#constructive deconstruction

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

People are like, "He's not very active on here," but do y'all know how many unsent drafts I have clapping back at the haters who still think Paper Towns is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl novel?

[a-town-called-hometown]

yippee! apologies if my takes are horrendously bad

my personal take on the matter is that i definitely think the dark worlds can work as a metaphor for escapism without undermining the darkners' personhood. it can be more than one thing, yknow? the darkners are important, their lives matter. and the lightners do go to the dark world as an escape from the problems they face in their own life. but that's not the darkners' whole PURPOSE, yknow? i mean. according to the laws of the universe of deltarune yes darkners' "purpose" is to serve the lightners but like it's not their whole purpose in the STORY.

it's sort of like how, in UNDERTALE, LOVE represents how distant you've become, how easy it is for you to hurt people. but it also literally gives you the power to destroy the world.

i think the biggest reason i believe escapism is at least a part of deltarune's narrative is queen.

queen's whole speech in both of her fights is about how she intends to provide escapism for the lightners (so that they will worship her but also so that they will he happy). she wants to turn the whole world into a dark world, so that everyone can live in bliss and not have to worry about the woes of the light world. she mentions "Staring, Tapping, To Receive Joy. Staring, Tapping, To Avoid Pain." which is like pretty much the definition of escapism

she wants to help Noelle with the problems she faces in the light world ("Noelle. Who Will Be There To Help Her? Her Strange And Sad Searches" and "My One Idea To Help Noelle, Failed") by just... shoving it away for a blissful fantasy world ("Wake? No, She Has Already Awakened Too Much. Let Her Close Her Eyes And Sleep Away, Into A Darker, Darker Dream.")

...i forgot the rest of what i wanted to say!

well first off, thank you for your ask! I'm going to get extremely in depth in my answer, so bear with me here. sorry it took several weeks to write this. the escapism reading of deltarune is pretty deeply entrenched in fandom, and to refute it, I felt it required a full-length essay to completely explain my viewpoint.

yes, "the lightners desire escapism" does not automatically translate to that being the darkners' actual narrative purpose. escapism can be a theme without dehumanizing those who are used in order to escape - in fact, I've read a number of stories that use someone's desire to escape to HIGHLIGHT how they're hurting others in pursuit of that. I believe that toby fox is definitely capable of telling a story about kids having a valid desire to escape, and about them grappling with having inadvertently created a world of real, living people as a result.

(I'll reiterate again that this is not the story arc that generally shows up in fanon. the common consensus is that the game will end in an omori-esque "growing out of" the dark worlds. it's why I have a huge dislike of the fanon escapism reading, given that the darkners are shown as people whose lack of agency parallels kris' own. it would feel cheap if the resolution to that plot was that the darkners were actually never meant to be agents in their own fates. but this is a digression.)

the reason why i DON'T believe that this is a story that toby fox is telling is because of the way the world, themes, and characters are written. put simply, it just doesn't come across as congruent with the story being told.

deltarune's main themes are agency, fate, identity, and control. this is a conflict that shows up in nearly every major character, is baked into the worldbuilding, and is the central struggle involving us, the player. the protagonist of deltarune is literally possessed by us against their will. the darkners are objects that have no choice but to serve and be discarded. over and over again, there is emphasis on roles that characters play - and crucially, roles that are imposed on them.

what would escapism mean, in this thematic context? in real life, escapism can represent any number of things, but in a story, a major narrative theme generally has to dovetail with other major narrative themes in the work. I would argue that escapism in deltarune would likely mean going to a place where characters are able to choose for themselves what roles they embody, or even to discard the notion of roles altogether. a fantasy of control is the only way to escape a reality where you have no agency. and honestly, it's hard to imagine that something could count as an escapist fantasy if you don't even get to choose whether or not you participate in it.

let's talk about kris.

I see a lot of discussions around kris that say that kris goes into the dark worlds to escape. the dark worlds are posited as kris' fantasy of heroism. it's a world where they can seem heroic and cool, a world where they can have friends. this theory makes a decent amount of sense on the surface level, but only until you consider that kris is being controlled in order to go into the dark worlds. and it is not a control that they appear to welcome.

if those worlds represent kris' fantasy, then why don't they get to choose what happens in those fantasies? why are they being controlled by an external force, one that they actively push back against? if it's really an escape, then why does everything about this world reflect their lack of agency? if they really think this world is just a pure fantasy, then why do they care if spamton falls when his strings are cut?

because they're being deliberately obscured to the player, it is hard to say how kris actually feels about many subjects... but I do seriously doubt that they view the dark worlds as an escape. they don't act in a way that is consistent with that. they resist their lack of agency, and what little we do see of their reactions to darkner characters doesn't suggest that they view those characters as part of a disposable fantasy, either. they seem to have complicated feelings on ralsei. and of course, one of their biggest emotional reactions in the game is to the spamton fight. I would argue that that suggests they have empathy for spamton, which is a hard emotional reaction to have if you believe he's just part of a fantasy. not impossible, mind you, but it seems unlikely that kris believes that all this is simply fantasy.

also, considering that snowgrave both actively discredits the idea that the dark worlds are mere fantasy and is actively traumatic for kris... I seriously doubt they'd open another dark world in chapter 3 on a snowgrave run if their motive was purely to escape. on that route, they've seen the damage we can cause in a dark world. they know that berdly has sustained lasting damage due to our actions, assuming he's not outright dead. why would they want to try and "escape" to a place like that again now that they know what can happen?

the only answer is that they have a motive that isn't escapist.

now, as for ralsei... what part does he have to play in all this?

ralsei does play a lot to the fun, fantastical elements of the dark worlds. he delivers the prophecy that kickstarts the adventure. he flatters both kris and susie endlessly when they act appropriately heroic. he welcomes them into the castle and even makes nice rooms for them. he initially seems tailor-made to enable a fantastical experience where no real issues can ever complicate anything, and where the pain of reality can successfully be hidden from. but there's a lot of complications to the idea that he might represent an escapist fantasy.

the first, and what honestly seems the most important to me, is that he doesn't encourage kris and susie to remain in the dark worlds. he is welcoming and kind, but once the adventure is over, he prompts them to return to the light world. he wants them to deal with their more "real" problems like homework. that doesn't feel like he is trying to facilitate escapism in them. a real fantasy would encourage you to stay in it, wouldn't it?

and while ralsei is definitely invested in making sure the lightners are happy, there are always cracks that show. he isn't able to make kris ignore what happened in the spamton fight. he isn't able to convince susie to be peaceful and kind. and in his very essence, he represents a number of uncomfortable ideas. very importantly, he represents a number of uncomfortable ideas to kris.

this probably ain't your first fandom rodeo, so I'm not going to explain all the different ways that ralsei interacts with kris' personal issues. there's plenty of posts on it out there. what i will point out is, once again, it feels odd that a character who seems tailor made to bring up kris' most uncomfortable associations with their lack of agency and their outsider status in their own family would be part of a fantasy of escapism to them. you'd think that they'd prefer something that didn't have an inbuilt hierarchy, a prophecy that denied them autonomy, or especially a person that reminded them how little they fit into hometown.

that doesn't mean kris doesn't care about him at all - it seems very likely that they do. what I mean to say here is that he just seems ill-suited to an escapism reading, both behaviorally and on a conceptual level. it doesn't seem like that's at all part of his servitude towards the lightners.

of course, there is another non-lightner entity that ralsei seems diegetically engineered to serve. but I'll discuss that later.

now as for susie...

yes, susie definitely views the dark worlds as more fun than the light world. and why wouldn't she? the light world sucks for her, and she doesn't seem very aware of the fact that the dark world can also suck. you could definitely make the argument that she views the dark worlds as a fantastical escape from reality... were it not for the fact that she treats her darkner friends with just as much importance as she does kris and noelle.

can someone treat components of an escapist fantasy as real and important? of course. but given deltarune's themes of agency and control, as well as the fact that darkners exist in servitude to the lightners, I feel like you'd have to make escapism tie into forcing others into a lack of agency if you wanted the theme to feel coherent with the rest of the work. this would require susie to be limiting the agency of the darkners around her. and obviously, she doesn't do that. her presence around them might be inherently limiting, just by simple virtue of being a lightner, but she isn't aware of it, and clearly is uncomfortable with the idea of limiting anyone's agency. she encourages ralsei to make choices. and she supports lancer in basically anything he wants to do. her treatment of lancer is integral to chapter 1's narrative, and it seems like that treatment of ralsei is integral to the ongoing narrative as well!

her preference for the dark world feels very rooted in her engagement with it as its own reality. rather than trying to avoid her real-life problems by engaging in a pretense, she seems to simply want to spend time with her friends in a place that isn't cruel to her. she isn't ignoring any of the dark world's problems in service of that, either. she notices when things don't line up. if she thought of it as a fantasy, wouldn't she be inclined to ignore issues that impede the fantasy?

and critically - like kris, she does not intentionally choose her imposed role in the prophecy at first. she steps into the role of bad guy to resist it, but that role is limiting too, and she eventually acquiesces to being a hero. it's never something she's completely on board with, though. she actively pushes back the limitations that the role places on her. I find this important to reiterate when we are discussing the notion of the characters viewing the dark worlds as fantasy.

noelle has a complicated relationship to the dark worlds. susie tells her that it's a dream to make her accept the strange reality she finds herself in, which works well on her. she continues to think of it as a strange dream throughout the chapter. (though, like the others, it is not a 'dream' she entered of her own volition!)

it is also a markedly unpleasant 'dream' at times. she has her agency restricted, is kidnapped, has to evade a controlling monarch, and is even tied up in a weird evangelion cross thing on the hand of a giant robot. it's not purely fun. noelle does like scary things, and while it might be healthy for her to have an experience where she stands up to a controlling adult figure... again, the circumstances make it difficult for me to assume that this is a fantasy she would choose for herself. not impossible, mind you, but it's not the first reading of the situation that comes to mind.

and while she does say she wishes she could dream like this every day in the normal route, that does happen specifically because she was talking to the girl she likes. it makes sense she'd find that pleasant. I don't think that necessarily equates to her finding the dark worlds escapist.

and importantly, this isn't the sentiment that she expresses in every route.

again, there's a lot of analysis on snowgrave, so I won't bother regurgitating it much here. but it's nightmarish for both kris and noelle, and very likely fatal for berdly. noelle needs to believe that the event is a dream, for her own psychological safety, but one of the most important parts of snowgrave...

...is that its events, and the world it took place in, are very, very real.

noelle wants to have the strength to face her problems, both in the regular route and in the snowgrave route. rather than escaping from them, she views the "dream" as a chance to practice dealing with her day-to-day issues. it's just that in the regular route she finds that strength authentically, and in the snowgrave route, that desire is manipulated and pushed until she is forced to kill berdly. she doesn't interpret snowgrave as an escape gone wrong. she views it as a dream that became a nightmare. and those are two extremely different things.

but i haven't even gotten to the biggest thing that undermines the concept that the dark worlds are a metaphor for escapism! which is: this fucking guy is dead wrong about everything.

so full disclaimer - I really love berdly. I think he's slept on a lot in the fandom because he's annoying and weird. which is fair, I suppose, but I think ignoring him hinders a lot of people's understanding of deltarune's overall narrative. because berdly often illustrates a lot of concepts in the game, but his narrative framing as a joke (usually...) prevents the player from taking it completely seriously. he has things to say and ideas to show off, it's just that he's often very loud and kind of dumb in his expression of them. which is kind of the point!

ralsei brings up the idea that the darkners are meant to serve the lightners very seriously in chapter one. by extension, and by way of the literal mechanics involved in a dark world's creation, we can infer that this logic is probably something that also applies to the dark worlds themselves. they are allegedly worlds and characters that only are supposed to fulfill a dream of the lightners. but due to narrative framing and deltarune's themes, we know that that's not the full truth. however dark worlds and darkners are created, they deserve to have their own agency. they can't just exist to fulfill a higher being's wishes.

you know who else undermines that view of the dark worlds? berdly! berdly does!!!!

because berdly is the only lightner in the game so far who does take the dark worlds to be an escapist adventure! he wants to turn cyber world into smartopia. he views this as a chance to be a cool hero. he believes he's going to get the girl, he's going to shape this world to his own liking, and maybe also he's going to get queen to acknowledge him or something so he stops being a forgettable little bluebird. and not only does none of this happen, his steadfast belief that it will happen is continually a joke within the narrative!!

berdly's wishes for uncomplicated escapist fantasy are flat-out denied by the dark worlds themselves. as a lightner, those worlds should be serving him. he should have the power to do whatever he wants within the bounds of an escapist fantasy. these npcs should be singing his praises!

but he doesn't have the power. and this world doesn't sing his praise. because it just isn't an escapist fantasy. he isn't right to view it that way. his wishes for heroism are always going to be thwarted.

so now that I've gotten all that out of the way, let's swing back over to the subject of your original ask. queen.

because, like berdly, queen's entire character arc is about how she's completely wrong about what the lightners actually want.

queen would in fact like nothing more to place the lightners into an escapist fantasy. she believes that that's the best way to serve them and make them happy forever. as a darkner, queen has very much internalized the idea that a lack of control is what actually makes people happy. since darkners have no choice in their destinies and are supposed to be happy in it, and since she personally finds her role as a darkner fulfilling, she believes that that's true of all people everywhere. if you want to make people happy, you just have to remove that pesky personal agency!

so she spends the story trying to force the lightners and particularly noelle into situations where she controls them in order to make them ostensibly happier. she does genuinely believe that this is the right thing to do, but as she finds out eventually, she's just wrong. noelle doesn't want that. queen believes that escapism is why the lightners use the internet... but that's totally wrong too.

while there are other searches mixed in, noelle is trying to use the internet to find her sister. instead of trying to hide from whatever happened, noelle wants to figure it out. queen's thesis about noelle and the lightners is proven wrong even before she personally encounters noelle in the dark world. it's just that queen doesn't realize it due to her limited perspective.

the concept of escapism being brought up with both queen and berdly is not there to say that the dark world is escapist. rather, it's there to say that it isn't. despite the dark worlds being a fantastical place, they are extremely real. to view them as a means of escape is foolhardy at best. you cannot act as though you are above consequences within them.

themes and ideas exist within the story for a sake of an audience. so let's get into the final character I need to discuss here. hopefully this will tie my thesis of deltarune together neatly.

that character is of course us. the player.

when creating a piece of fiction, an astute author will often identify and anticipate an audience's reactions to certain things in their work, and write things in such a way that they elicit the desired reactions. in essence, a writer is directing the "character" of the audience. how we feel and how we are anticipated to react to things is an integral part of nearly every fiction.

that effect is far more overt when dealing with metanarrative fiction that diegetically involves the audience. since the fiction is saying a lot of things about the general 'you,' the audience in aggregate, your reactions to certain things in the story have to be finely cued and anticipated by the author, so that the author can thus commentate on the reactions that you have to the story. the "character" you are assumed to inhabit is posited by the author to have certain traits.

to explain what I mean in plainer terms, I'll use the player of undertale's no mercy route as an example. because undertale is commenting on the way rpgs generally work. the player's behaviors in no mercy are attributed by characters in the story to be the result of us acting like a typical gamer. we kill the characters in the game because we want exp. and more than that, it's because we want to see everything the game has to offer. the role we inhabit in this role-playing game is that of a completionist. you could say that that's assumed to be our "character" in no mercy.

deltarune also posits that certain things are true of its audience. by being written to evoke certain cultural ideas, rpg tropes, and references to undertale, it guarantees that its audience will probably have certain traits, and spends a large amount of its conceptual focus commenting on those traits. one of those traits is nostalgia, which is probably an idea that I'll expound upon in a further essay because it's quite integral to my reading of deltarune. but the main one I mean to discuss here, and why I went off on this tangent about how audiences are dealt with in metafiction, is that we are posited as someone who believes in the logic of certain narratives.

deltarune's writing evokes a lot of portal fantasy narratives. alice in wonderland, narnia, pretty much every story where it's revealed at the end to be all a dream... the story of deltarune superficially resembles a lot of those. this, I think, is responsible for the popularity of the escapism theory. because those stories are often at their end about a child learning to put away fantasy and grow up, people tend to believe that deltarune must be about the same thing. but I truly don't think that deltarune is trying to do anything with that aspect of portal fantasy narratives, at least not directly. its main characters aren't involved in that exact type of coming-of-age arc.

instead, deltarune is very concerned with what happens to characters in fantasy, and specifically fantasy rpgs. if your world is deemed to not matter because it's a dream, what does that mean for you, who has no choice but to live in it? if you are an npc whose role has been predetermined for you via script, then can you ever decide for yourself what you want? what if you want to matter? what if you want to be your own person?

as the major controlling force of deltarune, we are initially cued to believe that deltarune is like a dream. it superficially fulfills so much of what we want from undertale fanon. hometown seems like it's a perfect idyllic town, at least until you start noticing the obvious cracks. and remember what I said about ralsei earlier? he is so reminiscent of asriel, and extremely eager to help us. it's not a stretch to say that making us specifically view deltarune as dreamlike and idyllic is probably part of his purpose in the game.

I would not say that we are posited as escapist. but the idea of escapism as brought up with queen and berdly is meant to strike at the heart of a much deeper idea that deltarune is trying to deconstruct. because if we view deltarune as a dream, escapist or otherwise, then we are inclined to write the internal realities of the characters inside off. the dark world can disappear without it mattering. we can control kris without it mattering. if it's all a dream, what does it matter? why should we care to let its characters go free? aren't we supposed to be in control?

if deltarune is an rpg... what is the significance of us interacting with it?

[tiredyke]

y’all really think cis dudes who dress femininely as a joke for views online are more enlightened and nuanced in gender than literal trans women lol

[aromantic-diaries]

Being agender is like. No I'm not a woman. No I'm not a man either. No I'm not a third secret thing. What I am is uh. Sleepy ig

[bobauthorman]

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I want to bring it out into the open. Each of Oz’s main lieutenants are deconstructions of character archetypes. Well, everyone in RWBY is a deconstruction, but no one wants to talk about Oz’s circle.

Oz, as has been established, turns the fantasy mentor archetype on its head. Not only is he a bad mentor, whose reckless manipulations never pan out, but the protags are far less forgiving of his string-pulling, and have every right to be. Unforgiving, that is.

Ironwood, similarly, deconstructs the ‘Anti-authority authority figure’; like Captain Kirk (Star Trek) or Nick Fury (Marvel), they are military leaders who frequently chaff under their more politically-minded peers and superiors, who undercut those peers whenever they can. Unlike Kirk/Fury, this is not a sign of open-mindedness, but arrogance and stuborness, the childish belief that the rules don’t apply to him.

Qrow is much like Wolverine (X-Men), a ‘Bad Boy with a Gold Heart’ who is kept in line by his loyalty to the mentor figure. In this case, Qrow’s Too Cool For School ‘tude is coping mechanism and mask for the massive chip on his shoulder, and because his self-worth was tied so deeply to serving Oz, when Oz is exposed as the fraud he is, Qrow has a full-on breakdown.

Lionheart was much harder to figure out, given that he only has one volume’s worth of screen time, and even we don’t get much of Lionheart’s personality. I theorize that Lionheart was intended to be a dig at the ‘Token Minority’ archetype. For many series in the old days, there are these characters who supposed to represent different races. (For example, Haji from Johnny Quest). Unfortunately, these characters are rarely given any personality outside of ‘Guy from foreign culture’, often becoming a deliverer of stereotypical views showrunners have. CRWBY has stated that Lionheart was made headmaster by Oz as a token for Faunus (The series allegory for minorities), but we hear nothing of whether that did any good (Blake even accuses Oz of not doing more for the Faunus). It’s possible that because of this Lionheart lacked the strength of self to stop Salem from forcing his compliance with the attacks on Vale and Haven.

Theodore hasn’t appeared in the series proper, but from the book Before The Dawn I could make a case that he encompasses the stock shonen hero; destructive strength and a destructive temper. The problem is, he’s a moron, but lacks that ‘Deeper wisdom’ even himbos like Son Goku and Monkey D Luffy have to compensate. And his dependence on the smarter but weaker female lead (In this case, Rumpole) to handle the more organizational aspects of his position means that when Rumpole is compromised, Theodore’s shoddy management nearly causes Shade Academy to implode.

[starbuck]

people talk about how we shouldn’t put “romantic love” on a pedestal and consider it more important than “platonic love” or “familial love,” but have we considered not sorting love into categories to begin with? Have we tried that?

[menlove]

okay actually no I'm NOT done bc so many people on here will hear someone say "men are an oppressive class who hold social power and privilege" and SCREAM bioessentialism but literally no part of that is bioessentialism in fact it's LITERALLY the opposite. like no men ARENT biologically oppressive and evil or whatever. they aren't biologically superior or stronger or more violent or anything. SOCIETY put them in a position of power and based all our gender norms around that. this is such basic shit it's actually exhausting.

everyone wants to parrot "gender is a social construct" until you actually start talking about what that means and who that construct is benefitting and why

[warsamongthestars]

So, since its been a bit, let's start with a criticism.

Cody was badly handled in TBB.

( In fairness, a lot of things were. An unbelievable amount of things were. I'll eventually get to a full list. )

The thing about Commander Cody, is that he represents several things and is symbolic of several things.

He's the Hero-Mentor Archetype, shared with Obi-wan Kenobi. He's there to set the example to the characters the ideal of what he does, as well as serve as example to the Audience of what the function of this character in the greater universe is--both as function and, since we're in the space opera and symbolism is key, an indicator of the greater world-build at large. This is better shown in TCWs, though unfortunately, even there it falls through because TCWs didn't focus on the Clones outside of a handful of episodes (which is a damn shame, given the set up.)

Cody is the First Clone Character. He's the first named clone who has an effect on the world and thus catches the audience's eye. Just as Kenobi was the first Jedi character to ever be introduced, and thus, sets the example for every Jedi Character after him. ( Mind that i said Character. A person in the nameless mass that does nothing but sit there for a scene and is barely noticeable, is no more a character than a barrel in another scene. If something is just there to fill the backdrop, its not a character. Its filled scene space. ) Because Cody is the Clone's Clone, he serves as an example of what the greater clone world is: in his case, what the Ideal is, just Kenobi does for the Jedi. If something has gone wrong with the greater system, you will see it in them. ( Think Kenobi and the Hardeen situation. Then compare the Jedi's attitude with Ahsoka's trial. If the show isn't enough, try the Prequel Trilogy--Kenobi's criticism of Qui-gon Jin for picking up Anakin, and then how the attitude is reflected in the Jedi Council upon confronting Anakin. )

So, there's your backdrop.

The way TBBshow treats Cody starts off as, actually, rather decent.

Commander Cody wouldn't be just another Guest Character to take focus away from story, character and plot ( as an excuse to not write either three), it would make sense for him to show up in the immediate Post-Order 66 era.

His Gray Paint is also very nice.

I personally subscribe to the idea that, since the 212th had golden colors and Cody himself had a sun-like motif about him--the gray out was, in a sense, a parallel to the Deathstar.

Its a "star" but its moon gray and it causes death where ever it targets.

NOT-BONUS: Being familiar with Crosshair would've been a bonus, it makes for a nice touch on a pre-established relationship from TCWs--the problem is, is that the reason Crosshair is even there is a broken argument for a piss poor planning from Season 1. Crosshair is there, because the writers want him to be there, and not for anything reasonable in-story--remember, they even dropped the Chip plotline. There is no reason for Crosshair to be in the empire besides the fanfic plot of "The Jerk must be Evil because he's said Not Nice Things".

And that's where it stops.

Because we've suddenly got a Cody with Personality, in a time where y'know, that doesn't make any sense.

You could argue that "oh the chip wears off!"... which is from the same show that completely forgets about the chip a quarter way through, and would rather blame its victims for not trying to not do evil things when under influence.

And it ends with "Oh he ran away". With the implication of "Oh he just disagreed with the Empire!"

... Several things there, folks:

The Republic was the same way. Watch Phantom Menace. Watch the Clone Wars. What happened on that episode, is half the arcs and seasons on the Clone Wars. Except without trench warfare and the cost of thousands fo lives. If anything, it was arguably more peaceful than anything the Clone Wars produced.

It breaks Cody as a character. He's meant to represent Clones as a whole, just as Kenobi represents Jedi as a whole. Clones as a whole are under the chip influence and are willingly serving the empire; and even if they weren't, Pre-TCWs Extended Universe has several arguments (not necessarily good ones) about how clone training would've made systematic orders very easy for clones. Cody is meant to be under the influence. If anything, he's meant to be the Imperial's Imperial Clone by this point. Because by his nature as a clone in Star Wars, he falls to the Empire and Hunts Jedi down, because that's what being the Clone's Clone is in a Post Order 66 era. It is, in fact, a very important marking point in the whole Prequels and TCWs, that this happens.

It continues the obvious flaw: Lack of Communication and the Writer's inability to write anything deeper than One Liners You're telling me that the Officer in Charge, who would call one of his troops "Son" like he's a grizzled war-vet, who would be a gentleman one minute and fist fight walking-talking solid metal-bot, who has supposedly taken example from Kenobi the art of subterfuge, wouldn't confront Crosshair if he disagreed with Crosshair's methods? Congratulations, the new personality trait for Cody of the TBB is Cowardice. I'm so fucking happy about it. Really I am. No matter how boring and overtalkative they were, even the Prequels were capable of meaningful conversations. For one thing, they painfully talked about how Anakin repeatedly killed people. TBB does not have meaningful conversations. Oh it'll look to the wind dramatically and make the audience think that something is happening, and yeah, its fun to imagine that something up... ... But remember that nothing is actually there.

The "Story is Elsewhere" Then why aren't they writing That Story Elsewhere then? Fun thing about stories, is that, if you want them to happen, you Write Them. "Expanding in order to ensure other media" Thanks, I can find a regular Clickbait Content Farm online, without having to pay subscription for one. "Expanding on Star Wars at another time" I can go on AO3, for that, thank you. The ultimate truth is, is that this team cannot write. They will throw in a bunch of characters and references to get the blood pumping, but the moment you look back and see what is happening, you realize, absolutely nothing is happening at all. They would rather bank on resurrecting Ventress meaninglessly, than confront the fact that they killed Tech, who is by all time spent and story applied (regardless of quality at this point), a much more important character. They would rather dangle the kid sidekick from name any last century sci-fi shows, than confront the fact that Crosshair got brainwashed, and when they do confront that, its with the help of the sidekick like she's gods damn discount bootleg of Steven Universe, and with a helping heap of Victim Blaming. Why is a more interesting and meaningful story Implied to be elsewhere, when you could be writing an interesting and meaningful story Now what you have?

Now the thing about criticism, is that its easy, so how bout I offer a better scenario with what we have?

( I'll offer an Actually Decent Scenario when "Rewriting TBB" comes up. For now, we work with just the episode. )

Crosshair meets Cody again, they go on mission to take back a Separatist world. ( Yes, take back, because the Empire is also the Republic but with the shackles off, remember this. The Clone Wars didn't end just because the Jedi are dead. )

Cody doesn't call anyone by their names, except for Crosshair. (Working off of Imperial themes from S1). Besides that small issue of calling his brothers by their numbers, he otherwise seems to act like Cody.

After some cool fight scenes that play off of Cody and Crosshair' strengths--such as Crosshair sniping and mirror calculations, and Cody's ability to fist fight Robocop--they reach the planetary leader area.

Crosshair is, as a proper Sniper, is directed to set up in a sniping position to watch Cody's back, whilst negotiations under duress happen. It ends with Cody putting a blaster bolt through the Seppie Leader's head.

Now such heartlessness is something that Crosshair would expect out of himself (He knows what needs to be done--he's a sniper, he's been trained, there's already blood on his hands so he thinks he damned anyway), but it coming out of Cody is shocking. Because Cody is the Good Guys' Good Guy for Clones, any clones.

( In this instance, its both a shock and a sad confirmation to the audience, because we know and acknowledge the chip, and its much more powerful and tragic to see it affect someone as important and long standing as Commander Cody )

Crosshair confronts Cody about it, and Cody brushes it off as simply following orders for the greater good. When Crosshair pushes-- because as a Bad Batcher, pushing things beyond acceptable social limits is in the job description--Cody implies a threat, asking if Crosshair is thinking about going against orders in command.

( We can even have a nice shot of a thigh blaster with Cody's hand near it, with some dramatic, quiet music that thumps )

Crosshair goes "No sir", and the episode ends with the implication that Crosshair seeing what the Empire has been doing to the people he knew.

Cue the credits.

[knifearo]

reblog a post about aromanticism and it'll feed you for a day. make a post about aromanticism and you'll get mind-numbingly amatonormative comments for a lifetime

[ihavea-tummyache]

Poem #1:

[enbycrip]

ID: a Facebook post by Em Jay:

“Do any of you remember when I was posting about the recent scientific revelation that Cheddar Man was actually very dark-skinned and how pale skin is soooo much of a newer phenomenon (according to studies, pale skin began appearing in the human genome roughly 4,000 years ago as opposed to the previous assumption of 40,000 years ago) than originally surmised? A new genome sequencing study adds the famous 'Otzi the Iceman' to the list of incorrectly reconstructed (referring to the long-haired, pale-skinned rendering of him found in the Italian museum next to his real remains) ancient humans, as it has been revealed he was dark skinned and balding! The initial discovery of Otzi the Iceman in 1991 (on the Italian side of the Italian/Austrian border) was of enormous import for the scientific community for several reasons; Otzi is the oldest 'wet mummy' yet found and the clothes and equipment he was unearthed with are incomprehensibly unique as no other organic material from the Copper Age has survived. He also became popular for his 61 tattoos, which are the oldest preserved tattoos known to date. I absolutely love studies/revelations like this because (borrowing a lovely sentiment from co-author of the study Johannes Krause) they truly reflect our own biases in assuming what a person from that time looked like, and to use my own words, challenges many of us to re- examine the appearance of our ancient human ancestors in general. "The Iceman's new genome also reveals he had male-pattern baldness and much darker skin than artistic representations suggest. Genes conferring light skin tones didn't become prevalent until 4,000 to 3,000 years ago when early farmers started eating plant-based diets and didn't get as much vitamin D from fish and meat as hunter-gathers did, Krause says.

“As Ötzi and other ancient people's DNA illustrate, the skin color genetic changes took thousands of years to become commonplace in Europe. 'People that lived in Europe between 40,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago were as dark as people in Africa, which makes a lot of sense because [Africa is] where humans came from," he says. "We have always imagined that [Europeans] became light-skinned much faster. But now it seems that this happened actually quite late in human history!" (excerpt in quotations from Science News article by Tina Hesman Seay) Below are photos of Otzi, the first taken in 1991 shortly after he was discovered by 2 hikers, his naturally mummified body after he was carefully unearthed from the ice and his incorrect/false rendering with pale skin of 2011, and I hope to return to add a correct/more accurate rendering of him if/when a new one is made!”

Photos show 1) a pair of light-skinned, brown-haired hikers with brown beards, dressed in very 1980s clothing, with the exposed body of Otzi in situ in the ice where they found his body; 2) two photographs of Otzi’s preserved body from the top and back, 3) a close-up photo of Otzi’s preserved hand 4) an inaccurate reconstruction of Otzi in life, showing him as a light-skinned white man.

[a-town-called-hometown]

btw there's no fucking way that the titans are faceless entities, assuming that they're even real. we're not gonna have a jrpg battle against easily fightable unpersons 😭😭😭 the idea of video game npcs being just disposable nobodies is the biggest genre convention that both undertale and deltarune are deconstructing

[hardware-sparks]

goo

[mumblesplash]

back on my amv bullshit :)))

song is beat the love by autoheart (lyrics included under the cut bc they're like 90% of the reason for this song choice and also kinda hard to hear)

[Verse 1] Been shocked into a state of delirium words cannot describe I am Jekyll filled with disagreement, you are Mr. Hyde Yeah, there's something running through me, it's incredibly strong An electrifying feeling that I've known all along A burning realization that our incoordination is corrupt

[Chorus] I cannot be what you want me to be Let our cannonball, rise up and fall I cannot see what you want me to see So you beat the love right out of me

[Verse 2] I've had a fistful of your knee jerk reactions, always jumping the gun I can't be accountable for everything that you have undone There's a window of opportunity for us to move on But you're constantly reminding me of what I do wrong Pot calling kettle black, here’s to yet another attack, and that’ll be that

[Chorus] I cannot be what you want me to be Let our cannonball, rise up and fall I cannot see what you want me to see So you beat the love right out of me

I cannot be what you want me to be Let our cannonball, rise up and fall I cannot see what you want me to see So you beat the love right out of me

Oh, yes, you beat the love right out of me Oh, yes, you beat the love right out of me

[baravaggio]

you could make a long, well-structured, thoroughly cited argument about how it's legally and socially dangerous in the long run to over-attribute complex human behavior like sexuality to simplistic biological concepts, let alone ones that rest on flimsy & incomplete science, and someone would still hop on your dick to say that questioning that approach is something too socially & politically dangerous to even carefully discuss within gay spaces in this current political climate. and it's been this way for like 30 years. sad!

[ist-das-kunst-oder-kann-das-weg]