#oh the rescue needs to happen in every universe of course. it’d be interesting character work to get maedhros there actually.

[nelyoslegalteam]

on the one hand: fingon can’t exactly swear an oath about retrieving himself, and can’t be a participant in the entire immediate fallout of swearing the oath and trying to leave aman if he’s busy getting kidnapped – oathsworn fingon is Essential to the concept, so i think i’d want fingon to be present and to see how it being fingolfin driving things affects events at alqualonde.

on the OTHER. THAT’S FUCKED UP AND I WOULD LIKE TO BITE THINGS???????

like!!!!! like stealing maedhros and chaining him up is a thing that happens because maedhros is a symbol!!!!!!! the message of that is extremely direct – this is the Figure you are following. This is the symbol of your strength and leadership. look at him chained up here and despair.

and fingon is a symbol too.

fingon is the noldor’s symbol of hope!!!!! it works it works it works it works it works and i am going to chew glass!!!!!!

so i mean. maybe fingon doesn’t get stolen at formenos then, but he sure IS getting stolen at some point in this!!!!!

Ooooh talk to me about the Nolofinwëans swearing the Oath

adhdhfbfbfbn i wish i could tell you this is something we had plotted out, unfortunately we do not (yet. @potatoobsessed999 this is an invitation to keep going owo ) HOWEVER

i will say that this STARTED with the concept of an oathsworn fingon, and us wondering what that might look like. and so,

what if it was fingolfin who got exhaled to formenos, not feanor? what if it was fingon who found finwe’s murdered body, not maedhros?

WOULD the nolofinweans swear The Oath?

yes. yep. yes they would. fingolfin can pretend he’s so different from feanor all he wants, but they’re each other’s perfect mirror, and backed into the same corner?

fingolfin would break the exact same way.

again, we haven’t exactly plotted things out, but it’s a FUN space to play in. there’s SO many implications for the nolofinwean siblings here we haven’t even GOTTEN to yet. it’s juicy. maybe this is motivation to come back to it. :3

[cannot-decide-on-a-fandom]

go off on bnha i'd love to hear

Oh boy this'll either be...very fun or I'm gonna screw myself over. Either way, thanks for giving me this opportunity

For me, bnha is very interesting because it's a show I probably have more problems with than things I like....but I can't help but keep wanting to read the manga. It's a series that doesn't have the same rewatchability value to me as it probably does to many people.

I'm gonna talk about all of this more in a Jump video I'm making now that I have time, but basically it's a series where I'm interested enough to keep up with it, but once I know what happens, I've never felt the need to revisit it.

What my hero academia does poorly in my opinion, is that while I love the messages it's attempting to convey, Deku's character kinda innately counters all of them.

Take the idea about who you are not being determined by your birth (in this case, your quirk). I love that. I think Shinsou is a great character and I love how he's set on being a hero, not just to prove to everyone he can be, but also because he genuinely wants it.

But then there's Deku, who basically proves the complete opposite. He was only able to achieve what he wanted after being granted the ideal ability. I'm on the side that it'd have been a lot better to keep Deku as his prototype, someone who builds gadgets and uses his brains to get through, but the way he's actually written confuses the entire narrative of the story. We are constantly told that your birth and quirk doesn't dictate anything, we had that with Shinsou, with Kirishima, with Mirio even, then there's the villains (I'm not that keen on the villains honestly but that's a whole other can of worms) who are meant to show that society is who shapes them to be villains, not their quirks. But then why do we get the exact opposite message with our protagonist, that his birth really did dictate his options and only once he was granted an ability could he do anything? It would have been so much more interesting if the theme of "nurture is what matters, not natural ability" would have been carried through, with giving him teachers and a loving family, like the show did, but not grant him the greatest quirk in the world. This is the least controversial opinion about him I have, though.

But one thing I rarely see talked about is the lack of understanding of the differences in types of hard work. See, there's a MASSIVE difference between "I'll work hard because I want to achieve something, even if it might not work out in the end" and "I'll work hard because there's a guaranteed prize at the end if only I do that." Is Deku hard working? Yeah. However the entire start of his journey, what people often point to when trying to show that, is based on flawed logic.

Take a character like Emma from The Promised Neverland. The entire time she's trying to do something, even she herself doubts how it could be done, as well as constantly being told it can't and that it's stupid. Or Asta from Black Clover. Everyone basically guaranteed he WON'T manage what he desired.

Both of those characters either had negative or neutral reassurances, no promise of success no matter how hard they worked. But they still pushed. They still didn't give up and tried because of how much that goal meant to them. Emma desperately wanted to save everyone, no matter how hard that seemed, and Asta fought for his dream even with almost everyone saying it was literally not possible.

Deku worked hard to clean the beach, sure. But he was already promised a quirk if he just did that. It's a hell of a lot easier to motivate yourself KNOWING there's something great waiting for you, than it is with it being a mystery. There's a big difference between "working hard is the only way to achieve this, even though it's not a sure thing even then" and "it's a fact that if I do this I'll get what I want".

Other than that, what really, really bothers me about MHA, is the fact that pretty much everything, not even in the narrative but in the actual universe, seems to somehow relate back to Midoriya.

Look at Bakugo's rescue, for example. The group that went to save him contained his best friend. The best friend who the entire plan ended up hinging on. There was such a big deal made out of the fact that it could only be Kirishima to reach out, that Bakugo would only respond to him.

So...

Why the hell did it have to be Deku to actually point that out? I understand he's smart and he knew Katsuki the longest. But the entire point of that scene was how important Kirishima was to him! And though Eijirou isn't the smartest academically, he's not emotionally dense like that. It wouldn't have been incredibly out of character for him to suggest that maybe he should try calling out to him. He wanted to save him so bad, he probably would have if the story flowed logically.

But the series simply could not allow a character not called Midoriya to have development not caused by Midoriya. It was literally a scene to prove how strong the bond between Kirishima and Bakugo was, and yet for some reason, it wasn't the person whose development it was meant to be who realised that.

But it's not just him. Momo is canonically the smartest in 1A, and Iida the second. I know academics is different to strategy, but both of them have proved that they definitely can think strategically.

That is, until Deku is involved. Because as soon as he is, he overtakes every role on the team. Fighter? Yep, of course. Thinker? Who cares if that's THE ENTIRE POINT OF ANOTHER CHARACTER, if Deku is there, he's taking that role too. Planner? Of course.

I mean, it happened again with the overhaul arc. For the first time, the spotlight was on Kirishima and Mirio, and it actually seemed possible that it would be THEIR arc, their growth without Deku.

Only to have all of that climax 100% on Deku's fight. A fight we saw so much more of than Mirio's. Even though we're told how long he lasted without his quirk, the only one's fight we actually see is once again Deku's. We are told of Mirio's fight, we are shown Deku's. Because if we had seen Mirio's properly, it'd have overshadowed Deku's by a mile, and we couldn't have that.

I understand he's the protagonist and needs to be the main focus. But that doesn't mean treat the other characters as stepping stones to hype him up even more, or to say stuff about them but not dare show it in case it ends up being more awesome than Deku.

We recently got the first arc where this wasn't an issue, with the villains. I won't give manga spoilers, but all I'll say is if we needed an arc where he doesn't appear, just to have some decent growth for other people without it relating back to him, there's a problem.

This....ran so much longer than I expected. Wow. Okay I went off. Sorry.

And this isn't even everything I wanted to say.

Anyway, it's funny because this was all focused on Deku, and yet I actually am speaking as someone who enjoys him as a character. But I can't argue with the fact there are some fundamental problems.

So....um....let me know if this made sense I suppose?

[sleepymarmot]

COUNTER/Weight liveblog, part 2

Episodes 23-40

Keith hasn't listened to the previous episode and Austin & Ali are cackling like “You got a big storm coming” lmao

…Look I understand the idea of making Tea an ally after the players and audience got to know her in the Kingdom game but the excuse is really thin

“A gift for his little brother” You guys are really bad at this gender neutrality thing huh

AuDy talking to Orth makes my head spin a bit now

Oh so Addax is the leader of the Angels? The person who has been watching the Chime from the shadows = the group that has been spying on them? Okay, I now feel dumb for not putting this together myself.

Wait I lost track again. Who were Jacq & Jill working for initially that gave them access to those immortality tanks? Iirc it was Odamas who had that technology and then gave Horizon access to it while imposing strict rules on them during the merge? So why does Jacqui get less fun assignments now if she was a part of the winning faction, not the losing one?

Oh cool, so Jamil wanted to hand over the virus to the Angels because they're both just from the Rapid Evening?

“A bard notices their enemy's heart isn't in the fight, so they stop fighting, fall in love” is such a specific thing. How the hell did it happen twice on the same show. Is this the new big gay trope now

Heeeey could you stop punching me in the stomach with intros

So, Jacqui was working for Horizon, which in turn was given this job by Petrichor? Still doesn't answer my question…

Do I have to mentally rewrite the entire holiday special so that in every scene on the Kingdom Come everyone is floating in zero gravity all the time?! I'm sorry but this makes no fucking sense!

The doppelganger thing started really creepy but now it just makes my head spin! Please stop it with the names, I'm too easily confused, especially with a show that has a record of passing characters back and forth between the GM and the players!

Re: that whole thing: aaaaAAAAA???

I don't understand what Austin and Jack are doing but it's pretty magical

God, the Aria/Jacqui scene is so… tender? Idk. Austin's gentle “PC's love interest” voice has murdered me again. I'm not sold on Jacqui by herself as a character but on the feelings between the two? Definitely. (Though I still wonder about Aria’s heroism vs Jacqui’s disregard for life. That’s a biiig value clash)

Okay, this was all very unsettling and I still understand so little

I really love that Sokrates' refusal to make that one nameless person take the fall, which seemed (at least to me) kinda stubborn and shortsighted, turned into a key moment, both because it demonstrates integrity, and now because that person becomes an actual NPC as an important asset in their faction

I love how the idea of moving Rigour to September comes up and everyone starts screaming and I do too! They sure love leaving horrifying surprises for the ground team to stumble upon lol

Is it too callous and unwise of me to react to Ibex overthrowing the Hands of Grace as “good riddance”?

Maryland's letter has strong Alyosha/Arrell vibes

I love the “reluctant alliance with an antagonist” trope and was hoping it'd happen with Ibex so I'm happy! Also in one of the early episodes Austin mentioned the Anders-Justice storyline and I'm glad to hear him finally deliver. (There was stuff about the pilot/Candidate->Divine influence with Order, but not about the other way around or fusion, like with Vengeance)

Okay thankfully things are clearer now (I'm reeeally glad I wasn't spoiled on this) but I still have so many questions. How were LD made in the first place? Why and how did they hide in/turn themselves into a simple robot? What are they – just software, like Righteousness, or is there some Divine hardware core inside the normal Automated Dynamics unit that nobody has noticed somehow, or is the hardware in a remote location they access through the mesh? Did Ibex know AuDy was LD the whole time – he didn't act very surprised? Why didn't Ibex rescue his brother, did he die really quickly? How will Mako be able to fog without Righteousness? Shouldn't AuDy be gamebreakingly powerful now? How and why do LD count as two Divines but have a single consciousness, are they like Garnet?

Lazer Ted feels like a fucking TAZ character lmao

The comic relief was welcome but at the same time I'm continuously like “What is AuDy thinking and feeling. Why are they acting like nothing happened. Where's the existential crisis. How do you realize you're a pair of ancient gods and just proceed with your life? Are they so impenetrable on purpose because they're a robot”. Like, it was chilling when they were suddenly chatting with Ibex like old friends, and now it's chilling that they're acting just in the early episodes.

I'm glad the robot incident made everyone realize it might be unwise to put the two charming extraverts in the same half of the party lol

Looks like they decided to permanently switch back to “he” for Cass… Probably for the best.

Jack keeps excitedly jumping at every opportunity for creepiness™. God, AuDy makes so much more sense as his character now after the Reveal

Is September just fucking Solaris now?

I think this is the first time I'm not excited to hear a faction game episode because I really didn't expect it at this point in the story. My reaction was “Wait what? Are you telling me everyone gets stuck on September waiting out that storm for a whole month?! I wanted to hear what that cliffhanger led to!” Idk, the September arc was generally kind of a let down after the intensity of the episodes leading up to it, and this further deflates the tension.

Speaking of tension and letdowns, I just have to complain… It's really disappointing when the show sets up really big dramatic hooks and then does practically nothing with them! I complained about Addax and Cass in the previous post and that point still stands. Case two: Mako and Righteousness/Voice. It's set up in a faction episode, and in the immediately following arc Mako indeed is in danger from something inside his own head, but it's a completely unrelated thing! At the end of the arc he finally finds out, but the threat immediately gets nullified with no consequences – no self-doubt or identity crisis, no diminished abilities in terms of game mechanics. Case three: Ibex himself. Out of the reasons the Kingdom game is what it is, the excuse for it happening in-universe was to give more details on Ibex, and at least half of it featured a collective effort to make him as central to the story and as threatening as possible. But as soon as that flashback ends, so, counterintuitively, does the role of Ibex as an active antagonist to the Chime -- the role which was literally just supposed to begin in earnest. So by this point I can barely recall why we were all so intimidated by this guy in the first place. I'm more like “This is a useful ally to have”. This is what I don't like about the world-ending threats like Rigor: all other interesting conflicts fade in their face.

Dang, I thought Isurus was a cooler name than Enhydra!

Sokrates, forced to shake Ibex's hand: *clenched fist meme*

Wait, I missed something, why is Rigor deep underground and has to dig itself out?

Okay, after the lore episode I'm also confused how Rigor ended up underground on Ionias after it was blown up 20000 years ago in a completely different place

I'm very distressed by the idea of Hieron as a future popular franchise!! No, it's supposed to be real when these people are talking about it!! Oh wait a fucking second, does this mean Jace's Panther was a deliberate reference in-universe?? Like you're fighting in a real serious terrible war and you model a giant war machine after, like, a thestral from the fucking Harry Potter and just call it “Thestral”??!

No, no, wait, do tell me who Cass and AuDy would cosplay!

Oh no, Rigour wants to talk to Voice(?), great

Hey Cass, your Hadrian is showing??

Speaking of Hadrian, I was caught off guard by description of Tower as a “hot young Hadrian”, for some reason Hadrian never struck me as a character who's supposed to be exceptionally attractive. But then again, I imagined him as very young until that letter to Hella, and then I imagined Cass as a young adult until I did the math, so I might just be bad at visualising Art's characters lol.

Austin is so generous and unsubtle about throwing hot gay NPCs right at the players. Too bad Mako doesn't sound as interested as Aria did.

I expected they'd find a room with one copy of everyone plugged into the mesh, that'd be even creepier. What's with the false memories though? This doesn't explain them.

So, how does this whole clone system work? How does time work? Why don't the real students like Tower or Maxine notice that there's a new guy who looks just like their friend, but doesn't know them – or, for that matter, why don't the other clones notice? Oh, maybe that's the purpose of the fake memory aura? So that Maritime-4 could continue right from where Maritime-3 left off?

When Cass saw Apokine's face I thought it meant that the humans had genetically engineered the Apostolosians and that's what “we made them look like us” meant, which would be two of my long-standing questions answering each other. And then it was just another giant mech.. :/

Wait, does Orth calling Cass “Apokine” mean that he pilots the mech now or that Sokrates died and Cass inherited his position?! I'm worried now…

I'm even more worried about Mako, because at first I of course reacted to the question about being in two places at once as “hah, Larry”, but it's probably the other thing, and on one hand that must mean that the rescue of clones was successful, but also that means that our Mako might be dead and the one in the intro is one of the clones… Considering that in the Winter post-mortem I caught Keith saying how emotional the C/w finale was for him before I started fast-forwarding in fear of spoilers, do I need to start mentally preparing to bury Mako already or what?

Speaking of spoilers… The farther I go, the less I understand the advice to skip Autumn. I thought that at least for C/w it wouldn't matter, given it's a whole different universe, but they keep referencing it, and then casually dropping major spoilers, and then referencing it again in a story-relevant way. (The Ordennan ships arrive on the screen as Rigor does, and the next episode is named “The Storm over September” and quotes Lem's poem in the description. That's really cool but I somehow feel vaguely irritated on behalf of my potential alternate self who skipped season 1.) I really hope they've grown more careful about this by now, because I'll probably not even begin Twilight Mirage by the time the next season starts, and I would really like to stay in the dark about the intense events they're all vague-tweeting about at the moment!

Why was AuDy alarmed by Voice's presence as “a” Divine accompanying Maxine? Shouldn't they be familiar with it already because of Mako? (And I don't want to even ask about the ontological difference/border between Righteousness and Voice. I'm tired and feel like a nitpicker. But just for the record, this still isn't clear.)

Well that's a sadder family reunion than I hoped for!

So AuDy does have a split personality to some degree?

Oh well. AuDy's got a fate worse than death: Liberty and Discovery, imprisoned indefinitely. Or devoured I guess, I didn't really get it. Great. Thanks. Fucking RIP I guess. Out of all ways I expected them to go, this wasn't one.

(By the way I still don't understand how the portal works. Where is this portal to? Why can't L&D fly out and take the slow way home, and why can't Rigor?)

There's still about ten minutes left in the episode and I don't understand how it isn't the finale. What's there to do for three more episodes now.

“With Rigor defeated so easily, so permanently, she thought” *Rigor screech*

Yeah, fuck Grace btw

Sounds like cultivating saplings is not a priority anymore for a certain someone… (Wait, btw, what happened to that patch/seed they left? Will it ever come back into play?)

“...Why they would put themselves into a body like yours? And I think, maybe, it's that they were curious about what it would be like for four years to feel like a long time” AAAAAA

Okay, things are better on September than it sounded initially, but still… Wtf's going to happen? Rigor repairs itself, takes over the survivors, takes off again? But what's the timeline on that? I genuinely have no idea wtf the finale is going to be about after this.

Oh, what happened to the clones btw? Did Larry manage to get them off the planet in time, despite the Minerva ships in orbit and, more importantly, Rigor? Or are they stuck on September, unable to continue reenacting the plot of Orphan Black?

From how it's been described in this episode, feels as if Liberty and Discovery are a candidate of AuDy… They didn't want a candidate but were curious to learn how it feels for the other side?

Paisley's dead-eyed, Tower's gone, and even Ibex, who is barely holding on himself, loses his ex… Everyone's love life takes a nosedive: the episode. At least Jacqui's okay… (And because of Jacqui, it was doubly sad and surprising to hear Aria still has feelings for Paisley…)

[redscullyrevival]

I finally saw The Last Jedi and I liked it - what I wasn’t entirely anticipating is that I also really enjoyed it! I will now commence bullet point blabbering about the film below the cut and it shall not be spoiler free. 

I now understand all the raging nerd-hate this movie has been getting - this film aimed to straight up burn this motherfucker down, huh? 

Loved it. 

Personally I was very… underwhelmed with The Force Awakens. It was a fun romp and I loved the new characters and the nostalgic twinge of the familiar but oh boy the entire thing felt far too beholden to the pedestal of A STAR WARS FILM! in slow steady blinking lights. 

The Force Awakens has that octane Abrams pacing but it is also just so damn stiff. So ridged. And obviously deeply afraid to wander off the path. 

I understand that the first re-introduction to such a beloved franchise playing it (excruciatingly) safe made sense; but I was still upset with the final product, with the final choice to deliberately aim to be nothing more than what I’ve seen and felt before.

The Last Jedi on the other hand turns out to be a long, cozy, chat about how A STAR WARS FILM! should be struck down so something new can grow. 

Hallelujah!

The visceral attack this film must feel like to a particular kind of Star Wars fan is no doubt very intense and in all honestly I do have some pity for folks who found this new film to be dismissing the legacy they feel connected to in deeply personal ways. 

*clappy hands*

But oh, I loved it so much!

Every twist and turn, every aspect of this film pushes the anticipated rhythm of A STAR WARS FILM! away; all the momentum the film gains is for the final purpose of rejecting everything easy and expected, for pushing past, well, the past. 

Hot damn, the nerds are kind of justified for once.

The Last Jedi came for them! It went so hard! The more someone had dug themselves into the belief that STAR WARS was a solid thing they knew and understood on a fundamental core level then the deeper the cut would go as the film raged on. 

The anger, the hate from certain fandom circles makes total sense. 

Because this film done changed the Star Wars. 

And it was about fuckin’ time. 

So prepared was I to sit through The Empire Strikes Back: The Remix that the intense gut fans-hate-it reaction the film got opening friggin’ day got me all kinds of delighted, how I saw it such a reaction signaled that this new film would be something actually new. 

And the fresh air of The Last Jedi comes from some pretty drastic subversion of A STAR WARS FILM! It is down right beautiful.

Ultimately, if the choice to change Star Wars was just to grim dark and edge it up then it’d be pretty terrible I agree, but The Last Jedi managed to alter and course correct massive change without breaking the frame of the how and the why and to whom these STAR WARS stories are told. 

I mean, in my opinion anyway. 

I felt the film put a lot of care and love into explaining to the audience what was right and natural about change, explaining that strength could be found in letting go of our nostalgia and expectations and opening up to new experiences in old sandboxes. I felt The Last Jedi was an oddly gentle film that knew it was going to frighten some while igniting others and did it’s best to show it’s good will towards signaling hope and legend and legacy into a shared experience. 

*shrug shrug shrug* YA FEELIN’ ME?!

I know I already have a spoiler warning above the cut but now I am going to really get up in this film and push my eyeball up against it’s eyeball and hey if you wanna see all particulars feel free, but this is now specific spoiler territory, thanks and happy holidays:

I was so enthralled with Finn and Rose’s quest and I was ecstatic when it didn’t work out.

The two went on a space goose chase for a daring rescue mission and got into ruffian escapades and thought on the fly and were brave and funny and were livin’ that STAR WARS life - and they failed spectacularly.

Their mission, their rip’roarin’ escapade, was in fact a brash and ill thought out plan that almost got absolutely everyone killed. 

Precious, lovely, daring, and confident Poe Dameron was a horrible leader. 

His belief in a desperate gamble; his total confidence that he was in the right and the stuffy Vice Admiral didn’t know when to take a risk; the audience knowing his qualities as sure fire STAR WARS leadership was all for nothing and people died for it. 

I said HOT DAMN!

This film made General Organa and Vice Admiral Holdo, two older women who don’t run around with blasters in hand but who have no less twinkle in their eyes the true leaders of the resistance. The true bearers of the spark of rebellion. It was their matured tried and true mentorship that ended up saving them all - not the cocky charisma of a younger good looking man.

Also Leia is confirmed Force Sensitive™ bringing to an end decades long old guard fans bickering and moaning over if she has pretend magical powers or not and why if she did that’d be “not right”. 

(Seeing Carrie Fisher bathed in moonlight was emotional)

And then, oh man, Rey’s parents? Wonderful, soulful, bright and strong Rey? Because she is in a STAR WARS film and can use the force everyone including people who’ve never seen The Force Awakens assumed her parents were a part of the legacy, a part of the grand scheme.

NOPE.

In fact, to really drive it home just so fans can’t possibly be confused, Kylo Ren tells her “You’re nobody. You don’t belong in this story.”

He said that with his mouth words!

But there she is all the same, good old Rey. And she’ll remain. Without being so and so from extended universe’s kid or a character only in some comic book or Luke’s secret child or whatever. 

Rey is just a character made to be there and to use the force because, hey, it’s a STAR WARS MOVIE! We needed someone to be the Luke this time around so why not Rey? 

PS we shattered Luke’s lightsaber and made Rey indebted to jack squat of this franchise. She searched for her purpose and her parents and only found the strength of herself and her own choices. Peace out!

That tickled me senseless, having the cultural institution of STAR WARS being full on assaulted for two and a half hours.

That tickled my pickle. 

The Last Jedi is hyper self aware media, but it was still fun. It was still a good time but it laid down hard and fast with changing the lifeblood of STAR WARS that even I, who is nowhere near as big a fan as someone you could probably hit with a stone’s throw, admit to feeling some uncomfortable chafing at times while watching.

STAR WARS is a legit cultural institution by the way, I didn’t just say that for the fun of it - that’s absolutely 100% true. 

Star Wars as a media, as a franchise, has an ebb and flow of patterns, style, symbols, and motifs that dictate a tonal cohesiveness which designates something as recognizable as STAR WARS.  

What I’m doing when I all caps “Star Wars” is I’m trying to defer attention to the known concepts and ideas of Star Wars media as a whole cultural institution and experience rather than just invoking a cluster of films, only I’m trying to do all that just through the written word.

Star Wars is a film and STAR WARS is all that which defines the franchise as well as our shared cultural understanding of said franchise, ya fell me? That’s how I approach talking about this kinda stuff online anyways. I feel most will understand what I’m doing with the capitalization and all that but hey, now ya know ‘fo sure. 

Anyway

Shit y’all! Luke Skywalker is a funky sore spot huh? Loved that too. 

Lets get to that Kylo Ren:

Kylo Ren’s entire set up is that he ain’t Vader and fuck, ain’t that the truth. But in a good way. Duh Kylo Ren is not Vader, he is a different character. And, now, he isn’t even remotely similar to Vader as a STAR WARS character. 

Everything about Kylo Ren is opposed to Darth Vader; while he gain’s definition with this new film Kylo Ren didn’t even remotely start out as a mysterious villain like Vader originally did. 

We all knew, in that STAR WARS fashion, that Kylo Ren had to be tied to the legacy. We all knew that he had to be tied to the lifeblood of the franchise. And Ben Solo absolutely is. 

We knew this before Han ever revealed it through dialogue and that’s why it wasn’t a big reveal in The Force Awakens. Of course Ben Solo turned to the dark side and is Kylo Ren. Of course. Of course he has some weird Vader obsession, the character needed to emulate Vader so as to take up his mantel in the narrative and in the franchise. We needed a baddie in a helmet, stat!

But oh, look what has happened though, oh man:

Luke Skywalker in a moment of fear almost murdered his own nephew  -because he is in STAR WARS. 

We all know if there are Jedi then there is a light and a dark side of the force; we all know that if you are a master of and a teacher in the ways of the force you open yourself and your students up to a choice; and we all know that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. 

Kylo Ren being a direct response to Luke friggin’ Skywalker is as far from Vader as you can get but fits just so right within the cleansing fire that is The Last Jedi. 

The hero of the first saga ignited the villain of the next. 

That ain’t very STAR WARS and something tells me that is the biggest kick to the crotch for a lot of folks. 

I, of course, dug the hell outta that choice.

Kylo Ren is actually interesting now. Mischief managed.

The very not subtle social commentary the film was dishing out was a pretty pie to boot. Bit on the nose but hey, ain’t that STAR WARS at least? Didn’t even have to dig this time around, gems sitting right on the surface.  

… Damn, I’m tired. I still have plenty to talk about though. Hmm, well, lets close this out on a different note (and that’s a pun):

The music of STAR WARS is bonkers recognizable. Like, I keep saying Star Wars is a cultural institution that uses motifs and symbols as devices for defining itself, right? Yeah, the use of music in this film is a pitch perfect example of that. 

The Last Jedi seamlessly flows from theme to theme, with specific well known scores highlighting emotional call backs and in-story referenced characters - the use of music is the most traditionalist aspect of this new film (they even shook up the editing this time around - shock and awe). 

Smart though, if they fucked with how STAR WARS did music then even an impassive twerp like me would be pretty upset. 

For my money, the musical score is still the best thing about a good old Star War.  

[tumblunni]

More thoughts and stuff from this weird old dream I had the other day

* I’VE GOT REALLY ATTATCHED TO THE VIRUS HIVEMIND HOLY SHIT Like noooo this poor innocent friend that doesn’t understand it’s the villain I was just imagining its like “hey lets send an envoy of peace to the humans” and being so genuinely offended when they start shooting but... isn’t a horde of viral supermonsters the greatest fruit basket of all? :(

* Also like... Human assistant girl: We must destroy this wretched humanity Virus mind: That means hug them, right?

* Actually ended up thinking a lot about the design of the ‘hugging monster for hugging’! I’m thinking it has big spooky hand-wings and also hands for legs and maybe a hand tail similar to Yvetal? And either it has no head or maybe its like one of those fluffy birdy final fantasy dragons. Also a jewel on its head because Why Not.

like here’s my terrible 15 seconds scribble but i’m thinking maybe the body smaller and the wings super big so it can like.. deliver three power levels of hug hugs all the humans in its massive wings and its slightly less massive arms and then just rolls one last one up in a burrito hug on its tail

* Virus Mind: WHY DOES NO-ONE LOVE MY BEAUTIFUL MASCOT CHARACTER T_T alas they end up being melee attack units instead of making all the humans totally switch sides just at the sight of their cuteness

* it would totally just be like a super cute shoujo sparkles game of love and positivity and weird dark comedy laugh at poor virus mind thinking up silly strategies to make the humans love them, don’t pay attention to the fact you’re destroying 99% of civilization in every level Virus Mind: *puts tiny hats on the human assimilation army*

post is getting a bit long whoops

* I was also considering maybe this might even work better in an olden times jrpg setting? like, I was only thinking modern times cos thats your standard zombie game setting. or maybe future sci fi cos it could be an alien hivemind instead, but i just DO NOT LIKE sci fi so i wouldn’t be very good at writing that. But it could be like jrpg style and just like ‘the mysterious miasma that brings monsters’ and honestly there would be less Genre Rules if we’re defying tradition and mashing two genres together. And I wouldn’t be limited to what sorts of monsters I could design, which is the most important part! Also I wouldn’t really have to make it all super gross and gory and such. cos like.. i know the whole point is the subversion of the Doom Virus Of Zombies And Stuff being actually a good guy, and probably it’d be a bigger contrast if it was 100% stereotypical zombies, but also like.. i just don’t want to do it. It would be less playable by less people, and it’d be stressful to make too if i was designing characters that actually scare me. And when the whole point is that theyre NOT scary, then making them actually look it would probably just make the experience uncomfortable for everyone. But also of course like.. if they weren’t remotely MONSTERY or like SCARY IN-UNIVERSE then it also wouldnt work?? or not necessarily even scary but just like Cliche Dark Overlordy so the contrast exists. I DUNNO LOL I just know that its a hell of a lot more fun to design a whole lineup of fantasy monsters than just a bunch of gory crud. Also honestly wouldnt it be more terrifying to turn into a dragon or something instead of being exactly the same and just rotting slightly? THESE THINGS ARE SO DISSIMILAR IT IS FAR MORE SPOOKY, MY GUY also far more badass man i love dragons

* Also! a jrpg setting is just way less equipped to handle a ‘zombie phenomenon’. All the cliches would just totally not be there, they’d have to think up more creative and interesting solutions. And they also wouldnt have any perspective of seeing a bunch of movies about this, lol! And like.. wouldn’t it be interesting to think about a jrpg world where monsters have like.. a reason for being there? Theyre not a natural thing? And we’re seeing the genesis of when they first appeared in this world? Just imagine being a regular olden times peasant who’s never even seen a giraffe, and you just turn a corner and half your village is being destroyed by The First Dragon Ever And then this mysterious disembodied conciousness virus hivemind comes along and turns all the dead guys into more dragons and just What The Hap Is Fuckening, I Just Wanted To Churn Some Butter Today

* i dunno. I’m just trying to think about what should actually be changed to turn this from a weird dream into a real thing.

* Also like!! More creative ideas for the visuals! of how on earth it works! I was thinking maybe either The Mysterious Dark Fog or like The Black Snow or something? Some sort of ominous sign of reality being subtly wrong that foreshadows the impending approach of the monsters. And then the landscape itself is consumed and converted too, and its like ‘oh god do i try and venture into this twisted alien land to try and rescue my friend who got dragged off by that beast, or are they already dead?’ And then you see like a twisted corrupted reverse world of this town you’ve always known, where even the laws of physics don’t obey anymore. And its like... risking your own sanity with every second you run through this hellscape, and there’s the evil whispers from behind the trees that it would be so much easier to just give up and join the collective. Man, okay, that does actually sound like a good dark horror story, maybe it would be wasted on this premise lol? Maybe could have alternating chapters where you play as the virus and you play as the humans fleeing it? I DUNNO LOL

* I also had a vague idea for how it would work with there being poor sympathetic characters on the human side that you inevitably have to assimilate into the hivemind. I was thinking maybe they could also act like lesser ‘general’ units, like the one little girl assistant character but not quite as powerful. They wouldn’t retain as much sentience as she has, but they’d become particularly powerful monsters that could be super useful to the army. And maybe you could have sidequests to untangle their memories and resolve their last regrets? Like, get sympathetic and super depressed about these characters hours after you killed them. poor virus hivemind! it was all just a tragic misunderstanding!

* One idea I was thinking of was a duo of rival soldier guys, who I guess would be like.. warriors or town guards if this is gonna be olden times instead? Basically just generic early enemies in the first town. They’d be comic relief team rocket type guys, and hilariously inequipped to deal with the problem. And they’d kinda be jerks so you don’t feel bad for assimilating them. Not really bad guys or anything, just bad bosses who’re more obsessed with one-upping each other and getting fame and fortune than actually addressing the threat in front of them. They wouldnt believe any of the rumours about monsters until it’s too late, so its pretty much entirely their fault that the town gets so easily defeated by you. And I’m thinking maybe have them be a classic ‘grumpy and cheerful, serious and laid-back’ duo or something. though they both are equally as egotistical and competitive!

* So yeah you’d defeat them super early on in a tutorialy level, and then they’d become some of your most reliable army units for the rest of the game. I’m thinking they might actually be the ‘hug dragon’ type? And I was thinking of maybe the upgraded general version having more normal feathery wings, and these two would be colour coded. Purple and green rather than the more cliche red and blue, lol. And then like HOOOOOOOURS later you’d actually get some more backstory on these two and find out they weren’t really all that bad, and they never really hated each other. In fact they had a mutal crush that had gone unconfessed before they died, and that’s their last regret you need to fullfill to erase the last of their humanity :( Demon dragon things doing a little nose kiss :) But it symbolizes sadness :( And then maybe its possible to let one of them get away during the tutorial mission, but its impossible to spare both. And if one of them is left alive, he becomes a recurring enemy across the rest of the game and gradually develops from comic relief into a genuine threat because he’s gone mad from grief. And then in the final battle you could get an instant kill on him if you fight him with the monster that was once his friend. He just falls down crying and lets himself be taken so that he can see him again. THIS WAS WHAT I DREAMED ABOUT LAST NIGHT I KNOW I OFTEN ASK FOR SEQUELS TO MY DREAMS BUT THAT ONE WAS REALLY UNFAIR YO

* Tho I was also thinking that maybe in a golden ending you’d be able to restore the humanity of everyone you’d ever taken, at the cost of sacrificing your life. It’d be super depressing because lil girl assistant is the only one who ever knew you existed, and she’ll never be able to adjust back to a normal life knowing that you’re gone. And as far as everyone else knows you were just pure evil :( But i mean on the positive side you get to see grumpy guard and cheery guard all back to normal and like “wait why do i feel like i confessed my love to you while I was asleep, what happened”. And Then They Lived Happily Ever After

* Tho also i was thinking it’d be interesting and kind of a sequel hook if all the generals retained their powers even after being cured. Like they get their sentience back but theyre like.. were-dragons now. Thats one thing I think could actually work better in a modern day setting! Like, even after the whole thing is over, the government rounds up all the victims and experiments on them to try and discover more about the virus. “Hey please report to your local doctor for purely non sinister checkups” So were-dragon guard boyfriends have to go on the run from a shadowy government conspiracy that’s gained way too much power in the wake of this disaster. And maybe the villain in the sequel could be the government synthesizing a clone of the virus or something, and the original virus somehow comes back to fight it?

* I DUNNO LOL i just know it would be cute to imagine a were dragon wedding HOW DID THIS CONVERSATION GO FROM ZOMBIES TO END UP HERE