#in a meta way the writers do a lot of the actual sacrificing too — using the monsters to kill ppl so that the brothers have case work to do

[shallowseeker]

Real quick... do you think of Sam and Dean (and other hunters) as blue collar jobs?

Hunting can take on a couple of different meaning, I think, depending on how you go at it (i.e. criminal, American action-hero, cowboy, outlaw, low-class/working class, even humble/noble.)

With respect to how many characters talk about hunting, it's definitely low-class... ish? Many angels look down on humans as maggots and mud monkeys, of course, but specifically, you get Henry from the MoL calling hunters "apes" and Dr. Hess calling hunters "dogs." Henry Winchester was horrified to learn about Sam and Dean being in the hunter class. (Legacies are obviously better, more noble.)

SAM: Our father taught us how to be hunters. HENRY: [laughs] You're not. Are you? Hunters? Well, hunters are... Hunters are apes. You're supposed to – you're legacies. & HENRY: You're more than that, actually. My father and his father before him were both Men of Letters, as John and you two should have been. We're preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that which man does not understand. We share our findings with a few trusted hunters – the very elite. They do the rest. 8x12 As Time Goes By

&

DR. HESS: Hunters are dogs, Mr. Davies. You give them an order, and they obey. That's how it works. 12x17 The British Invasion

At the very least, hunters looked upon as soldiers to be used, who do the dirty work but have little agency.

///

There is a certain disdain that angels use with regards to humans, but Cas seems to regard hunting as noble, even humble.

Of course, compared to the brutality of angelic warfare, perhaps it is. Angels are hunters on steroids.

The worst thing Mary could imagine for her sons was them becoming hunters; perhaps the worst thing Cas can imagine for Jack is him becoming like an angel/soulless. He's more worried about Claire's vengefulness and being used by Randy than he is about her striking out under Jody's tutelage to become a balanced hunter. And with Jack, he's proud of his hunter-mindset:

CAS (to JACK): Well, what you did today made me so proud. You know, learning to hold your own in a fight without your powers. That takes time and training, but today you proved that you have the mind of a hunter and the heart of a hunter. 14x03 The Scar

///

And while not hunting per se, I feel like Kelvin the Angel also looks down on Earth and hunting with a big of disdain that feels "low-brow." "Smells like hay," he says.

What Cas views as noble and down-to-earth, Kelvin finds rather... kitschy.

KELVIN: I don't. Look, I know you're working with the Winchesters. Sam and Dean -- their hearts are in the right place, but wouldn't it be better to have us waiting in the proverbial wings? All the power of Heaven behind you? [Cas considers this doubtfully] KELVIN: You ever miss it? Upstairs? I mean, don't get me wrong. I love Earth. It's quirky. It smells like hay. But it's not home, is it? 12x15 Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

///

Then, you get the heroes! Like Claire, who has a bit of a romanticized vigilante perspective, as she tries to save "younger versions of herself" from slipping through society's cracks:

MAN: Who the hell do you think you are? [CLAIRE breaks his nose and gains the upper hand; she pulls out a knife from her boot and stabs him.] CLAIRE: I kill monsters. That’s who the hell I am. [CLAIRE walks over to AMANDA, her lip is cut and bleeding.] Your mother’s been looking for you. It’s going to be okay. 13x10 Wayward Sisters

///

In general I think hunting is higher in the pecking order than (or at least "cooler" than) minimum-wage work. This can be seen in Dean's attitude towards gas station jobs: i.e. his "You're better than this!" attitude when faced with gas-station-clerk-Cas.

(Aside/// Though admittedly, Dean was motivated to convince Cas to quit. "You're better than this, so become a hunter with me!" It seemed like the whole episode was Dean warring between wanting to take Cas home against Gadreel's wishes and with the idea of Cas being better off where he is.)

But that said, they're definitely lower than most regular jobs and stuff we see in the 'burbs. The Campbells've got a chip on their shoulder, for example, when they see Dean's fancy house and his leisure-class-coded golf clubs.

We also note that many of the hunters are Scots and Irish (Rowena MacLeod Scottish, Eileen Leahy Irish), while the "higher class" BMoL are clearly more "British," and high-class British at that. "Lady Tony Bevell" etc.

The use of flannel is also meaningful in this regard... Although historically linked to aristocracy and family identification, in today's world, the flannel tartan is more commonly associated with casual wear... and is often linked to working-class and outdoor or country lifestyles. (I think it's very meaningful with Cas's coat becomes plaid-lined!)

And while not universally true, there's also weight to "lower classes" having less resources and needing to do more communal styles living/familial support/resource sharing—all things that more uppity classes seek to tear apart and/or identify as Weird/Unnatural (TM). The old divide and conquer, maestro. It's weird when we share nepotism, but corporate nepotism is just gravy.

Historically, families often lived together in larger, more communal units, and the division of family members into separate, independent households is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history. The historical trend of families living together in extended units was altered by the forces of industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of consumer capitalism, which favored the nuclear family structure as a way to segment the market and increase consumption.

IMHO: Today, many folks are taking a hard look at the benefits of communal/extended family living, because a lot of us need to collective support and shared resources (over consumer-driven independence). You would not believe the difference I get in commentary today about living with my extended fam versus even ten years ago.

////

I think my favorite angle to take on hunting is actually something a bit related to the idea of, for lack of a better culture term, an "religious untouchable." Hyam MacCoby talks a bit about this is The Sacred Executioner. Sacred executioners/ritual killers are a respected-but-despised designated underclass, necessary for many historical societies to function.

Typically, this underclass is outcast due to the complicated nature of their work. There is duality in the sacred and profane. They are seen as agents of justice or ritual purification, but their work also associated them with death and impurity, leading to social ostracism, a parallel to "untouchability."

Demons are obviously a bit lower than hunters but still analogous in the "work they do" is unsavory:

NAOMI (about MEG): She does know the location of the crypts. But working with a demon is... unclean. 8x17 Goodbye Stranger

This is a little controversial as a topic, as some scholars feel like it's an idea that people pretzel around to "force-fit across cultures." But narratively, I think hunters fit this well! (Angels even moreso with their immortality and via Naomi “slaying of the first-norms.) It accounts for the duality of being both revered and hated (not to mention its complicated relationship to purification i.e. Sam and purity, Purgatory, Natural born Killer Mary, even salt, and so on...). I personally favor it, even as a niche explanation because it fits for me in a way that more modern class distinctions do not.

[arkhaline]

My Complete Thoughts on RvB: Restoration

Major spoilers for the entire season below the cut!

I think the biggest sin of this season was not clarifying when it takes place, as it cheapened a lot of the twists by genuinely confusing me or contrasting information that we had already been given in S15-S18. Keep this in mind for the rest of the review.

Maybe the allusion to Caboose’s voice being “misremembered” was confirmation that it was in fact a simulation post-S13, but it still wasn’t super clear to me. Especially since Dylan was talking about the Reds and Blues (even though I know they met post-S10), which kinda made it feel like Restoration could be post-S18 (unless that was the point). There was just enough ambiguity that it really could have gone either way for most of the movie.

I feel like the humor was a bit off?? Maybe it was a generational gap since the show was going back to someone who hasn’t written for it in a while and is older than the current writers (case in point: he used tropes that Gen Z makes fun of a lot, e.g. he’s right behind me isn’t he). The Zoom call bit also went on WAY too long. The metacommentary about the changing attitudes toward RT also felt a bit tone deaf. In general, a lot of the trademark RvB banter just felt stale, it was the more general dialogue that was stronger (though Church telling Caboose to shut up when Simmons was talking did make me laugh).

Also, Grif was so angry all the time at the beginning?? Felt out of character and took me out of those early scenes. Maybe it was a setup for the whole discharge subplot but it just felt… off

The writing was just a bit clunky at the beginning, felt very direct and exposition-y, but that might be because they had so much to cover in so little time. It resolved itself later, anyway (except for the rapid fire ending, there was so much to unpack there).

Alright enough complaining about the general format, here are my more detailed thoughts.

Sheila!!! That is all.

I can excuse Caboose secretly speaking Spanish the whole time because there was a bit in S16 (maybe 17? can’t remember) where he understands something that Lopez said.

I initially completely missed the fact that the Meta’s color scheme was an allusion to Felix, that is so fucked up. Tucker dressed in the colors of the man he hates the most about to kill his closest friends? Jesus.

The Director being Epsilon’s therapist in the YouTube video made me laugh really hard.

Speaking of therapists, Wash was patient 619-B and I think that was the Counselor’s voice. Is the implication that he survived in this timeline?? Because he died before Epsilon fractured himself, so that much should at least be set in stone. Not really clear on that.

The “Great Destroyer” thing felt a bit retcon-y, but I can get behind it well enough.

I got so excited when 479er showed up, glad that we got confirmation that she made it out of Recovery okay. Wish we could’ve seen her and Wash (and Carolina) interact though.

I wish they had done Sarge’s death a bit differently. Kinda wish he hadn’t been all “that worked out well!” only to be stabbed, it felt very “he’s right behind me isn’t he” and made the fact that he was about to be stabbed obvious from a million miles away. There’s definitely something to be said about him sacrificing himself for a blue, and the deathbed interactions he had with the others were really good, but it kinda just felt like shock value?? Like there wasn’t enough build up to the payoff, it just kinda seemed like he decided to save Caboose last minute without any major character motivations or development behind the decision.

Which is another thing, it felt like it relied a LOT on Red vs. Blue dynamics in the beginning, and I was fucking flabbergasted when they actually left Caboose behind. The same people who broke time to save Wash would just leave Caboose to die like that? No way.

Meta!Tucker felt like it wasn’t explored enough, mostly just “no I won’t do your bidding” and “yes you will” back and forth with no real depth. However, credit where credit is due, I LOVED how this gave us a new perspective to Maine’s descent into madness. That ten-years-of-torture-in-a-few-seconds thing? So fucked up. Can you imagine being tortured by the remnants of your best friend, who have zero regard for your well-being? If they did all of that to Tucker in the short time they were together, just imagine what they did to Maine to get him to the point he was at at the end of S10/by Recollection.

Bonus points for the fact that the fragments tortured Tucker without a second thought when they themselves are a result of torture. They seemed to spare no empathy for Tucker despite having been through this themselves. Then again, I suppose they are they are copies of the original Leonard Church, who had no such qualms.

Didn’t realize that Meta!Tucker was voiced by Miles Luna (aka Felix’s voice actor) until the credits, that was an extra layer of fucked up and I loved it.

I really enjoyed Wash’s plot for the most part. I was definitely super intrigued the whole time since so much of his subplot didn’t add up from his perspective. I mean, I think he deserved something more for a send-off since most of his arc wasn’t really related to his character as a whole (besides the freelancer thing at the end). However, I still enjoyed it for what it was worth.

Additionally, if this is post-S13, I wish they’d clarified because I assumed that Wash was suffering from cerebral hypoxia and not some other injury. They kept alluding to something that happened on Chorus, but I wasn’t clear on the fact that it was a separate timeline of events. The Doc plot twist threw me off a lot more as a result.

I could tell he was gonna launch himself off the cliff and it still made me laugh hysterically.

I’m glad that the final battle was in Blood Gulch. It’s cliché, but it felt full-circle. Plus, it was the best resting place for Sarge in canon and a good set-up for a “why were we here” moment.

I knew Simmons was gonna have his arm broken but I still gasped anyway. And when the shotgun was cut in half??? Bro my jaw was on the floor, it was like when John Wick’s dog was killed (probably, I’ve never seen that movie). But the way Simmons cocked the shotgun with one hand was badass as hell, good for him.

I’m glad we got something resembling a Simmons character arc? I think it relied a lot on setup from previous seasons of him becoming a leader, with little to no actual development in S19 itself, but it still felt at least decently satisfying.

“Best throw ever. Of all time” made me laugh, I love a good callback. Actually, there were a lot of fun callbacks to jokes, like the irony bit. They were greatly appreciated.

Tucker getting launched by a warthog actually made me laugh really hard, I love the “shotgun as a code word” bit so much.

The Tex plot twist was SO GOOD, I totally didn’t see it coming. Much better direction to go anyway, since we already put Church to rest in S15. So glad that Caboose was able to get his moment in the spotlight and have the smartest plan of all of them. Unless it was Church’s plan, in which case I find it so sweet that he wanted to bring Tex back instead of himself (even if it did cheapen the S9 “let her go” thing a bit). I also really loved the callback where her armor turned black because of the teleporter, that was really good.

I got so excited when they started playing Round One I’ll be honest. Also, I Say Ooh?? Was not expecting that one.

In all honesty, I didn’t love the soundtrack (kinda felt stock music-y and cliché in a lot of parts, plus it didn’t have the musical style that we’ve come to expect from RvB). It was fine, but nothing to write home about. The campfire song was good too. I know about the whole thing where Trocadero wouldn’t join on unless everyone was brought back on, and now that we know that RT is shutting down, it’s possible that this was because multiple musical artists just weren’t in the budget. That said, it’s a shame that there weren’t more original songs.

I called that Carolina was gonna be Recovery (though now I think about it, why was she doing Recovery?? was it even Recovery since Charon had been shut down??? What happened to her after Chorus???? Also her talking about how her and Wash would do everything together from now on meanwhile she left him behind in some hospital?????). Anyway, the fight with her and Tex was SO fan service-y but I ate it up anyway, good for them.

Tex winning because she was a collection of the Reds and Blues’ memories and she always won against them was so, so good, something to be said about the positive nature of the memories of your friends (I mean just look at how happy they had been when recounting everything they’d been through!)

Also if just talking about someone was enough to create a functional AI, it kinda makes the whole “torturing Alpha to make more AI” thing totally pointless and retcons the entire show but. Whatever.

TEX DESERVED THIS ENDING!! I like the S9 ending in a lot of ways, it was poetic that she was finally allowed to rest after being dragged back so many times against her will, but I think it also felt incomplete because I don’t know if being put to rest was what Tex herself would actually want. There is a significant difference between not electing to bring her back again and choosing to take her out of the fight. Tex was never allowed to make her own decisions, not even in S9. This ending was entirely on her terms, which I think was fantastic.

I loved the rockslide, it reminded me a lot of the ice fight from S8 was just generally very fun.

It’s established that Tucker became the Meta because he had several AI when just two was enough to almost kill Carolina. If this isn’t the canon timeline, then why didn’t Tucker become the Meta in that one? For a reason besides “the writers didn’t think of it”.

I hope that Burnie came up with the idea for this season by reading Meta!Tucker fan fiction.

The Doc thing was so??? Why did they do a Sixth Sense. Like I think that twist would have worked a LOT better if they made it clearer when this took place (I kept flip flopping on whether this was an alternate timeline post-S13 or main timeline post-S18 up until this point, which made the whole Doc-died-on-Chorus thing feel like it came out of nowhere since, if it was post-S18, we knew that Doc survived Chorus. It also makes Epsilon’s sacrifice to get them all out of there feel a bit cheaper since they didn’t all get out of there, but maybe that suggests that S15-S18 are the main timeline).

How did Doc heal Wash’s leg?? Was it even broken in the first place??? Did they ever clarify that????

I GASPED when the Freelancers showed up. It was camp as hell and hard to take seriously but also I don’t even care. I’m glad he got some kind of goodbye, since he was always too late to do so as a Recovery agent.

Kinda funny that Wyoming wasn’t there but Florida was, and also South was there even though Wash murdered her in cold blood. Anyway.

When One showed up I felt every emotion I think

Bro where the hell was Donut? There was no good reason for him not to at least show up, maybe on the pelican with One or something. Especially since S16 and S17 were dedicated to an entire arc about how everyone should stop disrespecting Donut, like come on.

Edit: did a little research and it might be because there’s no pink armor in the game this season was filmed in? Which is so hard to believe, since Halo has so many references to RvB. I can’t believe they would just cut out the armor colors of one of the main characters and make it impossible for him to return in the way we know him, it’s messed up.

I know time was short, but I wish we had more time to explore Tucker’s feelings post-Meta. Especially since he killed Sarge, even though it definitely wasn’t his fault. There probably wasn’t enough time to get into all that, but still, he seemed remarkably fine after everything that had happened. I guess that kind of exploration is what AO3 is for lol.

I have mixed feelings about the end for Tex and Church. On one hand, Tex calling herself Allison Church was so sweet and I loved how caring she was, it reminded me of when she said goodbye to Alpha during the Freelancer saga. Also, the fact that there was finally a Church free of the memories of his predecessors felt very satisfying. However, I kind of wish that they could have just had their happily ever after and stayed in the memory unit. I understand the decision—destroying the remaining AI was really the best way to make sure Project Freelancer was put to rest forever—but I kinda feel like she and Church deserved better than simply being put down after everything they’d been through.

One final team kill for Caboose. Ow.

The animation was really, really good!! It looked much better than that plasticky look the trailer had. I didn’t love Epsilon’s animations (they felt a bit jerky and overacted), but otherwise I think they did a really great job. I especially loved how they animated the AI on Tucker’s visor, it looked cool as hell.

I think one of the things this season suffered from was the overall tonal shift in the writing. Burnie hadn’t written for, and Matt hadn’t solely directed, a season in a LONG time. We’ve come to expect more character-focused narratives that dive into the nuisances of the characters and their relationships, and we didn’t really get that here (unless you count Sarge’s deathbed confession to Grif that he was hard on him because he wanted him to be more, which still felt a bit shallow. Actually, there are lot of things which could be considered set-ups in retrospect, but their intended payoffs didn’t feel like payoffs). I think there was a consequential whiplash as compared to what we have come to expect from RvB, and while the writing style we got wasn’t inherently bad (again, I liked a lot of it), it was definitely different.

I really, really hated that Grif left at the end. That’s literally the antithesis of his S15 arc, which felt much more complete and true to the character than this one. It’s impossible not to compare these arcs because of how inherently similar they are, and because I believe the S15 arc is superior (Grif’s exhaustion was a more subtle and believable reaction than this Grif’s raw anger, and his realization of how much he relied on his team was much more powerful than this Grif just tapping out), it makes the S19 Grif arc feel poorly thought out.

Also, he wanted to be discharged, but I don’t think they worked for the UNSC or any other military organization after Chorus since they all retired, so was any of that really necessary? Maybe retirement is just a vessel, so to speak, to represent Grif leaving adventure behind him for good. Still, I liked the way S15 handled this arc a lot more.

Vale Deah. Ow.

NO GRIMMONS??? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

The most we got was Grif leaving and asking Simmons to come with him but like. “not scared to take risks my ass”, Burnie.

Honestly, I think this season was a victim of its format. Eighty minutes isn’t a lot of time to properly send off these characters, especially when RvB as a format is based on multi-season arcs. There just wasn’t enough time to build up tension or explore the dynamics of something as extreme as Meta!Tucker in a way that would feel satisfying. That said, I think Burnie did a pretty good job fitting as many things as he did into this format. A part of me is almost glad that Grimmons wasn’t made canon? I feel like it might’ve felt rushed to give it a satisfying arc in just 80 minutes in addition to all of the other shit going on, and I think after 21 years they deserved at least a satisfying resolution. However, they did NOT deserve an ending which implied that they would never see each other again, what the fuck.

TL;DR? 7.5/10. Far from perfect, and there were a lot of creative decisions made that I heavily disagree with. However, they did a lot right, too, and it still seems heartfelt in a way that helps me overlook some of its flaws. Overall, I enjoyed this season for what it was worth. There are some qualities of S17 that I think made for a better final goodbye to these characters, and some qualities of S19 that I think made for a better goodbye (in all honesty I never finished S18, but it wasn’t really a “goodbye” season anyway). Wrapping up a 21-year-old series is very difficult, and I have a lot of respect for Burnie and the others who worked on Restoration for what they put together. Truthfully, I’m gonna pick and choose which segments of S17 and S19 are canon in my heart (S17 is still the overall canon ending for me), but I’m happy with what we got in the end.

Anyways, I’m happy to chat more in the replies, let me know your thoughts!

[lemonhemlock]

i am way too late for any of this, but i felt like ranting a little (a lot) over tma, so here it goes.

i actually really, really liked the dreamlike quality of the S5 statements. i think they're some of jonny's best work. so evocative and just beautifully written, the feeling of horror so prevalent, so delicate, so entrapping. i would listen to them absolutely enthralled. what a submersive experience. so on that front, 100% would recommend.

the problems i have are mainly with the meta-plot. certainly, personal preferences and biases come into play here, bc i despise jonmartin with the fire of a thousand suns and would have loved a jonelias corruption narrative, but, i feel that, in his quest to appease the j-mart shippers, jonny sacrificed a lot of his story's integrity. also, i have no way of verifying this, but it also felt like he inserted his own biases in a way that wasn't necessarily productive.

ultimately, i feel like he disrespected his main antagonists and that essentially translated into a sort of irreverence towards his own story. elias was easily his most dramatic and interesting villain (regardless of what he originally intended for him, it's how he developed throughout the story & i think there is a certain honesty in a writer acknowledging and respecting that), stole every scene he was in, yet after his great villain reveal in S4, he is absolutely absent throughout his entire apocalypse. it creates a lack of catharsis that i find bothersome. his death is way too easy. yet when he finally appears in MAG 193, it is glorious. he is terrifyingly in the throws of religious ecstasy as the eye's pupil. such an interesting idea! so little it was developed though bc jonny for some reason doesn't like elias.

there's this entire commentary about how elias is really just there to be eye's pupil until jon takes over from him, bc it's jon the eye truly desires. as if after faithfully serving the beholding for two centuries and bringing about his ritual, the eye would just disregard elias and actually be interested in the one person who is unwilling to play ball. please be serious. not saying that jon can't be the eye's "special little boy" or whatever, but the nerfing of elias/jonah borderlines on petulant. ofc, jonny is the author and you cannot begrudge a man for writing whatever he wants, but, as a listener, i have to say it feels very unsatisfying whenever authorial biases directly affect the storyline. very deus-ex-machina. very unearned.

i also have a problem with how the eye was ultimately handled and, once again, nerfed. the introduction of this element in relation to the beholding, that it sees but does not understand, felt very trite to me. it was added as a way to de-power the eye and elevate the web. but how could it even be true in the context of the entity conceptualization? the reason scopophobia is a thing is because people fear someone is behind the watching. what they fear is judgment or someone keeping tabs on them and using that information to harm them in some way. that requires intelligence, a capacity to distinguish between the harmless and the incriminatory, a propensity for casting moral judgment, of holding people accountable, of assigning blame, of discovering people's deepest, darkest secrets, of weaponizing shame. no one is afraid of a crow or a cat staring back at them, because, while those are also living beings, they lack the higher intelligence that creates the context necessary for scopophobia. so how can the eye not possess intelligence? apparently it doesn't, because jonny decided he didn't like the eye and the spider was oh-so-cooler instead.

but that only lead to the spider being way too overpowered than it should have been. as the so-called brain of the operation, the web really manifests a lot of faults that could have been exploited, yet the character never do, because the web needs to be true It Girl for some reason. this all feels very childish. the web's motivations do not work in-universe. we are often told it doesn't have a ritual because it is content with playing its games of manipulation within the world as it currently is. and that honestly seemed a rather fair assessment to make, but later proved to be a red herring, because it was the web that was actually behind the eye's own ritual.

i have several gripes with this. 1. if the spider is so smart, why doesn't it/can't it have its own ritual and re-shape the world according to its own preferences? why does it have to piggyback on the eye's grind? 2. the spider's big plan seems to be bringing about the eyepocalypse just to convince the characters to let the fears out into the metaverse so it can start again. because, as it turns out, the eyepocalypse isn't really it's preferred state of being? it was the status-quo after all? the web DID prefer the world as it was, because it allowed it to thrive off manipulation and puppeteering, things it can't really engage in as much as it would like, since now everyone is trapped inside various fear domains. so, why-oh-why, not just leave the world as is? why even bring about an apocalypse in the first place if your intention is to always inhabit a apocalypse-less place?

i felt like this was such a plot-hole of an explanation the way it was presented. the web's greatest flaw was that it loved intricate plots so much there was a real danger of over-complicating its own plans and failing to see the forest from the trees, so to speak. the eye could have been used not to boggle down on meaningless details and ramifications, but to get a better sense of the bigger picture, something the web could very well lose sight of (pun intended). so the web's "plan" could have been ultimately rendered meaningless, because instead of choosing the simplistic, straightforward, occam's razor solution (no apocalypse, just thrive off the world as it is), it chose the overly complicated path that placed it in a situation it didn't thrive in (eyepocalypse) and made it even more complicated to get out of in the first place. it basically surrendered its destiny into the hands of people who had zero reasons to act sympathetic and could have very well chosen to destroy the entire world, fears included. and yet i am supposed to be in awe of the web's great intelligence and buy into the whole dumb eye propaganda?

many things have already been said about the moral dilemma at the end of S5 and my take on that is that jon was right. it was the merciful and just solution to prevent other people from other universes from suffering at the hands of fear entities. but i will be indulgent and account that it is a difficult choice to make for anyone, since human beings are so survivalist in nature and the choice to just make the fears someone else's problem in the hopes of their plans maybe getting foiled more effectively by others is tantalizing. who knows what any of us would have chosen had we been in their situation? perpetuating the horrors on someone else just so you could get reprieve is so cravenly but it's human and i get it. however, by no means is this a happy ending the way it was framed by the narrative. what melanie, georgie, basira and martin did was horrible and evil, but it is never acknowledged in that way. the least jonny could have done is have jon resist martin's selfish decision and have martin genuinely kill him. but, no, martin gets his romantic send-off together with jon, with the open possibility that they get transported to another world where they could start over. melanie, georgie and basira get to start a new life in the entity-less world, after contributing almost nothing. the worst characters get to live & they're validated in their awful behaviour.

however. i do feel like there were other ways to resolve the eyepocalypse without resorting to a horrible sophie's choice in the first place, but that would require a more extensive endgame re-write.

[mdhwrites]

Hi there! Yesterday I finished The Owl House and while the technical aspects were nice, I thought the writing aspects fell flat. I came across a few of your posts and thought they perfectly represent my issues with the show. I look forward to reading more.

How would you have portrayed Belos and the Emperor’s Coven? Would their goals and motives and coven system be different, would they use more magic etc…

Have you seen Gargoyles or Mistborn? Gargoyles has both simple villains and tragic villains, and does justice to all of them. It’s steeped in intriguing lore and detailed worldbuilding. The xenophobic villain Demona puts Belos to shame. Mistborn admittedly has a Deus ex Machina that seems out of place at first, but is eventually explained in a way that puts agency into the protagonists’ hands. Unlike Titan Luz.

Going backwards as I sometimes do: I am JUST too young to have watched Gargoyles as it was airing and never saw it. I've never even heard of Mistborne. As for how I would have done Belos/The EC... So, this isn't technically how I would have done it. Being in the middle of a project without hindsight is always harder than when you're in the middle of it and so if you want to claim you could have done something better, that implies that on a conceptual level, the execution is flawed. Conceptually, the EC and Belos are both fine. Not great but fine and they work for the thematics of fantasy vs. reality, conformity versus self expression, etc. like that. This is of course talking about them more as a narrative tool than a threat.

This is because the EC existing is a good idea for TOH but their physical presence is not as much. Lilith works okay in S1 because while she is the butt of a lot of jokes, her and Eda are actively having a dialogue in their actions and words about the theme of conformity vs. self expression. The sacrifices we make for safety and for freedom. This is because S1 is the only time the IDEOLOGY of Belos/The EC is ANYWHERE near consistent. It's not, don't get me wrong, but there's an attempt. Eda is a criminal. Lilith is the law. Being a wild witch is a crime. Lilith hunts Eda in part because of that as well as resources she sees Eda missing out on because of her lifestyle. In a bubble, it is actually incredibly consistent world building and characterization. No one's traits or aspects are being sacrificed for anything.

But the EC and the covens don't exist primarily to the writers for these purposes. This is where we get Eda being allowed at a school without Bump even flinching despite how much she's wanted. Her being criminal appears to be mostly forgotten about at those times. Being a wild witch is also forgotten anytime the audience is with Hexide kids. The one class only system isn't actually painted as a part of Belos' rule, besides the main nine EXISTING, but just a dumb rule of Hexide. It's never blamed as something Belos mandated and multi-classing magic in that episode, or whenever the kids are brought up until LABYRINTH RUNNERS, is never seen as even questionable to literally ANYONE. Not for reasons based in the rules of the setting. Even in Labyrinth Runners, there's no questioning if they brought this on themselves by breaking the law, it's just that the mean coven head is being a doodoo brain.

This is frankly this is the biggest problem with the EC, Belos and even the Isles. Because the show is more focused on meta commentary and how they can warp their own elements to make meta commentary, like treating the covens as normal school subjects, treating it college, etc. like that (never forget that becoming a wild witch is not something ANY of the Blight children even blink at as having potential consequences besides disappointing their parents and not LEGAL TROUBLE) that it fails to have a point overall with them or to keep an identity for any of them.

The EC is both a weapon of Belos that is to be feared where an ex wild witch will talk about her old behind hushed doors and also this thing that a bunch of teenagers are doing because it's the new fad introduced by an exchange student. Belos is an all powerful monarch that the people love but also people really easily question and betray him and leave his coven without repercussions. The Isles is both a place where a child can be threatened with a fairy wanting to literally eat their skin or where people will cheer on stage murder of a child for HOME DEFENSE PRODUCTS while also having an organized school system that is no different than ours and child endangerment laws.

It's all a part of the most damning things for TOH: Its multiple personalities and lack of commitment. Wanting to be everything while simultaneously not committing to any element either. Wasting time because even the writers don't seem to actually know what is important or care about what is important in their setting, world, plot, stories, characters, etc. even back in S1 where they spend 90% of the season treating King like a comic relief character when he is ostensibly the most important person to the story that Luz EVER meets.

So to the question of "How would I write I the EC/Belos"... The mean thing is that most SHOULD answer with "I would just remember what they are. I would care about my world building. I would respect the rules of my setting and the themes of my concept."

But that's not rewriting this element. That's just being a good writer.

[georgieluz]

getting a few things off my chest about Gen Kill. sorry im in your inbox. but i am. you can publish this ask or keep it in the DM, both are fine.

First, actually the hardest series to watch in all three shows for me. I'm ok with the level of violence in the other two (as well as other trigger-warning content) but the level of civilian casualty in GK just really fuck with me. I find it very hard to want to rewatch GK, even tho I do like the show a lot.

Second, Both TP and GK, for me, are the anti-thesis and deconstruction of BoB. In two different ways. TP talks about another theater and how fucked up these stories are and basically pushes the audience away. Don't look, it's not a story to share (vs BoB that invite you to take part and be with the characters). GK is the modern day glory-seeking meaningless chaotic and toxic reality of the US military (vs BoB's fighting for the right thing, our officers are smart and capable). And they're both meta answers to BoB's more propagandistic story.

Third, ok, let's get silly lol. I have to say whatever is going with Brad and Nate is fucking homo. "Not to be homo sir, but I can kiss you right now" um what. And the eyes contact. Bro. Bruh. That being said... I ship BradRay xD Their bantering old-married-couple dynamic is more my speed, than BradNate victorian yearning dynamic xD

hello, no worries, it's all good, my inbox is always open for thoughts, insights and opinions! this got pretty long so i'm gonna put it under a read more so it doesn't annoy anyone

i published this bc i ended up adding a lot of my own thoughts about it and didn't want it to seem like i was directing them specifically at you or your opinion bc i do go off track a lot.

it was the hardest series for me to get into as well at first, for a similar few reasons. first of all, it felt like i was being dropped into a locked room with men who would hate my guts, and not just have bullied me in high school, but detest my existence too. so i think that atmosphere of over the top toxic masculinity instantly made me uneasy, but that's the point. that's the whole reason the articles, book and show exists really. to show how that mindset and atmosphere laid the groundwork for what happened. i think if they were to have made a show where we as viewers are allowed to laugh along with their jokes, enjoy their interactions, but not be forced to confront the realities of both the invasion and the people taking part, then it would defeat the message and themes that the show is trying to present to us. i think the civilian death, and basically the way the military treated civilians in general, has to make you uncomfortable, otherwise it's not doing its job as a text or piece of media. at least from the writer's perspective and what they wanted to say about what happened there, bc ultimately, everything is a construct with biases and a goal. so i 100% agree with you in that it's easily the most uncomfortable show to casually watch in that regard, but if it didn't show all of that, it wouldn't be a show with a purpose, imo.

i would personally put the pacific a bit closer to band of brothers than gen kill when it comes to discussing its propagandism actually. bc whilst it has the caveat of "this is the reality and brutality of war, it's horrific, you don't want any part of it" and "it's not all camaraderie and brothers being bonded for life", the show still has its 'heroes' who are depicted as sacrificing either their lives or their mental wellbeing for 'the cause', and it still carries the message of "yes this is terrible but it's needed". two things that propagandist themes can thrive amongst. just reading some of the more bootlickery youtube comments about the pacific shows how some of those people cling onto the brutality and harshness of that theatre of war, and the show itself, as a display of heroic bravery and badge of honour. i've seen a few commenters on reaction videos and stuff and they're basically frothing at the mouth about how it's so much more brutal than band of brothers, and they aren't saying it from a critical perspective either, which is what the show may have intended, but more from a "omg brutal war porn nice!!" kinda way. i know i'm rambling off point from what you said, but it's just some of my thoughts. i'm probably gonna ramble a bit in the rest of the post so don't see it as me disagreeing with your points bc i think we have pretty much the same opinion in most ways, but i guess your ask has prompted a lot of thinking from me so i'm just getting some of my thoughts out about the shows.

i think for me, i would say the pacific is a stepping stone between band of brothers and generation kill. i do agree in that it is pushing the viewer away from the idea of war as noble, in favour of saying "no! it's dirty and cruel and harsh and you won't survive it, even if you're alive when it's over" but it's also presented in the same way as band of brothers in regards to how we're supposed to view these men. there's many competent and intelligent guys making decisions and the humanity of those men is always on display. they're still shown as heroes, even if they're broken ones. so i think i can't fully align it with gen kill as a direct opposition to the messaging in band of brothers, but more one that says "ok, we've seen it from that perspective, now let's open up the casket up a little more and try to understand it looking through another lens".

whereas for me, gen kill sets explosives in the casket and blows that shit to pieces. there are no noble heroes competently achieving great feats, or sacrificing their lives for 'the greater good'. the people who do die, or get wounded, are seen as wasted casualties and missions gone wrong, fuck ups that we see in the corner of exterior shots to remind us that it's not all singing avril lavigne in a humvee, that there are consequences, even for the invaders. we see the destruction they inflict on civilians constantly, but the marines that get wounded/die are essentially proof of the incompetencies and fuck ups that even the most militaristic audience has to admit to.

the line of morality is non-existent, apart from a few people that we meet, but they have no power whatsoever. they can't actually do anything even if they disagree with what's happening. they stand by and they watch. we get nate who hates it, very clearly, but his whole thing is that he literally can't do anything. he has no actual power or impact on anything there. i saw a meme on here a few days ago where it was like "i'm competent at my job but i'm starting to think i'm just decorative" and it's funny and just a silly meme but it's also kind of the truth. we see him make a few decisions that go over the head of the initial orders, etc, but in the big picture, they have so little effect that it's a drop in the ocean comparatively. so the little competency we do have is ineffective. and even the more authoritative roles within the narrative that we get to see, like ferrando, are shown as not just making bad decisions, but actually not having much control over matters themselves. they're all floundering from top to bottom. there's no basilone or winters or ack ack there to make us sigh with relief as viewers bc finally, someone will make things right, make the right choice, do the right thing. instead we have these very complex people who have a lot of messed up flaws and shit within them, but some realistic relatabilities too. and sure, a good few of them want to do better and will call out certain shit they see in different ways (doc bryan, nate, espera, brad) but ultimately, they're forced to not just watch and let it happen, but a lot of the time, take part and be culpable for those actions too.. and it's not depicted as a noble sacrifice of their morality, it positions them as helpless and incapable. so the viewer doesn't get their usual hbo war heroes, which to me, feels like a direct answer to both band of brothers and the pacific in that kind of way.

i feel like walt's character shows us that (on a surface level basis but still). he's presented to us as the more appealing contrast to trombley. they're both young and in brad's team, two sides of a coin you could say bc we're shown immediately that trombley is the problem child and walt is the pretty golden boy that spends his scenes telling brad to get some rest or trying to fix the dodgy equipment they've got, or essentially is just trying to be helpful. but they both fuck up bad and kill civilians as an individual. we don't get to keep our clean innocent pretty boy. he fucks up. bad. his hands aren't clean. none of theirs are. not nate's, not even doc bryan's. he says that himself. walt clearly feels terrible afterward and that's the difference between him and trombley (though i will say i do think trombley is much more complex than we see on the surface), but walt doesn't get to escape the blood on his hands. even the most seemingly "innocent" characters never get to remain that in this show. there are no heroes.

and then the second point i mentioned above about the message of "yes was is terrible but needed sometimes" is the other thing that gen kill throws away and abandons. nothing, not a single thing, is depicted as needing to happen. yeah, they're told it's needed and honestly, a lot of those marines were brainwashed into believing it, but the whole point is that it wasn't. it was a colossal fuck up in every way and the show holds up a massive flashing neon sign showing us exactly how, but from the ground.

so absolutely fully agree with you that this show is positioned as a meta deconstruction to band of brothers themes, and even the pacific, especially when the shows are presented as a package deal, as hbo war so often is. it's all a lot more nuanced than what i've said bc i've just been rambling AGAIN, but i think there's a lot of dialogue going on between the three shows when you analyse them from further away that is really interesting to discuss.

so yup, definitely agree with what you said and thank you for dropping by my inbox to talk about this kinda stuff with me! i'm sorry if i went into too much detail or overtook this ask with my own opinions or anything but yeah. i think we all know by now that i tend to ramble when asked about anything!

NOW ONTO THE FUN PART!

it genuinely feels like bradnate have taken up residence in a very large part of my brain. i had heard a lot of people mentioning bradray on here before i watched, so i was expecting that to be the main 'ship' of the show, and kinda thought i'd probably end up getting onboard with that, but i actually only got platonic besties vibes from them. i'm always down for as much gay as possible, so i support it, but i just don't really see anything outside of platonic love between them? i do really enjoy their relationship and interactions though, and some of their scenes are my absolute favourites.

but i'm ALL about the victorian repression and yearning, so ofc bradnate is where it's at for me. as a gay man who repressed all his emotions growing up it just calls to me like a siren lmao. i think that's why i'm like a feral little gremlin about nate actually

[tundrainafrica]

Do you think levihan is canon?

I’m guessing you’re not asking about my overall opinion on 139, so I’ll just leave it here as a Levihan opinion. I could probably do another rant about my overall opinion of the ending but probs another time.  

And I have been meaning to make this meta for a while and I kinda wanted to wait for the last chapter cause for some crazy reason, I was a clown hoping that Levihan would just suddenly happen? Like maybe in the paths, she walks to him or something 

But woop. We have to search again for the crumbs like we’re on some scavenger hunt. 

And you know what? I like it this way. Thank you Yams for not butchering your characters over one ship. Thank you for portraying so realistically what romance between two mature adults with responsibilities is actually supposed to look like. 

So yeah, before we go into it, I did go around asking about other ships and I realized, maybe we have been using the word ‘canon’ incorrectly. Or so, that’s the first thing I thought. 

I had a conversation with my sister a few days back (who hates Levihan if it isn’t obvious), and she used to be an avid Klaroline shipper back in the day (The Vampire Diaries), and she explained that a the fandom actually don’t see Klaroline as a canon couple even if they were teased throughout the show (fucked, kissed and everything in between) since it isn’t end game. 

So to lay out my terms here and just be incredibly clear about it. I consider Levihan canon, but I do not consider them end game because they obviously aren’t, 132 happened and Hange didn’t come back.. 

So what do i mean by canon? 

There are lots of nuances here to consider when we call them canon. 

For one, fandoms wait for the couple to be ‘official’ kiss and all. Other fandoms wait for the end before they say it, because no matter how many times two characters fuck, kiss and declare their undying love, if they don’t commit, if they don’t make it to the end, then it’s not canon. 

When I say Levihan is canon, I clearly mean,  even if they didn’t end up together, they probably could have still been in a relationship, they probably could have still been in love. They probably actually held a stronger and much more nuanced bond than whatever main couple we watch in some sappy romantic drama. 

And maybe they actually did fall in love behind closed doors? Maybe they meta-ed their own relationship together and maybe they’ve discussed it and maybe they were aware. ( have a meta about it here)

But here’s the thing, we’ll never know, because in Season 4, after A LOT of the development of their relationship could have been implied, Levi and Hange were separated from each other so we actually didn’t get a lot of scenes of them closely together until 115, 126 etc. 

And here is the part where people call me delusional? Because people who invalidate our ship like to do that.

Because yes.. They’re just ultra mega besties. 

AND I GET SO FRUSTRATED AT THIS TAKE. LIKE SINCE WHEN HAS ROMANCE EVER RUINED FRIENDSHIPS?

It doesn’t make any sense??? Like I have no idea how people are having relationships when the first they think when they get into a relationship is “I don’t wanna ruin this friendship,” 

I get confessing and rejecting can ruin a relationship but getting into a relationship? How does that ruin a friendship. 

I’m sorry I know that is such a trope but like yo, half the time when people ask about me and my boyfriend (who started of as bestfriends) WE GOT INTO THIS RELATIONSHIP BECAUSE WE WANTED TO BE ‘BESTIES’ IN OTHER DIMENSIONS AS WELL. 

AND WE WANTED TO BE SUPER ULTRA MEGA BESTIES (lovers in short). 

It is inevitable that you will be best friends with your partner. Yo, if your partner aint one of your besties or one of your most trusted confidants, you might wanna... you know, reevaluate your relationship???

There are so many layers to love than just kiss kiss smooch a

Like, I’m incredibly choosy with romance ships like if people noticed, I only ever have written this much for Levihan. 

And one main reason for this really is because writers have a tendency of messing with a story, doing things that don’t make sense so the couple that is slated to get together, actually ends up together.

And the development never seemed natural half the time? Because some writers are just obsessed with making their pair happen. And what do they do after? They put them into so much drama which makes me question the overall health of the relationship.

nd I dunno, media is probably messing with this perspective of love by saying obviously problematic relationships are canon. So yeah even if he punched his girlfriend ONCE, and even if she cheated on him ONCE, they probably still loved each other so they’re canon lmao.

And call me a puritan here or something but there are certain things people do in a relationship and when it happens I will just sit there and say, that ain’t love, do you guys even love each other? 

And sorry I’m probably that asshole friend who would probably hate your toxic partner and will probably just tell you I’m not showing up to your wedding if I don’t like your partner.

I will not condone cheating AT ALL. I personally do not want to consider ‘canon’ any relationship where two people cheat on each other. I personally do not wanna consider ‘canon’ a relationship that thrives on miscommunication issues either because I dunno if I just got into the wrong relationship or something? But like at the age of 24, we actually talk stuff out 

Like woah, there are couples who don’t talk things out? Like what do you do when you’re stuck with each other 24/7? NOt TALK? 

I will consider canon any ship that runs on implicit trust, this belief that they should be constantly there with each other. Because that’s what love is. That’s what a relationship is and I’m gonna live my whole life believing that these are the only things that make up love for me. 

Love is trust. Love is a strong bond. Love is just two people giving and taking and sacrificing for each other. And Love is this commitment to make something work with the other person. 

And if it isn’t any of the things above, ‘sorry for invalidating’ but it ain’t love and by extension, it ain’t canon for me.  

Tbh, I think that’s the reason Levihan has been incredibly uneventful relationship wise actually made it so much for me that I thought they were pretty much canon. I still have issues with how Eremika was pulled off even if they were blatantly canon and had more than enough blatant crumbs. 

Because sure Eren and Mikasa did love each other but I guess their relationship was just so problematic since the start that even I was like ‘do you guys really love each other?’ half the time and I was constantly thinking about Mikasa’s mental health there like yo, why you so obsessed with him. There’s literally a Jean there who would probably treat you 124543x better,  

But for Levi and Hange we had parallels with Eremika. And we had crumbs

With putting his crumbs for Levihan, from the airplane, unrequited titan love, let’s live together, Hange’s longing face and the Levi’s dedicate your heart and the fact that HANGE NEVER LEFT HIS SIDE UNTIL THEY DIED, come on, I don’t know what people aren’t seeing. 

But the point is, (Okay understandable since Levi and Hange are older), Personally I just believe Levi and Hange approached their relationship more like mature adults than hormonal teenagers. Like so sorry, they decided to approach their relationship like adults instead of some teenager who bird poops on any guy who tries to cheat on Mikasa. 

Here’s the thing, Hange probably never would have complained like Eren. I honestly believe it was totally in character for her to just look down on him longingly from the paths. And I personally believed Levi had approached their relationship with a kind of acceptance like ‘ ay yo, we’re too busy for this but maybe after the war?’ that’s why even towards the end, the only way he lets himself be reminded of her was through watching the airplane and thinking of her. *fudge I’m tearing up* 

I guess the fact that they really approached this relationship and this bond like how they’re characters were supposed to, the fact that they threw everything away for the sake of the war. Yet the fact that we saw ALL THIS CRUMBS that there could have been something more if they just weren’t captain and commander in the middle of the war, just makes this so fucking canon to me. 

I would probably be speculative if we just had 115? Or maybe just 126? Or maybe just 132? But the thing is, the crumbs never stopped coming. There were so many things Yams could have CHOSEN not to do. But he did everything so deliberately from ‘let’s live together’ to ‘unrequited love’ to the Eremika parallels. 

Did he have to draw that airplane in the air and Levi making eye contact with Onyakopon? Okay I wonder why he did that? Cause really what connects Levi to Onyakopon? WHAT PLANE SCENE CONNECTS LEVI TO ONYAKOPON? 

I dunno man, but really at this point, this is so canon. Like sure Eremika takes the cake for most blatantly canon. 

But given the terms I’ve stated above for what I believe romance, love, relationships and canon is for me. 

Levihan is canon and it probably is the most canon relationship for me. Because the blatant lack of drama in the portrayal of their relationship for me just proves, Levi and Hange were very sure about their relationship with the other, I could probably say they were the two surest people in love in the whole damn show. 

THEY JUST COULDN’T GET TOGETHER BECAUSE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. (WHICH MAKES THEM ALL THE MORE ADMIRABLE ANYWAY)

So thanks for reading and sorry about this major ass rant. 

[thealexchen]

i’ve actually read both of the articles that you mentioned earlier! I could see where both of them were coming from at varying points, though shannon liao’s struck me as a tad harsh, as someone who felt very seen by Alex, particularly with regard to her asian-american identity, and the cultural details and familial attitudes you see displayed throughout the game (especially in episode 5.) I could see why others would like them to be more overt, but they’re still present & relevant as is, imo.

I'm happy you read and enjoyed them! Well, since we’re on the subject, I might as well give my fuller thoughts about all this. This answer got horrendously long, so I'm putting it under a read more. I really wanted to talk about this more fully, so thank you for sending this ask!

I definitely see Robert's point in his article. Alex didn’t need to be Asian for the story of True Colors to be told, but it’s still meaningful that she is so that Asian fans and fans of color can look up to her and feel represented. The Chens buck a lot of stereotypes too: Mrs. Chen was not a “tiger mom” and her kids and husband remember her fondly. Mr. Chen doesn’t push Alex and Gabe to excel in school, and in fact neither Alex nor Gabe went to college, but they still had happy futures. Alex isn’t the best friend or the Asian schoolgirl or the dragon lady or the Asian nerd. But at the same time, when Robert says "Alex never really talks about her thoughts on Chinese culture,” that’s like— well, what’s wrong with talking about it? Why not talk about it more explicitly? The words “Asian” and “Chinese” and “Vietnamese” aren’t even used in the game when "gay" and "lesbian" were, and that's a little disappointing.

I figured people would figure out Alex was at least Chinese because of her last name, but I saw some streamers unsure of what Alex’s ethnicity even was (“Alex is… Chinese, right?”). That was disappointing because Asians tend to be treated as a monolith when we’re so internally diverse. Also, it’s completely possible to miss that Alex and Gabe are also half-Vietnamese. Their mother’s name is Giang “Wendy” Chen, a Vietnamese name, but that’s only in the credits. There’s far less Vietnamese (and Southeast Asian) rep than Chinese, so I wish that had been made more explicit.

In Life is Strange 2, Sean and Daniel’s struggles (personal and institutional) were centered around their identity as half-Mexican boys. True Colors almost seemed to be going in the opposite direction in that Alex’s Asian heritage never really becomes plot-relevant, but Alex and Gabe’s background comes into focus in the last chapter.

Part of Shannon’s critique was that because Alex’s parents aren’t in the picture, the game can’t explore Asian culture through a familial lens. There is some truth to that: for children of immigrants in particular, their parents are their strongest (and sometimes only) link to their race and culture. I thought a big missed opportunity was exploring Alex’s possible sense of isolation and struggle to reconnect with her Asian heritage after being separated from her family.

After growing up with two Asian parents, eating Asian food, celebrating Asian holidays, likely speaking Asian languages, etc. it would have likely been disorienting and lonely for Alex to suddenly be raised by non-Asian foster parents and lose all those traditions all at once. Possible comments like “I really miss Mom’s pho” or “Do you know how difficult it is to find hoisin sauce in the stores around here?” could have inferred more at that specific kind of loss and isolation in Haven Springs. The game touches upon this very briefly when you look at Gabe’s shrine, and Alex does comment “I don’t even know if I’m doing this right… but I felt like I had to do something.” In this way, I find it especially poignant that she still held onto cultural traditions after so long.

But I still thought Shannon’s critique was overly harsh. The little details really do add up, like in Alex’s childhood home, and meant a lot to me too. And most importantly, there was representation behind the scenes too: Alex was voiced by two(!) Asian American women and the lead writer, Felice Kuan, is Chinese. I think Alex naming her mouse Shu-shu was my favorite detail. Because it’s the one detail you can’t miss. Every streamer remembers Shu-Shu’s name and loves how cute she is and they can probably infer it’s a Chinese term. It just is so visible and empowering in that way and my heart felt warm every time I heard someone say “Aw! Shu-shu!"

But that doesn't mean Alex's Asian heritage didn't matter at all. I really appreciated that Alex's backstory still mattered because she came from a poor, working-class immigrant family. Her life circumstances were used for drama, but none of Alex's suffering was racially motivated and that felt tastefully done. I’m gonna paraphrase a comment I saw on alliebeemac’s playthrough of episode 5: "It's no coincidence that both Alex and Ryan lost their mothers at a young age, but because Ryan's father was a military veteran and had a high-paying job as a Typhon foreman, he got to keep his childhood whereas Alex's entire world was torn apart... And if you want to look at it even more metaphorically, the white patriarch Jed was able to preserve his own image as a hero and 'good old boy' of Haven by literally sacrificing an immigrant family to the mines with the expectation that nobody would come looking for them. Whether you're an immigrant or whether you're a foster child, the system is saying 'we don't care about you.'"

And at the end, Alex tells Jed, "You want to look away and pretend the men you hurt weren't people. But I won't let you.” It's a deliberate stand against Jed (a white man)’s dehumanization of poor laborers, including her Chinese immigrant father. Jed isn't explicitly portrayed as a racist, but his actions come from a privileged, and subsequently racist and classist place. For me, it worked better than LiS2's portrayal of racism because it was subtler and more personal. Alex stands up against Jed out of a personal sense of justice for her brother (and her father).

Do I wish we had more? Yeah, absolutely. I wish Alex got to actually speak Mandarin or Vietnamese in the game because that's so rare in games, even though I knew that would be unrealistic because Erika Mori is Japanese. I wish the character artists had at least made a version of Alex and Gabe’s models without shoes, because it just didn’t look right to see them wear shoes in the house (especially in bed??) and even LiS2 had Sean and Daniel in their socks in some scenes. I wish Alex and Gabe talked more about their family while Gabe was still alive and Alex could have had that comfort of someone who misses the food and customs they used to celebrate. But like I said, one piece of media isn’t gonna please everyone. And Asian representation in particular is so tricky because not only is there not enough of it, but Asian Americans are so diverse and come from so many different backgrounds. Children of immigrants are going to feel more connected to their Asian heritage than third or fourth gen kids or mixed race kids for example. Everyone is going to have a different definition of “Asian culture” and “accurate representation.”

But on a meta-level, it really means so much to simply have an Asian face on the box of a major Western game ❤️ Like even just seeing the way Alex's eyes crinkle when she smiles or how other characters find her attractive (like Steph’s note during the LARP preferring Alex’s natural black hair), it feels so affirming. It’s incredible to see an Asian girl be called the hero of her own story, to see her succeed and fail and cry and laugh and fall in love and kiss another woman and be comfortable in her bisexuality. It acknowledges that the queer community includes Asians, that Asian girls can also be curvy, that Asian girls can and do struggle with mental health. And like Erika Mori said, Alex is a fully-realized character and that’s what makes her so compelling, first and foremost. She also has a strong moral compass and dreams and fears and is such an incredible role model for people of all backgrounds, and that’s what makes her identity as a queer woman of color so much more meaningful.

[khadij-al-kubra]

Storytelling, Fate & Happy Endings

I’m still processing last nights episode (CR C2 Ep140), and much like every critter I’m SUPER emotional about it. But something about last night’s events and how they played out really got to me, not just as a fan but also as a storyteller. And even the day after, i was actually crying (still am crying in fact) more than i did last night watching it happen. At first i thought it was because i’m a fairly new critter and this is my first time watching a campaign come to an end. But the more i think about it and process, the more i realize that’s not just it. This effected me as someone who deeply believes in the power of storytelling and how it can not only effect but reflect the world around us. And because I have to get them out of my head, here are my thoughts on why last nights episode was so important, not just for CR fans but also as a an important narrative for right now.

...Yeah that’s a bit vague, isn’t it? Okay, let me explain. If you’re willing to take the time to read fellow Critters, I greatly appreciate it in advance. ^__^

WARNING: Major spoilers for CR Campaign 2 Episode 140 ahead. Also it’s gonna get kind of meta. And long. Because i have a lot of thoughts & feels.

So I think it’s fair to say that, as much as we would’ve been devastated by any of the M9 perma-dying in the last battle, part of us wasn’t expecting them all to make it out of there alive. Not even the players, I think, despite how much they likely didn’t want that to happen. Just look at the half-resigned way Liam talks about Caleb in the last few Talks Machina episodes. Or how, in game, Jester was fully prepare to die trying to stop the city from coming back. And for a while there, it seemed like some of them might not survive.

But then they did. Despite so many crappy rolls throughout the night they stopped Lucien, set free all the souls trapped in Aeor, saved Exandria, and brought each other back from the dead. Not only that, but they also did the impossible: They saved Mollymauk. Their lost friend who had such a deep impact on all of them even after his death. The delightfully charming asshole who was so full of joy and life and who, despite how the world treated him, was happily determined to leave every place better than he found it. Moreover, they almost didn’t succeed! But then they did, all because of teamwork, love and one last minute ditch effort ‘what-the-hell-have-i-got-to-lose’ dice role that none of them saw coming. And now they get to go home together, truly as The Mighty NINE.

Just this once, everybody lived! We got a happy ending!

And that’s HUGE in game...but also think for a second how that reflects outside of game too. Do you realize what a story like that means to people, especially given the year from Hell we’ve all had?

Think about it. This past year the world has suffered. We’ve all been impacted by the pandemic in some way shape or form, either on small levels or large. Our world has been at war with a virus that effected everyone and everything: Our sense of safety. Our health. Our economy. Our families & friends. Our freedom. (in the sense of our ability to travel & just be in close proximity to people without fear, but i digress) Deeply imbedded social and systematic diseases have been brought further to light in the past year and a half largely because of this virus. Some of us have lost people we love. Hell, the pandemic even effected the way that the latter half of Campaign 2 played out because of social distancing protocols. If you further compare this to Campaign 2, the world of Exandria was caught in the middle of a war that started because of social & systematic corruptions that had been rooted in two opposing kingdoms for years. And so many suffered and died because of it.

Then the Mighty Nein comes in. This ragtag group of delightful assholes with nothing to lose; these flawed but inherently good at heart and deeply human adventurers, broken and lost in their own ways, trying to make a home and family for themselves in a world that took advantage of them or left them alone or said they weren’t good enough...and they changed things. 

They grew. They fought back. They found moments of silliness and peace and joy and fun amidst all the strife and sometimes grief. Most of all, they tried. Sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of spite, sometimes even out of compassion, but mostly just out of love. And in the end, not only did they help people and stop a war for the sake of their loved ones, but they also saved their world from being destroyed by a rotted perversion of life from the past that threatened to consume everything they cared about. AND they STILL managed to bring everyone in their found family back to life. Does it erase the bad and sad things that happened to them? Hell no! But those things don’t negate the fact that in that moment, they made it out okay. That this was a victory and they won!

Think of what a story like that means to people right now.

I’m personally a pretty spiritual person, and much like our favorite clerics, I also believe in a higher power. But whether or not you also believe in a Divine being, the Universe or whatever, every D&D player believes in one thing: Fate. Luck. Call it what you will. But it was fate that made those dice rolls that saved everyone happen. It was fate that not only stopped Cognoza from returning, but also brought Jester and Caleb and Molly back to life, even when it seemed like it wouldn’t work. (and holy shit that gave me emotional whiplash!) 

After everything they went through, both individually and together, the Mighty Nein defied the odd and demanded that Fate let them save their loved ones. They demanded that the world give them back their friend; That they deserved to have their happy ending & get to go home alive together. Just. This. Once.

As a writer, I know firsthand that there are some stories we find and create ourselves, but then there are stories that have a way of finding us. Sometimes a story or world or character from somewhere in the Aether will pop into our minds one day and say, ‘I need your voice to tell my story.’ Maybe this is just me getting carried away with the meta brain again. And like i said, i’m a spiritually inclined person, so I believe in things like Fate and a Divine Higher power writing out the stories of the Multiverse. If you’re reading this (and thank you for taking the time to do so) maybe you do too. Or maybe you don’t. Either way, if you’re a fellow critter, then you’re clearly a fan of good stories and/or playing Dungeons & Dragons. So you know how fate/dice roles have a big impact on the outcome of a story, regardless of how tightly written a setup the dungeon master makes. Given all that and how organically stories tend to play out in D&D, I genuinely believe that Matt Mercer and the whole CR Team were meant to be conduits for a story where the flawed heroes save the world AND all make it home alive.

And I think Fate knew that we needed last nights battle to end like this. After all the crap we’ve been through this past year, we needed this happy ending, deserved it even! Not just us critters, the CR team too. As much as we all like to joke that Campaign 2 was secretly scripted, we all know that’s not true. Yes, the setup storyline and world were brilliantly crafted by Matt, and the character roleplaying is beautifully acted out by the team. But the twists and turns, the direction it goes, and how the game plays out is all up to fated dice rolls just like any other game. And something, some kind of force of luck, some force of fate, some Universal Divine DM out there made the roles happen the way they did last night.

It gave us a happy ending.

I believe that this was meant to happen; now of all times with everything else going on in the world. Amidst all this darkness and rot, both in game and in the real world, in the end of it all there was light and life. A reminder that sometimes people do live. They do get second chances. They do find a new family or reunite with old ones. That sometimes the world can be saved for a time, and happy ending do still exist. Even if it’s not broadcasted on the daily news amidst tragedy reports, or even tragedies that don’t get reported (which sadly are a lot, but again i digress).

Because the thing is, like Beau said, no one else will probably know they were heroes. No one will know what the Mighty Nein sacrificed to save all of Exandria. But they don’t need to know that for it to still be true, for life to happen again, and for a found family of nine broken people who love each other to go home together safe. It doesn’t invalidate that the good things happened. That at least for today everyone was saved. That flawed people were still able to do good because they tried. That they left the world better than they found it and got their own small but satisfying happy ending. Even if only for now, because we don’t know what’s gonna happen next Thursday. We don’t know what the future will hold for the Nein or Exandria when the Campaign ends or even when (hopefully) some loose ends will be tied up in later oneshots. But neither that nor the bad and sad stuff that happened beforehand in the game and in the character’s lives invalidates the fact that tonight they won. They lived.

So why can’t that be true for us in the real world?

I said earlier that, as a writer, I believe in the power stories have to not only reflect but also shape our world. This story is an example of why, but especially this episode, and that’s why i was so euphoric about the outcome. It wasn’t just a game for me, and i’m sure for others too. It was a much needed reminder that happy endings can still happen in real life, just as much as they can in stories. Even when everything seems dark and corrupt and rotten and hopeless, we can still keep fighting. We can keep trying. We can make new families and start over and be heroes in our on little lives in small ways. 

We can leave the world better than we found it. 

And maybe, with hard work, imagination, luck and a little Divine intervention...we can also get the happy endings we deserve.

[phenomenalcosmicpowers]

G5 MOVIE THOUGHTS FOLLOWUP - THE ANCIENT EQUESTRIAN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

SPOILER WARNING: THIS WILL GET INTO SPOILERS FOR THE G5 MOVIE EVEN BEFORE THE BREAK. IT HAS BEEN JUST OVER A WEEK SINCE THE MOVIE PREMIERED. BUT IF YOU STILL HAVEN'T SEEN IT, PLEASE SCROLL PAST THIS.

This is something of a follow-up to my thoughts on the movie. My thoughts on the movie were generally positive. Though much like the movie itself, the positive thoughts were on what it’s doing on it’s own merit as the start of a new generation of pony media. As someone who had followed Generation 4 from all the way in the middle of Season 1 to the ending of Season 9, the connection the G5 movie makes with the previous generation in the opening scenes are enough that it’s necessary to give a perspective from a G4 fan’s point of view. Again, I do want to say that G5 will be within it’s right to not have to answer so many plot things at once and try to stand on it’s own by exploring the characters and this new Equestria first.

That said, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the longer none of the questions G4 fans will have are answered. There is a huge elephant in the room with the unanswered questions from G4. And It is Hasbro’s fault in the first place for telling us it’s the same Equestria, There will be fans that are annoying about it from multiple angles, and there will probably be times where people who just want to enjoy G5 on it’s own just outright snap at anyone who wants their answers about what happened in between G4 and G5. Even if the person who asks the question is just genuinely curious and not being demanding there be answers. This is just the kind of thing that all fandoms that have timeskip sequels, especially ones where it overrides a happy ending where discussing with other friends can get dicey.

HAPPY ENDING OVERRIDES AND ALICORNS

Until we get an official answer from the show itself, we can only theorize with each other. Though theorizing about a happy ending override, regardless of how long it’s been and/or how sensible the theory is can start some heated discussions, Cause many were content with the happy ending of the original. While no realistic story ever has a happily ever after, a story within a fantasy land such as MLP’s can be an exception.

Let me give something of a comparison by bringing up another show. Avatar: The Last Airbender is perhaps my favorite show of all-time. And while it’s true I didn’t like the sequel series Korra as much as A:TLA. It wasn’t because of some happy ending override with at least half of the main cast from the previous series deceased. The Avatars themselves are just as human as the other characters in the world. Avatar’s still a fantasy world when all is said and done, but the way the world building is done still made it feel like it it was possible for the world to be in danger again by the time the next Avatar is grown up, most known Avatars had challenges they had to face. The Avatar series blends some form of realism but still manages to provide a fun fantasy world. It’s a case where it’s believable that the main legacy of Aang’s time as the Avatar aside from defeating the Fire Lord where he created Republic City would have it’s own fair share of problems that would be left to his successor to solve. Aang in turn was finishing the war that Roku failed to stop. So while I have my criticisms about Korra, none of those are related to the way the world is after the timeskip. It reasonably makes sense in the context of the Avatar universe.

In contrast, there isn’t much we know about the past of G4 and it’s a much more idealistic setting then in Avatar. Yes, ponies die with what I assume are human-esque lifespans for the exception of the Alicorns. But Friendship is Magic is a setting where the power of friendship is literal magic power that can save the day even when things look bleak. As a result it can get very sappy, but FiM is the kind of show you watch to put a smile on your face rather then go to for a multi-faceted plot. Most episodes of FiM are the kind of thing you see in a lot of other shows. But what brings most of it’s fans back even for the most overdone plots is the characters and their interactions. FiM’s lore is a lot less straight forward, and sometimes may feel not as consistent given there were so many different writers over the long span of time. That said, there is something about the series that sort of ties in heading into G5 and that’s G4’s history, and especially Alicorn lore. We don’t get a lot of either even back in G4, as the most we get is the founding of Equestria was through the Hearth’s Warming Eve story, and the knowledge that Alicorns like Celestia and Luna are at least older then 1000. Which is a huge gap compared to the Avatars that no matter how powerful, have similar mortality to our own. Throughout G4’s time, the debate about Alicorns have raged throughout the whole time even before things got really heated upon Twilight becoming an Alicorn in Magical Mystery Cure. Some went with Celestia and Luna being the only immortal Alicorns while Cadence and Twilight were somehow lesser Alicorns that aren’t immortal but maybe at least still a longer lifespan then their normal pony friends and family. Though as of Season 9, that may be turned on it’s head when in The Last Problem. Twilight eventually grows to Celestia-size as Celestia and Luna even retire to let Twilight succeed them. If Twilight is somehow a lesser Alicorn, why did she grow to Celestia’s size? Why did Celestia and Luna retire in the first place if they knew Twilight will not be as long lived as they are? Perhaps part of the reason G5 has as many questions as it does is because G4 itself created questions it never promised to answer.

That said, the implied length of Celestia and Luna’s rule still presents G5 with a problem that will be asked everywhere. Even if we go with the possibility that most of the Mane 6 have passed from old age, you still have to answer something about Twilight. If Twilight is also dead, how long did she live? Did she at least have an over-1000 year reign as Celestia did? Was perhaps Luster Dawn chosen to be her younger co-ruler if Luster herself ascended at some point? The kind of things that might actually force G5 into a corner when it comes to Alicorns despite the fact G4 never had to, especially now that Sunny may have just become one herself. This is once again, another of the traps Hasbro put the writing team through by having them put it in the same world. G5 thus not only adds questions about what happened in between the Generations, but also now has to inherit what remained unanswered in G4. That is a VERY tall task on a team that will likely just want to do their own little fun pony show. It’ll raise expectations too high, and there will be annoyed fans regardless how they spin it. Which could have all been avoided if they set it up that this was an entirely new world, or made G4 a fictional story (With all the references to it being mainly merchandise for a really meta look at things) in the G5 universe. You’d still have people complaining about it not being as good as G4 probably, but the approach they went with added more gasoline to the fire whenever G4 Vs. G5 debates happen in the MLP fandom. And inter-fandom generation fights are never fun, just ask the Pokemon and the Sonic fandoms how that turns out (Even though there’s no Generation number count for the Sonic franchise. You could say Gen 1 of Sonic was the classic era. Gen 2 was the Sonic Adventure Era. Gen 3 was the “Dark Age” Sonic 2006-Sonic Unleashed era. Gen 4 the Sonic Colors and Generations era. and Gen 5 the current Sonic Forces and Team Sonic Racing era. And then of course there’s also the different TV shows and comic books that also have their own fans that can be at each other’s throats).

There isn’t going to be an easy solution to something that will no doubt have fans on the edge on their seat even if they will be left to hang on that edge for a longtime before G5 starts to give some answers. I think I’ll at least bring up 3 things that will probably be part of the discussions of just what happened between G4 and G5

(More after the break)

1. AND THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FIRE NATION AN UNKNOWN THREAT ATTACKED

With G4 being considered Ancient Equestria. It’s probably safe to assume this is at least 1,000 years after G4. And 1,000 or more is a really, really, long time. Where anything could of happened, including *GASP* a villain actually winning at some point (Or at least, did some lasting damage even if they were ultimately defeated). Though I think even with that possibility, there has to be a sense that the villain didn’t defeat the Mane 6 while the other members aside from Twilight were still alive. If Twilight was at some point defeated. Perhaps the villain struck when Twilight was most vulnerable. You could also have it that Twilight somehow sacrificed herself to defeat a large threat. She saved Equestria one last time, but at the cost of even her long-lasting alicorn life. With the populace left on their own to continue life without Twilight, but the loss of their longtime leader too much for Equestria. Thus a slow decline happened.

As for who the threat was it’ll probably be a while if we ever know. Perhaps the real Grogar showed up at some point and was truly a harrowing threat to deal with. Or something entirely new. Maybe it wasn’t even a villain, but a catastrophic natural disaster. Whatever it is, if this is the case. We’d have to deal with the sad thought of something being too much for even Twilight to handle

2. TWILIGHT BECAME DEPRESSED/JADED AFTER HER FRIENDS PASSED. POSSIBLY EVIL TOO?

This would basically be the cliche sadfic ending. Where after everyone of the Mane 6 has passed. Twilight just never felt the same afterward. Though I do feel like there is the slight counterpoint that maybe Twilight would still have Celestia and/or Luna (maybe, again we’ve never ever gotten full confirmation of how long Alicorns live. Just assured that it’s more then 1000 years) and she’d most certainly still have a full grown Spike and any of her friends descendants. Death is always a sad reality, but you have to wonder if Twilight would have prepared herself by the time that comes. Twilight would have not gone as far as she did without the rest of the Mane 6. But while I’m sure it would be a tearjerking moment, it’s not like Twilight wouldn’t have other friends she made throughout the generations. Celestia and Luna also must of gone through the same thing living for more then 1000 years, yet they seem pretty fine. So while the subject of “immortality blues” is prime for sadfic material in the fandom. It feels like there’d have to be more nuance then that, if this were the reason the time between G4 and G5 led into each other.

Supposedly, this theory is picking up some form of steam. To the point that a head canon is rolling around is that it was actually Twilight who sealed the magic away in the first place for one reason or another. Essentially making Twilight, in a huge plot twist, a villain in G5 or at the very least someone who took the magic with them into some form of Limbo very similar to Starswirl and the other founders during the Season 7 finale. I… personally don’t know how I’d feel about that. They’d have to be very careful with the execution of such a twist. And I’d want more nuance then simply Twilight getting sad about the deaths of her friends. At the very least, it’d likely eventually get to a point where this villainous incarnation of Twilight is reformed and probably becomes a recurring character from then on. But the writers will have to tread very carefully if this is the direction they take.

3. G5 IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT UNIVERSE/TIMELINE. JUST FOR THE MOST PART THE MAJOR EVENTS OF "ANCIENT EQUESTRIA" STILL HAPPENED

Perhaps this last one really gets into a more desperate side to deflect any possibility that the ending of G4 could of deteriorated into what the world becomes at the start of G5. I know there will be plenty that will be too frustrated with the lack of satisfactory answers that they annoy people in the comment sections, getting into situations where sometimes the only answer to those people will be others that just want to watch G5 as a fun show with a “cope”, “read a history book”, or “deal with it”. But honestly, there can be a case here. As I mentioned in my thoughts in the movie. There are visual details on characters and/or lore that while they may seem minor, to the point that even if they do ever answer important questions such as what caused magic to disappear and/or what happened to Alicorns like Twilight. That the staff may ignore completely because they think it’s too small of a detail to bother including. But the most nitpicky fan can and will latch on small excuses into why it can’t be the same.

Let’s begin with the one-sided Cutie Mark. Again, while it’s true that previous generations made this a tradition. And it was only on one side on the G4 toys as well, as the actual reason it was on both sides in the G4 show was because it was easier for the flash animators. That said, it’s still a big pony design inconsistency. Because regardless of it was only to make things easier, it became a staple because of how long G4 lasted. So it was still so weird to see early screenshot and artwork of G5 characters with grown ponies with no mark. When that wasn’t possible in G4, as it turned out it was because the one-sided cutie mark returned. But one side as opposed to both sides is still a significant difference. Similarly, the horns and wingtips being a different color then the coat may also be a significant difference. Of course I know it can be just waved off as art style difference, as the art direction is no longer based on what Faust wanted the ponies to look like. It’s still plausible enough for someone to discredit it as truly in continuity with G4. Cause even for those that are on the side of “More then 1000 years is a long time, anything could of happened” it’s a lot harder to argue against inconsistencies such as cutie marks only being on one side unless they switch gears to the meta explanation of “G4’s double sided cutie mark was not intentional, at least at first”. But from what most people saw in the G4 show, G4 ponies had marks on both sides. And the G5 ponies don’t. It’s again, quite nitpicky. But it’s enough to start a case that at the very least, the ancient past of G4 is not 100% the same G4 we saw in the show.

Speaking of not the same G4 we saw in the show, another possibility is that G5 actually came out of an alternate timeline. Where perhaps the last two seasons did not happen. If perhaps it’s a timeline where major events in the show either ended anywhere between the end of Season 4 or the end of Season 7, then it starts to feel a little more possible. (Supposedly, the tree of harmony in it’s Season 9 form that might counteract it. But then again it had none of the treehouse architecture and was all wood. Which ironically may lead into it leaning more that the G4 show isn’t the same continuity). If the events of the Friendship School nor everything else that leads to the ending we saw in The Last Problem. It’d be a lot more palatable because the pretty much implied world peace ending with non-ponies in the mix included is discounted. There’d still be questions even in this scenario, like did Celestia and Luna still retire in this timeline then. And regardless if they did or not, the show would still be burdened with the question of what happened to the Alicorns. But it’d at least solve the most pressing question with the peace of The Last Problem being squandered. Because perhaps in this timeline, the Mane 6 never went that far. Perhaps it would imply some sort of indirect failure in that case. But this is perhaps a scenario they had a similar foreign policy as Celestia did. Not really hostile to anyone, but not intervening even in ways that could be helpful. Heck, if we go far enough in saying that G5\s G4 (As confusing as that may sound) was different from what we saw in Friendship is Magic, what if there were differences even early on for one reason or another? With how vague the connection is, we only know that the Mane 6 were friends and Twilight still became a princess at some point. From there. potentially a lot of other things may have gone differently other then that.

Again, saying G5 is a completely different universe/timeline is probably always going to sound like a desperate way for people who cannot possibly believe the ending of G4 eventually led to the start of G5. And I’d understand why that’ll annoy people who just want to watch the G5 series on it’s own merits. But it really wouldn’t be entirely the fans to blame for that attitude. G4 lasted a whole decade, many got attached to the characters/world we saw that had about the happiest ending it could possibly be. It should naturally make people unhappy that in a few ways it’s stomping over a happy ending for this fantasy world that many watched to escape from the realities of the real world.

Even with the long time allotted of 1000+ years or more, that’s made complicated by the implied long lives of the Alicorns from G4. Only opening up that can of worms further by seemingly making Sunny an alicorn. There’s a debate on whether this form is permanent, but if it’s NOT permanent. That arguably adds yet another addition to the list of reasons it may fall out of continuity. The only time we had a temporary Alicorn transformation (outside of Animation errors, or dream sequences like Big Mac’s) was when Cozy was an Alicorn after receiving some of the magic from Grogar’s bell. But even in that case, Cozy’s wings were not more like a glowy hologram like Sunny’s wings seem to be. And even if it is permanently on Sunny now, the design for Alicorns is too different. Adding onto the one-sided cutie marks, and different colored wings and horns. So the G5 writers may actually be stuck in a lose/lose situation when it comes to Alicorns after the ending of the movie. I think whether Sunny is permanently an Alicorn or not, they may not elaborate enough about it. And it’ll be among the headaches in the comment section (Though may at least be a reprieve from the political discussions G5 are going to have on occasion I imagine.)

Hasbro chose to try to say this is the same Equestria, and a new show needs conflicts to solve. But from the perspective of some G4 fans… it forces a world they loved, to get torn down into arguably a more divided world then even the Hearth’s Warming tale. Which said tale seems to have been implied to be from before Princess Celestia and Luna were around (Based on the lore of the unicorns being the one to raise the sun and moon) and thus yes. Somehow, if everything that happened in G4 is canon to G5. Then the world peace in The Last Problem in just a thousand years or so become worse then even Celestia’s sole rule.

RESPONDING TO “READ A HISTORY BOOK”

I’ve mentioned before, you can try to point to World History to point why this is a realistic take. But again, we don’t have an ancient civilization from 1000 years ago that we look up to as the pinnacle of peace in the world (Like I said, the Golden age of Ancient Greece and/or Rome still had slavery and brutal wars). That has literally never happened. What was shown in the Last Problem very much looked like it was that for Equestria. I feel it’s a terrible interpretation of time, especially in regards to the context that the leaders of Equestria tend to live for at least more then 1000 years to imply things would just go backward like that.

CONCLUSION

The movie on it’s own merits is a good start for the generation, though at the same time. It’s going to have some hard questions that’ll often be no-win situations for the writers. They can choose to ignore the G4 questions, understandably trying to tiptoe around as many cans of worms as possible which would allow them to do whatever the heck they want with G5. Maybe even getting a few stragglers frustrated with no answers to just shrug and continue watching anyway if the show entertains them enough. Or they can certainly try to at least give some answers on the biggest questions (What happened to the magic, and/or what was the fate of G4’s alicorns) but risk having an answer that just adds even more questions.

The movie is a decent start for a new generation if you only view it as a pilot for a new series, but if you view it as a sequel to Friendship is Magic. There are certainly problematic issues with that currently. Maybe the special in Spring, or the eventual Series will cover some of this but it does leave fans waiting a while for answers that they’re not promised to get, or at least not as quickly as they’d like. Remember when I mentioned that I may view some of this similarly to how I was about Starlight Glimmer after her sudden redemption at the end of Season 5? With many questions I wanted to know about Starlight before I could really accept her as a recurring character? (And not really fully coming into terms with her until I expanded on her myself in a story for I Dream of Twilight Sparkle) This may be how I have to view the connection of G4 and G5.

They can go one of two routes: At least try to give as much of a clear explanation as possible. Even if it’s one that doesn’t exactly answer everything, at least giving a good try may help with those who have questions remaining in relation to G4. If instead however, they go the Season 6 Starlight route of just about ignoring all the questions fans have, it’ll make things frustrating for many. At least with Starlight, she wasn’t the major focus in every episode. That said, Season 6’s job was to endear us more to her reformed character. Now with G5’s setup, it may be running well into a corner where they must try to answer what happened in between G4 and G5 or else you end up making a lot of fans lukewarm or worse to your series. Starlight’s reformation and then lack of ability of Season 6 to explain more about Starlight to us was a divisive moment. And G5 involving G4 brings over the same kind of feeling but on a larger scale because now it’s in the very premise of the generation’s plot, it’s less avoidable compared to one character. Because even when it comes to episodes that will not further the plot and it’s just a fun friendly moment between the members of the mane 5, this movie is how they met and thus the not fully explained premise would always be looming over like a large shadow. It probably doesn’t help that they’re basically starting with a reformed Starlight-esque moment when it comes to introducing it’s premise AND on top of that something similar although certainly with at least a lot less backlash then with Alicorn Twilight since it came so soon. Though I do have to think there will be people who think this was way too soon to be ascending Sunny, since at least we got to see Twilight’s journey to Alicornhood (Even if you weren’t a fan of the episode she ascended in). Sunny arguably does earn her Alicornhood through implied years of working to unite the ponies. But it can still feel too soon when you had 2 1/2 seasons worth of episodes before Twilight did, while Sunny did so within one movie.

Someone’s ultimate thoughts on G5 might end up being what they are looking for in this new generation. If they’re looking for just about everything new. The movie provides plenty of that with new characters, new locations, and a more modernized world compared to G4 Equestria (Even if G4 Equestria had it’s own fair share of electronics it looked like, such as video game machines). If you’re in this for the G4 references. Aside from the very beginning of the movie, you’re kind of stuck doing a where’s waldo for most of the movie. And no guarantees you’ll get much more then that later. As I said in the trailer thoughts, the G4 stuff could very much be just Hasbro trying to bake it’s cake and eat it too. With a world that feels like it should be it’s own thing, but they didn’t want to commit entirely to that. So they shoehorn G4 in as the ancient past without giving a proper explanation to how point A (the end of G4) got to point B (the start of G5). It’s only been about a week since the movie premiered, but there is just so much to digest. And for those looking for answers to the G4 elephant in the room, may feel like they get nothing but metaphorical tummy aches for a long time.

I’ll end this off by having a message to both people who already feel like they’ll be fans of G5, as well as people like me who were fans of G4 and have concerns about where G5 may be doing to it’s legacy.

For the G5 fans, as I mentioned in the trailer thoughts. I still hope that it turns out ultimately good. I don’t know where things will go from here but the G5 movie taking in context that it’s basically a really long series premiere, had some genuinely enjoyable moments. At the same time, I hope anyone in the G5 fanbase can try to understand why G4 fans have the concerns that they do. I’ll repeat, G4 lasted a decade and was the absolute peak of MLP’s popularity. There will be a lot of people attached to that world, and understandably upset about the implication that it got torn down into how the world is at the start of G5. If they’re really annoying about it, I can understand why you couldn’t hold the urge to snap at them to “Get over it” just try not to snap at the ones who are just asking curiously. I’m personally not going to spam comment threads with “THIS DOESN’T FIT WITH G4!” or “HASBRO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS PLEASE”, but I would be lying if I were to say I’m not just as curious about what those type of fans want to know too.

And as for G4 fans like me, if G5 ever upsets you in some fashion. It’s ok to stop watching and just stay quiet whenever you find yourself in a conversation about G5 and only participate in G4 matters in the fandom. This is a natural evolution of a fandom’s lifecycle where eventually a direction a franchise is taken to a place some others don’t like. So you’re only left to mainly talk with those who prefer an older generation and/or incarnation. Just because G5 has started and even though Hasbro says it’s the same world as G4. You can still do G4 content by itself and ignore G5. If you still have the inclination to do stuff with G4, do it. Generation 5 is not stopping people from still drawing the G4 characters, or writing more stories about them, or even if you don’t feel you’re that creative. Support artists who are still drawing G4 ponies, and/or rewatch some of your favorite episodes of Friendship is Magic that give you a smile. MLP has lasted since the 80s, and while for the most part to Hasbro it’s to sell toys. Toys, and the shows surrounding them’s purpose is to make the people watching or playing with them smile. From the little girls in the 80s to the much more diverse both gender-wise and age-wise fandom that came out of G4. The cute ponies are supposed to make us happy, and it’s ok to get back into a comfort zone if perhaps a different part of Ponies don’t give you the same feeling or even upset you in some way. Also as a vice versa to my message to G5 fans, try as best you can not to provoke those enjoying G5. If the G5 movie and/or episodes makes them as happy as your favorite G4 episodes/movies you should let them be. Many of us had to deal with that crap just for daring liking a pony show at all early on in the fandom. Try not to add to the toxicity as best you can. G4 is not going to be forgotten, the fact Hasbro decided to try to make it in the same universe actually has the side effect of making sure of that. Cause maybe you have fans that enter the MLP franchise through G5 curious about what happened in the past. And thus, they can be led to watch the previous generation. New G5 fans could potentially also become new G4 fans and friends. In other words, friendship… is still magic!

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Trickster: an Ethari theory

I've had yea many Ethari headcanons, and I hope I live to have yea many more. Most of them are probably wrong, or incomplete at best. But boy are they fun.

I love to wonder what Ethari will really be like in canon when we get to know him for more than 3 minutes, but whoever he really is on his own, he will have an effect on Runaan , Rayla, and everyone who loves him, because they love him.

The first headcanon I can remember having for "Tinker" was that he could be like Leonardo da Vinci: a genius, creative, surrounded by beautiful ideas given shape by his hands, but also capable of creating deadly weapons, enchantments, and devices with equal beauty, and perhaps not really seeing where the line between them was. It was fun, but Ethari has ended up far softer than my headcanon, and I love and support him in his softness!

After a nice string of Ethari headcanons, this year I've started poking at the Trickster archetype and seeing if it applies to him. And I think it absolutely does!

Tricksters often seem like Chaos. But they're not. They're just Difference. "Chaos" is subjective. Like the "divergent" in "neurodivergent." Who says? Divergent from what, exactly? Perspective matters, and Tricksters have a very broad take on things which allows them to think outside any box people might try to invite them into.

My enjoyment of Loki has brought all kinds of ideas to my dash with the arrival of the Loki show. I've got a copy of the Edda, and I highlighted the hell out of it a couple of years ago as I searched for the roots of Loki's origin story. (It's truly fascinating reading and the symbolic language hidden inside their poetry is dazzlingly amazing and I'm super using it sometime just so you know)

Loki is a Trickster, and he's far from alone in myth and legend. Anansi, Coyote, and Sun Wukong are some you may have heard of. Aaravos is another, of course. Tricksters can be called upon to lend aid and wisdom when the rules don't have an answer for some extraordinary circumstance which the Trickster's people find themselves in. But that's not because they are truly outside the rule of order. They are actually a part of it. They are the catch-all for when the everyday ordinary rules fail people, and something "unthinkable"--in the literal sense--might just hold the answer.

This post crossed my dash today, and something finally clicked in my head, and all of this coalesced from what felt like separate places. But they're not separate, not anymore! Serotonin, baby. It's basically upped my headcanon to a full-blown theory.

What caught my eye was an answer to why Ethari's clothing is so determinedly asymmetrical, compared to Runaan's specifically, but Moonshadows in general. It's because of this:

Long protective sleeves below patterns on shoulders. A high collar paired with a bright and noticeable swoop around the neck. Fine detailing and graceful taste. Asymmetrical tunic point on the left, below broad strappy leather. Knee high boots with stylish protective gaiters.

And let's not forget the curling horns! In some comics, Loki has a broken horn. So does Ethari.

Yes, there is a lot of similarity here, but I'm not focused so much on the visuals as the reason they were chosen. Feel free to consider other aspects of Ethari's personality and how they might be similar to certain parts of Loki's. I did! But I wouldn't be me if I didn't go deeper than that.

My favorite book in the universe (so far) is Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion, and one of the many reasons why is because of her pantheon. It holds five gods, represented by a hand: Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, and Bastard. The first four all have their roles and places. The Bastard--the thumb--inherits everything else. He is the god of all things that do not belong to any other gods, and that includes self-sacrificing vengeance and queerness. He is a Trickster, and his influence on Cazaril's life is far deeper than at first glance. Chaos has its place. It belongs, and so do the Tricksters who engender it. God, I love this book. Please read it if you haven't. Bujold's work is amazing.

If you've seen or read any version of MDZS/Untamed, you know that Wei WuXian is a trickster. Competent and badass in battle, but playful and teasing to the point where sometimes even he isn't sure what he truly wants, he can bring a massive amount of power and focus when he wants to. It's always a matter of "but is it important to me?"

I love WWX so much. The Trickster vibe is very apparent in his character, and in a way you just don't get in Western media. We see him on his own, and we see him with family and loved ones. And he's always feeling something so intensely! He's driven by his emotions, for good or ill. He vibes with chaos, and he will create it if it doesn't exist yet. But he will also create family from nothing, and that's something you don't see enough of! WWX is a Trickster with an emotional preference for joy.

In TDP, Ethari doesn't have a lot of lore yet. It's being Moonshadowed because spoilers for future seasons, and I respect that. The longer the wait for S4, the more ideas I will just amuse myself with in the meantime--and yeah, this is one of them, so what? :))) But we do know a little about him.

He loves music. He loves to read. He leaves his mark on things in swirly form. He works very hard, even through headaches, because what he's doing is that important to him, even though he would much rather be making jewelry. He loves taking the time to polish rough stones into brilliant jewels, and he adores big pretty flowers and had them at his wedding.

Ethari has a temper, but he also loves puns. The weapons he crafts are exquisite: "light, elegant, strong, and clever." And he knew darn well that Runaan was trying to flirt with him, but why return a sentiment he may or may not feel yet when he can play with the overly earnest assassin just a little bit first?

Okay, just... A "simple craftsman" deciding that it's going to be fun to toy for a bit with a broody assassin's feelings? Would you risk that? Ethari got balls the size of the moon, and a brain to match. When he has to make weaponry, he does not half-ass it. Ethari's stabby creations nearly have a life of their own. His creations are literally called "trick weapons." This elf is a lot, okay. And it's possible that he doesn't even know how "a lot" he is. Yet.

We're meeting Ethari after he's found something that is, in fact, genuinely important to him: Runaan, and Rayla, and Laindrin too. Ethari has found a relatively stable place to settle and find a role to adopt. I say adopt, though, because making weaponry for his loved ones is not what he grew up wanting to do. It's what he had to do to keep them safe, once he found a place to bestow his heart.

But in the show, Ethari has lost his family, one by one. First Lain and Tiadrin, ghosted. Then Runaan, supposedly fallen on his mission. Then Rayla, ghosted for abandoning Runaan. He and Rayla have reconnected now, but the rest of his family is still out of his reach. If Rayla has indeed told him, by S4, what she learned at the Moonhenge in TTM, then Ethari may parallel Rayla's journey to seek answers. But even if he doesn't know yet, and gets pulled into some other story arc first, we will be seeing Ethari without his family.

Remember the ATLA episode "Zuko Alone"? Consider: "Ethari Alone."

Ethari has chosen, for love, to fit himself into a box that wasn't of his own making. And now that box has broken. His family doesn't need him to be their craftsman anymore. Perhaps others will need him to be other things to them. Or perhaps he will know that his family does need him, but to be far more than just a maker of pretty swords. A rescuer, perhaps. A healer, a guide? An avenger?

A trickster. Capable of taking many shapes, because he understands them all. Ethari works with form and function. If he needs to transform himself, he will.

That's what Tricksters do. It's delightfully queer and delightfully neurodivergent. Ancient peoples accepted and revered the different among them and actively sought their help with things they themselves struggled with.

Tricksters are Difference. Sometimes that manifests as chaos, sometimes as genius. But if you do not love and appreciate your chaos, it will absolutely turn on you. Wei Wuxian did. Loki certainly has, many times. Perhaps Aaravos is doing so as well.

I cannot wait to see what Ethari does with his difference. I have something very specific that I hope he goes and breaks.

All this from a picture of Tom Hiddleston in his Avengers 1 Loki costume? Yeah. Because Ethari was designed to wear asymmetrical clothing, in a Moonshadow culture that prides itself on balance. Sure, there are some other Moonshadows who wear this or that asymmetrical item, and I do love to see it. But Ethari has the most asymmetrical lines of them all. The meta glee I feel knowing that Moonshadow elves are designed to hold many layers of meaning in their appearances--that the writers, creators, and character designers just flexed with them--is truly a delight.

Ethari is asymmetrical. The full and practical application of that is a glass casket, and I hope it becomes a gift that keeps on giving, because boy do I want to keep receiving it. But right now, I'm genuinely seeing evidence of the Trickster archetype in him. And I really hope it gets to come out and play.

[mittensmorgul]

Hi Mittens! Happy holidays! I love your meta and I had a question: I've seen you make a couple posts about Miracle lately, and while I'm definitely angry at canon replacing Cas with a dog, I was kind of taken aback at some of your comments about Dean and dogs (specifically how much you seem to hate that combination; I've never felt strongly about it one way or the other). Do you have a tag or post about your feelings on Dean and dogs? Or could you explain in a little more detail, please?

Hi hi!

Dean... has never been associated positively with dogs on this show-- up to and including that scene in Scoobynatural where he does the SCOOBYDOOBYDOOOOO! and Cas rolls his eyes and tells him flat out he’s not a talking dog. I mean, even in one of Sam’s heaven memories, he’s effectively replaced Dean with a dog... so while Dean was being implied-harshly-punished by John for “losing” Sam, Sam had been having the time of his life with a dog instead... Sorry, I’ve got a lot of resentment for dog symbolism in the show...

Cas has also been associated with dogs in a lot of... let’s go with derogatory comments, and since this dog in the finale was SPECIFICALLY a replacement for Cas in Dean’s life... I find it particularly insulting, you know?

5.14: We get dog comments about Cas and Dean both in this ep. Famine refers to Cas as Dean’s dog... “You sicced your dog on me, I threw him a steak.” And we see Cas crouched on the ground eating meat. Earlier in this ep, Sam teased Dean about his lack of any “appetite” for anything with the comment, “when a dog doesn't eat-- That's when you know something's really wrong.“

7.21: after being banished, he reappears at a dog track, where the dogs were unhappy. so... Cas was basically just another unhappy dog in this part of the story.

10.22: Rowena compares Cas to a “dog who thinks he’s people” for being an angel who rejected heaven and chose his family with the Winchesters.

10.23-11.03: Cas is literally under a spell referred to as “Attack Dog,” which he fights against but is slowly turning him into a killing machine. He seeks help from Heaven, but they only want to use him, to torture information out of him and then kill him once they get what they want. It’s implied he even kills a dog in 11.01.

11.06: when Cas is in the bunker still suffering from trauma related to the attack dog spell, lying in bed and watching tv, he changes the channel to a news story about a dog riding a skateboard, and the newscaster uses Rowena’s line from 10.22: “Aw, that dog thinks it’s people!”

12.19: Lucifer refers to Cas as the Winchesters’ “purse dog,” and s12 is littered with dog references, especially between Lucifer and Crowley (which started back in s11 when Lucifer was using Cas’s vessel and treating Crowley like a dog... there’s a lot of negative baggage attached to dogs on this show)

13.16: Scooby is obviously the one dog Dean’s okay with, having positive childhood associations with him. But when comparing themselves to the scooby gang, Sam says they don’t have a talking dog, and Dean replies that Cas is sort of like a talking dog... which is interesting because at the end of the episode Cas tells Dean he’s NOT a talking dog. And this, in a scene that was directly foreshadowing Dean becoming Michael’s suit...again, more negative baggage for both of them.

The Dean vs Dogs imagery really kicks in when Dean’s soul is destined for Hell in s3, though.

3.10: In his rant to his dream self, Dream!Dean accuses Dean of being as “mindless and obedient as an attack dog,” just a few lines before he gives the “daddy’s blunt little instrument” line that Cas reminded us of in 15.18. So I do think this is something that the writers couldn’t possibly have been unaware of in invoking that specific line and the specific baggage attached to it.

3.11, one of the MANY deaths Dean suffers is from a seemingly nice dog he tries to pet in a friendly manner. The nice golden retriever mauls him to death, like the hellhounds are due to do to him in just a few short episodes... 

3.16: literally torn apart by hellhounds... don’t know how else to make it clear that Dean Is Not A Fan of this.

4.06: suffering from Ghost Sickness, and being magically forced to experience heightened levels of fear, he runs from a lil Yorkie with a bow in its hair, pausing only long enough to warn another person on the street to run before it kills them. We are invited to see how his biggest fear-- of Lilith, of being tortured in Hell, and having been dragged there by hellhounds-- is literally tied to his feelings toward actual dogs, including nonthreatening little lap dogs.

6.01: When Dean falls under the djinn’s spell, he hallucinates an unseen monster, presumably something akin to a hellhound, but when he thinks he’s caught the monster, it’s the neighbor’s Yorkie. Just like in 4.05, Dogs, Hellhounds, and Things Dean Fears In His Soul are all tangled up together.

6.08: aka that one episode I forget exists until it comes back around on the loop (actually I don’t forget it exists anymore, I’ve seen the show too many times at this point, but meh...). But it does plant this fear, that any dog anywhere might not really be a dog. The “sleeper cell” skinwalker packs in cities all over the world? Yeah, not a happy thought for someone who really doesn’t like dogs. Or at the very least has a low-key fear of them.

7.15: I would qualify this one as just “symbolism,” but since this episode is full of anvils, it feels legit to mention that the spell Jeffrey uses to summon his demon back to him involves using Dean’s blood and a dog’s heart. Not really a dean/fear thing, but Dean AS a dog-- and a sacrificed dog at that.

8.01: When Dean gets back from Purgatory, he gets in the Impala and smells dog. Bringing on the famous rule that he’s quite angry about Sam having clearly violated even when he wasn’t on the same plane of existence at the time-- No dogs in the car. He’s still clearly not a fan. Early s8 becomes a long string of “Sam hit a dog” comments, too.

8.15: for all this episode’s grossness, it does remind us over and over again that Dean really does not like dogs. Even flat out having Dean say he likes dogs, and the woman who literally is a dog familiar tells him that no, he doesn’t.

9.05: Dean... is basically a dog. He bonds with the Colonel a bit, even identifies with the dog while he’s under the spell, but all that good will that built up between them effectively shatters again with the ominous last words he gets before the spell wears off and the knowledge that dogs were not created to be man’s best friend, but had some other-- and in this context seemingly sinister-- purpose.

And then we have every other ep that deals with Hellhounds, Dean’s failure to kill one leading to Sam taking on the trials instead of him, tied up in their mutual discussion of what they see as their respective futures-- Sam wants to live, and he wants Dean to live, too, instead of Dean constantly running toward death and self-sacrifice. So like, these themes are all tied up together, and makes all the dog stuff incredibly not fun when it comes to Dean specifically.

So when Dean does lose Cas-- and everyone else on the planet-- the dog being the ONE living being they’ve found, Dean picking her up and putting her in “Cas’s place” in the car, only to have Chuck snap her away like she was a manipulative trick the entire time? Not even really real, just one more thing to give Dean a tiny bit of hope only to maliciously snatch it away again?

And then for the SINGLE thing Dean asked for from Chuck being to bring Cas back?

And then he doesn’t get Cas back, but apparently kidnaps this random dog instead?

It’s just... indescribably weird to me, and so entirely out of character and insulting to Cas on top of it all. Like this was the only happiness Dean was allowed after saving the universe. No found extended family, no life outside of Sam and hunting, no dream of retiring and finding a beach to sink his toes in the sand for a little while. He just gets a dog, which he canonically doesn’t like and has a lot of issues with for entirely understandable reasons. So like.. .how is this cute or happy or nice?

[silvokrent]

RWBY Character Analysis: Pietro and Penny Polendina

Up until now I’ve been keeping quiet about my opinions on the newest volume, in no small part because my personal life has been one absurd setback after another, and I haven’t had the energy to engage in fandom meta. If you do want to know what my current opinion of RWBY is, go over to @itsclydebitches blog, search through her #rwby-recaps tag, and read every single one. At this point, her metas are basically an itemized list of all my grievances with the show. I highly recommend you check ’em out.

Or, if you don’t feel like reading several hours’ worth of recaps, then go find a sheet of paper, give yourself a papercut, and then squeeze a lemon into it. That should give you an accurate impression of my feelings.

In truth, I have a lot to say about the show, particularly how I think CRWBY has mishandled the plot, characters, tone, and intended message of their series. And while I enjoy dissecting RWBY with what amounts to mad scientist levels of glee, I think plenty of other folks have already discussed V7′s and V8′s various issues in greater depth and with far more eloquence. Any contribution I could theoretically make at this point would be somewhat redundant.

That being said, I’d like to talk about something that’s been bothering me for a while, which (to my knowledge) no one else in the fandom has brought up. (And feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Today’s topic of concern is Pietro Polendina, and his relationship with Penny.

And because I’m absolutely certain this post is going to be controversial and summon anonymous armchair critics to fill my inbox with sweary claptrap, I may as well just come out and say it:

Pietro Polendina, as he’s currently portrayed in the show, is an inherently abusive parental figure.

Let me take a second to clarify that I don’t think it was RWBY’s intention to portray Pietro that way. Much like other aspects of the show, a lot of nuance is often lost when discussing the difference between intention versus implementation, or telling versus showing. It’s what happens when a writer tries to characterize a person one way, but in execution portrays them in an entirely different light. Compounding this problem is what feels like a series of rather myopic writing decisions that started as early as Volume 2, concerning Penny’s sense of agency, and how the canon would bear out the implications of an autonomous being grappling with her identity. It’s infuriating that the show has spent seven seasons staunchly refusing to ask any sort of ethical questions surrounding her existence, only to then—with minimal setup—give us Pietro’s “heartfelt” emotional breakdown when he has to choose between “saving” Penny or “sacrificing” her for the greater good.

Yeah, no thanks.

If we want to talk about why this moment read as hollow and insincere, we need to first make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Spoilers for V8.E5 - “Amity.” Let’s not waste any time.

In light of the newest episode and its—shall we say—questionable implications, I figured now was the best time to bring it up while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind. (Because nothing generates momentum quite like frothing-at-the-mouth rage.)

The first time we’re told anything about Pietro, it comes from an exchange between Penny and Ruby. From V2.E2 - “A Minor Hiccup.”

Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much. He just worries a lot.

Ruby: Believe me, I know the feeling. But why not let us know you were okay?

Penny: I…was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.

Ruby: Was your dad that upset?

Penny: No, it wasn’t my father.

The scene immediately diverts our attention to a public unveiling of the AK-200. A hologram of James Ironwood is presenting this newest model of Atlesian Knight to a crowd of enthusiastic spectators, along with the Atlesian Paladin, a piloted mech. During the demonstration, James informs his audience that Atlas’ military created them with the intent of removing people from the battlefield and mitigating casualties (presumably against Grimm).

Penny is quickly spotted by several soldiers, and flees. Ruby follows, and in the process the two are nearly hit by a truck. Penny’s display of strength draws a crowd and prompts her to retreat into an alley, where Ruby learns that Penny isn’t “a real girl.”

This scene continues in the next episode, “Painting the Town…”

Penny: Most girls are born, but I was made. I’m the world’s first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura. [Averts her gaze.] I’m not real…

After Ruby assures her that no, you don’t have to be organic in order to have personhood, Penny proceeds to hug her with slightly more force than necessary.

Ruby: [Muffled noise of pain.] I can see why your father would want to protect such a delicate flower!

Penny: [Releases Ruby.] Oh, he’s very sweet! My father’s the one that built me! I’m sure you would love him.

Ruby: Wow. He built you all by himself?

Penny: Well, almost! He had some help from Mr. Ironwood.

Ruby: The general? Wait, is that why those soldiers were after you?

Penny: They like to protect me, too!

Ruby: They don't think you can protect yourself?

Penny: They're not sure if I'm ready yet. One day, it will be my job to save the world, but I still have a lot left to learn. That's why my father let me come to the Vytal Festival. I want to see what it's like in the rest of the world, and test myself in the Tournament.

Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of the approaching soldiers from earlier. Despite Ruby’s protests, Penny proceeds to yeet her into the nearby dumpster, all while reassuring her that it’s to keep Ruby out of trouble, not her. When the soldiers arrive, they ask her if she’s okay, then proceed to lightly scold her for causing a scene. Penny’s told that her father “isn’t going to be happy about this,” and is then politely asked (not ordered; asked) to let them escort her back.

Let’s take a second to break down these events.

When these two episodes first aired, the wording and visuals (“No, it wasn’t my father,” followed by the cutaway to James unveiling the automatons) implied that James was the one forbidding her from interacting with other people. It’s supposed to make you think that James is being restrictive and harsh, while Pietro is meant as a foil—the sweet, but cautious father figure. But here’s the thing: both of these depictions are inaccurate, and frankly, Penny’s the one at fault here. Penny blew her cover within minutes of interacting with Ruby—a scenario that Penny was responsible for because she was sneaking off without permission. Penny is a classified, top-secret military project, as made clear by the fact that she begs Ruby to not say anything to anyone. Penny is in full acknowledgement that her existence, if made public, could cause massive issues for her (something that she’s clearly experienced before, if her line, “You’re taking this extraordinarily well,” is anything to go by).

But here’s the thing—keeping Penny on a short leash wasn’t a unilateral decision made by James. That was Pietro’s choice as well. “My father asked me not to venture out too far,” “Your father isn’t going to be happy about this”—as much as this scene is desperately trying to put the onus on James for Penny’s truant behavior, Pietro canonically shares that blame. And Penny (to some extent) is in recognition of the fact that she did something wrong.

Back in Volumes 1 – 3, before the series butchered James’ characterization, these moments were meant as pretty clever examples of foreshadowing and subverting the controlling-military-general trope. This scene is meant to illustrate that yes, Penny is craving social interaction outside of military personnel as a consequence of being hidden, but that hiding her is also a necessity. It’s a complicated situation with no easy answer, but it’s also something of a necessary evil (as Penny’s close call with the truck and her disclosing that intel to Ruby are anything to go by).

Let’s skip ahead to Volume 7, shortly after Watts tampered with the drone footage and framed her for several deaths. In V7.E7 - “Worst Case Scenario,” a newscaster informs us that people in Atlas and Mantle want Penny to be deactivated, despite James’ insistence that the footage was doctored and Penny didn’t go on a killing spree. The public’s unfavorable opinion of Penny—a sentiment that Jacques of all people embodies when he brings it up in V7.E8—reinforces V2’s assessment of why keeping her secret was necessary. Not only is her existence controversial because Aura research is still taboo, but people are afraid that a mechanical person with military-grade hardware could be hacked and weaponized against them. (Something which Volume 8 actually validates when James has Watts take control of her in the most recent episode.)

But I digress.

We’re taken to Pietro’s lab, where Penny is hooked up to some sort of recharge/docking station. Ruby, Weiss, and Maria look on in concern while the machine is uploading the visual data from her systems. There’s one part of their conversation I want to focus on in particular:

Pietro: When the general first challenged us to find the next breakthrough in defense technology, most of my colleagues pursued more obvious choices. I was one of the few who believed in looking inward for inspiration.

Ruby: You wanted a protector with a soul.

Pietro: I did. And when General Ironwood saw her, he did too. Much to my surprise, the Penny Project was chosen over all the other proposals.

Allow me to break down their conversation so we can fully appreciate what he’s actually saying.

The Penny Project was picked as the candidate for the next breakthrough in defense technology.

Pietro wanted a protector with a SOUL.

In RWBY, Aura and souls are one of the defining characteristics of personhood. Personhood is central to Penny’s identity and internal conflict (particularly when we consider that she’s based on Pinocchio). That’s why Penny accepts Ruby’s reassurances that she’s a real person. That’s why she wants to have emotional connections with others.

What makes that revelation disturbing is when you realize that Pietro knowingly created a child soldier.

Look, there’s no getting around this. Pietro fully admits that he wanted to create a person—a human being—a fucking child—as a "defense technology” to throw at the Grimm (and by extension, Salem). Everything, from the language he uses, to the mere fact that he entered Penny in the Vytal Tournament as a proving ground where she could “test [her]self,” tells us that he either didn’t consider or didn’t care about the implications behind his proposal.

When you break it all down, this is what we end up with:

“Hey, I have an idea: Why don’t we make a person, cram as many weapons as we can fit into that person, and then inform her every day for the rest of her life that she was built for the sole purpose of fighting monsters, just so we don’t have to risk the lives of others. Let’s then take away anything remotely resembling autonomy, minimize her interactions with people, and basically indoctrinate her into thinking that this is something she wants for herself. Oh, and in case she starts to raise objections, remind her that I donated part of my soul to her. If we make her feel guilty about this generous sacrifice I made so she could have the privilege of existing, she won’t question our motives. Next, let’s give her a taste of freedom by having her fight in a gladiatorial blood sport so that we can prove our child soldier is an effective killer. And then, after she’s brutally murdered on international television, we can rebuild her and assign her to protecting an entire city that’s inherently prejudiced against her, all while I brood in my lab about how sad I am.”

Holy fuck. Watts might be a morally bankrupt asshole, but at least his proposal didn’t hinge on manufacturing state-of-the-art living weapons. They should have just gone with his idea.

(Which, hilariously enough, they did. Watts is the inventor of the Paladins—Paladins which, I’ll remind you, were invented so the army could remove people from the battlefield. You know, people. Kind of like what Penny is.)

Do you see why this entire scene might have pissed me off? Even if the show didn’t intend for any of this to be the case, when you think critically about the circumstances there’s no denying the tacit implications.

To reiterate, V8.E5 is the episode where Pietro says, and I quote:

“I don’t care about the big picture! I care about my daughter! I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.”

Oh, yeah? And what life is that? The one where she’s supposed to kill Grimm and literally nothing else? You do realize that she died specifically because you made her for the purpose of fighting, right?

No one, literally no one, was holding a gun to Pietro’s head and telling him that he had to build a living weapon. That was his idea. He chose to do that.

Remember when Cinder said, “I don’t serve anyone! And you wouldn’t either, if you weren’t built that way.” She…basically has a point. Penny has never been given the option to explore the world in a capacity where she wasn’t charged with defending it by her father. We know she doesn’t have many friends, courtesy of Ironwood dissuading her against it in V7. But I’m left with the troubling realization that the show (and the fandom), in their crusade to vilify James, are ignoring the fact that Pietro is also complicit in this behavior by virtue of being her creator. If we condemn the man that prevents Penny from having relationships, then what will we do to the man who forced her into that existence in the first place?

Being her “father” has given him a free pass to overlook the ethics of having a child who was created with a pre-planned purpose. How the hell did the show intend for Pietro to reconcile “I want you to live your life” with “I created you so you’d spend your life defending the world”? It viscerally reminds me of the sort of narcissistic parents who have kids because they want to pass on the family name, or continue their bloodline, or have live-in caregivers when they get older, only on a larger and much more horrific scale. And that’s fucked up.

Now, I’m not saying I’m against having a conflict like this in the show. In fact, I’d love to have a character who has to grapple with her own humanity while questioning the environment she grew up in. Penny is a character who is extremely fascinating because of all the potential she represents—a young woman who through a chance encounter befriends a group of strangers, and over time, is exposed to freedoms and friendships she was previously denied. Slowly, she begins to unlearn the mindset she was indoctrinated with, and starts to petition for agency and autonomy. Pietro is forced to confront the fact that what he did was traumatic and cruel, and that his love for her doesn’t erase the harm he unintentionally subjected her to, nor does it change the fact that he knowingly burdened a person with a responsibility she never consented to. There’s a wealth of character growth and narrative payoff buried here, but like most things in RWBY, it was either underdeveloped or not thought through all the way.

The wholesome father-daughter relationship the show wants Pietro and Penny to have is fundamentally contradicted by the nature of her existence, and the fact that no one (besides the villains) calls attention to it. I’d love for them to have that sort of dynamic, but the show had to do more to earn it. Instead, it’ll forever be another item on RWBY’s ever-growing list of disappointments—

Because Pietro’s remorse is more artificial than Penny could ever hope to be.

[makeste]

not (really) BnHA related but do you have personal tips/advice to get better at writing in English? every time I read something you write (be it meta or reactions or other things) I'm flabbergasted with the way your writing seems to flow so easily while staying extremely fun and concise, and your vocabulary which is sooo impressing!

first of all, thank you so much! I wish I had better advice on hand to offer, but all I can think of is basic stuff lol. but it’s what works for me, so here goes.

1.) use a thesaurus. I’m going to be completely honest here lol, my vocabulary is not really that great. or I guess to be more accurate, it’s not that I don’t know the words, it’s that I often have trouble thinking of the exact word I want to use off the top of my head. but I usually do know the right word when I hear it! so I use thesauruses a lot, especially when I feel like the word choice is important for the sake of clarity. my favorite one is powerthesaurus.org; I basically have this open in a tab on my browser at all times ready to go if needed. what I like about this one is that people can rate the suggestions they like best and also add new ones, which in my experience means you’re much more likely to find the word you were looking for close to the top of the list. I use it so much I even donated to them lol.

2.) get your ideas out first, then go back and edit. idk if this is a common thing or not, but for me a lot of times my thoughts are all jumbled around when I first try to write them down. and often I find that if I spend too much time trying to make them sound coherent, I’ll lose the flow of ideas and the post will sort of fizzle out. what works better for me is trying not to worry about that so much when I’m initially writing everything down, and focusing on just getting all of my thoughts out there in text form first. afterwards I can go back and edit and organize them and reword the parts that need rewording.

3.) don’t stress so much about the finer details of your writing. this is a big one for me lol. so for example, for me personally, I struggle a lot with writing transitions. a lot of times when I’m writing meta, I try to organize it point by point (btw it’s helpful to outline these when you’re starting out, if you’re not doing that already). but even when I’m trying to be as concise as possible, these points usually end up being waaaay longer than intended because I have a tendency to go off on tangents about random things (basically, something will pop into my head and I’ll write it down, and my brain will go “oh and ALSO, speaking of this thing...” and then I’ll write several more sentences or even paragraphs about said topic). and then when I’ve finally reached the end of one section and am ready to move onto the next, I often find that it’s hard to make that transition feel natural. there have been times when I’ve fussed about this way too much, because I wanted the wording to feel right, and that really dragged out the whole process.

but what’s helped a lot with this is being willing sometimes to just say “fuck it” and not worrying about it at all and just adding in something like “but enough about that, on to my next point,” or, “anyways I went off on a tangent there but let’s try to get back on track.” basically I just loosened up about it, and I think that’s helped, or at the very least it’s made the writing easier for me. so yeah, I think my general advice here is that if there’s a particular aspect of your writing that you’re struggling with, try to embrace the fact that it’s not going to be perfect, and try to roll with that. and a lot of times it turns out not to be nearly so big of a deal for the people reading it as it was for you writing it lol.

4.) the simpler the better. this isn’t a hard and fast rule by any means, but for me personally, my ADHD brain gets exhausted pretty quickly when I’m reading stuff that uses a more academic tone. even if I can understand it, my brain sort of rebels at the idea of reading it and I really have to focus hard to make it through. so I try to make my own posts as readable as possible. I don’t necessarily try to dumb them down or anything, but I do sort of subscribe to the “explain like I’m 5″ mentality where you’re trying to explain your ideas as simply as you can without actually sacrificing precision or accuracy. I think one of the more effective ways to do this is to try and adopt a less formal tone. a lot of times that one single change will make the thing easier to read, even if you’re discussing something really wild like theoretical physics or whatnot. for me at least, something about a writer being more casual makes it easier to follow what they’re saying without my mind wandering off.

and last but not least, 5.) practice. this is by far the most important thing. people improve their skills with time and repetition. I don’t know if my writing has improved much since I started blogging regularly, but I do know that it’s gotten a whole lot easier. words flow a lot more smoothly for me now than they used to, and I don’t have to stop and think about what I’m trying to say nearly as much. so that’s my biggest piece of advice. write meta, write stories, write whatever you like (but don’t force yourself to do it, though. try to find something that’s easy and fun for you to write about), but just do it as often as you can, and you are guaranteed to improve at it. a lot of people also say to read as much as you can, which is absolutely true as well, but really if writing is your goal than writing is what you have to practice. and it doesn’t have to be anything fancy or formal or otherwise Impressive, either; even just debating with someone on a forum or sharing theories with a group on Discord helps too. literally whatever you feel like doing. try not to focus on how good it is, and just have fun doing it. I know it’s the oldest advice in the book lol, but well, it is for a reason.

so there you go! not sure if any of that helps (especially since I unfortunately can’t offer any advice from a multilingual perspective, since English is my first language and really the only one I’m even a quarter fluent in), but it’s my best effort lol. and the thesaurus really is excellent though so I do recommend checking that out at least. thank you for the ask!

[tinkdw]

I don’t really want to out my Twitter/tumblr name so I’m using a side account and I understand if you don’t want to post this ask directly, but I love your positivity about the ending. My mutuals are doom & gloom after today’s promo pic. I’m trying to keep my hopes up and I’m so tired of everyone beating me down about it. I’d love to hear your take on what will happen to each member of Team Free Will 2.0 in 15x20; I’ve got some thoughts, but I’d love to get out of my own head for a bit.

Hi! Nw :)

Well, as I’ve said before I think Sam’s story is like 99% tied up, all he needs to do now is finalise the ending of the codependency with Dean, which is happening rn with the discussion of Dean protecting him so much etc. so that they can get past this and be equals at the end. He then gets the girl (Eileen) and hopefully should get some sort of semi goes back to school uses his intellect ending that’s open moving forwards like “and here’s what Sam can do next!” because the last 15 years have basically been holding him back from what he wanted to do since he was a kid. Perhaps it’ll be linking the two with him still involved in hunting but more “bookishly” or perhaps separate, on that I’m unsure just because of outside factors so we shall see!

For Dean, he also is working on ending this codependency and with that a lot of responsibility and guilt is being alleviated, which will all tie in with the anger which is the way the writers have decided to focus on Dean. I’m not entirely happy with that as I think it’s a bit lazy but fine, we shall get to the same ending so :) Dean should end with people around him, his family and in a sort of retired way where he feels more at peace and can let go of his anger caused by the pain of his past and the choices he feels he had to make that weren’t fair, as well as those he now knows he had no real choice over. He ultimately needs to feel that the weight of the world isn’t on his shoulders anymore and be able to relax, I see us seeing him genuinely relaxing with a movie, a pie, whatever as a metaphor of this. I cannot see any way in which Dean doesn’t get a happy ending. Especially after the before last episode. You don’t set up a poor kid taking responsibility for the weight of the world then getting a shit ending aged 40 odd. Nah. Also Dean is THE protagonist. It ain’t happening.

I also cannot see Dean happy in the end without Cas by his side.

I mean.

Nah.

Aside from this, Cas himself had already sacrificed himself and died in season 12 for the cause he chose (protecting Jack, Dean and Sam from Lucifer). He was also depressed and emerged from this literally fighting out of the void (metaphorically of depression) and fighting his way back to the light. That was one of the biggest and best metaphors I’ve seen in years on tv! So no I see no way it makes any sense that he sacrifices himself again forever? I mean unless it’s more lazy writing but I still come back to the Dean wouldn’t survive without him thing too so, no, it makes more sense that we continue to have faith in the writers that they’ll follow though and Cas will redeem himself for his past errors that we now know HE made not Chuck, by helping to restore Heaven, likely with Jack and Amara, and then rightly get his reward for being the loose canon that Chuck overlooked and who blatantly saves everyone in the end again by his own choice. Just as Sam had to redeem himself for the Lucifer / demon blood arc and he has and he has now forgiven himself, that’s also what we need for Cas. That’s why this is a thing for the Empty, he has to forgive himself for his bad choices, killing all those Angels etc, and Heaven needs restoring. There’s an easy win here to put them together. There’s also the issue of his humanity, whether they do this or not I’m not sure again due to time and laziness or whether they will do it properly :)

Also this whole PR thing about Cas being gone for good is actually making me chortle a bit now as they’re clearly rubbing their hands together laughing as fandom is convinced he’s dead and it’s all awful while they all keep totally quiet and hide what Misha’s been up to and moved scenes around. Cruel, but effective lbr!

I’m sure I’ve missed loads, there’s just so many meta points that have already been resolved that I’ve gotten lazy keeping tabs myself and I’m just enjoying the end tbh! I kinda fell out of love with some of the show since mid s13 as I felt they got lazy and were basically just dragging out the final seasons with one plot which, is true given the Michael plot was exactly the Lucifer plot mark 2 and it was all pretty awful and pointless 😂 but the last 2 episodes have been fab and really gotten back to the character stuff we love and I can’t wait for the next 3. I just hope this view is accurate in the end! It’s what makes sense to me ☺️

[omegangrins]

A Rant on the End of Tremors 7: Shrieker Island

As the main man said,

Throwing caution to the wind because this blew up elsewhere.

If you can do it with Justice League, fuck it, let's do it for every shitty movie we've got.

While we're at it, can we change the ending of the 7th Tremors movie so *MAJOR FUCKING SPOILERS* Burt Gummer doesn't die or at least bring Jamie Kennedy back, or Marvel style recast Jon Heder, so he dies saving his son instead of a random-ass person who could have easily saved themselves. Or cut the forced montage of Burt clips at the end so his death is at least ambiguous. Seriously beyond pissed about that one. THAT is no way for him to go.

I would also like to point out that the next Tremors *HAS* to be titled Tremors 8: Ouroboros and bring everyone back for Burt's funeral . Otherwise, what's the fucking point?

I have feelings about it, people. *FEELINGS!!!*

One of my favourite childhood memories is picking out Tremors 2 from the local gas station's movie rentals and forcing my parents to watch it. I was probably 5-6 at the time.

Let's say that it's been a lifelong love affair ever since. It took me another 10 years before I even watched the 1st. Probably why I hold good sequels in such high regard.

I didn't even know about the 1st until it played as a trailer in front of 2 and never thought to watch until years later. That's a testament to its filmmaking if I ever knew one.

So seriously, that's how they chose to kill off one of the most well known and prolific characters in a movie/TV series known around the globe? With an unnecessaryily needed death and a montage of clips from all the other movies that are obviously better than this one.

And I'm saying that as someone who defends Chibnall/13th Doctor...

...and I'm fucking fuming because THIS is how you *actually* destroy something people love and hold dear to their hearts. It's like the ending of Game of Thrones. His shitty ass death has made it a loooooot harder to rewatch. And they are one of my favourite series!!! Not flawless but fun. But I will defend every other movie and all the episodes except this. Honestly I'll still defend 7/8ths of this one as well.

Like I said, it's easily fixed too. Fucking vice versa swap out Jon Heder for Jamie Kennedy, who the movies have been building up for the last two, and have Burt save his son in front of his old flame. Boom, you won't even need the montage of clips cause you can just have Travis and his mom reminisce about Burt instead. Show not tell. I don't even care he died by Graboid (although in all honesty, I've allways wanted El Blanco to take him down or Burt kills himself from the PTSD. It would have AT LEAST MADE SENSE. Hell, the best would be a heart attack to callback Val's "Yeah, Burt, the way you worry, you're gonna have a heart attack before you get a chance to survive World War Three.". But none of us ever get the best death.). And it's not even about Burt sacrificing himself to save a nobody. Cause that could work too. BUT YOU NEED TO BUILD THAT SHIT UP. Not just fucking drop it like it's hot.

Like I said too, the first 7/8ths ain't bad but it's an entirely different story than a swansong for a hero.

It's all about some billionaire scientist/cowboy hunter dude who likes to get his jollies off hunting the biggest and the baddest who ends up inviting people to this island so they can hunt down Super-Graboids he designed for shits and giggles. But then some Shrieker-fy....

And the pretentious douches come and die one by beautiful one while Burt tries to save them anyway and it's all spectacularly dumb fun until it comes crashing down in the final 10 minutes. Fuck, they should just cut the last 10 minutes. Then it's a perfect little Tremors ditty.

#RELEASETHE7THTREMORSWITH10MINUTESFROMTHEENDCUT

This isn't even about Jon Heder either. He's just doing his job. Hell, do what /u/VoiceofRonHoward pointed out.

"It is clear that Jon's character was just pasted in over Jamie's, the artifacts of the father-son relationship are all over it. They should have gone full Marvel and just replaced Jamie with Jon and acted like nothing happened."

CAUSE FUCK YES!! The only time a story sucks is when they don't commit. Commitment makes all the difference. Now, I'm pissed double-pissed they didn't do that instead since Heder and Kennedy are similar in terms of white-boy-ness.

Even Michael Gross agrees:

"Yes, yes. Now I can't presume to speak for Jamie [Kennedy]. My understanding was they asked him and he said no. And so that's why they went with somebody else. So I had nothing to do with that decision. I just heard the stories. I missed him for that reason. You begin a relationship with the character, and you want to continue it....

...As you build a relationship with this son, we had two, it would've been nice to have three, but that was the hand I was dealt."

One of my favourite bits of Tremors lore comes from the 5th too so it's not like I hate sequel changes out of hand:

"This is a warrior dance. Our ancestors hunting the lnkanyamba and the Impundulu.

"What's that?

"Impundulu. It's what you call the Ass Blaster.

"Ass Blaster.

"Yes.

"Yes.

"Hey, you know, you make Ass Blaster sound good.

Primitive cultures fighting Graboids, Shriekers and Assblasters. I just love that thought.

Hilariously, my meta opening to the 8th movie would be a flashback to 10,000 years ago and a Neanderthal-like Burt Gummer teaching others how to drive Graboids off cliffs like they did with mammoths.

Thank you for giving me the space to rant. Cause fuuuuuuhhhhhhhhuuccck!!!

Here's Michael Gross' own words from his AMA that prove the people making Shrieker Island didn't know their shit.

"The Tremors series is one very close to my heart and I want you to know how appreciated your continued effort is for your core fan base.

My only question would be were there ever any studio decisions made for Burt that you refused to comply with? Or was everybody pretty much always on the same page on what to do with the character?

Thanks again for your dedication.

- Josh"

"Thanks for the kind words, Josh. As regards the first four films, with Wilson and Maddock as the writers, we were very much on the same page. 5,6, and 7 were a bit different, because there was a 13-year hiatus between 4 and 5, and we had to refresh our memories while "reinventing" the franchise for a new audience. I will give you one example: in an early draft of Shrieker Island, a new writer wrote a draft where Burt threatened to shoot one of the bad dudes, and I had to tell him—this is true—"Burt never intentionally points his gun at another human being."

And his own thoughts on Burt's "death" and how to bring it all back together again.

Universal and the director [came] to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' And I said, 'But I thought this franchise was over after four. So I could certainly live with it being over after seven.'

"What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. >!Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. Everybody assumes he's gone. Is he buried somewhere? Is he unconscious somewhere? We never see Burt dead. We see Burt gone. We see Burt not returning. What does that mean? Has he been knocked out? Does he have amnesia somewhere? Does he wander off? Is he in a kind of coma? So yes, the way it ends is pretty profound."

"As regards to the end of Tremors 7, let me just say that while people ASSUME Burt is gone, we never see his remains, do we? Just sayin.'

"The only reason he has become the main character is that everyone else in the original cast moved on to other things. I NEVER thought of him as the central figure, but it just worked out that Michael Gross, like Burt Gummer, was a "survivor." :0) "

"No one would like to see it more than I!!! One of my greatest regrets is that so many other cast members fell away over time. Reba was on to other things, Kevin said no to a second, Fred said no to a third. I would LOVE one last go with all of them, but it is not up to me. :0( "

"There are no guarantees, but for those who wonder aloud if this is the final film, I will say what I have said before: SALES drive sequels, Show biz is 5% show and 95% business, so if this latest addition to the Tremors franchise, sells well, [Universal] will follow the money, and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment may will be back for more."

/u/ActorMichaelGross, the bell has been rung and the song sung. Get the producers on this ASAP!!

I was also the first person to discover the symbolic foreshadowing of Stumpy's end with Earl's sleeping bag in the original movie.

Let's just say, I really *really* love these movies. So if anyone knows anyone, hook me up to the producers of this series and I'll Justin Lin in the Fast and Furious out of this shit.

Since I don't think it's good to critique without proposing either, I say we can make up for this fuck up with the next movie. We'll call it Tremors 8: Ouroboros. After the snake which eats its own tail.

We find out Burt faked his death to get the Proudfoot Corporation to let down their guard and when everyone from the previous series comes back for Burt's fake funeral they give him ever loving shit for being such a paranoid whack-job that he would fake his death to fool a government agency. Why would he do this? He found an old photo of Hiram Gummer with a Graboid warning on the back and asks himself why this valley, why these things, why allways me? And we find out, it's not Burt. It's that lifestyles of extremes will end up in places of extremes. Burt and the Graboids are survivors of different species. Sure the Proudfoot Corporation IS using Mixmaster to combine Graboids, Shriekers, and Ass-Blasters into one super creature for the military but it pales in comparison to Burt looking at his life and wondering in shame how many ancient giants like himself he has killed. And with that, he actually dies, and we keep the ball rolling with the rest of the characters trying to stop what they allways thought was just another one of Burt's crazy conspiracies.

That's why it's Ouroboros. Everything comes back around. We could end/start the movie with Grady, Earl, and Jodi opening a Monster World in Perfection Valley a la Desert Jack's Graboid Adventure. I don't know. I'm fucking trying harder than the people they paid to do this already.

It ain't perfect but I'm building on sand here so changes are gonna get made.

Like if the makers of Tremors notice this,

Then DM me because fucking A you guys need some help.

[nekoprankster218]

Spoilers for the last two episodes of RWBY Vol. 8 below; TL;DR at the end

I was binging the last four episodes of Vol 8 when this moment came up in the penultimate episode, and it just took me by surprise in the moment. I was still processing it even as Ironwood made his first attack. I was not expecting this move from CRWBY (actually wasn’t expecting a lot of those this season, but especially these last few episodes), and now that everything is done, I really wanted to just make sense of it. It was really quick and small, but I feel like analyzing it based on everything we know speaks volumes.

Just in case you never came across this info (I had to explain it to my dad since he only watches the show and interacts with nothing else), it was confirmed during I believe a panel with the writers that Ironwood’s semblance is a thing called “Mettle.” It essentially keeps him focused on a task, no matter what needs to be done in order to accomplish it, even if the choices that have to be made are morally or emotionally tough. There’s been some upset from the community about this semblance and the way it was introduced, as well as other bits about it; and even though I’m also disappointed in execution, this doesn’t mean it’s not existent in the show.

So, this very quick detail coming right before he goes against Winter. What interests me more isn’t the fact he shed a tear over her betrayal, but everything else about him since he first woke up in the cell. There’s just been something about his movements and voice (mainly the movements tho) that’s been bugging me; and it wasn’t until the tear fell that I realized what it was. They’re cold and stiff - they’re robotic. Kinda fitting, given this follows when the one robot of the show has just been turned into a real, fleshy human.

And this tear is the only “human” thing about it. His face is dead, his eyes are dull, and even his expression clashes with the teardrop. And as I was watching things play out, I couldn’t help but think of the little phrase: “the eyes are the window to the soul.” Well, given how I just said his eyes are dull, maybe the more fitting term would be eye mechanisms, but I think where I’m going with this is kinda clear.

This is the last trace of James Ironwood leaking through, in my opinion. The one who sacrificed his arm to protect Amity - to protect the one hope the entire planet had for communications. The one we listen to in “Hero.” The one who opened his arms and plans up to a bunch of kids when years ago he was willing to betray a colleague in order to have full control of Vytal security. The one who trusted, and expressed himself, and let himself be weak and exhausted in front of others (see: his talks with Qrow and Oscar), and gave physical affection (see: hug with Qrow); the one we saw in Vol 7 right before Cinder and Salem showed up.

Mettle is locked onto the goal of protecting Atlas - it’s been said so time and time again that he’ll do whatever it takes. But I feel like the betrayal from Winter, while not being strong enough to break Mettle’s hold of his body, might’ve at least gotten through to his mind/soul that things have gone too far. A fitting parallel comes again from Penny with the virus controlling her body - although in her case, with a little help from Jaune, her soul was able to overpower the virus and take back control of her body. With Ironwood, though, his fate is the opposite. He’s lost that battle, with the only thing he can do against his semblance is weep briefly.

With that I mind, I honestly do hope he’s died amidst the rubble. Aside from the horror of him possibly shifting from “protect” to “revenge” now that Atlas is gone - even if the destruction frees him from Mettle, death at that point really is the best option from both a narrative and a meta standpoint. Mettle is something that has yet to be even acknowledged in-universe; if CRWBY tries to redeem Ironwood at this point, trying to use it now as a explanation will probably seem to those who don’t know about it yet as a lazy excuse to wave his actions away. Honestly, yeah, even knowing about it now still makes it seem like a lazy explanation/motivation. Sure, it’d be nice if maybe the Shade professor mentioned it to the kids so it’s finally addressed in-universe like it should’ve been much, much earlier, but damage has already been done. Ironwood’s a tragedy, but but very hard to realistically redeem at this point. The public’s already seen him try to blow up a whole city of people for a petty reason - even if it came out it was all because of a semblance, that might just make them distrust him for new reasons, much less forgive him.

Also, note: this isn’t me waving away everything fucked up he’s done since the end of Vol 7. As much as I wish CRWBY did things differently with his character, that’s not the story we got. This is just me making an observation of a detail and trying to make a theory about it - not an excuse of actions or an argument for redemption. I’ve seen at least one other interpretation of the tear that have gone down different paths, and they weren’t as a nice as I was, and honestly given how quick and vague this was anyone could be right at this point. However, for me, I kind of want to go off based one of the lessons we learned from this season, the one which Yang verbalized in “Risks.” I want to be optimistic about this moment. I want to have hope that deep down, there was a person, and one that hopefully had his soul freed from the narrow-minded shell that’s been marching around this whole season. That’s my interpretation for Vol 8!Ironwood.

TL;DR: Given how off his movements and expression have felt, the way the tear clashes to me seems like the writers saying, “Mettle has taken complete control over Ironwood’s body, and all he can do now is shed a tear as he can’t stop his body from fighting Winter and dooming everyone.” It reads much like Penny’s battle with the virus; although in his case, he lost, and hopefully he’s also dead so he and everyone else can finally be at peace over this whole mess.

Holy shit. One day into the hiatus and I just did a full write up over a split-second tear. God, this is gonna be hell.