#it would be so funny if they never mentioned him looking different in Rebels vs live action

[batuurebel]

When Alexsandr Kallus inevitably makes his live action debut, don’t recast him.

Just have David Oyelowo play him again. Don’t even mention that he was a different color. His voice is more important anyway.

[abittersweetsongforyou]

thank youuu @phascinationphases and @kardemommecroques for the tag 💙

fav wtfock s3 things

although i wish we’d had more sander, i love that the first two episodes focused on robbe seeing him and his struggles was so heartbreaking but it made me connect to robbe so much more, made me love him, helped me understand him

i love bowie more than anything like that was such an elite choice, but not only that having sander be so fixated on him, so excited about him and wanting to talk about him and then having robbe not only listen without judgement but also take an interest in something he’d never really considered before??? genius. and now they have all these inside jokes and things that mean a lot to them as a couple pls im so weak

the soundtrack is incredible, truly unmatched like wow

also just the chemistry, it was on a whole other level, it still shocks me sometimes how easy the croque scene felt, how charged and alive and intimate it was. i was skeptical when i found out they were going for the whole, love at first sight, emotional whirlwind, all or nothing romance type thing, but the willems somehow pulled it off and made it feel realistic, i still don’t understand how they did that. 

i also just love how robbe and sander are an isak and an even but they’re so different, they’re so lived in. ive said it a thousand time but robbe is so gentle even after everything he’s gone through, he’s suffered so much and he’s still the least i guess i would say vicious isak though that’s not the right word. and sander, sander is so original, he’s his own person, he’s so intense in the best way and i related to him more than any other even before, he loves fully and deeply and he doesn’t hold back and i love that about him. 

fav clip

i have so many and they make no sense jsdajhdjahd but hear me out:

zaterdag 08:23/zaterdag 08:44/zaterdag 21:52/woensdag 21:21/dinsdag 16:3/woensdag 16:36/zaterdag 15:02/dinsdag 10:12 and a thousand more

fav scene

dinsdag 07:27 by far, the opening scene where sander asks if robbe is coming back

fav shot

ughhhh so fucking many, the shot of robbe looking at his bruises in the mirror/the shot of their hands intertwining during the reunion scene/the close up of sanders eye during cyg/sander in the dark during his panic attack/shot of robbe staring out at the water after he sees sander kissing britt/robbe crying in his bedroom/birdseye shot of robbe and sander spooning after ohn and the close up of robbe rubbing his thumb of sanders hand/sander leaning on robbes chest during the cuddle clip/sanders hand in robbe’s hair on their date/shot of them kissing from under the water in the pool clip/that shot of robbe and sander riding their bikes down the street singing/sander licking the joint/

fav kiss that robbe initiates

the second pool kiss or the one after sander hows him the sketch of the mural

fav kiss that sander initiates

the kiss at the end of vrijdag 22:52 it’s so soft it breaks my fucking heart

fav sander dialogue

cute answer: “nowhere as happy as we are”/”the moonlight was shining down on you and i knew immediately: he is the one”

funny answer: “you would probably still be chasing after jens like a horny lapdog.” 

fav robbe dialogue

cute answer: “you touched me and i’ve never felt anything like that before”

funny answer: “no he quickly put something in front of his penis, of course naked naked!”

fav hug

robbe holding sander during their ohn, it said everything they didn’t need to say, sander is always so confident and bright and intriguing and he didn’t think anyone could ever love him any other way, that noone would ever want to have all of him, all the hard, sad parts and then there’s robbe, who is sweet and gentle and loves every part of him, who doesn’t need sander to be this perfect, happy boy all the time, who just wants to be with him. 

fav 21:21

i can’t choose im sorry i just can’t, their reunion clip is my favourite of all the evaks but the pool kiss is 💯

fav sobbe instagram pic

the pictures sander posted for robbe’s birthday they’re so fucking cute i hate it/different supermarket same love had me fucking sobbing /i know technically it wasn’t their post but milans clingy bf post also made me feel some type of way

fav scene x song pair

supermarket clip x rebel rebel 

with a special mention to two men in love i mean fuck

fav message between sander and robbe

S: you were kind of wild in my dreams last night

R: Sander...

S: alright I will go and cool down outside 

fav banter on instagram

nothing has ever been funnier to me than ‘you are my fetish’ i cant believe those fuckers managed to make talking about a bald fetish sappy i hate them/also my shoe vs mijn lief that made my entire year

im fairly certain almost everyone has been tagged shjdahsjd so ill just tag a couple of people and say everyone should do this if they want to

@womenstan @veerleloockx @zaralrssns @tsjernobyl @sonderthroughthestreets @thenerd10 @to-enter-polaris @foxsake5

[thesomberfest]

Star Wars: Timestamps and Thoughts; The Empire Strikes Back

Salutations to all. Welcome back to my blog thing? Anyways today is the one and only The Empire Strikes Back which I think may be the most iconic Star Wars movie. But, don’t quote me on that. I’m only saying that as someone who has heard about Star Wars movies from the outside and honestly out of all the movies The Empire Strikes Back is the one movie I’ve always heard about; name-wise. I don’t think I know any spoilers about this movie, so we’ll see. I’m new to this and I don’t know what I’m doing so please have mercy and help a sister out, thanks. I have some idea based on what the movie is about based on the name but I’ll just take what Disney Plus tells me. I honestly have nothing to say. Should I start writing predictions before writing the timestamps and writing my reaction if I’m right or wrong based on the last movie I watched. Does that make sense? I can’t think of any other way to word it differently but if it makes sense then okay, let’s continue. This isn’t a prediction but um is this the movie where Luke finds about his parentage? Or is it a bit too early? Am I too early? Oh well. While adding timestamps I thought it would be a cool idea to add a “Favorite Scene” section under my “Final Thoughts” sections, I hope y’all like it.

03/9 Edit: Y’all sorry this is late but tomorrow is my birthday and I decided to not do my schoolwork and instead watch Star Wars and write. Before y’all get any ideas: yes. I am in fact still a minor. thanks. 04/3 edit: I AM SORRY THIS IS LATE I HAVE NO EXCUSE

Movie: Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Release Date: 1980

Summary(?): So obviously the Empire is going to strike back right? And Luke has to find Yoda to learn the ways of the Force? No? Oh and a final show down with Vader? Am I wrong again?

Warning: spoilers (yea no duh bibi) and mild language on my part

Timestamps

00:00:06- 20th Century Fox is here, hello.

00:00:22- the words on the screen have made an appearance

00:01:41- the iconic words have left, bye-bye

00:04:28- Han Solo

00:04:43- It’s Chewie

00:05:04- Ya’ll it’s my queen Leia. She’s looking badder than ever

00:05:22- so the guy we first saw was in fact Luke, whoops.

00:05:40- Han is leaving? What about Leia? Am I missing something?

00:06:00- Okay so I’m convinced that something happened between Han and Leia, right? She looks pissed, he also looks pissed. Uhhh...

00:06:03- Oh shoot, she called out his name and went after him.

00:06:27- the way Leia feels about him? Sexual tension?

00:06:34- does Han want Leia to admit she has feelings for him? Does she have feelings for him?

00:06:42- “Afraid I was gonna leave without giving you a good-bye kiss?”- woah there Han

00:06:47- yeah, something did happen. I’m calling it

00:06:53- YES 3PO and R2

00:07:12- Oh shoot, Han doesn’t want to talk to Leia no more

00:07:19- ain’t nobody know where Luke is

00:08:06- aw Han said Luke is his friend. Character development

00:08:36- um is that Luke being hanged upside down?

00:08:47- uh oh, it’s the abominable snowman, let’s uh call him Yeti for short

00:09:00- Lukie-boy that might be a bad idea 

00:09:34- he’s using the Force to get the lightsaber, nice

00:09:40- oh no, the Yeti noticed

00:09:48- he got the Lightsaber yayy

00:09:50- did he just cut off Yeti’s arm???

00:10:00- run forest run

00:10:40- aw R2 :( I want to give them a hug

00:11:58- Leia looks really nervous. Uh-oh

00:12:53- I’m sorry but Chewie wailing/crying a few minutes earlier makes me sad.

00:13:42- omg Yoda? Han found Luke I repeat he found Luke

00:15:16- I wondered where they filmed or if this was effects or something.

00:16:01- are they going to be found? oh I hope so

00:16:13- yay! Found at last!

00:16:35- i’m sorry. is that a man baby???

00:16:48- oh wait was that man baby Luke? Oh god i kinda feel bad now

00:17:02- aww Luke and Han. Their friendship gives me life (junior)

00:17:05- my queen!!!!

00:17:15- ok but seriously what happened between Han and Leia? I know something happened.

00:17:25- I know Han did not just call my boy Chewie a FUZZBALL, please

00:17:31- alone? South passage? was that when Han claimed he was leaving? Her TRUE FEELINGS

00:17:50- why does Luke look sad? Is it... is it because HE HAS FEELINGS FOR HER???

00:17:58- (lets out a female lead in horror movie scream) OH MY GOD. I KNEW A KISS WAS TO HAPPEN BUT SO SOON? AND ON THE MOUTH WITH A PEANUT GALLERY LEIA HAS SOME BALLS. SO IT WAS NOT A PECK LIKE I’D ASSUMED HUH OMG tho I feel bad for Luke ‘cause (i think) she only did it to spite Han also if my math is correct IT WAS FOUR SECONDS LONG. But like is this the only kiss between the two or is there more cause ummm...... AREN’T THEY RELATED? SIBLINGS? TWINS I THINK? *Sweet Home Alabama now playing*

00:18:13- why why does he look so smug? also Han about to kill Luke a man

00:19:14- idk what’s happening

00:19:18- pew pew

00:19:44- THE IMPERIAL MARCH omgg yess... I live for the movies music

00:20:32- oh no, the music ended

00:20:38- wait nvm it’s continuing we stand

00:20:40- breathing problems much?

00:20:52- It’s Darth Vader

00:21:47- wait, didn’t he (Luke) almost die? shouldn’t he like oh I don’t know RESTING?!

00:22:47- have i mentioned that I live for the Imperial March? ‘cause I love it

00:23:39- OH

00:23:51- he really dying in the background huh

00:23:57- so he’s like dead, right?

00:24:02- what’s happening? Are they gonna go against Vader?

00:24:12- what the hell is a stardestroyer?

00:24:44- i’ve been told the dark side has cookies so uh peace out. If you would like to reach me please send me a letter via mail. thanks.

00:25:39- once again shouldn’t Luke be resting???

00:25:53- aww I want those binoculars. Is that what they’re called? Idk but I want one

00:26:05- what the hell are Imperial Walkers?

00:26:27- oh. are those Imperial Walkers? Those robot-looking dogs? omg I thought they were talking about Stormtroopers.

00:26:30- laser beam robot doggies did not hesitate

00:26:40- aw look at Luke being leadership material

00:27:09- wow these walkers are slow huh as to be expected

00:27:50- OH NO DAK bruhh nooo

00:28:09- are those robot dogs really gonna win?

00:28:21- LANDING? You mean Vader isn’t even fighting down there? Is he going to join? Or just find Luke and kidnap him and spill the beans? Or is that just my active imagination running too far?

00:28:39- the music...*beautiful*

00:28:58- tying the feet and tripping the doggies seems to be the moves huh

00:29:15- ooh and face first into the snow. how embarrassing...

00:29:20- I just know someone is losing their job or life like that one dude from before

00:30:18- i like the explosions

00:30:52- while one of the those little planes fall i’m sitting here thinking: most book/movie/tv shows that have the whole two sides thing (good vs bad) there always seems to be a traitor which makes me wonder if the good guys have a traitor? possible plot? idk, we’ll see won’t we?

00:31:18- the way these little doggies walk keep reminding me of some eerie Tim Burton movie and idk whyyy

00:33:04- two robot doggies down one more to go

00:33:25- man I just know someone from the Dark Force is gonna be dead fired

00:34:08- are those stormtroopers? They run funny

00:34:12- Darth Vader!

00:34:45- wait i’m dumb. did Vader invade the building/camp they were hiding at?

00:35:18- what does Vader want exactly? Princess Leia? Luke? the so-called “rebel plans”? What am I missing?

00:35:42- they really said: “peace out”

00:36:30- not regrouping? and what the hell is the Dagobah system?

00:37:30- did two ships just crash?

00:39:10- the music really makes this asteroid field detour awesome

00:40:25- did they--did they just go in a asteroid? Orr..?

00:41:18- and just what the hell is Luke thinking? he putting my baby R2 in distress?

00:42:04- where in the HELL are they?

00:42:21- did my baby R2 just fall in the water? Can he even swim? Is it safe? Is he going to die? Idc how cute Luke is, I will hurt him if 2D dies!

00:42:33- what. how is R2 okay? I thought--

00:42:53- Is that R2 whistling?

00:42:57- oh god, is that Nessie? oh no--

00:43:10- OH MY GOODNESS DID NESSIE JUST EAT MY BABY R2 WHAT THE FUC--

00:43:41- R2 MY BABY WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU

00:44:01- YEA LUKE it was a bad idea going there! You put my sweet summer child R2 in danger! He almost got eaten as dinner!

00:44:18- ughhh the music is just AMAZINGGGG

00:44:38- whose brain is that? Is that what’s left of Mr. Anakin Skywalker? ooh now that I think about: what does Darth Vader look behind the helmet? I feel dumb for never thinking about that

00:45:34- hey you leave my man 3PO alone Solo

00:45:46- oh did Leia just fall into Han’s arms? ooh

00:45:56- “Captain, being held by you isn’t quite enough to get me excited” Leia woke up and choose violence 

00:46:56- oh OH Luke is looking for Yoda?

00:47:22- omg it’s YODA

00:47:48- man idk but lighting does wonders for Lukie-babe

00:48:26- is Yoda mocking Luke? ‘Cause I’m here for it

00:48:57- why is Luke lowkey being a pushover?

00:49:09- I KNOW Yoda isn’t hitting my baby R2 with a STICK the disrespect I-

00:49:56- at this point Yoda is just pulling on their legs for kicks and giggles huh

00:51:02- oh? alone? Leia and Han? my oh my

00:51:30- oh so now they hand-holding?

00:51:50- OMG when did they get so close to one another? I’m nervous

00:52:00- KISSING KISSING KISSING I REPEAT LEIA AND HAN ARE KISSING OH MY

00:52:04- ofc it’s 3PO to be the one to interrupt the kiss

00:52:14- oop-- Leia just left the crime scene. She’s going to pretend it never happened isn’t she?

00:53:04- wait. Vader isn’t emperor? Someone else is omg. I’m so dumb eye-

00:53:07- ew his side profile is not so good

00:53:10- the front is even uglier 

00:53:23- “young rebel”? my bby boy Luke?

00:53:25- “offspring of Anakin Skywalker”? wait a damn minute. Isn’t Vader oh idk ANAKIN SKYWALKER? Does that “emperor” guy not know? Or have I been lied to? WHAT AM I MISSING?

00:53:57- does this mean Anakin is considered to be a different person from Vader? I’m confused, someone explain please!

00:54:00- “could be turned”? say like Kylo? *dun dun dun* orr am I thinking too far?

00:54:16- “master”? you mean to tell me that Vader isn’t even the one pulling the strings? how embarrassing...

00:54:34- WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE R2 IN THE COLD RAIN?!

00:56:07- Luke my beauty dumbass just realized that Yoda was with the whole time

00:59:19- What is it?

00:59:29- Mynocks

00:59:35- oh hell no. I’m out

01:01:39- satan works hard but man does Luke work harder

01:01:57- “skinny boys are still the best oh i love when they slam and sweat.”-- Jack Off Jill, Lollirot (jolly good song) this one sentence describes it all :)

01:04:19- idk what’s happening but man does he look good. How long until y’all get tired of me simping over Luke?

01:04:40- wait WAIT THE FINAL SHOWDOWN IS IN THE FOREST? I THOUGHT-- I WAS TOLD--HOLD UP

01:05:01- but like, why it feel fake? Is this a dream? 

01:05:09- OH--[luke just decapitated Vader I-]

01:05:20- wait. it couldn’t have been that easy. This feels wrong-

01:05:29- omg. it’s luke! Wait what does this mean?

01:05:50- when i enter a room I would like the Imperial March to play, thanks.

01:06:26- uh, is that Boba Fett? If not I’m so sorry I’m new.

01:06:52- y’all I have a cofession to make: I have a fear of driving and my mother is forcing me to. How does this relate to the movie? Well, Han is steering the ship(?) so...

01:09:16- titanic part two?

01:10:31- my poor baby luke

01:11:37- luke please don’t give up :(

01:12:32- my man yoda showing up luke huh

01:13:35- uh oh. just like the first guy, he dead too. they’re just dropping like flies huh

01:16:05- and another kiss. a small peck, luke.

01:16:34- so is that Boba Fett or not? someone tell me please.

01:16:38- someone please run my baby R2 a bath

01:16:44-y’all the only time I can do a handstand is when I’m underwater (fun fact: i don’t like the pool)

01:16:51-[R2 is being levitated rn] if he falls and BREAKS into tiny pieces i’m quitting star wars

01:17:28- R2 good, he good “... I saw a city in the clouds.” you mean heaven?

01:17:37- “friends you have there” THEY’RE ALL GOING TO DIE WAIT--

01:19:50- they’ve [leia, han, chewie, 3PO] landed they’re safe, for now (i think)

01:20:25- [chewie replying “gahh!” to han] tell me why I laughed. I actually laughed like Chewie made a joke oh my...

01:20:34- uh oh [some dude just called han a slime(y)]

01:20:49- [they’re hugging now?] oh, wait. so they good now? or is this a joke?

01:22:01- i like the interior design of the building

01:22:49- [3PO gets blown up I think] what the hell just happened? 

01:25:13- he’s not coming back is he? [luke left to save han and leia]

01:26:13- finally. someone save 3PO or what’s left of him also I like leia’s new hairstyle it’s pretty

01:26:44- was 3PO decapitated? dismembered?!

01:26:55- good for chewie to fight for the parts of 3PO hopefully it’s all of his parts

01:27:35- my man 3PO in a box freaking dismembered and Lando out here flirting? 

01:28:30- what the hell? [its vader sitting at the head of the table] wait did Lando say a deal? as in turning in the princess? I--this is all happening so fast

01:28:41- [han and co. are now surrounded by boba fett and troopers] i bet they wished they’d stayed back in their rooms huh

01:30:31- oh so i’m assuming it was a stormtrooper who shot 3PO. what are they doing to han? omg is han being cooked alive?

01:31:33- wait I thought boba fett was a good guy? what the fvck.

01:32:05- what happened to han? mans looks traumatized 

01:32:34- oh leia...

01:34:14- i had also assumed all these years that vader was top boss and now i’m being told about some emperor guy? what 

01:35:18- i don’t understand why does boba fett want with han so bad? it can’t just be money, can it?

01:35:54- oh and another kiss and with an even bigger peanut gallery

01:38:22- what’s gonna happen to han now?

01:40:30- wait, is this where the showdown happens?

01:41:06- why is vader (his breathing) so loud?

01:41:10- OMG red vs. blue lightsaber

01:41:19- so this is it

01:42:01- oh, is lando helping them? does he feel guilty?

01:42:17- [chewie is currently choking the life out of lando] fuck yeah chewie

01:43:14- oh thank god R2 & 3PO have reunited once more

01:43:34- is it too late to save han now?

01:44:01- [back to the showdown, luke just lost his lightsaber] uh--this is why you never get too cocky too early, luke

01:44:27- [luke just flew?!] did he just fly like superman? what

01:44:31- who’s the emperor? I had assumed it was vader but i’m being told it isn’t?????

01:44:56- this showdown is a beautiful fight and those lightsabers are freaking cool 

01:46:15- it’s a beautiful dance and the Imperial March is giving me chills

01:46:32- [vader is throwing random objects at luke] aw that’s cheating. and nobody likes a cheater.

01:46:42- luke just flew out the window oh wait he good, now i think

01:47:12- hold up I just realized that they (han, chewie, leia) put 3PO in a fishnet bag (?) chewie really running around with 3PO like a backpack

01:47:49- [the citizens (?) are running] i’m getting titanic vibes and idk if i like it 

01:49:17- i hate to say it but these stormtroopers have really bad aim.

01:50:26- [vader just cut off luke’s hand] *shock* I-omg. He just did that. But, at the same time, I now understand the ERB Harry Potter v. Luke Skywalker so much more, make sense.

01:51:08- “father”? oh my...

01:51:17- “i am your father” oh my god. people this is not a drill, it happened, it happening uhh---

01:51:28- i feel so bad for luke. he looks like he’s about cry.

01:51:41- probs a bad time but luke’s kinda an ugly crier

01:52:14- [luke just fell & left vader standing] luke really said “i’d rather die”

01:54:04- wait, how does leia know where luke is? this some kind of force thing? maybe twin thing?

01:54:37- oh thank god they found luke

01:58:01- does vader care for luke? I mean probably not a lot since he DID chop off his sons own hand so idk

02:01:58- credits/the end

Final Thoughts? Wow. No yeah, I totally understand why Empire Strikes Back is a loved by all. It was amazing. I understand why it’s so talked about. This movie is beautiful; Leia/Han romance, 3PO and R2 banter, the good action. The soundtrack-THE SOUNDTRACK is SPECTACULAR and I would often fins myself rewinding scenes just to listen to the music. The visuals were so striking and appealing and it really showed during the showdown between luke and vader. 

Favorite Scene? Luke meeting Yoda and not knowing that Yoda was Yoda and every scene that included the Imperial March in the background.

If you have made it this far, thank you. I hope none of you people get tired of me fangirling over the Imperial March whilst simultaneously simping over Luke. Thank you for joining me on my adventure of watching Star Wars for the first time. If there’s any grammar mistakes I apologize. Also I got a cute R2 lego keychain from the lego store. Also if you want leave some comments I’m lowkey lonely. Thank you once again for joining me.

x bibi

[dancal13]

Day 2 – So Much Music, So Much Wine

Quick Disclaimer:  Suzy and I both love live music, which is awesome as music has always meant a lot to me. And now Jack, Bailey and Megan are all into music - so I am still learning about and loving new music, while keeping up with past favorites.  But I have grown to hate large crowds (might even be a phobia for the small-minded person - meaning me).  So, we pay attention to all the small venues in Seattle and see a lot of up and coming bands as well as lot of bands that are past their prime.  Pretty cool on the whole, but what we miss out on is the big tours, the bands in the their prime, for example U2’s most recent stadium tour. Not a chance that I would go to that even though I love U2.  But Susan is clever and not one to give up on something she wants to do.  As I mentioned in the Prologue a couple of years ago our friends the Wilbur’s mentioned BottleRock and Susan had her in. Combining and weaving my love for music with my addiction and love for red wine into her sales pitch. The opportunity to see the Red Hot Chile Peppers (never seen by me) and hang in Napa Valley. I was low hanging fruit. (Sorry not such quick disclaimer after all)

And here we are…

We woke up Sunday morning to a chill and the threat of rain and thunder (could be song lyrics).  Much different than our previous visits, where our fears mostly included sunburn and 100-degree weather.  No rain gear, no worries – Susan doesn’t believe in General Admission, that is so bourgeois.  We are VIP Baby and VIP gets you shelter, nice bathrooms, shorter food and drink lines and an obvious sense of superiority.  This of course could easily be disproved, but it’s our story, so stick it. Our friends the Robbs (Jill and John) flew in early that morning and met us for breakfast prior to rocking out.  As true festival goers our breakfast included eggs benedict, smoked salmon-arugula-egg flatbread, Belgium waffles with fresh a bananas and a ham-gruyere omelet, obviously the breakfast of music rebels everywhere.

From there we dropped off the muscle car, its head banging purpose complete and left for the festival.  As we arrived the clouds opened, and we again questioned our attire. We watched in utter horror as umbrellas were collected at the gate and tossed into waiting garbage cans - NOT ALLOWED.  But we were quickly reminded who we were. 

We were VIP and loving every minute of it.  First Stop, I know hard to guess, the bar and wait, you guessed it a covered area looking over the main stage. We would never be anything but damp again as each big stage had a covered area waiting for us.

We had been here before, the covered area previously acted as shade, apparently it can serve two purposes. With wine and cocktails in hand we quickly worked our strategy.  In the two years since we had last attended there were some improvements to VIP. The first being that they had set aside a huge portion of the field in front of the stage for those of us who wanted to see the performers up close.  More on that later.

We headed back to the food and drink areas set aside for our elite status, which included some pretty awesome restaurants and drink options and an acoustic lounge, that featured performers who were finished with their sets or still yet to perform.  These quick and intimate performances lasted about 4 to 6 songs, with a much smaller crowd, maybe a 150 people at its largest. Pretty cool. Just a quick note: though we didn’t take advantage of this (or get taken advantage of by this) there was a booth selling very high-end CUPS of wines.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the menu for posterity.  You could get a small “plastic cup” of Joseph Phelps Insignia for a mere $72. It is here where we were quickly reminded that though we were VIP Special, we were way, way less special than the VIP Platinum attendees.

After some food and drink and an acoustic set or two, we ventured out to the main stage to see Skylar Grey. My only knowledge of her was when we received the first set of promotional materials and I was scrolling through the various artists; I was stopped by the picture of her legs.  See the accompanying picture 😊. Apparently, she is a singer songwriter known more for songs that she has written for more famous artists, she is also currently a local of Napa and a big fan of wine, maybe we will hangout some time.  The first song performed was a song she wrote for Puff Daddy, P Diddy or whatever his current name is.  She had a fantastic voice, tons of tats, and yes great legs.

We stayed for 4 or 5 songs, grabbed some fun pictures, and text-taunted our friends the Wilbur’s who went for multiple days and did GA, while hosting one of their daughter, a nephew and other young friends (as mentioned, VIP access got us pretty close to the stage)

Next stop the Firefox stage to see Gang of Youths.  If you have been to a music festival, typically you will come across a band you do not know, know only one song, or maybe know a few and their performance far exceeds your expectations - You are now a fan!  In the past I have had that reaction to Coleman Hell, New Politics, Odesza – this year it was Gang of Youths, sorry for the bad pic, I have video, but not quite sure how to embed.  They were rockers from Australia, and the lead singer and guitarist looked like Jon Snow from Game of Thrones, so Suzy enjoyed them as well. Hmmmm… GoY vs GoT coincidence?  I think not.

I was also able to capture this image during GoY, of the GA crowd behind me and my cup of cabernet.  I almost felt sad for their existence. Then I took another sip of cabernet, enjoyed the music and all was forgotten.

We headed to the third of four stages to see the Teskey Bros, a blues band that Susan had become a fan of, but finally bumped into our friends Brian and Anne, pictured below drinking Frozés (yup rosé slushies) 

and then stopped nearby for a quick visit to the Silent Disco.  A huge dance floor where everyone is provided a set of headphones that are channeling 2 or 3 different DJs.  Pretty funny to watch a bunch of people dancing together but to different music. On a channel that I wasn’t on, Don’t Stop Believing, by Journey was playing.  Half of the audience/dancers were singing along and singing so loud that I couldn’t hear my headphones, it was time to go.

The Teskey brothers were good and we stayed for most of their set.  We then made our way back to the main stage, the acoustic lounge and the food and beverage area in time for the evening set.  This is where my funny wife stepped up.  After getting an unsatisfactory pour of bubbles while I was receiving an abundant one, she decided to watch me during my next order.  Again, I received above the line pours for both our drinks.  Susan screamed; you are flirting with the guy working the bar.  And then again yelled that I was flirting with the girl during our next stop. Obviously these days I don’t believe in gender labeling (thanks Megan for you guidance), so I just went about my business of flirting, I know right – I AM SO WOKE.  The entertainment ensued from there as Suzy started making friends with people who had arrived early enough for seats, or spaces at the rails or just looked fun. After hanging a while with Suz, they would then offer their spaces to her as they left – by the end of the day we each had a role… Flirty WOKE Guy and Friendly “Who’s Your Buddy” Girl a match made in rock and roll festival heaven

Evening set: First up was Michael Franti and Spearhead.  Seems like he performs every year at Bottlerock, and I’m not sure anyone has a better time doing so.  We were near the stage, but when Michael Franti performs, that means you only get to see him up close for half the time.  He is a bare foot performer who likes to wander out and sing in the crowd, and he does it well. This was the first performance we stayed at for the entire set.

It was nearly 8:30 now and our backs and legs were nearly spent, but the headliner “Mumford and Sons” took the stage.  I’m a big fan of their music but was still surprised and awed by their performance. It was a bit harder than I expected, and they performed with so much energy it was great.  I will find a way to see them again, probably multiple times.

It was a long day, and I was sore for a few days after standing and dancing for nearly ten hours. I’m am not interested in attending other festivals like Coachella, likely because they are not in Wine Country. I know snobbery right?

One insight I would like to share. If you are attending something like this and using a bankcard for drinks, check ahead of time with your bank, as we found out the hard way, that it looks suspicious if you make a bunch of small purchases in a day (food and drinks), in another state. The bank can and will freeze your card until the next day, or until you call them. The good news or easy solution is to carry cash or a second card.  Learn from our mistakes.  

[nirah10]

Sons really are their mother’s favourites as 88 per cent admit treating boys differently.

Affection: Mothers really do treat their sons better than daughters according to a survey by website Netmums

From Sara,

It’s one of the oldest mothering cliches in the book.

But the idea of mothers favouring their sons over their daughters could be much more than just a stereotype, a poll suggests.

And though they may be loath to admit it, mothers really do have favourites, it found.

They are more likely to describe their sons as ‘funny’, ‘cheeky’, ‘playful’ and ‘loving’.

But when it comes to their daughters they are far more critical – believing them to be more ‘stroppy’, ‘argumentative’ and ‘serious’, according to the study by parenting website Netmums.

In fact, 88 per cent of mothers polled admit to treating boys and girls differently, despite considering it wrong to do so.

More than half – 55 per cent – said they found it easier to bond with their sons. 

And seven per cent admitted their sons were given more treats than their daughters. 

The survey, which questioned more than 2,000 women who have both sons and daughters, found that mothers were twice as likely to be critical of their daughters than sons – 21 per cent compared to 11.5 per cent.

Crissy Duff, a counsellor and adviser at Netmums, warned that the types of attitudes uncovered by the survey could have a long-lasting effect on girls.

The trend could be one reason why women tend to be more self-critical than men, who are more likely to grow up with a happy-go-lucky attitude and brush off mistakes, she said.

‘Women in particular seem to carry the feelings of parental disapproval and negative typing into their adulthood,’ she said.

‘The experience of receiving more negative reinforcements for stepping out of line than their male counterparts can lead women to view themselves as more needing of censure.’

More than a fifth of mothers polled – 21.5 per cent – let their sons get away with more mischief, compared with 17.8 per cent who said their daughters were given more leeway.

Mothers were more likely to attribute positive personality traits to their sons than their daughters. 

Almost half of mothers questioned – 48 per cent – said their sons were a mummy’s boy, while just over a third – 35 per cent – said their daughters could be described as daddy’s girl.

A Netmums founder, Siobhan Freegard, said: ‘As a mum of two boys and a girl, I know first-hand that, try as we might, it can be very hard to treat all of your children the same.

‘This is a great wake-up call to mums to help break gender cycles and even out the differences in how the sexes behave and think about themselves. It is a huge ask, but an achievable one.’

Tips from the site’s experts include offering girls the chance to play with trains and building blocks. Boys should be given the chance to play with a toy kitchen instead of a garage.

They also urge parents not to rescue daughters every time they see her struggle with a task. Given time and space to solve a problem, daughters’ sense of self-respect and independence will flourish.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1318036/Sons-really-mothers-favourites-88-cent-admit-treating-boys-differently.html

……

OMG. I relate to this so much.

My dad walked out when we were babies’ and moved overseas, so we were raised by a single mother. 

My two brothers and me. 

My brothers never had to do chores, while cleaning was up to me. Mum would scream at me about  messes but never at my brothers, despite them being way messier and leaving their junk everywhere.

I cleaned the kitchen and cooked every night, while my brothers got to hang out with friends.

If my brothers made a joke about my mumsm cooking, they were being cheeky and cute and mum would respond playfully. Me? If I said the same thing I would be called a bitch.

Mum always told me to watch my tone and not to nag while my brothers never ever had any behaviour corrections.

I feel like my mother loved them more because they were boys. And they got away with more.

I left home at fifteen, I am now twenty-two, and have not spoken to my mother in seven years. 

I just can’t get over the way she made me feel worthless compared to my brothers.

So I kind of get where Khalia is coming from in the story, all that anger and stuff, and part of it was her thinking her dad liked her brothers better because they were boys and she was a girl, and that is why the insane version of Kahlia made such a big deal with her feminity- wearing dresses and being as girly as possible, to throw it in her father’s face. I get that.

Dear Sara,

I actually had a conversation with a friend not long ago that kind of relates to this. We were having a bit of a gripe about the men in our lives to each other and she said something along the lines of “Why don’t men ever think to take care of the house too? Or to take care of us?” and I answered that the current culture teaches boys to expect that women will take care of them. My friend has both a son and a daughter and immediately jumped on my comment with explanations that she makes her son do chores as well and that she’s always taught him to clean up after himself and help out.

I’ve known this woman for nearly 7 years and I know her very well, so I knew full well that that simply wasn’t true. I started asking her questions about what chores her son does vs what chores her daughter did at that age. I asked her about what she does when her son misbehaves vs when her daughter misbehaves, when they get poor grades in school, when they’re lazy, etc. The conversation quickly started making it clear that she favours her son and she quickly got flustered, trying to find ways to defend it. At one point, I just asked her “Why does [son] get a pass on that behaviour when [daughter] doesn’t?” Without a second’s hesitation, she answered “Because I expect more from her.” The look on her face as she said it was very telling. She literally had not noticed that she treated her children any differently until that exact moment.

The second she realized it, she started talking about what her mother had expected of her vs what was expected of her brother and how that had somehow crept into her own parenting. She had never ever noticed it before.

I also know that she has a lot more fun with her son than she does with her daughter. Her son is fun and silly and wants to play, while her daughter is more serious and quiet and prefers to be alone. How many mothers do you hear talk about how they just want a little “me time”? I imagine that her daughter prefers to spend time alone for the same reason that her mother does--she’s tired from doing her chores, her homework, taking care of the pets, taking care of her brother, and helping out around the house whenever she spots something that needs doing. If she’s in the house, with the family, there’s probably something that she’ll get asked to do or scolded for not doing. My friend’s son may also have homework and chores that are expected, but he can drop his crap on the floor when he comes in the door and expect that someone else will pick it up or walk past the dirty dishes on the table because it’s not his job to clean them. If my friend’s daughter were to do the same, she’d be told to pick up after herself and that she should be helping more by taking dishes to the dishwasher when she passes them.

It’s bizarre that this kind of behaviour is so common that we don’t even realize we do it, even when we’re actively trying to avoid it!

Anyway, I just thought I’d mention that conversation because it was so interesting to me. Thank you for sharing your personal story and I’m sorry that you’ve had such a rough time. I’m glad that you’re out of that situation now and I hope things work out well for you.

In a way, I wrote Kahlia as a sort of reversal of myself. My own biological father was a very abusive man and was extremely, unapologetically sexist. Women basically exist in his world to serve men (he used the Bible to back that up), and me and my six sisters were all expected to serve. We were supposed to look cute, act “lady like”, never argue, and take care of the house (the same was not expected of my two brothers). I rebelled against femininity at a very young age. I hated wearing skirts, I hated pink, I hated jewelry, I hated Barbies and My Little Pony. I hated all of it. My father wanted a staff of girls to run his house and I absolutely fucking refused. I stole my brother’s toy trucks, never wore skirts unless I was forced to for church, I played with mud, I liked bugs and snakes, I got angry and lashed out violently instead of crying, I wrestled, I fought imaginary dragons, I pretended to be a Dragon Ball Z fighter. I even went through a phase of telling people to call me Keung because I thought Jackie Chan in Rumble in the Bronx was super cool and I wanted to be him.

As an adult, I know enough about myself now to know that at least a good portion of that behaviour was open rebellion against my father (some of it really is just me--Jackie Chan is a boss). I did everything I could to resist being a girl because that was what he wanted me to be and I wasn’t going to give it to him. Writing Kahlia being very expressive of her femininity was really interesting and almost therapeutic for me. She’d been trying so hard to fit into something that she thought her father would love and accept, and took every step she could in the opposite direction to spite him when she realized her efforts didn’t matter. Kahlia may have been the villain, but I did kind of love that about her.

I’m glad to hear that you were able to relate to that too.

[defiestars]

some quick verse + tlj thoughts related info  * *  very uhHHH likely to change as i go / as i remember things more clearly if / when i subject myself to tlj again

i.  recovery   //    in the empire strikes back novelisation luke was in his bacta tank for 12 hours and then slept for another 16 hours for fatal hypothermia.  assuming bacta technology has advanced and become more sophisticated,  particularly because it’s now been synthesised into a suit,  i’d estimate finn’s recovery to have been in the 30-36 hour mark.  (   also, he’s force-sensitive but that’s A Whole Other Topic  !  )   

if we assume:  day 1 post-tfa:  rey staying long enough to get her hot new Grey Jedi Look together  +  organise the gps bracelet plan with leia.  the resistance receiving alerts that the first order fleet is approaching and beginning evacuation plans.  day 2 post-tfa:  finn wakes up,  half a day earlier than he did in tlj,  just in time to offer information on the weak points of the star destroyers and the dreadnought, including helping devise the plan to eliminate the dreadnought’s surface cannons and clear the way for the resistance bombers. 

ii.  allegiance   //   FINN OWES !! THE RESISTANCE !! NOTHING !!!!!!  HE DOESN’T OWE ANYBODY SHIT !!!!!!!  this boy has risked his life and livelihood time and again from the moment he chose not to kill for the first order for complete strangers,  for a movement he had no prior connections with.  even if leaving and becoming a  ‘’’’’’’ traitor ‘’’’’’ to the resistance had been right for his character and a valid development in his character arc,  he does not deserve to be called a deserter for wanting nothing to do with the first order ever again.  like........... does anybody fucking realise that alongside the very possible defeat of the resistance, finn being captured by the first order again probably means he wouldn’t be killed, but  reconditioned  ???????  the first order has had deserters, too !!   they also get tasered !  in the Head, specifically their Brain, where they’re basically restored to factory settings.  not to mention the sheer amount of bravery and courage and heroism it takes for him to turn around and face the organization that destroyed his childhood, enslaved him, and has systematically abused him every day of his life.

with all of that said,,,,,  it makes 0 sense for finn to decide, in the middle of the resistance evacuation, to suddenly up and leave with a shitty ass excuse about needing to be far away for when rey comes back.  like ??????  rey's path is already so deeply and inexorably tied to the rube goldberg machine that is the jedi, the resistance, and the skywalkers,  and finn knows this.  even if he wasn’t fundamentally a person with a moral compass that couldn’t be broken even by two decades of indoctrination into a fascist space nazi regime,  finn does The Things He Does because they’re the right thing to do.  his character arc is not and has never been defined by rey.  i don’t know what dinosaur sloth titty juice rian johnson’s been drinking but repeating parts of finn’s earlier character development to the point of regression is not !!! good !!!! writing !!!!!!!

given that he’s spent 36ish hours in a recovery coma,  finn hasn’t had so much as a Second to process,  or decide,  where he stands in the resistance.  like rey,  he too is looking for someone to show him his place in all this.  unlike rey,  he has no mentor figure, no introspective screentime alone,  no inner dialogue or space to explore who he is now in the post-first order part of his life.  but,  for the time being and given the time-sensitivity of the resistance evacuation,  he is absolutely on the side of the rebels.  these are the people who saved him and protected him,  who gave him the jacket off their backs and something to fight for.  not only does deserting make 0 logical or tactical sense in the middle of an evacuation,  it’s just outright selfish ??  and self-serving ???  none of which finn is, thank you @ryan johnson.

iii.  rebellion   //   so there’s been a lot of differing opinions on finn and rose’s storyline and after agonizing a lot of this i’ve come to the almost final decision that it’s Not As Bad as ppl want it to be.  like a lot of mischaracterisation fuck-ups in tlj,  it mainly comes down to  how this storyline was treated in the grand scheme of tlj and how significant it was to the overarching plot.  canto bight only seems irrelevant because ryan johnson is a terrible fucking writer who thrives off sidelining his characters of color.  thematically, it served it as a damning critique of the powerful ruling class and political economic elites that are actively profitting from the injustice and oppression of war.  rose showing those kids the resistance emblem in her ring is one of the most iconic moments in the film;  inspiring a whole generation of children to rise up against their oppressors is  everything the resistance symbolizes and fights for.  

throwing in an unnecessary oc spitting some half-assed  ‘ everything isn’t always good or bad, sometimes there’s just grey areas ’  message in a parallel of the jedi story and ultimately having the undercover mission serve No Purpose Whatsoever was a shitty move.  in keeping with the fandom interpretation that tlj is a story about failure,  this would’ve been okay  only  if  the detour onto the star destroyer hadn’t been for absolutely nothing.  because there Needed to be fucking somETHINg,  instead of just benicio del toro rihanna.gif winking with the parting words that  ‘ hey sometimes people are just assholes ’.  star wars isn’t a story... about... people being fundamentally shitty..... it’s a story about good vs. bad and the enduring struggle for Balance between them;  People Are Both.  it doesn’t matter what you are but what you  do  and the choice you have to do good or bad.  to counteract the shittiness of dj fucking off,  leaving two poc to be forced onto their knees by a white fascist villain,  and a black character to be slapped upside the face by said white fascist villain we needed Something.  WHERE WAS OUR STORMTROOPER UPRISING, hMMMmm MMm MMMM mMM MM ????????????

bb-8 showing up as deus ex sight gag was funny for 2.5 seconds but now i'm just.... like crait.... a whole Salt Planet.  we could have had, it All ?  i don’t even specifically know where this part of my tlj-divergent verse goes because it actually requires other non-canon characters to exist but.... hey if any ex-stormtrooper oc’s wanna hmu.... u kno where i’m at.  basically,  i picture a handful of stormtroopers defecting,  escaping with rose and finn,  becoming part of  the rebellion that is reborn. 

iv.  battle of crait   //   this... fuc king scene..... god.  let’s just get the wampa out of the way.  rose’s  ‘ that’s how we’re gonna win.  not fighting what we hate, saving what we love ’  was totally narratively undeserved.  this is not a criticism of the character but of ryan, again, the man who was paid millions of dollars to write this garbage.  in under 18 hours,,,, rose has decided that she has gotten over her lifelong hatred for the first order,  her very recent and fresh grief over losing her sister who died Fighting The First Order,  and oH,  she LOVES FINN ?  WHAT.  cool.  coolcoolcool.

in my canon, i’m going to go with the idea that rose did not kiss finn.  but they have a fantastic dynamic,  and rose crashing into him, saving him and saying something similar to what she said but more along the lines of not wanting to lose another person she cares about to the first order would have been much... better....  i view this ship as primarily platonic, at least far as tlj goes.  finnrey and finnpoe barely had any screentime / development so ryan johnson is flat-out playing no-homo games if he thinks he’s going to sail a ship based on 18 hours of knowing each other.  but i’m totally open to seeing where it goes with proper development, etc. in rp,  so if there are any rose’s that would like to plot with me and discuss finnrose stuff please !!!  i’m begging you !!!!  

if ya made it to the end,  thank you,  ur the real mvp,  u are now obligated to message me to plot or yell at me abt ur own tlj salt / headcanons / character analysis. 

[serenagaywaterford]

Who's the new commander/wife in s3? And yes, please give me s3 spoilers! Also, do you have any thoughts about mayday? How I wish we got to see more of it

OKAY ERRYBODY IN THE CLUB GET TIPSY. SPOILERS AHEAD.

EDIT: added in the Mayday stuff cos I forgot the first time around.

Like the actors? Christopher Meloni and Elizabeth Reaser, and they’re playing the Winslows who host the Waterfords in DC. (Which I’m not sure if you’ve seen all the hubbub about the DC trip but there are loads of pics of them shooting one of those scenes. You’ve probably seen them. Like with the Handmaids’ mouths stapled shut? Fred looking all Evil Supreme Leader-y with Serena and June alongside him.). Meloni is “powerful and magnetic” and Reaser is supposedly a “friend and inspiration” to Serena. Whatever the fuck all that means. It could be good, it could be bad. (Personally, I can’t stand either of those actors but meh. Maybe they’ll be okay.) And DC, not Boston, is Gilead central… and so Fred’s not really as important as he thinks. 

Off-topic: To be honest, I find this odd. We see frequently that all the dudes responsible for the rise/creation of Gilead are in Boston and it was formed IN Boston (Putnam, Pryce, Waterford, Cushing?, Lawrence, (Nick), etc.) so how there is a ANOTHER HIGHER level group of SOJ in DC is a little stupid, imo. It doesn’t make sense how that core group (the literal architects of the entire system) are off in Boston while the other guys (who we’ve literally never seen nor heard of before, even in flashbacks–bad storytelling, show) are top dogs in DC. Seems like yet another plot contrivance. Now, fair enough, that I think it’s sort of funny that Fred is still in Boston rather than with the big brass in DC cos he THINKS he’s so much smarter/better/etc than all these other guys but the fact he’s not there just shows that as much as he was one of the Gilead OGs, he’s too incompetent to be trusted at the highest level of government. HA HA FRED. Ya moron. I get that there’s never a guarantee that the evil people that come up with a totalitarian society are in charge of said society when it comes to fruition, but it’s a general trend throughout history. The fact all these guys would give up top billing of the SOJ to some punks from DC seems… a bit off. But then, hey, maybe said punks were the other part of the SOJ that Fred was talking about to Serena when he suggested bombing congress.

As for a few more, June flips out at one point, turning on other Handmaids (Brianna is holding her back.) It’s against a Handmaid who is a “true believer” in Gilead. I’m going to take an educated guess (based on where they’re filming) this is the lead up to the mass hanging. I guess I should mention: the Handmaids are gonna have to hang a bunch of people. Like a salvaging, but with hanging instead of stoning or beating.

June gets dressed up like a Martha.

June apparently works with Lawrence. It’s assumed she’ll be his Handmaid although the production, especially the DC scene, seem to imply she’s back with the Waterfords.

Serena’s mother shows up.

Luke & Moira are fighting against Gileadean ideology in Canada. Cos obviously it would come up here too. I always thought it was too happy-happy that Canada wasn’t experiencing ANY fallout from a worldwide birthrate crisis. Like, we may be more liberal than the US, but what happens there, spreads here fairly quickly. Like we have some Trumpian/Tea Party-esque politicians and racist/homophobic/xenophobic/misogynistic activist groups too, with a lot of power. And a lot of ignorant regular people to boot. The fact Canada was portrayed as like this utopia free from Gilead’s evilness just seemed unrealistic to me. While I do believe it would take a bit longer to take root here, the building blocks are already here and ripe for the pickin’. 

(I also have a huge issue with how unrealistically and healthy they portrayed the economy in Canada without their main US trading partner. We’d collapse if the US economy collapsed, at least for a time until we figured a way around it. Oil alone would go crazy. It wouldn’t be all life as normal. What Serena saw in 2x09 was literally what I see everyday here and I find it super hard to swallow that our lives would just go on as if nothing happened if the USA fell into massive civil war and was overthrown by a theocratic “republic”. 

And I also have a HUGE issue with how rosy they portrayed refugee and asylum seeking here. It’s just as bad as elsewhere, with all the same struggles that European countries (for example) are facing right now. Like if Gilead was an actual thing, Canada would be having a fucking mASSIVE humanitarian crisis along the border. We had a taste of it when Trump was elected and loads of people fled across the border. We could barely handle THAT, let alone hundreds of thousands of Americans swarming in to safety.) So, yeah, that’s a really long way of saying THANK FUCK the show is going to start to deal with some of the reality of the situation north of the border. They already showed Mexico breaking down and there’s no reason Canada wouldn’t too if the birthrate crisis is indeed as catastrophic as it’s presented by Serena/Fred/Gilead.

Emily makes it to Canada with Nichole. It’s all happy families. At least from the set photos the whole gang is there: Luke, Moira, Emily, Sylvia, Nichole. Not sure about Oliver or Erin. Now, the photo was likely taken when they weren’t filming which is why they’re all so fucking smiley and happy laughing together. That’s probably just the actors. But it could be shooting. I didn’t actually save the photos and I’m not sure where they are now. I think reddit?

Aunt Lydia is alive and will get some backstory and her character is gonna change. Somehow, somewhat, unclear how much. All cos of what Emily did to her.

Lots of stuff about Nichole, the whole Gilead vs. Canada thing, etc etc. 

____

I totally forgot to add about Mayday!

Personally… and first off: I much prefer the name “Mayday” to that weirdass co-opted “female railroad” or whatever shit they called it in the show when Moira was getting out. That was just in poor taste and completely uncreative. You don’t have to call it a railroad at all, tbh. It could be an extension of Mayday, or it could be called something entirely different. Sometimes the THT writers really drop the ball.

As for Mayday… I am not even convinced it exists as such? When I was reading the book, I liked the theory that Emily was sort of … not crazy, but misinformed or exaggerating. The only we really hear about Mayday in the book is through her and there’s no real evidence it exists as a cohesive organization. 

In the show, it’s like we’ve been fed this Mayday idea… but again, not seen anything particularly solid in terms of evidence it exists as a large organized resistance effort. 

We see Emily talk about it but she never seems to get anything from it and everything she does is through her own agency. Mayday never helps her.

We see June ask Alma about it. But Alma doesn’t really say much.

We see Nick, kind of doing his own thing and organizing shit for June, specifically. (We never see him do anything for any other woman except the one he’s banging. Snerk.) 

We see Lillie somehow get a complex explosive and blow shit up. Obviously that came from somewhere and it’s not the sort of thing a Handmaid can just make herself. There has to be a “terrorist cell” (as Gilead would consider it) within Gilead that siphons off weapons to a small rebel faction and passed it to her.

We know there’s a war still going on because Fred talks about the front so there are obviously large pockets that are actively and violently resisting Gilead within the continental US. IIRC the map they showed, the fighting tends to be along international borders and in the west and Florida? I can’t really remember the map exactly. There’s no real evidence that these people at war are also running an underground resistance network within Gilead strongholds like Boston. But other than sympathetic Guardians, Eyes, Angels, they could be the ones supplying weapons.

We see the butcher hand June the package from Moira. Somehow there is a network that passed this along.

We see the Guardian give June the way out of the hospital to the butcher’s truck. This could be Nick’s doing alone, not a network.

We see the butcher/delivery dude who brings June to the Globe. Again, this could solely be Nick as well, but we don’t know.

We see there’s Omar, who seems more like someone who accidentally fell into it rather than an active participant. We also learn that “Mayday” has supposedly safe houses within Gilead, but we never see them.

We see the pilot who helps people escape to Canada.

We hear of “Rachel” often, especially wrt Jezebels. I don’t think we ever see Rachel however. It could be code, it could be a person, it could be a group of people. Considering the gravity of the name Rachel in Gilead, I would put my money on this being a code name cos the writers don’t just throw little things like that around. Especially since Moira, who lived and worked at Jezebels, claims she doesn’t know a “Rachel”. Sure, she could just be protecting June or she could actually be telling the truth. I find it really interesting that the consulate worker in Toronto is called Rachel as well. While I don’t think the two are connected, I’m just surprised at all the references to Rachels in THT, esp with the story of Rachel & Leah (+ Bilhah, Zilpah, etc.) being such a massive cornerstone to the entire society.

We see the Marthas have a very complex network that is referenced multiple times and is known to Commanders, and they’ve done very little to address it for some reason.

We see Serena get both cigarettes and a pregnancy test, both of which are illegal technically although nobody seems to take issue with Serena’s smoking. I would assume this is unrelated to Mayday and more akin to Jezebels (and its sex trafficking) as the illegal underbelly of Gilead that everyone knows exists and everyone uses but nobody talks about. The black market likely has no connection. But it’s still something that requires a large chain of procurement and distribution, and secret knowledge of how to access it.

I’ve probably missed some other examples…

None of this really speaks to a larger web, imo. I can easily see these as individual cells, sometimes connected, rather than ruled by some grand master command somewhere nonspecific and so far unseen. Resistance usually doesn’t begin with a cohesive structure but small cells that see a need to rebel or at least protect/assist victims. It’s also MUCH safer that way and harder to dismantle the entire thing if cells are independent. (I used to be fascinated with the so-called “eco-terrorist” culture.) 

And I would say Mayday, if it exists, relies on Econopeople, specifically Economen and Guardians who have “normal” jobs and freedom of movement within Gilead. But we’ve been shown SO VERY LITTLE about the lives of Econopeople (the majority). I mean, it makes sense since this is the Handmaid’s Tale, not the Economan’s Tale… still, it’s very abrupt to build a giant resistance network suddenly and not have shown anything of real substance about it in 2 seasons.

Other than Lawrence, there’s no indication that any other Commanders or Wives are involved in any resistance but I think we’re supposed to believe some are. So it’ll be curious what side these new characters fall on, whether Mrs. Winslow is an “inspiration” in terms of resistance or compliance. I think we all assume she’ll be on the side of resistance and inspire Serena to take that path (although I think June and Nichole and her own awful husband should be inspo enough lol). I’m not so sure since this is THT and I am absolutely terrible at predicting anything, lol. I can see THT going the opposite direction just as easily. I hope not, but hey.

I think for simplicity within a TV show, they’ll flatten it to a single resistance organisation. 

Quite frankly, I wish we had already seen more of Mayday, if it exists. I feel a bit annoyed that it’s been 23 episodes and other than a few hints, we’ve never seen a significant exploration of any of it. Like how on earth June is supposed to just be a Martha…? I just… I don’t know. Who knows.

Since we know this season is going to be all about Team Resistance, obviously they’ll go into more detail. I just wish we had seen more ahead of time. Although to be perfectly frank, I also really enjoyed the “Emily is sorta crazy and Mayday doesn’t quite exist” theory too.

[randomnameless]

Chapter 8! Alster to Connaught!

Seliph discovers his aunt’s new land and looks at the green meadows AND THE ROADS NAGA BLESS THOSE ROADS

The scenery is so romantic/wonderful that a lot of people pledge their affection to each other, doing the most romantic gesture or all times, sharing a purse.

but first of all, someone useless talks.

“why are you even talking? Go and Resire bomb those fools!”

Julia is afraid of the dark? AU she pesters Arvis to keep a light in her room even when she’s older.

funny how the speech pattern is different here, as if you put your settings on “low” when you’re modifying the speed of dialogue. Is Julia being possessed of something or is she remembering something from back then, like who Ishtar is?

“you’re starting to be relevant to the plot, stop!”

“good, you’re returning to normal.”

Have I seen you somewhere? Yay nothing to fear, but you’re still hiding behind a Loptyr goon with a fortify staff so...

OH HE IS CHAGALL’S SON AND THEY’RE MAKING A JOKE ABOUT ELDIE! DASTARDS!

at least your hair isn’t putting anyone to shame. This is how you make minibosses important, by giving them... special features.

yep no room else Blume will fire you or worse send you to his beloved’s side.

pff - hahaha. Hopefully no one is left alive from the Alster army, else they might have wanted to say something else.

Persevering is what you two do best, right? You were in FE5 after all.

Quan’s final wishes? What were they? Has he even mentionned them?

DON’T SAY THAT POOR FINN

OMG HE GOT A HEART ATTACK FINN NO

DON’T SAY THAT don’t play with his health like that Leif :’( - and not only in your youth, even now! You can’t really fight against Ovo’s guys so...

:’(

Here Leif is aware of Finn’s sacrifices, in FE5 August makes him realise...

Ha? Well Dorias didn’t die for you in this game nor lost his arm for you in this game so of course you couldn’t realise.

hey where’s the evidence for that? Last time I checked Quan wanted to help his pal Siggy and prevent the Thracians from attacking the land.

lalala

Hey that’s not how you talk to a noble who’s also your boss! Do you want to get fired Faval?

Jeez what a rude person. Blume doesn’t care, he gives him a job offer.

it doesn’t even require any qualifications! Just do it!

Roh. It’s funny how Blume pulls the “sister” card, Faval is a good bro, surely he wants a better life for his sis, right? Just like Blume wanted a better life for Taillte but ultimately Hilda had the last word?

Uh, she wouldn’t approve. That’s it when you’re stealing, Patty pretends to have morals but stealing is stealing so it shouldn’t be that bad to get money from Blume, right?

haha poor Faval, he knows what he is doing kind of sucks but he has to do it, for the kids. Such a good boy! But a bit uh... naïve.

Seliph shares a talk with his wife, Larcei confesses she was worried about him, just a little. B-Baka? Or she worried because his stats suck?

Dermott has no wife, but gets new stats instead! +3 res, sure Dermott, it will help you in life.

Arthur avenged Eldie - Ares couldn’t he was too busy trying to woo Lene

Well she was busy being pretty and smiling not saying a thing during Julius’ party, of course she couldn’t come earlier!

slaughtered - well in a way... Funny how Blume phrases it, it’s as if the rebels killed Tinni too, Ishtar’s beloved cousin!

UH... NO THEY’RE STILL ALIVE - again he is pilling on melodrama, poor Banba, you have to avenge her Ishtar!

Well of course what would you use otherwise? Your fists? We’re not bashing people with staves in this game.

Aren’t you a bit overconfident?

Trust your daughter Blume! Come on!

SEE SHE IS STILL ALIVE!

Kore de owari da?

“someone has a more ridiculous hairstyle than me??”

“it’s not ridiculous it’s called fashion!” Go go Tinni, get that point of def. Jeez do you take after your pantsless father or something?

Julia vs the recolors : round 2.

Ah, good! This one is calling her a traitor, not a rebel! “WELP the imperial princess turned against us!”

but here it’s Silesse’s princess so obviously Banba doesn’t know who she is and calls her a rebel.

Fee’s brave lance spoke for its wielder “she isn’t a rebel!”

Arthur is so happy that Fee destroyed Freeges that he starts talking to her and shows his soft side. Fee can’t believe it.

Poor Arthur, he can’t play the tough guy anymore :’(

hey - he started this journey worrying about his sister, it’s kind of a dickish move to say that to him Fee! But hey, considering your dad it’s not that surprising?

“just a bit”

Arthur’s confession scene everyone. He isn’t all “you’re the wind behind my back” or some other nonsense. 

Fee is moved by this confession! Who wouldn’t? It’s stronger than half of Fates’ confession scenes.

Poor Ishtar, he dad said she’s dead! Well she allied with the rebels, so hse’s dead to them.

“disappointed”? Only? well afterwards Tinni died so I resetted.

“I don’t want to kill my sister in law but I have to do this!” Julia died so I resetted.

Manhya stomped on Ishtar’s face while Fee poked her ribs and that’s it, she’s dead.

or not? Why aren’t you screaming and disappearing?

You can die somewhere else, but not here! (how is that somewhere else? you can only die in childbirth Ishtar, not before?)

“anything? Even killing children?” “well not that” “but you said anything!”

Julius squints his eyes, who is that useless person behind Lester? Too bad he has to rewarp.

But now that Faval’s meatshield isn’t here, he receives a Patty scolding. They are rare but very terrifying!

Patty already figured everything out but Faval’s still in the vague, where is Ishtar?

“we?”

Mmh fair point, but when you play FE5 you understand that no, it’s not because of the Empire cruelty (or not always) but because Thracia sucks. Hey, have you tried to ask your foster sister why she has no grandma/grandpa? Or why Othin has no mom, or Dagda no wife?

“i wasn’t thinking i just saw a pretty lady and i followed her”

Jeez Patty, you’re scary! If Eyvel is as scary as you, then i wonder why Leif “loved being scolded”.

“back then you wouldn’t scold me you’d just call me dumb!”

pff - it’s already on its way guy. Children are being rounded up but Ced and his pals are mopping reidric forces, and a dastard tries to escape to bring the children to safety.

he has a small rebellion army with him, he isn’t alone!

oh welp. Lewyn!Ced can just kill them, right?

Meanwhile, Nanna confesses her love to Leif, who doesn’t wait for Raquie’s blessings to marry her! Congratulations Leif!

“you were following a pretty silver haired lady and became tangled in this mess? it’s my dad’s story in a nutshell”

“for the children of course!” “yeah but Johan tried to-” “fig him he was a Dozel he had to die”

“supposedly” Faval. I thought your main concern was protecting/helping the children, the reason why you have an orphanage to begin with! Morality doesn’t fill your stomach, or something like that.

“i’m glad to have the Yewfelle, I mean, welcome!”

“uh you’re welcome?”

in Leif’s face.

Cool? Faval will nuke things then, provided he manages to land a hit.

Roh, you don’t even have the Mjolnir! And if your mercy is the kind of mercy shown to Tailte, well I don’t want it!

mmh... well, without Blume Tailte wouldn’t have been Hilda’d, but I guess she’d have died anyways because she was a traitor so... yeah? Tailte was dead the day the Empire found her. But we will never get the full story. maybe in shadows of jugdral?

“it wasn’t me it was hilda!”

thank your for the history lesson.

ohoh, a NPC who isn’t glorifying Quan’s shoes or something like that. Both are assholes who want to get at each other’s throats but the randoms only want to live in peace. and of course Leif will follow his dad’s steps and murder Travant, only with his death they can build peace. But is it truly peace?

Faval no! “but why did you even accept in the first place?” “money ?”

I can’t help but agree with him here. sorry Faval :’(

JULIA ACTION

“I'd have married you to Ishtore but no you just had to disappear and turn traitor on us!”

they’re all screaming “welp”

I thought Seliph was smarter than his dad :’(

Well we could just ask Misha, If not for Siggy, she would still have a mom. Does that mean Siggy is a baddie? Nope. Your reasoning sucks, as always.

Oh. Granted, poking them with horseslayers while they were hampered with sand was cruel - but strategically a good move. On the other hand, what makes the ambush cruel? Save the part where Altie and Ethlyn “died”? F!Lewyn doesnt’ even mention them, does it mean ambushing people is cruel? Do you know what game we’re playing? Bait’n’punish Emblem? When the randoms are trying to make things grey, F!Lewyn just wants Seliph to think that Travant is av evil piece of trash and a sorry excuse for a man. He may not be a knight like Quan, but if Quan is the Jugdralian standard for a knight, then knights aren’t that honorable.

[knightofbalance-13]

RWBY Vs. Angry Birds Movie

https://rerwby.tumblr.com/post/158372725684/negative-emotions-how-the-angry-birds-movie

I just watched the Angry Birds Movie for research. Easily the dullest movie I have ever seen.

Just a heads up about how mad I am right now.

I was illegally watching the Angry Birds Movie last year and I was shocked by its first 20 or so minutes. The cursed film actually managed a strong bit of world building that showed just what made the Angry Birds themselves so special in their setting.

... You can watch it on Netflix. I just did that. You could have just waited and watched it then. And I’ll show just how weak this “strong” world building is.

See, they live on an isolated island where negative emotions are pretty much taboo.

BZZZT!

That’s wrong. There have been numerous displays of negative emotions throughout the movie that are completely let go. The cake guy was negative by being in Red’s face about how late he was(hostility), he was negative when he lied about Red being late (malice), he was negative for criticizing him without knowing what he was doing (judgemental). The Judge was being negative by being  hypocritical of Red’s anger while being angry himself. The kids from Red’s class where being negative by making fun of him. And so on. And not once are any of these people told off for acting negative despite the movie having a setting that revolves around no negativity. SO you’re either lying, you misunderstood the movie’s setting or the movie contradicts it’s own setting not two minutes in. I’d go for the third but I assume the first.

There’s not much of an indication as to the why of this but you get the implication that everyone just prefers it that way.

SO basically the “why” of the culture is not explained. See, the thing here is that RWBY actually EXPLAINS the “why” like the colorful naming convention of the characters (because the Great War tried to suppress art and individualism and the children are named after colors so they never forget what they lost.) or the difference of cultures between kingdoms (Atlas developed into the staunch, advanced military power it did because of how hostile the Atlas environment was to them or how Vacuo was made into the equal “you survive here, you’re welcome here” due to the cruel nature of the area and it’s seclusion from the other Kingdoms.) So how is the Angry Birds movie better in world building as you imply?

Red Bird Guy is singled out as being a problem to the community when a baby birb egg is nearly smashed as a result of his actions on nothing more than a bad day.

BZZZT!

Red has been singled out in the society ALL HIS LIFE! In the beginning of the movie, it is shown that the people around Red have been mocking, belittling and ostracizing him (again without consequence) since he was a child. So it’s not his reason he’s so angry, it’s everyone’s since they were the ones who placed the anger there and forced him to bottle it up until it became volatile. You are essentially victim blaming Red for not taking the abuse in silence.

And that leads me into my second point: You CANNOT suppress negative emotions! In fact, you CANNOT suppress emotions period! It is within human nature to have negative emotions, to be sad, angry, nervous ect and attempting to suppress emotions will either cause more problems in the long run as everyone bottles up their emotions until they fester into the worst forms possible and explode OR like in RWBY, people rebel and cause more negative emotions. For an example about how futile suppression of emotion is, I bring up the Anti Spiral from one of RWBY’s inspirations, Gurren Lagann. In that anime, the Anti Spiral attempts to suppress his emotions for the sake of all life but as he fights the heroes, his emotions break free and he begins acting more and more like them until it is clear that the two sides are very similar. There, the Big Bad tried that same tactic but ultimately failed. Just like in the Angry Birds Movie so RWBY just avoided that stupidity altogether.

Which is good because negative emotions can be very constructive. The show South Park is constructed around the negative emotion of anger but it is constructive because of WHAT South Park uses to anger you: it uses the ridiculousness of society and the unfairness of life to piss you off so you’ll be motivated to change things. Meanwhile, a show like say Dora The Explorer is motivated by positive emotions like happiness and silliness but are destructive because they don’t do anything but waste time. You call out RWBY for being Black and White and yet it has acknowledged the strength in both positive and negative emotions far more and far better than you have.

This is where we meet the main characters who all have their own version of, what else, anger.

If that’s true, how come there is never shown to be sadness management classes, of hostility management classes or nervousness management classes in the show? You say that the movie suppresses ALL negative emotion but you only ever talk about anger when anger only applies to two characters in that room at most (the yellow bird was more mischievous than angry) as well as in the show (Yang and Qrow). In the way of showing all emotions being suppressed as well as the way in that it relates to the show, you fail.

They are taught constructive ways to channel their emotions so that they can be assimilated safely back into the community

No they’re not. They’re being taught how to suppress and ignore these emotions so everyone can go around and keep pushing them around (mind you, Red’s fault is that people keep messing with him so much and the bomb bird’s fault is that sudden emotions make him explode as is shown in the movie). The fault is in the society and the movie even shows this and yet you think that they are the ones at fault. Now I know you’re lying.

What’s funny is, they aren’t entirely shunned by the other birds during this time. They’re still part of society but people are just weary of them.

No, they’re just being punished either for having a soul or having an uncontrollable physical attribute that everyone attributes to anger. And even then, people will still not try to help them avoid their problems and when it inevitably happens again, Red and Bomb will be blamed for being humanoid and not everyone else who ignored their problems and still push them around. Once again, victim blaming.

It’s hardly a totalitarian regime, nor is there a Big Bird Brother in place.

The owl judge who never once bothered to get Red’s side of teh story ever, even as basic logic would say that doing so is a good idea. Not to mention that two of the birds in anger management don’t have problems that reside in anger but rather physical functions or mischievousness. Yeah, it’s called crapsachirrine world. Look it up on Tv Tropes.

It’s just government-ordained therapy sessions for birds who get out of line. It’s really quite reasonable.

I don’t seen the cake bird or the judge or the Mime from before in that anger management class, nor do I see the cop from the yellow bird’s story nor is the manager in that class in her own anger management due to her own hostility. They all get scott free while two innocent people get punished because they’re different. Yeah, totally reasonable.

Now the culmination of the Angry Birds Movie’s third act is that sometimes you have to get angry in order to accomplish things, and they do so in order to steal their eggs back from the evil Jontron Pigs. But that’s besides the point.

I.E. “Now the movie goes entirely against what I have been saying up until this point and the moral of the entire movie basically shows that I have been lying this entire time and the one example I’ve been using actually supports RWBY rather than go against it but that’s beside the point.”

What I’m saying is that, in 20 minutes, the Angry Birds Movie built a world from scratch that showed that anger and negative emotions are looked down upon and are dealt with by society to make that society better.

And in those first two minutes that very premise is contradicted in two was with the cake bird being passive aggressive and a liar (in which being passive aggressive is still a form of anger) And in the first five minutes the leader of the entire group is angry and aggressive even more so than the protagonist. ANd throughout the time we are shown that this world has a severe double standard and is treated as being extremely wrong. And in the final ten minutes show that the anger can be constructive...which is reinforced by the previous forty minutes.

Your point has not a fucking leg to stand upon.

You’d think something similar would happen in a world where, you know, life-threatening giant monsters are literally at your doorstep and attack every person they can find. Especially considering those monsters are allegedly powered and baited by negative emotions.

Ironic considering the only Grimm who are considered a threat to the whole of humanity and the ones you show are Goliaths who are canonically smart enough to see that attacking humanity as a whole is a dumb fucking idea and doing so will just get them killed. Meaning that the Grimm you are using as examples of RWBY’s stupidity are the ones who are smart enough to not do what you say band the ones that would are the dumber, weaker ones that get one shotted by our inexperienced heroes.

And then there’s the fact that if you try to bottle up negative emotions like you are suggesting, the emotions will only fester into the worst kind of emotions possible or fester and rot into a mental illness in which EVERYONE will become a Grimm magnet and everyone will become so disabled by their bottled emotions that even Huntsman will be killed instantly and the Grimm will win. Congrats, you killed humanity in the dumbest possible.

Even though these assholes for some reason decide to wait and sit on their asses for decades before looking for tasty angry people.

https://youtu.be/GJGSywhNk8Q?t=10m58s

Dr. Oobleck: Ruby my dear. Not every Grimm is mindless. Or rather, not every Grimm is still mindless. You see, the Grimm before you are so powerful, so superior to the Grimm you’ve fought they’ve undoubtedly lived for hundreds of years. And in that time between killing humans and attacking our boarders, they’ve done one important thing.

They’ve learned.

They’ve learned when they attack our boarders, they’re likely to die. That what lack in strength,m we make up for in will. And that killing one human, will only bring more.

I thought you guys were fans of the show and you distanced it. And yet you can’t seem to remember one thing about the show? Guess it’s more convenient for your bitching.

But yeah, you’d think that a society that has evolved alongside the Grimm would have found a way to curb negative emotions, right?

Mantle and Mistral tried that, caused this thing called the Great War. Killed millions, attracted Grimm from everywhere and that attempt was immediately repelled. Guess you missed that episode.

I mean Blake gets angsty on a boat and nearly dooms everyone,

https://youtu.be/-PE66fmjZ0I?t=1m40s

Yeah, this shows that Grimm just generally attack people, not JUST ones with negative emotions. So that Grimm could have attacked because it thought they looked like easy prey (which without Blake and SUn, they were).

and in volume 3, apparently things are always so on-edge that it took Penny’s robo-reveal for some beowolves to plow down guards at the edge of Vale.

And the apparent death of somebody at the hands of a celebrated warrior, and Yang kneecapping someone, and Atlas AKA Mantle with an entire army above their heads and owned Penny the Kill Bot and the previous Grimm invasion wit5h all the paranoia afterwards (9/11 anyone?).

Also, you act as though a couple of Beowolves just knocked on the walls and they all collapsed and not the fact that it was the GOLIATHS, Grimm the size of SKYSCRAPERS, are the one who lead the attack. Funny how you were able to get so much info and yet so little at the same time.

Shouldn’t Vale, Atlas, etc, have programs that teach you how to be happy?

Emotions don’t work that way, you can’t just be smiling and happy all the damn time. Positive and negative emotion go hand and hand so you need to suppress ALL emotion. And we all know how that works out. Just as well: Angry Bird’s narrative criticzed the world for acting like that was a possiblity and even if you disgaree with me on that, the characters in that world were still angry, just passive aggressive about it. You’re own example contradicts what you’re saying.

Maybe like, way more than a single annual festival to keep spirits high and celebrate all that good shit?

No matter how much you party, no matter how much you pretend everything is fine: there will be negative emotion still. It is a part of being human and to deny that is just stupid. Not to mention that constant partying means that jobs would be interrupted a lot more and people would have less inhibitions and responsibility as people keep stopping to party or be positive which would cause the civilizations to collapse as well as the fact that constant partying would be considered the norm and wouldn’t raise spirits because they’‘re not special anymore. And finally: This is all god damn offensive as fuck to depressed people, demanding they be happy when they are rightful sad or angry and would just cause more discourse.

It’s it weird, on a fundamental level, that they value violence and host giant tournaments where students regularly get maimed or die when the Grimm are flying like a mile away from their floating stadium?

Didn’t you just compare the Vital festival and tournament as a positive thing not in the very last sentence? Meaning that5 the tournament is a display of honorable combat rather than blood sport? What happened to that?

That’s what the vital festival is suppose to be: Honorable combat and friendly competition. It is obvious by audience reactions to unwarranted maiming and death that this is true and those only happened because Cinder was fucking with everyone. How convenient you forgot all that huh?

Iunno dude. Just seems like someone at some point would address how staying calm and avoiding public outbursts of negativity would be the best possible course of action.

http://roosterteeth.com/episode/rwby-volume-4-world-of-remnant-the-great-war

They did. It caused the Great War because people were pissed off that happened because we value our individuality more than our survival. Peopel fought and died and the only person who really won was Salem because people were dying.

Like this civilization had a WAR. Multiple wars I think! Did the Grimm not factor into those at all?

A. This means you KNOW about the great war meaning this bullshit is inexcusable.

And B. http://roosterteeth.com/episode/rwby-volume-4-world-of-remnant-the-great-war At 4:17 they address that by saying that Grimm that attacked people on the battlefield would be wiped out before returning to the war while everyone else got fucked. All because of emotional suppression.

How about those settlements outside the kingdoms that tend to last just a little while? Does no one go “hey, maybe this is a bad idea since negativity appears to be inevitable amongst large groups of people” or “maybe we just need to build a town that parties all the damn time!”

Because they didn’t like how things went in the Capitals so they decided to live on tehir own. The Kingdoms respect that and have people patrol the areas for Grimm like shown in Volume 4 Episode 12. And I don’t have to address the party one because one of my previosu points already has.

No they just like aimlessly wander into the wilderness with a few pitchforks and hope they don’t die lol.

Except for the fact that these people obviously know what they are doing seeing as places like the Village from the first episode of Volume 4 is a thing, which is said to be trading with Xion village meaning they get supplies and other things by trading items that they have that other people don’t, like cloth for clothing of vegetables from farms: all shit you can’t get in big cities.

Of course if you even wanted to use logic and real reasoning, this post would never exist. Too bad, all it did was make you look like an asshole to 90% of people while proving RWDE (the other 10%) are illogical assholes.

[jasonfry]

Notes: Rebel in the Ranks, Pt. 2

WARNING: These notes will completely spoil Servants of the Empire: Rebel in the Ranks. If you haven’t read it, stop and go here.

(Here’s the first part of the notes.)

Part 2: Impersonation

There’s a good reason the second part of Rebel in the Ranks is called Impersonation: Zare has become a cadet under false pretenses, while Merei infiltrates the Transportation Ministry claiming to be Kinera Tiree, the daughter of Lothal’s education minister. But aliases and mistaken identities are woven throughout the book. Dev Morgan, of course, is really Ezra Bridger. When Merei meets Zeb and Sabine, they use their Spectre code names, with Merei wryly adopting the nom de guerre Merei-1. Characters repeatedly call others by the wrong name – Currahee refers to Pandak Symes as “Sykes,” while Jix Hekyl scrambles Merei’s last name into “Spamjack.”

This is really Merei’s section. Zare’s story is in something of a holding pattern during Part 2 – it’s the arrival of Dev Morgan in Part 3 that forces a reckoning. I hadn’t anticipated that as a storytelling danger, and was lucky that I’d done enough with Merei’s character to be able to turn the focus to her.

Still, that put a lot of weight on her piece of the narrative – the story couldn’t sag while we waited around for the events of “Breaking Ranks.” So I got to work, researching how Merei could break into the Transportation Ministry. Professional pride came into play: I roll my eyes when movie hackers squint, type a little and HEY PRESTO they’re into the computer system, and I was determined to do better. I wanted a break-in that was not just exciting but also plausible.

Investigating the trademarks of successful hacks, I found that most depend more on social engineering and human laziness than ingenious programming, and rely on physical presence instead of remote entry. Which was honestly better for my story: there’s something not just lazy but also bloodless about a lone hacker typing. To achieve her goals, Merei would have to put herself in danger of direct discovery. If things went wrong, the indicator wouldn’t be a flashing icon on a screen but a drawn blaster.

A funny thing: I did some of the research into Merei’s hack in the San Diego airport after 2014’s Comic-Con. (While Googling, I heard a strangely familiar voice berating someone over a cellphone, looked up and realized it was a rather grumpy Adam West.) It crossed my mind that maybe I shouldn’t use the Delta Sky Club’s Wi-Fi to research network intrusions. What if NSA agents appeared to drag me away, Dhara Leonis-style? Would they really believe all that research was to craft a Star Wars story about a teenaged slicer? Fortunately, neither Batman nor the government decided to cart me off.

Anyway, Merei uses a “snooper” program, essentially a keylogger with a built-in timer. But she really depends on everyday human failings to get in and out of the Transportation Ministry: she exploits its employees’ laziness, fear of getting in trouble, love of gossip and aversion to conflict. Which are the weaknesses most real-world hackers and phishers exploit. I was pleased when one reviewer called Rebel one of the few young-adult books she’d read that actually portrayed a realistic hack based on social engineering.

Another reader reaction to Merei’s story in Rebel has stuck with me – not long after the book came out, someone tweeted at me that she’d grown up wanting to be a coder only to be told that girls couldn’t code. Thank you for this, she said, more than you know. I hadn’t really thought much about representation in Star Wars or my own fiction before then – Merei was simply a character I liked who played a role in the story and whose importance grew in response to that story’s needs. But I thought about it a lot more after that.

I grew up in the 1970s reading about and watching heroes who looked like me – people who looked like me were and still predominantly are fiction’s default protagonists. It never occurred to me that other kids didn’t have that experience, or to think about what it must be like to have people who looked like me relegated to being sidekicks, bit players or comic relief. Interactions like that tweet convinced me this stuff mattered, not just according to some abstract metric of fairness but to real readers – ones who’d tweet but also ones who’d simply curl up with a book. After that, I was determined to help raise a bigger fictional tent that invited more people in – and I was convinced that bigger tent would yield better stories and, yes, a better world.

OK, off my soapbox. One more thing before the notes: I struggled with how Zare and Merei could talk with each other and how much they could say. My original idea was that the Empire didn’t monitor cadets’ communications after orientation, which I explained as a relic of the honor code of the Republic still alive in the Imperial military. As hand-waves go, I’ll give it a C+. Story Group shot that down by noting that a) it didn’t fit with what we’d see in John Jackson Miller’s A New Dawn and b) if that were the case, then why did Ezra send Chopper out with a holographic message?

Happily, Story Group had a better idea, suggesting that Zare be able to talk from Maketh Tua’s office. That solved not one but two problems: Tua’s office could also be the location where Ezra climbs into the ductwork.

Notes on Part 2:

The treatment had more about stormtrooper training vs. officer training, with the idea that everyone went through basic training and officer training kicked off in the spring. But I dropped it because it sapped the story of its urgency. Yes, Zare was stuck – but he’d also been stuck in Edge of the Galaxy, and I knew he’d really be stuck in Imperial Justice. The reader wanted to see Zare trying to get unstuck, and any intimation that the best course of action was for him to wait flattened out the storytelling.

Merei’s parents, Jessa and Gandr, were mentioned but not named in Edge of the Galaxy. Jessa is the name of a character in Han Solo at Stars’ End, my favorite Star Wars novel, so I reused it here. Gandr’s origin, on the other hand, is a little embarrassing. While plotting out Rebel I used “Goose” and “Gander” as placeholders for Merei’s parents. “Goose” had to go, but I got kind of attached to “Gander,” and thought it fit Merei’s distracted, slightly goofy father. So I dropped a letter and kept it. The same thing happened in Jupiter Pirates – the Securitat agent DeWise bears a placeholder name that I struggled to improve on and finally kept.

Yahenna Laxo, the chatty/scary boss of the Gray Syndicate, really comes into his own in Imperial Justice, but was one of my favorite characters from the beginning. Originally I imagined him as a Shell Hutt, but that made the Gray Syndicate feel like a bigger player in the Lothal underworld than it should be. So Laxo became a doughy crime boss with an impressive pompadour and bedroom slippers. And that turned out to be more fun.

By the way, the Gray Syndicate’s headquarters used to be Ake’s Tavern from Ezra’s Gamble, a Rebels tie-in book written by my good friend Ryder Windham. Even the gouge on the floor is still there.

Baseball fans will recognize that cadets de Grom and Wheeler share last names with a pair of talented Mets pitchers. What can I say? Beyond being a Mets fan, I was running low on evocative names.

The Pillar in the assessment hall is just the Well from “Breaking Ranks” turned inside out. I knew I’d have multiple scenes in the Well in Part 3 of the book, so I looked for a way to shake things up a bit before then.  

One difference from writing Legends stories is that new canon has downplayed or discarded some “spacey” terms – for instance, characters get to use bathrooms instead of refreshers. That was still new to me and I needed some nudging from Story Group – for example, I described the Transportation Ministry as “duracrete and clari-crystalline.” That got revised to “stone and glass,” which is far better. It gives you a picture without running the risk of tripping up the reader.

I got stuck in another lingo-related box canyon later in the book when Jessa’s describing the odds of picking out a transmission from Merei’s snooper program. I spent an absurd amount of time looking for an equivalent to “needle in a haystack,” finally proposing “needle in a grain barge.” I didn’t really like that, but I’d given up in despair. Enter editor extraordinaire Jen Heddle, who rather sensibly pointed out that as a farm world, Lothal undoubtedly had … haystacks. And so we wound up back at the beginning, and the simple answer I should have gone with in the first place.

Next up: The adaptation game, Zare vs. the Inquisitor, and a big cliffhanger.

[mixtapekings]

Listen Review of Run The Jewels’ ‘RTJ4’ Album by djbooth.net

“…a shotgun blast to the face.”

Run The Jewels thrives on the spirit of rebellion. The duo, consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike and New York rapper/producer El-P, has grown from indie one-off to one of the most impressive second winds in rap history. Their music finds the middle ground between cartoonish purist rap thrills and anarchic grit. At their very best, Mike and El-P will have you ready to burn everything in sight.

While RTJ’s music has always maintained an anti-establishment bent, the aggression on their 2016 album Run the Jewels 3, in particular, was channeled through the prism of revolt. In the wake of the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and the election of the 45th President of the United States, RTJ’s lawless spirit made them, however unintentionally, uniquely suited to address a world coming apart at the seams.

In the face of Armageddon, RTJ’s message hit differently. Four years later, with another wave of protests taking place in response to Black death looming large over the world, Run the Jewels are offering their fourth album, aptly titled RTJ4. 

The public needs music directly speaking to the times. Mike and El’s timing is perfect; the stakes have never been higher. Let’s see if the Jewel Runners are up to the challenge.

In usual 1-Listen fashion, the rules are the same: no rewinds, pauses, or skips—a straight shot through followed by my gut reactions. Let’s ride.

1. “Yankee & The Brave (ep. 4)”

Killer Mike opening with DaBaby speed. Man, these drums are THUMPING. “I’mma terrorize the actors playing like they want some drama.” No holds barred. Mike and El-P play rap hot potato like no other. El is floating. “I’m ready to mob on all these charlatans.” The beat sounds like a John Carpenter score stripped for parts and hooked to some boomers. “I can’t let the pig take me, I got too much pride / I meant it when I said it, never take me alive.” This exact energy is what I was hoping for. Revolt music right off rip. No brakes, all nitrous. “Yankee & The Brave” is how you open an album.

2. “Ooh LA LA” feat. Greg Nice & DJ Premier

Did El-P source his drums from fucking mortars? These boys are monstrous. El’s beats are big enough to walk through. I don’t like this hook. Greg Nice’s voice is grating. “When we usher in chaos, remember we did it smiling.” They may be smiling, but Mike and El sound pissed. “Ooh LA LA” isn’t playful music; it’s angry. This song doesn’t leave me shaking the way “Yankee & The Brave” did, but it’s still a nice jolt of catharsis. Premier scratches are always a plus. I’m glad he’s still so revered by rappers across generations.

3. “Out of Sight” feat. 2 Chainz

El-P made a beat out of jumping vocal cuts that would sound at home on a post-apocalyptic workout tape. He never fails to impress. I love hearing references to Public Enemy’s “My Uzi Weighs A Ton.” Mike and El are trading off lines. “I’m only doing what I want by hocking loogies at the swine.” I see why they wanted to push this project up two days. Forget “F*ck The Police,” this is FUCK THE FUCKING COPS. Mike caught a CRAZY flow and held onto it forever. The energy is stabbing me in the chest. If you’ve ever downed a bag of Pop Rocks with nails inside, then, and only then, will you understand the power of “Out Of Sight.” Here comes 2 Chainz. One mention of growing up in poverty, but the rest of his verse is just soulless flexing. It’s not 2 Chainz’ fault, but I’m not tryna hear his verse right now.

4. “Holy Calamafuck”

A reggae sample to start things off. And everything just devolved into a 404 error. The beat is actively falling apart. A line about jacking Supreme jackets and calling out hypebeasts. Are those record scratches or Windows 95 program glitches? I can’t keep my head straight. A line about drones and time elves. “Every other goddamn year I’m brand new / It’s been 20-plus years, you think that’s a clue?” TALK YOUR SHIT, EL. Since the Def Jux days. Mike and El stood the test of time, gotta respect it. These two were born to rap together. “PTSD, streets did the damage.” Mike is pouring his heart out. If the streets run red with blood, “Holy Calamafuck” will be the soundtrack.

5. “Goonies vs. E.T.”

These drums and synths were sourced from space. Mike and El are rapping for their lives. “Goonies vs. E.T.” is pure fucking chaos. How did they keep their heads together recording over this beat? E.T.’s healing touch couldn’t help them. The hook’s not doing much for me—it feels like dead space—but the beat is breathing. Man, this shit is manic. I’m on a sugar high. “The revolution is televised and digitized.” All facts. Mike has one of the most potent rap voices. I can’t see his face, but I know there’s fire in his eyes. “This is people with an attitude in Beverly Hills.” Making people uncomfortable is progress.

6. “Walking In The Snow”

A nice crunchy guitar riff to incite more chaos. The beat just cracked open, and now it sounds like a fucking Tesla coil. I feel more compelled to type the word “fuck” than I ever have during a review. “All oppression’s borne of lies.” El has been talking that talk all across this shit. El sounds like a preacher. “Just got done walking in the snow / Goddamn that muhfucka cold.” Who’s rapping on the hook? OH SHIT, IT’S GANGSTA BOO. Nice surprise. OG needs more love. “Every day on the evening news, they feed you fear for free.” Mike is laying everything out. “I can’t breathe.” That line really hurt. “The most you get is a Twitter rant and called a tragedy.” He’s just talking at this point. Brutal. I know he was fighting back the tears rapping this one. The beat is mutating like crazy. I can’t keep up—breathless rap music at its finest. I love love LOVE this song, holy shit.

7. “Ju$t” feat. Zach De La Rocha & Pharrell Williams

It’s the famous four-count! Pharrell must’ve had a hand in production along with El-P. Pharrell’s voice doesn’t fit into the cracks of this hook; it’s distracting. “Look at all these slave masters posing on your dollar.” Mike is doing call-and-response with himself. He’s talking about corporations co-opting marijuana and pedophiles in high places. “Confuscious say you’d better thug out.” That got me. El has a thing for turning voices into drum patterns. These beats are fun but they will also turn around and rip your throat out if you try them. Here comes Mr. Rage himself, Zach De La Rocha. His voice cuts through everything. I love how analog his voice sounds. He sounds fired up. I’ll take another Rage Against the Machine album, please. Without Pharrell, “Ju$t” would be close to perfect.

8. “Never Look Back”

A little techno bounce to start “Never Look Back.” All I can see in my head is Tron light cycles burning digitized vapors. Was that a Pop Smoke bar? His death still hurts. Mike and El managing to rap about current events and not sound lame is amazing. No other rapper their age could pull off a TikTok bar. Mike is rapping about his mother. Did she pass? Man, that’s heavy. So that’s why it’s called “Never Look Back.” “All that matter is gratitude. Gratitude is everything.” Who’s speaking right now? Can’t make it out. El is talking about how he never saw class or race as a child. Mike follows with, “Never look back, you’ll only be bitter / If you get bitter, you’ll never get better.” They’re confronting demons. RTJ4 feels as immediate and punchy as Mike and El’s respective solo work. Ending with a ticking timer, always coming through with the relief.

9. “The Ground Below”

Is this nu-metal I’m hearing? These guitars and smashing drums are super silly, even by RTJ standards. They rapping, though. “Screaming fuck the world and you can drink what’s coming from my urethra.” El always knows how to rap familiar shit differently. “Not saying it’s a conspiracy but you’re all against me.” Funny. A weird melange of sounds and images, and I’m not sure what to make of it. The raps are crazy, and the beat is kinda growing on me. Easy to believe them saying, “The money never meant much” when they’ve been giving out their albums for free since 2013.

10. “Pulling The Pin” feat. Josh Homme & Mavis Staples

Okay, last two tracks. If you’re gonna name a track “Pulling The Pin,” there’d better be an explosion. Ominous marching and some warbled vocals. “These old foxes got a lot of plots to outfox us.” El hit that Aesop Rock flow real quick. Those chorus vocals are ghostly. Josh Homme is a name I haven’t heard in a long time. Shout out Queens of The Stone Age. “Every cage built needs an occupant.” Is that Mavis Staples? It is! Her vocals are so rich. Staples finding space in this interstellar mayhem is wild. Mavis is my favorite feature so far. There’s much less frivolous shit-talking this time, especially from Mike. “Kicking and screaming while watching the demons collecting the gold and the diamond residuals.” Career-best rapping from Mike. More Mavis, thank God. “There’s a grenade in my heart.”

11. “A Few Words for The Firing Squad (Radiation)”

RTJ4 has been a ride. Ending with the firing squad can’t be a good sign. El starts with a short tribute to his wife. Touching. Mike back to rapping about asking his mom to cling to life. His kids, his wife, and his craft have made him a better man. These are death-bed confessions set to music. Mike and El must be rapping blindfolded, standing in front of the wall and the firing squad. Heartbreaking. “Last word to the firing squad was ‘Fuck you, too.’” Kicking and screaming. It sounds like we’re going out with a big instrumental explosion—saxophone, brass, and reverbed synths and choirs. This is BIG.

Where do Mike and El find the energy to keep expanding their sound like this?

Oh, we’re not done yet.

A narrator is laying down the story of two rebels forced together by the odds. They’re still running with this Yankee & The Brave angle. It’s playing like an end credits song. So… The whole thing’s been a TV show? I’ll admit, this takes away some from the immediacy of Mike and El��s message.

Final (First Listen) Thoughts On Run the Jewels’ RTJ4:

Run the Jewels dropping their fourth album in the middle of a global pandemic and a nationwide uprising is perfect.

The duo crafted a potent mix of braggadocio and political and personal reflection set to beats made for video game boss battles. Both Mike and El deliver career-best work behind the mic, and El-P’s production has only grown more expansive.

Golden-era boom-bap (“Out of Sight,” “Holy Calamafuck”), and murky synth-scapes (“Never Look Back”) are flayed and split open to create digitized warzones. They’re as frantic and restless as the rappers pushing them to their limits.

From beginning to end, RTJ4 is a shotgun blast to the face; an album to turn up to 11 while the precincts burn. Pent-up emotions shoot through every bar, every beat, and every second of breathing room. The anti-police sentiment couldn’t be more timely.

The only time the momentum drags on RTJ4 is when other voices cram into the frame. Several features are either inappropriate (2 Chainz on “Out of Sight”) or distracting (Pharrell on “Ju$t”).

Unintentionally, the running motif of the Yankee & The Brave TV show stifles some of the immediacy from Mike and El’s best verses to date. Maybe the TV show angle will age better in a world where the president didn’t just declare war on his fellow citizens.

Minor missteps aside, Mike and EL understand the stakes at hand. RTJ4 mixes the punchy and the profoundly personal with cartoonish zeal, EPMD by way of Adult Swim’s Superjail! 

Politically and musically, Run the Jewels are done asking for favors. RTJ4 is five-finger discount rap at its finest.

from Listen Review of Run The Jewels’ ‘RTJ4’ Album by djbooth.net

[redtutel]

Rewatching Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Or as Gen X calls it, Star Wars. But I was born in 1997, so it’s a New Hope to me.

I watched bits and pieces of the original trilogy on TV when I was a kid, but I never saw them all the way through until Middle School.

Can I even say anything about these movies that haven’t already been said? I’m not sure, but I’ll try.

Star Wars lore used to be as simple as Rebels good, Empire bad. And despite all the complexity that’s been added to it since, that’s still the core of this franchise, and I honestly think that’s for the best.

The opening action sequence is one of the greatest in film history. It does a fantastic job of establishing the stakes, as well as showing just how powerful the heroes are in comparison to the villains. Darth Vader looks awesome, and is a fantastic threat.

Rogue One is ending right now. That’s so crazy to think about. Since it’s not a part of the main Skywalker saga, I’m not revisiting it, but I might some other time.

Leia’s such a cool character. She gets captured sure, but she goes down swinging, and she’s just as capable a fighter as the others when she does get rescued. 

There are things that infamously don’t make sense with this movie, like “Why didn’t the Imperial Officers take droids into account” or  “Why is there a small hole that destroys the Death Star.” (although that last one was explained in Rogue One), or “How come nobody remembers the Jedi and the Force?” But back then, people understood that those little things don’t matter, or at the very least they didn't care. Why can’t nerd culture go back to those days?

I remember being so surprised that the Senate was in the original movie, although it was only mentioned and never seen. Same with the Clone Wars

The retconned in CGI is odd, but at the same time, I kind of understand where Lucas was coming from. He had a lot of ideas he wanted to use, but couldn’t because of the limitations at the time. And now with CGI, he can finally puts those ideas into the movie. Although it’s very anacronistic. I agree re-adding deleted scenes was a mistake. Delete scenes are cool, but a majority of them are not in the movie for a reason, or the final product made them redundant. 

17 minutes before we meet Luke. That’s a lot better than the hour spent to meet Anakin, and the events that happen beforehand are much more coherent as well. 

Did R2-D2 kill another droid for the sake of the rebellion. That’s...troubling.

Luke is a likable bright eyed dreamer that wants more out of life. There are many like them, but to be fair, he did inspire a lot of them. Leia being Luke’s sister is very, very clearly not the original plan.

The acting is a little hockey, although the Darth Vader and C-3PO’s acting is still fantastic. And its overall a lot better than the prequels.

It is troubling to see the continuity errors the prequels had. Owen and Buru only met Anakin once, so it’s a bit weird how they talk about him. Obi Wan and R2-D2 should remember each other, but don’t seem to know each other (although Obi-Wan could be faking it. He does tend to lie. Then again, there isn’t really  a reason for him to lie about R2). As well as Darth being a name and not a title.

The twin sun shot. It’s one of the greatest moments in film history. There’s a reason it’s refrecened again and again.

I never noticed how often Obi Wan says “Hello There.”

On the subject of Obi Wan, I love how well he conveys his friendship with Anakin with just he acting. Although he probably wasn’t indeed to be a liar, it's still really sad seeing him lie to Luke to spare his feelings. And he’s one of the definitive mentor characters for a reason.

Tarkin is a character I never thought much about, just another guy in an Imperial Officer's uniform. Which is odd seeing how he blew up a planet. Which is odd because technically, he has superiority over Darth Vader, and is the actual main villain of the movie. Although he was an amazing villain in the few episodes he was in in Rebels.

The Force was pretty simple early one. Fast reflexes and choking people, I guess they didn’t have the ability to do more advanced things with the force back then.

The fact that Owen and Buru were killed so brutally is seriously dark. Although they’re forgettable characters, I feel bad for Luke.

The interrogation machine is super creepy, especially since we don’t see how it actually works.

The brainwashing with the force scene is amusing to this day. Some other great jokes include “She’s Rich” (a favorite of my cousins'), Chewie scaring away the mouse droid and the scene where Han gives up bluffing and just shoots the communicator. Star Wars is allowed to be funny people.

I love all the alien spices in the cantina. It’s a great source of world building. I imagine it must’ve been very difficult, given the low budget of this first movie.

I saw a red eyed, blue skinned alien. Is Thrawn’s species in the first movie?

I do find it funny all of Han Solo’s big accomplishments happened in one day. It doesn’t bother me, though. Anyway, Han’s another good character. He’s your classic rouge archetype, and a good foil to naive farmboy Luke.

...I honestly don’t care who shot first. I’m watching the Blu Ray, so I didn't get to see “Marlarky.”

The movie has a ton of worldbuilding for something meant to be one stand alone story. That’s probably one of the best and worst things about it.

Although it’s definitely overused, the Death Star really is that good a concept. A space station the size of a moon, that can shoot a beam that can destroy a planet. It’s a very intimidating concept, and an excellent obstacle to overcome.

Although we never see Alderan, the fact Leia comes from there helps give the scene the emotional weight it needs. Obi Wan’s iconic line definitely helps as well.

I love how despite advancing technology, that chess game is always designed so that it move like stop motion. 

Of all the Star Wars protagonists, Luke is the weakest in the force at first. Part of me wonders if it’s because they were very limited in what they could show about the force back then. Although it mike be possible Uncle Owen prevented him from experimenting with it, while Anaking got to practice with Pod racing, and Rey got to practice with scavenging. 

The beginnings of the Leia/Han relationship. Two very strong willed people. It’s a good dynamic that only gets better in the next movie.

The trash compactor scene. Again, one of the greatest action scenes of all time. There’s a monster in the water and the walls are closing in. It’s a classic.

...you know if a character like Leia came out today, the dark side of geek culture would despise her for being an “SJW Mary Sue.” Screw those guys.

The bridge scene is another classic, although the rope swing kind of portrays Luke and Leia in a different light than the rest of the movie.

Darth Vader vs Obi Wan. As a child of the prequels I found this battle...underwhelming. I’m warmed up to it since, but I couldn’t help but miss the crazy choreography of the prequels. Later Star Wars works found the proper balance, thankfully. And I love how Obi Wan knows full well death won’t be the end for him.

Poor Luke lost his aunt and uncle and his mentor on the same day. That definitely gives him a reason to despite Darth Vader personally, especially seeing how Vader allegedly killed Luke’s father too.

“There wasn’t anything you could do.” I never noticed those arc words. Much like his father, Luke just keeps losing and losing family. But he also gains family during his adventure as well. I guess that’s one of the unifying themes of all three trilogies. Dealing with the loss of family, and learning to accept new family. 

Although he denies it, Han is torn between collecting the money and living another day, or staying and helping his new friends. And in the end, he chooses his friends. It’s a nice character arc.

Was Wedge in the original cut? I honestly don’t know. And there’s the Roge One “Woomp”

I know I’ve said this a million times, but the death star battle is another one of the greatest actions sequences of all time. I’ve heard that the ticking clock aspect was actually something George Lucus’s wife at the time, Marcia Lucas. So good on her for making this action sequence as great as it is.

Overall, this is one of the greatest movies of all time for a reason.

[shepgeek]

Film Review of 2016

Disappointments

Since everyone seems so keen to dispatch 2016 asap, let’s start on the downers!

2016 has definitely had its occasional moments but we seem to be fast converging on a generic blockbuster soup. The year was littered with blockbusters which had both impressive visuals and charismatic performances but also had nothing new to say, beyond sticking a franchise marker in the ground (Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts, Ghostbusters, Kung Fu Panda 3, Warcraft, Jason Bourne, The Magnificent Seven & even the largely over-praised Civil War). Whilst all of these films passed the time well & were basically enjoyable, there is the ever-increasing whiff of missed opportunity around the primary Hollywood fare. Less successful were Independence Day: Resurgence (distracting but pointless) and X-Men Apocalypse - an uneven, florid and unexpected misfire, although nowhere near as far behind Civil War as was generally made out.

Meanwhile, over in the DC Universe, Warner Brothers kept fumbling what should be their easiest win. From a low start, Batman vs Superman fades badly on repeat viewings (even the ballyhooed Special edition). There are definitely no problems in their casting department and I remain a fan of Cavill; his mournful look in the courtroom is played magnificently. Ben Affleck’s Batman was expertly portrayed but bore almost no resemblance to the essence of the character that I for one love, delivering in his place a psychopathic fascistic jackass who was a far cry from the world’s greatest detective. How we’re supposed to root for him then or in the future is a mystery - I would honestly take Clooney’s portrayal over this. Poor Affleck - he delivers what he is given magnificently; blame the architects and not the builder. Gal Godot’s cameo keeps me hopeful that Patty Jenkins may just save the whole damned thing with Wonder Woman next year, but Warners are certainly running out of strikes. The idiotic shambles of Suicide Squad was only barely saved from one-star dreck by the huge charisma of Will Smith & Margot Robbie, and whatever spark the concept started with seemed produced and edited into manufactured oblivion. To make it worse, DC’s TV shows remain such charming and silly fun: I wonder how much appetite standard audiences still have for the upcoming JLA films.

Arrival came trumpeted with massive critical heraldry but I was greatly disappointed.  I found it derivative (Torchwood: Children of Men with the pilot & finale of DS9) and, as with The Martian and Interstellar, flirted with scientific ideas (which film reviewers mistake for “intelligence”) only to discard them for woolly sentimentalism. Only Zemeckis’ Contact reigns supreme in this expanding genre of science storytelling and, even though the performances in Arrival were compelling, the film (albeit decent) left me greatly frustrated.

Another smash hit that I did not care for was the Secret Life of Pets, a tedious and rambling Toy Story knock-off (though my daughter loved it so what do I know?) but nothing compares to the real disappointment of the year- Swiss Army Man.  My take was this: a smug, cold, flimsy and empty experience, it became the first film I’ve walked out of.  Ever.  In fact I did so about 5 minutes before the end, since I knew exactly where it was going and was so disengaged that it was only going to annoy me. I should add that I do like very much that the film exists and I could imagine friends and reviewers whom I respect loving it (as many did) but it bounced off me completely and ultimately left me irritated and even a little angry.

  Moments

In the midst of an uninspiring year for cinema, there were still a few moments which blazed through the repetitive fug & reminded me how joyous cinematic storytelling can be. Spielberg’s BFG had many such notes, from the visual poetry of the Giant silently twirling through the shadows of London to the childish joy of the whizzpopping Queen. Other moments of delight included the moment of “Hang on - are they doing this? - oh Yes They Are!” when the Beastie Boys’ bassline kicks in during the final act of Star Trek Beyond and, whilst The Revenant may have been a tad indulgent, the bear attack had me yelling at the screen.  Any scene featuring Flash the Sloth in Zootropolis was laced with comedic genius whilst our arrival in the city, combining Shakira’s perfect pop with gorgeous animated depth and colour, was magical. Ryan Gosling’s masterclass of toilet gunplay clowning in The Nice Guys was only topped comedically by the rampant and prolonged genius of the game of “Would that it were so simple” tennis in Hail Caesar! But narrowly pipping that for my cinematic moment of the year though, was Lord Vader himself.

I feel conflicted over Rogue One as ultimately it is yet another film which exists because it can, not because it needed to. To note the lack of comment about the unsettling fake Peter Cushing (squarely in the uncanny valley) after the shrieking which greeted the prequel trilogy’s “Dodgy CGI!” headlines perpetuates the accepted myth that those films are disasters to discard  but I see little difference.  Rogue One is another three star entry to the saga; I’d put it on a level with Attack of the Clones in terms of quality, ahead of Phantom Menace. Disney have a whole Galaxy to explore but choose to sustain the increasingly weird trend of aping preceding classics with an echo instead of trying out a new voice. Quite what Joss Whedon made of the final act is anyone’s guess: “the feisty rebels fight their way past a space armada (losing comedy relief Alan Tudyk along the way) to climb a radio antenna so they can send out the message to topple the evil empire” rang a few bells with me anyway. Rogue One also felt choppily re-edited (what was with the psychic space octopus?) whilst the new characters didn’t really land at all.  Indeed directly after leaving the cinema I (and all of my party) struggled to name any of the characters (Erm…. Jinn, the moustache guy, the blind guy, his mate, the pilot, Forest Whitaker, the funny droid, the small thing that looked like a testicle…).  Despite this problematic emotional deficit we were treated to some glorious set pieces and nicely pitched beats, but when Darth Vader’s lightsaber illuminates his terrifying visage we are treated to a moment of cinema as resplendent in its awesomeness as it was shamelessly gratuitous.  After my considerable mithering about not being able to share Star Wars with my children last year it was almost a relief to see such a grim conclusion (No Way is it suitable for under 10s) but it makes me return to my wondering of who Disney are making these films for.  Episode VII is rumoured to be “darker” still; where is the cheerful space-fairy-tale where we all started?  Eventually they’ll stray too far from Lucas’ indelible first film (still the finest of the lot, for me) and step back cinematically but they run the risk of increasingly diluting the specialness of the whole thing. The fun “Star Wars Rebels” TV show fills a bit of this gap but even that has clouds of doom in the background (although seeing Chopper & The Ghost in Rogue 1 was a nice touch). Maybe after the sad loss of Carrie Fisher last week now isn’t the time to whinge about gloom in the Star Wars Universe, but I feel that my love for the franchise is certainly starting to be tested.

The year in numbers

Number of films seen: 93

Way down on other years- I blame box sets).

Number of ***** films released in 2016 : 0

This happened in 2011 too, but I’d normally expect at least 3.

Number of 2016 releases seen: 32

 About par for the course.

Number of cinema trips:29

Again about my average: I’ve been to the cinema 188 times in the past 6 years.

Number of new films seen:51

I’m improving here, which pleases me.

 Most anticipated for 2017

Baby Driver

Edgar Wright’s films are ace (except that one which I don’t mention since people shout at me).

 La La Land

This looks gorgeous and I thought Whiplash was sensational.

 Logan

I like everything about how this looks.

 A Monster Calls

Original storytelling! Yes!

 Paddington 2

Obvs.

 Star Wars Episode VIII

A New Hope?

 T2: Trainspotting

Hugely exciting- these film makers have only grown more talented in the past 20 years.

20 years.

Gods I’m old.

 Thor: Ragnarok

My favourite Marvel franchise goes comedy-space loopy. Has the potential to be my favourite of them all.

 Wonder Woman

I love this character and I want my daughter to as well. Get this right DC. Please.

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 Missed during 2016 but would like to have seen:

Allied, the Big Short, Finding Dory, Midnight Special, Money Monster & Passengers. I also did not see either Room or Spotlight, because I was never in the mood for the grimness of either.  Look, I’m busy and I’ve turned 40. Can you tell?!

  Top 10 films of 2016

Bubbling Under: The charming and colourful Moana and also Kubo and the Two Strings were superior family fare whilst The Jungle Book was an immersive treat.

 10        The Revenant

Technically stupendous but also oddly emotionally detatched and often needlessly arty- truly great cinema puts storytelling before craft and allegory with the latter drawn from the former (if it can) and I felt that, despite the stupendous cinematography and artistry on display, that beauty was sacrificed for emotional or narrative strength- certainly for plausibility. I’ve had these issues with Iñárritu before, but there is no denying the fact that this remains a remarkable piece of cinema.

9          Deadpool

Actually a bit more sharp than I’d first realised and a clever piece of programming, but still not what it could be if it halved the budget and really cut loose.

#driveby

8          10 Cloverfield Lane

The main problem is the name (It has nothing to do with the 2008 film and I was always waiting for them to tie together), but the claustrophobia and paranoia are immersive, shocking and unpleasantly tense.

7          The Hateful 8

A trifle indulgent at times, but a terrific theatrical experience.

6          The BFG

Not as comedic as you’d think, with a pervasive melancholy vibe of loneliness, guilt and regret emitting from the screenplay, lead actor and the director. It takes a while to get going and doesn’t aim for huge emotional sweeps, but the patient craft of Spielberg is clear to see. The BFG is lovely filmmaking with a real gentleness at its core and it will only grow in reputation over time. Also features explosively farting Corgis.

5          Star Trek Beyond

The best Blockbuster of the year I was surprised and delighted to see how much it grew on repeat viewings. This warm and witty love letter was assembled at huge pace but it made for a thrilling piece of cinematic escapism. A considerable improvement on its predecessor, the highlights were the pairings of the characters, especially Spock & McCoy. They did fudge the character of Kirk a little in order to both complement the story’s main theme & provide a suitable reflection in the villain and as a result Kirk is, paradoxically, the least convincing part of the piece but, after a terrific and assured finale and beautiful grace note for the 50thAnniversary, the films ends perfectly with the whole crew, as it should.

4          Hail Caesar!

Another film that gets better the more you think about it, Hail Caesar! loves movies almost as much as its protagonist and this feels like one of the Coens’ more personal films. Their goofy wit is littered throughout it and it nods to cinematic tradition constantly, including some wildly unnecessary set pieces which spectacular and as fun as there are knowingly indulgent.

3          The Nice Guys

Quintessential Shane Black it may be, but his voice is so distinct and entertaining that a film with this level of charisma is hard to take against, no matter how familiar the ingredients might be.

2          The Man who Knew Infinity

A truly delightful surprise, I was expected this to be a guilty pleasure (given my love of Maths and knowledge of the subject matter) but instead I was treated to a terrific piece of film making: quiet, earnest, substantial, well acted and gracefully told.  Seek it out! It may appear like a generic biopic but the subtle exploration of Ramaujan’s talent and his faith and the search for absolute truth in both Mathematics and Religion that connects him to Hardy (along with circumstance) is well rendered. It is certainly considerably superior to the Imitation Game.

1          Zootropolis

So Disney has eclipsed Pixar- that Lassiter dude certainly knows what he’s doing.

I’m pretty amazed to see this as my film of the year, as it is a kids’ film, a cartoon. And yet, when I look back on everything I’ve seen over the past 12 months, it is the one film which made me smile the most and it continues to grow on repeat viewings (which my children beg for).  It is kind of expected that incredible colour, imagination, design and wit are de rigueur in these films but not only does Zootropolis get all of these ingredients exactly right, it sneaks in small hints of profundity. After a year in which unsavoury debates have been poisoned by irrationality, this film, without every threatening to be preachy, gently illustrated to my children exactly the message I needed them to see. The core of the film concerns how we can get judged by what we are, not who we are or what we do and even both protagonists, who are wildly different, fall into this trap during the course of the story.  Judging a book by its cover is in our DNA but reflecting on how we process this instinct is something that struck a chord with me, long after my first viewing. Concepts of “Them and Us” are challenged directly but without ever lecturing or straying from the narrative or the wit.  The film is subtly layered both narratively (themes of exclusion and lack of purpose are examined through deft comedy) and visually (a quick rewatch of the final 10 minutes allowed me to spot nods to Speed and The Empire Strikes Back) and the music and humour are hugely pervasive.  It is no masterpiece but is certainly the film I needed in 2016.

This may be a cheesy way to finish the year but the lyrics to the (frighteningly) catchy main song from Zootropolis contains a message for Film Producers (despite being sung by an alarmingly sexy gazelle):

“I want to try everything, I want to try even though I could fail;  I’ll keep on making those new mistakes.”

I’ll take more Swiss Army Men every now and then if it leads to more Whiplashes.  Let’s hope to see cinema trying everything in 2017.

Happy New Year!