#i want the general story of maria. a victim backstory and connection to maria. then family backstorys and connections. and then a q&a sect

[hauntedjohnny]

[commandervisor]

Since you're just about to start vol 7, is there any theories you have going forward? Is there something you really want to see happend? Have you been spoiled for anything?

Putting this under a “Read More” because this is just one thing after another… 

Theories? In hindsight after writing all of this, most of it is not the main cast because I guess at the moment, they’re rather well-adjusted and/or recovering from their issues rather well lol, so I can’t make big enough guesses on them right now.

Emerald and maybe Mercury GTFO there, I think being stuck in Salem’s castle with Hazel until whatever goes down in Atlas I guess will 

Emerald becomes a Maiden, my guesses are:

A “redeemed” Cinder thinks of Emerald in her last moments, but it’s kept vague if she was thinking of her because she actually cared about her or because of something completely unrelated to that (ex. “Emerald better have-*gets killed midsentence*”).

Otherwise, Cinder finds out Emerald is now a Maiden and turns against her. Now Emerald has to deal with her mother figure, the woman who saved her life, wanting her dead.

Either way, I think this could lead to her redemption.

Mercury is pretty hard to read, especially after what he said in V6 about why he acts the way he does and how he feels about his relationship with Cinder and Emerald. Tyrian summed him up as just putting up a tough exterior because he doesn’t know anything else, so if something like Emerald going rogue happens, then it’ll be interesting to see how long he’ll keep those barriers up against Emerald.

Cinder “redemption” arc. I don’t know how, but it would constitute showing her backstory (because that infatuation for power and not wanting to be powerless has to come from something, and she’s based on Cinderella, so.). V6 already had Salem basically kicking her out of the house for disobeying her (albeit she’s apparently still keeping an eye on her…), so Cinder left to her own devices could end up doing a lot more loose cannon-y things outside of trying to get revenge on Ruby and this eventually leads into her becoming an anti-villain and something of an anti-hero?

Pyrrha’s and maybe Amber’s souls are actually connected to Cinder, kind of like with Ozpin and Oscar, because 1) Maiden mechanics? and 2) It seems strange to me that back in V3 when they hooked up Pyrrha to Amber in that aura transfer machine, they made a big deal out of how Pyrrha “might not be the same” if the transfer works but then she died anyways so that part seemingly didn’t matter outside of brief angst? At the moment, I don’t know where this would go other than Pyrrha and Amber kind of haunting Cinder like ghosts, maybe this could lead to her “redemption”?

After what happened with Vernal, I don’t know what to make of Winter Schnee and Summer Rose as possible Maidens, but it seems relevant? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Likewise, I don’t really know where Hazel’s arc may go, either they’ll keep him as someone who refuses to move forward and ends up dying a bitter, meaningless life, or he’ll finally realize that and maybe help the heroes against Salem and/or Em & Merc leave Salem (I think him trying to take the blame for Cinder’s failure in V6 was foreshadowing), probably at the cost of his life because I can’t imagine him turning against Salem and managing to walk away alive.

Weiss tearing Jacques a new one, because we got Yang doing that to Raven in V5 and Blake (and Yang) doing it to Adam in V6 too, so I think we’ll continue to see cycles of abuse, hate, spite, and so on get broken from this point on.

And also take Whitley and GTFO there too, it’d be neat to see him unlearn his behavior from being under Jacques this whole time and I guess “redeem” himself… I have no idea who should take him in but he could stay with Maria if she and the group are parting ways in Atlas, it probably wouldn’t be safe for him to tag along with RRAYNBBOW (or however they’re called now lol). I pretty much envision this as what Eh**z said about Azulademption if it had happened in ATLA (”I’m happy.” “Yes, we know you are, Whitley.”).

Tai fighting, because they’ve established him as being retired while Raven and Qrow are still in action, so I think we might see him fight at some point as things come to a head.

Because RWBY is a good show that knows how to properly “subvert expectations”, it is to be expected that a lot of questions and mysteries will get answered (ex. Almost everything about Summer, Raven/The Spring Maiden subplot to come back, probably if a Maiden killing another Maiden actually boosts their power or not, whatever they have to do to teach Salem her lesson, etc.), and there are a lot of endgames they’re likely building up to (ex. Salem is defeated, Oz and Salem reunite and reconcile in the afterlife, Oscar is the last Oz reincarnation because Oz’s quest finally gets a happy ending, the Gods leave Remnant alone, maybe the Grimm disappear from Remnant, etc.).

Things I want to see happen (outside of ships because I think y’all know already lol):

I think this is a victim of the show trying to find its footing early on, which does happen, but I think it would be/have been neat if we got to see Ruby’s friends from Signal at some point (I’m guessing this might be prime self-insert OC material) or at least get a glimpse of the “elementary”/”primary” Huntsmen academies, if only because I like worldbuilding/lore and Chekhov’s guns/foreshadowing :P. Though I doubt this will happen since the show is moving in a really different direction from the school setting it had back in V1-V3, which is fine.

Jacques joining Adam in clown hell

STRQ flashbacks, and maybe a TRQ reunion? Again, I can see this as something happening as things come to a head, especially since this would require Raven to kind of turncoat back to the good guys.

EDIT: I would also like to see Goodwitch come back, but I guess that might be a while since we’re focusing on Atlas at the moment and then presumably Vacuo?

Watts shaving his dumb moostash

More anime voice actors, because OH WOW IT’S AMAZING HOW THE ACTING INDUSTRY WORKS, HUH VI? 

I think that’s all I can think of for now… Anything else I usually wonder about is something I bring up in my liveblogs? I think??

Have I been spoiled for anything? Yeah, I guess, but it was because of people rb’ing RWBY on my dash/TL/whatever before I started watching the show, so I didn’t have context and I didn’t think much of any of it beyond that they looked neat. That, plus me having the memory of a goldfish about all of that probably helped… For example, ask me about Homestuck, The Adventure Zone, Critical Role, The Arcana, etc. because I see those on my dash a lot, but I have no idea what they’re about other than maybe some general info and a couple of character names.

That being said, I knew/know about some characters that hadn’t/haven’t shown up yet because that’s pretty hard to avoid (at the beginning, I only really knew RWBYJNPR, Sun, Penny, and also Ozpin, Qrow, and Summer but pretty much in name only; back when V7 started, I did notice a lot of popularity with certain characters from that volume), and some things I did know like someone being able to turn into a bird (when the Faunus lore got introduced, I thought this was going to be a Faunus power lol*), Blake was or was not a cat-person, Summer being gone, Bumbleby being the ship, and maybe more that I can’t remember at the moment.

* …“What I expected vs. What I got: RWBY Edition” is probably something that warrants its own post. Hmm…

It’s 3 AM and this is a huge garbled mess, but as you might guess, I’m really invested in RWBY right now and it’s fun wondering where they’ll take the story next. This is quality.

[bombshellsandbluebells]

@awesomenell65 I appreciate you so much! you’re so sweet. thank you for being willing to listen to my passionate writing rant about Captain Marvel :) I’m posting here so that previous post isn’t so long

ok, a breakdown of Captain Marvel’s flawed script under the cut:

I actually like the general plot and the story of the movie. It’s fun, it has an interesting twist, and it’s a nice reinvention of the classic origin story that is now way too familiar and overdone in the MCU actually works. The idea of starting Carol with her powers and hero status (even if it is as a soldier in the Kree army and not as the hero Captain Marvel yet) and having her go on a journey of self-discovery to reveal her past is a actually a really great way to switch up the origin story plot. 

Its messages in the third act are also refreshing and great - that Carol’s emotion isn’t a weakness but something she should embrace. That she doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. That she is strongest by embracing who she is fully. Even that Carol shines brightest when she’s not letting men or a sexist society hold her back. And the twist of realizing that the terrorist threat the Kree army is determined to eradicate are actually victims of imperialism is a pretty great one.

The problem is that while all these are great as ideas, none of it is actually executed that well. 

One of the main problems is with Carol herself. The story of self-discovery falls flat when the movie fails to actually develop who Carol is a person. We’re never really shown how she actually feels about anything or what she believes. Everything revealed about her past are basic details that gives us a very, very rough outline of Carol as a person.

She/We learn she was an Air Force pilot. Ok - why? What motivation/belief/conviction led her there? Was she trying to prove something? (Which would have been a great contrast to Carol later learning “I don’t have to prove anything to you.) Did she just want to be able to fly? (Actually a big thing in the comics and would make the moment when she realizes she CAN fly all that more exciting.) Did she believe that it was a righteous cause and she could protect people? (Which would work well with learning she was aiding an unjust war.) Did she just want to protect people and thought that was the best way to do it? (Holy shit, that would be lead to a powerful moment for Carol of realizing that she has been tricked into hurting victims rather than a dangerous army.) But the movie doesn’t tell us. She just was a pilot. Her reasons or how she felt about it are never revealed. 

There’s lots of opportunities to use Carol’s background as a pilot in interesting ways to further the messages, but by not telling us WHY she was a pilot, it really doesn’t contribute much to the messages OR our understanding of her as a character.

Same with other details. We learn who Lawson was, but we never understand who she was to Carol. Clearly she was important and Carol admired her because she appears as the Supreme Intelligence - but we don’t know WHY. What did Carol admire about her? Why did she look up to her? What influence did Lawson have in Carol’s life beyond asking her to fly the plane that got shot down?

Also, who was Carol’s family? What did Monica mean by saying that Carol never considered them family? Clearly they had an impact since they briefly appeared in her flashbacks, but we don’t know how they impacted her. 

This leads into another problem. The emotional beats and messages didn’t have impact because they weren’t properly set up earlier or contrasted with earlier moments. It was a lot of telling us things - telling us what the message was or how to feel - without really showing us or making us feel it. 

For instance, the twist about the Kree being the bad guys is great and could have worked, but the moment falls flat because we didn’t fully understand why Carol was fighting for the Kree in the first place. If you had established that Carol strongly believed in the cause, then that moment has a lot more weight because you understand that her driving motivation was a lie. Think about the first Captain America movie. The first act spends all its time explaining WHY Steve wants to go to war - he believes it’s the right thing to do. He wants to stop bullies. Imagine the emotional impact if the third act revealed that he was fighting on the wrong side the entire time. You would FEEL that, because you knew how important doing the right thing and stoping the bad guy was to him. We needed that in this film. Without gaining an emotional connection to Carol’s beliefs and motivations in the first act, we can’t have as strong of an emotional reaction to having those beliefs disproved as intended.

There’s also the moment where Carol realizes she’s been held back by Yon-Ragg the whole time. A great superhero moment. The problem is that Carol never once is the underdog in the film and is always shown to be stronger than Yon-Ragg and her enemies. There’s no real victorious feeling to that moment because it’s just more of the same. Carol has ALWAYS been powerful. Now she’s just...more powerful. The movie can tell us that he was holding her back, but we never see her really suffering or failing because she was held back.

There’s also the fantastic “I don’t need to prove anything to you” line. Which I DO love. It’s like Peggy saying “the only opinion about me that matters is my own” in Agent Carter. It’s a great message and a particularly great message for a female hero to send to women and young girls. But again, a failure to set this up properly or contrast it makes it fall flat. The movie tells us that Carol has learned she doesn’t need to prove herself...but I didn’t really realize that she had been driven by needing to prove herself.

True, this one has better set up than other moments, because she does start the movie going to speak to the Supreme Intelligence about proving she’s ready to fight. But the lesson isn’t well set up, because it was never portrayed as a problem that Carol wanted to prove herself. Imagine if she hadn’t been captured by the Skrulls, but had disobeyed an order to go after them because she wanted to prove herself on her first mission. If Yon-Ragg had told her not to because she couldn’t take them alone only for her to stubbornly tell him that she could do it. And then, she ends up getting captured and in worse waters because she wanted to prove herself. Or that could be the reason she stays on Earth to try to stop the Skrulls and find Lawson alone. 

You could even further this message by having Maria tell Carol (or better, show it in actual flashbacks) that Carol always wanted to prove herself. It actually is part of her backstory in the comics that she always felt like she had to prove herself to her father, who thought his two sons were more capable than his daughter. The realization and character growth moment would then be Carol realizing that she doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone else. But without moments establishing earlier the downside to trying to prove herself or the fact that it was her driving motivation.

Another one that the movie told us but didn’t show was the message that her emotions actually made her stronger. Another great message for a female hero if they’d done it effectively. But Carol doesn’t....actually get to express any emotions beyond snarky and mad. Even when she realizes she’s been lied to and fighting for the bad guys, she’s not allowed the moment to grieve or get upset. When she does try to get emotional, another character actually tells her to stop. So I don’t understand how Carol’s emotions are actually her strength when the script didn’t really give her the room to be emotional. (And it’s a shame, because Brie could have done so much. She has the acting ability to explore those emotions.)

On an even more technical writing level there were pacing issues, but that’s nitpicky. The main issues really were that the script failed to set up any of its emotional moments or lessons and told us that Carol learned things that it never showed that she learned. It failed to develop Carol by not revealing her motivations or her beliefs or anything about her as a character and then didn’t give her the room to grow and change in any real way. Carol kind of just ends the movie the way she begins, just....more powerful. 

Basically, when writing a story, you can’t just suddenly tell us we’re supposed to feel a certain way or that someone has learned something. You have to set everything up earlier in the script to pay off later and you need to contrast all lessons learned with something earlier. 

[demigodofhoolemere]

Saw Captain Marvel!

Spoiler free version: Amazing. It’s so so good to see Carol in live action, and I’m so happy they did her personality and her power set justice. Brie did an awesome job at bringing her to life, and I loved her journey (and I appreciated the nonlinear storytelling). The story was fantastic, and after a few years in a row of coming out of quite a few movies with various disappointments (largely regarding characterization issues or humor going overboard), it’s such a good feeling to not have my expectations dashed. All of the characters made me so happy, I love how real and human each one of them was. No unnecessary drama between the protagonists (unlike some people *cough*Avengers*cough*), just people who are genuinely friends, including unlikely ones. It’s certainly different from the origin story I’m used to, but I really enjoyed what they did. I’m also glad that adding something so big like this to the backstory of the MCU doesn’t shake things up too much; there are a few changes, but it didn’t come off as a retcon, at least not in the annoying way of most retcons. All in all, wonderful movie that left me crying happily, and also now leaves me looking suspiciously at my cat.

Spoiler filled commentary below

~~~

- CAROL. Just Carol. I can’t overstate how much I loved seeing her. I love watching her fly around and use her powers and beat people up. That’s been my jam since 2012 and I’m still living for it. This has been a long time coming and it feels like newly meeting an old friend. She deserves every ounce of praise she’s been getting. I’m also always grateful when tough female characters have a well-developed personality, because if her entire character is only about being tough, then I have difficulty investing because there’s nothing to connect with - unfortunately that kind of character is a dime a dozen these days because in the effort to prove that women can stand up on the same playing field as men, they often just get injected with masculinity and it ends there, which can be frustrating. For all of Marvel’s other flaws with how it treats some of the female characters, they always manage to churn out a genuine human being who does not come from a cookie cutter. Carol gets to have wonderful human emotions, a balance between positives and flaws, and strength that does not come only from her powers. She is determined, full of spirit and life, she knows anger and empathy in equal measure. Getting to know her and love her as a person is why it’s so much fun watching her kick butt. It wouldn’t be the same if kicking butt was her only defining trait. Because I care so much about her I actually ended up crying just watching her do her thing, since it meant so much to see on the big screen. She is a protector of people, and she has fun doing it.

- I appreciate that they got the mohawk look in there without actually giving her a mohawk. Best of both worlds. Also loved seeing a couple of her other comic costumes when they were playing with the color schemes.

- Between the opening logo and the cameo, many tears were shed over Stan Lee. Thanks for everything, man.

- Thoroughly enjoyed the 90s music, aesthetic, and technology. The soundtrack was great, the outfits were great, and I especially loved that people had to just sit around and wait for something to load. Some 90s realism for you right there.

- Carol’s relationships with Maria and Monica are so so sweet, and so human. I’ll never get enough female friendships. Of course, I really adored them individually as well - Maria is wonderful and Monica is adorable. And the way Monica looks up to Carol is very nice foreshadowing for her future, if that’s the road they go down (I know there are plans for Kamala, so I guess we’ll see where Monica fits in).

- Goose! I’m still getting used to not calling him Chewie, but whatever. Precious alien cat by any other name is just as precious. I loved the special effects for the mouth.

- I liked seeing a younger, less hardened Nick Fury. He was very different, but not so different that you can’t believe it’s what he could have been like a couple of decades ago, and you do see familiar aspects in regard to him being a good spy and being useful in the action. Also, VERY RELATABLE cat enthusiast, which gains him a lot of points. Having Goose be the reason for his eye does detract a bit from the mystery and drama of it, but it’s not something I’m gonna get worked up about (I’ve spent far too much energy getting worked up over other movies, this is minor in comparison). What I AM gonna get worked up about is knowing that he’s going to get progressively more and more hardened by the world and I want to protect him.

- PHIL 💗💗💗 Ugh, it’s been too long since we’ve seen Coulson (in the MCU but also in general since AoS is taking five thousand years to come back). I loved seeing him pre-Iron Man, just the young rookie agent who hasn’t been through the wringer yet (I want to protect him, too). Just as sweet as ever and I love him ignoring orders to do what his gut knew was right - it shows why Fury has always trusted him so much, and it certainly foreshadows many instances in AoS. I’ve missed him.

- Very good call to have the Supreme Intelligence take on someone’s form rather than showcase the ugly giant green head. I also appreciated that they still managed to shoutout to the ugly giant green head with the tendrils wrapping around the person interfacing.

- Jude Law played a very interesting Yon-Rogg. Enjoyable without being particularly likable. All of the Kree were done well, I thought. Definitely nailed it as a warrior race who seem to have little care about the consequences of what they do, and yet simultaneously do look out for their own. Also interesting to see Korath and Ronan pre-GOTG. And it’s an unimportant detail, but I loved when you see soldiers with the sort of fin-like shape on the top of the helmet, since I’m very used to seeing that.

- Did NOT expect to ever in my life care about Skrulls. After EMH I’ve always been anxious about seeing them in live action, because who the heck can you trust? Well, uh, them, apparently. And while it’s a change, I’m definitely not going to complain, since this lowers the chances of having to go through a Secret Invasion arc at some future point (I mean, it could still happen, I’m sure there are still Skrulls who are genuinely awful, but it’s nice not to feel like I have to worry about having trust issues in the future). I’m so happy they didn’t kill Talos or his family. It’s very interesting to see an angle where the ones you view as the bad guys are just victims of a war that they don’t want to be part of, which happens all the time in real life, so why not have good eggs among the Skrulls?

- Okay, my ONE gripe is Mar-Vell. Turning him into a woman really wasn’t necessary. I’d seen a rumor about it, so I went into the movie lowering my expectations on that front, so I’m definitely not as disappointed as I would have been if it had come as a surprise to me, but still. I know why they did it, and it’s the same reason the comics recently retconned Carol’s history to make her mom a Kree so that her powers would be a natural part of her instead of something she gained from Mar-Vell’s DNA - a man isn’t allowed to be significant to a woman’s backstory now. There’s feminism and then there’s doing everything possible to erase men from an equation, and I find that to be over the top. But to Marvel’s credit, they pulled it off well enough that I’m not anywhere close to being as upset as I could be about it (they also pulled it off with the Ancient One and Ghost, but that’s different for me since I really didn’t have any strong knowledge of or connection to those characters beforehand which makes it easier to accept - I’ve known and cared about Mar-Vell for years, so it does sting a bit that now we’ll never get to see him as he was). Overall, kind of annoying and if I could change it I would, but I’m getting used to changes like this (and it’s still not as bad as other things I’ve gotten annoyed with them over), so I’ll accept it and deal.

- Not a gripe but a question - what’s the timeline with the Tesseract now? Howard Stark found it, and then it was in SHIELD custody ever since and right up to The Avengers, so... did Lawson steal it at some point? What’s our in-universe explanation for this one? If they gave one I didn’t catch it.

- THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE. Way to get my waterworks going. It made me so emotional that I’m not really even upset that Jan still doesn’t get to be the one to give the name (at this point, after everything that’s been done to remove her from the narrative of the origins of the team, I really can’t expect anything else and I’ve made my peace). I don’t know if it’s just the nostalgia factor, or the fact that Endgame is coming up, but that part just made me lose it.

- The credits scene, ohhhhh boy. I immediately registered that it was Steve by his posture and I lost my mind even further. I’m gonna miss the crap out of that guy. And then Nat showed up, and Rhodey and Bruce, and I just... agdjshsjsh. I’m NOT prepared for that to be the next movie and I’m definitely not prepared to see it in only a month. Don’t get me started on the pager. CHILLS. And seeing Carol show up in the compound asking about Fury... I’m fragile. Someone please hold me.