#i latch onto like 2 new characters every 1-3 years and make it everyones problem

[avocadoraisin]

multiple Hoffmen

[padme-amitabha]

Is Anakin a Mary Sue?

Now it may shock you to learn this but it turns out that Disney Star Wars is kind of a contentious topic. The fandom's been more or less divided between those who like the sequel trilogy and those who like good movies but both groups spend a great deal of time slinging [ __ ] at each other over every form of social media known to man and truly no battleground is more fiercely contested than the protagonist of each trilogy. People who hate the Disney trilogy tend to criticize Rey for being an overpowered, flawless, perfect, invincible and unrelatable character for whom everything just kind of happens with no real struggle or difficulty a Mary Sue if you will.

Meanwhile supporters of the sequel trilogy are quick to leap to her defense usually with one of two potential counter arguments:  1. You just hate strong women 2. So what if she's op as [ __ ] Anakin Skywalker from the prequels was a Mary Sue too and you don't criticize him. You just hate strong women. This argument was brought into sharp focus for me the other day when I was perusing twitter in search of calm, logical, rational discussion about the merits of the sequel trilogy and I chanced upon this little gem of a comment. Ah yes that famously perfect protagonist who wins everything, always makes the right decisions, has a selfless and compassionate personality, and is universally loved and respected by everyone. Well random twitter [ __ ] as it turns out, I am ready to have that conversation right now. So saddle up y'all because the drinker's here to round up this [ __ ] and put an end to this argument once and for all. Let us journey deep into the world of the Star Wars prequels and see if we can figure out whether Anakin Skywalker really is a Mary Sue.

Now in order to do this, we have to nail down what exactly a Mary Sue is. Well according to the dictionary definition it's a term used to describe a fictional character, usually female, who is seen as too perfect and almost boring for lack of flaws originally written as an idealized version of an author in fanfiction. Now the finer points of what makes a Mary Sue can vary depending on who you talk to but after consulting multiple sources and drawing upon my own experiences as a writer, there's a few common traits that I think most people would generally agree on:

1.      Mary Sues usually possess skills and abilities that are not consistent with their situation and personal history. They can do stuff they shouldn't realistically be able to and they can do it better than anyone else.

2.      They usually possess flawless idealized personalities that no real person could measure up to they never give in to negative emotions like anger, greed, jealousy, selfishness or arrogance.

3.      They're universally loved respected and embraced by every good character they encounter even when there's no logical reason for this to happen.

4.      They never get seriously challenged, fail at anything or get beaten by anyone, success and victory come easily to them.

5.      They always make good decisions and strive to do what's right in any situation so why is this actually a problem.

Well I think the answer should be obvious, Mary Sues are boring as [ __ ]. If a character has got no flaws or weaknesses and never really gets challenged or tested by anything then what is there to get invested in?

It's the flaws and failings of a character that make them interesting in the first place and their struggle to rise above and overcome these flaws that make them so compelling. If these things are missing from a character, then there's nothing for the audience to latch onto or care about. There's nothing to like or root for. That's the essence of a Mary Sue and that's what we're going to be looking at here. So, with that in mind let's see how Anakin stacks up against this list shall we?

Point number one: Being overpowered and having abilities that he shouldn't. Now this more than anything else is what people tend to latch onto when they criticize Anakin and who can blame them really? On the surface it seems pretty ridiculous to see a nine-year-old boy doing stuff like this autopilot but let's put it into a wider context, shall we? When we first meet Anakin in The Phantom Menace, he's a slave living with his mother on Tatooine. He's spent most of his life salvaging junk and using it to make new stuff that can marginally improve their quality of life. As a result, he's become pretty good with technology. Well that makes sense, I guess. He's even applied these technical skills to pod racing where he's been fairly successful despite suffering at least one major crash that we know about. Again, this kind of makes sense when you consider he's strong with the force which would likely give him heightened perception reactions and understanding of the world around him, you know qualities that are important to high performance racing drivers. Anyway, his racing abilities allow the main characters to win an engine part that they need to repair their ship as well as enough money to buy his freedom. Sensing his importance Qui-Gon Jinn takes him under his wing and begins to teach him about the force. Remember when older mentor characters were allowed to teach the protagonist things? I miss that. He also takes part in a space battle that destroys an enemy mothership at the climax of the movie. Now as goofy as this scene is in its execution, it's not actually inconsistent with Anakin’s abilities and experiences. If you've worked around technology vehicles and ships your entire life and you can pilot a racing pod to a high standard then it stands to reason that you could probably operate other types of spacecraft as well, particularly if you have a droid on board to manage most of the ship's systems for you. However, for the sake of argument let's concede the Anakin in The Phantom Menace is indeed more skilled competent and capable than your average person.

So, what kind of effect would this have on a young man from an impoverished background suddenly thrust into a much larger world of power, politics and opportunity? Well that brings me neatly along to point number two: Mary Sues are supposed to have flawless personalities never giving in to anger, jealousy, resentment, vengeance or ambition. All throughout the second and third movies in the prequel trilogy, Anakin displays an increasingly severe set of personality flaws that begin to undermine his position in the world and his relationship with other characters. He's impetuous and hot-headed, frequently rushing into dangerous situations without waiting for backup or considering the risk to himself particularly when someone he cares about is in danger. Keep that one in mind because it'll be important later. He's ambitious but also impatient, feeling like he's been unfairly held back by other characters, particularly Obi-Wan Kenobi, and this resentment causes a growing rift between the two men that eventually spills out into open conflicts. Rather than taking the longer and harder path to wisdom and understanding, Anakin wants everything right away. He also cares deeply about people close to him and this attachment often manifests in explosive bites of anger and jealousy when he feels that they're being threatened like when his mother gets kidnapped and killed by Tusken Raiders, causing Anakin to go on a violent rampage that escalates into wholesale slaughter. Afterwards even he's shocked by what he did or when he believes that Padme has turned against him by Obi-Wan Kenobi, causing him to lash out violently against both of them. By this point he's been totally consumed by uncontrolled jealousy anger resentment and betrayal. All of the emotions that lead to the dark side of the force. The point here is clear: if you [ __ ] with someone he cares about then mercy and compassion go right out the window.

All of his skills, abilities and potential which seemed so overpowered and unnecessary in the first movie in fact serve a very important purpose for his character development. They've generated a sense of superiority, arrogance and overconfidence, and a reluctance to listen to criticism or advice no matter how well intentioned they might be. These are dangerous flaws in his personality all by themselves but combined with his overwhelming emotional attachment to people he cares about it creates a potent cocktail of reckless ambition and deep-seated insecurity that makes him uniquely vulnerable to manipulation something which will later prove disastrous because while Mary Sues are universally loved respected and trusted by everyone, Anakin certainly isn't in the first movie. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu and Yoda are all against training Anakin to become a Jedi despite his obvious potential because they know he's already too old to be inducted. This lack of early discipline in his life would leave a dangerous gap in his personality, making him unpredictable and less able to control his emotions, two factors which are extremely dangerous for Jedi. These misgivings would carry over to the next two movies where Anakin is elevated to the Jedi high council on Palpatine’s orders but the council itself refuses to grant him the rank of master because they feel he hasn't earned it yet. Now a different man would see this as an opportunity to prove himself by working hard and earning their trust eventually winning them over and gaining the recognition he deserves but Anakin takes this as a personal insult from the council which drives a deeper wedge between him and a Jedi order which he believes will never truly respect or accept him. Wow it's almost like Palpatine knew this was going to happen and engineered the whole thing to pull Anakin closer to him portraying himself as the only one who can help Anakin realize his full potential. It's a surprisingly smart piece of characterization that's completely consistent with everything we know about both men. The higher Anakin rises the more it stokes the fire of his ambition and superiority and the more he comes to see anyone who doubts or cautions him as a threat to his success. This arrogance and overconfidence also causes him to test himself against powerful opponents before he's actually ready for them and unlike Mary sues who easily win every battle they have to fight, Anakin’s recklessness causes an escalating series of losses like here where he tries to take on count Dooku all by himself and it ends with Anakin getting his [ __ ] arm sliced off. But his desire for revenge against the man who defeated him ultimately causes a more powerful and better prepared Anakin to execute him in the following movie, again proving his willingness to give into vengeance and anger even against helpless opponents or here in his climactic confrontation with Obi-Wan where his enemy has the advantage but Anakin presses the attack anyway and well I think we know how that turns out. Just as a side note I love how this carries over to Return of the Jedi. See Luke’s taking the high ground here just like Obi-Wan did.

What we have here is a clear pattern of behavior from a man whose ambitions consistently outstrip his abilities. Rather than demonstrating patience and restraint and taking the slower and harder path to lasting wisdom and fulfillment, Anakin’s inherent character flaws cause him to push himself beyond breaking point with increasingly disastrous consequences which brings me neatly along to the final points: whereas Mary Sues consistently make good righteous decisions and always strive to do the correct thing, Anakin on the other hand demonstrates a consistent pattern of mistakes and misjudgments that ultimately cost him everything. As I've already shown you the flaws in his personality are exacerbated by his powers and abilities making him easy prey for a ruthlessly ambitious man that knows exactly how to flatter his ambitions and prey on his weaknesses this eventually causes him to commit terrible crimes like murdering an entire tribe including unarmed civilians murdering children, executing a helpless opponent, helping to kill a jedi master, trying to murder his own wife, trying to kill his mentor and best friend, joining forces with an evil dictator to overthrow the republic, delivering this scene…

What I’m trying to say with all this is that Anakin Skywalker is the very furthest thing from a Mary Sue that you can get. Trying to label him as a Mary Sue for no other reason than because he's good at lots of stuff demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of what a Mary Sue is and also of who Anakin is. The reality is that he's a powerful but deeply flawed man whose unique combination of circumstances and abilities have created a dangerous personality that's vulnerable to manipulation and corruption his greatest strengths ultimately proved to be his most terrible weaknesses with consequences that echo across the entire galaxy. Now I have my own thoughts on the prequel trilogy as a whole and I’d be lying if I said they were great movies but fundamentally I think the story they tell is actually pretty [ __ ] good and I’m just gonna say it: Anakin’s rise to power and fall to the dark side is a damn good piece of character work that Disney would have done well to pay more attention to. Anyway, that's all I’ve got for today. Go away now.

I would argue the prequels are great movies but he makes some very good points. I have seen so many Disney fans claim Anakin is a Mary Sue, when he’s anything but a Mary Sue. 

[adamjamesglass]

The Last of Us Part II

The Last of Us Part II came out and it is getting review bombed by people because of a few reasons. I want to go over some of that.

Spoilers

1. They are homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, assholes that want to destroy the game. 

2. Some people genuinely don’t like how they handled the death of Joel, and the overall story.

3. Some don’t like how they handled the trans character, Lev.

I’ll start my way from the bottom up. 

A lot of the hate I hear from those that are transgendered is that they don’t like that Lev is referred to by their deadname. I think we have to remember that video games are an art form as well. They draw from life, like TV and books. In this post apocalyptic world we shouldn’t expect a progressive group of people. The outbreak happened around 2013. Gay marriage wasn’t legal until 2015.

When you write something you draw from things that have happened to those in the community, and the struggles they go through. If you are writing something dark, you want to show that darkness, that pain. What I think the writers for this game wanted to do was to show how Lev was treated by the religious cult. The cult isn’t full of good people. They are the bad guys. Do you expect bad people to respect someone who is different from them; to call them by the name and gender they wish to be referred to. If they did, I would not think of them as completely awful, just misguided. You also wouldn’t have the story arc of Lev and his sister. 

I also think it is understandable to have Lev want his mother to love him. Wanting to belong. We all want to belong. A lot of people who are different and come out to their parents want that parent to comfort them and accept them. When they don’t get it they don’t just say “screw you” many can’t. Many are children who can’t leave home. They have to conform to even survive. It is a terrible thing, and it is easy for outsiders to say they should just leave. But it isn’t easy. 

Even though it seems stupid that Lev tried to go back, it is understandable. The fact you have to look at is every single “good” person refers to Lev by his name, and gender. Even some of the bad guys that aren’t part of the cult. 

One of the characters calls Dina and Ellie a dyke. That’s a hurtful word, but it is to show what kind of character they are. This isn’t a feel good story, and even in feel good stories, there needs to be someone that the character overcomes and becomes better for it. That character becomes the hero. 

____

Moving on to those who genuinely didn’t care for the writing.

I will say the writing is basic. It feels like it wanted to do something but couldn’t really do it. This would have worked better, I think, for a TV show. I know they are producing one, so I hope that turns out well. 

They wanted us to feel for the people we killed and the animals too. They wanted a reaction. However, they should have given us an option to feel that way or not. We should have been able to not kill dogs or humans. If we were caught we should have been able to knock humans out. With how they are making ammo for guns, I think they could make tranquilizers for animals and humans as well. I think this would have helped the feeling that some had with your character killing so many people just to let Abby go in the end. 

Ellie has kill so many people along the way that it gives the ending less of an impact. She lets the one person who killed Joel go, while all those others had to die. Maybe their family members will get revenge now. The cycle continues even if she doesn’t kill Abby. 

Overall, I think it is a flimsy excuse for a story. I don’t fully understand why everyone was wanting revenge on Joel. I know that they were a part of the fireflies that Joel attacked, but they are in a new group now. It is weird that the leader would allow them to go after one man. I could understand Abby going herself, and maybe one other person. 

I can understand Joel letting his guard down after all these years and trusting these people. I can see Abby realizing it is him just by his name, because he was where he was supposed to be. I think maybe she should have asked “Joel Miller” first before shooting his leg, but maybe just hearing the name made her lose her mind. There could be another Joel, but not likely. 

The way Jesse died was anticlimactic. For a game I would have wanted more, but I think I can see what they are getting at with it. Wanting to make it so nonchalant about it adds annoyance. I’m not angry at the game, but I think they wanted to arouse anger in those who did play it. 

I thought that Abby still not killing Ellie after both Owen and Mel was not realistic. Even if she didn’t care for Owen that way, or liked Mel, it was still someone she was close with. To only throw up at the sight of them dead and then not want to kill any of them after Lev basically tells her not to is odd. 

After that Ellie tries to live her life. But is still haunted by the past. She gets a chance to go after Abby again. I can understand somewhat in finding her, maybe putting an end to it and talking. It could help the pain. But to have her go through all of that and then not do it because she flashed back to Joel was a little much. 

Again, all this death, and she can’t kill the one person responsible for her pain. Maybe if an image of JJ and Dina appeared in her head instead of Joel, I could have accepted it better. But I think Joel would have killed Abby. 

A part of me would have wanted to see a story of Ellie going down a path of hatred. Closing herself off from others instead of her forming a relationship with Dina. Still have Dina there, and try to stop Ellie, but Ellie can’t. Make Ellie into someone who basically sells their soul. Make her evil, and not caring who she kills along the way. Then when you get to Abby and Ellie is about to kill her, the game stops and then goes down Abby’s path. 

Then after playing as Abby up to the same point. It gives you an option as playing as either Abby still or switching to Ellie. Then at the climax you can either kill the other or let them go. That way it is your choice. Even if they decided to do a sequel to this one, they can just chose which one is canon. 

I felt the game was really disjointed with the flashbacks. I wouldn’t know how to fix it though. I almost feel they should have started off with Abby when she was with her father. Then the years after that. Have it be Abby first and then end with Ellie since it jumps around back to her anyways. I just didn’t like the jumps. Also time skips were confusing, and sometimes you think there was a time skip but there wasn’t. The end was all over the place in that regard.

___

For the very first reason in the list, I think I don’t have to go in that deep. These people see women as less than. They see LGBT as less than. They want to stop anything like it from becoming mainstream. They are sad and pathetic. They try to mask their hate for the game by saying it is because of Joel’s death. It’s not. They call Abby trans because she is muscular. (I will say that she is modeled after a real person, but in this world I think it would have been hard to form that muscle mass without a proper diet, but maybe they do make supplements.) However, that doesn’t make her trans. 

Because the game does have some problems with the story, it becomes hard to criticize it without looking like one of these idiots. Because people actually have some complaints, they latch onto it. 

___

In the end, it isn’t an awful game. I do think it needed more time with the story writing aspect. Maybe that’s why they were going to postpone it indefinitely. They wanted to change some things, but then it leaked and they were like “screw it.” I don’t know. The gameplay, graphics, all the tech stuff ran beautifully, so nothing was wrong on that side. They tried to say it was because of the virus, but I’m not sure. I just feel that they may have wanted to redo some things, and couldn’t because of social distancing so they couldn’t get the actors back in. 

That’s just speculation though. 

Anyway, I’ve said what I think the problem is with the game. I just want an option to not kill people or dogs. It would have helped with the ending. Even have the ability to let Owen and Mel go. Not make Ellie a killer. It could have changed a lot and made the story better. Or just go for it like I said and make her even darker. 

[elizabethrobertajones]

Sometimes it freaks me out how similar Claire Novak’s story is to Dean’s D:

It’s funny, I have just started the 10x09 rewatch I need to do before Wayward Sisters, but I watched it the other day with my mum too just because, and I have been thinking about this a lot. 

my desktop has literally been stuck on this all day while I have a migraine at all the things I wanted to do :P

They give her SO many superficial traits to him - the whole connection to Cas told through familiar lines like about her praying to him every night, or the ketchup conversation, and Cas comparing them directly in 10x10 about both being… gosh what was the phrase? I’ll have to look that up… “one extremely messed up human to another”… I’ve been trying to think about Claire in the bigger picture, and she’s a massive Dean mirror, but her story is different and I actually kinda like what it all built up to really.

She loses her family when she’s much older than Dean - 12 to his 4 - and she doesn’t have a sibling so she has to go it completely alone. She knows the supernatural exists but only angels and demons - she doesn’t really have experience with monsters, just the mytharc, and she’s been *possessed by an angel* so they’re unequivocally real to her. She grows up praying directly to Cas while Dean has had no faith since Mary died. 

Ironically Claire is bound to Cas under the exact same “angels are watching over you” link as Dean, Sam and Jack all share with Cas, but it’s the most fucked up iteration (with Sam somehow passing with flying colours as the LEAST fucked up one in this weird umbrella of humans in Cas’s charge :P) because Cas made a bad promise at the very very beginning of his story - so early on they had to make the episode to go back to it because it was only by late season 4 Cas was officially full time main character enough to warrant a more complicated backstory and knowing how his ~existence~ in a form we could understand anyway began and all. 

Claire has been utterly betrayed by Cas, and he’s her Azazel in a way - another mirror to Dean that a supernatural creature stormed in and destroyed her family. Took her father and killed him, and her mother broke and went on the road and became the Worst Parent and physically AND emotionally abandoned her. But Claire doesn’t kill Cas (because he’s not evil and wants to make amends), and she actually manages to forgive and accept his help, and he helps her resolve her family situation and put her on her new path - the end of 10x20 for Claire is what 2x22 was for Dean, but instead of having killed the thing that destroyed her family, she’s hugged it goodbye and kept the grumpy cat plushie it gave her.

And Dean’s the one who sets her on her path. Because Cas represents the big old mytharc stuff and the damage to her family - he has to reconcile personally. But she grew up in the foster system having human problems and the supernatural was maybe the CAUSE of it all but she was just raw frustrated anger when we first see her again, and she has no way “in” to deal with it… 

(And she should not have started hunting as a 12 year old, with no one overseeing her or anything - I was talking to Mittens about it a while back and yeah tbh if they brought her back as a hunter like a lot of the original spec/desires were, that she’s started hunting angels in the gap while she wasn’t on the show, she was too YOUNG and really around the age the show brought her back is really the start of when she would be old enough for them to justify her doing ANYTHING on her own. She COULD have found a Krissy set up - an older hunter to guide her and others to hunt with, to give her a closer backstory to Dean, but the separation from their world was important to start with, I think, that she had plot reasons from 4x20 why she would have started hunting run of the mill monsters and she was too young, so unless she and Amelia became a power duo of mother and daughter hunters… Yeah :P Not many ways to bring her in except either stuff happening TO her to bring her back or Cas wandering in to catch up on her…) 

But yeah Sam also just helps her in the sense of teaching her credit card fraud and his birthday present coming of age gesture to her was a credit card - independence and still not really HUNTING skills, just “you’re a scrappy youngster who needs help surviving in this world” stuff.

It’s Dean who shows her what it’s like to be a hunter, and how it all works, that you do your homework, and sets her up with the question of do you watch movies I rec you or do you hunt monsters like I do? He is the one who sets her up with the choice to continue being normal and to use her resolution of the family arc as a way to finish her involvement with the supernatural and move on and grow up into whoever she might be, or as just the first step before she starts venting her anger and frustration with the world to kill monsters and save people before they end up a messed up human like her. 

And in 11x12 Jody is sort of that guide as well - her place is to encourage Claire towards a normal life but she also has to deal with Claire wanting to be a hunter and in the end agrees to at least teach her “not to hunt like a dumbass” since she sees Claire is really set on doing this - and in that moment also that she now has a new family to defend and it’s less revenge and more helping people. And since she squared up what could have been a revenge arc she’s all “saving people, hunting things” like Dean represents. 

I think for Claire, Jody is like Bobby - the more experienced, kind hunter who steps into her life to fill an emotional gap her dead/abandoning (and then dead also) parents left. It’s similar to Dean in really broad strokes, but Jody has full responsibility of her and it’s Claire’s choice to leave or make use of Jody’s help, while I think Dean was happy for Bobby’s attention as a kid because in the 7x10 flashbacks we see how good Bobby was to him and we know what Dean’s like, and as adults he’s happy to depend on Bobby all the time and they pretty much end up living at his house from season 5-6 - it seems to be official by at least the midseason of season 6 that Sam and Dean are permanently based there although no one ever says anything about it. They drift TO Bobby and the narrative has to burn it all down to get them out of the house but Claire’s coming to Jody later in life and Jody’s attempts to guide her towards normality and away from monsters mean that she actually represents the opposite of what Bobby generally offered… In 7x10 yeah Bobby one time throws a ball around with Dean because John just wants him to learn to shoot all the time, but taking it as the transition in season 3 to Bobby being a permanent fixture in their lives and giving them the family don’t end in blood speech in 3x16 as the parallel to Claire beating her version of season 1 & 2 in season 10 and moving on to season 3 emotionally, we see Dean (and Sam) latching onto Bobby as the last time we see John passes and he’s now the sole parental figure they have. 

And that leads us to Claire wanting to be a hunter because of admiring what Dean and Jody do. And wanting to save people because she clearly feels strongly about monsters and her own frustration before she had a path, that hunting monsters is a clear *righteous* moral path, is not actually something that Dean was allowed to come to naturally. He was raised as a hunter, and he doesn’t get to choose it as an adult.

No, wait, it’s Sunday night I’m allowed to mention it again because it’s basically next week… I won’t quote the whole massive speech though :P Okay, so Dean never gets a choice to be a hunter when he’s growing up but it’s a lifestyle he was completely raised in. When he CHOOSES to be a hunter is in 2x20 after spending the ENTIRE season resenting John and the job and the burden that was put on him, and it’s uuuutterly depressing but he realises in the djinn dream after spending an entire season wrestling with wanting to just give up and stop hunting and leave the whole thing behind because he’s so tired of it all, that no one else will do it and so he has to - and he hates it but those lives are on him. I actually compared it more to Patience’s decision to leave in 13x09 because she would have the visions whether she became a hunter or not, but staying with her dad pretending to be normal would be like Dean being trapped in the wishverse djinn dream, knowing he had wished himself a happy ending but everyone was dying because he wasn’t out saving them. He had news articles of the deaths, Patience has her visions.

But Claire just sees something she really wants to do - to save people and kill monsters and rid the world of evil, and she makes it as a choice as an adult as her coming of age, based on her experiences of the world, and she has an unburdened FREEDOM to decide to do that, to feel like it is something that is in her nature and the idea of doing it is too compelling to sit quietly and do normal things with her life. Every time she has the choice to do normal things - to enrol in colleges and schools and get on with her life as Jody was hoping for her, she takes cases and hunts things and gets deeper and deeper into learning the job she actually WANTS and possibly NEEDS to do. 

I really love this about Claire - that because we got her innocent of monsters to start with, and that she had multiple chances to get off the ride, she chooses to hunt anyway and there’s low angst about it - she doesn’t have decisions the weight of which Dean did in all those instances, because her life or death revenge story is already wrapped up, peacefully. She just ends up on the road hunting monsters because after seeing this is a life people lead, and despite seeing the toll it’s taken on Dean, she still ends up emulating him. But as the next generation of hunters, who aren’t raised into it against their will, or out of necessity to learn everything about evil forces to hunt down anything in particular. She already dealt with Cas AND saved her mom, AND killed the angel that was responsible for that, and so she’s got an angsty backstory, but that’s not the thing that’s compelling her forwards… There’s no revenge and sacrifice cycle like the Winchesters are in. 

It’s similar to Jody, and the others - they all find out the supernatural exists but of all the Wayward Sisters, Kaia is the only one with UNRESOLVED main arc angst and probably a whooole bunch of misery tied to the Bad Place that they need to help her with/she needs to overcome as her personal arc. All the others have dealt with the stuff that makes up their backstory/introduction to the supernatural in their initial episodes, and are pretty much ready for a fresh start when their story begins :D

…

Oh gosh I could probably keep talking all night. Hi, I’m really hyped up for Wayward Sisters :P

[bunnythemonsterlayer]

I Should Go: An Unpopular Opinion About Mass Effect: Andromeda

Somethings about Mass Effect: Andromeda (many things actually, but specifically this one) have been bothering me for a while, but because there is one so glaringly awful, I can't ignore it let alone keep it inside anymore:

I have a sever problem with how the Mass Effect: Andromeda 'writers' handled the Genophage and Krogan fertility. It is presented in such a sloppy and lazy way that any fans of the Original Trilogy (OT for short) should be insulted that the team even thought to try and feed us it. It's literally an insult to our intelligence.

Because of the nature of the fanfic I've been writing (dealing with alien babies and all), I have had to plunge myself into the depths of canon; rereading and replaying everything to make what I put down works and flows together and makes sense. After forcing myself to replay ME:A a second time and then rewatching certain scenes on Youtube of cutscenes, I have gathered enough evidence to support my claim that based on everything having to do with the Krogan in ME:A, the writers were completely ignorant and seemingly incapable in their ability to even do their homework on the series they were paid to writing for. I am thoroughly convinced that I have done more research for my stupid little self indulgent fanfic than the 'professionals' did during the making of this waste of a game.

Strap in folks as I take you on a journey of how the writers of ME:A single-handedly destroyed years of canon while making the Nakmor Clan the most disgusting characters in all of Mass Effect history.

It's about to get nerdy as fuck in here.

The canon of the Genophage according to the OT is as follows:

1. The Genophage was developed by the Salarians BUT was originally distributed by the Turians as a 'salt the earth' tactic during war. Everyone wants to act like it was the Salarians who threw it out there as soon as it was ready to go like a big middle finger to the Krogan but the Salarians had only held onto it as a 'hey, act right or we'll fuck you up'. Granted we can say that EVERYBODY had a hand in this happening (except the humans who were unaware of what was going on at this time in Space History), but it was in fact the Turians that threw it out there like pocket sand to weaken the Krogan population growth. It was only hundreds of years later that the second wave of the Genophage, which Mordin Solus is responsible for helping to create, was dispensed by the Salarians. This was due to the fact that the Krogan had begun to evolve a resistance to the first wave of the Genophage and since the Krogan had taken on a 'fuck it all' attitude due to surrendering to the fact that they thought their species was doomed. This attitude lead to the Krogan becoming more bloodthirsty, warmongering and careless with their own species safety. Couple this with the tales of Krogan violence that had no doubt trickled down generation to generation with other species, it probably scared the shit out of the Salarians and lead them to believe in a 'we have to make sure this keeps working for the good of the galaxy' mentality. Yes, there may have been Krogan like Urdnot Wrex out there who were actively trying to salvage the Krogan, but those numbers were much, much smaller than the ones who had surrendered to their fates.

2. The Genophage is not a sterilizing plague but a genetic 'latch onto your cells and fuck them up' mutation plague. This is severely fucked up when you think about it, especially when taking into consideration what genetic mutations in the real world look like, the least damaging being extra digits and the worse being misshapen heads and extreme cleft palates or twisted limbs and organs. They could have just made conceiving harder but no, they went with the good ole 'add insult to injury' approach apparently. It infects EVERY cell in Krogan bodies and pretty much makes sure female Krogan produce fetuses so twisted and deformed from genetic mutations that they die in the egg even before the female expels it, so they are left with a stillborn child in an egg coffin. Remember, it latches onto EVERY CELL in the Krogan body, which the game and wiki specifically state that it is designed to do this so the you CANNOT COUNTERACT IT WITH GENE THERAPY. Again, REMEMBER THAT as we move forward.

3. Do we remember Okeer? Grunt's Krogan dad who figured out it was easier to grow Krogan in a fucking tube after the lack of Krogan scientists made finding a cure fucking impossible? A direct quote from the wiki is as follows:

“Despite announcements about failed, krogan-funded research into the genophage by 2183, most krogan have not worked toward a cure as they are more interested in combat than science. Unless one is discovered and used, the extinction of the krogan seems inevitable.” This is in 2183. REMEMBER THAT TOO.

Now let's get into canon for the Nakmor Clan too because you can't address the handling of Krogan fertility without the Krogan they decided to tell it through:

1. The only bit of anything for Clan Nakmor in the OT is the Ambassador being at the Urdnot Camp to talk to Wrex about an alliance so they could be strong together and plunder and pillage x10 and all that fun stuff. We learn they are a small clan who are decedents of Nakmor Krall who proved how much of a BAMF he was by facing down a platoon of Turians and winning. This is how they keep from being mowed down by other larger clans according to the Ambassador. The Ambassador as well lets us know that he is a warrior that slaughtered his way to the top and carried himself as such showing the Nakmor clan is not to be fucked with. That's it.

Alright now that that's all out of the way, let's stick our hands into the rancid pile of shit that is Andromeda and see how all this lush, well thought out story and canon was kicked like a dalmatian puppy on a soccer field.

There is so much to unpack here that I will for sure have to probably leave some more in depth things out, like certain ways the structure of the Nakmor clan in the Andromeda Universe works and such, but they are not as important. I will make sure to touch on them as needed and probably do a more in depth post about that at a future time though.

Alright, let's begin:

THE GENOPHAGE IN MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA or as I like to call it WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR WRITERS CAN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO OPEN THE FUCKING WIKI.

I will once again use a direct post from the wiki which is backed up as well with what is stated in the game:

“When the Andromeda Initiative departed the Milky Way in 2185, its krogan colonists were still afflicted by the genophage. Before departure, however, the krogan discovered they had developed a genetic mutation that naturally resisted the genophage's effects. While the krogan colonists were in cryosleep during the 600-year journey to Andromeda, they also underwent gene therapy to bolster the mutation. By the time they awoke, the survival rate of their offspring had been improved from 0.1% to 4%. Nakmor Kesh said this gave her people a chance to have a future in Andromeda.”

Now, if you all read my little info bits at the top you will already know why none of this makes any fucking sense but just in case you need more explaining and because I am so mad I have to type it all out before I explode anyway I will now proceed to pick it apart:

So apparently 'the Krogan' not 'the Krogan scientists' or anything like that, just THE KROGAN figured out that they had developed a GENETIC MUTATION that NATURALLY RESISTED THE GENOPHAGES EFFECTS.

By the way, I know that they have 'Krogan scientists' in the Andromeda game, but even if we want to believe that these stereotypical nerds they tried to pass as actual Krogan were actually scientists who knew what the fuck they were doing, I would say they would actually need to have more viable ways to do 'research' and 'development' than the tattered, jigger-rigged computer system they obviously got when they waltzed off the Nexus after the Uprising. Also, judging from the state of Tuchanka you witness while playing the OT, I don't think they were running on anything better than that before anyway. The suspension of disbelief can only go so far because it becomes obvious bullshit. Also there are like, four scientists you talk to, so did the Nakmor clan just have this monopoly on Krogan scientists they decided to drag with them from their home world away from the ones who would need people like that the most? Think about that and we'll come back to it.

Now, back to the wiki entry above, it literally proves their claim to have found a natural resistance to the Genophage through a mutation is impossible by it having stated right before that that the Krogan launched with the Initiative were STILL  AFFLICTED WITH THE GENOPHAGE. This version of the Genophage being the most recent one. As it is stated in OT canon, that shit is on EVERY CELL. It's all up in you! Not to mention that the first 'resistance' the Krogan built up was done over hundreds of years! The current version was administered within Mordin Solus's lifetime and since he is only about 35 in Mass Effect 2, we have to believe that it has only been at the most 20 years since they released that new version! It doesn't make any sense that a new resistance would have built up over that short amount of time!

But hey, just in case that wasn't stupid enough for you, it goes on to say that while they were in CRYOSLEEP, you know, the thing that FREEZES YOUR BODY IN A SUSPENDED STATE OF BEING so NOTHING CHANGES? The thing that has to be tweaked and tuned and set to specific equations and levels for every person or thing because all bodies are different and you have to make sure that certain cells will survive and stay stationary and stable during a long period of said status (read VICE's article on Cryosleep, it's amazing)? Yeah, well while they were in CRYOSLEEP they underwent GENE THERAPY to bolster said mutation.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am no scientist, but I do have an intelligence level higher than a two year old so I can therefore understand and remember from the OT canon that the Genophage was specifically designed so that you COULDN'T FUCKING DO THAT! It is literally impossible by their OWN CANON! And you know what? They could have maybe tried to explain this all away, like you know maybe in the book have said that there was someone up on the Neux actually doing this shit who knew some trick to making it work. Or that Krogan bodies had some ability to take the radical changes that would have to happen during status to undergo such a treatment. Or they had made a deal with a Salarian back in the Milky Way who gave them the blueprint to alter themselves and blah blah blah! But NOPE! DIDN'T DO THAT! It just happened somehow!

Ya know, Kesh says in the book how EVERYONE is against the Krogans except for Jien. Morda says that Jien is the only friend the Krogan have in the Initiative but apparently we are suppose to believe that someone was up for 600 years or programmed into the Nexus the codes and means to make sure that this magical therapy happened for just the Krogan. No one ran a troubleshoot on this BILLION DOLLAR PIPE DREAM before launch and was like 'Hey, Carl do you know what this thing is that's ONLY hooked up to the Krogan passangers? Should we check it out'? NOPE! We are just suppose to take this swill and Naruto Uzumaki BELIEVE IT!

Then there is that STUPID plant you have to get back for Drack's personal mission that is made into some type of Lipton teabag that Krogan babies have to consume of 'they don't stand a chance of surviving'. Yep, forget the plague that makes it so their hearts form outside their body or their limbs corkscrewed so bad they can't move, just pour this shit down their throats and all will be well! Where did that even come from? What type of anti-vaxxer Krogan soccer mom came up with that?!

Also, I am no expert in mathematics, that's what I married my husband for; but I don't need him to tell me that 4% ISN'T 100%!

YET we get THIS little gem: REMEMBER KESH'S KIDS?!

FROM THE WIKI AND GAME:

“After the mission Journey to Meridian, Drack will reveal to Ryder that Kesh gives birth to a healthy clutch of Krogan infants. He also states that they should "Keep this to themselves".

I REMEMBER! I REMEMBER THAT ENTIRE SCENE BECAUSE I PLAYED THROUGH IT TWICE AND WATCHED IT FOUR TIMES AND WAS SCREAMING 'NO' ALL THE WAY THROUGH IT!

Drack and Kesh call you into Kesh's room and show you some type of soda machine incubator thing and state that there are Krogan babies in there and 'all of them are healthy'!

Do you KNOW what a 'clutch' is in relation to egg laying? Do you KNOW how many eggs are in a clutch?

I DO because I did the research!

A clutch can range from 3 to 16 for birds and 16 to 24 for reptiles. Seeing as Krogan look like giant turtles that means there is a pretty good chance we can subscribe them to that level of fertility. They have four testicles after all. However, then you look up how many eggs a turtle lays in a clutch you can count on the number of eggs being AT LEAST 20! Times that by four!

Now, if we wanted to be generous we could say that MAYBE there are no more than 3, even though on the Krogan information page it says that they were capable of laying a large clutch and breeding extremely fast so I highly fucking doubt it. Still there has got to be at least more than one because Kesh and Drack are like 'ALL OF THEM ARE HEALTHY'! ALL OF EM! EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ONE OF THEM!

So let me get this shit straight:

Your clan finds some magical mystical way to use a technique that a bunch of OCD salamander geniuses spent their lives creating even though there is no way that anything you say is possible, like seriously, just go through some gene therapy while you nap and then drink this herbal tea and your set, and suddenly this 3.9% gives you ON YOUR FIRST TRY a healthy clutch of no fewer than THREE babies?

I call shenanigans!

But OH, as if THAT isn't bad enough, if you weren't already frothing at the mouth over how much canon has been shat on so far, let's diverge a little and look into the real fucked up shit these writers decided to bestow upon us:

The real villains of Mass Effect: Andromeda are, in my opinion, The Nakmor Clan itself.

Yes, I said it. The Nakmor Clan are the most vile, disgusting people to ever grace the Mass Effect Universe, and before you start crying and telling me how wrong I am, I want you to consider this:

The Nakmor Clan, a small clan of Krogan who were so highly respected for their past badassery that no one fucked with them, one day for SOME REASON (I know they use the tired and cliched reason of wanting to make a new start for their clan or whatever but that isn't good enough) decided to take a portion of their ALREADY SMALL CLAN, Many of them being female (you seriously see at least four female Krogan in this game) and just LEFT.

They probably even left without telling anyone because I am sure if you tried to take even one female away from a small dying clan there would be a civil war like NO OTHER.

It is at this point that someone brought up to me the whole thing about Kesh getting 'tossed away' because she was 'weak' and 'useless' upon being born. Well people, let me tell you why THAT'S bullshit:

Number one, she survived and was apparently able to breed so, fuck that shit, get over it, obviously it wasn't that goddamn bad.

Two, that whole thing, that sob story they had Drack's poor voice actor have to say about how he was this 'tired, forgotten old man with sever depression from years of battle and torment and how be he got this sweet, little, precious glimmer of hope and light and get he through it' was another showing of how piss poor the writing is.

I am sorry to tell all of you but  you were all played for chumps. You were handed the most basic sob story of 'the old man needing something to live for' and were just expected to swallow it because no one could actually come up with a good backstory.

Females are so rare for Krogan that they are fought over and used as spoils of fucking war because every uterus counts. Had they had a competent writer doing this story, Kesh would not have existed, at least not in Drack's backstory the way they made her. 1 in 1000 Krogan children survive the Genophage and you want me to honestly believe they would just toss her out like the crust of a sandwich? They would have hooked that little bitch up to whatever shitty incubator made out of ryncol cans and varren bones they had laying around and kept her alive at all costs. ESPECIALLY since she was part of such a small clan who couldn't afford to just throw away females. Even if she was from a different clan they wouldn't have thrown her away! So yeah, sorry, y'all got played. You should be pissed. You should expect better!

But let's get back to the Nakmor clan as a whole. Besides the implied cowardice of just leaving in the dead of night probably to escape any blow back from, ya know, ABANDONING their clan and people, I want you all to realize this:

Yes, not only did they just ABANDON their people, they DOOMED them.

They doomed ALL Milky Way Krogan.

If what this game wants us to believe is ACTUALLY true, then that means that the Andromeda Nakmor clan took viable information regarding how to reproduce at least MORE successfully than what they had, along with the scientists needed to make it happened and just LEFT without telling ANYBODY. They literally said 'fuck you' to their entire species and remainder of their clan back in the Milky Way for the selfish and foul act of only thinking about themselves. They want to beat their chests and have Morda and Kesh cry about how much they love the Krogan and how ever Krogan is precious and important when in reality they don't give a flying fuck about Krogan! They're all awful snakes and I am happy they all went off to Andromeda where they would in an actual canon accurate game have died out within maybe a few hundred years if they were lucky to latch on that long. The Milky Way is a better place without them and they can suffer a slow death while baby Urdnot Mordin runs around on Tuchanka in their poncho cuz the Genophage actually got cured anyway! At least in my game.

“Oh, but Bunny! Bunny maybe they DID tell their clan, we just didn't HEAR about it! You don't know! You're taking things too seriously! Stop being such an anal retentive, bitter, obnoxious bitch!”

Naw, because let me tell you why that assumption is bullshit:

Given the events of Mass Effect 3 there was no way we could have missed there being any hope besides Mordin's sacrifice or Maelon's curing of the Genophage some time in the future if Mordin goes into exile or is killed. So that kicks that theory right out the door.

“But BUUUUUUUUUNNY! You said the Genophage got cured anyway so it didn't MAAAAATTER!”

And what if it hadn't?

What if you shot Mordin and didn't let his Maelon live to cure it himself later? Would you still throw that shit at me? Maybe, if you were a sociopath.

You can't take something like the Genophage and just whitewash it to be this widdle thing that can be taken care of with a genetic sleep massage and a cup of Earl Grey just so you can have some type of bullshit sappy 'aw look the Krogan are finally getting something good, they deserve it after being shat on for so long. DAAAWW BABIES!'. Guess what, they don't deserve it. In trying to make the Krogan victims and underdogs they made them egotistical, untrustworthy assholes. I'm glad this game bombed so I don't have to see the continuation of this horrible clusterfuck!

I love Krogan but I haaaaaaate the Nakmor clan in Andromeda. HATE THEM! And I HATE whatever writer thought this was even worth entertaining.

Fans are so eager to defend this game and almost all it's crap but this is stuff that can't even be defended unless you honestly think a 'don't worry about it, it's it's own game' approach is actually going to cut it. It's NOT, because it keeps trying to tie itself BACK INTO THE OT! Garras' dad appears in it! Wrex is mentioned in the book! The Rachni War is brought up! It keeps trying to tie itself to the canon that it took no time to give a shit about!

I know not everyone is going to agree with me, Hell, maybe no one will, but I don't care. I have standards and I couldn't just keep this all in when I am knee deep in it.

This has been Bunny with my unpopular opinion and I hope the person or people responsible for this destruction of a good series step off a curb wrong and sprain both their ankles every day for the rest of their lives. Not really. That would be mean. Besides, the fact that they’ll have to put that they worked on ME:A on their resume is punishment enough.

[dent-de-leon]

Hello! Just wondering but what do you think is going to happen in terms of the sheith relationship from the season 2 end point. I mean, you have have extensively talked about how they support each other and their chemistry but surely shiro's absence will not only leave Keith without a comfort source but will potentially leave tension between them. What do you think?

Hi!! Well to be honest, I think a lot of how Keith reacts in the future will be grounded in the past. Losing Shiro now will definitely be used to parallel what happened in the aftermath of Keberos. So I have a feeling that season 3 will start off with Keith’s initial reaction to everything being mirrored by flashbacks. This will also help further develop both characters and fill in gaps like how Shiro changed Keith’s life, what he really did after the garrison, ect. 

But, with what we know up to this point, here’s some stuff about Keith’s background we can infer: Given our timetable of when Keith is kicked out–after the Kerberos mission failure news airs, but before Pidge enlists–it’s pretty heavily implied Keith left because of Shiro. He leaves almost immediately after Shiro disappears, and Joaquim has said that “[Keith] latches onto Shiro at times because Shiro’s sort of the only thing that can really calm him down and keep him in check.” The garrison covering everything up, pinning all the blame on Shiro and being unwilling to send another ship to check things out–even to just retrieve the bodies–I can see how that would make Keith blow up. 

And from there, we know Keith went off in this self-imposed exile into the desert. He doesn’t just distance himself from people–he doesn’t interact with a single human for a year, instead following his instincts. Following the trail of the blue lion, throwing his everything into chasing after ghosts. Shiro’s shocked when he sees the conspiracy theory board, so we can guess that this maybe wasn’t something Keith was always into. But he was willing to get fully immersed in something entirely unconventional because he felt like he finally had a purpose again. There was a light in the dark, and he chased it. About his time in the desert and Shiro’s return, Keith says “After getting booted from the garrison, I was kind of lost, and found myself drawn out to this place. It’s like something…some energy, was telling me to search.” Shiro asks what it was he’s been searching for. So, Keith talks about all these signs pointing to “some arrival last night.” His voice goes soft as he looks meaningfully back at Shiro and says:

“Then you showed up.”

So, what does that tell us about Keith? 

He needs a sense of purpose. The garrison gave him a goal, a point of focus, and he was damn good at what he did. Top cadet of his class, the best fighter pilot when that career track is already the most competitive. After losing Shiro and leaving the garrison, Keith had nothing to fall back on. He chases after this one feeling on a whim because he’s lost, he has nothing else; it feels like his only hope, and he really wants it to actually lead him to something. He follows it because he can’t just sit by and do nothing 

In this context, telling Keith to lead Voltron was probably the best parting gift Shiro could give. It ensures that Keith has a personal mission to keep him going, something to work towards and force him to carry on. He has to stay with the team because now he leads the team; he has to stay strong for all their sakes. And he won’t feel like he has nothing, like he just has to run away into the desert again

He might be more withdrawn but, with the responsibility of black lion, he knows he can’t just up and leave the team. Again, this prevents him from detaching himself from people completely. It means he won’t have to go through losing Shiro alone again, and he’ll have other people to lean on and help him through it. This time he has friends, people he can trust and start to open up to. That’s really good for him 

And I mean, we’ve already seen how important staying with the team is for Keith

but, conversely, he’s already left the team once already (because he was afraid he was a danger to everyone). So we know that Keith is very much someone who believes in the “greater good” and sacrificing selfish, personal desires for the sake of others. If he feels like the universe needs him to stay with the team, then we certainly have reason to believe he will. 

However, there is one thing Keith consistently values over the “greater good”:

In the end of season 1, he says they can’t go and save Allura, because it’s too dangerous and would put everyone at risk. About ten minutes later though, he breaks from formation and runs off on his own because Shiro’s in trouble. This despite the fact that he doesn’t have a plan and, again, it puts the rest of his team in danger

When Keith temporarily leads the team at the end of season 2, he makes defending Shiro everyone’s top priority. (granted this is a given, considering that shiro is unconscious and it’s his lion Zarkon’s after. But still, he prioritizes Shiro’s safety over taking out Zarkon) 

In the BOM trial, Shiro tries convincing Keith to give up because it’s his duty as a paladin to stay with the team–they’re also his family and they need him. That’s not what gets Keith to quit though. 

You know what does? 

Ya, seeing that Shiro is going to walk away again and leave him all alone. Staying true to his duty as a paladin isn’t enough. Team Voltron being his family isn’t enough. The implication that, all that aside, losing Shiro would still somehow leave him entirely alone–well, it says a lot. Keith’s abandonment issues run pretty deep, and his fear of losing Shiro especially (we can probably attribute this to Kerberos). So Keith could be in a really bad place at first, feeling like he was left behind again; he’ll know it’s not Shiro’s fault, of course. But you can still feel abandoned from something like that, and maybe resent that you ever let someone get so close. 

So while I certainly think Keith will be in a better place now than he was after Kerberos–both because he has his team and his commitment as a paladin–it doesn’t mean he’s just going to give up and forget about Shiro. I can’t see him just up and leaving the team out of nowhere to search on his own either, but I definitely think he’ll be the one who really pushes for them to find Shiro as soon as they’re able. 

Obviously this could still cause a lot of tension with the team, and I think it’s very likely we’ll see some more buildup to the whole “Choice” thing–already in vld there seems to be this idea planted that Keith will eventually have to choose between Shiro and the rest of the team. He and Allura especially are only just patching things up now, but it’s possible their rough spots in season 2 could be indicative of other problems later down the line. And we know that Allura and Keith are very objective, logic-based decision makers. So it could be that, at some point, Keith might prioritize finding Shiro over everything else, and has a falling out with Allura about it. I’ve talked about this before, but there’s already foreshadow to Keith siding with Shiro against Allura–or at least being torn between them 

And I mean tbh, I think at some point, Keith will temporarily have to find Shiro on his own. Because if Shiro really is in the astral plane, he’s going to need another black paladin to go in there and help him out. So I imagine at some point Keith will have to make the choice to go on that journey by himself. 

But, even before that, I think we’ll still see more development in Keith and Shiro’s bond. Not just from Keith missing him or having flashbacks, but also just by virtue of his connection to the black lion. We’ve seen Black impart her memories of Zarkon to Shiro before, so it’s very possible she could also share memories and act as a stream of consciousness between Shiro and Keith. I think the two of them communicating through Black could end up being a big part of season 3. Shiro might be out of the picture for now, but that doesn’t mean his presence–or absence–won’t be felt 

And while Keith will definitely open up more to other characters and grow closer to his team, I’m certain that none of them can ever replace Shiro. And seeing people substituting their fav for him as some kind of means to comfort Keith is honestly a trope that just really personally bothers me. It also undermines every bit of character development that was poured into Shiro and Keith’s dynamic 

Similarly, Keith may be the black paladin for now. But he’s not here to be Shiro; his leadership style will definitely be his own, and that may very well shift the entire dynamic of the team. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just means things will be different. That being said, just because I think Keith will make a good leader, it doesn’t mean I think Shiro was a bad one. They’re both good leaders in their right. And if Shiro does come back soon, I fully expect him to be our black paladin again. Especially when so much of season 2 was about Keith trying to reassure Shiro about his role and convince him to embrace it (see: “you mean your bayard”) not to mention how much Shiro and Black really bonded 

[coltonllenos-blog]

The Last Jedi is the Best Star Wars Movie Since ‘Empire’...What?!

Film is subjective, you can like or dislike any movie you want and you are not right or wrong for it. I am not here to tell you that you are wrong in disliking The Last Jedi, it is naive and futile to argue against someone else's subjectivity.  I am writing this because I am seeing the same reasons for why people didn't like the movie over and over again. Some of these reasons I agree with, some I disagree with, and some I feel are invalid altogether. I also feel that none of these reasons are sufficient enough to warrant the absolute vitriol, accusations of childhood murdering, personal attacks on Rian Johnson and crew, and complete chastising of every positive opinion on the movie. I also feel like a lot of these points are inconsistent with our treatments of the other Star Wars movies. In this article, I am going to approach every MAJOR problem (Sorry Benicio, your stutter didn't make the cut) with this movie, as well as expand on them and why I think they are invalid, unimportant, and even sometimes right. I will do this by doing my best to put aside my bias for Star Wars, and against detractors of the film. Instead I will focus on VERY basic screenwriting concepts, logic, and evidence. I am imperfect though, so if I screw up please forgive me. This is not a paper full of apologies for the movie, it is a compilation of arguments against claims against it. I feel like that is an important distinction to make. Feel free to skip to sections relating to you if you deem it necessary.

I began this writing excercise by giving myself a few rules:

1. I will be using the original trilogy for most of my comparing and contrasting. I like the prequels, but they are easy targets and there aren't many examples where I can use them to give weight to my argument. So I'm focusing on the "good" ones. 2. I am familar with a majority of New Canon novels, comics, tv shows, etc. But I will not be citing them for ammunition either. While I believe that the ancillary material does add to the viewing of the movies, it is not and should not be necessary. Therefore, I will not lean on the easy out of "If you've read the books..."

Without further ado, let's get started.

1. Time I will begin with some outside influences that may have affected some people's view of the movie, with the first one being time. The Force Awakens left us on a cliffhanger, and with it came with two years of speculation about what would happen next. Over two years we all placed our bets on Rey's parents, who Snoke is, what is Luke going to say, what will Luke do, etc. Remember that episodes 7, 8, and 9 are telling one story. When you can watch all three consecutively, your personal expectations will no longer be an issue and a lot of people's problems will become moot points. If you hold onto your initial hopes for the movie every time you watch it and let it ruin your view of it, well, that's not my problem. I will address this aspect as it becomes relevant further into my thesis.

2. Marketing If there's one thing you can count on to whet your appetite without spoiling anything, it's Disney's marketing department. In an age where all trailers are either too spoiler-heavy or just plain bad. Disney for the most part is batting 1000 in the marketing department. But with that there are some setbacks. With both TFA and TLJ we saw in the marketing an emphasis on things that were not important, the biggest example being Captain Phasma. The marketing also played into the fact that Star Wars fans love to speculate and intentionally stoked those flames. The Last Jedi's final trailer had all kinds of teases that got everyone talking. My grand point in bringing up these two issues that exist independently of the movie is that The Last Jedi is a two and a half hour movie and it should be watched as such. It is not 2.5 hours+ two years of guessing and it is certainly not 2.5 hours + the marketing leading up to it. As time passes, the marketing, all your speculating, and bad Snoke theories will become irrelevant, and you will be left with the movie.  The Last Jedi works a lot better without all that baggage.

Now this is not to say that your own expectations hurting your view of the movie is completely your fault. If all the time and marketing leading up to The Last Jedi didn't completely define your expectations, it certainly gave you all the tools needed to make them yourself. And if you fell into that net there is a fair share of blame to be spread around, but none of it goes on the movie itself. Rian Johnson made the best movie he could and the time and marketing have no place in between the opening crawl and the closing credits. So don't put them there. If you feel like you should, that's fine. I wholeheartedly disagree and I've made my case for doing so. Now into the actual movie itself...

3. Killing Snoke Snoke. Was. Not. Important. He never was, and The Force Awakens did not say he was. The only thing that was even remotely interesting about him was Andy Serkis' excellent performance, and the fact that we didn't know anything about him. He is treated exactly as Palpatine was treated in the original trilogy and no one seems to have a problem about that. Palpatine didn't even have a name in the original trilogy. He was introduced as a hologram in Empire, and killed off in a cartoony fashion in Jedi. Art is subjective, and if you want to hate that we didn't learn about Snoke that is your choice, but be consistent and hold the original trilogy to the same standard. Sure, the prequels explained how Sheev Palpatine came to power, but they also did not tell us why he is strong or where he came from. It is not The Last Jedi's fault that we latched onto Snoke's two or three scenes and blew them way out of proportion for two years. Not only was Snoke not supposed to matter to us, he never mattered to our heroes. I don't think Rey cares where he came from, how he knows the force, or why he's so strong, and to bring the movie to a screeching halt in order to explain it would have been the bad kind of fan service because there is no one in the movie who cares. If Luke had stopped to explain he might as well have just stared at the camera while he did it. Snoke was a plot device to further the character of Kylo Ren, who is this trilogy's real antagonist. The fact that he didn't feel like a plot device proves that he was a good one. If you care that much to know everything about Snoke, there will be plenty of supplementary material around the corner. But Episodes 7-9 are not Snoke's story, they are Rey and Ben Solo's. Speaking of which, let's look at the character of Ben Solo and why his murder of Snoke was, in my opinion, the absolute perfect choice. Ben's character arc in TFA and TLJ are pretty similar if not the same. He is learning to step out from the shadows of having legends for relatives and be his own person. We are lucky enough to get to watch our main villain actually become a villain throughout these movies. Kylo Ren is an immensely more interesting character than Snoke because we get to see him become who he is. Kylo Ren's character arc could not come to a satisfying end if he was always answering to a master trying to turn him into a new Vader. By killing Snoke, Kylo Ren removes all subserviances to other people's expectations of him and puts our villain on the top of the tower where he belongs, as well as eliminating the tired Master-Apprentice dynamic we've seen in 6 Star Wars movies already. Now we have an Episode 9 where the most complex villain of the entire series is now the sole and very unstable commander of the galaxy's greatest military force, and I believe that is the most compelling status quo to bring into our third act.

4. Too funny I can agree with that. I'm not going to defend every joke by saying that comedy has always been in Star Wars so you should just get over it. Personally I think there are a handful of jokes that, while they may be funny, I would rather not have in the movie. Luke throwing the lightsaber was a little too meta and made a gag out of an intense moment, Poe's prank call was good, but ran a little long, and I think BB-8 driving the walker would not be as bad as it is if it weren't followed by Finn and Rose doing a Statler and Waldorf impression in the midst of a destroyed ship. I think some of the jokes were badly timed and actually did halt the flow of the movie. Remember in Cloud City when our heroes were running for their lives from the Imperials and they stopped so that R2 can electrocute himself in a power socket? Same problem, it's not new. Other than the jokes I pointed out, I think all the comedy was well placed, funny, and not at all to the detriment of the movie. But comedy is so varied and subjective that I'm not going to sit here and type out why something was funny or not, you already know. Instead I'll ask you to think if you are letting one or two misplaced or unfunny jokes ruin all the comedy in the movie, or even the whole movie for you.

5. Rey's Parents Rey's biggest weakness is her parents. How satisfying would it be if the one thing she thought she needed was handed to her on a silver platter? I prefer my characters to have obtacles to overcome and internal struggles that they need to come to peace with. She tries to pass on her destiny to Luke, and when he refuses multiple times she tries to pass her destiny onto Kylo. She never wants to take the responsibility on herself. By telling her she comes from nowhere, that she's nobody, she is forced to accept who she is, and not where she comes from. In a Q&A online with Rian Johnson he says it best. He says that when Luke hears that Darth Vader is his father, it is the hardest thing he could possibly hear. That is one of the reasons it is so impactful. If it was easy for him to accept, it wouldn't be compelling. So why do we want to give Rey the easy way out? I think that when all a character's struggles are external: Man v. Man, Man v. Nature, etc. it can make for an interesting story, but not an interesting character, at least not one with depth. Rey's parents being nobody furthers the theme of Star Wars that heroes can come from nowhere, punctuated by Broom kid at the end. It also challenges our character's sense of who she is. This is also apparent in the cave sequence. Rey begs the cave to show her parents, and the cave responds with a subtle "It doesn't matter." And when we see her after the throne room sequence we see a new sense of purpose as she saves the Resistance from the TIE fighters on Crait. She is now no longer held back by her own past, and she becomes strong enough to lift the rocks to free them from the base. Our character's only get stronger by struggling. I cheer for that, and I'll be severely disappointed if they go back on it in Episode IX.

6. #NotMyLuke If you didn't like how they treated Luke Skywalker in this movie, I understand. No one wants to see their heroes broken and deconstructed. But saying that Luke wouldn't do that is not the most valid argument. The last time we saw Luke was 30 years ago, people change. You can be biased all you want, I am. But explaining your bias does not make it an objective truth. This whole article is my opinion and should be challenged and possibly debated, just like I'm doing to your opinion. It's subjective, there is no right or wrong. So let's jump into the pivotal moment first, Luke wouldn’t have tried to kill Kylo. In the flashback, Luke only had a moment of doubt, which is completely excusable in the Star Wars version of the Baby Hitler scenario. Luke saw the future, and saw Ben destroying everything he ever held dear. He instinctually thought that he could stop it, then immediately regretted it. In doing that, he pushed Ben over the edge. So could he be saved? Based on everything that everyone tells us in this movie, as well as the failed attempt at redemption by Han Solo, no. He is too far gone. Vader was a tragic villain who only listened to his own son. Ben is a psychopath who is not going to be convinced by Uncle Luke. Even Leia realizes this, and when Rey ignores Luke's advice she is wrong.That trumps any argument for Ben's soul to me. And Luke still doesn't try to kill him. If anything, that is IN character for him. Then he ran, Ben joined The First Order and Luke left to hide in his own shame and failure. He held himself to too high a standard because of his status as a legend, the same standard that we as fans are holding him to, by the way. So when it went south for him it hit him really hard. It broke him. As he learned about all the flaws in the Jedi teachings of old, he thought it was time for the Jedi Order to die, so he hid, cut himself off from The Force, and waited to die. It is heartbreaking, but above all it is human. It also gives us a reason for our favorite hero to learn one final lesson. Failure is the best teacher, and he uses that lesson to give him the strength to move forward and embrace who we all thought he was. That is so much more interesting than if we had another wise old master training a naive young student. To me, it would have been closer to a disservice to the character to make him this infallible wise old Jedi because then he can't be a significant part of the movie without forcing him into it. Not to mention Luke comes in at the end, and completely redeems himself. He becomes a legend and the hero you wanted. So what's the problem? It took him longer to get there than you wanted? That there were struggles along the way? That's what all stories are. If you didn't want that, then I think you wanted Luke Skywalker the plot device, or the deus ex machina, but not Luke Skywalker the character. I'm interested to talk about it though. His projection of himself across the galaxy may not have been your favorite way to show just how powerful Luke had become, but it does show it. It also showed it in a manner that was the best example for the Jedi teachings being for knowledge and defense, which was a fatal flaw for the original Jedi Order. Luke had a truly heroic moment from a place of pacifism, and instills a new sense of hope in the Rebels who are able to escape because of him. It overexerts his body and he dies. I loved it. I cannot imagine any kind of X-Wing battle, lightsaber fight, or other blaze of glory scenario that would have been more respectful and reverent to his character than in the movie. He dies echoing the beginning of his story, in front of a binary sunset, with The Force theme playing, alone, calm, and completely at peace. That's just me though.

7. Why Didn't Holdo Just Tell Poe the Plan Let me ask you a question. Why would Holdo tell Poe, an impulsive, hot headed liability of a soldier, the plan? Sure, Leia likes Poe, but Holdo doesn't have to. Holdo did not answer to Poe and saw no reason to let him or anyone else in on the plan. I've never been in the military, so if I'm wrong let me know, but I'm pretty sure you can't just confront your superior about their orders. Not to mention Holdo's plan was a gamble and playing it close to the chest was obviously the right answer. If the survival of the entire Resistance depends on sneaking away, you're going to make sure that information doesn't go anywhere that you aren't in complete control of. However, I think that argument falls apart whenever Poe takes over the ship. I've heard and made up plenty of arguments for why Holdo doesn't come clean during the mutiny, and while some of them are pretty convincing, I'm not sold on them. I feel like it's worth adding that when Poe takes over the Raddus, Holdo has no reason to think that not coming clean would lead to the destruction of 24 out of 30 transports (I counted). The fact that someone else found out about the plan led to that. Doesn’t that prove her right? Maybe Holdo knew that Leia was awake? These arguments are shaky at best and I know I'm reaching, so I'm gonna chalk this one up to a mark against the movie. If you've heard a convincing argument or think one of my aforementioned ones work for you, that is fine and it works for you. For me it's a plot hole, but certainly not the first one in the history of Star Wars. For example, why did our heroes wait a year before rescuing Han from Jabba's palace? They knew where he was. How did Luke complete his training without going back to Yoda? How did Boba Fett beat The Falcon to Cloud City? Insignificant plot holes are par for the course in Star Wars, therefore it cannot ruin only one of the movies to me.

8. Canto Bight Canto Bight is a little bit of a mess. I will admit that, from a plot standpoint, it has little bearing on the story. The whole sequence is basically a pickup mission. There is some lazy writing, with the convenience of finding a second codebreaker, some bad dialogue from Rose, (We get it, we need to find a Master Codebreaker with a red Plombloom, and get out of here. Stop saying it.) and the infamous parking ticket. Additionally, it is not set up very well in an odd sequence with Maz Kanata who, albeit entertaining, feels very much like a plot device. However, it is absolutely pivotal in Finn's character arc. At the beginning of the movie, Finn tries to run away with the beacon that Rey will follow in order to bring her to safety and stay out of the war. He cares about Rey. He has no attitude toward the war, he just wants out of it. In TFA, he lied his way to Starkiller base just to save Rey. His arc in TLJ is his journey from that person, into being an actual revolutionary and caring about The Resistance. This is an arc that is more subtle than it needs to be, at the fault of the movie. This is my mini-thesis statement for the whole Canto Bight sequence: The Canto Bight sequence cuts out effective character development for pleasing visuals. However, it is not devoid of all quality and depth. Instead of arguing for it, please allow me to instead recontextualize it in the hopes that you will enjoy it more on your next viewing, and then tell you the one change that I think would have made a big difference in the whole sequence. In order to learn that he does not want to stay outside of the war, he travels to a planet where the economy thrives on that very concept. When they first arrive, Finn loves it. It is only when he sees the kinds of people that its inhabitants really are, that he starts to see the first crack in the armor. This point is further expanded on in Benicio Del Toro's character who has the same attitude as Finn, and shares his most interesting scene with Finn on-board the ship on their way back to the fleet. They speak about staying out of the war, war profiteering, and how it is all just a business. This also has an effect on Finn, and he is still wrestling with himself at the time of Del Toro's betrayal. Seeing the kind of people that he was trying to join turns the tide, and he decides to align himself with the Resistance. He sees the evil of The First Order exercising itself on his friends in the fleet, and uses that anger as fuel to battle against them, even attempting to sacrifice himself for it. But He still has much to learn, as Rose makes apparent. I would have rewritten one aspect of this arc. I think Finn should have kept the beacon and taken it to Canto Bight. Then he should have tried to convince Rose to stay there, or at least let him. That would further cement his starting point in this movie. I would have loved to cut out the dumb chase scene for a better look at the inhabitants of Canto Bight and conversations about Finn's decision to desert. Then the next few scenes would be much better contextualized, and make the whole sequence more compelling.

9. Rose The love story was forced, but I think Finn realized that too. I'm going to withhold judgement until Episode IX on that. Other than that, Rose was a great character who helps to craft Finn's character. Rose teaches Finn that saving what you love is more important than fighting what you hate. I think that moment was badly written, but necessary. Rose loses her sister at the beginning of the movie, and it is almost to no avail. So we know from the start that Rose has a problem with the idea of martyrdom. She is about compassion and heroism, not anger and spite. She's a defensive character, shown by her role in The Resistance being not a soldier, but a mechanic. The one positive thing I will say about the fathier chase scene is at the end she puts emphasis on freeing the animals. While Finn is focused on destroying the city, Rose shows him what it is really about, and it sets up her saving him at the end quite nicely.

The last two sections were rife with my own bias and I recognize that. I am not making excuses for or invalidating what I see as legitimate problems with the movie. I am simply explaining why I can enjoy it anyway. If it doesn't work for you, no judgement here. Moving on!

10. Rey is too Strong That's the point, Rey is really strong and it scares the hell out of her. This one can't really be talked about without getting extra nerdy about it so here goes... They establish in this movie many times that The Force is a supernatural power that naturally balances itself out. If you look at the previous movies you will see that it is self-evident. When the Sith come out of hiding and make themselves known, the Chosen One is discovered on Tattooine. When The Empire takes control of the galaxy, Luke and Leia are born. When Luke starts a Jedi Academy, Ben Solo is seduced by Snoke. When The First Order strikes its first major blow against the New Republic, The Force AWAKENS in Rey. The Force is a power that is harnessed by training, but can also implement itself instinctually and automatically. Anakin's podracing skills, for example. When did Luke even get the idea that he could pull his lightsaber out of the snow with The Force? With little-to-no training how did he manage to blow up the Death Star without his targeting computer? How did he survive for even a second against the most feared figure in the galaxy with almost no lightsaber training? Rey fended for herself almost her whole life, she was definitely more capable than Luke was when his adventure started. She is so strong with The Force because Luke went into hiding and cut himself off from it, and there was nothing to balance out the growing evil in the galaxy. And I'm not making this up to win an argument. Snoke says "Darkness rises, and Light to meet it. I warned my apprentice that as he grew stronger his equal in the light would become apparent." that quote may not be verbatim, but my point still stands. Luke says it too, "powerful light, powerful darkness," You don't have to like it, that is up to you. It does make sense though, they told you repeatedly. And they not only explained it, but they explained it in a way that expands the lore of The Force, and fits in rather nicely with the rest of saga.

11. Leia The scene where General Leia saves herself in the vacuum of space is a place where we are going to be able to find some more common ground. I think it looks a little ridiculous and I can totally understand why that would ruin it for a large number of people. However, I am able to look past it fnd see it for all the amazing things that it is. First, it is a great character moment for Princess Leia who has the same, if not more potential than Luke. Secondly, it is an appropriate use of fan service and gave us something we've been wanting to see since we found out she is also strong with The Force. Lastly, to see Carrie Fisher's final performance have a moment where she uses The Force to save herself from certain death can only be good. For me, it is pitting all that against the fact that it looks weird, and I think it's no contest. If you disagree with me that is fine and I have no argument against it, save for the points I just made. For those of you arguing about the logistics of The Force and how she could do it without training, or how she can fly, or survive in space. The Force has precedent for being instinctual and in a life or death situation it can take the wheel to some extent. In a weightless enviroment it would not take very much ability to pull yourself through it. And Star Wars has always played fast and loose with space physics anyway. There is precedent in the prequels and OT of surviving in space for a limited amount of time. It is not some new sacrilege unique to The Last Jedi.

12. Phasma Not A lot to say on this one. I don't think the problem was that she was underused or misused as much as she was over-hyped(Refer to 2. Marketing). In the context of the films it's a non-issue to me. J.J introduced a lot of characters in The Force Awakens, and I am glad that Rian Johnson focused on the important ones. Imagine the pacing issues that would come with giving every new character a great moment, character arc, or badass death. At least Phasma got to kick Finn's ass before she died. Yes, she kicked Finn's ass. Finn got a lucky shot when she wasn't looking. Up until that it was a very one-sided fight. She did more than Boba Fett ever did and her death wasn't framed by an accident, a whiny scream, and a burp. There's only so much time in a movie and spreading it too thin would hurt every single storyline. She was misused in TFA though.

Conclusion Personally, after 6 viewings I can say that I put The Last Jedi behind Empire and maybe A New Hope. So it's 2nd or 3rd. There is nothing in this movie that is more offensive than Jar Jar Binks, Leia's sporadic British accent, Luke mourning his only family for about 5 minutes, Ewoks taking on the Imperial Army, either of the musical numbers in Jabba's Palace (The old one is way better, but I hate them both), whiny Anakin, whiny Luke, Luke's idiotic plan in Jabba's Palace, the nauseating writing of Anakin and Padme's love story, the cringeworthy shot of Luke swinging at air while Vader throws things at him in Empire, and I can go on. I have no problem saying that The Last Jedi is better than the messy Return of the Jedi, the awkward prequels, the overly familiar but still great Force Awakens, and the very messy Rogue One. I'm not trying to bash all of Star Wars to spite the haters, I'm trying to plead with them to realize that we as fans don't love Star Wars because they are technically perfect movies. They aren't. I can probably nitpick almost every single one to the same extent that I'm seeing The Last Jedi being torn apart in the garbage fire that is Youtube comment sections. We love them for the characters, the action, the fantasy, and so many more reasons. I don't have a problem with you if you didn't like the movie, but it does bother me greatly when I see people ignoring the problems in the movies they like and then all of a sudden not tolerating them in this one. If you want to compare The Last Jedi to other Star Wars movies, then compare it to to the actual Star Wars movies and not the perfect versions that you have in your head. There is no such thing as a perfect movie, and The Last Jedi doesn't break that streak. But it's not binary, just because Rian Johnson's Star Wars movie wasn't perfect doesn't make it an absolute atrocity. I think the characters, the stellar action sequences, some all-time great Star Wars moments, the overall story, the fact that it takes Star Wars someplace new, the multi-layered villain, the score, the cinematography, and the treatment of some of our favorite characters far outweigh any problems that I just expounded upon. And I think the same case applies to every Star Wars movie.

[bi-apps]

Accepted - Tarquin McTavish (OC)

thedcrkling

submitted:                                    

OOC Information:

Name/Age/Timezone- Zahra/20/GMT+5

Activity Level- Like a 6-7. i should be around often for the next three weeks because uni is off but once that starts again i should still be able to do replies at least once every two days and usually every night.

Ships/Anti-Ships- tarquin/chemistry

Did you read the rules? Yep!

IC Information:

Character Name- Tarquin Troye McTavish

Age/Birthdate- He is 23 years old and was born on 15th April 1955

Faceclaim- 1. Jacob Elordi 2. Avan Jogia 3. Samuel Larsen

Label- The Anarchist

Loyalty-

Neutral but leaning towards the Death Eaters.Tarquin is neutral. He would tell anyone who asked him that this wasn’t his war. Despite how penniless his family now was, he was still a Pureblood and in a manner, the war didn’t affect him. He wasn’t the one who was being hunted and though he could be sympathetic for those who were, he was also selfish.  Did he think it was wrong to want to eradicate people based purely on their blood status? Yes. It wasn’t fair but then, life was hardly ever fair and war never was.  Survival only came to those who fought for it. War was always about power and even though Tarquin always distanced himself from it, he could see that much. He was neutral but the fact remained that the Death Eaters would feel no hesitancy in hurting someone like his sister; Muggles, Muggleborns and Squibs were all worth nothing to them and for that reason, even though he could see how allying himself with them would be more beneficial he could never bring himself to do it.

Former House- Gryffindor

Occupation- Store Clerk at Borgin & Burkes

Blood Status- Pureblood

Patronus- to them that they show openly, and have no problem doing it. However, there is more to them than just an impression, they have parts of their past that are a bit dark, and that has caused them to grow a bit cynical. They don’t like to show their feelings to others, as they like to maintain the impression for themselves and for others that they are unbreakable. They are not fast to warm up to anyone, but once they do they will protect you with all that they have. The most common house for a tiger patronus is Slytherin. The most common signs are Gemini and Aquarius.

Boggart- He fears Azkaban the most. He doesn’t think he could bear to return to that place again. Before Azkaban though, his Boggart always took the form of his sister dying at his father’s hand because he has definitely felt that fear as he was growing up. At this point, his fear would take the form of him being in a prison cell in Azkaban with Dementors surrounding him and unable to do anything but watch as one of the Dementor’s suck his sister’s soul.

Traits-

+creative: Tarquin is so much more than he appears on the surface. His creativity is visible in the music he makes, in how he can spin something out of nothing. It isn’t something he realizes because despite what everyone else thinks of him, he will forever be his own worst critic, but Tarquin has a knack for making the most mundane things sound beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. +courageous: there is no fight big enough, no confrontation dangerous enough to make Tarquin back down. It is not that he doesn’t feel fear only that in the years he has spent with his father he has learned to live with it. He has learned how to move past it and not let it stop him. His courage is what gives him life, it is what enables him to keep fighting even when he wanted , so much, to simply give up. +intelligent: Not only is Tarquin very street smart, he also has a way of retaining information. He never paid too much attention in school but his affinity for Transfiguration, one of the hardest subjects was a clear indicator of his intelligence. His intelligence also comes in handy while working at Borgin & Burkes, after all everyone knows there is something off about the shop but it takes a good bit of cunning to make sure no one ever finds the proof. With the sort of people he deals with on a daily basis, people who are waiting for a moment of weakness, he has to be sharp or they’d chew him alive.

Three negative traits -aggressive: it doesn’t take much to set Tarquin off. His anger is his worst enemy and he is well aware of the fact. His rage clouds everything, it tinges everything red and it damages the few relationships he has managed to form. The aftermath of a fight is definitely worse. The adrenaline and the act of forgetting himself for those few minutes is never enough to mask the hatred that comes when he realizes the damage he has done. This was how his father dealt with things and Tarquin never wanted to turn out like this.

-noncommittal:  he is always on the fringes, never really dedicating himself to one cause or one person completely. He keeps everyone at a distance, never lets himself feel anything real. Tarquin would rather lash out and hurt other people than be the one who ends up bruised. Tarquin is forever hovering in the middle and it why he is perpetually restless and dissatisfied with life. He gets bored easily, he overthinks and his fear of losing keeps him from really trying for anything in the first place.

-pride: what did he have to be proud of? And yet, when everything was taken from him, Tarquin latched onto his pride as if that was the only thing that would save him. It did in a way, it kept him afloat, kept him from losing his mind but it has also gotten in the way of every happiness.   Tarquin puts his pride before everything and it continues to cost him dearly.

Aesthetic- cigarette smoke, blood on the first four knuckles, stormy nights

Key Points-

(tw: abuse) Tarquin’s earliest memory was this: his baby sister crying, the sound of glass breaking, amber liquid sloshing on the marble, his father’s voice reverberating around the room, his mother flinching before she regained her composure, his father striding out of the hall and then- his mother rushing towards him and picking him up, her smile just as bright as he was used to. His fear and uncertainty had dispersed just like that as she whisked him away to get him ready for the gala.

Tarquin was born to Pureblood parents and though he has heard tales of the supposedly great bloodline they have, he isn’t sure if any of it is true or his father’s drunken delusions. For as long as Tarquin could remember, they had little money. Sure, they had a manor that was falling apart but their vaults were damn near empty and their name no longer carried any influence. The Pureblood society was quick to move on from anyone who didn’t fit in the carefully cultivated image and when their family lost their wealth, they also lost their social standing.

This was how he remembered his mother: she was a flurry of skirts, she was lips painted red, she was the laughter that rung around the house and a part of him couldn’t help but resent how she never turned her back on his father.

Tarquin was born as the cherished first born and though he has no memory of those years, he was loved. Their lifestyle was nowhere as lavish as the other Purebloods but children are easy to please and he didn’t lack for anything. His sister was born two years later. She had always been there, featured in his every memory and he always knew he would protect her no matter what the cost.  

His father was a drunk and a gambler. It steadily grew worse and like every other gambler he believed that he would be able to recover the money. He dreamed of restoring them to their old standing, of everyone who had turned their back on the family to come back offering apologies. They were nothing more than delusions. His father liked to believe he was a powerful man but like every coward who believes himself to be a hero, the only ones who he could bend to his will was the woman who had always loved him and his children who were too young to know better.

It might have been a home once but as far as Tarquin could remember, the manor had been a cold, dark place to grow up. His father would return home every night, squandering what little money he had. He would throw punches at the wall, he grew paranoid and believed himself wrong in every little thing. Tarquin started to hate him.

His little sister was a form of solace in the place. She took after his mother, where Tarquin had his father’s eyes, his sister had their mother’s smile. She was easy to get along with where he was withdrawn, she was quick to laugh where he went days without hardly a smile. They would spend hours together, playing in their room and pretending they didn’t hear their father break yet another out in the hall. He pretended he didn’t see the strain in his mother’s eye, didn’t see the way she flinched whenever his father raised his voice or how she suddenly started wearing more makeup than before.

Other Purebloods had formal lessons but his mother took it upon herself to spend time with her children. They learned Spanish when she spoke it at home and each evening she would sit down on the piano between the two of them and for a while, until their father came home, it would be nothing short of bliss. Tarquin fell in love with music then. He learned quickly and it was the first thing that was entirely his. It was what made him calm down when he got in one of his moods or when he had a temper tantrum. It made him feel less alone and soon, he wanted to play every chance he got.

Hogwarts came as a relief for him. His life at home was starting to get suffocating, his father’s temper was continually getting worse and there was no escape. He was sorted into Gryffindor and knew that the news would be met with contempt from his father. As exciting as Hogwarts had seemed from a far, it might be fair to say that Tarquin had romanticized it quite a bit or perhaps the damage had already been done, at only eleven years old and he simply couldn’t connect with people. Everyone was so friendly, so happy and to Tarquin it seemed like nothing short of a miracle. He had never known it was so easy to simply strike a conversation, to laugh and show off the new broom they had received as a gift. He simply couldn’t do it and earned a reputation for being reticent and withdrawn. No one really knew what Tarquin was like except for his quick temper and his impulses that only left chaos in their wake.

The truth was that Tarquin had learned to find solace in the anger. He could never articulate just how lonely he felt and the only way he could show it was through lashing out. He never let anyone close enough to let them hurt him, it was the only way he could hide his vulnerability. Eventually, he made a few friends mostly owing to their efforts. There were a few people who could draw him out of his shell and with them Tarquin found a family that brought him more comfort than his own ever had.

He dreaded the summers but he always returned back to that cold, empty place. He would have never abandoned his mother and sister like that. Tarquin was all but counting the days until his sister could join him at Hogwarts and he could breathe freely knowing that she was safe but on her eleventh birthday the letter never came. Suddenly, it was crystal clear; the one thing the whole family had closed their eyes to. His sister had never displayed any signs of magic. His father’s rage at having a Squib for a daughter was unparralled. Tarquin flinched every time he said the word as if it was a curse and to this day, this is still what he sometimes sees when he closes his eyes: his father red in the face, throwing a glass at her that only narrowly missed. His father wrapping his hand around her arm and dragging her to the cupboard, screaming at her to do something. His sister’s screams as she reached for him, for their mother and then the slam of the door as he locked her, knowing she was afraid of the dark.

Tarquin wasn’t aware of it but he was screaming as well, begging and crying to let her out. What happened next is also burned in his memory forever: he had attacked his father with bony elbows and rage that was far too much to be contained in his thirteen year old body. His father had resolved the whole thing with throwing him in the dark, cramped cupboard alongside his sister. They had huddled close all night and though Tarquin didn’t cry, every tear of his sister that soaked through his shirt felt like acid. It wasn’t until his father had passed out that his mother unlocked the cupboard. A part of him never forgave her for taking so long.

His sister was sent to Muggle London and excuses were made, lies were told and her existence was hardly ever spoken of. Something fundamental changed in him that day, he learned that you had to fight for every single inch that you took from life. He had to fight with loud words and bruised knuckles and bloody hands. He had to wring what he wanted because life was kind to no one.

Years passed in an anger fuelled blur, he visited his sister in Muggle London as often as he could and every time his heart felt lighter when he saw how she was happier and better adjusted. His situation at home continued to worsen and he was sixteen the first time he saw his father push his mother in a wall. He was no longer the skinny thirteen year old though and he paid his father back for that in the form of a broken nose. Tarquin had always hated needles but that year he got his first tattoo. He had scars all over his body, remnants of so many fights gone wrong but he refused to live with one that his father had given him.

He started to write songs, though not many people knew. Strumming away on a guitar somehow made the time pass easier and it seemed as if the only time he could ever make sense of what he was feeling- of the anger and the hatred and the mind numbing pain he felt- was when he wrote it in a song. He never believed himself to be good enough to consider a career in music, but it kept him afloat.

The next year, two months after he graduated from Hogwarts, his mother died. The pain consumed him, it didn’t let him breath; there was a hole in his heart from her absence because despite what resentments he might have harbored there was one thing he could never deny: his mother had loved him. It was the first time he shed tears in what had been years but he cried for every terrible thought he had, had towards her, for every way he had let her down, for never telling her what she needed to hear and because he had not been the son she deserved.

Her death send him in a terrible spiral, one which there was no coming back from. The chaos and adrenaline was the only thing that made him feel anything other than despair. The smell of blood on his knuckles made him feel alive even if it was in the worst of ways. It was truly terrible; how he would lose himself in the violence and later only feel the barest hint of regret. It came to a head when his neighbor called his sister a slur and he responded by Transfiguring the man in a tea kettle. Azkaban was dreadful, the dementors seeping away any hope he might have left and his days spent in the prison still haunt him but he never regretted it.

It also served as a wakeup call. Tarquin doesn’t want to spend his life like this; he wants to know something other than this churning hatred. For as long as he has remembered he had only known violence and he is not blind to the similarities between himself and his father. It makes him nauseous every time he thinks about it. He wants to try to be someone better, someone more whole. He has more in common with his shadow than with the person causing it but Tarquin knows that there is no salvation in the middle of a war.

Connections- Alecto Carrow - friend Edgar Bones - can’t stand them Ludovic Bagman - used to play Quidditch with

Extra Info-

Headcanons: 1. He is pansexual. His sexuality is something that he never advertised but he has also come to terms with it and doesn’t exactly hide it either. In the past he has had relationships with all genders though most of them were purely physical. He finds it hard to open up to people and keeps them at arm’s length. 2. Tarquin has this deep seated mistrust of the pureblood society. He claims that there is a reason that everyone who has left this world is happier for it. He is glad that his sister was able to live a happier life in Muggle London despite everything that happened. He can see clearly how most pureblooods, in his opinion, are living a lie and just cover up all the dirtiness with lavish parties. 3. He is terrified of turning into his father and it is the one reason that despite his vices, he stays away from drinking. They are already more alike than Tarquin is comfortable with and the hatred he has for the man is like fire coursing through his veins. He often feels lost and lonely and tells himself that he is alright with it. That it isn’t really loneliness if he wants to be alone. 4. He still has nightmares about Azkaban. The dementors seemed to have seep away every little hope that was left in him, every dream and every aspiration until he couldn’t recognize himself in the mirror anymore. It was easily the most harrowing experience of his life and yet, he has no regrets. He went to Azkaban because someone called his sister a slut and he retaliated by transfiguring the man in a tea kettle. Not many people knew this though because he refused to explain himself so all they say was yet another Pureblood extremist. As far as Tarquin is concerned, that man had it coming and he would absolutely do the same thing all over again.

here is his pinterest board and his tag on my writing blog!! Playlist: i. one day – kodaline ii. Get better – nothing but thieves iii. Ten tonne skeleton – royal blood iv. Some boys – death cab for cutie v. you don’t get me high anymore – phantogram vi. 1 of those weaks – the neighbourhood vii. Paris – the 1975

Para Sample-

This is a scene from his mother’s funeral!

Tarquin remembered his mother’s funeral in flashes.

More than the actual events he always remembered the sinking feeling in his chest, he remembered feeling so completely untethered from everything going around him. It didn’t help that he had known it was going to happen, after all she had been sick for a while. Only that the reality of it was so crushing, absolutely nothing could have prepared him for it. He was drowning in his own misery, in all the things he should have said. He didn’t remember her funeral but God, he remembered every single bitter word that had crossed his lips. He remembered the way her face had caved in every single time until without fail, she had pulled herself together, patted his cheek and laughed it off. More than anything else he remembered his mother’s laugh, the way it had lit up any room she was in. Her children had that same laugh but no one would have guessed it because few had heard Tarquin laugh freely and Theia was far away.

Tarquin wanted to only remember the good things about his mother. He had wanted to remember her as the mother she had wanted to be; the one who had called him mi cielito ( he couldn’t remember the last time she had called him by his name and not some term of endearment) and loved to hear him play the piano but the resentment almost choked him every time he thought of how time and time again she had chosen the man who had hurt them over her own children. It turned everything inside him smoldering red, the way she had never defended him but never defied him either. It left him grasping for breath whenever he thought of the ways she had let them down when they were too young to fight for themselves.

And yet, she had loved him. She had loved everyone she came across, even those that weren’t worthy of her but she had loved him in a way made him fall to pieces at all the ways he had rejected it.

And so, this was what he remembered of his mother’s funeral:

he remembered his sister setting foot in the manor that her father had thrown her out of for the first time since she was eleven, looking every bit the image of their mother. he remembered her speaking to him but he didn’t remember what she had said, instead he remembered feeling as if he was floating above the whole scene; his sister’s  hand on his arm and him standing completely still until she had fallen silent as she realized nothing they were saying was reaching him.

he didn’t remember until later how his relatives were talking about his sister being cursed and how she had walked away from them with more iron and strength than he could ever possess. at that time he had only felt someone tightening his hold on his arm which was just as well - the last thing he needed to do was cause a scene at his mother’s funeral. oh no, he would find plenty of ways to give in to his rage later.

he remembered sitting next to his sister and feeling like a ghost; a shell of a person, someone who was present but not alive. and hell, even he had known that was wrong and so, he had dug his nails hard enough in his sister’s arm to leave crescent marks. theia had covered his hand with her own and he had used her as something to hold on to as he forced himself back inch by painful inch.

he remembered his sister wiping away her tears but he had never cried, he was chiseled out of stone and stone didn’t weep and he would never put his pain on display like this, but then she had always been stronger than him. he remembered how their father had been walking towards them, how his sister had taken half a step behind him and he had steeled himself but all he could think of was not here. not now. he didn’t have the energy for this. and so they had walked away. he had slipped his hand in hers and left their father to rot away in the manor that was falling down around him. his sister’s presence was something solid next to him  and there was a light breeze stirring and he could swear he could smell his mother’s perfume, and he remembered feeling not so terribly alone in that moment.