#the desired endpoint

[bigskydreaming]

The thing that kills me about the Star Wars prequel trilogy and why I will die on my hill that my problem is not that Star Wars is a tragedy, its that its a badly written tragedy, is that Anakin Skywalker was at his closest to being a good Jedi when he was ten years old.

[hadesoftheladies]

it's a little funny, because the endpoint of femininity is being the perfect partner to a man. that's literally what femininity is for. that's why it exists. the beauty industry's entire focus is catering to male desire. you aren't taught from day one to be demure just for the sake. it's because you're supposed to be the wife of some man. yet on this site, we can criticize and be sceptical about heels and plastic surgery, but not the end-goal of that career: romantic partnerships with men.

[alicesoinions]

Aspects

My views on Homestuck's Aspects. Part of this analysis is the idea that Aspects have relationships to each other, each bringing the other about.

I will use my own custom Aspect symbols throughout, but the analysis itself is based on canon.

Space

Space is the Aspect of beginnings, of new things. Space experiments and improvises. Space cares about what is possible now, and cares more about the discoveries made in a journey than about a specific endpoint. Space is infinite discovery and potential.

Space is represented by art, fashion, atoms, and frogs.

Space is the color of the night sky, empty beyond human perception, endless and unfathomable but not featureless. Inky darkness, dotted by stars. Space has no color at all, which sometimes results in it using Sburb’s default texture.

Space is opposed to the Aspect of Time.

Space is the fundamental force of creation that gives rise to the duality of Life and Doom well as the unknown mysteries of Void.

Void

Void is the Aspect of the unknown. Of hidden, ill-defined things impossible for us to know or give names to. Void is the Aspect of true reality, of things on a spectrum, of quantum and biology.

Void is represented by water, darkness, and pumpkins.

Void is the color of deep waters, hiding what lies within; its color somewhere on a gradient, but impossible for humans to pinpoint or define no matter how long they stare; Void is the shifting hues of the color of the sky.

Void is opposed to the Aspect of Light.

The unexplored unknowns of the Void hide the untapped potential that is Space, leading to new creation.

Life

Life is the Aspect of agency and self-direction. Life is self-directed and idealistic; Life concerns itself primarily with what Life wants to do, not caring for obstacles or drawbacks. Life sees an infinitude of options, and picks the one it desires.

Life is represented by plants, food, coins, and wealth.

Life is opposed to the Aspect of Doom.

The ultimate freedom to do whatever one wants eventually leads to the ennui of Breath. The interplay of Life and Doom leads to defining one's self in Heart or hiding in Mind.

Doom

Doom is the Aspect of fate and constraint. Doom has burdens and limitations; Doom concerns itself with practical issues instead of lofty ideals. Doom sees no escape or negotiation, going with what others demand of you.

Doom is represented by skulls, death, and fire.

Doom is opposed to the Aspect of Life.

The practical matters and the knowledge of our limits leads to the endless toil of Blood. The interplay of Life and Doom leads defining one's self in Heart or hiding in Mind.

Breath

Breath is the Aspect of detachment. Breath goes with the flow, not caring about anything or anyone in particular; Breath does whatever feels right in the moment, not worrying about much.

Breath is represented by wind, leaves, and rivers.

Breath is opposed to the Aspect of Blood.

The freedom of exploration of and detachment of goals leads to the compromise and negotiation of Hope and to exploration of the self in Heart.

Blood

Blood is the Aspect of effort. Blood has lofty expectations, from both itself and others, and runs itself ragged to accomplish all of them. Blood cares intensely about what it does, without rest or thought.

Blood is represented by blood, sweat, stone, and iron.

Blood is opposed to the Aspect of Breath.

The exertion and toil of Blood eventually lead either to hiding in Mind or to the revolution of Rage.

Heart

Heart is the Aspect of self and emotion. Heart is a person's identity and definition, their emotions and their friendships and their biases. Heart goes with its gut. Heart cares about what its heart directs it to.

Heart is represented by music, hats, and horses.

Heart is opposed to the Aspect of Mind.

Heart’s loyalty and instinct lead to the upheaval of Rage and Heart’s caring nature leads to Blood.

Mind

Mind is the Aspect of thought and masking. Mind coldly adapts itself to circumstance, hiding the true self in order to blend in with what's acceptable. Mind is impartial. Mind weighs all the options, and picks the one most suited to the situation.

Mind is represented by masks, blindfolds, and scales.

Mind is opposed to the Aspect of Heart.

Mind’s bottling of emotions leads to the real detachment of Breath; and Mind’s adaptive nature leads to Hope.

Rage

Rage is the Aspect of rebellion. Rage is skeptical of what society presents as true, and fights tooth and nail for what it stands for. Rage riots and fights back; Rage would sooner bring revenge than healing. Rage fights for sudden change.

Rage is represented by fangs, beasts, and waves.

Rage is opposed to the Aspect of Hope.

In fighting against their shackles, one gains the newfound options of Life. Rage’s sudden changes forms half of the past events of Time.

Hope

Hope is the Aspect of diplomacy. Hope believes everyone is good at heart, and that everything could be solved if only everyone talked things out. Hope has blind faith and will sooner comfort a friend than hurt an enemy. Hope solves things slowly and steadily.

Hope is represented by religion, ribbons, and blankets.

Hope is opposed to the Aspect of Rage.

Hope’s compromises and negotiations lead to new shackles in the form of Doom. Hope’s slow changes form half the past events of Time.

Time

Time is the Aspect of the past. Time is concerned with traditions, patterns, and the inevitability of what came before. Time brings the authority of established rules and governance. Time looks to what was to decide what will come about.

Time is associated with gears, crowns, sand, and clocks.

Time is the color of a gear turning to rust, of blood leaving a vein, of a game timer running out. Time powers shine in all colors at once before they settle on one.

Time is opposed to the Aspect of Space.

The knowledge of the established patterns of Time leads to the knowledge and definition of Light.

Light

Light is the Aspect of definition. Light has clear rules, clear definitions, and clear answers. Light creates frameworks of understanding and puts things in black and white, right and wrong, relevant and irrelevant, which can sometimes lead to ignoring the gray areas between. Light is the Aspect of human knowledge of the world, our ideas, stories, and sciences.

Light is represented by the sun, fire, and compasses.

Light is the blazing color of the sun, impossible to look at for long, but shining its light everywhere, a white light that returns as a myriad of colors.

Light is opposed to the Aspect of Void.

The sharp delineations of Light ignore the gray areas outside definition, creating Void.

[greenhappyseed]

MHA ending drabbles #2

I’m gonna disagree with the folks who say that our main heroes and villains didn’t “close out their character arcs.” Of all the possible criticism, I just don’t get this one because:

Izuku became the greatest hero, even if he only held OFA embers for a short while afterwards

Bakugo saved All Might, admitted to Izuku that he wanted them to stay in the same orbit together, AND selflessly worked with All Might on the new suit for Izuku.

Ochako had a heart to heart talk. She also proved that she is capable of handling the most brutal of fights, as acknowledged by Izuku (and to some extent, the rest of 1A).

Shoto saved his entire family and all the surrounding civilians with his ice because he chose to, free of his father’s influence

Tomura got a few brief moments completely free of AFO’s interference. Not only that, he got to share those moments with Izuku and tell Izuku what was really, truly in his heart

Toya destroyed his father’s hero career and now gets to spend the rest of his life in purgatory with Enji. He also gets a chance to build relationships with his other family members, and at least Shoto is interested

Himiko’s greatest fear was being caught and forced to live in ways that went against her nature. She didn’t want to be a martyr; she simply wanted to be free to make her choices. She chose to die saving Ochako

Spinner wanted a purpose, and he found it in writing his book

Moreover, to the extent anything was left unfinished after the final battle, the epilogue tied it up. Izuku wanted to be a hero that saved people with a smile, and he finished the story that way, “pro” hero and “ordinary” hero.

Ochako had a more scattered “arc,” going from wanting to help her parents make money to saving the heroes to … well, Ochako basically solved the quirk singularity doomsday, allowing kids like Eri and Himiko to grow up with sufficient counseling to live freely in society, which had the knock-on effect of reducing villainy.

And Shoto is achieving his desire to be authentically himself, breaking free from the cycles of abuse in his family. Unlike his father, he treats his fans well, earning the trust and ease his father demanded but never earned.

In other words, the failure to save the lives of Himiko and Tomura, and to save Toya in time to live outside of a hospital, was NOT the endpoint of our heroes’ arcs. The end is how they reacted to that failure and what they chose to do AFTER. Turns out, they never stopped trying to be better heroes and better people while staying supportive and friendly with each other.

…..seems like resilience in the face of failure is a major theme, yeah? Good thing I’ve got more on that next time!!!!!

[probablyasocialecologist]

Some people, in defense of generative A.I., will claim that A.I. builds from influences the same as human beings do.  This is, to me, the first indication that I’m talking to somebody who either does not understand how A.I. works, how human creativity works, or most likely both.  Something that needs to be clearly understood is that A.I. has no intelligence.  It does not “think”.  It is a predictive text program that simulates human expression by ingesting unfathomable amounts of data and trying to replicate that data.  It does not know and can not know what meaning its outputs have.  Further, it has no desire and no emotion to motivate action or decisions.  It simply runs a program and assembles pixels or words to match what seems most like other correct pixels and words in its vast data set.  It aggregates.  It produces averages. Humans, obviously, do not create like this.  Humans have intentions and purpose to what we do.  These intentions are sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, sometime clear, and sometimes nebulous.  But we always have emotion and thought connected to what we make.  What we create is guided by intent colliding with discovery, and these two states feed each other.  And the influence that we draw from existing work is not an analysis of pixels, but an emotional response to how that work makes us feel.  Even in analytical study of form or anatomy, our brains do not operate like computer programs.  While committing information to memory, we also interpret and seek to understand and this affects how that information is later able to be used.  Because we are each an individual, infinitely complex being, our different physiological, environmental, and cultural variations bring us to infinite different endpoints.  Like it or not, we all see the world slightly differently and our creative expressions reflect this. It has become standard to describe A.I. as a tool.  I argue that this framing is incorrect.  It does not aid in the completion of a task.  It completes the task for you.  A.I. is a service.  You cede control and decisions to an A.I. in the way you might to an independent contractor hired to do a job that you do not want to or are unable to do.  This is important to how using A.I. in a creative workflow will influence your end result.  You are, at best, taking on a collaborator.  And this collaborator happens to be a mindless average aggregate of data. To some, the prospect of collaborating with the sum average of all artists is apparently an attractive prospect.  Maybe you feel you are below average in some areas and the A.I. will therefore raise the quality of those areas.  But every percent that you hand over to the A.I. is a percent less of your unique voice, perspective, and intention.  And for folks who use A.I. generations wholesale, that comes out to a 100% loss of anything personal or unique that they might bring.

[ewingstan]

Reading through the Dinah interview in 16.3. Still need to see how its executed, but Parahuman society reaching a point of "which large-scale manipulator of human events are we gonna support" is a pretty spectacular plotbeat to bring in. Its makes for a great natural endpoint to the idea of parahumans having untold power over humans, to the setting's whole conceit of an individual having enough power to make imposing their desired outcomes over an entire population trivial. Dinah laying out "here was my desired endgoal to strip you of power, now lets talk about how you can help me from stopping Contessa or Teacher from enacting their endgoal" is doing a lot to communicate just how bad a place the heroes are in. Much more than all the talk of the Dauntless Titan/Machine Army/Sleeper/etc, this is the conversation that sells how hopeless a return to normalcy is for this setting.

[swashbucklery]

Out of curiosity why do you ship sabine and shin ?

Okay anon so I am trying to figure out how to approach this ask because I know that this fandom has a real problem with bad-faith actors looking to troll Wolfwren shippers and I do not have the patience to deal with that, but also I do want to talk about them because they're lovely.

So. If you are asking because you're a troll, the answer is that I'm a big mean lesbian who likes ruining Star Wars and gets off on making innocent fanboys cry, #sorrynotsorry, it's part of my Terrible Queer Ruining Agenda and I am going to be doing it every second Tuesday until society as you know it has crumbled into gay dust.

If you're not a troll: because they hit this very particular combination of Trope Buttons that makes me ever so happy, anon!

Because it's about - like, there are ships that I love because they are a type of loving partnership that entrances me, where I see myself or see the type of love that speaks to my soul and want to enjoy the process of rolling around in it like a cat in nip. Then there are ships that I love because I'm attached to a particular character where like - this blorbo deserves the world and that includes a healing love, a warm love, a love that cultivates a space for them to rest after the harsh world around them has bruised them ever so.

THEN there are ships where - the dynamic fascinates me and I want to dig deeper into it. Where it's not about cultivating love as much as it is taking what's on screen to its gayest and most extreme possible endpoint, and that's where Sabine/Shin really gets me.

It's about the deep obsession of nemeses and the way that can feel inherently queer. It's about the ways that they are both mirrors and opposites. The way that Sabine carries so much anger and self-loathing and shame and guilt in her little heart and constantly pretends that she doesn't. The way that limits her throughout the series is riveting to me.

It's the idea of Shin, who in may ways is a more successful Jedi but in other ways is a sad, lonely little weirdo who has no community except for this weird old man and pretends that she's fine with it but can't be.

The way that they are both successes and failures in ways that mirror each other, the way that they orbit each other as nemeses and fight constantly but in their darkest moments have a weird little glimmer of - not love, but the beginnings of compassion.

And I have seen lots of writers and artists who look at that glimmer and see it as the beginning of a 200k slowburn story where they bicker and argue and slowly tenderize each other into being people who can be vulnerable, who learn to soften their prickly edges to fit around each other. And that's wonderful, and that's a beautiful way to ship Sabine & Shin.

For me, it's more about digging into that weird, fucked up little place of what if they didn't. What if they stayed fucked up and didn't soften but those orbits got closer and closer together. What if it wasn't toweringly romantic what if the orbit was the path of a comet colliding with a moon. What if that was somehow what each of them needed even though they both hated needing it. What does it feel like to confront the fact that sometimes our desires and what we want our desires to be don't align? What would it be like to envelop that in the complex ten-dimensional web of denial that both of them embody; desiring but pretending not to desire, indulging but pretending not to indulge. How far could that go before it hit a crisis point? What would that crisis point be?

There are so many stories there and that's fascinating and a thing that I find fun to explore in fiction, anon. If that's not for you, that's totally alright but there might be other dimensions that I described above where they ping with your interests more.

Or, they might just not be for you, and that's also okay.

[thunderc1an]

op im begging you to lore drop about the Scourge and Tigerclaw [evil!bluestar?] au you have going on i need to know if tigerclaw is good or not

Bluestar isn't evil in this au.

It's more along the lines that the events of "The Prophecy Begins" happen earlier (Brokenstar things, bringing windclan back, etc.)

Just think of it as if the protagonist of the first arc is Tiny (THEN the protagonist of arc 2, finding the clans a new home, is fireheart, and everything else from the other arcs get pushed back too)

What i want most out of this au is to see (from the perspective of Snowfoot, tiny) a complex version of Tigerclaw, how through his own grief he does the things he does.

Though Fireheart (as an apprentice) is still the character that will reveal what Tigerstar (Leader of thunderclan) has done, and Snowfoot (deputy of thunderclan) would be the one to end him.

So that being said, the whole thing about Bluestar, straying further and further from Starclan because of her own grief, causes for Thunderclan to crumble. This and her friendliness towards riverclan does cause for a lot of the cats that Tigerclaw cares for to die.

In a simple sentence Tigerclaw (later -star) is a bad cat, he does kill to get to his desired endpoint. His endpoint is "good", bringing strength and dignity to Thunderclan after Bluestar's leadership. But I also want the viewer to have their own thoughts about if he's good or not

[yourbutcboyfriend]

The Complex Journey from MtF to MtM: Navigating the Spectrum of Gender Identity

Gender is a deeply personal, evolving, and sometimes bewildering aspect of who we are. It’s not a simple binary, nor is it a linear path, as many once assumed. Over the last few decades, society has slowly opened its mind to the idea that gender is not determined solely by biological sex. The rise of trans and non-binary visibility has brought us closer to understanding how intricate this terrain is. Yet, the transition from MtF (Male to Female) to MtM (Male to Male) unveils a layer of complexity that isn’t often discussed, demonstrating that our relationship with gender can shift throughout life in ways that defy expectation.

This unique journey—moving from identifying as male, then female, and back to male—challenges the oversimplified narratives around transition and prompts a deeper exploration into what it means to live in the constantly shifting landscape of gender. It is a reflection of both personal discovery and the broader truth that gender is an ongoing conversation between the body, mind, and society.

Understanding Gender Identity: The Evolution of Self

For many, the initial step of transitioning from Male to Female can be rooted in the deep-seated recognition that the gender assigned at birth doesn’t align with how one feels inside. This misalignment, often called gender dysphoria, can manifest in various ways—discomfort with one’s body, the social expectations tied to that gender, or a desire to express identity in a way that reflects how one truly feels. The decision to transition, whether through hormones, surgeries, or social changes, is often a profoundly freeing one. For many trans women, finally living in alignment with their inner self brings relief and joy.

But for others, this step may not be the endpoint. It’s crucial to understand that the transition to female, while powerful, may only reveal part of the larger truth of a person’s identity. Over time, some individuals discover that while certain aspects of femininity resonated with them, the completeness of the female identity doesn’t fully capture who they are. This is where the journey from MtF to MtM begins.

This second transition can feel bewildering, even to the person experiencing it. After investing so much emotional and physical energy into becoming who they thought they were, grappling with the idea that their gender might be something else entirely can lead to feelings of confusion, doubt, and fear. “Did I make a mistake?” they may wonder. However, this is often less about regret and more about the natural evolution of identity. Gender is not static; it can shift and adapt as one grows and uncovers more about their own truths.

The Journey Back to Masculinity

Transitioning from MtF to MtM isn’t merely “going back” to the identity one was assigned at birth. It’s important to recognize that the journey through femininity has shaped and transformed the individual. In many ways, this second transition is about redefining masculinity, integrating the lessons learned from living as female, and embracing a version of masculinity that may feel more fluid, nuanced, and less constrained by societal expectations.

For some, the journey back to masculinity may involve physically detransitioning, stopping hormone therapy, or even undergoing procedures to reverse previous surgeries. For others, it’s more of an internal shift—a change in how they relate to their gender, present themselves, or feel in their own skin. The experience of dysphoria might return but in a new form, or it might disappear altogether as they find peace in this newfound understanding of their gender.

The fear of being misunderstood or judged can weigh heavily on individuals navigating this second transition. There’s a stigma attached to detransitioning, especially in a society that still clings to binary notions of gender. It’s common to fear being seen as someone who was “wrong” about their identity or who is “confused.” However, the truth is far more complex. Gender identity, for many, is a process of discovery that can unfold over a lifetime.

Society's Role in Shaping Gender Identity

Our relationship with gender is not formed in isolation. Society’s rules, expectations, and stereotypes about what it means to be male or female are ever-present, and navigating these norms while forging one’s own path can be immensely challenging. From childhood, many of us are bombarded with rigid ideas of what boys and girls are supposed to be, which leaves little room for personal exploration. Those who do not fit neatly into these categories can experience rejection, discrimination, and confusion about where they belong.

For someone transitioning from MtF to MtM, the external pressures can be particularly disorienting. The support systems that may have been built during their first transition might not fully understand the nuances of this next step. Friends, family, and even the broader LGBTQ+ community may have difficulty understanding or accepting why someone would return to a male identity. Unfortunately, this can lead to feelings of isolation, as though the individual no longer fits in with the trans community, nor with the cisgender world.

However, it’s vital that we recognize gender for what it is: fluid, diverse, and highly individual. For some, masculinity and femininity exist simultaneously, in tandem, or in flux. For others, these experiences are more separate and distinct. No two journeys are the same, and no one’s experience of gender is more valid than another’s.

A Reflection on the Perplexity of Gender

My own experience has shown me that gender is as much about feeling as it is about labels. Growing up, I assumed gender was a box that you fit into—a predetermined role to be played. But as I’ve come to understand more about myself and the people around me, I realize gender is less like a box and more like an ocean—expansive, sometimes stormy, but always deep. It’s something you swim through, navigate, and sometimes get lost in.

The journey from MtF to MtM exemplifies this idea. It reminds us that gender is not a static destination; it’s a lifelong journey of self-discovery. We each have the right to explore, define, and redefine who we are, free from judgment or fear of being wrong. Gender, in all its complexity, is not meant to be a burden but a means of expression—a way to be more ourselves than we ever thought possible.

In a world where gender often feels binary and fixed, those who transition between and within it are the ones showing us that it’s anything but. Gender is an evolving conversation with the self, one that can change, grow, and deepen over time. And for those navigating the journey from MtF to MtM, this truth resonates profoundly: who you are is not about choosing sides, but about embracing the totality of your experience.

[lilacmuse]

What is love?

بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Love, in its deepest essence, is a bridge to the Divine. 

Love is God's way of calling us back to Him in the most beautiful of ways, because the true object, source, and final endpoint of all loves is Him. The true root of every desire, every yearning, and every aspiration is the yearning for Him. He is the Beginning and the End of everything, including love.

Every permissible form of love is beautiful and sacred in its own right, because every pure love the human being experiences is like a river that leads back to the infinite ocean of Him. But the wine of His love is the only one capable of fully quenching the primordial thirst of every soul. So everything we look for, everything we long for, and everything we love is, in its deepest essence, a longing to be quenched by Him.

Speaking from the lens of negation, love is the anthisesis of ego. The ultimate goal of ego is self-preservation, while the ultimate goal of love is self-annihilation within the beloved. So philosophically speaking, love is the intrinsic yearning of all contingent beings to experience absolute union with the Necessary Existent. In other words, the instinctual desire for human union is merely an echo of the soul's deepest yearning: reunion with the Beloved. 

The symbolic link between human love and Divine love is also why men are so deeply drawn to female beauty, and why women are so deeply drawn to masculine power; a woman who embodies divine feminine energy finitely mirrors the jamaal of Allah (swt), while a man who embodies divine masculine energy finitely mirrors the jalaal of Allah (swt). When union happens between the two, the resulting bond is like a lighthouse of Divine love in a dark world; powerful enough to bring new life into this world, which in itself is a sign. The completion the masculine and feminine find through union with each other is a metaphor for the ultimate completion every soul finds in its reunion with the Lord.

This is why marriage can mark the completion of half of one's faith: deep mortal love is one of the most transformative, transcendent, and spiritually powerful of all human experiences. Because the most profound human love teaches the soul how to forget itself in favor of one's beloved; in this way, it serves as a training ground for Divine sublimation. 

Not every mortal love meets this criteria, and not every person will experience this depth of love- because to seek it requires courage, patience, devotion, and sacrifice- but those who do experience it are able to taste spiritual transcendence to an incomparable degree. A prime example would be ibn 'Arabi, whose love for Lady Nizam became his catalyst into spiritual enlightenment (beautifully explained here), or Maulana Rumi, whose platonic love for Shams Tabrizi turned him from an 'alim (one who has knowledge) to an 'arif (one who truly knows).

In closing: if shaytan is the epitome of ego, waliullah is the epitome of love. This is why Shi'as and Sufis have a uniquely deep capacity for enlightenment: they understand the centrality of walayah- the purest, most concentrated form of mortal love- in attaining true Tawhid.

To summarize in one line:

Love is a measure of the soul's willingness to be annihilated for a mere taste of the Beloved.

❤️

[armoricaroyalty]

I think one of my major beefs with the representation of motherhood in fiction is that it's treated as an endpoint for women's growth and development as people. Once a woman becomes a mother, her character development grinds to a halt and she stops being anything but a mother. From that point on, every single action she takes is reflected through the lens of motherhood, and her skill as a mother and the strength of her relationship with her children (and husband/partner) become the sole measure of her moral goodness and her worth as a person.

In fiction, we see plenty of men who are bad fathers but good people, but that grace is never extended to mothers. (Conversely, we almost never see bad women presented as good mothers, either.) Women who are not totally fulfilled by motherhood are generally presented as fundamentally flawed or damaged in some way, even when the larger work is meant to be critiquing social norms that limit women to domestic roles.

Don't get me wrong -- there's plenty of fiction out there which allows women to have ambiguous feelings about motherhood and their children, but the default expectation is still that all women have an innate drive to become mothers and all (good) women are good mothers. Fictional motherhood is a consumptive thing, devouring a woman's personality, her desires, her drive. All of that ends abruptly when she has a child, because she's now a Mother, and her family is her whole world.

It's not 1957. Let moms be people, please.

[cosmicjoke]

Okay, I just have to address this brain-dead take I keep seeing about how AoT supposedly "justified" genocide by showing the people or Paradis supporting the Rumbling, thereby, supposedly, justifying Marley's persecution of the Eldian people because, apparently, all along, they really did want to just sow destruction and destroy the rest of the world.

I feel like even having to address this is an insult to the brilliance of AoT and its writing, because AoT does literally the opposite. It doesn't promote fascism or push propaganda utilized by colonialist nations. It shows the folly of engaging in those very things by demonstrating the inevitable endpoint of that type of injustice. It doesn't paint the Eldians as "evil" and thereby justify Marley's persecution of them, it shows that it was that very persecution that led to the tragedy of Paradis becoming, in the end, what it did, and that led to the rest of the worlds destruction. This shouldn't need to be explained, but apparently there really are just complete idiots out there that need things explained to them in the same manner you would a young child with a barely developed brain.

Paradis falling into extremism at the end is the very thing that shows why Marley's persecution of the Eldians was bad and not justified.

The entire narrative structure of AoT is to demonstrate how cycles of hatred only lead to more of the same.

I've recently seen some people on here whining about how an "ideal" scenario would have been for Paradis to negotiate with the world's other nations and band together with them to defeat Marley, and oh gee and wow, wouldn't that have been nice! What a perfect way to end a story about the perils of persecution. You know, where nothing really bad happens and the villain is defeated and everyone lives happily ever after. That would for sure teach the audience those important, thematic lessons about the evils of prejudice and discrimination and oppression, by there being no actual consequences for anyone but the perpetrators of those evils. Because that's how the real world works, don't ya know.

In case anyone couldn't tell, I'm being sarcastic.

(Also, these same people labor under the wild misunderstanding of Eren's character that he enacted the Rumbling to save the island. That misunderstanding right there is going to completely hinder your ability to understand the rest of the narrative.)

If Paradis had actually managed to negotiate peace between it and the other nations, it would have completely undermined the driving theme of the story, which is the folly of persecuting entire groups of people. The wrongness of Marley's actions is demonstrated through the extreme end point of the Rumbling occurring and the destruction of the world. The Rumbling HAD to take place narratively in order for the point to be driven home that persecution of entire groups of people, and the act of grouping everyone into one, monolithic category, is a horrifically bad idea, in order to truly demonstrate the atrocity of Marley's persecution of the Eldian's. Paradis banding together with other nations and "stopping Marley" together would have undercut that entire theme, of how persecution of people only leads to further destruction and tragedy. It would have reduced AoT to an unrealistic, ideal fairy tale with no real weight or impact, where everything gets wrapped up in a neat little bow and the bad guys get punished and all's well that ends well. It's a completely childish desire to see the story take that route, fueled by a black and white world view of morality, denying the way things actually are in favor of the way you want them to be.

AoT is so powerful precisely because it refuses to do that, it refuses to show any sort of "good outcome" from persecuting people. The worlds destruction as a result of that persecution is the punishment wrought on everyone for allowing that persecution to take place. That's the point, again. AoT is showing us through the course the narrative takes that persecution is BAD, because it only leads to tragedy and destruction, it never leads to anything good or happy. Justice doesn't prevail when injustice is allowed to exist.

The Yeagerists only exist in the first place as a result of Marley's actions and persecution of the Eldians. AoT shows us how extremism is born. How attitudes of nationalism, fascism and militarism take shape and manifest. Paradis becoming a nationalistic, fascist state in the end is a direct result of Marley's nationalistic fascism and colonialism. It was Marley's actions that led to a person like Eren coming into power in the first place. It's literally a blueprint for real world scenarios in which nations are overtaken by megalomaniacal leaders and dictators. We see this play out every day, throughout all human history. You push people enough, you press them into a corner with no way out, and they become desperate, and turn to increasingly extreme methods to protect themselves, until that desire for self-preservation shifts into something else, shifts into ideology, and gets twisted and perverted into the same, illogical hate being perpetrated against them, lumping entire groups of people together and declaring them the enemy, and the cycle continues. It's how fanatics like Floch and his ilk are born. How extremist views like the only way to survive is to wipe out every, potential threat, are nurtured. I don't understand how people can miss this point, but they do.

Paradis avoiding that outcome, Paradis and its people being painted as nothing but the altruistic, totally innocent and suffering victims who never do wrong, again, would have undermined the core theme of the story, which is that persecution and colonialism and oppression of whole groups of people never leads anywhere good. That it only ever leads to more of the same. Because the people of Paradis are still people, susceptible to the same foibles and weaknesses of everyone else, and this outcome is baked into the human condition. It's not because the people of Paradis are uniquely evil that they go down this dark path, it's because they're simply human.

I really wish some people could get their heads out of their asses when it comes to assessing this story and what it's actually saying. But, you know, AoT is clearly just too sophisticated in its presentation of these themes for some people to get. Those people need to stick to something more basic, instead of shitting all over one of the most relevant and prescient works of art created in the last, several decades.

[kylanfedje]

Disney Star Wars Retrospective - Episode I: The Phantom Mouse

A long time ago, in a conference room far, far away....

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Or is it the lightsaber? On October 30, 2012, a few strokes of ink were all it took for one of the most lucrative media enterprises of all time to be subsumed into arguably the largest entertainment empire in history. I am talking of course about the $4.5 billion sale of Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Company, which brought iconic film franchises like Indiana Jones and Star Wars under the ever-expanding Disney umbrella of intellectual properties.

While Indiana Jones has been no box-office slouch, George Lucas’ epic space fantasy saga was the real prize in the transaction. And the new regime at Lucasfilm, headed by Kathleen Kennedy, longtime movie producer and frequent collaborator of Steven Spielberg’s, could hardly wait for the dust to settle before greenlighting a series of moves that would define the franchise for the decade to come.

Shortly after the purchase was announced, so too were a new trio of Star Wars films set after the Original Trilogy, which would pick up the stories of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, and a host of new characters as they sought to protect the galaxy against a resurgent evil, seeking to destroy the peace brought by the establishment of a New Galactic Republic. Additionally, the company also announced plans for a series of anthology films, which were to release between the latest installments in the Sequel Trilogy. However, to compensate for the number of resources devoted to such an ambitious film schedule, the fan-favorite Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, which had aired five seasons on Cartoon Network since 2008, would come to an end. Alongside these announcements was also the confirmation that the Expanded Universe (EU) material, the books and comics that had filled out so much of the galaxy’s lore before, between, and after the films, was no longer considered canon for the purposes of new Star Wars projects and would be reclassified as “Legends.”

Many of the creatives behind The Clone Wars continued onto Rebels, including showrunner Dave Filoni, and as a result, many storylines and characters from the former were brought into the latter in one way or another. Fan favorites like Captain Rex and Hondo Ohnaka would return, as well as lesser-known ones like Saw Gerrera and Bo-Katan Kryze would appear, though rarely for more than a few episodes at a time at most. But easily the most prevalent of The Clone Wars originals to join the cast of Rebels was the one and only Ahsoka Tano, the former Padawan of Anakin Skywalker who, after being falsely accused of bombing the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and murdering a witness to cover it up, decided to walk away from the Order, even after she was exonerated on all charges. Since The Clone Wars hadn’t reached its natural endpoint of the Jedi Purge (commonly known as Order 66) before its untimely cancellation, fans were left wondering what fate may have befallen their favorite ex-Jedi at that critical moment in Star Wars lore. Now, they would at least know she had survived Emperor Palpatine’s directive to rid the galaxy of the greatest threat to his power, even if the specifics of how she’d done so were left unsaid at the time.

However, Rebels was hardly a direct successor to The Clone Wars in terms of its general tone and art direction, both of which were noticeably altered from the relatively mature and moody atmosphere of its predecessor, particularly its later seasons — though Rebels would eventually reach similar levels of emotional and thematic intensity as The Clone Wars had by the end of its run. But while the lighter tone of Rebels can be easily attributed to a desire by the franchise’s new overlords to keep the franchise more in line with Disney’s “family friendly” brand ethos, the change in art direction is more indicative of a broader trend within the franchise that began in this time and arguably persists to this day, which is an almost compulsive reverence for the Original Trilogy and its iconography.

It’s no secret to anyone familiar with the history of cinema that the Star Wars prequels were not very well-received upon their initial release, though they have received a critical reappraisal by fans in recent years. Either way, when Lucasfilm went to work on their new slate of Star Wars projects in 2013, the general consensus was still that the Prequel Trilogy was a collection of overly ambitious and poorly executed disasterpieces, a fact they were like well aware of and would make them want to avoid whatever associations with it they could when developing new material. This might also help to explain why The Clone Wars, a series set in the midst of the trilogy, was cancelled so unceremoniously at the time, with only a 13-episode sixth season released straight to Netflix, a handful of unfinished animatics dumped on the Star Wars website, and other unproduced story arcs being adapted into quasicanonical books and comics to fill the void left in its wake.

What this represents is a desire among the creative minds behind the franchise towards inserting Original Trilogy “fan service” into their work. The style of Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art, while critical in shaping the visual language of Star Wars, is in truth only recognizable as such to the most die-hard of fans and thus provides no more — or less — value to the average viewer, and therefore can be seen as a decision made primarily to cater towards the superfans while not alienating newer or less knowledgeable ones. Likewise, the series’ (re)introduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn in the third season can easily be understood as yet another case of this phenomenon, albeit in a slightly different manner.

The character of Thrawn was first created for Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire trilogy of novels, a core component of the EU/Legends canon written in the early 90s during that time when Star Wars was mostly seen as “uncool nerd shit” to the general public. But for the fans who grew up reading and loving these books, they may have felt hurt and betrayed when Disney came in and told them these stories were no longer canon. So, when Thrawn reappeared in Rebels with the same character design and personality as he had in the novels, it signaled to them that the franchise was still willing to look to the EU/Legends for inspiration and would even draw directly from them, thus rewarding their continued devotion to the franchise’s extended lore.

That’s not to say that casual fans were necessarily turned off by this either. If anything, because the Heir to the Empire novels were no longer canon, it was easier for them to only see Thrawn as the version that appeared in Rebels and therefore discard the ancillary material as unnecessary to understanding who he was, where he came from, and what he wanted. Those novels still existed if they wanted to dive deeper, but it was ultimately inessential to following the show’s plot, and thus wouldn’t make newer or more casual fans feel like they had “homework” to do before they could start enjoying the franchise’s current marquee offerings.

In a similar vein to Thrawn’s role in the series is that of Darth Maul, the failed apprentice to Darth Sidious who somehow survived being sliced in half by Obi-wan Kenobi during a duel on Naboo in The Phantom Menace. It could have — and probably should have — been a disaster class in fan service when he was brought back in The Clone Wars, but to the show’s credit, it went to great lengths to make it work both narratively and thematically. It presented his miraculous survival as the product of pure hatred, channeled through the Force, and directed towards the man who nearly killed him and the master who abandoned him. Through much of his screentime both shows, he is motivated almost singularly by a desire for revenge against both Kenobi and Sidious, eventually culminating in a final rematch between him and Kenobi in the Tatooine desert that ends with him being slain and set free at last from his eternal torment.

For Rebels viewers who had perhaps seen the main saga films — Episodes I-VI at the time — but missed The Clone Wars, Maul’s return would come as an utter shock. The last they had seen of this man he had been falling down a reactor shaft in two pieces; now he was alive and well and menacing the galaxy yet again. When did this happen? How did this happen? They would have to watch The Clone Wars or read a Wookiepedia article to learn for themselves, since the show mostly assumed you were already aware of his return. Thankfully, the entire show was available on a popular streaming service and came highly regarded by much of the fandom, so the reward for “doing their homework” might be seen as worthwhile. Not to mention its arc-based structure lent well to isolating a few specific episodes as “essential,” instead of needing to view the entire show to understand how and why Maul had come back from the dead. And yet, the prospect of there being “homework” at all for an animated show geared towards children and teens might have also turned away some of those who had been lured in by the stormtroopers and lightsabers they once knew and loved.

All told, the first few years of Star Wars under its new management indicated a great deal of how the next decade of Star Wars media would play out. Anything the fans didn’t like — the prequels, mainly — could be mostly ignored. Aspects of the franchise beloved by fans but unknown to broader audiences — The Clone Wars and the EU /Legends— may continue to appear, but only when it can contribute positively to the story already being told. And above all, stick to what everyone knows and loves as much as you can — the aesthetics and iconography of the Original Trilogy: X-Wings and TIE Fighters, Rebels and Empire. These were as good as gospel in Disney’s new church of Star Wars, a fact which was only proved truer when the highly anticipated Episode VII hit theaters in December 2015, the first theatrical live-action Star Wars movie in a decade, and the first since the Disney buyout.

[thekingofwinterblog]

The Problem with Trespasser

So there has been said a lot about the flaws of tresspasser as a finale to Inquisition, as it can basically be divided into two sections.

There is the lore, the character stuff with your companions, and the actual titular trespasser section of the story, which is generally liked.

Then there is the Exalted Council part of the Story which is generally greatly disliked for the way it portrays Arl Teagen as an ungrateful arse, who even though he's in the right that the Inquisition really does need to disband, is such a bitch about it that a player might feel the desire to keeping it intact just to spite him, despite all the reasons that is a terrible idea(Such an organization being doomed to become the templars 2.0 being the single biggest). Not to mention the way it makes Thedas's nations look like they have the memory capacity of a goldfish, given how instrumental the inquisition was in stopping the last massive threat and might be so again against the plenty of obvious threats on the horizon(and sure enough, the stop the Dragon breath terrorist attacks that would have happened with or without them being there).

However, looking at the big picture, i don't think the actual writing of Arl teagen was the problem here.

No the problem is that Arl Teagen and the rest of the world's reaction to the Inquistion is very, very clearly taken from an older draft of this story, where the Inquisitor was far less... An unambiguous force for good, lets say.

The concept art for inquistion tells a story that is very, very different than what we get in game, with a lot more emphasis is put on the inquisitor very obviously being a dick, that is not well liked by anyone around them.

There is also the way said inquisitor could be far, far more pragmatic and morally grey or dark, like here, where the Inquisitor could force the Venatori to serve after defeating them.

Way more emphasis is built on the idea that the Inquisitor is creating a cult of personality around you, personally.

Essentially a dark mirror to the Hero of Ferelden and Galahad's journeys to defeat their own crisis'.

The option of letting celine die was always gonna be a part of the game, but rather than a pragmatic, move of standing aside and let it happen, your companions would have very negative reactions to this choice, with you having to force Blackwall in particular to stand back as he curses you.

And of course, it would all cuminate in the logical endpoint for the herald of andraste, the living embodiment of the Andrastian reformation as you took your place on the sunburst throne, and usher in whatever changes you want.

This outcome... makes perfect sense. Frankly speaking, this is a much more narratively fitting ending for the inquistior, that has a clear climax from where they start.

Of course we all know this didn't actually end up happening. The Inquisitor ended up being the most passive of all the PC's by a wide margin(you could shape them into having a personality, but not one with a true backbone like Hawke and the Warden), and all these very morally dubious options was taken out of the game in favor of a much more morally simple story.

The most evil thing you can do in DAI is to choose the templars over the mages... and rather than being portrayed as the clear evil choice as it should have been(and still been a legitimate and pragmatic option for you to take) there is instead attempts at making it more nuanced.

Other than that, you don't have the kind of options that the Warden had, and even hawke did(like selling Fenris into slavery), to be a dick.

With all this in mind, it's blatently obvious why Teagen and the world is so damn afraid of the Inquisition.

Because this part of the story was written from before this change in the direction of the game, and was never updated to fit the final product.

If the original vision of the game had to to pass, Teagen's extreme reactions to the Inquistion would have been far, far more understandable, and in it's own way a way of calling the player out on their bullshit.

However, the final product just makes it appear he's way overreacting, rather than maybe questioning that maybe Teagen is right, maybe it is time to end this inquisition for the good of all.

Its one of the biggest problem with what is otherwise a very good epilogue to Dragon Age Inquisition.

[tobiasdrake]

What's interesting about the conflict between Ammit and Khonshu is that Ammit sucks. Ammit suuuuucks. Absolute monster. Devoted to creating peace and prosperity by reading people's hearts and killing anyone she determines will do something immoral.

If the Insight Helicarriers were a god, that would be Ammit. Her bread and butter is predictive extermination of undesirables to forge a path to her ideal future. The difference is that her predictive extermination is framed in the realm of magic rather than technology.

Across from her stands Khonshu. And he's....

Well, he's not much better. You're not really supposed to like Khonshu either. Khonshu sucks too. It's just that he kills people who've committed immoralities, while Ammit kills people who will commit immoralities. Harrow declares them to not be so different and he isn't wrong.

Ammit is the endpoint of the punitive justice pipeline that Khonshu sends his Avatars down. Harrow is simply the product of that pipeline. He proposes that Ammit is more moral than Khonshu because she prunes her weeds before they can strangle the garden. And it's not hard to grasp why he would believe that.

Like. Once you've accepted the base premise that order must be enforced at the point of a gun and death is the only acceptable recourse for people who stray. Once you've taken that into your heart, really internalized that the guilty and impure are irredeemable scum and should all be put to death. Then you're only a hop, skip, and a jump away from, "Why not execute them before they can commit their crimes?"

Khonshu frames this like he is true justice and she is vile and wicked and monstrous. Harrow offers the alternative viewpoint that Ammit is offering freedom and salvation to the worthy and Khonshu's reckless methods don't help anyone.

But the trick is that everybody sucks here. Everybody. And so we find ourselves sympathizing not with Harrow or Khonshu, but with Marc's desire to thwart Ammit and cut ties with Khonshu and walk away.

[comicaurora]

Do you have any general advice for how to plot out a story? I have a beginning, and something like an end, but I'm not really sure what to do from there.

Hoo boy. That really depends on what you like writing the most.

I like character-driven writing, so I basically turn the posse loose and take notes on what they do, steering them towards my desired endpoint through alterations to their situation and the world rather than forcing them to take specific actions. But that's because I enjoy writing characters more than I enjoy plotting, themeing or even worldbuilding. I like having a playground to facilitate fun episodic adventures (fun for me, anyway) that lets me explore the world from new angles and through the lens of character dynamics. But this is definitely not the only way to write, and honestly might only work for you if your brain works a specific, very chatty way.

For instance, you could instead center your story around the exploration of one or more central themes - unshakeable tenets of the world explored through a variety of scenarios, characters and choices. Spoiler alert, we have an upcoming Detail Diatribe about Arcane that takes this analytical approach, and it really feels like I managed to clock the proverbial center of the corkboard they strung the show around. Sometimes stories are just about how One Specific Thing manifests in a thousand different ways.

Or you could have an overarching plot structure, like the Hero's Journey or any narrative with a prophecy, setting firm waypoints for your story to pass by on its way. Sure, it's Point A -> Point B, but on the way the hero is going to grow from a naïve farmboy to an overconfident hero to a brooding loner to a self-actualized enlightened warrior monk. It's gonna take a while, but you know what it'll look like because you locked in what's coming.

Or you could pick one character and get really deep into their head as the story and the pursuit of the end changes them for the worse. Some of the best and most impactful stories have an extremely simple beginning-to-end structure on paper, and the drama instead comes from the tragedy of how the culmination of their story unmakes them. Frodo has to destroy the ring -> Frodo destroys the ring. Orpheus wants to save the world and be with Eurydice -> Orpheus saves the world but fails to save the girl. Hamlet has to kill his uncle -> Hamlet kills his uncle. These stories have convolutions and complications, but those just serve to feed into the core emotional arc, which is the unstoppable erosion of the hero.

The thing is, I don't think there's a right or wrong angle here. I think the right answer is whatever you enjoy writing the most. For me right now that's episodic character drama, but there's so many other ways to write, and from what I've seen, the best writing is the kind that has love and the joy of creation laced through it. If you're having a good time making it, you're doing something right.