#other than that imo the real meat is a reveal of the relationship between the modern british royal family and modern british media

[shmreduplication]

i keep trying to reword this in different ways, lemme try bullet points

royal fiction is extremely concerned with who is next in line for the throne. It's on everyone's minds all the time and all the characters assume it's on everyone elses' minds all the time

Hamlet is v interesting because Ham seems to be the only person operating under the normal royal fiction mindset. He went from the king's son and heir to the king's stepson and heir-until-the-king-has-biological-offspring (presumably Gertrude hasn't had menopause yet) which is an extremely dangerous position to be in and nobody is worried for his life

Spare*, the prince henry memoir, is a really good contrast to royal fiction and a total flip from Hamlet. Everyone around Henry is aware of what being the spare in the modern age means and assumes he's as preoccupied with wanting to be the heir as everyone always is in royal fiction. Meanwhile Henry thinks his only job as spare has been the same job as all spares before him, just to stay alive

*i've posted about this book before and there are always notes about how it's ok for him to have been manipulated his whole life and have every mistake leaked to the press because he grew up as a literal prince, fuck off with that shit. Kids should be raised with love and kindness and respect regardless of the family they were born into

[galladerocksgamer]

I saw several other blogs passing this around and it looked fun so I decided I’d give it a shot and see if I can’t spread it around to some others to do too!

Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions!  Don’t look at them first. Then tag some people.

Gravity Falls

BoJack Horseman

My Hero Academia

Trollhunters

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Who is your favorite character in 2?

Wow I’ve never really stopped to consider this one that hard before.  My gut reaction is to say Todd because he is simply wonderful.  But Diane is definitely up there too, she’s a character that I really connected to in ways I didn’t expect.  Princess Carolyn is in the running too, her series-long character arc was one of the most heartbreaking and heartwarming.  I’m not sure I can pick one fave, I just love the development of these three.

Who is your least favorite character in 1? 

Uh geez I’m not sure I really have a LEAST favorite, I can’t think of anyone that I particularly dislike.  I mean sure there are characters that I dislike because they’re jerks, like Filbrick or Preston or (duh) Bill, but in terms of like disliking them as a character?  I’m probably gonna say Priscilla Northwest, she’s as much of a rich jerk as her husband but is a lot less entertaining.  Or maybe Gabe Bensen, he’s the least amusing of Mabel’s various love interests to me.

What is your favorite episode of 4? 

A House Divided.  Just ... no contest, it’s A House Divided.  Haven’t seen much else that just stops my dang heart like the ending of that episode.  It just HURTS OKAY.  In all the best ways.  Jimhunters and Unbecoming are very close seconds.

What is your favorite season of 5? 

Overall I think it’s gotta be Season 3.  There’s a lot that I love in Season 2 especially, but on the whole Season 3 just has so much going for it.  There’s some fantastic character development and new moral issues explored within the Fire Nation itself.  There’s the invasion, Zuko joining the Gaang and having various life-changing adventures, the Boiling Rock, the freaking Ember Island Players, and of course one of the absolute best series finales in television. So yeah, it’s gotta be Season 3.

Who is your favorite couple in 3? 

Tbh I don’t really have that many ships for MHA (probably in the minority on that one).  There’s really only two couples I’m particularly into, and that’s Mirio/Amajiki and Yaoyorozu/Jiro.  Mirio is just so supportive of Amajiki and they’re just cute and GAH they’re fantastic.  And Yaoyorozu and Jiro, I think it was the first movie that got me attached to them, they’re just super cute too.  They’re both just pure adorable pairs, I love them.

What is your favorite episode of 1? 

Once again, no contest, because Not What He Seems is just, like, my favorite episode of literally anything ever.  It’s just SO GOOD.  The culmination of so much story and theory, the animation, the music, the tension of the climax, the ending reveal.  It’s just.  The best.  Gosh.  Weirdmageddon 3 is definitely close, the best finale in animation imo, but just absolutely nothing beats Not What He Seems.

What is your favorite episode of 5? 

Okay now this one is actually tough.  I’m probably gonna say Zuko Alone, it’s just brimming with heartwarming and heartbreaking material, between Zuko’s childhood flashbacks and his touching - and tragic - present story.  The Tales of Ba Sing Se is the other top candidate, of course it has the tearjerker Iroh story that is probably my favorite thing in the whole series, but I also love, well, the whole thing.  The Katara/Toph and Zuko stories are so sweet and pure, the Sokka story is hilarious, and the Momo story is also dang sad.  The Blind Bandit, Sokka’s Master, and The Southern Raiders are also personal favorites.

what is your favorite season of 2? 

I am surprised I have a definitive answer for this because the whole series is so transcendentally great, but I do in fact have an answer, and it is Season 4.  It’s my favorite story arc of the series, with BoJack for once not having a special project to center his life on, still reeling from what happened to Sarah Lynn, and having Hollyhock and Beatrice rather suddenly entering his daily life.  It’s about the closest we ever see to BoJack having some semblance of a family life.  The whole storyline of Hollyhock and Beatrice is just fantastic, and it’s the start of the real meat of Todd and Princess Carolyn’s character arcs too - and ends with the setup for Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter finally breaking their destructive cycle.  Plus it’s got my two favorite episodes of the entire series - The Old Sugarman Place and Stupid Piece of Sh*t.  Also Time’s Arrow is definitely top 10, maybe even top 5.  Also also love Hooray! Todd Episode!  And Thoughts and Prayers.  And Ruthie.  Yeah seriously no contest it is my favorite season.

How long have you watched 1? 

I started watching Gravity Falls really near the beginning.  The first episode I watched was The Inconveniencing, the fifth episode overall, and after that I was immediately intrigued and went back and watched the first four.  After that, I watched the whole series as it went.

How did you become interested in 3? 

I don’t tend to watch a lot of anime, and my experience with shounen before MHA was touch-and-go.  Like I’m a big fan of Fairy Tail and to a lesser extent Dragon Ball but I’m still heavily critical of both and would have a hard time recommending them without a heavy disclaimer.  So it was something I’d considered before but never really took the plunge into watching until, funnily enough, my anime-adverse girlfriend decided to check it out.  She’s significantly less anime-invested than me (well, she used to be at least) but lo and behold, we both wound up obsessed with it.  Color me surprised that this series wasn’t being overhyped and didn’t come with the glaring flaws of every other shounen I’ve watched.  So now this is definitely my big interest of the moment, and I am grateful to have it.

Who is your favorite actor in 4? 

Anton Yelchin, he just brought so much heart and emotion to Jim.  He’s a big part of the reason that Unbecoming just snaps my heart in two, my gosh.  As for comedic delivery, Kelsey Grammer absolutely kills it as Blinky, not that I’d expect any less from him.  He just has so many lines that completely crack me up and that’s largely because of his delightfully hammy delivery.

Which do you prefer: 1, 2, or 5? 

Oh my gosh they are literally my three favorite pieces of media in existence.  But it’s Gravity Falls.  Like I would just roll over and die without any of these three but it’s not debatable, the absolute #1 in my heart is Gravity Falls.

If you could be anyone from 4, who would it be? 

Probably Toby?  I think I’d be good in the “well-meaning dorky disaster-prone best friend” role.

Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? 

Theoretically, maybe?  Magical troll warriors team up with superheroes to fight a wizard supervillian.  It could happen.

Pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple?

Hmm, not sure I have a good answer to this one.  I’ll just say Manly Dan and Tyler.  It’s not exactly an ODD pick because we see them together quite a few times and honestly they always look like a dang couple, but we never really see what their INTERACTION is like, so it’s kinda difficult to judge exactly how that relationship does/would work.  But I think it’s a nice one to think about.

Overall, which show has the best storyline: 3 or 5?

Oof.  Probably gonna have to say AtLA on this one, if only because MHA isn’t exactly that focused on a super-condensed story at this point?  Its progress tends to come through more world-building and character development than major plot beats, though it certainly has that too.  So yeah I’ll say AtLA.

Which has better theme music: 2 or 4? 

Oh absolutely BoJack, it’s one of my favorite theme songs.

Okay, I’m only gonna actually tag @immaplatypus for this, but if you see this and want to do it then absolutely go right ahead and do it!  I’ve had fun seeing some other people doing these and would love to see even more going forward.

[zdbztumble]

So About That Roxas…

Well, it’s that time - time to invite unholy disdain upon myself for my blasphemous views on fan favorite Roxas!

OK, that’s an exaggeration. I don’t know how unpopular what I’m about to say really is. And to make this perfectly clear up-front - I don’t dislike Roxas. I think he’s a fine character, and his (very) long prologue is one of the strongest parts of KH II. But I do find Roxas more valuable and compelling in how he relates to other characters, and in the fact that he is an aspect of Sora, than in his own right. All on his own, I don’t find Roxas to be particularly active or interesting.

And that isn’t a flaw. Given what Nobodies are (prior to DDD, at least), I would expect that from Roxas. Almost every member of Organization XIII isn’t terribly dynamic or dimensional on their own merits - their personalities are one-note (if that), which can be by turns tragic, obnoxious, or an effective foil for the protagonists. When Roxas draws jealousy from Hayner, general confusion from his friend group, some amount of pathos from Axel, mixed emotions from Riku and disdain from DiZ, and attraction from Namine, he’s a great example of the latter. I never find him obnoxious, and when he is on his own, there is a sense of tragedy with him. Because while Roxas may have agency, and does display a curiosity - almost an obsession, after a while - with gaining answers for the strange things happening to him, he’s ultimately empty. None of his joys, none of his curiosity - and not even his rages and despairs - last. He ends up defaulting, always, into a quiet, resigned, and hollow state, and he doesn’t seem happy about that. 

This is true of the Twilight Town prologue, at least. In the brief flashbacks we’re given in KH II, and at the beginning of the Sora/Roxas fight, a different Roxas appears. He’s still empty at the core, but his front to the world is crueler, dismissive even of the words of his supposed best friend Axel, and predatory. We learn later in the game that DiZ altered Roxas’s personality when he dropped him into the digital Twilight Town, and it’s not hard to see why. Even with the altered personality, the strongest display of feeling Roxas can manage is anger. It’s only when Roxas confronts Sora, accepts him as “a good other,” and fully rejoins with him, that Roxas appears genuinely happy and alive in KH II.

But I do have problems with how Roxas is used, in KH II and especially in 358/2 Days. To start with II - there are some pretty big missed opportunities. Roxas was a member of Organization XIII, presumably working toward their goals (to go just on what we see in KH II), and every member of the Organization who sees Sora recognizes Roxas within him. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have someone else do the same? If, when visiting one of the Disney worlds that Sora hasn’t been to before, there was a character who had a negative encounter with Roxas, and therefore fears Sora and the Keyblade?

The lack of any such scene speaks to a larger problem with Roxas in KH II: his limited relevance once the prologue ends. He does come up here and there throughout the play time, which I do appreciate, but he doesn’t really have an impact on Sora before their clash other than as a source of mild confusion. Sora’s reactions to being called by Roxas’s name never progress much past “huh? Cut that out!” and he has no real reaction to learning that his own Nobody was a member of Organization XIII. Had Roxas’s activities over the past year created a negative consequence that Sora had to deal with, that might have invited some internal conflict within Sora’s heart, culminating in a much more emotionally charged clash with Organizers like Xibar and Saix. Hell, even without such a scene, the knowledge that a part of him was a member of the bad guys could have, and should have, made Sora feel at least a little upset. That’s not to say that the absence of such a mini-arc is a dealbreaker for KH II; what we did get works well enough. But, much like Roxas himself, something seems to be missing.

A future game might have been able to address this issue...had it not been for 358/2 Days.

This isn’t a revisit of Days; I can’t very well revisit a game I only ever played the first few minutes of, years ago, before losing touch with the friend who had the DS card for it. You’ll get no views of the gameplay here. But I am familiar with Days; I’ve read the breakdowns, researched its writing, and watched the movie multiple times. And I gotta tell ya - I know the game has its fans, and it may have some strengths and concepts missing from other titles, but I really don’t care for its story. And that has a lot to do with how it mishandles Roxas.

I’ll start with a caveat - I am not the audience for Days. At no point while playing KH II did I ever want to know any more about Roxas or the Organization than that game saw fit to reveal. What we got was enough for them to work as the villains in that story, and that’s all I ever needed them to be. This was always going to be an easy title for me to skip, or at least not take any real interest in. But that’s a matter of taste. Plenty of people take more interest in the backstories of Roxas and the Organization than I do, and this was perfectly acceptable as a subject for a midquel game. But the execution, IMO, is a complete mess. It ignores or retcons several of the snippets we get about the Organization in KH II, to poor effect, and fails to expand on any of the villainous Organizers in a way that might turn them from one-note video game bosses and elements of a hive mind into fleshed-out characters. Axel is given several coats of whitewash, and his history with Saix lacks any resonance when Saix is left as such a hollow villain. There’s no playing alongside Disney characters in a game so given over to original KH lore, and that lore is rewritten in ways I don’t like. The trends of mystery for its own sake and teasing histories and future events at the expense of the story at hand continue, the same few points of lore and logistics are over-stressed, and the dialogue and voice acting just isn’t good (and can anyone tell me why they re-dubbed Christopher Lee in the HD movie version? I mean...it’s Christopher Lee!)

But as I said, the real problem is with Roxas. For a character meant to be the protagonist, Roxas cedes a lot of narrative real estate to new character Xion. Like Days itself, I know Xion has fans - ardent fans. I can’t argue with that, nor would I want to; you can like what you like, and I won’t assess and critique her as a character here. But all I can say about Xion is that, as a writer, she strikes me as redundant. A member of Organization XIII, unusually lacking in knowledge about their life beforehand, wielding the Keyblade, inducted into the Organization within this game, derived from Sora through unusual means, with a connection to Kairi and whose existence arrests Sora’s full restoration from the events of CoM; setting her character aside, Xion’s narrative function is exactly what Roxas’s was established to be by KH II.

One could say that the game makes a point of this, turning it into an orchestrated conflict between the two by Xemnas, but practically speaking, this means that Roxas spends a key chunk of the story displaced. He becomes a friend on the sidelines as the real meat of the story concerns a character who, from the very beginning, anyone who played KH II would know isn’t going to matter past this game. This ends up making Xion more important, and more interesting, than Roxas within Days itself. But almost everything that Xion goes through could have easily been given to him by dint of what we see in KH II. That Sora’s restoration is upset because his memories of Kairi are being absorbed into another being would have been especially appropriate for Roxas, since Kairi’s very name is always fractured in the restoration process during II’s prologue at first, and the process itself is at such a low number despite a year having passed until Roxas is in DiZ’s hands. Those character elements unique to Xion herself, and the conflict between her and Roxas engineered by Xemnas, aren’t enough to justify her presence in the larger KH story IMO, and end up confusing elements of the lore (replicas, memories, etc.) If she had been cut, and those aspects of her story relating to Sora’s restoration given to Roxas, the story and lore integrity would’ve been better for it.

But that wouldn’t have solved everything wrong with Roxas in Days. Let’s look back at what KH II shows us of a pre-DiZ Roxas again. A cold and predatory figure; the Dusks who first come for him in Twilight Town address him as their “liege,” implying that they served him the way other Nobodies serve the Organizers; the Organizers themselves seem to have been quite close to Roxas, taking his betrayal hard and referring to him as “brother.” And Organization XIII, as we see it in KH II vanilla, is a collective, with no real secret about its motives within the ranks - that motive being, in so many words, to let the remaining Heartless continue their genocide across the worlds just so that they can swoop in with the Keyblade, harvest the captive hearts, and offer them up to their Kingdom Hearts in a mad bid to gain hearts of their own.

So why is Roxas so innocent in Days?

That cold exterior, the flashes of temper - that’s not what we get from Roxas here. What we get is a blank slate who becomes a puppy as he strikes up a buddy-buddy relationship with Axel, and who later performs the same function for Xion. He talks about fighting the darkness and asks hopefully if he’s performing “good” deeds. His interactions with his friends show him to be cheerful and open. The Samurai are supposedly under his command, but that’s a detail relegated to the reports. His relationships with anyone in the Organization other than Axel and Xion don’t even warrant scenes in the movie, and nothing suggests that they would deem him “brother;” Saix and Xemnas regard him as no more than a tool . And even though he’s destroying Heartless with the Keyblade, and those hearts are becoming part of the Organization’s Kingdom Hearts...somehow this is a point he needs explained several times? And he and Xion openly doubt why they need hearts at all - a point presented as one to be sympathetic toward, despite everything from KH II and a good chunk of this very game stressing that it is in fact a problem that Nobodies lack hearts?

This is not what was indicated in KH II. What’s worse, it’s boring. A far more effective choice IMO would have been to let Roxas be villainous. Go the dark protagonist route; give us a cold hunter of a character, with the impulsive anger and fractured psyche Sora showed in CoM, fully aware of what the Organization is up to and the price that others will pay for it and still committed to the cause. Then, when the events of CoM play out in the background, and fragments of Sora’s memories find their way to Roxas (assuming we still cut Xion in this scenario), that’s the turning point. That’s when Roxas can doubt the Organization’s cause, when he can begin to question his lack of memories and his true identity, and betray the Organization by setting out to find Sora. Give him two separate fights with Riku, to justify the dialogue claiming such in KH II. Let him develop some awareness of Namine after he gets Sora’s memories; Namine’s dialogue in KH II indicates that they’ve never met before, but a connection at a distance could serve to give more substance to their relationship, and supply Namine with opportunities to develop as a character. Depict the scenes where she first comes into contact with DiZ and Riku, agrees to take on their help in restoring Sora’s memories, and feels conflicted about the moral gray area their harsh but necessary actions occupy. Let her be ultimately responsible for setting Riku on the right trail that ends up bringing Roxas into their hands.

Of course, one reason why they may have opted not to do this is because having a dark protagonist complicit in an evil scheme involving the deaths of countless people may have been difficult to pull off while still earning an E10 rating at most. And honestly, the story told by Days doesn’t strike me as  necessarily the best fit for a video game even as-is. They might have been better off with planning it as a proper movie from the get-go, instead of a string of cutscenes divorced from the gameplay as they ultimately presented it in the HD collections.

And another objection to this approach might have been that a villainous Roxas and morally ambiguous Namine might have been less “likable,” and therefore less usable in future titles. To that I say - so what? I didn’t want Roxas and Namine as characters in any titles past KH II anyway - not because they were bad characters, or because I didn’t like them, but because their stories concluded. Concluded on terms they chose, and were at peace with. It was tinged with a bittersweet quality, but they did get a “happy” ending. If a midquel story complicated their morality, that wouldn’t negate the events of KH II or the resolution they received; it would have created a journey to get them to that point, starting from a much darker place, and given more weight to the idea that it was necessary for them to rejoin with Sora and Kairi. I’d argue that would enrich what we see in KH II, whereas the actual route they took in titles like DDD and KH III disregards or undermines everything that made the ending of KH II work.

[thirdmagic]

anyway now that i'm finally back on browser and can write long posts, full spoilery thoughts on rise of skywalker

i had a lot of time to think about it and honestly the more i did the more i went from 'i liked and was ok with most of it until the ending' and now the more i actually thought about it the more it progressed to 'actually, i kind of hate it, and there are individual moments that are very good that i love and then the ending ruins that too and now it rings horribly hollow and now i'm just sad and disappointed and also baffled at this whole movie'

first of all, the good part is: REYLO REYLO REYLO REYLO REYLO REYLO REYLO R E Y L O

i admit i had a very embarrassing reaction of pure unfiltered joy when they kissed because it was such a perfect moment, but also, in general? all the bits involving these two were easily the strongest and the most compelling. a lot of other very stupid bad moments tangled in between, but on the whole, when it was just them, their dynamic, their force bond, it was really intense and spicy and so resonant and beautiful all at one. i love them so so so much. their dynamic is SO juicy and good, their fights were amazing and gorgeous and also spicy and intense, and then the bits of palpatine fight where they interact without any words and just look at each other and you can just tell exactly what's going on without them even needing to say anything, the way they smile at each other and the love in their eyes, the tenderness in every motion, the encouragement when they see each other through the force bond in the middle of the ritual and rey just knows.... these moments are some of the best filmmaking in this whole movie.

unfortunately that was also when we got the bizzare exposition dump on her dumb backstory retcon that's very very delicately done so as to still be consistent with tlj and and this brings me to rey palpatine, which, on the one hand, is kind of the only rey heritage theory i'd ever accept and (ironically) the lesser of several evils that the heritage theories are, but also the undoing of what was really, really compelling in tlj about rey nobody and the horrible waste of potential that came from rey being a Nobody McNothing, her search for identity and ultimately accepting that it doesn't actually make her lesser as a human being, the potential that this movie is when she'll face her insecurities and emptiness and accept herself and find and forge her own path.... and also honestly it's dumb. it's really really dumb. if it had been built up to in any way in any of these movies, that would be one thing, and i actually find a lot of rey's struggles really interesting in concept but just awful and messy and forced in execution, and the idea of rey struggling with being good against an evil legacy and her own darkness is really compelling too, but rey doesn't need to be a palpatine or to want revenge on her actually good parents when being abandoned and alone her whole life is a very very good reason for her to have anger and hatred and darkness to struggle with. it also implies that she's evil because her great grandpa who she never met is evil and because genetics as opposed to like....... again, being abandoned and sold by two asshole jerk parents and having to repress the awful trauma of that her whole life and being unable to come to terms with it, which was interesting, and powerful, and very very real, and then it just throws away a really compelling set up for something really boring and bad. and then an ending for her that has no impact or emotional resonance and makes no sense and isn't in the least bit satisfying.

i will say though that i love love LOVE the dark rey fight, it was a vision but in the exact right Symbolic way, i loved rey struggling with her darkness in theory and it was the one and only part that was executed well, it was truly something that felt like it belonged here, it was eerie and intense and good. and unfortunately not properly followed on in any interesting way.

there were a few jokes that i liked and found funny! the way c3po says 'irony, sir' when poe asks him 'why can you not talk when we NEED you to' has me losing my shit, that was great, and also poe lighting the flashlight when rey uses her lightsaber as one was also hilarious. in general there were definitely a few actually purposefully funny moments that i liked.

ben's whole storyline up til the end was the only thing that really felt consistent and on track imo, a few missteps but mostly stayed solid, and I was very happy to get my bendemption. i can't describe how emotional i got at the scene with han and him throwing away his evil red saber and him calling han 'dad', and the force awakens callback-- i don't know why han is back as a ghost or if that's just a symbolic illusion or whatever, i don't care. adam driver is magnificent, and seeing him as ben again, seeing him comfortable with himself, and happy, on the light side, being playful while fighting and messing with the knights of ren because he’s so powerful and confident in his power, was worth everything. if there's one thing this movie really did right is that it made me suddenly realize that i actually love kylo-ben and also made me realize that i was so much more invested in his happiness than i thought, and unfortunately it made me realize this right as the story gave him maybe a few minutes or seconds of real joy and a beautiful sincere happy smile and then killed him off, and that's when i felt my soul being crushed.

look, i don't have tragic endings, okay, i don't hate even bittersweet endings, the purpose of an ending is to be satisfying and wrap up and tie together all the story strands in a way that makes sense for the story. that's not what this was. i would be willing to forgive the fact that the rest of the movie was a big stupid mess if it had just given the whole saga a proper ending, if it had been like umineko episode 8 which is also a big mess but with a perfect, beautiful, satisfying ending for the entire vn. but instead this just ruined everything, and made me feel miserable, hollow, and sad. this specific story, and trilogy, and nine part saga, did not need that kind of ending. we had a tragic and bittersweet ending for the first two, a happy ending to redeem all the misery of the skywalkers would have felt sincere instead of saccharine because you feel that they fought for it. and it would be a good complement to the rest of the movies and the message. instead we have two people who have both been lonely and emotionally isolated their entire lives finding solace and happiness and comfort in each other, finally finding a true connection and someone who understands them, but only getting to be together for all five minutes before the story rips them apart. and for what? what is this trying to say? what is the point? what is the point of doing that to either of them? how does this serve the story? what is the purpose of this? the tragedy and the depressing ending of the prequels is purposeful and intended and is done to make a point, because it's the story of a fall from the very start, by design, by its very premise. the tragedy of umineko is purposeful and done to make a point because it is about how these tragedies happen, and why, and the human behaviors that lead to them. how is it a good ending and how does it serve and complement anything in the rest of the saga to have one tragedy and one happy story with a bittersweet ending be concluded with a hollow pretension of a happy ending where one main character is miserable his entire life and dies when he’s still young after only a taste of the happiness that’s been denied to him, and the other loses her soulmate and is alone and surrounded by people who she herself said don't really know and understand her? taking on the name of a more famous family as if that's the only way she can forge and identity and meaning for herself?

ben's death actually had me so down and so sad i can't even be angry, honestly. the rest of the movie was full of dumb shit, it's like 80% mcguffin chasing with barley any actual character development or any substance and meat to it, rey-finn-poe have no chemistry because they were never supposed to have because they were never meant to be the trio of the movies until oscar isaac convinced jj to let poe live and that messed everything up because the thematic trio of these movies is finn-rey-ben, rose being sidelined because we need to please the racists who are threatened by her existence i guess and her relationship to finn ignored, the absolute waste of all the new characters and the incredibly stupid hux reveal that's also for naught right afterwards, rey's force lightning, the chewie death fakeout, the entire final battle being a big mess, finn not doing anything interesting or meaningful, the general weird bizarre baffling writing and dialogue choices and how it reads and plays out like something completely disconnected from not just the rest of the trilogy but the entire 9 movies and feels like a messy rough draft that a completed screenplay, and the all over the place pacing and everything... i would have accepted this is a weird, entertaining, fun movie if it weren't for the horribly depressing ending that makes what the creators apparently thinks is a happy ending ring terribly hollow and make me unable to find any joy in it. it's just so depressing i don't have the energy to even be fired up about hating it and i sincerely cannot for the life of me understand why it went this way. how is 'if you're miserable your entire life and make bad choices because of it your only way to redeem yourself is to sacrifice your life and have your one chance at happiness taken away from you because you don't deserve to live past your attempts to fix your mistakes and don't get to have a better life for your efforts'? how is that supposed to mesh with the rest of the story? how is that hopeful or uplifting or anything this saga is supposed to be? what even is this movie about other than the old and tried and redone ten million times 'believe in yourself and the friends you made along the way' message that means nothing at this point?

so yeah. thing bad. and i don’t even have the energy to be salty or angry. i’m just sad and disappointed and depressed about it all. and you know, coming from me, i’m very lenient and can find the good in nearly anything and can appreciate a lot of flawed and otherwise messy media for what it tries to do and for the good it does have. i love all the movies in the saga and i’m still a prequel fan. and the fact that i found this to be so disappointing and unsalvageable and tried to be positive about it and failed should tell you something. 

anyway i'm going to go get a warm blanket, some ice cream or other comfort food while i go watch tlj again to cleanse myself and remember what good movies made by people who understand what's important are like, and maybe go watch marriage story and whatever other stuff adam driver is in, and find a way to watch knives out again, and then binge on the most self indulgent reylo fanfic i can find and a lot of fix-its to heal my soul. i'm not going to stop liking or caring about star wars, or this trilogy, which had one very pleasant solid movie and one excellent and fantastic one, and plenty of other good content out there, just because the last movie dropped the ball so hard, but i am going to stew in my sadness and angst about it for a good long while.

[thedouglastrap]

So I binged my way through Meat and Candy tonight. I’m gonna have to go through a reread because...yeah, it’s pretty dang dense. I am SURE i missed things. But I feel like I got a general feel for where both were going on the whole. And you know what? (Spoilers ahead.)

I fucking loved it. 

At least, if I can figure out where to start. I guess i’ll start with where I was coming into this: I am not holding my breath too hard for it, but I’m also not 100% sold that this ride is over. Even with just the prologue of the epilogue it feels less like this epilogue is a true ending and, not unlike the Intermissions and Sub-Acts, more like it’s Hussie further playing with the structures used to define the parts of a story. I mean, that we got a prologue to an epilogue feels like that’s not out of the realm of possibility, never mind that V was implying how long it was.

And man, it was long. 43/41 chapters? Roughly 700 pages? Hot damn. It probably didn’t help that I started with Meat, got to Dirk manipulating Rose into joining him, and then stopped to read candy because Dirk basically said that’s what Rose was looking at. Except that I’m super glad that I did that? Like, I know V said that reading one or the other first would make for a different story, but I feel like I got the best of both worlds there? Like, I knew about Dirk’s metatextual fuckery going into Candy, but didn’t know where it would end. So when Alt!Callie shows up talking about the prince, how he had no influence in that universe, i knew where she was going with it, I knew how it tied in. 

I guess that made me lose out a bit on Candy, knowing that the war and john’s interpersonal relationships and everything with DaveJadeKat was ultimately a side tangent, but...I feel like that was kinda warned against up from the prologue anyway? And even with that in mind, I still got invested. I was so happy when John and Roxy got together, Dirk’s suicide took on a whole new level of ominous, and when I started feeling more and more like the characters were a bit off, it made sense. I see people saying “Saying it’s intentionally bad doesn’t excuse bad writing, just write something good!”, but...I don’t think it was BAD per se. It was unsettling, sure. It was offputting, definitely. But from an in-universe perspective, we’re getting things on fast forward. Over those chapters we went what, 10-20 years beyond the 5 year timeskip we started with? Like, everyone starts at 23, when for the most part we haven’t had any meaningful interaction with them since they were 16. That’s a huge difference. The only real exception to that, I’d say, is Jane in the snaps, where she’s a corporate headpiece that’s clearly dealing with some issues with the trolls. Hmm, I wonder where that leads? 

And then everyone else gets the mix of six years of growth in a strange new world, unresolved mental/emotional issues of all shapes and sizes, AND the increasing distance from canonicity that Rose warned of throwing things off, it’s no wonder people are a bit off, even if certain core elements remain the same. Roxy is the one who’s the most off, but I’d think they’re probably the one of the people most strained by the events of Candy, between the distance with Callie sneaking up on her, Dirk’s suicide, John’s bullshit, and everything else happening around her. Esp her bit at the end about her own growth and reality and stuff. And Jane’s a fascist, but honestly? It was a slow descent that kinda tracked imo. She always had anger issues, she’s prone to ignoring the advice of her friends, iirc she didn’t really seem to have any issue with crockercorp despite its being shady even pre-mind control, and the snaps showed that she’s dealing with intra-species tensions. Was she a junior-fascist in HS? No, but did she have to be? Growth isn’t always positive, m’dudes. 

Realistically, my biggest issues with Candy were Gamzee and Vriska. Not their scene together (which was...uncomfortable but managable), but more their just kinda...being there? But the more I think about it (and their scene together), the more that fits as well. It’s Candy, it’s all about character-building fluff that doesn’t necessarily tie in directly to plot stuff.

On to Meat. Oh man, Meat. While Homestuck proper did plenty of things that should be innocuous but ended up being more, I was still floored by just how OMINOUS it was when the narration turned orange. Like, holy crap man. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The loop of everyone entering the juju, coming out, and depositing John alone in the furthest ring ties up that loose end pretty neatly. I was kinda confused at first with it flipping back to the political shenanigans at first. Like, they’re high stakes, but against the context of dealing with LE it seemed off. THEN we hit the dirk reveal and suddenly things go into overdrive. The back and forth between Callie and Dirk was great, and esp with the end of Candy in mind, the manipulations of Dirk just felt...chilling. And that’s the other side of “out of character stuff”. Where Candy was their fading canonicity, Meat is Dirk’s manipulating them into not being who they are. Again, they’re out of character due to outside interference, in this case Dirk trying to make them do what he thinks is best for them. Which was freaky and fucked up and offputting and how could that not be intentional? And then the Johnrezi snuck up on me and oh damn my heart. And Dave’s “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD” moment? Nice. 

The real kicker tho is the ending. Like, that cliffhanger...I think that’s my biggest issue with Meat. It’s not character stuff, or plot stuff, or Jade being left comatose and less relevant again (the last one being the only thing that actually bothered me of those). It’s that the ending is DEMANDING followup and there’s no assurance that we’re going to get it. If we don’t actually get anything to follow up, to show where that goes, I am going to be so disappointed. Candy ended...mostly conclusively. The war isn’t over, there’s still conflict, but john’s on his way up, he and Roxy are def on the mend even if they don’t get back together, and it just kinda works. But Meat’s end...there’s no closure, just the call to action. And it’s not like, the end of Animorphs where the cliffhanger is adding a brief moment of action that’s unrelated to what preceeded. It’s a cliffhanger after (for me at least) 190k words of progress. 

Also, Holo-Obama (Holobama?) was amazing, that blend of silly and just ominous enough that i can’t help but feel that it implies dirk was working on this plan for a lot longer than expected. And come on, how could Obama be anything but a Hope player?

Edit: got the actual word/pagecount from V’s twitter

[orionsangel86]

Destiel Going Canon? Key themes to look out for...

So I recently answered this ask and mentioned that I have a few key indicators that I am looking out for in the show which for me personally, will confirm the path the writers are taking in relation to endgame Destiel. I wasn’t thinking too much at the time about outlining those indicators, but since both @destielrose and @carasauruswrex asked me to talk about them, as well as getting the below ask from a nonny:

I figured I’d talk about about the kind of indicators I’m looking for. 

Usually I don’t like going on about this stuff too much because there is always a risk that too many people will take my random indicators really seriously and start seriously getting upset with the show if they don’t actually happen, and I don’t want that to be the case. Also because ultimately I have no idea how they are planning to progress this story regarding Bi!Dean and Destiel and anything I say is pure speculation based on my own logical understanding of how to build a decent narrative that would make sense to the audience.

The fact also remains that even if we DO get all the indicators I may mention, it still doesn’t actually mean 100% the writers will go ahead and make destiel an undeniably canon pairing. I can’t predict the future, I just happen to like looking into all this stuff and asking why when certain themes are continuously used in a narrative. So please don’t take this post for gospel. It’s all speculation. 

A while back I wrote a post about “preparing the audience” in which I explained how the show has a way of preparing the audience for anything that may surprise it, by adding in “buffers” which acclimatise the audience to certain concepts such as Cas formerly being in a female vessel. I spoke about how this is a clever way of trying to deal with an audience of extremely mixed opinions, political views, intelligence, tolerance, etc. and trying to please everyone whilst taking baby steps towards their own ultimate goals.

When I talk about key indicators for canon endgame destiel, I am talking about the continuation of using these buffers (some examples of which I outlined in that post). When I wrote that post, 12x19 had only just aired, and I was still reeling with utter disbelief that they would include a scene where Dean gives Cas a mixtape in a supremely intimate moment that made me feel like an intruder to my own TV screen. Never would I have begun to imagine that season 13 could have made it so much worse. 

Starting with where we are currently, it can no longer be denied that Dean and Cas love each other deeply. This has been made textual over and over again in season 13 on Dean’s side and was made pretty damn clear in 12x12 on Cas’s side (also arguably in 13x04 though far more subtle). The audience already knows that whatever these guys have, it goes beyond a standard friendship, and also goes beyond a brotherly bond because of the clear comparisons in Cas’s relationship with Dean and his relationship with Sam.

So what are the main hurdles left in order to establish destiel as a legitimate pairing?

The first and most obvious is sexuality. To a heteronormative audience, they would look at both Dean and Cas and say “they are straight guys”. Therefore the main indicators I would be looking for are to do with sexuality and bringing them both out of the closet.

Now Cas has never shown much interest in sex or sexuality, but he has only canonically been with women, so it’s easy to understand why certain people (heteronormative GA people) would still see him as straight. A key indicator then would be to somehow imply that Cas doesn’t give a shit about sexuality and is not straight.

You might want to interrupt me here and say “but Saz, we already had that in 7x01 and in 10x17″! Why YES we did! That’s right! So the key indicators would be LIKE those moments but stronger. For instance having a man flirt with Cas and Cas showing some interest (bonus points if he looks and is dressed like Dean). or we get another “teachable moments” scene between Cas and the boys and Cas specifically asks them about MEN much to their surprise. Cas getting grumpy about them going on about waitresses and instead asks them what they think of the waiter for example. It doesn’t have to be huge, but another reminder of this would be excellent timing.

For DEAN however any indicator for this category would be huge. I wrote a whole bloody post on his bisexual reveal, and I feel that Dean coming out of the closet would be the biggest indicator of them all that Destiel is going canon. Because well, that’s been the whole debate right? It’s the one thing holding the GA back from even CONSIDERING Destiel. “Dean is Straight!” they say. 

So whilst I am partly hoping for a bisexual reveal within this season (or at least early next season) other key indicators would be more noteworthy moments such as 8x13 Aaron scene. Or the glorious confessional scene in 10x16. Something that imo is substantial meat to the bisexual reading that isn’t easily argued away by an anti. Something that is enough to make the GA go “wait a minute...”

Those are obviously the biggest indicators. Though there are other things I would of course think would be huge moments as well.

Sam Winchester being more and more exasperated as per 12x10.

Sam dropping more hints. Conversations like 11x02 for example. Or in light of his current arc saying something to Dean like “you don’t know what it’s like because YOU have CAS”. 

I also think it will be a HUGE deal if either Sam or Dean ADMITS to Cas what it was actually like when Cas was dead during 13x01 to 13x05. Because Cas has NO IDEA. I would prefer this conversation to come from Sam. Sort of in a situation where Dean has an argument with Cas because Cas wants to go off and be a self sacrificial dumbass again for Jack and Dean isn’t happy about it and storms off, and then Sam just says something like “you need to understand Cas, you don’t know what it was like when you were gone. Your death broke my brother. Please don’t die again. Because I’m frightened if that happens I’ll be burning TWO bodies on a pyre...”

The other moments I would be looking out for are small things such as:

Dean’s bedside table moving back to the other side of the bed the way it was in 9x14, 

A picture of Cas in amongst Dean’s current photo collection, or one of Dean on Cas’s phone. 

The mixtape coming back into play somehow. 

Cas moving into the Bunker permanently and being shown to have his own room (this was an ambiguous topic in 12x19 as it appeared that Dean was running to a room allocated to Cas but it was debated that the room was also used to house Mary at one time so maybe what I’m asking for here is a Bunker room that Cas has personalised somehow.)

Other characters referring to them as a couple again. We used to get this a lot in the earlier seasons, but it hasn’t happened hardly at all recently and I actually consider this quite telling. The change came around the s8 time period which we also consider as the same time that TPTB decided to treat Destiel as a serious narrative in the show. The only times it DID happen after that was in 10x05 which doesn’t really count because it was a celebration of fandom and can be isolated from the actual narrative and also in 10x14 in a deleted scene, and that whole moment seemed less like a joke and more like a serious conversation where BOTH parties involved were admitting their very real and very non platonic love for Dean. It didn’t read the same way as the earlier characters joking about them being boyfriends, it read far too serious (which is why I think it was cut). So to bring this back, to have people like Rowena, Anael, Ketch, even Claire or Alex or someone non threatening, start referring to them as a couple to get a rise out of them would be interesting, because it would also be textually reminding the general audience that this is *a thing* in this show and get them thinking about it again... buffers people. Buffers are important. 

More scenes together/ shots where they are literally together. It has been the case in the later seasons that Dean and Cas have been separated quite a lot due to various plot reasons. I also stand by my own reasoning that if they did keep them together, the scenes between them at this point would be so freaking intimate it would be hard to watch without feeling like an intruder (10x03 and 12x19 are obvious examples of this) so for the writers to start introducing MORE scenes of Dean and Cas TOGETHER (and more specifically together and alone) it would be interesting to see their interactions and if they build on the destiel subplot - because they can hardly avoid it. Just having them interact in intimate ways is the best way now to start getting the audience used to what should in theory hopefully become a canon romantic relationship.

That’s everything I have right now. But like I said above I stress that none of these things would actually MEAN Destiel is going canon (except maybe a coming out episode for Dean) just that they would make me feel more and more convinced of the writers plan if they WERE introduced, whereas if we do just happily plod along in season 13 and NONE of the above happen at all, then I will definitely feel a bit disappointed. At the same time even if they don’t introduce any of the above, they may instead introduce a whole bunch of other stuff that I absolutely couldn’t have predicted (like the MIXTAPE) and throw me totally off guard. 

Ultimately, if we get another run of episodes like 12x10 - 12x12 and 12x19 I will be extremely happily and on cloud 9 about my feelings for destiel. Those episodes alone already raised my hopes and expectations for it as endgame, and season 13 episodes 1-6 solidified that, so really they can only go up from here. It’s just a case of ensuring that the show remains on track towards canon destiel rather than derailing somewhere along the line, but as of this moment this canon train definitely hasn’t derailed.