only to have been pushed to December and then to February 2018. At the same time, we had some minor changes regarding the original promo picture showing the characters and more specific one - Damage, whose original design is nothing like the one in promotional material. All this shows there was some executive meddling in the production of the series, not unlike the one that haunted the infamous New 52.

The strong nostalgia for the 90s is another thing New Age of Heroes shared with New 52, with pretty much every title being in one way or another a throwback to the era. Just like in early Image, many of the new characters who were clearly invoking a feeling of edgier versions of classic Marvel characters. Damage is DC’s third of fourth attempt at making the Hulk since the launch of New 52, Brimstone is Ghost Rider, even Sideways looked like edgy Spider-Man, despite not being edgy at all. On the team side, the Terrifics was deliberately a homage to classic Fantastic Four and this seems to have worked in its favor. While other books had to prove they are more than just knockoffs of the competitors most famous characters, the Terrifics has been embraced as a spiritual homage by FF fandom, especially at the time when Marvel was not publishing that series. However, even other team books had to deal with Marvel comparisons. it didn’t help that Immortal Men was very intentionally playing a homage to the 90′s X-men books and that narrative style, up o shoehorning in it popular villain Batman Who laughs for no apparent reason. While I think it made the book ironically better than titles it was trying to honor, it undeniable set it up to comparisons. The Unexpected had characters who kinda reminded people of Thor and Doctor Strange leading to comparisons with both Avengers and the Defenders. Even the most original title, the Silencer and the relaunch of classic DC book Challengers of the Unknown as the New Challengers had fans attempt to claim they’re ripping off Marvel properties on some flimsy logic. Unfortunately, this all gave the line an impression of just being a Marvel knockoff and made it harder for it to stand on its own.

New Age of Heroes was supposed to have a larger emphasis on artists, putting their names before writers in the credits on the cover and in the issue itself referring to them both as storytellers. Only for that to be undermined the moment the books had mediocre sales and all famous artists who were supposed to be the main draw have been moved to more high-profile books to play second fiddle to the writers again. In the end, New Age of Heroes suffered all the problems with treating artists as secondary as rest of mainstream titles, with artists being shuffled around as it was deemed fit, often without abbility to give a book any visual coherence even in the middle of an arc.

Aside, these examples of editorial incompetence and neglect, we quickly saw two titles, New Challengers and immortal Men, end at issue six, seemingly to allow Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV to focus more on the Justice League and Batman Who Laughs. The Unexpected followed, lasting only eight issues. Curse of the Brimstone and Sideways survived twelve and thirteen issues respectively. Damage, one of the first launches of the imprint, ended at issue sixteen and Silencer will be ending at a similar number.

All of these saddens me because I quite frankly enjoyed a lot of these books. Sideways was a flawed but entertaining throwback to classic teen superhero books and had it sold better could honestly build enough momentum to rival Ms. Marvel. Curse of the Brimstone was a good horror, Immortal Men was more entertaining than it had any right to be as a 90s homage and the Silencer actually formed an engaging narrative I was not expecting at first glance. Part of me wants to blame any of the above reasons, be it Marvel comparisons or editorial incompetence. But Part of me also wonders if the whole initiative hasn’t just been poorly planned out. Maybe it was a bad idea to launch eight new titles in such a short amount of time. Maybe some of them would have worked better, were the writers put on a single book in the style of 52, with multiple writers and weekly schedule? I don’t know but it feels that it could maybe give more life to Immortal Men, New Challengers and the Unexpected. However, the fact that so many bad decisions occurred on an editorial level only shows how poorly planned the initiative was. It saddens me as I know the failure of those titles to make a lasting impact, the only book still not canceled being also the only one without all new cast of characters, will make it harder to push for more original titles in the future. And so I weep for the New Age of Heroes. It could have been great.

So that’s it for today. I’m going to crawl into a hole and ignore all the news today due to the number of pranks. Be careful with what you read online, not just today, but in today in particular, thank god for me and get ready for my face reveal!

I love April’s Fools

- Admin

#Sideways #Curse of the Brimstone #The Terrifics #Immortal Men #The Silencer #New Challengers #Damage #The Unexpected #DC #Dark Matter #New Age of DC Heroes

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ryouverua · 6 years ago

Text

Trial 6 - Oh, I am one yet many (5)

The above inspirational picture was taken seconds before disaster.

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Tsumugi is not the one-trick pony we thought she was ABORT MISSION, ABORT MISSION!!!!

NO YOU AIN’T! NO YOU AIN’T I DID NOT SIGN UP TO BE HAJIMEMED, NO SIR I DID NOT!

i mentioned it during the text hellstorm I unleashed when I was mid-playthrough but the way Shuichi says ‘cosplaying’ here is ADORABLE. I love his VA she is so good -

also

oh no

o h n o

I can’t just... express how deeply that feeling of ‘oh no’ pervaded my being. My soul.

“THIS IS JUST COSPLAY“ SHE SAYS - AND GOD, THE MUSIC, THE MUSIC IS SO WACKY LIKE THESE ARE JUST SOME NORMAL FTE ANTICS -

wait no this is the ‘let’s start the killing game music’ -

ah that’s why I’m lowkey terrified right now

W-What in the world are those white smears across Hagakure’s eyes??? And oh god the first game too???

WHAT THE HELL TSUMUGI YOU’VE REALLY BEEN HOLDING OUT ON US TELL ME HOW YOU’RE DOING THIS I-I mean oh no, how dare you, this is so awful...

SHE’S TAKEN FULL OWNERSHIP OF JUNKO!PERSONA

AJSLKDF

TSUMUGI

HOLY SHIT

TSUMUGI

IS THIS YOUR FINAL FORM

ironically this got me thinking ‘this would be a really cool cosplay + prop’ once I got over the sheer terror of the situation and I starting thinking, oh, wouldn’t it be cool if you even had a sort of pinwheel mechanism (with the main body of it being hidden by her long hair) that rotated all of these pieces, and have you ever realized that there is a small piece of you that is the monster

also I just realized... she kept putting her glasses on as Junko. But I’m assuming she won’t ever wear them as Hajime. So it’s true - the moment she actually took off her glasses, we really did get to see her final form..

IS THAT KOMAEDA’S HAIR

ALL OF THESE THINGS, I RECOGNIZE ALL OF THEM OMG

This............ this is terrible, terrifying, and also really, really good

don’t say you’re jealous don’t say you’re jealous don’t say you’re jealous okay I’m a bit jealous FFU --

SHUICHI I THINK THIS IS ONE OF THE TIMES WHERE YOU DON’T WANT TO PURSUE THE TRUTH I HAVE A TERRIBLE, AWFUL FEELING -

oh no oh no

here I was doing mental gymnastics to justify why she’d be able to cosplay as Junko, a real person

but I was over-complicating things as usual

even the egg has been compromised for her nefarious scheme this truly is the worst timeline

What is with me and stumbling into series that just bloody smash their fourth wall until there’s nothing but broken pieces left

thank you for having twogami right after togami it’s not something I realized I needed and among all this heartbreak is a blessing

THIS IS NOT YOUR CUE TO START PLAYING THE CREDITS MONOKUMA

I am only making it through this trial by sheer force of will and the power of Sweetcheeks’ adorable voice.

Dangan.... ronpa....?

oh god she said ‘we’ she said ‘WE’ THIS IS REALLY NOT GOOD

‘Don’t get too whacky with your theories,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to sound like a total crackpot,’ I said. DAMN YOU SELF I SHOULD HAVE LET MYSELF GO ABSOLUTELY WILD AFTER ALL

So this was invented completely from nothing??? My initial theory had them seeing themselves in someone else’s actual memories as themselves, and having their own brains play tricks on them that way - but all those scenes with them being interviewed by Makoto, of applying to Hope’s Peak, and possibly everything else about them - oh god - how powerful are these lights? How much detail was crammed into them? Can this all be done with a mere flash of a light???

‘We.’ Her use of ‘we’ is interesting, here. It really does feel like Tsumugi sees all of her cosplay personas as actual people that she can channel to ‘help her’ as opposed to just mere characters. Like entities fighting along side of her, not just through her...

also hello ibuki I forgot how much I enjoyed your VA they make me hear seagulls in the distance

aaaaaaw look at how much the art style has improved from the first game!!!

Y.......... YES.......?????? wait actually as someone who is lowkey interested in props and set design - BUT NO WAIT STILL THIS IS WAY BEYOND THAT -

How... the hell... do you cosplay the world?! The entire world?!?!

Is that possible?? If the entire world isn’t real - if it’s all being propped up by you - then -

Who - who are we playing this game for then??? Why make us play it??? Who is watching the game???

I KNEW IT

I AND PROBABLY HALF OF THE PEOPLE PLAYING WERE JUST WAITING FOR YOU TO SHOW UP

......

Did. Did you just say it takes place in the real world.

Oh no -

It... It’s real fiction... because they’ve kidnapped actual people... and brainwashed them... and then trapped them in a situation where they were forced to kill each other to get out?? For things that didn’t exist??? For reasons that weren’t ever real???

Wait - so that means they can get out and it’ll be fine?! That’s..... t-that’s not as bad as I thought, but...

‘STAFF’ OH THAT WORD IS SO OUT OF PLACE -

...............................

There are. There are people backstage. It’s not just Tsumugi. This. This is super not good.

insert inappropriately-timed comment about how I love this VA

Okay. This actually took me by surprise. And I’m kinda terrified to ask.

W.... Why not? Is - Is this actually a space separated from reality? Can they physically.... not go back....???

no wait -

what are you doing

PUT THAT KEY BACK RIGHT NOW

OH UNCANNY VALLEY-LEVELS OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

NO DON’T THROW REAL FACES UP THERE -

IS THIS A BLOODY COMMENT BOARD

I mean I know in my head that this is a niconico parody but the fact is they have to translate the comments to suit an english audience so -

omfg no I cannot believe what is coming out of the screen right now

wait wait

Kyoko is my waifu

My husbando Shuichi

first

Sakura is my muscle waifu good taste anon

Bring on the spoilers

LOL are you watching?

I feel like I’m participating too!

she’s shaking

Aaaw, Himiko is still alive.

Wow it’s on? LOL!

this is what the creepy kid at the beginning of the chapter was about

this was who that Makoto kid was

WHERE IS HIS CREEPY-ASS FACE I KNOW YOU’RE THERE MAKOTO

Is this the everyone... the real everyone Tsumugi says she represents, then??? That she’s fighting for? Omg was Kirumi’s motive/trial foreshadowing all along -

Anyway, damn Tsumugi is proud of her viewership.

#humblebrag #musclewaifu

EVERYONE???? LITERALLY EVERYONE?!?!?!

SURELY... SURELY THAT IS THE CONCEITED TALK OF A MANAGER TRYING TO TALK UP THEIR ‘BABY’.... SURELY...

I appreciate the use of Celes here. This is.... damn dark. They’ve achieved such a peaceful world that the have to manufacture darkness and blood-sport for people to get their kicks???

STIMULATION?!

first of all where’s miu when you need her

SECOND OF ALL ARE YOU SURE HUMANITY WAS BEAUTIFUL, KOREKIYO??? ARE YOU SURE?

“It’s simple economics.”

THERE YOU ARE MAKOTO YOU CREEP

oh no he was... literally... using this game to cope with his problems.... and he said that one day he wanted to be a part of it... oh no.....

..... D... Did one of the comments say that it had been years? That they had been waiting for a few years for the sequel?

Does - does that mean something, or is it just a throwaway audience comment? Why years? If Rantaro was in the last one, why would it have been years for this one to happen??? How old is Rantaro? How old is Tsumugi?!?!

FML I had been wondering how ‘Monokuma’ could exist without Junko existing since they’re inextricably linked. FML.

MONOKUMA CAN YOU STOP ROLLING THE CREDITS, THE MUSIC AND THE TITLE CARDS FOR A MINUTE PLEASE I AM BEGGING YOU

Because I don’t enjoy having Saioinji’s terrifying eyes trained on me while she questions my intelligence, so I’ll sum up the next question - what season of this gameshow from hell are we apparently on?

I mean, considering Junko’s title... well...

..... yeah it looks better with a V.

the real answer to why they used V3 even though it’s technically not the correct way to say ‘53′ - it’s the aesthetic.

FFFF

I actually screenshot all the parody!title cards and they’re amazing. I’ll post them just once a bit later when it shows up again because this post is entirely too long, but needless to say, whoever designed them had fun. And the titles of the games, too - Birth of Despair? Dream Danganronpa? Sign me tf up! oh no does this make me part of the problem I’M SORRY SWEETCHEEKS

I can’t believe I was bitching about Junko being the mastermind for the third game when apparently audience members have had to sit through 53 Junkos

You couldn’t have changed it up??? Not even once??? Like, one led by Mukuro as a prologue idea or??? quietly denies the existence of the anime

Oh, speaking of which, I do like the excuse they came up with as to why the drv3 creators didn’t create new characters from the supposed other games why Tsumugi didn’t cosplay anyone outside the first two games - it’s for the class’s benefit, since they only knew those two casts, and y’know. She cares. about shock value

DON’T YOU PASS THE BUCK, GIRL

Ah, so that ‘staff’ you mentioned earlier...

why is this so funny to me

T-Tsumugi, do you have a tumultuous relationship with your managers or something

why are you airing out your dirty laundry on live television

is it all the incest plotlines

I feel like at this point it’s less ‘Tsumugi is trying to rub into the students how completely and absolutely they are boned’ and more ‘okay, it’s time to give a shout-out to everyone who put this production together! Perfect time to slap on that logo, guys!‘

oh my god that was supposed to be a trailer in-meta too alsd;kfj i’m losing it

AND AGAIN, THOSE TITLE CARDS - THEY ARE AMAZING.

SHE IS SHE’S TOTALLY ADVERTISING MID-SHOW

TSUMUGI STOP BEING A CORPORATE SELL-OUT

"NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR CRAPPY SHOEHORNED ADVERTISING!!!”

oh god oh no

who’s going to tell him -

MONOKUMA DON’T YOU DARE

i’m having an existential crisis alongside sweetcheeks ngl

there are so many layers

....

we need to go deeper

So, just to clarify, there are three layers right now:

There’s us, the players. In a sense, we could be considered ‘equal but different than the tier’, but we do still operate on a plane separate from the metafiction of Tsumugi’s ‘everyone in the world’.

There’s the ‘audience’, the outside world. This is the space that’s been breached at this point. And this... this is the level where the students are from, too - aka the reason I think we and the audience should exist as separate entities.

And there’s the domain of the Killing Game, a space created to play out this story, using real people - a place separated from reality... how? If Tsumugi is talking about a set, it could easily be the real world, which means they’ve been isolated somewhere. At the same time though, when they managed to reach the end of the escape tunnel and saw the outside world, they all started to choke and suffocate. So... could this be VR still? Or no? Can these existences known as Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective, Maki Harukawa, the Ultimate Assassin, Himiko Yumeno, the Ultimate Robot, K1-b0, the Ultimate Robot, and even Tsumugi Shirogane, the Ultimate Cosplayer, leave this space in any way, shape or form... or not at all? Is them suffocating ^ like that a sign that they literally cannot exist outside of this space?

She is literally throwing the same question back in Shuichi’s face ghdfkgh

NO I’M ON SHUICHI’S SIDE I COULDN’T HELP IT I HAD TO CHOOSE REAL PEOPLE

no!!! no!!!! NO!!!!

no seriously I still chose real people because I am stubborn

sweetcheeks et al. do not deserve any of this

Of course they brought out despair!Mikan for this. Of course.

I have to say, I do like these little character touches - the decisions that have been made as to which ‘cosplay’ says what. I mean, it’s supposed to also act as a way to throw our known and loved favourites in our face too, but having Celes comment on how boring ‘peace’ is? Having Ibuki smashing through the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience, Gundham remarking on their abnormal existence and Leon commenting on how cool the ‘aesthetic’ of the title card is? It’s such a nice touch. also horrifying. butalsonice

Oh we really are addressing the prologue now??? And - I’m assuming Tsumugi is referring to Hajime when she says ‘me’, but is there a chance she isn’t?

Just as I initially suspected, though - they really were normal when they got in. So how did they decide who got what personality/talent, or was that random? I mean, that might be the case - it was potentially hinted by the motive video switch of Chapter 2..

............. Huh.

But..... in what sense? Like the 16 talents were stored in those lights and they were ‘picked up’ by the most suited participant? How could you make sure there were no doubles? Or - and this is possible because of the vague language - did the talents build on what the student knew already? In which case, how would they know what the talents would end up being and plan the labs around them?

No, it would... have to be... the first one. Talents had its own selection in the flashback creating machine, though without verifying what the subcategories are it’s hard to confirm or deny anything... but I also can’t shake what Maki said at the beginning of the game? How it felt like their talents were given at random?

So... so they’re not only back where they started - completely isolated with everyone they’ve ever known and the world they knew completely out of reach (in this sense, dead/not actually existing are functionally the same), but they get a helping of a totally warranted existential crisis on top of that.

And... their bodies are real, so everyone else really is dead. No happy sdr2 ending. Well, unless I mental-gymnastics that to read ‘they have physical bodies to return to, but as manufactured personas it’s pointless.’

Me too, Sweetcheeks.

We can’t go 5 minutes without a WHAM line.

B-But they were kidnapped weren’t they -?!

fujisaki does not deserve this slander

Return of the hat!!!

..... is it bad that I miss his hat. I. I really liked his hat. I know that it was representative of the way he held back and used it to hide himself, but - but I liked his original portrait. And I liked the way it was incorporated into his sprites and all the movements he makes with it and without it, like it‘s a phantom limb. okayI’llstop

Why... are we not getting a name here? Was Shuichi Saihara a made-up name too?

oh -

oh no

D: A... Anything...

H-He’s.... a complete fanboy too.................... holy shit. cute but terrifying he looks like much more of a schoolboy super!fan than real Shuichi

S-So wait, it’s not even autosuggestion then - he asked for it? How - how does this work with the flashback lights? It can be targeted like that??? god I’m going to have so many questions after this is all over

I think this may be the death knell for his psyche oTL I certainly wouldn’t be able to take this if I was in his position.

LOOK I KNOW I GET EXCITED ABOUT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TOO

but this is a bit much c-can you please keep that drool in -

asdfkjlsdf w h a t

was

was this omitted or something

I - I swear they were kidnapped they seemed a lot more freaked out?!

Even Rantaro, who seemed to know more than he let on at the time - ?!

I... I think I really need to go back and replay the prologue.

ME NEITHER K1-B0 I FEEL LIKE I’M BEING GASLIT

d-did

did you use it on me too

That... that I can believe. No matter who they were before - if they were consenting or not - it might not even matter, if they can’t return to how they were. In a sense, the Gopher Project story was practically preparing them for it - the idea that everything they knew and loved were gone, and would never come back. Oh... oh that’s bad....

TSUMUGI IS ACTUALLY TERRIFYING

SHUT UP NAEGI

wait why is seeing him say that worse than seeing Junko say her normal despair stuff

it’s the insincerity, probably...

YOU NERFED KAITO?!?!?!

YOU NERFED KAITO!!!!!!!

okay I take back what I said Maki you have my enthusiastic blessing to recklessly murder as necessary

RIP Tsumugi and all of her new depth

“I’m also the one that kept sneaking all of the death flags into his room while you were out training every night!”

Y O O O

YOU NERFED HER CHARACTER TOO?!?!?! YOU GOTTA LET THAT HAPPEN ORGANICALLY!!!

LMAO

Souda will never show this much awareness in his actual every day fictional life and that makes this 100% funnier

Everything has a writing credit.... every single thing? Every bit of development?

Even Kokichi’s coup and Kaito’s cooperation? And Kokichi manipulating Gonta? You just seemed so - so angry about that after the trial. Surely those, if nothing else...

At this point they’re just kicking a sad, beaten-down puppy. What more could you possibly do at this point - ?!

oH GOD I DON’T WANT TO SEE THIS

WHAT THE HELL WHO EVEN SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THAT

nNOOO

NO LET ME REMEMBER HIM THE WAY HE WAS

DON’T YOU CROSS THIS BRIGHT RED LINE SHIROGANE

NO THIS IS ILLEGAL I’M CALLING THE POLICE HE LOOKS ABSOLUTELY MAD -

GHGHGGHGHGHGH

GHGHghghghghhh

ghghgh

sdkflj

n o o o o oooo o o o o o o o

gggkghk

I-It’s not a lie! Even if it was manufactured, even if it was coded into them - their feelings were real to them! It might be by design, but - oh this sounds so hollow. It’s one thing to talk about ‘fate’ and ‘this was the work of a higher power’, but having it brought down on you in such a trivial way must be absolutely soul-crushing.

this is the saddest iteration of hangover!Shuichi that I have laid my eyes on in the entire game

nihilism.

tbh I never found Izuru that intimidating as a final villain in the last game - but here? Terrifying. Maybe it’s in contrast to Junko here, who has the overbearing destructive personality of a tornado, but the quiet emptiness and lack of a higher purpose, of absolute futility that he stands for here - that scares me a lot. Maybe it’s just because it seems to bring the concept of DR’s despair to a place that I can personally understand?

I keep saying ‘this is terrifying!’ but I mean, to be fair... it... kind of is. as always, fantastic use of text DRV3!

also can someone please shut up the peanut gallery for five minutes

well damn Monokuma that one felt aimed right at me

It reminds me of what Komaeda would say about his own motivation: it was watching everyone struggle with adversity, or the ‘despair of the killing game’, with the end goal of them ‘reaching hope’ - of seeing them overcome and grow stronger for it, that drove him forward. From the outside that makes sense; seeing other people overcome struggles, even ones so terrible, give us the mental strength to overcome our own problems. But for someone on the inside looking out... how perverse would that feel, to think that your suffering is basically being used as inspiration!p0rn? Knowing that there were voyeurs getting a kick out of your struggle?

What happens to game pieces after the game board is closed and put away?

Do they go into stasis? Do they just... exist, outside of time? Frozen forever, until they’re taken out to be ‘played with’ again; left to rot?

If they ‘win’.... they have no future. There’s nothing for them to move forward to reach. A piece learning that they’re a piece, and knowing their dreams after their trials will always stay just out of reach... how can anyone move foward like that?