#moe is fine with loss. moe has Made Itself Fine with Loss. moe is fine on its own. moe has Made Itself Fine on Its Own.

[moe-broey]

You know the absolute most fucked up thing. Is that Sharena really is at the center of it all. In. So many of my fucking projects.

[toonstarterz]

BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #167

Hey, I’m not dead!

Yeah, sorry that took a while. Had a lot of real-life shit to work through, honestly. In any case, I finally sat my butt down to really crack down on yet another fun-tastical chapter. Tomoko’s actually doing what a lot of quasi-incel degenerates are afraid to do in high school and is taking an actual stab at self-improvement. Will karma rear its ugly head, or is the series now beyond that point?

Chapter 167: Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Spend My Time Wisely unlike me

This is a really pretty shot and...that’s about it. Real pretty. 

Oh dear! The friendship disease has disrupted Tomoko’s gremlin-like body clock and has her waking up early like a healthy human being!

Reminds of that one Gintama episode. You know, that one with Kagura and the sick kid and you don’t care, do you?

I know Japan prides itself on its cheap, quality goods, but Tomoko is a real penny-pincher, eh? Well, she’s a Gen Zer, so I can’t complain.

Not sure if this makes me sound like a perv or whatever, but hot damn, the detail on this model is stupidly good. I mean, just look at the patterning on that bra. You can really tell when Ikko’s really getting into the art.

They’re really milking the armpit fetish, aren’t they?

Tomoko...sweetie...my girl...

You don’t even have a dick. I mean, sure, you could find it fascinating from a purely educational, not-applicable-to-you perspective. And yeah, I suppose it could be useful if you were to start a sexual relationship with a noncanonical male. But to be honest, I can’t help but take it as more signs of your gender dysphoria here. 

I mean, hey, whatever floats your boat.  

Well, they say kids learn more about practical knowledge out in the real world than in school, don’t they? 

Then again, coughgoogleitcough.

I always thought Tomoko was just having some kind of psychosomatic experience when she talks about being de-energized from a lack of sexual stimulation. 

Now I’m inches from calling that shit an actual, physiological withdrawal.

Ah, the good ol’ days. Back when future prospects felt like a lifetime away and you could spend days on end dicking around, lamenting the need to get serious, and disregarding your resolve right after because you secretly didn’t really care.

...I gotta stop projecting.

Despite Tomoko proving time and again that she can be a crass-hole with a negative outlook on life, it’s when she does childish things like laying your head on your arm when studying and cuddling her plushies that her innocent side pops up and you realize that Tomoko’s a legitimate cutie. 

Fake-smoking? Tomoko, stop! If you keep this up, you’ll turn from a deconstruction of a cute, moe girl to becoming an actual cute, moe girl.

I only just noticed that Tomoko’s wearing a “happy” shirt. Remember when she was sporting the “alone” shirt back in year one? Even her clothes get character development.

Oh, shit. Your girl Yuu-chan talking this whole cram school thing seriously even though she’s at a disadvantage. You see, this is why Yuu is literally the best. Despite being at the “top” of the school clique food chain, she has not once ever felt like “bottomfeeders” like Tomoko and Komi were below her in any way. Sure, she knows they’re weirdos, but she makes those acknowledgments without judgement, and all while putting herself on the same leveling field. She doesn’t love them ironically–she loves them sincerely, and that’s why Yuu is awesome. 

Sorry if this turned into a ramble, but Yuu only gets like, one panel of dialogue nowadays and I wanted to make the most of it. 

Tomoko be raising that “phone-call” flag like a motherfucking chad. 

...

...

...

Oh, sorry. I saw Yuri with her hair down and lost track of time.

...

...

...

Damn, Yuri’s pretty.

Black leggings at home? That’s exactly the kind of conservative attire Yuri would wear and only Yuri could look amazing in. Seriously, If Ikko hadn’t become a manga artist, she would have made a damn fine fashion designer.

And Tomoko be crushing that “home-visit” flag like a motherfucking chode.

I could make a pretty tasteless joke about how “haha, Yuri will never look at you like you’re trash like she does at Tomoko,” but, 

a. it’s just the angle of the smartphone like Yuri said, and

b. you’d probably prefer to get denied like that, wouldn’t you?

I can’t help but wonder if Tomoko realizes just how homoerotic she sounds. Like, does she have any inclination that her borderline-sexual harassment jokes could easily be misconstrued as flirting? Sure, she might be using the old excuse that “we’re both girls, so it’s fine right?”, but given that Tomoko at least knows about LGBTQ+, you’d think it would have at least crossed her mind.

Or maybe, on a sadder note, Tomoko doesn’t see it as flirting because she really does have zero faith in her own attractiveness...  

There is no heterosexual reason for this exchange whatsoever.

Alright, so I’m a dude, so...hell do I know. But do girls typically not wear bras when just lounging around the house? I know Tomoko is the kind to just wear tank tops if she can help it, but I always thought that was a characterization unique to her, and that other girls wear bras for the comfort and support like any other undergarment. I mean, sure, Yuri’s kind of reserved, but I wouldn’t think wearing a bra at home would be considered an oddity, yeah? I ask this out of genuine curiosity, but I’ll stop before it gets too creepy.

Side note, you can officially tell when Yuri gets pissed by her nose crinkles.

I could give a long, analytical spiel about why Yuri didn’t give Tomoko a straight answer and speculate on what she was doing, but I eventually realized the answer was actually really simple:

It didn’t fucking matter to the story.

The last time Tomoko had one of these “I know!” moments, she ended up trimming her pubes on a class trip. But surely Tomoko’s character growth wouldn’t allow something like that to happen again, would it not?  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Adorbs.

Can’t fight awkward with awkward, can you?

Tomoko, what are you playing at? You just said that video chatting was erotic and tried to get Yuri to lewd herself for you. And now you were planning to appear on-screen totally naked and you somehow don’t see any sexual implications for this at all? Finding it funny would be an elementary schooler’s mentality. If you seriously have no confidence in your sexuality, then sweetheart, you need some help. 

You ever notice that Tomoko can lie through her teeth when trying to screw with people, but when lying to be nice, it sounds so phony? I think that says a lot about the kind of person she is.

Ya’ll knew I was gonna add this panel, didn’t you?

I was never one to go crazy about blushing anime girls ‘cause to me, it always felt like it stemmed from some sadistic desire to see girls look uncomfortable. So while I can’t get behind it for reasons like that, I can admit that Yuri’s blush is fucking precious and I think that’s because I love seeing her so emotionally transparent for once. It feels rare, raw and well-earned after all this time, so yeah. A++ 

Oh, Tomoko, if only you knew that skill often has nothing to do with it. Yuri’s not embarrassed because she sucks at humming, but because you saw a side of her that she only lets out in private. Trying to reassure her is a good move, but putting the girl on blast like that is not going to end well.  

I felt like the vibration alone would’ve left a huge-ass crack on Yuri’s phone screen. This whole moment is like eleven tiers of funny because even though Tomoko is probably miles away, the impact of Yuri’s punch still jostles her. It also helps that we can visibly see Yuri’s fist come down mere millimeters from Tomoko’s mug. 

There is no escaping her wrath, Tomoko.

I feel you, girl. For me, nothing beats a good ol’ burger and fries after a hard day of studying.

Careful there, Tomoko. If there’s one thing that studying has taught me (other than I hate it), it’s that you could get serious burn out if you go all-out on the first day, especially if you’re typically not a regular studier. Always make sure to get dem breaks in. 

That sounds like the kind of line you’d see in a mainstream shounen action manga like [ ]. I don’t even have a direct reference here, so feel free to fill in the blank.

Hey, with Tomoko’s luck, I was expecting karma to hit her harder than Truck-kun in an isekai anime, so I consider this a small loss. 

Man, remember when we were young and had ambitions as high as the sky, and we all wanted to change the world by being firefighters, astronauts, idols, and presidents?

Kind of sucks that “financial stability” has become our goal in life as we enter adulthood. Perhaps that’s just the mindset creative-types like Tomoko have towards the STEM industry when it’s hard to see what makes that world so personally fulfilling. 

Oops, my opinions are starting to seep in, so let's move on.

Nooo, don’t do it, Nico Tanigawa Tomoko! Don’t sell out your passions for financial security even though it’s a totally viable career decision! How else are we going to validate the pursuit of our artistic dreams?  

How in the hell is Tomoko balancing that drink? I’m willing to let it pass for rule of cute, but I don’t care how secure that cup is. One wrong move and those practice sheets are done for. 

Jesus Christ, Nemo is on some otherworldly dimension of cute right here.

I don’t even think Tomoko is trying to one-up her or anything. This is already the most effort she’s given to study in a single instance, so I think she genuinely just wants to share this personal accomplishment.

You know, while it’s already been established that Tomoko and Nemo have different tastes in anime, that doesn’t necessarily mean they wouldn’t watch the same show, right? Just for different reasons. While Nemo would watch her cute slice-of-life series earnestly, Tomoko would probably watch them ironically MST3K-style. In any case, it’s a good way for them to find some common ground.

Bruh, Nemo must be over the fucking moon for this opportunity. Think about it: when was the last time she’s had someone to watch anime with her? After concealing her power level for so long, this could be the first time Nemo has had a fellow anime fan to geek out over a series with. And not just discussing it afterward, but actually reacting to a live episode together.  

Nemo may give Tomoko all kinds of shit, but this is actually what she wanted all along, wasn’t it?

Boy, Tomoko sure gets pretty demanding when she’s sleep-deprived, huh? I’d hate to see how loose her inhibitions get when she’s stark-raving drunk.  

Is this referencing the Quintessential Quintuplets anime? I don’t know anything about it other than that’s a kickass title.

Hey now, Tomoko, beggars can’t be choosers. Let Nemo give you the play-by-play at her own pace. She’s even acknowledging that you hate the source magazine without a hint of judgment. She’s gonna go places.

At first, I thought all this recent armpit content was just an incidental joke. Then I thought it was the mangaka slyly inserting their fetish into the series. Then I realized the series turned the joke on its head and made it a meta-reference about their very thing their readers were accusing them of. 

Well played.  

You ain’t slick with that leg service, Nino Tanigawa. Just sayin’.

Seriously though, I love the dynamic going on in this conversation. Tomoko and Nemo are approaching the discussion from different outlooks, the former looking at it from a degenerate’s perspective and the latter looking at it more optimistically. But even so, they’re not trying to “get the upper hand” like they might've done before. They’re simply having a totally organic talk about what they do and don’t like about the series, while still recognizing each other’s personal preferences. For once, it’s completely devoid of passive aggressiveness and it really shows how earnest their friendship has become.

At some point, I think Tomoko’s consumed so much near-pornographic content that pretty much all anime, manga, VNs, etc. looks like the same hentai to her.  

Every fiber of my being says that this is a reference to Komi-san Can’t Communicate, but it could just as well be the mangaka shooting themselves in the foot for a good joke. In any case, I do like how they point out shy, socially awkward girls is a rising trend that borders on romanticizing communication problems. 

Does that make Watamote a hipster manga since it did the whole “social anxiety girl” shtick before it was cool? 

I wanted to make a pretentious joke about how basic that anime sounds and how I’m so above a show that panders to the masses, but even I like junk food, so I’ll spare you the hypocritical humor.

If Ucchi caught a glimpse of this, she’d probably explode right on the spot.

I spent a good five minutes trying to decipher how Tomoko’s sleeping expression could be seen as “happy”, and I realized that it’s not that she looks happy. It’s that she doesn’t look unhappy. I’d imagine that those plagued by anxiety and stress have it evident on their face when they sleep, so the fact that Tomoko fell asleep in relative bliss must mean she’s had a pretty satisfying day. To top it all off, this is one of the few times someone–and Nemo of all people–has seen Tomoko in all her vulnerability. 

And you know what? Nothing bad happened. No punchline undermining the moment, no sarcastic quip, no embarrassment. Just genuine sweetness and it really speaks to the series’ faith in its heartwarming moments.

As a final note, I just wanted to thank everyone again for their patience. I’ve been trying to put a fresh spin on this, making it a little more comedic since its honestly getting harder to “analyze” without constantly repeating myself. It’s a lot of fun, and I hope you guys enjoy it for what it is.

[eirian-houpe]

Scattered - Chapter 5

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold

Characters: Belle (Once Upon a Time), Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Gaston (Once Upon a Time), Maurice | Moe French, Mad Hatter | Jefferson, Evil Queen | Regina Mills, Alex (OC)

Additional Tags: AU, Curse gone wrong, Rape/Non-con Elements, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Cruelty, Abuse, Triggers, Eventual Smut, Romance, Character Death, Gaston is evil, Graphic depictions of violence 

Summary: Casting a spell, any spell - at least the ones that involve more than just the wave of a hand, or worse, the wave of an irritating fairy’s wand - takes time, and patience, and the right ingredients, and… just like any recipe, if you get it wrong, it doesn’t mean the cake won’t cook, rather then will, just with unexpected or unintended outcomes. All of Rumplestiltskin’s careful planning and manipulation, all of his hopes and dreams turn to dust; ashes in his bitter heart in the blink of an eye… in the fall of an equine heart.  Belle exchanges one terrible prison for another, and it’s one she is desperate to escape, and though Rumple’s fate as The Savior was severed from him centuries ago, sometimes fate itself has a way of finding an alternate route home.

Read on AO3

[Chapter 1]  [Chapter 2]  [Chapter 3]  [Chapter 4]

Chapter 5 - Embrace the Storm

This chapter contains the aftermath of what Gaston did to Belle. It will likely be triggering for many people. If this is likely to be you, please skip to the section after the double asterisks

I was given the prompt: Footman!Gold saves Lady Belle from her runaway carriage. From then on, the House of French looks toward their servant with new eyes. Some aspects of that are now quite different, but follow the spirit, if not the letter of the prompt.

Belle wasn’t one to weep and yet she could not stop the tears.

Everything ached, and she felt wretched and filthy; sick to her stomach. Even the cracking of the fire couldn’t mask the sound of his lips smacking as he ate. He disgusted her. Slowly, she uncurled from the ball by the hearth at which he’d tossed her when he was done and saw him sitting at the head of the long table, sipping red wine from one of the unbroken crystal goblets, and sopping meat juices from his fingers; ignoring the debris that was strewn around the room. His feet were up - his ankles crossed on the corner of the table.

She looked away, down at her hands as she tried to straighten up, then looked away from her broken fingernails, and the cuts on her hands - the bruises at her wrists. For a moment she thought of simply plunging her hands into the fire, pulling out hot coals and carrying them across to grind into his face. It couldn’t possibly hurt more than she already did. She dismissed the thought, not because of any sense of self preservation, but because she knew she wouldn’t get close enough to do him harm. He had overpowered her once, he would do it again.

Belle wasn’t one to run and yet she knew she couldn’t stay.

**

Rumplestiltskin barely retained the presence of mind to grab his cloak before rushing out of the cottage. Overhead through the branches the sky was split by forks of lightning and the clouds were almost visibly gathering, huge and dark, and pregnant with the chill of an icy rain that he could already feel in his heart as though it already soaked his soul.

“NO!” he turned his face to the heavens. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you DARE!

He reached out, embracing the gathering storm, the power in the air and wove it in with his fear and his anger. To think of Belle afraid… in pain… He filling himself with all he needed to reach her, to find her - heal her pain and take away her fear.

**

Ignoring the additional pain that moving caused her, Belle grasped the side of the mantle and used it to draw herself up to her feet; to hold herself in place and to keep her balance until the room stopped spinning. She could do this. She could leave; had to.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Gaston roared at her, and she jumped, but refused to stop moving; refused to answer even if she could have spoken through her cracked and bleeding lips. “Fine then,” he said dismissively as she took another shuffling step, and then another. “Get to bed. I’m done with you… for now.”

Each step felt as though she was being run through by scalding needles. Even breathing hurt and she knew it was going to get worse, before it got better. If it could ever get better. It must. It did, at least by a barest thread, when she closed the heavy door to the hall behind her, shutting him out; no longer able to feel his eyes on her.

**

Her cries again reached him, sharper now, more acute and for a moment, overwhelmed, he lost control, and sight swept over him, confusing  images and sounds and scents.

…There was a sound, like thunder only sharper, and the smell of ozone and fire. A weight in his arms, the tightness of tears, loss, a hollow in his chest. “Who’s Belle?” And lights, so bright… so, so bright…

“You won’t take her from me again!” he snarled, and threw up his hands, conjuring a wind that gathered the deep purple smoke of his magic that was all that was left of him in the space outside of the cottage, and scattered it over the landscape like some sick, lurid fog.

And then the rain began.

**

“Oh,” a cry from a voice she knew, one of the older housekeepers, almost broke her resolve. “Oh, Miss Belle!”

She shook her head, then shook of the soft touch that fell against her shoulder.

“Don’t…” she rasped, her throat as broken as the rest of her. “I… I can’t…”

“But Miss…”

She swallowed hard, and shook her head again. “Do as he says… that, and no more. Do not endanger yourselves. I will…” her voice hitched, “Find help.”

She knew it was a lie. Where would she go - save to his father, and what good would that do? He was at the root of this blight on her people, she was certain of it.

“But Miss… you…”

“I’m all right,” she lied again, and pulled herself up to the extent of her height, ignoring the added pain, to walk the rest of the length of hall with as much dignity as her broken form would allow. “Do as I say. Now go. Tell… the others.”

**

**

When he materialized he was in the field outside of Amberley that bordered the road. He cursed himself aloud as the cold wet drops fell in huge splashes against him, against his face. He had focused on Belle, on the feelings he was sharing, her pain, her fear. Why wasn’t he with her? When was the last time he had failed to reach the intended space when he aparated? Then he saw it - saw her. Like a beacon in the storm, emerging from beneath the gatehouse arch, her form limp and listless, lolling on the back of a horse in nothing but her dress - no cloak, nothing to keep her warm and dry.

“Belle?” he murmured, though he knew she could not hear him. A hundred different imagined insults crowded his mind and threatened to crush his heart. He felt suddenly lightheaded from lack of air, began shivering from the cold of the rain in a way he had not for tens of tens of tens of years.

He saw the boiling of clouds above the gate to Amberley as if they were made of smoke from a raging fire, swirling and gathering, turning the air to a sizzling mass of charge in the air.

“No,” he repeated his cry of earlier, to some unseen, imagined thing, already beginning to run toward the road. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you—!”

The crack of discharge was an explosion of sound and light, and power that threw the men and women who were milling in the sudden torrent of increased rain to the ground, as the lightning struck beside the road. It almost took his own feet from beneath him.

The horse that carried Belle screamed and reared. Rumple echoed, heart strangling him, tearing him in two, but somehow Belle held on, a shrill cry of her own joining the cacophony of panic in the instant before the horse bolted.

Rumplestiltskin cursed the finite reach of his grasp on the magic of this realm with its natural vibrations, even with his centuries of experience. He would have to do it the hard way. He ran for the nearest of the mounted guardsmen and leaped at him like some great, wildcat, knocking him from the saddle before somehow righting himself, grasping the reins and spurring the enormous warhorse into motion, wheeling its great head around and spurring him after Belle smaller, but terrified mare.

He leaned down closer to the horse’s neck and urged him on, faster and faster, scattering people on the road who must barely have found their feet again after the uncontrolled flight of Belle’s horse. Their anger drifted after him, for him to gather to himself, storing it, feeding the power growing in him, fizzing like the activator in some complex magical potion.

Nearer and nearer, stride by stride, the warhorse carried him, out-pacing the smaller mount. The beating of hooves matched the pounding of his heart, until at last he drew the horses side by side, matching flight with flight until he reached across and wrapped his wiry arms around Belle’s slender waist.

Already frantic, she him fought like an angry dragon as he hauled her across into his lap, letting the mare run on… run herself out. He slowed the warhorse, keeping a tight hold on Belle, until he could slip the both of them from the saddle and onto solid ground. He caught her fists as she beat at him, her wrists as she made claws of her already bloodied hands; wrapped her in his arms as he took her in, bit by bit. The state she was in slowly registering in him now that he had her, held her… whispered her name over and over again.

“Oh, my Belle,” he breathed against her hair when she finally ran out of fight, or else realized that he meant her no harm - and if he were honest, he wasn’t sure which. “My Belle, my sweet Belle… who did this to you!”

She flinched at the snarl in his voice, the growl as understanding of what had happened to her resolved in him. He could guess who had been the cause of it. He had to concentrate so hard to draw it in, his mounting rage. She needed him now. She needed to be healed and whole, and could not do that for her if he was so angered that every little part of him screamed for murder.

“It’s all right, Belle,” he murmured softly when he could at last trust his voice. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you now, and I won’t let anyone hurt you any more.”

He passed a tender hand over her brow, letting what reserve of peace and warmth he held within him flow from the near touch into her, until she calmed, and went all but limp in his arms. Only her hands remained tense; tight little fists in the woolen fabric of his cloak.

“Master… Rascende…” she barely whispered, as though her voice was ragged, in ruins.

“I’m here, Belle,” he said around the painful knot in his own throat. “You’re safe,” he promised her. “No one will hurt you any more.”

…Ever…

“Sleep.”

He held her close, and lifted her into his arms as his compulsion took her, and in the next moment, the mist of his magic, as dark and angry as the clouds above, whisked the two of them away.

[swipestream]

The Last Jedi Is Star Wars for People Who HATE Star Wars

If Rogue One was Star Wars for people who didn’t like Star Wars, then The Last Jedi is Star Wars for people who HATE Star Wars. By, for, and of.

“But I like Star Wars!” That’s fine. They still didn’t make this movie for you. This is a movie with contempt for you, the audience, contempt for the characters, and contempt for Star Wars itself.

The movie LOOKS great. Ships go fast, things blow up, people shoot blasters: it looks appropriately Star Warsian. The director has spectacle down pat, maybe even better than JJ Abrams did. But that’s all the movie has going for it: spectacle. That can entertaining by itself, but once you notice the underlying problems (so many I can only touch on a few here), you realize that, despite it looking like Star Wars, it’s just not Star Wars.

Star Wars is supposed to be a Science Fiction Space Opera, an epic story about the struggle between good and evil. Good is noble, honorable, and virtuous. Half of Team Evil, in the form of the Galactic Empire, is clear and unambiguous: it is a cruel and murderous despotism who maintains power through terror and force. The other half of Team Up To No Good—The Force and the Dark Side thereof—is amorphous, seductive, and corrupting. As the Rebels fight the Empire in starships to defeat its evil, so, too, must Luke Skywalker fight against the whispers of the Dark Side in his heart, fight to embrace the harder but more rewarding path of the Light Side, in order to defeat Lord Vader and ultimately the Emperor. That is Star Wars, and a movie without that dichotomy at its core is not Star Warsian.

The Last Jedi evinces no such dichotomy. Though its metaphysics are murky, as is its morality, and though it pays lip service to the notion of the Dark Side, when Rey confronts a place strong in the Dark Side (as Luke did in the tree on Dagobah), the Dark Side appears as just an infinite mirror, reflecting Rey back at herself. It’s a magical trap, straight out of a Sword and Sorcery tale, and unlike the Dark Side tree on Dagobah the infinite mirror pit is neither ominous nor disturbing. The Dark tree revealed to Luke the danger of him becoming his father, in a memorable and jarring vision; the Hall of Infinite Mirrors reveals precisely nothing about Rey. She makes no meaningful choices, gains no insights, and the entire event is pointless. There is nothing at all to indicate why this part of the island is Dark, nor does that imputed quality affect the movie in the slightest.

Moreover, the movie explicitly embraces the notion that the Force itself is Balance (Luke says this over and over again when teaching Rey). Not split between Light and Dark, but Balance. Added to this, the only coherent moral thesis advanced by any character is explicitly nihilistic and relativistic: Benicio Del Toro’s character says there is no difference between the Republic and the First Order, that cruel and wealthy arms merchants arm both sides and profit from the war, no matter who wins. Taken to its logical extent, making war against the First Order is meaningless, as both sides are (in effect) the same and whether one or the other wins, nothing changes.

Star Wars is about heroics and heroism. From the raid on the Death Star to rescue the princess, to the doomed last-ditch battle on Hoth, buying time for the transports to escape, to the intricate plot to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hut, characters risk their lives to save the lives of others or just to fight evil, many times at great cost to themselves. Courage, especially physical courage, is central to the entire trilogy (and is the chief reason the series is so beloved).

The Last Jedi mocks courage, heroics, and heroism. Poe Dameron, the cocky fighter pilot, risks his life and the lives of his teammates to destroy the most formidable ship hunting the Resistance, and for this is upbraided and demoted. Later, faced with a no-win scenario, he concocts a desperate plan to disable the First Order’s tracking, allowing the remnants of the Resistance to escape and live to fight another day. Not only does the plan fail, it results in the deaths of some 2/3rds of what few members of the Resistance were left. And when Finn, a non-entity through most of the film, is about to sacrifice his own life to save even that pitiful remnant, he is knocked off course by a fellow rebel, and the First Order’s weapon is allowed to fire. His self-sacrifice, the intervening character says, is stupid and pointless because that’s just the way it is.

The only time anyone is allowed to sacrifice themselves heroically, is when Vice Admiral Tumblr Hair (played by Laura Dern) gets to blow up the entire First Order fleet whilst dying heroically, but even this sacrifice is meaningless: Kylo Ren and General Hux survive, and are able to mount an assault on the planetary base the Rebels fled to, an assault that is more than twice as large as the one Vader launched against Hoth. Tumblr Hair dies for nothing. In this movie, all heroics are meaningless, and that is just not Star Wars.

The total lack of heroism is one reason, but the other is this: This movie is just not epic. And Star Wars is epic.

I don’t mean epic as in a series of ten 300,000 word novels, I mean epic as in a weighty and significant struggle which matters. A struggle that means something. Tolkien, now Tolkien was epic. Even the Jackson “Lord of the Rings” movies managed to feel epic. (“The Hobbit” movies, not so much.)

The original Star Wars trilogy, from the Death Star to… well, the other Death Star was epic. It was a galactic struggle for freedom, with momentous consequences for the galaxy, and the movies let you feel that. Hell, even the PREQUEL TRILOGY was epic (in comparison). Get past the first film, and the struggle against the robot armies and the loss of freedom for the galaxy had moments of epicness. Star Wars is supposed to be epic.

The Last Jedi is not epic.

The very first scene is Poe pranking General Hux (primary combat leader of the First Order), just like Bart Simpson used to prank Moe the Bartender. No, Hux didn’t ask around for an “I. C. Weiner? Is there an I. C. Weiner on the bridge?” but he did say, over and over, “Can he hear me now?” after Poe placed him on hold.

That’s right. The head of the main bad guys—who MUST be competent and terrifying for the film to feel epic—is reduced to a stammering doof parodying a VERIZON WIRELESS AD.

(You know, I didn’t think you could HAVE product placement in a Star Wars film. Well played, Disney. Well played, indeed.)

The inapt and distracting humor (Content Warning: actual humor not included) continued throughout the movie. The film never had the chance to feel epic because every moment of sincerity was spoiled by a joke. It was so bad, I kept expecting Vice Admiral Tumblr Hair to stroll onto the bridge shouting “Wassup bitches!” It would not have been out of place.

“Epic” is a matter of artistic execution, not in-world scale. You can threaten to blow up two ferries with a couple of hundred people aboard or actually blow up five planets with billions of inhabitants, and the first scene might very well feel more epic than the second, if the director makes it so.

Epic and moving stories—epic in spirit, not epic in length, stories of great deeds being done by great men—require a sense of grandeur, of majesty, of awe. That is, the writer must have, within their breast, an understanding of the might and power of great men and great deeds. They must FEEL it.

A small man cannot.

Small men—not short men, but men with shriveled souls—have no notion of greatness nor daring. They cannot comprehend nor depict a struggle against insuperable odds, self-sacrifice in the face of near-certain doom. Their own paucity of courage and manliness dooms their every effort. Art reveals the artist, inevitably.

Even if they depict events that might, in other hands, feel epic, in their hands such events appear quotidian and even boring. Explosions, practical effects, and sound design can give the appearance of an epic struggle, and can distract the audience from a work’s fundamental flaws, but if at its center there is naught but a hollow emptiness, a nihilistic meaningless, this will render all the struggles pointless, no matter how many people are supposedly fighting or supposedly dying.

Epic stories like Star Wars do not have weak and incompetent enemies, nor do they mock heroism and heroes. The Last Jedi never does anything but.

Epic deeds are never pointless. They ALWAYS impact the world. They matter. No deed in TLJ matters. In the end, the good guys are utterly defeated. The Rebellion is destroyed, reduced to the paltry few who can ride aboard the Millennium Falcon, and the entire Galaxy has abandoned them, choosing despotism over the animating struggle for freedom. The movie is a Shoot the Shaggy Dog story, made up of many smaller Shoot the Shaggy Dog stories. It’s a fractal diagram of suck, and the closer you look, the more abhorrent elements you discover. TLJ is suck all the way down.

The Prequels were bad Star Wars movies. The Last Jedi is a bad not-a-Star–Wars movie. TLJ is the anti-Star Wars, the un-Star Wars, a cheap and hollow counterfeit of a far greater work, identical in appearance, but lacking any substance.

I’ve noticed that the more exposure people have to Pulp stories—you know, the GOOD stuff—the more they dislike The Last Jedi. People who read Pulp regularly have become attuned to the flaws of modern F&SF, so the deficiencies in TLJ are readily apparent to them. To fans of the more modern stuff, this probably seems like more of the same entertainment they get every day. Which is most of the problem, and not just with this movie, but post-modern culture as a whole.

Audiences WANT stories of heroism and heroics. They meet a deep need in us to admire the brave and self-sacrificing, and to be inspired by them.

The Last Jedi is not such a tale. It is entertaining, because of spectacle, but that spectacle hides the movie’s poisonous core of nihilism. Time will not be kind.

After all, a movie that includes this scene will never attain the status of an intergenerationally beloved classic:

http://ift.tt/2BbFzeU

I rest my case.

Jasyn Jones, better known as Daddy Warpig, is a host on the Geek Gab podcast, a regular on the Superversive SF livestreams, and blogs at Daddy Warpig’s House of Geekery. Check him out on Twitter.

The Last Jedi Is Star Wars for People Who HATE Star Wars published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

[sincerepinkhibiscusrightear]

I finally watched Symbiosis

Short tangent about Loss with Symbiosis under the cut: I liked it better than Loss. Loss, for the most part, left me tired and irritated despite the good things I found within it. The negatives for the movie, for me personally, were too great to be balanced out with what I liked about it. Plots of memory loss for the sake of drama really irritate me. I hated the roller coaster we’d go through with something happening at the end of a movie only for it to slow down again at the start of the next one.  Yes, I know they’re movies. But the plot still unfolds like a regular TV series which means climax ending fights need to be shoehorned in to make the move worthwhile on its own.  What irritated me though was the loss of history. History that means a lot to not only us and the kids but the digimon as well. The digimon just go back to their roles and personalities exactly as they were before the reboot, so what does it accomplish other than padding out the movie and adding needless casualties (not in body at least). If the reboot wasn’t successful, then I would have liked for it to be reversed with the digimon, especially since their memory loss doesn’t just include their memories of being a chosen partner. It’s just my feelings on the matter since I feel like Biyomon’s needless hatred of Sora lasted far too long and the kids were just dicking around until they got attacked anyways. Time and effort could have been spent more on dealing with the Digital World and how it’s becoming unstable. Perhaps even a bit more than just a clipshow of locations we’ve seen in 01 just to say ‘hey, remember this? yeah that was cool wasn’t it? Wanna never see it again?’

I like that Symbiosis takes off where Loss left off. It was fresh from the slow pace the other movies took after Reunion. But it did slow down again as the Digital World started showing its newfound dislike of the kids. It made for an odd contrast. The Real World is going to shit. It’s panic and mayhem and chaos! The kids sit around a fire. Holy shit digimon are coming through the gaps to the real world! Meicrackmon is causing all sorts of trouble and is worrying everyone! The kids sit in a cave.

It’s jarring and slows down the pacing to a crawl, especially the first scene where they once again reiterate to Meiko she’s part of the team. As though Determination didn’t do that already. I don’t see the point of the second movie if in the third they mostly just forget about her other than the fact that they need to get their partners back (oh yeah and Meicoomon, too). Heck, *I* forgot about Meiko in the third movie. I can’t remember if I forgot about her existence entirely or had a ‘Oh yeah, she’s in this movie’ moment. 

That’s... not really good if you ask me. It’s not that I really hate Meiko, either. I was excited for the concept of a new digidestined. I loved the fact she was a girl. I loved that Mimi embraced her so easily and acted as a sort of role model to this otherwise polar opposite girl. But she isn’t balanced well with the others and her plot often overshadows development for the other children instead of working seemlessly with them. She isn’t treated like a digidestined when push comes to shove. It’s only after the fact when things get comfortable again do the kids remember she’s a thing and reminds her she’s one of them. They baby her and they also pep-talk her a lot after the danger is over. I’m fine with Meiko’s plot revolving around feeling inadequate as a partner. But it would have been nice to see more of her trying to fit in when it wasn’t just them doing cutesy things together instead of just stand off on the sidelines when the plot comes a-knocking. I hate that she’s just Hikari 2.0 and her digimon is just Monodramon/Guilmon with the whole ‘has a piece of millenniummon apocalymon inside and is now a digital hazard’ felt really lazy all things considered. It feels lazy and it doesn’t warm me up to her as her own person. She just comes off as a clone. She doesn’t have anything about her that feels unique other than her little moe quirks. Adding to the lack of iconic outfits to Tri as a whole, she drags Tri down to more ‘generic mass produced anime’ status.

Then there was her scenes with Taichi. They... kinda came out of nowhere, didn’t they? I mean sure, we could see Meiko likely developed a ‘he’s cute’ mentality in Reunion, but the way Taichi treats Meiko in 5 specifically is almost jarringly different from the other movies. There wasn’t really build up from what I remember because she was mostly AFK being mopey in Confession and was mostly focused with Sora/Biyomon for Loss. But the scene that stood out to me most was that one long shot with the questionable quality of Taichi and Meiko fighting. Y’know,

This one.

This scene where a good chunk of their actual argument was from this angle. Kind of makes you feel... detached from what they’re talking about, doesn’t it? Like you’re not involved in the argument.

It’s things like this that actually hinder caring about Meiko in any capacity other than the fact that she exists. But it doesn’t help that the characters don’t really emote with the exception of only a couple of comedic or dramatic scenes. They’re pretty glassy-eyed. The animators seem to be too afraid to break model or make the characters un-pretty by giving them any big expressions. Maki’s are pretty great as a contrast but she’s pretty coo-coo for cocoa puffs at the moment (where did she get those weapons? What DID happen to Tapirmon/Bakumon? Last I remember she was shaking the poor things’ shoulders screaming at it. With her general behaviour, I almost want to say she killed it and was too deluded to realize what she’d done, just continuing to look for her ‘real’ partner.

We don’t see a lot of Hikari in this movie despite it supposedly being about her. Sure, she gives us exposition during those slow scenes, but that’s a dump. The movie doesn’t quite focus on her like the previous ones did to the other children. It’s mostly Meiko and Tai sucking up the screen time. Which, considering what happens, I am okay with Tai at least doing so.

Speaking of those quiet scenes, I know they were important but... I think something tense should have been going on other than sitting around a fire or in a cave. Yes, there was plot-related reasons why they didn’t leave those spots. But here’s the thing for me:

The scene in the school was meant to be a point of levity. A reprieve from all the tense things happening around us. A way for the audience to catch their breaths. But the thing is... we already did that by the fire, and again at the cave. Yes, they were important scenes for small plot things and exposition dumping, but they were still quiet scenes. They were scenes we were allowed to breathe. Especially the fire scene where once again we have to retread ground, reminding Meiko things they already told her. The tension wasn’t as wound up as it should have been for the scene to be effective. Still, it was a good scene where we got to see some good characterization from all of them.

Ophanimon Falldown Mode’s appearance time was laughably pathetic for something on the poster. I mean, she didn’t even do anything. Without Ordinemon, she was an intimidating force to be reckoned with but she just posed pretty before reverse-mitosising with Raguelmon.

Slurp.

Tai’s ‘death’ would have had more impact if 02′s epilogue wasn’t a thing. Just plain and simple. We know he’s going to be fine. There’s no need for us as the viewer to get invested in this when we already know the outcome. Which is a shame, because for Digimon to do this is ballsy but even without the epilogue I doubt Digimon would be ballsy enough to pull a Primeval.

He’s perma-dead.

They have to stick to strict guidelines for the epilogue as well, despite the fact that I specifically remember it saying the kids grew up in obscurity because Natsuko and Hiroaki used their special reporter powers to keep their kids out of the public eye. Guess that’s not the case anymore.

One thing I have to ask that maybe might be answered if I looked deeper into Digimon lore but... Why does the power the kids have still work? The digivices are created by and to an extent powered by the will of the Digital World, which currently both sides of that power wish for the digidestined to essentially fuck off. The digivices are amplifiers, sure. But the power for digivolution itself I'm assuming is a power that comes from the Digital World.  I'm making the assumption that the power of the digivices isn't self-contained, but even if it was if there's the power to change the entire Digital World to be against the kids, switching off a device created in the world would still be just as likely and seems to be ignored for the sake of the characters still having power just because. It's still unclear to me whether or not the Digital World itself is a separate sentient entity in and of itself or if it's merely a conduit for Yggdrasil and Homeostasis. If the latter is the case then it's curious why Yggdrasil was fine with the kids running around before all those other times if it cares nothing for people and now for mysterious reasons seems to actively hate humanity to such a degree it corrupted its inhabitants to feel the same (Gennai). Meta-wise we know that Yggdrasil wasn't really a concept until at earliest 2003 from what I can gather. It was our understanding until Tri that instead of Yggdrasil, it was Homeostasis who filled that role if the Digital World itself wasn't a living sentient entity with her being another sentient program like digimon and the Gennai entity(s). There's evidence for both and neither at the same time, with both Yggdrasil being the technical host computer, thus the one in ultimate control of it, but Hikari also speaking as if the Digital World was sentient apart from Yggdrasil but still under its or even Homeostasis' control. This seems to change only slightly from series to series, though their actual roles stay mostly the same. Yggdrasil is almost always an entity that goes insane, and Homeostasis when appears, replaces Yggdrasil as a more benevolent being but with a heavy emphasis on justice, but that doesn't seem to be the case with the kids being suck in the middle of a power struggle between two 'gods'.

One movie to go and as far as Tri being here to explain how the kids got their jobs as adults, it seems only Tai really has any leg to stand on. In all, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t as bad as I feared it was going to be. Hopefully now in the last legs of the series we’ll get a really epic end to Tri that nearly everyone can love.