#how has his only purpose been reduced to being a prop in this relationship

[andi-o-geyser]

something about the show treating percy's use as only being to serve vex's joy kinda fucking hurts. like vex is distraught, she was in the stream and she was here, that's true. but they are framing this as if it's a romantic loss only and it's making me lose my mind. people don't lose their use to others when they enter a relationship. they don't just become somebody's partner. they're still a person. percy was a full person and vox machina is a family and everyone loved him. that was the point of tearing ripley apart in the original glintshore fight, they were nothing but pure rage because they just watched somebody they love die and at the end of the day, past the monsters and world ending threats everything is about their love with each other, as a group; platonic, familial, romantic, but love as a FAMILY. that is critical to understand. they are who they are because they all love each other, they love each other to the ends of the earth. and the show just. doesn't acknowledge that. percy died so vex could feel sad and that's it. truly what even is the point if nobody else cares. the death doesn't matter if nobody else cares. so percy's death doesn't matter.

[silverview]

lately i've been thinking a lot about hayley as easily one of the better-realised, most fleshed-out characters. especially in terms of her relationships – very few marscorps have as many varied & grounded onscreen relationships as her, even within the main cast. we know more about her family/upbringing than most of them, and we know how it shapes her. we know how she feels about her work. we’ve seen her being being manipulated and manipulating others. she’s the only major purple character. (hayley, dave, and jim are really the only major sub-reds.)

she has a lot in common with dave, but she feels more like a real person than he does, even though her basic / original purpose is just to be his sidekick. she has a lot in common with hob, too, and a funny little one-sided rivalry. her father-daughter story with jim is one of the realest emotional moments in the whole show, and one of the few times jim's emotional/character potential really gets to unfurl. she gains a lot as a character by her interest in david. he’s another one with above-average characterisation, and hayley borrows from all that by her interest in him; it deepens her by association. the things she wants from him, the way she treats him. the different ways she can and cannot reflect his story back at him. the [earthling] romantic & sexual clichés she tries to impose on him.

she's a very meta character in that sense. not intentionally, i think. nevertheless. she is the listener who wants the fan fave to be what she sees in him, not what he really is. (not that there is an epidemic of mavid being mischaracterised in fanon, or anything. just that – we all take what we want from him, selfishly, not always in the ways creators might expect or intend.)

if she has an arc, i can’t honestly say what it is at this point. possibly it’s about becoming a more cynical and selfish person, or simply growing up/becoming less naive. maybe someday she'll realise she’s better off without dave and david. it’s funny, she’s largely defined by her relationships with those guys, but she rarely feels reduced to a prop in their stories – even as dave’s sidekick, she's sympathetic, she carries emotional weight. i'm deeply deeply interested in her. i think she should ride an electric scooter

[burning-fcols]

「 ☆ 」 ❝ Well, yeah— ❞ Lucifer replied to the gentle insistence, reaction a familiar blend of tactless yet genuinely good-natured. A trait passed down to his daughter, Charlie often saying things that could just as easily insult as comfort depending on how well the recipient knows her. Or her intentions. Expression scrunched as he averted his gaze, awkwardly muttering as if unsure whether he would come across as scolding rather than supportive. ❝ But the way you said it made it sound like an insult… ❞

He has no issue with the words chosen— okay, the latter is a bit tricky depending on context —but how Adam had regarded himself made it feel like something to be refuted.

Thankfully, he appears to be in better spirits now. The first man is engaging with Lucifer’s compliment, anyway. Which is more than the Sin expected from his clumsy ( yet sincere ) flattery. Taking this tidbit of encouragement, eyes lighten in a bout of growing overconfidence. A fire always lying dormant— no matter how easily it can be reduced to a struggling ember —needing only a spark for the fallen angel to take an idea and RUN with it. So, Adam wants to know what ❛ energy ❜ he’s bringing? Is offering Lucifer the stage to weave a picturesque description…

Lucifer can do that.

❝ Well... ❞ He begins in a drawled purr, switching from uncertain to unfiltered as he preens from the others curiosity, ❝ The kind of energy that makes Daddy shiver at the mere thought of you pinning him down~ ❞ Despite his VERY diminutive stature compared to Adam— or role he's taken in that particular fantasy —he doesn't hesitate to use the typically-domineering name for himself. Shameless even in his submission. Besides, he knows how to switch it up ( as Adam learned surprisingly quickly in their relationship arrangement ) . ❝ Of course, you also look so delectable from above... Whether I'm taking a ride or taking you. ❞

Tongue slips out in a soft drawn-out hiss, forked appendage tasting the air as if seeking something... or someone. A trait bestowed upon him since falling, Lucifer unknowingly flicks it on occasion. Like when he feels genuinely in danger... Or is simply experiencing an overwhelming SENSE of ❛ danger ❜ , however illogical he knows it is. This purposeful show, however, is playful in nature. An alabaster serpent making it clear he's taken interest in the sight before him. As much as Lucifer may abhor what he's become, he can still appreciate the charm of snakes...

Those delightful noodles.

With a sudden manifestation and flap of wings, Lucifer gracefully swoops in the air and perches atop of Adam's shoulder ( feathered appendages disappearing once he's taken his spot ) as he proudly says, ❝ And don't get me started on how wonderful it is to cuddle you... ❞ Something Lucifer made apparent the first time they slept together, the Sin desperately clinging to Adam the following morning. A habit he hadn't shaken. If anything, he'd gotten more affectionate as time went on. Especially once he learned it didn't have to only happen after sex. ❝ You can give off real ❛ cozy and safe ❜ energy, y'know. Which is NOT easy to come by in Hell, heheh... ❞

With a pull of his collar and a dramatized ❛ yikes ❜ look to help emphasize the rarity of being able to simply lie somewhere and feel okay ( even if it's for a limited time ) ... he then props an arm atop Adam's head. Smugly grinning down at the other man, he inquires with a light chuckle, ❝ Guess I should consider myself pretty lucky, huh?~ ❞ Whether he means for having found that at ALL or being allowed able to experience it in Adam ( former Leader of the Exorcists, a dear friend... and man who had been locked in a battle to the death with Lucifer ) he doesn't say.

But the way he unwittingly looks at Adam threatens to say it for him. 「 ☆ 」

It was less of a reassurance and more of statement of fact.

Regardless of Adam's state of mind, it hardly mattered to anyone. Not to Heaven, not to Hell, not to the entirety of humankind regardless. He had to bounce back; be the praised Father of Humanity, the First Soul admitted to Heaven, the Commander of the Exorcists and the loathed Enemy of Hell, all roles he took on and played well for thousands of years. He embraced them all completely and wholeheartedly regardless of who or what failed him.

After his Falling, all he had left was being the Enemy, only with no one to back him up. Not Heaven- they were content to wipe their hands clean the moment one of their own acted off script or lost a battle. Not humanity, the kind around here was corrupted and twisted as a mere mockery of it- and Hell itself? They wanted Adam's heart on a sliver platter to devour out of cruel retribution. They still did, even after a year of surviving the place as a rockstar, even after accepting Lucifer's offer of redemption through Charlie's hotel. But Adam kept pushing, he kept going in spite of everything thrown at him. He was bullheaded and spiteful to as he put it once: to stick it to the man.

When Lucifer spoke again, Adam tilted his head like one of the wolf pups he befriended back in Eden, a trait that stayed with him even after multiple lifetimes. Albeit, less "innocent" looking and more inquiring.

He made a committal noise at the other's insistence. While Adam understood the sentiment, he shook his head all the same.

Being fat and gay, or bisexual in Adam's case, weren't actually negative terms themselves, but it was the implications that came along with it that made it tricky to navigate in the tall man's mind. The first part he accepted long before his fall, but the last part contrasted with the image he held up for so long. As far as other souls he interacts with, he doesn't believe that Lucifer would care about latter, being queer himself. It was just the first part that made Adam insecure about where he stood with the devil, among many other things.

So, what was one more label to add to the pile of the many others?

"No. I am." He disagreed gently but resolutely. "No point denying it babe, just... tryin' to accept it."

At being called 'hot', Adam blinked, eyes wide and the blush returning to his face. Only to snort at such a bluntly worded compliment, even if the first man made some to others that were just as blunt and straight to the point. Arms folded across his chest, he leaned into the mirror's frame, copying the other man's demeanor to a degree.

"Yeah?" Adam leaned in curiously. "What kind of energy?"

[ariainstars]

Thank You, Disney Lucasfilm… For Destroying My Dreams

Warning: longer post.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So… I watched The Rise of Skywalker on Disney+ a few weeks ago. Again.

Sigh.

I guess it has its good sides. But professional critics tend to dislike it and even the general audience doesn’t go crazy for it. I wonder why?

  The Fantasy

When his saga became a groundbreaking pop phenomenon in the 1970es, George Lucas reportedly said that he wanted to tell fairy tales again in world that no longer seemed to offer young people a chance to grow up with them. The fact that his saga was met with such unabashed, international enthusiasm proves that he was right: people long for fairy tales no matter how old they are and what culture they belong to.

“Young people today don’t have a fantasy life anymore, not the way we did… All they’ve got is Kojak and Dirty Harry. All the films they see are movies of disasters and insecurity and realistic violence.” (George Lucas)

I’ve been a Star Wars fan for more than thirty years. I love the Original Trilogy but honestly it did not make me dream much, perhaps because when I saw it the trilogy was already complete. The Prequel Trilogy also did not inspire my fantasy.

The Last Jedi accomplished something that no TV show, book or film had managed in years: it made me dream. The richness of colorful characters, multifaceted themes, unexpected developments, intriguing relationships was something I had not come across in a long time: it fascinated me. I felt like a giddy teenager reading up meta’s, writing my own and imagining all sorts of beautiful endings for the saga for almost two years.

So if there’s something The Rise of Skywalker can pride itself on for me, it’s that it crushed almost every dream I had about it. The few things I had figured out – Rey’s fall to the Dark, Ben Solo’s redemption, the connection between them - did not even make me happy because they were tainted by the flatness of the storytelling reducing the Force to a superpower again (like the general audience seems to believe it is), and its deliberate ignoring of almost all messages of The Last Jedi.

Many fans of the Original Trilogy also were disillusioned by the saga over the decades and ranted at the studios for “destroying their childhood”. Now we, the fans of the sequels and in particular of The Last Jedi, are in the same situation… but the thought doesn’t make the pill much easier to swallow. What grates on my nerves is the feeling that someone trampled on my just newly found dreams like a naughty child kicking a doll’s house apart. Why give us something to dream of in the first place, then? To a certain extent I can understand that many fans would angrily assume that Disney Lucasfilm made the Sequel Trilogy for the purpose of destroying their idea of the saga. The point is that they had their happy ending, while every dream the fans of the Sequel Trilogy may have had was shattered with this unexpectedly flat and hollow final note.

I know many fans who dislike the Prequel Trilogy heartily. I also prefer the Original Trilogy, but I find the prequels all right in their own way, also since I gave them some thought. However, it can’t be denied that they lack the magic spark which made the Original Trilogy so special. Which makes sense since they are not a fairy tale but ultimately a tragedy, but in my opinion it’s the one of the main reasons why the Prequel Trilogy never was quite so successful, or so beloved.

Same goes for Rogue One, Solo, or Clone Wars. They’re ok in their way, but not magical.

The sequel trilogy started quite satisfyingly with The Force Awakens, but for me, the actual bomb dropped with The Last Jedi. Reason? It was a magical story. It had the spark again that I had missed in the new Star Wars stories for decades! And it was packed full of beautiful messages and promises.

The Force is not a superpower belonging solely to the Jedi Anyone can be a hero. Even the greatest heroes can fail, but they will still be heroes. Hope is like the sun: if you only believe in it when you see it you’ll never make it through the night. Failure is the greatest teacher. It’s more important to save the light than to seem a hero. No one is never truly gone. War is only a machine. Dark Side and Light Side can be unbeatable if they are allies. Save what you love instead of destroying what you hate.

Naively, I assumed the trilogy would continue and end in that same magical way. And then came The Rise of Skywalker… which looks and feels like a Marvel superhero story at best and an over-long videogame at worst.

Chekov’s Gun

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

(Anton Chekov, 1860 - 1904)

If you show an important looking prop and don’t put it to use, it leaves the audience feeling baffled. There is a huge difference between a story’s setup, and the audience’s feeling of entitlement. E.g. many viewers expected Luke to jump right back into the fray in Episode VIII, because that’s what a hero does, isn’t it? The cavalry comes and saves the day. And instead, we met a disillusioned elderly hermit who is tired of the ways of the Jedi. But there was no actual reason for disappointment: in Episode VII it was very clearly said (through Han, his best friend) that Luke had gone into exile on purpose, feeling responsible for his failure in teaching a new generation of Jedi. It would have been more than stupid to show him as an all-powerful and all-knowing man who kills the bad guys. Sorry but who expected that was a victim to his own prejudice.

A promise left unfulfilled is a different story. The Last Jedi set up a lot of promises that didn’t come true in The Rise of Skywalker: Balance as announced by the Jedi temple mosaic, a new Jedi Order hinted at by Luke on Crait, a good ending for Ben and Rey set up by the hand-touching scene which was opposite to Anakin’s and Padmés wedding scene. Many fans were annoyed about the Canto Bight sequence. I liked it because it felt like the set-up for a lot of important stuff: partnership between Finn and Rose whom we see working together excellently, freedom for the enslaved children (one of whom is Force-sensitive), DJ and Rose expressing what makes wars in general foolish and beside the point. So if we, the fans of Episode VIII, now feel angry and let down, I daresay it’s not due to entitlement. We were announced magical outcomes and not just pew-pew.

The Star Wars saga never repeated itself but always developed and enlarged its themes, so it was to be expected that delving deeper, uncomfortable truths would come out: wars don’t start out of nowhere, and they don’t flare up and continue for decades for the same reason. In order to find Balance, the Jedi’s and the Skywalker family’s myths needed to be dismantled. Which is not necessarily bad as long it is explained how things came to this, and a better alternative is offered. The prequels explained the old political order and the beginnings of the Skywalker family, and announced that the next generation would do better. The sequels hardly explained anything about the 30 years that passed since our heroes won the battle against the Empire, and while The Last Jedi hinted at the future a lot, The Rise of Skywalker seemed to make a point of ignoring all of it.

  The Skywalker Family Is Obliterated. Why?

Luke was proven right that his nephew would mean the end of everything he loved. The lineage of the Chosen One is gone. His grandson had begun where Vader had ended - tormented, pale and with sad eyes - and he met the same fate. Luke, Han, Leia, all sacrificed themselves to bring Ben Solo back for nothing. Him being the reincarnation of the Chosen One and getting a new chance should have been meaningful for all of them; instead, he literally left the scepter to Rey who did nothing to deserve it: merely because she killed the Bad Guy does not mean she will do a better job than the family whose name and legacy she proudly takes over.

I do hope there was a good reason if the sequels did not tell “The New Adventures of Luke, Leia and Han” and instead showed us a broken family on the eve of its wipeout. It would have been much easier, and more fun for the audience, to bring the trio back again after a few years and pick up where they had left. Instead we had to watch their son, nephew and heir go his grandfather’s way - born with huge power, branded as Meant to Be Dangerous from the start, tried his best to be a Jedi although he wanted to be a pilot, never felt accepted, abandoned in the moment of his greatest need, went to his abuser because he was the only one to turn to, became a criminal, his own family (in Anakin’s case: Obi-Wan and Yoda) trained the person who was closest to him to kill him, sacrificed himself for this person and died. And in his case, it’s particularly frustrating because Kylo Ren wasn’t half as impressive a villain as Vader, and Ben Solo had a very limited time of heroism and personal fulfilment, contrarily to Anakin when he was young.

The impact of The Rise of Skywalker was traumatic for some viewers. I know of adolescents and adults, victims of family abandonment and abuse, who identified with Ben: they were told that you can never be more than the sum of your abuse and abandonment, and that they’re replaceable if they’re not “good”. Children identifying with Rey were told that their parents might sell them away for “protection”. Rey was not conflicted, she had a few doubts but overall, she was cool about everything she did, so she got everything on a silver platter; that’s why as a viewer, after a while you stopped caring for her. Her antagonist was doomed from birth because he dared to question the choices other people made for him. It seems that in the Star Wars universe, you can only “rise” if you’re either a criminal but cool because you’ve always got a bucket over your head (Vader / the Mandalorian) or are a saint-like figure (Luke / Rey).

One of Obi-Wan’s first actions in A New Hope is cutting off someone’s arm who was only annoying him; Han Solo, ditto. These were no acts of self-defense. The Mandalorian is an outlaw. Yet they are highly popular. Why? Because they always keep their cool, so anything they do seems justified. Young Anakin was hated, Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen attacked for his portrayal. For the same reason many fans feel that Luke is the least important of the original trio although basically the Original Trilogy is his story: it seems the general audience hates nothing more than emotionality in a guy. They want James Bond, Batman or Indiana Jones as the lead. Padmé loved Anakin because she always saw the good little boy he once was in him; his attempts at impressing her with his flirting or his masculinity failed. Kylo tried to impress Rey with his knowledge and power, but she fled from him - she wanted the gentle, emphatic young man who had listened to her when she felt alone. Good message. But both died miserably, and Ben didn’t even get anything but a kiss. Realizing that his “not being as strong as Darth Vader” might actually be a strength of its own would have meant much more.

The heroes of the Original Trilogy had their adventures together and their happy ending; the heroes of the Prequel Trilogy also had good times and accomplishments in their youth, before everything went awry. Rey, Finn and Poe feel like their friendship hardly got started; Rose was almost obliterated from the narrative; and Ben Solo seems to have had only one happy moment in his entire life. Of course it’s terrible that he committed patricide (even if it was under coercion), but Anakin / Vader himself had two happy endings in the Prequel Trilogy before he became the monster we know so well. Not to mention Clone Wars, where he has heroic moments unnumbered.

The Skywalker family is obliterated without Balance in the Force, and the young woman who inherited all doesn’t seem to have learned any lesson from all this. The Original Trilogy became a part of pop culture among other things because its ending was satisfying. We can hardly be expected to be satisfied with an ending where our heroes are all dead and the heir of their worst enemy takes over. What good was the happy ending of the Original Trilogy for if they didn’t learn enough from their misadventures to learn how to protect one single person - their son and nephew, their future?

For a long time, I also thought that the saga was about Good vs. Evil. Watching the prequels again, I came to the conclusion that it is rather about Love vs. War. And now, considering as a whole, I believe it to be essentially Jedi against Skywalker. The ending, as it is now, says that both fractions lost: they annihilated one another, leaving a third party in charge, who believes to be both but actually knows very little about them.

Star Wars and Morality

After 9 films and 42 years, it still is not possible to make the general audience accept that it is wrong to divide people between Good and Evil in the first place. The massive rejection of both prequels and sequels, which have moral grey zones galore, shows it.

It is also not possible without being accused of actual blasphemy in the same fandom, to say the plain truth that no Skywalker ever was a Jedi at heart. As their name says, they’re pilots. Luke was the last and strongest of all Jedi because he always was first and foremost himself. Anakin was crushed by the Jedi’s attempts to stifle his feelings. His grandson, too. A Force-sensitive person ought to have the choice whether they want to be a Jedi or not; they ought not to be taught to suppress their emotions and live only on duty, without really caring for other people; and they ought to grow up feeling in a safe and loving environment, not torn away from their families in infancy, indoctrinated and provided with a light sabre (a deadly weapon) while they’re still small. A Jedi order composed of child soldiers or know-it-all’s does not really help anybody.

The original Star Wars saga was about love and friendship; although many viewers did not want to understand that message. The prequels portrayed the Jedi as detached and arrogant and Anakin Skywalker sympathetically, a huge disappointment for who only accepts stories of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. The Last Jedi was so hated that The Rise of Skywalker backpedaled: sorry, of course you’re right, here you have your “hero who knows everything better and fixes everything for you on a silver platter”. The embarrassing antihero, who saves the girl who was the only person showing him some human compassion, can die miserably in the process and is not even mourned.

Honestly: I was doubtful whether it would be adequate to give Ben Solo a happy ending after the patricide. I guess letting him die was the easiest way out for the authors to escape censorship. (I even wrote this in a review on amazon about The Last Jedi, before I delved deeper into the saga’s themes.) The messages we got now are even worse.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo

A parent can replace a child if they’re not the way they expect them to be. A victim of lifelong psychical and physical abuse can only find escape in death, whether he damns or redeems himself. An introspective, sensitive young man is a loser no matter how hard he tries either way. A whole family can sacrifice itself to save their heir, he dies anyway.

Rey

Self-righteousness is acceptable as long as you find a scapegoat for your own failings. Overconfidence justifies anything you do. You can’t carve your way as a female child of “nobodies”, you have to descend from someone male and powerful even if that someone is the devil incarnate. You are a “strong female” if you choose to be lonely; you need neither a partner nor friends.

In General

Star Wars is not about individual choices, loyalty, friendship and love, it is a classic Western story with a lonesome cowboy (in this case: cowgirl) at its centre. Satisfied? 

The father-son-relationship between Vader and Luke mirrors the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, saying that whoever we may want to kill is, in truth, our kin, which makes a clear separation in Good and Evil impossible. The “I am your father” scene is so infamous by now that even non-fans are aware of it; but this relationship between evil guy and good guy, as well as the plot turns where the villain saves the hero and that the hero discards his weapon are looked upon rather as weird narrative quirks instead of a moral. 

In  an action movie fan, things are simple: good guy vs. bad guy, the good guy (e.g. James Bond may be a murderer and a misogynist, but that’s ok because he’s cool about it) kills the bad guy, ka-boom, end of story. But Star Wars is a parable, an ambitious project told over decades of cinema, and a multilayered story with recurring themes.

A fairy tale ought to have a moral. The moral of both Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy was compassionate love - choose it and you can end a raging conflict, reject it and you will cause it. What was the moral of the Sequel Trilogy? You can be the offspring of the galaxy’s worst terror and display a similar attitude, but pose as a Jedi and kill unnecessarily, and it’s all right; descend from Darth Vader (who himself was a victim long before he became a culprit) and whether you try to become a Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker or a Sith trained by his worst enemy, you will end badly?

Both original and prequel trilogy often showed “good” people making bad choices and the “bad ones” making the right choices. To ensure lasting peace, no Force user ought to be believe that he must choose one side and then stick to it for the rest of his life: both sides need one another. The prequels took 3 films to convey this message, though not saying so openly. The Last Jedi said it out clearly - and the authors almost had their heads ripped off by affronted fans, resulting in The Rise of Skywalker’s fan service. It’s not like Luke, Han and Leia were less heroic in the Sequel Trilogy, on the contrary, they gave everything they had to their respective cause. They were not united, and they were more human than they had once been. Apparently, that’s an affront.

The Jedi are no perfect heroes and know-it-all’s and they never were, the facts are there for everyone to see. Padmé went alone and pregnant to get her husband out of Mustafar - and she almost succeeded - although she knew what he had done and that he was perfectly capable of it (he had told her of the Tusken village massacre himself) because she still saw the good little boy he had been in him; Obi-Wan left him amputated and burning in the lava, although he had raised Anakin like a small brother and the latter had repeatedly saved his life. But Padmé was not a Jedi, so I guess she still had some human decency. Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda lifted a finger for the oppressed populations of the galaxy during the Empire, waiting instead for Anakin’s son to grow up so they could trick him into committing patricide. Neither Luke nor Leia did anything for their own son and nephew while he became the scourge of the galaxy, damning his soul by committing crime after crime. On Exegol, Rey heard the voices of all Jedi encouraging her to fight Palpatine to death. After that, they left her to die alone, and the alleged “bad guy”, who had already saved her soul from giving in to Palpatine’s lures, had to save her life by giving her his own. The Jedi merely know that “their side” has to win, no matter the cost for anyone’s life, sanity, integrity or happiness.

Excuse me, these are simple facts. How anyone can still believe that the Jedi were super-powerful heroes who always win or all-knowing wizards who are always right is beyond me. Luke, the last and strongest of them, like a bright flickering of light before the ultimate end, showed us that the best of men can fail. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. But it is wrong and utterly frustrating when all of the failure never leads to anything better. If Rey means to rebuild the Jedi order to something better than it was, there was no hint at that whatsoever.

  And What Now?

The Last Jedi hit theatres only 2 years before The Rise of Skywalker, and I can’t imagine that the responsible authors all have forgotten how to make competent work in the meantime; more so considering that Solo or The Mandalorian are solid work. Episode IX is thematically so painfully flat it seems like they wanted us to give up on the saga on purpose. The last instalment of a 42-year-old saga ought to have been the best and most meaningful. I had heard already decades ago that the saga was supposed to have 9 chapters, so I was not among who protested against the sequels thinking that they had been thought up to make what had come before invalid. I naively assumed a larger purpose. But Episode IX only seems to prove these critics perfectly right.

The last of the flesh and blood of the Chosen One is dead without having “finished what his grandfather started”?

Still no Balance in the Force?

And worst of all, Palpatine’s granddaughter taking over, having proven repeatedly that she is not suited for the task?

Sorry, this “ending” is absurd. I have read fanfiction that was better written and more interesting. And, most of all, less depressing. I was counting on a conclusion that showed that the Force has all colours and nuances, and that it’s not limited to the black-and-white view “we against them”. That’s the ending all of us fans would have deserved, instead of catering the daddy issues of the part of the audience who doesn’t want stories other than those of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. I myself grew up on Japanese anime, maybe that’s one of the reasons why I can’t stand guys like James Bond or Batman and why I think you don’t need “a great hero who fixes the situation” but that group spirit and communication are way more important.

It was absolutely unexpected that Disney, the production company whose trademark are happy endings and family stories, would end this beloved and successful saga after almost half a century on such a hollow note. Why tell first a beautiful fairy tale and then leave the audience on a hook for 35 years to continue first with a tragedy (which at least was expected) and then with another (unexpected one)? And this story is supposed to be for children? Like children would understand all of the subtext, and love sad, cautionary tales. Children, as well as the general audience, first of all want to be entertained! No one wants to watch the legendary Skywalker family be obliterated and a Palpatine take over. The sequels were no fun anymore; we’ve been left with another open ending and hardly an explanation about what happened in the 30 years in between. If you want to tell a cautionary tale, you should better warn the general audience beforehand.

The Original Trilogy is so good because it’s entertaining and offers room for thought for who wants to think about its deeper themes, and also leaves enough space for dreams. Same goes for the first two films of the Sequel Trilogy; but precisely the last, which should have wrapped up the saga, leaves us with a bitter aftertaste and dozens of questions marks. 

We as the audience believe that a story, despite the tragic things that happen, must go somewhere; we get invested into the characters, we root for them, we want to see them happy in the end. (The authors of series like Girls, How I Met Your Mother or Game of Thrones ought to be reminded of that, too.) I was in contact with children and teenagers saying that the Sequel Trilogy are “boring”; and many, children or adults, who were devastated by its concluson. There is a difference between wanting to tell a cautionary tale and playing the audience for fools. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. Who watches a family or fantasy story or a romantic / comedic sitcom wants to escape into another world, not to be hit over his head with a mirror to his own failings, and the ones of the society he’s living in. Messages are all right, but they ought not to go at the cost of the audience’s satisfaction about the about the people and narrative threads they have invested in for years.

This isn’t a family story: but children probably didn’t pester the studios with angry e-mails and twitter messages etc. They simply counted on a redemption arc and happy ending, and they were right, because they’re not as stupid as adults are. I have read and watched many a comment from fans who hate The Last Jedi. Many of these fans couldn’t even pinpoint what their rage was all about, they only proved to be stuck with the original trilogy and unwilling to widen their horizon. But at least their heroes had had their happy ending: The Rise of Skywalker obliterated the successes of all three generations of Skywalkers.

If the film studios wanted to tease us, they’ve excelled. If they expect the general audience to break their heads over the sequels’ metaphysics, they have not learned from the reactions to the prequels that most viewers take these films at face value. Not everybody is elbows-deep in the saga, or willing to research about it for months, and / or insightful enough to see the story’s connections. Which is why many viewers frown at the narrative and believe the Sequel Trilogy was just badly written. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. As it is now, the whole trilogy is hanging somewhere in the air, with neither a past nor a future to be tied in with.

The prequels already had the flaw of remaining too obscure: most fans are not aware that Anakin had unwillingly killed his wife during the terrible operation that turned him into Darth Vader, sucking her life out of her through the Force: most go by “she died of a broken heart”. So although one scene mirrors the other, it is not likely that most viewers will understand what Rey’s resurrection meant. And: Why did Darth Maul kill Qui-Gon Jinn? What did the Sith want revenge for? Who was behind Shmi’s abduction and torture? Who had placed the order for the production of the clones, and to what purpose? We can imagine or try to reconstruct the answers, but nothing is confirmed by the story itself.

The sequels remained even more in the dark, obfuscating what little explanation we got in The Rise of Skywalker with quick pacing and mind-numbing effects.

Kylo Ren had promised his grandfather that “he would finish what he started”: he did not. Whatever one can say of this last film, it did not bring Balance in the Force. What’s worse, the subject was not even breached. It was hinted at by the mosaic on the floor of the Prime Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, but although Luke and Rey were sitting on its border, they never seemed to see what was right under their noses. It remains inexplicable why it was there for everyone to see in the first place.

We might argue that Ben finished what his grandfather started by killing (or better, causing the death of) the last Jedi, who this one couldn’t kill because he was his own son; but leaving Rey in charge, he helped her finish what her grandfather had started. The irony could hardly be worse.

Episode IX looks like J.J. Abrams simply completed what they started with Episode VII, largely ignoring the next film as if it was always planned to do so. We, the angry and disappointed fans of The Last Jedi, may believe it was due to some of the general audience’s angry backlash, but honestly: the studios aren’t that dumb. They had to know that Episode VIII would be controversial and that many fans would hate it. The furious reactions were largely a disgrace, but no one can make me believe that they were totally unexpected. Nor can anyone convince me that The Rise of Skywalker was merely an answer to the small but very loud part of the audience who hated The Last Jedi: a company with the power and the returns of Disney Lucasfilm does not need to buckle down before some fan’s entitlement and narrowmindedness out of fear of losing money. And if they do, it was foolish to make Rey so perfect that she becomes almost odious, and to let the last of the Skywalker blood die a meaningless death. (Had he saved the Canto Bight children and left them with Rey, at least he would have died with honor; and she, the child left behind by her parents, would have had a task to dedicate herself to.)

The only reason I can find for this odd ending is that it’s meant to prepare the way for Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, which - hopefully - will finally be about Balance. We as the audience don’t know what’s going on behind the doors. Filmmaking is a business like any other, i.e. based on contracts; and I first heard that Rian Johnson had negotiated a trilogy of his own since before Episode VIII hit theatres. Maybe he kept all the rights of intellectual property to his own film, including that he would finish the threads he picked up and close the narrative circles he opened, and only he; and that his alleged working on “something completely different” is deliberately misleading.

Some viewers love the original trilogy, some love the prequels, some like both; but I hardly expect anyone to love the sequel trilogy as a whole. What with the first instalment “letting the past die, killing it if they had to”, the second hinting at a promising future and the third patched on at the very last like some sort of band-aid, it was not coherent. I heard the responsible team for Game of Thrones even dropped their work, producing a dissatisfying, quickly sewn together last season, for this new Star Wars project and thereby disappointing millions of GoT fans; I hope they are aware of the expectations they have loaded upon them. George Lucas’ original trilogy had its faults, but but though there was no social media yet in his time, at least he was still close enough to the audience to give them what they needed, if not necessarily wanted. (Some fans can’t accept that Luke and Leia are siblings to this day, even if honestly, it was the very best plot twist to finish their story in a satisfying way.)

I’m hoping for now that The Last Jedi was not some love bombing directed at the more sentimental viewers but a promise that will be fulfilled. “Wrapping up” a saga by keeping the flattest, least convincing chapter for last is bad form. Star Wars did not become a pop phenomenon by accident, but because the original story was convincing and satisfying. Endings like these will hardly make anyone remember a story fondly, on the contrary, the audience will move to another fandom to forget their disappointment.

On a side note, I like The Mandalorian, exactly for the reason that that is a magical story; not as much as the original trilogy, but at least a little. Of course, I’m glad it was produced. But it’s a small consolation prize after the mess that supposedly wrapped up the original saga after 9 films.

We’re Not Blind, You Know…

- Though Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) has Darth Vader’s stature, his facial features are practically opposite to Vader’s creepy mask. This should have foreshadowed that his life should have gone the other way, instead of more or less repeating itself. - As a villain Kylo was often unconvincing; by all logic he should have been a good father figure. (Besides, Star Wars films or series never work unless there is a strong father or father figure at their center.)

- Like Vader, Kylo Ren was redeemed, but not rehabilitated. Who knows who may find his broken mask somewhere now and, not knowing the truth, promise “I will finish what you started”. - The hand-touching scene on Ahch-To which was visually opposite to Anakin’s and Padmé’s should not have predicted another tragedy but a happy ending for them. - The Canto Bight sequence was announcing reckoning for the weapon industry and freedom for the enslaved children. It also showed how well Finn and Rose fit together. - Rey was a good girl before she started on her adventures. Like Anakin or Luke, she did not need to become a Jedi to be strong or generous or heroic. - Rey summons Palpatine after one year of training. Kylo practically begged for his grandfather’s assistance for years, to no avail. Her potential for darkness is obviously much stronger. - Dark Rey’s light sabre looked like a fork, Kylo’s like a cross. - The last time all Jedi and Sith were obliterated leaving only Luke in charge, things went awry. Now we have a Palpatine masquerading as a Skywalker and believing she’s a Jedi. Rey is a usurper and universally cheered after years of war, like her grandfather. - The broom boy of Canto Bight looked like he was sweeping a stage and announcing “Free the stage, it’s time for us, the children.”

Rey failed in all instances where Luke had proved himself (so much for feminism and her being a Mary Sue): - Luke had forgiven his father despite all the pain he had inflicted on him. She stabbed the „bad guy”, who had repeatedly protected and comforted her, to death. - Luke never asked Vader to help the Rebellion or to turn to the Light Side, he only wanted him back as his father. She assumed that you could make Ben Solo turn, give up the First Order and join the Resistance for her. She thought of her friends and of her own validation, not of him. - Luke had made peace by choosing peace. Rey fought until the bitter end. - Luke had thrown his weapon away before Palpatine. Rey picked up a second weapon. (And both of them weren’t even her own.) - Luke had mourned his dead father. Rey didn’t shed a tear for the man she is bonded to by the Force. - Luke went back to his friends to celebrate the new peace with them. Rey went back letting everyone celebrate her like the one who saved the galaxy on her own, she who were tempted to become the new evil ruler of the galaxy and had to rely on the alleged Bad Guy to save both her soul and her body. - Luke had embodied compassion when Palpatine was all about hatred. Where he chose love and faith in his father, she chose violence and fear. - Luke had briefly fallen prey to the Dark Side but it made him realize that he had no right to judge his father. Rey’s fall to the Dark Side did not make her wiser. - Rey has no change of mind on finding out that she’s Palpatine’s flesh and blood, nor after she has stabbed Kylo. Luke had to face himself on learning that he had almost become a patricide. Rey does not have to face herself: the revelation of her ancestry is cushioned by Luke’s and Leia’s support. Rey is and remains an uncompromising person who hardly learns from her faults.

This is cheating on the audience. And it's not due to feminism or Rey being some sort of “Mary Sue” the way many affronted fans claim. Kylo never was truly a villain, Rey is not a heroine, and this is not a happy ending. The Jedi, with their stuck-up conviction “only we must win”, have failed all over again. The Skywalker family was obliterated leaving their worst enemy in charge.  Rey is supposed to be a “modern” heroine which young girls can take as an example? No, thank you. Not after this last film has made of her. Padmé was a much better role model, combining intelligence with strength and goodness and also female grace. The world does not need entitled female brats.

Bonus: What Made The Rise of Skywalker a Farce

- The Force Awakens was an ok film and The Last Jedi (almost) a masterpiece. The Rise of Skywalker was a cartoon. No wonder a lot of the acting felt and looked wooden. - “I will earn your brother’s light sabre.” She’s holding his father’s sabre. - Kylo in The Last Jedi: “Let the past die. Kill it if, you have to.” Beginning with me? - Rey ends up on Tatooine. - The planet both Anakin and Luke ardently wanted to leave. - Luke had promised his nephew that he would be around for him. - Nope. - Rey had told Ben that she had seen his future. What future was that - “you will be a hero for ten minutes, get a kiss and then die? (And they didn’t even get a love theme.) - “The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.” On a desert planet with a few ghosts. What of the ocean she used to dream about? - Ben and Rey were both introduced as two intensely lonely people searching for belonging. We learn they are a Force dyad, and then they are torn apart again. - Why was Ben named for Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first place, if they have absolutely nothing in common? - The Throne Room battle scene in The Last Jedi was clearly showing that when they are in balance, Light Side and Dark Side are unbeatable. Why did the so-called “Light Side” have to win again, in The Rise of Skywalker, instead of finding balance? - Luke’s scene on Ahch-To was so ridiculously opposite to his attitude in The Last Jedi that by now I believe he was a fantasy conjectured by her. (Like Ben’s vision of his father.) - Anakin’s voice among the other Jedi’s. - He was a renegade, for Force’s sake. - The kiss between two females. - More fan service, to appease those who pretended that not making Poe and Finn a couple was a sign of homophobia. - We see the Knights of Ren, but we learn absolutely nothing about them or Kylo’s connection with them. - Rose Tico’s invalidation. - A shame after what the actress had gone through because for the fans she was “not Star-Wars-y” (chubby and lively instead of wiry and spitfire). - Finn’s and Rose’s relationship. - Ignored without any explanation. - Finn may or may not be Force-sensitive. - If he is: did he abandon the First Order not due to his own free will but because of some higher willpower? Great. - General Hux was simply obliterated. - In The Force Awakens he was an excellent foil to Kylo Ren; no background story, no humanization for him. - Chewie’s and 3PO’s faked deaths. - Useless additional drama. - The Force Awakens was a bow before the classic trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker kicked its remainders to pieces. - The Prequel Trilogy ended with hope, the Original Trilogy with love. The Sequel Trilogy ends on a blank slate. - “We are what they grow beyond.” The characters of the Sequel Trilogy did not grow beyond the heroes of the Original Trilogy. - The Jedi did not learn from their mistakes and were obliterated. The Skywalker family understood the mistakes they had made too late. Now they’re gone, too.

  P.S. While I was watching The Rise of Skywalker my husband came in asked me since when I like Marvel movies. I said “That’s not a Marvel movie, it’s Star Wars.” I guess that says enough.

P.P.S. For the next trilogy, please at least let the movies hit theatres in May again instead of December. a) It’s tradition for Star Wars films, b) Whatever happens, at least you won’t ruin anyone’s Christmases. Thank you.

[brotherhand]

t100 spoilers // or whatthefuckever. 

anyway. i haven’t been on here in years. i’m pretty sure most of y’all moved accounts or whatever. but anyway i am fucking angry. i’m not even caught up on s7 but i know what happens and i’m fucking angry. 

bellamy blake deserved better.

but you know what, i am not surprised. the 100 has had a history of killing off its  lgbt+ and poc characters and this is not surprising. ESPECIALLY when it comes to men of color. wells, a black man, was set up to be the male lead. then he got killed off not even THREE episodes into the first season after being constantly used to prop up clarke white savior griffin. only for him to be replaced by finn fucking collins as the resident peacemaker? lincoln, another black man was killed off just because jroth is racist lmao. jaha, yet ANOTHER black man  (a fucking pattern if i’ve ever seen one) whose character went from being a well-written, multifaceted leader and engineer to “lol haha that’s just crazy ass jaha” then was killed off to prop up yet ANOTHER white savior. monty was killed off-screen (but at least his death wasn’t demeaning and it ACTUALLY served a purpose so.... i’ll give them that ig.) and let’s not forget about miller who has been there since season fucking one but never even became a main character while roan, a white dude, who was only around for a season and a half, became a main character -- and mind you, he was killed only a few episodes after being made a main. jroth had the brilliant idea to make s3 a political commentary on xenophobia and decided “hey!  i think i’m gonna make that black man the fascist! and then i’m gonna make that brown man his supporter! and let’s make those white people in brownface the good people!”

but anyway. back to bellamy. 

i have been watching the 100 since season two first aired. i was in the 100 fandom for maybe one or two years then realized this isn’t really the place for me so i dipped but continued watching this shitshow. i watched the 100 writers, for SEVEN SEASONS, constantly sideline his character development in favor of propping up other character’s (usually clarke, again, a pattern) he was supposed to learn from his mistakes and grow into the leader he had the potential to be. that was the natural progression of how his character was set up from the very beginning, he should’ve grown into leadership. but he never did. every time clarke comes into the picture, his character development is hindered. (one of the biggest reasons as to why i dislike bellarke imo) every time they need someone to bear the brunt of their shitty ass plots, they turn to bellamy. (like s7... when they... made him join a cult lmfaoooo) he should’ve grown into leadership, he shouldn’t have been reduced to a “knight”, he shouldn’t have had to constantly bear the brunt of shitty writing. he should have been his own, well-rounded character. and he was on the way to that in season five, i believe, then they went and ruined that, too. i wanted to watch him grow into a leader who can use his head and his heart, i wanted to get invested in his platonic or romantic relationships with other characters, i wanted them to address the trauma he had endured as a child due to the fact that he had to raise a child when he was A SIX YEAR OLD BOY. i wanted them to address the issues that came with his mother basically throwing octavia at him and telling him she’s his responsibility, i wanted him to emotionally grow up and i wanted him to put himself first. i wanted him to learn to love himself and not base his self worth on other people.  i wanted to see more of him with his family -- with echo, raven, monty, emori and murphy. i didn’t want him to fucking die because of fucking shock value. 

you know what i also didn’t fucking want? i didn’t fucking want to watch the show runner CONTINUOUSLY whitewash him, use a white actor to play him as a kid and then later on call him a white male. i didn’t want some parts of the fandom to pretend he was white because then he’d be another straight white dude and not actually a man of color who is integral representation to so, so, so many people. i watched some of y’all say shit like “well, he’s not CANONICALLY brown <3″ and get away with it. i watched both sides of the fandom treat the character in a really, really racist and shitty manner. with some c/lexa stans thinking it’s okay to call a brown man a fucking monkey. some b/ellarke stans thinking it’s okay to reduce him to clarke’s “knight” not noticing how many racist undertones exist in such a dynamic. at times, it seemed like some of you went out of your way to villanize him. (calling him abusive when you didn’t give clarke OR octavia that treatment, even when octavia fucking beat him to a bloody pulp when he was chained to a rock and when clarke shot AT him then later shot HIM. the excuses were always there for them but not him, huh.) and at times, it seemed like so many of his “fans” only liked him when he was clarke’s inferior. keep in mind that, yes, clarke and lexa were both in brownface at some point in the show. and yes i am brown so please don’t try to tell me it was a tan. as a brown person i know what brownface on white people looks like. (if you’re bipoc and  youdisagree, we can have a civil conversation about it -- but if you’re white please do not pretend to know better than me.) keep in mind, i’m saying SOME. not ALL. don’t take this as an attack against you specifically but at the same time if the shoe fits wear it. bellamy deserved better than to be treated like shit by the creator, the writers and the fandom. bellamy deserved better than to have been played by a biphobic abuser. he deserved so much fucking better and i did not know upset or hurt i was by this until i started writing this.

but anyway. he’s dead now. so pce out. 

[aflawedfashion]

unpopular opinion: the defiance finale was perfect

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Thanks, you really wanted to set me off, huh? Ok, I’ll take the bait.

I love Defiance. I do. I would not make this post if I did not love Defiance enough to be this disappointed in it, so here we go...

Ok, so, Defiance was a show about people coming together. Obviously it’s not going to be pretty if you take people from several different planets (the aliens weren’t even all from the same planet), have them fight a a brutal war against each other that nearly destroyed the only planet they have left, and then tell them that it’s now time to play nice and be friends. It’s going to be messy. And that’s ok. There is no story without conflict, and this puts us at the perfect starting point for a whole lot of character development. Love it.

The endgame of the show should have been people finally coming together, but was it that? No, it was about the small group of characters who actually survived this brutal show finding an entire race of aliens that had to be shot off into space because they can’t kill them all, but they’re too dangerous to actually live with. Aliens played by black actors (although they are painted purple and I think the writers actually had good intentions when they created the Omec, you can’t not notice how terrible this turned out.... unless, I guess, you’re the people who wrote this). They were purple people eating aliens. 

Other than T’evgin and Kindzi, the Omec never even had a voice, but the entire finale hinges on them. We see in their faces that they probably wouldn’t want to kill everyone if they knew more about the people of Earth, but we never get to see resolution to that. We never see them revolt against Kindzi. They never get to speak for themselves or fight for themselves or learn about the people of Earth. They just start eating everyone because the show wanted the main characters seem justified in shooting them. They’re treated like props.

The show wants Doc and Amanda to be seen as heroes for shooting the evil aliens (it frames them heroically when they do it), while also having Irisa be the hero for saying they should try to save them without ever giving the Omec a proper voice. You can’t do this all in two episodes and call it good. Nolan and Amanda had even stood up for the Omec until the very last moment, until Kindzi raped Nolan, killed her father, caged the people of earth, turned doc yewll into a slave, and ordered her followers to eat their enemies. Nolan and Amanda truly just wanted to do what was right and got hammered into the ground until they didn’t know what else to do. I get where they’re coming from. I get where Irisa’s coming from, but why are we here?

By giving the Omec a voice, there’s an arc to be found in these two episodes, and I can see what the writers were probably going for. I could even pretend I loved this episode and write a meta about the interesting parts of this kind of conflict, but it’s not actually developed in these episodes. They’d need an entire season arc, and I don’t really want that arc. Look, down to the basics, do I think we needed to end Defiance on purple people eating aliens? No. Cut the people eating and rewrite the finale, and the Omec could have been good in the end instead of a pile of shock value tropes stacked on top of each other (I forgot bring up that they were also incestuous). Their power, their status, their history with the Votans can exist without the people eating.

And what really bugs me about this is that there was a far superior finale arc in front of the writers that they left in 3x11 when Kindzi killed T’evgin. The VC were a great villain that had already been established and fit the core narrative of the show. They were scary, they were powerful, and they were a complex threat. We that even everyone in the VC doesn’t all agree, but they’d all level defiance if they needed to. So many potential conflicts here.

Silora Voske. Great character who liked Amanda, and genuinely wanted to make peace with Defiance, but peace with the VC means playing nice with the VC, something Amanda has never wanted. Silora would have shot Amanda in the back of the head if she betrayed her, no matter how good of friends they became. Now she’s dead and Defiance will be blamed. So much potential.

There is no government above Amanda in Defiance. With the United States long gone and the E-Rep’s power only lasting a season, Defiance is free from any larger government or country, and Amanda wants to keep it that way. Unfortunately for her, the VC wants more power, and Defiance is just this little town all on its own trying to swat away every fascist government that tries to take over.

And that’s where the Omec should have come into these last few episodes. We have all these Omec on a spaceship, why make them cannon fodder when you could bring them together with Defiance to fight against a common enemy - an enemy who wanted to divide humans and Votans. It would have made this a story about people coming together, exactly what the show wanted to be in the beginning.

Now for the characters, the reason I love this show, the reason this finale makes me emotionally mad at it on top of being frustrated by the plot.

Nolan and Irisa. They had been wandering around the country for 15 years with this vague goal that one day they’d get to Antarctica. They didn’t even know if it was paradise or not, and honestly, it didn’t really matter because they weren’t really trying to get there. In 15 years, they traveled from Denver to Defiance/St. Louis. That’s not very far. Truthfully, I doubt they ever really tried to get to Antarctica, but getting there wasn’t the point. Everyone needs something to live for, a dream, thoughts of a better future. Antarctica was just a fantasy that gave them a reason to live in a shitty world. 

But then they get to Defiance, and Nolan instantly finds a purpose and meets people who give him hope that the world he actually lives in might not be entirely horrible. He tells Irisa that Antarctica’s not real, but Defiance is. They can make a difference here. They can be happy. There’s no more reason to chase after a fantasy. He becomes a better, more hopeful person by finding a reason to get up in the morning and finding people he can believe in.

But... then in the finale, he just gets shot into space and Irisa makes a joke that he’s going to be flirting with alien princesses and getting in trouble. What is this negative character development the show is trying to sell me as a good ending for Nolan? Why are we resetting him to back before he found a purpose? Can male writers really never let go of their Han Solo fantasy from when they were 13, and let these characters grow as they deserve, as they already had?

Nolan spent 3 seasons talking about how he’s a one woman guy, even breaking off a friends with benefits relationship when he realizes he’s in love with Amanda. He thinks Amanda’s into someone else at the time, but he still can’t be with someone else when he’s in love with her, even when his fuck buddy doesn’t care because it’s a meaningless sexual relationship. Nolan doesn’t deserve to be reduced to the guy who drives around and has funny sexual escapades (and although I’m sure he’s had a few funny one night stands in his life, he had sex with three women in three seasons, and all relationships lasted more than one episode, note: I will not count rape in this total, so why are they trying to sell me on the idea that funny sexual escapades are a defining characteristic of his?)

Nolan deserved to find actual, real, attainable happiness with Amanda and his daughter, not get tossed into space away from the people he loves on some writer’s dumbass teenage Han Solo fantasy.

And Amanda, the love of both Nolan’s life and mine, she has been emotionally destroyed by the show, and very nearly physically destroyed as well. The writers wanted her to die a martyr, and only backed out of it when they realized there was no one qualified to be mayor in season 4, and they finally realized that killing all your characters for shock value actually has consequences. She deserved better than that.

Before the end of the finale, she thought Nolan would come back because he always did. She had hope for herself and for him. They were going to be be together and be happy. She deserved to be happy. And then in the final lines of the series, Irisa says Amanda thinks Nolan is dead. Where’s her hope? Why did the writers take that from her? Amanda is the person who made everyone want to be better. She gave people hope when they had none. Amanda represented the possibility that all these people could live together, and the writers wanted her to die while she was shooting aliens. They wanted to kill the person who represented the hope that humans and aliens could live together, and yeah, that pretty much sums up the finale.

And they don’t kill her. Instead, they just leave her sad, alone in her office, and without hope. 

Thanks.

I hate it. 

This episode pieces together a bunch of action, drama, and emotional moments to make you feel a lot of things as you watch it, but it’s not good on any deeper level. It betrayed everything I loved about this show, so I hate this finale.

[the-desolated-quill]

She Was Killed By Space Junk - Watchmen (TV Series) blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

The first episode was a shaky, but intriguing start. The second episode was both incredibly provocative and intelligently written. What about the third episode? Um... I’m honestly not too sure what to make of it, if I’m honest. I watched it twice like I do with everything I review and I genuinely don’t know what to say about it. I couldn’t even tell you if I liked it or not. I think I liked it.... but I couldn’t tell you why.

Okay. Sorry. Hi guys. Let me explain what happened. I wrote that first paragraph and then I got writer’s block, so I decided to step away from it. I had a nap, played a video game and then decided to watch the episode again for a third time with fresh eyes. Now my thoughts are a little more concrete. So. She Was Killed By Space Junk. Having watched this episode three times now, I’ve decided that I don’t like this episode very much at all, and that’s less to do with what’s in the episode and more to do with what isn’t. 

Let me explain.

Reviewing episodes like this one can often be very frustrating because it’s hard to tell what is a genuine flaw and what is merely setup for what’s to come. I have a number of problems with this episode, but for all I know, what I’m about to talk about might not actually be problems at all and will all be explained in a future episode. Or they are genuine problems and I’m inadvertently giving the writers way too much credit. I don’t know. That’s why it’s so frustrating.

My main point of contention is with the character of Laurie. First of all, let me just say that Jean Smart doesn’t put a foot wrong. She gives a great performance and is a good choice to play an older Laurie. The problem I have is with her characterisation. Or, at the very least, bits of her characterisation. I don’t know. It’s complicated.

Laurie’s inclusion in the TV series was something I was actually most looking forward to because I felt her character was kind of shortchanged in the graphic novel. Initially starting out as an effective and scathing critique of how women are often presented in comics, over the course of Watchmen’s story her role was reduced until she ended up becoming little more than a prop for the male characters’ stories. It was disappointing and it’s led to me arguing multiple times that Silk Spectre is one of the most underrated and wasted elements of Watchmen. The HBO series felt like a perfect opportunity to right some wrongs and give Laurie the attention she deserves. She Was Killed By Space Junk certainly gave her the focus and attention she didn’t receive in the graphic novel, but I’m very much struggling to ascertain what the show was trying to achieve here.

Let’s quickly remind ourselves where the graphic novel left us with her character. She had recently discovered that the Comedian, the man who tried to rape her mother, was her biological father, she was in a relationship with Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl, and they were both on the run from the law, hellbent on continuing their lives as vigilantes. Okay. How does the HBO series continue this? Well it turns out she and Dan are no longer together. I know some fans really don’t like this, but I personally don’t have a problem with it. In fact I’m perfectly happy with it. In my review of A Stronger, Loving World, I explained how I didn’t believe their relationship could possibly last long term because it was clear that they were together not because they were in love, but rather because they were indulging in each other’s fantasies, and the fact that Dan’s seeming fascination with the Silk Spectre porn comic supported this. Showrunner Damon Lindelof clearly agrees, so cool. It’s always nice to be proven right.

Anyway, at some point between the graphic novel and the HBO series, the fantasy was shattered and the pair split up. I’m assuming what shattered the fantasy was them getting caught by the FBI. It’s unclear what’s happened to Dan at this time. Judging by the fact that the police in Oklahoma are using Owlships and goggles, I’m assuming that Dan was arrested and his equipment was appropriated by law enforcement. Laurie meanwhile has struck some kind of deal and now she’s working with the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce and enforcing the Keene Act, which is an interesting parallel with how her father, the Comedian, served the American government during the Vietnam War. But you see this is where I start to get a bit confused.

The episode opens with Laurie setting a trap for a vigilante known as Mister Shadow (basically Fake Batman) and shooting him, either not knowing or not caring whether or not Mister Shadow’s body armour would save him. She’s also taken on the Comedian’s last name Blake and displays a very similar nihilistic attitude, making dark jokes and exhibiting uncaring, unsympathetic behaviour. Now I don’t necessarily have a problem with Laurie becoming more nihilistic, given what she’s been through. Having witnessed Ozymandias and his squid of doom, it’s bound to affect her worldview. However, her turning into a female Comedian doesn’t really marry up with her character at all. And yes, I know at the end of the graphic novel she talked about getting a gun and body armour, like the Comedian, but it didn’t work there either. It felt too drastic a character shift and was painfully on the nose. I didn’t like it there and I don’t like it here either. I just don’t buy that she would want to emulate the man who tried to rape her mother. 

I especially don’t like her violent, uncaring attitude toward Mister Shadow. Why does she have such a disdain for vigilantes? Is it because of what happened with Dan, and she’s projecting that onto everyone else? Has she become so nihilistic that she just doesn’t give a shit anymore? There’s a moment later in the episode where she asks someone if their civil rights are being violated only to then turn around and say she was being sarcastic. That really didn’t sit right with me. It just doesn’t feel like something Laurie would say.

And then there’s the whole thing with Doctor Manhattan. Throughout the episode we see her in a phone booth trying to tell a joke to Manhattan (quite what the purpose of these phone booths are, I don’t know. Considering that people in the world of Watchmen believe that Manhattan was giving people cancer, why would anyone want to call him?). She clearly misses him to the point where she has a large blue dildo hidden a briefcase that’s clearly a direct reference to Pulp Fiction. I REALLY don’t like this. At all. The reason Laurie left Manhattan in the first place was because he couldn’t emotionally satisfy her, being an omnipresent demigod and all. So why would she be pining after him? The blue dildo joke in particular just felt kind of degrading. Just... why?

Weirder still is the joke she spends the whole episode trying to tell him. It’s clearly an indirect reference to the Pagliacci joke from the graphic novel, except the Pagliacci joke had a specific purpose in the graphic novel and its meaning was clear. Rorschach was remarking on how America was relying on the Comedian to save them from violence and corruption, which was futile considering what a violent and corrupt person the Comedian was. Here, however, I have no idea what Laurie is trying to say with the brick joke at all. I’m assuming the bricklayer is her father and she’s following in his footsteps. Okay, I kind of get that (except not really for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but whatever). But then we come to the whole bit with God at the pearly gates sending Nite Owl, Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan to Hell, only to then get killed by the brick from the previous joke. Now... what the fuck is that all about? I’ve been racking my brains, checking what other people said, and I can’t find any satisfying answers. It just feels like pretentious, unnecessary fanwank. The best I can come up with is that Laurie is expressing how she’s not letting men dictate her life anymore. But... she’s spent the whole episode pining after Doctor Manhattan, she’s modelled herself after her rapist father, and at the end of the episode, she sleeps with her assistant Petey, an agent who claims to not to be a fan of superheroes, but is totes a fan of superheroes. So... is that the joke? She wants to escape from the shadow of the men in her life, but can’t? Or she intends to overcome the patriarchy that has kept her down, but she still ends up choosing to indulge in the power fantasy of Petey? Or does it refer to something else she’s planning to do later? It’s all so frustratingly vague.

As I was watching this episode, I honestly lost track of the number of times I thought to myself ‘I don’t know where Lindelof is going with this.’ Sometimes this approach works, keeping the audience in the dark in order to build intrigue and suspense, but for Watchmen, a story that’s famous for its dense material and subject matter, it’s just plain annoying. In fact this whole episode feels really off to me. Instead of focusing on character narratives and thematic storytelling, She Was Killed By Space Junk relies more on a plot heavy story that moves the pieces of the larger arc forward and keeping certain specific details vague in an attempt to keep people watching. Except that’s not really what Watchmen is about and it results in leaving the more integral aspects of the story in the dust. Angela barely gets a look in here, and considering a significant portion of the episode focuses on Judd Crawford’s funeral, it feels like a massive, missed opportunity. How does it feel discovering that the man you liked and respected wasn’t the man you thought he was? Does that change your feelings toward him? Does it invalidate the good times you had with him? And with Laurie there, the show could have compared and contrasted the two. How these two women move forward knowing these uncomfortable truths about the men in the lives? But the show never really capitalises on this.

And the annoying thing is, for all I know, all the things I’m talking about could actually be addressed in a future episode, thus rendering what I’m saying moot. I don’t know. I can’t tell if this is all just really bad setup for an eventual satisfying payoff or if it’s just plain bad.

That being said, while I do ultimately dislike this episode, there are a few things I like. For instance, I do like what we learn about the larger world of Watchmen. We learn that Oklahoma is the only state that’s allowing the police to mask up and that this law was passed by Joe Keene Jr., whose father was responsible for the Keene Act that was passed outlawing vigilantes. Joe Keene Jr. was briefly introduced in the previous episode and it looks like he’s going to be playing a larger role from here on out. Let’s wait and see where that goes. 

We also learn that Looking Glass knows Laurie and has prior history with her. He even confirms Sister Night’s secret identity to her, albeit reluctantly. So is he a plant? Maybe sent by the FBI to try and sabotage Keene Jr? Hmmm, what’s going on here then?

And then there’s Ozymandias.

While I dislike how Laurie is being handled so far, I love, love, LOVE what they’re doing with Adrian Veidt. After the events of the graphic novel, it seems he’s gone into self imposed exile. Whether this is as a punishment or as a way to make sure he doesn’t inadvertently blab about his involvement with the squid is unknown. Anyway, he’s been here for three years now, judging by the candles on the cake, and he seems to be going a little bit stir crazy. He’s sacrificing his clones in order to try and find a means of escape and now he has to contend with a bloodthirsty game warden (another clone). The idea of Ozymandias being hoist by his own petard and being oppressed by the very tools and instruments of his own vanity is absolutely tantalising, and I love what Jeremy Irons is doing with the part and the way he’s depicting the character’s slow descent into lunacy.

Also a special shoutout has to go to the costume department for the Ozymandias costume we see Adrian finally don. It’s gloriously, breathtakingly terrible. Truly one of the worst superhero costumes ever seen on screen... which is exactly what it should be! 

One of the things I intensely disliked about the 2009 movie was Zack Snyder’s attempts to make the characters look cool and stylish when in reality these characters are supposed to be the complete opposite of that. Rorschach looks like a hobo, puts on a gruff voice and wears lifts on his heels in a pathetic attempt to look more imposing. Nite Owl wears a ridiculously tight fitting costume that shows off his belly bulge. Silk Spectre’s outfit looks more like something a stripper would wear and is not even remotely practical. They look stupid to us, the outsiders, but to the characters, it makes them feel powerful. That’s the whole point, and the HBO series captures that perfectly. Adrian is going to war with the game warden and wants to feel powerful, so he puts on his objectively silly purple and gold shawl in an effort to reclaim the power he once had. It’s laugh out hilarious, made all the more funnier by the fact that he’s clearly far too old to be playing dress up. It’s moments like this that demonstrate that Lindelof clearly does understand the source material, which is what makes the way Laurie is treated all the more baffling.

She Was Killed By Space Junk isn’t a bad episode. There’s stuff to like, but it doesn’t have any of the intelligent thematic storytelling or characterisation the previous two episodes had. Coupled with the apparent mishandling of Laurie’s character and the deliberate vagueness of some of its plotting leads to it being an episode that’s ultimately more frustrating than enjoyable to watch.

[eidolonlathi]

The Issue with Gen’s wasted Character Potential

With the manga about to reach its end I thought it worthwhile to have a closer look at how Gen’s character has been written. And the conclusion I'm coming to is that things started promising but then ended with already established potential not getting used.

Let’s start at the beginning. I don't believe that by the time of their introduction, any of the Sato squad’s new members had a clear and finished backstory. Or if, that it must have gotten changed while the story was progressing.

At this point it is difficult to say what the initial intention had been. But looking at Gen’s introduction, I always had the impression he and Takahashi didn't use to know each other before, came to the meeting alone and met there for the first time, instantly developing sympathy for each other. Something of the body and facial language in their first panel just seems too distant for me to signal anything else. And taking into account that until chapter 66.5 it hadn’t been confirmed that they shared a backstory, I view an individual arrival still as a possibility. Gen stating some time after the Grant Pharma arc that he possesses no ghost is no contradiction; just because Kou was clumsy enough to attract attention and got caught doesn't mean Gen wouldn't have been able to attend the black ghost meeting undetected.

Either way, only moments later, as soon as Sato's plan was established, he and Takahashi were able to quickly adapt to the situation and work together in harmony. Be it because they used to already know each other or by forming an instant strong connection. This moment already established the pattern that functioning together came easy to them while with Tanaka in the equitation friction would develop easily. But interestingly on the newly formed team all disharmony vanished at first, the operation on Grant Pharma ending a success.

I think this is about the only time in the manga where Gen is completely on his own and it’s impressive how good his nerves are during this moment. He stays calm, analyses the situation and delivers the needed information. And he has to do all of this while Takahashi is constantly being killed right next to him, yet Gen doesn’t get nervous at all.

That kind of levelheadedness would last until into the Forge Arc. And then getting reduced for the sake of preparing a “twist” lacking any solid foundation. Regardless of what one thinks of Gen being human or him and Takahashi supposed to have been brothers all along, from a storytelling perspective it makes zero sense to hide this all away from the reader until the last second. Like, that’s it? That’s the twist? How is this supposed to be relevant again? One of the random sidekicks to the main baddy –who you always knew wouldn’t have a chance to make it to the end- died instead of having gotten captured. I doubt anyone but the less than 20 people who used to ship takagen cared. These characters were about to disappear from the story either way, the average reader wouldn’t care about the surrounding details because these two were not the kind of characters that were given enough relevance. Or more, after a strong introduction, relevance and focus kept getting taken away from them.

Because relevance is the second factor why the reveals at the end were a bad way to progress the story. Since it got clear that some intended surprise was along its way (being shocking for the purpose of being shocking always looks forced), Takahashi and especially Gen were shoved further away into the background of happenings, given little to do. And that was a waste, frankly, taking into account how active both of them were allowed to behave shortly after their introductions. Remember them both supporting Sato with their sniping skills during the Grant Pharma attack? Sniping is a task complicated to do right but both of them were proving to be capable. Together and on their own: The moment Takahashi was taken out by enemy snipers, Gen was perfectly able to calmly overview and asset the situation, like this gathering together the information Tanaka needed to advance further and deal with those threats.

So, you have these two characters who have proven to be capable during stressful situations with a reliable mind and then the manga just… shoved them aside. Not just by lessening focus on them but by downright ignoring the ways they would have been able to contribute to their team. Cutting their teeth and claws further and further, first by putting more of a focus on their drug using habits (edgy. Now we know they’re bad guys for sure. Don’t get me started on addiction getting used as an indicator of morality) and then taking this further until they were reduced to not much more than moving props clowning around in the background. Compare that to Okuyama, whose early established technical skills kept getting efficiently used to advance the plot.

The curse got broken. After years of silence chapter 59 finally allowed Gen to speak again. Unfortunately barely anyone still remembered he existed or what he had brought to the plot so far.

Letting all this potential go to waste, for what? Because more of a focus would have threatened to reveal those wannabe twists? Something that turned out as boring as “one was human all along but the writing never told us that for no good reason”. It is hard to imagine after all the Sato squad was unaware about this important little detail: Not with their habit to regenerate themselves or their injured comrades via shooting themselves back to life during operations. With this they would have needed getting informed about Gen not being an ajin.

And the sudden sibling status about to get introduced resulting in “Gen’s dialogue needs to get reduced into nothing, otherwise it would become too obvious he and Takahashi being brothers was a last minute idea, with them going against local conventions by not calling each other “brother”, instead using their last names ever since.” Yeah, how did that work out? Now we have actual implied canonical incest because Takahashi and Gen being related changed nothing about the fact they were giving off the most obvious couple vibes this manga had to offer, making it look they were actively hiding being related. Where did it go wrong? Was “Gen is human” installed as a possible twist last minute late in the game, kept nebulous in case some better idea came up? (The hints were always vague guesswork at best, supposed to be able to go both ways, and unlike the anime the manga didn’t have the foresight to prepare it as believable by keeping Gen out of the most dangerous situations and reducing this drug consuming habit to a zero. So, am I supposed to look at it as a deliberate suicide mission on his part in manga context? Was his nihilism this deeply rooted here?) And what about the sibling retcon? Was “he joined this non-human extremist group for the sake of supporting his friend” sounding too gay an explanation, so in an attempt to erase that away they were retconned brothers? Would at least explain why those two look absolutely nothing alike despite supposed to be related.

Ironically this accidental incestuous implication was the only element working here in favour of story telling and character development. Disillusioned incestuous couple disappointed with life drifts into nihilism and thus resonates with Sato's ruthless modus operandi? Now that's the kind of variation and originality I like to see in fiction.

Interesting how Gen just shrugs his shoulders and goes back to routine once told the hostages already served their purpose. Zero sentimentalities to be seen. 

I’m glad the story at least let those two stay loyal to Sato until the end, keeping the last bit of relevance in place that differentiated them from their (former) teammates. Takahashi and Gen had bloodthirsty motivations long before they met Sato, so it makes sense those shared similarities kept deepening the bond of those three. It makes sense on a level of characterization and interpersonal relation as well: I’d go as far as to say that Sato was most likely one of the few (the first?) people who accepted them the way they were. Attentive as he was it is hard to imagine he would have missed any aspect of the nature of their relationship. Yet his demeanour towards them never changed, more, as time went on the three of them grew closer. Being met with this kind of acceptance, it is easy to see why Takahashi’s and Gen’s loyalty towards Sato would have strengthened over time as well. Add to this that those three had a pretty similar mind set and voila. A unit that could have had it all, hadn’t it been for the story’s need to play it safe and prepare circumstances so the “good” guys (anyone seriously believing the status quo of using captured ajin for experiments would have changed without outside pressure?) win because of reasons.

This manga has many strengths but the recent habit to insert plot threads that keep dangling and are leading to nowhere or constant retcons that backpedal on what was previous established are none of it. Seeing how the manga started losing its way shortly after the Forge Arc ended and how the plot is now stumbling around in an attempt to reach an ending has been a disappointment, exactly because the story already has proven so many times that it can be excellent under the right circumstances. Alas, hope gets snatched away last.

[nadziejastar]

Beside the fact that Lea and Isa’s character arc got totally trashed in KH3, It bothers me so bad about how Kairi has once again been treated dirty in the KH series. She would finally get her chance to step out of her earlier Damsel-in-distress role and protect her friends, yet she got shoved out of the spotlight by Roxas and Xion, kidnapped and killed to motivate Sora, just when we got to see her develop a bond with someone other (Lea) than just Sora.

I completely agree. This is why I really think Nomura kind of gave up on the Dark Seeker Saga by the end. Most of the characters were treated very poorly in KH3. Kairi got it especially bad, though. I think Kairi was the female Isa. Isa was Lea’s true best friend. But Roxas was more popular. He had more screentime and people were very nostalgic for him. So, Isa’s relationship with Lea and his character arc got the shaft and all the spotlight in KH3 went to Roxas.  

Same with Kairi. Xion was more popular. Like Roxas, she got a whole game to spend time with Axel. So, like Isa, Kairi’s relationship with Lea became chopped liver and her character arc got the shaft (the difference is, Kairi and Xion are the same person). I was really mad because I like Kairi and was excited to see her grow ever since the secret ending of KH3D. I was satisfied with Xion’s ending and never felt like she needed to come back.

There’s no way Nomura was unaware of all the complaints about Kairi being a damsel in distress. They didn’t have to make Kairi a Guardian of Light. The fact that Nomura chose to depict Kairi the way he did in KH3 shows that he just didn’t care about her anymore. I honestly think Nomura was very bitter because he felt so much pressure by the fandom to bring Xion back, and he just didn’t know what to do with Kairi anymore. Xion was given a poignant ending and her sacrifice was supposed to be for the greater good. Her existence would continue through Kairi and improve Kairi’s characterization in the future. That was her intended purpose.

Xion would be the building block of Lea’s friendship with Kairi, too. Like I said, they were meant to to be the same character at the end of the day. But the fans thought Xion “deserved” to be her own person. Well, Xion can never EVER be her own person. She is and always will be Sora’s memories of Kairi. You can’t turn someone like that into their own unique character. If Nomura wanted Xion to be her own unique person, he wouldn’t have made her whole identity “Sora’s memories of Kairi”.

Nomura clearly had no idea how to make Xion her own person without ruining Kairi. I really don’t hate Xion. But it just makes me sad to see what had to happen to Kairi to accommodate her being brought back. Separate from Kairi, Xion…isn’t a very good female main character, IMO. She doesn’t complement the main cast at all. She doesn’t offer anything unique, like Aqua does. She just steals everything away from Kairi (because she IS Kairi). There was no room for two Kairis.

Lea was defending Kairi in the final battle. Then, when Xion (and Roxas) came back, Lea didn’t pay any attention to her at all, despite the fact that she was his training partner for all that time. Kairi had no dialogue, she no longer got to fight, Lea no longer showed any concern for her safety. It was like Kairi entirely disappeared from the fight. All the focus was on Xion (and Roxas).

You can tell that Lea actually confided in Kairi about his life (which he never did with Roxas and Xion). Kairi knew Lea wanted to save his best friend after talking to him. She wrote that in her letter to Sora. I’m sure a big motivation for her was that she was close to Lea and she wanted to help him save his best friend. They were a team. Kairi had a good reason to fight Saix in the final battle. When Xion came back, she had none of Kairi’s motivation.

Xion hasn’t had a role in the plot since Days. She knew nothing about Xehanort’s plan to start another Keyblade War. She never knew about Lea’s past with Isa. She had no real reason to be there or to fight Saix other than her grudge against him from Days. What should have been a heroic fight to rescue Lea’s best friend was turned into a petty fanservice “revenge” fight to give Xion (and Roxas) some kind of purpose there.

Kairi was totally irrelevant in her own battle. The only time we’re reminded that she exists during that fight is when Xemnas says that she no longer matters since Xion (and Roxas) are back. Even her status as a Guardian of Light was taken from her. Bottom line: Xion does not coexist well with Kairi. Like Roxas and Ventus, Kairi and Xion are less than the sum of their parts.

The fans don’t like to acknowledge it, but Xion is not a unique character. Her entire identity was based on Kairi. When Days was made, Xion was the direction that they wanted to take Kairi in the future. In KH3, Kairi’s personality was much closer to Xion than it was to KH2 Kairi. She was supposed to be a sweet girl who was close friends with Lea, eats ice cream with him, etc. Like Xion, Kairi was like his little sister. Like Xion, Kairi can now fight. Everything people liked about Xion was supposed to carry over to Kairi, because Kairi was pretty flat.

So, what was the point of bringing Xion back? What does Xion offer as a character, that Kairi doesn’t? In order to prop Xion up, you must tear Kairi down and take away everything unique about her. Her appearance is no longer unique. Her personality is no longer unique. Her close sisterly relationship with Lea is no longer unique. 

Xion was not conceived with her own identity as a character. The only thing Kairi has that Xion doesn’t is her romantic relationship with Sora. That’s it. So sadly, Kairi was reduced to just being “Sora’s motivation” once again. It was the only part of her identity that Xion did’t steal. Xion was created to make Kairi a more well-rounded character. She’d allow Kairi to have a history with Lea so they wouldn’t be strangers for the final battle. But sadly, Xion wound up doing the opposite and ruined Kairi. All for cheap fanservice.

[leiascully]

Baseball Metaphors (8/?)

Part One  |  Part Two  |  Part Three |  Part Four |  Part Five |  Part 6 |  Part 7

PG-13, with a conversation that surprised me a little.  TW: discussion of infertility.

+ + + +

It takes Ethan and Jenny's painters a long time to finish up the trim, apparently, so long that Mulder begins to regret his proclamation that third base can't happen until after the fumes have faded.  But they all go to a movie together, which at least reduces the need to make conversation about how long it takes paint to dry.  He puts his arm around Scully's shoulders.  She slips her hand into his pocket and strokes his thigh through the fabric, her fingertips teasing his cock.

There was always a part of him that suspected Scully of being a treasure trove of pent-up sexuality, and he's a little irked that it took Ethan of all people to unlock it, even if Ethan (the whitest of white bread) isn't the one reaping the benefits.  He and Scully have had plenty of downtime in the midst of saving each other's lives for Mulder to have found the keys to her psyche on his own.  Hell, they spent a whole month alone together in quarantine after that Firewalker case mooning around in scrubs with a very limited underwear selection and never explored each other's volcanic underground, so to speak.  Meanwhile, one look at this polo-shirted jug of milk and Scully's ready to slip Mulder all the tongue he can handle.  Even a degree in psychology can't help him with this conundrum.  Are Scully's zealous caresses the product of misplaced lust for Ethan, or is she just really good at playing pretend?  Or have they arrived at an inevitable union by a roundabout route, as they usually do, and she's been just as interested as he has this whole time, and only needed the excuse?

The sentences in his mind get less and less coherent as Scully's fingertips continue to graze his cock at irregular intervals.  When the movie's over, he can't even remember the title, and he has to hold the popcorn bucket at crotch level.  Scully smirks.  

"It's so nice just to get out and do things," Jenny enthuses.  "I mean, it's like once you get pregnant, no one ever invites you anywhere.  It's like they think you're going to go into labor if you have any fun."  She laughs.  "You'll understand one day, Dana."

"I'm sure I will," Scully says smoothly.  Mulder puts one arm around her.  He's sure Ethan and Jenny didn't catch the momentary flicker of grief in her eyes, but he's so well-versed in Scully's microexpressions now that he's sure his own brows pinched together in sympathy.

She drove this time, but he isn't surprised when she parks outside his building and comes up with him.  She keeps to her side of the elevator, but she lounges against the wall as he's unlocking the door, and her arms slide around him as soon as they get inside.  He walks backward to the couch, hoping his basketball isn't in an inconvenient place on the floor, and pulls her down on top of him.  Her mouth is hot against his, but there's something desperate in her kisses.

"What's going on?" he murmurs as she kisses across his jaw.

"It's my turn to get to second base," she says against the underside of his chin.  She nips at his neck and he groans.  

"As much as I'm sure my pecs enthrall you, I don't think that's it," he says.  "Or you would have torn my shirt open in the office yesterday."

"How do you know I didn't want to?" she asks, propping herself up on one elbow.

"Scully," he says, and reaches out to still her.

"I'm fine," she says, half on top of him and half-wedged between his body and the back of the couch.

He says nothing, just looks at her until her eyes drop.  

"It just...hurts," she says slowly.  "Ever since my abduction, I've had this fear that I can't have children.  That whatever they did to me made me infertile.  It's something that's been difficult to confirm without invasive testing which I haven't had the time or the inclination to have done, but I don't think it's an irrational fear.  I can't remember what happened to me.  I have no proof.  It's just a feeling.  But every time Jenny says something about someday when I have children of my own...it hurts."

He pulls her back down against him and wraps his arms around her.  "I'm sorry," he mumbles into her hair.  "I wish I could help."

"Not in the obvious way, I assume," she says.  He can feel the heat of her breath through the fabric of his shirt.

"I don't know how much help that would be," he says, astonished that his brain can even form words when Scully's on top of him asking in her oblique way if he wants to have a baby with her.  "For a number of reasons, not least are the worries you shared with me the other week about the stresses of this job versus the pressures of starting a family."

She sighs, pushing herself up again.  "It was too much to ask of a work colleague anyway."

"That's not it," he says.  "I feel like it's my fault.  Your abduction.  Any difficulties that have followed."

"It wasn't your fault," she tells him.  "You couldn't have known that Duane Barry would fixate on me."

"It wasn't the most extreme possibility," he says.  "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you.  I'm sorry that a case you weren't even working has had such lasting consequences for you."

She lifts one shoulder in a shrug.  "I can't even verify my hunch," she says.  "That's the worst part.  Is it fear or intuition?  Do I trust my inner voice or my doctors?"

"I always trust your intuition," he says.  "Even when I've denied it before."

Her smile is wry.  "Good to know post facto."

"And if I can help in any way - in any way, Scully - just let me know."  His eyes search hers for proof that she hears and understands him.

"That particular activity isn't until the housewarming," she says.  "Now I understand your reticence."

"Exactly," he confirms, although it's true his mind is still reeling at the thought of fathering a child with Scully.  He would have expected many more negative thoughts.  Instead, in his mind's eye, he's seeing a nursery decorated in soft greens, a mobile of the planets hanging above a crib, Scully round and satisfied as she surveys the work he's done.

He's startled out of his reverie by Scully undoing the buttons of his shirt.  "Huh?" he says.

"I could use a distraction," she says.  "I think your pecs will suffice."

"My pecs appreciate your confidence in them," he says.  "Although I'm a little concerned that you're evaluating my potential as a mate solely on the basis of my pecs."

"Oh, Mulder," she sighs, "what makes you think I haven't been evaluating your potential since the day we met?"

"Touché," he says.  

"Besides," she adds, "your pecs are definitely in the pro column of any potential pros and cons list one might make before choosing to embark on even a sham relationship with you."

"Good to know," he says.  "I'll make sure to keep hitting the gym."

She nuzzles against his skin, the tip of her nose cool.  "I'll schedule a regular inspection."

She pulls open his shirt to reveal his chest and his abs, and her exploration of his torso is no less thorough than he'd expect of her.  Her lips brush across his skin until he's faintly pink all over.  She teases his nipples with the tip of her tongue and the bare edges of her teeth until he's groaning.  Her fingers drag back and forth across his skin as if she's creating a topographic map for her own personal reference.  He's definitely got some elevation at this point, straining against his trousers and her thigh.  He knows she can feel it by the way she shifts against him.  He groans when her hot mouth meets his skin, her teeth scraping as she sucks at his chest.  Scully's the type to leave a mark.  Somehow he didn't expect that.  Then again, bodies tell stories to her.  Maybe she wants to write one with his, a record of whatever it is they're doing together.

"You can conduct your own inspection," she says in a husky voice, surveying her work.  Mulder's sure he's got a livid mark, lipstick-dark against his throbbing skin.  He likes that she's possessive.  Somehow it makes him feel proud to be worth possessing.  His hands skim up under her silk shell and squeeze her breasts through her bra.  She moans, moving against him, and when it comes to bases, he's not sure she's not going to steal third, so to speak, moving past making out and fondling to frottage or more.  He tries hard not to press his hips up against hers, focusing on the feeling of her breasts in his hands, which helps and doesn't help.  She sits up suddenly and straddles his stomach, her skirt riding high up her thighs.  He can still reach her breasts, which is what he cares about at the moment.  She rakes her nails gently down his chest and he gasps.

"I had to sit up," she says in that voice that goes straight to his balls.  "Or we were going to go past second base."

"I get it," he says, and has to clear his throat.  "Shortstop would have gotten us."

"Have to save something for later," she says.  

"Scully, I'll be honest," he tells her, "I don't think we'll have any problems finding new things to do if this continues.  I think between us, we've got a hell of an imagination."

"And you've got a hell of a collection of inspiration, I'm sure," she says.  "But I am enjoying the anticipation."

"As am I," he assures her as he undoes her bra.  She groans as his bare skin touches hers.  

"God, your hands are warm," she says.

"It's frankly astonishing that I have any circulation at all," he admits, "given my current situation."

She raises an eyebrow.  "I'm sure you'll address it after I leave."

"Will you?" he asks boldly.  "Address your own situation, assuming you have one."

"I may take a bath," she says in a low voice.  "Said bath may or may not serve more than a hygienic purpose."

"So all those Friday nights you said you were going to stay in and take a bath," he goes on, flicking her nipples with his thumbs to make her gasp.  "Were you going home to touch yourself and think of me?"

"Some of them," she admits, looking down at him.  "How does that make you feel, Mulder?"

"Speechless," he whispers.

"Maybe I should go," she teases.  "Since it seems like your situation is fairly desperate."

"Fuck, Scully," he says.  "What am I supposed to do with this knowledge?"

"I'm sure you'll think of something," she says, and she bends down to kiss him.  Her tongue is in his mouth almost immediately and goddammit, he wanted to be inside her before, but the way she kisses takes that to the next level.  He's almost certain that one day her mouth is going to be around his cock and that knowledge is almost enough to send him over the edge at a moment when her lips aren't warm against his.  He can't help arching up under her, and a shock goes through his whole body when he feels the fabric of her panties slippery and wet against his skin.  They both moan.

"I should go," she says breathlessly, sitting up.  

"Yeah," he agrees as she drags her fingers down his chest one more time.  It isn't what he wants to say.  He doesn't think she really wants to leave.  But those are the parameters of this, whatever it is, and he'll hold to them.  She was already too precious to him to lose her again.  He definitely won't risk fucking up their relationship for sex, even though he suspects that if and when it happens, it will be mindblowing.  No one has ever mattered to him the way Scully does.  So yes, she should go.

"Thanks for helping me calm down," she says, climbing off him.  She reaches behind herself and rehooks her bra, resettling her breasts in the cups.  He can see the peaks of her nipples through her shirt.  "And thanks for listening."

"You can always talk to me," he says.  "I hope you know that."

"I do," she says, brushing her hair behind her ear and smoothing her skirt back down her thighs.  "But sometimes it's like we're too close to discuss things that matter this much."

"I know," he says.  He watches her put herself back together, running through her mental checklist to make sure she's fit to be seen outside the sanctum of his apartment.  She tidies the rumpling of his touch away, adjusts her clothes until no one would know that her skirt was rucked up to her hips and her tits were in his hands instead of lifted and separated by her bra.  As a final touch, she wipes her finger around her mouth to remove any lipstick that isn't already on his skin.  

"I'll see you Monday," she says.

He pushes himself up until he's half-sitting.  "Drive safe."

"I will," she says, and ducks down for one last lingering kiss.  The door closes softly behind her.  Mulder lingers on the couch for a long moment.  He doesn't know what the kiss means.  He doesn't know what any of their conversation tonight means for the long run of their relationship, whatever kind of relationship it is.  He does know that it won't matter how long he ruminates on it: nothing will be clear tonight except for the hickey Scully left on his chest.  He heaves himself off the couch and goes to take a long steamy shower, remembering the tug of Scully's lips against his, the insistence of her tongue, the slickness between her legs, the confident way she took control of him.  He strokes himself, imagining her touching herself and thinking of him, and comes so hard he sees stars.

The couch smells faintly of sex when he returns to it.  He rolls himself up in his blanket and tries to ignore it, because if he just thinks about Scully being wet for him all night, he won't sleep.  When he does drift off, he dreams that she's pregnant.  "Did we do this?" he asks, cupping his hands around her belly, but she just smiles.  He wakes up very suddenly and has a raging erection.  He grits his teeth and goes to find his bottle of lotion, determinedly not thinking of a pregnant Scully while he thrusts into his fist.  When he falls asleep again, he doesn't remember his dreams at all.

[papistark]

Okay. I’ve allowed a night to let everything sink in. I’m ready to talk about Endgame now.

*cinemasins voice* spoilers!! (duh..)

so the wounds are still fresh. v v v v v v v v v fresh. but my thoughts during the entire movie were just OMG IM TRYING TO REMEMBER EVERY SINGLE THING THAT IS HAPPENING SO I CAN REMEMBER IT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE BEFORE i inevitably go see this movie again

This is what the movie reduce me to like 99% of the time btw

now, I’m gonna try and break this up to be as organized as possible into 4 main sections which will be general thoughts, the highs, the lows, and closing thoughts. that may sound organized but I promise it won’t be and as always I’ll have to use bullet holes to even stay relatively "organized"

I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out that I either loved or would wanna discuss but tbh the ENTIRE FILM i was just like GOD I WANNA REMEMBER THIS FOREVER!! Every scene that happened i was like god there's still 3 hours of stuff that's going to happen but I want to remember it all!!!

Overall

this movie was good. and i’m mad it was so good and i found it so enjoyable for how dirty they did me. The pacing was pretty well done for a first viewing, but I'm sure after a couple rewatches I'll get caught up on the occasional misstep in the pacing and general direction the story took, but I really liked it!!

I thought the Thor stuff was kinda distasteful and honestly a joke that ran too long. Like ha ha okay we get it but also? He went through so much fucking trauma can we just lay off him? Damn? I don't wanna linger too much on it bc honestly the more I think about it the more I get upset the russos did him dirty

all the callbacks??? made me so emotional????? eleven years and almost two dozen films guys holy fucking shit it felt like such a good homage to bring stuff back

Yo literally when they went up to busted ass thanos i leaned over to my bf and whispered "are they just gonna kill thanos in the first ten minutes is that allowed" and uh YEP! WOW

Also the opening scene being Clint's family getting dusted... gasps in my theater y'all they went in hard on us

TIME HEIST!!!!!! FUCK marvel knows how to take you on a fun journey!! The concept was so fun!!

I also appreciate them mixing up the plot a bunch to keep us guessing!! Like fuck, when Thanos was finding out through Nebula... future nebula talking to past gamora i was SO SOFT... sisters...

Hulk was... weird. It felt a weird kind of fanservicey for a little bit, and honestly a little out of place? But. Eh. Wasn't the worst part. Certain parts of it were fun! I think I got used to it haha

Everyone looked. So good. After the time jump. Damn. Thank you make up department for everyone's new looks. I live for silver fox tony always.

I loved seeing Loki again i know it was so little content BUT I DONT CARE I'LL ALWAYS LOVE MY FUCKING PRINCE

We didn't get as much Nebula and Tony content as I was hoping but god it was so cute and tender in the beginning. Imagine all that bonding. Nebula finding tony on the floor, knowing he's on the brink of death, and propping him up in the seat :'(((( tony helping fix nebula :(((( the father daughter relationship we deserved and didn't get to see come to fruition.

AMERICA'S ASS. THANK YOU SCOTT LANG.

All the New York flash back was so fucking fun. The elevator scene. Brilliant. I really thought they were gonna recreate but it was such a fun tease. Also cap making fun of his past self for saying "i could do this all day" I SCREAM why do the Russo's get steve so well

Carol taking a direct punch in the face from Thanos without even flinching? We stan a goddess

ALSO SHORT HAIRED CAROL YESSSS I LIVED!!!!! YES!!!! (But also that movie could've used like way more Carol thats just mY OPINION)

Also AGAIN, I DON'T CARE THAT IT WAS FAN SERVICE, STEVE WEILDING MJOLNIR WAS E V E R Y T H I N G. They have TEASED US since that one middle avengers movie we don't talk about that he was worthy and!!! Our!! Son!! Is!! Fucking!!! Worthy. And the scene of thor making him swap w/ him "you get the little one" i screamed bitch

also I was living for how much Steve swore in this film lol literally fuck joss Whedon's characterization we don't know her!

Valkyrie on a Pegasus thank you THANK YOU i was living

That entire final action scene..... holy fucking shit y'all. It was just crazy enough without being too crazy. I loved the callback to the original long continuous shot

THE HEAVENS OPENED UP AND SANG WITH THAT A-FORCE SCENE. YES. ALL THE MARVEL LADIES LINING UP. THEY ARE HERE AND THEY ARE THE STRONGEST OF US ALL. A-FORCE. FUCKING A-FORCE. Thank you Russo's for my LIFE

Carol's little "hi peter parker :)" god i love them. I love peter. My fucking spider son. I missed him so much. I missed Tom Holland's sweet peach little face AH I CRIED WHEN HE SHOWED BACK UP

Also last kind of ~general~ thought i know i don't get time travel at all and it is an instant way to confuse me in any franchise but wouldn't steve doing what he did fuck literally everything up idk we'll get to steve in a bit

Highs

morgan

H.

fucking

stark

I CAN’T BELIEVE I GOT FED WITH SUCH GOOD TONY CONTENT THIS FILM ONLY FOR THEM TO STOMP ON MY HEART LMAOOO

DAD TONY BEING AS LOVING AND DOTING AND SWEET AND TENDER W/ HIS DAUGHTER AS WE ALL HAVE HEADCANONED HIM TO BE FOR YEARS!!!

TONY GETTING HIS JUSTIFICATION IN BEING MAD not just mad but PISSED at Cap for how everything fell out. catharsis. felt good scoob.

speaking of good tony content of course i need to just take a moment to YELL ABOUT STONY thank you russos for the fan service thank you for having tony ogle and comment on steve rogers’ ass it almost makes up for all the pain and suffering

btw do y’all think the H. for Morgan’s middle name stands for Harley because I LIKE TO THINK SO

also am i lowkey annoyed that like half of viewers won’t recognize an adult ty simpkin at tony’s funeral at the end even tho i know i shouldn't be because ot everyone is a die hard BUT half the articles im looking up for reviews and shit of that scene literally all the results are “SO WHO IS THAT KID AT THE END OF ENDGAME” YOU FUCKING FOOLS IT’S TONY’S FIRST BORN SON HARLEY KEENER FROM IRON MAN 3. FUCKS. im getting off topic anyway i was just happy they brought him back because I am an iron man 3 enthusiast and his relationship with tony was SO important and this confirms that at the very least tony kept in contact with him over all these years!!! and he wasn’t just some insignificant blip

Not to be stony on main but steve being the first person to hold Tony again once he was back on earth :)))) wrow.

Also the first thing tony telling him being "I lost the kid" WOW BREAK MY HEART MORE HUH!! WHY NOT!!

The first thing Peter doing when he saw Tony again :'') just rambling about everything that happened and tony just so happy to see him alive and hugging him so tight I'M NOT FINE!! NOTHING WILL EVER BE FINE AGAIN!!!

I appreciated the closure with Howard like?? A lot?? I'm the last person to be a Howard stark apologist, but I think his character and his relationship w/ Tony and how Tony viewed him as a father and as a man was so well crafted throughout the series??? Idk I liked that scene it was good to my baby.

And now a pOSSIBLY CONTROVERSIAL~~ opinion but..... I loved Steve's ending. I really did. I thought he got a beautiful and fitting ending and I was so happy. It meant so much especially to hear his reasonging being that in a way, he did it for Tony. He was inspired by what Tony told him. He saw Tony get his happy ending and for so many films now Steve has been searching for that and he missed an entire life. Tony helped him realize that. It just made me!! So emo!! Like Bucky's face when he knew Steve wasn't gonna be coming back. Steve's last convo w/ Sam. It was just amazing. I can't believe I'm seeing hot takes from people calling Steve selfish or blaming the fact that the Russos have a boner for Steggy or whatever. Who cares!!! Steve got his happy ending and it was well deserved and a wonderful arc!! Lay off him bc you ship him w/ Bucky or tony more damn!!!! (Idk about the timeline y'all dont come for me i really have no idea i think the Russos just said fuck it for that one even when talking about not fucking up the timeline)

Lows

Natasha deserved better. She did. I understand why they took her character arc the way that they did, and honestly, this is the first time I've felt we've seen Natasha have even a modicum of actual character traits since like, Iron man 2 and Avengers 1. She found purpose in keeping the family together and trying to help the people left living, while never stopping or losing contact with anyone else in their endeavors to fix what Thanos broke. As tired as I am of seeing a female character die for ~man pain~ this felt like so much more than that. In the end Nat wanted to sacrifice herself for the greater good, and that's what she did. I'm still fucking upset though, even though they've butchered her character across almost all the films she's been in

Thor being turned into an entire fucking joke. That's it. I got nothin left for the writers at this point.

So..... let's talk about Tony's death, shall we

"You can rest now" broke me. It truly did. I've never loved any fictional character across any medium as much as I have loved Tony Stark. But Pepper's line at the beginning "you'll sleep, but will you rest?" Is so fucking telling. I think I immediately knew for sure in that moment. Because she's right. And that's the worst part.

Peter :)))) finally :)))) calling :))))) tony :)))) by :)) his :)))) first :)) name :))) as he was dying :)))) asking him not to go the same way he told tony he didn't want to go when he was getting dusted GOD. AND WE THOUGHT THAT SCENE IN INFINITY WAR WAS ROUGH. HAD N O T H I N G ON THIS.

No offense but where was Rhodey when Tony was dying lmao ok

That funeral scene.... seeing everyone there drawn together..... god. It was beautiful. It really was.

Of course I'm not happy. I'm extremely fucking upset. I knew tony wielding the gauntlet would be coming, but I thought they would find a way for him to make it out alive. As soon as they were showing that even the hulk couldn't handle it with the gamma radiation, I knew the nail was going to be in the coffin.

All that aside... what I can say, is that if they HAD to kill him off, I think it was a proper send off. We saw so many arcs of Tony's come to a close, and I knew it was just a matter of time. Also that being said, I really don't believe in death being necessary to end a character's arc. Yeah yeah blah blah we get the sad and tragic but TRUE message that at the end of the day death is inevitable and that tony had to sacrifice himself for the greater good. He and Strange both knew it, and as soon as Strange held up that finger I knew that was it for him.

It wouldn't be so hard if they hadn't given us everything they did with tony after the 5 year jump. He healed. He was HAPPY. But pepper was right, and as long as Tony was alive... he would never truly /rest/. And that's the only way I'm able to make peace with this death. Tony has always been a character who was just going going going, never going to stop even if it killed him, all to protect the ones he loved, and protect the whole world and make it a better place. He had a beautiful story that was told so well over these past eleven years, with admitted shortcomings here and there. He had the most cohesive trilogy films, the best character development and arcs, and an incredible portrayal. I'm grateful for it, but that doesn't make it any easier that they decided to go and show us that Tony was able to FINALLY settle down with Pepper and see him find the best version of himself as a husband to her and a father to his little baby girl. A baby girl that now has to grow up without her dad, and pepper has to go on without her husband, the love of her life. It's fucking tragic and honestly, we didn't need that imho lmao

The hardest parts is that like.... idk. I feel like the only reason they killed him is for shock factor, but somehow without the shock? A lot of us felt or were worried that this was coming. I think the russos and co. We're just totally set on the idea that like... tony HAD to die and that was the only way for this arc to come to a close not just WITHIN the universe, but meta, outside of the MCU as well. They did the same thing with Hugh jackman as Logan and that shit HURTED me y'all. Eleven years we had RDJ give us this amazing character and he is the SOLE reason the MCU is where it is today. So you know what, the Russo's and everyone can circle jerk about how much ~poetic justice~ there is in this ending for Tony, but at the end of the day... it just ain't it fam.

Realistically I know after wielding the infinity stones there is no way Tony, a human, could've survived, even with his armor on. I knew that. And as biased as I am towards seeing Tony living, if he had wielded the stones and NOT died? It would've felt cheap. So again, if they had to end his life, I appreciate the way they did it and thought it was the best send off they could've given him. I also would've appreciated some kind of alternate option where oh i dont know carol or someone strong enough could've handled the snap and tony could live the rest of his days with his wife and daughter and found family but..... ig that's just me huh.

:(((( Happy asking Morgan what she wanted and her saying "cheeseburgers" SHE'S JUST LIKE HER DADDY I AM SO!!! UPSET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And last thought is that I fucking cried AGAIN because the biggest applause moment was during the credits when RDJ's name appeared. My theater gave a standing damn ovation. Also the very last sound after it faded to black... Tony hammering away, building the very first Iron Man suit.... that shit hurted.

If any of y'all read this and wanna yell about stuff w/ me I WELCOME YOU INTO MY DMS LMAO PLS MESSAGE ME I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO CRY WITH!!!

[trulycertain]

Alistair’s Parentage, and why I go a bit Tru Smash

OK, it’s time to talk about why I aggressively dislike the “Alistair’s bloodline” retcons and how they come up in the comics. *sigh* I do try to keep this a positivity blog, but I thought as character arc analysis it might be worth saying. I’ll just thank @aphreal42, @celeritassagittae, @withthebreezesblown, @nanahuatli, a few others. I know we’ve talked about this.

*coughs, shuffles papers* Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Sorry again about the... everything.

On Maric

I was frustrated to see the centering of Maric in the comics, and mention of the hunt for him in Inquisition. It’s something that happens even if you’ve kept Alistair a Warden. And this is my question: Why?

I mean, why should Alistair be hunting for the father who couldn’t be bothered to raise him, when it’s not going to save Ferelden or Thedas? Yes, there’s some vagueness about it, an unrealistic dream of “maybe Maric can go on the throne and be better at it than me,” but that just makes it look like he hasn’t been allowed to learn anything or adapt as king, that he’s still desperately running from it, that he’s still reduced to his bloodline rather than his own choices and personal growth. 

We’ve had this arc of him desperately trying to abdicate responsibility of any kind; we had it in Origins, when he was twenty and green. It’s been ten years. Often, smart, perceptive people like Alistair grow rather a lot in ten years, despite or even because of their own fears.

So we’re right back to the daddy issues. And back to the bloodline. Healing is not always a linear process, but it cannot, by definition, go backwards and plonk you right back to the progress you’d made ten years ago. That’s not healing, and it’s not an arc - it’s a circle. Narratively, it’s not a very interesting circle, either. 

The frustrating thing? BioWare’s story folk can do realistic, beautiful “healing is not linear and sometimes people have days where they look back and want to undo everything because oh god what if they got it wrong” arcs about parentage. See Dorian’s or Hawke’s. Both of those have some big issues (I will never, for instance, be comfortable with how much you can hide from Dorian, or how heavily you can push him towards reconciliation, and have issues with that being a player choice at all), but they’re far more emotionally genuine and allow for nuance. More on that later.

Why do Maric’s growth and arc, considering he’s basically been dead for nigh-on fifteen years by the time of the Silent Grove comics, have to come at the expense of Alistair’s?

And why do we assume Alistair needs dragon blood to be awesome, when he’s been awesome pretty much forever for reasons of his own choosing?

(And OK, this one just bugs me for petty reasons: why does Maric have a less-fun version of Alistair’s self-deprecating humour in the novels? (Though all right, quite fond of the bit about falling off horses; forgive the nested brackets.) There’s a clear “like father, like son” thing there, but they met... what? Twice? Three times? I’m just fascinated by a fantasy world where there exists an “awkward quips” gene, because I must have it in spades.)

On Fiona

Fiona herself is a mid-tier character I don't mind. She has some interesting aspects but we don't see enough of her for me to have a strong opinion. Even the novels are a bit half-baked and inconclusive on her arc.

Fiona as a character with difficult choices to make and ambiguous, pragmatic motivations? Yeah, OK. She’s not one of my favourite DA chars, because she barely appears and unlike Maric, we’re not given much after-the-fact canon, dialogue and extra codices on her (*sigh*, because Daddy Issues are always more important), but she works. Fiona as a Very Special Warden Who Got Blight-Cured and another aspect of Alistair’s "well, he can't just be normal" story? Goodness no. It does both characters a disservice.

The only aspect that interested me with Alistair’s king-as-father relationship was the class stuff and the terror of responsibility. Other than “a fascination with magic” (which I find way more interesting as something he developed himself, as a non-mage but one with basic empathy and a curious mind), Fiona's motherhood hasn't really contributed much to his arc. The deep loneliness was there already. Yes, he has one more person who let him down for at the time seemingly justified reasons. OK. We’ve heard that... a lot of times already.

So Fiona, who already had a serviceable story arc of her own, ends up with it partly centred around Alistair’s for... reasons? I guess? in order to prop up his story, but not to do it in any way that really affects it or offers closure and just makes a hash of hers?

Narratively, I simply don't get why he has to be her kid, or be a half-elf. My interest is in how utterly bloody ordinary he is, because that's what makes him special. Both the "my bloodline is ultraspecial because Maric" and "my bloodline is ultraspecial because Fiona" stories bored me equally. He for all intents and purposes still looks human, and his story already has a pretty big focus on oppression. There’s no reason to pile “have we also mentioned half-elf and abandoned by one more person” on top of it. It’s just... overseasoning.

On Alistair

For me, the entire appeal of Alistair’s arc was that he made himself. His pain and his abuse were a major part of his story, but he chose strength. He chose to centre himself around being a Warden, around helping people. Someone who went through that could have easily wanted to watch the world burn, but he didn’t. He is not his parents, or his blood. That's not why his story is interesting.

Growing up, Alistair’s most formative influence wasn’t his parents; it was the lack of them. Or of family in general. 

If you want to pick major figures in his life, I suppose Maric could be one of them. Fiona? No, he isn’t even allowed to know she exists.

The formative influences we’re given, ones he remembers and mentions and seem to have imparted lessons:

Duncan, the almost-father he idolises, and the first person to believe in him

The idea - rather than the reality - of his mother, a serving-maid whose death he blames himself for; he clings to the idea she would have loved him, hence the amulet

Eamon, who was the nearest thing he had to a father and left him, which clearly affected him, and who continues trying to use him, albeit maybe with some real concern in there

Isolde, who helped seal that he was a dangerous tool or leverage, not a person, and started the chain of events that led to the Chantry

Teagan, who was ultimately ineffectual but made him hope for more, and was one of the few sources of kindness in his life

The Chantry bullies, perhaps

Goldanna, who reinforced that “you’re nothing but an inconvenience” mentality and was his last hope of a loving family

The Wardens, who were the nearest thing he had to a family

The people he meets during the Blight, the Warden in particular but definitely Morrigan, Leliana, Zev and the dog, who all make him question different aspects of himself and broaden his horizons a little

There are a ton of stories to tell there, and certainly, the Warden and their relationship with him - good, bad, indifferent - gets the spotlight, as do Eamon and Teagan. Heck, even Cailan gets a look-in, and Duncan has his moment. So why, ten years later, are we back to the twin spectres of Maric and Fiona?

Look... making an abused, neglected kid still be defined and unable to get away from the parents that walked out of his life, and not letting him have his own story? I don't know, that... bugs me. To put it mildly. OK, I’m probably overstating it and drawing parallels where there shouldn’t be, but it does rather feel like that’s the case. This way, he's never allowed progress, growth or agency. And I just... can't. I can't enjoy a story like that, it's too bloody sad and cheap.

He was an neglected kid who was told, over and over, that he deserved the bare minimum. When you've had no love at all, even a half-hearted grain of it is enough. And that has defined his story so much, but there are other stories to tell with him; one of the reasons I like him is his complexity. I want it to stop defining his story. He shouldn’t have to be hunting that family spectre. It may be something that still hurts him, which would be realistic enough, but it’s not all he is, and it’s not what he is to Thedas.

We have so many stories out there where kids are defined by difficult parents. We have so many reconciliation storylines about the sins of families being forgiven, or accepted. (See also: Dorian’s story, depending on how you play it, and definitely Hawke and Leandra’s. I could write a whole meta post on those.) 

How about some counter-narratives? Maybe the world needs more “Sometimes family isn’t a matter of blood, and sometimes your parents didn’t do enough and it’s OK to walk away from the unanswered questions. You’re not broken or static, you still have stories to tell, and you can still grow” arcs. Because life isn’t a Hallmark card, blood doesn’t equal love, and, to quote Dorian on this one, “Sometimes love isn’t enough.” That could be a healthier, more realistic kind of fiction, but also a more interesting one.

...OK, now I’m getting off-track.

tl;dr: I am totally with Alistair that his bloodline is the least interesting thing about him. You go guy.

[jaymiestrecker]

"The Next American Revolution"

Some quotes from and comments on "The Next American Revolution" by Grace Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige. I had mixed reactions to this book and wanted to sort them out.

Main points

"Revolution, as Grace emphasizes, is not a onetime, D-day event that will happen when a critical mass of forces takes the correct action at the proper time. It is a protracted process tied to slower evolutionary changes that cannot be dismissed." — Scott Kurashige in the introduction

Examples of revolutionary activities by this definition:

"Creating new forms of community-based institutions (e.g. co-ops, small business, and community development corporations)" "to produce local goods for local needs"

Growing food in community gardens on abandoned lots

"Reinventing education to include children in community building"

A theme of the book was grassroots or bottom-up change, democratically organized with shared leadership rather than under the command of a charismatic leader.

Problems

"Our representative democracy, itself a product of the first American Revolution of 1776, trains us to focus on the results of elections. Most Americans equate democracy with voting, and they expect their elected officials to do their bidding once they put them into office. But as Grace asserts, that system, while it still has room for some admirable individuals, has been thoroughly corrupted by what the Zapatistas call the 'Empire of Money.'" — Scott Kurashige in the introduction

"Still, it becomes clearer every day that organizing or joining massive protests and demanding new policies fail to sufficiently address the crisis we face. They may demonstrate that we are on the right side politically, but they are not transformative enough. They do not change the cultural images or the symbols that play such a pivotal role in molding us into who we are."

"'When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people,' [Martin Luther King, Jr.] declared, 'the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.'"

I couldn't find the quote, but I think at some point the book characterized capitalism as a system that borrows from the future to pay for the present. In the afterword, a discussion between Boggs and Immanuel Wallerstein moderated by Scott Kurashige, Wallerstein described capitalism as a system that requires endless growth, which obviously can't go on forever. He and Boggs asked us to think about what comes after capitalism collapses. They were speaking in the middle of the recession of 2009 and saw the collapse as coming within a few decades. Now, in 2021, with the US stock market surging despite all the misfortunes of the pandemic, it seems to me that capitalism is not at all in its death throes. I've been waiting for years just for Twitter to collapse, when investors finally realize that they're throwing more and more money at a company that has never turned a profit, and even that hasn't happened. The only pyramid schemes I see possibly falling apart are the social safety net programs like Social Security that rest on the assumption of capitalism: of endless growth.

Solutions

"[Paulo] Freire argued that revolutionary work must transform the oppressed from passive victims to agents of history, seeking 'the pursuit of fuller humanity.' Thus, the emphasis is on people taking control of their own destiny—'self-determination' in the truest sense of the word. Transforming relations means that revolution is not about the 'have-nots' acquiring the material possessions of the 'haves.' It is about overcoming the 'dehumanization' that has been fostered by the commodification of everything under capitalism and building more democratic, just, and nourishing modes of relating to people."

"The revolution to be made in the United States will be the first revolution in history to require the masses to make material sacrifices rather than to acquire more material things. We must give up many of the things which this country has enjoyed at the expense of damning over one-third of the world into a state of underdevelopment, ignorance, disease, and early death…" — Jimmy Boggs

I agree that it would make the world better if the wealthier people in the world (including the US middle class) would reduce consumption, but how the heck do you convince them to do it? "A History of Future Cities" talked about India in post-colonial times turning inward (less trade with other countries) and turning socialist, but eventually people got tired of it for various reasons (bureaucracy, corruption, economic stagnation) and the pendulum swung to a recklessly unregulated capitalism. In an article in El País about the reunification of East and West Germany, an interviewee from socialist East Germany said that one of reasons they came to favor capitalism was that the people on their side were envious of the nice toys that the other side had.

"The problem is working out a strategy that combines a very short-run, immediate attempt to solve people's needs and a medium-run strategy of transforming the system. I think of the very short run as one of minimizing the pain." — Immanuel Wallerstein

It's unclear to me, and this book really didn't clear it up, how to tell the difference between reforms that are a step within evolutionary change and reforms that prop up a harmful system. Elsewhere in the book, Boggs even counterechoed Wallerstein's phrasing when criticizing "palliatives masked as 'reform'".

Changing one's mind

One theme I liked in this book was that people can and should change their minds, refine their thinking, over time. Boggs (who turned 96 the year the first edition of this book was published) talked about how her own thinking had changed over the years through reading, discussion, and trying to apply her ideas in practice. She talked about one writing of Karl Marx that people always quote, and how he was in his 20s when he wrote it, and how people tend to jump to conclusions a bit in their 20s when they would be more cautious later in their lives. She talked about how Martin Luther King Jr.'s thinking had become more radical in the last few years of his life. She quoted Mahatma Gandhi a lot from later in his life, but also mentioned how, as a young man living in London, he tried to assimilate into English culture by buying a silk hat and taking dance lessons.

Meaningful work

"Quoting the nineteenth-century political economist Henry George, King advocated 'work which improves the conditions of mankind'—the kind of 'work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought.' This kind of work 'is not done to secure a living,' King continued. 'It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by masters or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake and not that they may get more to eat or drink or wear or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased.'"

Relatedly, from a book I just started reading, "Good Economics for Hard Times":

"Economists have a tendency to adopt of notion of well-being that is often too narrow, some version of income or material consumption. And yet all of us need much more than that to have a fulfilling life: the respect of the community, the comforts of family and friends, dignity, lightness, pleasure. The focus on income alone is not just a convenient shortcut. It is a distorting lens that often has led the smartest economists down the wrong path, policy makers to the wrong decisions, and all too many of us to the wrong obsessions. It is what persuades so many of us that the whole world is waiting at the door to take our well-paying jobs. It is what has led to a single-minded focus on restoring the Western nations to some glorious past of fast economic growth. It is what makes us simultaneously deeply suspicious of those who don't have money and terrified to find ourselves in their shoes. It is also what makes the trade-off between the growth of the economy and the survival of the planet seem so stark." — Abhijit V. Bannerjee and Esther Duflo

That all sounds good to me. I would love to get to a point where the world's surplus is used to provide a basic income for everyone, and where the tedious jobs are all automated, so that everyone has the chance to do something purposeful with their life. That requires moving forward, but the thing I disliked most about "The Next American Revolution" is it seemed to want to move backward:

"The main reason why Western civilizations lack Spirituality, or an awareness of our interconnectedness with one another and the universe, according to Gandhi, is that it has given priority to economic and technological development over human and community development. Advanced technology has made it possible for people to perform miracles, but it has impoverished us spiritually because it has made us feel that outside forces determine who and what we are. Traditional societies lacked our material comforts and conveniences, but individuals had more Soul, or a belief in the individual's power to make moral choices, because these societies valued the community relationships that they depended on for survival."

"We're having to go back to when people shared things and started taking care of each other." — Will Allen

"During the struggle for independence, Gandhi recognized that the educational system… had been designed to supply the next generation of clerks to sign, stamp, and file the paperwork to run the British Empire. As a result, most elite Indian students found manual work 'irksome.' However, he retorted, the development of a true intellect necessitated the balanced and 'harmonious growth of body, mind and soul.'"

I would counter that with a quote from "The Jungle":

"Now set aside the modern system of pneumatic house-cleaning, and the economies of co-operative cooking; and consider one single item, the washing of dishes. Surely it is moderate to say that the dish-washing for a family of five takes half an hour a day; with ten hours as a day’s work, it takes, therefore, half a million able-bodied persons—mostly women—to do the dish-washing of the country. And note that this is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work; that it is a cause of anemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill-temper; of prostitution, suicide, and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children—for all of which things the community has naturally to pay." — Upton Sinclair

That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it does seem like a waste to make humans do boring chores that could be easily automated, when we only have, what, 80 or 90 years if we're lucky to try to figure out what we're supposed to do here and try to learn as much as we can and try to plant some ideas or good deeds or whatever that will live on for a while after we're gone. I don't think the question is whether we should try to preserve mind-numbing work for some reason (whether to keep people from losing their jobs or to provide some sort of moral benefit), but how much we can automate in an environmentally sustainable way, and how much we can automate without degrading the quality of the product or service, and how to provide income and education for people who will lose their jobs. How do we optimize for well-being rather than for profit?

Furthermore! What is this supposedly more virtuous, more spiritual past that Gandhi and Allen are talking about? Nostalgia for a past that never existed.

One reason I'm frustrated with this back-to-farming vision is that I feel like there's no place for me and the work that I find meaningful, i.e. software development. If I'm going to have something interesting to work on (as opposed to simple websites that don't need any programming, for example), then I really have to look beyond this town. The whole turning inward / providing local services thing doesn't work for me. I like globalization in that respect. I like how I'm building on pieces of software that are made by too many people to count in many different places, most of whom have never met.

I'm trying to imagine how Boggs would respond to this (she's dead now), if I could manage to explain it to her (disappointingly, she really didn't seem to understand science or technology at all). I suppose she would say that the farming in Detroit was just an example, not something everyone has to do. She did say at one point that she envisioned this revolution being brought about not by some vanguard of activists, but by people of many different jobs doing what they could with their skills in their realm.

The trouble with that is, I still can't figure out what I can do with the skills that I have that would actually be useful toward reform/revolution.

Soul, heart, love

Boggs talked a lot about "growing our souls". I found this frustrating on multiple levels.

I disagreed with how she placed the "soul" or "heart" in opposition to the mind. In the most egregious example, she talked about "… rejecting scientific rationalism (based on the Cartesian body-mind dichotomy), which recognizes as real only that which can be measured and therefore excludes the knowledge that comes from the heart or from relationships between people." First, I don't think that's an accurate depiction of what scientists today generally believe, or what a more modern philosophy of science would say. Second, science has shown that the body and mind are interrelated, which is why for example we treat anxiety and depression with a combination of drugs and cognitive behavioral therapy. Emotions aren't a separate system from analytical thinking.

I'm not sure how to differentiate between "growing my soul" as opposed to an individualistic and regressive approach of doing "charity" because it makes me feel like a good person.

Another recurring word was "love" (and King's "beloved community"). As an extreme introvert and an atheist, I felt kind of left out by all this talk of "souls" and "love". So I was relieved to come across this passage:

"Shea Howell, Oakland University rhetoric professor and former director of Detroit Summer, has helped hundred of students and community organizers appreciate what Jimmy meant: Love isn't just something you feel. It's something you do every day when you go out and pick up the papers and bottles scattered the night before on the corner, when you stop and talk to a neighbor, when you argue passionately for what you believe with whoever will listen, when you call a friend to see how they're doing, when you write a letter to the newspaper, when you give a speech and give 'em hell, when you never stop believing that we can all be more than we are. In other words, Love isn't about what we did yesterday; it's about what we do today and tomorrow and the day after."

Phew, some of those things seem doable. I'm still not sure what I personally can do that would actually be effective toward reform/revolution, but at least I don't feel like I should just give up.

[thebastardofgloucester]

Okay, so. Thoughts on the mess that was Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.

- I can see why a lot of people had a big problem with Poe’s arc – mostly that it started him from such an obnoxious place that wasn’t entirely in keeping with his portrayal in Before the Awakening or the comics (honestly I think his character in TFA is sufficiently thin that it wasn’t really out of the realm of possibility). There’s also the component of the Angry Latino Man racist trope with his aggression towards Holdo and Leia. Leia slapping him was unnecessary. Leia stunning him so he flew back into a wall(?!) was really unnecessary, and combined with brutalization of the other characters of color was a Problem.

- But nonetheless I loved where it ended up. I did love Poe learning the brutal lessons of command, putting him in a place to be Leia’s successor as the leader of the Resistance. He is a hotshot pilot. Going from that to general, with all the need for long-term thinking that requires, is not an easy leap. So while I understand where people who hate it are coming from, I think that Poe’s journey to becoming Leia’s heir to the role of leader is the most compelling part of the film.

- God Luke was a mess. His grumpy old man act was funny but it hurt so much to see Luke, the beating heart of the OT, reduced to a bitter version of Obi-Wan, minus the hope of believing in the future. TFA and TLJ utterly broke Luke in a way that was just…too much. And god, he would never draw a weapon on his fucking nephew, no matter how scared he was. He might aggressively confront Ben, trying to get him to give Snoke up, go after the source, but killing his nephew out of fear? What? W H A T ?

- that said, that was the most meaty material Mark Hamill has ever been given and he fucking killed it, so props to him.

- What was Rey even doing through most of this movie. All the clarity and dynamism of her character was just sucked away and outside of some moments on Ahch-To she was either a prop in Kyle Ben’s narrative or a walking deus ex machina. She technically becomes the Last Jedi and turns her back on Ron but like…we didn’t see any of that? Does she even want to be a Jedi?

- look…I have been on the Rey Skywalker train forever. I am not happy with her being from unremarkable origins (assuming Kyle is telling the truth, and given that he is a manipulative abusive asshole he may not be) in part because it actually feeds the unfair idea that she’s somehow unrealistic (whatever that means in a space wizards franchise) or a Mary Sue character. She shows a level of skill, instinct, and power that has previously only been manifested by…Anakin Skywalker. That needs an explanation. Either she’s a Skywalker, or a vessel or champion of the Light Side of the Force, or some other shit, but there does need to be a reason. Luke and Anakin have a reason – they are Skywalkers, one Space Jesus and the other the son of Space Jesus.

- I have no idea what motivated Rey for so much of the film. Her quasi-Bespin going to Kyle thing was a fucking mess and required a lot of idiot balling. Rey is smarter than that. Rey saw Kyle murder his father – she would not just trust him enough to go alone. Basically Rian either did not get Rey as JJ Abrams made her or he didn’t care. Either one is utter bullshit. Some cool action sequences mean nothing without the character dynamics to back them up.

- God, Finn…Rian took the problematic aspects of Finn’s comic relief role from TFA and just…ran with them. I didn’t object to him trying to run off to find Rey – he has no real attachment to the Resistance. But his whole mission is just…pointless. There’s no follow up on his being a Stormtrooper who overcame his programming. We get some interesting stuff with Rose about his being a legend when he’s not comfortable in that role, and I kind of liked the way his self-sacrificing behavior was called out by Rose so he knew that besides Rey people actually cared about him, but…there were so many missed opportunities, and so many unnecessary injuries and physical jokes.

- I love Rose. I do. I don’t know that there was really a place for her in this story. Her ‘eat the rich’ working class background was cool, she’s a huge sweetheart, Kelly Marie Tran gave a great performance. Her romance with Finn was a rushed mess. A crush I can believe, fine. Love after like two days max? No. They didn’t earn that. Honestly if you are going to introduce your first significant woc you have to find more to do with her. It was nice that (unlike Leia and Luke) she got a chance to grieve her losses

- Kyle Ben’s eventually becoming the irredeemable supreme leader actually works pretty well, but how it got there…on the other hand…Kyle shows his true colors when he turns on Snoke…in order to take his place in the finest traditions of the Sith. He’s the full-fledged villain for episode IX. As it should be.

- What the fuck was Snoke. Why did the film bring him and Rey and Kylo together in an awkward and forced series of developments and then just cut him in half. We have no idea where he came from, his relationship to the Empire, his goals, his plan with Kyle and Rey and Luke…it’s just an enormous blank and we’ll never get an answer because Rian got bored and just decided to off him. It’s not like I care about him as a character, obviously. His death hardly upset me other than the fact that it was pretty bad writing.

- why the everliving fuck did we have to have YODA show up, basically to give a non-chalannt mea culpa and say ‘actually the Jedi were kind of shit.’ Like ANAKIN? Why the fuck would you not use the person the Order failed the most. Also Yoda looked fucking terrible I have no idea why they used a puppet AND CGI.

- On the plus side, Leia did a truly spectacular Force Thing (though that was some cheap shit by Rian spacing her like that). Then she was unconscious. She never got to mourn Han at all. She passed the torch to Poe, but I can’t help but be disappointed when so much was promised. Also…no one came to her aid? I know that in Bloodline her parentage being revealed ruins her reputation and strips her of her influence…but no one? What the fuck?

- DJ was just a useless character. Maybe they’ll be a payoff in episode ix, but he serves no purpose but to set up an inconsequential betrayal, unless you count Phasma dying (also a cheapening of her character as laid out in her novel) as a tremendously important moment. All the damage was done by Holto’s sacrifice. Finn and Rose and BB-8 were pretty incidental.

- the Porgs were stupid space puffins and despite myself I’m kind of fond of the stupid things. The crystal foxes were much cooler, of course.

- R2D2 and C3PO were props in this film. Chewbacca too.

- Luke…weirdly his facing his fears and sacrificing himself was one of the best parts of the mostly-okay third act? I liked the new, less flashy but still impressive Force power of projection, and he got some chance to say goodbye to Leia at least, and he got to lay down the law to Kyle Ron. But…he died alone. That’s not fucking okay. That’s a betrayal of Luke, the heart of the original trilogy. It’s just…wrong. And it’s sad and heartbreaking but not really in a satisfying way. And he never really passes the torch to Rey – he sacrifices himself to fix his fuck-up with Kyle. He deserved more than that. All the Skywalkers did.

- the space battles were pretty great, the whole tracking thing and the slow race was very Battlestar-y, even if the mechanics of the plot were a bit questionable.

- I need to read Leia Princess of Alderaan to get the backstory on Holdo. Her character was interesting (though we could have used more backstory or elaboration on how she became so respected a military leader) and her relationship with Leia was tantalising but there just wasn’t enough. Her heroic sacrifice was fucking awesome though. If she had to go out she picked a good way to do it.

- Billie Lourd got a character and lines and that was pretty great.

- Okay, minor nitpick that actually REALLY BOTHERED ME. Among the casualties in the opening battle appeared to be Temmin ‘Snap’ Wexley, one of the protagonists of the Aftermath books, and the son of the delightful Norra Wexley. Like, first, Mister Bones would fucking swim through space and stab Kyle Ben with his vibroknives because he is Norra’s motherly love incarnate in a psychotic droid. And second, Norra deserved better. She’s probably dead now and that is bullshit in itself.

- Or it might have been another bearded guy, in which case like Jessica Pava his absence bothered me. Like…where did these people go?

- blowing up the bridge to kill Ackbar et al was just cheap bullshit honestly

- the war profiteering and moral ambiguity was not elaborated enough to justify its inclusion, honestly. I’m not averse to that sort of moral ambiguity but you have to earn it to stick it into a Star Wars film. They didn’t. And again, DJ was just useless.

So, yeah, to review – this is not a movie I was ever going to like. I got almost nothing I wanted out of it, it fucked over the Skywalkers royally in a way that left me feeling bitter and betrayed, it misused or wasted Finn and Rose, Rey’s character was inconsistent at best with little to no on-screen development. The opening was strong. The second act was an epic dumpster fire, particularly everything with Kyle and Rey and Snoke and everything that led there. The third more or less pulled the majority of story threads out and left them in an interesting place for JJ Abrams in episode ix to maybe do some interesting things, but the path it took to get there had…problems.

Rian doesn’t love Star Wars like I love Star Wars, and he really doesn’t like the Skywalkers. I guess that’s what some people wanted – for an end to the Skywalker-centric narrative. Personally I think that is utterly missing the point of literally everything about this series, but whatever, people will disagree.

The writing was overall clumsy to outright bad, with bursts of inspired storytelling but mostly buried under Kyle apologism.

Corvus fairly points out that The Empire Strikes Back is not nearly as good as movie as it is without the events of Return of the Jedi, so to an extent it’s hard to fairly judge the film when you don’t know where it is in the overarching story. But equally this film had so many opportunities to develop the characters and build the world and it just. Did not.

As for a rating, it depends when you ask me. I’d rate it somewhere between a 5 and 6/10. Maybe a 4 in some aspects. It’s not Attack of the Clones bad, but it’s worse than Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, A New Hope, ESB…I mean, I liked Rogue One more. Frankly Revenge of the Sith was more emotionally satisfying, especially in the context of the Clone Wars series. I’m never really sure where to rate The Phantom Menace. This might be better. I’m not entirely sure, and that’s pretty damning,

I’m just…so disappointed and frustrated and have basically decided to treat the new canon post RotJ as more of alternate universe than anything else. Which is kind of sad, honestly.

tldr; Anakin Skywalker Did Not Die For This Shit

[fightersagainstnarccistic]

Additional narcissistic abusers who assist Valkyrie

The cult of Valkyrie has its talons across the HEMA community. It is not unusual for narcissistic people to often find allies for their abuse in other narcissistic individuals who are willing to lie and abuse their power to assist the goals of the group. 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/201806/sharing-the-mirror-how-narcissists-attract-each-other

This doesn’t just apply to having intimate relations with one another though. It even involves forming groups of narcissistic people, which is called collective narcissism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_narcissism

It is our belief that there is a wider faction within the online HEMA community which is centered around and heavily influenced by the Valkyrie cult, and which Valkyrie has weaponized its influence on in order to gain support for their harassment against Duello. When Kaja makes her posts demanding that Duello be shunned by the rest of the community, it is this faction of the HEMA community she is speaking to. 

We have decided to expose several of the most influential members who are assisting Valkyrie in their defamation of Duello as the narcissistic abusers they truly are who are ruining HEMA by promoting and encouraging bully, harassment and shunning of others to serve the agenda of their faction of fellow narcissists. By exposing them we hope to reduce their ability to continue to influence and mislead others in the HEMA community, who follow their word as law and believe them to be people of great integrity when they actually are not. 

While we can only focus on the public postings these individuals have made in order to expose them (any information which is viewable by the public is not considered to be a violation of personal privacy laws) this should not mislead into believing this is all of the information that could be shown about them. There is more behind closed doors that goes on, and this is just what they are bold enough to say in the public view online. 

First let’s start with Jason Barrons, former President of the HEMA Alliance and who is still a member of its board. The HEMAA is the largest HEMA federation in the United States and which many clubs are members of. The HEMA Alliance wields enormous influence in the US community because many clubs depend on them for cheap insurance for club operations as well as for events. Going against this group requires forming your own business and getting your own insurance policy, which is generally more expensive than the group policy used by the HEMA Alliance.

Jason is also the founder and head instructor of the Denver Historical Fencing Academy. 

Jason has often mis-used his influence over the years in a variety of ways but for purposes of this article let’s focus on how he has assisted Valkyrie in their harassment of Duello.

Jason is a huge virtue signaler within the HEMA community and here is an example of some of the ridiculous ways that he decides to do so.

Here is Jason using a female child as a prop for his own virtue signaling, acting like it was some monumental event for a girl to decide to try out a free fencing class at a martial art studio; something that happens all the time 

More importantly Jason makes her deciding to try out a martial art class all about himself and he acts like he is some super important moral crusader because he put on a free trial class event for women at his martial art studio. Again this is something that is a common marketing tactic. But Jason re-frames it as if he is doing God’s work. 

There is A LOT of this stuff we could show about Jason that exposes him for a deeply narcissistic and rather emotionally disturbed person but chances are all we’re going to need to do is show you the following information about the situation with Valkyrie’s accusations against Duello and how he in his best wisdom decided to virtue signal about it while also spreading the false accusations across the American HEMA community. Looking at this objectively there is no way that he can be deemed but a manipulative liar, as he does not truly believe what he virtue signals about.

The reason we say Jason is a liar and does not truly believe any of this is because he dated one of his own students for several years, Heather Barker, and whom he is only recently married to.

Although this is common knowledge, for those outside of the HEMA community here is the evidence.

Heather Barker is listed as a member of the Denver Historical Fencing Academy. on HEMA Ratings, which tracks tournament results for the HEMA community.

Jason has been romantically involved with her since at least October 2018 and he started the Denver Historical Fencing Academy in 2017. 

Here is a picture of them at the club, uploaded to their club Facebook page from October 2019

She is not an instructor at the Denver club.....

...so she is consequently a student at the club.

And here is their marriage announcement in April 2020,

And here is Kaja Sadowski congratulating them.

It should be obvious to anyone looking at this that Kaja doesn’t actually give two shits about whether people date their students. She only cares when it suits her desire to sabotage someone’s career for her and the cult of Valkyrie’s financial gain. She does this behavior herself, she condones it in others and she is only accusing Duello of being morally wrong for having students at the club involved with one another romantically because it suits her desire to destroy Duello. 

But apparently in Kaja and Jason’s mind it is totally okay because his relationship with his student resulted in marriage, so now he gets to wave his finger at everybody else in order to promote Valkyrie’s accusations and efforts to destroy Duello.

But that isn’t how it really works. Jason is just an abusive narcissist and he has married another narcissist who can feed and encourage his worst qualities while he encourages her worst qualities. 

This is pretty much everything you need to know about Jason and Heather’s relationship,

You can summarize their entire relationship dynamic from these two screenshots.

First screenshot, Jason belittles himself to act like he was a lost puppy until Heather found him, which feeds into Heather’s narcissism of “saving” someone. 

Second screenshot, likewise Heather (while pulling her ‘victim card’ to dismiss someone else’s opinion who also is pulling a victim card to justify their opinions) talks about how Jason is a wonderful “care-taker” of her “needs” even though Jason is not a therapist, and this feeds into Jason’s need to feel self-important and gain virtue by “saving” people, too. 

In reality both Jason and Heather are very toxic narcissistic people who play into each other’s narcissism, and manipulate each other equally as part of the dynamics of their relationship. Just as they manipulate others in the HEMA community.

By the way, if you’ve ever applied to the HEMA Alliance you should be aware that Jason will cyber-stalk you for any wrongthink. If he finds anything he doesn’t like he will reject your application for membership in order to use you as a prop for him to virtue signal and earn more applause from the masses. 

Jason will also contact your employer and try to get you fired for it, too. And what he describes doing to this person in using their private correspondence to his nonprofit to then harass him we are pretty sure is a violation of the law, actually and can subject the HEMA Alliance to a lawsuit. Just throwing that out there.

He also committed a violation of the HEMA Alliance bylaws, too.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b01d82e4b0ee47a1e0a740/t/5b3af3722b6a28127005c6ff/1530590066790/HEMAA_Bylaws_2018.1.pdf

Let this be a lesson in why it is a bad idea to allow toxic narcissistic people to obtain positions of power over all the HEMA focused discussion forums and membership groups, which allows them to control the narratives when they push certain agendas and try to ruin people’s lives for their own self-interests. 

Update: Jason has made a public statement about the allegations we made, you can read it here as well as our response to it. https://fightersagainstnarccistic.tumblr.com/post/626474814452924416/jason-barrons-responds-to-our-comments-and-our

Jason is a member of several different Facebook groups that he participates in alongside other narcissistic people in the community, but the one we’re going to focus on right now is his participation in the Fighters Against Racism Forum on Facebook which is moderated by David Rawlings, owner of the London Longsword Academy.

The Fighters Against Racism group purports to be against racism. In actuality it is an extremely radical political activist group intended to utilize the HEMA community as a recruitment grounds for the “Antifa” movement.

The group frequently has members advocating for others to engage in highly illegal behavior and immoral conduct, such as vandalism and violence against others and this is all allowed by David Rawlings and encouraged by others in the cabal he is part of. Because they are all extremely narcissistic individuals they feel morally entitled to their advocacy for violence and destruction to serve their own virtue signaling needs and are rewarded by the group for this behavior by gaining greater influence within it.

And if you think David just isn’t paying much attention to the postings and moderating things, guess again. He is moderating with an iron fist against anything he doesn’t personally agree with.

So we can very confident that David approves of all of what is posted and commented on in this forum, especially since these posts and comments have been sitting here for weeks and months. All of the screenshots we’ve taken here, are brand new ones to stress this point home for people.

David Rawling approves of everything we are showing from this group. And it is likely the case so does everyone else who is liking and sharing the stuff as members of the group. 

Now we recognize all of these people believe the violence is okay because they are morally opposed against ‘racists’, ‘Nazis’ and other types of people. However it is morally wrong to wish for or inflict violence upon someone just for having different ideas than you, even if those ideas are evil. The only responsible and legal way to inflict violence on others is in self-defense, not just because you hate them.  And it is disingenuous to claim that you are against violence and abuse of others (as all of these people claim) but then turn around and wish and encourage violence against others. 

There should not be any HEMA groups advocating for violence against anybody. It should not be a vehicle for promoting political ideologies and recruiting people to extremist groups, and that is what is happening here with the group Jason Barrons and many others in the HEMA community are members and participants of.

We can prove this group advocates violence and other illegal behavior by showcasing just a few of the posts made by some of their more prominent members. 

Brennan Faucher, the founder of the Niagara School of Arms in Saint Catharines, Ontario, advocates for shooting KKK members. 

We assume he said the word ‘clap’ because he has previously had comments of his deleted by Facebook when he is less subtle about his violent statements. Clap is a common term used to shoot someone.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/clapback-meaning-origin

So here we have a founder of a HEMA school advocates for murdering people.

Yes, the KKK is a white supremacy group and nobody should tolerate racists in their communities. But that does not justify encouraging violence and death upon them, that is incredibly illegal because (you would not want to live in a society where people can murder you just for having a different opinion), and that kind of violence is not something a martial art instructor should be advocating for and encouraging people to do!

Here is a post where Aleksandar Ristic advocates for violence to cause social change and he makes several additional comments explaining why he believes violence is necessary to cause change in democratic countries.

His comments should leave no room for doubt that he is advocating for  violence and intimidation against others in order to cause social change. This is ironic because those are the tactics of a fascist trying to overthrow a democratic country, which is what he is advocating for here. 

Other comments made on this post,

According to James Jenkins, it is totally okay to vandalize government and police property and he only has a problem with looting family owned businesses. But as you can see by what he does advocate for that he has already been deeply affected and his moral values distorted due to the influence of this group he is a member of.

By the way Aleksandar Ristic is one of the most active posters in this group, nearly every week sharing posts advocating for violence and trying to recruit people into other radical violent groups. 

Here is a post advocating people to fire bomb police cars.

Which is a thing that people are actually doing, by the way,

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-molotov-cocktail-tossers-floyd-protests-20200531-vnvnnul2l5gq5hsusn5bhv4ud4-story.html

Richard Karn suggesting police officers should be shot,

Here is an example of justifying, promoting and encouragement of looting of private businesses,

And of course, discriminatory statements against people of specific ethnicity and sexual orientations,

The Fighters Against Racism Forum is also used as a recruitment ground to promote martial art studios and groups that teach people to participate in “antifa” riots and clashes with police,

These kinds of posts have seemingly had an effect on certain HEMA clubs, an example is Rogue Fencing ran by Tanya Smith, who is a member of the group.

http://roguefencing.com/

The footer says,  “Proudly against fascism and white supremacy. That means no cops. We’re a club and free to associate how we want. Go somewhere else or die mad. Liberation starts here.”

Which, by the way, is discrimination against police officers that we’re pretty sure is a violation of the HEMA Alliance bylaws and the laws regarding non-profits. But the HEMAA officers won’t enforce this because they agree with this. They are members of this group alongside Jason Barrons, as we will show.

https://www.hemaalliance.com/leadership/board-of-directors

https://www.hemaalliance.com/governing-council

This post is so long we’ll continue in the next article. 

In Conclusion 

https://fightersagainstnarccistic.tumblr.com/post/624699667915128832/in-conclusion

[the-desolated-quill]

Hell Bent - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

As I was going through Series 9, I’ve been getting messages from @kaidans-getting-bi, @prettycanarynoir and @thealmightytwittytwat telling me how much they were looking forward to my review of the series finale. Reading between the lines, I could detect an almost masochistic glee to their messages. Like I was being sent to tame a rabid rottweiler and they were assuring me it doesn’t bite whilst stifling sadistic giggles.

Oh yeah. Did I mention Hell Bent was shit? Because it is. It’s very shit. Not that that should come as much of a surprise. Has Moffat ever written a series finale that wasn’t shit? It’s the sheer amount of shit I’m staggered by. How can one man fuck up so much? This is beyond incompetence. I honestly can’t believe anyone could write something this bad by accident. Even Tommy Wiseau’s The Room had some entertainment value. This is just nauseating to say the very fucking least.

So we’re back on Gallifrey... Oh. No we’re not. We’re in America now. One minute in and already we’ve hit Moffat Cliche No. 1. Random change of location or time period for no reason other than to wrong-foot the audience. This is quickly followed by Moffat Cliche No. 2. The ‘clever’ reversal that ends up stripping the emotion and/or tension from previous stories completely. The Doctor arrives at an American diner, and guess who’s behind the counter.

FUCKING CALLED IT!

I knew Clara wasn’t dead, and frankly I’m astounded nobody else saw this coming considering how often Moffat pulls this fucking trick. Like I said before, i’d have been more surprised if Clara had stayed dead by the end.

So back to Gallifrey. I imagine this must have been quite exciting for New Who fans who had never seen the classic series. A proper in-depth look at the Doctor’s homeworld. And yeah, it’s nice to see the Cloisters and the Matrix again, as well as the power the Time Lords have over time, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. In fact, to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t understand what the point of any of this is. Gallifrey, the Hybrid, Ashildr, it all basically comes to nothing in the end. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.

So the Doctor is back and the Time Lords roll out the red carpet... in the form of Rassilon and a firing squad. Now let’s quickly remind ourselves of who the Time Lords are, shall we? Archaic, superstitious stick in the muds they may be, but they’re also insanely powerful, and Rassilon is the most powerful of them all. He’s the founder of Time Lord society. He’s so powerful that he has several artefacts and even an entire tournament named after him. So how in God’s name did the Doctor manage to walk all over them? Through no effort whatsoever, the Doctor manages to banish Rassilon and the entire High Council? Rassilon! Reduced to an impotent, powerless old man! How did the Doctor manage this? Because the script said so. That’s basically what it boils down to. I’m not saying Rassilon and the Time Lords don’t deserve it, but there’s simply no threat or tension here. The Doctor, the renegade, the outsider, just banishes them with little to no effort. Good old Moffat Cliche No 3. The main protagonist is the most important, specialist and bestest guy ever who is just awesome at everything, regardless of logic and sense.

Then it’s time to talk about this stupid Hybrid that’s been teased throughout this poxy series. The Doctor asks the General why they didn’t just ask him about the Hybrid in the first place. A very good question, and Moffat chooses not to answer it because that would reveal just how fucking pointless Heaven Sent really was. Also, brief side note, why did Rassilon try to kill the Doctor when they still need him to confess what the Hybrid is?

This whole Hybrid thing has got to be, hands down, the worst series arc in the whole of New Who. I’ve never seen a more poorly mishandled arc. So the Matrix told the Doctor about the Hybrid when he was a little boy. Not only are we back in Listen territory with Moffat stomping carelessly through dangerous waters and potentially revealing too much information about the Doctor’s origins, it also doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. If the Doctor has known about the Hybrid all this time, why is it only now that the Time Lords are worried about it? And how did they even find about it if the Matrix only told the Doctor? In fact why did the Matrix tell the Doctor at all?

So what is the Hybrid? It’s not half Time Lord/half Dalek (why did the Time Lords even assume that in the first place? Two warrior races? That could be fucking anything). Ashildr isn’t the Hybrid. Her only purpose it seems is to be a red herring. (So much for that narrative thread. She didn’t even get a proper conclusion or anything). The Doctor being half Time Lord/half human is very rapidly rejected (to which I breathed a sigh of relief so massive I may have caused a spike in the Earth’s carbon dioxide emissions). Turns out the Hybrid is... the Doctor and Clara?

Well it looks like we can add the word ‘hybrid’ to the ever-growing list of words that Moffat clearly doesn’t understand the definition of. Along with ‘psychopath’, ‘egomaniac’ and ‘diminishing returns.’ How are the Doctor and Clara like a hybrid? That’s just such an unnatural way to describe a relationship between two people. Moffat clearly thinks this is all clever-clever, but really it’s just painfully forced. Not to mention inconsequential. The Hybrid is destined to destroy the universe. The Doctor extracting Clara from her timeline could do that, but we never actually get to see the repercussions for this. Then the Doctor bizarrely suggests that erasing one of their memories would make everything okay, but how? If Clara’s mere existence puts time and space in danger, how does erasing her or his memory change that?

Oh but it gets so much worse.

Heaven Sent was trying to push the idea that the Doctor is utterly lost and ineffectual without Clara (an idea I utterly detest and protest to most strongly). Hell Bent takes it one step further, implying that the Doctor relies on Clara entirely in order to make moral choices. The most notable example is when, after the Doctor rescues Clara, he shoots the General in order to escape. Yes the General doesn’t die, because he/she/they are a Time Lord, but I was pretty appalled by how blasé the Doctor was about it. He tries to downplay it, saying dying is the equivalent of man flu for a Time Lord, but the fact is the Doctor has just taken a chunk of the General’s lifespan for literally no reason as far as I can see. This is scarcely trivial. Moffat is clearly trying to demonstrate how dangerous the Doctor is without Clara’s influence, but to do so he’s twisting the character into unnatural shapes and insulting the audience in the process. Can you imagine the Doctor going to such extreme lengths for any other companion? Fuck no!

Clara has already been established to be the most important companion ever thanks to the god awful Name Of The Doctor, saving the Doctor’s life throughout his long history (Moffat Cliche No 4. The sassy dominatrix who acts strong and independent, but really is only there to prop up the male hero). Now Moffat has taken another insulting step by implying that the Doctor needs Clara to be a decent, functioning person. How much more fucking arrogant can Moffat possibly get? It’s bad enough that throughout Peter Capaldi’s tenure, Twelve has been portrayed as completely ineffectual without his precious Mary Sue around to fucking babysit him, but this just takes the biscuit. How DARE you suggest to me that the Doctor needs Clara for his most important qualities. How DARE you suggest to me that the Doctor is a violent, unprincipled killer without Clara. How fucking disrespectful is that to this character’s legacy, to put your own special creation above and beyond him and say he gets all his defining characteristics from her in order for the showrunner to massage his own humungous fucking ego. Clara even gets her own fucking TARDIS at the end! So much for questioning whether her becoming like the Doctor is a bad thing or not (not that the series was ever really concerned about that. Like I said before, Clara’s arc was never really about Clara). As that American diner flew off into the sky, two words escaped my lips:

Good riddance.

Series 9 was... fucking atrocious. With the exception of Face The Raven, none of these episodes are remotely good. The Doctor is once again placed under a microscope to be scrutinised while plotting and characterisation fell to the wayside. The stories were often boring, nonsensical and convoluted, and the series ‘arcs’ (if you can even call them that) were poorly developed and had no satisfying payoff whatsoever. Hell Bent was just the final turd on top of the dumpster fire. A pointless, vacuous load of absolute arse written by a man too stupid and too self absorbed to write anything worthwhile or compelling, and clearly has absolutely no fucking respect for the franchise he’s writing for. I’ve been getting into a bad habit of describing each subsequent series finale as the worst series finale so far. The Name Of The Doctor was the worst until Death In Heaven took over. Death In Heaven was the worst until Hell Bent reared its ugly head. Now I’m too scared to declare that Hell Bent is the worst series finale so far in case I jinx the Series 10 finale. Can it get any worse than this?!