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shewhodoesnotexist · 5 years ago

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Okay, so The Rise of Skywalker. Saw it two weeks ago but it’s hard to do anything when you have so much free time ;) Two weeks ago I wrote the following: I’m a little dumbfounded… It felt like a string of fan theories put together, with a video game mode of running after stuff from one place to another xD they put in so much stuff but somehow not enough… Feeling? And I think this still sums up my impression the best. Nevertheless:

So we begin with some Sith artefacts none-one’s ever heard of… This is so reminiscent of some fan videos and theories I got into after TFA, many of them based on Legends/the old EU, things that never appeared in the movies. I’m fond of fan theories, but this just didn’t fit in at all here, and seemed so… artificial, video game-like: suddenly there’s a thing we need to find and then it’ll be fine! But first we need to find this thing and go somewhere else and do another thing and then we’ll reach the place!

Like… The Last Jedi was built around characters with personalities, their interactions and conflicts, and for all its faults that made it engaging. This felt completely flat. It was just going from place to place, maybe except for some of the Kylo & Rey scenes, there was barely any feeling in it.

Also, some scenes were so artificial and obvious set-ups, like the woman with the necklace demanding Rey’s full name – maybe she’s from a planet with different naming conventions, how do you know, lady? – just so she can say she’s nobody and then have the necklace taken by Kylo, and the woman at the end, so that Rey can say she’s Rey Skywalker, and Luke giving Rey two lightsabers so that she can give one to Ben (the scene itself was awesome, yes, but the set-up was painfully transparent). Devices, yes, but don’t be so blatant about it.

What was the point of that Threepio stunt? It’s introduced as a heartbreaking sacrifice, then it turns out nobody cares, then it’s played for laughs, and then it’s reversed. Really?

The Palpatine thing is such a clumsily done retcon, honestly. Yes, he was the ultimate Big Bad in the previous trilogies, so in that aspect it kind of makes sense, but in regards to Rey... They made themselves nobodies? Yeah, no, Kylo’s vision and words from TLJ don’t fit this, you can’t square that one. And so Rey’s arc from The Last Jedi is neatly undone and she matters because of her family and very nearly (see below) is defined by her ancestry. Honestly, whichever version you prefer, it would be better to stick to one. That’s not getting into the problems of selling your children.

And really… Rey suddenly and accidentally bursting out some Force lighting supposedly shows “who she really is”? When has the Force ever worked that way? And of course it only happens when it’s convenient. And suddenly “no-one knows me”. Great, now you can be emo together.

And why would Palpatine even want to have descendants? As a backup plan?

And that’s not getting into the fact that apparently Palpatine had a son, who was alive during OT, who somehow rebelled against him, and that’s a story potentially more interesting than this movie, which is ignored. Actually… all right, possibly Rey’s father was not Force-sensitive, which was why Palpatine wanted Rey specifically, but the wording (“to protect you”) makes it sound as if all that rebellion happened only after Rey was born and he realised Palpatine’s intentions towards her, which raises further questions. But enough on that.

It is also incidentally implied that Stormtroopers who defected are Force-sensitive, and that, too, is ignored. What Finn wanted to tell Rey could be that he loved her or that he was Force-sensitive, but, of course, it is never revealed. (Wait wait, apparently it was confirmed it was about the Force. He does talk about how he understands her several times, so that makes sense.)

Speaking of which, once again there is an effort to humanise the Stormtroopers… which is then once again ignored.

Also speaking of which, for someone raised to be mindless soldier, Finn has had quite a love life – like, approximately four possible love interests?

Remember when there was a sandworm in one of The Hobbit movies and people were joking that Legolas’ blue eyes were due to Spice? Now we can do that with SW, too!

Remember when I said I didn’t believe the Knights of Ren even existed? You probably don’t. But they might as well not. For all the mystery and speculation they turn out to be slightly more elite mooks and are killed in approximately their second scene. Even the Praetorian Guards were more impressive.

Hux being the spy is… silly. Wasn´t he super into the First Order? Now he´s undermining it just to spite Kylo. But it is rather funny.

I feel that having Leia start a Jedi training and then quit due to visions takes away from her character. What’s wrong with preferring a political/military career while being Force-sensitive? But no, she needs to have run through the woods with a lightsaber and bested Luke, of course.

Plus, Leia of all people attacking Kylo… This is upsetting. At least have her appear to him as she dies, too. I mean, like so much in this movie, the idea itself was interesting, but the execution undermined it.

I liked Rey healing Kylo’s wound, but it is true that the sudden introduction of Force healing (no matter its earlier introduction in The Mandalorian) raises some questions about why it’s never appeared before.

I am amazed at Adam Driver’s acting. The moment Ben comes back to the Light, you can see it in his face. It’s unbelievable how much he manages to convey. That man is a gift and I am happy it was not Eddie Redmayne, sorry

The ship in the desert, maybe, but you can’t tell me Luke’s X-Wing is readily functional after having been who-knows-how-many years underwater. That’s just ridiculous.

What was that football stadium. Who were these people. What was going on.

What was even Palpatine’s plan? Was it that because Rey was related to him, he could body surf into her and continue ruling, as some people are interpreting it? Or was it the old “strike me with your hate/anger and complete your turn to the dark side”, in which case it wasn’t even all that relevant that they were related, as he had another Force-sensitive family to prey upon already? And then it turns to “I can just suck power out of you two and it’s good enough”.

How was Ben able to get that planet unnoticed? That’s not to mention another falling-apart ship. Oh, but his entrance, with a blaster, and then passing the lightsabre between them, that was incredibly cool :D

A fleet of planet-killing ships, fine, we needed to up the stakes yet again, but they still have a single weak point… I guess there’s not point complaining about that.

We saw Ben smile :) It was so beautiful :) And they kissed :)

...aaand then of course he had to die *sigh*

I haven’t heard the word “dyad” in that context before, but I have read a bit about Force bonds, and aren’t you supposed to completely devastated after the other one dies, as if something is torn out of your soul? Even leaving that aside, wasn’t Rey rather fond of him? Show some grief, maybe? No?

We get to the end, and we are remembering that we are watching a movie called “The Rise of Skywalker”. All the Skywalkers and their descendants are dead. Solution: have Rey tell a conveniently placed rando she is a Skywalker and leave her to continue the Jedi and Skywalker legacy (the latter of which may not be so stellar, come to think of it). She is once again alone on a desert planet, but now she is different, and ready to set out and do… something. But on the other hand, she’s alone on a desert planet again, so she ended up where she had begun (still alone!)… and so did the story of the Skywalker bloodline, on the planet both Anakin and Luke disliked so much and Leia had nothing to do with. All that to have a repeat shot. I’m not all that impressed.

On the whole this movie gives the impression that the filmmakers were trying to play it safe and pander to the fans, mostly to the fans who disliked TLJ and those who craved nostalgia, and distance themselves from TLJ as much as possible, while cramming a lot of material into the movie at the expense of emotional depth. There’s no time to explore this significant moment, we need to rush elsewhere! Many of the concepts could have worked much better if the had been given more time and focus, but the end result is a mess. Not to mention the ST as a whole feels inconsistent. And yes, I’m upset that Ben died! But that’s part of playing it safe, I’m afraid.

I’m not going to go into the last-minute editing controversy.

I watched the SCB review and they said it was a combination of Harry Potter, Avengers and GoT finales – very accurate ;)

Eh.

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #tros spoilers #sw spoilers #of me #ignore as appropriate

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darkspellmaster · 6 years ago

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Sailor Senshi and Shitennou Romance Essay -Sailor Mars and Jadeite

(Again a warning. Due to the way Tumblr works on the phone, this post is long and if you’re reading on a phone there is no read more button. Sorry in advance.)

Whew boy, if ever there was a pairing that drew me into Sailor Moon way back when my sister was watching it as a kid, it was this one. I, to be honest, had a crush on Jadeite. He was a smooth type, and a villain that I really enjoyed, even with the weird filler stories. The thing is that, I liked Rei but didn’t like her at the same time back then. I thought she was too much like Usagi and felt that there wasn’t a lot to her in that sense. It’s hard to explain because looking back even I don’t really understand my like and dislike of her. The thing was that my sister then clued me into the manga and I started to look up the stories and as I got to know Rei more, I became more aware of the fact that I liked the idea of her and Jadeite. It just sort of clicked.

Rei as a character is a very soft spoken serious type of person. She’s beautiful, in the old fashioned Japanese beauty type that her creator seemed to be going for. Long black hair, soulful eyes, and yet her distant and coldness seemed weird for someone who was connected to fire.

At the same token you have Jadeite, who, until I read the manga, I had no idea what his actual powers were, and even then I was a bit confused by things…and then crystal came along and everything seemed to fall into place on why these two have a connection like they do.

If you look at their powers, much like Jupiter and Nephrite, it’s hard not to see the connections between them, especially in this case. Mars is the god of fire, and as such Rei’s fire ability you would think would be a clash with her outer personality of someone cool, calm and collected. Yet, during Crystal, and in the manga, we see a lot of that comes from the fact that she’s passionate and compelled to keep the princess safe. She has no time for the frivolities of life, as her own desires come second to that of the princess and keeping her protected at all costs. Because of this, fire would make the most sense for her as with Rei, who hides her emotions so as not to get hurt again due to her father and the man she cared for, that internal need to cleans and purify, destroy but also protect and keep warm, grows inside her like a flame that bursts out. We’ve seen Rei mad, and we know that her temper can tear someone apart, yet she keeps that locked down hard and tries her best to not let her own feelings get to her or let others know that they have.

On the flip side of the power though is Jadeite with his skills in creating golumns from the earth, and ice. You’d think, well ice is water, wouldn’t it melt by the heat. And there’s the thing, Rei is cold but compassionate. She keeps things locked in, but also can show others her feelings when she gets to know them. Jadeite, on the other hand, shows his emotions on his sleeve. He’s the first one we see smiling, and clearly the one that is the most fluid with his own feelings and the like. So why ice? Mostly because their opposites, fire and water, but with ice, it allows the flames to touch it before it melts away. Again, ice will melt in flames, but depending on the temperature of it, it takes longer. So I think the idea here is that while Jadeite can show his emotions better, that doesn’t mean that his darker feelings may be held close, thus the ice. And fire, when it heats clay, can create things. So by that, the two have a direct connection in that her power is what’s needed to complete his clay set up.

So what about their personalities…

As I said Rei is a kind person but also one that comes off as distant. A stoic and serious person who doesn’t involve herself with the opposite sex, Rei comes off as what is seen as the ideal Japanese beauty: reserved, beautiful, and intelligent, which fit her role at her Grandfather’s shrine as a miko perfectly. This more serious nature allowed her to have a strong bond with the silly but serious Venus/Minako as well as with Usagi. When Usagi first meets her she instantly recognizes her elegance and beauty, and it’s something that draws her to Rei. Only when she gets there does she see that Rei is dealing with a lot of mental anguish due to people harassing her as a weird girl, who they think has been causing children to disappear. It’s an interesting moment as we see that Rei is someone that truly cares about others but refuses to let her own emotions get the better of her. We see Later, when she’s confronting Jadeite that her emotions can come out in a firery blast, as when she transforms. And even before then we see her using her skills as a shrine maiden to at least slow him down some. It shows her determination and will is very strong and nothing is going to keep her from doing her duty.

At the same time Rei is, rather sad. She lost her mother, and her father is neglectful due to his job as a politician. It stands to reason that, unlike Makoto who uses her cheerful nature as a means of dealing with her own loss, Rei is more inclined to bury those feelings and focus on what she’s devoted to. She has her grandfather who keeps her happy, and her friends, but as the Casablanca story indicated, there’s more to her than what we know in regard to her view on love. Mars herself seemed to give up her own feelings to be devoted to the princess, something I think Serenity would have disliked immensely had she realized what was going on there.

For Rei, love is something that scares her it seems. Not that she doesn’t want to be in love, but rather that the love that she wants to feel is something that is true, and not twisted to be used on her, as with the man that her father set upon her. When Zosite confronted her, it was clear from the memory that her feelings for Jadeite of the past were there, and probably stronger than she realized, and yet, she still is determined to be there for the princess above all else. It’s also telling in her own visions that she saw Jadeite harming Usagi, something that didn’t happen in Crystal, but showing that both people are important to her, even if, at the time, she didn’t realize it.

Jadeite on the other hand… Is very different. Jadeite is a hard one to read given his past, what we were able to see about him, and what we’ve learned regarding Crystal and the images that it shows of him there in. Again Jadeite now is the twisted version of himself, but there are things we can gleen from it, as with Nephrite. There’s a lot to unwrap with him, and he’s again the odd one in my opinion given he’s the second youngest of the group.

One thing that stands out with Jadeite, in both his twisted and non-twisted form is the aspect of waiting. He plays the long game, and seems to let things build as if he’s trying to feel things out. Right from the get go you can tell that he’s a person that has a lot of perseverance and a willingness to seek some sort of balance or inner calm. You may not think that watching him on the show, but it does stand out and shows he’s probably closest to his old self more than the others. His instincts seem to be driving his choices in the show, and we see that when he brings the humans and puts them in piles. You’ll notice that he makes sure that the kids are laying or resting on adults or each other. No one is just thrown on the floor, they are actually laying in ways that could be seen as comfortable. This tells me that of all things Jadeite is the type of person that wants others to have some form of comfort in their lives, even when he’s being rotten. And that’s the thing about him that is odd.

Takauchi mentioned in her Material’s collection that he’s the ruthless and serious type, and yet she gave him the title of Patience and Harmony, two things that may not go at all with that idea. But there is something to that. The idea of someone being ruthless normally has negative connotations, since she’s listing this as part of his Dark Kingdom type, one could pull from that a lot about his character. That he comes off as merciless that he’s someone that doesn’t care and is cruel, and yet we see that that’s not the case. While with Rei he actually comes over and touches her face, he actively engages in trying to figure out why he’s attracted to her. Someone who is ruthless also doesn’t have to be cruel, rather it’s used for someone extremely determined. People tend to use the term when discussing someone who comes off as distant and serious, or very determined. This is part of the reason why I think that Jadeite’s personality, or at least his real self is a kinder person who comes off as slightly aloof, and yet also the most friendly of the group.

We know that he was cared for a lot by Zosite and Nephrite, given the fact that both go to large lengths to get even with the girls after his death in the manga. But that brings up the question of why, and the answer is because he’s the one that makes them feel loved in a lot of ways. What I mean is that unlike say Kunzite, Jadeite is more willing to deal with their quirky personalities. Nephrite being so compassionate and willing to deal with a lot of emotional issues, would probably go to Jadeite to talk to about his own issues. And Jadeite, being the knight that he is, would listen and try to find some way of helping him balance his emotions. On the other hand you have Zosite who doesn’t show a lot of his own emotions, and yet Jadeite could probably pull that out of him with some sort of joke that would throw him off guard. He’s the one that assure them that there’s a reason why they were knighted and that, even with their natures, they’re helping the people that are ruled under by Endymion and his family.

And I think that aspect of him plays out too with the girls in the show. Even when he’s using his monsters on Naru, he takes his time to consider what he’s doing. He doesn’t harm others he just traps them, and seems determined to play out certain things and wait on the girls to come to him, not the reverse. I think that’s one thing that keeps him connected to the others, he’s the voice of waiting and time. Where as Nephrite and Zosite would probably suggest charging in, he’s the diplomatic one that would tell the others to hang on and see what comes of the situation first before making a bad move. This is why I think that he and Mars got along. While they can both be serious, Mars could see that calm balance in him that she herself longed for, and for Jadeite that hidden fire was something that probably drew him like a moth to a flame so to speak.

Again this is hard for me because they are two of my favorites but it’s hard to explain why.

So connections between them….

So this one comes off as a bit harder than Nephrite and Jupiter’s connections. There’s a lot of connections but at the same time, you have the issue of Mars’s personality that can cause things to be difficult to see, as she doesn’t just wear her heart on her sleeve the same way Jupiter and Venus do. It’s clear that Takauchi wanted to explore more about them, given that she had Jadeite indicate that he knew her, yet she was never able to go beyond that moment. But one can see things, so let’s look at them. One thing that they have in common is the fact that both are the calmer advisors of the group. Mars’s role within the scouts seemed to be the one that was the most direct with the princess as well as the most protective. Given what we know of Jadeite’s passed self, based on the whole issue with the Shitennou, it’s not that hard to see a similar situation with him, where he has to go and deal with Endymion. This is something that I think they seem to share, or in the case of Jadeite post return, would share with the earth counter parts. Rei seemingly was the one that kept reminding Usagi to study and focus a lot of the time, and Jadeite, given his age, would most likely be the same for Mamoru due to him probably going to the same school.

Mars, much like Rei, is the ranged fighter of the group, given her choice of weapons and the stances in her past memories. We see this with Jadeite as well, given his attacks, like Mars’s are actually something that can affect people at a distance and, I will point this out, both ice and fire can burn and hurt as well as heal and cleanse. It’s an interesting dynamic. One can even point out that the freezing attack that he hits the girls with early on is similar in tone to her own early fire attack, yet the similarities don’t just end there as Jadeite also bears a resemblance to Rei’s own color scheme in the manga. There’s also the fact that in the manga he also has the red in his uniform, but this was changed to an opposing color, making him blue jadeite, which has more properties connected with his role. Yet the blue and the red are seen as the main colors connected to their elementals, and they are the only two that have this going in regard to the couples. I get the feeling that Jadeite can relate a lot to Mars’s view point on protecting the prince, given that he’s the one that feels the most likely to want to play a long game in waiting for him and acting like an angry mom when he got back from his little interlude with Serenity.

They both seem to share in the serious nature of responsibility. Mars chides the princess for being down there, and at the same time you can tell that she feels worried about how much the princess understands the problem she is making. It wouldn’t be too surprising if Jadeite saw that same issue but came at it from a different point of view. Whereas Mars seems to be upset and gives Serenity a discussion when she gets back, I have a feeling Jadeite, in all his willingness to wait and catch Endymion for not doing what he’s supposed to would probably have set up some sort of test (as I’m sure he probably was helping him with his lessons) that put the young prince on the spot and he would then be able to give him a lecture about being responsible.

It wouldn’t be hard to see Jadeite seeing the determination of Mars as something attractive and yet also seeing that under that more serious tone was someone who was just as kind and probably understanding as he was in so many ways. No doubt he would have allowed her to do as she would following her and trying to be as helpful as possible, waiting to see what she would do and trying to get a better understanding of her character. We can see with his head shot that he was the most willing to smile and feel at peace even when the girls were there, and given the headshots. It’s clear that Jadeite was someone that Mars would see as a comfort to have around, as his kinder personality probably made things a lot easier for her when they were around earth at the time. This is not to mention the fact that Mars and Jadeite share an easy way of blushing, as we see in the headshots, Jadeite is quick to embarrass and probably dosen’t take compliments well, the same can be said of Rei or Mars.

Mars more passionate side would probably pull that out of Jadeite, making her the more dominant of the pairing and putting him as someone that would support her. No doubt, he would also pull her softer side out, showing her why he was given the title harmony in his knighting. He would easily figure out Mars goal of protecting the princess and probably understand that the best of the others, as someone who would see why she would chose to do something like that. Meanwhile Mars probably could easily get to have Jadeite fluster or show different more passionate senses of emotion, be them rival and challenging, or straight up anger in some way or another. She would also probably pull the romantic side out of him and compliment him in creating the golems, including using her fire to make them stronger like rock. Showing that their connection goes deeper with that aspect as clay is stronger when it’s been fired, thus making it like rock, and thus probably indicating a strong foundation on which they probably had their relationship.

I get the feeling that the two were the more elegant of the three couples under the leader of Kunzite and Venus. Jadeite would have a lot of admiration for Mars being able to not want to light a fire under Serenity’s feet given how her personality was, and Mars feeling a lot of appreciation in the fact that Jadeite could not get angry or annoyed with the quirky personalities of his fellow knights. As I said before it’s not hard to see how these two would have their powers working in tandem. Jadeite using ice to freeze or hold someone in place while Mars either cleanses them or destroys something dangerous using her fire. And again, as above the whole idea of making his minions like rock, vs. just clay that could be destroyed faster. It would make them a strong pair on the battlefield, as well as the ones that could use their powers to delay others from leaving before some sort of agreement could be reached via talking.

As for Rei and Jadeite, there’s a lot more to go with there when (not if) the Shitennou come back.

(Image is not mine and I’m looking for the artist if anyone knows who drew this please let me know so that I can give them credit.)

How to even talk about this. These two are a match for each other, but aren’t as physically telling as say Nephrite and Makoto, or Minako and Kunzite. One of the biggest factors when Jadeite returns is gaining her trust back. While Rei now remembers the past, and knows that he was being brainwashed, that still doesn’t compensate for the fact that he did take children and cause her grief for it. On top of that Rei is, as noted, afraid of relationships with men due to the way her father treated her mother, and how Kaidou treated her. It would be a huge thing to overcome for the two of them as Rei’s feelings need to come first above all else and that’s something that I think the calculating Jadeite could get. He’d wait, and tell her that, choosing to plan every last detail on how he was going to get past her walls and into her heart, because that is what he does.

Jadeite’s title is the perfect match for Rei’s issues. He’s patience and willing to take his time with things, something that Rei needs given her own problems, and also someone who is balanced and can see the need of such a thing for their relationship to move forward. Jadeite could wait it out, coming over time to see her, making it slowly go up how often he comes and stays at the shrine. Keeping out of her way, and giving her enough space, and yet being there when she needed to talk or someone to listen to her, or to just sit in silence. No doubt he would find out what he could from her grandfather and work that factor into his plans. Probably going out of his way to either speak with Kaidou or her father and put it out there how much their actions had hurt her.

One thing for sure, I can see him being attracted to her more reserved beauty, and yet being someone that didn’t fall in love with her over that factor. He would make sure to be kind to her crows as well as to probably get a job at the Shrine helping out in some way to get to know her life better as he worked out how to get her to trust him and return his affections. He’d also give her small things, flowers and the like, to connect to her own spiritual nature and would probably stay with her as she did her devotions and prayers as a Miko.

Rei on the other hand would at first be wary of Jadeite. Not because of the fact that she disliked him, but because of the times that she got burned by her father and Kaidou. She would though see his intelligence and kindess as well as his earnestness to try to be there for her. Rei probably wouldn’t speak outright of her fears, but would try to get him to understand it in different ways, and Jadeite would be receptive to this. She’d probably help him to discover a deeper connection to his more spiritual side as he worked with her at the shrine, and something he would appreciate on not only a romantic level but a more friendly way as well. No doubt she’d also help him deal with his own fears and frustrations at being brainwashed and probably, to clear up his own issues in regard to Beryl possessing him, preform some sort of ritual to keep bad spirits away.

Unlike Minako and Kunzite, or Makoto and Nephrite, Rei is less a social person compared to Jadeite whom this is a natural thing. However I don’t think he’s as friendly as he projects, feeling more at ease with someone like Rei who isn’t wanting to go every where and do everything. It’s easy to see these two working hard to keep the others safe from the more spiritual entities that could harm the Princess and the Prince. I can easily see Jadeite looking up to Rei for her ability to focus on not only her role as a scout and a student but her job at the Shrine and her situation with her father and his political position. On the other side of things Rei would find Jadeite’s way of finding balance even in a more turbulent situation something that would be both endearing and safe to her. The two I think would have a close friendship built around the idea of spirituality and the desire to find a way to focus on what’s important to them and also those around them.

(Credit: Could someone please tell me where I can get a link for the original of this piece so I can credit the creator.)

Unlike with Nephrite and Makoto, the age difference wouldn’t be that big, as Rei would have to be about 16 to 17 at the point in the story when they would come back. Jadeite would have to be the same age as he was when he was first destroyed, meaning he’s 18, so when he comes back he’s closer to her age by a year. This would mean that you could potentially have a relationship forming for them earlier than Nephrite and Makoto. Jadeite would probably be in the same school as Mamaru went to a year before, so they probably would have some sort of relationship going there and no doubt Jadeite would be a solid student, so helping out Usagi and Minako would be something that he would do along with Rei.

These two I can’t see being physical in public, more so in private, but in quieter ways. Hand holding could be a thing, but more likely it would be finger holding over outright hand holding. And anything romantic would be kept on the down low between them, as Rei isn’t the sort to kiss and tell. While Jadeite would certainly be the sort to, at the very least, come up with more natural romantic moments for them to have over the course of time, given his long game plans.

So what does Rei see in Jadeite?

The very first thing that comes to mind is the fact that she would see his more strategic demeanor. Unlike the others Jadeite mostly is the sort to stay calm and I think that would be the thing that drew her to him. Rei would also see his gentle qualities as well, noting that he’s the sort of person that could easily work with her in regard to the shrine as well as with the other scouts. I could easily see Rei finding Jadeite a bit like herself. He keeps to himself mostly, and focuses on his present life rather than his past. I could also see her appricating his looks but in a way that is different. Given that Jadeite has blonde hair and blue eyes it would naturally stand out and probably make him a target for teasing, something Rei wouldn’t tolerate, and make it her mission to help him deal with that there.

Given that his memories would be back, Rei would also help Jadeite find a way to center himself emotionally from his recent actions. The fact that he would probably be the one that would want to make amends as soon as possible to his prince would show her a deep devotion that she could completely understand on a personal level. I can also see her spending time with him at the shrine as he learns more about his past, and probably helping him to come to grips with the fact that he died and came back again. Something that she would understand. No doubt Rei would still be wary of him due to her own issues and that’s something that she would try to understand as he worked on befriending her. I think she would also see his kindness and some of his insecurities, and be drawn to that aspect of him that she would want to help him grow from those and become a stronger person.

So what does Jadeite see in Rei?

Oddly, a soulmate. I know this sounds corny but I can see him being the first one to fall in love with her this time. Given his true personality, Jadeite would see in her that sadness and fear that she has, but also the fire and passion that under that. I think he would see her as a person he could trust and fully feel that she was someone that he could become devoted too and understand his own devotion and long game nature. One thing about Jadeite was that he was entranced by her beauty, and I think that that would be part of the thing that drew him to her in the first place. He sees in her someone who comes off as unattainable, but really isn’t. Someone that he could talk to about things that the others may not get as they seemed to be more action now than action later, which is something I think he would find similar in Rei.

On top of that I think Jadeite would see her wisdom and grace. He could tell that she was in pain, and would want to help her by finding a way to have her deal with what happened with her parents. Even if she couldn’t fully forgive her father, I could see him working on getting her to find a way to accept the faults that happened in the past and move on to be a more balanced person. I think that Jadeite would bring her warmth and hope, someone that she could really put her trust in and one that wouldn’t hurt her or betray her. Honestly, I can’t see these two fighting. Like, if they did, it would be more a discussion, and then silence for a long time, as they tried to work out how they felt over out and out fighting. On top of that I could see him seeing in her a power that he sees in himself, or at least feels is there. Raw energy from fire and water could make for some interesting moments between them, because water by nature is fluid and fire is also willing to go where the wind blows it.

So how would these two have met in the past and how would they meet in the present.

(Credit: Again if anyone can point me in the direction of the right artist, please do so I can credit.)

In the past I feel that Jadeite and Mars met in a very different way than the others. Where as Nephrite used his charm to win over Jupiter, and Zosite was more direct in his way of helping Mercury, I think Jadeite would have just tagged along with Mars. Given what Mars said, that they came down to follow her and find out what was going on. I could easily see this turning into something of interest for Jadeite.

The way I see it Mars was probably seeking out the Princess the most seriously, worried about her wellbeing and probably the one that was the most actively seeking her out around the castle. It wouldn’t be that much of a shock to see Jadeite doing the same for the Prince. He would know that Endymion probably was out and about hiding from whatever studies that he had to do, and more than likely got alerted to the fact that there was someone creeping among the garden. Given Jadeite’s personality he probably found her and was watching her for a good long while, trying to figure out who she was and what she was doing there. He would have allowed her to explore, but eventually confronted her and, I wouldn’t be surprised if he told her exactly who he was and basically put her under “arrest” for trespassing.

(Again please tell me who drew this so I can credit. Thank you)

However, Mars would have probably told him why she’d come and insisted on finding the princess, promising to leave after as she didn’t want to be there either. I can easily see the two agreeing to a truce of sorts, Jadeite sensing that she was telling the truth and smiling all the while trying to be as much of a gentleman as he could be. By the time they found the two, I think they would have at least made a slight friendship and agreed to meet again, as a way of keeping the Princess and Prince happy. Since the girls clearly returned more than once, I have a feeling that Jadeite probably fell in love with her early on, but Mars may have taken more time to get to know him. All the while he showed her the world of music and probably the way that humans lived on earth and let her see the balance in the way life was there.

My guess is that, given Jadeite’s appearance at the tree, he was probably the one to greet her frequently with a calm smile, and trying to not seem overly enthusiastic that she’d come back, but he couldn’t help but grin at the thought of her being around him. Mars for her part, tried to cover her feelings but they would come out in surprising ways that would embarrass him, either in the forms of questions about the world or himself, as I get the feeling that she would have been the least likely to know about love and all that. Or at least pretend to for the sake of getting under his skin, thus making him blush. Honestly it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the two of them were the most easily embarrassed of the group in regard to their own thoughts on love or the subject of it.

Given the fact that Jadeite had the reaction of touching her while she slept, I have the feeling that this was something that happened a lot, where he would just gaze at her while she was resting and possibly touching her face and the like because of how lovely she was. I also get the feeling that they, like Mercury and Zosite, when the issues came up with Beryl I have no doubt they suffered in silence rather than make things harder for the others and focused their pent up emotions on their foes, making them far more devastating when attacking. Given the slowness of their romance I would assume that Mars and Jadeite would have been the last to actually wed, and it would more than likely be something simple over something dramatic, like Nephrite and Jupiter.

As for the present,

(Credit to UTSUKI)

I have a feeling that when Rei and Jadeite meet it will certainly be through Usagi over Mamoru in this case. Jadeite’s looks would garner enough of a reputation to have Usagi notice him, and more than likely he probably would be at the school that Mamoru used to go to meaning that she would know exactly how to meet with him in person through Mamoru’s underclassmen. Rei and Jadeite would have a long time starting off as friends, because of his look to Kaidou and the past, though Jadeite would be struck with her beauty once more and certainly compliment her on that, but really fall for her over her integrity and her devotion to her grandfather and her own determined will. Jadeite is the least flirty along with Zosite so I don’t see him being too much of a flirt with her, but possibly teasing the fact that she certainly stands out as the traditional beauty compared to her friends.

One thing for sure he would make it a mission of his to help her deal with her fear of men, no matter how long it took. He would at least want her to know that it’s okay to become close to a guy, even as a close friendship and not everyone is going to be like her father. Jadeite, being the younger man that he is would more than likely be a student, though given his personality, I have this weird thought that he probably got stuck being a stage idol for a while or a model given his looks. (Again, natural blonde and blue eyes are not common in Japan and he would certainly get a lot of attention due to it.) It’s really hard to not see him somehow being the first to get associated with the girls due to his age, and personality being far more social than Zosite. Eventually I could see him working at the Shrine to both be closer to Rei, but also because it feels like the sort of place he would be the most at peace as someone who is involved in balance and harmony and patience.

(Credit: Please tell me who drew this and I’ll be more than happy to credit)

As with Nephrite and Makoto, I can’t see these two being rivals, but rather allies in various things. Jadeite would certainly make sure to be part of Rei’s life, and I wouldn’t put it past him to give a long lecture or “punish” Kaidou for what he did to her in the past. More than likely he probably would want to talk to her father and make him know how his actions have affected Rei, and even if they can’t get along, he should learn to understand her feelings and why she is angry at him. I think if anything Jadeite’s more balanced nature would bring some of the softer side of Rei out around him, and give him something that others can’t see with her.

Jadeite certainly would be jealous of other guys around her, but I have a feeling that Rei may feel some of that too when girls come after him in her own way. These two probably would be the second least direct in public about their relationship, however I do think that these two are the most complex about their relationship in private, and most of the feelings are shown through actions over words and grand gestures. Best example I can think of is Jadeite going out of his way to get special birdseed for her two crows, and Rei making some sort of spirit charm for Jadeite, who probably had the most in regard to nightmares being probably the first to wake up. I think most of their feelings would come out of their own passions and determinations for one another, as well as their desire to protect their team and their masters. I also feel that they could heal each other in a way that only they could fully understand.

As for their future?

(Credit: Can someone give me the artist so I can credit) It would be a long, long, road for them. I have a feeling they would probably be the last to marry, but it would be the one that most of their group would be rooting for the hardest, because of their personal issues.

As for jobs…Rei and Jadeite would work at the Shrine and take it over after her grandfather passed on. No doubt that Jadeite would work hard at becoming someone to help her run the shrine, possibly a monk (though I can’t see him cutting his hair) and if not that, then someone who runs the business end of it to make sure everything is going well.

Rei and Jadeite would have one another’s backs, I think. More than anything they would do a lot of things together, yet still give each other the space the other needs. If anything I think their own spritital balance and desire to do what’s best for others would be the drive to help each other out with their own fears and desires. No doubt that it would be a long courting but well worth it.

(Credit: Again can someone give me the artist’s name)

Romantically, easily the longest for courting….hands down. Rei would take a while to even get used to the idea of Jadeite wanting to become a couple with her. However I do think that while he makes the first move at first, and is rejected early on, it’s her who makes the final one to solidify the deal later on, and I can see, as I said, a lot of silent courting between them. I can see Jadeite over time whittling down her fears and doubts about him by his actions, showing that he keeps his word and promises, and the fact that he’s way to patience for a normal person.

At the same time I can see Rei managing to get Jadeite to deal with his own issues in regard to feeling less than the other knights and probably seeing the honorable and passionate young man he is under the calm exterior. She would more than likely want to spend time with him alone in the garden of the shrine where the two could rest under the trees and just enjoy their time together. Jadeite would be more than willing to give her little trinkets that he got based on her likes and probably doing things for her, like cleaning the floor of the shrine as a way of showing his feelings. In turn Rei would give him charms that she made, and probably go see his concerts, if I’m right on the idea of him being a singer (something that would connect with the harmony aspect). Not to mention the two would more than likely walk together and just be at peace with one another. I can see Rei’s grandfather constantly asking when they’re getting married, embarrassing the hell out of them. patience

As I said, favorite couple, hardest to write for. Next up Minako and Kunzite.

#bishoujo senshi sailor moon #sailor moon #sailor moon crystal #senshi x shitennou #shitennou x senshi #sailor senshi #shitennou #rei hino #jadeite #knight of patience and harmony #sailor mars #rei x jadeite #jadeite x rei #mars x jadeite

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awesome-moon-stone · 5 years ago

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@stelledue

The leakers for TROS had an agenda and are tied to Disney directly. My source confessed that they have an agenda as well in that they struggle with ignoring what’s been happening to someone who they think doesn’t deserve it.

JJ always treated everyone on and offset with respect so my source’s agenda is that what Disney has done to JJ and how much they screwed him over should be something people are at least aware of, whether you like him as a filmmaker or not.

Disney was one of the studios who were in that Bad Robot bidding war last year. Disney never had much interest in BR as a company but they did in JJ because they saw WB (who JJ went with in the end) as a major threat.

JJ is very successful at bringing franchises back like Mission Impossible, Star Trek and Star Wars. WB is struggling with DC and aside from Wonder Woman, DC is still seen as a bit of a joke in its current state by the GA.

WB wants Abrams for some DC projects. My source said that this generation’s Star Wars is the MCU, and Marvel’s biggest threat is a well operational DC. They want to keep DC in the limbo that they’re in right now. Abrams jumpstarting that franchise with something like a successful, audience-pleasing Superman movie makes them nervous. Their goal is to make JJ look bad to potential investors/shareholders.

My source mentioned this shortly after the premiere: “The TROS we saw last night was not the TROS we thought we worked on”.

JJ was devastated and blindsided by this. He’s been feeling down over the last 6 months because of some of the ridiculous demands Disney had that changed his movie’s story. While the scenes were shot, a lot of the changes were made in post-production and the audio was rerecorded and altered. My source said they’ve never seen anything like this happen before. He’s the director and he wasn’t in the know about what they were doing behind his back.

Apparently, JJ felt threatened over the month leading up to the premiere.

Rian was never meant to do IX despite some rumors that he was.

JJ was brought back by Iger, not KK. Disney insisted on more fan service, less controversy.

JJs original agreement when he signed on was indicating he would have way more creative control than he did on TFA. It became evident this wasn’t the case only a couple of weeks into shooting when the trouble with meddling started.

JJ wanted to do some scenes he thought were important but Disney shut it down citing budgetary reasons.

May 2019: JJ argued that those scenes were crucial. He had to let go of one of the scenes. The other scene he insisted on was approved at first. He did reshoots and additional photography in July. The new scene was shot at BR in October.

The “ending that will blow your mind” was a part of this. Older actors were included like Hayden, Ewan and Samuel and anyone who wasn’t animated. The force ghosts weren’t meant to be voices because they shot that footage on camera. The actors were in costumes. Rey was supposed to be surrounded by the force ghosts to serve as sort of a barrier between her and the Sith surrounding them.

My source thinks but can’t 100% confirm that this is because of China. It’s an office talk of sorts. Some VFX people claimed they got a list of approved shades of blue they could use on the Luke force ghosts. Cutting this out was when the bad blood turned into a nightmare for JJ because the movie he was making was suddenly unrecognizable to him in almost every way.

My source knows JJ well enough to know that he’s just not the yelling type but apparently in a meeting he yelled something along the lines of “Why don’t you just put ‘directed and written by Lucasfilm’ then?” My source wasn’t present for that exchange but knows some who were.

Disney demanded they shoot some scenes that would have things in it for merchandise. “They fly now” is one of them. It’s also JJ’s least favorite scene. At a November screening of a 2:37 cut, he cringed, groaned and laughed when the scene was on.

My source says that JJ was most likely not joking when he said “you’re right” in the interview where they asked him about TROS criticism.

JJ’s original early November cut was 3 hours 2 minutes long.

In January, JJ suggested that they turn this into two films. My source told me this well before Terrio mentioned it in an interview a couple of days ago. When Disney said no, JJ was content with making this 3 hours long.

Over a period of 9 months JJ started realizing that one by one his ideas and whole scenes were being thrown out the window or entirely altered by people who have “no business meddling with the creatives”.

They were not on the same page when it came to creative decisions and it became obvious that Disney had an agenda in addition to wanting to please shareholders. Disney could “afford messing up IX for the sake of the bigger picture” when it came to protecting things unrelated to IX.

The cut JJ eventually and hesitantly agreed to in early December was 2:37 minutes long. It wasn’t the cut we saw which he wouldn’t have approved of (and which is 2:22 long). Apart from the force ghosts, there were other crucial and emotional scenes missing. The cut they released looked “chopped and taped back together with weak scotch tape” (JJ's words).

The movie opened with Rey’s training. Her first scene with Rose was shortly after Rey damaged BB-8 during the training. Rose made a silly joke about how Poe is going to kill her for damaging BB-8. There was a moment where Rey took a minute to process what just happened when she saw that vision during training. She looked distressed and worried. The next scene was noise as the Falcon was landing and Rey runs over there. Those two women who kissed at the end were visible in this shot and they were holding hands. One of them ran towards the Falcon as it landed.

Kylo on Mustafar scene was 2 mins longer. There was a moment where Kylo seemed a bit dizzy and his vision was shown as blurry for a second. Almost as if time half-stopped while everyone in the background was slow-mo fighting. Kylo hears Vader's breathing, then shakes his head and time goes back to moving at a normal pace and he jumps right back into the battle (the scene from the trailer where he knocks that guy down which did end up in the movie later).

They cut some of the scenes from the lightspeed skipping segment. Some of the planets that were cut were Kashyyyk, Naboo, and Kamino.

The scene where the tie fighters are chasing them through the iceberg - those corridors were inspired by a video game JJ used to play in the 90s called Rebel Assault 2 (the third level in the game with the tunnels on Endor specifically).

Jannah was confirmed to be Lando’s daughter.

Rey not only healed Kylo's face scar but she killed Kylo when she healed Ben. Kylo ceased to exist when Rey healed him. My source mentioned that some people assume it was Han Solo who healed him but that isn’t true and that wasn't Han Solo. That was Leia using her own memories as well as Ben's to create a physical manifestation of his own thoughts to nudge him towards what he needed to do. That was her own way of communicating that with him. And it wasn't possible without her dying in the process. She made the ultimate sacrifice for her son and this flew over people's heads with the Disney cut.

The late November cut (the last cut JJ approved of) had scenes with Rose and Rey still. JJ wanted to give her a more meaningful arc. Disney felt that that was too risky too. My source mentioned that Chris Terrio said that it was because of the Leia scenes but this is only partially true because she had four other scenes including two with Rey/Daisy that Leia was not in.

Finn wanting to tell Rey something was always meant to be force sensitivity. In the 3 hour cut, it’s explicitly stated. There was a moment when Jannah and he were running on top of that star destroyer and Finn needed to unlock or move something and he force-moved it and acted surprised when it happened. This was replaced with a CGI’d BB-8 fixing whatever he needed to fix on there.

Babu Frik was nearly cut because some execs at Disney thought he would be the new Jar Jar. They are really surprised that people love him this much. He was JJ's idea and was created in collaboration with some artists and puppeteers. The personality was all JJ.

There were a bunch of scenes where Rey and Kylo (separately) went through quiet moments of reflection to deal with what they were going through. On her part, her going through the realization that there's something sinister about her past. Him going through regret and remorse but trying to shut it out. My source said that the Kylo scenes were especially amazing because of Adam's performance and how he managed to portray that inner turmoil. It provided much more context and added deeper meaning to both his battle with Rey and the final redemption arc at the end. It didn't happen so suddenly and it was more structured than what we got.

The Kylo/Rey scene where he dies was at least 4 minutes longer with more dialogue. Ben was always supposed to die. Source also added that if he wasn’t, then that might’ve been in an earlier draft which they haven’t read. The first draft they read included Lando (the first few didn’t). The Reylo kiss and Ben’s death was not part of the reshoots. It was a part of the re-editing. Even the cut that JJ thought was coming out earlier this month had a longer version of that scene than what was shown in the theatrical cut.

JJ was against the Reylo kiss (or Reylo in general). This was Disney's attempt to please both sides of the fandom.

JJ was not happy with where TLJ took the story. The final result is a mix of that story and the story told by Disney and whoever they tried to impress (“certainly not the fans”). JJ is gutted over the final result. Star Wars means a lot to him. He had to sacrifice large chunks of the story in TFA but he was promised more creative control on TROS and instead the leash they had him on was only tightened as time went by. A source said that this is the one franchise and the one piece of his work that he didn't want to mess up and instead it turned into his worst nightmare. When he found out that he was blindsided with the cut they presented, he said "what the fuck??" when Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren at the end and the Williams music that was used for it was not what he wanted at all. He seemed to think it was out of place.

JJ's cut still exists and “will always exist”. We most likely will never see it unless “someone accidentally leaks it.”

Ok, so there you have it. If there are questions, I will try to follow up with my source but it’s up to them if they want to share more so I cannot guarantee an answer.

Edit: I forgot one thing that the source wanted included, concerning FinnPoe in TROS:

The source asked about FinnPoe after seeing Oscar Isaac's comment about how Disney didn't want it to be a thing. This is true. JJ fought to make this happen. This is why Oscar is blaming Disney. It's not just a random throwaway comment. He knows for a fact that it was Disney because these discussions happened. The main cast is insanely close with JJ and are just as pissed, though seemingly more outspoken about it than JJ. During TFA, Disney was hesitant to hire John Boyega because a woman was front and center so they deemed that risky enough so bringing in a male lead who's black made them nervous. JJ fought to make that happen for about nine months before getting approval. The same issue came up when JJ fought to have Finn&Poe in TROS but he lost that battle as he lost many creative battles for this film. Many people, JJ included, came to the realization during this production that the story really is told by shareholders/investors instead of the creatives or anyone at Disney specifically. He tried to make a lot of things happen and was shut down because of this. They had him on a leash and many blame TLJ for the stricter creative approach.

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 6 years ago

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Czech Republic to Eurovision with an unexpected geographical sight name

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Another year, another Czech attempt at a national final that wasn’t televised also BUT this time we got some excitement announcements out of them - even if they were blatantly boring, kind of.

Keep in mind though that I know that the revamp's out, BUT this whole review is just me reviewing the version we all witnessed back when ESCZ hit. The one and only.

So the NF’s here because we saw Mikolas succeed from it the last time (eventhough it’s just a secret internal selection for just the Mikolas’s song and there’s no no denying hihihi), right? And thanks to that we got pseudo-official-but-not-so-official hotel music videos of each contestant’s songs just in case they decide to... like... change it for something different. Like those lyric videos last year. Eventhough they looked so very lowbudget this year, I still liked them to some degree, and eventually I had to witness this one video (set in presumably mostly the living room) where the lead singer confettis all over himself win this year (well not really the video as much as I only got to first hear that song on ESCRadio hahaha). Well, just the lead singer of it. As the buddies were on the other official video (the one I’ll talk about in my revamps update I guess but has anything changed other than the singer singing one of his talking parts?). As a whole the Czech entrants this year are known as Lake Malawi (it exists) and “Friend of a Friend” is their A-game! Let’s listen!

I liked it ever since my first acknowledgence(??) of it through ESCRadio. It reminded me of those happy-clappy 80s synth sounds (eventhough the 80s songs were mostly about gloom and doom), somehow somewhat mixed in with a bit of that ‘modern’ synthpop sound from the British music scene (Years & Years maybe? Nah that’d be too far-fetched). The lyrics, while cheap enough, at least paint a bit of a picture? I don’t think the person in the song was “making love” to his ‘old’ neighbouress back when she was 13, anyway. She’s, afterall, the “friend of a friend”. Who is a friend of a friend. Who is a friend of a friend. Who is a friend of a friend’s COUSIN~

The thing is that some songs out here are enjoyable besides their lyrical content. Or even without the singer’s background (still looking at those who’re shading Sheppard’s family business - shut up and enjoy “Geronimo” in peace, geez!). I, for example, jammed to RiRi’s “S&M” for my lifetime - yes, even since when it got big, and the pop music was being made to sound trashy, and not like something that sounds too somber and ‘foggy’, and with lyrics from r/im14andthisisdeep, and then later slapped on those a e s t h e t i c moodboards with tulips and liquid (of colour blue/red) splashed onto them to make it loof more effective, and placed in front of a yellow background on a white table. I miss late 2000s-early 2010s pop a whole lot, because at least it had fathomable-to-the-ear hits of the time - cheap, fast food, techno melodies with overproduction and lyrics that actually mean something more intimate and grotesque (with sometimes even hinting to the love surface) - that was the shit. Now it’s just drowsy stuff with blurry melodies and lamentings of lost love and devotion in an equally slurry, pathetic, vocal whine. I’m so tired of it. It’s unsettling. Get it off me. And thankfully, none of that invades this small little bubble of Eurovision’s just as of now (unlike the other pathetic musical cliche of nowadays that’s Soundcloud rap - ‘thanks’ a lot USNK). And I guess I shouldn’t be blessed that Lake Malawi brings this “this bangs but the lyrics are... a choice, but it still bangs so idc” back onto Eurovision? Like, come on, we all have had such kinds of songs like those all of that time. From “I Can’t Go On” (a man being a slut for love???) to countless of national final shlocks made by these usual suspects from rent-a-songwriter corner, ESPECIALLY in the 00s, to some of those actual 00s entries that made it - so stupid to sing along to, yet so infectious you can’t drag your earworm out of your ear canals just now. What does “Friend of a Friend” have for itself? Keyboard melody in the 2nd half of the chorus that is easily stuck in MY head, with a female voice (I assume it’s the song’s protagonist’s subject of speech - the neighbourina herself) reassuring that “[she’s] only [his] friend” - not in a “haha I’m friendzoning you forever >:)” way, but “ehhhh there’s truly nothing between us as he says, we’re just friends, not lovers, don’t give me that look” way. Sure it’s believable, sure. It might as well turn out that these neighbours are indeed doing the same thing as in all those local anecdotes where a family’s mother or father has an affair with a next-door neighbour for shits and giggles to move the joke’s plot forward.

So it is, as a whole, a fun little throwback-ish piece of fine and smooth music, accompanied with the lead singer’s ‘British’ ‘accent’ (aha so this is why I get a lot of British radio vibes from this - not to mention, tropical beach ones too for some reason!), some sort of spoken dialogue, energy and the ability to raise you up from your seat the 45875th time you’re actually giving in to all of this. You know you want to, despite this song possibly not being your cup of tea. But I see you, and I look forward to seeing you bopping to this fully in May, no matter if this isn’t Mikolas you’re dealing with anymore, and no camel spaghetti. Ahw yeah!

Approval factor: Although it’s also slowly wearing off me like it already wore off everyone else back then, I’m still giving it one hell of an approval. Yay!

Follow-up factor: I definitely like it more than “Lie to Me” as well. Somewhat. Honestly. Don’t bash me in secret.

Qualification factor: the naysayers are saying this will flop but imo they’re mostly just upset that Barbora didn’t go (even if they were only still upset back in the say), STILL. Ugh can’t they just leave. I am positive about this song’s chances somewhat, just hoping it gets a really memorable and stand out staging and maybe it will escape this hellhole of its semi. Not very confident, just positive. (Also they rocked the Vidbir stage so hard even the uncomfortable question queen Dramala couldn’t not give in the dance, lolz.)

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Honestly, the best possible thing that came out of this NF was the oh-so-unexpectedly-expected winner choice, and it is like this because, yet again, people couldn’t get over Barbora losing at first, to which I’m like “to be quite honest, you were all into it because that’s the closest thing to Lana del Rey you’d ever get in Eurovision because Lana herself is American and America should NOT set their foot into ESC... besides, she wouldn’t probably do it anyways”. ESCZ wasn’t pretty bad of a NF honestly:

• people actually laughed at the fact every single video of this NF is so low-budget that it looked like it was all filmed in the same hotel room! (in reality I’m just jealous at the slick-ass hotels they’ve had on there, feels like someone’s house more than a hotel actually)

• Pam Rabbit, one of Mikolas’s last year’s backings, brought the second-best NF song this year imo (Barbora for me is likeable but not to THAT degree, lol calm yer tits), as it was a lowkey bop and I can’t not appreciate one!

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(her officially official MV is here but in the spirit of this NF’s, you’re gonna have to subject yourself to this above in order to witness spectacular budget-MVs that happened for this NF especially, come on. Hardly a cool NF without its own little perks!)

• Fine, I’ll bring up Barbora Mochowa too. I gotta say she DOES sound like Queen Bee Lana, same to say on her earlier works which, among them, has one enchanting and haunting forest-like ballad. “True Colors”, her ESCZ entry, is just a pop ballad, which is not THAT bad, it’s just that... did y’all see any more in that song beyond the Lana vocals? Sure sure the melody is pleasant but... did ya?

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(Lord alive, she also has a live video for this song on her channel, which is in fact the ESCZ’s unplugged version video!)

• The ex-ESC entrant jury is back for another year! This time though, the votes of all of the participants in it were all up and public (unlike secrety mcsecret ones from 2018 where I’m not even sure if the Eurojury panel was correct), and most of them were #TeamMalawi or #TeamBarbora... up until AWS (yes AWS are relevant enough for their own panel!), being the “wait do we still have to do Eurovision related things??? it’s sooooo 1 year ago already, let us go goddammit!!” type of participants that they are, totally and utterly half-arsing their own experience in there by 12ing Andrea Holá. The thing is that she’s first alphabetically from the artists so that’s probably the best possible theory why. “GIVE ME A HINT, ANDREA!!!”

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• The best part? The NF itself taking place in the second floor of an abandoned warehouse somewhere in Czech Republic (Czechia go to hell), in the middle of the day, with no live performances, just that video above played in full motion and some random people speaking in between. Silly of them to leak my ideal NF design location if I ever were a Lithuanian HoD. And yes, it was streamed on Facebook, the platform that I can barely play livestreams on my 11-year-old laptop on, while suspiciously enough, it worked for FiK 56... which meant that I was barely able to grasp a screenshot but I managed!

Well of course I didn’t get to watch much but after someone said Lake Malawi (or, in their words, Lake Malala <333) won, I almost believed it until I found out that the show’s still going... and only saw the thing on the projection screen later out of nowhere. IDK who’s hugging who and if that audience on the right are all the participants then I may have an idea but for now IDK. Ahh, relevant video media being projected on projection screens (duh) <33 giving San Marino, Albania’s Powerpoint scoreboards and Belgian 2013 radio NF runs for their money.

I might find mistakes and off-the-wall blabbers in this write-up later but for now I’ll carelessly submit this beauty to Tumblr today and wish the best of luck to Lake Malawi in Tel Aviv! May you qualify for the 2nd year in a row for CZ ^^

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #czech republic 2019 #lake malawi #friend of a friend #czech republic

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minamisconcierge · 8 years ago

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Several Shades of Sadism Review & Route Review

Okay y’all so I’m finally doing it. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious that I’m in love with this game and all these boys and these stories, but I’ll do my best to be as honest as possible and give a thorough explanation of my likes, and yes -- dislikes.

OVERVIEW. I feel that a lot of people are going to think this game is heavily based around smut and some kinky BDSM stuff. This isn’t necessarily the case. While you’re bound to have those sex scenes with the characters, it’s not the central focus of the game. The focus and story of the game changes dependant on whose route you take. Each potential boyfriend you’re able to choose from has a different route and storyline for you to follow. There are different events that take place over time, and they’re advertised when you open the game for the first time that day, and also can be seen in the info tab under “want to see the news”. There’s also a login bonus every day, and I believe that the new day starts at 2 AM JST.

STORY & PLOT. You’re a concierge at The Royal Shining in Japan, a top class hotel there. You’ve been assigned as the exclusive concierge to the Sweet Room, and on your first day of work, the Head Concierge collapses and you’re going to take his place. The guests you’re to take care of are the brothers of the Kira Group. There’s a mixture of good storytelling along with a great inner monologue by the MC! The interactions between MC and the characters are hilarious, but although sometimes superfluous, reaction-wise. Other than that, there’s a good balance between story progression, humor, pain, and falling in love.

PROGRESSION. You get five tickets a day to follow the main story that refresh every day at 2:00 AM JST. There are missions that you need to complete during the game, whether it be gaining a certain amount of elegance through sweet lessons, or avatar missions. The sweet missions require 20 stamina to do participate in, and you get 100 stamina that refreshes periodically throughout the day. (I think it takes two hours for a full refresh, but don’t quote me on it lol) Avatar missions are missions where you have to buy a certain item / piece of clothing to progress in the story. You can buy avatar items to progress the story with in game currency, but you will not receive the special CG that comes along with it. Other than that, this game is free to play. You’re also able to gain reward points by doing in app offers. Reward points are another currency typically bought with real money, but can be achieved through offers found in the app.

MC She’s not your usual MC. She’s ambitious, has her dreams, has her faults and she recognizes them, as well as her strengths. She attempts to make funny jokes, and her inner monologues are hilarious,and probably what most otome players are thinking of haha. There are some Mary Sue moments, but it’s expected to be, since she’s wooing all these beautiful men lol.

ROUTE REVIEWS

CHIAKI KIRA : SELFISH SADIST X SELF CENTERED I feel that the trope of “man is the heir to _____ and doesn’t want to be, so he finds a way to ruin his reputation” is super common and seen in a lot of otome games / stories in general. I thought his route was going to be super bland, but his personality suited around the story made everything more interesting. He bargains for you to be his fake lover, in exchange to help your dreams come true and work at The Royal Shining UK branch. He gives you a lot of attention, and although it begins off just a play, there’s just that point in your interactions where you can tell that it’s no longer just that. As the MC, you get to watch and experience with him the repercussions of his decisions that he makes, and how he deals with them. He’s a big, lazy, self centered dumb ass who says dumb things sometimes without thinking ahah. As the story goes on, you get to see him become more responsible, even if it’s just slightly so. Oh, and he has a cute little brother too.

TOMA KIRA : EMOTIONLESS SADIST X NURTURING Toma comes off as intimidating and just someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. Just his presence in the room was enough to put anyone on edge. Your usual strong silent type, but soft on the inside. His backstory shows that he is a diligent and hard worker, and his position as the owner of the Japanese Branch of the Royal Shining proves it so. He treats you so standoffish initially, and you just start to feel like a nuisance to him, but when you start to learn more about him, you realize that he’s the way he is for a reason. He takes care of you in his own way, often protecting you from his brothers and putting your safety first. You get to watch him come to terms with his past and his current situation, and how even when he realizes he falls in love with you, still manages to put you first. It’s intriguing to watch how these two seemingly opposites work in a character. Emotionless, but still a nurturing person? When it comes to ‘emotionless’ I don’t think it necessarily means he doesn’t have feelings, but it means that he doesn’t let his feelings get the best of him. His route is well written, and the more that he pushes you, the more you want to keep playing just so you can prove him wrong, lol.

MINAMI KIRA : CHILDISH SADIST X COMPLETE CONTROL The child genius who spent all of his nights studying with a heartbreaking backstory. He’s playful and extremely childish, always asking you to play games with him and to give him constant attention, and even referring to you as his toy. While his route doesn’t centralize on a specific ‘plot’ as Chiaki’s and Toma’s do, the plot is moreso centralized on how Minami develops as a person. Why does he act the way he does? Why is he supposedly the genius that comes once in a century? And why doesn’t this fucker ever sleep? The this trope was interesting was the reason behind his behaviour. There’s a reason that he’s so childish, that he’s so intelligent, and why he never finds time to rest. He often parties and drinks, and there’s reasons he is the way he is. In your time as his concierge, you help him to develop and mature slightly and come to terms with his past and anger and all of his emotions at once. .SPOILERS AHEAD ;; There is a scene of sexual assault, and if this is something that upsets you I heed that you take caution. It’s pretty descriptive, but Minami stops it and beats up that guy. I also want to elaborate more on this later so I’ll put that under a readmore lol. ;; SPOILER END. The scene after this is a crucial part in the development of Minami’s storyline, but it could’ve been built up to and written much better than it was, preferably without the assault. Other than that, his route is an emotional rollercoaster and very painful & touchy in various ways. You get to live through this man growing up and finally able to accept his emotions again.

MEI TARANTINO : HOT & COLD SADIST X MANLY The game’s tsundere. He never really says what he means, blushes a lot at MC’s actions, and often throws childish tantrums that are just silly. It’s almost predictable what he’s going to say, especially when some of his lines are “It’s not like I wanted to see you here, anyway...” Although they’re predictable, they’re very sweet the way that they combined his backstory with the ‘manly’ aspect of him. Mei hated women for a reason, and has always locked away his emotions since he was very young. You spend your time on his route taking care of his dog, and watching him struggle and conquer the emotions that he’d locked away and finally letting them flourish again. Also your resident pianist and character that was dressed up as a girl when they were younger, and bullied because of it. This route is also moreso about how the character himself develops besides the the actual plot of the story.

Rei & Shizuka’s routes should be coming out soon, but here’s my opinions on them based off the events that I’ve participated in.

REI SHINDO : SILENT SADIST X POSSESSIVE Very possessive. He’s that enigma that you don’t really know much about, and that you’ll think you do, until he shows you his true self. Minami often references in his scenes where you can talk to the character that Rei is always hiding something. He doesn’t tease to the same extent that Minami does with full out humiliation, but they’re just small things that he notices about you and is able to nitpick with you. Also, have I mentioned that he’s very possessive to the point that he’ll keep you locked up and all to himself?

SHIZUKA KIRA : TWO FACED SADIST X LONELY I feel like he’d be something along the lines of Mei and say things that he didn’t really mean. Says a lot of harsh words, or words that you pretend that you want to hear, and revels on your reactions and enjoys them. He’s very easily jealous too, watching you get hit on at parties causing him to be very broody and emo off in a corner haha.

I can’t wait to learn more about Rei and Shizuka. I can’t give a genuine opinion on them since I’ve only seen them in events and not their actual routes. ^^

ALL IN ALL, I think this game is very thoroughly thought through. While the characters are all based on tropes and very stereotypical at times, their personalities make the game much deeper than it seemed to be. Even with the sex scenes, there’s still parts that make your heart hurt, make you laugh, and make you fall in love.

MINAMI SPOILER / DISCUSSION THING BELOW. These are all still my opinions by the way, and you don’t have to agree with them; it’s just my view of the situation in itself.

Prior to the assault, Minami comes back drunk to the suite and his friend is helping him in. When they mistakenly come into your room, the friend tries to assault you, and asks Minami for permission to ‘play with his toy’. He grants his permission, and after a period of time of watching, rescinds his permission and beats the other guy the fuck up.

I AM NOT EXCUSING MINAMI’S LACK OF ACTION OR WHAT THAT MAN DID TO MC. Prior to you being his ‘current’ toy, he’s had many before which we find out he quite obviously didn’t care about. His friends probably have had the opportunity to date / be with / hook up with the past ‘toys’ Minami’s had, so this probably wasn’t abnormal to him.

If anything, this was a turning point in Minami’s story. He was so used to giving up his toys to his friends and just leaving him be that he associated what was happening to MC as to what would’ve happened with other toys. But when he realized it was you specifically, something clicked in his brain and he wanted to take it all back.

He realized his emotions finally, after ignoring them for so long.

He realizes that you’re not a toy, not a possession of his, and that’s why after your long discussion after these events, he lets you go and says “you don’t have to be my toy anymore.” He came to terms with that and knew that you weren’t an object and you shouldn’t be treated as such, and that’s why he had to let you go.

Even after the assault, Minami doesn’t really apologize outright. He does so in a very Minami-ish way, chastising MC for taking care of him even though something horrible had just happened to her.

Yes, the situation is horrible and I wish it was written much better leading up to the climax of this story in his route. Any other way could’ve been better than the implied & descriptive assault, and that’s the only thing I was disappointed about.

But this is where Minami finally realizes his emotions, and is caught in a tumultuous state of accepting his emotions or running away from them, for fear of being hurt again.

#several shades of sadism #ruru speaks #chiaki kira #toma kira #shizuka kira #mei tarantino #rei shindo #minami kira #review

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5hfanfiction · 8 years ago

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this melody was made for you

Wattpad @longerr_hours

Camila knows that it’s cheesy. Hell, it’s probably the most cheesy thing she’s ever done and that’s saying something because she’s Camila Cabello and a lot of cheesy shit is done in her life.

In her defense she didn’t even start doing it on purpose. Sure she intentionally got a job at the radio station and sure she purposely played “Wanna Know You” even if it is the Hannah Montana soundtrack, the damn song was stuck in her head since Lauren brought it up earlier. It’s not like she knew Lauren listened to the station, or that the girl would be listening to the station right then at all.

“Camila!” Lauren greets with a grin in their creative writing elective. They met through this class and they only ever see each other here and sometimes in the hall, but based on the lack of attendance and a few mutual friends they had gotten to talking on one of the first classes and have been sitting together every day since.

“Hey Lo, what’s up?” Camila smiles back and Lauren is still grinning like she has news or something as she swings her bag under the table top and plops into her seat.

“You’ll never guess what happened,” Lauren starts and turns in her seat so she’s facing Camila. “So now how we were talking about that random episode of Hannah Montana with David Archuleta in it yesterday? Last night when I turned on the radio it was on! Like it’s the most random song but it was playing on the local college run one and I freaked out, I was going to call you but then I realized I don’t have your number?”

And Camila could totally say that she was the one who played it cause she worked there, and that would completely prevent further confusion but Lauren did just as for her number, so Camila thinks maybe she should just let Lauren believe in the silly coincidence if it means her smile will stay that bright over something seemingly so small.

It happens again the next night.

Look it’s not like- it’s not like Camila meant to but they spent the whole class talking about Ed so how can she not play “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill” back to back like four times an hour? She’s already listened to the rest of his music so much she has to give the new ones a shot to even it out.

And okay maybe she did play it at eight o'clock again in case Lauren listens at a specific time but- that’s not- you can’t think she’s doing this intentionally.

“Camz,” Lauren smiles as she walks in the next morning, hair in loose waves over her flannel and tight black jeans leading down to her combat boots. Camila’s pretty sure Lauren’s still in the closet but like, dressing like that kind of shows you like girls at least a little right?

“Hey Lo,” Camila replies with a blush as she notices Lauren catch her checking her out. “How’s your day going so far?”

“It’s good, great actually, Lana Del Rey just noticed me on twitter and like, you can’t tell anyone I went to the bathroom to fangirl, but I went to the bathroom to fangirl,” Lauren grins with a small blush but all the excitement in the world in her eyes.

So obviously Camila plays Lana later on. From “Video Games” to “Blue Jeans” she probably listens to every song she can find on her playlists search.

It’s not even that she thinks Lauren is listening, it’s mainly that she doesn’t really stop thinking about her crush therefore whatever new artists Lauren brings up are always fresh in her mind when she gets to work. Plus she trusts Lauren’s judgement in everything, so why not find a few new favorites.

“So I think there’s a spy in here,” Lauren states as she sits down the next day in creative writing, some weird paints and stuff set up in the front of the room for whatever the hell their crazy old teacher is having them do. “Like this is the third time in a row my favorite station has played the songs we talk about in this class and like, what are the odds right?”

“We must,” Camila agrees with a grin and spends the rest of the class laughing and making a mess with paints which for some reason they’re working on in creative writing.

She ends up playing Halsey that night, because although they didn’t talk about music, Lauren did make a joke about everything being blue when she spilled the bottle they were using all over her hands and pants.

“I’m convinced now,” Lauren says as she waltzes into the room, earning a few strange looks, but most students are occupied on their phones and don’t care. Camila isn’t looking at her strangely though, she’s looking at her kind of like she’s a little bit in love with her.

“Convinced about..?” Camila asks in a teasing tone. She’s very much aware of what Lauren is talking about because it’s what Lauren has been talking about for a while now. It’s been a little over a month since the first occurrence and Camila has been following through almost every night with playing a song Lauren brought up in class, a song about something they talked about, or a song about how in love with Lauren she is.

That last part is kind of recently though, ever since Ariana innocently pointed out that it sounds like Lauren’s got an admirer one day when she overheard Lauren’s theory. Camila had been shooting daggers as discreetly as she could to shut the tiny girl up but once she mentioned that is was a secret admirer Lauren seemed to be sold.

“The person who works at the radio is in this class, last night’s was too much of a coincidence, I’ve never heard a cover song on the radio before, unless it’s like really popular,” Lauren explains with a huff as she pulls out her notebook that has now turned into notes on proof of her theory, also meaning she writes down every song mentioned and yeah she’s definitely been too obvious last night.

The glee cover of “Baby Got Back” is just too funny though, like a gay guy singing an acoustic version of it? As sucky as the show is that was a classic. But really Camila? A glee cover?

“That’s a pretty weird coincidence or you’re right,” Camila teases and Lauren smirks back and shoves her shoulder lightly. “Maybe you should let it go though, I mean, they’ll come tell you when they’re ready, right?”

“I don’t know Camz, it’s just… I really get obsessed with things like this and I need to know who this is, it’s just so sweet and romantic and… I need to know,” Lauren replies with a dreamy look in her eyes, so Camila just nods and smiles back, maybe she should tell her soon.

Jordan beats her too it. He’s always been a creep in the back row and now Lauren thinks he’s a romantic creep in the back row. Camila only had a few more days after the last talk about it before he swept in, Lauren telling Camila all about how it was him the whole time and isn’t it so amazing and we have a date on Friday and blah blah blah blah blah.

Camila doesn’t really know how to react, but Friday night when she knows Lauren will be out doing god knows what with Jordan and not listening to the radio, Camila plays all the saddest One Direction songs she can about your love not being acknowledged, because she’s been really loving sad One Direction.

“So I had the date on Friday,” Lauren begins quietly as the teacher rants about water filters and environmental stuff that makes no sense. Camila is a little on edge by how nervous Lauren looks, maybe she’s going to tell Camila they’re dating now and just doesn’t want a ton of people overhearing.

“Oh yeah… How’d that go?” Camila feigns interest because Lauren being happy has always been a priority so if her being interested in her crush’s love life was what it took.

“Well it was fine at first but then I asked him about the radio station,” Lauren says and Camila raise an eyebrow wondering where this is going and if it’s where she thinks it might be. “Camila he didn’t even know what station the songs played on, dick must’ve just heard me talking about it…”

“Are you serious?” Camila questions quietly eyebrows raised as if she really believed it was him. “What a dick, I’m sorry Lo I know you’ve been really trying to find this mystery person, the fact that someone would take advantage of that makes me sick.”

“Well that’s actually… I wanted to ask if umm…” Lauren starts and looks around nervously before swallowing shakily. “I just, when I went home Friday I listened to the station all night and I just… there was a lot of One Direction. And I know whoever has the eight o'clock slot is my person and it’s just…” she runs a hand through her hair and Camila looks at her and fakes being calm when really her heart is already out her stomach and running for the door. “Do you umm… Do you like work at the radio station on Southern Artery? Is it you? It’s just that-” and the bell cuts Lauren off, giving Camila the perfect chance to smile sympathetically and claim she’s going to be late for computers if she doesn’t hurry.

Now Camila is cheesy, as shown, but she’s also very funny (at least she thinks so), so you can’t blame her for playing “It Wasn’t Me” when the clock strikes eight o'clock.

It goes without being said that Lauren doesn’t bring it up again, she actually ignores the subject the next day, and the next, and the next, until it’s been a week of pouting and awkward conversation since they both know that Lauren knows.

Camila plays “Sorry” first thing the day after the initial drama. When it doesn’t work she plays it again the next day with “Apologize” afterwards. By the time she’s added almost every apology song she knows she’s running out of hope. That’s a week and a half after she denied it and Lauren is still acting weird around her, a little less awkward but different.

“Camz!” someone calls after her in the hall on the following Friday and she recognizes the voice right away as Lauren’s. She tries not to get too excited because the girl could easily be trying to catch her to tell her off, but the nickname sends butterflies flying rapidly in her stomach.

“Yeah Lo-” Camila starts but is cut off by Lauren holding a hand up signifying her to stop.

“Stop with the Bieber,” and with that she’s down the hall and gone.

She stops with the Bieber. She feels weird cause she’s had the same setlist for over a week now and it feels harder now to plan out but she would probably get fired or something if she kept slacking that much. So she decides to play “Copacabana” and there’s a knock on the window pane which makes her realize that maybe she’ll still get fired because Copacabana is underappreciated by all.

She’s expecting her boss and a glare, so imagine her surprise when she’s met with Lauren’s green eyes and a curious gaze focused on her.

Camila’s jaw drops open and she stares for probably too long because Lauren’s lips quirk into a small smirk and Camila knows she probably looks creepy, so she picks up her jaw and pulls off her headphones.

Lauren nods towards the door, asking for entrance and Camila is quick to stop her staring and grant that, placing her headphones down and muting the sound booth so they can stay in there, then approaching the door and letting her in.

“Lauren what are you-”

“How do I play something?” Lauren asks as she walks past Camila towards the laptops set up.

“Umm, here you search here and you can scroll through here if you want to just find a random,” Camila explains a bit confused as she walks over to where Lauren is already following through and typing someone Camila can’t make out over her shoulder. “Look Lo I wanted to apologize or like… For not telling you? I guess I just didn’t think you’d feel the same and I didn’t want to risk making things awkward, but I kind of made them awkward anyways? I like you a lot if you haven’t noticed yet but I just… I’m sorry for giving you stress over this.”

Camila waits for a reply but Lauren stays focused on the computer screen. She thinks Camila might just want to play a song telling Camila to fuck off. And maybe she didn’t even listen to what Camila was saying, maybe she’s just trying to delete all the Bieber cause apparently she’s not a fan.

Now the cliche ending is that Lauren puts on “Kiss the Girl”. She puts on “kiss the Girl” and she grins her adorable grin with a blush covering her cheeks, gesturing for Camila to follow though, and she does because who doesn’t fall for a Little Mermaid song (or more importantly for Lauren Jauregui)?

#UPDATE #one shot #AU #slash #camren #submission #this melody was made for you

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pod7 · 8 years ago

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Fall Anime* 2016 Lightning Review

*Just the shows I watched of course

Shows Included: 3-gatsu no Lion, All Out!!, Bernard-jou Iwaku, Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls Galaxy, Cheating Craft, DAYS, Drifters, Fune wo Amu, Getsuyoubi no Tawawa, Kaijuu Girls: Ultra Kaijuu Gijinka Keikaku, Keijo!!!!!!!!, Kiitarou Shounen no Youkai Enikki, Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku, Nanbaka, Nazotokine, Nobunaga no Shinobi, Occultic;Nine, Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+!, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan, Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume, Sousei no Onmyouji, Soushin Shoujo Matoi, Stella no Mahou, Teekyuu 8, Tiger Mask W, To Be Hero, Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari, Watashi ga Motete Dousunda, WWW. Working!!

A really mixed bag this season, though a much better season than the summer!

3-gatsu no Lion As expected of SHAFT, a great character driven coming-of-age story that is practically flawless. I really enjoy any time the three sisters are on screen, but I also appreciate the appearances that his step-sister has made. She’s just sympathetic enough that you feel bad for feeling bad for her, but she’s also cruel enough to make you tense up the moment she comes on screen. The one thing I don’t like about this show is the thing it seems to get the most hype for, which is it’s intro song. I just don’t feel like it fits the attitude of the show. Otherwise though, yet another home run from SHAFT. Series continues! Highest recommendation

All Out!! This isn’t the best show, I wouldn’t even say it’s better than DAYS, but it was enjoyable enough. If the retired pro player turned coach hadn’t of shown up, I might have dropped it, truth be told. Once he shows up the, the season really picked up. The show is continuing, so hopefully that upward trend is here to stay. Series continues!

Bernard-jou Iwaku I’m not much of a book nerd, so a lot of this was lost on me, but there were still some great laughs to be had. If you’re into science fiction and novels in general they have a lot of interesting factoids about books and you could probably pick up some good recommendations from it. 7/10

Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls Galaxy The series got a budget this time around, so it was actually pretty well animated (for flash), and they were able to have a lot more detail as well. I loved the inclusion of Dark Cherry, they were great foils to CRANE GAMU. It was more of a nonsense comedy this season, as opposed to “crane game tips as brought to you by an idol anime” that the first season had. Ended on a pretty wild note with Kyouko and Rei seemingly becoming a couple out of nowhere, though in hindsight they make a great pair. 8/10

Cheating Craft A really weird show, like, it would be hard to even explain what it is without being incredibly vague. The characters were great, especially the home room teacher. One of several shows this season that had some surprise GL in it. 6/10

DAYS I still think that the coach from this team would have been fired already, for letting someone that inexperienced play in such important matches. I also feel like the show contradicted itself quite a bit; they said that all the starters are starters because they are out for themselves, but they were willing to play with a no-experience player AS A STARTER. Maybe it’s just a sports thing I don’t understand, but every time someone said “it’s not your fault” I was audibly saying “no, it really was!” Ubukata was great, but I feel bad for Tsukushi’s childhood friend basically getting zero screen time after the first episode. I would have liked for Tsukushi’s mom to have been more of a factor in the show as well. For a sports anime, it was good, but there were a lot of things I had problems with. 7/10

Drifters It’s a cool concept, of course, but I worry about the execution of it all. This great nation of Orte that some of the characters wish to protect was founded by Adolf Hitler, who is supposedly a Drifter, which makes him a good guy by default, since that’s what the protagonists are. If I need to spell out why that’s fishy at best, then you need to go back to school or at least watch the History channel once in a while. I also would have liked to have seen at some point in this season some kind of selection process for why someone ends up a Drifter and why someone ends up as an End. If the Black King isn’t Merlin, I will be incredibly shocked, because he’s the only historical figure I can think of that would also be excusable as such an all powerful deity type figure that can give other people powers, as well as using alchemy. I love the harsh art style, it fits the attitude of the show quite well. As a history nerd, I think it would be really funny if Teddy Roosevelt showed up with the Rough RIders to go ham on the Ends, but will just have to see what the next season holds. 8/10

Fune wo Amu I had originally thought this would be a much different series. After the first episode I actually looked it up to see if it was going to be something I’d actually be able to watch three episodes of without falling asleep. The synopsis I read was pretty misleading, though it may have been for the live action adaptation that came out before; it basically said that the protagonist would be tasked with defining “love”, and through that he would complete this dictionary and learn to live life to the fullest and so on. Unfortunately, for the animated adaptation at least, that’s pretty much a lie. He realizes he has feelings for his landlord’s grand-daughter, and then four episodes later they’ve been married for over a decade, her as a successful chef, and he on the cusp of completing the dictionary. It felt like they cut out an entire third (or even half) of the story just to fit it into 12 episodes, which was really disappointing to me. It wasn’t bad, but I felt like it could have made it’s point about seeing things through and the importance of words a lot clearer with just a few more episodes. 7/10

Getsuyoubi no Tawawa I’m kind of surprised that this show didn’t get a lot of shit, to be frank. It’s everything people love to guffaw about when it comes to anime; a large-chested girl who is too young for the guy she is talking to in most cases and is doing everything but dragging him to a love hotel. I’m not even sure what this would be categorized as; I wouldn’t call it a romcom, because there weren’t really any gags or jokes to it, and if you just call it a romance then people expect drama when there wasn’t any of that either. So... if you want to see a well-endowed girl flirt with nameless, faceless men for 12 episodes, this is the one for you. 6/10

Kaijuu Girls: Ultra Kaijuu Gijinka Keikaku There isn’t really much to say about this show other than if you like kaijuu and chibi/SD characters, you’ll probably like this show. If it had been more than a five minute show, I think it would have become boring, because they don’t really end up doing that much over the course of the season. Just a short, silly comedy about girls learning to use powers, basically. 7/10

Keijo!!!!!!!! I really want to compare this to Valkyrie Drive, because it was good, but... it was just a little too much. If they had dialed back the ecchi during the times they weren’t in a match, I think it would have had a greater comedic impact when it came to the action. Instead towards the end it was like “wow they are laying it on thick this episode.” Still, I salute them for just going all out with it. I usually complain about “boring sports” anime needing to rely on silly gimmicks for their characters to make the show more interesting, but Keijo already had it’s silly gimmick in place, so the super moves/abilities weren’t far as far fetched as say, a mahjong player that does better because there is a full moon out that night. The foley artists should be commended specifically for this show, they did an incredible job. 8/10

Kiitarou Shounen no Youkai Enikki This show came and went by in a flash. I didn’t even realize it had ended until I started writing this; it didn’t have a very definitive finale I guess. if you’re into Japanese folklore/yokai/bakemono/etc, but also are okay with those characters used in a comedic setting, you should give this show a shot. 7/10

Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku I don’t really know how to feel about this at this point. The character design bothered me a lot in the beginning, and by the time I got used to it, other problems sprang forth. It was another one of those “subversion of the genre” mahou shoujo series, which has become a genre on it’s own at this point because so many people are doing it. Out of all the girls, Swim Swim’s arc was the best, though I wish they had explained why she had her super OP power (since most of the others depended on what they wanted to do or their personality, seemingly.) It was also interesting that in the end they kept their powers, even though they broke their communicators from Fav, which was a nice change of pace. 7/10

Nanbaka This was a very strange show. At first I thought it was going to be like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure because of the aesthetic, but instead it was just a fun gag show about a larger than life prison. Of course the highlight of the show for me was once again, Yuu Kobayashi as the warden, stealing the spotlight in a fairly minor role. I think I enjoyed it more as a comedy, because towards the end it gets pretty serious with some action mixed in too, and it just felt kind of like “Okay let’s get back to the gags now.” Overall though a pretty entertaining show. 8/10

Nazotokine An OL who works as secretary to the CEO of a major company finds excitement in her every day life, but suddenly gets sucked into a weird dimension where she is tasked with solving puzzles in order to go back to her normal life. Unfortunately, many of the puzzles involved Japanese words I didn’t know, so I was basically just watching for the performances (thought the two or three that didn’t I was able to solve.) A good premise, I think it could have been fleshed out a lot more. It seems like the kind of thing that was based off of a mobile game or even just a series of puzzle books. I just thought it was funny that this and Tiger Mask W aired in the same season because in TMW they show New Japan Pro Wrestling all the time, and in Nazotokine during one episode they go to an All Japan Pro Wrestling show. Would like to see more but I doubt it will happen. 8/10

Nobunaga no Shinobi A nice, short gag comedy about a little ninja girl who is super effective with her work but kind of a ditz otherwise. A cute show that can be surprisingly bloody, but most of the time it’s just goofball type humor. Series continues!

Occultic;Nine The first third and last third of this season were okay, but the middle part was really boring and a lot of the side stuff going on felt unnecessary. Spending so much time on the little girl practicing black magic and the guy using astral projection just to have a way to explain how time passes for you as a scandium ghost was a little much. The cast wasn’t particularly relatable either. I did like the reveal of the person who was going around “deleting” the ghosts, though, and the FBI with psychometry was really great (would have preferred to see the story from her perspective honestly.) It felt like someone who wrote a Persona teamed up with a studio that wants to be SHAFT. 5/10

Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+! Wasn’t a fan of this season as much as the last one. It felt like they had a meeting and said “Okay, the framing is established with season one, so now we can just go all out with erotica!” The problem was is that, they can only go so far, so showing what is basically the same thing over and over with just different characters makes it lose any ecchi power it may have had originally. 6/10

Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan An absolute joy of a show. I would not mind if I was still writing about this show in these season wrap-up reviews this time next year, it’s that good. Nendou-kun has grown on me a lot as the show has gone on, and Teruhashi has become my favorite character I think. 10/10

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume I started to have the same problem with this show that I did with Saki (the mahjong anime), wherein they feel like the characters or action aren’t strong enough, so they have to give the players these goofy gimmicks that are beyond ridiculous. I really could not stand the green-haired yandere chick in this show, and was incredibly happened when that mini-arc ended. The beginning third of the show, I can understand people being perturbed at the lack of sport in this sport anime in favor of so much ~moe, but I think the episodes after the practice match arc are a great example of the show at it’s best, with a great balance of moe and sport. It’s not for everyone, but it has a fun, memorable cast. Reminded me quite a lot of KanaMemo, actually. 8/10

Sousei no Onmyouji Well, I would say the ride was fun, but it really wasn’t for the most part. The first arc of the show was pretty good, then they had a lovebirds arc which was horrendously stupid, and then it got into more action again and it was fine for a while but then you could tell the original writer started stalling at a certain point and it was really obnoxious how so little of what was going on week to week felt like it mattered in the grand scheme of things. It was like the series couldn’t decided to be a supernatural action show or a romcom, and you can’t really half-ass doing both when you have a masterpiece like Katanagatari out there. It had promise, but just took way too long to deliver, if it ever will. Dropped

Soushin Shoujo Matoi I don’t know if I’ve just watched too much anime by now or what, but I felt like I had seen this show a hundred times already. Nothing felt new or refreshing. It’s a very pretty show, at least, so I watched it all the way through, but I don’t think I’ll remember the name of this show next week, let alone next year. 7/10

Stella no Mahou I was a little worried about this show at the beginning because of how babyish the protagonist was, but she matures pretty quickly, and the remnants of her babyness become part of her charm. This felt like if you mixed Yuru Yuri and Wakaba Girl together, which is a pretty good combo. It also reminded me a bit of Saekano, even down to the girl in charge of music getting the least screen time. I would like to see another season of this but I think it would need to move about more into a more serious mood, like maybe they decide to debut at Comiket for real this time and put everything they have into a new game. 9/10

Teekyuu 8 I always love Teekyuu content, if you’ve followed me for a while then you know that quite well. 10/10

Tiger Mask W What knowledge I DON’T have from never having seen the previous Tiger Mask anime, the knowledge I have of him as an IRL pro wrestler and the current Japanese wrestling scene and attitude has made up for anything I would have otherwise missed. If nobody noticed, Monopoly is meant to be the WWE, and New Japan’s partnership with this series is a pretty clear showing on how they feel about WWE’s current move to basically create pro-wrestling colonies on other continents. There’s a lot of other BTS politics involved, but it’s interesting to see it as fodder for what amounts to a kids’ show. The main problem I have with the series so far is the inconsistency in violence and how much is tolerated. One of Tiger’s early foes causes him to bleed profusely and beats the piss out of him, but he says his match with Tiger the Dark was his hardest yet and he was barely even scratched. Also, a guy with a sword shows up in one episode, which is just bad, since he can never realistically use it (even in a cartoon setting.) Series continues!

To Be Hero I haven’t read anything about the behind-the-scenes of this series, but it would not surprise me in the least if it was a jab at One Punch Man. The dialogue is the star of the show here, with every character getting at least one really great monologue. The ending was actually pretty touching for a show about a guy that got superpowers from taking a dump. 8/10

Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari This show was great, but towards the end, it felt kind of forced. It had a great thing going, and then it was like they thought, “Wait, Poco is still a tanuki?! Crap, what are we going to do?” I think this would have been better served about a guy reconciling with his decision to go to Tokyo, and having a son he didn’t know about to deal with in the process. Maybe Souta left for Tokyo for the same reason, but while he was there, he dated a foreigner, and they broke up, which lead to him getting into a rut at his job, and then finally moving back home to take care of his father’s effects post-mortem, where he finds his dad had taken in the child his girlfriend never told him about. SOMETHING like that. There was also a great missed opportunity I think with Nakaji and Rinko. One of Nakaji’s problems in the season is that his parents are hounding him about getting married, so what if he hadn’t been even looking because he was having an affair with Rinko? It honestly felt like that’s where they were going with it to me. She tells him he should stop smoking, and he eats her cooking despite knowing it’s bad, and then when she tells him she’s pregnant, it just honestly felt like that scene was written out as her telling him it’s his, and he’s the first to know she’s pregnant. It was also kind of disappointing that Udon didn’t really have all that much to do with the show, despite being in the title. Kana Hanazawa’s character is about as big of a red herring as you can get in this kind of show, as well. It’s cute and genuinely funny, but could have been much better and poignant in another world. 8/10

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda I imagine the manga won’t end the same way the show did (assuming the manga continues from there), but I think the writers of the show ended it the best way they could. Say what you will about the comedy based around liking gay fiction (admittedly exploitative fiction) making you a weirdo, but I feel like when it came to Nishina, they treated her respectfully, even showing her as a true rival, an equal, amongst the other suitors that Kae genuinely considered. That in itself should be celebrated. Yuu Kobayashi is easily top 3 seiyuu for me, so any show that she is the focal point is always one that I will enjoy all the way through. 9/10

WWW. Working!! I had a pretty big falling out with the main Working!! series, but there were several things that I did enjoy about it. I’m happy to say that those things are present in this spinoff as well, not only that, but I feel like WWW does it even better. In the main series, several of the characters were a pain in the ass with no payoff, but in WWW, they wrap up everything nicely in one season, without any characters feeling annoying or worthless. My favorite, as per usual, was one of the characters with the least amount of screen time, Kisaki. Of course, the manager was my fav character from the main series, and since they share many traits, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. It almost felt like this was a reboot in retrospect, considering how similar some of the characters are to the main series cast; they were just written better this time around. 9/10

#fall anime 2016 #anime review #anime #review #lightning review

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cbshearer · 5 years ago

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Since shortly after release weekend, I’ve been corresponding with someone who worked closely on the production of TROS and works for one of the major companies I cannot disclose here. I have verified the source to my satisfaction. To protect the source, I am rewording what we spoke about over the last two weeks and am submitting it to you in bullet point format I have written based on what they told me. The TLDR is that they were upset with the final product of TROS and wanted to share their perspective on how it went down and where it went wrong.The leakers for TROS had an agenda and are tied to Disney directly. My source confessed that they have an agenda as well in that they struggle with ignoring what’s been happening to someone who they think doesn’t deserve it.JJ always treated everyone on and offset with respect so my source’s agenda is that what Disney has done to JJ and how much they screwed him over should be something people are at least aware of, whether you like him as a filmmaker or not.Disney was one of the studios who were in that Bad Robot bidding war last year. Disney never had much interest in BR as a company but they did in JJ because they saw WB (who JJ went with in the end) as a major threat.JJ is very successful at bringing franchises back like Mission Impossible, Star Trek and Star Wars. WB is struggling with DC and aside from Wonder Woman, DC is still seen as a bit of a joke in its current state by the GA.WB wants Abrams for some DC projects. My source said that this generation’s Star Wars is the MCU, and Marvel’s biggest threat is a well operational DC. They want to keep DC in the limbo that they’re in right now. Abrams jumpstarting that franchise with something like a successful, audience-pleasing Superman movie makes them nervous. Their goal is to make JJ look bad to potential investors/shareholders.My source mentioned this shortly after the premiere: “The TROS we saw last night was not the TROS we thought we worked on”.JJ was devastated and blindsided by this. He’s been feeling down over the last 6 months because of some of the ridiculous demands Disney had that changed his movie’s story. While the scenes were shot, a lot of the changes were made in post-production and the audio was rerecorded and altered. My source said they’ve never seen anything like this happen before. He’s the director and he wasn’t in the know about what they were doing behind his back.Apparently, JJ felt threatened over the month leading up to the premiere.Rian was never meant to do IX despite some rumors that he was.JJ was brought back by Iger, not KK. Disney insisted on more fan service, less controversy.JJs original agreement when he signed on was indicating he would have way more creative control than he did on TFA. It became evident this wasn’t the case only a couple of weeks into shooting when the trouble with meddling started.JJ wanted to do some scenes he thought were important but Disney shut it down citing budgetary reasons.May 2019: JJ argued that those scenes were crucial. He had to let go of one of the scenes. The other scene he insisted on was approved at first. He did reshoots and additional photography in July. The new scene was shot at BR in October.The “ending that will blow your mind” was a part of this. Older actors were included like Hayden, Ewan and Samuel and anyone who wasn’t animated. The force ghosts weren’t meant to be voices because they shot that footage on camera. The actors were in costumes. Rey was supposed to be surrounded by the force ghosts to serve as sort of a barrier between her and the Sith surrounding them.My source thinks but can’t 100% confirm that this is because of China. It’s an office talk of sorts. Some VFX people claimed they got a list of approved shades of blue they could use on the Luke force ghosts. Cutting this out was when the bad blood turned into a nightmare for JJ because the movie he was making was suddenly unrecognizable to him in almost every way.My source knows JJ well enough to know that he’s just not the yelling type but apparently in a meeting he yelled something along the lines of “Why don’t you just put ‘directed and written by Lucasfilm’ then?” My source wasn’t present for that exchange but knows some who were.Disney demanded they shoot some scenes that would have things in it for merchandise. “They fly now” is one of them. It’s also JJ’s least favorite scene. At a November screening of a 2:37 cut, he cringed, groaned and laughed when the scene was on.My source says that JJ was most likely not joking when he said “you’re right” in the interview where they asked him about TROS criticism.JJ’s original early November cut was 3 hours 2 minutes long.In January, JJ suggested that they turn this into two films. My source told me this well before Terrio mentioned it in an interview a couple of days ago. When Disney said no, JJ was content with making this 3 hours long.Over a period of 9 months JJ started realizing that one by one his ideas and whole scenes were being thrown out the window or entirely altered by people who have “no business meddling with the creatives”.They were not on the same page when it came to creative decisions and it became obvious that Disney had an agenda in addition to wanting to please shareholders. Disney could “afford messing up IX for the sake of the bigger picture” when it came to protecting things unrelated to IX.The cut JJ eventually and hesitantly agreed to in early December was 2:37 minutes long. It wasn’t the cut we saw which he wouldn’t have approved of (and which is 2:22 long). Apart from the force ghosts, there were other crucial and emotional scenes missing. The cut they released looked “chopped and taped back together with weak scotch tape” (JJ's words).The movie opened with Rey’s training. Her first scene with Rose was shortly after Rey damaged BB-8 during the training. Rose made a silly joke about how Poe is going to kill her for damaging BB-8. There was a moment where Rey took a minute to process what just happened when she saw that vision during training. She looked distressed and worried. The next scene was noise as the Falcon was landing and Rey runs over there. Those two women who kissed at the end were visible in this shot and they were holding hands. One of them ran towards the Falcon as it landed.Kylo on Mustafar scene was 2 mins longer. There was a moment where Kylo seemed a bit dizzy and his vision was shown as blurry for a second. Almost as if time half-stopped while everyone in the background was slow-mo fighting. Kylo hears Vader's breathing, then shakes his head and time goes back to moving at a normal pace and he jumps right back into the battle (the scene from the trailer where he knocks that guy down which did end up in the movie later).They cut some of the scenes from the lightspeed skipping segment. Some of the planets that were cut were Kashyyyk, Naboo, and Kamino.The scene where the tie fighters are chasing them through the iceberg - those corridors were inspired by a video game JJ used to play in the 90s called Rebel Assault 2 (the third level in the game with the tunnels on Endor specifically).Jannah was confirmed to be Lando’s daughter.Rey not only healed Kylo's face scar but she killed Kylo when she healed Ben. Kylo ceased to exist when Rey healed him. My source mentioned that some people assume it was Han Solo who healed him but that isn’t true and that wasn't Han Solo. That was Leia using her own memories as well as Ben's to create a physical manifestation of his own thoughts to nudge him towards what he needed to do. That was her own way of communicating that with him. And it wasn't possible without her dying in the process. She made the ultimate sacrifice for her son and this flew over people's heads with the Disney cut.The late November cut (the last cut JJ approved of) had scenes with Rose and Rey still. JJ wanted to give her a more meaningful arc. Disney felt that that was too risky too. My source mentioned that Chris Terrio said that it was because of the Leia scenes but this is only partially true because she had four other scenes including two with Rey/Daisy that Leia was not in.Finn wanting to tell Rey something was always meant to be force sensitivity. In the 3 hour cut, it’s explicitly stated. There was a moment when Jannah and he were running on top of that star destroyer and Finn needed to unlock or move something and he force-moved it and acted surprised when it happened. This was replaced with a CGI’d BB-8 fixing whatever he needed to fix on there.Babu Frik was nearly cut because some execs at Disney thought he would be the new Jar Jar. They are really surprised that people love him this much. He was JJ's idea and was created in collaboration with some artists and puppeteers. The personality was all JJ.There were a bunch of scenes where Rey and Kylo (separately) went through quiet moments of reflection to deal with what they were going through. On her part, her going through the realization that there's something sinister about her past. Him going through regret and remorse but trying to shut it out. My source said that the Kylo scenes were especially amazing because of Adam's performance and how he managed to portray that inner turmoil. It provided much more context and added deeper meaning to both his battle with Rey and the final redemption arc at the end. It didn't happen so suddenly and it was more structured than what we got.The Kylo/Rey scene where he dies was at least 4 minutes longer with more dialogue. Ben was always supposed to die. Source also added that if he wasn’t, then that might’ve been in an earlier draft which they haven’t read. The first draft they read included Lando (the first few didn’t). The Reylo kiss and Ben’s death was not part of the reshoots. It was a part of the re-editing. Even the cut that JJ thought was coming out earlier this month had a longer version of that scene than what was shown in the theatrical cut.JJ was against the Reylo kiss (or Reylo in general). This was Disney's attempt to please both sides of the fandom.JJ was not happy with where TLJ took the story. The final result is a mix of that story and the story told by Disney and whoever they tried to impress (“certainly not the fans”). JJ is gutted over the final result. Star Wars means a lot to him. He had to sacrifice large chunks of the story in TFA but he was promised more creative control on TROS and instead the leash they had him on was only tightened as time went by. A source said that this is the one franchise and the one piece of his work that he didn't want to mess up and instead it turned into his worst nightmare. When he found out that he was blindsided with the cut they presented, he said "what the fuck??" when Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren at the end and the Williams music that was used for it was not what he wanted at all. He seemed to think it was out of place.JJ's cut still exists and “will always exist”. We most likely will never see it unless “someone accidentally leaks it.”Ok, so there you have it. If there are questions, I will try to follow up with my source but it’s up to them if they want to share more so I cannot guarantee an answer.Edit: I forgot one thing that the source wanted included, concerning FinnPoe in TROS:The source asked about FinnPoe after seeing Oscar Isaac's comment about how Disney didn't want it to be a thing. This is true. JJ fought to make this happen. This is why Oscar is blaming Disney. It's not just a random throwaway comment. He knows for a fact that it was Disney because these discussions happened. The main cast is insanely close with JJ and are just as pissed, though seemingly more outspoken about it than JJ. During TFA, Disney was hesitant to hire John Boyega because a woman was front and center so they deemed that risky enough so bringing in a male lead who's black made them nervous. JJ fought to make that happen for about nine months before getting approval. The same issue came up when JJ fought to have Finn&Poe in TROS but he lost that battle as he lost many creative battles for this film. Many people, JJ included, came to the realization during this production that the story really is told by shareholders/investors instead of the creatives or anyone at Disney specifically. He tried to make a lot of things happen and was shut down because of this. They had him on a leash and many blame TLJ for the stricter creative approach. via /r/saltierthancrait

#IFTTT #reddit

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